Brad Johnson: Welcome back to another episode of Do Business, Do Life. Excited to have Amanda Brinkman on the show today. Welcome to the show, Amanda.
Amanda Brinkman: Thank you for having me.
Brad Johnson: Well, it’s always fun when some of my favorite connections introduce me to new people. And Eric Thomes of Allianz, who was a coworker to you at one point and now a friend, was kind enough to say I think he’d heard a few episodes. He’s like, “You’ve got to have Amanda on the show.” So, excited to get you on here, Amanda. And it sounds like you’ll be visiting Allianz here in the near future to do a little speaking for them.
Amanda Brinkman: Yes, I’m very excited. It’s kind of a bit of a return, a homecoming of sorts. So, it would be so great to see everyone and be back in the building.
Brad Johnson: Well, cool. Well, as we dive in here, what’s really fun, I have a very eclectic guest list on the show. And what’s fun is when I get guests that have actually spent some time in our world, like in the world of finance, because I feel like you just kind of have a little bit of a feel for the heartbeat of the industry and the advisors out there. And so, you actually spent some time at Allianz Corporate. You spent some time at Deluxe, the company that’s I think best known for checks and checkbooks and all of that. And so, as we go into you have a philosophy, you call it, “Do well by doing good,” maybe we start there and say kind of big picture, what is that philosophy? And then if we start to weave it into how you can start to see that playing out in finance, I think that could be a fun way to kick it off.
Amanda Brinkman: I like this path. It’s great.
Brad Johnson: Okay. Let’s go. All you. Let’s hear your thoughts.
Amanda Brinkman: Well, okay. So, you’re right. I’ve kind of spent my entire career kind of trying to prove this thesis that companies can do well by doing good. And it actually originated way back when I was in high school. Like, I grew up in a family where we gave back. We volunteered. We were part of the community. It was just kind of ingrained in who we are, and who we were. And I’m grateful for that. So, I kind of grew up wanting to go into something that did good in the world, but we only really think of a handful of professions that way. We think of first responders, we think of teachers, we think of nurses, kind of like nonprofit leaders.
And yet as I was growing up, I was really attracted to brand and design and marketing and film. So, I was in high school and I was talking to one of my teachers about the classic like, “What are you going to do after you graduate? What’s the plan?” And I shared that I was having kind of this conflict of I wanted to go into something that did good in the world but I was so attracted to branding and marketing. And I just felt like that felt a little too secular or something. And so, I shared that I was having this conflict. And he said, “But, Amanda, if people who want to do good in the world don’t go into business, how will the business world, the for-profit world ever get better?”
And that, for me, is what we now call a paradigm shift. It just helped me see it completely differently, almost then as a calling to bring goodness into the place of business and to prove that that was possible. Because I do think that historically, we’ve thought about it into a binary of a way like either you’re a for-profit company that makes money or you’re a nonprofit that does good in the world. And I took it up, it’s kind of almost a bit of a challenge, like, how can I prove this? And then so throughout my career, I had different opportunities to prove that in different ways or to be building the skills to qualify me for the next job where I could prove it more.
But, yeah, so I’ve spent my whole career kind of trying to prove that companies can do well by doing good. And I think that doing good means something different for each of certainly every company, but also for every industry. So, I’ve been in retail, I’ve been in CPG, I’ve been in financial services, health care, and each of those, it has a different opportunity to do good in the world. And so, it’s been fun to kind of try that out in different industries and different verticals.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. And I didn’t hear some of the other companies you’ve done work with or spent some time with. And really, I think most of your focus was on the branding side of these businesses. So, BMW, Reebok, Sony, you spent time at companies like UnitedHealth Group, General Mills. So, what’s fun is you’ve got a lot of experience in a lot of different verticals, and I’m sure there are some things that are the same when it comes to doing good. And I’m sure there are some things that are very specific to that niche or that industry.
But if we like start with the zoom out before we zoom in, and you take this philosophy around a brand and how you start to infuse doing good but it’s also not a nonprofit, they have to make money, what are some things to be thinking about? Or how have you woven that into the branding story?
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. Great question. I think there’s a couple of things. One, I believe that companies, we’re starting to hear the terminology “brand purpose” more now, which I love. I’m a huge advocate for that term, but only if you are taking your brand purpose and turning it all the way into a brand action if you’re truly demonstrating what you say you stand for. If you’re just calling it a brand purpose and you’re not really putting your money where your mouth is or really demonstrating that, or you can’t kind of prove that purpose, then it’s just kind of a new catchy phrase for a mission statement that we have up on a wall or in a PowerPoint.
So, I’m definitely a huge advocate for companies identifying their unique brand purpose and figuring out what it’s going to be our brand action, how are we going to go out and truly demonstrate this and prove that this isn’t just something we say, but this is definitely something that we do and demonstrate. So, that’s the first thing. The second is I think it’s really important to think about what you’re doing for your customers beyond selling them things. And we can’t all be on this planet just to drive nice cars and have nice homes. There has to be a deeper meaning to what we’re doing. And so, how are we making a difference in their lives? What matters to our customers, again, beyond just what we sell? How are we truly invested in their lives?
And again, based on the brand, based on vertical, that can look different. And not every brand, when I think about doing good, not every brand needs to be doing the things that, again, we instantly think of when it’s good, like alleviating homelessness or solving world hunger. Doing good can be things like, remember fun? Like, we all remember fun like pre-pandemic. You can bring people fun. We’re hearing the word joy a lot lately. Like, how do we kind of, you know, there’s lots of different ways you can be doing good in your customer’s lives. So, thinking about what matters to your customers and how you can participate in that, again, beyond what you actually sell as a product or service.
And then the third is I think it’s really important to invest in your employees. And we’re talking about that more now. We’re talking about how people bring their whole selves to work. But a lot of companies don’t know what to do with that. Like, especially as leaders, like what does that mean? Like, does that just mean people are going to be zooming from their pajama pants or is there something else I’m supposed to be doing? Like, what does that actually look like in real life? And so, I think it’s about helping your employees see purpose in their work, how they ladder up to your brand purpose, but also how are they as individuals living their purpose in their current role.
And so, I think those three things when done well is where you see that demonstration of a company truly doing well by doing good.
Brad Johnson: So, some thoughts on this. And I just want to as we dive in there a couple of companies come to mind. I was trying to pull one up here as you were talking. I believe Warby Parker, the eyeglass company, one of the things that put them on the map is if I purchased a pair of eyeglasses, they would donate a pair to like a third-world country to help somebody actually have better vision over there. There was also a, you probably know better than me, there was a shoe company. I know my wife had a few pairs. What was it?
Amanda Brinkman: Toms.
Brad Johnson: Toms, yeah. So, if you purchase a pair of shoes, they’re donating a pair of shoes.
Amanda Brinkman: Bombas Socks does something similar. Yeah.
Brad Johnson: So, I’ve seen this trend and it’s cool. It’s like, hey, when you buy a pair of shoes, somebody else that doesn’t have the means to buy a pair of shoes, we’re going to donate a portion of that. And that makes you feel good to get behind that brand. Is that down the vein of what you’re talking about, or are you talking about something different?
Amanda Brinkman: It can be both. So, I think that the buy one, give one model is a really tangible way for consumers to see the social impact and philanthropy of that particular company, and especially for Gen-Z. Like, every generation I think that matters too but it’s becoming more and more important for a company to demonstrate that. So, I think it’s really great. I mean, even nonprofits, I think the more they can say, like when you donate $5 to the Salvation Army, that’s two pillows for two people in our shelter. Like, when you quantify it, when you actually meet you put the two things together, I think it just helps people see the impact.
So, Toms could have instead of, “As you’re buying a pair of shoes, we’re giving away a pair,” they could have just given away the money that’s associated with that second pair of shoes, and it just wouldn’t have been as visible or as tangible, and you wouldn’t have known that unless you looked into their filings to know what they’re giving. But this is a much more real way where then the consumer feels like they’re doing something good with the purchase. So, I think it’s a super smart kind of brand activation and brand action. But it’s also just a really, really great way to engage consumers in that way and showing the goodness you’re doing.
So, you can do something like that. And it’s easier when you’re in a new company. So, this kind of social entrepreneurship, it’s just easier to bake into your business model if you start out with that business structure. It’s harder for bigger companies to reverse backwards into that. Especially if you have really thin margins and if you’re in a growth mindset and you’re in a cost-cutting mode, how do you possibly do that? Well, we did at Deluxe because the way we demonstrated it was we took marketing dollars that were meant to invest, that you typically invest in talking about yourself. And we invested it instead in the community in a really tangible and action-oriented way.
And that was the way we were kind of doing good. And so, you can do things like that too, where it’s like your actual demonstration can be advocacy for your customers. It can be the buy one give one model, or it can just be using your platform and your amplification, your voice, to advocate for your customer group or for something that you think matters in the world.
Brad Johnson: Well, since you hit on Deluxe, let’s go there first. So, Deluxe, the company, I think that is most well-known you were saying. Are you even, you know?
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. You’re too young to know what a checkbook is. Yeah.
Brad Johnson: I did have a checkbook. In fact, I still do. I actually had to write a check for the first time, a physical check for the first time in probably three years when I went and put tags on my truck the other day and I’m like, “Wow, I haven’t written one of these in a while.” So, let’s go to the company. So, Deluxe, which came up kind of personal checks and I’m sure with technology there was a lot going on at that company where they’re like, “Okay. Well, we kind of had our bread and butter here and it’s kind of going very digital.”
And so, you kind of put together this concept of I feel like it was like a documentary series called Small Business Revolution – Main Street, and that ran for six seasons. You had Ty Pennington as a co-host, Robert Herjavec of Shark Tank fame, Baron Davis. So, some really cool personalities running beside you. And so, was this the concept where you took some of the marketing spend and that was now going the small business revolution? Were you investing in the small businesses and documenting it? Or how did that play out like what was the playbook there?
Amanda Brinkman: Yes. You got it. So, that’s exactly what we were doing. So, when I joined the company as a Chief Brand Officer, my main task was how do we reposition a 100-year-old company? We were about to celebrate our 100th anniversary when I joined the company about a decade ago. And we were, how do you celebrate your legacy but in a way that gives you an opportunity to talk about your future rather than your past? I mean, the decline of checks has been predicted for over 35 years. So, it wasn’t as if that, you know, but when you have a legacy product that’s in decline, you do, as you mentioned, you start investing in new ways.
And so, we have been helping small businesses move their money for 100 years. So, we helped them start marketing themselves as well. The two things that small businesses struggle with the most are either not knowing their numbers or what the numbers are telling them or, yes, both. They also struggle with their marketing and really understanding which tools to use and how to grow audience through marketing. And so, we thought, “Let’s go walk alongside them.” And so, we built out all these different small business services, email marketing, logo, promo, and apparel, etcetera.
And so, when I joined the company, they were well into that product development. They could do all sorts of things to help a small business, but nobody knew us for that. Like, everybody just knew us for checks or they didn’t know us because you typically buy your checks through your bank, and so you would only know the red checkbook box that your grandmother gave you socks in for Christmas were the two ways people knew us. So, I thought this is a perfect opportunity to truly prove companies can do well by doing good. And this will be a case study in it because doing well by Deluxe standards is raising our brand awareness and specifically raising our awareness with small businesses.
But what could we do on our way to achieving those business results that would be good for the very community that we serve? And the number one thing small businesses need is for people to support them. And you can say you’re a small business supporter all you want, but are you actually going out and buying from them and supporting them? And so, the idea was, what if in our 100th year, instead of talking about our legacy, let’s turn the cameras around and feature 100 small businesses throughout our 100th year? And let it be all about them, not about Deluxe, all about why these small businesses are each so important. Because when you hear a small business owner’s story, you want to support them.
You know, we’ve all been there where you go to a restaurant, you meet the owner, and you want to bring everyone you know back there to eat. Or you go into a small retail shop while you’re on vacation and you hear the story about why they started their business, and you can’t get on Instagram fast enough to recommend them. Like, when you personify a business, you literally put a face to a business, it just means more. And so, yeah, so during our 100th year, we went across the country and shared the stories of 100 small businesses, and we did this through beautiful short films, documentary style, photo essays. And it was remarkably successful.
We were redirecting our marketing dollars into sharing the stories and creating a movement around supporting small businesses again, rather than creating an ad campaign. But I suppose an answer could have been like doing an ad campaign, “So, you used to know us for checks, but now we do websites.” But instead, we thought, “Let’s do something more.” And then it evolved into a television show where each season we revitalized a different community’s Main Street through its small businesses. And I could talk more about the format of the show, what we did, but this is getting to be a long enough answer. But, yes, that was our demonstration of that.
Brad Johnson: As you dove in there, I’m sure some things played out like you expected and some surprises happened along the way. So, if we kind of redirect the concept to a financial advisor who are small business owners, who might not have the same marketing budget that a Deluxe has, how could you see the same concept play out in a financial advisor firm, where you could use the concept of kind of pouring into local or doing well local to then in turn drive business or drive brand awareness for your company?
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. I think a huge part of it is really with any marketing is truly understanding what drives your customers, both from an acquisition perspective as well as a current retention perspective. And I think a huge kind of insight right now around just people is that there’s kind of this interesting kind of purpose or almost spiritual-like reawakening happening. I think we’ve got post-pandemic. I think there’s just like the cycle to everything right now. Like, people are just, I mean, we talk about all the time, right, that people are not doing great and they’re wanting to feel like what they’re doing has intention behind it.
I think there’s a little bit of this post-pandemic where people felt like they were going to change something about their lives or do something different. We all vowed that we weren’t going to fill up our calendar in the same way and we’re going to keep some of the same traditions we started during the pandemic. And then life kind of just re-happened and we didn’t make those changes. And so, I think the big consumer insight is that people want to feel like there’s purpose in what they’re doing. And I think as a financial advisor, there aren’t very many things that are much more personal than your money.
And I love this concept of thinking about, this is just my take on what I think would be a great kind of brand play. I think there’s really great room to talk about the fact that the reason we want to be fiscally sound is because it gives you an opportunity to live in a generous way. And so, it doesn’t mean that you, as a financial advisor, have to tell your customers that they have to accumulate wealth in order to just give it away but living generously can mean a lot of different things. And I think thinking about, yeah. So, I could keep talking about this but that’s my main thing. I think, like, it’s really about understanding.
And I think that would vary for an FA depending on what market you’re in, what customer base like I’ve met a lot of female advisors lately that are just honing in on women. You’re just trying to that that’s their target. So, the way they would go to market would be different than if you’re trying to reach Gen Zers before they establish a financial advisor relationship, where they don’t have a lot of saving or investment power yet, but they’re building it. So, it just depends who you think your target market is but I think really thinking about what are the things that drive them as people, like don’t think about it as just their money but as people in that stage of life like what’s driving them? And then how do you plug in and show that you get that?
Brad Johnson: Yeah. So, a little slogan came to mind as you were talking there. And I know Allianz actually did some cool studies on this back in the day. I don’t know if it was when you were there or not, but it talked about the fear of running out of money as a retiree because back to not having a plan or not as the retirement landscape shifted in the US where we went from a very pension-based retirement system to a very 401(k), do it yourself, I’ve got a million bucks in my 401(k), but now how do I put that to work for me in retirement? There was this shift of like, “What now? It’s kind of a do-it-yourself model and I’m not sure what to do.” And so, there was a fear even in the very wealthy of like almost penny pinching, like a millionaire that’s a penny pincher, which sucks.
It’s like you worked your whole life so you could have the freedom to live more in retirement, to your point, to give more in retirement. But you don’t have the plan in place that actually gives you confidence to do that. And so, what I hear you saying is, if I was an advisor, knowing here’s kind of the fear of my potential clients and here’s the aspirations, they want to just live and check off the bucket list items. They want to leave double the tip if they have a really nice waiter or waitress at a restaurant, but actually have the confidence to do that, you might do a campaign in the direction of, “Hey, we’re going to help you live more in retirement. We’re going to help you give more in retirement,” and kind of that feel-good side of it where they need your help, obviously, to do that. Am I skating in the right direction there?
Amanda Brinkman: Absolutely. Yes, I love it. I love it. Next time I need a slogan, I’m coming to you.
Brad Johnson: Live more. I’ve been doing this for a while. Live more and give more, right?
Amanda Brinkman: Well, I mean, I think that the entire concept of, I mean, a lot of people, now, we all know this term, but a lot of the gen pop does not use the terminology ‘retirement income’ like they don’t think of it that way. And that’s exactly what it is. And I think as soon as you start using things like that within your lexicon, it just helps them see it differently. Like, you’re basically building up what is going to then pay you during that time. And thinking through retirement income early on is it’s just different than like saving it, not knowing how much you need to squirrel away. It’s much more about thinking of it as this is what’s going to sustain your lifestyle. And what do you want that lifestyle to look like? Something else is just coming to mind. You’re inspiring me to just brainstorm.
Brad Johnson: Let’s do it. Let’s throw it out there. Let’s go.
Amanda Brinkman: You can have like a break-off podcast. It’s like a subset where it’s just called Brainstorm.
Brad Johnson: I love it. Hey, it’s all good. That’s what we’re here for.
Amanda Brinkman: You should have people on to Brainstorm. Something that I’m very, very interested in lately like I’m in like I’m square in like midlife. I’m 45. I’m really starting to become obsessed with this concept of time affluence, which is not absent of needing fiscal security in order to have that. When we really think about what is truly a person’s goal is to have agency over your time and to choose what you’re doing when you’re doing it, and how much you’re doing it. And what financial security really, really does is it actually just gives you peace in order to enjoy your time.
So, there might be something in there about kind of explaining to people the thing you really… Like for people like me who are making different decisions at this stage, these are my peak earning years. And I am purposely, it’s taking a bit not a step back, but I reframed how I am bringing income in during this season of my life in order to just instead of trying to retire five years earlier, I’ve turned it on its side and I’m going to just learn. I’m going to take those five years and I’m going to peanut-butter-spread-it over the next 30 so that I’m living and enjoying my life during these years, too. Now, that’s just me. That’s my set of personal goals.
Brad Johnson: I love that concept. There’s nothing worse in life than regret in my opinion. So, I try to live. I love your concept of time affluence like developing that. I also look at it as regret minimization. And as a parent, I’ve been very blessed. When I got into the industry, I was 26, and most of my clients were 40, 50, 60 years old. Because, as you know, finance is typically an old white guy business. And I know that’s changing and that’s good, but definitely, in 2007, it was very much that. And I started to hear these stories of, “Ugh, I just worked incessantly. And if I could go back and do it again, man, I would have spent more time with my kids and not made the extra sale, not miss the ball game, not miss the family dinner.”
And I had an advisor that shared one, an idea that you just kind of I like your peanut butter spread it but he basically said, “My goal is not to work like a crazy man up until 60 or 65, all through my peak years, while my kids are at home, my health is good, and then save it all for the end when I’m kind of on the decline.” He’s like, “My goal is to retire a little bit more each year.” So, build the business in a way that creates more of that freedom that you’re talking about, that time affluence. And so, I love that concept. And I will tell you just about every advisor that’s done it that way, they’re like, “Oh, this is awesome. I’m building a business that blesses my life that hasn’t become my life.”
And those that do it the other way, I hear the stories of regret and that’s no good. I mean, that’s the whole concept of being an entrepreneur is build the business on your terms, right? Not build your own prison around you. So, what other ways would you unpack that as you start to think like if I was going to kind of retrofit my business to serve me, some ways you would think about that?
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. I’d start thinking about lifestyle now. I mean, I think it’s very true of specifically our generation, where people are maxing out their income and living on their two-income household, and they are maxing their income. And I don’t think of that as wealth. Like, I think of that as I think you have to be in order to be able to do the peanut butter spread approach, you have to have been a great saver in your earlier years, but you can start now. Like, you can start to dial your lifestyle back in a way. You don’t have to take a step back down to the studs but if you’re living to the max of your income, you’re just never obviously going to accumulate long-term wealth.
And so, are there things that you can do without now in order to maybe in three or four years or five years, do what we’re talking about? If we’re talking to someone who’s much younger, like, I remember when I was young, my parents just right away out of the gates have lived off of one income. As soon as you have two incomes, just keep living off of one. And then you have fiscal flexibility and freedom to make different life choices, whether for someone that one of the spouses wants to be the at-home parent or not, whether you want to have the freedom and flexibility to start a business, whether you want to be saving in the most just stockpiling in order to be able to make the kind of decisions we’re talking about now.
And so, I think there’s a real opportunity to just think about it differently. Yeah. You can both be, you know, have incredible cars that you’re driving. You can live in the max house, have the boat. You can do all those things, but at what cost? So, I think that’s the first thing that a person can do around. And it’s a start, how often do you do that? We used to call it State of the Union. My husband and I, when we were first married, we’d go through and we’d look at all the expenses that we have. We should probably do that every once in a while again. But every house starts to accumulate.
Like, how many subscriptions do you have? How many monthly payments do you have? It’s all the stuff that you and your audience are doing all the time with your customers. But stopping and thinking about where some of the places where you could dial it back in order to buy back your own time.
Brad Johnson: Another concept. I was talking to one of my buddies that’s pretty very intentional about this, and I think my younger self, when I look back once you start doing okay in life, you kind of do this game where you buy all the stuff you couldn’t when you were younger. Like, I grew up on a farm, didn’t come from much, so never had the Air Jordans in grade school, all of that. And so, I think oftentimes I’ve seen this in a lot of people where you become an accumulator of things or material possessions that you just never had. And then you do that and you’re like, “Hmm,” there was like a short-term spike and then it didn’t really do much after that.
And so, I think as you get a little older and wiser, my buddy and I, we talk about like, “Don’t buy the things, the stuff. Buy the experiences.” And back to your time, it’s like, what if you invested that money into like one of my favorite memories in my life that I will treasure until the day I die? We took my wife’s parents to Italy for three weeks. Her mom is a lifelong Catholic, so we had to go to the Vatican. You know, that was bucket list material and it was just a magical three weeks that we still talk about. And this was over five, six, seven years ago now. And that’s like exponentially better than, “Hey, I bought a car or I bought this house or whatever.”
And so, that’s the way I start to think through that too, Amanda, if I’m thinking about back to time. It’s rather investing in things, invest in time with those you love, and experiences with those you love. And it’s kind of the best of both worlds because you’re still getting the use out of that money you worked so hard for, but now you’re investing it and sharing it with others. So, what ways do you think through that? Or are you kind of down that track too? Because it sounds like it’s kind of down the lane that you live your life in?
Amanda Brinkman: Yes, absolutely. I mean, travel is like that’s our– when I think about lifestyles, the things that we invest in, we love live events, specifically sports and theater, and we love to travel. And so, we just do both of those as much as we can. And that’s the kinds of experiences that we absolutely love. I want to go back a little bit to what you were talking about, though, with the material kind of accumulation, though. I think if someone would have told you, when you were younger and starting to accumulate those things like, don’t do it if you’re not going to want those things, you’re going to want experiences.
Just like when we tell our kids stuff in order to help them avoid pain that we had, they’re like, sure. And then they just do it anyway. I don’t know, I think sometimes this is our journey as human beings and as kind of souls trying to figure out the world. I think we have to figure some of that kind of stuff out for ourselves because I see this return to experiences for a lot of people our age where it’s like we are starting to realize that. But if someone would have told us that early on, would we have believed them? I don’t know.
And I think when we think about Gen Z, for as much noise as there is in the system about them in the workforce and how different they are. And it was what boomers said about us when we came in, I mean, some of it’s just generational. But the thing that I think they have right is they are experienced first, like they will forego a raise or a certain position or just general ambition in their careers in order to just know, like, how much do I need to make in order to travel four times a year or whatever their experience set is? And I think we have something to learn from that.
Brad Johnson: Well, sometimes in life, you get these little resets, these little reminders. And I lost a close friend couple weeks back, 44, like, great health, family vacation, and just fainted and never woke up. And I think sometimes when I have a moment like that in my life, I try to reflect. And obviously, there was some grieving there and a lot of grieving. And I always try to look at what lessons can you learn in life so that they impact how you live from there on?
And tomorrow is not guaranteed. And I think sometimes, unfortunately, all of us fall into the trap of, oh yeah, I’ll do that next year, or yeah, let me just get this amount of money in the bank and then we’ll do that trip. And I obviously make good financial decisions. You’re not like maxing out credit cards to take vacations. But I think unfortunately in life, like, this is a very brief moment that we’re all on this earth. And if you’re not prioritizing time with others you care about, I believe you might be a little flawed on your approach. And that’s my bias, nothing against nice things. I like those too. But I think it’s just really important to realize that, like, you’ve got 18 summers with your kids and then they’re out of the house, like, don’t take those for granted.
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. Yes, we have a one and only, and she just started eighth grade. And that was part of what led me to my decisions, like, we have five years left with her. We don’t have multiple, so we don’t have that tapering off of empty nesting. We’re going to have a cliff. And so, yeah, it’s like at what I could be making, yeah, at what cost sometimes do we make the money that we make? So, I agree. I love this stuff. This is– we’re talking a little before we started recording, but I mean, this is what I go out and talk at companies about or speak about and some of the keynote that I’m delivering at Allianz is like it’s called the Purpose Pursuit. Like, how do we pursue purpose in our life and in our work in a way that feels meaningful?
And I think people are just so hungry for this right now. And I have this exercise that we do amongst that, that you just reminded me of, which is you can’t just all of a sudden say, I want my life to look like X, or think of it in your head and not make any changes to work towards that. Like, if you want to travel more, if the thing that you say you want to do next year or we should go to more live sports events, or we should go to more concerts, unless you’re being super intentional about those things, it’s never going to change. And I have this math equation where it’s like one little change every day leads to, after a year, an incredible shift in your lifestyle. But if you don’t change everything, a year later, you will be living the same version of your life, which perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s just about those small incremental changes can really add up.
Brad Johnson: Like, if we play that out and use an example, and that maybe you make it around committing to spending more time and experiences with those you love, or maybe a better example, like can you walk through what that would look like in real life?
Amanda Brinkman: Well, I think I just started one. So, this morning, I went to a boot camp. So, I grew up an athlete. I played competitive volleyball and fastpitch softball. And so, I just grew up moving my body a lot. I loved it. And then I became a runner after college. And anyway, I would play in rec leagues and do kickboxing, all this stuff.
And then I, at some point, just started walking instead of running, and I didn’t have those classes. And then you have kids, and all these different things change. And we were playing wiffle ball the other day, my daughter and I. And I went to turn and move in a way that I felt like I still had the nimbleness of, and I did, but there was just, you know that feeling, like that wasn’t the way I’m used to moving. And I just decided right in that moment, like, I’m going to do something about that, like I want to be.
And maybe when you’re younger, it’s about how you look. For me, right now, it’s like, I want a body that carries me through 100, like I want to be able to do the kinds of thing, I’m going to be able to hike when I’m 80. Like, I want to be able to– so what do I need to do right now, like, this morning, in order to do it? And so, I signed up for a local boot camp. And I’m going to try it out and we’ll see. And it was exhilarating to be moving that way. But until I do that first class, I’m thinking in a month, I’ll be much stronger than I am today. Next week, I’ll be stronger. In a year, I mean, so it’s just about like, you just have to all of a sudden just do it. You have to commit to it.
And I’m a big believer in using your calendar as a tool. So, if you don’t put it on, it’s just not going to get done. So, you can say, I wish I was stronger, but until you put the time on to go like lift the heavy things, you’re not going to do it. So, is that what you mean? That’s what I mean.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. No, I love that example. So, I read a book. Well, it’s been a while now. It’s well over 10 years ago. Darren Hardy wrote a book called The Compound Effect. And you’re sharing a couple principles. Number one, the incremental daily improvements, most people, like look at every year, New Year’s resolutions, January 1, January 2, probably through about January 15, every gym is packed. And then slowly, the trickle-down effect starts to happen.
And one of the things Darren Hardy talked about in that book is, if you’re 40 pounds overweight and haven’t worked out for five years, don’t say, I’m going to go run a marathon. That’s going from nothing to a big athletic feat. He said basically, like go walk a lap. So, day one, go walk a lap around the track. Okay, day two, walk two laps. Day three, walk three laps. And you’re just incrementally, small improvements. And so, say you get consistently, you’re walking a mile or two miles. You’re getting better. Okay, now, jog the first lap, walk the next three.
And where I see a lot of people fall off, they make these massive commitments, and then two days in, they feel like a failure and then they don’t go back, instead of kind of easing into it. And the other thing that you kind of hit there with the boot camp, I hired a personal trainer. I was a college athlete. So, I get it, I’m 44, and now, I have an eighth grader as well. Like, hopefully, he doesn’t listen to this, but I’m pretty sure he can beat me in a foot race now.
Amanda Brinkman: I won’t tell him. I won’t tell him.
Brad Johnson: So, hopefully, the internet doesn’t share it with him. But you start to get a little older, and I think your mind is still the 20-year-old. They can go do this athletic feats. And if you don’t commit to the work, that’s one of the things I loved about CrossFit is they said, if you can deadlift the 350 pounds, which is not a crazy amount of weight if you’re consistently going in and doing the work, odds are when you’re 85 years old, you can pick up a box off the floor. And so, that’s the thing for me, it’s always been the accountability side of, I will either meet a trainer, I will meet a friend at the gym because one thing I know I won’t do is commit to saying I will be there at 6 a.m. and then ghost somebody.
But if that commitment is only to me, now, it’s easy to hit the alarm, yeah, I’ll do it tomorrow. Not today. I didn’t get enough sleep last night. And so, I’ve always just found a way to have an accountability partner, whether it’s a boot camp or there’s people there that are planning on you being there, whether it’s a friend that meet you at the gym, whether it’s a trainer you pay for. But I found that’s one of the things that’s missing from a lot of people is when it’s a do-it-yourself and it’s all on you to fight the alarm clock, oftentimes I see that get derailed. So, are there other hacks that you’ve seen where it’s like staying consistent to what you commit to in that process?
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah, I think part of it is just, you kind of mentioned, but it’s the day-to-day piece of it. It’s like you don’t have to say, I’m going to forever do this, but it’s like today, I’m going to do this. I think it’s about putting on your calendar. It’s about just saying, like, you know what? Just do it. Okay, so I’m kind of a person who, like, no matter what I do, I always feel there’s like an analogy or a metaphor out of everything. In fact, it kind of drives my family crazy because we can’t do anything without me telling them what the life lesson is that we all learn, and then they’re like, what are you going to tell us about the world now and today, ma’am? Anyway, I’m…
Brad Johnson: Guilty. Guilty. So, go ahead, though.
Amanda Brinkman: I’m like, don’t you love my wisdom? They’re like, no. Sometimes. All right. So, have you ever been skydiving?
Brad Johnson: I never have.
Amanda Brinkman: Okay. Or bungee jumping or anything like that?
Brad Johnson: No bungee jumping either.
Amanda Brinkman: Okay. Well, now, you have to wait until your kids are like, I don’t know. There’s a finite you can do it before you have kids. And then I think you can do that. I mean, people can do it in between if they want. But before our daughter, I did all sorts of that kind of stuff, like, base jumping, all this kind of stuff. I loved it, which is the stupidest stuff of the three, actually.
Brad Johnson: Definitely, the most dangerous of the three.
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. The other two are much more regulated. Okay, so what I loved about all of them is there is this moment, let’s just say bungee jumping, for example, because that one, it’s just you. Skydiving, at least you’re tandem. So, it’s a group decision. But there is this moment where you have to literally just decide. You just have to change your mind about something that doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make any sense to jump off this perfectly good platform into nothing space. And there’s no rationality to it. And that moment in which you have to just do it, now that’s a very dramatic example. But we live that all the time. Like now, we’re getting off the couch. Now, we’re getting out of the bed. Here we go.
Mel Robbins has a great– she does the 54321, like just count yourself down. But anyway, I think it’s like those moments where you just have to say like, nope, no more excuses, just do it. Whatever it happens to be like, just decide. And the older I get to, the more, it’s like, it just amazes me how much life is just about our own decisions and how we decide to see things and how the story we’re telling or something, all that kind of stuff.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, on that note, one of the things I love about financial services and sales, it is once you actually dive in and analyze those that are successful and those that aren’t, it is 100% a mindset thing. And I remember when I first got in and you’ve got these little woo-woo, like, oh, here’s this mantra, and then you’re like, what? What cult did I get into, right?
But then you start to realize, that is one of the big differences. If you’re going to decide to get to the office an hour early to get started cold calling before everybody else gets there to give yourself an edge, that is a decision that you have to, whether it’s a countdown. I know Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning, one of his mantras that he hacks his alarm clock, number one, he puts his alarm clock across the room, so you have to actually physically get up to touch snooze. But he says, in that moment where the alarm clock goes off and you’re like, oh, I’d much rather just stay sleeping. Am I going to do what’s easy? Or am I going to do what’s right?
And it’s this little mantra. And I read it in the book and I was like, well, that sounds kind of corny. And then the alarm clock went off and I’m like, am I going to do what’s easy or am I going to do what’s right? Okay, I’m going to do what’s right. I’m going to get up, I’m going to splash some water on my face. I’m going to go to hit the workout this morning.
And just in that moment that if it’s not for a mindset thing that you’ve kind of preprogrammed, I’ve just found a lot of people like, yeah, I meant to get up this morning and I didn’t. And those little mantras work. And even in elite athletes, Jason Khalipa, I had the chance to interview him, former CrossFit games champion. He won his first year in the CrossFit games, and then he kind of psyched himself out the second year and got damn near last and had to climb his way back up.
And he said, the thing when you get to the elite level, everybody’s an elite athlete. Everybody’s been training like a mad man or mad woman. It’s the mindset that separates the ultra elite from the elite. And when he started doing mindset work, that’s what kind of unlocked that next level for him. So, I love just the whole thought process around mindset and how that impacts everything. Other things on that topic, just since you kind of dove into it a bit.
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. I think one of the other things I talk about in my Purpose Pursuit talk that seems to really resonate with people is that I think we underestimate the power of contentment, which is a mindset. We talk all the time about happiness, like we’re seeking happiness, and we don’t ever really use the word contentment. And I think we should actually be pursuing contentment because when you think about how you feel about your life or any aspect of it, whether you feel good about it or bad about it is literally just the delta between how you see it and what you think it should be. It’s nothing more than how you’ve decided to see it.
So, for example, I got a little bee in my bonnet about a year ago that we lived in our house for 20 years. It’s a beautiful home, but we have never redone kind of this living room area, and I got this bee in my bonnet the other day or last year about changing it, like we should redo it. And so, then every time I walk through this living room, I kept thinking and seeing all the things that I wanted to change and all the things that needed to be different. I suddenly started growing very unhappy with this living room that was perfectly fine before. And I’d be sitting there, we’d be watching sports, and then I’d be just looking at, okay, I’m going to take the– I’m just right, picking the car.
And all of a sudden, I thought, this is crazy. The living room hasn’t changed. My feelings about it have changed. And so, I could either sit here and see what I want to change about it, or I can look around and be like, my goodness, that corner right there is where we put the Christmas tree every year for 20 years. Unbelievable. Over there, that is literally where Avery took her first steps. Over there is where our puppy has made some accidents and too many of them on the carpet, like, all of these things, I could look at it like that. That’s what is the space that I’m in.
And that is literally just changing my mind and deciding that what I have is good enough, that I am content with what I have. Now, that’s a very specific example, but I think if you draw that back up, we can do that with our life. We can decide, if we wish that our marriage was healthier or if we wish that our bodies were more fit or if we wish we were in– all of these things are just the delta between what we think it is and what we think it should be. And if we just decide that what it is is great, suddenly you’re happy, like you’re happy with it. And so, that’s something I talk a lot about, is that we should be striving for contentment in life. It does not mean, because I’m a driver, I’m ambitious, like, it does not mean you shouldn’t have goals and you’re not heading somewhere, but just rewiring our brains a bit to stop seeing what we think we want and just be content.
Brad Johnson: That’s a very human condition. Literally. I was just having this conversation yesterday. One of my favorite quotes of all time is comparison is the thief of joy. And your house is amazing until your neighbor builds a bigger house or a swimming pool and you don’t have a swimming pool, or your car is amazing until somebody else has a newer, better car. And I feel like oftentimes, if you focus on what you don’t have or the gap versus which like, as a farm kid, I was like, someday if I make $100,000, I’ll be set for life. And if you would have said, here’s the the home you live in, I would have been like, that’s amazing.
And then, so it’s like it’s this abundance mentality versus the scarcity mentality. And what’s crazy is everybody can fall prey to that. I’ve fallen prey to that. Sounds like you’ve fallen prey to that. So, how do you guard against that? Because to me, it sounds, I don’t know if you were just sitting there on your couch one day dissecting the living room, and you’re like, wait, I’m kind of being silly. Why am I doing this? And it was a self-awareness thing, or somebody else is like, your living room is amazing. How do you guard against it when it’s your own thoughts inside of your own head? How have you found the best way to do that?
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah, I have a couple of techniques. So, in the past, okay, so when I left corporate two years ago to pursue speaking full time, I really went through kind of this personal identity recalibration. And I started going on this deep dive around, like, well, what is purpose? I was kind of post-pandemic, we all are, I had just made a major kind of career change, all the metrics by which I had used to judge my success were now different as an entrepreneur and an independent person versus working for someone, all these interchanging.
And so, I started just doing a voracious amount of– I’ve become a voracious collector of ideas. I just started reading all the books about this kind of stuff. I started listening in all the podcasts. I went on the retreats in the middle of the desert. I did all of the things. I interviewed purpose-driven leaders, all to figure out like, what exactly is personal purpose.
And in all this research, which is now, this Purpose Pursuit talk is a curation of all this research, what I found is that all of these different spiritual practices or rituals, all these things are just meant to not have enlightenment, where you’re just kind of going to get to some sort of state where you’re just cool with it all the time, like, no big deal, here we go. It’s because we’re going to have these human moments. And all of these different things are meant to recenter us.
And so, for you, you love that mantra. It’s stuck in your head. For someone else, it might be a different mantra that they heard or something that they heard from a different author. For some people, it might be prayer. For some people, it might be meditation. There’s all these different rituals and mantras and techniques out there, and I think they’re all just meant to bring us to make us feel better when our humanness becomes our humanness. And so, after two years of research, that’s what I found.
So, some of them that are effective for me certainly is just stopping and pausing. As soon as I’m starting to feel bad about something, I just stop and think, what is making me feel this feeling? And it usually is, you can identify that, once you’re aware of it, you can name it right away, and then you just decide to kind of change your mind.
The second thing that’s really helpful for me is to walk back the story I’m telling myself. I’m a people pleaser, type A, oldest child. So, I just care what everyone thinks. And I want to please everyone. And I have just tried to figure out, when I am thinking that way, how do I walk it back? How do I make sure that when I’m being driven by trying to kind of please a person, how do I not make that a weakness, but how do I walk it back to where it left off as a strength?
When we think about our weaknesses, a lot of times, almost always, there are strengths overdone. And so, we think about those things that we don’t like about ourselves and we kind of shame ourselves for it. Like, I wish I wasn’t that way, but if we instead celebrate that about ourselves, but figure out how to walk it back to where it was still a strength and wasn’t something that was a weakness. So, I do that a lot. I’ll stop and think, why am I having this emotion? Whatever the emotion is, it’s probably driven by something. Like, people pleasing actually means I just want to make people happy. I feel like I’m supposed to. I want people to feel good. So, I think that’s my job to do it. So, those are two of my techniques.
Brad Johnson: Well, on that second one, I remember I was reading a stoic book, The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. Big fan of that book. Yes.
Amanda Brinkman: Yes, I love him. And I love him. Yes.
Brad Johnson: Okay, cool. Cool. And there was a passage in there that talked about the things you can control and the things you can’t control. And I’m very similar to you, oldest child. I was the kid in high school that played sports, was in show choir, was in theater. I was a nerd. So, I kind of had all of these different friend groups. And I remember, I was like, I want everybody to like me, regardless of who they are.
And then in the stoic book, it talked about you don’t control your own reputation. And I was like, that’s interesting because I feel like you do. And it’s like, no, because reputation is what someone else thinks of you and you can’t control someone else. You can influence them. You can make decisions. But at the end of the day, you don’t control them.
And so, I look at like what you just shared about your own personal happiness. And if it’s like if that depends on somebody else to be content with you or happy with you or praising you, you’re actually taking the game. You’re playing and putting your happiness in somebody else’s hands. And that’s like an impossible pursuit. And a lot of that has been my own self-discovery because I was very much wired that way. And then it’s like, well, if I don’t get their approval now, I’m unhappy. I don’t like playing a game I don’t control. And so, a lot of that hits home with me, too. Amanda, on just kind of your thought process there.
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. You’re so wise. You should write a book.
Brad Johnson: Yeah, I appreciate that.
Amanda Brinkman: Well, just keep doing this podcast.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, that’s my goal is just to speak it and then transcribe it into a book, Tim Ferriss style. The cool thing is, if you talk enough, eventually every once in a while, you say something that hits, yeah, I appreciate that, though. Thank you. I mean, I think a lot of it is I’m just trying to work on myself a lot. And you said something, it’s like this journey of self-discovery of, oh, I’m mad. Wait, why am I mad? Wait. If that person said that thing like that made me mad, is that more about me and my reaction to it or them? And so, like if you do this little question trail, it’s really interesting where it’ll take you sometimes.
Amanda Brinkman: Yeah. I just don’t think a lot of people do that. Same thing with parenting. I think there’s a term for it that I’ve heard the other day. I think that’s what they mean when they talk about conscious parenting, I’m not sure. But like, I will do it with our daughter all the time when I will, all of a sudden, kind of like react to something, I will do that in the moment. I will stop and think, why did I just react to that? And then I will stop, I mean, I think when you have one and only, you talk to them even more like they’re adults.
But, well, I’ll name it to her because I’m naming it to myself. I’ll say, I’m so sorry. The reason that was a trigger is because when you don’t pick up your stuff, I think to myself that I was doing it too much for you, and you haven’t developed good habits to put your things away, dat, dat, dat, dat, dat. I’ll tell her all the way through, I’m like, I’m not mad about this pile of stuff. And this reaction, you’re right, it does seem disproportionate to that pile. But here’s why I had that reaction. Not to make her feel worse, but to name it for all of us.
And I mean it takes it out of it. I think, you took all the energy out of it in a way that’s like, oh, that makes sense. And I think the other thing I’m teaching her, I’m giving voice to it to her, but I think we can do the same thing with other people. When they give us a reaction that we’re like, what was that? Just tell yourself a story about why they did it. Like, maybe that’s the same thing. Like, oh, I bet that’s a trigger for them. And even if it’s not true, if it makes you feel better about why they reacted that way, then do that, versus thinking they don’t like me, I’m bad.
Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, one of my mentors told me, show your work because we live life thinking other people can read our minds. And that’s basically what you just did. They’re like, hey, yeah, I am kind of upset, but here’s the process that’s going on in my head. And at the end of the day, it’s because I want you to be a better version of yourself, right? It’s not like I’m mad because there’s three shirts on the floor.
And the other thing you hit that I’m really working on myself, you apologized. Apologizing to your kids is such a powerful thing because we tell them to apologize when they screw something up, but then, in turn, are we apologizing when we screw something up? Or are we just saying, because dad told you so? And it’s just like, I feel like that modeling is so important.
Okay, so now you got me riffing on one other thing, just with conversations with kids. So, my son Nash and I, this last weekend, I talked about material things. So, here’s my one material thing, like, I put in an order for a Cybertruck. I’ve driven a Tesla since 2015. And when we’re coming out with the truck, I live in Kansas on a dirt road, I’m like, I need a truck, right? Well, then I saw the Cybertruck and I was like, wow, I’m not sure if I can pull that off in Silverlake, Kansas, like 2,000 people, farming community.
So, anyway, I’m like, who cares what other people think? It’s fun. We’ll drive it for a while, see what I think. So, we’re driving through Topeka, Kansas in a Cybertruck. I’m with my son, Nash. We do a Dad/Nash day. We’re going to see a movie. And this random dude drives by in a pickup truck. Hey, not an electric pickup truck, because I’m sure you can guess and flips us off. I’m like, oh, that’s interesting. Never seen this guy before in my life. Didn’t cut him off or anything. Just drives by, flips us off.
Now, my God, this sounds like a teaching moment. So, I asked my son. I go, Nash, why do you think that guy? My son’s 12. Why do you think that guy flipped us off? He’s like, well, dad. I go, we’ve never met him. Maybe he’s mad about something today. Maybe he doesn’t like your truck or he wishes he had your truck. And so, now, he’s mad that he doesn’t, so he flipped you off. And so, we did this little self-discovery conversation.
And then my son asked me, he’s like, “Well, why didn’t you get mad at him?” I go, “Because honestly, I can’t control him. So, if I get mad over him flipping me off, now, he’s just ruined my day. What’s the point in that?” And we kind of had this little stoic talk of like, I just try to focus on the things I can control and not really focus on the things I can’t. And my son gets out of the truck, this little five minute conversation. He goes, “Dad, that was one of the most wise things you’ve ever shared with me.” And like, he meant it.
Back to those teaching lessons, a lot of times, there’s resistance, trust me. But it was, like I could have got pissed off at some random stranger that apparently doesn’t like Teslas or Cybertrucks or something, and in turn, we turned it into a really cool moment for us. And there was a lesson of like, just don’t get pissed off at some stranger that’s acting a fool. And so, I feel like kids give you all these little moments where you actually learn about yourself, too, in those moments.
Amanda Brinkman: Yes. Oh, well said. Oh, my gosh, well, if I ever meet Nash, I mean, I will not tell him that he can beat you in a foot race, but I will tell him he’s got a great dad.
Brad Johnson: Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Well, as we wrap, because I know you’ve got something coming up right around the corner, Amand, final question, and we’ve talked all over this topic today, but this podcast is Do Business. Do Life, build a business that blesses your life, that doesn’t become your life. That’s what we’re about at Triad. And that’s what’s fun about these conversations. And we’ve been all over that today. But if I was to say, what is Amanda’s definition of like your version of doing business and doing life, how would you define that?
Amanda Brinkman: I think we are all meant to feel good at what we do. I think, historically, we have thought about it, too much is like work is service and then you get to play and enjoy it. And so, I think our quest in life needs to be, to find something we are good at. And I don’t necessarily think that always means like the trade we’re in, it means using the skills that we were given that come naturally to us, and using them as more often than the things that don’t, so that we can feel– we’re meant to feel energized by what we do.
So, what that means to me is continuing to refine. When you look at a day and you feel like you totally kicked it, like so great, high energy. And when you look at the days that drain you, how do you just start creating more days that energize you? And that can be as simple as getting rid of certain tasks or moving them to other people where that would actually bring them joy. So, I think really staying focused on this concept, like I’m supposed to feel good at what I do, and when I feel good at what I do, that actually brings me energy.
Brad Johnson: Love that. Well, and it sounds like you personally have made some changes that more align with where you want to go in life, so I love that. Well, thank you for the time, Amanda. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with the audience. And make sure you’re right around the corner in September when you visit my friends at Allianz, tell Eric and the crew hello from Brad and the crew at Triad in Kansas.
Amanda Brinkman: Well, thank you for having me.
Brad Johnson: Yes. Until next time.
