How To Be Creative and Have More Success: The Third Ever ILM Zoom Meetup with Joe Polish and Dean Jackson - I Love Marketing Episode #376

You learn through the school of hard knocks. You just try to figure it out. You don't ask for directions, you don't seek others, counsel or mentors. You can figure some stuff out, but you get beat up a lot. That's one way to learn. The second way to learn is learn through the experiences of others.

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

How do you define success and what.

Does it really mean to succeed? In our third ever I Love Marketing.

Zoom Meetup, you'll discover how to leverage your creative side to make more money, create greater impact and experience more freedom than through your business.

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 we are ready to go. Tim, do you want to actually introduce the starting of the I Love Marketing Meetup group? I would love to. I've known Joe for over 20 years. It goes back to when he had a ponytail. He was like brash but brilliant. And then Joe introduced me to Dean Jackson about 20 years ago and he was just brilliant.

There was no brash about him.

But it's like Dean is like the Buddha of marketing. And so when you bring the Buddha of marketing, who's a wordsmith, I mean, you give him a word and he can just go eloquent with it, right. And do all sorts of wonderful things. But anyway, these guys are brilliant.

They're not bad looking guys, I suppose.

But we're delighted to be with you. Joe. That was awesome and much appreciated. Charlie and Dave, why don't you guys kind of give a little bit of background on how this. I'd love to hear your versions of how the I Love Marketing local Scottsdale group has developed into what we're seeing right now.

So I started going to the first I Love Marketing meetup. It was eight and a half years ago, which is crazy. And I was invited by my web designer and I didn't know who Joe was. I had no idea. I show up to this meeting and.

Joe's there, Dan Sullivan's there. So I showed up.

And then I just kept showing up. And I've learned a ton over the years and over the years we've moved locations.

It's been a really great experience of.

Learning and meeting people and really it's been wonderful.

I had a friend that we were talking about marketing and business. I had just Started a new business. And he was like, oh, you're so lucky.

You know, you live right there in.

Phoenix where Joe Polish is and everything that love marketing. And it turns out that he had.

An intro to his podcast that's kind.

Of a tip of the hat to Joe and Dean, you know, you guys. And he was like, yeah, they have.

Free meetups and everything.

So I looked it up and I went to one and what was that? I think five or six years ago, opening my eyes to stuff that I.

Never knew about business and marketing and everything else.

And, you know, years rolled through and.

Now I'm co host with Charlie and.

We'Ve helped hundreds of business owners, everything from launches to rebuilding and branding and everything else. And it's just always been super fun. And now we're virtual and We've got almost 200 people on here, so. So Benjamin Hardy has a new book out today that just dropped Personality.

So you can go to benjaminhardy.com just to finish. I love marketing, you guys. I've told you a million times, and.

I'll keep telling you, changed my life, business, life, personal, everything. So, you know, Joe, your quote, you don't know what you don't know applies to this. Exactly.

So thank you.

Ben has been the number one writer in the world, medium.com and he writes for Inc. And Psychology Today and Forbes and stuff like that. Great guy. Great guy. So thank you. Want everyone to get out of today is hopefully some ideas and perspectives that you can use in your business. I know a lot of you are doing well. I know a lot of you are struggling. We want to be as useful as possible. We're going to answer some questions.

We got hundreds of questions.

We got 429 questions were submitted. We're only going to answer a couple of them. But like, me and Dean had a bunch of questions from last time, and we're trying to figure out the best way to take the most relevant questions and build some. I love marketing curriculum around this and even possibly do a program. So that's in discussion right now with me and Dean. We have a very special guest. I'll introduce him more formally later. His name is B. Jeffrey Madoff. He just wrote a book called Creative Making a Living with youh Ideas. If you've seen a Victoria's secret commercial on TV in the last 20 years, it's probably because he produced and directed them. He's a brilliant guy. He's been a dear friend of mine for over 25 years. He lives in New York City. We're going to spend about 30 minutes talking with him today about creativity, about how to make money with your creativity and make a living with your ideas. And then, Dean, what else are we going to do?

This is a good thing to talk about what's going on because I think as we're evolving here, you know, you look at this, this is growing, this is more people that I think it's got to be official right now that this is more people than have ever come to a single I love marketing meetup on the mainland, that this Cloudlandia meetup has been the biggest attended one. And I think that, that right now is a big indication of where things are in the future here. And the future is now. You know, you look at what we've all gone through in the last 90 days, as it's been 90 days now since we first had to go into quarantine or into social distancing or some every. It's been all over the world, everybody in the world has gone through some sort of a shelter in place type of situation. And what we've seen is everybody becoming more and more accustomed to things like this, of being able to get together virtually. And I think that we're now at the point, 90 days into this, that we're starting to see that the true innovations are going to come. Now, it's not just that we're talking about virtual gathering as a replacement for or a substitution for physical gathering, which is always something historically that we do whenever something new comes along, we only reference it in terms of what the thing that came before it was. So like when automobiles were starting, they were horseless carriages and when movies started, they were moving pictures. So it's like, yeah, it's a picture, but it moves, or it's like a carriage, but there's no horse. Right? And we're moving in now that, well, it's a gathering, but we're not in person. And so you start to see that people are. We're getting used to this now, but now the true innovations are going to come when we can use what this tool, what this capability that we have is now in a real innovative way where it's maybe not the best way to think about it as just a replacement for gathering in person, but for what it truly can be is a multimedia sensory experience that has, you know, we're thinking about that maybe it doesn't have to be like a full day thing when we're replacing or talking about a virtual gathering, but maybe there's an opportunity to have intermittent more deeper things that Maybe three hours is the right amount of time for a perfect experience like this. So I'm super excited to see what comes out of this. I mean, my creative juices are already flowing. I know, Joe, you've been doing the Genius Network meetings like this with 150 people, often at the things we've been doing these. I've been doing my breakthrough blueprint events, the boardroom events, in a group of 10 or 12 people. Just like being in the boardroom, and it's really been amazing. And I'm just looking forward to where it's all going, what's possible.

I mean, me and Dan Sullivan did a interview with Jeff Madoff earlier today for our 10x talk podcast. Jeff, you're on right now, aren't you?

I am, yes. Hi.

Well, this is Jeff Madoff. You're going to be hearing from him shortly. Well, you're hearing from him actually right now.

Right now.

Yeah.

That would be. How did Dan describe the transportation? Do you remember how he explained that it's more of a transportation thing than doing the virtual meetings?

Yeah, it's a transportation thing in that it can take you someplace else, but you don't actually physically have to go anywhere.

Right.

He said it in a way that just sounded kind of like a good rap song. I mean, I'm trying to think how he explained it. Usually my brain can remember those things, but for some places, it's slipping my mind. You don't have the obstacle of transportation if this was a live in person event. So we got people from all over the world, and it really made me think a lot when he said that about.

Huh?

We've now eliminated the obstacle of transportation and everyone's here. Right, that wants to be here. Of course. Yeah. Now, that being said, depending on how many Zoom meetings or staring at screens you spend in the day, sometimes your eyeballs want to fall out of your head. Right. So there's, you know, there's. There's pros and cons of this, and I certainly love in person meetings because there's just certain things that you can't replace. So we're going to continue to do, you know, in person meetings as soon as we can. I'm still planning on doing the Genius Network annual event. However, this has added a whole other element of discovery, and it's pretty darn cool, by the way. Ravi, are you there?

Yep, I'm here, Joe.

Yeah, Tell everyone about Mentor Cloud and what Mentor Cloud does, because there's probably people here that would actually utilize it if they just knew that such A thing existed. Even though you're on an iPhone driving, I hope you don't, like, get in a car accident or something, but if you're able to.

I just dropped off my daughter for a bridal event for friend. But I'm safe now, in fact. But. Hello. Hello, everyone. I just want to share that we just renewed our Genius Network membership this week. So Rajesh and I are so excited to be part of this family. So I'm a Silicon Valley founder CEO of Mentor Cloud. We're trying to make the world small by removing all boundaries when it comes to access to wisdom. That's really the core mission of Mentor Cloud, because on the ground, we can have all kinds of boundaries, but my mission is let's remove those boundaries when it comes to access to wisdom. And what the platform does is connects people with wisdom, with people seeking wisdom, and give them the tools to have live video calls. So we have been doing this zooming thing for a long time before it became a fashion. So in the last six weeks, our business has grown 5x. So I was singing the song, but nobody listened to me as much as they're doing now after they got hit by Covid. So I couldn't be happier. We are doing some really amazing projects and look forward to knowing each and every one of you.

And what I would say is he created this platform where you can literally get mentors. So it's used by eo, Marriott Hotels, ypo. Yeah. Just doing some really cool stuff. So check it out. Some of you that have either big organizations or have a lot of clients could probably utilize it. And it's super awesome. And let's see, who else do I want to call out? Robin, Farm and farmian. I have nothing in particular other than you always usually share some really awesome stuff. So how have you seen the world in business since all of this happened? And what are you doing about it?

So I pivoted. So what I do for a living is I'm a professional speaker and I do high level business development for companies. Like, I help fundraising and big partnerships. When Covid hit, I lost $50,000 of keynotes that were in the next two months. And I'm like, that's my rent, right? Like, that's usually, like, what I make in years. I rely on, like, spring and fall, and then I fill in the rest of the year with Biz Dev. I was like, okay, well, this professional speaking world is kind of gone for at least probably a year, right? So I'm going to pivot. And so I pivoted. In four ways in eight days. It was kind of crazy. So I started revved up on one of the companies that I'm advising, which is Mind Maze Virtual reality for stroke and brain injury. I'm starting to raise money for a security company. I wrote a new book which is going to come out in about three weeks, facilitating online or virtual events. And I co founded a new company that's an Apple Watch app that helps you break the habit of touching your face and that's already at the Apple store waiting for submission. So we've been fighting with Apple for about four weeks, but we did all the machine learning behind it. So yeah, in eight days I completely pivoted my career.

Explain. This app that helps you from stop touching your face. Does it insult you or scream at you or. I mean, how does it work?

Well, we put your face on it and when you touch it you just hear Joe's voice say hey, no, that would be awesome.

Right?

So we decided one of my co founders, it's actually with two neuroscientists including David Eagleman, I don't know if you've heard of him. And then a physician and my physician friend was like, you know, all my patients keep asking me what do I do to reduce my risk. And she's like, just don't touch your face, don't touch your face. Just don't touch your face. And she's found herself literally saying it 400 times a day. And so we sat down, we're like, okay, what do we do about this? Should we do a wearable or things like that?

We're thinking yes, please say space helmet.

Yes, face helmet. But we're thinking through all these hardware stuff because I work in medical device sometimes and so I do work on the hardware side. I'm like, wait a second, that's going to take us 18 months and parts from China. Let's do an app. And we looked into it and Apple Watch outsold the entire Swiss watch industry last year. The entire industry, they distributed over 40 or 50 million Apple watches. And in the world of tracking, that's the one that most people gravitate to. And because of the number of sensors and the accelerometer, we can train it. And it got a fantastic behind the scenes data room that you have access to. So the machine learning algorithms, like our neuroscientists on the team, one of them figured it out right along with a couple of engineers that we hired. And we did the machine learning in about two weeks because Apple has it set up so well. And so now the hardest part about this is getting it past Apple because they think it's a health device. We're like, it's breaking the habit. So what happens is because the accelerometer is on the wrist when your hand comes near your face. And we sat there like this and trained it, by the way, but when your hand comes near your face, it's going to be and just remind you not to touch your face. And so it's to break the habit, not to prevent you from doing so.

Then level two is the electroshock through your wrist.

Well, that was level one initially, but we thought that might require FDA approval. So.

Yeah, you know, it's funny, I'm sitting there reading these comments and Ted wrote, we need a small electronic shock each time Joe touches his face. I notice that I'm kind of. Yeah, that's really cool. No, that's super cool. Robin, what's the best book that you've written that people should read?

Well, the relevant one right now is the Patient as CEO. It talks about all the different technology advancements really allowing you to take control of your healthcare and the shift in healthcare into the home. But my second book is the Thought leader formula. So that's kind of perfect for this audience. Anyone who wants to learn how to be a speaker or known for their ideas or to write a book, this is like the step by step guide on how to do that.

You know what, why don't you prepare like a, an outline and let's have you do a 10 minute talk on it at like one of these future meetups. That would be awesome.

You want a professional speaker to do a 10 minute talk? I mean, just. You gotta twist my arm. I don't know. I don't know if I can, you know, dig deep. Oh, by the way, this is my phone. I still have this. Can you see this? Can you see Joe's face? Yes, that's on the back of my phone from when I did that video.

Well, Listen, there's about 20 million iPhones are infected with that virus right now in America. Any phone that comes within arm's reach of Joe Polish gets infected with that virus.

You know what, we gotta play this. I don't have it easily available or I would pop it up right now. But the best video that I've gotten is Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank sends me a video with Paula Abdul. And they had just met and they were, you know, he created this thing that helps like celebrities and people sell products and stuff. And they were taking a picture and My face was on Kevin Harrington's phone. And Paula's like, is that Joe Polish's face on your phone? Then they shot a video saying this and both of them had my sticker. Paula had one on her phone and Kevin had one. And they shot me a video saying this. And if I was a smarter marketer, I would be using that video just to propagate the low self esteem and stuff that I have that requires me to get stickers of my face and put them on people so I feel better about myself. Like, I'm like, I have some self worth, but it's a. It's a hysterically funny video. But Dean is right. And by the way, the story behind the stickers, there's a guy that has a company called my sticker face, mystickerface.com and he sent me a package of the stickers several years ago saying, I listened to your I Love Marketing podcast with Dean and I built my business listening to your guys podcasts. And this is what I do. And that's how it actually started. It started from somebody listening to our podcast, I love Marketing. And he built this business with stickers. And so now it's become here I've been show. Let me see if I can find it. If I got to show everyone this shit has gone everywhere and let me see if I can find it. Bear with me. Bear with me. It's here somewhere. I know it. I know what I can. Okay, here it is. Peter Diamandis, Richard Branson and me all holding up stickers of our face. Yep. This is how far this has gone. It's a big deal. All right, so Dean, let's share some stuff with everyone that's going to help them. Then we'll bring Jeff Madoff on. And wait, is there anyone else I was going to call on? We've had John Benson on as a guest on I Love Marketing. That's a really great episode. If he can. If you can unmute yourself, John, say something.

My bad, guys.

Hey, what's going on?

You know what? So John is a master copywriter. Tell him about your software. Share anything that would be helpful for people related to copywriting and marketing right now that you've. In the midst of all this that you think would be helpful.

Okay, first of all, Dory, can I still touch Joe's face? Because that's really the only important thing is that still okay? I mean, don't take all my pleasure away from so copywriting.

Yeah.

I have a copywriting software called Copy Pro. AI stands for artificial intelligence. And it's essentially the world's largest swipe file. It's about 48 different copywriters have donated to the project. And we've taken the copy and broken it down into templates that anyone can use for just about any business. So that's kind of a fun thing. Joe's one of our, on our board of directors and we're kind of moving up in the, in the copywriting SaaS world. So that's a lot of fun. And so, yeah, it's really kind of cool.

It's kind of growing so to that point though, John. So, like, because one of the biggest questions that a lot of people have submitted, questions like, how do I find a good copywriter? How do I write good copy? We got a lot of questions that people submitted not just on this one, but on the previous one that we did. And so you have a, you have a. I mean, you're a copywriter, you've written a ton. I mean, you've done your 10,000 hours writing copy for probably three times that I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah, because I'm like 90 years old now. So I've done it for at least, you know, at least 30,000.

How old do you know? How do you know?

I'm 56.

56. Okay. How long have you been writing copy?

Since I was 44.

44. Okay. Okay. So, yeah, so tell people about what it does because. And how do people get it other than CopyPro AI.

But yeah, yeah, so CopyPro AI is.

How you get it.

But what it does is it takes your. It basically walks you through a systematic way of looking at your marketing and looks at how do you define your niche? How do you define your avatar? What are their goals? What are their dreams? What are their major problems? We call them complaints. What's your primary solution to that problem? That's your unique mechanism. And so it's kind of a little bit of marketing education combined with the best templates written from the best copywriters out there. Like, we have all the machine library from, from Brian Dice, for example, so far for promotional stuff, we rely on that. On me, for example, I've written a lot of promotional stuff for webinars. We have Jason Fladlin's webinar sequences, we have Todd Brown's webinar sequences. We have, I mean, so we have like the best of the best collection kind of thing. And we even have Dean Jackson's nine word email. And that was the easiest one to input into the system, I have to tell you.

Thank you.

That was the easiest one to implement the system. But it basically turns templates into something that almost any business can use. So the idea behind it is that the strategy behind copy is pretty. Is pretty specific. So in other words, if you have a template of a series of ideas that works, of collective persuasion that works, you can repurpose that to different industries with some clever software and some interesting questions. So we ask good questions and people use it, and that's how it produces copy, and it rewrites the copy based on your particular niche or industry.

You know, it's funny, there's a couple comments. One very timely zoom will reach out after the zoom.

Wow.

Copy Pro AI. That's why I came tonight. Big win. So this is good. I knew that that would be a big hit with several people. So awesome.

Happy walking through it.

Yeah, yeah.

But as far as, like, if I can just say as far as suggestions here, as far as this pivoting thing, you mentioned copy.

Yeah.

The most important thing that we found that really increased our business across the board in conversions. Conversions for copy. I mean, when you start talking about anything that's protective, anything that's, that's nurturing, anything that's, if you're in the health space, anything that's boosting immunity is really huge right now, obviously. But as far as in general, copywriting in general, relating to the topics at hand is super important. Like if you're, if you send a daily email or a weekly email or whatever you send out, if you just mention something, the effect of like, my family's doing this to stay safe, I would love to hear what you're doing.

Just a little bit.

Casual mention like that is going to get you a lot more response because people are so engaged right now in that conversation. So the most important thing is to take away is to always engage people within the conversation that they're in. Even if you're outside that conversation, there's people that you know that are completely anti Covid. There's people that are like, nah, you know, screw the lockdown. We want to just go out and do whatever we want. But you still need to enter the conversation that's. That's going on in their minds. Right. That's not anything I created. That's. That's Robert Collier. But so do that and you'll see much better conversions from your topic.

Dean, anything else you want to say before I introduce our guest of the evening, Mr. Jeff Madoff?

Well, so I just want to say some people, if you're a bass guitar fan, you may recognize that setup right there from John's many live streams of his bass accomplishments there.

Awesome.

I especially love all your Rush things.

You know what? We actually went to remember that people can watch it on YouTube, where we went to that Journey concert where Dan wanted to sing with Journey. That was one of his goals. And so Steve Sims set it up. Dan Fitzpatrick. And that was one of the weirdest evenings. Where was that? That was in, like, outside la. John, you remember San Diego, wasn't it?

That was. Yeah, right. Outside la. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it wasn't San Diego.

It was outside LA.

And so the weirdest thing is there's, like 14 of us in this stadium, right? And it was like this flashback from the 80s. It was night Ranger, Foreigner, and Journey. And dad wanted to sing with Journey, Right. And so he. And he was on one of my Necker island trips with Richard Branson, and he asked Branson if he could set it up so he could sing with Journey. And of course, you'd think with Branson starting Virgin, he would be able to, like, make that happen, but they didn't. And he was gonna raise a bunch of money for Virgin Unite, and that never went anywhere. So I told him to call Steve Sims. And so I can't remember even what the charity was, but we raised. I don't know, we raised some, like, 40 or $50,000.

It was for autism.

Oh, okay. And so Dan, you know, they do a sound check, and they bring him up to sing during the soundcheck. And so he's, like, literally singing this to 14 people. And what they found out Journey doesn't do sound checks. They don't practice anymore. They just, like, show up and do it because they've been doing it for so many years. And he was, like, overjoyed. And I'm not kidding you. Like, an hour later, we go from 14 people sitting in this thing to a stadium with 30,000 people in it. It was the most surreal, weird thing. We're, like, watching this concert, and then an hour later, there's 30,000 people in it. And it was like, you could watch it on YouTube if you type it in, and you can find it. But that was really cool. So me and John have had some really interesting experiences. Those are only the ones that I can actually publicly talk about. What else, Dean?

Anything else?

Before I bring on Jeff?

Let's bring on Jeff.

Okay, so I'm gonna do a. Let me do a proper introduction of who this guy is so everyone knows. And this is the only part of this I will read, other than some Questions I've jotted down B Jeffrey Madoff is the founder of Madoff Productions, based in New York City. Jeff Madoff is considered a storyteller and incisive interviewer. He's used those talents to help position major brands such as Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, Radio City Music Hall, Harvard School for Public Health, Weill Cornell Medical College, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, to name a few. His company also collaborates with ad agencies, public relations firms, and directly with clients to produce commercials, corporate branding, live streaming events, social media, and branded content. Jeff Madoff began his career as a fashion designer. He was chosen one of the top 10 designers in the US then switched careers to film and video production. And he has since expanded his reach to include teaching, book and playwriting, and theatrical producing. He's an adjunct professor at Parsons School for Design, teaching a course he developed called Creativity Making a Living with youh Ideas. Every week, Madoff has a conversation with the guests from a wide variety of fields, from artists and entrepreneurs to venture capitalists and business leaders. A book about his class entitled Creative Making a Living with youh Ideas and has just been released literally a few days ago by Hatchet Book Group. Madoff has been a featured speaker at Wharton School, New York, Steinhardt, NC State, south by Southwest, Brazil, Vision, Summit Rise, which is Barclays Bank Accelerator, XRB Labs, Mastermind Group, Google Next, and many others. He's written and is producing a play on the Rock and Roll hall of Fame legend Lloyd Price. Its world premiere will be at the People's Light Theater in May of 2021. Jeff Madoff graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin with degrees in philosophy and psychology, and he was also on the wrestling team, which, combined with his academic studies, prepared him for a life in the film and theater business. And, you know, Jeff, I asked you this earlier today. What the hell does wrestling have to do with being an entrepreneur today and making money with your ideas? So let's start with that and anything else I didn't say about you that you think people should know. And we'll get into some questions for you.

Great. Well, thanks for the introduction, Joe. Do we have any time left?

We do have time left. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. The thing about wrestling is that you have to decide whether you go against the resistance or you pivot. And that's something that we all have to learn. In business, when you meet resistance, do you keep exhausting yourself and fighting against it?

Or.

Or do you move quickly? Do you pivot and use that resistance to push you in a new Direction. Business is rife with sports analogies and with wrestling, having to think ahead, because you always have to think ahead a few moves because you never know what your opponent is going to do. And you also have to think the same way in business. So it's like that. I told you and Dan that story about the Bruce Lee movie, which was fun to watch, but not a very good movie. But there is a scene in Enter the Dragon, for those of you that saw it, where the villain is standing next to Bruce, puts a board right next to Bruce's face and punches a board and breaks it. And Bruce does not blink. And he just looks at the guy and says, boards don't hit back. And the real world hits you back all the time. And so that was something that stayed with me, is not only a great movie moment, but a quote that I could use in life. Because we find in business that boards do hit back. You can learn all the things you're supposed to do, and everybody has a plan, as Mike Tyson said, until you get hit in the face. And a lot of us have gotten hit in the face in the last three months.

What do you think is the difference between people who make things happen and people who basically watch things happen?

Well, you know, on the first day of class, I'll say to the students, how many of you have gone to a gallery, an art gallery or a store or whatever? And you said, I could have done that. And I think we've all experienced that. And I said, well, what's the difference between that person and you? And there's silence. And then somebody says, they actually did it. I said, yeah, they actually did it. And so the idea is, with creativity, how do you get your ideas out there? You can talk about all these things that have been done that are great ideas that you could have done, but you didn't. So the point is, what is that unique idea you have or that unique offering that you can bring to the marketplace? That's something that you did, and that's something that you created.

Yeah. You know, Dean Jackson, I've said it a million times. I've talked about it a lot. You know, Dean has this great line. If you've never. If you've not been in an I love marketing listener, you're brand new to this. Maybe this is the first time you've heard it. But if it's definitely something you should write down and put somewhere where you see it all the time. Whenever you're thinking about developing any sort of marketing, writing a sales letter, and it's Dean's quote, which is, a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. A compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. And whenever we can get to the point of having an offer that is so powerful that it just simply works, then you've changed the positioning of talking people into things, trying to get them to pay attention to you. And all of a sudden, you have something that people actually want. And that I believe is a creative process. It's a listening process. It's a bonding process. It's like Robert Collier says. John Benson earlier was talking about Robert Collier. You want to enter a conversation that's already existing in the prospect's mind. The other line is, people don't buy from you because they understand what you do. People buy from you because they feel understood. Getting in touch with that and taking the creativity and applying it in such a way, that's what we're all here for. Everyone has different levels of creativity. It's working for you or you've not developed it to where producing a result with it. So, Jeff, why did you write this book? It's called Creative Making a Living with youh Ideas. And that's pretty much what every entrepreneur does. As we were talking with Dan earlier, it's like, you know, entrepreneurs make it up and then they make it real. Right. And Patty Mara is a coach for Strategic Coach. She's awesome. Look at her. By the way, if anyone wants to have Patty personally coach you, just take.

A look at her.

Yeah, you can. You can send her. You can. How do I pin her video? Say something, Patty. Patty, just hit us with some funny shit real quick, and then we'll go back to Jeff. That's funny shit. There we go. That was powerful. You've met Jeff before, right?

Actually, I haven't met Jeff in person.

But I believe we talked on the.

Phone many times years ago.

Wow. Okay. All right. Well, whenever we can travel again and you're in New York, I'll just set you guys lunch meeting. Okay. So, Jeff, why'd you write the book and talk about making a living with your ideas? Because I don't think there's a single person here who would not want to know how to do that.

So when I started teaching the course and I was able to get people into the class and they shared what their journey has been in terms of business and really talked to the students, they didn't put on a Pollyanna type of attitude. They talked about the struggles that they've had, and these are very successful people. But they gave real stories about what the real path is like. There's none of us on this call who are entrepreneurs who haven't gone through hard times. Everybody goes through hard times, but few people talk about it. And so talking about it allows you into a whole different realm because then the discussions become really not about platitudes, but about real things that you can do. And I saw how the students and I always have a lot of other people come into the class as audience and it became a mini networking hub. And it kept being said to me, you know, the ideas that are talked about in here need to make it out of the classroom and to a wider audience because this is relevant to not just students who are graduating. It's relevant to anybody who's trying to start a business, anybody who is looking to change careers, which is a lot of people now in this current situation. So I wanted to share the ideas because just like what you do at Genius Network, sharing ideas, that's what I do in the class and that's what I'm trying to do with the book is just get a lot of really good ideas out there for people to think about.

So I've spoken at your class, of course, which is what makes this book, I think, probably the best thing ever. Because you write about it.

No, I didn't tell you. We had to edit that out. Joe, I'm so sorry. Forgot to mention that Joe was actually not only fantastic in the class and the class ran over an hour. At one point, Joe just cracked up in front of the students and he looks at me and says, I can't believe this guy's actually teaching you this shit. He's really your professor. But Joe was really, I hate to say it, but Joe was really excellent in the class.

He was really, really introduced you to Tim Ferriss. I apologize about that. But you've had Tim speak at your class. You've had Damon John, you had Kathy Ireland out of all of the creative people that you have interviewed. And I mean, by the way, Jeff did Ralph Lauren's documentary. Jeff, I mean, works with like, you know, some very well known successful people, successful companies. Me and him did a interview years ago on branding. Most people really love that interview that are male because the first two minutes of that interview is showing your footage of like a trailer of Victoria's Secret models. Because I know that's been a very painful business for you to be in. But anyway, out of all the people that you've had speak, all the people you've interviewed, which is, I mean, God, it's probably in over a thousand, I imagine. At this point in your life, what are some of the key takeaways that were the most profound things and lessons that you can share?

Well, there's a few. I would say that, first of all, I think it's really important that you find out. This is by going internally why it is you're doing what you're doing, because it's so hard. It's not hard to start a business. You've all done it. It's harder to build it and even harder to sustain it. And the only way to deal with all the adversity that you have to deal with as you're growing a business is to remember why you're doing it. What motivates you to get into this in the first place. That I think is really important. And a lot of people lose sight of that as their business grows, and it's no longer fun, it becomes drudgery. And that's not what any of us want. So I think understanding that is really important because that can help you propel forward just understanding why you're doing what you're doing. But what goes along with that, which is also essential to every entrepreneur, is persistence. You have to persist. You have to persist against the obstacles. You have to persist against the naysayers. You have to keep moving forward all the time. I'm not saying be delusional if your business doesn't engage or if you've missed the mark, that's something else. But perseverance also will propel you through those hard times. If you have a sense of purpose, which is you know why you're doing it, and you have that perseverance, you can succeed. Because a lot of times success is also surviving. You survived longer than others. We're trying to do the same thing. So that's another important thing to remember. And, you know, Joe, you were speaking before, it was interesting because what you were saying is really about what a brand is in terms of what you stand for, what are the values you have? And Joe and I used to get into discussions about brands. I think Joe had a very, very acute psychological technique for expressing his opinion. He said, that's fucking bullshit. And the. The point was that Joe is a brand genius. Network is a brand. Dean is a brand. You were described by others. People talk about a personal brand, and a personal brand is your reputation. Personal brand is what people say about you when you leave the room and your business brand. The most important thing to keep in mind is the most precious commodity out There is our attention. How do you keep attention? You keep attention through good stories. And good stories is what built Apple good stories. I would say the greatest brand builder in terms of the pioneer who did it better than anybody was Walt Disney, who even created Disney World. And now the world has become one where you want to immerse with. Not now with COVID but you want to immerse with a product. I think that a brand and knowing what a brand is is also critical to building a long sustaining business.

Have you heard our latest conversations on brand? Because just recently I came up with a definition of brand because we always has been a conversation. You can't be in marketing and not have that come up.

Right?

Because it's something that's a critical part and it's just an observation. So I really realizing what is the actual thing that we're doing when somebody says that you're looking to establish a brand and you'd say like Coca Cola and Budweiser are established brands that are the leaders in their categories that I started thinking about, what is it that they've actually done? What's the value of a brand? What is it that a brand functionally does? And I thought, I'm an acronym guy too. And I came up with an acronym for brand that I think really articulates what it is as a buying reflex affecting now decisions. So what Coca Cola has done, for instance, in the minds of billions of people is they've created a buying reflex. When asked the question, what would you like to drink? Drink, I'll have a Coke. Or the same thing is true with Budweiser. When people walk into a bar, I'll have a Bud. But when we talk about brands or when people. What we admire about brands is the scope of the brand. That Budweiser has established that brand in the hearts and minds of more people than any other beer. But that doesn't mean that on a qualitative way, they've done it better. Then there might be a bar somewhere in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, with a pale ale. That when you walk into a bar anywhere in Punxsutawney and say, what would you like to drink? People say, I'll have a Punxsutawney Pale Ale. That they've established a buying reflex around beer decisions. And you talk about Walt Disney. What Disney has done is establish. Established a buying reflex in the hearts and minds of millions of children. So that when they say, where do you want to go on vacation? Disney World? What do you want to watch? I want to. And whatever they say. What do you want to watch? I want to watch Snow White. I want to watch Milan. I want to. It's. These buying reflexes are what Disney is the beneficiary of.

It's just a. I would say that. I wouldn't call it a buying reflex as much as I would say that they fostered desire. Now, maybe that's the same thing, but it's a desire. Apple creates desire for every new product that they bring out. And I think that desire is what brands create. If you think about Apple, for instance, they never talk about how many gigahertz their processor is. They never talk about anything that has to do with anything about the product. What they do is show you how much fun it is and how cool it is. Yeah. So there's never details about product. It's only to create desire. And I have been. When Apple phones have been launched, it's happened that I've been in London, I've been in Czechoslovakia, I have been many places in the world. When the phone came out, not just in the United States, but all these places. You see people lined up around the block to buy the phone, sleeping there the night before, even two nights before to buy it. And the amazing thing is they all have a phone that works. They could wait another day and go in and buy the phone and not have to sleep outside. But it's like this religious ritual where they flail themselves with the thorns in the street. And that's what great brands do, because great brands are like a religion and you believe in that brand as a result. And you have a symbol like the crucifix. And I think I may have done this at your last meeting, but there's a lot of people here, Joe, that weren't there. I'm gonna do a quick motion and all of you tell me what brand this is. Went off the screen there. What brand is that?

Nike.

Amazon.

Nike is correct. Amazon does have the swoosh. Why do they have it? Cause it's already embedded. So Amazon is no dummy. Amazon hasn't. Apple has never created an original product. Apple has iterated off somebody else's product every time. They didn't do the smartphone, they didn't do the tablet, they didn't do the ipod. The ipod used to be the Walkman, if you recall. There used to be the Palm Pilot, then BlackBerry before the smartphone from Apple came. It's not about doing something the best. It's about creating desire for what you're doing. And you create that desire through story and that's what the greatest brands have been able to do, is first capture your attention, and then after they capture your attention, they sustain it by telling you story. And that's what's so powerful about bringing a brand. So when people go home from a Genius Network annual event and they're talking about how great it was, that carries forward to the brand of Genius Network. So story and an ongoing story is what's the most powerful? Because it's not about what's the best. It's about what locks into your mind. And I guess that's where your buying habit comes in.

Buying reflex. Yeah, when there's a decision, because even that desire carries through. Like you're saying the Apple as an example they've created, that desire is so built in that the reflex is when they're releasing a new model that something kicks in that tells me I need to go and camp out. So I get this and don't miss out on it. That's pretty big.

You're right. And so. But what you asked about the value of a brand. So here's the true value of a brand. Apple started off making computers. They make the least amount of money from their computers, right? They make money from their tablets. They make money from their watches. Not as much. They make money from all these other products. They do. But the belief in. The belief they created through the story of their computer. And if you recall what their slogan was, think different. All of a sudden, they were not a cog in the corporate machine. Not if you used an Apple product. You were cool, you were hip, you were creative. And if you remember that series of Apple commercials where they had the two guys, one sort of young hip guy and the other guy that looked like a corporate cog, right. That without a word being said, told you the difference between the two products and what they were trying to plant in your mind. So you'd have what Dean calls the buying reflex. They were creating their story and their brand, and that has carried forward ever since. So a brand is a story that's well told. And the more you can build on that story, you can introduce new products. So Nike doesn't just make running shoes. They make a ton of other things. Ralph Lauren doesn't just make men's ties, which is how he started. He makes a ton of other things. So I think that the brand can help create a halo effect around every product you bring out if you do it well.

And I think it goes with. Does even go to say that Nike doesn't actually even make the shoes. And Apple doesn't even make the phones. Right. That's the truth, is that they outsource to manufacturers for it. They're truly a storytelling organization.

That's right.

That's their whole thing is to create the desire and distribute the goods.

Absolutely.

So I'm going to ask you, when does it go from telling the story to actually a call to action making the offer? So one thing is the story, the other is influencing somebody to actually buy to where you go from literally getting them to give you money and to become a client.

Well, when you're really good at what you do in terms of product creation, like Apple, for instance, just to stay with them for another moment since we've been talking about them, is you don't have to do anything because they're pre sold. Your market is pre sold. And again, that's the power of a brand. You don't have to give them a compelling offer. What you have to give them is a compelling story. And that compelling story is a magnet to grab the consumers. And that's how they do it. So you never see them saying buy now. They don't have to. And by the way, it's really hard to be that good, to be that disciplined and to sustain a message for so long. That's not easy to do. So I can give you all the points to doing it. I did brand positioning for Ralph Lauren, who was a master at it. But it takes years. Building a brand is not a sprint, it's a marathon. It takes time. And it's a fascinating undertaking because another brand that has lived since 1961, if any of you saw Dr. No, look at James Bond, that's a brand. And that's just ongoing great storytelling. But it's a brand that sells watches, it's a brand that sells cars, it's a brand that sells liquor, It's a brand that sells a lot of different things. And that halo effect that a great brand creates is really, really powerful. And that's of course the objective of most businesses. But most people don't know how to do it.

And see, by the way, I'm just creating a plug for Jeff's book right now because this is Jeff's book. Creative making a living with your ideas. There we go.

Thank you for that.

Of course, honestly, it was more than you deserve. But still, that was excellent. So let me ask you this then. Cause I have a coup of questions I want to make sure I ask you define creativity, Jeff.

I think creativity is an individual's compelling need to express in some way. So it's not just a traditional definition of a painter or a writer or a musician or an actor. You can be someone that is incredibly creative, like John Benson, in terms of doing great copy. Your true talent, Joe. And Joe and I have known each other, as you mentioned, for 25 years. We met a long time ago. And one of my major character flaws, of which I have many, by the way, is that I get along best with people that I play well with. So one of the people on this call, Joe Ellis Burns. He and I have been best friends since third grade. And, you know, Joe and I played well together. And so I have aged, but I haven't matured. So it's about that fun that you have with people that is so important to me. And it was so important that I forgot what your question was.

It was about defining creativity. And by the way, you said something earlier about having a purpose. It made me think, there are some people right now that have had such a struggle with what's going on, the loss of business, how much people have been thrown out of their comfort zones. We're creatures of habit, as you know. I spend half my time helping people that struggle with addictions because that's my passion project. So I'm a guy that is in both those worlds, the entrepreneurial world and then in the Recovery World. And GeniusRecovery.org is the foundation that I have for helping people with addictions. If someone's lost their purpose, what would you advise them to do? And when I say lose it, you can find it. But the question is, if someone's. Because you mentioned that earlier about purpose, I just wanted to ask you, what would you say to someone that's really having a hard time, mentally, financially, how do they utilize their creativity to reinvent themselves or to get out of a mess?

That's a tough question. I think that what it takes is a lot of. It takes a lot of discipline and a lot of risk because people are afraid to do it. And what you're afraid to do, if you do it, that means it's risky, although it may not be actually risky, is to look inside and think about, what do I love doing? If I had a particular job, what did I like about it? I asked all my guests in class, what did you like doing when you were a kid? What was fun and engaging for you? And, you know, what was fun and engaging for me is I had a movie theater in my basement when I was, like, 12 years old.

I love it.

And I did a lot of things as I have gotten Older, but not matured. I have done a lot of things that were things that I loved doing when I was a kid, and that those things haven't changed. I always did writing, I always did drawing, home movies, had a theater in the basement, all these kinds of things. So what is it that moves you, that gives you a sense of purpose? And then let's look at the world, and how can you apply that so you can apply your passion and your purpose to something that you would like doing? And I think that the question that most people don't ask themselves, maybe they ask themselves when they get older, but they usually certainly don't ask themselves when they're younger, is what does success look like to me? And, Joe, you and I have had private conversations about that. We both know people that are fantastically wealthy and fantastically depressed.

Yeah, many.

The point is that they thought success was acquisition, and success isn't acquisition. Success is doing what you love doing and being around people you love being with. So how do you do that? It's not always easy. And by the way, I can be bought. I can be bought off. It's just that I build a pain in the ass. Factor into the cost. But I think someone just wrote in here, Anthony Conklin said, is success fulfillment and happiness? Again, that's a question. I believe that. But that's a question you have to ask yourself. How do you find that in yourself? And that takes a lot of examination, especially if you've been doing something a long time and you've got a change from that and you feel that your entire identity came from your work. I think this touches on an important area, Joe, that I know you very much believe in is the true currency in life is the integrity of the relationships that you have and you sustain. And that's what the real currency is. I was doing a podcast earlier today about the book, and somebody said to me, which is more important, what you know or who you know? And my answer was, it's what you know. Because if you know something of value, you can get to the who's. You know how to do that. You've been doing that your whole professional life, Joe.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, totally. And Dean speak to who, not how.

Yeah, well, I'll say something about the success thing, too, because if you do that work, what Jeff's talking about, it will be the thing that will have the longest lasting impact on your actual daily happiness, your daily joy. And, you know, about 20 years ago, I went through a process of defining what does success mean to Me and that we've talked a lot about this, but this is something that I don't know a lot of people who do it because it takes time to actually go through and think and define. How do you define what being successful actually means? When people think about success, they think about it aspirationally and in the future. And the real key is to define how do I know I'm being successful? About 20 years ago, I went through a process of filling in that question I know I'm being successful when. And fill in the blanks there that question for you. Everybody has a unique way that they define success for them. And so I went through that process. I went through the process with Joe and went through and helped define what his I know I'm being successful are. And when you look at it, I've for the last 20 years, been guided by that definition. So I define it. My top three are that I know I'm being successful when I can wake up every day and say, what would I like to do today? And my second is that I know I'm being successful when my passive revenue exceeds my lifestyle needs. And number three for me is I know I'm being successful when I'm working on projects I'm excited about and doing my very best work. So those three right there keep me in this perpetual, joyful state of pursuing the things that I really enjoy. I would encourage you to do that. We've done. I love marketing podcasts about this exact topic. So to prefer it there, but to talk about who, not how, in what you had asked. Joe is the idea of part of the thing about creating what you. It's always this. I look at it as this three knobs that we're trying to dial in of daily joy and abundant time and financial peace. Those are the three knobs that we're trying to kind of keep on 11, preferably for all of you. It'd be great to have 11 enjoy 11 in abundant time. 11 leaven in financial peace. That's the job thing that we're all looking for. But knowing that part of the thing is the most leverageable one that you can use is time. I mean, you can use other people's time. You can free yourself up from things. It's one of the greatest secrets of leverage, is you can enlist other people's time in pursuing your desires. Jeff talked about deciding why, having your big why of why are you even doing this? And once you're clear on your why, the very next thing that you need to pursue is what, what could we do in furtherance of our big why? Right? What are the things that we could do? And exposing yourself to new ideas, exposing yourself to other people who've got ideas that, that you can adapt introduces you to a what an idea is a what that you can do something. Now, instead of ever asking the question, how do I do this? The next question that you want to train yourself to ask is who can do this? So that you as an entrepreneur underneath your umbrella of why, are seeking out exposing yourself to all the possible what's and who's that could make your dreams come true. So you're guarding your time to do the things that turn your daily Joy knob to 11.

I think everyone would be really find it useful to listen to that episode we did years ago on. I know I'm being successful when, because Dean takes everyone through the whole process of doing. I mean, I have my whole list right here from when I did this.

Eight years ago and it's in Toronto at my house.

And yeah, yeah, there's some, there's some, some of them I wouldn't want to share publicly, but there's. I've stole. I stole some from Dean because they just so fit, you know, I mean, it's. And I'll tell you, like, who do you think of who you hang out with?

Friends.

Like I was talking with, with Jeff many times. I mean, I think you can gauge the value of many relationships by how much you laugh together and how you feel when you're with someone. And common values, shared values, that sort of thing. And so success is not an arrival. I mean, if I started smoking coke again, which I used to when I was a drug addict, whatever success I have in the world would immediately evaporate in a matter of days. And so being successful, it's not like you become successful and then you're there. It's a continual setup. It's a maintenance of it. And you're being successful when certain things exist in your life. It could be health for some people. So me and Dean have always been very careful too about trying to tell people what success is, because what's successful to me may not be successful to someone else. It's a personal thing. And different people have, you know, different.

Reasons came out of a. We were creating a program Thomas Leonard and I called A Perfect Life. And we were very careful to make an emphasis on a perfect life with the implication that there are 7 billion.

Versions of a perfect life as opposed to the perfect. Right.

Espousing the perfect Life, we're saying you have one of the 7 billion lives that are currently on the earth right now. And it's your opportunity to make that a perfect life for you.

It's really interesting because I think that you are correct, Joe, in terms of success is not a destination. It's a byproduct of a life's work. If you're fortunate, that's what it is. It's not, oh, I've arrived. It is that process that you go through, and hopefully that process is more successful than not. But if you have no compass for what you're looking for and what you want to do, then you have no purpose. And I think that life without purpose is very empty. And it's interesting when I have signed some big production deals, and of course that's nice to do, but I find what fulfills me the most, and I've shared this with my friend Ellis, with my wife, is when I get an email from a student, a former student, who said, you know, my life was changed from the class. I asked myself questions I never asked before, and the fact that I lit somebody up and they expressed that they were grateful for that. Sometimes five or six years later, it's like, wow, that's a great payoff. And I felt very successful that day. And you know the knobs that you're talking about, Dean? It's interesting because to me, there's this juggler that used to be on the Ed Sullivan show, and he would have the plates on the sticks. Any of you guys remember that? And he'd get the plates going. And so there were seven sticks. And so as he gets the first three going and moves down the line, as he gets to 5 and 6, 1 and 2 are going like that. And he's got to run back up. And I looked at. I was watching, I was maybe 9 years old, and I said, oh, man, that's a metaphor for life. It's rarely all in balance. You just got to keep moving and pay attention to something so it doesn't fall and shatter. And it's always that kind of motion. Now, along the way, you can have a good time, but you also have a challenge because that maintenance of that is an ongoing thing, right?

When you look at it, that money is one that you can actually win. Like, money is something that you can conceivably get to a point where you've accomplished that, where you.

Are you successful if you've made a fortune and you're miserable every day that you're going to work well, exactly.

But that's the point is that the Money is only the best thing for the money is to free you up for the pursuit of the happy and healthy. And that's where people get out of balance, is that they pursue the money with disregard to the other two. And just on the other side, that some people pursue happiness without thought of money, of the long term sustainability, they pursue the present joy. Now they turn their Joy knob to 11 at the peril of always living on the edge of not having any money. And when they run out of money, then they're forced to do some work to get some money. So it's a really interesting way when you look at how you approach these, and that's part of the thing is to know when you've got part of the joys of having money is to use it to free up your time, to do the things that make you happy or to contribute to others.

Circling back, Joe, when you said to me, so why did I write the book? I can give it to you in four words and that's to entertain, educate, inform and inspire. That's what I try to do in my class. That's what I hope is communicated through the book. And you know, that's something that I think that you do at every Genius network meeting.

Yeah, that's the goal. And I mean, I tried to do that in the recovery work too. And you know, let me ask you one last thing, Jeff. You have spent a very, I mean, your company, your organization, editing, producing, directing, film, commercials, advertisements, telling stories through that medium. From your perspective, how does editing enhance the creative process? Because it's not about telling a story, it's editing out all the shit that's unnecessary. It's positioning, it's doing it in an elegant way. And so my question goes beyond film editing. It's about editing in your life. Because a lot of people here, if they edited out the things that were causing them angst or that were unnecessary, if they could even view it from like, what are the essentials, the behaviors, the people you could not only have a more simpler, more enjoyable, more productive life, your level of connection, happiness, engagement, I think would be greatly enhanced. I think editing is one of the most important things on the planet.

So I'll give you a quick story that sort of wraps up the idea of editing, because I think that in any art form, but it's also true in any business, and I think it's also true interpersonally. What is editing and why is it so powerful? So the quick statement about editing, and then I'll tell you this story. The quick statement is the sculptor Rodin. And someone said to him, how do you take a 2 ton block of marble and sculpt a woman? And he said, I chip away everything that doesn't look like a woman. And I love that. So in the play that I've written about Lloyd Price, we were doing our first table read, which is when all the actors sit around the table and the director, Sheldon Epps and myself sit there and listen to everything flow through. There's a scene that takes place in Australia. It's very funny. And as the actors are reading it, they're all cracking up. And they couldn't even get through the line readings because they were laughing. And I had paused there. And after we finished the scene, we took a break and I said to Sheldon, what do you think of that Australia scene? And he goes, well, you know, it's entertaining. Everybody laughed. I said, yeah. He said, but let me ask you a question. Is it essential? And I said, what do you mean, is it essential? And he said, does it either reveal more about the character or does it move the plot forward? And I said, no, it doesn't. It's just entertaining. And he said, well, then it's not essential, is it? And I took out those seven pages like that because he was right. Which is also what makes a great director, and he is one. And that, I think, is also true in life. If things aren't moving, if things don't reveal more about life's journey to you, then why are you doing it? Because it's kind of a waste of time. And when you're writing a play, you don't want to waste the audience's time. When I'm writing a book, I don't want to waste the time of the reader. And I think in life, it's so important to, in a sense, edit out those people who hold you back, you know, who are negative, who don't support your beliefs. And I'm not talking about real friendship. You have a lot of discussions about belief and everything else. But what I'm talking about is edit out the people that don't move your plot forward and that don't somehow reveal more about who you are. And I think that that's really important. So editing, to me is the key in creating great art or creating great friendships and creating a certain lifestyle.

That's awesome.

This chapter, the myth of the lightning bolt, waiting for that big moment. Could you explain that real quick?

Yeah. There's a lot of myths around creativity, and one of those is the myth of the lone genius. And the lightning bolt. And basically what that is is that they're sitting in some garret, they're somehow laboring over something, and wham, all of a sudden the thought comes to them, well, that's not really how your brain works. How your brain works is associative patterns that form. And sometimes it takes takes time for those associative patterns to form together to create an idea. But is it the lone genius? No. In the play that I wrote, it takes. I was sitting there the first day that we did that reading I just spoke about, and there were 60 people in the room facilitating this coming to life. And I'm thinking, damn, this was me sitting at home writing this. And now it's all this to actually bring it to life and make it happen. And so none of us do it alone. And having great people around you, great people that are working with you, helps you get things done. It just makes good sense to create relationships with really good people. So there is no lone genius. I'll throw in one other thing. I mean, that's an artistic myth. One of the others is how many people. If you can see a show of hands, I'm in screen view. If I go to gallery view, I'm just wondering how many people. Wave your hand or something. Who is right brain? If you think you're right brain, which is more creative spatial relationships, wave your hand. Okay. I mean, I can only see one screen at once. And if you think that you were left brain, which is more logical and more methodical, wave your hand. Okay. So I would say it looks like very unscientific because I'm only on screen, one of five screens. But the thing is that there is no such thing as left and right brain. Left and right brain theory came about by Roger Sperry. He was a neuropsychologist and he won the Nobel Prize in 1991. That was prior to the ability to do true brain mapping. What has been found out, and this was found out by the way, in the 90s, mid or late 90s, is that there's tremendous crosstalk between the two hemispheres of the brain. There is no such thing as a left brain person. There is no such thing as a right brain person. You could take an accountant and you could take an artist, and if you did their brain work, it would look the same. So what's really interesting is that there's still books you can buy on left and right brain thinking. You can take tests online and all that. There is zero science behind it.

What about Republicans and Democrats, though?

I promised Joe I wouldn't get into that. Okay, good. I want everybody to buy my book. I have a practical side to myself.

You know, Dan Sullivan tells a story, I mean, I don't know if it's on YouTube or something somewhere about Michael Jordan being interviewed about. He would never say anything politically. And one interviewer was trying to say, you know, why don't you use your platform to talk about, you know, what, your political views. And he. The closest thing he said is, I think he said, you know, Republicans buy sneakers, too. But, yeah, that's pretty funny. How do people follow you? Where do they go? How do they attend your class? Someone posted earlier, how would they attend your class? I mean, when. Whenever they start doing them in person. So how do. How do people get more. Jeff Maddaugh, other than obviously buy the book.

Yes. Thank you, Joe. And buy several copies because you're going to wear it out. Just underlining all the amazing insights in it. So make sure you have more than one copy. My class is taught in New York City at Parsons School for Design. Whether or not we're going to be in person in the fall is not yet clear. The last half of this past semester, the spring semester, was done virtually and like this on Zoom, and by the way, in the book are a lot of the questions that not only I ask my guests, but a lot of the questions like what Dean was talking about that you ask yourself. There's like a workbook questions after each chapter. So you can also find me on LinkedIn and on LinkedIn. I just started a group last week, and it's called Creative Careers. You can join that. And the point of that group is I really want to foster more of this kind of discussion because it's not only lessons about your career, but it's also lessons about one's life and what do you do and the choices that you make. So the Creative Careers group is only going to be as good as the people that join it and who contribute to it. Another thing that Joe has done so well with Genius Network and dealing with I love marketing. There is Creative Career, which is the Instagram site, which has quotes from my guests, and you can see the videos of that. And we just launched the website, which is creativecareer.com My daughter said to me, well, dad, if you're so smart, why didn't you name it creativecareers.com and all the domain names like that were taken. So I had to go with Creative Career. And so that's how they can. They can find me and they can also email and I'll be happy to respond to anybody. And if you wanted to take any questions, I'm happy to do that. So I won't say anything else about how to contact me now.

Yeah, let's take a couple of questions if anyone has one that they have a burning desire to share. And then me and Dean will spend the rest of the time doing some of the questions that, you know, people have related to marketing. Saverio Strong calling from Sacramento. I would like to know, can your purpose pivot?

Sure. How's that for a simple answer? You may have one sense of purpose and so on. And then, like me, you get married and you have kids and your purpose shifts. I mean, life changes. So I don't think that anything is in cement. I think that you always have to be aware of the context that you're in and the world you're in and what you need to be concerned with at that time. I have concerns now that I didn't have when I was younger because I felt immortal when I was younger. I don't feel immortal anymore. So that changes some of those things. So your purpose can shift. Absolutely. I don't think your values necessarily shift. They may, but your purpose can certainly change.

It sounds like your values are still rooted in the same foundation, but your purpose shifted it because life threw at you something unexpected, something that made you shift. Correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

I just wanted to know if I was alone in that. So thank you.

I would imagine there's at least two of us.

I would imagine that some of the biggest movements that have been started were exactly that of shifts. I think about things like mothers against drunk drivers.

Right.

But had a purpose for their life. Now when their daughter or child was taken from a drunk driver and they don't want any other mothers to experience what they went through, so they start a movement. I think that that's a very powerful pivot of your purpose. Good analogy.

Good analogy.

We're in the midst of that right now with Black Lives Matter and the demonstrations going on, on, you know, so. Great example, Dean. And I think, you know, we're living that right now with. With that.

I love the line. I don't know who said it, but find something you die for and then live for that.

I wouldn't die for anything other than if it was protecting my family. Otherwise. Fuck that. You know, die for your art, die for your business. No, thanks.

It's very dramatic.

I was thinking of some smart ass thing to say, but I'll refrain myself. So who else has a question for Jeff. We'll take one more. Hey, Jeff, I had a really quick question.

My name is Hans Terseln.

I am located out of Phoenix, Arizona.

Kind of parallel to maybe where Joe's sitting right now. I'm not really too sure where you're speaking from.

So, Jeff, without actually reading your book.

I plan to get it right when we kind of close this conversation up.

But you haven't gotten it yet, Hans. Oh, I know, I know.

I'm slacking.

But yeah, through a interesting series of.

Events, I've kind of stumbled upon Joe as well as like this entire conversation. So it's kind of interesting how things come to pass. But anyway, based on your experience, this lightning bolt, I'm really intrigued by that chapter, specifically because something. Something very similar has happened within my own life. And I'm really interested to see kind of where things go.

I look forward to meeting all of.

You face to face when the time comes.

But what you think is the main.

Catalyst for this lightning bolt, based on your experience, based on stories that you've heard, so on and so forth, what do you feel like is the main contributing factor to this stimulus?

The main contributing factor is actually something that Dean alluded to earlier. You need to be curious. You need to read. You need to expose yourself to books, to plays, to movies, to music, to galleries, to talking to people. The more you can widen your world and inform your thoughts by exposing yourself to other thinkers, other creators and all of that, there's going to be more things in your brain and there are going to be more dots to connect. And that lightning bolt is really a connection that happens in your brain with the various things that you have seen sometimes over the years. So I think that a critical thing is to stay curious and keep learning.

Yeah, I mean, that is seriously as obvious as that seems. A lot of people don't. I mean, starting with a beginner's mind, always being coachable. What me and Dean have had lots of conversations about is we've had a lot of friends that started out more, hungry, more, and then all of a sudden they get a little bit of fame, start making some money, get a bunch of followers, and all of a sudden they quit showing up for learning events unless they're speaking and they think they're too cool for school and. And honestly, I mean, no matter how much fame, notoriety, success, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the more famous most people are, the faker they are. There's something about just being continually open to learning. That's why I Respect Dan Sullivan so much, too. Dan's a good friend to Jeff Madoff's. Also, we did a podcast earlier today, and Dan has coached more successful entrepreneurs than probably anyone in the world. And Dan is always learning. He is always coachable. He's. He doesn't show up like, oh, I'm the coolest person in the room. And yeah, it's always. It's that whole saying, I don't want to be the smartest person in a room. I just want to be in a room where everyone's getting smarter.

Well, teaching is a great way to learn, and that's why I so love teaching, because I learn from the guests along with the students, but I also learn from the students because they're asking questions that I might not ask. They've got a point of view that I don't have. They're a lot younger than I am, but that also keeps me very nimble. So being in a teaching environment is wonderful because I am always learning and always have those opportunities.

Yeah, I mean, I've said this. I mean, most people have heard this. You know, the three ways to learn are you learn through the school of hard knocks. You go out and get bloodied in the business world. You know, you don't. You just try to figure it out. You don't ask for directions. You don't seek, you know, others counsel or mentors or whatever. Or you can figure some stuff out, but you get beat up a lot. That's one way to learn. The second way to learn is learn through the experiences of others. Read their books, attend their events, get education. And the third and most effective way to learn is to teach it to other people. So when you learn something you got and teach them, I'll tell you, it's one of the reasons me and Dean do this podcast. We do. I love marketing. We love marketing. For one, we want people that love marketing or at least want to figure out how to make it work, because it is truly one of the most effective skills needed to build and grow not only a business, but any movement. I mean, every single important thing that's happened in the world, good or bad, there was marketing attached to it. And by having to constantly talk about it and share, puts you in it. I mean, even with the stuff I do in recovery, I'll tell you, nothing helps my recovery more than putting myself in the position of helping other people with their recovery. It's got be to of. It's kind of funny how the world works where if you could be of service to somebody else, I mean, I wrote something about 20 years ago. It was called how to have a Great Day. According to me. And I just wrote all kinds of things like, wake up and do some exercise in the morning, get enough sleep, read an inspirational book, write yourself a letter if you're feeling shitty at the end of it. I'd like 20 different things. People can probably find it on Google if they do a search for. The last thing I wrote is, P.S. if none of these things seem to help, go volunteer at a homeless shelter, a children's hospital, a burn unit, a recovery clinic. Being of service to other people. It's amazing what it does for your mindset. Not just for business, but just, man, if you feel depressed, there are people out there that are way more depressed than you may feel. And it's amazing. It's how the recovery world works, you know? And so it's hopefully what a lot of people get out of this podcast is a model on maybe doing your own podcast. You know, podcasting is a great way to start interviewing people about stuff you want to learn yourself. And you're not the only one having the conversation. The way that I love marketing started was in 2009, because we started this in 2010, I think it was December 2009. And Dean had been doing a thing called Marketing Monday. And I did my very first podcast with Alex Mendozian in 2006 or 2005 or 2006, right when they were brand new. And me and Dean had just had this really incredible conversation about marketing. And I said, we didn't call it. I love marketing. We didn't know what we were going to call it yet. And I say to Dean, I was like, can you imagine if other business owners actually heard what we were just talking about for the last 90 minutes, how useful that would be? And I'm like, let's just start a podcast. And instead of trying to tease people and just share stuff so they have to buy a course from us, let's just give away the very best stuff that we know, don't charge anything for it, and just be as useful as humanly possible and let people eavesdrop in on these conversations, but just make it public so that 50 years from now, 100 years from now, people can still go back. And so what we talked about, we said, when we're dead, if people could go back and listen to what we talked about and still find it useful.

It was funny because I said, imagine. And I wasn't saying this to compare us to Albert Lasker and Claude Hopkins. Or whatever. But to say how cool would it have been if Albert Lasker and Claude Hopkins had gotten together every week to talk about all the cool stuff that they were doing? We would be like, we would just be eating that up right now, a hundred years later. And that was the thing. And maybe they weren't. Maybe when we're saying we're giving them the reverence of who they are as marketers, but maybe they weren't the two coolest marketers. Maybe just the other people didn't write books. Maybe that's what it is. 100 years from now, we're going to be looked at as these great marketers because like Jeff said, we did it, we created a podcast. 100 years from now, those all I know they're gonna look back, everybody's got stickers all over the place that this another Joe Polish sighting was found.

I know, I gotta start burying stuff.

Yeah.

Hey, Joe, I got a follow up question for our guest speaker. Okay. I would like to know, you said that you have degrees in psychology and sociology.

Psychology and philosophy. I had a double major, yeah.

Was it or is it your educational background, your personal spirit, your personal experience, or a combination of both that help you write the book that you have wrote and given all of the created value that you have offered to your book?

Well, interesting question. I honestly think where it started was my parents, because my parents, when they saw that I like drawing, brought home paper for me that a retail store, and they'd bring home these long sheets of craft paper so that I could draw whatever I wanted. And you know, a lot of times they didn't understand what I was doing, especially as I started on my careers, but they were always supportive of it. So somebody had done, while we were doing the talk, somebody had posted that creativity just comes naturally to some people and harder for others. But I think that's because people are afraid of rejection, afraid of taking that risk and being humiliated. And fortunately I chose great parents. I had parents that allowed me to express and in fact encouraged it. And I think that that then set the tone for me to be receptive. That's why I wanted to major in philosophy. I thought I would get a, have a career as a wise man. But that didn't work out. You know, that's why I went into philosophy. That's why I went into psychology. Because how we think about what we're thinking about was what was most interesting to me. So it was kind of a natural evolution then to go into teaching because I'm curious about, you know, when I was younger, I used to try to convince people to believe what I believed. As I've gotten older, I'm much more interested in finding out why they believe what they believe. I'm not interested in changing their belief. I want to understand why they believe that, especially if it's something that I don't agree with at all. So I think it was all of the above that I know your name's not iPhone. What is your name?

Silverio. My name is Silverio.

Mario.

No, Silverio.

Oh, Silverio. Sorry. Silverio. So I think it's a constellation of all those things. And I can give you another great example. Joe Polish. You know, Joe, who dealt with his addictions is something that has informed the rest of his life. But he wasn't ready until some years ago to tackle that as something that gave him purpose beyond what he was doing. And so I think it's a constellation of a lot of things. It's never one thing that I think propels us forward. I think it's often a lot of things. I know people that love has propelled them forward like I had for my parents. I also know people that anger propelled them forward and it was because of their parents. So I just think that it's in my particular case it was that combination.

Well, Jeff, as always, thank you. And so get a copy of Jeff's book. It's called Creative Making a Living with youh Ideas. B. Jeffrey Madoff. What's the B for, Jeff?

Big. It's for Ben. And actually Ben Hardy wrote a wonderful article about the book in Psychology Today that came out yesterday.

Ben's book Personality Isn't Permanent is fantastic. Ben is an amazing human. So get a copy of this book also because we will have Ben as a guest on I Love Marketing also sharing all this stuff.

Yes.

So Jeff, any famous last words?

Well, I will post what you had asked me to post and my last words are thank you so much for being welcoming to me, Joe and Dean and thanks for the attention of the whole group there. And I hope that they got some value out what we talked about. This was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it and I enjoyed getting into the stuff that we got. So I'm grateful for that and I really appreciate the two of you bringing me on like this. So thank you very much.

Awesome. So we had and this is one of our impossible tasks. But it's great that we're getting all this submissions from Everybody. We had 429 questions submitted and I'll just share with you the summary. We Asked about the biggest marketing obstacles registrants have, and the most common obstacles faced are time, budget consistency, focus and effective lead generation. And so we randomly selected a couple of questions that I want to call them out. Eric Rigby of New Orleans, Louisiana. He's in a finance niche. His company generates one to two million a year. He would love to do a hot seat. His biggest obstacle is finding the time and the right person to implement. So this would be something that would be applicable to most people. How do you find the time and the right person to implement? So, Dean, his question is how do I develop a sales funnel? So how would you answer that?

Dean well, I think that's a multi layered question. But the first thing is to begin with the end in mind of who are you trying to attract? Right? When you're looking at your I always overlay our eight profit activators on that and say if we were looking for the ideal person, because that's a before unit strategy of trying to or a function trying to deliver new clients to your during unit. That's what a funnel does, right? They're funneling people into your during unit. So we got to start with who's the ideal person that we want to attract. So for a financial advisor is that you could have a different funnel to attract people with a half a million dollars investable assets, which would be different than a approach to get people with $10 million or $20 million ultra high net worth. So you're going to not one funnel fits all. You've got to figure out who is it that we want to attract and then what's the conversation that's going on from there? What's the thing that is going on with people? One of the best things that we've done on the financial advisor front is starting a conversation around Social Security that we do a postcard and a book that talks about Social Security benefits by saying we choose people who are 61 years old who are going to be turning 62, which is the first year that they're eligible to collect Social Security. We send a postcard and say if you or your spouse plan on collecting Social Security after and we put a date six months out from there. Read this. And it looks like the collective thought that people have as a nation. Anytime you think about Social Security, as long as since the moment that I knew what Social Security was, the conversation around it is that that it's running out of money and they're borrowing, they're bankrupting it and we can't keep paying all this money so for somebody who gets that close to where the time is that they're going to be able to collect to see a postcard that says if you or your spouse plan on collecting Social Security after this date, the immediate trigger in their mind is going to be, I knew it. I knew something was going to happen and I'm not going to get my money. And so to now have the opportunity for them to download a book about Social Security benefits is a great conversation starter. That's profit activator 2. Then once they're in that now, it's easy to segue that conversation into a conversation about the bigger picture of it. Because for everybody, Social Security is going to no matter what the level is, Social Security is going to be some number, some amount of your monthly income pie. And for some people, it's going to be a little sliver of your monthly retirement income. For other people, it's going to be a big wedge of your and they depend on it for their retirement income. But when you start looking at segueing that Social Security conversation into how much is it really going to cost for you to retire? And now we've got a conversation that can talk about bridging that difference between Social Security and what you're really going to need. That's something that you can deploy and then clone.

You know, one more Dean. Tricia Snyder, Virginia Beach In a retail niche, her biggest obstacle we can't get our online business going no matter how strong our content is on Instagram, the website, etc. So her question is, how do we stand out from all the other social media that is bombarding the channels, gaining the right traffic to our website?

Well, part of the thing is I would look at never trying to compete on social media. I'm not trying to reach people on social media and convince them. Everything that I would focus on it would be to try and attract them so that I get their email address at a minimum, their physical address, preferably, so that now when I can send to them, I've got an audience of one with them. I'm not trying to hopefully capture their attention as they're scrolling through their newsfeed. I can continually send emails to them. I can continually send something in the mail to them. That's where I really have the opportunity to establish the story that's going to lead to a brand that that hopefully creates a buying reflex for them when they want one of the things that we have.

So what will someone gain if they go to our website and download a breakthrough DNA which doesn't even sell anything. It's purely just valuable going through the before, during and after units. And the eight profit activators, which is timely, not timeless. And you will be able to use this, this for the rest of your entire entrepreneurial career in every area where you are trying to position and sell anything, even if it's a cause or a mission and not even about profit. We call it the eight profit activators because that's what it is. And so what would someone get out of going and reading that if they haven't already, Dean? Or rereading it if they've already read it before?

Well, I think that would be. In the words of Pedro Sanchez, all your wildest dreams will come true.

Is that really what you're going to say?

Yeah. Well, I think that the thing is that profit activators, when you really understand and look at your business through that lens, there are breakthroughs just waiting for you right there. And it's called the. We call it breakthrough DNA, not incremental improvement DNA. There's breakthroughs in there. That's what we're looking for.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny. I had oral surgery about a month ago and this has nothing to do with marketing, by the way. And I had a fractured tooth. They had to remove this tooth. I was sending this video to my friends because it's really bad. I mean, there's a big giant drill into the. Yeah, it was.

It was sexy.

Yeah, it was. It was terrible actually. But it. I had some sort of morbid joy out of it by sending to my friends. And now I have this self consciousness because I have a big hole in the back of my mouth. Thank God it's in the back of my mouth. Right. But it's gonna take several months for this to heal so that they can then, you know, do an implant right in the top of my mouth. But every time I smile now I'm like all freaked out. Cause I'm like a big hole in the.

But that's how there's a big indent in your. In your cheek there.

Yeah. You know, I mean, it just shows.

You that I didn't say anything. But now that you brought it up.

You know, and I wanted to really end on that note because I think what better way to, you know, just to wrap up a really good.

I've never seen a dimple that far back.

So, Dean, what did we not share tonight? Tim Paulson, is there anything that you'd like to say? So me and Tim here. Let me see if I can show everyone this. Me and Tim years ago, we created the Piranha Marketing program called Piranha Marketing seven Success multiplying factors to dominate any market that you enter. And this was the number one selling marketing program in Nightingale Conant. We released it in 2004, sold millions of dollars worth of this course. Transformed countless businesses even to this day, people that have bought this program. Brian Scudamore from 1-800-Got Junk, gave me great testimonials. Simon Sinek came up to me at TED a couple years ago and said, I listened to your program and it helped me tremendously. Gary Benzavinga said, pure marketing dynamite. And you can quote me on that. It's available on Audible. And what's really funny is that even though it was recorded in 2004 or it's still so timely. So on Friday, I interviewed Brian Tracy, who has done over 1000 audio programs. He's been a friend of mine for 25 years. If you type in Joe Polish, Brian Tracy and look at images on Google, you will see a picture of me and Brian where he's speaking at one of my events over 20 years ago. And I got long hair in a ponytail. Let me see if I can just show everyone this. I'll just do it real quick. Brian Tracy, as you're doing that, Joe, I'll tell everyone that it was 2001, your boot camp, where you actually auctioned off. No, it was a raffle. And you raised money. You tell them what the group was, that you raised the money for the charity. But anyway, you actually raised thousands of dollars for the right to cut off your ponytail. That was really cool.

That's kind of like.

That's one of the first times I saw, wow, Joe's heart. He really wants to help people. And then you also took that hair and you wanted to donate it to Locks of Love. There it is. Yeah, well, we donated to Leukemia Lymphoma Society. That's what we donated the money to. But, yeah, there's me and Brian Tracy. And it's pretty funny. That's what I used to look like at some point. And I kind of miss that, too. I mean, because I could take that ponytail out and I could disguise myself. And it's amazing how people treat you with long hair versus when I cut my hair off. Like, it's like an instant change the way people would actually treat me. Which is why I think everyone should get. You can probably get them on Amazon, get those Billy Bob fake teeth. Just wearing those, people will simply treat you differently. It's pretty Funny. You and I were at Dan Kennedy's platinum group. That's really where we met, like 22 years ago. Yeah, sophisticated people. Not sophisticated, but really top level marketers. And Joe would walk in, he'd be wearing these Billy Bob tee.

Everybody be cracking up.

No, no, I mean, seriously, like, life is too short. Like my buddy Dave Keckage said, his things are seldom as bleak as they seem when they're going bad or seldom as great as they seem when they're going well. Lighten up. You'll live longer. So the more that you can add some humor and joy to. Because you know what? Look, man, life is freaking painful at times, and it is. And so bring some levity to it. And you know, to what Eckhart Tolle says, you know, here's a spiritual practice for you. Don't take your thoughts so seriously. And there, there are times when that's. That's a survival thing. So. Yeah. So anyway, we hope that you found this really, you know, really fun and useful. We have the Miracle Morning for addiction recovery. And geniusrecovery.org is the site we have where we have links to all kinds of meanings, every sort of addiction you could imagine. So if you know anyone that's strugg struggling with addiction right now, we're in the middle of the worst mental health crisis in human history. It's very sad, but there's a lot of resources and help up there, so we try to put as much out. There's nothing for sale there. The only thing that I even sell in the recovery world is a book, the Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery I did with Hal Elrod and Anna David. And we're going to actually have Anna as a guest on Friday for I Love Marketing. So make sure you subscribe to I Love Marketing, which you can do on itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. We also have Paul Culligan on, right? Paul, are you still here? If Paul is on, then pop on Paul, because he's a real expert in helping people with podcasts. But so the Life Gives to the Giver. You can get that@joe's freebook.com and we'll send that to everyone that fills out yourtakeaways.com and if you give us the takeaways and then you read my book, Life Gives to the Giver, then we'll actually send you even the other book for free, all electronically. If you've already read my book and you want to share takeaways, then just send an email to jpopolish.com whatever your takeaways are and we'll send you that book immediately. And yeah, so the only book that we're selling here is the Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery because I give all of the proceeds to the foundation so I don't make any money off that book. It's all done to just help people that struggle with addictions. And yeah, so that's it. And until next time, we hope you all stay safe. We hope you apply what you learned today from Jeff Madoff and all the conversations and you go out and do some amazing stuff in the world. And we will talk to you on the next I Love Marketing Meetup group. And me and Dean will be figuring out how to go through and answer all these questions on episodes. So make sure you subscribe to I Love Marketing. And the best to all of you. Thank you so much. Don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing.

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