Photo credit: Photos by Elena and Jim
Welcome to this edition of the Productive Business Magazine Blog – The power of collaboration. It’s an honor and a pleasure to bring to you the best and the brightest from all around the world as we talk productivity in business. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to a good friend of mine, by the name of Dr. Will Moreland. He’s America’s number one leadership life trainer and he is changing lives all around the world.
Dr. Will is a Military Veteran and President of Will Moreland International, LLC, a leading training and consulting company dedicated to helping individuals and organizations maximize their potential. Dr. Will is a highly sought after Keynote Speaker for Leadership and Business Growth, known as America’s #1 Leadership Life Trainer, he is one of the most inspiring thought-leaders and leadership trainers of our time.
PBM: What’s going on Dr. Will,
Dr. Will: Hey Dr. V, thank you for sharing me with your audience. I’ve really been excited about getting down with you, so I know we’re going to have a spectacular time.
PBM: Outstanding, I know that you have been on a 16-city tour, doing your Success & Significance Masterminds and helping businesses grow. People have been inboxing me about how phenomenal these masterminds have been. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Will: I commonly like to say, I’m just a simple kid from Compton, California, that is trying to make an impact, inspire and influence as many people as possible. I’m an Army Vet, very proud of the service that I was able to do inside the Army. I’ve now transitioned into being a business consultant and a speaker. I get to train all around the world with organizations and individuals and I get to live what I call my “Genius Life” on a daily basis.
PBM: I tell you, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Clarity breeds confidence! When you’re confident, you can speak from a place of clarity. Dr. Moreland talk to the audience about this wonderful topic of Living From Your CORE. You’ve been all around the world, to 60 plus some countries training in diverse atmospheres and cultures. What does it feel like, to be living from your CORE?
Dr. Will: Well thank you for bringing that up because it’s a subject that I’m really passionate about, and I am passionate about it from two perspectives. I do get to travel all around the world and get to meet interesting people. I get the opportunity to work with all types of different organizations and that’s very fulfilling and exciting work for me. On the flip side of that, while I was learning and interacting with so many different people; I found that a lot of them, Dr. V is not living a fulfilled life. They’re going to jobs that they particularly don’t like or they don’t know how they fit in. They’re living lives, in relationships that are not fulfilling them. I got back home after several of my travels and I really began to think about what would really be the answer? When I looked at my life, I asked myself, what has allowed you to wake up every single morning and have a smile on your face?
What has allowed you to really enjoy what you do? Now, let me put a pin there, Dr. V, and say this; when I say, I wake up with a smile on my face and I’m excited to do it, it doesn’t mean that everything is going okay. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have challenges, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have obstacles, but what it does mean is I’ve chosen to live life from a different perspective. I’ve narrowed it all the way down, and if I just wake up in the morning and my eyes popped open, I have breath in my lungs and I have my health; then I know it’s going to be a good day. I said all that to say this, I was thinking about what I did personally to live this type of life. As an Army guy, I came up with this acronym “CORE” and when I really looked at it, I said, you know what, that’s it. I made a choice a long time ago to live from my CORE and core stands for Clarity, Opportunities, Relationships & Experiences. If you want to, I’ll share a little bit about each one and what that means.
PBM: Yes, let’s definitely dive into that, because one of the things I’ve come to understand Dr. Will, is that people can divulge a lot of information, but the application is what is lacking. You know, tell me what to do and how to do it, and then I’ll go execute. People definitely learn differently! Some people are kinesthetic learners, some people need to hear it, some people need to be walked through specific things multiple times before they get it. The art of education truly is repetition, so let’s go over that. You said we’re talking about CORE which stands for Clarity, Opportunity, Relationships, and Experiences. Let’s dive into that first part of the acronym Clarity. How important is clarity to you being able to do what you do each and every day?
Dr. Will: Clarity is the essential part of the ingredient. If you’re going to live a fulfilled life if you’re going to live what we call a happy life, if you’re going to live a successful life, you have to get clear as an individual. You have to get clear on what the definition is for you. What does it mean to be successful for you? What does winning the game look like for you… not your parents, your children, or your spouse, but what does winning the game look like for you? Over the last 20 years, I’ve been able to narrow it down for myself thinking how do you want to invest the rest of your life? Dr. V, it became very simple. When I got clear, I wanted to do good and I wanted to have fun doing it. Well, how am I going to do that? Well, I’m going to impact inspire and influence people to live their best life. Well, how are you going to do that? Well, I’m going to create a company that allows me to connect with people on a regular basis through my training and coaching programs.
And that allows me to do good and have fun doing it. I challenge you to take some time to find out what inspires you and brings a smile to your face. We have a limited time on this planet, I would suggest you take two days, three days, four days, five days, and figure out how you want to live your life here on God’s green earth.
I heard a quote one time, it says that “most people spend more time planning a family vacation than they do planning their life.” When we talk about this concept of clarity, it’s going to take you a couple of days to figure out what type of things you like doing? What really makes you come alive on a day to day basis? What do you want to do? Who Do you want to do it with and how do you want to do what you’re doing with who you want to do it with?
PBM: Are you all picking up what Dr. Will is putting down at its core? This is very simplistic. When you get clear about who you are, what you want to do, who you want to do it with; what, when and how you want to do it. We’ll get better. Folks, there’s nothing wrong with that and I love Dr. Will, how you mentioned that. It is amazing how people will take time to plan out vacations or weddings or significant emotional events in life, but they won’t take the time out to plan their life. This is absolutely phenomenal. So, we move on from clarity Dr. Will, and we’re moving into OPPORTUNITIES now. Before you dive into that, I know when opportunity knocks you have a choice. Do you answer? Do you hide? Do you run? So, let’s talk about opportunities.
Dr. Will: It can be tricky if you’re not clear on what opportunities you’re looking for. Like you just said, there are millions of opportunities that are going to come to our life and knock on our door. The way you can be confident as to who should open the door for, is to be clear. I know you remember this. They use to have salespeople that would come and knock on your door and we would look through the peephole and say Grandma it looks like it’s a salesperson. It looks like they are selling a vacuum. We knew that wasn’t an opportunity that we were looking for. We already had a vacuum. That wasn’t an opportunity we were going to open the door for. What happens to a lot of people is because they are not clear. They are opening up the door for all types of opportunities. That, in essence, is not really an opportunity for them, it really becomes a distraction. You want to make sure before you open up the door for opportunities that you’re clear. If you’re clear now, you can readily take hold of opportunities that are coming for you. Once I got clear Dr. V on what I wanted to do in life, who I wanted to do it and how I wanted it to be done, I became very clear. There’s people that are always reaching out to me. They want me to do various things, but I’m very clear on what I want to do in life and their ideas are not bad, it’s just not the opportunity for me. It’s not the opportunity where I can add value and at my core be happy.
I now know exactly what opportunity is right for me. It’s like buying a new car. First, you need to assess your needs. What are we going to use this transportation for? How are we going to use it on a day to day basis? If I’m a married man with five children when the man comes and tries to sell me the Porsche, even if it’s at a great price, I know that’s not an opportunity that’s going to fit my family well. It may make me feel good, look good, but at the end of the day, my wife is probably going to have a problem with me bringing the Porsche home when we need a mini-van to transport our five kids and all the groceries. Although it was a great idea, a great car, it is a great opportunity for someone else, it wasn’t the right opportunity for me. That’s how powerful clarity is because when clarity is present, now you know which opportunities you want in life.
PBM: Listen, at the end of the day, these are the type of nuggets that you get when you hear Dr. Will. Productivity 360 w/ Dr. V, is always about bringing you the best and the brightest from all around the world and that’s why we partner with Productive Business Magazine and Radio. We’re about bringing you people who will change the trajectory of your life. One word folks, just one word can change your life and we started off with clarity. You need to know who you are, how are you going to show up, who you want to show up with, and where you desire to go; Right? Then we talked about opportunity. Wait a minute, not every opportunity is a great opportunity! It may be an opportunity for you, but may not be a good one for me to know what you want. Be clear, so when opportunity knocks, you know how to respond versus react. Now, let’s move into what I would like to call the crux of the core or the midway point in the core, and that’s RELATIONSHIPS my friend. Let’s talk to us about how important relationships have been to you in your life journey and business.
Dr. Will: I know you have a lot of entrepreneurs and you have a lot of business owners that tune in to the Productive Business radio show and I want them to know that this concept of C.O.R.E, this is not just for your personal life, but your business as well. You need to get clear on what type of business that you’re in so you can see the type of opportunities that your business needs to take advantage of. And the same thing is true as we start to talk about relationships in life. Understand that when it comes down to it, at the end of the day, your relationships are what really makes your life successful and fulfilling. It’s not how fast you grew your company, is not how much money that you earned. When you get to the end of your life and you are looking at the photo album of your life, what type of memories do you want in that photo album?
Who Do you want to be there? I know you don’t want line items there. I know you don’t want to SKU numbers there. You want people there, the most important relationships to you. When I got clear and when I started looking for opportunities to build relationships, I looked for people who wanted to do good and also enjoy life. Dr. V, I have known you for over 18 years, and our families hang out. We have many mutual friends and we enjoy life together. I can truly say that the relationships that I have in my life are directly linked to my happiness. For those of you that are listening to me, I want you to take an inventory of your relationships.
Are these relationships helping me or are they hindering me? Are they pushing me forward? Are they holding me back? What are the relationships in your life doing for you, because they are doing something? Dr. V, we’ve seen how the right relationship can lead you to things you never thought were possible. Also, we have seen how bad relationships can take people down, and that’s whether it’s in business, or whether it’s personal. We’ve seen how vital relationships are. When we talk about this concept, of course, you’d said that at the midway point those relationships are so impactful because they can literally impact the opportunities you have in life. I’ve had some wonderful opportunities available to me because of the relationships that I’ve developed in life. On the other side of this, I’ve had things that were kept away from me because of the relationships that I had in my life.
PBM: I could not have said that any better. You know, we talk relationships all the time, as you said, it’s almost been 20 years. When you look at this thing, we’ve been walking this walk and talking this talk for two decades. People are just catching up to the saying relationships and collaborations are the new currency. Many people look at that from a cliché standpoint, but we are all about execution. This really runs us right into the next peace and pillar because at the end of the day, your relationships are what helps you to garner your experiences. The relationships that you had or didn’t have back in the day have made you who you are today and I often tell people Dr. Will, that you are a culmination of the relationships and experiences that you have had to this date, which brings me into the next pillar of EXPERIENCE So we talked about clarity, opportunities, relationships, but now the question is what do you do with it? So, let’s talk experiences.
Dr. Will: Once you get clear on how you want your business to look, you look for those opportunities to help you build your business out. You develop those relationships. Now the question is with all that info, what type of experiences do you want in life. I’ve had the opportunity and the pleasure and the blessing to travel to over 40 different countries. I’ve met different types of people. This allows me to interact with anyone. I’ve tried all different types of things. If we’re talking about jet skis in St. Maarten, whether we are talking about camping in Flagstaff or maybe we’re talking about having a business on the beach mastermind in Mexico, I have done it! What I’ve decided to do, because I’m clear on the type of experiences that I want to have in life, I’m living life to the fullest. My family and I are not just living in our little box, where are outside the box and we’re having all these amazing experiences. For each of you that are listening to us, you need to start asking yourself, how do I want to experience life? It hurts me so much when I ask people, what did you do this weekend? Well, you know, I just sat around and watched Netflix and I washed some clothes.
I said, so the 48 hours that you had available to you, you decided with those 48 hours, 20 of them I’m watching some Netflix and doing laundry. Come on man. There’s a big world out there. You know Dr. V, we live in Arizona and I challenge people all the time and I ask them when’s the last time you visited the Grand Canyon. You’ll be surprised how many people tell me they haven’t been to the Grand Canyon and I’m like, wait a minute. This is one of the seven wonders of the world, not one of the seven wonders of Phoenix or Arizona or the west coast. It is one of the seven wonders of the world and you haven’t experienced it.
We are always challenging each other and we’re always exposing each other to different things and different experiences. You’ll go somewhere and you’ll say, hey man, you got to get there. You have to take the family over there. When we talk about experiences, I want those that are listening to us to really take an inventory. I want you to look at the last 52 weekends that you’ve had and what have you done with those 52 weekends? We each get 52 weekends a year, a hundred and four days. What are you doing with those hundred and four days that you get every year?
PBM: One of the things I love about Dr. Will, is that he is very well calculated when he looks at time; he doesn’t see time like everyone else. He is meticulous about every portion of his time and when you start really honing in and focusing in on what you want to do in life, you will have that same clarity. That’s what I call pinpoint precision, and I often tell people what you focus on gets done. The question of the day is, what are you focusing on? Are you wrapped up, tied up in your core… understanding clarity, opportunity, relationships, and experiences. Do you have people in your corner who you want to have those experiences with? You heard Dr. Will say, my wife Lynette celebrated her birthday on the 3rd of June, and just like that from one phone call, he said wherever you are going to be, we’ll meet y’all there for dinner.
How many people do you have in your life that are going to challenge you, not change you, but help shape the trajectory of where you’re going from where you say you want to go. I challenge each and every one of you, If you don’t have it, you need to find it today. You need to find an accountability partner, friend or someone who’s going to help you gain that clarity. Someone who you can experience those opportunities with. Build solid, memorable relationships and moments in life, that’s what CORE is all about. Now, I know you have multiple things going on and your schedule is intense. There are some conferences and some things that you’re going to be doing, but your relationships and your experiences have taken you literally all around the world. Talk to us about some of your favorite experiences or encounters.
Dr. Will: That’s a tough question, I’ve been so many places and I enjoy each and every one of them, it’s like asking me which one of my children are my favorite child. But I’ll tell you some of the experiences that I’ve had. I’ve had the opportunity to travel to Dubai and that was an amazing experience. I’ve had the opportunity to travel to Ghana and places like Nigeria and India and Poland and one of the places that I really enjoyed was Lichtenstein, it is this little country in the heart of Europe that is just filled with culture. Here in America, I’m on this quest to visit all 50 states because I lived outside of the United States for 15 years, I haven’t done much traveling here. I’m at 24 states, so I have 26 to go.
PBM: All day every day and twice on Sunday my friend. Listen, I know you also have the opportunity to share the stage with some dynamic people. I don’t really want to say who is your most favorite, but give us a little bit of some of those experiences and how that has truly blessed you.
Dr. Will One of the most recent opportunities that I’ve had and this one is coming up and by the time that this airs, people will still be able to take advantage of this. I have the pleasure this year of speaking at the Power Networking Conference, which is hosted by Dr. George Fraser, who is known as one of Black America’s Top Networking Gurus and he hosts this fantastic conference that I attended maybe four or five years ago and I saw so many amazing individuals there and I said, man, that would be a dream come true to share the stage with some of them. And I’m so glad to say that this year I get to do that. And here is something neat to share. Twenty years ago, I met this individual by the name of Dr. Johnetta B. Cole. She was the first African American female president of Spelman College.
She was the president of Bennett College and I met her 20 years ago when she came to do a conference in Germany and I remember talking with her and I said, one day Dr. Cole, I’m going to share the stage with you, and she looked at me and with that beautiful smile that she has and she says, no doubt, I believe that you will share the stage with me one day. I didn’t know she was speaking at the conference this year, but when I was looking at the group of speakers, I saw that she’s going to be one of the speakers this year, so it’s taken me 20 years to fulfill this dream and this goal, but I’m excited that this year that I’m going to be sharing the stage with Dr. Cole. Not only Dr. Cole, but so many other luminaries within the speaking industry at this year’s Power Networking Conference.
PBM: This year has truly been a phenomenal year for you already and we’re only crossing over into the second half. I believe that earlier this year you were appointed as a World Civility Ambassador and if I’m not mistaken, you were just honored with two honorary doctorates. How does it happen to a young black kid from Compton, California who everybody counted out? How do these things happen to you, my friend?
Dr. Will: I have to say, it’s the grace God. The other thing I have to say is it goes back to this message that I’m very passionate about, this message of C.O.R.E, and when I get down to what I said earlier, I just want to do good and I want to have fun. And I believe that if you do good in life, Zig Ziglar said this, “If you help enough people get what they want in life, you will get everything that you want in life.” Then there is a Bible scripture that says, “Give and it will be given to you. Good measure pressed down and running over shall men give unto your bosom.” I’ve been very fortunate to wake up every morning, as I said before, do work that I’m really passionate about, work that I really love. But on top of that Dr. V, to be acknowledged for the work that you do, it’s just a blessing. There are so many people in the world that are doing outstanding and marvelous things, but it goes back to point number three in that C.O.R.E.
I think it’s relationships. I’ve been able to connect with people that have been able to see the work that I’m doing. It goes back to C.O.R.E, right? And none of that could have happened if I wasn’t clear on “I want to do good and have fun in life.” I wake up each morning and I pinch myself. There is a song that says “If I’m dreaming, please don’t wake me up.” Coming from an environment where I came from, we had gangs and drugs and just destruction, but that just goes to show you. It’s not about your start, it’s about your finish and if you have the faith and if you are willing to believe, and you know what your C.O.R.E is, then you can definitely design a life and create a life that you could only imagine.
PBM: Phenomenal, I know that you are America’s #1 Leadership Life Trainer and there are so many different topics that you teach on. Are there some upcoming opportunities for leaders to participate in your training? You have multiple academies that you don’t talk about, but let’s talk about one in specific. The speakers training where you teach people how to use their message to change other people’s lives.
Dr. Will I have been very fortunate once again to be very successful in the speaking industry. I’ve been named one of the top speakers in America, and what I wanted to do was take those experiences and help other people amplify their voice and amplify their message. I created a three-day training called “Give Me The Mic™” When individuals come to this training, they’re going to walk away with clarity of message. They’re going to walk away with the courage to speak their message, and they’re going to have the competence to deliver that message. We all overcome by each other’s testimonies, right? We get inspired. We get motivated by people’s testimonies, by their stories. I wanted to create an atmosphere that helped people get out of their own way. Whether it’s fear, whether it’s doubtful that there is a voice for them, whether there’s doubt that there are listeners for them.
I wanted this three-day event to be created so people can come and they can get the tools not only to amplify their voice but to create the business that allows them to do that. We have all types of people that come to the event, whether they’re in Corporate America and they just want to be better leaders in terms of communicating to their team members are, if you want to go full blown into the speaking business, this seminar and this workshop is for you. We do it every October and you can go to the website www.drwillspeaks.com and find out more information about it under the events tab. But my sole purpose is to help people amplify their voice because when their voice gets louder, they connect with the right people. And when you connect with the right people, you can serve more people. So, thank you for that opportunity to talk about that.
PBM: Listen, the more you serve, the better you preserve mankind, and that’s what people need to understand. Life is about producing and serving. At the end of the day my friend, I am super excited to see you operating and living in your genius while helping other people to do the same. We were thoroughly excited, to have you as part of the Productive Business Summit, as we continue to make a global change. People need to see that it’s possible and you have no excuse. If you could have Dr. Will from Compton, California and Dr. Vernet from Miami, Florida make it; trust me, there’s no excuse. Dr. Will, I want the audience to have an opportunity, to connect with you, how do they find you? Give them your website, your social media. I’m sure they’re already following, but for those who don’t know you, let’s see how they can tap into what you have going on?
Dr. Will: It’s going to be really easy, www.drwillspeaks.com is the website and on all social media platforms is @drwillspeaks.
PBM: Well, thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule today. I know that have so many things going on, people tugging and pulling from all different areas. We are mighty proud of the work that you’re doing, and we salute you. Thanks again Dr. Will, and you know what I always say, you know it’s all about being innovative, being productive, but most of all, live from your genius as you continue to produce.