EPISODE 212 WITH ST RAPPAPORT: OPTIMIZING YOUR BRAIN FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS

Ready Yet?! Podcast Episode 212 with guest ST Rappaport: Optimizing Your Brain for Business Success

Transcribed with Descript

ST Rappaport episode

Erin Marcus: All right. Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome to this episode of the ready at podcast with my guest today, St. Rappaport. And we’re all excited because we had so much fun chatting before. So now we get to do it again. Now the shoes on the other foot, I get to ask you all the questions, but so before we get into conversation and I can’t wait to talk about.

Erin Marcus: Your topic and how people think because you know, like I said, right before we hit record here. I think once we get past a certain age, we don’t pay attention to how we think because we’ve been doing it for so long the way that we’ve been doing it. We don’t take it apart to see how we could do a better job.

Erin Marcus: Before we get into all that, why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about who you are and what you do?

ST Rappaport: Yes, thank you so much Erin for having me. I am like, when I tell you excited, I mean excited. I love doing podcast recordings, but like when you know the person has a really good energy and an incredible perspective on life and it’s like so I know this is gonna be a fun conversation in case any of you are still doubting it, but I am a brain engineer and I help ADHD entrepreneurs optimize the brain.

ST Rappaport: So running their business is a whole lot easier.

Erin Marcus: I love it. I once, I can’t say I once, I have repeatedly heard that most entrepreneurs, most successful entrepreneurs, anyone stupid, excited, not brilliant enough to even try to do this. It has. a proclivity toward some version of ADHD. I mean, it’s a spectrum.

Erin Marcus: Like so many things are a spectrum, but I’m sure you find that to be

ST Rappaport: absolutely true. Oh yeah. Like I know like officially researched it’s like a third like official, which is like for a population that’s like a lot. But like you said, I think almost everyone that we know that’s been successful has some.

ST Rappaport: Of those ADHD traits, and honestly, like, I don’t care so much, like, for labels, because I don’t really like them but it’s just, like, more of an understanding of, like, what are those traits, and so, like, how can we learn from them? Wait,

Erin Marcus: well, and I think some of

ST Rappaport: the things that

Erin Marcus: Stop us as entrepreneurs or get in our way manifest as ADHD treats, but even if the cause is different, you know, the cause might be limiting beliefs, but it manifests in distraction, right?

Erin Marcus: Oh, yeah, might be fear, but it manifests in confusion. Because all those are ways your brain stops you, and you could, right? And it gets real tricky. You can use the label to your point and blame it on ADHD or whatever, but truthfully, you’re just scared and we need to figure out a different way to do this.

ST Rappaport: This makes me so, so happy that you say, because I The way I help my clients is by helping them through, by helping them improve their thinking skills. Because thinking is not one big thing. It’s made up of 28 thinking skills and naturally you’ll have stronger ones when it grows. People with ADHD tend to struggle with similar thinking skills.

ST Rappaport: Okay, they’re out of these 28, they’re struggling with the same ones. And exactly, to your point, in like how it manifests, is like, they might also be struggling with similar thinking skills, like exactly what you said, but it could be for them, it’s not because of like how their brain so much is like wired, or right, like how they were born, but more of like that limiting belief that causes them to have that waking thing skill.

ST Rappaport: The same

Erin Marcus: problem. Well, and what’s cool is like if you, I don’t try. I’d love to hear your take on this. You can’t change the way your brain works. Not,

ST Rappaport: I mean, you

Erin Marcus: can, we’re humans, there’s neuroscience, there’s limiting beliefs. To me, it’s the difference between therapy and coaching. There’s, there’s times when you need therapy and there’s times when you just need coaching.

Erin Marcus: Does it really matter why? Let’s just do what we need to do. And there’s times kind of with your brain. Yeah, there’s going to be times when, as I put it, your problems are above my pay grade. Like, I can’t fix that. I, my skill set is here, your issues are more chemical, right? That needs help that I can’t provide.

Erin Marcus: But if we treat the symptoms, sometimes treating the symptoms solves the problem that you’re having.

ST Rappaport: Yeah, I, I like to view it slightly differently, personally and I like to say you always want to work with your brain, not against it, at the same time, at the same time, you want to challenge your brain.

ST Rappaport: So you want to, like, you don’t want to fight your brain and your brain works its way. And like you said, right? Like, this is a problem that I can do. Like, don’t try to solve a challenge for a client. Like, you’re just going to disappoint everyone. There’s no point. One million percent.

Erin Marcus: That’s one of my new things.

Erin Marcus: One of my new, not to completely derail us, but you know how I am. One of my new soap boxes is, How many people are you hurting because you don’t know your client avatar? Yeah.

ST Rappaport: Yes. That one hurts. Yeah, it’s true. Yes. So back to what I was saying about exactly this is that like you, if let’s say you have a client that comes to you, right?

ST Rappaport: And you’re deciding, okay, this is what I’m not doing. However, if you have like 20 clients that comes to you, you have the choice to say, you know what? I am going to learn this skill so I can help all those future clients. Right? So. You’re not like limiting yourself and saying I can’t do this. It’s like more I’m choosing not to versus like saying like you’re

Erin Marcus: incapable of yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Erin Marcus: So let’s go into the I’m curious why there’s 28, you know, one of the things. That’s a lot. 28 different ways. Like one of my sticking points, one of the reasons I use DISC as a personality profile to help people with communication skills and help people with sales is because it’s so simple. I can put it in a layman’s terms.

Erin Marcus: I can explain it to you rather simply. Yeah, there’s the complicated version, but you don’t need it. But so many of these different profiles have a million different moving parts. Like who the heck is going to remember that when you try to apply it. And when I saw, you know, 28 different ways that your brain thinks, that’s a lot.

Erin Marcus: That’s a lot. Yes. Like how are you supposed to get a

ST Rappaport: grasp on that? Yes. Okay. So, so let me make it easy for you so that you see how it actually really is easy. So first of all, it’s 28 skills that we all have. So it’s not like my brain’s thinking one of 28. Your brain is using all of them. But on all of them, it’s like a spectrum.

ST Rappaport: Like you said, everything’s a spectrum. And so some of those thinking skills, you’re stronger. And some of those thinking skills, you’re weaker at. Okay? Now We can go into like all the science and all the names and what are all those 20 things skills are called. I’m happy to do that, but like, that’s not the point like to use it.

ST Rappaport: The simple part is the point is more to understand any single time you are procrastinating on a task or you’re not interested or you’re finding a task super, super challenging. To understand that this big task is actually made up of many, many, many, many small tasks and many, many small thinking skills.

ST Rappaport: If you can take those few minutes to pinpoint what that thinking skill is, or what that specific part of that task is, you’ll have a much easier time. Let me give you an example. When I started my business, I dreaded email marketing. I didn’t do it, I did all the socials, I did all the things, but email marketing was just like Something I wasn’t interested in.

ST Rappaport: Eventually, I was like, okay, you know what, too bad. I have to start this. Everyone says, right, the money’s on the list. All those sort of things. So, I was like, I’m starting. I’m starting with this email. But every single time I, like, had blocked out in my calendar to write emails to go out to everybody, I would literally, like, not want to get up in the morning.

ST Rappaport: Like, I was just, like, procrastinating and not interested. And so, I asked myself that question. What part Of this task, do I really not like? And I was like, it’s not that I don’t have ideas. I have like a bunch of emojis. I even could like have them all expressed in my brain. For me, the challenging part is being able to write it out in a clear, cohesive manner that is easy for people to understand.

ST Rappaport: Okay, I could talk like that, but writing is the challenge. And if I thought back in school, I actually had my friends write my writings for me exactly for this issue. And so that was the specific issue. Guess what? That is a thinking skill. And as soon as I worked on that, not all other, like, email marketing programs that I’ve learned and all other things to, like, make it fun and exciting.

ST Rappaport: As soon as I improved that thinking skill and I worked on being able to express myself clearly and cohesively in all areas, email marketing actually became fun. Mm hmm. To this day, it’s one of my favorite tasks. Like, when I have it on my schedule, like, I get excited. I get excited to do it. So you don’t have to know the name, the official, like, scientific name of what that skill is.

ST Rappaport: It’s about being able to, like, pinpoint what part of that task you don’t like, and work on solving that instead of, like, forcing yourself to do something that you really don’t want to

Erin Marcus: do. And I would argue as a business owner and as someone who teaches business strategy, don’t keep banging your head against the wall.

Erin Marcus: Hire someone who’s inherent, like, who’s already loves it. Like, and the example that comes to mind right now is my calendar. My calendar is a hot mess. This is not a new problem. I have a very complicated calendar between traveling and clients and podcasts and guesting and content creation and sales conversations and internal team building.

Erin Marcus: It’s always a moving target and I am one of those people who, I understand multitasking, I don’t mean multitasking, but if I, you know, some people really love time blocks, half day long time blocks to get things done and that’s great. I don’t have them quite as flushed out yet. I, I ebb and flow with that.

Erin Marcus: That being said, I hate managing my calendar. I can’t handle going back and forth with people to figure out when we can chat. I cannot handle, like, a crazy person having to reschedule things that are already on the calendar. Like, these are, you know, I’d rather have a stick in the eye type of situations for me.

Erin Marcus: And yet, when I give other people on my team this huge long list saying, sorry, these seven million things have to be rescheduled, they give me, okay. Like, they don’t care. Like, this is the most benign thing to them. Because I’m assuming, you know, there’s preferences and, and strength finders and all those things.

Erin Marcus: But to your point, there’s probably also the way that my brain works, the way that I think that is different from the way that they think that makes it harder for me and

ST Rappaport: easier for them. Yeah, exactly. And exactly to, like, your point earlier about, like, you want to choose. Where you are putting your energy.

ST Rappaport: It is not worth it for you to put that energy into being able to figure out your calendar. In my case, right. Was like email marketing. I didn’t want to hire someone because I wanted it to be in my voice. And I wanted, like, I wanted to, I wanted to have that relationship with the client. It was a conscious decision that like, it’s worth it for me to put the effort in.

ST Rappaport: I’m sure if I think about it. And go like a little bit deeper. There will be one or two or multiple places in your business where you’re like, you know what, it is worth it for me to put in the energy to work on this thing, but something like a calendar, please know, you know, like we, we, we’re doing that in every area.

ST Rappaport: It’s like, Oh, I want to learn the skill or I want to learn this new hobby. And it’s like, okay, you can, you are capable of, are you choosing to delegate resources to that?

Erin Marcus: And, and where you are in your business. And to me, it’s always about. There’s no wrong answer as long as you’re picking it. And you’re picking because you want it, not because you’re settling for it.

Erin Marcus: Cause you know, I literally just did my live show this morning about getting over the bridge from being a solopreneur to a business owner. And it’s not more work than being a solopreneur, it’s that it’s different work. And that work is often scarier to people because it’s different work than what you currently know how to do.

Erin Marcus: The good news is you’ve learned how to do all the work you currently know how to do. You can learn how to do different work. And so how do you know that? I mean, I guess this would be the question. How does somebody tell the difference between I just actually need to pay a little bit of attention here and see why I’m having this challenge in order to solve this problem, or this is not work I’m supposed to be doing.

Erin Marcus: I should give that away.

ST Rappaport: Yeah, first I will, I just need to say like, that live just made me smile. What you spoke about. I was like, oh yes, right? Like we are comfortable with that work, but we could learn any work as long as we want to work. So that makes me so happy. But to answer your question. I think a big part of it is where is it coming from?

ST Rappaport: Are we doing it because we’re like afraid or we’re like feeling like imposter or are we doing it because like It doesn’t make sense for me to waste this time to do this, like, mediocre task in my business when I could have someone who’s really good at it naturally just do it like 600 times faster. And like, even if I were to work on this skill, I don’t want to do it.

ST Rappaport: So like, yeah, you could learn to do, just for the sake of learning it, to manage your calendar and it should be easy for you. But like, If you think about it as you grow your business, you’re doing it less and less and less. I’m like, there’s, there’s no point. And it’s, it’s really about like, why, why are you, yes, or you’re not doing it.

Erin Marcus: And for me, I don’t know about you, but I learned through experience how to interpret the come from energy by the way I physically

ST Rappaport: feel. Yeah. It’s like you feel it if you tune into it enough, you feel it in your body and you tend to like feel it in the same parts of your body. It’s almost like your body sends you the signal and it’s like, Hey, I’m getting that feeling right?

ST Rappaport: Like the,

Erin Marcus: the Feeling of this is not a good idea for me to do this as stupid as it sounds. This is not a good idea for me to do this in my business. Even if it’s just the damn calendar, which is top of mind right now. It’s the same physical feeling as like, don’t take that job. Don’t date that guy. Don’t walk down that dark alley.

Erin Marcus: Like we know. Yep.

ST Rappaport: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I actually. That now they brought it up the thinking skills and emotions are two sides of the same coin. They’re both highly, highly related to each other. So when someone has let’s say trauma, then their thinking skills go down and someone improves works on their like motions and their thinking skills go up, right?

ST Rappaport: Like you hear about like less brain fog. Now I’m thinking more clearly and it’s actually like their thinking skills are going up and it works the same way.

Erin Marcus: I’m thinking of very specific people that popped in my head right now that I know are massively. overly run by their emotions, not that you’re not highly emotional is one thing, but they’re overrun by their emotions.

Erin Marcus: And you can completely see where their cognitive abilities just go right down the toilet. Right. We all have those times. Oh yeah. So I’m dying to know, how did you get into this?

ST Rappaport: Okay, so, what’s

Erin Marcus: the origin of the story here?

ST Rappaport: I’m like, which part of it? The whole journey or like the part of the journey?

Erin Marcus: Like, this, this is the topic.

Erin Marcus: This version of The topic.

ST Rappaport: Yes. Okay. So this version of the topic started when I started getting training actually for this when I was getting training for this, I learned it just because like I got it as a kid and like helped me tons. And I just like wanted to know it, know it more like just like to have in my back pocket.

ST Rappaport: Like I wasn’t actually very interested in. Working in what I’m doing right now, believe it or not.

Erin Marcus: I never saw this happening for me either, so.

ST Rappaport: Okay, you’re making me not feel alone. And so, The training is actually a couple year process, but During the training, there is like Every park that you learn you can work with people.

ST Rappaport: So I happen to have been working with people Literally as favors for people like yeah, they would pay me but it was only because like they would like literally beg me to work with them anyways, In the middle of doing these trainings then I took also a Tony Robbins course Called rapid planning method, which is like planning based on your motivation instead of your to do list And it’s this really cool, like, method that, like, is exactly that, like, planning based on your motivation instead of your students.

ST Rappaport: And I was like, okay, I like this. But no matter how hard I tried, I did, like, every single one of the exercises and every single one of the things he told me to do, I could not do what he said. Like, I just couldn’t. I could do the exercises, but I couldn’t, like, put it all together to really, like, make the most out of this program.

ST Rappaport: So I was like, okay, this is not for me. And then a few months later, I took another training. Specifically on the thinking skill, because we had to do trainings for each one of these, on categorizations. Now, categorizations is an interesting thinking skill, right? If you were Like, if I were to give you, like, a bag of, like, marbles, and I say, like, okay, categorize these according to color, I know you would have absolutely no problem doing it.

ST Rappaport: But what happens when I give you, like, a bunch of random hundred business tasks to do that have seemingly no connection with one another, and I tell you, group them together so that way you’re working in the most efficient and most productive way? That is a lot more abstract and a lot more complex. And that is where I really, really had to struggle with.

ST Rappaport: During this training, while I was learning it to help other people, I actually drastically changed my own brain. And by the end of it, I had changed the way I was approaching my life. And I saved over 10 hours every week by simply reshuffling my schedule. I tripled my business and like, like, like my whole world just like changed.

ST Rappaport: Changeover, everything was just like, I was like, where was I in Tomea? And all of a sudden I was able to do Tony Robbins course. I was able to do his thing. It just like clicked without me even having to listen to it again. All of a sudden I was like, oh, all I had to do was put this and this together.

ST Rappaport: The reason for that was a lot of his programs spoke about like planning a year ahead. And being able to like have your tasks today based on your motivation a year ahead. But I couldn’t think that far because I was so busy into right now and I couldn’t see all those hundred business tasks for that year ahead.

ST Rappaport: I was much more focused on the business tasks that I need to do today, right? And that was where there was just a challenge in my brain. And automatically I was like able to do it. And I was like, okay. Highly successful people need this also, and that’s where I got like super passionate and went all in.

ST Rappaport: So a couple of

Erin Marcus: things that I’m really taking away from this and that are really hitting home for me that I like so much is number one, it’s not about someone being smart or not smart. It’s not about someone being right or wrong. It’s really about neuroscience. And my old boss years ago, like decades ago now because we’re getting old, used to tease me and tell me how smart I was and that the reason that I would get frustrated with people is in my head, I am always defaulting to what is going to happen four or five, six steps from now.

Erin Marcus: And most people don’t think that way. Now he used to also follow up that compliment with don’t be so proud of yourself. You’re not doing anything on purpose. It’s just the way your brain works. But that is the way that. It is one of the things that I know will cause frustration for me is when I see things happen and people do things that miss cause and effect and effect and effect and effect because it’s the natural way my brain works.

Erin Marcus: Now there’s a million ways my brain doesn’t work. Trust me, like to your point, like we’re not going to be great at all 28 of these things. That’s just that, right.

ST Rappaport: But as

Erin Marcus: I’m listening to you as a. business strategist. And this lands for me in like when we talk about people’s genius zone.

Erin Marcus: I will often look at people and go, I don’t know, you know, the categorization, everything I do is on note cards and we just rearrange them and we just rearrange them and just, and they just fall into these categories. It is something that my brain does. And yet some people look at me like I have three heads.

Erin Marcus: And, and so I think this is, if you are a leader in any way, being able to recognize these skills. just as skills. We’re good at this one, we’re not good at that one, whatever would come in massively handy, not just for yourself, but in any kind of leadership role, in any kind of team building role, in any kind of coaching consulting role.

Erin Marcus: Like my introduction to Personality profiles was when I was a tutor and they taught us how to identify how people learn so we can meet them where they are. This seems to take that, like, to a whole new level.

ST Rappaport: Yeah, exactly. It’s like, like you were saying as a leader, like, if you know which every single person on our team, every single person that you’re leading.

ST Rappaport: Which one of their thinking skills are stronger, which one of them are weaker, then A, you leverage their strong ones, right? And like, you’re really good at reorganizing those things and putting all those cards there. And no, you don’t have three heads. You just have a super strong categorizations and that is awesome.

ST Rappaport: And that’s like what makes you you. And so like give you all those tasks that you need. However, if you’re really struggling with a different skill, let’s say clear perception or like time or whatever it is, I’m not giving you tasks that have to do with your calendar, right? Like there’s no point. There’s no point.

ST Rappaport: Exactly. If, and, but I will take that one, one step, one step more. If, so I know where you’re strong, I know where you’re not strong, however, if I think that there’s a specific skill that will help you even speed up in your job even more, as a leader, you help that person to develop that skill so that way they can really speed up.

ST Rappaport: Love it. So let’s get in a little bit of your

Erin Marcus: entrepreneurial journey, because I love sharing this stuff. What what made you decide to like do this as a business versus just know this and help in

ST Rappaport: some other way? Yeah, okay, so at that time that I was doing these trainings just to have actually a different business photography business And it was like not typical It was like a lifestyle photography before lifestyle was a thing and I really did it to like help people with Relationships and things like that and like I loved it.

ST Rappaport: It was a lot of fun, but At the same time, I was also doing this fake thing. Like, I didn’t even really tell people about it. It was, like, literally just to help people, you know. And, but I saw that the results that people were getting from this affected way more areas of their lives, and it was, like, dramatically life changing.

ST Rappaport: Combined with the fact that, like, I had this This change as an adult. Yeah. And like, I was like, this has changed literally everything in my life that like more people need to know about this. That was like, I was like, okay, enough for photography. And and we’re going into this.

Erin Marcus: That’s exciting. There’s a courage there.

Erin Marcus: Right. It kind of going back to what we said in the beginning, you go into business to do the thing that the business does because you love the thing. And to shift gears is the next. You know, jumping off the next cliff.

ST Rappaport: Oh, I love that.

Erin Marcus: Cause that’s what it is. I mean, I, I had a not, you know, I had my corporate job and then I had my franchise and then this is completely different what I do now, but.

Erin Marcus: I don’t care if you jump off the cliff or you were pushed off the cliff, either way you’re falling off a cliff and that’s how this feels. It could be volunteer, it could be voluntold, but it’s still happening that way. I’m

ST Rappaport: like literally feeling the ear of like falling down a cliff and like all the tasks and all the emotions and all the stuff that come with it and I’m like, oh yeah.

ST Rappaport: So what are you most

Erin Marcus: proud of in this

ST Rappaport: process? Oh, it’s a really good question. I think what I’m most proud of is the how I’ve created groups to work with clients in a way where they have both community and one on one attention in the same space. I had a lot of coaches and just People that I’ve hired really to help me who were just like, nah, this is not going to work.

ST Rappaport: And had to like, not all of them, I’m just saying. So if you’re one of my coaches listening to this, I’m not saying it’s official. But, and how, and how I actually and like proving how, like, it turned out better. And like, people just absolutely love it. It goes with

Erin Marcus: trusting your instincts, right?

Erin Marcus: Yeah. Yeah. All right, let’s flip it. Let’s, let’s talk about some failures. I’m a big fan of, you know, one of the best compliments I ever received was from one of my mentors who said, the best thing about you, Erin, is you’ll get on stage and say, listen, this is where I screwed it all up. If you just don’t do this, you’ll be ahead of the game, right?

Erin Marcus: It’s all fully transparent here. What’s some things that you’ve tried? Let’s shorten some entrepreneurial learning curves that just haven’t worked.

ST Rappaport: Okay, my like biggest, biggest one is trying to educate people on all these 28 things and this whole process and everything that they need to know before getting them in to buy instead of just selling them The promise of like you’re having this struggle and we could get you there and just like focusing on like this is possible for you.

ST Rappaport: That’s it. Obviously you want to like explain how you’re different and you want to like show how like you’re not a scam and things like that. And so that’s where it becomes really challenging because you start to like. Put in all these other things and, like, give them all education, but people don’t need that education, right?

ST Rappaport: They want the trust, they want the possibility I think that’s, like, a really big thing, they want, like, of, like, they want to be able to see what you have and the, like, the simple language and simple words to really help them be able to

Erin Marcus: get through. I mean, I cannot stress enough how true that is.

Erin Marcus: I think people, well, I know people by outcomes The more you can solidly vision cast the outcome, back it up with your social proof, your credentials, enough information so that they do know you know what you’re talking about. I think people get way into the weeds of their own content for two reasons.

Erin Marcus: One, out of a place of insecurity. Right? When, when you haven’t done it yet a lot, you, people are like, here, let me know. Really, let me show you how smart I am. I do know what I’m talking about, right? It, that’s more about you than it is about them. We all go through it. It’s fine. And then also excitement over our own topics, right?

Erin Marcus: Oh yeah. Just so damn, and yours is so interesting. We’re just so damn excited about our thing that we talk about our thing and how much work we put into our thing instead of focusing on their problem, right? Yeah.

ST Rappaport: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like I have most definitely done both of those for both those reasons,

Erin Marcus: which makes you a completely normal business owner and human being.

Erin Marcus: So yeah, you, so if people want to continue this conversation and learn more about this and how this could really make a difference for them,

ST Rappaport: what is the easiest way for them to find you? Yeah, so I’m everywhere life picks University. So it’s life PIX University, whatever your social is my website everything if you really want to see actually where you are at with each one of these 28 thinking skills, then you can take a An assessment for free at lifepixuniversity.

ST Rappaport: com forward slash brain and we’ll show you

Erin Marcus: where you are at with each one of those. I can’t wait. I got to take it. I’m obsessed with these personality profiles. So it’s one more, one more, you know, one more tool to make me understand why the hell am I doing

ST Rappaport: what I’m doing? Oh yeah, you will.

Erin Marcus: Thank you so much for spending time with me. I love what you’re doing. I love the neuroscience behind it, the tactical tool that it is. And the difference maker, truthfully, of, of what it can do for people. So thank you for sharing it with me. We will make sure the links are in the show notes. You know, I love chatting with you.

Erin Marcus: Thank you. Thank you. This is fun.

ST Rappaport: Thank you so much for having me.

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