The Keys To 10x Connection - Episode #17

I'm joe polish. I'm dan sullivan and welcome to 10 times talk. Hello, this is Joe Polish and this.

Is Dan Sullivan and we are here for 10 times talk. Joe, what I'd like to talk to you today is about something that I've just observed over the last decade and a half, because that's how long I've known you. Just the tremendous instincts you have towards networking, but also the fact that you network among people who in their own right are kind of geniuses. And I'd just like to talk to you about when these two ideas came together in your mind, that you could put together a very unique kind of organization of people who were just great at what they did. And you know, I've known you, and I know it sort of came together, you know, in the early part when you were in Strategic Coach, but could you say when the whole idea just really took a practical form?

Well, I guess, you know, practical, however you would define practical might be whenever people actually took it seriously enough where they would get together in a room and have discussions to start cutting me very large checks. You know, we can always go back to the Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich and a bunch of other books where he talked about the mastermind principle, which is what most people that have read any sort of personal development or self help stuff, people can always point to. That where it actually occurred for me, I think, is growing up, I was very shy, very introverted, didn't like talking to people that I didn't know, certainly had an immense fear of public speaking. You know, as a matter of fact, you know, I don't know if we've ever talked about this on any of the 10x talks, but, you know, I mean, between the ages of 16, 18 years old, growing up, I did a lot of drugs. I would smoke pot, I would take speed, I would do coke. I mean, I was doing all kinds of stuff. And back then, looking back now, I mean, it was just a coping mechanism for simply being uncomfortable. And this is going to sound absolutely bizarre and this is, you know, maybe for entertainment purposes only, and we do not recommend you do this at home or whatever sort of thing. I remember doing a speech in high school on the dangers of THC and marijuana while I was stoned in a psychology class, as crazy and as weird as that sounds, but I was so nervous and so scared of talking that literally that's what I resorted on. Now someone can create a moral judgment of that and be like, you know, what an idiot. And arguably that might be an accurate way of looking at something like that. But what it was was really just a kid who was. Was kind of shy and nervous and kind of didn't know how to interact. But I leaned on whatever tools I had in my toolbox at that time to get me through. What I learned out of that experience, though, is that you can rely on crutches and very negative things in order to interact with people, or you can rely on positive things. Now, in your world, had I had any influence from someone like Dan Sullivan or the things you teach at strategic coach or any of those sort of things, I might have approached how I was getting through life with confidence and with capabilities and with skills versus barely getting by the seat of my pants. Now, what does that have to do with the question that you asked? And when did it all come together? I mean, I think because of those experiences, I learned very effective ways to do stuff and very destructive ways to do stuff. So the first part of my life in business, tons of struggle, tons of trying to figure it out. And when I first discovered marketing, I realized through the power of words and communication, communication, you can do anything. And if you improve the communication with your audience, with your marketplace, with your prospects, with your clients, they're going to respond to you completely differently. And I met a guy named Dave kekich back in 1992. He's a guy that's paralyzed from the chest down. To this day. He's still a dear friend of mine. He's 70 years old now, and he had these credos that he wrote after he had become paralyzed in his mid-30s, 30s, and one of them was become a communications expert. Because becoming a communications expert is going to change everything and how you get what you want in life and how you help other people get what they want. And so for me, I could communicate one on one and do sales, or I could communicate in groups, or I can communicate in mass and do marketing. And if I wanted to really accelerate my learning, I should do it with the smartest people that I know. And so one of my first product offerings, of course, was in the information marketing world was teaching professional carpenter upholstery cleaners how to market and build their companies. And one of the things that after several years of selling a few thousand courses to cleaning companies, I started offering over the phone conference calls, now called teleseminars and teletraining and that sort of stuff. But I started doing that to groups of people. And then I started doing conferences where we'd invite people into the groups and we would charge them a monthly fee. And what I saw because of the group interaction is that people's success would accelerate greatly from being in groups. And aside from what I was doing for what I was charging for, I would also have people like Gary Halbert and John Carlton and people like Brian Tracy and different people in the marketing or business world I got to know through doing interviews. And I would invite them to my office once or twice a year, and we would just sit around for a day or two and just talk about business. And it worked really well. And I discovered during that time that I get a real joy out of connecting people with other people. Like, it just comes naturally to me. If someone needs something, my brain has a way to say, oh, I know someone that could solve that problem, Or I know someone that has this skill, and I would just start connecting people. So what? I found myself as a matchmaker, but I never had formalized it like, I had deal with genius network, Nor did I ever think of genius network as a network of incredibly smart people. And that genius networking is actually a skill. And being a genius networker is how one of the ways that I would look at myself or define myself. So that's where I'm now. And of course, Dan, you could ask me one question, and I'll ramble for like, 30 minutes straight, but I want to stop here.

Yeah, but I have to tell you, there's no ums and ahs and all the sentences are complete sentences, and all the paragraphs are coherent. So, you know, I think people could go on listening forever. But one of the things I want to talk about here is the whole concept of unique ability. Because to a certain extent, putting together genius networks is your unique ability. But the people who make up your networks are also people who, to an unusual degree, have also focused and developed their unique abilities. And I think it's 10 times putting smart people together. But when you put people together who are 10 times smarter in what they do than anyone else, you get like a hundred or a thousand times the impact. And I've experienced that myself because I'm just finishing off my fourth year in genius network, you know, and I hang around in strategic coach with a lot of very, very bright people, you know, very successful, very talented, very ambitious people. But there is an unusual quality when you bring together people who've spent 25, 30 years of their life developing an expertise in an area that's at the cutting edge. So can you just talk a little bit about that? Because one of the things that would get in the way of most people is their ego. You know, that they're in the room with people who are just incredibly smarter, some of them even smarter in the area that you have some skills, but they're way ahead of you. And I'd like to talk about how you just kind of get rid of the ego in it and just say, you know, let's just put intelligence and skill and talent together.

Yeah. One thing that I probably think about is that I know that every human being has some area of their life where they don't have confidence, where they don't feel all that great, where they're trying to strive to learn and get better. Doesn't matter who they are to the level of where they have some area of their life that is completely effed up. I mean, it's just, you know, they wouldn't want anyone to know about it. It could be, you know, an addiction. It could be some sort of insecurity. It could be something that they have done that they consider the very bad or that they're a bad person. It could be an insecurity, a self esteem issue. I mean, there's some level of suffering or many levels depending on the person. And so I don't get starstruck. There was probably a time in life where I was intimidated by certain people. And you know, I read Robert Ringer's book Winning through Intimidation many years ago. The first version was written in the 70s and he talked about one of the success principles is not allowing people to intimidate you. The book was first perceived as, oh, you're teaching people how to intimidate other people and how to manipulate other people. When in reality, what the message of that book was, in order to become successful in life, don't allow yourself to be intimidated or feel that you're somehow less than someone else. And so I really took that message seriously. And having been an addict and having spent much time in 12 step groups and around the very successful, very famous, very accomplished individuals, but seeing a side of where they had immense struggle, suffering, depression, anxiety, addiction, I mean, you name it, it made me realize, wow, you know, I mean, people aren't perfect even if their PR department makes them look perfect. All human beings have some area of struggle. And when I say all human beings, I mean, let's take you as an example, dad. I mean, you're like, from everything I can see, I've seen you front stage backstage, you've spent many, probably months with you over the years. I mean, you're a guy on all level that seems to Just really have their life together. I mean, I don't see you have meltdowns and. But, you know, certainly you've. You've talked plenty about your struggles and where you've come from, and you're willing to tell the truth about it. And so it's when people are not willing to tell the truth about it where they start getting in trouble. Because I love the saying, you're as sick as your secrets. And so I sort of just don't take everyone so seriously. I don't think anyone's as good as their own pr, but I also try to look for what's admirable and what's helpful. So I not only just want to help people, but I also want to reduce suffering. So it's within seeing the other human suffering that I think I'm able to connect and then let me try to make sense out of this. I heard something years ago where someone said to me, you're either in communication with another human being or you're trying to escape. You know, if you're talking to someone, you're either connected with them or you're trying to escape. And unless you're 100% extrovert, when you're having a dinner conversation with a friend, a lover, an acquaintance, someone you just met, or you're at a cocktail party, or you're in a seminar, and in between breaks, you're going and interacting with people, and you'll talk to someone, you'll be face to face close to somebody having a conversation, and you'll go in and out of being connected to them or trying to escape. And the trying to escape part of communication is incredibly uncomfortable. And there are some people that you just don't want to connect with because you're just trying to escape the whole time, but you're interacting because you're engaged in whatever sort of conversation. And so what I wanted to do is eliminate as much of the time of the wanting to escape while connecting with other people and to actually help other people not want to escape, but to make them feel comfortable. So, you know, what Babs has said is labeled, one of the things that I do is charm and disarm. I've always used humor. I've always used some sort of sarcasm, hopefully in a positive way, not a negative way, to charm and disarm and just have people lighten up, because people are so uptight at times. And so I, you know, I'm just trying to bring humor and rapport into situations so that people are connected and doing it at a Very high level. Because the more successful someone is, in a lot of ways, the more sheltered they are, the more shields they have up, the more walls they have up. And if you can help break those down, you're not only going to help an incredibly gifted person, but by helping that person, you're going to help many, many others. That's where the industry transformer, Genius Networking sort of comes in.

You know, there's just so many topics that have just come out with what you just said. But one of the things that really strikes me is that when people are just feeling very comfortable and they feel very relaxed, there's a phrase, they're just very comfortable in their own skin. My experience is that almost anything that comes out of them, if they're smart and they're good at what they do, it's almost at a genius level. So what I've observed over the years in being around you, because you go to strategic coach, but I go to Genius Network, is that you have an extraordinary ability to create a mood and an atmosphere inside of a room where people who are often very, very isolated in their own worlds for any variety of reasons, are feeling very, very comfortable just to share the smartest things that they've proved, the smartest things that they've created with other people who have done the same thing. And it's just kind of like a magical environment that. That you've actually been able to achieve there. And I think we'll have another session where we talk about this. But I know you've identified certain characteristics that you have that make up your unique ability. But that's been my experience of Genius Network is that you get people at a comfort level that they probably never experience anywhere else and in any other setting in their life.

Yeah. Thank you. And I'll tell you one way that I actually think about it, because I look at a lot of, as you know, I mean, I know some of the top seminar leaders and business buzzwords like thought leaders and people that write books, and I've many clients that are famous in the business world and, you know, on TV all the time and that sort of stuff. And what I really attempt to do is not to be the smartest guy in the room. One of the biggest mistakes that people make if they want to really bring together the brightest people, is let those people shine. Let them look better than you. Don't worry about you're running a group or you're running an event. God forbid we're going to have another seminar speaker. If you're running seminars as an example that is going to do a better talk than you do. I mean, invite people that are more talented and better to you and let them shine. And a big mistake that a lot of people make is they're worried about someone looking better than they are or not being the smartest person. And, and those people don't really tend to build strong relationships. They may have a lot of business relationships, but they don't have a lot of people that per se respect them for themselves. They may respect what they do in business, but I know incredibly bright, incredibly talented people. Going back to your four referability habits, you know, say please and thank you. Finish what you start. Do what you say you're going to do.

Show up on time.

Yeah, show up on time. In a lot of ways, part of the saying please and thank you is another way of just acknowledging what is saying please and thank you. It's acknowledging and some people won't allow someone else to be their unique ability. That's what's so great about Strategic Coach. Strategic Coach isn't, here's what's wrong with you and how to fix it. Your whole thing is let's look at your strengths, let's identify your unique abilities, and let's create an environment of questions to help you build upon that. That's why a guy like me resonates with it and takes this connection ability. And I can really function well in a room like Strategic Coach because it's all about encouragement and confidence building and reinforcing gifts, many gifts that are so buried because you never get to see them. And some people say they want to see other people excel and get success, but deep down inside, only to a point. They only want to see someone go so far. They don't really want to celebrate total success because it threatens them. And I think that comes from maybe a scarcity mindset disguised as an abundance mindset. You know, if you take Strategic Coach, you know, I mean, there's a handful of some of the best trainers in the world that have joined Strategic Coach, you know, many that I've referred into it. And there's a lot of people that they won't go to Strategic Coach because they're worried that, you know, oh, they're brighter than that. And what it is is it's a real fear of that they might find out that they're not as smart as all of their followers think they are or how they position themselves to be. And what I just try to say is, you know, give up all that bullshit. I mean, everyone's at the end of it all is trying to get better in life. And if you're really trying to get better, I mean, let go of your ego. Your ego is the biggest killer of all success, even if it's taking you up to a certain point. So what I just tried to do is take egomaniacs and bust on them and insult them a little bit and make them realize that, you know, qu. Taking yourself so damn seriously and be chummy. I mean, if there was a word that I could say, probably not even a real word, but just being chummy with each other and creating a really fun, inviting environment for people just to put down the shield, put down the nonsense, to whatever degree we can.

Well, you know, the interesting thing is, you know, our topic here is Things that take us 10 times. But I'm just thinking of, you know, our friend Peter Diamandis, with his amazing impact on the technological and the scientific world, you know, where he brings together incredibly bright people with some of the most powerful technologies in the world, that really the most powerful force in the world is just the unique ability of one person cooperating and creating with the unique ability of another person. I mean, there's powerful technologies, but I always feel that humanity is infinitely more powerful and infinitely more intelligent than the smartest technologies. So it seems to me that, Joe, that you've done this simply because you've gone through a process of very painful learning and came out the other side of it, and you came out with this notion, I'm just going to be about connecting, and I'm not going to be about escaping, and I'm going to give everybody else that I meet the opportunity to do the same thing. But literally, what you do in and an official organization, which is called Genius Network, actually, any human being can do that just through the connections and relationships that they already have. They don't have to go far afield to bring out the best in other people.

Yeah, and I have a thing on my wall from Hugh McLeod, the artist. I had a bunch of artwork done by Hugh, and it says, where can the smallest change make the biggest difference? And it doesn't require that much more effort to be a little more useful or to take that extra step or to just do the things that most people are not willing to do. I mean, so many people are sheltered and worried and they don't want to give. And I believe the word ask is the most important question. But it's not just asking. It's not asking from an entitlement place. It's just simply being able to Be as useful and curious as humanly possible. And, you know, I've just been completely curious. I want to know what people want. I want to know why they tick. I want to know what's funny to them. I want to know what drives them nuts. And to me, it's more fascinating than most shows, concerts, movies and things by just sitting and interacting with interesting people and helping them, you know, interact with each other.

Yeah.

Because I don't think it comes natural for a lot of people.

Well, the other thing is that we're all born in different circumstances, and we've already had some incredibly powerful experiences, positive or negative, before we can even think. They say it's like six or seven years old before a child can start reflecting on his or her experiences. And so some people start off, they already have two strikes on them. To use baseball language, they already have two strikes on them. And some people are born and they're on third base, you know, so, you know, they're just ahead of the game. And it's kind of a roll of the dice, you know, I mean, there's just a lot of accidents in life, you know, your gender and your skin color and where you're born and who your parents were. But this is kind of like a roll of the dice. You didn't have anything to do with any of that. But, you know, I always say in Las Vegas, the greatest poker players aren't the ones who have the best cards. They're the ones who can win or not lose with a really poor hand.

Right.

So what I think that you're allowing people to do, you're giving them permission. Look, don't focus on your losing hand. Just maximize your winning hands and everything like that. And you create an environment where people who might be almost like icons and idols in other settings, but they have to keep a protection. They have to keep a wall between themselves and kind of their fans. You allow them to come to a setting where they don't have to do any of that. They're allowed to check all that at the door and come in and say, okay, you know, I'm just really, really interested in what you're doing. And I'm doing this really interesting thing, and that's where I see the 10 times happening. And every year you've got this big conference. Your next one is at Pelican Hill in August in California. And every year that you have this big annual conference, it just gets better and better. I mean, one year I think, geez, he can't top that. But each next year It's a lot better, and it's almost like 10 times better. And I think the reason for it is the reputation that you have. And the word has gone around that this is a great place for people who otherwise are isolated in their own kind of towers of excellence. They get to just hang out and just be kind of. I won't say ordinary, because they aren't ordinary, but they just get to not have any pretense. They don't have to protect themselves. They don't have to pretend, you know, they can just hang out. And you do that in particular setting and you charge a big check for it and everything else. But I think if this podcast is going to have impact on the world is that every human being has a chance to do that with just the relationships that they already have.

Totally. And to take this into a. How does this apply to growing 10 times? I mean, to use your poker analogy, my friend Dave Keckish has one of the credos, has the term, you got to play it where it lies. And that could be used for golf, it could be used for cards, it could be used for, you know, whatever you have in your life right now. I mean, that's what you got. You can wish, bitch, complain, have gratitude. I mean, there's a bunch of different ways to perceive depending on kind of where you're at. And the fact is, you're going to play it where it lies. So if you increased your focus on being generous or being useful by 5%, just literally 5% over the next month, I mean, we're not talking 100%, we're not talking 50%, we're not talking three times more. We're talking a measly 5%, one out of 20, just this tiny little bit of increasing your generosity or increasing your focus. I mean, what would that do for your life? What would that do for your attitude? What would that do for your clients? What would that do for your team? What would that do for your relationships? And so that's a really mind expanding sort of question to ponder. And you could apply little improvements in all areas. You know, going back to the little hinges, swing, big doors. You know, what is the little thing you can do with connecting that? You know, what if you dropped your fears or your ego just a little bit and opened yourself up not to everybody. I'm not talking about exposing yourself stupidly, but I'm just saying, you know, just really going out there if you're a little bit afraid, what if you put yourself, what if you did something every day that that scared you. And I'm not, again, talking about moronic things like walking out in front of moving cars. I'm just talking about things that have been a little challenging. And so I've kind of come from that place to where the first speech that I ever gave, I was incredibly nervous. I mean, sweating, like, physically having bad reactions from how I felt in my stomach to perspiring. And till now, you know, I mean, getting up in front of hundreds of people is not only no big deal, but I now run one of the highest level groups in the world with some of the best speakers in the world. And this all came from this continually working on it, continually working on it, continually working on it. And along the way, making sure that, oh, this is working for other people. And on our next episode or whenever you want to go a little bit deeper because we can be running out of time here in a couple minutes.

Well, I would love to do that, Joe. You know, I speak a lot too. So I do, you know, formal workshop sessions for a coach, and then I do marketing sessions and I do speeches. So probably in the course of the year, whether it's live or it's over the phone or it's video or everything else, I probably do a hundred public performances. And people say, do you get scared? And I said, every time. I said, every time I'm scared. And they say, well, you've been doing it for 30 years. Why are you scared? And I said, well, first of all, I've interpreted as adrenaline that your system is getting ready to put on a good performance. And adrenaline is a very powerful drug. And when you get a big boost of it through your system, it feels very, very uncomfortable. So I said, you have to understand that our brain, in anticipation of positive situations or negative situations, has the ability to manufacture and pump its own drugs. Every drug that's ever been made artificially already exists inside the human being. That's why we like drugs. It's because, you know, the reason why we, you know, people become heroin addicts is that their body has already produced a similar drug and they know what it feels like. But the big thing I tell people, I said, you know, I've discovered about public speaking that there's only two kinds of people in the world. There's people who are really scared of speaking in public and they don't speak. And then there's another group of people who are really scared of speaking and they do speak. And I said, that's the only difference. They're both scared. It's just one of Them, in spite of their fear, they go ahead and speak. And I said, that's true about public speaking, but that's true in any area of achievement or endeavor forward. We're all scared. But scared is just the natural reaction of the human system to new situations that it hasn't been in before. And if you can get comfortable and you can treat that as normal, boy, there's almost no limit to the amount of progress that you can make. And I'm sure when you first started your genius network thing that you're talking to someone whose reputation was a lot bigger than yours. Their reach in terms of their communication was a lot bigger than yours. And, you know, you might have experienced scare, but you went ahead and did it anyway.

Yeah, exactly. Because at the end of the day, what's the alternative? It's kind of like one of your things. You can be an observer in life and you can watch other people do what they do, or you can be a participant, and there's just a lot more rewards by being a participant. And you know that old book by Susan Jeffries, you know, feel the fear and do it anyway. One thing that I would always tell myself early on, when I was really young and I was so definitely afraid of, I mean, asking women out, to speaking in public, to interacting with people, because I had these ridiculous perceptions in my head and worries that were so much, you know, like, I'm going to be horribly rejected and completely embarrassed. And I really had crippling anxiety with interacting with people. And I just, you know, just a little bit every day, like the 5% thing. See, if you just take things one bite at a time, one step at a time, what seems so difficult you can actually accomplish? I mean, one of the things that stalls people from doing it is they just make it up to be so much bigger. And, you know, I got in my head, you don't have to feel great about something in order to get it done. It's your whole story about courage versus when you were in the army, which we can talk about that at a later time. It'll be like a cliffhanger for people.

Yeah, Well, I say courage is what takes over when you don't have confidence. A lot of people say, well, he was really confident. I said, no, he wasn't. He was courageous. He didn't have any confidence, but he went ahead and did it anyway. I said, there's a line that you come to when confidence runs out, and what has to take over on the other side of the line is courageous.

Yes, exactly. And so Let me say this to wrap up for this episode, just to give someone some action steps. If this, hopefully what I've shared has translated into some usable action. As crazy as this may sound, if you are married man or woman, by your spouse, your partner, if you're not, if you have a love relationship, flowers, if it makes sense, if it's not flowers, something else that your partner would really like. If. And get a really nice card. And just say one or two things that you're really grateful for your partner about. Even if you're mad at them right now, do it anyway because it'll make you feel better about them. Just acknowledge them. And if you don't have a love relationship or, you know, if you have a child, do it with one of your children. If you have a great team member, do it with one of your team members. Pick whoever would be an ideal person by hearing this episode today. Go and pick up some flowers, pick up a card or anything and just really acknowledge someone. And use that as a metaphor to where. What if you did that once a week, but you did it with not just one person, but you did it with maybe three? And what if you automated that process and you started thinking of this as a marketing methodology of how you connect and how you acknowledge people? You will see people really feeling good. And when you make other people feel good, you feel good. Because at the end of the day, if you're not getting that sort of feedback, if you're not seeing how your actions can put a smile on someone's face, how it could bring some sunshine into many people's lives that really don't have a lot because they haven't learned how to use their head, start doing it. Be a fountain, not a drain. Because we live in a world where there's a lot of drains. And you want to be that fountain. You want to be the person that goes around and does that as best you can. I have my own unique ways of doing it. Everyone doesn't have to do it quite like I do. And I'll talk about some of the ways that I do it on next episode or a future episode. But that's what I would suggest doing. Do some sort of little form of acknowledgment. And you, Dan, you're superb at that. Your company is superb at that stuff. So anyway, that would be my takeaway from here.

Yeah, well, Joe, I just want to get in a word and then we can wrap up. But I want to say is a lot of people think that 10 times growth in business is really some sort of technical formula or it's a computer formula, what is called an algorithm or it's a set of techniques. But it's actually being a human being at the most fundamental level of just telling the truth about yourself and telling the truth about others. And that's really, really where the exponential growth really really comes from. I mean, you get sophisticated as you get experience and you package yourself in really great ways. But really I'd like to get across to people that the business marketplace is so interesting to me just because of the fundamental humanity that's required to really move forward.

Yeah, totally. Awesome. Well, thank you, Dan, and to all our listeners, please share your comments@10xtalk.com and if you've got anything you want to add to this conversation or something that you do, any suggestions for future episodes, let us know. And we are here to help you grow 10 times. So that's it. Have a good day.

Okay, bye.