Corey Poirier: Authentic to me means speaking your truth. No matter the circumstance, even when it's hard and actually even more importantly, when it's hard, when I say authenticity, I think if you are trying to show somebody, whether it's how to do something, how to live a certain way, what have you, it should be congruent with what you're doing.
So you should be speaking your truth.
Chris Do: Corey, I'm excited to talk to you today because you are a person who's kind of near and dear to my heart and the things that you talk about, you haven't just given one TED talk you've given not two, not three, but five TED Talks, the last count. You've written multiple books, but the thing I'm most interested in talking to you about today is there's two words that are kind of very buzzy right now.
Number one is personal brand. Number two is authenticity, and they're really related. And I know you know a thing or two about authenticity. So the first question I have for you is, for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your backstory?
Corey Poirier: Yeah, I like to call it these days, Chris, my origin story. We feel superhero ish, even if, even if I'm not, or super villain ish. But my origin story, I grew up in a small, tiny little town in Canada, and I was raised by a single mother, barely graduated high school. I didn't know the difference between fiction and nonfiction. Probably the thing you shouldn't admit.
I actually had a girlfriend go on a date and then not continue dating me because I admitted that. But that was kind of my story when I started. And I also didn't read a book until age 27. First books I read were How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
And I always said, if you're going to start late, those are good places to start. But having said all that, that's kind of my starting story. And I usually share that to say A, it doesn't matter where you start. It's what you do next, but B also to say, I certainly wasn't voted likely to succeed. And so what it looks like today though, is I aim to help other people who maybe started where I started.
So I would spend a lot of my time aiming to help people that are trying to get their message out to more people. So we might call it experts, influencers, whatever term we want to put on it. That's kind of my jam now. And I think it's because when I started, I didn't have any mentors. I didn't have anybody that could help me.
And I just really had to figure out all this stuff in the trenches. Like I have the battle scars. We hear about the 10, 000 hour rule. And I always say I put in at least 10, 001.
Chris Do: When you say you first started, because I'm trying to map out the timeline here, where you're not an A student as far as I can tell, I've, I've listened to the TED talk where you shared the story. So how does one go from not knowing what nonfiction and fiction is and not reading a book until age 27? What was that first start like for you?
Corey Poirier: Yeah, absolutely. So for me, the first start in terms of this path I'm on today, Actually, while there's two parts to the path that are very unlikely. One, I started in sales, selling photocopiers door to door.
The only other person I know in our sort of journey that did that was Robert Kiyosaki, who wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad. And he said he did that because he wanted to understand sales. And so you really do get to understand sales when you're selling somebody a white photocopier to replace the yellow one in the corner that everybody forgets they even own.
So that was my start in the business world. And even with that every month my manager was kind of threatening to let me go. I actually signed a thing, Chris, that it was called POP, a sheet of paper called POP, and what POP stood for was Produce Or Perish. And what that agreement said is at any given time, because you signed this paper, he could let you go without notice.
It was like a 30 day probation every 30 days. And it took me almost a year before I wasn't going to get fired. So even in my sales career, I didn't start with any natural talent for selling. And then the other side of the spectrum, a big change was whenever I got tricked into performing standup comedy one night.
And so again, a person that isn't down the path that I'm out down today, like even comfortable speaking, like I was that guy that was like, no chance, no interest and I got tricked which people are often asked how can you get tricked into performing stand up comedy, but that happened. Those I mean we can delve into those further, but those are the kind of when you said what's that point?
Those are the two points when the journey started I will add one little kind of nuance to that starting in sales and no background or experience the first ever sales training I had was a Zig Ziglar VHS. So for those that remember VHS videotape, uh, it was used really used and it was the Zig Ziglar talk that he did for an hour. And I can still tell you parts of that talk. So super impactful, but that was all I got for training from a Fortune 500 company.
Chris Do: Wow. Okay. And now we're going to fast forward throughout all this stuff and into your career and sales, and I don't know what compels one to get into sales, but it seems like you've been through the wringer with a job uncertainty and then kind of being tricked into doing standup.
But now I, cause I read this on your LinkedIn bio, it says, I help people get paid thousands per speaking engagement without selling from the stage. I like it rings true to my heart. That's really cool. And is this kind of like the business that you're in right now? You help other people speak from the stage?
Corey Poirier: It is. So again, back to kind of trying to help people with what I needed when I started, but didn't have part of it was that Ziglar training thing. Like how can a 48th largest company in the world at the time, basically get me to write my name on business cards, because they didn't want to actually pay for business cards until I proved I could succeed and give me a VHS to learn from sales?
So I said, I want to change that for other people. Then fast forward X amount of years, I started speaking and everybody made it sound so easy and I wasn't getting the bookings they were getting. And I'm like, What am I missing? I remember listening to this couple on a CD put out by the National Speakers Association, the NSA.
And they said, all you have to do is build it and they will come. And Chris, I kind of joke now, but I started building it. Nobody even heard the hammer. And so I had no mentors. Nobody showed me the speaking trenches. And I'll be honest with you. When you start it from scratch, it's with nobody to help. Getting paid to speak is not easy.
Everybody loves to, there's all kinds of courses online and Facebook ads that say, let me show you how to get paid $50, 000 for your first talk and stuff like that. I learned it in the trenches. And so what happened was I started figuring it out. I'll call them hacks or shortcuts. And eventually it became a superpower.
It wasn't at the beginning. So what I started doing is I started posting. So blessed to get paid to do what I love with pictures of me speaking. And what, the fascinating thing started to happen. The people that had been implying to me that they were getting paid all the time, started reaching out and saying, Corey, between you and I, I've done whatever, a hundred talks and I've never been paid.
How do I do this? And this is the thing you probably see this last too, but almost everybody now has sought after speaker in their bio or on their social media page. And the people I'm talking to every day that are asking me, how do I do this? Have sought after speaker on their byline. So what happened was I ultimately realized after teaching a lot of people one to one, I maybe need to start teaching this on a bigger scale.
So back then we launched How To Get Paid To Speak program. It was like a 90 days, do it by yourself, not done for you in a box type program. And to skip a lot of stuff in between today, what that looks like is we have a thing called BLU talks, which is BLU stands for Business Life Universe. I jokingly say we're like TEDx meets Chicken Soup for the Soul.
So if they got married and went on honeymoon, we'd, you know, we'd be the baby that came back. But ultimately, five years ago, we started creating the platforms. So we started running events at Harvard, Columbia, Oxford, Cambridge, MIT, and so on, and started bringing on speakers a showing them A, how to crush it from that stage.
But then B, the big benefit too, is then they have a video of them crushing it on the stage they can leverage forever. We help them become bestselling authors through anthology books. We'll get big name thought leaders to write the forward. So then they can be involved in a book with. Dr. Joe Vitale from The Secret or Ken Honda.
And so ultimately now we're creating the platforms and the stages while showing them how to get paid to speak. To your point, I've always preferred get paid to show up and speak to happen to sell from the stage. Now I'll be clear. We run an event where we make an offer once a year and it is truly possible to bring in more revenue selling from the stage.
But for me, I love the idea of when I can go and just share because I've been paid for my time and I don't have to be trying to enroll people into a program. So I found there was a big niche in that area. A lot of people were teaching selling from the stage, but not a lot of people are teaching how do you get paid?
I'll say now, didn't start this way, but your full fee before you even show up to speak. That part's a little hard, but it comes down to these days, people don't want to hand it a check anyway. So if you can give an incentive for them to pay the second half of the deposit, the second half of the payment a few days before, I find a lot of clients will, but it does help.
As you know, probably when you've been doing it long enough, they know you're not going to try to rip them off over a certain amount of money and ruin your reputation. But these days, I get paid the full fee usually before I walk through the door. And that's something I found a lot of people didn't know how to do.
Chris Do: There's several components here. And I want to get to the thing that I really want to talk to you about, which, which is authenticity. But this idea of crushing it on the stage, what are two or three things that you, uh, I'd help people with what are some tips, because I have lots of friends who want to speak on the stage and have a genuine desire, but they also have fear and they want to be better, as do I, what are a couple of things that you tell your students, the people who enroll in your courses to do?
Corey Poirier: Well, the first thing I tell them I'll call it not to do is stop trying to become the next Tony Robbins. That's the first thing, because when we ask people, when they first start working with me, Hey, what's your goal? There's always some form of, I want to be the next Lisa Nichols. I want to be the next Brene Brown.
And I'm like, why? You know, Tony went out to become the first Tony Robbins. Lisa went out to become the first Lisa. You need to be, go out to become the first Bob, whatever their name is. I mean, so that's what not to do is don't come into this and try to, there's two sides to that too, Chris. There's the, yes try to emulate what they do well. But that's different than trying to jest like Steve Jobs and speak in the same monotone voice as Steve Jobs did because Steve Jobs had this unique way to speak with passion even though he wasn't excited, if that makes sense. Like he was very monotone but you felt this guy loves what he's doing.
But so going to the more strategic, what I recommend people do, just if I pull things top of my head. One example, which seems so small, but if you're going to use PowerPoint and, or if you have to, because one of the things that a lot of people don't realize, they'll say, well, I don't like PowerPoint. Well, that's fine, but your client might.
So you might go to a conference where they have 10 speakers and they're using PowerPoint and it's not comfortable for them to have you go free form, or they might not be comfortable with you going free form. So one of the things that I changed over the years that changed everything for me, and I'll talk to this if you want me to, but how I even decided to when I was getting better and what to change.
But ultimately when I realized I needed to change something because I was stuck at a certain approval rating. What I did was I said I'm going to go watch top speakers. The people that vote top speakers and see what they're doing that I'm not. And the one I came to was back to Steve Jobs is I noticed that when he was doing his product offerings at most on his slides, he would have a picture of the offer of the product. So it could be the iPhone when he was launching it. And I'm like, you know what? My slides are filled with words. Steve's slides have one image. And so that was one first major change I made and it changed everything. So I recognize that it's my story.
So I don't need all these words to help me memorize, because I just need to see the picture and it tells me what the story is I'm going to share. And so, for example, I share a story often about my first night in comedy, how I started and I didn't know to turn the mic on, and I told my first two jokes that the mic turned on.
So that became an opening story. So for that story, all I need is a picture of me performing stand up. And I know the story. I even actually like using PowerPoint if you can do it this way. But get away from the idea of using a PowerPoint as a crutch. And you know, with your bullet points and words and all that. And do it so that you're what they're there to see. You're the message. That just reinforces it. And the great part about that too, Chris, is you also get people that will then say, well, I'm going to just share all this presentation. Well, how? You'll send my slides. Who cares? If you send my slides and they see me with a picture of me performing standup, how can anybody know what that is unless they were there?
So it's kind of a side benefit if people want to, you know, I'm not, I don't care about that stuff because I don't live in that world, meaning like, I've, uh, have not, but I'm just meaning it's, they can't even, like, they'll say, can we send it out? Well, I'm like, yeah, but why don't you bring me in to do, um, a virtual?
So that way, at least they know what the slides mean, because right now the slides mean nothing. So that's one thing is to get away from the words all over your slides. Another thing, if we're talking just fundamental strategies, every story should have a hero and a villain. Now, what I want to clarify this, it doesn't have to be a person.
So if you're a speaker who conquered cancer, cancer could be, you can decide this, but cancer could be the villain. Maybe the person that walked for you and gave you hope and made you realize you can conquer this was the hero. And again, it could be, just hope could be the hero. It could be one doctor you worked with that said, I'm not going to give you a certain amount of time because I know you can, you can beat this.
But what I'm getting at is, as humans, we love having things we can throw rocks at, the villain. And we love having things or people that we can share for, the hero. So make sure your story or your talk as a hero and a villain is another thing I would mention. Another thing is the rule of three. So never have more than three takeaways.
If you're doing an 18 or a five minute TED talk, maybe just one, but never more than three takeaways. I interviewed this guy one time and I thought this was a brilliant way to sum this up. He said, Corey, you asked me for some strategy. I'm only going to give you three. And I said, okay. And he said, what, do you know why that is?
And I had already been talking about the rule of threes. And if you think about it in the world, we work in three acts for plays movies. So we're, we've been conditioned to learn in threes anyway. But he said, cause there's only four numbers in the world. That's why I'm only going to give you three. And I'm like, what do you mean if there's four numbers, how can you only give me three?
And he said, well, the four numbers are one, two, three. And far too many. So of course the implication is once you get beyond three, nobody cares anymore. So the rule of three, the idea is it could be, if you're doing a talk in customer service, the message could be, what do we do when things go wrong? Disney has a, believe it or not, a solution for if you lose your keys, your rental keys or your car at Disney, because I've done both and they have a solution for it.
So it could be, what do we do when things go wrong? It could be, how do we create a wow? So when somebody walks out the door, they go, wow, that was amazing. I get to tell everybody about that. What I'm getting at is three of those things would be the three, the rule of three. The other thing I would mention is also we all hear the term, and I know we even use the term often, content is king.
And I agree with that. What I would add to that is emotional connection is queen. And in my experience. The queen rules the castle far more often than the king. And so what does that mean in the real world? It means that you can give a great talk and you can be brilliant during the talk, but if the audience is bored, they'll still walk away saying, why did I waste my time there?
But you can give, and I don't want to say mediocre cause you always should give a great talk, but you can give a mediocre talk. But if you engage with the audience, if you're charismatic, if you're dynamic, they'll still enjoy that talk more than the brilliant one. Even by the way, which is weird, Chris, I've studied this.
Even if they don't get as much from the talk, they'll still enjoy it more because you connected with them. You made it. And it could be as simple as saying how many people here, if I could get you a gig tonight in a standup comedy club would perform standup. That could be a question I open with. What happens is people put down their phones.
Cause they're like, oh, did he just ask me to perform stand up comedy? I better listen up because I don't want to say yes without realizing it. So what I'm getting with that, at with that, is in a perfect world, you have great content, the king, but you also have the queen, which is good emotional connection.
So that's in a few minutes, that's kind of a few different strategies. I think if you start doing those early, early on, you're probably five years ahead of what I was.
Chris Do: Okay, well that last one is really intriguing to me because I'm fascinated by this too, is why does an audience travel somewhere, stay in a hotel, sit in a darkened room, to have you give a presentation where you just talk at them the entire time because I can just sit at home and watch a YouTube video.
And I find that in the circuits in which I'm speaking at, far too often the speakers don't know how to engage with the audience. So can we dive a little deeper into this? What are some things that you could recommend besides like asking a thought provoking question, getting people to engage by raising hands? Or there are a couple other things that you can share with us.
Corey Poirier: Well, I'll give you a combo that involves a hand, but it's not really about that. And one thing you can do is teach them something new in the sense that actually blow their mind, teaching them something they always thought was true isn't true.
And the engagement part is really just bringing them into it, so I'll give you an example. So it's more of an experiential learning for them. But an example would be the 21 Day Habit. So there's a great book called The One Thing, you may have heard of it, and there's a podcast around it as well. In that book, they reveal that the guy who created the 21 Day Habit said he was misquoted, and it wasn't 21 days.
It was 61 days. He said, 21 is when it starts, 66 is when it's cemented. But because North Americans, we wanted the easier one, we went with the 21 days. So as an example, Chris, one thing I do sometimes to open up a talk, because I want you to believe you can learn something new from me, is I'll say, okay, in all honesty, let's start here.
We all know it takes 21 days to create a habit, right? Show of hands. We all know that, right? So of course I'm goading you in and I'll say, what if I was to blow your mind and show you that it's not true? Okay. And then, of course, I'll use the source on the wall of the person that created it and, you know, show his quote, what have you.
But, I'm going to talk to them about how it's actually 66 days. And again, we've been led to believe it's 21. Even commercials talk about it being the 21 day habit. There's programs designed around it. And so, the idea there is I pull you in by getting you to go, yeah, of course. and then show you that what you've been taught isn't necessarily true.
So, the idea there, Chris, is if that's not true, what else can I teach you that you've always believed to be true isn't true? Or what else can I teach you that you've never known? And so, to me, that's experiential, so it engages you, because I've gotten you in by asking you, you know this, right? But the real big thing here is to teach something that they've never heard before or teach them something new that changes their way of thinking.
So that's, you know, that's one example of how you can engage the audience. Sounds, okay, so I'm going to go even simpler than that. It's just looking people in the eyes. So, when I say this, there's a, I've seen a LinkedIn quiz going around. People saying, what is the number one trait of speaking, in your opinion, that number one thing you could do with your body to pull the audience in?
And the one that I keep seeing come up over and over again is eye contact. Now that's from the speaker and the audience. Meaning everybody answering that is saying, because it shows which one that person answered that shared it with you. And so, the reason that's a cliche is because it's true. And so, eye contact is a huge one.
Now, having said that, obviously, there's ways you can make eye contact, like, you know, there's really quickly trying to look at everybody's eyes. There's actually really, truly, intently gauging at people when you're talking. There's various ways, but I'll give you an example. Well, two things. One, Brene Brown.
So, Chris Anderson from TEDx, or TED, really, has shared that when he asked Brene Brown how she engaged the audience so well during her talk, she said something to the effect of, what I did was, when I was sharing this message, I pictured the whole audience. As I think it was her sister, but the person in my life that needs to know this message the most and I shared it to them as if they were that one person.
To me, that's using the eye contact, but it's engaging the audience. So instead of visualizing them naked, you're visualizing them as one person that needs to know this message. But because you're picturing somebody you love, you're sharing it in a loving way. Now, I'll go a step further. Tom Ziglar. So Zig Ziglar's son when I asked him what he thought his dad did so well, he shared the story one time about, and this ties into engagement, I believe as well, Chris. But he shared the story about how, first of all, he did a talk and a psychologist afterward approached him and said, Mr. Ziglar, you were the most loved speaker out there today.
Now, I won't get into the names of the other speakers there, because I don't want to take away from them. But he said, you were the most loved speaker today. He said, there's two reasons, I think. One, is because the way you looked in our eyes felt like you truly cared about our result. You truly cared about us.
Now, it's easy to say that, but as you know, it's not always easy to practice that. So that's one thing, truly showing the audience you care because you really do. So you have to truly care to show them you care. So the takeaway from that is to speak on something you're really actually passionate about.
But the other thing he said, which I think is more profound, is he said, also, Mr. Ziglar, if you want to know the other reason, and of course they did because he wanted to improve, he said, what I noticed is you change up what you're doing every seven minutes. Now this was the late 70s. And he said, the average time between commercials on TV is seven minutes.
So that's our attention span because we've been trained by TV to have seven minutes attention. And for some reason he said, did you know you're doing that? And Ziglar said, I had no idea. But somehow inherently he was making sure if he did the pump handle he used to use or another prop or a story, he was changing every seven minutes.
And so he was engaging the audience by never letting them get bored and going to a commercial break in their head, basically. So that, to me, is another way to engage the audience. But here's the thing, today we probably have two minutes. We don't have seven minutes anymore. You know, there was a Time Magazine.
They said the average attention span now is that as short as that of a goldfish, which they say is like eight seconds. So the thing is, we don't even have seven minutes. So to me, another way, Chris is to make sure you're always mixing it up with something powerful quickly. So you're never kind of just, as you said, talking, and this is the big thing you said, talking to the audience, you should be there for the audience.
And I think you have to recognize that if you get bored after five minutes or two minutes or three minutes, then you shouldn't expect the audience to sit there listening to your one story for an hour. So those are some other ideas. Hopefully that helps a bit and I'm happy to dive more into that. But those are some ideas I think that you can use to engage the audience as well.
Chris Do: Do you ever do crowd work where you're interacting with them and using prompts and call and response?
Corey Poirier: Yes. So, I mean, that's obviously, that's absolutely another way. I will say it can be done, as you know, in an audience of 10, 000, it can be done in a small audience. Obviously, it's easier in a small audience, but it can be done in a bigger one, but you obviously have to pick certain people.
You know, it's a little harder to try to work a 10, 000 crowd audience with call and response. But yes, I actually do believe it's very powerful. Like whenever I talked about, I said, if I asked people how many people would perform stand up comedy, well, usually what happens, so the end result of that is usually out of a room of people.
2, 000 people, two hands go up. And by the way, part of the engagement as well, I don't know if it's engagement, but just trying to keep the audience with me, is I'll usually make a joke because I'll say, okay, that's fine. Two hands went up. Now my question is, what if you're not allowed to drink alcohol before you go on the stage?
And then one hand goes down usually. So then you're down to one hand. Well, what I'm getting at is I might then engage with that audience member that has their hand up. Because I feel it, if they put their hand up, they're not going to be that person gets shy and mad because you're engaging, because they literally were willing to put their hand up, but I might then ask them a question.
So let me ask you this question. And then I might start engaging with the audience. And then I'll say, does anybody else, you know, want to share anything there? So I do that as well. I just think it it's done in a specific way. Like I think it's harder to do that with a keynote. It can be done. It's harder to do that with a keynote, but I think at the end of the day, if you can do that, it's extremely powerful.
Another thing is to go with the audience. You know, so that's another thing that I've done over the years where I'll actually go out and, you know, high five somebody and talk to people in the audience where I'm right there. And there's times, by the way, I've had to do that, not out of choice. I did a talk one time.
I don't think many people can say they've done this. I wrote a, an entrepreneur article about this, what I learned from speaking in the dark. And what happened was I went to this event and the downtown core lost all the power. And so I go to the event. I knew where the venue was, but I said, can you tell me where the room is?
And the guy said, oh, it's over there. And I looked and it's like pitch black. So I start walking over there. I thought maybe I'll discover it as I get closer. I'm like, it's still pitch black. Am I at the right place? So I walked back to him and he said, oh, sorry. Yeah, the power's out. I'm like, oh, this is new.
So I went down there with my phone as my flashlight, talked to the organizer. She's like, Corey, if you want to leave, I don't care anymore. And it's funny. I'll tell you, Chris, the things that people worry about at the time, she said, my cookies are even ruined. So she made cookies for, it was like 250 people and she made cookies and her cookies got ruined because the power was out.
That was her concern. But she said, if you don't want to do this, I understand. This is a weird circumstance. And I said, I'm all in. This is like the coolest experience ever. So I went in and the guy before me who is not a comfortable speaker was actually speaking by candlelight and piece of paper. I thought it was brilliant.
And so I did my talk. I actually used my phone, because I, I wanted to keep the time, I was worried with the, no clocks, the dark, everything. Well, I actually opened up my PowerPoint on my phone and just kept it to the side, on one of the tables, and I look every now and then. But I did the talk in the dark, and first of all, it was kind of wild, because the lights came back on, and when the lights came back on, we saw each other, it was the last 50 minutes of the talk.
Interestingly, as a side note, on the forum, people said they were more engaged in that talk than any talk they've been doing years. I think it's only because they couldn't use their phone because we would have saw them use it. So either they fell asleep, or they really listened to your talk. But what I did, the reason I bring that up, is they had two generator lights, each side of the room.
So I would stay there as much as possible so they could see me, but then I would walk in between the audience and start talking about feelings and sensations because we couldn't see each other. So that's another thing too is actually being there with the audience on the same floor level because often we're on the stage and it seems like we're above the audience. So I think that's another way you can pull the audience in as well.
Chris Do: I love that. And it's a sign that you're a very confident, comfortable speaker that, hey, life gives you lemons, you're making lemonade and you're just dealing with whatever. And you're, you're making that an asset versus a hindrance to you.
The Futur: It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
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Chris Do: There's something that you said, like the currency of authenticity. So first, what is authenticity to you? And why is this valuable?
Corey Poirier: So, I mean, authenticity to me, ultimately in a world where, I did this talk called living the unfiltered life. And in a world where I feel everything is filtered, being authentic to me is being unfiltered.
So, I mean, that's, that's just talk. Like that's just what I see it as. So authentic to me means speaking your truth. No matter the circumstance, even when it's hard and actually even more importantly, when it's hard, but I'll go one step further, my wife says, this seems to be my biggest pet peeve, but is when people advertise, like, for example, on Facebook and say, let me show you how to get this Cadillac in three weeks or whatever.
And then what we don't see. And I know because of clients that have done this and then shared it with me. We don't see that when the video goes off, the person that really owns the Cadillac comes out of their house, says, get off my lawn, stop standing next to my car and filming. And so for me, I think we're in a world where it's very easy to make yourself look like you've accomplished something you haven't.
And I truly have clients that are pitching, let me show you how to make seven figures when they've never made seven figures. And so to me, that's the opposite of authenticity. What I feel with that is I feel eventually it gets found out. It just takes a while. And so for me, when I say authenticity, I think if you're trying to show somebody, whether it's how to do something, how to live a certain way, what have you, it should be congruent with what you're doing.
So you should be speaking your truth. Now, if you, I'm sure you're familiar with Frank Kern. Well, Frank Kern puts up the Rolls Royce and his wife on Facebook ads and gets engagement that way, but at least he truly, that is his life. At least it's truly the life he's living. So to me, it's about being authentic.
It's just like, you know, now somebody can say they were featured on a certain, let's say platform, like, let's just say featured on NBC, ABC, what have you. But what you don't know is maybe what they did was they paid for a news release service that sent out a press release and that they're featured on the back link, back end of NBC.
So even if you type their name, it won't come up with NBC. It's not for me, I should say, it's not that I'm trying to judge that person, Chris, but to me it's not being authentic, and it's not helpful to the people that you're trying to serve. So I hope that explains it a bit, but to me it's like living in integrity, speaking your truth.
Chris Do: As obvious as that sounds, as natural as it sounds, we seem to be in a culture where that's more rare than it is the standard. And we're seeing literally people putting filters on their lenses, on their software so that they don't look like the way they do. People renting backdrops that look like they're at fancy places.
And they don't live that fancy lifestyle or people pointing the camera into a very specific corner of where they live. And that's the only part that looks like that. Everything else looks fake. What is it that you think that is compelling people to show up as someone else other than themselves?
Corey Poirier: I mean, there's probably the quick answer, which is in most cases we're talking about, it's about driving revenue or money. So in other words, most of the people we're talking about are running a business. So I think the first driver is, and this is, I mean, it goes to what people want or at least what they think they want. So people want to become a millionaire because I'm just talking loud, but maybe they think life becomes easier that way.
Problems go away, that type of thing. So because of that, then the other person going, I better flip on the camera and talk about becoming a millionaire because that's what they want. So I think on the big high level, the easy answer is people are thinking this, what people want. And if I want to be successful, I need to give them what they want.
And the other people are thinking, that's what I really want. So it makes sense that I should learn from somebody who's already done it. And they're thinking, well, if I show them my real life and that I do struggle and that I don't know what to do if the tire blows up on the way down the highway, then all of a sudden they'll say, well, I can't buy off that person.
They're not credible. But I actually think it's the opposite. I think you're more credible when a person says they get it. It happens to them too. They struggle too. They have the same problems I have too. And so what I find which is interesting is when I interview people that we'll call maybe the top thought leaders, like Mark Victor Hansen with Chicken Soup for the Soul.
I remember I brought Mark in for an event we did and he has this publishing company and he says, if you want to publish a book with me, but you're going to sell your car to do it or re mortgage your house or borrow money from the bank. And he went, uh uh, I'm not your guy. He said, because my future days are taken care of.
You don't need to do this for me. And to me, that makes a person want to sign with Mark more because he's being authentic. He's, but I say this, what I find fascinating is the people that have been really successful are actually more authentic in some ways because of that, meaning they don't feel the need to try to have to do this to get a client.
And I hope that makes sense. And it's not to try to knock anybody, but I feel often it's like the person isn't there yet and they're thinking the quickest way there is to offer what people think they want. And the best way to do that is to pretend I'm somebody I'm not really, I'm really not realizing that more often than not, more people resonate with you if they actually understand that you've been where they're at and you may even still be there. I always say you should teach from page two, if you're on page one, stop trying to teach the whole book. So just get to page two. If you can show somebody how to get to six figures. And they're at five or they're not even there yet.
Then you have a whole new audience and you have an audience you can speak credibly to, but if you're trying to get them to seven figures and you've only been to six. It's not creditable. And in a lot of ways too, it's kind of foolish because you can serve better the ones that are at six or wanting to get to six figures, which there's probably as many or more of them that truly want to get there.
So again, I hope that explains it, but I think the authentic side, why people don't do it is because it seems like there's more money and business and not doing it.
Chris Do: Well, I think there's also this idea of there's like safety in numbers. So when you look out in the media landscape, whoever started it first, everybody's doing the same thing. So now you don't want to be the person who sticks out like a sore thumb. And we know that there's certain things that you can show that signal to other people that you're successful. I'm curious in your mind, Is this that different than people who, say you're a real estate agent, and you're young, and you're new in the job, you have your license and you're ready to go, what do they tell you to do?
Look sharp, dress for the job that you want, not the job you have, and if you have to, go lease a fancy car, because you're not going to trust an agent who shows you his house and they're driving up in a, um, a beat up car. I mean, I think we can understand that psychologically, like, you're, you're coming in with a t shirt and a pair of jeans and flip flops, I'm like, why am I trusting you to sell me this house?
Like, I don't understand. So, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And it seems to make a lot of sense. Why is it on social that it feels very different and it feels very fake and disingenuous? What's the difference in your mind or is there any?
Corey Poirier: I mean, this maybe goes into a different area, but if that person that's driving up the real estate agent with the car and with the nice clothes, are we saying that they're saying they're successful or implying?
Because on one hand, they can still be authentic. And still drive up with a nice car and a nice suit. And you're still like, okay, well, they're probably moving some homes. Or do they go up and kind of jingle their Rolex and say, last week, you know, breaking records and sold the seven homes. Here's what happened.
So I think it, to me, that's what I think the difference is. So I, I think that the realtor should show up presentable should show up, you know, like they're, they're having some success. Cause again, why would you want them to sell your home if they can't sell any other homes? So agree completely on that.
And I also think that person is trying to get you to six figures that's been there should show up presentable and presentable can be subjective too, right? Cause Gary V can go up on a stage with mustard on his shirt and get paid a hundred and some thousand dollars for a 45 minute keynote. And it makes sense.
So I think it's also depending on your audience, but I think to me, this is where I think the difference lies is, are you making up stuff to, to back up who you are, or are you just implying? So in other words, if you go and do that same video and you say, let me show you how to create abundance. Let me show you how to become successful.
Let me show you how to do all these things. Then to me, we can argue whether or not you're abundant or successful, but if you're going and saying, let me show you how to make seven figures and you know, deep down, you've never done it. Then I think that's different. So same with the realtor. They might say, you know, last week when I sold a home, but they might've only sold a home in the last two months, but they might look like they've sold lots.
I think that from a business perspective makes sense to me. But if they come in and say, again, I sold every house on this block. Let me show you how I did that. And then you actually ended up talking to one of the owners and say, I've never seen that realtor before. To me, that's the difference between the two, I do think to some degree you have to fake it till you make it.
Like, meaning I do think you're not going to go and put the video out. Well, I shouldn't say you're not going to most people that won't work if you put the video out and say, I've never been successful, I've struggled my whole life. Now I'm going to show you how to become successful. Like that could work for one person.
Cause it'll be a unique angle, but for most people, it's not going to work. So I get that. I just mean, I think the authentic side is, are you telling people you've done something you haven't versus, are you portraying you've done something you haven't?
Chris Do: Yeah, and there's a lot of nuance and intentionality behind this. I think I get what you're saying. If you're grounded in truth and reality, and it's aspirational, I think we're all fine with that. It's when you go to misrepresent and intentionally to try to fool someone, well, none of us are okay with that, I think. And I think part of the problem is in our culture, especially say here in America, where I think we desire certain things, we don't want to do the hard work, and so when someone shows us a shortcut, we're kind of gullible, like we're kind of in on fooling ourselves, so we buy into the image and the trappings, and later on we're like, that didn't work, that person doesn't know what they're talking about, well, didn't you see the 17 signs?
And so as, I don't know if it's PT Barnum who says this, but it's like there's a sucker born every minute and don't, no one ever went poor estimating the ignorance of people and so it's like, well, we'll sign up for anything, I think. And so that creates this weird pattern of behavior. And so we want to move as far away from that as possible.
If you want to show up as a truly authentic and genuine person. Now, I know there's something very unique about you. You've interviewed a lot of freaking people. I think over 5, 000 people. In your experience, and if you can talk shop a little bit here, who have been some of the most authentic people that surprised you?
Corey Poirier: So this is a good question because it relates to what we're talking about. I mean, I'll give a little plug if that's okay, but it ties in. So I have this new book that we're putting out, The Enlightened Passenger. And a good example of what not to do would be me launching this book and while I'm still on the launch showing other people how to launch a book, you know that type of thing. But the person that wrote the forward the reason I showed the book is the guy that wrote the forward his name is Richard Paul Evans, and he's a 46 time New York Times best selling author his first book was The Christmas Box.
It sold I think 8 million copies when I talk about authenticity whenever I went to his writer's retreat, I just went to his second one last week, but a year ago, almost to the date, I went to his first writer's retreat. And at the writer's retreat, he shared stories. Like, so he talked about becoming a successful writer and how when he started, it was all about, you know, driving a nice car.
Almost like we talked about with the realtor, because you want the people to believe your book was selling well, like it even went that deep. But what's so fascinating now is the first thing he told us about when I met him, I didn't know him that well before was about how he has Tourette's. And how he's had Tourette's his whole life.
Then he talked about his mother and the struggles he had with his mother. And again, he's open about this, but his mother being an alcoholic and what that was like growing up and how that informed his writing. So he actually talked about his and even today, today he talks about his challenges and the struggles he still has.
On Facebook he still posts about a struggle he'll have this week, and at the same time he's putting out a book that'll become a New York Times bestselling book. To me, I'm not saying that's the right way to do it, but when you said, you asked the question of who surprised me with their authenticity, it surprised me how deep he was willing to go into his life to these aspiring writers he met, five minutes before. And what I will tell you is being through his retreats twice, you now feel like a part of his family.
Like, you feel like you know this writer, like, all of a sudden you're like, I get to know this writer who I read all his work at a level I don't know any other influencer. In fact, my wife, has said to him, she said, you know, I don't know what it is about you, but she said, I feel different about you than all the other influencers Corey's introduced me to.
And I think it's because he's so vulnerable, but it also is authenticity. He's not trying to say, like, in other words, while I'm writing this book, I also could go to a book signing and it could have been a snowstorm and I could be showing a picture with two people at the book signing. Even though most of my book 500 people.
So he's a person that really surprised me. If I go beyond that, I mentioned Mark Victor Hanson earlier, Chicken Soup for the Soul. Mark is another person who has surprised me by his authenticity. And I will say, Chris, that even includes how he feels about business, how he feels about politics, an area where a lot of people won't go.
And I'm not even saying they should, but I'm saying I totally am impressed by his ability to say, this is who I am. And this is take me or leave me. I don't make apologies. And so I think influencers that still come across as I'm still in it. I still love doing this and I still struggle. And I've had many, many interviews with people that are like that.
I, another one I did recently was with Tommy Chong, you know, sort of from the Cheech and Chong comedy duos. And Tommy is just Tommy. Like there's, you can't get more authentic. He's 84. He showed up wearing two different shoes. I was interviewing him at the Troubadour on the Sunset Strip in LA and he got lost in the alley.
Like it was just, you know, everything about him is just true. And then he, he came out. I don't know how he figured it out. But the producer that was with me who runs a show and station in Hollywood, Tommy, first thing he said, he said, what part of Edmonton are you from in Canada? I don't know how he figured it out, but he just said, Oh, us Edmonton people know each other.
And there's just something about him that's so engaging and authentic. And whenever I was trying to talk about, you know, what do you guys have coming up for Cheech and Chong? He's like, Oh, we got lots coming up. It's going to be lots of fun. Just check out our website. Like just very authentic about, I care about changing people's lives, allowing them to escape the crappy day they might have with my comedy, but I don't feel the need to sell you on it. And so I guess just disarming in a good way. Those are some of the people, I just, Robin Sharma, wrote Monk Who Sold his Ferrari and a bunch of other books. The Leader Who Had No Title.
I was just at an event with Robin, same thing. Very authentic, like just, sharing parts of his life that most people don't share. And again, it's not to say that it's the only way to do it or the best way. It's just Chris, what I've noticed is when you asked about who surprised me, those are people that when you meet them, I felt going into it, it would be a totally different scenario.
I felt like I'd be kind of they'd be presented a certain way and it didn't end up being that way. They were just really like, here's who I am, love me or dislike me. And yet all those people I just mentioned have done something nobody else in history has done. You know, like Mark Victor Hanson, what is it?
600 million books is the number we hear now sold. The only other person you can say has done it is Jack Canfield. Right. So, I mean, they did it together. Tommy Chong, along with Cheech, had done stuff as a comedy duo, and nobody's ever done. Richard Evans, 46 time New York Times bestselling author, he got on the list as a self published author, which was almost unheard of.
What I'm getting at is they're authentic, and yet, they're still having as much or more success than everybody else. So, I hope that answered the question, because I was trying to drive when you said, who surprised me versus who was your best interviewer. I wanted to go into, again, authenticity.
Chris Do: I think some of my audience would be sitting there saying, Well, they're highly accomplished people. They don't have anything left to prove. So of course they can show you who they are and they're at ease because they've made it. What if you haven't made it? Like, how do we kind of are authentic and vulnerable in the moment? How do we accept ourselves and show up as us? Because that's a struggle that so many people have. How would you respond to that?
Corey Poirier: So what I would say worked for me and I've seen it work for many others. Now it's not to say it's going to be easy. I've interviewed people and it's fascinating what people have turned down when they were struggling because it didn't feel right. I mean, if I go to a popular story, I could go to Rocky, Sylvester Stallone and how you probably heard that story, get offered three or $400, 000 for the script to Rocky, but the catch is they didn't want him in the movie.
And by the time they're done, I think they got to 700, 000 and he was still saying, no, not unless I'm in the movie. Ended up settling for $30, 000. and basically a part in Rocky, like being Rocky. There's an example of somebody who was starving, like he notably said he had $50 to his name. He had sold his dog. So what I'm getting at is that's an example of somebody who's doing it whenever it matters. And to your point, when they're not comfortable and cushy, he was still turning down what probably would have set him up compared to having $50. And he still didn't because it didn't feel right. So that's a segue to say, one of the things I talked about in this book. Now, the book's a fictional parable, but it's revealing, interestingly enough, the seven, the interviews that I've done with thousands of thought leaders, it reveals the 10 lessons I learned from them.
So it's really what we're talking about right now. But one of the things I talk about, and I believe this is a way that you can decide what a yes and a no is, and if you stay true to this, it's a way that you can actually be authentic in the no. So I recommend people write a personal mission statement.
And what I found when I've asked people in events, conferences, meetings, summits, I've said, how many people here have a personal mission statement? It's usually one hand. And it could be a thousand people, could be 50 people. And so I always say, well, all these companies, these top companies have a mission statement and they know it.
And when you go there, it's often on their wall. How come we as people don't have our own mission statement? But here's how it serves me. So this goes to the point about here's how it allows me to decide what a yes and no is. Even before the successes. And by the way, I'm still at that point where I still struggle with what a yes and a no is.
And I still struggle, you know, daily with, oh, I'd love to achieve this. And why am I not achieving this? I'm still every day trying to grow. But as far as the mission statement, I wrote a mission statement that flows like this. I want to be the guy who motivates, inspires, educates, entertains, and donates.
And what that means to me, Chris, is if somebody says, we like, think you're a good idea for this show. And let's say the show is about knitting. Let's say it's not a fit for me, but years ago I would have been like, yeah, it doesn't matter. It's a show. It's going to help me get further. I'm going to get money for the show.
Now what I do is I truly look and say, how is this going to play against what I want to achieve? How's this going to play against my mission and my alignments? And so I'll say, is it, how many of those is it? And let's say it's zero or one. Now I'll say, even if it's going to be hard, it's going to be a no.
It's going to have to be a no, because it's not in alignment with where I need to go. Again, like I said, just because I say that doesn't make it easy to say the no, but this is at least how I identify what a yes and a no is. So if it's four or five of those, meaning it's going to allow me to motivate, and almost any talk you deliver is going to hit five of those.
So that could be an easy yes. But let's say, as an example, they want to pay me a lot of money, and at the same time, I don't agree with who the company is. There's a prime example, right? It would be easy to take the money, but I have to look and say, this is about a bigger legacy than just today. So it's not easy to say that, but by having that mission statement in front of me, which is handwritten, I can always remind myself, that's what I want my legacy to be. Those five things. If I go work with this company that I don't agree with, will I be able to sleep at night? What's my long term legacy going to be like? And, again, it's not easy, but that visual of knowing what I stand for and knowing what I stand against is going to help me make the difference. I will give you a side story that was just shared to me that kind of backs this up.
Now, I don't know how much money he had at the time, so we can go either way, but Ken Honda shared this story with me recently that whenever the, um, when crypto was just starting, somebody, because he has a book called Happy Money, somebody wanted him to actually be an ambassador for Happy Money. They want to buy the rights. They were going to give him a million dollars. And then he would get a percentage, of course, as the stock market grew, on this new Happy Money. And he did a little due diligence on the company. He said, Corey, it was the hardest no I've ever said, but I said no. Three years later, they got investigated for fraud with whatever one they used.
And he said my whole brand would have been destroyed forever. Well, he said that was a hard no. Meaning it was hard to say no to that. But at the same time, he knew what he stood for and he knew what he stood against. So Chris, I know that's not like a strategy per se, but I think if we can get really dialed into what we want our legacy to be and what we want to stand for and against, I think it gets a little easier to stay in our truth about what we're willing to do and what we're not willing to do.
But I'm not going to lie to you and say it's ever going to be easy, especially whenever you might be struggling and don't know where the next food's going to come from and somebody puts an opportunity in front of you. That's one of those things that you've got to sit there with yourself and say, again, how do I want to sleep at night? And what do I want to look like five years from now?
Chris Do: At the beginning of our conversation, you just like, well, maybe I'm the superhero or the supervillain. I don't know. And you said, well, if you're going to give a talk, every hero needs a villain. And so you said to us what your mission was to educate, to inspire, and to donate. And there's a couple other words you use in there. What is Corey's arch nemesis?
Corey Poirier: Wow. That's a great question. And I go in two paths because one path, the quick, easy answer is I'm a very social person. And so for years, I've had to kind of battle the idea of saying stuff and then later walking away going, oh, I should have just stopped before I said that, what have you. So you know, second guessing that used to be an arch nemesis of mine. And so I guess I would say that was my own, both self worth, but also me worried about how people were judging me and taking things personally and all that kind of stuff, and I feel I've worked through that and said, you know what?
I am who I am. Take me as I am, but still that still rears his head from time to time. And then I think probably the other one sort of arch nemesis is this going to sound so weird, but being comfortable. So I've went the opposite scenario. I used to be very uncomfortable being uncomfortable, you know, so I had a tiny little comfort zone and I struggled if I was trying to step outside of it at all.
Now, and I do think it's a challenge, now my challenge is, is that I need to always be uncomfortable to be comfortable. So I have to be stimulated. I always have to be doing stuff that's uncomfortable. And I don't think that's a good thing because I'll correct that. I think it can be a good thing, but also at the same time, how do you ever just kind of sit in peace? You know, we want to talk meditation or how do you just sit in silence and be present in the moment if you're always thinking about, oh, I got to do something that's pushing my envelope.
Chris Do: You've done the whole swing of the arc or the pendulum there from a person who wants to be comfortable and then decides to expose yourself to discomfort. And then now you're realizing that you can't always be in a state of chaos. And maybe that's where I'm at right now in my life, because my wife's like, well, you why do you sign up to do so many things? I'm like, because this is how I feel alive right now. So whenever we're sitting quietly, not doing anything, I will fall asleep.
I literally will fall asleep and say, babe, I just can't help it. I'm not stimulated right now. And I think that's, that's like a cautionary thing for all of us to learn to feel excited, just doing nothing.
Corey Poirier: Absolutely, I agree with you 100%, Chris, and I, I think one thing I will add to that is after interviewing a lot of influencers, one of the things I've discovered, and this is a common challenge that nobody talks about, is a lot of us live in this world of next. So we say, okay, I can't wait till the book's out and I hold up my hand and then you hold the book in your hands and you go, okay, what's next now?
Like not sitting in that achievement. After interviewing a lot of influencers, I noticed it's something none of us talk about because nobody wants to kind of admit that weakness that we can't just enjoy. And so what I've tried to do, and again, it's not always easy, but I've tried to enjoy the journey.
And so recently in the last few years, you'll find me saying the quote, what if the journey is actually the destination? So what if writing the book is part of the destination? What if marketing the book? What if doing interviews for the book? What if talking to people is part of the destination, not just holding the book in your hand?
But I do think, see that that's a big challenge that people face. So yes, I would agree. It's just like always having to be stimulated is almost always what's next? What's the next thing I can jump into?
Chris Do: Yes, I've noticed this and I feel this way myself that the people who are very successful, they just love the journey. The destination is just the byproduct. There is no destination, they just love doing this thing. And that's what keeps them going day after day, month after month, year after year. As opposed to people who chase that result or destination and they don't get there as fast, or it doesn't look the way they think, they just quit and they move on.
And so they live from one failed attempt after the other, and then the next thing you know, you're too old and you have nothing left and you haven't accomplished anything. You gotta love the journey itself. Corey, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I want you to do this. Tell us the name of the book, tell us when it drops, and give us your best pitch as to why someone should read it.
Corey Poirier: Wow. Okay. On the spot. The book is called, as I said, The Enlightened Passenger. So the book also, when you get it through our website, which I'll give you the website, you actually get five instant bonuses. And the great part about that is we still send you to the same retailer to buy the book. So you're getting it from the same place.
It's just, you come back with an order number, get some bonuses. thisisthebook.com. So thisisthebook.com. And then as far as the why, it's basically a fictional parable in a lot of ways. I wrote it when I was in the space of Al Agbendino's writing the alchemist Celestine prophecy. So the pitch I would have is if you have read those books or heard about those books, And you've heard that they've changed things in people.
Like they've literally moved people in terms of growth because not every book does that. I aim to be the writer of another one of those books. So if you want to grow, if you want to, and I'll add this, if you want to learn the 10 top lessons out of the thousands of interviews I've done, distilled into one little tiny book, it's a very, it's like 90 pages, a tiny little pocket book, then I think this is the book for you. That would be my pitch around the book.
Chris Do: Wonderful. So I know that's an unusual URL, so just to make sure I got that right. It's thisisthebook.com everybody. Thisisthebook.com. I will add the link in the show notes in case you're there. Everybody. Thank you very much, Corey, for being part of our podcast.
Corey Poirier: Hey, it's Corey Poirier and you're listening to The Futur.
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