267. Empowering Leaders Through the Art of Speaking with Israel Duran

What if the very thing you fear most holds the key to your greatest impact? For Israel Duran, that fear was public speaking—a challenge so intimidating that, as a young boy with a stutter, he would deliberately get into trouble just to avoid addressing his class. But what once silenced him has now become the foundation of his purpose. Israel has turned his childhood struggle into a powerful mission, helping leaders harness the art of speaking to grow their businesses and amplify their influence.

In this deeply personal conversation, Israel reveals that effective communication isn’t about polished delivery—it’s about authentic connection and clarity. He shares how vision shapes voice, and that vision often comes from the voids we see in the world. His journey from silence to significance challenges us to reframe our past struggles as sources of strength and inspiration, rather than setbacks.

Israel also unpacks his proprietary “Service of Speaking Framework,” developed over nearly a decade of working with leaders across industries. From finding your authentic message—the “Stone level”—to navigating the stages of breakthrough, he offers practical tools for anyone looking to grow their influence through speaking. Whether you're a business leader, a seasoned speaker, or someone seeking the courage to be seen and heard, this episode offers transformative insights into how speaking can become a powerful act of service.

🌐 Connect with Israel:
• Website: https://israelduran.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/israelduran/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/israelduranassociates

📚 You can purchase Israel's books on Amazon:
• The Service of Speaking Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D2JLQZHH/
• Money Management Mindset: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578212420/

Chapters

• 0:00 From Stuttering Boy to Speaking Coach
• 4:15 Finding Your Voice Through Your Voids
• 10:58 Clarity is the Essence of Confidence
• 18:08 The Service of Speaking Framework
• 26:40 The Four Laws of Impact
• 44:35 The Law of the Leak
• 50:35 Final Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

What if your greatest fear held the key to your greatest growth? Could public speaking be more than just stage presence? Could it be a path to purpose, to service and to business success? And what if you discovered that the very thing that you once avoided became the thing that now defines your mission. Today, we're diving deep into the power of speaking, not just for business, but for your life. I'm honored to be joined by Israel Duran, a sought after speaker, trainer and coach who helps leaders grow through the art and strategy of public speaking. But Israel's journey didn't start with standing ovations. It started with a stutter, a young boy who would get into trouble at school just to avoid speaking in front of the class, his personal transformation from silence to the stage is nothing short of remarkable. Whether you speak at conferences, lead internal meetings or just want to build your confidence to be seen and heard, this conversation is for you. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Israel Duran. Israel, is a sought after speaker, trainer and coach who empowers leaders to grow their business through the power of speaking, and that's what we're going to explore today, whether you're using speaking engagements to grow your business yourself, or you're using speaking engagements within your sales teams to be able to speak at conferences, to be able to do client engagements, we're talking about the power of speaking to grow your business, including whether you're ready for growth. Are you ready to take those stages? How do you find more stages and then, once you get booked, how do you make the most of the opportunities that you get when you do have those opportunities in a public speaking environment? So there's going to be something in this for all of us. This is a big fear for a lot of people. They want to do it, but they don't always know how to start. So this is going to be a really good conversation for all of you without any further ado. Israel, I'd love it if you would say hello to the audience. And I'm really curious to know what inspired you to specifically go into this work of helping people to grow their business through the power of speaking.

Israel Duran: 2:20

Mick, thanks so much for having me on the leadership project. And it's I love the question, because growing up, I was a stuttering boy. It held me back in second grade because I had a speech problem, a speech impediment problem, really, really bad. I actually was the child that would get in trouble on purpose, Mick, and fight some of my students, or fight some of my peers to avoid presenting in front of a class for five minutes, and then I would get in school suspension for a couple weeks. That was me. And you know, now you're asking the question, well, what is what inspired you to kind of go into speaking, and, you know, serving the people you're serving now and helping people go grow through speaking. And really it was a calling. I felt a calling because, you know, a lot of the people that I speak with, they also had a similar experience with speaking, or maybe they were shy or afraid of public speaking, and they kind of need, like to see someone that's doing it at a pretty high level, that can relate to them, right? So I've come from the lowest of the lowest, like I was held back because of my lack of speaking, and now I love to empower people with the service of speaking.

Mick Spiers: 3:31

Oh, that's brilliant, Israel. It's funny the lengths that people will go to avoid something that they've got some hidden fear about, and the disruption that you're talking about, like I was just reading a story about the same thing the other day. Picture yourself in a classroom, and everyone is about to read a passage from a book, and there'll be that one kid who starts playing up just before the the round robin gets to them. Now, what does that tell you that there's something there that they haven't addressed? So I'm curious what? What did you learn through that that inspires you today?

Israel Duran: 4:11

I learned that everyone has a voice. See, I had a voice, but I just I didn't know what my voice was because I didn't have identity. You see a little quick backstory on me when my dad, back in 1993 my dad, whose name, his name is Domingo dudan, he was having a bunch of chest pains on his left side. And my mother, who was a doctor in Dominican Republic, who immigrated over to the US, who wasn't able to transfer the license, though, because of the English barrier, she told my dad, she's like, Hey, dude, you need to go check yourself out at the ER because or check yourself in because you're having these chest pains. This is not good. So my dad listened to her. He went to the ER, and he spent Mick about three and a half hours at their emergency room at the local hospital here, and when he spent three. A half hours for whatever reason. Mick, he just went back home, either whether he got impatient or, you know, they said it didn't attend him at the time, because there were more pressing issues other than what he was going through. And my dad went back home. And unfortunately, my dad have had what the medical community call a STEMI. My dad had a massive heart attack, and my dad died alone. My mom found them in that condition, a very traumatic experience with my mom and I Israel. David Durant, I was only about three months when my dad passed. So I grew up with that void. I grew up with many voids in my life, and I made all the wrong mistakes. But it's relevant to the conversation. Mick. Mick, because of those voids, I wanted to find my voice through my dad, but I actually found my voice through the voids that I had in my life, and then I found my vision as well. So I teach people today. I'm like, Hey, Israel, I need to find my voice. I really need to get clear on my voice. I'm like, Well, before we find your voice, tell me what your vision is, because your vision will always determine your voice, but your vision is determined by the voids that you see in the world. And that's exactly the case for me, and it's exactly how we teach and how we empower other people that we work with. But it really does start with understanding your vision and understanding the voids.

Mick Spiers: 6:21

Yeah, really curious to unpack that a little bit more. Very good. So what does a void look like to you? Like in a way that could be translated to someone else. Might be sitting there listening to this and go, yeah, there is something missing in my life, or it might be an injustice that they see in the world, that that kind of riles them up, like, tell me more about this word void for you.

Israel Duran: 6:43

Yeah, you know, I love the question. The word void for me is not only about what's missing outside, like what's missing out in the in the world, like what, what are like the present voids that I see, but also what was missing in the past, like, when I look in my life like my past life, like the things I lived, lived through. Like, for example, as a child, I had voids. I had things that were missing. So those things that were missing are actually things that I value today, right? I always tell people this, what you don't have as a child you typically value as an adult. Why? Because what was missing as a child, the Void is what we go after now, right? So that's really it like, and when we not just identify them, but when we lean into it. Mick, when we actually think through and think about it like, wait a second, okay. How does this apply for me in my business? How does this apply to me in my career, and as I'm developing, how can I identify voids in my company, not to complain and not to accuse and and just identify all the problems. But how can I now identify those voids, voids, and then now create those voids into values and then not start to fill those voids? So I can grow in my career, so I can grow in my business, so I can grow as a person. And that's really what it's about for me when I identify voids. Because sometimes you get people that focus so much on what's not there, they'll focus on the glass half full, if you will, or has half empty, and really focusing on, how can we make things better, and not just negative, but positivity.

Mick Spiers: 8:22

Yeah, really good. So feels like, to me, almost a bit of deep work that you need to do to connect to yourself and and in that you're talking about childhood, and almost a Freudian analysis of, you know, what was it about my life, my early developmental stages, that led me to where I am today, and to do that work of you know what? What was it? What was missing? So I can step into that void and make clarity of my own life before I can share it with others. And what I mean by clarity here is coming back to your example of playing up in the classroom. I'm going to put it to you, and I'm putting it to you to test the hypothesis a little bit here, that once you find that void, it might be almost like a resolving mindset, where you it starts to explain a few things that happened in your life, where you go, Ah, now I know why I acted that way, or why I did this, or why I was never happy with this situation. How does that sit with you, that you get these moments of clarity once you find the void.

Israel Duran: 9:28

You 100% receive clarity, and clarity is really the essence of confidence. The more clarity you have, the more confidence you'll walk in, and the more clear your communication will be. It's very hard to communicate on something that you're confused about, but the more clear you are on on it, you're going to be able to show up and communicate more clearly and more effective. And it's so true for when somebody is trying to look for clarity on again, what their voice is or what their message is, what they're called to bring, what they're called to communicate on, like if you don't have. Clarity, you're going to be confused, and that, conf, that confusion will lead to you being confined and really for you to be paralyzed.

Mick Spiers: 10:07

Yeah, really good. And I can imagine that if you haven't got that clarity, there's not a chance in hell that you're going to be able to achieve that clarity with your audience. They're going to walk away confused.

Israel Duran: 10:18

Before you can. You first have to believe that you can even with you. Mick, you were sharing with me before the we clicked record your vision with this beautiful project. The Leadership Project stemmed from the heart of impact, the heart of service, wanting to make sure that entrepreneurs, employees, C suite, business owners had access to information, principles, knowledge that can help them grow in whatever thing they're trying to grow in, whether that's in their career, whether that's upgrading to the C suite level. And you saw that void, Mick, it gave you the vision, and now you have a platform where you're using your voice to do something so incredible.

Mick Spiers: 10:56

Yeah, well, said. So the void I saw in the world was an injustice. It's when I saw that only one in five people in the world truly love their job and like their boss. And I saw it that people were spending up to 1/3 of their life in a workplace that was stressing them out. And I saw that as a void, as an injustice, and I wanted to address that injustice, and that's why I stepped into the breach, and that's why we do this show. Well, Said, now I find my vision. Now I find my voice, and that's why I speak on stages and I do these wonderful podcasts, inviting experts like your good self onto the show so that we can empower those leaders with the knowledge and skills that they need to address that void. Yeah, well connected. I like this a lot. Okay, so we're doing some work. We're working out what is the void, what is the thing that's going to drive us, what is our vision? And we're going to find our voice. We still need to overcome some of those fears Israel. So for many people, one of their greatest fears is public speaking. How do we carry on that?

Israel Duran: 11:56

You know, I studied this a lot, and it's something I deal with. Out of speaker training. We have a speaker training where it's a three day training, where we really empower, edify and help establish leaders in their area of gifting, with speaking. And we really deal with the fear, but we deal it. We deal with it very different than what most people like determine the fear of public speaking like. It's not necessarily the fear of public speaking, but it's the fear of typically, it's not even a fear of rejection. Like people say, what's the fear of rejection? No, it's not really that. It goes deeper. It's, it's the fear of not being confident in what you're saying. That's really the underlying issue. Because, like, for example, even when I used to stutter really, really bad. And my speech teacher would teach me this, like when I was studying, very bad back in elementary school. I mean, I would stutter with when I would talk about things that I didn't care about, right? But when I, when I talk, when I would talk about video games or baseball or something that I really, really knew, like a like a show that I just watched and so, or something that I was binge watching at the time, or whatever it is, whatever it was, that's when it became like I wouldn't stutter because I was just, I mean, I was talking about something that I loved talking about something that I enjoyed talking about something that I knew. You know what I mean. So everything flowed. Most people get afraid when they have to talk about something that they don't know. But with public speaking, all you're doing is having a conversation. Like, I use this question a lot. Mick, I say when I talk about sales, I'm like, Who here has ever had like, for people that have been afraid, I'm like, Who here is afraid of sales? Who here is afraid of public speaking? You'll have people raise their hand, and I'm like, awesome. Who here has ever had a conversation with with anybody, one on one, and everybody raises their hand. I'm like, congratulations, you have 95% of what it takes to speak on stage. The 5% is just skill set development and tool set development, but the mindset is really the biggest thing. And the mindset is knowing that you have something to share that is valuable to others, knowing that also the things that you know that come so easy to you, like the trash that you think you have, for lack of a better phrase, is actually someone else's treasure. Like this is so easy to me. I don't know why somebody would want to learn about leadership or growing business online or speaking. This is so easy. Meanwhile, other people have been like they're looking for someone to help them in that area. So understanding that people actually want to hear what you have to say, and you know you leading into that can help to also alleviate the fear perception of I have fear public speaking.

Mick Spiers: 14:46

Yeah, this is a great perspective. I'm going to share two things back with you. The first one is, what I'm hearing is what puts you in a flow state, what puts you in a flow state? Where does that passion come from? And I'll come back to that in a moment. And then the second part. Is we underestimate the things that come really natural to us. We don't think about that in other people's eyes. No, that's not natural to them. So the things that I know deeply, other people are interested in that we and we and we forget that because we think that's so obvious. It's so obvious, and I'm so passionate about it. I don't even think about it. So on this flow state, I was thinking of two things. One's got nothing to do with speaking, and then the other one, I think, is going to resonate strongly with what you're saying. The first one, I was thinking about exercise and fitness. I can tell you I hate running on treadmills. In fact, I call it a treadmill. It's like awful. I run on a dread mill for 20 minutes, and I'm I just want to get out of there. Give me a tennis racket, put me on a tennis court. Two hours goes past, and I don't think I've I've even exercised because I'm in a flow state. I just love it. Now, talk about my eldest boy, Henry, and if I ask him a question about something he he's got no interest in whatsoever. I get one word answers. How was school today? Good. What did you do? Not much. Really uninterested. Ask him a question about Pokemon, and he's off. We can't shut him up. He's like, he'll be still talking about different Pokemon for the next two hours. Is this what you're looking for here in this.

Israel Duran: 16:22

It's exactly what it is. It's when someone is communicating about something that is valuable to them. Again, it could be past. Voids could be present. Voids could be, you know, present values could be future values, or future visions as well, that they see something that they want, they want to be into like, like, for example, Henry, he probably has a vision of growing his, his, you know, you know that that of what he's doing, he's probably going lots to grow that, right? That's why he wants to talk about it, because it's something that is authentic to him. It's like me, me, back in the day with Baseball, baseball used to be my thing. Baseball was everything to me, right? I would know. This is how I would know everybody's stats at the time. Right now, I don't, I don't know any stats. Don't ask me. But back in the day, I used to know the stats. I used to know what people were, were they're batting batting average. I used to know, you know, how many home runs they hit, right? Because I was that was something that was valuable to me. So it's the same thing with anyone, right? And this is a really good mechanism as well. Mick to use to build rapport with people, like, when I'm going to sit down with someone that I want to do a JV with, or a business deal or something that is unique, I always do the research, or I always ask questions where I can kind of go into, okay, what does this person value? What do they like? What are their hobbies? Because I want to get them talking about what they like, because it creates instant rapport and instant credibility, instant connection. The same is true with a one on one conversation. The same is true when you're on the stage speaking to 100, 200, or 2000 The same principle applies.

Mick Spiers: 17:56

Yeah, really good. Okay, all right, so we're on onto something here. For sure we're going, I almost feel like it's a mini iki guy, but designed around where we're going to go with our speaking. So what do we love doing? What brings us joy? What puts us into a flow state where time would become immaterial? I'm so immersed in this conversation with Israel that it doesn't matter. The whole world can fall around me. That's the void. That's the topic. What are you passionate about? It's going to be something that you're then going to be good at, something that you got something to share with the world. Then there's the what can I be rewarded for? Well, you can be rewarded from this engagement. And then what does the world need? The world needs you. The world needs you to find your voice. You've become a specialist at this, whether you noticed or not, you became a specialist, and the world needs you to share that with the world, okay, how do we then convert that, that passion, that that void, that passion, that vision, how can we convert that into the clarity that's needed to cut through with an audience? Because you use the same topic again. If you got me to stand on stage, I could talk about cricket for two hours, and there's not not. Everyone wants to know a two hour speech on cricket. They want to know the three most important things. How do I condense this world that I now have, this developed knowledge that I have around this topic. How do I get it down to a codified message? I'll give a wonderful quote. So I'm probably going to, probably going to get this wrong, but a famous mark, quaint quote that says something along the lines of, I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time. So here's this long one. How do we convert all of that knowledge into something condensed that we can speak on a stage about?

Israel Duran: 19:45

The answer is the service of speaking framework. It's the exact proprietary system that we've been using for literally the last nine years. We launched it in 23 because I was using it privately for myself and my private clients and. And that's how we do it. You know, understanding that speaking is not just a vehicle of growth or of being able to monetize, but speaking is a service. It's a level of service, and I believe that it's the highest level of service. There's a great saying that says like this, if you want to be the greatest leader, let him be the servant of all. Well, if you want to be the best leader, speaking into the lives of the people that you're called to lead, or in the areas of your that you're called to be a thought leader in, are extremely important. And this is where Mick's question really should have you focus on that? Like, okay, who do I want to serve, right as a speaker, and what themes do I want to position myself as a thought leader, as a speaker? And that should be the focus on answering Mick's question. Without that, you're really still in that, in that middle space, the way we do it, as a service of speaking framework.

Mick Spiers: 21:02

All right, really good. So we're getting into the mindset that our speaking is in of service to others, that we are providing a service, and we're in service to them. What does the framework look like? Talk us through.

Israel Duran: 21:14

So the framework really focuses on five core levels, like when I take someone that is, let's say, at zero, someone that has no idea who they are, what they're called, to bring the first level is what we call the level, the stone level, level one, we call it the stone. And the reason why we call it the stone is because I'm a student of history, and I'm I read a lot, and one of my favorite people that ever lived was David. When you read his life King David, you read that before he was going to go into the palace, he fought Goliath. Right? Everybody hears that story David and Goliath, but they, many times, overlook what actually happened when David was going to fight Goliath. When you read the history, you'll find that King Saul wanted David to put on his own armor. He was like, Hey, David, I know you're gonna fight Goliath, but here's my armor. And David's response was actually pretty, pretty amazing. David said, I can't put on your armor. I'm sorry. I can't use your message. I can't use what you're using because I have improved it yet. It's not my messaging. So David went down and he picked his own stones, his own angle, his own thing, right, the thing that he was good at. So we start there. We start with level number one, because unfortunately, a lot of people in the space leadership market, in the marketplace, they may not even be clear in their message, or they're using somebody else's message, or they're copying somebody's message, that's a copy of somebody else's, that's a copy of somebody else else's. So level one really deals with getting clear in your message, the authenticity of your message, your voice, and understanding who your message is for like, Are you serving? You know, single mothers? Are you serving single men? Are you serving businesses? Are you in a business that has customers where you're looking to sell an info product, right? Really got to get clear on that, and there's so many different possibilities with that. Mick, it really is like when somebody goes to a tailor and they take a custom suit and they take your measurements and stuff. It's really like that, because that level one really determines there's a lot of questions that you would need to I would need to be clear on it gives you specifics, but the essence of it is getting your message and identifying what market you're going to be serving in or serving to as a speaker.

Mick Spiers: 23:38

All right, really clear. So this stone level, and the word authenticity is exactly what I was thinking about. And if I could think about it, take the King David King Saul example, and put it into modern day thinking you're not going to go on stage and just mimic the speech of a Simon Sinek or Barack Obama. You might borrow some of the techniques and skills that are used to captivate an audience, but it needs to be your message. It needs to be authentically you. It can't be the role of public speaker today is going to be

Israel Duran: 24:11

Perfect. It's 100% in alignment, because you are a played by Israel Duran. No, it's Israel. Duran is here to share missing piece as well. If you don't show up the way you're something about himself, his own message, deliver his message, and he's done the work to understand who his audience is, supposed to show up, there's going to be still a gap, and who he's serving, and how his message is going to serve them. How does that sit with you? different is okay, you don't have to do it like anybody else. It's kind of like with with step number three, I'm getting my head in my head of myself with systems. A lot of people like to see what we're doing on the funnel side, and they want to try to copy our funnels. And I tell people, I'm like, you don't have to copy my stuff. My stuff won't work for you. The principles, the structure. The science behind it, you can duplicate that, but your message, your eloquence, what you're called to bring is has to be unique to you, or it won't work.

Mick Spiers: 25:10

It's a bit like the 95% 5% you spoke about before. The 5% is the skills and the techniques, but the the 95% is you, and it's your message and being able to have that clarity. All right, so what's beyond stone? What's level two?

Israel Duran: 25:24

So level two has to do with strategy and structure. You see, strategy will always come before structure in order to grow. Doesn't matter if you're in a C suite position and you're looking to or you're, let's say you're a mid management you're looking to get to C suite. What's going to help you get there is typically a new strategy. It's identifying a strategy. Now let me take it to the for the entrepreneurs in the room, for the entrepreneurs that are listening in order for you to break those next level of or next level of income, it's typically a new strategy. So it's like, why I've been doing this whole thing Israel, over and over again and over and over again. It's and I'm still stuck. They say the same. They say it's this definition of insanity is to try to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result in order to break through. Is identifying those new strategies. So based on whatever strategy we're outlining, to serve as a speaker or to show up and speak or to monetize your gifting through speaking, that strategy will determine the structure. That will then determine number three, which is systems. And again, it goes back to a custom suit. I can give a hypothetical here, but it really depends on where you are now you currently, in your career, in your business, where you desire to be, though me having clarity to those two questions, then I can give you this is a strategy that will help you to jump from A to B.

Mick Spiers: 26:47

All right, so we've done our stone work. We know who our message is, who we're serving. We're now working on our strategy and our structure and then our systems, so understanding that we need a path to get towards the impact that we're looking to have, and whether that impact is growing my business for monetary return, or it's some kind of not for profit, impact that we're looking to do, we need a strategy and structure for to get to where we want to get to, and we need the systems that are going to help us get there. What comes after, after level three?

Israel Duran: 27:19

See number four has to do with the support and speed of implementation. But before I go deeper into number four and number five, let me just outline because you mentioned impact, and I love talking about impact. It's the first word in my logo. There's a law that actually governs impact, right? So I'm a student of history, and I love studying again, just the history, like old books, like I love studying a bunch of people that are not alive today, if that makes sense, like they left their books right. And there's a law that I would love to share here. Mick, if that's okay, before going into number four, number five, yeah, go for it. Israel, yes, the law of impact, or the principle of impact teaches that there's four steps before making an impact. And these steps have been proven time and time again. Every single time it's like, it's like a law, it's like the law of gravity, right? If I were to drop my water bottle, I'm never going to doubt and say that the water bottle, oh, well, I'm afraid, because it's going to go to the it's going to go to the ceiling. That thought will never cross my mind, because I understand the law of gravity, that if I drop my water bottle, it's going to go to the floor every single time, 100% of the time. So when I empower business owners or entrepreneurs or people that are looking to grow into careers, I love to teach them laws, because when I teach them laws, laws don't respect how young you are, how old you are, what color skin you are, if you're fat, if you're skinny, for lack of a better phrase, if you're a man or woman, it doesn't respect none of that. It just respects the fact like if you're implementing the law right. And this law is going to be game changer, and there's a lot that we teach, but I'm going to give going to give you this one law here. So step number one is we begin with education. So everything starts with education. And that's a that's a typical like, oh yeah, I know that. But what do I when I say education? What do I mean? Am I talking about college education? No, I'm not talking about college education. So let me just be clear. I'm talking about specialized education in life, doesn't matter what you want to do, whether that's again, you want to get to the Sweet C suite level. You want to enjoy what you do in your workplace. You want to be happy. You want to grow your business. You want to have some fulfillment in life. You want to hit 6, 7, 8, figures of revenue in your business, doesn't matter what the goal is. Everything starts with education, and the fastest way of learning something is to find someone or a group of people or an organization or a podcast like this that has already done what you want to do or have. Guests that already done what you want to do, and then start to learn, start to consume the information, the education, so you can reverse engineer how to actually do it. And education is extremely important, but specialized education, learning from, again, a mentor, a teacher, someone has already done what you want to do. So that's step number one, once you do step number one correctly, and that may take time, it may take a year, may take a couple years, may take you might be lucky and be fortunate, and just may take a week. I mean, it really depends. But education is key. Once you have the education in place, and if done right, you're going to naturally unlock number two, which is what we call building systems and building leverage tools. Systems build wealth. Systems build everything. And a lot of times, people want to make an impact, but they don't understand that they need money. They need resources in order to make an impact. They need resources to be able to truly make the impact. Like, if you want to reach millions of people, you're going to need millions of dollars to do so, or if you want to reach even a couple 100,000 people, you're going to need some resources to do so, right? So number two, really allows us to identify the systems to build value, typically using speaking, right, and giving that value. So we can build the value in a certain community or demographic or industry or in a company or an organization, right? Et cetera, et cetera. So then we can naturally unlock step number three. And Mick, I would love for you to touch base before I get into three. Number four on what your thoughts are so far.

Mick Spiers: 31:35

Yes, so I'm hearing about finding a I'm going to call it a universal law of impact, that if you're going to be impactful, you you need to have an approach to do it, starting off with a specialized education, and then having a system for how you going to do it, including how you going to bring the resources together to have the impact that you're the you're looking to have, and having a look around you and seeing others that have been successful before you what worked for them, what didn't work? And I'm seeing a curiosity there that we're not just flying blindly. We're actually looking to have some kind of structure and approach through that specialized education and then through the systems that we're going to bring forward. So so what's the third step with with your law of impact?

Israel Duran: 32:23

The third step, and by the way, 100 you're 100% you said it eloquently and elegant. The third step is influence. Now, before I go into influence, I just want to say this, influence is the barometer to leadership. The way you measure leadership is by someone's influence. And influence isn't about a title. It isn't about control. It isn't about manipulation. It's not about trying to force someone to do something or to follow you. That's not how leadership works. It's more about being someone that people follow or take their suggestions, because you've built the right systems, the right leverage tools that have been valuable, the right communication, the right empathy connection, trust that people are like, I'm going to follow you. I'm going to give you my respect, because you've shown an interest with them and for them, right? So there's no way of like, trying to, like, I want the hack of becoming the best leader. It's there's really no hat. You just have to be, you have to show up and become the person. You have to do the work. You have to create the things it's not about. You know, I get this a lot of time. Mick, Israel, I want to become a millionaire. I'm like, Okay, how many people are in your email database? Email database. What are you talking about? How many people have you? Are you giving value to? Oh, well, we don't have the email database. I'm like, wait a second. You're Wait, hold on. You don't have any so how do you how do you stay in touch? And people are like, well, we don't have it, right? I'm like, you want to build a million dollar enterprise, but You, the people that you serve in you're serving already. You have leaks already in your system, and you're not even serving the people that you already have. So what would an extra 10,000 people do? You're going to do the same thing with them. No, we got to make sure, again, you have the right systems in place to be able to get value. So then when you unlock that influence, you're able to keep that influence. Because the worst thing to do, Mick is to have influence and then lose it all. That's also not good. We want to. We want to think of influence like something that is worth much more than any amount of money that someone can pay you. It's like your brand, it's your it's it's everything. If you don't have influence, you don't really have anything. Thoughts before I go, before I continue.

Mick Spiers: 34:39

Yeah. Really good. So, what I'm hearing then in this law of impact is that we've got the specialized education, we've got the structure, but then we're also finding our audience that we're going to influence. So we've captivated an audience, we've built trust with that audience, and now we're going to inspire them into meaningful action around our message. Message and inspiring them is because they do trust you, but also because you're cutting through with your message and with your structure in a way that inspires them into meaningful action because they wanted to do it, not because they were told to do it, but but they they truly wanted to do it. You've influenced their behavior because you've built that trust with them around your message and around your structure. How does that sit with you?

Israel Duran: 35:24

That's it. And in order to really break through number three, Mick, we have to understand what I call the three steps to break through. And everyone will need to go through step number one, within step number three of going through what we call obscurity, or going through the darkness, like if you're unwilling to go through the dark, you're not going to go to the light. You're not going to sustain the light. When a seed, when you take a seed and you plant it in the ground, it goes in the dark, in the ground where no where, there's no light, there's no sunlight there. It's dark, it's ugly, it's the it's the hard work, it's the seasons in life. Mick, where nobody knows us, but we're doing the hard work. Once we're willing to endure insecurity, then we'll go through the next second level, which we call the level of resistance. Okay, the level of resistance is when the the seed starts to grow, but it has to now break through the ground. Okay, 95% going back to that number, and I'm not I'm not exaggerating, 95% of people give up in the resistance stage. They're about to break through. They come from obscurity. They're breaking through resistance. They're trying to grow Mick from that job that they don't like into the job that they do like, but they need it. They need to stay focused so they can build that rapport and break through. But they're struggling because they have some problems with some employees. One employee gets on their nerves and is always constantly on their back and they're about to blow up. They got an anger issue. Let's just be Let's speak clearly. Continue to be, continue don't get you don't have to get angry. Continue to do your job. Continue to stay focused, just do good a little bit more, because once you break through, then you get to the level of acceptance, which is level number three. Then you get to, now you got some acceptance, and then once you get acceptance, you get to what we call the level of acceleration. And then that's when you really start to grow. But 95 if you're willing to go through resistance, if you're willing to put into work when nobody sees you, you want to be faithful with the little, you will then get the job with the much. So that's that's how we unlock influence. The problem with people. Mick, is that we live in a generation here in the States. We call it the microwave mentality, the mm, and not the millionaire mindset. It's the microwave mentality. People want everything fast, and they want it now. Doesn't work that way. Good things take time, and if you want things to last, you've got to be willing to go through the process and not cut corners.

Mick Spiers: 37:50

All right, let me, let me share what I'm taking away from this Israel. First of all, the stages, the the obscurity, the resistance, the acceptance and the acceleration. It makes a lot of sense to me, and I'm going and I'm going to unpack it a little bit more in a moment. The other thing I'm picking up here is about this wanting to go faster and missing the opportunities that are coming along the way. And this is what I'm going to talk about. And I think where some of that, that impatience to go faster comes from, is probably from

Israel Duran: 38:16

That's how it works. Because when you're able comparison syndrome. We see other people's mastery, or even someone else's messy middle and we start comparing ourselves to why can't I speak like Barack Obama? Again, I'll keep on using him because I think he's amazing orator. But why can't I speak like Barack Obama? Well, you you're just starting give give yourself a bit of a chance. Now, what do I see is the opportunity. I think there's an opportunity in that obscurity Israel. So if you do have a fear of being judged around your speaking, make the most of that period of obscurity where no one's watching, to master your craft, get better at it, then I think when you get to the resistance, what I was picking up is, I'm going to say the resistance is going to be mostly in your own mind. It's mostly going to be your own limiting beliefs that hold you back from the breakthrough. Then once you get to acceptance, I'm going to say that what you would need to do is to unpack Well, why is this now working? So back in obscurity and the resistance, you might have been doing a whole thing, hope of things that weren't yet working. When you get to acceptance, something's clicked, and you need to be able to do the deep work, the reflection, to go, Okay, why is this all of a sudden working? And if you can work out why that worked, why you got to the acceptance stage, then you're ready for the acceleration. How does that sound like? Use these to reverse engineer how something's done, you're able to stages deliberately. teach others so like when people work with us and our brand and our organization, I. And teach theory like there's no guessing in what I'm doing. All I've I've described been fortunate enough to have some incredible Mistakes happen in my life. You know, I've been fortunate enough to have some great teachers and mentors in my life, really the teacher of life, and I've been able to reverse engineer how to be successful in business and career development using speaking, because I was in a position where I needed to do it for myself. But I did the I did the D work. I've done the deep work of really thinking through and understanding how things work. I'm obsessed with science. Was one of my favorite subjects growing up, because I always wanted to learn how things worked and why they work. I just I wasn't okay with well, it works because it works. I'm like, no, no. I want to understand why. And I took that same mindset in business and speaking.

Mick Spiers: 40:50

Yeah. So I think this self reflection, I'm going to play it back to a corporate world and talk about lessons learned. Most people remember to do lessons learned. At the end of a failure, they go, Okay, what went wrong here? People forget to do the lessons learned when things went right, and go, now, what? Okay, that worked. Now, why did it work? And if you know why it worked, you can repeat it again sometime, and then you ready for the acceleration.

Israel Duran: 41:16

Entrepreneurs have a syndrome, Mick, where things work, we say it worked. Let's go find something else.

Mick Spiers: 41:24

Yeah, okay, shiny objects from driving a little bit there as well. Yeah. Okay, very good.

Israel Duran: 41:28

Yeah.

Mick Spiers: 41:28

Okay.

Israel Duran: 41:29

Those are the three steps inside of influence to break through influence a way of bypassing that are JV ventures, because when someone already has a level of influence in a certain market and they partner with someone, or somebody comes beside them, it's like, almost instantly, they go past obscurity and pass resistance. And sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, because if the person's not ready, they're not ready, but if the person's ready, it could really be a really good launch pad for them to kind of like, grow because someone that has already done the work to build the brand is opening a door for it to give you that exposure within that market, and that could save a lot of time, right? So JV ventures are huge. And then step number four, to finalize the principle of impact, is monetization. Once you have that influence, then you monetize those that try to monetize before influence don't last.

Mick Spiers: 42:26

Yeah, it's clear you, you haven't captivated an audience. So how are you going to monetize that? Yeah, really good. Okay, so we, we went on a bit of a interesting tangent there with your with your law of impact, and educating ourselves, structuring ourselves, developing the influence, and then the monetization and the mini steps.

Israel Duran: 42:45

I thought it would be a lot of value to the listeners, because in the services speaking framework, that was a framework that I developed over nine years. And you know, one of our businesses we did, it's not, may not be a lot of money to somebody, but just in one of the businesses using the same framework. We did 1.5 and one of the end to 1.5 million using the same framework. And that's just one of our companies. But I wanted to give people context on why I built the framework the way I built it, because it's based on the laws. And I just shared with you one law. There's many other laws, but because of time sake, that literally follows the law. So people can't get that breakthrough. Because I have people all the time coming to me, Mick, and saying, Israel, I see what you did. You got that person on a TEDX stage. I saw that you helped them launch their brand. I saw that you got, you know, this impact stage. And I'm like, Yeah, but they follow the process. It's easy for you to see from the outside in, but let me ask you a few questions. You want to get on the stage? Yeah, I want to get ready on the stage so you're ready to speak in front of 100 people? In front of 500 people? Yeah, I'm ready. I'm like, Okay, let me ask you a question. Do you have this in place? No, do you have this in place? I was thinking about doing it, but I don't. I don't have it in place yet. I'm like, I don't even want to continue to ask you questions, because you don't have the first two things I asked you. But first two things I asked you about. When they follow the framework, Mick, they have all those things in place. So when they get to number five, which number five is? More stages? Number five has to do with getting them on more stages, more traffic and growth. But if you don't, if you have leaks in your cup, like if I had a leak in this cup, right? This is the law of the leak, by the way. Now I'm giving you another law, the law of the leak. Do I have time to go over the law of the leak? Nick effort, so the principle of the leak is, let me, let me teach it in the proper context, because I don't want to shortcut anything here. Imagine if you're by the water, okay, and there's an ocean, and you have a huge ocean. And in this ocean, I want you to imagine that the ocean represents abundance, more sales, more stages, more growth, everything that you want. And about 100 feet from this ocean, there's a beach, there's sand, beautiful sand, about 100 feet worth of sand. And. And from the waterline to this table, there's this beautiful table that's 100 feet from the waterline. And on this table, Mick, I want you to imagine that there's different size containers. You have some small containers, you have some, you know, some bigger containers. You have some really, really big containers. And each of the containers that are on this table, they all have one thing in common. They all have a leak inside of it. They all have a hole inside of them. So if it's a small container, it has a it has a hole in it. If it's a big container, has a really, really big hole in it. So every container has a hole in it right and on the side of this table that's about 100 feet from the water, there's this huge bucket that represents what you get to keep, and it has the capacity of the ocean and beyond, meaning you can fill it, and it still doesn't get filled, like you can anything that you put into that bucket you get to keep. Okay. Mick, are you following me up to now? Yeah, sure, yeah. So let's imagine that someone, a business owner, let's say somebody that's an entrepreneur, or somebody that's looking to go into the seat suite. They come up to the to the table, and they grab any container that they want. And let's say they grab a medium sized container, and they go and they walk to the beach, 100 about 100 feet, and they go to grab gather more opportunity. They go to gather more sales, more water, right? And they walk back with their container to their table, and they're about to transfer the water from their container into the bucket, which represents what they get to keep. So they're in that process of doing that. What do you think they're going to find, Mick, when they go to transfer?

Mick Spiers: 46:37

Gonna find an empty bucket, which is all leaked out.

Israel Duran: 46:41

Find an empty container and an empty bucket, for sure. Why? Because it's a leak. 95% of people. Mick, they go back to the container the table, and they try to find another container. This container doesn't work. Let me go find the best shiny the next shiny container, and they go in and grab the best next container. Then they go back down to do the same thing. They find out that, wow, there's no water being stay, being held. What's the more of the story you gotta fix the lake. There you go. No, I didn't see you. Now you're here. 100% you gotta fix the leak. The more of the story is this? More doesn't matter unless you cover your leaks, your blind spots, your gaps and your leaks. I'm a passionate teacher and making sure people have all of that in place before going for more, because I believe in going for more, but I believe, as you go for more, make sure that you plug in the holes, the leaks, so you can keep more what you're receiving, or you can, you know, maintain those relationships as you're growing in their careers, and it's so important. That's why my framework is built out the way it is. And it's very meticulous, not because I want it to be. It's just that's the way that people succeed. When people follow my framework, they're following literally 17 different laws without them even knowing and that's why it works. It works because I'm implementing universal laws and I'm teaching people how to do the same.

Mick Spiers: 48:05

All right. Excellent, Israel, we are running short on time now, so you've given us a lot to work on. And to me, the number one message in all of this, we said it at the start in the introduction, was, are you ready? And if you haven't done the work, you're not ready, and it's okay to practice a little bit along the way, whilst you're in your stage of obscurity, etc, but make sure you're paying attention and you're making the adjustments, fixing the leaks. Make sure you're making the adjustments before you can truly say that you're ready for the acceleration that will come and then potentially monetization at the end. Really good Israel. I want to take us now to our Rapid Round. These are the same four questions we ask all of I guess so, what's the one thing you know now, Israel Duran, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Israel Duran: 48:55

The one thing that I wish I knew when I was 20 is that there's a gift inside of me, and it was just waiting for me to get it out. So my encouragement to you is, discover your gift, discover your voice, and begin sharing that gift in your voice.

Mick Spiers: 49:11

I think that's powerful in in everything you shared with us today, about finding the void, but then also about picking your stones, like if you think about your level one that you spoke about before with King David versus King Saul. Don't wear someone else's suit. Find your suit. All right, really good. What's your favorite book?

Israel Duran: 49:28

Favorite book is the Bible. And I know that probably is like a check mark, right? But that really is. And to be fair, to be fair, the Bible does have 66 different books. So one of my favorite books within the Bible. I really love the book of Proverbs, because the book of Proverbs has 31 chapters, so you could read one every day, and it's a book about wisdom. It gives you life wisdom, business wisdom and financial wisdom and relationships wisdom, which is stuff that we all need. And it's really a powerful book.

Mick Spiers: 49:58

Yeah, really good. Okay, yeah. What is your favorite quote?

Israel Duran: 50:01

Then my favorite quote is this, your last success is your worst enemy. That was from Dr. miles Monroe, one of my mentors. He passed in 2014.

Mick Spiers: 50:11

Yeah, yeah. Good one that's powerful, also with what we're talking about today as well. And finally, Israel, how do people find you? If they're curious about what we've discussed today and they want to do the work. How do they find

Israel Duran: 50:22

You know, Mick, I wanted to give a gift to your you? audience that I typically charge for, because I believe that you shouldn't give anything away for free unless it's worth paying for. That's just the way my philosophy is. So with your permission, I would love to give the audience for those of those that are listening and they're either they're getting some value out of what we're sharing, and they want to, kind of like, maybe go through a process on learning how they can identify their their leaks or their blind spots or their gaps, and really, kind of like, Get clear on what their custom thing is. We have a guy that's called the online business blueprint that really takes you through identifying what your gaps are like. It really making sure that you're ready for more. And all you got to do to receive it, because you're you're listening in, is you find me on Instagram. You can find me on Instagram by going to israelduran.com and just clicking on my Instagram social media link. You find me on Instagram and you want to direct message me. This is very important, because if you don't direct message me like this, you're going to get the page to actually pay for this. And I don't want you to pay for this, because you know you're you're me, you're on Mick podcast here. So make sure you use this keyword. You want to use The Leadership Project, all one word. If you DM me, that word. Can't have any spaces in between TheLeadershipProject because of Mick, we'll go ahead and give that to you at no cost, and you'll have that as a resource available for you instantly when you DM me the word The Leadership Project.

Mick Spiers: 51:57

Thank you, Israel, that's very kind to you, and I encourage the audience to go ahead and do that, so that brings us to a conclusion. Israel, I want to thank you for sharing your gift with us today, the gift of your time, the gift of your wisdom, and giving us an insight into your framework that is helping people to get ready and to get ready for growth. Thank you so much.

Israel Duran: 52:16

Thank you.

Mick Spiers: 52:18

That was Israel Duran, and what a powerful reminder that your voice matters. If you've ever hesitated to speak up, if you've ever felt that inner critic whispering you're not ready, or if you've been sitting on a message that the world needs to hear, let this episode be your sign. It's time to rise. It's time to speak. It's time to lead. Israel's story shows us that our biggest growth often lies just on the other side of fear, and that when we speak with purpose, we don't just grow our business, we transform lives. In the next episode, I will be sharing my own thoughts about overcoming the fear of public speaking and some tips on how you can progressively get better at the craft. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP, Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now in the meantime, please do, take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.