Uncommon Freedom

Breakthroughs Are Everywhere - learning to look for breakthroughs in everyday life with Curtis Carnes

• Kevin Tinter

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Maintaining your drive and passion as an entrepreneur is crucial for long-term success. But how do you keep that entrepreneurial fire burning while avoiding burnout? In this episode, Kevin sits down with Curtis Carnes, an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) through the International Coaching Federation, and dives deep into practical self-care strategies that will help you sustain your entrepreneurial spirit.

Drawing from Curtis’ experiences and insights, he shares four key tactics for nurturing your entrepreneurial drive:

  1. Setting clear personal and professional goals
  2. Identifying your "big why" for building wealth
  3. Establishing daily habits and routines for success
  4. Engaging in motivational activities and celebrating milestones

We discuss the importance of creating a strong sense of purpose beyond financial gain, how to draft a family mission statement, and ways to incorporate productivity-boosting habits into your daily life. We also explore the power of surrounding yourself with motivated peers and creating a reward system for achieving your goals.

Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights on how to care for your most important asset – yourself. Join us to learn how to cultivate a self-care routine that will keep you energized, motivated, and thriving on your entrepreneurial journey!

Want to learn more about Curtis or to schedule a free call - www.curtiscarnes.com

You can also email him at - curtis@curtiscarnes.com

Find his book - Breakthroughs Are Everywhere on Amazon.

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Speaker 1:

All right, well, hey, welcome back everyone to the Uncommon Freedom Show. Today we have a special guest, curtis Carnes. A husband, father, executive coach and author of Breakthroughs Are Everywhere. Curtis has been coaching leaders for over a decade and is passionate about helping others achieve trajectory-shifting breakthroughs. Curtis, thanks so much for joining us today. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'd love to talk about it. My name is Curtis Carnes. Again, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. I'm an executive coach in the area. I've coached various companies, usually director, director level, VPs, C-suite. I've also had this idea called Breakthrough Groups which I'm in the process of launching out. Really, my dream is to help people experience breakthroughs every day, and I know it's a huge statement the title of the book that breakthroughs are everywhere, and I just want to get that reality out into the world and not only tell people that it's true, but actually show people how and that's really what I'm committing my life to is to do that.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. Breakthrough is my year for 2023. So I appreciate the concept and certainly value someone who's able to help people experience breakthroughs in their life. So let's talk about personal and professional breakthroughs. Curtis, you talk a lot about the potential for daily personal and professional breakthroughs. Can you share what inspired you to write Breakthroughs Are Everywhere and how these concepts have impacted your own life?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I mean, it's true You're going to hear throughout this podcast, I'm an evangelist for the breakthrough life, but I'm also a convert. This has been a journey for me. You see the breakthrough circle in my book. I've been doing iterations of that in my own life for 13 years and so that's why I communicate to people that they're everywhere, that you could experience them, because I have and I've seen other people experience them as well and really like even just recent ones like writing this book was a breakthrough, right, I was leading a breakthrough group where I was also functioning as a participant and for me, the book, my big breakthrough, was the courage to write this book.

Speaker 2:

Like, one of my intake questions, both for one-on-one coaching and breakthrough groups, is if you were full of courage, what would you do right now? And guess what, kevin, I never have answered my own intake questions until that group last year and my answer was write this book and I wrote it. So that's just a small example big, actually big example for me of just me applying just that. I'm going to make a discovery, take an action. Make a discovery, take an action.

Speaker 1:

You know, what I love about that question is a lot of times we use the question if you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do? But that's actually more of a kind of a negative approach to if you were full of courage, like that's the positive type of approach to it. So if you were full of courage, what would you do versus if you could fail? Or if you were full of courage, like that's the positive type of approach to it. So if you were full of courage, what would you do versus if you couldn't fail, or if you didn't have fear, what would you do? So I really liked that approach.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate that. I think that all great coaching is future focused. We're not looking back at the past, we're not looking back at our fears, but we're looking forward to the future and stepping into courage.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's great. So let's talk about the breakthrough equation. One of the key concepts in your book is the breakthrough equation. Can you explain what this is and how our listeners can apply it to their everyday lives to foster continuous growth?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Like. I think the biggest barrier we've got to get over is that we think breakthroughs are rare. They rarely happen to us and if we're lucky, and what I want to argue is just over the course of just the last 15 years. I've just distilled it into a very simple equation and I'm not saying it's easy but it is simple.

Speaker 2:

It's discovery times. Action equals breakthrough, and the greater the discovery, the greater the action, the greater the breakthrough. Perfect example and I'll go to my own life. And I made a discovery that my coping mechanism for my anxiety is food. So I had that discovery. It was a family of origin thing. It was something that I've always wanted to tackle and I made a discovery okay, that's my eating issue problem. That's where it's derived from. So I made that discovery. Now I was able to. As a result, you know, I invited other people into the journey with me and then I made a courageous action. I'm going to change the way I eat and and it wasn't tied to losing weight, it wasn't tied to even looking good, it was tied to I no longer want to use food as a coping mechanism for my anxiety. And huge breakthrough for me right like right now I'm a testament to that breakthrough is is I no longer turn to food for my coping mechanism. That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Take me through that process one more time. What's the equation? Yeah, the equation is discovery times. Action equals breakthrough, and I have this tool called the breakthrough circle that just unpacks how we do that equation in our daily life.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and that's the next question is to talk about the breakthrough circle. So that's another one of the intriguing concepts from your book. Can you describe what the circle entails and how it helps individuals and leaders navigate through personal and professional challenges?

Speaker 2:

Definitely, because really about it starts with an inflection point and inflection points at the top of the circle, and then I define that simply as this is a moment in time where change may occur and then the keywords may yeah, like, may occur, and what I'm arguing is that inflection points are happening all around us. I probably experienced 10 inflection points today. We probably already have had two inflection points in our conversation today. But the question is are we seeing them? And that's what step one of discovery is. Is that you have to observe them. That's step one in discovery. I know it sounds so simple, but the number one reason we're not making discoveries in our life is we're not looking for them. So we got to open that space up in our life. When you start looking for the inflection points and discoveries that are all around us and it's cool when people start doing that, they're everywhere. Like it's kind of like seeing that my son and I really want to have a Jeep right. We started talking about that recently and now, every time we see a Jeep, one of us yells Jeep right, and we didn't really see Jeeps a lot until recently, and now, since we're talking about Jeeps, we're seeing Jeeps everywhere on the road, and it's no different with inflection points or discoveries, like we need to start opening our lives up to observe them regularly and have to talk more about what that could look like soon.

Speaker 2:

But the step two is reflect. I don't know about you, but I've done this all the time. Is I observe a discovery and then I don't reflect on it, right? Or? Or someone or a client observes a discovery and then just moves on throughout through their day and just leaves it and doesn't come back to that. So that's step two is just reflect. Like what was important about that inflection point, like what would happen, you know, if you took that to its full conclusion when it comes. Like writing this book was I was reflecting on what's, what's holding me back, right, and upon further reflection, the thing that was holding me back from writing was I didn't believe I was a writer, right, and then you, so often when we reflect, we realize that actually internal narratives that we're telling ourselves is keeping us from moving forward, and that's what is for me. So I reflected on that. Okay, how can I move past that?

Speaker 2:

And the next step three in the discovery process is discuss, and I'm I hate to say this only in the last 15 years if I started inviting other people into my interior world. And there's something that happens when we just start inviting people in Number one if you say it out loud, it just starts to become a reality. Just saying it out loud, right. Reality. Just saying it out loud, right. Like, for example, I want to write this book.

Speaker 2:

I started telling people and it created a social peer pressure for me to write it. I had another client that said man, deep down inside, he wanted to be a two day CEO. He was the owner of his company and he just wanted to invest two days of his week to it. But he never said it out loud, right? He's saying to me me in a coaching relationship, and this is what I want, and it's like I've never told this to anyone. So it's interesting that how much we keep inside. And so me and I've seen other people start saying what they want out loud, start talking about their discoveries out loud, and it's it's big, it opens up the door and it's saying it out loud invites other people to join you, to introduce you to relationships, resources or opportunities that you wouldn't even know are available to you unless you said it out loud. So that's the discovery process, right?

Speaker 1:

you observe, you reflect, you discuss yeah, I, I really I totally understand and agree with the discussion portion. I mean, I agree with all three, but I think the discussion portion is probably one of the. I guess they're all important because you don't have one without the other. But we've seen it in what my wife and I do. You know we specialize in helping people lose weight and get off the medications and really get into the best shape of their life with a lifestyle program.

Speaker 1:

But the vast majority of people that come to us, their initial reason is weight loss and one of the things we tell them is you know, it's difficult for some people especially, you know, but we say you've got to live your health journey out loud.

Speaker 1:

You have to tell people, hey, I'm making some changes in what I'm eating, I'm making some changes in my lifestyle. It's not necessarily fun and for some people there's a lot of shame involved with it, but what that does is it, you know, it's kind of like this manifestation type of process as well as it, like you said, it invites other people into the journey. Because if I'm, you know, I'm an alcoholic and I say, hey, I realize I'm an alcoholic and I'm going dry, what that does is that invites your friends and your circle into supporting you on that journey. You know, instead of offering you a beer when you're at a party, they're actually going to be looking out for you and saying, hey, devin, can I give you a? You know, here's a Coke instead, or here's a you know a club soda instead. And so I really I see the value of what you're talking about right there.

Speaker 1:

So, all right, let's talk about the break, the five breakthrough shifts. You outlined five breakthrough shifts. Can you briefly walk us through these shifts and explain how they can lead to significant changes in one's life and work?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I do. Would you like me to unpack the back half of the circle first?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't realize we hadn't got through that, so let's go ahead and do that first, curtis.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no problem, like so you got two sides of that circle discovery, which is observe, reflect, discuss and then action. And I don't know about you, I have a cathartic experience with making discoveries about my life. It makes me feel good about myself. It makes me feel good when I'm communicating it to other people. But, as my wife always tells me, discovery times zero equals no breakthrough, and I think often people think that the discovery is the breakthrough. It's not. Discovery is where it opens the door to breakthrough. So the back half of the circle is action.

Speaker 2:

The first step is plan, and three of my favorite questions for planning is just what's the first step is plan, and three of my favorite questions for planning is just what's the first step? Like what's the first step to start moving that to reality? A perfect example writing this book. What was the first step? It was starting to tell people uh, for me, like another question that I love is what's your greatest possible imagined future? Like, usually we're worst case scenario people Like let's start casting new imagined futures that we want to live into. And then the question I've already shared before is if you're full of courage, what would you do? I think that question helps us, guide us to the right action steps to take. So, plan that step based on the on the discovery.

Speaker 2:

The step five is account, and this is where we've done accountability wrong. It's like often in organizations like I'm gonna tell you what you're accountable for, that's wrong. Like the secret sauce to accountability is that when the person that has the discovery created the plan that they set the accountability metric, it's everything. So, as your health coach, I'm a coach, and to any coach that's listening, I'll give you, on a silver platter, the best question to ask. It's this what question do you want me to ask you the next time we connect? Wow, that's good. What that does is that they create the accountability question. It makes it easy for me to follow up. You asked me to ask you that question, yeah Right.

Speaker 2:

And so literally, I usually end a lot of my breakthrough groups or my one-on-one questions with that question and then next call, guess what question I'm asking. I usually end a lot of my breakthrough groups or my one-on-one questions with that question and then next call, guess what question I'm asking? The very question they asked me to ask them. So I would encourage anyone to take that little nugget with you into any coaching relationship. And then the last step is act. That's step six. That's the fun part. Like once you act, the breakthrough occurs. Right, I no longer go to food as an anxiety mechanism. The book is out, the guy's a two-day CEO now, right, that's the fun part, because that's where the breakthrough occurs. So what I want to do, what I'm trying to help people realize, is that you just keep following that cycle.

Speaker 1:

That's the playbook for making breakthroughs a regular part of your life. That's good and I love asking them. What's the one question you want me to ask? Because a lot of times you know, as coaches, accountability partners you know we have, you know we've got our own concepts of all. Right, this is a question I'm going to ask Kevin the next time I talk to him. That'll hold him accountable, but that doesn't necessarily create buy-in for Kevin if he's the one I'm trying to hold accountability.

Speaker 1:

But by getting that, you know, if someone's being truly honest with what they need, they're going to give you the perfect question, because I'm coming from my perspective and so you know, if I'm coaching you, curtis, I'm thinking well, if I was Curtis, this is a question I would want to ask, but the reality is you and I are different people, so that's a brilliant pivot to say what question do you want me to ask? I'll be implementing this in my coaching today, because today is a busy workday for me where I check in with a lot of my clients. So I love that, love that question. So are we ready to move on to the breakthrough shifts?

Speaker 2:

All right yeah.

Speaker 1:

So there's five breakthrough shifts that you talk about in your book. Can you briefly walk us through these shifts and explain how they can lead to significant changes in one's life and work.

Speaker 2:

Yes, happy to. I mean I'm going to share. A presupposition of my coaching and my writing is that external change, external outcomes, almost always come from an internal shift and if you're only purely changing external behaviors, you're only getting incremental results. It's internal shifts that have to get you to a trajectory, shifting breakthroughs in your life, and the first shift is called information discovery. Like there's an information myth in our world.

Speaker 2:

If you had more information, you would know what to do and you would do it Right. Since you're in the health space, guess what? I know? It's really good for me to eat well, for a host of reasons. I've heard that information all the time. Right, but does that changed my life? No, and then what? I want to shift people away from the information into discovery. It's all about discovery. What discoveries am I making about my professional life, my personal, my health? And once you make discovery the central point, not information, it changes everything. And the reason why I know this, kevin, is that I'm a recovering information addict. I like consuming information. It makes me feel smart, it makes me feel like I'm doing something, but I am not. All I'm doing is accumulating information, and that doesn't get me much places, but making discoveries does, and that's why I'm trying to push people towards. We just live in a culture where that info knowing information is overvalued and and making discovery is undervalued, and I want to flip that yeah, I mean, we're really, really information gluttons for the most part.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely, I mean with everything. You know virtually every possible fact at our fingertips. You know with our phones, it's easy to have. You know all the information we need, like, the reality is, you know, we probably all know what we need to do to get healthy. You know to become wealthy. You know to have a good healthy. You know to become wealthy. You know to have a good marriage. You know to be a good parent. The question is, it's not a lack of information, it's the application and the realization of it. So, absolutely, that's great. That's great. Let's talk about normalizing breakthroughs. I love this concept. So you emphasize the importance of normalizing breakthroughs in. I love this concept. So you emphasize the importance of normalizing breakthroughs in everyday life. How can people start to see breakthroughs as a regular part of their journey rather than rare extraordinary events? Because I think most people probably think breakthroughs are rare extraordinary events. But how do we shift to thinking or to realizing that these are things that actually happen every single day?

Speaker 2:

shift to thinking or to realizing that these are things that actually happen every single day. Yep, this is my biggest ask of Kevin or the listener. You have to believe it first, and it's in the introduction of my book. It's the only time I make a popular reference I wish I could make more Seinfeld references, but people are past Seinfeld now.

Speaker 2:

I know it's so sad, it's sad, it's so sad, and George Costanza says this it's not a lie if you believe it. And that's what I say about breakthroughs. People believe they're rare, so it's true to them. Yeah, and I want to get people to start with belief. I believe that breakthroughs are everywhere because, like, once you believe that, you start to see it. And once you see it, you can start. You can start to have them in your life. The next thing, so first, is believe it. That's like you have to believe it. I'm asking you to believe a presupposition, right that they're everywhere.

Speaker 2:

Number two is that breakthroughs don't happen alone. Too often we think breakthroughs happen alone, and I'll tell you right now. I'm looking back on my life, curtis. Has there ever been a moment where I've had a breakthrough in isolation, like never? And I just wonder, kevin, have you had moments where you've talked to a mentor, where you've had a conversation with someone that just gave you that new idea, right, where you felt like you had a, a partner in crime that helped you, motivate and propel the future you wanted forward, right like? We look back at those moments and think, man, I wish we could have those relationships all the time, right? Yeah, what I would say is you can like. All you have to do is intentionally put them in your life, and, whether that be a friend or spouse, whether it be an executive coach, whether that be a breakthrough group, is that you're structuring your life with key relationships that enable you to have breakthroughs all the time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's good. That's good. In your experience, have you observed that there's, that it's not people in general that help you have breakthroughs, but it's certain types of people?

Speaker 2:

Yes, and the certain type of people is people that can do two things, that they have the self-awareness to make a discovery about their life.

Speaker 2:

Not everyone has that I want everyone to develop that. And then, number two, that people have the courage to act. Yeah, that you want to be around those people, because if you have the self-awareness to make a people have the courage to act, that you want to be around those people. Because if you have the self-awareness to make a discovery and the courage to act, you get breakthroughs all the time. So you really want to get yourself around people like that.

Speaker 1:

Yep, that's really good, that's great, that's great. You know, when you talk about normalizing breakthroughs you were talking about the Jeep earlier I was trying to remember the part of the brain that does that, and I believe it's called the reticular activating system, the RAS, and so what you're talking about is just flipping that switch and saying you know what Breakthroughs are happening everywhere all the time, and when you start looking for them, you actually start seeing them, looking for them, you actually start seeing them, whereas if you have this concept or this belief that they rarely happen breakthroughs are basically miracles that almost never happen You're just not going to see them because you don't have created that awareness and you're not looking for them, absolutely. That's basically what you're talking about, right? Yes, okay, very good, very good.

Speaker 2:

Anything else on normalizing breakthroughs, before we move on to groups and I just want to highlight one breakthrough shift that I haven't mentioned yet, and I've had a lot of people read this book so much positive feedback. But I want to tell you what the most important part of the book is, and people often don't think that I'm going to say this. They think, oh, it's the breakthrough circle, it's the breakthrough group, just coaching. No, it's a chapter that's talked about disconnected to connected, and there's three identity myths that we buy into all the time you are what you do, you are what people say and you are what you have.

Speaker 2:

And the problem is that when we buy into those identity myths, our life begins to feel like a roller coaster that we're riding highs when we have stuff, when people are saying great things about us, we're doing things, and then when people are saying bad things about us, we're failing, we lose something, we're in despair. And we need to move beyond those identity myths. And I talk about in that chapter embracing your self-worth, and there's different ways one can do that, but you must embrace your self-worth. That's the foundation of having a breakthrough life, because once you embrace your self-worth, you can work and live from your value, not for it, and that shift is everything. So I would encourage people man, if you're buying into one of those three identity myths, you probably are, because I probably bought into one of them today already. Right, it's not a one and done. It's something we constantly have to reject and accept our self-worth, and that creates a foundation for a breakthrough life.

Speaker 1:

That's good, that's good. I like that. All right. So you're also offering free training materials for those interested in leading breakthrough groups. Can you tell us more about these groups, what participants can expect and how they can get involved and just get more? Obviously, they can get your book on Amazon. Is that the primary place to get the book?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, amazon is the primary place to get the book. Ok, of course I do executive coaching, one on one, happy to connect with people. About that I'm going to tell you. I'll give you the dream. So you asked me, curtis, what's your best possible imagined future? I'll answer the question. I want breakthrough groups to be everywhere, and a breakthrough group is a five-month group coaching experience that meets every other week for 90 minutes. So it's 10 connections over five months with five people who commit to doing, make discoveries and taking action together. Period, nothing else. And again, this is your Seinfeld. Gonna do a Seinfeld reference season four, where George Costanza is in NBC pitching the pitching the pilot jury and he says this is the show and we're not going to change it that's how passionate I am about breakthrough groups because really it only is about working people around that circle.

Speaker 2:

It's only about helping people make discoveries and take action, holding each other accountable to that. Because if you you do as a group, you get to experience breakthrough together. And the cool thing about having this in a group context is that once you start saying it out loud, whatever that imagined future is, whatever that act of courage is, you're saying it to people in a group that want that for you and guess what? They have relationships, resources, opportunities to help you win, and that's what's all.

Speaker 2:

There's so much momentum and cool things to have in these breakthrough group experiences that I want everyone to be able to experience it, because one thing to say breakthroughs are everywhere is another thing to give people the vehicle to have that, and one of the vehicles is breakthrough groups and I've created training materials, a leader's kid over the last 13 years and I'm going to do a live virtual training August 2nd and the first week of December that anyone who commits a leading a breakthrough group this fall or this spring I'll do free. All the leaders training kits free, the live virtual trainings free, like there's no barrier or entry point. Because my dream is for breakthrough groups to be everywhere. So I want, at the beginning, to give that away, to create that momentum down the hill.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome, curtis. Well, I mean, it's been incredibly insightful hearing about your approach to breakthroughs and personal growth. I've learned a lot. Like I said, I've got some practical application that I can implement in my coaching today. Where can our listeners find out more about your book, coaching services and breakthrough groups?

Speaker 2:

Definitely Everything is found at curtiscarnscom. It's literally mynamecom. You can find the books on Amazon and there's a lot. If you're interested in coaching a breakthrough group, just email me, curtis at curtiscarnscom. And if you're interested in coaching a breakthrough group, just email me, curtis at CurtisKarnscom. And if you're willing to launch a breakthrough group in August 23 or January I mean August 24, january 25, I'll give you the leader's kit and invite a live virtual training for free.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome, awesome. Well, hey, curtis, thank you man. That's been great connecting with you. I appreciate the Seinfeld references. My wife and I are huge Seinfeld fans and it is interesting, especially as I interact with some of the younger generation. I'm like you don't know who Seinfeld is, do you? I'm like, oh, you're missing out. You really need to. I can't remember if it's on Netflix now or whatever, but I was like that's classic TV. The only other show that compares, in my personal opinion, is the Andy Griffith Show. Those are the two greatest shows ever. But Seinfeld like. We have a Seinfeld reference every single day of our lives.

Speaker 2:

So I agree, If this book came out two decades ago, it would be littered with Seinfeld references. But people don't. It doesn't translate anymore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a shame that's been lost, but hey, man, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Thank you for writing the book. I know it's a huge investment of time and effort and finances to write a book. People think people it's like, oh, you wrote a book. You know people think people you know it's like, oh, you wrote a book, you're making money off. It's like most people don't make money off of a book. It's a huge investment. And so, folks, if you want a great book to help you with some very simple practical action steps, this book, right here is it. Curtis, I appreciate it, man. Take care, take care, take care.