For the last 200 episodes of the Optimize Yourself podcast, I’ve been speaking with world class authors, artists, athletes, and just plain inspiring humans. It has been an incredible honor to not only have these conversations, but share them with you as you design the more balanced, more productive, more fulfilling (and creative) life that you deserve. For today’s episode, however, I’m flipping the script and sharing an interview with none other than…well, myself.
In this episode, Optimize Yourself Podcast Producer, Debby Germino, puts me on the hot seat by digging deep into my story of creating the podcast, the coaching & mentorship program, and all of the personal and professional struggles I’ve experienced along the way. You’ll hear the deeper influences my first 200 podcast interviews have had on my life personally, as well as how those mindset shifts are built into the Optimize Yourself coaching & mentorship program so that we all have a chance to embody the wisdom of these amazing guests. You’ll also learn my own personal ‘Why’ that keeps me going no matter what obstacles present themselves on my journey to inspire others to not only comprehend, but reach their fullest potential.
If you’re interested in getting a sneak peek behind the curtain, you’re in for a treat. Beyond learning where I’ve been on my journey to create this business, you’ll also learn where Optimize Yourself is headed in the future. And be prepared to hear some embarrassing stories along the way, like the time my Imposter Syndrome was so severe I had to do a webinar on my knees to prevent myself from passing out. Yeah. That happened.
Zack Arnold: I am here today with me. I'm here today with myself. Wait, what in the world is going on here? What we're doing today with this interview is I am going to be speaking with somebody that you may or may not know, Debby Germino who has been a member of the Optimizer team and community now for several years. Debby is my coaching partner in crime in the Optimizer Coaching and Mentorship program. She's also the Podcast Producer behind the scenes. If you've been wondering for the last several months, or the last couple of years, man, Zack's getting some really good guests. How does he do it? Well, that's where we're at today. So Debby, you are actually here today, interviewing me. So what are we talking about? And welcome, by the way.
Debby: Thank you. Yeah, this is quite a role reversal switch. For both of us, I think. So this will be an interesting day. And essentially, we're here to talk about the fact that you have recorded 200 episodes of The Optimize yourself podcast, which that alone is quite an accomplishment. So we're just here to hear about that hear about maybe some lessons you've learned here about some of the different guests that have impacted you what else has impacted you from doing a podcast for this long, and to hear your thoughts on the future and where you want to take it.
Zack Arnold: I love all of that. So without further ado, I'm now officially proverbially handing over the digital microphone. To you. The baton has been handed off. I'm just here as a guest. So where do you want to start?
Debby: All right, well, many of our regular listeners know how the show started. But for anyone coming in for the first time listening for the first time, it might be just a good idea to let them know how the podcast started, how it's evolved over the years. And I don't even think I know the exact year that it started. Like way back if we talk about fitness and post and you can maybe describe explain what that is. And then what year it transitioned to Optimize Yourself. So so maybe that's just a good place to start.
Zack Arnold: Sure. It's funny because I was just about to to correct you. When you said you've now recorded 200 episodes, I'm like, well, technically, with Optimize Yourself. I've done 200. But for those that don't know, before, Optimize Yourself, there was what was called the Fitness in Post podcast of which I did over 100 interviews. So really, I've talked to well over 300 world class athletes, authors, performers, and just everyday people that have done extraordinary things have overcome obstacles that are inspiring people. So I've had lots and lots and lots of conversations with some pretty awesome human beings. And it all started back in 2014. So technically, the debut of Fitness in Post was May 29 of 2014, a date that I will never forget where I went on to the stage of an organization called LACPUG, which stands for the Los Angeles creative Pro User Group. And I was debuting this podcast and website called Fitness in Post, which was teaching editors how to be healthier at their desks. And my fear was that I was going to be booed off stage and they were going to throw tomatoes at me why editors would bring tomatoes to a meetup group. I don't know. But that was my fear is who does this guy think he is telling us that we need to be healthier. And what I found to the contrary was how many people were struggling with work life balance and burnout and being stuck at their computer for days, weeks, months or even years on end. And I realized that there was a there was a niche that needed to be served. So I was an editor at the time and I I don't even really consider myself an editor anymore. I have done editing recently, but I've really seen myself and I've told people publicly I'm now a retired Hollywood film and TV editor that has now transitioned to being a coach, a podcaster, an author and a mentor. But back then I was a full time Hollywood film and TV editor and I really saw that there was a need for people doing the job that I was doing that just needed to figure out how do I do this job without it literally killing me. So that's where it all started is it was even before a podcast on a website. It was just a hiking group. Fuel my car believes that a TV show at the time called black box which nobody has ever heard of, because it was a one and done medical drama that was created by the woman, Amy Holden Jones, who actually created the resident, which is a hugely successful show on Fox now. But this was kind of her preamble medical show that led to her making the resident. The point being at blackbox, I basically recruited whether they liked it or not all of the members of the team saying, Hey, we should go out hiking on Sundays and get some sun and wear Fitbits and see who can get the most steps. And then they asked a couple of friends and asked a couple of friends. And all of a sudden, I had this group of 12 of us that we called Fitness in Post that were taking a hike every Sunday, and we were working to build healthier habits. And then from there, I started thinking, Well, what if we talked about this journey? Sure, well, let's just release a podcast. So I had a friend of mine at the time, who had what was the most popular and most listened to podcast and post production, it was called that post show his name was keen and flowers. And he had the whole infrastructure to help me produce a podcast because even to this day, I really don't know how the hell to actually publish a podcast and put it online, I just know how to hit record and talking to a microphone. So he helped build the infrastructure, and was actually one of the inspirations for starting Fitness in Post. So it was just if you go into the very first episodes of which I don't even think are available anymore. But if you were to listen to the first few episodes of Fitness in Post, it was just us talking about our hiking groups and the challenges that we had being editors in post production. And with zero advertising, zero marketing, zero idea of this even being a thing, it just started to grow like wildfire, like we were the he was sending me the numbers every week in the analytics. And he's like, This is unheard of to be able to grow an audience this quickly. Now, granted, I'm not Tim Ferriss, and I don't have millions of downloads. But in this niche, I was very quickly becoming one of the go to podcasts. And nobody had ever even heard of me, because the need was so great for some level of work life balance and more fitness in the world of doing sedentary knowledge work. So from there, it just kind of took over my entire life and the hobby became an obsession. As somebody who knows me well, you've heard me say more than once that I don't really have hobbies. I have obsessions, and Fitness in Post went from being a hiking group to being an absolute obsession where I was working every waking hour to learn even some sleeping hours. Learning how do I build a WordPress site? And how do I write a blog post? And is there a way that I can like make, find some way to monetize it so that like if people in my group buy shakeology, like I can basically my entire business model at one point I remember doing the math with a whiteboard markers on my mirrored closet, doing the math, what would it take for me how many? How many packets of Shakeology do I have to sell to break even so I can pay my website hosting fees. That was my business model, if I can sell whatever number of units and I can generate $500 a month. And it covers all my website hosting plugins and everything else I've got it made, that was the business plan, generate $500 a month in income. And from there, it just kind of became a thing. And I started to do some other podcasts as a guest talking about it. And it really grew. And all of a sudden, I found myself with over 100 episodes. And it had been two or three years and I had started learning how to actually turn this into a business because I realized that I was onto something. And simultaneously while I was while I was starting to learn how to turn it into a business. I was working on the TV show Empire which was by far the biggest show I'd ever worked on was the number one show on TV breaking decade's worth of ratings records. And I was editing the season one finale. And I know you've heard the story before. But for those that haven't, it's still to this day very, very hard to tell the story. But I was sitting on the couch, putting my kids to bed via FaceTime for the millions and a half time for that year. And my son who was five or six at the time, he thought that they had hung up the phone. And he said to my wife, why doesn't daddy want to put us to bed at night? Why doesn't he love us? And that hit me really, really hard. And I realized I spent my entire career working up to this moment. And I just didn't want to be there anymore. So really ignited the fire under me to realize and figure out how do I turn Fitness in Post into an actual viable business model. Because the only thing I had ever been paid money for my entire life was either working on the farm and mowing hay, which really wasn't a sustainable business model, or it was editing. And I thought I've now hit a glass ceiling where the only way for me to become more successful and either support my family being an editor or grow is by sacrificing my family in the process. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? So I really started to put the energy into how do I turn Fitness in Post into a viable business model. Which brings us to well why is this still not called Fitness in Post I realized that it was very much hitting a wall and I had this problem with everybody. I had one of two conversations. One of the conversations was oh my god, I'm You know, obsessed with the stuff with post production, and I'm an editor and standing desks, etc, etc, you're the standing desk guy. But I don't really like the word fitness, fitness kind of scares me. So my target audience was scared away by the name Fitness in Post. Then on the flip side, I was talking to a lot of experts in the fitness space like Tony Horton and Ben Greenfield and Sean Stephenson and all these big names and health. So I had people coming to the show because of the fitness conversations saying, but what's post is it like you're talking like, like after your workout routine, like Fitness in Post, like your post, and I'm just like, Oh, crap, my branding was awful. The name made no sense to either of my target audiences. And I also realized that having the word fitness in the title was severely limiting the conversations that I could have. So I had had some conversations about career development. And people were like, Dude, this is a podcast about fitness. And I realized I needed to make a change. So I remember having multiple conversations with my assistant editor at the time, who was also kind of de facto helping me build the website, helping me with show notes, and she was doing the q&a podcast, and she was kind of serving in an unofficial Podcast Producer role, the way that you are now, our name is Nathalie Beauchamp. And we started talking about words that editors and people in tech use all the time and the biggest one is optimize. I want to optimize my hard drive speeds, or I want to optimize my workflow. And it was always about the tech. It just, you know, me and my soapbox is I get very animated and very emotional about things very, very quickly. I'm like, Why do all these people it's always about optimizing the technology? Why can't we just optimize ourselves? Boom, like, that's it? What if we call it Optimize Yourself? And then I plan out this whole thing, like, how do we break it down into areas and like some of our conversations could be move yourself, and then there could be advanced yourself, but then there's focus yourself and balance yourself things we still talk about to this day, were born out of a conversation that I had with my assistant in 2016. really breaking down? What does this look like? And here I am, six, seven years later, still trying to figure it out and build it. But the structure was there. So at that point, I decided that I was going to make the transition and I was going to rebrand. So in early 2017, in January of 2017, I did my first branded thing under Optimize Yourself, while it was still Fitness in Post, there was so much brand confusion where they're like, oh, wait, I don't understand this, Optimize Yourself a part of Fitness in Post is a different like, I don't know, I'm figuring that out. So it's a big giant branding mess. The point being that I ran this five day challenge that was called 5x, your creativity, your productivity, and your energy. It's called the 5x challenge. Similar to the hiking groups that I've done before that I tend 1214 16 people, this group had 1100 people that signed up on six continents, scared the living shit out of me, because I had no idea how to manage 1100 people. Now mind you, this is all free. It was a free five day challenge being used to get people excited about my first online course, which was called Move yourself. How do I build healthier habits around my workstation? How do I set up a standing workstation? How do I ignite my creativity by being more active throughout my workday is all about these different strategies. And essentially, what happened in the Facebook group with those 1100 people is at one point, I don't even remember most of the conversation, but I'll never forget this sentence. Zack can't thank you enough for everything that you've shared. You are a true thought leader. Whoa, oh, no, no, no, no, no, do not be calling me a thought leader. No, my life is a mess. I'm trying to figure all this stuff out. Don't call me an expert. Don't call me your guru. Do not call me a thought leader. And that ignited the worst impostor syndrome I've ever had in my entire life. So for those that always wonder nobody really asked this anymore. But in 2017, between January and September, there was nothing there was no Fitness in Post there was no Optimize Yourself. And I told people, I was rebranding, which I was the rebranding took about a month. The other seven months was me trying to figure out who the hell am I to think that I can tell people how to build a healthier lifestyle and a more fulfilling life? Like who am I to think that I can be the person that does that to this day, I still struggle with that. Obviously, not so much so that it's debilitating. But that was a big turning point for me. And when I finally released and rebranded Optimize Yourself, it was essentially like starting over with a brand new podcast and new audience and still to this day, five years later, trying to build that audience and clarify who are we what do we do and who do we serve? But that was kind of the genesis of where all of this came from.
Debby: Hmm. That's fascinating. I didn't realize that that whole it was just one one message of thought leader that sort of sent you down that impostor syndrome spiral
Zack Arnold: Two words. When I say two words brought me down. I literally mean they brought me down because I have a very distinctive memory. Right before doing that. The idea is and anybody that's an entrepreneur and the online space, they can relate to this. Anybody that is that does creative work, maybe can't. But what you usually do if you're going to launch a new program is you want to have some form of a webinar, where you can explain to them, I want to teach you a few things about how to be more active at your desk, totally free. If you want to join the fully paid program, come join the program. So I did one of those 90 minute webinars, kind of summarizing the 5x challenge, and breaking it down here some takeaways to be more active at your desk. I was so nervous. And that thought leader comment did just come up either that day or the day before that while I was giving the workshop, I was right here in this exact same space, same spot. I got so lightheaded from nerves I almost passed out during the webinar. So what I did was, and I'm gonna recreate this now I had the webinar right in front of me and I was standing, and I had to stop. And I was on my knees. And I did this. And I did half of the webinar from here. Now my my video was not so all they saw was the slideshow. But I sat here to make sure I didn't pass out. And I give the rest of my webinar from here because I couldn't stand up. Because of the fear of who the hell do I think I am to actually do this. So I didn't have my webinar rising from the ground on my knees. So I literally wouldn't pass out. That's how bad the imposter syndrome was. And as soon as the launch was over, Glen will tell you, Glen was around me back in those days, Glen is the the first the very first member of my team that's responsible for they're actually being an infrastructure to this entire community. And he will tell you that both of us completely burned out for months, we did nothing. We just disappeared off the face of the map. So I barely made it through that webinar barely made it to the Friday launch closing. And then that was it, I stepped away for like eight or nine months, because I just could not take the pressure on the responsibility.
Debby: That's, that's incredible. So I I think that really, I wanted to go back to something you said way early on, which I think is somewhat related, but also somewhat contradictory to this huge imposter syndrome that you felt. Because you said that Fitness in Post essentially started as a hiking group. And you wanted to have some conversations. And so you know, when you said that I'm picturing, like, you know, you're hanging out in the Edit bays, and just like talking about your hiking, where we're gonna go hiking and how, you know, like, like, just a conversation between colleagues. And when you said, so why not make it a podcast? Like that is not a train of thought that would go through my mind. And so I'm just curious of where, especially thinking about that imposter syndrome that came to you, to me that, like, it doesn't track like if someone's thinking like, oh, we should turn this into a podcast, it seems like you're already thinking of yourself like, Yeah, this is, this is something that I want to put out there. So walk me through sort of your thought process and going from oh, we're just having conversations to I want to turn this into a podcast and actually have other people listen, and were they like, were those first interviews, actual interviews? Were they multiple people on there? Was it just a conversation? Or was it more what we hear now on The Optimize Yourself Podcast?
Zack Arnold: That's a really good question that a good podcast host might ask very good insights. I will say that the place that it started was actually even before I decided that I wanted to have a podcast, there were two kinds of inciting incidents. The first of which, that around the same time or maybe a year or two before is when I became a for anybody listening, I'm doing the big giant air quotes, quote, unquote, overnight success, because I had gotten the job editing, Burn Notice, and I was a nobody, nobody had any idea where I came from. And all of a sudden, I'm editing what at the time was the number one cable show on TV with zero TV experience hadn't been an assistant. So I was being asked to be on other people's podcast, talking about my career journey and how I became an overnight success. That was how I met Kane and I got on that post show. And as people would start to reach out and say, we'd like to have you on the podcast, what do you want to talk about? Oh, my God, I'm just really obsessed now with figuring out my standing desks. And I'm doing a lot of exercises learning about the brain and creativity and like, we just wanted to talk about avid and Burn Notice and if you have any, like special keyboard commands or effects that you like, and like, right, so I had this need to talk about something that nobody was willing to talk about. And the only way to get it off my chest was to start my own podcast. It was never I want to be a thought leader. I want to become a guru. I want to be the expert. It was literally this desire. It was just and I think anybody that does creative work or considers themselves a creative, they can relate to this. I just need to get it out of my system. If you're an artist and you need to draw if you're a painter and you need to paint if you're a musician and you just need to play music, you get ideas in your head. You And it's almost like you're bottling them up and you feel this anxiety and this pressure until you get them out of your system. That's how I felt I just needed to get it out of my system. So the joke was always, I just need to have a few episodes, get this out of my system. And here I am 300 Plus episodes later, and I barely gotten started, right. But it just started as nobody wants to talk about this, and I want to talk about it. And one of the other things that really kind of threw gasoline on the fire was I wrote a blog article that nowadays I look back on and I cringe because it's one of those you look back at your early work, you're like, Oh, my God, this is awful. But I wrote a piece that was called a classic case of post production burnout. And the reason it went, quote, unquote, viral in the world of editors and people that work in Hollywood, because nobody, nobody would talk about this stuff, nobody would admit it. You know, it's like, Oh, my God, you're talking about burnout. You can't talk about burnout. Like, you can't do that, like, don't let it and then all of a sudden, people started coming out of the woodwork and saying, oh my god, this is exactly how I feel. I'm dealing with all the same things. But I don't feel like I can talk about it. So all of a sudden, I was the guy that was talking about all the other things that nobody was willing to talk about burnout, and depression, mental health issues, ADHD, all of which I've got, like the perfect cocktail of all of the above, nobody was talking about it. So again, it wasn't a matter of I distinctly see a business opportunity. And I know how to monetize it. It was now I'm getting things off my chest that are almost a form of therapy. But other people are coming along the journey with me. But I never once said to myself, where's the monetization opportunity here. But one of the areas where it actually flipped is I had two conversations within probably I don't remember exactly, because it's been so long, but give or take same time period, let's say I had the same conversation in the same month, with two different people that didn't know each other. And they both said the same thing. They said what you're doing is great right now. But if you don't learn how to monetize this, and turn it into a business, it's going to burn you out, and you're not going to want to do it anymore. You're loving it now, and you're all obsessed. But if you keep trying to do it for free as a charity, it will burn you out, and you're gonna quit. And that hit me really hard. Because it came from two people that I really admire. And they both said the same thing, not realizing they were both telling me the same thing. So that's when the seed was planted. Is this a thing? I don't know if it's a thing. And I've spent the last seven years still to this day trying to answer that question. How does it become a thing? How do I turn it into a viable business? How do I make a living doing it? How do I reach more people, but it really just kind of all started back from I gotta I gotta get some stuff off my chest. And apparently, I have a lot that I feel the need to get out of my system, because here we are eight years later, and I just won't shut up.
Debby: Well, I think it's interesting to hear maybe how, how challenging it can be to put a podcast together. And I think a lot of people I mean, there's so many podcasts these days, and so many people starting podcasts. Yeah, you don't see a lot that are doing it for this many episodes. So do you want to talk about maybe some of the challenges that you faced, maybe any times that you thought maybe you're gonna quit and like, forget it all and give up on it? Anything, anything in that vein, about how how difficult it's been to, to put it together every almost every week for that this long?
Zack Arnold: Well, it can't be that hard. I mean, you just hit the record button. And then you talk for a while. And then you hit the stop button. And then you upload an mp3 file and you've got a podcast like that's it right. It's that simple. That's what that's what everybody thinks. And yes, eight years ago, podcasting was a lot more complicated. There were zero online courses about how to start a podcast, what equipment that you needed, how do I monetize it, podcasting has become a gigantic multi billion dollar industry. But just like anything else, where you have the democratization or the equalization of access to technology, it doesn't change the people that really decide to dedicate themselves and become great at it. Right, everybody 1015 years ago, all of a sudden had access to cameras, they had access to editing equipment, whereas 2030 years ago, those that had access to the equipment were the ones that were able to rise up faster. But it's not like all of a sudden, because everybody has access to Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut. We magically have millions of genius editors. We have millions of people that have access to the technology that are kind of sort of okay, but you still have the same number of people that really rise to the top and become professionals or we come consistently good at what they do. Same thing with podcasting eight, nine years ago, it was like a 12 step process, just to get yourself hosted somewhere, get it on iTunes, get it on, and there's so many platforms now but back then there were only three, four or five places you could really consume a podcast where the masses would know about it. Nowadays, anybody can do it. You join a program, you click a button it goes to all the different podcast platform hosts Which is why I always say nowadays, everybody has a podcast. Because about five episodes. Very few have a podcast that goes 50 100 200 Plus. Because once you get over the hump of well, what microphone sounds the best? And should I be using Lipson? Or should I be using red circle? Or should I be using blueberry or whatever the podcast hosts are once you kind of have the infrastructure down in a workflow, then you realize the hardest part about podcasting is having a story to tell. And consistently telling a good story that engages people and most importantly, helps them and or entertains them. My hope is that I do both some podcasts. And there's a lot of them nowadays that are very much fictionalized storytelling that are just an audio form of entertainment, no different than radio shows before TV, we've really kind of gone back to that era of you sitting huddled around the radio to hear a radio show. That's what a lot of podcasts have become. I see myself as an educator, motivator and inspire if I educate people at the same or if I entertain people at the same time, that's great. But in order to consistently do this, you have to actually know what story you want to tell on what is your identity. That makes it a lot easier for me to decide who are the people that I actually want to talk to. So yes, it is it's difficult every single week to logistically get somebody to record, make sure you can fit them on your calendar, if it's on your calendar, record it make sure you didn't forget to hit some stupid checkbox, where only their video records and yours didn't. Which, by the way, spoiler alert, been doing this for eight years, I made that mistake last week. It never ends. The point being there's a lot of logistical reasons that make it difficult. But ultimately, it's just the grind of I have to find more people to talk to I have to find more books to read, or I have to find more movies and TV to watch or whatever the the world of podcasts are that you inhabit. And to come way back to your question of, Were there times that I wanted to quit and what kept me going, there are at least five times that I threw my hands up and I said, Oh, I'm done. I am so done with this, this is too much work. Why did I even start this in the first place? And not just eight years ago, I've had that moment several times, even until fairly recently, where it's like, I just I'm done. I can't do this. It's just way too much. And whether it's podcasting or anything else, if you know what your deeper, why is the how and the what become a material. What happened every single time that I said to myself, I'm done, and I quit. within 24 hours, every single time, I either got an email message, or I got a Slack message. Or somebody said, I listened to the following insert name of guests here talking about the following topic. You just changed my life. Dammit, I can't quit. Ah, right. Like I just I so want to be done with this. I just want life to be easy. But then I realized that I put myself in a position whether I like it or not. Where I think I'm providing a fairly unique service that's not available to many of the people that are in our industry or frankly other creative industries. And have had the realization multiple times that if I let's just use Cobra Kai, for example, for those that might be listening that are brand new, the most recent show that I've worked on as a Hollywood film and television editor has been the last four seasons of Cobra Kai in which I'm now lead editor and associate producer. And I think to myself and I even told the showrunners of this, when I was recapping for the most recent season, I said that I know that if you replace me, the show is still going to be edited, it's still going to be edited very well. And it's still going to be successful. I feel that I play a very, very small part in the tone of it and a choice of music for a montage that people really love. So I'm having a small creative impact. But if I remove myself from the equation, somebody else sits on my chair tomorrow. And coworkers still gets made. And it gets made at a very high level. And Cobra Kai has a huge impact positive impact on the people that watch it all over the world. If I decided to quit this, it no longer exists. It's gone. Because the entire foundation of the coaching program, the podcast, everything else is built upon me. When I started Fitness in Post, my goal was to make it this ubiquitous program that had no face. Because I'm an introvert and I didn't want to be the face of anything. And I didn't want to deal with the imposter syndrome and their responsibility. So I literally built the Fitness in Post website without my face on it without my name. You couldn't even figure out who created it. It was just a resource. So putting my name and my face on optimize yourself to this day is still a challenge for me. But I realized that if I remove myself from this equation, this resource that has a positive impact on others disappears. So every time I want to quit, it's a matter of law I can but it's going to have it's going to have an impact on others. Whereas me quitting editing, it's a nuisance for 24 hours until they replace me. So it's those messages that I keep getting from people that have stopped me from just outright saying I'm done. Because when I was branding from Fitness in Post to optimize yourself every day it was why am I still doing this? This is so stupid, I finally hit the point in my career that I've worked so hard to be, I'm commanding a good weekly rate and working on top level shows, why am I putting myself through this? It's because I was playing a game of chess instead of game of checkers. And I said, but this isn't where I want to be in 30 years.
Debby: So that's a big shift what you just said about going from not wanting your face on anything on fitness and post kind of being anonymous, being only a resource, and then go shifting to optimize yourself where you are sort of taking that role, that initiative of like, I'm the one talking about these things, and helping people. So I'm curious, because you talked about, you mentioned something at the beginning of all of that, which I think is helpful to maybe define a little bit more for listeners who may not be familiar. You said you knew your deeper why. So that's something that we talk a lot about in our pro in, focus yourself and optimize yourself. So can you explain what the deeper Why is, and maybe what yours is, and how that helps you sort of make that transformation?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, that's this, in and of itself could probably be a three part podcast, because this is an area that I feel is so important to my journey. And as you know, because you coach it, this is one of the very first things we talk about with our students when they come into the program is that without going too far off on a tangent, but where I really want to start is a conversation that I had recently on an episode that has not been released yet, for those of you that are, you know, already fans, just wait until my episode releases with Joey Cofone. Because Joey Cofone, and I had a pretty in depth existential conversation about creativity, who we are, why we do what we do, and also how the modern educational system essentially is designed to beat the creativity out of us. So the way that we are educated, born and raised is essentially to become a part of a machine, either to literally become part of an assembly line or proverbially become part of an assembly line. So we were taught in school, you need to retain this information and be able to regurgitate it, your grades and your performance are based on your ability to adhere to authority. So if you're somebody that asks questions, or sees a different point of view, versus just saying, this is the right answer that seem to the detriment of your education, what we are never taught is why we do what we do. It's here's how to do this job. Here's what you're supposed to do. But we're never actually taught, here's why you do what you do. And I was just like anybody else. I spent my entire life learning about the craft of film editing. What are the buttons that I press? I want to read about books to understand why they made these choices, what's the creative side of things? What's the theory side of things with the technical side of things. So it was all about what I want to do and how I do it. Until I realized at that moment, putting my son to bed. Everything I was sacrificing, I couldn't answer the question, you have it? Why am I doing this? The question was, why is this worth it? And I didn't have an answer. Because for if I were in a similar position right now, and I were doing the work that I'm doing, and I had the same FaceTime conversation, it would have been just as difficult. But I wouldn't have felt the guilt. Because what I'm doing in my mind has a lot of deeper meaning being a cog in the machine on a giant TV show for a giant worldwide global corporation. So what anybody else could have done that job, it would have been a little bit different. And I think that I did it well. But ultimately, I didn't know why I was putting myself through that there was no deeper reason for it. So this led me on a I mean, just you want to talk about the hero's journey. I was at the beginning of this, this hero's journey coming out of the ordinary world, which is I'm a film and TV editor. And this is what I do for a living and this is my identity, this call to adventure, which is why am I actually doing this What's the reason behind my work? And I spent years I'm still to this day doing it but really diving in as a student of personal and professional development. The thing that I kept hitting up against was why'd you do what you do? So I found what to me is, if not the most seminal book, one of the most seminal books that I think anybody should read, if they want to better understand why they do what they do. Just aptly called Start with Why. Written by Simon Sinek PS sidenote, anybody out here know Simon Sinek. I want him on the podcast. Okay, so no, I put that out in the universe. It will happen because Debby knows me. She knows when I decide I'm going to get somebody on the show. I find a way to do it. So Simon at some point will be on the show. But the point is, I read that book to really understand how much why factors into the work that we do. And there was a follow up book that he co wrote with a co writer named David Mead that was called Find your y, which you're very familiar with, because this is something that we teach in our program. And the episode that we have in our podcast archives, and Debby can put it all in the shownotes. So you guys can click on it and find it. But it's about finding your why. And essentially, I went through the process with David on the call, of really boiling down why I do what I do. And it's not well, I'm a TV and film editor, because I want to make money. Okay, why is that important? Well, I'm a TV and film editor because I want to make money and I can support my family. Okay, well, it's a little bit better, right? But there's so many layers to it, that it kind of becomes like peeling an onion. But at the end of the day, it's not a matter of my wife for editing is different than my wife for teaching is different than my wife or coaching is different than my wife or being apparent, you get to the point where you go so deep, that the answer why in every different circumstance, or every identity that you have as a human is the exact same answer. So once I peel deeper and deeper and deeper, what I found is that my deeper Why is to put myself in a position of discomfort. So I push myself outside my comfort zone, so that I can inspire others to push themselves outside of their comfort zone, because that is where their true potential lies. So what I love doing is inspiring people to believe that they are capable of more. And you've seen this happen literally on the spot. You've seen this happen with me. And this is why I love doing tough Mudders in Spartan Races, because there's no quicker, faster way to get somebody outside their comfort zone, where they're terrified. And in a single moment, you see the switch flip on, where they realize, Oh, my God, I've been telling myself my whole life that I can't, and I am completely and totally full of shit. Because I am capable of more than I know. And I see it happen over and over. And over just when we ran our most recent Tough Mudder and Spartan Races. Almost every single person had that moment. And luckily, I've got a lot of them on camera because they filmed a lot of them. But there's nothing that I enjoy more than that aha moment where you see something change in somebody. I've even done it with my guests. You remember the episode that I did was Sandy Zimmerman. So Sandy Zimmerman, she is literally on the poster for American Ninja Warrior. You go to American Ninja Warrior, season 15 for 2023. She is the poster. And I did a podcast with her. And again, you can put which episode it is in the show notes. But she was debating Well, what do I really want to do with my life? I've been a teacher for so long. But I don't really know why I do it anymore. And I don't really know what I want to do next. And through a series of questions and no more than 15 minutes. She had that aha moment of oh my god, I know exactly what I want to do. And I know what my deeper Why is, she was just too afraid to pursue it because she didn't know how. So what I have found, and I'm sure you found working with our students as well. Is that until your deeper why clicks in? Everything's just harder. You're like, well, it's a lot of work if there's a lot of stumbling blocks or obstacles, and I don't really know if I want to do it. But once people identify their deeper why they know what they need to do. They just don't know how and we help them solve the how. So yeah, the if you find that you're stuck with just about anything, I would usually say Do you know why you're doing what you're doing? And if you don't, that's what you need to figure out before you worry about? Should I be sending the outreach email? Or should I be getting an app to measure my to do list tasks or whatever it is? That's why it's one of the very first things that we teach is you got to know why you're doing what you're doing first.
Debby: Yeah, it's it's definitely a powerful process. And I'm glad you brought up the idea of the of the comfort zone and that your why really has to do with with getting people in their discomfort zone, and helping them realize that they're capable of more. And it's somewhat I mean, I find it fascinating that you I mean, you even call your your coaching program, you know, you put people on the hot seat, right. And so that's a very, kind of a bold statement. It's very, it's like, it can be intimidating, right as as a student or someone out there. So I'm curious how you have, number one, how you learned that particular style. And if you've ever got pushback from it, like, like, Yo, that's too much. Like, I don't want to go there. You know, like, how do you how do you get how do you get people to sort of find that sweet spot and ease them into their discomfort zone?
Zack Arnold: Really good question. You're much better at this than you thought you would be. I knew you would be this good. But you should be surprising yourself right now because these are really good questions. I think I've just found somebody that can do 50% of my interviews next year. Maybe Oh, Simple you see what I did? I just created that look in that feeling of discomfort for
Debby: discomfort. It's like it just naturally flows out of you.
Zack Arnold: Yes, it does. Like I'm so good at making people feel uncomfortable, right? And I take pride in that because of my intention behind it. It's not I want to say something really rude or off putting, or do something disrespectful, and that's going to make you uncomfortable. That's not a world of discomfort I ever want to enter. But my intention behind pushing people into their discomfort zone is because I know how much potential is there for every single person. Going back to the first part of the question, where did I learn it? I've never technically learned it, it wasn't a matter of, you know, putting people in their discomfort zone, one on one and Azusa Pacific University like I, I never actually formally learned it. I think it's more learned by example, by surrounding myself with people that I wanted them to do that to me. So as you know, I seek out coaches and mentors very, very actively for whatever goal they want to achieve. It's not a matter of well, I'm on my own. And I guess I got to figure this out. I asked the following question, who is the world's expert at this thing that I want to learn next, they become my new best friend. I have repeated this over and over and over and over throughout my entire career. And those that I've surrounded myself with are all very good at pushing me out of my comfort zone to force me to realize my potential. So I think I've learned by osmosis from people like Tony Horton and my editing mentor, Dodi Dorn, and now my ninja trainer, Jessie Graff, like, these are all people that see the potential in me that I'm not meeting. And they're taking me through various exercises, whether literal physical exercises or mental exercises, where I have to really face that discomfort and fear. I will say of all the people that I've surrounded myself with that have done this, the best is actually former kind of quasi ninja trainer and training buddy, who's now become a very, very close personal friend is Wesley Silvestri. Just every single time we'd me be like, dude, do this thing. I'm like, I can't do that. Are you crazy. He's like, dude, just do it. Just try it. And I would surprise myself over and over and over. So I think I learned by doing and I just kind of picked it up by osmosis. Some of it just frankly, came from that was the way that I was raised as well. Like there was there was no option to just do things comfortably and be lazy, that just did not exist in my household. So I was instilled a very much a very strong work ethic and a lot of discipline, I don't think it was so much, candidly or very clearly, I'm going to push you into discomfort. So you can realize your true potential. It was he's not gonna allow itself get out there and do it, right. But there was still just living in my entire life around doing things that I don't really want to do that are making me uncomfortable and learning from them. So I think that's the first part of it is that I didn't really learn it per se, other than just being put in that position myself. And I think that kind of segues to the second part of this, which is, how do I do it in a deft enough manner that I don't scare everybody away? And I don't know the answer to that you'd have to ask other people. But I think the answer would be at least as far as my strategy is concerned, is that I don't think you can coach people. Unless you have empathy. I could take all the certifications to be a certified high performance coach or health coach or life coach or whatever it is. But if I don't have empathy, meaning I haven't actually walked the same path as you and I haven't felt the same pains, and I haven't felt the same discomfort. I don't think I can be a great coach, I think I can be a good coach, I can be technically proficient and I can follow all the steps and the prompts that whatever the coaching certification gives me. But I don't think I can be a great coach without empathy. Which is why a huge component of my why which is different than a lot of others, is that I must step out of my comfort zone to inspire you to do the same. If you look at other people's wise, even Simon cynics, his teams and people around him, they say that they want to inspire people to be better, or whatever it might be. It's a very common theme and people's wise. But the component of me doing it first, to inspire others to do it, I think is a really important component, which is why I do American Ninja Warrior. It's not who I want to be on TV. It's if I can get out of my editing chair, to the point where as a dad in my mid 40s, I can become an American Ninja Warrior. What I'm doing is I'm eliminating a lot of the barriers and excuses of other people similar to me, where they say, Oh, that can't be done. Well, it has been done. Not saying it's easy, but it hasn't been done. It's kind of like the concept of when Roger Bannister was trying to run the four minute mile. Nobody can do it. Nobody had ever done it before. Once he did it, a whole bunch of people followed afterwards. Not because shoe technology got better not because there was a change in climate or aerodynamics. It's because people believed it could be done. So I put myself in that position not to think well, hundreds if not 1000s of people have gone through an American Ninja Warrior course that I get. I'm never going to be a top American Ninja Warrior never gonna happen because Is this not one of my goals? The point is that by me putting myself in that position myself, people that are going through similar challenges, see that it's possible, therefore they realize they're, they have more potential that they could realize than they think. So number one didn't really learn how to do it, per se. But I think the reason that I get away with putting people on the hot seat is because of my level level of compassion and empathy. It's not a matter of where you're just doing this to entertain yourself or be mean, to me, it's, I realize you've been through this challenge, too. And I hope that my students feel the level of compassion and empathy that I have when I completely tear their work apart. Because at the end of it, of 20 minutes of me totally pushing them into discomfort and tearing their entire lives and their work apart. They all say the same thing. Thank you so much. Now, I know what to do next.
Debby: Beautiful. Yeah. So given that, given the idea that you want to first put yourself in that discomfort zone, I'm curious how, like your internal process of when you're in that discomfort zone, so something new that you're doing so say it's, you know, American Ninja Warrior knew something that you're really uncomfortable with, walk us through your sort of internal process, and some of the ways that you've learned to push yourself through it. Rather than, you know, if we go back to your, your imposter syndrome that like, really defined you in that year of 2017. What is the difference now that you've had in that process of being in that discomfort zone? And how are you how have you learned to navigate it differently?
Zack Arnold: I think that it's it ultimately comes down to something we talk about in the coaching program all the time, which is that the quality of your questions dictate the quality of your entire life. I want to ask better questions, because the questions that you ask of yourself, and that you ask of others will dictate the quality of the information that you get, which is why I just happened to all of a sudden become the guy that people come to for writing outreach emails, if you'd said 10 years ago, hey, how do you want to monetize your business? I'm going to teach people how to write outreach emails and get mentors never would have happened. Right? But it's all about learning how to ask better questions, and I was asking the wrong questions in 2017. The question that I was asking is, who am I to think that I can be a thought leader to 10s of 1000s of people around the world? Right? Who am I to think that I could do that? I'm not capable of that. But then there's a very important word that I've learned to add to the end of just about anything that starts with I can't and that word is yet. At the time, I can't be a thought leader to 10s of 1000s of people yet. But how do I break it down? So I can find whatever the next step is? And the question that I now ask to this day, whether it's with the business, whether it's with Ninja, whether it's with relationships, it doesn't matter what it is, what is the hardest thing that I can do? So let's not put like for an example of ninja, if it were a matter of can I go through stage three in Vegas, which is known as the hardest obstacle course on the entire planet. There is no harder obstacle course to get through than stage three in the Vegas finals for American Ninja Warrior for me to think, well, I can't get through that. Well, of course I can't. Because there are maybe like five people in 15 seasons that have made it through like the world's best best athletes, rock climbers, experts, ninjas, gymnasts. It just destroys all of them. So for me to say, well, I can never be in a Ninja Warrior. I can't do that. Well, what's the hardest thing that I can do? Well, five years ago, it was getting to the top of that 17 foot rope, that would be really hard. But I bet if I applied myself, I could do it. So it's a manageable level of discomfort. It's scary. But what I do is it's a concept that you hear about a lot with people that are dealing with PTSD or dealing with emotional trauma, something called emotion. It's called exposure therapy. So essentially, I've taken this concept of exposure therapy, and I use it for fear. What's the hardest, but most manageable level of fear that I want to take on. So to give a very physical example, at Tony Horton's place, and you've, you've gone to one of my workouts, so you know that there's an obstacle where you climb up a rope that's just short of 20 feet. And then you have to like climb down this like diagonal beam that's not meant to be an obstacle. It's literally meant to hold up the patio deck, you know, the next level. It's not meant for human hands. So you go up the rope, you come down this thing, which is almost 20 feet above the ground, then you have to go across a pegboard. And then you have to go to another pull up bar and do pull ups. It's like the hardest exercise that we do there. So there was a point at which the fear was so debilitating, just to get up the rope that I could barely do it and I would just sit there and shake before I would do it. But I knew that I could. So that was a manageable amount of fear that I was exposed. was myself too. So I get to the top of the rope, I'd grab it, I go to the beam. Nope, can't do it back down the road, not a manageable, safe level of fear that I could expose myself to. But then I will try it the next time. Alright, this is just enough that I can deal with it. Alright, so I got through it. I was scared as hell, I almost fell. But I did it and I know I'm capable. What's the next level of fear that I can expose myself to that I can manage, but it's uncomfortable. Now I look at that obstacle. And I'm like, Sure, no problem Pick Me broke. I don't even think about it. But I used to lose sleep Saturday nights, thinking about that obstacle Sunday morning. He also has an entire ninja rig that has a bunch of you know, bells and whistles and nunchucks and balls and all this spinny stuff. And I would see that on my nightmares Saturday night. In completely totally incapacitating level of fear thinking about having to not only go through that, but having to go through it in front of other people that was really hard for me was how, how do I climb a rope or do a ninja rake or a salmon ladder or whatever it is knowing I'm going to fail in front of people that can do it. That was really, really hard for me. And again, now we look at it's called ninja one where there's this very specific route that we go through later furniture one, because I've exposed myself to that fear so many times, it's totally manageable. I don't even really have to think about it anymore. Now the fear that's manageable, but barely, is literally getting on the course for American Ninja Warrior with 30 cameras looking at you lights in your face in a Superdome with a crowd of 500 people watching. That's still scares me. But I've done that twice, even though they haven't aired the first time completely totally debilitating level of fear. I went through the I have no memory of it because my brain shut off. I've told you the story before but I got up to the starting line, I looked down and I said, oh shit, which one's my right foot? No idea, right brain completely locked up. Second time I went through the course if you watch the back to back videos, they look like replays of each other. But I was totally present. And I was there was fear. And there were nerves, but it was managed. I was managing that fear and I was focused. So the video doesn't show progress. Mentally, there was a tremendous amount of progress. Because again, exposure therapy, I expose myself to the most debilitating yet doable level of fear. And I just develop more of an impermanence to it. Like it's just like, alright, well, it is what it is like a Spartan Race when we did the Spartan Race a couple of weeks ago with our training group, the obstacles I used to literally get in front of them and shake, I would look at the rope and my hands would be shaking. When through the Spartan Race on Sunday, I didn't even think twice about any of the obstacles because I've done it enough and expose myself to that level of fear that I was just having fun, being outside being in the weather and helping other people manage their fear. Because not not once but several times. This is not necessarily something I'm proud of. But at the same time I am, we had more than one person in tears, because they were petrified of what they had to do. So I would look at it. And for me, it was like, Oh, you got to do a swing from one ring to the next ring, what's the big deal. But it doesn't matter what my perception of it is, their perception was This is terrifying. So it was my job to make it a manageable level of fear for them to get through. And when they got through it, that was when the switch happened. I saw that light bulb moment on multiple people's faces when they faced that fear. It was the most they could handle but they could handle it, they got through it. And now the next time they do things that are hard, they're going to have more of that imperviousness to fear.
Debby: So I want to I want to emphasize a point that you made while you're telling that story, which was when you were talking about the going up to the ninja course. And the different times that you went up in the fear that was there. And you said that the second time you went up, there wasn't a lot of external process. But mentally, there was a lot of progress there. And I think that's something that most people would disregard, or fail to see. And it reminds me a bit of our podcast interview with Ethan cross. Because this is something that he talks about a lot that chatter in our mind. Right. And so I think that you could have easily gone through that second time and said, Well, I didn't I didn't do any better. I failed again. Right. But you saw the process, the progress you made mentally. And I think that's huge in really understanding how you continue through, right how you keep going because there are different levels of progress and it's not all about the external goals or been check marks, there are other benchmarks we can use. So I don't know if you recall any of the things in that interview. But if you want to talk about some of those lessons and points that strategies that he had from that interview of how we can manage our mental chatter and use that to help us continue working towards our goals,
Zack Arnold: yeah, there are a couple that I can remember specifically that I still literally use to this day to work through this process. What I want to add to it first that I think I can add on to this even more about this idea of you watch your one video, your two video, you're like, well, minus the fact that I'm wearing a different colored shirt, didn't I just watch the same thing. Whereas to me, I saw tremendous progress. And that is in my reframing of what the word failure means. I gave a speech recently where I talked all about some of the key principles or mindsets to self optimization. And one of them is that I believe failure is the fastest path towards progress, right? Failure is the fastest path to success. So I could say, well, I failed again, and I failed in the same place, what's the point I am a failure. So I give up and I quit. But what I say in that speech, when I tell myself is that I fail faster than everybody else, the reason that I get wherever I get, whether it's being an editor, or it's being a coach, or a podcast, or wherever it is, there's a meta lesson underneath all of them. It's not because I have a specific aptitude or talent. It's because I'm relentless. And what I'm relentless about is failing faster, and more often than everybody else does. So I want to achieve a goal, I'm just ready to fail, I'm gonna fail as much as I can, where all the opportunities that I can fail, and I need to do it as quickly as possible. Because the more I fail, the more feedback I get, and the better that I get. So the reason that I can take can endeavor to attempt a third season on ninja fingers crossed, if they have me is that I didn't fail, I gained a tremendous amount of feedback from my second run versus my first and I've now spent an entire year looking at both the physical and the mental side of my weaknesses, hopefully turning them into strengths. But as far as what I learned from Ethan Krause specifically, I would say that the most important one is the way that we talk to ourselves. Because the way that we talk to ourselves in the language that we use, our brain doesn't know the difference, oh, I'm stupid, or I'm bad, or I'm slow, or I can't do this, if that's the way that we talk to ourselves than we believe it. So what I learned from him more than anything else, and there's a multitude of wealth of information, both in that interview, but also in his book chatter. But if I had to take one thing away from it that I've used, that's had the most impact, it's learning how to talk to yourself in the third person. So if you get up to whatever the thing is, for me, if it's the ninja starting line for you, if it's a job interview, or whatever it might be, and you're saying, don't screw up, don't screw up, I don't want to mess up or I don't want to fail, or even the opposite. I got this, I can do this. You can't step away from yourself. So what I've learned how to do and it actually works, he's got plenty of science that demonstrates that this works. And I can say anecdotally, for me, personally, it works as well. I don't say I anymore, I get up to something, I'm like, Alright, you've got this, you can do this, that small shift makes a giant difference. And then the flip side is if you're saying I can't, or for example, if what I did the first year, in this, looking back on this, I this is the dumbest thing I ever could have done, I had a good reason for it at the time. But I watched all the fail videos of people falling in the water on the first obstacle. Because my feeling was, well, I'm just going to get it out of my system. And I'm going to learn from what they did wrong. And then you say to yourself, don't fall in the water, don't fall in the water, don't fall in the water. But what your brain hears is, fall in the water, fall in the water, fall in the water fall in the water, your brain doesn't know the difference. So I had to learn how do I talk to myself in the third person. So I even created a Spotify playlist that was called you got this. And that's what I listened to, to develop the habits to warm up and get myself in a specific mindset. And I started talking to myself as you rather than I made all the difference in the world. But then, of course, my fit my foot missed the platform by like, you know two inches, which got me off balance, and I grabbed the rope of the wrong hand and I fell in the same damn place. But guess what, I've worked on all of that. Because I said that was feedback. What I realized is I didn't train foot placement enough. And I didn't train hand placement if I'm awkward jumping to a rope. So how many times do you think I've awkwardly jumped to a rope in the last year because of that hundreds of times. And who knows what's gonna happen next year, there's no way to know but the point is I put myself in the position to train that thing based on the feedback that I got rather than the failure. But anytime I'm doing something I step out of myself and I invest Success. And I envision it from third person, you're gonna hit that platform, you're gonna get to the top of the rope, as opposed to Don't fall, don't fail, don't get wet. So if you talk to yourself and you and you envision the positive outcome, night and day,
Debby: yeah, that's a powerful one. I remember I remember him talking about that. I'd like to sort of in this is sort of related, but switching a little bit to the idea of mindsets, because I know that mindsets are really a key theme in the coaching program. And it's a lot of what we talk about on the podcast as well. So do you want to talk a little bit about why why they're so important for for you and for the program? And like how you have come up with the different mindsets that that you feel are key to success?
Zack Arnold: Where I actually want to start with this is a really common question that I've gotten on a lot of podcasts where I've been asked to be a guest. And what they do is they listen to the opening of the optimizer cell podcast where they read the bio, where I say that I am a combination of Tim Ferriss meets Ted Lasso minus the mustache. And the key component for me and being successful at anything and this is not my opinion, this is science is opinion, but it's belief. So the reason I say Tim Ferriss is because I think Tim Ferriss if not the best one of the world's best, it really deciphering complex information and breaking it down and getting the best guests in the world and biohacking and data and details. Like he's a genius with all that stuff. But what I don't believe and I'm sure that there are people that would disagree with me, and I've said this publicly before, but to me at least and I'm sure it might be different for others. But to me personally, I don't see Tim Ferriss as an inspiring figure. Tim Ferriss is a wealth of information. I think he's absolutely brilliant. I think he's an amazing human being. And I love the opportunities that he gives others. But I've never gone to bed at night saying Tim Ferriss inspired me. Which is why I bring in the Ted Lasso component. Because Ted Lasso, even though he's a fictional character, not the smartest guy, not the world's foremost expert doesn't have all the information or all the answers. But what he is exceptional at is getting people to believe in themselves. And I think you need a combination of both. I, let's say that we were to eliminate the mindset components from the program. So all the mindsets that we have either at the beginning of focus yourself, remove yourself, or advance yourself are all the things that we're building. Let's say that I extract mindset. And I started with, alright, here are all the tips and tricks for you to write a great outreach email to get a mentor, or here's how to use Trello, or BusyCal or whatever to become a calendar, an engine better manage your time, you can give people all the information, if they don't believe that they can be successful, and they don't have a roadmap and steps to follow to build that belief in themselves. Information is meaningless. One of the things that we've talked about offline kind of as we're taking this new direction, with optimize yourself and really growing, I have said that it is one thing to give away the information. And it's another thing to give them a path to curate their paths. So they know what the next steps are. I don't think that information is the solution anymore. Before the internet, information was the solution. I don't have access to information. And I want to seek out the people that have the information. Best case scenario, you bought yourself a set of encyclopedias, you kind of had some of the information that was the best you could do. Nowadays, we have access to everything. Information is no longer the solution. It's the problem in information is the problem because everybody has access to it. It's ubiquitous, and it's free. So it's no longer about access to information. It's how do I process it? And how do I use it, which is why I think that with the internet and with all these online learning courses, and everything else that's out there, just feeding me with a firehose of information is now meaningless and has no value. Where I believe the value is is a combination of carefully curating it in the right order based on your needs. But again, that does not matter if I'm feeding you all the right information from the right experts at the right time. If all you're thinking is, this is great, but I could never do this. This isn't for me. Right? I could never achieve this level of success, or I can't do this around not capable. So if you don't have mindset in there, you can be the best teacher in the world with all the resources and all the data and all the curated information. People don't believe that they can use it and achieve something with it. You're wasting your time. So to me mindset is everything.
Debby: Yeah, I love that. Do you want to talk about some of the key mindsets that we we use in the program and how they've factored into helping people find success and achieve their goals?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, absolutely. I Just as a total of caveats, and massive impostor syndrome, I still don't know what the key mindsets are. I'm still workshopping though, I'm still trying to figure that out and will be, frankly, for the rest of my entire life, boiling it down to four key mindsets, or five key mindsets, or 10 principles, or whatever it is. This is one of those things that goes through my head 24/7 all day every day is what are they kind of like, you know, what's the meaning of life? And can I unlock it. So this is going to be an endless journey for which there's never a destination. But essentially, what I'm doing is I'm giving you my current version or iteration of what I believe that they are. And one of them would be this idea, and anybody that's been on a hot seat or listened, Nami calls or done any courses like, Oh, my God, again, yes, again, because it's that important. Life is a game of chess, not a game of checkers. This is a really important one to me, especially nowadays, with access to all this information, with access to all of our technologies, we're all looking for the quick fix. We're all looking for the biohack we're all looking for the life hack, how do I make things faster and easier? And how do I get to the destination quicker with less effort? That, to me, absolutely drives me crazy. One of the core things that I mentioned about the term optimize because I realized, even though I took this word like we talked about earlier, where it's what's the word that all these tech people are using optimizing hard drives and workflows, and whatnot. But what a lot of people hear when they hear the word optimize is perfect. How do I make this perfect, and that's a trap that I don't want to fall into. Because I believe that self optimization is the constant and relentless pursuit of progression, not perfection, which is another one of those key mindsets. And if you see it as the relentless pursuit of progression, you're not always looking for the next shiny object. And the next quick fix or the next quick move, you realize, this is a long, arduous, lifelong journey. But if you're thinking with a checkers mentality, oh, how do I just get the next gig on the job board? Or how do I get a 5% raise or whatever kind of that next small easy step is you're missing out on an entirely different world because you're not willing to play a game of chess. So to me, the two most important key mindsets that really play well with each other are that you're you want to pursue, you don't want to pursue perfection at the expense of progress. And you should be playing a game of chess, not a game of checkers. And that's what your career that's what your health is, with your relationships with everything. Another one of the key ones that I think is so so important is this idea that you have to enjoy the struggle, because the journey is the destination, very Buddhist way of looking at it, I realized I did not make up any of this, this is all things that have been said in different words for literally 10s of 1000s of years. But if you're gonna play this game of chess and not a game of checkers, you have to realize that the journey is the destination. And the struggle is where the enjoyment is the most. And I feel like this is the trap that so many people have fallen into because of modern marketing and advertising and awards and money and materialism is that when I get to this point, when I've got this house, or I own this car, or I have this award, or I have this job, or I have the salary, then I've reached the destination. And there is so much science that is completely made this crystal clear that that does not lead to happiness or fulfillment, that it's actually the struggle in the process. So I'm almost concerned about what might happen when I make it through the ninja course. Because I know the next question is going to be that what but what I found is that I'm so I have so little attachment now to the end result or the goal with Ninja because the process and the struggle has completely changed my entire life, the people I'm surrounded with the way that I physically feel the way that I emotionally feel my mental fortitude. I am a completely different person than I was five years ago because of the journey and my willingness to embrace discomfort and enjoy the struggle that yeah, I have a goal in mind, I have a vision that I want to create. But I'm not attached to it so much that if I don't get it, it's a quad just wasted the last five years of my life, like my life is totally different because of being on this journey and enjoying the struggle. So enjoying the struggle in my mind is another very, very key mindset. And then I would say that the the one that I emphasize the most more than anything, it's literally built into the icon or the logo for Optimize Yourself is this idea that you have to run your own race. We are so so consumed with comparing ourselves to others, the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. How many students have you talked to or how many have I talked to where they say well, I saw this person on IMDb and we went to college together and I look at what they're doing now and I'm not there to we're always comparing ourselves to others journeys. I still do this every day. I'll look at a podcaster I'm like definitely have their podcast for two years and they're getting five times as many downloads as me what am I doing wrong? I didn't get run your own race dude. I have to remind myself of this all the Time, right, but we're not here to compare ourselves to others, all you need to do is focus on running your own race, which is why the the philosophy of that is literally built into the logo and the icon of this entire program. So there are a multitude of other principles, mindsets, I'm trying to figure out how do I bring all these together into this key set of principles or commandments, or mindsets or whatever it is constantly evolving process. I mean, I just did a presentation recently, where I presented five of them. And as soon as I presented as like, oh, I have to rewrite all of this, because I forgot this. And I didn't say that, like, it's, this is a constantly evolving thing in my brain is what what did these actually look like? Because it's like I said, I'm never going to have the answer. And I'm always going to be trying to find it. And the journey to find the answers the process. But yeah, I loved I could talk about mindset all day, every day.
Debby: Yeah, I think for me, especially like when, when I first found you, I think I found you back in, when you were still fitness and post, many years ago, probably I think, around 2015. Those mindsets, even though they weren't explicitly said it was sort of embedded in the conversations you were having. And that's really what drew me in because I was very much stuck in that idea of just needing to get to the next thing and like accomplishing something waiting for happiness to happen when I achieved some external goal. And and I think that's a big reason that a lot of people come to the program, because they find they know that that is just a, an endless cycle. It's not, it's not a way of finding fulfillment. So I'm curious of how you how you incorporate the mindsets into the different guests that you have on the podcast, and what maybe any lessons that you've learned from the guests over the years, and how maybe they've contributed to those different mindsets and just the different things that you might have learned from, I mean, we've had everyone from editors, to directors, to fitness experts to sleep experts, doctors, meditation teachers. I mean, if you look at our guest list, it's like, what is this podcast about? Right?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, well, yeah, the bane of my existence as an entrepreneur.
Debby: Right? Yeah, it's, it seems all over the map. And yet, I think, really, when we're talking about mindsets, that's one of the things that ties it all together. So do you want to talk a little bit about about some of that?
Zack Arnold: Yeah. So this has kind of been an ongoing struggle for just short of a decade now that of which you've been a part of many of the conversations behind the scenes. But it's what do we actually do? What what do we talk about? Because I've had so many people in the entrepreneur space that have looked at the site. And they have said, well, I don't know what you do, you need to do just one thing, right? You need to just talk about standing at your desk and be more active or just talk about getting six pack abs or just talking about outreach emails, or just talking about managing calendars. They're not wrong. I don't want to, I just don't, I just I like talking about all this different stuff. And from a business perspective, if we're really talking about dollars and cents, at least up until now, it has hindered my ability to grow my business. Because if you want people to take action, you need to eliminate confusion, which by the way, is not just for purchases, that's basically a metaphor for life. If you can eliminate the vast majority of decisions, it's a lot easier to take action, which is one of the things that we do is we narrow down all the decisions down to what's the one thing what's the next step that I should take. I don't have to worry about the rest of it now, but I just want to get started and take the next step. So I've had people that have said, well, yeah, you want to be like Tim Ferriss, that's fine. Tim Ferriss can do whatever he wants, but you can't if you want to build a business and grow an audience, you have to focus on one thing. And it's been years of well, how do I what what is the common thread if I'm going to talk to somebody about building a business as a trailer editor? Versus if I'm going to talk to Ralph Macchio about becoming the Karate Kid? Versus if I'm going to talk to a sleep expert about sleep supplementation, and melatonin? What's the common thread? Like? Is it a common mindset? Is it a common belief? And essentially, what I realized that it took years to figure this out, is that all of these are means to one very common and specific end, which is how can I live a more balanced and fulfilling life? These are all the tools or the resources or the strategies or the mindsets, whatever the topic of the week is, it all leads to the same result. I want to have a more balanced and fulfilling life, whether it's I'm having a hard time sleeping, and I can't be creative because of that, or I'm cranky all the time. Great. Listen to these sleep experts to learn how you can use Mel Don't enter time the use of caffeine differently or expose yourself to sunlight. So on the surface, it can seem like well, that's just its own little thing, versus a conversation with Ralph macho or anybody else. But ultimately, I'm using different paths to lead to the exact same end, I just, I want to live a more balanced and fulfilling life, which then, of course, has brought me to the current challenge that I've had that we'll be talking more about in the next several episodes is to help us work life balance, even mean, right, everybody wants work life balance. But as I've talked about so many times before, I don't believe that work life balance is either what we should be working towards, nor do I believe that it even exists. But it's a really tough nut to crack. And I'm still working on how to crack it. Because what everybody thinks they're looking for is work life balance, until they get there. And they realize this actually isn't attainable. And I'm looking for something else. And I'm trying to figure out, what's the easiest way to package all this. So no matter what we're talking about, people get it instantly. And I think that the idea that and we even put this on the page for coaching, we want to help you build the more balanced, productive and more fulfilling life that you deserve. Because I believe everybody has the potential to become more and to build a fulfilling life that day deserves all these pieces fit into that. But when it comes to this idea of work life balance, that's what people think they want. So if I if somebody were to ask, what all these kind of random disparate parts, whether it's, I want to learn how to write an outreach email, I want to manage my calendar, or how do I use melatonin for sleep, all very random things that in my mind lead towards you having more work life balance, except that's not really what you're working towards. You just don't know it yet. So, but it's taken years to even distill that down, because that would be like, how am I talking about outreach emails for like, what what does this have to do with anything? But my intuition was everybody asked me how to do this. They want help with it, something I feel pretty good at. So let me help them with it. Yeah, but why? Why am I doing this? How am I pushing people outside their comfort zones to discover their greatest potential with an outreach email? Like, what does that even mean? But then I realized, surrounding yourself with mentors, and people that can inspire you, or open doors for you is a key component to building a more fulfilling life. Once once I kind of cracked that code, it started to make more sense. And I've now given myself more permission to talk to whoever the hell I want about whatever the hell I want, because I feel like I can always bring it back to here's why this thing is important. But it's taken me about seven and a half years to figure that out.
Debby: So that's a good a good place to start as far as where, how do you decide who you want to talk to on the podcast? Why have you chosen the people you've chosen? Why have they inspired you? Or what is? What is the thinking behind that?
Zack Arnold: It's anybody that will respond to my emails? That's the simplest part. But this was a much harder question to answer 567 years ago. Now, I don't need to answer this question. My students answer this question. When my students come upon roadblocks or challenges that I start to see a pattern. And I don't have the resources to answer this question and a single hyperlink that goes on the board. Or if there's a challenge that I'm facing in my journey, that maybe my students aren't facing yet. But because we're on a similar journey, I know they're going to get there eventually. Those are the people that I seek out. So you'll notice that there if you were to map out my own journey, and the questions that I'm trying to answer from my own personal journey, and the guests that I have, there's a lot of correlation. So it's not a matter of I'm going to stand here at the podium. And I am the world's expert. And I'm going to surround myself with other experts, and we're going to tell you what to do. It's so my life's kind of a shitshow right now. And here's what I'm struggling with. And here's somebody that solve this problem. So I'm going to use the podcast as an opportunity to have a free coaching session with the world's foremost expert on whatever the topic is, or the book or the course or the movie or whatever. And this is my opportunity for 90 minutes to quote unquote, pick the brain of somebody that can help me with this problem. Knowing that by recording it and by packaging it as curriculum, it is now available to help 1000s of other people that have the same questions and the same obstacles in front of them that I did at the time or that I do now. So what I love to have a lot more cohesion and a very succinct business model in a very specific niche with a perfect positioning and branding for every single guest. Yes. But ultimately it's what am I struggling with right now? What do I just want to talk to somebody about, oh, here's somebody to talk to you about. And they know for other people that are talking about this topic, I'm gonna get all them on the microphone. So there there's definitely some randomness, but I think our ability to number one, curate it through the website curated through the newsletter, and then ultimately further curated through our lessons in the program are what allow people to go from it don't understand what I needed this is or how it connects to Oh, I see the path now. But I mean, to be honest, a lot of it's just totally selfish. Who do I want to talk to about life. And I've got an audience and I've got data that shows people are going to listen, and they're going to buy your book, or they're going to watch your movie, and I just want to talk to you about your life. So really is first and foremost is a very, very selfish, the podcast is very selfishly, me having the opportunity to talk to awesome human beings. But then if there are students that I know have challenges, who are the awesome people in the world that can help them solve those challenges that I can't help them solve?
Debby: So let's get a little more specific about that, because we've talked about sort of some of the challenges of having the podcast. And now you're alluding to some of the benefits of it. So can you get a little more specific about actually what the having this podcast for 200 episodes now has, has given you and what has changed in your life, and maybe maybe some examples of guests or ways that they've helped you deal with some of these things?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I would say that by far the biggest thing that I personally have gotten from the podcast has been mentorship. Essentially, not every single one. But the vast majority of the mentors that I have surrounding me, whether it's to learn how to build a business, where it's to learn how to become a better editor, or storyteller, whether it is to become a ninja. The vast majority of those relationships started with a cold outreach email to somebody saying, I'd like to have you on my podcast and share the things that you have done with my audience. That's usually where it starts. So if you think about the three most influential people in my life, as far as my ninja journey, two of them came from the podcast, cold outreach to Tony Horton, cold outreach to Jessie Graff. Now, they're just my friends. Now. They're just people, I can text message and be like, Hey, can I come over and swing on stuff at your place? Yeah, sure, no problem. That all started with cold outreach on the podcast, and I use the podcast as a way for them to number one better understand who I am and what my goals are and who I serve. But it also is providing them value in return, which with any form of outreach, it's all about how do I provide somebody value by allowing them to share their story. And then if you've got a product or a book, or whatever it is, I'll get people to to consume it. So one of the conversations, we've had this come up more than once via our Slack channel, it just came up last week, and I can't remember if it was in a group channel, or it was private. But somebody had said, well, we want to get this guest on. But it's pretty much just to promote their book. And I said, I have no interest in helping other people promote their stuff. We're here to educate. We're here to motivate. We're here to inspire. If this is relevant to our audience, and somebody happens to have a book or a movie, or something to promote, I would love to help them promote their work. But it's not a matter of Well, I'm not really interested in this. And it's not helpful. But yeah, we'll just quid pro quo will do them a favor. So I can do us a favor. I don't believe in that. But I've used the guests where I can provide value to them. But ultimately, they can educate, motivate or inspire our audience. But then offline, when it's done, I think to myself, I could see that being a part of my journey. So I'll use an example of one that people haven't even listened to yet. So there's an episode that's coming out. We're not sure when yet. But it's with again, I mentioned with Joey Cofone, who's the author of a book that I'm now, by the way, providing free value to Joey because I'm promoting beyond just his episode, the laws of creativity. This book is a game flipping changer.
Debby: And game changers Post It's
Zack Arnold: not to post this, I've destroyed this book, I haven't destroyed this guy's book.
Debby: I can always dream, right, yeah.
Zack Arnold: But it's like 400 pages, it's a doorstop. Like you need to change your oil, you prop this under your tires, and you can lift your car up and change your oil. This thing is huge, very dense. But it's also a game changer for anybody that does creative work. The point being, that instead of it just being well, I'm gonna have him on the show to promote his work, or I'm gonna pretend to talk about his book, but really, he knows somebody else that he can mutually connect me with via email. My purpose on the podcast, is not to help him promote that's just gonna happen by default. But I've told him this. And as you know, being my producer, I told many guests the same thing I said the same thing to Ralph Macho. I said, you have done the podcast circuit. And you have talked about this book over and over and over. I want this to be a space where you can talk about all the things other people don't ask you about. I want you to be able to tell a unique and a different story, which at the end of the day may not be valuable to me and my audience, but it's valuable to them. And what you've seen happen more than once on the podcast, it's actually turned into a hot seat with a guest, like it did was Sandy Zimmerman. She had no idea she was going to change the entire course of her career because she was going on a podcast. She thought she was going to talk about being the first mom to hit a buzzer and ninja warrior like she had 100 times. And all of a sudden she she comes away from the interview in tears. Because I made the interview about her. I didn't make Get about me. I didn't make it about my objectives. I always think to myself when I have a guest on, how do I provide value to them? And for Joey, there's a question that he's pondering right now that I heard him talk about on another podcast. And Joey said and he said it on the Chase Jarvis show, no other hints dropped to the universe. I would like Chase Jarvis on my show to Chase Jarvis and Simon Sinek. Thank you. They're telling the universe. So he had said to Chase Jarvis. What I'm trying to figure out right now is how do I create the Nike for thinkers? And chases responses? Like oh, yeah, that's really cool. So tell me more about this. And Joe even said in our in our conversations, like, I can't believe that Chase didn't pick up on that. We made half of our conversation about workshopping that one question, because that provides value to him. But in my mind, US workshopping some, something, it's such a high level of creativity, just listening to that conversation provides value to those that are listening and might not be, here are three simple steps to start your creative journey. But when you hear a really in depth, deep level conversation, about the creative process, you can lend other ideas. And then on top of it after we finished, I didn't just say, Hey, Joey, thanks so much for being on the show. Really appreciate it. I wrote him a really lengthy email a couple of days later, where I said, I can't get this thought out of my head. I love this idea of you building the Nike for thinkers. Here's a bunch of random ideas. These are useful, great, if not whatever, I asked for nothing in return. But for me having him on the podcast, what I would love is for him in five years, to have built the Nike for thinkers. And for him to say, yeah, one of the seas that was planted was this conversation I had with this one guy. That's I don't want him to give me credit, because I don't get any of the credit for it. But I love again, giving people that spark of I see it now. I see the potential and I can see what the next step is to make it happen. So for me, the podcast has gone from, well, I want to find a mentor, I want to connect with people, which I still do. But ultimately, when I have them on, how can I treat them no different than any other student in the program to where they can walk away with a new insight or a next step? Because I just there's nothing I love more than that moment. And I've got it from Joey, I've got that moment on camera of him having one of those aha moments ago, I'd never looked at it that way before. Right? It's inception. That idea where the thought is planted, you can't unplanted and it leads to something else. So that ultimately is what I love about the podcast. And the way that I seek out guests is not just who has a book to promote, or how could this be useful curriculum, but is there somebody where I can provide value to them in return?
Debby: So if I'm a listener, and I'm looking at looking for a mentor, are you saying I have to start a podcast?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I've heard that a time or two, you definitely do not have to start a podcast. And I don't recommend it unless you're planning on doing it hundreds and hundreds of times. Because for the most part, anybody that is working at a high level in any industry, or that is already doing the podcast circuit, they can see the difference between those that are really serious about it, versus those that are just kind of using it as a way to to get in somebody's inbox. So again, if you're somebody amongst the every single person on the planet that has three episodes of a podcast, you're probably not going to get big a list of mentors that are going to be on your show overnight and decide that they want to mentor you in return. So you have to be willing to play the chess game and not the checkers game, and consistently put in the work to develop the skill of having good conversations and asking good questions. It's very much a skill that has to be developed. Debbie is here live on the hot seat today developing her ability to ask good questions, which by the way, you are passing with flying colors right now. But no, you do not have to start a podcast to find mentors, in certain ways that opens doors, that pot that not having a podcast might not open as quickly. But ultimately, if you can find the right person that can become your version of your expert, which as I defined in the program is somebody that's doing now what you want to be doing next, if you can learn how to provide them value, if you can learn how to clearly tell your story, and convey this is where I need help. And my journey may be similar to yours. They're going to be empathetic to you and they're going to want to help you. So if you want to find mentors, you just need to be willing to put yourself out there and connect with people. But yes, there are certain relationships that I built because of the podcast, that could I have built them otherwise, absolutely. The podcast is just kind of a cheat code. But it's not a cheat code, because you've had it for a week. It's a cheat code, because I've been doing it for eight years. So yeah. Now is it easier for me to just reach out to somebody and get them on the mic and pick their brain? Sure. Could I just randomly reached out to Joey Cofone and talk to him about creativity? Nope. But because he knows that I can get this in front of the right people, his core audience and he knows I'm going to ask good questions. Then it opens the door. What he didn't know was that I was going to essentially put him on a hot seat and help workshop the challenge that's got him stuck right now.
Debby: So I see we're coming up to close to our time here. So
Zack Arnold: I'm just getting warmed up here, you're gonna, whatever you got going. Now you're realizing how all the prep work is meaningless because you've got through about 5% of it, right? Oh, the amount of prep I have that nobody has ever seen.
Debby: Right? Well, you know, you do it anyway, hope it sparked some ideas. But I do want to come back around a little bit to kind of the evolution of kind of where we started where fitness and post started became Optimize Yourself. And I want to just before we end, I want to talk a little bit about the evolution of Optimize Yourself, how it became into a coaching program, that you now have team members that, you know, help help create this program, and then talk about a little bit about where you see the future of Optimize Yourself and where you want to take it.
Zack Arnold: You realize you're asking really good questions. Not only are you asking good individual questions, you're asking them at the right time, and you're providing a very good structure for this interview. So I'm just pointing that out, because I know that you were Debby was very nervous.
Debby: I've listened to a few of your podcast. So
Zack Arnold: well, whether it's by osmosis or otherwise, you're doing a stellar job right. Now, I just want to point that out. So when it comes to why a coaching program and where are we going next? When I started to monetize, we're going to rewind back to the very beginning of optimize yourself, what I had learned a very common thing, and everybody's doing this nowadays, not nearly as many people were doing it seven years ago. But if you have knowledge, package it build a self guided online course nowadays, every single person on the planet has built some version of a self guided online course because the internet told them, This is how you create passive income. And my joke is always the passive income is where you work 20 hours a day. So you can make money while you don't sleep. That's what passive income is asked me how I feel about passive income. But I did what all the experts told me, they said, especially if you have a podcast, or if you have knowledge that can help others, you package that knowledge and you sell it as online courses. Simple, right? It's the quickest path to financial freedom. So I started on that process. And I built a course called Move yourself, which is what I was marketing, when I built that 5x challenge. And move yourself I think I sold, I don't know, three 400 people maybe made. I don't know 20 $30,000, which at the time was mind blowing that I was even capable of generating that kind of income without being an editor. And I've talked about more than once with my team and with others, that the game changer for me was when one person paid me $97 for a course I hadn't built yet. That's when I saw the path and like this can be done, I have no idea how to do it. But this can be done because people believe in me enough to teach them how to be more active in front of their desk, they'll give me $97. And if I can learn how to repeat this and scale it, I've got a way to make a living that doesn't require editing. So I built a move yourself self guided online course had no other support or accountability beyond that. And then I said, I want to talk about time management and productivity, because I'm just a total nerd about workflows and calendars and time and all this other stuff. So I built focus yourself and focus yourself was built, I think it took me at least two years to build kind of the first usable version. And what I found when I both sold movie yourself, and when I sold the very early, early versions of focus yourself, I have data in dashboards behind the scenes that tell me when people are using the materials, I can look at any given lesson and see what the retention rate is just like a YouTube Analytics, how far are they watching it? How many watched it to from beginning to end? How many stopped in the middle? And then I can look at individual students and see what is their progress through a course. Nobody was going through anything. And I started to do more research and the industry standard to this day, it was actually lower when I did this research. But right now the industry standard is roughly a 10 to 15% completion rate for online courses, which to me is just abysmal. Like, that's embarrassing. And I thought to myself, do I want to make money? Selling courses through Facebook ad funnels are whatever, knowing that they're not making an impact? And mind you there are a lot of people that say yes, heck yeah, I want to sell online courses and make millions of dollars and they do. And nobody uses them. And it has no positive impact. And I thought to myself, That's not the business that I want to build, which really sucks because that's the business that I've been building for three years now. But it's not the business that I want to build. So I had two conversations the same day with students from focus yourself to self guided students to different zoom calls. They didn't know each other. I think they were either in different states or maybe even a different countries. I don't remember now. But two people back to back said the same thing to me at the same time. When I was asking them what challenges they were having why they didn't get through it. They both said, you know, to be honest, I would rather pay you $3,000 learners and use these materials and get through it and then pay you 300 and not use the course. Same two people said the same thing on the same day. And that was my light bulb moment. I said, I don't I did not building a self guided course business. I am building a results business. I want to sell results. What is the way to do that, I'm going to have to help people through this. So started with private coaching, literally me one on one for 12 weeks holding somebody's hand through every step of the course materials, reviewing every worksheet giving feedback on every single answer in the worksheet piece by piece by piece by piece, that not only helped them get results, but it helped me understand what worked and didn't work about the course materials. And then the thought was, well, now I can't work individually with all these people forever. Like if there's there aren't enough hours in the day to do this. Can I do this with like, I don't know, three or four people at once. No way, I could never help four people on the same call. It's impossible. But I find the hardest version of what I can do. That's really scary. And I thought what happens if I try this in a small group setting with three or four people scared to death that I was gonna get for refund requests. Same process four people on the same call, going through every lesson, every module, every worksheet step by step by step, what I realized, and you know, that's very, very well, because you facilitate my small group, focus yourself class, now. You get more results from people workshopping this together than they ever get workshopping it privately, like, holy crap. They're actually getting more out of this. And this is working better. And this is a little bit more scalable. Can I do two classes with four or five people? Let's try it. And all of a sudden, that started to work. And then the pandemic hit. And all of a sudden, I thought to myself, my business is going to disappear. This is it. This was the moment, nobody's going to pay any money for this stuff, the world just shut down. And in hindsight, obviously, that was very stupid, because the exact opposite happened, because everybody had the realization, what the hell am I doing with my life? And I need somebody to give me guidance to figure out what are my next steps. So I actually value what I do with my time and how I spend my life. So the year of the pandemic 2020, my business more than doubled. But it was the same problem again, I can help one person and I can help four people. But could I help like 10? There's no way I could help 10 people at once, or 15, or, like 30 people at once, it's impossible. But I figured out how do I build the infrastructure to be able to work with somebody privately, or in a small group or in a much larger group setting, such that they have access to the materials, they can go through it self guided, but knowing that whenever they get stuck, they can get community support, and they can get individual one on one support for me. And that's essentially how this model became where now once you join the community, I kind of just give away everything for free, just kind of Netflix style, like you pay a fee, you get all these learning materials, because even my information has no use or value unless you take action on it. So here's all the information. So even in the right order, but what you're paying for is access to work with me and access to work with the community. So that's the model that we have now, because I'm not in the business of making money. I'm in the business of getting people have results. And this is what gets people this is what gets people results. And you see it every day just like I do. So now my why when I'm thinking, Oh, God, really? Why am I turning down all this great work for all this money, wondering how I'm going to pay my bills three months from now, if I don't sell enough of spots in the coaching program, it all comes down to one thing and that's our wins channel. You see it every day, the wins that we get in our Slack community, bring me to tears. So every time I think about quitting, I look at the wins channel. Nope. Just another day in the trenches. And I got to figure it out. But now that we have the basic formula for getting results, which is this combination of access to information, information curated in the right order, plus support from both the community and me and you and other coaches that we're going to bring on board, I really believe that we're getting people lasting results. So that's the direction we're going next is taking everything that we're doing doubling tripling and quadrupling down on it. So we can offer the same resources to a lot more people.
Debby: Yeah, I love that wins channel, it is so satisfying to see how many people are just making strides in areas that like you said they never thought they could and changes and new things happening in ways that they they didn't see possible before they joined the community. So is there anything that I didn't ask that I should have before we wrap up here?
Zack Arnold: That's a good wrap up question. That's always a good filler when you're like, God, I have no idea how to wrap this thing up. What do I That's my go to is I don't know how to wrap it up. So that's I'm gonna ask I mean, there are millions things that we didn't talk about. We literally could do this for another three, four or five hours. But I think that what I want to come back to, to close it out is that and this is really going to kind of be a regurgitation of my why I really believe that every single person that's listening or watching this, they are capable of more than they ever dreamed or imagined. And the reason that they are not reaching that potential is just fear. They're just afraid of confronting something, whether it's voices in their head that say they can't, or people around them that say they can't, or it's a fear that they're not willing to confront. I just I do this every single day, because there's nothing that gives me more pleasure than convincing somebody they can do something that they thought they couldn't do. Just it's so much fun to go through that. So that's, that's really why we do what we do and why I continue to crawl through the digital trenches to figure out what is the formula to really make this successful? Because I see the results that we're getting.
Debby: Yeah, I mean, that's, that's what keeps me coming back and keeps me loving the community and watching people change. And really being a part of it is really, it's changed my life and in ways that I never thought were possible to so. So thank you for that. And thank you for the 200 episodes, and I'm looking forward to 200 more.
Zack Arnold: I'm looking forward to 200 more as well and who knows how many of them you might end up being the host of
Debby: There you go again, doing that discomfort thing
Zack Arnold: See what I did there, see what I did there? Just enough discomfort that I put you in a place that you're scared of, but you can face it. I do believe what happened today is I planted a seed
Debby: the relentless teacher Yeah, Never stopping
Zack Arnold: I don't know how to not do it. It's actually kind of annoying. I don't know how to not do it. It's just part of who I am. And I've now decided to embrace it.
Debby: Yeah, I feel bad for your kids and your wife.
Zack Arnold: I'm sure that they would agree with you if you're like oh my god enough with the life lessons already.
Debby: All right, well, thank you so much for sharing all this amazing just insight into the process of optimizer yourself and the story of where it's come from and where it's headed. So looking forward to more
Zack Arnold: Yes, I appreciate it. And there's there's one last question that you always want to ask every single guest might be an obvious one for this but how can people get a hold of you that's a really important
Debby: very important
Zack Arnold: right you always want to make sure if somebody wants to connect with your guests that you can facilitate that connection. The simplest way I can put it for everybody listening I am a very very accessible just email me directly zack.arnold@optimizeyourself.me Z A C K dot Arnold. I'm not accessible quickly. And sometimes it takes me a while to process and get through all the messages but I am directly accessible to me personally. And I want to make sure that I can connect with anybody that is inspired by today and wants to go further further along their journey of self optimization.
Debby: Excellent. Thank you so much.
This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel.
The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).
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