The Importance of Discipline, Humility, and Conviction

Chris Kiefer (00:00.64)

Welcome back to another episode of the Pursuit of Purpose. My name is Chris Kieffer and today I have the one and only Paul Fair III, who is the CEO of StoryPress. I met Paul at the SAS Academy Conference, gave an amazing talk on just book writing, how to get a book published, which we're not gonna talk too much about today, but I do wanna say he is an expert. He's helped Dan Martel and many other entrepreneurs write books.

but super great guy and I enjoyed his talk so much. I was like, hey, we should do a podcast. So here we are, Paul, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to do this.

Paul Fair (00:39.943)

joked to be here, Chris.

Chris Kiefer (00:42.304)

So let's talk not about books, but about discipline. And I know there's some backstory here. You did some research as a company, I assume, right? Story Press did. So yeah, this is, with just the little nuggets that you gave me, I'm like, ooh, I feel like I could talk about this for hours. So I'm sure we can fill 40 minutes on this topic. But give us the background.

Paul Fair (00:53.863)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Fair (01:05.799)

Yeah, so my wife and I have always been interested in we worked at Disney World and we've always been interested in pursuing your dreams because our dream was to work at Disney World but then after that we're like we were performers there we're like what do you do next and how do you find your next dream and how do people that have found their dream after dream what do they do and what are some of the commonalities so we started we started a podcast where we interviewed people from all over the world that had done different things from writing a book to doing research that they wanted to do to becoming a firefighter to starting a school just whatever their dream was and we started asking them

I'm like, how did you achieve your dreams? Like, what did you do? What got you there? And a lot of it, we kind of anticipated it was like hard work, being in the right place at the right time. There was a couple of things that popped out that were super consistent that we weren't anticipating and discipline was very high on the list. And I would say humility actually came up as well. Both of those, everybody seemed to mention, which was like really, really fascinating to us. So that's how we found those two things.

Chris Kiefer (01:58.56)

And what is, cause I have some follow up questions, but I think it's important to define what you are lumping into those two titles, discipline and humility. So can you define what those mean in this context?

Paul Fair (02:11.783)

Sure. So we tried to make this a very conversational thing. I'm sure a PhD who does research would probably have some feedback for the way that we did our research, but it was very asking questions and investigative and trying to find out through a conversation, how did you get to where you're at? And so if I had to define discipline, I would say that it's...

The way that we were hearing it from other people was the pursuit of an exclusive goal.

at the cost of something else. That's probably what I would say. So people had said in front of them, I want to start a school, for instance. And that costs something, right? That means that maybe they can't hang out with their friends as much, or maybe they had to deal with the politics of starting a school in an area where people disagreed with the way that they were going to do it. So it usually costs something. And it's you saying, I'm not going to pursue something else, and I'm going to pursue this. That's how I would say discipline. And it plays itself on a small scale and a large scale. So another person that we talked to became a stunt performer in Hollywood.

for instance, and he like stunt double for Captain America and Marvel, his name's been a fantastic guy, did all this amazing stuff. But through that pursuit, he had a lot of discipline where he had to say like, okay, I mean, I lived with him for a while. So like I knew like he could not like eat whatever he wanted. Right. So it played out on a small scale. He couldn't go out whenever he wanted. He was like, I'm getting up every day to run at 5am and I'm doing this at eight. So he had to give up something else to get there. So that's how I would probably define discipline. Humility is a little harder, but I would say that it's

Humility is really hard to define, but almost every single person brought that up. And that was probably even more surprising than discipline. But I would say that it's the pursuit of what is necessary for somebody else. That's probably what I would say. And humility, so how that would...

Paul Fair (04:04.167)

Yes, that's probably how I would say it because people would look at their situation and be like, what do I need to do for this other person? Or what do I need to do for outside of myself to help another individual? So an example of that was everybody. We would get this feedback from people in performing arts. They would say a director would talk to us and give us feedback. And we had to realize, like, what is the director's vision to achieve this?

Or somebody else we talked to you that really had a desire to help those around them in their community and build houses She realized like okay. This is not about my dream anymore It's actually about helping these people get houses in this area even though that was tied in with her dream and so I would say humility was just like the ability to get one's eyes off of oneself and pursue something good for somebody else and Those two things were really interesting that in trying to chase your dreams You had to have this stringent discipline to get there, but then also this ability to look outside yourself and help

the other people around you. And that was really, really fascinating. It was like, humility was like this weird self -awareness of who you are in the sort of grand scheme of what's going on. Whether you're a small wheel, a small cog in a wheel or a big cog in a wheel, it has a tremendous amount of self -awareness, but at the same time, we're willing to listen, take feedback and do what somebody else told them to do. And so it's, it's humility is very hard to define. I think C .S. Lewis said it one time or something to this effect of like,

Humility is like getting your eyes off of yourself and like forgetting about yourself altogether. And it's, I would say that was pretty common. It was the way people would describe it. They're like, you have to have humility if you're going to go achieve what you want. You have to like, we talked to Vince Pappale, who was an NFL football player. And he would just say like how much he listened to his coaches and how much he listened to everyone around him, even if it cost him something, right? Like they were like, hey, you're doing a terrible job. It's like, he didn't hear the terrible job. He just heard, oh, how do I improve to achieve our team's goal? And.

He was never looking at himself, I'm Vince Popali, like I played last season. That just never popped up in his head. He had this weird self -awareness that he was an NFL football player, but at the same time, he's like, it's about the team. It's about us achieving victory. It's not about me, even though that was his dream at the same time. And it was like a really weird conundrum of people pursuing their dreams that would often start focusing on other people around them and doing something for them. And that's sort of how they achieved what they were looking for. So.

Chris Kiefer (00:00.744)

So, um, discipline, I like the definition of like a very focused goal or pursuit towards a goal at the cost of something else. Is that, I say that close enough? Yeah. Um, I was going to say that the, I've been, uh, something that's very intriguing to me is how do you get people to, and in particular, like, I am a passion of mine is like trying to learn, like all the stuff that I've learned, all the stuff that I'm passionate about when it comes to.

Paul Fair (00:10.512)

Yep. Yep.

Chris Kiefer (00:30.312)

um, business and entrepreneurship and just mindset and everything that I didn't feel like I had when I was in middle school or high school or even college. And I want to go back and help, you know, young high school kids to try and like implement or leverage some of these things. And one of the things that I think is, um, when it comes to discipline, I'm, I'm curious if tracking.

like the daily habits or putting your awareness on a particular thing, like these people that you just mentioned, though, who's not eating whatever he wants or running mile or running every day at five, whatever it was, was there conversation around just tracking or keeping, keeping tabs on how often am I doing these things that I know that I want to do, or that I know that my future self needs to do? And then seeing how I'm living up to that. Does that make sense?

Paul Fair (01:26.128)

Yeah, absolutely. If I'm being honest, this could just be that we lacked that like question. We didn't actually dive super into the like daily habits of the people we're talking to. So it could be that I would say what was more interesting to me almost than that was that they all had this sort of.

vision that they would put out of what they were going for, like very clear on that. And so I'm sure that they would all say, oh yeah, because I know for a fact, because I know a lot of their daily habits, you can look at all of their days and all of them was like every day they were moving towards that goal somehow, like very hands on in the weeds, like it wasn't like this ethereal thing, like they were moving towards it.

But I imagine the tactics probably varied slightly, but I will say what was common amongst everybody was they would talk about their dream or what they were pursuing with like very, very intense, like they knew what they wanted and they were like really after it and very excited about it. Whereas I think a lot of us, like at least me, sometimes like I think about what I'm doing and I just don't have, I wouldn't, I don't have this intensity about how excited I am. And all of them knew what they were doing and they were very excited about it, like very, very happy to talk about it. And my...

This is sort of anecdotal, but I'd say my experience has been a lot of people have different methods and tactics for achieving whatever that is, whether it's organizing their day well or starting out with like the sort of the way Charles Schwab did it, which is just write down the one thing you got to get done today. And that might change every day. People have this sort of different way of doing it. But I will say the one thing that seems super common is they all know what they're after. Like they know what they're going for and they and they're happy about it. Like they're excited to achieve whatever that thing is. Like they're they're they're dead set on it. And it seems to make the conversation easier.

Chris Kiefer (03:00.648)

Mmm.

Paul Fair (03:05.328)

I'm a very creative person and I'm a very think outside the box person. And I've really struggled a lot of times with other people who are by nature very self -disciplined or goal oriented like my wife. Because they try to give me their tactics of how they get stuff done in a day. And she's just happy if she gets to the end of the day and she's knocked off 100 things on a checklist, that is exciting to her. It doesn't even matter what the checklist is. If you give her a checklist and she'll get them all done, she's stoked about it. I couldn't care less. I'm not gonna feel better or worse about myself if I got them all done or not. It's not gonna be anything to me.

What will mean something to me is if you tell me like, if I'm excited to get something done, I will run after it and I will probably organize my day in such a way to get that thing done if I'm really happy about it. And that seemed to be pretty common amongst everybody. Regardless of the personality type, they were very excited about what they were doing and then people had different methods of doing that. It was like daily, da -da -da -da, or maybe it was just like wake up and then attack the day with this ferocity after what they were going for until they achieved it. So that's how I'd answer that.

Chris Kiefer (03:58.632)

Hmm. Yeah. I think that the idea of just like, yes, discipline is very important. Um, and I do, I also like the, cause I was going to say discipline. I would have defined it as like, uh, routines or consistency, um, which it is, but I like that it's at the cost of something. Um, because that's like, yeah, it could be at the cost of sleep or at the cost of fun or whatever it is. It's not always like,

opportunity costs that you're missing out on. It's like, yeah, I am choosing to not get this because I'm doing that. I think that's a great point. The humility piece, I'm pushing back or trying to understand based on what you're saying, it sounds like it's like a selflessness that you described, but I'm assuming that you have a different, like there was something else that was humble.

about their approach that makes you wanna say humility, because it sounds like they're just very outward, like concerned of others. But tell me more about that piece of it, because I do think, I actually have an interesting definition or a description of an example of humility that is kind of counterintuitive, but I'm curious what you'd say to that first.

Paul Fair (05:22.384)

Yeah, I think humility is fairly close to selflessness. I would say the common thing that I saw in the other people, I wouldn't even just say about myself, that seems to differentiate it fairly significantly was there was still a very heavy amount of ambition.

Amongst all the people when you think of a selfless person, at least for me personally, I don't think of a very ambitious person necessarily. Like I just they seem like their day is very intentionally focused on others, perhaps, but not very intentionally focused on anything else. If that makes sense. There's not like some end goal they're trying to achieve. But there is like amongst all of the people that we talk to. They had this deep ability to listen to other people.

And this deep understanding of when also to speak up and not listen to other people Because they were trying to achieve something that they knew that was really good of everybody So when I think of a selfless person, I think of like a quiet introverted person is not like necessarily Like just very in the corners. I wouldn't describe anyone like that Nancy Gracie is a very good example. She talked about humility a lot but there were times when she would got up in front of like City Council and like told them all like

You know, in so many words, we're going to do it the way I said, you know, because she knew her area of expertise and she knew what she was after. And she was after that for the good of the kids in her community. So she was actually willing to, like, throw some shots to make sure that that happened. And so it was like, it's more important that I achieve this for the kids than that I don't look bad or that people like me or the people are or were even nice to each other right now. That's not the goal. The goal is to be nice to each other. The goal is to achieve this other thing. So there's like a healthy amount of ambition.

Chris Kiefer (06:34.44)

Mmm.

Paul Fair (06:59.472)

with selflessness. And I'd say a pretty high level of ambition. And then I would say there's also a deep ability to listen to other people. So Vince Papale is a very good example where you would just hear, he didn't have this ego about like, I know what I'm doing. I'm a football player, yada, yada, yada. It was like, he could take feedback from anybody and he could look straight into somebody else's life immediately and think of all the good things about them and just think of how amazing they are.

and encourage them and recognizing and being fully aware of the fact that I'm an NFL football player. So Chris is going to take this to mean more maybe because I am an NFL football player. So a very healthy understanding of who he was and who he is. But also if Chris has feedback for him to give it to him, Vince Pappalei probably shut his mouth and listen to you and be like, oh, wow, thank you, Chris. He absolutely values you, not just as like a sort of conscious thing leaders do to make themselves feel better, but like actually

puts you on the same level and believes that you have an area of expertise that is the exact level of his in an elite, some sort of elite ability to achieve something and it's different than his. And we saw that across the board. Like everybody seemed to have that. Like they were like, we're all trying to achieve the goodness of humanity. And it was like we could talk to somebody who'd achieved way more than 99 % of people you've ever met. And they didn't, they didn't for a second think that the person they were talking to didn't have the same ability. And in fact, they were really willing to listen and ask questions to them about what they were doing in their life.

A lot of questions, they would always ask a lot of questions, always listen super well, and really, really, really try to say, how can we achieve something bigger together? Like, what else can we do? What else can you do? And that was really interesting. So, I don't know if that's like some differentiation, but I would say it's pretty, okay.

Chris Kiefer (08:28.2)

Mmm.

Chris Kiefer (08:40.744)

No, yeah, I like that a lot. And it actually goes, it rolls into what I was going to say. Someone told me recently that being truly humble is acknowledging your God given gift or talent that you have and owning that you're really good at that thing and being able to receive a compliment on that. So like, if someone was like, Paul, you're like a really good writer. Like I would have said, you know, a year ago before someone gave me this definition,

that a humble person would be like, Oh no, you know, no, thanks, but you know, I'm just a normal guy. But if you're actually humble, you would receive that compliment and say, thank you. Yeah. Like I, you know, I try really hard and I appreciate that. Like that's a humble way to receive the, uh, in, in the, you know, the vein of expertise. So, and it fits right with like what you're saying with NFL player or whoever it is, the being able to acknowledge.

I know who I am and I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not. And how does that influence the decisions and the things that I do around me? So I think that's really cool.

Paul Fair (09:47.824)

Yeah, I totally agree with that and I think that's, it's not that there's something wrong with selflessness, it's that I think there's something wrong with the way we perceive it because if you picture us all on an island and we're trying to build something, the humble thing to do even for an introverted person, like my father -in -law is a very introverted guy, but he's one of the most genius builders and architects I've ever met in my entire life.

The humble thing for him to do would be to step up and say, hey guys, I actually know after he's listening to Paul and Chris, maybe whoever else does not build something, I kind of talk about how we're going to build something. And we go, hey guys, why don't you listen to me? I actually know how to build this and I want everyone to achieve the goal we're trying to achieve, which is survival. Here's how we build it. And then if someone else wants to build a boat and it's not him, he happens to also be good at boats. But let's just say he wasn't. I would be humble for them to step up and say, sweet, I'm glad we got David working on the house, but I actually know how to build a boat. Here's how we're going to do that.

and every person being able to listen when they need to and then also step up when they need to. And I totally agree with that. It's like putting the goal of everybody else ahead of your own desire to maybe even want to be quiet or maybe not want to be seen as the guy that knows everything or the girl who knows everything. That's also pride because you're just thinking more about yourself. And I am a good writer. So if something needs writing, I should step up and offer that talent. But there's a million other things that I'm not good at. And I should be able to shut my mouth on those other 999 ,000 things and listen to whoever in the room does have that talent.

Chris Kiefer (10:49.224)

Hmm.

Paul Fair (11:05.552)

And I think when you, to your point, when you really believe that God has given you something special to offer the world, you start to recognize that he's done that for every single eight billion people on planet Earth. And so you've got one out of eight billion, all the rest are not yours. So there's few instances when you're the man or the woman, and there's a lot when you're not. But those instances when it is you, you should be willing to step up and make it happen. And then all the rest of the time, listen to somebody else and find who that is. Because oftentimes they don't know that or they have a false sense of humility or whatever it is and be able to pull that out of them and,

Chris Kiefer (11:35.016)

Mmm.

Paul Fair (11:35.312)

get behind them, even if you have to push them in the back a little bit, say, hey, you're the man for this, you're the woman for this, you got this. Like, I think that that's, there's a lot of humility in that too.

Chris Kiefer (11:42.76)

I love that. There was a speaker that came to our coaching group recently. Um, or not. Uh, he's a mindset coach. Uh, his name's Elliot Roe. And he was saying, which again, I'm just building on top of this. He said he works with like the top 1 % of, uh, you know, performers. So that could be the top 1 % of, um, poker players, the top 1 % of NFL or business people.

It's the people that are at the very, very top of the pyramid and whatever realm they're in. And he said that basically, and this is my paraphrasing, so it's close to this, but you'll get the point is that say to, to be in like the, the elite, whether that's like the top two or 3%, there is that way. Everyone thinks like a competitive person that like has this vindictive or like this almost like hatred of the, of the competition.

that can, and he was saying like, that can get you very far. Like people, there are many people in professional sports, for example, that are up there and there. And if you talk to them, they're like, they just are like, there's someone else is coming up and they're like, Oh, I'm going to kick him. I'm going to kill him. Like I'm going to beat them. I'm figuring. And there's like, you're discrediting everything that anyone else other than you is doing. But he said that the best of the best, so the top of the 1 %

the biggest difference with them is curiosity. So regardless of who they're playing or who this other person is, they're like, hmm, I wonder how he or like, what is his training plan or how is he, is he doing something different? And I'm just like interested and trying to constantly learn about this other way of doing something or like maybe there's a better way and just always being curious and just trying to absorb.

which again, I think fits right in with what you're saying. And I think that that's a, just a good reminder of like choosing how you want to approach or like enter the arena and whatever it is that you're in. And are you, it reminds me of Simon Sinek's book, Worthy Rivals, I think is, is that the title of it? You know that butch book I'm talking about? I think he calls it Worthy Rivals. But anyways, the, the idea of just like finding the other person,

Paul Fair (13:57.04)

don't.

Chris Kiefer (14:05.192)

that is an equivalent to you. And sometimes you've, you know, like the man in the mirror, you know, it could be just this imaginary version of yourself, but do you approach that, that rival with like this competitive, like angry energy or like curiosity? I don't know. I think that's interesting.

Paul Fair (14:25.68)

Yeah, I totally agree. An innovation strategist, I know Sean Canungo, who's pretty much, in my opinion, by all accounts, always the smartest person in the room, is like only asking questions. And he's truly, like literally trying to learn from every single person around him. Like the waiter, like the person, like you, if you're sitting next to him, like whoever's around, he's like really asking and like, he's just like.

Always trying to figure out what's going on and like always asking Oh, so what do you do? How does that work in like just going on and on about it? And I was also thinking about when I go to New York City When I go to New York City there like I feel like I'm always surrounded by like the smartest people in finance the smartest economists like people that own businesses and restaurants been doing this for decades and They all are just geniuses for what they do and they always want to know about the person sitting next to them like they're always like oh my goodness like

I remember when I was like 26 and they're like, you work at Disney World and have these like people that have done way more amazing things like Genuinely like almost taking notes asking what I was doing and they were like that all the time and I was like this is how you've achieved such success is like you're really to your part like genuinely curious about what's going on around you and You see the world like a kid all the time like oh my gosh There's so many interesting people and so much cool stuff that I don't know. How can I learn and I? Just find out so wild from these amazingly successful people that

Chris Kiefer (15:46.216)

Hmm, that's awesome. What did you do at Disney World?

Paul Fair (15:46.352)

That's the mindset that they have.

Paul Fair (15:52.816)

I was a performer, so I have more luck than talent. I met my wife there, she's actually talented. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. But I was a performer there, I did a little bit of dancing, acting, did not sing at all, thank goodness for everyone around me. So yeah, I was a performer, did a lot of parades and shows and stuff, it was really great, I loved it.

Chris Kiefer (16:12.36)

Oh, nice. Yeah. The, uh, we just took the kids. Uh, we had a conference in Orlando and we just went to Disney world. Um, like a month ago, but it's just, it's like another, you probably know what I really, I don't, I'm sure you've done it. I wanted to, but when it just logistically, like we have kids there, we can't just not like, what are we going to do with the kids? We want it. I wanted to go on that behind the scenes or like, um,

Paul Fair (16:21.712)

Oh, amazing.

Chris Kiefer (16:39.528)

the behind the scenes tour that's like only for 16 and up. Cause they don't want to ruin the magic for the little kids. But I've heard and seen like YouTube videos of just like, especially Disney world, the tunnel system and everything is just insane. Um, so can you, is that worth it? Should we make it a point to go on the behind the scenes tour or does it depend on the person?

Paul Fair (16:45.232)

Yeah.

Paul Fair (17:02.608)

I think it depends on the person. I would say like most people, if you're interested in it, you probably are the kind of person that thinks it's, that will like it. That is probably true. They're still pretty careful on what they do let you see and don't see just because, I mean, there's probably some legal reasons too. I'm sure like there's some, the tunnels are a very intricate web of stuff going on. Like that was at my everyday, right? I was walking through the tunnels and me getting lost by the way, in terrible directions, not knowing where I'm going.

But if you're the kind of person interested, it's probably worth it. It's really interesting to see what they show you and kind of how everything works. And I think the coolest thing about me working there, my wife has said this too, a lot of people said, does working there ruin the magic? And I was like a thousand times the opposite direction. Like I think Disney is the more magical than I did before I started working there because you realize like they plan out the magical feeling that people have. They're literally like, we know how to create that. And...

Chris Kiefer (17:55.016)

everything.

Paul Fair (17:57.776)

Like it's like having a, it's like they don't have a magic wand that just magically does everything with just a snap of their fingers. And yet they know how to still get there. And I'm like, that is insane to me that you could, they can literally plan out magical feelings. And like, this is how we're going to achieve it. And then they do it all the time, every day across, you know, the whole world in different parks. So it's cool.

Chris Kiefer (18:16.168)

Yeah, that's crazy. Um, so back to the, um, the other thing that you had mentioned leading into this was conviction. So talk to me about conviction.

Paul Fair (18:29.328)

Conviction has been really interesting to see. And I don't think very many people use the word. You sort of see it play out in their life. Because I think what I have seen, and I'm sure you can learn conviction, is people either just have lived conviction from day one when they were children, or they haven't really thought of it that way. And to me, conviction is like, no matter what, I'm not going to cross this line, or no matter what, I am going to do X.

And people that are like that, like for instance, I remember talking to my buddies, I have a particular friend, we'll call him Charlie. Charlie is like, well, if someone paid me enough money, I would do X. And it's because he has like no conviction on that particular thing. He thinks it's wrong to do X, but like, whatever, enough money would solve all the problems, I could do some good with it. It's like, whatever. But the people that have achieved a lot, I've seen like, they would never ever cross certain lines. Like, it just wouldn't even...

It would be like, wouldn't even be difficult for them to say no. Like they're like, absolutely not, I'm never gonna do that. And that's like almost why they don't use the word conviction, I think, because it's so natural to them. They've been doing it since they were a kid. Like they may be the kind of person who's like, no matter what, they're not gonna lie. Or like, no matter what, they're not gonna steal. Or no matter what, they're gonna get this thing done. Sorry. Okay.

Chris Kiefer (19:49.544)

Let's wait one second and then do that. Say that last couple of lines again.

Paul Fair (19:55.952)

They've, people with conviction have just decided that no matter what, there's certain lines they're not gonna cross or maybe certain ones that they are going to achieve. And they, you can, they don't even talk about it and they don't tell you about it because it's so natural to them. And typically they've been practicing it for so long. It's like, they didn't lie when they were three and someone asked, their mom asked if they like took the cookie out of the cookie jar, right? And then they didn't lie when they were 12, when they got in trouble at school and blah, blah, blah happened.

And it's just such a normal part of their life. Like there's lines that they just have never considered crossing. And they're almost unaware of that because they're so they have so much conviction. And then the rest of everybody else seems to be like, well, yeah, I mean, I would I would cross that line if such and such happened because, you know, like, whatever. Like I would I maybe like go out with my best friend's ex because of maybe or whatever. And I'm not saying any of those are particular bad things. It's just you notice with like people with conviction, like it's just like absolutely no matter what, they're just not going to do it.

And we saw that with everybody. And it was so natural to them. They're just so different from everybody else on that. They don't have this. Well, sure, I'd cross that line if this happened. That just was not even in their head. And that's really interesting to me. And it's all cost all of them. That's the other thing. It's pretty easy to see conviction in people, whether they have it or don't. Because if you can't think of a time when your convictions have cost you a job or money or a relationship, then you don't have them.

Like, it's only tested if it's costing you something. It's easy to have a conviction when no one's testing you. Everybody has rules until they tell you need to break them. Yeah, and but those people, it's like, oh yeah, I lost the job because of this. Oh yeah, like I lost my best friend because of this. Oh yeah, like I got kicked out of my house because of this. Like whatever the thing was, they have plenty of those stories because they're just used to it. They just accept it as part of life that your convictions are gonna be costly. Like they're just a part of life.

Chris Kiefer (21:26.632)

Mmm.

Chris Kiefer (21:30.504)

I have to break them, yeah.

Chris Kiefer (21:52.584)

Interesting. Yeah, I think that, so is that, would you say it's discipline, humility and conviction are the three things or is conviction just kind of a side thing that is another interest of yours for these people that you were interviewing and whatnot?

Paul Fair (22:08.848)

Yeah, we have probably like, we boiled it down and we're writing a whole book on kind of what we experienced from everybody. We have like 10 different like lessons like that we pulled out like 10 of them qualities that we like pulled out that like everybody seemed to have. But those three, I would say were three of the most interesting that we pulled out those three particularly.

Chris Kiefer (22:31.016)

Hmm. It reminds me of I can't remember if it's Jim Collins book, Good to Great or but it's like the I'm going to forget the name of the there's the Pearl Harbor.

Chris Kiefer (22:52.008)

Oh no, the negative. I have to look this up because this is very relevant. One second. What is the principle in.

Paul Fair (22:57.776)

being helpful. Sorry, I don't know. You lost me.

Paul Fair (23:08.112)

I'll tell you another one that's super interesting while you're snagging that if you want. This was really fascinating.

Chris Kiefer (23:10.952)

Okay.

Paul Fair (23:14.48)

Almost every person, there might be one or two exceptions, but almost every person also had a time when they could point to how somebody else, sort of like a fairy godmother, stepped in and gave them a shot or did something amazing for them that changed the trajectory of their life. Almost every single person had that, which was super interesting. It was like someone gave them the keys to a truck and said, go start your business, or introduce them to somebody famous and powerful.

once they had a belief in them. And that was really interesting to see. There was like, we call it a fairy godmother moment. Like almost every person had a specific situation.

Paul Fair (23:56.464)

Almost every single person had this moment or this specific story or two where somebody stepped into their life and they credit so much of their success to what somebody else did for them.

Chris Kiefer (24:06.888)

I found that thing, it's called survivorship bias. Have you heard of that?

Paul Fair (24:11.632)

Oh, I have heard of it, yeah.

Chris Kiefer (24:14.504)

Um, so I'm the, the book or it says it's the same thing. Like, um, when people study, I think I heard this with Jim Collins, but there's also a really cool Ted top Ted talk on this. Um, and the story goes that in world war two, these planes are coming back to the boat and they were, they had bullet holes from, you know, all over where the, um, where they were getting shot. Right. And so someone on the.

deck was like, Hey, we need to start mapping where these are at because we need to figure out, you know, where they're hitting us so we can reinforce that so that we don't lose more planes. So they made these heat maps and it's like, you know, the wings are just blown like all just littered with it. And then the body, there were some, and there was like these very clear spots where there was nothing. And so they're like, all right, let's reinforce the planes. And I don't remember who the person was, but he's like, wait,

these are all the planes that made it back. We need to do the opposite because the ones that didn't make it back were the inverse of this. And so, you know, they almost had, they reinforced the wings, which actually can fly a plane fine if there's holes in it are way less critical than if you shoot the gas tank of the plane where there was no bullet holes on the ones that got back because all the other ones got shot down. So that in business or in like interviewing people, it's like,

yet it is interesting to know what do all of the successful people have, but it's a more interesting, but potentially impossible question to answer of what did the massive failures have because it's hard. Like, how do you find those people? You know what I mean? Like, let's go find all the people that had really cool dreams that then were unsuccessful and ask them what their qualities are, you know?

Paul Fair (26:00.304)

Right, right.

Paul Fair (26:07.919)

Yeah, yeah, it's super, it's super hard to do. And then you have to do research on failures and you really fit the bill. So I had a question for you. Like, it's hard. I would say out of those convictions seems to be one that almost fits that bill because they didn't mention it. You just see that they had it and then you look at everybody else and you can tell like they didn't. And there was always moments in their life where like, just to get ahead.

Chris Kiefer (26:16.744)

Yeah.

Paul Fair (26:32.88)

They like cheated on something or did something and like in the end and I've there's like people who say this like there's like everything comes back like you don't escape any of your choices like all of them come back to get you and it's almost worse if you don't see I've seen this with people who fail it's like worse if they don't see how that like crisis of conviction was the problem and they got away with it because they got away with it and so like it changes your brain thinking you can get away with stuff and that's like the absolute worst case scenario. It's like much better to have direct.

Chris Kiefer (26:43.624)

Hmm.

Paul Fair (27:01.808)

immediate consequences. But if you feel like you got away with it, then you continue doing it. And now you're the kind of person who thinks it's okay to do that and like cross all your boundaries. And you don't really see how it's catching up with you. And in fact, that's, that's like a strategy in poker, they say to do is when you're playing with somebody who bluffs all the time, you're actually supposed to let them win a lot. That's actually a thing you do. Or if they're playing really bad poker, where like, you know, they're tells and they're like pretending like they don't have a good hand.

Chris Kiefer (27:14.6)

Absolutely.

Paul Fair (27:31.824)

It's like go ahead and donate a little money. And they actually tell you to do that because what you do is you conflate in their head that they're doing it really well and you can win more money only a few times. So you don't have to win three or four major pots. And over the whole course, they'll think I'm 190 % of the time, which is actually true, but it doesn't matter. Those 10 % times are worth way more than the other ones. So they actually tell you like feed their bad habits and give them, make them feel like they're successful in their bad habits. So.

Chris Kiefer (27:56.808)

Ah, interesting, I love that. All right, well, this has been super, super, I just love conversations like this. So let's wrap to my closing questions, book recommendations, and well, I'll see you then, I'll ask my next one.

Paul Fair (28:14.)

Okay, book recommendations. The Man Who Heard Voices, it's absolutely amazing, it's by Michael Bamberger. It's about M. Night Shyamalan. Really, really interesting book. It's fascinating. If you ever want to see how a movie got put together, really, really interesting book. And also how creative people think and are a little bit weird. And then Paralandra by C .S. Lewis. It's in a space trilogy. You can read it by itself. It's the middle book.

It's about a whole other planet, but it's really about ours. It's really, really interesting. A lot of allegory in there. And then John Adams by David McCalla is a fantastic book. It's really, really interesting. It's about his beliefs and like private letters he wrote back and forth to his wife. So you sort of get this inside look on how this guy ticks. And he made some really good and some really bad choices in his life. And it's really interesting to see how he got there. So.

Chris Kiefer (29:08.424)

And that's by David McCullough.

Paul Fair (29:10.608)

David McCalla, who passed away a few years ago, but he won like, he won a Pulitzer Prize for that one. He's won multiple. He's really, really an amazing writer.

Chris Kiefer (29:17.896)

Interesting, I haven't heard anyone say that one before. You've piqued my interest. And favorite movie.

Paul Fair (29:25.936)

Favorite movie, Lady in the Water is probably my favorite movie. And that book, The Man Who Heard Voices, is actually written about that movie. That's how I found the book. And they're two very different things. One's about the production of the movie, one's the movie itself. But Lady in the Water by M. Night Shyamalan. Most people say it's one of his worst films. And I think it's one of the greatest movies ever made. It's a movie where Paul Giamatti stars in it. And he's this everyday Joe.

And there's this crazy story fairy tale that he hears and he has to figure out all the people in his apartment complex, which character they are in that story to like save and make sure the story goes the way it's supposed to go. So it's really a story about all of us finding our part in the story. It's really interesting.

Chris Kiefer (30:07.912)

I would say it's not the worst movie. I haven't seen this one, but I would say the worst movie that he made in my opinion was The Happening. Did you ever see that one? The Happening is the worst movie. Yeah. Oh my gosh. The Happening. And it actually does have a worse IMDb rating. So that checks out. Yeah, The Lady in the Water. I haven't. That's it. So here this is an interesting one because this is like a perfect.

Paul Fair (30:16.912)

I agree. I haven't seen Avatar, but happening was terrible.

Chris Kiefer (30:38.216)

Um situation or for this these rules I i'm obsessed with imdb ratings so and what I mean by that is like I rely on them heavily to decide if I should watch movies right because there's hundreds of thousands of movies to watch I don't I love movies, but I don't have a ton of time to watch them So my rule is a 7 .3 and above I'll watch like i'm gonna add it to the watch list and i'll watch it if it's below a 7 .3

I give everybody in the world a mulligan and you can choose to use your mulligan on the movie and say, you know, based on what I know about you, Chris, I think you should watch this or you know what? I'm not going to, I'm not going to say watch that. If you're right. And I do like it. You get your mulligan back for another sub 7 .3 recommendation. But if you're wrong, I never take another sub 7 .3 recommendation from you again. So would you like to use your mulligan? Cause lady in the water, do you want to guess?

Well, I just hinted that it's below 7 .3, so you gotta guess what it is.

Paul Fair (31:40.272)

I'm gonna guess it's like a 4 .0. Oh, okay.

Chris Kiefer (31:43.08)

5 .5. So you're, yeah, better than you thought. Should I add it to my watch list?

Paul Fair (31:50.992)

I don't know if I know you well enough to tell you that. I love it. Most people don't like it. I haven't talked to anybody that loves it besides me. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and use it just because then you have to watch it. It'll cause another conversation.

Chris Kiefer (32:04.328)

Awesome. Well, and if people want to reach out to you, what is your preferred method of contact?

Paul Fair (32:12.976)

LinkedIn is awesome. I'm Paul fair. I on there makes it really easy to finally it's not just because I'm ostentatious. It's just easier to figure out who's who. So Paul fair, the third, I'm on LinkedIn. That's a great way to find me or you can always email me. I'm cool with that too. It's Paul at storypress .com. And we spell story funky because story with a Y was probably taken before, you know, the 1990s but STO our IE press .com. So Paul at storypress .com. Both great ways to get

Chris Kiefer (32:40.872)

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Paul. Appreciate it. Fun conversation and we'll be seeing you around soon.

Paul Fair (32:47.824)

All right, thanks Chris.