STOP Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time Feat. Benjamin Hardy

So, you know, let me ask this question to, you know, Dan and Ben. What's the story behind your new book, who not how, which is this book right here? That's what it looks like. And what results can people expect when they implement, you know, the ideas that are in who Not How? You want to go first, Dan?

Yeah, I'll go first. And first of all, everything in my life, except where Babs is concerned, starts with Joe Polish, if you want to go back to the beginning. And I mean that. So Joe and I have really hit it off. We've been great friends for 23 years now. And I met him because Joe came into Strategic Coach. And we're not alike. We're very different from each other, but there's just a connection that was made immediately. And, you know, we do things in very different ways. But so the history of the book, it really has to do with knowing Joe and then joining Genius. I joined in 2011 and did the 25k, and then when the 100k became possible in 2016, I jumped up to Babs, and I do everything together. So we joined. But a little bit earlier, Joe had introduced me to Dean Jackson, and this was kind of like Dean and I just love talking together. So, you know, and, you know, so we see each other in our workshops, you know, strategic Coach workshops. We see each other in Genius Network. But the big thing is that we get together when Dean's in town. We get together for lunch, and we have two favorite French restaurants in Toronto where we meet. And I was thinking one day, and I'll tell you the background before who, not how. First of all, Dean introduced me to who, not how, but I introduced him to Adderall, And the conversations got better very, very quickly. When we were both on Adderall, we actually have better conversations. And anyway, anyway, I was just thinking about something. It was about procrastination. So, you know, it's made me very, very curious throughout my lifetime. First of all, I'm a procrastinator. My name's Dan, and I'm a procrastinator. And just as a coach to entrepreneurs, I noticed every entrepreneur procrastinated, and that procrastination is a guilty secret. People feel very embarrassed. They feel very shamed by the fact that they procrastinate, and yet I've never met anyone when I get talking to them that they don't procrastinate about something. So I'm going on the basis that there are 8 billion people on the planet and they're all procrastinators. About something. And usually it's, you know, it's very different what you procrastinate by. And I began thinking about that and I say, how can something that all 8 billion humans do, how can that be shameful? Why, why would that be embarrassing? There must be a good reason why people procrastinate. And I was having lunch with Dean in a couple of days and I said, you know, if at the end of the day you made a list of the three things that you're procrastinating, procrastinating most, you know, on personal life, business life. And you said, well, that those are going to be my three projects for tomorrow. The things that I'm procrastinating on tonight are telling me what the most important things are to do tomorrow. And I started doing this for a couple of weeks and then I had lunch with Dean and I just shared my experience with him. And Dean's first response is, have you known for this for a long time and you haven't been sharing it with me? So over. Over to you, Dean.

Well, that was. I still remember the feeling I get because I kind of look at you with my mouth open saying, you know, yeah, have you known this for a while? Because it was just like immediately profound. And our discovery was that that is the most reliable built in, no note to do list required for those things. They bubble right to the surface. They're always there. We started then asking ourselves, waking up, hey, procrastinating, what have you got for me today? And always getting an answer.

Yeah, always an answer. And always good things. I mean, really important things. So my thoughts on this is that procrastination is actually a form of wisdom. And the wisdom is in relationship to goals that you have in the future for yourself where you have a bigger result. And really my understanding of goals, it's just a picture of yourself in the future where you're more capable, you're getting bigger results, you know, your life is more enjoyable. And that's what a goal is. But by definition, since it's bigger and better than what you're doing now, you don't have the hows to do it. So Dean came in, he came in one day and he said, I've got an interesting. You actually have a little diagram that you had actually done quite a number of years before that. I think it was an old diagram. And you said, I just want to show you a diagram. What the procrastination is telling you that the goal is a good thing, but you're not the person to do the hows. And instead of asking, asking, you know, how do I do what's necessary to achieve the goal? What you really need to do is who is it who can actually do the hows better than I can? And all I need to do is interest them in my goal and form a collaboration with them. And I said, boom, that's great. So right up front. And we do it in the book and we do it on the audible book. I want to pay, you know, great compliment to Dean because Dean was the one who triggered. But it kind of fit into a lot of things that we had been doing in Strategic Coach. And Dean was in his workshop right after that Saturday when he mentioned who, not how. And I had him actually talk about it. And then I drew a diagram and that became the basis of the whole who, not how progress in Strategic Coach.

And I happen to have. There's the original drawing from my illustration of it, that this is a timeline of times where you're at the top. Why are you doing something? Then you get a what could you do to meet that thing? Then the crossroads of you either go down the path of how to do something, which takes all these units of time to learn how to do it, then you still have to do it poorly, and then you get to done. Whereas if you take the fork in the road and find a who, they're going to bring the how with them and you're already done and you're on to the next what. You stay up in that who and what moving, moving line, and you made a much more beautiful illustration. But if you've ever seen episode one of the Simpsons, how poorly drawn and how. But the essence of it was there and now it's much more beautiful. So.

Yeah, but the thing, Dean, and we've commented on this, that the moment that you mention this, especially to entrepreneurs, because you're, you know, setting goals, achieving goals is really standard operating procedure for an entrepreneur. And the moment I say, you know, you don't have to do the house, get other people to do the house, just find a who, who does the how. And they said, oh, oh, geez, why didn't I know that when I was six years old? You know, so one of the things, this idea just snaps people immediately. And, you know, I've been thinking about it to talk to you about it. I think we're giving them permission to do something they've always wanted to do, but they were. They were educated out of it. My feeling is the educational system educates you out of using other who's and actually, in most of. The. Most of the educational system, if you use a who, it's called cheating. Yep.

I've got. By the way, where's Ben Hardy? Like, we have. We have the guy who actually wrote the book. Where's this dude?

I'm right here. How's it going, Joe?

I will say something. Hey, got a copy. I mean, you're the only doctor here, so tell everyone. Give your version of all this.

Ben.

Sounds great. Yeah. I'm actually literally in Dallas, Texas, right now with Dre Redfern.

We're working on a launch.

We're doing. We got this, like, whiteboard full of all sorts of cool stuff. And Dre, of course, is someone I met in Genius Network. He's a who. And I recently read, reread the book Principles by Ray Dalio, and I forgot entirely that there was a deep section in that all about how the who is more important than the what. And that's kind of what I've realized, is that in your life, your results are produced by the people you're in a relationship with. And so once I started actually taking relationships more seriously, and rather than doing everything by myself, because, like a lot of people, I was trained to think in terms of how I spent all my time doing how. I got really good at learning. I got really good at doing how. And I could learn very quickly, and I could produce results very quickly, but I was still very limited by my own time capacity, my own ability to take on so much. And obviously, with growing family, I needed to learn how to develop relationships. And so, yeah, a few years ago, I joined Genius Network and started, you know, literally. I met Dre, who's right here, at my first Genius Network meeting. And at the time, I was still just a young author. I had one employee, and I had never done any huge launches. But literally, within three months of meeting Dre, I did a launch that was 10 times bigger than anything I'd ever done because he's the right who. And so that's just the power of knowing the right who's the who comes with the how. And one thing I love, just as a thought, because I've studied leadership so much, my PhD was in Organizational psychology, is that there's so much research to back everything that Dan and Dean and all you guys teach. Like, you know, true leaders don't tell people how to do their job. True leaders provide the vision. They provide the vision and why it's so important. And detail the vision so specifically that the right who comes. The right who comes and they don't need to be micromanaged. Instead, they're just empowered to do the how. And that's what I loved about this project. So thanks to Dan for letting me write this book. And quick props to Tucker Max, because Tucker Max was really important for this book. One thing I just want to share about my side of the book. When I first heard Dan talk about this idea, I thought it was so powerful and inspiring that I wanted to do a major book on it. I had already done who, not how. I mean, I'd already done Willpower Doesn't Work. I'd already been working on other books. But I really wanted to take who, not how to another level. And I couldn't do it. I got stuck. And so ultimately, I needed Tucker Max. But one of the things that Tucker Max, aside from helping us get the book deal, he helped me do is he helped me be the who. Because when I was writing this book, actually, you know, I have a lot of respect for Dan Sullivan, and I was starting to write the wrong book. I was starting to try to write a book that Dan wanted me to write. And ultimately, Tucker helped me be the who. Tucker said, ben, you're the who. You need to write the book that you would write. You're the who only. And Dan even told me the same thing. Ultimately, Tucker helped me to say, ben, Ben, you're the only person that can write this book. And Dan's the same person. Dan said the same thing. He said, ben, I'm not going to tell you how to write this book. I wouldn't even know how to tell you how to write this book because you're the person who does those kind of things. And so it empowered me to take full responsibility of my how, and it helped me to become a better person. I think that's what relationships are all about.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there. So, you know, here's what I've noticed a lot. There's a lot of people that want to go out and meet individuals so that they can get what it is they want. And I think all of us. And when I say all of us, I mean me, you, Ben, Dan, and Dean. We're very collaborative. We're very reciprocal type individuals. And I think that is, not only has that allowed me to build so many relationships, but also it's relationships with the right people. Have I developed and been a giver to the wrong people? Certainly. I mean, you know, I. We invest time, we invest money, we invest energy. I mean all of us are, you know what, those are the things that we can spend. And I joined strategic coach 23 years ago because I wanted to get my life together. I heard you, Dan, talking about these things called free days. And I didn't know very many entrepreneurs that took free days. And I certainly being a complete workaholic, couldn't even comprehend the concept of free days. Now I'm taking next year as a sabbatical and having a company that's going to be run by a bunch of who's right because my Genius Network members are going to run Genius Network while I'm on a one year sabbatical. Now, what I learned over the years, and this is where it's crystallized in this book. I mean, I think it's taken this many years for this to really be, you know, crystallized in such an important piece of work. And Darrell Sutherland, who's actually on the line, I'm going to like walk away for just a second. And Darrell, Darrell 3D printed this domino. And you know, at last year's Genius Network annual event, I gave everyone a domino and I said, you know, write down the people, the projects, the books, the things that have been dominoes for you, where it started a whole process and I'll reference certain things at times. But this book, in this concept, I hope today is a first domino for many of you that are watching. Even if you know Dan, even if you know Ben, even if you know me and Dean, I want you to think about, you know, what, how do you need to start looking at how you do work? I think the way that most people do work doesn't work. And even though at times in my life I've had, you know, a multimillion dollar business and stuff, there's been many years where it just the way I was doing it was not the right way and how much time and energy I squandered trying to learn how to do stuff, when if I just would have made a slight switch and asked myself the question not how do I do this, but who can do this for me? And I operated with my already built in reciprocal collaborative nature. Many people aren't very collaborative. And so this is really a collaboration. And so I want to ask Like, I wrote a list.

Joe, can I quickly throw one thought in?

Yeah.

I just want to say that there's a full chapter in this book breaking down what Joe is talking about. There's a full chapter in this book about how Dan. Or. Sorry, about how Joe does relationships. Because the thing that Joe always asks is what's in it for them? You know, and so, like, when we were creating this book or when I was writing it, because I was coming at it from, like, it's not all about me. What can I. We wrote it in a way that it was a win, win for everyone. You know, like, that's part of. I think collaboration is. It's not all about you. It's how can you do something so that the pie gets bigger for everyone? And so I just think that you actually teach how to do that better than anyone I know. And so that's why there's a whole chapter of this book dedicated to how you personally do relationships. And so I just want to say that that mindset going in is the reason why most people can't create collaborations is because they're always thinking about what's in it for me. And I think if you come at it in what's in it for the other person, then you can create something that's much bigger than what would have been in it for you in the first place.

Yeah. Joe, can I add something to Ben's first of all? Because I'd probably been looking for someone like Ben for about 25 years. So I'm a writer, and I was a copywriter at a big ad agency before I started coaching in 1974. So I'm 46 years in coaching. And over the years I've written books, but they're just for the people inside the program. And I have a particular voice that I use. And the books are quite small, not beyond 60 pages. And they have lots of cartoons in them, and we do audio, we do video on it. But I'd never done a major market book with where I had real skills, major market skills. And so it was my very first 100k meeting with. And Ben was there, and I did the who, not how diagram on the. On the whiteboard. And he came up to me, he says, if you ever want to go major market with this book, I'd love to do it. And I said, yeah, I would. And I said, I've actually been looking for someone like you for a long time. I love your writing style. I love your psychological insights. You have a lot of knowledge about, you know, Testing that's been done, research that's been done, that kind of support a lot of the stuff that we're doing. And so we started, but we didn't have a publisher. And Ben's publisher and his agent, this wasn't the book they were looking for from him right off the bat. And Ben called me one day and he said, would you mind bringing someone else on the team? And it was Tucker. Max. So Tucker came in and Tucker is a great packager of books. He's a great strategist of books. And the other thing is he's got his legal degree more or less in publishing law. And so he's a good guy to have on your side of the table when you're negotiating things. Joe had a session on publishing and so Ben was there and, and Tucker was there, but Reed Tracy from Hay House was there and he talked about the business of publishing. So I introduced myself to Reid and he says, I know who you are, but you have a reputation that you're not interested in going major market. But he said, I really like your stuff. And long story short, Ben and Tucker and Reid got together and they put together a deal for this book. Now I should tell you, Ben talks about making that a win win. So I've got a rule. Babs and I have a rule. We only make money one way. We only make money with the Strategic Coach program. So I don't have any other businesses, I'm not invested in any other businesses and I don't accept money from any other source because it tells our team that this is always number one. We have a right now, we have a team, about 110 team members. We're in three countries. I'm very monogamous in relationship to my company. I don't have affairs, I don't have dates or anything else. I just have one business. So I said to Ben first and then Tucker, I said, look, all the money that this book or any other book that we do together, all the money goes to you. It goes to Reed as the publisher and then Ben, you get all the money and you can have anybody on the team you want, but you're going to get all the money for the book. So if it sells a million copies and you get an advance, a big advance and you get all the royalties, all the money is yours because we make our money from people reading the book and signing up for Strategic Coach. So to me, I want this to be great. And so we did that and we talked to Tucker about it and I said, Tucker all the money stays on your side of the line. Now, Tucker got me aside, and he said you're unusual because he says, usually people want to be an author and they need the money because they want to be where you are, but you're already there. And this is your first book, but you're already where other people want to get to by being an author and going out and talking. And so one of the things for collaboration, you have to have total cash confidence. In other words, you don't need the money. I don't need any of the money. That. And it looks like we got 10 books in 10 years. And this is Tucker's great value as he's been negotiating. And if they sell 10 million books and it makes $50 million, that money stays on the other side. I don't want any of that money because if we're selling that many books, we're going to have that many signups for strategic code. So one of the big principles, most people aren't cash confident enough to actually collaborate. They have to think about the money. Right now, I don't have to think about any of the money. Here we know how to make money. And even in a very unusual year like the. This year, this year, we're fine. You know, we're fine. We have great reserves, and we've gone virtual. So our future has opened up because of this year. So I just want to get that in Joe, that a lot of people just can't be collaborative because they don't have any cash confidence.

Yeah, totally. Totally. And, you know, I mean, what do you.

You can't do a sabbatical for a year if you didn't have cash confidence.

Exactly, exactly. You know, in coach, you've talked about two attitudes that entrepreneurs need to have, and I think for who, not how, you know. Could you talk about those two entrepreneurial attitudes? Because I think they play into something that's really important, especially for younger, you know, entrepreneurs to get and understand this, because it'll help you forge your way through life.

Yeah, well, they're just two simple ones. So I personally, you know, since 74, I've coached 6,000 entrepreneurs where I've dealt directly with the entrepreneur. And at any given time, I'm coaching 500 to 600 in a workshop program, and I really interact with a lot of people, and Zoom's actually being a big jump for that. You can interact a lot more easily with Zoom, but I said that when you decide to become an entrepreneur, you're making two fundamental decisions, and if you haven't made these decisions, you're not really an entrepreneur. The first one is that I will depend entirely on my own abilities for my financial security. Okay. And most people in the world can't do that. They need someone to give them a job and guarantee their financial security. Entrepreneurs depart. And I have to tell you, it's only 5% of the population, adult population, in the world that ever makes that decision. And the other decision is I will expect no opportunity until I first create value. So you have to lead with value. You have to be the first one to create the value. You can't say, somebody give me an opportunity. I mean, there's an attitude among a lot of people, I would become an entrepreneur if the. The government would give me a forgivable loan.

Yeah. And there's a ton of that. So, I mean, here's the thing, too. You said something which I've repeated a million times. I say it all the time, that early on, this is probably 22 years ago, I think I heard you say this where we're in a conversation, and you said, all money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. And when it comes to developing relationships and finding who's. If you want to have a lot of who's in your life, just be really useful. Just be really grateful, be generous and be helpful. And if you can produce a result for somebody, produce the result. Don't talk about producing the result. You don't build a great reputation by talking about what you're going to do. You build a great reputation by actually doing stuff. And so I'm the highest referring person in the world. Strategic coach. And I don't do it because I have some sort of affiliate arrangement with Dan, because we don't. I do it because it's a really good program and it helps people. And the same way that Dan's the highest referring person to Genius Network, and this is. That's what a collaboration is. Whereas in my experience, a lot of people, they think that there's like this limited supply of usefulness that they have, and they're the ones that are that hold it and God forbid, don't tell someone else about someone else's useful, you know, book or program or whatever. I mean, yeah, we are, we are telling you to go buy this book and read it and share it. Because I know that this book will be helpful to the entrepreneurs that actually do read it and utilize it. And so a lot of people use people. Other people utilize people. That's what I think collaborations really are. And so I want to.

Joe, can you give the little two step. When somebody can't decide between Genius Network or Strategic Coach, we have a little two step routine that we do.

Yeah, yeah, both of us. So someone asked me, which program should I join? Should it be a Genius Network or Strategic Coach? Now the real answer is you should do both because they both, you know, reinforce each other. But I always say join Strategic Coach because I don't want to be in a position where I'm ever having to pit one thing against the other because they're all really useful. Because I know if people go to Strategic Coach, they're going to bring back a really good Genius Network member to me. Because Strategic Coach does a great job with helping people identify their unique abilities, getting their skills and life together, building a unique ability team, creating a self managing company. And so whenever I can send people or my clients into something that's going to make them a better client, they're not a better person, they're going to come back to me as a better client. Now will every one of them? No, but that's the way it works and that's that. And Dan does the same. Exactly.

Yeah. Well, I say, well, first of all, you're probably just a really good salesperson, but you're not a great marketer and you have to be a great marketer to even have a sale these days. So go, go and spend time with Joe and become a greater marketer. And therefore. And after that, the price of Strategic Coach will just be an instant decision, you know, then you'll come in and you'll. Cause a lot of entrepreneurs are really, really good salespeople. But the world, the way it is, it's getting harder and harder to be in front of someone to actually sell. And that requires marketing. It's a whole other skill in the marketplace is marketing, you know. Yeah, you can sell when you're in front of someone, but can you get it in front of someone?

I write a lot, actually. When I was 70, I said, you know what a really neat project would be is to write 100 books in 100 quarters.

Okay.

And they're small books. Anyone who's seen our books, they're, you know, they're about 60 pages. And I'm just trying to think Barnes and Noble was one of the big stories. I can't think of what was the other.

Borders. Borders.

Borders had a survey of ebooks and they. So ebooks for the first time actually gave publishers a way of measuring when someone started a book, how far did they get in the book, you know, if you bought a book, you know, you got a best selling book, but hardly anybody's read more than 10% of the book, okay?

And so what they discovered is that.

If a book is over 200 pages, 3% finish the book. This is nonfiction. This is not fiction. Fiction. If it's a good story, everybody finishes the book. And then if it's 100 pages, only 10% of people finish the book. But if it's less than 60 pages, 60 pages or less, 80% of the people finish the book. So I said, I'll just write books that are copywise less than 60 pages. And a lot of people, if they have a book they've been working on for 20 years and it's got 25 chapters, they would have been better to produce 25 little books. Take a chapter, make it a book, take a chapter, make it a book. Especially for entrepreneurs, because you're not writing the books for the money. You make your money with your business. The books are a marketing strategy. So I've done that in 30 quarters. I've written 30 books. And what it does, and I didn't realize the value of doing that, but it gave when a capability like Ben came along and I met him at my very first 100k meeting. And Ben came over and he at a break and he sat down with me and he said, I noticed you write a lot of books, but you don't write for the popular market. And I said, you know, if it's not finished in 90 days, it's not going to work with me, you know, so I don't take on any project I can't finish in 90 days. You know, like I just fall off a cliff after 90 days. And I'm sure not going to attend any meetings and I'm sure not going to deal with a publisher. And he said, well, I, you know, I know how to do that. And he's got a great style. I mean, he just has a beautiful, beautiful public reader style, major market style. So when he sat down, something clicked in my brain and I said, I think this is good. And I think, I don't even know if it was a handshake. I don't know if you brought me.

An impact filter the next morning.

Yeah, yeah.

And I kind of.

Success.

Yeah, but the way we did it, and this is a way of thinking about it 10 times, how we put the collaboration together. Because you couldn't hire Ben. There's no way of hiring Ben. Okay? You can't get this guy of talent by Hiring them. Okay. And we don't have that kind of talent inside the company. What we're looking for right here. And so he knows the entire territory, and he knows all the other people who can supply the capability that he doesn't know about. I don't know any of that stuff. So what I realized is that at the level we were operating with Ben, and then the other great collaborator on the project is Tucker. Max and Tucker, you know, Tucker is just. Tucker is the mapmaker for the publishing world. He really knows his stuff. And so originally we thought Ben's agent and publisher would be it, and that turned out to be not true. So we were at a genius network meeting, and Joe had it on Pub Publishing. And Ben was there for obvious reasons, and Tucker was there for obvious reasons, but Reed Tracy from Hay House was there. And I remember I walked into the room in Tempe. I walked into the room and Reed was sitting there. And I said, hi, I'm Dan Sullivan. And he said, I know who you are. And he said, you know, he introduced himself and. And he said, I followed your stuff for years, but you don't write major market books. And I said, well, that might change. And so Tucker and Ben took Reid out that night, and they essentially had the deal by the end of dinner for one book. And then as a result of the really fast start of the first book, Tucker worked. Tucker and Ben worked with Reed. And so we have a 10. 10 year or 10 book contract. And Ben determines every year what the book is.

Yeah, yeah, I think one.

No, but I want to tell you this. So people say, well, what's the financial deal? And I said, well, with a book, there's an advance and there's royalties. And they said, so how do you split it? And I said, well, real easy. I have a really easy split. It's called 100% zero. So Ben gets all the money forever. Ben gets all the money for the book. And people say, you're giving away all the money? And I says, what money? What money are you talking about? There wasn't any money until you put the collaboration together. The collaboration created the money. How do I get paid? Every once in a while, somebody who reads a book signs up for the program. So far, 400.

So, yes, writing viral nonfiction is even easier than you think and can make you thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The secret is to use a framework that's already been proven through centuries of writing. The 3e method, as discussed in our soon to be released book, not only uses that proven framework, but incorporates the important psychological principles of know, like and trust. There we go. By the way, I have a handout for you at the end of the presentation so you don't have to worry about taking notes and there'll be a link for you geniusnetwork.com 3e so why should you care about writing a book? Because books have been powerful motivators for for centuries and will continue to be long into the future. Even within the Genius Network, you've seen a glimpse of how powerful they can be with books from Joe Polish, Dan Sullivan, Ben Hardy, Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy, Cameron Herald and many others. And of course Jim Doo in his own masterpiece Beyond a Million. Even Ryan Levesque at our last meeting talked about how he used books to his books to dramatically grow his business. Now books are excellent at bringing more and better leads, which all of us could use in our business. Most nonfiction books, however, are poorly organized. They ignore stories and emotional connection. They're painful to read all the way through, thrown together from rough transcriptions and are not fun to share. However, a non fiction book should be. It should hold your reader's attention all the way to the end, should build, know, like and trust. Follow a predictable structure, make them want to learn more about you. Make the reader excited to share your book. I'm about to reveal a strategy formed from over 12 years of best selling publishing and years of top ranking sales experience. It follows proven strategies from psychology, sales and education. I used to be a science teacher, a high school teacher for 10 years. Here are the three core elements for creating non fiction the first E is emotion. So this starts in the introduction to your book and it's where you connect with the reader's heart by relating to them. Showing them you understand their problem, their pain just as well as they do. Because remember, if you can explain their problem as well or better than they can, then they naturally believe that you can solve that problem for them as well. The second E is entertainment. Entertainment is all about story, your story, your customer, stories, examples and so on. Stories are powerful as you heard in Jim's talk early earlier super powerful. In some cases story starts before you start teaching because your reader first needs to know and like you before they can trust you. Look also follows an award winning story arc that starts at the beginning of your book, builds tension throughout and then finishes with an emotional bang that sets your reader into action. The third E is education. Now most books, nonfiction books only focus on education. But if you skip the know and like stages, how on earth do you get them to trust you. And you know what they call a book? That's only education? A textbook. How many people here really like to read a textbook? So people buy your book because they want to learn, but they read your book because of your story. Because you've shown that you understand their problem. Now, don't worry about writing all of this down because it's in your handout. What I do want you to get from this is that all three E's work together to create action. Not just action, but massive action. One book I published included only one call to action, but this one call to action had a 62% conversion rate.

Oops.

A book, when properly written, can produce conversion rates that blow Facebook ads out of the water.

How?

By following the 3e method of building know, like and trust throughout the book. Your book is your best salesperson. A book written with that 3e method will become your most effective salesperson. My business partner Andrew and I were both previously sales professionals, Both for about 10 years each. Andrew realized that this exact same process helped him to become a top national 5 percenter in his old company. Imagine having thousands of salespeople on your team working one on one with your prospect. They're available 24 7. So your dream client can wake up in the middle of the night and start connecting on their phone. Or simply open your book that engages them from the first page. And they never show up late for work, unprepared or hungover. So can you imagine the selling power if you sold even 1000 books? But to achieve any of this, you first need to use all three steps of the 3E emotion, which gets your reader to know you and let them know that you know them. Entertainment so your reader comes to like you through your shared story and education. So your reader trusts you and sees you as an expert. When all three of these E's are connected in the correct order, your reader will be much more likely to take action. For many published authors, their book has resulted in multiple millions of dollars worth of happy readers eager to do business with them. One of the authors that we worked with went on to make close to $1 million in one year solely from his book and its content. We came up with an ingenious way to partner with a large university. Andrew and I are almost done with our own book, hook, line and book. A story structure that catches customers and never lets them go. In this book, not only do we go into more detail about using the 3e method, but we also give away our entire proven system for writing books created from years of book publishing and salesmanship. We also wrote it to be the perfect example of how to incorporate the three E's into a powerfully effective book. And for Genius Network members, just send an email to me at chrissonversionpublishing.com and I'll make sure that you get a free ebook version and a special bonus to go with it. Now every one of us has a book inside of us. A book that will impact others. All of you have earned tremendous amount of knowledge and expertise and there are thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people who need to hear your message. Now the thought of writing an entire book sounds daunting to you. I have a few simple ideas that you can do just to get started.

1.

Start by writing a list of your stories. Don't have to write the stories out, just create a list so that you can refer back to that. 2. Write a table of contents. This can be the business steps you teach customers, or how your products provide a specific solution. Or if you want Conversion Publishing to write your book for you using your existing content, just reach out to me. We all have excuses for why we can't write a book yet this was Martin Pistorius. Martin was like any other boy, playing and loving life until he was 12 years old. And when he was 12 years old, he fell into he lost all voluntary motor control and fell into a vegetative state for three years. He began regaining consciousness around 16, but it was three more years before he gained full consciousness and even then remained completely paralyzed. Except for his eyes. He was unable to communicate with anyone until his caregiver noticed that he was responding to her with his eyes. Imagine being trapped in your body for 12 years, over half of those years fully intelligent, fully aware, but not able to move a muscle or communicate with anyone. Eventually he was able to communicate again and slowly regained his strength. And then. He met a woman and had a son and wrote a book. And to be a little vulnerable with you. I actually did cry when I read this book because it is a powerful story. So what will it take for you start writing your own book?

Who of you has come to after a very rough night, looked up at a friend, heard the friend go, oh, you're breathing and not even sounding that happy now? Nobody? Okay, well good. I can't say the same. It was the morning after my 26th birthday, which I had spent. I told all of my friends, which is to say all the people I did drugs with, to gather at a bar and I said don't bring me a present unless it's drugs. But drug addicts are not known for their listening skills or their present giving abilities. So nobody even listened to me. Except one friend, my friend Drew. And he comes up to me and he's like, I have your present. It's in the bathroom. I stole it from my roommate. And I think we can all agree it's better when a present isn't stolen, right? But I was not in a position to be picky, so I knew what he meant. I go into the bathroom, I see like two lines of cocaine, and I take the dollar bill that I always had rolled up in my back pocket, and I snort the lines. And immediately I like the world. It's not like it goes upside down or sideways, but it's like, remember Rubik's Cubes? It was like it was being violently twisted by a demonic 9 year old. I was suddenly like, oh, my God, Whoa. And I felt like I couldn't talk and I couldn't move, but I was standing and I was wide awake. So I was like, okay. So I did what felt like the most logical thing, which is like I look in the back of the bar and I just make a beeline. And in the back there's this parking lot, and in the parking lot there's a dumpster. And this, by the way, is the COVID of one of my recent books. Because I wrote about this experience in the book and the dumpster was not on fire, but I was like a dumpster fire at this point in my life. And I go and I lie down next to the dumpster and I just kind of. That's how I spent my 26th birthday. And people would come out and be like, happy birthday.

And.

And no one seemed surprised that that's how I was spending my birthday. And at the end of the night, I don't really remember this, but I guess two friends took me, put me in their car and put me on their couch. And that's how I came to the next morning with my friend saying, oh, you're breathing. And not sounding that happy about it. Now, that would have been that. But a funny thing happened. In fact, a few funny things. One, I realized I was an addict and I got sober. I went to rehab, and that was November 19th. It'll be 19 years ago. I haven't had a drug or drink since.

Thank you.

But the really interesting thing is I wrote a book about it. Now, that book, Party Girl, happened to come out at a time when, like, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and all of these girls were making headlines for Being party girls. So I started getting asked to go on TV to talk about the party girl phenomenon. That's a phenomenon, as it turns out. So I go on Fox News and then I go on the Today show. And then I went on. I was on television hundreds of times over the last. The next 10 years talking about the party girl phenomenon, writing articles about it. And it just blew my mind that my only expertise was in rolling up dollar bills and snorting drugs through them. I was good at that, but I had no expertise in any other thing. And so then I realized what could happen when you wrote a book. And so then I ended up. And as Joe said in the intro, I ended up writing seven more, including one with him. Now I said, when I started going on TV all the time, I said to my TV agent, like, this is ridiculous. I mean, talk about imposter syndrome. Should I go get a degree? Like, shouldn't I get like a master's in psychology or something? Because I'm going on. They're picking me over doctors to go on. And he looked at me like I was crazy. And he's like, a degree? Why would you need a degree? You have a book. And that's when I realized books really are the new degrees. And this is how I know this. This is where I went to college. Beautiful. Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. We were talking about it last night. It's a lovely school. It's called A Little Ivy. Do you know how many people care that I went? Does anyone here care that I went to Trinity College? Oh, that's very sweet, Jason, but really, nobody cares that I went to Trinity College. Do you want to know how many people I meet who care that I have written eight books and that one is a New York Times bestseller. Kind of like everybody I meet, and I'm not the only person this is true for. I did a story for Entrepreneur magazine about entrepreneurs whose lives changed as a result of writing their books. Now, Cheryl Sandberg, great example, Mark Zuckerberg's number two. Then she writes Lean in. And suddenly she's like the spokesperson for women worldwide. And like Lean in groups are launching everywhere. And then there's James Altucher, like kind of a random investor, entrepreneur guy, writes this book, choose yourself, self publishes it, sells 45,000 copies in its first month. And suddenly he's like everywhere with his crazy hair. And then there's someone, you know, JJ Virgin, four time New York Times best selling author. So I spoke to her for that article and she said to me, if people read my books, they'll Buy my products. We have a relationship. They just took you into their bedroom or their bathroom. Yeah, I mean, it's true. They do. They feel like they know you and then someone else. You know, I spoke to Cameron for that story and we talked about Double. Double. You told me I didn't even really want to write a book. I just wanted to increase my speaking fees. And they went from $15,000 up. I'm sure there are way more now, but they went to $30,000 after that book came out. But you said to me something I thought was even more interesting, which is I'll run across people sharing my ideas every day on social media. That wouldn't have happened without my books. So as it turns out, a crazy thing has happened. Authors like the writer's the butt of every joke. We have become the celebrities today. We're the ones that are on red carpets and signing books and with our names on marquees. I mean, how did this happen? Like when I moved to Hollywood 20 years ago, the joke was if you want to make sure you get nowhere in Hollywood, make sure you sleep with the writer. Like the writer has no power. So what has happened? I think that it's like we live in this insta fame society where you can get famous. If you make a video of yourself sobbing, leave Britney alone.

You.

Who remembers this guy? Four million views in two days. That guy became famous. He's now a porn star. I didn't even know that. Right, right. So anybody can get famous for anything and so very exciting. So authors are kind of the only ones with credibility anymore. But the problem is that traditional publishing is completely broken. I know this because I did six books with HarperCollins and I watched my book deals go from my final book deal with was for $2,000. That means I probably lost about $50,000 in terms of the time I spent working on it. These days, three in 10,000 book proposals written sell to traditional publishers. Three in 10,000. And those that do sell, the publishers don't do anything. What they do is they pick like one or two books a season. They put all the marketing, all the, all the energy behind that. It's always the low hanging fruit too. And then they leave the others to sort of flail in the wind. And I know this because I was one of the flailers. But I see this as a really good thing because the gatekeepers are gone. We don't need those people anymore. Anybody who has a story to tell can tell it. And any business person who is not telling it through a book is missing out on the most crucial action aspect of their marketing. But there is another thing I've realized, and that is what we share in those books is so important. I have found that when I share those things that I. My biggest struggles, those things I'm most ashamed of, those things that have been the greatest lessons, that's when the true freedom comes. Because it's like I get emails every day. I've been really vocal about my recovery from day one. And I get emails all the time telling me I would never have come forward if it hadn't been for you. If I hadn't read this thing you wrote, if I hadn't seen this thing you said. And I'm not saying it to brag. I'm saying it because this is what happens when we put our ideas into books. And there's another thing. I have done every. Like, I have done therapy since I was 16. I have done 12 steps since the year 2000. I. I have done EMDR, trauma therapy. I have done everything. I even do all that crazy shit that Joe always talks about. The floating and the freezing and the like, everything. I wrote a story for Psychology Today about trying cryotherapy as a treatment for depression. Kind of think it worked too. But my point is, I have never found the kind of freedom I have found from sharing about my struggles in a book is greater than any of that. So all you have to do to find your book is ask yourself two questions. One, what are my audience's pain points? It's a secret. Write it down. And two, what lights up my soul? Find those two things and you have your answer. Now, this is what James Altucher told me when I spoke to him for this story. I wanted people to know how hard it is to fail to confess mistakes. And in a world where everyone pretends to be perfect, it was this very style of writing that multiplied my readers by 100 times. So that is my message to you. Figure out your story, share your story. Let it launch you to a new level, possibly save a life. And it might even be your own.

So you've helped a lot of people with their books. You know a tremendous amount about not just book marketing and words and titles and headlines and everything, but even the reasoning behind why. So, I mean, you go beyond, why.

Are you writing a book?

Right.

And a lot of people think if I write a book, that's going to answer my prayers, but that's just the start, right?

Right. And in many cases, people would be better served to figure out what the hell they want to do with the book before they even write the book.

You know, so what advice could you give of what you've learned with helping people maximize what? The creation of writing a book, Having a book written. What are the things that you have seen and have done for clients that.

Have helped the most?

Yeah, a book is in 2020 other than a TED talk that happens to go viral. Like Simon Sinek, a well written book is one of the largest, strongest pillars in building your personal brand. And I know some of you don't want to build a personal brand because you think you don't like Instagram or you don't want to try TikTok. It's not about the platforms. It's about owning a word. And there's lots of ways to do that. We did the Gary Vee's hustle, Simon Sinek's why Susan Cain is Introvert. Brene Brown is vulnerability. What is the word that you want to own in your personal brand? Personal brand. And this is one of those things, like I said, this room is amazing. Direct marketers, but, but brand, direct marketing is I put a dollar in the top and $2 comes out the bottom or even $1.10. That's fine. Brand you don't know, like you don't get an immediate return. It's not measurable in a funnel when it comes to books. A book is one of what I call the bricks in the wall of your personal brand. So once you know your word and what word or phrase or even opposite adjectives you want to own for your brand and it's okay. Like if you're building a business around coaching, it's okay if your word is vulnerability and that Brene Brown already has that. Brene Brown doesn't have time to coach everyone in America. She doesn't even really do coaching. So it's okay if your word is taken, but from a positioning perspective, it's obviously better if it's unique and you sort of own it. A book I love. So what Tucker's built with scribe. There used to be gatekeepers in our world and the gatekeepers have all left in the last 10 years. The gatekeepers are gone. Gatekeepers are huge. Traditional publishers, music agents, comedy agents, everything else. Look at the brands. Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube. The gatekeepers have left the building and nowadays there's some that are still left. Publishers have consolidated. Some of the big fancy buildings still exist in New York City. But the thing about gatekeepers is they don't want you until you don't need them. And that's why Scribe is an amazing company. Because the gatekeepers of traditional publishing, they're only interested in you. It's funny because Tucker and I have seen this a thousand times. An author writes, a proposal, goes to traditional publisher. The author's wondering how the big publisher portfolio, or Penguin or whoever, Simon Schuster is going to market and sell the books. Guess what? The publisher's wondering how the author is going to market and sell the books because they don't know how. So building your personal brand and don't get hung up on Instagram or email lists or tactics or oh my God, gary vee's using community.com now I gotta use Community, right? That's the hot new thing. It's not about a platform, it's about owning the words. And a book is the strongest, biggest pillar in your personal brand. Twenty years ago, Tom Peters said talked about personal branding. He said our most important job is to be the CEO of ME Inc. And the importance of building your personal brand. He said this 20 years ago when Google was called Backrub. Literally, look it up. I have a slide of it. It's a black and white picture of a hand on somebody's back because Google tracked backlinks and before they came up with the name Google it was called backrub. In 1997, Tom Peters, as usual, way ahead of his time saying the importance of personal branding before Twitter or Instagram even existed. So I would challenge you guys. Don't get hung up on, I don't need to build a personal brand because I'm not good at the platforms or the tools. Think about owning a word and then building your bricks in the wall that can be social proof, Testimonials, media articles, etc. And then another little rant on this. People get really excited nowadays if they get the chance to write for Inc. Or Fast Company or whatever. Do it once if you want to. Do it once. So that when you put as seen in ink on your website, it's legitimate and true. And then never do it again. And then also repurpose that on your own site on medium, on block. You are working for free for them and positioning wise, you know what they're going to say. Oh, it's great to have a column in such a prestigious magazine. Is Ink magazine. No, it was prestigious when they made it with paper and ink because it was scarce. Now they will take anybody. And anyone can write for Ink online, right? Not in the print one. If you can get a cover magazine, a cover of Fast Company on the.

Wait, hold On. Yeah.

But you're right. Yeah.

Talking to this side again.

Turn me down or call them. Yeah.

Truly.

Yeah. That's how it is.

But I'm the only one, I'm the only person I know who's tried to get one that got turned down.

Yeah.

Because only me.

Yeah.

100%. Like they. You are just. You are power. You are creating electricity for their engine to work. When you're in a clicks and page views business, they need content to run ads against and content against. There's no scarcity. It's the same as Amazon, selling books like you can sell as many as you want. So any of you can publish a book on how to stand on your head and drink water at the same time. And there's no gatekeeper on Amazon. You can publish it so that it's good and bad.

Okay.

So the reality of actually either hiring marketers or people to help you or becoming good at this. If someone wanted to become more skilled at this and you had to, off the top of your head, recommend a plan and a path to do that, on things that everyone here could do, that would be incredibly helpful. Things to read, things to watch, what would you recommend?

100%. So I was super fortunate in 2009 to leave a big boring corporate job and spend six months in a room like this with Seth Godin, who's one of the greatest marketers of all time. And I just absorbed everything he said, but nothing he told me was anything he hasn't said a thousand times in his books, in his blogs. If you want one book, I would start with Seth's most recent book called this is Marketing. It's an orange book and it's a greatest hits of Seth Godin, one of the greatest marketers of the last 30 years. And he tried to compile it all into one thing. If you want to go deeper, he's got an online course called the Marketing Seminar. If you want to learn it, I highly suggest that book and then that marketing Seminar, I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $500. But this like the XY adjectives, like the thing I'll say is, forget the fancy cutting edge tactics. Most people aren't doing the fundamentals. Most people don't know their positioning. And this book came out in the 80s. Most people don't know verb, your noun. And I would say get good at this. I mean only get good at this if you want to grow your business. Marketing is about understanding humans, not the product you sell. And how many. Think about Apple, the Apple Holiday Ad a kid goes home and he's like a floppy haired kid and he's home and it looks like he's ignoring his family. And he's on his phone the whole time. And at the end of the commercial, after it looks like he's ignoring his family for a whole minute, it turns out he was using his phone to create a mini documentary of his family Christmas. He hooks up his phone to the TV on Christmas morning, plays the whole thing, stitches it together with music, and of course the parents and grandparents are crying. That compared to Verizon, who's selling gigabytes and coverage maps. That's your opportunity, is to figure out the story that your business is telling. Because we all have roofs over our head in this room. We all have food on our table. We're not buying flowers. We're not buying. Think of Super Mario, the little guy and then the flower, and then Big Mario, who's invincible and throws fireballs. Stop selling the flower. Start selling Super Mario. Lululemon sold the first million pairs of yoga pants to women who do yoga. And then they sold the next 10 million pairs of yoga pants to women who do brunch who think they are a kind of women who maybe does yoga, but they don't know where the nearest yoga studio is. That's fine. It's not unethical, but it's the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Okay, good.

All right.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Marlon.

Thanks, Marlon. Hope we see you next month, too.

Oh, yes, for sure.

All right.

Oksana, hello. Thanks for your patience.

Oh, you're muted a little.

Unmute button down there. I know Dean can read lips, but some of the other. I don't think Marlon can. Hi, guys. I used to be a small fish. I'm in Sydney, Australia. Been following you guys for over a decade, and I actually use one of your Dean's statistic when I present saying that 20% of prospects buy in 90 days, but 80% buy in 18 months. What's your plan? You know, I'm in promotional product industry in America. I think you call it swag.

Okay. Yeah.

So my biggest challenge, and I kind of admire the person that you showed the blue graph with, because. Jesus, it's a very persistent and, you know, stickable climbs. Do you ever.

You know, one of the things, the. The actual statistic is 15% and 85%. And when I did the. When we did this numbers on the eight year. You're not going to believe this, but there were 78 transactions and I looked 13 of them were less than 90 days. And 68 were. Were the. Or 65. Sorry, were the. The more than 90 days, which is exactly five times 13.

Right.

So exactly. I would say there's five times more.

Yeah. So I have million questions, but I can't give you all of them. So my question is, do you ever clean the database and go, oh my God, this fish is dead. And you. I mean, you remove them or. You never do that?

Not really. I mean, there. Because there. You never know. You know, like we've had people.

When.

When would I do that? When would I do that? Like we look at. I just said yesterday I just started a lead conversion workshop that I do. And I had a gentleman on who's been on my list for 10 years and it was the first time that he's. That he came out. So where would I cut him off after three years, after two years?

Would you manage. They did not engage with you. Let's say you have. They did not open email for six months. Then you delete them. They're not interacting if they're not raising the hand. And another question. So three emails a week. Wow. Is that. What's the subscribe rate? Do people get unsubscribe because you too much for them?

They beg for more. They wish we would do more emails. Because that's the thing is you've got. I'm not selling. I'm not. I'm not promoting. I'm not like there's a difference between. I don't do, you know, affiliate promotions. I'm not like doing launches where I'm hammering people four times a day to, you got to get in before midnight or this is closing or any of those things. I'm sending three emails a week that 100% lead with education and value. They're not. It's all about like a blog post. It's like three blog posts a week. And then in the psych. And my super signature is where everything that I'm doing, I'm only communicating to the people that first they've gotten value.

Right?

Yeah.

So you don't do hook, hook, hook Jeff, like Gary V. Saying, no, I do.

I do.

And I've talked with Gary about this. That the thing. I think that the only two time frames are now and not now. And it's okay if it's not now because I give people every, every day the opportunity for it to be now. Every email that I send contains at the bottom of it. Plus, whenever you're ready. Whenever you're ready. Here's four ways I can Help you. Doesn't have to be today. Yeah, but that's anchored.

Yeah.

And why would you. Last one. How would you call the book if you were in the position of selling small swag?

Yeah.

Because swag is just. It's not the thing. The. The thing is what swag does.

Yeah.

Right.

I would say I would do something like return on keychains or return on mouse pads or return on. What's your most popular or unique or crazy item that you sell of swag? Right. Like return on. Aside from that, what would be an example of one?

That notebook. Take a note, everyone. Love. I'm. I'm writing notes and, you know, I'm doing it with people name.

Yeah. So return on notebooks or return on pens or return on. Return on Swag would probably be a good one where you're giving people the framework of how to think about swag as a competitive advantage and prophecy, etc. Am I stuck? Are you stuck?

I think she's stuck this time. She's stuck.

She looks happy.

You do that to us, Dean.

We froze her in place there.

She's so happy. I love it. I love it.

Even in ecstatic freezing and great.

Oh, she's got swag. Good one, Rosalind. Great questions. Oksana and Roland. We. We waited patiently. So we're saving the best for last. Nice. I will be quick, Dean. I'm looking out my window right now at my steers out in the field. So two of them go to butcher's next month. So we get to eat. We get. That's our benefit from them. They feed us. I love it. Yeah.

So real quick.

I've had an advertising agency for 36 years. Loved it. It's time for me to move on to a new venture. I've started writing children's books on how to. And it's all about it. Little girls from about five to three to find their superpowers. And I've finished my seventh book. My first one will launch in February. Yep. And so I'm making a total shift. I'm gonna. I'm gonna basically, in about next eight months, close my agency completely or sell it or something will happen. And just focus on this because this is where my passion is. I'm doing the illustrations and stuff, but it's a whole new thing. I'm used to advertising for dirt companies, for big engineering firms, stuff like that. Now I'm going to little tiny girls. Luckily, I have two granddaughters that I test everything on. But that's where my passion is, is to let them have their superpower so they can take it into adulthood. Because I see so many people come and I'm sure that you see it all the time. They have hang ups that happened when they were four or things that happened when they were eight years old. They're carrying in their 50s so I want to be able to help them with that and wow, amazing. So I'm not sure where to go with that. I got some great titles because I was just listening to. I wish I could remember his name, but he did the eat the frog first.

Yes.

Yeah. And that was. It changed everything for that book. He sold millions of them because of the title.

Yeah, yeah, you get the title of a book, right? I mean it's, it's worth spending the time and the energy and the thought. It's. A lot of people think, you know, what a good simple sounding book title just rolls off the tongue. But it's anything but that.

I mean my first one is, my first one is I'm not a princess, I'm a superhero. And so it's all going to be around her, finding her, her superpowers, how her grandma helps her, et cetera. So I just need to know where to go. I've got about 70 posts ready to go because I've watched, I've listened to Joe at a lot of conferences and so I've been following it and so I just packed them up. So as soon as it turns on I can just start flipping them out. But I don't have a giant email list yet because I don't think an 80 year old engineer is going to be excited about it. But maybe.

Right. Well that's the thing is you got to figure out what's going to be, what is your audience, what's the thing that they're going to want and you can't. The, the biggest thing that you want to do is not try and have people think a new thought. You can't understand. You can't give them an inside joke or you can't give them something that they're going to unpack once they know something. You have to only know what they know. That's where when you know, you look at the title, it has to make sense in their world. Right? Whereas you try and you're trying if you know stuff that they're going to think a new way after they're exposed to your information. That's the curse of knowledge in a way that you can't unthink what you know that you're going to, you're about to Tell them you have to come at it from that line. And so one of the things that I do is I create what I call a word palette. And I'll sit and with a blank pad I'll think about all of the words and the thoughts and the things that are in their mind about what it is that we're talking about here. You know, like how are they talking about what's the thought that's going on in their mind that you most want to connect with. Even though they may not know the words that you're talking about you. It's your job to join the conversation that's going on in their mind. Right. That you know, from advertising thing. It's not to try and get them to join your conversation. You need to join their conversation and segue into your conversation. It's the music man. We got trouble in River City. And that starts with T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool. So we need a boys band. That's the thing. Right, but that's the. We don't talk about. You need a boys band. We talk about the trouble in River City. That's what's on their mind. You've got to be that type of approach. Right. You've got to join the conversation that they're on.

One of the things I just added to the COVID is for girls only. Stamp that across. Because as I look there's not a lot of stuff just focused on girls. There's like, you know, unicorns and stuff, but not focused for that girl. And then when I talk to a group of high powered executive women and so what they want for their daughters is for them to be empowered to find their way. And so I brought that in.

That's the thing.

Are you.

That you've got to understand too that you. Are you talking to the little girls or are you talking to their moms?

Their mom.

And so you've got to get, you've got to be join that conversation. Yeah, that's really what it is is that if you can join the conversation of that how to. What they're most concerned about with their girls. Yeah, that's. That's the thing. And then you introduce what you've got. You can't just. It's not about the, the greatest gift that you can give yourself in the before unit of marketing is just getting the right people. I'll give an example of. There was. I did some work with a party rental company in Toronto. So they do party rentals. I asked them how high is high? What's the greatest thing that you do if you get any client. They said an outdoor wedding is like the jackpot for a party rental company because you get tents and generators and lights and all of the stuff. Right. And. But being a party rental company, that's not a sexy decision for a bride. Nobody's looking out, shopping for a party rental company, but what they are excited about is, is an outdoor wedding. So let's start the conversation and find people who are looking to have an outdoor wedding without even mentioning that we're a party rental company. So we put together a directory called 100 Great Places to have an outdoor wedding in Toronto and created a media piece that now when you advertise that the people who ask for that are automatically the best candidates for your service because they're looking to have an outdoor wedding. So you got to start with what they're looking for and then be a chess master and think two or three moves ahead. If I can go upstream and find people who are thinking about. Because those are invisible prospects. You can't get a list of. Of people who are thinking about having an outdoor wedding, just like you can't get a list of mothers who are concerned about passing on their childhood drama or baggage to them.

Right.

Right.

So.

But you can join the conversation that's going on in their head about that. Maybe a completely different title than what you're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I was just thinking, doing it, putting a list 101 Ways to Empower your young, your girl, your granddaughter. You could break it down into a lot of them. Because I know I buy a lot of books for my grandkids and so I'm the perfect market too. Plus their mothers.

Plus, you know, there might be something too, that Breaking the chain or breaking the pattern or breaking the something where don't you know that you're raising. How to stop raising your daughter as the grand. You know, you're the ghost of your mother's mother or. Yeah, I mean, that kind of stuff that's going on. But anyway, that's the, that's the pattern. You know, we could. We've done. We've done a meetup, I think, or did something with Joe anyway, about book titles. That would be. And I think we've got on. I love marketing some episodes about book titles.

Okay.

Look at that.

Yeah.

I was in a. I was in an airport and I said, you're a badass money making machine. I didn't even look open. I just bought it, read the whole thing on the plane to Vietnam and it Was like, it was amazing, you know, And I was like, see, there you go. It's funny. Well, if you're down in Texas, stop by, I'll have a nice big rare steak for you. Hey, there you go.

I like what I'm hearing. Straight off the farm to table, as they say.

Yeah, right there. Yeah, slice it off the cows of walking.

That's awesome.

All right, well, guys, you guys, we have gone 12 minutes past. But you know what, Dave Streen, I want to give you the final word. What do you think about this? I Love marketing meetup.

Mr. Dave Streen, absolutely amazing.

Dean always drops the gold nuggets.

Joe Polish here. And I am here with Mr. Jordan Belfort, known as the author of the Wolf of Wall street and the Authority. Actual Wolf of Wall Street. So, Jordan, for people that have no idea who you are, who is Jordan Belfort? And maybe some kind of a short history.

Sure.

So I'm a guy that when I was very young, in my early 20s, I went down to Wall street, no money in my pocket, negative $50 net worth. And I went to work for a big firm. And it was right around the time of the crash. And when the market crashed, which was, believe it or not, was actually my first day as a stockbroker, I was really forced to leave Wall Street And I stumbled upon some smaller firm out in Long Island. I was living in New York at the time. And what ended up happening, to make a long story short, because this is a shorter interview here is I kind of mixed what was happening in the bigger firms on Wall street with the smaller firms on Wall street. And I uncovered a niche in the market. And I took that niche and century built what was what became the largest independently owned brokerage firm of Wall street retail firm, meaning we'd cold call investors. And I stumbled upon this system really out of desperation to try to train all these young kids called the Straight Line. And the Straight Line system was really behind this massive success I had, taking average people and turning them to unbelievable closers, both in person and on the phone. So the problem with the Wolf came into play was when I sort of lost my ethics along the way and became this sort of ravenous greed fueled animal, which is not that uncommon on Wall street, unfortunately, but no excuse, and went out there and I ended up, you know, manipulating some stocks and having to do 22 months in jail and start again essentially. But I made, you know, a couple of hundred million dollars along the way and had the wildlife. And when I was in jail, I went through this sort of cleansing process. And I ended up writing this book right here, the Wolf of Wall street, which is my nickname was the Wolf. And as soon as the book was published, it became a bidding war between Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. So I sold the book to Leonardo DiCaprio and Marty Scorsese. There's a big movie coming out next year about my life and times on Wall Street.

Well, now, the book is fascinating.

It's.

It's entertaining. And, you know, it even says here I partied like a rock star and lived like a king. I mean, how much of this is real versus exaggerated in the book?

If anything, it's under exaggerated. I mean, there were some sections that, when I wrote the manuscript was 1300 pages. The book is 530 pages. And there were a couple of sections with my editor. She's a great lady, very smart. She's like, jordan, I don't think other human beings will understand some of this. I know a few human beings that want this. Maybe we have to tone it down a bit. But the stuff that's in the book is 100% true. Some of the dates are changed around just to support the narrative, but the book is 100% fact.

Okay, well, I'm totally looking forward to.

Seeing this, which is not a fact I'm proud of, by the way, because some of the stuff is nothing to be proud of, but it's a good read, it's funny.

And, well, you know, you actually. I mean, there's nothing that you seem to be afraid of not saying. I mean, you know, here we are in a short break during an event where you're actually teaching people about venture capital, about ethical persuasion, which is now what you teach. And, I mean, you're pretty explicit, and you seem to not have a real concern or fear of what people are going to think, and you want to just tell the truth. I mean, I think a lot of people, they're dirt, if they have any, and most people do. They're very protective about it, which you just kind of put it out there. Was it being in jail that put.

You at that point?

Are we always that way on some level?

I was always that way. I was never really embarrassed about the decisions that I made. But in terms of, you know, when it started writing this book, I knew that unless I really came clean with my story, that a. The press would skewer me because my life before the book was a very public affair. Both my rise and my fall was well documented. So if I tried to sort of, let's say, dumb down what I had done or, you know, kind of gloss over and not really admit what I had done. I think the book would have been far, let's say, less well received. And I think also that to really paint the picture both on the good side and the bad side, my goal when I wrote the book was to essentially bring the reader into the story. And to do that you have to be very descriptive. You rely a lot on dialogue. So I wanted to give people a flavor of what it was like to be in the head, of the space I was in. In other words, the book is written in the voice, not today's voice, but the voice that was playing inside my head in 1989 at the 90s. So that voice sometimes is a disturbing voice, it's a funny voice for sure, ironic, self serving, and sometimes despicable. So I knew that if I wrote this book, I had to put it out there. And in terms of the way I am now, I think that my life serves on one side of the equation as a cautionary tale to know what I've done wrong and the price I paid for it. And on the other side, I think in the more important side, in terms of the stuff that we do, in terms of mentoring people and coaching people and helping people achieve wealth and success, the bottom line is that the strategies that I use that most successful people use, when they're watered down, filtered down and diluted, they just don't work. What really works typically is the highest level of a strategy, not the one that's sort of, you know, kind of the key pieces are missing for whatever reason. So I get brutally honest and I show people that on the bright side of the story is that you can be as low down the bottom of the barrel with seemingly no hope. And when people look at my life and they see what happened, I was at the bottom and I came back stronger than ever. It gives them hope for their own lives to know that no matter how low they fall and how long, they sunk in the totem pole of life, of relationships, of money, of self respect, as long as you're willing to put one foot in front of the other and take a step forward, another step forward, follow some simple, proven rules that yield success, that yield wealth, and do it in a way that has integrity and ethics versus what I really missed the first time was not the ethics of integrity. If you do it right and put one foot in front of you, use strategies, you can achieve massively no matter where you are.

Gotcha. Well, now is Wall street predominantly, I mean, how ethical is Wall Street? Let me back up and even have you defined what is an ethical way of running a business? Because you now teach ethical persuasion. But I'd love to hear the Jordan Belfort definition of ethics. I mean, what does that even mean?

I think there's lots of definition of ethics. I think on one level, ethics is doing the right thing when no one's looking. On one side of the equation that it's not about whether you'll get caught or whether you won't get caught. It's not about that. It's about doing what's wrong right, no matter what. On a simpler level, more transactional level, the idea would be that if you're ethically persuading someone, you're helping them do something they should be doing versus something that they should not be doing, or let's just say getting someone to buy the appropriate amount of something versus 10 times of what they need. So the first one's the ethical side. Second one is the unethical side. Very often, and one of the negative anchors I had to my own situation was that I invented this really powerful strategy which, you know, called the straight line system. It's really kind of probably technically the highest level out there of influence. When I first invented that, it was unbelievable. And people that were non sales people became salespeople. People that were scared of selling started to embrace the idea that they could influence, speak from the heart, and use a simple way to move someone from uncertainty to certainty, which very often selling is about. And when I first started my new life and I got out of jail and I started getting all these requests to come train, I was like, oh, no, the straight line, it's evil. There's no ethics. And that's a load of crap. It's not the system that's broken. What was broken was my ethics were missing from what I was doing. So if you influence somebody to buy a phone and they're in desperate need of a phone, well, hey, great, the price is right, that's a great thing to do. But if they already have a phone and you basically use the system to say your phone stinks, this is the better phone, despite the fact that it's twice in price and has all these features you'll never use, this is the phone you ought to buy. If you don't buy this phone, you know, everyone's going to look at you like you're a fool and blob all the reasons why you could convince someone. So that's not ethical persuasion. But again, in the right Circumstance, getting someone to do something to make a move that implies empowers them versus disempowers them. Well, that's a great thing to do.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Now, what's your take on the ethics of Wall Street? Back in the day, and then currently today, I mean, is it just a.

I mean, ethical toilet bowl? Listen, the easy answer and the answer that most people want to hear is that Wall street is devoid of ethics. There are no ethical people on Wall Street. It's all about making as much as you can as fast as you can, and you don't care who gets hurt along the way. That's what people, I think on some level, want to hear. Yeah. Which I don't believe to make sense of what happened. But in fact, it's not true. There are a lot of ethics on Wall Street. There are. The problem is, if it's 90% ethical and 10% ethical, that 10% kills you every single time. In banking, especially when you're dealing with, with products like derivatives and credit default swaps, with this massive leverage, everything is magnified dramatically. So even the littlest bit of fraud could take down an entire institution. Look at aig. You're looking at a company that ran for how many decades is an insurance company. It's a blue chip insurance company with an impeccable reputation. And there's one division inside AIG is issuing these derivatives, these credit defaults, swaps, and as Warren Buffett terms them, it's instruments of financial mass destruction.

Right.

And that little division brought down the entire insurer, as did it bring down Lehman Brothers, as did it bring down Bear Stearns and forced Merrill lynch to merge with Bank America, and so on and so on. So the problem is not that there's no ethics on Wall street, it's that the nature, the very nature of the business doesn't allow the for even the slightest bit of ethical lapse. So I think the lesson to be learned from what happened over the last five years or so is that you can't be half pregnant when it comes to ethics. Either you're going to operate in an ethical way or you're not. And if you're not, then ultimately you might make more money over the short term, because you very often can. But in the long term, you're going to get slaughtered.

Okay, I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. They're over here. Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you. Watch them.