The Joy of Showing Off: Bringing and Being Your Best with Joe Calloway
Money, Mission and Meaning
Mark Michael Lewis
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Episode 20 - The Joy of Showing Off: Bringing and Being Your Best with Joe Calloway

In this episode Mark Michael Lewis, CEO of SmartPowerDrinks.com, interviews Joe Calloway, a world-class speaker and author of several books including "Becoming A Category of One" and "Indispendible." as well as his latest book "Work like You're Showing Off!: the Joy Jazz and Kick of Being Better Tomorrow and You Were Today." Join us as we explore the power that gets unleashed when you bring your best to everything you do, and how it can transform not only the results you produce, but the joy you experience in the process.

Transcript

Transcript

This program is brought to you by personallifemedia.com.


[music]

Mark Lewis: Welcome to Money, Mission and Meaning.  Passion at work, purpose at play.  Where we explore how we can integrate our personal values and personal skills to create pleasure and profit in the business of life.  I'm your host, Mark Michael Lewis, CEO of Smart Energy Enterprises, Inc.  Now, the makers of Smart Power Energy Drinks 2.0, upgradeyourenergydrink.com.

Today’s guest is Joe Calloway, a world class speaker and author of several books, including Becoming a Category of One, Indispensible, as well as his latest book, Work by just Showing Off, the Joy,  Jazz and Kick of Being Better Tomorrow than you were Today.  Join us as we explore the power that gets unleashed when you bring your best to everything you do and how it can transform not only the results you produce, but the joy you experience in the process.

[music]

Joe Calloway: What it is is successful people and people that do have a life and a good life, they're just making different choices than most people do.
The ultimate in showing off, that's not about bragging, that's about creating results.
Why would you choose to define a day as lousy just because of the circumstances of rain, and then when you take that a step further, you start thinking, “well, wait a minute, that means that whether or not it’s a, for example, good day to use the simplest of analogies, whether or not it’s a good day is quite literally my choice.”

[music]

Mark Lewis: Welcome Joe, it's a pleasure to have you on Money Mission and Meaning.

Joe Calloway: Happy to be here, Mark, thank you for having me.

Mark Lewis: So you've been in the speaking corporate training development business for what, 25 years now, right?

Joe Calloway: A little over 25 years.

Mark Lewis: So in that time, you've worked with some of the biggest and most respected companies in the world about how they can create sustained market leadership.  Your first two books were written more for business managers and entrepreneurs about branding and how to make their business stand out from the crowd, but your most recent book, "Work Like You're Showing Off" is focused more on the individual and how they can achieve more success and happiness

Joe Calloway: Yeah.

Mark Lewis: What led you to focus your talents on empowering the individual versus the company?

You know, it's interesting.  The first two books were for business, and this newest book, Mark, actually started off being about, okay, what is it about individuals at work that create success, but it's funny because the deeper I got into it, the more the book became about life stuff as much as work stuff because what I discovered was it's all kind of the same and it's really a fun book, it was fun to write because I got to look at successful people and when I say successful, I'm not necessarily talking about, okay, go find the people making the most money.  I'm talking about the people that are doing well at their career or with their business, but they're also having fun with it, they've got a life as the old cliché goes.  It's not this nose to the grindstone, I work 18 hours a day, and that's all I've got.  It's people that achieved that illusive balance thing that we talk about, and what I look for was what are some of the things that all these people have in common?  And, you know, I guess the thing that strikes me over and over and over, Mark, whether it's a business or an individual is, and again, I hate to live in cliché land, but it's not rocket science.  What it is is successful people and people that do have a life and a good life, they're just making difference choices than most people do.  And it's stuff that is available to absolutely anybody, so it's all very, very attainable.

Mark Lewis: Right, and I like how you said that it was fun for you to write, I’ll say that it was fun for me to read.  In terms of the title, it's wonderfully provocative, Work like your Showing Off, now, most of us have been taught that this is a bad thing, don't show off, you know?

Joe Calloway: Yeah.

Mark Lewis: Don't be conceited, but you tell us we should show off.  So what do you mean when you say showing off?

Joe Calloway: Well, I'm choosing my own definition of showing off and actually, I address that on the very first page of the book, because you're exactly right, you think, well, “I don't want to be a showoff, because that's about being arrogant, and calling undo attention to yourself,” and the way I define showing off, that's not what I'm talking about at all.  I define showing off as, I guess I can sum it up this way, bringing the best that you have to any situation.  To me, that's the ultimate in showing off, that's not about bragging, that’s about creating results, and interestingly enough, when you use that definition of showing off, the best show off in the room could be the quietest person in the room.  And a lot of times that’s absolutely the case, and that’s what I discovered in writing the book, that the people that are best at creating results are very often the ones that do it very quietly and it's almost like they do it with a sense of style, and they just bring a little something extra to their work that other people tend to leave on the table.

Mark Lewis: When I was reading the book, you know, when you've read hundreds of books on success as I'm sure you have as I have, you're expecting more of the same, when you read a book on success, when you read a book on happiness.  One of the things I really enjoyed about your particular take on it is exactly what you were saying, that being a show off is about being excellent and extraordinary in what you do in producing results, and you say a sense of style, there's almost a sense of this quiet confidence that you come back to again and again during the book which is almost like I know I can do this, you know I can do this, therefore I don't have to show off because I'm showing off through my results.  And the way you say that people get there is through the process of relentless improvement.  Now, that might sound  a little bit like hard work and discipline, but the subtitle of the book, again, is the joy jazz and kick of being better tomorrow than you were today.  How do you connect relentless improvement with having more fun, and how does that translate directly into showing off?

Joe Calloway: You know, I'm so aware and confident that there might be that built in resistance to the phrase relentless improvement and I think you hit a really good point.  And a lot of this, I tell you the truth mark, a lot of this is personal biased, because I also look at what’s worked for me, and for some people, they get to the point in their job or building their own business if they are an entrepreneur or their career where they say “I've got this figured out, if I just keep doing what I'm doing, then I'll be fine,” and for me, that's like a creative death sentence, because it depends on how you look at it, I've either been the very best or the very worst example of getting to the point for what I'm doing is working and then kind of tearing it down and moving on to the next thing, as much for purely personal motivation because to me, that's where the juice is.  I tell ya, I read something really interesting for anybody that's a golf fan.  Tiger Woods won the Fed Ex Cup this last weekend, he won a tournament that put him over the top points-wise and got him the ten million dollar Fed Ex Cup prize and after the tournament, they asked him, they said, “How do you feel, do you feel like you've reached a pinnacle?" and he said “Nope, it's all about improvement.  Doesn't matter what the tournament is, doesn’t matter who you're playing against, game after game after game, it's all about can I be better the next time I go on the course. “ And to me, Mark, you do it primarily because that’s the most fun.  Again, I go back to the word juice, that's where the juice is, that's where the kick is, I don't mean to sound like drudgery, it's just the opposite to me.

Mark Lewis: In the book you say Tiger Woods has a coach and then you just stop.

[laughs]

Mark Lewis: That says something.  Why would this man have a coach when he’s the best?  Because he sees what’s possible and that’s, this shows called, money mission and meaning, passion at work and purpose at play, and what I try to bring to my listeners every week is the experience of someone whose going wait a minute, it's yes, we want to be great and yes we want to create results but we want o have fun, and the truth is, most people think that you either have fun or you make money or you do something you care about.

Joe Calloway: You're exactly right.

Mark Lewis: But it’s not that, it's the more you do what you do in your work, in the thing that you're really passionate about with your whole heart and soul, the more fun you have.  In fact, you can't have more fun doing anything else! [laughs]

Joe Calloway: Yeah, to me, I've discovered that I've got a really low threshold for boredom.

Mark Lewis: [laughs] I've never heard that and I'm stealing it.

Joe Calloway: I do!  I'm telling you, i get bored so quickly, and I've got a cool job, Mark.  I go around and I travel to great places and great resorts where they're having conventions and I give speeches, and there are people in my business that that's it, “this is all I want to do for the rest of my life,” and that’s okay, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  But for me, I'm riding this great ride but the thing is, I've ridden it now for a while, and so I look around and go, surely this isn't it!  I'm not going to do this for the next twenty years, I've got to find out what the next thing is, because for me, that’s the only thing that makes my work fun, is how can we kick this up a notch?

Mark Lewis: I also experience with people who we might call showoffs or might call people that are excellent at what they do, who love what they do, the next thing: how can we take what we're doing to the next level is always the question, and we honestly can't get into all the ideas in the book, but one of the things you talk about is to show off is to be what you call a party animal or a fun hog, and you even suggest that we get stupid or absurd, but to balance the relentless improvement side, how should we squeeze the fun we can out of every situation, what does that have to do with work?

Joe Calloway: Well, to me, this is great timing for you to be asking me this question because in the last year, and I work with a coach by the way, I hired a woman two years ago to be my coach, and what we came down to for me and it's been so powerful, is for a long time, Mark, I was doing work that I didn't really want to do.  I mean, I'd look at my calendar of what was coming up, and over half the stuff on that calendar, I was just kind of going  “Oh man, I don't really feel that great about doing that but it's a good paycheck so I'll do it."  And so what I was doing was running stuff through the "what will make me the most money" filter, which really got me off track.  Now, and I don't mean for this to sound frivolous, because for me, it was a really excellent business decision to change filters.  Now the first filter I run it through is the “fun” filter, and I’m very, very serious about having fun because what I discovered was when I'm doing a project or doing work with people that are fun for me, and projects that are creatively fun for me, it ultimately is the best financial decision.  I read an article years ago that was about Jerry Seinfeld and when he started the show Seinfeld on NBC, he said the NBC executives kept saying, “man, you got to make this show about something besides just these people hanging out every day.”  And every time they would say “we'd like you to set it on a dude ranch for an episode,” he and Larry David would get up and say, “we quit,” and then NBC would say “no, no, stay!”  And ultimately ended up giving them more money, and Seinfeld said forget about the money, make the right decision, because the right decision ultimately always leads to the money.  That’s been an important lesson for me.

Mark Lewis: I love it and it fits the theme of our show ideally.  Well, we're about to take a break.  When we come back, I want to talk to you about the idea of joyous responsibility and how important it is to risk failure.  I'm Mark Michael Lewis and I'm speaking with author and speaker Joe Calloway, and we'll be right back.

[commercial break]

Mark Lewis: We're back with Joe Calloway, author of the book Work Like you're Showing Off.  Now Joe, showoffs, you described, have an attitude of what I like to call joyous responsibility, where you focus on how to think, how the world is and working with it as it is instead of complaining about it.  Now, you say that we see things as we are.

Joe Calloway: Yeah.

Mark Lewis: How does this idea and the ideas of responsibility and blame work in with this idea of being a showoff?

Joe Calloway: Well, you know, there’s a phrase that we've used forever, a lot of people have, which says it depends on how you look at it.  What I started learning actually, 20, 25 years ago, was that that phrase was quite literally true, because we don't see the world as it exists, it does through a lens and that lens is our perception of the world.  The simplest example would be, I talked to a friend of mine this morning in Minneapolis, and I said, “how’s everything in Minneapolis?” and she said “it's absolutely wonderful.  It's gray, and it's raining and it's cloudy and it's supposed to be that way for the next couple of days." So through her lens, a gray rainy day was a fabulous day, and you know there’s a ton of other people up there that woke up this morning and "oh it’s raining, what a lousy day!"  To me, it's like, “wait a minute, why would you choose that?  Why would you choose to define a day as lousy just because of the circumstances of rain?”  And then when you take that a step further, you start thinking, “well, wait a minute, that means that whether or not it’s a, for example, good day, to use the simplest of analogies, whether or not it’s a good day is quite literally my choice.”  Now, some people would say look, what if something truly bad, what if there's some really bad stuff going on in your life, and I don't mean to sugar coat anything, there's some situations that are just lousy, but once I decide this is a lousy situation, stuff has happened to me that’s not my fault, and I'm suffering the consequences from it, then I've got to go to the next step which is okay, what am I going to do about it.  Because most of the time, nobody else is going to do anything about it.  It's not up to anybody else to make me happy.  And I don't mean to sound like  a motivational speaker here, I'm talking about strategy,  And to me, the ultimate power strategy is to say I'm taking responsibility.  Not the blame, it’s not about blame, or fault, it is about responsibility, because if I make somebody else responsible for my happiness, my success and my career, I've given them all the power, and that doesn't make sense to me.

Mark Lewis: Yes, and what are we going to do about it, that's the question.  You say that the way you look at it determines how you feel about it, the perspective you take changes it.  Now in terms of work, there’s one thing to talk about, okay, “I'm going to look at the weather and say oh, I like rain, it's liquid sunshine.”  It's another to look at a challenging business situation and say look , I'm going to take responsibility for this, this might not be quite the project that I wanted, I didn't get my way in the meeting, but I'm going to say this is what I've given, how do I make it the best?  And what I get from being a showoff is that the showoffs are the people that say this is what’s happening and I’m going to shine given what’s happening, rather than I'm going to shine if everything goes my way.  Does that fit for you?

Joe Calloway: No, that's exactly it.  You absolutely nailed it.  Mark, I had a project last year that going into it, and for a while the more I got into it the people that I was working with on it, my clients, I started thinking I can't do this, I can't work with these people, t hey keep changing the rules, they keep dropping more stuff on the assignment that doesn't seem to me was part of the original contract, and they're no fun to work with.  But here’s the thing--I was in a binding contract situation, so I could either, I mean, I've got so many choices its unbelievable.  I could put my head down and do a lousy job and gut it out until it was over and nobody would be happy or I could just kind of try to tolerate it and do okay but not have my heart into it.  What I decided to do was, i thought, you know, the only way out of this thing for me, to have any shot at having a good time, is I'm going to be the hero of the whole thing.  Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't doing that to be the ultimate team player, you know, turn lemons into lemonade, I was doing it because I thought that was my best shot at having a good time.  I mean, honestly, that was my motivation because I thought, this project is too big for me to resign myself to misery.  Now sometimes, you may have to.  But I think it's a lot less than we may believe it is.  And so with this one, I just started listing, what are all my choices here?  And I chose, absolutely, the most ambitious one, and it's funny, it turned out to be, this sounds like a fairy tale ending but isn't it funny how life works that way so often, I really threw myself into the project, turned out to be a great client, we got the misunderstandings worked out because I decided to be open and not just chug into my way of doing it, and now they're an ongoing client and they're a pleasure to work with.

Mark Lewis: And that's showing off.

Joe Calloway: Well it is showing off, because you know, I felt kind of cocky about it, it's like, you know, I am better than letting this thing get me down.  I'm better than that, I'm tougher than that, I’m smarter than that.  And I'll tell you something Mark, some people might listen to this conversation and say these guys are living in a dream world!  They're talking about sugar coating things and pretending that the world is great.  No, what I'm talking about is this--are you smart enough, are you creative enough, are you tough enough to take the hand that’s dealt to you and turn it into a winning hand, and I really throw down the gauntlet on this, because the people whose lives work aren't necessarily the ones that get all the breaks, it's the ones that are tough and smart and creative.  And they then use that to make good choices.

Mark Lewis: Absolutely, and that’s showing off.  I want to get to a point in that that you spoke about but you didn't say directly, and it's a theme that comes back again and again in your book, and that’s to show off, you have to be willing to risk.  You have to be willing to put yourself on the line and say, this is what I think, this is what I'm going to go, I'm going to take responsibility and I'm going to make something happen.  You just use the word cocky, and that word has a couple different meanings, but the way I hear you using it, it just resonates with me, it's so key, I know that I have the skill to make something good out of this, and if I have to turn lemons into lemonade, I'm going to do it and it's going to taste sweet.  What does it mean to risk and why is being willing to risk so important in being a showoff?

Joe Calloway: I think where risk comes into play most often is that showoffs are very willing to take action.  Here's the thing about taking action--whether it’s on a project that you’ve been assigned and some people would say, listen, what I've got to do is try to cover myself on this so that if it goes wrong, I don't get more than my share of the blame.  And so they hold back and they hold back or it could be that you're thinking about doing something with your own business but you hold back and you hold back because what you're thinking is, what if it doesn't work?  I tell you something, I'm going to be meeting with somebody tomorrow about a new direction that I'm taking with my business, and let me tell you right now Mark, it may not work.  And I know that going in, but I guarantee you that taking this step and taking action even if it doesn't work, will serve me better than getting stuck where I am.  Because even if it doesn't work, I'm going to gain some new information that will then put me closer to the path of what will work.  But I tell you, every successful person that I've talked to, that I've run across in 27 years of doing this work, that’s one thing that every one of them have in common: they're willing to take a risk. There’s an old saying, the riskiest thing you can do is play it safe.  And what happens is, when we try something and it does work, then the temptation is to become complacive and say, well, this works so I'm going to stick with this and play it safe, but I guarantee you, one of these days you're going to look over your shoulder and say oh my gosh, I've been left behind, because it's just the nature of life and the world we live in, that if we don't keep moving forward, we're never going to strangle ourselves, you just have to keep going forward, and again, I go back to, and why would you not?  That's where all the fun is!  Why in the world would you not?  Who wants to be stuck?

Mark Lewis: Exactly, that's the joy jazz and kick in showing off.

Joe Calloway: Exactly, yeah, it's the movement.

Mark Lewis: Yeah, so it's time for another quick break.  When we come back, I want to get a sense more for your personal journey and how the ideas we're talking about have impacted your life so that our listeners can get a sense for when they make these choices, when they decide to be a showoff with responsibility, to take appropriate risks but to take risks, how it might impact them as well.  So I'm Mark Michael Lewis, speaking with author Joe Calloway, on Money, Mission and Meaning.  We'll be right back.

[commercial break]

Mark Lewis: And we're back with Joe Calloway, author of Work Like you’re Showing Off.  Now Joe, one of the things that is a theme throughout the book that I know has been something important to you personally, is that you say, that if your  actions are out of alignment with what you claim is important to you, you're headed for a train wreck.  And I know you've had some experiences in your own life that give that particular meaning.  What does it mean to make the choice to honor what you want even though it might hurt or make you uncomfortable?

Joe Calloway: I think there are a lot of people that when you say, what's most important to you, the standard operating answers tend to be, my family, my friends, the people in my life, to do work that I find is meaningful, to make a contribution to the success of other people. All those things.  But then a lot of times, when you look at those statements, and when I say you, I'm including me in there, when we look at those statements that we make about what’s important, and then overlay it on top of our schedule, and how we're actually choosing to spend our time, you go “wait a minute, what’s up with this?”  Because this is out of whack.  What I say is important and what I'm actually doing with my life don't line up.  It's simply out of alignment, and my experience has been that when we live that way, and the longer we live that way, we become an absolute stress machine.  We just become a stress factory, and I don't know if it’s everybody that’s listening to this, but I bet most people listening to this can point to some period in their life where they were just heart sick.  It's like, man, I can't do this anymore.  And my advice is, if at all possible, if you're hardest thing, and I can't do this anymore, then don't do it anymore.  And I'm serious, and I know that’s not easy and some people may be thinking, man you're telling me to quit my job like it's the easiest thing in the world.  No, no, no, I'm not--it may just be the toughest thing in the world, but it may be something you have to do to preserve your soul and your spirit and your sanity.  And I tell you, with me, Mark, I've gotten off track, it's like I mentioned earlier, I've chased after what appeared to be the easiest path to a paycheck, and taking on projects that my heart really wasn’t in, and let me tell you something--well, it's a double edged sword, I learned a lesson from that-- but the lesson I learned was it ultimately set me back.  And it's funny, mark twain said once that when you look back on your life, you won't regret the things you did nearly as much as you regret the things that you didn't do.  So I think most people go through a time in their life where they're thinking, you know, I really wish I could, or I wish I would, and what I’ve learned is, get busy, figure out a way to do that thing that you wish for, because it will feed your spirit and it will feed your soul and ultimately, you will be more successful on every front.

Mark Lewis: I'm noticing how this weaves together with the idea of being willing to risk, because there’s the type of risk where you say, “okay, I'm going to join this business venture, I'm going to invest in this, I'm going to do these kinds of risky behaviors,” things where there are tangible consequences, but there is also the personal side of risk, which is what do I really believe in, what do I value and am I going to stand up in this relationship, in this conversation, and speak my truth, or am I going to let that slide?  And when I do, what’s going to happen?  Because when I speak my truth, say it's hard to steer a parked car, when I actually take the risk and say what it is that's true for me, when I say this is what’s important to me, I'm going to take responsibility and do it, I’m moving forward.  And there might be challenges, but they are challenges that I created, I'm willing to respond to them.  But when I don't, when there’s something, I’m in a conversation with someone I care about, I hold my tongue, I don't say something that’s really important to me, something that is different than not trying to hurt their feelings, but not willing to risk the fact that I'm going to say something unpopular. When I do that, that conversation, I'll replay it in my head over and over and over.

Joe Calloway: Don't we all do that?  You're talking about some strong stuff there, and there’s a chapter in the book called what you think of me is none of my business.  And the point of that chapter is this: it's exactly what you were just saying.  If you go through life, and I've been guilty of this, trying to say the things that will make everybody like you and go along and just do everything so that people think good things about you, then ultimately, what happens is, nobody knows who you are, you're an empty suit.  As opposed to the people--think about it.  Think about your own friends that you know who they are, you know where they stand, you don't have to guess what’s going on with them or how they feel because, I’m not talking about being obnoxious, but in a respectful way, they speak their truth.  I wrote a book years ago and in it there was an example, there were two couples, the four of us went to a rock concert, and it was horrible.  I mean, I'm sitting there and thinking, “is it just me or is this terrible?”  And I didn't want to say anything because I thought, well, they’re probably having a good time.  Finally, I got my courage up, looked at them, and I said “This just doesn’t seem any good to me” and all three of them said “yes, let’s get out of here!”  You have four people that are sitting there miserable but nobody would speak up because we were afraid we would ruffle up somebody else’s feather, where when somebody finally did speak up, we're all like thank you, let’s go do something fun.  It doesn't always work out that way, sometimes you speak up and people don't like it, but again, what you said about speaking your truth, it’s one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself.

Mark Lewis: And when we translate that back into the work context, again, money mission and meaning, how do you integrate these three things.  For me, there’s two things that happen when you don't speak the truth, when you aren't willing to risk.  One, you're living in the past.  You're taking your image of the past and project it into the future and that means you're going to get more of the same. It’s predictable, you're making that happen.  There's two challenges with that. One, there might have been a time several hundred years ago when the world was moving slow enough that you could find something you're good at and just keep doing it.  Like you were saying earlier, the trap of doing what you're good at instead of going to the next thing, but in today's global economy, when you're talking about business, if you're not pushing the envelope, if you're not going what’s next, how can I make this better, how can I show off in my company in terms of what I'm doing, with my company and my products, where am I going.  If you're not willing to risk and willing to say this is what I believe is true, then when you bring the past into the future, when you try to do what other people think you should do, do what the market analysts tell you to do, you're most likely going to be behind the curb.  And the thing I love about showing off, the idea of showing off, you can translate it in every context of your life.  In your health, you need to be bringing your body forward, you need to be taking on challenges with your body and your relationships, otherwise your relationships will stagnate.  When you bring that truth, you’re bringing a new future into existence, and as you move into that future the possibilities that open up allow you to be ahead of the curb so that you can be really successful in your business, your relationships can actually inspire you rather than don't upset you.

Joe Calloway: Mark, you hit on the most powerful negative barriers in human existence which is this: the belief that past experience is not future reality, which will absolutely, completely freeze us.  And it’s the biggest fiction it could possibly be to think, no, this is the way it's always been, so I know that’s the way it’s going to be.  There’s a chapter in Showing Off called let it go, and the whole point of the chapter is, what is it that you need to let go of?  And the thing is, you don't have to tell people, they know.  Whether it’s the experience of a past relationship or a failure in work or whatever, there’s something that’s keeping you from the future that can be, and you've got to let go of that past experience and say no, I’m starting over.  I will learn from that past experience, I'll keep the lesson but I'll let the experience go.  You keep the lesson but you move on and create a new experience.

Mark Lewis: Yeah, you take responsibility; you get on top of things and make the choice to move forward.  So, there are so many more things this book--one thing I want to talk about with you before we end is the, if I were to take the entire book as an experience and say what did I come away with, if I could sum it down into one thing, it'd be something I'd call full engagement.  When I'm showing off, I've experienced being fully involved in what I’m doing, it's like I opened my heart and mind full and said bring it on.  I don’t' know what’s going to happen, but I know I’m going to bring my best to it and when I do that, I'm going to find solutions I didn't know were possible.  And in that, one thing that I want my listeners to come away with in terms of engaging with you, is that everything that I get from you brings that out in me, and I think that's the great gift of the books you've written, the books of yours I've read, and when you apply that to your relationships, it allows things to open up, when you apply it to your business, it allows you to take steps to keep your business competitive. This book, as you said, you started writing it for how you make your work better, by being better, and it ends up going into the whole life experience.  As we end this show, what is the one thing, if you could sum it up, that you want my listeners to know, so that they can really take everything that we've said so far and put it together.

Joe Calloway: Here's the image.  And a lot of people have seen it particularly over the last couple of years.  As poker has become a spectator sport television and you know, you see all these poker tournaments.  Those of you that play poker will understand this and those of you who don't, I’ll explain it very simply, and I think this is probably the single best metaphor for the idea of what I've learned and passed on in the book.  There comes a moment in playing poker when you decide to bet everything you've got on one hand.  And what you say is, “I'm all in.”  It's this very dramatic moment when you push all your chips into the middle of the table and say "I’m going all in" and it's an absolute magic moment.  And for me, that metaphor carries over into my relationships, my work, everything, I'm involved in the community, and I’m just kind of half way playing, or have I decided to go "you know, if I'm going to take the trouble of showing up and all, I'm going all in."  And again, its' not to be the hero, it’s because that's for me.  It’s the best way I know to live my life.  It's this, I’m not going to hold back, if I'm going to play, I'm going after it.  I think that’s the central idea.

Mark Lewis: Thanks Joe. I personally think that Work Like your Showing Off is an excellent integration of the principals on the show integrating money and mission and meaning.  And it’s a great model for bringing passion and purpose to business and life.  So it's been a pleasure having you on the show, Joe, and I wish you all the best.

Joe Calloway: Thanks Mark, thank you so much for having me on.

Mark Lewis: You got it.  For more information about Joe Calloway, you can visit his site at joecalloway.com, that’s joecallaway.com.  And if you want a copy of his book, just go to Amazon and put his name, Joe Calloway, or the book title in there and you can get it.  If you want to read the transcripts of this show or check out the episode page for this show at moneymissionmeaning.com or get access to other money mission and meaning shows, and if you want to listen to any of the great shows on the personal life media network, go to personallifemedia.com. 

I'm your host Mark Michael Lewis, CEO of Smart Energy Enterprises Inc, makers of Smart Power Smart Energy Drink and that brings us to the end of the show, so thanks for listening and join us next week on Money, Mission and Meaning, passion at work, purpose at play.  Interviewing cutting edge business leaders that are committed to making a positive difference in the world about the motivation and practical ideas that they use to create pleasure and profit in business.

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