Your Results Don’t Lie (Andrew Allen on Character, Music & How You Do Everything) | RR 364

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Relationships

Rule. I'm very excited about my guest today. He is a

multi-platinum singer songwriter with five top 10 hits, and also

a keynote speaker. What a great.. he's not a former

musician, he's an existing musician, he does both at the

same time on the same stage, keynote speaking, singer,

songwriter. I love it. He's toured with Bruno Mars, won

Republic and Train. He's played arenas and dive bars, and what

he's learned from all of that is this, and I love this: your

results reveal your character every time, and that has become

the insight for his Hyda theory, which we'll get into a framework

built on one simple idea. How you do anything is how you do

everything. It's a diagnostic as much as it is a motivation tool,

and it changes how people show up at work, at home and

everywhere in between. His keynote concerts blend live

music, personal storytelling, and real frameworks. Audiences

don't just leave entertained, they leave with something they

can actually use. So, I would love you to meet him, Andrew

Allen. Welcome to the show, Andrew.

Hi, Janice. Thanks so much for having me.

You're very welcome, and you know, Andrew,

as I was reading that, and I'm sorry I had to read it, but I

did. I was thinking back to when I first met you, I think it was

like in a backyard concert that you did many years ago in

Richmond, BC, and what I remember is, you had that aura

about you then, when you were just doing singer songwriter,

you were not doing the keynote speaking

back then,

but you had that aura about you that you were, that you cared

about people, your writing, even you know, shows it, the the

songs that I grew to love and became part of my my playlist

and and I think it's just a natural progression for you as

you've gotten more mature as you become a father and start to see

things from a different lens. Am I right?

I appreciate that so much. It's been an

interesting journey, but a wonderful one for me to have.

Like, I feel very grateful that I've had the time and space to

reflect, because as a musician, my whole, my whole sort of

journey in the creation of songs and writing for other people,

you have to constantly be looking inward or outward, or

wherever you need to look to try and find that inspiration. And

then you condense it into three minutes and 50 seconds with a

lovely melody, and you try to encourage people to maybe live

differently, or maybe you try to give them the words that they

didn't know they had to be able to share what their experiences.

You know, when people share songs, like, this is what I'm

feeling right now, this is how I'm, you know, going through

this emotionally, and because of that time and that space and

that practice outside of songwriting, I was always

thinking and trying to understand, you know, how life

works, why do we connect with one another, what are these

underlying themes that exist, and I always used to joke with

people that my journey as a musician would have me sleeping

in truck stops and playing at the homes of millionaires, so it

was like I was constantly just weaving in between these spaces

of life, and that's the beauty of art, and I think you know I

really do appreciate that. Yeah, that the idea that you got of me

then, my desire to connect with people has always been the

highest priority. It just so happened that music was my

vehicle to get me there.

Yeah, that's great. It just flashed in my

mind back in the days of me going to concerts, back in a

long time ago, and I absolutely adored the music of Van Morson.

Okay,

and Van Morrison, a great storyteller, you know,

this writing. And I went to see him in concert at the Queen

Elizabeth Theater, and he spent the entire concert with his back

to the audience, probably stoned out of his mind, because it was

that era and not relating to the audience, and that always stuck

out in my mind, that was he there for himself or was he

there for the people, because it changed my feelings about him,

you know, and so, yeah, so it's like when someone can relate and

really, you know, relate to their audience and and show

people that that they're interested, it doesn't matter

what you're doing, that to me is so important. It's all about

relationship, and you have to build that with your audience.

You can't do it with your back to them.

No, I don't

think so.

Right, right. So, you've been take us back to how

the journey began. Like, have you been singing? It like as a

kid, or when did you, how did it all begin for you?

Yeah, I was singing as a kid, I wasn't good,

and most people that heard me in those, those years would have

agreed. The first time I ever sang, I think was at a wedding

when I was 10 years old or something silly. Singing, I

never really pursued singing. I guess I was in piano lessons

when I was like five years old, six years old, continued playing

music. I didn't like the practicing side of it, and more

often than not, I would sit down at a piano and I would just try

to make my own stuff up, and it kind of drove my parents nuts,

because they'd be like, you

play by ear,

yeah, mostly.

Oh, lucky you. Yes, okay.

I mean, that being said, you know, it's kind of

like the fundamentals of learning an instrument are kind

of like the fundamentals of learning a language, so you

know, I speak by ear as well, but so I, you know, I think that

growing up I was very creative and wanted to come up with my

own material, and so I would write my own songs and do my own

thing. Eventually I learned how to play guitar, and partially

because it was a smaller instrument, I could take it with

me instead of a piano. And

then

I just often used the instrument to back me up as

a singer, and it was only when I guess it was like in 2008 I

finally was like, I'm gonna pursue this thing, like I was in

bands and stuff, and never once really even thought about my

singing. I just sang into a mic, and it was very loud and

nasally, and if I wanted to sing a punk rock song, I'd probably

sing with a British accent, and if I wanted to sing, I'd like

change the way, as I was very.. I mean, I guess you know, as

young, but finally I, when I decided, you know, I'm gonna do

this, I'm really gonna do this, I sold everything I had, bought

a minivan, and just started touring, and toured Canada back

and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and then went to the

UK and toured back and forth there, and then came back to

Canada and back to the UK, and at some point along that journey

I wrote a song that I thought was pretty good, and so I hired

a producer that was pretty well known at the time to produce it.

I figured out, okay, this is how you release it to radio, so I

put together an independent radio campaign. The song came

out, and it did okay. It didn't do amazing, but what it did do

is it gave me kind of a platform to jump off of to book shows,

because I had now radio play, so I could call venues in different

parts of the country, and say, this is what I've done. Can I

play at your venue? And when I would go to these different

venues, I would reach out to different people in those

cities, and one of the people that I reached out to was like a

big record executive in Toronto. He came out to the show, like I

was so surprised that he even came, and the funny thing was,

is that my public show in Toronto was the third show I

played, because I had played two house concerts leading up to

that show.

Okay,

and at those two house concerts, I said there

might be a chance that this really important person is

coming, so if you could support me by coming to the public show,

that'd be amazing. So this guy comes to the public show, he's

never heard of me, he's never had me like he, I'd never played

in Toronto, and I had like 60 people in the room, and he's

looking around at them, and they're everything from 70 year

olds to 20 year olds, and he's going, 'I don't understand why

this is happening, and I wasn't going to tell him, but he was

interested, and I remember we had a conversation after my show

that night, and he said, 'You know, if you want to be like a

pop singer, get in line, everybody does, and I was like,

'Oh, that was pretty discouraging. He left the next

morning. He called me, and he said, Andrew, I need you to come

into the office today to meet with my boss. And I said, Why is

that? And he said, Because I'm not generally a very happy

person. And I woke up this morning happy, and I'm not sure

why, but I think it had something to do with your

concert. I said, Okay, so I went in to meet the other guy, and

the other guy again gave me some not great news, where he was

like, "Yeah, you know, your voice isn't really memorable,

and whatever, my god, you're just so positive and uplifting.

Yeah, but he said, "You know, I think you might have something,

so I'm going to send you to Nashville, and I want you to do

some co-writing. And I went to Nashville, and I co-wrote a

song. It was the first time I ever co-wrote a song, and that

song was "Loving You Tonight. And when I came back to Canada,

I was like, this, I feel this is a pretty good song. So I went

and recorded it with a different producer again, released it

independently to radio, but I kind of understood the game at

that time, and it came out to all the radio stations, and it

ended up blowing up and going top 10 for like 32 weeks in a

row. It

was a

great song.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, it is a great song. Interesting,

though, that and so typical that they're so negative around, you

know, but but it was your learn it was meant to be for you to

learn, so learn what it's, yeah, what it was like, but it's hard

when you're young, so you, you came out on the radio, you came

out as a pop singer, but you're a singer-songwriter. You wrote

the song, or you helped write you,

yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you know, it's funny

because if we talk pop, you know, pop music, pop music back

in the day was the Beatles, and now if you were to put the

Beatles out on the radio, they would not be pop music, right?

It wouldn't, it wouldn't be comparable to what we. See, his

popping, so in, you know, 2010 when my song "Loving You

Tonight" came out, Jason Mraz, Colby Kelly, Gavin Dakara, all

those guys were out, and they were all pop singers.

Yeah,

and so I

was technically a pop singer, and so singer

songwriter sort of would typically put you more like, if

I was to be, "Hey, this is Andrew Allen, the singer

songwriter, that would have kind of put me more into the folk

world.

Yes, it would. You're right,

right. And it was like, you know, we still had

like electronic drum beats under the songs, but no, I was still

writing the songs. I

just said it. Yeah,

so I know that you also then got more into

songwriting, right? And you not just for yourself but for other

people, and you've made a career from that too.

That's true. Yeah, when Loving It Tonight blew up,

I got a lot of interest from some record labels in the

states, as well as a publishing company. So I ended up signing a

publishing deal with Sony ATV at the same time as I signed a

record deal with Epic Records. Sony put me in rooms with all

sorts of people to write songs, and it was, it was a fantastic

time, like, just to see how different people, because it was

never.. I just wrote songs for me, I had never written songs

for other people, and it was, you know, it's wonderful as a

creative to get insight from somebody else's life, and then

help them shape a song around that, so you're not just going

from your own personal experience, you're getting to,

hey, oh, that's interesting, let's, let's talk about that.

How does that land, and how do we, you know, get that emotion

out, so that we can land it in the songs. It was a, yeah, it

was a fun experience.

What was your most proud moment of working for

someone else? What, what, what happened of that in that career

that was your best moment, or is your best moment? I assume

you're still doing

it.

Yeah, you're an entrepreneur, you're doing all

sorts of things.

Oh man, that's a great question. I had a few

great experiences. The songs didn't necessarily go anywhere,

you know. There was some that did, like I remember this guy,

Matt Simons came into my house. He was from New York, but he was

signed to a record label in Germany or something like that.

And he, he came into my house when I was living in Los

Angeles, and he had a keyboard, and he set it up, and the two of

us just started cranking away on this song. It kind of just came

very effortlessly, and he somehow got that song into the

hands of this guy named Marco Mangoni, who was an Italian

superstar, that guy ended up putting the song out, and it

went quadruple platinum, and I was like, and half of it's

translated to Italian, and I was like, what is happening, this is

sort of a weird experience, but

yeah,

one of my favorite experiences, though, is I worked

with Megan Trainer before she was an art,

or she got skinny.

Well, you know, but she, yeah, but as when she

first was coming out, she wanted to just be a writer, and I

remember getting into the room with her and hearing what that

girl came up with, like she is so, so, so talented and has such

a cool energy and a vibe to her, and then she was producing the

song herself, and, and I was like, you're incredible, like

with the stuff that you're coming up with is incredible,

and I, from what I understand, the story went that she wrote

all about that bass, tried to pitch it to Beyonce, Beyonce

didn't want it, and so La Reid, who was the CEO of the label,

was like, you should release it, and she's like, okay, and yeah,

just I just, so I find knowing some of these people, especially

in the pop world, that a lot of people are like, probably like,

oh, they don't write, or they didn't come up with that

herself, it's like, no, she's the real deal, like, she

actually knows what she's doing, she's really talented,

and I'm sidetracking already still, but

one more thing, I want to say about that industry, about that,

I've been watching and following a guy who I think is so talented

and so like out of this world is Charlie Plus, Charlie Pluth,

Pooth, Charlie Puth,

he's

like brilliant with the his music ear, it's

more than that,

yeah, he's like an, he's what he's one of a kind, like he's a

prodigy kind of kid, but not a kid anymore. But to watch him

build a song, the music of us, the melody of a song, you know,

did it on Jimmy Fallon, I think one night with him, you know,

making silly sounds, and he'd put it onto his keyboard, and

he'd do this line, he's unbelievable.

Yeah, he is. He's very, very talented.

Yeah, and actually saw him with a kid who

looks up to him, and this kid has the same talent. Okay, and

started to challenge Charlie, and to, like, well, they'd make,

I guess they'd say a sound, and they, they'd each say what key

it was, or whatever, and the kid was blowing him away. It was

amazing. So,

that is really cool. Yeah, that's a, that's a

unique talent. That's not one that I have

totally. Okay, so we've got the music career in

many capacities, because you are entrepreneurial. It's, it's

obvious. Just obvious. Okay, so mind you, I do know one set of

your parents, and they're pretty entrepreneurial, so sometimes

somehow the the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. I

must say, don't know about the other side of your parents,

whether they are as much, but the ones I know, definitely.

Okay, at what point, at what point did you start to see that

your experience in music was teaching you something bigger

about life and business? We sort of touched on this, but did you,

when did you have this like a-ha moment, if you had one, or that

you started testing this, this, the newest part of your career?

I've always been fascinated by human behavior,

and I love, you know, like some of the stuff that I guess I

probably find on social media, and stuff is like, you know,

life hacks, ways to make life better or easier, and it was in

that sort of, in that moment, I get, but a moment, meaning like

in that year, where,

yeah, sure,

I started to dive into the idea that, like, how do

we make our lives better? Like, when you see, like, different

people, and they, you, it's really easy from us, from an

outside perspective, looking at somebody else, go, why don't

they just do this, why don't they just change that? It would

be so much easier for them if they would just understand this,

and I didn't want to look outward, and actually, I had a

conversation with a friend on my way to Vancouver, and I was

running late getting to his house, and I called him, and I

said, I'm so sorry, I'm stuck in traffic, and he jokingly said,

You are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic, and I was like,

huh, and he did not mean to be that prolific when he said

it, yeah,

I took it internally, it was like, huh,

you're absolutely right, so in my sort of like, oh, want for

other people to be able to experience a better life for

you, if you could see the little things that were kind of like,

oh, if they just changed that, I all of a sudden turned that lens

back around on myself and was like, Andrew, dig into your own

life and see what it is that caused all of the things that

you've created, and when I started, kind of like with my

results. Okay, where am I at right now? And that brought me

back to the actions it took to get to those results. I was

like, but what inspired those actions? And while I was digging

into that whole process, there's a whole bunch of information out

there, and some of it I think is really muddy, some of it's

really confusing, some of it's like, oh, if you just think

about a good thing, it'll happen, and it's like, and

there's, there's certain truths to all of them.

Yeah,

but I, I worry that we, I mean, it's this is

like a physiological reality, is that we always try to find the

easy way. As babies, we breathe with our diaphragm, like really

rich, deep breaths. It's amazing, and if you see a baby,

like, lying in their crib, they're like big, big, big

breath, and it's so good, all that you know, blood dense

oxygen, and everything, like, or oxygen-rich blood, everything

going through their body is amazing. As we get older, we

shorten it, shorten it, shorten it, shorten it, we

just start to breathe a little breather. Yeah,

right. And as a singer, obviously, I have to go

deep into the diaphragm to be able to get the notes

right,

and just knowing that, that we always find the,

you know, the path of least resistance, the self-help books

and stuff, they're like, oh, if you just do this, this will

work, here's the life hack, this will work, but that never lasts.

They say January 20-first, I think, is like, yeah, yeah, it's

like the, like, National Quitters Day,

three weeks, resolutions are done by then,

yeah,

yeah, and I was like, I, there's a lot of quirky

things that I feel like I do, and I wanted to understand why I

did them.

Okay,

and yeah, so I would say that I don't know that

it was like a, it wasn't an exact moment, it was a span of

time when I was, I guess, kind of reevaluating my participation

in the music industry, and going. How do I line up? What do

I say? Like, what do I still want to share? I was in a new

space in life, in a new marriage, in a new, like, a new

home, everything. Like, things were just very different. I was

like, this is a great opportunity for me to kind of

reinvent myself. And so, anyway, so that's.. I would say that was

kind of the, the year-long process, and what it revealed to

me was phenomenal.

So, I remember going to a personal development

course back when I was probably in my, maybe around 30, I was

around 30, and it was a three-day weekend thing, and a

friend of mine had a ticket and said, "You should go, you need

this right now, you know, like, go do it, and when I walked into

the room, there was this big sign across the stage, and it

said, What are you pretending not to know? Wow, that kind of

went, what you know, but when you think about it, What am I

pretending not to know was kind of the starting point for the

exploration of, you know, looking inward for yourself, and

so I always remember that, because it was so profound.

Okay, so you talk about the idea of, you call it your Hyda, how

you do anything, and tell me about that. Where did, where did

that insight. Come and you do a, I think it's a weekly

newsletter, yeah, yeah, and to this is your platform to get,

you know, this is your, your build your list thing to show

people who you're what you're about and what you believe. So,

how did this all come to be? Because that's what actually

right, I get your newsletter, and one day I went, 'Oh, I think

that I need to talk to Andrew, because this is like a whole

other thing, and

it would be

kind of fun. And, of course, my relationships rule

is all about relationships, and that's what I was here seeing in

your newsletter. So, go

ahead. Yeah, so

I heard the mantra, how you do anything is

how you do everything, and it just landed, like it just stuck

with me. I was like, oh my goodness, and I started to use

that. This was years ago, like years and years and years ago,

when I started off in the music industry, and it always kind of

resurfaced, and it would remind me when I wanted to, like, you

know, shorten a task, or, like, I don't know, maybe I just won't

do that, but I'm like, no, Andrew, how you do anything is

how you do everything, but that for me was always like a moving

forward action statement, right? It's like, okay, you know, I

need to do the dishes, because if I don't do the dishes, I'm

not really a clean person, or if I do that, like, what, it, you

know, and really, really like trivial things.

Yeah,

when I started to look at how results expose or

reveal your actions, and then I hit on the point where it was

like your actions are driven by your character, and I'll get

more into that, but identifying that the concept, how you do

anything is how you do everything, suggests that even

the smallest tasks expose the bigger tasks, right? They say,

'Hey, this is if you're going to do it little like this, and

you're going to do it well, you're probably going to execute

the bigger tasks well also. So, that gave me the insight that,

like, if your character is driving your actions and your

actions are driving your results, then the work that we

do should not be on how do I do better actions. It should be how

do I show up with better character,

right?

But the funny thing was, for me, is that it's

one thing to get to character and you go, okay, I just got to,

you know, identify my character, which is easy to do if you look

at your results, because your results don't lie, even if

people think that, you know, they're like, no, no, no, I

totally, I don't. I remember this after I can't remember what

it was. I was like, I'm gonna stop drinking wine, just, you

know. And then I looked in the recycling bag, like, two weeks

later, and I was like, where'd all these wine bottles come

from? This is crazy. Somebody else must be putting.. no, it's

you, Andrew. So, okay, I understand. Results do not lie,

they can absolutely reveal your character. But then it got me to

a place where I was like, well, where did my character start

from? How did my character come to be where it is? And when I

dove into that, that's what I found was fascinating. So, we've

already talked about the music career and my desire for

connection, but those were the results, right? I connected with

people, and I was on stage, and I had this music career that

allowed me to do so, but what drove me to do that, and it was

my character, but what started, like, what made my character

that way? Well, it turns out that if you look back far

enough, you can see the in, or the intentional and the

unintentional decisions that you made all along the way, which

were creating your character for me. When I was born, and you

know this story, when I was born, I was given up for

adoption in that space and time. A child developed something

called a fear of abandonment,

right?

And even if you know, even like I have a

wonderful relationship with my birth family and a wonderful

relationship with my adoptive family, and to me they're just

all family,

but and you're very lucky that that was the

case, right? Yeah, I'm fortunate on all sides,

absolutely, but

it could have gone daily, it

could have, but knowing that I have a fear of

abandonment, and then looking back on that and going, hmm,

what do children with fears of abandonment do well, either they

self-sabotage relationships because they don't want to get

hurt again.

Wait a second, stop for a second. When did you

find out?

I went to counseling, like when I was

like, how old were you when you found out that

you

was adopted?

Yeah.

Oh, oh,

you knew. Okay, yeah, you weren't a soon as you

were old enough to understand. You mean that's when you knew.

Yeah, it was always.. it was always shared

with me, like it was never a question of,

right? Okay, got it. Yeah, okay, yeah. So then

that fear of abandonment develops without

unintentionally, you're saying,

well, so the fear of abandonment, it's not that it

develops one way or the other, it's just in there,

okay?

But what it can do is it can inspire two different,

two different sort of paths. One, you're either going to go,

I'm going to shut down, I don't really want to have

relationships with people. The other side is I desire

connection, I want people to see me and hear me and want to know

me,

right.

So then transfer that into, hey, what kind of

career could I have? So I remember sitting at a piano at a

friend's party and I was playing Disney. Songs, and everybody was

surrounding a piano, and they're all singing along, and I was

like, this is magic to me, this feels incredible. I never want

to lose this feeling. Then you move fast past that story. I was

a very fearful kid as I was growing up.

Okay,

and so when I was about 12 years old, my parents,

they were saying, hey, you know what, there's the summer camp,

you should consider going, and I was like, that sounds like a

horrible idea. I'm afraid of everything. I don't want to be

away from you or anything.

Yeah,

my younger brother, though, he was eight

years old, and he was not afraid of anything, and he said, I'm

going to summer camp. So it took me about two weeks. I came back

to my parents, and I said, hey, I've changed my mind, I want to

go to summer camp, and they're like, well, it's too late, like

you can't, and bless you.

Sorry, yeah.

And I was so disappointed that I couldn't go

to the summer camp. Then fast forward another two weeks, my

parents say, "Hey, guess what? We heard of this new summer camp

that's opening up, and we're really excited, and we think you

should go to it. And I was like, "You know what? Actually, I want

to go, and they're like, "Okay, great, and you're going to go

with your good childhood friends from, you know, where we grew

up. They're going with you, so you're going with your buddy

John, his little brother Ian, who you're all like, you guys

are good friends. Like, okay, great. So to fast forward this

story, we go to the summer camp. It's not really the greatest

conditions. It's like, you know, we're sleeping in tents. It's

all kind of like a forestry camp. And then on the Wednesday,

we are planning a skit behind a row of busses, and there's a

hill behind us, and out of the blue, randomly, 6pm on a

Wednesday night, a tree falls, and the tree hits me, and a

piece comes off, and it hits Ian, and it kills Ian.

Oh, that's right.

And so I am now 12 years old, lying in the dirt. I

just witnessed my friend pass away. I have a hole in my leg.

He's being airlifted. I'm being taken out by ambulance, and in

that moment, not in that moment exactly, but coming out of that

moment, through the healing process, I had another decision

to make. Am I going to be afraid of life, or am I going to pursue

life, and when I was like, I'm pursuing life, because he only

got eight years, I'm not willing to waste a second of this.

Again, fast forward then to a music career, where you've got

to give it absolutely everything. That didn't seem

like work to me. It just seemed like I was pursuing this

incredible adventure of being out on the road and playing

music and connecting with people, all of those incidents

that happened, they forced me to make a decision one way or the

other, because we don't control everything, but that doesn't -

it's not the same as we control nothing, we control our

responses,

sliding doors, that's right, doors, yeah,

that's right, and so

that movie

was that,

have you seen that movie?

I believe so.

Okay, yeah,

it's a bunch of years old now, right?

Yes,

yes, okay, yes, I have been,

yeah, yeah. So that was

the whole journey that I've kind of gone through

in recognizing, like, okay, there's these decisions that

you're faced with, and when you're really young, obviously

you're not consciously making that decision, but as you get

older, that's what got me so fired up, is that we do, we do

get to make a decision on how we want to form and change our

character, and if our character is trainable, which it is, then

instead of focusing on the habits or the actions or the

life hacks or the results we want, we need to first step

back, expose or reveal our character, so that we're able to

identify what it is that we love that we're doing, and the things

that we're like, I'm not really stoked on that. How do we change

that?

Okay, so fast forward to today, and you're now

going out on the road, still.

Yeah,

but now you're going on stages, and you're

going, and you're delivering this message that you've just

talked about, really, through your music and through your

keynote,

yeah,

and kind of putting them together. So, who's

the audience now? Who have you, you know, if you've done any of

these experiences so far, or what you're, you know, what you

see that you're doing? How is that going to play out, or how

does that play out? Who's the audience, and I mean, you're

it's an inspirational piece, I feel that it is, but it's also

educational,

right?

Is it interactive with the audience?

It is in part. So, the thing that I've noticed is

there are a lot of corporations and associations out there that

really do value their employees or their members, and they see

them in the light of, like, we would love for you to have more

company culture, we would love for you to be more accountable

or more responsible for the actions that you take inside the

company, or on an even bigger level, they're like, we really

want to be a company that supports our employees' mental

health, and we want to be able to say to them, hey, like, look,

we care about you, and we want to give you some insights and

frameworks to help you live a better life.

Yeah, so that's building this culture. They want

to build this culture in their business and have their

employees love working there and be better, become better people

along the way, and help them to do so

well, and in, you know, in your. World of

relationships rule the way that we develop better relationships

through accountability, through honesty, through trust, right?

Exactly, trust being the big one, I think,

exactly. And so, when we, when we root our

character in trust and in truth and in accountability,

recognizing, like I was reading The Seven Habits of Highly

Effective People, and he breaks down that word, responsible, and

how he breaks it into words, and he goes, it is your ability to

respond, and sometimes that's all you're able to do, and I was

like, that's so phenomenal, because we as humans always want

to control or fix or change, or whatever, we don't always want

to take responsibility for our actions, and yet that's

literally the only control we really have.

Yes, that's very true.

Yeah, and so for me, that's that's how it lands

for corporations, is if they see and understand the value of

trainable character and understand that that's how

you're going to achieve better results, both in relationships

as well as the results of the company or the organization that

you're trying to, that you're trying

to own, own what you do, you know, and yeah, it's

funny because I was just talking to a gentleman earlier today,

and he's written a book called The Living Organization, and

he's all about the same thing in his own way, and you know, of

teaching corporate leaders how to build organizations based on

relationships,

that's so good.

Yeah, and so it's really quite similar in its own

way. So, how do you, how do you bring your music into your

keynotes,

that's a great question. Yeah, it's not a

keynote with just some music at the end, where you're like, "Oh,

I'm just gonna play what I

would think, right? It is, that's what I

would think. Yeah,

the way that I have done it is, I love bringing

people through the, like, the visual and the physical story,

so in order for me to say, hey, you know what, I, I did this

with my life as a musician, and when I would be in radio

stations trying to encourage them to play my song on the

radio, this is what they would ask me, but instead of me

showing a clip of me playing on a radio, I'm like, I'm just

gonna play the song for you, so then I play that song, then

there's another song that really catalogs these three stories

that I share that are vulnerable experiences. There's also a

spoken word piece called Unbecoming that,

oh, I feel like I've heard that

you probably have. I put it up on Instagram.

Okay, okay,

yeah. And it's, it's very much the sort of the

flip of, like, instead of trying to become something, a lot of

times we need to strip off all the baggage and the things that

have been placed on us and the identity that we've taken on

that isn't ours and remove it, so it's essentially unbecoming

as well. I'm a loop artist, so that means I record using a loop

pedal, same as Ed Sheeran, where it's basically like you hit

record and you play something and it immediately starts to

record you, and then as soon as you stomp on it again, that

plays back, and you can stack on top of it. So, similar to

building your character on a base level,

yes,

as long as you get that first part right, you can

stack on top of it and create something meaningful.

Ah, that's very good.

And then, at the very, very end, usually we do

something that's a little more interactive and upbeat and fun,

and it encourages people to sort of step outside their comfort

zone and go, hey, you know what, if I'm actually going to,

because we like, we don't develop our character by saying

I'm going to be courageous, so I'm going to go jump out of a

plane, it's like, no, I'm going to be courageous, so I'm just

going to tell one truth every day that's hard, or I'm going to

be courageous by being the first one up to dance, or I'm going

to, you know, the little things, and the last song is typically

that encouragement of, hey, I would love for you to

participate in this next one, and usually it's a, it's a

really great opportunity for people to connect, and, and go,

hey, this, this feels good,

yes, and what a wonderful way to have people

leave your, your presentation, because they're hot, they're

happy, they're feeling good, and, and they walk away saying

that was the best I can see it, I can just see it, I love

it.

So, how do you, how do you this is second, how

did.. how do audience respond to music? Okay, so I don't know if

you've answered this, but how do you notice that audiences

respond differently when music is part of the message?

I think that all of us have different ways of

learning and different ways of processing, for sure, and, and I

think that by adding a musical or artistic element in the

middle, it allows room to pause and to breathe, and to just kind

of go, hmm, I think I'd like to think about what I just heard, I

think I'd like to, you know, process in turn. A little bit

about what I heard, and so, or you've heard all the words, and

it's kind of jumbled in your head, and now all of a sudden

I'm going to reiterate it with music, and you go, "Okay, I get

it from this, because this, this made sense. So that's how I

think it lands differently. I also think there's something

interesting, like I've been to a lot of different conferences and

such, often hired as just a musician, and I've seen that

they will, they'll often bring in, like, an athlete or

something, right, to speak, and I think that athletes are a

great example of, you know, resilience and consistency, and

all of those things are so, so valuable. The funny thing is,

though, is that if you are the fastest runner, you are the

fastest runner. It's not subjective, it's like, no, you

actually are faster than everybody else, whereas if you

are the best musician, it doesn't mean anything, like it,

it like it means something, but it doesn't mean that you are

necessarily going to be like there are probably 40 other

Charlie Puths out there that all have perfect pitch that are, but

maybe people don't like the way they look, or they don't like

the way, like the songs they wrote, or they don't,

he didn't have, or they don't, haven't had the

same, where you know, circumstance meets opportunity,

that's right, luck, right? Yes, that he had, yeah,

exactly, but it, that I think, then also speaks

to corporations and people who are maybe trying to climb that

corporate ladder, or they're in an association where they're

like, oh, I just want to get to this next stage, and I'm finding

it really difficult, and it's like I'm not here to tell you

that the harder you work, the better chance you have of

getting there. What I'm saying is that at the base level of

your character, become somebody that you're proud of, and then

whatever happens is going to be awesome. And then I think when

you pair that with music, and you go see, I'm telling you,

like not everybody's going to love my songs, but hopefully

right now in this moment you're able to see that, like, okay,

that guy tried real hard and he made a career for himself in a

really weird industry, and now he's playing some songs for us,

and it gives us a moment to process.

Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I just..

I heard something on Instagram, it was Simon Sinek was

interviewing this guy, and it was just a little clip, so I

don't know. I think this guy maybe wrote a book about John

Wooden. Do you know who John Wooden is?

No.

Okay, John Wooden was the the coach of the UCLA

Bruins basketball team back in the day, like, he was the, he

won more championships, and than anybody in the NCAA, but John

Wooden, and this guy went in this conversation, he was saying

he never cared about, he never taught people to win, he taught

them how to build their character, and how he said, when

they, if, if somebody passed the ball to the person that scored

all the points, usually the person who scored all the points

had to, had to know that when they came back down the court,

they had to make sure they, you know, thank the person with the

signal, or whatever, for doing it, because the person that

scores all the points gets all the accolades, but the other

person doesn't, so it's about the character, it's not about

winning, and he's amazing, like his, his isms, you know, like,

like his quotes, and so on. You should look him up, because he's

amazing, for what, for, for this type of, you know, building

character, and whatever. So, okay, this has been so much fun.

So, what's in the near future for you? Tell us, because I

think you shared a little bit before we got on air, and I

think it's good for people to know who you're looking for as

your audiences, and you know, maybe someone listening out

there will be able to reach out and say, 'Hey, I may have a gig

for you, or are you interested in talking at this conference,

or whatever. We never know. So, tell us what's what's on the

horizon for you, and what you're looking for.

Well, what I'm looking for is more

opportunities to connect with people who desire culture, they

desire, they desire a framework that will help them build a

better life. And so, if they are looking at their life right now

and going, man, I know what results I want, I know what

habits I would like to change, and it just doesn't seem like

anything's changing. There's a strong likelihood that it's

because in the character and the root of all of it is not a flaw,

because I don't think character is good or bad. I mean, you can

say, oh, character trait, loyalty, that's a good character

trait. Well, not if you're loyal to a drug cartel, so loyalty is

right. They're neither here nor there, so it's just information,

and sometimes we get way too sensitive about it. We go, "Oh,

how you doing? Anything that's a judgment statement. It's like,

no, it's just an opportunity to reveal our character. We cannot

know where we're like, "If you punch into Google Maps, I want

to go to this place, but you don't tell Google Maps where

you're starting from, then you are not going to get there,

right?

So, my hope is that maybe somebody out there is

listening and goes, 'Hey, you know what? I run this corporate

retreat, or I have this opportunity to bring you into a

conference where you could speak to our employees or our

association members, and you might be able to bring them this

story and this framework, so that they can create for

themselves. Is the life and the results that they really want,

and it's an intentional choice, because it always comes back to

choice.

It does, doesn't it? How you do anything is how

you do everything, and it's a great message to use as the, as

the base, really, because that's what it is. And I think that

what you bring to the table is unique in how you're presenting

it, how you're looking, you know, for that, and I think that

I wish you well with it, because I think it's, it's such a, it's

so unique, it's just unique and different. And next time you're

doing something in Vancouver, can I stand at the stage and

just watch, because then I'll have a better idea of how to

promote you.

I'm sure that we can do that.

Yes.

All right. Thank you so much for being here,

Andrew. Where can people find you?

Andrew

Allen live.com

Perfect. Andrew Allen live.com I'll put it in

the show notes, and of course, you're on LinkedIn, so they can

find you there. Strange as it may seem, but now that you're

going into the corporate world, you need to be there, right?

Yeah, so we'll make sure that you're there in your best light

and go from there. So, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for being here.

And for those who are listening or watching, reach out to Andrew

if you think you have anything that can connect him with the

right people, because I think this message is really

important, and and reach out to him anyway, if you have anything

that you want to share, and remember to stay connected and

be remembered,

do.