SHOW TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is automatically generated by Descript.  Any errors or omissions are unintentional.

[00:00:00] Michael King Jr.: creativity doesn’t happen without margins.

[00:00:02] Michael King Jr.: Creativity happens in the margins.

[00:00:04] Jeff Sieh: how do you change your mindset to get those margins? Because it’s easy to say we all need more margin, but then all of us have kids that are getting sick or we have to take care of our parents or whatever. So How do we get those margins in our lives?

[00:00:18] Michael King Jr.: build by design, build by intention. put the things into your calendar and into your life that you want. Like you know, if you’re a small business or an entrepreneur, maybe you’re another coach or a consultant, and you’re saying, “Hey, listen, I wanna dedicate only four hours of my time to actually doing one-on-one meeting, and the rest of my time I need to make sure I’m prioritizing space, I’m prioritizing creativity.”

[00:00:34] Michael King Jr.: allow that breathing room to actually end up in your strategic outputs, and put it in there as a strategy.

[00:00:45] Jeff Sieh: Hello, folks. Welcome to Creator News Live. I’m Jeff Sieh and you’re not

[00:00:49] Zac Brown: And I’m Zac Brown, and this is the show that keeps you up to date on the creator economy and so much more

[00:00:54] Jeff Sieh: You ever felt like the you that shows up online isn’t quite the real you? Maybe, like you’re performing a [00:01:00] version of yourself for that algorithm. And now with AI able to fake almost anything, you might be wondering what’s even left that makes you, well, you. But today we’re gonna be talking about finding your authentic identity, staying human in an AI world, and how to actually make a living being a creative

[00:01:18] Zac Brown: Our guest today is Michael King Jr., founder of Teams.Coach, a two-times best executive coach and keynote speaker who’s genuinely a category of one. He opens every keynote with a live saxophone solo and an original cinematic film. He’s part artist, part analyst, and today he’s showing how creators, solopreneurs, and small business owners can build something real around who they truly are

[00:01:42] Jeff Sieh: So sit back, clear your schedule, clear your mind to get ready for this week’s episode of Creator News Live [00:02:00] That’s right, folks. That’s the whole doggone game. Uh, I actually added a little bit of sax to this one today just in honor of you. Nothing like he sounds. He’s amazing, but I thought it would be a little bit of fun. Thanks for coming on, Michael.

[00:02:21] Michael King Jr.: Honored to be here. No, that’s pretty, that’s pretty classy, Jeff. Way to go.

[00:02:24] Jeff Sieh: Well, I always get a little nervous when a, when a guy who is, his whole business is music and he plays for a living, it makes me a little nervous to do that. But thank you for being a good sport about this. But we’re gonna be, we’re gonna be jumping right into it because I was so impressed with your talk, and you were very open, and you were very sharing, and we got to hang out a little bit in Wichita.

[00:02:43] Jeff Sieh: But, one of the things that you do in your presentations, you also ha- you not only play the saxophone when you start, but you also have, like, a movie that you show, and you have this new film called Paid to Pretend, and

[00:02:55] Jeff Sieh: I wanted to ask, for, like, a creator who’s performing a, you know, like, a polished version of themselves [00:03:00] online for years, a lot of people do this, so how do you even tell anymore which parts are real and which parts are not?

[00:03:08] Michael King Jr.: I have no idea

[00:03:10] Jeff Sieh: This could be a short show.

[00:03:13] Michael King Jr.: when we’re, when you, when… Th- this conversation ha- has come up mult- multiple times, like in business and in enterprise space, even in solopreneur and entrepreneur type space, because I think burnout ends up happening a lot because, like, when you’re, when you’re trying to show up and you’re literally trying to do whatever you can to be able to make the business work, make the family work, make it all work together, and you can literally die trying. And somewhere along the way, there’s a reason why strategies don’t work, and it’s not because of lack of good ideas. It’s not because of lack of creativity. It’s not. It’s literally like I… In fact, you’ve probably, you’ve… I, I think everybody could agree with this, is I- I’ve [00:04:00] seen some of the worst ideas that I could ever possibly think of actually get traction and work, and then you walk away going, “Didn’t see that coming,” you know?

[00:04:09] Michael King Jr.: but when you, but when you think about the idea of why strategies don’t work, it has nothing to do with, with the lack of creativity or the lack of a good idea or a bad idea. Typically, what it’s rooted in is the idea that maybe your strategies aren’t working is because they’re not yours. It’s not you.

[00:04:26] Michael King Jr.: And when you think about, you know, even, like, this podcast and the, and what you’re doing here, this is done really well. Like, you’re doing a lot of original things, and it’s very specific to your brand. It’s what Jeff can only do. Like, nobody else is doing this the way that Jeff does it. And there’s something about your existence that has to somehow translate over into your brand and into your identity.

[00:04:49] Michael King Jr.: What is the only way that you can show up? And I promise you this, is that, like, copying somebody else’s blueprint for success is not gonna work today. You’re gonna find yourself burning out and trying [00:05:00] to run everybody else’s plays, but the reason why they’re not working is because they’re not built for you

[00:05:04] Zac Brown: Mm.

[00:05:04] Jeff Sieh: That’s good. And, and I, I, and I think your is, y- your talk is a perfect example of that because I don’t know of a- any other speaker who gets up there and plays saxophone. Like, I mean, that’s, that’s you, and that’s your, your whole brand

[00:05:18] Michael King Jr.: Yeah, I was, the last couple weeks I’ve been on the road a lot. we did the Sports Philanthropy Conference, Sports Philanthropy World Conference in DC last week, and then we did some things in, in College Station. We did some stuff in Dallas, and then we, this week I was back in Dallas for the board of advisors, conference.

[00:05:36] Michael King Jr.: And I, I think even Like for me, I’m a good keynote speaker when I have my saxophone with me because it’s like breathing to me. It’s something to where it’s like I can get up there and I can, I can, I can level set the emotion of the room, and before I even say one single word, I’ve already kind of bared my soul.

[00:05:55] Michael King Jr.: Does that make sense? And that’s where for me it’s, [00:06:00] it’s, it’s not just a performance. It literally is just like going, “Okay, listen. I’m gonna literally lay everything out there and at the risk of making a fool out of myself.” Now I’d be … If I was a horrible saxophonist, it would be even worse How horrible would that be to open a keynote with somebody that was

[00:06:16] Michael King Jr.: horrible,

[00:06:17] Michael King Jr.: right But, But when you do think about it, though, there is that part of being an artist and being a creative, and especially even like with the cinematic films and the original music that we produce that we show later in the keynote experience, it’s like you’re either gonna love it or you’re gonna hate it, and I usually know that within like the first two to three minutes, you know?

[00:06:36] Michael King Jr.: And it’s pretty vulnerable

[00:06:38] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. I, I was super impressed. So we’ll dive … Well, I know we’re gonna dive into, to more of that because I, there’s so many creators and creative people. Like, I look at Sean, who’s doing amazing video stuff when he’s doing his travel stuff, and Dustin, who’s an incredible entrepreneur. So all these, and Paul Gowder, who is in the audience as well, who is an incredible, um, his powwows.com that he’s put together for years and years and [00:07:00] years.

[00:07:00] Jeff Sieh: they’re all very creative, and so I think this is gonna be a great conversation. Zac, you had a question?

[00:07:04] Zac Brown: Yeah, I so resonate with what you just said because talking about the things that are inherently you and what you bring, you know, you can’t fabricate that. And

[00:07:15] Zac Brown: I can’t tell you how many conferences that I’ve been to lately when everybody is just shouting, “Be authentic.” Authenticity is just like this word that is just everywhere.

[00:07:25] Zac Brown: but it’s become kind of like a performance kind of on its own. Like it’s a, the authenticity is a brand that you perform. Where do you feel that the line is between being real and just marketing your realness?

[00:07:38] Michael King Jr.: Um, execution.

[00:07:40] Michael King Jr.: You know? And, that’s where I can s- you know, like I’m thankful that right now I do believe that there’s a lack of, lack of people that can actually demonstrate that. so that’s a little bit of the niche that I, that I fit within. like my most requested keynote right now is a, is a talk that I give called Authentic Identity: Your Last Competitive Advantage. I’ve heard [00:08:00] other variances of the same type of concept and the same type of idea. but everybody has their own unique story, et cetera. But like everything about what I’m bringing to the table is, is exactly about that, is execution. Like everything is, is literally showing up and going, “Okay, I’m gonna peel this layer back and I’m actually sh- gonna show you exactly what this means to show up in the real and in the now.”

[00:08:20] Michael King Jr.: I think a lot of other pe- I think a lot of people understand the concept that, yeah, this is a, this is something that’s valuable that you should talk about. But how are you actually truly really showing up as your authentic self in your relationships, in your business transactions, in the identity of your company?

[00:08:35] Michael King Jr.: boy, those are good con- those are really great, great questions, you know?

[00:08:39] Jeff Sieh:

[00:08:39] Jeff Sieh: you know, one of the things that a leader has or a creator has in this AI age is their genuine humanity, and you talk a lot about that in your keynote.

[00:08:48] Jeff Sieh: But now AI can clone, like, a voice, a face. Like, you only need like a one minute of audio, I could clone, what you s- and Zac sound like. if a machine can fake my authentic voice, what’s actually [00:09:00] left that it can’t copy?

[00:09:01] Michael King Jr.: it can’t copy your convictions.

[00:09:04] Zac Brown: Hmm.

[00:09:05] Michael King Jr.: it can’t copy, like, your values. it can’t copy your heartbeat and the way that you care. the emotional connection between you and your audience, and empathy. Like, those are things that it, it shouldn’t and it won’t come close to those things.

[00:09:20] Michael King Jr.: Now, here’s where the, the compromises come into place, as leaders. Like, we want to be able to optimize the short game. You know, we want a fast return, and a lot of times we’re not actually thinking about the reason why people bought into us in the first place was because of high level of trust.

[00:09:35] Michael King Jr.: And the very things that we’re sacrificing to be able to go faster are the very things that we’re putting on the altar of, of sacrifice and that we’re giving up, and we’re losing trust because we’re not able to show up as our true, authentic selves in a world that is optimized for speed and autonomy

[00:09:55] Zac Brown: Yeah

[00:09:56] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm. That’s really good

[00:09:58] Zac Brown: It’s powerful. Michael, I [00:10:00] think kind of going off of that, a lot of creators are scared in a way that posting less polished, less produced, just really more human content will tank their reach. Have you seen anyone who’s dropped that performance showing up authentically and have it genuinely cost them?

[00:10:21] Zac Brown: And what did they do next?

[00:10:24] Michael King Jr.: I haven’t seen that. Now, there, there’s a, there’s a methodology and there’s thoughts about how our social media platforms they’re built to reward volume now. And so you’re seeing this to where, to where it’s, it’s like, the quantity of content versus the quality of content.

[00:10:42] Michael King Jr.: And, and then it goes into the next section of differentiators, like, okay, is it AI or is it not AI? Okay, if it is AI, let’s make sure we put a little badge on it. But again, we can’t A- and, and again, this conversation’s not about AI being bad. That’s not it at all. It’s just about the idea of like, as a leader and as a [00:11:00] human, are you actually authentically showing up first and foremost?

[00:11:02] Michael King Jr.: Because if you, if … ‘Cause again, like, if you’re actually showing up truly as who you are and you’ve got that identity section dialed in, guess what? The AI tool in your toolbox, boy, there’s a bunch of stuff there that can really help amplify and exponentially increase your reach as an authentic human, right?

[00:11:17] Michael King Jr.: As an authentic brand. but don’t lose yourself, don’t lose yourself in that, right? But like, for example, we, like our film series, I don’t know how many millions of views that we have across the whole film series across all verticals now, but we, we actually make sure that we don’t, we specifically don’t use AI at all in the creation process of it at all.

[00:11:38] Michael King Jr.: We kinda wanted to go old school with making sure that everything was done in a, in a, in a, in a really high level cinematically produced environment. so there’s that side of it to where it’s like, no, haven’t necessarily seen people lose their impact. Now, I will say this, is that like in a world that says qual- you know, like there’s some guys out there that are saying, “You gotta, you gotta post [00:12:00] content 10 to 20 times per day in order for you to, to, to beat the algorithm.”

[00:12:05] Michael King Jr.: Let me t- let me just remind us all of this. Like, we all use social media and we’re on social media now today, but 92% of your future business is gonna come from one of four spaces. It’s gonna come from the stages that you speak on, the rooms that you network in, the relationships that you already have, and the people who refer business to you. Did you notice I didn’t say anything about social media?

[00:12:24] Jeff Sieh: Yeah

[00:12:24] Zac Brown: So good

[00:12:26] Michael King Jr.: And where we end up burning out is like, dude, okay, great. For that, 8% of your future business that’s gonna come from these social media platforms, you’re probably gonna have a higher conversion ratio if you’re actually showing up authentically yourself in all spaces

[00:12:38] Zac Brown: Come on. It’s so good.

[00:12:41] Jeff Sieh: So, This is so true, and I can trace back the … Like, I do Guy Kawasaki’s podcast, big client. I’ve done it for over, I think, close to 10 years now. And that all came from a thoughtful comment back on Google+. There you go, Dustin Stout. And that led to a relationship. I saw him at South by Southwest one [00:13:00] time, and then Peg Fitzpatrick got me to do stuff for him, and then that was for his social media, manager.

[00:13:05] Jeff Sieh: And it just organically happened all this time ago. But I can trace everything, like how business started and compounding and all that stuff, from relationships, like being in the room. How I met Michael, who’s actually on this show, is because we were at a conference. We connected together. He saw me speak.

[00:13:21] Jeff Sieh: I saw him speak. And so, and then we were able to talk about stuff. And so that’s, I think, is the key thing. I think social media has its place, but I use social media to help me get people to this show, where we have relationship and we can talk and I can bring up comments. I think it’s like, like you were saying, Michael, it’s, it’s so much a tool.

[00:13:37] Jeff Sieh: And one of the, the, some of the comments, I want to pull up is Michelle says, talking to you, like, “I love how you open your talk. So compelling and attention graph- grabbing by playing the, the saxophone.” And then David says, “You have to be you. You can’t be, to be anybody else.”

[00:13:51] Jeff Sieh: And that’s what I wanted to ask Michael, is like, if you strip away the saxophone, the films, you being on a keynote stage, the spoken word, the applause you get, who is Michael King [00:14:00] when nobody is clapping, and how did you figure that out?

[00:14:03] Michael King Jr.: I’m a horrible human being you’re gonna take that clip right

[00:14:08] Jeff Sieh: That’s right. Exactly. Exactly. That’s gonna be it.

[00:14:11] Michael King Jr.: you know, the, as a, as a creative, creativity has to be a re- a direct reflection of the, the overflow of your life. You know? So as a singer-songwriter, it’s like I’ve been writing songs for, you know, for decades. I’ve worked with some great artists, and I’ve been involved in that creative circle for a long time.

[00:14:31] Michael King Jr.: And I, I remember one time, … So before I was an executive coach, I was, I was an executive pastor in one of America’s fastest growing churches, and also a worship leader and a worship artist, and also a recording artist. and I used to, I used to tell my team this. I said, “If there’s ever come to a point in time that you see me that I stopped writing and stopped creating, I need you to check in to see how I’m doing, because it- that’s probably a good sign that I’m not okay.”

[00:14:56] Zac Brown: Yeah

[00:14:57] Michael King Jr.: And so when you strip all this away, the [00:15:00] fact like that, like right now in this, in this season, like, like I get to create, I get to make things, I get to, put on display like the things that I care about, the things that I love about. Like creativity literally is a manifestation of the things that I care about the most.

[00:15:12] Michael King Jr.: But at the very, very basis of this is that I’m just a leader that’s incredibly gracious, incredibly, incredibly grateful for the life that I get to leave. And every room that I walk into, regardless of, regardless of anything, like I am committed to making sure that I leave every environment better than I found it.

[00:15:33] Michael King Jr.: That comes into the context with my coaching, comes in context with, with the people that I love and care about. And, I think that that’s why the creativity, it works because it’s a reflection of what’s already happening. Does that make sense?

[00:15:45] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:15:46] Jeff Sieh: I would love for your thoughts on how to be more creative. Like we’re s- we, we feel kinda like we’re pressured in. We’ve gotta put all this content out, like you said, as creatives, and we see all these people telling us, “You’ve gotta do all this other stuff.

[00:15:58] Jeff Sieh: You gotta do this many posts a day. [00:16:00] You gotta be on Threads. You gotta be on all these places.” What do you tell creatives who are, you know are creative, and they have that gift, but are struggling to actually be creative, like because of the pressures of the world?

[00:16:13] Michael King Jr.: So creativity without margin doesn’t exist So think about that. And, and it’s even, like, even in the way that our, our, mind, i- our, our brains, like the actual, like physiology of who we are as humans, there’s something that’s absolutely crazy that ends up happening when we actually allow our br- our mind and our heart and our souls to not be under stress and n- not be under pressure, not be under the compounds of meeting the next, you know, deadline.

[00:16:46] Michael King Jr.: You know, like I got into an argument with my calendar earlier today and I just said, “Hey, you’re no longer allowed to go bumper to bumper between meetings. I need at least 30 minutes between, between commitments,” you know? And so made some adjustments [00:17:00] on that. But when you think about that, creativity doesn’t happen without margins.

[00:17:05] Michael King Jr.: Creativity happens in the margins. And some of the best songs that I’ve ever written, some of the best leadership concepts and ideas that I’ve written have happened, like where I’ve woken up in the middle of the night, it’s 3:00 in the morning, and I wake up and I just have this aha moment. I have a lyric that dropped.

[00:17:22] Michael King Jr.: I have a melody that dropped. I have a leadership concept that dropped. I’m thinking about something for one of the clients that I serve and I wake up and I, and I jot down the idea immediately. So it’s, there’s something that happens, like when we actually have open space. I remember sitting in a room at a leadership event and hearing Warren Buffett talk, they were talking about how he kind of built his calendar, and I can’t remember.

[00:17:43] Michael King Jr.: It was a, it was years ago. But I walked away from that idea of like, he literally has like one commitment per day, and then the rest of the time he lit- he kind of made the joke, joke about how he just spends his time looking out a window. Well, that wasn’t a joke. Like that was literally him going, “I’m doing whatever I can to actually protect [00:18:00] my margins,” because that’s when great things happen.

[00:18:03] Michael King Jr.: so anyway, did that answer the question?

[00:18:06] Jeff Sieh: yeah. ‘Cause I think the … We hear, okay, we need to have margin, right? Like, I know that. Like, I can, I know I’m more productive and more creative when I take breaks, but it is really, really hard. Like, I have this constant, and maybe it’s just me, but I have this, I don’t know it’s the way I … And I wasn’t, I had a great childhood.

[00:18:25] Jeff Sieh: I was raised, my parents were great. They didn’t put a lot of pressure on me. But I feel like if I’m not working, I’m lazy, right? And I almost have to use my downtime as like a prescription, like that if I, if I don’t do then, then my creativity’s gonna suffer, just like my health would suffer if I didn’t take a certain medicine or something.

[00:18:39] Jeff Sieh: how do you change your mindset to get those margins? Because it’s easy to say we all need more margin, but then all of us have kids that are getting sick or we have to take care of our parents or whatever. So what are your strategies to have that margin? I mean, you talked about talking to your calendar.

[00:18:56] Jeff Sieh: How do we get those margins in our lives?

[00:18:58] Michael King Jr.: I’m just being honest with you, like I’m a complete [00:19:00] hypocrite on this today. Like, you know, like so I don’t have it all, all the way together. But I will say this, is that like strategic design and making sure you’re time blocking the things that deserve priority and deserve space in your life. You know, build by design, build by intention. Like put the things into your calendar and into your life that you want. Like you know, if you’re a small business or an entrepreneur, maybe you’re another coach or a consultant, and you’re saying, “Hey, listen, I wanna dedicate only four hours of my time to actually doing one-on-one meeting, and the rest of my time I need to make sure I’m prioritizing space, I’m prioritizing creativity.”

[00:19:30] Michael King Jr.: allow that breathing room to actually end up in your strategic outputs, and put it in there as a strategy. Now, if you’re like me, I kind of feel like I’m building two s- separate things right now. And so life gets a little bit hard. Like I have this speaking career that in the last year that has, has kind of taken an astronomical uplift.

[00:19:54] Michael King Jr.: And I wasn’t … I, I was dreaming about it and I was hoping for it, but there’s also that side of like, okay, but I [00:20:00] also own two other companies that are successful, and I have team members, and I have clients that I wanna serve. And so j- trying to figure out how to make it all work, but at the end of the day, you, you have to be able to put together a strategy that’s going to work for you, and making sure that you’re actually prioritizing your emotional, psychological, and spiritual health, and that becomes the why, right?

[00:20:18] Zac Brown: Yeah

[00:20:19] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Yeah. It’s such a struggle. I think everybody does it, and it’s like, you know, you hear all these, the gurus say like, “Okay, you know, work-life balance.” And my thing, I think it’s more of a seasons. Like I ha- my season was different when my kids were home. Didn’t travel as much. Now I can go and do stuff.

[00:20:35] Jeff Sieh: And so I encourage the, the younger people who are in the middle of like, “Oh my gosh, my life is chaotic ’cause I have kids and we’re taking them to school and soccer and whatever.” I always say like, “It’s a season.” Like, you can write the stuff down, think about it, but your k- family’s priority, you can have time for do, to do this stuff later.

[00:20:50] Jeff Sieh: So that’s kind of my soapbox answer.

[00:20:53] Michael King Jr.: Soccer will always take people

[00:20:55] Jeff Sieh: It will. Any sort of sports. Like, yeah, exactly. Exactly

[00:20:59] Zac Brown: I [00:21:00] just so resonate with you saying this about just the rest and the margins and the seasons, like you were saying, Jeff. Like, there’s a natural rhythm to all of this. You know? Th- there, the ground has seasons. You know? There’s a reason that farmers don’t just till up the ground every day to check to see that things are growing.

[00:21:16] Zac Brown: Like, we breathe in, we breathe out. Like, there needs to be this ebb and flow of work to rest ratio that I don’t think that we think about as much. You know? Like, we have AI, like you’re talking about things to make it easier. Those are there to give us margin. It doesn’t mean that we need to fill the space that that has alleviated.

[00:21:33] Zac Brown: So just one of those things that I’m very much in line with what you’re saying. And I want to go back to what you said a couple minutes ago about with your team. You had kind of given them this kind of personal check that if you were out of order from, you know, not creating, not writing, like, to let you know.

[00:21:52] Zac Brown: But from a leadership standpoint, what is your tell when, you know, someone is performing versus [00:22:00] being real?

[00:22:00] Michael King Jr.: Oh, that’s a really good, that’s a really good question. you know, the closer that you are to people, you, you kind of, you, you’re able to kind of tell, like, whether they’re, whether they’re engaged or whether they’re disconnected or not. the farther you are away from a leader, it’s really hard to be able to tell, like, are they just kind of like, are they just showing up in their brand, or are they showing up for real?

[00:22:22] Zac Brown: Yeah

[00:22:23] Michael King Jr.: and and I think, again, it’s, hard to tell the, the farther away you are from a specific person. But I think as a leader, not everybody can have close proximity to me, but the people that are close proximity to me, I want to be all in. You know? I want to be tr- as transparent as I possibly can.

[00:22:40] Michael King Jr.: I-

[00:22:55] Michael King Jr.: have you ever been in those relationships with people before to where it’s, it’s like every now and then you find out something about them, or you find out that they might have an opinion, or they might have a, a certain alliance with something that just threw you a curveball, and you’re, like, going, “What in the world? Where did that come from?” You know, I had this, I had this team member, and, I, and now I c- I c- come from a ch- a little bit of a ch- well, a lot of a church background, but I’m also very, very careful when it comes to things like manipulation and anything that [00:23:00] kind of feels like spiritual abuse type stuff.

[00:23:00] Michael King Jr.: I’m super, super cautious and careful to making sure, like, w- ’cause there’s, there’s real stories there, right?

[00:23:18] Jeff Sieh: right?

[00:23:20] Jeff Sieh: Right.

[00:23:21] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Yeah

[00:23:22] Michael King Jr.: And I got invited onto this podcast a couple years ago, and I got blindsided by it. I, I didn’t, I was recommended by this guy to, to be on a, a podcast, and so I showed up on his podcast, and it, it literally felt like something that was just incredibly gross and spiritually manipulative, and it was not something that I would ever want to be a part of.

[00:23:41] Michael King Jr.: And I, I went back to my team member and I said, “Let’s not do that ever again.” Like, it doesn’t make anybody feel good. It doesn’t make anybody feel safe. It’s not, it’s not where I wanna be. And, and d- and here, but here’s the, I wanna be clear about this, is that just in case somebody tuned in, like, right when I was saying that, is like, I’m [00:24:00] a, I love Jesus, and I’m a, I’m a pretty huge fan of, like, the type of life change that can happen when you’re, when you’re in line with God’s will. But here’s the thing, is that, sometimes, like, those environments do bad things and, like, if a leader goes unchecked. Well, after I got done with the podcast and I said to, said to the team member, I said, “Let’s not do that anymore,” well, a couple years later, he, now this guy’s n- was no longer on my team, I noticed, like, he’s on this guy’s podcast.

[00:24:29] Michael King Jr.: Like, he had ag- everything that we had talked about that I’d shared openly with him about, like, that’s not who we are, and, like, it just kinda confirmed, I’m like, there is a reason why you’re not on my team right now, is because, like, I had, I have to constantly guess, like, who you are and what you’re about and what you’re aligned with, because I couldn’t, I could never actually feel comfortable because everything was a curveball.

[00:24:47] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm. So, um, and I think, I think we’ve all had that when somebody in our, our sphere throws you that, throws you that curve ball, and you’re like, “Okay, how do I deal with that?” Like, I had no idea that Zac was a flat Earther, but, you know, it’s okay.

[00:24:59] Zac Brown: Stop. [00:25:00] No, don’t. Do not tell people that. That is not

[00:25:03] Jeff Sieh: just kidding. Sorry, Sorry, that was… I had to do it, but

[00:25:08] Michael King Jr.: I thought that was an inside joke

[00:25:09] Jeff Sieh: No, no, no. he’s not. I’m just giving him a hard time. so I was so excited to have Michael on, I forgot to, uh, talk about, our sponsor of the show, which are our friends over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them by going to ecamm.com/jeff. They are what we’re doing to actually produce this show, have all the cool screens, do all the things.

[00:25:26] Jeff Sieh: And there’s actually Creator Camps coming up, and, Sean was even saying, “Hey, Billy, looking forward to meeting you at Creator Camp.” So that is coming up actually really soon, on September 28th through the 30th. They still have some tickets available, but if you’d like to find out more about that, go to ecamm.com/camp.

[00:25:43] Jeff Sieh: And I wanna ask the audience as we’re talking about this stuff, and

[00:25:45] Jeff Sieh: I feel like this is, like, almost therapy for me. It’s really good to, like, talk. I love creativity. I love talking about what makes us more creative and how we can be creative, and I think everybody’s creative. I always talk my, in my talks of about I believe we were created by the Creator to be creative.

[00:25:59] Jeff Sieh: That’s kinda my [00:26:00] mantra. but as a creator, what is one thing, and you guys can drop it down wherever you’re watching from, what is one thing you know in your heart is a gift, but you’ve never figured out how to charge for it, or even if you should charge for it? So let us know in the chat. What is one gift, like maybe…

[00:26:16] Jeff Sieh: I was, I grew up and everybody said, “Oh, Jeff, you’re so creative.” I stunk at school, so I think that was the only thing they could say. Uh, you got the creativity award. but, is there something that you know in your heart that you’re good at, but you’ve never really thought about make, should I charge for that?

[00:26:30] Jeff Sieh: Does it make it icky if I charge for that? What are your thoughts? Drop it down below, because we’re gonna talk about how to make a living as a creative. we kinda talked about the identity piece with Michael, knowing who you really are. But you can’t just know your authentic self. You gotta, some of us need to t- turn it into a business that can pay the bills.

[00:26:47] Jeff Sieh: So let’s talk about that, because I know a lot of people in the audience are that way. So you mentioned before you spent close to two decades making music and serving in ministry before any of this pays the way it probably is now. I was [00:27:00] a preacher’s kid. I worked in churches. I know how much most pastors get.

[00:27:04] Jeff Sieh: It’s, not great. But, what’s the honest version of how long you were broke or underpaid before you figured out this business side of what you really were called to do?

[00:27:14] Michael King Jr.: Until about 15 minutes ago.

[00:27:16] Jeff Sieh: There you go.

[00:27:17] Jeff Sieh: Good.

[00:27:17] Michael King Jr.: you went and you, you went and you Venmoed me, I think it was in the, like, was it, like, 20 bucks for

[00:27:22] Jeff Sieh: Exactly. that’s that’s the thing. Don’t s- don’t start a, a thing here. Yeah

[00:27:29] Michael King Jr.: Thanks, Jeff. yeah, no, I think, you know, like, the- there’s a longer st- there’s a longer story on that. But I think …

[00:27:35] Michael King Jr.: A true creative isn’t going to, like, put this different … I- they’re not gonna put a measuring stick as far as, like, whether they’re a creative or not. They’re not gonna put a green light or red light on creativity based off of monetization.

[00:27:46] Michael King Jr.: They’re just not, you know? I think for, so for me it’s, it’s, you know, we started incorporating in, the creativity of, of what I do i- in the last year and a half because my creative director had a conversation with me [00:28:00] and saying, “Hey, listen, just to be honest with you, there’s 4.2 million people on the planet who call themselves coaches, and there’s a lot of middle-aged, white, chubby dudes that are speaking on stages.

[00:28:08] Michael King Jr.: Like, how, what makes you different?” You know, type of thing. And we joked around about it a little bit, and so, but he was really pushing me and saying, “You’re probably one of the only executive coaches that’s also a, like, a legitimate recording artist. Like, let’s do something with it. Let’s, let’s figure that out.”

[00:28:23] Michael King Jr.: So that’s a good conversation. That, that was really good. We gave it a chance and, like, even if there was no audience for it, we’d still do it, you know? It’s, there’s something about it that m- it brings out a better side of, like, what I do. Now, we would probably keep tweaking it and adjusting it to try to figure out, like, is there a way for us to be able to get it to tick, to find its audience, et cetera.

[00:28:44] Michael King Jr.: but again, what’s your motivation of being creative? If it’s just simply to monetize, you’re probably not a true creative because a cr- a true creative just creates. And you’ll find ways to be able to utilize that within your business. Now, that’s what I do with people, is that, like, with, with our coaches, [00:29:00] consultants, other entrepreneurs, even small businesses, we actually take them through our id- identity framework to be able to find out, like, is there an actual edge or something that you should be doing creatively that can help you stand out?

[00:29:11] Michael King Jr.: Like, what creates that category of one type of experience so you can be able to do the things that you love, but also be able to, to run a business from it as well. and it’s been, it’s been really, really life-giving to be able to work people through that process.

[00:29:25] Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome

[00:29:25] Zac Brown: good I love that where you said you have to do those things like that are necessary so that you can do the things that you love. You know, it just kind of feeds the, the other creativity aspect of it. You know, I, I think most creatives resist turning their art into like a system or whatever because it feels like selling out.

[00:29:45] Zac Brown: You built a proprietary method, which is amazing, and a platform out of yours, and you named it The Creative Leadership Engineering. How do you productize a gift without engineering the [00:30:00] soul out of it?

[00:30:01] Michael King Jr.: it’s really, really easy. You know, Zac, if, if I was to sit down with you specifically and I would say, “What gives you life?” You know? Where does Zac show up as his best version of himself? you know, what is it that even Jeff, like, when you’re y- when you’re producing the things that you produce, like, if I came to you and I told you, “Hey, you are no longer allowed to do the thing that you love,” man, that would suck, wouldn’t it?

[00:30:25] Michael King Jr.: Like, that would literally, that would literally say, man. And it just happens to be, like, when it comes to business and entrepreneur, entrepreneurialism type of thing, this is,

[00:30:38] Michael King Jr.: there’s no off switch for this. Like, there’s no such thing as … Like, for me, it’s like I, I’ve always had a little bit of an entrepreneurial bent to me.

[00:30:45] Michael King Jr.: Like, even before I was doing this, like, when I was, when I was in ministry, I, I also owned a, you know, an imprint record label that we helped develop recording artists in the Christian music industry. So, like, there’s always been that type of thing. And so there’s always that little bit of that [00:31:00] hobbyist culture that comes to entrepreneurialism, right? it’s it’s fun. Like, it’s fun doing the things that we get to do. so, like, this is not about selling out. This is about helping our souls come to life. Like, this is the thing that we were created to do, and can you lean into that? Can you be honest about that? Like, I think the guys that are telling you, like, they’re trying to s- you know, like, they feel like they’re

[00:31:22] Michael King Jr.: I,

[00:31:22] Michael King Jr.: I’m not throwing shade on people that are, like, a little bit more of the purists that, you know, they, they feel like they’re, they want to do a little bit more of the grunge work and they feel like the only true expression of art is grabbing an acoustic guitar and sitting out underneath a pine tree for the squirrels.

[00:31:36] Michael King Jr.: That’s great if that’s your thing, but, like, art and entrepreneurialism, they go hand in hand. Like, we are creating and we are building. It’s for other people to enjoy

[00:31:46] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:31:47] Zac Brown: Paul Gowder

[00:31:48] Jeff Sieh: So it’s, it’s interesting you say that ’cause, like, I, I … My two favorite days are Mondays and Friday. Mondays I have Mastermind and I have an, two amazing Mastermind groups that we get together and we talk about stuff, and then we, on Fridays, [00:32:00] this is this show. Like, I get to talk to people, and like you said, if, if I wasn’t getting paid for this, I’d still do it.

[00:32:04] Jeff Sieh: Like, right? Like, don’t tell Ecamm. But, like, this is, I would still do this because it’s so much fun. I enjoy talking to people, and it’s how I can connect if I can’t get on a stage. but also it can kinda be, like, frustrating.

[00:32:16] Jeff Sieh: and I know a lot of musicians who would love to make it their full-time career struggle.

[00:32:20] Jeff Sieh: So what do you tell people who they can’t seem to monetize it?

[00:32:24] Jeff Sieh: Is it a reframing of their dream, or is it like you can’t … Like, I think this is why American Idol works so well is because they get ’em up there and they’re horrible, and you have great television because these people stinking, and they’re s- and I can’t watch it, ’cause I, I, like, it just, I can’t, I cringe.

[00:32:41] Jeff Sieh: It hurts my heart to see people who … Because grandma’s told them when they sang in church that they were amazing, and God wasn’t even happy about what came out their mouth. I’m sorry. He wasn’t. And so when do you tell people the truth like, “Hey, this can’t be a full-time career, but you can still do it as a hobby.”

[00:32:57] Jeff Sieh: Like, ’cause I know a lot of people probably come to you in your coaching [00:33:00] business, Michael, and, and sometimes you have to tell them some hard truth like, “I don’t see how this can be a, a money maker for you.” So how do you realize that yourself without having to go and get a lot of therapy and, you know, crushing your dreams and that kinda stuff?

[00:33:13] Jeff Sieh: What do you tell people who have a dream but maybe you, you can tell it’s not gonna make any money?

[00:33:18] Michael King Jr.: Do you want the pastoral answer or do you want

[00:33:20] Jeff Sieh: Oh, you can do both

[00:33:22] Michael King Jr.: let’s crush people’s

[00:33:24] Jeff Sieh: That’s right, right

[00:33:25] Michael King Jr.: You know, I, I used to get so frustrated as, as an early artist, to where I was in multiple bands that did showcases for people and we, we would, we… You know, a record label would bring us in to be able to do a showcase or, or whatnot, or maybe we did a, maybe we did a smaller scale, like a battle of the bands or something like that as an indie artist.

[00:33:43] Michael King Jr.: And then somebody would say the, the, the absolute cringe words that you never wanna hear as an artist. ” Maybe the thing that you’re doing is really just for you.”

[00:33:53] Jeff Sieh: Yeah.

[00:33:54] Michael King Jr.: and that’s, that’s really hard to hear, you know? and I, I don’t think that we live in that space to [00:34:00] where, like, it’s only that option or the other.

[00:34:03] Michael King Jr.: Like, it’s not. Like, and I think specifically there’s a lot of different, there’s a lot of different pathways to be able to get your art to be heard and to be seen. And to even to the person that wrote the, the comment up there that said it’s really hard being a songwriter these days. Absolutely. It’s super, super hard, especially with AI coming on the, the pace of…

[00:34:22] Michael King Jr.: now I know that there are some codes of ethics and different things that record labels and publishing companies are putting in place to making sure that, that the impact of AI is, is slowed down a little bit, but the effect on that industry is h- is huge, and it’s never gonna be the, the exact same again.

[00:34:37] Michael King Jr.: But I will say this, is that now more than ever, for you to be able to create your own space, for you to be able to create your own vertical, and for you to be able to create your own platform built on the thing that you love to do, you might not be necessarily great, but you might be able to find your audience.

[00:34:51] Michael King Jr.: You might be able to find your niche audience about specific things. Now, I remember when I went back, this is, you know, so a year and a half ago when we ha- started this [00:35:00] conversation, I started talking to some of our publishing partners and some people, at the record label of saying,

[00:35:05] Michael King Jr.: “Hey, I got this idea for what I wanna do with my next season as a writer.

[00:35:08] Michael King Jr.: I want to write songs about things that leaders are refusing to talk about.” And they literally looked at me and they said, “That’s the worst idea we’ve ever heard in our lives.” That there’s no way, there’s no way that that’s, that that would probably work. And, and then somebody else said, ” But usually it’s the horrible ideas that get traction, so let’s go ahead and give it a shot. You’ve been around long enough. There’s enough trust in this relationship. Let’s go ahead and give it a go.” And it worked.

[00:35:37] Michael King Jr.: It worked. Why? ‘Cause there’s, there isn’t anybody doing what I’m doing. It’s, like, a very niche type of thing. And I’m not, I’m not looking … We, we do releases to radio and, and to Spotify and Apple Music, all that stuff as well, but, but it’s not designed to be Top 40 radio. You know what I

[00:35:52] Jeff Sieh: right

[00:35:53] Michael King Jr.: It’s very much it used to for a specific purpose.

[00:35:56] Michael King Jr.: So, so in those spaces, like, if you, [00:36:00] if, if you’re a writer, find the place for you to continue to hone your craft. Find your place. Or a creative. Find your place that you can collaborate to where it’s a two-way street. Like, you’re creating, but you’re also getting better at what you do. Be consistent with building your stage, finding out how you build your own stage.

[00:36:16] Michael King Jr.: Build your own platforms. Become known for the thing that you love, and help your love for the thing that you do become contagious so it can bring out the best in other people around you. Does that make sense?

[00:36:25] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm. an example that I would just … So, like, at 1:00 today, we started this new show where I’m with Katie Fawkes, where I, I carve and she crochets. We’re not making, like, money. Like, it’s not … We had a, a sponsor who got us a camera. That was great. I’m very, uh, thankful for that. But it’s mostly of us enjoying what we do together.

[00:36:43] Jeff Sieh: She’s in New Hampshire. I’m here in Texas. And people show up and, and enjoy it. Like, but I did that not for making money, but it’s something that allows me to have a creative outlet and hang out with cool people in the comments. So I think maybe, like you were saying, is sometimes [00:37:00] you can do a mindset shift a little bit about, like, I can still be creative and do it in this, a new way, on a different, maybe a new even go live or whatever, and it can give me that, that creativity juice that I’m wanting to do and, and kind of maybe reframe it.

[00:37:13] Jeff Sieh: And I’m sure you do that with your clients in your coaching, is help them reframe that thought. Like, “You know what? You could do maybe this instead of, like, I’m gonna be a professional, you know, basket weaver,” which did not work out well for me

[00:37:24] Michael King Jr.: Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and, and because the desire, the desire or the reframe is it, it comes from a place that, that you need to, you need to scratch that itch. Like, there needs to be some sort of output there. but yeah. And maybe it’s not, maybe it’s not something that is necessarily meant for public consumption, but, like, there’s something that you can do to, to come to the table

[00:37:44] Zac Brown: Michael, a Fortune 500 executive called you the Jonah Hill from Moneyball but for business, which is such an incredible moniker. I just love that. For a solopreneur watching, anybody who’s in the chat today or watching this on the replay, how do you find the two or three weird [00:38:00] things that you’re great at that nobody else is combining?

[00:38:05] Michael King Jr.: and even in the context of all that, so like specifically that comment was made because, because I’m a weird kid. I’m super I’m just, I’m just goofy. But, but yeah, I’m, I’m left and right brain. One of my clients also calls me kind of like a unicorn. I’m incredibly creative, but I’m also incredibly strategic.

[00:38:24] Michael King Jr.: And then we, for Teams.Coach, which is our company that we do executive team coaching, and also high-level executive performing that. So we, we help build the world’s highest performing teams. But there’s a method behind it. It’s about communication. It’s about emotional and psychological dynamics that actually make up a team.

[00:38:41] Michael King Jr.: And so through what I’m able to do, I’m able to give accurate percentage increases as far as top-line revenue by making shifts on the org chart, by having higher levels of clarity within a team to be able to help optimize communication and culture and, and, and different things like that.

[00:38:57] Michael King Jr.: so for me, like the way that I found [00:39:00] out like my differentiator, you know, those two, there was a couple different things, is understanding, okay, what do- what is a relevant offer? Like, what does the business community need right now more than anything? And what is a specific perspective or a specific gift set that I bring to the table to be able to fit within those specific things?

[00:39:18] Michael King Jr.: That’s where there’s a lot of different opportunities that can come up.

[00:39:23] Michael King Jr.: So you might be, you might be a paintless dent repair shop, and your marketing, your angle, how you show up in your community, the things that you’re known for, they might be buried. Unbury them. Like making sure that when it comes to that identity quotient, that there’s something about, you know, these five specific questions like who am I?

[00:39:41] Michael King Jr.: What do I do better than anyone else? What’s the biggest problem that I solve? how do I make people feel and what do I want to be known for? And then the sixth one would be who am I for? Like again, brand and existence, they have everything to do with one another. And sometimes our brands are wrong because we built it off somebody else’s blueprint.

[00:39:59] Zac Brown: [00:40:00] Wow.

[00:40:00] Jeff Sieh: That’s really good. And that’s why I keep, I keep going back to … ‘Cause I, I s- kind of study keynote, ’cause I always wanna be a better speaker. I always, look and kind of try to analyze people who are … I see up on stage, and that’s what really got me about your talk, is like you, like no one does it, right?

[00:40:16] Jeff Sieh: Like you went for it and it worked. It could have not worked. People could’ve like, “What is this guy doing playing the sax in this movie?” Like, but it wasn’t, it worked. At least in the, the audience that I was in. it, it … You know, ’cause audiences can change. But,that’s what I think the people who have a chance to see you speak would be like, “Okay, take note on what he’s doing and how he’s doing it and how he’s saying it,” and, uh, I think you can learn a lot from that.

[00:40:36] Jeff Sieh: So once again, kudos to you for your, for your talk. But one of the things that I wanna kinda, before we get into some comments, is that what you are doing on stage, like the saxophone and the cinematic films, those things cost like real money and time to produce, right? Like you didn’t start there. That’s where you, you’re currently where you’ve ended up from many years of working.

[00:40:57] Jeff Sieh: So how do you decide when [00:41:00] an expensive, hard to scale, like signature experience is worth it, and what is kind of nice to have? Like, like we, we talked about before the show, I don’t take my five-string banjo up and play just because of the logistics of carrying that thing around. Somebody may have an upright bass. That might be hard to ship around the country doing talks, like a big huge, like a harp or a upright bass. So how do you balance what, “Okay, this is gonna set me apart. I’m gonna invest in making this happen,” and verse like, “Okay, I’m not there yet. I can see that in the future. I’m gonna work towards it”?

[00:41:30] Michael King Jr.: trial and error. You know? before I started incorporating this type of stuff into my keynotes, I’d been traveling and speaking on stages as, you know, the, the business strategist, the teams guy, for a while, and I got kind of tired of trying to be … And then this is just an internal thing.

[00:41:48] Michael King Jr.: This might not be for anybody else, but maybe you can relate to this.

[00:41:55] Michael King Jr.: But there’s this pressure that you feel as a communicator to try to be the smartest person in the room at times. and I got tired of that. I also got tired of being in rooms that were [00:42:00] boring. I got really tired of hearing horrible communicators getting up because they’re a business owner and they maybe had success in their specific thing that they were doing, but they just weren’t good communicators.

[00:42:11] Michael King Jr.: But they were invited on stages, and they were headlining events because they were successful at their one thing, but their communication skills really lacked. does that make sense?

[00:42:21] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I think

[00:42:23] Michael King Jr.: it’s like, “Hey, here’s, here’s, here’s what I do. Here’s how I did it, and here’s what you should do. Now buy my book.”

[00:42:29] Michael King Jr.: No. Like, that’s, I, I’m about a transformational experience, and I wanted to make sure that I was somehow creating something that made sure that boring keynotes never exist ever again. Like, I was like, “Let’s kill that.” Um,

[00:42:44] Michael King Jr.: but, but along the way, like even before that, just because of relationships, I kind of had like

[00:42:51] Michael King Jr.: So there’s, you know, like in different worlds that I was a part of, like whether it’s like social media marketing world or Jessica Suter does an event up in, up in Ohio called, Social [00:43:00] Media Week Lima.

[00:43:00] Jeff Sieh: Mm-hmm. Yeah

[00:43:01] Michael King Jr.: Part of their speaker parties that they have is that they have a karaoke night

[00:43:04] Jeff Sieh: Yeah, yeah. Ecamm does that too. Yeah

[00:43:06] Michael King Jr.: Yeah.

[00:43:07] Michael King Jr.: And so I’m like, it was kind of like this weird, almost like this, this parlor trick to where I’d like, I would show up and somebody’d say, “Yeah, you should go do the karaoke.” And then so I’d go up there and I’d bust out a song, and they’re like, “What in the world? Where did this guy c- Like, he’s a real singer.

[00:43:22] Michael King Jr.: He’s not allowed here. Like, this should be illegal.” and that was kind of … And then I would start showing up with my saxophone and just doing lobby music just as a nich- an additional relational thing for the conferences I was speaking at. And then I was like, ” People seem to enjoy this.

[00:43:36] Michael King Jr.: Maybe I should start incorporating this into my, my talks.” And then once I got that on lock, then it was like, okay, so I had piloted it, I had tested it, I had felt how other people engage with it, and then I’m like, “Okay, I’m gonna invest a little bit into this and see.” And that’s when I started to actually write original compositions for my opening saxophone piece.

[00:43:56] Michael King Jr.: ’cause early in the day I used to do, like, cover songs. Like, [00:44:00] Don’t Stop Believin’. Or I used to, I used to Rickroll the rooms with, Never Gonna Give You Up, you know, ty- type of thing. But it was still fun, but the real impact actually started to unlock when I started to write my own thing, so.

[00:44:13] Jeff Sieh: So I think … When I started speaking, like y- you were told to, there’s a certain way, this is how you do it, and you get up there. And I’m like … And I would, it would make you nervous, and then you would go off and you’d feel gross, ’cause it was like that’s not really me. I just, I did a, I was an actor performing Jeff.

[00:44:28] Jeff Sieh: I wasn’t really Jeff. And then when I started incorporating weird stuff and, like, funny bits and, like, telling weird stories, that’s when it kind of unlocked. You know, kind of exactly your, your kind of same, same sort of thing. Um,as we kind of wrap up, I wanted to bring up some comments, ’cause we had some great questions from people.

[00:44:45] Jeff Sieh: But this is a great, comment from Apollo. She goes, “Do we believe our work is valuable because someone pays for it? Or do we make money from it because we first believe it has value?” So I thought that was a great,

[00:44:55] Jeff Sieh: great

[00:44:55] Jeff Sieh: point. Yeah. and this is a question from the amazing Mr. Fred. It’s good to see you, [00:45:00] Mr.

[00:45:00] Jeff Sieh: Fred. He says, “Do you hire towards a specific type of person? Or do you train them up to meet the requirements of your team? Or is it both?”

[00:45:09] Zac Brown: Good question

[00:45:09] Michael King Jr.: That’s a great question. So, c- let’s dive into that just for a second here. I believe in building by design, understanding, you know, what are we trying to accomplish as an organization? What’s our true north? What type of team do we actually need in place for us to be able to execute at the highest level?

[00:45:24] Michael King Jr.: Like, you have to have a clear vision as far as strategically building out your team by design. However, people change, and you’re not always going to find out, like, who is going to be the best fit. Specifically coming in from the outside, you have to have a strategy for development always.

[00:45:40] Michael King Jr.: And what you’re gonna find is that there, there are gonna be people that are part of your organization that are, that, that have high levels of loyalty, but maybe not high levels of performance.

[00:45:49] Michael King Jr.: And so there’s always a level of, of development that needs to take place. The last thing I’ll say on, on this, by the way, is that

[00:46:00] Michael King Jr.: we have metrics and KPIs in place within our organizations to be able to [00:46:00] measure performance and to evaluate it, but we don’t have anything really necessarily in place for us to be able to measure trust.

[00:46:06] Michael King Jr.: We have to be able to figure out how to get that gap, and that’s why internal development is so important because it’s sometimes you have a high-level trust player that’s not a high-level performer. Well, guess what? We can, we can change that

[00:46:18] Jeff Sieh: That’s great. I love that. It’s all about training and, and taking care of your team. So thanks for that question, Mr. Fred. Appreciate you, my friend

[00:46:25] Zac Brown: Fred’s always got good questions. Michael, you’ve said that whoever tells the best story wins. What is the most common place that you see creators and small businesses telling the wrong story about themselves without even realizing it?

[00:46:39] Michael King Jr.: Let me flip that just a little bit. Maybe the wrong story that you tell maybe you’ve made it about yourself a little bit too much You know, a really, really great place to tell your story, especially like on, on platforms, et cetera, like so if we’re looking at social media strategy or if we’re building our business, try to figure out a way to be able to make the story about your customer.

[00:46:57] Michael King Jr.: You know, like Burger King just did, uh, Jeff was [00:47:00] at my, uh, was at that keynote when I, I played a Burger King commercial that’s out right now on TV. It’s really a good play, but Tom Curtis, their CEO, he does a whole play on this idea of like, “We got it wrong. We actually put the, the wrong king in place.

[00:47:12] Michael King Jr.: We, we, we believe that it was about us, but it was actually about you.” And he did this whole reset about their brand to literally say, “Hey, we got it wrong. Let’s tell the right story.” And I think again, like, so if you’re challenging yourself, again, tell as many stories about your people as you possibly can.

[00:47:30] Michael King Jr.: we do that. It, and it’s, it is valuable. But then if you’re going to tell the story about you, tell something about transformation. Talk about that story because you’re gonna find people that have similar experience

[00:47:43] Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome. And the, the funny thing is, it j- I mean, I think it was in the news this week, is that Burger King just hit number two. They went up on the list of, like, the fast food burger chains. they went above, Wendy’s I think for the first time in a long time, and it’s because of that turnaround that you talk about in your talk.

[00:47:58] Jeff Sieh: So I thought that was very, very [00:48:00] cool

[00:48:00] Michael King Jr.: Super interesting. So it’s a, it’s a g- it’s a good play. It

[00:48:03] Michael King Jr.: really is

[00:48:03] Zac Brown: now I really want a Whopper

[00:48:05] Jeff Sieh: this has been, now I’m hungry. Now I have to go get lunch. So this has been great. I so appreciate of you giving… I have so many more questions, but I wanna make sure I value your time. I wanna let you have, uh, the last few minutes here to talk about, you know, what you’re doing, where people can find you.

[00:48:20] Jeff Sieh: If they want to come see you speak or they wanna book you as a speaker, like, where’s the best spot for them to, to find you? But once again, thank you so much for all your valuable insights today and all that you have,given us, uh, during our time together.

[00:48:32] Michael King Jr.: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. You know, when I first started this journey of creating this central resource, I created it with the idea that maybe I could possibly create something that lived forever and was meaningful and was talking about things that leaders are refusing to talk about.

[00:48:48] Michael King Jr.: So if you, if you’re a company or if you are running, running a team at all, please check out michaelkingjr.com. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and feel free to reach out to me for our collaborator [00:49:00] package. It’s free, but I’ll actually give you access to a full leadership resource guide that goes along with our films that you can actually incorporate into your internal HR and your human development systems on your teams.

[00:49:11] Michael King Jr.: So you can have something a little bit more creative and maybe a little bit emotional to be able to bring to leadership development within your company. now I am the CEO and founder of Teams.Coach, so I’m the architect of some of the world’s highest performing teams. You don’t have to do this alone.

[00:49:25] Michael King Jr.: You don’t have to make the same mistakes over and over again. You can have some of the highest performing teams that break world records. So please reach out to me. You can check out teams.coach for my, coaching company, but you can also find everything you need through michaelkingjr.com

[00:49:37] Jeff Sieh: And it’s amazing resource that, he has put together. just in a m- if you have a chance to s- see him speak, go hear him speak. really, really fun. He was at Social Media Marketing World, but he’s, he’s, like, touring across the country, so if you see him, make sure to go and check him out and say, say hi.

[00:49:51] Jeff Sieh: Zac Brown, where can people find out, uh, more about the amazing Zac Brown?

[00:49:55] Zac Brown: You can check out my new website, ZacBrownCreative.com. There you will find my [00:50:00] podcast, my new book, and sign up for my newsletter. I would love to connect with you in a number of ways and share some incredible stories

[00:50:06] Jeff Sieh: And thanks to the amazing folks over at Ecamm. You can find out more about them at Ecamm.com/jeff. Don’t forget about their Creator Camp. it’s gonna be amazing. So many cool people in the chat are gonna be there. But I wanna thank the people in the chat, like Mr. Fred, Paula, George, Dustin Stout as always, David I get to hang out with him at Momentum all the time.

[00:50:24] Jeff Sieh: So thank you guys so much because you guys are Thanks so much for watching everybody. We will see you guys next time. Bye. Have a great weekend