How To Connect, Collaborate, and Build A Successful Business By Giving People What They Want with Joe Polish and Dave Asprey - Genius Network Episode #186

I wrote a book on connecting with people, but it's really a book on connecting with yourself. It's a book on. It's not just a capability book, it's a character book. And I hope that this book will take the givers of the world to be more empowered, better boundaried givers. If you can be the best, most empowered, most useful giver with the ability to discern who to develop relationships and who to stay away from. What are the landmines? What's the kryptonite? You're going to meet greater people and, and you'll be better protected. And that's part of my goal. If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network event or want to learn more about Genius network, go to geniusnetwork.com through Joe, I.

Met Peter Diamandis, who I've done a lot of things with and I met a whole bunch of other who are now close friends and people who are entrepreneurs who are helping other people. It's one thing to be in a group full of sort of piranha, like people who are just all out to take. And a lot of Internet marketing is like that. And you occasionally meet these groups of people that are curated where it's people who are genuinely interested in helping each other. So Joe's become a dear friend. We've gone fishing together and things like that. But he wrote what might be one of the foundational new business books, kind of an upgrade to the old how to Win Friends and Influence People. We went back and forth on the title over and over, but it's called what's In It For Them. So I decided I was going to interview Joe about this on the show because this book will teach you something even if you're not about business, if you're just about relationships. Joe has studied this for many years and is, in my experience, a master of connecting people and building great friendships.

First off, thank you. Thank you for being a cool dude, being part of my group, being part of my life. And we've done some really insane, unique things together. And I mean, we can talk, we've been on fishing boats just saying the worst things that a human could possibly say to each other in a form of bonding with friends. No matter what you do business personally, it always involves relationships and many people are not good at developing relationships. And I was not good at developing relationships growing up. And that's why I ended up now probably learning as much as one possibly could and applying it for building a connection network. And so I Want to help other people build their own genius networks.

I don't know if I ever told you about this. You know, I used to have Asperger's syndrome when I was a kid. I was pretty darn unaware of other people and relationship dynamics, in part because of toxic mold and a lot of early childhood trauma, birth trauma, and nothing that anyone did on purpose. But what I started doing was I'd go to the Stanford campus, and there was this business networking group every Thursday night, this thing called the Stanford Barn. And I was like the fat computer hacker standing in the corner eating grapes and cheese. And I would just watch people every Thursday for, like, two years because I knew business networking mattered if I wanted to succeed. This was back. I think I was working at 3Com when I did this, which is now a dead networking company. And I just remember thinking, this is hard, but there's a pattern. And I slowly worked it out. And then I had a couple mentors who took me under the wing. Like, oh, this weird kid's probably. He seems really smart and he knows what he's talking about, but he's clueless. A bumbling level of clueless. Cluelessness. How bad were you? Because that's how bad I was.

I was more scared than everything else in my mind. I never asked someone out on a date. I never went to prom in high school. I was deathly afraid of not only developing relationships and approaching people, but I was completely insecure in myself. I was shy and introverted, and part of it just simply was due to my upbringing in my childhood. You know, my mother was a former nun. I've heard every joke under the sun on that. But she left the convent because she had gotten ill, and she met my father in church. They fell in love, they got married, they had me, and I have an older brother. And my mother died of ovarian cancer when I was 4 years old. And that was in 1972. And so when that happened, my father was tormented. He was broken. He never really recovered. He lost the love of his life. And so every year to two years, my entire child, we would go to different cities in the Southwest, so different parts of Arizona, different parts of New Mexico, different parts of Texas. So I would go to these schools. It was hard for me to develop relationships with anyone. And as soon as I established some friendships, we would uproot and we'd go somewhere else. So I never really quite learned. I always felt like this is all temporary. I was always going to a new school, never had a lot of money. I mean, Half my childhood, we lived in trailers. We weren't dirt poor, but we were definitely like, you know, lower middle class sort of thing. And my father, father was a locksmith and he never remarried. So I never had any sort of female upbringing. The only, like, sort of relationships that I had were very fleeting, temporary, you know, brothers and sisters of my father. And I never really got to know my mother's family side that much after she died. And so it was just this. And then I was, you know, I was basically sexually abused as a kid. And that put a. Instilled a feeling of, I'm worthless, I'm shameful, I'm dirty. And so my interaction into sexuality was abusive and it was disgusting and it was humiliating. So any bit of self worth I had was just almost completely removed between the ages of 8 to 10 years old. And then I was going to church and there was a lot of awful things that happened in camps and different things where I would go to. And I just felt like, nothing's safe in the world. So I never felt safe in the world. And I was scared. And I would pray to not get picked on and bullied. But I was a shy kid. And then I tried sports, and I had a sadistic little league coach that would force me to hold the baseball bat in a certain way where I could never hit the ball. And I could hit the ball fine if I just could lean the bat back and he would make me hold it straight and I could not hit the ball. So I ended up quitting the team. Then the kids on the team started pick, some of them beating me up because I quit the team. But I quit the team only because I couldn't play the game. And so all of a sudden I'm like, what the hell is going on? Like, nothing you can do in the world. You're just going to, you know. And then I would pray to a God that I never really felt gave me any protection. And it was kind of a messed up childhood. So I started doing drugs, you know, junior high and high school. And that became one of the ways that I did it. And let me say this too. When I talk about things that are bad about my childhood, I want to be careful and preface it with, everybody has painful, difficult things in their life. And there's a saying in recovery groups, because I've been in addiction recovery for over two decades, that you're as sick as your secrets. And if you try to fight silent battles, these are the hardest battles to fight. That's something I always try to talk About. And so I don't want this to sound like woundology. I never want to use my story as like, oh, poor me, because everybody has had awful stuff.

There's a problem with that. Some people just love to go out there and they just pour it out, almost like bask in it. And you don't do that that I've ever seen you do. You're more just illustrating like, it was pretty bad.

Yeah. But because I have an addiction recovery foundation and I spend about half my time in that world helping people with addiction recoveries. And I don't charge for it. It's something. And it's not because I'm some philanthropic angel. It's. It helps me in my own recovery. I mean, it really does. If you think your life sucks, there's other people that would love to have someone to sit with them, even if they're dying in a hospice center. So part of it is like, I do that work. It's difficult work, it's challenging work, but it's very fulfilling for what I do. And if you're going to tell your story about that, it's really dangerous to get so attached to it because there's a lot of speakers that use their signature story as a way to manipulate people. And I. And narcissistic people are really. Yes. At doing that. And I never want to come across like, oh, feel bad for me because. And again. And I say this also not to minimize it either, because you can do the reverse too. You can say, oh, no, it was no big deal. And a lot of times it was freaking awful. Right. So everyone. So there's a balance on how to do it. I'm not sure I'm. I know the exact perfect ways to try to explain this, but I just want to point that out.

Okay. So there's no possible way that you would have known how to form great connections, how to build the kind of thing that you have now for context, I've lost track of the number of times that you've reached out with a video or just called me and said, dave, you need to talk to this person. And they're always spot on connections. And you do it more than anyone else I know. And I have some amazing friends, people that you know, guys like Mike Koenig and all, who are just helping people in the world. Right. And what a lot of entrepreneurs, a.

Lot of people say, does Mike really help people, though? I mean, we love you, Mike.

Yeah, we do. What happens, though, is that a lot of people don't understand. There are people who profoundly just want to help and they're not trying to get something out of it. Right, right. And I didn't believe this at all as a kid. I didn't understand how society worked, how networks of humans worked. And certain. Certainly I thought that if I helped anyone or if I accepted help from anyone, that that person then I would owe them something. And it was always transactional. Maybe it was something in how I was raised. And I loved it that you wrote the what's in it for Them as the title in your new book. Because what is going on with that? I learned people love to help if they're the right people.

Yeah. And there are givers like Adam Grant, who I know personally. He wrote a book called Give and Take. And he writes about givers, takers and matchers. And my book is not like his. I think you would get a lot from his book. It's a great book. I write about different things. But the purpose of my book is because people ask me, why did you write the book? And I will often make a joke. Well, some speakers or authors will say, I wrote it because I want to bless the world with all my lessons and ideas. Some people just want to make money selling a book. Right.

It's the worst way to make money ever. Are you kidding?

What's that?

Writing a book is terrible on a per hour basis. You might as well just pull shots of espresso. You'll make more money.

Let me give you a marketing thing on that. I've sold tens of millions of dollars worth of courses for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, which is way easier than writing a book. Exactly. It really is. You're right in that department is if you think writing a book. There are very few authors as a standalone that can just write a book and get rich. I mean, smart marketers can use it as a seed. They can use it as a probe. They can use it to enroll people. I actually wrote this book mostly for me. Remember the things that I have done that have worked and have helped propel me forward in my life and the mistakes I've made. So the book is mixed with methods, strategies, techniques, philosophies on how to develop and connect with people and cautionary tales on what not to do. Because I've made a lot of mistakes helping people that I should not have put what I call time, attention, money, effort and energy that have abused me, that have taken advantage. I mean, I. And, you know, you.

Me both. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like you can. You can put your effort in your Love in your care and your concern, in your relationships and connections and offer them to other people and they will cut off your hand. Now they won't do it right away. A lot of times they will. I mean, because sociopaths and psychopaths and, you know, narcissists and takers are very good at identifying who are the givers of the world. And I really love givers. I actually think the best way to operate in life is to be a giver. I even wrote a book called Life Gives to the Giver. Because life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. But not right away. We can look out right now into the world and see a lot of takers, many that are in the highest positions of politics and business running the world, that are just doing nothing but destroying humanity and creating massive suffering while they simultaneously make a ton of money. So people can look at at that and be like, I don't get it. Why be a giver? When I see all these takers, that seems to be the path. And what I want to do is help the givers of the world not get jaded. I want to help them to be better boundaried. Because I think these people, you know, some people, their purpose in life is to serve a bad. Is a bad example. And so their punishment is their own existence. They may make a lot of money. They may do someone in particular. I wish I could. Well, you can look at people that hold the highest political positions, people that are in charge of pharmaceutical companies, people that are in charge of tech companies, people that are in charge of the ccp, people that are in charge of usury and central banking. You might find some individuals in there that are.

You have to look really carefully by opening your eyes, right?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But there's so much fear, porn and propaganda that's being pumped out into the world right now. And oftentimes when people are scared and desperate, it allows the people that will take advantage to come out of the woodworks. I mean, I think it's Cabot Roberts that said years ago that human beings are walking around the world with their umbilical cords in their hand, looking for some place to stick it into in order to give them some nourishment. And people that are exploitive will take those people that are desperate and hurting and they will take advantage of them. And it's sick and it's twisted and it's unfair and it's unethical and it's unfortunate. However, if you are a boundaried giver, and you genuinely care and you produce more than you consume. That is what I think the world needs more than anything right now. And I want people that really have these giver tendencies, they really want to be helpful, they really get a joy out of being useful and grateful and valuable to others is to not feel like it's not worth it or to feel like, oh, my God. Because everyone that has the ability to feel empathy, because what I feel sorry for, for the narcissists of the world, they don't have the ability to feel empathy. And I mean, and part of that usually comes from trauma. Yeah, most narcissists are trauma monkeys and it's insecurities. So, like, I write about this in the book, but one of our genius Selworth members, who you probably know, Dr. Don Wood, he's a former hockey player, you know, he has this great line, he's now a trauma therapist. And he says, you know, if you understood the atmospheric conditions of somebody's life, it would make sense why they do what it is they do. So I can often look at some of the most scandalous, sinister people, and if you understood the atmospheric conditions of their life, it would make sense why they turned out the way they turned out. It doesn't make an excuse for them hurting or abusing people, especially when violence is involved or massive forms of betrayal and deception. What it does, though, it gives you an understanding that I'm the way I am, you're the way you are, everyone is the way they are because of the atmospheric conditions of their life. And I believe that we can alter our atmospheric conditions. I believe we can change things. And if we do that for ourselves, then the atmospheric conditions of our family, everyone, we have the ability to influence communities, countries, can ultimately change. And I'm not talking about save the world sort of stuff like I, you know, if you want to save the world, because a lot of people use that as a cop out. I want to change the world. I want to save the world, change one person's life, then change five people's lives, then 10 people. And if you actually are really good at doing that, you might actually change a lot of people. But I'm not on submission to save the world or change the world. What I would like to do in addiction recovery is I'd like to be a catalyst to change the global conversation about how people view and treat addicts with compassion instead of judgment, and find the treatments that have the best forms of efficacy and then share those with the world. So that's why I created Genius Recovery, it's an educational platform. But in order for me to do that, I have to put, you know, I have to put information out in the world. And that's where my businesses actually help me facilitate doing that stuff.

You know what I admire a lot about you, Joe, is your inability to talk about your brand new book.

Yeah, you're right. Well, see, I talked to the head of my sales prevention department right before this interview and I was like, make sure we don't mention my book. What's in it for them? Because someone may find that that could be a really useful book for them and they may want to buy it. And we're just here to talk about possibilities, not actually give people a possibility to plan it, a path to you. But here's the deal. If you actually want to have a book, which I really wrote is what I call a first domino. Because at the end of every chapter of what's in it for them? This is my book. By the way, the website is whatsinitfor them.com and you can get this now wherever books are sold. And I recorded this book myself because I like it when authors record their own book. And Dave, you know how much of a pain in the butt that is?

It's like the worst part of writing a book is reading it at the end.

Oh my God. Like when you're a talker. But then you have to make sure every, every sentence, you can't say a word out of place. Talking to 5,000 people, as I hold this glass of water up close to me, doing a talk to 5,000 people for an hour is infinitely easier than recording your own audiobook from my perspective. But yeah, I recorded it. And what's in it for them is every chapter has what I call dominoes. Because I don't want to just describe the things that work and methods and strategies and stuff. I want people to have actionable things that they can use. And I call those things dominoes. Because everyone has probably read a book or met a person or done something that changed their life in a positive way. And I didn't write a timely book. I wrote a timeless book. So I hope that this book is around when I'm long gone. Because the book how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, this book wouldn't exist had he not written that book. And what the difference though is, I wanted to enhance, not say this is better or worse or whatever. I wanted to update it as best I can because it's not about winning friends and influencing people. It's about Winning the right friends and influencing the right people. Only aligning yourself, the people you're aligned with. Because so much of our energy is wasted giving our time, our talent. I call it in chapter two, I call it Tammy. I don't use in the book, I don't call it Tammy. I'm just doing that for sake of our conversation here. Time, attention, money, effort and energy. Those are the things that we can spend. And I worked out at a gym earlier today, I've several gym memberships and they have a big thing on the giant wall at this gym that says effort is your responsibility. And I really like that line because the effort we put into things is our responsibility.

Man, I would just be, I think I'd be offended at that. I would just say effort represents a waste of your time and energy. Get the results with less effort. Isn't that what we really want? Well, I don't fetishize effort, do you? Well, it sounds like you might.

Well, I don't think I fetishize it, but I actually believe you have to to put forth effort.

You do, but you should put forth morally as little effort as possible to get results so you can put the effort into something else.

That's part of the way of doing that, which would be called leverage. Okay, let's talk about leverage and productivity. Okay, productivity would be maximum results, least amount of time. Leverage is maximum results, least amount of effort. Okay, to go to your point. So to highly leverage yourself in business or in life has to do with putting your time, attention, money, effort and energy into people that appreciate it, people that are deserving of it and not wasting it on losers or takers. So Ned Hallowell says vitamin C is what we need a lot of in what he refers to as Vitamin Connect.

I love that quote. We do need more connection and it's hard for anyone to argue with that given the results of two years of removing connection by locking people in their houses. And the problem is, and this is something that was really a big thing for me, I was really good at feeling lonely in a crowded room. And many, many people are good at that. The number of close friends that people report having now is at an all time low and it's been going down for the last 30 years. So people feel like they don't even know how to make a single friendship, much less do the kind of thing you do where you have lots of friends and these are actually real friends. And you have lots of people you help who are kind of in your sphere but aren't friends. But I've seen you, I've known you for a decade now and I watch how you operate. It's pretty damned impressive, to be honest. So you went out and you consciously learned how to make friends, how to build a community, how to build connection. And then you went to the trouble of writing the book what's in it for them? Which is awesome. But here's the question. I sat down with you and my former wife over dinner right after you'd had a really big betrayal with someone in your business. And I'm not going to go into any detail. You know what I'm talking about. Right. And you were genuinely hurt. I've never seen you like that. Sad and just disheartened. And it's pretty easy to get bitter and to get angry and just sort of f this and to have that vibe. How long did it take you to work through that?

Well, there's definitely still scar tissue from it because when you have. It's another form of rape. When someone betray, you know, it's when someone does something non consensually and they take from you and when it's someone that you know and someone that you have helped tremendously, that could look you in the eyes and tell you that they love you and that they care about you while they're doing all this devious stuff. Yeah, it's really. I would be lying if I didn't say it's not hard to deal with that or to process that experience, especially if you can't even fathom doing that sort of thing to someone else. But you can see how does someone do it? That required me to talk to a lot of friends. I did not realize how my years in recovery would be helpful for that sort of stuff. I also had to spend a lot of time doing a lot of yoga and doing a lot of breathing and doing my best to meditate sometimes when I just wanted to jump out of myself skin. And there's the process. I did a deep dive and study narcissists.

You know, I'm working on a book about them now.

Good.

I had a similar experience after that just recently. So.

Yeah. And I will say, you know Dr. Ramani Darvassala, who's one of the top narcissist experts in the world. I've done a couple interviews with her. She's great. She's, you know, written some great books and I have an awesome interview with her online. You know, there's. That's something that, you know, as everyone's on the narcissist bandwagon too. So some people are fetishizing the whole narcissist thing. But there we live in a culture right now that is with social media where, you know, I mean, think about being an influencer. You know, I want to be an influencer.

It's like, why would you want that?

What's that?

Why would you want that?

Well, ask, ask the majority of young people that want to be an influencer because it's been made out. And look, when I was young, if I was a teenager, low self esteem, low self worth, like I'd want to be famous, I'd want people to admire me. I mean, to this day I still do. I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say that.

Seriously.

Well, the ego part of every one of us wants to be liked. But when I took a one year sabbatical last year, part of the things that I went into it with is I wanted to smoke out as much part of me that needed external validation to feel I was useful as a human or valuable as a human. And I did like where I like, I'm just not going to go, I'm not going to even look at social media. I didn't. And to this day I don't have it on my. I have a backup phone that has the stuff, but I don't have it on my main phone. I have no social media on my main phone because I found not being on social media for me, not for everyone, I can always speak for my own life, was more inspirational to me than reading inspirational quotes on social media. But we live in a culture right now where it is just, it's being framed that being famous or being an influencer. So I will say to people that, you know, there's thought leaders, like any idiot can come up with a thought. I like result leaders. You know, I like people that have the ability to produce the results. So that's what's impressive to me. And yeah, I mean, you know that.

That fat picture I showed you when we were first sitting down before we.

Started rolling you when you were 22.

I was 22. That was the, the proof for Entrepreneur magazine. So 22, like, dude, I started reading Entrepreneur when I was 12 or 13 and now I'm in it. I'm 22. It's going to change everything. And after a week, I'm really not happier. And I lost the I want to be famous thing. Before I started Bulletproof and all this stuff, I pretty much erased my digital identity because I'm a computer hacker. I was very happy with that. And then I said, well, I'll do it, but it's work and I've never sought it for its own sake. I've only sought it if it was necessary to do something that I thought was, was meaningful. But you're right. So people do seek out fame because they think it's going to make them happy. And it used to be money and they still seek out money because it's going to make them happy. But you've got several books and a good amount of visibility and you're financially successful and all. What percentage of your happiness comes from those?

Well, I mean, I get more joy really as a human in the middle of a really kind of just challenging yoga class than I do putting together. Most businesses deals from a feeling of real connection. The physical stuff is always a deeper connection because most of it is fleeting. Here's what I would say about fame though. I don't like the idea of fame because I know a lot of very famous people and I see what it can actually do to someone depending on their relationship with it. Meaning if you're like our friend Dan Sullivan says, if you're pursuing growth over status, I think you'll be find a lot more fulfillment and a lot more value. But if you're status seeking, social ladder climbing, trying to look famous, trying to play the part, but deep down inside you're doing that to cover up or not even look at insecurities or stuff like you haven't done the work, then it will, it will kind of fool you. Like, and I've really worked hard. Don't believe your own pr because if you are doing good stuff in the world, people should be saying glowing things. All people say, oh my God, I got this amazing testimonial about my product or my service and it's like, that's what you should do. Like if, unless you're putting crap out into the world, people should be saying glowing things about it. And if you're selling anything for a company you work for or for your own business and you're not getting that sort of feedback, you really need to take a look at what the hell you're selling. People should say amazing things if you're really selling something amazing. If you're selling mediocre stuff or crap in the box and you kid someone into thinking, oh my God, it's the most amazing thing ever. I mean, you kind of know, I mean, the reason, like karmically we know if we're doing good in the world or we're not. I Think that, you know, am I 100% sure not, you know, people can kid themselves. See, I don't want to be a sage from the stage. I want to be a guide from the side, you know, that sort of thing. And so it's like, I don't like the guru stuff. I mean, I get it, I understand it. There's connecting and then there's connecting. There are people that connect by conning people, right? And the people that become my true inner circle friends, or I look at people that are more powerful. How do they treat people that are less powerful than them? Most. I know quite a few billionaires personally and many I've met in addiction recovery. No one would even know that I know them. And I fortunately joined a high profile group for people with sexual addiction in the year 2000 that could not. And there were Academy Award winning actors and actresses, NBA players, NFL players, musicians, politicians, clergy. I mean, people that were well known, but they couldn't go out and just admit that they were struggling with this sort of thing that has even the sound of a lot of shame attached to it. But I want to talk about sexual addiction. I publicly talk about it because for years I never did. And then once I started doing it, I would have people, a lot of high level entrepreneurs and CEOs, men and women that started coming up to me and just thanking me for how valuable it was. And a lot of people that have gotten help as a result of doing it. So it is one of the most shameful sort of things that I've ever dealt with of this sexual addiction sort of thing. But I wanted to define it and describe it.

How do we get there from teaching people what's in it for them?

Because connection is if you are not connected with yourself, you're going to be disconnected with other people. So you're either communicating with someone, you're connecting or you're trying to escape. That's what I write about in the book.

Thus the need to write what's in it for them. It's a book about how to connect to people.

The line, the sentence, the question. What's in it for them? Is to take the focus off of you and what you want. Genius networking is, you know. 9 Genius Networking Principles is the subtitle. In order to have a genius network. A genius network is a group of people that have skills and capabilities or something. It could be fun. It doesn't have to be for business, but it usually has to do with people that have some knowledge or wisdom and some capability. Like you have a Genius network, right? You're part of my group, but you also have, if you want to get in better physical shape as an example. And like you had to think of who are eight people in my life? Do I need a nutritionist? Do I need a trainer? Do I need a yoga instructor? Do I need a massage therapist? Do I need a breath coach? You know, whatever.

Yeah, the team that supports you.

The team that supports you. So in order to have a genius network, not just go out and do networking and, and meet people, I'm not telling people to just like networking is like this old archaic sounding word.

It's a waste of time anyway. If you're just meeting random people without any intent and just swapping business cards and maybe we can help each other someday. That doesn't feel like it's a very productive activity if you don't know who's in the room.

Well, okay, so like on social media, you often see a lot of people that will go out and they'll take pictures with famous people that they don't even know and then they will write up a post with a picture of them and they will say, this person's really great and I really appreciate everything that they've done and all that. And what I call it is giving credit to credentialize. You give credit to someone to credentialize.

Yourself with them as someone able to give credit. Right.

Well, it's just you coming up with a way to try now, at the end of the day, it's not like a mortal sin or anything. I mean, whatever if you want, but the point is, is like going and meeting famous people does not result in you having a successful life. You have to bring something to the dance party other than just your phone and snap a picture. And what I was saying is like, the people that are more powerful, how do they treat people that are less powerful than them? Do they say thank you when someone opens up the door? Are they nice to servers? And how do they treat their teeth? So if you really want to know who someone is, it's not what they, who they are on stage. It's not the books that they write, it's not their social media posts. It's who they are when that shit's, when the camera's not on, how do they treat their team? And so the people that become my true friends are, you know, how are they with their families? If they have families, how are they with just normal people? Are they always kissing up to more famous people in order to curry favor sort of thing? Part of it is the ability to read energy. The ability is find who do you feel safe with. Part of it is dealing with your own shit. Because I wrote a book on connecting with people, but it's really a book on connecting with yourself. It's a book on. It's not just a capability book, it's a character book. And I hope that this book will take the givers of the world to be more empowered, better boundaried givers and protect themselves from the narcissists and from the abusers. Because the world really needs people like that right now. If you can be the best, most empowered, most useful giver with the ability to discern who to develop relationships and who to stay away from. What are the landmines? What's the kryptonite? You're just going to get. You're going to meet greater people and you'll be better protected. And that's part of my goal.

I don't know that I'm any better equipped to spot them now than I was before. What did you change after your most recent experience in your own practice to have those boundaries where you could not let the narcissists attach their tentacles to you?

Well, for one, I had to look at how did I allow myself to help this person in the first place? I have some friends, most of them women. But men and women both say this when they're single and they've been in a relationship where they've been hurt and there's been some pain from. And they'll say something along the lines of, you know, I want to meet someone that doesn't play any games. And it's like, well, unfortunately, humans play games because if you could just. If we were all a planet of trusting individuals and there weren't all these demonic personalities out there. And I think most people are good. So when I say this, let me not be.

It only takes like one bad one to take advantage of the good ones.

And then you think everyone sucks. But so the line that I was going to say, and I'll come back to it, is whoever cares the least controls the relationship. And that's true when you're dealing with manipulative, intimidating, power hungry people. If whoever cares the least controls the relationship. And there's something about humans where if someone doesn't approve of you, you want them to approve of you. It's this childhood thing of please validate me. And so part of it is we oftentimes. And when I say we, I'm talking about myself, right? And I do believe this Because I've. I've done the reps, I've done the work with a lot of people, and I've gotten a lot of agreement on this. And I've had. I've sat. I've been through more therapy, and I. More groups than most people.

You've done the work with a capital.

W. Yeah, I've done a lot. And in no way, shape, or form do I ever want to pretend like I've transcended all this. I'm a flawed human. I'm always working on stuff. I mean, it's a daily sort of activity. I mean, you know, everyone thinks they're right, and it takes a lot of awareness to realize that sometimes you think you're right and you're totally wrong. So the thing is, unless you're with a deep, bonded, caring person where you don't need to play, when someone says, I don't want to play games, what they're really saying is, I don't want to get hurt. Because if you could play games and win all day long, assuming you like playing a game that you're not abusing someone, you play games all day long. It's fun to play games that you win. What people are really saying is, I don't want to lose. I don't want to be hurt. So when those things happen, the first chapter of what's in it for them is to be a pain detective. And so, because I believe most bonding is made when you can resonate and you can connect on either some sort of mutual suffering or the ability to have empathy for pain, and you're able to step into that relationship and first relate to it and then actually help to either eliminate it, reduce it, or sit with it. Because you don't want to handicap your kids by making their life too easy. You know, even though I say that without having children, but the metaphor is, you know, you don't want to take away the gift of someone's pain if it is something they need to learn and need to sit through. But at the same time, if someone's really suffering and you can transform that suffering, you can bring some sunshine into the darkness. You're going to really create value for people.

You are. And there may be some value in pain in and of itself. I'm reading a book by a science writer who is a masochist, and she's going really deep in dopamine signaling and saying, look, endurance athletes, pain, belly dancers pain, people who do cold therapy pain, people who do CrossFit pain. And she's like, it's doing something to allow us to experience pleasure. Do you think that's part of this whole thing?

Dopamine? Absolutely, for sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, if not dopamine, but pain.

Like, we need to feel pain to reset our dopamine or something like that?

I think so. Some people, the only way they feel like cutters. One of my first jobs, when I went to college and I got sober from being a drug addict because my history with drug addiction, when I was 18 years old, in my worst state, I weighed 105 pounds from freebasing cocaine. And when you're 18 years old, you're 5 10, and you're male, 105 pounds is thin as rail. I mean, I got to a point where I was nearly dead. My average weight around that time was £120. But there was one week where I ate hardly anything. And so I literally got as low as 105 pounds. And so, you know, I was a total mess. And I ended up moving out of Arizona to remove myself from even having access to where I could get the drugs, or I never would have been able to get sober. I would have killed myself. And so I lived in a trailer for a couple of years, a mobile home with my father, and I got sober in the first six months. I was taking Advil and Tylenol every day just to deal with the freaking headaches of withdrawals because I didn't have the money to go to treatment and ended up getting a job at a health club while I was working at this gym. This guy that ran a mental hospital, he actually offered me a job, and this was in New Mexico as a mental health tech at this mental. And so I would go there, and there was the adult ward, and there was the adolescent ward, and there were cutters that would go to this facility, and I would talk with them. And, like, it was the only way that they could feel like they were so numb that the pain, you know, And I believe this is biochemical. It's dopamine. Right. But, like, not feeling anything is a terrible place to be in with connection in the world. We live in a very disconnected world. I mean, we are more connected electronically than ever in human history, but we're more disconnected as tribal human creatures. And so part of the connection. And to go to your, you know, question about you develop your spidey senses, you start paying attention. I think if you've been. If you have put yourself in a situation where you've been betrayed, if you were to sit and think, like, what were the early warning signs. What were the. You know, the metal detector.

That's what I'm working on identifying.

And I'll tell you, I write about this in the book. If you are a giver, you will be taken advantage of.

You are you become more famous and wealthy you are, the more you would be targeted, right?

Oh yeah, you're a target for takers. I mean, they look for you, but at the same time, is that a reason not to be a giver? Is that a reason to put up walls and don't let anyone in? So it's about better boundarying yourself and it's also learning how to deal with intimidation.

So you got to tell me in like three sentences, what do you do to have better boundaries?

Don't walk into landmines. There are knowing land mines. Before you do anything business wise with someone, do a little research on them.

Diligence. Yeah, I mean, that was my fault for not doing enough. I should have called the people who weren't references.

Yeah, I mean, I could have found like I talk about Harvey McKay's, you know, 66, and this is before the Internet existed. He has all of these things. And I write about it in the book where it's all these things that you can collect and learn about a person in that process. I mean, when you're going out and just meeting people and saying hello and I mean, look, it's just part of life, but if you're going to get into a love relationship with someone, if you're going to get into a business relationship, if you're going to hire somebody, if you're going to get hired, I mean, research the person that you, if they don't have good references for the entrepreneurs that are out there, that whole saying hire slow and fire fast. I mean, there's a lot to be said about that.

Well, there's someone interesting on the back of your book. What's in it for them? Book. I think it's the second guy in the back. He says everyone knows people prefer to do business within strong relationships. This brilliant book shows us precisely when and how to do it. But that's from Robert Cialdini, who you introduced me to several years ago. I had on the show. It was one of my favorite episodes. His book influence is so powerful, I give it to my kids. And here's how to tell when someone's running an influence operation on you to take advantage of your invisible switches that allow them to control you. And so he's recommending your book, which is a really big recommendation, just because he's such a learned man. And what I remember from his book that really stood out was that if you find you like someone a lot right away, there's a great chance that they're running an influence operation on you and you should be even more careful. Whereas if you got to like them over time, oh, okay, that's probably more authentic. It doesn't mean that they just weren't a great person. You like them, that could be real. But it's one of those little red flags.

Yes.

And so I'm working on compiling my own list of red flags so that I don't allow someone like that in and enough controls so that if I do, I have a visibility and learning system. So I'll just say straight up, if you're a narcissist, you won't know you're a narcissist. But if you think I'm your gravy train, you can go away.

Well, I'll tell you this too. The people that tend to dislike me, I say a lot of things purposely because I'm trying to attract people I like and repel people that I don't. I mean, really, because a sales job is simultaneously attracting who you want and repelling who you don't. And I don't mean offending them by repelling. I just mean saying things in such a way that drives them away and makes you unattractive, attractive to them. And so let me say this about Cialdini. Okay? So there's three people, and they're the three here in the back. Although I've got Gabor mate, you know all kinds of people there. Steven Pressfield, one of my favorite authors, read my book and has endorsed it. Every single blurb and testimonial in this book and yours is one of the first ones here. My request and rules for everyone that I sent out a pre release copy of the book to was don't write me a blurb or testimony unless you basically like the book and you've read all of it. Most books have blurbs from famous people who have never read a word of the book and it's thanks for saying that. Now if someone wants to give you a character testimony or you're not an evil human for wanting to get a testimonial from someone. I understand all that stuff. But the fact is people send me books all the time and they're like, will you give me a blurb for the book? I'm like, no, because I haven't read the book. If I have time to read the Book, and I want to, I will, but I'm not going to give. Now, if I know you and I've had experience with you, I can give you a character testimony, but I'm not going to write a blurb for something I have not watched or I have not read. To me, it's like, quit doing that shit. It's inauthentic. And so that's one thing that marketers, I think, push the line on.

I always ask for a PDF early edition. So I actually, I'll say I don't always read every word of every book, but I read enough of the book. Like, I'll skim through books. If my name's on there, it's not full of garbage because otherwise you just don't know.

Here's the thing. So you got Robert Cialdini, who is like the father of influence. I mean, he's like done. He wrote the book influence over 30 years ago and he read. And so did Bobat Gordon, who is his partner. She read every word of the book and she loves it. And they even called me up afterwards like, can we take you to dinner and share with you all the things that we did that helped us with our book and talk about it? Because they like it. So he endorsed the book. Chris Voss, who's currently the top negotiation guy in the world.

Yes, he's great. I met him through Genius Network, introduced us.

He's one of my members and Chris wrote Never Split the Difference. And he loves this, this book. And he's endorsed the book. And in the book I talk about, he's taken my elf versus half. So part of it a way to identify who to hang out with and who not to, who to do business with, who to spend your time with. Are they easy, lucrative and fun or are they hard, annoying, lame and frustrating? I look for elf people, not half people. So one of the things we talk about here is high indicators of elf. He's taken my ELF process and identified phrases that if people say them early on, they are identifying themselves. Most of the time they're going to be half. They're not going to be elf. One of those phrases is, I want this to be a win win situation for you. Which I was like, kris, I actually want things to be a win win situation. What do you mean? He goes, well, if you're a good person, you want things to be a win win situation. However, if they say it right out of the gate or early on, we can make a lot of money together. We want this to be a win win Situation. He goes most of the time, what they're basically saying is, we want you to do all the work, we're going to make all the money. So Chris Voss has identified 20 phrases that if people say them, they identify themselves. They're going to be pain in the ass relationship. Another endorsement is BJ Fogg. So BJ Fogg wrote the book Tiny Habits, which was chosen in 2020, I believe to be the top business book on Amazon.

He's been on the show with you too?

Oh, yeah, yeah, he's awesome.

I met him through you, of course.

Of course. So he is one of the top behavioral professors and researchers in the world. And we're actually now doing a project together about connection with students. And he's a professor at Stanford. And so we're going to identify addiction and connection and what are the things that I'm actually helping to fund that whole research study through Genius Recovery. And we're going to take what we discover and what we learn and we're to going, going to share that with people to hopefully help them be better connected. Because there's a ton of suicide. I mean, look, I mean, when you talk about escape, things from substances, the number one killer in America and most countries of substances is sugar first, tobacco second, alcohol third, opiates fourth. Loneliness diseases massively increase when you're lonely. I mean, loneliness has some of the markers. Loneliness could be as bad or maybe, I mean, you worse than smoking. Yeah. And so there's, you know, there's all these forms, but when you're disconnected, you're much more likely to look for ways to try to escape, try to try to scratch the itch. And so all relationships that are healthy and are expanding. So, you know, there was in 2000, the English rowing team, Davis, you know, the coach, he had the. And I write about this near the line, will this make the boat go faster? You know, they would ask themselves, if I eat that pizza, will it make the boat go faster? If it won't, don't eat the pizza. If I drink this alcohol, is it going to make the boat go faster? If it won't, don't drink.

Yeah.

And so part of it is from a relationship standpoint, ask yourself, is this going to grow the relationship? And if you are getting involved in something where there's money involved, but you just know at your core, like, you know, there's something off. I mean, really, I used to numb out the voices that were telling me, stay away, stay away, stay away. And I was ignoring the yellow flags. And then. And if you ignore the yellow flags. Then all of a sudden you can't even see the red flags, even when they're right in front of you.

Wow, that's really powerful advice, Joe. Your book is full of good stuff. Otherwise I wouldn't have you on the show. I get pitched like 10 books a week from people really wanting to come on. But you gotta say something new or say it in a really good way in order to cut through the noise, because I have a large audience and there's about 104 episodes a year. And so it's a very, very low bar or very high bar that you have to get through. And I think you hit it with this book.

Let me leave people with a couple things. So for one, you're in my genius network group. You've been instrumental. There's a lot of people that have had really life threatening or some life threatening health conditions that I've referred to you and that you've talked to and that you've helped. That is, you know, literally I would say in probably a couple cases, maybe saved their life.

It's my pleasure.

Secondly, in order to have a genius network, you have to be a genius networker and you have to do genius networking. So it's a be do have. In order to have a genius network, you have to be a genius network, which means you have to approach relationships with not what's in it for you, but what's in it for them. Looking for the pain. And then you have to do genius networking, which is being useful, which is being valuable, which is actually connecting. You know, connection and resources are not like fine china where like love, you're going to run out of it. Okay? So that sort of thing. And so the thing I wanted to end with is the million dollar racehorse analogy where if you had a million dollar racehorse and every time that horse ran a race you'd make a million dollars, what would you do for that horse and what would you not do? What you would do is you'd have the best food, the best nutrition, you pick the best races. Because my friend Nick Peterson says you never win a race you don't want to be be in. Right? So you'd be selective with where you put that horse's efforts. And you would not. What you would not do, you wouldn't have the horse up till 3am watching porn, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol over training. You wouldn't have it hanging around a bunch of loser horses. You wouldn't have it running in all these random amateur. I mean, you would treat the horse really well, best food, best nutrition, rest, relaxation, all of the stuff that you teach that a human could do, as much as you could do that with a horse, you would do that. And if you did, that horse would win races. And so the question is, are you a million dollar racehorse? Do you want to be a million dollar racehorse? And how are you treating yourself? Because you're the million dollar racehorse. And if you treat yourself like shit and million dollar racehorses don't abuse other people, they don't develop a relationship in a way where they leave Scorch earth and then they're never going to run a race again. So part of it is you have to be thoughtful, not only for other people, but you have to be thoughtful for yourself because you can't fix the world with broken hands. And if you take care of yourself and treat yourself really well, the fact is you can design in fashion whatever sort of game or whatever race that you can resource yourself and be in. But every thing that we do, even if it's not about making money, involves relationships. And I think if you operate this way, you not only will increase your chances of making more money having a better reputation, because you don't build a great reputation by talking about what you're going to do, you build a great reputation by actually doing something. And then if you live that out and as Chris Voss says, you do the reps, you will get better at this. But the bigger thing is I think you'll sleep better at night. I mean, I think you'll just feel better about what you do in the world when you're not spending your time, attention, money, effort and energy with people that don't care about you, people that don't respect you. So this is a book about responsibility. You know, responsibility is responding with ability. And if I can help people with the connection abilities and they can apply them, I think they're just simply going to be more responsible, not only to other people, but they're going to be responsible for themselves. So all that being said, the book is what's in a it for them.

You've had an incredibly interesting life and you've done a lot of learning along the way and you do a great job of sharing it. What'sdentfor them.com Guys, look at the interviews there. If this interview calls you, read the book.

Can I also say if anyone's struggling with it, with addiction, I do have a foundation, Genius Recovery. Nothing is sold there. It's this educational stuff. And the proceeds from what's in it for them actually goes to Genius recovery. And so I want this generation just help people that struggle with addiction. And thank you brother.

Thank you, Joe.

Don't miss another episode of Genius Network. Subscribe today@gieniusnetwork.com subscribe if you'd like access to the show, notes or resources, please visit geniusnetwork.com186. Sam.