[upbeat music] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today has mesmerized audiences from the stages of Las Vegas to Carnegie Hall.

He's presented for TEDx audiences, and he has performed for corporate organizations everywhere.

Why he's even performed alongside himself, as a hologram.

We're talking to guitar virtuoso, Mr. Mike Rayburn.

- [Narrator] Funding for a Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by: - [Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine to friendly faces doing more than their part.

And to those who still enjoy the little things, you make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore.

This is home.

- [Narrator] The Budd Group is a company of everyday leaders making a difference by providing facility solutions through customized janitorial, landscape, and maintenance services.

- [Narrator] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally.

Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

[upbeat music] - Mike, it's so good to have you on Side by Side.

I have watched you play on the stages of the world.

You have been from border-to-border, coast-to-coast speaking and playing music.

You have been at Carnegie Hall, 6, 7, 8, 9 times performing.

You've had your own show in Las Vegas for a number of years, and you're recognized as an outstanding speaker, and an equally extraordinary musician.

I am intrigued.

What is this that you're holding in your hand?

I've never seen an instrument quite like that.

What is it called, what do you do with it?

- This is a harp guitar.

It sounds like this.

[soft music] And what it has is in the middle, a six string guitar, like we all know.

And it also has 14 strings of a harp.

So it's got the six sub bass strings.

[deep bass music] And then the high strings, the super treble strings.

And so, I use this in presentations that I've just begun.

Sort of adding it to the program.

The idea is, most of us, especially post COVID.

We knew we had to switch.

We knew we had to change things, and we knew that things would change in the world.

And what I try to share with audiences, is that what you've learned, your expertise, what you bring to the table, will remain relevant.

However, we're all going to have to learn new skills, new ways of applying it, or as I would say, new strings.

So, I have used the six string guitar, and the added strings as a metaphor that.

- So can you play a song on that?

I mean, can you play anything?

You play classical?

You play a popular song?

- Yes.

- Can I ask you, can I make up something and ask you?

- It's request hour.

- Can you play a Beatles song on it?

- Yes, yes.

- You could?

- I love the Beatles and this is a piece, is also continues the metaphor because it's an older piece, but we're doing a new treatment of it here.

So this is called Eleanor Rigby.

[Eleanor Rigby plays] ♪ - Wow.

Bravo.

It looks so complicated.

- Yes.

[laughs] - Tell me about what's happening inside your head.

I see your fingers moving everywhere.

What is going on inside your head?

How are you keeping these two instruments in concert at the same time?

- That's a great question.

And there was a movie a long time ago called Shine, where there's a prodigy pianist and he finally met the right instructor.

And the instructor told him you learn the notes, so you can forget the notes.

And that's what I've kind of gone through.

So I've learned the piece to the point where once you get to a performance, as we were just doing, you kind of throw the notes out.

You don't worry about what the notes are, and you simply perform the piece.

You let it come through you rather than, if I'm thinking about what note is next?

And am I doing the right vibrato on this?

Or am I rolling the strings the correct way?

Or, you know, am I gonna reach to this one or whatever, if I'm thinking those things, I've moved out of performance, and more regurgitating, you know, what notes I remember.

If I let them go, then it's a performance.

Then you're in the moment.

And even with wrong notes, Beethoven said, "Playing a wrong note is insignificant, playing without passion is inexcusable."

- So that's like unconscious competence.

You developed the competence of the music, that you could literally lose yourself into the emotion of it all, the experience of it all.

- Exactly.

We've all seen a professional speaker, who's trying to remember what the next sentence is.

And it's not as effective a presentation.

When someone is actually just speaking from their heart, even if it's memorized, but they're speaking it because they know it, then they are in the moment.

I believe it connects with the audience a thousand percent better.

- It's more authentic.

- Absolutely.

- So Mike, you were in Carnegie Hall so many times, there's so many musicians that we know.

- Right.

- Who, you know, are terrific at what they do, but they can't make a living out of it.

You have managed to make a significant living, playing music, and using the spoken word as an illustration.

The music is an illustration.

The words are an illustration.

How did you do all that?

And you started, if I recall, speaking on college campuses, right?

And playing on college campuses?

Run us through that journey of achievement.

- Yes.

Well, I began as a guitarist and comedian.

And what I found was that, I met a number of guitarists.

You were talking about people who weren't able to ultimately make a living with it, versus those who did.

And what I found is that those who were a little bit, sort of snobby, and they're like, I only do this, or I only do that, were forgetting their audience.

And I think that that's what happens is that, so many of us forget that this is not just about what I'm expressing to the world, but the world, it's about the audience who's hearing it.

And so I would end up doing one or two cover songs.

I would do cover songs, songs by, you know, someone else, a popular hit song.

And people would, oh, we like this.

And it caused their demeanor to be more open to hearing what I brought to the table.

- [Nido] Mm hmm.

- And so the comedy was the same way.

When I started having fun with the weird requests that people would throw at me.

And I've been making fun of it or make an imitation, or I do, you know, Bob Marley sings Garth Brooks imitations and things.

That it opened the door to the audience.

The audience laughter is disarming.

Laughter, when you, I've heard you on stage, make people laugh.

And they, ah, they relax.

And they're open to the message.

So I always found that what mattered was, not just the music, but how the music affected the audience.

How do I open the audience up?

And so by doing that later on, so for years, 16 years I played 1800 college shows all over the US and Canada.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

That was a proving ground.

That was, you know, nowadays when a meeting planner will say, well, some of the people may have been drinking I'll go, I got this.

[laughs] - What happens when you do something funny, and the audience doesn't laugh?

- [laughs] Well, welcome to the world of comedy.

- [Nido] Yes.

- You know, either you do, you know, Johnny Carson, whoa, that fell flat, okay.

You know, acknowledge them or you just move on, and.

- Do you memorize lines that you could use when that doesn't work the way you want it to work?

- Yes, I've memorized lines.

I've used certain lines, certain lines for hecklers.

- [Nido] Yes.

- But I've also found that again, creativity, I talk about, I teach people who don't consider themselves to be creative, how to be creative.

And I make the point that creativity doesn't come from you.

It comes through you.

And so the more I can get myself out of the way, and simply let it come through, and be in the moment, the better the response is.

- Does that work for everybody?

- I think it can, yes.

- [Nido] Really?

- I think it can.

The key though, is to be in your element.

To know your again, you learn the notes so you can forget the notes.

And so you gotta learn the notes.

You need to do spend the time.

So I spent the time with audiences.

I've spent the time with the songs, I spent the time with the guitar.

So that when I'm in a situation, like there were a couple of notes in that, where I kind of fumbled a little bit.

- I caught that, by the way.

- Oh you did?

- I knew exactly.

- Oh, you knew exactly?

- Well, maybe you can give me some points afterwards, what I can do to improve, I would love that.

[Nido laughs] - Listen, I got to understand, when you say you learned the notes, but let it all work through you.

The notes is, what in life?

- The notes are the lessons, the practices.

- The systems, the skills.

- Correct, so.

- So it's not about music.

It's about anything in life.

- So let's take a financial planner.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Okay, my large group of my clients are financial services.

And so a financial planner is sitting there with someone, who needs to learn how to be ready for retirement.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Okay, will come in and say, here's where I am.

Then they'll ask certain questions, but the financial planner needs to know, well, is this person, you know, what's their risk tolerance.

What's the history with money?

What do they feel good about doing?

They need to know mutual funds, annuities, or they need to know all of those.

Those are all like the, those are all the notes that I have available to me.

And so once they're in front of that audience, which happens to be a couple wanting to retire, they know which ones to play.

Does that make sense?

- [Nido] Yes.

- And so if they know them so well, they can hear the situation and simply respond, rather than having to go to a book.

No one wants your, I don't want my doctor to hear my symptoms and go, let me look that up.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Okay.

I want them to know that.

- To know that.

- Does that makes sense?

- Yes, intuitively and know it so well that they're confident to produce that task or whatever it is they're working on.

- Right.

And then to match that with your purpose, because if you're just doing something, because it makes sense, it works.

That's one thing.

But if you're doing it because you love it, because it's what moves you inside, then you bring more to the table in terms of intuition.

In terms of allowing it to come through you.

So each of those, the notes that you've learned, whatever those are for your career, those become the, you just want them, you just want more available to you.

- But learning the notes always comes first.

- Of course.

- Yes.

- Of course.

And so, yes, I practice.

[laughs] So, yeah.

- So you talk about creativity.

How does one learn to be creative?

- Well, it's interesting.

I think, I make the point that we are all creative.

Every one of us is.

And I even say, I'm going to my soap box here.

We're each a creative genius.

We're just genius in different ways.

And it's my suspicion for a lot of people who don't think that they're creative, is that their form of creativity was laughed at, or just wasn't accepted.

And so they squelched it.

And so ironically, when I do a presentation, people who don't think they're creative, often need a formula to be creative.

Which sounds counterintuitive.

However, so I give them a one, there's a lot of different formulas.

But one of them is the question, what if?

Every one of my presentations, almost every one of my presentations, will involve the question, what if?

I call it the, what if keynote experience.

And so when you ask the question, what if?

You will open up possibilities every time.

- Give us an example.

- Okay, so let's say, we've never been able to create these numbers and not only that, but no one thinks that it's possible to be done by us, or our competition, or anyone else.

But we're the ones willing to say, okay, but what if we had to, how do we do it?

- [Nido] I see.

- What that does, is it takes everybody's focus from this is impossible.

- Limitations to possibilities.

- Exactly, from scarcity to abundance.

- [Nido] Yes, yes.

- And I've used this for radical problem solving.

I've used this for, I try to exhort audiences to stop managing change.

I've gone to major, I won't mention them, but major corporations who have entire programs called managing change.

And I go in and go, oh, I'm gonna upset the apple cart here because I say managing, Peter Drucker said this, managing change is not only stupid, it's dangerous.

The only way to manage change is to create change.

So my mission is to get the entire focus culture, mindset of the organization to we're gonna lead change.

We're gonna create change rather than follow what everyone else is doing.

Which gives the edge that people need.

- Yeah, do you see a difference between creativity and innovation?

- Not a difference.

It's the application.

Creativity, I could create something by stacking these glasses and it would be creative, but it wouldn't necessarily have a purpose.

Innovation to me is creativity with a purpose.

Creativity with a function or an outcome that we that's desired.

- Creativity therefore is doing something differently.

Innovation is doing something better.

- Great way to say it.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Can I use that?

- It has value.

Yes, you can use that.

If you let me play your guitar or whatever that was, a harp, a guitar and combination instrument.

- There you go.

- Mike, what's next for you in your career?

- Next year.

- You're traveling the world, you are speaking, you're instructing, you're coaching, and you're using music as a medium to illustrate your points.

- Right.

- Which is something that most of us don't know how to do.

So you have a uniqueness there.

- [Mike] Right.

- And using a tool called music, you're very adept at it.

Very practiced, very competent to explain methodology is about succeeding in life and having a purpose in life.

What is next for you?

Are you writing a book, are you creating more materials, or are you?

- Yeah.

Two things.

One, you said book.

Yes, I'm writing a book called, the working title is Virtuoso.

It's a 12 step process for becoming world-class.

Or a step-by-step process for becoming a world-class.

Because I believe there is a well, I've identified a virtuoso system that works.

And I literally, this morning got an email, or got a message from someone who had applied my system years ago, and just before coming over here.

- And the system is what?

- Virtuoso [indistinct].

It's a system of discovering goals that I take people through, in an individualized sort of.

- It's a musical term virtuoso?

- Correct.

- You are applying it to- - Correct.

- Anything and everything.

- Thank you for that clarity.

Virtuoso, a virtuoso is defined as someone, in the book in the dictionary, would be someone of mastery level skill in art or music.

I expanded to mean anyone of mastery level skill in whatever, I would say you're a virtuoso President.

- I see.

- You're a virtuoso speaker.

Can you be a virtuoso financial planner?

Of course, you can be a virtuoso teacher.

You can be a virtuoso parent.

You can have virtuoso health.

Okay.

I use it like that.

So, there's two things.

So one, I want to write that book.

I also- - What would be two or three steps for someone to become a virtuoso?

- Identify, okay, first of all, you need to align what it is that you want to become a virtuoso with.

And with your purpose.

It needs to be something that's something that's in it.

We're all given an ability in some area.

And so, if I were trying to be a virtuoso accountant, it would be a bad thing.

So, it needs to be aligned.

That's number one.

Number two, is down the road of the ways, is identifying the practices, the daily or weekly practices, regular practices that will logically get you there.

- [Nido] Yes.

- My practicing the guitar as often as possible would be part of that.

My reading regularly in my field would be part of that.

My working on speaking in my keynotes, would be a regular practice I need to do to get there.

- [Nido] Yes.

- So that would be part of it.

- That's how your competence will be built.

Your skills will be intensified.

And so on, okay.

- So that's- - Those are the notes.

- Yes.

Those are the notes.

- Yes.

- Those are the notes.

So the other thing I like to do is right now, I can be effective in changing mindset for an organization in a presentation.

What I like to do is go deeper with individuals.

So, my wife and I have created something called Virtuoso Global, and it is a chance to go deeper with individuals, either in a three-day virtuoso immersion event or a one-year virtuoso journey called Virtuoso Undergrad.

- Form of coaching?

- Yes.

Coaching mastermind, the immersion is going through the virtuoso system.

And you leave with your goal, the hidden goal that I think so many people have, they don't ever act on.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Identify that, clarify it, define it, and then create the plan to get there, get rid of the limiting beliefs, because those hold us back.

You know that, you've taught this, I've heard you teach this.

And then really important is to create the, not just the long-term plan, but the 90 day plan.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Because, you know, we've all been part of programs where we learn from a teacher, and then we're still wondering, we leave going, well, what do I do tomorrow?

Well, I want them to know what to do tomorrow to begin that process.

That makes sense?

- Yes, it makes a lot of sense.

Tell me this, Mike, you have spent so much of your time on the stage in front of an audience.

- [Mike] Right?

- What happens on that day, when you had a sleepless night, your fingers are not cooperating with you exactly the way you want them to, and it's not working through you, like you'd like for it to work through you, you still have to have the show.

- Yeah.

- What is it you go through emotionally, spiritually, mentally to still deliver.

- Number one, and I did it just before we went on live here.

Is I pray, just to myself.

- [Nido] You pray?

- I pray.

- Yes.

- And so I'm just, I'm being honest.

[laughs] You know, some people don't want to hear that, but that's what I do.

Number one, I'll pray.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Number two, something you said there is interesting, that I've say sleepless night, and things that are caused me to just not feel out of sorts.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Quite often those will have a similar effect as alcohol.

As in, they will cause me to not care as much.

To cause me to be in a state where I actually perform better.

- You're actually relaxed maybe.

- Relaxed, and there's a certain level.

I think we all go in wanting the audience to like us and wanting the, you know, the message to land, and all of that.

Where when you go in with a certain degree of, this is what it is.

I hope you guys get it, but I don't care one way or the other.

It actually comes across a little bit better.

- [Nido] Yes.

And so, there's a level to which when you let go, or you simply, yeah.

You let go of that worrying about an outcome, and you simply, you know, you simply do what you do.

And in fact this happened last week, I wasn't in a bad state, but it had been a while because of COVID, and different things.

It had been a little bit, a few weeks since I'd been on stage.

And so I got up there and something just happened again.

And you've experienced that.

- Well, I think what that is, I've experienced that a lot, unfortunately.

Where maybe we traveled, maybe got up that morning not feeling well, and I'm going on the stage, and I don't know how I'm gonna start, what I'm gonna say.

Ironically, I pray before I speak always behind the curtain.

And, but then you go out there and it works.

I think what that is, is unconscious competence, as we said earlier, I think it's doing it so many times, that you're no longer imprisoned by following a set of instructions.

How do I stand?

How do I move my hands?

How do I deliver this line, and practice in this instance helps you.

- [Mike] Right.

- So, you see a lot of people doing that, you know, authors, poets, speakers, musicians, it just comes to them.

It looks so natural, but it's years and years and years of practice.

- Well, there's two words, the unconscious part happens to me because of the situation.

The competence part though, is the learning the notes, is the practicing.

And you can, you know, people will say, well, you just try harder.

Well, I could try my hardest to speak Mandarin, and it won't happen unless I've actually learned the notes.

- Yes, yes.

- And I've actually done the work.

So unconscious competence, that's a great term.

And you're so great at those, putting words together that have not necessarily been put together in the past.

And I love that about you.

So I'm gonna use that one, but that's, I think that's the whole point of it.

Is people will go in not realizing, it does take the competence, it does take the work.

It does take the years of this.

- The skill, for sure.

Yes.

What is your advice to young people who want to enter the world of music, or the world of speaking, or the world of performing, the world of coaching?

What would be a piece of advice?

- Oh, first of all, definitely do the work.

There's no way around that.

- Be good at what you do so you can learn the value.

- Be great, make the goal.

Few people make the choice.

And this is part of my keynote presentation.

I ask people to make the choice to become a virtuoso.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Few people make that choice, but there's no way that even competence, let alone virtuosity, comes without making a decision.

It's not an accident.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- So first of all, yeah, make that choice.

- Make the choice, yeah.

I say the circumstances which you find yourself, do not define where you end up.

It's the choices you make, that define where you end up.

Mike, it's a pleasure having you Side by Side with me today.

You're clearly a very talented and versed individual.

Thank you for all the good you doing in our world, and best wishes to you.

- I'm honored, thank you for making me a part of this.

[upbeat music] - [Narrator] Funding for a Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by.

- [Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine, to friendly faces, doing more than their part.

And to those who still enjoy the little things, you make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore.

This is home.

- [Narrator] The Budd Group is a company of everyday leaders making a difference by providing facility solutions through customized janitorial, landscape, and maintenance services.

- [Announcer] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally.

Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.