The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson
Welcome to The Talent Forge! Where we are shaping the future of training and development
I am your host, Jay Johnson. Through my 20+ years as a coach, trainer, and leader, I have seen the best and the worst of talent development across the globe. That has inspired and compelled me to create a show that helps other professionals like me navigate the challenging waters of growing people.
The Talent Forge isn't your typical tips and tricks podcast. We delve deeper, explore the future, and pioneer new thinking to help our audience achieve transformation with their programs and people.
In each episode, we talk with industry thought leaders, dissect real-world case studies, and share actionable strategies to help you future-proof your training programs. Whether you're a seasoned L&D professional or just starting out, The Talent Forge is your one-stop shop to shape a thriving learning culture within your organization.
The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson
Unleashing Your Inner Champion: How Mindset Drives Success with Nicky Billou
Nikky Billou takes us on an extraordinary journey from post-revolution Iran to becoming a champion for freedom and human potential. As a Christian immigrant fleeing religious persecution, Nikky's early experiences shaped his profound understanding that freedom isn't just political—it's the essential foundation for entrepreneurship, creativity, and human flourishing.
Drawing wisdom from his late father's example, Nikky shares the transformative lesson that became his life's mission: "Your job is to see greatness in people and show it to them." This philosophy has guided him through writing ten books (including two New York Times bestsellers), hosting hundreds of podcast episodes, and helping dozens of entrepreneurs become millionaires.
For talent development professionals, Nikky offers invaluable insights on fostering coachability, identifying committed clients, and creating transformative results. Through powerful client success stories—from helping a specialist secure over a million dollars in 32 days to enabling a burned-out executive to earn more while working half the hours—he demonstrates how clear goals, obsessive focus, and expert guidance create extraordinary outcomes.
Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com
Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of talent development. I'm joined by special guest Nikki Bilou. Welcome to the show, nikki.
Nicky Billou:Jay, an honor to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.
Jay Johnson:Amazing Nikki. Why don't you tell our audience a little bit about yourself and sort of how you got into this talent development space?
Nicky Billou:I'm originally an immigrant from the Middle East. I'm a Christian from Iran. When I was 11 years old, the Islamic revolution took place in Iran. It was a cataclysmic, world-changing event and it absolutely upended my world. My late father, god rest his soul. He could see the writing on the wall this wasn't going to be a place to raise a Christian family. So he and my mom got together, they made a plan and eventually they got my brothers and I out of Iran and into where I live now in Toronto, canada. So it took almost five years four years, excuse me for that to happen Now.
Nicky Billou:At the time, man, I was a kid. I didn't want to leave my home. I didn't want to leave my friends. But you know in retrospect, brother, it was the single greatest thing mom and dad could have done for me and my two brothers. They took us from a legacy of tyranny to a legacy of freedom.
Nicky Billou:I believe inside every human breast beats the living heart of freedom. Every man, every woman on this planet wants to chart their own course, march to the tune of their own drummer and if you think about it, if you're an entrepreneur, freedom is the bedrock of what lets you exist Without freedom freedom of thought, freedom of expression. You can't come up with the ideas to create your beautiful vision. Without free enterprise. You're living in a crony state, which means you can't go and make what you want to have happen happen. Every single one of us needs to appreciate and love freedom. That's super, super, super important.
Nicky Billou:So I became this big advocate and champion for freedom my father. He was the same way. If you met my dad, jay, you'd love him. You know, if you were looking for work, dad would sit you down in his office. He'd call all his entrepreneur buddies till one of them gave you a job. If you were looking to start a business, he'd sit you down in his office. He'd help you think it through. He'd help you get access to capital clients, you name it even if you were going to compete with him, because he didn't really believe in competition anyways. And if you were trying to buy a car or a house and you were his friend and the bank wouldn't give you quite enough money, he'd top you up with a loan that he'd never let you pay back. Now you might think to yourself Nicky, hold on, who does that? And I'll tell you the late great Napoleon Ballou for one, and you might think well, why would he do that?
Nicky Billou:Well, first of all, he was a devout and committed Christian. He believed that he'd been blessed by God and his Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, and it was his duty as a Christian to share those blessings with his fellow man and woman. But secondly, bro, he did it because he could. He was rich man. I wanted to be like dad. I wanted people to come to me, I wanted to be somebody who helped people. And growing up, dad would tell me all the time son, life is about people, not money. Business, son, is about people, not money. I'm like, hold up, dad.
Nicky Billou:I got the life part Business Without money you can't do business, he said. That's true, son, but without people there's no need for money to do business.
Nicky Billou:All business is is solving problems for people, and then you make a profit. That's the purpose of business. And then he said remember every man standing in front of you. That's someone's son, that's someone's brother, that's someone's husband, that's someone's father, that's a hero to somebody. Maybe they've been burned by somebody, just like you. It's your job to restore their faith in humanity. And you got to also remember that, that individual in front of you. They have hopes, they have dreams. Maybe they've stopped believing in them, but they have them.
Nicky Billou:And your job, your number one job, with everybody that comes across your path, is to see their greatness and show it to them. Your job is to believe in people, because everybody needs someone to believe in them. You need that, I need that, everybody needs that. And you know what I've done? A lot of things. I've written, published 10 books, two New York Times bestsellers. I've got two podcasts closing in on you know 730, 40 episodes between the two of them that we publish. I've been on over 600 shows. I've helped over a dozen people become millionaires and multimillionaires and I've helped another 80, 90 people add between a hundred000 to $700,000 to their annual income. And all those things are awesome. But the thing that I'm most proud of is I'm my father's son and I believe in people.
Jay Johnson:Such a powerful story Nicky, thank you for giving us that and I think about even something like the concept of freedom. One of the things that we often see in the talent development space, for example, is we're an employee, we're sitting in an organization and all of a sudden we are handed down here's a training, you need to go do this training and there's really not that much decision making from that employee. That's going to be a participant and, honestly, it is a little bit of a lack of freedom. So let me ask you you know how important is it? Or how do you manage a situation where maybe somebody is in one of the training or some kind of a talk or something like that that maybe they didn't have agency to sign up for or they didn't have a choice in the matter? How do you manage that type of a participant?
Nicky Billou:Look, if someone doesn't want to be there, I just tell them, and whoever sent them there, they don't need to be here. This is a place for you. If you want to be here, if you see value for yourself, I want you here. If you don't, god bless you. You can go out with funds, your money, straight up, because I don't think that it serves anybody to force people to do things they don't want to do. You know, and I think people appreciate and respect that a great deal.
Jay Johnson:Well, they can always be the person that's sitting in that room that all of a sudden finds themselves disrupting that room when they don't actually want to be there or don't have the motivation to be there. I want to dig in one of your books Finish Line Thinking. I want to understand what's the concept behind it, if you can help share that with my audience, because I think about the finish line for talent development professionals. So our audience you know that coaches, the trainers. The finish line for them is business results from their training, from their coaching. What does that mean? To have a finish line mindset, yeah.
Nicky Billou:Great question. So this is what the book looks like, and it's a slim and quick read. Two trips to the throne will get it done for you, but, man, those two trips to the throne will make you one of the smartest people around. So here's a question for you. You ever wondered what makes a champion a champion? What has one person perform at the highest level and another one who's just as talented, maybe even more so, being also ran? Well, here's what I've discovered. Right, all the research shows it's how they think, it's their mindset, and a champion thinks differently than anybody else, right? So I used to work with a couple of Olympic gold medalists Donovan Bailey, canadian 100 100 meter champion at the Olympics, and Mark Boyd, canadian 110 meter hurdles champion at the Olympics. And both these guys, what made them champions was their mindset. They fought differently than anybody else. One of the key things was they wanted to win and they expected to win. They wanted to win and they expected to win.
Nicky Billou:Most people who are not finish line thinkers they don't think about winning very much and they don't expect to win. One of the reasons they don't expect to win is because they don't prepare themselves for victory. You know, I'll tell you a story from the book Mark McCoy. I asked him a question. I said hey, buddy, you know, did you always like go into a race situation thinking you were going to win? He said no, sometimes I didn't. And I said how come, man, I'm like you're an Olympic gold medalist? He said, no, sometimes I didn't. And I said how come, man, I'm like you're an Olympic gold medalist? He said but I'm human too. I said so what was the result? He said inevitably, whenever I expected to win, I pretty much almost always won, and whenever I didn't expect to win, I pretty much almost always didn't win.
Nicky Billou:Almost a self-fulfilling prophecy there didn't win Almost a self-fulfilling prophecy there. Yeah, he said, because when I expected to win, the reason I expected to win is I was fully prepared, I'd done all the I's, I'd crossed all the T's, I'd done everything necessary. There was no room for error. There was no room for error when I didn't expect win. I had dogged it, I had taken shortcuts, I had not done everything to win. So you got to understand expectation of victory, a finish line thinking mindset is embracing, learning how to win and doing everything, no shortcuts. So right now, right, I'm preparing for a bodybuilding competitions happening in 10 days. I'm gonna be two days shy of my 57th birthday. Okay, congratulations.
Jay Johnson:I wanna win that competition. Thank, you.
Nicky Billou:I wanna win that competition, thank you. I want to win that competition and the reason that I feel pretty confident is I've been doing the work, I've been preparing. But here's another part. I hired the best damn coach for getting you prepared and put on stage in the whole country of Canada. His name is Hammer the Hammer Camera. His company's called Hammer Fitness. This dude is preparing me. I just do what he says. I eat what he tells me to eat. I work out as much as he tells me to work out. I do everything he says. So if you want to win, don't try to do it alone. You need expert guidance. You can try to figure it out on your own. You need expert guidance. You can try to figure it out on your own. You might never figure it out or it might take you 10 years to figure it out. With an expert, you can short circuit that process and figure it out in record time.
Jay Johnson:That's so true and it's interesting. So one of the programs that I do is the Elite Training Academy, where I'm helping trainers and coaches sort of get their either their departments up to speed, their programs up to speed, or, if they're individual solopreneurs, get their training and development up to speed. And that was actually one of the comments that came back from one of the people is like I could have done this. It would have taken me 10 years and I've been able to get through this with your coaching in less than a year and I'm already hitting scale of my business. So that coaching aspect, when you looked at and what a great name, right, amber the Hammer, I love that when you looked at getting a coach, and even if you weren't able to get the best coach into business or anything else like that, what was going through your mind? Like, how were you evaluating? What type of a coach do I think I need? How did that show up for you?
Nicky Billou:Well, I'm a finish line thinker man. I only hire the best coach in the business. I don't go for anybody else and I recommend that you do the same. I don't recommend you. You get somebody who is not the best coach. And I also want to say this the best coach isn't necessarily the coach with the biggest name, no offense, but the guys with the biggest names. Sometimes they suck as coaches. Let's just be honest. They suck as coaches. They're just really good at marketing, okay. So there's other criteria I use than how big is this guy's name and how many people have signed up for his programs. That doesn't say jack to me.
Nicky Billou:I'll tell you why I hired Amr. I was connected with Amr on Facebook. We'd never met, but Amr would post before and after shots of his clients, would post before and after shots of his clients, and many of his clients were people in my age range over the age of 50, some even over the age of 60, who were in business and not professional athletes. And their before pictures they look worse than I did in my before picture. And then their after picture they looked like they belonged on a bodybuilding stage holding a trophy for winning the competition nice, and this was not one person, two people, this was dozens upon dozens upon dozens.
Jay Johnson:Yeah, so I got up one morning yeah, february 2nd, 9th, uh, 2023.
Nicky Billou:I looked at myself in the mirror with my shirt off, my belly's hanging over my belt. I was disgusted with myself. I used to be a top trainer. I used to work with Olympic champions and I kept telling myself when I got out of that field into the field of business coaching, this will be my year. And every year I gained weight. I was over 50 pounds heavier than I had been in my salad days, as it were.
Nicky Billou:I decided that I couldn't do this alone. I needed a coach. That's why I was failing. So I hired the very best coach.
Nicky Billou:I only asked him two questions when we met. I'm 55 at the time, I'm almost 57. And I said will this work for me at my age? Absolutely, all right, great, I needed some head trash cleared around that. The second question I asked him is how long will it take? He told me to be prepared for six months to a year.
Nicky Billou:I didn't even ask him what he charged, I just said I'm in. I didn't even ask him what he charged, I just said I'm in, let's go. And he told me what he charged and it was no big deal Financially. It wasn't, you know, the highest of high tickets, but in a year and a half I brought people from my family to work with him and his team, and my eldest son not only started being one of his clients for a while. He's 18 years old and he wants to make a career out of health fitness training. So he and Amar got along and Amar's hired him to work with him. Nice. So right now, man, this has been a really good thing, not just for me but for my whole family, and I've conservatively spent over $30,000 with Amr so far and I'll probably spend another 30, 40, 50,000 with him over the next couple of years.
Jay Johnson:Well, I will tell you that I will wish for your success, but I expect it because I think that you've got that finish line thinking ahead of you. So let me dig back into that for just a moment. How is it, you know, if our trainers and coaches and audiences listening to this show, if they say, okay, I want to get my audience to get into that finish line thinking mindset, if I want to get my participants, the people I'm coaching, the people I'm serving, if I'm going to get them into that mindset, what is maybe some of the ways that you help people get from point A to point B, where they're not expecting to win, or maybe they don't have that desire or maybe they aren't getting that prepared? What is your process for getting people over that finish line?
Nicky Billou:So I got to be honest when it comes to who I work with, I'm very picky. I'm looking for people who are decisive and committed, like they want to win, and if you don't have that desire to win and you don't have that commitment to win, you're not going to work with me. So I'm not in the business of motivating the unmotivated. You know what I'm saying. Secondly, they need to be coachable. They need to be willing to take coaching, like with Amr, I don't argue with him, I don't even ask him to explain why he's asking me to do something. I just he says I do. He says I do. That's what I really want my clients to do. Just take the coaching. You know what I really want my clients to do. Just take the coaching. You know what I mean and stop arguing with it. And then, finally, they got to be resourceful because it's gonna take time, energy and money to win. So I'll tell you story. One of my clients her name is dr Dia, she's originally from South Africa and she is a very niche type of work. She helps med spas and she had a med spa herself. You know injections and things like that for people and she didn't have a good message. So first thing we did was we helped her really refine her message and her message was kind of all over the place message and our message was kind of all over the place. We helped her come to the point to these med spots to say, hey, you're leaving $10 million a year on the table. I want to show you how to reclaim it. That's a good message. It's a lot better message than I help med spots. So here's the deal Six months after we met her, four months after she signed up to work with us, we helped her put together a live program for some med spa owners. There were 12 people in the room. Eight had zero interest in what she had to say, Four had a lot of interest, one was decisive and committed and they gave her a check for $5 the next day, 32 days later, with our help, she upsold that person into the second phase for another 500 000. So a million fifty thousand in 32 days.
Nicky Billou:What made that possible? Well, first of all, belief in her. So we believe in the greatness of people and the human spirit, so we believe in this woman and that was important. But secondly, secondly, she was hungry, ready, decisive, committed and she was coachable. She took the coaching and that's what allowed her to make over a million dollars in such a short period of time. Now someone's a coach or a consultant and they go I'd like to make a million dollars a year. You can. Could you do it in a year or less like she did? Yeah, actually, I think she could make four to five million dollars this year and we're working with her to help her do that.
Nicky Billou:But for most solopreneur coaches and consultant types, which are the people that we primarily work with or maybe there are a couple or whatever working together how do you get from wherever they happen to be to a seven-figure-a-year practice? Number one is you need someone in your corner who can help you short-circuit that process from a decade into much less time. Secondly, you need someone to believe in you and your greatness. And thirdly, you need to follow their coaching. Follow their coaching. If you're coachable, you're going to win. If you're not coachable, you're not going to win. Now, if you're coachable and everything you're doing is what they coach you to do and it's not working, then you got to work with them to tinker and fix it. But sometimes you're going to hire the wrong coach. That happens, in which case course correct. Find a different coach, keep going.
Jay Johnson:So, as you're evaluating somebody's coachability, what are some of the things that you look for, like, how is it you know, if you're interviewing Jay Johnson and I'm like Nikki, I want coaching? What is it that you're specifically going to look for in that person sitting across from you that's going to tell you they're committed, they want to win, they're engaged, they're going to do what needs to be done? How do you, how do you determine coachability? Cause I think that's a huge challenge with a lot of coaches out there. They don't know what to look for in terms of finding coachability.
Nicky Billou:Well, one of the things I offer is I offer an initial what I call a success coaching call for free. So I give people 45 minute session for free and in that session I want to give them a lot of value. So I want to help give them a blueprint for how they can get to where they want to get to. But I'm also kind of evaluating them. To help give them a blueprint for how they can get to where they want to get to, but I'm also kind of evaluating them. I ask them some very specific questions. You know the questions are really around asking them to open the kimono, as it were.
Nicky Billou:What's not working. If someone is willing to share what's not working, I know they're potentially a coachable person. If they're willing to be honest about that, then they're going to be honest about other things in our relationship. If they're willing to share their hopes and dreams and what's been getting in the way, then I know this is a person who sincerely wants to get those things out of the way. Love, that it's powerful of the way it's powerful. If they're not like I've gotten on calls with people and they go well, you know this and that they're non-committal I'll have what's called the come to Jesus conversation with them, I'll say hey, listen, buddy, the way this works is I ask some questions. Based on your answers, I can formulate something that will be valuable for you. If your answers aren't forthcoming, I can't help you. Are you willing to be open yourself up, tell me the truth, and if they are not, I'll end the call.
Jay Johnson:I'll be polite about it, but I'll end the call yeah well, I think polite about it, but I'll end the call. Yeah Well, I think it's great advice and I think that a lot of coaches might be a little nervous to do that at first or scared to do that at first because it's like they don't want a reputation or. But in reality it's kind of a kindness that you're doing. It's like, hey, this isn't going to work, we're not going to jive, you're not on the same wavelength that I am. I'm not seeing the things. You know, the openness, the authenticity that I'm going to need to help you become successful.
Nicky Billou:It's really a kindness, isn't it, nicky? Honestly, I think it is. It's a good way to put it. It's a kindness, and you're doing both yourself and them a favor. Move on to people. You're not for everybody and not everybody's for you. Nothing wrong with that.
Jay Johnson:Such great advice. Is there anything else to tell our trainers, our coaches, our HR people who are looking to get behavioral change? Any last words of encouragement ideas, thoughts, tactics, strategies that you would offer, nicky?
Nicky Billou:I'd say you got to have a goal, get super clear on what your goal is. You need to say I want to work with 10 more people. I want to make a couple hundred thousand dollars extra by the end of the year. Whatever your goal is right, I want to have a seven-figure year. Whatever your goal is. And then you got to obsess on that goal, obsess on the goal. Then you got to obsess on that goal. Obsess on the goal, and I mean what is it going to take for you to actually make that goal come alive? If you do those two things be clear on your goal and then obsess on the goal the next thing you got to do is find somebody to give you guidance and once you do that, take their guidance and success will be yours in the most uncommon of hours, you know.
Nicky Billou:I'll tell one last story before we leave. I had a client and he's passed away now. God rest his soul. His name is Carl. He used to be an executive vice president at a big manufacturing company but he got burned out, so he quit and he became an executive coach and he loved it. He worked half the hours. He worked 25, 30 hours a week instead of 50, 60 hours a week and he loved it. He loved what he was doing, who he was working with. There was only one thing he didn't love. He took an 80% haircut from $350,000 a year to $70,000 a year. So when he came to us he just he wanted to make the same amount of money he used to make, but with a new lifestyle that he had.
Nicky Billou:What we figured out is Carl didn't really understand how to be an entrepreneur. Asked him, who do you help? He says I can help anybody with any business problem. That was his first mistake. So we helped him narrow who he was going after. There's a series of exercises we did around that and he figured out he wanted to go after solopreneur law firms that were doing at least seven figures and wanted to triple in size or more. That was powerful because all his messaging was focused around them. Then I looked at what he charged people and it was ridiculously low. So I made him quadruple his rates.
Nicky Billou:Within less than six months Carl went from making $70,000 a year On a good month, that's $6,000 a month. He was having $50,000 a month Nice $50,000 a year a month sorry, he was having $50,000 a month, nice $50,000. And he said can I do $100,000? I said, sure you can. So we took him to $100,000. But he said after two months at $100,000, he said it's too much work, I want to go back down to $50,000. Went back down to $ and for the next you know, five, six years, carl Carl made 600,000 a year, $250,000 more than he made as an executive vice president, working 30 hours a week, loving what he was doing. Right, and to me, if that's you, if you're, if you have an inner Carl Kramer and you're stuck and you're not making the money you deserve to make and you know you were meant for bigger things and you really want to make a big difference for yourself and for your clients, then everything I've told you is what you need to do Set a big goal, obsess on the goal and get guidance.
Jay Johnson:Great advice, Nicky. Thank you so, Nicky how would our? Audience. Yeah, absolutely. How would our audience get in touch with you?
Nicky Billou:Nicky Ballou. I'm the only one on the planet N-I-C-K-Y-B-I-L-L-O-U. Find me anywhere on social media. Tell me. You heard me on the podcast. I'll respond and if you are interested in having a look at why your business is stuck, I offer the free coaching session. I told you about the success session. Go to ecircleacademycom forward slash appointment. Let me know you came from the show. I'll accept the request for the coaching session. Let's help you get unstuck, because you deserve that.
Jay Johnson:Incredible. Nicky, Thank you so much for taking the time to be here on the Talent Forge with us. We really appreciate your insights and your guidance and we'll make sure that those accessibility links are in the show notes to make sure that our audience can get in touch with you to help them grow and scale their own businesses. Thanks a lot, Nicky.
Nicky Billou:Thanks, brother, god bless you, take care, Bye-bye.
