[music] It's the Mind Mastery Podcast. I'm Cole Scott Tappel on the Doth Burn. It may be way up in the New Year when you're actually listening to this. It's good to say New Year to you. And really, a year that is looking to be a very different year. A lot of things are going to be quite different, I think. I think it's going to be a very exciting year with lots going on. It thought a lot happened in 2008. You ain't seen nothing yet as they say, right? Also, today, we don't always very rarely time stamp our podcast because the information is what I call Evergreen. It's stuff that works any time. However, today, by just an amazing coincidence, certainly we didn't deliberately plan this, it's a very, very important day. It's a holiday in the United States, and it's in honor of a man who had a huge influence on you in your early days. It's Martin Luther King Day, and Martin Luther King was my influence. He was the guy who actually influenced me. If not on being a speaker, but on certainly on the commitment to make a difference. I think we've touched my previous podcast, Walking In and Catching My Mum Crying, as it was announced that he had been shocked. Yes. Martin Luther King Day, for me, is a profound day. For me, this year, this particular Martin Luther King Day, of course, precedes the day of the inauguration of Obama. I think it's a particularly interesting day because I was listening last night to "I Have a Dream". I listened to that speech quite often, and it's profound for me. I just love that. That's me speaking with my vocal coach recently, who was telling me that everything up to that point was a very well-rehearsed speech that Martin Luther King had given four or five times. The "I Have a Dream" part was not. So was that the first time he did it? The first time he did it, and he did it unrehearsed, and it was speaking from his heart. The little black boys, and little black girls, and Jews, and Gentiles, and all that was just from his heart. Wow. And I was listening to that last night, and I thought, it's fascinating to me that what he talked about was this equality, which we have talked about in previous podcasts about the equality based on that we're all the same at an emotional level, or the psychological level, that we're spiritually the same. And the only difference is external, and internally we're the same. And he talks about this dream, and one birth of a dream in that a black man has become the President of the United States of America. He must be smiling. Well, yeah, I mean, for me, that is Martin Luther King's dream come true. It has buffed, you know, it's like the gestation period was 40 years. And when you think about it, in terms of all human history, right, 5,000 years or whatever, that's a pretty huge change in a very small period of time historically speaking. Well, dramatically, I mean, you know, back then, you know, the idea of having blacks and whites in the same watchroom was outrageous. Yeah, or on the same bus. Right, or on the same bus, or to be able to intermingles with next to each other on the bus. And now here is a man, a great man, a great charisma, who is fulfilling, in my mind at least, Martin Luther King's dream. You know, and I know that they're doing a lot of that comparison and all the rest of it. But I don't know, in my fantasy, Martin Luther King is shaking Obama's hand and saying, this is the fulfillment of a dream. Not for black men, not for white men, not for any, but for equality, for that all men are created equal. I don't know if you've seen the movie Milk with, what's his name? I haven't seen it, anyway, at least one of my favorite actors, but I'm having a bit of a brave father right now. Anyway, it ends the Washington. No, no. It's a recent movie and it's about a white guy in San Francisco who's gay who runs for office. Not Dustin, Sean Penn. Sean Penn, thank you. Sean Penn is a great actor. And there's a line in that movie where Sean Penn says, all men are created equal and nothing can erase that. And see, again, that's not black, it's not white, it's not gay, it's not straight, it's not female or male. It's that we're all created equal. And to me, the presidency going to a black man, a man of color, a man of other cultural background too, right? You know, because his father was from Africa, from Kenya, and he lived in Indonesia as a child. I mean, this is a man who got more going on than having grown up in a small mid-west town and never having a global experience. Right, right, he had a huge global experience. Huge global experience. So, for me, it's that fulfillment of that dream of equality. And I'm very inspired by that. I'm excited by that. What about you? How do you feel about this? Yeah, I'm thrilled, actually. To me, it's like, there's been the old, the old, the old, the old, and here is pretty dramatic new. And I think a lot of people have been very concerned about America, and certainly, you know, when you look at the exterior things, like the stock market and foreclosures, and the fighting in Iraq, and, you know, the saber rattling all over the place, you just wonder what would it take to change that, right? And I think, you know, a strong leader with a fresh direction, and everybody behind them, because I think the last few years, everyone's been kind of like coming to the same realization that we've got to change. We have to do something different. Well, I think that one of the things that's very interesting about it is that America was the country you wanted to live in. It was people all over the world who wanted to move to the United States, who wanted, it was the country to live in. Not only did it become the most powerful country, I mean, it is really a modern-day Rome, right, where all the outer lands wanted to come to this place. It was a place of great power, it was a place of great prosperity. And to go from that to this place that was frowned upon, there was, you know, some good deal of shame carried about what had been going on, and the growth of the country had been at the expense of many of things that we now hold valuable. Right. And it seems like Obama has, well, I know for sure, he's inherited a mess, because, you know, as you said, you know, foreclosures, recession, war, I don't care who you vote for, the fact of the matter is that's a mess. He's inherited that mess, and at the same time, he's going to try and lead the country in the direction. This guy's job is not going to be an easy one by any stroke of the imagination, but what I find fascinating is if you look at the cabinet he's putting together, we've seen who he's putting in there. Some of the people, yeah. Well, it was fascinating is not since Abraham Lincoln has anybody done what he's doing, and what he's doing is he's picking opponents. He's putting not just allies, not sycophantic people who are just going to tuck their balls and go, "Yes, sir." He's pulling people into his cabinet who don't agree with him. Hillary Clinton, her whole policy on foreign affairs is completely different than Obama's, and he's put it in that role. Right, right. And he's done that with several people, even Joe Biden, who is second in command. Many of his policies are opposing, and he said in his acceptance speech, "I welcome your arguments. I welcome that," because he's not willing to approach the presidency as a dictator. Right. And I find that not only refreshing, you find that bloody excision. Oh, just think of what that example sets on the international stage. Well, we didn't agree, but you know there aren't any tanks rolling tomorrow. Exactly. Because one of the great things you and I have talked about in these podcasts is one is enlightenment. You know, what is enlightenment? And we talked about how there's a million different explanations about what enlightenment is. And many of them are right, right? And many of them are right. And if in fact enlightenment is something, maybe it's the understanding that nobody has the exclusive on right. Right. And you know, nobody has the exclusive on that. And to be able to put a cabinet around you are people who don't necessarily agree with you and be willing to look at the best possible outcome, even if I don't agree with it, it still results in the best possible outcome. That takes a big man or woman. That takes a big person. And not an easy thing to do. It's not easy because we've all got egos, as we've talked about before. We've all got egos, and what I find fascinating about this guy is he seems to be willing to put his ego aside. He seems to be willing to embrace other people's ideas. Now, I know there are people out there who are very anti- Obama. It's not like he's got everybody's vote. But I love what he said in his acceptance speech. "There are those of you who voted for me, and I thank you. And those of you who are side by side to make sure that this happens, that we've got to this presidency to this place. And I thank you." And he said, "For those of you who did not vote for me, I will be your president too." Right? Oh, powerful words. It was an incredible speech. And to me, it's that same message of equality, that dream. It's "I have a dream." So for me, it's this wonderful fulfillment of that. And the coming together that I find fascinating, you know in my industry that I've been speaking for 24 years. And I've been kind of a long cowboy in a lot of ways, and I did a lot of stuff myself. And as you know, I teach most of my programs along. And I did everything myself for years and years and years. And that back in, let me think, back in 1980, in the end of 1988, so more than 20 years ago, and when I met with Tony Robbins, I think I told you this in one of the previous podcasts. I had a conversation with Tony, and I told him I was pissed off that he was more successful than I was. Tony was great about it. Don't worry about it. He was fabulous about it. And I really respect Tony. Tony said to me he was on your team, and I didn't know what that meant. I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, do you think I handed out the tickets? Do you think I set the chair? Do you think I set the..." You know, of course the answer was no. And he said, "I have a team." And it's that willingness to have a team who are working towards a common outcome, even if you don't agree. And it's not willingness to be bigger than your opinion, but as big as the vision. So you've met Valley, and where is my director of e-commerce, what does it achieve? Solutions officer. Which means he fixes people's methods, mostly mine, technical ones. And we were talking about this. There are some things about the way our business runs and what it is we do. Valley and I don't agree on. But we totally agree on the vision. And because we agree on the vision, we find a way to make it work. And that's what I find fascinating about what Obama's doing. You know, he's saying to people, "You have got this strength. Come on board." You may not agree with me, but I see a recognizable strength. And I don't agree with you, but I can honor and respect. And I think that's profound. And I think it's a profound lesson for all of us. Yeah, I totally agree. Because I've been in situations where leaders, particularly I'm thinking of a couple of businesses that I'm aware of, where the leaders, the presidents surround themselves with yes people who are dumber than they are. So they end up looking great in the meetings. And the company goes downhill really fast. Well, as you heard me say before, when you get to the place, and I know I got there back in the late 90s, where you realize you're the smartest person you know, that means you're pretty dumb. I was the smartest person I knew and it was a really great sign that I was behaving in a dumb way. That I needed to surround my people and knew more than I did in any given area. I have my specialty. But I don't know all the technical do, and I can study it and have, but it's better to put something, you know, it's one of the things that a psychology has developed, particularly business psychology. We used to have this whole thing around, you got to work on your weaknesses, blah, blah, blah. And really what we need to do is work on our strengths, build upon our strengths, and in a business for example, find the people who have strengths where our weaknesses are. Otherwise we end up surrounding ourselves with people just like us. And the biggest mistake a business person will ever make is hiring someone like them. You don't want to hire people like you, you just magnify your problems. But each other on the back can say it's not your fault. Whereas hiring somebody who has that strength where your weaknesses, I don't know anything about the technology behind a podcast, for instance. That's your strength. Scott Penn is the leading expert on podcasts. You want to do podcasts, this is the guide it's up to. He knows how to put it together. They fly him around the world so they can teach people how to do podcasts and become successful and become great using podcasts as a leverage point. Scott Penn is the leading guy. I'm going to take that little code out and put it on my website. You can do that. But that's what Scott Penn is. Now I can learn to do it, and a will as a matter of my overall knowledge, like osmosis. Exactly. But at the same time, it's not my number one focus. It doesn't need to be my number one focus. What needs for me to do is for me to find Scott Penn, the leading expert in podcasts, and say, "Hey, this isn't my strength, but it is yours. Let's do it together." That's what I'm seeing in the Obama cabinet is that each of those people have been picked for their strengths. Whether they agree with him or not is not relevant. It's that strength is how can we use this strength to not only rebuild the United States, but to rebuild, and interesting from a marketing position, rebrand the United States in the world. Because the brand is a pretty crappy brand of late. It's been tarnished. Right. It's been tarnished from the great American Empire to something where people are taking off their flags off their backpacks. That's not a good sign. And when somebody can step up and say, "Let's rebrand this and we will put ourselves on the line," and find the people who have the strength, that's it for me. As you're talking, you reminded me of a manager I worked for once who said, "If everyone in the store, and there was like 120 employees, it was like me. We'd have no problems." No, and I just, it was all I could do to keep my mouth shut because all I was thinking was, "All of my problems, you cause." Yeah, I don't have any problems if the messes you keep making that I have to clean up that you don't know about, right? But that's what I said. If you hire people like you, you only magnify your problems. That's right. But from an ego position, if you're running out of ego, then everybody else is wrong. It's the blame game. Yeah. And what you're talking about with Obama, too, I think is interesting on a personal level because if he is willing to sit down with people that he knows may never agree with him on certain points, right? And work through them and come out with what they all agree is maybe the best thing to do. Then what does that mean for us on a personal level? Right, when we run into people that totally disagree with what it is that we're doing. And I just think that opens up a whole area of communication, because good leaders lead by example. Exactly. As you pointed out, right? So I think on the macro level that's really exciting and I think what he's doing on a micro level that is one person and with one other person is also really, really exciting. We are on the brink of change. And actually in our next podcast, I want to talk about that, not just from a place of Obama, but I really see that we're on a brink of change. And I believe the next three years are about something very different, which we've not spoke about particularly in these podcasts before. And I've been speaking more privately with some of my students and some of my people I hold in ISD, and we've been discussing a lot of these things, and I really, I believe that we are on the brink of change. And I think the manifestation of an African American multicultural president is a manifestation of saying where we're really going. And the question will be, what will we do with that? Cool. So we're going to be answering that question on our next podcast. We are indeed. So stay tuned, everybody. Dav, if someone wants to know more about you and has the programs that you put out, where could they go? Yeah, please, if you want to know more about me and what it is that we do, please go to Baron, B-A-R-O-N, Mastery, M-A-S-T-E-R-Y.com. That's Baron Mastery One Wood. Baron Mastery.com, and now you can find out about all of our programs and workshops and seminars. Of course, you can also check out my blog, which is my name, Dav, D-O-V, Baron, B-A-R-O-N.com. And you can, of course, subscribe there and catch up on all of these things, and, in fact, these podcasts are actually right there as well. Cool. Well, thanks, Dav. And ladies, we'll see you all next week, everybody. Bye-bye. 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