November 11, 2026 – Be Better Jamie Turner and Illuminating Hidden Brilliance Tony Martignetti

00:04 Intro 1: In the AM, radio network, 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.

01:47 Jim Beach: He has spoken at over 200 conferences in 30 countries, obviously on all of the continents. He has appeared on CNN dozens of times, has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal Forbes. CNBC, Entrepreneur, has been hired by AT&T, Coca-Cola, CNN, Cartoon Network, Georgia Pacific Holiday Inn, Mercedes Benz. Microsoft, the list just goes on and on. He has written several books. It has a new one out that I think we’re all going to love learning about. Called Better. A guidebook to a new and improved you, science-based frameworks for mindset communications performance and leadership presence illustrated with examples. Jamie, welcome back to the show. How you doing?

02:23 Jamie Turner: I am doing great. Good to be here, boy. Intro was very kind of you, all of it accurate, but also a little overwhelming in my choice. Man, I’d forgotten all this stuff I’ve done. So it’s great to be here and I’m great to really happy to be able to share some insights and thoughts with your listeners.

02:43 Jim Beach: We do have an add-on service that I will follow you around and announce you as such every time you go into a new room.

02:53 Jamie Turner: Right That would be great.

02:54 Jim Beach: This is joy in the Atlanta restaurants, you know, and I can add on certain phrases too, like in the bedroom at night, world renowned lover. Jamie Turner in the house.

03:04 Jamie Turner: That is that’s great because that’s what I’m usually saying, so it’ll be great to have somebody else saying it too. So that’s wonderful.

03:13 Jim Beach: Right, to back it up. Tell me about better. Why was this book appropriate for this time?

03:19 Jamie Turner: Yeah, you know, I’ve always been interested in ways to improve yourself. And apparently, um, according to my late wife had, uh, spent too much time working on that because she was on her deathbed and we had a wonderful 23 year marriage and uh, I felt as though everything had gone great. She was on her deathbed. And this is in the in the introduction in the book. And she turned to me and said, you weren’t present in our marriage.

03:47 Jamie Turner: And that was, unfortunately, something that in that moment I was hearing for the first time, she must, she was a pretty good communicator, so she must have told it to me a number of times before, but to support her in her premise that I wasn’t present. I never heard it until she was ready to depart the planet. And so that rocked my world.

04:10 Jim Beach: I’m sorry to hear that. Did she have sunset disease?

04:13 Jamie Turner: Ah, she had uh, she had actually uh, uh, cancer and then uh, went through uh, a year of chemotherapy. He has a new one out that I think we’re all going to love learning about, called Better. And that didn’t work. And so when that didn’t work, we knew that we had, you know, 10, 12 months together. And that’s what happened. And unfortunately, uh, she passed it in her on her deathbed. In a way, was giving me a gift because she was basically saying, Don’t do this next time. Um, I was patient, I was here for you. I understood your ambition.

04:50 Jamie Turner: I knew why you were doing it, but don’t do it next time because you need to be present and there for the people who are in your life. And, uh, and so that was, uh, you know, in an odd way, something that I took away and said, okay, how can I turn that, uh, upsetting comment into something positive?

05:11 Jamie Turner: And what I did was write the book better, a guidebook to a new and improve you, which basically gives people a roadmap and the recipe for how to put together a life that they want to lead that is not only has the presence involved in it, but also has the ability to accomplish what you want. And so it’s basically a roadmap on how to do that.

05:34 Jim Beach: My mother had a stroke, and when she came out of the surgery, she was just mean as hell, which was so unlike her, and the doctor told us that she had sunset or sundown or some sort of sun.

05:48 Jamie Turner: Oh, really? Interesting.

05:49 Jim Beach: Yeah. Very, very sick people. Sometimes when they come out of surgery, something changes and the veil is unleashed and they say things that they would never have said. Before. So, Jamie, my mother told me—complained about the last time that my parents had had sex. She was just complaining. You know, I was like, mom, you know? Yeah, that is that all gone, you know?

06:12 Jamie Turner: Right, that’ll rock your world. Not in the best way either.

06:16 Jim Beach: Yeah. So I’m wondering if that’s what your wife had lost her veil, so to speak. That’s a horrible story, Jamie. I’m so sorry to have heard that. Didn’t know that story.

06:28 Jamie Turner: No, no, no. It’s all good. It’s in the book and part of the reason I share it is because I want to use it as a way to help people. And I reflected a long time on whether or not to share that story because because it is private.

06:45 Jamie Turner: I did talk to her surviving brother and sister and said, hey, I’m gonna thinking about opening the book with this story, and I just want to, you know, make sure you guys are okay with that before I do it, and they were fine with it, because it illustrates a key point, which is be present, be in the moment, live as much as you can in the moment so that you’re there for the people who are around you.

07:12 Jamie Turner: And that, again, goes full circle to the idea behind the book, which is there are, there’s a toolkit that you can use to put together things in your life so that they they work. And the toolkit is the ability to kind of figure that out. If you think about it, in the end, we all have thoughts and our thoughts come into our minds, then we can take action on those thoughts. So our thoughts lead to actions and our actions lead to the outcomes in our life.

07:43 Jamie Turner: And the only 2 things you can control in that equation are your thoughts and your actions, you kind of have to let go of the outcomes. But the book is about how to change the way you think about the world around you and then change your actions as a result of changing your thinking so that you can have better outcomes in your life. And that’s what the roadmap is in the book.

08:08 Jim Beach: All right, I have to assume that we need to start off with some sort of jetticing all of this baggage I have or the limiting beliefs I have or right? I mean, I’m not going to get better if I uh, still believe the things that I was taught in third grade, right? Mrs. Lee made it very clear that I was not a creative person.

08:31 Jamie Turner: And I had teachers, some of whom were negative, but many of whom were positive when in particular, Mrs. Wardlow, who was mentioned, in the book, who was the first teacher to believe in me, and I was the ADD kid who was bouncing off the walls, likable, but energetic, and Mrs. Wardlow was the first teacher that sat down and went, there’s something in you that is good and can help the world. You just need to be kind of wrangled in, which she did. But yeah, the on that on that note, those messages that we give ourselves, there’s 2 things to leave your listeners with.

09:08 Jamie Turner: One is you have to work on your mindset first and your skill set second. Most of us work on our skill set, but the truth is you have to work on your mindset first and your skill set second. And what I mean by that is you literally have to sit down and change the way you think about things. Optimism can be a choice. Uh, seeing, and I’m not talking about being a Pollyanna, by the way, I’m not saying that you should go around thinking everything is good.

09:40 Jamie Turner: Sometimes things suck, and that’s true, and you just, that’s okay, but you also can frame things up so that there is optimism behind them, or take the negative things that happen in your life and say, how am I going to turn this around and make it a positive thing? So mindset for a skill set second. And then the second thing, and I talk about this in the book as well, is the idea of your first line of code. And what that means is a software program can have a 1000000 lines of beautifully written, flawless code. If the first line is broken.

10:15 Jamie Turner: If the first line of code is flawed, the software program can never run, no matter how beautiful the rest of it is. And so as human beings, if our first line of code is, I’m not good enough, people don’t like me, I’m not good with numbers. Uh, I’m uh, 2 ADD to ever sit down and get anything done in my life. If that’s our first line of code, then that dictates our life and the beauty of us as human beings can never shine through.

10:46 Jamie Turner: So part of the book is talking about here is how to rewrite your first line of code and it gives you very specific techniques to do that. So that you can actually achieve what you’re capable of because you’re rewriting that first line of code. So in summary, you got to work on your mindset first, your skill set second, and then you’ve got to sit down and rewrite your first line of code so that it’s accurate and true, but also brings out the best in you.

11:16 Jim Beach: So how do I do that rewriting the first line of code? If I already believe that line of code and I’m fighting against it, how do I go in and change that code and what do I know to change it too? Is it a, um, an affirmation? I am popular and I have great hair.

11:36 Jamie Turner: Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s the accurate question, by the way, which is how do I do that? And the answer is, there is a way. You have neural pathways in your brain, and the neural pathways are built up from your experiences in third grade or my experience in fourth grade where I was on the bad team on dodgeball, and that got in my brain that I was a loser when it came to athleticism. And so you have to, you have to be aware of what that line of code is. So the first step is to figure out, what am I telling myself about myself?

12:14 Jamie Turner: And that that, when I do my workshops, I do that privately. I say, okay, everybody write down what your first line of code is. And we all have various first lines of code. I’m no good with numbers. I can’t, I can never handle my finances. My relationships never work out. Whatever that first line of code is, we all have them. Then you sit down and think, what is the what is the biggest first line of code that’s really holding me back? And what you have to do then is then rewire your neural pathways around that code.

12:48 Jamie Turner: And the way you do that is through a technique called EFT tapping, which is called emotional freedom technique tapping. And in the book, I talk about an adapted version of that, which is a simplified version of EFT tapping, but it’s where you take that thought that you’re having and literally change the thought to something true. That is rewiring your neural pathways. So if you’re thinking, um, I’m no good with numbers, uh, you have to tap on your collarbone vigorously.

13:18 Jamie Turner: Real hard, while you’re saying out loud, you can say something as simple as shift, shift, shift to get the neural pathways to change, or you can shift the neural pathways to something that is that you want to manifest or want to have become part of your life. So every morning right now, I’m writing down my affirmations and some people feel like affirmations are silly. They’re not. They actually work. But one of them this morning was, I am optimistic. I’m seeing the world, the bright side of the world. And so when you want to do this practice, just to recap, you have to recognize what your first line of code is.

13:57 Jamie Turner: What are you telling yourself that is holding you back? Then you have to come up with something that is accurate and real, that is different from that, that’s positive. And then you sit down and when you have the idea of, I’m whatever, the bad first line of code, you tap vigorously on your collarbone, and then start saying out loud what you want to shift your neural pathways to. And when you do those that exercise, literally, in your brain, you’re disrupting this pattern that’s been going on in your neural pathways since childhood, and you’re shifting it to something different. And it doesn’t work like magic.

14:34 Jamie Turner: It’s something you have to do that takes time. But when you literally do this, I can guarantee you, if you do it for 3 weeks or 4 weeks, you’re going to start seeing a change in your behavior and a change in how you feel about yourself and a change in how you move through life. And effectively, it’s a way to change the neural pathway so that you have the outcomes in your life you’re looking for.

15:01 Jim Beach: Oh, Jamie, you’re so close to saying the word of the day, like 8 times that I’m, I’m just, oh. You know, the word of the day you get a, uh, uh, what’s it called? Tesla. We always play for the Tesla, of course. And you’re just like one syllable away. 10 times.

15:20 Jamie Turner: I’m just on the edge.

15:22 Jim Beach: I, the idea that we can change our brain and make our brain better or different or improve despite what they told us, you know, you’re not going to get any smarter.

15:32 Jamie Turner: No, you can’t.

15:34 Jim Beach: And maybe you can’t get 20 IQ points better, but you can get 3 EQ points better and like yourself better. So we’ve been talking a lot now about what I tell myself, now, how do I use that to interact with others better, Jamie?

15:49 Jamie Turner: Yeah, the secret to interacting with others is to understand that, uh, human beings are all selfish, basically, and it’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing. We all love to think about ourselves and talk about ourselves. So when you are engaging with other people, What you’re trying to do is build a bridge of commonality between you and that other person. Um, and that bridge of commonality can be built doing a couple of techniques. One is first of all, be interested, not interesting. Sometimes we’ve heard that said before.

16:21 Jamie Turner: And that idea is when you are interested in somebody else, that is something that, as long as it’s genuine and you’re not faking it, they pick up on that, and that makes them feel good about themselves and about you, in particular, if you have genuine interest, everybody, it doesn’t matter who you talk to, everybody has something to offer that’s interesting or helpful to you. So you can ask them about their background about their family, about whatever it is, and you’ll learn something from them. The other technique that is part of that is actually looking into somebody’s left eye.

16:56 Jamie Turner: So you have your left hand in your right hand, your left eye is the one that’s nearest your left hand. And when you look into their left eye, there’s a person named Dr. Tara Swart who’s talked about how for evolutionary reasons, that actually triggers feelings of comfort and love in that person. And I won’t go into the details. It’s not that complex, but it’s basically based on when we were kids and our parents would be mostly looking into our left eye for a variety of reasons when they were feeding us a bottle.

17:29 Jamie Turner: But the bottom line is when you do that as an adult, you actually kind of build that bridge of commonality. And that helps you connect with that other person and have a better outcome in what it is you’re talking about.

17:43 Jim Beach: Okay, so the same half of the body that they wear their wedding ring on, we want to look in that eye.

17:51 Jamie Turner: Correct.

17:52 Jim Beach: Okay.

17:53 Jamie Turner: Yep.

17:54 Jim Beach: All right.

17:55 Jamie Turner: Yeah.

17:56 Jim Beach: I’m trying to sit here and imagine how a mother would breastfeed. And what I would get buried in the bosom and what I would be.

18:03 Jamie Turner: Yeah, right. Yeah.

18:04 Jim Beach: I think…

18:05 Jamie Turner: No, it’s actually it’s actually bottle feeding.

18:08 Jim Beach: I’m holding a baby imaginarily right now with my right hand. My left hand is supporting the head. The right eye is buried in the skin and the left eye is the exposed eye.

18:19 Jamie Turner: Yeah, the way it works and the premise from Dr. Swart is that 90% of the population is right handed, that when they when they feed a baby a bottle, they pick the bottle up with their right hand and hold the baby in their left arm. And so when the baby is in their left arm, when they look down at the baby to give it the bottle, the first eye they look at, is the left eye. And wet because that’s what they’re looking down at and they traditionally stomp at that and look at the baby’s left eye.

18:54 Jamie Turner: And so the baby associates being looked at in the left eye with comfort, love, food, happiness, joy. Um, It’s a premise. It’s a viable premise. I’ve not seen additional studies supporting that research or that premise, but I have tried it anecdotally. And it makes sense and at a minimum when I go in and at a checkout counter or at a hotel or at an airline and I’m looking at the person’s left eye, I tend to get better service and I think it’s because either the left eye thing or that I’m just looking at them with more focused attention and they pick up on that.

19:31 Jim Beach: Yeah.

19:32 Jamie Turner: Yeah.

19:33 Jim Beach: All right. Well, we’re going to have to rename you Jamie Leftey Turner.

19:37 Jamie Turner: Right.

19:38 Jim Beach: All right, so how do I use this to… Get my word out about me. Let’s get this a little bit back to entrepreneurship. How do I get my story out in the way I want the world to see it now that I’m better. I want my better is-ish on to spread to be seen and to influence others.

19:58 Jamie Turner: Yeah.

19:59 Jim Beach: Um, so how do you how do you spread that and have that go out?

20:03 Jamie Turner: Well, here’s an interesting thing. Um, And we’re about to get woo woo, but it actually turns out this is science-based. So what I’m about to say…

20:13 Jim Beach: More woo woo than left eye.

20:16 Jamie Turner: A lot more woo-woo. We’re about to go into the deep end of the pool. Um, The, uh, we’ve all sat in a room and uh, noticed when somebody walks into a room and they light not light up the room or they darken the room, you know, and you just feel their energy. Well, it turns out that’s actually a real thing, a recent study from MD Anderson. Went in and said they did actual energy work over cancer cells.

20:43 Jamie Turner: So they had cancer cells in mice and they had chemotherapy for half of the mice mouse population, and they had energy work, literally people holding their hands over the mice and projecting positive, healthy energy. Now, 90% of your audience right now is saying, oh, this is bullsh baloney. Sorry, I don’t know if I can say bad words on here, but you can you can bleep it out. And they’re sitting down and saying, well, this is just, you know, malarkey.

21:12 Jamie Turner: But M.D. Anderson actually did a study and they found that the energy work holding hands over cancer cells in mice worked every bit as well as the chemotherapy and reversing the cancer. I’ll say it again, holding your hands, putting positive energy over it, not touching the mice, but just putting that energy out there, worked equally well to the chemotherapy, except for the fact that it did not have the negative impact that chemotherapy has, which is the, uh, which is the, uh, yeah, which is all the bad stuff. So there’s evidence coming out now.

21:45 Jim Beach: Stronger than the drug.

21:47 Jamie Turner: Yeah, well, there’s also that. And that’s actually a different idea, but a relevant one, which is the mind is powerful. If you, the placebo effect, which is the effect of giving a sugar pill to somebody that’s not real medicine, actually works 20% of the time. Meaning the placebo works 20% of the time when you give somebody a fake pill, they feel cured 20% or they are cured 20% of the time. What that means is that the mind is so powerful that when you believe that you are actually taking real medicine, that the mind influences the body to the point where the body heals itself of whatever it is.

22:24 Jamie Turner: So there’s mind work, there’s energy work, and those are 2 separate things, but they’re related in the sense that there’s a lot going on. That we are just now scratching the surface of that’s amazing in terms of our ability to understand how it can impact our lives and the lives of people around us.

22:43 Jim Beach: Very, very true. Jamie, I heard you wanted to play our little game, the Quick 10.

22:49 Jamie Turner: I do. I can’t wait to do it. I ready.

22:53 Jim Beach: All right. Are you currently sober? I’m required by state law to ask.

22:59 Jamie Turner: I am currently sober.

23:00 Jim Beach: Okay, you don’t have to be. We just need to know. Do you want to go and change your sober status?

23:08 Jamie Turner: No, I’m good.

23:09 Jim Beach: We have statistically proven that if you are not sober, you do perform better on this little quiz, but anyway, do you want to accept the standard wager?

23:19 Jamie Turner: Yeah, which is what?

23:21 Jim Beach: The standard wager that everyone else accepted.

23:24 Jamie Turner: I don’t know what that is.

23:26 Jim Beach: So if you tell me, I clue earlier, I gave you a clue earlier, but you have to say yes to play. So just go ahead and say yes.

23:36 Jamie Turner: I will say yes to that. I’m still, I wrote down that I was very close to the word of the day and I’m still trying to figure out what the word of the day is because I want the Tesla.

23:51 Jim Beach: All right. Number one, your favorite creativity hack.

23:54 Jamie Turner: Definitely going for a run. I get my best ideas when I’m out for a long run.

24:01 Jim Beach: Number two. Favorite bootstrapping tricks.

24:03 Jamie Turner: Uh, creating business cards from your home printer. Get heavy card stock, create the cards, print them out, and exacto knife them out. I have done that when I’ve done my startups at various points, and I’m like, I just don’t have the money to go down and get a business card, and it works every time.

24:23 Jim Beach: Number three, name your top passions.

24:26 Jamie Turner: My children travel. Uh, meditation, uh, running, and then learning. I love to learn.

24:31 Jim Beach: Number four, the first 3 steps in starting a business are?

24:35 Jamie Turner: Ignoring the advice of others. And I had 3 different people at age 29, Tell me I was too young to start my first business. I ignored them and started it anyway and had a great run for 10 years. It was an amazing experience for me, and I’m glad I ignored their advice.

24:55 Jim Beach: Number five, the best way to get your first real customer is.

24:59 Jamie Turner: Understanding what it is they’re actually buying. They’re not buying when somebody goes to a Starbucks, they’re not buying coffee, they’re buying the experience. And so you have to understand what it is they’re actually buying.

25:12 Jim Beach: Number six, your dreamiest technology is.

25:14 Jamie Turner: Definitely an anti-gravity device.

25:16 Jim Beach: Number Seven, best entrepreneurial advice.

25:18 Jamie Turner: Uh, going back to what we talked about a minute ago, ignoring the advice of others. You just got to do it and trust your gut.

25:28 Jim Beach: Number eight, worst entrepreneurial mistake.

25:29 Jamie Turner: The opposite of that, taking advice of others.

25:32 Jim Beach: Number nine, your favorite entrepreneur and why?

25:35 Jamie Turner: Uh, I know that people have said Steve Jobs to you 100 times. I’m gonna say that Steve Jobs is actually the anti-hero of entrepreneurship. He was a brilliant man in a lot of ways, and not a very nice guy in others, sadly, because I used to be the biggest fan of Steve Jobs until I found out what he was really like behind the scenes, which was not very pleasant.

26:01 Jim Beach: Number 10, favorite superhero.

26:04 Jamie Turner: Wonder Woman. Uh, she’s smart, uh, has good values and uh, devotes her life to helping others.

26:10 Jim Beach: All right, we are calculating your score. I’ll just have it in a second. Did you run with Jeff Galloway here in Atlanta? Did you know him?

26:18 Jamie Turner: I remember him. Yeah, I years ago, I did something with Jeff, and I can’t remember what it was. I don’t know if I ran in one of his races or if I think he was maybe a sponsor of a race that I was doing for somebody. I can’t remember what it was. But yeah, there’s a tie there.

26:41 Jim Beach: Okay. Did you hear that he passed?

26:44 Jamie Turner: No, did he really?

26:45 Jim Beach: Yes. Very young.

26:47 Jamie Turner: Oh, wow, for him.

26:48 Jim Beach: And Saturday Night Live even made a joke about it in the weekend update. They made a joke about Jeff. And they didn’t say his name. They said the author of Run Walk Run, unfortunately, passed this week, he ran, walk, ran into a bus or something like that. And it wasn’t a funny joke and they didn’t acknowledge who it was, but it was obviously a Jeff Galloway joke.

27:13 Jamie Turner: Wow. Interesting. Wow. But what a positive legacy he’s left, though. I mean, you know, he did so much on that.

27:22 Jim Beach: Yeah, yeah.

27:23 Jamie Turner: Oh, wow, that’s amazing.

27:24 Jim Beach: I did not know that Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ve just been giving your score. I am devastated. Oh, this is so sad. You got a 94, which is an excellent score, but you have to have a 95 to win. Apparently one of the judges dinged you. I don’t know who it was, but you owe us a Tesla. We always play for a Tesla, and the word of the day is always neuroplasticity, and I have a Tesla right clear that I was ready to give you.

27:56 Jim Beach: So, uh, you recover from that, why don’t you give us your URL how to get in touch with you, how to find more and how to get a copy of the book?

28:08 Jamie Turner: No, that is very that is very nice. Yeah, neuroplasticity is usually in the vocabulary, pretty friend present. Uh, yeah. You can just Google me. My name is Jamie Turner. I’m an author, an Emory University lecturer, and a speaker. I go around the globe talking about how to become a better version of yourself. The book is called Better, a Guidebook to a new and Improved. It’s available everywhere, easiest places online. Just go track it down online and it’ll be delivered right to your doorstep. And I just really appreciate you having me on. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you and I’m really grateful that you asked me on.

28:51 Jim Beach: Well, thank you so much for being on. Great, great information. I hope the book sells well and we’d love to have you back quicker this time. That’s another 10 years, and no pandemic in the middle this time.

29:05 Jamie Turner: That sounds great, my friend. Count me in.

29:08 Jim Beach: And we will be right back.

29:15 Unidentified Promo Voice: Well, that’s a wonderful question, actually.

29:17 Unidentified Promo Voice: Oh, my gosh, I love the opportunity to do this.

29:20 Unidentified Promo Voice: Thank you, Jim.

29:21 Unidentified Promo Voice: Wow, that’s a great one.

29:22 Unidentified Promo Voice: You know, that is a phenomenal question.

29:24 Unidentified Promo Voice: That’s a great question.

29:26 Unidentified Promo Voice: And I don’t have a great answer.

29:27 Unidentified Promo Voice: That’s a great question.

29:29 Unidentified Promo Voice: Oh, that is such a loaded question.

29:31 Unidentified Promo Voice: Yeah, that’s actually a really good question.

29:33 Announcer: School for Startups Radio.

29:46 Jim Beach: Hey, he is a leadership and workplace culture expert who helps leaders navigate complexity without losing themselves in the process. He’s got 30 years of experience doing this. He is the chief illumination officer at a company called Inspired Purpose Partners. They design transformational experiences that unlock multidimensional leadership. I don’t know what that is. We learn from him. Tony has released 3 very successful books. Uh, two, uh, one was called Climbing the Right Mountain. That makes a lot of sense. And also campfire lessons for leaders. He has a third book out now, and we will talk about that in a minute. He is also the host of the Virtual Campfire podcast.

30:24 Jim Beach: The new book is Illuminating Hidden Brilliance, the power of multidimensional leadership in a one-dimensional world. Tony, welcome to the show. How you doing?

30:32 Tony Martignetti: I’m doing great, and thank you so much for having me on.

30:35 Jim Beach: It is my pleasure. Absolutely fascinating career. Has it changed over the 30 years, the type help that you need to give companies in terms of culture and leadership?

30:45 Tony Martignetti: Absolutely. You know, people are gone through a lot of seismic changes. You think back to, uh, that thing that’s off in the distance, the pandemic, uh, how people have shifted and changes, how they look at themselves, and and now with AI, uh, we are dealing with another seismic change of how we look at the workplace. And if you even go further back, um, you know, how do we deal with things like, you know, the uh, the tech boom and the boom and bust of all the things that have happened along the way. So we’re always navigating massive changes in the workplace and in the world.

31:21 Tony Martignetti: And I think the key thing is how do we stay sane and how do we navigate uncertainty in that process?

31:27 Jim Beach: Yes. So we’re in the second day of the Russia scare. Do you think that this by the time this airs, we’ll know how it played out? Tony, we think that this Russia thing is just the news wanting to have another plague?

31:41 Tony Martignetti: Yeah, I mean, we’re going to be constantly, you know, bombarded with these news things that, you know, that have us worried and, you know, should we be worried? Yeah, of course we should. I mean I don’t think we should be blind to this. And one of the things that I always, uh, come back to, and this comes from my business background, which is, you know, we take calculated and I call measured risk. Um, you know, don’t don’t panic, but we need to be careful about the things we’re doing.

32:10 Tony Martignetti: We don’t want to put a lot of things on the table that put us at risk that causes us to panic and create paths we can’t come back from.

32:20 Jim Beach: Yeah?

32:21 Tony Martignetti: And so I think what we need to do is be cautious, but optimistic at the same time.

32:26 Jim Beach: Yes. All right, let’s talk about the important thing. The book. Tell me about your new book, Illuminating Hidden Brilliance. I can’t wait to hear who has hidden brilliance, but let’s start.

32:36 Tony Martignetti: Yeah, well, so I’ll start by saying everybody. Everybody has hidden brilliance.

32:41 Jim Beach: I think mine is just a bad odor. I think mine’s what you would call an odor, not a brilliance. You know what I mean, though? I’m already not all of us have a brilliance.

32:52 Tony Martignetti: Well, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, uh, gonna challenge you on that. And I think the reason why is, you know, so here’s what here’s where the concept comes into play. You know, along the way, um, especially early days of our career, we’re in this mode of achievement, we, we maniacally focus on doing the things that get us promoted and uh, and get us further in our career. You know, we’ve got a title in mind that we’re moving towards, at least, I should say, most of us do. And so what happens is we put blinders on to what’s outside of that.

33:26 Tony Martignetti: Um, oftentimes we’re just so focused that it becomes the path to uh, what people like to see for me and not what I want for myself. Um, and, you know, you go, you go, and often, um, that reward is becomes almost like a Pavlovian effect, um, where you just continually see, what is it that, um, will get me liked and, you know, get me likes on social media, if you will. Um, and eventually you find yourself at this stage of collecting law season experiences and then feel like, do I like myself? Do I like, do I feel fulfilled in the work that I’m doing?

34:00 Tony Martignetti: And what if I set aside along the way, to become successful in this one lane of achievement. And then you enter a new mode. I call it integration mode, where you start to think about, what are the other parts of me that I sidelined to be successful? And now maybe it’s time to invite them back into the room. Because, Let’s just think about AI for a moment. AI starts to become like this looming threat, and also an opportunity, where it says, okay, well now I can come in and if you’re in finance, let’s use that as an example.

34:34 Tony Martignetti: You know, finance might be saying like, wow, this thing can do models like I could do, um, and it’s taking my job. Well, maybe now your job is to see what did you sideline that can be brought back into the room that can give you more opportunities to add value beyond just doing models or, you know, creating spreadsheets. So I’ll pause for a moment and just say, you know, A, does that resonate with you? Can you hear what I’m putting out there?

35:01 Jim Beach: Yes, I do. I understand that entirely. That makes a lot of sense to me. Uh, do you buy into the doom possibilities of AI? I had a recent guest who said the doom possibilities are exactly 0% and that it’s all just hype. All just media hype. What are your thoughts?

35:17 Tony Martignetti: Well, my p(doom) factor is probably around 20%. Um, so I do, uh, I do believe there’s… They call it the P Doom, which is basically like your probability of doom. Um, as uh, as…

35:30 Jim Beach: Probability of peeing your pants.

35:31 Tony Martignetti: No, no, not.

35:32 Jim Beach: Yeah, you’re clutching, clenching, you know?

35:34 Tony Martignetti: Yeah. They, they, they, you know, the people who are, who are factoring all this in there trying to say, like, what is your probability of what you think the doom will be? I, I don’t put it in zero, but I’m not necessarily got to put it at 100. And I, the reason why is because I think it depends on how we start to take agency over all of this. And also who is driving the train. And I think right now, the driving the train element is what we need to be concerned about, not the doom itself.

36:07 Tony Martignetti: Um, and so for me, I’m an optimistic about, you know, how we can take control. And I think it starts with each person taking their own ownership of how they use it. Yeah?

36:17 Jim Beach: I like that. All right, let’s dive back into the book. The power of multidimensional leadership. What is multidimensional leadership.

36:25 Tony Martignetti: Yeah, multidimensional leadership is bringing more of yourself more dimensions of yourself into the room and accessing it when you need it. It’s not bringing on the dimensionality, meaning everything all at once, all the time. It’s about choosing what parts can be used to solve the problems that are in front of you and knowing that you have it, which is important. Um, and what I, I’ll just give you a, you know, example of the dimensions. So I’ve worked with clients along the way and some of them, you know, when I asked them the question of almost the last time you felt most alive.

36:59 Tony Martignetti: Uh, they sometimes start with a look of quiz, you know, looking quizzically at me like, what do you mean by that? Um, they start to come back and saying, well, it wasn’t at work. And I’m like, okay, say more. They’ll share things like, well, last time I felt live was when I was dancing or or creating art or doing something that was tangential to their main work. And then I’ll ask someone, it’s like, what happens when you invite that element of yourself into the work you do? What would it do? How would it inform the word you do?

37:32 Tony Martignetti: So they they find ways to bring that neural pathway they created outside of work. And bring it into the workplace. So as a dancer, just using that as an example, you know, how does your embodiment of movement and choreography help you think differently about your leadership presence, how you use the room and how you understand people. How can that inform your leadership? And oftentimes it’s just sitting there in the background. You don’t even know it until you give people permission to think about it. It’s even more powerful when you look at it from a team dynamic.

38:05 Tony Martignetti: When people start to see, Oh my gosh, I didn’t know that you had this part of yourself that you didn’t share. That that only doesn’t only foster connection for that person seeing them, but also gives the whole team a whole new set of tools to access.

38:20 Jim Beach: Yeah. How do we cram the multidimensions into that one dimension world?

38:24 Tony Martignetti: Yeah. I mean, I’d love that you say that because when I think about one dimensional, it’s not like I’m trying to say like all the workplace is so broken that we don’t have access to this, but I think what happens is companies hire people for titles, and then they forget that these people have other things. And I’ve started to think about this as what I call the dormancy tax. We pay a tax for people not expressing more of themselves in their work. And so we’re only getting like 20% of the person and leaving the rest of it behind.

38:57 Tony Martignetti: And so if we allow them to see more of who they are, by asking questions, exploring together, and really allowing them to do it not just as an individual, but doing it as more of a team dynamic, what happens is we’re accessing more of that person. So maybe we’re getting 60, 80, maybe even 100% of that person in the room, and that gets us leverage, which is the business term we’re always looking for, right?

39:21 Jim Beach: How does… Is it good leverage or bad leverage? What do you mean by leverage?

39:26 Tony Martignetti: Yes. Okay, great. So, uh, come back to the the, the oldest, um, uh, the oldest reference of leverage is Archimedes and using his lever to move the rock up the hill. You know, if you want to move something that is really hard to move, you find way a better place to move it. And the best place to move it is to find the easiest path. And the easiest path is to look at, you know, where, why are we making it harder on ourselves? Why are you making it harder by only lifting with only 20% of the effort?

39:59 Tony Martignetti: Um, you know, instead, we can find more ways to build momentum by finding leverage in the people who we already have. This is especially important for small companies. So you hire a team of 10, but you’re only getting the effort of maybe five. Um, but if you want the effort of all 10, what you need to do is find out who on this team maybe has a background in doing something like, you know, building websites. If you don’t have a website, but developer. Maybe that person has a hobby of building websites.

40:30 Tony Martignetti: And you find ways to access that capability within the people on the team by finding out more about them.

40:37 Jim Beach: So 2 things come to mind, I want to get your thoughts on. There’s a dentist locally here in North Atlanta, so serves the suburbs, and he’s a young Asian guy, and he’s a big surfer. You know, we have a huge surfing community here in Georgia. Um, I’m totally lying. Made that up. There’s 0 filthy community here in Georgia. But anyway, he is the surfing dentist and he has surfboards all over his office and he wears a Hawaiian shirt when he does his dentistry and stuff. And everyone knows him now is the surfing dentist. And I think that his probably doubled his business since he came out with that.

41:13 Jim Beach: And then I think of Richard Branson and all of his efforts to build an airplane that’s going to fly around the world on beer or something. I don’t know what he did last, you know, solar power or whatever it was. But you think of all of those tricks that he did, all of his stunts as amazing marketing for Virgin. What are your thoughts on those 2 ideas or those 2 people?

41:37 Tony Martignetti: Well, when you started talking about surfing in Georgia, I was like, oh, I had no idea, but, you know, now that I know you’re lying, I was like, okay. Um, but what you’re into…

41:48 Jim Beach: A lot of really goes on on this show, Tony, which is a total free zone. Lie as much as you want.

41:56 Tony Martignetti: Well, I won’t be doing any line here. The, uh, I will say that you call it marketing stunts about the Richard Branson, and I say, you know, because that is something that, um, sure, it may sound like marketing, but if you dig a little deeper and you look at the truth of what that might look like, it may be that they’re bringing some of those elements into how they show up. And, um, it depends on how truly embodied they are. And that’s why I talk about integration, integration is the key thing of all this.

42:26 Tony Martignetti: If you’re just kind of saying like, Oh yeah, I’m a surfer and I’m a dentist, then that’s just like 2 and 2 different parts of who you are. But how can you bring the principles of surfing into how you serve as a dentist? That is the difference maker. And it’s really thinking about how does it inform the work? And that is the work that I am really out there doing with people, is finding ways to get them to discover that hidden element, that hidden brilliance, but also how do you create the path to make it something meaningful and embody it in your work.

43:01 Tony Martignetti: And that’s the framework that I created in my latest book. I call it the illumination framework, which is really about discovering, distilling, designing around.

43:09 Jim Beach: And a lot of this is, I have to bring this up is, in my thought, at least, very Christian oriented, certainly part of the New Testament is that every every individual has something unique about them, whether they view it or not. And I think the teaching on that has been very clear. We are all unique in God’s eyes. And so, taking that aside, in particular for someone who’s not religious and doesn’t believe that, it hasn’t been taught that since they were a child, how do I go in and find my inner brilliance?

43:40 Jim Beach: Because I’m sure my third grade teacher was very adamant that I have nothing special about myself and no hidden brilliance?

43:47 Tony Martignetti: I love it. I love it. Well, I love this, and this is a great opportunity for us to share how this works. And it’s interesting you mentioned about, you know, your Christian upbringing. One of my clients, um, that was one of his gifts that he had hidden from a lot of people. He was a physician who used to be a pastor in Nigeria. And that became something that we really unearthed as one of the things that he’d never really brought to his work. Because, I mean, where does spirituality really fit into, uh, into medicine and of course it does, um, but people never see the connection.

44:23 Tony Martignetti: So, let’s get back to you. Um, so, when I think about you, like, if I were to ask the question, you know, really directly right now is to say, you know, when do you feel most alive in your work and in your life? Um, if you look back to, you know, even if it went back to childhood. When was the last time you felt most yourself most alive?

44:46 Jim Beach: See, I had a very negative response when you said that. The first thing that came to my mind when did I feel the most alive was, um, a horrible thing that happened 8 years ago was the very first thing that came to mind. And that’s because I’ve had huge ups, Tony and huge downs in my career. You know, I’ve had the corporate bankruptcy with $150,000 in debt and, you know, I’ve sat next to Tony Robbins at Star Wars world premieres and stuff, you know?

45:13 Jim Beach: So I’ve had the huge ups and the huge downs, dinner with Obama in the White House for Christmas, you know, and then you know, the huge ups and the huge downs. The first thing that came to my mind when I felt the most alive was that negative thing 8 years ago, what does that say about me?

45:32 Tony Martignetti: Yeah, well, actually, it says that you’re really good at writing emotional waves and being able to, you know, see the range of emotions and know that, um, that life is going to be on this continuum, that you can have your high highs and your low lows. It’s something that reminds me of the quote that I always come back to, which is, if you’re willing to feel everything, you can have anything. Um, which I think is something that you viscerally have experienced. But you still keep a great attitude about it.

46:02 Tony Martignetti: And if I think about that might be part of your brilliance, whether it’s an identity that you carry or not, it’s something that you bring into your work and into this show right now, which is to say, you keep the levity, even though you’ve been on the spectrum of the many emotions that life has given you.

46:21 Jim Beach: The spectrum. Maybe that’s where I live. Maybe that work has a lot more meaning than you thought, Tony.

46:28 Tony Martignetti: There you go, right?

46:29 Jim Beach: Well, I don’t want to leave the readers dangling. I hate when people do that. And so I’ll tell you what happened 8 years ago. I came out of the radio room, and there were 2 guys standing in my kitchen, and they had search warrants for the house, and I looked out in the backyard, and there were 8 stunned, and our policeman in our backyard. They had the big guns out and I looked in the front yard and there were the police. I think maybe 15 cars.

46:57 Jim Beach: The ambulance was there because of course there was going to be a shootout and the fire department was there because of course I was going to set my house on fire. And, uh, you know, I was the target of a federal investigation. And so that is what I’m referring to. And I’ve talked about it before on the show. I’ve done whole shows on it, for fact. So, um, No, I don’t know. Anyway, just not to let the readers dangle. That’s what happened.

47:26 Tony Martignetti: Yeah.

47:27 Jim Beach: Where do we go from there, Tony? We only have a back. So here’s what we need to do. What have we not talked about that we need to talk about, not your URL and that kind of stuff, but still content. We’re not done yet, but what’s the one thing we’ve missed?

47:42 Tony Martignetti: So I would like to continue just to kind of show you how to take what you’ve just sent Earth and say, and go to the next stage, which is to say, how has all of what you’ve learned about navigating through your life and the things that you’ve seen? How can how does that inform the work you do now?

48:03 Jim Beach: Well, I think it makes me obsessive about work because of work is the only place where you can escape something like that. Um, I have found. And so whenever I’m down, I work. And because of that, I’ve been, I’ve been pretty down recently and I’ve been amazingly productive, amazingly productive. Um, So, and then the other thing is to get a pet. You have to have a pet. Um, when you’re depressed.

48:26 Tony Martignetti: I agree.

48:28 Jim Beach: So, um, and I think a dog is better than a cat, but, um,

48:32 Tony Martignetti: You’re gonna start some wars here, my friend. I’m a dog person, but I know there’s probably a bunch of cat and cat people out there too.

48:41 Jim Beach: Yes, I’m I had a bad dog thing as a child, and it took me decades to get over that, and I am probably more of a dog person now, though. I have cats at the moment. Um, but anyway. Tony, PETA, PETA, officially named my pets, the best named pets in America. Their names are better than any other pets in America. PETA said so.

49:02 Tony Martignetti: What are they?

49:04 Jim Beach: Well, the last name is Beach, right? And a lot of things go with beach. So we had Sunny Beach, Wavy Beach, Ripley, and then clothing optional, black sand, which is shortened to BS Beach. It just goes on and on. Clothing optional is CO. So Cleo would be clothing optional, a good name for that. You know, just a lot of things go with beach. So, uh, I was loved about the last name. Guess.

49:28 Tony Martignetti: That’s amazing. I love it. It’s great. Like I said, this is exactly why you do this work. It’s like you bring this levity that helps people to feel good about the way they’re navigating their lives because we need some, We need some humor around your own, uh, the crazy. Learning entrepreneurship.

49:45 Jim Beach: Yeah. So, I try to, uh, goofballish because uh, otherwise why the hell would you listen?

49:50 Tony Martignetti: Yeah.

49:52 Jim Beach: I was a college professor for 10 years teaching mainly 18 and 19 year olds or 2.5 hour nonstop classes. And if you can entertain an 18 year old for 2.5 hours without a break. You can do anything, I’ve learned. So… How do we find out more about you? Follow you online, get a copy of the 3 books. Most importantly, the hidden brilliance.

50:12 Tony Martignetti: Yeah, the best place to find me is on my website. It’s tonymspeaks.com, and you can find my podcast, my books, and all of that. Um, I will be thrilled to see people get the new book. It’s coming out November 10th. It’s uh that’s the date it’s coming out. And um, and the other place you…

50:31 Jim Beach: Yes, yesterday.

50:32 Tony Martignetti: Um, and the other thing I’ll mention is you can also find me, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn, always sharing the things to help serve people and get them to uplevel their thinking. So that’s that. And if we have time, I’d love to play a round of questions, but if you don’t, no worries.

50:49 Jim Beach: A Quick 10? You have a Quick 10. Let’s do that separately, okay? So we’re gonna say goodbye now and invite you to the Quick 10 separately, okay?

50:58 Tony Martignetti: Sounds great.

51:00 Jim Beach: Bye now. And please welcome Tony Martignetti, better the first time. To the show, he’s going to play the Quick 10. Welcome, Tony. How you doing?

51:09 Tony Martignetti: I’m doing great Thank you so much.

51:12 Jim Beach: Thank you. I hear you want to play the game, the quick or play our game, the quick ten. Are you currently sober? We are required by state law to ask.

51:24 Tony Martignetti: I’m sorry.

51:25 Jim Beach: Okay, do you want to accept the standard wager?

51:28 Tony Martignetti: I do. I do accept it.

51:30 Jim Beach: There you go. I love the attitude. All right, number one, your favorite creativity hack.

51:36 Tony Martignetti: Change the room. Yeah, I get my best ideas at the glassblowing bench or at a museum, never at my desk.

51:44 Jim Beach: Number two, favorite bootstrapping trick.

51:45 Tony Martignetti: Find out what your people are good at and what they aren’t paid for and find capacity for them to be able to bring it to Earth.

51:55 Jim Beach: Number three, name your top passions.

51:57 Tony Martignetti: Glassblowing, mountains, music, museums, and watching someone realize they’re more than their job title.

52:02 Jim Beach: Number four, the first 3 steps in starting a business are…

52:07 Tony Martignetti: Name the problem. You can’t stop thinking about. Find one person who has it and build only what that person asks for.

52:15 Jim Beach: Number five, the best way to get your first real customer is…

52:20 Tony Martignetti: Solve their problem before you before you charge them for it and let them tell you, tell to tell someone else.

52:27 Jim Beach: Number six, your dreamiest technology is.

52:30 Tony Martignetti: Anything that gives me back an hour of attention instead of stealing it away.

52:34 Jim Beach: Number seven, your best entrepreneurial advice.

52:37 Tony Martignetti: You can’t force a wave. You have to read it, wait for it, and commit.

52:42 Jim Beach: Number eight, worst entrepreneurial mistake.

52:44 Tony Martignetti: Spending 30 years becoming excellent at one dimension of myself and calling it a career.

52:50 Jim Beach: Number nine, favorite entrepreneur and why?

52:53 Tony Martignetti: Oh, goodness. My favorite entrepreneur is um… I can’t think right now. Uh, favorite entrepreneur is probably Anthony Bourdain. Just because I love the way he navigated the world and he did create a business.

53:05 Jim Beach: All right, fantastic answers. While we calculate the score and find out the winner of the wager, how do we get in touch with you and get a copy of the hidden dimensions book.

53:18 Tony Martignetti: You can check me out at tonymspeaks.com, and that’s the, that’s the best spot.

53:23 Jim Beach: Fantastic. I’m just kind of waiting. Oh, oh, Tony, I am so sorry. You got a 94, which is an excellent score, but you have to have a 95 to win. I don’t know what happened for you. And so you owe us a Tesla. We always play for a Tesla.

53:42 Tony Martignetti: I look forward to that.

53:44 Jim Beach: I love it.

53:45 Tony Martignetti: It’s on its way.

53:47 Jim Beach: Thank you so much.

53:48 Tony Martignetti: I appreciate it, Jim.

53:50 Jim Beach: And we will be right back.