Average Sucks: Leave Your Average Life Behind and Get What You REALLY Want with Michael Bernoff, Dean Jackson, and Joe Polish - I Love Marketing Episode #374

How do you comprehend it? Because one of my issues at times, someone can communicate or I can hear things, but my ability to absorb it and comprehend it, you know, the parasympathetic system. If you're in fight or flight, it's much harder to actually take in, say, advice or love or whatever than if you're in a relaxed state.

I'm Dean Jackson, he's Joe Polish, and this is the I Love Marketing podcast.

Average Sucks. Learn how to step up your average and transform into greatness in today's episode of the I Love Marketing podcast. In this episode, Michael Bernoff, Dean Jackson and Joe Polish dissect how to use selected adversity to your advantage and to succeed no matter what's in your way. Michael will reveal how to stop sheltering in your comfort zone, quit justifying inconsistency and toss away your outdated plan so you can finally understand what you really want and get it. If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network annual event, then apply today for your invitation to attend. If you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network annual event or to apply, go to geniusnetwork.com hey everybody, it's.

Dean Jackson and Joe Polish. Here we are, we're in the middle of kind of a crazy time right now when we're doing this episode. So wherever everyone's at, we hope you are safe and taking as good a care of yourself as possible. So with that being said, we're going to have a friend of ours, real smart dude. His name's Michael Bernoff. So Michael, where are you at right now? You're in the same proximity as me.

Where am I at? Mentally, physically, emotionally or physically? Physically, I'm in Scottsdale.

Dean's in Florida right now. I'm in Arizona, so. Okay, so Michael Barnoff. As founder and president of the Human Communications Institute, Michael has helped thousands of people transform their lives through his signature events, audio seminars and one on one coaching. Combining his natural talent as a communicator, deep understanding of motivation, and a powerful ability to tap into virtually anyone's desire for success, he's unlocked the mysteries to building charisma, influence, persuasion and connection with others. He's the author of Average Sucks, which is his brand new book. Michael uses his intelligence Interaction technology, an innovative teaching method to shed light on subliminal psychological triggers that affect performance and reveals powerful strategies for leaving average life behind. The result is greater financial wealth, physical health and lasting confidence in all aspects of life, both personal, personal and professional. So what the heck else do we need to know about you, Michael, before?

I mean, that's. That's pretty much. I mean, that's. That solves and sums it up. I mean, I think we're done. We got it all figured out.

Practical. On a practical matter. He's also the hookup for the Double Royal Treatment at Sushi Raku.

If you're ever in. Yes, I do have access. And Armando is the new guy there now.

Let's go with the old guy.

No, Guillermo, now to Armando.

Are they open now? Since the.

Yeah, they're open. They're open. And ask for Armando. Tell them Michael Bernhoff sent you, and you get a red carpet plus whatever else. They take care of your robots.

Double Royal Treatment, I believe they call it. Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

When I first met Michael, you know, he is so good at what he does. And you often think like, is this guy for real? Is this sort of a schtick? I mean, he has the steep voice. He's charismatic. Like I mentioned in the intro, don't forget tall. Yeah, tall. So you're like, okay, what's the deal with this dude? But he's a Genius Network member. He's given many talks at Genius Network. I've seen him transform many people's lives. And one thing I need to share. So let's say Jason Flatland, okay? Jason's the top trainer in the world on. I know. On teaching people how to all kinds of training and stuff. And there's a time where Jason was going through some serious anxiety. He was doing emdr. He was doing all kinds of. Hopefully I can speak openly about his psychological issues. I think you'd be fine. We got Michael here. We could talk about your transference issues here in a moment.

I'll take care of that afterwards. That's the next thing.

So Jason, he was literally having an anxiety attack. And he spent just a few minutes at the end of the first day of a Genius Network meeting. This is a couple years ago, he came out and he's like, wow. And then he's like, how do you feel? He's like, I feel a lot better, but let's see how it plays out over the next few days. And sure enough, I talked to him like, a week later. He's like, man, I was just dealing with this for, like, the longest time. And I'm like, well, what solved it out of all the stuff you do? He goes, honestly, Michael, he goes, whatever the hell Michael did, whatever he did in the framing of my thought process. And so at that point, my respect for what Michael knows how to do was elevated greatly because as you know, Dean, I mean, we talked to some of the top personal development people, doctors, psychologists, everything under the sun. And everyone swears they have quick fixes and stuff. And some people do. A lot of people have a seminar shtick. But anyway, I've seen Michael do quite a bit. I've referred people that are having all kinds of business and personal issues to him and he always helps him a lot. So let's get into it. So what the hell do you actually do? We'll talk about stuff, but how would you explain what you. I mean, yeah, you do seminars and coaching and all that, but what do you really do?

That would be the vehicle. No different than you guys in marketing. Whether it's direct mail as your vehicle, whether email is your vehicle, whether postcards is your vehicle, whether text is your vehicle or vehicle, seminars and coaching and different types of things like that. But truly what I do is our company believes that communication is the most underdeveloped and underutilized asset that we have as human beings to getting what we want. So we teach and study and learn the most cutting edge communication and influence strategies in the world to help people make their lives work even better through communication. So whether it's business or personal, every challenge a human being has is related at some level to communication. There's not one issue in the world, including your health, that's not coming down to some form of communication.

Let me ask you about this then, because we don't want to give Dean an opportunity to say anything.

Never, never. He cannot speak today. I speak again.

Don't matter, don't worry, I'll get it in.

This is one thing I've been saying a lot. It's one thing to communicate. It's another to have people comprehend. When you communicate something to someone, how do you comprehend it? Because what are my issues? At times someone can communicate or I can hear things, but my ability to absorb it and comprehend it, the parasympathetic system. If you're in fight or flight, it's much harder to actually take in, say, advice or, or whatever than if you're in a relaxed state when you're in a responsive state. So what's, you know, how do those things tie in?

I mean, well, this is all your responsibility of communication. I think most people don't recognize that it's not what you say. Because everyone comes to me like, what do I say? What do I say? And I said, that's actually, that's the cheap answer. Anybody you can find it on Google what to say and scripts and stuff. That's cute and all. It's really a different question. You guys understand this from direct response is it's not what you say, it's the response that you get that you're after. So when I speak, I'm not speaking. And when I use my words, my movements and everything not moving for you to like me, I'm moving for the response that I get. So everything I'm after, I'm thinking two steps ahead is the response I get. So when I layer my programs, they're designed like Eunice has been to my core event. She spent three days with me. It is designed to put you in a state to actually hear me. It's not designed to teach you anything. It's designed to get you where you can actually learn. And that is a very different thing. So I've studied, understood with real human experiments with real human people. Not something I read in a book. I've been doing this just so Everybody knows for 17 years. I started actually almost 20 years. 17 years. Professionally, I'm 42 this year. And one of the things that I recognize is when you go to communicate, it's about setting up the state and the frame so the person actually can be receptive. Because that's the first part of training. Very few people take the time to study that art. What I say afterwards, that's the easy part.

So, Dean, I've got a whole slew of questions, but I want to be nice.

And of course you guys can ask what you like. I just picture that everyone else will listen to us in the background and we'll just be ourselves, which is great.

This has been great. Well, I haven't had the advantage of reading this book yet, but I've been an experience of being with Michael and seeing some of these things in action. So I'm excited just as we unfold the conversation, to chime in and further it as we go here, I'm just.

Going to go over some stuff I thought would be most valuable to people that listen to. I love marketing because all of this is really about marketing.

100%.

Yeah. So what are some of the biggest barriers you see people facing in their life and business and how can they overcome them?

I think the biggest issue people have is, I would say, their relationship with their business. I think most people have a very ineffective relationship with their business. And they don't realize that a business is actually a relationship. No different than health or anything else. It's how they and how they set it up for themselves. And I believe a lot of people start their business as a way to solve a problem. Like for me, I see this year in, year out because I work with a lot of high level coaching organizations and I'll find people that are stuck at 10 million, stuck at 20 million, stuck at a million in revenue, and they're wondering what do I do? And they think it's a scaling issue and they don't realize it's a lot more of an emotional challenge. Is that. And I figured this out for myself. Like, I'll give you guys an example. I'll use Dean. Because I'll just throw it at Dean real quick. Dean, why did you go into business for yourself? To start with, I'm just going to throw it at you real quick. Like, why did you go into business for yourself yourself?

You know, I found out very young that I would rather get paid for my results. Like, I've only ever had one job, bowling alley, when I was 14 years old and I realized that I could make 15 or $20 an hour selling the coupon books that came with my newspaper route. Then $2.50 an hour at the bowling alley.

If you like being your own boss, you wanted to be in control of your economics, right?

Freedom and no upside.

Yeah. So this is what happens. A human being, this is all human beings. It's everything in our lives. We have what's called a peak emotional experience. And one day in our lives we say, never again. This is what all human beings do. We get to a point like I did. I wanted to be my own boss. Like, you had one job. I'm like, this sucks. I don't want this. I had one job in my life. I said never again, I'll never have a job again. And my business plan was survive and try to make it work. So here I am a decade into business years ago, and we've got a multimillion dollar business. We're doing well, but I'm still running off an old business plan. Survive, freedom and get by. And I think the biggest issue business owners have is they're in business three to five years and they're running off their original business plan. Like your original business plan was. Prove a point that I could do it myself, be in control of my destiny. And then you could be at 300,000 bucks a year three years in. I'm not saying you in particular, but a person or Joe back in the day as a carpet cleaner could be like, I want freedom. I don't want to work for Stanley Carpet Cleaners. I'm going to work for myself. And here you are three years in, you're surviving, you're getting by, you have freedom, but you still don't have what you want because you're operating off an old plan. So I found myself a decade into business, and I was operating off my old plan. Prove a point, have freedom, and be my own boss. Problem is, it wasn't making the money I wanted because I had an outdated plan. So I believe most people's biggest issue, Joe, is that they're running off of what was a good idea to solve a problem that was an original problem in business. And I think most people haven't looked in the mirror and go, who am I now?

That makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's really. Either we say about being an entrepreneur, a lot of times being an entrepreneur is the only place that people work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40 hours a week for someone else.

You got to be a crazy person to be an entrepreneur. Yeah.

For that. That's what.

Well, you know, why do you think that is, Dean? Because they. They just don't know what else to do. Do you think it's.

Well, and a lot of times, especially when they come into it, where they don't have marketing or they don't have any, you know, real idea of how to. How to grow a business, they get into the business, and then they find out that it's working harder than they've ever worked for anybody else, for less money than they've. Than they've made. But ultimately they're willing to do it. Because whatever what Michael said their plan was, I don't want to have a boss to tell me what to prove.

A point is most people's business plan. Like, if you went down to bank of America, like, hey, I'll give you a loan. What is your business plan? My business plan is to prove a point and survive. And that is most people's thing. And then here they are, three years later, willing to die for their business, physically die, like in stress and turmoil, just to prove a point. Yeah, it's not a good business plan.

So, you know, I think a lot of people can relate to that. What would you recommend they do to shift that?

I got a solution. And this is the part most people screw up in a lot of areas of their lives. I remember I was talking to my friend Brad. I was in a podcast recently, and I looked him in the eyes and I said, brad, it was during the whole Corona thing. And he said, like, what do most People think they have to pivot and they go back to their 19 year old self. Like I got in business, Joe, I think you might have started a business in your early 20s, right? So they think they have to start all over again. So what were you 20 when you started business, Joe? How old are you? Let me think.

So I'm 52 now. 10 years older than you. My first actual business, aside from being a drug addict in high school, you're.

Probably good at that.

Yeah, yeah, I started like an advertising business right before my carpet cleaning business. Yeah, probably 22 years old when I had my first business.

So this is what most people do, they rewind to 22. So during the whole Covid thing, everyone's like, oh my God, I got to start over again. And then in their mind they go, when did I start over last again? I was 22. And they forget who they are today. So one of the greatest gifts you can just get yourself. This is what my whole book Average Sucks is about. It's not about being better than other people. It's about understanding, understanding your average in life. And most people don't get the concept that like, who are you now? Like, what does a 52 year old man do that runs one of the greatest marketing masterminds, the greatest in the world? What does that man do that has impacted worlds all over the place, that has incredible relationships, that has made millions and millions and millions of dollars, that knows Dean Jackson? Does that make sense? What does that person do? And most people do not look in the mirror and recognize what they are. So for me, like our financial people said to me, michael, this will be easy for you, you're not 19 anymore, starting your business, you're 42 years old. And what does a 42 year old man that's got a great relationship, two great kids, a business, owns real estate, has money in the bank, has hundreds of thousands of clients, he's worked with tens of thousands raving fans. What can that guy do? And the answer is anything. The problem is most people do not make their plan from their current self. They make it from their nine year old self. My book took a decade to write because a nine year old boy was trying to write it. That was the problem.

That's really, that's important. Very interesting. I often go back, I journal. And I started journaling in April of 1996. I've always written stuff down.

Did they have computers back then?

No, no.

This is like Scribes with.

I remember I was just getting out of high school.

I remember. So April I have journals from April of 1996. I started like in earnest with the same book, same kind of journal. So I've got this whole collection of them and occasionally I'll go and I'll pick one out just at random and read from it. And this was yesterday's gem. I was in Toronto, this was the 24th of August 1998, 22 years ago. My question, because I'd always take it like Keith Cunningham's thinking time, was I would ask a question always. So my question at the time was, what are you going to do about the Internet? And it said, I'm not sure. I'm sort of becoming to the point where I really feel like I need to get in there and get going. And what stands out as opportunities. StopYourDivorce.com and LivingInWinterHaven.com were the two things that I was already having some experience and getting a taste that the Internet was going to be something. There's no way to tell in 1998, no, it was going to be what it is now. And I look back then and you start to think like, man, that was really something because that is when I made that shift to getting really online and really got on the cutting edge of pay per click as it was just coming up, ebooks and email marketing and all these things that built the foundation for me to ride really all the way through. And now I think when you see what's happening right now, we're on the cusp of the greatest migration ever of all of the world to what we're calling Cloudlandia, that everything is shifting from the mainland to Cloudlandia. And I think as I'm journaling and thinking through now, that transition is different because now at 22 years later, I'm Dean Jackson and I'm, you know what I mean? I'm already there in the thing. Like what you're saying. You're not the 20 year old guy who was trying to survive and get away from not having a job. That's very insightful.

I think a lot of people just need to look in the mirror and recognize where they're really at. I don't think they understand that most people are farther along than they think they are and that's why they don't solve their problems. They think that they need to. Like, it's like the alcoholic that still thinks they're drinking and they're 25 years sober. I think step 13 is necessary for people. It's like that's something I used to do and I Think most people aren't willing to put things in where they belong?

Well, Michael, let me ask you. So you said you've been doing this professionally for 17 years, over 20 years. Why did you start studying and eventually teaching, you know, influence communication, leadership to people? Because what, you know, we usually find is that people that really get either deeply into something or some sort of mastery, and a lot of people dabble in it just so they can figure out how to sell it to other people. I mean, what was your motivation for all of this?

Nothing to do with that. It was funny. Robert Cialdini was my college professor and I don't think I even passed the class, which is hilarious. I don't think I showed up. He was my professor at asu and I don't remember whether I did well in that class or not, but I found it very interesting. And that was at a stage in my life where I was really good at partying and I really wasn't good at school. So I got out of school after my second year and I went to junior college in Mesa. And while I was there, they never let me in the business school because they wasn't smart enough, I guess, to go into business school. While I was there. They had a list of books that one of the books was. There was books like the Gold Standard, Different Types of Things, and one of them was how to Win Friends and Influence people. I'm a 19 year old boy that's single. Does that make sense? And there's a book on influencing people. I don't even think I read the book. But. But the greatest thing that came out of that was my parents, great parents, but they never taught me that you can become something different than you are. They always taught me, work hard, be a good person. I never knew that I could be something different than I was. I thought I could work harder and be a better me, but I never thought I could be different. So I had never been around personal development. So when I got that book, a light bulb went off in two seconds and I'm like, wait a second, hold on, no one's teaching this stuff. Why has no one ever sat down to me and said, michael, you can be anything that you want to be if you choose to be within reason. And it was that book that really woke me up again. I don't even know if I finished the book. But it got me to realize that you can get better and you could learn yourself better. That's when it all started. And I applied that to my first direct sales business and Things that I did. And then I just. I've always liked helping people, Joe. I mean, I'm the guy that girls would call me in high school. I didn't have any confidence back then, so they'd call me to talk to me about their boyfriends and I would answer their problems. But I think they probably liked me. But I didn't know any better back then. So I was always helping people, but I wasn't getting compensated for it. So this is just what I've done. I accepted my purpose on earth. I mean, that's what I do. It's never been about the money. And I like the money. Trust me, we do very well, but it's never been about the money.

So what's the difference in mindset between people who do something and people who do something consistently?

Consistency is it becomes part of your identity. It's who you are. I think most people are not willing to accept what they are. They think that they like to do it every once in a while. Because here's the challenge people have. It's above mindset. It's a bigger challenge than that. And the challenge falls in the realm of if a human being wants to change. Let's just say you want to make more money and you want to be consistently making calls, doing marketing, doing your videos, doing your YouTube, whatever it is that requires you to say, I want something different than I currently have. And when a human being admits they're not where they want to be, instantly creates insecurity. So it's the number one step to get where you want to go. It makes you insecure. So it's a lot easier to do something temporarily than accept that you need to change a part of yourself. So most people love the game of pretending they can't have what they want. So they do it every once in a while, like, hey, I have trouble. YouTube's hard. And they like to make YouTube hard because if they made YouTube easy, they'd be committed to having to do it. If they made copywriting easy, they'd have to actually take responsibility for what they do. So the biggest step to get where you want to go is accept you're not where you want to be. And by doing that, it brings up insecurity. I believe that answers the question is it's less mindset and it's more identity issue. I think most people identify with themselves as a half assed person and that is what's comfortable for them. And to be that other person has a ton of responsibility with it. And most people avoid Responsibility.

So you wrote this book, Average Sucks. It's your new book. And what's the premise of it and what's the reason that you wrote it? Because you're talking about earlier how it took you 10 years to write this. So what's it all about?

So a reason I wrote the book. I call it Average Sucks for a reason. It's a great brand. We own the brand. Average Sucks because it's. I mean, I was talking to Glenn Ledwell the other day. Who the hell wouldn't believe Average Sucks. Entrepreneurs love it. So we own the brand. We own the trademark. We own everything left, right, and center of Average Sucks. The reason I wrote it, the reason I called it that was most people are gonna think you're right. Damn straight, man. Be above average. This is great. You know, da da da has nothing to do with that. It's all about the feeling that I've had my entire life, which all people feel. It's that feeling you get when you're in the edge of the diving board and for some reason you're scared to jump. It's the feeling you get when you want to ask someone out or ask for a sale or not send on an email, Right? It's the feeling you get right before you're about to do something different, which is I would call your average. And I could not figure out my whole life why I was willing to do everything that I was doing, give or take 10%, but why I couldn't consistently get myself 2000% better. And the reason is there's this mystical physical force that we have inside of us called our average, which is attached to our identity, which holds us to who we are. So the book, I couldn't even get research on it because I couldn't find anything else like it out there in the world. It's designed to get human beings to understand that there is a natural pull that we have as human beings to make about the same amount of money every year, have about the same relationship every year, be intimate about the same amount of times every year. It's funny, you take somebody that could sit on their ass for eight months of the year, and in the last four months, they'll make up the difference financially. Everyone does it. And the reason is we have an average that is automatic program. The question is, do you have the average you want or do you have the average that you're living? And I truly believe most people are living like, I'm six foot six, they're living like. And I'm living like five Foot eight. We're not living the full version of ourselves. We're trying to be like Kim Kardashian instead of realizing, how do I be the full Dean Jackson? How do I be the full Joe Polish? So average sucks is basically saying your average will never make you happy.

I have a real dear friend, his name's Ken Wells and he's brilliant therapist and he actually, he wrote a book recently, I'm about halfway through, and it's really good and it's called Dare to be Average.

Interesting.

Yeah. And before he released it, I was like, you know what, Ken, I understand what you're saying about it's really about being okay with you. Right. And it's a completely different context. But it's interesting when you think about words because I said it's just not a great book title. Even though you're amazing.

The old I'm okay, you're okay.

Yeah, I like transactional analysis. It's kind of like that. Yeah.

But it's interesting because that's not. But it's like, it's almost when you are writing book titles or you're trying to get someone inspired or encouraged, there's certain words in the vocabulary that someone doesn't want to aspire to be average. Right.

I've never met anyone who wanted to be average.

Right now his definition of average is completely different than what I think society's definition of average is. And so if average sucks, what doesn't suck?

Well, here's the thing, your current average is never going to make you happy because here's the problem. People have as human beings, as soon as we're honest and we say if what you want and what you do are not equal, you have an average holding you back. The problem is most human beings want more than they currently have or they want different than they currently have. So at our event for years, I'd recognize that at core strength, people would come to the event and I'd find out that what they want and what they do don't work. And their average is controlling their day to day action. So here's human beings wanting a million dollars, wanting great relationships, wanting to make a difference in the world. And then there's what they do on a regular basis. So you have your identity has a vested interest. Your average and your identity have a vested interest in keeping your reality. Because if your current reality change, you'd have to admit that what you're doing is not good enough, which is very scary for people to admit. So if you're looking, it's not about not being average. It's did you choose the right average for the right reason? Because the average is a beautiful thing. It makes an automatic life. Most people are working way harder than they need to. Meaning that if you just let your average run, you can get the life you have without working so hard. Most people don't realize how much they're running themselves in circles. You're always going to be operating out of an average. The question is, is it the one you want or is it the one you're operating from?

Gotcha. Okay. No, I like it. I like it.

I'm telling you. I mean, how many people, Joe, you've been doing this long enough. How many people do you meet that make about the same amount of money about every year?

Oh, yeah. And I mean, Most people are 10 years from now are just going to be 10 year older versions of themselves. And some will.

That's their average.

Yeah, they'll do a little bit better. Some people will decline. I mean, you know, it's all over the sun. But in terms of, of seeing big breakthroughs. I used to really think the word potential was awesome. Let's reach our potential. Your potential. Potential just means you haven't done it yet, right? Everybody has potential. But people's ability to reach it and do something with it, there's a lot to it. There's intelligence, there's drive, there's energy levels, there's the environment, there's the books you read, what you put into your head. There's of exercise. Some people, unfortunately can't identify what makes them mentally or physically sick. What are some of your things other than knowledge? What are the things that you feel people would be well served to engage in other than just getting, quote unquote, reading more books or being smarter? What are some of the things that you have done in your life that have accelerated your success, your growth, your achievement of your ambitions, whatever you want to call it?

Yeah, there's the most important thing of all, and this is where, like success. This is really why I wrote the book. I don't want to say I forgot this part, but I didn't know how deep we were going to go is. I grew up in an experimental time and the reason I'd say that is so did all of us at some level. Is that back in the 40s, after. It's going to happen again, you watch, they're going to do a version of this. After World War II, they invented this whole concept called middle class, which overrode biology. They were going to make human Beings be comfortable. And do you guys remember Little House and Prairie when we were kids, there was rich and poor and that was it. Laura and Pa had nothing and they worked their asses off. And then Nellie, the rich lady in town, you know, the kid, the little bratty kid, was the rich kid. There was no in between. So around the 50s and 60s, they vented this concept of middle class which eliminated a lot of adversity in life. And there was still adversity because we still had to wait for things. There were still like take seven to 10 days to get things delivered, wait for packages to show up, wait for film to get developed at the supermarket, you know what I'm saying? And then around 1995, adversity disappeared when the Internet showed up. And literally year after year, you didn't recognize the technology stripped us of natural adversity. Plus the food supply got bad too. So here's human beings with a very, very easy life, with life getting super, super easy for people. And what began to happen is as life got really, really, really easy for people, we got kind of weak and we stopped having adversity. So one of the things I encourage people to do this is why business is so powerful and why doing different marketing ideas is so great. And what you're doing with I love marketing is so important and yourself to be ingenious, network or doing spartan races like I do. Any way that you can choose selected adversity to do something outside of the norm changes your biochemistry. So whenever you go for a run, a walk, do anything, it changes your chemical composition of your brain, which automatically changes your average. So like for me, I started doing spartan races long time ago. And what I recognized, what that did, is it got me to say, hey, how hard is it going to the gym when you can run a 14 mile race? Hey, if I do an event for 45 hours in three days, how easy is a 40 hour work week, right? So the question is, what can you do to stretch yourself? And what could you do to force adversity on you? Because that is the only way to grow a human being is to have adversity. It's only way we grow. And most people look at adversity as a negative thing, but it's actually the only way I've ever grown. I mean I said for years, I said, why are there no great leaders? Where's the last Martin Luther King or a Gandhi? We haven't had a problem. We haven't had a problem in the world.

How far back do you have to go to get to where that adversity started. You're saying the middle class. You're saying in the 40s.

Well, there used to be adversity, Nat. There used to be, Nat. We had adversity in the 80s. It's just gone. It's gone in the 90s.

I'm thinking about something that Seth Godin said about.

Tell me what Seth said.

Well, about the middle class. That this whole idea of the middle.

Class, the bullshit concept.

Well, yeah, it's a manufacturing concept, but it only existed for about 50 years. In all of the history, in all of the time that we've been here, it's only been that 50 years that that was a normal. But it also happened to be the first time we were recording everything in the comparison is really what that came to. Because the only people that you had to compare yourself to prior to television was the people right around you, your neighbors. Yeah. You didn't have proximity to only the people you were in proximity to. You didn't have a window on all of the globe like we do right now. That's one of the fundamental things that's different about Cloudlandia. There is no middle class in Cloudlandia. That's a good thinking about it. That every single person, you know, Lil Nas X had every access to the entire world from his mother's or his grandmother's closet, you know, to make the number one song ever in the history of Billboard. And you know, not 20 years ago, there were only six guys in the world that determined all the music that ever makes it out into the real world.

Here's the only issue with that. We became weakest people because we basically got lazy. And life has been very, very easy for 30, 40 years for lower middle and upper middle class. There's no built in drive. So when you're broke, you're automatically motivated. When you're rich, you don't want to lose what you have. But when you're okay and you're right down the middle, you don't have to do anything. It is the saddest, craziest thing in the world.

But it's also when you look at it now, with that, with Cloudlandia comes your opportunity. If you've got your passport, your iPhone, your smartphone is your passport to Cloudlandia. That with your passport, if you want money, you can dig right in, get an Uber thing and turn it on and literally make money within 15 minutes of turning on the app.

Or if, if you're, if you're motivated and that.

Yeah, yeah, there's the Thing is that it's, it's. Everybody has access to it.

Yes, but we don't have the internal built in drive. Because the problem is when you have nothing and you're living out on the Prairie, or you're 1930s and you're broke, or you want to figure it out, the biggest issue people have is people don't change unless they have to. And when the world is comfy, we don't change.

How do you instill that in kids right now that are growing up with. They don't have any idea what the world is like without instant everything.

The Internet, they're getting it right now with COVID I'm just gonna tell you. Not having the things they want. This is the first experience for children in the last 30 years outside of the Cuban Missile Crisis probably 40 years ago, when they can't go to school and they're in bomb shelters and stuff, kids are actually being told, no, you can't. You can't have what you want. You have to wait. We don't know about this. Insecurities and doubts. So they're getting a 90 day lesson of what we got in a lifetime. It's unfortunate, but we're gonna build some really strong children because kids are gonna go back to school in September and October. Whenever school starts again, they're gonna make teams they never made their ADD is gonna go away. Bullying bullies are gonna show up and they're not gonna be able to bully anymore. Cause kids got tough at home because they got beaten on by their brothers. There's gonna be some bad shit too, some negative stuff. But kids got tough because they learned how to make it through. And they're gonna say no. They learned how to stand up for themselves. So it's gonna be interesting. We get with the world. I wrote the chapter on the death of adversity. Think. And then I'm like, okay, maybe I need a new chapter now. Because adversity literally just showed up for the human race in a massive way.

Stop the presses.

Yep.

Irrelevant.

Well, you know, Michael, like, just because, you know, there's so much we could say. Give a. Give a quick commercial for the book. Why should someone read it and what will they get out of it?

You read the book, you've never read anything like it. I did something very interesting. This is unheard of. Thousands of people got the book in the first week or so. And I would say 500 people got back to me that they finished it already. Which is very odd that for books. Most people don't write books. In a way that they can be read. So it took me a while to write a book that was written the way that I communicate. No different than me sitting next to you. Like Dean Jackson's approach, like somebody walking in my front door. I wrote it like I was sitting next to you and I wanted it to be like I was doing a private one on one with you. So it was written in a very simplistic way to get you very powerful. Also to get you to understand the force that holds you back. Because we battled for years on the subtitle I wanted to be cute and cool like the psychological triggers to do blank bottom line subtit why you don't get what you want and what to do about it. And it's all about why you don't have what you want in this world. And if you're to be honest and you don't have what you want, by the time you're done with the book, you'll have three dozen ways to use your simple psychology, to use your communication, to use the way you see things and the way you view things to be very, very give yourself a competitive advantage over almost anybody. And the reason why is it'll roll out for you exactly what you need to do. And it's written in a way that anybody can. It's written for anybody. I mean, it starts off as a story where I lied to myself my whole life telling myself I wasn't good at something until I was 40. And then I finally realized, wait a second, I am good at that. I've just been saying that you'll realize a lot of you will wish you could have given this book to your 18 year old self or your 15 year old self in the past. So there's my commercial for you. If you've ever felt that you're not getting what you want in less than two hours, an hour and a half, if you read fast, you have answers that you wish you would have had your whole life. And I can guarantee you'll want your kids to read it as well.

Just so everyone listening kind of knows my ulterior motive here. Although I asked that question because we're doing this episode with you and it's the right thing to do. When you're interviewing somebody and they have a new book, you should probably ask them about the book. But also for myself because as you can tell, both Dean nor I have read the book because the book just came out and so I wanted actually now I'm way more even excited to read your book than you're going to love. And what's really cool is so you have this average sucks gift box. The marketing that you're doing is quite creative and cool. How did that gift box come about? Share that and then tell people here, they're listening if they can still get one of those.

Yeah, you're going to be able to do that. We were very intelligent. We got it out to some influencers, people that made a difference. So bottom line is the book is averagesucks.com. we own the domain, we own everything. So you can get the book there. I believe you can get the box there. But the box is an entire kit. It's like, it's an influence box. How to influence yourself. Because we believe that you have to accept the power of your own influence in your life. But it is a box that talks to you when you open it up. I mean, it basically says you're not here to be like, here, like someone else. And then you start opening it up and there's a book inside that's signed. And then there's. There is a towel that you bring to the gym. Like, we want to get into your life. So I have like T. Harv's kids bring in the. Jesse's a good friend of mine. He's bringing the towel to his peloton every day. And then I've got my friend climbing the mountain with a water bottle, or Luke, that I believe you know as well. He's climbing the mountain with the water bottle, which has a light on top. So we wanted to build stuff that would wind up in all areas of your life. So we've got something that'll wind up in your car, something you'll bring to the gym, something that you'll use as a water bottle that you'll bring and you'll travel with a light that you'll use permanently. Notepads for the office. So we put something together that literally, when you open it, plus the box literally talks. I mean, the box says average sucks all over it. And you open it up and then just when you think, think it's done, there's another message for you on the bottom of the box. So I have found. I asked a few people. Did you open it up several times. And people go, damn. Just opening the box was motivating. Like, I watched people tell me, like, I opened it once, I closed it and I wanted to do it again because it was so moving. Have you seen this thing, Dean? Did you see it at 100k?

Yeah, I saw the picture or the video of It. Joe was playing with it at 25k.

Yep. It was amazing, the box. And so, yeah, there's something we do, so we make certain it's an experience for people. So there's people that want the book, and then there's people that want to live a life that average sucks. And those people have the shirts. So we are probably one of the first people I've ever seen that launched a book and a shirt at the same time. So we have at least 20,000 of these shirts out there in the world, and people love them because it's not a slogan, it's a statement. You know, average sucks. People will wear it. You're not wearing a shirt that says Nike. I mean, people started wearing Just do it. Nike is Just do it. But really, average sucks. People have no problem wearing it. So we built the shirt into the brand. So we launched a shirt and a book at the same time, or we've been launching the shirts for five years now. We have the book, but it's all connected to the same thing. So I can get a link to everybody as well, how to get the box.

Well, here's what I was going to say, too, about what you just said. I'm going to share with everyone a marketing idea that could be utilized from just this little snippet of conversation we just had. So here we are recording a podcast.

Right.

This is a good podcast. You know, my whole idea of putting a free recorded message on the outside of a box or a book.

Yep.

And I would almost take this, like, you know, I could see a little sticker that says, you know, call and listen to this free recorded message to hear a little clip where, you know, I talk with Dean Jackson and Joe Polish about what's inside this box.

That's awesome.

And so they call, they hear. That little segment we just did, but added and edited onto that recording is basically, hey, this is Michael Bernoff. You're about to hear a clip where Joe Polish asked me about what's inside this box. Boom. You display what you just said, and then that basically is it. And if you want to hear the full episode, go here. It reinforces the book. It reinforces this whole message. And I'm sharing that not just only with you, but everyone that's out there listening. So you just added a whole other layer of understanding about what you're wanting to infiltrate everyone's life and get them wearing the socks, wearing the shirt, utilizing the towel, having the water bottle, the sticker, all of the other stuff that's in that box.

Because I mean, the stickers are everywhere. I mean, it's a statement. I mean, I have. We have them like they're everywhere. People love them. We'll go to New York and we'll put them up, we hand them out. I'll go to an event, I give them out. People love the slogan. I mean, they love the term average sucks. It's like, who the hell wants to be average? And outside of my buddy Dwayne saying the only time you don't want to wear the average suck shirt is when you're getting out of a Lamborghini. You look like a total dweeb when you're doing that. But outside of that, for the most part, I would recommend, like, people can wear them everywhere. They wear them to the gym, they do whatever. So that's my understanding for people.

You know, I actually, I think we should start a movement that like Lamborghinis and Ferraris and people that like drive these cars suck. What if you.

Yeah, I think so. I don't fit in one. So I don't fit in a Lamborghini. I can afford one, but I'm not a car guy, so I don't have one.

But you just got to keep the top off.

Yeah, I'd look like the Barbie Ferrari. I'd look like Herman Munster in the Barbie Ferrari.

No, I'm almost thinking just because think about how many people that we know, that some are friends of ours, Dean. And many of these influencers that have their cars and they put it all over social media and certainly, I mean, look, all of us could drive any damn car we wanted, right? We've worked hard enough in our lives and built successful businesses. That being said, though, I just, you know, at this point I'd almost be embarrassed to drive some of these vehicles because of the association of some of the status pursuing people that I know that are just narcissistic fricking morons. And that's not a statement about the cars, because some of these are amazing vehicles and cars. There's just a certain sort of branding that gets associated with it. And I'm only saying this all as a joke. I think it would just be kind of funny where we actually started to move it like that that we'd start sharing them with our friends of ours that we actually know that drive these cars and it would just make all.

The fun you want. Now until your Tesla roadster arrives.

Did you get the truck of irony?

He's talking about all these supercars completely different than a Lamborghini or a Ferrari or Whatever, you know, I mean, come on. What are we talking about here? D? I know I'm just teasing you, but there's a little bit of irony to it. No, actually, I don't believe that at all. And first off, I don't have a Tesla roaster yet. They're not out out yet, so. I know, but okay, no, look, that we could do. We could do. Hypocrites are awesome.

I mean, whatever. Hypocrites are awesome. I love it.

All right, so let me ask you a question about what do you personally do to change the way you think and take action when the challenges in your life are overwhelming? Because right now, the challenges that humans are dealing with are quite overwhelming for many, many people.

Mr. Rogers there, for a second, I.

Looked like Mr. Rogers.

What do you do with the mad that you feel?

It was a great movie. I love Mr. Rogers. I have mad respect for Fred. So here's the biggest thing. I go to communication for everything. A surgeon goes to surgery. A marketer goes to marketing. I go to communication. That's my biggest thing. So right now, as soon as this whole thing went down, I started getting calls from Fortune 100 companies. I started getting calls from big, big CEOs, big time people, like, how do we handle what we handle? And I basically said, the key to all of this, the key to all of this is gonna come down to communication. And so what I do is, the first thing I do is I realized a couple things. So I recognize if we wanna just talk, put this in context. Joe and I know this dates this, but people will never, ever forget what happened during COVID So when I use this as an example real quick, we talk about the madness in the world. I watched the governor of California, I don't even know his name or whatever, but I watched the dude in California basically say, hey, everybody, do you mind staying home? It's a bad situation to go out. It could be bad. And the media goes lockdown. And immediately. He never said lockdown, but lockdown slows you down and makes your body not work and makes you pay attention to the tv. So I take responsibility for my language and my communication. So I have learned that inside of Michael, inside of Joe, inside of Dean, inside of everybody listening is certain trigger words. You guys know this from marketing? Do you guys want to know my next book that I'm writing? And you'll love the name. Do you guys want to know.

Know it.

How to market to yourself. And it's how to market to your own brain to get you to do what you want. I've already bought the IP and everything on it, so getting barely got the first book out. I'm already on the second one. That's how quick start I am. But the point is, the point is human beings don't market well to themselves. So what I've recognized is most people aren't going to do things because it's a good idea or because they want to. They're going to do them out of fear, guilt, obligation, different things like that. So I use my motivations to drive me. And so for me, I know that this is called a phone. Right. This is old school with a wire. And I know that I have people that I know if I contact them, phone, email, video, whatever it is, I'm actually going to be able to help them. And if I don't make the calls, I'm being selfish. So I use direct terminology on myself. If I don't make the call, I'm being selfish. If I do make the call, I have integrity, I have pride. I'm taking ownership for what I do. So I have learned to play in my brain with my own biochemistry, like using words like necessary. So you use this to get people to buy. I use this to motivate me. So, Dean Jackson, go ahead. I see you asking a question.

Oh, man. I mean, we've seen, we're witnessing a master class in emotional language manipulation going on right now.

This moment.

Watch this. Well, this moment in time, when all of the demonstrations were starting, we were toggling back and forth between CNN and Fox on one channel. It's the President threatens military intervention. Use the military against peaceful protesters.

Yes.

And then you immediately switch channels and they're saying, president promises military intervention to protect from violent looters.

Yes.

It's the same incident that they're talking about, but coming at it from the polarities of language, different emotionally charged words that you can use. That news is the greatest thing for using like emotional language too.

I wouldn't use that. I'd use them as a guidance. I would be careful because some people can't. It's like alcohol. Some people aren't ready for it.

You were saying get using words that push your own.

Yes.

That push your own buttons to realize what are the words that make you, that will move you into action. Like you were saying, calling people is not calling people means something different to you. Right. It could be that you're being selfish. Right. That's what you were.

You've got to use the words correctly. People will drive it through a McDonald's and they'll say, oh, this is healthy. And they don't realize that they labeled it. So how the brain works is we label all language and we make business hard. As soon as you make. Like, here's where most people screw up, right? They'll say, my wedding was the greatest day of my life. And they don't realize that that is the worst thing you should ever say because you basically just put the limit on your life. And now what are you expecting? Not to live anymore downhill from there? Yeah, you better say, it was a great day. Do you know what I'm saying? And it's been a great day up till now. So you're expecting your husband or wife to show up with horses and carriages and open bars and all that stuff. So whenever you say business is hard, the whole thing is compared to what? So if I want to motivate myself, I would say business is complicated because I haven'. Figured it out yet. So we have to realize that we have to take responsibility for our language. So to completely go back in time to answer Joe's question from probably 11 minutes ago, it was something to answer. The effect was basically. And that was a technique in itself was basically something. The effect. If I use language to drive me, and I've taken a lot of time to realize what moves Michael, I will label things appropriately. I look at Starbucks is an absolute way to destroy my financial future because I like to take the seven bucks and reinvest it. I like buying seven stock. I don't like buying Tesla. I mean, I like buying Tesla. I don't like buying Starbucks. So I look at it as no problem. I go into Starbucks. This is a great way to destroy my health, and it's a great way to lower my economic status. So that's how I get myself to avoid certain things. So I've learned how to label things for myself. Sorry. Starbucks.

That's great.

Buy the Starbucks stock.

That's what I'm getting at. I walked out of an Apple store once thinking I was the man in 2009. This is a great story for you guys. I walked out of an Apple the.

Other night, walking out of the store.

No, that wasn't me. That was you. I walked out of an Apple store in 2009 with a pallet full of stuff because it was my dream. The whole economy's dead. My business is going well. The whole economy's dead. I've been busting my ass for almost 10 years. I walk out with a pallet of stuff. I walk slow. To think I was the man and I didn't pay attention that the whole economy went to crap and this store is full of people. I never checked the stock. And what I didn't realize, that same 10 grand I spent on computers, Apple, was like 80 bucks before it split three times, or whatever it was that would have been worth that 10 grand would have worth about 150,000 bucks today. I missed it because I was blind by my current goals.

What is your definition of a comfort zone, and where does it help and hurt people?

The comfort zone is something that you do automatically. It's what you do. It's what you're willing to do versus what you're not willing to do. So what we teach is that people are willing to do what they do. And they will do that all the time, every day, always, whenever they want. What they won't do is anything other than that. So you may do it temporarily, but it doesn't fit for you. And what happens is the second you like. We live in this zone of what we don't want and what we do want. What we don't want, we do want. If you ever go to dinner with people, it's only one conversation. What I don't want, what I do want, what I don't want, what I do want, what I don't want, what I do want. And we actually will put people in our lives, and I know you, Joe, you know this from the program, is that you will put people in your life to help validate your current reality. So if you're an addict, you have people to support you being an addict, you got enough people that keep you out of being an addict, you've got enough people. So, like, we build, build this perfect life for ourselves to keep us where we're at, from our identity of how we see ourselves to the current people in our lives, to having goals big enough to not get and a back behind us, like a backstop that we won't go farther back from. So, like, what our comfort zone is, is a perfectly designed place to live that's good enough to be where you're at, but not good enough to get what you want. And there's a good enough excuse why you don't have what you want. So it's this perfectly orchestrated psychology to you inside of your average. It's all described in the book as.

We say, yeah, okay, well, so let me ask you, like, what does it mean to raise your average and how do people do that?

If you want to raise your average, what you have to do is start Working on what you want, and I don't think most people are very clear of that, is that there was a day in your life like Dean said earlier. We got pissed off and changed, decided, didn't want to have that job anymore. Right. Like, just like you, Joe. You said, I want to be sober, or you said, I want. I'm done cleaning carpets. We all get to a day, we say, never again. So here's my question. If you want to raise your average, there's three very simple steps. One is you need to do the hardest step of all, except you're not where you want to be. Most people aren't willing to do that. I see it all the time. Even at Genius Network, Joe, people will not. People are very loving their story, right? They're doing well. They're making 30 million a year. They're making 100 million. You got great people in that room, right? And they want to make 200 million and live an elf lifestyle, but they're not willing to accept they're not where they want to be. Once you accept you're not where you want to want to be, opportunity presents itself also. So does insecurity. Insecurity is the thing we need to grow. So insecurity is not a bad thing. It's like when you accept you're not where you want to be, opportunity shows up. So does insecurity. And if you're willing to take a look at that insecurity and willing to grow, the greatest way to grow your average, there's either either run your head through a wall, hope you get there. Good luck with that one. Right? And you'll be painfully beaten down by life. Number two is to grow and to outgrow your problems and step over them. Number three is let people help you. So I think, think most people do not raise their average because they're not willing to say, my current life is very good, and it was an awesome plan years ago. Currently, I'm capable of so much more. And as soon as you do that, opportunity shows up and you get to do over what you did before. And this whole new world, it's like Zelda as kids, just shows up and you got this whole new world or gauntlet. I don't know how many quarters you guys put into that game when you were a kid just shows up.

Boom, boom.

New world just shows up for you.

Okay, so let me ask you about, like, influence strategies, because that's what you do. So what are two or three of the most powerful influence strategies or techniques you've ever Learned or discovered.

What do we want to influence somebody to do? Because I could do that blind, or we could literally just create a real scenario.

If they're single and they want to have a relationship is one scenario. The other is physical fitness. They want to get in better physical shape. Third is they actually want to make their. They want to make sales and marketing and. And they're not doing well financially. So let's look at health, wealth, relationships.

Well, the best example is the one I gave you that one time at the meeting with Health is basically that we need to recognize that the majority of health comes down to what we consume. And my favorite thing is to go to language, because most people don't recognize that food is something they have a relationship with. Most people do not realize that. It's like dating. You're going to have. If you're going to put something inside you for a long period of time or be with it for a while, you probably should know what its name is, where it's from, and what its intentions are with you. So that's how I look at food. It's like, what are your intentions with me? So most people classify things in one jar. So they look at food and they say, yeah, it's all food. They put McDonald's as food. They put Mastro Steakhouse as food. They put true foods as food. And they put the broccoli. What's that?

Calories?

Yeah, they just put it all in one box. And they don't recognize that the second you split things up, you make it. Your brain will then put it in the appropriate category. So what I've recognized to do is to talk to your food. And I thought it sounds ridiculous, but it's an influence strategy. So what I do is I very quickly say, like, what's your name? Where are you from? And to your food, it takes three seconds a day. It sounds ridiculous, but what's your name? Like, are you nutrition, are you entertainment, or are you addiction? This is very simple. So nutrition is basically something you cooked yourself. I'll sound very Jack LaLanne right now. If the restaurant made it, it's poison. Let's get real. The restaurant's job is to put things on your food to make you want it. So what happens is with food, if you basically say to yourself, this is nutrition, that's broccoli, intelligent protein, no sauces on, no salt, no garbage. Right. Nothing's wrong with entertainment. But what entertainment is, it's something you get at a restaurant. Dressing on your salad, something else. Maybe a couple of. Doritos maybe a little bit of popcorn. The whole bag of popcorn. Addiction going back for Harkins for second supplies. That's addiction. So we were at Disney years ago with my youngest and my oldest, but my youngest brought it to my attention and she basically said we had entertainment and addiction for three days at the park because that's all they had at Disney. It's all there is. And the third day we're in Downtown Disney and she goes, daddy, can we get a salad? I feel like we've had this for days. We've had just junk. Do you mind? And I realized as a five year old, that is the body resetting itself. She's not perfect. None of us are. But here's the question. What is your name? What are your intentions with me? And I think most people don't recognize that just by categorizing food and not even changing your diet. You will change your diet immediately because, oh yeah, I had addiction for lunch. Oh, yeah, I had addiction for dinner. Oh, yeah, I had addiction for breakfast. You're going to be like, like, dude, I better have broccoli or salad for lunch. You will reset yourself because your unconscious mind does not want you on that pattern. The only reason you're on that trajectory is you're running on automatic and you're not running on. You're not thinking anything through. So I just tell everyone that's my health technique. So that's one.

Okay, let's go to the single person that wants a relationship and it's in the middle of a pandemic.

That's a story in itself. I mean, you got to get good at meeting people online, right? Is that correct? I mean, I don't know. You got to learn how to sneak out of your house. I mean, what do we do? So are we asking for ourselves or are we asking for someone else? We asking for Joe Glass?

No, no, that could be applied to me because I'm currently single. But I've got this great podcast on how to use.

Right now, in the uk, it is illegal to have sex with someone who doesn't live in your household right now.

Wow, that sounds like a really good. That sounds unconstitutional in the United States. Thank God that's for most people. So that keeps marriages going. So for dating for people, there's all the hacks out there in the world. A lot of those guys, the dating guys give guys like me a bad rap because I use those same techniques for healing and helping that some of them use as pickup artist stuff. I'm not against it, but it does exist in the world. I think that I'm certain the best advice in relationships. I don't think most people show up as themselves in relationships. I think that they don't. They don't. They communicate with people in a way. I think the best way to put this is they don't recognize there's four or five versions of themselves. This is an influence strategy no different than the food. There's four parts of ourselves and most people don't recognize these four basic parts. We've got our overthinker. Like, you know, there's the disc profile. We have that inside of ourselves. We have the overthinker, we have the spontaneous person. We have the. We have the people pleaser and we have the. We have the action taker, which is like the doer, the goer, the goer, the goer. And I think most people don't have the right version of themselves. Show up on the date and they don't recognize which person needs to show up at the right time. And they don't have a lot of clarity on which person they're going to portray. And I think that'll. A lot of times we show up as one and we don't show up as all of those. So that's one of the pieces of the puzzle. The other thing is really getting clear with another person is like really having a conversation with them. As uncheesy as it is. It's just asking people, not acting weird on what's going on and having a normal relationship and asking people that, getting to know people. I think most people aren't very good at that. Asking people what they really want out of a relationship and really listening. I think it's a very uncomplicated thing, is to find out what people want. I walk into a business meeting, the first thing I'm going to ask is, what is your outcome here for this? And that's not a complicated thing. It's like, I know it sounds really strange, but what are you looking for? And they may tell you, they might not. But I think most people are missing that piece of the puzzles. To be very upfront, like if I walked into a business meeting, the first thing I'd say is, how much time are we working with? And what would you like to see happen when this thing is done? I know that'd be weird for a dating setting, but when you finally meet with somebody, you're on the phone, it would be wonderful to understand what they're looking for. I think most people don't actually allow People the space to actually communicate, to get past the blocks of what's going on. So that's a piece of the puzzle. I have a million techniques but I think that would take us three hours past what we're doing.

So who are your mentors and what is the most important lesson you learned from any of them?

I've had a lot of mentors in life. Jim Rohn was probably my first mentor that I have in life. I learned from him. I think I listened to the art of exceptional living a thousand times over and over again. I met Jim several times and he was like I have my dad and then I have him as my business dad. And one of my mentors he was basically. He taught me the concept of if you want things to change, you need to change. If you want things to get better, you need to get better. But more importantly, become a millionaire. Not for the money, but for the person that makes you in the process. And that was the biggest thing I learned in life is that make the money because of who it makes you become, not for the money's sake. And I'm so happy I learned that at a young age. That's why I don't have a Ferrari and a Lamborghini. But I do invest and I'd rather invest. That's my thing. I'm not a show off with and if you love that stuff that's great. But that's never been my thing.

So.

Richard Bandler was a huge mentor at the beginning with learning the neuro linguistic programming. I'm very self taught in what I do. I learned on people in life. So I've had a lot of people that I've admired along the way. But I would say those two were two of the big ones at a very early age. Was studying and Milton Erickson was probably one of the biggest role models I never met. I have every book you can imagine behind me that's out of print that you can't find. So I've studied every transactional analysis, hypnotic language pattern, Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, Fritz, pearls, gestalt stuff, anything I could find on the market. So I really studied the psychology of human beings.

Do you know Jeffrey Zeit who runs the Milton Erickson Foundation?

Yeah, I've met Jeffrey before. I met him at. You might have been there, Joe. We didn't really know each other then. Were you at the convention center years ago when Tony came to town and he introduced him? Were you there at the Milton Erickson hypnosis? It was actually 2005.

No, no, but I've known Jeffrey since not really well, but since the late 90s.

Yep. He's interesting guy. He's different approach than Milton and not a Tony guy. When he introduced Tony on stage, I was a weird guy to introduce Tony because he's very monotone. But I listen to his stuff and I, weirdly enough, will get motivated by his stories on how he met Milton. And I will listen to really weird old Werner Earhart and Amway videos because I like listening to great speakers. I spend 25 cents buying a Dexter Yeager audio and turn that into a million dollars all the time because they got some gems in there.

It's crazy, isn't it?

I have a box over here in my office of $19 in Amway audios that I've rewired those stories from Bill Britt and Dexter Yeager. I know you both know who those guys are and Virginia, Georgia, Lee Pereir and all those people. I've rewired all of those people's presentations and made them into other things. And that's how I learned those are some of the greatest speakers in the world. I wanted to learn from Cutco guys, Amway guys. What was the guy?

Bill Gould.

I found every Bill Gould audio I could find because the guy spoke well.

What you just said. Most people will just let that slip by, but that was really valuable of, you know, it's the whole stand on the shoulder of giants thing.

Yep, I did that until it became my own. I learned from a guy named Jerry Clark years ago, and he basically said, if you don't have your own material, borrow someone else's until you make it your own and then rewire it. You got to get started somewhere. We all did. If you got to borrow a Bible story, borrow a Bible story, just start somewhere and then reinvent your own stuff. And over time, I invented my own stuff. And then to answer your question for ADD a minute ago, my business technique to everybody is just two very simple words. Look and listen. And I will tell you, if you add look and listen to your videos and podcasts, you will be amazed what that does. Look, listen. And if you could add those words with the right tonality, just those two tones will make your watch rate and your video rate go through the roof. I am just telling you, look, listen. Hear my pause. Look, listen. It immediately triggers your eyes and your ears, and people then can't look away for a good 30 seconds. If you got something great to say, a few seconds later, you become a rock star. If you just say look, listen, you become A weirdo.

That's good. I like that. So a couple more things, then we'll wrap this up. So what action steps can people take right now to start to figure out what they want and get it?

Get my book to start with, no questions asked. If you're not going to invest a few bucks in a book, it's ridiculous. Go to averagesucks.com, get the book. That's number step, number one, like literally right now, while you're listening, I recommend you get the book. That's what I highly recommend. Open up your phone if you're not driving. Number two is you got to really ask yourself a question. You got to look in the mirror. Number one is go and do what I said earlier. This was not. A lot of people listen to a podcast and they don't realize you're supposed to do the stuff you just heard. You're not supposed to drug yourself. And I think Joe and you and I share this as a belief that the majority of the personal development industry is drug dealers. They drug you with their own dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin. They sell you your own happiness back to you, and then it wears off. So I think I can't tell you you believe that, but I believe we've had that discussion before. And let me talk goals. If you ever want to get rich, get people to talk about their goals. You drug them. You basically give them heroin. Do you know what I'm saying? And cocaine by asking them to talk about their goals. What I always say is, I'm reverse. I'm not here to make you feel good. Number one thing, as two things ask yourself, are you where you want to be? If you're not, then you got to ask yourself, who are you really right now? So, Joe, this is my greatest technique that I teach in the book, is how would an outsider see you? See, when Joe looks at Joe, Joe might beat Joe up because Joe knows Joe's capable of more. And I'm sure maybe coach does something like this. But if you look from the outside, how does an outsider consultant see you? So an outsider would say, Michael might say, oh, Michael, you're dumb, you're stupid, you're not good enough, you're lazy. An outsider is going to say, you know what, Michael, you got a lot more potential than you're doing, and you're playing smaller than you're capable of. You're very unorganized. There's things you need to work on. So one of the first questions to ask is, how would an outsider that was getting paid by you refer to you and how would they look at you? The second you give yourself the outsider's perspective, you can find out where you're really at and it's going to be genuine and real and powerful. So that's a big technique.

I do that in my journal. A lot of times what I'll do is I'll channel someone and say and do just that. What would Martha Stewart say about. That's what I was.

She'd give you a hard time about your curtains.

Yes, exactly. No, but she as a mogul, you know, a mogul. It was very insightful to hear like what would Martha Stewart do? And this was something I was reading in one of my old journals, looking back. But anyway, that, that's a very important thing. It's. You know, Jordan Peterson has this saying. One of his rules for living is treat yourself like someone you're responsible for helping. And that's an amazing thing because it detaches you from the being in the box of it. It detaches you and puts you. You have to immediately draw an empathy because you're now looking at yourself as someone lose.

We call that the split in my world. And I'm going to do hypnosis. And one of the ways that we do it is we ask ourselves. The question is like who you are currently and there's the who you're going to be. What does the person you're going to be need? And that's another thing about want is what's going to make you grow. So one of the things I teach is only like four things you need to grow as a human being. It's commitment, it's congruency, doing what you said you're going to do and increasing your confidence and communication. If you elevate the 5 or 10%, you can outgrow your current box in a couple seconds. So if I were to say Joe, anywhere people would want to grow right now, number one thing is to check your communication and ask yourself the toughest question. I was in a mastermind recently with high level human beings, like people that run Ernst and Young type companies. Very, very high level human beings in the corporate world. And I said let me ask all of you a question. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being learning to not be bothered by anything that happens to you. Having the ability to have, have to not be distraught by any circumstance in your life. And that is the highest level of communication to reframe anything. And a three year old, how strong is your communication and when most people aren't willing to answer that question, we usually think we're good at things. So I'll run into a salesperson and go, hey, how good are you at sales? Oh, dude, I'm awesome. What do you make? I make 95 grand a year. What do you want to make? 300, dude, then you're not that great. Just if you have no room to grow. Shut up. You're decent. So most people are not willing to be decent on the way to being great. So I am like the anthropologist. If you're making 75 grand a year and you want to make 150 grand a year, you're really not that good, okay? You're decent. And I think most people, even with your marketing, everyone listening right now. If you're not getting the conversions you want, you're okay. You're okay. If you're killing it and you're so thrilled with where you're at, well, congratulations. You're amazing. But if you're not getting what you want, look in the mirror going, you know what? I'm not as great as I thought I am. That's okay. It gives me room to grow, which is exciting. So you want to get what you want, you got to give yourself room to grow, which is absolutely against 99% of the personal development drug dealers, and I'll call them what they are out there that are getting people to be happy. Happiness does not create growth. It does not. We do not grow until we have a problem, because we just don't. We don't have a need to. So look in the mirror. Go, I'm not where I want to be. Where do you want to be? That's how you start. What?

Did I not ask you that I should have?

My first dog was a basset hound. Her name was Wilhelmina.

Is that true?

Very true.

Yes.

Wilhelmina.

Yeah.

That was so powerful. You know, out of all the things you said, I think that is definitely the most.

He only knows that because he had.

The.

Surname, the name of your first pet on the street.

That was just the pattern. Interrupt by 10 more minutes.

I'm just kidding.

Go ahead.

Dean. Do you want to say anything? Intelligence, Intelligence.

Intelligence.

Can I even talk? Can I say anything intelligent? Do you want to say anything or ask Michael any questions?

This has been awesome. I can't wait to read the book.

You're gonna enjoy the book. It's incredible. And I just recommend everybody get it. It's a one of a kind, and it was written to be read. People say, oh, man, it was such an easy read. And I always tell people, shouldn't all books be easy to read? Like, you shouldn't make a book complicated to read. It's very easy to read. Yeah.

All right.

So, Michael, as always, it's always great to chat with you. You've given some great talks at Genius Network over the years, I think it was. We've got a few of them online, too, that people can probably search for.

And find find them.

That being said, other than reading your book, if someone wants to actually get personally trained through you, how do they do that?

Well, two things. One is we learned something from COVID that the greatest gift you can give people is the experience of you. So we have been doing our call to action program and been giving it away for free. We've given away $2.5 million worth it up to this moment in the last couple of months. And you can go to call to actiontime.com and you can work with me, and I'm doing it live. I came out of digital retirement. I love helping people. So get an experience with me. Get the book. You can stand alone on the book, but it's a chance to work with me for five days and watch me do what I do. And I'll work with you. And my guarantee for that is you'll get more done in five days than you have in five months. I've been doing it since 03. So no matter where you live, it's live. It's digital over the phone. Work with me. And it's designed to quickly get you where you want to go. So we put about 50,000 people through that program, and I'm excited to. To work with you guys on it. So there's me saying, I'll put my money where my mouth is. You come check me out. And if you want to do more after that, we'll have that conversation. Next. I'm like, cutco. I come over, cut a penny and a half. If you like it, you can buy the knives.

Cool. Cool. All right, so that's it, guys. We are done. Just appreciate everyone listening. Although, you know, it's not like you're paying us for this. So it's just.

They're stealing. Are they stealing or they. What are they doing?

It's like virtual looting, I guess, in some way.

Virtual looting.

But we allow it here because we.

Are really here to help. Very disrespectful. If they don't use the material to their advantage, it is stealing. If they. It's stealing and misusing. If they don't use it. Right?

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Well, look, and I guess one thing, even though maybe I'm lying now because I said that'll be the last question. What final things would you say for someone that may be listening to this? That is just. They're still in the place where they feel their life has been decimated. I mean, they've had so much trouble. They maybe lost a relationship, they maybe lost a of lot loved one, they're in a lot of pain, they lost their career, they're having health challenges, financial challenges, relationship challenges.

Now we're in country music. I get it. It's a lot. It's all at once. Odds are if you have one or two of those things, it's bad enough I will tell you that most people don't want to accept it, but every great decision we've ever made in our lives came out of not being where we want to be. And I can't harp on this enough. That pain is painful and it's real and it really exists and it's there to tell you something. And this is a very important thing I'm going to tell everybody is that when you look at your bank account and it's not where you want it to be or you see your neighbor and you're kind of jealous. We all are. I mean, you don't have to look at your neighbor. You can see it online. Or you look at your waistline, you gain five extra pounds or you just got bad doctor's report. Your brain is always sending signals to your body, but most people misread the message. This is super important to understand. This is not a joke right now. This is very, very urgent for everybody to get. So when you look at your account and it's not where it is that you want it to be, typically people get depressed or anxious. That's your body saying, look, I tried to get your attention, telling you you needed to change. But hey, listen man, I'm trying to get your attention. You're just not listening. Or when you see your neighbors doing better than you, that's telling you, look, man, go ask him how he did it. When you look at your waistline, you gain 10 pounds. That's your built in trainer. You have to understand that a hangover is there for a very particular reason. You were a moron last night. That's the reason it was built. So most people try to beat the hangover. So if you're feeling something you don't want and you're in a bad spot right now, that's your body telling you that the only way you're going to get out of this is you're going to have to make a new decision. And it's reminding you that you're capable of more. So it's either stay with it and live in the pain or accept that that is your body. You're misreading the message. If you're not where you want to be right now, that is your body saying it's time to do anything different. So I would just tell you any way that you can move. You go for a walk, you go for a run, you change your biochemistry. Geniuses come up with ideas. They're going for a walk. I know you do that, Joe. You come up with genius ideas anytime you're moving. So if you are decimated or you're in a spot where you don't want to be in a. Take my class. Call to action. Call to actiontime.com it's designed for that. Number two is recognize that every great thing came out of a rebuilding period. So I'll tell you if it's time to rebuild, you can't rebuild and build something better. If you're satisfied, you can't do it. So if you're unsatisfied right now, realize you're halfway there. I don't have better terms terms than that. But I will tell you, don't misread the message. It's time to shift and change. It's not time to lay down and die. Because that's a whole different feeling.

Thank you. All right, so his name is Michael Bernoff. His book is Average Sucks. Get it, apply it. And we hope you are safe. And we will continue with putting out hopefully valuable and action inspiring knowledge, wisdom, insights and occasionally some fluff and nonsense from me. But for the most part, we're here to help you. So thank you.

Thank you everyone. Thank you for having me on.

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