Rocky Buckley Creator of Power Persona Project

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. You know where you are Expert Talk was me TGo, and you know what I love to do. I love to do like my Mom used to love making great dinners on Sunday. I love bringing Experts to the show that can talk about things that some of us are thinking about. And some things that some of us should be thinking about how to grow our business,

how to start our business. Where do we go from here? TGo helped me help me. That's why we bring in the Experts. And today is no different. Today is no different. We've got Rocky Buckley in the room. Yeah, he's got a cool name. I want to go see him box. I think with that name, I, you hearing the thing music.

I sure am. But Rocky is going to come in and talk to us about the Power of Persona. He's going to talk to us about being on that Platinum Path. He's going to talk to us about getting out of our comfort zone. So sit right there. We'll be right back. Expert Talk is brought to you in part by PodNation TV. The Podcast to Broadcast network Expert Talk is produced and distributed by Melrose 11,

LLC lights, cameras take action with Melrose 11. Hey Rocky Welcome to the show. Hey TGo. I'm thinking of changing my nickname to Argo. Let's go, man. I'm not from Chicago, but you know, I have to do something like that from new about New Jersey, about New Jersey. Okay. But you should visit Chicago. So though, cool people, good people back home in Chicago,

but I'm going to get you butt out here to come to Las Vegas. Cause we're about to open up our studios again. So I need you to come on over on this side and hang out Vegas. I can't wait to get out there. Oh, That's going to be so much fun before I even get started though. Dude. Rocky, is it your name,

name? Is it a nickname where Rocky come From? It's a nickname. I started, I was called that from the time that I was born pretty much. And the origin of the nickname varies. I've heard a bunch of different stories and who knows what the real truth is? So I had a big chest when I was a baby. So my Dad thought I was strong supposedly,

and another friend whose name was Rocko. And then he's so like the stories and it's like, who knows, but I've always been called that. So you're not named after the Rocky movies and you were never a championship boxer. Cause that's, what's in my mind, Just between you and me, I'm a little older than the Rocky movies. You are not you are but a baby. I was already Before,

before Sly. You are, but a baby, you know, I, we had a conversation the other day. Usually I, I talk with people before they come on the show and you were gracious enough to come and hang out with me for a few minutes. And then you invited me into your group and I've been hanging out in there. And I said,

and we're going to get into that. So you guys, hold on, you're going to find out about the group. He's going to tell you, just hold on a second. Okay. So we're going to get into that, but I was shocked that you're actually talking to people like every day, you're not just dropping in the video and saying, leave your information below and somebody will get back to you.

You're actually in there. How important is, you know, being in person, being in touch with your community? How important is that? Yeah, I mean, we're talking specifically about a Facebook group, just so, just so everybody understands, but I mean, I had some good advice early on and really good people who have built successful businesses through building a community.

And the advice was, you know, in that first year, especially you really want to be very, very hands-on and build that culture, build that community, the personal touch, you know? And I've always been that, that, that way offline as well. I mean, I've, I've always been in relationships and network sort of guy, and I've just extended a lot of what I did offline into the online world.

So I basically carry the same sort of values over into that. But I know that if you don't engage with people, you're going to basically have a dead community. And I'm really all about culture and I'm about family and I'm all about building something for the longterm. And I don't think if you're playing the long game that you just, you can, you can cut short on that or take shortcuts.

they may be watching this in: 2045

Do you think that's important or can we just stick with virtual? I, I personally, I mean, again, it's funny, I've, I've actually surveyed a lot of people who are online entrepreneurs about, do they do any, any local business or any meetups or anything like that? And most of them are like, no, I'm, I'm an introvert.

And I love being behind my computer and I'm like, you know, I come from the world before the internet and you know, yeah. And I kind of started in business around the time that the internet was taking off. And you know, I so highly value the human touch, personal relationships, face-to-face breaking bread with people. And I don't see that extending to people who only do business online.

I think there's, there's huge gaps that they're missing, that they don't know that they're missing because when you can build a personal relationship with somebody face to face, you know, and people know this who go to conferences and stuff like that, the stuff that goes on at the bar after the right that's where all the deals are made, that's where all the friendships are made and the collaborations and partnerships.

There's no substitute for that. You can't do that on zoom. Yeah. That's, that's when you make friendships for life. Is the after party. Yeah. So I, I really believe in it. I'm very excited about getting back out there. A lot of the future way that I'm building my business is going to be around masterminds memberships, live events. So I'm integrating that fully into everything I'm doing going forward.

So, but at the same time, you've gotta be able to operate in this world too. But Yeah, definitely. I think it's going to be a hybrid life for the rest of our lives and we're going to do some of it virtually some of it live. And I think we're going to be more picky about the live things that we do, because it does cost a lot more.

It takes more of your time. If you want to do even a one day conference in Las Vegas, you're not flying in that morning and flying out that night, you're coming in at least the day before staying until at least the day after. And you got to block out that time. So I think we're going to be more strategic about what we pick,

because we feel like, ah, this one I can do virtual. Yeah. That's when I got to be there in person. So at least that's what I see myself doing. And I'm really enjoying this virtual thing because I'm a super geek that likes behind being behind the computers and coding in a "U" usually, You're also a people person. And like,

I find that even doing a zoom call like we did prior to this interview, you know, I think we connected very quickly and it was like, we feel like we know each other, right. It's my brother from New Jersey. Don't mess with him. And it's like, I, I think that's something that's super important for people to do as well. I mean, people who just,

you know, comment back and forth and they never really face-to-face even like this connect with people have a real conversation, really get to know the human being behind it. You know, when you have the opportunity to connect with people in this sort of a way it carries over and it can extend into a long-term friendship. And that's what I think like a long-term guy,

you know, I believe that too. And I'm trying to tell my grandson that he's 14 was 15. He just turned 15 on Monday. And, and I'm trying to tell him, you know, it is not a relationship. If all you guys do is text because you can't even really read emotion through, through texts, you know? And, and he just doesn't get it.

He, you know, 10 seconds he's texting is he's going to have arthritis in his thumbs by the time he's 30. And he doesn't understand. It's like, dude, you got to get past this, but I'll keep working on these 15 going on 40. So I'll get in his face, got it. I've got a 13, a 16 and a 19.

So we're all in the same. Ooh, You got vitamins in your house. I hope because that just sounds stressful. We've always pushed relationships, you know, build those relationships. That's amazing. So you are an entrepreneur, you're a coach or a consultant, you know, what do you coach? What are you a consultant? For Sure. I work with experts,

thought leaders, influencers, people whom basically make their living off of their knowledge, their expertise. So they take different modalities. Some people are authors, speakers, you know, course creators they're coaches and consultants themselves. But basically anybody who has high value knowledge, high value expertise, they can create transformations in people's lives, their business, relationships, health in those high value areas.

Those are the people that I kind of specialize working with. I have a real heart for people who feel that they have wasted their potential or, or are in risk of wasting their potential. And I love to find sort of gifted, talented people that I call undiscovered stars and really help them unlock their potential and really become that leader, public figure, you know,

superstar type of person that they always suspected that they were going to become. They always thought when I grow up, I'm going to be famous. I'm going to be somebody I'm going to make a difference in the world. And if you're a person that kind of had that in your mind, and you really are, you're talented. You step into a room,

you light that room up. You're a natural leader. You've got charisma, talent and expertise. I mean, that's the kind of person that I love to work with and help. Okay. So how important is it? Because a lot of people I find, you know, back in the day when I was a sales director, way back when, you know,

they're the hardest store for the, get them through with their S their own car door, their own house store, their bedroom door, you know, to get them out there. It wasn't once they got there and got in front of people and started just being them and having the conversations, they understood what was going on, but they would stop themselves.

Do you run into that with the expert level that you're working with, that they're still kind of holding themselves back? Oh, sure. No, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the imposter syndrome is one of the classic, you know, things that cripples people in this industry for sure. And, you know, where does it come from? I mean,

we can argue about where it comes from. Maybe it is other, people's what they've told you, you, you know, you're not good enough or whatever it might be, but we all carry that. And, and people at the very highest level still struggle with that too. It's not uncommon at all. So yeah, imposter syndrome certainly is one of those things,

but also what I find the biggest problem is really lack of clarity. I don't think people have done enough deep work on themselves to be clear on what they really want and who they really want to be in the world and there's confusion. And when there's confusion, there's paralysis. And that's what, that's what I really think the deep work gets done, that liberates people,

when you get crystal clear on who you are, who you want to be, ultimately, what's the peak version of yourself. When you can see that in your mind, and you can describe it, then you can reverse engineer and consciously design yourself to be that person. And that's where I think the, you know, the power is. So how do you get clear?

I mean, if they don't have a Rocky in their lives and yeah, we're going to talk about it. Don't worry. We're going to tell you how to get in touch with them later. But just in case, if they don't have a Rocky in their lives and they're going okay, you're probably right. I, the person that I look, no least is myself.

How do they get started? Just kind of getting to know themselves And getting clear. I think, I think the first step is simply to, you know, put something in the calendar to actually do some of this work. So schedule some time away, whether it's, whether it's four hours, one night going to Barnes and Noble or Starbucks with a notebook or a weekend away somewhere,

right. Or longer than that, right. I take multi-week retreats several times a year to kind of do inner work and do business strategy and stuff like that. But I think you've got to have a measure of self reflection to be able to think about that. You've got to get clear of all of the distractions in life and get some solitude, get some silence,

get a chance to think, just be with yourself and start kind of going through that process. What do I want my life to look like across the board in all facets, right? You've got to get clear on your life, crystal clear on your life. Then your business is a subset of your life. Your business has to fit in the life vision that you have.

So you can't create this life, this business vision where, you know, I'm going to be an eight figure entrepreneur, ma managing this huge team. And I'm speaking all around the world. And, but at the same time, I want to homeschool my children and be with my family, was like, you've got to get clear on how the pieces fit together.

Holistically, figure out your ideal life and then go, okay, what kind of business fits into that? Because that's going to inform your business model. Definitely. Once you get clear on the life, then the business model. Now you start going, who do I have to be to execute that? And then it's getting really, if you are somebody who's like a solo expert,

solo entrepreneur, you're the face of your business. It requires you to be a public figure, a niche celebrity, so to speak. You've got to start getting clear on yourself and who is that public persona that you need to create? You know, and it's not something inauthentic, but it's like, how do I put the best version of myself forward for the public,

right? And it's not necessarily just you, the real you, there's going to be pieces of yourself. You're going to want to exaggerate a little bit, bring out more and other pieces. You're going to want to say, I'm going to hold those back for my private life, right? So there's a whole process. You would go through to become very strategic about how to do that,

how to position yourself properly, and then how to execute a business strategy. You touched on something for a second there. You said, you know that you actually go on retreat yourself. So this isn't something like an instant pill. You do it. Once you figured out your whole life, you look back when you're 95 and go, yep. I did it.

You know, this is something that you have to do on a continuous basis because you're constantly growing and you're constantly changing. And even your life changes. I mean, we just had another grandson come into the world two years ago. So that changed their lives. So it's important to keep growing, correct? Absolutely. You've got to integrate all these things.

And also, you know, as you, you know, you go away, let's say on a, on some kind of a retreat, you make some plans, you come back and you start executing on those plans. You're going to get feedback from the real world. And it's going to be some things you thought were going to be easy that were going to work well,

suddenly you start discovering, I didn't know what I didn't know. And that you've got to start recalibrating some of your expectations or maybe change it. Or I thought I was going to like that. You know, I started a Facebook group. I thought I was going to like it and I really hate it. So, you know, you're going to have to keep updating and changing and adapting to the real-world feedback that you get.

You know, you've mentioned that you're, you've been an entrepreneur for a couple of years, for a minute or two. You you've been at it for a minute, but you didn't start there. You didn't start there. You shared with me, you actually went to film school. Yeah. So what made you decide to venture past, you know, you should be over with Spielberg creating the next Jaws or something.

What made you go from there to being this great coach and consultant and entrepreneur? Well, it's kind of a complicated story. I mean, first of all, I mean, I've always had this sense of being a public figure in some way. Originally when I was growing up, baseball was my number one love. I wanted to be a baseball player.

And, you know, so I, I had the dream of being a professional athlete and using being a pro athlete as a, as a platform, you know, even back then, I was thinking about platforms and how to be a role model and make a difference in people's lives. That's awesome. 18. I really kind of had a bit of a awakening and,

you know, my life really shifted at that point at age 18. And I was already kind of writing screenplays and I was thinking about going to Hollywood and acting, and, and then eventually I wrote a screenplay and I wanted to direct it and all of that. And I started getting immersed in the film world. And in my early twenties, I really kind of had a decision to make that I want to really in my spiritual life and in ministry and things like that,

people that I saw needed help right in front of me, you know, there was an urgent need that I saw and it kind of felt a little selfish, but you're going to go and make movies and that you may never impact anybody at the way you could, if you just did it right now, hands-on with people. And I kind of had this fork in the road as a young guy,

and I decided, you know what, I'm going to go the ministry route. And I spent a lot of time growing in that area. I quickly rose up in the ranks of ministry leadership as a young guy. And I immersed myself in that world, helping people, helping people to grow, crying with people and loving people and helping them to, you know,

mature and so on and change their lives. So, you know, even though I went to film school, I had that fork in the road and I decided to put it down and you know, I still, I still to this day kind of wonder, was that the right move, but I've never lost my love for it. I I'm, my son is now picking up the mantle.

He's 16, he's making a second feature film. It's going to be raising money for it coming up. So I've been able to transfer my stuff to him and give him a headstart. And again, and I look forward to maybe, you know, stepping in as an executive producer at some point, and really being in the film world. But that was in the road moment for me,

that I decided to help the people that were right in front of me rather than try to do it indirectly through inspiring films. So, And I mean, you're still using it, especially nowadays. You can't do anything without video. If you're not using video for your business, you're kind of getting left behind. So You understand that though. Yeah. Yeah.

It's been fun to come back in that world. I mean, if you actually look behind me, I've got a number of different video background sets that I've built. I've constructed in my house. We use these as for making videos and stuff like that. So it's been fun. And my son has been by my side the whole way. It's been great Father,

Son stuff. Sorry. Now you're just showing up. We go to break. I got to ask you, you know, you mentioned your son, he's 16. He's going into filmmaking that second film, you know, as your kids are growing up, are you thinking, you know, don't go corporate way, you know, figure out your entrepreneurial way or are you kind of letting them find their own?

All three of my kids are creatives. My son is entrepreneurial. He's a shark. He's been like that since he was seven, like seven years old. He's he's, you know, he's pretty slick, but my other, my two daughters they're, they're, they're creatives, they're musical, you know, they write, they draw, they paint there,

you know, so we've always, you know, we homeschooled our kids the whole way and always focused on, you know, finding those things that they're really most passionate about and pouring into those things. So we don't ultimately care what they do really. Other than that, they, they really love it. They're going to be great at it. And it's something long-term that they can really be successful at and,

you know, have a great life doing. And that can get complicated. Our definitions of a great life can be different than what our kids are, but, you know, yeah. As long as they're Not in your couch at 40, it should be okay. Yeah. But we haven't pushed entrepreneurial at all. It's just seems to happen naturally. Yeah.

ocky because he's helped over: 3000

We'll be right back. Expert Talk is brought to you in part by PodNation TV, the Podcast to Broadcast network. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. We're talking with Rocky. Yeah. Not the boxer. I w dang it. I just thought sure. He was a boxer, but not the boxer. He wants a filmmaker though. He didn't go to film school.

No, we're going to talk with Rocky about, you know, what does it mean to, you know, reinventing to a high price lifestyle? What does that mean, Rocky? What are you talking about? Sure. Well, it's a high price business model, particularly because there's a lot of people that are undercharging. There's a lot of experts, entrepreneurs,

coach, consultant, sort of people, even authors and experts who, you know, they basically speaking on stage and et cetera. And a lot of times they don't have the confidence in what they're doing to charge high prices. And a lot of times, you know, pricing can be this like magic number that transforms your business. If you can significantly raise your prices,

you don't have to work as much, right. You can be more selective about the clients you take on it, and it has this whole ripple effect throughout your whole life and your lifestyle, et cetera, when you can charge more and work less. Okay. So there's, there's a strategy for how to go from sort of pricing yourself either at the low end of the spectrum or in the middle of the road where most people are positioned and break up to that top tier that top 1% of your market,

and really charge the prices up there as the top expert in that space, or one of the top people in that space. And yeah, I help people to reinvent their expertise. A lot of times we're sitting on knowledge, very high value knowledge, very high value expertise that if it were re-imagined, if it were repositioned in a different way, person could charge 10 times more than they're currently charging.

But you've got to be able to look for those, those areas where the opportunities are to do that. So often a person has to go through a deep dive process of kind of figuring out what am I really good at? What are my assets? How can I differentiate and position myself in a new way? How can I maybe solve bigger problems, more major,

more urgent problems that people are willing to pay a lot of money to fix. So there's a process to go through to make that shift, you know, and some people really can make it, some people can't, but, but a lot of people, more people than you would think can very quickly reposition themselves as a high price expert. And is that what you mean by the Platinum Path?

Yes. Yeah. The Platinum Path is my flagship program that I take people through to go through that and, and create a high price business model market and sell in that sort of a model. You felt, you know, clients generate over a hundred million dollars with their programs and their services. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of that is a lot of that is the very big billion dollar brands that I've worked with.

Companies like Wiley Pearson education McMillan. I was in that space. I was in academic educational, you know, organizational sort of space for a long time, working with a lot of authors and experts, creating training programs, products, curricula, you know, online and offline. So I've been in that world for a really long time. I've worn all the hats.

I've authored stuff, myself, you know, taking people through those three, you know, million dollar projects and stuff like that. So I've kind of seen it all and done it all when it comes to working with experts, authors, thought leaders, people like that. So in our, in our company, we talk about right fit client. Who's our right fit client.

And when we're talking to our clients, we're asking them, who's your right fit client. So who is your right fit? My right fit client is somebody who is already successful at a certain level. So they may have cracked the six figure mark, but they're sort of stuck between 100 200 hundred and 50 K visits. And they know that they're capable being a seven figure,

eight figure sort of person they're gifted. They're talented, they're charismatic. They've been told that their whole life, you know, and they feel that they've fallen short of what they're capable of. And they don't necessarily even love what they do anymore. They would love to reinvent themselves in a fresh way and really step out and become sort of that public figure,

star celebrity sort of person that they haven't been yet. They want to break out. They want to become a star and you know, and they want to do it for the right reasons. They want to impact lives. They want to make a lot of money, have a great life, have a great lifestyle, but at the same time, it's about impact and legacy for that sort of person.

They're, you know, they're really about, you know, what, how are people going to look back at their life and remember them? You know, if you think about legacy and you think about why am I here? Why was I put on earth? That's the kind of person that I think I resonate With. Totally understand it. I know there are people out there right now,

looking at this, going Rocky, you're talking to me, you're talking to me. How would they get in touch with you? The Best way to hang out with me is go to my, my private Facebook group, which is at PowerPersonaProject.com. It's a free group. You can just jump into our community. You can interact with me in there all day.

Long as TGo said, I'm in there a lot on hands-on, I'm interacting with people reading the content. We're putting out interviews like this with people like Shark Tank's, Kevin Harrington, Stu McLaren, Bob Burg, very big names. And those people are in there. You know, and well, they're not members of my Kevin Harrington is not a member of my group,

but I've interviewed those people and that's a great community. And inside of there, you can learn how to work with me further in our memberships and masterminds. Is There a cost to this group? Nope its absolutely free. Or what do they do? Okay. This is free. So they just go and find the Power Persona. PowerPersonaProject.com. Yep. Yeah, that is,

're coming through COVID it's: 2021

That's affordable for everyone out of that is going to come my Platinum Path 2.0 Mastermind, which is gonna be a high end mastermind that takes people through that high priced journey that we discussed, you know, and those are the big things. And then from there, you know, who knows, there's larger ambitions beyond that, but we'll have to get, let's get these ones in place first and then we'll take it from,

I want to thank you for coming on and hanging out with us and yep. Just go find him on Facebook under the Power Persona Project. Heck you'll find me there. Cause I hang out there quite a bit. It's one of the few groups that I actually check in on all the time and I probably belong to a hundred, but this is one that I actually go to.

You're an amazing man. I know that coming up for the next few years, I'm going to see your name and as executive producer for one of your son's projects, I feel it in my bones. It's happening. It's happening. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. You're my brother from New Jersey. You're stuck with me now. I'm so glad that we met and and I have fun,

fun thoughts in my mind of what's coming down the road. Now that we can travel. Maybe you can come to Vegas. You know, we're going to do some stuff together. Thank you, Rocky for being on your great. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Alright Yall, thank you so much for watching the show. I hope you got a lot out of what we talked about today and,

and you know, I always say this all the time. We stop ourselves. Me too. You know, I tell myself all the time I can't do that. They're not talking to me. I can never be that big. I'm just TGo TGo I do it all the time. And then I get connected to great people like Rocky that goes, Ah, Ah,

Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah you're stopping yourself. So make sure you guys check out the Facebook group Power Persona Project. You'll catch me in there a lot. I go check it out all the time. I thank you for watching the show. I hope you'll be watching the next one and as always I'm TGo and I'll talk to you next time.