Mic Drop

Letting Go to Move Ahead (ft. Jamie Hess & Matthew Vincent)

Episode Summary

Jamie Hess and Matthew Vincent. Two guests, one conversation, countless insights. From what drives them as speakers to how they define success, from shedding old identities to taking on new ones, there's more packed into this episode than you can believe. You don’t want to miss this Mic Drop double-header.

Episode Notes

Letting Go to Move Ahead (ft. Jamie Hess & Matthew Vincent)

This business demands boldness, so we talked to two of the boldest

OPENING QUOTE:

“Do you want to be doing a hoe down for children's vitamins and a skit about band-aids on Instagram for the rest of your life?”

-Jamie Hess

GUEST BIO:

Jamie Hess

Jamie Hess overcame a slew of self-destructive behaviors and turned her so-called liabilities into her greatest assets. She became a top executive, ambassador for hundreds of brands, contributor to Today, Good Morning America, and The View and the face of zuda activewear on QVC. She speaks on stages across the country, teaching her prosperity system called Gratitudeology, a method that reframes the way people take on challenges, helping them hack their hustle and lean into their fear. Jamie spent two decades as a PR expert and high level brand strategist for companies like LinkedIn, McDonald's, and W Hotels. She's also the co-host of the Off the Ground Podcast, named one of the top 40 best podcasts by Good Housekeeping, and has her newest project, the Gratitudeology Podcast, launching February 5th, 2024.

Links:

Matt Vincent

If you've never heard of the Highland Games, there are two things you need to know about them. Number one, it's a Scottish cultural event dating back 900 years that attracts some of the strongest people in the world. And number two, Matt Vincent is the two-time world champion. Yes, he could lift any one of us above his head easily. But these days he's more interested in lifting people's spirits through his brand, Not Dead Yet, launched in 2017. In addition to creating apparel and lifestyle products, Not Dead Yet has a podcast with over 450 episodes that brought Matt into the world of public speaking.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[9:52] - Why Be a Speaker?

On motivations and inspirations

For Jamie, the calling to become a speaker came from a desire to make an impact beyond social media influence. She wanted to not just serve brands but serve people, helping them unlock their greatest potential.

For Matt, it’s about what he calls the “forge.” By refining his message, his delivery, and his ethos as a speaker, he’s refining himself and his community. As he says, “even if this doesn’t turn into me getting speaker jobs, the side effect of me learning how to do it better will benefit people in my community.”

[19:20] - The Power of Gratitudeology

Jamie explains her growing movement

Jamie explains the power of gratitude with a running analogy. When you head out on a run, your instinct is to look down at your feet. When you do that, you fixate on each individual step, and time passes slowly. You feel miserable. You want to quit. But when you raise your view to what’s around you, taking in all the beauty of the world you’re running through, the miles seem to fly by, and you discover you actually enjoy it. That’s the power of gratitude, and the foundation of Gratitudeology.

[24:56] - Motivating Through Dark Moments

Matt explores the light in the darkness

What keeps us going when the work we’re doing seems fruitless, or there’s no immediate payback? Matt says it’s all about focus. As evidenced by his earlier “forge” comment, he’s discovered a passion for the process, not just the destination. He’s fallen in love with the growth he experiences by pursuing his passions — so any results that come are just a bonus.

Meanwhile, he reminds us to sharpen the ax to slay the bigger dragon. That looks different for everyone, but it really amounts to taking care of yourself and staying fired up.

[29:46] - Choosing Your Identity

Choose who you are, then make it so

Matt is someone who’s already comfortable with leaving behind past versions of himself. He’s let go of the athlete side of himself, which was once his defining characteristic and he now calls “the least important and least interesting things about me.” That willingness to let go is what gives us the opportunity to embrace new futures and identities for ourselves. It gives us the chance to “suck at something new.”

As for Jamie, the burden of the past comes from associations. With a famous mother, she’s had to move out from beyond her shadow to carve out her own niche for herself. That meant no longer hiding and instead embracing many of the same career directions her mother took — not in tribute or deference to her mother, but because that was the path that called to Jamie, as well.

RESOURCES:

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ABOUT MIC DROP:

Hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it’s starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.

Learn more at: MicDropPodcast.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar.

Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.

Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession with greasy pizza.

Learn more about Josh: JoshLinkner.com

Episode Transcription

Jamie Hess:

Do you want to be doing a hoe down for children's vitamins and a skit about band-aids on Instagram for the rest of your life?

Josh Linkner:

Hey, Mic Drop Enthusiast. Josh Linkner here. Delighted to be bringing you season two of Mic Drop. I love our conversations with speakers and industry leaders alike so we can unpack the industry and we can all perform better. Let's get after it and get better together.

Maria Cairo:

Mic Drop is brought to you by ImpactEleven, the most diverse and inclusive community built for training and developing professional speakers to get on bigger stages at higher fees with greater impact, faster.

They're not just elevating an industry that we all know and love. They work with thousands of speakers to launch and scale their speaking businesses, accelerating time to success, earning tens of millions in speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals, and rising to the top of the field.

To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impact-E-L-E-V-E-N.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

If you want to find radical success, you talk to a radical person. This week on Mic Drop, one of our guests is one of my favorite radicals, Jamie Hess. Years ago, Jamie overcame a slew of self-destructive behaviors and turned her so-called liabilities into her greatest assets.

What did that look like for her? Well, she became a top executive, ambassador for hundreds of brands, contributor to Today, Good Morning America, and The View and the face of zuda activewear on QVC. She speaks on stages across the country, teaching her prosperity system called Gratitudeology, a method that reframes the way people take on challenges, helping them hack their hustle, and lean into their fear. Jamie spent two decades as a PR expert and high level brand strategist for companies like LinkedIn, McDonald's, and W Hotels. She's also the co-host of the Off the Ground Podcast, named one of the top 40 best podcasts by Good Housekeeping, and has her newest project, the Gratitudeology Podcast, launching February 5th, 2024. And most importantly, Jamie is warm, energetic, kind, and deeply authentic. She's just overflowing with insights into the speaking business and the life business.

But it's an embarrassment of riches this week as we're also joined by yet another life-changing, game-changing guest, the remarkable Matt Vincent. If you've never heard of the Highland Games, there are two things you need to know about them. Number one, it's a Scottish cultural event dating back 900 years that attracts some of the strongest people in the world. And number two, Matt Vincent is the two-time world champion. Yes, he could lift any one of us, maybe any two of us above his head easily, but these days he's more interested in lifting people's spirits through his brand, Not Dead Yet, launched in 2017. In addition to creating apparel and lifestyle products, Not Dead Yet has a podcast that has 450 episodes and brought Matt into the world of public speaking.

Two guests, one conversation, countless insights. From what drives them as speakers to how they define success, from shedding old identities to taking on new ones, there's more packed into this episode than even Matt Vincent could bench press. Let's welcome Jamie and Matt to this week's Mic Drop.

Jamie Hess, Matt Vincent, welcome to Mic Drop.

Matthew Vincent:

Welcome to be here.

Jamie Hess:

Thanks for having us.

Josh Linkner:

So I'm really pumped about this episode, not only because I have so much respect for each of you individually and a speakers and professionals, but also really talking about the art and science of peak performance and how we are also human beings and we have to take care of our wellness and our bodies in order to be as effective as we can in our careers. I'd love to, for those that don't know you as well as I do, maybe get a little bit of your backstory and then we'll get into what you're up to now. Jamie, maybe we'll start with you. Give us a little bit of rundown of how you got here and what led you to this point in time.

Jamie Hess:

Thank you so much for having me, Josh. So I started my first 17 years of my professional career in PR and marketing. I was a big executive for a bunch of agencies, boutique agencies and then bigger ones. So I represented brands like McDonald's and General Motors and all of these really big companies. And by the way, I loved it. I didn't leave PR because I didn't love it. I was born to do PR. And I say that because public relations, especially in New York City, especially in the '90s and 2000s when I was getting started, really had this reputation for being the glamour industry. You know what I mean? We kind of ran New York.

And I got to say that was a double-edged sword for me, because I fell into that, hard. And so another fun kind of mic drop moment in the beginning of my story is that I started my early life with a struggle with addiction that nearly took me down and it got real dark. And so when I started getting sober, I really hit a bottom, and I started getting sober in my 20s, and what ended up happening, Josh, was like, man, I almost feel bad for people who aren't addicts or alcoholics. I say this all the time. It is such an awesome blueprint for living that you get in recovery. And by the way, it's like free, it's great, it's really great, recovery circles are great.

But what ended up happening was I brought those skills back into my professional realm and it helped me in business so much that I started really merging this new love for wellness and fitness, which is something I found after getting sober, and then all of these mindset shifts, including this deep sense of gratitude and all this stuff that had just been foreign to me before. And I started sharing about it on social media. Fast-forward to the end, to this account that I started, called NYCFitFam, which was just my journey with wellness. It took off and it gave me this whole Act Two as an influencer, a content creator, a wellness expert, and eventually an on-air personality and keynote speaker.

Josh Linkner:

Amazing. We'll dig into more of that, but thanks for that quick overview. Matt, what about you?

Matthew Vincent:

Yeah, so it's been quite a journey. I dove in into strength sports after I kind of failed in entrepreneurship the first time, was kind of my first real plunge back into chasing something I was into. I had failed in entrepreneurship as a bike shop owner in Baton Rouge in my early 20s, and then went into having a regular job, moved into the petrochemical industry for a decade, and worked in sales in the oil and gas field and found success in it. I just didn't find any fulfillment to that job. It was something I could do, but that's not going to be enough.

And so I had found this outlet through athletics again and eventually into the Scottish Highland games.And so that's a sport based in Scotland, Scottish heavy athletics, been around for about 700 years. Got involved in the sport, loved it. And then eventually got to the point where I was traveling as a professional in it around the world for about 10 years and won two world championships.

2014 was my last world championship. And then after 2016 I decided to do some elective surgery, fix a knee, and that led to nine more knee surgeries and a total knee replacement. So had this real big death of identity after that of what life looked like going forward. And I'd kind of reached a point where I had submitted that normal was going to be what it was from here on out. And I wasn't okay with that. That got really dark for me, and that's not enough for me to want to kind of continue forward. And so with that feeling, I realized that like what I found in sports and athletics, it was chasing this pursuit of being better at something, that I need something to be curious about, that I'm obsessed with, and that when I find it, I can be great.

And so leaning on that to find the next thing to be great at. And that was starting my second run of business with my brand, Not Dead Yet, and I've been doing that for the last 10 years. We started a podcast which helps get a message out. We started that in 2017 and have been 450 episodes or plus in. And really led into sharing more content, creating community, and now has led me to some opportunity in the last couple of years to share my story and how I overcame it and this mindset that I have now to how I keep pushing forward. And it's been great. And as opportunities find you, and public speaking has found me with some friends hosting events and everything else, and I realized how much I really love the challenge of it and I love the impact it creates and I can see this light bulb click on for people and let them have that moment where they realize that they can actually do anything they dream about. And don't lie to yourself about how hard the work is.

Josh Linkner:

It's really funny because both of you came, you mentioned just now, Matt, that you came from a very different place, but there's also a lot of similarities. I mean, you both pursued traditional business careers and were successful but unfulfilled. You both care deeply about wellness and each had your own sort of version of physical wellness challenges that you both overcame, and now you're pursuing a career based on contribution and impact and helping. So it really is amazing. We didn't plan it that way, but there are some similarities.

Jamie, I'm curious for you, you do a lot of things obviously, which is really cool. And I love that we don't have to be defined by one thing anymore. "I'm a lawyer." "I'm a doctor." We're a lot of things. But I know, and especially over this last year, you've really leaned into professional speaking. I just think you're brilliant on stage, just remarkable storyteller. What is calling your heart to want to do this work versus there's so many other things that you are and can do?

Jamie Hess:

It's so funny, when I left PR, let me say this, I'm 43 years old, my husband's 63. we're proper adults with former role. I was a former executive. He runs a company. I was not trying to be an influencer for a living. That was not something you went to school for when I was going to school. That wasn't a job. That wasn't a thing. There was no Instagram.

Having an Instagram account that took off was this really interesting portal into this other side of life. And I used to be the one running the influencer marketing programs for all of these Fortune 500 brands. So when I became a content creator, it was really cool because I was all of a sudden getting paid to be a brand ambassador for all of these brands and to share about wellness.

A couple years went by with that and someone asked me a question that changed my life. A business development team that I had brought on, the guy looked at me, the CEO, and I respect him so much, and he said, "Let me ask you a question. Do you want to be an influencer for the rest of your life or do you want to be a thought leader?" And I was like, "Oh." And it was like a shot to the heart because what he was saying was, "It's cool that you found a way to make a living sharing about brands, but do you want to be doing a hoedown for children's vitamins and this-"

Jamie Hess:

... sharing about brands, but do you want to be doing a hoedown for children's vitamins and a skit about band-aids on Instagram for the rest of your life, or do you want to get out there and create and serve and have a message of impact that is on your heart that you get to share with the world? So from that moment on, this was about two and a half years ago, all the rest of the tentacles of my business, Octopus, started to take shape. And that is the book, that is the keynote speaking, that is the being on television, not just to serve brands and tell their story, although I still do that.

I mean, I am on the TODAY Show and The View and Good Morning America on behalf of brands, but all of a sudden I started getting booked on those shows to share my story, which was first about kind of this wellness journey, weight loss and wellness, but really evolved when I realized my audience and the people that were coming to me for coaching actually weren't just wanting to lose weight. They were wanting to know how I did what I did, which is I left a career of 17 years, shattered the glass ceiling, 10xed my salary and did it by following my passion. So I started sharing with people how I did that and tactically, but more so with the mindset shifts.

Josh Linkner:

So good. Matt, I'd love to hear your perspective too. You've taken on some really tough challenges and won at the highest levels. What's driving you to professional speaking? And then the second part of that is what do you think success will look like for you? I mean, when you're going after world record, the goal line's pretty clear, like this is what it is to be successful. So for you, I guess I'm curious both why you're pursuing this work and also what success will look like once you arrive at your target.

Matthew Vincent:

Sure. One of the reasons I've really chose to pursue this work is I really love how impeccable it forces me to be with my word. That getting that opportunity to speak on stage, to refine my material, to dig deeper into my message, to find proper ways to get people to attach to it, right? Because I mean, that's the goal is if I can't translate it in a way that connects with them, then it doesn't matter. I believe public speaking will make me great at that, and so I can't think of anything that serves my community, my audience better, and people that are looking for the type of help that I help people with than me being better at being able to explain it and coach it. Even if this doesn't turn into me getting speaker jobs and speaker jobs, the side effect of me learning how to do it better will benefit those people in my community.

So seeing that power of going through this forge to really hammer out and make my message as strong as it can be, what a gift. Then the other side of that success, that's something that's changed over the years. And what I thought success looked like was all the standard things of buying this or that and vacations and whatnot. As I've continued down that path, as many have who've made money, realize that that doesn't answer any of those questions, success for me on the backside is I want to spend as many days of the rest of my life doing things I love. As long as I can answer that, then that's success. I don't need to add any extra caveats to it. I want to stay spending as many days in the rest of my life around people I vibe with around doing things that fulfill my soul and challenge me and keep me active and keep me present and as much time out of autopilot and scarcity as I can.

Josh Linkner:

So good man. I just want to build on that, and then Jamie, I'll come to you in a second. But your clothing brand, Not Dead Yet, I mean that's a pretty striking term. And just looking at the site here, it's we're free to try anything and break free from limitations. Whatever it is you want, now is the time to get it. You're not dead yet. So what does not dead yet mean to you? And it certainly seems like you're pursuing it, but I'd love to hear you interpret that for us and how we can learn from it and also like you not be dead yet.

Matthew Vincent:

Yeah, so it came to me through a handful of different experiences, but the main one was my father passing away in 2014. So my dad had got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and 11 months later passed, and I got to watch that man that raised me this strong figure dwindle away to this shell of nothing. And throughout the time what I realized with it was his mind didn't go away, but the body did and he's in there and he's trapped in it. And I got to experience that when I got hurt that, oh man, this machine that I've put all this faith and effort into no longer operates. And I got really scared. It freaked me out. I went from being second best in the world to traveling with a cane to not being able to walk more than 200 yards a day. It woke me up to the idea that there's another point in my life where this physical part of me is going to go away.

Chances are it'll leave before my mind gives up, and so I want to use it and make sure that it's capable to do as much as possible for as long as I can and to invest in myself in both my physical health and my mental health and quit believing that they're disconnected. And so that's really what's forced me into that idea of no matter what the hard days are, that discomfort, the feeling, any of that I can respond back with I'm not dead yet. It didn't kill us, that means it's kept us on path. And that's the reason to keep going is not the years behind us, but I don't know how many I have left and that's what makes them important,

Josh Linkner:

So insightful. In addition to people health-wise, collapsing too early, many people live long physical lives, but they've been dead for years. They stopped dreaming, they stopped pursuing the opposite of limitless. Jamie, you talk about radical wellness. I just love that term radical in general. I was looking at your site, radical fitness, radical nutrition, radical relationships, radical performance, radical abundance. Together we can be radically on point and radically happy, together we can be radically well. That to me is really the opposite of not dead yet. That's living not just physically living, but really living. Can you explain a little bit more about what that radical wellness means to you, how'd you discover it and how you're advising people, especially those listening today, so that they can embrace such a powerful idea?

Jamie Hess:

I started as a wellness expert on Instagram, on television, and people were really looking to me, NYC Fitfam, I mean, that's kind of a representation of fitness community coming together and finding bonding and excitement and joy through the shared tribal energy of fitness. Really cool. Super cool. Love that. But there's a lot more than just that. What I had to convey, especially as I started stepping out on bigger stages, is my message transcends traditional wellness. I think if you just look at wellness as diet and exercise, that's a totally archaic way to look at it. You're missing the boat. And these days we tend to understand that true wellness, holistic wellness is definitely at least one click up from there. It encompasses your mindset and everything else that you have to shift to wake up and live each day in your best possible, most aligned way, and put your head on the pillow at night with integrity, feeling fulfilled, feeling like you've taken up your energetic space on this planet in the best way possible.

And that's all led into, by the way, Josh, this new topic that I've really been speaking about more than anything, which is called Gratitudology. And it's really going deep into the study and practice of gratitude. And Matt, I love what you were saying, man, because it's the same message, right? It's like I did not wake up until I almost died. I did not get this sense of gratitude in the way I have it today until I realized that at any second you could lose your life. And every single day I've been sober. Now I've been in rooms of recovery for almost 20 years. The novelty of waking up every day when I came that close to losing it, the novelty is still not woken up, it's still not worn off, excuse me. And what I really want to pay forward is that sense. I just want people to get every day is this incredible opportunity.

So not in a Pollyanna way, not in a toxic positivity way, "Just be grateful. You should just be grateful for what you have, be grateful for your job, be grateful." It's like not that, but if we can really get granular and lean in to even every one of our challenges and find the opportunity, find the lesson, lean into change, even when it's hard. That's what I teach through gratitudology, and that's why I think it's really like rather than being like, "Oh, it's kind of this precious way to approach life." It's really about rolling up your sleeves and digging in.

Josh Linkner:

Jamie, staying with you for a second. I just love gratitudology as a phrase and a concept, and I really think it ultimately will be a movement. Are there any tips or tactics or hacks that we can do on a given day? I know gratitude is often the antidote to fear, anxiety, depression, et cetera, but let's say we're going through a day, we're struggling a little bit. It's cloudy outside, we got some bad news at work, we missed the Jones account, whatever, and we're feeling a little bummed out. How could we tactically use gratitude as a technique or a tool to reconnect with that not dead yet sense, the opposite, of course, radically alive and radically well?

Jamie Hess:

Yeah, thank you for that. I have two and I'll keep them quick, but here's my favorite because it's so simple, and it definitely relates back to radical wellness because it's a running analogy. I'm a runner. I like to say I'm a marathon runner because I ran one marathon, so I'm a marathon runner, but I do love to run. And so I have this and a lot of people out there run. So if you're a runner, kind of get in this mindset with me for a minute. Let me take you there. Put on those running shoes in your mind. You know that moment when you're running and maybe it's a 5K or maybe it's a marathon and you're halfway through and you are in the minutiae, man. Your eyes are on your feet, you're just trying not to trip on a crack or whatever, but you're just in the 1, 2, 1, 2 of your footfalls, and it sucks.

You're like, "Man, I hate running. This is so hard. This is so awful." And isn't it the same right at work, when we're just in the minutiae of the micro moment that is kind of sucking right now, if we're being honest. We're just really hyper-focused and we're not able to see the big picture. There's that moment when I'm running, when it sucks, when all of a sudden I remember to just simply raise my eye level and I look at the horizon and all of a sudden, magically everything changes. I see green trees, I see blue sky. I look next to me like there's humans running next to me. If I'm in a 5K, like, "Hey humans, that's cool. Look, we're all here. We're all outside breathing fresh air. I got two lungs with which to breathe. I got two legs on which to run. That is amazing."

And that simple shift in perspective, lifting your eyeline from your feet to the horizon is the best way to get in gratitude. Just taking, again, one click out bigger picture. One other thing that I love to share with people, and this one's about imposter syndrome, because I just really think everyone has it, and if they don't have it, they're lying or they're not pushing themselves, or you're not pushing yourself towards big enough dreams. I just wrote a blog post for Washington Speakers Bureau that's going to come out soon on this topic, and so it's really close to my heart right now. I really believe we each have one of three inner imposters that's cropping up at any given time. You either have mini me, which is some former version of yourself, maybe your inner child who says, "You can't do this." It happens to me all the time. I'll be like, "Rem-"

Jamie Hess:

... who says you can't do this. It happens to me all the time. I'll be aiming for a big goal, and that teenage me who was on drugs comes in and says, "Are you crazy? We can't make seven figures. We can't do that deal. Are you nuts? We're a drug addict over here. We're hopeless."

I have to be the mentor that she didn't have at that time. Give her a big hug and say, "Sit down, sweetie we're good now, we got this."

The second one I call Lazy Susan. She just wants to get out of it, right? It's a cop out, don't buy her BS. She just wants to say, "It's too hard. We can't do it. Let's sit down."

So you got to be a little more firm with her. This is gratitudeology, and action. You got to go over to her and say, "I get it. Thanks for trying to save us from failing, but here's the deal. Even if we fail, that is the lesson for today. So we lean in to change today. All right? So we're going to go for it anyway."

The third one is the one I encounter with a lot of my women clients the most. I call it the Judger. And the tricky thing about the Judger is that they actually believe we can do the thing. They just think we're going to get judged when we succeed. It's like when you have to do something really cringey, you got to self-promote, that's hard. And those people fell victim to maybe goal shaming from family of origin, or they're scared, their last social media post made them look dumb, "Did my boss think I looked stupid in that meeting?" All of that.

And my big piece of gratitudeology advice there, write your own story, make yourself the main character, life is too short to waste the plot.

Maria Cairo:

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To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impact E-L-E-V-E n.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

So good, Jamie, thank you for sharing that. And Matt, I'd love to build on that with you a little bit. I find you very motivating, just being with you physically there's this energy about you, of course, your podcast and your clothing line and your amazing story. You've been very motivating to me and others.

How do you motivate yourself in those same dark moments that Jamie was talking about, where you have to do the work and there's no immediate payback? What keeps you motivated and are there any tips or tricks that you can share with us to help each of us go through those same struggles and ultimately prevail on the other side?

Matthew Vincent:

I think a lot of people get focused on where they hope to be as this feeling's going to come with the destination. And so really loving the process, as much of it's talked about and much of it's cliche is really how it works because there isn't a destination to any of this. It's all process. It's all journey.

And for the hero, you keep sharpening the ax to slay the bigger dragon. And so it's not about slaying one dragon, that's a heroic moment. Heroes continue to slay dragons. It's continuing to go back and do it. And so that daily motivation... I mean for me, it comes down to the weeks I got left to live. That's what keeps me fired up, is that what a blessing today is that I get a chance that my body works, that I get to take care of myself, that I get to do any of these things.

That's where it stays long-term. But overcoming these other voices that she's talking about as well. I haven't named them the same, but I know exactly who you're talking about. I know that voice of mine that doesn't want to get up at 5:00 AM to come to the gym and get cardio done to start my morning routine. I look at that person now and it's almost like my feelings with that voice in my head are like, "Yeah, yeah, I see you. Yeah, I know you're over there. That's fine. We're still doing it, right?"

And so what it comes down to me is I think our actions tell everyone what's important to us. There's a lot of things we can say, but at the end of the day, our actions mean all of it. And are your actions supporting who you want to be, or are they supporting who you were?

And for me, I want to constantly be taking the actions to be the person I want to be. And I know that changes over time as I continue to grow. So it's never the same set of actions for 20 years or 50 years. It's always going to be to figure out the next opportunity and try the next thing.

I no longer need the max strength that served me in my years competing. And there's a hangup of letting that identity go and feeling like, "Well, we spent all this time cultivating this strength. What do we do if we let our squat get less?" Well, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day. It no longer serves the next goal. And so being able to constantly look at that thing as this progress and this pursuit, that's what keeps me fired up.

And the daily actions and consistency is what does it. I tell people, "If you want to get stronger, it's really easy, and I don't care what program you want to use. I need you to bench squat, deadlift and overhead press moderately heavy once a week for the next 10 years, that'll take care of it. Don't get hurt."

And that's progress for anything you want to be better at. It's chipping away at it, it's moving it that 1%. It's like what it talks about in Atomic Habits, that we're not trying to do this macro dosing of discomfort and change in our life in a single day. It's microdosing these little things that change us over time.

I can't work out once a day. I can't work on my speech once a month for five hours and make any progress on it. It needs to be done on a regular basis, and it's easier just to keep showing up and chipping away at it than it is to think that there's going to be this moment that it's done and I don't ever have to do it again. This is now part of our life and part of the practice is becoming a better speaker. And so looking at that as the journey and not the destination is really why I stay excited.

Josh Linkner:

Love that. You're exactly right. That's how you drive progress, whether it's physical wellness progress or a pursuit like professional speaking. It's the day in and day out, the consistency, building the habits and staying strong through the times when you'd rather not be doing it. No question about it.

Matt, you mentioned the word identity, and I know this is getting maybe a little deep and personal, but hey, we're among friends. I feel like many of us have an identity that we want to get rid of and maybe another one that we want to highlight. And it'd be kind of fun, I thought maybe the three of us here could each share.

I'm happy to start. So I've had an identity for a long time as the business leader, and so I like, "That's me and I show up, 'Oh, I'm the business guy or whatever.'"

I'm really trying to let go of that, not actually let go because that is part of who I am. I'm not embarrassed of that. But rather than focus on that, really focus on more of this identity as an artist. An artist, I know it sounds smug, and I don't mean it that way at all. It's not someone who paints on canvas. An artist is someone who challenges conventional wisdom and tries new things and works on their craft and pours love into their work, and doesn't have to be snooty and smug. I don't believe I have museum-grade quality. It's just, "Yeah, you know what? I'm an artist. I create things. I try new stuff. I take risks. I do experiments. I'm an artist."

And so I'm trying to lean into that identity more than this previous, "Oh, I just crunch numbers. I'm good at Excel spreadsheets."

So Matt, maybe the same with you. And then Jamie, I'd love your perspective on the same question. What's the identity you're looking at this point to let go of, and what's the new identity that you're looking to embrace?

Matthew Vincent:

So at this point, I don't have as much to let go of. I did a lot of that work and dumped that athlete side of me. It's meant a lot to me to be able to get the travel and speak and communicate to people now and I don't have to lead with, "I was a world champion at a sport." That's become one of the least important and least interesting things about me.

And I didn't want something that took place in my thirties to be what I spoke about for the next 60 years of my life. If I look at the chapters of my life broken up into decades, in each chapter, my teens and then my adolescents and young adult, if my life is this book and this story of adventures, man, it's a terrible book if chapters three through nine all talk about chapter three, that's a bad book.

I want to know what lessons that I learned at 70 that I was able to take the important parts of my thirties and found success. The same, that took the important parts of failing at my first business in my twenties and realized that all of those things are what got me to the journey. They're not separate instances, they're all part of who I am.

As an athlete, I have a couple friends that inspired me, one of which is Hafþór Björnsson, he's a world's strongest man, played Mountain on Game of Thrones, been a buddy for a number of years, and a couple years back I went to Dubai to watch him have a boxing match as he had switched from strongman to doing boxing. And I told him how impressive I thought it was, it would've been really easy to have spent the rest of your life as the Mountain from Game of Thrones and traveled and done conventions and anything else. And it would've been really easy to just be Hafþór, the world's strongest man for the rest of your life. But instead, he purposely chose to suck at something new publicly. And what he proved is, "I'm Hafþór, I can do anything I decide I focus on," because he's got the recipe.

Josh Linkner:

So good, suck at something new. I think I want to get a T-shirt, because that's such a great line.

Matthew Vincent:

Well, we don't do that much as adults.

Jamie Hess:

Yeah.

Josh Linkner:

We don't, it's exactly right. We stay mediocre in something that's safe instead of sucking... Totally agree. And that's where those next chapters get interesting. Matt, you said it perfectly.

Jamie, what about you? And I didn't mean to put you on this, there's not something you're trying to necessarily let go of, but is there an identity you're shedding and as you walk into this next chapter that you're now embracing?

Jamie Hess:

Always, always. This is growth, right?

I actually have a couple. First and foremost, and you know this Josh, so my mom is Joan Lunden, my mom hosted Good Morning America for almost 20 years and for years, a lot of people say, "Oh, that must've given you a leg up in TV and all the things you were doing."

I got to be honest, it was the total opposite. Not by any fault of hers, but because I kept myself back from doing a lot of media-facing work for so many years because I was terrified I'd be judged against her. And if she's the stick against which you're judged, that's pretty scary; that's a scary stick. And my mom today-

Jamie Hess:

...that's pretty scary. That's a scary stick. And my mom today, yeah, she's mostly a keynote speaker for a living. So I could have also said, "Well, I could never be her." And you know what? I can never be her. I can only be me. And that is perfectly okay. So once I stepped into that, once I grew into that, and once I tried that on for size, I got really comfortable with that. And in fact, my mom and I do keynotes together as well. We've been booked for several keynotes together at this point. We just love doing it. I mean, I also left New York City, my whole identity, NYC FitFam, and I left New York City during the pandemic and moved to Pennsylvania. And so shedding that idea of needing to be the consummate New York City girl and living a life as like a suburban mom is really kind of cool, but has given me a whole new host of new opportunities to take a deep breath.

And by the way, my business grew. I thought my business would shrivel up and die when I left New York City. It's like grown times five because I actually had time to focus on the right things. And the last thing I'll just say is even when I came to ImpactEleven, Josh, I was a wellness expert. That's what I looked at myself as. And I have so outgrown that moniker, that is a part of what I do, but that is not who I am. I am on a mission to empower people, to shift their mindset, to hack their hustle, to enjoy peak performance through this idea of gratitude and radical wellness. So for me, even getting out of that box and that paradigm of just being a wellness focused practitioner and being somebody who really speaks, and by the way, I have authority to, I worked for 20 years in corporate America, so somebody who speaks to corporate America about doing their best in all facets was a really big jump for me and one that was greatly facilitated by your team at ImpactEleven. So thank you for that.

Josh Linkner:

That's awesome. Thank you. Well, we could chat all day and I really wish we had more time. It's such a fascinating conversation with two amazing and beautiful humans. But as we round out our conversation, and Jamie, maybe we'll start with you and then Matt, you can bring us home. I'd love to know, when you think about your body of work, in your case Jamie, radical wellness and gratitude biology and your experiences both good and bad, leading to this point, what would you translate to the person who's pursuing professional speaking? In other words, what can the professional speaker, whether they're new or a little bit more advanced, what can the professional speaker who's trying to get to their next level learn from your experiences of gratitude ology, radical wellness and apply to their speaking practice? In other words, long way of saying what's a piece of advice that you'd like to share from your experiences for the professional keynote speaker listening today?

Jamie Hess:

Authenticity is everything, period, full stop. It's how I've done everything that I've done is by being very vulnerable, making my message my message, being transparent, but doing it in a really organized way where people can really understand the beginning, how I got through it, and how that can apply to them. So I think in anything, it's all about preparation. I mean, this is not a career category that you just fall into and you say, "Well, the law of transference does not work here. Oh, it was good on TV or I'm an influencer." That's great, that and the metro card will get you on the crosstown bus. That's not going to make you a keynote speaker. It takes a lot of work really distilling down your story, but at the end of the day, if you're reading a canned story off a page, your audience will feel that immediately. So it's about feeling your message and being very impassioned.

Josh Linkner:

So, so good. Matt, same question to you. What's a piece of advice, whether it's from your history as a world-class athlete or the work that you're doing today that we could learn from you and apply in our speaking practices?

Matthew Vincent:

I think for people coming in, I think there is a lot of imposter syndrome, and I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about how to do the work because look, it's easier linear that I can look at strength and see how to make progress there, but being able to progress in skillsets like this are a little bit trickier and a little bit more ethereal. It's easy to get competitive, but the truth is, the abundance of it is what allows you to keep in it and see that there is so much there and realize that the people in the room who are landing more jobs, the people that are getting more are proof of concept.

They're not proof that you're not good enough. It's showing that you've got to keep showing up and doing the work so that it builds. All the extra effort you're putting in now that isn't getting booked is what's going to get you booked in five years. It's about realizing that you have to be able to delay it that long and answer back to the universe that this is what I want. It takes the effort of showing up. It's not going to be the quick turn. And if you want to do that, that's how you make progress at anything.

Josh Linkner:

So, so good. And what a great place to end our conversation. It's funny now, both of you're very focused on physical wellness and strength and athleticism, and I admire the way you've applied it to your speaking practice. You're right, Matt. It's not just about thinking of it once, you got to do the work, you got to sweat in the gym a little bit. And Jamie watching you over this last year, I know I shared this with you last time I saw you, your performance I saw you a year ago was really good, jaw dropping good. When I saw you recently, I was like, "Oh, my, wow." We talk about just breakaway progress, and that partly happens because you're smart and talented and all that, but partly it happen because you did the work.

And Matt, I know this same thing for you. You mentioned progress happens through those iterative steps and the habits and the consistency. And so I think you've just shared a tremendous amount of insights, both of you today from how we can think of ourselves and crush through some of our own limits, emotional and psychological limits, and then how we can do the work and ultimately shine and make our biggest impact. So with that, Matt, Jamie, thank you so much for being on Mic Drop, wishing you continued success in all aspects of your pursuits.

Matthew Vincent:

Thank you, Josh, I appreciate it. And Jamie, thank you both for your time.

Jamie Hess:

Thank you so much.

Josh Linkner:

Don't you feel like you could lift a giant boulder over your head after that conversation? I'm all hyped up after this week's episode. Here are some highlights from me. Number one, both Jamie and Matt chatted about shedding the things that wants to find them in service of their future. I think that's such a powerful idea that a lot of us miss. We hold onto the things that work for us once, even if they're not serving us anymore, sometimes it's better to let go of that weight so we can become even stronger. Maybe we all need a to stop list in addition to our to-do list. Number two, I also love that we went beyond the old cliche that it's important to express gratitude. In exchange, we went deeper to explore what that really means. It means lifting your eyes up from the road that you're on to look out at the amazing view in front of you.

I know that's not always easy, but it's the antidote to fear and anxiety and a recipe for truly living. And number three, both Jamie and Matt are inspiring to me because they're unapologetic about pursuing their goals. So many people take half measures to pursue their dreams because they don't want to seem desperate or cringey. But the people who go all in and they don't care what the world thinks, those are the ones who the world will eventually look up to. Thanks, Jamie and Matt for a terrific conversation. And to all the Mic Droppers out there, wishing you remarkable success as you go all in on keynote speaking, growth and impact.

Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. If you love the show, please share it with your friends and don't forget to give us a five star review. For show transcripts and show notes, visit micdroppodcast.com. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks so much for listening. And here's to your next mic drop moment.