In today’s conversation, I finally get the chance to sit down for a long overdue conversation with Bo Eason. Bo has one of the most unique back stories of any guest we’ve had on the show. After college, he was drafted by the Houston Oilers and played safety for them before a premature knee injury ended his career. If Eason sounds familiar to you NFL fans, his brother is Tony Eason, the quarterback who led the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl before that Brady guy took over. After the NFL, Bo aspired to become the best stage performer of his time and spent time personally mentoring under Al Pacino before writing and starring in his one-man Broadway show, Runt of the Litter. In his third and current act, he’s focused his energy on helping others both craft and tell their own stories from stage and is now a highly sought out speaker and coach. He dives into all of this and more in his soon-to-be-released book, There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game, which we discuss in today’s conversation.
A fun aside as Bo has been working with Advisors Excel and our clients for years… Our paths first crossed at an event we did jointly with Tony Robbins. Honestly, before Bo took the stage, I didn’t know who he was or what would happen when he was tasked with speaking after Tony, but with the first few opening lines it quickly became clear that he was on the same level when it came to commanding an audience. Today, I’m honored to have him on the podcast to talk about how he’s mastered the art of performance, what makes his presentation so compelling no matter how many times I’ve seen it, and how financial advisors can tell their story and make their own speaking engagements more effective on every level.
Here are a just a handful of the things that you’ll learn:
- [06:27] We begin our conversation by talking about the 20 year plan that made Bo the best safety in the NFL – and the new 20 year plan he set out on as soon as his football career came to an end to become the best stage performer of his time.
- [16:26] Next, we talk about the power of physicality and presence. You’ll learn why financial advisors who look uncomfortable onstage and hide behind podiums close less deals than people who are free and confident in their movement, and why cultivating presentation skills gives you the power to take advantage of massive opportunities.
- [20:20] We then dig in to the art of storytelling. Bo explains why you don’t need a huge, elaborate story to be effective, what gave one of our advisors a 90%+ closing rate from her presentations, and how he helped her conquer her fear of sharing with the audience.
- [27:22] From there, Bo digs into the psychology of working with high net worth individuals, the critical mistake that so many financial advisors make, and the difference between storytelling and listing one’s qualifications.
- [33:29] Next, Bo and I talk about his book, the power of mindset, and how Bo’s father helped set him and his brother up for massive achievements. You’ll learn why Bo believes that Plan Bs are always a way out – and how to take your dreams seriously.
- [51:12] This leads us to talk about Bo’s own acting mentor, Al Pacino. You’ll learn how Bo was able to meet with him and why people who are the best at something will always help you make your own dreams come true, if you’re willing to do the work. Don’t miss what happened when Al asked him to play touch football against his godsons on a snowy day in New York City!
- [01:02:34] As we get close to the end of our conversation, Bo breaks down the psychology and mindset of landing a client like him, all the reasons he doesn’t want to hear about numbers, columns, or data, and why highly effective people succeed together.
- [1:12:53] Finally, Bo shares what advisors who want to work with pro athletes should be thinking about as they approach clients – and who to talk to in order to get in front of top talent.
SHOW NOTES:
- [14:56] How Bo teaches performers to make it impossible for people to look away from them when they speak – and what he learned about the inherent (and noble) predator/prey relationship underneath so many of our interactions from working with a presence coach.
- [21:50] The specific things Bo recommends you NEVER open your presentation with – and how to nail the opening to get your clients to listen.
- [26:10] Why high net worth individuals are almost never listening when you talk numbers – and what you need to do about it.
- [44:00] How to declare that you’re going to be the best at something – and hold yourself accountable.
- [52:40] Why everyone who’s the best wants to help you – and how to help others achieve their goals and dreams.
- [59:00] What surprised Bo when he asked Al Pacino what people ask him for – and why asking people for connections, or to make you famous, will never work.
- [1:20:30] Who comes to mind when Bo hears the world “successful.”
- [1:23:00] Why Bo raises his kids to think of the best in the fields they want to break into as peers, not idols – and how this leads to incredible results.
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
- Boeason.com
- BoEasonBook.com
- There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game: Be the Best in the World at What You Do
- Runt of the Litter
PEOPLE MENTIONED
- Jean-Louis Rodrigue
- Anders Ericsson
- Jim Rohn
- Tom Brady
- Matt Ryan
- Usain Bolt
- Leigh Steinberg
- Patrick Mahomes
- Michael Jordan
- Kobe Bryant
- Fran Tarkenton
- Walter Payton
- Jim McMahon
- William “The Refrigerator” Perry
- Richard Dent
- Warren Moon
- Earl Campbell
- Joseph Montana
- Jerry Rice
REVIEWS OF THE WEEK
Thanks for checking out the latest show, on to this week’s featured reviews!
This week’s first review comes to us from Darren Violette who says:
Darren, thanks for the amazing review! The concepts you named on defining and branding your process as well as how to love on your clients to create that memorable experience are two of the biggest core ideas Advisors Excel’s top performing clients do consistently and intentionally. Spending time putting those into action will serve you well, I promise. Thanks for listening in Darren and based on your Twitter feed, I can already tell we’ll be cheering for different sides if the AFC Championship matchup ends up how I think it will this year! Go Chiefs!
The next review comes to us from user Biz World who says:
Thanks so much for the kind words and review Mike. Awesome to hear that my podcast is at the top of the list of all that you subscribe to, will do my best to keep delivering so it stays there! Also, glad that after 20 years of experience, the content is still bringing you new insights and just have to give you a compliment for staying hungry and learning after all these years, I’ve found it’s common that the very best in our industry stay life long learners as well. As far as the easy caring way that I approach things, I’m going to have to give growing up in small town KS with a family that valued “treating others as you want to be treated” as a core philosophy to approach life with the credit, so glad that comes through as well. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts Mike, hit me up if you find your way to KS!
And the last featured review for the week comes to us from user ginag_ops, who says:
Gina, it’s great to hear you are putting all the show notes to use as I still think many of our Blueprint listeners don’t realize we provide a full transcript of every show directly in the show notes. Whether it’s wanting to highlight key takeaways or remember the verbiage a certain guest used to try in your next appointment, I wanted to make it as easy as possible to put the ideas shared into action. I’ll do my best to keep future shows worthy of “note taking”! Thanks for the review and listening in!
Ok, as we wrap this show, thanks again for those of you who have taken the time to write a quick review, I love reading each and every one. In fact if you’d like to connect on a more personal level, give me a follow on Twitter, I’m @brad_johnson. Let me know you listen to the show, how you found it, who I should have… etc. I’d love to continue the conversation there!
Take the 1st Step to Building Your Ideal Practice: Apply for “Virtual Discovery Session“
For those of you that have interest in diving deeper or figuring out how you may be able to have our team help you implement many of the ideas shared on the show, my day job happens to be consulting financial advisors from all over the US on how to grow their business and design a practice that serves them, versus them serving it. Yes it’s possible to grow your business and work less, this is a model we’ve replicated over and over in markets all over the country… So, if you’d like to apply to see if it makes sense for us to have a 1-on-1 conversation on how to overcome what may be getting in your way, you can do that at bradleyjohnson.com/apply. It takes about 5 minutes to fill out the application so we can understand what your business looks like, what challenges you may be facing and how myself and my team may be able to help. We then dive into a Discovery session where we ask a lot of questions based on your survey. We do a lot of listening, and take a lot of notes to build a rough draft of our proprietary Elite Advisor Blueprint – 90 Day Plan™. Taking the first step is as simple as applying at bradleyjohnson.com/apply 🙂
Already heard it once or twice? Please leave a short review here, and tell me which guests I should have on!
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TRANSCRIPTS
Read More[INTRODUCTION]
Welcome to this episode of the Elite Advisor Blueprint Podcast with your host, Brad Johnson. Brad’s the VP of Advisor Development and Advisors Excel, the largest independent insurance brokerage company in the US. He’s also a regular contributor to Investment News, the Wall Street Journal, and other industry publications.
[00:00:26] Brad Johnson: Welcome to the Elite Advisor Blueprint, the podcast for world-class financial advisors. I’m Brad Johnson, VP of Advisor Development at Advisors Excel and it’s my goal to distill the best ideas and advice from top thought leaders and apply it to the world of independent financial advising. In today’s conversation, I finally get the chance to sit down for a long-overdue conversation with Bo Eason. Bo has one of the most unique backstories of any guest we’ve ever had on. First off, after college he was drafted by the Houston Oilers and played safety for them before a premature knee injury ended his career and if Eason happens to sound familiar to you NFL fans, his brother is Tony Eason, the quarterback who led the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl before that Brady guy took over. After the NFL, Bo aspired to become the best stage performer of his time and spent time personally mentoring under Al Pacino before writing and starring in his one-man Broadway show, Runt of the Litter. In his third and current act, he’s focused his energy on helping others both craft and tell their own stories from stage and is now a highly sought out speaker and coach.
He dives into all of this and more in his soon-to-be-released book, There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game, which we discuss in today’s conversation. A quick fun aside, as Bo has been working with Advisors Excel and all of our clients for years, our paths first crossed at an event we did jointly with Tony Robbins. And honestly, before Bo took the stage, I didn’t know who he was or what would happen when he was tasked with trying to speak after Tony, but with the first few opening lines, it quickly became clear that he was on the same level when it came to commanding an audience. And today I’m honored to have him on the podcast to talk about how he’s mastered the art of performance, what makes his presentation so compelling no matter how many times I’ve seen it, and how financial advisors can tell their story and make their own speaking engagements more effective on every level. Two opportunities before we dive in on today’s episode.
[00:02:23] Brad Johnson: First, Bo and his team are super generous and sent me a box of autographed copies of his new book. In fact, I don’t even think you can purchase them yet, and I will be mailing them out until they’re all gone. So, here’s what to do next if you’d like your free copy. All that I ask is that you leave an honest review out on iTunes for our show. To make it easy, there’s a graphic right at the top of the show notes, BradleyJohnson.com/62 or if you happen to be listening on a mobile player most times just scroll down and the link will be right there. Once you’ve left a review, just drop us an email via brad@bradleyjohnson.com with your iTunes username and a mailing address and we’ll drop you a copy in the mail as a thank you. That simple. Also, quick apology to our international listeners outside of the US who have been kind enough to leave reviews. Due to crazy high shipping prices, we can only ship these domestically so please just support Bo and go grab a copy at your local bookstore or out on Amazon. Second, I have an offer that rivals some of the biggest gives we’ve ever had on the show.
Bo and his book launch team have a number of prelaunch bonuses if you’re up for purchasing five or more copies for your team before official launch day on September 3. I can tell you personally, Bo is sharing courses and systems with knowledge that many of our own clients have paid thousands of dollars to gain access to over the years so they went all out on this one. Just a few of the prelaunch gives include a full digital version of There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game, access to the private A-listers Facebook group, and access to Be the Best in the World Mini-Course and a lot more. Visit BoEasonBook.com for all the details. It’s all out there. As always, all the additional show notes, books mentioned, people discussed as well as a full transcript of the show can be found at BradleyJohnson.com/62 as well. So, that’s it. As always, thanks for listening and without further delay, my conversation with Bo Eason.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:04:19] Brad Johnson: Welcome to this episode of the Elite Advisor Blueprint. I’m jacked today. I’ve got a special guest, Bo Eason. How are you, Bo?
[00:04:27] Bo Eason: Hey, I’m doing good. Brad, thank you.
[00:04:29] Brad Johnson: Well, this is long overdue. We’ve been in touch, gosh, two, three, four years where we’ve been flying you in for different events and I was actually thinking back because I was preparing for this episode and the very first time I think our paths crossed, we had you out, we had Tony Robbins out, we had additionally there’s a rock star lineup of speakers and thought leaders at our World Series event that we kick off every year. And I remember that was the first time. I mean everybody knows Tony Robbins and how that guy can come on stage and let his presence be known. And then this guy named Bo Eason that honestly, I didn’t have a lot of experience I didn’t know your story. You come up there and you rock it and I’m like, “Man, I didn’t think anybody can be on the same level as Tony Robbins,” but you’re right at that same level. And even reading the prequel to your book, there’s multiple statements in there talking about that as well so super glad to have you on here especially after all you’ve done for our advisors.
[00:05:31] Bo Eason: Yeah. Thanks, Brad. I remember that day too. I remember sharing the stage a couple of times with Tony Robbins at AE events and that’s what – your experience was the same that every advisor are I remember there were recruiting events and so they were potential advisors to join AE and Tony and I would do the offer and the close and every advisor would come up to me and go, “I never heard of you man.” And I was like they thought they were going to offend me, but it didn’t offend me because they go, “I came here for Tony Robbins but I’m coming to AE because of you,” or something like that. And, anyway, it was fun to share the stage with him and do that.
[00:06:07] Brad Johnson: Well, I’m excited to share your story today with the audience and also I’m excited that you finally encapsulated a lot of what you do in a book so that you can share with a wider audience out there so I know we’re going to get into the new book that soon to be released so There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game which is very fitting with the way you approach life.
[00:06:26] Bo Eason: It’s true.
[00:06:27] Brad Johnson: So, as we get into the book, there’s a few things because some of the audience might not be familiar with Bo Eason and who you are. So, I know you make a living telling your story. For those unfamiliar, I would just love maybe the short version. We kind of got to know each other in Act Three which was speaker and trainer Bo Eason, but you had a couple of pretty successful acts before that. Can you share with the audience kind of your story and your journey along the way?
[00:06:52] Bo Eason: Yeah. For those of you who don’t know me, for those of you who have you’re like going, “I know this guy’s story.” For those of you who don’t know me, when I was a kid, I was 9 years old, I drew up a 20-year plan to become the best safety in the world. That’s a position in football for those of you who don’t know. And so, I did that and that came true. So, it took many years and a lot of bloody noses and knee surgeries and naysayers along the way but that one came true. After I was done playing in the NFL, I had seven knee surgeries while I played so my career was over after five years. And I just thought the same exact thing, I said, “Man, I’ve got to choose something to be the best at because that’s what I did when I was nine. Now I’m 29 I’ll do the same thing.” And so, at 29 I wrote up a new 20-year plan which was to be the best stage performer of my time and so I got to meet with a guy named Al Pacino who you guys all know who was the best stage performer at that time.
And I went to him. I said, “Hey, man, I want to be the best stage performer of my time. Everyone says that’s you. Can you help me? And he helped me, mentored me, coached me, and it took 15 years to do but I got there, and I opened in New York with a one-man play and it became a hit and it’s becoming a movie and all that. And from that play which ran for 15, 16 years it’s called Runt of The Litter. Every businessman, especially in the financial services world, started coming to me backstage like we’d be on Broadway or off-Broadway, they would come backstage these titans of industry and they would say, “Hey, could you bring this play to my company?” And I was like for five years my wife and I said, “No way. This is a theater piece. We don’t take it to companies. The companies have to come in the theater I guess.”
[00:08:51] Bo Eason: And one guy says to us, “Hey, it’s my company’s 100-year anniversary. We’re doing our event in Hawaii. We’re happy to fly your whole family there,” and then they mentioned a price that they were going to pay us like a speaker’s fee and my wife and I looked at each other. I said, “Maybe we do do this.” And so, we flew to Hawaii. We did kind of a truncated version of the play in Hawaii for this, this was an insurance company and they just loved it. It blew up and then it just exploded where I was now a speaker instead of this performer on stage and a trainer of people. And what we found out, Brad, while doing that was we didn’t know what the advisors or the people in the insurance world we didn’t know what they wanted but we kept asking year after year and what they wanted their people to have was the ability that I had which was the ability to get in front of people and share themselves and be able to tell their story.
So, that’s what we started training people, not only advisors, but we train entrepreneurs and everyone in between on how to tell their story. But the biggest thing for me, the thing that I’ve been obsessed with my whole life was this concept of what does it take to be the best in the world at a single thing? I didn’t really care whether it was Ping-Pong or ballet or football or stage performance or financial advice. I didn’t really care. The principles work across the board and so I use myself as a guinea pig for my whole life since I was nine and the four different disciplines that I’ve chosen, I’ve been able to reach the top in those four and then teach other people how to do the same.
[00:10:48] Brad Johnson: So, so much we can unpack right there. Let’s start with being the best. As I dug into your book, I mean, right out of the gates, one of the things that’s very different and I remember I mean I’ve seen you speak probably five, six times now and doing trainings for the last, I mean, Advisors Excel that’s what we do is we bring the very best in and we expose them to our advisors so they can grow and they can get better. And so, I’ve seen a lot of authors a lot of thought leaders. And typically, when you see somebody speak one time, I go, “Okay. That was good. That was wow. That was fresh.” And then you see it a second time, you’re like, “Okay. Well, that was still pretty good,” and then after that, you’re like, “I’ve seen this before.” This is not me boosting your ego because I have no reason for it. I could not look away every single time you presented it. And part of that goes to your stage presence which goes to being the best and I know a lot of coaching and a lot of time went into that.
So, I want to get to some of the frameworks that advisors can benefit from. But before we get there, I think the mindset and the decision that was made of there is no easy street to being the best. So, whether you want to start with how that worked in football and progressed through like what went into that or if you want to start with like the stage presence and acting and what went into that, you mind unpacking a bit of that a little bit for the audience?
[00:12:13] Bo Eason: Yeah. Well, the stage presence, look, I make one promise and the advisors who are on this podcast today who have worked with me, they know this. I make one promise to them when they train with me as far story goes and presence goes and that is the same exact words you just said, Brad, which is here’s the promise. People will not have the ability to look away from you if you do what I tell you to do or if you do simply what I do. So, I’ve been trained. So, I’ve been trained by a guy named Jean-Louis Rodrigue for many, many years but especially when I was on stage doing the play because I came from the football world. I came from an athletic world. So, I thought I don’t need a physicality. I don’t need a presence coach. I don’t need a movement coach. I’m an elite athlete. The guy who is instructing me said, “No, Bo. It’s different. Unless we can get you freed up like you are on a football field and be that expressive physically, we’re going to be stuck on stage and people are going to dismiss you on stage because you don’t know how to hold their presence. I’m going to teach you how to hold their presence and it’s all based on this teaching that we have to surrender to, all of us, on this planet is that we’re predator animals, you and me.”
So, the guy who trained me his whole life has been the study of predator animals whether that’s a falcon, a tiger, a lion, a great white shark, an orca, or a snake. The study of those particularly predator cats so he had me rehearsing and studying for years to be a predator, to be a human predator which this word predator has got a bad connotation these days because what the media has assigned that moniker “predator” to the worst of our society.
[00:14:13] Bo Eason: So, now we’re all ashamed that we’re actually predators. In fact, we don’t even know we’re predators. Yet we are. And not only are we predators but we are the most noble predators on the planet. We are the smartest predators on the planet, and we are the most lethal. We’re the most dangerous. And if you think back, you can kind of remember this from your childhood when you were like this or if you ever served in the military when you were like this or if you ever played a sport at a high, high level you know about those predator instincts. If you’ve ever had a baby, if you’re a female on this podcast and you’ve had a baby, you know that predator instinct of protecting that baby for the rest of their lives. So, that’s the part, Brad, that nobody can look away from. So, you have to surrender to the fact that that’s what we are initially.
That’s the mindset like that’s what we are. I’m not going to be ashamed of it. I’m not going to hurt anybody but I’m not going to be apologizing for myself when I’m giving presentations or seminars. I’m going to actually let this predator out of the cage and let it move around the stage a little bit in the room where your potential clients are and actually be physical up there and have your story embodied in this body. When you get to that point, that’s when the promise fulfills on itself because all the feedback that I get from, A, advisors who have worked with me and who worked with Jean-Louis, The Movement Coach, they say, “Bo, you were right. Not one person looked away from me during my seminar.” And what that equals is more people are now coming to your office and you’re closing more business which is the feedback that I get from all the AE advisors that I’ve worked with. And these are males, females, and the females are very feminine. It’s not like they’re walking around like trying to be a predator. Females understand this. They are predators. You don’t have to try to be one. We are them. We just have to reintroduce ourselves to our own primitive instincts.
[00:16:26] Brad Johnson: In your presentation, there’s a comfort level with the physicality that you bring, and I think what you see so much with. A lot of financial advisors although they grow their business by speaking publicly in front of groups of people really, the knowledge base to build a financial plan doesn’t do them any good on the attraction side of bringing new clients in and when you see those advisors that are up there like hiding behind a podium or like have the little T-rex arms and like afraid to be comfortable versus the ones that are like open and wide and like when you see you present them, I mean, you’re up there doing like backpedaling telling your story about the nine-year-old Bo Eason trying to be a free safety and there’s something in that where you see someone that’s free and confident in their movements you’re like, “I’m attracted to that.”
[00:17:16] Bo Eason: Yeah. That’s a great point, Brad, and I’ll just add to that that, look, they’ve done studies. So, the studies are these. People believe because trust is at its lowest level it’s ever been in our country. So, it’s at its lowest level. Well, everyone always goes, “Oh, that’s so sad. Our country is in freefall.” I look at that as a huge opportunity. Since trust is at its lowest level, that’s where you and me come through for ourselves because people believe 50% of what comes out of your mouth, but they believe 100% your body. They trust your body. They don’t necessarily trust what comes out of your mouth. So, right now, even in this little frame that I’m in and Brad’s in, you don’t necessarily trust everything that comes out of our mouth, but you trust our physical bodies.
That’s what you need to have during these presentations so that more people trust you right off the bat so that you can fulfill on their dreams about their financial future. But if they don’t trust you, if you’re just an information person, you’re just talking, and putting a bunch of slides up and it’s all informational and you don’t move around, you don’t show your physicality, or you don’t show that you actually care about people by touching their table, by touching them on the shoulder, by being this physical predator which you are, that’s what they trust. They don’t trust somebody hiding their body behind a podium which is why you and me don’t trust people behind podiums. Think about that for a second. Who do you see behind podiums? Why don’t we trust them? Isn’t that weird? Because we can’t see their bodies. Because behind the podium guess what’s happening? Their bodies are betraying them, and they don’t want you to see it. So, I don’t want you behind a podium. I want you out with the people, out at the tables walking around them, being with them. That’s what makes people trust, the physicality.
[00:19:25] Brad Johnson: Yeah. it’s easy to see that once you’ve experienced kind of the before and after. It’s funny because like after the first one, my eyes were glued to you the first time you presented. The second one, they were still glued to you, but by the third time, I’m starting to like watch the audience react to the presentation. And the reason they can’t look away is you’re not behind a podium where they’re like, “Okay. I can sneak out the iPhone here in the back row.” You’re literally with them. So, if they’re trying to do that, you’re literally next to them interacting with them and there’s just this presence where you’re like, “I’m not going to do that. Bo might like slap the cell phone out of my hand or something.” Right?
[00:20:03] Bo Eason: Yeah. That’s exactly right.
[00:20:04] Brad Johnson: So, there’s a lot of power to that from a lot of different angles. Okay. So, while we’re on the story, I want to get back to the book here eventually, but I would be doing the audience a huge disservice if I didn’t at least have you share some of the framework. So, I’ll tee you up with this, prior to your training with a lot of our advisors, most of them would walk out on the stage or behind the podium or wherever that may be for their public event, their seminar, their educational event and they would say, “Hey, folks. Thanks for coming out tonight. Tonight’s presentation is going to be very different.” And you broke them of that bad habit. So, can you go into what might be a better…? I mean, you’ve coached some of our top clients I think of people like Stephanie out in Arizona that literally is booking over 90% every time she speaks that come in and see her and actually show up for their first visit. Can you talk about some coaching you’ve done with her and a lot of our other advisors of how you completely change that dynamic at their events?
[00:21:08] Bo Eason: Yeah. Here’s the thing. Stephanie had a great story. It’s very – it was simple. It was a simple story. Most stories are. I think the myth is, is people think they have to have this extravagant story. You do not. Stephanie’s story is very basic about a childhood pain that she had where her father left. I don’t think I’m sharing anything out of line because she shares it publicly. So, her dad left them when she was a little kid and she was hanging on to his leg saying, “Daddy, do not go. Daddy, do not go.” When you see a financial advisor do that, you forget you’re in a financial seminar which is a good thing. You don’t want them thinking about finances. You want them focused on you. That’s why you don’t want to open with walking up they’re going, “Hey, everybody. I’m Bo. I’m a financial advisor and it’s going to be very different tonight. Here’s the agenda. We’re going to have dinner and then we’re going to do this and I’m going to speak and then I’m going to bring my partner up.” Don’t do that and don’t say, “Hey, everybody. Good night to be here in Cincinnati. I feel the energy.” Don’t say – what I always tell people is I go, “Don’t say,” – can I cuss?
[00:22:22] Brad Johnson: Yeah, go for it.
[00:22:23] Bo Eason: I always say, “Don’t say stupid s***. That’s stupid. People aren’t with you. They don’t trust you if you say that.” Say this, “When I was nine years old I had a dream so I made a plan,” or like Stephanie, “When I was seven years old I was woken up in the middle of the night,” and all of a sudden your clients now you’re a human. Now you’re not even a financial advisor. You’re a human, number one, and they fall in love with Stephanie because of the pain that she had that night when her dad left, and he announced to the family that he was leaving. And she said to me when I told her, “Stephanie, your next seminar,” this is a couple of years ago, “you’re going to say that story and you’re not going to say anything else. You’re not going to have any PowerPoint presentation. You’re going to open with a story as when you were woken up at seven years old in the middle of the night with your dad announcing to the family that he is leaving.”
She said, “Bo, there’s no way in hell I’m telling that story because it’s embarrassing for one. It’s revealing about my dad leaving me. I think that’s embarrassing. Who’s going to hand over their life’s savings to me, Bo, if they know that my dad left me when I was seven years old?” And she said, “Nobody would,” and I told her, “You’re wrong. Everybody will. At least 90% will.” And I was right because, look, she’s a great financial advisor. I don’t know how to help her in that business. She’s great at that. She’s a pro with that. I don’t know anything about money but what I do know is how to build trust with people. And, Stephanie, by opening with her story and the story you know, it’s something she didn’t want to tell. And she kicked and screamed and finally told the story and her business went crazy. And I’m sure you know those numbers, Brad, but I remember it went when we started working together, I think that year they had brought in 18.5 million under assets, right?
[00:24:34] Brad Johnson: Yeah.
[00:24:34] Bo Eason: That year and eight months into us working together, eight months in, she was at 54 million assets brought in. And then it went to 60 within the year. And then the very next year because I go, “Look, you think these scenes are going to end after one year? They don’t. They compound.” And I think at the end of year two or in year two they did 100 million.
[00:25:02] Brad Johnson: Yeah. She skyrocketed as far as production with us and she’s essentially one of our top clients here and year out now.
[00:25:11] Bo Eason: Yeah. And here’s the funny thing, Brad. What she told me I go, I brought her on stage and I go, “Tell these advisors, I mean, tell them what your clients do when they walk into your office,” and she go, “Do they come in and go, ‘Well, okay, let’s talk about my finances. Let’s talk about the game plan for me?’” They never say that. They don’t even know why they’re there. They come in and they hug her. They’re hugging Stephanie based on her presentation and a lot of them are in tears saying this, “Oh God, my dad left me,” or, “Gosh, that was such a sad story that I wish my dad was here. I wish I could tell him that story.” And because of the humanness, if that’s a word, that Stephanie told the story, that’s where rich people, financial people, people who know how to make money, that’s where they give their money. It’s on this connectedness of story on humanness.
Because, look, the truth of the matter is high wealth individuals, 84% of them, so that’s a million dollars or more of that investable assets, 84% of them are right-brain people. So, what does that mean? That means if you’re talking numbers or finances or columns or percentages to a high wealth individual which 84% of them are, they are right-brained. They don’t know what you’re saying. They only understand connectedness which is story, human story, human-to-human. So, they have this connected. If you start talking numbers to a guy like me like I fall into that 84%, if you start talking numbers or what you could do with my money, seriously, I know how to make money. I’ve done it since I was a kid, but I don’t know what to do with it and I don’t understand it like you do. But what I do understand is family. What I do understand is story about that family or story of what cloth you’re cut from. That’s going to connect you and me and that’s the person that’s going to get my life savings.
[00:27:23] Brad Johnson: Yeah. I mean, essentially, they need to like and trust you, the advisor. That’s it. And there was a couple of things with the framework of how you teach that that I took away from it. You’re not – you don’t lead with the Al Bundy story of I scored four touchdowns my senior year at Polk High. You start with a human story which is here’s a struggle that I have or I had because that’s what draws people in. Not I’m bragging that I was this kid that made it to the NFL. You don’t open with the, “Hey, I was drafted in the first round by the Oilers and made it to the NFL,” because everybody’s like, “Who’s this arrogant jerk on stage?” So, can you talk through that? And then also one other thing I took from you that kind of ties into that is like I can get up on stage and I can say, “Hey, I’m ethical. You can like and trust me or I can tell a story that illustrates that’s the type of person I am,” and I know a lot of times you talk about making sure that’s part of your story as well.
[00:28:18] Bo Eason: Yeah. That’s right. That’s definitely going to be a part of your story. So, instead of you spouting your resumé and giving your characteristics like, “Hi. I’m Bo. I’m a financial advisor and I’m a hard worker and I have discipline and I’m loyal to my wife and to my family.” So, instead of Bo listing loyalty and trustworthiness and discipline, why don’t I just share the story which reveals I have discipline? When I was nine years old, I made up a 20-year plan. I followed it for 20 years. What does that tell an audience? That’s one sentence, you guys. I just told the audience that I followed a plan for 20 years and it’s a personal story. They’re going like this. This is what your audience is saying, “Oh my gosh, this dude must be disciplined. This dude must be loyal. Who the heck follow something for 20 years and he started at the bottom and ended up at the top?” That’s the kind of story I want you to tell.
Because, look, if you and I were making a movie today about the climbing of Mt. Everest and we say it’s a movie, would we start that movie in the beginning? Would we be standing on top of Mt. Everest with the flag smiling, “Hey, we’re the champions. We’re on top.” Nobody is going to watch that movie. Nobody cares. Nobody cares if you win the Super Bowl. Nobody cares if you climb Mount Everest. Nobody cares you have a billion dollars in the bank unless they know where you began. That’s why, Brad, what Brad is saying is you begin your presentation with story and that story starts at the bottom of Mt. Everest, not at the top. If you’re talking about being the best safety in the world, you’re talking about the beginnings of that meaning nobody believed you could do it. No college wanted you. They took your uniform away. You sucked basically at the position of safety.
[00:30:17] Bo Eason: Now, let me see who you are. That’s the story I want. Now, that story a lot of people don’t want to tell because it reveals, you know, it makes them vulnerable because they failed. You failed. The best financial advisors that I’ve ever seen and their stories, the best ones I’ve ever seen go something like this, and this is the opening. This is the first thing out of their mouth. They don’t even say thank you. They don’t say hello, welcome. They don’t say anything. They say this, “When I was twelve, I was walking home from volleyball practice with my best friend and we were arm in arm. We walked in the house. I open the door. My dad was drunk laying on the sofa. My mom was at the kitchen table with her head buried in the kitchen table crying and my dad had just lost all of our money and he didn’t know and my mom didn’t know what we were going to do.”
And the pain that that was to me in front of my best friend wondering what was going to happen to my volleyball career, what was going to happen to my life, I was only 12. How could I help? I decided when I was 12 years old that pain no other 12-year-old was going to feel ever again, not on my watch. So, look, you guys, that’s a 30-second story I just told, right? It’s very simple, right? And it’s painful but that’s what makes you guys and you gals the best at what you do. You wouldn’t be with AE, right? You wouldn’t go to a company like AE if you weren’t interested somewhere inside you to be the best because that’s how they operate. The only reason me and Tony Robbins have a relationship with AE because guess what AE stands for? Being the best.
[00:32:15] Bo Eason: Now, they don’t go around saying that but that’s how they act. That’s how they operate. Me and Tony Robbins only like being around the best, only work with the best. That’s why we work with the companies we do and the entrepreneurs we do and the advisors we do. Do you understand? So, this is a perfect marriage, you guys. You just have to understand that that only the best do this what I’m telling you to do. The rest of everybody they’ll go, “I really love my PowerPoint. I really love not moving during my presentation. I really like kind of being the authority on finances and not really a human being who connects with people.” You can be successful doing what you’re doing. You already are. All the advisors that come to me from AE, they’re already successful. Stephanie was already successful. But do you want to bring in 18 million or do you want to bring in over 100? Do you want to go to the top or do you want to just hang? That’s why I wrote this book, Brad.
[00:33:19] Brad Johnson: So, let’s segue to the book because that’s a good lead-in because one of the things as you go back, it’s more towards the beginning here is you talk about everybody wants to be the best, but nobody wants to put in the work to be the best. And since we’re on video here, let’s go ahead and show that little where we at here. There was the 9-year-old plan right there.
[00:33:47] Bo Eason: What an artist.
[00:33:48] Brad Johnson: Yeah. So, if this coaching thing doesn’t work out for you, you’ve got that going for you. So, anyway, let’s talk about that because what I do love about the book is the honesty. It’s not this get rich quick scheme or, “Oh, hey, you know, two weeks from now you’re the best.” It’s like no. It was dedication. It was painful. It was not easy. But here’s what we’ll get the actual results. So, can we dive into kind of the declaration because I think some people get uncomfortable with like if I say I want to be the best financial advisor in the world or in the United States or whatever that may be, most people get uncomfortable just even saying that. So, can you go through your thought process of why you think that way and what that’s led to?
[00:34:33] Bo Eason: I think that way and I have been obsessed with that term, the best, my whole life only because my dad and my dad was this, you know, he’s like a regular dude like a rancher, farmer, dirty fingernails, dirty hands all the time, cowboy hat, you know, always wrestling with cattle and sheep and great dude. You all would love him but a simple guy. He’s not like he talked very much, but when he talked you better listen. And so, I’m the youngest of six kids and he would wake us all up so he’s a very rough-and-tumble guy but very, very human that he knew what it takes for people to be the best. In fact, that’s all he saw in people is them being the best. He would wake up my four older sisters because they were all older. So, he’d get to them first, and I would be the last because I was the youngest.
I could hear him coming down the hall. He’d go in their rooms. He’d rub their back and he tells them they’re the best. And he drops some expletives right about there because I don’t know what it is. Brad and I were talking earlier about our dads but that whole generation just like used cuss words like punctuation, so every sentence was ended with a cuss word. And that’s how he ended. He said, “You’re the best in there beep, beep, beep,” and that’s how he woke us up every morning. So, for many, many years, I remember me and my brother because we were the closest in age between all my siblings and we played sports together and we went on double dates together because we’re only a year apart. We were so embarrassed when we were teenagers, that he kept telling us that we were the best and he would say it at baseball games. He would say it when we’re leaving for a date in front of our dates. He would tell us we were the best all the time.
[00:36:30] Bo Eason: We were so humiliated. My brother would go, “Dad, go back in the house. Don’t say that. Everyone’s listening to you say that,” and then some of our friends would actually be offended by it too like, “Why is he saying that?” But he would say it to our friends too. He would say it to people and eventually, me and my brother got over this humiliation of what he saw in us. So, we saw what our potential was and he named it. And then eventually after we got over the embarrassment, we actually said, “You know what, maybe he’s right. Maybe we are the best,” and on that day, we turned the corner with our mindset and that day my brother became a first-round pick for the New England Patriots and led them to their first Super Bowl as a quarterback and I became a top pick as a safety to the Houston Oilers. That’s just the mindset, right? That’s why I talk to people and see people the way my dad did.
So, when some people try to push back on me and they go, “Well, Bo, I’m not the best. My family wasn’t made that way. We have weird genes. We don’t have money. We’re like this.” And I’m like that is 100% lie that you’re telling me. You’re telling me you’re not the best and I’ll tell you that you’re flying directly in the face of mother nature because you are the best. You were born the best against 300-million-to-1 odds. On the day of your conception, you were conceived. You and me were conceived. We know that to be true. We also know the competition on that day was to the death so that swim was no casual backstroke. That was a swim to the death and who won the race against 300-million-to-1 odds? You did. So, don’t argue with me about you not being the best.
[00:38:28] Bo Eason: You can take that up with mother nature and as far as I’m concerned, as far as I can tell with this mother nature, she’s undefeated. She’s undefeated so don’t tell me that my book offends you because you were the best on the day of your conception and ever since then, you seem to have been trying to prove that you’re not. And I’m not having it anymore. I’m not having it with my clients, with my family, with my roommates, with the people that I went to high school with. I’ve done this since I was nine, you guys. I’ve done it like I was a lab rat like I was doing experiments like a guinea pig on myself and on my family and on my friends. That’s why I wrote the book and the title of the book is There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game because I learned very early, very early that if you had a plan B, guess what happens to plan A? Ain’t happening.
And my mom and dad knew it. Me and my brother had these dreams of playing in the NFL so teammates of ours, their families, their mom and dad would come over and talk to my mom and dad and try to talk them out of our dream. Now, I’m not saying these people were bad people. I’m saying they were trying to save me and my brother, Tony, a lot of pain, a lot of hard work, a lot of heartaches, maybe a lot of surgeries, maybe a lot of bloodshed and sweat and dirt, maybe all that too. Maybe they were just trying to rescue us from our own dreams. So, they would come over to the house and they would say, “You know what, Bo and Tony are going to have their hearts broken eventually because there’s never been a pro athlete from this town. We don’t know what that is, and they have this dream. They’re going to be hurt. They’re not going to succeed. You better have a plan B. You better not put all your eggs in one basket.”
[00:40:30] Bo Eason: And you know what I watch my parents do? This is how I knew it was for real. This is when I knew I was 100% going to be the best safety in the world. They would take them literally out of our house, ushered them to the front door, pushed them out of the front door and slammed the door, and they were never allowed in our house again. Now, that’s serious, right? When you’re a kid and you’re watching friends, your friend’s mom or your friend’s dad being ushered out of your house because they say you need a plan B or a fallback plan or don’t put all your eggs in one basket and you watch those people physically be thrown out of your house, you know your dreams are being taken seriously, just like the day of your conception.
That’s the day when I saw them do that I go, “Okay. I guess this s*** is real. This is real. We don’t have a plan B. We have all our eggs in one basket and we’re protecting the hell out of that basket, which is what my family did.” That’s what I’m teaching my kids. That’s what I teach my clients. It’s just building this mindset and putting the principles in place so that you fulfill on your birthright, which is you already are number one. You just are convinced or the media has convinced you that you’re not or society or culture has convinced you or wore you down enough so that you surrender to what they say instead of this primo DNA that you have which is to be number one.
[00:42:15] Brad Johnson: So, let’s talk about the declaration because the declaration you said, “I’m going to be the best safety at age nine.” You drew a little crayon picture that we just showed on video and what I love about it is you said, “I’m going to be the best.” Not, “I’m going to play D1 football or I’m going to hopefully make it to the NFL.” You’re like, “I’m going to be the best.” So, how did that translate? Because, from my understanding, you’re doing like hard-core workouts from the age of nine, when most kids are like waking up rubbing their eyes and turning on cartoons. So, how did the declaration translate to the work I guess is the question I want to ask there?
[00:42:54] Bo Eason: Yes. The key to the whole book is the declaration. The declaration is your calling card. It is the most attractive thing that you’ve got, right? It’s no different than your story. The story really attracts people. Your declaration is a story. I’m going to be the best safety in the world. I’m going to be the best stage performer in the world. I’m going to be the best playwright in the world. I’m going to be the best financial advisor in the world. Once you say the word, the best, your body knows what to do with that information. If you make a declaration like this, “I want to be the best safety in the world,” but if that doesn’t work out just D1 college sounds good. Guess where you’re going end up? D1 college if not less because that’s a plan B. That’s an out.
Your body hears “out” and takes it. That’s why you can’t have a plan B. The declaration has no plan B. There’s no options for you. The reason our kids or the group that just grew up like a lot of millennials grew up like this, let’s give our kids all kinds of options. Won’t that be great? And it’s true. My kids and your kids have a lot more options than you and I did. So, what do you think is going to happen to them with those options? They’re going to take the lesser of the evils. They’re going to take the easiest road. If you have no options which you and me have to create with the declaration, now we achieve that A plan. And I’m telling you, I’m telling you, it happens every time. So, I know you’re afraid to want to be the best at something. Too bad. That’s how you’re made. The second that you declare it, it’s already done. All there is, is miles to run now.
[00:44:53] Bo Eason: So, I’ll give you an example. So, my son, right, he wants to be – he’s going to have to be based on his dream so his dream is to be the first guy to play in the NBA and the NFL, right? So, nobody’s ever done that. So, that would be like you and me sitting here today going, “Hey, let’s you and me go to Mars and let’s live on Mars.” Now, what is everybody going to say? “Well, you can’t do that. No one’s ever done it.” Same thing with Axel’s dream, my 12-year-old. He began this dream. He drew up the plan at six. So, now he’s 12. So, for the last six years increasingly he’s building on this dream. Now, and by the time he’s 22, you know, right around 21, 22, that’s when he’s going to be drafted. So, he has 10 more years or so. Does he have to be the best athlete on the planet today at 12? No.
Does he have to be the best 12-year-old athlete today? No, he’s not. He’s not but he will be at the 20-year mark, he will be at the 30-year mark, and he will be at the 40-year mark. That’s how we operate. That’s how you and me are designed to operate not to be second best. What if he would’ve said this? Or what if me and my brother would’ve said this? Because we want to be the best quarterback and the best safety, right? So, we didn’t get scholarships to college. Does that mean our dream is over? Apparently, we want the best high school players. We thought we were pretty good, but we were still working hard to be the best in our positions, and we had 10 more years. So, we weren’t the best high school players, so we didn’t get scholarships. So, we went to schools that didn’t give scholarships. So, figure this out.
[00:46:49] Bo Eason: Four years later with no scholarships, he’s a first-round pick quarterback to New England Patriots. I’m a second-round pick to the Houston Oilers. How can this be? How can that happen when you weren’t the best in high school but yet you’re the best four years later? It’s because you have to do the work. You have to stay consistent and follow the declaration day in and day out even when it looks like it’s never going to happen. I promise you that sucker’s going to happen come hell or high water. That has been my experience not only for me and my brother but everybody around us and it looks like there’s no way in heck that these guys can play pro football. There’s no way because there’s no background. The schools never had a pro athlete, yet against all odds, a bunch of my teammates went with me to the top. Do you understand?
Think of the declaration like this, think of it like this, Brad. The declaration that we do for ourselves like I want to be the best safety in the world. I want to be the best financial advisor in the world. The declaration that you make has to have the word “the best”. You have to be the best. Secondly, I want you to think of it like the Declaration of Independence. So, the Declaration of Independence was written 250 years ago by guys that you and me don’t know but they declared who you and me were going to be, how we were going to express our freedom every minute of every day and you and me and everybody in between us and the 250 years have brought that declaration to life every single day. Isn’t that crazy? That’s how I want you to think of your declaration. It is a declaration to be lived into, to be lived out of. You and me live out of the Declaration of Independence and you and me didn’t even declare it. We didn’t even write it.
[00:48:55] Bo Eason: But yet we express our freedom every minute of every day. That’s what you being the best is. Your declaration of being the best is now lived into no different than the last 250 years. That way, this is why it becomes much easier than goals or missions. Because goals every time somebody sets a goal, now they have to do this to-do list or they got to do this, I got to do that, now I got to do this, now I got to do that, I got to change this, I got to change that. No. You live in your declaration on day one that declaration is declared. You’re now free. You’re now the best. So, I was the best safety in the world in my mind when I was nine. Now, my body didn’t catch up to that until I was 21. The world didn’t catch up to that until I was 21.
So, I was being the best safety. That means I walked like the best safety. I trained like the best safety. I ate like the best safety. I treated people like the best safety. I did everything. I dressed like the best safety. I did everything the best safeties did for all those years until I was drafted at the age of 21 and guess what, I was the best safety because I had been being the best safety for all those years. Well, you and me are now adults. So, if I declare I want to be the best right now, today I want to be the best at creating the best. Now, I start to live out of and I start to live into that declaration, day one. That way, you’re just being your declaration. You’re living your declaration instead of going, “Oh, here’s my to-do list that I got to keep my goal in place.” It’s not like that.
[00:50:50] Brad Johnson: Yeah. I see that, Bo, like what’s really interesting about that, I see like this filter, this lens that you see things through and it’s like if I’m the best, here’s what the best do, and here’s what the best don’t do. And I know you got a part in the book of the not-to-do list, but even just like hearing you tell that story like I’m trying to, I’m flipping through the page here. There’s a story, you are grabbing dinner, and this was right after the knee injury that ended your football career but then took you into your acting career. And you are doing dinner and you were talking about wanting to be the best stage performer and then you sought out – who was the lady? I can’t think of her name right at the top of my head.
[00:51:32] Bo Eason: Anna Strasberg.
[00:51:33] Brad Johnson: Yes. Who introduced you to Al Pacino, right?
[00:51:35] Bo Eason: That’s right.
[00:51:36] Brad Johnson: So, because you’ve declared, okay, well I’m now shifting my focus over to the acting side and you’re now declaring, I’m going to be this, how do I do it? So, by looking through that lens, that now opened up dialogue they’re like, “Well, I know Al Pacino. Let me introduce you.” So, it’s like the self-fulfilling prophecy by declaring it the now it’s like the law of attraction where it’s bringing these things into your life that if you’re going to do that, well, here’s the tools you need to make that happen. Have you found that to be true over the years?
[00:52:09] Bo Eason: 100%. I’ll give you a little experiment. If your child came to you and then your child is like your kids’ age, Brad, seven to nine, right? Well, if they come to you tonight when you get home and they go, “Dad, I have this dream. I want to become the best firefighter on the planet or I want to be the best ballet dancer on the planet or I want to be the best speaker on the planet,” what do you do? You tell me what. Think about what you would say to them when they bring that dream to you. What do you say? What do adult say when a kid brings a dream, “I want to be the best at this?” The adult?
[00:52:52] Brad Johnson: Yeah, you can be anything you want to be as long as you put your mind to it.
[00:52:56] Bo Eason: Well, and what the adult does and what the best do is they go to work on your dream. They go to work on your declaration. So, I go up to Anna Strasberg who knows Al Pacino really good and I go, “I want to be the best stage performer of my time. Who is that?” And she said, “That’s Al Pacino,” and I say, “I want his mantle. Would he help me? Would he help me?” And she said, “Of course he would help you because everybody who’s the best wants to help you.” Like if you look at AE, they’re the best like Cody and what they’ve built. They’re the best. So, what if you went to them? You go, “Cody, Brad, how do I become the best?” Cody and Brad are now fighting for you to be the best and they do that by putting people like me in front of you. Do you see what I mean? They only work with the best. You only work with the best.
And the best are the most generous people and the only people that can help you and the only people that will help you because second-stringers, they can’t help you because they don’t know how. Otherwise, they’d be starters, they’d be All-Americans, so they don’t know how to help you. Secondly, they think you’re going to pass them up which you are because they got a second-rate mindset. They don’t know that they’re put on this earth to be the best. So, that’s always seek out the best at what you want to do. So, when my daughter, Eloise, she just turned 15, she wants to be the best pastry chef so this could be any discipline, pastry chef. My wife grew up with a girl who won the award, the James Beard Award, which is some fancy award for the best pastry chef, and she has her own bakery up in Portland, Oregon. So, what do we do? What do smart parents like me and my wife?
We say to Eloise, “You’re going to work under her this summer and that means you’re going to have to wake up at four in the morning because that’s when bakeries begin baking their croissants and their stuff.” And Eloise did it, a 15-year-old teenage girl, 4 in the morning, flour all over her, an ugly apron and a hat on top of her grinding it out. That’s the only way that she’s going to get there but she’s also working under the tutelage of the best. So, that is a cardinal rule. You know, in this book, There’s No Plan B for Your A-Game, that is a cardinal rule that you only work with the best. I can go example after example.
[00:55:49] Brad Johnson: Can you share just because it’s such a cool story, so the Pacino story which you end up at his house. Can you share that and then I love at the end where he like – I’ll let you tell the story. You tell the story. I don’t want to ruin the punchline.
[00:56:04] Bo Eason: Yeah. So, Al Pacino, I met him, right? So, I met, well, here’s the deal. Anna goes, “I’ll introduce you to Al. He’ll help you whatever needs to happen.” And so, she sets it up. So, here’s the deal. Al has two kids that are he’s the godfather of these two boys. These two boys are Anna Strasberg’s sons. That’s the connection. So, Al Pacino in real life is the godfather of these two boys. Now, imagine Al Pacino being your godfather. Here’s the setup that Al sets up. “Okay, Bo, I’ll meet you. We’ll talk about what you want to do as a stage performer, but I’ll meet you on the football field at the little high school here in New York with my two godsons and we’re going to play a game of touch football.” It is November. It is Thanksgiving holidays. You can’t even see any green grass on this field. It’s all snow and I’m playing touch football with Al Pacino and his two godsons.
I take one of them and he takes one. And these kids are like 12 or 13. I’ll never get this image out of my mind, and neither will you after I tell you what happened. So, you remember when you’re playing touch football with your boys and you’re like the quarterback. There’s not enough people to snap you the ball so you just take it yourself and you drop back. And in the defense of player has to count before he rushes, right? So, and we used to count one alligator, two alligator, three alligator then you could rush. Well, imagine me dropping back to pass. I’m a former NFL player just a few years ago and now I’m dropping back to pass. Snow, I never played in this much snow before is all over the place and Al Pacino, who was much smaller than you guys imagine, much smaller has gone like this, “One alligator. Two alligator.”
[00:58:05] Bo Eason: I’m laughing so hard I can’t believe Al Pacino, a guy I’ve been watching my whole life play these really dark roles like the Godfather counting alligators until he pass rushes me. So, anyway, after we get done with this football game, we go back to Al’s house.
[00:58:25] Brad Johnson: You didn’t let him get you, did you? You didn’t let him get you?
[00:58:28] Bo Eason: No. I let him get close like I let him get really close to you and then you kind of slide to the left, you slide to the right, you know.
[00:58:38] Brad Johnson: I guess you did need the acting lessons, so you needed to make it a sport of this.
[00:58:42] Bo Eason: That’s right. You don’t want to humiliate people. We go back to the house, you guys, and Al and I end up in this room where there’s a pool table. So, it’s just he and I and for three hours we played pool and I told him what my dream was and that I wanted to know how he did it because everybody told me, and this was 1990, this guy’s a top stage performer of our time and I go, “I want that mantle. Can you show me how to do it? Can you tell me how to do it?” He goes, “Yeah, I can tell you how to do it but that’s going to take you 15 years,” and I go, “Well, I work really well in those kinds of timeline so that’s cool with me.” So, for three hours, he basically broke down the next 15 years for me. And to cut the story really short, this is basically what he told me I’m going to be doing for 15 years.
He said, “Bo, your butt is going to be on a stage somewhere in the world more than every other person in the world for 15 years. If you do that, you’ll most likely be the top in the world at being on stage,” and I said, “Great.” And so, I went out for the next 15 years and fulfilled on that. I put myself at like you talked about, Brad. It was hard work. It wasn’t easy. I sucked at first, but I got better. You know, I got better and there’s one thing if you have interest in being the best, there’s one thing you got to do day in and day out and that gets better. And there’s only one way to get better, that’s to rehearse and train and to practice at being better. And as soon as you do that, you know where you’re going to end up. As soon as you teach your kids that progress, you’re going to end up at the top.
[01:00:24] Brad Johnson: Well, one of the telling things too was what he told you in retrospect because I think you asked him like, I’m sure nobody asked you this, right?
[01:00:32] Bo Eason: Yeah. I did. I said that to him. I said, “Wow. Al, thanks for spending three hours with me. I bet you every performer in this town has asked you for the same thing, you know, to take your mantle.” And he said, “Actually, you’re the first.” He said, “Everybody comes to me and asked to be famous or asked for me to introduce them to somebody who can shortcut their career.” He goes, “But what you’re the first one that was willing to do the work for 15 years.” And so, I couldn’t believe that was true but that was, in fact, the truth. There’s one thing that’s so true in our world, and it didn’t come from me. It came from a guy named Anders Ericsson who is the Godfather of the study of excellence. He says this one short sentence. It goes like this, “There are no shortcuts and there are no prodigies.” So, he’s done this, the study of studies, 30 years of what it takes to be world-class and he does it. It’s chess, it’s memorization experts, it’s athletics, it’s gymnasts, it’s violin players.
The study is the study and it takes deliberate practice for so many hours for so many years. And if you do it and you struggled to do it, it is never easy, but you will end up at the top. That’s science. I’m not a scientist. I live my life this way, but the scientists have proved to me that I was doing the right thing the whole time. I just didn’t know there was a book out there or science out there which there wasn’t when I was a kid, but I knew instinctually that if I backpedaled more than anybody else for 20 years that I would end up being pretty damn good at backpedaling. Who else is doing that? If you’re on stage more than anyone else, guess where you’re going to end up? If you’re working on your presentation more than anyone else, guess where you’re going to end up? The best at that which means you get the most money, which means you build your company however you want to build.
[01:02:34] Brad Johnson: All right, my friend. As we get towards the tail end here, we were talking before we went live here and there were a couple of things, obviously, being a show for financial advisors, they love to hear the psychology of, “Hey, Bo would be a pretty decent client for me being a guy that spent some time in the NFL and has done well for himself over his career,” how does a guy like that think when he’s selecting who he wants to take care of his finances or be his financial advisor? Can you unpack some of the psychology? You said you’d be cool with sharing that.
[01:03:06] Bo Eason: Yeah. I will. Look, I’m one of those people who doesn’t know a lot about money, just like 84% of high wealth individuals, but we know how to make it. For some reason, I don’t know why, I’ve made a lot, you know, my whole life since I got drafted, so I know that aspect of it, but what I don’t know is what the heck to do with it. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know anything. I think most financial advisors assume wealthy people kind of know what to do with their money and stuff and so financial advisors end up talking about money with them and talk about columns and numbers and percentages and stuff that right brain people just completely don’t understand. Same is true for me. So, my financial advisor ends up being a guy who was a former tennis player at UCLA, right? But I didn’t know him and I didn’t know that about him. He came by the house just because they just moved into the neighborhood, actually, three houses down from me.
And he’s different than me. He’s 15 years younger than me. We played tennis at UCLA, and I know when I start to hear somebody’s story like, “Oh yeah, I played tennis at UCLA,” I know I don’t care what he knows about finances. If he played at that high level, he knows how to make s*** happen. Do you know what I mean? So, here’s the thing. Say he used to fight in Desert Storm, and he used to land jets on an aircraft carrier, and he stopped by the house and he goes, “Yeah. I used to land jets on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the night. Now, I’m a financial advisor.” You know what I would say? “You’re my guy.” I don’t care. Wealthy people don’t care. They want to know your past or if they say something like this, “Yeah, I want to be a volleyball player. That kind of got all blown up because some financial things and I decided, man, I’m going to do it. I’m not, ‘It’s not going to happen.’”
[01:05:07] Bo Eason: You tell me a story like that or like, Stephanie, “Look, I was a girl seven years old, you know, living the life of my dreams, not a care in the world until the one night I was woken up at midnight just to hear my dad tell me and my brothers and sisters that he was leaving.” Do you see what I mean?
[01:05:25] Brad Johnson: Yeah. So, it basically just goes back to that connective tissue of you as somebody that when he said, “I played tennis at this level,” like just a level under being pro, you’re like, “Hey, I know he’s got the discipline,” and that like if you unpack the psychology of that, was it the resonating with this kid was waking up at five in the morning just as I was. He was willing to put in the work to make things happen. So, intuitively, I feel like he’ll do the same for my finances. Was that…
[01:05:56] Bo Eason: He can’t not be that way. The girl who was the story I told about the gal who came in with a friend and her dad was drunk and they lost the money, she can’t not protect people’s finances. It’s an emotional thing. That’s why I want you to walk in on that story that reveals that about you. Stephanie’s was her dad. Leaving her at night this gal was her friend. They came home. Dad was drunk. They lost everything. There’s always a reason that people become financial advisors. A lot of them are really high performers at something else like as a kid, as a high school kid, as a college kid whether it’s sports, ballet, singing, being in a rock band, all of that works, all of that you want your potential clients to know because that’s how they’re choosing you. You think they’re choosing you because you’ve been successful handling people’s finances, “Oh, I made Joe 20% of his money.” They don’t even know what that means. I don’t know what 20% means.
You think we know what that means? We don’t. We need connective tissue. I need to know what cloth you’re cut from like was your dad a farmer? What’s your dad like? Did he lose all your money? Did he leave you or was he there? Both of them work. It doesn’t matter if you had a good dad or a bad dad. The stories both work. That’s why you want to use them. So, with my financial advisor, we start talking to them. I didn’t realize that I even needed a financial advisor at that time. We just started becoming friends and he has kids that are three kids and I have three kids, same ages. They all became really great friends and so that’s been several years now. Well, any time a financial question comes up for me, which is like once a year like I go, “Chip, what should I do with this money or what should I do with that?” He goes, “Oh, I do this.”
[01:07:55] Bo Eason: Then I go, “Why would you do that?” and I go, “What are you doing for your kids like you got three kids. They’re the same age as my kids. What’s happening with them? Would you do that if you are me?” And he goes, “Here’s what I do with my kids, Bo. I do this, this, and this.” And I’m just going, “If he’s doing it with his kids, that’s good enough for me. That’s good for my kids.” So, that’s the only question I ever asked him is what is he doing that I should be doing with his own money and stuff like that? That is really great. Plus, just the trust that we’ve built with each other because, look, not only that but this dude I know he’s there for me. I know he loves my kids. If my wife and I can’t make it home, this is like old-school neighborhoods that you and me grew up in. “Hey, Chip, I can’t make it home. You got to feed the kids, man. You got to take the kid.” Emergencies like that, “I got them. They’re good. They can sleep over. They’re fed. They’re good. I’ll take them to basketball practice.”
Him and his wife, that’s how they are. People want to give their wealth to people who are like them who think like them, not necessarily somebody who knows more, who has had more success financially. That’s not really the deal. Here’s another thing I noticed about this family. All of their friends like me, now I’m socially a friend, all of their friends are all kind of alike in that they’re all really successful. They’re all really cool because now I’m friends with them and they’re all the same as their marriage, like my financial advisor and his marriage, his wife, all their clients and friends are really successful and their marriages look alike. Isn’t that weird? Like they seem to really be in love. They never talk disrespectful about each other. They go to parties together. They go on vacations together.
[01:09:58] Bo Eason: And so, now we got this whole group of people who all have big finances because they’re successful. They have great marriages which I find, I didn’t know I was going talk about that today, but that just seem to keep coming up and when you’re surrounded by people like that, guess what happens? You all get wealthier together like the whole group and you’re not going like this, “Well, this guy made more money than me last week. Oh, I got to make more.” It’s not like that. It’s just like you just seem to rise up together like the whole firm and his firm rises up together based on all the clients that he has which are now like social friends, which that’s been my experience with my financial advisor.
[01:10:42] Brad Johnson: So, it’s kind of like the Jim Rohn, you’re the average of the five people you surround yourself with.
[01:10:46] Bo Eason: You know what…
[01:10:48] Brad Johnson: This attraction that you’re seeing there.
[01:10:50] Bo Eason: I find that to be 100% sure. And I’ve heard that said like years ago and I was like, “Nah.” But then if I look at my high school and then I look at the performers that I was around like Al Pacino, I’m certainly walking in tall cotton as my dad used to say. When you hang around and you’re a beginning actor with Al Pacino like that’s going to be invaluable to your future. And so, you start to be around – I noticed my son even at 12 like the best athletes in the country or in the State of California where we live are kind of around him and the guys who train the best athletes whether it’s a speed coach, basketball, quarterbacks, throwing motion coach, it doesn’t matter. The guys who work with Tom Brady and Matt Ryan and those top quarterbacks also work with my son.
Well, the speed coach that beat Usain Bolt three times, the fastest man ever recorded, is my son’s speed coach and he coaches only the fastest men and women in the world. So, now my 12-year-old is running next to the fastest people in the planet. So, what do you think is going to happen to my son? There’s only one thing that can happen. He’s got to get faster because he’s around it. If you’re around great financial advisors, if you’re around wealthy people, guess what happens to you. If you’re around people at AE, like Cody and all you guys, guess what happens to you? You start thinking in a different way. You start like playing a different game. There’s no plan B for your A-game which is what that book’s all about. It’s about that A-game. It’s about surrounding yourself with only the best and then eliminating everybody else.
[01:12:41] Brad Johnson: All right. So, as we wrap because I want to respect your time today and we’re on a Friday so I’m sure you have things going on this weekend.
[01:12:46] Bo Eason: I got football practice today. I got to get out in the field.
[01:12:49] Brad Johnson: Yeah. There we go.
[01:12:50] Bo Eason: Middle school football.
[01:12:51] Brad Johnson: So, speaking of football, a lot of advisors out there, they would say, “Hey, if I was going to like draw up a wishlist of ideal clients that do well for themselves, obviously, professional athletes, whether it’s being a fan of professional athletes or being an advisor managing a lot of assets, that tends to be something people like how could I work with NFL players, NBA players, whatever that may be. You’ve been an NFL player. You’ve been on the other side of that. Before we went live, you shared you had a fairly famous agent. Can you give us some kind of I’d say inside baseball but some inside football of what does that look like? And if you’re an advisor that was going to say, “Hey, my niche is going to be I work with professional athletes,” what are some things that they would want to start to think about to make that happen?
[01:13:39] Bo Eason: Yeah. I think it’s going to be the relationship between you, the financial person, and either the agent or the agency that’s representing that athlete or the lawyer that’s representing that athlete. And now back in my days, we didn’t have publicists, we didn’t have social media, and we didn’t have a trainer like they’ve got a lot of people in their orbit nowadays, especially the greats. If you look at Tom Brady’s orbit, the guy who trains and the guy who works on his body, the person who handles his finance, the person who’s his lawyer, the person who’s his agent, his wife, his wife’s agent. So, think about that whole universe that’s surrounding these athletes. Those are where the relationships need to start because it’s too hard to get to the top guys. It’s much easier to get to the other guys which, you know, you want to get to too because I don’t know if you noticed how much you guys get paid these days, but it’s pretty nice, even the average player.
What happened with me and my brother since we were top picks, we had the top agent at that time was a guy named Leigh Steinberg who actually represents people still today. In fact, he represents the Kansas City people well like Patrick Mahomes.
[01:14:52] Brad Johnson: Not a bad client.
[01:14:53] Bo Eason: Yeah. So, he represented my brother and he represented all the top quarterbacks of the 80s, those whole classes, and so he represented me too. So, me and my brother all of a sudden are handed millions of dollars when you’re 21 and you come from a relatively poor background and you have to know that all athletes do. That’s good for you. Here’s why. Great financial advisors a lot of times, most of the time, they don’t come from wealth. Pro athletes don’t come from wealth, neither do great advisors for the most part. There’s exceptions, right, but for the most part, you’re cut from the same cloth as those athletes because they started at the bottom and they grinded in battle. That’s why you want to tell that story once you are in relationship or once you get introduced to that relationship because they want somebody who knows the mileage that they’ve run.
So, our agent we get handed all this money, we don’t know what to do with it, and we don’t have a financial advisor, so our agent, Leigh Steinberg at that time, he’s the guy they made the movie Jerry Maguire. Jerry McGuire, that movie, is based on his life so that was our agent. So, me and my brother didn’t know what to do with these millions of dollars, so he goes, “I’m going to introduce you to three financial advisors that I have a great relationship with, and they seem to work really well with athletes. You can meet all three of them. You can meet one of them. It doesn’t matter to me. They’re all solid. They’re all great guys. I’d vouch for all of them.” So, we met all three, me and my brother I remember, and I did. It’s not that I knew what these financial advisors at the age of 21 were telling me because I was 21. All I wanted was a Porsche and a gold chain around my neck and that was about the extent of it. They came in they said, “Hey, well, we want to do this so that you have money after you get done playing and blah, blah, blah.”
[01:16:51] Bo Eason: And so, they explained to us the longevity. They looked at these kids who had a bundle of money, who now we have to make this thing last and we got to make this thing come fulfill on itself and they did do that. Like the ones who promised that, the guy we chose, in fact, did do that. You know, like my brother was drafted in 1983 so imagine that. He’s never worked. He was always one of the highest-paid players in the league, top 10. He played for 10 years, but he has never worked. Now, I’m 58 so he’s 59, almost 60 years old, my brother. He’s never worked. That’s kind of crazy.
[01:17:32] Brad Johnson: Yeah. Other than getting hit by guys like Lawrence Taylor and things like that.
[01:17:37] Bo Eason: Yeah. It always takes a few years off your life. LT always did which takes money out of your pocket but that’s how it worked for us. I’m not that familiar with that world now, but I bet you it’s no different. I bet it’s the relationship with the agent or agencies which they have now. Also, you might want to look at I’m just thinking about this off the top of my head. Every one of these guys now, what’s huge for every guy coming out of college, who’s going to go to the combines whether it’s NBA or NFL, the agencies hire groups like, I’m thinking of one, Axiom is one of them. These training groups were these trainers feed these guys and train them to ready them for the combines so that they’re drafted, how they improve them 40 times and such. So, the NBA has a combine just like that too. That might be a good place.
You find out what these companies are, who these people are who are doing that, those guys have influence with them too because the athlete has to trust those dudes with their body so they’re not only physical trainers. They work on their body. They feed them, their nutritionist. This is all their recovery. All that stuff is big and the player has to trust that person to have a long career and that’s what they’re all fighting for right now. That might be a cool place for some of you to look at if you have a relationship there. If you can get a relationship in there, that might be pretty cool.
[01:19:13] Brad Johnson: That reminds me a bit of I think it was a 30 for 30 when they were talking about the basketball shoes, how it was I think it was Converse owned the NBA and then Nike figured out, “Hey, let’s start getting them into the college coaches and player’s hands,” and they develop the relationship at that level so then it carried over.
[01:19:32] Bo Eason: Oh, yeah. Those shoe companies are already going to my son. So, when he was 11, 12 saying, “You got to wear Under Armour.” “Oh, you got to wear Nike. You got to play with a Nike team.” “You got to play with an Under Armour team.” “You got to play with an Adidas team.” Because you can’t play in certain tournaments. I mean, they start them early because you know what they say? That a 12-year-old has more influence on the world as far as what shoe like the top 12-year-olds in the country has more influence on the public over what shoe they wear than the six-man on the Lakers. Isn’t that crazy? Because of social media because kids see what shoes they’re wearing and they go buy them. So, they’re going younger and younger. So, I would just consider that for all of you. I always think that that the people who win, and I don’t care what the job is, are the ones who can stay the most creative. So, always thinking outside the box, always being more creative than the rest.
[01:20:39] Brad Johnson: Very cool. Well, Bo, if you’re good with it, I’ve got maybe a couple of philosophical questions to throw your way because I know you’re a thinker and then we’ll call it a day, but this is awesome as I knew it would be. So, well now we have to do this one just because of who you are. When you hear the word successful, who’s the first person that comes to your mind and why?
[01:21:00] Bo Eason: Gosh, I mean, the first one that popped in my mind because I’m an athlete is probably Michael Jordan because the first thing I thought of was like who is the one like if I was going to search for the best and compete at a high level, he would be the person I would look at. I don’t know about the rest of his life because I’m not a fan of Michael Jordan and that’s a big part of the book. We distinguish between players and fans and once you read the book, you’re not going to be a fan either. You’re going to be a player and I don’t care. You’re going to be a player because you are a player. So, I think Michael Jordan first thing and when my son wanted to be the best basketball player, he and Kobe Bryant were the only guys we looked at and trust me, my son didn’t know who they were because he’s so young. He saw Kobe play, but he never saw Michael Jordan play but I would not let him watch the players of today. I wouldn’t let him watch.
[01:21:54] Brad Johnson: Even Lebron?
[01:21:55] Bo Eason: No, not Lebron because there’s just something that I see in him that I don’t want my son to have which is if he was a true competitor, would he be…
[01:22:11] Brad Johnson: Would he have switched to the Heat?
[01:22:13] Bo Eason: Yeah.
[01:22:16] Brad Johnson: That’s to me like because I grew up watching Jordan and Kobe, there was this competitiveness of we’re going to figure out how to win hell or high water. And you look at Jordan like he got beat over and over and over and over by the Pistons until they finally did it.
[01:22:33] Bo Eason: Yeah. So, a lot of fans will disagree with me on that but if you take it from a player’s point of view, you’ll understand what I mean by success like here is why I want you all to be players because I don’t see myself as a fan of Michael Jordan. I see myself as a peer. I see my son as a peer same thing with Kobe, right? I’ll tell you, my son, as he plays on a really good travel basketball team. Well, a few weeks ago and I sent this text to Cody and shared it with him months ago when it happened, but Kobe Bryant lives, you know, not too far from me. He saw my son’s team play and he said, “How would this team like to come down to Orange County and train with me?” And so, we said, “Heck, yeah.” We traveled down. We get to Orange County and the whole way to Orange County which is about a 90-minute drive for me and my son.
Driving down the whole way I’m preaching to Axel, “You are not a fan of Kobe Bryant. You are a peer of Kobe Bryant. You aren’t there for a selfie and you’re not there for an autograph and you’re not there to goggle-eye and fanboy Kobe Bryant. You are Kobe Bryant. That’s the only thing Kobe Bryant respects is predators, is peers. So, you work your ass off and let everything else fall into place.” So, we get there and 100% I sent a video to Cody. Maybe I’ll share it with you. So, a lot of the boys and their families were at this practice, so you see Kobe. He’s right there. He’s training our kids. He’s coaching our 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds. A lot of the kids and the families wanted selfies just like I said and autographs and they started getting in line for that kind of thing. And Axel continued to work while they were lining up for pictures like finishing up with free throws and working on some stuff that they worked on during the two-hour practice.
[01:24:34] Bo Eason: And Kobe Bryant isn’t, you know, he’s not like cuddly. You can imagine. He’s not one of those guys who goes out of his way to come up to you and go, “Hey, man. Let’s be buddies.” He’s not like that at all. He walked over to Axel and goes, “Hey, man. I like what you did out there,” and shook his hand and gave him a hug, and I sent this video to Cody and he said, “Man, when you start school, man, you just keep working like this and like that.” Everyone else was getting pictures with him. Not Axel. I said don’t get a picture with him. He didn’t get his autograph and I’m telling you that’s why you be a player and not a fan because that’s how it pays off and he invited Axel to come back and he goes, “Come back. Come work with us,” and that just proved the theory correct. You want your kids not being fans of the things they want to do. My brother was like that too. We would watch NFL football and it would be Fran Tarkenton and it would be Len Dawson.
And my brother, he wouldn’t go – I would go, “God, Fran Tarkenton’s great.” My brother wouldn’t say that. He would go like this, “I’m going to be better.” That’s what he would say. If I saw a safety, I wouldn’t say, “Oh, he’s so great. I’ll never be that.” I would just say, “I’m going to be better,” no matter how great he was. That’s how you have to approach everything you do and if you do, you will be better. You will meet with the…
[01:26:05] Brad Johnson: On that note, will you tell the Walter Payton story out of the book? Because that’s like such that that embodies that whole point.
[01:26:12] Bo Eason: Yeah. So, there’s a part of the book where we create these what people call vision boards. I don’t call them vision boards, but people do where you put up pictures and you put up drawings so you can visualize what you want to be or where you want to end up. When I was a kid, in fact, four years of high school, Walter Payton was in my locker, a picture of Walter Payton I cut out of Sports Illustrated. I loved Walter Payton. I cut it out, and the picture was of him coming right at the camera as if he’s got the ball and he’s running right toward the camera. Four years of opening up my locker 10 times a day in high school, I opened up and there’s Walter Payton. So, now I finish up my high school career. Now, I’m in college and I get drafted to the Houston Oilers four years after that, after high school finished, and now I’m playing the Chicago Bears and who is the running back on the Chicago Bears as I line up to look back in the back – I line up for safety. I look in the backfield. Jim McMahon’s the quarterback. This is like 1984, 1985. Willie Gault’s over there. That’s when they won the Super Bowl.
[01:27:22] Brad Johnson: Bears had a decent team.
[01:27:23] Bo Eason: Yeah. William “The Refrigerator” Perry and Richard Dent, all those guys. So, I’m looking back there and Walter Payton, they hand him the ball and I start running up to tackle Walter Payton like that’s my part, right? Here I come and my whole life turns into slow motion I swear. I’m running in slow motion, and this is what’s going on in my head, “Oh, my God, that is Walter Payton. I’m about to tackle Walter Payton,” and as I got closer to Walter Payton to tackle him, it was the same image that was in my locker in high school. He was running right at me just like I looked at for four years, ten times a day, and lo and behold I tackle Walter Payton. Now, I can’t believe that I just tackled Walter Payton. So, what do I do? I’m a rookie. I’m a dumb rookie laying on top of one of the best players to ever play the game. So, when you’re laying on one of the best players to ever play the game, they don’t like it.
So, I’m laying on him just going like this, “Oh, my God. I just tackled Walter Payton. I hope my mom and dad just saw this on TV. I think I’m just going to lay here for a minute.” And Walter Payton kicks me off of him, kicks me. As I’m getting up, kicks me with his heel because he was always such a nice guy, right? And he dropped a couple of foul language on me and told me, “Get off me, rookie,” and I got up and I go, “I guess there’s no more fanboy anymore. This is real. This guy is here to compete and kill me,” and that’s why I don’t want you to be fans of these people you’ve got to know you’re going to end up having to tackle them one day. You’re going to be with them one day. I keep telling my son that and it keeps happening. It keeps happening. So, that’s the Walter Payton story and that’s why I want you to create your board when you read the book. You’ll see that that’s a whole section of how to do this and how to follow these principles that I followed my whole life and now my kids and clients are following.
[01:29:33] Brad Johnson: All right. Two more questions. You good for that?
[01:29:35] Bo Eason: Yeah.
[01:29:36] Brad Johnson: All right. Cool. So, if speaking of your 21, 22, 23-year-old self that was the rookie, if you could look back now, Bo Eason, that you said 58 now?
[01:29:47] Bo Eason: Yeah.
[01:29:47] Brad Johnson: Okay. So, 58-year-old Bo Eason looks back and you can just go back in time and give call it your just-fresh-in-the-NFL-self some advice, what advice would you give yourself?
[01:30:00] Bo Eason: I think now that I’m 58 I would give myself the advice that every veteran player and coach gave me, and it was this, “Hey, man.” This is what they do. Every veteran player like great players, Warren Moon, Earl Campbell, Mike Rozier, great players, Joe Montana, Steve Young, Jerry Rice. “Hey, rookie, hey man, slow down, slow down. You got this. Slow down.” I never took their advice. I never did. I always had this kind of chip on my shoulder where I felt I had to prove myself. So, I always went the extra mile and they saw it in me, and they were actually doing me a favor by telling me this, because my career lasted five years because I played about 20 years in those five years. Do you know what I mean?
[01:31:00] Brad Johnson: Yeah. You have that free safety mentality.
[01:31:03] Bo Eason: Yeah, like I was glad back then that I didn’t listen to them because I liked playing so reckless. I like having that kind of impact but now at 58 when I’m limping around and forgetting people’s names, I always go, “Well, maybe I should’ve slowed down. Maybe they were right.” So, with that by slowing down, I mean this, this is great advice for all of you. The slowdown knowing that you’ve got this, this best, you’ve got this already, because you were made this way. You don’t have to prove you’re the best. You just have to be who you naturally are. You have to re-remember who you are, instinctually, which is already the best. So, that’s the advice I would give to not only my 21-year-old self but all of you today.
[01:31:55] Brad Johnson: Well, I think that’s a good one to end on right there. I think we’re going to call that a day because that is such good advice and, Bo, I’ve been in your presence enough that I knew this was going to be a rock star conversation. Thanks for delivering. There’s so much from this whole conversation and one last plug for the book. Go get the book. We’re going to give you guys a really special offer that will all be in the show notes. I’ll lay it all out but stellar book that takes everything I’ve seen in person and basically makes it portable to where you can take that and learn from it right there. I’m glad you wrote the book, Bo. It was overdue.
[01:32:32] Bo Eason: I know. Thanks, man. You know, if they want to preorder it before it’s released on September 3, just so you know you can. The only reason I tell you is because there’s a lot of cool bonuses if you preorder before September 3. So, do that if you want it. There’s cool bonuses where I train you and a lot of online stuff, a lot of cool guidelines and stuff, and you’ll get the book before other people and if you just go to BoEasonBook.com, that’s where you can preorder.
[01:33:02] Brad Johnson: Awesome. Well, Bo, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure on my side, and I look forward to the next time our paths cross which I’m sure won’t be too long so thanks for giving your all today. Appreciate it.
[01:33:14] Bo Eason: From one safety to another, be the best.
[01:33:16] Brad Johnson: All right, buddy.
[01:33:17] Bo Eason: All right, man.
[CLOSING]
[01:33:21] Brad Johnson: Thanks for checking out the latest show. On to this week’s featured reviews. This week’s first review comes to us from Darren Violette who says, “Makes me think. Five stars. Brad’s podcast brings guests who speak to what I do and how I do it. It gives me ideas across many aspects of my business, one, how to define our process and brand that process, two, how to better love on our clients, three, how to deliver a memorable client experience, and I could go on and on.” Darren, thanks for the amazing review. The concepts you named on defining and branding your process as well as how to love on your clients to create that memorable experience are two of the biggest core ideas Advisors Excel’s top-performing clients do consistently and intentionally. I promise, spending time putting those into action will serve you very, very well. Also, as an aside, based on your Twitter feed, I can already tell we’ll be cheering for different sides if the AFC championship match-up ends up how I think it will this year, so go Chiefs!
The next review comes to us from user Biz World who says, “Well versed and definitely worth a listen. Five stars. I’ve been in the financial advisory role for over 20 years and with every podcast I gain some fantastic insight that has helped me to elevate my practice. Brad has such an easy caring way about him that you can’t help but trust him and he has some awesome guests. Brad’s podcast is the first podcast I listen to out of the 16 that I subscribe to. Great work and thank you. Mike.” Thank you, Mike. I appreciate the kind words and the review and it’s awesome to hear that my podcast is at the top of the list of all that you subscribed to. I will do my very best to keep delivering so it stays there. Also, glad that after 20 years of experience, the content is still bringing you new insights and ideas and I just have to give you a compliment for staying hungry and learning after all these years. I found it’s common that the very best in our industry, they stay lifelong learners as well.
[01:35:17] Brad Johnson: And as far as the easy caring way that I guess how I approach things, I’m going to have to give growing up in small-town Kansas with the family that valued treating others as you want to be treated, I mean, I have to give that a lot of the credit. That was a core philosophy that was really ingrained into me at a very young age so I’m glad it comes through on the podcast. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts. Mike, hit me up if you ever find your way to Kansas.
And the last featured review for the week it comes to us from user ginag_ops who says, “Always learning. Five stars. I discovered this podcast a few months ago and I’m so glad that I did. Brad always has informative and interesting guests and I learned something from every episode. My biggest dilemma is that I listen in my car and always want to take notes. Thankfully, the show notes are always available to refer back to. Very good use of my time, which like everyone’s is at a premium these days.” Gina, it’s great to hear you’re putting all those show notes to use as I still think many of our Blueprint listeners don’t realize we provide a full transcript of literally every show directly in the show notes. Whether it’s wanting to highlight key takeaways or remember the verbiage of certain guests used to try to bring it in your next appointment, I wanted to make sure it was super easy to put these ideas shared on each episode into action and I’ll do my best to keep future shows worthy of note-taking. Thanks for the review and for listening in.
And for those of you that have interest in diving deeper or figuring out how you may be able to have our team help you implement many of the ideas shared on the show, my day job happens to be consulting financial advisors from all over the US on how to grow their business and design a practice that serves them versus them serving it. Yes, I promise, it’s possible to grow your business and work less. This is a model we’ve replicated over and over in markets all over the country. So, if you’d like to apply to see if it makes sense for us to have a one-on-one conversation on how to overcome what may be getting in your way, you can do that at BradleyJohnson.com/Apply. It takes about five minutes to fill out the application so we can understand what your business looks like, what challenges you may be facing, and how myself and my team may be able to help. Taking the first step is as simple as applying at BradleyJohnson.com. So, that’s all for this week. Thanks for listening in and I will catch you on the next show.
[01:37:37] Brad Johnson: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Advisor Blueprint. For access to show notes, transcripts, and exclusive content from our show’s guests, visit BradleyJohnson.com. And before you go, I’ve got a quick favor to ask. If you’re liking the podcast, you can help support the show by leaving your rating and review on iTunes. Not only do we read every single comment, but this will help the show rank and get discovered by new listeners. It really does help. Thanks again for joining and be sure to tune in next week for another episode.
[END]
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