The Power of Mastermind Alliances

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. We're so excited to be able to have you for this episode. We are pulling some of the best things we can out of the archives to be able to give you that weekly taste of what it means to be a magnetic marketer and to be a part of our programs. So this episode is highly, highly special and a true gem. In this episode, we're going to a sales strategy seminar where Lee Miltier shares the power of mastermind alliances. Now, as salespeople and entrepreneurs and business owners and all the different hats that we wear, there are very specific skills that we need to get aligned before we meet and choose our masterminds appropriately. So Lee Miltier is not only going to give us the keys to be able to build this mastermind, it's also the preparation that we need to do every single day in order to truly create the outcomes that we desire. How do we create that every single day? What are the things that our minds are supposed to be focused on step by step. And then once we have our minds erighted, how do we meld together with a mastermind in order to explode our opportunity and make sure that 1 1 is far more than 2? Let's jump in with Lee Miltier and the power of mastermind alliances.

I don't think there's anybody that has had a bigger impact in the field of direct response than Dan Kennedy.

The legend of Dan Kennedy should be ignored at your own peril.

They're not really lessons. They're kind of laws. Laws that you live by.

Dan opened my eyes to what small business marketing looks like. Dan teaches strategic direct response that is timeless.

His ripple effect touches people who don't even know his name.

The world as we know it was changed because Dan Kennedy became obsessed with marketing.

Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy.

One of the great things about being in a sales seminar is that we're all salespeople, right? By the way, how many of you are entrepreneurs? Raise your hand. Okay, how many of you are business owners? Raise your hand. And how many of you are salespeople? Raise your hand. Okay, we're all three of those things. By the way, out of curiosity, how many of you business owners, entrepreneurs have tried to hire other people to sell your stuff? Thank you for that laughter, that's true, isn't it? I had a conversation with Brian Tracy not too terribly long ago and I interviewed him for one of my coaching programs. And he said to me that he had learned one of the greatest lessons of life, and that was is that he had tried to hire other people to sell services. And the problem with that was is that then he had taken over the management part of his business. How many of you have tried to do that? Tried to do that? Okay. This is a huge mistake, and if you get nothing else from me today, do this. The reason you're successful right now is because you were very good at selling you and everything you do, right? The second you try to get other people to sell you, one, they're not as invested as you are. Secondly, they don't have the track record that you do. So it's easier to get someone else to manage all the busywork stuff and you still be the salesperson. Does that make sense? Now if you get that, that will make a huge difference in your income because most corporate world, they're trying to get someone else to do everything else. They're trying to outsource the sales, outsource everything, but the number The number one thing that makes you successful is your sales, and we're all salespeople every single day in everything that you do. I love Dan's presentation this morning when he was talking about choreographing things and everything that you say. And the truth is most people, when we are making presentations, they're looking on how to knock us out. They're looking for reasons they don't like us. Yes? And so what we have to do is make sure that we are tailoring that. And since my specialty in life is peak performance, one of the first things I want you all to get to to do is to understand the law of attraction. We attract people for many, many reasons. One of the reasons we attract people is because they like us, we are credible, they feel rapport with us. So you've got to be in a state of mind that you're attracting people and you have that skill of awareness of what are you creating mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially every single day. So the first thing I want to talk about is how have you developed your sense of humor lately. Curious, how many of you are taking yourself way too seriously these days? Just a couple of you? How many of you have let an old person move into your body? The reason I asked you that is because old people are not very creative. Old people, when we get stuck in our emotions of why we can't move to the next level, why we can't make more money— so we have to lighten up in life. And as a peak performer, one of the things I want you to do is have the skill of awareness of where am I taking myself too seriously. And it's It's so easy to do because we're trying to, you know, deal with our families, we're trying to deal with staff, we're trying to sell, we're trying to be all things to all people sometimes. And recently I realized that I was doing this and I teach this stuff. I have a little dog, his name is Murphy. He's a little 10-pound poodle. And Murphy's favorite thing to do in life is ride around in the car with me. And I have to do what everybody else has to do when I come home from a trip and I've been traveling. I have to go to the grocery store, I have to go to the cleaners, I have to go to the alteration lady, I have to go to the printers. One day I'm doing all those things and the last thing I did was I went and picked up my printing. And I put my printing in the front seat of my car, and Murphy, my little dog, likes to be in the front seat. And my printer, who knows me, I'm from Virginia Beach, Virginia, he said to me, Lee, don't let Murphy jump all over the printing. It's not quite dry yet. Make sure he's in the back seat. So I put him in the back seat, and I stopped at the Virginia Beach post office, and I got out of my car. And as I stepped away from the car, I had the little thought that Murphy was going to jump from the back seat to the front seat. And so I turned to the car and I said, to Murphy, "Stay, be good, don't you move, I'll be right back." And I walked into the Virginia Beach Post Office and a nice man opened the door for me and as he walked away he said, "You know, lady, I usually just put my car in park." True story.

You know, hello?

And all of us on a regular basis are very unconscious of our behavior sometimes. So I want you to have this awareness. And one of the great things, a homework assignment I like to give everybody, is I want you to pretend that you're a writer for Tonight Show or one of the late night shows. Because one of the great things about being a writer is observational humor. And what we want to start doing is catching ourselves being silly and fun. And the reason I say that is, how many of you have kids? Raise your hand. Have you noticed that your kids are possibility thinkers? Have you noticed that no matter what happens in life they see the good in things? Because I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia, I bought one of those big rocking chairs. And it's like one of those Lilly Tomlin rocking chairs. And I sit it on my front porch. And I'm sitting out front one day and it's dusk and I'm having a little glass of wine enjoying being on the beach. And I hear these kids. And one of them says, do you know what I love? I love it when the seagulls go up in the sky and circle scoot over the water, and all the kids giggled. And the next one said, "Do you know what I love? I love it when my mom makes real mashed potatoes." And they all giggled. And for 25 minutes these kids talked about what they loved. And then the mothers called them in for dinner, and the first thing I heard when the adults came out, first thing I heard was, "Do you know what I hate?" And for 30 minutes these adults talked about everything that they hated. Folks, you might want to write this down. What you focus on expands. This is, as entrepreneurs, what we have, we lose track of how powerful our mind is. You know, the glass is half empty or it's half full. You always have to be making that decision because when you get in that state of mind that the glass is half empty, you are scanning the landscape looking for problems. You're looking for other people who are moaning, bitching, and complaining because then you're a vibrational match to that. You've got to have this possibility thinker. And as adult as we all are, folks, as There's a little 12-year-old within all of us. I want you to bring that out because the 12-year-old sees possibilities that you don't see. So it's extremely important on a regular basis that you have an attitude adjustment time to be a peak performer of what am I focusing in on. By the way, how many of you get depressed on a regular basis? Raise your hand. Tell the truth. Get depressed? Okay, here's how you get depressed. I'm getting old, I'm getting fat, I'm not making enough money. Yes? Okay, you think that for 20 minutes and all the references of your brain are, you know, things aren't going your way. You shut down all of your creativity. You shut down all of your productivity because you focus on what you don't have versus what you do have. Here's how you get happy. Start thinking about what you're blessed with, what's good in your life, how lucky you are, how there's an unlimited amount of money in your world that you can have. There are no ceilings. By the way, most of us are flat-out unemployable, right? Job is a bad word, right? Aren't we proud of that? And that's because as entrepreneurs we have an opportunity to create anything we want, and as soon as things aren't going our way we can realize there's opportunities all around us. So it's very important that you have attitude adjustment on a regular basis. Another thing I want you to have in your life as a peak performer is discernment. Pay attention to who you allow in your world. You have to attend seminars like this because there is more business that can be done in the hallway in a seminar like this than all the Chamber of Commerce meetings in the world, right? And as a matter of fact, the InfoSummit and the SuperConference, these are seminars you always have to be with. On a regular basis, remember birds of a feather fly together. Don't allow other people who think small to influence you in your ability to be successful in sales. I want to tell you a cute little story. I live on the beach in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and I have a beautiful view, and it's my dream home. I manifested it, I visualized it, I worked towards it, it manifests for me, and I've loved my home for a long time. And I got a new neighbor, and this new neighbor moved in, and I met him at the mailbox, and the first thing he said to me was how upset he was about people parking catamarans in front of our house on the beach. Well, Virginia Beach actually owns the beach. I didn't think about it, didn't pay any attention to it. Next time I saw him at the mailbox, he said it to me again about these people who don't live on our street parking their catamarans on our beach. Didn't think anything else. On the third time he said it, he said to me how upset he was, and I remember walking away from the mailbox being annoyed. About the people who were parking their catamarans on our beach. Now you see how innocent that was and how simple and how it snuck up on it? And I teach this stuff. So by the way, if I teach it, think about you. I teach this every single day. I allowed someone else's small-mindedness view of the world to persuade me to see something that I had never seen in a negative way before. You've got to ask yourself who in your life is doing that. Because this is a crucial part of success. By the way, how many of you families know what you do? Understand and know what you do? Very few, right? My father— I grew up on a farm in Chuckytuck, Virginia, which is a mile and a half from the nearest secondary road. And my father died about 6 years ago, and just before he died there had been a big article in the paper about me. And my father called me up and he said, let me get this straight. They pay you to speak? Now, our families cannot support us because they don't know what we do. Our friends for the most part cannot support us because they don't know what we do. You have got to make sure that you align yourself with people who appreciate what you do and can give you information that helps you. So what I want to talk about for the rest of my presentation is how you can take advantage of the power of the mastermind alliances for speed and achievement in sales through sheer association. How many of you have read Think and Grow Rich? By the way, if any— I don't see some of you raising your hand. If you haven't read that book, by the way, in the last 6 months, may I suggest that you make sure that every 6 months that you read that book. By the way, when I read an important book, I take a yellow marker and I underline everything that's important. And then when I want to go back to that book, I don't have to read anything that's not necessary again. I can go straight to those points. Well, in the book Think and Grow Rich, it's like you have to all read the whole book again because everything is underlined. But the great thing about the Think and Grow Rich book is that the mastermind theory is one of the most important things about association. And very hard-headed pragmatists like Carnegie, Ford, Firestone, Edison, all believed that there was a third mind that was created by the association of two or more thinking in a harmonious direction as an entry door to the stored wisdom and creativity of the entire universe. Now I know that sounds very metaphysical, but it is true. Dan Kennedy and I talk about this all the time. Dan and I have been friends for over 20 years, and it's— you have to have people in your life by association who share with you things that help you and get that third mind going. Brains literally are like batteries. You have to be working in a harmonious direction and the more power you have to be creative and problem solving because others will always see solutions that you don't see because they are not emotionally attached to those things. You are programmed by your thoughts on a regular basis. By the way, all of you are self-programmed. Self-fulfilling prophecies. Whatever you think about yourself comes true. If you think that you have the ability to be a multi-millionaire— and I no longer say millionaire because a million dollars doesn't mean what it used to mean— but if you have the— if you think you have the ability to be a multi-millionaire, there is no reason on earth that you cannot be that. But you've got to start thinking that. By the way, one of the ways to create reality is to be it, to think it, to feel it. And Dan used the feel. How many of you heard him say that today, the word feel? Now, you know, Dan is such a big tough guy, you don't think about him, but he actually, you know, really gets it for sales. You've got to feel it. So if you want to be something, since we're self-fulfilling prophecies, you've got to feel it first. No matter how great your ability or how extensive your education or achievement, you will never raise higher than the confidence that you have in yourself. And by the way, the people that you associate with have a lot to do with your confidence. If you're associating with people who are subtly slicing and dicing you, putting you down, saying negative things about you— you know, how many of you think some of your friends think that you're just lucky? You stay home all day, or you get to do what you want to do. They don't realize that most of you are working 7 days a week, do they? They don't see They don't see that. They don't understand why you have great cars and a nice house and that you do the things that you do. They think that you're lucky. And you have to have the discernment in your world to hear when people are true friends and when they are social friends, when they are acquaintances. Because there's a huge difference between acquaintances and friends. And by the way, I only have maybe 5 or 6 real friends in my life. Adarian Wilson and I have been friends for many years. I know that if I got in trouble, he would always be there for me and vice versa. You've got to have people in your life when you start to go overboard that someone will bring you back and say, hey, you know, you're going in the wrong direction. And that's what friends will do for you. They'll tell you the truth. You have to give yourself new references. By the way, your brain is a computer and you all know that. And you have your conscious mind and your subconscious mind.. But most of you have been so programmed by other people to only have references of what's going wrong versus what's going right. And so what I want you to do is think about how you're using your references, how you're using your resources on a regular basis. You have mental resources. So again, who do you listen to? What do you read? Who do you associate with? What mentally is going in your brain on a regular regular day. For instance, a lot of people are addicted to the media. For entrepreneurs, this is very bad. If you want to read the newspaper in the morning, you want to just glance through and see what's pertinent to you. Don't be reading the war stories and the murder stories and the economy. By the way, we don't care about other people's economy. As entrepreneurs, you have to have an entitlement in your mindset It's their problem. Our challenge is to keep our brain so clean that we are focused on what we are doing in life. Because you cannot fix the world, but you can control your own environment. So what's going into your head? Also emotionally, again, how do you feel about things? If you're excited about things— and by the way, a lot of entrepreneurs get all passionate in the beginning, but they let their passion die. And by the way, how many of you have gotten up in the morning and suddenly realized that you're not having fun? Truthfully? And like, where is all the fun I was supposed to be having being self-employed? Like the good news is you're self-employed, the bad news is you're self-employed. I used to travel and do professional speaking and I traveled 100 cities a year doing public seminars. And I remember one morning waking up and I emotionally felt like I'd rather— no offense to anybody— I'd rather be a waitress. It would have been easier. This is such a hard thing to do. And I realized, I said, okay, I need a total pattern interrupt here with myself. I need to get excited again as I was when I first became a speaker. So I needed to write out what I really loved about my work and how I felt like I was contributing to other people's lives and how I was affecting people and that I was in charge of my own destiny. So I started writing gratitude list on a regular basis. And now when I start feeling sorry for myself that I'm at the airport too long or something like that, again, it's a matter of having integrity with yourself. You chose this, folks. Give it 100%. Stop with the 20% or the 30% and stop with, you know, things got a little tough. Well, you know, if things were easy, everybody would be successful. Everybody would be rich. We don't want it to be easy because if it's easy then it's— we don't make ways for ourselves. So emotionally make sure you're using your resources in a way that allow you to be a peak performer. Physically, by the way, I don't know if you realize this or not, but being an entrepreneur takes a lot of energy. You better take care and have integrity with what you eat, how you rest. Chris Hearn and I were talking recently about you just can't run 90 hours a week. And expect to run that on a regular basis without burning out all your adrenaline glands and depleting yourself and being exhausted. And I've been there. So again, physically, what are you doing for yourself? Spiritually, I'm a very spiritual woman. I wrote a book called Spiritual Power Tools for Successful Selling, and I believe that you have to have something that centers you, a purpose in life. And, you know, success isn't just about money, because money is fantastic, but what are we doing with that? How are we using our influence? In life. So spiritually, how are you developing that part of yourself? And of course financially. Life is made of cycles. Tide goes out, tide comes in. I'm a saver. I save money. The reason I save money is because I know that from time to time I'm going to have to use that money I saved. When I was a professional speaker, when 9/11 happened, I had big contracts with Walt Disney, Ford Global, I had contracts with NASA, AT&T, 3M. Within 2 weeks on 9/11, gone. And if I hadn't been an entrepreneur with many eggs in many baskets, I would be broke, I wouldn't be in the business anymore. And let me tell you folks, I am not employable. So I need to be, you know, with lots of financial backings. By the way, having money in the bank is a very powerful thing. You don't have to take any crap from anybody. It's very important to realize cash is king. Cash is king. You know, save your money. As entrepreneurs, you know, one of the great successful things about people is, you know, you know your power. And when you have your power, people feel it. They want to do business with you. And because we're talking about sales, when you're desperate for a sale, you push that sale away. Because when you are needy for that sale, they feel it. They feel repelled by you. So you can only be in that position when you don't need the sale. It's nice you get it, you want the sale, you work towards the sale, but you don't need it. Because the second you need it, it's the kiss of death. The hardest part of success is literally finding and associating with brilliant minds who are also in the sales and understand your business. Who can save you from the learning curve and bring more profits of sales? Now I think the right kind of association to facilitate speed for sales success is being in an alliance with someone, being in meetings, mastermind groups, because it will put you ahead, it puts you, it gives you information about trends, it gives you a competitive edge. And by the way, one of the great things about being with other people is you get outside of the box information. Ideas, examples that will expose you to things hidden inside industries you couldn't possibly know, fields or professions that you might not pay attention to that a lot of other people know about. Being in a group setting with successful business owners and sales reps of different types of businesses is a very time-efficient way that you can never achieve on your own. And one of the problems Dan talked about was that we're very isolated. Isolated as entrepreneurs because our personalities, we are kind of wired to be isolated people. We work alone well. And the problem with that is, is that you can only know so much information. You've got to tap into the brains of other people. I think speed to market is very important for sale, leveraging other people's experiences, their know-how, their resources, can cut years in time off anything. Getting to decision makers to close sales faster. I know in our Peak Performers group we have many different types of businesses and if there's someone that I'm getting ready to work with I literally seek out people in those businesses and ask them to give me insider's information about that that I couldn't possibly know. So by the way, one of the great secrets in life is ask for what you want Ask for what you want. Your homework assignment in this entire seminar is to see people that you can learn from, you want to align yourself with. I give you permission and you give yourself permission to go up and talk to those people. Forget all the shyness, okay? Shyness never makes anybody any money, never makes anybody successful. You got to go for what you want. By the way, another great thing about mastermind groups is the forced thinking, days devoted entirely to simply focusing. In one of our last meetings, Bill Glazer did a fabulous exercise. He got a shot— a shot ski, like a little fun thing. How do you say that? Shot ski? I should never do Yiddish, yes? And he put it on each table and there were 8 people at a table and he said, you have 30 minutes to create a business plan, marketing, and who this is going to be for. And in 30 minutes, then all of our groups kind of competed with each other on what business plan they had. And the thing that was really valuable about this for everybody was we did it in 30 minutes. How many of you spend years working on sales letters? Way too long a time. Give yourself time limits. You know, forced thinking, very important. Thought in isolation versus thought in creative, idea-charged, dynamic environment populated by other thinkers. When we get by ourselves, we're— entrepreneurs are easily distracted by shiny objects. You all know that. We are— how many of you get on their email and all of a sudden they're looking at travel sites and they're doing this and they're going, oh, here's a link, what's this important thing? We get isolated and we waste a lot of time. And this is out of integrity with ourselves. When you are part of an alliance or a mastermind group, what happens is, is there's an accountability and you have to think better. So when you're in isolation, you give yourself permission to goof off. When you're in an environment where people are expecting you to produce something, you're going to produce that. Our egos will make it. We're motivated to learn, to acquire new information for more sales. It's not easy to search out and assemble new information when we're We're isolated. And I have a term here that not many people think of, but inbred thinking. Have you ever heard that term, inbred thinking? If you come from an industry, like maybe the auto repair industry, or you come from sales or marketing or mortgage banking or real estate, we get very inbred in our thinking sometimes. We get stuck there. This is the way we do it. This is the way it's always been done. But when you put people people who do things differently together, what happens is you are hearing how they are doing it and you should be asking yourself this question: How can I use that information for my world? How can I mold it and shape it? Because you have to be an artist and a scientist when you hear information. And by the way, you always want to be curious and open-minded and don't ever have that attitude of, well, I already know how to do it in my field. Because our world is changing at such a fast pace. How many of you have noticed that time seems to have accelerated? Anybody? It's like same time, like it was just like 5 minutes ago, it was yesterday at the same time. Well, the world is changing at such a fast pace. As entrepreneurs, your job isn't to be doing things, your job is to be a visionary, to be scanning the world, listening, looking. Where's a trend? How can I use that trend? How can I capitalize on that trend? What can I do to do something right now to get in front of other people? Because that's not going to be there forever. Whatever you're doing right now, I can assure you it will change. There are people who had, you know, voice broadcast or they had faxing or, you know, who knows what they're going to do with email. You can never get comfortable where you are. And the great thing of being in association with other people is they see those weaknesses that you have. And so you've got to align yourself with other people. Groups where others contribute new information, new resources tend to be motivational and bring great new information to that meeting. Here's a great example, formalized application. Let's say you're in a mastermind group with 12 people. If one person reads just one new sales book or business book a month for the next year, that's 12 books. In a group of 12 people, each people report on the different books each month, giving each person the benefit of 144 books. That's real speed in life. And if you haven't aligned that with people who do that, you should be doing that because you can't read as much as you'd like to read. You don't have the time to do it. Another example, not everybody wants to read the Wall Street Journal or Investor's Business Daily or USA Today, New York Times. You can divide up people and have each person report back. Dan and I, each week I send him a big packet of information of stuff that I see he might be interested in. He sends me a big packet of information. Bill Glazer is always kidding that Dan Kennedy is his personal clipping service because he's always sending stuff to Bill. And you need people in your life. By the way, what you give is what you get. If you have people doing that for you and you're not doing it back for them, guess what? They will stop doing it. So you've got to remember what you sow in life is what you always get back. So create more speed in your life, align yourself with powerful people. Serious money can be made directly doing business with other people in your group, in a mastermind group, alliances. Always pay the fee to be in any kind of groups. By the way, as entrepreneurs, I hear people particularly in the ladies' room. I hear people talking about the cost of money to do things. Money is nothing but pieces of paper with dead notables on it. You know, Dan, if you've ever been to one of his wealth seminars, he always talks about you can only become wealthy when money doesn't mean anything, when you have lost that charge about money. And so what I want to share with you about investing in yourself and associate in your mind that money is just energy and that the more you are of service to other people— Zig Ziglar always says this— the more you are of service, the more you attract money back to you. But by the way, again, law of attraction. If you are a sharp person who has integrity, who does what you say you're going to do, people will always be attracted to you. They will always want to do business with you. By the way, when you're in a great group, it saves advertising, finding customers, because both parties get profits faster. It's a great sales strategy. By the way, entrepreneurs are easily demotivated. Did you know that? We do not like to be held accountable. How many of you have had your husband or wife try to talk to you about money going out? Doesn't that depress you kind of? Like you have to explain yourself. I don't like anybody to ask me questions. Does anybody else feel that way? I resent that. I'm smart, don't be asking me any questions. Isn't that how you feel? And so we don't like to be held accountable, we really find it very demotivating. One of the great things about being in a mastermind group, it's motivational for us as entrepreneurs, as sales reps, it brings out our competitive nature. By the way, how many of you are in an alliance or a mastermind group? In your group right now? All right. One of the great things that I know in my group is when we start talking about money, I mean, the next person just can't wait to get to the mic to talk about how they've made more money. You're never going to find in your world a place that it's acceptable to brag about reality. Because how many of you go to cocktail parties and you actually downplay what you do? Yes? You downplay. And you know, that's no fun. When you're in an environment of other sales reps and entrepreneurs, one of the great things about this is that you can tell them and they actually appreciate it. They're excited for you. And if you don't start aligning yourself with people who are excited for you, then when— by the way, your subconscious who cannot tell the difference between, you know, right and wrong, doesn't know anything, it does what you tell it to do. The more you downplay your life, it thinks, oh, we're not successful. You actually start to sabotage yourself. One of the great things is be curious about other people's intentions, strategies, systems, and resources. I know when I'm part of my peak performers group, Bill and I are learning from the group because people have all kinds of inventive strategies and the way that they're doing things, and you start tweaking those strategies as how can I use that. Salespeople want to shine in this kind of environment. Entrepreneurs want to shine in this kind of environment, you can go back feeling good about yourself. Bill Glazer used a term called swipe and deploy. And with permission, let me make this very clear, with permission of other members in the group, you get to grab, you get to go and use everything from how to make a sale, new marketing strategies, contract language, web technology, you name it, you get to benefit from group settings. Now, again, entrepreneurs and salespeople Isolation is very unhealthy. We feel overwhelmed, overworked, stressed. Our energy is down. We get negative emotions. It slows us down. It blocks all of our creativity. We want to stop trying to reinvent the wheel, folks. It's a giant waste of time. If you realize that you're trying to write a sales letter from scratch, stop yourself, have the skill of awareness and go, there's thousands of great sales letters out there. How can I go and grab something? If you are surrounded by friends and family who don't understand you, again, that's going to get you down. It's going to affect your income. You have to align yourself with other people who understand what you do. Another thing about being in a mastermind group is valid devil's advocacy. And Dan says this: if everyone around you agrees with you, either you or they are unnecessary. Now the whole corporate world is based on people agreeing with each other. That's how you get ahead in the corporate world. Yes? You have to be a yes person. Well, one of the reasons Dan and I have been friends for such a long time is he knows I'll always tell him the truth because we're friends. That's what we should be doing. In our mastermind group, you always tell the truth. It might not be pretty. It might be unpleasant. But you need the truth. Another thing is you question by people that you take seriously. You see, if you're at a cocktail party and somebody starts telling you that things can't be done a certain way, you don't need to pay attention to that. They are not from the same references, from the same world we are. But if you're in an alliance group and people start saying you need to think about this in a different way, you can take them seriously. So again, faster implementation Implementation, resources, different people know different people, discussing your business, your sales strategies. Have you ever noticed, and this is something that's very important about observing Dan in our world, when Dan meets someone, he's very clear to ask people, what do you do, what business are you in? Because his brain is like a computer and it is locking away, am I going to need you to find somebody? How can I utilize my world? How can I put people together? How can I, if I don't know something, because he writes all these sales letters, I can call somebody up and ask them about an inside thing? And so don't be so self-involved with yourself that you, that you forget that you don't achieve in the world without other people. We need all their knowledge. Their connections become your connections and you can get what and who you need faster with less hunting, saving time. It's the old 6 degrees of separation. And folks, this is one of the most important things of life. If you are only 6 people away from anyone you want on the face of the earth, what are you doing right now to get close to one of those 6 people, to use that alliance? Instead of just sending letters to people that their person in the front office is never going to get them. We all need bridges. And so when you're in an alliance group, you can— when you give to other people, they will give back to you. By the way, the way we get the most out of associations is you bring something to the table. You don't just take. Value gems. Don't be obsessed with that everything has to affect you. Here's one of the things you want to remember. When you hear information that might not trigger you right today, keep in mind you might not, you may need that information 3 to 5 years out. Be very visionary in your thinking of how can I use that information. Maybe it's not right now I don't need it, but how can I use it? Because again, we get into groups sometimes and we think, oh, that has nothing to do with me, when maybe you're blind to your own opportunities that are out there. Make sure that you are the center, central connector putting people together. By the way, this is one of the greatest secrets of power in life is connecting people. And in our last peak group, I connected two people together that I think are like a magic business together. And you can see— other people can see it and they've known each other for over 9 months. They didn't even see it. So in one of the peak performance groups, we encourage people, if you see a match between two people, go up and tell them that. They may be blind to that. Creates future obligation by being of service, by the way. You know, Dan is the godfather. You do know that, yes? He is in the sense of when Dan does you a favor, and it will be very unspoken, he will expect a favor back. And as entrepreneurs, and I say that with with great joy because that's the way it should be. You know, all of us, the way we can get from people is to give to them, be generous. Barriers that hold people back from maximizing benefits of association is not participating because you think your business is different, not being there physically but— being there physically but not mentally. How many of you are guilty of like spacing out? That's a few of us. Are you spacing out right now, as a matter of fact? The truth is that you have to have that skill of awareness. You have to be present. And you know what? It takes energy to be present. It takes a lot of damn energy to be present sometimes. Because sometimes information isn't delivered in the way we'd like it to be delivered. You know, some people will give you information that are very left-brained and they are very logical and you're like, please God, while I'm young, give it to me. But there is a little gem in there somewhere. So just hang in there, folks, sometimes. And as entrepreneurs, since we are so easily distracted by shiny objects, we are thinking about 12 other things, or we hear a great idea so we want to run out in the hall and get on the phone and jump on it. But when you miss the main events here and you are out there socializing— and by the way, I hear people talking about the weather. Are you insane? Don't be talking about the weather when there's so much money in this room. Where's your focus? Where's your intention? Where's your clarity? And when I said to you earlier, give yourself permission to go out and talk to people, the great thing about entrepreneurs, we don't need a lot of social chitchat. I can walk right up to somebody and say, I need to ask you a question. I need information. We're okay with that. But again, be where you are. Be present. Because that's where you can learn the most. Don't be wandering around in your brain. Another thing about maximizing intellectual laziness, you know, we're all lazy. Everybody's lazy in life. Dan and I always kid if we didn't have deadlines we'd never get anything done. We have to have deadlines. We're all lazy. But as entrepreneurs you never want to be lazy about one thing, money, because that's where freedom is. That's where power is. When you collect a lot of money in life you get to live your life the way you want to live it. So be smart. Resistant, defensive, argumentative, ego in the way. I have been part of mastermind groups who are people like this. They think that they know everything. They're, you know, they're too big for their britches is what I call them. And so when you get into a group like this, just be open-minded because there are information for you. Not implementing something and implementing quickly because we're so easily distracted. By the way, when I'm listening to people, I have two sets of notes. There's notes of kind of what they're saying and listen to that, and then what I call money notes. And my money notes are, okay, I just heard a gem. That person probably didn't even know they said a gem. I just heard a money calling to me. And so I put on my money. So when I get home, I don't care about the notes of what they said. I care about the money notes. How can I jump on this before someone else does? How can I be known for this before someone else does? How can I implement this right away? And again, it's a matter of using your common sense, your intuition, but when you are in a meeting, you are there, your brain is searching for information. Feeling superior, bad. Okay, what systems do you have in place to support you? By the way, I don't care what anybody says. We're all stressed out, is that right? Yes, we are stressed out. We are, we have a big train behind us. We have a lot of baggage to carry. We are the providers for our family. We are the people who are providing for our staff. We're supposed to be doing a lot of things at one time. You do have stress. So what kind of systems do you have in place to ensure a new business? Because by the way, if you're not Putting new people in that funnel all the time. Every business has people who drop out. And, you know, loyalty is a thing of the past. Yes? It really is. I mean, we have to face it. I have had customers who I have given the best service to and unbelievable stuff and for, you know, $2 less they'll go somewhere else. It's mind-boggling. And by the way, the people who have given you the best testimonials, will sometimes jump ship. So you always have to be making sure that there are new blood coming in, new energy coming in. And so you've got to have systems in place, ensure new customers walking through the door. Question: how many of you have assistants? Raise your hand. Keep them up, keep them up. Okay, anybody who doesn't have an assistant, raise your hand. Okay. Anybody who doesn't have an assistant who owns their own business, you're making a huge mistake not to have people doing the busy work and returning calls and doing stuff like that. Your focus is to be the visionary. Your focus is to be the money seeker. Your focus is to be the person who is seeking out and implementing things that make you successful. And having to spend time with Visa on the phone for some charge you don't understand is a huge waste of your time and it's totally out of time integrity for yourself. As a matter of fact, all of you say you don't have enough time. You have enough time. You don't have any integrity with your time. You let people suck the marrow out of your bones with their needs and you don't stand up and take a stand of no, I don't have time to talk to you right now. Make an appointment. Don't be playing around on the email. But anyway, folks, Have some more integrity with your time. Biggest secret of success will be to be in a professional mastermind group. It helps you overcome any challenge. It helps you, gives you systems, and you will have mentors who actually understand your world. By the way, as Dan says, you're the sum total of the 5 people you associate with. And not— you don't have time to do it right now, but I do want you to do this: write down the 5 people who literally influence you right now, and then ask yourself this very important question: What are they influencing you with? Because if they're influencing you with stuff that has nothing to do with your business and nothing to do with your success, then you got to ask yourself, why am I spending time, why am I listening to these people? Because they're costing you money.

Thank you for listening to the Magnetic Marketing The Millionaire Training Podcast with Dan Kennedy. If you love hearing in on these lost Dan Kennedy talks and speeches and calls, then please let someone else know about this podcast. That's how you can help it to grow. And the more it grows, the more free Dan Kennedy we can bring to you. Also, Dan would love to give you the most incredible free gift ever designed to help you make maximum money in minimum time. And this free gift comes with almost $20,000 in pure money-making information for free just for saying maybe. You can get this gift from Dan right now at NoBSLetter.com. Not only do you get the $20,000 gift, you also get a subscription to 2 marketing newsletters that will be hand-delivered by the mailman to your mailbox each and every month. One from Dan Kennedy and one from me, Russell Brunson. To get this gift and your subscription, go to NoBSLetter.com right now.