353. Taking Responsibility, Taking Control | How to Succeed with Steve Nudelberg

 

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Steve Nudelberg:

You're responsible for creating your own awareness. And if you learn how to do that, your life will change and everybody around you will know.

 

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 into this episode of the Daily Helping Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. And I absolutely love our guest today. I know you will, too. Welcome to the show, Steve Nudelberg. He is a best selling author, expert sales trainer, business development guru, keynote speaker, and serial entrepreneur. His core philosophy is to ignite individuals and teams by enhancing their awareness about small yet powerful changes they can make to instantly sharpen individual performance centered around the process, the art of building relationships, and pipeline development. We're only scratching the surface. We're going to have so much fun today.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

Blah, blah, blah.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

I know, right? But this is great stuff. Steve, welcome to The Daily Helping, and it's awesome to have you with us today.

Steve Nudelberg:

Thank you, Doc. It is a pleasure and honor. I love your platform, I love what you stand for, so anytime I get to mix it up with somebody like you, a firm believer that iron sharpens iron. So, we'll see what comes out of this one. It should be fun.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

It should be fun. And a fellow purple shirt enthusiast for those of you listening to this.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

Incredible. Random. Totally random.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Well, Steve, there's so much we can talk about, but I want to jump back in time in the Steve Nudelberg time machine if there was an event or a series of events that puts you on the path you're on today.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

Yeah. So, great start. I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My grandfather and my dad, we're in the fashion ladies shoe business. So, I listened and watched. I'm a big believer in observational learning. I was there. I watched it. I saw what they did and who they did it with so I was hooked on the people side. That from that learning, I was destined to do my own thing or bet on myself.

 

And so, for me, I went to college, but, you know, I was really more of a social guy in college than a student. So, where I wound up was this thing called entrepreneurship, which is really funny, because when I grew up, that word was really not used. Now, it's the Shark Tank and all that stuff. But, fundamentally, if you have ideas and you're willing to deal with the risk of taking those ideas to market and those ideas benefit other people, it's a really cool roadmap.

 

And I've been fortunate to have a couple of real successful wins in my career. What people generally don't pay attention to is the laundry list of failures. And so, I'm fortunate now that I've had multiple businesses. My sons, 37 and 26 now, run the day-to-day for our company, which is called On The Ball. And it's a training and development company, so we're all about sharing our experience with other people to make them better. So, it really comes full circle. I guess my dad's the proudest of all, because now he's seeing it generationally.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

That's awesome. And we're not going to dive into the ladies fashion footwear, but you did say something I want to circle back to. You talked about failure, and we did chat about this a little bit offline, there is a fundamental difference in the way that people see failure, so let's spend some time there based on your experience.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

I think from the get-go, people are programmed to think that failure is bad. Failure is actually a product of trying and that's where all the lessons are. So, really, it's conditioning yourself to be risk happy. I was not afraid of failure because I knew I would learn and just continue to do it.

 

There's actually a term that I love to use, it's called the tolerance for ambiguity. I didn't need the security of a paycheck and having someone else control me. I was willing to Mississippi gambler, put it all on the line, and go I'm betting on myself. And if it works out, great. If not, I'll figure out why it didn't work and do it again. So, that's a unique philosophy in life.

 

I was fortunate to instill that in my sons who were both college football coaches prior to joining the world that we're in. And my son basically wrote a book called Family, Football, and Failure. And the idea that you're in football, you're going to win or lose. That's not a testament of your worth. Failing is not bad.

 

And I always freak people out when I give them this stat. A-Rod, who everybody generally knows, number five all time in strikeouts. Total failure. Oh, my God. It's like the worst thing that could happen to you. But he's also number five at homeruns. So, you got to understand the power of failure, because without failure, it doesn't put you in a position to win.

Dr. Richard Shuster:

To use another baseball quote that I had heard many years ago, Richard Nixon, who obviously had some problems, said something pretty interesting about how politics is a lot like baseball, in that, if you are successful three out of every ten times in baseball, you're an all-star. So, you fail seven out of ten times. So, it's just the way that you look at failure.

 

And you said something interesting, you know, the tolerance for ambiguity. Not everybody listening to this as an entrepreneur, talk to us about, from your perspective and your experience, how we can use failure in our relationships. If we have a day job, how we can use failure in that job to really optimize those things.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

So, I'm a big mindset guy. I think 90 percent of success in life happens upstairs before you actually get to whatever it is you do. And so, preparing yourself creates confidence. Confidence creates action. Boom, you get into it. But ultimately controlling the controllables, I don't control the outcome. I can only control my preparation and my ability to show up. 

 

And so, all of our energy, and this is a lot in our philosophy of how we teach people, is creating the right behaviors, how much you sleep, how much you eat, how much water you drink, all of the things that you can't control in mind, body, spirit, energy, daily behaviors. I learned early on that what you put in comes out. And so, those are decisions that I suggest people become the CEO of their own life. Manage life decisions as if you were running a company with thousands of employees. Big decisions, take those decisions seriously, invest in the right behaviors.

 

A great book, Atomic Habits, which I was fortunate to speak on a stage with James Clear, it's just an amazing portrayal of compounding the right behaviors. People understand compounding money, put a dollar in, it earns, it earns, it earns. It's the same thing with behavior. Discipline and consistency and the right behaviors produces outcomes. I think most of the world is focused on outcomes, which creates fear and doubt. And I have no control of that. I'm going to make sure I do everything I can to put myself in a position to win personally. And those are withdrawals and deposits.

Those are doing the right thing for the people around me. It's listening actively. All of those things matter.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

It's so interesting, you said something that really kind of piqued my interest, approach life as if you're a CEO. So, when you think about the different areas where we have to play, we are a spouse or a significant other, we may be a parent, we may be an employee or an employer, but it's interesting because when you look at it from the standpoint of, essentially, an organizational leader, it pulls a lot of the emotions out of it as well. Like, if you view your child's academic success through the lens of a CEO, you're almost saying, "Okay. This is my employee that I have to develop. And what are the strategies and behaviors that I need to engage in to maximize that individual success?" It's such a radical change of viewpoint.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

Where you took that conversation was what you can control is what you teach your kids to do every day. Go to sleep early. Not just go to bed because I told you. Here's why I want you to go to bed, because if you get the right night sleep, you'll be better in the morning. You'll outperform others who are not putting the right foods in your system.

 

You know, I know in the business world a lot of people talk about, "Oh, it's Tuesday. It's taco Tuesday and we're going to lunch." Lunch generally is a place where people's blood sugar tanks and they have a hard time making it through the afternoon. So, those are things that CEOs pay attention to in the business world. You can do that in your personal life. Take full responsibility. Be totally aware of the decisions you're making and that will affect the outcomes. And so, I think just people get caught up in, you know, the situational side of, "Oh, this happened to me." No. You created it.

 

And being an entrepreneur since I'm 18 years old, understanding the relationship with failure, that it was a gift, like, "Okay. I really believe this, but this is what happened." Instead of saying, "Well, me and look at all the blame," I took responsibility and said, "I missed that.

Here's something we can do better the next time."

 

And to your point, I have not been successful in all of my endeavors. It only takes a couple to make it really change your life. And part of that is who you hang out with. Like I'm thrilled that we got introduced because, again, going back to the top of the conversation, iron sharpens iron. If you're around the right people who are aspiring to do the right things, that brings you up. And so, you can definitely tell the most successful people are the ones hanging out with people more successful than them.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

There's a couple of things you said there that I think are really important to highlight.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

By the way, just for the record, I think everything I say is worth a note.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

I want to talk about one first. You mentioned who we hang out with, and so there's always, you know, the famed Jim Rohn quote that everybody says on every personal development show, it's who you hang out with.

 

Here's the thing, people don't often realize that this is a below the surface thing. We have these things in our brains called mirror neurons. And the analogy that I like to use is, if you went on a New York subway - so I know this is an analogy you'll understand - and you're looking around, like, how friendly are people are going to be. They've got this angry subway face. Nobody's talking to anybody.

 

Take those same angry people and put them in a Yankee stadium wearing Yankees caps. If A-Rod back in the day hit one of those game winning home run, high fiving, hugging. 

 

Steve Nudelberg:

You're high fiving.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

What our mirror neurons are doing are constantly scanning our environment for sameness. So, if you are conscious about who you have in your environment, your brain is doing things behind the scenes to say, "Okay. I want to hang out with successful people." Your brain understands that and that creates essentially homeostasis. Your brain is normal, which the body and the brain are always trying to get back to normal, is successful people. If you're hanging out with people that are constantly complaining, whether it's about whatever they're seeing on the news or what they're seeing in politics or their jobs, and you aspire to be radically different, your journey is going to be much harder. It's like if you want to quit smoking but all you do is hang out with smokers, you're not going to be successful quitting smoking. So, I love that you said that and it made me very happy to talk about that.

 

The other thing that you have talked about in different ways throughout this chat together is you discussed the concept of internal versus external locus of control. And the best way that I can make an analogy for this is, if you took a piece of paper and you put a dot in the middle and you draw a little circle and then you draw a big circle around that. The little circle is everything that is in your power to control, what you put into your body, like you said, who you hang out with, how you approach your daily life, habits, routine, strategies, everything else, the weather, the stock market, geopolitical conflict, all this other stuff you have no control over.

 

So, scientists have looked at this for decades, and it doesn't matter what country you're in, this has been done over decades, across genders, across ethnicities, the data is very clear. Those that have an internal locus of control who believe that they have some ownership over their life are significantly happier and have lower instances of anxiety and depression than those that believe things are happening to them.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

First of all, I love when you match the science. Obviously, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. But I am a student in the game and I paid attention to how other people made me feel. So, the people that were negative or doubting me, which is what happens, and it could be your own family, which is tragic, we call those energy vampires. They suck the blood right out of you in five minutes and you know it. And unless you build the wall that says I'm not going to allow you to do that to me, your life infinitely gets better when you cut that weight.

 

So, I learned early in my life that I wanted to do things that I didn't need validation from other people. So, my internal clock said I see something, maybe that's my gift. I see it. You don't. I'm willing to take all my mind energy, boom, put it behind without risk of I failed. I don't care. I wanted to try it. So, again, that's where all of that worked for me.

 

So, when you match the science to it, and I hear you say it, it mirrors, like for me, early on as I entered the business world, I would meet people and my inclination was not to sell them. My inclination was to learn from them. I like what they're doing and how they're doing it and I asked, "Hey, buddy. That's amazing, man. Would you mind sharing?" And they will always would. And now I'm 64 years old and I do this for people. When they ask, I'm thrilled. I want to send the elevator back down to where I was, where I was just a sponge.

 

I was like, "Yeah. I want to listen and learn." And Scott, who introduced us. Scott came to me. He's my nephew. But he said, "Uncle Steven, boom, you're doing it. I want to learn from somebody who's doing." So, the idea that you can learn from everybody or let go of people that don't believe in you, don't support you, to your point, so you can build your own tribe. It's difficult. You have to have the discipline to do that.

 

But I loved your Yankee analogy because people walk down the street total strangers. They're wearing a college hat, boom, roll tide, Go, Gators, hook them all. There's instant bonding that happens every day. Philosophically, that's how we teach people to grow their business, to find commonality first, not walking with a hat "I'm the VP of sales for this company and we're the greatest thing you've ever seen. And we can solve every problem you have."

 

I mean, we don't do that. We meet and greet where people are. And in getting to know them, if there's a problem that they have that we can solve, that's an opportunity. It's not a sale. So, the world has shifted, finally. The pandemic, I think, made it accelerate. But people got to build relationships and they can build them virtually. You and I have never physically been in the same room, but yet here we are. We've had a really, really fantastic dialogue. We're taking that dialogue to this where we can share it with people. And somewhere, like I'm going to share your event that you're doing in Boca on my show, and that at some point you'll do my show as well, I mean, all of this stuff is long before the transaction happened.

 

And so, again, mindset, what are people looking for? And I think that's where people, their mindset dictates the size of the debt of the windshield. It's like the world's your oyster. You can do anything you want if you're willing to learn it and hang around people who are doing it.

 

Jesse Itzler, who's a guy that lives in Atlanta and is a friend of mine, he shared with me early on, he said, "Dude, you are one introduction away from changing the trajectory of your whole life." And I was like, "Dude, that's brilliant." Because then it's just an introduction game. You got to keep meeting people because you don't know which is that one. And I think people who live in a fixed mindset, which I'm sure you've read Carol Dweck in the book Mindset, you either have a growth or a fixed. I see things as everything's an opportunity. Other people go, "Well, I can't do that because I'm not good at math or I'm not a people person." I hear that all the time. I go, "What does that mean?" You're a person. I'm a person.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

We're all people, people.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

We're all people, people.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Well, I think you said something very important and I want to go back to it. And I experienced it as well. I went to school and became a psychologist. I went to school with other people who had pretty much this goal, this common goal, "Hey. I'm going to graduate. I'm going to get licensed. And I'm going to open a therapy shop," or whatever they do. And so, when I started expressing to my peers "I think I could really have a big impact in the world. I'm going to start a podcast. I'm going to start a technology company that does X."

 

Steve Nudelberg:

Why would you do that and I can't? You can't do that.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Same. People told me it's crazy, that's stupid, that would never work. And so, I think you're right, but in order to have the space, both in terms of time, but energetically to allow these new relationships in, you do have to get rid of the people who aren't serving you. And it's not like you send them your fired letter. You don't have to be a jerk about it. But I mean, there are people who were in my wedding party that I had to let go because they did not support me in what I wanted to do or just have this kind of wrong mindset.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

So, when did you get married? You got married in your 20s?

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

I got married almost 15 years ago.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

Okay. So, to think that you would be the same person 15 years later is the problem with the whole conversation. Because some people get stuck. They're the same person 15 years ago. That's not my fault. I'm a completely different person at 64.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

I am too.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

I'm at a different stage of my life. I have different wants. I view the world very differently. The whole grind mentality. My son, who is the president of the company, he's 37, he's got two kids. FOE, Family Over Everything, making different decisions that I made it 37 when it was like animal. Man, just rape and go and do it. So, it's changed. And there are some people that get stuck and that's not your responsibility.

 

So, when you understand that, and it's the same thing with learning, you could be anything you want in this world. I ask people a lot of times when I'm on stage, I'll go, "Does anybody here own a library?" And everybody looks at me like, "No, man. Library? What are you talking about?" I go, "So, you're all carrying a phone, right? Ask the phone any question? It's a library. You don't physically need to go." If you want to become a brain surgeon, you can learn it from Google. Take your 10,000 hours, nobody's willing to do that, but you could do it.

 

So, self-responsibility, what responsibility do I take in my future, in my growth, in my situational awareness? Where am I? Where am I putting myself?

It's all in your control. And most people just are not willing to take the responsibility. They'd rather blame somebody else, they didn't promote me or they didn't do this. I hear this in a lot of the consulting I do, "When I become vice-president of sales, here's what I'm going to do." Like, "Why don't you just do it now and you'll become the vice-president of sales. So, why would you wait if you can do it and do it better than anybody?" "Oh. No, they're not paying me for it." It's not about the money.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

So well said. As expected, our time together has flown by. But I would be remiss if I didn't mention your podcast. You're on The Daily Helping, it just so happens you've got The Daily Huddle. So, talk to us about your show.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

Thanks. Yeah. So, for all the years I've been in business, we had a daily huddle. We didn't have these social media tools and podcasts to do back then, but it was important that we connected first thing in the morning to change the flow of the day. You could tell when somebody was off, something was not right. And we would do it either in person, or as our businesses scaled, we did it by phone and then video conference. But we always had a daily huddle. It was a way to check in. What's going on? What's the problem? What needs to be taken care of? What birthdays? Whatever it was, but it was always a short burst of energy to influence the day ahead.

 

Well, when my coaching business, which I never thought of myself as a coach, I just helped people, now all of a sudden people started asking. Anyway, I decided to bring that mentality to the social media world.

And it just so happened that when the pandemic hit, we were overwhelmed with people saying, "What are we going to do?" "Dude, I have no idea. I'm lost." So, I said to my son at the time, "We got to do something. Let's take what I did for years, this daily huddle." And by the way, when he was a coach, me and him spoke every morning. So, he would lay something on me, I'd give him the benefit of my wisdom, or vice versa.

 

So, anyway, we started doing it. It was on Facebook and we brought it to LinkedIn Live. Now we do it every single day. It's been years. It's called The Nudelberg Daily Huddle. There are different hosts and different guests now. So, the show is really matured and it's a really orchestrated show of music, entertainment, and learning kind of meshed in together. So, it always have things for people to learn. We bring on guests every Friday, which, hopefully, one day you will do what we call The Huddler In The Hot Seat. And just like you're doing with me, we bring on other people to share their experiences, but it's very interactive.

 

There's obviously the loyal followers and the numbers get insane. You know, when you do something that people really like, they share it in their audiences. And so, it's been a wonderful tool. We wear shirts in the airport and people go, "Oh, I watch your show." So, it's 7:58 every morning, Monday through Friday. We go until 8:21. And people ask why not 8:00 to 8:20? Because every meeting I ever created, I always did it at an off time so that there's no reason to forget it.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Ted Turner did that intentionally where he would start shows at 6:05 on TBS.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

I did not know that. I did not know that.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

He did that very thing intentionally, because it would be something that would stand out in the T.V. guide as different.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

7:58 is when we start. And it's very interactive, people can jump in and give comments and we always shout them out. And we entertain that dialogue while we do it because we do it live.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

I love it. Steve, this has been a treat. I knew that it would be. Our time has flown by, but as you know, I wrap up every episode by asking my guest a single question, that is, what is your biggest helping? That one most important piece of information that you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our conversation today.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

So, as I said, the world has changed. Many, many years ago when my company was involved in sports and sports marketing, I had the opportunity to work with Pat Riley, and he said something to me then which has stayed with me, the only thing in life you can count on is change so you better learn to embrace it.

 

And the biggest shift in the business world, although there's many, is that you are the product, you are the brand, and we now have tools to allow you to market you. Because one of the questions I ask people is When was the last time you bought or entertained an opportunity with somebody you didn't like? If you and I met and we didn't like each other, there's no shot I'm on this show. So, the challenge in this new economy is to market yourself. You're responsible for creating your own awareness. And if you learn how to do that, your life will change and everybody around you will know.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Beautifully said. Steve, tell us where people can learn more about you and check out the show.

 

Steve Nudelberg:

I was blessed with a really cool last name, it's Nudelberg. So, if you look anywhere on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, you will find On The Ball which is the name of my company, you will find Steve Nudelberg which is me, Mark Nudelberg or Jake Nudelberg. And we are all very active in social media. We put out a lot of helpful content. And the way that we engage with people is in a virtual coffee, 15 minutes, we get to know each other, good things happen, or they don't, which is great.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

Awesome. And for those of you in the car, we got you covered. Everything Steve Nudelberg will be in the show notes at drrichardshuster.com. Well, this was amazing. I knew it would be. Steve, I'm so grateful you came on today and shared your wisdom with us. What a blast it was.

Steve Nudelberg:

Thank you, sir.

 

Dr. Richard Shuster:

You got it. And to each and every one of you who took time out of your day to listen to this, thank you as well. If you liked it, if you learned something, if you're going to go check out that Daily Huddle, and I hope you do, go give us a follow and a five star review on your podcast app of choice, because that is what helps other people find this 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.