Secrets To Being A Valuable Entrepreneur: A Conversation With Dan Sullivan, Dean Jackson and Joe Polish - I Love Marketing Episode #361

Be generous, be useful, be grateful, be a giver, be attractive. You know, focus on like what Dan said. I mean, what's in it for them? That's what people, you know, really want. So I mean part of my Genius Network tool is you identify who the person is, what do they want, how can you help them get what they want? And if you just do that for people, they will naturally help you get what you want.

I'm Dean Jackson, he's Joe Polish and this is the I Love Marketing podcast.

Dan Sullivan. Dean Jackson and Joe Polish know how to get stuff done. Peel back the curtain to learn how they've created lives filled with value, fulfillment and high level results. In today's episode of I Love Marketing. In this episode, Dan, Dean and Joe will share the secrets to entrepreneurial success. They'll break down how to get lasting results, make connections that matter and create an integrated life that fills you up on all fronts. You'll learn where entrepreneurs go wrong, how they can make it right and what you can do to make sure you're surrounded with authentic and like minded people.

Mr. Sullivan?

Yes, it is absolutely a true statement. This is Dan Sullivan responding.

That's right.

But special, special. Hear all about it today only what's happening, Dan. For those of you who have only listened to the Joy of Procrastination podcast is Joe Polish.

Joe Polish, Imagine that. Here we are.

Joe Polish has joined us. Yes, special occasion.

Totally, totally.

Something to be shared with everybody. You know.

That's exactly right. This is. We're going to share it on multi channels here. Again we were talking at breakfast. I'm here in Scottsdale and of course it was with you this week at the that the Free Zone Frontier summit was outstanding. Amazing. So we'll talk a little bit about that. But we've got an opportunity here to create something very multichannel. Joe and I were talking at breakfast about the joy of procrastination. And the thing that often people procrastinate is is writing a newsletter or writing things. And Joe was just in a situation where he's got the newsletter for the Genius Network March newsletter coming up and we were talking about recording the using audio as the way to record and turn into into podcasts the way you and I write book. And so we thought, you know, Joe's got some questions from JR who sent over to as a framework for his newsletter. And I thought, you know, we've got now an outlet to have a joy procrastination. The Genius Network letter.

I love marketing and then the system.

And then we get to demonstrate.

Yeah.

And get Dan's input on this, because.

Yesterday, me and Dean recorded an I Love Marketing episode. And we were talking about the Free Zone Frontier event that you had done, Dan.

And it was.

This is a really good.

So those of you that are listening.

I Love Marketing. Can listen to this one. Right. You know.

Yeah. We expanded on. We had a great conversation about what we talked about at the Free Zone, talking about the Kylie Jenner and Old Town Road and this Cloudlandia. So there's so much. So much good stuff going on. All convergences right now.

So I'm sort of hijacking you guys thing, I guess, in a lot of ways, if we do it this way. Although I think it'd be really cool for these questions because here's the thing. So, you know, you're in Genius now again, Genius Network. The whole point of the newsletters, the March issue, is how to be a good human being and questions that have.

To do with being a good human being.

And so, I don't know, Dean, maybe you love questions. You can maybe ask me and Dan some of these questions and then we.

Can speak to them or how do.

You want to do it? You tell me. What do you think?

Are you okay with this, Dan?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I totally am. And remember, Dean, you and I are simply taking advantage of everything that Joe has taught us.

That's exactly right.

This is it.

So it's nice to have him here right with us.

Okay.

That's all we're doing.

Yeah.

So let me give him.

Since you teach the joy of procrastination. Right. Let me give some. So let me.

Let me share with you about a paragraph.

I'll just read something.

Okay.

So this is kind of the way that we're doing this month's issue.

And it says, for the Genius Network.

March newsletter, I need approximately 40 to 45 minutes of audio to put together five to six pages for the Genius Network letter. So let me know if these 10 questions below are enough for you to record and riff on for 40 to 45 minutes. On audio, you would just need to record 4.5 minutes for each question. 45 minutes divided by 10 equals 4 1/2 minutes per question theme of the March newsletter. I'm thinking something like how to be a Good Human Being. In fact, I might title the newsletter that if you can get the recording to me. So if you take that idea, the big idea, and answer the questions below from that perspective, it will likely tie it all together. And of course, if you go over 45 minutes, that's fine. I'll make it work.

So that's, you know, J.R. this is J.R. my writer, you guys both know. Yeah, we know. But JR is the mysterious junior who is the man behind the curtain.

Doing.

A lot of the writing and doing a lot of the organizing for Joe. So this is almost like a reality show here, Dan. People get to see behind the scenes how high level stuff gets done. I told Joe that we've talked about the MOO method is how we look at it for self milking cows. Moo, of course is an acronym for multiplied oral output that use. And then we're able. You've got an audio and you're able to turn that into a transcript which you can then use to take quotes from or to write articles or newsletters. So here we're demonstrating how anybody can create a newsletter and get rid of the procrastination of having that on your list. Write newsletter. That sounds very intimidating when you see it. Yeah.

Yes.

I'll ask the questions that JR has and then we can riff about them. So these are written to Joe and I think we can talk about it.

Well, I'm gonna have the whole newsletter written and look, we'll do it. We're doing it right now. Like so this newsletter will be a combination of Dan Sullivan, Dean Jackson and me.

Yeah.

For the Genius Network letter for March.

That's good.

Yeah.

So we say that we each have our thing.

So I.

What do you look for in an ideal member in Genius Network? What are the traits, characteristics of them? And I think that would be interesting to say the same for Strategic Coach and for your breakthrough blueprints to say that. What do you look for?

Yeah, because a lot of this is about relationships and who we look for in relationships. So from my perspective. Okay, let's just use the Dan Sullivan term industry Transformers. Someone who's one of the best in the world or the best in the world in their category and what it is they do. So Dan, as an example is an industry transformer. He's the top coach to successful entrepreneurs in the world. Right. So that would be someone. We also look for people that are givers, not takers. Right. So they're useful, they're generous, they got a good reputation, you know, which is always a questionable thing when you're dealing with people that are selling large quantities of books and how to information.

However, more and more over the years.

As I'm curating, especially now, me and dad actually did three episodes on our podcast, you know, Law and Order in the idea world, you know, There's a.

Lot of people that are well known.

But they're, they leave a lot of scorched earth. And so we want people that are really smart, genuine humans, innovative. Definitely not lifestyle entrepreneurs, but achievement entrepreneurs is at least what I look for. Not lazy people like you. See where you're so intelligent and bright.

It makes up for your lack of ambition.

So. But yeah, that's sort of my thing. So, Dan, how about you? Because I'd love to hear your perspective on this.

Thanks for giving me a couple minutes here to actually focus my thinking because I believe that we've really entered into a new realm of how as an individual, as individuals, we actually get along with other individuals, which has always been the central focus throughout history, is how do we get along with each other. You know, we're different, we're unequal. Some people are born with great skills, other people are born with what seem to be no skills at all. And yet the numbers of us keep increasing.

So how do we actually deal with.

The issue of constant unequality? I don't call it inequality. I call it inequality, that is we're just different from each other. And that the times that we live in actually favor certain skills, certain kinds of interests over other interests.

And how do you be okay with that?

And how do you just on a day to day basis feel okay with the fact that other people seem to be way ahead? And how do you feel okay with the fact that you each day actually have the opportunity to lead a life that really is satisfying and makes you feel good and gives you ambition for tomorrow? My sense is that the difference between the time we're living in right now, 2020, and when I was born, which was in the 1940s, is that we have the ability to communicate how we're operating as an individual to the world. We're able to get feedback from the.

Rest of the world.

And that was not, that was not true 70 years ago. That's the big change. The big change is that any individual with a communication device and all you need is really a phone, you can actually communicate your situation to the world and you can get feedback from the world. And that would be either negative or positive feedback. And then learn how to take it, to ignore the negative and take advantage of the positive, that's great.

That's one of the things Joe and I talked about last night was the difference right now is we definitely, we have a one to one connection with every other citizen of Cloudlandia that you've got a way to communicate and Articulate exactly the way you feel so that you find the people that resonate with what you're looking for.

All right, so the next question I'll just. What sort of people should other entrepreneurs look to associate with, do business with? Well, I would go back to something that, you know, now that dancer I'll, I'm gonna tie some things into. I imagine you guys talk about this and me and Dan certainly talk about it on 10X Talk. You know, only align yourself with people that are aligned with you. Right. I mean, I think that's, that's a good criteria. You know, my criteria is elf. You know, who's easy, lucrative and fun. Who's an elf business, elf person, elf project, elf situation versus a half situation. Hard knowing, lame and frustrating or hard, annoying, lucrative and frustrating because not all monies created equal. You know, like, Dan's great at describing his, you know, opportunity. Filter the different ways you get paid. So, you know, when you say, what sort of people should other entrepreneurs look to associate with? Well, certainly, why are we associating with people that are entrepreneurs? You know, it's because we're trying to take where we're at to another level. Right. To get better. And in many situations, people think I'm going to associate with this person and do business with them because I'm going to make money. But as in the free zone frontier, so much of that is about collaboration. That's what I was just going to say. It's not just the money.

Right.

Because it's about. So that's, that's how I would frame it. Saying, who's got capabilities that are both of you together? There's a collaboration. One plus one equals ten.

Yeah, I think that there's the, the opportunity is to seek out people knowing that the, the ultimate achievement requires vision, capability and reach that we, that we've been talking about that. Seeking people who collectively you can broaden you make a deeper capability, a broader reach or a combined vision that could be something that you wouldn't be able to get on your own.

Well, let me say this. I'd like to hear what Dan says about this. So yesterday, Dan, I heard a term from that he says, been around for years, but it's literally the first time I heard it, or at least if I heard it before, I forgot about it. And it was commission breath, where someone that is talking to you, you just can tell they're trying to get a commission, they're trying to sell you something. And so the question is, what sort of people should entrepreneurs look to associate with and do business. That's not. Who do you target in like opportunistically try to just, you know, nail down you can get commission out of there. Right. It's like, it's sort. It's not a desperation. It's not like, oh my God, I really need to go target this person. Because when you have that taker energy, you can smell it like commission, commission. Right. So I'd love to, love to hear Dan, like, if Dan's not out, like, I don't see Dan saying, you know, who do I need to target today? Yeah, you know, he doesn't think like that.

It's not a hu.

Hunter, you know, he's definitely hunting. We're all hunting for opportunities, but we're not like trying to kill or just. It's just a money thing. I mean, I think all three of us, if someone comes to us and the first thing out of their mouth is, hey, we should talk because we can make a lot of money together, it's a turn off, right?

It seems to me if someone was observing you, Joe, Eugene and me from a standpoint of someone who just, you know, gets the most money out of every situation that are in, we, we'd all get failing grade.

All three of us would get failing brakes because we're.

So non alert, you know, we're so non responsive to that. But I think that, you know, each of us, if I could kind of say probably, you know, a value that really, really unites the three of us. We believe that there's a big picture, that there's kind of like a big, kind of what I would call a cooperative party that's taking place in the world. Our job is to ensure that when we get invited to this party, when we were able to join this game, that we don't have personal characteristics that would disqualify us. And I think that there's a couple of capabilities that you can work on before you get the opportunity. And one of them is that you just be grateful for what you have. So, you know, I constantly remind myself throughout the day to be grateful to the people I'm working with. You know, that that's my team members, that strategic coach, that's the really unique, ambitious entrepreneurs that I get to meet who are the participants in the strategic coach program and kind of, you know, just the general circumstances that I live in, you know, you know, I'm living in the 21st century, I'm living in America, you know, I'm living in North America. I live both in Canada and the U.S. i live in a great city. I live at a time when, you know, the combination of technology and economics is giving people who are, you know, inventive and bright a real opportunity to create enterprises that simply were not possible 50 years ago. You know, so, you know, I think there's. There's very valid grounds for saying that everybody, and probably everybody who's an entrepreneur today should spend a good deal of their time every day being grateful just for the chance that they get to operate in this particular age. And then I think the other thing, you know, that goes along with gratitude is collaboration, and that is that you don't have to do it all yourself, but just. Just focus on what you're great at and look for other people who are great at different things, things that are not your skill, but they're. It's a skill that combined with your own skill, can produce something that's 10 times, 100 times bigger than what you could do yourself. So that's my take on it right now.

Yeah.

Awesome. Number three.

Number three, where do entrepreneurs go wrong when they're picking people to do business with? I'll start with that. I think that. Because I think that a lot of times people go wrong doing business with someone just because they want to do business with them or that they can sell them on doing business with them. And it's funny how when one of the things that I talk about is, even if you're not going to do business this way, but to think this way, what would you do if you only got paid if your client gets result? Now, if you were only going to get paid when your client gets a result, you'd be much more discerning who you take on as a client because you'd be aligned with them in their goal of getting the result. And when they don't take that attitude, they take the thing and take on people who they know deep down they probably shouldn't or aren't. The person who's going to be able to get the result or get the result, but they're willing to pay for it or they're willing to do something, and then they take this comfort in external blame shifting, of distancing the reason that they didn't get the result as well. I gave. Everything's in the program or everything's there. If they just did it, they would. They would get the result. And I think that when you take this mindset that you're aligned with people, no matter what, whether they're paying in advance or not paying in advance, they're still the outcome is the, the results and you want to be in the best alignment with the people who have the highest chance of getting the result. I look for people that have a really great during unit transformational system, things that can get results for people or that every people that they work with are going to have a great outcome. And then we can amplify that with marketing, if you're in a situation where the people that you work with don't get good results or you don't know how you're going to be able to deliver what it is that you're promising in the marketing, amplifying the marketing is just going to amplify the fact that you can't get the result. So I think that's really, that's how.

I look at it. Yeah, it's like that whole line, the only thing worse than singing the wrong note is singing it louder off key. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would say. And then we'll let Dan go. I would still go back to elf. Is the person easy, lucrative and fun? Are they not? Or do they have the potential to be? Because most things aren't just. They don't start out elf. Right. You have to set up things right in order for ELF to be, you know, the, the conditions of what you end up getting. And another thing, I think where people go wrong, when I say go wrong, I'm only speaking from my own experience where I get initially enthusiastic about opportunities and possib. But my eyes for opportunities are far bigger than my ability to digest all of the things that need to take place. So I think it's when you're being irresponsible, okay. There's a certain level of responsibility where I see a lot of people partner with other people thinking they're going to do all the work, they're going to do something, and people are only going to do what they're capable of doing. Not only like on a intellectual and skill capability, but an emotional capability. Some people can do things, but they're not committed to doing those things. I don't have any energy for it and they're not going to bring it to the table. So if you're going to be doing 90% of rowing the boat, the only person is going to be doing 10% of rowing the boat. You got to understand you only need that person's 10%. Or do you need 30% or do you need 40% or more? And so how, you know, there's, there's never a perfect 50, 50 partnership. You just can't have the inequalities, though, so out of whack that it doesn't match up the way that you set it up. So, you know, it's certainly doing business with people that are negative, dishones, lazy, and, you know, I mean, that's just the deal killer, because integrity and ethics and, you know, everyone has integrity but to their own value system. Right? So it's more about like, what's your, what's your standards? What, what's your value system? And is it, is it shared? And I think what me and Dan are really good at. I'll say it this way. I mean, people constantly approach both of us, oh, we can do this. I've got this. I got that site. Well, are you a Strategic Coach member? Are you a genius now? Or like, okay, if you want us.

To eat your dog food, but you.

Don'T want to eat our dog. It doesn't make any sense.

And so anyway.

So, Dan, what would you say to entrepreneur, where do entrepreneurs go wrong when they're picking people to do business with?

Yeah, well, I think the commission breath that was made earlier has a lot to do with this particular topic. And it strikes me, for example, we have a definition of who we're looking for in Strategic Coach, and it's talented, successful, ambitious entrepreneurs. Okay, so if you, you know, you had a sheet of paper and there was a line down the middle, that would be what is on the left side. And then on the right side of the line would be who are seeking to expand their freedom of time, money, relationship and purpose. And these are two qualifiers. But if I only had the left hand side of the line, successful, talented, and ambitious, I wouldn't feel safe because there's a lot of people in the world who are talented, successful and ambitious who I would never want to meet.

Right?

But that they're seeking freedom of time, money, relationship and purpose, tells me that they're willing to change themselves. Because you can't get better at being freer at time unless you change yourself. You know, you change yourself, you fundamentally have to transform yourself because freedom only comes to those who free up other people. So you got to have a very giving attitude on the right side of the page.

Thanks.

That what I see in the world with a lot of controversy and a lot of conflict and a lot of crises is that people only go to the midpoint of who they're looking for. And everybody in the world is looking for successful, talented, ambitious people. I mean, that's a pretty straightforward thing, the transformation side. So I would say that that's simply a result of transactional capability that you're very, very good at transactional capability. But I think the real key is are you good at transformational capability? And so what I'm trying to do continually is to sense out in the people who are successful, talented and ambitious, are they geared towards their status in the world? You know, that they'll be seen with great status and their status will be the endpoint or are they motivated to continually transform themselves? And when you free up your time, you can only do it by helping other people free up their time. When you free up money, you can only do that by helping other people free up money. When you free up relationship, you can only do that by helping other people free up relationship. And when you free up purpose, you can only do that by helping free. So I think that the big learning for me and because I've been captured, I've been trapped, I've been, you know, knocked backwards by just going after the left hand side of the page, talented, successful and ambitious. And I want that. In other words, you want to know that the person is a player, but are they a good player or a bad player? And I think it's the left hand side of the page that tells you whether it's a good player or a bad player.

I haven't heard you talk about it like that, but it makes total sense.

I love it.

That's super valuable. Especially you know, when people are in the transaction business versus the transformation business. It's an entirely different entrepreneurial experience. I mean completely.

Well, that leads into. I mean, you know, the question for the JR has in what ways do business and personal life intersect and how does the company you keep play a factor in that? But I think that's part of it is that it's not so much just the business side of things. It's like what Dan's saying, the right hand side of all of the personal development things. It's funny because we, I look at what in our go go agent community for the real estate agents we look, our approach is we're looking for agents that want to build a what we call a listing agent lifestyle. And we've got the business elements of it of getting listings and multiplying and finding buy and converting leads and getting referrals, all those things. We're looking for people who want to do those. But we also add the elements of a improving their lifestyle with things like daily joy and abundant time and financial peace. And those are things that balance it all out. There's so many people in Business and in real estate that are just so, you know, pedal to the floor, achievement oriented, that they're just so out of balance that all they care about is the next, next, next, next, you know, and you, you run into that all the time, Dan, with entrepreneurs or just there's no, there's no finish line, right?

Well, you know, there's a thing Dan, years ago recorded, it must have been 20, 25 years ago when you recorded this audio, was the going against gravity for the personal economic system. And it was. Personal economic system like Dan has in Strategic Coach, you know, free days, focus days, buffer day. And they have a entrepreneurial time system. And it works the best for people that are entrepreneurs.

Right?

And one of the things he's telling the story of is he's at Canyon Ranch and there's a guy, you know, who is in the tobacco industry talking about justifying cigarettes and stuff. And, and Dan makes the comedies like, look, you know, you, you. You have a product that kills people front and center or whatever. Something, something along those lines that you say Dan. And here's the guy who's just trying to, you know, speak about, like, you know, he. It's freedom. You know, you can, you can sell cigarettes or whatever. And it's like, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people that use business principles to sell products that kill people. Right? And I'm not saying I'm gonna jump on a soapbox and say if people don't want to buy cigarettes or not. Like, look, I mean, if you want to, if you want to eat, you know, toxic food, if you want to smoke cigarettes, you want to consume tons of booze, I mean, it's, you know, if you're in a place where you can do that, you know, great. You just got to look at the consequences.

And a lot of people, they don't.

Look at the consequences of how they do business and how that actually impacts their life and their value system. And what, like it goes back to value creation? You know, some. I heard from Dan, you know, very early on in Strategic Coaches, all money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. And how the hell are you going to go to bed at night if you're leaving scorched dirt? You know, if you're stealing, if you're, if you're copying, if you're, if you're transactional versus transformational?

It's completely.

I mean, that is your life. Because everything we do impacts everything we do. Yeah. Yeah.

I think what, you know what's funny? I just Realized I'm just scanning through my mind, Dan. When we look at the people that we were just with, you know, at. In Scottsdale this week, and the people that we're. Our universes kind of attract are people who. You get a sense that they're. They're in alignment with their, Their personal life and their business life. Or there's not this. I don't know how to describe it. It's almost like they're the same. It's. They're the person, but part of their life is doing the doing business. But it's not like it's completely separate, you know, to articulate it. Almost like when you, you don't get a sense. Dan, like a lot of the socializing or the friends that we have are often the people who are our business relationships as well.

Well, think of it as like, I like, I've always liked to term corporate athlete.

Right, right.

Where if you, Even though we're not in corporations here, it's just a term of like, you know, you're. If you look at yourself as an athlete in business, you know, what does an athlete want to do? Okay, if work out versus if you're training for something, it's a completely different mindset because you can, you know, you can drag yourself to the gym to work out. Even though some people working out is just what they do. It's like brushing their teeth. You wouldn't even, you know, I can't even think of not exercising right. However, if you're really, you know, if I think of it, I'm training for something or I'm actually just something I'm doing. You're training for life or. I think we all hang out with each other because it's a shared value system. I mean, we like the game, we like achieving. I mean, what's, you know, I learned this from Dan, you know, originally, definition of an entrepreneur from John Baptiste, 1804, coined the term entrepreneur. Individual takes resources from a lower yield to a higher yield, lower level of productivity to a higher level of productivity. So from that standpoint, if you're around people that are doing that, and there's a lot of people, you know, we're in a world right now that really fetishizes the term entrepreneur or startup or business owner, and a bunch of people running around acting like they are. Yeah, but are they doing any.

You know, you're hustling. Yeah, they're grinding. You got a grind, Stan.

You know, you have to put in your reps, Joe.

Exactly. Yeah.

Well.

I just like to point out That I think probably from my reading of history going back, that something really important happened when steam power was created, which, as far as we can tell, sort of like the 1770s. And it was actually created for a very specific purpose because Great Britain had used up most of its wood for fuel. You know, they. They cut down trees and they realized that they, you know, I mean.

What.

Happens when you cut down all the trees? There's nothing else to burn. And they came across coal and they realized that England sits on fast, fast reserves of coal. And so, but you would dig down, so oftentimes you had to go down 20, 30, 40, sometimes 100ft down, and then you'd hit a, you know, total layer of coal, and then you could chip it away and break it up and bring it to the surface, and then people would burn coal instead of wood. But the big problem in digging down, you'd also cut across underground streams. And so it was kind of counterproductive. You would dig down and find the coal, but immediately underground streams would fill up the mines with water. And they had to have some way of draining the mines. And about that time for a whole bunch of different innovations combined. And somebody came up with a steam engine and that you could have a steam engine on the surface, by the way, which you could fuel with the coal you were mining and you could suck out the water. You could suck out the water and you had a deal going. And it didn't take long for someone to say, well, if you can use the steam engine for that, you could use it for all sorts of other purposes, where we're using animal power, we're using human power, and off to the races we were. And what this is, as far as I can see, this is kind of like the first big multiplier in human event where humans had created something which multiplied their own capabilities, multiplied their own efforts. So, you know, it's about 225 years ago, and the response to this has broken society essentially in half. There are those who say, well, the key then is just to watch where the next breakthroughs and next opportunities are, that we can take our own innovation and we can create new opportunities with it. And there's new products that develop around this, new services, and you can be really alert and really curious and you can take advantage of this. And those people are generally very optimistic, they're very positive about it, because just a matter of being alert and responsive and resourceful and being entrepreneurial. And I think that's really why, roughly, Jean Baptiste say, as Joe mentioned, the quote is about 30 years after the revolution. And I think he came up with that because he was observing it in the society around him. This new steam power was actually creating.

A whole new class of people that.

Had not existed before. At the same time, there was another group of people whose entire fortune was based on owning a lot of land, you know, having workers who work the land. And these people never invented anything new because what was needed, I mean, every year there was a growing season, and if you planted and you had people who did all the work regarding agriculture, there wasn't. And all the wealth in the world was basically built on these individuals. You know, if you go back thousands of years, it was owning a lot of land that could produce food and could produce wood and could produce all sorts of other things that was the source of wealth. And. And there was a class of people who lived off the landowning people, and we today, we would call them intellectuals. And landowning people were monarchs, they were aristocrats, they were, you know, they were clergy people like bishops and, you know, bishops and popes and, you know, and everybody. And this group of people, all of a sudden with the steam engine got disinherited because the money was not with the land anymore. The money was with the innovation. This group of people became fiercely opposed to all this innovation thing. And they're called the intellectuals. And I think today we're 225 years down the road, and it seems to me that there's this hatred of the innovative entrepreneur who creates new things that create all sorts of new opportunities, but at the same time, their innovation makes existing things obsolete. And certain people lose out on this. And the intellectuals are the ones who lost out originally when entrepreneurs arose. And they are essentially, they're kind of opposed to the things that entrepreneurs do. They're opposed to who entrepreneurs are. They're opposed to this whole thing of living the life of constantly creating new things and then creating new opportunities that intellectuals can't live off of, except through government, except through government taxation and regulation. So that's the route that they've taken to have power.

So that's an interesting history because as you look at it now, where, you know, you could say the Internet is the new, you know, steam engine kind of thing, creating new ways of creating wealth. And it creates opportunities to cut out all the establishment, all the middlemen, like it used to. You know, we talked about Lil Nas X And how even 25 years ago, there were, you know, you had to go through one of six guys that owned the big record Labels to get, yes, something even heard. And now forget that. You go right to the entire population of Cloudlandia with a direct connection. And it's. So the people who are realizing that and taking advantage of it are the new instant wealth. I mean, you know, that's really valuable, actually. That's a great insight. Thank you.

Yeah. You know, my take on this. Let's look at the next question because it sort of leads into what Dan was just talking about. You know, what sort of people should people and entrepreneurs watch out, avoid or be careful of in life and in business and in life, right?

So who need be careful of.

I mean, part of it is what is the person generating? Because we're all generators. You look at the steam engine, right? You know, it's generating something. And all of our activities, our thoughts, our behaviors, our intentions, the who's the team that we build, the products, the services, the experiences that we put out into the world, these are all, you know, our ambition is generated from somewhere. You know, I mean, Dan talks about people born with batteries not included. Right. And so now as you go through life, you can decide in just to a large part what you're going to generate, right? You can generate, you know, something valuable, you can generate hatred, you can generate love, you can generate service, you can generate generosity and gratitude. You know, I mean, I think those are all, you know, generations and so people who are people to watch out, avoid or be careful of. I mean, look at their past, you.

Know, and here's one thing that I've learned.

I mean, I have met, you know, I mean, we're all familiar with certain things that have been happening in the last year. You know, there are people that I have, have helped tremendously. And then you find out that, oh, these, these are wolves in sheep's clothing. These are individuals that present themselves one way, but behind the scenes they operate completely differently. And what I'm more aware of now is watch out for narcissists.

Watch out for people that are really.

Their main thing is status. Like Dan was saying, you know, they're more geared to status. And I'll tell you, I've seen people that actually start out well and then they get New York Times, best sellers, they get a little bit of money, get a little bit of fame, and then all of a sudden they get sucked into that and they start becoming an asshole. They start thinking there, they let their ego. And I think we're all susceptible to that. I mean, that's what addicts, you know, become in many ways, an addict in the in their worst state. Lies, they cheat, they steal. Doesn't mean that all people are horrible and that everyone's perfect. I mean, certainly not. I mean, you're dealing with a lot of humans that have different stages of their life where they could be incredibly generous or incredibly, you know, self serving.

Right.

Just, it's just look at the, look at the, you know, the past. What are their relationships? Who have they. Do they hurt people? Do they help people?

Yeah.

You know, so I can go on. I don't want to go on a tangent because that's easy for me. I can speak to this because I'm, I'm actually in a current place in my life right now where I'm dealing with. I am. I was really betrayed by someone that I thought that I.

Well, you know, there's nothing as valuable as a well timed tangent.

Yeah.

Speak to it though.

Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, Joe and I were talking. I noticed that sometimes when I'm communicating with new people or meeting new people or interacting with people that there's a level of authenticity that I can sense in people or not. Or saying to Joe that some people and some of the, some people, it's like you're not really talking to the person, but it's like your sock puppets are talking to each other.

Right.

So you're having this conversation and I like to like. I can sense the difference between like looking in somebody's eyes and we're actually talking to the real person.

Right.

As opposed to talking to their sock puppet representative. Yeah. You know, and that's really a. I mean, it's the simple thing. But I, you, you've. When I describe it, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Oh yeah. Like this person is like. They, they, they're like you're visiting the wax museum.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's so.

I don't, it's like I never invest in relationships like that that are sock puppet based. A lot of people will go along with that because they want to get the selfie with the sock puppet and they want to be associated with the sock puppet and they want to have the sock puppet on speed or all of those things, but you don't. But then you realize that you're never really connecting with the real person, you know?

Yeah, there's a lot of fake, you know, now look, I mean there's, there's a lot of. That's term. I know there's a lot of star fuckers in the world.

Right.

Want to be next to stars.

They want to be in pictures with them.

And a lot of these stars are really fake.

Yeah, They're.

They're.

There's really not substance there. There's just a lot of yeah. There's a lot of. Yeah. There's a lot of cosmetic.

Yeah.

To it all. And so, you know, since the purpose of this conversation is about how to be a good human.

Well, step one is to be human.

Yeah. Here's the thing. What I sell the time, like, who becomes my real friends, who's part of my inner circle, is our people that are more powerful. Treat people that are less powerful than that. Do they say, you know, thank you when someone holds the door open for them? Are they nice to a server? Or do they only kiss ass with everyone that's above them and has higher status?

Right.

Their team and everyone else like crap? And you can kind of witness this as they go through life. Do they really care or do they act like they care? You know, there's people that are truly successful, and then there's people that are reporters of success.

Yeah.

You know, they're really. They talk about it all the time, but they don't live really that way. And I always preface aside by saying, look, no one's perfect. I mean, like, there's life, there's challenges or sickness, there's disease, there's grief, there's loss. Those are all real things.

It's just the character of a person.

Isn'T really tested until things are going wrong. And anyone could look great on social media, you know, but behind the scenes, how are they? What are they really? You know, what do they really like? Do you have sock puppets?

Because I got this commitment that I made five years ago that I would write a small book every quarter for 100 quarters. I'm coming along nicely. You know, I've done 20 of these books in 21 quarters. But one of the things is that my mind always works ahead, and I'm thinking of new possibilities for topics and titles as I go forward. And one of them that I came up with about three or four months ago, and it's staying with me. And that's one of the signs that it's probably worth working on. And the title of the book is I'm number 21. So you just think that's the title. I'm number 21. And what it means is that whenever I meet someone, and doesn't matter where I meet the person, doesn't matter the circumstance, when I meet the person, I automatically remind myself that in this person's universe, they've got 20 things that are more important to them than meeting me.

I love you saying too that most people are going through life hoping they never have to meet you.

Yeah, no, he's talking about meeting you.

Oh, is that what.

But the thing is that it kind of, you know, as I'm playing with the idea that really hasn't gone down on paper yet, I haven't really, you know, started to take the idea apart and develop the various, you know, mindsets that are related to that. But just, you know, a very simple fact that in the year 2020, there's each of us as individuals, but you know, outside of us as individuals, there's another close to 8 billion people. What I feel is that each of individuals is kind of the same as me in the sense that they see themselves as the center of their universe. And their universe has a lot of different components to that and it doesn't matter the conditions in which they're living. I think humans are humans and I think that they all have a lot of different things going on in their life. And therefore when I meet them, I consider it. My job is to kind of find out what all those different dimensions are that are going on in another person's life and to realize that this is a full time job for this person. And I like, like for Dean, being Dean's a full time job for being Joe Joe's, that's a full time job. And the same for me. And therefore what I, what I do is that I try as much as I can just to find out what's.

Really important to that person.

And you know, does it look good from the inside? Does it look, you know, does it look positive from the inside and everything else and kind of withhold any judgments about them that I can. That's just based on the way that I'm putting my life together, you know, in other words. Well, I'm putting my life together the way that it makes sense to me. But I'm going to grant each, each person I meet that they're kind of putting life together the way that makes sense sense to them. And my job, meeting them is to find out what is it, how is it that they actually put their life together and what's the, you know, what's the organizing system that they actually use. And what I find is that somewhere in the discovery process when I, when I ask people about what's going on, there's a, you know, few things that occur to me where I know something or I can do something, or I have A piece of information that might be useful to that person. And my whole point is that I'm just going to give it to the person. I'm not going to charge them for it. I'm just going to give it to the person because lots of people have done that to me, so why wouldn't I do it to someone else? That's my general approach. And then there are certain people who, the way they're organizing their life and the way you're organizing your life seem to resonate. And those are, those are my great friends.

No, I love that. I love that, you know, what piece of information is useful to them and just give it to them. I think that's what we do on our podcasts. Right. And as an example, and that's what we do in our life. And there's a lot of people that they just hold everything close to their chest. I mean, nobody's getting nothing if you.

Train with me in my eight week program.

And. Yeah, what's the organizing system that, you know, we use to put our life together? That's, that's very good. Let's go to the next one. Dan, I want to get your take on this one. If someone gets caught up with a not so good human being, what actions should or could they take to turn the situation around depends on the severity of what a person is doing. But. Yeah, you want to speak to that one first, Dan?

Yeah, well, I've. First of all, it's happened. It's happened to me more than once. So, you know, I can think of probably 10 situations going back a long time. What I've learned is, first of all, there's different kinds of situations. Oftentimes they're just personal relationships and therefore the only investment that you've actually made is personal time. You know, nothing else is at stake except that in the past you've chosen to spend time with this person and now you're discovering that maybe that wasn't such great, great a great investment in time and therefore you won't do that in the future. That, you know, usually, you know, can be uncomfortable in that. But, you know, I've got lots of situations where, you know, I was quite involved with people and now it's been years and in some cases decades that I've not had anything to do with them. But there are some people where there's legal contracts involved or, you know, you've gotten yourself involved in situations where what's turning bad about the situation is things of great value that you have that are being misused. And hopefully, I mean, from my side, I don't feel I've ever been the bad guy. You know, in most of these situations. I haven't been the bad person in this situation. But I have been with people who I would say were selfish. They were very selfish, they were very self focused, they weren't collaborative.

I mean, each of the situation is.

Different, but where there's a legal obligation or there's a legal contract, well then you gotta, you know, you gotta work through it. And sometimes lawyers are involved and sometimes there's something that has to be paid. You have to, you know, you have to pay buy your way out of this situation. And I've certainly done that. I will say this. I think I've learned a great deal of very important things from each of these situations. So that my antenna of picking it up early means that I am far less likely right now to actually get involved in something like this than I would have been maybe 10 years ago or 20 years ago. And it's all been painful learning, which I've taken advantage of and I do that. But the other thing is to realize not to over commit right at the beginning just because you have a good feeling about something. And I think that I'm more careful, I'm more prudent, you know, I do due diligence great deal more before I get involved with someone where there would actually be a significant investment of my time on the one hand. And the other thing is where money's involved, where contracts are involved, I think incredibly better and smarter than I used to be. And I have to say, you know, I have to say that if I look past, over the past year with people that I'm actively involved with, that I'm really, really happy with, probably it's in the dozens of people that I'm having that I'm working with right now. They all seem to be all involved in the same very positive value system that I think is most important.

Yeah, totally. You know what I would actually say too is just because I've become good friends with her, she came out to our 100kg sex group and Dan was there. Dan and Babson were there all two days. And Dr. Romani Darvasala, who wrote the book, don't you know who I am?

You know, there's a lot of people.

That are, they do gaslighting and if you don't know what gaslighting is, it's where people actually ship reality to make you think something's not happening. Came from a movie in the early 1900s where I never saw it, but it, you know, the way that I've heard it described as a guy had a wife that he was driving crazy because he kept turning the gas down and her saying. And he's like, no, no, nothing's. You know, they would literally make someone question their own reality. So when you're dealing with people that are, you know, at that level, you can't really change them. You just need to get the hell away from them. And Dan said, you know, sometimes you have to take certain legal action depending on to what degree the violation is. But the others, you know, cut all ties with dishonest, negative, lazy, toxic people. And there are a lot of toxic.

People in the world, and the quicker.

You can run away from it. And like Dan said too, though, you know, every one of these experiences, there's enormous learning. I mean, I cannot tell you how much learning. I would not be studying narcissists right now had I not had one of my biggest dealings with one, you know, that I'm right in the middle of dealing with. But it's, you know, everyone has a purpose in life, even if it's a. Serve as a bad example. So, you know, when you can take that, you know, other people can give you great material to improve your life by looking at how bad they do theirs.

Yeah.

So the next question is, what sort of person do you as in me, the reader of the newsletter, need to be to attract wonderful partners, associates and people into my life life. I mean, boy, I think a lot of it would. To reiterate what we've talked about, I think that's it. Be generous, be useful, be grateful, be a giver, be attractive. You know, focus on, like, what Dan said. I mean, what's in it for them? That's what people, you know, really want. So, I mean, part of my genius network tool is you identify who the person is. What do they want? How can you help them get what they want? And if you just do that for people, they will naturally help you get what you want. And so it's really, you know, it's really coming from that sort of approach. You know, be the person that you would always answer the phone for. You know, I always say when your phone rings, if your phone does ring, or you get whatever sort of communication.

People are, signal goes up.

Yeah. You know, are you excited when you hear from this person or are you not? I always tell people, you know, who are people, that you would always send a voicemail. What is it about them that's giving you this? Get away from Me vibe that, you know, that the time vampire, the enthusiasm vampire, the happiness vampires is swarming at you. What is it about that energy? What is it, you know, and really look at that. I mean, analyze and know, what are you attracted to? What are you not? And what do people come to you for? What do they not? And I mean, so much of making someone attractive is. Or being attractive is not cosmetics and looks.

I think one of the things for me was being crystal clear on who I am and that. That, you know, when you look at. I've been thinking back about my. The exercise of I know I'm being successful when. That I did 20 years ago. To define for me how I finish that sentence. I know I'm being successful when. And you were talking about these people. One of mine is one that I know I'm being successful and there are no whiny people in my life. And like I. As we talked about earlier, this idea of being able to recognize when you're talking to a sock puppet or when you're talking to the real person, it's usually the. You can tell when something's gonna not get better. It usually progresses as it begins, you know, not. Yeah, it doesn't get better if you. You're if something tweaking you in the beginning, your gut is telling you this is okay, just pay attention to that or watch that. But that's typically who they really are, I find. You know.

No, I agree. I agree. You know, there's. It's funny.

I have this video on YouTube with.

Harvey McKay when I first. When he first came to my office years ago, this is over a decade ago, and we're doing a little video about hiring people. And he made this one statement. He said it was about team members. He said, would you be concerned if this person that's working for you worked for a competitor? You know, like, would that they're really skilled, you know, if not, you got a question?

Okay.

This really a valuable team member, right?

Yeah.

And the other question is, would you hire yourself for this position? Some people are just in the right or the right roles, and others are in the wrong roles. Right. So part of these roles that we're identifying. But in terms of. Yeah. Being a, you know, being a wonderful partner or an associate has everything to do with your ability to create value for other people. And value in a lot of ways does not necessarily mean, you know, they're going to give you money. Right. I mean, if I can add a smile to a server's face by making.

A funny joke, I'M gonna do it.

You know, it's.

That's what human bonding is. A lot of people are going through real painful struggles in life, and you want to be a ray of sunshine. You want to be a fountain, not a drain.

It is fun, especially in those kind of social. Dan, we got a new one for you. So if a server at a restaurant says to you, do you want a box for that? Then you can say to them, no.

But I'll wrestle you for it. That's great. I'll tell you. Everybody like this, Listen, if there's a tiny morsel of food and the server comes up and, you know, just say, can you box that up for me?

I mean, I've said that a thousand times.

And it's not what you say. Yeah. And it's the reaction. That's what makes it funny.

It's not the line itself.

It's just like, there's so many different ways they can respond to that. Like, are you serious? Or, oh, sure, I'll do it. I cannot tell you how many laughs we've gotten out of that one over the years. Okay, so you guys want to say anything else?

I think we did a good job today. Hats off to J.R. for the structure. Yeah.

Stimulus.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so, yeah, I just think that, first of all, this was a first. It's the first time we, you know, it's the first time that we've had Joe on Dean and the first time.

We'Ve had anybody on Dan. This is.

Well, I, I, I, Yes, I, I, I realize that. And, yeah. And having had Joe on, I don't feel that anything has lacking like that there should have been somebody else, too. And, you know, but it's very, very useful. And the thing that's really interesting is I have a feeling that the kind of conversation we had over the last hour is kind of unique to the times that we're living in. And what I mean by that, I think that we have to be Sharper living in 2020 than, let's say, 50 years ago. I think you have to be a lot sharper. And the reason is because there's a lot more opportunity for each of us as an individual, but there's also a lot more dangers for all of us as individuals. And I think that the ability to spot opportunity and to avoid the danger, I think is probably we're being demanded to get better and better at this as we go along.

Amen. Absolutely. Absolutely. Excellent. Well, good. So I don't know how you, like, wrap up your episode.

That's how we end.

We now have material for our Genius Network Letter, which is a monthly newsletter for Genius Network members. You did the Procrastination podcast, the Art of Procrastination.

The joy of Procrastination.

Joy, joy.

The joy of Procrastination. And then I love Marketing simulcast. It's like, so it's the moo method. Multiplied oral output is what we got here today.

Yeah.

So if nothing else, you can repurpose things and you can go deeper with thoughts and ideas and concepts with unique packaging and all that. So, yeah, it's a joy to be here with both of you guys.

Thanks, Dan.

Thanks, Joe.

Thanks, Steve. We'll talk to you soon.

Bye. Bye.

If you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network annual event or to apply, go to geniusnetwork.com don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing. Subscribe today@ilovemarketing.com subscribe if you'd like access to the video show notes or the exercise to help you take action on what was discussed, please visit ilovemarketing.com 361.

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