Brian Dixon is a podcaster, conference speaker, and business coach who is passionate about helping authors, speakers, and aspiring messengers create a sustainable business through growing their platform and creating compelling online courses. Brian has a doctoral degree from the University of San Diego and is the co-founder of Hope Writers, a membership site of over 2,000 working writers. In this episode, Brian talks about the inspiration for his new book, tips for putting people ahead of projects and living a people-first lifestyle, why we need to outgrow our upbringing, the importance of leading with humility as you put yourself out there in increasingly public ways, why he strives to peak when he is sixty-five years old, his advice for becoming a voice of influence, and more!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Brian Dixon and Ruth Soukup’s Book | Start with Your People: The Daily Decision that Changes Everything
• Brian Dixon on Instagram
• Jeff Olson and John David Mann’s Book | The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success and Happiness
• StoryBrand
• Enneagram Test
• StrengthsFinder 2.0
• The 5 Love Languages
• Kolbe Corp
• Fascination Advantage® Assessment

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Transcript

Hey, Hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast, where we explore the intersection of human dynamics, communication, and service.  If you’re interested in growing your own voice of influence or the influence of those on your team, check us out at voiceofinfluence.net and connect to us to talk.  We’d love to hear from you.   Today, I have with me Brian Dixon.  He has a podcaster, conference speaker, and business coach.  Brian is passionate about helping authors, speakers, and aspiring messengers create a sustainable business through growing their platform, creating compelling online courses.  He is the co-founder of hope writers, a membership site of over 2000 working writers.  Brian has a doctoral degree from the University of San Diego, and he and his wife Julie live in Charlotte, North Carolina with their three young children.  

Andrea:  Brian, it’s great to have you on the Voice of Influence podcast!  

Brian Dixon:  Andrea, I’m so excited to be here.  Thanks for having me.  

Andrea:  Yes, and congratulations on the recent launch of your book, Start with Your People: The Daily Decision that Changes Everything.  I love that.  

Brian Dixon:  It’s so important.  You know, we’ve got to realize how important people are in our life and in our business.  And that’s really where it all begins, is our relationship with the people that are already in our life.  

Andrea:  Hmm.  Let me start with that.  Let me just start with why did you decide that that was an important thing to discuss?  Why is it that you wrote this particular book?  

Brian Dixon:  Huh, I mean the reality is our message.  The thing that we are struggling with right now, the thing that you’re dealing with in your life right now that I believe you’re going to overcome.  I believe that if you keep listening to podcasts, if you keep signing up for training, if you’re working with a coach, if you have a mastermind group, like the things that we know to do, if we’re doing those things the stuckness that you’re in right now in your life is not going to be there.   And a year from now or two years from now, there’ll be another thing.  But the thing you’re working on right now, you’re going to move through it, you’re going to move past it.  And so for me, that thing was my relationship with, people specifically, I was putting projects and accomplishment over recognition and relationships.  

Andrea:  OK.  Projects and accomplishment.  What did that look like for you?  

Brian Dixon:  You know, it would look like somebody having my full attention.  So, we’re in the middle of a launch.  Part of what I do is I help people get their online thing off the ground.  So, a lot of times that’s a course or that’s a membership site.  I do that through coaching and then all through some building some agency kind of work.  And so I’m all in, right?   So, I’ll work, you know, 21 hours a day on this thing and get it off the ground and like really go hard.  And then after it’s done, I won’t follow up or I wasn’t, like I want to follow up for like six months because I already did finish it.  Like the thing that we did together is good and, you know, for years I wanted to write thank you notes.  I wanted to be the kind of person that continues relationships even after a business arrangement had ended or I completed.  

I don’t know what it is.  I think honestly, I think just think it was a lack of self awareness and it was really seeing people for the value that they can bring to me and the bottom line instead of seeing people for who they really are and just that power of relationships.  And so, I’ve learned so much in the last few years about authenticity, vulnerability, intimacy, and relationships.   I think I’m about that into-me-see, like I love that word.  I want people to see into me, you know.  I want them to be able to say, “Hey Brian, this is what you’re awesome at.”  And also here are a couple of areas that I’ve noticed that, you know, it kind of rubs people the wrong way because when we’re aware of those things, I believe that we deliver better client service.  I believe that we show up in a bigger way and we actually attract our ideal clients even more when we’re really authentic.  

Andrea:  Hmm.  That’s interesting.  I like the authenticity piece of all that for sure.  I’m wondering too about, OK, so projects you get done with a project with somebody and then how much of just busy-ness and the reality of the fact that we just can’t possibly, you know, keep up with, you know, thousands of people or whatever, you know, it might be.  How do you reconcile that with that new found desire to really have that authentic relationship with people that would be ongoing?

Brian Dixon:  It’s a great question and I think it’s really, really hard, right?  Most of us have hundreds, if not thousands of “friends” on social media, like we’re connected to people.  I’m so connected to people I went to elementary school with, you know, like we just keep adding relationships into our life.  And so it’s impossible to stay in touch with everybody and that’s definitely all what I’m saying.   But I do believe that we make an effect like we have an effect on the world around us.  We have an effect on the relationships that are in our lives and we get to choose that effect.  We get to choose if we want to be somebody who says life giving words, somebody who builds others up, somebody who encourages people to reach their highest potential.   And I was doing that like in some ways, I’ve received good feedback but I also recognized that there were areas of my life where all I needed to do, Andrea, was just to like slow down and turn and say, “You know what, I had a blast working with you.  Thank you so much.  Thanks for hiring me.”  Or you know, “Thanks for having me speak at your conference, I never did that before.”  And those little actions don’t take a lot of time, but they make such a big difference.  

Andrea:  It’s almost like a closing a loop or you know, that hole like.  We have this thing, we’ve done it well to come back afterwards and close that loop to be able to say that.  But I really appreciated that.  You’re right, there’s something so powerful and I don’t know like relationship building about that for sure.  

Brian Dixon:  Yeah.  You know, what one practice, just to make it really practical for you guys listening, because you’re probably thinking like how do you do it?  Like, what do you actually do?  So this morning, you know, so I have this morning routine that I go through and part of it, it includes a journal.  So, I have my journal out and you know, I’m a person of faith and so there’s some prayer and some Bible reading, but you don’t have to be a person of faith to use a journal in the morning, right?   And so I’ve taken the journal out and what I do is I pray, but you could just meditate, you could just think.  And what I do is I just, whoever comes to mind, I just write down their name.  And so this morning there were four names that came to mind.  Two of them I realized in that moment that, “Whoa, there’s some brokenness here.”  There are two relationships from way long ago that I just need to reach out to him.  Just say, “Hey, I was thinking about you today.”  That’s where it starts, just, “Hey I was thinking about you today,” and there’s a chance that I might need to say sorry.  There’s a chance that I might need to clean something up that I left broken.  But what I know is that when those names come to mind, I now have a responsibility.  

I was talking to my business coach yesterday and he said, “You know, the thing about a blind spot is once we see it, it’s no longer a blind spot.  It’s now something we’re aware of and we have a choice.  Are we going to address it or we’re going to ignore it?”   So this morning, you know, one guy’s name came to mind.  I wrote it down and as I’m like taking the trash out to the curb, I sent him a text message or a Facebook messenger message and I just said, “Hey man, I was thinking about you, like what’s new in your life?”  He’s going through a divorce.  I didn’t know.  And now he said, “Well, I’m headed on my way to the attorney, and then hopefully that the judge will sign off on the divorce papers.”   And I had no idea.  So I write him back right away and I’m like, “Oh man, I’m so sorry.  I had no idea.”  And I have to believe, you know, that’s not coincidence that his name came to mind today as he is on his way to his attorney’s office.  

And I think that’s the impact that we can have whatever you want to call us, “influencers,” “speakers,” or “messengers.”  I like the word “messengers,” but as people who want to make a difference in the world, when we think about the people that we’ve interacted with, we have an opportunity to build them up or tear them down.   I just realized a few years ago I was doing more tearing than building and I wanted to switch that around.  It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be.  

Andrea:  Oh, that’s really cool.  I think that really applies to even sales.  You know you’re actively out there prospecting or talking to people about something that you have to offer.  When that’s the case, it can tend to lean towards the whole, I need something from you feeling, but when you are in sales and thinking about, “Now, who do I just need to reach out to just to touch base as a human being?”  All of a sudden you become a person to them and that’s really powerful.  

Brian Dixon:  You know, it’s so funny there’s this kind of what you call it like an agency, like a marketing agency online.  And I’ve been following the two guys that own it for awhile.  Their stuff is fun, you know.  I’ll click on their ads because I kind of like their style.  It’s a little aggressive, but it’s funny, you know, and so I reached out to him to say, “Hey, I’d love to work with you guys.  Is there a course, like, do you have a weekend boot camp or something like that?”  And I also kind of wanted to like learn their system, you know, their sales process because I think they’re doing a good job.  

So, as I’m going through the sales process, it went from, you know, a conversation of like, here’s some free content to them trying to sell me a $24,000 six month coaching thing.  And it just felt like such a big leap without a lot of information.  I’m not against investing in my own business but I just wasn’t ready.  It was like I came in for a skateboard and they’re offering a Maserati, you know.  It’s just like, it felt weird.  

And so, I pushed back on the guy and said, “Wait a second, that’s not what I’m looking for.  I’m looking for maybe something a little and more entry level ‘cause I wanna get to know you guys and check out your content.”  And he laid into me like, “You’re not ready to like…”  It was just weird.  So, I thought that was the end of the relationship.  

Well, there’s two things first of all regarding sales, number one, I’m telling the story right now, and I’m not going to say their name, but there’s still a bad taste in my mouth about this guy, you know.   And then number two, one of his team members followed up with me yesterday.  And so I took the call and I said, “Listen, I really like you guys.  I like a lot of what you’re doing, but this call, the way it went, just wasn’t effective.  And I really feel like this is something you guys could work on.  But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to do business with you.  I would love to find a way to do business with you and here’s specifically what I’m looking for.”  

And here’s the thing, Andrea, he heard it, like, he actually heard it.  And I think that we as people of influence, me as messenger have an opportunity to not just serve our clients but to speak truth into the marketplace.  And that’s what I did in this conversation.  I don’t always get it right.  That’s what I did in this conversation, and it’s on them now to fix that brokenness in their process. 

I used to think that giving feedback or giving suggestions to other businesses was like arrogance or was not my place.   But what I’ve realized is I want somebody to do that for me.  You know, if I send an email, and it’s a little too aggressive or too spammy or whatever, especially with my friends hit reply and say, “Hey, Brian, that email was a little off.”  I’m like, “Oh, thank you so much, like, what can I do to make it better because we all want to improve?”  

So, I think starting with your people means, especially in business, means having this openness to feedback.  Now, you don’t change everything you’re doing just because one person said something, right?  But being able to listen to feedback and being able to give feedback makes it all a better industry.  It makes us better marketers, makes us better messengers, and actually improves the client experience.  

Andrea:  Hmm.  All right, Brian, before we started talking, I asked, or before we started recording, I asked you what’s something that you haven’t gotten to talk about a whole lot but think, you know, you’d like to really be able to address this.  And I am so interested in the next part of our conversation.  What do you mean by outgrowing your upbringing?  

Brian Dixon:  We have a choice.  In 2018, we we’re recording this, you know, wherever you happen to grow up.  This is pretty common knowledge, right?  But wherever you happen to grow up, you don’t have to stay there.  So for me, I grew up in this little town in Manitoba, Canada and I’ve actually visited that town this last summer.  And there are people that went to my elementary school and then went to the same high school I went to and even went to the same college that I went to that are now living in that same town, like they’re still there.   Some of them took over their parents’ business, some of them were working, you know, just got normal jobs.  

And there’s a little bit of this, not judging them, but from my conversations, there’s this mindset of, “If if I try to do something outside of my family upbringing, then I’m going to be judged.” Or actually this one person used this shunned.  “I’m gonna be shunned.”  

And I was like, “First of all, I haven’t heard that word.  Has anyone used that word in hundreds of years?”  

And so it caused me, anytime I hear something like that that applies to somebody else, what I first need to do is check myself and go, “Whoa, how does that apply to me?”  And it caused me to realize that as messengers, as people that are trying to launch a book or trying to start a brand or striving to become a speaker or start a podcast, that we’re changing the rules of the relationship.  We’re going from, you know, go to college, get a job, live your life to trying to do something really public.  And there’s this weirdness in that gap of going from a private person to a public person.

Now, you might even argue in social media in 2019, we’re all kind of public people, you know.  But there is a difference when you get intentional about your social and when you get intentional about your website, you know, when you get intentional about your branding that there will be people in your life that are like, “Who does Andrea thinks she is?  Who does she think she is to start her own podcast?  She’s not an expert.  I went to sixth grade with her.”   And there’s a weird feeling that we have in going through that, especially when somebody in your family says something, which I think we’ve all heard or heard from somebody else.  And I think it’s something we don’t talk about, but it’s so important to process so that we can move forward in boldness and in truth and in grace.  

Andrea:  All right.  So how have you processed to this in your own life, in your own experience?  What does that process look like for you?  

Brian Dixon:  You know, you have to lead with humility and I messed this one up every day, like every day.  But that’s where it starts, you know?  So for example, like really tangible because I’m a visual person, the cover of my book Start with Your People, there’s these like little avatar pictures, these little cartoon pictures on the front.  And the idea was that we start with the people at home and then it moves to our friends and our team.  And then eventually it gets to the larger industry, to the influencers and the people that can really make a difference in your career.   And the first version of the cover was just a bunch of like random drawings, you know, just like they didn’t represent anybody, just this basic idea.  

And as we worked on it, I hired a graphic designer to customize all these avatars.  So, every single person on the cover of my book is a real person.  And I’m looking at the cover right now.  The fifth person is my 93-year-old grandmother.  She’s a little avatar on the cover of my book.  And the reason I’m mentioning this is because like, she knows me, you know, I’m her grandson.  My kids are her great-grandchildren, like she knows me.  She’s my 93-year-old grandmother, and I want to be authentic.  

Here’s the challenge.  We don’t have two lives.  You don’t have an online life and an offline life.  We don’t have a work life and a home life.  We have one life.  We are one person, and the Brian Dixon that launches the book, the Brian Dixon that’s on your podcast right now, like the Brian Dickson that shows up on a Facebook ad is the same Brian Dixon who calls his grandmother, you know.  I want to be the same person.  And that’s where it gets a little weird is when somebody expects you to be, you know, just working in a job and now you’re on social all the time, you know, they see your stuff everywhere.  

So what I learned to do is to lead with humility, which is to say, “Hey guys,” like literally an email and a text message to my family this summer before the book came out in September, so like in July and said “Hey guys, just want to let you know, you’re gonna see a lot of me over the next few months.  So, I just apologize.  You have to know that’s just part of launching a book.  It’s not that I’ve changed.  It’s not that I’m like suddenly full of myself.  It’s just that people don’t pay attention.  They need to hear seven to 10 times that there’s a book before they even realize there’s the book.  And then they have to see it another seven to 10 times before they even know to buy the book.  So you’re going to see a lot of my stuff online.  But I want you to know I’m still Brian, I’m still here.”   And so that was a message I sent to a few people in my life. 

We continue doing things that we would normally do in our life.  So, you know, we host a few families that come over every couple of weeks just to build that social connection.  So just like, what can we do to keep showing up for the people in our life, even when our career accelerates, even when we get really busy?  

And I think that’s the real challenge right there because I’ve seen, Andrea, I’ve seen the inverse. That’s the point, right?  I’ve seen people go from, nobody knows them and they’re attending a conference to now they’re the keynote speaker and they don’t have the time, you know, time in their day to just say hello to you, you know?  And it’s just like so off-putting, and that’s the big challenge is like as we’re growing in our career how do we maintain authenticity and maintain some of those connections and it can be a big challenge.  

Andrea:  When you do maintain those connections, how much of your professional life is discussed or is brought in or whether you’re the one that’s bringing it in or not, you know.  I mean, do you talk about it?  

Brian Dixon:  I had to adjust my expectations and I’ve talked to many friends and colleagues you that really doing well online and we have to adjust their expectations.  Like my dad, I mean, just to get real personal, like my dad is an author and he hasn’t had a big book like my book was a pretty sizable book.  You know, the print, however you measure it, the number of stores it’s in, the number of sales, the advance on the royalties, the number of people on the book launch team, like however you measure it, it was a big book.  He hasn’t had one like that.   And so that gets a little weird.  You know, we both kind of do the same thing.  He writes books and launches books.  I write books and launch books, and now how do we deal with this thing?  And so I think that there’s grace.  I think that there’s being polite, you know, so he’ll ask “How’s it going?”  But I also don’t have to rub it in his face either, you know.  One thing I would just to be totally transparent, I really had to learn that my family is not my audience.  You get what I’m saying?  

Andrea:  Yes!  

Brian Dixon:  My family is not my audience.  And so if I post something online that rubs them the wrong way, first of all, they’re not my audience.  I want to honor them, but they’re not my audience.  But second of all, I’m not writing for them either, so I’m not writing to impress them, but I’m also not writing to slander them.  And that is a weird, weird balance.  You want to talk about that?  

Andrea:  Not writing to impress them, but not writing to slander them either.  What do you mean?  

Brian Dixon:  Yeah.  You know, especially writing a book about people, you know, writing a book about relationships like you want to use examples from your life and no matter what you’ve been through and how long you’ve lived, there’s been positive and negative examples.  You know, it’s really easy to say, look at what these people have done wrong or look at what I’ve done right.  And you want to connect to a reader, but you need to honor the people that are in your life in the way that you do it.  And I’m not saying that I did do it right a 100 percent of the time.  

I think the books are helpful because you have an editorial process, you know, so your editor can work with you.  But especially when you’re posting on social, you know, you’re posting on social and talking about how you had to do this thing that required you to be braver than you normally are.  OK, that’s a great post.  People want to read that post that’s encouraging.  That’s like, “Yeah, way to go.”  Like, “Thanks for posting that.”  

But what I had to realize in the process is when I use this example from my life, the person in my life might be reading that post and have opinions about it, you know. And what I’ve been learning to do, and I again, I don’t do it well all the time, is learning to check in, you know, so the real tangible.  So my wife Julie, before I post something that has anything to do with her, I just say, “Hey, I’m thinking about posting this thing.”  

Actually, you know, this happened just before we got on the call.  I’m going to send a Facebook messenger broadcast to our messenger list for one of our brands and one of my partners in that I want to use a picture of her face in this message.  And I would have just sent it a few years ago because that’s a project over a person just like get the project done.   But what I did today, like again, I don’t do it well all the time, but what I did today is I took a screenshot of the message, the preview message and I sent her a Voxer message over to my business partner, I said, “Hey, are you cool with me sending this?”  I haven’t heard back from her yet. 

So, first of all, I’m like delayed getting this message out, which sucks.  But number two is I know this because we’ve been working together for awhile.  She feels honored by me taking the time to make sure she’s cool so that I can send that message.  Because if I sent it and I didn’t ask her, she’d probably be OK.  But maybe, just maybe there’s a little part of her that would say, “Oh, I wish he asked me,” you know.   And that’s what it means to Start with Your People, it’s just slowing down, checking in, “Harry, cool, if I post this?”  “Are you cool if I tell this story?  Are you cool if I share that detail?”  Because those are the people that matter even more than your audience, even more than your clients is the people at home, the people that you’re closer to.  And we’ve got to do that because it’s so easy to want to over share, you know, and try to build a connection with a real audience, but like burn all the relationships around us.  

Andrea:  You know, I mean, it’s almost like opening a loop without even telling them.  

Brian Dixon:  Yes.  

Andrea:  If you post something or if you’re thinking you’re going to post something or you think you’re going to change something in somebody’s life that’s going to impact somebody else.  And to not close that loop and say, “Hey, by the way, is this okay with you?”  Or “By the way, this is what’s happening.”  It’s being mindful of others and it definitely impacts the way that people perceive how much you respect them.  

Brian Dixon:  You know, the feedback I’ve gotten on this book is like these are all the things I know like I should be doing with people but like I know it but I don’t do it, you know?  And I think that’s a good book, like a good book is a reminder of the things we already believe and maybe some practical examples of like why it matters.  And to start with people to see the value of people in your life, to put people first isn’t rocket science.  It’s not a brand new concept, but it’s so important because that is right there.  That is the difference, and I’m convinced of this, that’s the difference between somebody who’s in this for the long run and somebody who’s there, you know, 18 months and gone.  

You know, I’ve been full time online as a messenger, as a marketing guy for six years now.  There’s not a lot of people I know that started around the same time as me that are still doing it.  And there’s this great book called The Slight Edge and he’s got this graph in the book where basically like “for years you’re at the same level as the people that you like grew up with and then somewhere around your 40’s you start to see this slow divide, you know.  And it grows and grows and grows over time.”   And that happens in industries too, you know, you see all these people that got into their Instagram messaging or you know, whatever TikTok consulting or like whatever the new thing is, and you give it six months, you give it 12 months, you give it 18 months and people start to burn out and they’re not around anymore.  And I don’t want to not be around, you know, I want to be somebody who’s continuing to serve people in 10 years from the future.  

I love Don Miller, you know, the author of StoryBrand, he says, “Peak at 65” and I just love that I’m 41 right now.  Like, imagine if this isn’t my peak, if my peak is in 24 years from now, like how can I show up for Andrea in such a way that you can’t wait to have me back in a year from now and I’m just a recurring guest on your show, right?  And I serve you well and we know each other for the next 24 years.  That’s the kind of way I want to treat people in my industry.  That’s the way I want to treat my team.  And I think that’s what it means to live with people first lifestyle.  

Andrea:  So good.  Brian, what last piece of advice would you like to give the listener on how they can really be a voice of influence?  

Brian Dixon:  I love that.  I love that question.  You know, I was skeptical for years, but I become a big believer in these personality tests.  You know, the one that opened my eyes was the Enneagram, but there’s Enneagram, Strength Finder, Love Languages, the Kolbe Index.  I love the Fascination Advantage.  You know, Sally is fascinating.  

Andrea:  Oh yeah.  We know that one well here.  

Brian Dixon:  You know well.  OK, so me knowing that I’m the Victor, like that’s my archetype that tells me how I show up.  It tells me how I get filled up.  It tells me how I come across to people.  And I think one of the best things that you can do if you want to have influence is to understand and read your own manual, understand how the machine works, you know. 

How do I get when I’m tired?  How do I get when I’m feeling stressed?  What do I do when I’m feeling filled up?  And to recognize the way that I come across the people, like where’s my zone of genius and where do I totally fail?  And knowing that and then being able to surround myself with a team who I’m authentic with, I’m vulnerable with.  

They know me; they know what I’m really good at, like what’s my lane.  But they also know like, “Don’t ever let Brian touch that thing.  You know that one thing.  Let him do this, but don’t let him do that.”  

That’s how I think you have the greatest influence because you’re in your zone or whatever you want to call it, you’re in flow.   And to do that, I believe that right there when you’re living in that sweet spot, that’s where you can make the biggest impact and, here’s the fun part, the biggest income.  So for me, I think strategy and I think about the future and what I’m thinking strategy in the future, our company makes a lot more money.  But when I’m in the details and the minutiae, I’m slowing everybody down.  

So, for you guys to understand, what’s my Enneagram type, what’s my Strength Finder, what’s my Fascination Advantage, Love Language is a big one.  Like how do I hear people when they say “Good job,” that doesn’t mean anything, but then they bring me a gift, I’m like “Oh, that meant the world.”  Like I need to know those things about myself so that I can speak life into other people.  

Andrea:  Awesome!  Coming from a, like a fellow personality test junky, I echo what you just said.  So, Brian, how can people find you and find your book?  

Brian Dixon:  Oh, I love it.  Thanks so much for asking.  Well, the books available on Amazon or wherever you buy books and there’s an audio version.  It’s on Audible.  So the book is called Start with Your People.  And I love you guys to pick it up and then, you know, just let’s be people, right?  Just connect to me as a person.  So I love Instagram.  You can send me a message on Instagram.  I’m Brian J. Dixon on Instagram, but there’s nothing more fun than you hearing this show and then send me a messenger just tell me, “Hey Brian, this is what I got out of it, or here’s a question that I have.  I’d love to continue that conversation with you.  

Andrea:  Awesome!  And if you need any of that, again, we will definitely have that in the show notes on our website.  So Brian, thank you so much for sharing your voice of influence with our listeners.  

Brian Dixon:  Andrea, thanks so much, I appreciate it!