Michael Hyatt
speaker
169 appearances
6 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2022
last heard Feb 2025
Michael Hyatt’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And they said the thing came totally beat up. And in fact, I've written a blog post that I want you to read about how bad your customer service is. The truth is it wasn't our fault. It was the carrier's fault, right? So because I understood social media, I called my head of customer service up and I said, I want you to overnight a package to this bookstore owner who's complaining about this.
The truth was they were embarrassed with their customer. And I said, overnight the Bible, reverse the charge on the one they bought and don't charge them for this one. And they said, do you know how much that's going to cost? I said, no, tell me. They said, that's going to be like over $100 a postage. And I said, no problem, do it. So they got that. They were floored. They took the post down.
They completely wrote a new one about our extraordinary customer service. But that's just the world of social media that we live in. I had the same thing happen just two weeks ago with a customer that somehow got my phone number and texted me. And it's just amazing. You can talk directly to customers, and that's the world we live in today.
I think a lot of that is just having a sense of purpose and the feeling that if I'm still alive, I haven't completed my purpose. And I've always been against retirement. You know, if you look at the statistics, I think I'm right on this. Somebody can fact check me on this, but most people die within five years of retiring. They don't run out of life, they run out of purpose.
And even if you are retired in the traditional sense, you better have a purpose, something that gets you up in the morning, something that gives you a sense of responsibility for this one life that you've been given and to invest it in other people. And so I just felt like I wasn't done yet. I was 56 years old when we started the company. I'm almost 70 now. I'll be 70 this summer.
And I feel like I'm 35. I'm probably self-deceived, but I feel like I'm 35. And I'm super excited. Like this last year, I spent a year doing a deep dive on AI, and I am all in on that. I'm totally geeking out on that. But I think if you're curious and always willing to learn, there's always going to be a future.
But to come back to the personal brand thing, I think everybody has to realize that they have a brand, whether they know it or not. And it's simply... your reputation. Inside your company, if you're an individual contributor, you have a brand. People know you for certain things. And those may be good things or bad things. You may have a good brand image or a bad brand image.
And the good news is you can change that. And one of the best ways you can do that is keep your word, fulfill your promise, give people what you commit to do, whether that's your boss, whether it's your customers, whatever. And if you attend to that, it creates trust. When people are faithful to keep their word, and that's what I regard as integrity, making your actions line up with your words.
That's my definition of integrity. If you do that, then it creates trust. And trust is the foundation of every business. And it's so easy to lose. And so if you decide you want to build your brand, I would say don't build it because you want to become famous. That's a really bad reason to do it. But because you want to be a good steward of who you are and what you've been given and your calling.
And to be honest, building a personal brand is kind of a double-edged sword because if you're going to start a new company, the best way to do it is with a personal brand because people will connect with you more than they'll connect with an idea or a concept. The bad news is it doesn't scale as well because you only have 24 hours a day and some of those got to be given to sleep.
Plus, what do you do about succession? When you pass away and the whole thing is built on your brand, and I've seen this happen over and over again, then it collapses unless you're intentional about it.
It can be challenging at times, but it's self-imposed. And I just have so many things I want to do that sometimes, to be honest, it's a challenge to turn it off. So I do private coaching, too, and a lot of my clients, I'll say, what are your hobbies? And the most common answer I get is, well, my work's my hobby. I love my work. Sorry, that doesn't count.
And so I have to remind myself of that, that I've got to have hobbies outside of work, otherwise I'm just going to burn out. But I think learning things is really important. Having that strong sense of purpose.
It was funny, I went to a longevity conference recently and I was sitting in a session where there were these four doctors and they were talking about the usual things, sleep, nutrition, exercise, all those as being the foundation of longevity. Somebody asked a question from the floor right at the end and they said, so of all those things you've talked about, what's the single most important thing?
And the doctor that had the microphone said without blinking, he said, oh, that's easy, a strong sense of purpose. And all the other doctors concurred. They said that trumps everything, actually two things, strong sense of purpose and deep social connections.
And they said, you can have all those other things in place, but if you don't have a sense of purpose and if you don't have deep social connections, you're not going to live long. It's one of the components of longevity. So I think that's something to be considered. So I've got this thirst, but I also don't want to burn out.
And so I have to realize that sometimes I can get addicted to work, and I think it's a legitimate addiction. And sometimes it just has to be dialed back for the sake of the rest of your life so that you can go the distance and live not just a meaningful life, but a full and meaningful life.
I'm kind of a serial hobbyist, which means I go all in on something for a while. And then I go to another hobby. And I got this from my dad, who, by the way, is 91, still living, still a hobbyist. But I still, to this day, play a lot of golf. I love fishing and playing the guitar. Those three things are kind of the things I keep coming back to over and over again. And I love them.
That's where I find myself and life has its meaning. And crazily, I get great business ideas sometimes in the middle of those things because my mind's relaxed. And that's a prerequisite for creativity, is a relaxed mind.
My why is that I want people to get this concept that the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life, is a possibility. The thing that I love more than anything is to see other people flourish in every area of life. And particularly when you talk about AI and how that's going to help us or hurt us going forward, I just think there's always going to be a place for the human dimension.
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