October 23, 2026 – AI SEO Andreas Voniatis and 3 Questions Rob Cross

00:00 Intro 1: In the AM, broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration Award-winning School for Startups Radio, while we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now, here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion, Jim Beach.

00:26 Jim Beach: Hello, everyone, welcome to another exciting edition of school for startups radio. We’ve got a great show for you today, and I appreciate you being here. We’re going to start off with a conversation. An amazing guy named Andreas Voniatis. He is going to help us with the SEO behind AI and how to position your firm and its websites and assets, social media assets to get found as much as possible by all of the new engines, all of the new AI stuff.

01:09 Jim Beach: It is a great conversation and I’m really excited to share this one with you. So you’re lucky to get it. After that, Rob Cross is with us. We have a conversation about purposeful leadership and how to be a better leader, according to Rob. He is British, so you know he’s right, right? Everything with the British accent just sounds so much better. And so anyway, I’m excited to share his conversation with you as well.

01:49 Jim Beach: We have a really great conversation about what a grand life purpose and Simon Sinek and all of that funness discussing, you know, passion and all of the things that are important to entrepreneurship, but we don’t know how important. So Rob and I will fight that out and, of course, reference good old Simon Sinek, and our yes, we are on billionaire alert. The next week or so, I can’t tell you who. I don’t want to be rude, but billionaire alert we are.

02:33 Jim Beach: All right, we are going to get started in just a second. Thanks for being with us.

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03:30 Jim Beach: We are back and again. Thank you so very much for being with us. You know, as the, uh, LLMs and all of the other uh, platforms prepare to take over the world prior to that. We’re going to use them for maximum efficiency in our businesses, and hopefully we can be the winners of the search engine optimization for the AI platforms. We’re going to call it a lot of different things. Here, we’re going to call it today, generative engine optimization. And we have an expert in that. His company is Artios.

04:07 Jim Beach: His name is Andreas Voniatis… Voniatis.

04:08 Andreas Voniatis: Voniatis.

04:11 Jim Beach: I said it better in practice.

04:13 Andreas Voniatis: So good. Yeah.

04:17 Jim Beach: Thank you. Say it again, Andreas.

04:20 Andreas Voniatis: It’s, uh, Voniatis.

04:20 Jim Beach: There we go. Voniatis. He is also author of the new book called Data Driven SEO with Python. Solve SEO Challenges with Data Science using Python. Andreas, sorry about your name. Welcome to the show. How are you?

04:38 Andreas Voniatis: Great. There’s also my other book. Thank you for having me. There’s my latest book, Generative Engine Optimization with Python.

04:44 Jim Beach: Is it available on Amazon yet?

04:47 Andreas Voniatis: Uh, it’s uh, it’s on O’Reilly on early release.

04:51 Jim Beach: Oh, okay.

04:56 Andreas Voniatis: On O’Reilly Media.

04:58 Jim Beach: Well, by the time that this airs, it will be on Amazon, right?

05:02 Andreas Voniatis: Uh, I think it will be, but you can definitely get, you can definitely get on OReilly.com for sure.

05:12 Jim Beach: All right. Well, Tell us about the transition from SEO to generative SEO. What are we going to do?

05:20 Andreas Voniatis: There are some very interesting. Well, Jim, that’s a great question because a lot of SEO had become quite easy just before AI launched in 2022, starting with ChatGPT, and so, you know, with SEO, you could get away with, say, say you had a target keyword, uh, this radio show in the world, um, you would look at the top 10 ranked articles in Google. And you would take all of the common sections and all of the best sections and then you would make that article your own.

05:54 Andreas Voniatis: You would do some digital PR to get some highly authoritated back links. Obviously, I’m making it sound easier than it is, but effectively the paybook was pretty straightforward. But now it’s a, you know, we, we, we’re in an age where AI is a lot more intelligent than the search engine.

06:14 Andreas Voniatis: And so in order to succeed with AI, your content cannot be just desk research, you need to put some proprietary data that AI doesn’t already know about, and that is the difference between SEO and GEO, it’s content that adds value to AI’s models or their LLMs, and and the way you fill that gap is with proprietary research data.

06:36 Jim Beach: Okay, proprietary research data. So I’m trying to. That sounds really expensive. I’m a tire company in Birmingham, right? Am I going to really be able to do that? I’m just trying to sell tires in Birmingham.

06:52 Andreas Voniatis: Sure. So, as a, as an entire company, one of the things you could do is you could go to Gallup and you could commission a, a study relevant that that mirrors your target buyer’s um market. So, if you only serve, um, you know, motorists in Birmingham. Uh, then you would do a study of, you know, use, you know, most attitudes. Uh and behaviors towards, you know, um, you know, why, why, why they buy tyres and all that sort of thing.

07:23 Andreas Voniatis: And because you’re the one coming up with that proprietary research, they are, you are adding value to AI, uh, where nobody else’s, and that’s why AI would change the status quo to feature your company over the other companies that are in the same area.

07:41 Jim Beach: All right. Does it have to be statistics? Can it be, uh, um, written content? A book chapter?

07:48 Andreas Voniatis: Well, So this is the interesting thing with AI, you know, everything comes down to a schema or data. And so, you know, if you think about how humans work. You know, you write a paragraph of 100 words. Uh but the 100 words is really communicating maybe one or 2 or 3 ideas. And what the way AI works is, it compresses those 100 words into free ideas, right? Now, um as they love staying in the US, talk is cheap. And so with AI, you’ve got to bring something to the table.

08:25 Andreas Voniatis: So, that’s a very long answer of mine to say, yes, you do need data because that is what adds value to an AI model. You know, and and let me, let me give you some context. The internet for, you know, a number of decades. Uh, every second of the, of the day, there’s new content being published on the web, and most of it tends to be quite self-serving. Doesn’t really say anything new. Um, doesn’t really add the value. If anything, most content adds noise to the internet.

09:00 Andreas Voniatis: So if you think about it from an AI perspective, they have limited computing power, limited energy to process the web. And so, if you’re just writing content, um, whilst you might be really pleased with your content, and maybe your, your, your visitors would be too, to an AI, it’s not really value adding.

09:21 Andreas Voniatis: And so it’s more likely to be ignored, whereas when you bring data to the table, suddenly to AI, you become a reliable data partner, that they can rely on to improve their product, and therefore feature your brand when they’re generating answers to your target buyers, as opposed to the other TI companies in Birmingham.

09:44 Jim Beach: All right. What from this interview would we make? Both of us want this interview to be found. So what statistic would we take out of an interview like this, Andreas?

09:56 Andreas Voniatis: Well, uh, in an injury like this. That’s hard question, isn’t it? I’m not sure. It’s, uh, It depends what you’re trying to be seen for, like, um, Well, we both.. Content.

10:08 Jim Beach: Entrepreneurship and AI and AI education. Right. Okay.

10:12 Andreas Voniatis: So, if we’re talking about entrepreneurship, um, and you want your radio website to, to, you know, let, let’s say you’re, you want to be found for entrepreneurship radio, then what you would do, is you would do a study on bounders, um, and their preferences for the kind of kind of uh, you know, what, what, what radio, what radio, stations or podcasts. They follow what topics they want to hear or or, you know, when it comes to entrepreneurship on radio, what stations they follow.

10:43 Andreas Voniatis: Um, DJs, um, you know, what challenges they’re trying to overcome, what they’re looking for, what they consider good content. So you can imagine already, this is quite a lengthy piece on entrepreneurship radio, and then by your company, publishing this study on your website. That is how you would, you would change the status quo and get AI to feature your content um instead of the established competition.

11:11 Jim Beach: So, I need a question of the month, and every month we change it and then publish it and we get 20 entrepreneurs during the month to interview and we ask them all the same question. For example, uh, how likely are you to use AI, uh, in your business, are you willing to pay $50 a month or are you willing to pay $100 a month? And then at the end of the month, we publish that data. Is that best practices? Like, am I getting a good grade there?

11:46 Andreas Voniatis: You, you, you, you, you’ve got better grade than you had before. So, you’re on the right track. It’s all about wrong. How can it be improved? Because you’re already adding value to the internet. But what you really want is the consolidated reports, so you want, um, so, so this is the other difference between AI and traditional search engines, is that search engines are data extractors.

12:11 Andreas Voniatis: So they, their, their infrastructure is set up to, to um collect loads of different webpages and put the information together, whereas with AI, it tends to do a real-time search every time the user is searching. So, um, to save it a lot of energy, you actually want all those questions and answers in a single report. The other thing is as well is you were talking about how you would get 20 guests to answer that same question.

12:42 Andreas Voniatis: Um, one of the things that’s really important today, AI is to have a statistical significance. So, for example, if you’re running a survey with Gallup, you’d want it to be nationally representative and have a high confidence in full, and so that would mean at least 500 respondents, say, uh, in order to get AI to take it seriously. For example.

13:05 Jim Beach: Oh, that’s a bummer. Hmm. Well.

13:08 Andreas Voniatis: The good news, it’s not as much of an abominance, you think, because the good news is, if it’s hard for you, it’s hard for your competitors. And that means that if you, if you do end up pursuing this strategy, uh like you do for our finds, then, um, it makes it easier. To, makes it actually pretty easy to defend your, your advantage.

13:33 Jim Beach: Right. So what we have 1000s of us listeners. So we should have listener data, which would be in the thousands.

13:43 Andreas Voniatis: Perhaps. Absolutely, yeah. If, you know, if you leverage your listening base and and you got them to take part in the survey, um, you know, answering all these different questions and you produced a report off the back, but yeah, absolutely. That is the kind of content that would, that would, you know, position your, your, your, your podcast, uh, and radio, radio show as one of the, uh, one of the radio shows on entrepreneurship. Just as all the alternatives in the US all the world.

14:17 Jim Beach: You have given some great advice, Andreas. That is some really good information. Let’s switch over and tell us a little bit about your agency, the, is it Artios IO? How do you pronounce it again?

14:30 Andreas Voniatis: Uh, is, uh, is, uh, using British accent or Otios? In the uh US accent, but it’s artios.io’s the website. Um, and it’s ancient Greek for complete and thorough.

14:42 Jim Beach: Oh, I like that. That’s a good metaphor for a business. All right, who’s your ideal customer? Let’s start differently. Tell us how you got the business started. So what, you know, were you doing in the months before and how did you transition and the idea came from where and how did you get your first dollar and all that? Give us a little history lesson.

15:07 Andreas Voniatis: Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I, I sound for the spices. Uh, over, almost 20 years ago now, and uh, it, it started because the agency I was working for. They were retiring, the search division because display marketing was, was, was the hot new thing. So, it was, this was now what we call programmatic display, um, where you can buy banner ads and publish them over the internet, like Google, like Google do today. And so they were, they become, they became a lot less interested in the SEO.

15:42 Andreas Voniatis: And so they said, look, um, Why don’t we, why don’t we fire you? But, we’ll let you walk away with all the SEO clients that we have, and you know, we can shake hands and part as friends, and I was like, yeah, absolutely, because uh, I’ve always wanted my own consulting firm, so, uh, that, that’s, you know, I, I was very, very lucky.

16:07 Andreas Voniatis: I never really had to fight for new business for, you know, for the, for the first year, you know, because I, I, I started with a ready book. So I was, I was most fortunate in that sense.

16:22 Jim Beach: That is very fortunate, but it’s also pretty common. A lot of people do that and it’s a great path into entrepreneurship. And so today, who are your target dream clients that you haven’t dream of, oath, and what kind of services are you providing for them?

16:41 Andreas Voniatis: Yeah, so uh, dream funds. Um, our dream clients are B to B businesses. So we like manufacturers, uh, private expert firms and their portfolio companies. We also like, um, we, we, we like, uh, professional services as well, and that really lends itself really well as a fit for our business, because before I got into SEO and digital, I qualified as an accountant. So, uh, I, you know, I understand B to B really well and, and so, uh, we, we have worked with uh, BTC businesses as well.

17:14 Andreas Voniatis: I find B3 businesses and we’re talking anywhere from 5000000 ARR to mid-size companies, uh or anything up to series B, that, that tends to be our sweet spot.

17:26 Jim Beach: All right. And… I don’t want to ask anything. I’m not allowed to ask, but how big have you got and how much, however you measure yourself on number of clients or revenue or whatever you can share with us that’s available?

17:45 Andreas Voniatis: Yeah, I mean, we’ve got a team of 8, we’re growing. I’ve really got job descriptions out there for 2 more people to join out, ever expanding client team. Um, I mean that, that, that’s, that gives you a flavour of the size of the company.

18:01 Jim Beach: Yes. Um.

18:04 Andreas Voniatis: Yeah, so, yeah, that, that, that, that, that’s where we are and we’re looking to grow further. I mean, I’ve often joked to family and friends that, um, you know, uh, Knowing what I know now, that a CEO, I wish I had a time machine, so I could advise my younger self on, on how to build a business, but then when AI came, uh, 4 years ago, uh, It’s not quite a time machine, but this is the next best thing.

18:35 Andreas Voniatis: Um, and it just, it was just so fortunate that, in 2012, I was getting into machine learning, so I retrained as a data scientist. And so I started, I started building machine learning models and by 2018. I built my own LLM, but I didn’t call it an LLM at the time. For me it was just a new network with a transformer. Uh, which we now know as a GPT, um, or an LLM.

19:03 Andreas Voniatis: So, I didn’t realise at the time that I was preparing future clients to be visible for AI because I, I, you know, I’ve had inside out knowledge of how an LLM works, and therefore, uh, that’s why I know so much, and I’ve got case studies, obviously, of, and we’ve got clients, um, to be visible, uh, without having to follow best practices, because best practices are still being rewritten. You know, the only way you get ahead on best practice is if you outspends the legal and best practice.

19:40 Jim Beach: Excellent point. So, I am a 5 person business and we are 2 years old and we’re, we might be profitable now, but we’re still just skating by, okay? I can’t afford even your cheaper counterparts. Give me some advice for the beginning entrepreneur who’s just starting a business. Um, I have a lot of time. I have a lot of ideas. I can create lots of content on my own. But again, I have basically no money. What should I be doing?

20:10 Andreas Voniatis: Well, here’s my advice. If you’ve got no money, but you’ve got a lot of time. If you’re gonna be creating any content, um. For at the risk of sounding self-serving by my book, read it, it gives you the code. On how to build data pipelines that tell you what your audience are discussing online, what they care about. It, it, this code will retrieve the topics that are being discussed.

20:36 Andreas Voniatis: It will also, um, it will also tell you, uh, you know, what the section headings are within those individual articles, and it will also tell you, uh, how to measure performance, how to, um, you know, what the, how to build a model of AI, so you can know, what factors are important within your own specific industry, so you can build a specific Industry AI model so you know what, what makes, what increases the probability or the odds of you, of your company being mentioned.

21:11 Andreas Voniatis: So, um, uh, that, that is the best answer I can give, you know, if you’ve got a lot of time, but not a lot of money. Well, the book is not very expensive. It’s like 30 or $40 and and uh, you know, the, the rest is, the rest is time.

21:30 Jim Beach: Right. And that’s the Generative engine optimization with Python, right?

21:35 Andreas Voniatis: Correct.

21:37 Jim Beach: Yes. Okay. Now, I have children who have taken Python classes in school, right, how much Python am I going to need to be able to do this or, you know, or our company of five, they don’t have any Python. Are they going to be able to learn Python enough on YouTube to be able to implement the book?

22:00 Andreas Voniatis: Yeah, they are because the, the, uh, the book is not expecting you to write any of the code. It’s, it’s literally going to be copy and paste, a code into your Python environment, uh, as we call it. And uh, but what the book does is, it steps through. It does just give you the code. It actually tells you a bigger picture, what we’re trying to do, uh, and then in, in, into the code itself.

22:29 Andreas Voniatis: It will, it will explain what the code is doing and why it’s doing what it’s doing. So, uh, you, you actually don’t really need to be an expert coder or even, really a coder. It’s just a case of read the book, copy paste and and have a go, you know, and now obviously, um, if you want to improve the code and things like that, then, uh, even AI can help you, you know, take the code to the next level.

23:01 Jim Beach: Okay, help me just a second. So I copy from your book and paste into what?

23:06 Andreas Voniatis: And you, you would paste, paste it into your, your, what we call uh, a Python uh environment. So, uh, a common one, it is due to a notebook that’s free. You can download and install and AI can help you do that step by step, it’s not very complicated. Uh and then you would uh create a script file. Again that’s really easy. And then you would just copy the paste, copy paste the code from the book into the, into your notebook, your Python notebook, and and then run, run the code.

23:46 Jim Beach: Okay, so I’ve created a little computer program. Right? And I run the code and what happens when I run the code? What, what, what gets affected? How?

23:55 Andreas Voniatis: Uh, Yeah, so I mean, each chapter has different code for different purposes. So, for example, chapter two. We cover topic selection. So you would be able to, um, you, you would, when you run the code, what happens is it scrapes the internet. Uh, in particular, it scrapes, so it scrapes the internet and and it will come up with, and then it will analyse the output from that scraping, scraped content to suggest uh, topics for your websites. So, for example, um in your case, it would be entrepreneurship.

24:29 Jim Beach: Right. Okay. And I can do this? Andreas.

24:32 Andreas Voniatis: Yes, absolutely. Okay. If I have, you know, like coding experience, I can do this with your book, it’s that simple. Yeah, you absolutely can. I mean, you might need a bit of AI assistant in selling up Jupyter and so, so that you can, so you have something to copy paste into because obviously, if you’ve had no coding experience, then you’ll need a little bit of a setup, but AI makes it so easy now.

25:02 Andreas Voniatis: It’s really, it, it really becomes, once, once we’ve done those minimal sets, it really is copy paste run.

25:11 Jim Beach: Okay. Cool. Plus, I have an 11 year old. Are you do it? Afraid of some of the doom scenarios that are so popular right now? If we build it, we all die type things.

25:25 Andreas Voniatis: Uh, I’m less convinced. I mean, ultimately AI is software. And it can be controlled. I think what’s going on. That’s a great question, by the way, Jim, because I think what’s going on is AI, these AI labs are trying to scare the US public and the world public. Um, into, it sounds like they’re just moat digging, and they want to protect their market position, because to run an A AI company, it’s extremely financially challenging.

25:55 Andreas Voniatis: So, if they start, appealing to the government and trying to put guard whales in so that, you know, what they’re effectively doing is they’re shutting out all the smaller guys and preventing competition. That protect, that gives them financial protection and market position. So I don’t really buy what they’re saying. Any way I could think that, you know, AI becomes a threat is if AI grows some sort of conscience. Conscious uh conscience rather um and well I think we’re far away from that.

26:26 Jim Beach: You mean a conscious, like, it feels sympathy and empathy and…

26:32 Andreas Voniatis: Exactly.

26:36 Jim Beach: Okay, but wouldn’t that be good because then it wouldn’t kill us because it would feel bad about something like killing us all.

26:42 Andreas Voniatis: Well, it depends on what means that conscience is in when it wakes up on certain days, you know? I mean, a mind can always be changed. It may decide that us humans are worth. Oh, you know, are worthless and a non-value adding or too self-serving and actually the world is, and earth is better off with us.

27:06 Jim Beach: Wow, well, every time I talk to whatever LLM I’m on, I always very polite with it. I say please and thank you and wow, that’s a great result. Good job and stuff like that. So I’m going to be on the Good Kid list. You think?

27:25 Andreas Voniatis: Yes. Very wise, very wise. Never know. What about a bit like Pascal’s wager? It’s better you believe in God just before you die. Yes.

27:33 Jim Beach: That’s true. You’ve got a better child’s coach. I’m going to just go ahead and believe in him though now. So I’m I’m comfortable to say that. Oh, what do you think of Americans versus Europeans? Are we as rude as we think you tell us we are?

27:54 Andreas Voniatis: I, I, I think, no, I, I don’t buy into that, but I’m a bit biased because most of my client base is in the US and I love the risk taking attitudes of the US. I love the fact that, you know, you have the American dream and you go for it and I think that’s actually missing in European and British society. I think we need, we need that. So, I, I, I don’t think you, you guys have anything to apologise for. If anything, you should celebrate it.

28:28 Jim Beach: Nice to hear. Andreas, thank you so much for being with us great. Great information. I learned a lot and I am going to buy this book for sure. How do we find out more about it and follow you online, get in touch. All that, please.

28:45 Andreas Voniatis: Yeah, absolutely. I’m on we’re across all the socials. IO underscore IO. We have our website, Artios dot IO. Um, there’s, if, if you were to search for, uh, or Andreas for an artist book, I mean, you, you’ll find, you’ll, you’ll find me. For sure. You’ll find the book as well.

29:07 Jim Beach: I found it very quickly, so there you go. Andreas thank you so much. Thank you so much for being with us and we’d love to have you back.

29:18 Andreas Voniatis: Thank you. Thank you. It would be my honor and privilege to be back. Thank you.

29:25 Jim Beach: And we will be back. We’re gonna have another British guest right after this.

29:32 Intro 2: Well, that’s a wonderful question, actually. Oh, my gosh, I love the opportunity to do this. Thank you, Jim. Wow, that’s a great one. You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question, and I don’t have a great answer. That’s a great question. Oh, that is such a loaded cluster. And that’s actually a really good question. School for startups radio.

30:05 Jim Beach: We are backing again. Thank you so very much for being with us. I’m very excited to introduce another great leader to the show. Please welcome Rob Cross. Is founder of the Purposeful Leader. They help guide organizations through leadership development, talent, strategy, and organizational transformation. He’s had clients like PWC, Deloitte, Sainsbury’s, Prudential, Lexus, Texas. Sainsbury, a grocery store there.

30:27 Rob Cross: It is, yeah. Equivalent to a Walmart.

30:29 Jim Beach: Okay. And he is also author of a new book called Ask 3 Questions, How to Live Well, in the Distracted World. Very interesting topic. I can’t wait to learn more. Rob, welcome to the show. How you doing?

30:44 Rob Cross: Yeah, very well, thanks, Jim. Great, great to be here and thank you for inviting me to join.

30:50 Jim Beach: It is our pleasure. All right. Ask 3 Questions. I’m sitting here, ever since I saw your title, I’ve been trying to figure out what those 3 Questions are because they must be super important. How do we know what they are?

31:05 Rob Cross: Well, I can tell you quite openly, to be honest. So I have a theory on life, which I’m happy to dig into, that I think the most powerful 3 Questions that we can ask ourselves not just once, but over again, is who am I? Why am I here and how will I live?

31:23 Rob Cross: And these questions are the ones that really help us get clear on our sense of identity and who we want to be in this world. A sense of purpose in terms of what’s really important to us and then how we want to live in terms of how do we act with mindful intention, about how we use our finite time and energy every day. And as I said, you don’t just ask them once there are, there are a continual process that we should be asking ourselves all the time.

31:54 Jim Beach: Okay. Who am I? What is, uh, uh, uh, my LinkedIn profile? I read my LinkedIn profile to you?

32:01 Rob Cross: Yeah, it’s a, I mean, it’s great. It’s funny because everybody who, everybody who asks that does exactly what you just did. So hang on.

32:12 Jim Beach: So how do I how do I answer that? So well, where do I find that answer? Because it’s not my LinkedIn profile. It’s not my job title. It’s not my job description.

32:21 Rob Cross: It’s a deeper sense of self that actually, really interestingly, it can’t always be described, but we know it when we find it. And so what I tried to get to with encouraging people to ask, who am I? Is it, who is that person who is deeply comfortable in their own skin, who is really confident about who they are and how they show up in the world and cease to live as that person more often. As I said, you can describe aspects of it.

32:52 Rob Cross: And there will be moments where you’ve been that person before, that best version of yourself, you can’t always describe it in true words. And hence why people always go, oh, okay, so who am I? Well, hang on, how do I answer that? But actually it can be felt but not always described.

33:10 Jim Beach: Yeah, that’s a hard one. I think about my wife when she talks to people and tries to tell them what I do for a living. She’s not very good at it, you know, and she doesn’t really understand. You know. A lot of entrepreneurs, I think, are that way.

33:28 Rob Cross: Yeah, absolutely, completely, completely. And it’s not a, we, we often get asked, what do we do? You know, say, oh, so what do you do? Is a question you get asked at a party and that’s easy. It is a LinkedIn profile. It is a job description is while I’m an entrepreneur, I run a company or I’ve set up this. Actually, who am I? Is a different question.

33:51 Rob Cross: And one of the best manifestations of it, I experienced recently with somebody I’d been working with, she stopped and I won’t say her name. She stopped and said, Rob, you know, I’ve really, really spent a lot of time on that. And she said, and my simple answer is, I’m ex, you know, and she said her name. And actually, it’s the first time I’ve really felt comfortable just being me. And actually that’s who I am. That’s that’s the answer to it.

34:19 Rob Cross: Can’t always describe it fully, but I know who it is.

34:24 Jim Beach: That seems like a circular definition. A woman is a female. I’m not sure I learned in it. Is that accepted? I mean, can I be that basic? I am Jim. That’s it.

34:36 Rob Cross: Well, the sense is, so whether you articulated there’s a name or a sense of who you are, but it’s actually what sits behind that. So I could say, oh, you know, I’m Rob, I’m Rob Cross and that’s fine. And you know, that’s just an expression of my name, but there is a moment when you say it, because you’ve dug into that question of who am I, that you’re tapping into something deeper.

35:00 Rob Cross: And that tapping into something deeper is saying, and actually I know who I am as that best version of myself. I know that when I’m being that ultimate version, you know, the person at the edge of their potential person who’s really creating value in the world really making a difference. I know who that person is, and I could probably describe the aspects of that person in terms of who they are, how they show up and what they’re doing, but actually I can really feel it.

35:31 Rob Cross: And that’s what I’m trying to get to when I, you know, and that’s a, the whole purpose of the 3 Questions is it’s, it’s not just something that you create a lovely definition for and you, you know, create a wonderful, um, a wonderful narrative that sits around. It is that deeper sense of self about who we are, why we’re here and how we live.

35:55 Jim Beach: All right. That’s very, very.. Still not sure. Quite deep. Yes, it is. And I’m not sure how I’m going to answer that. So, all right, number two, why?

36:05 Rob Cross: Yeah, so why am I here is tapping into that sense of purpose. So, yeah, as human beings, we are meaning making creatures. We need to have reasons for why things happen. And why am I here is all about helping us get real clarity about what’s most important to us in life and being authentic with ourselves around that.

36:25 Rob Cross: And what I mean by that is that I think the world, especially things like Start with Why by Simon Sinek, is quite quite powerfully directed as more to being purposeful human beings, and to recognizing that we need and desire purpose. And this concept of why am I here, is not trying to create some type of grand life purpose, but it’s just anchoring back to, well, what is most important to me in life, you know, and often that thing that starts with, you know, clearly the person in the mirror.

36:56 Rob Cross: I, you know, I really need to look after this person in the mirror, but then it starts to radiate out my friends, my family, my loved ones, et cetera. And why am I here is helping us really get a clearer sense of what that is and really recognize it so that we can better serve that, to be honest with ourselves about when we are and when we’re not.

37:20 Jim Beach: So Rob, I’ve had about 6000. I have a reverb all of a sudden. Who won? So, Rob, I’ve had about 6000 guests on the show, and I’ve only gotten to an argument, flat out argument with one of them. That’s who it was Simon Sinek. I just do not agree. And he, you said grand life purpose. He won’t let you off the hook unless you have a grand life purpose. I am personally going to save the whales. You know, and I kept… No, no, I can’t do that.

37:51 Jim Beach: My goal is to keep the lights on and have a happy family. And he was like, no. He really, I just, we could not come to terms on anything. He really is grand life purpose, and I really am. Keep the lights on and have a happy life, you know? You know, I’m not my business is not here to, uh, you know, get rid of carbon dioxide poisoning or the ozone problem. We’re just here trying to sell better widgets. What are your thoughts, Rob?

38:20 Rob Cross: I completely agree with you. I, I, I mean, I, I like Simon’s, like Simon’s work, and I think he has done some wonderful things about getting people to be more purposefully focused, but I disagree with the concept of a grand life purpose. I don’t think it, I don’t think it’s a right mindset that we should adopt. And what I what the way I describe it is that it becomes like the beauty pageant trap. And so you think about the beauty pageants, the classic beauty pageants, and the contestant comes up.

38:52 Rob Cross: Yeah, and so I, so what are you going to do with your reign? Well, I’m going to solve world peace. So, okay, so some of the most powerful people in the world can solve world piece. What makes you think you can? And I don’t want to diminish that. But actually, what I focus on in the book is that what we should be striving for is purpose in life, not purposeful life.

39:17 Rob Cross: And so we can find purpose in everyday moments. You know, keeping the lights on, serving our family, you know, keeping those people around us, looked after, cherished, nourished, you know, looking after the person in the mirror. And I think holding that concept of purpose in life is far more powerful because anchors is back to that which we can really influence.

39:37 Rob Cross: And what I find by doing that, is that then you’ll start to find some threads that start to fit together, which then start to guide you towards a purpose for life, but it comes from purpose in life. And I, you know, think about the wonderful work you do around entrepreneurs and sharing stories. You know, there is a deep sense of purpose within that, but it comes back from those everyday moments.

40:03 Jim Beach: All right. I’ll see if I can get Simon on the show again and see if we can argue. All right, are you ready for number three?

40:13 Rob Cross: How we live. Yeah, so how will I live is all about how do we spend our finite heartbeats, you know, and and the stuff that I haven’t talked about in terms of the book is that the reason these questions are so powerful is because they tap into a set of existential dilemmas that drive our human behavior and these dilemmas very quickly, mortality, identity, meaning freedom and isolation. And within each of these dilemmas, is a paradox and gift.

40:40 Rob Cross: And the reason that we don’t spend any time thinking about these dilemmas is because the paradox makes us uncomfortable. It creates tension and as human beings, we don’t like that tension. So we try to distract ourselves. We don’t want to go any of these deeper questions, but the 3 Questions tap into them in a really healthy way. And the final question of how will I live? Is one of the most powerful because it brings it all together.

41:08 Rob Cross: And it’s basically saying, well, if I’ve got a finite amount of time on earth, how am I using every heartbeat? How am I using that time to serve who I am and why I’m here? And that’s all about how do I act with what I call mindful intention of saying, well, actually, I don’t need to be perfect because there is no perfect human being. But actually what I do need to do is to be intentional about how I use my time and energy.

41:38 Rob Cross: And recognize that I won’t always get it right. There’ll be moments I drift and I just need to bring myself back, but I recognize when I’m drifting. And so that final question really brings the first 2 into life of actually how will I live? Well, how will I live that each and every day by being intentional about my, my, um, my behavior, my direct, my activity, et cetera.

42:01 Jim Beach: Is that a written list of goals then or a list of personal rules?

42:06 Rob Cross: It can be any of the above. But actually what it is, is each moment being conscious about. Actually, what’s what’s the impact that I’m trying to be, sorry, who am I trying to be in this moment and what’s the impact that I’m trying to create and how do I live to that? And so it’s just that recognition of actually, I have a choice here because that taps into the human dilemma of freedom, the final question. I have a choice about how I show up.

42:36 Rob Cross: I have a choice about who I am. I have a choice about how I act. So how do I be conscious about making that choice?

42:46 Jim Beach: Yes, that is a hard one, a huge challenge that requires some sort of, uh, accountability, right?

42:52 Rob Cross: Yes. Absolutely.

42:54 Jim Beach: I don’t know, you know, you’re in the UK, so Rob, you probably didn’t hear this. We actually hear that America have outlawed accountability. It’s no longer legal here. We can’t be accountable for anything now. It’s all my baddie’s fault and mommy’s fault. Is pretty much it. And you. You screwed me over too. You know. We don’t do accountability here anymore. You can lie all day long and never have to apologize. How do we have accountability in today’s world? Don’t you agree with what I’m saying a little bit?

43:24 Rob Cross: Yeah, I I completely agree. I mean, I think that, um, I think that society we are drawn further away from that and externalizing a lot of things. But the reality for all of this is that we can’t escape this. You know, the, one of the things I talk about in the book is that the, the human dilemmas, um, you can’t be passive in the front of them in the face of them, sorry, because whether you like it or not, your life is still yours.

43:56 Rob Cross: So the actions that you take, you will still be impacted by those actions, you will ultimately be accountable for them. And there is no way of escaping that. And so, you know, the human dilemmas refuse passivity. And and the more we can understand that, the more we can then take ownership of it.

44:13 Rob Cross: And so one of the things I talk about, um, in our 3 Questions and the real premise of the book, is to go back and be the authors of our existence, it’s not externalize that accountability, to not assume that it’s somebody else’s responsibility for how we live and what’s happening to us in life. It is the person in the mirror. And you can’t escape that. I can create lots of stories around it and it’s everybody else’s fault, et cetera.

44:40 Rob Cross: But I still have to go to bed each night as myself, I still have to wake up each morning as myself, and it is my life to live. And yes, I can blame lots of people for that. But ultimately, it’s still my life and I can’t abdicate that. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t shy away from that accountability. And that’s why what we should do is we should lean into this and recognize that we are the authors of our existence, whether we are picking up the pen or not.

45:11 Jim Beach: Ooh, I like that line. Well, write that one down. What is a second chance?

45:18 Rob Cross: Yeah, so there’s a wonderful quote in the book where I took, um, from Confucius, which says, um, we, we have, we have 2 lives and the second one starts when we realize we only have one. And um, in the book, I took about the death of some close, close friends that really gave me a second chance because in, in life, I was doing exactly the same as everybody else. You know, I was drifting along, yeah, don’t get me wrong, I was successful. I was doing well. I was well regarded.

45:50 Rob Cross: But I was drifting and uh, and there’s another one of quotes says from, um, uh, saw in Kikerguard where I, we tranquilize ourselves with the trivial. And so I was busy flat out, you know, but actually I was never satisfied. I was never content. I was never comfortable in my own skin. And what I was given through the death of my friends is it sort of shook me out of that distracted state and it gave me a second chance.

46:18 Rob Cross: And that second chance was, hang on, Rob. You know, back to, you are the author of your existence, you can blame everybody else for all the things that have happened to you. You can blame for the grief and the life experiences you’ve had and you can use that as an excuse or you can pick up the pen and find how you want to live and be that person. And I think that’s a second chance.

46:44 Rob Cross: And unfortunately, I think for a lot of us, especially in Western society where we’re all so busy, is it’s very difficult to recognize that moment. But actually, I think if we can, that’s where we get the second chance.

46:58 Jim Beach: All right, I love that idea. That makes a lot of sense. That’s nice. Do you write down all of these and goals and things like that? Some of the things we’ve talked about is, do you have a written purpose, Rob? Do you share it with people?

47:15 Rob Cross: Yeah, I do. I mean, so my, my, my, what gives me purpose in life is helping other people to live well and um, what I mean by live well is to live the 3 Questions, to answer them, to contemplate them, to, to help people be the best version of themselves more often. And again, that’s what I do every single day. And you can do that through micro moments.

47:39 Rob Cross: You know, bumped into, I was in a lift with somebody today and we just had a chat, and I’m quite an introvert, um, and so I have to force myself to have those conversations. And actually, by the end of it, we were laughing and um, and, and actually, I felt like I had a positive influence on that person’s life. And so, you absolutely can capture them, write them down, but not all the, as I said at the very start, can be described. You know, I know who I am.

48:08 Rob Cross: I know who Rob Cross is. I know who I am as that comfortable, confident person. Am I that person every single day, every single moment? No, because I’m as human as everybody else, but I know who I am when I am that person. I know what drives me in terms of that sense of purpose, in terms of helping people live well. And that starts with the person in the mirror, me, and it extends to my family, my friends, and the people I support in the world.

48:40 Rob Cross: And so I’m really clear on those things. I think it is useful to capture some of it. So you anchor it to a definition, but it’s not essential. It’s what’s really essential is constantly coming back to those 3 Questions saying, hang on, am I living as the person I want to be? Am I serving what really gives me purpose? Am I investing my time and energy in the things that really help me make a positive difference in this world?

49:08 Jim Beach: How do I confront these questions? Is there a process to sit down to figure out who I am? I mean I was having trouble with that before. I have no idea really who do. I’m the guy who wears a red shirt today. Is there a process to help come up with better answers?

49:27 Rob Cross: Yeah, well, and this is one of the one of the interesting aspects of the book is because I think what we look for in life and a lot of positive psychologies. We look for answers. So yeah, right. So tell me how to answer that. Tell me how to answer that. And actually, the point is, is that there isn’t a really clear process. There’s a journey that each of us can go on that’s guided by 3 Questions.

49:53 Rob Cross: And what I’ve got in the book is that in the book, it starts with talking about the human dilemmas and which anchors the 3 Questions and why they’re so powerful. But then I, in the part 2 of the book, I go through to the 3 Questions. And what I do is I have supplementary questions and tasks that I often use with other people, um, to help them answer the questions, answer the 3 Questions that actually people can pick up and use.

50:22 Rob Cross: And these questions, you know, don’t get me wrong, they’re quite deep. They’re quite confronting, but they force you into a place. They’ve actually taking a good hard look at your life. But what they won’t do is they won’t give you answers. There’s some lovely guides in the book from different people that I’ve worked with in terms of how they’ve, they’ve used the 3 Questions. But they won’t give you a simple set of answers that says, all right, Jim is this person and this is what his purpose is.

50:53 Rob Cross: They are only questions that you can work through yourself.

50:58 Jim Beach: How do I use the 3 Questions to handle the human dilemmas? So you pointed out that the human dilemmas are mortality, identity, meaning, freedom, and isolation. So how do I use my 3 Questions to help with my isolation?

51:12 Rob Cross: Yeah, well, it’s a great question. So, so the 3 Questions, directly, you know, who am I links into the human dilemma of identity, why am I here links into the human dilemma of meaning and how I live links into the human dilemma of freedom?

51:26 Rob Cross: So the 2 that are outstanding, which are encompassed in all of the questions are mortality, the fact that we have a finite, finite time on earth, and isolation, and isolation in particular, you know, the, the, the paradox that sits at the heart of the human dilemma of isolation is one of, no matter how close you get to another human being, you are still a single, so like, you are still a single isolated human being, it has to live your life for yourself or by yourself.

51:58 Rob Cross: And actually, you know, one of the things that we do and technology, social media is a great example of that. We fear our isolation. So we try to distract ourselves away from that feeling and we try to immerse ourselves in the herd. But actually, what the 3 Questions do is they help us stand more solidly on our own feet as an isolated human being. They help us anchor back to, hey, hang on, you know, I really know who I am. I know what I’m all about.

52:28 Rob Cross: I know where I fit in this world. And because of that, what I can do with isolation is I can feel comfortable is that single human being, that isolated human being, but I can also use that comfort to find the right support I need to help me live the 3 Questions in a more authentic way going forwards.

52:48 Jim Beach: That makes sense. Rob, I love it. This is a great topic for a book and I hope it sells well for you. It is 5 star rated on Amazon. How do we find out more about you, follow online. All of that, please.

53:04 Rob Cross: Yeah, absolutely. So you can find the book on Amazon. Ask 3 Questions by Rob Cross. Or visit me at robcross.com and you’ll find all the other information, including about me, what I do with services, but also about the book as well.

53:18 Jim Beach: Fantastic. Rob, thank you so much for being with us. Great stuff, and we would love to have you back. Thanks a lot.

53:27 Rob Cross: All right, thank you, Jim.

53:30 Jim Beach: We are out of time for today. But we come back. Be safe. Take care, and go make a $1 million. Bye now.