12 Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs Feat. Mark Young

What are three of the attributes that make a successful entrepreneur and a failure? Because you've had what you openly talk about, some massive failures in your life and some big successes. And when you guys had your $2 billion valuation, which I'm going to ask you about, you made a boatload of money. So what are your thoughts?

So I would say if I were to go with the failure part first and the characteristics that I would most attribute my bankruptcy to, because for those of you in here who have the bankruptcy T shirt that was part of the adventure in 2007, number one key characteristic of failure would be arrogance. That I immediately thought that because I was making money, I was smart. I was in my early 20s, probably making three quarters of a million bucks a year, and I thought I had everything figured out. It prompted me to take risks I shouldn't have taken. And so arrogance, number one, for sure. Number two, and closely related to arrogance, was really bad advice, really bad financial advice specifically. So I think that one of the questions I get the most about my journey is, well, how did it all happen? And you don't really have an encapsulated answer because it's hard to be like, well, so I paid this guy $500 for five minutes, and then all this shit happened. But the closest I've come to is, your journey will be directly proportional to the quality of advice that you can access in the very few inflection points that actually matter. And in the case of my mortgage bankruptcy, I didn't have access to quality advice. I remember going to my dad and saying, dad, I'm making all this money and I have all this free time. I don't know what to do. And he said, well, son, get married. It'll take care of both. And then he proceeded to tell me that, well, just live on half of your income, save the rest, and you'll be fine. And so I did listen to the part about living on half of my income, but I didn't know that a mortgage market could not just slow down, disappear entirely. Like, nobody told me that your income could go to zero. And then nobody told me that when your income goes to zero, the assets that you were counting on also could go to zero or be worth less than what you paid for them. And it went bad far faster than it got good. You know, Hemingway joked about the fact when someone asked him how he went broke, he said, well, gradually at first, and then all of a sudden, and it felt very much like that. So arrogance, bad advice. And then I would say the third was Just laziness that you don't find out until it's adjusted. That opportunity is perishable. That had I known then what I know now, I would not have been working half days and spending all my money trying to dine around in Chicago. I would have been working 20 hour days banking as much money as possible, knowing that the market would collapse. And like my smart friends, gone and bought hundreds of homes in Las Vegas for a dollar and then sold them years later and made a ton of money. I didn't know any of that. I was too busy having fun. So, failure. Let's go with arrogance, bad advice, laziness.

Okay, no. So what comes to mind? So I got this from Gary Halbert. The most expensive information in the world is bad information. So you can, even if the information is free, if it's bad, it can totally send you down a really dark path. So it's being able to know who to talk to when, what your intentions are from seeking out that advice, what their intentions are for giving it, and determining who really wants to help you versus who wants to pretend that they're helping you. Because there are lots of people that write books on success, teach seminars on success. However, most of those people are reporters of success. They're not successful themselves. They will write about what they think success is, but have they actually done it? So doesn't mean it's not good advice. There's some great advice that I get. Like I always find it funny that if you want to know what someone is interested in, including myself, what am I writing books about? What are they writing books about, what are they talking about? Those are the things they're interested in. And some of the best advice, like time management books, almost every really phenomenal time management book, even though is it time management or priority management, is written by someone that usually sucks at time management. And they're so intimately aware of the pain of it that they study it enough to talk about it, right? And that's sort of those that can't teach sort of thing. And I think everyone, including some of the best teachers, have a little bit of that in them. It's when it becomes incongruent with what they say and what, what they do, which is, you know, and that's something to look for. So when you seek out advice, because as long as I've known you, you are that type of person, you never would have called me and said, hey, you know, can I hire you for 10 minutes if you weren't trying to find things. So how do you filter now to get the very best guidance because at this level you can play a big game.

So I would say I'll weave that into the three qualities on the success side. So number one on the success side is access to amazing insights. And so growing up in a family where I had two great parents but no real financial acumen, like always vice presidents always working their asses off, always busy traveling, but we were always, you know, upper middle class, broke. And it was a situation where I remember sitting down with my dad and I was like, dad, I'm transitioning out of Success magazine and I'm not really sure what I want to do next. I've got a couple of job offers or I could take this Kajabi thing, but the Kajabi thing, I'm going to lose roughly 50% of my salary and I'm going to have an equity opportunity. And my dad said, lose half of your salary? Are you insane? Like, no, get the best salary you can. Max out your 401k, you'll be, you'll be in great shape. And then I was sitting down with my friends from ypo, which I had joined, kind of recognizing that this is a world that I don't have in my world, I need that in my world. And I sat down with two guys and similar advice from both. But they said, well, can you get another job if this software thing doesn't work out? And I said, yes. They said, oh, then there's no question, take the equity because that's the only thing that matters. And had I not done that and I only had access to the information I did, my journey would look incredibly different. So seeking out that wise counsel and having access to it, huge element of my success journey for sure. And when I look at what my filter is today, I think the filter is number one. You know, is the person I am talking to, did they have their success from an area that is not what I would be paying them for? In other words, if I'm paying for advice, did that person's success come from building something? Not the advice that I'm writing the check for that, you know, today my hopes are I want to meet, you know, people that are going to completely stretch my reality that are, that are playing at levels where, where they're, you know, their initiatives are rounding errors, but they happen to be my whole net worth, like, like those kind of people. And that mentality excites me because I become very risk averse. You know, my financial PTSD from my bankruptcy still looms fairly large. Like I'm not when I lived at rural in the 202 here for a year, working for jet homes, you know, eating half of a El Pollo Loco chicken bowl for lunch and half for dinner. So, like, those kind of things don't go away even, you know, with the dollars.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can simply go to Joe's free book and you can get a copy there. That is true, because I have never forgotten. You know, at times I will just. You know, it seems like a different world I lived in. You know, I mean, I grew up half our. Half our life, because I used to. I didn't. My father moved every year, two years, my entire childhood, because after my mom died, he just never recovered from that. And so we lived in trailers half of our life. A lot of Goodwill clothes and stuff like that. But we were never dirt poor. I mean, we ate. It wasn't like, oh, my God, I was like, living in a. I don't make up stories about living in a bathroom. And I was shit like that that people do. So you know how I'm talking about.

I do.

Anyway. So the thing though is I never forgot the struggle. And I think if you forget the struggle and you start believing your own pr, when you start having success, real dangerous, scared.

Well, I mean, dude, I mean, you were the first to kind of like when I was like, I wrote a book and I'm like, I did it. I always said I would write a book. And I feel like I have something to say and I'm gonna send Joe my book. And Joe gets my book. And he goes, oh, billion dollar bullseye. Scale as big as you want, as fast as you want, and exit if you want, on your terms. That's a hell of a headline. You clearly paid attention to the marketing. I don't know. Can you actually deliver on that and consider my imposter syndrome triggered in epic proportions? I'm like, honey, burn the book name. It's over. I have nothing to say ever again. Ever. I'm not leaving the house.

No, what's funny is, as I started reading the book, that's how you know.

By the way, that Joe's a true friend, because a true friend always stabs you in the front like that. That's how you know you have somebody that you need more of in your life.

The book is phenomenal. What I've read so far, like even the very beginning, first 10 pages of it is it's a great book and I so I mean so that's why I think you're going to get a.

Lot out of it.

But again, I've known you for a long ass time so the other two.

Qualities that I would for the success side and going back to your point, I would say that anyone who achieves significant success that is not willing to admit that luck or serendipity plays a role I think is pretty delusional. I would argue that you can certainly work to increase your surface area for luck, which is where I believe the work component interacts with the world of luck and serendipity. But there's certainly two seasons for me where I was on the wrong side of luck in the mortgage business. VP of sales in 2007. I know what it's like when the trends are crushing you. And then being president of a creator commerce platform in 2021 after having ridden through a digital is now today immediate. We must not. We'll go digital someday. That was the trends working in my favor. So there is definitely a case to be made on the success side of increasing the surface area for luck but also recognizing that there is an element of luck. So that would be quality number two and quality number three would just be. For me it's just been work. I know some people don't like the hustle culture. I don't know that I'm a Gary Vee esque level worker. I don't know that I fit there. But I think that for me the magic came in the extremes. It might not have been 100 hour weeks but but there were definitely nights at 11:30 that I'm answering Facebook comments because our app is down and there's like 30,000 people really upset with me and they're not on my front yard but they're in my screen and they're all mad. Those were the moments where the Kajabi brand was built. We didn't win for any reason other than we cared about their success more than anybody else without question. And it's in those moments that that was the crucible that that brand was built. So I got to give like some element of being willing to shovel shit when you got to shovel shit.

You know it's funny because I have a question like written here Kajabi. So these are the questions I came up with for you. Kajabi hit a $2 billion valuation fast. What's a behind the scenes challenge you haven't shared that shaped your approach to scaling? I mean you just kind of said one. Yeah, what other.

But I mean, if everyone wants to know all the stuff I screwed up, I mean I got a laundry list, but I can pick my favorites. I would say the first mistake we made that not only hurt us but hurt others, we over titled, we over promoted and we broke people with the best of intentions. That as a company is scaling super fast. And especially a company where you've got a lot of camaraderie and nostalgia and amazing culture and all of that woven into it, you're going to have people that believe they're gonna get the title because they were there, whether they can do the job or not, whether you can describe what the job requires well or not. And that was something that we screwed up significantly. And I can remember it because we had people that we promoted because they were like, I wanna do that. And we're like, cool, you're here, you get it. And then watch them under deliver and get demoted and get demoted again and have to sacrifice equity on a vesting schedule because they're like, I just, I can't do this. I thought I could, I wanted to. And it's like had we not wanted more for them than they either wanted for themselves or were capable of doing for themselves, they would have been perfectly happy in their role, progressing as they could. But we moved them to the Peter principle of you'll be promoted to the level at which you're incompetent and then kind of breaks. So promoting and entitling based on time in that was a mistake. And the other one was managing from the perspective of being more of a family than a team. And this is one for me that this is still a gut punch to talk about because anyone in here is going to be like, you fucking idiot, why did you respond that way? But like we sat down with our engineering team and this was, you know, right when click funnels coming up and very aggressive marketer enabling platform. And we at the time did not offer multiple one click upsells. You know, kajabi, it was, you bought something, would you like something else? Thank you very much. We like, you go on with your day and click funnels, you could have 542 upsells if you wanted to. Like this person could literally die in your upsell funnel if you wanted to. And so we had a lot of people that are like, well, I want more than one upsell. And so we sat down with our engineering team. We're like, all right, guys, guess what? Multiple upsells. Let's go, let's build it. And the team said, oh, yeah, it feels so skeezy. It feels so gross. I don't want people to be able to sell that way. I personally hate it when someone's selling me that way.

And.

And you would think that being the leaders we were, we looked at the team and said, well, guys, our customers want this. Our competitors have this. You either need to build it, or I need to find somebody that will. Which would have been the mature corporate leader building an enterprise. That's what I should have said. What we said instead was, well, okay, I guess you guys don't feel you want to do it, don't feel good about it. We'll just skip it. And in that moment, it felt a little innocuous. And in that moment, it felt like, oh, we're solving for culture. We're doing the right Silicon Valley. Everyone's kumbaya ing about how we're putting our feelings out into the universe. You shouldn't have more than one upsell. Stupidest shit ever. And what it did. And kind of part of the framework for the book is I didn't realize that in that moment, I introduced a burden on customer experience that shouldn't have existed because they now have to deal with angry customers that can't do what they want to do. I introduced a burden to sales and marketing that they now need to find other ways to sell against an apples to apples comparison because we have an area that's deficient that we weren't willing to fix. That all of a sudden, this one decision now pulled through the organization in a way that we were no longer executing on our purpose, which was above all else, our kajabi heroes come first. We weren't executing on our profit because we were now not getting customers we could have gotten and been making more money. We weren't executing on our product because our product had an area that was a blind spot that should have been fixed. We weren't executing on our prestige. Our customer experience was failing because we were again, deficient in our product. Our promotion and persuasion required a whole lot more because we were deficient in this feature. And the people in our organization were also going to be hurt by this because no customer service person wants to keep answering angry tickets for something that should exist. So I watched that one inflection point expand and huge failure on our part.

And so, yes, these are very good. We could just Spend the whole. Just talking about all the things you screwed up on, which I think would really.

Massive. Massive list. Massive list. How many of you, by the way, how many of you saw my interview with Joe in the 100k group? So I want to make sure. Okay, not a ton of you, but I want to make sure that those of you that did see it get at least something different out of this chat.

So good. No, this is. This is actually quite insightful. So I like what you said about increase the surface area for luck. That's an interesting line. Because I think there's so. There's so much that we can do to increase the surface area for opportunity, for advantages, and that requires an openness, and that also requires the ability to. It's like, would you rather be rich or would you rather be right? And when people so badly want to be right, they prevent themselves from getting rich, or they're so stuck in their ways. And then when you're talking about, you know, arrogance, bad advice, and laziness, there's. What's that Warren Buffett line of when the tide comes back, you don't know who's swimming naked and who isn't. When the tide goes out, you find out who's swimming naked and who isn't. And then when all the fish are jumping in the boat, everyone thinks they're great fishermen.

Yeah.

So. And there are times where. Yeah. When the real estate market is just kicking ass. Everyone's a realtor and everyone's having success and they actually think they're talented.

Yeah.

Versus. You know, I always use the supply and demand example. So if you have supply and demand on your side, you don't need to be a good marketer. And oftentimes you don't even need to have a good product. And if you just have it available, people will buy it. You know, as I've. Evan Carmichael I sent is my fault. So I send him over some pictures of grocery stores with the price of eggs and empty slots in grocery stores of they're out of eggs. And I'm like, should I do one of these green screen videos that you always tell me to do? And he's like, yeah, I'm glad he leaves me a nice messenger. You're talking about something that's culturally relevant right now. Give your opinion. Don't give a vanilla answer on what do you think of this, but just get, you know. And of course, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So I still haven't posted the video. I watch all of this stuff going on with eggs. I will. I'm saying it publicly now to shame myself. So, you know, so there's all this stuff going on with it. They don't even need to be good eggs. And as a matter of fact, there's. You know, there are sometimes where if there's no eggs left and you have half a carton of a dozen eggs and half of them are cracked, someone will come and buy it because there's no other eggs. It doesn't matter if it's organic. It doesn't matter what they fed. They could feed the chickens like gummies, that people will buy them. Right? So. But the thing is, when you have competitors, though, you better have your shit together. And then when there's better options, you better have your act together. And so during the pandemic, remember the toilet paper? So I started having people reach out to me, and I did a Nightingale conant program in 2004, which became the number one selling marketing program of Nightingale's history. And it was called Piranha the Seven success Multiplying factors to dominate any market you enter. And I did it with Tim Poulson. And so there was a section where I talk about supply and demand. And I said, if the world's supply of toilet paper evaporated, you don't need anything special in order to sell toilet paper. All you need is a cardboard sign. Put it out in front of your house. If you have cars that drive by, toilet paper, $50 a roll, people will buy it. If there's no other place to get toilet paper, because people need toilet paper. And I don't know when toilet paper first existed. I can't remember now. I looked it up and I started thinking, God, what did they do before then? I mean, that was the even better.

Part, is that culturally, toilet paper is pretty frowned upon in lots of other areas of the world. It's sort of like the whole thing. Like, spill something on your carpet, you're not just going to wipe it up, you're gonna spray some cleaner on it or whatever. And, like, that's why, you know, the bidets and hand shower, that probably predates toilet paper, because we had water before we had paper.

That's. Yes, that is true. Huh.

Deep Thoughts by Joe and J. Crump.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just sitting there thinking, what?

So do you ever just sit here and think that it's amazing that they're all here and they're hearing you wax poetic about toilet paper? Like, that's really cool.

No, I often. Yeah. I think all of this is. No but here's the thing. So during the pandemic, people then started to reach out to me. Remember you did that whole section on toilet paper. It became real. It became a point, like literally almost 20 years later that the supply of toilet paper ran out. And all of a sudden it was. And I'm like going, yeah, but there's a marketing lesson in this is make sure whatever it is you're selling and doing is packaged in a way to where it is unique and people actually place value on it because the moment it becomes a commodity, it's very hard to sell unless you run out of the commodity. Then it becomes extremely valuable. Right. What advice would you give your younger self at the start of your entrepreneurial journey? Oh, my goodness. What advice would I have given my younger self? You know what? I don't know if I'm going to answer this the way you expect me to answer it. And I'm going to credit this to Dan Sullivan. Dan Sullivan taught me to learn to fall in love with my past and literally said, if you don't. And it grabbed me when he said that if you don't embrace your past, then it's gonna interfere with your future. Yeah. And I don't know that I'd give myself any different advice because everything that went right and wrong in my life got me to where I'm at. And probably the best lessons I've ever had was the stuff that went wrong. Yeah, yeah, I would. I would agree with that. And I think, you know, having been in coach since 1997, I think it really helped me reframe the. The value of the past as being, you know, raw material for doing something with it. I also don't buy into the no regret comment when people like, I have no regrets. Everybody has regrets. Oh, of course. And. And I think when people say no regrets, they're lying to themselves because it's hard to, you know, And I say this. There's a very interesting book that I'm halfway through with called the Power of Regrets. And it's. And it validates that as the no regret thing is not really accurate. However, the past comment, you know. Yeah. I mean, everything. There's a line in 12 steps which is, you will never regret the past or wish to shut the door on it. You will find a new happiness and a new freedom, you know, goes on. You know, financial insecurity will leave you in the benefits of recovery. And when I first started going to 12 step groups years ago, there would be people that, you know, I'm so thankful and so grateful for my addiction. And, you know, and I would be like, what the fuck are you talking about? This is horrible. I mean, like, I hate this, you know, I hate this crate. And, you know, now I look back and see how valuable that all was. So oftentimes it doesn't. It doesn't seem to make sense. When you're going through. You know, Dan talks about nothing feels good in the middle. You know, when you're in the middle of a bad situation, it feels terrible. But it's. Most people here, their businesses, their greatest progress, all came from these adversities. My entire career changed and my fortunes changed when I came to one particular moment. And that moment was when I realized that everything that went wrong was my fault. And even if somebody else cheated me out of money, I opened the door to them. I let them in. I made the decision. When I really came to the conclusion that everything is my fault, it then let me know that, well, if everything that goes wrong is my fault, then everything that goes right can be my fault too. And that's the moment where my entire career changed. And everything worked after that. That's good. I like that. So you scaled your business. You've grown it. What advice would you give? This would be my last question. What advice would you give on just what to do to maximize, making money in a way that you're really aligned with? Because a lot of people will trade an enormous amount of pain just to try to build a business that doesn't really work for them. But you, you have a lot of fun. You have a world record race car driving.

You're.

You know, I've never. I mean, you're very opinionated, which is great because you're. You're. If you want to listen to his podcast, it's pretty hysterical. I've been on a couple of times. And what advice would you give with building and growing a profitable, awesome business? The first thing I look at is if somebody comes to me, a new client comes in, and they come in and we've got this idea. If they're passionate about the idea because they want to. I want to solve eczema for people. My daughter had eczema. And I've spent the past three years coming up with a new treatment, and I've done this, and it so works. That's the passion I'm looking for when someone comes and contacts us and says, we've found a niche in the market and we think that there's an opening for an eczema product. So we're gonna Hire a bunch of people to make an eczema product. We're gonna raise this money, and we're gonna sell this out in five years. Those are the people that I try to walk away from because they're not there for the passion to solve a problem. I like it when people say, I have a problem. Or as Dan says, I have a secret. And I have a secret that I know how to do something better than anybody else. And I'm gonna throw everything I have behind that secret. I always liken it to people, to being on a rope bridge. And as you make your first step on the rope bridge, you set the rope on fire, and then you better run to the other side before the rope burns through. That's how I think people should go at business. But you don't do it because it's just the money, right? If it's just the money, that's not what you shouldn't be here. The other advice that I would give everybody is surround yourself with competent people. Get in a genius network, get into Strategic Coach. Surround yourself with people who have done things, who can guide you, who you can respect, that you can listen to. Because as entrepreneurs, we spend all of our time doing things that people say we can't do. And after a while, we start to think we're all geniuses. Because everybody told me I couldn't do this, and I'm doing it, so why should I listen to anybody else at this point? We do need to listen to other people, and you need to find those right people. Dan, I've been in Strategic Coach at this point in time for over 13 years. Dean Jackson's in the program. It is the highest level coaching program in the world for successful entrepreneurs. And you've heard me say this a million times. You are truly the smartest entrepreneurial thinker that I've ever met in my life. You're brilliant, and you've coached thousands of some of the world's highest level entrepreneurs. And you know a lot about how to make them better, how to assist them. And so most of the people that are watching this video are either already in a business or definitely entrepreneurs. And so, you know, from the get go, what the heck do you actually do at Strategic Coach?

Well, I think this is. This is kind of an example of why great entrepreneurs become great, is that they hang around with other great entrepreneurs. And I say that as if it's sort of a flipping statement, but it's really not. There was a great motivational speaker in the States by the name of Charlie Tremendous Jones and Charlie Tremendous. Jones had this great line which to this day, I think is probably the bedrock of how you move ahead with your life. And he said, you know, who you are 10 years ago is really a function of one the books you read, like the ideas that you expose yourself to, but who you hang out with. So when I look at really great entrepreneurs, you go a little ways away from them and you notice that their networks are just filled up with other people who are really smart, who really challenge them, who are constantly giving them new ideas. And I wish there were more secrets than that, but actually, I wish that I could make some money on. But actually, those are the two secrets.

All right, well, this concludes this interview. No, that's fantastic. That is true, though. I mean, really, what is it about learning? I mean, what do entrepreneurs really need to learn? Because when you say the people you hang out with and the books you read, I mean, some people are readers.

Some people are not.

Some people go to seminars, other people don't. What is your take on what do you really need to learn as an entrepreneur?

Well, you know, I was talking to one of my groups about two weeks ago, and I'm going to take about a minute to set this up, but it's actually a very instructive thing because the really great entrepreneurs all have the quality that I'm going to describe here. And I went to Britain, I went to London one year and I went to Westminster Abbey. And, you know, you walk around, there's kings buried there, there's prime ministers. And, you know, you'd think with Britain being a great theatrical country, there'd be a lot of actors there. But there's only one actor in. His name is Laurence Olivier. And so I got interested. I said, you know, why only one actor? And I'd seen him when I was a kid, and he predated me by. He was quite a bit older than me, but I read his biography and he had this trick that he did, and the trick was that he was very famous and he was very popular. And so when he was appearing on stage, everybody would go to see him. So the plays that he was in would last 150, 200, 250 performances. And the reputation he had was if you went to the 250th performance, it was just as fresh as his first performance. And in the book, it kind of describes how he did this and that is that before the performance, he'd go out about 15 minutes before the curtain went up, and he'd look through a hole in the curtain. And he had this little ritual that he would say to himself, this is not last night's audience. This is not last night's theater. This is not last night's play. I am not last night's character. The cast is not last night's cast. And he said, it's all new. And as he did this, he would get scared and he would get excited just as it. If it was opening night. And what I find, along with the Charlie Tremendous Jones things, is that one of the things that really great entrepreneurs are always reminding themselves is that whatever they did yesterday, that was last night's play. But now this is a fresh play, this is new. And I think that really has to do with not taking the audience for granted, not taking that what you were doing before is going to work today. And you're always open to. Totally. You know, I'm going to get surprised today, and I have to really be alert that there's something new that's going to come out of the blue today, and I have to really be fresh for this. That's fantastic.

So, I mean, so as it relates to, like, to, like an education, I mean, I heard you say this very early on when I joined Strategic Coaches. There's two things that you need, you know, to become an entrepreneur in the beginning. One is courage, and the other is ignorance. And I thought, you know, it's really a great way to look at it because, you know, if I really knew all of the challenges that I would encounter going into business, some of it would have scared the hell out of me.

Yeah, you'd be working for the government right now.

Exactly. Which would have been.

Only civil servants really know the true risks of. I mean, it's true. If you really knew what you were getting into, you'd never do it.

No, I mean, you're signing up for some insanity at some level, some risks, the levels of responsibility that you take as an entrepreneur, that sort of stuff.

But the courage is that, you know, that whatever happens, that you'll have the ability to respond to it. I think that's where the courage burns. It comes into.

Well, yeah, totally. So, I mean, obviously there's a lot of things to learn. So for someone that would be watching this video, out of all of the stuff that they could pay attention to in this day and age, most entrepreneurs that I know are extraordinarily overwhelmed, very busy, don't take any free time. Got into the business, I think, because they wanted freedom, they wanted to make money because they thought, but they really don't have any freedom and they're still trying to. What do I pay attention to? What business book should I read? What seminar should I go to? If they even do that at all? And so how would you advise someone on how to kind of have a functional, balanced life with some freedom, but also to be as productive as they can possibly be? I mean, there's a lot to that. I know, and it's not maybe a one word answer, but what do you tell them?

Well, there's a couple of questions that you asked there, but the first one is, and this is where I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs really burn out. And that is they forget after a while that they're actually in a brain business. They're not in a body business. In other words, it's not how many hours or days your body is at work. It's, you know, it's what your brain doing. And so probably the biggest distinction that my work has made in the marketplace is really the emphasis that I put on free time is actually having lots and lots of free time so that you can give your mind a lot of rejuvenation and a lot of rest and a lot of refreshment. Because when your brain is really at its top function, you can achieve things very, very quickly. You can come up with ideas very, very quickly. And so it's not like you're a factory worker where, you know, you get paid for putting in hours with an entrepreneur. It's just being really alert to new opportunities and taking advantage of them very quickly. And your brain really has to be fresh for that. So I actually put an enormous amount of emphasis, you know, I'm sort of very contrarian here. As you know, it's, you know, if you take 20 or 30 weeks off, you can be probably a much more effective entrepreneur than someone who's putting in 50 hour.

I think there's a distinction to what you do though, because you're an advocate.

For putting the free time on the.

Front end as opposed to work till.

You collapse and then take the free time. You're saying take the free time as rejuvenation and approach then the work. Yeah, and I think the raising is. And it goes to the kind of work that I've noticed that you do, Dean, is that is that you're testing. I mean, one of the big things that I'm so fascinated with and Joe, you've kind of introduced me to this world is the whole world of information marketing, especially those who are using online capabilities. And what I'm so impressed about this world is the willingness to fail really fast. You know that I would say that the secret of this world is to get an idea out and immediately set it up as a test to see is there any take on it whatsoever. And if there isn't, change and get out there and do something new. Well, your brain really has to be really, really fresh to be first. First of all, just to have the emotional courage to say, you know, I thought this was. Was a really great idea.

Whoops.

Didn't work. Let's change real quickly, but then have the stamina on the spot to come up with a new. I'm so impressed with you guys because I've been, you know, Dean, I've been doing this interview series with really, you know, you guys are kind of like the giants of this new world. And I'm so impressed with the speed with which you're willing to fail. I mean, well, the success is almost just, you know, fail enough and then there isn't anything more to fail at. And then all you're left with is something that really works.

Well. See, the beauty of marketing is, you know, in the real world, it's called failure. In the marketing world, it's called testing.

You know me, that's how I rationalize my bankruptcies and divorce a long time ago. Just extra market research.

Exactly. Well, Dr. Jackson, what would you like to ask Dr. Sullivan about marketing? You know, I think when one of the things. And I'm gonna get some water. What you're able to do with Strategic Coach and why Joe and I are part of this is. You mentioned what, what Charlie Tremendous Jones said is your, your income, your life, who you are really is one of the factors is the kind of people that you hang out with.

And I know that one of the.

Most incredible benefits of being part of.

Strategic Coach, when Joe and I go.

Is the people that are in the.

Room, the people that are there are just like, it's a tremendous growth opportunity.

Because everybody is a successful entrepreneur. Not just a successful entrepreneur. They're the top of the.

Top of the successful entrepreneurs.

And it's just a real growth experience.

Just to even expand your network like that. Yeah. And I think that, you know, just to bring out another quality that I think really distinguishes the entrepreneurs, there's a real humility. You know, there's a guy named Bill Joy in Silicon Valley, and he's got this famous law which is called Joy's Law. And Joy's Law is that no matter how small, there's somebody out there who's smarter. And you have to recognize that. And I think that when you come into strategic coach, you recognize that you're smart in one way, and that's really gotten you where you are. But what gets you even further is the willingness that just as you're smart in a particular area, there's lots of other people who are very, very smart, just as smart as you are in their areas, and that just expands you because you realize, well, first of all, I don't have to be smart in their area. I can just take advantage of what they're doing.

Okay, so now let's talk about smart marketing and let's talk about the whole concept of marketing. Me and Dean have spent at least, gosh, probably 20 years. Almost 20 years. Years.

For me, it's been almost.

I think I'm better than you because I think I've got a year on ear. What do you think? I don't know. But we've invested a tremendous amount of time learning and mastering direct response marketing, and we love it because it's a way to replicate yourself. I think marketing is the ultimate leverage. And I'd like to ask you, Dan, what does marketing mean to you? What is it to you? And you're certainly a great marketer, and I'd love to get your take on it.

Well, you know, I mean, you know, again, I'm going to have to take a second seat here because what we had, you know, when you met us in strategic coaches, we were a great sales organization. You know, I started this in 74, 1974, and we were always a great sales organization. In other words, put us in front of someone and we can probably get them to sign a check. And not only one check, but we can probably keep them for a long time. So we were good at selling. But what I learned really from you was the fact is that, yeah, but how do you get in front of the person? And is that costing you more and more every year, or is there a way that that can actually cost you less every year? So the real secret, ultimately to be a great salesperson is that you have to be a great marketer first. And great marketing means is constantly increasing your ability to catch other people's attention, their interest, and do it at a lower and lower cost every year. And I mean, that's, you know, and if you can't do that, then, I mean, everything comes down to the cost of the actual acquisition of someone who's going to write a check to you.

Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, jumping at any point in time. Well, I think what you Were saying, because we talk about this concept of the before unit.

And one of the great ways to.

Think about it is to think if you could buy.

If it was like a vending machine.

Where you could identify what your ideal.

Who your ideal customer is, who your ideal team client is, and you could like, push a button, put in the.

Amount of money that you can, you know, knowingly pay to get one of those and do that as often as you can.

That's what really your before you is about, is about building that vending machine.

That you put whatever the amount that you can spend to acquire a customer. If it's a hundred dollars, $1,000, $5,000, if you could reliably push that button and have your ideal client end up in your workshops or in your.

Yeah. And I mean, we've, you know, again, it's who I'm hanging. Hanging out with recently. Just to your point, Dean, you know, we did a little comparison. And I mean, this was just like, you know, you've been operating in one world and you think you have it figured out, and then you discover some people who have a whole new methodology. But about a year and a half ago, we went over to webinars, which we had never done. We had always been live speech, usually at trade shows where you ship your team there, you have to pay for air flight, you have to pay for hotels, you have to pay for booth space. That had been a tried and true. We were going to the trade shows, and then we introduced this new methodology of webinars. And we just did a little comparison of the last 50 people that we acquired at a trade show and the last 50 people we acquired at a webinar. And we said, how much did one cost and how much did the other cost? And the cost of acquisition at trade show was $1,200, you know, per client.

Now, our.

The lifetime value of 1 of our client is $25,000. So we could sort of justify it, but the 50 that we got from the webinar was $12 per person. So you got $12,000 on one side and 12 on the other. We're sitting there and we say, hmm, which one? We go with, where does our future lie? You know, and that's the interesting thing about, you know, Dean, the world that you're living in and Joe, the world that you're constantly pushing with, you know, with all the piranha marketing technologies that you've created is, you know, there's much, much, much better ways of doing this, you know, and we live in a Wonderful age. You know, I mean, I'm just really happy to be alive in the 21st century, especially the last 10 years, just because of the technologies that are now empowering entrepreneurs in a way that we're only. That they used to only be available to large corporations.

Well, you know, what's, what's new about the world and what's always going to stay the same? What I mean is there's things that are timely, that are going to make you successful and that are going to be constantly changing and innovations. And then there's timeless principles of quote, unquote success, if you want to call it that. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I think what's timeless? I've got this technique that I use when I start one of my introductions and I say, I just want everybody to raise your hand. Are you here for me or are you here for you? And I said, anybody that said me, put your hand down. And when I say, you're here for you, raise your hand. And I think that what's timeless is that people are always there for themselves, and it's your job as a marketer to figure out why they're there for themselves. And that's timeless. And it's timeless that that's always going to be true. What's not timeless is that it's always going to be changing why they're there. You know, in other words, their reasons for being there are going to change with the way the world changes, the way that things. But what's always going to be true is that they're there for themselves. So as a marketer, a creator of new products, new services, new experiences, then you have to realize that it's your job to always be figuring out why are they there and what are they willing to write a check for and why would they stay with you? Why would they stay with you? And so if the emphasis, I mean, they're never there for you. You have to realize that. And the moment you realize that they're not here for me, they're only there for themselves. And your job is to figure out why they're there for themselves. And I think that's the secret.

Selfish.

Yeah, well. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, I'm a great, you know, I'm a great student of American history. And James Madison, who arguably is the great genius behind the whole, you know, experiment that's called the United States, said, you know, some philosophies are based on that human beings are going to be really, really virtuous and he says, I think it's a much better bet that they're actually going to be, be very selfish and very self interested. So build a system of government where all their selfishness and their looking out for themselves actually contributes to the common good. So we'll just create a system where we'll just funnel their selfishness so that it produces great goods for everybody else. And I think that that's basically the marketplace, I think that's capitalism. Is that somehow because everybody pursuing their own interests and trying to get what they want, it actually produces an enormous amount of good for everybody. Yeah.

Well, you are a gigantic proponent, as are both of us, for capitalism. And I'm constantly quoting this from you, although I don't know if you came up with it, but I heard you say that the only thing wrong with capitalism is that it was named by its enemies who came up.

That was actually FA Hayek, who is kind of a lonely voice out in the world in the 1940s when everybody thought that socialism was going to take over the world. And he basically said, you know, that basically what capitalism really is is a system of ever increasing cooperation among strangers. And Babs, my partner in life and in business will tell you this story that whenever we're overseas and we're in France or we're in Italy or we're in Israel, last three places that we visited, and I need cash, I go to the ATM machine, you know, and you know, they ask you, first of all, very polite, they ask you which language you want to speak. So you, it's very civilized. It's very civilized, you know, so you punch it in. You punch in your cash and you sit there and you sit there and you listen to goes, how comes your cash? And I turned to her and I said, what a world. Because it is such a world. Because none of the people who delivered my cash, you know, the computer programmers, the people who designed the cooperation and the arrangements between banks, the people who figured out how if they ask for $200, actually give them $200, don't shortchange them, you know, and all you know goes back to your bank account. Immense, immense amount of cooperation among hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of strangers. And that's capitalism. And they weren't doing it for me. But I'm the one who, when I need the cash, I get my cash. And you have to understand what an amazing creation this is, this vast cooperation for some reason. And the ATM always strikes me as one of the great examples of capitalism. Anywhere you are, you need cash, you get Your cash.

What do you say to people that slam capitalism or say greedy capitalists? I mean are they just ignorant? Are they. I mean there's a lot of anti capitalistic mentality and forces in the world and I think if pathetic, I think it's pitiful and I think it's destructive. And I think capitalist and capitalism is the purest, truest system for solving social and economic problems that's ever existed. And I don't know if you feel the same way. I would think you do. And what are your thoughts on the anti capitalistic mentalities that exist? And why does it exist? Is it because they understand it? Is because these people are, to use maybe Ayn Rand sort of thing, parasites, producers and destroyers. What is the.

Well, I know people like that. I hang out with people on both sides of the road. I know people like that. And what always strikes me when you get right down to the bottom, they have this desire for an extended childhood where they get taken care of by other people. So they were taken care of by their parents and then they were taken care of by their school system and by their professors and then they want to be taken care of by an employer and then they want to be taken care of by the government. Ultimately they want the government to be their parents and take care of them and think about their needs and you know, and not and what they're trying to avoid. And I find, you know, in the life of every human being there's this point what I call the, you know, they have a destiny, they have a sort of a meeting with uncertainty where you have to go out into the world with no safety net. You have to go out into the world where it's not about, you know, who your parents were, it's not about how you were educated, educated. It's not about, you know, all your credentials, it's not about who, you know, all the people you, the neighborhood you came from. It's just about can you actually create any value out there that somebody would want to pay for? And I think a lot of people just dread ever having to go out there and do that. And the entrepreneurs are the ones who went out there and did that and passed on. And then there's this whole class of people who are just trying to extend their childhood right till the time that they die.

That's what I'm trying to say. That's what I was trying to say.

And I think the anti capitalism is sort of a childish, it's sort of like an immaturity of not realizing that the Only way that you should actually be able to afford yourself on this planet is actually by creating value for other people. And they're willing to actually pay you for that without any intermediary. Who protects you if you fail?

Well, you said that the two entrepreneurial attitudes are you're not entitled to anything without creating value for someone else, and that you're 100% responsible for your life and success. Now, my take on it, though, is that a lot of capitalists are scorned. They're vilified. They're looked at as like, they don't care about taking care of the poor. They're great, greedy. All they want is money for themselves. I'm not saying this, of course. I'm just saying the media says that. And frankly, most true entrepreneurs that I know are the most giving people. They create tons of value. They very much care. They give tremendous amounts to the world. They take care of tremendous amounts of people. I mean, you know, why is that sort of belief system created by certain politicians and, you know, the media?

Well, even among the entrepreneurs. I mean, it's really strange. One of the weird phenomenons that we have in society is people who become very wealthy because they create something new and, you know, they get it out into the marketplace, and we've seen lots of examples of this. And then they get to the point where they're really successful and their mind changes, and they. They do two things which I find very, very interesting. One is that they, instead of creating new things, they try to stop other people from creating new things. So they want to establish a monopoly for themselves. Not a monopoly where you're so good that people wouldn't even think about anything else. Like, I think of Steve Jobs as my great role model in life is actually Steve Jobs, because here he is, you know, he's been at this for 35, 40 years, and every quarter, he's coming out with something new, you know, and he's raising the stakes every quarter. And then there's other people, even in his own field, who, after a certain point, they're putting more money into lobbyists in Washington to keep the government from preventing competition. Then they're not entrepreneurs anymore. You know, they're. They've entered into the realm of government. And now what they're trying to do is to get the government to prevent any competition to whatever they've created. So that's one failing. And the other thing is that they start talking about all sorts of weird things. You know, how we got to save the world. There's two things that make me want to short an entrepreneur's stock. One of them is when they buy a sports franchise. You know, it's like Howard Schultz. You could see the day he bought a sports franchise. You could see the Starbucks brand go downhill, you know, because he was bored. You know, nobody buys a sports franchise unless they're really bored. I mean, the game they're playing is no longer interesting enough. Now they've got to buy a sports franchise. But the other thing is when they start talking about, now we've got a save the world, and the world doesn't need saving. All the world needs is more entrepreneurs. The world's got to be fine. That is great.

So, I mean, people just very much, I think the ones that kind of get it, which is why we like hanging out, are the entrepreneurs, because they're in the trenches. The people that aren't in the trenches, they think they understand the game, and they don't even understand the game. And so. And a lot of them, I think, are just simply jealous that they're not playing the game and someone's doing it better than they are. So, man, you know what people are not up on, they're down on.

Well, the other thing is, I think they get, you know, I think there's a point. There's a danger point. And, you know, it's not just entrepreneurs, but it could be anybody, you know, whether, you know, it could be a Hollywood star, it could be a politician, or anything else where they become fixated more on the reward than on the activity. So for me, the entrepreneurs that I love hanging out with are the ones that it's always about the game. And the game always has to have two qualities. One is that it's very exciting. I'm going for things I've never done before, and it's very scary because I could really blow it. And if you don't have those two, what I would say, those two, two fuels in your gas tank, one of fear and one of excitement, then I think you're not playing the game as an entrepreneur. And some people just get tired. I think physically they get tired, mentally they get tired, and they just can't play the game anymore. But my goal, you know, just as a personal entrepreneur, is to always be playing that game and to die one day right in the middle of that game. I never want to retire from. From that game.

Yeah. That's awesome. Well, okay, so since this is. I love marketing, I want to actually recommend. That was some great, great thoughts. You have a book, one of your most recent books called The Dan Sullivan question. And earlier you were talking about knowing that it's about them. And you have a great process that can be used in a face to face selling situation, in a group selling situation, or in a marketing campaign. So the way that I always define marketing deems the same way is it's selling in advance, it's getting people to show up that are pre interested, pre motivated, pre qualified and predisposed to give you money. And you have a thing called a DOS conversation, which stands for dangers, opportunities and strengths. And I recommend you go to Amazon or anywhere that sells books and get the Dan Solo question, the book, you can get it@strategiccoach.com also. But I'd like to have you just kind of touch on what is the DOS conversation and why is it such a powerful way to. As Robert Collier said back in the 50s, in the Robert Collier letter book, you want to enter as a marketer, you want to enter a conversation that's already existing in the prospect's mind. And you have a great process of getting right to what is existing in the prospect's mind. It's called a DOS conversation. So what is that?

Well, I think, you know, I mean, just to start with, I just want to, you know, emphasize what you just said. And this is what a lot of people don't understand, that all sales is actually a conversation, you know, and conversation means it's two way, you know, that's what a conversation is. And the other thing that I've discovered is that you make far more impact on people with questions than with answers. So if you look at most sales training and you look at the quality of most marketing in the marketplace, they're firing answers out at people. People don't want answers. What they would really like is questions that make them think about what they would really like. So one of the things that I put a lot of emphasis on over the years, you know, both with my own company and how we get people into the strategic coach, but also, you know, with, with all the thousands of entrepreneurs who have been in the strategic coach process, is to say the way you really differentiate yourself in the marketplace is not with answers, but with questions. Now what question? If that's really the case, then which question is really going to make the biggest difference? Well, it's going to be a question about the other person. And I always say you can never sell anything in the present, you can only sell something in the future. In other words, don't try to sell somebody right now because all their money is already used up right now you have to sell something that is such a big future result that people would be willing now to invest. Because all sales, when people buy something, they're investing in an experience in the future that's going to be better than anything they have right now. That's really, you know, I don't care if it's a car or it's a trip or anything, you're investing in a better future that has a bigger experience. So what I try to do is get people in the conversation, that's the sale to go take the person down the road. And my question, the Dan Sullivan question is, you know, Dean or Joe or whoever I'm talking to, I say, you know, if we were meeting here and it was three years from now, and you name the date, because the human brain really likes numbers and it really likes dates. And you say, and we were looking back over the three years, what has to happen in your life, both personally and also professionally, if it's appropriate? Sometimes it's personally, sometimes it's professionally for you to feel happy with your progress. And I just want to tell you that there's three things that I've just said that are the key to really differentiating yourself in the marketplace is get them down the road. Don't have the conversation about now because there's no money right now. And not only that, their life is very complicated right now. Three years down the road, everybody wants their life to be incredibly better. So get them to tell you what the picture is that they see themselves three years down the road, and then have them work back and tell you what had to happen over that three years for them to feel happy with their progress. Happy. They're the only ones who can say what they're happy. And they're the only people who can say what constitutes progress for them. Okay? And they're the expert on this. You're talking to someone, and they're the only one who knows the answer to this question. So if I'm not getting that answer from someone, I don't know what it is that I can do that they'd be willing to write a check for. That's the big thing. Now, having said that, that's a highly individual thing. And you make your money by talking to lots of people. You make your money by talking to lots of people. But you talk to a lot of people who are really the same kind of people, just like I talk to people, you know, really the person that I'm talking to in strategic coach is one out of 400. We've actually done the numbers the kind of person we would want. If you take the general population, we're talking to one out of 400 people. And over 35 years, I've really gotten to know who that one person out of 400 is. So I know what their three things about them. I know that what really keeps them up at night, two o' clock in the morning, they can't sleep, they're really worried about something. I know they're dangerous. I know what gets them excited, where their sense of opportunity is, and I know totally what they feel confident about, the kinds of strengths and accomplishments they've had. When I'm talking to them, I'm talking about their dangers, I'm talking about their opportunities, I'm talking about their strengths. So having said that, you know my question three years, looking back, specifically, what dangers do you have now that have to be eliminated over the next three years? What opportunities have to be captured and what strengths do you have that need to be maximized? Because you have strengths, but they're not being maximized to the degree that you would really want to have them. For you to really be happy with your progress, you ask that question, they'll talk for two hours and every piece of information they give you is totally valuable. They're telling you exactly what it is that you can do for them.

It's interesting, though, because I've seen people.

Make the mistake initially when they're taking this question and they're asking people, you know, let's go forward three years from today, and what would have to happen.

For you to be happy with our progress?

Like framing it that I'm in the relationship.

It's almost like, what's it going to take to get, get you in a car today? You know, where you're saying it in our relationship, but what you're saying, the key distinction is it's not about.

Not at all. It's completely about them and just whether it is in relation to whatever service you're offering. Yeah, I mean, 99% of the people you meet were hoping to get through their life without meeting you. I mean, it's an inconvenience that it's a, it's a total inconvenience to you that you know that you've actually come into their life. So you better, you better be valuable to them. Yeah. And I think that that's the problem. Again, it's me centered. It's me centered. You know, it's me centered. And so we have to, you know, we have to, you know, we have to take that into consideration that it's not about us, it's about them. And the more that we can move out of our own head and into their head and understand how they're looking at the world and then lining it up with what we can actually do for them, then we have a real value creation proposition.

Gotcha. Gotcha. I did an event in 1999 called Transformation 2000, and it was the first time. I don't know, Brian, did I have you at that? I don't think I did. So it was called Transformation 2000, and I had Dr. Nathaniel Brandon, who was the father of self esteem, amazing human. He died a few years ago. It was all about, like self help and sort of fix your head sort of stuff. And it was so much harder to sell that event than how to make money, you know, because if you're like, we're going to teach you how to make millions of dollars or we're going to give you a million bucks, everyone's always going to take the million bucks. Like, you know, even though you could argue that it's a lot more valuable for the term of your life to do this stuff over here. So think of a problem that if you solved it would solve, like 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 other problems in your life. Does anyone have an example of a problem that if you could solve it, there's this whole cascade of other problems that would go away that you could say out loud, what would be an example of solve? I talked about sleep as being one of them, but what would be another? My name is Adam, and for me it would be learning to turn my brain off. Learning to turn your brain on, which would help sleep better, be more present in my relationships and create more room for creativity in production in my business. Wonderful. On Friday is an example. So I'm just going to use this as an example because oftentimes, because we're going to do the tool, then we're going to put you in groups and you're going to talk about it. And in the group, the sounding board operates as, oh, I've solved this problem. Here's my thoughts and perspective on it. And that's the value of a genius network is. So like, on Friday, we put up my interview with Dr. Tony Nader. And Tony, Martha McSally was the first one that texted me after she watched it. And she's like, I want to learn how to do TM. So he's the guy that runs transcendental meditation. Like 40,000 people work for that organization. And so he's the head. So Maharishi literally handed it to him in. So he runs the whole thing. He's the top guy. And so we did an interview, and it's like, this is not a famous person, but he's like, one of the smartest meditation people in the world. And we were having that whole conversation of, like, the entrepreneur, because I said, most of my clients are entrepreneurs. How do you shut your brain off? And there's a whole thing where he actually explains how to shut your brain off. It is not really like shutting your brain off. It's more like, you know, the analogy, which David lynch is a big TM meditator. You know, I told this story about I saw Ray Dalio sitting, like, you know, in this VIP area, which I was luckily in because of the level I was at when I went to a TED conference a few years ago. And I know some people that Ray knows personally. So I went up to him and I mentioned these people because that's, you know, I kind of know how I wrote a whole book on how to do this sort of shit. And so. But I went up and started talking Ray. But I asked him, I go, out of all the stuff that you've done in your life that you've learned, what do you think is attributed most to not just your financial success, but just you as a person? Because Ray's a pretty smart dude. And he said, by far, transcendental meditation. He's like, I've been meditating for 40 years. He goes, that has helped me more with success than anything else I've ever done. And I was like, that's pretty damn interesting for a billionaire to say, out of all the stuff they've done, that it was meditation. And so I. You know, but again, there's many ways to get. Like, Doug Brackman, you know, has a very unique. Like, I would definitely talk to Doug. Have you ever read Doug's book Driven? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, you got Doug right here. Right. And Doug would have a lot of perspective on that. A lot of people here would. How many of you are very busy, active brains. It's hard to shut your brain off. And I would put myself in definitely in that category. Okay, yeah. So that would be one. If you solve that thing, there's a whole cascade of other things that would happen. So, Jeff, you recently wrote the Entrepreneur's Mind Brain. What's something that if you solved one problem, it would solve many others that you can think of or that you've actually figured out how to solve?

Well, Mine was very content, a very specific thing. And it's just I have my year of transformation, and I want to zero in on the perfect offer.

It's called a year of Transformation. A year of transformation. Yeah. And you want to zone in on the perfect offer. Okay. You know that I recently acquired the website, which I've wanted for over 20 years, transformation.com.

Yeah.

It's a big one. Well, partner, whatever.

Yeah.

Here's the thing, though. I'm going to really sit on it because I don't want it to be. I don't want. Right now it's redirected to genius recovery, and I really am going. It's funny. One of the reasons, and it cost a lot to get this site. Oprah wanted to do that. Like Trump, huh? It's huge. It's huge. No, but it's like Oprah win. Oprah wanted to buy the site from. But they wouldn't even sell it to Oprah because they didn't want some shitty thing being done with it. And so whatever that means to them. But one of the reasons I acquired it is I really want to think, what the hell does transformation actually mean? Because I could turn it into some marketing course, which I'm not going to. There's a lot of monetization things that I could. It's a freaking great name. I mean, I could sell the name for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I know people that would buy it. But I really was like, it's going to make me really think about because there's been areas of my life that I've transformed and a lot of areas of my life where I have a lot of work to do. Right. And I really want to just ponder, what does that actually mean? What does transformation actually mean? What does transformation mean to you, Joe? Well, no, it means many things. And the reason I'm saying, because I don't want just a can. You know, I have the ideas where you change form.

Right.

Because I even have, like the, you know, pull up the term transformation, the way that the dictionary defines it, Mike, and put that up on the screen so we can see how, you know. I mean, I think I've transformed my behavior, my thoughts, through addiction recovery in a lot of ways. But there's many forms of transformation. You know, you can. Let's see what it. I think we're all going through our forms of transformation all the time. A thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance. If I got a big tattoo during the life cycle of an animal, the induced or spontaneous change of one element into another by a nuclear process. Yeah. So. But, you know, I've always said, you know, I want to be in the transformation business. Thought. The transaction business. But what does that actually mean? We can think we can transform someone, but do they see it that way?

We can't transform ourselves.

Yeah, well, I think we can transform others, too, if we're violent or if we're destructive or enormously caring, I think. But ultimately, the one person that we are responsible for is ourselves. And the world is in the middle of a massive transformation right now. Now good and bad. All right, so I'll get off that wagon for now. What's one more problem that if you solved, it would solve many others that you can think of? Because I'm just trying to get the brain thinking so that when you write down what needs solved, you actually don't just solve one thing. You solve many things.

You want just like a logistical one?

Could be. Whatever. Yeah.

Just figuring out. It's okay.

Yeah, let's come to you in a minute. Let's not do. I'll do yours, then we'll come. Is that Russ? It will come to you in a moment, Russ. Thank you. Okay, just a second.

Oh, it's a logistical one.

It's figuring out how to get through.

The different FDA like, organizations in other countries.

Oh, interesting. Okay. How to get through. Okay.

Like, if you could do it once, you might be able to kind of do a rinse and repeat if you like.

It's such a huge, confusing world.

Yeah. Well, this is not going to be the exact same example, but how many of you know Dean Kamen? Okay. Dean Kamen invented the Segway. And so I met Dean years ago, and I've been to his couple. He has an island, his house. And I was talking to him. So he invented this device called the Slingshot. And it is a. It's basically a water purification system that you can put dirty, disgusting, like, filled with oil germs, you know, sewage into one end, and out the other end comes surgical grade purified water. And this thing will run on less of for a month on half the electricity to power a hairdryer. So all of these countries in the world that have difficulty with dirty water, clean water, he created a solution for it. The problem was he couldn't get into some of these countries because of bureaucracies. And so. And this is where I have sort of a crazy issue with it. He partnered with Coca Cola because Coca Cola is one of the few companies that can actually get distribution in countries because of all of the. Which I Was like, okay. I go, this is so complex for me. So Coca Cola positions themselves as a health care company and they license it. It's like so fricking weird. Is that the Slingshot? Yeah. And so when you go to certain, like restaurants, self serve, where like a Chipotle or something, I don't know, I think they have it where they have those condensers for sodas that actually came out of his machine that he created, but they're not so. And I said, I go, man, Dean, I go, I'm just confused by it because on one hand that's great that these water machines are getting to some of these places, but aren't they just going to serve them water so they can get them addicted to sugar water? And he said, he goes, you know, Joe, he goes, if you saw the horrible conditions of some of these places, you would realize, you know, a Coca Cola is actually a luxury. Didn't answer it in the way that I am still okay with it. But it's just very interesting. But to your point, you know, the key is, okay, if you're trying to get to these places who already has done it, that you can somehow partner with and solve that. Because it's. Yeah, well.

And even we've.

Sorry.

We've even thought like, well, maybe we're going out about it all wrong. Maybe what we should do is just.

Go start a company in those countries, right?

And then we're already in the country and we're, you know, so it's like.

But I'm just wondering if there are people who have.

I mean, this must have been solved a hundred times, at least thousands of times.

There's that line I say all the time. From Anthony Greenback, the Book of survival, written in 1990. He said, in order to get through an impossible situation, you don't need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do. And so whenever I'm faced with like, this is impossible. Someone maybe knows how to navigate again, some things you're just not going to do. It's just going to be too hard. The juice ain't going to be worth the squeeze. But for the most part, almost everything that is doable has a answer if you know what to do or there is a connection that knows how to do it. So hence the whole point is here, I'm not trying to solve anything right now. I'm just trying to say, like, how do you. Dan Sullivan has that line? The problem is not the problem. The problem is how you think about the problem. And then up on the wall there, the green one says, what's it say? If you have an egg model to solve, Wayne, go ahead and read that one. Throw Wayne a mic, if we could. This one's so great because this, by the way, the reason I have this on the wall is to remind myself, if you have enough money to solve a problem, you don't have a problem, right? So that's from Dan Sullivan. And the greatest problems I like are the ones where you cut a check or crypto or whatever currency it is and it goes away. Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can simply, Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. So a lot of this stuff is like, we're just stuck with these constant annoying problems. But you can. You're entrepreneurs. You make money, you solve the problem. Because every single person that gives you money, every person that gives me money, they're trying to solve a problem, and they're just looking to, hopefully whatever the hell it is we're doing can solve some of their problems. Same with you. Everything you're. You're doing, so you're trying to sell. See Doug Brackman, he helps driven crazy entrepreneurs that their own talents are also their nemesis. They're all juggling kryptonite all the time. Right? But if these people were not driven and having challenges with it, Doug would not have a business. No one would read the book Driven. If people were not looking for real estate, you wouldn't have a business. Right? So it's that sort of thing. Your problems are everyone's problems. And when you're talking about Brian, about vulnerability, who was it that said start with vulnerability? Was that Jeff? Jeff, yeah, Jeff. You both said vulnerability, though. Is that what I've learned also is that that which seems most private is most public. All of those problems that we think we're the only ones that are dealing with it. There are tons of people that are dealing with it. They don't know how to put words to it. And it's really shameful at times to actually express it or to think about it. Why is that trauma? You know this Don. Dr. Don Wood here.

What did we talk about?

The.

I just. My brain doesn't Work that well sometimes.

But it was about. Syndrome.

Imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome. I thought you were going to say Trump derangement syndrome. Tds.

I have that. But, you know, imposter syndrome is like that because you. Because, you know, we used to do.

The boardroom dinners, which you used to attend. Yeah, they're great.

We had, like, the best doctors, the best marketers, these people, like the experts and the experts.

And they come to the dinner and.

They say, I don't belong here.

It's like you have a CV that's 25 pages long. Like, what do you mean you don't belong here? And then we had people who came. When Michael Fishman came to his first dinner, he really didn't belong there. He doesn't belong here anymore. We just kicked him out. Finally, afterwards, he did. Michael belonged there, and he came to many boardroom dinners, but he never said that when he came because he got an invitation. You're invited, and then if you're there.

And you play full out and you're.

Vulnerable, you can get so much more.

Out of the group. I mean, we had people who.

They're the financial expert who ended up talking about autism because of his son suffering from autism. And he got people in the room.

To gather around, you know, to come up with a fundraiser for him.

I mean, vulnerability. But again, if you come into a room and say, I don't belong here.

That'S like the worst thing you can do.

So the first vulnerability is you have.

To look at yourself and say, okay.

I'm going to be. I'm just going to say, I belong here. Not because I'm better than everybody.

In fact, I may be the stupidest.

Person in the room. It's fine. But you need to know that you belong there because you either paid to.

Be there, which is good enough, or that you were invited and, you know, everybody belongs, basically.

Awesome. And if they don't, we'll kick them out. And by the way, Michael, he was just talking about how you don't belong in the room. Did you hear any of that?

I qualified.

Now, Brian is a very vicious, hurtful person. I don't know why he has to go there, but I heard I resemble that remark.

Totally.

All right, Russ, I apologize for that tangent. Russ Palmer. No, it's partly a great tangent.

So you always talk about, like, a.

Man with a scalp has a thousand dreams, and he who doesn't only have one. I just got a new kidney. And so, like, my biggest problem that.

I need to solve Right now is my health is back, so how do I start dreaming and living again?

Wow. Wow. Well, first off, congratulations. How long were you in the. In the queue, per se, say, waiting to get a kidney, not knowing if you're going to live or die?

Well, you kind of live through dialysis. You know, there's some treatments. It's not really a good way of living, but from the time I started dialysis till the time I got a kidney was exactly one year because my brother donated it to me.

So that. That made it a little bit easier.

But typically it could be five to seven years for. If you're just waiting for a random donor.

Well, I mean, look through this period of time. Knowing you, I mean, you know, without. You know, like, every time I saw you, I wasn't like, boy, you're going through hell in your life, Russ. But it seemed like you're, you know, you're. I admire you. I mean, you are dealing with some constant continuous health things. And I'm so freaking happy that you got the kidney transplant. And that's a really big question. I think it's a good thing to reflect on, too. Imagine that you're in a position where you still have to run your business, run your company, raise your family, but you couldn't really dream. And what he just posed here. How do you now approach. I can start dreaming. It's almost like a certain fear or conditioning of like, I couldn't do this before, now all of a sudden I can. And how do you approach it? That's a very interesting and kind of awesome question.

It's even been more than that because I knew about this kidney condition and.

I'd been a really low function for.

23 years, kind of.

It's always been on my mind that.

This is going to have to happen or something's going to come up.

But I had a little bit of time to plan, but it's also limited, like, the dreams.

Like, what?

You know, what.

What can I do?

You really have to focus a mirror.

On, like, what's important, because, you know, the kidney condition or whatever, you may not be there.

So.

But now it's like, there's a lot.

Of energy, a lot of opportunities.

Now it's like, shoot, I don't know what to do now.

Have you ever considered, like, competitive kickboxing maybe? No, I'm kidding. So, yeah, that. That is awesome. Yeah. Well, hopefully the people that we put you in groups with will have some. Some good perspective and insight. But, yeah, thank you for sharing.

Is. I did get kicked out of the bald club. Hair's growing. So anybody who's bald and wants to know. Just a new kidney will probably help.

Wow. So your hair is growing back as a result of a new kidney.

Damn.

The doctor said it wasn't.

You know, I've had haircuts now, and I have to, like, do my hair.

And do all that kind of stuff, but.

Yeah, I wonder if it's a genetic. Does your brother have an extra kidney? He'd be willing to. That is awesome, though. Seriously awesome. Thank you. Yes, go ahead.

I would love to connect you with my dad, which is so random, but he had a liver transplant, and I don't know where to look because you.

Yeah, well, the camera's right here. Will pick you up so he can see you from the cameras.

He had a liver transplant in 1987, which was, like, the first year people could survive them. And his dreams, I think, largely revolved around our family. So he wanted to see. I was 10. He wanted to see me graduate high school, then college, then walk my sister and I down the aisle. And he's had to create new dreams over the years. He's a really wise guy. High. High integrity.

He might be helpful because, you know.

He hits these points in his life where he's like, well, I lived long enough to see all the things that I wanted to see. And, like, now what? And so he now does these bike.

Trips with my mom.

They're still married. They've been through a whole heck of a. Sorry you're over here. So much together, and they're there.

And, yeah, just.

I think it's a process, and he has to keep creating new dreams of what he wants to see in his life. You know, he's retired, and then he's kind of like, no, I feel kind of useless and like, nobody needs. So I call him up, and I'm like, we have this problem with, you.

Know, what do you think about it?

And, you know, if you're interested, he loves to talk to. I mean, it's not the same organ.

But he loves to talk. That's a much harder one.

So no, congratulations to him. Yeah.

Well, look, if you guys want to connect, then. Happy to connect you both. We can definitely do that. He's a good.

He's a good business. He's an ops person, so he's like, integrator. He's a great one for that. That purpose as well.

Awesome. No, we'll have Mike connect both you and Russ and then take it from there. So. Awesome. Thank you.

I'll go because These guys are awesome.

Which. Wait, wait, who are you talking about? I had Devin and Brian. Really? Which one was the least awesome? They're both so good. So good. But without going into all the details, I think we come into this expecting everyone to go, yeah, that's an awesome freaking idea. Run with it. Just do this, do that. And it's not that they didn't do it.

The idea I have is good.

But they gave me insights to really think. Like, do I have the time and.

Attention to put to this new idea?

Is this a good idea? Could I lose money on it? Even though it could be brilliant, it could be a million dollar, multimillion dollar idea, do I have that time and attention to give to it right now? So getting kind of the other side.

Was as valuable as getting a rah.

Rah, rah, let's go do it. Right, right, right. And it. It made me pause and go, okay.

I need to think about that.

Yeah, I definitely do. I might need to hire people to.

Help me if I want to move forward and not take it on myself. So it was gold. How many of you. It just pisses you off when you have to put on pause or slow down on something that you really want to do. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, look, I swear, I think we live in that space a lot. And I can't. I mean, you know, I have to give myself slack because I think I'll probably, you know, and this may not be the best self talk. I'll probably get myself in these traps all the time. Unless I am very diligent about keeping people around me. Is that Joel Weldon, like, watching porn again or something? I should have never shown him those.

Anyway.

It starts with a real innocent meme and then, you know, sycophants on a hot seat are death. What's that?

Sycophants on a hot seat?

When you're on a hot seat are death. That you're going to go.

You're just going to keep going and going. And I'm not saying we were.

We weren't. First off, define the word sick effect.

So basically, I'm going to agree with.

Everything you say, and I'm going to.

Flatter you, and I'm going to.

And we started.

I mean, she's a rock star, right? I mean, that was established at the beginning.

So it wasn't about her.

It wasn't like.

And it had to be an idea for her stepdaughter.

So it was a little distance. But she wants to invest in it. So, you know, to give her the alternate initially.

And I felt like I was being.

Like, you know, Debbie Downer, but I was really trying. And Devin did the same thing. It was all about, you know, asking questions about, like, when a copywriter works with a marketer, they're the best interviewers because they have to ask the questions.

Like, why do you want to do this?

And we came up with like, we.

Came up with her if she wants to do it. We came up with the lead for her sales letter because she told a.

Story about her stepson and it was like, it was riveting.

And we said, oh, if you want to do this, that's your lead.

Right?

But the thing is you get, yeah, don't do it yet.

Don't do it yet.

No. So here's. I was going to say the trap I get myself into is I like new things. I like new things. I get bored with stuff. And there's a dopamine. If you've been around me enough, you've heard me say whenever I get really overwhelmed, which I'm masterful if you want to know something where I mastery in. I'm masterful at putting more shit on my plate than I could ever do in a lifetime and being oblivious to the fact that I'm doing it while I'm in the middle of it, Right? But what I've learned through lots of conversations with Sam Qurachi is that what causes the most grief for me in my life is saying yes. What gives me the greatest joy in my life in the moment is saying yes. Because if I say yes to something or we're going to do this, we're going to do that, it does something biochemically to me because called dopamine, you know, it's probably the neurotransmitter of anticipation. I get excited, but I am oblivious to the fact that there's all this follow through that needs to be done and that I have a mountain of shit already on my plate. But when I'm really stressed out from the mountain of shit on my plate, this new thing makes me forget about the mountain of shit on my plate. And then I take and then. And oftentimes I want to be accommodating. So people's like, hey, we should talk, or hey, can we do? And I'll be like, oh, okay. And then Eunice constantly has to remind me like, dude, do you see your schedule? You can't schedule another appointment with this person. You got a hundred people that are trying to schedule stuff with you, you know, so it's like, I have A deal with Eunice is like, let me run it by you first before I obligate myself. And just by trying to be nice to people, like, they'll interpret it like, oh, we're going to go into business together. It's like, no, I just like, say, well, try to talk. It's not a business. But, you know, so. But what I've learned though is that if you. You don't want people that are going to squash your ambitions, but you don't want people that don't have the critical thinking to help you evaluate it, you know, because we constantly like, what does a great copywriter does? They edit. They edit well. They have feedback loops of people at their level. Every great copywriter I've ever met, they have to write with a closed door. Devin brought that up in our meeting. But you have to do it with a closed door because creative in writing copy is not a group effort. Usually it can if you're writing scripts.

For a comedy show or something like that, but you have to write it alone.

Copy is written by committee. However, once it's written, you need people.

The best copywriters.

Gary Bensivenga, David Deutsch, Paris Lampropolis. Yeah, every single great copywriter I've ever.

Met runs their copy through a gauntlet.

At least one or two of copywriters at their level or above, and they reciprocate because they're going to tell them the truth.

It's like what I said before about John Carlton. Those of you who know John Carlton.

Is one of the great copywriters of all time. He was once a genius network member. Now he's just an old dude. Now he's just. I talked to him just like a few weeks ago. I got in touch with him also. He doesn't want to travel or anything, but he still as sharp as ever. And he will not. He would swear by this. In terms of having feedback loops. I have these seven keys to everything.

Every great copywriter I ever met, it's in my book.

The seven keys to every copywriter I.

Ever met, they have these characteristics, every one of them. And one of them is feedback loops. Only the best know that they need.

Their copy critiqued by the best, right? And if you're not gonna. And if you want to get it critiqued by a bunch of people who are your fans, good luck.

Okay?

I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos, that will be useful and awesome. Click here. Go ahead. You're over here. Do it now. Come on.

Thank you.

Watch them.