Unleashing Leadership Potential With Brant Menswar

Michael Vandervort, Phil Wilson & Brant Menswar.

Michael Vandervort: [00:00:17]

Hello, everyone. This is Michael Vandervort, and this is another edition of The Left of Boom Show. Actually, I guess, strictly speaking, our first official show of a new season. So, season two of Left the Boom, and I’m here with Phill Wilson, my co-host. How are you today, Phil?

Phil Wilson: [00:00:35]

I’m good, Michael. How are you?

Michael Vandervort: [00:00:36]

I’m good. Looking forward to having a conversation with our guest today. Our guest is Brant Menswar. I first met him in Florida several years ago when he spoke at a conference that Phil and I attended and have followed his work with great interest since. I’m looking forward to catching up. So, Brant, welcome to The Left of Boom Show. How are you doing today?

Brant Menswar: [00:00:59]

I’m doing great. Thank you to both Michael and Philip. Thank you both for having me on. I’m excited to have this conversation. I didn’t know I was kicking off season two, so I got to bring the fire today.

Phil Wilson: [00:01:09]

Exactly.

Michael Vandervort: [00:01:09]

We didn’t know for sure either. We had another guest scheduled but unfortunately, she had a family thing come up, so we had to drop that. And so, now that automatically put you in because we were doing two back-to-backs. So, that puts you in the driver’s seat by default. So, welcome to welcome to the opening of season two. Brant, for our listeners, why don’t you start and do your own quick bio because you’re like a man of all seasons. You do everything. So, tell us about some of your background.

Brant Menswar: [00:01:44]

I am a semi-retired rock star. That toured with my band Big Kettle Drum for nearly 20 years. Famous enough to make a living at it. Not famous enough for anybody to know who we are. I transitioned off the road about nine years ago. I started to make that transition to corporate speaking. Originally, I started to speak on collaboration is where my career in that realm started. I ended up writing a book about values and how to discover your values called Black Sheep, which became a best seller and translated into a bunch of languages.

[00:02:32]

And that launched me into a different area, where now I’m just fortunate enough to go from conference to conference, helping organizations grow their businesses by building bridges between personal and organizational values.

Phil Wilson: [00:02:47]

You’re the guy that when Billy Idol comes in and says, “You can’t say rock star,” you’re like, well, “I was a rock star.”

Brant Menswar: [00:02:54]

Yeah, technically that is correct. Yes, I could say it maybe a little a little tongue in cheek if Billy Idol is in the room, but yes.

Michael Vandervort: [00:03:07]

I don’t know, I was never musically inclined. So, I’m jealous that you could even have made a living at it for 20 years. It just seems so cool. Total aside, one of Phil and I’s mutual friends who’s an attorney in Cleveland, his daughter, who’s 17 years old, just played as the show opener in Cleveland for Rhett Miller of The Old 97s, who had made a promise to her when she was nine years old that she could open a show for him someday. And so, she got to do it at 17. And then he brought her back on stage and performed with her. It’s on Facebook, but it was really a cool moment

Brant Menswar: [00:03:49]

Well, good on him for keeping his promise. That’s amazing.

Michael Vandervort: [00:03:52]

Right. And a bucket list item, I’m sure you know. But enough about Rhett Miller. We got our rock star today. So, you mentioned you mentioned your book Black Sheep. And when we met, you were still working on that. So, that has happened since we first got to know each other. So tell us about the concept behind Black Sheep, what the values are, and what your proposition was of your book. You talked about how it took you in a new direction. Let’s talk about that a little bit as well.

Brant Menswar: [00:04:21]

Yeah. The concept was birthed out of a crisis in my life at that time where I really should have known what my non-negotiable values were, but I didn’t, and it led me to some questionable decisions. And so, right around that time, I was having a conversation about feeling like a black sheep, and the person that I was speaking to said, “Do you know why farmers value black sheep differently than the rest of the flock?” And I had no idea. And he said, “A black sheep is valued differently because its wool cannot be dyed. So, every black sheep is 100% authentically original, and it cannot be made into something that it wasn’t meant to be. Is that not who you want to be?”

[00:05:12]

And I was like actually it is, I guess, what I want to be. And that led me down this path of believing that we have a flock of five black sheep values. And these are those deeply held personal core values that no matter how much someone might want to try to twist or influence you, they simply will not be moved like a black sheep’s wool. And so, that was the impetus to write the book which helps people discover what their five black sheep values actually are.

Phil Wilson: [00:05:48]

Those values, do they differ per person? Tell me a little bit about how do you discover your black sheep values.

Brant Menswar: [00:06:00]

When the book came out, we also created an assessment to go along with it online. It’s free for anybody. They can simply go to brantmenswar.com and take the assessment. And what it’s going to do is it’s going to present you with about 80 different commonly held personal core values, and you’ve got 2.5 minutes to go through those and select any particular value that resonates with you. So, there’s no thought involved in the first part. It’s simply a knee-jerk reaction. You see a word like accountability. Do you like it? Select it. If you don’t like it, go to the next word.

[00:06:34]

Once you get through those 80, it sort of March Madness you and starts pitting words against each other. So, is it this word or that word? Is it this word or that word? And before long, it weeds you down to about ten or less. And out of those ten, you have to pick the five that you can’t live without. That’s how we help people to get to their initial flock of five. Now, I will tell you this. Out of those five, 1 or 2 of them are undoubtedly true and correct, and 2 or 3 of them are completely fabricated bullshit. And so, you just have to sift through a little bit to figure out what’s real and what’s not.

Phil Wilson: [00:07:17]

Well, a lot of times core values are they’re aspirational. But when you really boil down to how do I behave in the world, it’s not that, right? But it’s still your core. It’s not the things that you wish you were. It’s like, what are you actually? And a lot of people don’t live that way, right? And then they beat themselves up for not living up to the value that they really don’t actually value.

Brant Menswar: [00:07:50]

Well, let me ask you this. Do you guys believe that our values change as we get older?

Phil Wilson: [00:07:57]

I definitely think that values can change over time, or the things that are most important to you can change through seasons. I think just like you said, there’s probably a small handful of things that really don’t change that are core to who you are, that carry throughout your life. What do you think? You’re the expert.

Brant Menswar: [00:08:24]

Well, Michael, what do you think?

Michael Vandervort: [00:08:26]

I think they do change with maturity and experience. I think that certain things change. But I don’t know where that bridge is. Right. And I think to your point, your analogy of two are really core, the other three are- yes, I think other values like the emphasis on family may change over time or it may grow anyway. So, I think they morph I guess is my answer.

Brant Menswar: [00:08:58]

So, I’m going to challenge you both and just tell you basically what our research showed. What we discovered when we were doing the research for the book is that our core values are formed over the course of our lives, and by the time we are in our early 20s, they are pretty much etched in stone. And outside of a catastrophic event in your life, they rarely, rarely change ever. So, most of us feel like our values shift as we get a little wiser and more experienced. But what we discovered is that the values weren’t shifting. The values were misidentified in the first place.

[00:09:43]

And so, the idea of doing this work, even the assessment, it’s a very shallow dive into the Mariana Trench. It is a very, very deep work that the top two- our values exist in a hierarchy and it’s a hierarchical system of how they work. And so, even when we have five non-negotiables, we still have a most important and least important. And that’s why we say the ones in positions one and two, there are 90% plus accuracy, and you can give me 20, 30, 40 different examples over the course of your life as to why they are.

[00:10:20]

But the ones that are in positions three, four, and five have a tendency to move when you first identify them. And that’s because a lot of us have been conditioned to care for other people’s sheep. We have spent a great part of our lives- maybe you grow up caring for siblings or caring for an elderly grandparent or a parent, perhaps. And so, it can be difficult to pull apart your sheep from someone else’s. And so, when you get this opportunity, those values that are in positions three, four, and five take some significant time to prove that these are indeed yours and not someone else’s.

Michael Vandervort: [00:11:02]

Interesting. So, how do you how do you do that? And what happens as you begin to identify these values in terms of the impact personally and professionally?

Brant Menswar: [00:11:13]

That’s a great question. When we do it, when we’re coaching somebody through it, it’s a five-week process to get to what your five are. Over that time, you’re doing some tracking of your values. Because values that are real are going to show up organically in your life. And so, we’re looking for that organic proof that they exist. If they don’t exist, if you are adamant that this is one of your values and there is no proof over the course of 4 or 5 weeks that they have shown up in your life, we have to do a little deeper dive as to why.

[00:11:50]

Sometimes we are sabotaging ourselves and not allowing them to appear. Other times, it might be environmentally based where we are in a particular area in our lives, or we live in a particular location that is hindering us from engaging that value in some way, shape, or form. But it takes some time to figure out what that actually is. But once you have them, it’s the only way that you can live on purpose. Purpose is something that we talk a lot about, and that’s because your purpose is a direct application of your non-negotiable values.

[00:12:26]

It is the activation of those values that become your purpose. So, when you look at someone’s purpose statement, it should literally have their values in the statement itself. So for me, my black sheep is creativity, hope, impact, empathy, family, authenticity. I have six. I can’t be a rock star for 20 years without doing everything to excess. So, I needed an extra. That’s not unusual. But my purpose is to creatively impact others by authentically providing hope. So, you can hear and see my values in my purpose statement.

[00:13:05]

And that creates alignment between our what which is our values and our why, which is our purpose. And when you have alignment between those two things, how you choose to live them out and honor them, you become incredibly adaptable and have the perseverance to push through because of that alignment. But when they’re misaligned, life can be really chaotic. And the only time you experience that feeling of purpose is by luck or accident.

Phil Wilson: [00:13:35]

So, hope is a big word. A word that I align with a lot is inspire. I try to inspire others. And so, how does hope play out in your day-to-day?

Brant Menswar: [00:13:59]

Well, your approach to hope is very corporate, and I love that because that’s what I come across on a daily basis, especially when people ask me what KPI hope falls under. And I can get that. But the truth is, we can break down hope. And look, McKinsey and Deloitte and some of the biggie consulting firms over the last few years have proven that you can actually track hope and there are actual KPIs behind hope. But to keep it super simple, hope is simply a combination of desire and expectation. That’s all that hope is.

[00:14:37]

We treat it like the Indiana Jones crystal skull. It is not. It is simply a combination of desire and expectation. How much do you want something and what do you think is going to happen if you get it or you don’t get it? And so, I approach life, especially with that value of hope by authentically providing hope. I am trying to make sure that I help people figure out how much they desire something. Is it their desire or is it somebody else’s? And then what is the expectation involved with that? What’s the expected work that’s going to have to go in for you to achieve that? What’s the expected result that happens after you achieve that? And what happens if you don’t achieve that?

[00:15:19]

And so, that’s how I approach hope in particular. And one of the things that we do when we work with people in defining these values is literally after you say, “Here are my five,” you have to write down what you mean by what you say- because how you would define hope, I promise you, is not verbatim to how I would define hope. And with all of those values. So, it doesn’t matter if we’re in alignment with what we think hope is. What matters is that I know what I mean by it, and it’s my value. And so, that’s the only way I can confirm that I fed my sheep. And that’s how we approach every day. Every day your job is to feed your values, feed your sheep.

[00:16:02]

If I have six values, all six sheep have to eat every day. You can’t come to me and go, “Hey, I had a great day. I fed five of my six sheep.” That’s an awful day. That’s a horrible day. You would never come to me and go “Hey, I had a great day. I fed four of my five kids today.” That’s the sort of importance, that sense of urgency that we want people to have when it comes to their values. Those values might not get the same attention. They might not get fed the same amount of food, but everybody gets to eat. Some might get table scraps, some might get a seven-course meal, but everybody gets a chance to eat something.

Phil Wilson: [00:16:40]

Yeah. I think that hope too is a looking forward. There are three questions that we teach that leaders should be having conversations with their team all the time. One of those is what’s next, right? Which is really the hope question. What’s next in your life? It could be what’s next in terms of developing for work, but it could be really any component of your life. And it’s really important to be talking about that all the time, not just your annual review or whatever.

Brant Menswar: [00:17:20]

It’s true. That is very true.

Michael Vandervort: [00:17:23]

Brant, what your book is about largely is a very individual kind of exploration, finding out what makes each of us tick. But I know that your book has been taken and is being used by leadership groups inside companies, the ROTC, and other organizations. So, how does black sheep values make the transition from an individual to a corporate structure? How do you how do you put it to work there, and how would our listeners benefit from thinking about doing that?

Brant Menswar: [00:17:57]

What I always say is, how can you possibly care for your people when you don’t know what your people care about? That’s the bottom line. You can profess that you care about your people, but if you don’t know what they actually care about, it is impossible for you to complete that task. So, how organizations use black sheep is it helps them. Your job as a leader number one is to help other people discover what matters most to them. Whether you realize that or not, that is your number one job. Because you can’t motivate them. You can’t inspire them. You can’t do anything until you know what they actually care about.

[00:18:39]

And so, this helps you discover what their five are. And when you know what matters most to your people, it changes the way you talk. It changes the language you use. It changes your marketing tactics. It changes how you communicate. It changes everything because you can’t treat everybody like everybody cares about the same thing. My thing that I say to my clients all the time, organizationally, is the number one mistake I see organizations make, when somebody joins, they give them their handbook, they say, “Here are our values. We need you to adopt these like your own.” That’s not how values work.

[00:19:20]

It’s more like, here’s my dog and I need you to watch my dog for the weekend while I’m gone. That’s how values work, right? So, I’m going to do it. I’m not a dog guy, but I’m still going to do it because I want to keep the relationship here and I’m going to try to help. I have that desire. I want to try to please somebody. But the next time you ask me, I’m going to go I think I’m busy. And the third time I’m out of town. But that’s how we treat values. We treat values like they can be adopted, even all the way up.

[00:20:00]

We work a lot with the military and the military expects people to adopt these values, and these are the values you’re going to live by. But the truth is, we have to build bridges between our values and anybody else’s. The organizations, somebody else that you might be working with. We talk about silo culture a lot and how my clients wants to tear down the silos. And my response always is that is the worst, worst idea I could possibly hear from you is that you want to tear down the silos.

[00:20:34]

People don’t understand how it works when it comes to what we care about and how people find belonging, meaning, and significance. When you tear down silos, you are creating refugees. That’s what you’re doing. And so, you just displaced your entire workforce who have no idea where they belong, have no idea what they bring to the table now, and you expect them to just follow suit, and all of a sudden be excited that it’s more collaborative when you just took the roof off their head. This is how people define their belonging.

[00:21:10]

“I know where I fit in this organization. I work in this particular area. I work for this department. I am in this particular vertical, whatever that might be.” What we say is don’t tear down the silos. You need to build bridges. Some silos might have 2 or 3 bridges. Some others might have 50 bridges. It just depends on who needs to be communicating with whom. And so, that’s how we approach it. And that’s what I really want people to understand: if you want to care for your people, you have to know what they care about. And when you do know what they care about, you can better motivate and inspire them. You can get a stronger commitment from them. You can create a sense of belonging, meaning, and purpose that leads to a sense of significance. And a sense of significance is the only reason people engage in anything. And that’s why you need to figure this out.

Phil Wilson: [00:22:06]

And I think that whole idea of building bridges is like building the bridge between the values of an organization and the individual values of the people in that organization. And being able to explain this is how what’s really important to you relates to what’s really important to our customers, clients, and what we do every day.

Michael Vandervort: [00:22:32]

And shades of your own work, Phil, it’s approachability because there’s a two-way street, So, Brant to wrap this part up, because we want to go towards a couple more segments here. You’ve got another book coming out that you’re working on. And so, does it build off Black Sheep or is it new? Tell us about that.

Brant Menswar: [00:22:59]

I’m going to say yes, and. So, the interesting thing is we have collected an incredible amount of data from the assessment from people who have taken it. So, we can tell you what 20-something females think about what they value and what 60-something binary people feel about something else. It literally has a tremendous amount of data that has revealed the generational differences of what we care about. So, what we’ve done is- the interesting thing that came up and the impetus to write this new book came from a conversation I had with a Gen Z’er a couple of years ago.

[00:23:45]

And Black Sheep had just come out. They were talking about passion and how as a 20-something, they’re going to know their passion, but they might not know their values, and they don’t have the luxury to think of it that way. And it really ruffled my feathers a lot. And it was this idea that they didn’t think that discovering their non-negotiables was that important when you’re in your 20s. And after being able to reflect upon it for a few years and having some conversations with people, what I believe she was saying now is that as a Gen Z’er, they’re getting up every day swinging a five.

[00:24:30]

The five-year plan is nonexistent because they are worried about how they’re paying rent this month. They’re not worried about where they’re going to be in five years. And so they’re living in survival mode. So, that’s moment to moment. So, the new book is all about trying to find a way to create enough momentum in a single moment to catapult you forward so that that five-year plan, you don’t have to worry about that. You’re going to take advantage of every moment as it presents itself.

[00:25:02]

And so, the book is called Moment Momentum, which is the subtitle is Crushed The Critic, Capture The Moment, and Catapult You Forward. And that’s exactly what the book is going to teach you how to do.

Phil Wilson: [00:25:16]

That’s cool. That’s a great important message for really not just a younger person- it’s like anybody thinking that you have a plan for five years from now is just kind of silly. And then we just came through a pandemic that no one could have possibly predicted. And you think about the world five years ago versus now, that’s impacted everybody across every generation. So, wow! A very timely message. And then, relating back to the whole, values don’t really change that much over time. It’s like if you really want to have impact, those moments that matter, you got to tie in to what’s core to you. Not having that figured out, you’re just jumping from moment to moment.

Brant Menswar: [00:26:18]

That’s exactly right. You can’t capture the moment without creating an emotional connection. And an emotional connection happens by a sense of belonging, a sense of meaning, or a sense of purpose. You can’t get to any of those without your values. So, you’re absolutely correct.

Phil Wilson: [00:26:35]

Great. I’m looking forward to reading that.

Brant Menswar: [00:26:43]

I need to get it done.

Phil Wilson: [00:26:45]

I literally just hit send the night before last on the manuscript of my next book. And, yes, it’s so great to finally be like, that’s now somebody else’s problem for a while.

Brant Menswar: [00:26:58]

That’s right. Let’s let the editors grab it and do their thing and not worry about it anymore. Yes.

Michael Vandervort: [00:27:05]

I’ve never made that leap. And I can’t imagine I ever will, to be honest of writing a book. So, let’s pivot because there are a couple of other areas I wanted to touch on. Hearing you speak for the first time several years ago, Brant, was the story of the unfortunate ending with your son. And you used music to talk about how music creates moments. That’s not the word you used back then, but how we remember where we were when you heard a song, and then you told a very powerful story about your- so I know that you’re big with the musical background.

[00:27:46]

You’re big into the power of personal stories and you use them quite often. Even here, you’ve been you’ve been using them about your conversations with people. So, how can leaders who may not have that same particular set of skills or gifts or whatever you might want to call your set, craft and share impactful stories in their organizations and take advantage of that type of communication?

Brant Menswar: [00:28:10]

Well, I believe that it’s how we are designed to communicate. And the idea of speaking in stories is what gets people to remember what it is that you’re trying to get them to remember. I use music as an example a lot, and it’s because it’s the universal language. And so, when you go to see a concert, no matter how great that concert was, when someone says, “Hey, well, I heard that you went to see Billy Joel last night. How was it?” You don’t give them a blow-by-blow 2.5-hour summary of and then he played this, and then he did that.

[00:28:52]

No. You’re going to pick the 1 or 2 things that really stuck out to you in the concert, and you’re going to relay that story. And the interesting thing is those stories can live on for decades. You could be having a conversation 30 years down the road and go, “Oh, I remember this time I saw Billy Joel, and I remember he came out and he looked at me and pointed at me.” And whatever that was, it was an emotional connection that happened for you in that moment. and again, I come back to, how can you do this? What we’re going to be teaching in this new book is only three steps. And it’s super simple.

[00:29:33]

The first thing is you have to crush the critic. You have to stop your inner critic from crushing the moment before it actually happens. Because most of us will talk ourselves out of the moment, or talk ourselves for so long in our heads that the moment already passed us by. And so, you have to crush the critic first. And after you do that, you can capture the moment. And that’s by creating that emotional connection, which is, can I create a sense of belonging? Can I talk about something that we share? Can I do a sense of meaning? For me, losing my son to cancer and COVID-19, there are definitely people who can feel that meaning.

[00:30:10]

Everyone has lost someone. Everybody struggled through the pandemic. And so, there’s that sense of meaning. And then a sense of purpose that why I do what I do now is about legacy. It’s about my son’s legacy, his story. It’s about what I’m leaving behind, all those sorts of things. That creates emotional connection. So, if I crush the critic and capture the moment, the third step is I have to share it. So, who am I going to share this moment with? Because if you want to amplify the moment, if you want it to last much longer than the moment itself, you have to figure out what are you going to share, who you’re going to share it with, and where you’re going to share it.

[00:30:46]

And in today’s world, you have so many options. You can share it on social media, you can share it with just your group at work, you can share it with the executive team and you can share it with your network. There are so many different ways. But if you do this and you do it with deliberate intention, which requires you to figure out your values, then what you’re going to find is that you can take advantage of every moment as it presents itself, and even capture moments that have passed us by and still get the benefit of sharing it, whatever those learnings were with your community.

Phil Wilson: [00:31:23]

That’s great.

Michael Vandervort: [00:31:26]

Talking about music and community, during COVID-19, I spent many an evening watching you. I don’t remember if it was Facebook or Zoom, but I spent many an evening watching you play music to the world as a way to share some community. That was great.

Phil Wilson: [00:31:46]

Michael and I share an affinity for an Oklahoma band called the Flaming Lips. I don’t know if you’ve heard of those guys.

Brant Menswar: [00:31:53]

I am familiar with the Flaming Lips.

Phil Wilson: [00:31:58]

During Covid, they were one of the first bands to start playing again. And they did it inside these bubbles. And they made a movie about the bubbles. It’s a little bit of a testament to those moments that matter and to the power of creating those moments. As a musician, you were in the business of creating the moments that people then went out and talked about afterward. And you do that as a speaker. And of course, as an author, you hope that you create those moments.

Brant Menswar: [00:32:38]

100 percent. So, in working through the methodology of the new book, I had to test it out myself. I want to prove that this works. And so, I decided that I was going to use TikTok because I don’t have a huge presence on TikTok. I’m a 53-year-old man that probably shouldn’t be on TikTok. But I fall into that black hole of stupid videos that make me laugh and share them with my brother. And so, I decided that I was going to apply this concept. So, the first thing I had to do was crush that inner critic that tells me that I shouldn’t be on TikTok in the first place.

[00:33:18]

And then I decided to use Taylor Swift’s launch of her new record. And so, I took that and I was going to use that to create emotional connection. So, I was going to show how she was creating a sense of belonging and meaning and purpose. And I gave those examples of why. And then I shared it strategically online tagging the right people who I wanted to share it with, and hash tagging it again, being very strategic to the groups that I wanted it to pass by their eyes. My average viewership on TikTok for a video was maybe that 2 to 400 range. It was not a lot.

Phil Wilson: [00:34:04]

Did you ever wish you tagged somebody that was really popular?

Brant Menswar: [00:34:08]

Well, yes. I figured that couldn’t hurt to take somebody who was on everybody’s lips at the moment. But that first video I did had over 400,000 views. And so I’m like, wow, okay, let me try this again because maybe that was a fluke. And so, I did another one. Same Taylor Swift idea, but a different approach and a different person and a different who I’m sharing it with. And this was about Post Malone. The first one was about somebody else. And that video had over 350,000 views.

Phil Wilson: [00:34:49]

Wow! And then you got the cease-and-desist letter.

Brant Menswar: [00:34:52]

And then I got the restraining order and they were like, why are you- and I keep having to remind myself, she’s 35 years old. We still treat Taylor Swift like she’s 16. She’s 35 years old.

Phil Wilson: [00:35:03]

That is true.

Brant Menswar: [00:35:05]

I had two kids by the time I was 35 years old.

Michael Vandervort: [00:35:13]

You spoke a couple of times and you mentioned a concept called crushing the critic. And you wrote something a couple of weeks ago that I happened to catch, and I wanted you to share this story because it cracked me up. This is your critic moment when you encountered an 80s hair band rock star who wasn’t impressed with you for a moment or something. So, do you want to share that story with us?

Brant Menswar: [00:35:34]

Yeah. So, this was during Covid. I was speaking to a men’s group out in California virtually. And this was a group of media, entertainment, and tech, That’s their group. And they asked me to speak. And listen, I used Ecamm. I still use Ecamm. We’re using Ecamm today for this. And Ecamm has some pretty powerful tools that you can use to do virtual presentations. And so, I have multiple cameras and I can turn myself into a cartoon, and I have all these bells and whistles that are going. And I’m addressing these, this group of men. I only have like minutes. So, I do my talk.

[00:36:14]

And the guy who’s hosting it says afterward, “Gosh, Brent how do you go from being a rock star to this? How did you do that?” And he asked me all these technical questions. And this is a very tight-knit scheduled group so all of his questions are running into the next guy who’s going to speak. And the next guy who’s going to speak is from a legendary 80s hair band. I won’t mention his name, but I will say that he got very twisted with me and he just was not going to take it anymore.

[00:36:55]

And when we finally got to the host stopping, asking me questions and he’s like, okay, so and so come on up. And he’s like, “Well, what do you think? What’s happening? What are you feeling right now?” And he’s like, “Well, I’m a real f-ing rock star. And I just got back from my house in Belize, and I don’t have time to do all this fancy crap that you just saw from the guy in front of you, because I’m a real rock star.” He got his feathers ruffled hard, and everybody in the chat was like, “Wow! That was a little dark.”

[00:37:33]

So, I was able to capture that moment by trying to create a sense of emotional connection there. So I was like, look, everybody’s struggling right now. We’re all trying to maintain this communication, even virtually. We all feel like we’re isolated. We’re all in the same boat. We’re just trying to figure out how to move forward and where we move forward. I said my shot is to do this because I don’t have any 80s hair metal legends offering to co-write music with me. Unless you’re offering

Phil Wilson: [00:38:06]

Why not have me on in Belize?

Brant Menswar: [00:38:08]

That’s exactly right. It’s actually the opening story in the new book. And so, that’s how I’m strategically sharing it. And I’ve taken that impact and I’m using it to create momentum for the book, for the new talk, for the whole new subject. that’s how we do it. And that’s what I said before, is sometimes you can go back and capture a moment that you missed, reframe it, and reshare what you wish you would have in the moment with a larger group, a larger platform strategically, and you still end up being able to create momentum from it, even though it happened four plus years ago.

Phil Wilson: [00:38:54]

Yeah. I tell a lot of stories and the best most high-impact ones are stories like that where you’re vulnerable. Everybody relates to that because we all feel that way. But a lot of times we want to hide that from others. And when you embrace it, it’s like, oh, I can embrace that part of me too.

Brant Menswar: [00:39:21]

Yes. Totally

Michael Vandervort: [00:39:23]

So here’s a random suggestion that you don’t want to follow. I would suggest that for your new book, you get AI to write a deep fake dive of the twisted guy and write the foreword for you [unintelligible 00:39:36] how much he learned from you in that moment and stuff like that. [unintelligible 00:39:40] don’t want to do that. That might even get some reviews on TikTok.

Brant Menswar: [00:39:50]

I’m going to start the book off with but it’s just going to say “What do you want to do with your life? Is that a pledge pin?”

Phil Wilson: [00:39:58]

That’s funny.

Michael Vandervort: [00:40:02]

That was great. So, heading towards wrap-up because we’re running a little over time. I want to try to stick close to 30 minutes. But it’s hard to stop talking to somebody when you’re having a good time. So, looking at just music, leadership, creativity, all these things- I know you didn’t even mention, but I believe you were a college baseball player. You’ve had all kinds of careers, all kinds of things that you’ve done. You’ve got this holistic approach as you continue to evolve yourself and help others evolve.

[00:40:30]

So, how do people find those influences for themselves? Because I don’t think everybody naturally embraces or appreciates their own skills. Does that does that make sense? I know your book teaches values, but how do you embrace these other things? Like, I don’t believe I can draw, or I never draw because I don’t believe it.  How do you do that, Brant? How do you crush the inner critic? Because we all have imposter syndrome, right?

Brant Menswar: [00:41:04]

Yeah. So, I’ll give two quick examples of how to crush the critic. The first is you need to be a bad interpreter.

Michael Vandervort: [00:41:17]

Got that one down.

Brant Menswar: [00:41:19]

Yeah. One of my favorite quotes of all time is “What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes!” Do you know who said that? It was Houdini? So, what we know about how the brain works is that our brain really desires certainty. It wants to be certain no matter what we’re doing. What it doesn’t care about is if we’re certainly right. It just wants to be certain. And so, if we decide to treat our inner critic as a foreign language, it needs to be interpreted for us to hear and understand it. So, what I want people to do is I want you to be a bad interpreter.

[00:42:07]

So, if that inner critic is saying “You’re not good enough. Why are you doing this? It’s going to blow up in your face. You need to abandon ship right now. You need to hear that and interpret it for yourself as what you want to hear what you need to hear. You need to go “You know what? Thank God you’re captaining this ship because you’re the only person who can pull this off right now. Gosh! This is amazing.” So, you need to treat that inner critic as a foreign language. Interpret it.

[00:42:36]

Because your brain doesn’t care if you’re right, it only wants to be certain. And so, if you can get your ears to hear something and convince yourself, you’re good to go. And so, that’s one of the ways that we teach you in the book, is to how to crush that inner critic is be a bad interpreter.

Phil Wilson: [00:42:55]

Before we switch to the second one… I don’t know if you’re familiar- because I write about this same thing in my book that you’re- I talk a little bit about pattern interrupts, how do you shock the system into… There’s a thinking fast and slow. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that. System one, like you said, as long as there’s an answer, a plausible answer, it’s like done. I’m no longer thinking about it. So, you have to activate system two to be like, “Oh wait, I actually have to think about this.”

[00:43:32]

Once you’ve done that, you’re pretty much good because then you’re actually going to have to start thinking about it like, “Is this even valid? Where is it coming from?” You can think it through, but 90 maybe even closer to 100% of the time we’re in system one and just don’t think autopilot.

Brant Menswar: [00:43:52]

Yeah. Totally agreed. And that’s the interesting thing is I did some work at Cornell, and one of the things we learned about with belief, this idea of belief is that belief is not a choice. We treat it like a choice. We think it’s a choice, but it’s not a choice. Belief is what you can convince yourself of. That’s what belief is. And so again, if you are going to at least put what you need in your ears, so tell yourself what it is that you need to hear. Then you can start to believe that. And the more that you do it, the more we get into that sort of system one autopilot, this is how unconscious decisions, how we’re just going to be able to roll with it and move.

[00:44:36]

And the more that you do it, the better off you’re going to be. The challenge comes when there’s a huge moment that has got you so stressed that you’re in the triggered response state. And so sometimes we need to enlist a critic-crushing crew. You need to have a few friends that you can call and say, “Talk me off the ledge. Help me through here. I need to move this forward.” And I have 2 or 3 people in my life that know that that’s true.  And we talk about it. This is your role in my life. If I call you and I need you to convince me of something, the only thing I need you to do is to just convince me that it’s possible.

[00:45:17]

I don’t care how you do it, just do it. And so they know that. They know that sense of urgency, if I get a call in the middle of the day from someone, chances are I’m standing off stage getting ready to go on somewhere and I need them to whisper some words of wisdom in my ear to overcome that inner critic. And so, that’s the two ways that that we suggest. The first just being fun. If you learn to really be a bad interpreter, you can have a lot of fun with your inner critic.

Phil Wilson: [00:45:46]

Yeah. Well, Feynman says the most important thing is to not fool yourself. And the problem is you’re the easiest one to fool, right? You need to have some systems in your life. And you’ve just talked about two that are terrific. Systems to get out of the autopilot mode and trigger actual thinking.

Brant Menswar: [00:46:11]

That’s exactly right. We’re going to have to write another book together. That’ll be the next book.

Michael Vandervort: [00:46:20]

You never know. I first met Phil, and I work for him now, but I first met Phil on my own podcast when it wasn’t yet mine. So, 15 years ago. So, you never know how that kind of stuff [crosstalk 00:46:32].

Brant Menswar: [00:46:33]

I love it.

Michael Vandervort: [00:46:36]

We’re running out of time, as I’ve said a couple of times. So, I want to wrap up. We like to do some little pop culture thing. I didn’t really tee up much, but you mentioned Taylor Swift, She’s kind of popular. So, we will close just with who else are you listening to right now?

Brant Menswar: [00:46:56]

I’m a huge David Ramirez fan. Have been for years. He is a singer-songwriter out of Austin, Texas. And makes me want to burn every song I’ve ever written. He’s too good for his own good. I’m telling you, it’s not.

Phil Wilson: [00:47:14]

Who’s that, David Ramirez?

Brant Menswar: [00:47:15]

David Ramirez. Yes.

Phil Wilson: [00:47:17]

I’ll check him out.

Brant Menswar: [00:47:19]

If you love melancholy.

Phil Wilson: [00:47:21]

Nick Waterhouse. Have you ever heard any Nick Waterhouse?

Brant Menswar: [00:47:25]

Yeah

Phil Wilson: [00:47:26]

I’m deep down the rabbit hole with him right now.

Brant Menswar: [00:47:29]

I love that. Another great one.

Michael Vandervort: [00:47:32]

Two completely new recommendations for me. I just bought tickets. There’s a local club here in Tulsa where I live now. There’s a club here called Lo-Fi, and they do jazz and blues stuff. And on June 6th, they’re having a California sustainable wine tasting coupled up with some guy who does Americana singing. And his name is Don Flemons. And so, I’ve never heard him before, but I’m going to go check him out because I wanted to see- I listened to a little bit on YouTube and it’s a very unique style, so I’m looking forward to seeing it because it’s completely different than anything I’ve done before. So, that’s my pick, I guess.

Phil Wilson: [00:48:10]

That’s a moment you’re going to have to share, Michael.

Michael Vandervort: [00:48:12]

I probably will TikTok because. I get about four views on anything I put up. But I’m 66, so nobody wants to watch a 66-year-old pickpocket. Thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate you having you on. It’s great conversation. And we will be posting the show next week, so I’ll send you the link and all that stuff. But to wrap up, do you want to tell folks- I know you mentioned your website, but why don’t you share the details again? If folks want to reach out to you where they can find you?

Brant Menswar: [00:48:43]

Yeah, please. My website is simply brantmenswar.com. All my socials are @BrantMenswar. Follow me on LinkedIn would be my biggest. That’s where I post the most and where my free newsletter comes out every week called Burn with purpose. And it’s all about how to be a connected leader. And so, we have incredible guest writers who do articles for us in addition to what I put up myself. And I’d love for you to connect with me. It’d be great.

Michael Vandervort: [00:49:15]

Awesome. Thanks so much. Anything else you want to wrap with?

Phil Wilson: [00:49:18]

No, just great conversation. It was great to see you again. It’s been a long time, and it has been good to reconnect.

Brant Menswar: [00:49:25]

You bet. Thank you guys so much. Really appreciate you.