PP 272: Hiccups Along the Road with Corey Poirier

Corey Poirier is a multiple-time TEDx, and sought-after Keynote, Speaker. He has spoken on MoMonday’s and PMx stages, has shared the bill with everyone from John C. Maxwell to Deepak Chopra to Stephen MR Covey to General Hillier, and has presented to hundreds of thousands of attendees since he began his speaking journey. One of his most recent talks took him to New York City where he had the extreme pleasure of speaking to At-Risk Youth at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Boys & Girls Club. Corey is a father to his young son Sebastian, boyfriend to Shelley, and a father to 3 fur-babies, Corey is also a practicing Yogi and Rock Recording of the Year Nominee.

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Kim Sutton Welcome back to another episode of positive productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton and I’m so happy that you are here to join us today. I’m also thrilled to introduce our guest, Corey Poirier. Was that English enough and not messing it up too bad Corey?

Corey Poirier Yeah, that was that was perfect.

Kim Sutton Corey and I had a quick pre chat and I, you know, listeners I never know if I’m going to get names, right? Hey, I can mess up my own rants in a while. But that’s what positive productivity is all about. Corey is the CEO and keynote speaker of Career Alternatives, which we haven’t even gotten into in our awesome pre chat, Corey. So I can’t wait to hear more about that. But with all that said, I’d love if you could jump in and give a little bit of your background to the listeners and let them know where you’re at today and how you got here.

Corey Poirier Yeah. I’m happy to do so Kim. So I guess it’s interesting.. My backstory, I guess, if we start there is that I grew up in a small, tiny little town. I always say as meat and potatoes type community, you know, you’re only as good as your word, say yes to everything and figure out how to do it later. And it’s interesting because there’s some things I’ve learned about that in the year since and interviews with high achievers, that actually explained to me why it was harder for me to make the transition. So we can maybe dive into that later but that’s a bit of my, you know–

Kim Sutton Oh, please. Yes, definitely.

Corey Poirier I needed to go back there. But in terms of, you know, from that point forward, I was raised by a single mother, plays a really big part in my life and my journey. I often talk about that, because she was sort of a guiding light. And she did all the things that a lot of parents say are wrong. And and I like to think I turned out, okay, you know, she didn’t tell me I couldn’t do this or that. She let me have a lot of freedom. And like I said, she went kind of against what they say is the norm. But at the same time, I’m happy she did. So in terms of growing up in a small town raised by a single mother, you know, what that looked like is I stayed in this small town until I was about 19 ish. And I had launched a business publication when I was quite young, so between 18 and 19, in a little community where there was never an independently owned business publication. I don’t even know if there has been to this date yet. So it was very rare. And because of that, I got some media and some different things at a young age speaking opportunities. And so people would love to think, Oh, that’s awesome. You got a big sort of overnight start. But what happened was, I realized pretty quickly, I wasn’t ready for that stuff. I went into radio media interviews covered in sweats. I spoke at first time, and I don’t remember what I said. And I asked people afterward and they didn’t know what I said. They just said, “You were so excited saying this.” So that was kind of a hint that it may be a bit of my passion. But I was terrified of the stage. So you know, that sort of what happened until I was about, like I say, 19. And then my life sort of took off in a business direction, because I moved across the country, took a position with a fortune 500 company, had five years there in sales, very tough business, and then move back across the country took a position with a competitor to that company, say there another five years. So it was weird. It was almost like I guess meant to be. But then in between, so this is where it all took a shift. While I was working for that second company, I had a stage play in a Fringe Fest. And one of the actors said, we were in for five days, I was terrified about the idea of being on stage. So I wrote directed the play. But I actually, I wasn’t facing the audience. And what happened was one of the actors sprained his ankle on the way to one of the auditions and he couldn’t, we’re halfway through the plays run of a seven day run, he couldn’t deliver all of his parts. So I had to write in a new character. And I was the only person that was obviously going to know the lines and know that quickly. So as somebody who didn’t want to be in the stage, I had to bite the bullet, put myself on the stage. And I wrote the character, so I’d have long hair. So I had a wig and a wrestling t shirt, Triple H, I still remember. And so as back to the audience, nobody can see me. That was my intention. And that was a big change. Because I realized if I want it to be putting my work out there, in a big way, I had to eventually overcome this fear. One of the actors said at the end of the plays run, I heard about this local workshop at the university and stand up comedy. How would you like to give it a try? And I said, that sounds terrifying. I’m in and so I jumped into Santa’s workshop went for two weeks. And he only taught us how to adjust the mic stand and that his favorite comic ruled, so not a lot of training for basically what turns out to be the number one fear in the world and then we go to comedy club we’re told we’re gonna watch people entertain us. We get on, we get about five to eight Showtime supposed to be at eight no entertainers, we turned to him and say, “Where are the comics?” And he says, “You’re looking at him.” So we found it with five minutes notice zero material ready that we were the entertainers. And so I ran to the bathroom to look for the exit window, which didn’t exist in that bathroom. I came back out 15 of the people who were actors and entertainers and who had paid for this workshop, eight of them had left. And so there were seven left. I jumped on the stage first, even before we were supposed to jump on the stage. They were still debating. I jumped on the stage. So my first joke to dead silence. Sweat starts coming down my face. Yeah. It was not for the faint of heart. And then I figured you know what I’ve already I’m already up on the stage. I’ve done the hardest part. So I dived into the second joke. And I’d love to say it knocked out of the part but still bombed were dead silence. I jokingly said, I think I saw a tumbleweed go by the stage. It was you could hear the cricket if there was one in the room and so that was the second joke. And then finally, the guy that got us into this mess, his name was Guy, he calls me over the corner of the stage gives me one of those smocks in the back of the head. And he said, “You idiot. We haven’t even turned the mic on yet.”

Kim Sutton Oh my gosh.

Corey Poirier Yeah. So I discovered as somebody who was terrified of the stage in the first place, my very first night ever in stand up comedy, my very first time in front of a mic. I was telling jokes that nobody could hear them. And so I thought that’s why they didn’t go over. So then we reset up the mic, everything started over again, I told the same jokes. And now even when they could hear them, I still bombed. And here’s where the rubber hits the road, Kim, I went back the next week, and I went back the week after that, and I kept bombing like for two years, I could barely get five minutes of material that work. But I kept going back. And then what happened was, after a little while into that two year journey, and I kept performing after that. But a little while into that two year journey, I realized I liked a lot of stand up, didn’t like a lot of stand up, discovered professional speaking, realize it gave me all of what I like to stand up and very little of what I didn’t like. And so I began to make the transition while still doing stand up into the world of professional speaking. And that’s when everything sort of went in a totally different direction. That’s when my life unfolded. That’s really my why or my purpose, I discovered my calling. And that’s when everything sort of took me to where I am today, which you did ask that part. So I’ll just finish really quickly by saying, you know, today I have books out I love writing. So I’m an author, had multiple TEDx talks. As a speaker, I have a couple of shows, we were talking about off air, that one of them I have interviews on where he interview high achievers. And to this date we’ve interviewed over 4000, because I became obsessed by trying to figure out what the high achievers do differently than everybody else, and then share that. So that’s kind of a mini digest version as somebody who started out in a small town, who made all the wrong moves, all the wrong mistakes, was terrified of speaking, and then had to live in the trenches for a long time continue to make a lot of mistakes, to eventually get to where at least it’s somewhat comfortable now,

Kim Sutton Listeners, this is Corey and my first conversation, we had an incredible, in my opinion, pre chat. And I already told Corey that I want to chat many more times in the future. But wow! I was actually raised by my single mother. I did see my father but my mother primarily raised me and there were definitely things that did not go right. But I gotta tell you, Corey, I wanted to dance when I was in high school, like take dance lessons. So I had to get out there and work for the money to take dance lessons because she just didn’t have it. At my first recital, the dance teacher put us on stage backwards, we had had no rehearsal. So everything that we are supposed to be doing with our right foot. We all of a sudden had to figure out if we could do it with our left. And it was so painful. They stopped the music like 20 seconds in and with the three of us, it was a very small class. The school was actually closing. We didn’t know that yet, though. We went crying off the stage. And when you were telling your story, and all of a sudden had a flashback to that I realized why I’ve been so scared to the stage for so long. I always thought it was because I was scared I was gonna trip onto the stage. Have you ever done that?

Corey Poirier You know what? I haven’t. And I guess the good news is if it were to happen now i’d be comfortable with it. So I guess maybe I’ve bypassed like I’d work it into my bit. But I guess I bypass the part that would crush me because it probably would have early on. But I will tell you this. I mean, I told you I had a lot of bombing nights. I actually have a lot of that video. So Sunday I want to put a compilation together of all the, you know, the nights where I’d tell a joke. And I was terrible on the stage because I wasn’t ready for it yet and i would tell a joke and have no response at all and then sit there like a deer in the headlights. I mean those Images today would be priceless. So I had that all on video. I have like the old, I forget what they were even called, but the smaller video camera tapes, so I have to convert that at some point. So I have that but also more recently, like as in a couple years ago, I had my first time experience after 15 years speaking, where I showed up at this club and I’ve not clubs or show up at this local arena, and the entire downtown core the power had went out. So I arrived about half hour before my talk to discover everybody terrified, mortified because the power’s out, they had all their food they’d bake was ruined. And for the staff and the trade show they had running on nobody could walk to the tradeshow booth and they couldn’t see nothing. And I went into the room and the speaker before me was sitting there by candlelight. So that was the first. And actually it turned out to be an amazing experience. I loved it. But I don’t think the client was too excited about it. But anyway, long story short is, to me that was for I’m sure for that speaker that was on before me, that was very equivalent to tripping on the stage or up to the stage.

Kim Sutton Yeah, absolutely. I can imagine. I’m not too scared about tripping anymore. For me being on the podcast, and very openly sharing my bloopers, and also the life changes that I’ve gone through where I realize it’s not about perfection, I could totally make a joke about dripping onto the stage. I can barely walk in anything more than a flip flop. So it’s going to happen. I know it well, but it will be, hey, if you’re there the day that I trip on to the stage, please feel free to laugh, because I’m going to be laughing and I won’t be affecting

Corey Poirier Well, and it’s funny. I mean, I don’t even know what I would say if I tripped onto the stage. But just gave me an idea of what I would probably do what I would work into my idea of what I would say if I ever do is I’d probably make a reference to, you know, the fact that today’s my first day not wearing my high heels. And I probably reverse that. But I totally embrace it like, I would have fun with it. But like I said earlier on, that would have crushed me which goes to prove the idea of the 10,000 hour rule, which is that you can, maybe not master but you can certainly become more comfortable with being uncomfortable if you put the time in.

Kim Sutton That’s actually a really awesome joke. Today’s your first day not wearing high heels.

Corey Poirier When you mentioned about the challenge of wearing high heels of course, as a comic, I just think of the opposite scenario, you always want to go with what the pert the audience doesn’t expect you to say, so they wouldn’t expect me to go up there, you know, fully embracing sort of manhood and at the same time, you know, implying that I was wearing heels.

Kim Sutton Right. Right. What do you wear when you’re not wearing a suit onstage, right?

Corey Poirier Exactly. So I don’t wear heels but that’s probably where to go. But anyway, yeah. So haven’t tripped yet but when it does happen now I have my answer.

 Kim SuttonAwesome. So now, I’d love for you to share more about what you do. Today, you have your two shows and there’s just so much more than that. Where has your entrepreneurial journey taken you from, you know, the 19 year old boy, with your publication to now?

Kim Sutton Well, interestingly, I made a, let’s call it a full circle back to launching a similar publication years later, and so 2007 till around 2000, I’m gonna say 12, the end of the year ish. I had a similar publication. And for people listening, who are wondering, you know, what I’m referencing, or what that visually would look like, if you’ve heard of or seen magazines like entrepreneur Success Magazine, mine was like a regional version of those. And so it was obviously a much smaller scale, but that type of publication. And so I ran it for another, like I say, roughly five and a half years. And so when people say how did you ever do 4000 plus interviews, everybody thinks it’s to do with the show, and the show has been going five years, so it’s conceivable, but actually, where those numbers come in, it’s actually started with the publication. Because I was doing like 80 plus interviews a month to put out that publication. And you know, when you start getting into 32, and 38, and 40, some pages, you have a lot of content to fill. So anyway, so that the publication was another really big part of who I am today, because it got me obsessed with interviews. The second go round is what got me more obsessed with interviews. And so that turned into not only the radio show, but as I mentioned, interviewing some of the world’s top leaders, and then that turned into my “signature” talk today, which is revealing the five enemies, there’s more than five but revealing the top five common traits that I discovered after all this research and work. So that’s on the speaking side, and like I said, that’s one of my signature talks. But I started the speaking back in 2002 and I started early on as a paid speaker, even some times I was getting $200 or other times I was trading my talk for gym memberships, but I recognized early on the importance if I wanted to a paid speaker putting that kind of value on my talk, even if it was really small. Sometimes it was just, you know, I’d ask for you to provide me with a glowing testimonial if you like my talk. Obviously, even if I deliver the talk, and that’s our condition, if you hate my talk, I don’t you know, you can say you hate it but I don’t want you to say like that. But at the same time, most times that turned out well. And so I always was trying to place a value on my talks early on. And so that really evolved a lot quicker probably for me into a paid speaking career, which I then has been sort of the mainstay of everything I’ve done since then. When I started the speaking, I was still working. And for for the company I was in with that office equipment industry. So I was with Toshiba, I mentioned then was with konica Minolta. And so I worked for them throughout the years while still doing the speaking. And what I would do is I would use my evenings, weekends and vacation days to speak, until I decided to go at it full time. Then I went into full time and then I lot relaunched that newspaper and I it kept going while I was doing speaking, eventually, I decided to move that over to a radio show, meaning the publication kept doing the speaking. And then and so then what’s evolved since then, is that I started putting out books in 2010. Because even though I’d only we could talk with this if you want to, but I only read my first book at 27 years of age. Even though that was the case, I always wanted to be a writer for some reason, even though I didn’t know what a full book read like. And so I you know, that was a part of my journey and still doing speaking while doing that. And now today, one of the new things that I started doing a few years ago is I launched a speaking program to teach other people how to do what I’m doing as a speaker. And then most recently, literally like this week, as we were talking right now launched a TEDx program, teaching people about how to secure their TEDx talk, something you were talking about earlier, and how to deliver a TEDx level talk. So all these things I just mentioned, all the time doing all of them, I continue doing the speaking. So I really think that I have to say that that’s my core calling. And the rest of those other things are passions that the speaking allows me to take on. And also, in both cases, they actually sort of in a lot of ways, synergize with each other.

Kim Sutton Oh, yeah, definitely. So you just launched the TEDx program but you’re also launching a book this week, the week that the episode is releasing. But I want to back up just a little bit and then I think this would be a great segue into your book. Over the course of your speaking journey, did you find that anytime that you were speaking more to what you thought people wanted to hear, then what you really what your heart was calling you to talk about?

Corey Poirier That’s an interesting question. And so I’m gonna say, I’ll answer yes and yes, because I’ll say that there was both sides. So there was the side that there’s, I guess, there’s the aspect of what I think people want to hear. And then this is the harder part to admit what I think people are willing to pay to hear, versus what you want to want to speak on. So when I say that, what I mean is, there’s the part where you think, Okay, this is what the audience would love to hear. And so there’s a temptation to speak on what they’d love to hear. But then there’s also what will the owner of a company or the meeting planner, or the association planner, what will they actually pay to bring you in to speak on? Because there’s certain areas that are popular or certain areas that you just know, resonate with everybody? And then there’s what is your heart call you to do? So it’s mostly Yes that I spoke on what my heart called me to do. But it didn’t mean I didn’t– and this is something hard for me to admit or reflect on, I guess, because it’s a hard pill to swallow. But one gray area to, I guess, explore when I say that it’s customer service. So I switched from sales. I initially started with sales, training and coaching and speaking with salespeople, because that was my knowledge base. But I actually started noticing customer service was on a down slide, based on what I’d seen in years before, especially as a traveler, I would see a lot of negative customer service experiences that I didn’t notice before at the same scale. So I knew obviously, there was a need. So that became passionate, because I knew there was a need for people to hear it. And I also want to see customer service improve. So that was kind of the passion as well. I knew that the employers or people hiring me want it to get their staff better customer service. Here’s where the catch was, I didn’t necessarily feel in all cases that the attendees consumer cared that much about it, that you know, it was more of the employee that wanted their unless they were really passionate people in the first place. It was more the employer that wanted me to get this through to the person. But the sale that when I say it was something I was passionate about, I was passionate about helping improve customer service because I saw a deficiency. And even though I wasn’t somebody who basically was a customer service trainer or whatever, like let’s say, customer service call center trainers something what my background was that really I felt allowed me to have be equipped to speak on that was I had done 10,000 cold calls, which I then turned in warm calls which then turned into customers and when you do 10,000 sales calls, you’ll learn a lot about customer service. And then also I was, of course, speaking, so I learned a lot about customer service experience. So make a long story short, I was passionate about all those things. And I speak on customer service to this day. But I don’t necessarily know that it’s my number one calling, if you will, in comparison to the other talk I mentioned, which was those timeless secrets that I share. So that would be more of my “calling”. So I think probably adapt myself to speak on areas that I felt were more of a need than necessarily what would have been maybe the first talk I would have done if that wasn’t the case. Is that kind of a fair answer to that?

Kim Sutton Oh, yeah, that’s definitely a fair answer.

Corey Poirier But I still love customer service and I still believe in the importance of it. And I still speak on to today. And what I think happened is, I eventually became more passionate about it, and it became more of a calling. But if I’m being honest, earlier on, I don’t necessarily know that I started it for the right reasons.

Kim Sutton Right, right. Yeah. When I started my business in 2012, it was out of necessity. And I was doing what was needed, and what I thought people needed from me. And I was telling them what I thought they needed to hear. But it turned out a lot of it wasn’t what they wanted to hear or even what they needed to hear. And it’s been a great journey. And if I hadn’t gone through that journey, then I wouldn’t be where I am today. Like I would I wouldn’t be talking to you, Corey, because positive productivity came out of all those struggles and dealing with my own sleep deprivation and saying yes to everything and all of that. So if I hadn’t gone through that, that I wouldn’t be able to share with others how not to do that. Or why not to do that, I guess would be the more important.

Corey Poirier Well, and I will add too Kim that the most common question I asked. And it’s becoming the subject of some things I have coming up. But most common question I asked thought leaders is, and I’m conversational style approach with my show. So there’s not really that many standard questions. But the one question I try to always ask is, if you could sit across from a younger version of yourself, and give him or her one piece of life advice based on what you’ve learned in your life since, what do you think you might tell him or her? And what’s interesting about that is that most people, so the most common answer I receive is a variation of, it’ll be okay, you’re on the right track, don’t worry about the mistakes you made. Don’t live in regret because the things you’re doing today you had to do to become the you you are today, which you really seem to like a lot. And so why bring that up is because it took me a long time to realize that what you just said was so important. I had to jump into the customer service realm even if I jumped into it at a time whenever it wasn’t necessarily the right– I won’t say it wasn’t the right move but it wasn’t necessarily my full on calling or passion area to speak on. I had to go that direction I think for me to become the person I am today, if I would have started with the thing I love doing, maybe I would have bombed or maybe I wouldn’t have been ready for, maybe customer service was easier point of entry for. So I really do believe we have to as Steve Jobs says, join up our dots and realize that the path we’re on, we have to be on this path and everything that happens is the right thing to happen. Otherwise, you will never become the person that you’re ultimately going to come become, which I think is that person is destined for greatness.

Kim Sutton Absolutely. Have you seen What Dreams May Come? Robin Williams, and I can’t remember the female star.

Corey Poirier You know what I so this is one of those movies that until you mentioned it, I forgot that I had it on my list. And I do that all the time with that movie. I don’t know why I’ve not jumped in because I bet you about eight to 10 times in my life. I’ve said Oh yeah, I want to watch that movie and don’t. So my answer is no. I know sort of I don’t even know really what it’s about. I’ve watched the preview of the trailer, probably six of those eight times going Oh, yeah, I gotta watch this. And the answer is still No, I haven’t yet.

Kim Sutton Okay, well, I am not one. I do not like people who spoil TV shows or movies. So I won’t spoil anything. But there’s, it brings up an interesting thought to me of if you could go back and do it again. What would you do? Righ? And my husband and I have talked about that, because we did not meet until we were 30 31. And we’ve talked before, you know, he said if we could go back, he would find me you know, much younger, he’s like, I would find a way to get raised in New York instead of Ohio. I would come meet you. But just like you were saying about Steve Jobs saying connect the dots, those dots had to be down in the first place. And again, if we had met, who knows if we would have had the great relationship that we do because we wouldn’t have had the appreciation of everything else that we’ve been through. And at the same time listeners, you know that we’ve got a gazillion kids here. I mean, we wouldn’t have our older kids because well, we would possibly, but they would have been ours than it would have just been a whole different dynamic and none of I would be interested in no. It’s probably what I’m going to dream about now, tonight, just thinking about it. But what those struggles would have been in the parallel life. Or Back to the Future Part Two, where the courses changed, you know, what would have happened?

Corey Poirier Well, and when you say that, it’s interesting, Kim, because likewise, I guess even earlier on I would have said, you know, I want to meet “the person that I feel is right for me earlier in life.” But with this, so I don’t know if you know, the song or ever heard the song Unanswered Prayers by Garth Brooks.

Kim Sutton I have, yeah.

Corey Poirier Okay. So my girlfriend, whenever I put on Garth Brooks, for lack of a better way, saying it, she’s obsessed with that song, like she jumps to that song. And I think the takeaway for you know from that song, and what she took away, and how it relates to us, is we only met three years ago. And you and I were talking sort of offline that we have a six month old, we started as older parents, neither of us had a child before. And so and we adore him. So the thing is, is that what if a prayer that she made was I want like the gentleman she was with before me, or people I was with before her, what if we tried to have a prayer, I want to be with that person, or we see them and go there with somebody else and go, “Oh, I wish I was then let’s say two years ago”, or “Well, I’ll say four years ago, before we got together.” And then none of them what we have today would have existed. And so I’m glad that if she put up a prayer to for something else that it was unanswered, which is the premise of that song, because again, we found each other and I think there’s a whole bunch of things that happened that allow us to be the people we are together that had they not happened, may not have allowed us to have the success we’ve had so far in our relationship. And you know, and to even add a little further that we both grew up in that same small town I referenced earlier, moved away various different parts of the country. And how we connect and we connect, it was on Facebook. I had been to one sweat lodge a First Nation sweat lodge and she was doing them regularly. And I noticed that and one of us reached out and they skip a whole big story over. She was doing running sweat lodges, I wanted to go into one again, and basically went to visit her and we were friends for a few trips, and then it evolved from there. But we’re both from the same small town and we said we had to move across the country to meet each other. But again, imagine, you know, if any of the things would have changed along the way, nothing would have happened the way it did. So we wouldn’t have the six plus month old, cute little son we have now. So everything would be changed. So I’m glad it didn’t change the way it was. And so I will go back to my younger self and said, Don’t even blink differently. Don’t even pretend to pretend I’m not here, do everything you’re going to do. In fact, if I had the choice, I would probably elect not to go back to see that younger self.

Kim Sutton I like that a lot. What is a sweat lodge?

Corey Poirier I was gonna ask. And I usually do ask, before I go any further did you want? You know, does everybody you know what it is? Should I explain it? And because it’s not something that everybody has done, that’s for sure. But basically, the best way I can describe it is it’s like a sauna on steroids. So what it is, is that it’s a teepee, you know, that’s the lodge part of it. And it’s a First Nations culture thing, essentially, or an Aboriginal culture thing, where the idea is you go into this again, lodge or teepee. And you what they do to get it ready is they basically get hot water ready. So they boil hot water over fire. And then they go into the lodge, they have a little hole made. And they essentially do rounds, they call it like four or five rounds. And in each of those rounds, they keep throwing the water onto the rocks. And what maybe some people wouldn’t realize how hot that gets. It’s hotter than any sauna you’ve probably imagined. And so it’s sort of sweatshirt, that’s why they call it a sweat lodge. But then inside the lodge, you then share, you know, mostly that people share stuff. So they might talk about the challenges they’ve had as a child, they might talk about what’s going on in their life. You know, if it’s in a sweat lodge around maybe people who have addictions, they talk about the struggles, and it’s kind of like whatever happens in the sweat lodge stays in the sweat lodge. But basically it’s almost like for most people, I think it’s like a sweat out the toxins reawakening for yourself, and I can tell you, we moved across the country and there’s not as many in this area and my girlfriend, even more than me tremendously misses them. But that’s sort of sweat lodges. And that, you know, thanks to sweat lodges and Facebook, that’s how we reconnected and got together.

Kim Sutton That actually sounds amazingly awesome to me. I have never heard of one in the Dayton, Ohio area, but I’m definitely going to have to look that up. Wow.

Corey Poirier They exist. To my knowledge everywhere in the world. You just have to locate them. So Facebook or Google sweat lodges and near your area and fingers crossed. But I will tell you, they’re not easy and they’re not for everyone meaning I’m not a person with heat. But I’ve seen people take heat strokes in them. I only have once. I actually almost got burned in one because the person was throwing the water too close to me. So you know, you probably want to be in one where you’ve found that they’ve been doing it for a while, maybe talk to a couple people that have been in it. But for the most part, I’ve been in one with 32 people like big, big teepee and no issues at all. But there’s always the matter how many people unless there’s like three, there’s always people that tap out before the fifth round is done. Like you get to choice every round, you go outside in between. And there’s always people to tap out. There’s never been one time or a see that every single person said in for all five rounds. So it’s it’s not easy. But I guess nothing in life is easy right? Not the good things are.

Kim Sutton No, definitely not. It’s my husband and I talk about that all the time. No matter how awesome things are going. And this comes from our spiritual background, our Christian faith, we always feel like we have the devil like chase in our heels because the closer to the top of the mountain we get, the better it’s going the worst something always happens. And but we just have to smile and keep on going. Corey we actually met on Craigslist.

Corey Poirier Wow. That’s amazing. That’s–

Kim Sutton And I’m still alive.

Corey Poirier Yeah. That’s I think I have very, I guess I would say appropriate follow up to that. Right. Like, you know, you hear a lot you hear not a lot. But here’s some negative about, you know, what can happen. But at the same time, you don’t hear as much of the positive, right? And there’s a positive story out of it.

Kim Sutton Oh, yeah, definitely. I just had to share with you Craig and for listeners who haven’t heard it, and I had found an apartment I was leaving my abusive ex and I was looking for furniture. Because although I was willing to sleep on the floor, and I knew that, you know, we didn’t need a couch or anything like that. I really wanted to find furniture for the apartment. And I was scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and I got tired of it. And I saw the little link that said men looking for women, and I had no intention of dating anybody at all. I actually went in there to see what Well, I’m just gonna say, Sorry, listeners, you know, I don’t cuss a lot on here. But then my head, I was like, let’s just go see what assholes are out there looking right now. Because I was just expecting to see the worst and his was the second one that I clicked on. And it just blew me away. And actually three weeks prior, I’d written my soulmate spec sheet, a list of 50 something items that any future man that I get dated needed to have. And right there in his novel of a post, he covered so many of them. And it was actually the last attempt that he was going to put into online dating before he packed up from our area of Ohio and moved to Australia. That was what he was planning to do.

Corey Poirier Wow. Did he say that in the post, by the way, or you got that came out later?

Kim Sutton That came out later. Yeah. So.

Corey Poirier I think it wouldn’t be abnormal for somebody say, Okay, I tried this for a while. And this is my last, you know, last try this. I mean, I’m sure that I years ago, earlier in my life, I tried the online dating thing. And I remember people quoting that, you know, like, okay, I’ve come back on again, I didn’t have good experiences before, but I’m giving it one last go. So I asked that question not, you know, not thinking that it’s not possible. It could have been either way but I was curious. But the thing that I also took away from that is, and you sort of glossed over it, but I think that’s something that’s so powerful. I didn’t do it. But I had a friend who did and it changed his life, was the soul mate spec sheet, like, and I don’t think he termed it that way. But you know, his list, the things that soulmate should have. And yeah, not many people do that. And I think that can be a game changer in their personal life for a lot of people. So just to say a little add into that.

Kim Sutton I mean, just to give you an example, like I said, I wanted somebody who loved to cook, and I actually wanted a man who would paint my nails. It happens so rarely now with all of our kids. But he put right into his again, like a novel seriously. It was like three pages when I printed it out because I have copies of both of them now, my spec sheet and his so that we can show our grandkids someday. But he told right in there, he’s like I was raised by three females so I I’ll paint your nails. I love to cook. He even said he loves to cook naked. That hasn’t happened in forever, either. Blame it on the kids. But yeah, it was all right in there. So and I actually told him I was– in my email to him I said I’m going through a divorce, can we meet and you know if you’re still single can you post this again in six months? We met two days later. And the rest goes from there.

Corey Poirier That’s amazing. So very cool. That’s a very cool online, I guess we’ll call it online dating success story.

Kim Sutton Yeah. And we even reached out to Craig Newmark to tell them thank you.

Corey Poirier Wow.

Kim Sutton You know, your service helped us find each other and he wrote back and listeners, don’t forget to thank the people, the brands, the service providers, they love to hear this stuff because so often, I mean, with your history and customer service, Corey, I’m sure you know, so often we hear the negative, but we don’t really hear the positive.

Corey Poirier And you know what, if I could reach him somehow, I would reach out to Mark Zuckerberg to thank him because I guess technically, we met even though we went to the same school, we didn’t really know each other that well. And so technically, Facebook was there connections or so [inaudible] online dating as well.

Kim Sutton I want to touch on one topic from our pre chat. We were talking about the topic of following your passion. And you brought up that passion is sort of a word that’s a little bit becoming a little bit frowned upon these days. Could you adjust that really quickly and perhaps or suggest a different word that we– well, I specifically because I actually use it all the time, I think it’s really important that listeners follow their passion instead of following their pocketbook. Oh, my gosh, I just borrowed that word of my grandma. But, you know, it’s really important that we follow our heart sometimes if we really want to enjoy what we’re doing in life.

Corey Poirier Yeah. So I’m happy to share even what I meant by that. And I know we chatted about this, but we have the word passion in the name of our show. And that’s where, of course I was able to discover a lot easier is because I’m asking the question in almost every show. So I get to see if there’s pushback against that word or any word, when you’re asking about something over and over again. And so what happened was, I noticed maybe about two years ago as switch in guest, when I asked about passion. And then so I started serving other people and notice it was a common thing. And what it is, is that, well, there’s two things, there’s one people have a thought process on should you try to uncover your find your passion? And then there’s the other side, and so when I say different perspective, it’s the idea of, you know, people saying, Well, here’s why you should do, like some people say you should do what serves the value and makes you money, let’s say or puts a roof over your head, even if you’re not passionate about it.  And I’m not in that school, but that I hear that more than I used to. And so some people, I think even just are trying to be contrarian. So you know, it gives them a chance to stand out as offering a different perspective. Nothing wrong with that. And they may feel that way. But then there’s the other side, which is that people are like, I’m just so tired of hearing, follow your passion, follow your passion. And I think sometimes, for the people that haven’t discovered it, and I’m going to give you another word for it, but the people haven’t discovered it. I think for some of them, maybe that’s what’s going on. They’re saying I’m sick of hearing it because they haven’t found theirs yet. And so it’s kind of like I’m sick of people hearing it, because it’s almost like I’m sick of them sort of even not meaning to but rubbing it in my face, let’s say or what have you. So I think it’s a mixture of both. But the reason I think it’s happening more is because more people talk about it now than ever before. And so like anything, it’s like somebody who becomes a little more well known, then they start having more haters. So I think it’s like passion, we start talking about it a lot more with having multiple generations around today. And I think all of a sudden, what happened is now we’re starting to get the haters. And I don’t mean that like in a negative way, or saying that it’s wrong, or even saying that people are right to say follow your passion. I’m just sort of speculating as observer but I’ve noticed that pushback. And so what happens now is when I used to ask, do you think it’s important to uncover your passion. And if so, why? It was 99%, yes, before, and then usually an explanation. Now, it’s more like 65%, yes. And then I get a lot of people saying, I don’t know if it’s important to follow your passion but here’s what is important. Or I’m tired of hearing that word, or here’s why I don’t think it’s important. So now it’s like 35% versus 5% of people saying, Here’s why I don’t agree with that, or what have you. So, interestingly enough, you hit the nail on the head, in terms of Kim, what word I would suggest or not even suggest, I mean, it’s up to people to decide what they want to use. But the word that I’ve been using now, and it relates to the book that I put out, I mean, in fact, it probably is the catalyst for why you chose the book title. It’s actually called the book of Why and then I add in brackets and how. But the why part is what I’ve found is that now sort of a new, popular, okay, where do users that have passion? Because it’s the you know, it’s your calling? What’s nice about the word Why is it actually in my opinion, intersect two words, which is passion and purpose. So I’ve always said that passion is what you’re doing, so the What and purpose is Why you’re doing it. So when you say, find your why, in my opinion, it’s both, you know, it encompasses both. It’s still leaning a little more toward the purpose side, but it still covers up both. So I would say you could use your calling, you could use your passion, you could use purpose, and then just define it a little differently. Or you could use your why, like I said, these days, I’m talking a lot about the importance of finding our why. But then that opens the door for me to really describe finding your passion and then figuring out what your passion allows you to do when achieve and get from that.

Kim Sutton I love that you brought up passion and purpose separate, because I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I can see it now. And I think I’m just gonna have you back again and we can dive more into that. Corey, I’d love for you to share where listeners can find your book, as of the date of this recording list starts and you may be listening well into the future, it’s actually going to be released in two days. Yeah. So listeners, I want you to make a post it and put it on your screen if you’re listening to this episode on the day of the release. But yeah, Corey, where can listeners find it?

Corey Poirier So I’m going to give you the easy answer Kim because, you know, I could say go to Amazon and search it. But I think that’s like, I don’t want you to have to do extra work. And you know, I hope that book has the potential to change your life, and it’s not just for people looking for their why or their purpose, it goes into the how it goes into the discoveries after all these interviews with thought leaders. One of the things that I don’t mention often enough is the back of the book, there’s a bonus section with 400 quotes by the thought leaders we’ve interviewed over the years. Some of the thought leaders, I guess 10%. But in terms of defining it, I wanted to make it easy. So if you’re listening right now, you can go to thebookofwhy.com. And that’s all spelled out thebookofwhy.com. And if you go there before the 20th, this just an FYI for somebody who wants to make sure they don’t forget and they don’t want to put a post it note, if you’re that person, if you don’t still use post it notes, which I still use them. But you can go to thebookofwhy.com, and on the main page right before the 20th, if you sign up there we have a it’s basically the top 10 insights we’ve learned from high achievers over the years, you get that by signing up. But the other cool thing is you’ll get a reminder. So you’ll actually know when the book drops. If you want to post a note, you want to go back on the 20th it’ll be switched. And from that day forward, and my intention at least is it’ll be forwarding to the Amazon page that may change down the road. But when you’re listening to this, I would say odds are pretty good if you go to thebookofwhy.com. If you’re two days early, you can sign up and be reminded if you’re after the 20th then you literally will be on the Amazon page and you can grab a copy right there.

Kim Sutton Oh, you just simplified it so much. I didn’t wasn’t even thinking about simple solutions like that. Listeners if you are driving, if you’re at the gym, and you can’t write that down right now you can find all the links where to find Corey in the show notes at thekimsutton.com/pp272. My gosh, I made it 43 minutes without a really bad blooper. Corey, where else can listeners find you online and connect with you?

Corey Poirier I’ll give you another hopefully easy solution, Kim, as well would be “the hub”. So my hub is thatspeakerguy.com. I try to keep that easy, thatspeakerguy.com. again, all spelled out. If you go there, that you’ll find blog posts there, my TEDx talks are there. There’s another, you know, signup for a totally different thing. If people want to check that out, I always say by the way too, because I’m not about people thinking I’m just trying to get somebody to sign up for our tribe. I will say that if you sign up for something and you say, Okay, I want to be in the tribe, but I want this sign up and then opt back in two seconds later, you know, use me if you want, that’s fine. But at the same time, thatspeakerguy.com, if you go there it has what I feel is a lot of free content. But at the same time, I know a lot of people love connecting on social. So if you look at the top, as soon as you get to the page, most of the social links for where you can connect with me are up there. So you can literally just click on them at your heart’s content. Like, follow, send a message whatever works best for you. So that’s all there at the hub. So likewise, trying to make it easy, go to thatspeakerguy.com and you’ll find I think pretty much everything there.

Kim Sutton Thank you thatspeakerguy.com. Corey, this has been an absolute pleasure. I look forward to having many more conversations with you in the future.

Corey Poirier Likewise, Kim sold. And thanks so much for all the purpose you’re creating for other people. You know, you’re actually I think you gave me a purpose today being here. But I think listeners as well, you’re helping them with finding their purpose, whether it’s by accident Sundays or not, and whether it’s intentional other days, but I know that by listening to shows like this is what helped me along the way. So thank you for doing that for other people and for helping to give them a purpose.

Kim Sutton Oh, you’re welcome. That actually just made my day.

Corey Poirier Thank you so much. That’s humbling.

Kim Sutton Corey, do you have one last piece of parting advice or a golden nugget that you can offer to listeners?

Corey Poirier I’ll give two really quick ones based on the thought leader timeless secrets I mentioned that I learned along the way. One is I’ve learned that lifelong learners are leaders, so that doesn’t mean you have to be a reader. But the people that feed their mind and do it efficiently are the people that have risen to and typically stay at the top. So the piece of advice on that is find a way to feed your mind every day. And actually, I believe, even if it’s informal have a structure. So if you say 20 minutes a day, I’m going to make sure I feed my mind. That could be we talked about this earlier, listening to a show like this, walking the dog, or it could be watching a TED talk every day, which they’re always under 20 minutes, but figure out a way to always feed your mind every day. And you’ll be blown away by the transformation in a year’s time if it’s not something you’re already doing. Second one is we’ve noticed that the high achievers understand the power of saying No to the things that won’t move the needle, so that they can say Yes to the few things that will and I believe how do you do that? How do you select the know? How do you figure out what it is? You need to figure out what your purpose is? We talked about this along the way, but find your purpose. And once you know what your purpose is, then you know what a Yes is and what to No is and then you just have to figure out how to say Yes or No elegantly if possible, and then start saying no more to those things that are now distractions. So those are two pieces of advice based on what we’ve learned in all these interviews.