115: Unlock the Gates to Unlimited Success By Finding the Right Business Coach with Kory Livingstone

Robert Plank: My guest today is Kory Livingstone. He's going to be talking to us about finding the right business coach and he seems like a pretty cool guy. He plays piano, does vocals, has a party band, The Fabulous Mercurys, so I can't wait to hear what cool business knowledge he plans on dropping. Welcome to the show, Kory.

Kory Livingstone: Thank you for having me, nice to be here.

Robert Plank: I'm glad to have you here. I really like when people put some or a lot of their personality into the things they have to say as opposed to just people saying I'm a business coach, I'm a turnaround coach and they don't really have much to say. I really like how the things that you have to say you've mixed them and combined them with your musician and the other business stuff you have to say as well.

Kory Livingstone: Yeah, my core is a musician, but don't be fooled, oh, he's only a musician. My book which is Quiet Determination: Unlocking the Gates to Unlimited Success is based on the lessons that I learned while studying music. In order to be successful in music there's a mindset, there's things you have to do in order to be successful in music. Successful in music, successful in life is the theme of the book. These are the lessons that I learned while I was studying music and I apply them to everything I do in life. It's like a hammer. You can use a hammer to hammer in this type of nail, that type of nail, a screwdriver for this, that, all these things. These are the tools that are used in different situations. Whether you're building a house or a swimming pool or a garage or a wall or an addition, they all use the same hammer, the same tool.

Just because you're a musician it doesn't mean the tools you use to be successful to become a musician are not applicable to tools you have to use to be a successful lawyer, a doctor, a mechanic, a maintenance man, it doesn't matter. You have to have certain tools or I should say a mindset to be successful in life, period. What I have discovered when I wrote my book all these tools... Actually, it's a mindset and you've got to have a certain mindset to be successful. Coaching you have to have a mindset to be coached, to be coachable.

All the big businesses, all the big businesses right around the world they work on developing the talent within their own ranks either through seminars, conferences, take a course. This is coaching. It may come across as a seminar, whatever word you want to use, but the bottom-line is that it's coaching. They're trying to promote within their ranks, so they can really do... Everybody has talent. It's potential. Some of us use some of our talent, some of us use a lot of our talent, some of us use very little of our potential talent. It's there, so it's just

a matter of getting it out of you and that's what a coach does.

Robert Plank: That's cool. It seems like there's a lot of parallels and a lot of lessons that you learn from this area of being a musician that you now apply it in other areas is what you're saying.

Kory Livingstone: Exactly, just as I had a music teacher, but really a music coach. Athletes, professional athletes have coaches. That's where a lot of people go wrong and think oh, gee, I'm not an athlete, so how can I have a coach, I don't need a coach. No, coaching goes right across, right across all walks of life, financial, even leadership. There's certain... Coaching is just an amalgamation of a whole bunch of different things; consulting, psychology, leadership, management, training, counseling. Now you don't have... This sounds like gee, in order to be a coach I should be a psychologist or something like that. No. Yes, psychologists are coaches, but you don't have to be a certified psychologist to be a good coach.

Just look at any professional sports team. None of those coaches are what you would say qualified psychiatrists. They have grown up in the game, they've worked in the game, they know how to communicate with other people. They know how to get the best out of you that they can provided that you're coachable. You probably heard that particularly in professional sports. You've heard the phrase oh, so and so's not coachable. He's come in here, he thinks he knows it all. You know what the coach does? He lets so and so ride the bench for a game or two. This is a team sport, we're doing it my way, not your way and if you don't want to learn our system I don't care how... Great, you became number one draft choice and all that stuff, but you're not fitting in, you're going to ride the pine for awhile and then you'll gradually ...

Robert Plank: Put him in his place, take him down a peg or two.

Kory Livingstone: Yeah, down a peg or two. If you're not coachable... You're good, but you're only probably half as good as you're going to be by the time you hit your peak of your career. Young guys come in what 19, 20. They're still wet behind the ears. They've got 5 years of learning to do before they even start getting much better than they are. The time they become veterans... That's why they're veterans because they've been there for awhile and they know their stuff.

Robert Plank: Oh, yeah, and all that reminds me, when I was a kid I played baseball for about three years and then I was in school band for about five years. Year to year if we had a good music instructor that made a huge difference. That wasn't all the difference, but if we had an instructor who just half-assed it and didn't really take things too seriously then that would tank that whole music group for the whole year. If we had someone who knew how to challenge us and who knew how to manage us and who to arrange who where and knew how to get those

diamonds in the rough to come out that made a huge difference.

The other thing that that reminds me of is that on one extreme there were the other kids who the music talent came naturally. The other extreme a lot of them just didn't even care and didn't even try. I think most of us including me were in the middle where we weren't naturally gifted musicians. Just because we put aside, for example, an hour a day to practice because the music coach knew what areas to focus on that helped us all. I see a lot of parallels to what you're saying. Some people just don't try or some people come in with the attitude that they know everything, they've got the whole world figured out. That hurts them as well, so there's the two pieces of it. There's the instructor side, the coach side, and then there's whatever it is that they unlock within you.

Kory Livingstone: Exactly, and you bring up that about having the proper music instructor. There's two types. There's the kind of coach who will say do this, do that, practice page one, practice page two, page three, so on and so forth. They don't really take the time to go in and look at what your strengths are and what they are not and help you develop what your strengths are.

They've got to sit down, look at your strengths, look at your weaknesses and say let's look at... This is what you probably found with a good band teacher. They probably took the time to try and get to know you to see what your strengths were and what your weaknesses... Let's work on this, Robert. I think you should probably try working on that. You're doing this fine. It's just that little bit of communication because you have to connect with people. I'm sure you saw from the people who you've learned from, you learn more so from the people who made or at least tried to make a personal connection with you.

Robert Plank: Oh, yeah, instead of just giving you the same old cookie cutter, boring stuff everyone else does. What you're saying is as it relates to either being a business coach or getting a business coach that if you can find that coach who instead of just giving you the same steps they give to 10 other coaching clients they actually look at your business. They look at what you've done and haven't done and look at your strengths and weaknesses and from all that figure out the best course of action for you to take.

Kory Livingstone: Yeah, a good coach will ask you a lot of questions which again may surprise many of your listeners. I'm supposed to be getting information, aren't I? He's just asking me questions. Yeah, no, he's asking you questions for a purpose because in the end you really have the answers. They're all within you. If you need to find out a certain formula, let's say whatever it is. Obviously, he couldn't... You don't know what the formula is. Let's just say... I'm going to be very, very simple. I need to formulate how to make this certain type of glue let's say. Now the coach just may happen to have that formula. Oh, yeah, I work in glue, I can give you that. That may just be a certain thing or you may ask where I can I find this type of person. The coach may know, but it'd be better for you and even if the coach doesn't have to he'll say where do you think we could go to find this formula for glue, so he's again asking ...

It's all about accountability. You as the coachee must be 110% accountable which means yes, the coach will guide you. Okay, I think you can find that information on this glue recipe on the Internet. Have a look on there and see if you can find it, it should be there. Or they might say I have a contact, you can phone this guy and he might give you some information, but that's going to be a very small portion, 1 or 2%. The job of a coach is to guide you, to ask questions, to find out where you're going, so you'll by answering these questions you will give yourself your own answers. That's what a coach is going to do.

People are surprised that they... You may not have the answers in your own head, but you will know where to go to find the answers. The coach will show you or guide you where to go to find the answers. When all is said and done and you and your coach finally part ways you will have all these abilities. You'll have this awareness of how to solve particular problems, so that's the basic concept or the basic structure of good coaching.

Basically, a coach needs to find out as much as they can about the client in order to coach them, asking questions. They have to maintain communication. They should build a rapport that they really are interested in you. They will help you clarify your own statements maybe about your goal. By this time next year I want to be rich, that's your goal. A coach will ask what do you mean by rich? Lots of money in the bank. What's lots of money in the bank? Give me a figure, $10,000, $1 million. They help you take away these generalities that a lot of people have and get you specific, specific goals. A year from now I'm going to have $1 million in the bank, so that's clarifying that goal and then you go a little bit further.

Each question that the coach asks it helps the coach understand what your real problem is because you may think you have a problem which we're going to call problem A, but after asking a lot of questions the coach will make it clear to you that it's not problem A you have, it's problem B, just giving it another name. It's problem B and C. Problem A, what you think is a problem number A that is not a problem. Because of the questions he's asked he's been able to clarify more.

Then a coach will help you understand exactly what you're doing much better

and encourage you to think much deeper than what you're going because most people when they go to a coach they have a general idea or I would like, I want to, but they haven't got it down in black and white. It's not down in writing. The biggest thing that a coach will do is keep you focused on what you're doing. A coach will again ask you questions that came out of leftfield. A good coach will get a feel where you're going and where your weaknesses, where your strengths are, but he'll ask questions just out of leftfield. It all pertained to what you're doing, of course. You may have an answer for it and you may not. If you do that's great, if you don't there's another area where you have to explore.

The bottom-line of a coach, he keeps you accountable, you are accountable for your success. The coach is going to guide you. It's not going to be done for you. I don't know about you, but, Robert, I've gone to many seminars because we're always learning. It could be... Let's say I've gone to a seminar about giving speech... I'll say keynote speaking, but how to deliver a great keynote speech. They take you... They'll tell you about this and they tell you you have to do this. Let's say there's 25 steps to do a keynote speech and they tell you exactly what they are. Oh, yeah, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that, I can do that. You feel confident in your ability, but what they end up with is this. It's going to take you... This is how they try and scare you. Yeah, it'll take probably you 6 or 7 months to get it done just how we laid it out.

On the other hand, you can get it done for you for a big amount of money. It'll be done in 2 or 3 weeks and there you are, there's your keynote speech. What accountability have you done? You've taken no accountability for that speech. Do you know that speech? No, you're going to memorize it. Do you understand that speech? No, because someone else has written it for you and you've memorized it. Are you living that speech? No, you're just reciting that speech.

Bottom-line, you've taken no accountability and you may or may not believe half the things that are in that talk because it was done for you. Even though it follows the 25 points, but had you taken the time and been accountable and gone through each of the 25 points and built it up you would know exactly what you are talking about. That's what a coach does. You have to do this. A coach is not going to sit down and say here's the template. There you go, off you go. You are still not accountable. This is why a lot of people who have failed dreams... That's why there's a lot of people with failed dreams because they've tried to take the easy way out.

Robert Plank: I like that analogy a lot because it's like you said, there's all kinds of similarities you could connect to, to music, or in business, or in school, or anything. What you're describing there, the wrong way for coaches to go about it is almost like having you memorize just the facts and figures or just how to read music or just know how to hit the right notes and play the right times and things like that. There's no personalization, there's no repetition, there's no course correcting, stuff like that.

Kory Livingstone: Exactly, exactly. You have no skin in the game, no skin in the game whatsoever. Well ...

Robert Plank: Go ahead.

Kory Livingstone: No, go ahead, sorry.

Robert Plank: I was just going to say that makes me think about different mentors I had. I think about one of the favorite mentors I had, I came to him and like you described, I had a lot of big areas where I'm stuck, where I just didn't know what I didn't know, or I didn't know what strategy, or I didn't know if I should keep doing something or stop doing something. There were the little areas I was stuck where he could answer it in a minute or he could answer it by saying go look for this term. I think about when I first got a coach he told me to do just only a handful of things. He told me, for example, to raise my prices. That's one of those things where on my own I never would have knew to do that. It might have even taken me 10 years of just learning new things, doing some trial and error before I came to the person who had the big picture and looked at my business from the outside and just shortcut those 10 years for me.

Kory Livingstone: Yeah, yeah, that's really valuable. As adults see coaches... Adults learn different from children. Adult education... As adults we need to know why, why are we learning this? As kids you go to school and they tell you what you're going to learn. You're going to learn this, this, this, and this. I don't know about you, but the further I got along in school, in high school, I started asking myself what the hell do I need to study Latin for or what do I need to study this for. I want to be this, I want to be this. How does that relate to that? Now it may relate and it may not relate, but no one told me the reason for it. No one told me the reason.

As far as I could see it made no sense, so as an adult you have to know... When a coach is coaching you they'll explain or you'll ask... The coach had realized that you'll need to know why I'm doing this. A coach may say you need a business plan for the next... You need a business plan for the next year. You have to know this, you have to plan out every week, what you're going to do every single week and you may say... They will tell you so that you will not waste your time every day saying what will I do today. Your plan will be there, so it's already been planned. Today it says I must do this, therefore, you've not wasted a lot of time thinking about what can I do because you've already spent that time and you thought about it and it's right there, so you can get right to work and start getting results right away.

That's one example. Now also adults want to learn... They don't want to memorize. We've done our memorizing, we want to do. Task-orientated, give me a task to do. As your coach today I'm telling you to go out and find all of the suppliers that you can for this type of thing or this is what I want you to do. Whatever it happens to be, this is what I want you to do. That's a task. I don't want you to memorize where all of the people live that may be your target market. I don't want you to memorize where they live. I want you to go out and actually make a list, just make it a task. You have to do something. Now as adults... That's why we call ourselves adults because we make our own decisions, don't we?

Robert Plank: Yes.

Kory Livingstone: We like to plan. We don't want somebody telling us what to do. Do this, do that, like bossing. We want to be involved. Let's work on what I have to do, let's be involved, so the coach will get you involved in making decisions. That's why a good coach will not say do this, do that, do the other. Let's say what about you doing this, or have you tried looking at that, or what do you think of this, give me your opinion about this. The coach is guiding you, but expecting you... See this is where the coach is not giving you the answers and guiding you. I like this one here, this looks very good. Good, let's settle on that. The coach has guided you and you've made the decision, you've made the final decision. When we go to school as kids the teacher says do this, do that. You ask why and they say shut up and do it. Because I said, right. This is all part of the adult personality.

Now also another thing about adults when you're coaching them they have to be like I mentioned before coachable which means they're ready, interested in learning. If you're looking for a coach and you're a know it all don't waste your money. Keep going on like you're going and the results you had yesterday or the results you have today will be the results you have tomorrow which usually results again in a failed dream.

Adults also, they like to... This goes back to memorization. They don't want to learn, they want to solve problems. Things that keep us... We have a coach to solve a problem, we have a problem we need solved, so again that's a result. We'd rather solve... That's what we're paid for. Whatever job you do you are paid to solve problems. I'm an accountant, my job is to make sure that the money is accounted for. The boss says I need someone to account for the money. I'm a dentist, there's something wrong with my tooth, solve my problem. I'm a lawyer, I have a problem with... I need somebody sued. I'm a musician. Somebody feels stress, we try and make them feel happy with our music. Every job, the basis of every job is solving a problem and that's what adults like to do. Again ...

Robert Plank: I like that, so that way you're not just overloading someone with a bunch of facts and figures or overloading with the possibilities of all the things that they could do. You're not doing a bunch of stuff for them. Like you said you're the guide, but I think that that just now really hit home with me pretty hard that you're there to solve problems, the big problems, the small problems. Some problems need to be taken care of before the others, but I think that that right there is huge. You're not just there to learn or to teach something, you're knocking out those problems.

Kory Livingstone: You've got it. Garbage in, garbage out, regurgitate. Exactly right, hands on, roll up the sleeves, I got stuff to do. Yeah, you're so right. That's probably the most powerful thing a coach will do. Of course, again the coach is there if you go off track, pull you back on again.

Robert Plank: We're talking about all these things that bad coaches do and good coaches do. Can we relate that as we're winding this down to what it is you do and what makes you special and different?

Kory Livingstone: This is what... I love to direct people. You could call a coach... A coach is a teacher, but I try to change people's mindsets from what they do, what they normally do. My saying is how long are you going to keep doing what you're presently doing and putting off what you're really capable of doing. I like to draw people out and make them what they really can be, all that they can be. I like to look at their dreams because everybody has dreams and that's where I focus on, say tell me your dream and let's talk about your dream. Let's help make that dream... Let me help you make that dream a reality. That's what I drive at. It's great for a lot of young entrepreneurs because I wish I had someone like me in my corner when I was just starting out in business. It makes a lot of difference. It makes so much difference. I've experienced it one time in my life. That was in my music career. You probably don't know them, but they were called The Platters back in the ‘50s, Only You, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, things like that. They were ...

Robert Plank: I've heard Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, but I don't know that band exactly.

Kory Livingstone: They were a vocal group, four guys and one girl, The Platters. Look them up on the Internet, you'll see. One of them was called Ray Carroll and he moved up here to Canada for awhile and he had an agency here, a talent agency, and I met him. I went into his office and asked him if the agency can get me some work, blah, blah, blah. I was a young musician starting out. He hemmed and hawed and he said, okay... He took me out one night and we visited certain entertainment establishments around town. He showed me people... see people that he knew. We're going to go see this guy now and watch what he does. We're going to see this guy.

I learned so much, not about music, but about entertaining from him in a six-hour evening. It blew me away, the things that he pointed out, to see all these different people and what I should do, just that type of thing. He didn't say do this, do that. He just said you see this, you see that, you see that. Then your mind gets to working. I spent about 2 or 3 nights with him and the difference that made. I felt like a pro and I had only been in the business for about 10 months. I know that feeling and I want to pass that along to other people, so that's what I do. With my book, Quiet Determination: Unlocking the Gates to Unlimited Success, I share my mindset, I share the tools that I work with that have made me successful with other people. That's really what I'm all about.

Robert Plank: The way that you described that story it's almost like your friend, he had a lifetime of all these little insights and knowledge that took him however many decades to accumulate. Then he just distilled them down to a few... In any given situation, like you said he just pointed out things he was looking at, things that he was noticing and there's no amount of fact learning that can duplicate that.

Kory Livingstone: A hundred percent.

Robert Plank: Cool.

Kory Livingstone: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. I'll tell you a story, how I got to write this book, the title of this book, Quiet Determination. About 10 years ago I was getting ready for a concert and a venue. It was a do it yourself venue. You had to bring in all your own lights and equipment. All they rented to you was the space. The concert was a Saturday night and I went in there Saturday morning. I set up the PA, I set up the lights, up and down on the ladder hanging curtains and I had a piano coming in and tuned. I had to get refreshments ready to sell at halftime, the CD, all that stuff ready. I gave the concert, it was a great concert and so on and so forth. About 2 weeks later I get this letter in the mail. Actually it was on a post-it, 3 by 3 yellow post- it note and it said, "Dear Kory, I've admired your persistent, quiet determination and attention to details. It's more than talent. It's a mature determination. I could do well to apply the same to my life. May God bless all of your efforts." You know who it was from?

Robert Plank: Who?

Kory Livingstone: The maintenance man of the venue, the custodian.

Robert Plank: That's awesome.

Kory Livingstone: It blew me away, it blew me away. Do well to apply the same to my... How astute is this guy, how astute. I didn't realize that I was doing this. This is what I did normally. I didn't go up and do all this work and then say look at all the work I did. It was a matter of fact like breathing. I breathe in, I breathe out. I don't think about it. If you stop doing it you're not going to breathe any longer, but you don't even think about that. All these things that I had to do were natural to me and that's with a quiet determination. He gave it to me. This guy was... He was a custodian, but he was a genius.

Robert Plank: I like that because... There's a lot of little insights with that and I think that the big one and the big common thread I'm hearing from you today is that there's all these skills that you've developed as a musician or as someone who sets up these performances and things like that. There's some amount of... The work ethic is a little bit of it. The mastery is a little bit of it. Getting so good at something where it almost becomes unconscious is a little bit of it. There's all these little things combined. What's really cool about this that I keep hearing over and over here is that the skills that you develop in one area such as music or presenting or things like that they always bleed out. They always can be applied into other areas as well.

Kory Livingstone: You got it, exactly, exactly. That's exactly what it is.

Robert Plank: The book is Quiet Determination and where can people find that and buy it?

Kory Livingstone: They can get it at Amazon.com, of course. They can get a digital copy or a hardback copy. If they want an autographed copy they can contact me by email. It's very simple, Kory@KoryLivingstone.com and I'll arrange to get a hardcopy sent to them and I'll autograph it for them. Now for the listeners of your show I got a special gift for them. I'm just in the process of doing it now. I'm doing an audio version of the book.

If they write me when it gets done I'll send them a free copy on an mp3 of Quiet Determination. I'll send that to them free just for the listeners, a special gift for the listeners of your show. It'll be ready probably in 2 or 3 months, but write me anytime. I put you on the list. When it's ready I'll send it out. If anybody... My website, it's just like my name. KoryLivingstone.com. Just type that in and I'll come up. My website will come up, my email will come up. You'll get it somehow. Just type in my name in the Internet and I will come

up.

Robert Plank: Awesome.

Kory Livingstone: It'll be easy to remember.

Robert Plank: Cool, so KoryLivingstone.com and the book is Quiet Determination.

Kory Livingstone: Yes.

Robert Plank: Awesome, thanks so much for being on the show, friend.

Kory Livingstone: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Robert. It's been great.