Whats Your Next? And How Will You Make It Happen?

There are some people that make their work just another thing they have to do, and there are those that make their work something that they want to do. Welcome to Working on Purpose with your host Elise Cortez. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration from those people who have found deeper meaning and personal connection to their work life. It's beyond nine to five. It's working on Purpose. Now Here is your host, Elise Cortez. I'm your host, Elise Cortez, joining you live from Dallas, Texas home base for me. I've been tuning in for a while. You know this program is all about home people create more meaningful and productive personal and work lives, and equipping leaders inside organizations to cultivate meaning and purpose to elicit passion inspired contribution, innovation, and persevering performance. I talk with my guests to draw on their expertise and share my own experience consulting, speaking, and developing workforces across the globe in these week become stations. It is my intention that you derive value you can immediately apply to your personal and work lives. So I invite you to listening from that vantage point, and it is my fervent hope that you come alive with the possibility of living with passion, working on a purpose and seeing just how big and fulfilling your life and work can be. And if you do catch fires, I like to say, and you want to leave you without a support line. Your call to action you should write this down now is to email me at a lease at least Cortez dot com or use the contact me feature on my website at least coortet dot com to message me in that email. Tell me all I can help. Whether you want to join the distribution list to stay informed of these radio show topics, you want to learn about joining you catch Fire online, inspiration, accountability or mastermind community, or you want information on my purpose and leadership programs for companies, We'll get you taken care of. Back to the program with us this week for a special New Year's Day send off is Sean Anderson. Let me see a little bit about him, because you've got to get this for what we're talking about today. He is a number one ranked motivational author, unlimited thinker, and lifetime entrepreneur with a history of inspiring others. He's a seven time author. In fact, he's also the creator of Extra mile day a day, recognizing the power we each have to create positive change when we go the extra mile. Sean walks his talk. Besides having inspired tens of thousands through his speaking and writing, including an inspirational speaking tour in the Philippines attended by twenty thousand attendees, Sean's built a million dollar company, pedaled a bike solo across the United States twice, and created adventures in more than forty five countries, including having walked border to border across six of them. We'll be talking today about the importance and glee of pursuing your next that next thing in life that you get you bolting out of bed in the morning, running strong after your dream, and what you can do to make sure that next actually come to fruition. He Georges today from Marina del Rey, California. Sean, welcome back again to Working on Purpose. It's my privilege to talk to my favorite podcast radio host in the entire world, at Least Cortez. Oh wow, you know you've got to expand your circle a little bit, Sean, No, man, I just you know, I just flocked with the eagle, And who's better than the least Cortez right, and well we put on a few times. Now I think this might be number four, right, thing, but it's just so much fun. We've got to keep going back. Okay, lucky me, right, Yeah, so let's kick it off. Let's talk about this amazing thing called life. So as far as I know, and maybe you know differently, but we only get one shot at this thing, and so today we're talking about what we do with that one precious life that's full of nexts. How we're going to make it happen. So my next, of course, when I think about next, I mean the next adventure, the next move, relationship, great idea, exercise, goal, job level in your career, whatever it is, right, that's the next. What do you think sound good? Yeah, I'm absolutely with you. Let's go Okay, Well, I want to start this conversation really presencing some of your next because I think it's great to open the minds of possibility for our listeners, because next might be hard to think about it if you're just sort of stuck where you're at right now. So you are a man of many of those nexts, and so let's just start seven motivational books. The Extra Mile Day, Extra Mile America, I remember as well, and these forty five international adventures. So the first thing I got to get and I know a little something about your backroom from our conversations, but where did all the ideas come from for these nexts? You know? I think it starts with just asking yourself one question, what do I want to do with my life? You know, because if you can answer that question really honestly and truthfully, from there, you have a starting point of being able to really live that life. And and you know you said it, we get one life. Life is short. So this mysterious, amazing adventure, I don't want to leave it not having not having really experienced it, not having really lived it, not having really achieved those those goals, those whispers in my heart, those those things that I want to create. So that's what always prompts my next is, Sean, what do you want to do? What do you want to do now? What do you want to do next? So that's amazing, that's a lot of energy. I've always known you to have a lot of energy, and I got to share that. For me. Why do I believe in next? There's a couple of reasons. One, it just feels great to be up to something. It helps me feel alive that I'm actually I'm doing something like that. But two, from the advantage point of scholarship and just research, what we know by looking at the well being studies is that achievement is one of those really important things that goes into making us feel great about ourselves and our lives. And so I've looked a lot at the literature around well being, leadership, inspiration, passion, and purpose, and Martin Seligman, among others, talk about the importance of achievement. So that next thing isn't isn't it isn't something that we made up. It's it's well known and there's there's a lot of not just the people that are crazy like you and I Shan, but everybody needs some kind of achievement in their lives well. And I think when you start to remove the what's next for you at your life starts to suffer in a lot of ways. I mean, it's it's a documented that Olympic Olympians once the Olympics is over, they're not quite sure what to do next. They go into a state of depression because their purpose has been taken away. You take people who have who have been healthy and gone to work, and then all of a sudden they retire and they don't have a what's next, and all of a sudden, their health starts to falter, their attitude starts to falter. It's because because I believe at our core that we are driven by purpose. I believe that when we have purpose, we have the chance to live passion. And when those two things come together, passionate purpose, passionate purpose, man, that's that's when the whole world opens up to us. I completely agree, as you know, you and I can finish each other sentences these days in that way. But I want to talk to a certain number of people out there, and I want to make sure we all know when we say this that I've been in this number of people. So in my work, Sean, when I'm out and about talking to people, are doing programs inside organizations, are just talking to people in the grocery store. I'll see people all the time who when I ask them, how are you, They'll say, is it Friday yet? And so they've come to really get on the idea that they're they're just kind of cycling through their lives. They're waiting for the weekend to beginner whenever it is they're not actually working, and I understands there's nobody home behind those eyes. There's the lights are onund but nobody's home kind of thing. And I've been one of those people shown. I mean, I know what it feels like not to go for your dreams and instead leave a quiet life of desperation and frankly be depressed by by living in that state, by not going for what I wanted. So I know what this feels like. And a big reason I'm doing the work that I'm doing is to be able to help people find that passionate purpose again because it makes such a huge difference in our lives. Well, that's right, and it goes back to that thing that you said at the very beginning. To the best of our knowledge, we get this one life. And when we really understand that, we really under when we really understand the shortness of life, a limited number of years, months, days, breaths that we have. Man, we should be inspired by our day. We shouldn't be waiting for a Friday. But I gotta tell you, there's some great adventures to be had on a Monday. There's some really cool people to meet on a Tuesday. Wow, the ideas that you can create on a Wednesday and Thursday every single day is unique and special if you choose it to be. Of course, you can wait till Friday. You can live one day a week. And I'll tell you what, at the end of your life, I gotta believe that you're going to be wishing that you'd live those other six as well. Completely agree. In fact, a couple of months ago, I think it was, well, it was just before Thanksgiving, Sean, I had on a very interesting guest on my radio show, and when she reached out to me to ask could she be on it? First I turned her down because she's an undertaker. She is the owner and operator of a place called Cornerstone Funeral Services in Oregon. And then more I thought about it, Sean, the more I realized, Wow, who's got a better vantage point on this thing of life than somebody who handles death all the time, somebody who understands that life comes to profound ending, whether or not we planted or not. And we had the most amazing conversation about just that. She was the most zesty undertaker I could possibly imagine meeting. Wow, that's really cool. Can I ask what one thing you took most from that conversation with her. Gosh, there were several, several several. A couple of things would be that I did ask her about, you know, can you give us an example of someone that you've met who's really really lived a good life, lived life well. And she talked about a man who had lost six people in just a span of a few years, and that yet he still was able to live with such gratitude and such such effervescence and passion and just enjoy all of his encounters. So that's one she also talked about. She's that what she's doing for a living is her calling. She said that she lost her mom when I think she said she was in her early teens, maybe eleven or twelve, something like that, and went on a quest. It was a funeral crash or I went around looking at all these funerals to see how they were done, and was just obsessed with how people handled death and finally realized this was her path. And so, you know, it was kind of amazing to imagine that this was her calling and that's how she sees it. Wow. Well, you know, I'm really grateful that there are so many different people in the world that are so different from me, that are so different from you, because that's what really makes the world super cool in my opinion, That's that's why I travel to all these countries, because I get a chance to see so many people who are so different, doing so many different things. And from all those people, we have a chance to to really learn and to evolve and to transform and to become our best person. And oftentimes it's when we really reach out and extend ourselves to other people and learn from new people that we we will discover at a deeper level what our next might be. I think when we when it's the books that we read and the people that I meet that I've changed my life, that have helped open the door to, you know, the possibility of what my next might be. To that end, I would really love it, Sean if you could share with our listeners the way that you do your walks and when you go, like, I know you just finished your walk from in Italy this summer, and you have a very particular approach to that whole process that would probably make a lot of people really uncomfortable, and it's on purpose. Will you tell us, well, I have walked across six countries in the last four years Spain, Portugal, Italy, seven hundred fifty miles around Shikoku, Japan, England and Ireland. And you know, when I set out on a day, when I start first off, first off, once I arrive in a country, when I get to my starting point, I do not take other transportation. It's just not possible. You've got two feet, You've got the backpack on your back, and that's what you're going with. You know where your end date is, and you know when you got to get there by, so you try to get as many miles in as you can. Although each day I have no clue how many miles I can really go. I have a rough idea of where I want to make it, and I pray to Goodness that I can find a bed to sleep. But man, that's what I do. I set out. I walk as fast and as hard as I can during the day. When I get to a town, when it's around four o'clock, I start looking for a place to sleep. That's how it goes. I don't know where I'm going to sleep, I don't know where I'm going to eat. All I know is that I'm walking and I'm walking as well and as fast as I can go. I think that is phenomenal, and there's a rationale behind that. Tell us the rationale, well, I just think that honestly. The more i'm I'm just open. I'm just open to the spontaneity of where I can go if I just keep applying this unlimited type, this unlimited type purpose within myself. If I just keep walking and going, I just think new things open up. I love having goals in life, and that's why I have the destination of where I'm going to be. But you know what, I'm open to the flexibility of having to get to that goal. I don't want to live so rigidly in life that I know where my next is going to be. But man, I'm so open to just letting my best self come out every single day and trying to get there on these walks. You know, I put myself on the edge a lot. I You know, when you don't know where you're going to sleep, and you don't know where you're going to eat, and oftentimes I am a vegetarian, and in some of these countries it's really tough for a vegetarian define food. But man, you just go. You trust yourself, you believe in yourself, and the more you start trusting and believing yourself, the more you're going to find that you start to accomplish what you want to do, and that gives you the confidence that there's pretty much any goal that I say, in my heart, I believe I can do that. You know what, I sincerely believe I can do that because of these experiences that I've now had. I love how you generated that. Shauna, completely agree. And it's that thing of putting yourself out there and going beyond what you think maybe you can do and just trusting that you can figure it out that I think is just so illuminating for me and I One of these days we'll love to do something like that as well. And I think that your approach for people that really need a lot of structure planning would probably be really scary for them, and I would applaud them if they even attempted even a part of what you just discussed. You know. It's so interesting, though, is if as we go through life, how many of us really are living the life we planned at eighteen Because the structure that we try to apply to life life has such a deep dark humor that you know that's going to blow our structure up many, many, many times over. So it's it's it's it's it's good to have these awesome, amazing goals. But I don't think that we want to take the love and the life and the vitality and the energy and the passion out of life by structuring things so much that we forget what a blessing it is to be here today. You know what I'm going to do right after the show? I mean, my next is going to take my Chihuaha's for a walk and go out and and breathe the air and just be spontaneous and just live life, love life, and and and the more that we do that, the deeper appreciation we will we will gain for life. And I think the deeper appreciation we game for life, the more that we don't want to waste our time, and the more we don't want to waste our time, the more app we are to create. Are what's my next? I completely agree with that, And as you know, I mean, part of what I structure in most of my talks and my programs is this notion of cultivating our passion just like what you said, go out on that walk and look for amazing things. Go looking from them. They're out there. It's your job to see them and to experience them. But they're there. And so I think that that is a great example of the simplicity of being able to take in everyday life in a way that builds your passion, fuels your passion, and gives you something to be inspired about. I think one of a really awesome word is this word called fascination. I think the more that you become fascinated by conversation, the more that you become fascinated by people, the more that you become fascinated by nature, I think, the more that you'll become fascinated by all the possibility that is really truly open to us. If you really want to become, if you really want to think and explore, what's your next I challenge people to go out at night time on a clear night, look up at the stars and just realize, Wow, this universe that we belong in is so it's infinite. It's just infinite. And why do we choose to think so small when we belong to something that is so infinite? Impossibility? So, you know, when people are struggling in life and they're not sure what to do next. And this goes back to what we were just talking about. I say, just go take a walk. You don't have to walk across the country, but why not just go walk through nature because when we see, when we see the possibility of nature, we see the possibility within ourselves. Agreed and a great point you take us on our first break, Sean, I'm Alice Cortez, your host. Were Around the Air with Shawn Anderson, a number one ranked motivational author, a limited thinker and lifetime entrepreneur with a history of inspiring others. A seven time author with the latest book out called The Four Phibs. He is also the creator of Extra Mile Day, the day recognizing the power we each have to create positive change when we go the extra mile. You joined it today from Marina del Rey. We'll continue when we come back from the break. Stay with us. Elise Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise Cortet. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise ali se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on purpose if you're just joining us. My guest is Sean Anderson. He's a number one ranked motivational author, Unlimited Thinker and lifetime entrepreneur or the History of Inspiring Others seven time author. He's also the creator of the Extra Mile day a day recognizing the power we each have to create positive change when we go the extra mile and he walks his talk. Besides having inspired tens of thousands through his speaking and writing, including an inspirational speaking tour in Philippines attended by twenty attendees, Sean's built a million dollar company, Pedal to Bike solo across the United States twice, and created adventures in more than forty five countries, including having walked border to border across six of them. I'm Elise Cortez, your host. Wow a little. I feel both tired and also energized by having said all that about you. Love that, Sean, Thank you, Elise. Yes, I love how you walk through the world and help sprinkle pixie dust like I try to do as well. M cool. Yeah. So, so you know what's great about having you in my life and having met you as both of us are of the of the belief that life is best when we're connected to people we care about and we're going for something meaningful and worthwhile. So what I want to talk about next is why don't we go after the lives that we want and run hard after our dreams. What's missing for people that we don't do that? It's that's it's that semi truck that hits us called life. It's it's living. It's the responsibilities that that we live with every day that we're on us every day. It's the it's the having to go to the eight to five job and wake up in the morning and take care of the kids and pack the lunches and go compete in the traffic and get into work and realize you forgot to do this report and having the boss say things to you and then having to drive home in the traffic and realize that you forgot to buy milk and eggs and you have to go to the store. I mean, it's exhausting. Life can be exhausting and and and eventually life takes its toll. It's like the Grand Canyon, you know, the Grand Canyon looks like it looks because over time it just took its toll, It made its mark. And if we if we don't, if we don't realize or have that awareness that life can beat us down to our knees, we never have the chance to pop up and really live any kind of purpose at all. You know What's I completely agree with that, of course, and I think we forget about the possibility of our of our lives. And just this morning, I was reading one of the one of the feeds that I get about just the world News, et cetera, and they were the author was talking about whatever you might believe about Elon Musk. This guy is up to big things in life. I mean, this guy is not one of those people going, you know, should I pack my lunch today or should I maybe go out and catch Chinese? He's you know, the Space program the the cars. I mean, it's just it's amazing what this man is up to. And but you know, in between that and all the rest of us is, as you say, this thing called life. And that's why I know I do what I do, and I want to hear about your perspective on this is I think people need a constant reminder of how amazing their lives and work can be. And I know, especially for me, the work realm is really important because we spend at least a third of our lives there and so that if that's if our lives are going to be meaningful, that has to be meaningful to us, you know, And I think it's it starts with just really finding this this joy and living I mean, just this real appreciation, this gratitude for just having the chance to live this mysterious adventure. I mean, if we if we can't feel joy and if we can't feel gratitude, I don't think that we could ever really feel connection to ourselves and find a deeper purpose to do something really difference making. And if we wake up in the morning and if if joy or gratitude or hope or anything positive isn't running through our veins man, I can pretty much assure you that your day is not going to be all that positive either. It's living life to the best is first off, realizing that we have the power and the choice to live life to our best. And if we don't really acknowledge that and do things towards that goal every single day, you know, we're never going to find our deepest joy, We're never going to experience our deepest gratitude. We're never truly going to even understand what this word purpose means. Yes, absolutely absolutely, and yet still you are someone. You are the human spark plug. I think we talked about one time. I think it's in your biosoplace. I love that. That's a perfect descriptor for you. The energy that emanates from you, Sean is seems to me like unquenchable. So I know a lot about what you just said there how that powers you. But you are so tire us in the work that you do, and I know that for you, you will not rest until you have helped people across the globe live their best life as many as you possibly can. Where does that energy come from for you? I mean, you know, because I know what it is when people don't clap for you. I know what it is when people don't cheer you on, and when people say, you know a leash, you can't do it. At least you're not good enough. At least I'm so sorry, but you don't have enough talent to do that. I know what that feels like. And I know that the world is full of a million, five million, ten million, one hundred million voices just like that. But I also know that all that takes sometimes is that one voice, that one voice of somebody else that says the least Cortez, you are so amazing, you are so powerful, you are so dynamic, You've got so much talent. Man, the world should be juice because by your words I mean so, I just want to be that guy. I want to be that guy that gives people just a little bit of hope, because when when we feel a little extra hope, I feel then that we've got a chance to really believe in our own potential. Because if we don't ever, if we can't ever believe in our own potential, how in the world is anybody else ever going to believe in our potential? So I just want to be that guy that says, you know what you are good enough. Not only are you good enough, but you're great enough. Go for it. You and I have talked about this before, but I might as well go ahead and repeat this story now because it's a perfect example what you just talked about. There's the notion of people being able to see us for a person bigger than we see ourselves to be. That is so incredibly important and useful in life. And you know where that started for me was when I was nineteen and I got fired by my boss. Remember that story, Roland, Do you remember that? John? Oh? Yeah, I do very well. Yes, yeah, yeah, so really quick for our listener. So I was nineteen years old, love working for this guy. I was this admin assist commercial real estate development. Was this business eighteen months in, just was having a ball. He's bigger than life, great to work for. I was making eight hundred bucks a month. Wow, nineteen eighty four was all the money in the world. And one day, on the way out the way up to lunch, he literally swings the door open wide and over your shoulder. As he's bouncing out, he says, you gotta get out of here, go see the world, get an education. But before you go, hire your replacement. And you know that was amazing for me because I sat there paralyzed the whole time he was gone, wondering did he just fire me? And when he came back from lunch, just merrily, like as if we hadn't even had any conversation at all, I stopped him as he was bolting back to his office and I said, hold on just a second, did you just fire me? And he said, absolutely, be a crime to keep you here. So before that interaction, Sean, it did not occur to me that I could go to college. I just didn't wasn't on my radar. I just didn't think that was a possibility for myself. And you know, I've got a bachelor's, two masters, and a PhD. So I think I did the education thing, the travel thing I've I've lived in Spain and Brazil, and I've presented in most of the continents. Still much more I want to do, and of course that doing something with my life that's a forever ongoing thing. But what a gift he gave me by seeing me as somebody I could be versus who I thought I was. Then well, you know, that's such a brilliant story, and I know that you're really close to finishing your first book, and if you don't have someone to dedicated to, I think we might be hinting at him, right, yep, that's already in there. In fact, I want to I want to give a quick shout out to him because he was on my show back in late July. So here he is now, fast forward, eighty two years old and Sean he's invented his own folding travel chairs called the Interlude And he did that because he wanted to keep traveling right and he needed it to stop and rest, and he couldn't find anything on the market that really worked for him. So he was like, well, I'm a civil engineer. I could figure this out, and he made his own. And I'm so proud of him. I could bust Sean, and here he is, so now I'm cheering him on. It's such a great thing. Well, our passion and purpose only grows old when we let it grow old. Right, that's exactly right. So I actually had him on the show back then we were talking about it, and he's now he's now launched it, and his name is Roland Hartle. It's called the Interlude Chair. For those of you who are care to check it out anyway. It's just it's splendid. So that whole thing of I love that you want to be that one person who says, yeah, go for it. What a great way to walk through life. You know. I just think that we're we're all here to do something amazing. I am brilliant. I believe that. And it's not doing something and brilliant and amazing for ourselves, but it's really it's really doing it's making the world better and reaching out and doing something amazing, brilliant for someone else. You know. I'm I'm big on I'm big on doing my best to try to create miracles for other people. And we all have that power to create miracles for other people. Sometimes it's just it's just what we might say to somebody who needs it at that right moment. It's sometimes what our effort given to somebody might mean at that right moment. It might be what we give to an organization that's so desperately faltering and needing just a little bit of extra money to get it through the month, you know. And I think it's a powerful goal for all of us to just think about, how can I be a miracle for someone else. We spend so much of our time selfishly looking for miracles to make our life better, But the real secret to making your life better is to go be a miracle for someone else. Oh my gosh, speaking of that, Oh my gosh. Okay, So, one of the things that I have come into understanding, Sean, is when I'm sure you have had this exact same experience many times over. But this has been happening to me more and more recently as I'm out speaking and I'm talking about what will you do through one precious life? How do you create the meaning that's going to be nourishing for you? How will you cultivate passion and inspiration, live and work from purpose and lead from purpose? How will you do all that? What happens is hopefully sometimes people get really turned on by that, and I've seen this happen again and people are like, I'm so inspired, this is what I see it possibility for myself. So what I got really present too lately, Sean, is that I started thinking about this as they were sharing their reactions and what they got from the conversation, and I was so worried that if when they left that room, that they would walk back into that life that you talked to us about before all the traffic and the laundry and the food and the job and everything else, and that beautiful spark that had gotten ignited would get snuffed out. And so that's the reason that I started these online communities to help people catalyze their passions into reality. That's exactly why I did that. I had this amazing example of somebody chan I mean, I hope I ever forget this talk about getting to be part of somebody's world. This woman reached out to me after I spoke last and I think it was November, and she sent me this amazing email and she talked about how she had, up until that point, thought her life was pretty good. You know, she had showed a family, she had a decent job, she'd been promoted several times. But she realized that she wasn't really living as much and fully as she could, and she wasn't fulfilled. And the reason that she wasn't fulfilled is she knew she could do more with her life, but she wasn't doing it. And her particular experience was she endured some like eighteen years ago, this horrifying, traumatic, life changing experience and she spent the last several years really coping with that, healing from that, and now has gotten to a place where, you know what, it's enough healing, It's enough being embarrassed by that. I want to go talk about my experience to help other people heal and empower them to go after what they want. And that was so cool, Sean, it was so cool. You know, we've talked a lot about this subject What's My Next? And I was thinking about it because you just brought this this thing up to Oftentimes, if life does knock us off the track of what we want to do, of where we want to go, if what we want to live, of what we want to experience, we need those little reminders to keep us on track. And that's why, you know, I hope people really take note who are listening to the show that you know, I know a lease really well, and I think if somebody truly wanted a great accountability coach, a great mentor advisor, counselor to help keep them on their track to achieve their what's my next? Man, I just encourage you so much to connect and with the Lease and people who've got that kind of passion, because because it's it's it's it's when you fill your day with with that, you keep growing, you keep moving forward. And so I know a lease as have special programs, and I really hope that people hook up with your programs at least I if people want to make a difference in their lives. It's just not something that we can talk about. It's something we have to take action towards every single day. And you definitely help people do that well, thank you and likewise, and I absolutely agree with that, and I know for me too, right, I always have to be working with people, yourself included, to keep me accountable to what I'm up to. And you've helped me. Oh my gosh, head neck shoulders move Earth's basically the last year and a half that I've known you, and I tell you all the time, you know, everybody needs a coach or some something to keep them on track towards what they're up to. Because back to what you said about that, just the sheer momentum of life will pull on you and you've got to find some way to fortify yourself. And so you know what I did was I created these various online communities and they're from five dollars a month to fifty dollars a month, depending on what you're up to. And it's easy if they're on Facebook. But that's how I created them, was to be able to people access to a community, into a set of tools ongoing, to be able to help them tap into another community, to keep them on track, keep them inspired, keep them nourished, and in some cases, accountable for what they say they really want to do. You know, I really applaud that. You know, if we all look back at at how we grew and how we learned when we were younger, it's because we had, you know, an accountability system in place. We had a mother, a father, a teacher or whatever. We had someone that encouraged us to get up in the morning and go to school and to do our lessons and to do our homework and to keep moving forward. And as we get older, though, you know that accountability starts to become more and more upon ourselves. And then we interestingly enough, we start to become less and less happy because we're doing less and less of what we want to do. But if we just remember the lessons of what we learned as a as a young person, that if we want to succeed. You know, it's really good to have someone in our corner. It's really good to have that accountability coach. And I think if someone out there has a huge goal, man, please do not make an attempt to go after it on your own, because because failure after failure after failure starts to get to you. I mean, I get that. I'm a guy that that had eighty three rejection letters from my first publisher. I get that. I know what it is. And unless you have this this super human strength to believe in yourself, man, you need somebody to encourage you to cross the finish line. You know. If your goal is to run a marathon, you need to find a running partner to help you do it. If your goal is to write a book, you need to find someone that says, you know, how's it going, where are you in the process? You know, what are you going to complete next week? That's how we that's how we achieve our biggest, most amazing goals is when we've got that person in a corner that constantly reminds us of what we want to do. Absolutely completely agree, big things do not happen all by ourselves. At least the village that we've heard about at least if not one or two other people along the way. So comple agree with that, A lease the village. I can create a village for us. Let's do that. I like that, make it, make it a big party. And on that note, what a perfect way to go to our last break. Alas Cortez your host. Here, we were on the air with Sean Anderson, a number one ranked motivational author, unlimited thinker, and lifetime entrepreneur with a history of inspiring others. He's a seven time author, with the latest book out called The Four Phibs. He's also the creator of Extra Mile Day a day recognizing the power we each have to create positive change when we go the extra mile. You join us today from Marina del Rey, California. We'll keep our conversation going after the break. Alice Cortez is a speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She designs and delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise to your organization. She will help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, Please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with Elise Cortez. To reach our program today, send an email to Elise ali Se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose if you're just tuning in. My guest is Sean Anderson. He's a number one ranked motivational author, unlimited thinker, and lifetime entrepreneur with a history of inspiring others. He's a seven time author and has also created the Extra Mile day, a day recognizing the power we each have to create positive change when we go to the extra mile and this man walks his talk. Besides having inspired tens of thousands through his speaking and writing, including an inspirational speaking tour in the Philippines attended by twenty attendees, he's also built a million dollar company, pedaled a bike solo across the United States twice, and created adventures in more than forty five countries, including having walked border to border across six of them. And yet, remarkably, he believes his greatest adventures and success are waiting to be lived. I'm Elist Cortez, your host. Let's continue this fabulous conversation. So, Sean, the next thing I want to talk about here because I think it fits. It's part of this whole notion of what's our next, and that is adversity. I had a wonderful guest on my show several months ago, as named Steve Gavatorta, and he has this whole mantra of is to embrace our adversity because it helps us become the person we're meant to become. I look at your eighty three book rejections, and I can't help but think that you wouldn't be who you are if you hadn't been rejected those eighty three times. Well, I you know, I think that's I think that's true. I think that when you become so married to something that you truly want, that the only one that's really going to stop you is yourself. And I know that we've each heard that before, but it's true. At a point after number ten, you've got a choice of back in those days mailing out your eleventh you know, your proposal, your twelfth proposal, your twentieth proposal, or quitting. And you know, man, a any goal that's so big, I guarantee you that you're going to fail initially, but just believe that you can do it and don't stop trying. The word one of the most powerful words I've ever believed in is this word called fortitude. Man, I'm just not gonna be I'm not gonna be stopped by that wall. Okay, the walls in front of me. So what do I do? Is there a way that I can climb over that wall? Can I go around that wall? Can I go wonder that wall? How can I get past that wall? And you know, I gotta tell you, sure, it wasn't so cool. When you are on number fifty and fifty five and sixty of a rejection, you're gone, wow, man, maybe my book really does you know, maybe it's not so good or whatever, but you've just got to keep believing this is the path you want to walk, that this is this is what you want to do with your life. If a thousand people say no to you, they can't stop you. The only one that can say no to you is the guy that and the woman that you look at in the mirror. That's the person who can stop you completely agree with that, and it's I think it goes back to you know what, I think it was. Edison is credited for this set. He took him one thousand approaches to creating a light bulb, and he doesn't see that as failure. He sees, as I found nine or ninety nine that didn't work, and I think there's something too. It's all about the mindset, right, You and I know how important our mindset is and how we approach problems the world, opportunity and see our place within the world. Yeah, yeah, I agree, and you know I want to The second subpoint at that story of eighty three rejections was my initial book wasn't even the book that I truly wanted to write. My first book that I really had in my soul was this book called Sore to the Top, which was taking people through this four part accountability system. But I knew that there was no way I was going to get that book published yet because who who was really going to listen to this twenty seven year old kid about how to achieve success. So the first book that I had these eighty three rejections for was a book that I knew I had to write in order to then get publishers to take my second book. So my first book was a book called Countdown to College, Preparing your student for success in the collegiate universe. And I knew that I knew that I had experience. I knew that I had the credits to write that book, and I knew that if that book succeeded, I could really write the second book, which is the one that I wanted, was The Sword of the Top. And after I had that first book published, I think we sold somewhere between five and ten thousand copies. I then had something to take to a publisher and I said, look, look, man, I've written this book. We sold copies. I help push copies. I help do this. I got rejection from sort of the top by the first publisher, but the second and third said, you know, we both want that book, and I had the chance to negotiate from that point on who would take it. Seems so strategic to me, and I love that the word fortitude, as you said before, there's so much behind that, and so for our listeners sake, because I know the answer to this question, how are you helping people achieve their next sean? What are you doing to help them. I gotta tell you, I do my best every single day just to pour my passion into the world. I think that if I can, if I can just put and pour an ounce of my passion into somebody I meet and help their passion maybe become a little bit richer, more full, they've got a chance to do their thing. And so every single day, I think one of my general goals is just keep pouring my passion out there. Passion is what when we have passion for something, it's the chance to light other people's passion. And so we keep walking out there is if we're a lit match trying to light other people. I think that's the greatest good that we could ever pass forward. Yes, And I note for me, as you know, the world of work is just so important for me. I'm so lucky that I was raised by entrepreneur parents who really gave me the perspective that work is a noble part of life. It's important. It's not something that you slog through or get through in order to live. And I appreciate that, and so so much of my focus is to be able to help awaken those eighty five percent of the people across the planet who are not enthused about going to work, according to Gallup, and I tend to see them as well. So you know, the work that I do with the radio show and my programs is really all built around that. And the latest thing that I did, and I think we've talked about this a little bit. I don't know if you know and how far I've gone with it, but I released and I've been enrolling this new program that I created shown this is my content. This is based on my research from my meeting and work research and my identity research, my years of working on purpose on the s the radio show, and then taking a big broad swath of a literature of the best and what's an inspiration, passion, leadership, well being, an engagement. And I created this program called Vitally Inspired Living and Leading from Purpose, And so I'm doing that program now inside organizations and also for public offerings. And I tell you what, back to your point before, it is the coolest things. It's the best feeling to know that you get to do work. This is my purpose why I'm here on the planet, and that in so doing I get to make a dirigin of the people's lives. I don't know how it gets any better than that. Now. It took a lot to put to stand that up, of course, right, but wow, I mean this is how I get to live my life. Yeah, that's really cool. And you know that's a that's a good question for people that are listening to possibly ask themselves right now, is you know, how could my life be different if I was inspired every day? How would my life be different? And it goes back to these classes, these courses, the coaching, the speaking that you do. Is when people hook up with you, when they they have a chance to really know what it is to be inspired every day. And you know, if people walked into the relationships with being more inspired, how would that change the relationships? If people were more inspired to walk in a healthy way, how would that change your life? If people were more inspired to go to their job every single day and try to make a difference and create change, how would that change their life? I mean, if if you're not out there feeling inspired, I think that's one of the biggest questions you could ask yourself, is what and I do to get more inspiration in my life? You know, I talk about this in almost everything that I do, my speeches, my programs. But this notion that when people work from their purpose, they're completely irresistible. And when you look at the companies that are a purpose led out there, they outperform their peers by a factor of six to one. And a few months ago I had a really interesting guest in my show's name is Hugh Welsh. He is the general counsel and president of a company called DSM and they are a purpose led, performance driven company, and they talk about how not only is this just good for the soul, but he's got solid results in terms of the highest engagement in the industry, highest shareholder price, revenues, impact across the globe. It's just it's it's really hard to make a case against purpose. M amen to that. You know, I believe that we should all have a life purpose. I you know, my purpose is to empower or one million people to lead a more positive, passion and purposeful existence. Because when purposes at our core, when we know who we are, what we stand for, what we want to do, everything about our life changes and big decisions and little decisions that we have, it they become easier to make when we melt them all back into our purpose. How does this fit my purpose. Companies have purposes, why can't individuals? Yeah, And that's a great thing about doing the work that I do is getting to be able to blend those together, to thread those together, to help people, help people inside organizations be able to identify their own purpose and then see how does that string through and thread into the overall organization purpose When that happens, Sean, Wow, it's it's really unstoppable. Well, amen for the work, did you do? Well? Thank you. So we're here, we are almost at a time, and we've been talking in the show about going for our next and making sure that that happens. So hang on, listeners, let's ask him what's your next, Sean? You mean besides the walking my Chihuahwa's in twelve minutes? Ye? Right, you know, because because sometimes sometimes we need to have a little next, and we need to appreciate our little next just as much as we need to appreciate our big next. And and you know, it goes back to asking myself a very simple question every single morning when I wake up, what am I excited about today? So that's a little next? What what little next am I excited about? But as far as my big next, you know, there's three things that I'll do in twenty nineteen. The specifics yet I haven't. I haven't. I haven't given myself permission yet to to to really know exactly what they are. It's because once once I tell myself, yes, that's what I want, that's when I make that real public announcement, and I use the public announcement as my accountability to do it. But I can assure you there will be three What's my next in twenty nineteen. Number one, I will walk across another country. Number two, what's my next? I will write another book. What's my next? I will go speak on an extra mile world speaking tour in another country. Again. So the specifics I haven't yet convinced myself of what they are, but there will be three of them. That is so inspiring and for me just I'm just going to say one, and that is I will publish my first book next year. You have been talking about that for a while, and that's what's on the docket. We're doing it. So awesome. Here we are out of time already. Sean Anderson, thank you so much for coming back to working on purpose. It's amazing to have you back. It's my privilege to be here. Thank you so much for being my friend. Absolutely likewise listener. If you want to learn more about Sean Anderson and any of his seven books, his Extra Mile Day, his speaking or the myriad of other adventure sees up to visit him at Shawan Anderson dot com. That's Shawn Anderson dot com. Next week, we'll be on the air talking with one of those women I told you about from my From my audience, you literally caught her passion and her purpose, and she considers she's off working on fulfilling her adventure in her life, and she is going to go talk about her adventures of going through their traumatic experience and help other people. I cannot wait to share her with you. She's truly working on purpose. See you there, and remember that work is at least once they're alive. So let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune in to Working on Purpose featuring your host Alice Cortez each week on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, find your life's purpose at work