00;00;01;05 – 00;00;28;09
Anika
Welcome to Your Brand Amplified the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. I’m so excited to welcome you back again to Your Brand Amplified. I’m Anika Jackson and I’m here today with Michael Harris. Bestselling author, multiple preneur and all around badass, if I may say that, based on just reading about you.
00;00;28;09 – 00;00;34;02
Anika
So I’m really excited to talk to you today and find out more about your story. So, Michael, welcome.
00;00;34;23 – 00;00;40;24
Michael Harris
Thank you, Anika. It’s really great to be here. As I mentioned before, I’m really excited to be on your show.
00;00;41;04 – 00;00;58;02
Anika
Oh, I love it. So please dove in. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you’ve had a very up and down journey you’ve done a lot of different things. Starting out as an entrepreneur when you were a kid, you know, yoga, many, many verticals.
00;00;58;25 – 00;01;33;01
Michael Harris
Well, I’m going to throw something out right now. Then I’ll talk a little bit about entrepreneurship. You know, there’s this concept in the world about ADHD right? That, you know, we can’t get focused on one thing in all of that. So a long time ago, I was able to rephrase that to nationally diverse. And then that gave me an opportunity to really focus on what I what I wanted to at one time but to celebrate that I had all these different interests, right?
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Anika
Yeah.
00;01;33;28 – 00;01;46;25
Michael Harris
Yeah. So I wanted to throw that out because I like the term multi-preneur because I do. Even today, I have three different businesses that I’m working on. Mm hmm. And so I stay really busy.
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Anika
I, I love that. And I’m going to say I did interview Peter Shankman a few many episodes ago, and that interview is one of the most odd and interesting ones I’ve done because his ADHD is so present. He’s, you know, all over the place, but it really weaves together a really beautiful narrative and I myself was diagnosed as an adult, and I was like, oh, my whole life makes so much more sense because I always did.
00;02;15;28 – 00;02;36;26
Anika
Like, I was always involved in a whole bunch of different activities. You know, and I was interested in doing so many different things. And so I love that you opened with that because I think we need to acknowledge that people, you know, have different abilities or different ways that our brains think and the neurodiversity should be celebrated and utilized.
00;02;36;26 – 00;02;39;14
Anika
Right. Instead, of just looked at as a negative.
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Michael Harris
Well, yeah. Yeah. I was never diagnosed with it. I suspect that I probably could be. You know, I was fighting it for so long. I was fighting all these different interests that I have rather than the celebration of those different interests. Yeah. Yeah.
00;03;01;11 – 00;03;01;23
Anika
Nice.
00;03;02;29 – 00;03;09;22
Michael Harris
So one of the things that that you asked me was about starting my entrepreneurship early.
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Anika
Yes.
00;03;11;06 – 00;03;47;14
Michael Harris
My dad growing up, he was an entrepreneur. He always had his own businesses probably some of the people out there would recognize some some of them because they made some pretty big impacts out there within the United States and Canada. And I won’t get too much into that. But I always learned and something dad always told us growing up, even as little kids as kind of planting these entrepreneurial seeds, you know, he was kind of a middle man and he would say, find something that people want and sell it to them.
00;03;47;22 – 00;04;13;12
Michael Harris
Mm hmm. Oh, OK. Well, here I am, six years old. Right? And we had some property we grew up outside of Portland, and we had some property. We had a lot of Blackberries on the property just wild blackberries. And I would go out there, you know, even three, hour, even five years old and pick all the blackberries. And I would come home covered with blackberries on my hands and my face.
00;04;14;09 – 00;04;40;01
Michael Harris
And you know, Mom said, oh, the Blackberries again. Yes, of course. And she would make these incredible BlackBerry pies, you know, the nice BlackBerry pies, nice and warm, vanilla ice cream on top. And all my friends would come over because they all said, well, Mrs. Harris, you make the best pies in the neighborhood, right? And then one day I said, Mom, I want my first job.
00;04;40;09 – 00;04;56;20
Michael Harris
So what? I said, I want to sell your BlackBerry pies. I said, I tell you what, I’ll go out there. I’ll pick the pies. You pay, come in, I’ll go around the neighborhood and sell them again. Dad, said find something people want and sell it to them.
00;04;56;21 – 00;05;03;03
Anika
Yeah. And something that you’re passionate about, too. You loved it. You love being outdoors. You loved picking the berries. Yeah.
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Michael Harris
Yeah, absolutely. So I started selling BlackBerry pies door to door 1964, 65 a long time ago. Kind of dates me. It was a long time ago. And so I started selling door to door, and I probably should have talked to the Girl Scouts about this because even back then, before the Girl Scout cookies really got big, I was going door to door saying, How many pies do you want?
00;05;33;18 – 00;05;45;18
Michael Harris
Do you want to buy a pie? Yeah, but how many pies? The what? And of course, the Girl Scout cookies took off because of that phrasing that they started using was How many do you want?
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Anika
Yeah. How can you say no?
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Michael Harris
Yeah. Yeah.
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Anika
You know.
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Michael Harris
So the blackberries were my first entrepreneur journey? And then it went on from there. I used to buy and sell used lawnmowers. 12, 13 years old. The local Scotty’s Garden Center. People would bring in their lawnmowers as a trade, and they didn’t know what to do with them. So I’d go over there again. A dollar. I would pay a dollar for the lawnmower.
00;06;14;21 – 00;06;34;29
Michael Harris
I’d push them home about three or four blocks to back to our house. I’d push them home. And basically all of that we needed to do. Me and my friend Stan we would clean them up. We’d get rid of all the grass on them. We put a new spark plug in and we had a paper for 20 or 25 bucks with a 30 day guarantee we never got one back.
00;06;35;10 – 00;06;39;16
Anika
So you already knew about doing a 30 day guarantee at an early age.
00;06;39;27 – 00;06;53;20
Michael Harris
At an earlier age, yeah. So. And it worked. Mm hmm. Now, I can’t say that I always was an entrepreneur. I always had the entrepreneur spirit. Yeah.
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Anika
And what’s the difference.
00;06;58;15 – 00;07;23;27
Michael Harris
Well, because I did get a few jobs along the way. Yeah. And that the last job I have I had, I left in 1995. Mm. Hmm. So it’s been a while since I was in any job and it’s probably because of that entrepreneurial spirit and the energy that Dad planted in us as kids to always be self-sufficient, being able to take care of ourselves.
00;07;24;10 – 00;07;52;22
Michael Harris
So I got a job. I was the assistant control of a small company was called Great Performance, and we built o different training programs for H.R., for larger corporations, thousand plus employees, government, etc. We had 50-55 employees depending upon the day. But right, right in that range. And then Mark struck a deal at the time with a larger publisher to sell the company for 7 million bucks.
00;07;52;23 – 00;08;20;08
Michael Harris
Well, this was late 1994. 7 million bucks then, It’s like probably 70 million now. I don’t, I don’t know what it was, but it was a lot of money. Mm hmm. Right. And I thought know, I manage the money. I was a system controller. I took care of all our credit lines or all that type of stuff. And Mark sold the company, and I’m thinking, Oh, we’re all going to get you know, a couple thousand bucks, maybe a five grand bonus, something like that for helping to sell it.
00;08;20;22 – 00;08;41;06
Michael Harris
And I was involved in that sale. And so at the end of the day, Mark took his money and left. Which, I don’t blame him. And at the same time, I thought that he could have paid, you know, even each of us. 2000 bucks, 50 employees. You know, it would have been a generous way to go.
00;08;41;10 – 00;08;41;22
Anika
Yeah.
00;08;42;21 – 00;09;07;12
Michael Harris
And I told the controller I said, I don’t like this. I’m going to leave. And he says, Oh, we got all this money now, because there was a larger corporation, they had about 400 million in cash at the time. So they were fairly large, and they could have really, really seeded us a lot. But within six months, we were down to three employees I saw the writing on the wall, and so I left.
00;09;07;26 – 00;09;10;00
Michael Harris
I never turned back.
00;09;10;07 – 00;09;10;21
Anika
Nice.
00;09;10;25 – 00;09;25;20
Michael Harris
Now, this is my ADHD or my passionately diverse side. Never look back. I did some training years ago with the Maasai warrior chief from Kenya. Wow. And the word Maasai means never look back.
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Anika
Oh, my gosh.
00;09;27;01 – 00;09;42;08
Michael Harris
Yeah. So it’s like, oh, when he said that, it made so much sense because he didn’t even know what his birthday was. Wow. This Masai warrior. Right. So I won’t go too far down that rabbit hole, but the thought popped up, so I wanted to share it.
00;09;42;17 – 00;10;31;00
Anika
Yeah. No, I love that. And I feel like, based on all of the different topics that you can speak on. Yeah, we could go down many rabbit holes. I’ll have to bring you back on, but you know, I have to do a different podcast. Yeah. So. And I think that’s something that I know I’m not alone in feeling, is that push pull of, I have these ideas. I’m, you know, I have this entrepreneurial spirit, but then, you know, I’ll do something else. Like, I just had my own company that I built up during the pandemic and then I just merged with another firm because, you know, during the pandemic, there were some great things that happened. There were some not great things that happened and as an entrepreneur, when you’re left holding the bag, no matter what, if people are paying or not paying, you know, sometimes you have to make those hard decisions.
00;10;31;00 – 00;10;46;23
Anika
And so I said, OK, I’m going to go into this company where I have a great role. I can help build that company up. But it’s also I love it and I love the people and everything I’m doing. But then at the same time, I’m also like, what’s that other entrepreneurial thing that I want to be doing? Right.
00;10;46;23 – 00;11;14;04
Anika
So so managing that push pull, I think is an interesting dynamic for people who want to be entrepreneurs or thinking about it. And the fact I like that you brought up find something that people want and then you can sell to them because you have to have passion. But if people in the market don’t want what you have and you don’t know how to sell it properly, then that’s going to, you know, it’s not really going to work.
00;11;15;13 – 00;11;21;18
Michael Harris
And even in that last sentence, that’s a show in itself. Yeah. I just heard you say it. Yeah.
00;11;22;14 – 00;11;35;03
Anika
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So, OK, so you didn’t look back, you left and you went from assistant controller to many other worlds. Spiritual world. World of yoga.
00;11;35;21 – 00;11;36;01
Michael Harris
Yeah.
00;11;37;00 – 00;11;37;15
Anika
Yeah.
00;11;38;08 – 00;12;04;25
Michael Harris
In inside of that, too. I worked closely with some investors on bringing you some capital for some different projects. I was also doing a lot of option trading and trading and I made a lot of money in the option market, primarily doing call options. I didn’t like put options. I did one thing at the time, but I did that one option trading very well.
00;12;04;29 – 00;12;26;20
Michael Harris
So I was able to stop working for a couple of years and I was diving into yoga as, as I was growing up again, not going too far down that rabbit hole. You know, I had had some health condition I had a massive water skiing accident and I had 60% of my liver removed.
00;12;26;21 – 00;12;27;09
Anika
Oh wow.
00;12;27;14 – 00;12;43;29
Michael Harris
I was in a coma. I had a near-death experience. I died and I came back. And then I started drinking as a teenager and getting into a lot of trouble with all of that and then I had additional health conditions where they’re going to cut off my legs.
00;12;44;29 – 00;12;45;21
Anika
Oh, my gosh.
00;12;45;21 – 00;13;13;11
Michael Harris
I had vascular disease and both my legs were blocked and I was on a cain. And the reason I say that is what I heard you talk about, these other things that I was doing in the yoga. I started doing yoga in 1987 and it changed everything, you know, I loved it. I loved doing the practice even right from the first, and I did it actually in a rehabilitation center.
00;13;13;11 – 00;13;37;12
Michael Harris
That was the it’s called Critical Majority Center. I went there because my legs and started walking and started doing yoga and I just felt good. I liked the feeling that I was experiencing. I never would have thought that I would do yoga or dove deeper into it. And so in the nineties, as I left that one company, I was doing more and more yoga.
00;13;37;20 – 00;14;01;22
Michael Harris
I started leading classes. I took a couple of smaller teacher trainings, and then I took a teacher training with some of the people out there might have heard of him, guy named Bikram Bikram Yoga, and I was one of the first 100 Bikram teachers. Oh, wow. Now I went not to become a teacher. I wasn’t going to teach him.
00;14;02;00 – 00;14;25;29
Michael Harris
I had no interest in teaching. I went because I wanted to heal my body. I wanted to get rid of any residual pain in my legs or back pain and really discovered, you know, again, within two weeks of going to the training during yoga, essentially four to 6 hours a day completely healed me within about two weeks, 12 years of pain.
00;14;25;29 – 00;14;58;02
Michael Harris
I was just like, it was gone. Right? I ended up being the speaker at our graduation at the Olympic Park down in Los Angeles on Olympic Blvd. And I was a speaker. I’ve always kind of spoken a lot in some way, shape or form. And if we have a moment, I’ll touch on that in a bid to and then as I went back to Portland, because I was living in Portland at the time, the local studio, the owner of the studio said, Why don’t you teach I said, I don’t really want to teach.
00;14;58;02 – 00;15;21;13
Michael Harris
So I said, Well, if you teach, you know, a couple times a week and we’ll pay you and then you’ll get free yoga. And I said, Sure, why not? I mean, what else do I have to do? A year later, I had my first yoga studio and this is something I heard you say a little while ago, too, is now how do we sell to them?
00;15;21;16 – 00;15;47;18
Michael Harris
Before I knew anything, I would have a notebook behind my counter, right? Somebody would come in, say, I’m John would come in and say, you know, I got to tell you, I really love this stuff. My back pain has gone away. My wife is happier with me. My boss, the accounting firm, is happier with me. And he would say all these things and I would go write these things down in a notebook.
00;15;48;09 – 00;16;27;11
Michael Harris
Again, not knowing really a lot about marketing at that time, really deeper educational type level. You know, I never went to school for marketing, but I knew Mark. Yeah. So I would write these things down. And then when I created my website or send emails out or I did little fliers, I would take the words that my students and the clients were saying in intersperse some in what I was doing, and I found my business exploded nice, literally exploding because I was using their language.
00;16;27;11 – 00;17;04;24
Michael Harris
Right? And so then I started having other studio owners around the world asking me to help them. And so I would help them and, you know, they would just call and I would say, hey, do this, do this, do that. And there their business would start exploding, too. Well, I ended up opening another studio. They’re both still open after all these years, which I’m really happy I sold them, but they’re both still open I then started a company called Yoga Business Expert, and so I was a business side of yoga.
00;17;04;29 – 00;17;32;15
Michael Harris
I clients all over the world and some of them I had revenue share arrangements because I saw the writing on the wall that, you know, if I’m going to coach them for a thousand bucks a month, or am I going to share in the revenue that we generate? Because oftentimes it was more than that. You know, I could oftentimes go in and turn a business around to where in a couple, two, three, four months they were up hundred, 200, 300%.
00;17;32;19 – 00;17;43;05
Michael Harris
And I gave them permission. I had some of my clients actually say, thank you for giving me permission to make money. This is yoga. I didn’t know I could make money.
00;17;43;22 – 00;17;45;03
Anika
Yeah, yeah.
00;17;45;07 – 00;18;01;17
Michael Harris
I said, Well, look at it this way. I said, The more money you have coming in means the more students you have in your classes and the more people you are helping. And it was just like people’s light bulbs would go off in your head.
00;18;01;28 – 00;18;23;12
Anika
I think a lot of times that’s when there are so many things we could be talking about. In this interview. I’m like, I want to talk about this and this and this, but that our internal resistance to money, especially if we have that kind of servant leadership attitude or that part where we want to give and we feel guilty if we’re keeping money for ourselves or making too much money.
00;18;23;12 – 00;18;43;17
Anika
And what you’re saying is exactly, you know, what we all have to learn it’s OK to have money. It’s OK to have and you have to nurture yourself. And part of that is making money before you can. The more you can nurture yourself and live in that, then the more you have for other people.
00;18;43;27 – 00;18;44;17
Michael Harris
Absolutely.
00;18;44;24 – 00;19;07;08
Anika
And I think we forget that. And we always want to like I know I get in this as well with some of my non-profit work or even some potential clients. Like I want to help everybody. And you can’t help everybody unless you are in the space where you’re helping yourself and you’re setting, you know, those kind of barriers and limits and opportunities to receive yourself.
00;19;07;18 – 00;19;07;26
Michael Harris
Yeah.
00;19;08;13 – 00;19;32;06
Anika
But there is something else that you touched on. Now I have to see if I can remember what it was. I think it was that the third party validation. Yeah. So and this goes back to I know one of the things you like to talk about and something that’s really important to me is storytelling. And that’s why I’m in marketing PR because I love to share people’s stories and I love to hear them and see what I can learn from them and what other people can learn from them.
00;19;32;20 – 00;19;59;00
Anika
So you had all these all this business acumen you started doing yoga to help yourself. Then you found that you could help other people who had yoga practices or make money by instituting these business practices that you did, which then led to them being able to help and heal more people. So it’s a whole circle taking you back to where you started with your yoga journey, and that’s really beautiful.
00;19;59;00 – 00;20;19;11
Anika
And that’s something that we say all the time to clients in marketing and PR is that third party validation is so important getting the testimonials, the stories, getting somebody else to write about you or interview you so that it’s not just you saying, I’m fantastic. Here’s why here’s why you should buy my product, but actually see what all these other people are saying about it.
00;20;19;13 – 00;20;42;23
Michael Harris
Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting you mentioned that. Again, this is probably show 4.0 or something like that. One of the things that I would do say you would come in and you are a new student right at the studio and you said, Oh, I’ve got some knee pain from writing for the last ten years. I love running, but my knee hurts without saying anything to you.
00;20;43;10 – 00;21;10;26
Michael Harris
I’m thinking inside my head, OK, I’m going to help you overcome your knee pain. And in six months from now you’re going to be our student of the month. So I would do whatever I could do right up front to help you overcome whatever it might be, knowing that you could be a great student of the month and perhaps help other people that have knee issues overcome those as well.
00;21;12;18 – 00;21;20;18
Michael Harris
So I don’t have to wait till you get the results to try to get you to get the results. Right. Does that make. Sense?
00;21;20;18 – 00;21;21;21
Anika
Yeah, definitely.
00;21;22;08 – 00;21;22;16
Michael Harris
Yes.
00;21;22;29 – 00;21;30;16
Anika
Fascinating. So you are also I don’t know where in the timeline we shift to bestselling author.
00;21;33;19 – 00;21;59;05
Michael Harris
I had a lot of friends tell me over the years because of my experiences, because of what I went through growing up and my health conditions and my other struggles that that I had with drinking and all of that, that I should write a book, I shouldn’t be alive today. I’m 63 years old. I was dead at 12 years old and then again in my twenties, and I shouldn’t be here.
00;21;59;05 – 00;22;22;26
Michael Harris
I mean, really, I’m extremely blessed and grateful to still be here. And so it was suggested that I write this book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, in my mind it was about ten years and I write a few things down, nothing real serious, and I don’t remember exactly who it was, but I heard something about writing your book in 90 days.
00;22;23;13 – 00;22;32;12
Michael Harris
Hmm. And so I made a commitment to myself one day that I was going to write my book in 90 days. It took me 79 days to write.
00;22;33;17 – 00;22;37;17
Anika
And writing was. Was that the only thing you were doing? Pretty much like-
00;22;38;00 – 00;23;00;17
Michael Harris
No, not, not, not at all. because of my passion being passionately diverse, right? I did it 2 hours a day. Wow. I was the guy in the corner at Starbucks. I would go down every morning in Starbucks for 2 hours and sit there and drink my coffee or my tea and write for 2 hours. And that’s what I did. That’s how I wrote my book.
00;23;00;23 – 00;23;25;17
Michael Harris
In Coffee Shop. Yeah. That was the first book, Falling Down, Getting Up. And then later, Rick Frishman, which again, another story. I won’t get too far into it. He was my original publisher and wrote another book called Expert Success Solution. So I’m one of the contributing authors of this book as well. Both of the books are of number one.
00;23;26;13 – 00;23;49;02
Anika
Amazing. So four books and I know we have some mutual connections in the book world. When you wrote these books, were you writing it just to share your story? For the first one, particularly to share your story, did you know that it would become a bestseller? You know, did you want to use it as a marketing tool?
00;23;49;02 – 00;23;54;15
Anika
Because I know that’s something that entrepreneurs do a lot, as well as short form books to use as marketing tools.
00;23;56;09 – 00;24;18;13
Michael Harris
My the first book Falling Down, Getting Up. I didn’t think of it as a marketing tool at the time. It was more about telling my story and getting it out, and maybe somebody would read it and find some inspiration or some motivation out of that book. And that’s happened multiple times.
00;24;20;25 – 00;24;23;01
Michael Harris
If I can briefly go down a short rabbithole.
00;24;23;06 – 00;24;25;07
Anika
Absolutely. Go down, go down them.
00;24;26;19 – 00;24;59;29
Michael Harris
One of the things and I did some storytelling education at Merrill Hurst College years ago, I discovered in my storytelling that I’ve been telling stories my whole life. Everybody has to. And so this mystery of telling stories or public speaking is not so mysterious at all. So I’m going to go back to second grade. Well, what happened when I came back from spring break, my dad had business in Hawaii.
00;24;59;29 – 00;25;26;11
Michael Harris
So we went over to Hawaii and I spent my time surfing and, you know, ten years old chasing 12 year old girls on the beach. You know, catamaran and doing all these different things. So we get back to school after spring break and the teacher says, now it’s show and tell time. Everybody’s got one minute to tell your story of what you did on spring break.
00;25;26;14 – 00;26;36;05
Michael Harris
Well, at the time, I didn’t think, oh, wow, great. I’m going to be a storyteller, you know, and all that kind of stuff was just like, what did I what could I tell? What could I not tell? Within that one minute? So I talked mostly about surfing and about learning how to surf and Wendall and Nathan, our surfing instructors and all that and I realized that, you know, in my storytelling time later on at Merrill Hurst that we’ve really been telling stories our whole life and that excitement and that joy and just getting that story out because we want to tell that story. Now we can get into -that’s a short story. I could take that same short story of talking about surfing and make it a bigger story and talk about the whole trip right? The girls, the sea, cucumbers, the coral, all these different things. So I discovered really the secret to creating a short one minute story, 10 minute story, 20 minutes story, a key note story, a book.
00;26;36;29 – 00;26;38;04
Michael Harris
Interesting, right?
00;26;38;07 – 00;26;38;19
Anika
Yeah.
00;26;38;27 – 00;26;39;08
Michael Harris
Yeah.
00;26;39;27 – 00;26;48;26
Anika
Yeah. It makes a lot it’s a lot easier to grasp when you break it down into the parts.
00;26;49;09 – 00;27;00;23
Michael Harris
Right, right. And I suspect you probably had some show and tell time as a kid, too, in school. And most people have at one point or the other, they had teachers that had show and tell.
00;27;01;02 – 00;27;01;11
Anika
Yeah.
00;27;01;22 – 00;27;21;10
Michael Harris
So we all know how to do it and it’s reinvigorating what we already know how to do. So even like when we train people now because that’s part of what we do is speaker training and podcast training is helping people define and tell their stories in different periods of time.
00;27;21;16 – 00;27;43;18
Anika
I love it. And that’s a different way of looking at some of the things that I like to do with is when I’m working with somebody, talk to them about their story. But then also when we’re looking at their product, what are their personas for the people that they’re trying to target and what story do they want to tell each of those people?
00;27;43;19 – 00;28;02;21
Anika
Right, because it might be a slightly different story for the consumer versus an investor versus a journalist. And how do you share that in this big world of marketing? And there’s podcast and social media and so many different ways to tell your message, to tell your story and to get your message out. And each of them are important.
00;28;02;28 – 00;28;16;03
Anika
And so if you can, we have a narrative that shares a little bit here but then it links to this and then you reinforce it here. That’s a lot more powerful and compelling than just, you know, using one of those aspects right.
00;28;16;12 – 00;28;29;09
Michael Harris
Right. You know, it’s almost like, you know, in the newspaper they have headlines, which is a book. Right. And I don’t know if this is true or not. It seems like headlines have gotten longer.
00;28;30;16 – 00;28;49;13
Anika
Because they know people are going to read that fifth or sixth or seventh paragraph perhaps. You know, they need to get as much information. And I think in the first headline, maybe the sub header and then the first three paragraphs, not everybody’s going to flip to the next page. Or, you know, so cover story. Then you flipped a page for page nine or whatever it is.
00;28;50;01 – 00;28;56;28
Anika
I think about this as I’m reading the paper. And also when we’re thinking about writing things with clients so. Yeah.
00;28;57;25 – 00;29;28;19
Michael Harris
Yeah, right. You got that short story in the headline, which then the person reads that three paragraphs or the 30 paragraphs or whatever gets. If I can mention, I did something years ago at the yoga studio early on and it was an Avatar type exercise. And again, I didn’t know much about it, but I was thinking, OK, who is my ideal client, Mary at 37 year old nurse, which makes $75,000 a year.
00;29;28;19 – 00;29;54;24
Michael Harris
She’s married to Bob, she has two kids, Sally and I forget with Sally and Jeff they are five and seven years old. They have a dog, you know, on and on and on. Very, very specific about the client. I wanted to serve she had a bum me from running and needed a place. She loved her family and her husband, but wanted her own place for herself in the midst of a busy life.
00;29;56;10 – 00;30;15;14
Michael Harris
About 30 days later, Mary came walking in and she was a nurse at the hospital. Oh, my God, he’s awake. Everything that I had read. So I began to again understand the power of who we want to serve. Yeah. And how to attract them to what we’re doing to help serve them.
00;30;16;27 – 00;30;40;02
Anika
Yeah. I mean, visual visualization, writing it down, putting it into the universe. Manifest. Manifesting your ideal client. And I think there’s a lot that’s very powerful in that because when you’re thinking about that stuff, you’re not just sitting still and waiting for it to happen. You are actively doing things and putting things out into the world to make them happen.
00;30;40;12 – 00;31;06;00
Michael Harris
Right? So, yeah, but my brother was one of the authors of The Secret you’re probably familiar with. Oh, yeah. So when Rhonda Byrne went to write that book, she approached my brother and said, Will you help with the book and where you contribute in the book as well? A lot of people throw rocks at the book, you know, Law of Attraction and all these things, and it’s an easy book to throw rocks at out there in the world.
00;31;06;09 – 00;31;25;29
Michael Harris
I don’t mean literally. And John Assaraf came up with a different idea along with that because it’s in the book, but people don’t really see it. But I heard you say it. It was called The Law of Goya. The Law of Goya is Get Off Your Ass.
00;31;26;29 – 00;31;31;12
Anika
I that was actually on my list to ask you about the Law of Goya. Yeah.
00;31;31;26 – 00;31;53;00
Michael Harris
So you actually got to go out there and do something. You just write down this avatar for Mary, the nurse, without actually doing something. So I had to take Mary the nurse. I had to put her on my website or that concept. I didn’t write Mary the nurse website or in my emails or in my print or my fliers.
00;31;53;16 – 00;32;00;22
Michael Harris
To attract that person. I had to do something rather than just write out who she was. Right?
00;32;01;09 – 00;32;01;17
Anika
Yeah.
00;32;02;02 – 00;32;02;10
Michael Harris
Yeah.
00;32;02;27 – 00;32;07;29
Anika
Wow. Fascinating. OK, so I want to talk about Quantum Leaps.
00;32;08;14 – 00;32;17;06
Michael Harris
Ah, quantum leap. Yes. This comes back to, to nature. You know, have you ever blushed?
00;32;18;06 – 00;32;18;14
Anika
Yeah.
00;32;19;02 – 00;32;50;25
Michael Harris
Yeah. So blushing is a change of state. So science doesn’t use the terminology quantum leap. They use the terminology quantum jump. Quantum Leap is more kind of with laypeople. Quantum jump again, it’s a change state. So if we blushed, it’s an instant change of state. If we get angry, it’s an instant change. Of state. You know, there’s so many different ways to talk about it.
00;32;50;25 – 00;33;18;22
Michael Harris
There’s what’s called the transformation now. The transformation now is called the white northern owlers. there’s white and northern and white southern. It’s an now actually in Africa. So this particular owl, you know, it’s kind of a normal sized owl and it can sit there, but it can shrink itself down instantly and make it look make it look like a branch or it can make itself puff it up to make it look really big.
00;33;19;21 – 00;33;46;15
Michael Harris
So there’s an example in nature of a quantum jump a change of state, right? And they do it for different reasons. I mentioned a sea cucumber. Sea cucumber. You know, it can be soft most of the time, but if a predator comes along, it can hard itself up instantly like a rock. So like if an eel clamps on it or something tries to get a hold of it, it feels like a rock.
00;33;46;15 – 00;34;16;14
Michael Harris
And let’s go. Right, and they’re chameleons. I mean, there’s so many examples in nature and within ourselves to when we take those quantum leap. So what if we take that same concept, whether it’s in our business, whether it’s in our relationships, maybe somebody’s struggling in a relationship and you just make up your mind that it’s going to change. Yeah. And you can very I mean, just like you can change it like that.
00;34;17;04 – 00;34;43;11
Michael Harris
What if what if you’re going along and you’re not making any money? But if you make this one shift, one shift and there’s many examples, I can give you a list, make one shift. You can double your revenue in a month. Right. So this idea, why not again, apply it to our everyday life, to whatever it is that we’re doing, business relationship health.
00;34;43;25 – 00;34;52;28
Michael Harris
I made a decision on my health at one point. Literally overnight, my health started changing. Amazing. Happens all the time.
00;34;53;18 – 00;35;24;21
Anika
I think first of all, thank you. That was the most clear description of Quantum, right? Because I think most people are like, what? What does that even mean? It’s such a nebulous concept. So many times so really appreciate that. And I just love the way that you parlayed that into talking about how you can shift things make you just have to make the decision.
00;35;24;21 – 00;35;47;24
Anika
But I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck is they’re afraid to make that decision. They’re afraid to take that leap. They’re afraid to take that step. So what are some ways I know that you work on approach and you know, a lot of you know, you do so many things that we would be on for hours really to talk about to talk about your journey and all of the good that you’re putting back in to serve other people.
00;35;48;03 – 00;36;04;08
Anika
But how what are some ways that somebody can get past when they realize that there’s a barrier and they just can’t take that step? Because I see it. I mean, I’m guilty of it. I have friends who are guilty of it who know if I just did this, this and this my health would be back. I wouldn’t be depressed.
00;36;04;08 – 00;36;10;17
Anika
I would have, what, X, Y, Z expectation, and they just can’t get themselves there.
00;36;11;01 – 00;36;38;05
Michael Harris
Yeah. This, this sounds kind of. Yeah, you got to make the decision first. I mean, it just it sounds so silly, simple kind of thing, but you really got to make that decision. Like, if there’s things that I want to change in my life that I want to do differently, I have to make that decision first, and then I need to act on it.
00;36;39;17 – 00;37;06;18
Michael Harris
I really need to act on it, even if I have fear myself, even if I’m uncertain, even if I’m afraid. Well, if I do this, then this person is going to think this about me. You know, all those different thoughts that come into our head. And to me, if we’re getting nudged to do something, maybe the universe is telling you this is the time to do it, and you just do it.
00;37;07;00 – 00;37;10;16
Anika
You just GOYA.
00;37;10;26 – 00;37;28;19
Michael Harris
And again, I love talking about GOYA, and I’ve got tons of different little stories. Les Brown always says Never make a story without a point and never tell a point without a story. And I love that idea. If I can divert again just for a moment.
00;37;28;19 – 00;37;29;08
Anika
Absolutely.
00;37;29;24 – 00;37;57;25
Michael Harris
I read a book as a kid, and in hindsight, I think it really affected me over the years. And the book was the complete Sherlock Holmes. And in the Sherlock Holmes story, you got Sherlock Holmes, and he would go in there, investigate these different situations and different crimes, but primarily by looking at the situations in a way that most people weren’t looking at yeah.
00;37;58;20 – 00;38;24;09
Michael Harris
So what I take a look at a sea cucumber, I go, What can that teach us about taking a quantum leap or an owl or I can get into what a rice bowl can teach us about taking a quantum leap and manifesting what we wanted in our life. We have those things or the idea that you know, in second grade at show and tell time, we’re learning how to do public speaking and storytelling.
00;38;24;09 – 00;38;46;15
Michael Harris
Without realizing it. So it’s taking what we already have and already know and using. So if somebody wants to make a change most of the time I will suggest they already know what it is. They’ve already got it, but it’s just learning how to use.
00;38;47;25 – 00;38;48;05
Anika
Yeah.
00;38;48;15 – 00;38;52;15
Michael Harris
All right. I hope that answers the questions. I kind of feel like I-
00;38;52;24 – 00;39;05;25
Anika
No, it does. It does. I think that, you know, each person has to decide for themselves and they have to, like you said, and they have to acknowledge and then they have to just take action.
00;39;06;02 – 00;39;06;08
Michael Harris
Just do it.
00;39;06;20 – 00;39;09;06
Anika
Taking action is that’s the part where people stumble.
00;39;09;14 – 00;39;09;24
Michael Harris
Yeah.
00;39;10;01 – 00;39;33;18
Anika
So I, I know we’re about out of time and I wanted to give you the opportunity to share some of the resources that you have with our community. And I know you have some things you want, invite people into and talk a little bit about that and like what you’re doing now. I mean, you still have your hands in so many things, but you, you do help people get to that next level.
00;39;35;12 – 00;39;37;13
Anika
Make more sales. You know, coach.
00;39;38;00 – 00;40;07;29
Michael Harris
Yeah. One of the things that I’m really focused on right now is endless stages, and I’m co-founder in this company called Endless Stages with another individual that I met a number of years ago, and he grew up in the entertainment industry. He was started acting as a kid and he was like the teenager in Freddy versus Jason and he’s been in a number of different shows was recently in a Hallmark movie.
00;40;07;29 – 00;40;36;17
Michael Harris
He’s done a lot of public speaking. So he grew up with the entertainment industry framework as far as public speaking and talking and, you know, creating scripts and timelines and all these different things. And then I grew up, you know, telling stories storytelling, teaching people. I’ve literally taught about 7000 people how to overcome fear. And speaking so combined, we’re really good combination.
00;40;37;16 – 00;41;04;12
Michael Harris
My feeling is right now in the world that stories are important. So even like my story, my falling down, getting up, it’s not just a story about my story, it’s a story about opening up and letting go of this energy that’s holding us back. Much of what’s in there, you know, was holding me back. And by writing that out, it shifted that energy nice.
00;41;04;13 – 00;41;32;07
Michael Harris
Right? So what we do today is we help people primarily as podcasters getting on podcasts understanding the process of podcasting, understanding how to create stories where we’re using some of these industry frameworks and some other ideas on the actual creation of the story and how to do it again. That’s another show to hand as well as public speaking in general.
00;41;32;07 – 00;41;40;08
Michael Harris
We love working with authors, coaches, experts, entrepreneur type people and getting their stories out.
00;41;41;00 – 00;42;06;19
Anika
Michael, thank you so much for being on our show today. And audience, please go to Endlessstages.com, a free group for authors, coaches, experts and entrepreneurs that want to get their message out into the world. I can’t wait to join the group myself, and I’ll be back again next week. Want more? Check out AmplifywithAnika.com or follow me on socials @AmplifywithAnika.
