I helped him to make our first little tiny movie, and I helped distribute it, self-distributed, get in front of investors, get in front of distributors, get in front of audiences, and ultimately that was the foundation for me saying, I can do this. I can be a storyteller. I know how to go out, raise a little bit of money, execute a film project, and get it out there to the masses. So I didn't wait for my passion to hit me in the face. I think too many of us do that now.
Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement, leadership, and relentless grub. No fluff, no filters, just hard-hitting truths, unstoppable strategies, and the mindset shifts that separate the best from the rest. Ready to break limits? Let's go! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged.
In this episode, I'm talking to one of my top three favorite people in the world. He doesn't know how much he's inspired me, but we are about to get into it. I'm talking about the best producer in the game. His movies make you think, they make you cry, they make you laugh. But more importantly, he's written a book that I believe is the number one leadership book, and I'm talking about none other than the visionary, the compassionate, the leader of leaders, my guy, the man in the hat, Mr. Wheel Pack.
Will, how you doing today, bro? Good man in the hat, I'm so appreciative of you having me. This is top three, that ain't bad. I don't even want to know who the other two are, okay? Because I just know, I'm top three, I'm passing a lot of people.
So I'm top three, and you're cool. I'm doing something right now, friend. I appreciate you making that happen. I appreciate you making that happen. I have a moment in the hat.
There you go. I'm never gonna get that happen. You know what I mean? You're a smart man, so you keep them to top two. You know that.
I appreciate you, brother. Thank you, and thank you for having me. Hey, man, I'm the honored one. In the situation and in the seat that I sit, the situation I'm in, the seat that I sit, meaning the privilege seat that I sit in, I'm very, very hard to be in this position.
But because I am here, if I am not paying for, and that is not just to my immediate nuclear family, my extended family, but also my community family, right? If I am not paying it forward, the ability that I have to touch people and hopefully inspire people, but certainly the ability I have to play resources in a certain way to deploy power in a certain way to try to be an example. And I hope a positive example of what it looks like when someone like myself gets into a position of power. If I'm not doing that, I would be remiss. I would be wasting a God-given opportunity to go out.
And then I hope creating positive cycles of success. Your legacy, at the end of the day, we are not the things that we do. We are not the things that we buy. We're not the things that we accomplish. Those can be drivers, right?
Those can be things that keep us going. I'm a very ambitious person. There are things that I'm striving to do. Things that have to do with, you know, quantifiable success metrics in Hollywood, you know, box office, streaming numbers, even awards. But ultimately, at the end of the day, when I leave this earth, I won't be the number of number one box office hits.
I won't be, you know, New York Times bestseller. What I will be is the people that I have influenced and the people that I have touched. What I will be is that legacy that I leave behind. And I'm somebody that believes that if we're always trying to positively manifest impact on others, if we're living a life, when we're thinking about the impact that we have on other people, I promise you, you will live an incredibly fulfilled life. What I call a blockbuster life is what I take the time to move in as you, right?
So that's my because. Because I feel like I have to have an obligation and a responsibility to. Yeah. So I want to go into that, like that obligation, because that's something I talk about with leaders, right? Like you have an obligation to lead.
And for me, that obligation started when I was 10, right? Like everybody that knows me knows, I made my mom a promise that I was going to change her life and the life of my sister and brother. And every day I just fulfilled that promise of obligation. That's literally it. I lit myself in the mirror.
Some days I do, right? Some days I don't, but like I make sure that I fulfill the obligation more than I don't fulfill the obligation. Right. So for you growing up in St. Pete, right?
Then going to family. When did you know that that was your obligation to do bigger, to do better than maybe the people that were surrounding you? Yeah. You know what? I have been very fortunate in that I had parents that told me you can be anything.
Yeah. And that's so powerful and so important. And I like to say that to all my folks out there listening who have kids. Listen, you have a responsibility. My kids, I like to say they took me to the highest mountain top they could find.
Say, Peace of Earth, Lord is pretty glad. It's not a lot of not a lot of not a lot of elevation. Right? Lifting me up and they said they did me like similar. They said everything the sun touches is yours.
Right? And they literally instilled in me this idea that I had the ability to accomplish and achieve whatever it was that I was willing to set my mind to and I was willing to work hard for. And that there was nobody more deserving than me. And the only barrier to my own success would be me not external people. And we have a tendency to give our power away to external people, forces, people with titles, people with money.
We give them the power and they say, well, when you tell me, I'm ready. Or if you tell me that I can be successful, then I'll accept it. If you tell me I'm not that I won't accept it, we give that power away. My parents taught me very, very early on, you don't give that power away. So when you ask what I realized that, you know, I had the ability to do something special, it definitely would have been just in terms of like my matriculation sometime around the time that I got to family at the Florida University.
And I like to say that I really found my voice. I certainly found my passion for storytelling. I was connected with another brother named Rob Hardy and Rob had a passion for filmmaking. I had a passion for entrepreneurship. I knew that I wanted to have my own business.
I wasn't sure making exactly what business that would be. But Rob had a passion for filmmaking. I linked up with him. I helped him to make our first little tiny movie. I helped distribute it, self-distributed, get in front of investors, get in front of distributors, get in front of audiences.
And ultimately that was the foundation for me saying, I can do this. I can be a storyteller. I know how to go out, raise a little bit of money, execute a film project and get it out there to the masses. So I didn't wait for my passion to hit me in the face. I think too many of us do that now.
I didn't wait until all the boxes were checked in terms of the thing that I wanted to do. A passion that I was going to get paid to do. I went and did something that I did well. And then I found my passion within it. Yeah.
I love that, brother. I love that, man. And when I told my family and friends that you were coming on the show and they all are huge fans of you and my audience and viewers and listeners are as well too. And I always like to tell the difference between the producer, the director on film sets. Because a lot of people, a soon producer, director are usually as one.
And I'm like, no, the producers are the most important because I have to tell the story. They have to make this theme in paper come to life. How would you describe that difference as well for the viewers and listeners? That maybe they're like a lot of people that think director, producer, pretty much are the same. Yeah.
Yeah. Most people don't know. I get that. I'm good. I break it down pretty simply.
The director is who you most think of as being the behind the scenes person on your television set. They're the person working with the actors that are yelling out action and cut and say, let's do it again. Give me more emotion here and more feeling here and more comedy there. Right. That is the director.
The way that I analogize producing and the producer or responsibility is I take it to the Oscars make and at the Oscars throughout the night, you've got all these various categories. You've got your best director. You've got best out best actor, best supporting actor. Right. Best production design, all these various categories.
At the end of the night, the final award goes to best picture and the producer gets the best picture. Okay. Because the producer was responsible for pulling together all those other categories. Producer is like being a big project manager. You have to keep your eye on the macro.
You have to put people in position to succeed. You're responsible for getting the resources, whatever the money the budget might be. You're responsible for overseeing the marketing and the distribution. You've got a very macro approach to make sure that the entire project comes together and you put all the various elements in place in order for that project to work. And I'll just take that analogy to life, because ultimately we all have to be incredible project managers.
You have to make sure that in order to produce your best life, you've got the right elements, right? You've got to have the right supporting cash, you've got to pay attention to the people around you, right? You've got to make sure you're marketing it correctly, you've got to be able to sell yourself. We're always selling ourselves. Right.
You've got to make sure that you keep your eye on the narrative, right? You've got to be able to tell your story all those things. The same things that I do when I'm making a movie or television show. Those are the things that we need to do in our world. Each of our individual worlds to make sure that we're creating the best life, producing the best life possible.
But the elements and the responsibility for overseeing those elements and being unflinching when it comes to making sure that you have the best elements and changing those elements when they're not is very similar to what I do on a day to day basis. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right. Well, now I'm going to get personal for me.
You know, when I started this, I said, we'll pack or someone who's influenced my life more than he knows or will ever know, right? Here's why, well, so you know, aside from leadership, I do a ton of keynote speaking and one of my mentors, the legendary Les Brown, told me this one thing. He said, Mick, speaking is nothing but stories and points, right? Never tell a story without a point and never make a point without a story because that's what the audience is going to remember. And so he's telling me this. I'm like, all right, great.
Stories and points, points and stories, stories and points, points and stories. The best storyteller in the world that I know is Will Packer. So I dissected you, brother. And that became my template, my framework of how I speak. Like when I'm on stage, this is a secret that I'm letting the world know.
When I'm on stage, I envision that I am Will Pack. I am not one of you. You can ask my best friends because I tell them when I'm designing my speech, when I'm picking out the stories and points that I want to make, whether I use them in the speech or not, because I'm all about energy, right? Like sometimes your energy will take you places. But I got that from Will Packer because I understood everything doesn't make a movie, right?
Like everything that's recorded, that's on film doesn't go into the actual movie. So I wanted to personally tell you, man, thank you for being a blueprint because I understood true storytelling from literally dissecting everything from takers, which is my favorite book about it. Takers, too. The girls trip to, you know, right along. I don't think, like, am I like understanding how you tell the story and like really being a student of you?
I just want to tell you thank you because that's made me the speaker that I am. Oh, brother, that is huge. That is, that is, I mean, you make my day. You see the big cheesy grin I got on my face. The reason it's making my day is, number one, it's amazing here, you know, if you give me your flowers and to give it, you promise me, influence of life.
The other reason it is because I am sharpened to iron. We know that, right? And there's somebody watching this now who feels the same way about you, who feels like I watch and listen and hang on, and mix every word, especially when it comes to leadership, when it comes to self-improvement. And there are times when you may have a podcast, you think maybe it's not as impactful as some others, you don't even feel like doing it. Somebody is greeting something from that podcast.
And you now are sharpening them. We have to be sponges and willing to do exactly what you did. I do the same thing. Take elements from those folks that you look at that are aspirational to you, right? It's not about starting from scratch.
It's not about reinventing the wheel. Use things that exist. Use people that exist. Use things that they are doing to then do it your way, right? So when you stand on stage, you're not going to pack.
You're making a hunt, but the way you do it, I love it, it's inspired by a war packer. And then you take it, you put something on it that I don't even have, that I don't even know because it's uniquely you. Somebody listening right now can do that exact same thing. Draw inspiration from other people that are doing things that you want to do, right? Storytelling.
Just hit on that for a quick second, man. You're so powerful. One of the things I say in the book is that you are selling yourself and building your brand from the moment you are born into the time that you die. To the time you live in this lead to everything, I call you home. You are selling yourself.
We all are. I don't care who you are. My parents, they put me in the Bay class when I was in high school and make I hated it because it wasn't cool. Cool kids weren't doing that. They were playing sports, right?
They were playing bookie, whatever they were doing, but they weren't writing debate, right? I'm so thankful because what my parents did was put me in an environment that forced me to learn how to formulaize an argument and defend an argument. And what you have to understand is that I don't care what your profession is, I don't care what your desire, your profession or ambition is, you will always need to be able to present an argument and defend that argument. Sometimes you need to be able to present yourself a certain way, tell your story, and you need to be able to defend your story. We live in a world where people attribute a value to you based on their perception of your value.
And so you don't have to be a Hollywood filmmaker to understand the need and the value of telling your own story. There is power in telling your own story. So when you talk about storytelling, I take it very, very seriously. You don't have to be a content creator, movie producer, writer, director. You don't have to do any of that in order to understand the importance of telling your story because you're telling other people what value to ascribe to you.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I love that man. And like I said, I appreciate you more than I could ever tell you. You are the goat.
And if I was going to be an understudy of anyone, it was going to be the goat. So thank you. Well, I appreciate that. I really appreciate you sharing that too. I'm both and I'm.
Yes, sir. So perfect segue to the book, man. Like I told you, I ordered copies of myself, your team sent me copies this weekend. I shared it with family and friends, man. So for those that are listening, the book is titled, who better than you, the art of healthy arrogance and dreaming big.
And so well, just the title alone, I'm going to get your because of writing the book, but the title, who better than you, but the subtitle, the art of healthy arrogance and dreaming big. And like it made me think when I saw the title, because I go back to, you know, some of my other mentors at Damon John, Robert Irvine, people that that there to be successful, there's got to be some healthy arrogance, maybe a lot of healthy arrogance because as you say in the book, if you don't believe in yourself, nobody else will, right? And so you've got to carry that belief outwardly, not just inwardly, like it doesn't mean you have to be loud. It doesn't mean you have to talk about we're going to go into that too.
But you've got to have some healthy arrogance in yourself, man. So I love that. I was instantly relatable to that title alone. Like talk us through just the title itself and what why the reason of that, but then what it meant to you. Yeah.
I mean, I tell you about the title first, that's a question that we have to constantly ask ourselves because typically, especially in a world where we're all connected digitally, so Chamea is rampant and all lives. You can begin to doubt how much you deserve success. You can begin to doubt your readiness for success. You can begin to doubt the skill sets that you have, what you need to lead you to success. You have to constantly ask yourself that question, right?
In the devil and angel on the shoulder analogy, you've always got the negative, you know, the devil always saying you can't do this. You're not prepared for this. You don't have what it takes. You're not ready, right? You have to constantly undergird your self confidence with the who is better than me.
Who is more deserving? You literally have to ask yourself that confidence is a muscle and it's like any other muscle you've got to work it. You don't have to be born with it. You don't have to be born with some big outside personality saying I'm confident I'm born this way and most people are not. But you do have to build it by constantly reminding yourself of those positive attributes that you have.
Ask yourself who better than you can continue to ask yourself that question and realize that the answer is no one. And that leads to the subtitle, Healthy Areas and the Art of Dreaming Day. I've been around so many most successful people in the world and one thing that the most successful people in the world have in common that people who I see who are trying to be successful often don't is that the successful people when they walk into a room they do not question whether or not they belong there. They don't have that imposter syndrome. They walk into a room and they realize this room is better because I'm in it.
I am something to this room that nobody else has the unique nature of me and my being is additive to this room. Now be clear it's not about coming in and tearing down the other people in the room. That's toxic area. I work in Hollywood. I do a lot of that right.
That's toxic areas. Healthy areas is a feeling that I can make this room better and bring up the folks in this room. And true leadership is understanding a commonality of goals and getting other people to see the commonality of your goals because if you and me and five of the people all in a team and I've got a particular goal if I got a goal you got to go for the people have their own goals and we are not seeing the commonality and we're all going to be rolling into different directions. We will get nowhere. But true leaders are able to get people to galvanize around a shared goal and mission that everybody benefits from.
That's a part of that healthy area is understanding that your goal your mission, your desire is just as important as anybody else's but you got to get other people to buy into it. That's a true side of leadership and success. So being around some of these really successful people globally. I see that they're not questioning at all their value. They're focused on trying to get other people to see their value, but in a positive way again about saying I'm good, you're bad, I'm better than you know that's not what it's about that is not sustainable.
It is about I bring something to the table that we can all benefit from. That's why I deserve to be in this room no matter who's in the room, no matter how important big and the titles and all of that. I am not intimidated because I understand that I have something that none of the other people have and it's just this important and it's going to add value to them. That's where that healthy area is coming from. Yeah, I love it man.
I love it. Now I want to go into the book a little bit because you scared me with the title of chapter one. I was like, we'll tell them I'm going to die tonight. Like what's that? You're going to die tonight, but then you open it with what I feel like everyone needs to know moment one because it's something I again I talked to leaders about which is why I resonate with this book so deeply.
You say success is a bottom line business and I don't think people understand the brevity of that because when you understand that truly that should dictate all the moves that you make success is a bottom line business. So so talk about that a little bit. Yeah, well that first chapter you're going to die tonight. Obviously, you know, I'm a storyteller. So I wanted the book to be to be impactful, but I also wanted to be light.
I wanted to not be heavy reading. I wanted to be something that you can breeze through and hopefully I'm accomplished that. I heard that's where some folks that it's, you know, it's like it's fun. It's like me, you know, then then take us up to too seriously. It's got funny fun moments and in the first chapter, I tell the story of dealing with Kevin Hart, our first, both of the biggest movies of our career at that time, which was right along and Kevin Hart, you have to read a book to get the whole story but him basically unintentionally sabotaging this shoot is very important.
She was sneaking off to try to go and do a comedy show at Madison Square Garden and be in and up in a nightclub. I'll be in Popdall around and Carmella Anthony telling me we all die and tonight. I'm going to wait. Not tonight. Not tonight.
Maybe tomorrow night. Maybe next week. I got to move you. Kevin back to Atlanta. We shooting this movie.
He was going to do a show and go back like I'm dealing with all of that. The point is you have to expect an unexpected aspect and not just in relationships, but in business with people show you they are, you got to believe it. Right. And I know my good friend Kevin Hart. We've worked together with each other.
We're each other's most frequent collaborators. So I know he's the guy that will overbook himself. He'll triple quite a book himself because he is very ambitious. It's my job though to contain that ambition and to hone it and to keep it focused on the by-line because he oftentimes will not. And so in business you have to know who you're dealing with and working with, what their skill sets are, right?
What their localities are you have to then adjust accordingly. Success, as you said, is a bottom line business. We get to caught up in what's fair and it's not fair. When I'm up against, what's the myself against? Figure all that.
Okay. It matters. But at the end of the day, you're going to be judged by if you deliver or not. Right. I am successful in Hollywood because I have 10 number one movies.
Does it matter that I was up against bigger stars? No. Does it matter that I had to go up against movies and have bigger budgets or I had, you know, seeing what he circumstances that I couldn't control on the weekend of the releases or some of my films and none of that matters. What matters is the bottom line that I have been able to be successful. According to the Quant of Five of Metrics, with that particular issue, you have to do the same thing.
Keep your eye on the bottom line, right? Make the main thing the main thing. Make sure that you are driven by that bottom line of success. And then some of the things that we talk about in the book is how you can adjust your mentality and way of thinking to accomplish that bottom line while also living a balanced life. That's very important as well.
Exactly. And then, you know, one of my favorite chapters is chapter six titled who better than you. Right. So when we get into chapter six, you talk about the a doer, right? Not a talker, which made me pause in a good way and made me reflect now because I am my grandfather son.
I tell everybody that. And one of my grandfather's things was making you got to know how to move in silence, right? Because when everyone knows what you have, you have nothing. When everyone knows where you're going, you'll never get there. And so when I read chapter six, man, you started talking about being a doer and less talking it was got to move in silence.
You got to move in silence because you can go further in silence than you'll ever go loud, man. And so when I wanted to tell you appreciation for that chapter, because that's the chapter I probably read three times a day because you give me something out of that one. But man, talk to the audience about that man being a doer because I think especially in today's world where it's like social media and people think they need to broadcast everything they're doing and it doesn't mean you don't need to do things, but you got to do them, not just talk about. We live in a world where we are encouraged because of that social media feed back loop. We get that dopamine hit every time we get a like or an engagement or positive comment, right?
So we think that we need that and now you become more focused on that on the feedback, be it superficial and actually accomplishing and doing the thing that you set out to do, right? So we too often are putting our babies like to call it, right? Whatever the thing is you're working on. We're putting our babies out to the world before it's ready. Don't worry about that.
One of my mantras is it's the work you put in when nobody is watching that makes everybody pay attention late. The time will come. Put your head down and stay in the lab and when you are ready to show people what you've been working on, everybody's going to pay attention, right? If you do it right. But along the way we feel the need to say, Hey guys, I haven't posted in a while.
No, you think I'm not doing it. Look at my project. Look at what I'm doing, right? We get up big. The baby's not ready.
Not before you know it's somebody's giving you feedback on something that's not fully vague, not fully prepared. Now you think, Oh, maybe I need to go in a different direction. Why didn't get the feedback that I thought I would get from us? Now I may not have to pick. Now I should change.
No, you released it out to the world before it was ready. So even in a society that gives us that constant feedback and tells us if you're not out there posting every 30 seconds and letting everybody know what you're doing, you must not be doing anything, right? If you're not out there having a bunch of posts that can proclaim to the highest, you know, from the highest mountain everything that you're working on and every last detail, if you're not doing that, you must be a fan of failure. Don't buy into that mentality. Stick to the grind.
Put your head down. Be a do or not a talk right now within a society that encourages talkers. But it's not the same. The long term successful people are actually doing things. I know nothing is social media, right?
It can be a tremendous tool. Look how we're talking right now. We're sharing this with all your listeners involved. That's important. However, you and I have put the work in to be able to be here before we have this conversation.
We got something to say. I didn't go out and write a book. I was 30 years in the game before I wrote my first book. That's because I wanted to make sure that I had something to say and that I was in the lab doing what I needed to do. Don't feel the need to let everybody know what you're doing.
Let other people do that. You focus. Works you put in. Nobody's looking at everybody's page later. Yeah.
I love it. Well, I love it brother. I know you're busy. I want to do this for my listeners and viewers because I do have 10 extra copies here. The first 10 people.
That message me and I don't care if it's linked in Instagram. Those that have my email can email me. The first 10 that email me who better than you. That's titled the book. I'm giving those copies out to you.
Hey, hey. Jump on it, y'all. There we go. No excuses. No excuses.
Mick is giving you an opportunity. This is the thing. Those folks that are successful are those that are willing to put the work in and do what's necessary. He's telling you, you don't have to buy it. All you gotta do is be proactive right now.
Go. You can send the message, whatever that is, right? Spend some time reading what another successful person has said worked for them. This is the master class that I wish I had. I wish that I had this when I was coming up in the game.
That's why I wrote the book. So again, you should read my book. You should read 10 other books. Like that is what you have to do. You need to be somebody that has a sponge that is soaking up what successful people has done.
And then you figure out how to make it your own. Just have to talk about with your speech process. You gotta figure out how to take what other people are doing that is successful and then make it your own. So make it a tremendous opportunity to do that right now. I appreciate your brother.
Hey, I believe in this book and I wouldn't do it if I didn't believe in everybody that knows me. I don't promote everything because it's got to work for me before I can sign on it because I don't believe in deals or anything like that. Like if I tell you something, it's because I spent my money and it worked for me and then you should too. I'm giving these away. I'm also, well, so I have a leadership conference that I'm doing three times a year.
I'm going to purchase 200 books and we're going to give those out to our VIP and my inner circle folks. So if you're a VIP member of what I do or at my events, your power circle member meeting our one-on-one relationship, you also are getting this book. I'm buying 200 and I'm giving them out because again, this is the blueprint. I promise you and part of my mastermind is that we do, we're going to go in and dissect this book on how you can import these things into your daily leadership journey because it is that book. And here's what I'm going to do on top of that.
Make us getting the books for the VIP and the leadership conference and they're going to be signed. They're going to be autographed by me. So mixed fun to get them. He's going to get them to me. We're going to make sure that we sign them so you have an extra little piece of memorabilia to have, right?
Not just the words in it, but also autographed by me personalized because you who are listening to this and are willing to take that next step towards the extraordinary life, for self-improvement and towards becoming a better leader, you now will have something to show for that. So, Nick, I appreciate you supporting me. I'm going to go and support you. I've got to have David check in. I'm in Rome right now.
I'm in my production office. I'm working on another project that's shooting over here in Italy and things are going well. So you and I are on a very different time zone. But that's how it works. You've got to be able to communicate and coordinate with people all over the world whenever you need to.
Good people always inspire each other and I am sharp as I am. So I consider you one of those rather other four-house continue in the future, my man. I need to say no more. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Will Packard. You understand?
You've heard. He is someone I call my virtual mentor. He didn't know that, but he is that for me and I wanted the time to express that to you, Will. So thank you for all that you have done, are doing and will continue to do, brother. Absolutely.
Much respect to you, my friend. You got it. For the viewers and listeners, remember you're because is your superpower. Go and we should. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Nick Unplugged.
If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next. Be sure to subscribe, rate and share this with someone who needs it. And most of all, make a plan and take action because the next level is already waiting for you. Have a question or insight to share? Send us an email to hello at Nick Unplugged.
Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.