104: Be a Baller, Be Bold, and Transform Into Your Best Self with Melissa Krivachek

Robert Plank: Our guest today is Melissa Krivachek, and she has written five books and is a three-time international bestselling author. She's been honored by the National Council of American Executives at the top one percent of U.S. executives in both 2015 and 2016, has been featured on the cover of Evolution Magazine, all kinds of cool stuff. Melissa, welcome to the show.

Melissa Krivachek: Thanks Rob for having me.

Robert Plank: I know literally nothing at all about what it is that you do, so what is it that you do?

Melissa Krivachek: I love helping people not only tap into their passion but monetize it and help them realize, you can have everything you want all at the same time, love, success, happiness, money, and clients.

Robert Plank: That's a big promise. How do you do it?

Melissa Krivachek: Well, you have to focus on one area at a time, so everyone comes to me for sales. The reality is they think they want sales, and they ultimately do want sales. The thing that's holding them back is something in their personal life from keeping them moving towards the direction of whatever their goal might be, if it's more money for the new house, the new car, whatever that is. I'll give you can example. I've got a client in Canada. She had initiated a divorce with her husband. As a result, he committed suicide. Every sales decision she made was based on his approval, except he wasn't alive to give her his approval.

Now after four months of working together, she's made well over a hundred thousand dollars. She's sold all of his assets because she held onto them like they were going to make or break her. She's relaunched both of her companies, and she's traveling the world. Now she doesn't have a home base, which is amazing. I've had clients have all kinds of different problems in their personal life, which carries into their professional life. The thing that they're always trying to solve is how do we get more clients, how do we get more sales, how do we drive revenue.

Robert Plank: You're going after the underlying causes, like a therapist or life coach almost.

Melissa Krivachek: I'm not a therapist. I have a background in clinical psychology and years and years of sales leadership and management experience, like sixteen years. I love sales. I'm super passionate about it and sort of obsessed. At the end of the day, I know every aspect of my own life that I've changed. I've gone from over three hundred pounds to almost a hundred and ninety pounds, dropping from fifty-seven percent body fat to thirty percent and going from having no money, repossessed car, fifty grand in debt, five maxed out credit cards, six days in jail, and being homeless for thirty-six days, to running a multimillion dollar company over the past seven years. All of this has transpired because you have to do it step by step, and you have to find the underlying causes of what's holding you back from obtaining whatever it is that you want.

Robert Plank: Dang. Being in jail, that's pretty scary. How did you get from there to here? What are those steps to fixing all of it?

Melissa Krivachek: Well the first thing is just realize what you need to fix. You have a mountain of debt, don't conquer the entire mountain at one time. Do you have tons of weight that you need to lose, don't try and think that you're going to go to the gym for three hours a day and you're going to lose the weight. Pick one area of your life whether it's sales, health, finances, your relationships, your self-esteem or confidence, and then just focus on that one area and put all your time, effort, energy, resources into the area. Then move onto the next area because every area affects the other areas.

For example, if you have a really shitty sex life or if you have really bad relationships, it's going to affect your sales. If you have a lot of excess weight and you're not drinking water, getting sleep, or taking care of yourself, that's going to affect your sales. Everything affects your sales. At the end of the day, it's like a realization of what problems am I carrying, and how much baggage can I free myself from so I can lighten the amount of work that I have to do be as productive and as effective as possible in people's lives.

Robert Plank: That makes a lot of sense. I know that you're probably this way too sometimes, like I'll have a down day or a down week, and I'll just be like, something's just not working. When I actually think about it, there was something going on that maybe some loose end I hadn't taken care of or some bad relationship or friendship that I just thought I could put off to the side or ignore. It was affecting everything else, and I didn't even realize it.

Melissa Krivachek: Oh a hundred percent. Just like in March, I actually got rid of my best friend. We had been best friends for six years. I got rid of the relationship that I had, which I had for two years. As a result, then I freed myself up from all of the baggage that these guys were carrying. We don't oftentimes realize how much someone else's energy and how much someone else's baggage is affecting us. If you hire people with a lot of baggage, let it known in your organization that you're going to be the one carrying that baggage because you took on the responsibility of hiring those people. The same is true in your personal relationships. The same is true for the people that you go to the gym with, your sex life, everything is dependent on how many problems somebody brings to you and how much of a decision maker and problem solver you are.

Robert Plank: That's a really simple message, but at the same time, even though it's simple, I can't believe sometimes I forget about that or I miss that. When I was a kid when the Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky stuff was going down, that's forever ago, I remember there was someone on the news, someone who was similar to you, some kind of advisor or business booster kind of person. I'll never forget that this person said, "Well, if you have this," like you said, "the baggage or the dangling thread in your life, it's not only going to affect everything else, but the biggest thing it will affect is your creativity." I'll never forget that because I'm thinking out of all the things, sometimes we have a bad attitude, but man, if that makes it so that I can't even do what I need to do in my business, that's really scary. If just this thing that you think is just, like you said, some kind of like vampire type of friend or someone who takes advantage, you think it's something that you can manage, but it just seems like it takes over sometimes.

Melissa Krivachek: Well, it's not only that. You look at the things around you in your life, and the things on your wall, and the things in your office, and your own cars and such. Let me give you an example here. My best friend, like if you walked into her home, you would see tons of stuff everywhere. Her life was not simplified. It was overly complex. If we're going to travel together for a week, she would bring five months worth of stuff. She'd want to accomplish these goals, but she would never be working towards them, only walking away from them because she had all this budding herself down. If you look at the things that are on your wall and the things that are in your office or wherever you are, in the space that you are right now, you realize what you value.

You could be valuing faith or family or friends or your business, or you could be valuing video games and alcohol and great parties on the weekend and just things that don't progress you forward. We have to look at every single area of our life, and the simplest place to start is just look in your closet. Do you have a hundred different options or do you have ten different outfits that could create a hundred different combinations? The same is true for your fridge. Do you have a lot of garbage, pizza, pop, all that kind of stuff, or are you doing greens, proteins, water, and really healthy stuff? What you put in is what you're going to get out. The same is true in your business. If you're doing marketing and sales and all of the different things that go on to run a business and you have no team and no system, it's unfortunate, but you're going to go out of business.

Robert Plank: That makes a lot of sense. It's like if you don't have some kind of system, routine, structure, then it might work for awhile out of luck I guess, but then eventually that's going to burn you out pretty quick.

Melissa Krivachek: Well that's the thing. Everybody thinks that it just takes hard work. It doesn't take hard work because you can only work hard for so long, and you feel like you want to die, kill somebody. It just sucks.

Robert Plank: I'm looking around my office, and I only have a couple of things on my wall. I only have a couple things on my desk. What does that say about me? Does that mean I value simplicity? What's the hidden message?

Melissa Krivachek: For sure, but what are those things?

Robert Plank: On the desk, I just have a phone, day planner, glass of water. That's pretty much it.

Melissa Krivachek: Organization, health, and simplicity, I would say. Is that accurate?

Robert Plank: Yeah, I guess so. I'm not the most healthy person. I don't run twenty miles a day, but I think I do what's important.

Melissa Krivachek: Right. Organization is the day planner, and then the phone obviously is because you value not only having relationships, but I'm going to assume here sales as well because you run a business. You're obligated to that.

Robert Plank: That makes a lot of sense. I'm looking at the books and the things that you have. You have your BOLD!: Helping YOU Unleash the Hero Within. You have your Millionaires & Money. They all look pretty cool. Could you tell us about some of your big ideas, some of the cool things you have to say?

Melissa Krivachek: Yeah. I'll just tell you. I accidentally started writing books. I actually got dumped by a rocket scientist.

Robert Plank: Oh no.

Melissa Krivachek: I poured my heart out on paper. Five months later, that book became an international bestseller. I was like, oh my God, people are actually reading this. By then, I already had a second, and a publisher was knocking down my door for a third. I was like, who writes three books in one year. The reality is I've now, two years in a row, wrote three books. How do you have love, success, and happiness? How do you have clients and make money? You have to make time for all of these things. You have to figure out what you value. You have to simplify your life. You have to know your money. This is one thing in a lot of businesses that they don't know. What is your cost to acquire a client? What is your overhead? How much can you spend on a client based upon how much they're worth to your business? What is your greatest liability? What's your greatest asset? How much is the best guy that's working for you worth to your company?

I really break it down step by step into just basic things that all of us can do, read fifteen minutes a day, drink a little bit more water, go for a mile long walk. These are things that all of us have heard a million times, and yet all of us ignore in one area of our life or another. They're really costing us. They're not only costing us our money, but they're costing us time, effort, and energy. If we look at all of these things collectively, there are areas where we know we need to improve, and yet we fail to improve because we start consuming information at such a rapid pace that we become consumers of information and not appliers of the information. It's not just about knowing the information or having relationships, but it's about actually going out and applying that stuff.

Robert Plank: Like getting out of student mode, right?

Melissa Krivachek: Yeah, you don't need to be a student of life. You need to be a doer in life. You only have one life, so the only way to accomplish whatever it is that you want is to start going out and meeting the people that do what you want to do, have accomplished what you want to accomplish, have what you want to have, live the lifestyle that you want to live, and have built the business that you want to build. Once you create those relationships, you start to have more power of influence. Not just with these particular relationships, but you start to overtake the marketplace, and that increases your value, and obviously your self-confidence. That affects your personal relationships. It affects your money. It affects your body and the way you take care of yourself as well.

Robert Plank: I think that's a pretty good message. It seems like what you've been talking about so far, it seems like the big thing is that everything is pretty connected. Like you said, if your personal life's not doing well, if your sex life is not doing well, if your health isn't doing well, then it'll go and affect your business and vice versa. It seems like I like just how simple you break all this stuff down, and it's all just pretty common sense advice that it seems like a lot of us ignore just because we've got stuck on some kind of path. We let a little bit go, a little bit go, and next thing you know, overweight, money's bad, and all that kind of stuff. It seems like a lot of people are just scattered, I guess. They have a million things going on, stuck researching stuff, having all of these different commitments, having all these things hanging. It seems like all of us need help, don't we?

Melissa Krivachek: We do. The thing is you have to close the circles as quickly as possible. If a bill arrives at your door, you should be able to pay that bill instantaneously so it's not weighing on your mind. If a email arrives, answer the email. If the phone is ringing, answer the phone. If the texts come in, answer the texts, Facebook messages. Also, eliminate the stuff from your phone so you only have certain periods of time during the day to become ultra-productive. I accomplish more in four ninety-minute periods of work time during the day than most people accomplish in the entire month.

The reality is that when I'm on the phone, I'm not answering my emails. When I'm in my emails, I'm not answering the phone. When I'm on Facebook, I'm not doing anything else. I don't have a million windows open with a million opportunities and a million people screaming at me at the same time. I've eliminated all of the apps from my phone, so the only thing that's on my phone is the dial button, the Paypal app, and uber. Everything else is eliminated. I don't have a calendar. I don't have a calculator. I have nothing. The reason for that is I don't want to be distracted by all the things that people put into their lives to get them off track. If you don't think social media or the news or just people in general are distractions, take them away and see how much more time, freedom, and money you make.

Robert Plank: How happier you get without even realizing, right?

Melissa Krivachek: For sure.

Robert Plank: I like that. That's pretty extreme. I know I said I have my phone here, but it's face down on the desk and I hate that when sometimes I'll get in that mode, especially holidays and family functions, I'll realize that I've only looked up from my phone twice this whole evening. I hate being that person. As we're winding this call down, one thing I'm really curious is about is you seem like a really social, friendly, bubbly kind of person, and I'm not. It's taken a lot of just small efforts and small steps to be more social. I'm just a nerdy, computer geek, programmer kind of person. What advice would you tell me going forward just to be more of a networker, social relationship kind of person?

Melissa Krivachek: You don't need to be. That's the thing. You thrive in environments where you don't have to be social, so you use other tools that give you that social interaction but aren't face to face or over the phone, right? You use social media. You use probably ads of some sort or systems.

Robert Plank: Okay, and I do. I guess there isn't anything wrong with me, right?

Melissa Krivachek: No. There's two different types of entrepreneurial personality types. There's the introvert and the extrovert. The introvert is always looking for ways to become an extrovert, and the extrovert is always looking for ways to become an introvert because they think they need to have a balance. In the entrepreneurial personality type, we become very sensitive to everything around us, including the awareness that you just pointed out with I want to become this and I think something is wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with you. It's just how you are and how you operate and how you function and that gives you peak performance. If you want to change that, it's because you want to change. It's not because you have to change because you don't have to.

Robert Plank: I should just use my strengths as strengths and not try to be a person other than who I am, I guess.

Melissa Krivachek: Oh a hundred percent. I just gave somebody that information the other day. They have their girlfriend flying in and I was like, hey, listen. I totally understand, but I really don't think this is going to work based on how I see you interacting. I know that you're going to end up breaking up with this person, and it's unfortunate. However, you're trying to be two different people. You're trying to be the crazy guy that loves going out, loves drinking, loves just having a great time, and then you're trying to be this amazing boyfriend that's totally committed, which you're not, just very restrictive. As creative types, as entrepreneurial personality types, we can't really play these different roles and feel good about ourselves at the same time.

Robert Plank: That makes a lot of sense to me. Be yourself, don't fight it.

Melissa Krivachek: Oh a hundred percent.

Robert Plank: Well, cool. As we're winding this down, what would you say is the number one mistake you're seeing people make in business with their personality, with their daily habits, and all that stuff?

Melissa Krivachek: The number one mistake people make is thinking that they can't do it, like they're not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, educated enough. They don't have enough money, resources, time, talent, effort, energy, all of that. They do. They're just not creative enough. You will always have enough. As Tony Robbins says, "It's not about what resources you have, it's about how resourceful you become." When I started, I had nothing. Seven years later, I have an amazing amount of things that I've been blessed, but only because I never gave up, and only because no one ever told me I could never do it because even if they did, I went ahead and did it anyway.

Robert Plank: Right. You bring up Tony Robbins. I saw some video the other day about that, about overcoming the fear. His message was something like, "You don't have to wait for the fear to be gone to take some action." They can be independent of one another, I guess.

Melissa Krivachek: Yes, indeed. Fear is always going to be there. The greatest people in the world have just walked through the fear. There's a quote that says, "If you're going through hell, go as fast as possible."

Robert Plank: Oh yeah. I love that. I like your message. I like what you have to say. I want everyone to know more about you. Where can they find out about everything that it is you do?

Melissa Krivachek: Well, you can find me at melissakrivachek.com.

Robert Plank: Awesome. You've got to get one of those URL shorteners probably, like melis.sa or something if that exists.

Melissa Krivachek: I have no idea. I used to call my company something else, and then people thought I had two brands, one was a consulting brand and one was just books. After five years, I changed the name of my business to my actually name because there was no confusion then.

Robert Plank: Right.

Melissa Krivachek: It's interesting, like people know who I am. I just walked into the Maserati dealer the other day, and the girl knew exactly who I was. Funny enough, there was a billionaire behind me who paid 574,000 in cash for two Bentleys right off the showroom floor, nobody knew who he was. Not even I knew who he was because he came in in jeans and flip flops, and I was wearing the same thing, but they knew who I was. I was like, well how the hell did this happen?

Robert Plank: That comes full circle there about being congruent with yourself and how some of us try to have a persona that doesn't fit or try to have the duel lives. As soon as you make things simple, strip away the stuff that's not working, magic things happen it seems like. Cool. melissakrivachek.com, and we'll add that to the show notes. Go ahead, right now, and thanks Melissa for being on the show.

Melissa Krivachek: Yeah, you got it. Thanks Rob for having me.

Robert Plank: Any time.