Guarding the Standard: Inside the Mind of a Master Interviewer with Brian K. Wright

I host a show called Success Profiles Radio. I started in January 2012, so it has been going on for over 14 years. In fact, very recently, the show landed in the top 100 of business shows on iTunes, and it is the number 9 show in careers on iTunes. And so I am very excited about that.

Oh, I have always been told that I have a voice for radio. I did radio news announcing as an event in high school speech contests, and it was always my ambition to host a radio show at some point. Then I was offered the opportunity in late 2011, and the show launched in January 2012. I have gotten to interview some of the most amazing people in the business and personal development space, including Darren Hardy, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Sharon Lechter, Dr. John Demartini, and Joe Vitale. I have also gotten to interview some athletes like Rich Franklin. I even got to interview Jeff Timmons from 98 Degrees one time. He was fun.

Sure. I had always aspired to be a teacher, and I ended up doing that. I taught at a two year business school in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I taught public speaking, English composition, and business math. All three of those classes were required, so I felt like it was my job to make the classes as fun as possible. I think I did a pretty good job of that. I enjoyed teaching and I feel like the education component has carried forth into my radio show career because I use my show to educate, motivate, and inspire people to be the best version of themselves in life and in business.

I also have a ton of experience in the call center world. I have done sales, I have had supervisory roles, I did payroll, and I have been a trainer. I had two training positions created specifically for me that did not exist before because they recognized that I was pretty good at what I did, and those two companies insisted that I teach other people how I was doing it. So that was a blessing.

Well, I grew up in Iowa. After I graduated from high school, I went to Iowa State and got my bachelor's there. Then I went to Nebraska, got my master's there, and that is where I was teaching. I ended up in Arizona for 26 years, living in places like Mesa and Chandler. Then, four years ago in 2022, I moved back home. My dad had passed and I did not want my mom to be alone anymore. My sister has been disabled her entire life, and in fact, we moved her to assisted living four months ago. So I am back home basically to take care of my mom and my sister.

Right. Well, loving and honoring your mother and father is very biblical, and it is a real thing. I am the oldest, so my parents had to learn on me. They had no experience parenting when they had me, but I think they did a good job.

Yeah, I would love to talk a little bit about my publication, Ultimate Achievers Magazine. I have been doing that since December 2017. I started it because I realized that I had generated a lot of great content through my radio show that I was not repurposing. Kevin Harrington was my very first front cover, and everyone on the front cover is someone that I have actually interviewed. There are other magazines out there where they will put famous people on the front, but the lead article is just written about them without an actual conversation. I talk to every single person on my front cover. Our 100th issue is coming up this August, so that is a huge milestone.

Darren Hardy. He published Success Magazine. First of all, it was memorable because it was really hard to book him. But once I got him, he was absolutely amazing. One thing I learned from him relates to the idea of having A-players. A-players will pay for themselves because they are basically free. They outproduce so much that they more than cover their own cost. B and C-players tend to be more of an expense, and A-players will not work for B and C-players. Having A-players in your organization will completely change the culture because they will not put up with the things that B and C-players do.

C-players do not go above and beyond. They do only what they are told. They are so worried about whether they can keep their job or not that their way of getting ahead is to tear other people down. They gossip, they try to make others look bad, and they even lie. It is the classic narcissist approach: if you cannot control someone, you try to control the narrative about them. It is annoying.

It means that as much as you are able to, you do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it. You have higher standards for yourself than other people do. You commit to excellence in your work, you carry yourself with authority, you maintain a strong reputation, and you guard your heart and your mouth as much as possible because people will misconstrue whatever it is you say.

My wish is that people would tell the truth. My wish is that people would return to God. If that happened, this place would be so much better.