How to Find Your Strengths | The Better Than Rich Show Ep. 19

Know Your Greatest Gifts

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Know Your Greatest Gifts 〰️

How to Find Your Strengths

How do we know if we are playing to our strengths? Well, if we aren’t playing to our strengths, we will feel dissatisfied or unfulfilled in our lives.

What does it mean to be Better Than Rich? To be fulfilled in life, and to play to our strengths. When we play to our strengths, we live out our authentic truth.

How To Reveal Our Authentic Truth

Reflection is one of the biggest tools that can be used when trying to uncover things about ourselves. This is important because most of the time our gifts are blind to us because we are doing it unconsciously and they come so naturally, that we don’t see much value in them. But the truth is, not everyone can do what we can do. We all have different strengths.

What comes easy to me that other people struggle with?

What do people naturally come to me with?

When they have problems what kind of problems do people come to me with?

Another great way to find our authentic truth or things that play to our strengths is by analyzing what activities get us excited and make us happy. If an action makes us happy, then that’s a sign this is where we are meant to be and what it’s we should be doing!

The goal is to better understand ourselves, and then double down on that understanding! There are personality questionnaires that can help with our understanding, like the CVI.

There are four sections of the CVI questionnaire results. After selecting the words that best describe us we will receive two categories that are dominant within us.

Firstly, there is a Dominate Banker. Bankers love knowledge, they are extremely organized, they conserve resources, are very detailed, and enjoy teaching.

Secondly, there is a Dominate Innovator. Innovators are essentially the counterparts of Bankers. They are known to be very creative and artsy, they love freedom and flexibility, enjoy all forms of the arts, and they can consistently learn and absorb.

The third is the Dominate Merchant, these people are extremely people-oriented, they gain energy from their connections with others, they are visionaries, and are very connected to love and truth.

Forth, there are builders, these people are powered by faith, they are leaders of the pack, action takers, they want short quick, and fast-paced change, these extremely action oriented and task driven individuals.

Another helpful questionnaire is the Big five Personality Test, after taking the questionnaire it will provide an assessment with percentages explaining how agreeable an individual is, meaning how often they attempt to keep the peace. How neurotic an individual is, which is concerning a person’s consistent mood and outlook and the level of negativity it contains. How extraverted a person is, do they gain energy when they are around people? How open to experience an individual is, do they enjoy trying new things and taking the path less traveled? Lastly, the assessment will score how industrious a person is, which is how well they complete their tasks and how task-oriented they are.

These assessments are helpful because they can help us understand what we are good at. Not everyone can be extremely organized like a Banker or take charge like a Builder.

Appreciation Languages

These appreciating languages are good to know for ourselves as well as for everyone we have a relationship with. We want to meet our people where they are at and understand ourselves enough to communicate with them so they can do the same.

The five appreciation languages are physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, gift-giving, and quality time. If we were to send a gift to an individual we have a relationship with who has an appreciation language of quality time, they might enjoy the gift but it isn’t what makes them feel appreciated.

What Are You Spending Your Time On?

After learning our strengths, we need to put them into action and double down on them. This means we need to be spending more time on those strengths. When we become conscious of this, we might realize that we spend a lot of time doing things that we aren’t good at. Sometimes it’s part of our occupation.

To begin making changes to include more of our strengths in our every day, we make small changes. When first changing things, small changes are very useful because we start training ourselves to think differently. This could be a simple conversation with our employer. Sometimes we don’t have the freedom to make changes in our position or how it operates so it’s good to ask ourselves what exactly is in our control.

When we are limited on what we can do, we need to focus on what is in our control and do that to the best of our strengths. This is done by creating desired outcomes and why they are Important, then creating massive action toward that goal. We want to permit ourselves to think differently.

How we allow ourselves to think outside the box is by being completely knowledgeable of our truth. When we are confident in our truth, we can take paths that others haven’t confidently. Knowing our priorities, truth, strengths, and how to apply those strengths will help us create a life that is Better Than Rich.

We want to use more energy on what we are good at and less on the things that are time and energy drainers.

Mike Abramowitz 0:11
Welcome to the better than rich show with your hosts Andrew Biggs and Mike Abramowitz. The better than rich show helps ambitious leaders who are on a mission to leave the world better than they found it changed their perspective on what's important, increase their income and impact and systemize their life and business. If you've ever struggled with finding your purpose and felt disconnected or distracted or found yourself going through the motions, this show will remind you that what you do matters and will re inspire you to chase your highest dreams. It's time for you to become better than rich.

Andrew Biggs 0:46
Hello, everyone and welcome to the better the rich Show. I'm your host Andrew Biggs. I'm here with my co host, Mike Abramowitz, and we cannot wait to dive into today's topic. Mike, how you doing today?

Mike Abramowitz 0:56
Feeling great. I got my papa bear shirt on. So good day.

Andrew Biggs 1:00
That's right. That's right. How old is James now?

Mike Abramowitz 1:03
James is, I guess, 15 months?

Andrew Biggs 1:05
Yeah. That's right. You're about to graduate. I like the months and into the years category. Right? Yeah, you can start started saying that. It's always fun. Cool, man. Well, I'm excited to dive into today's topic, which is how to find and reveal your gifts and strengths in life. And we have a number of different things that we want to hit on with that. Before we do I do want to do a little bit of housekeeping. I heard that we got another great review. Do you want to go and read that to the people and and share this week's Hot review right off the presses?

Mike Abramowitz 1:35
Yes. And this is from a dear friend of the better than rich community Rachel Richards. So Oh, rachel is awesome. Rachel is awesome. So she has money, honey, awesome brand. So Rachel said I will listen to She said her title is so good with a five star rating. And she said I will listen to anything. These two talk about equal parts inspiring and educational, tons of takeaways in every episode about living an intentional life and leveling up in all areas. Highly recommend exclamation point. So Rachel, we appreciate your review. So we're gonna hook you up with some veteran rich swag. So we're gonna sue What's your way, and the t shirt better than rich on the front. And on the back, we got the logo leave today better than you found it. So we're gonna decide that out? Yeah, just say sending a message on Instagram, your address, and we'll mail this out to you, Rachel, I already have your address, but sends me anyway.

Andrew Biggs 2:32
Awesome. And if you're not watching, well, with her, she's got like 17 different properties. She's always amassing her empire. So you don't know which one to send it to. But yeah, if you weren't watching on YouTube, you don't see how sweet that that shirt is. So make sure you check us out on YouTube as well. So you can check out the video version of this or you can watch us live as we stream it onto the Facebook group, the better the rich show. And if you want to leave us a review and a rating, we'd really appreciate it. So what we're doing is a contest where if you rate and review us on Apple, go ahead and give us a review, send us a screenshot in the Facebook group. And we're gonna throw you into a raffle to win one of those same T shirts. So again, the steps are a great review on Apple podcasts, go ahead and send us a screenshot in the Facebook group. And then we will go ahead and put you into the raffle and we'll see who wins some more better than rich swag. one more bit of housekeeping.

Mike Abramowitz 3:18
So everyone knows is called the better than rich show, just so you know, on Facebook. Correct? Correct.

Andrew Biggs 3:23
And one more bit of housekeeping, we have updated our website. So if you do want to get some time with Mike or myself, you can go to our website better the rich.com There's a section there for a free call. And we're always happy to have a free strategy session with any any one of you listeners to connect on what your needs are. But anyways, Mike, have you been since since last week?

Mike Abramowitz 3:42
It's been good. I mean, we you and I have jammed a bunch. We we we sat on probably eight or nine different marketing strategy calls at this point as we're looking to level up our marketing strategy and help more people know that we exist and spread our podcasts and the message of you know, live with purpose and leave today better than you found it to the masses. So we're really excited about that. So that's been pretty cumbersome, also launching our our beta test of our virtual assistant program. So we're, we're doing the beta test on five clients tomorrow. So been a lot of back end work on, you know, figuring out what are the ins and outs of this virtual assistant program to kind of help our clients because they know that something that they're really going to need so excited to beta test that. And we've been working on that, too. So it's been it's been a crazy week. It's been a lot been busy but really productive at the same time. Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew Biggs 4:36
I mean, I know it's off topic of today's topic, but the way that we've thought about that the way that you've gone about especially spinning up that beta program, and instantly creating, you know, a really systemized version of a business model that is going to start bringing in revenue right away from day one. I mean, if you don't know how to do that, and you're listening, we can teach you so that's Well, that's the last thing I'll say on that we can transition into today's topic, which again, is finding your gifts and strengths and playing to your gifts and strengths. And you know, we were taught chatting a little bit, before we move forward with if you're in, one of the things that came up for me is that if you aren't playing to your strengths, you're going to feel dissatisfied, you're going to feel unfulfilled in life. And ultimately, when we think about what it means to be better than rich, it means to we're seeking fulfillment, right? We want you to have money in the bank, but we also want you to be rich in all these other ways. And really enjoy your life, right? Enjoy your work. And you're not going to do that if you're not playing to your strengths. So then that, of course raises the question, well, what are my strengths? And how can I play to them, but as a starting point, the basic premise that I want to invite you all to consider is that if you aren't playing to your strengths, you're going to feel dissatisfied, you're going to feel discontent in your life, and you're always going to feel like oh, man, I want something more out of whatever I'm doing. But Mike, when you think about this topic, what comes up for you to kick us off,

Mike Abramowitz 5:59
immediately, which was up is I remember, back in 2016 2017, when you were coaching me, and it was all about revealing what we were talking about at the time, my inner lion, and it was like, tapping into this, this masculine version of me, while also being able to tap into this feminine version of me and, and, and all of that kind of came under this umbrella of what is my genius, what is my strengths and in order for me to do that I had, like, you kind of guided me and coached me to say like, being able to tap into my, my fierce version of me my power, my inner lion, and also being able to be methodical and free flowing and go with it. And, and this, this dance of between the two led me inside of my business to find what I found as my authentic self. And by knowing and revealing my authentic self, specifically around my CBI, which is my core values index of banker, innovator. And not only knowing my banker, innovator, but check, but the being able to tap into my treachery of my merchant, to connect with people. So to connect with my banker, we could go a deep dive on this, but to connect with my banker, which is my genius of knowledge, and my innovator, my secondary, which is my genius of, of being able to create in my wisdom, and then my third my treachery, of connection and people in love, and be able to bring those three collectively tying that with my masculine and tying that with my feminine. That's where I started really being able to systematically approach my business and also my marriage and my life from my authentic truth. And, and my, that's what immediately comes up with me is, how can somebody reveal what their authentic truth is so big since you brought this out of me? Back? 2016 2017? Maybe it could be beneficial for you to maybe jam on? What, if you recall this? I mean, you've probably done it with more than me. But what were some of the strategies? If you remember, like, how did you help me reveal what that authentic truth is for myself?

Andrew Biggs 8:13
Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the biggest processes that I am a huge believer in is just reflection, right? And so when, when we're trying to uncover something about you, one of the biggest tools we can use is reflection, and, you know, just having some really, really good prompts to actually use when you're, when you're reflecting on yourself, and you're thinking about yourself, and oftentimes, you know, our biggest strengths, our biggest gifts are actually blind to us for a few reasons. One is we do them unconsciously. So we're not really thinking about, Oh, well, this is really valuable. So Mike, maybe you could speak to that here in a second, if I kick it back to you after this, this little rant. But it's like, oftentimes, our gifts are blind to us, because, again, we're doing them unconsciously. So we don't even know what our strengths are. And then B they come so naturally to us, we don't think they're valuable. So it's like, oh, yeah, that's easy. Everyone can do that. But the reality is not everyone can do that. Not everyone can get in front of a group and speak not everyone can you know crunch numbers the way you can crunch numbers, not everyone can, you know, sit down one on one with somebody and have a conversation and change their change their perspective in 30 minutes and 60 minutes that way you can and I don't know which of those resonated most with you listening, but the reality is, you know, we all have different strengths and you have some that you need to uncover. So some some basic prompts to reflect on might be, you know, what comes easy to me that other people struggle with? What do people naturally come to me with when they have problems? What sort of problems do they bring to me? These are some just just some general reflections that I see. The other one I would just say is what do you enjoy doing right? But what kind of lights you up? What excites you? And and so when you are excited to do something when you're passionate When you feel really alive, and it feels like, oh, wow, this is something that's that I just feel like, oh, man, this is so much fun. That's a really good clue that you're doing something that's playing to your strengths, right? Like the universe or God, where your your dopamine receptors in your brain are all kind of firing. And what is basically saying is, this is where you're supposed to be do more of this. So those are three questions. I'd say that to kick us off that you might reflect on. But Mike, what comes up for you as I as I rattle those off?

Mike Abramowitz 10:29
Yeah, I specifically remember playing to that and thinking, Okay, what does come naturally to me, and I started thinking, I really liked teaching. I love teaching, because I was speaking at the schools, and I saw, like, I didn't want to become a teacher. But I love teaching. Sure, and breaking things down in a way that was simple. So it was like, How can I just double down on that and become even better teacher. And so my philosophy was, if I just become a better learner, and become a better student is gonna help me become a better teacher. So I started double downing on reading books and going to seminars, and, and doing immersion events, and just constantly learning and doing even more in personal growth. So you could become an even better teacher, I went to a seminar called speaking empire, with Dave Van hoosen. It was it was quite expensive. But it was really awesome to meet, like Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, and Forbes, Riley, and you know, some other, you know, pretty feared fairly big names, and just be able to have conversations with them and learn how they teach and how they present in a more powerful way. So I started investing into what I found was that genius, which is my ability to teach your ability to communicate effectively. Another one was my ability to build out creative design in a simple way in my business. So back then it was just curiosity, I would say it was almost a big genius for me and the strength of like, how can we make this better? And how can we make this simpler? You don't just question in that. And that's what we were like, the birthplace in our business was WhatsApp voice memos. Because at the time, everything was real time phone calls, phone calls, phone calls, it was like, I don't want to I was getting married in 2017 is like, I don't want to be married and entering my phone all the time. So there's got to be a better way. And by the by, and by including curiosity into my approach to my business, and into my life. It was how can I do this? What's what's the way to do this, and then double down on innovation and technology and tools. So that's what immediately shows up for me is like, those were my responses to the questions of, you know, what came easy to me, or what were some of the things that I was helping other people with? I'm sure there were others that came through it. But looking back and reflecting those were a couple that I really double down on during the last half a decade or

Andrew Biggs 12:48
so. Yeah. And hey, can you speak a little bit more to CVI right, there's kind of four things, we're gonna include the CVI link in the in the show notes. So if you're listening, go to the show notes, you can check that out to three tests you can take, I think there's also like a paid upgrade or something if you want to, but you can at least do something for free. Talk a little bit about the four quadrants of CVI and how to understand that a little bit more.

Mike Abramowitz 13:10
Yeah, and I could talk about this for a half a day, maybe even a whole weekend. So I'll give you the abridged version of this. In fact, I have done long, long workshops on this, but there's some called tailor protocols. inc.com is where you can where you can go for that link. But you'll take the assessment, we'll give you a bunch of words, just just words, words, words, words, words, and choose the best one that describes you, and the one that you align most with. And once you're finished with the assessment, I'll give you I'll give you two words and there's four words total, but you'll get to that or your dominant we have all of these words, but there's going to be two that are dominant the first one, and I'll just go in order of which I am. So the first one is a banker. And a banker is knowledge knowledge is something that a banker really appreciates most is just learning, knowing as much as possible. A banker is someone who is typically very organized, very detail oriented is typically a banker, banker is going to be someone who really enjoys enjoys teaching. In that sense. A banker is someone who is conserving resources a banker is you know someone who can serve as resources as a banker. So these are some qualities and characteristics of the dominant banker, a dominant innovator, a dominant innovator is a lot of wisdom, a lot, a lot of creativity. Innovators love freedom. Innovators love flexibility, while a banker loves structure, an innovator loves freedom and flexibility and to be able to come and go as they please. Innovators are very creative. an innovator would be very, it'd be very common for an innovator to have tattoos or piercings or really love art. Big, big time in our big time. Musicians. A lot of innovators are musicians, anything that has to do with creativity. is going to be an innovator, they're Unbeliev their minds, they never get overwhelmed. an innovator can never get overwhelmed. So they can just learn and absorb so much information. So that's a banker than an innovator. And then there's a merchant, a merchant is very much connected to love, love and truth. And connecting to people, you know, the these individuals, they can see the vision and the future, unlike anyone else, they could see the future unlike any other style. They're they're very they're visionaries, they're people oriented, they're very much gatherers, getting people together, they get, they get a lot of energy, when they're around people, for sure. A lot of love connection. And then the last one is builder. Builder, for me is my lowest builder is, is typically going to be the person that leads the charge the one that is that takes charge of the situation, it's like follow me, you'll see a bill builder say follow me, I got this, let's do this, right, like a builder is going to be someone who is powered by faith, while they're powered by faith, if they see a clear path, they are going to lead the charge through that path. They're very much action takers very, very much decide and do type of people, they want to do it, they want short, short, quick, let's get it done. Let's do it now, very much is going to be a builder, very action oriented, task driven. Let's do this now type of people. So when you have, we all have all of those styles of a banker, innovator, merchant and a builder, but that just kind of gives a brief overview. And where the names came from and whatnot, is an easy way to think about this, the builder would be the one who's leaving the battle. They're on the battlefield. They're the fighters in the battle. The merchants were the ones that were gathering the people together and all the villagers to talk about how what was happening in the battle. They were getting everyone together, nurturing the beat and nurturing the babies, nurturing the kids, nurturing the families, the innovators were doing the creative strategy on how to win the battle. They were in the you know, in the boardroom figuring out how to do that. And then the bankers were conserving all the firewood and all the resources, all the bullets, all the guns, so that way they that way they, the village can win the battle. So that was kind of like an example of the history of where these came from.

Andrew Biggs 17:32
Yeah, that's awesome, man. And hopefully you guys got some some notes there, I threw an image up on the screen. So you guys can check that out on the video as well like a little graphic overlay so you can see what that looks like. But yeah, there's tons of these models out there. So check out CVI, another one, I'm going to recommend, I'll throw up this image as well as the Big Five personality test. And let me actually make it a little smaller. But you can see this, this is the big five personality test, I encourage you to go to understand myself.com And take this one, but basically it's very similar. Basically, what you're gonna do is you take a personality assessment, there's no right or wrong answer, okay? Don't don't answer the way you want to be answered the way you actually are. And then you're gonna get a printout a really detailed assessment of your tendencies, right? And this one is agreeableness, which is basically, you know, how much do you like to keep the waters smooth versus rock the boat, right? And if you're really high agreeableness, you're going to be somebody who tends to be somebody who mediates situations and makes them smoother, you avoid conflict. If you are disagreeable, then you are going to seek conflict. And basically, it's going to score you on a percentile basis. Then there's neuroticism which is basically how prone to negative emotion are you? how volatile Are you? Are you somebody who's pretty moody and all over the place? Are you pretty even keeled? Others extraversion that's pretty self explanatory. But that's basically where you know how much you like being around people versus, you know, being by yourself. And what gives you energy. If you're extroverted, you're going to gain energy, energy by being around people. If you're introverted, then obviously you're going to lose energy by being around people. And you're going to gain energy by being by yourself. Then there's openness to experience, which is basically, you know, kind of a creative element. How creative Are you? how innovative Are you? And the last one is industriousness. Okay, which is how, how task oriented Are you? How do you like to do that? So, you can look at that model. You can also look at wealth dynamics, which include kind of all these different lists. As you as you're going through this and to consider which option you want to go with. But checkout wealth dynamics from Roger Hamilton checkout, understand myself from Jordan Peterson checkout, CVI will include all these links in the in the show notes, but I really think these are great things to look at, just to understand, oh, cool, like, this is my personality and you got to understand we do have different personalities. We do have different strengths. And not everyone is going to be great at gathering the people together. Not everyone is going to be Great at crunching the numbers and being a banker, you know, whatever it is. So anyways, Mike, what else is coming up for you on this topic as we're, as we're jamming mentioned,

Mike Abramowitz 20:08
I wanted to mention the Five Love Languages while we're at it, I think that's a real simple ones real popular as well. So the five The Five Love Languages is there's words, there's touch, there's actions, there's gifts, and time. So words touch gifts, time and action. So those are your five love languages. And you could change the word love for appreciation languages. So if you're managing someone, or just in a relationship with someone, I think just knowing them are important. And not only for somebody else, but for yourself. So for me, when I learned that my appreciation language is words, I let everyone know that why? Because not that I don't like, you know, stuff done for me. But it's like, if you wanted to meet me where I'm at. Doing stuff for me doesn't necessarily show me that you appreciate me. But if you write me a note, and like, or tell me, like, Hey, Mike, you're doing a great job. Like, that's where I'm like, wow, I appreciate that. If you you know, send me a gift. It's like, Great, thank you. I appreciate the gift. That's a beautiful gesture. But if you really want to meet me where I'm at, then knowing that I'm words, giving those words also reviews on Apple, I'm just kidding. But so, so words is big for me. So if you know what's that for you, if you know you're an actions person to x person, if someone like cleans the house for you. You're like, Oh, my God, I love you. If somebody spends time with you, takes you out for a meal. It's like, oh my God that made that brings me more life. If somebody gives you a gift, you're like, Wow, this was so meaningful, that was so big. If someone like touches you on the shoulder, or, you know, maybe maybe like gives like the double gripped handshake, and you're like, wow, I can really feel the connection there. And they really I felt more trustworthy around them, or trusting around them. So if you just know what it is for you, then that can be beneficial for you to see, maybe there's a way for you to double down on that for for you to play to the best way for you to receive appreciation, because it's also means that's the way you give appreciation. And if you know that that is a strength of yours, then it might make sense for you to double down on it.

Andrew Biggs 22:30
Right? Totally, totally. And you've mentioned the word double down quite a bit, what does it mean to double down on something

Mike Abramowitz 22:35
double down, so you double down and in blackjack, what that means is you're you're putting even more money on the table, right? So I put a bet of $10. And I'm going to put another $10. So I'm double down in my debt. That's really what it comes down to. But what in this setting, it's invested a little bit more time, a little bit more energy learning a little bit more about that, like, so if you know, it's words, it's like, how can I give words? How can I receive words? What are the things I could do around that writing notes. And, you know, giving that to people like that comes natural to me. So, you know, if, if giving gifts is your genius, then you might want to double down you might want to spend a little bit more time and energy thinking and crafting really meaningful gifts for other people, you might read the book gift ology by John Rowland on how to understand the science of gifting, because that's a superpower of yours, you might want to double down or invest a little bit more time energy resources into learning more, and how you can leverage your appreciation language to serve other people or serve your mission or serve your cause. That's what I mean.

Andrew Biggs 23:40
Sure, sure. Cool. And I think, you know, ultimately, what my saying double down, it's like, play to your strengths, right? Spend more time doing what you're great at. And, you know, one thing that comes up for me is what if you identify what your strengths are, but then you find out that how you're spending your time on a regular basis isn't actually playing to those strengths? Well, then I think we have a little bit of a conflict, right. And, you know, we kind of have two options. Particularly I'm kind of speaking a little bit towards, you know, the more like in a career sense, right? versus maybe on your personal life. But I think in your personal life, this also could be applicable. But let's say you know, you aren't good at something, but you're spending most of your time doing it all day at work, what you really love to do something completely different. Well, you have kind of a choice of how you want to play that. Right now, one thing you could do is my my advice is always to do as little as possible, try to change as little as possible, and see if that works first, and then only make a big move if you need to. But so that small step might be talking to your employer and saying, Hey, look, I love it here. I like this job. I like you. But the reality is I don't feel like I'm playing to my strengths and that's actually holding me back. I'm not enjoying my life. And I think it's also holding me back in my career. What can we do about that right? Talk to your employer about how you can play to your strengths more, and maybe they can find a way for you to do that. You also might consider is there sufficient freedom in my role to be able to actually do it a different way? Right? Like, maybe you actually don't need to change your role, you just need to change how you're doing your job on a regular basis, and start playing to those strengths. And Mike, I want to actually make a note that I'm going to ask you to talk about that, because that's something I witnessed you do, you didn't change positions, but you completely changed how you operated, and started playing to your strengths a lot more. The last thing I would say, and hopefully, I'm a little frozen on my side, but hopefully, this is still coming through. The last thing I would say is, you know, worst case scenario, you may need to actually change your position, right, or change your job. So if that's the case, you actually need to do that, then, you know, make sure that you do that. And, you know, if you need some help with that, and career shifts, we can help you with that. But talk talk to somebody get some advice and look around at what could play to your strengths. But Mike, I'm gonna kick it to you, what do you how do you change how you do something in your job, instead of just changing your job entirely? And jumping ship? What do you see?

Mike Abramowitz 26:12
So really good question. And my immediate answer would be it depends. It depends on the industry. So you know, it's it's kind of a loaded question. It's like, if you're in if you're in a in a, like a job where you have a boss, and you're kind of restricted. It's actually interesting. I just had a conversation with someone today, who's works corporate inside of Cutco, who reached out to me to ask me a couple of questions. And as we were dissecting and you know, Jasmine, she's like, Yeah, I'm very limited on what I'm able to do. Like, I want to do everything you just said, but I'm limited, I can't do that stuff. So it's, you got to start with understanding what is in your control? And what what is not in your control? I will my advice was that I told her, I said, Use rpm. And that's a rapid planning method from Tony Robbins, which is results purpose in the massive action. So I said, What are the desired outcomes that you have? So if everything went perfectly, what would be the desired outcomes? And, you know, we kind of talked a little bit about what are those desired outcomes? And we made the list of the desired outcomes for okay, what are the desired outcomes for different functions? What are the desired outcomes for your department? Are the desired outcomes for your day to day? Cool? Why are those important to you? So why is that day to day important? Why would those outcomes be important for those departments? Why would those outcomes be important for the meeting? Cool, then the massive action, which is cool, let's put the strategy together. So how do we do that? What are the strategies that could be put in place for that meeting? What is the strategies that could be put in place for for my day to day? So I think starting with this starting, there could be an idea. And again, I don't know if I'm necessarily answering the questions, typically. But we got to know what we want. And we got to know why we want them before we can start putting strategies of like how to change?

Andrew Biggs 28:07
Sure. And maybe maybe I'll can ask the question a little bit differently, like, you are doing your job very differently than most people are doing your job it like, for instance, Austin, open village just commented and Facebook, I think you'd be able to Austin, he was at our Mexico retreat. You know, he says less energy on things that aren't your gifts, double triple down on on your genius space, right? Is what Austin said. And I think like, you're somebody who I witness do that. You're somebody who I saw do that. Even though it actually bucked the trend of how everyone else was doing it. So, you know, I don't know, is it just as simple as giving yourself permission to think differently? Is it you know? Being creative, is it? Is it having the balls, essentially, to, to place a bet on your strengths, even though everyone's telling you you're crazy? Because you're somebody who did that? And then immediately shots at number one, because you play to your strengths? I don't know. Yeah, we can we can sit through the answer here. I don't think we need to be super eloquent. But like, what what do you think? Well,

Mike Abramowitz 29:10
it might not be so so.

Andrew Biggs 29:13
No worries.

Mike Abramowitz 29:14
This is good. So which I remember specifically this is this is I mean, there's a certain pivot points, but I remember specifically March 2020, when COVID happen. And I had a call with you I was at a meeting with in Ocala with one of my branches. And I was on the phone with you. I said, Hey, I gotta take this call. I step outside, and I called you and I'm like, nothing, no buy into all the shit that's happening in the world right now. But like, I don't understand how I'm going to run the business. Like I don't get it like what are we going to do? Like, how is this going to work? And just from that moment of asking, like questions like that, how is this gonna work? I don't want to I don't know what everyone else is going to do. But I know I need to figure this shit out. Like I so I said, I know I need to figure this shit out. That was That was my epiphany in the moment. And I remember you just do just like giving me the space to vent. And I took the next I took like eight days I did an eight day Joe Dispenza meditation, immersion was five hours of debt, five hours a day of meditation and learning. So it's two hours of meditation, followed by one hour of learning, followed by two hours of meditation. It was a lot, it was pretty, it was pretty intense. So my first micro day it consumed me of that. And during that time of me taking a step back and just remembering, what is the question I'm here? Just what is the question I'm asking is, how can I do? How can I navigate through this uncertain times? How can I find certainty within the uncertainty? So again, I'm just kind of riff in here. But I remember going into my office, my laboratory, and just questioning everything. I question. Why do we do this? Why do we run these functions? Why do we? What is the outcome of this of this Wednesday meeting that we run? What is the outcome? Why do we do phone calls on a Wednesday night? And it's so it's so interesting, some of the answers. And you'll find this funny, I think you'll find this funny. Do you know why? Do you know why we make phone calls like our company vector marketing Cutco why they make phone calls every single Sunday night, Wednesday night and Thursday night? Where why? Why every office still does this?

Andrew Biggs 31:29
No, I mean, maybe more people are home at that time.

Mike Abramowitz 31:34
I don't know. Well, back in the day, everyone, it is right, everyone, more people are home. But back in the day, we needed people to be home because we were calling them on their landlines on their house phones. And also, that's when the top most watched TV nights of the week, right? They like Grey's Anatomy where it was on TV. The Oscars were on Sunday night

Andrew Biggs 31:55
friends was on Thursday night or whatever. Yeah, Seinfeld. Yeah.

Mike Abramowitz 32:00
So those are the most watched TV nights of the week. And that's when we can get a hold of you. Because that's when they're home at their houses on their home phone. So if your hasn't changed, got it yet. Our environment changed. So that was an example of a question. It's like, why do we do this? Well, that's not the truth anymore. That was the truth like a 10 years ago. So I started questioning and thinking about it differently and saying, how could we get the same outcome with a different approach? These are some of the things I was having I had a conversation with with Callie, she's she was at our March event, and she runs a department a sales department for a company, it's the same thing. questioning why do they do things the way they do? And just asking you that question aloud her real reveal a couple of answers. Again, I don't know. I'm just kind of riffing here.

Andrew Biggs 32:49
I don't even know. Yeah, well, that's a great point. I mean, you know, again, we like to get off the rails here sometimes that the better the rich that so for, you know, riffing on different topics. That's cool, I hope for you as an audience member, but I think it's like, you know, a there's still hot landlines, right. And be no one watches TV at the same time anymore. Because everything is like, you know, you're streaming to Netflix. Yeah, you're watching Netflix. My son was actually shocked that we were watching a show we happen to watch live TV because we weren't. We watched one show together, which is survivor. It's like my favorite show. Like I said, One day, I'm gonna be on it, we're gonna, I'm gonna win the million dollars. And so we watch that show together. And, and then he was shocked. He's like, Well, what's, you know, why don't we watch the next episode? And I'm like, There's no next episode. Like, this is like, it comes out once a week. He's like, he was just like, you didn't understand the concept that like, there's such a thing as live TV, and you can't just watch, you know, an entire season anyways. You know, like, the, the reality is, it's like, you're looking at what you're doing. And then you're asking, you know, is this the optimal way of doing things? And also, is this the optimal way for me? Right. And I think that's a really important, you know, flavor that hits on our topic here today, which is, you know, does this really play to my strengths? Or does this play to other people's strengths? And maybe, you know, maybe they shouldn't change anything, maybe it's perfect for them. But when I look at how I want to run my business, you know, I want to I want to run it differently. I want to play to my strengths and double down on what I'm great at so awesome. Well, hey,

Mike Abramowitz 34:24
it comes to knowing what those what not only what your strengths are, but what are the priorities what is important to you, because I did get to the chapter of my life where I said, I'm going to be married and what type of married man do I want to be and this is back 2016 When I proposed to Lindsay 2017 is like, I'm going to be a married man what type of married man do I want to be? And I witnessed my dad. You know, he's still to this day asleep to his cell phone. So like, Mike, I gotta call you back soon. Job calling me right so and by the way, only family calls me Michael just so y'all know. So that's the New Jersey Michael. He doesn't exist. Just anymore. He's He's. But anyway, I gotta go. So I didn't want that. So I'm like, Okay, what else don't I want, I don't want. I don't want to have to miss weekends, you know, I want to be available I want I want to have nights. I want to be able to wake up and start work when I choose, right? Like these are these are a couple of the ones that I had. So it's like, cool. If these are the ones that I have, these are my desires, how can I build out a business infrastructure and a system to allow me to accommodate these ones. Now it wasn't right away. It's not like snap my fingers tomorrow, this is what it was, but it was we started strategizing and putting things in place to make that happen.

Andrew Biggs 35:44
Right. And again, last thing I'll kind of say to this, hopefully you're getting that flavor from Mike. But it's if you own a business, and you know you're an entrepreneur, you have complete control, right? Sometimes that's a little scary, because you know, the income that you make is a direct reflection generally of, of your efforts, outputs, etc. And how well your strategies are working. But it also affords you the opportunity to do pretty much you know exactly what you want, when you want. And so if you're not enjoying your lifestyle as an entrepreneur, you just need to take a look in the mirror, you know, face the facts, you don't need to beat yourself up about it. But you do need to take the next steps to start making making that better. So well, hey, this has been fun bike. Anything else you want to leave the people with before we chat with them next week?

Mike Abramowitz 36:32
I'll say when you think about your desires, I would encourage you not to think about the Lamborghini and the private jet. And you know, all those, all of those, maybe those are desires of yours. But I wouldn't think about those I would think about like Andrew said, the lifestyle desires like, you know, what do you want to do on Saturday mornings, what do you want to do on Sunday evenings? Well, what is the type of freedom you would like to have one of the favorite things that you would like to have time for. And if you start with that in mind, I would assume that you're probably closer than you think. And there's a great book by Matthew Kelly called off balance. And he talks about this concept that we're a lot closer to the ideal than we think. But we just have to think differently on how to get there. It's not about finding balance in our life, it's actually about being off balance and being present with what's in front of us at that exact moment. It's easier said than done. But with the proper training and coaching, anyone can get there and the resources are all around you.

Andrew Biggs 37:28
It's a great reminder. And with that I am actually going to spend some time later today, walking around an art museum with my wife, I have time to coach baseball now with my son and take him to different practices and all these sorts of things. And so it's like when you think about how you want your life to look, organizing it in such a way where you can prioritize what really matters to you. You know, maybe I'd make more money if I didn't coach baseball, but you know, I think it's worth it right. And you know, we make a good living. So we're getting better every day. So that's that's how I like to approach it. And that's what being better than rich is all about. So we'll leave you with that. Go find your strengths, check out those links in the in the show notes. There's also links to follow us pretty much everywhere. You can follow somebody on the internet, we are everywhere. So check us out on YouTube, check us out on Instagram, join our Facebook group rate and review send us that screenshot we'll throw you into the contest. And check out CVI wealth dynamics and, and the Big Five personality test until next week, we will leave you to have a great week ahead and remember to leave today better than you found it. bye

Mike Abramowitz 38:42
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the show, please share it with others post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us. You can follow us on Instagram at better than underscore rich and join our Facebook group at the better than rich show. Thanks again for listening. We look forward to seeing you next time and remember, leave today better than you found it