Jeff Smith — The 11 Steps To Success And Finding Your Purpose

what's your dream what's your goal what's your motivation what's important to you what's your passion what can you do to change the world this is what's involved conversations with thought leaders and change makers from around the world hear stories of hope and inspiration to help motivate people like you to live your life find your passion and live your dream together we can all bring positive change to our world now here's your host David Watts and once forward is what's involved special guests today as always he is why it's a fascinating gentleman he's done a lot of a lot of things in his life but we'll get into all of that let me first introduce him my guest today is Jeff Smith hello Jeff hey David how are you today I am always exceptionally well especially when I get to talk to people that I find interesting and fascinating and that I know will give some great value to to my listeners so let's start off right at the very beginning if we can who is Jeff Smith where did Jeff Smith come along from and where is he now Wow that's a big question well I was born at a very early age yeah so I had wonderful parents I live in the UK I still live in the UK wonderful parents very loving treated me well I went to school and I really wasn't interested for my parents point of view I mean I'm a parent I have two kids and when we were putting our kids through school I tried to be the best mentor I could be to my kids and to help them with all of those things my parents were not mentors to me they just got me ready sent me off to school and when I came back there was food on the table and that that was it there was never discussions about school well what happened is that I took up music from the age of about nine and I was a keyboard player and my only interest in life was playing music I was not interested in school and of course my parents were interested in me playing music so that was the priority of my life at the time as a result of that really I was lazy I wasn't stupid or anything I was just lazy at school I had no interest and I just wanted to play music so I came through school finished school I failed maths failed English and here I am the author of the best-selling book in the world on a book about mathematics which is quite incredible really so what I'd like to share today is how on earth did that transformation happen from being let me say lazy little education to come on to write a book and be on record as the most successful author in the world how did it happen so what happened I left school and like many people in my area at the time couldn't afford University or anything like that it was never on the radar for me and but I secured an apprenticeship and the factory that I used to work at was 10 miles away so I got on my my bicycle rain wind snow cycle to work works all day cycled back and I thought that would be it for my life the bat of course I'm playing music and my life began to change on my parents 25th wedding anniversary so I'd be about 16 years old it was my mum dad's 25th wedding anniversary and they decided to hold a party so they hired a club they hired a band which you could do at that time and invited people from their work and there was about 200 people there and there's a song called the anniversary waltz if I play the anniversary waltz for my mum dad and the guy the band leader said wow and I'm 16 and I looked about 12 looking kid so excuse me so I said yes sure and then what do you want to play I said I'll play the keyboards and he said do you want the rest of the band on and I said no just the drummer will be fine thank you so he said okay here's what we'll do after the break to the dance floor for the anniversary waltz and then I'll say but the band are not going to play the anniversary waltz it will be Jeff and then you walk on stage the band walks off all apart from the drummer and then you play the anniversary waltz for your mum and dad how's that I mean yeah that'll be great you know I'm nervous it was wow I'd never been on stage before or anything like that so my stomach was churning all of these things so that happened the bad news yeah I come on little of the dance floor and of course emotional tears in their eyes I start playing they dance they're hugging each other and then the dance floor fills so it was a wonderful time a wonderful event in my life I finished came off stage and that guy came over to me and he said wow you're a fantastic player how old are you I think I was 16 at the time 17 and he said how good will you be when you're 26 27 and I said I don't know I just love music and he said I'd like to give you some gigs I'd like you to play in some clubs and things like that how would you like that and I said I don't think so now let me put this into context now I used to cycle to work on my bicycle work all day cycle back and I used to get paid seven pounds ninety-one per week that's about ten dollars ten US dollars so this guy said I'll give you some gigs to play during the week I'll start you off with three nights and then I'll pay you 40 pounds a night that's like 55 $60 it's like times three so I think right give me a nanosecond to think about that so my dad came over he saw this conversation going on and I explained what had happened and he said well you can do that but what I suggest you do is continue and finish your apprenticeship get your proper qualification and then you can decide whether you want to stay in engineering or go into music full-time that will be up to you so that's what I did and what happened I used to play in nightclubs because about that time CDs were not invented backing tracks were not available so as a cabaret artist if you wanted to sing or perform on stage you needed live music so I used to sight read so I was the live musician so I did that during the day I got qualified as the engineer and then I gave it up and I became a professional musician I then had a job during the day of selling organs pianos keyboards guitars and in a music store and one day a guy came in so now I'm about 18 years old 1978 a guy came in and he arrived at the front of the store and he's black 9/11 you know and I'm looking at this and thinking wow now to put this into context also I would not say we were poor because I think that's a state of mind we were broke that's just that's a state of pockets right so this guy pulls up in this Porsche 9/11 and wow my dream car and then he walks towards me he's coming into the store Wow fantastic so a long story short he comes in and he buys this latest technology keyboard organ which was 4,000 pounds let me put that into context the house that we were living in was 2,000 pounds owned by the state and my parents used to pay rent because we couldn't afford to buy the house at 2,000 pounds and here's this guy in a Porsche 9/11 walks in and buys this state-of-the-art piece of equipment for 4,000 pounds and it's wow so this guy he says to me a special request for you Jeff I'd like you to deliver this to my home on Monday it was a Thursday at the time deliver it on Monday deliver it to my home and I want you to play it in my house for me which is not an unusual request so I said yes that's no problem but we need cleared funds before that happens he said that's okay I'll pop in on Saturday so this guy arrives in the store on Saturday in the city center with a plastic shopping bag comes up to my desk and tips out 4,000 pounds in folding money it's wow I think the most I've ever seen was 500 pounds you know it's like what on earth oh goodness me so I called the boss we came over we got the money moved and then I went to deliver the piece of equipment to this guy's house on the Monday it was surrounded by a brick wall and had electric gates this is 1977 this is like James Bond territory you know and he had video on the gate which unheard of at the time for me so I press the button and he comes on okay Jeff you can come in and then the electric gates open I drive down I could hear the gravel under the tires as we're going down the drive and then there's this arched double doorway and he opens the one side then he opens the other side and he said bring it through to the east wing and I'm thinking oh my goodness me this let me call it house was u-shaped see and I remember I went in and I put my foot on the carpet and this stays with me today it was so significant I put my foot on the carpet and it sank into the carpet and I'd never experienced that before the pile on the carpet was so deep so we took the keyboard through we played it for him and I came away from there went home and I remember putting the key in our front door and the the front door was loose in the doorframe I put my foot on the carpet and it was almost solid and I thought wow now here's a guy that was driving a portion 9/11 bought the state of the art keyboard for 4,000 pounds and lived in this huge mansion and obviously very wealthy and my dad was the manager of the largest machine shop in Europe had the hand in building bridges all over the world and we broke someone's thinking how is it that can happen what's the difference and this is where my journey started it's it was really David I asked myself the question and what is it that makes successful people successful and at that time as a teenager I attributed success to equal wealth and money of course now I don't I've matured and learned a lot since then but the original question was how does a millionaire become a millionaire and because I was back in cabaret and a very good player I was exposed to lots of famous people rich people and successful people so what I decided to do was to interview them formally I had some questions formulated and I decided to ask them what they did and how they did it and what I discovered they all have in common 11 things I call it the 11 steps of success if you will well Jeff I think so far I'm enthralled I'm sure everybody else is enthralled when we come back can we start to have a look at some of those 11 steps maybe just a couple of them and we'll see where we go from there this is what's involved my special guest is Jeff Smith from cabaret artists - well we'll we'll cover what he's doing now as well because it's no longer cabaret I can tell you that back in a bit you're listening to what's involved with David Watts have you been to our website check it out www.what's involved calm and while you're there click on the coffee mug icon and buy David a cup of coffee they'll love it we're back with my special guest Jeff Smith so just before the break you told us that you'd interviewed a bunch of people and you'd come up with 11 things that they have in common and I know we don't have time to go into all 11 steps but let's let's talk about about some of them and and how you came across these traits these character traits yeah certainly so what was fascinating about it after interviewing them some of these people were aware of some of the steps some people were aware of all of the steps incredibly some of the people were not aware but they all did the same 11 things anyway which is what's fascinating so once I captured these 11 steps my idea was if I apply these 11 steps to my life perhaps then I can achieve the levels of success that I want to achieve in my life so this is how I got the journey from failing at mathematics in English to becoming the most successful author in the world with a book about mathematics what I did I applied 11 steps so let's get started what are they the first step is probably the most important and without doubt the most difficult it's the one I think probably I would say 98% of people can't do it they struggle with it so step one is what do you want most people can't answer that question and now the reason I say that is because the difference between successful people and those still trying is clarity and definiteness of purpose if you will let me give you an example when I'm when I meet with a group of people and someone asks a question about this I'll say what do you want and the usual answer Dave is most people say oh more money so I put my hand in my pocket I pull out a dollar bill I give it to them and I'll say there you are your dreams are fulfilled and they go no no you know I didn't mean that Jeff I said no I didn't know you meant that and that's the point I want to make so if you imagine I don't want into religion or anything like that but imagine let's call the universe delivers to you and if you ask the universe for something it can't give it to you unless it knows what you want so if you say I want more money then giving you a dollar has fulfilled because you've asked for more money you have more money now the difference between generic wishes like that and incredibly successful people successful people are very very specific about what they want so here's what a successful person what their goals and aspiration would be if say what do you want to say I want a million dollars and I want is on the 23rd of June 2023 I want to look at my bank statements I'll see a number of transactions there but the one will be on there will say one million dollars and I'll pick 12 noon on the 23rd June that one million dollars will be there and that's the difference Dave is that successful people know exactly to the nth degree what they want where others who are trying have a goals that are far too generic and can't deliver I was involved with a group of guys it was a company called empowerment concepts and we were teaching these empowerment trainings and on the training there was one lady and when we asked this very same question what do you want she said I want to drive a yellow Porsche 944 oh yeah you know that's fine and we finished the training we told everybody we said and one of my favorite sayings is always be careful what you ask for you might just get it absolutely and and in real in reference to this with the universe will give you what you ask for she phoned us about a month later and she was in fits of laughter she said you're not going to believe this remember I said to you I wanted to drive the yellow Porsche 944 yep she goes got to do it got to do it my boss bought a new car and he asked me if I could just move it over to one of the other bays so it could get washed and it was the yellow Porsche 944 so better be careful what you ask for be very very clear yeah absolutely and really Dave that is the if there's one thing that's a difference between successful people and others who are trying it's that it's been clear absolutely clear with absolute clarity about what you want now if she just said I want to drive a Porsche then the outcome might have been different but the yellow Porsche 944 was very definite very very very clear so the universe is able to deliver the other thing you know you say I want to pick up on what you said about be careful what you wish for the other thing is in all of things you become what you think about so be careful what you think about now your subconscious mind or the universe or whatever does not have the ability to understand a negative context right now let me explain that I'm not talking about positive thinking and negative thinking I'm not talking about that this is what I'm talking about if you say you do not want something that's what I mean by the negative context in a sentence so let me give you an example next time you go on to Google or any other search engine the way searches is exactly the same way as we think it's the same way our brain works for instance if you were to type in there yellow Porsche 944 what would come up is yellow Porsche 944 and you'd have many different variants of them because it's very specific if you're more generic and you said in a negative context do not show me a red car Google doesn't have the ability to come back to you neither does your subconscious brain it can't do this it doesn't say oh you don't want to see a red car so what do you want to see instead we don't have that ability so our brain takes out the negative context of your thoughts as in do not show me and all all it's left with them is the red car and Google works the same way you should try this so type in a search do not show me a red car and what will come up is just red cars nothing else but red cars I'm definitely going to be doing that I want to test that one out because also just getting back to this and we're going to take another short break and then get back to some more of those steps so often in my experience people if you say to if you ask them what do you want they battle as you say to tell you but if you ask them what they don't want they very quick there's a big long list of all the things they don't want you know I don't want to get ill is quite a quite a famous one you know and I'm always going yeah well you've got to be careful about that because as I said give what you ask for anyway before we dive too deeply down that particular rabbit hole this is what's involved to my special guest is Jeff Smith and man he's got some fascinating things to do he's literally known as the best author in the world or the biggest selling author in the world and he's written books he's published books he's been on various TV platforms he's been on I believe it's on sky as well and the bit that got me interested in Jeff was the bit where I learned that he'd failed maths and English at high school I passed English but maths was not my best subject so when we come back we'll have some more from Jeff Smith this is what's involved we'll be right back with more what's involved David would love to hear from you to leave a voice message visit what's involved calm and click drop me a voice note and we're back with my special guest Jeff Smith talking about what he does with his life because he's and we're not gonna get into that maybe I'll save that for another interview but he's known as the KPI guy and that's where a lot of the books etc had been written around but he's also a motivational inspirational speaker he does trainings all over the world so now we're talking about these steps Jeff now I don't know if that was step number two that we covered just before the break but if not let's get into step number two okay it actually was step one which is knowing what you want step two you can't do step two until you've done step one and step two is to write it down but to write it down with clarity every successful person I've met that's achieved big has their aspirations written down now here's a fascinating thing you can start off by typing it in your word processor on your computer but there's a huge difference between holding a pen and writing down what you want as opposed to typing it on screen so by all means type it on screen get clarity now let me put that into context for you when I started to write my book I'd never written a book before I didn't know how to do it I just knew the outcome that I wanted and in order to get absolute clarity on it it gave it took me three months to really understand what it was that I wanted to achieve and then I wrote it down and then I used to read it every morning so step one is to know what you want with clarity step two then is to write it down with clarity so you can understand this perhaps share it with someone else so they can understand it too so that's the second step the third step this is three R's as in review react revise like I said it took me three months to pull my goal together so daily I was seeking clarity to be more accurate to be more clear so that there was no ambiguity and the universe could deliver and it took me three months to get it to a position of clarity that I could say yes I've done it the other thing is to write your goal like it's already happened so when I did my goal I didn't say I want to write a book or I'm writing the book my language structure was I have written a book it is the best-selling book in the world on its subject matter so I'd written it like it had already happened and the reason for that day makes big psychological impact when you're working towards your goal the whole thing becomes more believable if you say I will write a book or or I plan to do it's a non specified point in the future and the universe can't get a handle on it when it's completed it can be delivered to you and that's what happened with me so let me just review that then step one to know what you want in clarity step two is to write it down and be clear so step one has to be absolute and then step three is to regularly read it review it revise it and get as much clarity on it as you possibly can so in other words and I've heard people speak as well and vision boards for example a lot of people talk about vision boards and and having a picture how important is picturing yourself having achieved that specific goal because I love what you say about writing it down there's something I don't know there's something more visceral more primal about writing than typing and and I'm a big fan I want everything to be like online and on into this and it must automate that and but when I'm really want to get down to brass tacks I write yeah so the picture side there is something there so it's a well I'll explain what I did I then decided on the title of my book and it doesn't have to be cast in stone right up until the end so I had some wonderful titles for my book so it was how to make more profit and keep it how to make more profit in less time some real sexy titles all based around profits then I take my goal and I'd share it with other people why did I do that because I wanted some feedback and here's the secret Dave between writing a book that you want to write and writing a book that people want to buy the difference is massive that's the difference between selling a hundred copies or a hundred thousand copies so when I did I wrote that before I wrote a single word and I help people to write books so I don't help with the content I help them mentally to get ready to write a book and one of the things I ask them to do then is sell me the book first before they start writing and if anyone listening is thinking of writing a book please take this away this is the most valuable part before you write write the advertisement for your book so imagine it's already completely sold and now I'll take what you've said to me Dave how important is vision creates the book as a visual content on your advertisement that's what I did so I got some software it's readily available to create a book cover I put my name on it of course wow that was cool and then the book title and the color and and then I wrote an advertisement I printed it out and I shared the advertisement with people and they'd say oh so what is this book about then Jeff so I'd explain what the book was about and everybody said oh that will be a KPI book then and okay now that was the reason I wrote the advert first of all was to say is this a product that people would want to buy because I don't want to spend my life creating products that people don't want to buy so I had to make the the adverts really sexy enough so people would read it and say wow when can I buy the book that was the response I wanted and that was the response I got eventually fantastic stuff Jeff we're flying through this interview as I do with all of them we are running out of time so when we come back let's dive in a little bit to - what is Jeff Smith doing now and you know talk about what you're offering people will do that when we come back this is what's involved with my special guest Jeff Smith hey like what you're hearing share the podcast with your family and friends and spread the word this is what's involved oh we're back what's involved that is Jeff Smith my guest and we're wrapping it up with him already and you know what I might just use this as an excuse to get him on the show again I think that's probably what I will do with your permission of course Jeff of course Dave my pleasure so where are you at now in your life because you've done so much you've achieved so much are you at that stage where you're now wanting to share knowledge to give back to you where are you okay so why did I want to write a book in the first place probably answers this question so this book was first published in 2001 so quite a few years ago and my primary motivator for writing the book was that I'd been working in the automotive industry for a number of years that's 20 years and the industry had been very good to me so I'd finished being a professional musician I'd found the ladder of success climbing up the wrong wall it wasn't what I wanted so I finished being a professional musician and moved into the automotive industry came through the automotive industry from sales to do the principal became a group director operations director over ten franchise dealerships won numerous awards and then I joined a consultancy company to help others to give back then in 1999 and I started my own company and one of the first things I wanted to do was to write this book as an act contribution so I could give back to the industry that had looked after me so well because there are a number of people that were traveling the path that I traveled and there was no help for them so I was thinking if I can help let me say a thousand people that's a thousand books then that would be a nice way for me to give back to the people and say thank you for helping you don't have to work as hard as I did here's a helping hand that was the reason so I've always had a sense of contribution sets up the company in 1999 published the book in 2001 I waste the past thousand copies as you can imagine it's gone on to be the most successful book in history of all time which is wonderful and and I'm blessed and I'm thankful I know I speak at conferences this is what I do I talk about key performance indicators business strategy how to get from where you are to where you want to be in business I do training courses I'd spend a lot of time with automotive industry but I also spend time with other industries too for them to clearly understand what key performance indicators are about they're like a roadmap to get you from where you are to where you want to be and then apply the principles of success over the top of that so you can accelerate your performance that's what I do I continue to write books I speak at conferences I go all over the world I think the the count now on countries is 76 different countries so I've been around a bit hundreds of cities and of course my work has touched the lives of millions of people for which I'm blessed I spend a lot of my time though giving back and working for charities I've been CEO of a charity in the UK which is providing aerial assistance because I'm a pilot so we fly medication to save lives things like that there's another one whereas chairman of where we're associated with United Nations and got younger children teaching them to speak to share their message and to present at United Nations I've now set up the Jeff Smith Foundation so that enables me to help people who are less fortunate than ourselves so what I'm able to do is take disabled people people are blind death all kinds of things like that suffering serious illness or indeed a terminal illness and I help them with their bucket list take them flying and all kinds of stuff help them with specialist equipment they might need so that's what fulfills me at the moment so that's about half of my life and then the other half of my life is speaking at conferences and running training and of course writing another book one of the books I might yeah right it's the 11 steps of success I've not quite got around to it yes I'm not sure if there's a need for it I haven't asked or great there's a need I can guarantee that Jeff just just to interject again though talking about that the KPI book what is the book title it's called the KPI book now you know here's a fascinating thing you know I had all these sexy titles and the feedback all the all of the feedback I got backwards oh wow that will be a KPI book and I'm thinking I'm not going to swim against the tide here I'm going to call it the KPI book absolutely now the reason I'm called the KPI guy again I didn't give this to myself so I speak quite a lot at conferences around the world and after the conference maybe there's three or four different speakers and you'll hear the interviews afterwards and they'll say who was your favorite speaker now they might not remember the name Jeff Smith and I'd watch these videos afterwards with the testimonials it's quite funny and they say who was your favorite speaker today and they go oh yeah you know um the you know the KPI guy what's his name so it just got thrust upon me I am Jeff Smith the KPI guy and that that's how the book title came about and that's how this title for me came about fantastic and that book obviously available on Amazon if somebody looks up Jeff Smith they'll find the KPI book and a couple of the others that you've written as well yeah yeah I've written seven altogether the best place to get it is Jeff - Smith comm Jeff - Smith calm now what else do you do because I know you've moved some of your stuff online your trainings if anybody wants to find out a bit more about Jeff Smith I mean you said you helped writers and and my ears perked up because I remember I was told by an author they actually she owns a company called the Writing Room said everybody everybody's got a story inside of them some people should just leave them there though so how exciting would my life be if that was the presumption but if somebody has got a book or is wanting to write a book is that something that you offer people yes it is but it's not the actual writing part so I don't consider myself to be a writer even though I've written seven books I'm writing another one right now the writing side of it I don't really enjoy it I do it because I've been blessed with this gift and part of that contribution is to write and give back that that's one of the ways I give back so I don't get involved in the writing but what I do get involved in if people want assistance is before you start writing is that clarity and what do you want why are you writing a book who are you and why are you the right person to write this book and then create the adverts and then sell the book before you've written it now the power in that that's a completely different thing to writing a book and then trying to sell it because you're writing a book that you want to write rather than writing a book that people want to buy so I help with the beginning phase why should you write it how should you write it what should it look like why will people buy it what will they do when they bought it what benefit will they get from it create the adverts and you do all of that before you write a word a single word and the reason for it once you've done that and you've got your goal once you start writing you have to compare what you've written with what you've sold to people and that will determine how you write what you write and the content of your book and that's why it's so important to get that right in the beginning and that's how I help people that's what I do I wish I was I wish you were around because and in fact we've we've tested about this prior to this interview when we were writing our how to sell motor vehicles course because we we we figured it out there was definitely and we wrote this brilliant training and all the workbooks and it had audio narration and we went here it is take it to grateful people of the motor trade and they all went yeah no no say I wish you were around then I've I've heard so many stories like that day so many Jeff before I let you go if somebody'd like to get in touch with you have a bit of a chat with you whether it's about a speaking engagement whether they've just resonated with you and thought hell I'd like to find out more about Jeff Smith and his foundation where's the best place to get hold of you Jeff - Smith calm so there's lots of information there but there's a menu tab that says chat if you click on the chat you can go straight to my diary book and appointments and then we can have a chat online and I don't charge for that I'm just happy to help people wonderful stuff so it's Jeff - Smith calm I want you there just check out the link and go and have a chat with Jeff I can highly recommend it wraps it up for this edition of what's involved Jeff thank you so much and thanks for taking the time out today it's been an absolute pleasure to be with you today thank you well wonderful stuff we do hope to chat to Jeff again as I said it wraps it up for what's involved to each and every one of you take care look after your selves and thank you for listening thanks for listening to what's involved we hope this episode inspires you to find your passion and live your dream don't forget to rate review and share the podcast and to see what's happening what's going on and what's coming follow what's involved on Facebook and Twitter at what's involved thanks again for listening