ManTalks – School of Greatness
Date: April 9, 2016
Name: ManTalks – School of Greatness
Presenters: Connor Beaton, Ryan Holmes, and Lewis Howes
All leaders have their own definition of the word “Greatness” in their life journey. Moreover, leaders who are able to live a life of greatness are the true visionaries everyone should look upon. ManTalks invites Connor Beaton, the Founder of ManTalks, Ryan Holmes, the Founder of Hootsuite, and Lewis Howes, the lifestyle entrepreneur and the author of “The School of Greatness”, to share their experiences and challenges that lead to their life of greatness. The presentation is hosted by Riaz Meghji. In this presentation, leaders will learn the value of different perspectives. All presenters will inspire leaders with their stories. In addition, this presentation is for leaders who are on their ways to search for their life purpose and legacy they wish to leave this world with.
The story of Connor Beaton
Connor Beaton mentions the idea behind ManTalks is to create a space for positive masculinity. It focuses on creating quality of personal life. Based on statistic, the suicide rate for men over 45 years has increased over 60%. This means men are 4 times more likely to suicide. Another statistic Beaton mentions is that 50% of men do not have a true best friend in their lives. ManTalks is a place for men to have great conversation.
Many people think greatness is a checklist. They believe by completing the checklist, they will be able to lead extraordinary life. However, Beaton disagrees. In order to achieve greatness, people need to know who they want to be first.
“If you want a great life, it is not what you get, it is what you give”
People need to ignite their passion and give freely to the world. Everyone has the gift of seeing what people want. For example, Richard Branson has provided a great working environment for his team. One day, one of his VP decided to leave. The reason of leaving was to give more to the world. Richard Branson understood the reason and created “Virgin Unite Charity Foundation” to give back to the world.
“Start thinking about giving, it is a purpose”
It is important for people to figure out their life purpose. Purpose can lead people to the right direction. Purpose can understand the inner self and the purpose can fuel people’s lives. Beaton shares his past. Before he got accepted in University of British Columbia, he was lost. He felt there was no meaning in life. Drinking and motorcycling were his form of escape of reality.
He got himself into street racing. It was illegal, but every time when he accelerated, he was able to unleash himself away from his life. He was living in this lifestyle day by day. When he realized he was about to leave everything behind, his body was torn.
Beaton remembers a day that changed everything. He was street racing in a pouring raining. When he was accelerating, he got hit by a jeep. Everything started to slow down and he saw the fear in the driver’s eyes. The bike slid and had a road rash. He got injured and unconscious. When he woke up, he popped back his shoulder. He stopped. He realized he was terrified in new chapter of life. Now he survived and he began to realize he is here for something. He continued to follow the passion and continued to move forward.
“We have deep scar inside, but we choose not to let others to know”
Beaton believes passion and purpose go hand in hand. Passion and purpose are the steps to greatness. Many people have the fear of not being good enough. There are 3 types of fear: lose, process and outcome. For leaders, the biggest fear is outcome. They are afraid the outcome is not what they expect to be. Beaton illustrates another example. When Jim Carrey was 15, he already had standup session, but he got bombed. He continued his passion and wrote a cheque for himself that he would cash this cheque one day. He never gave up on pursuing his passion. Finally, he was able to cash that cheque. However, he is now pursing money. He lost his original passion and afraid to lose what he had built.
Beaton shares during one of the mastermind session, he spoke to a person who worked with kids. This person shared with Beaton his map to change his life. Beaton asked him what is stopping him. He replied that he does not have the right tool. Reality is, he did not believe in himself the map will lead to what he wanted. Leaders need a compass. Compass is their guts. When they are off course, they need a compass to get back on track. Wisdom is different than knowledge. Leaders might have the knowledge, but wisdom takes them to success.
“Success without fulfillment is failure”
Beaton believes busyness is a choice. Busyness is a sign of success in society, but it is also an excuse. Leaders can commit to their excuses or they can commit to their dreams; however, they cannot commit to both. People do not judge what leaders say, yet they judge them by action. Talents can lead leaders to a destination, but determination can lead leaders to the end.
Beaton wants leaders to protect their most important asset, which is their health. Researchers conducted an experiment on a group of Navy Seals Snippers. With 8 hours of sleep, they maintained good accuracy. When researchers reduced their hours of sleep to 5 hours, their accuracy decreased. Researchers noticed they have 0.01 blood alcohol level when they have less than 5 hours of sleep.
To achieve greatness, people need to let go something, especially their wired belief. Beaton considers this as the art of letting go. Leaders are often have “sunk cost bias”, which means they tend to hold on something because they have it. Leaders associate more on things they already have. It is important to know that leaders can measure what they lost, but they cannot measure what they gain. Leaders need to build their tribe by letting go people who are weighting them down. Beaton indicates greatness might not able to have all the right answers in life, but it can have all the right questions in life.
Questions and Answers
Beaton believes the best way for leaders to build their tribe is to present their vision of way to the society. Building the community was a breakthrough moment for Beaton. It is like a “hockey stick moment”, where things can exponentially increases. The most important thing is to deliver the right message to the community.
Beaton notices sometime leaders will fail because they think too much. They need to be conscious on the impact of their lives. Many leaders forget to schedule themselves in their plan. To make the right choice, leaders need to believe in their strength of their internal compass. Keep everything simple. Reflection is leader’s best friend.
The story of Ryan Holmes
There are good hustle and bad hustle. Nevertheless, Ryan Holmes believes as long as leaders understand the core value of their hustle, they will direct themselves to the right hustle. Everyone is busy and it is easy to use that as excuse. Holmes wants leaders to be conscious on it and learn to say “no”.
Holmes creates Hootsuite because he wanted to create the space for entrepreneurs to fight affordability. Holmes defines greatness is passion. What gests Holmes passion is “legacy”. He sees the future of technology and he wants to build 10 more Hootsuite around the world. Holmes continued to pursue his passion. He built a hub for entrepreneurs and a place for entrepreneurs to learn how to build business. He saw many people go out and started their startups.
Holmes believes the element of any good pitch is the person. Holmes is able to sense if the person has what it takes to smash through any walls. He looks for problem solvers who will deal with the wall. Size and opportunity are also important element in good pitch. He believes ideas can grow.
“Entrepreneur first, idea second”
Holmes talks about the market that is currently underserved is Artificial Intelligence. He foresees the world of opportunity in Artificial Intelligence. Holmes mentions leaders get to learn so much more by owning small business. They get to know little bit of everything. Eventually, they will discover things they do not like and they will find the team to balance it out. The evolution of things leaders do is constantly changing.
Holmes shares the 3 core values for entrepreneurs to strive in business. The first core value is hustle. The second core value is passion, and the third core value is communication. Holmes wants leaders to remember to hustle with good reason, do not let passion run out and easy to start small but harder as it gets bigger.
One of the business failures Holmes experienced was managing people. In average, leaders can only manage 10 people max. As business increases to 100 or more, Holmes needs to build another layer of management. It requires new skill set on every layer. Holmes witnessed many great people in the team have decided to depart separate ways. However, Holmes gets to bring new talent to the team.
When it comes to distinguish many talent people, Holmes looks for culture fit. Leaders need to understand their sparks and patient and discover who they really are. The deal breaker is poor feedback from other companies. Therefore, leaders need to be persistent. At the end of every interview, Holmes will ask what he can do for others. Holmes looks for people with proactive attitude to strive and curiosity. In leadership, Holmes wants the best people in his team. In addition, he would still want to bring growth internally.
Holmes comments that Facebook Live is a unique tool to have because everyone has a television broadcast. Holmes still believes content is more relevant. He will try to find deep articles.
The biggest mistake people make online is to do the wrong action at the wrong time. The humor element is important, but good content can take care itself. Holmes hopes people would stop sharing dark and politics exposure. People should spend more investment on education.
To control emotion in business, Holmes will balance it with outdoor sports. In Holmes’ perspective, it is good to do things on the edge because it makes leaders think about the moment and forget everything else. It is great for people to step out and talk about social media. Smart people will attract the right tools to make their time wise. However, social media can disconnect the face to face conversation. Holmes believes this can be a detox even though social media can still have huge benefit.
To build the tribe, Holmes suggests leaders to find the balance from different skill set on partners. Leaders need to provide the right culture and excitement. It is never the case to motivate on money.
The story of Lewis Howes
Lewis Howes is the Founder of the school of greatness. He looks for way to achieve win-win for the audience. He shares his story of chasing fame that leads to his greatness.
In his young age, Howes always have the passion to become a famous guy in America. He told his father he would be a famous athlete, and his father encouraged him to chase his dream. In his school year, he got bullied. He was skinny and weak and people made fun of him, which made him feel pain, anger and frustration. Howes started to believe he was not good enough.
Every horrible moment in school was building up the message of “not good enough” for Howes. He was always at the bottom company with the school peers. He felt challenged, but he continued to chase his dream to prove others they are wrong. This fuel was powerful and it accelerated him to achieve everything. After he achieved his dream, he still felt angry and frustrated. He asked himself, “Why am I not fulfilled?”
He managed to play in national football league, but he was not satisfied. Until one day, his dream shattered. He was able to stand up and get everything back, but the feeling of “not good enough” still remained. He could not figure out what was missing.
Until these recent years, Howes realized he was doing it for the wrong reason. With the help from external source, he discovered the inner pain when he was a kid. He created the belief system to protect himself when he was young, which was a form of escape.
Many leaders chase money to become the king of wealth, but importantly, Howes wants to become the king of heart. Howes starts to realize his purpose has changed to how to make others feel.
Howes shares another past story. When he was playing basketball one day and he got the anger out. He blew up and destroyed the other player physically. It woke him up. He was terrified and he ran home like a coward. He looked himself at the mirror and asked, “Who am I? And why am I doing this?”. Before the realization, the thing driving him forward was holding him back. After the realization, the thing gave him the most pain had given him the most freedom.
Howes believes the secret to achieve greatness is generosity. Leaders need to be generous with their heart and generous with a smile. They will never know what kind of connection they will have with a smile on their face.
Howes wants the audience to do a staring exercise. Everyone will need to find a partner and start each other for 60 seconds. Afterwards, everyone will have the chance to talk about how they feel, what is their biggest lesson and what commit them to move forward. The purpose of the staring exercise is to give generosity with the most basic form of communication.
