Jay Abraham With Brian Kurtz - Bonus Epsiode - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson

Hello, my name is Eunice Miller, executive assistant to Joe Polish, founder of Genius Network. I've worked with Joe since 1995 and I'm also the lead concierge for Genius Network members as well. What you're about to hear is an exclusive conversation between world renowned marketing expert Jay Abraham, responsible for over $9 billion in revenue generated for his clients, and Genius Network member Brian Kurtz, who runs Boardroom Inc. One of top direct marketing companies in the world that has generated hundreds of millions of dollars. So please join in on the conversation now and enjoy.

This is going to be one of the most wonderfully stimulating, fast discussions I've ever had in my life because the gentleman is one of my dearest, dearest, most highly admired friends and a contemporary who has achieved such exquisite successes in such a multitude of dimensions. Brian Kurtz, I've known for, I don't know, 20 years. He's executive vice president of Boardroom Inc. They have, in not only his words, but in the industry's chant, they've crushed it in more medium, more forms, more ways. Newsletter, books, infomercials, seminars. They're the quintessential marketeers and they probably have more admirers for their marketing acuity and also for their rather brilliant use and reuse of brilliant content. But Brian is acknowledged worldwide as one of the preeminent direct response marketing mammoth minds. And he's just a very brilliant man and he's been a very, very passionate participant in the Genius Network and come to the annual events and has a context of really what they are, who they are, why they're so indescribably unique. And we're going to talk about it, them, him, and things that go maybe bump in the night for a few minutes. And I hope this helps everybody get a better comprehension and just sort of a perspective on why this is such an extraordinary gathering. So, Brian, first of all, it's my honor to spend time with you.

It's my honor. And you're way off. I think we know each other for like 30 years. Time flies when you're having fun. But you are one of the true. You are one of the true mammoths of the industry. If that's a positive term, I hope. And you have taught me a ton very early in my career. You're just a little bit older than me, but not a lot. And I do consider you a mentor, Jay. So whether you like it or not, you're stuck being my mentor. Sorry.

No, no, no. It's, it's, it's, it's flattering. But we can. Let's. Instead of doing a discussion, let's flatter each other off on. Did you ever see.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's just do that.

No, but I want to. I want to flatter Joe Polish in 25K. That's funny.

I've been thinking about it.

It's such a big, big part of my life. Big part of my life. Okay.

All right, let's get started. So I want to probe your mind because you are one of the biggest, best objective observers of humanity. You long ago started bringing eclectic people together for the purpose of stimulating interesting discussion, original ideas, exchanging provocative, evocative discussions. You've probably got a better context to comment than about anybody. I would know. So, first of all, I'm very, very double, very impressed with the dynamic that Joe has created at his annual gathering. And I won't even call it an event because I think that's a disservice. And the quality and the diversity.

And.

The duality of people there. When I say duality, I see people as both givers and receivers, as benefactors and beneficiaries. And it's a really interesting and wonderful dynamic. So I'm going to ask you to first of all try as best you can to explain what you think it is. And I know it's an offshoot of the 25K group, and if it needs some background context, it would be wonderful if you could give a little perspective. That would help anyone listening really grasp the power and the real rarity of mammoth minds that are represented in this group.

Yes. So, first of all, I always say that when I grow up, I want to be Joe Polish. So Joe and I have been friends also for probably not 30 years, because I think he wasn't even started yet, but maybe over 20. I've kind of known him since he was the king of the carpet cleaners and just took over an industry in the same ways that he's taken over industries over the years by being a total student of direct response. I mean, as he talks about his story, you know, he was, you know, freebasing cocaine in the back of a truck, 97 pounds, got ahold of, but was cleaning carpets and got ahold of Gary Halbert's direct response secrets. And the rest is history almost. He worked his butt off to get there. And Joe understood at a very, very young age that the value of. And a term I used that you gave me relational capital or relationship capital, which is such a powerful term. And I don't know anybody, anybody on the planet that understands that Better than Joe Polish. So Joe, when he teaches. So the annual event that we're talking about, he's been doing now, I think, for three or four years, which is kind of an entree into his bigger group. If you go to the annual event, it's a down payment if you want to be in the bigger group. I've been in the bigger group for four or five years.

Talk about that a little bit, because I want people to know, not necessarily to be diverted about maybe joining that, but to understand the font from which all these minds are flowing into the gathering.

Yeah. So, I mean, it started much more as a marketing group because Joe, you know, wanted to surround himself. You know, Joe really believes in what I believe, what my mentor, Marty Edelston, Believes. Believed and what you believe, which is if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. And so Joe totally gets that at the deepest level. So it's like, why would he want to start a business or do anything in life without having people around him who are smarter than him in all the areas that he doesn't cover, so to speak. And then being an incredible facilitator. So being a member of that group was always more about marketing because he really was surrounding himself with marketers. But then he was so smart in the last few years in particular, kind of, you know, not partnered, but kind of collided with one of his mentors, Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. And what they've done is that Strategic Coach, which is basically the best entrepreneurs in the world. I mean, there's nobody better for coaching entrepreneurs than Dan Sullivan.

I agree.

There's nobody better for bringing marketing people together than Joe Polish. And the twain have met. Because what Joe did is he started recruiting. Not recruiting, but Dan said, hey, I'm in Joe Polish's group, you entrepreneurs who may own a silver mine, or you may own a dental practice, or you may own whatever and you're millionaires and you want to be able to build your businesses bigger, you need to understand marketing. So you need to join Joe Polish. It's the perfect complement to Strategic Coach. And then Joe, of course, we talk about Dan Sullivan's principles all the time in 25k, among many other things. I mean, Joe does these 10 minute talks, which are just phenomenal. They're like mini TED talks within the 25k environment, which you and I both did in New York last year. And so, you know, what Joe has done is he's taken sort of a great marketing group where no one's the Smartest person in the room. They're all exchanging ideas. Competition is coexistence. Everybody's just share, share, share, give before you receive all of that. Then he expanded the membership of that group into the entrepreneurial world, which has just taken that, you know, it's taken Joe's group to like the next level. And so I've seen, I've been there from, you know, all marketing to now. I don't know, he probably would say maybe 60 or 70% of the people might be straight marketing folks, but there are some of the most heart based entrepreneurs in the world who have joined Joe's group. So there's this incredible atmosphere of sharing, of learning. I mean, you know, in the group you do exercises just like you do in Strategic Coach, but in Joe's group as well, where you'll do an exercise and then you'll go into groups of two or three and share. And every time I go into a different group of two or three, I make new friends for life because I make sure that I branch off to people I don't already know, which is all developing relationship capital, which is what we've always talked about.

But they're enormously and stunningly open to not only letting, embracing new relationships, but contributing to them. I was very impacted when I was there by that.

Yeah. And you know, I've always been like that. As you suggested, you know, Marty Edelston, my mentor, developed these boardroom dinners that we do that are world famous, where we bring together all of our people who write for us, people who work for us. It's marketing, it's editorial, it's medicine, it's investing, it's everything that we do. And I think Joe took that concept, put it on steroids, and started with more the marketing end. And now he's bringing that eclectic, worldly feel to it. And it's just phenomenal. I mean, I, you know, I. On the one hand, I'm embarrassed to say that I spend so much to be in different mastermind groups, but to me it's like paying for my PhD in my next level of education. I only have a bachelor's degree. My mother is still lamenting that I never got an mba. So I said to her, I said, Look, I spend $70,000 a year on mastermind groups so that I can be around the best and the brightest in the world all the time and be totally inspired by them. I mean, you get humble too. I mean, you know, there are people there that will kick your butt if you're not, if you're being complacent or you're, you know, so there is a little bit of accountability too. I think you need smaller mastermind groups to create accountability, which I'm going to discuss at the event that I'm doing in September. So I think smaller mastermind groups are often better for the accountability factor. You don't get as much of that from a, from a Joe Polish group or a Dan Sullivan group, but it's the beginning of that because I've sat in these dyads and triads at Joe's group and got my butt kicked. It's like, Brian, why are you not doing this? Why are you, you're sitting on these assets and not doing what you know, so what an opportunity, right, to be hanging around with incredibly high achievers who are kicking your butt in the best way possible. I'm talking about love and accountability. Love never leaves the room. It's not like you're an idiot. It's that I want you to be the best you can be when you're in a group of entrepreneurs who are all rooting for each other and all working for each other. I don't know of anything better in my life. That's why I hang around with you for 30 years. You inspire me to be my best. You inspire me to be my best.

Yeah. No, no, I'm smiling like the Cheshire cat that ate 10 canaries. You're delighted. No, no, because you're really, you're doing a wonderful job of dimensionalizing something that's really, it's not dimensionless, it's so infinitely dimensional that it's hard to describe. When I was there, the one thing that impacted me was, and I love superior diversity. And by that I mean when you're talking about, I love the word preeminent. You have preeminent minds who are not completely, but significantly the definitive, the leading, the, you know, the true, honest, acknowledged, go to source in, I don't know, 20, 30, 40, 60 industries. I don't know, the counter and, and their, their diverse but masterful perspective brought to bear on a different industry is just mind blowingly stimulating.

Yeah, no, I, you know, you're saying it better than I just could have.

No, I mean, but you're doing great. I'm just trying to throw it back because you have a better, you've more.

Yeah, I, I, I am so, I am so, you know, you know, it's bigger than a man crush on Joe Polish. I mean, you know, he's really, I love that, you know, he is, he's one of my closest friends. So in a way, I'm not objective on the one hand. On the other hand, I wouldn't hang out with him and he wouldn't hang out with me if we weren't just have this incredible symbiotic relationship. And, you know, when you're in a group of people, I mean, that. I mean, Joe has this exercise in 25k, basically developing what he calls your genius network. You know, it's called the genius Network Mastermind. And he has this incredible exercise where, you know, you kind of identify all the people in your world, and you. You love that because it's all about relationship capital, and you see all the people in your world. That impact can impact your life in one way or another. And that can be, for me, from someone who could change my business to someone who can get me to umpire in a Little League World Series. Yeah, it's all about your personal life, too. And that's one of my passions, is umpiring Little League baseball at a very high level, believe it or not.

No, no, that.

So you put all of the.

These people.

So the exercises, you just list them. Like, you just sort of brainstorm with yourself who are the most important people in your life, and then the exercise goes deeper and deeper. And when you get to sort of the eight people currently that are the most important for now, for right now in your life, the way Joe structured it is that you write down the person. You write down what their superpower is. I use the word superpower.

No, no, it's a great word.

So. But he. I think he uses, you know, what's their, you know, major skill set or something like that. But then the first thing he writes is, what can you do for them? So in other words, you start with contributing. See, to me, the word networking is so overused. And I read books on networking, and people call me a master networker. You know what? I don't even like the term anymore. It kind of feels like all I want to do is have the most friends on Facebook. What I want. What I want in my life are people that I've contributed to in a very, very deep way. And by contributing to them, that creates the connection. So the way Joe puts this exercise together, just to show you how he thinks and why these events are so powerful, it's that there's the column that says, what can I do for you? So if you're in my eight, which you've been in my eight many times when I've done this exercise, Jay. So you're in My eight. And I say, what can I do for Jay that could make. That could help him? And we've had this discussion about me helping you with my connections to helping, whatever.

It's profound.

It's very profound. So. But as soon as that happens, I'm not looking for quid pro quo. I'm not looking for what can Jay do for me? But you still want to write down after that, what. What superpower does Jay have that might be able to help me? Now, here's the thing. I just blogged about this, and Joe would agree with this, and I'm sure you would, too. And I called it the true power of what I call 100 0. And what 1000 is is that you bring to every relationship in your life no expectation of return, no expectation of a quid pro quo. And it's amazing. You do get abused sometimes. I have a lot of relationships where I give 80 and I get 20 or a lot of relationships. I give 100 and get 0. But there's a lot of relationships I give 100 and then two years later I get 100.

How did that happen?

Or I give 100 and something else happens in my life, maybe related to that, maybe not. That's so impactful, as you would say. And I believe in this serendipity. I'm not believing in miracles. I believe in serendipitous giving. I believe that you put out such positive contributions in the world, the world will contribute back to you. But don't keep score. There's no reason to keep score. And Joe lives by that credo because, as you said, the first thing you do, it's what you can do for them. And if you get something in return, great. If you don't, it's okay, too, because something's going to come back because of how much you're contributing, how much you're giving. I just can't then.

And Brian, I'm going to do my intervention because I'm. I'm loving listening. You're very articulate. You're very, very. I like interesting words. You are exquisite in your ability to animate something and make me want to. I want to sign up, and I'm already coming, so it's wonderful.

But. But.

But there's another element that I sense from it that was very. It was very. It was very unique because I don't really sense that the multitude of. I'm going to call them events, and I don't call this. I want to. This is a very dynamic. And it's not even A gathering. It's an extraordinary sort of convergence, and I would call it the ultimate inflection point of sort of catapulting someone's thinking to a level of expandedness. And I don't want to be too early in the morning for me to be as articulate, but. But the one thing that I got out of it more than anything was that I don't think anybody there wants to invest in people that aren't serious about their own growth. I mean, it's. It's. In other words. And I've always been of that way, I think you do. I'll give a million percent if you're going to do something with it. But the greatest acknowledgement anybody gives you is get your ass in gear and use this to conquer the world. Contribute greater, to add more value, to be more meaningful in all aspects of your life. And I think that's a driving. I sense. Maybe I'm wrong, but I sense that was a driving force of this organization.

Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, two things I'll say to that. One is, I hate to say this because, you know, and a lot of people give Joe, you know, a hard time because, you know, the. Sometimes people, you know, the way he shorthands the group, calls it 25K. It's like, oh, I'm talking about the price before I'm talking about anything. But it's actually interesting if you look at it as sort of the entry fee being high enough for people to come into the group. Not so much that I better get my 10 times, because Joe wants you to get $250,000 of value every time you come annually or even every meeting. Oh, great. But it's bigger than that. It's that, you know, you need to set the bar high to get people in a room who are totally committed to exactly what you said to their. To really change in the world. I mean, I go to those meetings sometimes, and I don't want to feel. No one could. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. So I don't go in there and feel sorry for myself. But I got to tell you, I go into some of those meetings and I feel like a slacker. I feel like a slacker because there are people that are changing the world in terms of fossil fuels and energy, people who are changing the world in dealing with people who've been through trauma and suicide and things like. Or cancer. And I do a lot of that kind of stuff, too, in the health area. But the mission Based part of it. And the fact that people are willing to pay $25,000 to be around other people who are that mission based on is so incredible. And so that is a bar that is incredibly important. And so I just think that anyone who gives Joe a hard time for defining the group by the dollar figure it costs to be in it missed the point. I want to make sure I make that point.

And I think that's great. I need to make that. And let me. I want you to talk because you're so passionate about it. But just so I am.

No, no.

But for clarification, the gathering is not 25 grand. The gathering.

No, it's not. It's 10K.

Yeah, it's 10K and 10K. And apply it if you decide that you like the group and you want to go forward. But it's not, it's not conditional to anything, but you get the best of the best because literally. Well, not literally, but almost everyone comes to that event because it's. It's a gathering of minds that you wouldn't want to miss.

Yeah. Just so you know that. So I'm a 25k member. The 10k event, we'll say in California this year, which has been in New York the last two years or three years. Basically, I come as a member of 25K.

Yes.

People who pay the 10K to come to the event. First of all, it's the bargain of all bargains for $10,000 to be able to be two days with those. I just heard yesterday, I forgot that Verne Harnish is speaking. I wanted to see him speak forever. I just read the Rockefeller Habits again. So, you know, I'm like, you know, I'm in awe at the speakers, you know, people like Brendan Burchard and Ned Hallowell and I mean, we're talking about world class brilliant minds in all areas, not just marketing. And so that's. The 10k event is in some ways, I'm not going to say it's better than the 25k event. It's not. It's just different. And so what a great entree into Joe's world. I mean to land on, call it Planet Joe. Polish via the 10K event is the perfect way. And so I'm not pitching, you know, I don't really care. You know, don't come at your peril is my thing.

I think that I'm going to amend that. You do care, but you care because you should be selfishly benevolent in terms of that the right people should, should move Heaven and earth and the wrong should keep their wallet in their pocket and their right and their credit card unused because it would be a waste. It would be a waste.

Sort of like Dan Sullivan talks about the abundance neighborhood versus the scarcity neighborhood.

Is it going to be.

The Dan Sullivan stuff is brilliant and Joe lives by it. I mean, Joe is. Joe is probably Dan Sullivan's closest friend. And Joe has been in Strategic coach for like, I don't know, 14 years or something. He's one of the long. And he's brought more people to Strategic coach, I think, than any one person. And it's because it's made Joe realize that, you know, living in an abundance neighborhood and being, you know, total slave to your own unique abilities and being able to do the most with everything you've got. I mean, if you're a book. Jay, you know, your book. I just did an interview, by the way, on like the one lesson I've learned from each of the titans who's speaking at my event in September, which you're speaking at. Yeah. My biggest lesson from you, the Umbrella, was get everything you can out of everything you got. I think that's close to the title of one of your books.

And Brian, I'm going to run with that just because I want to. I want to shift you in the last few minutes. But the one thing that I've learned. I'll play it back to you. And I learned I was very blessed. I got introduced to Deming and the concept of optimization from manufacturing. But it translates beautifully to all the other revenue sources and forms. But you can't. Optimization is the key to all life. Highest and best use, time, effort, money, interaction, contribution, everything. But you can't really optimize until you have a context of not all, but at how much more is possible from a moment, an effort market, a communication, interaction with.

No, you were. Jay, you were teaching me that stuff in, believe me, in the, in the early 1980s, I gotta tell you, you've taught me that that's ingrained in my head. That is like. It's. It's like etched in, etched in my brain because of you. But you.

You're honoring me now, unfortunately. And you and I talked before we started, I would have loved, and I feel grievously remiss because I would have liked to continue this for another half hour, particularly as articulate and stimulating and provocative and evocative as this discussion is. But I gotta stop. So I'm not going to stop by saying thank you.

Goodbye.

It would be a disservice to you as an advocate, champion, active, passionate member, and Joe for all he's created. I'm going to ask you the ultimate question I always ask because I don't know what to ask. So if there's a question I should have asked you in behalf of the listener, in behalf of the dynamic, and in behalf of somebody who doesn't really grasp the magnitude, even though you've done an enormous multidimensional job here, what one question should I have asked you? And had I asked it to you, what would your answer be?

It's probably a little spin off of what we were getting into about, you know, how we can all think about our lives being so much bigger than they are, always work into a bigger future. I'm going to blog on this this week. As a matter of fact, Dan Sullivan has a concept called the 10 times future, which is basically starting to think about your life. Not as I'm going to retire at 75 years old or 65, whenever, and I'm going to go to the beach or whatever I do. I love this new concept of retirement. And basically retirement is you retire from the things that you no longer are good at or want to do, and you retire from people who no longer make you better and you can't make.

I love that.

And add to that, you start looking at your life and saying, I'm not going to live to be 75. I've got this many years left. I mean, I think my subject line is going to be, what if you were going to live to 156, which is actually Dan Sullivan's number. My number was 103. But I want to be completely cognizant at 90. I want to be like totally with it at 90 so that I'm still contributing.

So all of that said, I would.

Say that life is long. That was an expression that Marty used to use, Marty Edelston used to use. And if life is long and you want to make the biggest contribution as possible, you've got to be in a room with smarter people than yourself all the time. You can't. No compromise on that. And as you get older, even though I'm 56, so I've got almost 50 years left. So I've got to make sure that now, maybe I should have been using it even smarter before, but I had to make my way in the world and I had to do what I needed to do. But there's nothing better than being in rooms, like whether it's the group in California in August or Just being around people like Joe Polish and Jay Abraham and other people like that. So I think it's really about not living in a scarcity mindset. And I learned a little lesson as I done my own event, high end event at $3,500 a ticket. And all the people from my past, like when I started in the list business in direct mail, they're all on my list. So I'm all inviting them and they have such sticker shock at $3,500 to come to a two day event for best minds and direct response. Yeah, it's really ironic. Whereas all the people, the 28 year old entrepreneurs are saying, holy mackerel, what a bargain. And that's just a mind shift. You know, you talk about mind shifts all the time in a lot of your literature and we're going to talk about that at my event when I'm interviewing you, we're talking about Jay Abraham mind shift. And so that to me is, you know, getting out of that mindset that, you know, it's about dollar for dollar, favor for favor. That's just not what the world's about when you want to achieve at a very high level. So I don't know if that was one question you couldn't. You kind of asked all the right questions. I just wanted to add that element and dive deeper into it.

No, no. I'm going to thank you profoundly and I'm going to apologize profoundly because I wish I would have asked more and better and I wish I would have been able to do it.

You were great.

You know, you did a great job of showcasing something and it's important, I think, to just always do the little epilogue. You're not being paid. You're paying. You're not even. You don't even know who's listening. You're just basically contributing.

I'm basically, yeah, I'm just like, I'm just vomiting into this interview with no compensation and paying Joe gladly every single.

Year because yes, I appreciate you are a very impressive man. And I forgot me too sometime how articulate and how passionate you are. Thank you for reminding me.

And I can't wait to see you in September. You're one of my favorite people in the world.

Again, it's Eunice Miller and I want to sincerely thank you for listening to this interview and I hope you found it very valuable. If what you just heard totally resonates with you and you feel you are a right fit for Genius Network, then I invite you you to please visit www.gieniusnetworkevents.com and fill out the online application. We'll review your application and make sure it's a right fit for you and for us. And you'll receive a personal follow up call from myself or one of Joe's awesome support team members. That link one more time is www.gieniusnetworkevents com.com thanks for listening and make it a great day.