Interview with Eelco de Boer On How To Increase Subscribers, Increase Revenue and Build A Successful Business

I'm Dean Jackson, he's Joe Polish, and.

This is the I Love marketing podcast.

Hey, everybody, it's D. Dean Jackson and.

Joe Polish, and here we are. I'm really excited about this I love marketing episode because we have someone who has one of the most unique names on the planet. He's a good friend of both of ours.

He's a genius network member.

He's been to the Necker island trips. You've done a breakthrough blueprint thing where he's come. But he's probably smarter than both of us combined, and he's an awesome guy. We just been spending the last couple of minutes with me trying to figure out how do you really pronounce his name? Because it's one of the most unique names on the planet. And it's Ilko Deboer, if I say that right. Ilko, is that correct?

It's perfect, man.

Anyway, let me do the official bio professional part and then we'll get into this. So people that have never heard of Elko, they know who he is. Elko is a serial entrepreneur and investor from Amsterdam. Over 15 years ago, Elko started selling hip hop records online without knowing it at the time. In hindsight, it proved to be the first online hip hop store in Europe. In the gold and error of the Internet, Elko launched literally hundreds of websites. And next, he went on to start numerous businesses, ranging from a merchant processing company with over 50,000 clients, an e commerce platform with over 20,000 web stores, an email marketing company, a hosting company, and a web design company. Besides all of this, Elko also launched his own coaching business. And his big game is not only to help entrepreneurs grow their profits, but to free them from their businesses at the same time. So as far as Elko is concerned, too many entrepreneurs are imprisoned by their own company. And he aims to help them make the transition to fall back in love with the company they once started. Oko is the author of two books, over 20 ebooks, and he's created over a thousand videos on YouTube. He's been helping thousands of entrepreneurs in the Netherlands, and he shared the stage with the likes of Robert Kiyosaki and Les Brown. But being successful is not his sole ambition in life. He wants to enjoy himself at the same time. So for multiple months a year, Elko travels the globe. Fun fact, all of his products and companies are in Dutch. So there we go. Well, so, you know, besides going back and forth with different pronunciations of the name Elko or Elko or whatever, we're just going to get into Some awesome stuff. And so that was your bio. But for people who don't know you, how would you really describe yourself and what you do?

Yeah, I'm really a born entrepreneur. I really love business. I'm addicted to business and growing personal development, stuff like that. And I really love working with entrepreneurs and share ideas, give ideas. So that's, that's like my main thing. I love, I really love business and yeah, that's, that's an important thing for me. Yep.

So, Dean, besides breathing heavy in the background, what do you have to say to.

You know, I got to spend three days with Ilko and you know what I'm impressed with? When you look at the, when you were reading his bio there, just look at the companies that he's started. Merchant processing company and a web hosting company and an E commerce platform and an email marketing company. He basically has all of the infrastructure that no matter what kind of business people are running, he's got the, you know, the tools for them and it's just so brilliant. And now then I've heard, you know, how he takes those people and now gives them coaching and advice and, you know, fantastic. All in just one country, just in and in Dutch language. So it's like a pretty talk about narrowing your focus to a single target market. It's pretty brilliant. How many people did you say Ilko are in the Netherlands? How many people.

Is your audience?

Yeah, around 16, 17 million. And then we also have Belgium and I don't know exactly how many millions, but I think like 5 or 6 million in Belgium.

Right. But you look at that. So it's like the equivalent of like narrowing your focus to Florida, you know, and we, it's very, it's weird to. That people don't, you know, most people don't, don't think that way. And I think it's been probably, probably a big part of your success is focusing, narrowing your focus like that.

Well, first off, let's ask, ask you if that's really true or is it just the fact that that's the country you live in. And so that's where you start. I mean, was this strategic or how.

Would you describe it?

Oh, it was not strategic at all at the beginning. So I started selling online 15 years ago and then around 10 years ago in 2005, I started selling information products. And you know, I needed something. I needed affiliates, for example. And at that time, clickbank was there for I think multiple years already. But in Holland we had nothing. So we didn't have like a payment system where People could just pay and then automatically download their ebook, for example, or there was no affiliate system in Holland. So basically we created it just because I had to use it. So there was no strategy in the beginning in those years. It was just that I needed this. And for example, in Holland, we don't pay with credit cards, and PayPal isn't that big. So we had to create our own system here in Holland for people to pay, for example, at that time for my information products. And the same with email marketing. I started that in 2000, the company in 2005 as well. And there was literally, we couldn't use, for example, an autoresponder in Holland. So we had to create that for ourselves. And basically all those tools that we created and those software companies we created, we created it because we needed them, them ourselves, and not because I was like, oh, this is going to be a huge market. But first step one was we needed for ourselves, and then we created it so other people could use it as well. And that's, that's basically how my business grew the last 10 years. We just created stuff that was not available in Holland. And yeah, that's, that's. So I would love to say that there was like a big, big great strategy behind it, but it was just we needed it and then we created it for other consumers as well.

There you go. It's like finding a void in the marketplace and filling it. The Internet basically changed your life. So out of what you've learned and what you've developed and what you discovered, what Internet marketing models or strategies or techniques have you found that are working right now? The very best and could increase someone's, you know, their revenue or their subscribers and more. I'd just like to get your thoughts on all that.

Yeah, so we have a couple of strategies we use, and it's always an interesting thing because what we do, everything we do is in the Dutch market. So some stuff might sound outdated for American people, for example, but one of the things we really grow companies with is webinars. So just do a really great webinar where you interact with your customers, do a great story, offer your product or service, and then Q and A. And that's like the big model with webinars in Holland. The funny thing is that nobody uses webinars. So I did a coaching session today with my clients, and they're in different markets, and I asked them, like, how many people in your market are doing webinars? Like, literally zero. If I ask them, how many people in your market are Doing podcasts, literally zero. And so Holland is running years and years behind of for example, America. So webinars is one big thing now. We're really growing our company big time with Facebook. So yeah, we're really into Facebook marketing. Just a lot of content on Facebook and that's a big one now. Also like the basic stuff like affiliates, SEO, email marketing, launches campaigns, stuff like that. So it's no groundbreaking stuff, just good models, good strategies and then we try to do that as consistent as possible. So I think one of your great quotes from a couple of weeks ago at your 25k was what was it like trying to get it? Something like we find out what works and then we drop it. And that's one of the things that.

A lot of entrepreneurs do.

Yeah, exactly. Abandon it. So we want to crack the codes, we want to find out this is what works. This is awesome. And then okay, this works. So let's move on to the next thing versus because we've been doing the same stuff for a lot of years and the thing we're good at is like repeating the things that work and they're not that sexy, but they work. And we try not to abandon the stuff that works.

You know, there is also a lot to be said where if it has to be revolutionary or brand new, there's also a shelf life on that. So there are just principle based ways of communicating with people that do work are probably always going to work. And maybe the delivery system may change at times, but you know, a core powerful message that is reaching people so they can hear it and read it and respond to it is powerful. And it made me think that someone could practically travel around the world and go to countries where so many things are just non existent or hardly anyone is using them yet and probably live a pretty incredible life. If they're an individual that just likes traveling and they don't want any competition. You simply go to places where some of these methodologies have not even been been done yet and you just exploit them. And I mean exploited in the nicest of ways. I don't mean take advantage of people, I mean literally go in and exploit an opportunity that no one's even touched yet. It seems to me.

Well, some of those things that Yieldco does too are not going to go out of style. They're not trendy. Like no matter what happens in Internet marketing, people are still going to need to host their websites, they're still going to need to get web design, they're still going to need to send emails and they're still going to need to process credit cards. So he's really got the unchanging bedrock of any kind of online marketing thing. And as that grows, it just positions you to have access to people that you know are in business just by virtue of them having these, these tools. I'm interested to see, Ilko, how you've taken the relationship that you have with those people providing those, the baseline services and then kind of layered on top of them because I imagine you've got a lot of overflow in your, in your clients. A lot of overlap, I mean.

Oh yeah, big time. So we have a lot of customers who, who are customer in company A, but they're also company of a customer in company B and C and D. And some are like customer in all six companies. And so we don't have all the, we don't have too many fancy systems on how to cross sell or whatever. But we do use the customers from company A and we upsell them to company B and company C. So for example, somebody wants to run an E commerce store, just a basic web store. We advise them through content marketing and through webinars that it might be a good idea to start email marketing. And if they're up for it, they can use our email marketing company or if they need hosting for their website, for example, they could use our hosting company. Or if they need training, they can buy my books or go to our coaching seminar, stuff like that. One of the big parts of the growth of our companies has been really combining the different companies and make them more powerful because they work together. And tomorrow I have another meeting with two of the companies on how can we integrate those companies even more. So yeah, it's an important part, it has been an important part of the growth of those companies.

Let me ask you, how did you actually get started in all this? I mean you're doing a lot of things, but how did you put it all together?

Yeah, so I, I used to be a record collector, so I love buying hip hop records. And it was a Sunday afternoon like 15 years ago. It was in 2000 and I, I went through my records and I was like, yeah, I got like a hundred records I don't really like or I have them double or whatever. And at that time in 2000, we had a site in, in Holland which is still around, which is the big one of the biggest, like Craigslist in America. And I just put up one ad like, hey man, I got 100 records for sale. Normally I bought them for three gilders, which is around, I don't know, $2 or something. And I was like, yeah, put them up for 12, 12 guilders. And that afternoon, because I was a hustler that time I had jobs and I was like hustling and whatever and I put up an ad. And that day, that Sunday afternoon, I made 500 guilders. And I was hooked by the Internet. And from there I started. I can still remember when I. When I discovered ebay, because I used to go through Holland and Germany to buy records physically, like driving through the company. It's not the country, the country to buy those records. And then I discovered ebay and I could buy thousands of records without just getting into the car. And then, yeah, I started selling big time on ebay and on Mark Platz, which is the Dutch version of Craigslist. And then I started an e commerce web store, Hip hop record store. And from that on, I loved that stuff. But on the other side, I didn't like it because it was a physical business. I had to buy the stuff and had to sell the stuff, go to the postal office and stuff like that. And then from 2004, I started digging into the American market, the information marketing market. So I think 2004, 2005, I bought traffic Secrets from John Reese. I was like, wow, man, this is interesting. And then my first ebook was on how to be a power seller on ebay. Or maybe it was 99 tips on how to run a marathon, because I ran a marathon at that time. And from that moment I started selling my first information products. And then I was really hooked. I was like, wow, you can make money by something that you sell that's just online. You don't have to go to the postal office, you don't have to buy anything. And from 2005 to 2015, those years were crazy.

Yeah, what a trip.

Your education, I mean, how were you like, did you have any college education, any of that sort of stuff? I mean, I know your education has been obviously life and reading and learning and putting a shit ton of effort into discovering what it is, you know, but did you have any sort of formal education, if you want to call it that?

Yeah, I did had a formal education, but I tried to be around as little as possible. And I tried to because I've been selling all my life stuff. It doesn't matter, whatever when I was young. And so during my education I was just, you know, running my businesses. And so I did, I did have the normal education. It took me like much longer than normal people because I was my Mind was on business and not on how to solve math or whatever. I was really not interested in that. It was funny. Today I was talking with some of our clients and I remember 10 years ago when I had to do the final speech with one of my teachers. And that was 10 years ago. And at that time my idea was to create the e commerce platform and like ClickBank. And that guy, he, he was like, dude, I'll talk to you in 10 years because this is not gonna work. And at that time, I mean, yeah, it was really funny and I had to think about that today. So no, I did, I did the normal, normal college and university. I don't know, it's not a university in Holland anyway, Different, different name. But my mind was not there. My, my learning was, was. Yeah, man, information products. So I started, started learning online about Internet marketing and then from Internet marketing I started learning about personal development and business and stuff like that. And like the last 10 years I've been learning non stop.

How did you get exposed to this stuff in the United States? Because that was kind of. It was funny. I was having lunch with Dan Sullivan on Saturday and we were talking about you specifically and how you realized you really were more American than Dutch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, big time. Yeah. So think I, because I was digging through the ebay forums for years and when I was selling on eBay between 2000, 2005 and then I don't know how I got there, but I stumbled upon the Warrior forum, which is an Internet marketing forum. And that was 2004. I can still remember that. I was so addicted to that forum. And now if I look at that forum, for example, it's like a lot of people who are talking about how to make 50 bucks a day or whatever, but 10 years for me ago, that was exciting for me. You know, I was like, wow, if I could make like, even if it's a hundred bucks a day, I could quit this whole record thing. You know, I don't have to go to the postal. That was my big thing at that time. And so I got hooked by that forum and then I started investing in traffic secrets and other information products. And I'm a quick implementer, so I started implementing that stuff quickly. And when I really understood the information marketing world and how it works, the direct marketing world, that was like, at that time it really went quick and fast. And that was an amazing time because there was literally nothing. When I started, there was literally zero ebooks in Holland and zero information products and there was like zero, maybe two or Three opt in pages, for example. So it's the things you guys do for like 20 years that's been non existent from 20 years ago to 10 years ago. And then things started rolling in Holland. But yeah, that was an amazing time and that was exciting.

That's great. So if someone is just getting started online or in business, what advice would you give them? And if someone is say already successful online, what can they do to have even more breakthroughs in their business? Because you certainly have gone through the whole, the whole process of both starting and now having a real successful business.

Yeah, I think when you start out as an entrepreneur and you want to be in business and you're not in business yet, I think the most important thing you could or maybe should do is focus all of your attention on creating your first sale. So what I see with a lot of people who want to be in business that they want to make it perfect and want to have the perfect website and they want to have business cards and they want to have the perfect product or whatever. And I'm like, no man, make your, you know, create your first sale to prove to yourself that it works. And I remember my first sale with for example, my first ebook, I went crazy was €17. But I went crazy not because of the €17 but of the potential and to really myself that it stuff works. And so that's important when you're starting out, like really focus on making your first sale. You don't even need a product, just sell, you know, make your first sale and then you know, create the product or do the coaching or whatever. So prove to yourself and when you're already in business. Yeah, it depends on what level you're at. Yeah. So I mean there's so much advice you can give to existing entrepreneurs. Yeah, I think the most important thing is just keep growing yourself because the business you have, you can scale it as much as you can scale yourself as you can develop yourself. And if you stay small minded, your company will never become huge. And so keep investing in yourself, keep growing, keep learning, keep trying new ideas. Don't be too afraid to invest in yourself. So yeah, I think that's, that's on top of my mind right now.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

Oh well, Dean, go ahead. I got a bunch of questions for.

So what are some of your personal development habits and your growth habits? Because I've noticed you as a real note taker for sure, a journaler. You've got these amazing looking journals and I know that you spend a lot of reflective time like that. But what's been your kind of practice with journaling and studying and all that kind of stuff?

Yeah, so I always like to look for the small things that have a huge impact. And for me, one of the things, if I do it, I'm unbelievably productive, happy, relaxed, everything. And if I don't, I'm horrible. And I call it Internet fasting. Internet fasting for me is basically what it means is you have an Internet window per day, so you have like multiple hours a day that you are in the Internet and then you just disconnect completely. I found out about this like in 2008 when I had to go to America, to the States for, for a seminar. It's like 10 hours in the, in a plane or 11 hours in the plane. And I noticed that I was like crazy, crazy, crazy productive. I mean, I did more in eight or ten hours than I normally do in like a month or two months. And yeah, that was crazy. So in 2009, I started a concept. It's called at that time, I called it the Internet Diet. So I switched off the Internet at 7pm at night. And so every day you have a deadline. One of the great quotes I heard like a couple of Weeks ago at 25k was a lot of entrepreneurs think that they work well on their deadlines, but it's just that they work on their deadlines. And the same with the Internet diet is that if you know that you get switched off around 7pm at night, you work like a maniac during the day because you want to finish everything. It's like going on a holiday the day before you go on a holiday on one. I don't know how it works, but at a magical way. You finish everything you had to finish. So that was 2009, when I started doing that, and I noticed with myself that I became much more productive and I became. I had a more life filled with life during the evenings, for example. And like the last couple, couple of years, I call it Internet fasting. So what I. On my great days, I'm on the Internet between 3 and 4pm and I'm off the Internet for 23 hours a day.

So. Wow.

In the morning.

Yeah. And that's a total game changer for me because I'm totally relaxed, I'm extremely productive. I have clear thinking, I feel better, I'm much more present. And it's extreme, you know, it's extreme to be one hour a day, even on my phone. I switch off the WI fi. Today I got a present from One of our clients. It's a dumb phone, you know, like a Nokia, like five years ago.

A dumb phone.

Yeah.

And so my life really changed and changes when I'm doing the Internet fasting. But my life also changes when I'm off Internet fasting, when I'm wired in all the time and I'm addicted to the Internet. Because I am addicted to the Internet. You know, it's like the WhatsApp messages and all the other stuff. So it's. But when I switch it up, I'm a different person, and I like that person a lot more. And I know my wife likes that person person a lot more than the addicted busy guy who's on the Internet all the time.

Well, we were just having a discussion about that the other day that how over the last 25 years, let's say, how things have changed. And I think one of the things that changed was that 25 years ago, the inputs were not as frequent. The input frequency was slower. You got your mail one time a day, and you got, you know, all the inputs coming like that. So if it was, you know, like FedEx overnight was like, as fast as you could get something to somebody or faxing something. But it was, you know, now where it's constant instant connection to everybody in the world. I think you're absolutely right that it kind of. It slows the frequency where you. You are more in the moment, I think, when you realize when you're just trying to artificially compress all of your online time into one. One time during the day. I've experimented with. I've never really done that well with it. Have you, Joe? Have you tried, like, fasts and stuff like that?

Yeah, you know, have I ever done it really consistently or turned it into a ritual like Ilco has? No, which is why I want to actually ask you some more questions specifically about this. But I mean, I certainly have. You know, I never sleep with my phone anywhere near my bed or anything like that, unless I'm in a hotel room or something. But even then, I put it across. I mean, we. At the last Genius Network meeting, which you were at Oko, I mean, we had a lot of conversations about, you know, addiction and behavior. Addictions, and certainly the Internet and electronics are a huge cause of that. Not only people staying connected online, but gambling and sex and, I mean, you name it, you know, Facebook addiction. I mean, there's a variety of magnetic forces that seem to be more powerful than people's ability to, you know, go away from it. I mean, it's Very. You know, before the Internet, people would, you know, be slot. You know, slouched over slot machines and just pulling a handle. Well, today they. They do that with their smartphones, if you want to call them smartphones. So.

Yeah, I want to.

I want to ask if you want to call them smartphones.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You said the dumb phone. Do you. So when you're. Do you actually use that as for making phone calls? Is that what you were saying?

That's what I want to do. So today I got my first. Well, today I got a dumb phone, and I think I'm gonna use that just to do the phone calls. And I have my iPhone, and I'll probably use that one for the podcast I listen to or just some pictures and stuff like that. But I think I'm gonna switch from iPhone to dumb phone, and I'm gonna test it, you know, because, I mean, most of the time we don't need all this stuff and all the stuff that's on the phone, it's on the computer as well. So I'm just going to try it. This is not from experience. This is just my new experience of an experiment I'm going to try for the next.

Here's what I was saying, too. And people have to really take this and look at their own life with it. You made a couple of comments that I like the guy that I am better my life. My wife likes the guy that I am better when I'm not connected to the Internet all the time. And then, of course, I can hear all of the arguments. For one, if you're a young person who never grew up in the world without being connected, some of the things that we even talk about, like you were saying, Dean, 25 years ago, you got your mail once a day. I remember when I had my carpet cleaning company in 1990-1994. I sold it in 1994. When I sold it, I got rid of my pager. I mean, back then, people would page you and you would go to a cell phone and make phone calls.

A payphone, A pay phone. Yeah, yeah.

Did I say a cell phone?

You go to a cell phone?

Yeah, I meant payphone.

And I remember getting rid of that pager in the level of mental freedom that that felt like. I mean, I remember I was a little kid. I would literally travel around. You know, I lived in small towns when I was growing up. We would move every couple of years after my mom passed away when I was 4, and I would literally just go out for all day by myself, wandering around phone, there'd be no connection with anyone. And that world just doesn't even exist at all anymore. I mean, it doesn't exist unless you literally carve it out and make that your own personal life. But when I got rid of my pager, the level of mental freedom I felt was incredible. One of the things it's been really. I've been really trying to figure out how to do functionally is how to exist without email. Because in spite of all of the great people that I have in my life that help me with it, guys like Ari Meisel with less doing, and David Allen is a friend of mine, and all the productivity stuff, I still just. I have so many relationships, and I just constantly get myself in the trap of a lot of people having access to me, although I am incredibly well protected. I mean, people try to call my office and get through to me. It's very hard. We have all kinds of mechanisms in place. But I have a lot of friends and I have a lot of relationships that I connect with and I make money with email. But I also, I just really don't like it because I never feel ever caught up, no matter how much I try to systemize it. And I've really been thinking, how could I function even with one individual in between me and email? So if it ever came to me, it always went to another person first. And I know I'll lose some of the personalization. And people wouldn't say things to someone else that they might personally say directly to me. But, you know, to Ilko's point, I just am a happier person when I'm not totally connected online all the time.

Right.

And it's, you know, that's why we need free days. I mean, for instance, I'm going to be, you know, this Friday, I'm going to be taking four days completely free. I don't even want to look at the Internet or anything during that entire time, although I will have a smartphone and there are people that can get ahold of me by texting me. So I just want to. I want to hear your recommendations and processes for that. Elko, on some of the things that you absolutely have learned how to do that have made the biggest difference. I think asking a guy like you makes all the sense in the world because you run Internet businesses and you're totally online. So you can speak to this in ways. I've been to an alpha.

Right?

Yeah, yeah. It's always interesting to hear people's objections about this when they say, like, yeah, this will work for You. But it won't work for me because. And I'm like, dude, I got six Internet companies. And so if it works for me, it could work for anybody else. That's my. That's my belief also. My belief is that it's impossible to, or near close to impossible to really change that habit of checking email, for example, because you need discipline every day to not check your email all the time, for example. What works for me really well is what I did. I removed my Gmail app from my iPhone. So I can't be on email on my iPhone. So when I'm behind a computer, I can be on my email on my Gmail. So that's one thing. So I don't need to think about when I'm with my phone, I don't need to think about, oh, man, should I push the button? I don't even have to think about that. So that's for me, just delete it from the phone. I can access it on my computer, on my MacBook. So that's the first thing that works really well. Another thing for me, which I found out, and I've been doing this for, I think now a year, maybe 18 months. So one of the things that took a lot of my time, but also a lot of my energy, I call it the blue monster. It's Facebook. So just being on Facebook and going to timelines or check your Facebook or whatever, it's such a huge waste of time, in my opinion, especially when you're just browsing timelines or whatever. And I physically felt. I'm a pretty sensitive guy. I physically felt in my body that my energy levels went down when I was connected on Facebook. And so a long time, I really, like, I just hated Facebook and I was bashing Facebook. But now for, you know, it's such a big part of our marketing to use Facebook to connect with our customers, to reach a lot of people. But I don't want to be connected on Facebook all the time. So what I did, like, 12 months ago, maybe 18 months ago, I told my. I have two employees. I gave them my password. I told them, like, okay, change my password. And whenever I want to be on Facebook, I have to get behind your computer, and then I can be on Facebook, I can chat, I can check my messages, whatever. So literally, if I want right now, I have my MacBook in front of me. For me now, at this moment, it's impossible to log into Facebook because they changed my password.

When.

When I want to be on Facebook. And I ask him, like, hey, man, Can I get on Facebook? I really have to ask them, almost beg them, can I be on Facebook? This is an awesome hack, by the way. So I told them, create a password that I have to put in. That's hurting me. So my daughter's name, her name is Dani. So, you know, they come up with a password. I have to really type it in less time with Danny. And, you know, because every 18 minutes that I'm browsing a timeline, it's like 80 minutes that I will never get back. And it's 18 minutes that I could spend with my daughter, for example. So it's all these things that I. It's not discipline. I'm not a disciplined guy at all. But I just have all these things that for me it's impossible to be on Facebook. Or for me, you know, it's impossible to check my email because it's not on my phone. Or for me it's impossible to browse on the Internet because I disconnected my WI fi, stuff like that.

I mean, that is truly a brilliant idea. A password that is painful to remind you not to be on there. That's what you get out of a lot of study to personal development. You have to figure out how to use negative motivations in order to get you to quit doing shit that's going to consume your life. So, boy, there's so many. We could do an entire episode just on this particular subject. So I have to caution myself. When you are doing Internet fasting, but you're doing work, are you still typing on your computer or are you completely off electronics?

No, no, no, I'm working on my computer. I work on my MacBook and I just switch off the WI Fi. And with Google Docs, you can work offline as well. So for me, a lot of my businesses is marketing material or writing or post or whatever. I just write on my computer. So it's not that I'm anti computer or whatever. I can be totally relaxed working on my computer and not be distracted because I don't. I'm just. I just switch off the WI FI on my. On my computer. And yeah, I work really well, but I do work on my computer during my Internet fasting.

Okay, that's.

That's great, Dean. Anything else in this particular subject?

Yeah, I think that, you know, what has hit on here is something that I think I've mentioned this to you, Joe, that the difference between, you know, using discipline as a verb and setting up a discipline as a noun. So he's set up a discipline of getting somebody else to Set the password for his, for his Facebook. So it's. He, there's no way he doesn't have to apply discipline, self discipline to avoid it. He set up a noun discipline, a system that is, it makes it irrelevant. So it's kind of freeing because otherwise it's there and he's always tempted to, to do it. I've just switched to now. I've had this for a while with my email because like you, Joe, you get so much email that I, I'm not the front line of my email now. So I have one email address that is only for specific people that I give it to that comes right to me. But all the other email goes through Lillian or Elizabeth where it's filtered and I only see or have to deal with the ones that need my response, you know, and setting that up to be a once a day delivery. And it's been really freeing so far. It's kind of like when you set that up that it's not. I don't have the password to get in there and it doesn't come right on my iPhone. So I still get my, you know, my specific email that is only for like you have Joe or some people that I want to be immediately connected to. But everything else is, you know, setting that up so that it's, I'm only getting the ones that need the, that need the response, you know. Yeah.

Yeah, I like it.

Any other tips or strategies on productivity? Elko.

And then.

Because then I'm going to ask you some business questions. Although I guess productivity really is a lot about business.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just basically outsourced the discipline. Basically what Dean is talking about, like we only have that much discipline on a day. And if you, for me, I don't want to use my discipline for not being on the Internet or not checking my emails or whatever. Just make it impossible to do it. So it's easy. I mean, when you're in a plane, you don't need any discipline to not check your email if there's no WI fi.

Exactly. Because it's impossible.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So make it impossible.

So.

Because it's, it's so hard, especially for entrepreneurs, like most of the entrepreneurs, I mean a lot of entrepreneurs, they're, they're ADD issue, you know, so they're low attention and hyper focus or no focus or whatever. And I don't believe in all those time management books, man. It's like it's so tough to manage yourself on those small things. But it's those small things that Are rob you from all your energy and, and basically a big part of your life as well. So it's one of the great quotes from Seneca and I don't know the exact quote, but something like, it's not that we don't have enough time in our life, but it's that we don't have enough life in our time. And I don't count the hours that I'm on the Internet browsing as life in my time. It's just time in time. Just time that's getting wasted. So you know when, when you, when you look back and you know, when you're old and we sound like old guys, by the way, when we talk about, like, I know, the old days. Exactly. But if, if, if we look back later on, we don't think probably that, oh, man, I wish I spent some more time scrolling Facebook timelines or I wish I spent some more time checking email or whatever. It's probably not that, that answer when we get the question like, hey man, what, what do you regret? Regret. And so, yeah, man, just put, put as much life in your time and just delete all the stuff that's robbing you from energy. And it's hard to manage yourself on that. Discipline, use that discipline and other stuff. So because I really, when I'm disconnected from the Internet, I become a productivity monster. I'm like, I can write like, like 10 books in a day for. It's impossible, obviously, but I feel like I can write 10 books in a day because I get so productive. I have so many great ideas. I work like crazy. And. Yeah, so just delete the stuff that's not working for you and create a system around it, as in what I did, for example, with the Facebook password or disconnect from the Internet or put the Gmail, remove the Gmail app, stuff like that.

Wow.

Love it, Love it. Great stuff. In one of your blog posts, you talked about how everyone has a gift. So I want to ask you, how can people find what their gift is? And what do you do? What do you recommend they do once they find it? So I'd like you to talk about that.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's so popular nowadays to, you know, you go to a seminar and somebody tells you, like, yeah, find a niche. And then you have to find a niche and become the expert in the market or whatever. But it's, for me, it's so much more powerful to really look at yourself like, what's easy for you and what are you good at versus what you. I Don't know. Like, if I look at you, Joe, for example, what. The way I see it, what's easy for you is to really connect the right people together. And what's easy for you is, I mean, I've seen you doing this so many times that, oh, there's an idea. And the first thing you do, you pick up your phone and you create a short video. And then, you know, you send that video to somebody else because you want them guys to be connected and it doesn't cost you any energy. But I never, ever, ever in my whole life have, have seen anybody else who, so. Who does that so well and so easily. But it changed everything for you, and you built your business around that. And for you, Dean. I mean, I went to the Breakthrough Blueprint in London last year, and for you, it costs you no energy to mastermind, brainstorm about marketing and come up with great marketing ideas. And so basically, if you talk about the gift or whatever, it's what's easy for you. What could you do for free? And what are you doing for free? And if you can create a business model around that, that's amazing.

It's good that you say. That was the. Sorry, Yoko, but that was the question that Dan Sullivan asked that started the whole Breakthrough Blueprint idea, was he asked, what's the one activity that would fascinate and motivate you for the rest of your life? That's just, you know, the thing that, that you get doesn't cost you energy, but creates energy. Just like you're. Just like you're saying. I think you've hit it both on the head with, with Joe and with me, that in your observation of what it is for both of us.

Yeah. One of the things I've been thinking about lately a lot is like, do who you are. So if you can do who you are, life is easy and you can become really successful. And that's, that's some of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately. And. Yeah, then, then, you know, there's so much less friction, so much less stress, so much than so, so, so few deadlines, for example, as well, because you just do who you are. You just do what you do, and it sounds so easy. And it can take like 10 or 20 years to find out.

Yeah.

It'S amazing.

It is a question that I think to constantly be aware of and ask yourself for things like that, that's where it makes sense. On listening to a podcast like this, you don't just casually listen to it. I mean, you Might be driving, you might be working out, you might be doing whatever you're doing, but literally taking out a piece of paper, I mean, real paper, with a pen or, you know, turning the WI fi off, and just write that question at the top of the page and just start thinking. I mean, it's right in front of you, like, so it's not like people can't find it. It's all of the noise that they have to quiet down to really just look and see what it is. Like, what do you naturally do, what are you drawn to, what calls you, what moves you, that sort of stuff. But yeah, it could take years. But, you know, I mean, it is there. It's just a matter of getting to. Getting to the awareness. Now you talk about something called the healthy growth triangle. Can you talk about what that is and how can it help entrepreneurs?

Yeah, it's funny because these are old blog posts, but they're good principles.

If.

You really want to grow your company. A lot of entrepreneurs, they just hold on to old stuff and old projects or even old people from the past that you hired or did you start a relationship with or whatever. And so I call it the healthy growth triangle. That it's three steps if you want to really want to scale your company, but also have a greater life and more profits and stuff like that. Step one is remove everything, like all the stuff you do that you don't want in your life or in your business or whatever or that's destructive for you. Remove it, like, literally deleted. A lot of people are looking at, okay, how can I automate stuff or how can I outsource stuff or systemize stuff? But if you don't have this stuff, it's. You don't have to think about it. So. And you don't have to manage it. And it's, it's, it's freeing. So step one is deleting. Delete stuff that's not working for you. Step two is obviously automate. Like everything that you can automate in your life, just automate it. And step three is outsource and do those three things when you're growing your company. Instead of collecting stuff and collecting more work, because, you know, more work is not the solution for less time or for not too much time. And so step one, always delete, delete, delete, delete as much as possible. Because one of the habits of a lot of entrepreneurs is that they stay too long in projects, relationships, whatever. Because one of the great things of entrepreneurs that we see a lot of potential in people and in things. And one of the bad things of entrepreneurs is that we see a lot of potential in people and in projects, for example. So if you're in a relationship, for example, or in a project or whatever, it's us entrepreneurs who stay long in those things because we see the potential, but that potential is hurting us. And so it's, it's really powerful to let go earlier than to keep, you know, doing all the stuff that's counterproductive and so delete.

Yeah, you're gonna love this one.

And this is.

Why what you're saying is such valuable advice by just deleting. And I have a tendency to hoard stuff. I mean, I'm like one of those people that would see on the show hoarders, but I don't collect like lint. I hold onto things that are ideas and strategies. Now granted, there's a lot of benefits that come out of this. It certainly has benefited my clients. It certainly has benefited people in my genius network. I have one of the most incredible swipe files of anyone that I know. I just have files filled with brilliant frickin ideas and strategies that I can access. So that's the good side. The bad side is I have tons of stuff that will never see the light of day, but just consumes an enormous amount of physical space and by default consumes mental space. But yesterday we were going through about 1800 URLs. I didn't do it, but one of my team members did. A new team member. And discovered that probably I'm spending close to.

Well, no, not close.

I'm spending approximately $3,000 a month renewing URLs on a regular basis, over $35,000 a year. I've added more and more, but this has been going on for about 10 years. So do the math. These are just like Joe's giant brainstorm ideas that. Oh, this would be good. Let's get this URL. This would be good. The funny thing is the person said, you know, about 95% of these are just. You just got to let them go. And when I sit and do the math, I'm like going, God, think of what I could do with that money in a more productive way. This is one of the downsides of having an organization. When you build a multimillion dollar company, there are downsides. The downsides are you can just be passing away money that you don't even really think about. I'm in this situation. Ilko, kind of like what you said, where it's like, well, these websites and these Names, some of them are amazing and they're the seeds of, of multi million dollar businesses. But like anything else, they're going to require me to have to communicate that to somebody. So I'm just going to have to make a really difficult mental decision and say, you know, I love this name, I love this idea, but I'm never going to do it. And I don't have the time to go and sell it or teach it to someone else and just, you know, just delete it and get rid of it. So I'm going to have to put a lot of place in that. But I'm still like, there's this. And I say, but because, you know, I'm still holding on to this part of me that is like, well, you know, there's some really great ideas here that I do want to see the light of day. And so what I thought about doing with, with you, Dean, is, you know, we should do a special podcast where I talk about every URL that I think is a amazing value creating idea.

Yeah, I've got a lot of those too.

And we just do like a big, big ILM auction or something. We're like, all right, we're gonna sell these website URLs for this price, but we're gonna tell you what the idea is and then go to work, you know, and then see if we can.

Brilliant.

You know, that's one thing. But you know, that can only be done with about 10% of them, though, because at the end of the day, I just, you know, I'm gonna have to delete. But that's something that boy, you know, I mean, how do you build that muscle, Elko? I mean, like, how do you. How do you let go, like mentally? Because, I mean, you've, you've talked about how you struggle with it, but really take an effort to make sure that you set up mechanisms, even if they may sound silly, like some people, like you know, giving a password for Facebook, that sounds really silly. But you know what?

It protects your life.

Yeah. So I would like to bounce one idea to you, Joe, because what I noticed, and I'm curious about your opinion on this, is that especially the last couple of months, I've been thinking about this a lot, that a lot of people who are, who have a lot of, who have a tough time letting go, for example, of physical stuff, but also digital stuff or whatever things from the past, I noticed that a lot of those people, they come from a tough background and that they went through a lot of stuff. And because they went through a lot of stuff. And now they're on a good level. For them, it feels insecure to let go of stuff that they created in the past, even if it's not. Not finished or whatever, because it's their foundation. It's something they've built. They've built up on. And so I'm really easy with letting go of things that do not work. But today we had. And that's why I will want to ask you, Joe. Today we had one of my coaching clients. He's a really successful entrepreneur, but he's been addicted to drugs. He's been. He's been. He's been sober for 10. 10 years now, but he collected all that stuff, physical and digital stuff, for the last 10 years. And he's a hoarder as well. And. But he said, like, for me, it's tough to release that because it also made me who I am right now at this point. And it feels like my foundation, you know, but it's not true. I mean, if he releases all this stuff that. That's not working, it will make him grow. But. And the same with my sister, for example. She had a really tough time when she was young, and for her, it's like literally impossible to remove. Stuff in her house is like, it's piling up. Everything is piling up. And for me, it's like I just throw it away. But for her, it's like, nah, I can't do that, man. It's like a newspaper from 13 years ago, you know, it's impossible for me to throw it away. And it's. I'm just curious how you look at that. And maybe if you talk about everything you collected, I mean, you're extremely successful where you're at right now, but you also have an interesting background.

Do you see?

Is this recognizable?

Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, it's a very interesting question. So without being a psychiatrist perspective on this, or psychologist, I would definitely say it is a. Hoarding is a safety mechanism. It is a form of protection. It is a form of safety. And if you're letting it go, it is wired in people so deeply, as in any addict mind, any compulsive sort of impulsive sort of behavior, it is literally wired in as survival. And people hold on to that because it's kind of like a lifeline. It's like a life raft. And it may be to an outside person, it'd be like, well, this person is crazy. Why are they holding onto this stuff? But if you were to get inside that person, person's brain, you would see an incredible amount of fear, an incredible amount of, like, the need to put up a wall to protect yourself. And that may not make sense to anyone else on the outside, but in that person's mind, they're holding onto something because they were either abandoned or they were traumatized or they were abused. And in some way, shape or form, that is a form of protection. And if they let go of it, they feel incredibly unsafe. And so it is wired into the BR as survival. In the same way that an addict is doing stuff that is making their life completely out of control and unmanageable, that is a coping mechanism. It's a soothing mechanism. And if you get away, if you take that away, it's like almost taking away their blanket. It's like, oh, shit, what am I going to do? And so that's why even when you have people that are incredibly bad hoarders to the point of they can't even walk through their house, that's why they have interventions. Because these people, left to their own devices, they can't do it. And most of the people, logically, they'll say, well, yeah, I mean, of course it seems crazy, but it's not the logical part of the brain that's making those decisions. Now, when you don't have any attachment to it, then like you said, you can just let it go. But as Buddha said, all misery comes from attachment. And there's an incredible amount of attachment that people have with their stuff, with their emails, with their physical space, with even relationships and stuff. And to let those things go, even if by letting those things go, their life would free up or it would give them space. There's a reason that it's all crammed in there. They're attached to it. And if you can get in touch with what is the attachment and how do you let it go, then you can make progress on it. But it's a very complicated thing. Different people have different reasons for doing it. But just mentioning it, it's a lot of my perspective, it also goes back to everyone here, in whatever way, shape or form. What are you holding onto that is no longer serving you, at least externally, but internally you think it's serving you because a lot of the things that people think are serving them aren't serving them at all. But man, they have no ability on their own to change it, though, because their world perspective isn't there yet. And that's why I'm so fascinated with the Attic mind. As we had a lot of conversations about at the last Genius network meeting. So, I mean, I just think it's another form of addiction.

Yeah. Big time.

Big time.

It's interesting how Dan Sullivan's idea of this immigrant mentality, of how, you know, when immigrants are coming to America or going to another country, that. That sort of is a letting go of all of those. That's why some immigrants come to America, and then they're very quickly have more success than they had wherever they've immigrated from because they've kind of cut themselves off from all of the environmental stuff, all of the people, the physical stuff, the routines, all of those things. And it's the purest thing of. You're bringing yourself and you're bringing whatever money you are, you have accumulated and are able to bring into the country. But there's a. There's a. An incredible amount of freedom that comes from letting go of a lot of that. All the physical stuff and the environmental stuff and even the people baggage stuff and starting consciously again, moving forward. It's. It's a really interesting thing when you think about it. Like, why. Mm. Yeah, you bring. That's what I mean. You bring yourself. That's what, you know, you bring everything you've learned, all the experiences you've had, everything that you've. That you've developed, you get to bring that. But then you cut yourself off from all the things that, whether you realize it or not, there's a lot of things that are just in your life because they've always been in your life and they're always. And that includes people and things and environmental things and habits and routines that are based on where you are.

Yeah, no, it's very interesting. So, you know, we're kind of at the time, but I want to go for a few minutes longer just because this has been really good and. You good with time for a few more minutes, Alco?

Yeah, no problem.

Okay, cool. Well, let me ask you what.

Yeah.

Yes. And the left side. Send it to Dean. I want him to pay up. What's about.

That's right.

What's the best piece of business advice you've ever gotten?

All right, wait.

First off, are you done now? You got another statement? You're going to say.

I'm trying to.

Shoehorn in a question here, but what were you just saying? I was kind of missing it. I was too preoccupied with asking you the. The next question.

I don't know. Just go ahead.

What's the best piece of business advice you've ever gotten? And what's the best piece of marketing advice that you can Give to business owners, entrepreneurs, and anyone listening to this. So those two things, best piece of business advice you got, and then the best piece of marketing advice you can give to everyone listening to this podcast.

That's a tough question, man, to answer, but let me think. The best piece of business advice, I think it's just like, keep growing, man, keep learning, and surround yourself with great people. And I mean, if you surround yourself with great people, you will grow, and your business will grow, your life will become better, and you will adapt to the people around you in a good way and in a bad way. So if you surround yourself with people who are average, you will become average. And if you surround yourself with great people, you will become a great person. And without working that hard, because, I mean, it's so easy to. It's normal for us to adapt. So I think the best business advice is really find great people around you if you don't have money to invest in mentors or whatever. Yeah, I think this is one of the best advice I can give to entrepreneurs who are starting out right now. Because a lot of people are looking for gurus. They look for big names, and they want to be mentored by the big names. But all the big names, I mean, we talked about it in this episode, is that a lot of the big names, they're busy, they have a lot of work to do. But if you go to a local entrepreneur who has two or three restaurants, and they do like 2.3 million with those three restaurants and they're really successful, you go to the owner of the restaurant and you ask them, like, hey, man, would it be okay to, you know, have a coffee or a lunch once a month and I'll pay for the lunch. Would you like to mentor me? A lot of entrepreneurs, they're really passionate about business, and they would love to mentor young entrepreneurs. So I work today with a lot of entrepreneurs, and I know for sure that if people would approach them and ask them, like, hey, man, would it be okay to have a lunch once a month and could you give me some advice about my business? They would all say yes, and they would all do it for free. So don't look for the big gurus if you don't have a lot of money, but just go to the local entrepreneurs that are around the corner and ask them to mentor you, for example. So that's practical advice for starting entrepreneurs. And if you're already an entrepreneur, that's. That's grown the business, and don't be too afraid to invest in yourself. It's I mean, we've been to Necker. I've been to Necker twice and you've been to Necker, like a lot of times, Joe.

And it's.

We had a conversation over there that it's. It's not the entrepreneurs that are. That are able to. To make that payment to go to necr, that go to nacr. No, it's those entrepreneurs that are willing to make that payment to go to neck. And there's a big difference between those two things. So you can pay for it, but are you willing to invest in yourself and. Yeah. So keep growing as an entrepreneur. That's maybe the best business advice I can think of, which is maybe not too practical, but I don't know.

No, no, that's actually. And I really love what you just said about the ability to. That you can pay versus being willing to pay. I mean, many people can do stuff, but they don't do stuff. And they say in their mind they can't do it, but what they really mean is they won't do it. And that can be with payment of money. That can be payment of time, payment of energy, payment of relationships. I mean, there's a lot of stuff you have to be willing to do and things you have to be willing not to do. And I think that's enormously valuable and. And profound advice. You know, one thing too. When I started getting to the point where, you know, because when I didn't have any money, I did have time and I did have energy and I would seek out people that were smarter than me. And to this day, I mean, even my Genius Network, I don't want Genius Network to be known for me. I want Genius Network to be known for the people that are actually in the group, because there's people in the group that are far more intelligent than I am in many areas. And when I bring them all together, that's all an attempt for me to keep upping my own game by who I interact with, who I surround myself with, and who I want with clients and a lot of people. I mean, one technique that I have recommended and have used several times in my life is if there are people that are just really busy or they don't do consulting, or maybe they do, but they're just really busy, call them up and say, hey, where's? Or reach out to their assistant. You have to obviously credentialize yourself because you don't want to freak people out if they don't know who you are, but offer to find out where they're Flying to next, pay for a first class ticket for them and fly to wherever they are and meet them at the airport and fly first class sitting right next to them. And be willing. A lot of times you can get two or three or four hours of someone's time because you paid for their first class ticket to go somewhere. But there's got to be a right fit too. You can't approach people in a biggie whiny way. You can't be like a stalker. I mean, you got to have a real value proposition, not just I'm going to drain your energy because smart people, they don't want to have their time wasted. But I agree with you. I love helping entrepreneurs, but I love helping entrepreneurs that are energetically aligned with me that have the same, you know, integrity, process that, that sort of stuff. And if, you know, if you think you're, there's ever a loss for smart people out there, the world is populated with very successful, very smart, very giving, caring people. You just got to line up with them.

That's a great idea.

Joe.

I've never, I never heard that before. But that's, I mean, you're just thinking about it. If somebody would had approached me like that, you know, you say, because we do a lot of flying back and forth to places, it's kind of downtime in a lot of ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've had a couple people actually pay for first, you know, first class tickets to fly, fly with me and you know, go somewhere and if I really like them at the end of it, I'll, you know, give them their money back because I don't let you know. But, but now it's really going to, I think I'm just going to do it for. Since we just put it out there and I love marketing as an idea. If anyone wants to utilize that, I prefer it on like chartered flights, you know, private planes.

Yeah, just private plan.

There we go.

Yeah, yeah, just get me because I mean, hell, my consulting fees cost as much as a damn private plane at this point. All right, Ilko, what books or people have influenced your entrepreneurial thinking the most?

Yeah, man. I think, yeah, Richard Branson, obviously, I mean he's such a great entrepreneur and the guy for a lot of entrepreneurs, he's such a great role model and to be with him and to see how he works and how he lives, it's inspiring because when I think of Branson, it's. The guy has like, he's successful in business. Like he got like a gazillion companies and Doing a gazillion like dollars and 70,000 employees and stuff like that. He really does a lot of good for the world. And he also lives the lifestyle.

So.

I mean, I was with him in December in South Africa. And the guy, like during the day, the guy is so relaxed. When you talk about being connected, the guy's really connected. He doesn't look on his phone all the time. He's not busy. He's really present. He's really curious. So when I look at the role models, people that inspire me, I mean, there's so many people, but Branson is probably on top of the list. I also really like Warren Buffett.

It.

It's amazing. It's amazing to me to see how he, he's becoming. He is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. But when you, I mean, he has documentaries where you see him on the 34th floor and a building and it's an old, you know, it's an old floor with 13 employees or whatever, and one of the most successful people in the world. He doesn't have a computer, he doesn't check email. He reads from the morning till, till, till night. And you know, he goes to the same restaurant. And that's inspiring as well because. Just a relaxed lifestyle. But because we oftentimes we think that we have to be busy and we have to crush it and be the warrior all day to become successful in business. But if you look at, for example, Warren Buffett, the guy so relaxed and he's really present, he does a lot of critical things. So I think Branson, Warren Buffett and Dean Jackson, obviously.

Yes, of course. Any books that you like the most?

I like Seneca now. So on the Shortness of Life is a great book. Let me think. I'm looking at my books right now. I like biographies stuff. I'd say one book, but yeah, at this moment I'm into Seneca. What's his name? Robert Green, from the order of the 48 laws of power, stuff like that.

What about one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish?

Any Dr. Seuss in there?

I wonder if he might not even know about Dr. Seuss. That's so great. I love it.

I really don't have a clue who Dr. Seuss is.

Are you kidding me?

He's so great. No, for real. I never heard of him from a whole nother country.

Oh, my God. Well, I mean, it's only one of the most successful children's authors and artists and stuff of all time. Well, look up Dr. Seuss and see.

If we can maybe take do some.

Dr. Seuss webinars or something down there. The success secrets of Dr. Seuss. Well, okay, so one last thing that I want to have you give people information on how they can actually find out about you. And maybe we can, if you're not already working on this, we can take you global and people can start getting your knowledge and advice all over the world, which would probably be a smart thing. But you're an amazing note taker and you've come on a couple of the Necker Eyes trips that we've done, and you created this book called Necker Notes. And so also when you were down here at Genius Network, you were filling out, you were taking quotes, and at the end of the meeting, you actually read all of your takeaways and stuff. And that made me feel really good because you put a whole bunch of quotes in your thing from me and it made me, I was like, oh, maybe the stuff I say actually does land with people in different ways. And so when you take notes like that, it not only is a really good process for you to remember what you learned or what found valuable to you, but then the way you package it and put it together and you're freaking amazing at the way you put together these books, it actually ends up deepening the value of what the person has said. So I want to get your advice on note taking because a lot of people that listen to this, they're listening to this podcast and they're taking notes, they're going to seminars, they're learning what, how do you do it and how have you learned how to squeeze the most juice out of experiences.

I've been thinking about this and it's interesting because when, and one of your, because I write down your quotes, obviously one of your quotes is if you don't pay, you don't pay attention. And it's funny. So when I go to, for example, I go to Necker Island. It's a big investment to go. And you really are focused on what people say because you want to learn from them because they're high rollers and you made a big investment. So I write down a lot of stuff when I go to a seminar, I write down a lot of stuff. When I stuff when. And I catch myself with this when I watch a YouTube video, for example, I don't write down the great stuff, even if it's great stuff in the there. So one of my, the way I started doing this was by, by, by going to events and then write down all the great stuff. And for me I can't help myself, man, when I'm. So, for example, like two weeks ago, three weeks ago, at the. At your. At your meeting, 25k meeting, it's. I really can't help myself when I hear something that's genius, I have to write it down. And. And for me, one of my new habits I want to create is to do this all the time. Like, literally, when I'm watching a YouTube video or when I'm talking to somebody, somebody else is talking to me. Like, really write down the great stuff you hear. So basically, the system behind all this, all this crazy stuff, this genius stuff, is just really. Just if you hear something that sounds great, write it down. That's what it. It's really simple. But most of the time we are too lazy or we are too busy or whatever to write it down, or we think that we will remember what was being said, but we, like 99.9%, we will never remember what's being said. So basically it's too simple. Just if you hear something that sounds great and you're like, oh, that sounded great, just write it down in the journal. So that's step number one. Step number two is invest in a great journal. So I really go out of my way to buy great journals. And for me, when I see people at events and I see them write on a piece of paper or cheap whatever, I cringe.

Yeah, the hotel notepad.

Exactly. Because there's so much value in what you hear from these genius people. And then you put it on a hotel notepad. But if you put it in a nice book and you invest in a nice book, it gets more deep, it gets more attention. It's. It's.

I remember the journal that you had in London. It looks like this, you know, ultra cool, medieval sort of scroll journal, you know, it was. It was very nip to see. Yeah.

So basically the one small, one short story. So step one is just ride. And one of my big insights on the first time when I went to Necker was that. So I was playing tennis with Mike. Mike is the tennis teacher of Branson. And Mike, he noticed that when we were doing our brainstorm sessions in the morning in the temple on that, all of the people who were there, they're writing a lot of notes. And obviously Branson makes a lot of notes as well. And Mike asked me, like, what's the. What's your system? And I was like, oh, just write down stuff. You know, that's like the system. I, of course, have some small stuff, but basically it's Just write down the stuff. And then Branson came, and we were about to play tennis, and I asked Richard, like, what's your system with taking notes? And then he told me, like, two or three years ago, the Great house on Necker island burned down. And Branson has been taking notes from when he was 16, and he was like 60 or 61 when the great house burned down. And he lost 44 years of notes. Was 44 years. So 44 years of journals he lost. And then he said, I was so sick when I lost all my journals. I start. I quit writing notes. I didn't write anymore. And then he said. Which was really interesting, especially at his level. He said, our business really suffered during those three months from me not taking notes during those three months. And there was. I was like, okay, maybe. Maybe I should take this stuff seriously. And then on Necker, I started writing more and more and more and started recapping those days. And like last time at the Genius Network, I started recapping the days, and I see people like, wow, that's interesting what you write down. I didn't know that it was one of my things that I'm good at. I never really thought of it like that. But it was because of Genius Network and Necker island that I found out that I'm a great note taker. But I never really knew, you know, I was just. I think it's an important thing for me. It's natural for me. And it comes back to what we talked about earlier. Like, what's easy for you? That's really easy for me to really make great notes right now.

That's really good advice. What is the question or questions that we should have asked you that we did not? Is there anything that you can think of that if we. What would have been the great question to ask you that we have? Not yet. Anything you can think of, Elko?

I don't know, man. That's a tough question.

Yeah, I want to see how smart you are is what I'm trying to get at.

He's said it all. He said it all. Exactly.

Okay, so where can people go to learn more about you, your products, your services, and if they even want to work with you? Are you doing anything outside of your small niche? Which, of course, you're a big fish and maybe a little pond compared to the rest of the world, but you're really doing well. So are you expanding beyond? Yeah.

So we're going to expand with my information. So I'm not going to sell anything in the English Market for the next couple of years, most likely. But I do gonna start with my thinking, my insights, my ideas, my notes, my quotes. So this week we started my. My podcast, my English podcast. So what I'm gonna do is gonna weekly podcast. So if you go to the podcast thing on your iPhone or whatever, just search for my name and you'll find my podcast. And I'm doing English YouTube videos right now, so. So all my information is on EEL Co. So it's my first name, fdl. So EEL Co. And over there you'll find my podcast, my videos, my Facebook page, stuff like that. So as I said, nothing to sell in the English market. I just want to start sharing my knowledge from the last 15 years as an entrepreneur. And so that's. It's Eel co.

So the way, the way that your name is spelled for everyone, Full name is ee, L, C O, last name.

D, E, B O, E, R. And.

How do you pronunciate it? You want me to say it?

Yeah, of course.

That would be fun.

Elko.

Deborah. That's pretty good.

Pretty good.

You say it just to make sure what you're saying it right. I want to hear it. Go for it.

Ilco.

Don't mess with it. Go ahead, let him say. Let's not interrupt here.

This is a moment.

I know how to say it.

Go for it. Ilka.

I just said it.

Okay. Well, you know, this is a really defining moment. I mean, out of all of the work that you've done, after all this time, now that you've been on I love marketing. I mean, shit is about to get real. I hope you know that.

I don't have a clue, man. What is this I love marketing thing?

Yeah, I mean, this is good. You're going to look back at this and this is going to become one of the defining moments in your life. Saying that was the day that things took a giant shift. I just think you're going to look back at this 20 years from now and you're going to think of all of the things in your life that were instrumental. Children, marriage. I love marketing podcasts.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You never know where this is going to go. Well, last thing, why do you love marketing? I mean, you're on. I love marketing. What is it about marketing that you love and appreciate and see as so valuable?

It's that you can create something from nothing. That's one of the great things. And the other thing that's hugely. That's crazy important for me right now. And, and something I've been thinking about like the last six months is that a lot of entrepreneurs, we are so creative, but we, if we end up. That's something else to talk about. Maybe another time. About the addiction thing is that if we don't use our creativity, we go crazy and we go do crazy stuff. I think it's Ned Hallowell who talks about this. If we, and I think you guys do this extremely well. If you, you can put your creativity into the marketing, your life is great. I mean, right now, this whole podcast for you guys, this is marketing for, for your business, for 25k, for the, for the breakthrough blueprint. This is marketing material. But you, you guys are creative right now. So the great thing with marketing is that you can be creative all the time. And it's, it's, it's growing your business and it's growing your region, everything. So that's such a great thing that with, with marketing it can, you can go all out, you can do the craziest stuff on earth and it will grow your company. And that's, that's, it's, it's, it's crazy, man. It's so interesting to do the things you love to do, create stuff that you love to do and it grows your company. That's just amazing.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome.

Thank you. Dean, anything else you want to add before we call it a wrap?

I mean, there's so much. There's so much. But I think this, the whole thing's on this fasting and really just trying to create some structure around that.

That was the big takeaway for me.

I'm going to listen to this one again.

Even though we were right here, I.

Listened to all of them and you hear them differently.

So I'll take notes when I, when I listen. Yeah.

You should turn this into a 90 minute book. Our conversation with Ilka.

Absolutely.

And also I'd love to, you know, when you get the final version of the Genius network notes that you took, I'd love to distribute that too. I mean, it'd be a great marketing piece for obviously my group, but it would also be really valuable for people to read it. So your website is EEF for people that want to check it out and I'd love to hear everyone's comments. What did you get out of this? If you do Internet fasting or any other tips or recommendations or suggestions, please post them@ilovemarketing.com in the comment section. Share this episode with people all over the world, wherever you're at, share this I think a lot of people could change their lives especially when they hear the ways that Ilco actually has gotten his parts of his life back by protecting them from electronics. And if you want to subscribe, you can subscribe at itunes or wherever this podcast is available, or you can go to ilovemarketing.com so Ilko, thank you very much. It was fantastic and really appreciate the work you're doing and being a genius network member and just doing all the stuff you do. You gave some great advice today and I know it's going to help a lot of people, so thank you. Sa.