S5E17 – 5 Steps To Master Your Mindset With Dr. Johnny Parker

[00:00:00.000] – Show Intro

Introducing Payback Time, the podcast for entrepreneurs looking to build and scale their startups, gain access to actionable tips, proven strategies, and valuable data that can help you avoid mistakes, skyrocket sales, and optimize profits. Your business breakthrough may just be an episode away.

[00:00:17.390] – Guest Intro

Building a business isn’t easy, and if you don’t get your mindset right, you can end up quitting something that can make a big impact on others and make you a lot of money. My next guest has been a leadership coach for over 30 years, serving both executives and professional athletes. And in this episode, he breaks down the five-step process to master your mindset so you don’t give up on goals that can generate serious results. Please welcome Johnny Parker.

[00:00:44.500] – Sean

Johnny, welcome to the show.

[00:00:45.990] – Johnny

Hi, Sean. Good to be here.

[00:00:47.700] – Johnny

So before we dive in, can you tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know?

[00:00:52.590] – Johnny

That I am a baker. I like baking cakes. Obviously, I’m not a pie guy, but I got a sweet tooth, and I like to bake when I get a chance.

[00:01:04.430] – Sean

This is back to back because the last guest I had was also a baker. No way. And you two are the only ones with that unique skillset. I got to ask you here, favorite cake?

[00:01:15.330] – Johnny

Oh, man. Sweet potato pound cake. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Oh, yes, it’s a 24-hour cake because it doesn’t last more than 24 hours.

[00:01:24.910] – Sean

Of course.

[00:01:25.610] – Johnny

Yeah. So sweet potato pound cake, it’s a fight in this house when that cake is made.

[00:01:31.730] – Sean

I get it. I mentioned that in the last episode. For me, it’s pecan pie. Go nuts for it. All right. Well, let’s dive in. Why don’t you take a few minutes and talk about your career background?

[00:01:44.070] – Johnny

Yeah. Well, I’m in New York, and I do work, Sean, in the area of executive performance coaching. So I work with Fortune 500s. I work with pro athletes. I work with CEOs. And I’ve taught, I’ve earned my doctorate in positive psychology arena, and I’ve taught at Johns Hopkins and neuroscience and positive psychology, lectured at Princeton around this stuff. I’ve enjoyed that. I’m an author. I’ve written several books. I’m in the midst of writing my current book right now that I’m excited about. Married, going on 35 years, raised three sons, and empty nesters now. Even a dog left. It’s just my wife and me. The boys left and the dog left.

[00:02:27.760] – Sean

Yes. Now, with what you’re doing now, you’re an executive coach. How long have you been a coach?

[00:02:35.880] – Johnny

I’ve been coaching even before they started calling it coaching, Sean. Also, I’d probably mention, I started off as a marriage and family therapist, and I was doing coaching And the skills of coaching, they didn’t call it that back then. Sure. I just easily moved over transition over into the coaching. Easy, same skill sets, many ways, different focus, obviously. I’ve been at it about 30 years.

[00:03:00.640] – Sean

Oh, wow. Okay. And you don’t have to mention any specific clients if you don’t want to, but we started talking about football a little bit before we hit record, and you’ve been able to work with some pretty big teams, including football sitting behind you, the Steelers.

[00:03:16.520] – Johnny

Absolutely. I tell you, you learn a lot about culture. I started off working here because I’m in the DC, Maryland DC area, working with the Wendell Water Washington Rescinds down to the Commanders. So I had that experience. But the Steelers prior to COVID, we did a lot of work with them, and now they have become… Here I am a native New Yorker, but now I’m a Steeler fan. But he became a client. How do I not become a fan of the client? Absolutely. So I’m a Steeler fan.

[00:03:45.730] – Sean

That’s awesome. So before we hit record, we were talking about you have a framework broken into five different categories, and I think they would provide a lot of value for my audience, especially my audience who are entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs. So Why don’t you go ahead and dive into those?

[00:04:02.790] – Johnny

Yeah, the idea, Sean, that every entrepreneur, every life, every leadership is always telling a story. As an entrepreneur, is my life, is my business telling a story that I wanted to tell? No entrepreneur bumps into better or wanders or wellness in their story. They have this front stage. We have the front stage, we have the KPIs, we have the mission, the vision, the strategy, and all of that matters. Getting the website and the branding and the click funnels. We get all of that, and we say all that matters. Our focus is that that matters, but the backstage we believe matters even more. That framework spells an acrostic story where it’s basically soul, for the S, T, transparency, O, optimal, R, rhythm, and Y, yield.

[00:04:49.270] – Sean

All right, let’s break this down one by one. That first one, soul. Talk about that.

[00:04:53.910] – Johnny

That as an entrepreneur, you’re leading from a place, and your story as an entrepreneur starts in what we call the backstage. We all know, and I’m a New York guy, gone to theaters growing up, the action happens on a front stage. But the preparation for good work to happen on a front stage in an entrepreneur’s life, I got to do the work of my soul. I got How do I lead from the deepest part of who I am? And so there, I must be willing to ask key core questions. Who am I? That’s my identity. What do I want? Every entrepreneur wants impact. I call this the FAB 5, by the way. And so who am I? Identity. What do I want? Impact. Why do I want it? What’s the motivation? Intent. How do I lead others better through my work? Who am I becoming? That’s my integrity. And how do I want people to experience me? That’s inspirational. That’s the sole issue. Those are sole issues at the core, Sean. And so as an entrepreneur, I got to be really clear and be centered and have a core around that. Because what I do, and I I do keynotes or training, Sean, I have people draw a picture of a tree, and I give them 30, 40 seconds to draw the tree.

[00:06:07.440] – Johnny

Ask me how many people draw the roots.

[00:06:12.060] – Sean

Yeah, rarely.

[00:06:13.980] – Johnny

I mean, they draw apples souls, birds, and oranges, but no roots. And I said, Why didn’t you draw the roots? Because you can’t see them. That’s what we’re saying. We talk about the soul that as an entrepreneur, I really need to be clear. And the research shows that when an entrepreneur, when a leader leads from their core values, from the soul level, their effectiveness is over 110% greater.

[00:06:37.710] – Sean

That makes a lot of sense. So entrepreneurs, I like to get tactical here on this show. And so if I’m an entrepreneur, I need to be asking those questions and probably write them down. Who am I? What do I want? How do I want to leave others better in this world? What impact do I want to have on others? And really write those down and answer answer those questions. That’s the exercise you would take your clients through.

[00:07:06.220] – Johnny

Absolutely. And even now, we just recently expanded it to what we call CORE7, because we’ve added some new ones to what’s now possible. We want to know what that, and how do we stay healthy and why we perform at a high level. Because so many entrepreneurs are burning out. Deloitte did a study, and 77% of leaders, entrepreneurs, are burning out. You get 10 people together, 10 entrepreneurs, seven of them are in some burnout mode, and they’re not leading from a place of wellness. And we call that in our work, we call it soul abuse.

[00:07:42.280] – Sean

You said 77 %?

[00:07:44.750] – Johnny

Yeah, burnout.

[00:07:45.080] – Sean

And I’ve met quite a few of entrepreneurs. They’ve got a good idea. They got a business that’s making money, and they just could not sustain. And I’m like, What happens? What didn’t you do? Or what didn’t you do? And it’s like, Well, There’s a multitude of surface-level excuses, but I can tell you what, like wellness, that’s the root issue in many cases, I believe.

[00:08:10.710] – Johnny

Oh, absolutely. You need to be intentional. Again, Sean, No entrepreneur bumps into better. We don’t bump into it. We don’t wander to it. Better and wellness happens intentionally, not haphazardly. So I have to be really deliberate. I coach entrepreneurs. You need to have a daily, let’s Listen to this, meeting, M-E-E-T-I-N-G, a daily meeting with you. You need to have a meeting and you have to have some practices to make sure the root system is good so we can get good fruit on the front stage.

[00:08:46.360] – Sean

Love it. All right. I love that. Now, with that, diving into it a little further, what are ways that entrepreneurs can get that on the right track? Are you talking You’re talking about maybe a workout regimen, maybe eating healthy? What are you referring to?

[00:09:06.720] – Johnny

Yeah, definitely. All the above. I need to have, and I can unpack more of that when I get into the R about rhythm. Okay. Yeah, definitely. But one of the things that you can do that I encourage is to form an acrostic of your core values. So I’ll model that. We have our core values parkers at an S. So you form this acrostic, and every letter stands for a value. So the P in our last name stands for pleasing God. We’re people of faith. A stands for accepting one another. The R stands for respecting one another. The K stands for keeping short accounts. The E, encouraging one another. The R, renewal. And the S is service, leaving others better. We tell entrepreneurs, you need to have that for your life, and it needs to be in alignment with your business. And what you want to do, as we sat down with managers from the Ritz-Calton, Sean, the Ritz-Calton has 24 core values. They take two days to onboard their people. They go deep in terms of the core, and every day, they talk about one of the core values, and they tell a story to affirm it.

[00:10:07.470] – Johnny

Why does that matter? Because you want to stay true to the core. You want to stay as anchored and tethered to the core. So my wife and my company, we look at our core values often, and we talk about how are we showing up, living this out on the backstage to impact the front stage.

[00:10:27.230] – Sean

You hit on something important there. You said often. I see companies that will create the core values once and never revisit it often or ever again. It was a big mistake.

[00:10:39.820] – Johnny

Yeah, right. And it’s not memorable. It’s not stated in a way that’s memorable. So that’s why we say it’s easy because our group is called the Parker Group. So it’s easy to remember because it’s our name. But you want to figure out a word or something that’s inspiring, and you have to because drift happens. I’ve seen so many There are so many leaders, so many companies. They drift from the core. They have a great website. They did an executive retreat, and they have these great things that they say there. But when you get there, that’s not the story.

[00:11:10.960] – Sean

Right. All right, folks, let’s take a quick break.

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[00:11:47.170] – Sean

All right, back to the show. You hit those moments when there’s all this talk and everybody’s fed the Kool-Aid right up front about their core values, and then you get into the thick of business and realize, wow, we don’t follow any of those. It’s treating people with respect and valuing people’s time all goes out the window. Whatever your values are, all out the window.

[00:12:08.020] – Johnny

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:12:09.550] – Sean

Okay. All right. Jumping to the second part because it’s story. We’re working Three stories, five letters, the second T. I didn’t get all of these. The second T, I think I got, which is transformation. Is that correct?

[00:12:22.010] – Johnny

That works. Transparency.

[00:12:24.040] – Sean

Transparency. Okay, got it.

[00:12:25.860] – Johnny

And you do get to the transformation because the transparency is the vulnerability, Sean, with oneself and with safe people and with a higher power. For me, again, as a man of faith, it’s God, but it’s whatever. Research has shown when people have some spiritual core, foundation, whatever that may be, That impacts business when you bring all of who you are to work. You want to have vulnerability with self, with safe people, people who’ve earned the right to be in your backstage, and I would say a faith tradition or faith practice of some kind. Every Wednesday at four o’clock, I meet with four men and we ask this question, what’s the most important matter in your life that you need to be talking about? Jeff Kemp John Bloomberg, David Ducek, and Ken Evans. Every Wednesday. That’s a big deal because in the backstage of an entrepreneur, if you’re not guarding the backstage and you’re not being vulnerable in relationships, you’re going to get sick. I nearly had an affair, closely had an affair. It would have cost my marriage. I’ve wrest with burnout, depression, and panic attacks because for a long time, I was killing it on the front stage.

[00:13:44.660] – Johnny

I’m on CNN, I’m on Black Entertainment television, I’m in magazines, I’m traveling every weekend, I’m all over the place. Nbc, I’m all over the place. But the front stage was Snap, Crabble, Pop, but my backstage was very devoid in a lot of shame and a lot of what was driving that wasn’t love. What was driving that was shame, it was fear, it was imposter syndrome. So you see that root system and unresolved trauma. And so me not talking about that, whatever you don’t, as an entrepreneur, talk out, you will act out, or it will get buried alive. And so that’s why this transparency, vulnerability, being honest with oneself, being honest with safe people, and being honest with a high power is critical for the sustenance of an entrepreneur.

[00:14:42.140] – Sean

Right. Let’s drill in a little further to transparency. And I know it’s important to be transparent, but there’s also a fine line. People have said, well, you don’t want to overshare because you don’t want to scare people away. But for example, in Tykr, I do I’ll share what we’re working on. I try to give people a look under the hood, like what features are coming soon and get their input so they’re part of the creation process. And people love that. We brought ideas to life that were not from my team and I, they were from the customer, and they love that. So the transparency there has been great. Also, what are we each investing in? Because we’re a stock platform, people really like that. And then also another thing is We’re the only platform out there that, and I don’t want to talk about me all the time. I’m just using an example here, and then I want to get your feedback. But our calculations in the tool are not in a black box. They’re not hidden somewhere. It’s like they’re all open source, so people can go use Excel, and They could do this themselves.

[00:15:46.190] – Sean

And people, transparency is big. People look for that more and more, and I feel like it’s a way to become more credible. However, I feel like you don’t want to give everything away about yourself. Then you’re just oversharing. You know what I mean?

[00:16:01.200] – Johnny

Absolutely. I think it’s people who’ve earned the right in the backstage, Sean. Everyone doesn’t get an access pass to your backstage. Most of our relationships, 99 % of them will be front stage people who think they have a front row seat to our life and to our backstage. But there are core key people. I would say for an entrepreneur, you need to have 4-6 really emotionally safe people who’ve earned the right to be in your backstage. Harvard did a study, Sean, and they said, What contributes to a person living a happy, healthy, long life? And they said, People who are rich in relationships live longer. The Blue Zones have done a study And that people who live to be centenarians, who live to be 100 years old or older because they have rich relationships.

[00:16:56.200] – Sean

That’s good. I have met people that have told me they get to an older part in life and they don’t have quality relationships. It’s always surface level.

[00:17:06.210] – Johnny

Sure.

[00:17:06.720] – Sean

How the Green Bay packer is doing, how the stealer is doing. What’s the weather like on Tuesday? All this surface level stuff and not diving in further. But that’s interesting. Four to six people, you invite two, you’re backstage, they know more about you, you can talk about more, you can express. Maybe you’re going through a challenge. You can share with your people.

[00:17:28.350] – Johnny

The most important part of my Wednesdays at 4:00. I said, To be with these four guys and to lift up the window shade to my heart, to pull back the curtain. We’re all entrepreneurs. Every one of us entrepreneurs, we’re all in this work, and we’re all married. We go deep in asking the key question, What’s the most important matter going on in your world that you need to be talking about with us right now? We all go around and talk. Sometimes it’s been tears. We’ve been doing it for several years. It has been life-saving for me because for a long time, there was no one in my backstage. I was being energized by fear and imposter syndrome and pretending to have… 76% of men wrestle with confidence. So I’m trying to overcome this insecurity around confidence, and I’m being driven, but it was costing me my soul, my health, my marriage.

[00:18:27.330] – Sean

Interesting. Okay. I’m curious here, is this a men’s group? I know that’s more of a faith-based phrase to describe the group of men coming together. Is that a men’s group or would you call it a mastermind group?

[00:18:41.260] – Johnny

You know what? I’m in both. This particular group is a men’s group, but I’m also Sure. I’m also part of a mastermind group as well. Got you.

[00:18:48.440] – Sean

It gets our audience thinking about if you want that group, if you’re part of the Christian community, they call them men’s groups, otherwise just entrepreneurial mastermind. Those are the keywords you can be looking for out there. All right, transparency. That makes a lot of sense. The third… This is O in story. I missed it. You breached over those quick, which is fine. Optimal.

[00:19:14.610] – Johnny

Yeah. How do I get better? It’s cultivating a growth mindset. It’s the work of Carol Dweck out at Stanford who talks about the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. And so it’s cultivating a growth mindset. And so it’s cultivating a growth mindset in a tool we created. We call it PERM, a life dimensions tool, and it’s physical wellness, emotional wellness, relational wellness, mental wellness, spiritual wellness. The idea is we give this assessment, this tool, and the It takes about 10 minutes to do. And we just did it. We just were at a beautiful Salamanders Resort in Middleburg, and we did it for several executives of T-Mobile. And you get three scores. You’re going to be in red zone, red zone like a football means you’re about to score? A red zone here means that you’re not in a great place in these four areas. Yellow zone, you’re right in the middle. Green is the land of milk and honey. The idea is how do we keep having a growth mindset of getting 1% better? It’s like the dashboard of your car, and it tells you your levels, your oil level, your fuel. The goal is how do we continue to have this growth mindset to get 1% better in these spaces, physical, emotional, relational, mental, spiritual.

[00:20:32.840] – Sean

The inputs to that, how is that calculated to determine where somebody would land, whether it’s red, yellow, or green?

[00:20:42.620] – Johnny

Yeah, depending on the score. It goes 0 to 10. We’ll say in the last 14 days, how would you assess your physical wellness, sleep, eating, and exercise? Zero to 10, and then give a median and average on the physical. So we look at that. Then we do the same emotional, we do the same relational. We look at your relationship with your wife, if you’re married or if you’re not married, it’s your team, it’s a sibling, it’s a friend, it’s a parent, it’s somebody. Then we look at your mental, your mindset. We get us some mindset stuff here. Am I high definition clarity, piercing clarity, or am I scattered? Then spiritual, we talk about it can be faith, it could be purpose, belonging. We have a broad definition of spiritual there. Then we add it all up. When scores come in at 10 in red zone. And that’s happened recently. Someone has had a very, very low score. Call me the next day, Dr. Parker, I’m a hot mess. My scores were ones across the board and what’s going on, and this person has to share about some things. Then the key question there is an emotional intelligence question.

[00:21:51.940] – Johnny

Where am I? That’s quantitatively with your number. What’s contributing to where I am? And then what might I need to stop doing, start doing, continue doing? And just for me, Sean, a month ago, if I had done this about a month and a half ago, I would have been in red zone. My mother-in-law just died, and my wife and I, we had processing our own grief. We got chipping with each other. We were off our rhythms. We’re not eating well because people are coming with all this food and people are coming in and out. And so we had to get away to the ocean. But we got off center. But the important thing, we recognize we were off center and we recognize the impact it was having on our marriage and the impact it was having on our team and our work.

[00:22:40.390] – Sean

Got it. You mentioned at the beginning of Optimal, a growth mindset versus what was the…

[00:22:47.000] – Johnny

A fixed mindset. Fixed. Got it. Where I’m a pro at victimization. I’m a pro-victim. I’m a professional victimizer. I’m a pro at it. That’s what that is. Yeah.

[00:22:59.580] – Sean

Got it. Because I have heard versions of that before, a growth mindset verse fixed. In our line of work, a lot of what I teach is to translate it to our world is, how do you You want to have that one stream of income. That’s your main focus. You’re providing value either by selling a product or a service. But also think about, how can I add additional streams of revenue to me? Coming into me, one being the stock market, to those of you out there, and to real estate. Real estate is a good play as well. So thinking in that growth mindset instead of that just having one stream, I don’t need to learn anymore. I don’t read any books, don’t read or listen to any podcast. I know people like that, and I’m sure you do, too. You’ve been to school at 18, and you already know enough. You don’t need to learn anymore. It’s getting away from that.

[00:23:55.090] – Johnny

Exactly. Always being open to get better, get better, get better.

[00:23:59.310] – Sean

Right on. All right. Optimal. We’ve got that nailed down. The R in STORY, what does that stand for?

[00:24:07.540] – Johnny

So, Sean, let me ask you a question. Do you believe in life, work, balance?

[00:24:11.270] – Sean

Absolutely. All right.

[00:24:13.370] – Johnny

So let me challenge you. We say balance is for ballet, checkbooks, and gymnastics. We say life is a rhythm, not a balance. We think it’s a misnoma. So let me say what I mean. Okay. So we say life, work, rhythm. Your heart has a rhythm. The ocean has a rhythm. The seasons have rhythm. The sun has a rhythm. The sun rises, shines, and sets. The misnomer with balance just suggests that everything has equal value and weight. That’s how many people will compute it. But we say rhythm is different. Rhythm requires me to embrace reflection. Harvard did a study around reflection, and I’ve lectured on this when I’ve done my work at Hopkins and at Princeton, that the research shows that when you You take over a 10-day period, spend 12 to 15 minutes reflecting on your life, reflecting on your work, you actually increase your productivity by 24%. That’s not a balance, that’s a rhythm. You have that. Then it’s the renewal. That in rhythm, you want to renew. You want to renew. The more that you pour out on your front stage and the more demanding your front stage, the deeper and the greater you have to be on the back stage.

[00:25:32.340] – Johnny

Then you want to recenter. You need to come back to the core, to the core values, and come back to the center because you just poured out a lot. This just happened again last week. Last week, this time, we’re out at Salamanders Resort. We’re doing this executive retreat for T-Mobile Executives. Wednesday and Thursday, wife and I do that. Friday, I get on a plane with my oldest son who lives in Baltimore, is married, just got married. He and I go to Boston, and I do a men’s conference, and I speak. So a lot got poured out. Sunday, my wife and I are in the woods because every entrepreneur here, every lead entrepreneur needs a place where your soul can catch his breath, where you can think, where you can breathe, you can forest bathe, creation therapy. And so that’s the rhythm. And that’s what we did. And I was poor about this for a long time because I would go back, I would pour out a lot. And Then I’m burnt out, I’m tired, I’m chipping with my wife, or chipping with the team, or I’m chipping with people because I had not done the work of the rhythm of getting back into the exercise, of getting back into my how I eat, getting back on how I get up in the morning, and getting into the quiet place.

[00:26:48.730] – Johnny

For me, it’s the woods. We have some woods around our home, near our home, where’s the string, and that’s where my soul gets centered and it catches its breath.

[00:26:57.300] – Sean

It’s good advice. I can agree with you there. Balanced, I’m really big on. I’ve always used the word balance, but I do like rhythm does make a lot more sense. You get into a flow with work being one, but your personal life, if you’re married or not married, and what you do for hobbies, and how does that all flow together in a rhythm? That makes sense.

[00:27:20.310] – Johnny

Exactly. So we teach that everywhere we go, we push back with HR, and once we share it, they oftentimes start embracing the language.

[00:27:28.580] – Sean

Do you ever… We’ll stay on rhythm here for a minute, and then we’ll go to the why in this story, if you will. But do you run into organizations that they are able to positively make that transition from, Hey, we’ve got a culture here that we are not creating a rhythm or a balance for our associates, especially public traded companies. Not all of them, but a lot of them really get into that team mindset like, Hey, we got a quarterly report here. We’re behind. We’ve got to find a way to show we’re beating those earnings expectations. And it is all hands on deck, come hell or high water, we’re going to make this happen. And the pressure cookers hot, and you lose sight of balance and treating people like, I know you’re looking to take off this Friday, but can I get four hours out of you? Could you join? It’s that stuff. And it’s like, businesses, they take an inch or you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile, and they take advantage of people a little bit. So, yeah, have you helped people or organizations snap out of it, if you will, and get back to you?

[00:28:36.930] – Johnny

Sure. Because first you got to be clear. I normally have a core water bottle. I’ll show it to you.

[00:28:43.890] – Sean

Sure.

[00:28:44.770] – Johnny

I illustrated this core water bottle. I said, You have to be clear about the core and be centered. So this core, I want to get centered. I want to optimize. We said that, we talked about the rhythm. I want to Excel. I want to win the day. But I got, and what I do, Sean, I’ll take this core at my workshops and I’ll say to someone on a team, whoever, put this on my keynotes. Put this on a center of the table. They do it. I move it off center. I tell them, put it on the center. They do it. And we go back and forth. They go up to the center, I move it off center. What do you think the point is?

[00:29:21.590] – Sean

I’m a perfectionist. I like things neat and organized. And I put it in center. You wanted me to put in center, now you’re moving off center. I can feel my anxiety rising. Why is this falling off center is my first question. What are you doing?

[00:29:39.240] – Johnny

The point is that life will knock us off center. The whole world was off center in 2020. I call it the popping piece, pandemic pivots, protests, politics, and prejudices. We all were off center, right? The point is, I got to be clear about the center. I got to affirm the center. Even when life knocks me off center, we’re not mechanical. We’re people. We’re human beings, not human doing. So we get knock off center. One, wisdom is, I recognize I’m off center. Two, I’ve grown because I don’t stay off center the way and as long as I used to stay off center. So even when that happens, when an organization is saying, Hey, can you give me more time? It’s one thing when that happens. It’s another thing that becomes the culture, and that becomes the norm. I’ll tell you, what I’ve seen in some of my clients in the Silicon Valley, several of them now are buying into… After you’re there for six years in some of these companies I work with, you get a six-week sabbatical, and they call it that, on top of your vacation. And guess what they’re finding? Down time, higher impact.

[00:30:51.330] – Johnny

That the more that their executives and their leaders are getting quality downtime, it’s showing up in innovation is showing up in performance, is showing up in productivity, is showing up in a healthier culture, is showing up in retaining great talent versus people who stayed but they left. You know what I mean? They stayed but they left. So That’s what we found. And so helping cultures really understand the importance of this core is a big deal.

[00:31:22.550] – Sean

I like the water bottle analogy there. And when something gets moved off center in your life, What we use as the phrase with investing in the market is like, waves of the ocean. Don’t fight it. You go with the flow and you understand this is the nature of the beast. And that can be a lot easier said than done when somebody is like, oh, my gosh, my stock went down by three % the last 24 hours. I’m freaking out. Calm down. Waves in the ocean. This is just business as usual. And looking at life the same way, not Not just investing, but let’s zoom out a touch. Okay, things in life, this is going to happen, that’s going to happen. You get punched in the face on Tuesday, right? Something happens on Wednesday. You go with the flow. You deal with this. You find a way to get yourself back on track.

[00:32:17.270] – Johnny

Yeah, but you just got to have that center to go back to because drift happens. Sure.

[00:32:23.540] – Sean

I think, not to drill on this too long because we’ll get to why here in a second, but when things happen, And when you can get yourself back on track, it’s the repetition. I feel like it becomes easier over time. Right? Anybody out there listening, you’re building your business. I know this. We’re dealing with getting approvals right now with Apple and Google for the mobile app. And it’s like, this isn’t right. Then I get that done and submit it. And I’m like, all right, we’re going to get approved here. And then, no, that’s not… And it’s constantly being thrown, like you were describing there, taking that water bottle, moving it to the right of way. It’s like, Okay, all right, we’ll get back on track here. You just go with the flow. Don’t let that anxiety rise, and you deal with it.

[00:33:11.140] – Johnny

Absolutely. Yeah, sure.

[00:33:12.980] – Sean

I like that. All right, let’s move on to the fifth stage here, that number Y. What does Y stand for?

[00:33:19.760] – Johnny

Yield. It’s when you surrender to a cause, person, or purpose greater than yourself. That you realize the story is much bigger than you, that the living I believe your best story, your best life, is when you have a mindset of writing a story, leaving others better. So it was in your work that you do around investing in stocks. How do I do this? When I make the story about me, that’s a terrible story. If it’s only about me. When I make the story about leaving you better off, when I make the story about leaving my wife and my sons and my daughter-in-love and the teams and organizations I get to serve, that’s a fantastic story when I yield to that story. That’s the story that we want to help people write. We want to help them know that story, align that story, master that story, and add value, looking for every way, whether it was on social media, how do you leave others better off with affirming something that was said? So that’s the idea there, is leaving others better as you yield to a cause, a person, a purpose, much greater than yourself.

[00:34:33.100] – Sean

Sure. Let’s take a quick commercial break. If someone tells you to buy a stock, the last thing you should do is buy that stock. The first thing you should do is ask why. Unfortunately, a lot of influencers on YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, or some other social media app are giving really bad stock recommendations and investment advice. The question is, how do you determine if what these people say is good advice or bad advice? That’s where Tykr can help. Tykr quickly cuts through the clutter to determine if a stock is a good or bad investment. But don’t take my word for it. Check out our Trustpilot to see what our customers have to say. As of today, we have a Trustpilot score of 4.9 out of 5. Get started today with a free trial. Visit Tykr. Com. That’s T-Y-K-R. Com. Again, tykr. Com. All right, back to the show. I’m sure this… I’m a Christian as well, and part of that is letting go of control. Yeah. However, how is that possible when you’re type A and you’re in the back of the bus and you still want your hands on the steering wheel, right? That’s the analogy I use.

[00:35:38.320] – Sean

You have to let go of control at times and give it to God. All right, you got this. I don’t.

[00:35:46.860] – Johnny

I’ve been there. I understand that. And his other thing with yielding is daily. It’s not a period with yielding. It’s a comma. It’s a comma. It’s daily. It’s a daily decision. Totally. And it starts again as a husband. It starts in my marriage. Even if you’re not married, it’s that person. I posted something yesterday called Appreciation Zone. When you have a mindset, I will see you, I will hear you, I will affirm you. We call it the appreciation zone. Anyone comes in my space, I will esteem and refresh. I will have the mindset of a walking lemonade stand, and you’re going to get esteemed and refreshed. So I really like to inspire people to have that mindset and yield to that mindset.

[00:36:42.030] – Sean

Before we jump to the rapid fire round, I do have to say, I’ve heard a lot of different frameworks on mindset and how you get your mind right. And it’s a big part of anybody’s life. Getting your mind in the right place is not easy, and it takes practice. And And this story framework certainly does make a lot of sense. But before we jump to the Rapid Fire Round, is there one other key takeaway you can give my audience? Maybe something I did not ask.

[00:37:11.870] – Johnny

You know what? I want to affirm and encourage, take your name and do form your own acrostic of your core values. I would encourage them. I have done that. A funny story with the Steelers, when Ben Mothersberger was a quarterback, I did it with the Of course, he has a very, very long name, and he got through it. But I tell all of everywhere I go, I encourage people to consider doing that because if you do that and you frame it, put it somewhere in your home and in your office and you look at it and you have a conversation. Again, if you’re married with your spouse, if you’re not married with your team, how are we showing up living this out? Because we want to constantly affirm the course. I really encourage your audience to consider that.

[00:38:04.320] – Sean

That’s awesome. All right, let’s transition to the rapid fire round. This is the part of episode where we get to find out who Johnny really is. If you can, try to answer each question in a 15 seconds or less. You ready?

[00:38:16.840] – Johnny

All right. I’ll do my best.

[00:38:18.350] – Sean

All right. What is your favorite podcast?

[00:38:20.590] – Johnny

Story brand, Donald Miller.

[00:38:22.270] – Sean

I’ve heard of it. Put it on the list. All right. What is a recent book you read and would recommend?

[00:38:28.070] – Johnny

Think This, Not That, by Josh Ax. It’s all about mindset. It is excellent.

[00:38:34.580] – Sean

It’s one of those things in life. You hear it more than once. It’s like it’s a sign, like you might want to pick that up. Think this, not that. I have heard of before. Good call. All right, this is a fun one. What is your favorite movie?

[00:38:47.840] – Johnny

Born Identity.

[00:38:49.780] – Sean

All right, going to the first one.

[00:38:51.800] – Johnny

Born Man, that guy. He got me through my doctorate program.

[00:38:58.380] – Sean

Take no prisoners, right?

[00:39:00.200] – Johnny

No, man, I love Jason.

[00:39:02.020] – Sean

Yes, good stuff. All right, what is the worst advice you ever received?

[00:39:08.140] – Johnny

Early in my career, when I was doing vulnerability and didn’t know it was the way to do life, I was told, Don’t do that. They’ll think you’re weak. I didn’t know what to do with that, but I just felt it. I did it just intuitively, but I was told, Don’t do that. They’ll think you’re weak. Don’t be vulnerable.

[00:39:28.200] – Sean

Bad advice. It feels the teachings of the stoic teachings of corporate executives from the ’50s and ’60s. You don’t tell anybody about yourself, and it’s a corporation comes first attitude. Yeah. All right, flip that equation. What’s the best advice you ever received?

[00:39:46.220] – Johnny

I was 18 years old. I asked my grandfather, How many girls can I date at one time? And he said to me, the advice he said to me, it’s so powerful. I’m 18, Sean. He said, How many hearts do you have?

[00:39:58.630] – Sean

That was That’s the best advice.

[00:40:01.500] – Johnny

You only got one heart.

[00:40:02.520] – Sean

All he had to do was ask one question to give you the answer.

[00:40:06.210] – Johnny

That was it. I mean, I’m 62, man. I still remember that. I was 18. He said, How many hearts do you have? Mic dropped.

[00:40:14.720] – Sean

We’re We’re done here. This answer, thank you. We’re moving on. I love it. All right, time machine question. If you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say?

[00:40:30.060] – Johnny

I would say, give yourself permission to dream. I would go back to my… I would go to college, my college years, my early 20s, my junior year of college, I was 20. I would say, give yourself permission to dream what’s possible. I didn’t have a dream when I got married. I think that’s just the way I would say many in my community, as an African-American community, back in my generation, The options were go to college, get a job, go to military, or go to trade school. And so that’s why I would say that. I would say giving myself permission to dream and imagine what’s possible. That came later, but I definitely would have looked back and started I had a lot earlier.

[00:41:16.160] – Sean

Yeah, that’s good. I think everybody can relate with that. One is don’t give up on your dreams, but definitely give yourself permission to dream. I love that. It’s good. All right. And then Where can the audience reach you?

[00:41:31.620] – Johnny

My website, Johnny Parker. Johnny with a Y, two N, J-O-H-N-N-Y. There’s so many spellings of Johnny out there. J-o-h-n-n-y, Parker, P-A-R-K-E-R. Johnnyparker. Com. They can definitely reach me there.

[00:41:47.440] – Sean

Awesome. We’ll have all your contact info in the show notes.

[00:41:49.520] – Johnny

All the contact stuff.

[00:41:51.330] – Sean

You got it. But, Jonny, this was great. Thanks for walking through this story framework. Really appreciate it.

[00:41:57.250] – Johnny

Yeah. Thank you, Sean. Thank you for having me. This has been It’s fun.

[00:42:00.700] – Sean

Cool. All right. We’ll talk to you soon. See you. All right. Hey, I’d like to say thanks for checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts you could be listening to, so thanks for spending some time with me. And if you have a moment, could you please head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a five-star review? The more reviews we get, the higher this podcast will rank. All right, stay tuned for the next episode. We’ll see you.