What's The BEST Way To Avoid BURNOUT In 2025 | Cameron Herold

Discover how to reclaim your time, avoid burnout, and fuel your career with purpose in this powerful episode of Let's Talk Clarity. Host Rakesh Mathuria welcomes Cameron Herold, a renowned speaker, author of six best-selling books, and founder of the COO Alliance—the world’s only community for second-in-command leaders. Cameron shares his transformational journey from experiencing burnout while scaling businesses to living life on his terms, including travelling to 76 countries and working remotely as a nomad for over three years.

In this episode, Cameron offers actionable productivity tips, such as setting boundaries, saying no to tasks that drain your energy, and delegating everything except your genius. Learn how to use journaling to gain clarity, create a vivid vision for your life and business, and align your career with your passions. Whether you're a professional feeling stuck or an entrepreneur seeking life fulfilment, this conversation is packed with career guidance and personal growth insights.

Cameron also dives into his unique approach to leadership, the importance of finding your core purpose, and how to build confidence in every aspect of life. If you're ready to ignite your passion, balance your job, and achieve life fulfilment, this episode is for you!

This interview is packed with practical tips and inspiration to help you create a more balanced and successful life.

Contact him on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameronherold/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cameron_herold_cooalliance/
Website - https://cameronherold.com/
COO Alliance - https://cooalliance.com/

YouTube -  @CameronHerold  
Podcast Second in Command -  @secondincommandpodcast  
Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/second-in-command-the-chief-behind-the-chief/id1368800817

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Visit www.letstalkcalrity.com, for any career transformation guidance, productivity issues & life fulfilment.

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Transcript

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That I was never going to get my to do list done. So I realized that I'm never going to catch up. Working nights and working weekends was a lie. And I helped grow them from 2 million in revenue to 106 million in revenue. I was burned out. I was really fried. I need to say no more often than I say yes. Good fences make good neighbors. We think about our phone or our Tesla. We never feel guilty when we plug in our phone or we plug in our Tesla. Why was I feeling guilty about plugging myself in? So, three and a half months to unplug. But I also did one thing that was really transitional or kind of formative for me. Every morning I took a journal and I wrote for 20 minutes a day. I came up with 67 real business lessons that I had learned. Can I stop it or can I automate it? Or can I outsource it or can I delegate it? No one really cares about our business. A friend of mine came up to me one day and she said, cameron, you're really boring. By the way, your spouse really doesn't want to hear about what you do for work. I'll give you a good tip. Yes, both you and your wife should create a vivid vision for your marriage. Vision without execution is hallucination, right? The Thomas Edison quote. If you have a bad day, start again tomorrow. At the end of the day, none of this matters. We're just walking each other home to the point. Like, I got a tattoo on my arm. Napoleon Hill's Think and grow Rich. It talks about conceive, believe and achieve. That's your core purpose, right? So have fun along the journey. If you are successful and still feeling burnout, this episode is for you. We are honored to have Cameron Herold on the show. He's a renowned speaker, author and founder of COO alliance, the world's only community of COOs. He has spoken in 29 countries and seven continents. Yes, including Antarctica. He is the main speaker at Mind Valley events and has a Mind Valley quest on making your own life's vivid vision. He is the author of six best selling books. In this episode, Cameron shared how he transformed his career from burnout to now living his life's vivid vision. Traveling 76 countries and working remotely as a nomad for the last 3.5 years. He shared how one can transform this their career. How one can live the life which one wants after making a vivid vision and how one can gain confidence in any situation. This is one of the most incredible episode of let's Talk Clarity which we Shot in Dubai. So without further ado, let's jump into the career journey of Camera Herald on let's Talk Clarity with Rakesh. Before the start of the episode, let. Me pause for a moment and express. My gratitude towards the audience. I am thankful to everyone who has. Supported us in this journey. Thank you for watching episode after episode and sharing your thoughts in the comments. We are grateful to each and everyone. As you all know, now we are going global and recording podcasts in four countries and seven cities. Completed 100 episodes. Thank you everyone. If you really like this channel and you want us to make it better, please subscribe to our channel and share it in your network. This will help us in growing the. Channel further to more countries and more stories of career transformation and life fulfillment. Also, share in comments whom you want as a guest on let's Talk Clarity podcast. So what are you waiting? Subscribe now and share it with 10 people at least. Thank you. I'm Rakesh Mathuria, your coaching business mentor and host of let's Talk Clarity podcast. Now enjoy the episode. Welcome to let's Talk Clarity podcast and today we are in city Dubai. Yes. So from last a month we are traveling, recording podcast. Singapore, Indonesia and now at Dubai. And for Dubai, I'm very, very humbled and grateful to have Cameron Herald on the show. Welcome Cameron on the show. Thanks, Rakesh. I appreciate it. Pretty funny that you were recording in Singapore and Indonesia because in the last six weeks I've also been in Indonesia and Singapore. So we're definitely traveling the world in the same path. The same path. Yahoo. Wow. So first of all, thanks Cameron for coming on the show. It means a lot to me. I'm deeply grateful and thankful that you spare your time to come for the podcast and to share your career journey and the learnings for my audience. It means a lot to me. And thank you Mindvalley for connecting and bringing us here. Absolutely. Yeah. We're both part of the mindvalley community. I've been a speaker, I did a quest on mindvalley and Vishen Lakhiani has pulled together a fantastic community. So I'm glad that we met there. Thanks for having me. Thank you, sir. Thank you. And actually let's start our podcast with your passion because you have been to founder of the community COO Alliance. So why you are so passionate about CEO second in command. I'm going to start with something else first. Okay. When I was talking to my kids who are 21 and 23, I wanted to make sure that when they described their father and their Father's passions. They didn't start with what I did to make money. Okay. I wanted them to describe my real passions, which are travel and food and friendships and learning and being able to explore and kind of cross off bucket lists. So those are my real passions. Okay. In terms of the passions of what I do to make money, yeah. My passion is definitely the coos. So I have been the second in command for a couple of different companies. Okay. I've also been an entrepreneur for a long time, most of my life. And I've gone to lots of different entrepreneurial events. And. And I just recognized that there was no place for the COO to learn from each other, to share connections with each other, to build friendships with each other. And they needed a safe space. Almost like men need to have a community for men and women need to have a community for women. It kind of is cute when a guy shows up at a baby shower, but we don't really belong there. We need to have our space where we can go and be with men and grow with men and become better men. The coos need that kind of a space too. Wow. That's important. And that's. That's very important because there is no other community in the world for CEO. Right. Everyone is talking about entrepreneurship, CEOs and businessman and lot many things. Mental health. Everyone is having community, but not for CEO. Yeah, but how your passion started to become about CEO. Well, it started I was actually a member of an entrepreneurial group called the Genius Network. And I've been a member of the Genius Network now for about nine years. I was sitting at one of their events and I looked around the room at all of these entrepreneurs and they kept asking me for advice and saying that they were going to talk to their second in command, maybe their COO or their VP of operations, their director of operations. Whoever it was, was their integrator to the visionary. And they wanted to take all my ideas and give it to that person. And I realized that I was almost one degree away from the person I should be talking to, that if I could pull all of the COOs together and work together with them, I would be able to help entrepreneurs make their dreams happen. So my core purpose, my everything I do, helps the entrepreneurs make their visions come true. One of the key ways I can do that is to grow their coo. So that was amazing to share about CEO. And there is no place for CEO. But let me take you back towards your career when you are doing your job and we are learning so many things. But after Getting out of the job and going into the entrepreneur journey. Yeah, there's a different ball game. So how that has happened for you. Yeah, I'll talk to you about the transition. So the last career kind of role that I had, I was the chief operating officer or the CEO for a big brand called 1-800-GOT junk. Okay. And I helped grow them from 2 million in revenue to 106 million in revenue in six years, from 14 employees to 3,100 employees in six years. At the end of that six and a half year period, I was burned out. I was really fried. And this happened May 17th. I left the organization. I decided to give myself until the end of August, three and a half months where I would not take a business call. I wouldn't have a business meeting. I wouldn't meet with any business people. I wouldn't consider a job or another opportunity or an entrepreneurial journey. And I took three and a half months to unplug. I spent time hiking, I spent time with my kids. I spent time golfing. I went to my first Burning Man. I went to festivals. And I just completely disconnected. But I also did one thing that was really transitional or kind of formative for me, and that was every morning, I took a journal and I wrote for 20 minutes a day. Okay? I did mind maps where I just kind of listed out everything I could think about. I made lists of everything that I was really bad at and everything I was really good at. I made lists of everything that gave me energy and everything that drained me of energy. I made lists of every business area that I'd ever kind of supervised or overseen throughout my entire career. I made lists of every project that I'd ever led that I could remember. I made lists of lists of every business lesson that I'd ever listed. I came up with 67 real business lessons that I had learned. Okay? So over this period of three and a half months of me journaling and thinking and listing it all out, it became very, very clear on what I loved and what I didn't like and what drained me of energy. And that's how I decided to do what I was then going to launch to do, was I wanted to avoid anything that drained me. So I started what I called originally the Back pocket coo, okay, Where I was going to be a CEO in the entrepreneur's pocket, and they could pull me out when they needed me. Kind of a fractional CEO before there was such a term. The term fractional CEO didn't really come around until about 10 years ago. So I was really that back pocket CEO or that fractional CEO. And then I knew that I didn't want to show up at meetings if I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to go to an office every day. So I literally designed my first consulting practice, my first coaching practice around giving me the stuff that I love to do and avoiding all the stuff I didn't. And I think it was that three and a half months that set me up for that success. Wow, that was amazing. And now I'm just understanding that how important it is to have a sabbatical. Three and a half months. Yeah. And but here let's talk about the burnout. Sure. Because I could see many of the entrepreneurs who are doing their job, doing very good in their business, making millions, million dollars, but internally they are burned out. So what are the reasons and how one can avoid those? Those are some of the big lessons that I actually then was able to journal about. And the lessons that really kind of sunk in that I wish I'd known while I was scaling 1-800-got-JUNK. And the three companies prior to that, one of the lessons was that I need to say no more often than I say yes. I need to be able to work on my boundaries. And that boundaries, like good fences, make good neighbors. And then I needed to realize that I was never going to get my to do list done. So my to do list, right, if I've got 30 things or 50 things on my to do list, number one is it doesn't have my name on it. It doesn't say Cameron's to do list. So it can be a to do list that I can delegate to other people. It can also be a to do list that I can just say, nope, don't care about it, cross it off the list. And I also realized that once I got that list done, I'd probably add to it anyway. So I realized that I'm never gonna catch up. And working nights and working weekends was a lie that I'd given to myself. So from that point forward, I never worked nights, I never work weekends. I shut Everything down at 5, 30 or 6 o'clock every single day. I don't do calls with clients, I don't do calls with the media, I don't do calls with my employees. I really compartmentalize. And then I don't work on weekends because I know that it's a lie. I use my weekends to recharge my battery. You know, we think about our phone or our Tesla, we never feel Guilty. When we plug in our phone or we plug in our Tesla, why was I feeling guilty about plugging myself in? So those were all lessons that I really had to learn from that entrepreneurial journey. And then, you know, now as an entrepreneur, I'm a much better entrepreneur than I was because of that time. Wow, that was amazing to say the no and to setting the boundaries so that we have a good neighbors. So, but, but let me ask you, so after how many years in the career this happened? So I left 1-800-got junk when I was 42 years old. So I guess 21 years, 20 years of a career. Some that I had been an entrepreneur, some that I had been a partner in companies and then some that I just been a senior employee, like a second in command for a business. But over about that 20 year period. And that's why there were so many good lessons for me over that period of time. Okay, so 42. So last year I also left my job at 43. Now I'm 43, I'm 59. Now I got you beat. So I'm following your paths. Yeah, yeah. So how the transition happened. And so you told me that you went to the hiking three and a half weeks. And then from where you start from the zero, you took a consistency project and from there. But let me ask you, so once you left the job into the consultancy, there is a finance, there's sales and everything has to be there. So how you manage it? Well, again I was looking at the stuff that drained me of energy and the stuff that, that feeds me and the stuff that I'm really good at and the stuff I'm not good at. So I did what I called an activity inventory. Okay. I looked at all of the stuff that I do over the day to day as a, as a thought leader or as a coach or as a consultant or as a fractional COO. And there was a whole bunch of things, maybe 80 things on that list. Right. And then I categorized all the 80 things in one of four ways. Either I for incompetent, meaning I suck at it. C for competent, meaning I'm okay at it. Okay. E for excellent, meaning I'm really, really good at it, but I don't necessarily love to do it. And then U for unique ability, which is the stuff I love to do and I'm really good at. So then what I started to do is I looked at all of those tasks and I said, what's the hourly rate that I could pay someone in Canada or the United States to do all of those projects, right? Project one, project two, what's the hourly rate? And then I looked at what was the hourly rate that I could offshore some of these things. Yes. And then I decided, does it need to get done? Can I stop it or can I automate it, or can I outsource it, or can I delegate it? But how can I get everything off my plate that I'm incompetent or competent at? How can I get everything off my plate that is below my effective hourly rate? So I decided what my hourly rate would be and I delegated everything except that. So what I left myself with is the stuff that feeds me with energy and that I'm really, really good at. I'm really good at coaching, I'm really good at doing speaking, I'm really good at networking, I'm really good at doing media interviews. And then the rest of the stuff, I'm either excellent or incompetent or competent. So really my day, if you look at my calendar, is filled with the stuff I'm good at. And then I try to delegate everything except genius. Wow, that was amazing to have that calendar and take it forward. Yes. So here, let me ask you one more question about this entrepreneurship, because you have been to this from last 17 years. So what are the pitfalls which a new entrepreneur can avoid if someone is starting just like me? I'll give you a big one. And I actually just posted a story, an Instagram story about this today. It's that no one really cares about our business. They care about our passions and our dreams and our insecurities and our fears and our hobbies and our day to day. And if we show up, continually talk about our business, we're kind of boring. So I had a friend of mine come up to me one day and she said, cameron, you're really boring. I'm like, why? And she goes, all you talk about is 1-800-got-JUNK. So the lesson that I had to learn was now when people ask me about business, they might say, what do you do? I know what they mean. They mean, what do you do to make money? Yeah. But I say, oh, I like hiking and I go to festivals and I, I listen to music and I love cooking. And they kind of have this confused look on their face. I go, oh, you mean what do I do to make money? Yeah, I don't talk about that very much. So I really try to focus on the stuff that gives me energy. Okay. And I think it's an important lesson for entrepreneurs to remember is just because we're excited. Our business, no one else is. Just like, no one wants to hear an accountant talk about accounting. Nobody wants to hear a dentist talk about dentistry. Yes. Nobody wants to hear a lawyer talking about being a lawyer. Nobody wants to hear about our business either. Yeah. So that balance, Let me share that. From last three and a half years, I only talk about podcasts. Right. Nobody wants to know. They want to know who Rakesh is. They want to know your passions, they want to know about your travels. What they want to know is what did you see when you were in Indonesia? What did you experience in Indonesia? What was your favorite food in Indonesia? And then when they know like, and trust you, then they might want to know a little bit about what you do to make money, because they just want to know more about you. But if we start with what we're doing as a career, it just kind of makes us boring as humans. So that's a big lesson for people to remember the pitfall. Okay. And there is one big question. Is there? And by the way, your spouse really doesn't want to hear about what you do for work. Right. Your wife or your partner, that's the stuff that they don't want to talk about. They want to hear about everything else. Yeah. They're around you too much. Yeah. So my wife is dentist and she's not into coaching, podcasting, so I don't know what she would like to say when I talk about podcasts. Coaching. Yeah. I'll give you a good tip. Yes. Both you and your wife should create a vivid vision for your marriage. Talk about what you're doing for your bucket list activities, what you're doing for fun, what you're doing for growth, when you spend time with family, what you do for vacations. And write together a four or five page description of your marriage three years from now and spend time focusing on making that come true. Because just like your wife doesn't want to hear about you podcasting and coaching, you don't really want to hear about her cleaning teeth. Yeah. That was amazing, sir. And to share the vivid vision. And so let's talk about the what is vivid vision? And you are having book also on vivid vision and a big mindvalley course also. Yeah. So what is that? The vivid vision is a concept that I learned from an Olympic coach who is a mindset coach about 28 years ago. And he talked to us about how high performance athletes could visualize themselves performing the event. And when they stayed so focused on the vision performing the event, they could complete almost Completely on instinct. So I'll use the analogy of cricket. Let's say that I'm Canadian, I know a little bit about cricket. Not much, but let's say that I'm the bowler and I have to throw the ball and I'm going to try to go for, what's it called, a kbw, Knees before wicket. Right. So I'm going to picture myself throwing the ball as fast as possible and having it bounce and hit the guy below the knees and winning or turning him out. Right. Whatever it's called. Yeah. I'm gonna. I'm gonna think about that and think about that and see it happening. So that when I go running up to throw the ball, I can almost feel myself in the moment. That's what all athletes do, whether they're gymnasts or skiers or hockey players, tennis players, footballers, they all picture themselves performing. If you're building a home, the contractor needs to understand what's in the mind of the homeowner so that they can make the vision of the homeowner's mind come true by creating blueprints and getting the employees to make it come true. So we understand how it works in home building. In the business world, no employees understand what the entrepreneur wants to make their company look like. But if we can describe the meeting rhythms, the culture, the leadership, what customers are saying, what the employees experiences are, if we can describe our entire company, then people can figure out how to make that come true. Almost like if we could describe this podcast location. I couldn't visualize this location until you sent me a photo. When you sent me a photo, I knew exactly what I was walking into. So the vivid vision concept is a way to get your employees to walk into the future with you as the entrepreneur so they can figure out how to reverse engineer it and make it come true for you. Okay, so we can make a document also, we can write it out and we can share with the employees and with my wife also. That's right. Yes, you do. 1. So I actually have three vivid visions. I have one my wife and I wrote for our marriage. I have one for me. Cameron Herald as a human, how I am as a dad, how I am as a partner, how I am as a friend, how I am as a lover, how I am as a human, how I am in my neighborhood. It describes every aspect of me. And then I have one for my company, right? A five page description of what my company looks like, acts like, and feels like in the future. So, yeah, the book Vivid Vision covers it. I also co authored the book called the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs with Hal Elrod. I did the Vivid Vision course on Mindvalley or the Quest and then I even did a TedX talk called you'd Vision Statement Sucks, which talks about the whole concept too. Hey coaches and want to be coaches. I have a great announcement for you. If you want to start your coaching business or want to level up your coaching business, we are thrilled to announce our formula for building a coaching business through the power of podcasting. It is not just an online course, it's a community of coaches where we meet every week and grow together to build your coaching business along with your podcast. So click the link to attend my webinar podcast made easy for coaches and jump into the clarity 10x community now. Enjoy the episode on let's Talk Clarity. We just touched upon the morning rituals. Yeah, so what is that? Because it before COVID I was getting up at 5am without alarm and everything. I was doing exercise, everything. But during COVID something happened and the numbers, the anxiety and lot many things happened and then it derailed. Yes. And it's been 44 years I have still not able to get that the same frequency. Well start tomorrow. Yeah. So one of the big things I mentioned in the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs was that if you have a bad day, start again tomorrow. Don't worry about perfect. The school system messed us up and said the only good kid is the one that gets perfect and everybody else is not perfect. So it discourages us. So what I would say the morning savers the way that the Miracle Morning starts the S is to start your morning with silence. So tomorrow when you wake up, just lie in bed, listen to the sounds around you, listen to the birds, listen to the traffic, listen to the air conditioning and just settle into the morning. Don't pick up your phone, right. And then I want you to do the A which is your affirmation. Just have a one sentence that you can give to yourself like Rakesh is a fantastic podcast or Rakesh interviews amazing people or Rakesh is a wonderful whatever your morning. So my current one is that I'm very confident in gaining confidence each day I repeat that affirmation currently. Then you can do a visualization. Maybe your visualization is picturing what a podcast interview is going to be like or picturing how your morning run is going to be. Whatever it is, just think of some visualization so that you can then make that come true that day. Your E is for exercise. It doesn't have to be go to the gym for two Hours. It could just be do some burpees, it could be do a few push ups, could be just do some squats, something to get the blood flowing. I prefer to do my exercise more in the middle of the day. So I went to the gym before I came here. But first thing in the morning I just did a couple of squats and a couple of burpees just to get the blood flowing. Right. Then your R is for reading. And that can actually be like reading a book on self help, reading Marie Diamond's book about your home being your vision board. But just give yourself 10 minutes in the morning to read, to grow personally. It can be a fiction book, nonfiction book, self help book, whatever it is. It's a way to ease into your morning. And then the S is for scribing. And that's just journaling. Journaling, right. That can be your 5 minute journal or your gratitude journal. Or it could just be thinking about what you're doing. It could be writing a list. Whatever it is, grab your journal, scribble some stuff down. If you just start your day with that, the morning savers, that's a pretty good start. If you want to add to it, then you can add things like your morning vitamins, your supplements, some lemon juice or apple cider vinegar with water. Maybe finishing your shower with a cold blast of water, maybe getting some palo santo wood and lighting it and smudging your body. Whatever things are that are going to make you feel good. Maybe some meditations, maybe you send a text message to a friend. Whatever you decide become your morning routine. And if you don't have a perfect morning tomorrow, that's okay. Just have a little better one the next day. If you only do four of the six sabers, cool. You only did four. But I think you just have to start again. Yeah. And. And to start tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, that's. And co. Beat ourselves up, right? Covid destroyed a lot of people. So I think it's to give yourself the mental break that it's not you. It was hard. And now we'll start again tomorrow. Wow, that was amazing. And I'll definitely try tomorrow. There you go. No, you can't say try. You're a coach. You know this. As Yoda said, we do or do not, there is no try. So tomorrow you will. I will do. Start. You won't have the perfect day. Just say, tomorrow I will have a better morning than I had today. That's all. That's all. Wow, that's amazing. And here I heard that you talk about confidence and Building confidence, your affirmations. So I could see it is very big question for people. They lack confidence. We all do. Yeah. So how to build this confidence and how to take it further? So one of the things that I, or a couple things That I learned, one is that every single human being is just a 13 year old trapped in an adult body. You're the 13 year old, Rakesh. We have a woman, Joy sitting in the room. Who's the 13 year old, Joy? I have a 13 year old, Cameron. Everybody is the 13 year old trapped in an adult body. So when you remember that, that we're all scared about something, we're all insecure about something, there's not very many people that woke up in the morning and thought wow, I love my body, right? We all went for a dump and we wiped our butt and like we're all just normal human beings walking each other home. So when we remember that, that's number one. Number two is to remember that the school system fundamentally messed us up because it told us that we had to be perfect at everything, which is impossible. So it left the number one. Yeah, it left us feeling bad. What it should have said was what's one thing you love and one thing you're really good at? And just work at getting better at those and don't worry about measuring against perfect. Do you know that today not a single person that is listening has had anyone look at their high school or university report card since they graduated. No one, not a single person or watching this, no one asks you. So no one really cares if you got a 4.2 or a 96% or an A. So why are we starving for perfection and why are we emotionally letting the system beat ourselves up? So that's all I do. Okay. I remember everybody else is scared and hurting too. So what is the first step to start the confidence confidence game? I think it's just that it's the realization that first. Yeah, it's like when you look around the room, everybody else is a little bit more worried about something. She doesn't like her hair. He doesn't like his belly. He doesn't like that he's short. She doesn't like that she's fat. He doesn't like that he sucks at math. She doesn't like that she's scared of speaking. Everybody's scared and worried about something. So we're all kind of even, right? If you remember that we're all just walking each other home. And that's another thing to remember is at the end of the Day, none of this matters. Yeah. This is just what we do to make money. We're just gonna die at the end of this crazy journey that we're so worried and beating ourselves up for. We die. So let's enjoy the journey. Yeah. So that everything means death becomes the leveler for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Right? So why are we taking ourselves so seriously? Why are we so worried? Why are we. You can just kind of breathe and go, okay, I get it now. She's scared. He's worried. He's insecure. I get it. We all are. Okay. And that helps you get over your shit a little bit. It helps me at least get over some of mine. Okay. So here comes the one more question that people start to say. Rejection. No. Or failure. Very deeply into their personal, in, deep into the heart. And so. So how you handle your means, failure, rejection, or whatever means you call it. I work with coaches. I work with coaches around mindset. I work with coaches around skill set. I work with coaches around confidence gaining ideas. I'm constantly doing what I call R and D, which is rip off and duplicate. I take the best ideas from the best people and I just do that. Okay. So if I'm struggling with something, then I find someone to help me with it. If it's a childhood trauma, like my insecurity, based on the fact that when I was in grade 6, 12 years old, the pretty girl didn't pick me. She picked a guy named Dean. That's stuff that I'm still dealing with from 47 years ago. Maybe I get some coaching around my childhood trauma. Okay, Right. Wow. So some of it, you just release. Some of it just like, whatever. I just. I gotta let that go. Let. Let's. Let's go. What next? Yes. So here. Here comes the very beautiful question, because you had talked about coach and mentors and so how to choose mentors? And what are the values we can show? And what are your mentors? Who are your mentors? Yeah. How you chose. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a. I actually spoke about this on the stage at Mind Valley the other day in Dubai. So one of the ways that you think about your mentor is to look at yourself first and say, what are the areas of business I want to get better at? Maybe five areas. What are the areas, personally I'd like to get better at? List those. Almost like if you do a swot analysis on yourself, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What are my opportunities? What are my threats? And if you know yourself, then you can try to find somebody who is strong in those areas or can help you get stronger in those areas. But it's really by thinking about yourself and examining yourself first. So right now, an area that I'm trying to grow at is to build out the sales and marketing for the COO alliance. So I'm working with mentors and coaches around that. I'm working at building out a bit of a coaching program that's a group coaching program. So I'm working with a mentor around that. I'm looking to get more stages that I speak on to audiences over zoom and in person, the in person stuff is more in Asia and the Middle East. So I'm working with not mentors, but people that can help me make those things happen. And then I'm releasing the stuff that I'm just not good at. Right. I don't worry about trying to get good at everything. Yeah. There's stuff that I'll never be good at. I can outsource that. I can delegate that. Wow. That is important that we should all have mentors and just take their advice. And one thing which, which I am also feeling sometimes that it is very difficult to get the time of mentors and it is very difficult to have their attention and how that works. Yeah, it works in a couple ways. One is to respect the time of the person that try. If they're, if you're not paying them for their time, then you can only ask one or two questions and then you need to free them up. Most of the people that you're going to turn to as a mentor have a social media presence. So devour the videos they put out on YouTube. Like I have a YouTube channel, I have a podcast channel. I have six books that I've written. I have an online course. You can devour my content in many, many, many ways with me mentoring you without ever having to speak to you. Right. If you want to pay me to speak to you, to pay me to coach you, that's $80,000 US a year. You can do that. But there's much more affordable ways to still have that mentor. So I think people have to remember that, that the mentor doesn't have to be a face to face discussion all the time. Wow. That's important because it is very difficult to get, sometimes get time and we have to be there and we have to be, be in touch with the mentors also. Yeah. And then I think if you're going to be paying someone for their time, you have to quantify the result that you need from the work that, that they're giving you with. Otherwise you can just be wasting your money paying for a coach or paying for a mentor. The other thing is that you need to actually execute on the advice that you're getting. Just to read a book or go to a conference or get some coaching and not do anything with it. It's about the integration and actually doing the work. And it's the same with vision. Vision without. Or vision without execution is hallucination. Right, The Thomas Edison quote. So I think a lot of people out there don't put the actual effort behind the coaching and the mentoring that they're getting. Wow, that's amazing. And thank you for sharing. It will give a lot of value to me and our audience also. Yeah. So here let's come, let's take it forward the discussion and understand that if, if I ask you, you have been working from last three plus decades and what is your top three learnings for career, working professionals or entrepreneurs? The top three. This is tough. So I'll go quickly off the top of my head. One is to delegate everything except genius. Right. So get the stuff off my plate that I'm not good at and it drains me of energy. Yes. Number two is to remember that my role is to be the chief energizing officer, that if I bring that positive energy, that energy infuses the group and it moves everything forward. And then the third would be. We've heard of the idea of the minimum viable product. Mvp. Mvp. Mine is minimum viable everything. Just get it done and get it out the door. Because momentum creates momentum. I think so often people try to get perfect and perfect slows everything down. So that would be the three that I would go with. Wow, that is super amazing to share and all three means I could easily understand and get it means my mind started rolling. So one more important question because you are running the world's only community of CEO alliance. So, so how you are, you are nurturing, building and how can we guide someone who is just starting to build a community? If you're just starting to build a community. Community. Yeah. Wow. I think it's to really tap into what your clients need or what your members need more than what you want to deliver. That would be number one. Okay. It's about the members. Yeah, yeah. Make it about the members, keep it about the members. So in Canada we had, you know, where the kids would write a letter to Santa Claus right at Christmas time, the kids would write a letter to Santa. Mum would walk you down to the mailbox, you'd put the letter in the mailbox. And six weeks later, you look under the Christmas tree and all these presents magically appear. Santa didn't read your letter. Mommy and Daddy read your letter, and Mommy and daddy just bought you what was on the list. So if you're building a community, ask your members, what do they want? And give them that. That's number one. Number two is give them less the more things that you give them. If you give a kid eight presents, they only play with one, and then they feel like they. They don't use the other seven. So they don't even feel appreciative of the other seven. Yes. Often people that are building a community try to do zoom calls, and they have a Slack channel and they have a book club and they have a podcast and they have giveaways and they have events and they have it like, so people realize, I'm not using all of this stuff, I should stop. But if you give them one thing and you do it really, really well, and they use that one thing, they're going to stay. And then the last thing is you have to create friendships for them. No one's going to leave a group of friends that they have inside of the community. But if they don't have friends, if they don't have connections, sure, they will probably leave your community because they're not in a community at all. They're just in a group that they're paying you to be a part of. Wow. That is important that they have to be some friends also. And it's a core need. It's a core Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right. Is that friendship, safety, and security. It's a core thing. And this I really like that we have to give them less, because if I'm giving more, it will not be that of that much value. Yeah. And then they think, why am I paying for all this stuff that I'm not using? It almost hurts us. Wow. Yes. So. So campfront means you are doing so much, you are traveling, you are from different countries, and then building community, coaching lot, many things. So. So how you are managing your time, how you're balancing everything. The first thing is my wife and I put time in our calendar for the stuff that's important to us. So we put our vacations in, we put cities into our calendar. We want to be spending time in because we're nomads. We've been traveling for the last 40 months, 41 months now, 54 countries. So we put time and things in our calendar that we want to do. Then we put time that we want to be around our friends and our family. And then we block in our bucket list activities, and then we block off things like weekends and after hours, and then we schedule our business around that. What I realize is that I don't need a to do list. I need to put the to do's in my calendar. And I realize I don't have time to do it all, so I delegate more. But it's by starting with the stuff that's important and putting that in the calendar first and then planning everything else around that. But first we have to plan our family, the travel, and so many things. Then the business comes that later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So thank you for sharing that. And means this is. This is one of the my favorite question which I ask on my podcast because while I was also working for last two decades, there was not a fulfillment I was doing. I was taking a lot of promotions, getting good paid. Everything was there, but the fulfillment was not coming. So how to get the fulfillment for a working professional? Number one. Number two, for an entrepreneur, first thing. Is that if you wake up every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, and you're not feeling fulfilled, no one's making you go to that job. No one's making you run that company. We do have a choice, and the choice is to say no and to walk away. So the first part is, if you have doubt, you have no doubt, right? So if you're feeling it, walk away from that. Because you walk away. Then give yourself the time, give yourself the luxury to think, to journal, and try to start working on the stuff that does feed you with energy. That's, I think, the core starting point for people. Wow. And it comes down to making your perfect day, building your perfect day, and then making a career out of that. And also understanding your core purpose. Right. There's a friend of mine, Simon Sinek, who wrote the book start with why Simon used to sleep on my Couch. He's been a board of advisors for us five years before he wrote the book Start with why, he was on our board. So I spent a lot of time with Simon. He helped me understand my core purpose. My core purpose. My why is I like helping entrepreneurs make their vision come true. So everything I do helps entrepreneurs make their vision come true. My books, the speaking that people hired me to do, the coaching, my group coaching, my COO alliance, my invest in your leaders course, it all helps entrepreneurs make their vision come true. So if everything I'm doing is aligned with my core purpose, then I'm not drained of Energy. But if. Let's say you were doing a podcast for accountants, I would have said, no, I don't want to be on your podcast, Rakesh. Yeah. If you were doing a podcast for government workers, I would have said, no, Rakesh, I'm not coming. You couldn't pay me to come on a podcast for government workers because it's not aligned with my core purpose. I've had groups that want me to fly somewhere to speak, and I don't want to go because it's too far away. It takes me away from my wife and my time and my kids, and I'll turn away big checks because it's not aligned with my core purpose. So I think that's important for people is to understand their why, understand their core purpose, and to try to say no with everything that's not aligned with that. That is important. The last one. Here's the last one. My wife and I have started to do this recently. We call it a full body. F. Yes. Full body. The F word. Okay. It's a full body. Yes. Right. If it's not a full body yes, then it's a no. So if somebody says, hey, like last night I was invited to a birthday party. Yeah. Didn't want to go, so I didn't go. Okay. If somebody says, hey, do you want to come to a speaking event? Unless it's like. Like coming to speak at Mind Valley. That was a full yes. Absolutely. Okay. So I came. Wow. That's the decision for me. And it just has. You just know in your core if it's a yes or a no. Okay. And here a very important question which came into my mind also, that how one can find the core purpose. Yeah. I would. I would read Simon Sinek Start with why Book, and I would watch his famous TEDx talk. His TEDx talk about it, too. I would start with that. And from there it will start. It'll. It'll emerge. Okay. It's the stuff that you've always done. It's the stuff that you take for granted because it's so easy. It's the stuff that you would do for free, except you have to pay for food. Right. That's your core purpose. Wow. So we have to start reading the book. Start with why. And so tell us more about your latest book, the Second in Command. Yeah. It's a book that needed to get written. It's a book that helps entrepreneurs and visionaries figure out how to hire kind of the Ying to their yang, the person that can help them make their vision come true. So it teaches you how to recruit, hire onboard, and build an amazing relationship with that COO or that second in command of the CEO. Okay. Okay. So thank you, Cameron, for the podcast. And this is my last question, and this I asked to all my guests. So five years back, I started my coaching journey and I was not having any idea that I'll be having podcasts and I'll reach 200 episode and then I'll record podcasts in different countries. Dubai, Singapore, Indonesia, India. So this is like recording with with you podcast. Sitting here in Dubai is like a miracle moment for me. I call it mdh, Miracle, do happen movement. Of course. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you about what. What will be your miracle do happen moment one or two years down the line? Well, I'll talk about one that did happen recently because we're actually crossing off 150 bucket list items. So we have 150 things that we want to do or try or experience or explore around the world, and we're crossing all those off. Okay. But one of my miracles that did happen was years ago. I had been paid to speak in 29 countries. 29 countries. I'd been paid to speak on every single continent except Antarctica. And I thought, wouldn't it be cool if somebody paid me to speak in Antarctica? So I could say that I'm one of the only speakers in history to ever speak on every single continent. Okay. And I was telling a few friends about it, and one of my friends said, I'm organizing a trip of CEOs to go to Antarctica, February of 2001. Would you like to come? And I said, yes, if I can speak. And he goes, oh, no, you're speaking and I'm paying you to be there. So In February of 2001, I got paid to speak to a group of 65 CEOs in Antarctica. And I crossed off my seventh trip. So miracles do happen. And in the book, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, it talks about, conceive, believe, and achieve. The way that you make miracles happen is by having the vision, sharing the vision with everybody, sharing and then putting the effort behind that vision to make it come true. Okay, thank you for sharing. And I'm taking you to the future also. Okay? What is the MDH movement in 12 years? Because we have talked about past, present, what will be your future. The future MDH movement, it's probably not related to business. It's probably related to, I call it my legacy project, My two boys. Okay? And it's really making sure that I feel like they've both got their footing, that they figured out their career, they figured out financials, they figured out love, that they figure out the confidence to be out of the house. So I think my miracles do happen is taking these two kids who are now 21 and 23, and just making sure that they're. They're off and going. That's kind of what I'm putting all my time and thought behind right now. Wow, that's important. So here, this is my last question. I'll be asking that one advice you can give to entrepreneur, solo entrepreneur, which are just starting out or which are there in the journey after leaving their job they are on entrepreneur journey. One important advice. Yeah, none of this matters, huh? It's that none of this matters. We're just walking each other home to the point. Like, I got a tattoo on my arm that talks about we're lighting each other up, walking each other home. It's the Ram Dass quote that at the end of the day, I think if we're so focused on building our business, we lose sight of the fact that we are just walking each other home. Right. So have fun along the journey. Light each other up along the journey and build your business at the same time. Wow, that's amazing and so powerful. And so this is the end of my podcast. And, Cameron, thank you so much for coming on the show, sparing our time for this podcast. It means a lot to me. I'm truly grateful and thankful to you. You're so welcome. Mukash, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank.