Welcome to this edition of the Productive Business Magazine Blog – The power of collaboration. Its 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, Dr. Ruben West.

Dr. Ruben West is a dynamic internationally recognized speaker, trainer, published author and certified professional Success Coach. He teaches and trains students and clients all over the world to step into their vision and achieve their personal greatness. Beginning in the late 80’s, Ruben recognized his ability to help others achieve their dreams. In 1991 Ruben’s life was forever changed by his experience serving in Operation Desert Shield/Storm as a US Army soldier. Realizing how fragile life was, this experience made him refocus his commitment to making every day count.

 PBM: Welcome Dr. Ruben West How are you doing today?

 Dr. West: I’m doing great. Dr. V, thank you for the opportunity to be on the show and to speak to your listeners.

 PBM: Absolutely my friend, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Listen, before we get started and dive into this thing, I want you   to tell the listening audience a little bit about who you are so that they can get themselves in the proper positioning and   posture to learn.

 Dr. West: So, let me just give you my philosophy, I’ve written seven books and they’re all entitled “Live Your BEST Life,” and   they all have a subtitle. So, Live Your BEST Life – The Time is Now, Live Your BEST Life – Walk by Faith, Live Your BEST Life –   Answer the Call, Live Your BEST Life – Stories of Triumph, Live Your BEST Life – The Advantage of Disadvantage. I believe   sometimes God gives us a disadvantage to bring us out, to bring out the best in us. And so, when I say live your best life,   that’s what I’m about. Stepping out and doing things that people never thought possible because it is possible; if we choose   to make it happen. We can’t wait for it, I believe that life comes with a guarantee, but here’s the thing Dr. V, we’re the guarantor.

PBM: If I can entitle this show/article right here, It would be called “Words Have Power.” I’m going to say that one more time, words have power. Now, with that said, Dr. West, I know you’re well-traveled and have done wonderful things. We didn’t really dive into your background, but as a veteran, you know I’ve got to pull that thing out, man. I want to thank you for your service and your life’s work because people need to know who they’re listening to.

You’re listening to a man who has served this country on multiple fronts. You’re listening to a man who has created some dynamic things that we’ll get into a little later in the interview, but you’re listening to someone who I have an affinity towards. Now you don’t hear me say that often, on the Productivity 360 Show or in the Productive Business Magazine, but today I’m telling you, get ready because it’s about to go down. It is said Dr. West, that a picture says a thousand words, but a quote transforms the mind. Let’s talk about that because I know that you’re a man who loves quotes, who uses quotes to help warm the minds of others. Let’s talk about that statement a picture says a thousand words, but a quote can transform the mind. Talk to us Dr. West.

Dr. West: You know what the quote does? It helps us reframe our thinking. As a matter of fact, I was just speaking yesterday. I was talking to someone on the phone and I said something just out of my mouth. I said something and what I said made me jump up out of my seat. I came back, wrote it down, and I sent it to a friend of mine as a quote. Let me tell you what I said. First off, let me frame this. This is what I believe, I believe that our ideas are our inheritance; that God gives us these little ideas. Their ideas for products, for services, for businesses, and because we have no idea how it’s going to work, we don’t do anything. Then three months, six months, a year, two years later, we see that very same thing that we had been given the idea for, but we didn’t do anything with. I always say it’s not what you think of, but what you act on. Here’s the quote that I said, “Logic is the interruption that keeps us from what God said to do, and what we actually do.” The interruption is because we try to  use logic and we try to say, okay, wait a minute; that’s not logical. How am I going to do that? Who’s going to let me do that?

I’ve lived my life defying logic. Albert Einstein said, Logic will take you from “a” to “b,” but imagination will take you everywhere.” You talked about my military service. I was a surgical tech in the military. We passed instruments to the doctors. I’m in the Gulf War. I was a reservist and I got called up. One of the surgeons said, Ruben, I’m going to teach you how to assist because it’s not nine to five at war, it’s until the patients stop coming. So, in the military, in our unit, we had two surgical tables side-by-side along with two anesthesia machines. You could be working on this patient and if it gets busy enough they’ll be bringing the next one in and you change it out. You’re going over like, it’s rocking and rolling and guess what? It’s until, it’s not a nine to five schedule. It’s until!

So, he said, Ruben, I’m going to teach you how to do some things. I’m going to teach you how to assist, and I was like, “Doc, thanks. I love it because we’re always preparing for that mass casualty situation.” Sitting on my bed that night, I got an idea for when I get back to Topeka, Kansas. I starting thinking, this is the profession I want to do. I wanted to be an assistant. I don’t want to pass instruments anymore. I wanted a surgeon to be able to call me up, I walk in and I assist him; ortho surgeon, neuro surgeon, general surgeon, or GYN doesn’t matter. Now in the state of Kansas, you can be a Nurse Practitioner, PA or a doctor, and so when I told my supervisor, she said, “Well, that’s the options you have.” I said, no, no, but that wasn’t the idea. Those are the options, but that one, the idea, my idea was that it would be a new profession that I’d be a surgeon assistant, not a physician assistant.

I don’t want to go to the office, I just want to be called, I come to surgery and help, I bill the insurance and I leave; I’m good. She said, “well, who’s going to let you do that?” And my question is for her and everybody listening, who’s going to stop you? God gave you an idea that was supposed to be your inheritance. Who’s going to stop you? Watch this, you know what? I’ll tell you what will stop you, logic will stop you because you’ll figure out every single way why it won’t work. I wasn’t smart enough to figure all that out. I just said, well, wait a minute, if I got the idea and he gave it to me, I’m just supposed to do it. Listen, he wouldn’t teach us about faith if we weren’t going to have to use it. So, I must have to walk by faith, not by sight, and I just started doing it. Now, it took 10 years, watch this 10 years, but I met two other people and we put the program together. We not only started working as assistants, we implemented it into hospitals around the Kansas area. Then we took it around the country. We wrote the college curriculum, scope of practice, and the job description. My degree at the time was in Criminal Justice and neither one of the other two had a degree. Don’t tell me what we can’t do. Logic will take you from “a” to “b,” but imagination will take you everywhere. Don’t get me started. Dr. V!

PBM: That’s exactly what I’m doing, I’m putting the fuel on the fire today. Dr. West is dropping some wisdom nuggets.  What he’s telling you is that anything is possible. Listen to me very clearly, stop causing yourself to be stagnant, stop causing yourself to hesitate, stop causing yourself to procrastinate because it hasn’t been done before.  Who cares because you have something to offer to the earth. I don’t want to get on my soapbox and get off track here. Let me ask you this. Dr. West, what does it mean to you to activate your vision now. You spoke on it real briefly just now, but what does it mean to you to activate your vision?

Dr. West: I love it! So, we talk about vision and vision is what you see for yourself it’s what you see for your future and what you see as a possibility. Watch this, this is so powerful! Action is the activating agent for the vision. That’s why I love what you do when you talk about productivity because what you’re talking about is what are the action steps that are going to be taken to get this done or to get that done. So many times, we sit around and pontificate for years and years and we don’t take any action. Well, if you didn’t take any action, then you didn’t activate the vision. I got to throw this out there Dr. V, I met this guy who wrote a book, I think it’s called “In Heaven,” and his name is going to come to me, but he actually was in surgery. And he died on the table. They work to revive him, but he was out for a long, long time. His name is Dean, Braxton. You guys go research it, look it up on the Internet, go on Youtube.  He’s been on every major TV show and they even checked all the records. He was clinically dead for an hour plus. They usually stop trying to revive you after 20 minutes, but they kept working on him. He was in a coma, they got his heart started again and they took out the tubes. He woke up and said, “I was in heaven.” Now, I don’t want to tell you his stunner. I met him and talked with him in person, I’ve got his book, but let me tell you one of the things he said, he said “we’re all assigned angels.” Now we know that because we read the book that we’re assigned angels, but he said, “Faith is the activating agent for the angel.’

In other words, until you reach out to do something that you have no idea how you’re going to do it, you don’t even know how it’s possible. You don’t know how it’s going to work. You don’t know if you’ve got the resource.  See the problem with most of us Dr. V, is our vision will take place once we get the resources. So, we say to ourselves, once I’m provided the resources, I’ll take action, and God says, once you take action, then I’ll bring you the resource. He said, faith is the activating agent for your angels. I got a question for you. Are your angels unemployed?

PBM: Are they unemployed because you’re not speaking the things that you need to speak into action? Words frame our world, you know the saying, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. But the question is, as you just mentioned, Dr. West faith without works is dead. Are we looking at a whole bunch of dead men walking? Because that’s what I think we’re seeing.

Dr. West: Wait a minute, come on now. I saw a movie several years back. It’s been a while, I don’t remember when the last time I saw this movie, it was called the “Sixth Sense.” There was a line in the movie where the main character was a little boy and he said, “I see dead people”, but they don’t know they’re dead. What you just said is, are we looking at dead men walking? Now, what we mean by that is not, that they’re physically dead, but they’re visually dead, they have no vision for their future. They’re not walking by faith. They’re only walking by sight and they say stuff like, I’ll believe it when I see it, but what we’re saying is you’ll see it when you believe in it’s the reverse. Flipping the script is taking action. Even when you have no earthly idea how it’s going to work, I read a book called “Chase The Lion,” and in the book, it had the lion chasers manifesto and it said, stop living life as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Run toward the roar and set God size goals. He said, go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Watch this line, he said, work for the applause of nail, scarred hands.

PBM: I am all about productivity, everything that you’ve heard Dr. West say, every time he’s responded to something, he’s giving you something to grab a whole to with a pictorial reference. He’s giving you something that you can go back and do tangibly either by looking it up on the internet, picking it up in a book or an experience that he’s actually had. Remember, we’re talking about “words have power.” Let me ask you this question, when you hear these words, “Go get your dream,” tell me what comes to mind.

Dr. West: TD Jakes said, “We think in trees, but God blesses us in seeds.” See, we think that the blessing is going to be this big, huge windfall. Know the blessing is going to be a seed and you create the windfall. In other words, the windfall doesn’t exist right now. I have a martial arts school, I’ve had it for 20 years, but I was given an idea. I said our ideas, are our inheritance. I was given an idea, it was a seed, it was a vision and it was my dream. It didn’t come to me, I had to get up and go get it. Which means that there has to be some action that you have to put in to go get the dream. It didn’t say sit there and wait for the train to come to you. You have to get up and go get it.

So when I hear “go get your dream,” I hear a couple things. Number one, it’s out there for everybody and I get so excited Dr. V, and the reason I knew I had to speak is because people kept telling me; Ruben, that’s amazing, Ruben, how did you do that? Ruben, I never thought that you could do that or that they didn’t think that was possible. You helped create a profession and you helped them to write this college curriculum and you started this martial arts school; it made me realize that people think it’s me. It’s not me, It’s the process! See, one of the things I love about science is science gives you a formula and what the formula says is that; if you do the formula, if I do the formula, or one of the listeners do the formula, they are still going to come up with the same result because it’s all written into the formula.

Now my mother’s an associate pastor, I have four uncles that are bishops, and my grandfather was a pastor, so the formula I referenced is my favorite book. That’s the book of life, the best-selling text of all time; The Bible. Now, I’m not trying to tell you about religion because I, don’t try and talk about that, but my creator gave me a formula.  The formula works if I do it, the formula works if you do it, and it will work if they do it. So, the reason I had to speak is because I got to let them know, the dream is out there, but you have to go get it. How do you go get it? Use the formula. So many times, we try it one time and it didn’t work and we quit. I said, it took me 10 years to get the program going, but most people, they want to do it for 10 days and if they don’t see the results they quit.

Let me give y’all something. Listen to this, this powerful Dr. V, you know it already, but I’m going to share it with them. That delay is not for your dream, the delay is for you. I had to catch up with my personality, my mentality, my mindset and my ability to handle wealth and finances. I had to catch up to the dream had I got it right then, I would have blown it. That’s why the people who win the lottery, they say 85 to 95 percent of them filed bankruptcy within five to seven years because they got the windfall. They didn’t have to plant the seed and grow it and so they got the harvest, but they didn’t work on themselves. So, a lot of times our delayed, the 10-year delay was for Ruben. It was for Ruben to be the person that could handle the dream. So that’s why you just got to go through the process. The dream is out there and its waiting for you, but you gotta get up and go get it.

PBM: I’m just going to add a little icing to this cake really quickly. When we talk about dely, many people see denial, but as you heard Dr. West say, “delay is literally for development.” You can’t handle some of the things you’re asking for right now, and that’s why its delayed. You can’t handle the amount of money that you say you want right now because you can barely deal with the amount that you have right now. You can’t handle the relationships that you claim that you want, because you haven’t nurtured the ones that you do have right now. Okay, I gotta stop! So, here’s another question for you. Dr. West, how has relationships changed your life?

Dr. West: Oh, my Goodness, thank you… Relationships is the life. If that dream you wanted, was capable to be manifested just by you; you’d already have it. Remember, I said it took me 10 years, and I met some more people. See, it was the relationships that helped me manifest the dream. The martial arts school is still running, but I’m not there. Why? Because I’ve met other people and I was able to train them and leave it with them; and trust them with it. They trusted me, I trusted them. Relationships is the key to everything. Now, here’s the problem, Dr. V, some people dream so small that their dream is not big enough for anyone else’s skills or talent.

I was sitting in traffic one day, I looked over and this guy’s car had stopped as it ran out of gas. He opened the door and ran out behind it, he was trying to steer the car. He had it in neutral and he was trying to push it up into the gas station and he was struggling and it wasn’t working, but I just watched him. I was like, man, look, at this dude trying to push this car by himself, but I was so inspired, I said let me help him. So, I pulled my car over and when I ran up there, me and another dude got there, at the same time and we got the car to move it. Now, after a while a couple more fellows joined in. The original guy had to jump in the car and shut the door.

He’s just steering it now. We pushed it right up into the gas station, see he was just trying to get it there, but now he just guiding it. Now watch this, it’s only because he took on something bigger than he was capable of doing, that inspired us to try and help him. Watch this Dr. V, what would have happened if he had just sat in the car, with it in neutral, and had his blinkers on; and looked over at me and said, come push my car? I wish I would come push the car! When I saw, him putting in his sweat equity on a dream of something that was bigger than what he could handle, and then I knew I had skills and talents that could help him; that’s what invited me in. And so, people have to realize that the size of your dream is going to determine the connections and those relationships are going to be everything to getting you where you want to go, where you need to go and the level at which you need to go. So, life is relationships. That’s life.

PBM: You know, many people are often looking for the cake, but the same nutrients that’s in the cake, are in the crumbs. As you pick up the crumbs, you begin to, what I like to say, success leaves clues, but if you don’t take action, nothing will happen. So, I’m going to ask this question then we’re going to dive deep into some of the major things that you’re doing. As a father, you know, I love seeing other men operate in their gifting, in their calling and their talent and in their rightful position. How much does it mean to you? I see you helping other people. I see you pouring into them, but I want to ask a personal question today and I hope that that’s all right. How important is it to you to pour into your son Robinson while you’re here?

Dr. West: Yeah, that’s a great question. Let me, let me say this. I have three children, a daughter named Monica, she’s a junior in college and this is her third year and she just started nursing school. I have a son named Spencer, watch this, this is his second year in college, but he’s going back as a Junior because he took so many credits the first year and during the summer that he went back as a Junior his second year at K State. Then I have Robinson, who is in his first year, so he’s in first grade. So, the question is how important is it for me to pour into not only him but them? It’s everything, see as we go help people in our neighborhood, at work and around the world, we have an assignment that’s been given to us; and that’s our children. In the end, what I found out Dr. V, is a lot of the clients that I work with I’m telling them, you should do this, and we agreed that you were going to do this, and you said you wanted this, and then they don’t do anything.

I’m like, well, what’s wrong with you? This is what you said you wanted. And so, what I realized is, I can’t make them do anything. So, what about me taking that attention and putting it into my own children that I’m responsible for, that I’m overseeing, that I’m guiding towards their greatness. So, what I see is an ultimate privilege that you’re never going to get a do over, right? But you can get a do… a second time.  I’m not going to get a do-over because I can’t go back and re-live my life over, but I can get a do for the second time. What am I going to do, is I will teach him the mistakes I made. I will teach him the path that he could take so that he doesn’t have to go down the wrong road. And then here’s one other thing, I want to say to not only yourself, and I know you know this, but the listeners, and I’m sure they’re aware of this.

I’ve heard time and time again, train up a child and what? So, here’s what’s funny. Dr. V, is every time I’ve ever heard that for the most part, what they’ve been talking about, is there something that you need, and I am going to train it, and usually it’s in a biblical context. When you get older you won’t stray away from that, and it will be planted in your mind. I just would like to add a spin on it or a twist on it. What if it’s saying there, this person was created for a purpose and your job as the parent is stewardship over this person’s purpose.  You have to have an expanded vision through the mind of God, to be able to look at this child and be able to see at a young age what purpose he or she was created for. Now, not what you want them to be, not what you want them to do, but what God created them for and then train them in that way.  Then when they get older, it’s going to provide them a level of abundance that you can’t possibly begin to comprehend.

Why? Because that was their God-given dream. Now, let me give you some examples. It’s no question that Michael Jackson was born to do music, but they trained him at a young age, and when he died; he was doing music. He never departed from it, and it provided him a livelihood for his whole life. Why? Because that’s what he was created to do! All I’m saying is when I look at Monica, and when I look at Spencer, and when I look at Robinson, and hopefully when everyone looks at their children; we’re looking at them not for what we see, but what God sees for them.  We will try and instill in them and train them in that way to provide them a lifetime of opportunity and a lifetime of impact; because that’s what they were created to do. So, my whole goal is to really find out what he was created to do and now it gives me great privilege and honor to be able to steer him in that direction. Like I’m sure it does for every single parent that’s listening in right now.

PBM: I’d be remised if I didn’t say, I know you’re not the only one and I want to make sure that people understand that you’re a dynamic dual; both yourself and your beautiful wife, Robin are making things happen in the household with Monica and Spencer. I specifically asked for Robinson because I know he’s the youngest and the only one there at home right now. They need to understand that you should always look to instill, to install, to train, to help, to mold, to shape and, and allow your children to know they must be in a malleable state. So, I salute you for that man. I wanted to talk about something that is near and dear to both of our hearts and that was training and teaching our children. Now, let me ask you how did you know that you wanted to be a speaker?

Dr. West: It’s interesting, I’m going to tell you again, I believe that our ideas are our inheritance. I was watching TV one day, and it was the Oprah Winfrey show and she had a cast on and it was the people from the book “The Secret.” It was Lisa Nichols and several others, they talked about creating a vision board and being able to look at it, and programming your mind and all these different things. So, it made me do some deep reflections, saying to myself what was it that I really wanted to do? What I decided, Dr. V is I said, I want to speak now. I don’t want to be a preacher like a mother, my grandfather, and my uncles, but I wanted to talk to people about their possibility and about their greatness. And so, I created that vision board and I put it on the wall and every day I would go look at that vision board and I did it. Watch this, Dr. V, I did it for about three weeks and then I took it down and said this is ridiculous, and I put it behind couch because I said nobody’s going to listen to me. And you know why I said that? I said, because I’m not smart enough. What would I talk about? Like I’ve not done anything. What am I going to say that’s going to make them want to listen to me? And so that was quite a few years ago.

Now, here’s the thing, when we’ve been given a vision, and I know this now, I didn’t know it then, I was younger and I was less experienced. When we’ve been given that, vision, that idea, it wasn’t for us and it’s not based on us, right? It’s based on what he said, what God said it might’ve been. That’s what it’s based on. And so, it took me a long time to realize that I was good enough. See, a lot of times we spend our time seeking validation and I’ve since discovered Dr. V, validation is for parking tickets! The very fact that He gave us the idea, that’s the validation that we need. So many times, we do all these things to validate our position. We go get more education, we get bigger degrees, higher degrees. Well, some people get the degree for the validation as opposed to the education. Even though they got the degree, it’s still doesn’t manifest in their life because they didn’t really change their mindset. They still don’t have the belief they want the degree to be the thing that makes it happen. But, really, you’re the thing that makes it happen. A lot of people think, well, if I change my background, if I change where I work, if I watch this, if I changed the state I live in and all you really need to do is change your state of mind.

So, what happened one day, Dr. V, is it hit me, I was created to do this. Where would the idea come from, and it had to come from somewhere. And so, I started pursuing it just like I pursued everything else. I said I’m going to call Les Brown, and I sent him an email on the internet that day and he called me the next day, and since then we’ve been to South Africa together, he invited me to Montego Bay, Jamaica and London. We’ve spoken together in Kansas and Missouri and all over because I took action. So, the way I knew I wanted to do it or had to do it, is because I realized that I have a message that people will resonate with. See, everybody’s not going to listen to me. Some of them have to have you. You’re their assignment and they’re your assignment. Somebody listening needs to be working with one or both of us because you have an assignment and we’re the people, we’re that connection, that relationship that can help you get to this assignment.

I knew at that point, that it was what I was supposed to do and I appreciated the timing. See, because the reason I didn’t feel qualified is because I hadn’t walked the walk yet. I hadn’t talked the talk, but now that I’ve started the school, now that I’ve started the company, now that I’ve done these things that I can show other people, I’m like if I can do it, you can do it. There’s nothing special about me. All of us can use the formula. So that’s when I knew I had to do this.

PBM: The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. And as you listen, you had to look at yourself, you had to analyze and say, wait a minute, I could do that. And then watch this, you had to take it a step further because motivation only lasts about 72 hours, but inspiration is what will cause you to take action; if you put feet to what we call faith. So, you saw the show, you said to yourself, okay, I’m going to do that; let me go ahead and put my vision board together. Then you talked about it earlier, you tried it for a moment and then you said, nope, I don’t want this, but then it came back to you like hey, wait a minute; you were created to do this.

Falling is not failing and failure doesn’t mean that you’re out completely because you get the opportunity to get back up. Now that is whether you do or you don’t, it’s totally up to you. Here’s what I want people to start picking up because from that moment Dr. West you got, what I like to call you got some at bats. You started doing it and didn’t want to be a hypocrite saying that you’re something that you’re not, so you started doing it. It’s called integrity, but from that, you have now created Black Belt Speakers Live Training Experience. That would have never happened if you didn’t take the first step. Talk to us about it.

Dr. West: Right so, a lot of times what we see as the end goal is really just a new beginning. I just came to this realization fully about 10 days ago because there’s times where I just sit down and reflect over my life on different ways and I realized something that I was created to help people be. Now let me show you, remember I was a martial artist, and then I said I want to create a school to create other martial artists, and I’ve done that. I was inducted in the US Martial Arts Hall of Fame as Instructor of the Year.

In other words, I’m doing what I was created to do and then I turned the school over to someone else. They run it, I was created to help other people do it. I said, I’m going to be a surgical assistant, and I did it and then I said, wait a minute. I’m going to start a school for people who want to be surgical assistants so that they can have the opportunity that I had. I was created to help other people become and then I said, I’m going to be a speaker. I’m going to be an international speaker. Then I realized something, here it is again; I can. I was given this idea because there’s people around the world that are supposed to be speaking. They’re supposed to be reaching out to people and once again, I’m going to help them reach that level in their life and help create international speakers. I’ve helped them change people’s lives. I’ve helped them do their own events, the first time having 100 people in the room. It hit me the other day it’s not just that I do, I wasn’t created just to do, but I was created to help other people do.

So out of that, I realized that the vision for me to be a speaker was simply the beginning; It wasn’t the end. Now as we expand on that, we’re reaching people around the world and helping them step into their purpose because they believe that they were supposed to be a speaker. And I like it because I understand the hesitancy when they say, well, Ruben, I want to do it, but yes, you’re just like me. See if I didn’t have that understanding, I would let them walk away from their calling. I can show them with confidence yeah, that’s just like me. Check this out. Dr. V, there were two brothers in Detroit, Detroit’s motor city, back in the car building heydays and they had all these car manufacturers, but one of the things I realized is that people would go to the plant, they’d be all dirty, there’s oil and grease and stuff everywhere and they wanted to create something that could clean that up so they start working on it and working on it, working on it.

And they came up with a couple of different tries, let’s say scientific formulas and they didn’t work. They could have quit, but they went back to the drawing board, and check this out Dr. V, they had tried 100 times and it didn’t work. Most people would quit and they would have given up, but they went back to the drawing board. No, no, the answer has to be there, we sent a man to the moon, the answer has to be there. So, they went back to the drawing board and they tried another hundred times and it didn’t work. And then they went back to the drawing board and they tried another 100 times and it didn’t work. Then they tried again up to 400 times Dr. V. It still didn’t work, but check this out on the 409th try it worked. And now we have formula 409, Why? Because they did it for 409 tries. How willing are we to go back again and again and again? Oh, I wish I had my bag, I would show y’all something. But again, and again and again to prove that what we were given is what it’s supposed to be. We think in trees, but were blessed in a seed. How much faith did it take to go back 409, nine times?

PBM: Most people would have given up the first ten times let alone the first hundred times.  If you want it bad enough, and if you believe in yourself bad enough you will go after it. There are so many different examples that we can give you to show you. And this is stuff that we appreciate and utilize today, that’ll be at one of our trainings. I want to go into this real briefly. So, not only did you decide, I’m going to become a speaker. Not only did you recognize and realize that God called you really to be a teacher and a creator of other people who can go do what he has allowed you to do? Then he starts to show you that there are specific styles you have when it comes to speaking. I want you to talk about the Signature Speaking Style Philosophy that you have.

Dr. West: Yes sir, so one of the things I noticed when I started working with people, to learn to speak and to develop my message, is they had a way of teaching and they applied that way of teaching for everybody. What I realized Dr. V, is the people I work with is not my goal to get them to speak like me. It’s my goal to help them have their own way of communicating. That’s why I started looking at what are the different ways that people communicate naturally. So, I realized that there was about five styles. Number one, the Comedian, there’s people that are just naturally funny. You talk to them, they have you cracking up all the time. They’re just naturally funny. Then there is the Scientist, I just spoke with a lady yesterday, she just joined up with me, she was a NASA scientist, but there is a scientific speaking style. They use formulas, they use power points, they use whiteboards that they deal in facts and data and statistics, and that’s a style of speaking. There’s the Drill Sergeant. People are very commanding and they’re going to tell you what you’re gonna do and they’re going to say, if you want to do it’s your fault, not your mom’s fault, and it’s not your dad’s father. It doesn’t matter what your past is. You’ve got to get up and do it. And for some people that’s great, but other people can’t take that. That’s too much for them. So, then they’re Heart Centered Person who tells you, Hey, wait a minute, I believe in you, and it’s not about what you went through. I understand a lot of it wasn’t your fault, but I’m here to help you, and so they’re just different styles.  So, what I realized is my goal was to help them be who they are to teach them how to communicate with the other people because you automatically speak the way you are.  The scientists, she said, Hey Ruben, I love speaking and, I get these opportunities for STEM, obviously, she’s a NASA scientist. The lady from the movie Hidden Figures, that was actually her mentor.

She said, but the problem is when I go to speak, sometimes it’s hard for me to reach people; yes, because everybody doesn’t have that intellectual mind. So, you’ve got to wrap it into an experience. You’ve got to have some stories of entertainment; I call it edutainment, when we educate and entertain at the same time. So, I said, yes, I can show you how to do that. My goal wasn’t to teach her to speak like me. My goal was to say, you keep being you, but let me show you some things that you can add to your message that will help you reach other people may receive communication a different way. So, the signature speaking style formula and process is a way to get people to learn how to speak, but speak like them so they don’t have to be like someone else.  Most of the time when people say, well, I’m not a good speaker it’s because they’re comparing themselves to someone else. And so, I say, look, you just be you, but use this formula. There’s still techniques for audience engagement, audience connection and those things. And I teach them while at the same time teaching them to be who they are.

PBM: I love that! I had a couple of conversations yesterday talking to some people about coaching and they were asking questions about styles and branding. I know you’ve experienced this, but everybody doesn’t have to be what we call a cookie cutter mode of you. And that’s what I love about it. Teaching them to be the best version of themselves is so awesome. Well, I want to talk to you Dr. West about going international you taught people, how to become international speakers. I mean literally, you have spoken in a lot of different countries. What does it mean to you when you hear that words “Going International?”

Dr. West: Yeah, what I realized is God has infinite wisdom and what do we say? His thoughts are higher than ours. His ways are higher than ours and so even as we interpret what we think we’re supposed to do, he gives it to us in layers because most of the time we couldn’t handle the whole thing. We would run away from it and shy away from it because we couldn’t handle the whole thing. So, going international is helping people like you and myself realize that there’s $350, million people in the US, but there’s 7.7 billion in the world and most of the time we have a hard time. See, it’s easier for me to get on TV in Dubai, than it has been in Bloomington, Illinois. It was easier for me to get on TV in London than it is here because once you leave the country and you’re doing something, you automatically become interesting because they want to know what brought you to our country.

What is the issue that you help our people solve? What is your passion? What made you want to come here and help? Like you’re interesting! When you just go down to your local news station, they’re like, well, who are you now? I’m not saying I haven’t been able to get on TV here because I have. I’ve been on TV quite a few times, but my point is that we can literally expand our vision and then what happens? Dr. V, what I found is when I was over in Oman training at this company called The Firm and I did my little Facebook live and I showed the little program where they were bringing me in and I’m sitting there and they have all of their regalia on and I’m standing there; then all of a sudden, the people right here in my city and my hometown, were like, hey Ruben, we wanted to bring you in.

 

Now wait a minute, last week you didn’t want to bring me in. Mike Jones a rapper out of Texas had a song that said, “back then you didn’t want me, now I’m hot and you’re all on me.” I’m just saying that’s the way it goes sometimes. Sometimes they have to be able to see you in a different light to understand your value, and so what I love helping people do is expand the way they’re seen to not only around this country, but around the world.

PBM: We’ve been talking to Dr. Ruben West. The topic has been “Words Have Power,” but before I let Dr. Ruben West go, I want him to give you guys a little snippet of what it means for insight and ideas to explode. I say that ideas and insights are like gold mines. You created Dr. West a Suture Training Kit, and I don’t want to go much longer, but real briefly, I want you to give them how that idea, that insight literally transform not only your life, but the life of your partners and Kansas.

Dr. West: So, let me tell you how I got that idea. I was in surgery and the surgeon was yelling at a med student because he was trying to teach her to suture and tie and she wasn’t getting it. I was embarrassed for her and I said, doc, she’s not getting it. And he said, ‘”Hey, who’s teaching her you or me?” And I said, “Well, nobody, because teaching requires learning and she’s not learning anything.” And he said, “Well, when you teach then say something and until them shut up.” And everybody said, oh my goodness, but I was in the military; that was nothing to me. I immediately said, wait a minute, I can create a product. So nobody has to learn like this. See, a lot of times you have to realize that there’s profit in someone else’s pain if we can help solve the problem.

So, I got the idea, I believe it was my inheritance. I immediately went into action and the resources started coming to me that helped me put together this product to allow it to be sold internationally. So, the long story short is, it did a number of different things, but the main thing it did for us, it showed us that the formula works. It showed us that stepping out on faith just worked. It showed us that the idea was an inheritance. It showed us that look, it is possible now. Here’s the great thing, Dr. V, if I were to quit at any moment, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t possible; it just means I quit. And so, for the people listening, it may not reveal itself to you right away. I understood that I was being developed as I went around. I was learning how to speak to doctors and speak to nurses and speak to residents and med students. I was in training and then when I got it down, the product developed itself. So now it’s a process that I understand when I first take on an undertaking, I may not be ready for it, but it doesn’t mean I can’t take it. As I develop it,  I’m developing and it brings us to where we meet at the same time and it explodes because I’m ready and the idea and the product is ready.

PBM: At the end of day, we want to show you productivity in every area of your life. I want Dr. West to give his social media handles and tell people how they can get in touch with him. We talked about how you started speaking and then how you developed into a speaker training and then also your signature philosophy for speaking. Now there is an event that you’re getting ready to have. It’s a live event that you do every year. I want you to tell the listening audience about that and we’re inviting you to have your face in the place. If you’re ready to blow up.

Dr. West: Absolutely, so the event is my signature events called Black Belt Speakers Live Training Experience. Now I have to call it a live training experience because it’s an experience. If you’re thinking you’re just coming to learn speaking you’re wrong; and you’re going to learn some of that, but so much more. It’s going to be in Kansas City, Missouri October 5th -7th, and the reason I do it this way is because I know that relationships are the key that everybody in the room, they need different things and so I’ll bring some of the top experts around to help train on different things. On communication, on productivity as a matter of fact, I got Dr. V, coming in and on speaking internationally, I have Dr.  Clyde rivers coming, who’s an Ambassador and has traveled to 60 plus nations. I have people speaking on social media and all these different topics. So, I bring a group of people that provide the training and I trained too, but a group of people because I know that different people need different things; and listen right now there’s an early bird special. If you just go to www.BBSliveevent.com. There you can find out the information and if it’s something that interested, by all means do it. I promise you it will meet and exceed your expectations. If you come and you feel like it wasn’t worth it, tell me and I’ll give you your registration fee back. I have no problem with that. I already know.

PBM: Well tell people how they can also get in touch with you via social media.

Dr. West: Sure, you can just look me up on Facebook and Linkedin its Ruben West. My website is RubenWest360.com. So, between those three you should be good to reach out to me.

PBM: Absolutely! Thank you for reading the Productive Business Magazine blog – where collaboration is the new currency. You can listen to the audio version of this blog by clicking here: Productivity 360 w/ Dr. Vernet A. Joseph.  We look forward to hearing from you and all the reviews that will come from this awesome interview. Blessings, peace, love, and always productivity because we know that “Words Have Power.”