How To Build An Empire And Do More Of The Work You Love - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #157

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast. Hey everybody, it's Dean Jackson and Joe Polish.

And here we are at the Toronto Strategic Coach headquarters.

This is one of those rare places where we get to like gaze in each other's eyes.

Yeah, it's a little painful right now, but it's about to not be painful for you listening. Because what we did is we actually recorded some episodes involving Dan Sullivan and even a special guest. And that's what you're about to hear. And we're going to make these special episodes. Some were recorded for 10X Talk, the podcast I do with Dan Sullivan, and some were recorded for I Love Marketing, but we decided to do share them on both platforms because they're incredibly valuable.

Exactly. So enjoy.

Hello everyone, it's Joe Polish and I'm here with a couple of dear friends of mine in the studio in Toronto at the Strategic Coach headquarters. And I've got who's here with me instead of me revealing this.

I did my heart good here, my dear friend Dean Jackson. I'm just happy to be embraced into the cuddle fest.

Okay, great.

I actually trained Joe to actually address me that way. So I'm pretty used to it.

So that's of course Dan Sullivan and Dean Jackson going to record a 30 minute episode here. We're going to try to stick to time. But Dan, right before we were going to start recording, you said, you know, collectively we have a quick start here of 29. Something along those lines. Explain what you mean by that.

Well, in the Coach program, everybody who comes into Strategic Coach, there's a great, great outside source that we use for people getting a quick handle on where they should be spending their time. It's called the Colby Profile. It's by Kathy Colby out of Phoenix, Arizona. And what it does is that in a very period of time, it's about 20 minutes, you can do it online. It's called the Kolbe profile, K O L B E. But what it identifies is how you naturally take action to get results. And a lot of entrepreneurs, not all, but a lot of entrepreneurs have a profile which is called High quickstart, which means that they don't do too much planning, they don't do too much resource, they just launch into action. Joe and Dean and I are very, very close to the topping out in the quick start category. And I was just adding up the quick start when we came into the studio this morning and it's 29 out of a possible 30. So it's pretty extreme, which means that we didn't do any preparation whatsoever before we came in. And here we are and feeling extraordinarily confident that this is going to be good, that this is going to be good. And it's a really valuable skill if you are put in the right circumstances where you can actually take advantage of that.

Like a podcast.

Yes. Podcasts are.

Podcasts are perfectly suited for Quick Start. The Quick Start.

Well, yeah. So before we get kind of into what we're going to talk about today, I want to mention that the reason I'm in Toronto and we're all here together is just three days ago, unbeknownst to Dan, he had his 70th birthday a week ago. A week ago from the time we're actually recording this. And that started with a surprise birthday party at Dan's home in Toronto, where, Dean, you were actually at that one.

That was at the. What do we call that? The red herring surprise party.

Yeah, yeah.

And then that led to another surprise party happening for Dan at his Strategic Coach headquarters in Toronto with the whole team. And so they surprised him. And of course he thought, wow, I've already. Twice. And then on Friday night, you have to tell the story, Dean, of how you got him up there, because me and you were talking on the phone, but 300 people showed up for a surprise birthday party. And before you kind of give the background of this, there's one of our good friends, Ben Altadana. He actually showed up. The video I put on my Facebook page of Dan walking in and being surprised at 300 people. And then Ben actually shared the video and he. I just like the line. He said, how do you get 300 people from all across the country to attend your birthday party? Actually all across the world, because people flew in from different parts of the world. And he wrote Impact Thousands. And certainly that's what Dan Sullivan has done. That's why we talk about him on every episode of I Love Marketing. And he's known as the top coach in the world for highly successful entrepreneurs and industry transform. And we just had this amazing party at the Four Seasons with all these great people. And so you were kind of orchestrated so much of this in terms of at least getting him up there and everything.

It was so funny because I told Babs that one of us, either Dan or I, had an award winning performance in me selling him that there was nothing unusual about us going up to the ballroom to look at the boardroom where I was doing my event or he was doing an Oscar winning selling job on convincing me that he had no suspicions about why we were going up there. But we got him up there, and it was so great. Just the opinion.

And the Academy Award goes to Dean Jackson.

Okay, perfect. That was so good. Now, Babs had orchestrated this for months ahead of time. So we had arranged that Dan and Babs were going to come and have dinner with me on Friday night at the Four Seasons. So that wasn't unusual. I'm there, and we often get together like that. So for him to come. Nothing unusual about that. But it was so neat to just behind the scenes. Dan, you had no idea. All these literally moments before you walked in. Harry Rosen had to point him up into the elevator just before you walked in the door. And then Joe and I were on the phone coordinating, and I told him the moment you guys walked in, and it was great.

Well, yeah. What's funny is I was sitting there, the reception kept going in and out of my phone because I've got a US Phone here on international. So I don't know how much money I was spending at three bucks a minute talking to you, waiting for dad to show up. And anyway, we're talking on the phone, and I'm having to go in a couple of times and tell all the people that are patiently waiting that he's going to be here. And I was, like, hoping, please show up, because I don't want them standing there in this poised position for like, half an hour. But it was fantastic. And Dan walked in and he was. I think it was quite overwhelming.

And I just want to say that my life really is a compilation of extraordinary experiences. So 70 years. But I don't see it in terms of years. I don't see it in terms of time. I see it in terms of highly impactful experiences. And I have to tell you, that whole thing on Friday night really is in the top 10 of my life. And it's very close to the top, because, first of all, I didn't reject the experience at all. I mean, I accepted the experience. And it really corresponds to my whole thought about how, just as an individual, you can have a multiplier that's way beyond yourself. And to me, it was kind of like a scorecard. You just got a scorecard after 25 years of the program of what the impact is of certain ideas that you put out into the world. And on the one hand, I was totally surprised. I was totally gratified. I wasn't expecting it at all. But on the other hand, it's kind of proof that you're doing the right things. And I felt that very much as I was going around the room. I was there from 6 to almost 2 o' clock in the morning. I was talking and everybody was talking and I was feeling an enormous amount of gratification about the impact of what we've been doing in coach since 1989 when the program started.

Yeah. And prior to that, we're going to talk about this in a much deeper episode, Dean. But talk about our good friend Diana and how she had actually set up a Toronto I Love Marketing meetup group. And everyone was going to show up because me and you were going to show up on Skype because we didn't want anyone to know we were in Toronto so we wouldn't get back to that.

It's just a week of surprises, wasn't it?

Yeah. So that was the date before that was on the Thursday evening. And so talk about Diana because we're going to actually have her as a guest on I Love Marketing in the future.

Talk about that. Yeah. So Diana used to work with me in Florida and now she's up here in Toronto and her and her husband Oren run a fantastic company SEO show and she runs one of the Toronto meetup groups. So it was really kind of an interesting experience that she put together. People were coming to the group and that you and I were going to Skype in and then we got to walk in live and surprise everybody. And that was fun. That was kind of amazing.

Yeah, we'll probably put that. Because she recorded the whole thing on video and we'll probably put that up as an episode. So here's what I want to get into today on the time we're going to spend on this episode. This is going to sound weird, but the Strategic Coach headquarters are awesome. They have offices in Toronto as their main headquarters, then Chicago, then London, and they do Strategic Coach groups all over the world. And we've said it a million times, if you're an entrepreneur and you want just the most amazing coaching program, go to Strategic Coach, check out what they do and get your butt signed up if you qualify. So that being said, really nice offices. And what I love about Strategic Coach is not just is it incredibly valuable strategies and thinking about your thinking and tools and planning and just lots of.

Stuff to look at.

I always say that it's a great company to see how they are with their clientele. I mean, everything with how you're greeted when you come to Strategic Coach. The look of the office, it's a very unique company. And Dan, of course is a great artist also. So it has a look about it. And out of all things today, I thought, you know, I want to talk about something on this episode of a framed ad from I think around 1930, 1938 or something for Grape Nuts above the men's urinal. Right, okay. One of the men's urinal. So this is where we're.

We had a pre meeting in the bathroom. This is how the magic happens. What are we going to talk about? Yeah, let's talk about this poster.

Okay, so what it says, and I'll snap a picture of it and put it up on the site. And it says the Thinker.

It's a drawing of a guy in Rodin's Thinker pose.

And it says, men who command great enterprises first master themselves for food and drink largely define character. Grape Nuts is a master food for thinkers. There's a reason. Now, granted, I think today I'm sort of a paleo, sort of kind of eater. And I don't eat much and I'd eat a bowl of Grape Nuts, maybe with some almond milk if I was cheating. But the point is, I want to read the first part again. The Thinker. Men who commend great enterprises first master themselves. That's the line. And then of course, for food and drink largely define character. Then of course, it's a pitch for Grape Nuts. But that's not the point of why I want to talk about it. I want to talk about first off, what's a great enterprise? And what does mastering yourself have to do with living and growing and building your company? And what were you going to say before?

I was going to say just where that ad's coming from. Talking about Grape Nuts, like attaching it to this great thing. It probably wouldn't have been unusual in that same magazine where that was to flip and say, three out of four doctors who smoke recommend this brand of cigarettes.

Yeah, back in those.

Because they're toasted. So that just puts you where the level of thinking was then. But they were certainly right about mastering yourself.

Well, that's why I think a lot of times people say there's no truth in advertising because you find out later. But that being said, Dan, you have an organization here, and we've said this before, you have coached more successful entrepreneurs at a certain income level than any other person in the world. And so people come to you because they want to master themselves, because they have built very successful businesses, high income earners. And there are areas of life that are working and many that aren't. And they Come here to get their act together and to become better versions of themselves. So speak to that line.

Yeah, well, Steve Jobs is used a lot. Steve Jobs is almost like the new Thomas Edison. The greatest entrepreneur in American history was Thomas Edison. And I had the advantage of growing up about two miles from where Thomas Edison was born in northern Ohio. And what a lot of people realize is that first of all, he didn't invent the light bulb. It was invented almost simultaneously around the world. About six or seven people did it within about a two year period. There's this whole notion when the world is right for a new idea, it doesn't show up in just one person's brain, it shows up in a lot of people's brains. But actually Edison is more famous and more impactful for two other things that he did. One is that he was the first person to figure out the entire chain from having a bright idea to actually having the entire structure that would package the new idea and organize around the new idea and have the stock market organize its funding around it and then the marketing of it into the marketplace. So he had the complete chain. I mean, Dean, you would love it because I'm sure he just operated according to the principles of the blueprint breakthrough. I mean, if you looked at the whole structure. But the other thing was that he was the first person to organize innovation. He had the first research lab in New Jersey. He was born in Ohio, but he had a place called Menlo park, which is outside New York City. His labs are still there. And he had about 100 people all the time and their goal was to produce a patent every 30 days. And he got the credit. I mean, there's a lot of really bright people and he got credit. So he's credited with over 1,000 patents. I think he's the third in history. But it was all organized innovation and nobody had organized innovation before. And the modern research and development lab which really runs the world comes from Edison. And then the modern marketing system of inventions to marketplace was invented by Edison. A lot of people don't know that.

I did not know that.

Yeah.

Do you read that? Is there a particular.

Oh yeah. I mean there's a lot. Edison is actually becoming more important because people are going back and they were saying, well, where does Steve Jobs come from? Well, where Steve Jobs comes from is Thomas Edison. And you know, the entire high tech Silicon Valley and around the world. Where does this all come from? Well, it all comes from Thomas Edison. Edison says never try to sell an invention. Always sell a system that's built around an invention. He said nobody wants to buy an invention. Everybody wants to buy a system.

Wow.

So Apple, if you look at Apple, you look at Jeff, I think Jeff Bezos is probably going to be the ultimate winner out of this because he's just got such an amazing system. But the guys at Google, you know, I mean, they have these amazing systems that they build around innovation.

You know who's kind of doing something similar to that is Dean Kamen.

Yes.

Who has an engineering lab like that that's constantly creating things. He's the guy that created the Segway is what he's kind of famous for.

Well, you know, I'm friends with Dean, I met him through X Prize Foundation.

Oh, did you hung out with him? Well, the other thing is, which is really probably going to make the greatest impact is his ability to take dirty polluted water anywhere on the planet.

That's an amazing story.

And actually turn it into clean water in a matter of minutes. And every outlying in the world that doesn't have can now have clean water. But the big thing was he linked up with Coca Cola. And so Coca Cola said wherever we deliver Coke, we're going to actually finance and deliver these machines.

Do you know how they traded him apparently for his technology for precision fluid distribution. This is where he made his money, was creating the insulin pump and fluid distribution things for the medical field. And he gave that to Coca Cola in their new. If you've been in restaurants, some of the restaurants, yeah, they've got those new.

Condensed machines you can every beverage they.

Have and it's all like printer cartridges underneath that delivers just the right amount of syrup and just the right amount of carbonation and water. And water. But Coca Cola apparently has the largest distribution network, the farthest reaching distribution network in the world.

And let's just hope that they actually do get clean water to people, not just save. A lot of people that currently don't have any access to clean water do that for a few years under the guise of we're trying to be healthy and help people and then get them all hooked up.

No, no, no. I mean really ultimately you want to save the planet for Coca Cola?

Well Dean, you know what, I had a conversation with Richard Branson on his island about the biggest brands in the world. Like what's the biggest brands? And it came out as Coca Cola. You know, I mean Coca Cola, they do have the largest distribution system and Dean Kamen could not get into countries without that.

What I was going to say is that really that it was amazing because he's had that technology for quite a while and he thought that here he's got the solution for one of the biggest recognizable world problems. But nobody wanted it or could do anything. Nobody wanted it because there's no money behind it kind of thing.

Well, let's just hope that a company that manufactures Liquid Satan actually does a.

Lot of great stuff.

So that's awesome. All right, so great enterprises, Dan, like, for the people listening to this, I mean, they all have their expectations, their goals, their objectives. They listen to our podcast because they're trying to build and grow to more successful business. How do they take this type of thinking? I think a lot of people are not. Well, I'm not the next Edison, or maybe you are. How do you apply this to your own business?

Well, this year I've been coaching entrepreneurs for 40 years, so I'm 70. This year I've been coaching entrepreneurs for 40 years. And it's the 25th anniversary this year of Coach, the Strategic Coach program in a workshop forum. So I've had a lot of opportunity just to sit back and watch. Why? People who are entrepreneurs oftentimes just to create a job for themselves, it never gets much bigger than they've created a job for themselves or they've created a small company and they have two or three people. But there's not a crossover to actually having a company. There's not a crossover to actually having an enterprise. And I've often wondered, well, what's the secret sauce that makes one person stay really small? And what's the secret sauce that makes them get big? And at the 40 year mark, I've really, really come up with a clarity about that, is that the people who grow enterprises never actually think they're doing something outside of themselves. It's actually they're looking inside of themselves. And what's unique about me and how do I approach things uniquely and how do I communicate things uniquely? And then they just link up with other people's capabilities to take what's inside and keep extending it out into the world. As I look at you, Dean, this is what you do. And when I look at you, Joe, this is what you do. And there's no limit on how far that enterprise can go except your own enterprise and your own motivation. I started with just a thinking process back in 1982 that everybody loved. It was called the strategy circle. And I got up to about 50 clients that I could do this. And then I ran out of time. So I said, you know, I bet I could do this in a group. And I did it in a group and we went 10 times in about five years. And I said, I bet other people can coach this. And then we did, and we went another 10 times in about 10 years. Now I said, okay, now I want to go to a much higher group. And I started that about three years ago. But all along the way, the constant is that I'm just taking kind of what my unique ability is. We started off talking about the Colby, but I have a particular set of characteristics and I've just said, well, who can I take my unique ability and get it outside myself and work out a deal with this person and this person and this person and this person. And that's where the enterprise. And I think that people who don't realize that think that the secret's outside of themselves, but it is. The secret's actually inside of themselves.

I think too that's absolutely true. And I think that it resonates so deeply with this concept that I've been talking about for the last little while about the self milking cow. The frustration that there are a lot of people who have great ideas and think like this and their walk around and their frustration is that they're trying to milk themselves and that is limiting. And everybody who has overcome that has only been because they've built a farm operation around them. But the distinction is that most people are frustrated about not being able to get their ideas in the world is because I believe they're waiting for somebody to discover them as a cow and build a farm organization around them. And that's not what happens. There has to be a level of self awareness and the ability to have that decision that I need to build a farm around me and nobody's going to do it for me. I need to do that. And I think that then opens up the path to having to go down that self mastery path.

The whole thing you just said about people are waiting to be discovered. I've thought about that a lot, especially with people in arts and entertainment and stuff that are quote unquote creative and have talent, they're like, well, you know, I just want to get discovered. And the delusion is every once in a while you see someone that had a great YouTube video or, or you look at some artist that was found in a lounge or a nightclub and someone just saw the talent and they're like, oh, we're just going to run everything for them. But those are so rare. And there's so many talented, creative, brilliant people that never go anywhere because they don't have that platform, they never build it and they're waiting to be discovered. And that's where marketing comes in. You're going to go out and get yourself and make yourself discovered because you're going to create that structure. I think that's what I think we do in Strategic Coach is it really helps, Dan, what you're talking about doing in groups. I mean, just the whole concept of bundling and unbundling what you do, the whole concept of canning and cloning yourself with consumer guides, sales letters, videos, webinars, this podcast. I mean, right now we can have three guys sitting in a room talking to a person in the corner that we're mentoring or we can have hundreds of thousands of people listen to us because we are just distributing it. So how would you, in the time we have available, how would you recommend that our listeners that currently aren't there or are there and they want to multiply? Because you always use the term Dan, multiply and you have your whole new program at Strategic Coach is u times 10. I mean literally the thinking is grow yourself 10 times. Where do you need to be at mindset wise? What's the first step to actually just make that happen?

A couple years ago, before Dean, you created the breakthrough blueprint, before you created that, I had asked you a question. And the question, we were just talking on the phone one night and I said, dean, I've got a question for you. And this is what is the single activity that would continually fascinate and motivate you for the rest of your life? Dean is usually not at a loss for words. And he was, and he said, wow. He said, I have an answer. But it kind of surprised me when it came up. He's always been extraordinarily successful in his packaging of the entire marketing process for real estate agents. I mean, he's world famous for that. But he said, you know what I'd like to do? He says, I'd just like to have these small group where I can just show them the entire marketing process in a two or three day period. And they're actually creating the experience by bringing in their plans and what they want to do. And it's not predictable how it's going and then we'll think about packaging that beyond that. But right now, this is the thing that I would actually love doing. So the number one thing is that you have to go for your passion whether you can see a payoff for it or not. And so this is the hard part for most people. Yeah, but nobody's going to pay me for my passion. And I said, well, if you believe that, that's true. But if you believe I'm going to stick with my passion until somebody pays me for it, then you've got the level of commitment that's really required. But it's not just they'll pay for it. You have to do it for the right people. In other words, a lot of people think, well, I've got this really great passion. You see this a lot in the arts. I really feel my art really, really strongly. And I said, yeah, but who do you want to do it for? Well, that's not my issue. And I said, of course it's your issue.

Yeah, it always starts with the list, right?

It always starts with the list. And I, I don't want to do strategic coach for anybody, you know, I'm not interested in people who need it. I'm interested in people who want it, you know, and I'm interested in people who, if they have this, they know they could just take off and go 10 times, 100 times. But then the other thing is, I gotta get really well paid for it because I gotta. All along the way, I've got to keep having a higher level of motivation and confidence. And I find checks really do that for me. And applause is really welcome. But checks are even more appreciated. And a lot of people say, well, you know, I don't care if I get paid or not. And I says, okay, well, it's up to you, but I want to get paid for it. I just added up since I started my first coaching, you know, where I had a method. I'm getting paid 1800 times greater today for what I do than I did when I had that. It's not 10 times, it's 1800 times. And I said, I expect probably 30 years from now I'll be paid 1800 times greater than that. But I don't worry about that. It's just that I got to be paid. I gotta do it for someone who I really want to be a hero to. In other words, I want their life to just jump as a result of what I can provide. But I got to be totally passionate about it.

I've discovered a sixth love language, the five love languages. And the sixth is checks. Checks.

Checks. Oh, no. Yeah, no.

Acts of service, gifts, you know, whatever. Words of affirmation. Checks of affirmation.

Checks, affirmation.

So say that question, because here's what I'd like to do for people listening as we wrap up this. We're going to stay to a 30 minute episode as best we can here, maybe go over a minute or so, say that question again. I'd like people listening to write this down and ponder this because on the next episode we're going to speak to a topic that will really fit in with that. So what is that question?

What is the activity? There's kind of like an area of activity which if you could just free yourself up to focus on that activity, it would keep you totally fascinated and motivated for the rest of your life. People are so weird about this. They'll say, but if I found that, I'd get bored. I said, you can't. You're fascinated and motivated. No, no. But I said, no, you'd be fascinated and motivated for the rest of your life. And I said, well, there is no such thing because I always get bored. And I said, no, you get bored because you keep picking boring things to do. If you were fascinated and motivated all the time, you wouldn't be bored. And it's kind of. They have to come to grips that they've created a self defeating system that they won't allow themselves to actually identify the thing that fascinates and motivate them because they know that they would to commit themselves to it.

Exactly. And that's not an easy one for a lot of people to answer because they don't know.

Once you do. Once you answer it though, I remember so distinctly, like we were right there, right now having that conversation and 30 days from the moment of having that conversation, I had the first 12 people in a room in celebration for the first breakthrough blueprint.

Right. Well, my answer to that is genius. Networking. I don't just want a networking meet. I want to do it with people that are constantly teaching me things, enhancing me.

What's been fascinating to watch a book, the way you're growing with that is that there seems to be no limit to the highest and highest levels that you're able to do that. It just is fascinating.

We're going to wrap up with this episode, Dan, so I want to just wish you a very happy birthday week. It was fantastic. And on the next episode, we're going to talk about the three sales. So stay tuned for the three sales. If this is your first time finding this podcast, then I want you to subscribe on itunes so that you get it every single day. Single time. We put out an episode not only for ilove marketing.com but also the number 10xtalk.com thank you. All right, see ya.