The Blind Spots Sabotaging Your Business Success—And How to Overcome Them with Curtis McCollum, a Human Potential Coach | Ep 246

Dr Steve Day: Today\'s episode is all about the blockages in your mind that you may not even be aware of. Those blind spots or those things that are just holding you back, that are self-sabotaging you without you even knowing. And how to overcome them, how to identify them, how to accept that they exist and actually work through them.

I had an amazing interview with a guy called Curtis McCollum who I just click with on so many levels. We talked in depth about this subject, which I find truly fascinating. It\'s something I\'m spending a lot of time working on myself in my own spare time and with my coaches. I also spend time reading about this and trying to practice it on a regular basis.

Understanding how, why we are wired the way we are and how and why that affects the decisions and the actions that we take. Today is hugely important for us to be successful in our businesses and to live with presence, with purpose and with freedom. So without further ado, let\'s jump in and get started as this is a little bit longer than my typical interviews.

This shows how much I was enjoying my time spent with Curtis and how, how generous he was in likes of his time. And if you love this, please do hit subscribe so you don\'t miss out on future episodes with fantastic people like Curtis. And do stick around to the end of this episode because Curtis talks about some free gifts he\'s giving away.

Some super valuable things that you can actually start using today and some big discount if you do want to go and speak to Curtis and start with any of the work that he talks about in this episode. But this is one of those episodes where someone has given freely of their time, of their expertise and their value you and I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I did recording it.

Hello Curtis, absolute pleasure to have you on the show today. Can you just give us a two minute introduction, who you are and why you\'re here, and maybe like what is the mini story behind what you do in your work?

Curtis McCollum: Well, Steve is this great. Number one. Thank you for having me on the show. That\'s number one. Number two is that this journey for mine, for me started probably almost 40 years ago. I wanted to be a motivational speaker at that time. Was motivational speaker, not a coach or a sales trainer. And so I studied all the greats, man.

I studied Tony Robbins, I studied Dennis Waitley, Jim Rome, all those guys, Zig Ziglar and kind of smashed it in there. And I became a, a follower in financial services. So I set out and so I said but I wanted to be, I wanted to make sure that what I was doing was not just me talking about it, but me something being about it.

And so I became number one in my company in less than a year and a half, and that\'s kind of where my journey started. And, but it took me almost 40 years to get to here. You know, I just retired from financial services about six years ago.

Me and my wife looked at each other like, you know what sweetie? I really don\'t really not passionate about that. I\'m passionate more about, about helping people, changing people\'s lives. And so here I am. So I went back and got a certification as a clinical hypnotherapist, certification in a master practitioner in neuro linguistic programming and mental and emotional release. And I kind of set out on my coaching journey and that\'s kind of why I\'m here, man.

Dr Steve Day: Cool. I want to just touch on one thing. You mentioned NLP or neuroistic programming in, in just your previous sentence. And I know that there are some negative connotations about that because I know that within sales it can be used, it can be seen as being manipulative. So can you explain in your context like what is the good side of NLP and how it actually can be used for the greater good?

Curtis McCollum: Oh, basically. Well, like I think about it, anything that we do or anything, any, anything that\'s good can be used negatively. Right? I mean, so NLP has nothing, not any different than that. However, when you talk about neuro linguistic programming, neural meaning the mind and the, and, and how the mind works and then the language is how we talk to ourselves and how we communicate with others.

And the programming is actually what\'s actually running our current behavior. So the difference is, is that understanding the strategies that one uses then they can now consciously, on a subconscious level actually change them quickly, easily and without a lot of effort. The techniques of neuro linguistic programming obviously is still me building rapport with you, me, you liking and trusting me. Now the difference is, is because I am skilled at it, that means that we can get to that level faster, quicker and more easy.

So I think that\'s a good thing. The obviously we can obviously do something negative with anything like I said before, but the power of it is that when a client comes to see me, we can change some of the behaviors that they\'ve been kind of dealing with for years and years and years within minutes versus hours of talk therapy, other things that they can actually go through.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah. Thank you for coming for clarity, clarifying that. This subject of reprogramming the way we are is something that I\'ve actually talked about previously on this podcast. I\'ve done a fair amount of reading, learning about it myself over the recent years, and my coach and I work on this a lot as well.

Because I realized and have seen that a lot of the assumptions that I make, the conditioning that I have, the way that my brain is wired from the 45 years of life that I\'ve lived is. Has a profound effect. It has every effect on the decisions I make today and how I see opportunities and how I react to circumstances or what people say or what I think they think and all these sorts of things.

And so for me, this is a area where I see a huge amount of potential for personal growth. And so this subject that you were talking about here is something that\'s really close to me. I mentioned this before we came on and why the people I picked to come on this show.

I try to find people that I\'m genuinely interested in your subject, and this is one of them. And I would just. Again, before we came on, I was reading through the questions that your assistant kindly passed over to me, suggestions for topics to speak about. And one came up which was just absolutely on the money. With regards to what we just talked about, what I\'ve mentioned, and also what I do as well.

And the exact wording was I said, what five questions. And one of them was clear the mental clutter before you systemize, and I picked up on this. So that\'s too good to be true.

And he said, no, that is actually what we talk about. So let\'s just jump into that because I think that is, you know, I\'m going to take that away and use it with my clients because, like, absolutely necessary. Is that work of, you know, I don\'t want to put. I\'ll let you do the talk and explain on this. But for me, it\'s like if we try and just basically stick a sticky plaster on top of a problem, the problem\'s still underneath it. It\'s not like a human body which heals when you rip it off, it\'s gone. It\'s like, no, no, it\'s still there.

So with that said, that\'s the way I read that. I want to hear what you meant by it and what you do about it in your work.

Curtis McCollum: Well, basically. And that\'s exactly what I do. Yes. The whole idea behind this, my. One of my coaches, Dr. Matt James, who actually coached me in neuro linguistic programming in mental emotional release. The philosophy is this is, number one, is that we have to release old baggage.

Because if we don\'t release the old baggage before we actually install new behavior, what happens is that we have new behavior on top of old baggage. That means that more than likely you have a greater tendency of going back to what you\'ve always done. So what we do, and that\'s kind of really goes into what I call a legit mindset of learning, growing, expanding, and transforming.

The first thing I try to do with my clients is we learn what is the old behavior that\'s actually driving the old programming that\'s actually driving this current behavior. Once we understand that when we grow, basically what we do, we get rid of that old behavior so that we can now layer on top of that clear actions, clear purpose, a clearer vision, so that they can actually become the best version of themselves.

But this is the key to Steve, is this, is that most people think it stops there. The key to it is that once we get rid of the old baggage, once we start now systematizing or now utilizing the new behavior and setting clear goals.

The biggest part that most people, where people fail is the conditioning. Meaning what I do for my clients is I create what I call a bespoke daily mental supplement, which is a meditation that now reinforces the new behavior so that now they can consistently grow from that.

Because this is the thing is the mind is plastic, right? And it has a tendency of going back to what it\'s comfortable with. Just like anything else. When you got up this morning, you probably took a shower, you probably brushed your teeth, and you probably done a lot of things in dental hygiene, what we call things that we do every day to make sure that our body stays fresh, our mouth stays fresh, and we\'re basically.

Well, we don\'t do that with the mind. The mind needs to be daily conditioned so that when we are bombarded with all this negativity, we can now be able to kind of withstand some of it and not really succumb to a lot of the negativity that\'s out there.

Dr Steve Day: I love that. I love, yeah, exercising the mind in the same way we do our body or hygiene and stuff. It\'s so obvious, but yet so few of us do it. And I\'ll hold my hands up that I do it far less than I should. I need to.

So hopefully I\'m going to take one thing away from this, if nothing else is that, yeah, I need to actually take it more seriously because all this work that we do and we can read all the rest books. And I\'ve read Joe Dispenser, which I\'m sure you\'re familiar with, and that really opened my eyes to understanding that meditation.

And the work that you\'re talking about isn\'t just woohoo at all. It\'s actually about neuroplasticity. Which I understand from my medical career. It\'s about conditioning. It\'s about actually the behavioral changes that we can make through actually understanding how the past has affected us. And also forecasting a future that is different from the past and seeing that we have every opportunity available to us.

It\'s not rocket science when you look at it like that, but it\'s so hard sometimes just to break through that. Like it\'s. You see it. You see a reality that you\'re living in right now and you think that\'s it.

And so how do you help people take that first step? I know you mentioned about something just. That is. But what. Is there anything useful, like takeaways we can try and apply to our lives today if we feel like as entrepreneurs, we\'re stuck in a rut, like you mentioned, that I can think about, like clearing the clothes before you systemize, or like bottlenecks as well. Like, what are the common things you see people as the blind spots, the bottlenecks, whatever it is that you just think, if you can just release that, bang, you\'re on the first step to making these positive changes.

Curtis McCollum: I think the first step, Dr. Day, is this acknowledging the fact that I have a problem. I mean, sometimes it\'s so simple. It\'s like they were like, are you kidding me? Yeah. Most of us don\'t want to acknowledge that there is something challenging us. Right? There\'s a fear.

There is a. There. There\'s fear, rejection, fear of this. I\'m not good enough. I\'m not worthy. All of these beliefs that we currently have. By just acknowledging the fact that there is something that\'s challenging me or stopping me from being the best version of myself, that\'s the beginning of healing. Because now the subconscious mind can go to work on that one thing.

And so what a simple thing that people can do right now is like, number one, acknowledge it. And then number two is ask the right questions. Most of the time, the questions that most people ask are why questions. I remember Tony Robbins many years ago taught me that. Never ask why questions because you ask yourself a why question, your subconscious mind will come up with all the reasons why you are failing and no reasons why you should become the best version of yourself.

So I\'ll tell people to ask questions like, what do I need to do? How can I now move forward? What is it that I can. What inspired actions do I need to be taken right now? So, and that\'s where the meditation comes in at is because I truly believe that we have all the things within us to become the best version of ourselves, truly believe we have all the resources, and when we tap into those resources, that we stop and go into the silence.

People don\'t want to go into the silence. You don\'t have to go a long time. I mean, just allow yourself, I mean, five, ten minutes a day of just being present and asking yourself and allowing these messages to come up. And when they do come up, that\'s number three in my program, is now take inspired actions.

When things do come up, what to do, how to do it, the next step you should be taking, take that inspired action. So number one, acknowledging. Number two is just allowing yourself to ask the right questions. And number three is then taking inspired actions from the things that you gather.

Dr Steve Day: I love it. And I know that from personal experience, sort of. If anyone listening to this has never tried meditation in whatever form that means, whether it\'s breath work, whether it\'s just being present, being still, or whether it\'s some guided meditation or otherwise.

I, on the occasions that I\'ve done it and really dedicated myself to it, and when I say occasions, I mean times, right? I seem to go in and out of it. Like, with most things, it\'s not a strong habit. Like you said at the beginning, it\'s about the keeping up these habits on a regular basis is what we need.

And that\'s again, what I need to probably do more of. But the times I have done, back to my point, like, sometimes just the clarity can be overwhelming almost. I remember actually, like, just having this half an hour, just doing some breath work. And at the end of it, I was almost in tears of just, just not in a negative way, in a super positive way.

I was like, happy. Like, I just basically just seemed to have had total clarity over something that was bothering me and I didn\'t even know what it was. It was bothering me until I didn\'t go into it with an idea of I just want to pick up. And it\'s like you mentioned about admitting you got the problem or like asking.

Acknowledging not the problem, not acknowledging up the problem. And sometimes you don\'t know what the problem is. Sometimes you can just stuck or not moving forward, or you just observe that you\'re not moving forward. And that\'s what happened to me.

Even without knowing that it still happens. So over to you. Carry on.

Curtis McCollum: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that\'s the whole idea though. Think about it. I mean, it\'s like, think about just like what you said, the mind, when the mind is ready. One of my beliefs is this. When the subconscious is ready to release negative energy, it\'ll bring it up, meaning it allows you to experience it, to say, okay, now I\'m ready to release it. So one of the things that I share with people is with acknowledging.

This is the thing. And when you\'re feeling sad and listen to the wording, this is the neuro linguistic portion of it. I\'m saying I\'m feeling sad, I\'m feeling off, I\'m feeling something, or I\'m experiencing this. I\'m not saying I am sad, I am a failure. I am not identifying with the feeling that I\'m experiencing. I\'m actually acknowledging I\'m feeling something.

Like you said before, sometimes, I tell people all the time. Sometimes I come into a day where it\'s just like, man, what is it? I don\'t really know what it is that\'s actually bothering me. What\'s actually causing this feeling, this negativity or this heaviness that I\'m experiencing. And sometimes just stopping or then I share that with my wife. She says, oh yeah, you know, our son, he\'s transitioned from this life to the next about four or five years ago. Four years ago plus. And it might just be one of those days. And then once you acknowledge it, oh, okay, that\'s what it is. It kind of releases the energy. This is one of the things that I work.

I was taught a feeling is an emotion that wants to communicate with us and leave. I\'m gonna tell your audience again. I\'ll say it again. A feeling is an emotion that wants to communicate with us and leave. The challenge is that most of us try to abort the communication. You have to stop. You have to say, okay, what is it that you\'re trying to communicate with me?

That\'s why people have headaches, backaches, stomach aches, all these aches and pains, because they\'ve never stopped and allowed themselves to be. Let the emotion communicate with them. It\'s just saying, hey, I\'m here, you know, see me, acknowledge me. And then once you can acknowledge that, that\'s part of what the subconscious mind wants. It wants the learning from it. It wants to know that I\'m safe, that I\'m okay.

And when we continue to press it down, we continue to push it to the side, we keep moving forward without actually dealing with it, it\'s going to come up. That\'s why people push and push and push, and the subconscious mind says, hey, man, you need to take a break, you need a rest. No, I gotta go. I gotta push, push, push, push, push. Boom. They get a flu, they get a cold, they get something that lays them out that they have to stop.

Because, look, the mind says, look, I\'m trying to tell you, I\'m trying to communicate with you. I want to leave, but you\'re not allowing me to communicate with you. So one of the things I try to share with my clients is a feeling is an emotion that wants to communicate with us and leave. And so allow yourself to have that feeling.

Allow yourself to go through it and get the learning from it. What is it? What is it that you\'re trying to communicate with me? And like you said before, those times when you would go into the silence and just do that, and you don\'t have to do it 30 minutes. And sometimes people think it\'s an hour. I mean, I can\'t do an hour myself because I get bored. But guess what, though, doctor? I can do 30 minutes or I can do five minutes. Right?

I just did an article the other day with my mentor, Jim Rome. He said an apple a day, easy to do and easy not to do. Five minutes. Come on, we could do five minutes.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah, totally. And I was just thinking how it relates or how it should relate to when people think about things like exercise. It\'s like most people who have never run a marathon think that\'s impossible, but then they could probably run half a kilometer and that\'s it.

And I know someone who\'s run 100 kilometers in a race. And that was at a time I decided I was going to do that. A time when I\'d never run more than 10, maybe 12 or something like that. And the hundred was just like, it was as big as most people\'s marathons.

In fact, I even said I\'d never, ever run a marathon because my knees couldn\'t cope with it. Right. And yet a few years later, five years later or something, I was running 100 kilometers, two and a half marathons. And it\'s just the same. It\'s just like you\'ve got to just actually start picking away, chipping away a little bit at a time.

I\'m not saying you need to be running 100 km or anything like that point. Maybe it\'s a bad example for that reason, but it\'s just like whatever that goal is. However, maybe it\'s the 5, maybe it\'s the 5K park run, you know, that you have missions on doing.

Like, what is your mental 5k park run? Like, what\'s that?

Curtis McCollum: And then on top of that, what is it that in order for us to start that new habit of allowing ourselves to feel, to experience so that these emotions can kind of release. Five minutes. Yeah, five minutes of. You know, right now with these smart watches, they have these little mindful things on them, you know, and it says, okay, how long you want to do this breath work for? Five minutes. Five minutes is a great start.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah.

Curtis McCollum: So to get your kind of think about it\'s conditioning. It\'d be foolish for me to try to think that I can jump into anything and just go for hours. And you know, even when I started my workout regimen, I didn\'t start. Now I do like three days a week, 45 minutes a day. I mean, 45 minutes, three days a week, I remember we started doing walking, me and my wife. I remember 10,000 steps were like, oh my God, there\'s no way I could take 10,000 steps. And then, you know, we started with 300 and 400 and 500.

And now 5000 is nothing. 10,000 is definitely durable. But we didn\'t start with 10,000. We started with 300. We started wherever we. This is the thing. This is the thing. Wherever you are on your journey, wherever you are, that\'s okay. That\'s where you are. Start where you are and kind of gradually move up from there.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah. As you\'re speaking, then I just. Two things sprung to mind. One is just really putting into my own words what you\'re saying. And it\'s about being the observer of your emotions. You may even use those words yourself. And it just reminded me of. I can\'t remember which app it was.

Some random app that popped up, like some calm mindfulness app or whatever on my computer, on my phone. And it had a little meditation that you could do. And it\'s one of the things that resonated with me. It worked for me. And it was just like, shut your eyes and imagine you\'re sitting on the side of a busy road and your thoughts are the cars driving past.

You can see your thoughts, you can observe them, you can watch them, but you\'re not in the car. You\'re not. You\'re on the side of the road watching them. I thought it was a great visualization that actually worked for me. I actually thought, oh, yeah, I get that. And I can\'t control the cars. They\'re coming and going. And sometimes they\'ll stop and hang around for a bit and then they\'ll go off again. You know, they are the cars. They\'re not me.

And so that separation of the emotion, the thought, rather than the who, the I or whatever you call it, the ego, if that\'s the right word. But yeah, that was helpful for me. One of the things they. Go on. You want to jump in?

Curtis McCollum: No, no, no, no, no. Go ahead. You were about to ask one.

Dr Steve Day: I was actually going to go back again to something you mentioned before about if we don\'t clear out the baggage, we don\'t clear out the problems, but also about alignment as well, about the work we\'re doing and about that if we\'re not clear on our vision and our goals before we start doing work, then actually there can be a conflict. And this is just something I wanted to pick up on because I\'ve spent the past two or three months working on this specific thing with my coach. I spent a lot of time going through this.

Like, actually, why is that? Our resistance to doing X, Y or Z. For example, for me, like, really pushing the company and marketing hard. I know I want to do it because I know I\'ll get more money and then the more money will mean more ability to grow the business and help more people. Ultimately. But there was something there. And so for me, I had to do a lot of work like the work you\'re talking about here, to uncover that.

And so to really think about, like, okay, how are my core values linked to my work? How are they linked to my family? How are they. For me, that\'s been a really groundbreaking piece of work. I know this is something that you. You know, again, over to you. Just a topic of discussion, really.

Curtis McCollum: Yeah. Basically, this is part of what we do. Part of it is that one of my beliefs is that our values are part of our deepest level programming. When a person\'s values are out of alignment, then you\'re going to have that conflict. Meaning because the conscious mind, which is only 5% of our behavior, wants to. I want to set a goal, I want to move my company forward. But our subconscious behavior and our beliefs, 95%, are actually stopping that from happening.

I do a quick exercise, it\'s called a values and alignment session. It\'s a one hour session and we blow that out in an hour, not weeks. I mean literally. Because what we do is I ask you one simple question. What\'s the most important thing to you when it comes to your career? And then what you\'re going to do, you\'re going to give me a value and I\'ll share my values with you.

My number one value is love. That\'s my label. The label love for me means transference of energy that connects to the heart. That\'s number one. Number two is helping others, which for me is empowering people to achieve their fullest potential. Number three is passion, which is driving the driving force, the energizing purpose.

And now my number four value is making money, which is the exchange of energy that sustains impactful work, growth in benevolence and lifestyle. The reason I listed those four, I got about 10 here. But if one of those values is out of alignment. So when I do a value session, Dr. Day, we go through this list. Then we go back through the list and ask, okay, what does that mean to you? Then I\'m listening for your language within each one of those values.

My values didn\'t look like this before I actually cleaned them up. I would say making money. Making money. Usually. Usually. Now my money is exchange of energy that sustains impactful work. Before it could be hard, it\'s scarce. So even though I want to make money, the language that\'s actually being programmed or the programming behind that label of making money is negative. Or what we call a move away from goal.

So this is what happens when we have a move away from goal. We start up, we say we want to make a hundred thousand dollars, we\'ll just use that as an example. And we get close to 80, then our values kick in and we remember that programming. Money doesn\'t grow on trees. Money is only for rich people. When they have money, they do bad things. And so that\'s the deep level of programming that\'s attached to that label. So we get around 80, we stop what we\'re doing and we start to go back down again.

When we get back down to an uncomfortable level of 60, like, oh, my God, I got to get to work again. So we move back up to about 80, and it keeps the seesaw effect. And what we do in my sessions is that we, number one, figure out what is the baggage behind that label that we utilize for money. And then we go in and we clean that up. I use what we call mental and emotional release, where within less than 10 minutes, we blow out what that is that actually drives that behavior in. Wow.

And that\'s the key. When our values are not in alignment, even though we\'re pushing hard, we know what we want consciously. On a subconscious level, our values are one of the strongest things, because that\'s the reason why we get up in the morning. That\'s why we stay up late. That\'s what drives that behavior. And when it\'s out of alignment, we can push and push and push. But that one word can be the one thing that\'s stopping us.

One last part of this is that when I do this session with individuals, it\'s interesting to me that some of the time the value for money is not in their top five. It\'s like, because they don\'t want. They\'re like, I\'m doing this work because I\'m altruistic. I want to do this work because it\'s good for the people. It\'s not about the money. And the money value is like 8 or 9 or 10 and they don\'t make money.

But when you think about money and look at my value for money as the exchange of energy, meaning this exchange that we\'re having, exchange of energy that sustains impactful work. In order for me to do what I do, it has to be impactful and growth and benevolence. I love to give. If I don\'t have money, I can\'t give. And lifestyle. My wife loves nice vacations. My wife loves nice things. And so part of me wanting to make money or desiring to make money is because of that.

So when I look at my definition for the label of money, it\'s moving forward. It\'s congruent to what I want to become so that I don\'t have that conflict of preventing me from actually going through it.

Dr Steve Day: Wow, this is such important stuff. I say that with complete authenticity about what you just described. I think it\'s absolutely for business owners, for everybody. But for businesses, it\'s absolutely fundamental. And I know I\'ve really struggled with this stuff over the years, way before I even realized I was struggling with it. So my complete blind spot. And so hearing you very succinctly discuss and describe that particular challenge, I think it\'s something that every business owner I\'ve ever met would benefit from spending time on, exploring the values, the wealth aspect.

So for me, my highest values are freedom, wealth and presence. And presence mainly means family. So freedom, wealth and family, but freedom, wealth and presence. And so the wealth part of it\'s always been there. The presence part was the bit that was missing for me. So I found freedom. I enjoyed the wealth. The problem is they were in direct conflict with each other for a long time.

And that\'s one of the challenges that I faced. Every time I tried to make money, that thing you described of going to the 80, dropping to the 60, that is just history, the story of my life. Because freedom was such a high goal, probably my number one was freedom. Now probably presence is number one. I\'m all about the ability to choose what I do with my time. That\'s what I class as freedom.

But the wealth thing got in the way because every time I tried to get the money, it would drop on the freedom and blast it. So my work in recent years has been bringing those all together, which is just exactly what you just described very succinctly. So this is a very interesting timed conversation for us to be having because it couldn\'t be more current for me than right now. Brilliant.

Curtis McCollum: And that\'s important. And I love the words or the labels that you use. It becomes a conflict. See, because what happens with values is that if your number one value is family, right, is high on your list, and the other value is making money, but you feel like if I\'m making money, I\'m taking the time away from my family.

So what happens with the mind is we\'re always traveling. When we\'re with our family, we\'re thinking about making money. When we\'re making money, we\'re thinking about our family. So we\'re doing this back and forth, back and forth. And what we do is we basically determine what is the true definition, what is it that\'s driving that behavior, why you feel like it\'s a conflict. And then we resolve the conflict. Once we resolve the conflict, then there is no conflict. So that now they can work harmonious, meaning they can now work together.

That\'s why if you look at my value for money, and I\'ll say it again. My value for money is an exchange of energy that sustains impactful work, growth, benevolence and lifestyle. That means now everything that I do is for me to be able to give like I want to give, to have the lifestyle I deserve and I love, and know that\'s part of my family, to have an impactful work so that I can show up in a way that is magnetic. Because I\'m showing up in a different presence.

And in the exchange of energy is the fact that people deserve to make money because of what is exchanged. Meaning one of the challenges that some entrepreneurs have is that they don\'t want to charge money for what they do, or a person doesn\'t want to pay for the work that a person does, which breaks the energy. Meaning that if I give you value, I deserve to have value given back to me in a form of something that\'s going to move my life forward. Because what I\'m going to give you is going to transform your life. What is that worth to you?

And in exchange for that, I\'m not asking you for millions, but I am asking you for thousands. Because I\'ve done the work, I\'ve done the homework, and that\'s an even exchange of energy. That\'s what people have to understand is that even though they spent one hour with me, the energy that I have put into that one hour is years of study, is years of working. And that one hour is not just one hour of your exchange, but the hour that you spend with me.

The hour that they spend with you, you bring them so much value that they should be happily giving you the exchange of the money that you ask them for.

Dr Steve Day: Totally. I mean, there\'s a. I don\'t know if it\'s true or not, but there\'s a story about Picasso walking into a cafe. Have you heard this one?

Curtis McCollum: No, I have not.

Dr Steve Day: Picasso walks into a cafe and someone sat there in this French cafe and says, oh, it\'s Picasso. Hey, Picasso, I love your work. Whatever. And she says, will you draw me a picture? So he gets a pen out, scribbles on the back of a napkin. She\'s just about to pick it up, and he puts his hand on it and goes, that\'s 100,000 francs. And she said but it only took you 10 seconds to draw. He said it took me a lifetime to draw that.

So it\'s like, you know, I can\'t remember the exact word expression. And it\'s just such a, like. Exactly. Your point is about the fair exchange. And I think that comes from us valuing ourselves as individuals, as someone who can deliver that value. Talking about when, like you say, if you don\'t have wealth up there, if you don\'t actually feel that for yourself and you don\'t feel you should be charging people a fair amount of money or whatever exchange of energy, exchange of value that you determine is right, then it\'s very hard to get the value from other people.

When you need something, yes, you have to see there is a direct transfer of value and money is just a tool exchange that we use. But actually I completely agree and this is something that again took me years of being in business to get and understand and actually truly believe. Not to say, oh yeah, I read a book, now I believe it. It\'s that we will never get value from things we invest in unless we believe people get value from investing in us. You\'ve got to see it from both sides.

Curtis McCollum: What you have to understand about energy. You know, the law of conservation is that energy is never lost or destroyed. It\'s only transferred from one source to the next. So if you think about the transference of energy, it\'s moving back and forth. And when we break the energy, when we break this cycle, someone gets shorted in the process. Right? Sometimes people want to give to us and we\'re like, no, no, no, no, no, don\'t do that. But when a person is trying to give you something, that\'s them showing their appreciation and they want to give it to you.

And sometimes we say no, no, no, no, no. I would not let that person give, and then the exchange is broken. So it\'s not complete. And that\'s part of the challenge we have. And I think you brought up a great point. One of the reasons why we feel that way is because somewhere during the imprinting stage from 0 to 7, we accepted or decided a belief about money. Usually that\'s when our beliefs and our values start to take place. Around that time, when you went to the store and you were about to pick up something, and your mom said, no, that costs too much, or no, money doesn\'t grow on trees.

Even though those were things we heard or felt when we were growing up, when we accepted that belief or we saw something on television, like, look at those rich people, they\'re always treating people bad. That little seed that was planted when we were young still carries with us. And now we\'re grown. Now it\'s time for us to make money. Even though we don\'t even see the program running, the program is still running, but it comes up and presents itself totally different.

So now I\'m trying to expand my business, and this little belief that I accepted or decided, that was an offhanded remark way back when, is still tripping me. And so what we do is figure out when that belief first formed. When exactly did we accept that belief? And then now let\'s release the energy around it, and let\'s get a new meaning. Let\'s reframe it. So that\'s an empowerment versus something that\'s going to stop us. And that\'s kind of what we do, reframe it.

I\'m going to give you an example. This is a real true example, and it happened to me. Think about it like this. I am a transformational coach. I consider myself an expert. I\'m giving all these people these transformations. And about six or eight weeks ago, I was still like, man, I\'m getting these transformations, people are getting movement, but I\'m still kind of stagnant here. What is it? And this was the program that was running for me. Success is hard and difficult. That was the programming.

So I called my buddy over. He\'s a master practitioner in mental emotional release. I said, man, I need some help with this area. And so we went back in mental emotional release. What we do is we ask three questions. Number one, is it okay to release this energy? Number two, when was the first event, the root cause of this emotion, that when we release it, we can release it effortlessly? So when we did that, he asked me those questions.

And then he said, okay, Curtis, if you were to know when was it. For some reason, my subconscious mind says, around two. So we went to that event, looked at the event. I don\'t know what was happening at two because that\'s something deep in my subconscious. But the feeling I was having, that\'s when it happened. I just go with it with my clients. And so we floated above our timeline, looking down on the event at age two.

And instead of success is hard and difficult, I said, oh, okay, I\'m strong, I\'m confident, and I can make it through. That\'s the new learning that I got from that event, looking down on it. So I\'ve changed it from success is hard and difficult to I\'m empowered, I\'m powerful, and I\'m confident. We floated back, giving all the learnings through all the subsequent events where I had been saying success is hard and difficult.

Looking back at my life, Dr. Day, every time I would get to a certain point in my career, making money, doing a lot of great things, I would always say, success is hard and difficult. When I was in financial services and I was doing over a million dollars in revenues per year, my wife came to me and said, oh, my God, Curtis, you just do this so easy. I said, no, this is hard, this is difficult. And this is the crux of the story.

So I was curious and I called my mom. I said, mom, what was happening in my life at age two? She said, oh, sweetie, you were being potty trained. Because I didn\'t want two babies in diapers at the same time, you were around 18 months. And she said it was hard and difficult for you to be potty trained. The same verbiage that I had been carrying around for 60 years was the same thing that I accepted and decided when I was around two, that success is hard and difficult.

Within 10 minutes, I released it. But I\'d been carrying it around for 60 years. And that\'s the thing. I didn\'t know the programming was running. I didn\'t know what it was, but this is the evidence that there was a blind spot.

A blind spot is a time in our lives when we want to go to the next level, but something is stopping us from getting there. We all have blind spots, but some blind spots do not affect us at all. We go through life and live with them, and they don\'t stop us from going to the next level. But when we want to move to the next level, move our life, move our business, move our career to another level, and something is blocking it, that\'s the blind spot. And that\'s how we got it released.

Dr Steve Day: Wow, that\'s awesome. Very, very cool. Yeah. Lots and lots of things buzzing around my head. We could go on for hours on this subject. It is a subject that I\'m so, so interested in because it\'s sort of always been there in the back of my mind. Even when I\'m in my 20s.

I read a book by the Dalai Lama, which was all about neuroplasticity in children and about talking about not destructive emotions. Another one I can\'t remember exactly. And it\'s about people that grow up with persistently depressive personality types. And how actually even adults. This is going back about 25 years now. They realized that even in adults, unlike the traditional thinking, we do have brains that can be rewired through different experiences today or through the work that you\'re talking about, like fast tracking that.

Which is actually about doing the gym work to allow you to go and run a marathon. You can either go outside and walk yourself to a marathon or you can get a personal trainer. You can hit the gym, specific exercises, follow training and all the rest of it and you get there quicker. And I think since that early age, that seed was planted.

I love neurology. When I studied medicine, this idea about this big blob of mass in the middle of our heads, which we pretty much don\'t understand on so many levels. But we can see the effects of the work that we do, even if we don\'t understand the mechanics of how it\'s working on a physical level. We know about neurons and pathways, and we can actually increase those pathways by visualizations. So this stuff makes sense to someone who has studied very basic neurology.

But it\'s more the effect, more the outcomes, more the change in personality or change in behavior or change in life as a result. That\'s fascinating to me. And we could get into the whole world of quantum thinking as well. But that will be for another day.

Today, because of time, I\'m gonna have to draw this to a close. But it has been absolutely wonderful speaking with you, Curtis. Before I go, I\'m gonna ask you a couple of questions before you jump off. How can people get hold of you if they want to learn more about what you do, your work, or if they want to get in touch with you?

Curtis McCollum: Basically, number one, I do have a YouTube channel, Curtis McCollum, @curtismccullom on YouTube. You can like and subscribe to me there. Also, you can find me on LinkedIn @curtismccullom on LinkedIn and you can DM me there. I don\'t know if my assistant gave you any freebies or not, but we can.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah, I\'ve got a link to your legit mindset landing page or web page, which I will have in the show notes. But is there anything else you\'d like me to add?

Curtis McCollum: Yeah, basically. I\'ll have her probably send you something today. We\'ve been giving away for audiences like this. It\'s the anxiety reframe model that I created. Normally it\'s a $200 value. We normally do it for like $27. And so we can drop that in here for you.

Also what we do is that session, the one session that I do, it\'s a $500 session and we do it for $97. It\'s the values alignment and values session, discovering alignment session. It\'s an hour with me instead of spending hundreds of dollars. We do it for like $97 for people.

That one session could be a life changer for a lot of people. I put it at a price point so people can at least get on this journey. So I\'ll have my assistant shoot those two things over to you. Both of those are very value oriented and I think your audience can actually benefit from both.

Dr Steve Day: Awesome. Absolutely brilliant. And we\'ll get those in the show notes and you\'ll find them on our webpage as well. If you go to systemizeyoursuccess.com and find this episode, you\'ll find all the links, as well as on the show notes on most of your favorite podcast channels and on our YouTube channel. So wherever you\'re listening to this, you should be able to find what Curtis is talking about. And just in case you\'re like me and dyslexic and have no idea how to spell anything at all, Curtis McCollum is C U R T I S M C C U L L O M. Just in case.

Yeah. As I say, like me, I can\'t spell for toffee. Fantastic. Curtis, before you go, I have two questions I want to ask you. First one is a tech geeky question I\'d like to ask everybody. What are you playing with in terms of apps, technology, browser plugins or gadgets at the moment?

Curtis McCollum: Really and truly, I\'m really getting into ChatGPT. It\'s fascinating to me. It\'s kind of revolutionizing my business and now it\'s communicating with me on a different level. I\'m just like, oh my God. It\'s fascinating because I can do things faster, quicker and easier. It\'s learning my behavior, learning my business. And I\'m teaching it, okay, no, that\'s not right, this is what it should be.

I did something on anchoring where you can instantly go back into a state or emotion and it did something. I said, no, this is what I want. So that\'s one of the biggest things I\'m really geeking out on right now.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah, same. And are you building GPTs for these things, these models that you\'re working on, or are you just using chat threads?

Curtis McCollum: I\'m just using chat for it. Basically I\'m using chat and it allows me to speed up my creativity. Just like you, I have a little dyslexia. When I was growing up, I didn\'t understand why it was difficult for me to read. Now I understand certain things. You mentioned that earlier. I just thought, that\'s interesting.

Dr Steve Day: Yeah, yeah, totally. Two little things. Firstly, check out my podcast. Subscribe, because I\'m going to do a training on prompt engineering and I\'ll do it live on the podcast or at least an edited version. It\'s something I\'m spending a huge amount of time on, creating training for my clients.

I\'ve already created some in-house training and some GPTs for writing GPTs. Sort of like models for building models within ChatGPT. Because one of the problems is writing good prompts is half the problem. Unless you\'ve got a background in software engineering, then you can write a prompt and describe the goal, the context, etc. But if you want anything more complex or conditional, it\'s quite difficult.

So I\'ve spent a long time creating a prompt writing prompt which works really well and building GPTs. What you\'re describing, we were starting to build GPTs for each area of our business. If I want to talk about marketing, I have a GPT specifically. I feed it with background information and knowledge documents, so whenever I want to do work on marketing, I can go straight to that one.

It has all the history I want it to have, but it\'s not just a single chat history. I can have different threads with the same background knowledge and then take it on different paths without conflicting. So anyway, those are my tips. Tip one is check out GPTs.

Tip two is, I don\'t know if you do this already, but do you talk to it or do you always write?

Curtis McCollum: I\'ve started talking to it a little bit this last week or so for the first time.

Dr Steve Day: I\'d say that is, productivity wise, one of the biggest wins I\'ve had.

Curtis McCollum: Really?

Dr Steve Day: Yeah, just literally, instead of trying to type sometimes. Sometimes clarity comes with typing and I get that. But actually, when it\'s a subject you know so well, you probably don\'t need to type anything. You probably just want to hit the record button. Nine times out of ten it records. It does drop one in ten, I don\'t know why. But all the garble that comes out of my mouth, the random thoughts and all the rest of it, it just seems to cut through the crap and figure out what I\'m actually trying to say, which is what our human brain does naturally.

Because when I read the transcript of my podcast, it doesn\'t make any sense. But when I hear my podcast, oh yeah, it kind of makes sense. And ChatGPT can read through all that nonsense. It\'s incredibly useful. It means I can do it on the go as well.

I can have it on my phone to carry on a conversation while walking home, picking up the kids, or walking in the forest. I can continue my chat threads and discussions. It records in the tracker. Then when I get home, put my computer on, and it\'s all there. So it\'s really cool. Anyway, that\'s it.

Last question, Curtis, before you go. This podcast is called Systemize Your Success. What does success mean to you?

Curtis McCollum: Success to me is becoming the best version of myself in order to help other individuals become the best version of themselves. I think about a Bible passage. I was a pastor at one time, and one of the passages says, love your neighbor as yourself. That\'s interesting, because if I don\'t love myself, how can I love my neighbor? And so if I can\'t be the best version of myself, how can I share that with others? For me, success means that I\'m the best version of myself, therefore I can help others become the best version of themselves.

Dr Steve Day: Love it. Thank you very much indeed, Curtis. This has been an absolute pleasure. I think this is probably one of my longest ever interviews, which shows you how much I\'ve enjoyed it, and I hope you have too. It\'s been a pleasure having you on the show.

Curtis McCollum: Oh, man, it was my pleasure. Thank you, Dr. Day, for having me.

Dr Steve Day: Cool. Thanks so much.

The Blind Spots Sabotaging Your Business Success—And How to Overcome Them with Curtis McCollum, a Human Potential Coach | Ep 246

We talk about:

KEY TAKEAWAYS: Practical Strategies to Overcome Mental Blind Spots

BEST MOMENTS: Eye-Opening Insights Into Mental Blind Spots

TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW: Mental Blind Spots That Sabotage Your Business Success

Episode Transcript

VALUABLE RESOURCES

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST

ABOUT THE GUEST

LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST

ABOUT THE HOST

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