🎯 The 2 Percent Solution: Small Steps to Massive Personal Growth with Willie Blake

🎯 The 2 Percent Solution: Small Steps to Massive Personal Growth with Willie Blake

👤 Guest Bio – Willie Blake
Willie Blake is a high-performance career coach and inspirational leader who empowers dyslexic entrepreneurs and professionals to transform their challenges into fuel for personal and professional growth. Diagnosed with dyslexia in the first grade, Willie rejected the notion that it would define him. Instead, he forged a unique path to clarity, confidence, and leadership—leveraging his journey to help others do the same.

From surviving school stigma to thriving as a strategic coach and speaker, Willie brings a raw and refreshing perspective to personal development. His GPS Goal Method has helped countless individuals find direction and unlock their hidden strengths through simple but powerful mindset shifts.

🗣️ Episode Summary
What if your perceived limitations were actually your hidden strengths?

In this episode of the Give a Heck Podcast, host Dwight Heck sits down with Willie Blake to unpack how dyslexia became a superpower—and how small steps can lead to massive transformation. Willie shares his breakthrough moment when he stopped masking his difference and began leading with it. His story is a testament to the idea that your past doesn’t limit your future—it fuels it.

Whether you’ve felt “different,” faced self-doubt, or struggled with clarity, this episode will give you the mindset tools to reframe your challenges and create a purpose-driven life.

⏱️ Timestamps & Highlights

  • 00:02 – Meet Willie Blake: Redefining dyslexia as a superpower
  • 06:15 – From school struggles to leadership: The power of self-acceptance
  • 14:30 – Embracing difference and helping others do the same
  • 22:00 – Introducing the GPS Goal Method: Mapping progress without overwhelm
  • 30:00 – The “2% Solution”: Small steps, massive shifts
  • 42:12 – Identity, authenticity, and building confidence
  • 49:45 – Final thoughts: Leading with your limitations

📘 What You’ll Learn

  • How to turn personal challenges into coaching tools
  • The mindset shift that turned dyslexia into a leadership asset
  • The simple but powerful “2% rule” to drive consistent progress
  • Why authenticity matters in building confidence and momentum
  • How leadership starts with self-acceptance

💬 Notable Quotes

“Dyslexia didn’t hold me back—it taught me how to see the world differently.” – Willie Blake
“Sometimes, the smallest step is what moves you the furthest.” – Dwight Heck

🧭 The GPS Goal Method Willie walks us through his unique goal-setting framework:

  • 🗺️ Know your starting point
  • 🔄 Reverse-engineer your goals
  • 🎯 Apply the “2% rule” daily
    It’s clarity without complexity—a method for those tired of chasing progress but unsure where to begin.

🔗 Connect with Willie Blake

🔗 Connect with Dwight Heck


🎧 If this episode shifted your perspective or lit a spark within, share it, subscribe, and leave a review. Your journey matters—and your legacy starts with small steps.

📄 Full Unedited Transcript

[00:00:00 – 00:00:00]

Host (Dwight Heck):
Before we dive into today’s episode, I want to share something personal. As someone who’s battled self doubt and learned to live life on purpose, I’ve come to realize that our greatest breakthroughs often start where our pain once lived. That’s why today’s guest resonates so deeply with me, because his journey is one of rising from the trenches, not sitting in the stands. Welcome back to the Give a Heck podcast where we explore what it means to live life with intention and heart. Today’s guest isn’t just a coach, he’s a force for transformation. I’m honored to welcome coach Willie Blake, a high performance career coach who helps dyslexic entrepreneurs and professionals turn self doubt into momentum and and clarity. Diagnosed with dyslexia in first grade, Willie spent years trying to hide, please and chase perfection until he made a bold decision to stop surviving and start leading with his difference. Now, as the founder of WB Coaching and the host of Light Beyond Limits podcast, Willie speaks from the trenches, not the textbook. Every mindset shift he shares, every strategy he teaches is something he he’s lived. He’s known for his powerful storytelling, down to earth style, and practical tools that help people feel seen, especially those who’ve always felt different or behind. If your life felt stuck or your confidence has been shaken, Willie’s message is your reminder that clarity is possible and purpose isn’t luxury. It’s a choice. This one’s for the overthinkers, this the doubters and the quiet fighters out there. Let’s dive in. Willie, before we jump into talking about, you know, your coaching and work and impact, I always start by asking this. I really like talking to people about their origin stories. And I’m convinced after all the years of dealing with clients doing this podcast that people’s origin story affects their life, their learned behaviors, the things that not everybody has bad origin stories. Sometimes it was too good and it caused them to be lazy when they’re older because they had a silver spoon. Sometimes their life was so dramatic and hard that it triggered them to be the best version of themselves as they got older or triggers them to be worse than that learned environment they were in. So sharing the person’s origin story I find helps us connect to the listeners, to people watching on YouTube. So what are your some of your earliest recollections growing up and what shaped your worldview? How did your journey begin?

[00:02:52 – 00:09:45]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Wow, what a great question. To start things off, it was all back in the first grade. I remember standing up and walking down the hall with my classmates and as we reached this classroom on the other side of the school, teacher had to stand against the wall and she walked in. Of course, a bunch of us are curious, so we just, like, peek around the corner and we see a bunch of tables set up. And then one by one, each student was just walked into the room. And when it was my turn, I walked up and this lovely, I assume mom behind the table hand me this piece of paper and said, hey, can you just read this for me? So I took it, and it was like reading the New York Times. As a first grader, I didn’t understand anything and I stumbled. It was hard to read through. And after about several minutes of just a simple paragraph, she said, awesome, thank you, took it back, told me to go back to class. Later that year and into the second grade, I realized that I had dyslexia. When they told my parents to come in and gave me this diagnosis of, your kid has dyslexia. And not only that, you also. He also has. I always mess it up on auditory processing disorder, which is the way that audio gets put into my mind and processes is just different. And it’s harder for me to hear a lot of different noises as well as if you ask me a question, it might take me a second or two to register it in my head. So from there to through the rest of elementary school and into middle school, I thought it was okay until I realized my friends started going further away from me and hanging out with me less. In middle school, I was bullied for being different. This dude called dyslexic. And then even in high school, I had friends. But I remember we finished lunch and we were walking to class and we were chatting. We’re having a good old time. As we walked to the door, all my friends walked into class and I stood in the hallway because that was honors English class. And for those who don’t know what dyslexia is, it’s. You struggle with reading, writing, speaking, or spelling, usually in one of those four areas. And for me, read, reading and speaking were just the hardest thing. So getting into an honors class wasn’t happening. So I walked down a few more doors to my English class, which had the students who didn’t want to do anything, didn’t care about school, and I just felt out of place. And it felt. And it continued like that, too. When I first started this whole self development journey back in 2018, I went to my first Mastermind, and I was so gung ho about it, so passionate about it. I showed up 30 minutes early and sat in my car until two minutes before the event because I was so scared of what other people are going to think about me because I didn’t have a business, I didn’t have anything. I was just this new youngin kid who was an early adult who going into this mastermind, not knowing what the heck was going on. So I walked in and I entered the room and I’ll tell you what, I was the best dressed person in this room. I had it, my, I had my red paisley tie on, I had my black suit. I look good. And I looked at everybody else, they had the T shirt and jeans, they had the slacks and polos and the button up shirts. And I’m like, I still, as one of the best dressed people in this room, still don’t feel like I fit in. And the mastermind started, they started doing all the things. We split up into groups halfway through it. And as all the people in there were sharing what their business was and what they needed help with, I sat there and my inner voice that grew from when I was in elementary school, when I was bullied, when I was sad, felt lonely, came up that in that instant and said, willie, what are you doing here? You don’t own a business. Nobody in here is going to think that you’re an expert. And actually people are going to think you’re a fraud. You should get out of here before they figure that out. And I sat there and I thought, this has to be true. I don’t think I’m worthy of this whole entrepreneurship business journey. But then something happened. A speaker came up to the front of the room and as she was speaking, she asked the question and the question she asked, she said, who in here wants to level up? And instantly, just like an automatic reaction, I shot my hand up. And it was weird because this whole time I had these doubtful thoughts. I had no courage or confidence what was going on. And when she said that, my hands shot up in the air. And the next thing that went through my mind was this, that even though all those things happen, even though I feel like a fraud and an imposter, at least at the barest of minimum, I have an inner desire. An inner desire to help people out, to bring light to the world, to share love and hope, to be able to share what gratitude means and what it means to inspire. And that really time, that’s all we have. I want to use my time to be able to lift people up and just like change, like my heart was coming out of my chest. I’M just like, I had this inner desire. And so Dwight, that’s, that’s, that’s my origin story of how it kind of all started of it was that inner desire which then helped me to dedication, which then turned into discipline. And then that discipline helped with all the accomplishments I’ve been able to do over these awesome years. That’s the origin story of I was the dyslexic kid who was lonely, bullied, and didn’t have any confidence at all, but at least had that desire. And because of that desire helped transform me to the person I am today. Wow.

[00:09:46 – 00:11:18]

Host (Dwight Heck):
I was jotting some notes down here. You’ve gone through a lot of what many people experience two minutes before. You know, nervous to go into that conference, you know, trying to hide in a conference, but especially impossible for you because you’re the best dressed person there. So obviously, even though people might have been looking at you, you feel out of place. And that’s tough to be in an environment like that and want to grow. But you know, putting your hand up, that’s, you know, things happen for us, not to us, something, some divine thing, right? For me it would be God is, would be intervening in your life saying, hey, put your hand up, put your hand up. It’s time to take little Willie and you know, fertilize and water little Willy and get him to grow, right? To get him to be the man he deserves to be so he can serve himself. Because if we don’t serve ourselves first and foremost and grow, how can we help others? It’s almost impossible to have any form of healthy relationship, even husband, wife, right, Significant others, friendships. Pretty hard to do that unless we like who we see in the mirror. So that was your first defining moment. Were your, was your family, how was your family involved through all this process of what you went through with dyslexia? Were they, was it tough on them? Were they supportive? Or did you have, you know, a circumstance where you were felt made to feel less than, like, don’t try to push with Willie. You are who you are.

[00:11:20 – 00:12:47]

Guest (Willie Blake):
They were pretty supportive of me. And so my mom and dad, great support through elementary school. They helped me to get into every Friday, the last hour of the day, I’d go to a classroom, which I assume with other dyslexics because they struggled with reading too. And we just play games that were reading and helped us to up our level of speaking and reading. So my parents helped me get into that. They also helped me with a tutor on the side. During the summertime Once a week I go to a random building to look at flashcards and play word games and such. And so they’re, they’re a big help. And my brother, one of my brothers is also dyslexic. And so it was kind of just common in our family. And they also would, they’d go the route of you, you do what you, what you want, you’re, you’re okay just the way that you are. And so there wasn’t any push towards a certain direction. There was more just the expectation of just continue doing what you’re doing, go finish high school, go to college, get a job, marry, you know, all, all the, the normal route stuff, the traditional routes that people take. So there’s that expectation. But with, that was a good support with the family.

[00:12:48 – 00:13:13]

Host (Dwight Heck):
That’s great. So we’re going to continue on with some of that purpose and identity that, you know, we all go through and all try to discover. You talk about in your life about finding your voice. What does that actually feel like? What did it feel like for you when it clicked, when you found your voice and what was happening leading up to you finding your voice? Was there a specific circumstance or a story that you could share?

[00:13:15 – 00:16:09]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Dude, yeah. Finding my voice, it was there. There were several moments, not one I can really pick. And maybe as I talk about it, one will pop up. But just from when I started, when I went to the Mastermind, when I started personal development, it was really me starting to do the things that I wanted, which the very first thing was to read 50 books in a year. Because I saw this cool statistic randomly that said 95% of CEOs read 50 or more books a year. And I’m like, it’d be pretty cool to be a business owner, an entrepreneur or a CEO. That’d be awesome. And so I got a little white note card and I wrote 1 through 12 on it and then went to the bookshelf, grabbed the smallest self help book I could, a little book called Rich Dad, Poor dad, and opened it chapter one and started reading. And so it’s from there that the, it just, it started to pick up. And so I went from reading one to 12 to 40 to then 50 books in a year. And then after that just being like, I also want to share and work with other people. And so then I started to do more speaking things. I worked with a company that I had a wonderful privilege to do that, where we’d record on their podcast, we’d be recording trainings, and just my voice started to pick up as I was using it more. And so I think that the ability and the heart was there at like an 8 or 9 out of 10. It was. My communication was at a 2 and a 3. And so I don’t think there was like a specific moment, but it was the ability from over a couple years of recording on video to practicing to making a lot of mistakes and failing and doing that on stage multiple times as well that I got more confident in my voice. People were more resonating afterwards. I talk with individuals and they’d say, wow, this part resonated with me and I’m like, that is so awesome. That seems like something I also need to share more of. So then it was just undeniable proof of those things that then I would share more and over time brought this voice out of me of now. I’m Willy Blake. I love what I do and I love what I share. And if people can teach me what they need and I can ask questions and like, maybe I have some advice for them based off the experience I have. Awesome. I can share my voice in that and then be able to just. Yeah, just be able to learn and pick up things. And that’s how the voice came up was just through practice and. And then elevating the communication level up to my heart level.

Thanks, Dwight! Let’s keep rolling. Here’s Part 3 of your full raw transcript with exact speaker labels and timestamps.

[00:16:10 – 00:17:28]

Host (Dwight Heck):
Yeah. I love your answer. Your response is fantastic. Most people don’t realize that in anything life, practice makes perfect. And you got to be willing to have those character building moments. What people would call a failure is not. It’s a character building moment. It’s a life lesson. It’s another step, it’s another baby step to being the person that you know you are. Just like you said, you had to elevate yourself to catch up. You’re out of two to elevate yourself up to that. It’s the same sort of idea. Practice makes perfect. If there’s something you don’t think you’re good at, is it because you’ve put a self limiting belief on yourself? Right. Have you had other people say, oh, you’re really good at that, but you have imposter syndrome. You don’t believe in yourself. You think, like, why would anybody want to listen to me? Well, first. Right. First and foremost. You know, you talked about reading books, something we all need to utilize. Rich dad, Poor dad is a great book, great one to start with. Right. There’s so many good books out there. How do you hide knowledge? Put it in a book. That’s what I will say to listeners and people watching. There’s so much knowledge out there. You got to open the book up to get it, though it’s hidden only until it’s not.

[00:17:29 – 00:22:50]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Yeah. And books, they’re just like the books are the vault of the past. If you are able to tap into other people’s experience and they are able. And they’re able to communicate it effectively. We’ve all read books that aren’t the. The best of the best, but we’ve also have books that, you know, bestsellers are usually great at. The authors are great writers. When you are able to unlock the vault of reading and to take the words and absorb them, and not just absorb them, but utilize them. Because the people who read but don’t take action on, in my opinion, are not any better than the people who can’t read. Because it’s about what you do with the knowledge. If you keep the knowledge back, what the heck are you doing? That is so selfish. But what are you using it for? And if you’re able to use that knowledge moving forward, it’s incredible what comes from it. And one of the other things that you mentioned was the. Well, that sparked an idea was a lot of the times, and I don’t know if you can relate to this with people you’ve met a lot of times, us as ourselves, we’re like, if we see someone doing a really cool skill that we don’t have, that is amazing and we want that and sometimes we envy it. But if we have something, a skill that other people are just like, wow, that’s really cool. We think of it as average and that essentially everybody has. And so I don’t know what it is. There’s this disconnect. Maybe it’s imposter syndrome. There’s disconnect of if someone else has it is so cool. And like, let’s say speaking Anthony Robbins or Zig Ziglar or Les Brown, as we were talking about earlier, they’re amazing speakers. That is a really cool skill. And maybe I really want that. Maybe I’m fantastic at doing accounting, but some and someone else comes to me and just like, wow, you are the best at accounting. To me, it’s just like, well, that’s just average. That’s just something that everybody does. And I think that especially for me growing up, I felt that way of, if it’s outside of me, it’s cool, but if it’s inside of me, everybody can do it. And because everybody can do it, that makes me average or below average. And then my confidence wanes, gets me into a shy place. But how do you get out of that? Right. I don’t like to just leave it at that. Like, how do you. How, how do you get out of that? How I got out of it was from that place of just like being that average person, of being the one who’s just down there and everybody does everything that I already do. It was the starting to like the things that I do that truly created the space to be able to build the confidence to do them. I like teaching and I like reading. Those are things that I like to do, despite me being dyslexic and growing up hating them. Like, those are things that as a kid I like to do. Before this stamp of a label of dyslexia got placed on me. I’ve always loved teaching, I’ve always loved reading, always wanted to be an author and always want to do some type of teaching. And so those two childlike things that I loved, I was able to bring them back from the past to the present and start working on them. It was so imperfect. It was where it was not perfection. But a phrase that I’ve adapted is called doing things dirty, which is. No, messy. Sorry, not dirty. Doing things messy. So not worrying about the perfect, the perfect plan, because there isn’t such thing, but doing things messy going forward. Putting the face in the mud, learning while you’re doing that. Especially nowadays people are wanting that. They don’t need the super professional individual who’s wearing the suit coat, who’s up in front. They want the people who are speaking from the heart. They want people who have gone through it. They want to know that on the other side of the screen or the other side of the audio or other side of wherever they’re at, they want to know that that person has actually gone through the things that they’ve gone through. And when you can make that connection, it’s just like, wow. So when you feel that below average mentality like I felt growing up just that, that the daily consistent practice of something, I use the 2% rule. It’s just 2% every single day, get to where you want to go. And that daily consistency builds that confidence. Focusing on the things that you love builds the confidence. And as you focus on the things that you love and just do that and don’t worry about the family, the friends, the acquaintances, the strangers that tell you what you should do with your life. And you just listen to the soul inside of you. Man, it’s amazing what you can do.

Absolutely, Dwight — here’s Part 4 of your full raw transcript, continuing precisely from where we left off. Speaker labels and timestamps are exact and unedited.

[00:22:52 – 00:27:50]

Host (Dwight Heck):
Yeah, it is amazing what we can do at the end of the day we don’t listen to our inner voice enough. Right. Or we can listen to it too much. It’s. It’s a healthy balance between knowing what is. What is the. The plan, what is the purpose of what we want to do, and, you know, practicing and getting to a point where we can be more confident. Storytelling is one of the most powerful things, as you know, to get across to people, to make it relatable. The delivery of the story is so important. Right. Most people don’t deliver the story correctly, and they’re monotone, they’re boring. And it just does not help people. It’s not conducive to increasing their energy. So I know myself, in order to get above where I thought I was like everybody else, I needed to talk about 10% above their energy level. I needed to be above their energy level, not at the same energy level. Or you’re never gonna. You’re never, ever gonna accomplish anything, whether it’s talking to one person, a group of people, or standing on stage. You need to elevate your mindset. Book reading help set, listening to podcasts. But the biggest thing that I. That I always recommend to people is who are you hanging out with? If they tell you or make you feel less than you are or that, you know, you talk about something you’re trying to accomplish, you’re happy. And you look at them in their bodies like, you know, you can see the body language. You don’t even have to say anything. Or they say something like, oh, that sounds like a lot of work. Right? You sure you want to do that, Willie? Look what you went through as a child, Willie, all the struggles you went through, the bullying and all that. Because I was a bully kid. I know what it’s like, Willie. Honestly, I do. And they. And bullies are hating their own lives. So even as adult adults, you can have adult bullies. They don’t. People that are keyboard warriors say terrible things about us or about other people are usually hating their own lives. They’re deflecting away from the challenges that they’re facing, and that’s a temporary dopamine hit for happiness for them to watch other people be miserable by saying things or doing things that are going to make them feel less than they are, right? So our associations of who we have in our lives are so important to help us grow. Right back to what you said about your parents, right? You had a tutor, you had flashcards. They were trying to help you grow and still move forward. Obviously, they probably knew of the circumstances of what you were going through at school. My mom did. She knew what I was going through, but there was nothing much she could do because administration at most schools, our hands are strapped because they’ve got a bunch of parents that are coming in that are making them feel less than they are. It’s a circle thing. It really is. Their life experiences at home come to school. The parents, their life experiences come to the school. They figure their kids should be this way, so they’re deflecting from the fact that maybe they. They grew up terribly, Right. So they’re not going to let their kid go through that. Or that teacher had a teacher that was super kind, and they want to be that way, but they don’t know the healthy balance between being kind and being stern or being disciplinary. Right. My point for all of this is we have so many things in our lives, we need to ground ourselves. And those books that we talked about, you know, and the people that we meet that uplift us are so important, and they’re all associations. So every time you think of associations, people watching or listening, it’s not just people. What books are you reading? If you want to read. You want to read fiction, go right ahead. But that fiction book is a reality escape, personal development book, right? Like Rich Dad, Poor dad, or how to Win Friends and Influence People, or seven Habits of highly Successful People. You know, the Magic of Thinking Big. All the books that I’ve read, right? Relentless by Tim Grover. Books like that teach me and elevate my mindset if I go into it the right way. But if I’m reading a fiction book, I’m doing it as an escape. If I watch a movie that’s all about, you know, future fantasy, it’s based in outer space, people leave. And I’m doing that to escape. Do I know the differences of escape? What do I mean by that? I’m watching it for pure entertainment. I’m watching it because I hate my life. I’m watching it because I’m into sci fi and I like the entertainment. Back to that again, right? What do we portray things to be in our lives? That association is an unconscious anchor, right? And it becomes a conscious anchor in your life because then you. You’re depressed or sad. You listen to the sad playlist, right? We watch sad videos. You watch drama shows because you’re. You want to escape in somebody else’s drama, right? And not your own.

[00:27:50 – 00:27:51]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Makes you feel better.

[00:27:51 – 00:27:56]

Host (Dwight Heck):
But the sad thing is, what happens, it ends. That show is over.

[00:27:56 – 00:27:56]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Yeah.

[00:27:56 – 00:30:00]

Host (Dwight Heck):
A podcast is over. If you’re listening to True Crime. That book, that fiction book is over. Right? Again, I’m not against people listening. I know tons of people that listen to true crime. I have grandkids that do that. I don’t like it but it is what it is. I’d rather they listen to. But it’s all going to learn behavior. What are you presenting and what are you pushing forward to the people around you to help them grow as you grow. You mentioned it earlier. We have a responsibility to share that information. We really do. Right? Yeah. I always tell people, you know what, what is your biggest goal, Dwight? Well, to identify and continue to grow. My purpose until the day I take the last breath of my life. I want to make sure that I’m elevating and helping lift people up. Because I didn’t feel that not enough of it growing up. Not because my parents weren’t good. They were dealing with similar situation to you. Bully kid. I had severe asthma and allergies. I couldn’t do a lot of things, pick last for sports because they knew that I wouldn’t make it through it because of my asthma. There was no rescue inhalers back then. There, back then when I have, you know, growing up with asthma, there’s just circumstances like that that shaped me into it, into middle school, into high school, into adulthood. If it wasn’t for books and for good mentorship and people to communicate with, to bounce ideas off, to question my, my thought process and me be accepting of it being willing to change, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Right. It wouldn’t have that first person that handed me a book and said read this and did it with the right sincerity changed my life and I still know them and still are friends of them 30 plus years later. They started it with a book. Actually three of them. Here’s these three books. You read these three books and get back to me. Let’s see if there’s potential. Basically a very successful person still is today. Right? We can be that catalyst Willie for somebody here.

[00:30:00 – 00:30:00]

Guest (Willie Blake):
It’s true.

[00:30:01 – 00:32:28]

Host (Dwight Heck):
Right here you want this. That’s why people really want my book. If they don’t want the phys, if they live too far away, even yourself. I’ll send you a digital copy of it. I won’t charge you nothing. Right. We get off this call, you want to go and order it on Amazon a digital copy or you order the physical book because you want the physical book. Great. But I’ve given my book away so many times. I went to a conference in Edmonton at the University of Alberta. It’s called Blue Talk Talks live gentleman by the name of Corey Perrier. He’s done over 6, 000 interviews. He’s interviewed everybody and anybody that you can think of that celebrity status around North America. And I had him on my show and he invited me to come to a conference And I go to that conference, it was two weeks ago and people said, why are you here? Are you one of the speakers? Are you one of you up? And I said, no, I’m here to learn and listen. Well, these are all new, brand new speakers, majority of them going up presenting for the first time right in front of all this audience and they’re getting recorded in that. If you’ve been speaking already, why are you here? And I looked at them and I said, you know what? And I said it to more than one person throughout that two day event. I’m here to learn from people that have experiences that I’ve never had. Just because they’re just learning how to share it doesn’t mean their knowledge isn’t valuable. Maybe I’m going to get it raw, more raw than I ever would have. But I made so many good friends. The reason I bring that up, I took my book with me. I took seven books away and, and given to people based on the conversations they had with me. You know what? Hey, are you a reader? Will you? And they’ll go, yeah, I am. Are you really a reader? And they’ll go, well, yeah, the reason I ask is I’ll give you a book. I brought some books with me but I don’t give them to people or it’s going to collect dust on my. On their shelf. Right? I’m willing to invest in you. Oh no, I’ll pay for it. No, I still won’t sell it to you. Are you going to read it? Maybe not today, maybe it’s sometime in the next month, two months, it’s summertime. But do you want to live a purposeful life? I’m willing to give this invest into you. I may, may never see or hear from you again. Read this book, let me know what you think. Leave a comment online. Whatever the case may be, if I never hear from you again, it’s still a good investment because I’ve made you think, I made you wonder and made you understand that there is people out there based on you, your presentation of who you are that care enough to say, hey, I want to invest in your future. Here you go.

[00:32:29 – 00:34:34]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Those are some of my favorite moments. I. I’m thinking of one amazing individual, specifically a couple Years back, we were at a networking event and hadn’t seen him for a while. And so when I saw him, we. It was like good old friends to give each other a big hug and everything. And they asked me. They’re just like. It seems like nothing’s changed between us. Like we. We still, like, we give big hugs like we’re old friends and everything, but we haven’t talked to each other for a couple years. And I’m like, exactly. Because the way that people make you feel lasts longer than any words could or any actions could. The way you make people feel. Because a lot of we do things based on our actions, not on our actions off our emotions. We do things based off our emotions. So the reality. The reality of what we think it is might not be the reality of what happens if you’re. So I’m in. I’m gonna do my best. Yeah, I’m gonna leave names out, but I’m in a legal dispute with property management company dealing with some things that are going on with moving out. And as we’re going back and forth, I’m realizing that my reality every time I read the email sounds angry. Like they’re angry and that they’re just like this. What’s the word? Type A man, individual, who’s just like gut punching. Like, no, this is how it is. If I took a step back, I could also see that on their side, their reality might be that they’re one of the most kindest people in the world. And they probably are. They’re probably super nice, but they’re just doing their job. And so whenever they read my email, they might think of me the exact same way of just being this type A individual. Super wanting to be dominant, only want it my way. And it’s crazy how many of us don’t take a step back, back and realize that the reality that we have are based on the emotions that we feel.

[00:34:36 – 00:34:48]

Host (Dwight Heck):
That’s why every single person reading a text or an email needs to realize they’re reading it based on their state of mind right then and there. It’s not what the person’s presenting.

[00:34:49 – 00:41:10]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Yeah, right. And the something that you mentioned back is the word associate. I always love to define words because it helps me out as a dyslexic to keep things simple moving forward. So, like, associate doesn’t mean seeing them in person or being around them. It doesn’t. Associate doesn’t only mean me and my wife because we see each other the most out of anybody. Associate means the individuals that you have that you Spend the most time with, regardless of the way that you spend the most time with them. So when you are mentioning that one of the best ways to be able to, I’m using my words, level up or like personal development and grow, the best ways to do it is to surround your people yourself and associate more with other people who are also on that journey and at the destination. That doesn’t mean that you got to meet them in person. You don’t have to go to Tony Robbins events to be able to have be have him as one of your top associated people, because you can watch his YouTube videos, you can listen to his audiobooks. So anybody who you want to influence, you, you can go out and watch their videos, listen to the audios, read their books, whatever it is. So the phrase of we are the five, we are the sum total of the five most individuals that we spend the most time with. That simply doesn’t mean that it’s my wife, my kids, and if I were at a job, co worker or two, it’s during the 24 hours that I have who is most getting information in my ear. So as I was from 2018, when I first started and going forward through these first stages of self development and going through books, my friend introduced me to this thing called audible. And I’m like, what’s audible? He’s like, well, all these books that you’re reading, they’re in audio form and so you can listen to them. So he grabbed my phone, he logged me into his account and said, okay, I want you to listen to a few books and then if it works out well, get your own Audible account and start getting your own books. I’m like, cool. So I started listening to the books and that was one of the major things that helped me get more educated and get the knowledge and wisdom from people was listening to audios. Because I can listen to audio a lot faster than I can read a book. It takes me at least like two minutes to go through a page in which most people can go through in like maybe 30 seconds. When I listen to audio, I can listen to one and a half or even two times the speed and still get all the information that I want out of it. And so from there, I was able to turn my car into a library. I wasn’t listening to music, I was listening to audiobooks. And I was associating myself with the people I was listening to at the time. I was listening to people like Evan Carmichael and Grant Cardone, Tony Robbins. I was listening to Les Brown and Zig Ziglar and Bob Proctor. And like all these amazing individuals, I was listening to and getting their wisdom and their experience. And those were the people that I associated the most time with. Even though I still had my parents, I still had my siblings, I still had my spouse, didn’t have kids yet at the time. But amongst all of that, the people who I associated or spent the most time with were the people who are in my ear and that I was listening to. So that’s something I want to make clear to the people who are listening, is that those individuals who you associate with, who you want to impact your life, because truly, the five to 10 people that you spend the most time with absolutely impact your life. It doesn’t have to be in person, but slowly but surely, the people who you want in your life start listening to them more, whether it’s through an earbud, through your eyes, or in person. And then the people who you don’t want to associate with or you look at their life and you’re like, you know, I really don’t want what they have, like, amongst everything. I like this one aspect, but everything else, I’m like, if we didn’t go to high school together, we wouldn’t be friends. And so those people, you still friends with them, but you just spend a little less time with them. And funny enough, when you start to improve your life and you start going towards the your passion, you start getting better physicality and start working on your mentality, you get more connected with your soul and spirit, you’ll start socializing with the people that you want. Naturally, the people who you were hanging out with, who don’t support what you’re doing and who aren’t on board and following your journey, they are going to start pushing themselves away because they’re either going to say, I don’t. They’re either, in their minds, they’re never going to say it out loud. In their minds, they’re going to be thinking, I don’t like what you’re doing because what you’re doing makes me feel bad because I’m not doing what I want. So because you’re doing that, I’m going to start distancing myself because I don’t like the new feeling that I have when I’m around you, because you’re reaching new success points and milestones and I’m still at the exact same place I was. And that conversation is going to be in words like, hey, dude, what the heck are you doing with your life? Hey, I know you’re going to this new journey type thing or whatever, self development stuff like why the heck do you need to do it? Dude, I like you exactly the way that you are. You don’t have to change. I love you. You’re doing amazing. And behind it all, the words that we use don’t always reflect the intentions that we have.

[00:41:10 – 00:41:54]

Host (Dwight Heck):
No, absolutely. That’s why we need to all understand, to be a good wordsmith, to know what to say to how to communicate and understand what a the Thoris is. Understand that there’s different words that mean the same thing, but they invoke different emotions and energy within us. So I love what you had to say. We’re going to get moving on to the next thing. We’re running out of time. We’re going to most likely have to have another episode in the future to dive into more stuff. But I want to talk about your, you know, clarity and goal setting in life. What? Explain to us what your GPS goal method is that you have developed and how people can apply it to create clarity in their lives.

[00:41:55 – 00:47:48]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Yeah, the GPS goal method is if you think of Google Maps or you think of Apple Maps, whichever version you use, you open it, the first thing it asks you for is where are you going? Every single time. The phone needs to know exactly where you’re going or else you ain’t going anywhere. So where are you going? Then asks you a second thing. And most people don’t know this because it’s automatically put in the phone. It’s where you are at because the phone needs to know where you are going and where you at to be able to know the direction it needs to head to get there. So this GPS method is three separate parts. The first part is knowing where you’re going and knowing where you’re at, where you’re going, that is the dream, that’s the vision, that’s the northern star. That, that is the finish line that you are aiming towards. What is that for you? And then once you know that and get clear on what you want, then you say, awesome, where am I at right now? And a lot of times we got to be a, a lot more real and raw with this, a lot more honest to ourselves. Because if I were to walk up to you, Dwight, and be like, hey, Dwight, how you doing? You might be like, doing good when you might not be doing good. Like, I know that I’ve, I feel like you have so many awesome, more phrases than that, but I know I’ve done that to where people are like, hey, Willie, how you doing? It’s like good, but my emotions are skyrocketed crazily in different directions. So we got to be more honest with ourselves in the areas of, for example, like our physical state, do we have a six pack or do we have the energy to carry us throughout the day? Or are we sitting here with a keg just trying to get through life mentality, are we reading, are we gaining knowledge, are we getting an education? Or are we just saying I’m good and actually reverting back from this transformation world. Financially, are we set? Are we getting the money that we have? Are we financially independent or are we just living paycheck to paycheck? Or even socially, can we carry a conversation? Can we ask questions? Or is it hard just to get one or two minutes of conversation in? Right. We get honest about the different areas of where we are at. That way when we get so clear about that and we know the destination we’re going through, we know, just like our phones, the exact path that we need to take going forward. Or I guess the exact direction because the path comes in the second part. So that first part is knowing where you’re going and where you’re at. The second part is the reverse engineering of the goal. So whatever that goal is, start there, work backwards to today, find those milestones, and then you have a blueprint to go forward. If you’ve ever been to like a restaurant or that and they have like the kids menu and they have the mazes that you can go through. Anytime that I, I see one of those, I never go from start to finish. I always like visualize myself going from finish, working my way backwards. So when I finally put crayon to paper, I can do it flawlessly. That’s what we got to do with our goals is that whatever that goal is, start there, work your way backwards, and then you have the milestones you need to hit and that blueprint so that then you can take the action you need. Then that goes to the third step, which is the action part. Which one of the rules I have with this is the 2% action, which is if your goal is 100%, just like a progress bar. A hundred percent. That’s the completed goal. 2%, taking 2% action every single day to get to that goal. Back when I was first reading books, I had my little note card with the 12 books on there. What was my first 2% action? My first 2% action was walking to the bookshelf and actually picking up the book I was going to read. Awesome. What was my next 2% action. Well, the next 2% was an opening the book and reading chapter one. So it’s doing the 2% daily. Consistency. Don’t worry about perfection, just worry about execution. Just consistently every day that gets you to the goal that you want. And there some people come back to me at this and say, well, Willie, why not focus on 100% or Willie, why not focus on 1%? In my experience, when you focus on 100%, you hit this realm called analysis paralysis to where you are so overwhelmed by every single thing that you have to do to where you don’t even start. On the flip side, you got the 1% where if you focus on 1% it doesn’t get that fire in you to start and it doesn’t get you out of your comfort zone. That’s why I love 2% because it’s small enough to where you just like I can do this but also big enough to get that fire, that passion out of you to start going and get you in a growth zone to where you’re doing something uncomfortable but not something that feels impossible. So that’s my GPS method of first off, you start with the where you’re going and where you’re at to then figuring out the blueprint, going backwards, reverse engineering the goal, which is like on a phone, avoiding the construction, avoiding the traffic that’s on there. And then the other 1 of 2% action that’s putting your foot on the gas pedal and starting to drive.

[00:47:48 – 00:51:54]

Host (Dwight Heck):
Yeah, that’s awesome. I love that the, the resounding theme from what you’re talking about is the fact that when we’re. You need to put pen to paper, you need to understand what you’re, where you want to go, how to avoid the obstacles. And this ties back to stuff you talked about earlier too, and I’ve talked about is associations, who you’re hanging out with, what you’re associating with, what you read, listen to and how, how does it work for your personality? For you? Audible work great. That’s perfect for me too. I love audible. But at the end of the day, we need to utilize action, belief, consistency, abc. What one of my friends taught me Tony, years ago and I practice it all the time. And I think about it and I think about the fact what baby step am I taking? How can I get past that hurdle? Like you said, the 2% is more than 1% for you. It works. And you’re going to attract people that like how you present and how you communicate to help them move forward. Because there’s some Synergy. There’s some connection to the way you speak and teach everything you talked about. I teach and educate as well, but I use different principles. You know what I mean? I use different things and communicate differently. Somebody might listen to me and go, I really like him. Other people listen to you and say they really like you. And at. The reason I bring this up is it doesn’t matter who they like. It matters that they take action. It matters that they move forward, that they take that 2% rule of yours and, and they just, you know, if you’re a reader, read 10 pages a day, every day. If you’re a listener, listen to 20 minutes of audible every single day. You get in your vehicle, that’s your roving college. Put on a book, right? Do you have to always listen to a book? Do you have to feel guilty if you don’t? There’s times I get into the vehicle, I’m just like, I don’t feel like listening to a podcast. I don’t feel like listening to a book. I’m putting on some pop, I’m putting on some rock. I’m putting on, you know, God rest his soul. But I’m putting on some Ozzy because I feel like listening to Ozzy Osborne I grew up with. You know what I mean? You don’t have to feel guilty for having a delay or a, a side track. GPS will bring you back. If you’re, if you’re utilizing the right tools and programming yourself, like you said, it will bring you back. It’ll take you around the construction zones. Maybe you’re having a character building moment, right? There’s different things I teach and utilize. I teach people how to never have a bad day ever. I’m over seven years now, no bad days. Why? Because I have character building moments. I refuse to let any one thing happen in my life to define my day. Right? No matter what. Gratitude, gratefulness, taking action using that 2% rule, move forward, take those baby steps. We’re definitely going to have to have you on like reverse engineering your, your goals. Kids menu like, that’s awesome. I do the same thing, right? I did the same thing. We have a lot of commonalities and we can unpack this and spend hours, but we’re running into the last few minutes unfortunately going to have to skip a bunch of stuff and get you back because we both have upcoming conversations with others that we have to accomplish soon. So I’m sorry we have to cut this short. I guess just the listeners and viewers know we had a great over our conversation before started. And some people you just connect with. Things happen for you not to you never forget that Willie is here and sharing with myself and you because it happened for us. We needed a different presentation. You’re tired of hearing how Dwight has dealt with it. You need to hear other people. And that’s why the giveahab podcast is here, so you can relate and connect with others. So, final question I got for you, brother Willie. If you had to leave our listeners with one last piece of encouragement, something from your own life that proves it’s worth giving a heck and never giving up, what would you say?

[00:52:02 – 00:54:10]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Do the thing that you want in the way that you want to do it. Many of times we do things based off what other people want and based off of what we think that they want. But if you can get past all that and truly do the things that really work the best for you, that’s how you’re going to do it. For myself, it’s doing things a little bit messy. That’s just how my dyslexic brain works. It’s being able to listen to audiobooks instead of reading a paper book. People tell me all the time, you got to read, you got to read a paper book. And I’m just like, sure, paper book, yeah, that’s great. I still do that. And I’m listening through mostly through audible, because that is where my education is for you. Maybe it’s not audible. Maybe it’s a video. Maybe you’re just watching video summaries off YouTube because you can’t stand the. The audio and book reading and just want a visualization. Awesome. Great. It’s about the education. It’s about the action. It’s about what works for you more than what has worked for other people. That’s why college. Why does a marketing student take science classes in college? For generals. It’s because the generals are there to help you test all the fields to figure out what you love. And so when you’re taking the action and going forward, putting that pedal on the gas, start testing areas, get out of your comfort zone, test a bunch of different things that you haven’t before, because in the movement of doing that, you’ll start to realize what aspects of the things that you’re doing along the way, which parts you love, and then you combine them together to just make the life that you want. And so do the things that you love in the way that you love doing it. And in the beginning, you just got to dip your toes into a bunch of different pools because then you’ll learn just what you love and that is just the love of this world.

[00:54:10 – 00:54:16]

Host (Dwight Heck):
Great, great closing message. Thanks. Willie. What’s the best way that people can reach you?

[00:54:17 – 00:54:33]

Guest (Willie Blake):
Yeah, the best way is through my website, coach willieblake.com as well as my social medias. It’s at willie blake underscore Light Both of those ways people can reach out to me.

[00:54:33 – 00:56:07]

Host (Dwight Heck):
That sounds fantastic. For those new to the show, go to giveaheck.com click on the top where it says podcast. You’ll see a picture of Willie as well as, well, part of me as all the detailed connections to social media his website. There’ll be chapter summaries as well as a full unedited transcript of the show. If you specifically want to find something or read, read as opposed to listen or review. So I appreciate you being on Willie. It’s been a great conversation. We’re going to have to get back into this again in the future. So listeners that give a heck that was Coach Willie Blake bringing you authenticity, energy and practical wisdom straight from the trenches. If this conversation spoke to you, if you ever felt like you’re falling behind or questioning your worth, let this be a reminder. You are not broken. You are in progress. Your difference is your strength and clarity isn’t found in perfection. It’s found in movement. Share this episode with someone who needs that push, that perspective, or simply to hear that they’re not alone. Because in this journey of life, momentum starts with an honest step forward. And remember, it’s time to start giving a heck about your life. Stop living by accident and start living on purpose. Your story matters, your voice matters, and your purpose is waiting for you to show up or it sooner than later. Until next time. Remember, it’s never too late to give a heck.