Aaron Keith Hawkins (Part 1) From SWAT Team to Podcaster and Entrepreneur.m4a: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Aaron Keith Hawkins (Part 1) From SWAT Team to Podcaster and Entrepreneur.m4a: this m4a audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Fei Wu:
Hey. Hello. How are you? This is a show for everyone else. Instead of going after Top 1% of the world. We dedicate this podcast to celebrate the lives of the unsung heroes and self-made artists.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
It's like, Wait a minute. Nobody taught me what I need to say or how I need to say it, or how am I going to relate to these people? What do they want to know? Like, what is it that I could say that could tap into their emotions? And that's that's what I like to offer through. For me, the leverage came from decades of experience, seeing people in their worst moments or going through their worst experiences and learning for myself how to process all of that stuff. Those two stories translate because it helped me to realize that very early on, when you see a problem happen more than once, then it's time to learn something new. Don't just get through the day and survive it and grin and bear it. Learn something intentionally that it's going to intervene the next time. Our ego sets us up for failure because we're not willing to have anything that's less than perfect. So if my website doesn't look like so-and-so's, then forget it. I'm not just doing it all and that's you lose before we even start if we take that stance. Wherever you are now does not mean that's where you need to be a month from now or a year from now, or even an hour from now. There's always the things you're doing and the impact you're having and creating is a matter of how much you're willing to learn and how much effort you're willing to put in to getting better at whatever it is you want to achieve.

Fei Wu:
Hi there. This is Fei Wu and you're listening to the Feisworld podcast. Welcome to another new episode, an interview format of Feisworld if you're new to the show. Welcome. So thrilled that you're here. We are a special kind of podcast that focuses on the unsung heroes and self-made artists. And we have six key categories of people who we like to interview all the time, from having fun on the job to entrepreneurs who are building a tribe or building tribes on their own to people who are living their art. People who are working in Cirque du Soleil or performing arts or Broadway, and paying for people working in social services. So we would love for you to discover some of these categories at Phase WorldCom Office. S.w.o.r.d. Because we're a boutique podcast, every single listener counts, and we love hearing from you. And I personally respond to all the messages, the emails. So today I would like to welcome Aaron Keith Hawkins on the show. So Aaron is the host of Unbreakable Success Podcast. He is also a high performance coach who loves working with entrepreneurs and those looking to create a powerful impact with their business and life. Now, you may be thinking, if you have heard some of the previous episodes of Feisworld that recently we have interviewed quite a number of coaches. And to be honest, I oso feel like a lot of my close network of people right now are working as executive coach.

Fei Wu:
But Aaron has a unique background because Aaron graduated from the FBI National Academy and he has spent over two decades as public servant. He is currently a police captain serving his New Jersey community as a law enforcement executive. I have talked to a lot of executive coaches, but Aaron is the first one who has such background. And I was just so fascinated. And what I also love about Aaron is he is that he is also very relatable. If you head over to Aaron Keith Hawkins dot com, you notice that the website contains a lot of information from podcasts to eBooks and to a self published book Aaron has authored and which you can get a free copy, a PDF sent to you right away if you live in the US. He will also send a hard copy to you. Aaron isn't like me, who has a background in digital marketing and knows how to build websites and all that jazz. But he did it all by himself and we talk about that precisely on the show and it's really a message out to people. Doesn't matter who you are, what you do. These skills can be obtained like Aaron did. So what's also unique about this episode is that originally Aaron was going to interview me on his show and we ended up saying, Hey, what if we record this episode and we are like two good friends having a conversation and let's produce two episodes out of the same recording, one for your show and one for mine.

Fei Wu:
And that's essentially what happened. And I jumped in, probably asked Aaron a bunch of questions more than he did from me, but I hope you enjoy this experiment and these stories if you have any feedback. You know, we love to hear from you. We are at Feisworld everywhere Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Old fashioned emails are just as welcome. Faye. f i at Feisworld dot com and we love love. If you choose to subscribe to the show, we love to hear from you and see you again. Without further ado, please enjoy this two way conversation between Aaron and me. I'll see you at the end of the show. Hi, everyone. This is Faye from Feisworld.. I'm so thrilled to be here with Aaron Keith Hawkins. And Aaron and I were introduced through Jocelyn Duffy, whose episode would have been released at this point. But Aaron is a incredible entrepreneur and also a podcaster and also a police officer. So just imagine the snippets and the soundbites that you're going to be getting from this episode. So, so glad Aaron is here.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
And of course, welcome everybody to Unbreakable Success Podcast. As you can tell, this is not the average ordinary episode for for us here on Unbreakable Success. And we're here with with Faye., who has Feisworld Podcast Faye.. I love the premise of your show and what you're up to, really highlighting those unsung heroes and the artists and really get into getting into sharing stories of people who may otherwise be not as recognized as they should be. So we're going to do this dual dual episode for one another shows and just kind of kick some thoughts back and forth. And first and foremost, the main premise of this obviously, is to share something with each of our listeners. So everybody has to walk away from this episode with some really good nuggets of wisdom so that we can help each other gain some insights from our individual journeys. And this is going to be a lot of fun. So let's just do this.

Fei Wu:
Super excited. Let's do it.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, sounds good. Well, let me let me jump on into your story real quick, because this would be a great opportunity for not just my listeners, but yours. Get to know kind of your story a little bit more and what you're up to. So give us a snapshot of that, if you will, what you're up to today, and then we can get into how you kind of got here.

Fei Wu:
Sure. So what I'm doing today, right in the middle of 2018, I still can't believe it's already middle of the year. So what I now up to sort of a few years into the podcast is I am working on an online course to help English speaking podcaster to launch her show in China and on a single platform alone called Himalaya, which is Himalaya is in English. There are 500 million listeners and that's precisely two times the amount of listeners on iTunes. Working on that course, I am working on a Chinese podcast. I'm also going to be launching on that very platform in addition to the English podcasts I've had for three and a half years. And finally, it's a documentary that's in the work in the middle of sort of workshopping and figuring out the premise and all that between me and 2 to 3 other producers. So three different things that are, you know, I need to leverage my quote unquote superpower as a project manager for the past ten years to make it all fit in and work.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
That is so cool. Yeah, I know you're majorly busy. I love when we talked a few days ago and we talked about this idea of helping you, helping English speaking, primarily English speaking podcasters share their show in China with this this massive untapped audience. As far as you know, from here in the States, it's really an untapped audience for which creates this big opportunity both for new listeners to learn and for existing podcasters just to broaden their reach. I love the idea and I like to flatter myself sometimes by saying I'm creative, but that the simplicity but the brilliance of it just blew me away. So I love the idea. If I can ask, how did this podcast journey start for you in its inception? Like, what made you decide that you're going to be this podcaster? Not only that, you're also going to like, help others do this and create a real revenue stream without it. Because I know one of your biggest one of the things I love about you is you have this premise of helping people really create a living and a lifestyle. Podcasting without being somewhat of a slave to the download numbers and being overly drawn into data and statistics and really getting overwhelmed with that. Obviously information is important, but I love how you kind of you have this organic approach to your show and organic approach to podcasting as a potential career path. How did that kind of play out for you?

Fei Wu:
You know, that's such an interesting question. It took me a while to really connect the dots because we live, we get into the groove and we live our lives the way we do for a long time. Not until recently. I haven't really shared this on other podcasts before I realized as I was growing up, my mom has instilled the sense of counterintuitive. This like in me, like she was the unconventional parent in China, which was a pretty difficult thing to do. So I remember when I was six or seven, every single child from our neighbor started learning the piano. So by the time there were 11 or 12, after all the beating and heart work, I mean, they all went on to like professional level of some sort. And my mom made sure that I did not do that. She is like the Seth Godin in China. She's the one who asked to look the other way. And I say that. So what I ended up doing are playing baseball, playing ice hockey, the sports that didn't even exist in China. Somehow she found places for me to do it because I enjoy doing that and to stay active. What's interesting? About that example is I look at podcasting for a couple of years since I started working on it and I look at the downloads.

Fei Wu:
There were not some of them were fantastic, some of them are not, you know, not exactly like the stories that you would hear from everywhere, you know, Jld being one of them. But she's he's really up there and then Tim Ferriss celebrities, all these people. So I asked myself, it has to be something different. You know, that if the majority of the people want to do this for a long time, and I will myself and you, Aaron and everybody I met who are delivering these stories are like slightly under the radar to be published. There has to be another way. So get to the punchline. You know, when you are an entrepreneur, the hardest thing is to be selling a mark in yourself consistently and podcast has organically become the thing in a way you can say that you're not even you're not even paying for it. But for me, I figure out a way for the podcast itself to generate real revenue for the past two and a half years. And, and really it kind of helped me to establish a sustaining business, generated all the leads know new customers were generated from the podcast.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah I love that. Now is this the framework for what you do? Is that something you kind of came up with, like just on your, on your own? Just kind of, you know, those ideas pop in your head, So let me try this. Or were you inspired specifically by somebody, someone or somebody or something even in another industry? Is there's something that kind of sparked the steps to take that you thought might actually make what you're doing sustainable?

Fei Wu:
So I think I did not think much about selling. I don't think I came from a background where both of my parents are artists, by the way, and they didn't teach me a thing about finance. My mom still needs me to organize, comb through the statements of like CD's and investments that she made. So, you know, for me, within ten episodes of releasing Feisworld, the first ten episodes are family and friends. I started to notice that people were reaching out to me. And this particular case, Christina Read, was this profound producer for so many Disney animations Reach out to me and said she was hoping to reinvent herself even before her kids went to college, actually, which was interesting. She didn't want to wait anymore. She wanted to do something different. She said, If I could help her. From that point on, I received so many more requests in the form of in the forms of the guests Reaching out to to me said, Thanks for learning so much about me. By the way, I read your story, your digital marketer. I'm not so sure, but could you help me with X, Y, and Z? And you know, there are many, many questions along that line and even even referrals like so such well written referrals from guests to say, I don't need anything right now, but I'm going to introduce you to five different people who may need your help with digital marketing website building design, which is mind blowing. I went from not knowing what to do with it to Sure, Let's explore how we can work together.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
There's so cool. I love it, I love it, I love it. And so you really you're just meeting people and they're discovering really what your your skills and skill sets are even outside of being an interview. And that just kind of leveraged itself into relationship building is what it sounds like is is being able to make connections influencing people so that they they trust you, they like you, they know what your skills are. And then from there, even after the episode, you're able to branch out into other other other efforts, if you will, other works to to bring in some revenue. That's that's pretty cool.

Fei Wu:
I feel like this is not news to you, Aaron, because one thing I realize is, wow, this could work for me. I really want to share this weather with other people. And I know that people already see the tip of the iceberg, but they were hesitant whether they Oh, am I authentic if I pursue such career and opportunity. But the first thing I mentioned to you, Erin, is right. So you are someone who has a business and you know, you're you're doing this. You're not just relying on podcast. So perhaps it's time for you to talk about like the balance between your show and your business.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, this is it was definitely interesting for me to have arrived. And first of all, thank you for, you know, that those are flattering words coming from you, somebody I respect and really admire a lot. So for you to say that about that in first impression of my site means a lot. So thank you. But yeah, as far as me and how I kind of integrate my show from a business standpoint, it's kind of it's kind of fun because first of all, I love doing this so much. I would. I would. And it doesn't mean I'm going to settle for, but I would actually do this if it made no money because I just I just like it that much. But businesses don't tend to sustain themselves if they're not making any revenue. So therein lies the, you know, how do we turn this into something that is sustainable financially? So what's interesting for me is, you know, as you mentioned, when we started a show, my traditional career was as a police officer. And I still I'm a captain now here in New Jersey, and I still have I still have 12 months left before I completely leave and retire from and kind of pension out from that job. But at the same time, I have my show, I have coaching practice. I just authored my first book and I have an online course. So for me, what I decided to do when I realized A, that I was going to start this podcast and when I finally kind of took the training wheels off and started feeling more comfortable just actually doing the show without wigging out every episode, that's when I started thinking about how do I make this into a a business? So for me, simply offering something that kind of to me I like to think kind of naturally leads into the other things and other skill sets I have.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Like my traditional my career was in law enforcement, but my graduate degree was in leadership. I kind of minored in professional coaching. So coaching is something I do on the side. I do one on one coaching and I also have this online course, which kind of is like a different plateau of service from me. And then I have my book. So the podcast for me is gives me the opportunity to offer those things on the intro and outro. So you know, anybody listening a show before to show you, I'm sure you heard you will have heard a bumper either advertising my book to get my book for free, a live event that may or may not have already happened by the time this episode releases. I like to show because it'll naturally attract a people that would be interested in my service. So in other words, like Unbreakable Success is mainly about entrepreneurship, but more so a lot of times it's on the mindset side of things in addition to the strategy.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
So, you know, my book is on influence. So people that are in business, you know, everybody's teaching how to do sales funnels and lead pages and lead magnets and email automation. But the trick to that is, and what I constantly see from meeting with entrepreneurs, the frustration comes in. They learn all to do that stuff. They learn how to set all those technical things in place. But. Those are just it's a blank slate. Like, you can do all that work to have a landing page and an email automation system and a lead magnet for people to get. But if you don't know how to connect with people authentically and you don't know the the triggers of influence and all that stuff, you're kind of left out in the cold because it's like, wait a minute, nobody taught me what I need to say or how I need to say it, or how am I going to relate to these people? What do they want to know? Like, what is it that I could say that could tap into their emotions? And that's that's what I like to offer through my services. So it's kind of organic for me because the things that I enjoy doing outside of interviewing help with that. It really it really helps with with influence and all that kind of stuff.

Fei Wu:
Hi there. You're listening to the Feisworld. podcast. This is your host at Fei Wu. Today on the show, we have Aaron Keith Hawkins, who is an FBI agent and also a podcaster, an author and an executive coach. Yeah, I love this conversation because again, I look to the list of guests. I've interviewed Chris Voss being I mentioned him briefly. I haven't had a lot of police officers. Chris happens to be one of them and who also leverage his expertise as an FBI agent, hostage negotiation expert. You know, And what are some of that? You said there's some translation happening between what you do, what you learned on on the job versus what you end up teaching people. So what are some of the examples perhaps?

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, it's it's funny, you and I were talking a little bit earlier about how sometimes there's things that you don't think should be mentioned about ourselves. Like for me, it, it took me for a while to even I think I'm at, at this point I have like 50 probably by the time the show comes out we're at 50 something, maybe 60 or so episodes. And I don't know how much, if at all. I mentioned my other career during my own show. It just never came up. And I realized in hindsight is one of those things I almost felt like I didn't want to bring up because it didn't fully translate into the mindset world and entrepreneurial world just because I assumed that. People wouldn't want to hear about that. But as we were talking earlier, it's the truth is really those things about ourselves, no matter, you know. For all of you that are listening and for you for like I said, we talked about it, you know, those things that kind of make us interesting and set us apart from everybody else is really what helps the most. And I think what gives me the most leverage as as a coach and as a keynote speaker and a trainer and all this, these things that I do outside of that law enforcement world. For me, the leverage came from. Decades of experience seeing people in their worst moments or going through their worst experiences and learning for myself how to process all of that stuff.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
And it really helped on a few standpoints. Number one, as a coach and somebody who's looking to support people, whether it's in business or in a relationship, because I've coached people on different things. Some sometimes it's strictly business related, sometimes it's just relationship related. The ability to have seen some of the most horrific things really helps for me. It takes the edge off for me internally. So when I respond to whatever it is, they want help with it or they're struggling with it. For me, it softens the blow because there's not a whole lot that somebody can tell me where I'm going to be like, Oh my gosh, you're a mess. Because I've because I've seen so much more. And and it but it also helped me in a lot of ways with empathy. Empathy because you have to I had to learn in that job as a police officer to empathize without becoming overly emotional to the point where I can't kind of register and strategize, okay, what do we do from here? So having a couple of decades of caring, but also being able to isolate it, separate, look at the situation and say and say, okay, this is bad. So, all right, let's let's just deal with this and let's figure it out.

Fei Wu:
I mean, I think it makes so much sense. I interviewed a lot of doctors who do say that when they go home, they see their children and they have such a different perspective. They've seen juvenile cancer. They they've seen a lot of the the worst things that could happen at the hospital. And I think same goes for you. And I know it's hard. I mean, without sharing names and maybe specific situations like what are what are some of the memories that you may have as in that that really perhaps hit you? Because I think we can only imagine what some of the situations are. But I'd love to hear maybe a story that you could recall recently were from long, long ago.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah. I mean, there's so many. So I won't get into some stories just for the sake of, you know, making them overly dramatic. But I'll use some that are really that can really be tangible to probably most listeners. So there are times, as I'm sure you can imagine, there are times where some people wind up dealing with or having these same issues resurface repeatedly. So, for example, there may be some households where the family members are just fighting each other over and over and over again. And and, you know, I mean, this started from early in my career. We wound up going back to the same house over and over again every day, every other day, every week, at least every month. And it was just it was so exasperating to watch because you want up thinking, how are you still dealing with this same issue? You've you know, this is a problem. You know, the same issues are coming up. How have you never moved forward? And it really helped me realize that in in in business for people that are looking to succeed at something and they keep struggling in the same way, it helped me early on realize, okay, if something isn't working in business, because a lot of times entrepreneurs will be faced with the same struggles. They can't scale or they're not attracting the right clients or they can't, you know, they can't close, they're not connecting correctly with when they do reach people or if they have, you know, if it's a coach, whether it's a fitness coach, relationship coach or whatever, when they have those consultations or they have those conversations, they're just not connecting with the people in the way that they want to.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
But it's happened repeatedly. So, you know, those two stories translate because it helped me to realize that very early on, when you see a problem happen more than once, then it's time to learn something new. It really is like don't just get through the day and survive it and grin and bear it. Learn something intentionally that it's going to intervene the next time. So from a business standpoint, if if an entrepreneur is unhappy with their close rate when it comes to getting a new client for whether they're a marketer, you know, they have an agency where they whether they, you know, their mindset coach, whatever it is. If they're having that problem, they need only to learn a new skill that they can use and implement. The next time it happens. So in the case of the families, they need to learn a new skill when it comes to, okay, what am I going to do next time? This this disagreement happens in the same thing in business. They need to learn what am I going to do in the next time I'm faced with this same situation? And that's not something that it's not something it's usually thought about in that fashion, at least from my experience. But seeing that happen so many times, it's where my brain goes. First is when I see or hear of a problem, I look for a place where something can be plugged in, like exactly where this is happening and let's let's have it. Let's insert a new behavior right here and get real specific with it. And I find it to be helpful.

Fei Wu:
I think this model has worked for a lot of the people. For example, our mutual friend Jocelyn Duffy, who has figured out copywriting or writing in general that works and the writing that does not work at all. I say that and I know that's not the only style, but I'm a huge fan of seeing people finding their niche, right? Finding how they're different. And also as you acquire more customers so you can actually test out like beta test what works, what doesn't work. And I see that all the time with my work as well. Even just even with designing an online course, I see where people get stuck, where they keep moving forward. What are maybe a couple of things that you would provide to your customers? What are some of the things maybe you see as they where they get stuck?

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, I can. I'm going to I'm going to go with there's a few things and I'll say this from I'll say this from an influence standpoint, because that's just what's been top of my mind, because I've been this, this book has consumed me for the past month. And, and that's what yeah, that's what, that's what the book is about. So there are four things that come the top of mind with people that I've worked with one on one and people that I just I know of and I've seen them struggle. One of the biggest things that I, I think entrepreneurs in my experience have missed is the fact that we are always influencing like 100% at a time. What I mean by that is if you have a brand or a business, everything you do that is seen by another human being is influence. There's no turning it off. So everything that's on your social media, the way it looks, your colors, your design, how much effort you either you or your designer has put into it. Like you mentioned in. Thank you so much because you mention it. When you look at my website, it makes me feel better, like I'm practicing what I preach. You look, you said you looked at my website and right away you got it. And I see a lot of phenomenally skilled business owners who I know personally, and I know that they know their business. And if somebody would work with them, they would get a lot of help. But if I go to their site or if I go to their social media platforms.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
I wouldn't know that. Like, I only know how good they are because I've gotten to know them personally. So the problem is, one of the problems is because they and I don't say this judge mentally. They haven't completely implemented the idea that their website and their socials that's sending a message. And if the site is confusing or it's vague or it looks like it's like the first iteration of Amazon, like from the nineties, it's sending the wrong message. It's not saying in 2018, I'm the person who is the expert at this. And that inattention to the fact that that is a message that is influenced to your potential clients is is one of the biggest and one of the fortunately one of the easiest to fix is the idea that everything you're doing is sending a communication and need to re to remember that that's that's one of the big ones. The second two, I'll put them side by side. Number one is a lack of generosity. And number three is a lack of boundaries. And I know they may sound kind of counterintuitive, like, wait a minute, you're saying to be generous and put up boundaries at the same time? There's a lot of and this has changed. This has evolved. And this is one of those things that comes to paying attention to the marketplace. There are still people that are teaching that are saying if you have a skill set and you want to attract clients, you need to.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Tell people just enough so that they're interested in what you do. But don't don't really teach them anything. Just kind of teach them what they need to know and then make them pay to get to teaching. That, to me, in my experience, is an outdated way of thinking because it's 2000 at the time. This recording is 2018. Information is free. There is nothing that most of us are selling that can't be garnered for free from somewhere else. Yes, we all have our unique thing. Nobody, nobody can do what you do in the way that you do it. Just like nobody can do what I do in a way that I do it. But reality, if somebody wants to learn about influence, they probably find something, some book somewhere or somebody else teaching it and they can probably get some info with it for free. Just like you, with your podcasting and stuff. Everything is free. So the idea that we're going to hedge what we share freely is just a failing strategy. Nobody's going to be so impressed and think like, okay, so this person is telling me I need to learn about. So I'll use me for an example. If I were to go and tell people how important influence is and what the fact that it's impacting everything in their life, but then I don't give them anything to help them with it. And say, if you pay, I'll teach you what those things are.

Fei Wu:
Yeah, I know. It's almost like playing a trick on somebody. Yeah. Like, or I definitely know exactly. I've been there. I think we've all been there. Yeah, exactly. People overpromising under deliver, and you don't find out about that until you already entered your email, your contact information, and you find out nothing.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah. That their lack of generosity causes a problem. Because if you give and you give freely and it works, they'll come back. They're going to come back to you. You're not going to give somebody something that's useful. And then they say, Thank you and I never want to see you again. They're going to come back because they want to take that deeper experience with you. And as far as real quick, as far as the boundaries go. If we don't have boundaries and this may sound counterintuitive, but when I say boundaries, it's probably easiest to think of it in terms of values. People need to know what's important to you, like for me and what I hope gets exuded when people listen to either listen to my show or go to my website or whatever they read is my intention and my hope that people understand that I'm very empathetic person. I don't beat people over the head with stuff. I'm kind of a I like to kind of soften the blow a lot. That's just kind of my personality. That's who I am. So I don't try to be Gary V with people because I'm not Gary V. I happen to love Gary V. I just know that I'm not him. So if I were to try to come on to if I were going to try to present myself and my brand as Gary Vaynerchuk because he's successful, so I should emulate him.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Well, his values aren't necessarily when I say values, I don't mean his his character like he has bad values, but his his persona like who he is, you know, he presents himself as him in the same way all of us have to we have to have our boundaries around, okay, this is this is the person I am and I need to be genuine about this. And I need to let people know who I am, what I stand for, how I do business, how I communicate and have some have some strong lines in the sand as far as you know, what you're presenting to the world. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs when they're early on, there's so much for us to say, you know this, there's so much for us to learn. It's sometimes hard to convince ourselves that it's okay to just say what's important to us and be the person that we want to be without thinking that we need to appease and satisfy and make sure we don't offend everybody. I it took me a while to get over that. I'm over it now in life has gotten so much easier. Once I just decided that to forget about that stuff and just draw my lines in my sand. This is who I am. This is what's important to me. And I'm going to talk about it. Yeah.

Fei Wu:
Hi there. It's Faye again. Thanks so much for listening to part one of the interview. Don't forget there is part two and is available right now because we release two parts together every week. If you're on your podcast app, all you have to do is go to your episodes and scroll right up. Part two should appear right above part one, and if you're using a different app like I am, I love Overcast. The way that you will find part two is under unplayed episodes should also be right above part one.

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Aaron Keith Hawkins (Part 2) From SWAT Team to Podcaster and Entrepreneur.m4a: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Aaron Keith Hawkins (Part 2) From SWAT Team to Podcaster and Entrepreneur.m4a: this m4a audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Fei Wu:
Hey. Hello. How are you? This is a show for everyone else. Instead of going after Top 1% of the world. We dedicate this podcast to celebrate the lives of the unsung heroes and self-made artists. Hi there. You're listening to the Feisworld podcast. This is your host of Fei Wu. Today on the show, we have Aaron Keith Hawkins, who is an FBI agent and also a podcaster, an author and an executive coach.

Fei Wu:
I think you brought up a really important point, which is a number of points. The last one in terms of finding our own voice and how how unique do you need it to be? Sometimes we feel like we've found it. It's like, Well, wait a minute. Am I trying to sound like Seth Godin? I try to copy somebody else. I think it's like you said, it's an iteration, and a lot of people don't realize that. And I think, you know, last night when I was at a barbecue party, I was trying to, you know, having this great conversation with this 23 year old about writing. And my main message to him is that please write and hit the publish button and you are going to you're not going to find necessarily find it tonight or tomorrow, 30 days from now. I mean, it's a long time for young millennials these days, but it's a it's a process. And I also encourage people, I'm sure, Aaron, you've been blogging and posting for a while, and sometimes we go back to our earlier work and even episode one, you're like, Oh, I still want to delete this, but I can't because it's part of the show.

Fei Wu:
And I think that that is the process and how many times in our lives we can for us to do something and see the trace of it, right? Like for you being a parent, their pictures taken with your adorable young daughter, their conversations that you remember with the podcast is kind of a similar thing, that you see the growth of yourself. So that that is something I think it's really powerful and I want people to not feel bad about that. I think it's one of the message I have. In terms of something else you said about the website, I was like, Ooh, I want to say something because that's sort of what I do. And I see a lot of people not having a website because they they feel like it doesn't live up to their expectation and they're maybe right most of the time. What I was really impressed about is that you built this whole thing by yourself. Is that is that right?

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, I did.

Fei Wu:
I did. Like I did. Your background. I have I assume it's not in digital marketing or advertising.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
No, no. I'm an accidental website builder. I just it's one of those things one of the things and I'll give some props to Brendan Bouchard, who I've never met, but I've I've learned a lot from him. I think I've read every one of his books, but one of the things I heard him say years ago that wedged into my brain was that you have to believe in your ability to figure anything out. So almost everything on my website, everything I've done to this point is something that just several years back I was clueless about. And if I'm honest, these days I still feel plenty clueless about another any number of unlimited things. But along the way I've forced myself to figure things out. So. Yeah. And thank you. Yeah. I built the built my entire website on my own pretty much.

Fei Wu:
And Squarespace.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
I'm sorry, WordPress. WordPress. Yeah. So it's and again, to your point, it was a process because the first version my, my Amazon 1.0 version of my website, if I were to look at it today, it was. I would be I would be embarrassed. I would only show someone these days. Just to say, look at how bad I was and it was okay. I think if we put what we're talking about here in a nutshell, we have to be willing. We have to humble ourselves enough to be willing to to suck at something, if I can say that, like we have to be willing to say, I'm going to start even if it sucks, because probably every version of my website up to this one I was not even remotely happy with. I was in some ways embarrassed by it. But but it was. But I had a website and there were people that came there and there were people that were thanking me for some of the content was on there. And even though it wasn't perfect, even though it wasn't perfect, I was in a process of improving. And if we're willing to, we have to be humble enough because a lot of times I think our.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
And you can tell me your thoughts on this fact. A lot of times, if we're honest and I know I said I'm not I'm not Gary Webb, I'm going to be kind of blunt right now. A lot of times our ego sets us up for failure because we're not willing to have anything that's less than perfect. So if my website doesn't look like so-and-so's, then forget it. I'm not just doing it all. And that's that is you lose before you even start. If we take that stance like you mentioned early podcast episodes, I won't even listen to some of my or I don't even want to hear some of my earlier episodes because I'm like, I don't want to listen that again because I know how clueless I was. Not to say I'm anything great now, but it's I don't even go back there. It happened. I'm not ashamed of it, but it's what I was. But I've progressed from there. But, you know, we have to be willing to take that journey.

Fei Wu:
You know, a week ago, I decided to listen to episode one with Caleb Brown, and I prepared myself for awfulness. And I was, in a way, pleasantly surprised. I realized, especially the intro, right, I was okay. Once I get to the conversation part, I was like, Oh, I don't want to hear the intro again. Like, hello. You know, I imagine me talking slowly scare for no reason and bored scared or lonely because I knew exactly which part of the house I recorded this in with the wrong equipment and and I was. And then I realized like it wasn't so bad. And somebody even said to me on purpose to say that when I was already more than 100 episodes in, somebody emailed me, reach out to me and said, Oh, I went to episode one on purpose. I just want to see how far you've gone. You've come, right? Yeah. And when he said that, I was like, No, And why did you have to do that? And I realized, well, this this person has a point and I want him or her to see that. And I use the example all the time, like all the super sexy YouTubers with their 14, 20 million followers go back to their first video. Some of them do delete them, which is terrible and the shame. But if you go back to their first video, you cannot believe how far they've come. I think that's such a beautiful thing because what this in this vision or this picture we have in our mind in terms of what's good or perfect even, that's wrong. We don't even know, like using the simple example of writing or web design. Maybe everybody has a different point of view, like, Oh, that's pretty or you know, But when it comes to writing everything we learned in school, not to say there were correct grammatically and everything, but that's not the type of content that will resonate and touch other people. And nobody talks like that. You can even notice in a TV show or movie when the script is over prepared and over scripted, and people just like they can't even they are like robots.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, it's robotic.

Fei Wu:
Yeah.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, it is. It is true. And it's funny, I was mentioning a few things about influence and one of those one of the last is kind of on this point where it is, it's a practice. One of the biggest mistakes people make when they're trying to be influential is they think that they need to already be that type of person that is influential. So so they blame their personality. Like, I'm not you know, nobody's going to want to listen to my show or read my blog or they're not going to be coached by me or they're not going to want to buy my stuff because I'm just not that type of influential person. But it is not. Influence is not about our personality. It's about what we're willing to practice and get better at. And I certainly I mean, by no means I'm I've always been very introverted by nature. If you saw me in a public place at a party, I was either off on my own while everybody's mingling or I'd be with one or two. I feel more comfortable in smaller conversations, but like now I'll get in front of an audience of I don't care how many people and I'll just freely speak. I could care less who's there. Because it wasn't a matter of. It wasn't about who I was. It was what I decided to practice and train myself to be more comfortable with.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
And if and I'm sure you've gone through the same progression, like you said, you went back to your first episode because you wanted to see the progression, which inherently means you knew you're intentionally making progress and you intentionally wanted to get better at the same thing. And I think that's an important thing for for business owners or any But regardless of what somebody is doing, you could you could have a nonprofit or something that you wanted, some mission, something you wanted to get better at, even if you're just a parent and you want to be a better parent, wherever you are now does not mean that's where you need to be a month from now or a year from now, or even an hour from now. There's always the things you're doing and the impact you're having and creating is a matter of how much you're willing to learn and how much effort you're willing to put in to getting better at whatever it is you want to achieve. And it's a that's a big lesson that I wish a lot more people would. I wish I would have learned it quicker. But it's it's just something it took me a while to become aware of, which is why I kind of harp on it these days.

Fei Wu:
And I think that we need to change our perspectives and give ourselves a chance to learn well being an adult and to be able to make new friends, make get to know people who we have a true connection with instead of people and friendship by proximity. Whether you go to work and they have to be your friends. And we all know that there's we won't just naturally connect with everyone and we sort of are force in a certain situation. So by proactively reaching out, whether it's through writing or blogging or podcasting, I think it's just a fantastic way of finding your tribe. And I can't say enough about that because people in energy and the wisdom that are generated from that tribe will fuel you, you know, for the for the rest of your life. Or if that's too much of a statement, what we're really feel you in that in an extended period of time 510 years I've only been doing this for three and a half and my life has really truly changed forever. And I could tell from your voice that starting your own business, running the podcast, I've also done the same for you. You know, this is a pretty, pretty strong statement right there.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
It is. It is. And it's not. What you're saying is not an overstatement. I think we may you and I may have touched on this before in another conversation about if you were to look back five years from now, you almost it's almost like you can't recognize how things were then as as compared to how they are now. That's certainly the case. Certainly the case with me, because these relationships that I've built as I've practiced being willing to reach out to more people and be willing to have these conversations and being willing to ask for something, whether it's something that I can give or something that I need, that I want to support with being willing to go through these progressions and. Engage in the bigger mission without worrying about whether somebody else will agree or disagree with it and just knowing, okay, this is my ultimate goal. So is this thing that I'm worried about doing. Is it going to help me get to that? Is it going to serve that bigger picture? Is it going to serve that ultimate goal? And if the answer is yes, then, you know, to quote Mel Robbins in a five second rule, you know, five, four, three, two, one. Okay, I need to do it. Send the email, make the call, ask the question. As for the introduction and just do it. And and it's amazing how, like you said, your life can totally change forever just by being willing to keep stepping toward that direction.

I love it. Yeah.

Fei Wu:
Hi there. You're listening to the Feisworld podcast. This is your host at Fei Wu. Today on the show, we have Aaron Keith Hawkins, who is an FBI agent and also a podcaster and author and an executive coach.

Fei Wu:
I do want to talk about the SWAT team. And you mentioned to me two days ago, I realized what was it like? How long have you been? What are some of the tasks? I guess some of these are like high profile stories, but like, how did you become one? What is it? I've only seen it on TV and I don't know what it's all about, really.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
All right. Well, we'll do the quick rundown of that. So I was on I was on a SWAT team for 15 years, wound up leaving. I was one of the when I left, I wound up being one of the team leaders. But that started a couple of years. Well, back in the nineties, I'd been on the job a couple of years, and then I kind of got asked if I wanted to to join a tactical team and, and you know, said, Yeah, because it sound like, you know, the cool thing to do the elite so to speak thing to do and and from there it was a lot of training. We went in a few different places around the country to study with some of the people from LAPD and stuff and learn hostage rescue tactics and all that kind of thing. So it was exciting. It was definitely exciting. I was definitely around some of that experience, being with that environment, with those people that I was with, taught me a ton about standards, about raising it, and it kind of translates totally into this, you know, personal development where it sounds insane. But my my time on a SWAT team totally prepared me for this personal development world because everything we did was about having this. We had very almost ridiculously high standards for everything we did. The movements, the way we float through a house or a building.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
If we had to make an entry and search for whoever it is, the armed robber, the, you know, the murder suspect, whatever it was, everything had to be done. Like your awareness had to be at 100. But it's very important that even though your awareness and your vision was at 100%, you couldn't be in a state of paranoia. You had to also, at the same time, with this hyper awareness, you had to be hyper relaxed, like you had to be just in the flow of what you know, needed to be done. And that came from, you know, how do you get into flow? Repetition takes time. So we would do our movements, we would do our work with our equipment and weapons and all this stuff so that we were we always use the word surgical, like everything we did, we wanted to be surgical about it, meaning very precise, intentional decisions. And that totally transitioned to my mindset. Now, when it comes to having these very high standards of what I do, But what does that mean? There was perfection there. Of course not. No. But if you if you aim for that, then you're going to be pretty darn good. If you if you make your standard to be ridiculously high. And that that helped a lot prepare me for what I do now. Really.

Fei Wu:
Did you talk about like the flow of things or doing things the same way? What does that mean? I mean, oh, I am a huge fan of this TV show called The Unit. Okay? And and it's I think it's based on a book, Delta Force, written by this gentleman I happen to be friends with on Facebook. And I'm not really his friend. It's one of.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
The first book on.

Fei Wu:
My show. And it's such a it's incredible. I thought that and I think when you what's fascinating and I typically I don't really watch a lot of Army movies or shows, but this one happens to be just so well curated and like, shot together and like, I think a lot of brutality, but there's also a lot really emotional and sensitive to it. I think one thing that they talk about doing things the same way, including the way you walk into a room, the way that the team is organized and who's first, second, third, you know, the way that is that like what are some of the things I find those really fascinating?

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, some of it's funny how one thing I have to tip my cap sometimes to the film industry these days, both television and movies, because even though they are not realistic in the sense of all the over-the-top stuff, that's almost obvious. Sometimes there are times that I'll watch and really depends on the show. But there have been more times in recent years than in previous years that some of the tactics and the mindset and the stuff they do is a a lot closer to reality than it was. You know, in the eighties. If you watch some if you watch some SWAT show in the eighties or seventies, I was jumping out of the back of the van and hut and they look like soldiers. And I look at it, I'm like, What is that? It's just the weirdest thing. But yes, to answer your question about flow, some of the things are, number one, like you said, it's a lot of repetition and we got to the point where we literally can. Communicate and we could clear a huge building, warehouse, anything without ever speaking a word, and we could tell each other what to do, what not to do, what we're worried about. Simply with a head gesture or a hand symbol. It was like it was it was an entire language and then predetermined movements based on those that that unspoken language and signals that would help us accomplish what we needed to do very quickly without almost without any friction amongst ourselves.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Like we knew what needed to be done without speaking, what needed to be done. So just little things like always checking your corners, remembering that you're in a 360 degree environment. So don't just look in front of you. You have to look down. You have to look up because there could be a threat in any location like a lot of this stuff. And it became so natural. But it translates because in business, like it's just it's simply if you break it down, it's a matter of setting rules. And in practicing those rules intentionally over and over again. Well, think about that in business. I mean, the way you treat customers, how quickly respond to an email, you know, how you schedule your next day or don't schedule your next day depending on those habits and those rules that you set up and how committed you are to following through with them. That creates flow. And either either you're not doing those things that you know need to be done and then it becomes a flow, a negative flow. Like you just create habits that aren't useful. Or in this case, like we became very committed to, to movements and communication so that they become they became second nature and they kept us safe like we 15 years. We never took a life and we never lost one in my in my little, you know, a relatively small part of the world. But it certainly worked. It certainly worked for us.

Fei Wu:
I mean, New Jersey and New Jersey and New York, the area, it's not exactly free from crimes. I mean, they're not you know what I mean? Like, when I think about I think Chris Voss also worked in New York back in the early nineties eighties, and he said he went through a phase of like people walking up to him and he's ready to fight and which is not the case anymore these days. But one thing I noticed that people probably will ask you a lot is like, Oh, why don't you teach self-defense? Or I think a better question how do those skills potentially translate to our day to day activities? And I don't know whether you've ever encountered outside of work, once you're in a dark alley or you're maybe with your family walking around like unfamiliar town, like what do you do in that situation?

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, for me, I didn't really I was never one of those people whose were that career really took over my home life. So like one of the one of the best pieces of advice I got many years ago was from one of the guys I used to work with. He's retired now, but he told me when I got married back in 1996, he said, Whatever you do, if you listen to nothing else I ever say, do not take this job home with you. And I knew before I even started a job, I knew that I didn't want to become I didn't want my identity to be attached to the career that was just never who I was. I never wanted that to be. My identity to the point where if somebody introduced me as a cop, I would get so pissed off because to me it was like, okay, if I were an insurance salesman, you would have not introduced me as, Hi, this is my friend Aaron. He's an insurance salesman. That just, just doesn't happen. But it's just it was weird because in my career, not everyone, but a lot of people would introduce me as that. And I developed for a while and it's not there anymore. But for a while I had this. I had this self-consciousness about it where I didn't want to be. I didn't want to be associated with that. I wanted people to get to know me, not me, because they had assumptions about who I was because of what I did for a living.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
But it did. But little things that did carry over. Like if we go to restaurants. I never wanted to be seated with my back to the door. I always wanted to be seated facing the door because, I mean, we all know how insane society can be if something like that were to happen. I wanted to immediately see it before it played out because I, I inherently notice things that a lot of times it better out of place. But I want to I want to I want to be in a position to see it first. Little stuff like that helps. What really helps that can transition to our listeners. And one of the things that I learned, one of the best skills I learned of the many skills I learned being on that that SWAT team for so many years was visualization. There's a lot of in a self-help world, a lot of people talk about visualizing your goal or visualizing what you want your life to be. And and people do that. They'll say, you know, picture the house you want to live in and where do you want it to be? What country, what is your bank account look like? And all that kind of stuff and visualizing it and goal, which in my experience isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but I think it misses the point because what we did a lot of was visualizing the process.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
So in other words, if we knew we had a preplanned event and we were going to look for person X in this home and we think he's usually in this area of the home, like we would have all these things played out. We knew that the end goal was to detain this person without anyone getting hurt. That was a goal. But we didn't visualize being standing in a room still with him on the ground, handcuffed. That's it. That didn't help. I mean, that's visualizing that isn't going to help you get there. What does help as you visualizing step A, how are we approaching what's our route? Step B, what are we going to see when we get out of our transport step? See, you know, what's our entry point? Where are we going? Once we get through that, we're visualizing every single step along the way. Where were the potential threats? Who else is in the home? Were visualizing everything up until the point where the goal is accomplished? The goal accomplished was almost irrelevant. That was never for me. It was never part of my visualization was not. Yeah, we arrested him like that was never given a thought. My my process. And literally with eyes closed, we would almost like meditating When we were transporting on the way to do a job, you would see umpteen big dudes all geared up with automatic weapons with their eyes closed, and you just see their heads bobbing because we were visualizing the process of what it was going to take to accomplish that goal safely.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
That is what I think is missing from a lot of people in the business world. Everybody has the vision boards with their episode on Oprah and, you know, jet skiing with yeah, jet skiing with Richard Branson and all that kind of stuff, which is great. Don't get me wrong. I'm not I'm not speaking negatively against those things because I have friends that did some vision boards and they have some amazing stories about what they accomplished after having done that. But the more important, what actually makes the difference is being intentional and visualizing what is it? What's the next thing I'm going to have to do to get there? What is every step along the way? How am I going to get it done? What's what is likely to get in my way when when those obstacles happen? How do I overcome them? And I think that type of visual visualization is what gets it done. Whereas if you're just looking at the white sandy beaches and forgetting about there's a whole lot of travel to do before you get there, that's where that's what gets people frustrated because, you know, I've known plenty of people that say, look, you know, it's been so it's been six months since I've, you know, started visualizing. I'm still not there. I'm like, well, how much of the process did you visualize? Like, what are your steps along the way?

Fei Wu:
Yeah. And then also, I think the mentality that you guys have, it's so many people think about only the obstacles and risk because they don't take a single step. But for you guys, there is and it's a really that's the art of the balance really is to be able to to predict some of them and knowing that you might not be perfect and all the way right to the T and but not be paralyzed by those obstacles and still be able to move forward, I think, my goodness, that's like why people like Seth Godin and Brian Koppelman exists. I mean, that's kind of what they teach. And yeah, that, that journey and you've you've lived through it, like you said, two decades, and that's already the party. It's like in your blood, like it's part of your DNA.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, sure it is.

Fei Wu:
Yeah. And to be able to teach that because you've lived through it and this was so awesome. Thank you for spending another 15 minutes. I think your listeners in particular will love what you just talked about.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Yeah, you do that. See, I loved that we did this because that's not something that I would have chose to talk about on Unbreakable Success. So thank you for kind of helping me to share a little bit about myself in my world that my, my listeners.

Fei Wu:
Definitely thanks to our listeners, but also Aaron's listeners. And I hope that you get so much out of who you are. You have you're this super friendly, down to earth guy. You know, you've got this natural instinct about you and the feeling you project onto your customers. Other people, I think, is there to be shared with the world. So I'm so glad.

Aaron Keith Hawkins:
Thank you. Thank you so much for your kind words and kind words for honestly, I appreciate that very much. It's both humbling and flattering and for sure. I'm very grateful to have met you. Thanks again to to Jocelyn for introducing us and love what you're up to. Love the show and your your willingness to take that that journey that you took. And we'll probably we should get into it more next time. But your journey from from where you were and and coming over to the states and and deciding to plant your flag here. I'm glad that you stuck around and are doing what you're doing in the world today because it's making a it's definitely making an impact. So I appreciate you.

Fei Wu:
Hi there, It's me again. I want to thank you very much for listening to this episode, and I hope you were able to learn a few things. If you drill what you heard, it will be hugely helpful if you could subscribe to the Feisworld podcast. It literally takes seconds if you're on your mobile phone, just search for Feisworld Podcast in the podcast app on iPhone or an Android app such as Podcast Addict and click subscribe. All new episodes will be delivered to you automatically. Thanks so much for your support.

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