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EP581: TL Nuggets #165 – The Apathy Zone
104 Plays4 months ago
Are you tired of feeling stuck, like you're just coasting through life without any real motivation? What if the key to unlocking your true potential lies in understanding something called "The Apathy Zone"? We all know that feeling of being caught in a rut, where things are just okay but not great. It's a dangerous place where our dreams can wither away, and today’s episode is here to change that.
People change when they are either extremely dissatisfied or incredibly excited about their future. However, many get trapped in a middle ground where the discomfort isn't enough to spur change, leading to stagnation and missed opportunities. Break free from the apathy zone and reach your full potential. Don’t wait for tomorrow—start today. Remember, don’t settle for mediocrity. Strive for excellence and live the first-class life you deserve.
Visit eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
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Transcript
Societal Conditioning and Personal Truth
00:00:03
Speaker
I notice that people have a tendency to soften themselves, soften the truth. Society raises us to be victims. It's not okay for you to soften the harsh truth. Some people are really motivated. Oh, I want the Ferrari. I want to go out there and make an
Motivation from Dreams and Frustrations
00:00:19
Speaker
impact. Other people, it's when they get fired from a job that they say enough. Other people, it's when they see the economy and the politicians lying to them. That's when people will change. Now, in between those two, is what I call the apathy zone. You'll spend a fortune on marketing and not get a result. You'll do a ton of breakthrough calls and not get a result. All they're gonna do is go, oh yeah, that was great. Thanks a lot for your time. Check in with me in three months, six months.
00:00:47
Speaker
string in you along and do nothing, nothing.
The Apathy Zone: A Barrier to Action
00:00:51
Speaker
You can learn how to use your words and be very very authentic and very truthful and drive the people either to get really mad about what's going on or really excited. What you don't want is for them to stay in that middle apathy zone.
Introduction to Thought Leader Revolution with Mark Von Musim
00:01:09
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice. This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:39
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast of Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nicky Baloo, and I'm here with my favorite guests of all time, the one and only Mark Von Musim. Welcome to show Mark. Excited to be here. This is going to be a fun conversation. Love this topic. Me too. Me too. I was very impressed, Mark, with the thought leadership you demonstrated when you came up with this. The title of this episode is The Apathy Zone. And it's based on some brilliant thought leadership created by none other than the legendary Mark von Münster. Mark,
Understanding Decision-Making in Apathy
00:02:11
Speaker
talk to us. What is the Apathy Zone and why do people in our industry need to be vigilant about it?
00:02:20
Speaker
so It gets back to the psychology of human behavior and how humans make decisions to change. and What you'll find is that people fall into two different categories. When they get fed up enough, when they're angry enough, they might change. When they're excited about a dream, they might change. So, those are your two extremes in terms of what it takes for somebody. Some people are really motivated, oh, I want the Ferrari. I want to go out there and make an impact. I want to have that. Other people, it's when they get fired from a job that they say, enough. Other people, it's when they see the economy and the politicians lying to them, gaslighting and pretending that inflation isn't 30%, 40%.
00:03:01
Speaker
but your bills have gone up 30-40% and you're told that you're an idiot because of that, but when you get angry enough, that's when people will
Breaking Free from Ineffective Marketing
00:03:09
Speaker
change. Now, in between those two is what I call the apathy zone. That's where it's not bad enough to change. That's where, yeah, it's not that bad, but you know I got to go do something else. and what That's a danger zone, and this apathy zone is also how people market. They're trying to white bread mayonnaise market, which is in the middle zone, where instead of saying what's really going on, they're kind of talking generic terms, generic like, are you struggling?
00:03:40
Speaker
It's not struggle that you want to talk about. It's like, are you sick and tired of being abused by your by your leaders? And so what happens, though, is even in marketing, even in a breakthrough call, people are white bread managing the the conversation. And so what that means, if you don't understand the Apathy Zone, you'll spend a fortune on marketing and not get a result. You'll do a ton of breakthrough calls and not get a result. And so once you understand this, you can learn how to use your words and be very, very authentic and very truthful and drive the people either to get really mad about what's going on or really excited. What you don't want is for them to stay in that middle apathy zone. And that's that is a huge reason why businesses are not thriving because they're trying to please everyone. And in reality, they please no one.
00:04:31
Speaker
That's brilliant. And when I heard you um describe this, this continuum for the first time, I was blown away by how brilliant it was because if people are either mad about their situation or excited about the future, they are motivated to act. But if people are in that apathetic zone, yeah, I should do something about it someday. They're not motivated to do squat. All they're going to do is is go, oh, yeah, that was great. Thanks a lot for your time. Yeah. you Yeah. Check in with me in three months, six months, and then they'll just keep stringing you along and do nothing, nothing. That's right. You get someone stuck in that apathy zone. Man, your sale is dead. Your sale is dead. And Mark, you always say this, right? If you don't have sales, you don't have a business. You have a hobby.
00:05:29
Speaker
right Right? So the Apathy Zone is a sales killer and that means it's a business killer, right? very much it also is an opportunity and so one of the things that I realized when I would be on a call if I'm on a call to find out whether or not somebody could use my help I want to find out what's working what's not right and a lot of times people will go oh well it's okay you know everything's going good everything's okay you know well I'm getting a couple of sales and I'm kind of here And if the conversation never evolves beyond that, you're wasting both of each other's time.
Mapping Motivation Levels
00:06:05
Speaker
Now, what happens if you think about a scale to simplify this down for people listening? Imagine a scale, a hot button, a boiling point, right? And on here is 1 through 10.
00:06:16
Speaker
Now, the numbers one, two, and three are progressive levels, meaning one is the hottest, most angry a person can get, two is the next closest, three is really pissed off enough to change. Then you go into the middle zone, which is the apathy zone, the four, five, and six. It's bad, but you know what? I got to keep doing what I'm doing. It's bad, but it's not that bad. I got some good things, too. And what happens is they soften in their own mind so they're not going to change. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you've got the people that are fired up on life, the seven, eight, nine and 10s.
00:06:48
Speaker
And they are fired up for life. They're excited about the opportunity. This is a lot of the immigrants, by the way, immigrants come from other countries. They're excited. They know what real pain is like. They know what it's like to go three days without food. OK, so they're pissed off about that. And they're excited. That is a very powerful human being when they can tap into both of those. Where most people get in trouble is the apathy zone. And we've created a lot of the apathy zone in America and Canada. How so? Well, at worst, you get welfare, you get food stamps, you get things that allow you to kind of continue instead of being starving, and then you can get more EBT. And then the other ones is that they're lowering the laws, they're dropping the laws. So, for example, in San Francisco, it used to be if you stole something at the store over $100, it became a felony. Well, they changed that to $1,000.
00:07:43
Speaker
right so now a lot of the homeless people and a lot of the criminals they're just going in and they're not even paying for stuff you're seeing it all over the place so what's happened instead of them really getting looking in the mirror and saying I want more they've now created a bigger apathy zone people can get Okay, 50, 60, $70,000 between food stamps and that's enough to keep you in victim mode, bitch mode, instead of getting hungry or excited. And so that's really one of those things that for the person out there.
Coaching for True Change
00:08:17
Speaker
You have to start deciding, does your marketing do your breakthrough calls? Are you very effective at getting people to the truth of how frustrated they really are? Or are you just superficially going over it? How good are you at getting them to what is their real dream? Because, Nikki, this is something I noticed, having been in the coaching space and former director of coaching for Tony Robbins and a few other things. I noticed that people have a tendency to soften themselves, soften the truth. When they look in the mirror, they're going, well, you know what? I'm big boned. No, you're fat. Let's be real. That's not big boned. That is fat. You had a 29 inch waist when you were 21 years old. Now you have a 50 inch waist. You're fat. But our minds will go ahead and soften it.
00:09:05
Speaker
My whole I remember we had ah had somebody a friend who super nice guy and he was 400 pounds. You know what his nickname was? True story. What? Tiny, tiny, tiny. He was the smallest one in his southern family. These people are all walking heart attacks. And the problem was in his mind, he was the fittest out of the group and there was nothing wrong being 400 pounds. Now, the problem is these people die 10, 20, 30 years, 40 years before their their time. And so that that's the part two where in order to coach people, I need to get them either angry or excited if I want to get them to move.
00:09:44
Speaker
And um I'll give you another example. My brother had a tattoo shop, right? And he was like, this was the same pattern that kept happening. Oh, my landlord's such a jerk. He he wants to raise the rent and, you know, that. And I go, OK, so why don't we go find a new place? No, no, it's OK. And see, he would defend it. It's still OK. It's still OK. It's still OK. And he would not change. Now eventually the landlord did raise the rent enough and all of a sudden he's like oh my god and he got really angry and now he was willing to take action. Now here's what happened when he was willing to take action I worked with him and we coached and we started looking we found a place 10 to 15 times bigger for almost the same rent.
00:10:30
Speaker
It had a better location. He went from having himself and one tattoo artist. Now he had 10 to 15 tattoo artists working for him because he got angry enough to change. And in that time, and his income went went accordingly. So I want you guys to realize that human behavior is a lot of times we will not lose the weight. And I was the same way, Nikki, I was 212 pounds with a 47 inch waist at one point. And I got really sick and tired of training. I got really sick. So I was morbidly obese. I'm five seven. And I remember. Yeah, but.
00:11:06
Speaker
Yeah, you know what? It's OK. I'd have my fat boy clothes. I'd put on my pants and I couldn't even zip them. So I do the belt and unzipped. And then I'd wear my mumu shirt, you know, my Tommy Bahama over it. So you couldn't quite see it. And I remember my daughter. She goes, Daddy, you're fat. She was like three years old or something. But it was enough for me to go ahead and get angry. So I changed. And only then did I change. And then I dropped like 60 some pounds, like, you know, rapidly and got back into shape. But it was amazing how even for me how I could creep in from being seven percent body fat to like 50 percent body fat because I just kind of did it. And I I kept eating and I kept like not doing the stuff. But it wasn't until I got angry that I stuck to a diet and I made the changes needed. That's brilliant. I'm listening to you share all this and a couple of things struck
Critique of Victim Mentality
00:12:02
Speaker
me. Right. um One is
00:12:06
Speaker
Society raises us to be victims. People who are notorious raise themselves, right? And society's telling you 24-7, it's okay for you to be fat, it's okay for you to not have a job, to not have the business of your dreams, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Here's the truth, it's a lot of crap. It's not okay for you to be out. It's not okay for you not to have ah to not have the business of your dreams. It's not okay for you to not have the job of your dreams. It's not okay for you to soften the harsh truth because another another way of saying you're softening the truth is you're lying to yourself.
00:12:42
Speaker
You're full of crap. That's right. You're a liar. ye I've been that pathetic liar. And me too. And i'm I'm hearing what you're saying and I'm going, you know, last week I called you to to complain, basically the bitch that my health and fitness coach was was rough on me, was mean to me. I'm like shit, man. He made me mad. But you know what? He was right and I was wrong. He needed to wake up the monster. And that's what he did. And that's what, as a coach, your job is to wake up the monster or to get the excited a person to come alive. And if you if you let people stay in their apathy zone, they're dead. Their dreams are dead, their success is dead. Brilliant stuff, Mark.
00:13:30
Speaker
I love it. And the thing about it, it's like I've been in shape, I've been fat, I've been skinny. When I started lifting weights, I weighed 111 pounds as a fully grown man. So I was really tiny. It took me almost 10 years, 12 years to get to 210 pounds naturally in bodybuilding. So that was a long, a lot of chicken, a lot of rice, a lot of crappy supplements. and then I got so burnt out from the extreme diets that i I said screw it and I took about 18 months and I was the first super-sized me. I used to eat McDonald's every day and I would go to McDonald's I'd get two Big Macs large super-sized fries and nine-piece chicken McNuggets and then sometimes two hot apple pies and that was literally a drink. now
00:14:09
Speaker
When I started eating that, I love my trailer trash food and all my all my foods, but I
Confronting Harsh Truths for Change
00:14:14
Speaker
got really, really fat. And part of it was because I was so burnt out from the training and everything else. Yeah. But one of the things that was interesting, Nikki, was when I was doing it, I was like you said, I was lying to myself and I didn't realize, but let's let's break down obesity. Would it be better for me not to speak the truth and say, oh, it's okay to be 400 pounds. And now now you're a slave to big pharma. You're going to have to be put on on cholesterol medicines and statins. You're going to have to be on high blood pressure medicine. You're going to be diabetic, meaning you're going to need insulin. And now you're going to start having your feet cut off. That's what my daughter's a podiatrist now. And that's what she ends up doing is removing people's feet.
00:14:59
Speaker
And it's like some of these things, would it be better to let that happen because I don't want to offend you? Or would it be better to say, hey, you're better than this. There's greatness inside of you. I've been there. I know what it's like. And it's like that's true in almost any situation. Here's the truth. would I be better to challenge you to become a multimillionaire by adding value to society or is it better for me to say it's okay Nikki life's not fair. You're an immigrant Nikki you're a person that people again it's the the deck is stacked against you and i I cater to your victim or I cater to your victor.
00:15:35
Speaker
And me personally, I see greatness in everybody. I don't give a shit what color you are. I don't care what country you come from, whether you're from Kenya, India, Pakistan, you name it. If you're here, you have greatness inside of you. And I would rather see you step up into your power, step up and to be great. It's why so many immigrants come to this these countries and they kick ass because they see the opportunity. People don't realize this. They think about this bullshit about white privilege. Do you realize that if you take every ethnicity that in in North America, that Caucasian is number 13 or 14?
00:16:11
Speaker
behind all the different immigrants, Koreans, Japanese, Jewish, on and on and on. Why is that? Because they see the opportunity. There's no privilege there. And so the reality is if you want to get after it and kick ass and dump your victim story and step up and and do it, I don't care if you're black, you might have to work harder. I don't care if you're Mexican, you might have to work harder. I don't care if you're short and ugly. You can still do it if you're willing to work harder. You think Mark Zuckerberg got there because he was white? You think Jeff Bezos got there because he was a good looking man? No, he was a total geek, but he worked his ass off. He added massive value. You think Elon Musk made it because he was a a South African and white? He made it because he innovated. He worked his ass off. He slept there and he worked 20 hours a day. But people forget that because the victim is so so tasty and you don't have to do anything to be a victim.
00:17:04
Speaker
no And so I would rather challenge people to claim their greatness. And it's like, we've helped people, Nicky, as well. I know, um you know, we were celebrating, you know, the 12th person recently helped become a millionaire. yeah It's amazing to me. We've helped people that can barely speak English and they become millionaires. You don't think it's harder for somebody with a heavy Chinese accent that you can barely understand? No, they're going to have to work harder. That's the truth. But if they do that, they can overcome everything. And again, I would rather have that conversation. I've had some people get really mad at me and they're millionaires today because they listen. So get them mad, get them excited, but don't let them sit in that middle safety zone, that comfort zone, that apathy zone. That's where you're in danger.
00:17:48
Speaker
Amen. So Mark, we're wrapping
Encouragement to Overcome Apathy
00:17:50
Speaker
this up now. And this is one of the most important episodes you and I have ever done. This concept of the apathy zone is absolutely brilliant. We're going to map this out and put it into ah some thought leadership, ah ah intellectual property formats that people can consume easily. um If you are interested in being the 13th through the 22nd millionaires that Mark and I helped create this year, then I suggest that you listen to this episode, take detailed notes and jump on our calendars because the time is now.
00:18:33
Speaker
You're either angry that you're not where you should be, you're excited about where you could be, or you're apathetic and you don't really care. Don't be apathetic. Don't be a victim. Stop tolerating BS and start being the best version of yourself. And the way to do that is jump on our calendar. Mark, great having you on the show, man. Thanks. It's great to be here. And everybody listening, guys, there's a level of greatness with you. Nikki talked about don't tolerate, and I couldn't agree more. When you get on an airplane, are you justifying, well, coach class, cattle class is the same as first class? Do you say we're both going to the same spot? When you go to a hotel, are you getting the best rate or are you getting a suite?
00:19:15
Speaker
When you go out to dinner, are you getting your dream meal or are you picking the the one that you can afford? Because my belief, if you're willing to make some changes, you deserve it all. And something magical happens when you step up to that. And you got to realize that the danger zone is the comfort zone, that apathy zone. You got to get beyond it. Life gets way better when you start living a first class life. And in order to do that, you either need to get mad and realize that there's another level or get excited because both will work. Amen. Amen. And that's a wrap. This episode has been brought to you by E-CircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.