This episode of #TBNE features the Co-Author of ‘PERFORM: The Unsexy Truth about (Startup) Success’ and the Host of Productivity Mastery Podcast, Stoyan Yankov. Stoyan is a Productive Coach and Global Keynote Speaker who is passionate about helping current and aspiring entrepreneurs on how to scale with productivity and focus. We get deep on topics around how to be productive, why entrepreneurship isn’t sexy, and some key tips and tricks to grow. This was a fun episode as we did an early morning back-to-back recording of The Bear Necessities of Entrepreneurship and Productivity Mastery Podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
Show Summary
This episode of #TBNE features the Co-Author of ‘PERFORM: The Unsexy Truth about (Startup) Success’ and the Host of Productivity Mastery Podcast, Stoyan Yankov. Stoyan is a Productive Coach and Global Keynote Speaker who is passionate about helping current and aspiring entrepreneurs on how to scale with productivity and focus.
We get deep on topics around how to be productive, why entrepreneurship isn’t sexy, and some key tips and tricks to grow. This was a fun episode as we did an early morning back-to-back recording of The Bear Necessities of Entrepreneurship and Productivity Mastery Podcast.
Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
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Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com
Creative Director: Maxim Sokolov, www.maximsokolov.com
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We have teamed up with Phin, a social impact company, to give back for each episode to the communities that we serve. To learn more or get involved with Phin for your company, visit: https://www.phinforgood.com/
Ep 70: Why Entrepreneurship Isn't Sexy w/ Stoyan Yankovich
EPISODE 70
INTRO
00;00;07;21 - 00;00;34;28
Rob Napoli
Bear nation how we're doing. Back again is your host Rob Napoli. And we're up early today. So actually recording this, we started our conversation about 630 Eastern Standard Time this morning. It's about 7:00. I sort of kick it off. I got a full cup of coffee deep, but I today's a marathon morning for us as my guest is somebody that I'm really excited to talk to and we're going to do a back to back pod swap.
MAIN VIDEO
00;00;34;28 - 00;00;41;24
Rob Napoli
So with me today is Stoyan Yankov. I pronounce that right or I mess up the last thing.
00;00;42;14 - 00;00;47;03
Stoyan Yankov
Absolutely not right. But I forgive you a glad
00;00;47;22 - 00;00;49;04
Rob Napoli
I tried. That's how are you doing today.
00;00;50;00 - 00;01;05;12
Stoyan Yankov
I'm good, man. I'm super excited that. Thanks for the invitation to do a podcast swap. I'm very excited to chat with you. Obviously, it's 2 p.m. here in Eastern Europe, but I have my third cup of coffee and let's see where we go. Europe.
00;01;05;12 - 00;01;29;20
Rob Napoli
So you're based out of Copenhagen so soon as a as a former movie producer who realized kind of through his life that he didn't want to do that anymore and he really wanted to get into productivity and performance. So I became a coach and he's also a professional speaker and has seen it on stages, around 30 plus countries around the world, including a recent TEDx talk that he did.
00;01;30;16 - 00;02;08;28
Rob Napoli
He's got over ten years working across Denmark out in the Baltics, all over Europe. And recently we were just chatting pre about his 15 days of travel. I was in Tel Aviv where they sit me out a picture on his balcony reading my book with a glass of wine, and he specializes in coaching organizations and entrepreneurs. This helps hundreds of companies, and we've really bonded over both of our missions, having worked with a lot of accelerators, a lot of entrepreneurs in something that he wrote a book about that you guys hear me talk about all the time.
00;02;08;28 - 00;02;34;26
Rob Napoli
His book is called Perform the Unsexy Truth About Startup Success. And he wrote this with another amazing person, Cristobal, who runs Startup Wiseguys. Startup Wiseguys is one of the biggest badass accelerators in the world based out of the Baltics. And so I'm really excited about this because we have bonded over. And the whole reason Bare Necessities started was we wanted to talk about it.
00;02;34;26 - 00;02;58;13
Rob Napoli
Startups aren't sexy, like the nitty gritty, right? Like this shit that you have to go through. Going through a startup is fucking hard and so on was introduced to me by my business coach and when my good friends and reliable. So that is the long winded intro. His background like we bonded, we chatted for like an hour and a half on I got 30 minute intro call.
00;02;59;18 - 00;03;04;25
Rob Napoli
So my guy, I appreciate you having having you on. I'm really excited about the conversation today.
00;03;06;00 - 00;03;18;09
Stoyan Yankov
That thanks so much, Rob and congratulations for the one year anniversary of the podcast. Keep on going, keep on bringing amazing people and it is an honor to be here with you. So let's hit it up.
00;03;18;09 - 00;03;34;00
Rob Napoli
Yeah. So so, you know, we were just talking about your time in Tel Aviv and you did this long 15 day travel for work. Where where were you? Where were you and what were you doing on this trip?
00;03;35;07 - 00;03;58;25
Stoyan Yankov
So basically I went to Tel Aviv to do a keynote for for a company and you probably already guessed as we are both connected, on linkdn what I do when I go somewhere. I tried to minute meet as many people as they can. So I reach out to my connections to my network. I set up coffee, meetings, drinks, like just try to visit local events.
00;03;58;25 - 00;04;28;09
Stoyan Yankov
So I did have a chance to meet, I think ten, 15, really, really cool people from the ecosystem in Tel Aviv. That was the first time I'm going there. I did my workshop on productivity. A client is happy and then I headed to Tallinn, Estonia and I did have to do my signature pour for bootcamp for the recent batch of Startup Wiseguys, a fintech badge.
00;04;29;24 - 00;04;51;19
Stoyan Yankov
So I spent a few days with the startups, with the founders, and then I went to the mountains and I was the trainer at a leadership bootcamp for college kids and also enjoying myself, doing some walks, meeting the people, not to mention the final party, which was until six in the morning. So it's been a it's been a good time.
00;04;52;09 - 00;05;29;04
Stoyan Yankov
I love it. And know what I love about that is that you went from the company side of things to the startup side of things, then to the youth, right? And we think about future entrepreneurs and your line of work as a productivity coach and speaker, you get to interact with very varied groups of people. What are what are the major things you see kind of like from those different levels from like the bigger companies that you get to work with to like the college students and like what is the messaging that you bring to them to kind of bridge the gap?
00;05;29;04 - 00;05;53;15
Rob Napoli
Because we know, right, millennials are entering the marketplaces as managers and leaders. Gen Z is like now working for us like they're they're in their first jobs and you have a lot of like older leaders. So like how do you bring that together as a productivity coach? They talk to me about how you bring this message across bigger companies into, you know, college kids through these camps.
00;05;54;29 - 00;06;15;21
Stoyan Yankov
Yeah, absolutely. Men. And as you said, you should always adjust and adapt your message depending on your audience. What? I work with more senior people, with teams, with companies. I rarely do a long, longer conversation like you can get the the team of four. I mean, you can you can do a team offsite site or something specific strategy sessions.
00;06;15;21 - 00;06;36;14
Stoyan Yankov
But but when it when it's about the usual, let's get a guy to do two dual session a workshop it's usually around an hour and a half, 2 hours, maybe 3 hours, if I'm lucky. And well, you called me Productivity Coach. I work a lot more with groups. I also work one on one, but a lot more with groups.
00;06;36;14 - 00;07;11;22
Stoyan Yankov
Meaning when I work with corporates they usually have a lot of structure, right? Like there's organization, there's processes, there's principles, but, but there are a lot of things that it's not that they don't know them. Often they know the stuff, but it's more about having somebody you have a pit stop and you have a chance to to come and see in a very condensed way what are some of the things that we might be currently not paying attention to, which stay on the way of productivity and efficiency, not just your personal productivity.
00;07;12;02 - 00;07;36;19
Stoyan Yankov
Right. Because, okay, you're a leader. You're a manager. Even if you don't manage anybody, you got to be really good with your personal productivity, getting things done, organizing yourself, prioritizing. But you're part of a bigger system, right? You you don't operate in isolation, especially if you're a manager. It's how do I ensure that my people prioritize their time?
00;07;36;19 - 00;08;05;16
Stoyan Yankov
Well, they have good communication with each other. They give each other feedback. So if I can say what kind of the my biggest passion and kind of the heart of everything that I do, it's around how can we build organizations and culture which focus on productivity, building environments of productivity and care, caring environments where people feeling fulfilled, motivated, they care for each other.
00;08;06;09 - 00;08;31;10
Stoyan Yankov
So larger organizations in certain ways to do that. Start ups, well, start ups, usually they can spend a lot more time, right? Like that's why we do boot camps with two or three days. Yeah, we were passionate. They don't have much structure. Usually they're. They're very curious. They, they want to learn stuff. They want to build stuff. They, they read books, they listen to podcasts.
00;08;32;16 - 00;08;52;26
Stoyan Yankov
The problem is they don't have a focus as they're super excited about everything. And when you when you're passionate about everything and have no boundaries, it's really hard to be productive and to actually move forward and progress with the college with the college kids, it's a little bit different. I mean, it's so much easier to get them excited, right?
00;08;52;26 - 00;09;20;13
Stoyan Yankov
Because those type of topics, you don't study them in school. So that's when you show up. It's you're one of the first people they see in the areas of, you know, productivity, leadership, personal development. So it's not so much about here's how you your effective day to day. It has to do a lot with, you know, just more general topics a personal leadership, career advice, how do you navigate in life.
00;09;20;19 - 00;09;23;16
Stoyan Yankov
So sharing a lot more stories and so on.
00;09;23;25 - 00;09;45;28
Rob Napoli
I mean, I love that. You know, I get to work with college kids and I usually do, you know, six, seven talks with different colleges around the globe. It's usually between Italy and the U.S. I talk a lot about it. The idea of personal development in the long run, meaning don't wait to your 30, 40, 50 to start personal development.
00;09;45;28 - 00;10;06;00
Rob Napoli
It starts today, but it's a lot more of like how do you invest in yourself? And like what should you be looking towards to invest in yourself? And I want to bring this back around because I always talk about like companies, we're seeing a revolution of companies. Right when we saw the great resignation, all other things happen and that employees want companies to invest in their people.
00;10;06;14 - 00;10;31;13
Rob Napoli
Right. Training, development, their brand. And we used to say like, invest in your brand because no one else is going to invest in you. Right? So you talk about your passion is to help companies care and create systems around care. Right. And that has to do with building culture. And I was giving a really interesting talk to about 50 founders on a pier in New York City.
00;10;31;13 - 00;10;55;14
Rob Napoli
It was for Founders Network about a culture. And one of the questions that I got asked I want to ask you this question is when do you start thinking about culture? And the second part of that, because you work with these later stage companies, how do you handle that? Right, whether you're a startup, what's that look like? And late stage and I know this is something you're passionate about and I know that you have a book around some of that stuff.
00;10;55;14 - 00;11;15;27
Rob Napoli
So I'm trying to I want to I want to I want to let you I'm going to give you some space. I know this is more than like a 2/2 answer. So feel free to like develop that because a very loaded question. But I literally did this talk last week and I thought I was like, Holy shit, I cannot wait to ask him this same question on the pod because I got to ask, when do you start thinking about culture?
00;11;16;12 - 00;11;20;10
Rob Napoli
And then how does that expand from a startup to these large companies?
00;11;21;12 - 00;11;51;26
Stoyan Yankov
Hmm, brilliant question. So when I started on this journey ahead of in my opinion about this and I had an answer for myself, but but then again, you know this my opinion. So when we started doing research for the book on the one site, setting up interviews with successful entrepreneurs, accomplished founders, coaching many companies and talking to them, asking this specific question, because that's at the core of the book, we got two answers.
00;11;51;26 - 00;12;16;04
Stoyan Yankov
Rob The one answer was, you got to start day one. And the second answer was, I wish we started this one because we we got into ten, 15, 20 people. Now we got this funding. And we never talk about culture. We never talk about systems around it. Who are we, what our values, what's our purpose? Where are we?
00;12;16;20 - 00;12;24;23
Stoyan Yankov
And now we need to scale. We need to hire twice as many people and it was such a rough ride. I wish we started day one.
00;12;25;05 - 00;12;48;01
Rob Napoli
Yeah. So I love that you bring this up because culture starts the day that you found a company and that idea of why did you start your company? What are you looking to accomplish? If you start a company to make money, that's fine. But be honest about it. You're starting a company to make an impact. Put that impact up first.
00;12;48;16 - 00;13;07;09
Rob Napoli
What are your values? What is your mission statement? All those things can be put to the forefront and the decisions are built around that. But when you are one company of one to a company of five to a company at ten to a company at 50, to a company of one culture is going to change. It's just how it is at scale.
00;13;07;09 - 00;13;38;17
Rob Napoli
So culture is something that you don't just hire somebody back end is like, okay, you want to think about culture again. It's like it is an evolution because as you said, the two things that we learn, you start at day one and I wish I start at day one because so many companies lose sight of that. And I found that to be just wildly interesting is as we look at how do companies evolve, where do they go from here and how can we help develop that and create that conversation and make that conversation go?
00;13;38;17 - 00;13;42;01
Rob Napoli
And I love that. That is a big passion and purpose for you.
00;13;43;24 - 00;14;07;14
Stoyan Yankov
And let me clarify something. I definitely agree with you. And I think if I can use a metaphor, your culture is like a living organism. You know, you start with the baby, start up. So you have some certain genes and like, you know, talents and it's like so but but it can evolve in many different directions, right? But and that's the thing.
00;14;07;16 - 00;14;32;28
Stoyan Yankov
You don't have to have it all defined and, and have a, a little Bible with all your values and things and never change it from day one. You need to start paying attention and they want you to have having a conversation with your co-founder, with your team, who are with what are the kind of values that we embrace and really, in a practical terms, what happens when somebody does this?
00;14;33;06 - 00;14;54;19
Stoyan Yankov
What are the things we prioritize? Who are the kind of people we want to attract because they might be really good in what they do, but not everybody fits because they don't embrace the same kind of values. Like Why do we do what we do? Especially when you're small? I mean, there's so many statistics about the small percentage and probability of startups to succeed.
00;14;55;06 - 00;15;19;04
Stoyan Yankov
It's like less than 10%, right? If you want to if you want to grow, if you want to attract people, if you want to attract investors, you better know what's your mission. You better excited about it. You better be passionate about it. And you better get people on the team, not just great performers. Why not just very important having the right values, but actually passionate about the same vision, the same mission?
00;15;19;04 - 00;15;41;04
Stoyan Yankov
So I think the and it's a it's a right. You do this workshop. Hey, guys, let's talk about the values. Let's do this. Exercise is great. This is okay. Let's come back to it in two months. But but before. But let's try and see. Do we actually live these values right? Like this? A lot of this like integrity, honesty, punctuality.
00;15;41;11 - 00;15;58;24
Stoyan Yankov
It's like, okay, one of your top three values is punctuality. And you've been late for a meeting three times this month. Hmm. Interesting. Is that really a value or is that something that you feel like it could be a nice value? No. Well, do you actually do this is your values. What do you do? Well, do you prioritize?
00;15;59;09 - 00;16;16;02
Stoyan Yankov
So I'm super passionate about it. And I and it's practical matter. It is really practical. Like like when you get these things right, your chances of to work to build something successful, increase.
00;16;16;02 - 00;16;40;02
Rob Napoli
I love that you bring you say that because they're so it is so easy to create values and missions that are bullshit that look good on paper that we don't live and you can live them and they can be a value today and that a value evolves tomorrow. And that's why this conversation needs to start from day one.
00;16;40;02 - 00;17;05;20
Rob Napoli
And it's a continue conversation and it goes in ebbs and flows. Like you said, it's a living organism. And that's why I think it's so beautiful about this idea. And it leads me to my next question of, you know, your background was you were building a production company. You're doing all these things. You are, you know, being an entrepreneur, you're going through this stuff and you kind of just like had this moment, you know, where you're just like, shit, it's not what I want to do.
00;17;06;05 - 00;17;28;19
Rob Napoli
And you were inspired by Tony Robbins and other great motivational speakers, and you knew that you wanted to transition into productivity performance coaching. You know, I say coaching, but I mean, like one too many type, right? Speaking, training and developing that from one too many as well as, you know, I know you do want to align, but your bigger core business is one too many.
00;17;29;08 - 00;17;47;14
Rob Napoli
What was like? Was it was it a singular moment? Was it over time? Did you kind of wake up one day and just be like, this shit sucks and I want to start over like how? And then you talk it out and like the early part of your book. But talk to me through like, you know, you didn't go into too much depth there.
00;17;47;14 - 00;17;58;17
Rob Napoli
So talk to me through like that moment for you of when you switch from an entrepreneur of one business to completely transforming and taking your life in a whole different direction.
00;17;58;17 - 00;18;30;01
Stoyan Yankov
Yeah, absolutely, man. So as I said, I would go to these events at a time. Tony Robbins Events, coaching, education tours, conferences on personal development and business development. While I was running my video production company and I kind of love producing videos, like I love producing movies for the sake of it's very creative, it's very fun. You know, you go, you meet people, but there are some certain things that were not aligned with my values.
00;18;30;01 - 00;18;55;23
Stoyan Yankov
Again, talking about values, first of all, I never knew you have to have on the line with the virus. So I got into a company with somebody with the different set of values than mine is different vision, mission than mine. We never talk about it. Great performer, exceptional what he does and the whole film and video industry. At the time that I was in, at least, you know, you go on set, people eat pizza, unhealthy lifestyle.
00;18;55;23 - 00;19;20;23
Stoyan Yankov
We don't sleep enough. Don't people read books about leadership and those kind of things? So so the kind of environment was not really my type of environment to some extent. So I was having kind of like, you know, maybe I should do what these other people do, coaches and maybe I should be on stage. And since I did my coaching education, I'd be coaching in London.
00;19;21;24 - 00;19;46;20
Stoyan Yankov
I started wearing the weekend wear in the evening, having one, two, three, one on one clients, you know, coaching them. And and I could see they'll start finding relationship moving to another country, get a new job like, you know, getting results. And one of them one day after the session, really happy with the session was like, stay on, let's just stay for 5 minutes.
00;19;46;20 - 00;20;04;05
Stoyan Yankov
How have you been? How's it going with you, man? Like, thanks for all the support. What happened with your workshop? I remember a long year ago when we started working together, you said you want to work on this workshop called Life Is Like a movie inspiring people how to be the director as the producer of their own movies.
00;20;04;17 - 00;20;33;26
Stoyan Yankov
How did it go? Do you still do it? Then I was like, I'm very busy. I did have a jazz, you know, I have all these videos and he was like, That is so ironic, man. You helped me, pushed me to achieve my goals, but you're not working on yourself. I'm going to give you a challenge. You have to put up your first workshop and you have 30 days.
00;20;34;20 - 00;20;58;10
Stoyan Yankov
And if you don't deliver, you have to pay £500. And I think you mentioned something like a to an extreme feminist organization that hates men. They go something like they'll find something that, you know, he was actually using my own tools that I was using on him to achieve his goals. So what happened is I hang up the phone, put up my first event on Facebook.
00;20;58;10 - 00;21;19;10
Stoyan Yankov
Back then it was it was working really well with the events waiting list. I booked myself in the Jobcentre pretty much, so I prepared to think and I was nervous, man. I was I was afraid. The truth was I wasn't busy. I was afraid. It's like, oh, my God, it's my event. Everybody is looking at me. I was thinking about myself.
00;21;20;17 - 00;21;37;29
Stoyan Yankov
And by the way, you're a speaker, you're a consultant. You very, very well know that you wouldn't be stressed and nervous if you understand it. It's not about you. It's about the audience. They don't care about you. They're there for something else. When you shift, it's a different story. But. But at the time, I didn't know. So. So, you know, I prepared really well.
00;21;38;21 - 00;22;06;13
Stoyan Yankov
Did my workshop get people together? They were talking. So people are happy. I'm like, Oh, who I made it, I survived. Right. And there is a girl from China that signed up for my workshop and she just saw it online. She doesn't know me. And maybe, you know, people in Asia, they they have this respect for authorities. So if I'm on stage, then I'm probably somebody famous or so she was like, Oh my God, oh my God, can I talk to you?
00;22;06;22 - 00;22;32;17
Stoyan Yankov
I was like, Yeah, sure. So she comes and she share her story. And that for me was the the point of no return in movie language. She she told me that the town that she comes from basically, and she was at the age of 25. The culture is that if you're a woman, you have to listen to your parents and you don't you don't make any decisions.
00;22;32;17 - 00;22;49;08
Stoyan Yankov
Anything you want to decide on you, you you just you ask your mum and dad until the time you get married, then you ask your husband. And now she was 25 and she never made a decision for herself, never even for the, for the workshop to call her mum and dad. And they told her yeah go to the workshop.
00;22;50;03 - 00;23;14;09
Stoyan Yankov
So she was like stone you asked me to close my eyes and see myself. Where do I want to be, what's the story of my movie? And you know what? I was I was a little confused, but but I came up with a story. I want to be a storyteller. I want to empower women in China to be their own leaders, to do whatever makes them happy, to make their own mistakes.
00;23;15;10 - 00;23;37;04
Stoyan Yankov
And then she hugged me and she doesn't let go. She just just hugging like this, you know? And I'm sitting like, I just wanted to survive this workshop, man. Like, just because he challenged me. But who am I to be? To be afraid? This was my fear. It was my insecurities. Who am I to be afraid? What if I touch one person?
00;23;37;24 - 00;23;59;14
Stoyan Yankov
What if one conversation, one question that I ask is going to change somebody's direction, going to motivate them? I'm going to give them a practical tool. So so for me, that was the that was the exact moment. I was like, There's no way back. Let's go, let's move, let's build. So and those who are listening, I hope you you get this.
00;23;59;14 - 00;24;15;29
Stoyan Yankov
Maybe there's something that you want to do and it's something you've been postponing for a while with the excuses that I don't have the time. Let's see what happens. And like, you don't know. Yeah, you don't know what happens tomorrow. Yeah.
00;24;16;05 - 00;24;43;01
Rob Napoli
I mean, honestly, like, I wanted to start a podcast since I came back from Italy in 2017 and I always had a reason not to or like didn't know how to do it or these things. And I finally did. And now I'm, you know, recording episode 70 going on my second season, you know, and I've learned so much from this experience that it's changed the way I look at some of the stuff I coach on to the stuff I train on, right?
00;24;43;01 - 00;25;01;21
Rob Napoli
Like, you know, I joke, I talk like I'm a coach and that's kind of my my personality and like I'm like coaches because I'm a coach's son. My whole family is all like athletic sport coaches, right? Like that's like the world I grew up in. And so but I look at myself more as like a trainer, like my goal is not to like coaches.
00;25;01;21 - 00;25;41;00
Rob Napoli
Like the way I look at this coaching, you do a lot of questions. You put people in place to be successful for them to make decisions. Training allows me to run them through. The reps and coaches also train. Right. But I like I like splitting my two things where I have like the coaching world where it's a lot more questioning and guidance and really like helping somebody make their own decisions where training, it's like, okay, I'm going to walk you through this through stories, through different exercises that you can take away 1 to 3 things that most from this workshop that you can put into practice tomorrow that makes an immediate impact, because if one
00;25;41;00 - 00;26;02;08
Rob Napoli
small impact happens tomorrow, then another impact the next day and the next day. And they start, you know, layering on what happens. And, you know, this being in this world is sometimes these motivational speakers and stuff, they give you these really big abstract things that you're like this is awesome. And you retain, you know, you sit through something, you retain 20% after an hour, right?
00;26;02;08 - 00;26;16;17
Rob Napoli
So like after an hour, it's like God and you want them to take all these big things and have to go study it. And I have to like transverse it down onto paper and then put it in action. If it's too heavy of a lift for them, they're going to do the same thing they did is they did it for and just not do it right.
00;26;16;28 - 00;26;36;17
Rob Napoli
And I love that you talk about this like part of your book where like, like you're kind of key moment when you were doing workshop with crystal ball was the five minute meditation, the finishing off of meditative state, saying, What did you learn here today? And what is like vision? What you're going to do tomorrow to walk away?
00;26;37;11 - 00;26;59;14
Rob Napoli
What what puts you in that moment of like, I want to end with a meditative state to drive this point home. I could do that, like come to you with that. Something you learned like was that from practice yourself? Like, I love that when I read that I was like, Holy shit. So what made that kind of be your signature into one of your work, your workshops?
00;26;59;14 - 00;27;24;21
Stoyan Yankov
I guess it's accumulation of all the experiences that I've been through. Like you, you go places, you see things, and you you kind of see what works for you and as you said, training is isn't art when you can't perfectly plan a training or or, you know, like an experience. It's an experience. It's like, I have an idea.
00;27;24;21 - 00;27;37;27
Stoyan Yankov
I will research as much as I can about my audience. But but when I go on spot, there will be a lot of things that will come out that I wouldn't know about. So. So it's I'm like the person like, what do you call that, the director of the orchestra?
00;27;38;03 - 00;27;39;12
Rob Napoli
Oh, the conductor.
00;27;39;26 - 00;28;02;00
Stoyan Yankov
The conductor, right? Yeah. Like, like, hey, all right. There are some some pain points, okay? Assessing the situation, what their gaps are. All right, let's put this people into a group because seems like this person like you, you have your structure and you got some content you want to go through and exercises. But but then on the way, there are certain things you need to be able to navigate.
00;28;02;00 - 00;28;25;27
Stoyan Yankov
So everybody gets the most value, the most the greatest experience out of it. And yeah, man, reflections. It's it's important man it's a both learning retention but every time we do a workshop like if it's a training which is more in two days for example the we begin the second day with all right let's get into groups. What were the key learnings from from yesterday.
00;28;26;13 - 00;28;48;22
Stoyan Yankov
Sure it didn't in small group. All right. Now let's share with the main group. Right so because it return retained the learning and you can write it down with different colored you know, pencils and so on. But meditation and specifically guided meditation, I got introduced to that my first year in college when I attended a very special ten day seminar.
00;28;48;28 - 00;29;09;09
Stoyan Yankov
It was Crazy Man. It was a seminar called The System of the Ribicoff and I have some endura with my with my feet. So my mom signed me up for this thing because I was struggling for a year and she was like, You know what? I found this self-healing seminar. I'm like, What? Self-Healing seven. I Come on, Mom.
00;29;09;17 - 00;29;10;29
Stoyan Yankov
Like, come on.
00;29;12;01 - 00;29;13;01
Rob Napoli
That's what you.
00;29;14;15 - 00;29;42;23
Stoyan Yankov
Yeah when your first first year college kid like it's like, come on. And she was like, look, I did the think it was amazing. It's not just about healing. It's you love it. Give it a try. I already paid for it. All right. Okay. All right, cool. But if I don't like it, I'm quitting, like, okay, fine. So you go to the seminar man, and they introduce the staff, and they are like, All right, so everybody, we have we have two rules.
00;29;42;23 - 00;30;15;18
Stoyan Yankov
Number one, you have to stay in a power place during the whole seminar. And number two, you got to smile. You're allowed not to smile. So like 4 hours a day, then you're like, Yeah, that's like that man, that is. And it's like, Oh, well, I was crying, all right, like, but, but then there was, there was a bunch of different visualizations, meditations and, and, and I give it a try by the end of day ten may have so positive.
00;30;15;26 - 00;30;33;19
Stoyan Yankov
You have so many goals and, and you have so much energy that it's it's been incredible. So meditation has been a big part of my life. And of course, I use those type of guided visualizations myself to lead my audience to whatever place I want them to go.
00;30;34;04 - 00;30;58;14
Rob Napoli
I love that because I know that it provides that space in place to create action. Right. And the best trainers, like so many people, go on stage and they don't access the room and they just talk and they talk and they talk and they talk. And, like, there's no chance for you to, like, put that in action. In fact, I took one of my friends last year and she does guided breath work and I did my first breathwork session.
00;30;58;14 - 00;31;19;25
Rob Napoli
And for me, when I meditate, my meditation sets in motion. It's going for a walk. And then I have to go into that state because I am ADHD, low grade OCD, like I have to be in motion for me to like stop thinking but doing guided breath for because I'm breathing and you have the sensors. They have, you know, the sage burning.
00;31;19;25 - 00;31;46;10
Rob Napoli
You've got the light show, you have all these sensory experiences. I was able to get into a state and it's like whole lotta shit. This is awesome. Like, I found my way to do that, so it's been pretty cool. So we're getting up here on time here and I know we didn't get deep into the book because I'll be honestly honest, I wanted to kind of prime and get people excited about it, but I want people to go read it.
00;31;46;10 - 00;32;20;28
Rob Napoli
I want to give you the kit and caboodle because I think this book is is fantastic. I'm about halfway through it. And, you know, you talk about the perform method and this is something that you and Chris of all came up with. And for those, I don't know, Chris is the guy that started startup wise guys and it started out start up wise guys family and there's a really cool piece talking about that region, the Baltic region and specific about the called the New Europe and there's so much innovation in fact Stone was talking about pre show you said about the Baltic investment in the Baltic area is like 2 billion into the
00;32;20;28 - 00;32;22;23
Rob Napoli
startup ecosystem right something like.
00;32;23;00 - 00;32;23;19
Stoyan Yankov
Southeastern.
00;32;23;28 - 00;32;25;15
Rob Napoli
Southeastern doesn't work on Saturdays.
00;32;25;26 - 00;32;26;24
Stoyan Yankov
That's a little bit salt.
00;32;27;11 - 00;32;49;21
Rob Napoli
Okay, well, we'll push that out. But when you talk about the new Europe piece that I really love, kind of that primer to this book, but why don't you talk about what is performed stand for and let people know where they can find the book? And I have one final question before we close out. So what is performance stand for and where can I find the book then perform?
00;32;49;21 - 00;33;15;28
Stoyan Yankov
Is your bird's eye view on your company in order for you to build a performing culture and these are kind of areas that everybody knows about because we are so busy, we often tip to neglect them. So performing is an acronym. It's a reminder for everybody to pay attention consistently to these areas. P stands for purpose and values, right?
00;33;15;28 - 00;33;37;03
Stoyan Yankov
The defining the culture. Who are we? Why do we do what we do? What is our mission? What's our vision? What's our purpose? What are the kind of values? Who are the people that we want to attract? How do we like to operate? I do have is everybody on the same page around it that we live. Our culture is dense for effective planning.
00;33;38;12 - 00;34;05;10
Stoyan Yankov
My favorite area is a productivity coach, right? Like how do we set goals? How do we set objectives? Is everybody on the team clear what their priorities are? How do I manage my time as a leader and how do I coach my team to be really good in managing their own time, setting their own goals? What are the kind of systems and processes we use to be on the same page when it comes to objectives and priorities?
00;34;05;10 - 00;34;27;09
Stoyan Yankov
Then it comes our roles and responsibilities and that's what is actually an interesting one. Like when we did it crystal ball and they were looking for a letter like another, right? Like we need to know, hey, how about roles and responsibilities? Yeah, but it's going to be so small. Everybody knows their role, right And that's the thing. Rob, you work with a lot of start ups.
00;34;28;03 - 00;34;51;14
Stoyan Yankov
I'm the chief marketing officer and I'm the VP of product. You're three people team. How come you're the V.P. and he's the chief? Who are you? A chief of? Right, but. Okay, use your title. That's fine. Use your role. But what do we actually do? What are your commitments? What are your responsibilities? Not Michael, Maria and me. I'm doing sales.
00;34;51;19 - 00;35;16;17
Stoyan Yankov
Know who's the one accountable for this specific project, for this specific area? And do we know each other utilizing the best our strengths and our passions, something not many teams talk about. What are people passionate about? Okay, so that's the roles and responsibilities. The next one, F stands for Focus and Execution. I right. You can have great goals.
00;35;17;02 - 00;35;38;27
Stoyan Yankov
There's this overthinking of a planners, but when it comes to building something, it's a it's about focus, man. It's about saying no and building a culture of execution over perfection. You got to get things done. You got to move fast and make mistakes, right? So so that's focus on execution. Oh stands for optimal energy. I've been guilty of that one many times over.
00;35;38;28 - 00;36;01;23
Stoyan Yankov
Right? Like you're so excited and passionate to build that you forget, prioritize your wellbeing, sleep, eating properly, exercising like all these small things, but do we have the habits around it? So as leaders, as founders, we actually inspire everybody else to also be paying attention to this thing, incorporating this think in the culture of the company. So it's a sustainable culture.
00;36;02;03 - 00;36;26;11
Stoyan Yankov
Okay, robust communication. That's the second R internally and this one could be ten books by itself, right? Communication. How do we talk to each other? How frequently do we talk to each other? What kind of channels do we use? Do we have efficient feedback structures? So when something's not going well, we immediately deal with chatter into into a kind of improper way.
00;36;27;10 - 00;37;07;28
Stoyan Yankov
How often do we talk to our people as leaders, or do we tell them, like simple, practical, useful stuff? And then the last one and stands for mental toughness. It's a mindset. Mental toughness is defined as to capability to deal with stressors. What happens when things don't go by plan? How fast do you get back into a balanced, productive, calm state so you can actually address the challenges and uncertainties as opposed to spending time in negative energy, feeling sorry for yourself, feeling like a victim, being angry and and being giving excuses to and complains to everybody.
00;37;07;28 - 00;37;28;29
Stoyan Yankov
Right? Again, as a CEO, always on you as a leader, all eyes are on you. Whatever you do, don't expect your team to do something different because they're moral you. So you better show up with the good attitude, no matter the circumstances. And sometimes it's really hard. We talk about it, right? Like it's very easy to talk about that stuff.
00;37;28;29 - 00;37;47;29
Stoyan Yankov
But then you've been planning and doing this deal with an investor and then one day before signing the deal, they say, Well, now you can't pay the salaries in this week. But it's very easy to say, Yeah, stay positive. Well, it's not that easy. And you have a lot of this on a daily basis. I mean, you're the last person to comment.
00;37;48;27 - 00;38;16;04
Stoyan Yankov
I think that's, you know, you're going go a dinner, you know, like like, oh, everything is fine. Something breaks in the company. Now, who has to resolve it? Who takes ownership, you know. So anyway, perform. This is what performance is all about. The book is filled with a bunch of practical examples with it over 50 interviews just for the book, interviewing some of the people from the region and beyond, asking them, What are you doing?
00;38;16;04 - 00;38;40;10
Stoyan Yankov
The specific areas? What do you practically do in order to to be better in mastering this area? So yeah, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, you can go to Amazon, look for the book 'Performed: The Unsexy Truth About Start Up Success. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, stay in the article, find me, write the note. And I know Rob, you have some specific think about writing a note when being added to LinkedIn.
00;38;40;10 - 00;38;52;27
Stoyan Yankov
I'm on the out of camp. I'm more of a if you want to reach out and if you want to get an answer for me, definitely put a little note why you want to get in touch. I know. Rob, have a different opinion. We'll talk about it in just 10 minutes on the other foot.
00;38;53;22 - 00;39;10;16
Rob Napoli
But absolutely awesome. And where can my listeners find you? How do they learn more about you and where they go to learn more about you? What you do, get in touch with you. LinkedIn The best place are website where they've been following you.
00;39;10;23 - 00;39;35;03
Stoyan Yankov
Definitely. You can go to LinkedIn, find me through my name, you can go to Instagram or my webpage store any uncle dot com. You can check out my podcast Productivity Mastery, which is going to be featuring a rock star in just a few minutes. His name is Rob Napoli. Ladies and gentlemen. So, fraternity master, you can play those Spotify, YouTube, Apple podcasts just like this one.
00;39;35;03 - 00;39;40;18
Stoyan Yankov
So yeah, get in touch. I love to talk to people, but, you know, don't be a stranger. Reach out.
00;39;41;20 - 00;40;04;11
Rob Napoli
I love it. And, you know, we could have probably gone on for hours talking like podcast stuff because I've been listening to podcasts and there's so many insights and things. So what I'll do, listeners, is I will make sure to link the website, link the book length link, then link the podcasts that you can go, check it out, connect, follow and engage.
00;40;04;28 - 00;40;29;07
Rob Napoli
I promise you will be worth your time, energy and effort. So thank you so much for being a part of Bear Nation. This has been a lot of fun, excited for this to drop and I'm excited to go back to back. We're going to go live here in a little bit for those listening. This will have been a few weeks already, but I'm excited to go live with you and chat further, so we'll be talking here soon.
00;40;29;07 - 00;40;32;18
Rob Napoli
So until next time, Bear Nation stay well and rise up.
OUTRO
00;40;35;15 - 00;40;45;03
Rob Napoli
Bear Nation. Thanks for listening to the bare necessities of entrepreneurship. If you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe and leave us a review.