A2 The Show
Public Speaking Secrets: Boost Your Skills with Mitch Carson | A2 THE SHOW #525
In our next episode of A2 THE SHOW, we are thrilled to welcome Mitch Carson, a seasoned mentor who has guided CEOs, speakers, authors, consultants, and coaches to amplify their messages and achieve their business goals on an international scale. Mitch's impressive career includes collaborating with high-profile clients and sharing stages with global leaders such as Sir Richard Branson, Donald Trump, and members of royal families from Malaysia, Bahrain, and Oman. Tune in as Mitch discusses the nuances of public speaking, cultural awareness, and the transformative power of strategic testimonials. 👉 Instagram: / mitchcarsonofficial 👉 Website: https://www.mitchcarson.com/ For more information, please visit our website: https://a2theshow.com/a2-the-show/
⏰Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction 05:21 - Pricing through testing 11:05 - Recovery from stage failures 15:02 - Success vs. failure in different cities 20:00 - Managing testimonials 25:00 - Boosting credibility with testimonials 30:55 - Lessons from a failed sales session 36:03 - Cultural awareness in public speaking 40:28 - Adjusting for translators 45:27 - Cold War impacts on cultural behavior 50:14 - Hitting rock bottom and seeking help 57:01 - Reflections on lifestyle and addiction
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- Broadcast on:
- 06 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
All right, guys. At the end of this episode, something crazy is going to happen. Stay tuned. I've been at this, uh, gosh, I'm going to admit it almost four decades. Actually a little bit longer than that. So I've traveled the world speaking 63 countries in total produced over 2000 events, kind of a deep, well, not kind of a deep media background. I have, I'm a talk show host here in Las Vegas, Nevada on channel three NBC is where I air my show where interview people under the label of amazing authorities. And one day I'm going to grow up and have my own podcast like you guys. And yeah, when I grow up, yes, see, I'm along with, I need facial hair and sunglasses to fit in. Yeah. So you got a pair of your own. You could either you could join us easily. Well, I understand. Do I grow in because I'd have to color it because I already do that. I don't want to look my my true age. Not that's a secret. I can't reveal on this show. Let's keep it very slim and quiet. Well, I and today I function largely as a publicist for speakers and authors who want to grow their particular brand and presence through guaranteed appearances on network television. Right. So I work with five networks here in Las Vegas in the English language. And there are a couple in the Spanish language. But we'll talk about that another day. I don't know if either of you is Hispanic. So we'll leave that out of the equation today. I'm not moving in. Okay. Where are you guys pulling in from Los Angeles right here? Okay, I grew up in L.A. I'm born and raised in L.A. I'm a product of Kaiser Hospital and my mother dropping me on my head. So that's that'll explain any aberrant behavior. So I. Yeah, I'm an SC guy. So there you go. Okay, cool. Yeah, I actually live by USC. Okay. Well, if you said UCLA, I'd have to hang up. We're on your safe side right here. I appreciate that. And my my mission is to having come out of retirement a few years back. I was bored mentally. And then I was invited to I was living over in Asia in Bangkok. And I was invited to come and speak at an event. This is 2016. And then I hit the ground running once again. And since then, I've shifted largely to focus on helping speakers gain international celebrity status by getting them on stages and foreign markets, getting them on TV and foreign markets, radio shows, podcasts are already global. That's a little bit of a cheat method, but it works. And people tend to, because I think their income is tied. This is my opinion. And I'm curious what you guys think. Our income, and I'm going to include myself in this, is tied to exactly how much we believe we deserve. Yep. And when people write a book, get covered on television, become multi guests on podcasts, whether it's big podcasts or small casts, their messaging gets clearer. They're able to articulate their messages. And when someone asks somebody, what do you do? They can answer in a direct manner. And because people don't want all the fluff, they want the direct. When I get people booked on TV because I have my own show, I want direct answers. I want to be left at home any ums, you knows, or that irritating San Fernando Valley, like, like that. You know, um, uh, yeah, um, well, no, yeah, um, they don't belong on television. They don't belong on interviews. Speak like an adult, act like an adult and you'll make adult money. Because when you tie, tie back the money part of this, because again, people will pay you what your, what they believe your perceived value is to them. And it's almost like when I'm asked the question, what's your definition of personal brand? I'll say it's what people say about you when you're not in the room or when you leave the room. That's PR. Yeah. That you, he, you know, you say dress for success, all these different things, and you can ask the fees that you want. But when you get the fees that you want, people believe that you are the value that you are putting out on the marketplace. Wow. It's matching that. There's a congruency between value and prices that you can charge. Okay. So how do you know the exact number? I mean, it's easy, you know, to have a range, but when you're at the exact number, this is, this is a sophisticated answer that I'm going to offer you. And I'm a product of a master's degree in business administration. I went through two years of additional schooling to learn this answer. It's a T word. You're ready? Test. You test. What are people willing to pay? And, you know, what your competition is charging? Well, it's also, you know, some components of that can be if you want to charge more, add more value. Sometimes value costs you more money. It could be time, energy, maybe affiliate deals that you're adding in, or it can be a stack of bonuses, however it is, but your value needs to be commensurate with your price. For the most part, you know, there are some stubborn customers who then want to become clients. And once they become clients, then they're hooked on you. But in the customer phase, they're buying based on value that they perceive you are worth, either your products or services. This is just my opinion of being in the market and traveling the world. You know, in some markets, people aren't ready to buy. It isn't because you didn't use the right tie down or closing technique, trial, close, or, you know, they didn't see the value in it. They just might not have the money or it's too, they're about ready to leave for a three month vacation and they can't buy your product. And I tell people, don't beat yourself up if you didn't sell everybody in the room. That's so true. You know, it's just, they could have, they, you know what, their cat could have died and they got to bury their cat next week. I was going to add to that something I learned recently on a serious note. I heard Alex Hermosa actually say something about you, you want to tailor yourself to a more, maybe like elite, upper echelon people because they will have more funds to give you. And although that you might want to work with people that have maybe less money, however, they don't have the money to give you, then it's not worth your time. What you have to do is being knee should level up and with a more exclusive deckman demographic so that you can reach the point where you can start reaching everyone, but you can't reach everyone. You can't, you can't help everyone. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And now Alex is a sharp guy. I've looked at him. He's got good points and what he shares and what he's describing based on what you shared in my estimation is find a starving crowd with money. They've got to want what you want. Why, you know, sell left-handed golf clubs to right-handed golfers? They're not going to buy it. But if you're speaking to a group of golf professionals who all happen to be left-handed and they can't use right-handed golf clubs, okay, you've solved that problem. Now it's your job to persuade them that your product is the best and it has the best value. So yeah, but the starving crowd with money is a formula. If people don't want it, all the sales tricks in the world, you know, the guys that claim that they are the best, no, they're just not ready for it. For three years, I sold products on live television on a channel called Home Shopping Network. You guys, this might be your parents' generation, not yours. I'm probably your parents' age. And we, I had an audience of 5 million people daily. And there are products that just don't fit the lady that is sitting home and I'm identifying the largest demographic that purchased. It wasn't no discrimination against men or, but it's the confirmation, the demographic was almost 90% female at home watching and we're there to laser focus on that credit card. Surgically extract the numbers so our numbers start spinning on the screen and live TV, live feedback. And I'm speaking straight into a camera, not knowing until Peggy calls in as our, I just love the product. I'm going to go back to eating bonbons now on the couch. And I just love it. I know it's going to be wonderful. So it's, some people aren't going to buy what you have. Move on. I wonder, I wonder if like those, those kind of like productions are a bit of a scam sometimes. I don't know if you know what I'm referring to because sometimes I, I get that, like for example, that first of all that popped in my head was when you're talking about like, yeah, Peggy calls in and she's like, Oh, I'd like that product. And so sometimes it's like part of a scam to get. Oh, are they shills? I think the word side is shills. And are they? Yeah, they're called chill. They are fake. They are paid testimonials. And if they get caught doing that, that's called the, that's called a an illegal action and the federal trade commission will come in with guys that are probably Mormon and serious and can't be bribed. These are people from Utah that have badges, right? And they're serious. Yeah, they're going to arrest you. We didn't, I will say in my time doing that, know all the testimonials were real. There's no way was way too big a business to. Now, are some of, are there frauds? Yes, there are frauds. I have seen, for example, in the speaking environment, I've made platform closer. That's what I did for my years on the platform. And when I was a traveling speaker, speaking two, three times a week, traveling, boom, boom, boom, airport to airport, bang, bang, bang, closing. Were there people who would have shills in the audience? Because here's what happens when you're selling to a crowd. People are hesitant. In those old days, they would run to the back of the room. It's none of this using the camera to take a picture of the QR code on the screen. That's where a lot of it is evolved to. That's certainly a way to do it. I'm not knocking the strategy, because that's how a lot of the younger people like to buy is using their thumbs. And I'll take money any way it comes. My generation, when I started out, it was a piece of paper that got handed out to you. You filled it out in your seat. And there was a scarcity component. The first 10 get an added level of bonuses to motivate people to move their ass. Run to the back of the room. First 10 move, do it now. That's how firm and direct we were. Do it now. Don't delay, or you're going to end up lying in the hay. Move. Get it. Fill it out. Move now. There are only 10 left. Now we're down to seven. Look, I look at the people in the back of the room. There are only four there. If you don't rush, you're going to miss out and you're going to stay exactly where you've already made in the quicksand of life. Move. Like a bit of a deep approach. When you were saying, don't get stuck in the quicksand of life. That's a very good analogy of how life is. Because if you just end up sitting around doing nothing, you're going to feel really shit about yourself. Yeah, if you do nothing. It's just a metaphor that I use, the quicksand of life. I just made that up right now. I've used others. You miss out on the bus of success. If you don't get on that bus, the opportunity is going to take you to the next station in life, and you're going to sit and look at the bus and the successful people take action because they recognize the opportunity. I recognize the opportunity to be on your show. I took action filled out the form, submitted it. My background obviously resonated with you guys. We're here today. I've made two new friends. You're going to continue to laugh at my jokes at friends I use well, anxiously and hopefully. But then there are people that just look at the bus and they wonder what the F happened. No wonder I'm making 50,000 a year for life. And I got a wife that's bopping the pool man. She's not content. And she's eyeball in the mailman now too. So how do you recover from bombing on stage like in front of an audience? Oh buddy. Yeah. Oh buddy. I feel you. I've bombed. I've bombed. Yeah. How do you recover? You pick yourself up. You take your lumps and you pick up and do better next time. You recognize your mistakes. And believe me, I've blanked before an example one time in Australia. This is going back 2007. I spoke at an event there in one event in Sydney. It was a perfect market starving crowd with money. They all wanted to enter the speaking business as professional speaker. So I sold a year long mentorship program for speakers and there were certain amount of done for you deliverables that were included a website. We create the content so they could really become an expert in their category. And I had an Australian partner on that particular day. I closed 640,000 in sales. It was very good day. Wow. Very good. Very good. And there was only a crowd of 115 people about 85 buying units. So I did very well as one of my probably the best total conversion in terms of attendees to dollars I've ever done Sydney, Australia. Yeah. Then, and that was actually when the Australian dollar was above the American. That's. Yeah, it was slightly above it. It wasn't even at parity. Now it's about 75 cents. But at that time was slightly higher. So I did very well that day. Then then I'm I'm celebrating. I'm happy. And I was I was super excited about Australian the opportunity. So then I got invited on the spot to go speak in Perth. This I did in Sydney. Perth is about a four and a half hour flight to Western Australia. So I flew there hung out for a few days because the event was the next weekend. And I spoke there at two events, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, Saturday I sold again. I did well, but it was a smaller group, only about 40 50 people. And I still did a six figure day. I don't remember the numbers. So I don't want to make it up. Then on Sunday, I spoke to a different crowd. They were not the right market for my offer. And I blanked. I felt like shit. How can I blank? I'm a world class speaker. I just made X amount of dollars with these two cities. And here I am to these people and they're yawning. They it was the wrong offer. You cannot sell left hand golf clubs to a right handed golf club audience. Even if they're Australian, they're Australian, right? Australia is different. A little different. Oh, it's not just even Australia. It's it was the wrong offer. The offer needs to match what they want and the market. It must match. Sayid, I'm going to ask you a question. What happened to you because you did this with emotion and I almost saw your eyes through your glasses almost is the what happened to you when you bombed. I spaced out, like you said, and I also felt like shit after. I just it happens to us. I got a spot for you right here, my man. But what was your offer? Who was your audience? I would look at diagnostically that. What were you pitching? You know, all the mechanics of what you said in your sale. I mean, there's so many elements that you would have to look at to diagnose. But if you were to look at it through clear glasses, not the ones you're wearing, what do you think you did where you bombed? Because it's usually a very blatant reason. And some days, yeah, you just use you may sock or they sock. I mean, it happens. 100%. I think what what I've been noticing about it is sometimes, depending on the customer, it can either be the way you say you talk about the products or the type of product itself. Okay, might be the offer. Now, did you use testimonials in the pitch? I always use testimonials either of my own personal experience or other customers. You got to use other customers. The optimal, of course, is using a live person in the audience who is in a show. You know, yeah, if you have somebody stand up and take the mic and talk for 30 seconds or less, key is 30 seconds or less, not to ramble because there are those mic hogs that will ramble and they'll tell you about their 13 cats and how cute they are and take people off the topic of converting for you. But a live testimon, you got to hold the mic. Don't let them hold it. Do not say you'll remember it. Don't let them hold it. Yank it. Yank it out of their hands. Yeah, it's like, Oh, thank you. You got your 30 seconds of fame. Yeah, don't let them touch it. It's you. You flip it handheld in their face that let them talk in a brief, briefly tell me how this product changed your life in 30 seconds or less. Set them up. You said 30 seconds or less because I've had my cogs. I'm not kidding. That pulled it from my mouth when I was, I learned no, this is mine. You're not, we're not getting into a struggle over the mic. It's my mic. My name is Mitch. Yeah, my name. It's my mic. My name is say no. And you pull it back. And after 30 seconds or you remove it, if they start rambling, you can't get them off the topic of what you're persuading people because they're on the fence. Do I buy? Do I not? Do I take out my camera and scan that QR code or not? Those are critical pieces. Testimonials make all the difference in the world. I came from an infomercial background where I sold products to people on live TV, which was a home shopping network. But also, I created those annoying product sales commercials that came up in the middle of the night when you're, when you're, when you're, you're maybe insomnia. And when you're experiencing sleeplessness and people would flip on their TVs, maybe your parents did it. You guys probably didn't, you go to your phones, but my, you know, my generation, we look, we turn on the TV, midnight TV and somebody selling stuff. Those people who are selling the ones that are remain on TV and sell, sell, sell, have testimonials. 70% of the commercials testimonials of grandma that's using this mop. I love the smart mop. It's so, I feel smarter because I use the smart mop. It saves time. It's more thorough. And thank you, Mitch, for supplying me the smart mop. And then it goes to Peggy. And Peggy says, I can smoke more cigarettes now that I use a smart mop. You know, I mean, whatever it is, I can eat more bottom parts. All these things that take away, it saves time, saves money. And I'm able to do what I enjoy watching more television and buying more stuff on home shopping network. All these things, you want to have the benefits tied to your product. And if someone can use that while you're presenting, your sales will be reliably positive. So that's the key. When you're selling stuff, keynote speakers, you can't, you don't have time for a testimonial. And generally, if you want to sell say from the state, most lucrative career in the world, you got to use testimonials. And the right ones. And vary the races, male, female, black, white, green people, get some Martians in there. You want? Okay. So we have a racist one, we're doing it. Yes, inclusive of everyone inclusive of Martians. They're very green. Hey, we're in this multi pronoun. Why not multi racial and color? Yeah, and species as well. Let's do it. Speaking about race, what? When it came to audiences, what kind of audiences really? Because you said you've been to 63 countries, yes, done performances in all of those countries. Which country resonated with you the most? The people the pot. Well, Australia was great. I have nothing but positive experience. They are very similar to Americans in buying patterns where we're both got discharged from the UK, you know, their convicts got sent to Australia. The religious fanatics got dispatched to America. In large part, that's how it started. So we are very similar. We come from European backgrounds. I'm going to say largely the UK. And then we started our own group here. And the rest is a history, which is another podcast topic. Australia was great. I did very well in the UK. As much as they may not like us for some reason, they should be grateful because of course, they'd be speaking German if it weren't for the Americans. That'll give me a lot of popularity. South Africans, although there's a currency issue, New Zealand was great. I really, I spent 13 years living in Asia. So I ran events between Japan all the way to Dubai, Singapore still is my most responsive market because Singapore, because it's a small country, only seeing 6 million people. Yet they have every bit the buying power of Americans. And they tend to respect our accomplishments because of the amount of gross domestic product is still the highest in the world. Now, we'll see what happens after the election in November. I don't think anything's possible. Anything's possible, guys. I don't know where we're going to go there, but we'll see. Who are you leaning towards to? Oh, I think America's great because this is my culture. And they understand what I say and get all the nuances of my humor. Australia. Oh, no, sorry. I meant vote for the elections. Who are you leaning towards? Oh gosh, I can't respond to that. I'm going to get it. I'm like trying to answer the question. I'll answer it this way. In truth, I'm a registered libertarian. I will even get limited government. There are pros and cons to both candidates. If I we do want to talk for another hour. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. We will correct the answer. The true answer. I mean, I got in trouble one guy wanted to fight me because I said I made a comment about one of the candidates and oh my god, he was passionate. I'm not getting into a fight over this. I said, I'm out. I'm not voting for either one of them. I'm a libertarian. And I had to explain what a libertarian was in our real life. Okay, just limited government. Yeah, limited government. That's essentially it. Give everyone their own space. Yeah, let's be a little more freewheel and come on. We're democratic. Are we really? Okay. So, have you ever done like open mics, like for a stand-up comedy or is it mostly like would you do the Toastmasters route and do public speaking stages? I'm curious how much of the stand-up comedy, because I know you joke a lot and a little bit overlaps and I'm sure there's a comment between stand-up comedians and public speakers. There are a lot. Now, I deliver content in a comedic way when I speak on stage. I typically and I don't recommend it for most people. That's an advanced strategy. And I've also fallen on my face. I'll tell you this, man. How do you recover? I'll give you an example where I failed miserably. I was speaking in Jakarta, Indonesia, okay, which is largely a Muslim country. And I was living in and I've spoken all throughout the Muslim world, except for Saudi Arabia. But I did many, many events in Dubai. Well, that audience is very mixed, even though the country itself is under an Islamic rule. So, I'm in Jakarta and I'm speaking, number one, I'm an American. Almost everybody, every man had a beard, like you Said. So, I knew I was in Jakarta, it reminded me. And I came out with the dumbest question and I knew I effed up immediately after I asked the question to a crowd or about 300 people in the audience. And if you haven't spoken in an Islamic country, there are protocols. Women sit on one side, men sit on the other. They don't intermingle when it's really strict. Like when I spoke in Malaysia, same thing. I dealt with that. Men were on one side, women are in the other, same in Oman, same when I spoke in Dubai, if they are Muslim in the room, if a lot of Europeans also live in Dubai, it's not so strict. But in Jakarta, when I was at this event, most of the people were Islamic practitioners. There are Christians there, but most were Islamic practitioners. So, I came out and I made a joke about, oh God, you know, I don't, I make sure I said, I will make sure I finish in time for prayer. I got that. So, that was my connection. So, I knew about the five times of prayering, praying day and respect to the tradition. And I meant it because you can't go into the prayer time in a truly Islamic country because they're going to walk out. Yeah, that's right. They're going to walk out. They walked out in in Malaysia. We broke for prayer. And we had to supply the area where they could go and pray and face Mecca and go at it. Yeah, same thing happened in in when I spoke throughout Pakistan. And I learned a lot. So, you need to understand the culture wherever you're speaking. Very, very important. Must understand the culture, respect the culture and admire it. But then I made a stupid mistake. I said, I'll get done by the prayer time. So, that was my connection being a Westerner who is not Muslim connected to the largely Muslim audience by saying, I'm going to respect your tradition. I'll get done before your prayer. I already knew that. I already knew I had to cut at a certain time so they could go and pray. For the people that chose to do that. So, I use that my knowledge to connect with them. But here's where I messed up, guys. I said, how many of you by show of hands have been divorced? No hands went up. You could have heard a pin drop in a crowd of 300. I screwed up. I realized, oh my word, I am not an America. No, in America, if you've been divorced, it's almost like a badge of honor. It's like, you know, part of the statistic. You know, I forgot what the example was that I was using in my presentation. But I remember the feeling, the searing knife that I wanted to put in my heart and die on the spot. Because the reaction that I read from everybody in the audience and nobody said a word and they just looked at me like you, stupid American. Don't you know our culture? And because in the Islamic culture, that would almost be shameful. It's not something that they would talk about. Correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah. And I messed up. So, Sayed, when you asked me, how do I recover from a blunder? What do you do? I didn't sell well that day. I messed up big time during that particular session. Because I knew and I still had an hour to go. I said this early on, I think my second session was about 90 minutes. It was pure pitch. It was a preview seminar to sell into more sessions. And this is, I did some contract work for an internet marketing company. On occasion, I would sub in and make it extra money just to be a promotional pitchman for other people's products sometimes. I said, okay, I'll come in and do this. And it was four events. They, you know, I flew to Jakarta. They arranged all that. And I did well the other three, but that particular session, I did four. I bombed. Didn't do well. They weren't happy. You know, joke that left them with a bad taste. It was a bad joke. The whole thing, the whole feeling, because you know, when you're connected, you know, when you're connected. I mean, in a similar mistake, a speaker friend of mine who might know, he has a tendency to go and touch people in the audience. Oh, no. Okay. You're a tough guy. Get ready. Get ready. My wife. Yeah. Hang on. Okay. Not just wives. He would go up and he would, he would touch man and say, you're so handsome and go like this to their hair. Okay. And now you can get away with that a little bit in America, but some guys are going to want to get up and punch you. Maybe. Yeah. Okay. Brace yourselves. He was doing this in Malaysia. And he touched a woman's head. Oh my God. Oh my God. Muslim woman. That's so bad. Not even bad. It's terrible. It's almost, you can't recover from that. Yeah. I don't like any sales that day. That dude, I don't know. Is it even possible to live? If you if you did that in Saudi Arabia, you'd find up that you'd find you find yourself dead. They would you would be done. I mean, there there is a guy. Yeah. There's an Australian speaker who was in Dubai once. Speaking. And I I knew him from he spoke on my stages in Australia. I wouldn't want to mention his name. Very well known guy. New York Times best-selling author was in Dubai. And he talked about body language. And he mentioned to the crowd of people, if you have facial hair, you can't be trusted. What the fuck? Now, if you if you say that to a crowd of men, where most of them have facial hair, and their first name is most possibly either Abdul or Muhammad, you're in deep shit, man. Well, here's how they responded in Dubai. They have something called the religious police. They're separate from the patrol people that go around. Okay, they're the religious piece. They follow Sharia law. This is no joke. They came in people they weren't necessarily in the audience, but somebody called them. They came in, pulled him off the stage, took him in the back and clubbed him to shit. Beat the crap out of him and took him by. I mean, dragged him through him in the car and dumped him at the airport. You're never coming back to Dubai. You are no joking. He was a very famous speaker. Oh, wow. Yeah. And he screwed up. He screwed up. He can't knock up. I mean, whether it's true or not, is irrelevant. Right. You don't respect your audience. Yeah. And that that goes against the core beliefs, because you know, the prophet Muhammad had a beard. And that's still carried on for centuries after he left the earth. But that presence, I think that's why a lot of Islamic practitioners have a beard because it's culture. And it's also probably honoring their profit. Am I right or wrong? No, no, that's very true. And this, this, like, begets the question of is cultural awareness of a key factor in a public speaker's arsenal of tools, basically? Should be or you're gonna shit on yourself. Yeah. I mean, and is this is this something that's lacking in like, can be on the international side. The answer is domestically. Okay, the United States, where do you guys live? What city are you in Los Angeles? That's right. You're both in LA. Okay. That's right. You're in the UK. Okay. You can answer better a little bit there, but you're in LA. I know LA like, I mean, that's where I live most of my life. Yeah. In LA, there's so many cultures involved. You got to be somewhat careful. You can't make any Mexican jokes, because half the audience is gonna be Hispanic. Okay. In the UK, you've got, now it's such a melting pot of Brits. I mean, you've got Pakistanis, you've got, you've got Indians, you've got native or British, you know, you've got everything there. You've got Eastern Europeans living there, Russians, all of that. So you have to be careful what you say. I've spoken in the UK several times. And I would make it a self-effacing joke about being American to connect with the audience. The very first time, here's a cultural answer. So I asked that question, or was it, I don't know, when I was in Australia the first time, the promoter over there, a guy named Mal Emery asked me, Mitch, how are you going to get over the bias they have? I said, what bias? Well, they don't like you mate. I said, well, I'm not looking to mate them. He says, no, I'm being serious mate. And said, what? He said, you're American, and they don't like your politics. And George Bush was in office back then. So what I said, in order to connect before I began my presentation, he did my intro, I took the stage, took my mic, and I said, guys, before I begin today, let me get rid of one possible question. All of you might be asking, I did not vote for George Bush. I got a standing ovation before I even presented. I then closed like crazy that day. I had a banner day, a long queue of people waiting to buy my stuff, simply because I took, I dressed the elephant in the room, me being an American, in a country where they were hating our politics, because during George Bush's reign, as an ally to the Americas, or the American people, the Australian military had to go and support us. People hated that. Why are they sending these nice Australians over there who just want to jump around with kangaroos over to fight a war that makes no sense. And there were no weapons. And you know, we know the history. So that was all BS. But that's how I took, I used a cultural difference to my advantage. Totally connecting with the audience. So when you do a joke like that, you get a response of laughter. What other kinds of responses are you looking for from a crowd? When you head nodding, head nodding, asking trial questions of, is this making sense to you so far? Yes. Right. Raise your hand. If you can see yourself implementing the strategies I've just shared with you over the last 15 minutes. These are pre closing techniques, trial closes to make sure they're with me. Because if all the hands don't go up, I know that I haven't connected properly. It's a way of using my thumb on their pulse to see if they're alive. And it also creates audience involvement by raising their hand. And it's important, even, you also have to be aware when you're being translated. The first time I spoke in Japan, I learned some techniques over there. When I'm working with translation, where they're wearing earbuds, because there are translators in a booth that are telling or translating what I'm saying, you can't say, if this makes sense, raise your hand. You've got to reverse the order. Raise your hand if this makes sense. So they're raising their hand. And then my content follows. Because there's a delay. Okay. Do you follow? They have to be, they have to be okay with the pause. You got to prep them. You got to prep them. So instead of, okay, Syed, does this make sense? And then you're going to raise your hand in, in following or, or Syed, raise your hand. Does this make sense? Raising my hands? Yeah. Raising my hand makes sense. Yeah. Makes, makes sense. If this made sense to you. So I'm asking you to raise your hand in advance so it, it, it's timed. It's sinking with my presentation and speaking. See, I want the, the hand raise. You got to be aware that there's a delay. I see. Okay. There's a delay going through a translation booth of the translators that are working there very hard. They're taking in what you've just said in English. And then, and then Yoshi heard you. And then he responds. Yeah. And in that country man, they are so disciplined. They queue up properly. There's no that none of this mob stuff. You go over to China, which is just a stone's throw away. Totally different culture. Wow. Totally different. I mean, as night and day, we think there's differences coming from LA versus London. Oh my gosh. Nothing like the difference between China and Japan. You want to tell us a little bit about it? Between China and Japan? Yeah, I'm curious. Even the Singaporeans who are Chinese descent largely comment about China, which is a massive country, you know, China and India, the two largest. Yeah, totally. 1.4 1.5 billion. I think, you know, and they're, they're still actively having intercourse. So who knows what's by the end of this call, we could have many more. Okay. But in China, they don't queue. They just mob rush. India, they mob rush. They don't queue. Very similar, like to get on a boss or push, man. They just go. Japanese are quite orderly. And Q. Yeah. Yeah. And Japanese don't scream Chinese do. And now there are reasons possibly why and why not it might be the language or just how they communicate. I don't know either language to explain that. I do know that culturally, Japanese are very respectful. At least outwardly. Yeah, very respectful. I've done about 17 events in Japan. So I know from experience, I've spoken in to a Chinese audience multiple times in Malaysia. They're also very respectful. They're very closely aligned to the Singapore culture. But when I was, I attended a Tony Robbins event in Singapore, there were about 13,000 people at this. At the end of the event, we're all waiting in the taxi line. The queue is long. Singaporeans are orderly. There were very few Americans, but a few of us were there. Mostly my friends, I was living in Asia. I was living in Thailand. So I was with the ties and we're standing in line. Then the mob of 3,000 Chinese come walking out from China. Mainland China people came over to attend Tony Robbins's event. And I wanted to see the biggest speaker in the world at the time, see how he ran things. I don't know him personally, but I know everybody knows who he is and wanted to watch his event. They come out, the Chinese come out, and they just cut the entire line. They don't respect the queue. The Singaporeans went crazy. They started screaming at them, "You, this is not F in China." And they pretended like they didn't understand and the operative word is pretended. They knew what they were doing. They tried to impose their values on a Singaporean audience. And they started speaking in Chinese, and then of course I was left in the dark. I don't know what they were saying. They went back and forth, but you couldn't stop them. It's a different culture there. I think the way it was explained to me was they come from a communist background, and they don't know if their food is going to be there tomorrow. Even though they're a wealthier country today, they still react based on the indoctrination of the communist system. That's so cool. So they're conditioned to agree. Yeah, exactly. So I think they'll behave in groups also. And they didn't travel. The borders were closed for so many decades during the Cold War that they were insular. This is how they behaved. And once the borders opened up and they started extending into the international markets, they're nice people. There's nothing wrong with them as a race. I'm not making a discriminatory comment. I'm observing and understanding the why. And yeah, and if you come from that type of upbringing, there may not be bread tomorrow in their parents' generation or grandparents' generation under Chairman Mao going back. It's like they were starving maybe. And how are we going to? You got to rush and get it now. That happens also with some people that come from Cuba. When they come to America, they're very different than the Cubans that have been the US for decades that might have left in the '60s versus the newest batch today that come over. Their behavior, they haven't assimilated into American culture yet. It takes a generation in many cases. And what you're describing is more like individualism versus more collectivism and working together, which is queuing versus rushing for yourself. It's always interesting to reflect and to look at how different cultures have that upbringing. Because here in the US, we're very individualistic. I think trying to make set goals for yourself and achieve those goals. That's what you did. There's different drives that people have. I was curious to ask you, Mitch, before we continue about what was your drive to get into the work you're in when you were younger, because from what I understand, when you were 22, you were set up, you had a lot of, you were given some money. And so you already had money earlier on. Yeah. The story is my parents died when I was 22, back to back, five weeks apart. I was an only child. I got left some money and I went living in LA. I don't have the rags to riches story. I have the riches to rags story. I grew up in Beverly Hills and went to grade school all the way through high school. My university was University of Southern California. While I was at SC, my parents died bang, bang. And I then went, I was in complete emotional shock. I was very close to both of them. And the best way I can describe it is I felt abandoned and alone. Because my entire world, I had friends, not saying I was socially retarded. And I had no friends. No, I was social, had friends. And certainly, when I got left all this money, I had many, many girls that wanted to be with me because I'm the guy I drove a Porsche. And I had the bag of dope. And I had, and I used to be good looking. It's hard to manage and imagine now, 41 years ago. Yeah, I was, I was handsome. At least I thought I was. And certainly, when you got loaded, I really felt handsome. And I went on us on a absolute sex drugs and rock and roll. Crazy downward spiral until I landed with no money. Literally, that's why I say I went from riches to rags. And then realized, Oh shit, I'm about to die. I was 150 pounds. Instead of as I am today, 220, which is probably a little bit pudgy. So I should have, I lost, I was 50 pounds thinner than I should have been. My normal weight is like around 200. And I had a bleeding nose, a wheeze from smoking, a free base cocaine, which is before crack. And I was devastated. Emotionally, I hadn't cried yet based on the loss of my parents. And then I realized I just started weeping and cried uncontrollably realizing, Oh shit, I've burned through everything. I owe the drug man a lot of money. And my cars, I did, I had the, I had three cars and I was down to a Volkswagen with no bumper and an expired license registration. And my license had already been suspended because I got nine speeding tickets in my Porsche. So my license had already been suspended. And I was driving this beat up VW and realized my life has gone to shit. And I better turn around or I'm going to die. So I sought help. And the rest is a positive history, not an easy one, but a difficult one. I went through a lot of rebuilding for three years. It took me to pay off my debt that I owed various people to where I came out of that doom and gloom to where there were some light at the end of the tunnel, the proverbial tunnel that we were agreed to or were speak about. And I started speaking about my recovery publicly in meetings of narcotics, anonymous, alcoholics, anonymous, which was my vehicle to recovery. And there are many paths. Some people find church, God, religion, whatever works for the individual, I say. This was my path. And after about three years, I'm out of debt, had started a business and was doing well. And I got asked to start speaking at more and more meetings. Somebody in the audience approached me and said, you're a good speaker. And what do you do professionally? And I shared in my own and that small boutique advertising agency focusing on direct mail was my expertise at that point. Would you like to come and speak in Seattle? So I flew out of Burbank airport up to Seattle, first class on Alaska Airlines, he booked this ticket for a business class, which I'd never flown before. Put me up in a hotel, I spoke for 45 minutes at a lunch and learn in a very nice hotel on the top floor overlooking all of Seattle, which is beautiful when it's clear. And I spoke to this audience and sold $65,000. So I got paid 500 bucks, sold $65,000 and realized, oh my gosh, instead of selling one to one, I've just sold one to many. And the whole world opened up to me. And because it was public speaking, prior to entering the program of recovery, I had never spoken. I was actually the idea of speaking petrified me, terrified me, scared me to the bone. And I sucked in the beginning until I became better and more comfortable, and I worked through the pain. You got to work through the pain in order to get to the pleasure. You got to work through the discomfort. You know, I compare this, I mean, I happened to have a deep martial arts background as part of my, that was my chosen sport. And in order to arrive at black belt, you break a lot of fingers, get a lot of bruises. I'm a six degree black belt in Taekwondo. And believe me, I earned it. I blocked with my face a lot. That's why I'm not good looking anymore. But you go through a lot of pain to get to higher levels. It's just part of the process. Any elite athlete will tell you, they've got broken bones, bruises, this, that sprains. You deal with it. That's my metaphor of the sports component. Same in life. I don't know too many people who've had a straight line, even Elon Musk, who seems to have the Midas touch and, you know, the gold finger. He's had his ups and downs. You know, yeah, that's true. He's had his ups and downs. For sure. Yeah, I, Jeff Bezos has had his experiences with, with failure. All these guys, Mark Zuckerberg, he went through his, his stuff, Bill Gates, all of them have endured and pushed through the pain to, to get the reward. And I think what makes the difference between successful people and unsuccessful is successful people work through the pain and don't stop. They don't stop. You got to take a few punches to the face, you know, metaphorically. And in order to, yeah, well, yeah, you've got to get through that, that pain and, and the fear associated with the pain. And I like the acronym of fear of face, everything and rise, face everything and rise through it. Get through the pain that has come for go through your own mental bootcamp to where then you're, can wear a clean press uniform, less like you do when you go through the military, regardless of the country or background, got to press through that pain. And I think the strong endure, whatever it is. When I spoke in the beginning, I wasn't good, Said, but I had so many blunders. I only shared a couple. I mean, beyond the cultural stuff. I've, I've not, I was not good in the beginning. I was not. It took time and a lot of acceptance and discomfort, shame, fear, and bad results. People said, you ought, you ought to give it up. I'm not giving it up. I didn't give up. I endured. I pushed through the pain. I knew because of my martial arts background having six broken noses and getting punched a lot, getting kicked a lot, getting hurt, the reward of the, I was a sports, I was a sport fighter. I didn't do it for street or any of that. I competed at it. That was my chosen sport to compete professionally amateur than pro. I got injured a lot. Today, I've had 17 orthopedic surgeries. I could show you all my zippers on my body. Was it worth it? Absolutely. It's my background. I've learned many lessons because of the pain I've gone through, not too many successful people will say that they've had a pain free life that I know. Yeah. I mean, we've all endured. You guys have parents. I mean, they went through what they went through in order to raise you and we did what we did and the people that, you know, the worst thing you can do for a kid is given that I grew up in Beverly Hills, I was around a lot of these trust fund kids. The worst thing a parent can do is hand money to an inexperienced kid that's under 30 and say, here, here's $10 million, here's whatever, they're just going to spend it. I was 22 and emotionally bankrupt. And all I wanted was women, you know, and everything else they went through went with it. And guess what? When the money went, where do you think the women went? Gone, gone. I was no longer handsome. Yeah. And if you're broke, you're not handsome. We know that is men. If you're broke, you get no women. So when you look back at that time period when you were in your 20s and you had this massive amount of money out of nowhere and you were and the way you were spending it compared to how you would spend it now. How do you see it now? Like, what exactly were you trying to do when you were living that lifestyle? 22, all I wanted was a way to deal with the pain I was in. And I anesthetized myself through cocaine, liquor, pills, and, you know, the e-sister, sleazy and easy. I wanted all of them. And it was endless. And I mean, no disrespect to women, but there's a square peg for every round peg, for every round hole. And I was there to find someone that matched me. You find your natural level where you're at life. You know, who you hang around. So I hung around women and girls, young girls, everybody was over age. I never went under age. I had enough awareness to never do that. I was around young women who loved the party until I stopped partying and then they disappeared. They were gone. Gone in an instant. Quality women that they were. It's not a sustainable lifestyle, right? No, because I burned out, man. I was burned out. Almost died. I had overdoses. And I mean, I was, it was terrible. But it got me to where I am today. I had to endure that pain in order to come to the pleasure point of living life without being wasted, drunk. And, you know, and I was, I was, I could never drink just three glasses of wine, like normal people. There was bottles of it. I can't have one screwdriver. Give me 15 of them. Wasn't one Kamikaze. Give me the whole slew of them or one after the other. That's the way I drink. I can't have any of it because I know my tendency. It's my kryptonite. Yeah. I can't do it. A friend of mine was telling me that his ex-girlfriend was the type of person who would party and do cocaine on the weekends and then somehow just fully functioned throughout the week. And like also work out. And as if it was, you know, a regular, a regular hobby to do, you know, just like have cocaine on the weekend and just like function throughout the day. And she kind of roped him into it. But then after, then eventually he got an awakening is like, this is not for me. And he broke up with her and got away from that. So I'm just like, like thinking about that. I was telling him the exact same thing you were telling me that it's not sustainable. It's not you eventually are going to burn out. It's not a healthy habit to have in your life because in the end, even if it's working right now, you are a human being. And this is a chemical that is not supposed to stay in your body. You're not supposed to constantly be taking it over a period of time. It's not like a type of medication that cures you. It's something short term that you constantly do. And at the same time has a long term side effect. Well, if you can even make it to long term next week, I'm going to turn 64. I was 23 when I decided to get clean up my life. Guys, there's no, you know, what somebody told me early on in one of the meetings, what are you going to do? Sit in your rocking chair and free base cocaine? You don't make it that long. You don't make it that long. You're going to die. Can you imagine grandpa smoking, you know, meth or what have you, is this not going to happen? You don't make it to that point. Rocking chair and would you want your son, if you're who is your grandpa holding your baby while he's rocking back and forth, smoking a doobie and then free base. Oh my God. You know what I'm saying? It's just a bad visual. Yeah, exactly. And he's not going to live that long. I mean, alcohol has a slower burn rate in many cases. You know, they can sometimes can live longer, but somebody that does drugs, you don't see a guy with a white beard and a big belly that's, you know, that's free basing. Oh, look at me and I'll tell you from the days of the 40s. No, he's gone. He's dead already. The people that I used with, most of which who stayed in it, they're long, long dead, like decades ago. So he chose, he chose life over death. Correct. Precisely. Perfectly stated. I chose to live versus die. And I was on the path, the destruction. It's, you know, amazing hearing this story because you know, when I have friends my age or younger older that are going through some difficult periods. Sure. It's like, okay, well, will they have a second chance? Will they have a way to get at it? But hearing your story makes it, we feel more hopeful that people do recover and can get better and can reflect and make better choices. And I don't know. It's a disease of the mind, my friend. And it's the only disease that is self diagnosed. It's the only disease that is self diagnosed. We go to the doctor to find out, you know, that we have, you know, hardening of the arteries, we have chest to this or diabetes or what have you, that's very objective. But if your life is crashing and gone to shit and you don't do anything about it, you're doomed. And you know, people can love you and support you. But you've got to make that choice. I made that choice. I fortunately did have friends around me who said, Mitch, you're screwing up, you're going to die. And after you hear that several times, in some cases, if you're lucky, you'll hear it and make a change. Many do not. It's unfair. Many die prematurely way before their natural death should have happened. And it's because they abuse themselves. They couldn't get out of that, that, that downward spiral. And it's tough, man. Some people will get it more than likely, if you have several friends that are in that one or two will die. That's the reality. It happens because sometimes it takes that to shock people into, oh, man, that could be me. Because we live through the experiences of others that we see, usually the ones closest to us, that will give us an example of what either to do or not to do. In that case, it's the ones not to do. And then we aspire towards the people who have something that we may want or dream about, follow their path to success, do what they've done in order to replicate their successful steps and avoid the ones that aren't. It's, it's a bit simple, isn't it? Yeah, it's a bit sad though that it takes, you know, you literally fearing your own life and near death or seeing the death or, you know, injury, if someone around you for you to wake up, you know, I wish there was an easier way for people to take that leap of faith. That's not that extreme because more people would do it. You know, change very true. Well, into the new unknown. Yep. Well, this has been an interesting call today. It didn't go where I expected it. It went where it was needed. Yep, saying. Ali, we've learned quite a lot today, haven't we? We've learned how to recover from a bombing in a performance to a bombing in life, how to recover from both, learn how to improve our public speaking skills, what to be aware of, and also not to mock people with beards. Oh, no, I won't do it, buddy. I have many Muslim friends. I won't pick on you. Yeah. Why would I? You know, we're all just people at the end of the day. Exactly. We have to deal with people at the end of each other and we got to respect our differences so we can be together. And I have friends of all faiths. I lived in Thailand for many years and most of which is a Buddhist country and they're a peaceful people. It's very cool which you can learn from Buddhists as well. And any what I've learned most from speaking all over the world is we're very similar and dissimilar at the same time. But at the bottom line, we all just want to have a tranquil life, a good life, and have a family around us that supports us that we love because that L word is powerful. However, it comes through in all forms based on cultural ways that influence it. But I'm, I would say I'm happy today. And if I were to look back on my life when I realize I'm probably in the final run of it, I have something to put on my tombstone today. Because had I died when I could have at the age of 22, because where I was taking myself, it would have just said Mitch Carson, birth of 1960 through 1983, which where I, you know, at that time, and there was no content today, my tombstone is filled with accomplishments. And people I've been able to help and be with that have supported me and that I've supported them. I've been able to live a full existence. I'm not saying I'm dying next week because I'm not, I'm in need some help. I just have something to add today. And when you get to a certain level, it's my privilege to be able to share with younger people such as you guys and anybody else in your audience what I've learned and hopefully some of it will resonate. And if it doesn't, go back and listen to it later, because you can learn something from the from the older people who've experienced a life of before and after, or that that continuum of our journey, because it is a journey before you know it. So over I can remember when I was young like you guys, just like yesterday. And then all of a sudden it wake up. Oh shit, I'm looking in the mirror. I'm gonna be 64 next week. What the heck happened? It happens, man. That's amazing. Again, life fixed insight, Mitch. Thank you for sharing that. Where can people contact you or get in touch with you? Mitch Carson calm is my main site. And that's where you got to get a snapshot of my background. And you know, if you want if you're looking to do business, if you want to get on TV, here's my little pitch. And it's not part of the it was it was a pleasure guys for me to just share and get to know you seriously. Yeah. If they're interested in getting on network television or having more publicity, if they're authors or speakers, they can reach out to me at get interviewed guaranteed.com forward slash meet with Mitch, make an appointment. Happy to sit and talk to anybody one on one to see if media makes sense for your background. My market is largely limited to speakers, authors and CEOs. If you're an employee of a corporation, probably not a good fit for what I offer for my business. If you have a problem with drugs and alcohol, my my phone is always open. Please reach out to me like I was going to offer. Ali, if you have friends who are struggling with that, I'll give you my number. I do that for free. That comes from my heart. I'm always privileged to help somebody that suffers from that addiction issue. And that's what I give freely. In order to defeat myself, I have my publicity business. But if there's anybody reach out to me and I mean that with all seriousness, that is where my heart exists. I go to meetings every day so I can speak and help newer people that are struggling with that problem. That's very kind to be Mitch. Thank you for watching another episode of A to the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. Subscribe Mitch just to let you know this is how we end the podcast. We salute and then cover the camera. If you want, you can join us guys. Peace. - Peace. out.