PTP:073. Dr. Michael Hudson “Get Your Message Heard”

Brad Miller 1:12
Dr. Brad Miller back with you with the pathway to promise podcast where we’re all about helping you overcome adversity to achieve your promise life of peace, prosperity and purpose. We do that by talking to some great people who have great stories to tell about overcoming adversity themselves, as well as helping you to gain insight and, and influence into your life and helping you to overcome adversity. Today, we have Dr. Michael Hudson with us, who has transitioned in his life through various through the academic world into a life now where he’s helping people to drive to clarify their vision, and their businesses and their life, to drive impact in order to have success in their life. And he does it by really focusing in on their communication, getting their message heard. He is online at Michael Michael Hudson calm. And he is our guest today on pathway to promise Michael, welcome to the

Dr. Michael Hudson 2:11
podcast. Thank you, Brad. It’s a pleasure to be here and a privilege.

Brad Miller 2:15
Absolutely. Well, I’ve been a fan of yours for quite some time on your podcast and some of your some of your work that you’ve done. And I love your story. And I love how you focus in on communication and helping clarify messaging, I got a feeling that you’ve had some experiences in your life that have been transformational and transitional for you. To help move you through various pivot points in your life. I just like to hear a little bit of your story. What are some of the points in your life that have important to you?

Dr. Michael Hudson 2:45
Brad, I love the question. And by the way, I love the work you’re doing here because my fundamental belief that I have come to discover over time through the journey I’ve traveled is that all of us have lessons from the journey that we’ve traveled that reveal things to us that only we know in the way we know them. That opened the door for us to help other people in a different way. And you know, my big pivot in my first pivot out of academia was after a decade, had the privilege of building nationally recognized Programs at the University of Illinois then I went to Cornell had the privilege of doing the same thing. And then I realized the bureaucracy wasn’t fulfilling me. And there was always this underlying thing. And right around the time I made the decision to leave Cornell that underlying thing reemerged. Now, I have since learned there is a category to define those kinds of underlying things, which is called adverse childhood experiences. And for me, and you know, we’re diving in real deep here real fast, Brad.

Brad Miller 3:41
I’m ready.

Dr. Michael Hudson 3:43
Let’s do it. You want the audience to know I’m okay, I’m past this. And thank God, I am past it. Sure. But I was raped and molested for a year when I was 10. Okay. Now, my way of understanding the world is verbal processing. I talk through things. Well, that’s fine Island, me because the person who did this to me threatened to kill me if I ever told anyone. So I never told anyone. And I went silent. I didn’t stop talking in class, and getting in trouble. Because I was trying to get attention and trying to get affirmation, all those things we do when we’ve been harmed. And I completely block that experience out. Now, all I wanted to do Brad was kind of be up in front of the room and on the stage, but I couldn’t do it. You know, if a day came and it was show and tell tomorrow, I would wake up the next morning and convince my mother, I was sick, so I didn’t have to go to school. And at the same time, I would envy the people who could do that, because I really wanted to do it. And the interesting thing is my father was a state policeman who was a youth officer at the time, who developed the first drug education program in the state of Delaware drug abuse education before day or existed and that whole thing came around. And I would go watch you speak. And I would think I want to do that. And right around the time this all happened, I saw a speaker come into our school. And I watched this man stand there on the stage. His name was john Jimenez. And then he your audience members who live in the Mid Atlantic area probably heard him if they were not in school in the 60s. And he was a recovering drug addict who actually started a very successful church in Virginia Beach, okay. And when I watched him tell these stories, I thought that’s so powerful. And Brad, that became my resurrection, so to speak. In the short term, it was my journey. It was where I went to story. So I lived in the country, we had this little thing called the bookmobile which was a minute ago, you know, that had books on it came around the corner from down tenths of a mile from my house, every two weeks, kid was allowed to get six books, I convinced my mother that I needed more because I would devour them because that was where I retreated into story. So all of that is a backstory to let you know why story matters. Why message matters so much to me. When I was 33 34, I started experiencing some depression issues. And when I decided I need to get help with this. All of a sudden, one day all the memories of what happened to me came back. And truth be told Brad, I was in my PhD program before I actually got comfortable speaking in front of a room.

Brad Miller 6:16
Because when was the ongoing process really three, you’re growing up years into your adult life?

Dr. Michael Hudson 6:21
Yeah. And I was fine in small groups. You know, I was fine one on one, I was fine in small groups. But you know, if I stepped to the front of the room, I just couldn’t do it. But when you go into a class with 250 freshmen, and your job is to teach them economics. And it’s your, your day that you have to overcome you overcome. And I overcame by doing one thing, leveraging story. I’ve got to tell this story this way, Brad, because it’s it’s absolute. It’s the way it happened. But I left my office the day that I finally had to go put myself in a room on a stage in front of 250 freshman I stopped at three buildings between my office in the building where the classroom was and threw up in every men’s room I could find

Brad Miller 7:06
left your mark, what’s your trail, I guess?

Dr. Michael Hudson 7:08
Oh, my goodness. Well, and and and and you know, I’ve got my this is a new overhead transparency day, right? I’ve got the acetate, I’ve got everything, you know, I’m ready. Oh, boy. But I get to the last building and I walk into men’s room for one last am I okay, before I go in the in the in the auditorium. I walk out of the men’s room. There’s nothing left inside, of course. And I realized, I’ve got to walk into the same doors those students are walking in, you know, it’s about 25 feet away. But it seems like it’s 100 yards I make to get across there. And the whole way I’m thinking what am I going to do? And literally all of a sudden, I saw john him in his face, in my mind, okay. And I saw him telling these powerful and vulnerable stories. And I realized, and I started hearing this refrain it I mean, whether it was God’s voice or whose voice I started hearing this Frank refrain of just tell them a story, and teach them a lesson. tell them a story and teach them a lesson. The hallway as I’m walking, and this is this is in the early 80s. You know, they don’t have cell phones. They’re wondering who this dude is walking in the room that they’ve never seen before, because I’m not the professor that’s regularly there. He’s out of town for two weeks. And now it’s my shot to go in and do this. Okay. So as I’m thinking, I’m okay, I don’t have a story. I don’t have a story. I’m teaching freshman economics, we’re talking about supply curves. What am I going to what story who’s going to care. And as I stepped on this stage, I remembered when I was in graduate school, there was a time when I did to supply and demand curves backwards on a final exam. And the professor called me to his office after class and he said, We need to talk. He says, I want you to look at this. He showed me my exam. He said, Is anything wrong with that? I said, you had a curves are all backwards. He said, yeah. He said, but I’m going to let you go with it for one reason. You said your logic is perfect. You thought through it economically. Exactly. Right. You just drew the graphs backwards. Okay. He said, You haven’t ever done it before. And he said, I’m pretty sure after this, you’re never gonna do it again. Right? So long story short, I told them that story. And I said, and here’s the good news about being here. today. I’m going to show you how to do it. So you never forget how to draw them correctly.

Brad Miller 9:15
Okay, well, that’s what a wonderful and effective teaching method telling stories, whether it’s economics, or messaging, or communication, whatever is the story. The story is so powerful,

Dr. Michael Hudson 9:28
became the go to thing, right. And I literally at that moment, I felt myself if this sounds grandiose, but I felt myself transform on the stage. It’s like, okay, I can do this. I can finally do what I’ve been wanting to do my whole life, which is a big fight. I left academia later.

Brad Miller 9:45
did all that being onstage and helping, you know, even though the bombing the whole bed there prizes that help you leave behind some of that childhood trauma, or whatever trauma was leaving up? Or is that was that part of the whole process of healing and wholeness for you?

Dr. Michael Hudson 10:01
Brad, it open the door, okay.

And the truth is, that journey took another 25 years. Sure. And but it opened the door to make I mean, I just I did not remember this at all. I literally was in a situation where I, I had gone to a therapist for 13 weeks. And every week, he asked more questions, and I told him more. And the 14th week I walked in, and I said, You know what? You’re not asking the questions today. I need to know something because this isn’t getting any better. And I’ve told you everything about myself. And he said, Are you sure? I said absolutely. I said, I said Why do you ask? He said because everything speaks to your having had some sort of a trauma or abuse. And you’ve never described anything like that. And it is as if he turned on a switch in my brain. And I immediately saw, I’ll call it a video in my brain. worst time that it happened. Sure. And I sat down on a couch and cried for three hours. Yeah, he was fortunate that he had another room that he could go into his with his other patient, because he kept there. And and that unlocked it. And it didn’t solve it and resolve it. And I didn’t allow it to for a long time I kept hiding. I kept putting on the mask and the suit every day, and doing the work that I was being paid to do. You know, I, you know, that all happened about a year and a half before I actually left the academic world. And when I left it, I said you know, it’s time number one for me to go do what I’ve longed to do since I saw john Jimenez, which is be that person on the stage changing. Beat person who’s unlocking stuff in people that they don’t even realize is there be that person who’s asking the questions, others don’t ask to let them raise their hand and say I need to be I need to help I need to work through this.

Brad Miller 11:45
So that was a pivotal point for you that you’ve used this metaphor couple times. Now unlocking in our and opening doors is sound like that was a pivotal point for you. Of course, we have a lot of evidence now that childhood trauma is guilt can be deeply suppressed in such a way that we don’t even know it’s there. A lot of evidence of that, of course, and you’re an example of that. But it sounds like this unlocking process, opening new doors also led you to make some significant decisions in your career, leaving academic a pretty relatively secure thing, being a college professor into what you’re doing now. So tell us a little bit of that story about how that evolves in such way. Because you seem to share now that you say that you’re now doing what you said earlier, you always longed to do or remit to do. And of course, that’s what I’m really about in my work is helping us to search out what I like to call the promise life where you really are meant to be. So tell us a little bit about that story?

Dr. Michael Hudson 12:36
Well, Brad, I think up until that point, in my life, I had been doing one thing, which was

chasing external validation.

And I think a lot of people do that, you know, because I felt like if every it was it’s that kind of thing. It’s the imposter syndrome, however you want to label it, I felt I wasn’t good enough. Even when I wasn’t aware of what had happened, I felt this drive to be recognized and acknowledged and celebrated, you know, so I did a lot of chasing, you know, rewards, accolades and things like that. And I did a lot of trying to chase validation through other things. When this all popped up, and I realized, okay, I can’t keep doing this. And at that time, I weighed almost 275 pounds. And my body’s not wired for that. I was working 16 hour day, seven days a week. And I realized, this is not validating me and and helping me. So I left that world. I was at the time were in that academic world, you could take a sabbatical. So I did and left, right. And I said, I’m going to go to full time speaking, coaching, consulting, because I believe that’s my gift. And that’s what I’m here for. And that’s what I want to do. Now, the truth is, I sort of slipped back into that, chasing the reward more now through financial, you know, what, what kind of gross sales? can I do? You know, now, and at the same time, I don’t, I don’t want to mislead your audience. And I don’t want to lie. I mean, Truth is, I was having impact. I mean, I was very successfully having impact with my clients. But I kind of got hung up on that drive, it’s got to be more, it’s got to be bigger, it’s got to be this, it’s got to be this. And I accidentally fell into a niche that I built a niche business for 16 years serving a specific industry, doing strategy, leadership and culture work, loved it had some fantastic clients. But then one day, I had another one of those pivot moments. And I share that that way, Brad, because I’m hoping to wake your audience up to the fact there are pivot moments in our lives that we need to recognize,

Brad Miller 14:31
yes, and you do need to do something about it. It’s like people don’t recognize those. And they let slide by for the safety and supposed security of where they’re at. But they end up being in a lifetime called the malaise of mediocrity, or the blaze of misery, you stay stuck there. And many people in sometimes myself included, have chosen to stay stuck there rather than taking the risk to move forward. So keep going down my friend keep it

Dr. Michael Hudson 14:55
it’s it’s kind of like that parable or story about, you know, the guy hanging on the side of the map. God says, I’ve sent you three different things, you know, you just keep ignoring them.

I don’t know that one well enough to tell it right now. But well sounds it

Brad Miller 15:08
sounds like an old preacher story that I’ve told many times that him but go ahead.

Dr. Michael Hudson 15:12
But the signs are there, right. And so here’s where the sign happened for me. And I’ll give a shout out to the guy because I love his work, Michael been gay standard. Michael was doing a keynote. And I had been hired as one of three people who were going to take the people who were in the audience into separate rooms, and coach them on how to apply what he had just taught. And this was when his book do more great work had just come out. Good. So I’m sitting at a table Brad with six CEOs who are going to be in a room with another 75 people with me after this session, where I’m supposed to coach them. So like, Okay, I got to play along and play fair and you know, be it be all in. First thing you did was it was piece paper on the table. Everybody take one. And it just had a circle with a button middle. You said in a minute, I’m going to give you a three definitions, I’m going to ask you to draw a pie chart of how they relate to you. So get a pencil out. Get ready. Let’s go said good work is this. It’s your job description. You’re good at it. You enjoy doing it. And if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. We all have to do some good work. Bad work is abbreviated wombat. Because this is a waste of money, bandwidth. And time.

Brad Miller 16:30
I’ve not heard that one before. I like that. Remember that one? To get that book. So okay,

Dr. Michael Hudson 16:38
yeah, it’s a good little book.

And great work is the work you’re here to do. It’s the life changing strategic stuff that you really are supposed to be doing. So I want you to draw a chart on this pie chart percentages for those. So in my I’m compelled to be completely honest about with myself, as well as with the people at the table. I think 65% of my work, bad work. Oh, my goodness, and I labeled 5% Good work. And I said, Okay, you’re 14 years into running this niche business, you’ve done some good work along the way. But at this moment in time, you’re saying 65% of your work is bad work. Why is

Brad Miller 17:16
that? That’s a pretty brutal self assessment, isn’t it?

Dr. Michael Hudson 17:20
It’s a smack in the face, self induced. And so I went into room of the people, I listened to what they said, I guided them and help them. And then I kind of just went to my hotel room and I said, Okay, I gotta figure this out. And I was flying out that that later that day. So on the plane on the ride home, I made a list of my clients in three columns. Right? Work? Good work, bad work.

Brad Miller 17:43
Okay, I’m assuming so in that process, you had much longer list of some categories and others,

Dr. Michael Hudson 17:47
definitely in the bad work. Okay.

Because I only hit 5%. Right? And no way there were, there were three clients in the good work column. Okay. There were, I don’t remember the number to bed work, I think there were eight or 10, I had into good work in the three integrate. And I made a decision at that moment that I’m going to fire those clients, that I’m not going to do that work anymore. And now I did some other analysis. What is it about these clients? What is the problem and I realized what the problems were, they were pretty clear. I wasn’t leveraging my gifts. I wasn’t helping them communicate more effectively to implement the strategies we were defining for them. I wasn’t doing what I do best, which is challenge people to think differently. And I was finding myself frustrated and coming home a lot of times from the planning sessions I facilitate and just shaking my head, like, that was a waste of my time. And there’s

Brad Miller 18:41
and you come home for those. I’m assuming I’m read into this, you also come home with those drained, it is so energized and invigorated about and looking forward to what’s next.

Dr. Michael Hudson 18:51
Yeah, and I and I sort of had to also realize I hadn’t been listening to my wife, who was saying, Why do you keep coming on frustrated from these things? Okay. And so, you know, I made the joyful announcement on a Monday morning, Brad to my wife that I’m firing 65% of our clients today,

Brad Miller 19:07
which of course, comes with it with the with the with the consequences of whatever the revenue was, and other things with that, doesn’t it? So okay, 70 70% of the revenue came from those clients for that year.

Dr. Michael Hudson 19:20
And I said, and by the way, I’m going to do something else. I’m going to double the business next year. This happened in November, by the way, I’m going to double the business next year. And I’m going to sell it because I am not doing what I was put here to do.

Brad Miller 19:37
Okay, so you made a strategic plan, and not just to kind of just jump off the cliff with it, but to take a process a strategic plan, as it were. And that’s felt like that’s how you’re wired up to make a make a plan and follow it, although it certainly had some, you know, a really bold, you know, move but for you wasn’t it just was

Dr. Michael Hudson 20:00
it was risky. It was risky, right? Because in your what, here’s what firing MIT right, I was doing strategic planning for most of these people. And that meant every year they had planning session, okay. And so it was very typical for me to work with a client for five, five to seven years. So what I was basically doing was saying, by the way, I’m not available next year, I see. And the way I did that simply was to call the clients and say, just wanted to check on what you were thinking about for next year. I’m going to be doing fewer planning sessions next year. And I want to help you find the right person because I’m not going to be available

Brad Miller 20:36
to work with you. So there was a process, it wasn’t quite abrupt. But it’s still you’d made a decision. And what I’m getting at here with you, Michael, is, you’ve mentioned her already a couple times about some pretty bold decisions that you made, you know, bold decision to go get therapy, the bold decision to move out of academia to set a consulting business and the decision of the consulting business to, you know, fire your clients into defining refine your consulting business. What are some of the factors? Or what are what goes into making these bold decisions? And what’s the implications of those?

Dr. Michael Hudson 21:16
Oh, fantastic question, Brad. And, you know, I know it differs to some degree for everybody. But you know, the first factor to me was really the personal satisfaction. And the Am I doing what I’m best at doing? You know, if we go to Clifton’s strength, finders thing, right, you know, I have more strategies that are forced strengths that are strategic. And the other one is persuasion. Okay. And when I’m having that plane ride, and I’m looking at those great work clients, what hits me face is the ones I love, that are the best clients, where I’m doing great work are the ones where I’m leveraging my gifts of helping them think strategically identify where to go, and then showing them how to persuade the people, they need to help them make it happen. Get involved. And I looked back and said, Okay, what was happening in my academic time? Well, when you’re an active when you go in as an as an academician, and you know, you’re an assistant professor, what I discovered very quickly was if you can create the vision, and you talk about it enough, you’ll find the support, you need to speak it into existence. And that’s what I had done in both those cases, like, Okay, this is what I do best. This is what I love. This is where I feel excited, where I don’t come home frustrated. What can I do to do this all the time? Sure. So I went to Michael heights platform conference, literally the week after this epiphany from Michael

Brad Miller 22:38
standard, which is another bold action he took by going to the conference.

Dr. Michael Hudson 22:43
Well, and Brad, I got to tell you a backstory, that conference, which is I have never been sicker in my life than when I went to that conference. I got there and I had this intestinal virus thing hit me and I literally was between sessions, I would go back to my room and lay down and deal with other things. I’m a room service the entire time talk to no one just went in, sat in the room and absorbed. And then a man named Ken Davis walked on the stage. Oh,

Brad Miller 23:11
I know. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Hudson 23:12
Yes, I’m sure you do. And and Ken walked on the stage. And you know, Kenza, you know, he’s a lifelong communicator. You know, he’s a great humorist. He’s fantastic speaker. And I sat there, and I listened to Ken and I thought, you know, Michael, you’re hiding from what happened to you, has led you to hide from what you do, because you don’t think it’s good enough. I had never called myself a communication expert, or communication specialist. I didn’t think it was good enough, right. I’m a business guy, strategist. And I walked out of the room, picked up my phone, my cell phone out, called my wife. She answered the phone, and I was silent for a rather long time, and I’ve just kind of pulling myself together, I said, Just hang with me out, I want to tell you something. Literally, with tears rolling down my face. I said, um, I now know what I’m supposed to do. Awesome. And I now know that it can’t be done, because I’ve just seen an example. So to your question started me down this particular path. I think looking for the examples of people who are doing those things, is one of the things I’ve always used to give me strength to say, I’m going to make the bold decision and do this.

Brad Miller 24:27
Well, that leads me kind of to go to this a little step deeper with you here. Now you said, the sea of the example of, of Davis and Hyatt and the conferences and things that you went to lead you to go deeper and draw on that power. So tell me a little bit about how this becomes more than just a career change? How this was transformative, you said tears were rolling down your face. This is transformative in your soul, in your inner place. So what kind of power did you draw on? What kind of almost spiritual transformative things happen? You here? And did you draw on any, any resources from outside yourself? speakers or others? Are? They absolutely they have a spiritual nature?

Dr. Michael Hudson 25:09
Well, and and I think the whole journey was entirely spiritual. And I think it was, you know, for somebody would say, it’s just the universe working the way the universe does. To me, it was entirely spiritual. You know, the people that crossed my path. So you know, I have that happen in November, I see Ken Davis and I now know, okay, he plays a role. So what I ended up going to his score conference, paying the fee to work in the small group that worked directly with him, so I could learn from him on the following February, so now we’re in 2015. This is the year I’m going to double the business so I can sell it. Okay. The initial year, beginning of the year, revenue was not there, because I fired 65% of the business. And I said, You’re

Brad Miller 25:52
not like trying to double you’re going from a deficit, at least from where you were, she

Dr. Michael Hudson 25:58
was more than double. Brad, I’m doing a lot of praying. Yeah, there you go. Along with a lot of hoping, a lot of searching. Um, and I’m literally sitting in February. It’s it’s a rainy, dreary day, my wife and I are both in our chairs in the living room with our laptops in our laps working away. And I stopped and I just sort of looked at Sky a little bit. And I said to her, I said, I just wish somebody could tell me how to do this and help me shorten the path. Okay. Now, seven years earlier, I had met a gentleman named Ray Edwards.

And I don’t know if you know, Ray Ray is a copywriter, very faith based guy, former radio guy.

Brad Miller 26:36
I’ve been to his conferences, and I’ve interviewed him as well. Yeah.

Dr. Michael Hudson 26:40
So there’s an email in my inbox from after I say this to my wife. So I just wish I could go somewhere for three days and get this stuff figured out. I hit refresh on my email. And the first email is right from Ray Edwards, who I met seven years earlier. He sat next to me at a luncheon he was speaking, it was the only seat left in the room when he came in the room. We had minor casual conversation. But when he got up and left, I sat there and thought, Okay, you know what, he’s about the fifth or sixth person I’ve encountered in my life that I don’t know where but they make an impact in my life somewhere down the road. So I’ve been on his list and paying attention to him had never interacted with him. I was the jerk that would occasionally point out a typo here and there. Because

Brad Miller 27:29
I know. I know, he doesn’t go for that stuff.

Dr. Michael Hudson 27:33
But it was interesting was because of something he had said, At lunch that day, it was a call back to that the connection. Two or three years later, I saw this like, oh, wait a minute, here’s a way I can at least touch base with him. Because I remember the story. He told me sitting there at lunch. Anyway, this email sounded like he was in the room with me listening to what he just complained about, oh, boy, okay. And he was offering a three day workshop, come to Spokane, Washington, we spend three days together with eight other nine other people to I was in a room, and we’ll get things figured out. It’s called the escape velocity workshop. So I went, I did in fact, come back with a lot figured out. And on the plane ride home, I suddenly realized what the real differentiator was between the great work clients and the rest of them. And I wrote a description of who they were and what they look like, I didn’t put names with it, but I just wrote it. And literally, within the next 90 days, enough of them showed up to double the business revenue for the year. And allow me to actually work less than I had been, which was part of my goal. Because I was traveling a lot. Sure. And, you know, and then then what happened is I found the buyer for the business. And, you know, I sold him a strategic planning planning package for his organization along with the purchase of the business, which he has now been able to take his business four or five times where it was by acquiring that. Hell it all into my five great work clients. Okay, good, who various stages of five year processes, which gave me a runway

Brad Miller 29:06
to create new foundational to your next step, right?

Dr. Michael Hudson 29:09
Yes. which gave me runway and allowed me to start Brad, testing because I think this is another part of your question about how do you make the big jump, it was making a conscious decision, I’m going to start putting the stuff that I want to do that I believe is my own intellectual property, the lessons from my journey into my work, okay. And see how that flies because I it related to strategy, it related to vision, it related to persuasion it related to culture. So I started doing that. And I think, you know, that obviously empowered me because it landed well, and it further clarified who I was here to serve. And and here’s where the real pivot then came, which is, it’s more individuals than it is organizations.

Brad Miller 29:50
Okay, excellent. And I love to go there, because that’s you, you can’t change an organization. You can’t have transformational organizational outcomes, without transformational leaders who are transformed themselves. And yeah, that kind of goes to another level of my questions to you, Michael. And that has to do with the emotional aspect of all this here. And you mentioned your wife, you mentioned, some friends and people emotionally impacted you. So what, what is the power of the fuel of the emotion here of either serving a greater good, or maybe serving your wife or your family or the love of others in your life, tell me about how the emotions come into play here, whether it’s love or something else, that that drive or fuel your changes here?

Dr. Michael Hudson 30:36
Well, the it is, I’m a very emotional person, first of all, so you know, emotion is in everything. And as this all begins to happen, and I start getting clear on this, I realized that we suppress the emotion too much, that we don’t allow ourselves to feel it sometimes far enough for us to work through it. And you, you know, it was through this period, where I realized that I said, you know, what, I’ve kind of start sharing deeper, more vulnerable, personal things open up the emotional path. So not to be purely chronological, but it helps me helps me track. Understand. It’s probably 2017 in November of 2017, maybe 16. And 16, actually, and I’m doing it all staff for a client. And I realized, okay, I’m talking to them about story. Now, for me, the power of story became apparent because of very emotional stuff that happened in my life. I keep seeing people who are holding back, when I’m in rooms, facilitating conversations, I keep hearing from people who are struggling with figuring out well, who am I here to serve? What’s my message? How am I going to connect it all those kinds of? Yeah, I said, I stop hiding my story. So I walked in front of 150 people that and for the first time ever shared what I shared at the beginning of our conversation today. And in the context of serving them, to realize that there are things that legitimately get in our way, when it comes to communicating effectively, that I know there are reasons why some of you don’t feel comfortable telling stories or speaking up. So the session ends, they all go to lunch, there are several people staying in a room come up and talk to me and there’s one who stands over in a corner. Now, I’ve been working with this particular organization for about seven years at this time. And I know this person who’s standing in the corner very well. We’ve been in rooms a lot together in the past seven years. And I can tell

she is very troubled at that moment.

So after the last of the seven people leaves and goes to lunch line, she comes over to me, puts her arms around Brad, and I think there’s a phrase in a movie somewhere, I left that hard one time, which is called she squeezed the stuffing out of me. Actually, I think that’s a mash episode. And started crying. I mean, sobbing on my shoulder. And when she finally calmed down a bit, I sort of step back and I said, What’s going on? She said, Well, you know how I don’t speak up in the planning sessions very much. And I don’t, but but at the same time, by the way, right? Those people don’t speak up there. But they talked to you on the way to dinner. Or they sit next to you and tell you. And I said yeah, I notice he says it’s because what you just told on stage of your story is exactly my story. Now, let’s fast forward.

Brad Miller 33:30
Unless you were vulnerable yourself.

Dr. Michael Hudson 33:32
Absolutely. And let’s go to where the real breakthrough was amazing, right? Nine months later, I’m back doing a planning session with them again. And guess who’s talking?

Brad Miller 33:40
Oh, my goodness. Yeah. There she was finished. re finish.

Dr. Michael Hudson 33:44
Yeah, we finished the second day. And she comes up and says I just need to thank you. I said for what? She said, Well, because you’re telling that story. Last November, I took a six month leave of absence. And I finally went and dealt with what happened to me.

Brad Miller 33:57
Awesome. Awesome.

Dr. Michael Hudson 33:59
And so the cemented for me that you have to touch the emotions of the people. And you have to allow yourself to share the vulnerable illness to do that. Or your journey doesn’t pay off.

Brad Miller 34:12
Sure. And it shows the power of your story as well, and how that impacts others. And then they share their story with others to impact and it perpetuates. So you were saying about my Kim, they’re

Dr. Michael Hudson 34:22
just gonna say our friend like Kim said in one day, so you know, basically what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to help other people understand that all that shit you went through taught you something that it mattered? Yes, yes. Pardon the language. But that’s exactly how I

Brad Miller 34:35
of course, of course. And that is what we go through. That’s what adversity is. Oh, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, what the way I like to define it, we all deal with some form of adversity, you know, it could be a death in the family, it could be a diagnosis of cancer disease or something. Depression is a big one, a debt, crushing debt or financial issues. Divorce, you know, all those things come into play is called the five days. But it all it makes are ways that we deal with the crap of our lives and how we get through it in order to break through to get to something else. And so that’s

Dr. Michael Hudson 35:08
awesome. And she, she was probably the pivotal instant incident for me, Brad, where I said, you know, what, these things matter. And they matter not just to us, because I guarantee the struggles you’ve had in your life open doors for you to teach other people things in the work you

Brad Miller 35:26
gives you credibility, it gives it the empathy, the emotional piece comes into play there. And that’s, that’s what you know, gives you the, the gravitas with with other people, and that, that comes into play, and I just want to get a couple other things from you, then I’ll let you go. And we’ve talked about a lot of things about, you know, kind of the spiritual, the emotional, and the, the actions that you took. And yet, there’s also got to be, you know, you talked about, you know, your organization and your, your framework a little bit, I just like to know, two or three things you do about discipline about how you actually, you know, implement all this, you’re talking about either personal discipline or things that you teach or frameworks of what you do. Can you speak to that from it?

Dr. Michael Hudson 36:11
Sure. I appreciate the question. Um, you know, I think the thing that drives my whole approach to discipline these days, and I’ve got to give credit to Jeff Walker, because I learned this in his Product Launch Formula live event three or four years ago, he shared the idea that 100% is easy, and 99% is hard. And let that sink in for a minute. You know that? If you commit 100%, it’s a lot easier because you know what to say no to. But if you don’t fully commit, you don’t really know what to say no to. And even if you think you’re fully committed, but you’re not fully committed. And he gave us he told the story of him in dark chocolate. He said, I love dark chocolate, because I would eat it day and night. He said, But if I decide to give it up, it’s very easy not to eat it. But if I eat a piece, I want another piece. He said, think about that in your business. Think about that in your life. And I realized I was still 99% in Yeah, I had written the weight loss roller coaster for years. Because the other thing I turned to besides story when I was 10 years old was sugar. Yeah. Right on the same corner where that bookmobile came that I got my books was a little old railroad station stop. It was one of those old timey stores that you know, you could buy everything in there from hip boots to sliced cheese to sodas, you know, to sweatshirt. Lots of candy

Brad Miller 37:34
was a part of your life and kind of a self medicating thing as well. It goes on

Dr. Michael Hudson 37:39
in Brad, I love you saying that that because I hadn’t acknowledge that. Yeah. But so you know, you get to this whole concept what happened and fundamentally the discipline thing was okay, and I said this I, I said this talking to my counselor one day, I said, I always feel like because I keep losing the weight loss battle, that I can’t win it anything.

And then I had the Epiphany last July 2,

just over a year from when we’re recording this, I had gone through a fantastic program called heroic public speaking graduate school run by Michael and Amy port. And they also came into my lives at the right time, because after I told that story for the client, I was concerned about managing my emotions telling that story. So I went to an event they had where I was coached on stage by them on how to deal with that. And when I finished that program, we recorded the demo video. And I had unlocked what this story really meant to me, Brad, in this journey, it was it’s a 16 week program over four months. So you’re a 16 day program over four months. So you’re pretty deep. And I got the demo video back on July 2. And I looked at and I said, You know what? That’s not me. I have told people for years who are really close to me that I just want to find me again. And I had made a decision in December 2017, I was going to finally kick kick weight loss problem in 2018. But it was July 2, when I saw that video and said you’re not even making progress on this. You’re six months into the year. And that was the day I decided to think about Jeff Walker and go 100% so I took Sugar Sugar out of my diet, broke the addiction. And a year later, I’m 65 pounds less than I was then I feel better and and and it’s much more than the weight loss. Brad It wasn’t about the weight loss. I don’t want your audience to misconstrue what I’m saying, well,

Brad Miller 39:30
weight loss is just an indicator. It’s not emotional trauma. JMI. Several years ago, I lost 100 pounds. So I know what you’re talking about. Yeah. And it’s a much more ahead thing and emotional thing than the body things.

Dr. Michael Hudson 39:42
Yeah. And about six months after I walked into bathroom one day, and in our house, she walked towards a mirror. And then he goes left to go into the closet. I turned left to go in the closet and I jumped back. I mean, I literally jumped back. I’m like, wait a minute. There you are. There’s the guy you were before what happened to you when you were 10 happened to you? Well, that’s all and you know, that was the emotional unlocking. Not surprisingly, tears came at that moment. I tell the story now without the tears, because I’ve worked past that. But so I think the whole point to your question, if I can kind of button it up up a little bit as that. Let the emotion take you where it takes you. I leaned on my wife heavily for that. I went through another counseling process to help me with that, because I’m a through it kind of person. And sometimes you got to talk through it with somebody has no vested interest in the process.

Brad Miller 40:36
And you’re talking about even specific is weight loss. You had to do that process with accounts. Yes. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. So that talks about a tool there that you use. So

Dr. Michael Hudson 40:45
I read I’m a devote, you know, I’m a voracious reader. So I we started talking about books. And I look to a lot of people like that to teach me things. And I and I think I’m a person who believes you have to take bits and pieces from lots of places, as opposed to just one I know there are other people that need to pick just one. So part of that emotional journey is pick the one that works Renee Browns video, when I first saw it on vulnerability certainly pivoted my thinking, you know, her TED talk, you know, then reading her work was another step. So I reached out to lots of places to address that point of how you deal with the emotional I give myself permission I do I do a massive amount of journaling to Brad I you’re more stuff out in these pages.

Brad Miller 41:26
Well, that helps you process it sounds me like Michael you process in several ways. One of them is your work. And one of them is your whole messaging thing here about clarifying your message in order to get your message through to others. And you’ve done the work on it yourself mostly in order to help teach others and the journaling and the processing the weight loss are all part of that. And that’s part of the life transformation process, which is awesome. And that’s why when you have on the podcast today to help us learn from you and to teach others and to and you do have ways that you do teach others. So what are you leading into these days? Michael, what are you up to these days? And if people want to learn more about you and what you’re about? How can they do that?

Dr. Michael Hudson 42:08
Thank you, Brad appreciate the opportunity to share that and appreciate what you just shared it puts a good cap on it. My work right now is heavily focused on coaching and one on one coaching for people who want to unlock their message now most of the people I work with are people who are at some sort of a transition point. Because as you’ve just heard in my story, I’ve transitioned four or five times in pretty significant ways. And and I think that’s helping attract those people to me. So right now for example, I have a new 90 day coaching program I’ve just rolled out you know, it’s helping people unlock what’s that message How do I get it out who’s the audience and and my premise there is really basic attract the right clients and repel the wrong ones because the bad clients were the wrong clients. And so if you’re comfortable I I can you know, if you want to get us I’ve got a video a series that talks about that particular thing that you can get it Michael Hudson. com slash attract just a TTRACT

Brad Miller 43:07
awesome, we’ll put in a show notes as well.

Dr. Michael Hudson 43:09
The other thing I’m doing is you know, speaking at conferences and conventions where I can wear those kinds of people in the audience. And I’m working on a number of little courses that help reveal some of the lessons I’ve learned from 35 years as a full time speaker, coach and consultant for 25 have a 10 part time for the first 10 to help people shorten the learning curve avoid pitfalls, overcoming obstacles so that’s that’s and you can reach me anytime at Michael Michael Hudson calm. The always happy happy to have an email sent to me. If you’ve got a question, happy to answer and connect with you. But what I help do is people unlock you know, what is it they’re here to do? What is that journey you’ve traveled, taught you? What is it equipped you to do that only you can do and if you don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. Awesome because I’m tired of seeing people sit struggling. I’m tired of teen people not understand that there was a lesson in that, that you have to learn

Brad Miller 44:07
it unless you learned you’re now passionate about sharing that lesson in order to help effect life transformation for others to pivot and move on to what they’re really called to be about what they’re called to do. And so, love your message. Love Your Work, Michael, and we will look for great things to come from you down the road here.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai