127: How to Use Curiosity to Thrive and Make an Impact with Cameron Brown

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Cameron Brown. Cameron is an award-winning composer, international speaker, and founder of Thriving Collective a world-wide movement dedicated to helping people reach their true potential. Cameron has been featured everything from TEDx to ABC and Millennial Magazine. He was born in the outback of Australia and started playing piano at a young age. His story has a lot of ups and downs and twists and turns which he will share with you today.

In 2016, he sold or donated 99% of the things he owned and embarked on a global initiative called the “Impact diaries” to inspire people to make a greater positive impact in the world. And just this year, he official partnered with National Geographic as a National Geographic Explorer.

Cameron has a developed a very compelling and unique way of speaking and teaching through what he calls Multi-Sensory talks where he speaks to audience while mixing in playing piano and a complete video experience embedded in.

Cameron credits all of his success to the incredible impact that curiosity can have on your life and we break that down with him in this episode.

www.ThrivingCollective.com

@AskCameronBrown on social

Cameron says he’s had a number of big defining moments in his life. One of them was in mid-2010 when they heard screaming from his neighbor that her son had just killed himself. He and another went running through the house and found the deceased. Cameron remembers most taking care of the siblings and pretending like nothing was going on, playing with them to keep them occupied, but to then see the father come home with a look of helplessness and the rest of the family. Cameron took away some very important truths from the experience. First, not one should ever have to go through that type of experience. Second, that there are others ways out and that there had to be a way to help people that are going through these tough times.

With a couple months, Cameron had enrolled in his first coaching course on personal development to help people. He learned a lot about himself and started to help people have breakthroughs. This grew and allowed him to start working with businesses to help them overcome their biggest challenges around the country.

Cameron’s work and other experiences lead him to ask 2 really important questions:

1. What do I really want to experience out of this life?
2. Am I really living?

The answer to the 2nd question was “no.” He made significant changes to his business to allow him to live more fully and begin to enjoy all aspects of life instead of just being focused on work.

He traveled and had had adventures, tried new things, met new people…and this really made him realize that life really is about experiences and he decided to find a way to blend helping others and companies with doing through a great experience.

What is the most important thing you have learned on your journey to this point?

• Earlier on, it would have been about taking responsibility for your life.
• Today, curiosity is the most valuable thing to nurture because it takes you into the unknown and helps to grow as a person.

Pay attention at the 9 min mark as Cameron talks about the benefits of curiosity in our lives and how it serves as the gateway to creativity and innovation.

At the 13 min mark, Cameron answers the question” How did the music side come to be in your life and how does it work with what you do?”

• Cameron’s favorite question to ask is “If it all ended today, what would the one thing you would regret not doing?”
• For Cameron, this was having a grand piano on stage while giving a talk. He set out to do it and visualized it daily. 3 months later, it was reality.
• Music often gets around the conscious mind to the subconscious and opens us in different ways.

Talk to us about the process of manifestation – how does someone go from visualization to get the real result?

• First, you must believe it is possible to achieve what you desire.
• One you believe, you can visualize.
• Then practice G.O.Y.A. Get off your ass! Take the inspired action.
• Be relentless in your pursuit.
• At the end of the day, it is about your being in alignment with who you want to become.

What did growing up in the outback of Australia teach you about how to succeed in life and business?

• The power and potential that technology has to allow to achieve things we would not necessarily be able to achieve. Because of growing up in a rural environment. Cameron took his singing lessons by phone because there wasn’t a singing teach in town.
• The value of time by yourself. As entrepreneurs, things can get lonely. Learning to be ok by yourself is a great skill to learn.
• The power of the mind to drive creativity.

What should people know about maximizing technology in their lives?

• We are already hybrid beings. Things may not be in us, but our phones, tablets computers, etc. are extensions of us.
• We have an operating system and it is either performing at its best or not. Our lives are the same and we must upgrade as technology allows us.
• You can choose how you can use or not use technology to upgrade your operating system.
• Things that hold us back are the scrolling through the social media feed or surfing the net or responding to every notification that comes up on our phone.
• To maximize your life, first audit and look at what areas you have that you don’t feel like you are in control.
• Can you use technology to close the gaps? Can you schedule “sprints” of uninterrupted work? Look at how you can create space in your life to make sure the technology does not run you.

Other advice?

• We have to prioritize ourselves and not the external world dictate who we are or what we do.
• If you don’t fill your calendar, someone or something else will.
• Treat yourself as your very best client. You wouldn’t cancel time you have with them.
• The first thing that goes when we get busy is our time for ourselves.

What are the 3 Impacts?

1. We make an impact on our lives
2. We make an impact on others’ lives
3. We make an impact on the planet

The big insight is that you can be succeeding in your business and taking care of others, but if that is out of alignment with taking care of your environment – then what you are doing in the other 2 areas, you can still have a negative impact.

• Doing even the smallest things can have an impact.

Tell us about curiosity and being comfortable with being uncomfortable…

• Curiosity is one of the most valuable and least used skills we practice
• The quality of your life will be in direct correlation with the amount of uncertainty you can handle
• Outside of your comfort zone is the unknown, a sometimes scary, but untapped unknown with endless possibility. Curiosity can bridge the gap between these two areas.
• Audit your believe systems to see which ones give you more level of certainty in your life vs. keep you from doing what you could do.
• Curiosity allows you to dream up what you could do. Ask yourself, “What could I do?”

Listen at the 44 min mark as Cameron really dives deep on curiosity and curious language and tonality…

What is Meercat Syndrome and why should people understand it?

• It’s the same as shiny object syndrome
• You get to into all the things you can vs. picking a few and focusing intently on them
• This is how curiosity can get you stuck, so you have to beware seeking too many opportunities and not focusing and acting on a few.

 

Best Quote: “Become comfortable with being uncomfortable.” 

 

Cameron's Misfit 3:

1. Responsibility. You must take responsibility because those who take responsibility get to create the change. Those who blame stay with the pain.
2. Courage. Develop the courage to go for what you believe in – even in the face of fear. You have to become and make peace with the worst case scenario - nothing can hold you back.
3. Curiosity. Learn to nurture your curiosity as a skill. It is the bridge between where you are now and infinite possibilities.