Synergy IQ: 0:01

Welcome to Creating synergy where we explore what it takes to transform. We are powered by Synergy IQ. Our mission is to help leaders create world class businesses where people are safe, valued, inspired and fulfilled. We can only do this with our amazing community. So thank you for listening

Daniel Franco: 0:20

Hi there synergisers and welcome back to another episode of the creative synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco and today we have Michael Johnson on the show, or as many of you might know him, Michael Mojo, Michael Mojo is a mindset and mental performance coach for some of Australia's top rich listeners, industry leaders, athletes and business teams. He has been featured alongside the likes of Dr. Joe Dispenza, Dr. John Demartini, Dr. David Logan, Grant Cardone, Gary Vee and Barbara Corcoran and recently named by the Australian Business Journal as one of the top 20 Australian personal development experts and coaches to work with in 2022. Michael is known for challenging the way people think, and smashing a lot of the myths and misconceptions that we are unaware of and keep us stuck personally and professionally. He bridges the gap between advanced sciences human behavior, personal development and mental performance fields to give powerful tools, teachings and methodologies to help people succeed at greater levels. His business Mojo Human Performance Institute runs events, workshops, trainings and seminars for the general public right up through to large corporate teams, teaching them evidence and scientific based tools to help people exist in their quest. Michael's mission is what drives him every day to help people live an inspired life by performing better in both their personal and professional lives. So in this episode, Michael, I touch on his journey. From the day he got expelled from school to living the life full of luxury that he finds himself today. Michael shares his learnings and the processes that he went through to find his passion, his purpose and His mission in life, and how he's helping people perform better through scientific based mental performance tools and educations. If you love the episode, which I absolutely know you will, and want to hear more episodes of some of the wonderful leaders and experts in the field, then push that subscribe button. And be sure to listen to our weekly podcasts. If you'd like to get in contact with me feel free to do so at admin@Synergyiqcom.au or check us out at Synergyiq.com.au and find us at Synergy IQ on all the social media outlets. So welcome back to the creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco, your host and today we have the great one. Michael The motomaster Johnson, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So Michael, you've been earmarked is the Australian Tony Robbins, your in your name gets thrown in the rings with dispensa de Martini Cardona and alike must make you walk around with a bit of a head wobble.

Michael Johnson: 3:15

Not really, I'm just a mind thing. Like, you know, I, I learned years ago that I just actually ever since I was a young kid, all I wanted to do was just being myself. And I got put into a schooling system where I got told what I had to do and who I had to be and then, you know, I got out into the workforce and into different careers. And again, you know, I had to fit into a mold of what other people wanted me to be dictated how I behaved and how I acted. And you know how I spoken all that. Now, I'm just being myself, you know, I started my own business because I wanted to be me. And I wanted to do this for me. And I just found that there was a lot of stuff in that industry that I loved, which is helping people perform better. You know, that personal development space or, you know, even the psychology space? And there's just I think, my letters were on here. Yeah, go, okay. There's just so much bullshit in that space. And, you know, one of my close friends is Dr. John Demartini. And one of my, you know, colleagues and we bounce ideas off each other, and so on. And, you know, he said most people don't think they think they think, yeah, and I, what I find is that there's just, well, I'm in an industry where most people aren't thinking they're thinking that they're thinking and they think that they're doing the right thing, but they're not really looking at the results that they're getting, and so on. So I just wanted to go there, and they're not acting is that is that what you're saying? Not that they're not acting, they're achieving great things. But when you look at it, like, I'll give you a really good example is probably going to upset everybody but go for positive thinking is bullshit. Yeah, everyone fucking knows it. Yeah, they just don't admit it to themselves. Like if you think about it, the more you try to be positive, the more unhappy most people are and the more negative they are themselves because they're chasing an idealism that doesn't exist. If you study any hard science, anything that's positive attracts a negative in order to stabilize. Now the majority of people that I talk to they go, you know, I want to have mental stability, like I want to have focus and I want to have you know, I want to know what I'm trying to achieve in life and just stay focused on those things and not let all this other stuff distract me and go, Okay, well, that's fair enough. That's the ability. But then they go to positive thinking events where it's all about happiness and joy and getting excited. But they don't realize what goes up has to come back down. So then they crash afterwards, they beat themselves up, you know, they set these unrealistic expectations when they're elated, and when they're high, and when they're excited, and they're all pumped up and fist pumping air and high fiving people. But two weeks later, they're burnt out. They're feeling like shit being themselves.

Daniel Franco: 5:28

You can't maintain that level of happiness for a very long time, Kenya, not at all. I think what? Really what is interesting in that whole chasing happiness is that it's almost like, there's a lot of people that might hate me for this. I don't really like the book The Secret, right? Yes, it is. It is that power of if you think positively good things come your way. It's not as simple as that. You need to think positively, and then put a plan into action, and then execute on that plan, and then go through the ups and downs of that plan and stick to that plan. So there's so much more than just thinking about, you know, the whole idea of rocking up to a car park and there's a free space because you feel positively about it is it's pretty out there.

Michael Johnson: 6:06

Yeah. Well, as I mentioned, Dr. John Demartini is a close friend of mine. I'm good friends with both of his daughters, Elena and brucia. And you Yeah, what? Like, even John, he was in the secret. Yeah. He said that they pretty much edited his whole talk, which was like a two hour talk down to about three or four minutes, truth footage. And all they did was they took all the little bits about the positive stuff. Mostly other people who are on there either ended up in jail, like the guy who was doing the sweat camps and stuff ended up in jail for someone died. I think the guy who was talking about the car park and money coming to you, I think he got done for fraud. Yeah. So don't miss

Daniel Franco: 6:42

the Martini. He said the same thing. So yeah, I can vouch for you for that. He did say that she had of it really? So?

Michael Johnson: 6:50

Yeah. And that's because they had an agenda. They had a market that they are going for in that market. You know, I find when most people lost, they're looking for something. And I think we all all of us need certainly, you know, Tony Robbins talks a lot about this as well. I know, you mentioned his name before, I've worked with some of these coaches as well. And, yeah, I find that there's this whole, there's almost like an idea that, you know, we need to, we need to be happy. But I don't think that's really what drives most people is a lot of people want certainty in their life. They want to know, like, what direction am I going in, they want to know that everything's going to be okay. And I guess we all need that, to sort of push forward to some extent. Now, I think in uncertain times, when people are uncertain, they're trying to leave for everybody else, it creates a lot of uncertainty inside of them. So then they seek external, certainly from other factors. And I think that whole positive thinking movement gives people certainly, like, if I just think positively, then good things will happen. If I'm a good person, then good things will happen. But a good person's relative, yeah, like, I can be an asshole to someone who wants a lot of stuff for me, like I get people everyday who come to me and say, hey, you know, I'd love to catch up and buy your coffee and pick your brain and go, Man, this thing costs a million bucks. Like this shit wasn't free. Yeah, you buy a lot of people, I think a lot of people devalue their knowledge, and they also devalue their time. So they devalue my time, they devalue my knowledge. Whereas all the dumb shit that was put in special classes at school, told that I was dyslexic, all of that stuff, I had to learn my way to get to where I am today. So I've spent 1000s of hours 10s of 1000s of hours studying, researching, learning, growing, traveling all around the world. And, you know, as I mentioned, I've invested over a million dollars in myself with learning and growth and mentors and so on. And then, you know, for some people they go, and I'd love to just catch up and pick your brain. All that stuff's not free. Yeah. Now, if I say no, I'm being a good person to myself. But they think that I'm an asshole.

Daniel Franco: 8:44

Yeah. So there's a Tim Ferriss, you listen to Tim Ferriss podcast that I used to use. We just got Tim on Tim Ferriss himself, not so much his podcast, but he himself has got a philosophy. It's either Fuck yeah. Or it's not. Yeah, right. It's either yes, I'm in and I'm invested. And I'm going to get something out of that. Or it's a no, like, That's literally how he, he and he answers all these questions when he gets us speaking gigs, all of that. Yeah. Yeah, it's, um, it is. It is a really good philosophy. Now, I'm really interested in you talking about the the investment in your own time and your own purpose in your own education and learning. And you spent, you know, spent a few dollars in their, in their space. Right. Yeah. So you know, there's this common saying that it takes 10 years to become an overnight success. Hanrahan. Yeah, can you and I really want to deep dive into that overnight success, what that looks like. So the tip sorry, I want to deep dive into the 10 years to become that overnight success. Those 10 years, especially in in your learning in your growth in your education, when you're putting posts out and there's no one liking and then you're putting out these videos and there's no one watching discovered that. Yeah, exactly right. But there's this imposter syndrome which can almost kick in. I really want to get into your head about how you push through that because you obviously have and you come out the other side and you You are still obviously, you know, engagement levels, peak and trough and all that sort of stuff. But what went through your? What went through your mind? You know, how did you build that sense of resilience and that grit and determination to get through that 10 years? Because that's, that's the key. I think it's not giving up. You know, there's, there is a quote that says, the two easiest things to do in life. Sorry, the two hardest things to do in life, I should say, is to start and the second one is to not quit, right? Yep. So can you explain to us that 10 years, I know there's a lot in that, can you explain that 10 years and, and just your, I guess, grit and determination to get through?

Michael Johnson: 10:41

Okay. I think that's a I mean, I love being on podcasts, because I get asked some really shoot questions, but I get asked some really wild ones. And that's a that's a wild question. And the whole podcast might just be answering that question. Look, I can only go through my journey in having worked with 10s of 1000s of people now, from all different levels. I'm very selective with who I work with these days, like, our events are tailored towards people who have that internal drive that just want to be better and want to really do something. And that's why I get to work with, you know, billionaires, and the private coach for professional athletes and so on. But I also get a lot of people who have hit rock bottom in their life and just go, you know, I got nothing to lose. Fuck it. Let's go for it. Yeah, I love that even just gives me goosebumps talking about, but I just I love that mentality of like, let's just have a crack. You know, I think that that's one of the most beautiful things that humans have is that just, you know, what, like, what could go wrong?

Daniel Franco: 11:34

What's the worst that could happen? Yeah, like,

Michael Johnson: 11:35

let's just, let's just have a crack and see what happens. And all the great people that I've been able to meet, they'll have that attitude. Whereas, you know, I think, in the world at the moment, there's like, mediocre and average. And then there's this massive pool of people below and they're always looking for, I don't know, ask the question a second, they're looking for that external support consistently, because they like the internal support, they like the internal self belief, and so on, for whatever reason. But our, the majority of our mental health system, and the majority of the system that's out there, supports those people. But once you start achieving, you start cranking it up a little bit. You know, I work with CEOs and stuff, and I've got to go on fire 100 People today, because you know, COVID happens, and they've got to let go of staff. If not, they've got to let go of three or 400 people. Now to them that's like to let go of one person is extremely challenging, because that's a person, I've got a family and you know, anyone in business, who's done that, it's sickening, like, it's gut wrenching, to be able to, you know, to have to do that at any time. And even if they're a shoot employee, still having to let go of someone is still a very challenging task. Now they go and do it to 100 people, they get 100 people, probably even four or 500 600 people who hate their guts now, because it's their family, they're impacted. And they have to go and deal with that. But the majority of society look at them, they go, Fuck them, they've got a Ferrari or fucking like, but that Ferrari or the car or whatever it is a representation of all the hard work, the 40 years of sacrifice and dedication, and then not getting paid and all that stuff, but they forget all that they just see the end outcome. And they think that it's easy for those people. And it's not, it's probably even harder, because you've got more risk. You've got bigger challenges. You know, some of the some of the people that I've worked with, they have, you know, million dollar week wages, or they've got a they've got to, you know, pay out. Yeah. Now, if if COVID hits, and they've got to go 10 to 15 weeks without work that could be $15 million.

Daniel Franco: 13:26

Yeah. 100%. Look, I'm a firm believer, I'm just going to support what you're saying. Because if you look at the CEOs of the big banks, right, you know, they're getting paid $15 -20 million a year, they, you know, just using them as an example. There's so many other examples, the same. They're doing well, they're doing well for themselves. But if you think about how many people in Australia in the world could actually do that job. It's minimal, right? There's a select bunch, if you think about and no disrespect to anyone that works in a supermarket. But if you look at the checkout people, the people who buzzing or you know, McDonald's, or whatever it might be in that sort of starting off their career. There is a copious amount of people that can do that work, right. Hence, the reason they're paying is a lot less than the person who's sitting at the top of a bank. Right. So it's, like you said, it's the years it's education, it's dealing with the anxiety and the gut wrenching feeling that you mentioned. Like we both own our own businesses, I manage a management consulting firm, and we work with large corporate, you manage your own growth and motivational business as well. The constant ups and downs and I keep saying it's for entrepreneurs, you can have the best day and worst day in the same day, like just this constant up and down. And that's the grit and resilience that I really want to try to draw out of you. How did you wait weed your way through that?

Michael Johnson: 14:43

Yeah, so I think there was there was a whole bunch of things that happened so when I was 15, I got expelled from school and we would

Daniel Franco: 14:51

do the same school by the way, remember that?

Michael Johnson: 14:53

Yeah, so yeah. But um, you know, I was expelled from school and I I guess I was a bit of a terrorist school, I'm still, I still probably have like very high level ADHD traits as well, where I can't sit still, for too long, I get distracted by things I can't really focus. Like, if you give me stuff to read, that's very detailed. If it's around human behavior, I can do it. But outside of that, I sort of struggle with it. So I have a team of people who helped me out with that stuff. So I guess I struggled to sit still, I've got a high value on exercise as well. So I love moving and so to sit still, for hours on end at school, to me was just like the most insane thing and I couldn't, I didn't know who I was, the system didn't know who I wasn't, I didn't fit into that system.

Daniel Franco: 15:35

So like the old the round peg into a square hole

Michael Johnson: 15:38

100%. That's the I was I don't know what I was, I wasn't even a peg. Yeah. So at 15, when I got expelled from school, I knew that I was always in trouble at home. And I was always in trouble at school. And I didn't have a lot of friends at school because my parents age as well, they were 17 and 19, when they had me, so I used to go to parties every weekend, instead of kicking the footy around with all the boys at school or playing soccer. And so I just didn't really fit in up into what we I changed schools. And so that caused a lot of a lot of internal conflict. I mean, I was completely lost. And so I was going to in my own life, because I thought, What's the fucking point like I can't, and I'm never going to get anywhere in life. And I had this massive amount of pressure from my mum as well who dropped out of school to have me and her brothers and sisters went to university and got a great education. And, you know, they went on to be high level, I guess you could say CEOs or directors or you know, heads heads of major chains in corporate. And there's my mom working at Davy Jones or John Adams back in the days selling shoes, and my dad working two jobs and working really, really hard. The great thing was I learned that work ethic from a very young age. But getting back on track. Then when I changed schools, I was thinking like, what am I really want to do, like, I know, I want to finish year 12. But I also know that I'm not going to really excel at it. So I just sort of got my way through it. I love things like biology, and I love things like geography because I could understand how things work. And I'm always loved how things work. I was always good with my hands as well and loved cars. So that that was sort of part of it. And then, when I left school, I became a diesel mechanic because I just wanted to figure out how things work. But I also noticed that I was working to make money because that's what I got told you had to do, right? You've got to if you get a good job, or if you do well at school, you get a good job. If you get a good job, it means you get good money. And if you get good money, then you can set yourself up for life and enter the rat race. Yep, well, that's I didn't realize that. But what I saw was at the start of the mining boom in South Australia, I think was in the early 2000s. All these guys are going up to the mines and they buy motorbikes and cars and I'm thinking Fuck, yeah, like, these guys are crushing it. And then they're coming in wife's left, and kids have left and they haven't seen the kids for ages. They're having mental breakdowns going up, you know, and, and what I saw was, hang on, I was really conflicted, because I'm like, Holy shit, these guys are making tons of cash. They've got all the fun stuff in life, like everything that I thought I always wanted, yet, they're fucking miserable. What is going on here. And so I just sat there and I watch it. I'm really observing as a person. And I think that's what makes me great at what I do. And so I was just sitting there thinking, like, what is going on here. And then I got a phone call one day, the reason why I didn't commit suicide when I was 15 was because my best friend that I had at the time, it was like my one close mate that I could rely on. And he was in a car accident, his three year old niece was killed in a car accident, he was in the passenger seat, and his sister was driving and I just remember watching this little white coffin going into the ground going how the fucking life just be taken away just like that, where he had gone. Fragile. And it was it was just, it was probably like the best and worst thing that ever happened to me because it was the worst, obviously, because of the situation. But the best thing because it made me really think about life and what I wanted. And so I was just I started really thinking like, what am I here for? What's my purpose, what, you know, life's got to be about more than just working and making money and the white picket fence and two kids and you know, and for some people that works, but for a lot of people it doesn't. But that's what they've that's what they're into, because that's what everyone else is doing. And so yeah, I just I really started questioning everything. And I was flicking through the paper and I thought at the time, I loved like I love training and love the gym because I started exercising when I was 14, we my dad he used to play like NFL level football. And he also played state cricket as well. So used to train, and I was a bit chubby and a bit overweight, so I thought I'll just hit the gym. And so there was something about movement or whatever. And I didn't I had no idea like I was completely ignorant and had no real idea of understanding even what I wanted to do. But I was just flicking through the newspaper looking for a job and it came up become a become a personal trainer and I thought maybe I could do this, like the gym was the only place that made me feel good. I'd go to work the shitty environment dirty all the time, which isn't like I mean, look, our dresses. Were getting dirty everyday. It's not by thinking. So, you know, I thought you know what, I'm going to give it a shot. But the first thing that happened and this comes back to the question of like resilience, the first thing that happened, and I think this happens for everyone In change, I started reflecting back on all the shit from my past. So there I am in class like I'm going to go sign up to go study and there I'm in class getting F's, their own class getting told to go to timeout their own getting kicked out of class, they're even getting put in a special classes getting told that I was dyslexic getting told that I wouldn't get anywhere in life by my Latin teacher of all things as well. So all of those thoughts came up, and I was like, why would I? Why would I do this? Like, it's stupid? I'm gonna fucking fail at it anyway. Yeah. But then there was another part of me that had this burning desire to like, but what if, what if it actually works. And so I thought, you know, screw it. And I still remember it's etched in my brain walking through TAFE SA, then going in there, because back in those days, there was no like 16 week course or eight week course to become a personal trainer was like 18 months of study after hours. And I went and did it. And then when I got there, I was a straight A student, that essentially gives us a whole term. And I would, I would read the whole terms, you know, the lecture notes and everything within within a week, and then be on a computer back and dial up internet days, looking up stuff online and trying to figure things out. And I just loved it, like I just chewed it up,

Daniel Franco: 21:04

you found your calling,

Michael Johnson: 21:06

I found something that I loved. And I think that was probably the first step to that question of like, resilience is like really finding out what you're great at. But there's also other things which we'll get to in a second. So I just I started doing that. And then I got sort of my apprenticeship year early. And I just remember going back and feeling sick like this is it this is as good as last gonna get and almost threw up on my toolbox. And then it was just part of me that went, now fuck it. I'm done, like I'm out of here. And so I just put all my shit in the car and went to the boss. And I said, I'm leaving. I'm out of here. And he said, What are you going to do? And I said, I don't know about this. And he goes, he looked at me, this was a trucking tycoon, because I left where I first started my apprenticeship and move to another company. And they they were a big trucking in state trucking company. And he looked at me as this old Italian guy, he looks at me, he goes, Michael, Don't end up like the rest of these fuckers, go do what you love. And I was like, Cool. Thank you. That was it. I just walked out of there. Better advice. And so I go to Mom, dad's house, I take out my toolbox from the car, and my mom comes out burst into tears, what are you gonna do with your life? Because I think for her, all she wanted me to have was financial stability, so that then I could have the life that she didn't get to have. I think parents project their insecurities onto their kids, which is part of their own journey, and their own learning. So I had I had that happen. And I just said, Ma'am, look, in 10 years, I won't be here, like, because she said, you know, in 10 years, if you just look at it, you'll you'll get where we need to get and I said in 10 years, I won't be here, meaning like I would have probably killed myself button. And I went to the gym that I was training at. And I just said, Look, give me a chance I'll do anything like I'll clean toilets or do whatever. And they put me on the front desk working just checking your running back in the day of like the original scanners. It was KK Yeah, I remember. But then once I started working there, I loved it. Like I was just around people. And there I am, like I get to use that energy that I had at school that was never appreciated, you know, I can be an intense person and connect with people and talk shit all day long. And I get paid to do the things that I've gifted that. So that was part of it. Then from there, I helped do the franchise system. And we I helped rebrand as well as part of it. You know, I wasn't the major person involved in it. But I was definitely part of that team. We did a rebranding, I'd go out and I started talking to other personal trainers. Now we were one of the first people to sort of be integrated therapies and integrated, you know, sort of personal training stuff, which is where the industry is now. We were one of the first and so I would go out and educate other gyms and other personal trainers on how to do like integrative medicine and so on and work with physios. And then I got sort of headhunted to go to Fitness First when they first came here, and then I got headhunters go work in a medical center. And that was sort of their way I realized that everybody knows what to do, they just don't do it, which led me to the mindset stuff, you know, I think,

Daniel Franco: 23:45

Can I just jump into the personal training stuff? The I'm really curious if the actual personal training element where you setting goals now, right? from a health point of view, the goal setting that you get from personal training, because everyone knows it's bloody hard to lose weight, right? It's really hard to get fit, it's really hard to find time all the all the above everything's high. Exactly. So the actual goal setting and the and the the application to keep going and push yourself through. So I remember back then you're pretty, you know, you still fit now but I remember you're very slim and yeah, a lot. Yeah, you live in the highlife. Now there's food mixed with some weights training in that and the but then back then you were fit, you know? And and I'm really curious, do you believe that sort of propelled you into the next phase of your life, the goal setting I'm not saying everyone should go into personal training as a way of propelling you into the next life but more so the simple fact that this the sport aspect because I'm a true believer that sport in itself. It helps you work with teams. It helps you set goals to set common goals about you know, premiership cup or anything and then I feel like personal training is almost in that same realm where we ourselves, right? This week, I'm going to try this many times this time, this time, this time and then by this weekend, I'll lose two kilos, five kilos. Thank you. And that sort of micro goal setting can is an absolute fundamental for life.

Michael Johnson: 25:13

Yeah, I, I guess, I've never really been good at that sort of stuff, to be honest. I, a lot of the stuff that I teach is around value systems. And so it's a field of study called axiology. axiology is part of economics and also metaphysics, metaphysics is where do I feel valuable? And economics is where am I actually valuable within our society? Yeah. Because we all we are, we're all a cog in the wheel, of the economy. So that makes our our values when most people think of values as like kindness and happiness, and all that stuff, which aren't values, their social idealisms everyone thinks that they want that stuff. But it doesn't really tell us where we're valuable, you know, I can't go out. And I guess you could sort of sell the idea of happiness, but you can't actually sell happiness, you know, it's not a tangible product. So I think we'd personal training what or what happened was when when I was a diesel mechanic, I just knew there was something inside of me that just said, you know, something's not right here. And so I started looking. And I think, I think the thing that most people miss is actually courage, courage and commitment are probably the two things I think that the majority of people in our society lack, because they want certainty in their decisions. But there is no certainty. Like, I don't know what's going to happen today, I could walk out get hit by a bus, like there's a million things that could go wrong. Yeah. What I know is that I'm certain right now around what's driving me now I can use the clear I am I can use that to drive increased certainty. But the truth is, I have no certainty whatsoever in life, I didn't know that COVID And all of that stuff was going to happen, and it was going to throw my business into turmoil. And I can't that stuff I can't control. But what I can control is how I feel about it, and what I can do next, but that's based on the vision, the mission and other things. So when I was a personal trainer, I, once I made that commitment to go and do it, I started realizing that courage had a lot more to play in the role of things also was just throughout my life. From probably around that age, I just realized that there were things that some people do that help them to excel and things that other people do that cause them to sort of get stuck. And I just kept looking for those answers. And throughout my personal training career, even though, you know, I was really fit back in the day. And really, I guess I shredded, you know, the six pack thing and the muscles and all that sort of stuff. That wasn't because of my training schedule, my training routine, I just loved training. That's really what it came down to was like, I never really had a program like I just I'd go, my program was no training chest today, I'm going to pull movements tomorrow, I'd have a day off the day after and probably do some cardio. And then the day after that, I'm going to be back and I'd walk into the gym and I'll train however I feel like Yeah. And what I found was that just the love of training was the thing that got me those results. It wasn't because I had the perfect plan and the perfect diet or anything like that. It was just the love of training and what worked for you. Yeah, but I think some people based on their value system need more structure. I'm a non structured person. So I thrive really well in. I call it ambiguous structure, where like today, I know, I know, on an average week Tuesdays is my meeting day. Now I can tell you what meetings I have next Tuesday, because I just don't know, I know that I have some team meetings in there. There's some client meetings and so on. But it's my meeting day. Today. I've been you know, I've been working for almost three weeks straight now today was sort of like a semi day off sort of, but I've you know, podcasting and things like that. It's not really work to me, it's just having a chat having a chat. Yeah, we could do it over coffee, we could do it over beer or whatever. But not that I drink beer. But you know, we could. So what's the health? Yeah, I've just, I've just found that I just, I've, I've found what works for me. And I've found what that flow is for me. And I think that's what's created that resilience is over time. If I get if I'm really, really clear with what my values are, and I'm really, really clear with what my mission is, and I really understand what my purpose is in life. And then I can set some core goals, which is sort of like stop off points along the way. But I'm not really driven by my goals. To be honest, I don't even give a shit about them. I think most people overrate their goals and underrate their mission. What I know is that I'm born to travel around the world and to be a high level speaker and connect with amazing individuals who need to be supported because they're the people who inspire other people to be better. That's my job. I know that my purpose is to help people perform better. And I remind myself of that every morning when I wake up, I'm here to help people perform better and it starts with me. That's what I tell myself every morning. Yeah, so I have to perform for I can help others do that. And if I just do that things tend to work out anyway, in the direction of my goals. If I'm not achieving my goals, it's because my goals aren't congruent with the rest of the shit and that's what you know, people go I want to go to the gym and I want to exercise and I want to get fit. But if it's incongruent with their high values of connecting with people and all their friends connect to the pub and things like that, then the goals that they have, it's not the goal that's a problem is just that they like clarity around what's really congruent in their life. Yeah, they just want to create more internal conflict.

Daniel Franco: 29:58

I love it. We're gonna deep I want to deep dive into values. First, but I, I know personally because we do a lot of work with corporate government, corporate, businesses, governments, private industry, but more of that high level corporate world, on culture, on leadership on values on missions ambitions, the whole, you know, the whole piece, we work with them on an organizational base. And so I know the area quite well. And really passionate about the purpose piece and the mission and vision. The way I like to sort of the way I like to sort of think about the if you think of Elon Musk, right? He's his vision is that humans are spread across the universe. Yeah, yeah, the mission is, he's going to help with that vision, because he's going to put people on the moon, right? So he's kind of working towards that. And the way he's doing that now is creating all these businesses is creating, you know, SpaceX, Tesla, or all these businesses, the boring company, all these businesses that are then sort of moving towards that direction. So I hear what you're saying is not so much about the goal setting, it's about surrounding yourself in a world and creating a world that is aligned to that spreading people across universe. what's your what's your vision? Where do you want to go? What's your actual aim? In, in what you're doing?

Michael Johnson: 31:14

Yeah, well, so the purpose is really the guideline. So that's just helping people perform better. That's really what I love. And from a young age I have, I didn't, I didn't realize what it was. And this has probably only been the last two years I've gotten clear with this, is even from a young age, I always saw people better than what they were. And I think I get really pissed off with people who don't see the gifts that they have, that they're given. And that's why I love working just with people that are I guess, driven, they've got big goals and big dreams, like, in our company, the motoric Performance Institute, some of our psychographics are number one is that you've got to have a big goal and a big dream, because I find like you can't, if someone's walking around just kicking rocks in life, and everything's too hard. They like that big goal that be drained, they're not gonna make any decisions, try and move in the right direction. They want external validation, they want external support, and so on. I'm not there for that I'm not a babysitter, what I am, is I'm there to give people tools and hold them accountable to those things and say, I can get up and go harder. Yeah. And they're the clients that I get, like, they're the people that I love working with. They're already driven, I don't have to drive them. I think one of the things that I have to do is show them how to relax without feeling guilty and beating the shit out of themselves. But that's, that's most people that are driven. Even the mental health field, the majority of mental health food is tied up around people that are struggling. And you know, and I will answer the question again, as normal. You know, that's, I find that that's a very common thing. There's so much knowledge out there around that. But when you're working with really driven people, it's almost the opposite. Like, I don't have to teach people how to have drive they have drive, what I have to do is teach them how to how to rest. Now what they'll say is, I have a day off, you never have a day off if you driven but because your brain is always switched on. But it's how do you utilize that? And how do you? How are you okay with that? And how does that allow you to relax? Like, what are the tools that you have to rejuvenate and not burn out? Because that's a big problem. Yeah. So coming back to the question, my purpose is like the thing that guides everything else, if the purpose is out of whack with anything that I'm trying to do, then I'm off track with whatever I'm setting, whether it be the goal of mission, then from there, I had to get really, really clear with the mission of like, what are we actually trying to do. And it was we wanted to create a global hub where people all around the world can perform at their best. And I wanted to be able to create scientific education tools. So it's not just the motivation, you know, you can do it. I hate those quotes. Like I see him all the time, like, you know, you can do things like luck, I didn't realize that, that stuff just shoots me to tears I want to make I want to educate people to think and a lot of my quotes and stuff like that are put on mine. I get people sending messages. They're like, Man, that was awesome. Because I know if I can just give them something to think about, then they're actually thinking they're not thinking that they're thinking and trapped in that vicious cycle of just overthinking. Yeah, so that's that then the mission. Over the years, there's been lots of things that have really sparked my interest that are driving me. So the couple of really big things is I want to create a modern day University, which is our era University, and I don't want to do it by I mean, I hope I don't really offend, because I know there'll be people from the universities, and all that stuff. But you know what, the university system is antiquated, it's outdated, it's bullshit. It's a fucking marketing scheme. They try to get people into courses, like most people do. Arts degrees, don't know what they want to do in life. Now, there are definitely people out there who want to do arts degrees because they want to be in the arts, but lots of people have no idea what they want to do when they leave school. Why are we dragging kids and throwing him into a university system when they have no idea what they want to do in life, but they think they need to be in university, how many people are actually coming out of university and 10 years later, are still working in the field of what they studied. And there's a massive drop off the reason because we're not giving kids the right tools to leave school and to understand what they're trying to achieve in life. And so it's just a massive scheme of, you know, just,

Daniel Franco: 34:57

I think dealing with the masses really

Michael Johnson: 35:00

What it is, but it's it's just, it's like, imagine this imagine you work extremely hard. So 13 years you go to school, you get somewhere where you can you've got the intelligence and the ability to go to university. And straightaway I go, Well, that's great. You don't know what you want to do. But if you just give me 40k I can just, you know, let's just gamble. Let's just roll the dice and see what happens. Yeah. Now most people aren't going to leave school and go to the casino and slam, you know, chocolate chocolate on the number on the roulette table and just fucking spin the wheel and see what happens with 30 grand, but that's what we're doing to our kids. I think that it's crazy. Now some people know what they want to do. You know, George Medina's doctor. Yeah, so he's one of my good friends still. Now, I remember sitting next to my chemistry, chemistry class, grade 11. I said, What do you want to do? And he said, may I just want to be a dentist? Yeah. Now he's still a dentist. He loves it. He was that dude, he just knew what he wanted to do. But the majority of people don't.

Daniel Franco: 35:54

I got a one of my good friends. Chris is semi close his name is since we met in your eighth at school. He the first thing he said to me was I'm going to be literally I'm going to be a neurosurgeon. And he's just, literally this week. I think he started his own consultancy as a neurosurgeon. She's going through 1515 to 19 years of study. What a legend. Yeah, so those types of people, their their unicorn, almost on it, um, but I'm kind of with you, man. I didn't go to uni. Like I mean, I mean, I run a manager. Sorry, I didn't go to uni when I left school. So I went back later. I mean, I run my own management consultancy firms, we work with large corporate well in language and large corporate around how to help them with their culture, that people their strategy, all that sort of space, you would think that anyone like myself, went straight to school straight out of uni, I went straight into the working system, I'll work my way up. So I don't want a forklift drive. And I'll work my way up going into sales. And so so we moved my way up the ranks. Then it was then when I said actually, you know, this business caper are kind of like this. So that's when I went to get my MBA. So that's the Well, I mean, I enrolled into my MBA halfway through it, I realized I could learn more doing other things. So I went and did all these other bunch of courses. But irrelevant, I think it I kind of follow that same path that you did. I went through all the hard yards, went through all the learnings got demoted multiple times, and then figured out along the way, actually, this is where I want to be, and pigeon holed myself for that. So uni isn't the be all and end all it is it is not you can forge a career without University. However, there is some good learning if you doing what you love.

Michael Johnson: 37:34

100%. But I just don't think that we're getting clear with that. And, and most people see, like, I get criticized quite a lot where people say you don't have a psychology degree you how can you give psychology advice, and I go, Well, what what is it that I say that's not in alignment with what you think you've been taught? And you watch them they go, because they they don't reference it, all they have is your best paper? Well, yeah, you're not qualified, what makes me not qualified. Because if I have the same knowledge, and I've done all the same research, and read all the same books, and done all that sort of shit, I just haven't had to do with the rest of the crap that everyone else has to do. Yeah, what makes what I'm saying not, because what I'm saying is still the research and the data. It's just that may not be in that system, so people still criticize it. But what I know is that the majority of that industry as well, just like every industry, our whole bunch of lost people who went to university got a certificate now they're trapped in a job and going, fuck, what do I really want to do my life. And so when they're working with their customer, or clients, or customers or whatever, they're not thinking really about how to help the customer. They're thinking about how to help themselves, because they're trying to figure out what the fuck is it that I'm really here to do. And they use, like, if you look at the majority, the healthcare system, they're not healthy people, there are definitely healthy people in it. But the majority of healthcare system are people who are unhealthy, who are trying to figure out how to be healthy. The majority of the psychology industry, people who tend to be, you know, looking for answers to their own psychological problems, and they're working with customers to try and figure it out. The great people in any industry are the people who love doing what they do. And so they're in balls deep, you know, studying as much as they possibly can learning as much as they can, because they want to be the best at what they do. And they're the top five to 10% in any industry that excelled that earn the majority of the money, that the majority of the people who are doing great things in the world, and then the rest of the 95% of the industry is just average. Yeah. And that is a lot of membership. There is a lot of average. Yeah, sorry. I just wanted to answer your questions before Yeah, no. So I want to create a vision that I've had for a long time now is I wanted to create the greatest university on the planet. And, you know, I What I've noticed about universities, they always have amazing architecture, they always have and this is gone back to the greatest study institutes they've always had a relationship with cosmology and astronomy and the mysteries of the universe all intertwined into it in some way, shape, or form. They've always had the greatest thinkers on the planet, but I think sometimes the greatest thinkers are also choked to death by that system as well. I want to give them the ability to just go you know what, look, we're going to dive down the rabbit hole and whatever happens happens without criticism without saying If you push too far one side, and we think that it's it doesn't fit our paradigm, then you're booted out. And you know, we see this weird. There's a really great documentary about a doctor who this guy was the guy who discovered aids. So he, he's won a Nobel Prize. So he's a, I think he's that he's like a study biology or he's got a PhD in biology or whatever. But anyway, so this dude's won a Nobel Prize, and you got to think like, one of the greatest scientists in history goes out to try to find whether water can hold inflammation or not. Which then the home the homeopathy field, jump onto that and go, Well, he's pretty much proving that homeopathy works, which isn't what he's doing. But because that's there, the university systems coming on, hang on, what are you doing? We don't want you doing this sort of study. But that's not what he's looking for. He's holding his what he's trying to find? Is Ken water, hold information? And if so, is this a new possibility for maybe our interpretation around what biology what's really happening in biology, but also can it be used in technology and all those things. Now he works from the car park of the university, he had to set up his own laboratory, because the university won't fund him. Because he's doing something he's doing something that's a bit extreme,

Daniel Franco: 41:11

surely is another university to pick him up. On we're getting into semantics.

Michael Johnson: 41:16

There's an amazing documentary on a year where he where he goes through and is showing the research. Now he's not saying anything wrong. He's just inquisitive.

Daniel Franco: 41:23

Yeah, I know, you would think does that mean 95% water or something like that?

Michael Johnson: 41:27

The human body? Yeah. The human body? I think it's like, depending on your organ and size around about 70

Daniel Franco: 41:32

or 70. Do you think there'd be an element of that in there? Yeah. Well, it's pretty sounds pretty legitimate. Anyway,

Michael Johnson: 41:40

but yeah, so one of my big goals is that in order to be able to do that, I need to be surrounded with the greatest people, and also the greatest wealth creators, because universities obviously cost a lot of money. But I don't want to do it through governments, I want to do it through private enterprise and create an amazing joint venture with people with large sums of money, who want to leave a legacy as well. And so I've just been building on this thing now that probably I don't even know if it'll happen in my lifetime. But what I want to do is set it up to make sure that does happen

Daniel Franco: 42:04

is that is it aim towards the, after you finish your 12? Are you going to try to bring it in earlier, or how you

Michael Johnson: 42:11

haven't really thought that? through it? Yeah, I've just, I can see the architecture, I can see the people that are working in there. You know, I don't really care about PhDs and Nobel Prize, I just want people who are pushing the limits of science and pushing the limits of their field, to have a place where they can go and know that they're going to get paid, and also have the greatest facilities. And, you know, I want to make sure that it's sustainable. And the architecture is absolutely phenomenal, and using the greatest technologies and all that stuff in that university. So that's one of the things I don't even know if I'll be able to do it in Australia, because I'm not sure that there's enough money here to be able to find it, maybe maybe not, I'm not sure. That's, that's questionable. So, but that's one of my goals. The other one is to travel around the world and to work with the greatest thinkers on the planet, the greatest achievers greatest performance, because they really do need our help. And something that I'm really, I won't use the word passion because word passion, if you look at the etymology of it means to suffer. But something that I really love to do is help people who excel in their fields, because I believe that they're the people who are under supported from our society, just in general. Now, if it wasn't for the dudes driving Ferraris, and driving amazing cars, and people with beautiful houses and amazing bodies, I probably would have ended up just a piece of shit in jail, like literally I would have because as a kid looking at someone, and I remember saying this, I was with my family and Frodo Passman was a kid and I said, wow, look at that. And they said, You've got to have good money and do really well at school to be able to afford that. Well, I've supercars now, and I was none of those things. So those people were the people that inspired me enough to say, just focus on what you want and go after it stay hungry. And so I think that their gift to society, we don't tend to look up to people who are struggling in life, we tend to look up to those who are doing great things. But the people who tend to do great things aren't as supportive as those who tend to be struggling. And I want to I want to be able to be that person to be able to help them as well. I remember the Katy Perry documentary where, you know, she's breaking up with Russell Brand, and she's on a plane and she's, you know, in tears, and, you know, she's shaking, saying, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this. And they're saying, but you've got like, 15 20,000 people the next location, and she's on tour, like, everyday, she's in a different location for the next like, 80 days. Yeah. How do you deal with that? Like the average person can't handle a marriage breakup, at like, even just in their normal life when they finish work at five o'clock? How do you do that when you've got 1520 30,000 people expecting you to rock up and perform at your best every night and then you're back on a plane? Even just being on a plane daily is hard enough yourself, let

Daniel Franco: 44:42

alone to before all of that stuff. So it's lonely at the top though, right? That's the that's I think that's the point you're trying to make it when you reach the top and you reach the levels. There is so much pressure on your shoulders and from an every single day point of view, from the people looking down from the people who rely on you from the people Do your own internal thoughts what's next?

Michael Johnson: 45:02

And then everyone gives you a shit as well, because life's easy for you. Yeah. But they don't realize, you know, I had someone the other day who said, I just want financial freedom. And I said, The fuck is that? And they go, Oh, it's where you get to do what you want, when you want how you want. I said, Who do you know who's ever had

Daniel Franco: 45:14

that? Who's always chasing more? Okay?

Michael Johnson: 45:18

Well, no one I said, because it's I've never met a person who's like that the only person who ends up with that stuff is slowly destroying their wealth and slowly destroying their life. And that's called gluttony. The idea that people have financial freedom isn't even real. Those who tend to like, if you look at the laws of the universe, things expand or things contract, Nothing stays the same. And laws of nature, things grow, things die, and nothing stays the same. So if your wealth isn't growing and expanding, it's contracting and dying. If your health isn't growing and expanding, then that area of life is contracting and dying the same as any area of life. So the more money you make, the more responsibility you have, that more responsibilities, more pressure, more people trying to get your wealth, all of those things. It's just more challenge that you've got to do.

Daniel Franco: 45:59

Yeah, I know a few people who are financially free, I'll challenge that and

Michael Johnson: 46:03

financially free, independent where they can make their own decisions. Yeah, I

Daniel Franco: 46:07

know a few people have built businesses and sold it for quite quite a healthy some there. They've just kept up with their purpose, though. I guess like this money is not the issue. Now. They're just doing what they love. But there's never enough money for that next big goal, though. Well, that's the thing. And it looks in whatever that goal looks like. They're, they're giving back. They're they're trying to help people out and shop other businesses. And don't worry, they're investing into these other businesses as well. Right. But it's, it's all it's always about, how do I or I've learned, I've done pretty well with myself. How do I give back and help others grow? It's no different to what you're doing right? You've done pretty well for yourself. And yeah, now you're now you're giving back.

Michael Johnson: 46:44

But I have more responsibilities. Now. I've got stuff to pay. Yeah. And that's what I mean, like, the idea of freedom is I don't have any responsibility. I can just sit around and you know, get up whenever I want, and just do whatever I want and hop on a plane, I've never met a person who can do that. Yeah, money normally gives you more choice. But it doesn't give you freedom, because there's more responsibilities. There's more people wanting to get at it. Like the more money I make the mortgage charities a call up, and you got to say no to them consistently, you've got people come to you with great ideas, people want more of your time or your energy more of your resources. So there's other things that trap you as well, you might have more money, and you might have more opportunity. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you're free. There's just a whole bunch of other things.

Daniel Franco: 47:21

as well. There's so many other levers getting pulled. If you if you if you don't want people coming to you every second of the day, I'm just going to ask you a question here. Not that you don't want that. But if if you're the pressure of people coming out to charities, money, money, money, right? But yet you drive around and McLaren, where you're almost not showboating is not the right word. But you're showing that you've done well for yourself, right? And look, I'm going to put it in context. If a real estate agent rocked up to my house, and they've got this, they're driving this beaten up car. My question to myself will be like, are they the best real estate agent that I can find? Right? Yeah, because generally, I know that's not a judgment I should have. But it's, it's there. We all have we all pay. But you need to go as high as a McLaren like this isn't McLaren needs to tell is that because I remember earlier you said you love the car thing you love cars. So that is something that is obviously fundamental to your core? Do you find that there has an exterior effect on what people now perceive of you? Or do you not, it doesn't bother you at all,

Michael Johnson: 48:25

it doesn't really bother me. Because I know, I think over the years, with what I teach, like, I wouldn't be able to teach what I teach without being clear and congruent with who I am. And what I know is that I can be a nice person, I can be kind person, I can look after people, but I can also be a prick, I'm an asshole, I can be a shithead like, whatever you want to call me, I can be Yeah, now we all have that inside of ourselves. But most people, they a persona is the masks that we wear and our personalities who we believe we really are on the inside. Now most people are really conflicted between those things, because they try to be kind to everybody. But at the inside, they give up their dreams and their goals and things like that, in order to please others, because they value other people's opinions over their own, which is why they're internally conflicted. What I know is that I have my values and I know who I am as a person. Now I love my highest value is teaching and learning. So I do that a lot. My second highest value is connecting with I call them inspired people, but these are people that are driven and want to achieve more whether I've hit rock bottom where they don't have money or whatever, I don't really give a shit like it's not about the money. It's about that drive that they have to just go you know what, I'm going to do something and I'll always back someone like that, in some way, shape or form. I've got my my health is also important and then business and wealth creation. So they're like my top four goals in life. Now, part of the reason that the McLaren was a strategic purchase, and it was a strategic person because a purchase for many, many different reasons. Number one, I love cars, and I've got the money to be able to do that now because I add a lot of value. And yeah, yeah, yes, man. Yeah, well, I think I do because a lot of people come up and they go oh, you're really lucky. I'm not fucking lucky I work 100 hours a week for the last 30 years. My first year in business, I am $30,000. My second year in business, I am $30,000. In the third year in business, I own $80,000 in the fourth year I own 1.2. Now everyone looks at and goes, well, you're lucky because you've got a multi million dollar company. Yeah, but can you imagine leaving a $200,000 career to go in and

Daniel Franco: 50:18

grant wishes that goes back to that? overnight success? 10 years, right. 100% Same thing.

Michael Johnson: 50:24

So, you know, the part of the reason why i i love cars, and I gave up on my cars for that reason, so I used to have like, I had a Holden statesman who Caprice back, like two years old, massive rims on it slammed to the ground. Like I've always loved cars, even when we're school. I had my dad's and and that thing was like offense, Charles. I just I love cars.

Daniel Franco: 50:44

Yeah. We're a diesel mechanic, too, right? Yeah.

Michael Johnson: 50:47

So I just I had this thing, my dad builds custom cars for a hobby. So I'm always been around cars. And there's just something about them that inspires me. And it normally there's a few things like if someone builds a car, it's you get to see their creativity. So it's a piece of artwork. Now people buy expensive sheet and put it up on the wall. And that's art. But what you're really buying is you're buying someone else's creativity, their love their, their inspiration in that piece. Now cars can be the same and that's what I love about them. I go I go to car nights now. And you know, 18 year old kid comes up in there. Oh my god, your car's amazing. New cars. Awesome, too. And now Yeah, but it's not like yours and, and they over emphasize like, I've got that car because it's a to me, it blows my mind that technology and that people put their heart and soul into building pretty much a race car for the road. And it is just the most amazing fucking thing. But I look at that other kids 18 year old car and go man, that's you like, that's your creativity. That's, that's your expression in a car. That's just as good as that. Yeah, there's no difference. Like, yeah, the price point is completely different. But still, like, appreciate it for what it is. And so I appreciate things for what they are not all the rest of the design that goes into it. So when it comes to the car, it was actually a strategic business play. And what I noticed was our industry saturated, I get all these people, they come up and they go, you know, like my charge rate is, is fairly high. But that's the people that I work with can easily afford to pay that also our events and all that sort of stuff. You know, I do extremely I guess I do extremely well in our industry. But what I found was that there were so many people going Yeah, but there's like 40,000 other coaches on Facebook all telling me that they do what you do. I go okay, well, how do we how do we play that game? Like, there I am, you know, I can show you last night I did a a we had a girl and I just an online girl. And because I wanted to get people to, you know, in Sydney, Melbourne and lockdown. And I've been waiting to get dressed up and run a girl and I for our for our community for the last three years. But because of COVID we had to put it off a couple of years ago, we were tight with cash flow, so we weren't able to do it. So I just said to the team, fuck it. Let's just do it. And so I had Sam Fricker there who's the Olympic diver. He's one of my clients, Brad Smith, who was like two times Young Entrepreneur of the Year, four times, Telstra Business would win or whatever, young Australia year like, and he's one of my close mates as well. So I'm like, How do I can put photos of those people up online and the amazing people that I get to hang around, but that still doesn't separate me my industry. So it was like, What can I do and the car that I really loved. That was the guide followed for a long time and Instagram I said, if you ever if ever is going to sell it, I'm going to buy it now I wasn't ready to buy it. Here. His name is Nico, but his Instagram accounts stand Batman. So I've loved supercars, and I've also got an AR eight as well. And it's my baby. Like every time I walk out to the shed, I just remind myself keep believing in you. Because one day, I thought I want to have a soup car in the garage. And everyone else didn't believe that I could do it. But I believed in me. And so that car is a reminder to keep believing myself. That's why I have it. It's not to impress others, like I get people the time that you just bought it to impress others to be honest, I don't give a fuck what other people think I didn't. If you buy a car to impress others, you're fucking lost. If you buy anything to impress others, you're lost. And you appreciate their opinion of you more than you appreciate your opinion view. Having a car just means that more people tell you what a wanqi you are and what a decade and how stupid you are for spending that amount of money on a car. So to buy stuff to get people to appreciate you normally just means you get more people who don't appreciate you anyway. So it's it is what it is. So that car came up and he put a post on Facebook and he said, you know if anyone's on Instagram, if anyone's looking to buy it, I'm thinking about selling it. I just I was like that's my car. And it was the same with my RA I looked. I looked for about a year and a half. And when I saw that car, I went that's my car I just knew. But prior to that I was driving around for seven years. Can you imagine going to meetings with due to worth hundreds of millions of dollars? property investors, politicians, you know, all of these people I'm rocking up driving into the car park in my wife's 2003 Hyundai gets that she bought brand new the door handles fucking falling off. You know, I'm driving down there in my cheap business, and I'm parking next to the forest.

Daniel Franco: 54:53

Actually, you tell yourself a different story, don't you actually, you must self internalize that you're not successful. I'm not I'm not suggesting that in any way shape or form, you have to go out and buy a brand new car to feel successful bc I would tell people don't do it. Yeah, it's stupid. It's a liability absolutely cost a lot of money. It doesn't return any investment. Right. But the investment that it was the investment that does return it, there is a sense of I'm actually, I'm doing okay, I'm actually on the way up on growing I'm learning I'm improving every single day. It is the the ability to be able to afford those sorts of things definitely has an impact on your on your self confidence, too, doesn't it? Right. Yeah, you are you are, I think I've heard you say this before. And it is a common speak in the industry, but you are the the average of the five people that you hang around, and their wages and their thoughts and all the above that come into it. So material items. They're, they're not they're not necessarily what create is not that's not a successful, like success, I think goes back to I don't like the word happiness, but it is more contentment, right? I'm content with where I'm at. I'm growing, I'm learning. I'm very content with who I am. And the way I treat people thing. As long as we come back to that core, we're always going to be okay.

Michael Johnson: 56:12

Everything in life, I think externally is just an amplifier for who we are. So I say this in my events, like if you judge a person based on how much money they do, or don't have that says more about you than anything. Absolutely, because money just amplifies things, it amplifies good behaviors, it amplifies bad behaviors. You know, I've watched people, you know, win 10 grand, and they'll go on blog within a week, you watch people who work hard for 10 grand, and some of them go on blog and week you work, you watch people who get 10 grand gone invested and do stuff like that, and they get a return over time. Yeah. And they're the ones who seem to get ahead. So money just amplifies things. And I think most of the things outside just amplify, if you buy a car to impress people, because you're trying to get praise and respect, you normally get the complete opposite to break your fantasy that you have around that. Now with my cars, I get both sides. I get people every day. My Instagram accounts down at the moment, but I get people everyday. Dickhead I am because of the cars that I have in the last little while. But I get people who say I'm inspiring. So what do I do? Do I keep adapting fit for a billion people on the planet to try and please everybody or just be myself? And do me? Well, you find

Daniel Franco: 57:15

your niche? Right? Yeah, find your niche. You found your calling you found your tribe? They're found me Well, that's right. But but it's also, if you're going to if you cannot try to appease everyone in the world, you're going to be a very, very miserable human being. That's most people don't right, agree. And if you if you stick to what you do, and you love what you do, think the Daniel Pink, you know, Daniel Pink, Daniel Pink, wrote a book called Drive is that he's written another many books called To Sell Is Human drive is for me is a very, it's an excellent book, because he talks about what drives people its autonomy, its purpose, and its mastery, you can if you can wrap those three up, alright, it's creating a sense of, you know, continued like, repetition within your life. And that repetition might be the continued growth and the steps that you take to move forward. The autonomy. Sorry, the purpose is exactly what you talk about finding your own value within the world. And then the master is becoming the best at it, right? The 10,000 Hour Rule and you tend to you know, Yep, yeah, the 10,000 hour rule, do 10,000 hours and you become a master. And that's when you start actually enjoying it more, the more and more you go through those first 1000 hours, they suck. Because you're not good, you make mistakes. But once you start once you break through that barrier, and it's really surprising, because one of the questions I was gonna ask you, and this sort of ties in with where I'm going, if we talk about 10,000 hours, and then we talk about those 10 years before you actually make it overnight, six, all the above. If you if you look at that, from a mastery point of view, that's really hard to break through that those first 1000 hours and not give up, right? When you push yourself through, though, those 1000 hours and there's this sense of imposter syndrome, surely you would have had an imposter syndrome at some point in your life. And you probably still suffer from today. And I do we all do. Those who are generally move up the ranks have that feeling? How did you manage that? How did you manage the thought process of No, no, you can, you know, I know you don't think about what other people say, and all this sort of stuff. But there is an element of I'm going out there and I'm telling how to people create a life when I may not have done it yet. So is it a case of just being one step ahead? Or like how do you how do you view it?

Michael Johnson: 59:36

Well, so that's the problem, right? Is that our industry is to put it in a nice term is fake as fuck, because there's a whole bunch of dudes on stage or guys and girls who get out there and they say, you know, and a great example of this right? I go and speak at this seminar and this event and there's a spiritual guru there or whatever. And he gets up and you know, he puts on his whole like, yeah, you know, we're here today. Because have to find our peace. And so he's talking slow and he's done all this stuff. You know, we need to be non judgmental, and we need to walk forward in the face of non judgement and all this stuff. And I'm like, That's bullshit. I've never met a person who doesn't judge. Like if I honestly walked up into the chute on that dude's lap he would judge we're human right? We there's what I find is because I've studied a lot of philosophy, metaphysics, but also study a lot of hard sciences as well. And I try to bridge the gap between those two, because great thinkers understand that you need both philosophy, ask the questions. And then the science proves or disproves whether we're on the right track or not. So you need both. So this whole idea of non judgement is a metaphysical construct that that happens when it's called a point of enlightenment within the brain. And science is starting to get there now with scientifically proving it, if we can keep going down the path, I believe, and this is my belief, of biophotonics, because it's now starting to become scientifically proven that cells can communicate through light as well. So this is an interesting field of study. And it's becoming a little bit more prevalent now. And we use it, it's been used in medicine a little bit more as well as like different light therapies and so on. But anyway, I won't go too far down that path. But the point of enlightenment supposedly in if you look at how light I'm just going to try and say this in the easiest way, when light is observed is separates between a particle Nancy particle now I'm probably going to butcher this. So physicists are going to send me death threats and stuff. But you get a particle, an anti particle, and they split and it creates a physical form or physical construct. Now this is the beta is one neuroscience. So there's, there's a whole bunch of stuff, but it looks like in our brain that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, when we're talking about the conscious and the unconscious mind, we're talking about these splits of charges within the brain structure that we have something called an anti memory and a memory. The memory is what we're aware of the anti memory is a part of what happened we're unaware of now studies in psychology is showing that around 50% Of all the stories that we have are false, that we just make shit up. And we make shit up to suit whatever, whatever we think is happening in that time. Now that looks like it gets stored an anti memory. When they come together, they create a moment of enlightenment. And I'll ask the question again, because, like, I go off track, and then I bring it back. That's just my way of that's my way of it. So anyway, this guy is talking about non judgement. It's a metaphysical construct. It's not a physical construct in a world that we live in, which is right here in front of us right now. So this guy goes backstage, and he loses his shit. And he's losing a shirt because someone put cheese in his vegan sandwich, right? Yeah. Now this is dude. I'm like, Dude, wait way judging the cheese, man. Just eat it, you know, like, so there's this whole false construct in a lot of society around what should happen and how we should behave. I tell people all the time, I'm sure that 99% of things, I'm good at the 1% of things that I've found that I love to do. So most people that I may try to be good at everything, which is why they pretty much shoot at everything, because they never really find that thing. Like, I get people who say to me, like, customers will ring me up and they go, can you just look up my file and go got an idea. And they go, but it's your business? Yeah, but I'm not good at it. So I don't do it. I'm good at what I do, which is teaching and learning, especially in the era of mental performance. Other than that, I'm shit at most things. So I teach people, just be sure to pretty much everything half the time that you go down your nation that really 100% And then I teach people like, I'm on a journey of life of self discovery as a wheel. So don't look up to me. Because when you look up to me, you're already setting yourself up to put yourself down. Most people don't realize that the chaos inside of their head is because they keep looking up to people thinking that other people have what they don't inside of them. They're confused about what they're really trying to do, which causes themselves to beat themselves up. That's not the way to success, isn't it? It is and it's it's unfair, like, I'm not you, you're not me. So why do I compare it? No, what I can do is look at you and go, here's some things you do really, really well. And that's inspiring. And that gives me inspiration. And then there's a whole bunch of things in your life that you probably really should have just like I am as well. So if I want to be inspired by the things you do, well reminds me my greatness and to go and find what I'm good at. And then we can all go on a journey of life. What I teach is I teach scientific tools and tools that seem to work to help people perform better. But I tell people all the time, don't look up to me, number one, because I don't have my shit figured out. That's a really bad strategy for life. Number two, I've excelled from where I've come from in life to get to where I am today. Now, if you want to go on, follow some of those great learnings that I've got fantastic. But at the same time, there's so much more that I'm here to discover. Don't look at me and think, like, if you see me walking across water, I figured all my shit out. But until that time, don't look up to anybody. And so, you know, in response to that question, I think that, you know, there's, I think that it's a really bad idea for our industry to teach people that we've got stuff figured out because we don't, every business owner, I meet who I talk to, they're like, I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. And I'm like, That's everybody. Don't worry about it. Like you don't know the next step in business. That's why we need to learn from people. That's why we need to surround ourselves with other people who have been on the journey, and they have little bits and pieces that we can learn from and integrate it into our own which then helps us to excel, to think that you're going to do it by yourself is absolutely ludicrous and stupid. And it holds most people back. And every week I make people go, I'll figure it out myself. Good luck.

Daniel Franco: 1:05:11

Yeah, it's my overwhelm comes from right. And when you talk about find your niche, if you're good at sales stick to sales, if you pull someone and find a virtual assistant to do your admin work, right, like Lance kind of, don't spend time on doing the stuff that is, is going to take up more of your time and create angst. Because then that's when the sense of overwhelm comes, if you are great at sales, go out and concentrate and sales, pull someone in to help you do all the other stuff, don't have enough money, then work harder, or do a little more or find a system that works or smarter or for you know, move to move to software which can help seamless the process like you know, CRM or something like that, we have all your customer information data. And that manages all you may like there's so many other ways to skin a cat. Yeah, it's about finding those single ways. I will challenge you on the don't look up to people though, I can feel like there are some really great people in the world. So looking up to a mom, I look up to a lot of people, I kind of other people collector, I love people, I always have a man crushing all this sort of stuff. And I look up to people because I really like what they've done. I really like what their purpose is, I really like what they've achieved. And I want to learn from their achievements. I don't necessarily want to attain their level of success, or I want to earn the same amount of money at them. But I look at what they've done and I and then basically I pull that into my own world and go How can I apply that information or those experiences of that person's head and place it into my world where I can learn from it and execute on that, within my own business or within my own life, or the way I raised my family or the way I raise you know, or the way I walk out on the street, whatever it might be. So there is there is a I think don't compare yourself to other people. You

Michael Johnson: 1:06:51

can't look up to people without a comparative. So this is why I I've excelled in my field because I really go and study things in depth. Like the word passion means to suffer. I tell people don't go and find what you're passionate about. Because you will suffer. Passion is an elated state, what goes up has to come back down. But if you find what you love, love is a balance. It's it's a symmetry, which is why it's used in religion and why it's using philosophy. And even the greatest scientists use the word love like Albert Einstein, if you read his works, and there's many other people as well, you know, Richard Fineman and people like that the great physicist, they use the word love. Love is a symmetry between complementary opposites, which means that if I love something like Do you have kids? Yes, yep. So when you look at your kids, and you go, I love my kids, there's part of you that goes there, the worst thing that ever happened to me the best thing that ever happened, and that's the thing I use every day. Yeah. And that's love, right? Because there's part of you that goes that they have both sides, you get to see that right in front of you. And I love those kids, because you get the best and the worst from

Daniel Franco: 1:07:46

them. Yeah. Mosquito Chan, I'll charge you the best. And the worst, the best is that the feelings that you get, and the worst is the feelings that you get. It's all in this, it's all wrapped up in that same bunch, because it's the, it's the fear of losing them. It's the fear of them making mistakes, it's the fear of them. And then it's also the love that you get back from the desire and the want and need that they have from you. So all that is wrapped up into that feeling space. Yep, and emotion space,

Michael Johnson: 1:08:12

you can't have one without the other when it comes to love. So you know, in a loving relationship, there's less passion, so there's less excitement, but there's less volatility. And a loving relationship means you look at your partner and you go, you know, you're the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me, and you see both of them, you see the best in the worst. Whereas when you start dating someone, you're in a you're in passion. And passion is, you know, they get home from work, they have a shower, they put all their deodorant on, they smell great, they get all dressed up. Now, all of that stuff, you're you're showing the best of yourself to the person and hiding all the other shit, right? But that's how we start relationships, because you can't just go there and go, Hey, look, I'll be honest with you, you know, you look really hot tonight. But at the same time, like I just want to be upfront with you. When I go to the bathroom, and I do twosies I leave the door. Now, I hope you're okay with that. By the way, if I have dairy, I get a lot of gas, like, you know, and, you know, I tend to leave shit around the place quite a fair bit as well. Like I don't you know, and I'm not the best with my diet. And if you don't mind, like I go out with the boys on the weekend. So I hope you don't mind playing second to them. We don't show that side of ourselves. But we learn that when we start living with a person and that's how we start creating love and we move more towards love and and that creates volatilities is what creates arguments and it creates it forces us to communicate more effectively and understand someone. So the more we understand someone, the more we have love for them. But the more we see both their sides, when you're passionate, you only see one side. And so when people follow their passions, it's normally an elated state or it's a fantasy that they have around what they think. Now when we look up someone like I if I look up to Elon Musk, I go man, that guy's got an easy life. You know, he's out there. He's doing what he loves. He's crushing it. He's got all this money. You know what? That's a fantasy. It's a delusion and you're looking up to them going I wish I had that. But at the same time when you see that you see the best of them but you don't see the other side. That automatically creates a delusion in your head which then starts to put yourself down because that's what you think you have to be and increase that comparison. So, I always ask people like, and I try to clarify the languaging that they're using so that it helps them to understand what's really going on inside the language is powerful. Yeah. So when when I'm inspired by someone like I've read and studied a lot around Elon Musk, when you look at him, I go, I wouldn't have that guy's life.

Daniel Franco: 1:10:17

But I think on the same Oh, yeah. This guy's extreme. Yeah. And I

Michael Johnson: 1:10:21

would I wouldn't have his life, but there are parts of what he does that I really appreciate. And I, you know, I don't admire his life. But what I think is there a parts of what he does that I that really inspire me, like his drive, his determination, his tenacity, all of those things. And when I look at that, I go, I'm inspired by it, but I don't want that. That's inspiration. That's not That's not looking up to people. And so, you know, I get it with the cars and stuff where people go, you know, you're so lucky and life's easy. And I'm like, hang on, fuck, and I tell them, you know, I that's one of the most common things also of a traffic license. It's good, man. It's amazing car, like, You're so lucky. And I go, man, it's like 30 years of high or 15 years of hard work. And I try to get them to just like, see it for what it is. Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 1:11:01

it depends on who you talk to. Because if I looked up to you right now, like if I said, I looked at Michael Johnson's life, and sorry, drugs, McLaren is doing all this stuff. He's, you know, global speaker all the above. There's an element of me that, that I don't sit there and go tz is that there's definitely not that as ever entered my head. It's my head goes to I can only imagine the hours he's put in, I can this is exactly where the question comes from, of, you know, the overnight success thing is, I know what you're going through what you've what you've been through

Michael Johnson: 1:11:31

and asleep on the couch. And at least twice a week, my brains gone crazy 100%.

Daniel Franco: 1:11:35

And it's just nonstop. It's relentless. And you and your writing, if you've got a team of people that, you know, not that I rely on you to put food on their table, but they're part of the ecosystem that you are involved in that you are helping them put food on the table. They've chosen to work with you, they've chosen to support you, they've chosen to work for your cause and help you along the way. Therefore there is an element of responsibility, right? And then that gut feeling off I know everything you're feeling. So I've

Michael Johnson: 1:12:03

gone like six, eight months without a wage. Yeah, it's just because of, you know, putting reinvesting more money back into the company to make it grow and open up more opportunities. You know, when I have people who come to me and they say things like that, like, you know, you are lucky because you've got all these things. Yeah, but you don't see like, what about the six months last year, I went without a wage, you know? Yeah, but you're still lucky and you go, but okay, like, older smile. And that's, that's the pedestal and, like, I try to give them the balanced perspective. And I think when you're balanced, you can be inspired. Like, I'm inspired by a lot of things that people do, you know, I'm inspired, that I'm here today doing this, like, it's cool, you know, it's cool that people pushing, but that doesn't mean that I want to be you, it doesn't mean that they're just there's an appreciation and understanding around what it takes. When you're like that you become a lot more stable as an individual. When you look up to people and you create fantasies, you put yourself down inside your head. So anytime someone's putting themselves down, it's what I've found. And and you know, I'm not saying that I know everything around the psychology and human behavior. But what I noticed is that there was a consistent pattern of behavior that when people beat themselves up, it's because they're comparing themselves to somebody else out there. So don't compare

Daniel Franco: 1:13:11

combats comparison isn't absolute evil. It I think the the when you do look at someone, maybe looking up to someone who's not the right language, maybe look at what someone does, like an Elon or Michael Johnson or whoever it might be, look at what they've done, learn from their experiences, learn how you can apply what they've learned, right? Because I, I read, I love reading autobiographies really, because I can learn about what they did and where they went wrong. And how I can avoid that pitfall. Yeah. You know what I mean? Honestly, I don't read their biographies. Because I want to be that person. I want to be like them, or I want to be like, you know, the Arnold Schwarzenegger autobiographies one of the best, I think, because it shows you His grit and determination through it. But I don't want to be the world's best bodybuilder. I don't want to be an actor. But I absolutely learned from these failures along the way. And I'll pick like a yes, I can apply that here. And this is where I can actually that's a good thing. I can avoid that or the mentality of actually of getting through. So yeah, look, I'm conscious of your time. That's okay, where we've got some I've got 1000 Other questions that we didn't get sweet.

Michael Johnson: 1:14:18

We can keep going. I still got another 20 minutes. Yeah, what what we do at the

Daniel Franco: 1:14:21

end of at the end of every podcast is we ask a whole bunch of quickfire questions that never end up being quickfire. So. But we are big readers here at the creating synergy podcast, we always talk about books, and I've seen a few of your videos is a beautiful bookshelf in the back there. Yeah. What is a book that you're reading right now?

Michael Johnson: 1:14:47

Oh, I'm or there's two that I'm reading at the moment. It's Warren Buffett's new book. When he goes down, he breaks out what's not new, it's probably about three years old, but it's Sorry. It's latest Warren Buffett's it Mary Buffett's book, Warren Buffett and his investing strategies. Oh, wow. So just reading that, how they, how he breaks down, like the profit loss and the cash flow and the forecasting and all that sort of stuff. So I've been reading that, but I've just, I normally only read two or three pages every couple of days. And I just sort of let it brew. And then. So that's one. The other one is on reading Napoleon Hill's book, How to Sell your way through life. It's a book I've read many, many times, but I've just I've been doing a lot of sales, training and developing a lot of sales training, both for my team, but I've just, I've developed this amazing love for sales. And I really, I really enjoy and I think most people leave so much on the table when it comes to selling. And so yeah, I've just been reading that and also the way of the wolf by Jordan Belfort as well. It's just on his sales strategies, I tend to only learn things that I want to implement. So you know, I go through stages where I go, you know, I want our sales team to be the best. So I'm just going to read as much as I can be planned. And then I just create my own trainings and my own stuff by integrating a whole bunch of knowledge. So yeah, I can

Daniel Franco: 1:15:59

give you 1000 sales books. Have you read? Jeb Blount? I love his stuff. He's got like sales EQ. Okay, so emotional intelligence in sales are again, it's if anyone's listening is that you can go and pitch you can do this, but it's actually having an emotional intelligence, when you're selling, being able to read queues, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, get on to get into that.

Michael Johnson: 1:16:19

Well, definitely check that out. I'll write it down. I'll grab it. But um, yeah, so they're the books that I'm reading at the moment.

Daniel Franco: 1:16:24

What's one book that you would recommend like either if we're talking low hanging fruit, you help people get unstuck you help people reach their potential? What is one book that you would recommend to most people that you feel are not I know, it's very, it's very, very, I know, very generic. For someone who's looking to get out of the rut. Let me be more specific, someone who's wanting to go right, let's, let's move forward. Let's do what I didn't. How do I create my own purpose, whatever.

Michael Johnson: 1:16:50

Look, I think if you're in a write, go and find something that's inspiring to you and read that, so whatever that is, like if I, my sister is one of the most amazing people that I've come across. And, you know, I get to as I said, I work with billionaires and professional athletes. And, you know, people would on call shoot around the place as well, you know, top level executives and I, I meet those people, but I also meet just people who are extraordinary what they want. My sister's one of those people. Now, she's an amazing mom, like, she's just fucking incredible. And I don't know how she figured it out. But she was just like, when she had kids, she just there's a way that she understands my niece and nephew, like I've never seen before. Give an example, if you don't mind, like over. So this is why these are never quick. It's my niece's birthday today, actually. And happy birthday. So she builds this, I don't know, it was like made out of plaster or whatever. And it's like a sort of a dragon or an animal sort of thing. So she goes to put it in the car after school. And it's for my brother in law, it's for his birthday. And so it's his birthday. It's Friday afternoon, and Saturday and Sunday morning. You know, she's going to give it to him. So as I go to get out the car, it breaks in the lake falls off. So she burst into tears and all that and my sister. That's right, we'll glue it back together. So they glued it back together and everything's good. In the morning, they go to get it out, and it falls apart. Right? So this thing just they pick it up and it just falls to bits. Ella's screaming, she's in tears. And my sister said, hey, look, how about we do this? How about we give dad some superglue. And we give him this and say that it's a jigsaw puzzle and he gets the put it together. Brilliant changes immediately. And you know, that gives me chills like anytime I see someone who's doing something inspiring that they love to do it. I don't, I don't tell people go and start a business because I think it's stupid for the majority people, I don't tell people to go on become apparent because it's stupid for most people. People need to find out who they are, and be great at what they do whatever that whatever that is, in fact, most people shouldn't start a business because it's not in their values. And they don't understand what it really takes in order to excel in it. And really, they're just buying themselves a job, if anything, and they're going to get paid a little bit more. But they're also going to have to do paperwork, tax, you know, accounting, if they've got wishes, customer service problems, all of those things, they're going to be worse off by having a business. Now, you know, if they're a bit lost, I will just recommend go and find what you love. So if my sister said, you know, what, what could I read, I would say if you love parenting, go and read a book on parenting or go and read a book on someone who inspires you to read to give you that feeling again, and then go out there and do it. And it might not be a book, it might be a movie or some there's some way it might be music, whatever it is gone find that thing that inspires you again, because it changes the way your brain works. And you go from being in the amygdala, which is the emotional center of the brain up into the executive center, which is the prefrontal cortex, the most evolved part of the brain, which then helps you to think clearly and you regulate and govern your emotions. And all emotions are bipolar. They're cyclical. So you can't have one without the other. And that's why we have mood swings, because we swing back and yeah. Yeah, so as far as our recommendation, the love of learning, right, hi, oh, if you love learning, because some people don't like learning, so go find what you love and then figure out how you can be around that. So whether it's learning or not,

Daniel Franco: 1:19:58

what's the one lesson that sticks Have you the longest to learn?

Michael Johnson: 1:20:02

Shit? I'm still learning it. I need my wife here because she probably should probably. You know, when you when you're married, and you know, I come home one day and I've had like this amazing conversation with someone like are they said to do this? And she just looks at me and she goes, I've been telling you that same fucking thing. Yeah, but it's you

Daniel Franco: 1:20:19

like, I don't know. Yeah, listen to people who are paying million dollars.

Michael Johnson: 1:20:24

So, look I don't really know, I don't have an answer that question because I tend to learn what I need to learn at the time that I'm ready to learn it. And I don't you know, I wouldn't say I, I think I try to teach people as well, life is just school, right, you go through grade one, you get a whole bunch of lessons, then you get a test. If you pass that test, you go to the next grade, and it's just the same shit just at a different level. Yeah. And so this is why that whole idea of financial freedom I don't believe in because if you're growing your wealth, you just have different levels of problems and challenge. And there's never enough money to be able to do the next big dream or the next big thing because it's on the next level of where you want to get to. So you have this consistent battle of growth, and you have consistent challenges, you have consistent criticisms, you know, the more popular become, the more famous you become, the more people dislike you. So if you can't deal with one person disliking you how you're going to have 50 people and 100 or 1000s. So it seems to me like we just go through these levels, and we get tests. If you fail the test, and you don't learn what you need to learn, you have to repeat that grade and repeat the lesson. And sometimes, not a guy recently came to my events. I've known this guy for about 13 years. And I said you need to come to our thrivetime event, which is the event where you get everything really, really clear with what you're trying to achieve in life. And he said, You know, I'm pretty clear with what I need to do. And I said, Dude, how much money have you lost, since you've known me, said probably about 15 mil. And I said, That's exactly why you need to come because you keep repeating the same lesson with businesses banging heads against the wall, you grow a business really, really quickly. And you're amazing at sales. And you're amazing at bringing people together. But the problem is that you don't, you don't slow down for the infrastructure to build up. And so then eventually the business crashes. And you might lose five to $10 million of five, you know, three to five years of extremely hard work to get there. And you end up back at the same position. Yeah. Why don't you learn how to keep it? And so that's

Daniel Franco: 1:22:12

what's the difference? Somebody wins the lottery, right? Yeah. I don't know how that you had you not at the level to understand how finance how money works to be able to spend that money. This is why most people blow it in the first so many years. Because you you haven't, you know, walked up those steps of learning to be able to everything is a step in life. If you if you jump a few steps, you're gonna get caught out. It's pretty simple. I

Michael Johnson: 1:22:34

don't think you can jump a few steps I think we get given. That's a test. Right? So the test is like, I've always wanted to win the lotto, and now I've got the lottery win, what am I going to do with it? If you fail that test, then you go back, you fail, you got to go back to start again and repeat the grades. So the snakes and ladders. I know some people keep on saying women as well. I've got mates of mine. They're like, this is my new girlfriend. You know, Cindy, and I'm like, shit. Cindy looks the same as Lisa. She's the same as Lisa, she talks the same. She's got the same shit going on. What What don't you see? Yeah, it sounds like it's different. It's the same thing. Yeah. So yeah,

Daniel Franco: 1:23:06

that's good. You, you love surrounding yourself around other people, if you could invite three people for dinner? Who would

Michael Johnson: 1:23:12

be home man, that's gonna be a really challenging list. Look, at the moment. If I had to answer that question. My wife?

Daniel Franco: 1:23:26

or you know that, you know, I was gonna call your net just

Michael Johnson: 1:23:32

a apostle,

Daniel Franco: 1:23:33

he did well.

Michael Johnson: 1:23:36

Look, in order to be with someone like me, you need to be an extremely strong person, because I'm an extremely mental person to be around. And, you know, I'm I push hard, I break the boundaries, I do things that are outside of the norm. And she's that person who goes that's just Michael. And that's, I think that's what I love about her. And also her consistent growth because as the business grows, she runs out operations. So there are making these huge commitments to doing crazy shit. And she's gone globe. She can't send the vision. So she has a lot of courage. So I definitely would be her. And I don't spend enough time with oh, that's why it'll probably be good, good date night. I think there would be there's a few people, I don't think I could bring it down to three. But if I had to, I think, being around someone like an Einstein or Stephen Hawking, because I love science. There's also a few others as well, like Richard Fineman, and who's an amazing physicist. There's a few others in my head. I think that they would be really, really great people like I love how committed scientists are the great scientists to their fields, and I have so much respect for them that they can have so much dedication, and I think scientific research is such a bitch of a field because someone like me comes along, and I grab a piece of research and I can read it in like two or eight minutes, and I get years and years of them just Making mistakes and being dedicated. And so I have a massive amount of respect for those people. So they would definitely be one, I think an Elon Musk would be pretty crazy as well, or even a Warren Buffett or any of the rich listeners as well, like, you know, I was fortunate enough only recently, person who have become friends with, you know, is Toby PA, so you sold, you know, sweat. And you know, we were just in the gym or having training session. And I said to him, because I was struggling with business for a little bit and the level with our growth, and I just said to him, like, dude, what was your biggest learning in business at my size, and he said, we'll make you hire a whole bunch of staff to come in to help take pressure off, but then you realize that they need management, and now you become the manager, as well as doing your job, so becomes more pressure. Then he said, then you hire managers, and you realize that the managers the management as well, and then they go off track, and then they're looking after other people. And it just becomes this big, like, massive, stressful clusterfuck of like problems and stress and shit. And anyone with a scaling business knows exactly what I'm talking about, or anyone who scaled a business. And he said, but then you get to a point where you just hire a really good executive, like a really good executive manager, where they come in, and they're almost they think like an entrepreneur, they treat the business like a like they're entrepreneurial, but at the same time, they can manage, they can manage all the systems and the processes. And he said it and you've got to pay them really well, which is a conundrum because you go cash flow is tight, but I need this person. And he said, that was probably the greatest lesson. Now I went and implemented that in our business by hiring our new GM that we've got. And I would say that my stress levels have reduced by like, 80% by that one thing. So you know, even someone like like Toby, or anyone who has had a business that's done really, really well, I think you need to have them if you're a business owner in a circle, because they've gone through that shit. And they've spent years making those mistakes. And it can just be those little things. So I think one would have to be a scientist, one would be an entrepreneur, and one would be Jess

Daniel Franco: 1:26:52

would love it. If you had access to a time machine, where would you go?

Michael Johnson: 1:26:58

Oh, man, these questions are shocking. Thanks. I don't know, because I wouldn't go back with anything in my life because I don't really get regrets. Like there's normally always a learning and things like that. Like there's plenty of shit that I've done that, you know, my little dark closet we all have, that we don't want to expose. But, you know, I think that there's always lessons and learnings and everything that you do. I think there are times in history I'd love to go back to and just sort of see what's going on. I think this there's a beauty I think around like the 1920s and the 1930s around how you could just go out and people knew each other around the streets in I love those days of people just getting dressed up you know the guys in the bowlers Ganesan. I just I love that.

Daniel Franco: 1:27:38

There was no track pants back then.

Michael Johnson: 1:27:40

It was like, you know, you'd literally people get dressed up, I still dress up to go on an aeroplane because I think that I think that it's incredible that I get to fly through the sky that yeah, you know right now for for probably even 10s of 1000s of years, or however long humans have been around, we probably looked at birds gone. That's amazing. And we get to do that same thing. So I still blows my mind. Every time I get on a plane, I get the tingles, and I'm just like, Yeah, fucking flying. This is cool. But I love that visually

Daniel Franco: 1:28:08

watch me flying literally. Yeah, anyway, yeah,

Michael Johnson: 1:28:11

I love that era of just having respect for things where, you know, your front lawns would be, well, if we had mowing machines, but, you know, our front lawns would be mowed. If we had a house, we looked after it. Because, you know, it was just that's what you did. If you have friends, you look after them. And it was almost like disrespect. Whereas even yesterday, I was driving out a little West lakes, driving out of the lake. And you know, the grass is all high. And back when I grew up, I don't know about you. But remember where it was like sort of, there was just a different a different sort of level of problems. Now people are busy. And so

Daniel Franco: 1:28:43

you go back not forward. I think there's a future not.

Michael Johnson: 1:28:48

Look, if I went to the future, it would only be to go to figure out what the investment opportunities to come back and make all the money now for my investments very

Daniel Franco: 1:28:55

much like your Back to the Future fan, but I always say go forward by the Almanac and then come back and play some bits. Right? If you have one superhero power, what would it be?

Michael Johnson: 1:29:09

I think I've already got one. And that's to look inside people's minds and know what's going on. Exactly. Emotional intelligence. I don't know that it's emotional intelligence. It could be depends on how you describe emotional intelligence, I always ask this question like, What do you mean by that? Because our emotions are our amygdala. And our intelligence is the prefrontal cortex. And they're two different parts of the brain. Normally, when someone's emotional, they're not intelligent. And when someone's intelligent than non emotional, the emotions that govern. So they're two completely different things. And I think just like most things in our society, we sort of mash things together and just say it without really looking into it. You know, like, I'll give you an example. The word empathy means the self with others that comes from the word compassion. That's the original etymology. Now, when you look at it, part of that is a growth experience, because when we have unhealed wounds from our past, it tends to trigger us to show us that there's something there that's out of balance, and we've got to go back and explore that in order to The standard and then when we understand that we can heal from it. Now most people don't want to hear that because they've been conditioned to think a certain way and they have confirmation bias and so on. Now, when I, once I know that those sort of things, it makes it really, really easy into understanding how people operate. Another really good example of this is I asked in my event thrivetime I say to people who and here's a kind person, and you know, the majority of people put their hand up. Yep, I'm a kind person I go, That's bullshit. Because if you're kind to others consistently, you normally do it at the expense of yourself. And I guarantee you beat yourself up inside your own head for doing shit for other people you don't want to do Yeah, and you watch the hands drop and people just like what the fuck, but it's because I understand how the brain works at a fairly high level to be able to understand how people think so I think that is the gift that I have. That's my superpower. But if I had to have another one I think it would probably be flight. Yeah, you know, only just said you looked at the birds it makes sense. Yeah, if I you know if I could fly it I mean, getting an Uber to come down here sucks driving my car. So yeah, I yeah, she has

Daniel Franco: 1:30:58

to do a run around carry only got you to

Michael Johnson: 1:31:00

just drive justice around. She's got a car, drive that around. But most of the time, you know, the majority of the time, like if I'm taking friends out, or clients out or whatever, I take the cars because they love them. Yeah. And this is I think this is what I was getting at before as well is like I didn't buy those cars to impress people. I didn't buy those cars shop or anything. I bought them for many different reasons. Number one, my job is to inspire people. When I drive that car, in less you been in a supercar that is like mind blowing supercar. People don't understand what it's like, I drive just did to go have coffee, and you watch little kids stand on the road, they just stand on a wave is driving past. And even if it's a split moment, I've just inspired them to think being dream big. And that's my purpose in life. So by having that car it to me, it's a way of inspiring people. Every time I parked that car, someone comes up and has a chat with me. That's my opportunity again, to connect with someone and hopefully, remind them to dream big believe in themselves. That's That's what I tell people I believe in you. If because no one else is going to unless you do Oh, I'd

Daniel Franco: 1:31:55

be scared someone's gonna kill it. Look,

Michael Johnson: 1:31:58

if someone Kay's it, it says a lot about the individual.

Daniel Franco: 1:32:00

I know now, but it costs you the money. Yes.

Michael Johnson: 1:32:03

But that's why I have insurance. You know, I've I've had that cost since I had the McLaren since March. And in that time, I've put almost 5000 K's on it. Now people say why would you like flip the fuck like that's, that's a lot of money down the drain. But I didn't buy the car to park in the shed. Now you want to drive, I want to drive. I want to inspire people and I go, I go and pick up all my mates I go and pick up clients, even people on Instagram sometimes, and this isn't everybody, please don't send me messages on Instagram, and all that stuff and ask for drives. But sometimes, like people who are just really good in the community who start interacting, and I see their enthusiasm for what we do. And they might just shoot me a message and go, I'd love to catch up for a coffee. And I'll go I'll come pick you up in the McLaren and or, you know the RA or whatever. When I do that you just watch their fucking mind blow apart. And I'm like, if that gives me an hour with them to just remind them of those things. Again, dream big, keep believing in yourself and go hard play hard at life. Because every day you're a day closer to death. Now I don't know when I'm going to die. But what I what I'm sure she does knowing is at the end of tonight, I'm one day closer to him. Yeah. So I want people to go out there and play as big as they want as hard as what they want. And you know what, there's always consequences. But as long as you're okay with them go hard. You're going to fuck things up, you're gonna fail, you're gonna make mistakes. And yes, there are going to be people go you failed, you made mistakes, but who gives a shit? Because at the end of the day, you're doing what you want to do and you're getting ahead and they're not. That's how

Daniel Franco: 1:33:18

you get ahead. You get ahead by making mistakes. 100% And that's when the most learning comes from right. Comes from Alright, we're gonna finish up one last question was, you know, Dad, yep. But you got a niece, nephew, niece and nephew, nephew. So you've told a shit joke? Surely you've got a good dad joke that you can tell me.

Michael Johnson: 1:33:38

I'm really bad at jokes. I I tell people

Daniel Franco: 1:33:41

I even sent you a text.

Michael Johnson: 1:33:44

I read it this morning. It was really like my shit. I don't really have a dead joke. Oh, you know, all my jokes are waiting inappropriate anyway. Yeah. And you're gonna get sued if I say that. So look, I think that's also the thing that, you know, I think he's me. And this is why I love doing what I do. Because I do get to go to businesses, and be on podcasts. And people say, you know, can you come in and do a podcast? Or can you come in and do a talk and I say, look, here's the thing, I'm probably going to say the wrong thing. I'm probably going to be inappropriate. And you know what, a lot of your audience is going to connect with it but you're probably gonna piss off someone. Now if you want me to be a robot and just say everything in the right way in the correct way that's great because you can hire a motivational speaker to do that shit. But if you want people to be really impacted by what I say on the right route for the job and so yeah, when it when it Yeah, I I think all my jokes I was getting all my jokes away to appropriate but yeah, but

Daniel Franco: 1:34:42

I mean, look, to be honest, look, what up? Oh, no, it's fine. We don't need to go down. I think what, what you are saying? And really, if obviously, if you were to come on you you ask the question Can I swear? If I had said no. At that start at the conversation, the conversation wouldn't have gone On the way it went wrong, because I don't get my grade. So it really is about bringing your authentic self to the conversation, which is what you've done. So if people are gonna see you're in judge because you've sworn, then that says more about them them than you right? So I'm not too concerned about it. Right? But that's it for the time, you've got to go, you're going slightly over. That's right. Where can we Oh, everyone who's listening, this probably knows this already. But where can we find you and get in contact with you?

Michael Johnson: 1:35:28

My website is the Mojo master.com.au, or it's Mojo, human performance institute.com. So you can go there and check out what we do our events, our seminars, our products are all on there. If you need to shoot me an email to go through to my team, and then they'll pass it on for speaking engagements or whatever they can do that or podcast requests. Also, I'm heavily involved on Facebook as well. So we have a very active community on Facebook,

Daniel Franco: 1:35:52

your 20,000 photos on that day? Yeah,

Michael Johnson: 1:35:54

I don't think it's a lot of followers, like for what I've done and for the amount of content that I put out there. But what I know is our community is super tight. Yeah. So out of that, like, you know, I've been out of that community, like I know, people who have millions of followers and they don't make a lot of money, make a lot of money on that because of the community's really, really tight and they really value what I do, which is really cool. They're they they're really cool bunch of people who I think just want to be better and are out there to push hard so I've got

Daniel Franco: 1:36:19

a few friends that are part of the community now that Joe and Julie alien LH you know, yes, yes. Yep. You caught them in a wedding not long ago as well. Joe, I did reach out to him say go any questions for Miko for tomorrow. So there and Rory Papalia. Who's been on this? Who's been on this way for years. I used to work together at kp for years. So yeah, a few people I know that are heavily involved and follow your have been following your journey for quite some time. So keep up the good work, man.

Michael Johnson: 1:36:48

I was just gonna say Facebook. So Michael, Mojo, double zero are all my Facebook, facebook, instagram

Daniel Franco: 1:36:54

Mojo name come from? Okay. Have we got time?

Michael Johnson: 1:37:00

Got a couple minutes. Um, what it was, was originally when we started. You know, I think like most people don't really know what you're doing in business. And so at first, I was like, right, I want to get into speaking, I want to do like this motivation thing, which isn't what I do now. Like, our stuff isn't motivation. In fact, I think motivation is a symptom of being unclear with what you do. I think when you're inspired, you don't need motivation. You just do what you have to do. So they're different. And I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But so we when we first started, I was like, I want to do this motivational speaking thing I want to go out and coach people. And I'd studied, I'd done like some of my NLP mastery courses and all that stuff. And then I had Tony Robbins coaches and mentors. And one of my original mentors was Tony Robbins, top head trainer in Australia. And then I just kept branching out, I started going really down the rabbit hole was science and so on. But anyway, I thought, what do we call ourselves and I was like, we were the first name of the company was ultimately Cheever. But to me, I started getting a lot of corporate bookings. And to me, like I said, corporate when I started doing corporate, I was like, Man, these are a whole bunch of people that just want me to come in here, say something when they go, Oh, that was really good.

Daniel Franco: 1:38:06

I remember versus corporate, I understand

Michael Johnson: 1:38:09

that. But I think there are great corporate businesses out there. But I think, from what I've seen, when you go to work, if you've got to become a different person and who you are outside of work, you're really fucking lost. You're off track. Yeah, that's why I love working with entrepreneurs, because I like this my businesses, how do we, like it don't work for me. Yeah. But I find that there's this mask of like, you know, I have done my shit together. I can't say what I want to say I've got to like, be careful when it's all like this chess game of, you know, these pieces that everyone's trying to move around, in most cases, not in all cases. And also depends on the business and the culture and so on. And I'd go to do um, and I'd like just do this amazing speaking gig. And everyone's like, yeah, that was really good. But you know, two weeks later, everyone's on the same sheet they've always done and I feel like it wasn't having a real impact with people. And I find like most motivational events like that, you know, you go to these awards, and they have these amazing speakers. Everyone's like, wow, that was the most amazing day, but it was a fucking day off. They get a bit jacked up and they feel good. They get a spirit, they go back to it's the same shit, right? Nothing changes. So I wasn't doing what I what I really wanted to do. And I wasn't making that impact. Anyway, I had a friend of Michael Jordan, I go to his house every morning would train it was like seven o'clock in the morning. I go over there. He lives around the corner. So this one morning, or this one night, I pulled an all nighter working because I'd get some stuff done first, some speaking tools that I was doing. Anyway, go and George's house and he's like, you know, we had this awesome workout and it's great session. He said, What are you going to do? And I said, I'm going home to sleep. And he said, What do you mean? I said, I've been asleep? Yeah. Like I've been up all night. He's like, you're this fucking Mojo dude. And I was like, Mojo dude. And he's like, man, you just got this energy about you this enthusiasm. I was like Mojo dude. Mojo dude. And then about two or three days later, it kept popping into my head. And I was like, Mojo master on the Mojo master. So I ran into my wife's office. Well, now she's she was my girlfriend back then. You know, now my wife and I ran into her office and she's a graphic designer and she was helping me on the business. I'm like, on the motomaster she's like, What are you What are you talking about? I'm on the Mojo mastering So what the fuck he told us We're rebranding on the Mojo master and she's like, okay, whatever. And so she came up with a design that became the Mojo master. And then as it branched on I've changed it slightly to Michael Mojo now, just because the Mojo Master is good, but I still get there's a bit of a winky connotation with the word micro Mojo. I've found it opens up people's inquisitiveness, they're like, Is that really your last name or not? And it opens up the conversation. So Michael Mojo sort of change to and then I create a mojo Human Performance Institute because a whole company was wrapped up around me, and our business now is so much bigger than what I am. You know, I've got an amazing team of people who work with me, we've got a lot of coaches and a lot of, you know, we get psychologists, doctors, all of those people come to our events. And I would love to give them a platform to be able to utilize their skills as well with what they do in what we do, which I think is the progression of eventually becoming, you know, a full blown University. So that's what I've had, was like the Mojo dude. Thanks,

Daniel Franco: 1:40:52

George. Yeah, he came up with the name Mojo not Yeah. All right, beautiful. We'll leave it there. So Facebook Michael Mojo Instagram. Michael Mojo double zero. Yep.

Michael Johnson: 1:41:02

My Instagram is unavailable, got hacked about four weeks ago. I'm still waiting on Facebook to get back to me. So that's hacked, but all platforms micromotion.

Daniel Franco: 1:41:09

I did. I did t y and do research. And I couldn t find your Instagram. Yea , that's one that's not n Instagram, surely. Anyway. Goo . Beautiful. Thank you for yo r time today, man. It's been a great chat. Keep up the go d work. Thanks, changing people s lives. And yeah, thanks for a l that you d

Michael Johnson: 1:41:25

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Daniel Franco: 1:41:27

Thanks, guys. Take care.

Synergy IQ: 1:41:29

Thank you once again for joining us here at creating synergy. It's been great spending this time with you. Please jump on to the synergy IQ Facebook and LinkedIn page where the discussion continues after the show. Join our mailing list so you'll know what's happening next at Synergyiq.com.au. And f course, don't forget to ubscribe to this podcast. And f you really enjoyed it, please hare it with your friends.