Are You Willing to Sacrifice in Order to Achieve Success and Personal Growth? Feat. Larry Winget

When it comes to criticism, what are the useful ways to use it and what are the non useful ways to use it? Because you have some interesting insights.

Well, I think the dumbest thing that was ever put together around the topic of criticism is the idea of constructive criticism. Construct means to build up. Criticize means to tear down. You cannot build up and tear down at the same time. So when someone says to me, I'd like to offer you some constructive criticism, I say, pick one. And they go, what? You can either build me up or you can tear me down. I'm a big boy. Pick one and let's go for it. And they're always, you know, it's that whole idea of sandwiching criticism. We've all heard that in every management class says if you're going to say something bad to an employee, you say something really nice and then you say your tough stuff and then you say something really nice. And what most of us call that is a shit sandwich. And regardless of the kind of bread you package it in, it still comes out tasting like shit. If you want to say something to me, I'm a big boy, say it. And so I'm a big believer in criticism as long as it's valid, as long as it's been researched, and as long as you're willing to do it face to face with me, you can say whatever you want to me.

Well, I mean, when someone says constructive criticism, what they're trying to say is they're not per se. Well, a lot of times it's disguise. It's a disguise way of trying to preface it so they can insult you and not make it look that way. I would look at someone that just wants to attack you and talk shit about you and take it personally versus someone that wants to per se, give you advice. But your whole thing in the book, grow up here, I mean, I don't know exactly where it is, but there's.

That's yours. Yours is yellow.

Yeah, see, when I read books, I make notes, all that sort of stuff, and everyone should, I mean, what's, you know? But the thing you say about criticism, you say our fragile little selves just can't stand to have anyone criticize us these days. Don't you dare tell me I'm not good at something. You might hurt my feelings. Well, to hell with your feelings. If you're a screw up, you need to hear that you're a screw up so you'll stop being one. If it hurts your feelings, good. Your feelings don't matter. When your results Suck. You need to get better. So stop whimpering and take your criticism. Criticism is how we grow. If you heard great job every time you attempted something, you wouldn't improve much, would you? So accept the criticism, even welcome it, take it like a man, even if you're a woman.

That's good stuff. Who wrote that?

It's very good stuff. So it is a great way to have people that have the capacity. That's a big cue. You said something really interesting early on is that people frankly don't change that much. I mean, most people that I come across right now, 10 years from now, they're just going to be a 10 year older version of themselves. What I do though is I'm like a pessimistic optimist. Though when I look out into the world, most of my viewpoint, I can sum up most people with three words. Not very inspiring because there's a lot of people that could do a lot in the world and they just simply don't. However, there are those that kick ass and take names. There are those that make breakthroughs, There are people that fuel the world forward. And that's the people that are interesting to me. That's what is interesting in myself in order to change the stupid shit in myself that can, you know, so I'm always constantly improving. I mean, anyone that would sit and watch this right now, on some level, it's either just interesting and intriguing to watch some bald dude with a crazy outfit that has like a strong attitude, that's one thing. But I think most people that would listen to my stuff watch what it is that I do. They're seekers. I mean, they're trying to better themselves. So their intentions are to make their lives better, to get an edge. And so that's mine too. When I jump into the whole self improvement, personal development world, I'm simply trying to become a better version of myself. But there's all of these things that stand in the way and there's these erroneous beliefs. And what I think your greatest asset for people is you're the guy that will point out shit and say things that no one else has the balls to say. Let's cover a couple of things that you mentioned in the book Nation of Weenies. Okay, so we live in this world.

And.

What'S that? I can't remember who said that quote. You know, the unreasonable man wants to adapt the world to himself. The reasonable man wants the world to adapt, and then the unreasonable man adapts the world to him. So therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable Man, I did not say that right at all. But the point is, you are in control of your world, not the world out there. So if the world is filled with a bunch of weenies, I mean, that's just going to be the way it is, right?

That is the way it is. I just don't choose to let them ruin my day. I don't choose to participate. It's just like. It's kind of like when you hear as you go into fall that cold and flu season is upon us. And you can say, I choose to participate or I don't choose to participate. When they say cold and flu season is here, some people go, oh, my God. And then they start to sniffle and they run to the drugstore and they start buying all that crap. And me, when I hear it's cold and flu season, I just say, not for me. So when I look at the world and I realize that the world is full of idiots who are, for the most part, broke and don't care about improving their situation, and for the most part, obese and for the most part, really doing a lot of stupid stuff, I can let that get me down or I can stay true to myself and do what I believe I need to do to make my world better. I would love to change the world. I would love for the world to be different. I think all of us would. Realistically, that's not going to happen. I can't change the world. Besides that, if the world changed, I'd be out of business. You'd be out of business. There'd be nobody left to buy our.

I love the fact that people suck at marketing because the fact that they suck at marketing allows me to make a pretty good living.

Exactly. And if everybody suddenly took responsibility for their lives and I paint in the front of this book, this utopic world that said, wouldn't it be great if the world was like this? It's not going to be that way. So I can control my world. And the only thing that allows me to go to sleep at night and feel good about my world is knowing that I did my best every single day. Not according to you, not according to anybody else. But I can look myself in the eye, in the mirror and say, I did my best. I did good job. I was the best version of Larry Wingate that I could be. Today. I feel good about myself. When somebody confronted me and insulted me, I handled it well, with dignity and with grace. But I didn't let him get by with it, which I think is important. And I Think that's the pair we've lost as well.

Do you ever cross the line? Sometimes where like you've got, I mean, you're talking about this all the time. People expect you to be this pit bull of personal development. You've sort of created this whole shtick about it. I mean, you're fine. I mean, do you ever accident go too far?

Oh hell, we all cross the line.

Well, I mean, how effective are you in terms of responding and knowing boundaries? Because I imagine you have boundaries. I mean, I think a lot of your boundaries are you draw lines in the sand of what you will and will not accept and also what you will and will not say to people. I mean, when does being honest, when does it actually you can go too far.

If someone is asking for my honesty, then I don't hold back. If you're asking for it, I'll give it to you. If they're not and I just see you being an idiot and you don't want my opinion, I don't feel compelled to share it with you. I think that would be rude. Sometimes when I accidentally cross the line, I am just as quick to apologize if I cross the line. And I think apologizing is also part of having a pair.

Well, yeah. And you have an interesting thing about saying I'm sorry. The ways to say sorry. Like a lot of people just run around and say I'm sorry for this.

We live in an awfully apologetic society. Cultures are built on being apologetic. You ever been to Canada? Yes, they're sorry. I love Canadians. But they just, it's built in their culture that, you know, you're, they're so nice. They're so nice all the time. Canadians are, and I admire that. But their culture is built on saying I'm sorry. And I, and I just had a big discussion with a bunch of Canadians this last weekend about that. That's sort of what they've been taught to do. And I think that's one of the problems with society right now is that we're sorry for being who we are. We're sorry for having beliefs, we're sor. For speaking our opinions. We built a whole language around that. I know that was some of the stuff that you pulled out of the book that you kind of like this language that we built that people say with all due respect, which means really, I don't respect you at all. And what I really want to tell you is you're a friggin idiot and get ready for it. They don't respect you. They just like to say that with all due respect, right before they say something really, really obnoxious to you.

What are some other things that you've said in there?

Because, oh, in my humble opinion, why is your opinion humb? Why? And why do you have to tell me in my opinion to begin with why? If you're saying it, obviously it's your opinion. We use weak language. That's one of the things I think we all have to get away from is our weak language. You will rarely hear me use. You'll never hear me say in my humble opinion or with all due respect, if I want to say something to you, I'll just say it. You won't hear me say I think. Why would I say I think? I'm saying it. We preface everything but just kind of water it down a little bit. Sort of that political correctness so we wouldn't dare offend anybody. If you think what you're going to say is offend somebody to the point that it bothers you, don't say it.

But what about political correctness?

I mean, I think that is one of the most castrating things that has ever happened to our society. Political correctness. I think that we're so careful, careful with everything we say so we won't hurt anybody's feelings, any group of people. We want to make sure that we say it just the right way way so we won't step on anybody's toes. And everybody's become so damn sensitive. I gave a speech and it's one of the examples I did in the book where I was told. I rarely tell jokes from the stage, but I told this joke. How's an Oklahoma tornado like a Texas divorce. Either way some old boy's gonna lose his double white. I thought, that's funny. I'm from Oklahoma and it was just one of those throw out things. And I kept right on going. And a woman came up at the end of the speech and she said, I do not appreciate you making fun of fat wives. And I said, I don't recall ever making fun of fat wives in my speech. She said that whole thing about double wives. I said, lady, that's a house trailer. She said, what? A double wide is a trailer, A mobile home. It has nothing to do with fat wives. Of course she weighed 400 pounds. So she was going to take offense, but she was looking for things to take offense to. Right?

Right.

And people are.

And that's where we are. We're looking for people to hurt our feelings and then when they do, we're Quick to be there.

I think it's really interesting too, because in so many there have been things that are so over the top. I mean, a race to. With reality tv. Take a show like Fear Factor back when. Just the shit that people would eat on, I mean, literally on camera. How hardcore pornography has come, how violence on television, all of these things that back in the 50s, I mean, comedians. So on some levels, things are just completely over the top. But the political correctness and the sensitivity, so bizarre.

We desensitize so many areas and that area, maybe that's our last bastion of hope is that we get, you know, we won't even call people fat anymore. You know, they're weight challenged. Yeah, you've probably been called follically challenged and people think that's funny. No, I'm bald. And, you know, I do this bit in my speech about fat people and a woman wrote me a nasty letter and she even called the office and said that I shouldn't talk about fat people. And she said, I am not fat. I am not fat. I'm big boned. Said dinosaurs had big bones. You're fat. You know, and why are we afraid to tell somebody they're fat? Why are we afraid for our kids to get a failing grade? We don't get failing grades anymore for little bitty kids that might hurt their feelings. Listen, if you didn't do the work you failed, you need to be aware of that. I have issues with political correctness.

I think you have issues with a.

Lot of things I do.

It's good.

And my issues are based on anything that's not honest. And I ask people to draw lines in the sand. One of the things I do in the book is say, tell me your five things that you, you will never compromise no matter what. What's your number one thing you'll never compromise?

Me. Incompetency. I mean, I'm thinking about in business and stuff.

Or you just don't tolerate incompetence or.

People that have no integrity. I mean, like, you know.

Okay, so now you have two. That's good. Keep going. You've probably got a handful if you thought about it, right?

Shitload of them.

Yeah. Yeah.

The number one thing for me is honesty. I won't lie to you. I just won't. And I won't be l to. That's the other thing. I will not tolerate dishonesty. You can come to me. My kids could come to me when they had screwed up. I said, you can call me any. I don't care how much trouble you're in. You tell me how much trouble you're in. You tell me the truth, and we'll work our way through it, and I'll punish you on the backside of this thing, but we will get through it right now. But don't lie to me. And I remember when teenagers were being teenagers, and everybody's going to, oh, God, we're in trouble. Who are we going to call? My kids would always say, we call my dad. He'll fix this thing right now, and he'll deal with all of us later. But we can call my dad. That's a much better place to be, especially as a parent. I just won't be lied to, and I won't lie to you.

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 joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. Oh, so someone's listening to this, and they're clearly either irritated and agitated by what you're saying, or they realize that, yeah, you know, I mean, he's saying stuff that absolutely applies to me, or I'm putting up with shit that I shouldn't be putting up with. I'm acting like a wussy. I mean, whatever. The. Everyone has their own way of how they process and hear information and knowledge. What's the best way for someone who is mature enough to realize they're fucked up and they want to unfuck themselves basically? Like, what is the quickest path to just, you know, getting rid of all the bullshit because you got to a place where you were just completely. I can't do this anymore. You know, this is like a facade. I mean, I'm gonna start being me. And I think there's a dream that people have to just, you know, you talk about it in the book. People will look at you and they'll gawk at you and they'll notice you. And sometimes they'll talk, you know, make fun of you or whatever, and you say, you know, I think a lot of people just secretly, you know, they just wish they could do this.

Yeah, I have CEOs that come to me, and they look me up from head to toe and say, wish I could. I go, how? You own the company. You're the boss. You can dress any way you want.

Right, right, right, right.

You're dressing for them.

Isn't that funny? When someone says that they're in a position to where they can do what.

They want and they actually they don't, they're living their lives for someone else. I'm really selfish. I know you are too. I'm a true hedonist. I know you are too. We do what we do to make ourselves happy, knowing that when we make ourselves happy, we ultimately make more other people happy. Right, right, right. When you're true to yourself and more people need to understand if they got true to themselves. And that's what this is about. Know what your know what you will never compromise on and be true to that and stop compromising. We sell out way too quick for no reason to impress people that we shouldn't give a damn about anyway. Why do we do that? That's sad. And to answer the question, it sort of starts with knowing what it really takes to be successful. I have a philosophy of success that says first, know what you want. And I tell everybody. Get three sheets of paper. And on one sheet of paper write down everything in the world the way it is right now in your life. Write down how it financially for you and physically for you and your relationship, everything. And then on the second sheet of paper, write down how you'd like for it to be. And then on the third sheet of paper, write what you're going to give up to get from the way it is to the way you want it to be. That's the most important sheet. And that's the one thing most people in self help never want to talk about. I believe success is based on sacrifice. I believe you have to be willing to give up. You don't get rich, you give up what's making you broke. You don't get skinny. You give up what's making you fat. You don't get happy, you give up what's making you unhappy. And it takes balls to give things up. The self help gurus, the motivational idiots out there will say, you can have it all. We've all heard that. You can have it all. No, you can't. You got to choose. It takes balls. You have to grow a pair to start to look at your life and say, I'm going to choose differently. I'm going to walk away from people and ideas and activities that don't move me closer to my goals. That's the first thing people can do. Gotcha.

Today I'm going to share with you 5 ways my dad lived his life that can help you live an even better one. The first way my dad lived his life is my dad would hustle. So I grew up in Tucson, Arizona and we lived on a busy street with lots of cars cruising by. And my parents years before had planted this big hedge to drown out some of the noise from the cars. And my dad would get the idea to trim the hedge every few months, but he wouldn't tell me and my brother. He would just wake us up at five in the morning on a Saturday after, as teenagers, we were out a little too late the night before and he'd come down the hall banging on the bedroom doors. Let's go troops. Everybody up. Let's go. We're trimming the hedge today. My brother and I would stumble out in the front yard, weary eyed, ready for the all day endeavor of trimming the hedge. You have to picture this. To trim the hedge, my dad would wear Bermuda shorts, a white tank top under shirt, white tube socks with red, white and blue stripes pulled up to his knees, and a red, white and blue headband. And all day he'd stand out there on the ladder trimming the hedge with all these cars flying by. And my brother Tom and I knew on Monday it was going to be awful because we're going to get all this grief from our friends about how dad was dressed, working on the hedge. I don't know if you ever had a mom or a dad who embarrassed you, but it was pretty embarrassing for us. But my dad hustled. Whether it was trimming the hedge or taking care of his patients in his medical practice. Practice, he hustled. And I learned that from my dad. I hustled my way to playing college basketball at 5 foot 9. I hustled my way to build our business with Mimi over the last 22 years. Can you hustle a little bit more in parts of your life? The second way my dad lived his life is he took care of his team. So as Timothy mentioned, he was in the South Pacific in a combat zone during World War II. He went over as an X ray technician. He worked his way up to the rank of sergeant and he ended up scrubbing in on the meatball surgeries, helping save the lives of the soldiers over there in the South Pacific. One high ranking surgeon, a lieutenant colonel, actually took a liking to my dad so he would have my dad scrub in on all his surgeries. The war ended. And even though the war ended, there were still a lot of surgeries because of booby traps and skirmishes with the Japanese, because a lot of the Japanese didn't know the war was over. They didn't have smartphones in those days, so there were still a lot of surgeries. And my dad was doing that. Well, his unit decided to throw a party, so they sent a private off to get alcohol. And unfortunately, when the captain called the unit together and asked my dad, all present and accounted for, the private wasn't back. My dad knew what would happen to that private if he told the truth. So he fibbed and he said, yes, sir. Well, the captain figured out that my dad had not told the truth. And this was a by the book military man. So even though the war was over, he decided to court martial my dad. The next day, my dad scrubbing into surgery with a lieutenant colonel. He said, sir, this may be the last day I scrub in with you. The lieutenant colonel said, what are you talking about? He said, well, the captain is court martialing me. The lieutenant colonel screams across the medical tent, bring me the phone. And they come over with a crank for phone. Get me the captain on the horn. They get the captain on the horn, hand the phone to the lieutenant colonel. Lieutenant colonel says, what is this I hear about you trying to court martial Sergeant Do? Cut it out. I need him in surgery, damn it. And slammed down the phone. And that was the end of the attempted court martial of my dad. But whether it was in World War II or in his medical practice, my dad always took care of his team. And now in our wealth planning business, we're up to 10. And Mimi and I both know we have to take care of our team. Can you take a little bit better care of your team? The third way my dad lived his life is he was disciplined. So when he retired, he got really into health and fitness. And just to give you an example, his Cardiovascular routine was three days a week for exactly 32 minutes in an exact heart zone, he would have one glass of red wine a night. Not one and a quarter, not one and a half, never two, Always. Exactly. My dad lived with discipline, and I learned that from my dad. I work out six days a week and I almost never miss. Could you use a little bit more discipline in your life?

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.

The fourth thing my dad did in living his life is, my dad was careful with money. So when I was 16, I had the privilege of driving the family's 1972 Chevy Impala. And it was brown and it was ugly. It was an old beater, but I was grateful to have it. Our car sat out in the sun because we didn't have a garage, we didn't have a carport. And after a while, the sun cracked the dashboard on the Impala in many places. So my dad took it down to the dealership to get a quote. My dad did not like the quote from the dealership. Two weeks later, he comes into the house, very excited, and he says to me, I fixed the Impala. I said, what do you mean, dad, you fixed the Impala? Yeah, the dashboard. I fixed the dashboard in the Impala. That always scared us because my dad was not good at fixing things. So quickly I ran out to the car to see what had happened, happened. And sure enough, my dad had fixed the dashboard on the Chevy Impala. What he did is he went down to the carpet store, bought a piece of shag carpet, and he super glued it on the dashboard. What my dad didn't know is when I was going to high school in Tucson, Arizona, in the 1980s, there were these. A lot of Hispanic, and Latino kids would create these lowriders. So they would take cars like Chevy Impala's, drop them low, they'd hang dice in the rearview mirror, and they would put carpet glued on the dashboard. So I got harassed all the time in high school for trying to be a lowrider, even though I didn't look like a lowrider. So that was a lot of grief my dad brought on with me. But my dad was careful with money, and I learned that from my dad. So every December, Mimi and I ask ourselves a simple question. How much more are we going to save and invest in the coming year than we did in the last year? And that one question has made all the difference.

Difference.

Could you be a little bit more careful with your money? And the fifth way my dad lived his life is he was the best at what he did. About 12 years ago, Mimi and I were at a memorial for a friend who unfortunately had passed away. And I bumped into an old friend of mine, Larry Seal. And Larry said, you have to come meet my mom, because your dad was my pediatrician and he was my brother's pediatrician. So he walks me over to his mother and he says to his mom, mom, this is Jim, Dr. Dew's son. She gives me this huge bear Hug. And she holds me for what seems like two minutes. She lets me go, and she has tears in her eyes, and she looks deep into my eyes and she says to me, your father saved my son's life. And I said, this goofball Larry? And she said, no, my other son. It turns out my dad had diagnosed something that was very rare and very hard to diagnose, and he caught it very early. And that saved her son's life. And as I think about my dad's legacy and all the kids he saved and the kids those kids had and the kids those kids are going to have, it's hard to measure the impact. Impact he's had on the world. When I think about my dad, I think about being the best financial advisor I can be, being the best husband I can be. Can you be a little bit better at some of the things that you do? So my dad's five life lessons. Number one, hustle. Number two, take care of your team. Number three, live with discipline. Number four, be careful with money. And number five, be the best at what you do. Isaac Newton said, if I've seen further than others, it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. And I'm thankful and I'm grateful that I get to stand on my dad's shoulders. And in some small way, after my talk today, maybe you can stand on his shoulders, too. If you lost someone you lost loved, just think of this. They're always with you in your heart and in your head when you think of them. And I think of my dad a lot. I love you, dad.

I'm going to ask you some, you know, which seem like so obvious questions, but coming from you, I'd like to hear your answer. So what is your advice on someone who wants to be more successful? And you've probably heard this a million times, but what's your advice? Because you're sitting in a room right now with already, from a financial standpoint, people that are in the top percentage of highest income earners in the world. And there's other people that are going to listen to the recording of this.

Well, the first thing I'd say is, biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. So I don't care. Care where you are in your station in life. All right, there's plenty to go. I have on my tombstone. Oh, he wrote it out. What does it say? He couldn't sleep fast enough. I don't want to miss anything. I want to go to sleep. I'm afraid that I'll miss Something with the whole world out there and 7.2 billion people, and it's just 208 countries, approximately. Things are happening every single day. They're getting their MBAs from Harvard, from Siberia. I mean, it's just unreal that there's so much out there. So we're not talking, of course, about money. Everything I write about is not, yes, it's going to unequivocally make you more money. I believe It'll make you 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 times what your net worth is today if you have three things. I don't interview anybody for a job. Once I find out, okay, that they don't have it, I don't hire again. Anybody. They have to have three things. Number one, to be a hungry fighter. Number two, they have to be a hungry fighter. Number three, I have to. To be a hungry fighter. Now, I start with ethics and integrity first, and then that goes the rest. I don't mentor anyone. I've mentored a lot of people over a lifetime, but unless I know that they're going to practice the right concepts, then there's no question about it. All right? No sense spending any time with them. So that's all up to you. But what you're doing really here is you. Yes, you're making solid money and you want to make more. But guess what? You want to be happy and you want choices. So I love money. I just love to make money. Why is that? Because it gives me choices. Time. Time. We all started out in life with one thing in common. We all have the same amount of time. Now it's just a matter of what we do with it. And so I'm a time management management freak just so I can get in everything. I mean, at my age, quite frankly, I always had about five to seven years. I really think I've lived seven years longer than what my age is. And that's because of time management freak, which I learned from my father. So to be successful, back to your question. Let me just say this. Practice makes perfect. That's not true. Perfect practice makes perfect. Practice something time and time again. And if you don't know what you're doing, all you're doing is perfecting an error. You put a ceiling on how good you can become. I've studied the Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Arabic languages. Quite frankly, people think. They think I'm a heck of a linguist. Catch that? Guess you'll have to take my word for it. Actually, I'm a lot slower learner than most of the people whom I started my Language classes with. But there's one marked difference. I started with all of them, but I finished and they didn't repeat. I started with all of them, but I finished and they didn't. In Japanese, it might take 200 hours. Chinese, 400. Arabic, 300 hours, Russian, 250. But eventually, the breakthrough does come. And when it does, it's like a stone cutter hammering away at his rock hundred times without a dent in it. And yet, on the 101st blow, the rock was split in two. And, you know, it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before. So if you're not willing to practice and practice till you get it right, you'll never make the breakthrough. Okay, on the 101st blow, real simple. Fast, fast example. Okay, let's take Chinese. Yeah, it's a tough language. No question about it. The reason why it's tough is that approximately 30% of all the words have four totally different meanings. They're all spelled the same, same way. Yen is an everyday word. You know, how would you pronounce yen four different ways? Let me help you. Yen. Yen. Yin. Yin. Now, this yin means salt. This yin means cigarettes. This yin means to perform. This yen means to swallow. So if you want to count from one to 10 in Chinese, goes, er. Sounds perfect, part makes perfect. Now, I submit to everyone in this room. We make the decision. Every one of you, you're going to learn Chinese. I want to know, show of hands, how many can do it? You make a commitment, learn Chinese. How many think they can do it if they make a commitment, make the commitment, you're going to do it. How many can get the result? All right, and we got 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 hands. Piece of cake. There's over a billion 400 million people that speak Chinese. Chinese. Everyone in this room can learn to speak Chinese. Quick example. My son, he's at Stanford. He's right at the absolute peak of his learning career. I'm an old fogey, okay? 20 years out of school, whatever, and we decided to go to Japan. So we take Japanese, we go to berlitz language school. Three weeks into the classes, I'm on page approximately, approximately 35. He's on page 100. So what? So he's three times faster than I am. I still got there. Took me, you know, three times longer. And so every one of you can do that. Now, if I can talk about this for a moment, I've made a list. And I have approximately 20 coaches. I have a coach for everything. I have a speech coach. I have a language. I have a humor coach. I have a tennis coach. I have a golf coach. I have a marathon coach who's been by my side all 10 of those marathons. I have, as you know, a language coach. I have a dancing coach. According to my wife, thanks to my wife, I have a memory coach out in New York. On and on and on and on. 20 of them. Why do I have all these coaches? Because whatever my God given talent is, whatever my God given potential is, that's it. I can't do any better. I'll have a project time and action important time and action calendar. Go get the best advice I can in the world, not the United States. Study it, practice it, try my guts out. And guess what? I don't give a damn about the result. Because I can't do anymore. I've lived my whole life that way. Can't do anymore. I've written all those columns and books and everything, and basically it comes down to three words. Prepare to win. Boring. Would you rather buy Beware the naked man who offers you a shirt. Or prepare to win. Would you rather buy this book? Okay, all right. You haven't hit your peak yet. Or prepare to win. Would you rather dig your well before you're thirsty? No, but that's the three simple, basic things. Prepare to win. And as I say, very boring. But that's the reason why I never worry. Because the only time you're nervous is if you're not prepared to do something you're supposed to do. I talked to 15,000 people in Vegas three weeks ago and launched a new company which we'll be talking about in a little while. And why should I be nervous as long as I prepared my guts out, which I did do, but if I didn't, I have to come out there and fake it. Holy cow. I'd be so nervous. So I submit to each and every one of you. Yeah. Go through your entire life and you give it all you you got and you prepare to win. And you do your homework and you seek advice and the probability goes dramatically up that you will perform well. Do you experience something? No. No, it's good.

Do you experience fear?

Do I have fear? Yeah. No. No. Fear of failure. It can be fear of anything. Be fear of living, fear death, of dying. There can be fear of. No, no, I would.

Did you ever.

Well, these are all kinds of questions you'll have never answered before. You know. Have I ever time to think? Yes. Yeah, I can think of one time for sure. Yeah. I had very, very serious prostate Cancer that had spread. And that's a real problem, trust me, knock on wood. All luck, I got out of it. I'm still here 25 years later. So yes, that was a medical fear for sure. And other than that, no life threatening. Well, I guess I did have one other one. Another quick, quick story if I can. I'm talking to a thousand people. It's in New York, it's seven, eight years ago and it's at a theater. Theater goes straight up, the floor is cement. And I'm 30 minutes into my speech and I faint dead away, hit my head, all kinds of blood, blood everywhere. They tell me I was unconscious. They get 911 there in three minutes and they take me to the hospital. And two days later, what did I do? I had E. Coli in my blood, blood system. And then I flew myself to my wife, came and got me, flew to The Mayo Clinic, 23 days in the hospital. And that was a pretty good chance, might not make it. So that's the medical fear that I've had. Now the reason why I tell you that story is the CEO of the company called back and he little hemming and hawing and he said, you know, after about a couple months later, he said, and he paid me obviously an obnoxious honorarium. He said, how about you coming back and finishing that speech? And I said, well, of course, obviously I will. So roll back, same audience, same theater, straight up, same kind of floor.

How much further along, how many months.

Later was it four or five months then three, four, five months. And so and they pull the curtain and I come out from behind the curtain and say, he's got the introduction. I got, you know, 30, 45 minutes left on my speech, pulls the curtain and I'm in a wheelchair with my leg up and bandaged and bandages around my head and I've got a server, you know, caretaker, wheeling me out to the podium. They lift me up, okay, and I lean over and I said, as I was saying. Now the reason I tell you that story is because creativity, and this is the most creative guy on the planet, you know that I haven't told you anything. But you don't know him. I admire him just tremendously. But creativity to add creativity to your life. I wasn't creative, but I got a creative coach and she taught me how to be creative. And everyone in you in the room, there's no correlation, zip, zero, none, nada correlation between IQ and creativity. Every person and write it down in this room can become way more creative than you ever dreamed about. That's the reason why I happen to mention it. Also, I hire after I go for integrity, after I go for hungry fighter. Right up at the top is creative, creative people. And I just love them. And I'm doing it all the time. And I could keep here 24 hours to tell you what I've pulled in my lifetime on creativity. Let me. That goes to ethics, if I can. I would like to read one finger, though, and that is as follows, because I mentioned ethics. You gotta be. You gotta absolutely be. Well, don't hire anybody unless you've got the ethics, okay? So I call this always act like your mother is watching. And I want to talk about ethics then just for a few minutes, because it's right at the top of my list. There's been a consistent gradual decline in ethical behavior. I think American corporations and in The United States, 50 straight years, just my opinion, it's been going down. And I'm talking about from senators to congressmen to state politicians. I'm talking religious institutions. I'm talking businesses and businessmen. I'm talking athletics. I'm talking education. Harvard and Stanford in the last five years. Huge, huge cheating scandal and just goes on and on and on. So I want to give you an example, okay, of what ethics is. Very, very succinctly, a mother was invited for dinner at her son Brian's apartment. During the course of the meal, Brian's mother couldn't help but notice how beautiful Brian's roommate Jennifer was. Brian's mom had long suspected a relationship between Brian. Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between them than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, Brian volunteered, I know what you must be thinking, mom, but I assure you, Jennifer and I, we're just roommates. About a week later, Jennifer came to Brian saying, you know, ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find that beautiful silver, silver gravy ladle. You don't suppose she took it, do you? Well, I doubt it, Brian said, but I'll send her an email just to make sure. So he wrote, Dear Mom, I'm not saying that you did take the gravy ladle from the house, and I'm not saying that you did not take the gravy ladle, but the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here for dinner. Love, Brian. Several days later, Brian received a email back from his mother. Dear son, I'm not saying that you do sleep with Jennifer, and I'm not saying that you do not sleep with Jennifer. But the fact remains that if Jennifer had been sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the ladle by now. McKay's moral, if you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters. So, anyway, I'm looking for humor all the time. I'm looking for creativity. It's everywhere there. And I just submitted and challenge everybody in the audience to don't be boring, don't be predictable. Don't ever send another letter, you know, without thinking about it. Don't ever send another email, a text without thinking about it, without maybe putting a little bit of humor in there. Don't ever give a gift, you know, creativity and gifts. I could talk about that for an hour without giving it a lot of thought. Don't ever, ever make a call on anyone, any customer, someone important, without giving a lot of thought. Don't ever pick up the phone, which is just really a powerful tool like you've never seen. Without thinking and writing down. Pale ink is better than the most retentive memory. I just repeat that. Pale ink is better than the most retentive memory. Write it down. So when I'm calling a customer, I know exactly what my opener is. I know what the middle is. I know how I'm going to ask for the order at the end. Very, very important. And then with some humor, too. So that's my philosophy, one of them, yeah. That's great.

So you with your books, with your talks, with your articles, with radio, I mean, everything that you've done over the years, what are you really? What do you really, really hoping happens to the people that you reach? What are you really trying? You're teaching business principles. But so much of what you do is about connection, and it's about relationships and it's about longevity. What do you wish will come out of, like, say, a reader of your new book as an example? What do you want to have?

I can go back to how you become successful, and I can go back to answering that question indirectly. But so, so, so important. And again, it's pretty much my whole life, and that is to be described very simply. When my father got a hold of me, age 18, went out of high school, going to college, lost my mother, breast cancer, age 49. He taught me the following. Hi, I'm Harvey. Hi. You're Joe, right? To my brain bank, I say to myself, and this has been going on since age 18. Right. To my brain bank, I say to myself, how can I help, Joe? What can I do? For Joe. How can I add value to Joe's life? And that's how I've lived my life all the way up right till today. With one caveat. I added one thing that I thought was very relevant. Relevant, very substantive. This is key. Expect nothing in return. And I just again, submit to each and every one of you. Try it just 90 days, 180 days. This is anyone that you're going to be in touch with now, someone you're not going to be in touch with. I have a way of doing it because I can send him or her a book or something like that. But everybody you meet that you, you know, you're going to be in touch with, just delve into that brain and try to find out a little bit about them. And that can come back to the case 66, at a later time here, a few minutes later. That's. That's what I do. That's what I practice. That's what I'm looking for. There's no substitute for helping people get what they want. And you've all read it, you all know it. Most of you, you don't know not to expect to, you know, not expect nothing in return, necessarily all of you. But if you try it again, 60, 90 days, 120 days, you won't believe it. When you get up in the morning, it's exciting to get up in the morning because you're looking forward to helping some other people. And then with my contacts, I can reach, oh, approximately 20 million people in three days. I've been doing it since age 18. And my father, again, headed that Associated Press for 35 years. He taught me the whole Rolodex, which is, of course, now, today, the computer. And again, everybody I meet. Hi, Joe. Hi, Harvey. Boom. I know I want to keep in touch with him right in the Rolodex computer today. Now, here's the key little bit about them on the back of the card. And then the bigger key is find a creative, underlying, creative way to keep in touch. That's what I've been doing.

Let's dissect this a little bit. First of all, I want to set it up because you are a true master at connecting and networking with people. And so I call it genius networking because my whole thing is I think any problem in the world can be solved with the right genius network, which is a group of people with skills and capabilities. In order to have a genius network, you have to do genius networking and you have to be a genius networker. So it's a be do have. And I think through that, you can accomplish almost anything. Now, I want to frame this with. About not just going out and connecting with people and being of value to people, but also who you really become friends with.

Because.

Because the way that you know a lot of very influential leaders. I mean, Muhammad Ali was one of your best friends, and you just know everybody. And the way that I determine who's going to be part of my core inner circle and who isn't is I look at people who are more powerful. How do they treat people that are less powerful than them? Do they say thank you when someone opens the door? Are they nice to servers or. Or do they only kiss ass to people that are above them or that they want something from. And they treat their teams and everyone else like crap. And so I'm always observing powerful people and how courteous they are, how caring they are, and my interactions with you. You've always been very caring around people, and that's what I've always admired about you. And you've taught literally millions of people how to connect with other people. So everyone here has the ability to deepen their relationships, bond with their clients at deeper levels, develop not only business relationships, but great friendships. And you're a master at doing this stuff. So I'd like to. And you talked about McKay, 66, right?

Perfect. It was perfect.

Yeah. So I'd love for you to talk about that. Not just business relationships, but relationships in general.

Well, let me tell another story to illustrate part of your point. You better know who's buttering your bread. Very, very, very important. And there's a superstar businessman who walked into the Philadelphia restaurant, sat down, the busboy comes up with a pat of butter and a roll. And he says, I'd like another pat of butter. Busboy says, one pat of butter to a customer, sir, don't you know who I am? Said, no. Who? My name's Bill Bradley. Graduated number one in my class. Princeton University. First string All American basketball. First string all American academic basketball. First round draft choice, NBA elected Rhodes Scholar, elected U.S. senator. Those are very impressive credentials, Mr. Bradley. Don't you know who I am? No, who? I'm the man in charge of the butter. And to your point, there will always be someone in charge of the knives and the forks and the butter and the plates. And we have to be nice to everyone. It's important to be nice, but nice to be important. And you can't ever, ever forget that I was last night for dinner. Hundred people. Paradise Valley Country Club, 15 minutes from here. Piano Player, violinist, playing some music. And, you know, 100 people in the room, birthday for a fellow friend of mine. And I get up and the middle. And I walked over to him because I meant it sincerely. You're not sincere. None of this counts. You must be sincere. I told him I love their music because they're playing music of the old age. People like myself, a little bit younger, but. But I told him how much I enjoyed his music. I'll bet he sat there for the last 10 years not having anybody come up for background music, telling him, but that to me meant something because I loved the music. And I. Well, I'm a good singer in the shower. I'm really good. I'm big in the shower. I'm a really big singer. So back to now. Then another part of my life, major part of my life. I'm 18 years old, I go to college, got my degree, think I'm really big, know it all and so forth. And I get out of college, age 21, go to work for an envelope manufacturer company. They throw the yellow pages at me. Good luck, kid. And just didn't have a chance. I really had problems the first six months. And interesting fellow's name was Carpenter. Came back one day and my dad asked me to find the old grizzly there. And I said, you know, ask him for advice. I said, tell me, how long do you calling a customer? And. And he said to me, it depends on which one of us dies first. And that's again when I learned my persistence. I would never, never, never give up. So then I'm calling on 300 accounts in the Twin Cities, St. Paul, Minneapolis, 21 years of age, having a problem. And one day I just decided, hey, I'm going to humanize my selling strategy. I'm going to find out as much as I can about all 300 buyers. I'm going to come up with 66 questions, and it's called the McKay 66. I want to know where they were born, I want to know where they went to school. I want to know about the spouse, I want to know about the kids. I want to know about their names. I want to know what turns them on. I want to know what his political persuasion is. I want to know him or her, how many jobs they've had, what turns them on. And I came up with these 66 questions. And for the rest of my life, till today, even last night, I have kept the 66 basically on every single human being that I want to keep in touch with. Someday I'll read you yours. Yeah, okay. But that absolutely took Swim with the Sharks to five minutes. Million copies in one year. My guys were crazy. Salesperson, how can you give this away? It's crazy. I said, look, nine out of 10 people aren't going to do it. And we're 30 years ahead of the people that are going to do it. So I'm going to share it with the world. Which I in fact did do. So little aside if I can with Swim with the sharks and 5 million being creative, I, I want to be the first one to say this is 30 years ago. Money back guarantee. If you don't like, swim with the sharks. I'm not sure I was the first one. I don't know. I couldn't prove it. But I had a three week fight, World War Three with my publisher, William Morrell and Company. Interesting. Okay. I finally prevailed. They sold five million copies. 27 people asked for their money back. Seven of them were my best friends. I guess they wanted to keep me humble. So Back to the McKay 66 then. You want to go deep with every relationship and what we teach at McKay Mitchell Envelope Company, which is my partner now, what we teach is, guess what? This is not just for customers. This is for suppliers. I want the best ink company in the country. I want the best box manufacturer, the best carton manufacturer. I want the best paper supplier. Anyone who walks through our front door. There is no difference between a customer and a supplier. We keep 66 on everyone. And when I'm out calling and still call, making calls, of course, then that gatekeeper is really important. He or she very, very important. So I keep a 66 too on the gatekeeper. And it's just real simple, that's all. This is another fabulous story. Red buttons. None of you, none of you, any of you ever heard of red buttons? Oh, my God. God. I thought the median age here is about 35. A bunch of millennials have got here. It's loaded. Anyway. Red buttons. This is just brilliant. One of the funniest comedians ever lived. So he told this story that he was on the city, 52 circuits, you know, 52 cities. You go out and back, out and back. For his whole life, every time he came back to the hotel room after having dinner or meeting some people, guess what he did? He made out his holiday card, his Christmas card. He put right in there. Their son is, Jody is so and so going to graduate. Did he get his soccer team? He wrote something from what he learned because it was fresh in his mind. And then he mailed them all at Christmas Time they thought he was a genius for 40 years. Best memory in the history of the world. But it's just again, little creative idea. But wow, you know what?

I've actually heard you say that before, and that's one thing I have not yet done. And that is a freaking fabulous idea. And first off, you know, I'm curious to see with like the Internet age. See even your terminology. We call on customers right now. You say that to a young person. I mean, this is like, there's no Internet. You physically go visit them in person, you call them on the phone, you are doing manual labor in order to go and connect with people. And we now live in this day and age where people don't make phone calls, they don't go and visit people. Some do. And the ones that do have an incredible advantage. People don't use direct mail, they don't do cards, they don't do postcards. I've said this to thousands of people. One out of 100 ever does it. But I was like, if you want to improve your connections and your network, mail out 10 postcards, letters, anything physical. I mean, even if you text or do email, it's going to be better than what most people do. But you genuinely, every day, five days a week, you don't even have to do seven days a week. It'd be 20 times a month. And if you did that for an entire year, a year from now, your network will be off the fricking charts. Your connections, your relationships, how people appreciate. And no one does this stuff.

Short notes yield huge results. I've been sending notes all my life. No one can talk me out of this thing. Nobody can. President Bush, Father Bush, and Clinton, more Bush than Clinton. Never, never, never would have been President of the United States without sending out short notes. I mean, I met Bush in an airport with his roommate who was a friend of mine. I got a note the next day. Not just a total stranger in an airport, he sent out notes his whole life. So what I do is I scan. You don't know what newspaper means, but anyway, I scan the newspaper. I look, listen to television. I'm looking, I'm looking to catch someone doing something right? I'm looking for someone that just became, okay, they just made an acquisition. Their daughter, again, just did this. Their son did this. And I'm looking to write that note. I have, I'm up to now 700 people that I wish happy birthday to. So every day, you know, I've got one or two or three. Sometimes I got six, sometimes I have none been doing that since age 20. And boy, I want to tell you, when you remember someone's birthday and you just call them, that's all it is just remarkable of what happens. And then we teach our sales force they have to know the birthday of their customers, right? Yeah. Have to know the birthday of their customers. And guess why? Because they go see them with a creative gift. They don't buy their business, they come with a creative gift and they walk in and see them on their birthday. You can't believe how much our sales force writes up the business on someone's birthday. And I guarantee you nine out of 10 competitors, they don't think about that. And just back to the book then for a minute. Up until this book, I've gone to 25 cities, all seven books. Again, lucky to be on Oprah and Larry King and Good Morning America and all the shows. But then I would go to Kansas City and I go to Sacramento and I go to all these little towns where the big hitters don't go with my 25 cities. They roll out the red carpet. Austin, Texas. I mean I just remember all these book signings. So no one does book signings around the United States, you know, unless you're a major political figure. Almost nobody. But I went did all that one on one. There's no substitute for one on one. I've made, tried to make five to ten. Yeah. Somewhere about five to ten business deals where I get on the phone and I tell them I would like to come and see you for 300 seconds. That's all I need. And the people have said yes. I fly 4,000 miles, 2,000 over, 2,000 back for 300 seconds. Because that 300 seconds, one on one, that if we get the order, we will perform. I will be your 911. Okay? You can call me 24, 7. This means a lot to us. You can say a lot in five minutes. Say goodbye. I almost always get the order I've so far and this is as braggadocious as it gets and as self serving as it gets, but not intended to be. So I have never called on a person that I haven't sold my entire business career. Never. Assuming not, you know, if there's a piddly little accountant and we can't get return on investment, anybody we wanted to sell. And my sales force, our sales force, they're way up there in the percentages too. And 80 to 90%, everybody, they go, why in the case 66 little things mean a lot. Not true little things mean everything. And by doing all these little things over a period of a lifetime, that adds up to success. Incidentally, my definition of success is having a predetermined plan, successfully carrying it out over a long period of time. All right, and having a damn good time doing it. It's just simple 88 IQ stuff, but it's simple.

What do you regret in your life if you do?

If anything, yeah, I certainly have regrets. Biggest business disappointment is when I regret. I call it dig your well before you're thirsty. Another title of one of my books. But I regret coming to work and having a 12 week strike. We have one bad year in 50 years. 50 plus years, whatever. When they struck us for three months, that was a big, huge business regret because I didn't think they were going to do it. And I got a little bit cocky and confident. We never had a strike in the history of the state of Minnesota in our industry. And boy, that one really hurt. Three months of being shut down. I regret. If I could come back, back in a second life, I would like to be a college basketball coach. I'm a basketball junkie. All sports. I mean, I love all sports. Just again, as a brief aside to show you how addicted I am, I've been to 13 straight Olympics. Summer Olympics.

You gone to the Olympics in Japan?

Oh, I got my room already. Come on. But, but, and I have to be. I can't see. Yes, unequivocally. Because I just heard yesterday that it's 95 out there every day. So I might just fly in for opening ceremony and come back. I don't know. But I go for 17 days. That's all it lasts is 17 days. I go to three to five events. I see ping pong, table tennis. I see the horses. I know nothing about. Okay, question. I go to every single sport there is. Why? Because I just happen to love competition. I mean, I love you guys, but if on the other side of that wall, two women, let's say 85 years old, were playing tennis and it's tied in the third set, I'd rather be over there watching them talking to you guys. It's a true statement. That's a true statement. I love competition. And so, and you can really learn something from, you know.

Okay, so what you're saying about competition, because I've had this sort of, this thought of curiosity about listening to everything you've said, everything I've, you know, we've had, we've done interviews before, we've hung out a lot. I mean, we spent a good chunk of Time together in the past Super Bowl.

It's a Super Bowl. Yeah, yeah.

What is it about? Because, you know, you love competition. You are persistent. You said you've always made sales. Why do people fail? I mean, you talk about preparation and all that, but I mean, genuinely, what is the mindset or the behavior etched, to use the word etched. It was shared with me earlier by Dr. Dr. Ramani that I've etched in my name. I'm saying names wrong. You have etched in you success and winning and you love competition and you're wired that way. And there's a lot of people that will maybe listen to you and be like, I'm not Harvey. I can't do. I don't know how he has. I wake up every day in fear. I mean, this guy had to search his brain to figure out like a moment when I was afraid. I don't worry. And you say things like that. And I genuinely, I mean, you're a funny, happy guy, it appears, most of the time. And every time I've seen you, and a lot of people may listen like, I can't do this shit.

What?

But you've trained so many people to win. I mean, you are a champion of success. So. And everyone can pontificate their self help theories and beliefs and everything, like, what is it about a winner and a, a loser? What makes the difference?

Well, first of all, I'm not trying to clone any single person in this room. I mean, a person's life equals the total sum of his or her experiences. I've had a lot of experiences. Tongue in cheek here. A little bit. My father said to me once, second is last. And of course, he was just kidding. I really liked coming second. All my life, everything I ever did, if I come in second or you come kidding me, it'd be terrific. But let me just, let me just add one thing. If you go ask a thousand business persons, men and women, highly successful, forget about making money. Yes. CEOs, presidents and all that, with great lives. You know, a lot of charitable work, everything. Thousand of them. How'd they make it? How'd they make it? Guess what? I'm going to give you the answer. I'm going to give you the answer. 90% of them will all say the same word. Somebody want to guess what that one word is? How about. You'll get this one.

Perseverance.

What? Grit.

Higher.

Higher. Okay, the word is nine out of ten. Just trust me, I know I'm right on this one. Because I've spent my lifetime asking everybody mentor. They all had a mentor. And I want you to all maybe write this down because you won't know what it means. Bass are where you find them. Repeat. Bass are where you find them. What's that mean? Well, mortgage money is where you find it. Mentors are where you find. They're out there. There are more people, believe it or not, willing to mentor you than there are people out asking to be mentored. But everyone never say no. Another just aphorism of mine, never say no for the other person. Let them say no. I can't sell him, I can't sell her. He won't mentor me, she won't mentor me. Right? Never say no for the other person. Let them say no. I mean, I've got 30, 40 people in Minneapolis. People I don't know come up to me in a lifetime. And I mentored them, you know, full charge, zero. That's all changed their life. Yeah, I think so. But I said zero. I mean, you know, they just happen to be creative. Sent me one shoe, I'd like to get the other shoe in the door. I remember that one. But they become creative, they read my material, they never say no for the other person, they call up. And so everyone in this room has to practice that also. But you can't do it all by yourself. You really can't over a lifetime. And here's another fallacy. People don't understand mentors. Everybody thinks mentors are older than you are. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've got 35 year old mentors. I mean, the best guys, they happen to be men. I'm sorry, one's a woman as of two months ago. But in the whole world as to the Internet and what they know and so they can counsel me. You know, I've got a social media coach too, one of the 20 coaches. So mentors can be younger as well as older. And mentors change over a period of a lifetime. So that's very, very important. From my perspective, that's how you, that's how you learn all these things that you just talked about, you know, and you want to go deep, you want to have a relationship. And it's not money, money, money, it's you want choices, you want happiness. When you get them both, there's just no substitute. And again, I love, love, love to make money because it buys me time. Yeah, that's big. What money does? It buys me time. Love it.

So let me take you back to 1997. I had just joined EO, the entrepreneur organization. I failed at a high School. I talked my way into college, only to then drop out of college. 14 schools. The only diploma I ended up with was kindergarten. True story. And what did I learn? I learned that I love to learn, but not in school. So I approached the entrepreneur organization. You needed a million in revenue to get in. Bingo, I'm there. After eight years of slow growth, I'm now joining this organization of great smart people that have shared passions of growth. But what I started to do, I made my first mistake entering into that group. As I started comparing myself to others, I started to look around and say, ah, businesses way bigger than 1, 800 got junk more glamorous than garbage removal. And I just thought, who am I? No high school education, not a lot of money, maybe not a lot of brains. I was thinking, stuck. And I really started to go in a bit of a doom loop downward spiral. And I questioned what I wanted to do and how I could even get there. So September 17, 1997, I go to my parents little cottage on the water. I pull out a sheet of paper and I sit down. You know, it was a dock similar to this stage. I sat down on the edge and I said, brian, you're an optimistic person. Stop thinking of this. Think of pure possibility. What could the future look like, feel like, and act like? If only I could imagine it. So I took out the sheet of paper and I feverishly wrote. It was a Jerry Maguire type moment. We will be in the top 30 metros in North America by the end of 2003. I said we'd be the FedEx of junk removal, clean shiny trucks, friendly uniform drivers. We'd even be on the Oprah Winfrey Show. I took the sheet of paper and I was out of my dad doom loop. I had chills and shivers of just going, wow. I can actually see the picture that was in my brain now. Down in writing, I started to share it with others. Two interesting things happened. Number one, it separated people into two camps. I had employees who said, brian, I don't know what kind of hope dope you're smoking, but good luck with that. And they left. I had another half that said, this is really compelling. I love your story, I love what you see and I want to be of a part, part of it. And those people stayed and became a part of it. It became the most powerful recruiting tool I could ever create. How did we do top 30 metros? We were 90 days out from making it happen when one employee comes up to me and said, Brian, we're at 28 of 30 metros we're missing Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. Cameron and I went screaming through the office, posters up everywhere. Who do you know in Pittsburgh? Who do you know in Milwaukee? We made the top 30 half. We made Oprah happen. We made 96% of what was in that painted picture happen.

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 joesfreebook.com and you can get.

A copy there now.

Why science would say that it's your reticular attitude activating system. We all know when we're in an airport, we're stressed, we're about to miss a plane. We hear our name over the loudspeaker. You pay attention, your mind pays attention. As Dan Sullivan says, your eyes and your ears focus on what your brain needs to know. A painted picture tells people what is important. Not just the entrepreneur, but what do you want every person in your company to be aligned around when they're faced with tough decisions? What are they zoning in on? What's their North Star? So we made these things happen. The company started to grow. Cameron and I set a hundred million dollar painted picture, and we looked another five years out together. And what was interesting about that time was we had to make decisions moving quickly. We needed to know that everybody was aligned. Now with Cameron, I remember he would say, brian's the vision guy. He came up with 100 million. I'm the executor. I'm just going to reverse engineer and make all the math magic happen. Sort of true. But I think Cameron did not give himself credit at the time. He knew a lot more about vision and how to make it happen than he let on. So I said, cameron, you say you can't think about vision. You can. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, money's not an object, where would you go? I don't remember his response, but he set it out quickly. He told me what the beach looked like, who was with him, the cold corona in his hair. And he described everything about that dream vacation. And I said, see, you just need someone to ask you questions, and vision can happen. One of the most grateful gifts that I think Cameron ever gave to me and to my companies is the ability to ask probing questions. In creating a painted picture, you just need someone to pull it out from within you. It's already in your heart. It's in your mind. What do you want? So let me take you from business to a personal story. Get vulnerable here for a second. I don't normally share this with big crowds, but I was with the Same woman for 19 years, high school sweetheart. I questioned myself in and out of that relationship a few times. Ten years later, we get married, we have a baby together. I was a total jerk. And I leave the marriage right after having a baby. It was the right decision at the time for me. I was a total jerk. But my life started to fall apart in many ways and it started to affect my business. Until Dan, one of my my entrepreneur buddies, said to me, you know, you got a great painted picture for your business. I bet you don't have one for your personal life. What are you going to do about it? So I retreated and started writing one out for my personal life. And I know that you share painted pictures with your loved ones and those around you. So I remember after I wrote it, I shared it with Cameron. Here's my vision. And one line stood out to him. It was about my ex wife saying that we will always be best friends and cheerleaders in each other's courts. Cameron said, lisa hates you. She will always hate you. There's no way this will ever happen. And I said, well, it's in my vision. I believe I see it. I'm going to work my butt off to make it happen. And sure enough, I did. Proof of that is when I went dating and looking for my next marriage, my last marriage. I got out there and I was tired of dating. So I started to write down everything I was looking for. Personality, interests, height, eye color, everything. And I get a phone call from my ex wife, Lisa. We're now great friends and cheerleaders in each other's courts. And she says, so, Brian, I know you've been looking for someone. I found her. I said, my ex wife is not going to set me up on a blind date. I'm sorry. She pushed me for a year. We went on the blind date. I actually looked at my list the night after my blind date and went, holy crap, that is magic. So, painted picture. I ended up getting introduced from my ex wife to my new wife. Couldn't be happier, found my soulmate. Life's all great and works like magic. Let me give you one last example to conclude on on a business side. We were 2012. Cameron was out of the company at this point in time. We had a great growth trajectory together. But then the financial meltdown happened 08 09. I had a failed COO I brought in that didn't work out. And things were rough. My franchise partners lost faith in me. And it was 2012. We did a conference in Vegas, brought everyone together, about 600 people. And Cameron and I had this concept, lean into the future. It's leaning into five years ahead to see what things look like, feel like, act like in creating a painted picture. So as a leader, I had to go out and create the next painted picture when people didn't believe about growth. So I said, we will double our business in five years time. And I'll read you something I wrote that I read out as I walked. You're just checking in on Facebook. Where is it? Okay, So I walk out on stage to get people to lean into the future with me. I carried a surfboard, full size. I was dressed in total surfer gear. We had Hawaiian music. We greeted everyone at the door in leis. People had mai tais. Hawaiian shirts was mandatory to get in. And I read this. I got everybody to close their eyes. But you don't have to do this. I said, you are sitting by the beach, 12ft from the shore, watching the sunset on the horizon. You feel the warm, inviting Hawaiian breeze. You hear the sounds of celebration all around you. Music, shared laughter, the clinking of glasses. Surrounded by summer, your closest friends and family, you pause to reflect on the pride you're feeling. In every entrepreneur's journey, there is a dream, a dream of what is possible, a vision of what success looks like. You have achieved yours, you have doubled your business, and the journey isn't over. I then read our 2016 painted picture calling for another double. And what happened? People told me after my ties at the end of that. That night, they didn't really see it. They said, it's great that you got a little Hawaiian theme, Brian, and you spent some money there. But I don't see it. I said, you will. And we read it together as a company every quarter until we made it happen. How did we finish? 224 million in revenue. At the end of that year, we were in Hawaii, and when I was on stage, I turned around and I said, holy crap, we are 12ft from the shore. I can hear clinking of glasses. I had nothing to do with organizing the event, but everything I had read out and envisioned had come true. So I think when Joe asked us all, do we think we've got the power to change the world? We can all change the world with one small idea planted in your mind, put in Papers, a painted picture, spreads and magic happens.

So as everybody knows, the world has drastically changed over the last two, three years. We will never go back to the normal and business is not as usual. There is a war and it's not the war in Ukraine or a war on drugs, but there's a war on consciousness. And the next step in this war is a global recession. And we're on the brink of it today. How do I know this? Well, besides going down deep rabbit holes myself, over the last five years I've been invited to different groups of power and influence known as secret societies and have gotten a firsthand look at how money and power is accumulating and influenced at the highest levels. The key players are not politicians and the billionaires, but the shadow organizations who control them. What's going on in plain sight is that a deeply entrenched global power system is doing everything it can to preserve and expand its control and power through big tech and big finance. During the pandemic, this foundation was laid out for the next phase of this plan. Between January 2020 and November 2021, four central banks pumped $9 trillion under the story of stabilizing the economy. Nine trillion. Just to give you an idea how much nine trillion is. So just one trillion. If you were to stack a hundred dollar bill for just 1 trillion, you would be twice as high as the International space station. So 9 trillion would be 9 times higher than that. So what really happened with all of this money? When the news we saw stories about historic levels of unemployment, underemployment, financial insecurity, yet we saw the largest wealth transfer in modern historical in the US alone there's $2.1 trillion for billionaires that mask more wealth. And secretly healthcare professionals and experts like this guy became the largest landowner in the United States. The deck is stacked and now we're ready for this recession. Or are we now knowing that the next move in this war is a global recession? What can you do? Well, over the last two years I've been putting together what I call the new millionaires playbook, a guide on how to win this war and create a life of freedom, sovereignty and abundance and help redefine millionaire as someone who positively impacts a million lives. Now in this 10 minutes, I won't be able to go through the entire playbook, but what I'm going to do is share the four keys that will help help you unlock this beautiful future that we actually have the opportunity to co create. Key number one is resilience. You need to protect your wealth as an example, inflation, as most of you may know, is at its highest it's ever been since 1981. That means that if you are it's at 8.6%. That means that if you are not earning at least 8.6% return on yes, your capital right now, you're actually losing money. Most of us know that the banks aren't our friends and they certainly don't have our best interest or heart. So the question becomes how do we create a life and reality that isn't dependent on this broken system? So here's some of the things that I'm doing. For one, I'm diversifying my liquid and illiquid assets based on what's accessible and useful to me and my family. I want to be prepared for the worst case scenario that either a real or a false flag cyber attack may take down the grid. Again, I'm not a doomsdayer, as most of you guys know. I'm an internal optimist and we'll get more into this thinking shortly. But I believe in minimizing the downside when there's a clear and present risk. Here are just a few of the ways that I am diversifying and mitigating risk and you can too Hey, I.

Hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I've 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'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Precious Metals, Particularly gold. Precious metals are an excellent investment because they historically beat inflation. While it's a slower and longer investment strategy, they are also a good form of security to preserve your wealth. So what you want to do is have some gold in an insured vault and have small denominations at home. Because worst case scenario, we might actually have to transact in gold coins if things do go crazy, which I wouldn't rule out these days. Next is investing in regenerative land and real estate. Land is something that you can't just keep printing. The government will keep printing money, but you can't keep printing land. And so one of the things that we're doing is looking at regenerative land projects that we can invest in and actually be able to grow food and feed off of the land if we need to. Self sufficiency. While this doesn't directly affect our financial portfolios, I see investing in self sufficiency as one of the most important investments of our time. I want to be prepared for the worst case scenario like I said. So I'm looking at energy through solar, direct water source permaculture to grow our own food. And I sound like a crazy prepper, but we're actually storing a year's worth of non perishable foods so that we could survive if things go crazy. And I'm also playing volatility in the cryptocurrency markets while mitigating risk. Some of you may remember a couple of years ago I did a talk at GN called Get in the Game where I shared some of the secrets of how I was using trading bots to generate a profit in crypto. As a matter of fact, I went to my dear friend Jason Fladlian and said, hey, have you heard of this? And he politely shrugged me off. And then a few months ago he has the biggest Internet launch in history and makes $58 million doing what? You guessed it, using crypto trading bots to generate substantial profits. I'm just bugging you Jason. I love you and I'm so grateful for your friendship. I've since been investing in a company and product called Sigma that has been a secret weapon for me inside of crypto and blockchain. It has been generating up to 1% a week in yield despite the massive downturn in the markets and will produce an ann return that will be greater than the rate of inflation. Key number two is transformation and using Web three as a portal for change. As a lot of you may know, Web3 organizations are on the rise and are able to solve unique global challenges that have not yet been addressed. And to simply understand Web3 we must first quickly look at Web1 and Web2. Web1 was the basic HTML, the first iteration of the Internet, web crawler, search engines basically read only. Web2 has been everything from 2005 to present day. Social media, mobile access, really having a more interconnected communication system. And then Web3 is the new, it's the new way of money power and also where the metaverse is being built and able to process complex information through concepts like the Internet of things. I won't go too deep down that today. And then decentralization is an aspect of this shifting of power because it's not going to be a centralized power anymore. It'll be actually decentralized power which is spreading power and distributing it back to the people. So what does this have to do with the talk that I'm giving today? Well, with decentralized power comes the possibility of redistributing it and not repeating the same patterns that we have in the past. The past system was designed with unconscious and misaligned incentive structures. The new system will allow us to move from win lose dynamics to omni win dynamics. And some of you may have heard of buzzwords like DAOs, which are decentralized autonomous organizations and they will be parenting paramount for this paradigm shift. And so we have a unique opportunity to be builders of web3 and truly ensure it works for all what am I doing here? Well, one of the things that I've realized as a venture capitalist is that during a recession, especially during a recession, the best place to deploy capital is into mission driven entrepreneurs who are actually solving real problems. As most of you know by firsthand experience, entrepreneurs are the most resilient SOBs alive. That's all you included. And we're wired to weather the storm and find unconventional ways to win. Especially when it is time, when it is for a deeper mission. Right now, the entrepreneurs I'm most interested in supporting and bringing to the forefront are actually to the conversation are women. Why? Because I'm an investor and I look at the numbers and just in the US, 40% of business are women owned, yet just 2% of VC funding goes to women founders and 4.9 of all VC deals were women led businesses. And McKinsey found that companies with the most women in executive positions actually deliver share performance and profits nearly 50% higher than companies with the fewest women. But it's not just about profit. Study after study shows that women leaders are more likely to drive engaged, happy, inclusive and productive teams. They're also more likely to be role models for the change that they seek. Key number three the inner revolution Focus on MEPs well being what is MEPs? It's your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well being. Often we ignore these vital parts of ourselves for an illusion of productivity and overworking. When was the last time you took a week off to focus entirely on your MEPS well being? No phone, no email, no tech. If you haven't done it in the last six months, put it in your schedule before you leave. Genius meeting. This is the greatest investment you can make. So what am I doing? Well, for the days that I can't focus direct energy on all areas of my MEPs wellbeing, I found the best technologies that helped me do so. Some of the products that have majorly enhanced my life and wellbeing over the last two years are the Oura ring, which a lot of you are familiar With Tripp, which is a VR app that helps me move from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic nervous system. And also a new product and company that I've invested in called Vessel, which gives you your biomarkers. When you simply pee on this strip and then you scan it and it'll tell you all your biomarkers, it's pretty next level. So why is this important in the context of the global power system and the war on consciousness? Because big media is being used to wage coordinated campaigns that fuel division, comparison, outrage and disharmony for our nervous system. The only antidote to this external control over your biology is to claim direct responsibility. Which brings me to the last key. Power reclaim control over self. As I mentioned earlier, it's not billionaires or politicians who necessarily rule the world. To see how we are being controlled, we have to look at the many power systems that start at the top, which are behind the scenes. Those at the top of the power and control system use fear and power to attain their means and it's trickled down to the masses. And when we're in a state of fear, we don't make good decisions. We operate from a sympathetic nervous system and constantly active and we're not as open and receptive to love. And what am I doing here? The antidote I found to being taken over by fear actually comes from this really powerful book that I recommend everybody read if they haven't. It's called the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. One of the viewpoints that I learned through here is this distinction between life is happening to to me when we're in victim mode to life is happening through me where we understand that we're an active participant in the unfolding of the universe. And when we're able to come from this place, we're able to co create the reality we wish to have before our eyes. Simple exercise you can practice around this is think of a situation in your business or life that feels out of your control and not the way that you would like it to be. And then just answer this question. If life is happening through me, what is this situation asking me to do? So to conclude, the four keys are one, build resilience. Two, invest in transformation. Three, focus on the inner revolution. And four, reclaim your power.

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