The Three-Step Model That Turns a Stalled Takeaway Into Actual Action

Two hands are about to go up in a ballroom full of people, and both of the people attached to them are about to have a microphone put in front of their face and asked, in front of total strangers, exactly what they’re going to do differently once they get home. That’s the moment Jonathan Cronstedt built on purpose after the dinner break on the second night of Lake Las Vegas. He didn’t ask the room to write it down privately in a notebook nobody else would ever read. He asked them to say it out loud, because a decision you keep to yourself and a decision you make in front of a thousand strangers carry two completely different weights, and this whole session is really about that difference.

Why does saying it out loud do something writing it down doesn’t?

Before he called anyone up, Cronstedt asked a simpler question: who did their homework over dinner instead of just eating. Fewer hands went up than he expected, and he named that directly as the actual challenge, not the event schedule, not the material, just whether people do the work when nobody’s checking. Then he handed two strangers a microphone and asked them to commit, out loud, to what they’d change.

The first woman, Kate, described her own mindset before that weekend as muddy, the kind of fog where you can feel there’s an answer somewhere but can’t get a hand around it. Then she said the fog had lifted. Cronstedt’s response to her is the whole mechanism in one line.

A confused mind will do nothing.

That’s the actual reason the microphone matters more than the notebook. A private realization can stay vague forever. A public one has to resolve into a sentence you’re willing to say in front of a room, and a sentence is something you can actually be held to. That’s not a motivational trick. It’s a filter. Vague thoughts don’t survive being spoken out loud to strangers.

What’s the three-step model hiding inside two days of noise?

Cronstedt named the framework he’d been building toward all weekend directly: realization, resolution, risk. It’s simple enough to use on a Tuesday morning with nobody watching.

• Realization: something in your business or your life needs to change, and you can no longer pretend you haven’t noticed. It might be as small as how you write a blog post. It might be as large as finally admitting the current plan isn’t working.
• Resolution: you decide what you’re going to do about it, specifically, not a vague promise to try harder but a real commitment to a different action, a different habit, a different pattern.
• Risk: you actually do the thing you said you’d do, knowing it might not work, knowing it might be uncomfortable, and doing it anyway because the alternative is staying exactly where you are.

Most people, he pointed out, get stuck between the second step and the third. They realize, they even resolve, and then the risk never comes due. They wait for a better moment, a bigger sign, more information, and the resolution quietly expires. The room full of people who’d just spent two days taking notes was, in his framing, sitting right at that exact hinge point, and the only real question left was timing.

What do you do with a room this fired up once you’re home alone?

The second person Cronstedt called on, Theresa, offered the piece that ties the whole thing to actual content, not just conviction. Her takeaway was simple: teach what you already know. Most people, she said, assume what’s obvious to them isn’t valuable to anyone else, so they hold back the one thing that would actually make someone see them as a leader. The fix isn’t finding new material. It’s sharing the material you already have and stopped noticing because it’s become ordinary to you.

She added something else worth sitting with: chasing the payout directly doesn’t get you there. Chasing the focus, the actual work in front of you, is what eventually produces the payout. That’s easy to nod along to and hard to actually live by, especially the week results are slow and the temptation is to obsess over the number instead of the next piece of content.

The last person called up that night, a man named Jamie who’d traveled from Puerto Rico, made the same point with less polish and more heat.

“I’m going to do whatever it takes,” he said, and the room believed him, not because the sentence was original but because he’d clearly already decided it before anyone handed him a microphone. That’s the resolution step, spoken by someone who hadn’t heard the framework named yet and lived it anyway.

Cronstedt closed that stretch of the night by turning the same three-part lens on the man about to walk back onto that stage. He’d watched Dave make calls in front of large rooms that didn’t land the way he hoped, and what stuck with him wasn’t the mistake, it was that Dave never let ego or attachment to being right get in the way of doing right by the people in the room. That’s realization, resolution, and risk running in a leader instead of a new affiliate, and it’s the same three steps whether you’re the one on stage or the one about to walk up and take the microphone for the first time.

The full session goes further than what’s above, including the full run of takeaways from the room and the handoff back to the main stage. Watch it in full, free, when you Create your free account.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

I can't tell you guys how nice it is to be able to dance in front of you. I never get an audience like this at home. What's up, furry hat Tom? All right.

You got to wait for it. It's about to hit. One, two, three. Cow!

One, two, three. Cow! One, two, three. Cow!

All right. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how we come back from a dinner break. Now, I know what you're thinking. Yes, I do have some incredible street cred.

That's right. That's right. I know. I hide it well.

Don't let the haircut fool you. You know, it was funny, actually, about my haircut. I was at an event, actually, with a couple of friends this past week. Actually, the event that I pulled up behind Neil's friend's Lamborghini.

And Perry Belcher is a good friend of mine, one of the most prolific, amazing, online marketers out there. When he's not writing amazing sales letters or creating unbelievable campaigns, he's normally making fun of me. And I walked into this event, and I haven't seen Perry in probably, you know, six, eight months, and he hadn't seen my new haircut. So I'm standing here.

Lawrence is laughing. He knows what's coming. So I'm standing here, and I'm talking. You know, there's like five, six people around me.

He's, you know, talking, catching up, whatever. Perry, who's, you know, tall. Well, not as tall as me, like right about here. Stocky guy.

Weaves his way in. Interrupts the conversation. Puts his hand on my forehead and goes, You're healed! And basically says, Oh, J.

Cron, I'm sorry. You had this televangelist look about you, and I just thought I would come over and welcome you. I was like, you know, Perry, it's so nice to hang out with you, because every time I do, it's been just enough time to forget why I don't hang out with you. And so we had some fun at my expense.

But, you know, incredible guy. And I don't know why I wanted to share that haircut story with you, but the moment just felt right. So was it meaningful? Rock on.

So, Rhonda, where's the Unstoppable family at? Where are they sitting right now? Rock on. I love you guys.

So who had a delicious dinner? But more importantly, who, while having dinner, did their homework? Who did their homework? Raise your hand.

Now, see, dinner, fewer and fewer people do their homework. And that's the challenge. So, first of all, exactly. So, first thing I'd like to do, we're going to go ahead and take two people from the audience, and I would like to hear about your takeaways so far today.

It can be, it can be from one of our amazing field leaders that you heard from. It can be from our marketing team at Empower Network Corporate. It could be from my dear friend Neil Patel and his opinion on exotic cars. Whatever your takeaways are, I would like to hear about them and I would like to share them with the group because two of you right now are going to be handed a microphone and asked to take a risk and share what you're going to be doing differently when you get home as a result of today.

So raise your hand if you're prepared. There you go. First, very enthusiastic. Lovely lady in blue right in the middle.

Could be a teal. These lights are really, really bright. Standing. Yeah.

You guys are required to tell me if my forehead gets like shiny or I look funny. You know that, right? Right. I'm ready.

Oh, man. Thank you. I'm Kate, AKA Grandma's in the House. Ladies and gentlemen, Grandma's in the House on three.

One, two, three. Grandma's in the House. And that's because it used to be that, it was a simple plan that even Grandma could do it. You know, remember that?

And that's fine. That's fine. I got over that and now it's fine. So.

Kate, it's a good marketing angle and that's all you need. So what's going to be different? What's your takeaway so far today? Takeaway so far, and I've been really kind of thinking about it because it's so fat and so full.

It's like sticking out all over the place. But I'm going to assume you're talking about the takeaway. I will tell you. Because I'll have you.

That's right. You know, I had grilled chicken with vegetables. No, there's just too many takeaways. There's just, it's like trying to snuggle with a porcupine.

But there is a truth, which was that the ENV2 for my mindset was muddy. I couldn't grab it. I couldn't get it. It was just muddy.

And this is like the, my takeaway is that suddenly Empower Network is, it's crystal clear. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kate. And there's no doubt about it.

One of the things that I have come to appreciate immensely about Dave Wood, and some of you may have heard me mention this on some smaller group gatherings. In any business that you're building, in any endeavor that you're undertaking, in anything literally worth doing in life, it's not a question of when you will make the wrong call. It's a question of how will you respond when you do. I don't care how good you are.

I don't care how well you plan. You're going to blow it. And sometimes you may blow it in front of a lot of people. Sometimes you may blow it in front of tens of thousands of people.

What I appreciate the most about Dave is Dave has never let his ego or his attachment to a decision stand in the way of what is best for our affiliates. And that's something that for those of you that may be brand new to this industry, thank you. Thank God you're here. For those of you that have been in other companies, that focus and that willingness is very rare in a company leader.

So it's one of those things that, you know, Kate, you reminded me of it. I'm very, very thankful that this is crystal clear because there's no question about it. A confused mind will do nothing. So crystal clear is exactly where we want it to be.

Thank you for sharing. Let's go ahead. I already called on you, but I love you. So let's go ahead and head over here to my lovely lady in the sparkly stripes.

My name is Theresa Kaiser, and my biggest takeaway today. Wait, wait, wait. Thank you. Where are you from?

Wisconsin. Wisconsin. I stood up yesterday. That's all I needed.

If I insulted anyone from Texas yesterday, I'm sorry. Anyway. Don't mess with Texas. All right.

I drove through a winter storm there. My biggest takeaway is Tracy Walker stood up here today. Thank you, Tracy, wherever you are. That was awesome.

Sometimes we fail to see the things that are happening around us. We focus so much. And one thing, and one of the biggest things that I've learned, um, number one from Kristen Susan Beasley, who I'm actually associated with, and they're not here today, so I'm speaking on their behalf too, is train what you know. So many people don't know what you know.

And when you share the value that you have with others, they see you as a leader. And the things that I, I was listening to on the way here and all the signs are there. And sometimes we ignore the signs. We can't ignore the signs anymore because this is what helps people change what we have right here, right now.

So that's my biggest takeaway. And thank you so much, Tracy Walker, for pointing that out, that there's more going on than you realize. And, uh, you know, if you're ADHD and that's not really a joke, it, um, it's really good for you actually. So don't make a joke about it because it makes you, it helps you focus and you realize what's going on, you know, help other people.

That's what this business is about. If you focus. Focus on the money is not going to happen for you. How many of you loved hearing from Tracy this morning?

Yeah. You know, it's, it's funny because, and many of you have already heard my story of being startled at the start up of what a Maserati behind you sounds like. But I always remember that before Tracy stepped into her Maserati, she said, mama, don't play. And I can tell you that in every interaction I've had with.

Tracy, whether it was a small group gathering over dinner, whether it was seeing her on stage in front of our teams of affiliates, mama, don't play. She brings it every single time. So thank you, Tracy, wherever you might be. Thank you for sharing your insight today.

We're going to grab one more from this side over here so I can be fair and the gentleman standing enthusiastically. If we could hand him a microphone. Hey guys, my name is Jamie. I'm from Chile.

I'm really nervous. First time talking to so many people. Jamie from Chile. I'm kind of when I represent the Latino people that here were many, I made so many Latinos.

So all of the Latino in the house, thank you for all the people, thank you. Thank you. I just want to say something, uh, eh, we are all here for, I think the main purpose and his commitment. That's what I learned these two days.

Just, it's all about commitment. I'm a hundred percent. I'm going to do whatever it takes. To make it happen.

So I want to achieve my goals and that's why I'm here all the way from Puerto Rico. I'm from Chile, but I live in Puerto Rico and I will do whatever it takes. I'm going to make it. That's what I'm talking about.

Thank you very much, Jamie. As we've talked about this weekend, three elements, realization, resolution, risk, realization, resolution, risk. You're going to realize something needs to change. It might be something personally, it might be something professionally.

It might be something as small as tweaking the way that you're writing your blog posts. It might be something as large as finally saying enough is enough and I'm going to do things differently. Resolution. I just realized that something needs to change and here's how I'm going to change it.

I'm making the commitment to do something differently. I'm making the commitment for different action, different thought, different patterns, different habits. Risk. I'm willing to risk what is necessary to have what I want and create it in my life.

That risk is going to be different for everybody. I don't know what it's going to be for you. I don't know what it's going to be for you. It might mean you're going to talk to the first person about Empower Network or you're actually going to reach out to your email list with an email.

I don't know. It might be that you're going to get online and do a webcast for the first time using Google Hangout and letting the rest of the world know about you. Letting the rest of the world see you, talk to you, interact with you. Like Michelle talked about earlier tonight, there are countless individuals waiting to follow you.

Who is out there waiting on you to show up? Or maybe it's just as simple as the risk for you is letting go of excuses that you've held onto for so long that are no longer serving you. I'll never forget the one of the first Hangouts that I was on with Rhonda and Brian, and I was blown away when they shared with me that they were kind of like, okay, I'm going to just do this, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this. And I was blown away when they shared with me that they were kind of like, oh, you know what?

It's great. It's great. It's great. It's great.

It's great. It's great. It's great. conducting their entire business from a 3G wireless signal now I want to be clear about something if I have to pay for my Starbucks with a 3G wireless signal to wait for that card to load on my phone I'm furious I can only imagine building a global team living on the beaches of the world and doing it with an internet signal that may frustrate you at the worst possible times no and and for those of you that know Rhonda we all know that she is incredibly patient so that being absolutely no give it up for him so what I want to make sure is you're clear you're clear that you have seen two days of leaders from every walk of life leaders that have achieved a million dollar ring leaders that are just getting started it's all there for you it's all available you it's all laid out it's all in your mind it's in your heart it's in the notes that you've taken all you're gonna have to do now is risk there's no question about it the realization took place when you came here you knew you wanted something different likely the resolution even took place because I know that you weren't going to come here without the commitment to do something different the only question that remains in our time together right now are you gonna take the risk are you gonna take the risk when are you gonna take the risk when are you gonna take the risk when are you going to take the risk just making sure so let me share with you what's coming up next and this is something I'm very excited about because admittedly Dave is one of the few people that I've worked with that the more time I spend with Dave the more I learn about him the more I understand him the more I am able to who is differently abled as myself from Dave can grasp from the way he communicates and the way he drives action because the man is unbelievable.

What we're going to be doing now is we're going to be bringing Dave back up to talk to you about what it means to be here live and the role that you being here live is going to take as you go back home and as you begin to build out what you want this year to look like. So I'd like you all to please get on your feet. Hopefully you've all been fed or at least had a snack. Hopefully you're all prepared for Dave to come up here because if you haven't set your intentions of what you're going to be getting out of this evening now is the time and with that I'd like you all to go absolutely nuts and help me bring back to the stage Mr.

Dave Wood.