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Shawn Shewchuk is described as the #1 results coach in the country. Founder of “Change Your Results”, Shawn works hard to help people create change and optimize the results in their life. When many of North America’s high achievers seek a strategic expert to assist them in the achievement and acceleration their results, they typically seek out or are introduced to Shawn Shewchuk. Shawn Shewchuk is committed to studying, understanding and helping others achieve more, in less time. If you want to better your life, your career or business, and of course your results, you need to meet Shawn.

Stefan Aarnio: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show, Stefan Aarnio here for Respect the Grind with Stefan Aarnio. This is the show where we interview people who have achieved mastery and freedom through discipline. We interview entrepreneurs, athletes, authors, artists, real estate investors. Anybody who has achieved mastery and examined what it took to get there, and today on the show, I have a good friend of mine, Shawn Shewchuk, hailing from Calgary, who is the number one results coach in the country, author of several books, designer of several programs. Shawn, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining me. How are you today?

Shawn Shewchuk: I’m awesome. How are you?

Stefan Aarnio: Very, very good. It’s always a pleasure to speak to you. We speak every couple months and you are certainly an influencer here in Canada, especially out west. Just for the people at home who don’t know Shawn Shewchuk, how would you describe Shawn Shewchuk to everybody so everybody knows exactly who you are?

Shawn Shewchuk: That’s awesome. First of all, thank you for having me. It’s always an honor and a pleasure to share. As far as what I do and where I go and what happens, I think a big part of what I’ve been fortunate and blessed to do is I get the opportunity to speak on a ton of stages, so international speaker. I work all over sharing how … You kind of alluded to this in your intro, freedom. In my world, freedom is defined as the ability to do what you want when you want and with who you want, and so working with high achievers and entrepreneurs to help them achieve what … You and I both do this. I work in a ton in Canada but probably even more in the United States, the American dream. The American dream for most people is unobtainable, so working with folks to help them get to that level where they’re working much less because they’re entrepreneurs, not more, and as you know, most entrepreneurs work more in their businesses than when they had a traditional J-O-B.

Shawn Shewchuk: So coach is a horrible word. I’m not a fan of it. You and I have had that conversation before, Stefan. It’s about a resource, becoming a resource for people to help them get to a place where they have that level of freedom. They can take off for three, four, five weeks and their company or their initiative isn’t going to implode, or being able to spend more time with their family or who they care for. That’s really what this comes down to, and of course at the end of the day, whether some people want to admit it or not or like it or not, money plays a definite role in that.

Stefan Aarnio: Let me ask you Shawn, freedom is a big word. I use it in the intro of this show, freedom through discipline. How do you help people achieve freedom and what does freedom mean to you?

Shawn Shewchuk: Well, I gave you a description of freedom a minute ago, the ability to do what you want when you want and with who you want. Freedom is going to be a little bit different for most people and what defines freedom for most people is going to be different, and that’s why I use those three things because for somebody, freedom may mean I want to spend more time with my young children, or freedom may mean I want to travel the world, or freedom may mean I want to go and have a collection of cars like Jay Leno has. Whatever that is, whatever that represents for you, how do you get there, and more importantly, not only how do you get there, but how do you get there in less time?

Shawn Shewchuk: If you were to eat Kraft Dinner for the next 30 years and stay at your traditional J-O-B, chances are, you’re going to get somewhere. I’m not sure exactly where, but somewhere where you could do some of that, but one of the things I share with people a lot is whether you’re 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, whatever your age is, do you want to be in 10 years exactly where you are today? Most people while we understand the words don’t really embrace that and go, “What does 10 years hence look like? What do I need to do to augment a change and improve my position in life financially, spiritually, business-wise, career-wise, relationships in particular, what do I have to do to change that for the better and start now?”

Shawn Shewchuk: Because there are a lot of people that set these great big very audacious goals and that’s great and I admire that and I take my hat off to them but three months, six months, twelve months into where they’re supposed to be making shifts and changes haven’t done anything yet and when I say to them what are you doing differently now to in order to hit these great big very audacious goals in relation to what you were doing prior, they look at me like I’m speaking a different language, and a good friend and mentor, and you’ve heard this before Stefan, and has said this in the past, the only people that truly embrace change are babies in wet diapers, and there’s a reality to that, so part of what we do is helping people make a shift and a change, and there’s a massive accountability component to that, and there’s having some clarity around what that destination looks like. Most people talk about what they want but most people don’t know how to actually start, commence. How do I get there? What does that look like?

Shawn Shewchuk: Because we’ve not been taught that. If you go to school, I don’t care what level of school, you’re taught 123 and ABC but not really taught to think one and two were also taught to go to school and get a job, work for 30, 40, 50 years, hope and pray, keep our fingers crossed that there’s a little bit of money at the end in a pension. As we all know, pensions are going broke and governments everywhere are insolvent.

Stefan Aarnio: Absolutely. They can’t pay the bill. Shawn, talking about freedom and freedom comes from success, it comes from discipline, it comes from hard work. Do you think that success for people that you’re training, coaching, you’re bringing to the next level, is it more talent or is it hard work?

Shawn Shewchuk: Talent is an interesting word. I think we’ve all been blessed with talents and there’s an ancient story that talks about being gifted talents and what we do with talents. Do we go bury them or do we take them and multiply them? I think it’s our duty to take whatever we’ve been … Everyone has a gift. Let me be clear. Take that gift or those talents and to grow them and to multiply them, so there is a talent. That doesn’t mean everyone has the same talents. Part of coaching is not just understanding that you have talents and gifts. It’s understanding and getting clear on what they are and how to leverage those to achieve what it is you want in life, and for everybody it’s going to be something different.

Stefan Aarnio: As a coach, somebody pulling … I love the word education. It means to draw out in Latin. If you’re a coach, if you’re educating somebody, how do you identify their talent and pull that out and magnify that?

Shawn Shewchuk: A lot of people know what their talents are and there are certainly some people that are unaware. I have people and I’m sure you have too Stefan that come to you and say, “I don’t know what I want to do and I don’t know how I’m going to get there. Can you help me, Shawn?” You’re not going to get anywhere unless you know where you’re going. I tell people this all the time. Unless you have some clarity around what that goal or destination looks like, let’s forget even having a conversation. You have to know where you’re going, so to draw, what that looks like is to find out what people are passionate about, and there’s a certain amount of logic that can go into this as well, not too much.

Shawn Shewchuk: Don’t go into your own head because you’ll never come out but understanding what you’re passionate about needs to be something that can be monetizable if you want to achieve freedom, so sometimes there’s a process that we use and for the first one to three months of working with somebody, our objective with them is to come down to or get clear on, establish what it is they’re passionate about, where their talents lie, having them embrace that, until that happens, you’re not going to achieve very much.
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Stefan Aarnio: Awesome. Let’s switch gears here super quick, Shawn. Your life, everybody, I love hearing the turnaround stories from everybody. Everybody has a point in their life where they weren’t successful and then usually they have a transformation moment and they have a moment where they become successful. What was Shawn Shewchuk like before he reached success?
Shawn Shewchuk: I think success is an interesting word. If we go back to The Strangest Secret with Earl Nightingale in the ’50s, he defined success as the progressive realization of a worthy ideal, so I don’t know that I’m truly successful. I think it’s a journey and I don’t think you arrive to put that into perspective from my opinion. There was a point in time where I was driving across a major center here in North America and I all of a sudden had one of those moments, an epiphany, baseball bat to the side of the head where I had no idea where I was going, I didn’t have a destination. Physically didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t have a home to go to. I had a couple changes of clothes in the back seat and the car I was driving was financed through GMAC. I didn’t have anywhere to go. I didn’t have a home and I didn’t have a job, and I went from having a good job, being married, having what I thought was life by the tail, having 20 plus rental properties to being homeless and jobless inside of about three months.

Shawn Shewchuk: I knew something had to change. I just didn’t know what and quite honestly didn’t know how. I think a lot of people find themselves there, maybe not necessarily homeless but more of the same gives you more of the same, and so I knew change had to happen. One of the biggest motivators for people is dissatisfaction. When you’re sufficiently dissatisfied, you’re going to search out and find out how to make shifts and changes, and I was at that point in time in my life, and that’s really where I’d done okay and started a few businesses prior and made a little bit of money and had some real estate, but to speak about have freedom is really going back in our conversation. Today, between the months of May and October I own a little place in the Rocky Mountains. My family and I take off Thursday morning, sometimes Thursday afternoon, and we spend Friday, Saturday, Sunday, if it’s a holiday weekend, Monday in the Rocky Mountains at our place.

Shawn Shewchuk: I’m not in the office. I travel a great deal. Not just for business but also because I like to. I like to see the world. Freedom is a big part of that for me. That’s part of my freedom. Being able to have a nice home or a nice car represents freedom for some people, and I think at the end of the day, once we understand what is important to us, what our priorities are and we start to embrace what needs to happen as far as change, that’s where it really makes a difference. For me it was understanding that I couldn’t do it all. I’d been raised in a very traditional European home, very conservative, very frugal, very much scarcity or lack mentality, and the idea that I was going to pay somebody for something intangible like coaching was far fetched. It would never happen.

Stefan Aarnio: So Shawn, sorry to interrupt. If we went back to that moment, you had some success, in three months it was wiped out or you were going backwards, and then you reach a moment of disgust or dissatisfaction. You said to met someone. You met a coach. I guess you said you never even thought about investing in yourself or something like that. Let’s talk about that moment where you made the decision or it made sense for you to make an investment in yourself or change your situation.

Shawn Shewchuk: I had made a decision. Thanks for bringing that up and that’s a good point to raise, but I hadn’t made a decision. As a matter of fact, that’s the idea, that lack or scarcity mentality. Bob Proctor, well known from The Secret fame, although this was long before The Secret, was coming to town and if my memory serves correctly, it was $1,500 to attend his three-day event.

Stefan Aarnio: Wow. Back that, I’m 31, I’m old, man.

Shawn Shewchuk: You’re making me sound old here, Stefan. Dating me. Thanks a lot, brother.

Stefan Aarnio: Hey, man. We’re not dating yet. Come on.

Shawn Shewchuk: As long as you don’t use the term carbon dating, I’m okay. I was not, and I repeat that, not going to what I thought was spend $1,500 to listen to somebody preach at me for three days, and the harsh reality of all of this is I didn’t. On the Friday evening after he was finished speaking, I went to the hotel where he was speaking. All of the guests had left. Some of the staff was there. I walked into the ballroom. I didn’t have a name tag on, and his staff were chasing me. “Sir, you have to stop. You can’t.” He was standing at the front of the ball room and I went up, shook his hand and said, “My name is Shawn. I want to have a conversation with you about coaching.” We all know he’s one of the most eloquent speakers on the planet. He gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars just to step on a platform.

Shawn Shewchuk: I said to him, “Listen, I’d like to talk to you.” He said, “Yeah, sure,” and he’s very, very direct. He looked at me and said, “This restaurant,” and he pointed at the restaurant, “Tomorrow morning. Don’t be late,” and walked away. 7:00 a.m I was there. We sat down. He ordered his dry toast and eggs, and we didn’t talk until the food came and they put his dry toast and eggs in front of him and he looked at me and said, “Shawn, I have a question for you.” I said, “Okay.” He said, “What’s the most amount of money you’ve ever earned in a year?” Now, remember how I grew up and remember it was very conservative. You didn’t talk about money and there was never enough anyway. If there was some, it was never enough. Things were always hard and tough and rough and you don’t ask people about money.
Shawn Shewchuk: I looked at Bob Proctor and said, “Who the hell do you think you are?” He smiled and he said, “Shawn, it doesn’t really matter. I’ve probably made more money than you and I’m no smarter than you.” Okay. Good point. But he said, “It tells me how you see yourself and how you value yourself.” I’m like, “Holy Moses. I’m a grown man. No one’s ever shared this with me before.” We continued to talk for probably the next 15 or 20 minutes and he indicated that he had to go back to the ball room and prepare for his day, and he asked me if I was still interested in coaching with him and I said yes. “Do you have a business card?” I asked. He said, “No, I don’t carry business cards,” and he pulled a scrap of paper out of his suit jacket pocket and wrote his assistant’s name and phone number done, and handed it to me or passed it across the table and said, “Call my assistant on Monday and she’ll take care of things for you.”

Shawn Shewchuk: I said, “Okay,” and we continued to talk for a moment or two. He said, “By the way, you never asked how much coaching is.” I said, “No.” The conversation continued and finally it was almost 7:30. He stood up and I stood up, shook his hand, and I thanked him for his time. As he’s walking away from the table in the restaurant, he turns his head and throws over his shoulder and says, “Oh, by the way Shawn, it’s $90,000 to work with me for six months.” Stefan, this is where going back a few years definitely plays into this. $90,000, this is a number of years ago to start with, and here’s the honest to God truth, at that point in my life, I had not yet made $100,000 in a year never mind giving some guy 90 grand for six months for something I couldn’t touch, feel or see.

Stefan Aarnio: Shawn, in that year, what was minimum wage just to give people at home an idea?

Shawn Shewchuk: I dunno, five bucks. 5.50. 5.75.

Stefan Aarnio: Wow. 90 grand back then is like three times, so what is that? $270,000.

Shawn Shewchuk: It’s like 350 grand today.

Stefan Aarnio: For six months.

Shawn Shewchuk: For six months.

Stefan Aarnio: Wow.

Shawn Shewchuk: Bob had won prerequisite, besides getting paid, he made that abundantly clear, and that prerequisite was you cannot argue with me. For somebody who is an A-type personality to not have a discussion when somebody says something to you is a challenge and I think you can probably appreciate that.

Stefan Aarnio: Strong egos are tough, man. They’re tough.

Shawn Shewchuk: Right. He said this to me and he said, “That’s part of it. You can’t argue with me.” He called me on it a few times over the course of working with him. I worked with him for longer than six months and he wrote the forward to my first book, but here’s something that I think is key in all this. I walked outside of that hotel. By the way, he walks away, says 90 grand, six months and I’m left sitting in the restaurant and I paid the tab and I walked out of the restaurant, got in my car, and cell phones in those days weren’t quite as wizzy as they are today and I sat in the car for probably 35 minutes. I dialed his assistant’s phone number into my phone. It was a weekend.

Shawn Shewchuk: I think I had free weekends back in the day, and I knew if I called, it was Saturday morning, 7:30, eight o’clock, no one was going to answer the phone, and I knew if I left a message, I was committing to this, and I sat there for 30 or 35 minutes with my finger over that send button before I called because it was a massive decision, it was the biggest decision I’d ever made in my life. I’d bought lots of real estate at that point in time, but it was on a mortgage, and I had to come up with $90,000 over the course of the next six months and I did. I phoned her. Left her a voice mail message.

Shawn Shewchuk: She called me back Monday and we took care of the paper work. Now I’m faced with this. I had to come up with the money and I did and I think the key in all this is I wouldn’t be today where I am without having made that decision, without having invested a very significant amount of money and if there’s anybody listening to our conversation today who’s on the fence about whether or not they should invest a significant amount of money in themselves, it’s not spending, spending is throwing money away, investing is where you see a return, that return has paid dividends year over year and increased every year, and I think that is the key in all this. If you are actually focused on achieving more, not status quo, not dipping your toes in, but diving in headfirst and saying, “I’m going to make this work come hell or high water,” that doesn’t mean I haven’t hit hard spots. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been challenges. Definitely there have been challenges, and I’m just one of those guys that’s far too stubborn.

Shawn Shewchuk: I’ll beat my head against the wall to get through no matter what you say to me because at the end of the day I’ll make it work and I think that’s the key in all this.

Stefan Aarnio: Shawn in that transformation you go in, it’s like Star Wars, you go and you meet Yoda. You’re Luke Skywalker. You meet Yoda. You go to Dagobah. You’re going to the swamp. You can’t argue with the master. That’s the deal. In that transformation moment, a lot of people have a turnaround story like that, and in that transformation moment, it’s always a mystery. What were some of the things you had to let go of or some of the things you had to change about you to transform and become more successful?

Shawn Shewchuk: That’s a really good question and not many people ask the question and I’m interviewed … This is probably my third or fourth interview this week. Think of it in these terms and I think this is what’s important. You have to be willing to let go of everything because what go you where you are good, bad, or otherwise isn’t going to get you where you want to go.

Stefan Aarnio: Love it. That’s huge.

Shawn Shewchuk: My entire mindset shifted and changed. My perception and thoughts around money and wealth and what hard work meant, hard work when I grew up, if you didn’t have a pick or shovel in your hand, you weren’t working, and my dad past away 12 plus years ago, almost 13 years ago now, if he was alive today, he probably couldn’t fathom what I do because I don’t have a pick or shovel in my hand. I had to change my perception around people. If you had met me 25 years ago, I speak at a lot of stages in front of a lot of people and I love what I do. In those days, I’d be standing at the back of the room. If you put me in a room with 30 people, we didn’t have smartphones in those days, I’d have been looking at my shoes to make sure they were still shiny, never mind going around shaking hands and introducing myself and finding out what people did and building relationships.

Shawn Shewchuk: If you want to be truly successful, one of the big components, not the only one, but one of the biggest ones is strong, powerful, productive, and high trust relationships, and in addition to that, it’s about adding value to every single person with whom you have an opportunity to interact. If you embrace that and start to understand that you have to let go of all of the conditioning, remember most of the decisions that most people make today aren’t their own, they are based upon conditioning from parents, educators, and religious influences as they grew up. God bless everybody. However, the decisions you make are probably based on what your parents would’ve decided. You need to start making your own decisions based on the information you have already collected to date.

Shawn Shewchuk: You have everything it takes to get where you want to go. You just need someone like Stefan Aarnio or myself to help you excavate it and then to put it into a format, a process that’s going to work and generate what you need, relationships, money, real estate, business, mindset, whatever that happens to be, we all need it, and some of us like me need it on an ongoing basis. I’ve had coaches for 25 years, sometimes as many as three at one time.

Stefan Aarnio: Shawn, in the process then, I’m loving this conversation because this is deep stuff. People don’t just talk about this at the dinner table. Would you say that the process of transformation is more a removal of junk or is it an addition of new things? Which would you it’s more of?

Shawn Shewchuk: It’s replacing. If you want to talk about this, think about this, everyone has paradigms. Paradigms are nothing more than a group of habits, very typically not our own. We talked about a moment ago where they all come from. You can’t break habits and if you want an example of this, you see someone who smokes cigarettes and it’s a terrible habit. “I got to break this,” and those who try, they may quit but they replace it, so you can’t break a habit. You have to replace it and you want to replace it with the polar opposite. Everything has a polar opposite. Right, wrong, left, right, black, white, etc. What is that? If you’re a smoker? What do you replace it with? Replace it with something healthy.

Shawn Shewchuk: One of the things that a lot of people do now is they’ll quit smoking. The craving only lasts 30 seconds. If you can’t withstand 30 seconds of craving, come on now. Replace it with drinking a bottle of water. What that means is most people by default replace it with the shovel in the kitchen and they put on an excessive amount of weight. They quit smoking and they just gorge themselves because of the craving, so there’s a certain amount of self-control involved in shifting and changing because you cannot break a habit. You have to replace a habit. It’s about taking all of that conditioning and replacing it. Taking that lack or scarcity condition that I was raised with and replacing it with prosperity because if you have enough money coming in every month for everything you want or need, does it really matter how big the bills are?

Stefan Aarnio: It’s all relative.

Shawn Shewchuk: Correct. Stop focusing on what you don’t want. Stop focusing on debt. I’m going to pay off debt. Whoopty-frigging-do. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay your debts. What I’m saying is there’s some debt that’s good. You should probably carry some debt. Focus on prosperity. The debt will take care of itself.

Stefan Aarnio: As Steve Jobs used to say, he said, “Take care of the top line and everything else sorts itself out.”

Stefan Aarnio: Shawn, what would you say … I think one thing that’s common in high achievers like yourself is obsession. What’s your obsession right now?

Shawn Shewchuk: That’s interesting. I don’t know that I have an obsession. Napoleon Hill in the book Think and Grow Rich talks about this and one of the things he says in the beginning of the book was something in this book is going to impact you. It’s going to touch you in a way that you’ve never had something before impact you that way, and when you read it you’ll know it immediately, and the one thing, and for everybody it’s different, the one thing that hit me is if you want to be truly successful at what you want to do, it needs to become a near-obsession and a burning desire, so at the end of the day, as you well know and for those listening, I’m way behind the curve, I’ve got two small kids, a six year-old and a one year-old, and I do something different than when I was growing up. My dad didn’t spend a lot of time with the kids.

Shawn Shewchuk: I made a goal or a decision many years ago long before I had kids that I would spend an incredible amount of time with them when I had them and I do. The other side of it is having an impact on this planet. Many years ago, my first coach, Bob Proctor, said to me that none of us are getting out of this alive, and he was right, but I was also told that when it’s my turn to check out, which let’s be clear, I’m not looking forward to any time soon, I’ve got way too much left to do, but that my life would flash before my eyes, and truth be told, I want to make sure it’s a movie worth watching. I want to ensure that when I do leave this planet, that it’s a better place because I was here, and I think that at the end of the day is what drives me, what motivates me, and let’s be clear, I love transformation.

Shawn Shewchuk: I watching the transformation of people I have the privilege to work with, the companies and businesses I have the privilege to work with, and that is also a big part of what gets me out of bed in the morning.

Stefan Aarnio: The transformation, it’s a real exciting thing to create something like that. Shawn, in your personal process of transformation, what was the one moment where you let’s say jumped in? You jumped in the pool with a guy like Bob Proctor, 90 grand in there, and you’re grinding, you’re working your way out of that hole. What was the one moment you thought you would fail and maybe thought that you made a wrong decision?

Shawn Shewchuk: Oh my goodness, there’s not one moment, Stefan. I think there are many. Not everything goes the way we want it to. You can have the best plan in the world. It doesn’t mean it’s actually going to work for you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t make plans. You should and you should plan big, and you should really put an effort behind the achievement behind that, what it takes to actually have a plan in place. I’ve talked, a lot of people want to do something but talk is cheap. Create a plan, execute on the plan, be accountable to the plan, and when things happen that don’t fall in line with the plan, be prepared to make course corrections. There are lots of moments. I have failed. I’ve got road rash from face plants. I think that’s … If you’ve never failed, you’ve never tried at a high level, and I use the word tried with intention.

Shawn Shewchuk: Lots of people say try and it means they’re not going to do anything, but if you’re climbing, and as you say in Respect the Grind, if you’re grinding away and something doesn’t work out, failure is fine. It’s when you give up. That’s the challenge. Put it in these terms. It’s not whether or not you’re going to fail. Inevitably you are going to fail at some point in time. It’s what you do as a direct result when you’re faced with the failure. Do you give up? Do you retreat or do you say, “The hell with this. I’m going to make something out of this,” and you go do it?

Stefan Aarnio: When you’re helping other people, you’ve been doing this for a long time, transforming people, helping people, you’ve consulted companies.

Shawn Shewchuk: Listen. I didn’t know the purpose of this interview was to date me, Mr. Aarnio.

Stefan Aarnio: Come on. We’re getting intimate, man. We’re getting deep. We’ll call it Getting Deep with Stefan Aarnio. You’ve helped people for a long time Shawn and you don’t just help individuals, you help companies. You’re a turnaround guy. You’re turning people around. What do you think is the biggest cause of failure in people when you’re working with them?

Shawn Shewchuk: It’s fear and that fear could be based in a whole bunch of areas. Fear of success believe it or not. Fear of failure. Fear of what others will think of them. The list goes on and on and on and on. Sometimes the fear is based on something that physically happened to that individual in the past. Sometimes it’s conditioning and depending on where the fear comes from, it is dependent upon how you deal with that fear, but fear at the end of the day, let’s be clear. Fear is a dream killer. If you see somebody who talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk, chances are it’s based in fear. They won’t admit it and when you raise it, they’ll defend their position for a whole bunch of reasons but at the end of the day it comes down to fear, and if you look at … People say, “I want to have security.” There’s no such thing as security. That’s bologna, BS. Security is only something that you can create when you are an entrepreneur. Security, the idea, we’re going to have, I don’t know, government job.

Shawn Shewchuk: When I was 19 years-old, I was taught to respect my elders. My grandmother said, “Get in the car.” She drove me to police headquarters and she said, “Go upstairs and apply,” and I went upstairs to the recruiting unit and applied and I don’t think I was what they were looking for. Thank God they turned me down because I would’ve been PO’d cop and you don’t want to have a PO’d guy walking around for 25 years with a gun on his hip. Is it secure? Not really. If you really want something you have to make a decision that no matter what happens, the old saying hell or high water, you’re going to get there, and I made a decision. I remember at one point in time in my life, I didn’t have money for food. I went and I borrowed a couple of ketchup packets from McDonald’s and some soup crackers from the buffet on the corner and that was all I had to eat and I vowed I would never be there again and I haven’t been.

Shawn Shewchuk: I think when you make that irrevocable decision to do what ever it takes to get where you want to go and you do it the right way, you employ the right methods by hiring coaches to work with you and show you where to avoid potholes and not step on landmines, you get there faster and I think that’s a key for people. Anybody if they work hard can get to some level, but it’s surpassing that, light years, but you have to do it with the right team around you.

Stefan Aarnio: Right, and they say Shawn, they say in five years you’re going to be the same person except for the books you read and the people you met, and we just talked about mentors and people and meeting people and relationships. What are the three top books that changed your life?

Shawn Shewchuk: I don’t know about three top books. I think Think and Grow Rich definitely had an impact. I’ve probably read it 30 times. I’ve definitely read The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles. I even read The Secret or watched the movie The Secret and I think that had a very significant impact. Yeah, there’s a missing component to it and it didn’t come out until 2006 or ’07 or whenever it was, but at the end of the day, it definitely had a mindset component. The other one I think too was Bob Proctor’s You Were Born Rich. I think there’s more than three and I take the best from all of them and really start to apply them to my life and my business and my relationships. Dale Carnegie, another one. Great book. The How to Meet People. What is it? How to Meet People-

Stefan Aarnio: Win Friends and Influence People?

Shawn Shewchuk: Something like that. At the end of the day, the more … Psycho-Cybernetics, Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a long passed doctor in New York City. A lot of these books have had a very significant impact. I don’t know that … I recommend books to people, but I think what’s really important here is that the listeners that are … You really want to make a shift and a change, and maybe you’re doing great already, but how you go to the next level, it’s not just one level, it’s progression, and we’ve talked about what success is, the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. That means you’re constantly moving. You’re constantly moving. That doesn’t mean you’re stagnating. Yeah, you can hit a plateau for awhile, but if you stay there too long, you start sliding backwards or down and I really don’t want to know what’s there, so I think it’s important to really start to take in information from a lot of sources.

Shawn Shewchuk: In 2007, they thought I had cancer, thank God I didn’t, but I sold all my companies, and I moved, I have a home and an acreage on the west coast, and I went and stayed eight or nine months there and I read 1,000 books. Some were horrible. Some of them were great for fire. Others were good and there were some outstanding, incredible books that I read, and could I name the 1,000 books? No. Definitely not. Before I moved back, I gave probably most of them away, but the idea behind it is to take the very best, adapt it and apply it to you, your life, career, business, whatever it is. Not everything is going to apply and not everything that people say, read, write, whatever is going to be applicable or even valid, but take what’s important, apply it to you, and then implement it.

Shawn Shewchuk: It’s not about having the knowledge or the information. It’s what you do with it. Most people don’t do anything if they have it, and the rest won’t even go and try and acquire the knowledge. Once they finish school, whatever level of school they finish, could be high school, could be a diploma, could be college, university, they close the book and never open the book again.

Stefan Aarnio: Talking about college, university, young people, we got the millennials right now. Millennials are a big group. I count as a millennial. I’m born in ’86. What is the one thing that young people need to succeed nowadays in today’s climate?

Shawn Shewchuk: That’s a loaded question, especially when you start reading what so-called experts in a whole bunch of arenas have to say about folks in that age group. Listen. There are some incredible so-called millennials that are changing the planet for the better. They’re kicking ass and taking names and I really love the idea that there’s a different perspective than what I may have grown up with. I’m not talking about work ethic. There’s definitely work ethic required and certainly there are some millennials that may not have been exposed to what that is yet. You’re going to need to understand that this is not about necessarily what it is you want, but if you’re going to go into business for yourself, the people you work with, whether you’re buying or selling or investing or whatever you’re doing, it’s about understanding more about the person that you’re working with, whether they’re on the other side of the desk or they’re beside you working with you. Everyone has a different way of doing things.

Shawn Shewchuk: How so-called millennials live, work, etc., probably isn’t going to change, but neither are the other generations either younger than them or older than them, so I think there has to be a very open mindset on everybody’s part, not just one generation, of how to come together and work cohesively so that those they have the privilege to interact with see the benefit and I think that’s the key. The idea that one generation knows more than the other or one has it better than the other I think leads to divisiveness and I don’t think the end result of that is a positive.

Stefan Aarnio: Yeah. We do have to come together. The media right now is trying to divide everything every day, left and right and black and white and male and female and gay and straight and transgender and nontransgender, it’s just division all day long, and I think you’re right. Coming together is more powerful than dividing. Shawn, we’ve got to wrap up here in a minute. Are there any resources you recommend for people starting out and want to follow a path like yours?

Shawn Shewchuk: You talking about to become an entrepreneur or to go more into the coaching and consulting and speaking realm?

Stefan Aarnio: I think it’s an open question and you’re in that realm, so if someone wanted to be Shawn Shewchuk, what would be a great way for them to follow that kind of path?

Shawn Shewchuk: First of all, that would be awesome, but here’s the key behind this. One of my very first mentors said, “Shawn, this is the most challenging business you will ever get into,” and at the time I went, “Yeah, don’t worry. I’ve started a couple companies. I’ll be fine.” Here’s the reality. That individual was 100% bang on. It is one of the most challenging businesses that you can ever get into. Now, whether you want to get into this business or any other business, let’s be clear. You’re going to encounter challenges. You’re going to wear more hats than you ever thought possible. You’re not going to have an IT department and you’re not going to have a sales or marketing department. You’re not going to have an HR department. You’re going to wear all those hats and you’re also going to be the janitor, and you have to be prepared to do whatever, and I mean that word, whatever it takes to get where you want to go provided that it’s legal, moral and ethical.

Shawn Shewchuk: You are going to put more time, effort, energy, and money behind this than you’ve ever dreamt of. Take the risk. Jump. Jump off the building and grow wings on the way down. Don’t wait for something to be perfect because it never will be. Don’t wait to finish something. Just jump with the right power. Somebody like Stefan Aarnio or myself that can work with you, can guide you, and can show you the ropes, because if you think you can do it all yourself, let me be very clear, blunt, and direct, you cannot, nor will you be successful at least not in the long term. That’s the key. If you want one gold nugget that you can wrap your head, heart, and hands around and make an irrevocable decision, find … The law of threes dictates that you only have three initiatives that you work on at any given time. You may have a hundred things on the bill but only three initiatives.

Shawn Shewchuk: Find those three initiatives. Structure your time, productive time. Not 10 o’clock at night, productive time around those three initiatives, and execute on them. Every week go back and say, “Where am I today in relation to where I was when I started the week?” Every month do the same thing. Ensure you’re seeing progress and do that in collaboration with your coach. That will change the dynamic because that coach, if they’re worth their salt, will hold you accountable and kick your ass if you aren’t.

Stefan Aarnio: Love it.

Shawn Shewchuk: That’s the key. You’re going to have to take a risk. If you’re risk-averse, you’re never going to progress. You’re going to stay stagnant probably forever. The flip side of the coin is when you hit a hard patch, keep plowing. Keep going because they will come. There is going to be challenges and it’s what you do when you’re faced with those that makes the difference when it’s all tallied up. I think that’s the key in this. If you don’t have a coach today, for Pete’s sake, go make an irrevocable decision whether or not you have the money. Commit, sign, and then start working. That’s what I did.

Stefan Aarnio: Right. Just get that contract. Get the commitment. Get the paper.

Shawn Shewchuk: 100%. Listen, if you haven’t decided to do it, don’t talk about the money. Until you’ve made the irrevocable decision to do something, the money will never appear.

Stefan Aarnio: You’ve got to get the deal first and then the money.

Shawn Shewchuk: 100%.

Stefan Aarnio: I like what you said there too, Shawn. Under pressure you find out what people are made of, and I love that quote. Potatoes turn soft when they’re boiled and eggs turn hard, so are you a potato or are you an egg?

Shawn Shewchuk: Well, I’m not going to call anybody any kind of food item, but yeah.

Stefan Aarnio: Awesome. We’re going to wrap up here, Shawn. Before we go, is there any programs or causes you’d like to promote.

Shawn Shewchuk: I’m very privileged. I’ve had the privilege to work with over 8,700 clients over the last number of years, both personal, small business, entrepreneurs, and some larger companies as well throughout North America primarily. If we can help you in any way, by all means reach out to us. You can go to my website at changeyourresults.com and get yourself a free copy of my first book. Changeyourresults.com and of course I’m everywhere. I’m on social media everywhere. You can look me up and reach out to us if you want to, and if I can serve and support you in any way, that’s what we do.

Stefan Aarnio: Great. Shawn, just for the people listening on audio, how do they spell your name?

Shawn Shewchuk: First name is S-H-A-W-N. Last name is Shewchuk, S-H-E-W-C-H-U-K. If you come from the prairie provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, you probably won’t have a problem with the last name. Anywhere else you may have a problem. The other thing you can do is Change Your Results also. If you punch it into Google, Change Your Results will come up with all our stuff.

Stefan Aarnio: Awesome. Thanks for being on the show, Shawn. It’s a massive pleasure, and we’ll see you soon live at one of the events we’re always going to.

Shawn Shewchuk: My privilege. Thank you.

Stefan Aarnio: Thank you.