Nick Cavuoto Founder at CavuotoX, he is a high-performance business coach, speaker and an entrepreneur mentor, we can learn loads from Nick in this episode including:
How to unlock your calling and mandate on life
What Metaphysics is and how we can use it to grow personally
Why relationships can be like rocketships
How being in a mood of judgment will stop you from learning
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott...
Nick Cavuoto Founder at CavuotoX, he is a high-performance business coach, speaker and an entrepreneur mentor, we can learn loads from Nick in this episode including:
- How to unlock your calling and mandate on life
- What Metaphysics is and how we can use it to grow personally
- Why relationships can be like rocketships
- How being in a mood of judgment will stop you from learning
Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com
Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA
Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services
Find out more about Nick below:
Nick’s Website: https://www.nickcavuoto.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickcavuoto
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickcavuoto/
Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickcavuoto/
Full Transcript Below
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Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.
Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.
Our special guest on today's show is Nick Cavuoto. He's a speaker, an entrepreneur mentor, and human potential expert who specializes in deep coaching, personal branding and transformational leadership. But before we get the chance to speak with Nick, it's The Leadership Hacker News.
The Leadership Hacker News
Steve Rush: It was Stephen MR Covey who most famously quoted in his habit number five, seek first understand then be understood. And I'm sure that any leader listening to this would subscribe to that. But what if your team were not humans, but primates? Well, that's exactly what we're exploring in some light-hearted news today, understanding what some leaders did in a research facility in Finland. Monkeys in a zoo in Finland have shown significant preference for traffic sound over their native natural jungle noises, researchers have found. A tunnel filled with sensors was installed in a monkey enclosure in core Korkeasaari Zoo in Helsinki. This allowed the white face saki monkeys to choose whether they listen to a playlist of traffic noises, natural and nature sounds and rainfall, and also had a choice of Zen music and dance music. Dr. Hirskyj-Douglas, a researcher at Aalto University in Finland said, “we thought they would much more enjoy the calming sound of Zen music, but they were actually triggered by more traffic sounds”.
The traffic playlist actually came out as most popular choice amongst the monkeys who were also grooming themselves and getting excited as the sounds of traffic were passing by.
Kirsi Pynnonen-Oudman the zoo research coordinator said the sounds of the road music mimic in some ways, the natural way they communicate. She said in the wild, the animals use high-pitched hissing squeaking and croaking noise to stay in contact indicating that they may hear those similar noise sound in traffic too. The research was an experiment to understand the characteristics of primates as part of the technology that can be used to improve the wellbeing of animals in captivity. And according to the researchers, this is the first time the sound experiment has been completed in a full controlled environment. And they hope that the findings will lead to understanding how to stimulate and positively influenced the environment in enclosures in the future.
The long-term plan is that one day they have an ambition that the animals can actually control their own lighting, temperature and sounds in their own environment. And the technology is very much open and they're looking at ways in which they can start to bridge into that area. But first started with understanding what was most important to them. As part of the next step in the research, the team are planning to install screens with tunnels, for monkeys to watch and explore their visual environment too, and despite popular belief, they do not eat bananas. Instead they feed on seeds, nuts and insects, and some fruits and no monkeys were harmed in the experiment. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. If you do have any news, stories or interesting facts that you'd love our listeners to hear, please get in touch with us.
Start of Podcast
Steve Rush: Nick Cavuoto is our special guest on today's show. He's a high-performance business coach, an entrepreneur mentor who focuses on mindset, personal brand and human experiences, as well as leadership transformation. Nick, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.
Nick Cavuoto: Thank you so much for having me, I appreciate it.
Steve Rush: So glad we got you on the show. You've got some really interesting stories and great perspectives on the world, but your life didn't start out in the way that you have landed, right? So, you start out as a church pastor, tell us a little bit about the journey from church pastor to entrepreneur transformation expert?
Nick Cavuoto: That's awesome, man. Thank you. Yeah, you know, it's a pretty wild, you know, shift. Going from essentially being in the non-profit world and being in a sector of where you're really focused on human potential and transformation and the channel or the angle that's used to do that is through spirituality, and so it's interesting. A lot of people kind of do it the opposite way, right? Where they, you know, build a great business and do all these great things. And then they get you know, philanthropy work or whatever it may be in order for them to really contribute and give back. But you know early on in life my situation was just unique, you know, and when I got into my career path, by that time I had failed out of college twice. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. And so, I said, well, I might as well, you know, show up and serve and help others. I'm so, so grateful that I did that. You know, I really got into the people business. It's arguable that, you know, as far as my peers, I understand humans more than probably 99% of people because I've been exposed to high levels of whether it's trauma in people's life, or, you know, the deeper desires that are in their heart. Things they really want to accomplish in life, and also the complexities of relationships and complexities of calling or what do I want to accomplish? What's my purpose? Those conversations for me, it happened in my early twenties all the way through my mid late twenties. And just to give you context, I was coaching people on divorce when I was 24 years old with parents who were 30 years happily married. So, I was exposed to a lot of learning and a lot of experiences when it came to, you know, individuals and the way they see the world and the way that they want to really position themselves for greatness. And I'll just mention that it was a wild ride and I learned a lot. Learned, just a tremendous amount about really what makes people tick. And that's just been the greatest contribution.
Steve Rush: It's an awesome induction into the world of human beings. Isn't it? Because you're getting taken into an environment that most people just wouldn't experience at a very young age, I guess.
Nick Cavuoto: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I was actually, I was raised in the church. My father was a drug dealer until he was about 30 years old. And just had a life-changing experience of where he just made a massive shift in his life and said, you know, I'm going to do things the right way now. And that was really the catalytic shift for us. I mean, honestly at three years old, I remember being, you know, underneath the pew waking up and in these like church revivals, you know, things happening. At like, you know, midnight. So, it's like one of those things where I, you know, just had these experiences and was just part of really an incredible movement which really helped me when I shifted things into the business world, because then when it came to marketing, I understood how people think, how people feel.
I understood Maslow's, I understood how the Ascension happens from people who are foundationally. You know, just looking for the basic core needs of live all the way to the point of self-actualization of not really caring about what people think or say about you, but living out your truth in the present. And that was just an amazing part of the first three decades of my life that I was able to see. I'm incredibly grateful, and the way that translated into business was post, you know, ministry. I ended up working for start-ups and then I went from start-ups into fortune 500 in Corporate America. And from there just went on to building my own businesses. And you know, my father was an entrepreneur to the truest sense in some ways. And my grandfather also owned several businesses and his father was a farmer in the States. So, we have over a hundred years of entrepreneurship in our bloodline. And my mother has been an entrepreneur for the last 30 years or so as well. So, it's cool that I've just had this legacy of entrepreneurship and also human potential that have consistently showed up my life over and over and over again.
Steve Rush: That’s and some experience. And I guess having that to draw upon gives you almost the unconscious permission to almost do anything and try anything.
Nick Cavuoto: Absolutely.
Steve Rush: Which of course is the key tenant, isn't it? Of entrepreneurial-ism, it's that whole ability that nothing's too great and nothing's too big.
Nick Cavuoto: Yeah, a hundred percent man. At five years old, animals drowned in a pool, which allowed me to confront my greatest fear very early on in life. And when that situation happened, you know, it's one of those things where when you're fighting for your life at such a young age, and then you go in the opposite direction, you know, and understand the power of fear, you know, none of us really understand our own superpower until we can see it used for good and for evil.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Nick Cavuoto: Just think of Star Wars, right? It's a great example, but like how using the force, right. It can be used in a good way or in a bad way. And that's the same thing, you know, that I see showing up in business and for people is like, you know, there's this polarization of like, what's possible for us, but also what can cripple us. And that's when one of the things that I've just always attributed to a lot of the success that I've started to experience has been through. Being able to confront my greatest fear at such a young age and by 12, I actually just confronted it and got over it. And actually, my grandmother is from Colchester. And so, you know, she was a war bride. She married my grandfather during world war II and came back to the States and she didn't really have a temperament for a weak thinking, because of all that she had been through. She was the one who actually helped me overcome my greatest fear, which now is attributed to a massive part of what I believe again is just my ability to show up in the world in such powerful way.
Steve Rush: Super, love that story. Thanks for sharing that.
Nick Cavuoto: Certainly.
Steve Rush: It hasn't always been gloried for you. So, you were at a stage in your entrepreneurial life where things were going really well, you're drawing down $150,000 dollars a month and then stuff went wrong to the point where you couldn't even afford a $30 dollar meal.
Tell us a little bit about how that happened and how you bounced back?
Nick Cavuoto: Certainly, man. So, alignment is the big key here, you know, you can go build a business, you know, I built, you know, nearly $2 million dollar business on accident, okay. And I don't mention that a lot. Meaning, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, so what'd you do to have great success. And I'm like, I'd like to actually talk about my failures. There's a lot more to learn there. So, but you know, I was somewhat of an accidental entrepreneur. When I left ministry, I didn't have a degree. I had forsaken University in order to really focus on ministry. And so, I had to kind of retool the whole map and re strategize around what I wanted to do and how I wanted to, you know, find significance and how I wanted to really show up in the world.
And so, I built this amazing company really, really fast and less than 18 months we quadrupled the company. I had a few friends who were working for me and it was fun. It was a lot of fun, but always the question was around growth. What are we going to do to grow to the next stage? Who do we need to hire? What consultants do we need to find? And that was really what our ideal, you know, kind of scenario was. Man, we build a company and you're hiring growth consultants right out of the gate, because it's just like, you know, when it rains, you know, you accept it, the harvest that comes after. And so, we planted the seeds and the rain came and it worked. And for me, I fell out of alignment. I fell out of really what I felt like I was supposed to do in life. And that's one way that life will kind of, I say it this way, God will either, he'll poke you, then he'll push you. Then he'll prod you, then he'll punch you. And that's kind of what I experienced in life, where I got punched. Because I was not where I was supposed to be. And I did know that deep down. I'm like running an agency, a marketing agency for the rest of my life is not going to be the thing. So, I made a decision, you know, to close down that business. But yeah, I mean, when you're running at a high of a run rate and you have a huge team and all these things are happening, it just takes like one small thing. That 1% shift that, one loss of focus to really bring the whole thing down, and that's what happened.
It's a fracture in relationship with one of the guys who started with me about two to three years after I had gotten going. I hired a guy, 25 years I had known him for. He's one of my best friends and hired him really to take over operationally, different parts of the business. And there was a fracture in our relationship, unfortunately. And you know, he wanted to be at a different position than where he played best. It's like in soccer or in football, if you're an amazing goal and you play well with your hands, and you're the slowest guy in the team, you probably should not be at the front of the pack, playing striker. And that's kind of the situation or in basketball, if you're five foot six, you probably don't play Center. You know, so that's kind of what was happening. I'm like, listen, man, you're really good in this position at point guard because of your height, your agility, your quickness, but like going in this position is probably not the best idea for you. You're going to be playing against guys who are seven feet tall, and it's just not the same. It's not just the same paradigm. And unfortunately, because of that he actually ended up leaving the company. Stealing the client list, undercutting our services, selling against our services at half costs. Took the leads list, you know, everything I had spent, you know, a hundred hours a week developing. And honestly, I'm not even kidding you. I was married, I was full-time in school. I was full-time working. I was, part-time working for the first two and a half years of my business when I was developing it.
So, when I say that I've put in the work, a lot of people don't do it to that level. Oh, and we had a kid by the way, in that timeframe as well. A lot of people don't put in what's truly required to be like, yeah, I work 80 hours a week and you assess it, and it's like 42. I was really putting in the time to build the business in the right way. And unfortunately, because of that fracture, it was actually the greatest blessing. Its stinks I lost the relationship with him. And that's something that's always been hard because he's just a great friend, but in reality, looking back, it was the thing that launched me into my current state, and I'm just so grateful for it.
Steve Rush: And like you said, you learn more from when things go wrong than sometimes when they go well, and relationships is now core foundation of the work that you do. And we're going to get onto that in a little bit, but for those folks listening, just give us, maybe a flavour of some of the work that you currently focus on.
Nick Cavuoto: Absolutely, so I coach high achieving entrepreneurs and I helped them develop an unshakable core, that's the big idea. So, there's these skills that are required. There is beliefs, there's accountability, there's mentorship. And there's also specific practices that are required to empower what I believe is a resilient life. And that just boils down to the big idea that I believe that we all have a mandate. We all have a mandate. And what that is a purpose with a calling and it has some level of spiritual significance to it, of where you've got to feel like we're here for a reason. That we didn't just evolve from a salamander and just turn into who we are today, but there's actually intent and purpose behind your life. And I just think for myself, and it's in my own humble opinion, that's the way that things operate.
So, whether you're an entrepreneur, you're an executive, you're a high-level professional expert. The one thing that I know that ties us all together, is the desire to have more influence and impact, and yeah, the income stuff that's important too. But what I've found is through the acceleration of entrepreneurs, of helping them get to the highest level of success. When I go into deep coaching, which is like inner work on the inside of them, and really start finding things out, you know, income is just a feedback loop that says that they're doing a great job.
Steve Rush: Right, yeah.
Nick Cavuoto: It's really not the central focus of what they do, although they might want to grow a great business and have a lot of resources. It's really not the core thing. And that's why I don't include it in the big idea.
Steve Rush: I guess, income is a by-product as well, isn't it?
Nick Cavuoto: Absolutely. Absolutely. A hundred percent. And so, when we get into like the personal branding and marketing side of things, that's another pillar as well as high performance functionality. You know, I try to get people out of their head and into their heart, into their gut, so that they can start making decisions from intuitive state, which a lot of times I tell people, you know, you already have all the answers that you need. And in fact, you have all the resources around you, through your relationships with the people around you. It's just that you don't see it that way. There's an old ancient proverb that says that if you chase two rabbits, you catch none.
Steve Rush: I love that.
Nick Cavuoto: And that's the big idea. People are chasing all these different things. I want this, I want that. I want the lifestyle. I want the money. I want the influence. You know, you actually have to switch that entire engagement. If you've ever seen a stray cat and you have some food for that stray cat, you want to give it, all you have to do is bend down in your knee and summon the cat. And that's exactly the way that we need to show up in entrepreneurship. We actually need to bring forth the things that need to be present in our lives versus feeling like we're always on this quest to chase the next thing.
Steve Rush: I love the fact that you mentioned you coach people from an intuitive state. My role as a coach, I often get people to pay attention to their intuition because for me, it's the kind of uncoded, unconscious messaging that's already there. How do you really tap into that intuition and get people to rely on it?
Nick Cavuoto: First of all, I try to get people into a state of, you know, there's a lot of different philosophies out there in the world, but I try to get people in the state of following, what Nikola Tesla said. He's just one of my heroes. He's an incredible, incredible guy. And I think his teachings are just so powerful, and he said this. He said, if you wish to understand the universe, think in the terms of energy, frequency, and vibration, I'm going to say it one more time. If you wish to understand the universe, think in the terms of energy, frequency, and vibration. And what I see as energy is like the way of being, it's like reading a room. EQ is another way to describe energy. I think again, if I'm keeping this like super one-on-one.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Nick Cavuoto: Another way, frequency is through what we hear, right? So, frequency has to do with what we're tuning into and how we're positioned. And if we're, you know, vibrating at a high state. So, in vibration, the high state vibration, I think of cell towers, 5g, they're shorter, limited bandwidth, right? So there there's more intensity over a smaller distance, versus if you're on satellite, they're longer wavelengths. Like over longer stretches of time and space. And so, these are the things that we want to be thinking about. So, when it comes to intuition, I'm going like, how's your energy? What are your drainers? What are your drivers? What's suffocating you? What are you around? What's your environment? A lot of times we can make these small shifts and it can start changing everything. The way that someone thinks is what ends up becoming, right? The big idea of like what you focus on grows.
Steve Rush: Sure, yeah.
Nick Cavuoto: And so, I tell people all the time, if you're in a position right now of where you're in a season, that's changing, change is hard. Now, if you're also growing, growth is hard, but the hardest thing you'll ever have to do in your life is being stuck somewhere that you're not supposed to be. So when I try to unlock people and get them out of a position of where they're feeling constriction or where they're feeling frustrated or where they're feeling like, you know, why me? What's going on in my life, or if they want to grow, honestly, some people come to me and they're like, things are going really well. I just want to go higher. It's like I have the blueprint that helps them go from, let's say, you know, solo entrepreneur from 20 to a 100K a month. And some of them have been able to do that literally in the matter of 14 days. And it's a shift, there's a shift that has to happen in the way that they're seen. And the greatest contribution that I have as a coach is to be a mirror.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Nick Cavuoto: I just reflect back to them what they already know to be true.
Steve Rush: You applied another level of thinking and lens on this. So, you're quite big on metaphysics. Those folks are not sure what metaphysics are. Just tell us a little bit about what metaphysics are, but how you use it specifically?
Nick Cavuoto: Yeah, well, certainly it's the core thesis that I talked about with Tesla just a moment ago. But I think it might be easier to grab this conceptually if we think in the terms of movies, okay. So, go here with me for a minute. If we combine the Matrix with Avatar and Interstellar, just to name a few. This can kind of give us a visual concept of how we exist Interdimensionally. Stranger Things is also another way to look at this if you're a big Netflix fan. We're mixing the past and the present and the future, we're mixing awareness from consciousness. So, what we're consciously aware of versus the things that we don't see, and then also the idea that we are all connected, that we're all connected to one another and everything around us is connected as well. And through that big idea, there's an extension of this vastness of like, oh my goodness, there's just like, we are just this blue inky dot on this huge map. And there's so much more around us. So that's really, the big idea is like, if you go watch those movies and look for the underlying big ideas when it comes to, you know, how we can exist in different levels?
Another way to explain this part of inner dimensionality or, you know, kind of like these higher levels of consciousness is that, you know, it said that, you know, most people operate at a 3D consciousness, so it's kind of the level playing field for humanity. You know, when you go up to, let's say a 5D level, this is where you might have quantum experiences. And so, a lot of people who have seen things supernaturally, maybe you've experienced something supernaturally. Something that's just completely out of the ordinary. That's just the big idea of, you know, that there's more around us than what we see. And the Sixth Sense, right? There's another way to see it through that movie. There is so many different illustrations to this.
Steve Rush: Where's the best place we can start tapping into that level of consciousness?
Nick Cavuoto: Well, honestly, I think it starts with the inner work. You know, I didn't start really learning about this larger concept until I got into therapy for myself. And you know, that might sound crazy, like, okay, so now this guy's a quack using therapy. Not at all, you know, I think I'm committed to the highest version of who I am. I'm doing the inner work now because in five to seven years, when I show up on the biggest stages in the world, I want to make sure I'm good that I don't lose my marriage in the process. That I don't lose my kids in the process. I'm doing it as a defence play. And that's the bigger idea around what this whole thing really bakes out too, is that when you start seeing more, there's more to address. And so, when I was going through the process of saying, I want to advance the way that I show up in the world. Metaphysics was one of those things that just helped me understand spirituality at a greater level.
You know, there's a scripture that talks about this this big idea around basically that we do not fight against things here in a 3D reality, but we're fighting against things in a 5D reality. And so when you think about, you know, the concept of, you know, angels, or, you know, even forces of darkness and all these different things, again, just put it in the context of Star Wars and it's acceptable as a metaphor, but really, you know, I started to feel like, you know, I saw people who were afflicted by things that just didn't seem normal when I was a kid. And also, when I was in ministry, I saw people who were afflicted by things spiritually. And what I understood was that there's more to this picture than what we see. There's more to the collective ability of how we think and feel than what we see. And that's what allowed me to go to that higher level of saying, there's got to be something more. So, I mean, I would just look at, you know, taking the first step of just starting, get on YouTube and start learning about this. And there's one thing that I want to mention as you start watching or consuming or learning around these concepts. So as long as you judge, you cannot learn.
Steve Rush: Wise words.
Nick Cavuoto: So, if you are looking at a situation or watching somebody or even listening to me and you are in judgment, you will learn nothing. And it just will delay the process of you getting to the next level. So that's up to you, but I'll just give you that key. It's a total master key, there is so much in life. You know, if you're in a mood of judgment, you cannot learn and you cannot find the greater things that are in life through judgment, only through curiosity.
Steve Rush: I love that. In fact, I'm going to write it down and I will quote you. I will quote you, love it. So, you're big on relationships. Having spent so much time studying them, coaching them and supporting people through different relationship lenses. You have this great mantra, which I love called relationships are rocket ships. So, I'd love to learn how did the mantra come about and how do you use it?
Nick Cavuoto: I was in a mastermind in San Diego, in California. And I remember this was at the end of, well in the fall of 2019. So, about a year ago, and I was sitting around all these incredible people that for the previous 32 years of my life, I didn't know. And there was more growth in the matter of, you know, 60 to 90 days through this mastermind group than there was ever in my life. Like that period of time was so accelerated. And I just look around and I'm like, man, relationships are rocket ships. I just remember saying that to the group. And they're all like, Whoa, you know, tell me more. So, the idea was that, you know, when you get around the right people and you spend time with people who truly want to see you succeed, it's not about competitions, about collaboration. That you get around people who understand you. Who are willing to speak life into you, people who are willing to put you on their stages, my mentor and my business coach Mike Kim, and he runs the largest personal brand podcast called Brand You with Mike Kim and just phenomenal human being, and I've known him for the last decade or so. He put me in front of some of the most prominent people in the internet marketing space and also in the leadership space with John Maxwell, with Todd Herman who wrote The Alter Ego, Billy Jean, who's a huge paid media and agency owner. And he's done a lot of incredible things, internet marketing, as well as Chris Ducker from Youpreneur in the UK. He just connected me to all these people. And I walked away, you know, from an opportunity at a live event with over a hundred thousand dollars in proposals that were out from like two or three days.
And it was like serving the moment that I was in because at that season of my life I was really thinking about coaching. But for that season, that second half of 2019, I was also doing a lot of content production because content is one of my super powers. And so video content production. So, it was just amazing that when you get around the right people, the right things happen. And it will launch you into a totally different stratosphere of the people that you're connected to, who they're connected to and how you can achieve what you want faster, but yet with integrity. And that's the big idea on relationships or rocket ships, and that's how it happened.
Steve Rush: That’s neat, love it. So, this part of the show, we're going to attend the leadership lens on you, and I'm going to hack into your leadership mind and start to drag out some lessons that we can share with our listeners. First base of like to go with the Nick, is for you to share with us your top three leadership hacks?
Nick Cavuoto: Yeah man, number one, find a mentor. I have five coaches in my life right now. And I'll tell you it's been the best investment that I've ever made in my life. Find a mentor, find a business coach and someone who can lead you to where they are. It's not a theory, it needs to be practical, but you need to be supported in a very real way. So that's number one, find a mentor. Number two, never lie, never lie. This is one of my, you know, golden principles around personal branding is to never not tell the truth. Because it will always come back. Now of course our parents, they teach us, you know, don't lie, tell the truth, all these things, but in business, I mean, it has the ability to, in a microsecond destroy your entire empire if you have one or enough to take you out, because you realize that you have a lack of integrity, and those who are advancing their level of awareness will increase the level of responsibility and the way they show up in the world of which then requires communication to say, I screwed up. It also fuels imposter syndrome. So, it's incredibly important to never lie. And then the last one is to give unconditionally, you know, I live a life to be a gift to humanity. That is my entire thesis on why I'm here is to be a gift for a small 1% shift in people's lives. For me, I could be in a room with 10,000 people and I care about one person. It's just whoever needs it the most that day. And I focus on that.
And, you know, I think that what you focus on grows and the ability to double down on just one individual that I can lock eyes with, if it's a live event, or if it's an experience or just a conversation, someone I can show up for and just give unconditionally and look for ways to give, look for ways to pay it forward. I think it's one of the most abundant universal principles. It's the ultimate boomerang of being able to give unconditionally without expectation. Yet it's a way of being not a way of doing, so it's a way of being, which is like, that's the way that I show up in the world. And if you do it to get, it won't work. If you do it because that's who you are. And it's just how you handle life, then yeah, just get ready for the rewards to come your way.
Steve Rush: The last one you talk about is really significant because I hear many people talk about something very similar, but how do you really step away from giving and providing insights, information, versus I am 100% in that giving and gifting space.
Nick Cavuoto: It is through Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You know, when you realize that you don't need anything from anyone, that's when the game shifts, you know, cause you're enslaved to whoever you need something from. If you need love then you are enslaved to your partner, if you need money, then you're enslaved to your clients or prospective clients or to your marketing strategy. You know, if you need acceptance, then you are enslaved to your community or wherever you find belonging. So, once you realize that standing on your own two feet is all that's required. And the only thing that you need is your own clear connection with yourself and with your source, that's the big shift. I mean, I'm accelerating to the highest level, but in reality, you know, that's it, and a simple way to take a first step in that is to give the thing that you need the most right now. So if you need money, go give someone else money because it's going to hurt a little bit. Don't get me wrong, but the shift that happens in you, that's what needs to happen. The laws are universal and that's what everything is run by. You know, the idea of reciprocity. It's a universal law. What you reap is what you sow. So, I would tell somebody who's in a situation right now, who in a situation where they're stuck or frustrated or feeling like, man, I'd love to give, but I don't have anything to give. Do you have a smile? Do you have a handshake? Do you have a phone where you could call someone and just encourage them? You know, if you feel downtrodden, if you feel frustrated, that's what I'm talking about.
Steve Rush: That's amazing. Love it. The next part of the show we call Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or your work hasn't gone as we'd intended, maybe it's even gone completely south. But as a result of the experience though, we've now used it in our life and our work as a positive, what will be your Hack to Attack?
Nick Cavuoto: I think the whole idea around going from running $150,000 dollar a month business to not being able to afford a $30 dollar meal, that big concept has probably been the biggest, you know, hack that's happened in my career. And so, there's a totally different way now of how I view money. I think money is the consequences of doing what you love well, and there's also energy around money. Meaning it likes to go into places where it has consistency, safety and where it also has flow, like water, like a river, you know, it has to have movement. Otherwise there's stagnation, what's a stagnated river? It's a swamp. And so, money has to always be shifting and moving around. And I think I got into a place when things started going south of the business of where I started holding on very tightly, you know, I constricted my energy, which caused the river to stop flowing, which caused the money to stop flowing.
So, I would say that like, that's been the greatest lesson, cause the way that I show up now, I mean this year for our coaching programs, the first time we launched our core coaching program, we did over six figures in sales and in less than five days. So, there's a high level of understanding of what was broken before will not stay broken in the future and the way that we view resources or the continuum of resources and how they come in and out has a lot more to do with stewardship then, you know, your ability to sell. So, I would say, steward, what do you have well, keep, your hands open, better as an open hand than a closed fist. That's the big Hack to Attack
Steve Rush: I suppose it is also just trying to resist the natural learned behaviours we have in times of pressure, right? And going with that flow that you talked about.
Nick Cavuoto: Absolutely, and it also has a lot to do with not judging yourself. I'm pretty self-critical. You probably wouldn't hear it from this conversation, but again, dark in the light, right. So, the reason why I'm so optimistic is because I've been so hard on myself in the past.
Steve Rush: Yeah.
Nick Cavuoto: The reason why I see that there's endless opportunities are because I felt defeated to the point of there's no way out of this situation. So yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, it's based on these experiences that typically the hardest things in your life, me sitting across from this dude and getting my card declined at a diner, that's one of those experiences where you go like, this is never going to happen again. What do I need to do to ensure that reality is true? And so yeah, your greatest victories is definitely in a place of, you know, where you've also had a grand defeat.
Steve Rush: It definitely is, definitely is. And the last thing we want to do with you Nick, is to send you on a bit of time travel. So, you get to go back and give yourself some advice when you 21 now. So, what's your advice to Nick at 21?
Nick Cavuoto: Honestly, just keep going, just keep going. There's another way that I would frame that as you're asking it and it would be, you've already won. I think that I'm just living a life where I'm catching up to a spot that I think is this, you know, place of like achievement. And the thing that I've really tried to remind myself of is that I've already won. Like the battle's already over, you know, the trophies already been handed out or the hill has been conquered and I've already won. And so just play like you've already won, you know? And that'd be my advice to myself, for sure.
Steve Rush: Very neat. So, for folks listening to this today, I suspect they're thinking to themselves, how do I get to find out a bit more about Nick's work, whereas his website and how can I connect with him? Where would you like us to send them when we are done?
Nick Cavuoto: Yeah, so you can check out my website nickcavuoto.com, That's N.I.C.K C.A.V as in victory, U.O.T.com and also on Instagram. And it's just my name as well. So, check those out. I'm on Facebook. I have a seven figure mentors’ group on Facebook. So, you can check that out as well, but primarily check out my website. You can get everything from there. And then certainly if you have any questions or you want to hit me up on Instagram, I was just on entrepreneurs, on fire a couple of weeks ago. And my goodness, I've gotten hundreds of messages and it's been a lot of fun to be able to collaborate and hop on calls with people and just learn their stories. So yeah, that's the big idea there. Connected on Instagram. I'd love to connected with you.
Steve Rush: Great stuff, and we'll also put those links in our show notes Nick. So, when people are finished listening to this, they can head straight over and connect with you there.
Nick Cavuoto: Epic.
Steve Rush: From my perspective, I just wanted to say, we've have spoken a few times now, Nick, and every time I speak with you, I just get this rush of energy. So, whatever you're doing is working and I'm feeling that today. So, thank you for being part of our journey on The Leadership Hacker Podcast.
Nick Cavuoto: Steve is my absolute pleasure, man. Appreciate you so much, brother.
Steve Rush: Thank you very much, Nick.
Closing
Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.
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