Are You One Of The 8%? Leela Cosgrove & Gulliver Giles Explain

You have to share.

I'll share a little bit, but I will be a footnote and you will be the paragraph.

I mean, you have to share the microphone.

You are my paragraph.

You want to share a little bit. You can't just take the computer away.

I will. I like to wander off with things. You know, me.

All right, guys, I'm already recording that Gollum version of Giles and Lela Cosgrove. Welcome back to Bacon Wrap Business. You may recognize one of those accents from a previous episode, Gulliver Giles, who was one of the most popular episodes on Bacon Wrap Business. All about sales and closing and doing it from Just a place of Love, which you don't hear very often. And I am happy as hell to welcome back Gulliver to the show and his beautiful wife, Leela Cosgrove. Leela, how are you doing today?

I'm awesome, Brad. How are you doing?

Great. I'm really excited you weren't on the last episode, so I'm happy to get you on here. This one.

So happy to be here.

I mean, he kept on saying that you were the brains behind the whole.

Thing anyway, so he says it a lot.

I live in fear. I live in fear.

You better say it.

The one man who can put the fear in Thor's eyes or the one person who can put the fear in Thor's eyes. That's awesome.

So for all my listeners, if you have not. If you have not listened to Gulliver's episode in the past and you have anything to do with selling things to people, especially if you do it on the phone or in person, go listen to that episode right now. I'll put a link in the show notes. And as a little more frame of reference, I met both Gullivero and Leila several years ago at. I think we originally met at a Frank Kern mastermind or event and have kept in contact ever since. And really watch what you guys have been doing, and it's been awesome. Helping people really understand how to not only explode a business from the sales side, but also from the marketing side. And whether it's online sales funnels and traffic generation and Facebook advertising, you name it, it's kind of a really powerful team you guys have there. And recently I've just seen some of the stuff that you guys have been putting out about this thing called the 8%. And I wanted to get you guys on here, especially Leila, and talk about what is the 8%.

Yeah, cool.

I guess for me, I mean, the 8% is. Let me give an overview first. I'm like, what do I do? I talk about it. I want to talk about all the things at the same time, calm brain.

Because I hear the, you know, over here, especially in the US, everything's about, oh, the 1%, the 1%, the evil 1%. People have all the money, all the greedy 1%. So what's this 8% about?

Different to the 1%. And thank you for bringing that up because it's a good distinction to make at the beginning. So for me, the 8% are people who are obsessed with excellence. Now, they might not be rich. You can have absolutely, you can have 8% nurses and 8% teachers. They're not necessarily the people who are making the most money, but they're the people in every industry. And a lot of entrepreneurs, but sometimes in day jobs as well. Like I said, nurses, teachers who are obsessed with excellence, who love what they do so much that they are constantly driving innovation forward. They're constantly striving to make things better and to achieve the next thing. And the next thing in terms of not from a place of ego driven, money driven selfishness, but from a place of deeply caring about whatever their particular topic is and really loving what they do and wanting to make the world better in that particular way.

That's such a cool concept. Especially I'm just recently off rereading one of Seth Godin's books and.

It'S really about treating everything you do as art, whether it's you're an entrepreneur or you're an artist, or you're just an employee, but making your work like art and bringing that passion into it. So is that kind of what you're talking about here?

That is like bang on exactly what I'm talking about. In fact, one of the taglines for the website that we have, the 8% website we have is entrepreneurship meets art. I didn't even see that.

Because it's something I'm super passionate about from both ends. Like you say, both entrepreneurs becoming more artistic, but then artists becoming more entrepreneurial as well. And for me, the crossover that's probably my sweet spot that I'm most excited by is that crossover between musicians, visual artists, writers, and the entrepreneurial world. That to me is such an exciting space.

So give me an example of some of the. And I know you've got a handful of examples on your website here, but for folks unlike me who aren't staring at your website right now, which is the 8, the number 8% com, give me an example of who some of some big 8 percenters are that are noteworthy.

Probably the easiest one that people really get their heads around because everyone knows who they are, is Steve Jobs. Right. So you've got somebody there who was not in it for the money. You've got someone who was absolutely obsessed with his product, down to, like, every detail of his product, down to what the motherboard of a computer looked like, even though nobody was ever going to see it. Because if you've ever tried to get a motherboard out of a Mac, you know, it's not as easy as it is with a PC. No one can see it. But that was still. Still for him. He was absolutely obsessed with the design of that.

Just cared so much about what he did and about the way in which it was going to change the world and was still dedicated to it even while he was dying of cancer. Like, literally died doing this. Because, you know, you hear that stuff about how that old saying that goes around. Nobody on their deathbed wishes they'd spent more time at the office. I'm not convinced that's completely true. I think 8 percenters love what they do so much, they'll be doing it like Steve on their deathbed, because it's a bigger vision. There's a phenomenal chef in New York, and his name is Dan Barber. And he says one of my favorite quotes from him ever is, if your vision can be achieved in one lifetime, you're thinking too small.

That's good.

So it really is. And that was. And I think that's why Steve was working on his deathbed, because his vision was not about his lifetime. It wasn't about him. He. It was about what he was doing and the level to which that was going to have an impact on the world. So I think that's like a really. It's a good example that everybody can kind of get their head around. Now, look, Steve copped a lot of shit. Look at it for being that. People say he was an asshole, he was a tyrant. You know, a lot of horrible things about him. And I honestly believe that the reason for that was. And it's definitely a Hallmark of the 8%, is that he was so dedicated to the work that everything came second. Yeah, yeah. He didn't care about your feelings, but he didn't care about his own feelings either. It wasn't about his ego. Although, you know, we've all got ego. That's all gonna be tied up in it. It was about the work, and the work was central to everything.

Yeah. And it sounds like the 8 percenters are the people who would do what they're doing regardless of the money, that their money is not what motivates them. But it just so happens that a lot of them are rewarded with money because what they provide is so valuable in so many different areas of life.

Absolutely. A lot of them do end up making quite significant amounts of money.

Yeah. And that's what money is, simply a result.

Exactly. It's twofold for the 8% as well. Like for them, money's important insofar as you can't focus on your great work if you're having to worry about pay the bills. Yeah. Like if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs where he talks about, you need to be at that self actualization, that top of the hierarchy of needs where. Where all of your basic needs are taken care of. So you need money for that. Yeah. So you don't have to worry about paying the bills. You can just focus on delivering what you need to deliver. And then on the other hand of it as well, in order to get your. You don't do your great work for yourself. Yeah. I mean, it is for you, but it's not just for you. It's like any kind of art. Art is about communication. It's about change. It's about taking an idea and putting it out into the world. Not necessarily for everybody, not everyone's gonna get it, but for the people who do get it.

Yeah. That brings up one of the things that I read and I think it was Seth Godin who said this in the book, but was.

It's not art until you share it.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It can't be like you have to share it with people. And that's the whole point. Art is about communication. If you're just communicating with yourself, you already know what you know and what you think. The point of art is communication. And so to the point of your great work as an entrepreneur, as a teacher, as an what it is you're doing, it really is about that communication. So to communicate with as many people as possible, you need money to get your message out. You need money to be able to advertise, to write books, to publish books, to do TV shows. Like whatever it is that you need to do to get that message out there, you need money for that. So it has nothing to do with the money, but it also has everything to do with the money.

Okay, so explain that. I think I get it, but I want you to elaborate.

Yeah, it has nothing to do with the money because it's not about money for money's sake, but it's everything to do with the money. Because without the money, you can't achieve the things that you need to achieve. Like you need to have those basic. You need to be able to take care of your family and keep a roof over your head and you need to be able to get that message out to as many people as possible and communicate with as many people as possible. The more money you have, the more ability you have to do those things.

And if I may, like Leila, went through the journey of discovering this, particularly in the last few years, because we reached a point where we had made all the money. Like we'd reached our financial targets in our Internet marketing sales consulting business. And it suddenly struck Leila that she didn't want to be helping Internet marketers make more money necessarily, that she didn't want to help people make money for money's sake. That she was really interested in doing something bigger that was more impactful on the world and more creative. And it's amazing.

Yeah, I think I always knew that. I think deep down I have always had this idea that I was destined to do something bigger on this planet. I think a lot of entrepreneurs feel that way.

Yeah.

And I think I got into marketing and the stuff that we've done and it was what was in front of me and it was clearly an opportunity. I was apprentice to a self made millionaire. I had the opportunity to work with him. He was the managing director of J. Abraham Asia Pacific in Australia. So I got to go to a lot of Jay stuff, I got to go to a lot of Tony stuff. So I saw all of these opportunities and I just took them and ran with them. So. But I always felt, I mean, that was 10 years ago now. I always felt at a deeper level that I had something bigger inside of me. I just didn't quite know what it was or how it was going to come out. And then, you know, we hit the million dollar two million mark and I had what I call, I think a lot of entrepreneurs go through it, the million dollar meltdown where you hit that point where you're like, all right, well I've got the money, I've got the stuff. I can buy the handbags and the cars and do the things. Is this all there really is? Like, is this, is this what my life is? It just doesn't seem like much.

Yeah, it's that point of diminishing return where it's great and then. And I forget what the studies are, whether it's. I think it may be like $250,000 or something.

Yep, yep.

So you're familiar with what I've heard where after you make like $250,000 a year, your life does not get exponentially better, or I take that back. Your happiness and fulfillment doesn't get exponentially better than, yeah, you can buy nicer things, you can buy nicer cars, but those don't make as big of a difference as the jump from, let's say 30,000 to 100,000 does. Yeah. And it is also, like you said, you had this in you, but, you know, to contribute something bigger than just the make money. But it's that I think that's a natural step too. And it's almost like putting the, you know, they say in the airplane, you know, you put the bag, the oxygen mask on yourself first. So that oxygen mask was, okay, I'm going to get successful so that, in fact, I'm gonna focus on the money and we're gonna get sales and we're gonna build a business. And then you hit that point where like, okay, now the next step, the next evolution is to help people elevate past that as well, right?

Yeah, totally. And look, for me, the way I came about came onto, you know, the 8%, finding what my great work was. I mean, for starters, Gulliver is really super passionate about the sales stuff. In case you haven't noticed.

That is his great work. And so in the business, he had all this passion. He cares so much about it that I kind of like, I built the business around that to a large extent because it's what he was so great at. I was like, well, we can make money doing this. Gulliver cares deeply about it. So let's just kind of mold the business around this. While I'm figuring out what the hell I want to do, we'll focus on his stuff. So we started building that. But it was having that money and having that stuff that actually gave me the experiences I needed to figure out what my great work was and to have this whole 8% breakthrough if we hadn't have been making significant amounts of money.

Experiences I had. One of my favorite bands growing up was a band called Everclear, who you might remember.

Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with him.

Yeah. LA band. So they recently, I've stayed a fan of theirs for the last, oh, God, what, 20 years now. And. And their albums, Gulliver and I had like our Wedding Waltz to one of their songs. Like, they're one of my favorite bands. And last year they decided they were gonna crowdfund their latest album so one of the perks when you crowdfunded at the $1,500 level was to go and get tattooed with the lead singer.

And I was just like, oh, my God, I can't freak out about it for like 30 minutes about whether I was actually gonna do it, because I was like, I'm gonna be like this horrible fangirl who's all like, I'm just gonna revert to a screaming 16 year old.

You were very cool.

I was maybe a little bit too cool.

That's you, honey.

Do you know who you are? No, I wasn't that bad. But it was actually that opportunity of going and meeting Art and sitting down and talking to him. And he's so fascinating. I mean, he's a qualified life coach. So talking to him about music and about. He's really big on wealth, consciousness and art being. And his music being something that, you know, why shouldn't he make money out of it? Having. Coming from a very poor background, having the ability to support his family and all of that kind of stuff. And we talked a lot about that stuff and had a conversation about doing some stuff together going forward. And he was really excited about the opportunities for speaking and things like that. And I was like, dying because he's like my childhood hero, and he's like, yeah, I'd love to do some stuff with you guys. And I'm like, oh, oh, my God. Oh, my God.

That's amazing.

But, you know, without having the ability to spend two grand, because that was 1500 US, so without having the ability to drop two grand without thinking on something that, you know, frankly, is kind of throwaway, really. Most people hardly, hardly central to survival. If I didn't have that money, I couldn't have taken that opportunity. And it was very much that opportunity and those conversations with him that led me to having that whole 8% breakthrough.

Yeah, absolutely. That's a fascinating story. I love that, and it is so true. I mean, you've got to start, you've got to build the resources so that you can play a bigger game. And it sounds like that's what you guys have done. You know what I like about this is bringing up a whole bunch of questions in my head, and I'm not writing them down. I'm hoping I'm remembering them all. So one of the things I like about this. So about the concept of the 8%, which I also want to know, where'd you get that statistic? Did you just pull that out of the air? Or are there some statistics that show.

Thank you for asking.

So funnily enough, so after the whole conversation with art, after getting the tattoo, my sister, who's my director of marketing in my business and I sat down and we were having a conversation about what we could do and the first thing we came up with was how we'd love to do a festival. And we're very much talking about this idea of entrepreneurship meeting art. And we got really excited about like doing an event that would have like multiple speakers from different industries talking about their field of excellence. We're trying to figure out what to call it.

And I was talking to her about an experience that Gulliver and I had had actually at a Frank Kern Mastermind where there'd been these guys there and they did very successful banner advertising company, managed multi millions a month in doing banner advertising for people. And they were looking at our offering and they asked who we were going after and I said, look, creative entrepreneurs, people who are not necessarily in the creative industry but are creative people, convergence of art and entrepreneurship. And this guy said to me, well that's not really a media ready offer. And Gulliver laughed and said, tell that to Apple. And I was like, that's a really good point. Our market that is very much Apple users. So I was saying this to my director of marketing and she was like, yeah, okay, so we're going to target Apple people. And then she's a bit of a snob. So she doesn't have an iPhone, but we've only ever owned Mac computers. But she's a bit snobby about the whole thing. She's like.

She'S like, yeah, yeah, but not like new school, like iPhone people, like the old school Mac people. I used to work very briefly because I was a really shitty salesperson in those days. In the year 2000, I worked for a very brief stint at an Apple store in the Sydney cbd. And the people who came in there were all artists, musicians, TV personalities, designers, fashion people. Like it was just like a constant parade of famous people from the society pages. And in those days Apple's market share was 8%. And we all knew that. And we were really proud of the fact that 92% of people didn't get it and that the 8% of people who did get it were these top people in their field. So when Jenna said to me, yeah, like those old school Mac people, not the new iPhone people. I'm like, yeah, like the people who.

Were 8% or the adopter's the one who got it. Yeah, I love that.

Oh my God, the 8%. And Jenna says now she's like, like, I will never forget the look on your face the moment you had that breakthrough. It was just like choirs of angels, like the heavens opened up and choirs of angels started.

By the way, that's such a cooler Genesis story than like, well, we read a survey, we read about a survey that said 8% of people are working in creative industries. That's awesome. You know what else I like about this concept too? So it sounds, let me kind of like repeat this, you tell me if I'm right. The 8% are the people who, they really care. They put their passion into what they're doing. They give a shit. They, they treat their work like art. Whether they're an employee, they're a business owner, they're an artist or whatever. And they really care about the results and the outcome. And it's not just about the money. Well, so what's cool about this is a couple things is a, those people are, like we mentioned, are usually rewarded with, you know, sometimes great fortunes, but oftentimes just great fulfillment in their life. Whether or not they make millions of dollars a year or not, but they're really fulfilled, which is way more important than money. But also that this is not like one of those things where I've heard like, oh, 10% of the people have the gene to be the entrepreneur or the risk taking gene, or x percent of people are geniuses or 1% of the people control all the wealth. That's something that it's really hard to change. But it sounds as if.

In order to be in the 8%, you really just have to decide.

Yeah.

To give a shit. Right? Just decide. I want to give a shit. I'm going to give a shit. And create and treat your life and work like art. And now you are like a member. It sounds like a very easy club to get in, but one that most people, they just have mental barriers around getting in.

Yeah, totally. Look, I believe that everybody has a great work. Yeah. And for some people, their great work might be being a parent. It might be being an 8% parent. You know, it could be your children are your great work. Like everybody has a great work. It's figuring out what that is for you. So it's really making the decision for me is the beginning of what I call the 8% quest. So you'll put your foot down at some point and just be like, right, I just want to figure out what my great work is. And I think particularly entrepreneurs, but a lot of people feel deeply down inside that there is something that they were put on this planet to do, that their birth was not an accident, and that they're here for a reason. Some of them know exactly what that reason is and some of them have no idea and are constantly. I know I was constantly frustrated by wanting to know what it is and kind of trying a few things and being like, oh, that's not quite it. I'm not quite sure what it is. I just know I meant to do something.

Yeah. And you know, I've honestly struggled with that in the past, personally, where it's like, I don't have that one even to this day. Like, I don't, I, to this day I don't have that one thing that I'm so passionate about. Like I said that I would do this for free. Or maybe I do have that and I just haven't stumbled across it because I still like to be rewarded for the money, but.

Me too.

Yeah. But, yeah, speaking as somebody who probably is much more like the audience, like, there's a lot of things I love to do.

I do love business and I love marketing. I do treat it as a game and I'm much more successful when I treat it as a game and something that, you know, not to take too seriously, but try to treat it like art. Although I haven't kept that in the front of my mind as a necessity in the past. But what, you know, is your mission at the 8%, is it to help people, give them the resources, the mindset, the tools, the guidance, the hand holding the community in order to help them take those steps and become one of the 8%, if they so choose.

It's twofold. It is absolutely to help people uncover their great work. I'm working with a lot of people right now who know they're called to something higher but just aren't sure what it is. And who are setting off on that 8% quest. And then the other side of it is really providing the resources and bringing a community together. We're looking at running an event in Australia next year which will be like a two day festival that brings these people together. Kind of like TED meets South by Southwest. Yeah, like having all the musicians and artists and filmmakers and chefs and fashion designers and nurses and teachers and all of those people in one room together to discuss excellence and discuss different ideas and discuss how they're being innovative in their particular field and how that can then translate to other fields. So both of those things are absolutely what we're aiming for with the 8%.

And I think the more we bring those people together and find the stories of how they discovered their great work, then it's going to be a lot easier for us to develop frameworks to help people find that. I mean, if you look at all of the things that we've done with everybody in our community who's in the multiple six or seven figures, they all have this thing that none of them are just doing it to make a million dollars. There's something bigger that drives them. And when they find it. When they find it, you watch them catch on fire with what they do, and it's just so bloody inspiring. I mean, like, watching Leila have this breakthrough and you look at her story was when she was a young girl in the poor suburb with the dad trying to bring up four kids on a sub $50,000 wage working in a factory, working night shift. She really, really wanted to be someone who hung out with the rock stars. She wanted to hang out with intelligent, cool people.

And I always really interpreted. I had this picture in my head when I was 16, and for many, for 20 years, I interpreted it as I wanted to be famous. Because in my head I was like, hanging out with all these famous people, including art from Everclear. So how did I manifest that one? But what's really interesting is when I had this big breakthrough, I had this sudden realization that this picture I'd had in my head for 20 years, I'd been interpreting it all wrong. Because that picture was never me on a stage. It wasn't me singing or acting. It was me at a party talking to these hyper creative people and having conversations with them and in a really casual kind of setting, not even in, like a work setting. And I realized, oh, my God, that's. That is like, that's what the 8% is. And that's what I actually want to be doing with my life, is just being around hyper creative people and having conversations and doing cool projects together. Like, that is what lights me on fire. Doesn't even matter what the projects are. It's just fun.

Yeah, I'm very similar on that. Like, one of the big projects I'm working on right now is like, I'm the complete creative component of it. And it's the most fun. Fun I've had in a long time in working this out and strategizing and working with other people who think very much alike. Obviously, I run in very entrepreneurial circles. I've got very few friends who don't work for themselves in one way, shape or form. One of the Things I love about this community. And it started off as just Internet marketers when I got into that, and then it's kind of blossomed into everybody from Internet marketers to startups to just business owners and entrepreneurs and coaches and consultants and you name it. A lot of us are 8 percenters. But what I love is the fact is the difference between in my old life, working in a cubicle in a corporate, whenever I would get together with friends or co workers after work for drinks or whatever, work would never be discussed unless it was complained about. And it was always either, you know, either office politics or gossip or oh man, my job sucks, I gotta find something new. Or we would just talk about sports and girls and just different things that, you know, still fun to talk about. But these days whenever I get together with my friends who are all 8 percenters, who are all entrepreneurs and people who don't mind taking a risk, love being creative. We talk about work because that's the most fun thing possible. And we come up with new ideas to create, whether it's experiences or products or brands or you name it. And it's, it's so enlightening to get together with like minded people, whether it's at an event or a coffee shop and imagine and create. So I love what direction you're going on there.

Yeah, totally. You know, it's one of those funny things. There's that old saying, I like to rip apart old sayings because I hate conventional wisdom. But there's that old saying that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. I disagree. I believe if you're 8%, you work every day of your life because work is not a dirty word. It's the most enjoyable creative life bringing energetic, amazing opportunity that you are blessed to have.

Yeah. And I think if you love what you do, you'll work harder than anything else because you will. And it just won't work. Won't be.

That four letter word of ugh, I hate work. You may hate parts of it, but you'll view the work as something much bigger and much as part of something that part of a much bigger vision.

Yeah. I feel honored and blessed to be allowed to work in the way that I do.

It's a privilege.

I feel it's a privilege.

Yeah. One of our great friends, Marty Skybosch, who's this incredible Hollywood guy, really obsessive, 8% master of what he does, he always shares this quote and it's a movie director and he says, I can't Remember the movie director, but he says that collaboration is the sex of creativity.

Francis Ford Coppola.

Francis Ford Coppola. And it's like when we get together and we get to have these conversations with 8 percenters like you, everybody lights on fire. Because all of a sudden we're all talking about what we're all here for and what our real purpose is. And we will work like Steve, all hours of the day and night doing what we love, and in a way that no one else who's in something that's not really rewarding them could ever understand. And I think when you look back to what motivated you to get started down this path, you see the seeds of what your great work is, and you start to touch on that more deeply.

I see a lot of stuff in the industry right now in the wealth creation, personal development, business development, Internet marketing world that plays this whole game of be happy where you are. And look, you should be like, don't get me wrong, I am absolutely, amazingly grateful for everything I have in my life. I am absolutely blessed to be where I'm at. And I couldn't want for anything, but at the same time, striving innovation, creating more, being more, doing more. That is, it is the essence of human happiness. It really is that next level. And there's so much. There's so much of people saying at the moment, oh, just be happy where you're at. Don't strive for more, don't do more. Just be comfortable. And it's like, I just. That drives me crazy because it's like the antithesis to everything the 8% stands for.

Yeah, there's really that. There's really that delicate balance because there is the type of people who. And maybe this is the. The audience that needs to hear that. The type of people who are just always unhappy because they always think that something better is going to happen to them, to them around the bend. And they're like, oh, I don't. If I get a nicer house, if I drive a nicer car, I'll be happier. If this happens, then I'll be happy. And it's like, no, happy is something you choose. So choose to be happy where you're at. And when you do that, but then strive for. Strive for that excellence. I heard, I think, I don't know if it was. I'm not even going to try to pronounce his name. The author of Flow. You ever read that book? He's got this like, oh, I can't even pronounce his name. But I think he talked about how one of the keys is being.

Focused on the future. But I want to see if I can get this correct. You know, your eyes toward the future, but your.

What do I want to say? I'm going to screw this up. So I don't even want to jack with it. But it's like you're grounded in the present. You're grateful for the present and you're realistic, but your eyes are going. Are forward. Because if it's anything different, if you're not grounded in the present and you're just facing forward, today's unhappy because you're so focused there. And if you're focused in the past, you know today's unhappy. And if you're, if you're not focused on the future at all, you're just like, man, I'm just gonna be happy and peaceful loving hippie in the present. Well, you're not ever gonna accomplish anything in your life. And it's that delicate balance. And that's when you're in flow, when you're grounded in the present and grateful but focused on a bigger vision, that's when you're moving forward and doing your best work.

Totally. One of the things I did at the start of this year, I am like many entrepreneurs, I have been guilty of being the striver and the next thing will make me happy, and the next thing will make me happy. I have been very. I've been guilty of that in my life and found that it hasn't made me happy. So one of the things I did at the start of this year, you know, I don't need a vision board because my mind is a vision board. I think of something I wanted, I go and get it. So what I created instead at the start of this year is a gratitude board. So throughout the year, every time something really cool has happened, like getting the tattoo with art or we just came back from Japan, which was an amazing experience. I take a photo from that experience and I paste it on my board and I have that board next to my computer because it reminds me anytime things are tough or even when things are good to just look at it and just be like, holy crap. We've had in some ways, probably one of the toughest years in our business that we've ever had. Just a whole bunch of stuff going on behind the scenes. It's been like people screwing us over and messing with us and all of those things that happen when you get successful in business. But on the other hand, I've also had the most amazing year of My life, it's been a weird year. It's been simultaneously the hardest and most rewarding year that I've ever had. And that board just reminds me to stay grateful for the moment and grateful for everything that the business allows me to do and for everything that we've created. And then my mind is very good at wandering forward into the future and figuring out what's next and what's next and what's next. So I agree that the balance of the two of those things is absolutely key. Any one to the, to the detriment of the other is going to make you unhappy.

Yeah. And it's, it's that gratitude that really does keep you grounded when things get really, really hectic.

Yeah.

And things go. Yeah, mo money, mo problems, you know, that's what they say. So I think that's really powerful. So I am clicking around on the 8%.com. First of all, I think you've done a great job of just building a really pretty site. Like, it's beautiful. Like, got awesome graphics and, you know, neat interaction. Tell me about some of the resources that are over here for people. If they're like, you know, I really resonate with this and either I feel like I am an 8% or I want to step into those shoes. What kind of resources do you have over here for them?

Oh, there's a whole bunch of really awesome stuff for those people who are kind of at that point of sort of wanting to step into their 8%. We have a really awesome creativity course, all free stuff. A really awesome creativity course that's just all about really tapping into its advanced creativity, tapping into the creative side of your brain and really going from being just. And I'm using air quotations. Just an entrepreneur to an entrepreneur artist. Something I definitely recommend. I did an interview with a lady called Nadine Champion that's on there under podcasts. She's amazing. She's an Australian lady who spoke at TEDx Sydney this year and she's a martial artist who is an undefeated full contact fighter and also is currently in remission from cancer. And she is just mind blowing. I mean, she perfectly typifies what I talk about when I'm talking about the 8%. She's such a warrior artist. She's just amazing. So that's a really inspirational piece to listen to. She just. It's just me fangirling all over her for now. I just think they go, oh my God, you're amazing.

That's awesome. So now are you coaching people? Are you selling courses? Because One of the things, and I think.

Let'S talk about the monetization, the business model of this, because I'm sure you're not just doing it because you're bored. I mean, I know you want to help. It sounds like you want to help create a movement and you want to do some other stuff.

Are you working with people individually, in groups? Are you doing anything that if people are like, I definitely need help and I don't mind investing in myself. Do you have those offers?

Yeah. Look, one of the cool things about building a really big business before you figure out what your great work is, so having a couple of million dollars coming in before you figure out what the great work is, is there's no rush to monetize the great work. You can really let it kind of happen organically and naturally. So sort of right now we don't have like specific 8% offerings. What we do have is a lot of people in our highest level of our mastermind are people who were, interestingly, when I had the breakthrough already in the program and as soon As I said 8%, they're like, yes, that's it. That's what we want. That's exactly who we are and what we're doing. So it was a very natural fit there with people we already had in the community. So certainly there's a lot of 8 percenters in our mastermind currently.

If I can speak to that point. I think what you've probably seen and you've been around us for a while, Brad, for at least three, four, five years almost. Now we're obsessed with results and our obsession with results and results driven marketing and sales has been perhaps to our detriment in the last 10 years. Everybody else has got the amazing glitter covered turd of sales that isn't sales and isn't salesy. And everyone else has got the, the amazing, bright shiny objects of marketing that lack strategy and never actually get you anywhere. But you know, there's a lot of $97 programs being sold in that space. Everyone else has got this whole let's make money for the sake of making money. And it's all very robotic.

And it's not, here's 96 niches in which you can make money. It's a survey that we completed on the niche where we made money once.

And now you can also make money because that is money.

My heart hurts when I see that stuff.

Yeah, we kind of lovingly refer to a lot of the Internet marketing brethren as the robots. Yeah, they don't have the feelings they don't really give a fuck about anything but numbers.

And I have an empathy map which describes human emotions.

And those guys are gorgeous and they're lovely and some of them really desperately want to be real grown up boys one day and have feelings. But they're not who I do my best work with and they're not who we do our best work with. We want to work with passionate, visionary, badass motherfuckers, people like you 8 percenters, who really want to change the world and impact lives. And what we're finding is that now we've given the motherfucking thing a name. Now that we've actually given it a voice and a name, people are coming to us saying, hey, I need to learn your sales and marketing strategies so I can grow my great work.

And hey, I need to be around a community of other people who are 8% because I'm in an entrepreneurial community right now. But people are doing it for the money or it's.

Or to stay small or to stay.

Small or it's about. And I'm being told not to strive for things, but I feel called on a deeper level to do something else. I think I would say 80% of people buy from us just for the support of being part in the community of other people who are engaged in excellence, who get it.

If you're being told to take your photo next to a Lamborghini, if you're being told that that's all you need to want for and if you're happy with that, don't come knocking on our door.

If you're happy that it's going to be a sales page, if you just take a picture with Lamborghini, it's like.

Everybody else go, you stand Lamborghini, take my money.

Yeah, I have, I have no problem with materialism or material goals of success or wealth, but I want fucking more and I want clients that want more. And our stuff is now even more useful to these people.

We're like the anti lifestyle business. Yeah, opposite. If you're like, like, we're like the opposite of lifestyle business, where Gulliver calls it the business lifestyle.

Exactly.

It's not a lifestyle business. It's. It's a business lifestyle. You can't stop working all the time because you love what you do so much. You don't want a four hour work week, you want to work all of the time. Sure, you want to systemize and free yourself up, but not so you can go traveling so you can work.

So speaking directly to that, because I have Some very recent experience with taking three weeks off. And as I mentioned before, I just got back from my honeymoon. I was gone for three weeks. Greece, the Greek Islands, a little time in Istanbul, Turkey. And I didn't do really any. I didn't do any real work. I just let my brain kind of go. It was really funny because this was in a magical time. Great hotels, amazing food on the beach, nothing to do. And as much as I loved it and it was nice to just unplug my brain. It was that itch after maybe about a week and a half, about 10 days. Definitely after 14 days, I was like, I really need some mental stimulation. And I also started to think, okay, let's just say I had a company and I sold it for 50 million bucks or 100 million bucks or whatever. Just, you know, the big cash out payday that all entrepreneurs really secretly want. Not even secretly. But I was like, okay, well, what would I do? Well, obviously we would all just go travel like ballers for a while.

For a month.

Yeah, exactly. Like I tell myself, I do it for six months. But I'm sitting there going, okay, I'm living kind of that lifestyle. I haven't really thought about work in a little while. As much as I like this, I'm bored.

Yep.

And I couldn't wait to kind of get back even into, you know, sometimes the shitstorm.

Yep.

And go, all right, let's roll up my sleeves. Let's have some fun.

Also, look, boredom is important. Understand, when I talk about working all the time, I'm not talking hustle for the sake of hustle and ego. Like, there's a thing I see sometimes I surfing on Facebook. Actually, I coined this term white space time, because I'd seen this, this thing on Facebook. I don't even know who it was. I can't even remember. And I can't find it since it was a photo of somebody's Google calendar and it just had back to back appointments. And it was like, you know, if you. If you have any white space in your diary, you're a pussy. And I'm like.

Creativity requires that white space. You need time out. I like to. Well, I love to travel. I love. We spent the last month on the road and we spent some time in Japan. And that was just amazing. Like, I had such amazing breakthroughs there. But it all feeds back into the business. I love to garden. I like to ferment things. I make my own sauerkraut, my own kombucha. I'm a little bit of a hippie.

She made me mead.

I make mead.

That makes sense.

I need that, I need that hands on. That's my grounding time. But you need the white space. Like the white space time is so crucial. You have to get bored to be creative. If you're just constantly go, go, go, go, go, go have the space to get bored. And creativity comes out of boredom. So it's absolutely crucial to have that white space time as well. But I know I scheduled for myself just before we went to Japan. I scheduled like eight weeks downtime and I got to week six, I want to say downtime. I was still working, but I got to week six and I was like, I have to go and do.

She was getting really fucking twitchy and bitchy.

And it is funny you say that too. As well. Like I came back and you know, now, now I'm in this Zen, Zen out state of just, okay, I'm back, I'm time to re enter the workforce. And this is when like the weekend I was back, like I was just off this long, I was still jet lagged and I met up with these, these, you know, people that I know about. This new project became a new equity based client. Like I've got equity in this company to help, you know, launch this new product. And the reason that happened was because they sat down to run some ideas by me and immediately I impressed myself with the creativity that was coming. They go, we need you on the team. Will you spearhead this? And I was like, yeah, this is gonna be fun. So let's do.

Was the day after I got back from just letting my brain have white space like you said. And I like that because it's too often we fill it up with crap.

Yeah, exactly.

This is cool.

This is something that happens to me on sales calls over the last 10 years. I start my sales call and I'd start probing with people. I'd be like, okay, so if you had a million dollars, you could do whatever you want. Because they weren't sure what their purpose was or what their business was about. So if you had a million dollars in the bank, you could do whatever the hell you want. What would you do? They'd all universally say, why go sit on a beach for like six months, six weeks? Let me tell you after about, we scheduled four weeks in Fiji this one time last year. And after about week two, you just want to kill everybody.

That was I the only thing to be honest. We were in Mykonos and Naxos and Santorini. It was some most beautiful beaches in the World, right?

Beautiful.

And we. I was looking forward to going to the beach so that I could pull out my Kindle.

Underneath the umbrella while my beautiful bride was getting sun. I was like, nah, I gotta get through another book.

She's like, honey, are you coming? I was like, wait a minute, I'm still in the hotel. I'm downloading another book on WI Fi. I'll be right then when it's there. And I would be out there for hours. She's like, you didn't get much sun today. You were in the shade the whole day. I was like, yeah, but I read a book.

Cause I can't stop.

Right? And it's a good thing that the WI Fi is slow because I might be working again.

The most money we ever made, our biggest month ever, was when I forced myself to stop at 3 or 4 o' clock every day and go fishing every day.

I remember you talking about that on.

Facebook, and I think there's something in there. Rather than trying to take six months off, take some time for yourself, get that white space, replenish yourself daily because you're so much more productive and creative and able to be mentally agile if you're doing it regularly, like exercise or good diet, rather than having to take a month out and stuff. If you want to be creative, you've got to have that white space. Absolutely.

I think also knowing yourself and knowing how you work, like, I work really well in cycles. So, like, we've spent, like I said, the last month with four weeks. We did Japan, a week in Japan, a week on the Great Barrier Reef in Port Douglas in Australia, and then two weeks in the States. And that's taxing, like four weeks of travel. Like, that is really. And we presented for like half of that time. We did like 12 days of presenting over the course of. Of that month. Like, that's a lot of work. And so when I get back, I need some time, some downtime, mind you. That said, we've been back for like a week today, just over a week today. And I've been sick for the last four or five days, but I'm itching to do something at 10. It's been like a week. And I'm just like, can we do something? I'm bored. I don't want to sit here. I'm so over it. Let's go do something we need to do. Let's take over the world.

So ground it back down to what you asked before. Like, our programs combine this really alchemical combination of peak performance psychology, 8% creativity purpose, work, sales and marketing to help you achieve all of that stuff. So what we've been selling as sales and marketing for so many years has suddenly become so much more relevant because we were getting these people that are.

I just want to make a million dollars on the Internet.

And we weren't holding onto them forever because we'd help them make money and then they'd lose motivation. We've now realized what the issue is, is there's no one actually really is motivated by money. They're motivated by their great 8% purpose, their great work. And now that we're getting those people, these people are staying forever. And they're so happy and they're so monetized. But it's not just about the money. It's about getting to do what they love and be surrounded by community of 8 percenters that get them like no one else ever has.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's powerful when you put it like that.

I love what you guys are doing. I love how you've given.

Brought this 8% to. I mean, as far as I know, you guys own that. That is a very. That's not just some stat you guys clung to. I love it. I love what you've done. That's kind of created a new blue ocean with that.

So.

What, is there anything else you guys want to share about this? I think this is amazing. If you just click around, guys, if you go on the 8 the number 8% com and click around, there's so many cool articles. You guys have been at this for a little while, huh?

Yeah, we've actually just recently transitioned. We, about two and a half years ago, started a website that we called Profit A list because I wanted to start, like an authority sort of inspiration site, but I didn't really have a name for it. And Profit A list was like capitalist, but profit instead of capit. And it just. It never really quite took off, but we were always creating content for it. Then when we had this 8% breakthrough, it was like, oh, that's what it is. So we've transitioned everything over there now. But it's amazing how all of a sudden we're getting so many more people writing for us because people like, obviously it's such a stronger concept. So, yeah, I mean, we've been. It always had the same theme it has now. It's just that we've had that breakthrough around. I think we've always worked with these people. We've always looked for these people.

We haven't really been consciously speaking it the way we are. Now.

Yeah. Well, when you look at like our I know you video and things like that, it's always been about this group of people. We just haven't quite had the clarity around who they are and exactly what it was to be able to call out to them in the way we're able to now.

So if you're in marketing and you're observing this contextually, the issue is always with niche. And the funny thing Leila is. And telling you is the story of how profitless actually came about, which is really massive because Leila, a few years ago went through her own million dollar breakdown, her own meltdown. And the reason we built profitless was right, you know what, fuck it, we're going to go for the money.

I'm gonna build a thing and I'm gonna sell it and it's gonna be.

$50 billion and it's gonna be awesome. We're gonna create an authority site, we're gonna create a media site. We're gonna fatten that bitch up and we're gonna sell it. And it's only when Leela's hit a massive great work.

Yeah.

And it's suddenly taken off the way it has. And it's, it's just. The irony is beautiful.

That is funny. I love it. Well, guys, this has been fun. I really love what you're doing and I like the, I like seeing the evolution too. But, you know, behind go for, you know, the business to the purpose and then merging them together as well, that's always fun. And it's. I think it's one that as entrepreneurs, as 8 percenters, we all strive to achieve and to just pursue that thing where, you know, we're really, really passionate about, so that when we are working, we're loving it. And it's, it's probably more so than having a million dollars more than, or $100 million or whatever. It's really what I think if you could give somebody a choice, you know, the genie in the bottle, here's one wish. Would you rather love what you do day in, day out and make enough money to basically take care of yourself and do the basic things you want, or just have millions and millions of dollars and kind of be miserable? I don't think there's many people who would choose the big pile of cash over the fulfillment and loving the. And feeling really like purpose driven behind that. So I think the more people we have doing that in the world, just the happier as a species will be. So I think that's really cool. And I love that quote who did you say said it? That if your vision can be accomplished in one lifetime, it's not big enough.

Who said that?

Dan Barber. Dan Barber. He's a chef in New York. He's amazing. It's really worth watching. There's a Netflix series called the Chef's Table that I've seen that, but I.

Haven'T, I haven't watched it. I've seen that on there, right?

Yeah. The second episode is Dan Barber and he's just amazing. He's so 8%. He's not just. He was like, you know, it really, it's really important to me that the food tastes amazing. So for that to be the case and I have to go and like, deal with the farmers to look at their farming techniques. But now that I'm looking at the farming techniques, I realize it's actually the chemical composition of the soil and we have to be fixing the soil in order to make the food taste good. It's just. He's amazing. He's such a. He's so 8%. He's such a passionate person. It's amazing.

I think the problem we have with the lifestyle business is this idea of enough that there's ever going to be enough money or enough in your, you know, oh man, I've made enough money to be able to go sit on a beach. That's the problem. It's a limitation. The business lifestyle is about having this incredible driving purpose that you want to make you more and do more and help more and be more people getting the result that they want to get. And that is so fucking exciting. That's what we're really for. And that's what you see. The Dan Barbers and the Steve Jobs and the Frickin Heston Blumenthal's and the incredible creators of this world. They will die in the saddle doing what they love doing because they love doing it. And they will make millions of dollars because people love the passion that they bring to their marketplace. They're not in it to make enough money to pay the bills and go on holiday. They're in it to do what they love and that is why they'll make money.

Yeah, that's, that's so, that's so right on, guys. I love what you're doing. I think this is so cool. It's been right, right here at about the, the hour mark and it's been awesome. Awesome catching back up with you and hearing about some of the stuff you're doing. For all my, for all my listeners out there. If you, if this Resonates with you. Go check out the 8% calm. Go check out. Also, if you, if you like listening to Gulliver, you can find him on Bacon wrap business at Gulliver Giles G I L E S. And you can listen to his presentation on sales. But I mean, I think the concept of 8% can really help transform a lot of people's lives. I think if you keep that in mind when you're working, when you're building a business or whatever, think, hey, am I. Am I being an 8 percenter here? Am I giving enough of a shit about what I'm doing to actually be excellent at it? If it's a job that you're at, maybe you don't even want to be an entrepreneur, but you love what you're doing with work.

If you're being excellent, if you're treating it like art, if you're putting your passion into it, well, you're going to be the person who climbs that ladder in ascent and maybe you're running that business someday. You never know. But I think that mindset is really, really important to have. If this is your first time tuning in to Bacon Wrap business, I want to encourage you to subscribe to the show. If you're listening on itunes, if you're on Android, you can listen to Stitcher and you can subscribe to the newsletter where I share all of the, you know, the tips and tricks that I don't sometimes talk about on the air. You know, sometimes I just share them with my best clients, etc. But I also share some other goodies that you might not get. If you haven't left a review on itunes, please do that as well. And if you want to find out more about Gulliver and Lela here, you can obviously go to the 8% com and your other website is. Is it strategic anarchy dot com?

Is that correct? Strategic anarchy dot com. Cool.

And that's where. That's the more business side, the sales and the. And the business building and the marketing side. But I love how you guys have both, you know, kind of combined. And I can't thank you enough for your time here. We are, we are out of time, though. And I know you guys are just kind of kicking off your day. I'm ending mine. But I can't wait to see you guys again next time you're in, you know, the States or Southern California, I guarantee we'll run it into each other somewhere. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having us on.

Love you, man.

My pleasure.

Love you.

Guys too. And we will talk soon. And everybody else, catch up with you on the next episode. Thanks for hanging out with me, Rapid.