SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Cut the Tie Podcast. Hello. I'm your host, Thomas Helfrick. On that mission to help you cut the tie to whatever it is holding your back from success. You got to define the success yourself so you can own it. And so when you get there, or get near it at least, it's yours. Today I am joined by Mr. Robert Kennedy the third.

SPEAKER_02: 0:16

Yeah. Do me a favor. I I say that say that again for me. I'm a speaker and I like to make a little bit of an introduction or an entrance sometimes. So just say, ladies and gentlemen, introducing Robert Kennedy the third.

SPEAKER_00: 0:28

For those who are listening, by the way, I can't see it. He's got a like a really nice setup. So I went dark mode too. And so we're going to try this just one more time. To the backdrop of Smooth Jazz, ladies and gentlemen, Robert Kennedy. Robert the third. No, wait, the thrice.

SPEAKER_01: 0:46

Uh yeah, it's Robert Kennedy the third. Late night tunes in the sand dunes.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

Dial in, maybe we can answer them. Might not be the right answer.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01

Yeah. Hold on. I was gonna do one. I was gonna do a different one really quickly. Here we go. Come on. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08

And if you saw it on video, you would see the confetti as well. There we go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12

I would say I think I'm not worried right now. I would have put up in uh I'm gonna I'm gonna increase my blue just a little bit.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19

There we go.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20

I love it. I don't know how you get such a dark blue. Well, my wall is blue. Does that help? Because my my that's a dark blue and it looks like scion.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28

Well, I I also don't have, I mean, I'm using three-point lighting. I don't have any up under whatchamacallit. I don't have any above lights on. I don't know. It's just it's the wall, it's the uh the accent lighting in the background.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41

Uh yeah, it's good. It's brilliant. Uh take a moment to introduce yourself and what it is you do.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48

Oh, what it is that I do. Well, how about this? Let me ask your audience a couple of questions. Have you ever asked yourself, um, why come some people seem to have an easier time in business? Or maybe you've asked, how come some people just seem to be listened to no matter what room they're in and just have more influence? Or you might have said to yourself, I hate the grind of cold calling and outbound work. If any of that has ever happened to you, if any of that has ever entered your space and you are a small business owner, what my company, Kinetic Communications, does is we work with small business owners and teach them how to tell their stories on stage and on video so that they can generate uh more visibility and attract their ideal audience.

SPEAKER_00: 2:33

I like that. I feel like you've coached yourself to talk about that.

SPEAKER_02: 2:37

Maybe just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 2:39

When you're describing those things, I'm saying, is it is the requirement ever having that thought or just all three in the last hour? Because I qualify them both.

SPEAKER_02: 2:46

Well, well, listen, if you have it in the last hour, let's go. Let's we need a session right now.

SPEAKER_00: 2:51

Dare. It probably a better show format, right? No, um that's awesome. So I I love it because it aligns to kind of our philosophy of uh uh is people are trying to figure out what they do and they solve and they're out and they try to build a business. One of the biggest things they struggle with is being comfortable telling people what it is they do. And there's a lot of reasons for that. We can dive into that a little bit. Uh yeah. But uh before we get going, I I try to address our ADHDers who just can't listen. They have to look at something too. Give somebody one link for them to properly stalk you while you're talking today.

SPEAKER_02: 3:21

Robert Kennedy3.me. How about that? Robert Kennedy, the number three, alpha numeric, Robert Kennedy3.me.

SPEAKER_00: 3:28

Was III already taken?

SPEAKER_02: 3:30

No, I have that too. But uh, you know, it's just people mess that up sometimes. They put two eyes instead of three, and I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 3:39

That's good. I'm from my dad's name's Thomas Helfric, my son's name is Thomas Helfric. Actually, we both share a birthday, which is I love it. But we had different middle initials, which is handy when you travel, especially if you have the same birthday. Just yeah, uh all right. Tell me a bit, uh uh before we get to your story and your journey, tell me how do you define success?

SPEAKER_02: 3:58

Wow. Success for me is contentment and happiness. That's that's at the end of the day. I mean, I could have all the money in the world, I could have all of the traveling capabilities in the world, I could have all of the influence in the world. But if at the end of the day, when I put my head down under my pillow, I'm yeah, I'm I'm like, oh my god, this sucks. Uh that's not success.

SPEAKER_00: 4:22

You just need a new pillow, it sounds like just get a new pillow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:25

Um, yeah, I I it's happiness, man. Being able to end each day with a smile on your face. You could be dog tired, fatigued, but being able to say, Yes, I loved what I did today. That's success, man.

SPEAKER_00: 4:38

I love that. And and the reason I love that is because uh especially the dog tired part. Sometimes my favorite days are when I'm so exhausted from working and going to, let's say, play tennis or doing something like you know, just maybe be in the yard for 12 hours.

SPEAKER_01: 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:52

Which I usually would hate it, but I'm like, so sometimes it's just that feeling of satisfaction. You just kind of did it all today. Like you gave it all. I actually like this. It's the days where I feel restless, I didn't do enough, are the ones I can't sleep. Yep. Like I feel like I just wasted a day and I cannot stand wasting time. So um that being said, I love playing video games. Yeah, uh, let's go. What's your favorite game? I'm a mobile guy, I'm like a tower defense guy that you know, like I I have a game that I literally I've found a way to uh let my computer run it.

SPEAKER_02: 5:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 5:21

Sleep. And so it just runs on automation, and then I do the things and I love it for that reason. It's an eight-hour run, and then I go, it's an it's a it's a long-term idol game. So nice. Nice nice. I like using here or there. Uh tell me about your journey a little bit and uh maybe one of those ties that you had to cut the metaphoric ones to achieve that success.

SPEAKER_02: 5:40

So my journey is is I don't want to say sorted, but it's just it's ins, outs, etc. Probably as many entrepreneurs. So I was a I was a teacher, I was a high school teacher for about seven years. I taught physics and biology. And while I was teaching, I decided I wanted to start a couple of businesses. So my first business was a gospel music online promotions portal. I got together with a friend who had an online radio station. We merged part, we merged uh businesses or we merged ideas and became one of the top websites in the in the nation at the time. And so after that, we had people coming onto the show or onto the site that were independent musicians or independent artists, and we found that some of them didn't have any websites. Ding, ding, ding, ding, business opportunity. We started to develop websites for some of them. So I was doing this while teaching, though. So uh I got a job as a faculty for an online university. I was doing a little bit less of that business at the time, but I transitioned from one state to another. And 10 days after I got to the new state, I lost my job online. And so I'm doing what everybody else does: sending out applications, interviews, monster.com, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of that. But I'm getting no responses at all. And I've got three kids, uh, five, two, and seven months at this point. And I'm like, geez, I gotta do some stuff. I gotta contribute to the household. So I knew some stuff in instructional design. I started to develop courses. And after I started to do that for a little bit, I got enough contracts and decided to start a company. So this was my first company that I was 100% entrepreneur in and did that for about five years. That company imploded spectacularly, partly because I didn't know what I was doing as an entrepreneur. And I went back to corporate for about 10 months. The company that I was working for lost their government contract, so I had to go back to myself. And so I eventually started to speak and train and do a lot more of that, and ultimately ended up forming a training company, Kinetic Communications, which is where we are now. And so I do a lot of workshops, training, keynote speaking. And yeah, we're building from there, man. That's that's the journey. That's the short story.

SPEAKER_00: 8:06

I mean, that's that's a great journey though. I mean that you, you know, you have the pivots, you solve it, uh, when you can go in instead of like, you know, clinging to I'm sure you have those moments where like, oh, this is all happening to me. What the hell? I you know, this isn't how it's supposed to be. But you just get through it. Um you get through in a way that at some point you're like, oh, I I'm actually making money and I'm having fun. Yeah. We were talking about golf a little bit. I mean, we're like, I can actually go golf once in a while. Um you gotta watch that, by the way. You gotta really manage your golf time because I not only burn holes in your pocket for money.

SPEAKER_02: 8:37

Well, I go to the range more often than than the uh than the actual course, because that can uh yeah, greens fees can build up and you know exactly takes time.

SPEAKER_00: 8:47

Uh well on that journey, uh, you know, it what was what would you how would you define though that tie? Was it was it the you know, these are common, right? Like it's the I was this, I was supposed to be that. Uh what would how would you describe kind of the biggest like thing that was holding you back that you're like I'm just gonna quit doing that? I'm I'm emotionally or whatever, gonna quit doing it.

SPEAKER_02: 9:07

I think it's it for many entrepreneurs, especially if you're coming out of nine to five or higher W-2 work, it is the safety net. It's the safety of, okay, yeah, if this doesn't work out, I can go back to that. Uh as a matter of fact, when my company, the first company that I was, that I was in 100% as an entrepreneur, when that blew up and I was trying to figure out what's next, a lot of my family and friends were like, hey, why don't you go back to teaching? Why don't you become a teacher again? And uh in my mind, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense, but no, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. If I if I detour, if I go back to that, then um, how will I that just delays me figuring out or finding out what the next great thing is? And so I put my head down and it and it hurt, it didn't make sense. Um, my wife was mad at me for a little bit, and people were like, What the hell is this guy doing? Uh, but you know, after after a bit, we figured it out, man, and here we are. So yeah, I I would say that's the safety's the safety net is what I had to cut.

SPEAKER_00: 10:15

Interesting. Have you found since uh you know you you're you're finding success, and there's ups and downs, you know, and various levels of that. Uh we don't need details of that because we all as entrepreneurs everyone knows. Yeah, um, your perception of success and building something from nothing takes time. Yeah, it creates fights at home. You could have done this, we don't have that, you know. It then you know anyway. So but the unless you're in it, even if you're married to that person, because I'm in this with my wife as well, is is is that you you just understand how hard it is to go build something from nothing.

SPEAKER_01: 10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:47

And and like, you know, did you ever struggle? Well, you're a teacher, so I'm gonna assume you weren't making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year either.

SPEAKER_01: 10:53

So not a little bit.

SPEAKER_00: 10:55

But but the point being is but like a lot of entrepreneurs, you myself, you know, there's an expectation on the other side. I said, Hey, you were making that. Uh why you I'm like, you know, it took me 15, 20 years in a career to get to that level a few hundred thousand. I go, you can't expect me to have hit that four years of self-entrepreneurship. Right. Um in yours, did you have that kind of journey that that that reflection moments when it's like it's not, you know, you're not you're not making what you used to. You should go back. And people are pushing you because it it serves their needs, but you're like, it's not gonna serve mine, and now we're at a right.

SPEAKER_02: 11:27

We're at a fine. So it wasn't even that I wasn't making what I used to, it was more so the consistency of it. You know that we even it's yeah, expectation of yeah, yeah. Every two weeks something's gonna be in the bank account, you know, without you know, I failed.

SPEAKER_00: 11:43

That way as entrepreneurs and leading or what you can afford, it's going to probably be less than initially. It's like you gotta look at it as a bonus. Yeah, it's like yeah, that's a I mean, that's a big mess. So I'm I'm I tell I bring that up because uh that's I mean, almost everybody goes through that. And I think you gotta you gotta prepare yourself. Uh I did a shit job with my wife to kind of prepare her for that. Um probably too many promises and not enough reality of like he's gonna be like this. Um so those out there, prepare for it. And it's not gonna go great.

SPEAKER_02: 12:14

Yep. Yep. And and and and the I guess the other piece of that is not only is it not going to go great immediately, it probably can go great, and then you'll run into a uh a wall or you'll hit a bump and it's not great again. And you're like, crap, weren't we here like five years ago? I thought we got past this. I thought we were, I thought we knew we we learned some lessons and got better at this entrepreneuring thing. Um, why are we here again? Right. And so there are there are different cycles and phases and seasons that you walk through that uh it's you know, you you just have to be committed to the journey.

SPEAKER_00: 12:54

You do. Uh, and that will be sometimes in face of those around you that are with you or you see on holidays and weekends, and uh the silent friends who just kind of like, why is he doing that? Why is he knowing that it it's yes, and you don't know, it might end up in a shit. I didn't do it, I didn't make it. You know it's there, right? And the thing you're like, anyway. Uh part our journey with it. Uh tell me about your own kind of business and your own journey here of of you know, you really landed a very specific niche of telling your story. A lot of people don't do that. Uh fair to say that it didn't all come to you right away. No, okay. Talk to me about that piece because uh part of the ties to success is realizing you can't be everything for everyone, which I'm sure you were at some point because we all are. Tell me about the journey and when you you felt the moment of this is what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02: 13:41

Yeah. So I mean, in in some ways, we we're still dialing in to what we want, right? But what was happening was so I was developing courses. We were doing online learning and and creating courses for government orgs, other organizations. And I would get hired by companies to come teach them uh about how to build the courses and do some technical training on specific software. And so every time I did that, I just you know had my way of doing doing stuff that may have been different from some other instructors. And so I kept getting this question hey, what else do you teach? Are you a speaker? Are you a motivational speaker? Are you an inspirational speaker? What do you what do you do? Are you a speaker? And I'm like, I didn't I didn't know that people got paid to speak. I mean, I I grew up, I'm a PK, I'm a preacher's kid, right? So I'm like, those are the people that I knew that got paid to speak, and they didn't get paid a hell of a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 14:36

South because uh they they uh they make some money down here.

SPEAKER_02: 14:41

Uh well, you know, that's that is the ones that we know on TV, but the the the majority of of preachers and pastors uh are not making a whole lot of money. As a matter of fact, uh the biblical principle of poverty is revered.

SPEAKER_00: 15:00

We're gonna take that on a different show today.

SPEAKER_02: 15:02

Yeah, I know. So um, so I I didn't know that that that was a thing. So I started to research the industry. I started to look at speaking, and I started to I figured out how to do some of that and how to get hired. And as I was getting hired for that, I started to speak about leadership. And as I spoke about that, I said, uh, that's cool. I like that. But I started to lean into the area of communication quite a bit more, and I found out holy smoke, this is this is what I actually like. As a matter of fact, if I think back to high school, I took a career inventory exam, and it was like the two careers that you might be good for are communication and uh electrical engineering. I'm like, okay, yeah, those make sense. Um, but there's communication's been a thread throughout my life. And so if you want to talk communication and stories and how we can communicate, I can do that all day. I can do that all day.

SPEAKER_00: 15:57

Let's take a tangent normally for my normal piece. I think it's important uh for people finding their success. I think this is a very, very big core element is uh for a lot of people, is they don't know how to tell a story uh well. And specifically when it's about them or something they do, it gets even worse because there's defensiveness, there's apologetics, there's all the things that go into it. Give them the give them the one, two, three of, you know, with the idea that they gotta come to you to get more than that. But give them the one, two, three of do this, don't do that, and whatever, or however you'd like to frame that. Just give them the core advice to tell it.

SPEAKER_02: 16:27

Yeah. So I mean there's several pieces of this. Number one, people's anxieties that they've got to walk through. And then once you walk through your anxiety, how do you tell a story in a way that is compelling for people? And stories have four main elements: context, characters, conflict, conclusion, right? A lot of us start with the conclusion, or we start with the product, the program, uh, the process, especially if you're in business. We say, hey, I'm selling this, hey, I got this. Uh, and that's not a story. That that is a sales pitch, right? So, how do you start with a how do you create a journey for your audience? Well, you got to connect with them first. And that starts with an experience, an emotion that they may be having. You asked me to introduce myself and I started with a question. Hey, are you experiencing this? Hey, have you ever felt this?

SPEAKER_00: 17:16

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02: 17:17

Because we're creating connection right away. So once we create connection, I can then lead you down a path to a process. I can lead you down a path to a program or a product. So we want to start with that conflict in the story so that we can really talk to the pain, the challenge, the struggle that people the the the the what's the word that I'm looking for? Um the connectedness with prior experiences that people may have had that they like, didn't like, want to have, don't want to have.

SPEAKER_00: 17:51

If we can do that imagining in their own minds, yeah, it draws them back into something while they're being captivated by the words and they're making those associations to you. Yep. And and had based on what the question you asked, could be positive or negative, but uh exactly that that connection back creates true, like, you know, connect of neurons of like I think that I feel this way now from a chemical reaction based on something you just said.

SPEAKER_02: 18:15

Yeah, well, listen, that is actually a scientific thing. So when I teach people about speaking or sharing their stories, one of the ways that I share with them to start is I share with them ask a question. Here's what that does: there's a scientific process called instinctive elaboration, which essentially means that when you ask a question, the brain can't help but answer it. So when you ask a question, the mind immediately our brains are set up to look for patterns. They're looked, they look for connections. There's looking for points to connect one chain link to the from one to the other. And so when you ask a question, your brain is like, let me let me roll through my Rolodex of experiences. Rolodex for those of you that are born after 1990.

SPEAKER_00: 18:58

Actually, we got it. Everybody else, Yen Z Google it on your chat GPT machine.

SPEAKER_02: 19:03

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So your brain is like you know, sorting through this to see, okay, have I experienced that? Do I want to experience that? Is that good? Did I like it? So when you ask a question, that's the idea to get them not focused on you, not focused on the thing that's that you're offering, but focused on an experience that they have had. And when they can get to that experience, they will bring up some feelings that they've had, some emotions that they've had around that experience. And so, man, it's creating connection is is the is the cheat code since we're talking video games. It's the cheat code for for making life uh for making business work.

SPEAKER_00: 19:41

Which game do you think is most representative of life?

SPEAKER_02: 19:45

Jeez, man, that isn't on the list.

SPEAKER_00: 19:47

No, it wasn't on the list.

SPEAKER_02: 19:48

Okay, all right. Uh I I might even say that again.

SPEAKER_00: 19:53

I'm gonna throw that. Oh, golly. It's like a Vaseline ball coming at you a hundred miles.

SPEAKER_02: 19:58

I mean, it doesn't have to be a video game, could it be? Like Monopoly?

SPEAKER_00: 20:01

That's a game.

SPEAKER_02: 20:02

Yeah. I think Monopoly, or it may even be the game of life. Like if you were if you're into board games.

SPEAKER_00: 20:09

I played that one at least seven times this year a lot. Yeah. Don't quite get how you win, because I think we have our own set of rules. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always skip the family part. She's like, why do you always skip the family area? I'm like, no reason, honey. No. Because I've because I've done that for real. And uh actually, I usually put two dudes in the front seat. She's like, You're skate. I'm like, yep. Slide game. I do it every time. Like, give me two chicks. Yep. I'm two chicks this time. Do you see that side tangent of what we just did there? Uh, should we go with some more smooth jazz or just something more on the like 70s porn sound? Like a double game.

SPEAKER_02: 20:47

Oh man, I don't even know if I have those pulled up right now, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:50

You had that ready to go. I had questions additionally for you. Uh while you're looking at that, uh, what are you most grateful for in your life today?

SPEAKER_02: 20:59

Man, there's so many things. I don't know if I could say most. I'm I'm grateful for breathing. I'm grateful for waking up in the morning. I'm grateful that like sometimes when I step off the bed, there's a little pain in my heel that reminds me that you gotta stretch a little bit more. That, dude, you're not 29 anymore. I'm grateful for my wife. I'm grateful for my kids. My daughter, my oldest, graduated from college in May, and she we just moved her into her first apartment last week because she's gonna work in a different state. I'm grateful for all of that, man. That is beautiful. I'm grateful for business failures.

SPEAKER_00: 21:31

You learned from those that usually springboard you to they usually springboard you to do better and bigger and be better prepared for the next set that comes.

SPEAKER_02: 21:39

Yeah, I mean, that's the wrong question to ask me. What am I grateful for, man? We can go. I go.

SPEAKER_00: 21:44

I mean, listen, you had you had me at I'm breathing. Yeah. So that's a solid one. That's a pretty nice one. If you could go back anywhere, though, in your timeline, when would you go back? What would you do differently?

SPEAKER_02: 21:55

One point in my life. So when I graduated from college, I was working in the mental health industry. And there was a building when I would go to work that was calling my name, Robert, every time I drove by it. And one day I finally went in and it was a radio station. So I talked to the owner, and I was working as an intern with the news anchor for a little bit. And after a while, I was offered the opportunity to be the full-time news anchor for the radio station. And the owner said, he called me and he said, Hey, yep, you gotta wake up at three, you gotta get here by 3:30, do these things, and you gotta be ready for broadcast at five. And uh, you know, you'll do this for five or six hours, and then your day will end. And oh, by the way, the pay is like six dollars an hour. And at that point, I had a black tinted, chromed out Acura Integra that I was flossing, and I had to pay for that and my apartment and different things. I was like, Yeah, six dollars an hour, that's that's not gonna work. And so um I turned down the gate at three 350, three in the morning.

SPEAKER_00: 23:10

I'm like, listen, I don't care what you're doing, you take a dick more than six bucks an hour at three o'clock in the morning. Like, you're not just drop life.

SPEAKER_02: 23:17

You know, I I would have changed that decision. If that's the only decision that I can think about in my life that I would go back and change, I would have told them yes and figured out how to make it work.

unknown: 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 23:26

Dotten another side gig or whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 23:29

So you'd be like, man, I'm out of here.

SPEAKER_02: 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 23:32

It's crazy. Um do you have like a book that you think every entrepreneur on the planet should read?

SPEAKER_02: 23:39

I believe every entrepreneur on the planet should read The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. What'd you get from that book? Well, so it talks about how there is this raging battle for creatives or anybody who has an idea that is out of the norm. And when you have that idea, there's this concept, this thing, this being that he labels the resistance that always pushes against you. Every time you commit to something, the resistance shows up to do its darndest to keep you from doing it. And the resistance is supposed to be there. Most of us fight against the resistance or fight to avoid the resistance, but the resistance is kind of how you know you're on the right track and you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. And it's actually strengthening you to go to the next level. So that it's a great book. Um, The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield.

SPEAKER_00: 24:38

Now, if there was a question I should have asked you today, and I didn't, what would that question have been?

SPEAKER_02: 24:43

Ah, what is a question that you should have asked me? I think the question that I like to answer is what advice, what business advice, or what life advice would I have given my 25-year-old self from today?

SPEAKER_00: 25:01

You gotta answer that one too, though.

SPEAKER_02: 25:03

So the answer is ignore the haters and push forward and know that it's going to be okay. You don't have to please everybody, you don't have to have everybody agree with you. Not everybody's gonna like what you do, but be courageous and push forward.

SPEAKER_00: 25:28

I mean, you can give that yourself to yourself right now. Yeah, anyway, you'll be good.

SPEAKER_02: 25:32

Yeah, I believe it now. I I didn't I didn't know it back then. I thought I had to follow the rules, man.

SPEAKER_00: 25:38

That's right. All right, who do you want to get a hold of you and how do they do that?

SPEAKER_02: 25:42

I would love for any service-based small business owner or real estate professional to get in touch with me. And they can do that by going to RobertKennedy3.me. As a matter of fact, we have some challenges coming up soon. A challenge called Amplify Your Voice with Video. If they go to amplifyvoiceandvideo.com, they can register for our upcoming challenges.

SPEAKER_00: 26:06

Thank you so much, by the way, for coming on. Should we exit slowly with some um with more smooth channels?

SPEAKER_02: 26:10

More smooth.

SPEAKER_00: 26:11

Let's do that. Here we are. Everybody watching the cut the tie podcast. Thank you so much. It's your first time here. Oh, first time many. Get out there, go cut the tie.