329. Climbing the Ladder of Success with Eric Lofholm

Eric Lofholm:
I think what happened for so many people is that they maybe haven't had a mentor mirror back their greatness, and so their view of themselves is much lower than what is actually reality.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Hello and welcome to The Daily Helping with Dr. Richard Shuster, food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, tools to win at life. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, and whatever you do, this is the show that is going to help you become the best version of yourself. Each episode you will hear from some of the most amazing, talented, and successful people on the planet who followed their passions and strived to help others. Join our movement to get a million people each day to commit acts of kindness for others. Together, we're going to make the world a better place. Are you ready? Because it's time for your Daily Helping.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Daily Helping Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. And I am so excited to share our guest with you today. He is just pure awesomeness. His name is Eric Lofholm. He's the CEO of The Being Movement LLC.

And he's been in leadership roles his entire life. He began his career in the training industry in 1992. And during the '90s, Eric worked for Tony Robbins for a number of years and then started his own training company in 1999. He's been trained by some of the top trainers in the world, including Steve Hardison, Dr. Donald Moine, Michael Gerber, and Jay Abraham. He's also an author of three books, and he currently lives with his wife, Heather, and his children in Rocklin, California. Eric Lofholm, welcome to The Daily Helping. It is awesome to have you with us today.

Eric Lofholm:
Dr. Richard, I'm excited to be here and share some ideas with your audience, and so I appreciate the invite.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Absolutely. I can't wait because you have been working with some of the most prominent figures in personal development on Earth and I know you've got some pearls of wisdom. But before we get there, I want to jump in the Eric Lofholm time machine. Let's get up to 88 miles an hour and go back and I want to hear your superhero origin story. What put you on the path you're on today?

Eric Lofholm:
Well, I, years ago, was working at McDonald's, going to community college. And you're supposed to go to community college for two years, I ended up going for five years and was a few units shy of that elusive AA degree. So, I was not exactly on the fast track to success. And I took a day off of my job at McDonald's one day to go to a real estate and investment seminar. And I was so inspired by the speaker, I ended up quitting my job, dropping out of college, and going to work for this real estate investor thinking I was going to learn how to make millions of dollars in real estate. And he offered me a sales job, so I was his bottom producer for an entire year.

And then, I met my sales mentor, a man named Dr. Donald Moine, who has a PhD in Psychology, a really brilliant, brilliant man and mind when it comes to sales. And with his help and his ideas, I ended up becoming the top producer at that company. And I ended up going from there to go work for Tony Robbins, and had a great run with Tony, and started my own training company in the late 1990s. And so, I've been training full time since 1999, helping people all over the world, working on their mind and creating more success in their lives.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
So, I love this, and I couldn't help think of Van Wilder as you're telling me your five years in community college story. But, you know, as you said, this is about the mind. This is about mindset. So, what did Dr. Moine really instill in you - I think this is a great place to start - that really started transforming your success?

Eric Lofholm:
Well, with Dr. Moine, I was the bottom producer in sales and I had never viewed myself as somebody that could become successful in selling. And he taught me that selling is a learned skill, and that simple idea can be applied to so many areas of life. Wealth building is a learned skill. Leadership is a learned skill. Social media is a learned skill.

And when I was coming up in my life to that point, I had a self image that I'm average and ordinary. And so, the world occurred for me as me being average and ordinary, and Dr. Moine smashed that mindset and, really, it empowered me to go success as a choice. And so, I started applying that mindset into different areas of my life, and I carry that mindset to this day, and it really empowers me that I can go and create what it is that I want.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
I like that you said success is a choice, because it's built into us that it's really not. Like, most people see it as these turnkey things they have to do. You we were always taught you have to go to college and you earn a four year degree. And if you go then get a master's degree, you'll make more money than someone with a four year degree. And if you get a doctorate or go to medical school, then you make more money than everybody. That's not necessarily true at all. But the systems in place have taught us forever that there's a path to getting there, the climbing the ladder doing all these things.

And so, I know that 2023 is very different than when you started doing this in the '90s and your McDonald's adventure. But what would you say to somebody who's listening to this? Maybe they feel a little bit stuck, maybe they're in a job that they don't love, or maybe they don't really think they're good enough down deep to be able to do, just like you felt that you were really just average. What are some of the foundational things that you would tell somebody like that?

Eric Lofholm:
I think it starts with the question why do I believe what I believe about me. And I'll speak for myself, you know, being raised by my mom and dad, and like so many people my parents divorced, and so I was raised in that environment. And nobody was telling me I was extraordinary, and so I didn't view myself as extraordinary. It wasn't even a possibility. Being extraordinary and excelling, that wasn't even an option.

And if we look at why do I believe what I believe, I'm in my 50s, I've been coaching people now for a couple of decades, and a lot of people are walking around operating from beliefs that were installed in their mind when they were four, five, six, and seven. I'm not good enough. I don't deserve success. I don't have what it takes, et cetera. And they don't have accurate thinking about their greatness.

And so, one of the things that I love doing for people is just pointing out how extraordinary they are and mirroring for them who they really are. And that's what my mentors did for me. Dr. Moine and other mentors, they mirrored for me my greatness. And I was like, "Oh, that's who I am. Okay." And then, I started showing up as that, this higher expression of myself that was always there but I never knew it.

And so, I think what happened for so many people is that they maybe haven't had a mentor mirror back their greatness, and so their view of themselves is much lower than what is actually reality.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
What I love about this, Eric, is there's, of course, scientific knowledge and research behind this. As you're sitting here describing this, "Oh. Well, this is straight up Judith Beck," that our early experiences form our core beliefs. It's like this milieu of science versus practicality.

So, I want to kind of challenge you even a bit further, so you had your greatness mirrored back to you. So, if somebody's sitting in front of you who has no idea what makes anything about them special, what are some of the things you do in talking to people - because I want people listening to this to be able to do this themselves - to start looking in the mirror and discovering what is so awesome about them?

Eric Lofholm:
Yeah. I think what happens, it makes me think of this one client I had, he didn't view himself as an expert in graphic design. And Malcolm Gladwell has this concept, he says the 10,000 hour rule, if you spend 10,000 hours doing something, you become an expert.

So, I said, "So, you went to school for graphic design, you worked as an employee for companies, you practiced art your whole life, you own your own graphic design company, how many hours do you think you've logged in the graphic design experience?" And he's like, "Probably about 60,000 hours," and he wasn't exaggerating. And I said, "So, let me get this straight, you're not an expert, right?" He's like, "No, I'm not."

And so, he wasn't acknowledging what was on the resume. He wasn't acknowledging what was so. He was living in this idea I'm not good enough or I'm not an expert, or whatever was going on with him that was the story that happened probably when he's a little kid. And I think there's value in people taking a step back and looking at their accomplishments, looking at things that they've done that's extraordinary.

Like when I was in high school, I had a little business and I made a few dollars, and I went and bought a World Series ticket to the Oakland A's-LA Dodgers game. And my dad didn't take me, nothing wrong with that. But I took myself, and my friend and I drove ourselves, bought the tickets, like who does that at 17? And at the time, I just thought it was no big deal. And now I look back and go, "That was amazing for me as a 17 year old to do that." But nobody was telling me that was extraordinary.

And I think what happens is, is we go through life, we're doing things. Like going to work every day, giving it a great effort. A lot of people think, "Oh, it's no big deal." It's actually a big deal. A lot of people don't go to work every day, give great effort.

And so, when we take a look at what is so, what am I actually doing, what have I done in my lifetime, and acknowledging our greatness - and what a lot of people do is the opposite, they're their harshest critic. They literally declare, I am my harshest critic. I'm hard on myself. And I am my number one cheerleader - as a state of being, that's something that I learned from one of the masters that I studied, is, I can declare who I am from a conscious choice versus the way I was raised and what I used to believe about myself.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
I think of this analogy that I used to use with patients who would say I'm depressed or I have a learning disability or I am dyslexic, for example. And I would always say to them, if you broke your arm, would you walk around telling people I'm broken armed? No, of course not. That's stupid. But we internalize things and we do the same thing, so I love this. So, which master, if I might ask, was the one that taught you this? Because this is great stuff that.

Eric Lofholm:
That last idea about state of being is a man named Steve Hardison. And he is the most advanced person I've ever met at understanding the mind in terms of who I've had personal experience with. And one of the things he taught me is he said, "What's an unusual thought you have about yourself?" And I said, "I don't fit in." And I created that thought back when I was a little kid, and my parents being divorced, and I never felt like I fit in with my own family.

And so, here I am in my 50s, and he goes, "Eric, you being I don't fit in is like somebody who's anorexic saying they're fat. That is not who you are." I mean, I have a Rolodex that's very expansive. It's not the biggest Rolodex in the planet. But I have a network of people all over the world, in the thousands, and it just is not reality but I was living in that idea. And so, he would teach me these different things and he would teach me that you can decide who am I being and then you can decide who do I need to be in order to create what I want.

And that was a very profound shift in thinking what am I thinking that's creating my current results? And then, what do I need to think in order to create the results that I want? And so, it created a whole new possibility for me where my current reality in many ways didn't even matter. What mattered is what do I want to create and how can I do it? And so, it's been very powerful to learn from him.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
I wrote that down. That's amazing. So, who am I being? And who do I need to be to create the results I want? Because those are very different. Did you sit there, lock yourself in a room, and start writing down these things? This exercise is amazing.

Eric Lofholm:
It's twofold. It's what you just said, but I'll give you a real world application that I think is a good way to drive the point home for the listeners. So, my daughter, who's getting ready to go to college, she's going to be a freshman at University of Arizona, and so at the start of her senior year, she was living with me, and her mom and I are divorced.

And so, it was the first week of high school senior year, and my daughter was supposed to come home, and I texted her, "What time are you coming home?" She goes, "I'm staying with mom tonight." I'm like, "Oh, okay." The next day, I texted her, "When are you coming home?" She goes, "I'm staying with mom tonight." She lives with me but she's staying with her mom. Next day I said, "When are you coming home?" She goes, "I live with mom now." And I went ballistic.

I didn't say this, but I'm thinking to myself, "I'm your father. You're a minor. You're going to do what I tell you to do." And then, my mind goes to, "Oh, I thought you wanted me to pay for your college. I guess you don't want me to pay for college anymore." And I'm furious and I'm being angry, and this went on for a couple days.

And then, I walked into Starbucks after a couple days being angry towards my daughter, and I did the little mindset thing that we just talked about. And I said, "Who am I being? I'm being angry. I'm being hurt. I'm being upset. Who do I want to be with my daughter? I want to be unconditional love." And I literally made a conscious decision in that moment, I shifted, like snap your fingers and shifted into being loving. And I sent her a text and I said, "Hey, I'm in Starbucks. Do you want a Starbucks?"

Now, when I walked into that Starbucks, she was not going to get a Starbucks. But when I shifted into being loving, and she said yes, she want the Starbucks, and I took it to her, I let go of the anger. And I didn't tell her you need to come home. I just let her be. And on her own, after a week or two, whatever it was, she came home and moved back in with me.

But the story is not about her moving back in with me. It's a story about me making a conscious decision in anger to be loving, and it transformed the communication. Because I'm stubborn and I could have stayed angry for months. And we ended up having a great senior year because of me shifting, and we have that power is the point of the illustration.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
It's a beautiful illustration and it hammers home the point as well that you can't be in two emotional states at once. So, you know, we do everything differently when we're angry, right? We're irrational. We're hostile. The other individual, whether we're yelling at them or not, they go onto the defense if they pick up on the body language. So, shifted this whole situation, so that's that's awesome. So, thank you for sharing that example because that does put it in a practical sense.

It feels like, and this wasn't my intent, but we're working our way through the lessons of these great people that you've worked with. Tell us a little bit about what you learned from Jay Abraham.

Eric Lofholm:
So, Jay Abraham is somebody who sees the world differently than anybody else I've ever met. He's a marketing genius. I guess the biggest thing I ever learned from Jay is to leverage networks. So, what I mean by that is, in business, I can go look for a customer or I can go and look for somebody who has my customer.

And so, an example of that would be, I have this one client of mine in my training company, and he literally has an organization of 20,000 people. So, he'll regularly refer me to not all 20,000, but he'll refer me to people here and there. And so, there's the value of him as a client, but then there's the value of his network, which is a much higher value because it's such an expansive network.

And so, that is a very different way of thinking that I made a lot of different decisions out of that. And for example, in meeting Steve Hardison, who we've talked a little bit about, his book came out a couple of years ago, it's called The Ultimate Coach. And I told him that he needed a Facebook Group to support all the book enthusiasts. And he goes, "Well, I don't know anything about Facebook Groups." And I said, "Okay. Well, no problem. I know a lot about them." And I said, "I'll create it for you. I'll set it up. I'll manage it and I'll lead it and you don't have to pay me a penny."

Now, why did I do that? Because I knew that that was going to create a network. And if I'm running the Facebook Group, I'm now the leader of this network. In other words, it's going to uplevel my exposure to, in theory, thousands of people. So, I was getting paid not by him, but really through marketing. And my brain figured all that out because of what Jay taught me about networks. And so, that group now has nearly 9,000 members. It's brought me a lot of business. A lot of great things have happened. So, what I learned from Jay was to leverage networks.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Awesome. And I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about Tony.

Eric Lofholm:
Yeah. So, Tony's a really interesting guy, extremely intense. And what I learned from him was - I used to promote his one day business seminar called The Competitive Edge. And the team that I was on, we sold out the theater at Madison Square Garden, so 5,000 people come to the seminar. And the seminar is supposed to end at 5:00 and Tony, if you ever been or heard, he's jumping up and down the whole thing until 8:00 at night.

Like, if it's my seminar and we end at 5:00, we end at 5:00. Tony goes until 8:00. And he had dinner with us that night, with the sales team. And by the time he finished the event and took his shower and got his massage, or whatever he did, it was 11:00 at night at the restaurant and he's coaching us.

And what I got from that was who he was being in that moment, he was being all out, he was being commitment, he was being action. Because if it was me, I'm not coaching my sales team at 11:00 at night after teaching a seminar all day. And it basically role modeled for me that I have another gear inside of me. I have many gears inside of me, so when I say I'm tired, I got more left in the tank. When I say I'm hungry, I don't need to go eat right now. When I say I got nothing left, there's still more there.
And so, it gave me a role model around in a five-gear stick shift car, I wasn't operating in fourth and fifth gear. I was playing up to the third gear. And so, it just showed me I got a lot more to give, and that was the most valuable lesson I ever learned from him.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Are there any practical applications that you could share with us how to get into the fourth and fifth gear?

Eric Lofholm:
Yeah. The practical application is, two nights ago, I didn't feel like going to the gym. I'm like, "I'm tired. I worked a full day. I deserve to take a day off." And I went and I was fine. I wasn't like I've got nothing left in the tank. I had a great workout. I woke up the next day. I wasn't overly tired. But my brain said don't go. My brain said take time off.

When it comes to prospecting to grow my business, if I haven't hit my number for the day, sometimes at 10:00 at night, I'll be working my smartphone, finishing up my prospecting, where most people are like, "I've put my work in for the day. I can take this time off." And I'm not advocating people to be working at 10:00 at night. I'm just using that as an example that my brain is like you're done working, or you've got nothing left, or you can't do this or you can't do that. And the reality is that we can. There's so much more that we have in the tank if we are open to it.

And, you know, Tony Robbins proved to me that night coaching us 11:00 at night after he'd been full tilt Boogie, the guy is going all out at these seminars, and I wouldn't have been coaching my sales team. So, that really taught me something powerful about what's possible.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
And we've talked a little bit about the lessons that these mentors have taught you. Share with us some more lessons from your wisdom that you could impart on everybody listening to us today.

Eric Lofholm:
Well, I think something that I have to offer the world is how I got all these mentors, you know, I've got Jay Abraham on my smartphone, Steve Hardison, Les Brown, motivational superstar, Dante Perano, my first mentor, Dr. Moine, Michael Gerber. And I have a mindset, one, that I deserve mentors. So, I don't think of it like, "Well, I'm not good enough to reach out to a Les Brown." And, also, I honor my mentors in how I relate with them, how I communicate with them.

I'm going to say something that's obvious, but a lot of people don't understand this. I don't challenge my mentors. I honor them. I give them the respect that they deserve. And I have really focused on building relationship with them and thinking about what can I do to add value to them. And so, having one mentor is amazing. Having multiple mentors is just like off the charts. And I would encourage anybody listening right now, if you've never had a mentor, to set an intention to attract a mentor into your life because these are life changing relationships.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Amen to that. Absolutely. And I think that's probably in all the years I've been doing this, when I talk to high level achievers, almost every time, mentorship, mentorship, mentorship. That's so well said. Perfect.

Well, this time together, Eric, has flown by. I knew that it would. Your energy did not disappoint. I'm sure you'll be jumping up and down for, you know, at least five more hours, maybe even more today. As you know, I love to wrap up every episode by asking my guests just this one question. Eric, what is your biggest helping? The single most important takeaway you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our conversation today.

Eric Lofholm:
I want to reinforce something that I talked about earlier, and that is to have accurate thinking about your greatness. And so, when you think about yourself like, What are your natural gifts and talents? What skillsets have you developed that you've been trained in? What are the things that you've accomplished that you can really acknowledge yourself on? And Napoleon Hill from Think and Grow Rich, when he was alive, talked about accurate thinking. And so, I love to add have accurate thinking about your greatness. And that's what I'd like to leave your listeners with.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Perfect. Eric, tell us where people can find out more about you online and connect.

Eric Lofholm:
A great way to go is beingmovement.com, and there's all kinds of great free resources if you're interested in learning more about being. And then, my name, I'm the only Eric Lofholm on the planet. So, if you Google Eric Lofholm, I'm on all the social medias, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn. So, if you're a social media person, I'd love to connect with you on social media.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Awesome. And we'll have everything Eric Lofholm in the show notes at thedailyhelping.com. Well, Eric, this time flew by, thank you so much for joining us and spending some time in The Daily Helping. I loved our conversation.

Eric Lofholm:
Thanks, Dr. Richard. It was great to be with you and your listeners today.

Dr. Richard Shuster:
Absolutely. And I want to thank each and every one of you who took time out of your day to listen to this conversation. If you liked it, if you're inspired, if you learned something from it, go give us a follow on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five star review, because that is what helps other people find the show. But most importantly, go out there today and do something nice for somebody else, even if you don't know who they are, and post it in your social media feeds using the hashtag #MyDailyHelping, because the happiest people are those that help others.