(Struggles Couples Face when one is an Entrepreneur)
Known as the “Larry King of Hangouts”, Alex Mandossian is the CEO of Heritage House Publishing and co-founder of MarketingOnline.com, a community of entrepreneurs converting their passions into profits. In this special episode of the Rare Faith Podcast, Alex interviews Leslie Householder and her co-author Garrett B. Gunderson about their ground-breaking book, “Portal to Genius”. You’ll hear about:
What specific incident inspired the book
The reason a sequel to The Jackrabbit Factor was needed
Struggles that couples face, especially when one is an entrepreneur
What the original title was GOING to be (yikes!)
What the promise of the book is
What to do when relationships go sideways
What Relationship Capital is, and why I give so much away for free
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Did you know I’ve earned over a million dollars giving my books away for free? To learn exactly how I did that, join me in the Profitable Author program. Go to www.ProfitableAuthor.com to learn more.
To download a FREE copy of Portal to Genius, visit www.PortaltoGenius.com
For more about the story behind this book, read The Truth about Portal to Genius.
TRANSCRIPT:
Announcer: Welcome to the Rare Faith Podcast where the solution to every problem is only an idea away. Where the same activity with just a little more awareness always yields better results. Award winning, best selling author, Leslie Householder brings some of her best information to this inspiring series of life changing episodes that you won’t want to miss. Show notes for this episode can be found at ararekindoffaith.com.
Alex: Hello and welcome to a very special virtual book tour. My name is Alex Mandossian and this is the virtual book tour for Portal to Genius. Now portaltogenius.com is where we are. And if you go there now you’ll see a picture of Leslie Householder and Garrett Gunderson. So lean forward grab a pen and get ready because astonishing, brilliant, inspired, profound, mind-bending, a masterpiece. These are just some of the words and reviews that have come through for this book. Now on the line right now we have Leslie Householder. She is the award winning best selling author of The Jackrabbit Factor Why You Can. And we have Garrett B. Gunderson, New York best selling author of Killing Sacred Cows. You’ll get the experience and the author’s point of view of this book, Portal to Genius, of which the Jackrabbit Factor is contained within.
So Leslie you first, Welcome to this very special virtual book tour.
Leslie: Thanks so much for having me Alex. It’s great to be here.
Alex: Well, I’ve asked this question of Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and various best selling authors I’m going to ask you flat out…What is the specific incident that inspired you to write this book?
Leslie: You know it goes back about 10 years actually. My husband and I about 20 years ago when we got married we decided that we wanted me to be able to stay at home with the kids when they were born and then when that happened we weren’t prepared financially to do that. So for the next seven years it was all about trying to pull out of a deep, dark financial hole; trying to get life the way we wanted it, depression you know, blah, blah, blah. But at one point I was in such a mindset of frustration over finances that I literally called the police on a kid who broke my broom. And it wasn’t but just about a year later that I called the cops on a five year old who stole cookie dough out of my fridge. So if you can kind of get a sense of the frustration and the blindness that I felt about how to solve our financial problems at the time. But we started going to seminars and we became seminar addicts. We could tell that there was something that needed to change about the way we were thinking in order to get different results. But every time we would try to implement what we’d been taught the changes just weren’t permanent. Or we’d feel good for a week or two and then we’d fall back down to where we were before. And this cycle went on for seven years. I counted it up one time and we’d attended more than a hundred seminars. And it was really frustrating. I got to a point where I decided, “You know what honey, I’m done. I cannot ride this ride any more. I’ll go to one more but after that if things don’t really change I’m done and you can keep going if you want. But I’m just going to have to figure out how to be happy the way things are.” And it was luckily at that one that the lights went on and I finally got it. You know they say got it and what does that mean? It’s different for every person. But the lights went on and we applied what we had finally figured out and in three months had tripled our income. And that began the snowball going. I started teaching seminars. I started sharing with people what I had learned. And not just how to do it but understanding all the hundreds of ways that it doesn’t work. You know to use positive thinking to get better results. But I was a mom and wasn’t looking for a career necessarily. Teaching seminars was time consuming and I felt duty bound to do it but it just wasn’t working out. And so I decided that in order to not feel guilty (I think at the time I had five children – I have seven now) that I would write a book and let it be my seminar. That it would continue to teach people while I was changing diapers at home, essentially. And that was the Jackrabbit Factor. That’s the first book that you mentioned on the call tonight. What that is is it’s a story that takes these concepts that took us seven years to figure out and puts them in story form so that the reader has an emotional experience to take the concepts from their head down into their heart where the change takes place, where it needs to take place for these principles to work and that was that. But that was in 2005 and since then I’ve learned some hard lessons. It’s been an amazing ride. It’s been a great experience but after a few years I realize that there was more to know. And so along comes Garrett Gunderson and we learned some things from him that really turned things around again for us and so that’s where this book came from co-authoring it with him to take what we had learned from you know up to Jackrabbit Factor and take it to the next level for the readers.
Alex: Leslie, how many children do you have?
Leslie: I have seven.
Alex: You have seven children (laughing).
Leslie: I do.
Alex: That is amazing.
Leslie: It’s kind of funny because people hear the Jackrabbit Factor. Does that have something to do with being prolific? No, no, it’s not related.
Alex: I want to be clear that when you look at the title of Portal to Genius you see at the top the Jackrabbit Factor. Will you explain what that has to do with Portal to Genius? It’s inside the book correct?
Leslie: Ya, well see, I felt like it was really time to write the sequel to the Jackrabbit Factor and that’s what Portal to Genius is. And originally I had put it together to stand alone just in case people didn’t read Jackrabbit Factor and it became clearly obvious that there was too much foundational information and concept and story in the first book that the second book could not stand alone. And so we’ve included the entire manuscript, the entire text of the Jackrabbit Factor in the first 120 pages or so of this Portal to Genius book so the readers get both of them all in one.
Alex: And Garrett, you’re not new to being interviewed. We’ve interviewed each other and I’ve interviewed you on a previous book which was, “Killing Sacred Cows” but why does this book hold a special place in your heart?
Garrett: Well, this book’s a fictional story so it’s just really enjoyable and emotional. I mean, look, I’m a co-author but I read it. There’s multiple times that I’ve gotten emotional in reading it. It’s the type of book where I’m like I’ve gotta get my wife to read this. This will help us out as I’m an entrepreneur always with crazy ideas always looking to progress and do the next thing. And sometimes her and I aren’t always on the same page. And this book really addresses some of that. And it also addresses one specific incident in the Portal to Genius that I always said if it were to happen to me might shake the core of all my beliefs and the foundation of everything that I do. Leslie and I actually went into that, investigated it, interviewed other people and described it in the story. So it’s just moving and it’s touching and it’s inspiring. It’s not Killing Sacred Cows which is informational and possibly transformational but that’s pretty hard core content where this checkers that content in a very useful way through stories.
Alex: Ken Blanchard is a good friend of mine and he is known to write in a more of a parable format where you know there are stories that are very, very sticky. Who Moved My Cheese and One Minute Manager and various other books. Is this more in line with that Garrett? Have you changed your approach in writing books? Or have you just turned a different direction from Killing Sacred Cows as co-authoring this book?
Garrett: Well, the way that this book even came about was Leslie became a client of mine. And my book Killing Sacred Cows is one of the first books that she read cover to cover. She reads books but cover to cover in the kind of personal development genre and then her husband, Trevan, and her, I began coaching them and as they were implementing this in their life it started filling in some of the blanks in Jackrabbit Factor, the first story. And the reason that we even came together is that my co-author on Killing Sacred Cows put Jackrabbit Factor as one of the recommended reading list. And I said, “We can’t recommend a book I haven’t read.” And he said, “Well then go read the book.” After I read it I said, “I’ve got to reach out to these guys.” So it’s a way to reach a market that I didn’t reach before. And it’s a way to reach my current market in a way that I’ve never touched them before and helped them before. And so it was a perfect opportunity for me.
Alex: Well, if you’re listening right now we are on with Leslie Householder and Garrett Gunderson and the book is Portal to Genius. Jackrabbit Factor is inside that book as well. And I recommend you get three books; one for yourself, one for a loved one, and one for someone who could really benefit from this. And if you’re on the website portaltogenius.com then just look at the testimonials. You know Brian Tracy at the top of the heap.
Garrett: Alex Mandossian on here.
Alex: So this book is not only important to read it but just take a look at who else has read it and why they feel it’s important.
So Leslie, I’m going to go back to you. Who is the ideal reader? Who did you have in mind when you wrote this?
Leslie: You know, it’s interesting. I’d like to say everyone. But I know it’s not necessarily for everyone. More specifically it is for people who know they have more inside of them that has not been tapped and who perhaps have been like us who’ve been searching for ways to create their ideal life, searching for ways to solve problems in their life that keep cropping up time and time again – how to get those behind them once and for all. And you know, it’s interesting because there are a number of characters that we follow through this story. The readers are going to get to follow Richard and Felicity Goodman who are at the end of their financial rope. They’ve got relationship issues because of that. We follow Morgan who needs an unauthorized surgery for his ailing son. So these principles are not just about money. We also follow Ray who needs to find 4.5 million dollars in just a few days as they each discover their portals to genius. And that’s what the title comes from is recognizing that the solution to every problem is only an idea away. And so it’s teaching you through story how to get to a place where those ideas will come to you, those strokes of genius. Because they’re available to everybody and it’s a process in getting yourself into that kind of a position to receive them.
Alex: And Garrett before I go to you, you know my first thought was this was written for someone who feels stuck but then in looking back at it, it just reminds me of the dabbler. You know people going to seminars constantly but never implementing what they learn or people having thoughts and dreams and hopes but never executing what their thoughts were or dreams were and they just keep dabbling. And that may sound harsh to some people but I don’t think it’s so much being stuck as dabbling and never getting going.
Who’s the ideal reader for you? Is it the same reader that Leslie had in mind?
Garrett: I see the ideal reader as the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur that’s out there and they have this vision. They have something they want to accomplish but there’s all these trials. There’s tribulation, there’s obstacles, there’s things that even derail them temporarily or whether it’s in their business with partnerships there to their marriage, to having the resources financially to get through it. This book is really for those people to read and go wait, other people experience this too? And oh look, here’s how they resolved it. And there’s things, Alex, you know it’s like Leslie said, one idea away. Well I’d say it’s even one relationship away as well. And learning about the types of capital beyond just financial capital that help people to go from saying, “I don’t have the resources,” to being more resourceful to accomplish their passion and discover their portal to genius. So that’s part of the reason why we have the seventh step cash recovery is well let’s show you how you can do this without just live that inspired life, bring that vision out whether you have the monetary means to do it or not doesn’t matter if you understand the principles of this book.
Alex: Well on the very back cover at the very top it says because the solution to every problem is only an idea away. And I think that’s not only a very true sentence but if you look at the names that follow, praise from Robert Allen, Bob Proctor, Stephen R. Covey, T. R. Vecker, Bill Bartman, Dan Sullivan, Christine Linch, Roy Williams, Ivan Misner, yours truly Alex Mandossian, Robert Sheman, Laura Winemeyer, Smith, Mark Victor Hanson, Brian Tracy, and many, many others. Not the types of people who would be giving praise to fiction. And when you continue to read it says, “Because of the message in this book I came to the world’s best job out of 34,000 applicants.” That was Ben who said that. “And I’ve changed somewhat on the inside thanks to this book. I just got my passion back. I see now where my rabbits have been all along.” Kim says that. “I found myself clapping, laughing, and crying from chapter to chapter,” Dotty says that. And it just goes on and on. “It was a huge breakthrough for me and I seriously can’t believe how hard I was making it. This will be my guidebook for my future,” Krista says that. And then Monique says, “If I’m ever stranded on a desert island with just one bag I hope it contains Portal to Genius. So with that I have to come back to you Leslie, where the heck did the title come from?
Leslie: Do you want to know what the title was going to be?
Alex: Well, I’d love to hear it. I know Think and Grow Rich was Make a Boodle With Your Noodle. And I think Napoleon Hill sacked that. So what was the title going to be?
Garrett: This one might be close. This one might rival it.
Leslie: Hasenpfeffer in Munich
Alex: (Laughing) What? What does that mean?
Leslie: I struggled with the title for a long time and when I landed on Hasenpfeffer in Munich, which by the way is rabbit stew in Germany. It struck me so forcefully that that’s it because it describes so much. You’re going to understand when you read the book why that phrase is so important but when I ran it past Garrett I braced myself. I kind of knew it wouldn’t go over very well.
Alex: Well when someone’s walking by a bookstore and they see that vertically down the spine I don’t think they’d stop. So I’m glad you changed the name.
Leslie: I know, I know. And honestly when Portal to Genius was just kind of floating around in my head like yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s kind of what it is but man Hasenpfeffer in Munich really captures it. And Garrett helped me see that it’s important. Portal to Genius – I think it does okay.
Alex: So Garrett, when you were originally told what the title was going to be, spill the beans, what went on in your mind?
Garrett: (Laughing) Yeah, I mean…
Alex: An unabridged version please.
Garrett: I said, “What?!!!”
Leslie: He couldn’t hear me.
Garrett: I said, “Leslie, unfortunately people do judge a book by its cover.”
Alex: And it’s important to be able to read the title as well especially in an American bookstore so…
Leslie: I could sell it and type it.
Alex: Exactly, so Portal to Genius. I think that’s an ingenious title because for what portal really stands for and what genius stands for. I mean one thing that I know Buck Minster Fuller was credited of saying is his three universal principles. We’re all born geniuses as kids, the only failure is the failure to participate and mistakes are great. You know the more mistakes we make the smarter we get and really it captures the essence of the stories in this book as it relates to participation and how to overcome mistakes and there’s that part of us that’s always been a genius but just unfound. And that’s kind of the type of feedback you’re getting from readers. And what I love about it is on the back title you know sometimes you have world renowned authors with their write ups but here you have people that aren’t well known and they just have heart centered feedback for you. So what’s that feedback been like ever since you changed the title of the book and this is asked to you, Leslie. I’m glad it is what it is but how do you feel about the feedback coming in and the type of feedback you’re getting?
Leslie: Oh, it moves me. Because I know, I know what they’re experiencing as they read it and I can tell what they’re talking about when they give me their feedback because the book itself, the story itself had to be a function of what I’m teaching. So what Garrett and I both teach. When I originally started the book it was back in December of ‘08 and I had sat down and I had determined because I understand these principles to some degree that I would write it in two weeks. Garrett and I would just knock it out and in two weeks have everything wrapped up because writing the first book was really hard on the family, having mom held up in a room trying to concentrate and whatever and with as many kids as we have it’s not an easy thing to do and so I actually went to my mother’s and took two weeks to see what I could get done. And the goal was to have it done by January. And Garrett and I had already collaborated and we’d already planned as much of it as we could but I hit a brick wall and Garrett knows this. He experienced it with me that said, you can’t write the end…I didn’t know the ending of this book. I knew the ending of the first book before I started. But this one I did not know the ending. I just knew it needed to happen and I figured that it would work itself out as we got through it. But we hit a brick wall and the thought came to me very forcefully that said you cannot write the ending because you have not experienced it yet. And so I said, “Alright Garrett, we’ve got to put this down for awhile and I don’t know when we’re going to be done with it but it’s got to be set aside.” And for the next six months as Garrett was coaching us, like you said, we were his clients. He was coaching us through some things we were going through. I was experiencing the things the characters in the book were going to have to go through in some form or fashion in a fictionalized setting. And after six months we had the ending because we’d lived it. And the readers are going to get near the end and they’re going to see one of the chapters that mentions an experience at a restaurant and they’re going to think, “oh, that’s cheesy…that could never happen. I guess that’s fiction.” And the fact of the matter is is that’s absolutely true. What happened to those characters at the restaurant is what happened to us. So the readers are going to want to pick this up and find out what that was because…
Garrett: And there’s a lot of this book that’s either Leslie’s story or my story that are actual events.
Leslie: Ya, blended.
Garrett: The more unbelievable parts are that.
Leslie: Ya.
Alex: One thing which is very striking because I typically don’t read fiction. I don’t read any type of narratives. Usually if it’s non fiction it’s marketing, it’s hard core. You know it’s Killing Sacred Cows type books but what I found to be very interesting was on page 7 I’d never seen this before and I don’t know if it’s in other books or not but you have a character guide and it says the following story spans 22 years. You’ll soon discover a number of important characters that will be followed throughout. In order to glean the most benefit from this book unimpeded by the multiple storylines a complimentary character guide may be obtained at portaltogenius.com/characters. Let me repeat portaltogenius.com/characters. And the authors strongly recommend and both authors are on the phone right now on this virtual book tour that you obtain the complimentary character guide prior to beginning your experience with Portal to Genius. This reminded me of like one of those mysteries that if you ever go through and you follow characters in a home or a mansion that I’ve been through with my wife, Amy. There’s multiple storylines happening and when you follow one character you’re only seeing a piece of it but by going back and following each character you get the full story. Why did you come up with the character guide number one? And is that unique? Leslie, the question is yours.
Leslie: I don’t know if it’s unique or not honestly but it was created because the principles and the message in this book is so profound and so potentially life changing to the readers that I didn’t want anybody getting hung up on trivia. You know what I mean? I wanted them to feel free to just lose themselves in the experience, not worrying about remembering anybody in particular in the details and whatever because they knew they could just look at the guide and remind themselves okay this person is that person. And there’s really not that many characters but I just wanted to do everything that I could to make sure that the experience was unimpeded.
Alex: It’s like a table of contents for the characters so I think it’s just a brilliant concept. Garrett if you were to be asked, “What’s the promise of the book?” Knowing that it’s a storyline that’s fiction. It’s different than the other book that you’ve written. What would you say the promise is? What do we get out of Portal to Genius other than hope when we’re done reading?
Garrett: Well, I think that the fact that it’s called Portal to Genius is an insight to the promise because the promise is that you’ll have an insight to what our greatest asset is. What your greatest asset is. Any individual. And a different level of showing up in life because of something called soul purpose. You’ll have a different insight to that than ever before based upon how this book discusses it and shows examples through the stories of the people.
Alex: Soul purpose is S-O-U-L purpose. So let us know what that means for those who may not be familiar with your teachings and trainings.
Garrett: Soul purpose is your unique combination of passion, gifts, and values combined for your highest context of living or your life mission, otherwise called your purpose. So everyone has a soul purpose but not everyone lives their soul purpose. And so it’s part of your most natural expression and most greatest version of who you are. And it’s also that sole purpose S-O-L-E of us being alive and being here.
Alex: And going through the structure of the book when you look through the table of contents. The structure is set up where there are like multiple, I would call them what? Chapters? Would you call them chapters? Because there’s two parts in the book and they’re very brief. None of them that I can see are more than 10 pages. How’d you come up with this structure and who came up with it? Was it you or Garrett? Leslie.
Leslie: The part one is the Jackrabbit Factor and so those chapter titles were mine. They’re brief. They are the problem, reflection, the path, the fear, etc. and the chapters themselves are brief because I feel like it keeps the reader going. You don’t get too bogged down an any one part. It moves quickly. In fact, I had one reader tell me that the book moved too fast. It didn’t allow me to stop and ponder. And I thought, “Well, it’s not an audio. It’s a book. You can stop at any point you want.” But the titles of each of these chapters especially in Part 1…they’re nouns. They’re like the fear, the instruction, the insanity, the irony. And I named them that way because Part One especially is in somewhat of an allegory form or a parable form and each experience in each chapter is symbolic or similar to the kinds of experiences that I’ve found everybody that I’ve ever met who has strived to improve their lives or strived to become all that they can be. That’s called being on a path. And we all experience the same kinds of challenges. No challenge is necessarily unique to any one person. And I think the more we discuss these things with each other and find out that these challenges, these dilemmas are common to humanity at large then we can more quickly discover the so-called best practices for getting through them, getting on top of them, and even experiencing joy in spite of them.
Alex: That makes a lot of sense. And with that give us an overview of some of the characters and the storyline and take your time just so people get a mental picture or movie happening in their mind of what’s actually happening here and what the resolutions are to the storyline.
Leslie: The story opens up with Richard and Felicity Goodman. They are the couple that I mentioned before who are at the end of their financial rope. And from my own story and my husband’s story kind of coming through but you find out that they are in an argument. That is how the story opens. And you find out that Felicity, the wife, she slips up and she berates her husband for his inability to provide for the family. Well, he’s defeated if you can imagine. He disappears into the woods behind their home. And she actually ends up being a little bit nervous that maybe he has gone to end his life. It’s gotten that serious. And that’s the opening of the book. Well, what happens is Richard embarks upon his own amazing and courageous journey where he discovers his own best advisor who is his inner voice. And so the question that the book answers is, “Where has he gone? And what is required of Felicity before she can find him?” And as you follow that first part of the story you recognize that both Richard and Felicity are independently having to discover certain principles, certain success principles in order to achieve their goals. Her goal is to find him. His goal is to solve this money problem. And so during that first part of this book, in Part One, the Jackrabbit Factor, you’re going to unlock with Richard the secret behind that voice of inspiration. And you find out for yourself how truly dependable and even ingenious your own inner voice can be. And I’m not going to share the conclusion of their experience in the Jackrabbit Factor because it would spoil it for the reader.
Alex: Good. I wasn’t going to let you anyway.
Leslie: But at the end you’re very briefly introduced to someone else who has an amazing idea. And at that point you don’t know how it relates with Richard and Felicity but you’re left wondering and so then Portal to Genius opens up and it takes you back 10 years prior. It’s a flashback 10 years. And you begin to follow the man who had the amazing idea at the end of the first book. You find out where he came from, who he is, what his problem is. And essentially, his name is Morgan, and he has a son who is sick and he needs a surgery. But there are some problems around the way the medical community has prescribed his health. But Morgan takes it upon himself. He puts it into his own hands to find a solution for his son. And so this is the first time that the term Portal to Genius is introduced in the book because he comes up with a device that’s groundbreaking. It’s innovative. It’s going to be a valve, an innovative heart valve that’s going to save his son where the one’s on the market at the time were not going to do what they needed to do. So that’s the beginning of that story. He also has a friend named Ray, who is his own cardiologist because he also had heart problems. And Ray becomes the surgeon to help them solve their problem but Ray has discovered that he’s got other passions. And he’s not sure why after a surgery he’s feeling exhilarated at the accomplishment but he goes back to his office and he’s perplexed because he’s wondering where’s his life going? Why does he not feel as fulfilled as he knows he can feel? And he’s searching for what Garrett has introduced as soul purpose. He’s looking for his soul purpose. He’s pleased with his work but there’s something missing. And so we begin to follow him and his journey toward discovering what is his life’s mission? And why hasn’t he found it yet? And how is he going to find it? And how is he going to transition into it? And then those 10 years pass and then we connect back up with Richard and Felicity. And we find out how all of those people tie in together. And you find the resolution to each of their challenges. It was fascinating to us to watch it unfold.
Alex: And you start the book prior, actually more into the future. The Jackrabbit Factor is more into the future than Portal to Genius? Is that what you’re saying?
Leslie: Yes. The Jackrabbit Factor is smack in the middle of the 22 years. So you start out with Jackrabbit Factor, then you go back 10 years and then you catch up. And then you go forward another 10 or 12.
Alex: Garrett, I tip my hat to you. You take a concept that you’re known for in circles that I’m part of, you know, soul purpose and having a book speak to that is I think, ingenious, especially a book that’s fictional and has the stickiness of story. Is this the beginning of something? Or do you think this is the one off you’re doing?
Garrett: Alex, you know if you read business books sometimes, if you’re like me, I don’t read the whole book. If you’re going to read a fictional book, you’re going to read the whole book. The likelihood is so much greater. From a concept of like soul purpose it’s especially valuable. Because soul purpose isn’t just an activity. It’s who someone is and so I love the opportunity of working with Leslie because I had saved an event that I did called, “The Benevolent Power of Soul Purpose” that maybe 80 people ever got to see. And it was just my private library. I opened it up to Leslie and to see it come alive in these stories and in these characters to a different degree. And really for anyone that wants more financial capital there’s two more important forms of capital and one that soul purpose especially drives. That’s part of this book so if you want more money and a better life there’s these other things to pay attention to and have that come across. It’s pretty cool, I think, and I mean it’s totally different than anything I’ve ever done before.
Alex: Well, if you go, and I’m assuming you’re there, PortaltoGenius.com. That’s the virtual book tour site and you see a picture of the book, a picture of Garrett and Leslie. It says follow the Goodman’s who are at the end of their financial rope, Morgan who needs a life saving solution for his son, and Ray who needs to find 4.5 million dollars by Wednesday as they each discover their portal to genius. Built on the premise that the solution to every problem is just an idea away. Garrett B. Gunderson, New York Times best selling author of Killing Sacred Cows and Leslie Householder, award-winning best selling author of the Jackrabbit Factor bring you an experience you’ll never forget through this brilliant work true to its name. I’ve only had one other fictional book or story based book that’s a narrative that’s not non-fiction as a virtual book tour and this is the second one. This one I happen to like a little bit more not only because I like the people that I’m interviewing. I like the author of the other one but this one kind of has a personal development twist to it and it’s using a narrative to do that so Leslie, you know the stickiness of telling a story. Were you thinking personal development when this was being written or did you just write out the story and then it just happened to be personal development oriented?
Leslie: Absolutely not. Like I said, I was teaching seminars and needed a way to communicate a message. And honestly I’d never viewed myself as an author or a writer. I was a math major (laughing). But I recognized that because of my background having attended so many seminars and having read so many books. Garrett said that I don’t read many books from front to back. We read many, many front to back until we discovered the lights went on for us and then I was very, very selective and picky about what I read. And when I read Killing Sacred Cows, I’m like, oh my word, this is Jackrabbit Factor 202. And so it did catch my interest there. The personal development side of it is primary. I struggle every time I try to enter the date of this book in a library journal or whatever to describe whether it’s fiction or nonfiction because it’s completely nonfiction fiction. It’s both. The reason it needed to be fiction is because I had read so many books that gave me the bullet points, that gave me the steps, the how-to’s, the everything else and I knew it cognitively and I understood it on an intellectual level but I had personally experienced the frustration of not seeing real sticky results with the activities that the things that I would do to implement what I had learned until something inside of me had changed. Something in my heart had changed. Something in my perception, my paradigms had to shift before the efforts that we put out gave us the results we were really looking for. I mean you talked earlier about the ideal reader and I would argue that it’s not even so much the person who dabbles as it is the person who has been trying to implement perhaps for years and is frustrated because they can’t understand why their results are not what the gurus promised. And so it’s because something inside needs to change and that’s what the fiction does for a person is it takes it from the logical mind into the heart and it happens without even trying because you allow yourself to get lost in the story and that shift is facilitated through the story.
Alex: Garrett, I’m going to go to you for the final word and then back to you Leslie. On the free give away if you go to the web page portaltogenius.com, actually you get more than one chapter. What’s interesting to me, Garrett, is you’re kind of smuggling relationship capital which is one of the concepts that you commonly talk about and is one of my favorite concepts because of what it really involves. So for those who may not be familiar with what relationship capital is, it is one of the chapters that you are giving away. What is relationship capital? Why is it so important?
Garrett: Anyone I’ve met that I’ve asked them if they want more financial capital they say yes for the most part and the problem is financial capital is merely the byproduct of or function of two other forms of capital, one being relationship capital. The only true assets in this world are people. And relationship capital are those people that you know or that you influence or that you impact. It’s organizations, it’s networks, it’s individuals. And so as much as we’re one idea away, we’re one person away because that could be the person with the idea. That could be the person that we create something with as you kind of read about in the book. And so if you ever want more financial capital create value for people. That’s the source of mismanagement of relationship capital where we’ve taken more than we’ve given. So how can you provide value for other people? How can they pay for you to live your soul purpose? To bring them value to serve and to solve problems. You know relationship capital is key. Alex, the day that I met you I didn’t make more financial capital that day but because of the relationship capital we developed I inevitably made more relationship capital down the road. I mean what you’ve taught me about teleseminars and I expect just from teleseminars a million dollars of revenue and on track as of the time of this call.
Alex: This virtual book tour is a function of relationship capital because when you asked me to do it you’re one of my six people that I never say no to. It’s always yes. And so that takes a lot of relationship capital in trust because I know you are going to ask me things that you know I’m going to say yes to without even questioning it. So when we decided to put this virtual book tour together it is a direct result of relationship capital that we both have. And it’s something that has to be earned. You know just like money that relationship capital has to be earned. But one thing I have noticed about relationship is that people appreciate a lot faster than money does regardless of the economy. And so we’re really speaking into and doing what Chapter 22 talks about in the form of a storyline. So that will continue on an ongoing basis. And just like money needs to be tended to relationships do as well. What’s your experience with that as it relates to relationship capital? Because you know not every relationship is resolved in the clear resolution like this book has. What happens when something goes sideways just like losing a lot of money with physical capital? What do you do with relationships when they go sideways?
Garrett: Well, I’ll answer that and then just talk about where your genius in where you mentored me in relationship capital. When a relationship goes sideways you lose energy, you lose opportunity. You might have to go try to mend that. You lose your focus or your own self confidence because that relationship goes sideways or they post something negative. It hurts your reputation. Other people don’t work with you. So that’s the problem with relationship capital that goes sideways. Alex, you’re absolutely genius because some people focus so much on financial capital. Here’s a perfect example: someone wants to put on an event. They sell tickets to the event because when they sell the ticket they get a bunch of financial capital. If they leave it at that they don’t build the real picture. See, when you put on an event what do you do? You create stick strategies. You get them to prepare for the event. You give them all this value leading up to the event. You give them value when they leave the event and how they can take action in their life. And some people go well, where’s the financial capital in that? That costs you money. No, you built so much relationship capital the day that you say, “hey, I’ve got this book Lead From Behind. How many people are ready to promote that?” I’ll promote that in two seconds, actually in less than two seconds. I’ll put it up there because you built so much relationship capital. Businesses call this good will right? Or economic value added. So you got to make a deposit before you make a withdrawal otherwise the check’s going to bounce. And if you’re around there just taking what you can from people without giving 10 times back those checks are going to bounce. Those relationships are going to go sideways. And inevitably down the road you’re going to have less financial capital that you might not have been able to see how much it would have been. But look if we all understood relationship capital to the fullest we’d all be not only millionaires but not only multi-millionaires but the velocity of exchange in this world would increase so much that we wouldn’t have the problems that we see today. The biggest problem would be what we would do with all this abundance.
Alex: The key issue is what is the function of an economy. It really is how money circulates just like blood circulating in your body. Usually that’s a function of confidence and when confidence is lost then sometimes we have a mess. With relationship capital one thing that is clear to me almost like tithing whether you do it spiritually or you do it financially just putting 10 percent aside you don’t think about it. That money was not yours to begin with so you just set it aside. So when the folks and the people that are closest to me when they ask something of me it’s not like a favor where I’m looking at how can I get this back? When can I cash in on this later? You just do it and somehow magically it just comes back many many fold. This is not woowoo. It happens. And this virtual book tour is a function of that. I remember when you asked me, “could we do this?” and I didn’t even question it. I said, “ya sure, when?” And we just had to figure out the time that would work for all of us because this is a little different virtual book tour. We have three people instead of two. Usually I’m interviewing one author. By the way, Leslie, great job, great job today. This is kind of scary to be on a virtual book tour you know.
Leslie: Oh, it’s fun. I love talking about this stuff.
Alex: It’s not as scary for me. I got scared having a dog because now I’m not playing man on man. I’ve got two kids and a little puppy but having as many kids as you do and then writing a book. That is an accomplishment. I’ll have to take some coaching from you. I have no idea how you pulled that off.
Garrett: Alex, I just got a puppy too, a Golden Retriever puppy. It’s growing fast.
Alex: My wife and I…we figured after Gabriel and Brianna what’s next? We’ll go for the puppy instead. You got the final word, Leslie, on this. I don’t want you to talk about the resolution about the storyline but what would be the final word you would want to leave everyone listening right now. You have some entrepreneurs, you have people who are not working right now listening, you have people who wish they were working, you have people who are dabbling, you have people who have miscommunications with their own relationships, thwarted intention, unmet expectations, everything that really the book talks about through its characters. What would you leave as the final word in listening to you tonight if someone were listening and just saying ok, this book is for me and for someone else. What would you tell them?
Leslie: It speaks to the individual. It speaks to the corporate tycoon. It speaks to the wife. It speaks to the teenager. There are enough variety of characters in here each coming to the same conclusion that like I said these are challenges that are common to humanity at large and we all want more joy. We all want more peace of mind. We all want more solutions than we’ve had so far or we wouldn’t be listening to this call. And the final word is that you have all you need to get started. You have everything you need to take the next step towards your ideal life to living that soul purpose to discovering it and to profiting from it abundantly. I know people can get caught up in the anxiety that comes with thinking about all the things that they would need in order to accomplish what they want to accomplish out of life. But the first step is to just breathe, relax, and realize that you have all you need in this moment and that’s all that matters. To take that next step it’s going to be unique for each person but knowing what that next step is is a function of the Portal to Genius.
Alex: Well, we started with Leslie. And Garrett, we’re going to end with you as well for your final word. As you’ve been listening, PortaltoGenius.com what are you waiting for? Click on that button if you haven’t already done it. Get one, two or more books. Garrett, you got the final word for the event tonight. Go for it.
Garrett: Alright, this is the time. It’s a small action, a simple action to grab this book. I think it’s a unique experience but what we all have within us and surrounded by us is this magical thing called soul purpose. It’s time for you to discover yours at a deeper level and really contribute because it’s the solution to whatever problem we think is out there.
Alex: Thank you Garrett. On behalf of Garrett B. Gunderson and Leslie Householder who are both coauthors of the Portal to Genius. This is Alex Mandossian and I’m going to sign off tonight. Remember here is the website again portaltogenius.com. If it sounds like I’m doing whatever it takes to motivate, inspire and influence you to buy the book, you’re right. I am. So do it. Get it now and then share it with others. All good wishes and I hope our paths cross again soon.
Announcer: This concludes today’s episode of The Rare Faith podcast. You’ve been listening to Leslie Householder, author of the Jackrabbit Factor, Portal to Genius, and Hidden Treasures Heaven’s Astonishing Help with Your Money Matters. All three books can be downloaded free at ararekindoffaith.com so tell your friends and join Leslie again next time as she goes even deeper into the principles that will help you change your life.
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