203: Cultivating Sponsors, Developing Fearlessness, and Living Brilliantly with Simon Bailey

Pete Mockaitis
Simon, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Simon T. Bailey
Thank you so much for having me. Good to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into this conversation. I was really struck in your bio just by how much speaking you’ve done. It must be a huge number of gigs a year. How many trips is that?

Simon T. Bailey
We do about 175 days a year, speak about 100 times a year somewhere in the world, so never a dull moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s wild. I love it when speakers get together. It’s been my experience there’s often the sharing of travel tales and woes and hilarious hijinx. Could you share one of your favorite stories of travel with us?

Simon T. Bailey
Oh, my goodness. It just happened a couple of weeks ago. So I was in Boston’s Logan Airport, and my flight had been delayed because of weather. So there was another flight leaving on another airline in another terminal, and I raced all the way over there, and my assistant booked me, got there only to find out the flight was delayed. So they said, in fact, it was so delayed it probably wouldn’t be leaving Boston. So I said, “I got to get to Orlando because I had an engagement the next day.”

So I booked another ticket to a flight on Tampa, could rent a car and drive to Orlando and get in time for my gig. Well, needless to say, I ended up not making either flight and had to call a buddy of mine who lived in Orlando and asked him if he could fill in for me to do the engagement. And he was a trouper, he did it, the client loved him, and it worked out in the end. But, needless to say, I spent the night in Logan Airport.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, man. So how did you settle yourself? Did you have a little nook that you found? Or what was the strategy?

Simon T. Bailey
You know what? I did. It was just like 2:00 o’clock in the morning when it was all said and done, so I just found me a little palette on the floor and just crashed and called it a day, and that was it. There was nothing I can do.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it sounds like you’re in a good spirits. And I love your laugh and just, I don’t know, the mood or attitude that comes through your voice. Really, your headshot, is one of my favorite I’ve ever seen.

Simon T. Bailey
Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
So be sure to check out the show notes, listeners, so you can see that. Sometimes I’ll just drop into a Skype chat conversation with my wife, like, “Hey, is he coming? Because he just makes me smile.”

Simon T. Bailey
That’s funny.

Pete Mockaitis
You use the phrase “brilliant living,” it sounds like that’s a key philosophy of yours, and you got a book with the same title. What do you mean by that?

Simon T. Bailey
Brilliant living is deciding that you’re going to take control of the steering wheel of your future and drive into it. Instead of the backseat passengers of doubt, fear, uncertainty controlling you, you’re going to control and you’re going to take charge of your future. That’s brilliant living in a nutshell.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds inspiring. I dig it. And one way that you’re applying that in some of the things that you’re teaching is, where I bumped into you, is originally through Lynda.com, talking about taking the steering wheel of your career. And one way you do that is by finding a sponsor.

Simon T. Bailey
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
So could you orient us, first and foremost, what’s sponsorship all about?

Simon T. Bailey
Sponsorship is finding a person that will wear your brand T-shirt inside of a company unbeknownst to you. In other words, they are promoting you even when you don’t know about it. And then all of a sudden you’ll get the tap on the shoulder, you’ll get the invitation to take the next step in your career, and it’s because of that sponsor who uses their influence to help advance your career.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that sounds awesome. I think we’d all love some more of that. And so then, when we talk about sponsorship, I think a lot of times folks think about, “I need to find or develop a relationship with my sponsor, or sponsors.” But you’re saying you don’t even know it’s happening.

Simon T. Bailey
You don’t even know it’s happening, and I should probably give a very clear distinction between a mentor and a sponsor.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Simon T. Bailey
A mentor is a person who will tell you what they have done to move their career forward. A sponsor, he or she, is not looking to have coffee with you, a chew and chat, be your best bud. They just believe in your work, and they just want to help you get ahead, and they don’t want anything in return. And that’s a very clear distinction that that sponsor, he or she, will take it upon themselves to say, “I want to help this person because it’s the right thing to do.” Whereas a mentor wants to kind of say, “Back in the day when I was in your shoes here’s what I did.” And that is very important that serves a place but there’s a total different distinction between the two.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So that’s very helpful. And so then, I guess my next question is, well, that sounds very great. We’d love to have more of those people in our corner saying great things about us when those influence opportunities are there. So how can we get more of that going on?

Simon T. Bailey
Yeah, so I think, first of all, start with raising your hand to take on the ugly babies. Take on the projects that nobody else wants to do, the projects that everyone has walked away from, that’s number one. Number two, whenever you are a part of a project team or working on something with a team, be there before time. All meetings start 15 minutes in advance. I know that in some cultures it’s the 5-minute grace period everybody kind of comes up late. No. The real meetings starts 15 minutes before. And that’s when you get to find out what other people are doing.

But also if it’s being led by a senior leader, or a director, or somebody in the room, they begin to notice that you’re just a step above the rest that you show up early, you’re engaged, you’re friendly. And you may even say, “Simon, I’m an introvert.” Well, become a socialized introvert. Come out of your shell and connect.

The third thing to really think about is, “What would it be like to go to your boss and ask your boss, ‘What is it that you don’t like doing that I can take off your plate, that I can help you be more successful?’” That in of itself becomes the thing that gets you noticed and becomes your point of differentiation. And your boss, he or she, may mention your name to another peer leader that says, “Hey, if you have an opening, or if you’re thinking about this, have I got somebody on my team that would be a perfect fit.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy, these are so good, so actionable. I’d love to dig into each of these little bits. So when you say raise your hands to take on the ugly babies, it’s interesting. I’m thinking, “Well, the ugly babies are ugly because they’re not pleasant to deal with.” And so I think, at times, like they may even carry a particular risk associated with, “Oh, if you step into that, you have sort of more downside than upside associated with your responsibility versus authority versus probabilities of success.” So that’s one reason why folks don’t care to touch it. But you’re saying, “No. Long term it’s a winning strategy to go there and to take that risk.”

Simon T. Bailey
I’ll give you an example. So when I worked at Disney my first promotion was to take over a department, for lack of a better term, they were the bad news bears, which is an old movie. Nobody wanted the team, and they had been through probably about a half a dozen sales directors in less than 10 years. So when I was tapped on the shoulder to take the opportunity, I said, “Absolutely. I’ll take it.” It was my first leadership role. And can I tell you, and this was the team. They actually kicked butt, took names and made it happen. Because they just needed somebody to believe in them, not somebody looking at what, taking over their department as a stepping stone to the next promotion.

So what I recognized is I just hugged them with my words. I made them feel valued. And they challenged me to become better, and together as a team we were able to over-deliver because they just needed to know that they matter, they needed to know that they could do it, and they needed some feedback on how to get better. They needed some coaching. And so it was a huge learning experience for me. And that got me on the radar screen to be sponsored by other executives for other opportunities inside Disney.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s a great story. And I guess I’m wondering, well, that’s one form of an ugly baby, is that there are folks who are disengaged because no one seems to care about them and the team and their results. And so just giving them some Simon love was enough to kind of get things in a better direction. So can you give us some examples of maybe other ugly reasons why there’s an ugly baby in play and how to survive and thrive in that mix?

Simon T. Bailey
Yeah, so for those who, say, are individual contributors, you’re not necessarily leading a team but you’re responsible for what you have been tasked with every single day. There will be various projects that will come your way, and certainly they came my way, that invited people to share their expertise to move things forward. One of the things, quickly, I learned at Disney is, to get anything done, it was not written in the employee handbook and they didn’t tell me at Disney University.

So, in other words, I got there and all of a sudden I ended up on a team on a special project and I was lost as a goose in a blizzard. I didn’t have a clue. But what I recognized the power of asking questions, number one, showing that you’re curious. Number two, releasing the need to be right but become open to what wants to emerge.

Number three, engaging in a diversity of thinking. So as you begin to engage others, they may not agree with how you see things but as you begin to listen to them you begin to say, “Wait a minute. I haven’t thought about it that way.” You become sharper, they become sharper, all because you didn’t show up to be a yes person to go along to get along. You said, “Wait a minute. What about this?”

And it’s the opposing opinions that I discovered and being on project teams that made me a better thinker that made me say, “You know what? I’m going to take on all the ugly babies I possibly can,” because it’s a learning experience. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about discovering how we make something better.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I dig that. Well, I want to move on to you talked about being in meetings 15 minutes before, and part of that is you just look good, motivated and ambitious when you’re there early. The other part of it is you say, “Hey, the real meeting is happening beforehand. It’s like the small group committed folks who were invested, engaged, curious, having to chat in a more of an informal setting about stuff.” Can you talk more about the dynamics of that zone of time?

Simon T. Bailey
Here’s what I’ve learned over 30 years working in six different companies, 10 different jobs. When the meeting happens, that’s communication. But when you show up before the meeting, it’s about connection. And it’s in the connection where you develop small talk and you get to know people on a personal level as much as they are open to. And it’s in that personal relationship that business is really done.

Nowadays, everybody is like transaction, “Let’s get it done. Let’s move quicker, faster, right. Got to be agile.” We’re hearing all these buzzwords. I’m telling you, relationships are the currency of the future, and relationships are built in the small talk, in the connection where people, in three to seven seconds, decide, know, like and trust, “Do I know you? Do I like you? Do I trust you?” That’s how business is done. Then the meeting happens. And when the meeting is over, it’s about the follow-up,

So after the meeting, when you follow up with that person to say, “When we talked before the meeting you shared this, this and this. Guess what? I just found something out that I think can help you.” It’s using those moments to follow up, so the fortune is in the follow-up that builds the relationship beyond the meeting. So it’s understanding, “How do you connect not just communicate?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, since we’re on the topic, tell us how do you connect? Some folks will say, “Oh, I hate small talk and, oh, I feel so awkward.” So what are your pro tips for navigating that?

Simon T. Bailey
Three ways to connect is find out what makes a person tick. Number two, see where you have commonality. Did you go to the same college? Did you, perhaps, have children the same age? If you don’t have children, what are your hobbies outside of work? What did you do this past weekend? Are you a moviegoer? Do you play golf? What are you into? So what you’re trying to do in that commonality piece is really kind of connect with them on that emotional and personal level.

And the third thing, to find out what is it that has made them successful at the company. What have they been doing for a while? And tap into that. Then ask them, “Oh, you’re in such and such team. Do you know this person? Do you know that person?” Because what you’re trying to do is build a bridge from where they are to where you are to connect.

And the more and more you do that, all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh, yeah, I know that person,” or, “Yes, that person, we worked on this project,” or, “Did you know about this?” So, now, in the conversation it becomes a tennis match – serve-volley, serve-volley – because it’s in building that relationship that allows them to say, “Wow, I know that person better than if I would’ve never showed up early to spend that quality time getting to know people.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s great. Can you dig a little bit deeper into the “what made them successful” part of that? I mean, I’m thinking when it sounds like brownnosing, like, “Oh, so how are you so dreadfully accomplished?” So how do some of those conversations sound and flow?

Simon T. Bailey
Yeah, so I believe the quality of your questions determine the quality of your thinking. One of the things, over the years, that I’ve always done, I will ask people that I admire in a company, “What’s your greatest failure that you’ve had professionally? And what did you learn from that?” So I want to talk about success but I’ll come at it from a different angle and I’ll talk about failure. Because if you get people to talking about failure, they will go into a zone, and granted they’ve got to feel comfortable with you, obviously. So if you’ve done all of the upfront work to build a connection then they’ll say, “You know what? Here’s my failing moment.”

This is very important. If they’re really emotionally intelligent and comfortable in their skin, there are some people that are pompous who are not going to open up and really share. So when that question kind of is met with a Scooby Doo look, “Hmm, you just asked me that question,” go the opposite way, and say, “So, if you had to start all over again, what are two to three things that you would do differently?” It’s asking the same question but it’s softening it so they’re kind of lot like, “Whoa, rat roll.” Okay?

The next thing is ask them when they’ve done their best work. What did they learn in that moment when they’ve produced the best product or been on the best team or have customer feedback? What was happening and what did they learn from that experience? And then the third thing, and this might seem a little bit out of school, but it’s a very important question, is say, “So, for all the years that you’ve been here, what do you want to be remembered for? What do you want people to really say and think about you as a brand inside this business?” And that gets people really thinking because they probably haven’t had that question. And now they’ll see you in a different light as a person who challenges their thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Simon, this is so much good stuff. And so I guess I’m wondering, when you go there, it’s like they need to feel comfortable with you first and you’ve done some small talk. So I guess I’m just wondering sort of what’s the threshold, and I know there’s no algorithm and we’re human beings and we have emotions, everybody is different. But I guess I’m wondering, so these feel like pretty bold questions. I wouldn’t call them intrusive or invasive.

It reminds me of Uncle Topper, by the way. He was episode 100, and so he’s just super friendly and positive and joyful and curious about folks and they love him. They eat it up. But I think many people would feel a little bit of reservation or fear associated with just going here. So could maybe find a bit of encouragement? Like share the good side or say put the risks in perspective for us a little bit here.

Simon T. Bailey
Yes, so one of the things that people can do is to kind of share just a little bit about your backstory. So my backstory that I share with people, when people say, “Why did you leave Disney?” And I’ll say, “Because I did an interview back in 2001, and I told a guy that I wanted to become the number one guy at Disney and he was a journalist at the time and he put it in print.“

So article comes out page 12 for the Business Trend magazine, and my boss calls me in the office, and he’s like, “What the heck were you thinking when you did this interview?” And I said, “Larry, I work at this company whose motto is, ‘If your heart is in your dreams no request is so extreme, so when you wish upon a star it makes no difference who you are.’” Obviously it’s funny today, not funny then.

So now the person that I’m talking to, or if I’m sharing this in an entire room, they are laughing. They’re like, “Oh, my goodness, I cannot believe you made this huge faux pas, this huge open-mouth-insert-foot moment, career suicide,” right? But I say that, now all of a sudden they see me through a lens of, “Wow, he’s just like me. He made a mistake. He picked himself back up and he’s trying to figure it out.”

So now, after I kind of tell just a little bit snippet of how I got to this point, I then engage them, “So tell me about you. Like when have you had that moment?” Because now we’re on the same eye level. We now kind of see eye to eye, and I’m not trying to push myself up and push you down. I, now, want to meet you where you are.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s so good. So, by you making that disclosure first, it sort of says, “Hey, this is safe and it’s okay that we go here,” and you sort of open it up first, so it makes a lot of good sense.

Simon T. Bailey
Totally.

Pete Mockaitis
Well now, Simon, it seems like a lot of the good stuff that you’re sharing seems to come from, my interpretation, of a foundation of just this kind of a positivity, just a real upbeat-ness, that optimism, that you seem to just be a part of you and a real area of strength that comes naturally. So I’d love if you could maybe just take us into your mindset or worldview a little bit because it seems like that is a source of power in terms of you’re empowering people then the bad news bears, they turn around and they become awesome. Or you tackle the ugly babies where others are like, “Ugh, that sounds like a terrible un-fun time.” Because you jump in and you dig it, you enjoy it. So how can we get some of what you’ve got there?

Simon T. Bailey
You know, I think there’s one word that describes me, and that is fearless. And what I mean by that, when I look at my backstory, here I am working a job at Disney, great job, having a ball, but I reached a place where there was a hole in my soul. And though I had success outwardly, inwardly I felt insignificant and felt like there was something missing.

So I put my resume out on the street, got four job offers. And this is back when our country was going on a rock for a second time, corporations were laying off by the hundreds of thousands, and I turned all four jobs down – two vice president offers, a senior director position to go work at Learjet which at a division called Flexjet, the head of all customer care for Learjet office in the world, and an internal movement at Disney. I was 34 at the time.

And I threw caution to the wind, I’m like, “I’m going for it.” So I cashed in my entire 401k with significant Disney stock. My wife, at the time, didn’t work outside the home, our son was four and our daughter was 18 months, and there was no Plan B, okay? So I turned on all these jobs and I got about a three-year runway to figure this out.

And 15 years later, here I am still standing, having a ball, having the time of my life. And, in fact, I just wrote a blog that we just put up on LinkedIn, literally within the last 24 hours, and it’s already got 2,000 views. And it’s entitled “Disney, I Quit!” (5 Reason Why I Fired Myself from Disney). And so I’m fearless. I like have no fear because I was born in the ghetto of Buffalo, New York, my parents dropped me off at Morehouse College.

At the end of my freshman year they called and said, “We don’t have the money to send you back for your sophomore year, nor do we have money to bring you back home to Buffalo, but we do love you.” And I’m from Buffalo, New York. So fearless started at 19 years of age. When I couldn’t get back home. And so, literally, my whole life, over the last 30 years, I’ll be 49 in a few days, has been just about fearless living, like do it. Like, if it doesn’t work, guess what, figure it out.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, okay, and it sounds like it’s a heck of a lot of fun, you know. You said you’re having a ball, the time of your life, and because the fear, I would guess, would just sort of sucks that away.

Simon T. Bailey
Yeah. You know what’s so crazy, so I ventured to go back to school, got my undergrad, got my masters’ degree. But over the last 30 years I’ve experienced failure, and failure has developed this muscle called fearless, and I’ve learned, and I’ve developed this attitude to find the joy in spite of the mistake, in spite of the failure, and not to beat myself up or to beat others up. And now, here’s what I realized, I get through the failure a lot quicker because I understand how to put it in perspective.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I really like this. And I can totally connect when it comes to failure or rejection. Back in the day, in college I had written a book about student leadership, and that’s available if anybody wants it for free, StudentLeadership.com. What I found enriching actually was sending out, old-fashioned style, the query letters to publishers, the one-page, like, “Hey, I got a book. Do you want to know more?”

And just time after time, day after day, receiving rejection letters from publishers actually was a very rewarding experience because it’s like each day I would go to the mail box, maybe one, two, three or four letters that said, “No.” And doing it again and again and again, there’s over a hundred of them, I’ve saved them, it just makes it that point all the more clear and un-miss-able that it’s not really a big deal at all if someone says no.

Simon T. Bailey
Totally. Absolutely, no is a gift. Rejection is a gift because it just invites you to say, “Maybe they’re not the door.” In fact, I got 13 rejection letters from one of my first books that I put out. You know, 13 rejection letters from publishers, “No, no, no, no, no.” So I became acquainted with no really well. And here’s what I discovered, no doesn’t mean no forever. It just means, “No, not now.” And how bad do you want it? Are you going to go at a different angle to get it done? And that’s what I did.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that so much. And I want to talk about finding the joy. You talked about the quality of your thinking is the quality of your questions. I’m thinking that when you’re in the midst of trying to find the joy, you might have some powerful questions to share, if my hunch is correct. Let us know, Simon, because often the questions are poor. Like, “Why does this happen to me? Why am I so bad? Why is everything going wrong?” So tell me, what are the questions you use to find the joy?

Simon T. Bailey
So there’s four questions, and I’m going to add a fifth one here in a moment. But let me give you the four questions that I always come back to. Question number one: “Where have I been?” The “Where have I been?” question is, “How did I get to this point?” Question number two: “Why am I here?” So why am I here at this particular state in time? I had to sue a client not too long ago, and it was a pretty ugly experience.

So when working with my attorney, board of advisor, “How did we get here and why are we here right now?” Right? Then the third question, the most important question: “What can I do?” Because there’s a gravitational pull to be negative and to stay in that negative zone and just to wallow in that, but the “What can I do?” question is the Control-Alt-Delete question that deletes from your heart drive and from your mind drive what you can’t do by saying, “So what can I do?” Right?

And then the fourth question is, “So where am I going?” All right. Those are the four questions that whenever you experience failure, a setback, disappointment, go through those four questions because questions immerse you on a quest, question, to discover an answer that was waiting to emerge.

Then the fifth question is more from an emotional intelligence standpoint is, “What’s right about me?” Because sometimes we beat ourselves up after failure and we’ll say, “You’re so stupid. You’re so dumb. You’re such a big idiot.” Why? Why would you commit verbal judo on yourself, right? So the “What’s right about you?” question is to snap your back, back into place, and say, “Here’s what’s right about me. I’m still a good person. And though I had just an opportunity, not even a problem, an opportunity to learn, how do I now take this and grow from it?”

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Well, thank you, Simon. Well, I just sort of, where the conversation took us, and it’s been a lot of fun. But I want to make sure I tick off one thing I had on my list. In your course you talk about leveraging sponsors’ influence. How do we do that well?

Simon T. Bailey
Wow. So, first of all, once you identify your sponsors, and you see that they’re influential, find a way to contribute by either sending a handwritten note, an email, or have some type of reach out to them where you celebrate what they are doing. And now, I’m not saying kiss up or anything, but I am saying add value.

So one of the things that I did is I ran into an executive on the elevator one day, and I had just read about something that they had accomplished. And I said to him, I said, “Listen, this is amazing. Absolutely awesome!” And he didn’t know me from Adam’s but I knew everything about him. And just in that 30 seconds on the elevator, I said, “Here are three quick things why this is so awesome.” And then all of a sudden, I got a follow-up note from him saying, “Great talking to you on the elevator. Get some time on my calendar with my assistant. I’d like to get to know you better.” And it was amazing.

And then when I met with him face to face, he asked me is there anything he could do to help me, and I said, “Yes. I’m working on this, this and this.” And he says, “Oh, I can help you with that. Let me make a phone call.” But what I recognized, it would’ve never happened if I didn’t take that opportunity on the elevator to connect.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Very good. So you’re just genuinely freely sharing what you think is cool to whomever is a driver behind that in an authentic place.

Simon T. Bailey
Totally. Nobody is going to give you permission to be brilliant. Nobody is going to give you permission and say, “Oh, yeah, go for it.” You have got to take every opportunity as a moment in time to say, “How do I move on this moment right here right now?” Because once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Simon, tell me, is there anything else you really want to make sure to cover before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Simon T. Bailey
Yes, right now everyone that’s listening to us, whether they are working inside an organization, in a business, or perhaps even an entrepreneur, know that we are now in the VUCA environment. And the VUCA environment stands we’re dealing with volatility, uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity. And what every person has to begin to recognize is, “How do I, number one, have a point of view?”

Number two, “How do I stay and operate brilliantly by understanding what you do really, really well and celebrate that?” And then number three, “How do we help the least, the last, and the lost who can do nothing for us?” Because it’s in that paying it forward and helping others, coming from a place of abundance, that allows us, I believe, to thrive in this environment.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Simon T. Bailey
So over to my Willie Jolley used to say years ago, “A setback is the setup for a comeback.” One of my favorite quotes.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. And it has just some rhythm and rhyme to it such that you’ll probably actually remember it when you have a setback.

Simon T. Bailey
Totally. Totally.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite book?

Simon T. Bailey
One of my favorite books that I’m reading right now is a book called Play Bigger. It’s written by four guys out of Silicon Valley, and they have done a deep dive in-depth look at a lot of the companies that we read about and talk about, who are unicorns, “How did they dominate a category? What was the thinking or the mindset that allowed them to go where no person has gone before?” Play Bigger. Phenomenal read.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And how about a favorite tool?

Simon T. Bailey
One of my favorite tools is the Flipboard app that I use on my iPad and on my iPhone. It allows me to basically see hundreds of magazines and newspapers in one setting, and I can personalize it to what I want to reach. Then here’s the beauty, I can also share it with all my friends and followers, and say, “Oh, I just read this article. You got to read this. This is really cool.” One of my favorite tools is the Flipboard app.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And how about a favorite habit?

Simon T. Bailey
You know, probably my favorite habit, and this is going to sound so simple, but I believe it really shows your level of excellence. I get up every single day, and except when I’m traveling, let me have that little disclaimer, but when I’m at home I make up my bed every time I get out of it. And it is that habit of getting, when I get up between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m., that before I do anything I’ll just make up the bed. And just in my mind it kind of conditions me for order and really seeing things in a wholesome way. And then I start my meditation and everything else. But just making my bed, that habit every single day.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And is there a particular nugget or piece that you share that seems to really connect, resonate, getting folks nodding their heads and taking notes?

Simon T. Bailey
So one of the things that I teach all over the world is this formula called 15-7-30-90, and what I encourage everyone that’s listening to us is starting tomorrow morning, get up 15 minutes early. Take the 15 minutes and chunk it down into three five minutes segments. The first five minutes, to mediate or listen to something that just quiets your mind. Second five minutes, read or listen to something that inspires you. The third five minutes, stretch and get aligned with the day, okay?

Fifteen minutes a day creates seven days a week, seven days a week creates 30 days, 30 days creates 90 days. So how did I get to this quarter? What have you done the last 30-60-90? How did you get there? What have you done the last seven days? How did you get there? Fifteen minutes a day to really experience brilliant living. That’s where it starts.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, thank you. And, Simon, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Simon T. Bailey
SimonTBailey.com, and they can use my name and follow me in all social media – LinkedIn, Facebook and certainly Instagram.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Simon T. Bailey
Yes. So here’s a thing I want you to think about, three things. Number one, I want you to take out a sheet of paper, take out your smartphone, set the timer for 30 seconds. And on the sheet of paper, I want you to write down, in 30 seconds, what’s right about you. I want to challenge everyone to do that. Number two, I want you to find somebody in your business, in your company and ask them, “What is it that I can do to help you be more successful?”

It is in extending yourself and coming from a place of abundance where you begin to pay it forward, and someone will do it for you because the whole law of reciprocity, what goes around comes around. Third thing is next time you buy a book, and this is obviously a physical book or it can be an e-book, buy two. Buy one for yourself, but give the other away to someone that you believe could use it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Simon, this has been such a treat, a lot of good vibes. I got a big smile on my face from this exchange, and I just wish you lots of luck and hopefully a stress-free travel and many speaking engagements and great success in all you’re doing.

Simon T. Bailey
Pete, thank you so much for this opportunity to serve you.