Joe Polish & Dave Asprey Discuss Genius Network

Here with my good buddy Dave Asprey in Alaska. How are you, man?

I'm doing great. Joe, I asked you to put together this video so I can do something I've been meaning to do for a long time. And it's just to tell you. Thanks. What people don't know is growing a company like Bulletproof, which has become pretty darn successful. There's a lot that happens behind the scenes people don't know about. And one of the things that's made it unbelievable difference for me is I sat down with my friend JJ Virgin, who's been a longtime member of Genius network. And she said, dave, you need to go meet Joe Polish. You need to join 25k. And I looked at her, I'm like, I'm still kind of a small entrepreneur here. That is a meaningful chunk of change. And she just looked at me and she said, honey, I spend a lot more than that every year to get time with the right people, and it's completely changed my company, and you just have to do it. So I'm like, all right. And I called you up and I said, I don't want to become a member. Hook me up. We chatted a little bit. And even before I went to my first 25k, before I got to really know you too well, you just did stuff that seemed a little bit unimaginable. Hey, Joe, I want to talk to Arianna Huffington. She's on Uber's board, Huffington Post. Like, she's a non trivial person to get ahold of. And you're like, all right, let me send an email. And like, it was done. And literally two weeks later, I'm in Ariana's studio interviewing her on her set for my show. It was entirely because of you. And then I go to the next 25k meeting, which is a group of 250 really interesting, influential people who are running companies about the size of mine or bigger. And everyone's helping everyone. I'm totally blown away. And then you just happen to have this carefully curated seating chart, like the world's best wedding, and you seat me right next to Peter Diamandis. And I don't know if you have like radar or some sort of crazy stuff going on there, but right away I'm like, wow, this guy's amazing. And vice versa. So we became friends right there. And a couple months later, whenever it was, I'm with you and peter at the Xprize celebration of the 10th anniversary of when it was first launched for private spacecraft. And I meet all these other amazing People, all because you just put the right things in the right time. And at that meeting and through the Genius Network, I raised more than $3 million in venture capital for Bulletproof. I guess that's more angel investment, but whatever. $3 million of investment. Now I see what JJ was saying. She was like 25k. It's totally the best group you'll ever join because I turned 25,000 into 3 million. Not to mention all the things I've learned from you about marketing and selling and things like that. Introductions to Dan Sullivan, another good friend who taught me the way entrepreneurs are strategically lazy. Like, you only do things you care about. I learned that from you and through relationships that you plugged me into. And I just have to tell you thanks, and I always just tell you thanks and I give you a hard time. But I want people to understand. Entrepreneurs don't just magically go, oh, look what I'm doing. They do it with enormous help from people who care. And you're one of those guys who just cares more than anyone I've seen. And the way you express the caring is by just knowing, just somewhere in your heart, like, this person can help that person can help that person. And every time I talk to you, whether we're hanging out here catching fish in Alaska, doing whatever it is, you got a little process in the back of your mind, like, how can I help? How can I help? The thing is, you help really, just in a huge way because you know exactly who to introduce me to when, and you just have great straight up advice like, Dave, you should do this. Have you thought about that? For your business? So Bulletproof owes a lot of its success to you and to your knowledge and to the different relationships that you've helped to foster and create. Introductions you've made that I wouldn't even known that I should ask for because you already knew that for me. So thank you, Joe. I couldn't be more grateful.

You are absolutely welcome and thank you so much. I really appreciate the kind words. The thing about you also, and the reason that Genius Network works and the way that I work is I do my best to align myself with people that are aligned with me and vice versa. And you're a very reciprocal person. And I don't mean reciprocity in sort of like a tit for tat sort of way. Like, I'll do something for you because you're going to do something for me. It's just, I like people that are givers. I like people that really want to contribute in every introduction I've made to you with someone that's well known as an example. Like if you interview them for your podcast, you always mention me, you say nice things, and that's the way I do my best to be. And that's how most Genius Network members are. And so I do my best to curate those types of individuals, introduce them to each other. And by doing so, you have a group of people that are just constantly contributing and giving each other.

Well, there's constantly contributing and giving, and I'm just amazingly blessed. Bulletproof is a mission driven company. There are a lot of people want to help. What is different, though, about the experience? That was actually the first time I really had an experience like this. I sat down in this giant room full of people at the annual meeting for Genius Network and I realized I didn't have to translate what I do because a lot of times there aren't that many CEOs of companies that are growing at a certain rate and things like that. So I can sit down with smart, amazing, wonderful people, but they haven't necessarily been sitting where I'm sitting. And so they'll help, but they don't have the experience or the mental framing to really know exactly what's going on. But when I sat down, wait, everyone here. I don't have to translate what I do. I can just talk about real things that I'm dealing with. And like, yeah, I did that last year. Call this person. Do this. So you set a big thing in motion and it accelerated the hell out of my company. I don't know if you've heard that kind of thing. You probably have from lots of people before, but I got to tell you, Joe, it made a much bigger difference than you're probably aware of.

No, and I love hearing this stuff and of course I certainly appreciate it. I try to think of Genius Network as a tribe of tribal leaders and industry Transformers. People that are the very best in their industry and some the best in the world at what they do, put them together, get them to meet each other, share incredible content. It's really a relationship network. And I think any problem in the world can be solved with the right Genius Network. And so I just want to put that group together and just as much of value as you get from it. People get so much value from you and what you know, because you have such incredible drive, you've got great marketing skills, communication skills, your product line, your knowledge of health. And so you've got all these wild, crazy, awesome individuals that are out there innovating and Sharing their innovations with each other when they come to. When they come to Genius Network. And.

It'S a little more than that. I'll just talk for a minute. If you're an entrepreneur and you're running a company that's had moderate success, I want to crank it up a notch. No one teaches you in business school. I have an MBA from Wharton, by the way. It's a respectable business school. It's actually a lot better than Harvard, I hear. I'm just saying. Just kidding. What they don't teach you is that this is how CEOs do power networking. There's a little CEO dance that CEOs do. Like you wanted me to see. Oh, CEO, CEO breakfast. And like, we all know how to do this at a certain level. You've done it enough times. But to have a curated group like that saves hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of relationship building time. And so it acts as a really effective filter, which means it leverages my time immensely. And they don't teach you in any entrepreneurial program, any MBA program. This is how you accelerate things, is by doing things like that, spending the dollars and the time in order to get in that kind of an environment. Because you can't do it. It will take years to form those relationships and to fly around and meet all those people. You'll never do it. And if you do, it's a cold intro. And here it's a trusted, curated, vetted group of people. So just the mental bandwidth that an entrepreneur saves by just being. Look, I spend meaningful amount of money to do this because it saves me hundreds or thousands of hours of my time and my energy. And that's why it's like pouring gas on a fire. It really accelerates your business. It's like a rocket engine.

No, exactly. And I mean, that's why someone that comes at Genius Network thinking of it as a cost doesn't really kind of get what this thing is. It's really an investment. And it's an investment that it is a school for high level entrepreneurs that will pay you to attend. I mean, that's really what it is.

The other thing that you do that's kind of a little bit ballsy, you're like, look, if you don't get, what, 10 times the value back, I'll give you your money back. Has anyone ever taken up on that?

No.

Well, I can see why.

Well, I mean, I want people to get value out of it. However, I want people to get so much return on it that it's just a no Brainer, you know, it's just a no brainer. It's like, yeah, this is. I always want people to feel that what I brought to the party was absolutely the best thing that I could bring to the party. And that's the experience of most people. Not everyone, I mean, not everyone is like, oh, this is going to be a total fit for me. I mean, it's a select group of entrepreneurs. A lot of people have applied to become part of Genius Network. And we look at what they're doing, we look at their goals, we look at their reputation, we look at what they do and we're like, yeah, this is not going to be the right place for you. But the people that come into the group, I mean, I do my best, my team does our best to just curate the very best entrepreneurs. Which is why Genius Network is known as the highest level group in the world for the best marketers and industry. Transformers. And what we do is we build a better entrepreneur. It's not just about marketing, it's not just about business. There's a lot of stuff related to health. I mean, just for what you do, for what JJ does, these are things related to your body, to your mind, to your performance, to your sleep, to the way that you function, to the way that your brain operates. This is about optimal performance for entrepreneurs. And if you get enough of these amazing bad ass entrepreneurs in the room, men and women doing awesome things and you talk to each other and you meet each other, you develop not only great business strategies, great business models, but you develop lifelong friendships and relationships and you do cool things. Like we're out here right now with two other Genius Network members in Alaska. And this trip was because of one of our Genius Network members that invited us to come on this trip, in.

Fact filming this, we have an Academy Award winning movie guy who shall remain nameless unless he nods otherwise. But you literally helped me turn the $25,000 investment in Genius Network into 3 million plus in investment, which is a little bit more than 10 times my money back, whatever that is. A lot more than 10 times. Like 40x.

Yeah, that's return on genius. People look at ROI. It's like return on geni. Return on the relationships in Genius Network and return on relationships. That's what it is 10 years from now. If you look at that. That's what I like people to look at too. There's this great quote from Bill Gates that says a lot of people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do. In 10 years. So I try to look at my Genius Network members and say, okay, if I can be a catalyst to them, if I can help deliver the right types of people together, put them together, the right types of strategies, the ways to look at business models, the ways to look at their lives, things that are working and not working. That's why I have a lot of discussions on my current passion project, which is changing the global conversation about how people view addiction and treat addicts with compassion, not judgment. And all of the Genius Network members that have jumped into that conversation and saying, yeah, this is really important. I see how this relates to not only my life, to my family, but my team and the world at large. I mean, there's a lot of progress that are being made. I mean, our group influences millions of people.

I think you're being a little bit shy there. It's way more than millions across the Genius Network. It's an amazing, influential group. No one ever told me, even through all my experience in Silicon Valley, this is how you just turn up. Both your own ability to think big, but also just how you have the resources and the relationships. And my life is very different. Three years after joining Genius Network, some of my greatest friends, my favorite investors. Naveen Jain is another introduction I met through you, Joe, who also became an investor. This guy's mining the moon with robots and he's hacking apart what's going in our guts with Viome and things like that. But to spend quality time. How would you do that otherwise? I don't even know. But so thank you, Joe.

I just.

From the bottom of my heart, I wouldn't be where I am now without you.

Thank you, man. I appreciate it.