The Power of Courses: How Having An Online Course Can Transform Your Business And Life - with Jonathan Levi - I Love Marketing episode #336

Talk all you want about automation and AI is eventually going to replace, but in the short term, we got to educate all these people and we need to do a damn good job if we're going to survive as a species. And so we need ways to scale education.

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

The following is a special replay from Piranha Marketing's Genius Network podcast. You can subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform or visit geniusnetwork.com for more. Would you like to know how to scale your business, create a community of raving fans and make more money? Join Joe Polish for a conversation with Jonathan Levi about the power of an online course. Remember to subscribe to I Love Marketing so that you don't miss a Future episode. Visit ilovemarketing.com subscribe for more.

Hello, this is Joe Polish and I'm sitting here with a friend of mine, Jonathan Levy, who is a really, really brilliant guy. And we're going to talk about something that is applicable to you, even if in the beginning it doesn't sound like it, but you'll determine early on that it is. So, Jonathan, instead of me doing a bio and talking about who you are, I'd love to have you just describe who you are. What do you do?

Yeah, absolutely.

And where are you from?

Well, so first, I'm originally from California. I'm a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who became disenchanted and moved to Israel about five years ago. And at that time I had sold my business and was soul searching. I went, I did an mba. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do to impact people's lives. And along about that time I had this idea. I'd taken some online courses and I thought, hey, this is like a pretty, pretty amazing way to make some passive income on the side. And so I, you know, I did what I do, which is accelerated learning, speed reading, memory, and I learned all that I could about creating an online course, you know, in the course of a weekend or a few days. And then I put an online course up. I translated some materials from my mentors on speed reading, learning, memory. And I was like, if I could make $1,000 a month, that would give me enough Runway till I get to my next big business idea, right? My next billion dollar startup idea. And within the first month we made like two grand. And I was like, that's interesting. So, okay, I have time, I can keep looking. And I started flying all over the world. I went to Rwanda, spoke at conferences I went to Kenya. I was looking for opportunities to really impact people's lives, you know, And I mean, talk about being stubborn, right? It took me 14 months, 25,000 students later to go, well, maybe I should build another course, because people seem to like these courses. So I built another course. And then eventually, you know, stubborn, dense person that I am, I kind of come and go, well, you know what? This may be the opportunity to impact people's lives. And so we started a podcast. We started more online courses. We built our own online course platform instead of selling on other people's platforms. And today we've taken it kind of to that next level, which is helping other online course creators would be course creators create their content. How do you get the podcast? How do you build the courses? How do you write books? And how do you. More importantly, because anyone can teach you how to build all these things. How do you connect them together so you have a proper ecosystem, a real business that you're everywhere, where people want to access your content and learn from you.

Yeah. Awesome. So, well, okay, so here's the reason I said this is applicable to everyone is at the recent Genius Network meeting that just ended, one of the things I remember saying is three ways you can learn something. You can learn through the school of hard knocks. You can go out and try to figure stuff out on your own, get kind of beaten up in the business world when it comes to running a business. But, you know, it's how a lot of people learn stuff. They really don't take courses. They don't read books, they don't go to seminars. They, you know, if nothing, maybe they Google something or whatever, but they're not out there really going deep with learning. Now, a second way to learn something is through the experiences of other people. You read their books, you listen to their podcasts, you go to their seminars, you educate yourself. You know, some people do it in school. You know, there's other. But there's all kinds of schools that are available. I tend to prefer, you know, the schools that I access that are the most effective from people that have produced a result, that are actually teaching you how to produce a result, not just learning stuff for the sake of learning stuff. And then that's another way to learn. And then the most effective way to learn is to teach other people.

Right?

And I think you being a course creator, you are really forced, for lack of a better word, to actually really take seriously from a different angle. What is the material? What is someone trying to learn? The most effective ways to learn so for people that are listening to this, I would like them to be in the mindset as we have this conversation that what is it in your life that you want to learn, and how do you go about doing that?

Yeah.

And so that's one thing.

You're absolutely right. And, you know, one of the greatest learners of all time, in my opinion, was Richard Feynman, who's a physicist, worked on the Manhattan Project in his early 20s, accomplished musician, has more. I mean, has achieved more for the field of science than probably anyone since Einstein. And Einstein even looked at his work and was like, yeah, this guy knows what the hell he's talking about. Just an incredibly accomplished physicist. And his method, he had a methodology of learning, and it started with teaching. Right. Simplify it, write it down. If you don't understand it well enough to teach it to someone else, then you don't understand it well enough.

Interesting.

And. And there's this whole thing you can look up online. We teach it in our memory courses is Feynman technique and how to leverage the opportunity that you have as a teacher to learn something better. And I also think, you know, for people in the audience who are saying, I'm not a teacher, or maybe I'm not the most qualified person to teach something I believe, and a mentor of mine taught me this, if you know something better than 90% of people out there, you have an obligation to teach it, because the people who are this. For example, I'm not a neuroscientist, and I don't know as much about neuroscience as probably anyone in the research field of memory. But guess what? Everyone who's researching memory doesn't have time to sit down and answer your questions and build online courses. Right. So what I do is I interpret the research because I've got plenty of time. Right. I don't have a $20 million grant from an Alzheimer's foundation, and I've got plenty of time to teach you. And, you know, the same is true. The best marketers in the world oftentimes are not teaching. Right?

Right.

Because they're making hundreds of millions of dollars. And maybe, you know, Frank Kern is an exception and stuff like that, but the best CEOs in the world, Elon Musk, is not teaching leadership courses right now. He's running his business. And so a lot of times what you find is the best, best, best in the world are not teaching. So we need an entire class of people to interpret, apply, as you said. Right. Like, I can memorize the 50 digits backwards and forwards and I can teach you how to do all this stuff and read a book in two hours, but then after applying, go and teach. And I think you have a moral obligation to do that.

Yeah, well, and if you at least, let's say you do your or you don't, if you at least take that on as a belief system, you're probably going to be a lot more effective.

Right?

Totally. So just for the listeners before, I'm going to ask you some questions about courses, not only creating courses, but selling courses and steps and what people need to do and all that sort of stuff. Because there's a lot of people that are listening to this that will get a lot out of this whole different perspective shift. Before we get into that, just so people have some background, what are all the different ranges of courses that you currently have created already?

Yeah, so we have, we started out on Udemy.com, which is, think of it like the Amazon.com of online courses. And over there I think we have about nine different courses, 12 if you count translations and things like that. And you know, those typically go for 15, $20. And over there we have about 150,000 students, 200,000 enrollments. We also have courses in the 400 to $500 range, you know, where we have multiple thousands of people who've chosen to really get into the premium learning and memory stuff. Because learning and memory is not a direct. You're going to make money back. The pricing is different there. And then we have our 14 course branding youg Academy Suite, which is $1300 and that's a business course. And so it's priced accordingly. Because we actually looked at you, Joe, and said, how should we price this thing? Well, we think people can make about 10 to 15 grand in their first year if they apply what we teach in this course. So let's take 1/10 of that. Right. Same principle with Genius Network. And I love that idea. And I tell people that like if you apply all this, you'll make 15 grand in a year just with the entry level strategies. And from there it just goes, you know, we call it building your seven figure multimedia ecosystem.

Out of all the courses you've done, which one has been the most successful in terms of impact on people and then the most sales?

Our entry level super learner course because we do a lot in India, we do a lot in Brazil, we do a lot in kind of BRIC countries. Right. I think has had the widest impact. And like I said that one, in total, 150,000 enrollments just that so. And that's all learning memory, speed, reading.

Yeah, that's great. Okay, so why are courses so useful and important and what are the benefits of having an online course?

Yeah, well, I'll start with kind of why I got into online courses and it came down to scale, right? I build a course when I get tired of explaining something. So like we were hanging out this morning, I was hanging out with all the team here at Genius Network and it's like all this stuff on email and I love your team, so I'm super happy to explain it, but all that stuff I have videos on, right? Because I can't fly across the world and work with every single person that I want to help. Online courses allow you to scale and they allow you to record something once in the best possible way that you're ever going to record it. More patient and more eloquent than you're ever going to record it and then deliver it in, you know, in our case, 200,000 plus times.

Like how many conversations if it was real humans, would that that require? Or if you had to do it through, you know, humans, how manual would that be?

And sure, it, it may be slightly more effective for me to actually sit there and help you go through, you know, we teach a course on productivity, so help you go through your emails and organize and sort them. But the reality is like that's not an option that's on the table for most people, right? Like I can't fly tomorrow to Brazil and do that. And I think a lot of the costs of online courses are way, are kind of outweighed by the benefits. So someone can watch the video over and over and over again. You can create community, right? Because you now have tens of thousands of people learning the same stuff together. You can really focus on creating community. You can engage people with worksheets and do all this incredible stuff. Not to mention, you know, for anyone who has lesser means and isn't able to hire a private coach or go to a university course, the ability to learn online, I mean, I think it's incredible. Like Harvard and all these top universities are building online courses, right? And it's to, it's not for their students, it's to reach the masses because they realize there's this huge democratization of education that's happening. And look, we've got almost 8 billion people now that we need to educate. And the burden of that education is all the heavier because we're moving towards a knowledge economy, right? So like, talk all you want about automation and AI is eventually going to replace. But in the short term we got to educate all these people. We need to do a damn good job if we're going to survive as a species. And so we need ways to scale education.

Let me speak to that. And what you said, I actually think in a lot of ways, and I take this from the world of marketing. When I first learned the difference between selling and marketing is when I started studying Gary Halbert, he had this term can and clone yourself. And he, you know, selling is what you do when you're on the phone or face to face with somebody. And this is the way I define it. And marketing is what you do to get someone on the phone or face to face with you properly positioned so by the time they talk to you, they're pre interested, pre motivated, pre qualified and predisposed to do business with you. And of course I started using that definition before the Internet even existed. So there was a whole nother level of not having access to videos and social media and all the stuff that we have today. And the whole can and clone yourself can also be applied here with teaching and the thing with maybe someone's not able to get you one on one. However, I actually think people digest information and sometimes in a different receptivity level where they don't have to respond to another person. So when, you know, when it comes to marketing, there's this thing when people are not buying things on the Internet, they would literally call up a carpet cleaning company, or they would call a real estate agent, or they would call a store and they would ask how much do you charge? And they would start engaging in the education used to actually come from a human being. If you're calling an insurance company, you wanted a quote on your car insurance. There wasn't some video on YouTube because YouTube didn't exist. There was no, you know, thing that you could just have a website and find it instantaneously. So you would call another human being. And what I realized is that with automation there, it took away the phone call fear. So there is a fear that exists when you have a human. So if you're sitting here working with me and I happen to be preoccupied in my mind, and you know me, I'm always preoccupied with something, right?

It's fair.

And there are times where if I was watching a video or a training one of your courses, I'm receptive, I can rewind it if I didn't get it. But if we're just sitting here talking for an hour and I happen to check out for like Five minutes. But you're just, you know, rattling through. Well, I may have missed that five minutes. But the beauty of a course is that in the same thing with marketing, I would tell people a free recorded message, a consumer awareness guide, someone doesn't have to say yes or no to the salesperson. So they may. And if someone was able to actually put it out there and clone it, it actually comes across as more believable because what I've learned in the selling environment, a salesperson could actually mislead you. They can bullshit you, they can say things that aren't, you know, that aren't inquir entirely accurate. But if actually recorded or it was written in words or video or said somewhere, there actually becomes a believability to.

It'S subject to regulation. It's false advertising.

Exactly. So there's a level of credibility that the marketplace perceives you when you're, when you're canning and cloning yourself, doing that through marketing materials, doing that through books, courses, podcasts, and in this case a full blown course.

Yeah. And you know, I mentioned we started the interview with I had taken some online courses which is what turned me on. A big moment of clarity for me and one of the seminal experiences I distinctly remember. So I went to Insead, which if people don't know, israted as the best business school in the world. No one's ever heard of it, but it ranks above Stanford some years and some years it's the second best in the world. And so I was studying with world class professors and I remember one day sitting in the lecture, exactly as you were saying, and either I was, you know, off and couldn't focus or the professor wasn't having his best day. And I won't say which course it was, but I'm in the lecture hall with the guy who wrote the book on this subject, as in all the business schools use this book and I'm not getting it. And what did I do? I pack up after the class is over, I go into the library and I log on to khan academy.com, which is free. And I sit there, watch this lecture for 20 minutes with all these illustrations. I'm like oh, I get it. Yeah, you know, And I was like, I once calculated I'm paying €350 every single lecture. And yet what helped me understand it was the free lecture online.

Right.

It's mind blowing.

Right.

You know, and that's the power of canning and cloning yourself is like on your best day you record that content.

Yeah.

And you know, YouTube never has a bad day.

No, you're exactly right. I mean, I tell people all the time, I can sit and talk to you about marketing, but honestly, you be. For those who've read your book hasn't been released yet. The Average Joe's marketing book got about.

Six of them on the table right now.

Yeah, exactly where they're popping up mics there. That's why I've actually done the pre release version of the book. Just to prop up.

To prop up microphones, of course.

And so. Or listen to my podcasts, you know, I mean, it's one of these things to where I'm in a more focused state during times. If I. It just depends when you grab me. But see the recorded version, you're going to put more emphasis on getting it right. So the point is, if you're listening to this, I want you to start thinking, even if you've never thought of up until now seriously enough, that you're ever going to create a course, let's pretend for the remainder of this conversation that you are now in the stages of learning how to put together a course. And that's one thing. The other aspect is actually how do you sell it? So what else would you say to the benefits of having an online course that we didn't cover then? I'm going to go into another question.

Well, yeah, I'm glad you brought that back up because you always say people buy when they know, like and trust you. Right. And what better way to get someone to know like, and trust you than to stare at your face for six hours.

Yeah. On video.

Exactly. And so it's like, even if the online course, in our business, the online course for now, I mean, we're working on all kinds of new crazy stuff, but the online course is our top end, Right. It's like that's the golden product for us. Our flagship, if you will. But, you know, how much more rapport do I have with my audience when we want to go sell live events or coaching or whatever it is? Because they've stared at me, they know me, they've been in my home, you know, and they know my life story and I've told them it. And so you just have so much more rapport and online courses also, if you're in software, use online courses to educate people so that they become raving fans of your product. We were talking with Melina, right, who was here for the Genius Network meeting, and she's like, online courses are massive for us, but not because of the revenue they drive, because they Educate people how to use the essential oil products that we sell for homeopathic therapies. And they've dramatically boosted her sales because people would buy one or two and be like, I don't know how to use this stuff. Do I rub it on my feet? Do I rub it on my head? Do I eat it? You know, do a couple hours of online training and all of a sudden people are hitting that subscribe button and ordering those oils because now they know how to use the product.

Yes, exactly. Well, you know, and if you actually even sit and think about education and training, I think one of the smartest things that Apple did was they physically went out and opened up stores and they had the Genius bar and they could start educating people about their technology. And, and that is what brought so many people into the mix, is because they were training them and they were educating them. And now the way it is expanded out, now there's entire courses built around what they actually started there. So let's go into the one of my favorite areas, which is how we're actually going to sell the thing. But before we get there, let's talk about how do you build a course and what are the elements needed to build an engaging, a high value course? And let me say that I just created a course with John Ratliff, who's one of my not only Genius Network members, but he's also in my 100k group. And he's a guy that has sold his company for tens of millions of dollars and has helped dozens and dozens of other people sell companies for a few million to over hundreds of millions of dollars. And he just has knowledge that I've never read in a book. And the way he describes it and explains it, from negotiations to the ways that people try to screw you, to preparedness, to all of the things set up in order and sell your company. Because one of the focuses we have in Genius Network is to run your companies if you're going to sell it, even if you have no intention to sell it. And then also, you know, if you are going to, everyone's going to exit. You're either going to exit strategically or accidentally, you know, but everyone's going to exit at some point. And so we put together this amazing course. And when I say amazing, it's because after we had created the outline, we spent a lot of time on the phone with you, who's a master at creating online courses. And so I've been the recipient of your knowledge and that's why me and you are going to Create a course for Genius Network members, specifically on how to do courses and whatnot. But I'd like you to. You know, I know there's a lot to this, and you've got years, probably millions of dollars into this, but what are the key things that our listeners would need to know about how to build a course? What are the elements?

Yeah, Well, I start with the basic premise, because I've been the learner, and I've also been the person researching how learning happens, and I've been the person trying sell products that help people learn. So I approach this from three different ways. And my basic assumption, starting out, you know, YouTube predates Udemy and all these online course technologies, right? Before anyone ever figured out how to organize all these videos, there was YouTube. And so you got to assume when you start out that anything that you can teach, I mean, including a lot of stuff that we're in this room learning in Genius Network, some jerk has already put it on YouTube for free, right? And people can learn it for free. So you have to immediately ask yourself the question, why are people going to pay for content if they can get it for free? And it's very simple, right? It's the same things that Genius Network provides, right? It's eliminating guesswork, it's eliminating confusion, it's eliminating uncertainty. It's hand holding, and it's community, and it's all of these different things, right? So if you build a learning experience where the learner doesn't have to guess and they don't have to say, well, what's the next thing that I learn? And they have their handheld and they have this experience of being led. We call it a curated learning journey, which we have a trademark pending on it. If you take them on a curated learning journey, you're. I mean, how much would you pay to jumpstart the line of all the trial and error?

Right?

Right. It's the same reason, like, I teach a course on learning, right? I can learn very, very quickly. I have a private tutor for Russian. Why? Because rather than me do the work and guess, like, what are the words? I don't know what words. I don't know, and I don't know what words are important. Turns out there's six different words for clean in Russian. She knows that I don't know that, and she's eliminated the guesswork. And for a couple hundred bucks a week, she'll just take care of that for me, right? So. And it's the same thing in Genius Network. Like, I don't know what I'M not knowing. But when I sit down in a room with a bunch of other geniuses and they go, dude, you're not doing YouTube ads. You gotta be doing YouTube ads. I'm like, shit, I didn't even know that.

Right. And how do I do YouTube ads?

Exactly? And it's a fast track. It's a fast track. Like how I encourage people in the audience to ask themselves the question, like, whatever your biggest challenge in your life is right now, what would you pay for that problem to go away? And just to fast track that problem.

Let me speak to what you just said here, because this is a really important point that someone has to pull themselves out of their own way of seeing the world. And using some selling analogies is like Robert Collier, who's a copywriter from many, many years ago, the late Robert Collier said, as a copywriter, you have to enter a conversation that's already existing in the prospect's mind. And then there's the. If you want to sell what John Smith buys, you have to see through John Smith eyes or Judy Smith. So the thing is, you are not your own customer. And at the same time, you may want to market or target people that are just like you. Like, for me, I have no problem cutting a check for people that will solve a problem for me into high levels. Because if you have enough money to solve the problem, you don't have a problem.

My favorite things.

Yeah, and that's a quote from Dan Sullivan. And there are other people that, you know, you'll read reviews about a book on Amazon. And I mean, I've seen it a hundred times where, you know, yeah, the book was good, but, you know, you can, you can find the same information on the Internet, right? And it's like, well, yeah, but I don't give a shit about spending 15 to 20 bucks, or in my case, a thousand or even more.

Right.

If it's organized for me.

Exactly. And in the right order.

Exactly.

It's like, because there's a certain order to which you need to learn things, right? Like, I'm not going to start talking to you about Planck's constant unless we've done some basic understanding of physics. Right. And some basic understanding of how light works, you know, and, and that's exactly what I mean by curated learning journey. And a metaphor that I really like is like, if you took a child to a museum, you wouldn't take them automatically to the first. You know, cross all the other exhibits and take them into the, the astrophysics. You know, what are black holes? No, you would, like, step by step, hold their hand. You'd ask, like, what's the right thing for this child to learn based on their psychological state, their age, their knowledge level? And then you would check in with them and be like, okay, how did that go? Right. Like, you wouldn't just overwhelm your kid. And yet so many people overwhelm either themselves or their learner. It's like, consider the psychological state. And we, I mean, you've heard like Abraham Lincoln, I think it was, who said that he would sharpen the ax for four hours if he had six hours to cut down the tree. We sharpen the axe. Like, by the time I sit down to write my content, I know exactly what's going to be in it because I plan the content so astutely before I ever write it that it's a psychological journey. I'm taking you on a journey with me.

Yeah. Okay, so. And for people that, as we go through this, I just want to let everyone know and at the end I'll ask you to. Well, you can say it right now. So if someone wants to learn how to go really deep with creating courses, you have a course on how to create courses. So how will people find that?

We have 14 courses on every aspect of this. So how do you do the marketing funnels for the online courses and the podcast and all that is at BrandingYou Academy Branding.

Okay, great, cool. So we'll mention that at the end. So let's cover some things there. Like what are the best ways that you've learned on how to sell a course?

Yeah, so for a long time, the best thing that was working for us was Facebook ads into webinars. I mean, a lot of what Jason Fladline talks about. And this is why I love Jason's work so much, because he taught everyone who taught me, you know, how to do this stuff.

And we have a great training we did right here in this very room called Genius Webinars.

And let me tell you, we've done seven figures through those webinars. We're now finding people are becoming more skeptical. I meant to ask Jason about this, but I didn't catch him at the meeting. People are becoming more skeptical. Like, even in our Facebook ads, people are commenting like, oh, here we go, another 45 minute sales pitch, which it isn't. I mean, our webinar is phenomenal. If you actually go through my webinar and you are diligent and you're willing to do all the stuff that we just said that my online course solves like you're willing to piece together and actually figure out the order in which you learn stuff. You don't actually need to buy. My course, my webinar, I believe, is that good. Like, I'll teach you visual memory. There's one big technique that I don't teach because I don't want to overwhelm people. But you know, we were talking about, like, ads need to be inherently of value.

Yeah.

And let me tell you, this webinar is pretty freaking valuable. Yeah. It's like the same explanation that I've given to people that I've mentored. And so anyway, that's worked really well for us in the past. Obviously. We have this five pointed pinwheel diagram that we created. And it's a lot of the stuff that you see in your business where, you know, podcast will drive online course sales, low end online course sales will drive high end online course sales. And it's essentially getting all the connections between all the different points of the star. So that your email list, you know, don't forget in your email list to ask people to subscribe to your podcast. And the second PS in your super signature is, by the way, we have a discount going for online courses. Same thing with your social media. Right. Like, do you have groups on Facebook that are pushing your online courses, your books? Right. Like so many people, the book is used to get the newsletter subscription. But is the book directly driving people to your website to download all the extra goodies in your book? And then when they get to that page, you say, well, you know, if you're going to get the extra goodies for the book, do you want the video version of the book? It's two hours, it's 49 bucks, you know, and so it's, it's just, I think a lot of what we've done well in our business is not just that the traditional route of paid ads into webinars, but it's connecting all the pieces together so that our organic traffic, because, you know, I was telling you the other day in the car, like Facebook changed something February 5th, and all of a sudden we're spending two and a half times as much to acquire a customer. And so, you know that we're gonna have to innovate and solve that problem probably with YouTube ads, and we're gonna talk to Liz Herrera. But thank God that we've got organic traffic to support us.

Right.

And that not all our revenue comes from just one source. Right. Stuff's coming in through the books. Stuff's coming in through the Udemy courses stuff's coming in through the podcast sponsorship.

So. Well, so the thing to take away from that for our listeners and anyone that's listened to, you know, I love marketing. They have a lot of different knowing that there's not just one best way to sell anything, there's hundreds of ways to sell, you know, something, and you should utilize every one that makes sense and works.

But there's a very wrong way to do things, which is hoarding all your content and being like, well, I don't want to give away too much. I don't want to tell too much to Joe's audience. And no, that's the wrong way. The right way is give away some of your best stuff, whether it's free recorded messages or it's a guide to hiring, you know, people in your area, or it's a webinar or it's a weekly podcast. I mean, how much value is on. I love marketing. People can do everything. I mean, people, people could build multimillion dollar businesses with just that stuff. And the same is true of our podcast, you know, and, and so there's a wrong way. And the wrong way is, is to hoard all your best content.

And yeah, if you think, if you think it's so good that you don't want to share it with the world because, oh, you're going to put it out there, no one's going to buy anything from you. You're, you know, you basically don't get it.

That's all the more reason to give it away.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the way that I operate now, and I'll tell you, not everyone does operate this way. If someone creates enormous value for me and I learn something that makes me money or changes my life or whatever, I will not only endorse the hell out of them and tell other people to buy their stuff or whatever, but I'll just cut them checks.

Exactly.

Because it's like, you know, and a lot of people, they actually won't. So part of it is, you know, you got to understand, you know, as much as you can about the mindset of the person that you're actually selling to and all of that. But I rarely have seen someone do well by hoarding. I mean, the people that do well are just have a, have a spirit of giving and they're very useful and they put stuff out there and they solve people's problems and people are like, wow, well, if I've gotten this much value out of this, I mean, imagine the next thing and everything you put out Be it a book, be it a podcast, be it a talk, be it a video on YouTube or Facebook or wherever is a probe. It's a seed. And if you keep going, you know, there are people that will. This is all about, literally, ways to build rapport and improve people's knowledge, their understanding, their situation, and ultimately their life, depending on what your subject matter is. So what have you discovered about accelerated learning? Could you talk about that? That can make someone a more effective student?

Yeah, I mean, a lot. We have a 16 hour course on this.

Yeah, we'll go figure.

I mean, right, Right. There's a whole thing. There's a lot. There's a lot. And, you know, not everything can be learned faster, but the vast majority of things can. And the way the first thing that it starts with is improving your memory. Right? Your memory. Think about it. Is like a metaphor that I give in our course is imagine you've got a bucket and you've got a funnel, and then you've got a hose. And a lot of people get all interested in this idea of speed reading. Or let me speed up all the videos that I watch on YouTube. It's like you're just taking the fire hose. The hose and you're replacing it with a fire hose. Right. It's like. But you still got the same funnel, you still got the same bucket. Like, you need to upgrade your infrastructure. And so the first thing, and 70% of our program, because over the years, and I was one of those people, by the way, I used to think that the speed reading was the sexy thing. And then I realized speed reading is a tool, but improving your memory, that's like upgrading your entire computer. And then speed reading is an app that you install on that fancy new computer. Right. But so is memorizing all the names of everyone you ever meet. You know, I come into the room at Genius Network, I've already memorized everyone's name in the room.

Right.

So, like, how much more valuable is that for me, spending 25k to network with people that I already know.

Yeah.

As opposed to people who are like, sorry, what was your name the third time? You know, like, how much rapport are you building? There's. So it all starts with memory. Improving your memory. And the key to improving your memory, you know, is not a secret. Again, this is stuff that we've known, humanity has known for 2500 years.

Yeah.

It's visual memory. It's connecting your memories together in a very deliberate way to things that you already know. And it's organizational systems like the memory palace. And so the other day.

Palace?

Yeah, the other day I was hanging out with Jason Campbell and his partner Amy, and I was like, I bet you I could trick you guys into memorizing 50 digits backwards and forwards. And, you know, inevitably, if you say that to two people, one of them will go, oh, no, I have the worst memory, you know, which is, by the way, another accelerated learning hack. Stop telling yourself I have the worst memory, because your brain would. Would be super happy to confirm that for you. It's like, I call it. I call that the intellectual Pygmalion effect. You know, if you, if you start saying like, oh, I'm such a klutz, you're gonna be klutzier.

Intellectual Pygmalion effect?

Yeah, the Pygmalion effect is. There was this study called the Rosenthal Jacobs study, where they figured out that if a manager or a teacher or a parent thinks that someone beneath them, you know, in the hierarchy, not beneath them in another way, if a manager thinks that his employee is an underperformer, they will under perform. That's called the golem effect. If the manager thinks that the person's a high performer, they will perform better. We don't know why it works, but it works. And that is even if he hides it. He or she, the manager hides it. So the same is true of you and yourself if you tell yourself, you know, I got the worst willpower. I'm so weak, I can't. You know, I just see a dessert and it's like, that's your self talk, man. And your brain wants you to be right. There's nothing your brain hates more than being wrong.

You know, this is going to seem like a total, like departure from what you're talking about, so we'll come back to it. I just have to ask you, you know, here you are training all kinds of other people to learn stuff, absorb stuff, increase their memory focus, you know, just. Just a whole variety of. I mean, there's all kinds of subject matters that you've done courses on. When it comes to self talk, though, and when it comes to learning how, how much seriously should we take what we say when we talk to ourselves?

I think it's a lot. I think it's a lot because I mean, first off, I think as you age, at least as I've aged, I've become so much more compassionate, partly because I know this and I know that my self talk is gonna influence. But also, I think, you know, a younger person, especially us men, we beat the hell out of ourselves. And we're like, what? You know, why didn't I wake up at 5:30? And I'm such a lazy piece of shit. And you know, you beat yourself up. And I've realized that Kaizen is a much better way. It's like tomorrow I'll wake up 10 minutes earlier and I'll do five minutes of meditation instead of I'm gonna wake up at 4am tomorrow and meditate for an hour. It's like, how far are you going to get with that? And. And I've realized that just self compassion. And I think a lot of us have a tendency, especially myself and probably you as well. We'll give so much slack to other people will be so understanding. You know, I'll look at my team and they'll say, you know, I'm really sorry, I'm behind on this deadline and I just haven't been feeling well. Oh my God, no problem. Like no big deal. Totally fine. Take three days off. Like get well, you know.

Right.

But me, it's like I was supposed to have this done yesterday. What a worth, you know.

Yeah.

It's like, why? Why am I that way? So yeah, I think it's huge. I think it's super important for people to be kind to themselves.

You know. We were talking in Genius Network about courses. What I said to everyone, I was like, imagine if you actually. Here you are if you have children. I asked people, how many in the audience have children? And I said, imagine doing a course that you're not going to, you know, share with the world, but you're gonna, it's gonna be for your kids more course on everything that you've learned about life, about love, about relationships, about health, a variety of money, you know, whatever.

I'm writing that down.

Yeah. And people start creating a course for the loved ones, for their employees, if they're an entrepreneur for we did it. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's a way, there's way more things that you can do with the mindset of creating a course than just, you know, like here Jonathan is selling to hundreds of thousands of people, you know, trainings. But everyone here has a course that could be beneficial. Including, you know, I was sitting there even thinking, imagine if you actually did a course for your best friend. Like, because what I said in the meeting is, how do you treat a best friend? You give them a lot of slack. And if you're someone that beats yourself up or has a lot of self sabotage or you know, someone like me that's, you know, had A addiction in their life and a lot of struggles and stuff, you know, and you've. You've gotten to a place where you're in a good spot and you're doing well, and you decided to do a course to encourage yourself, your own course to yourself, to encourage you. What would you need to say? What are the areas that you fall.

In love that idea.

And you actually do a course for yourself, and then you listen to your own words in a good state. So when you're in a bad state, you actually lift yourself up.

I really like that idea.

Yeah.

And it's also like, in your. In your best state, you know how to get out of things. Right, Right. It's like I have a. So I. Over the last few years, I interviewed Gretchen Rubin, and I love her work, and she has this concept called secrets of adulthood. And it's like the things that no. No adult will tell you because you have to learn it by yourself. So, for example, one of them is, every human being on this planet has been screwed up by their parents. Either their parents were too good and set too high of expectations, or too bad and set too low of expectations. No one comes out unscathed. That's a secret of adulthood. Like, no one could. You have to learn that on your own. Right. And I learned that because my parents are incredibly supportive and wonderful. And it took me. I was 18 before I realized that I wasn't the center of the universe. I'm an only child. And another secret of adulthood for me is that pretty much anything, any depressive state that I get into can be solved by music, exercise, or people I love.

Yeah.

You know, and if someone were to tell you that, you'd brush it off. But in your darkest hour, if I hadn't written that down, you know, in my darkest hour, I wouldn't know to go to that. But I've written that down. I've created this. Yeah. It's effectively a course for myself. These 31 secrets that I've written, and I write one every year for my birthday. And, like, what did I learn in the last year?

Right, Right. No, that's awesome. I actually. We'll explore this, but I think me and you should put together a course on for people to do courses for themselves that never gets sold to anyone. I love it. But they're used to just either encourage yourself or people that are close to you whenever they're going to need that.

You know the digital diary.

Exactly. Exactly. You know, I mean, and I kind of take that from. In 12 steps, there's a guy that was a friend of mine who. He sponsored people. He wasn't. He was never sponsored me, just someone I would, you know, was a friend. And he said he sponsored a lot of people one day. And I'm like, you know, why. Why do you sponsor so many people? What. What do you. What's the most you get out of it? And he said, you know, he goes for one. It helps people. But beyond that, I share with people experience, strength, and hope so that when I'm in a shitty place like they are, I can call them up and they will feed back to me what I had told them when I was.

Helping them when I was in the bank. Yeah, deposit in the bank in case you need it one day.

Exactly. Which is awesome. So, okay, so let's see. Is there anything else you'd like to add to the accelerated learning and, you know, helping someone become a more effective student or.

Well, I think another. We covered kind of self talk because it is super important. I mean, if we had this incredible experience, we started realizing the first week of our course is set up because we know from the research by a guy named Malcolm Knowles that adults need to know why they're learning in order to learn. So that's. That's another thing that you could extract right away is before you sit down to try and learn something, set some goals while you're trying to learn this thing. It will automatically make your. Your learning more effective. But so the first week of the course, you don't actually learn a lot. Right. And per se. And we had people writing in and going, this is amazing. My memory's already improved. And then we look in their account and they're in, like, week one. It's not. It's not possible. You haven't actually learned it. You've learned a little bit about, like, how your brain works. And then we realize it was this. It was people going, I'm in a memory course. My memory is getting better.

Right.

It was literally placebo effect. And from self talk, which.

Which has so much to do with everything in life.

And so just think, like, even if you don't pick up a copy of a course, like, if you just change your self talk and be like, my memory is actually quite good. I have a gifted memory, which, by the way, there's no such thing. I know many of the world's top record holders, none of them have any genetic advantage. And most of them agree that would have said 10 years ago, 20 years ago that they have a lousy memory. Wow. And today they can memorize 24 decks of cards in a minute, you know, or. Sorry. They can memorize a deck of card in 24 seconds and multiple decks of cards in a minute.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow, that's awesome. So I'm just gonna suspend the belief there because I don't do that yet. But that's, that's, that's no problem.

I can teach you. We have time today.

I can do it. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, as soon as we're done here, we're gonna do it.

We're gonna memorize cards. Yeah. I will trick you into memorizing 50 digits back and forth. I did it with Jason and they did. I forgot to tell the second half of that story. They did it forwards and backwards. Wow. Yeah. I mean, what period of time? I think it was the hardest part was walking around their house. They have a very lovely home. Hardest part was walking around the home. But I think we spent about five minutes and with no training, I mean, I had to help them the day after recall it. But I mean, if I trained you and you practiced it one time a day, you could do 50, 50 digits backwards, forwards, no problem. 250 people's names. It's amazing what your brain can do. We just don't know how to use it.

Yeah.

And I mean, that sounds like really sexy marketing speak, but it's really not like we literally don't know how to use our brains.

Well, that is true. That is true. So just, you know, helping people become better learners is such. I mean, I would like to hope that that's what we're doing here.

Yeah. And it's a gateway drug. Like, I realized pretty early on when people started sharing in our Facebook group and whatever. I really could give a shit how fast people read and how many words they memorize. The stories that I love is when they go, I was able to do this, and therefore I graduated a year early, or Therefore I read 15 business books and I started a business. Or and therefore, you know, I set the. The. The highest score on the bar exam in five years. Like, I, for me, I really don't care about how fast they learn. I care about what they do with it.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's the same thing as marketing. Like, okay, cool, you can write great copy. Like, what did you frickin do with what you learned in the room at Genius Network? Because otherwise it's like you're just becoming a human library.

No, exactly.

Unrealized potential.

You know, we have one of the gaping void images up that's, you know, Talks about being a result leader and the thought leader.

Yep.

You know, thing right over there. Yeah, it's, you know, being a thought leader is the, is one of the big buzzwords right now. But I always jokingly say, you know, any idiot can come up with a thought.

Right.

You know, like, let's see your ability to produce a result. So that's ultimately what I want from, I mean, I don't want people to learn marketing just so they can learn marketing. I want them to go out and take it and produce a result in their life. Totally do something useful. Okay, so let's make the assumption that our listeners, they want to do a course, they kind of get it. This makes sense to them. So what are the first steps someone could take right now to create their course?

First step, write an outline. Right. Well, I mean, I guess the first step is identify the need. Right. What are the things that you see people struggling to learn? What are the things I always ask, what are the things that we're being asked by our students? Right.

Or prospects. Or clients.

Or prospects. Or clients. I built my productivity course because I used to hang out with a bunch of people in my demographic. I used to host. I had this great apartment overlooking the water and people used to come to my apartment and work with me, other entrepreneurs. This was like before wework was really popular in Israel. So we used to sit there and people would constantly interrupt me and be like, what did you just do there? How'd you do that? Wait, that's automated. Like why, how, how are you doing? Like stopping my workflow. And I'd just be like, alright, I'll record a video for you. And after, you know, a while of doing that, it's like, well, you know, that's the kind of stuff that I was sitting with Eunice on and, and like showing her all these hacks that, and automations that you can develop because I geek out on that stuff. So what's the pressing need and what are people continually coming to you to learn? And I want to say even if you go on and you search the Internet and there's 15 other people teaching this content, no one's going to teach it like you. And there may be millions of learners out there who don't resonate with the way that it's taught because we learn from people who we like. And so I'm going to go out and tell you I don't resonate with the females as well as I resonate with the males. And they're still to this day I've Even thought about bringing in, like, a business partner, a female business partner, because there's no one in the accelerated learning space who's a female. And so it's like all these women who want to learn faster. I guess I just don't resonate with them because I'm a young dude, and maybe I'm too cocky on my videos or whatever it might be. I have a dear friend who's my business partner in my other venture, but he looks a little bit older. He's got gray hair since he was very young. And his demographic is the people that are aging. Right. Like, the people 50 to 45, I think, to 60, he told me, are the people that resonate because he looks like them and he resonates with them. He's got a long beard and long hair. And, you know, and those people would never buy from me because they just don't. I'm like a whippersnapper to them. And so it's like, there. If there may be someone teaching what you teach, but if they're, you know, they're serving different demographics.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

You know, and look at Marie Forleo's. It's almost all women who are in her programs. Same with Amy Porterfield. Almost all women who are in her programs. And she's teaching webinars and stuff, because maybe Jason's webinar content is not appealing to females. It's interesting. And there's many more flavors and varieties than just age and gender. There's personality, style, there's culture. Right. Like, Brits don't like to buy as me from me as much as they like to buy from Mark Chan because he has a British accent. So it's interesting.

You know, I almost have to speak to something, too, because you said, like, Marie and Amy, both of who have been on my podcast. I've known Marie now for over 15 years, and I remember the very first seminar she ever went to. Our buddy Evan Pagan is the one that invited her to come to this event. And back then, she was doing fitness videos.

Really?

For Crunch. Yeah. And she had a book, make every man want you and make the one you got want you more. How to be so damn irresistible that you can barely keep from dating yourself. I mean, I remember even when it was the subtitles. It's so funny.

She's a great marketer.

Oh, yeah, she's awesome. And it's. It's interesting to see the people. They have been at it for a long time. And so the point is, if you were to go back and look at the original things that, I mean, hell, I mean, even do a search for like Amy and my name on Google or with Marie and look at old videos from many, many years ago and stuff. You see people that have become very successful. I mean, even Tim Ferriss. You look at the videos of me with Tim Ferriss back in like right when the four hour workweek first came out and you see people that have been through, you know, they just stick with it. So wherever you're at anything worth doing in the beginning, you know, the very first course you're going to do may be your worst course. The very first video you do, you do is going to be your worst video. But the thing is, is like, you know, that's where you start, you know.

Right. And you. The beauty is it's a lot easier to redo a course than redo a book.

Right.

You don't need a publisher to agree. And you can update people's content. Right. Like, exactly. Just think about like it drives me nuts that like you can publish a book and then you. Some new scientific discovery comes out. In my case, right. Like in 2017, there was some really amazing research about how the CA3 region of the brain works in tandem with the locus co aureoleus shit. I want to update my books, but there's 20,000 copies out there, you know, and I can't just push an update because they're paperback. Right. Online courses, you can do that and you do do that. And that's why we have a studio. I mean, you don't need to do this, but we have a 4k studio in my home where I can. Just last week I was like, we need to update this. The speed reading stuff. Some new research came out and I want to clarify some stuff that people get hung up on.

Yep.

You know, so we update it and.

Again, so it goes back to the, you know, to start laying it out. So what's your perspective on different price points when it comes to courses? Because there's like everything under the sun.

Yeah. I think you got to take two things into consideration. Number one is of course, what's the value of the content that you're teaching? But I think you have to actually ask not what is the value to you or what is the value in dollars and cents, it's what is the value that you will be able to create in someone's life. If you're going to teach a course on brewing microbrews, that's pretty cool. But that's a hobby, right? Like what are people going to spend on that?

There's not $25,000.

There's not $25,000. Microbrew courses. Exactly.

And raising urban chickens. If I could figure out how to start a genius network group for raising urban chickens, that would.

Urban chickens for $25,000. Not rural chickens.

Urban.

Urban chickens.

Here's the reason I say this jokingly. I've never done anything with it. Maybe I should do a course with you.

This would be raisingurban chickens dot com.

I own it. I own the URL. I've owned it for years and I've never had. I've never raised an urban chicken. I mean, you know, maybe I should start now. But did Dean talk you into. No, no, listen to this, listen to the story. Because this is how my marketing brain works. There's relevance to this. So years ago there was a bookstore in like Chandler area and it's been out of business for many, many years. And they used to have authors and it was a yoga studio, bookstore, coffee shop altogether it was kind of, kind of cool. I actually like the place. And you know, basically we got someone walking through the room who's going to make noise and interfere with our recording quality.

So just not as much noise as that explanation.

Yeah, exactly. But you know, but I had to shoo the person when they're walking by, so. And by the way, me and Jonathan are in the big genius network room right now sitting at a table with our video guys in the back, you know, doing whatever the hell they're doing back there. It's just, I wish we could actually show this piece. But anyway, so they were doing, they would have authors and speakers at this coffee shop. And I saw this, this thing come through. Raising urban chickens. I saw it like, it was like literally in like a local like paper. I mean so many years ago where we were still reading more paper and ink. And they also, I got an email from them. I was on their email list and I have no idea what was drawn from me. I'm like, I gotta go see this. And I called up, I can't remember who it was. I think my friend Sonia, who was a yoga instructor, I'm like, let's go see this thing. And so we go there and it's packed. I mean there's not a seat in the frickin place. And people are like standing out the door and around. Yeah, I'm not kidding you. And so I say to the owner, I'm like, what is the. He's like, this is the highest attended program that we've ever had. And there were some permaculture people in Arizona there and it would like people just responded to this thing. So my marketing brain is like, this is obviously interesting to a lot of people. So I registered the URL raisingurbanchicks.com and I've never done anything with it, but I never forgot that that hit a hot button with a lot of people and yeah, so that's where it came up. So you know, love it. Yeah. If someone's listening to this and they're a world class expert on raising chickens.

And rain chickens, please reach out to us immediately.

Yeah, I will. Here's what I think would be really funny is to do a course like this. Just throw it up online, make it really useful. I mean, obviously get the best stuff. You know, get some world class experts on raising urban chickens. And literally if you guys are listening.

To this raisingurbanchickens on Twitter.

Yeah, yeah. And what, what, you know, put it together and just turned it into like, you know, 20,000, 50,000amonth and just show people that you can make a course out of anything if you just pay attention. Of what?

Well, yeah, I mean, Russell Brunson started his whole thing with potato gun tutorials and this was before bandwidth. It would have been an online course today, but back then it was an ebook and I mean that became like multiple thousand dollars a month just on potato gun tutorials of like what pipes do you buy at Home Depot and how do you not blow your frickin hands off?

Right.

So yeah, you gotta, you gotta ask. That's one factor, right? Is like how much value is it going to create in people's lives? And you know, it's funny because we're at a disadvantage a little bit because I know and I can prove to you. I've got research from the Economist group and all kinds of different things. If you learn how to learn more effectively and you apply it to like one thing, like you learn German, I'm going to raise your salary by 3% a year, which if you're on an average salary, that's a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. I think it's 70 to $100,000 in your life. Sorry, not a year in your life. 70 to $100,000 more a year. Right. So I should be able to charge a lot for my memory course. But the thing is most people are using it to get through grad school, which is like, this isn't going to make me more money, it's just going to reduce my stress and so we're, you know, we charge 300, $400, 500, I think, for our kind of like package bundle. But, you know, if you're doing a course and unless you're Joe Polish, the upper range is typically around $2,500 for an online course. That's the most that I've seen them go. But Ramit Sethi just released the course for six grand. The difference is you're gonna have to give a ton of. You're gonna have to have certified instructors come on, hop on the phone, do a lot of work with the student. So really you can think about it as an online offline component.

Well, let me say sue the course I just did with John Ratliff, we're gonna be selling for $10,000.

But you're Joe Polish.

Right, right. And, well, and I say right, right. But the, the thing is though is, you know, I've been at this for a long time. I build rapport with a lot of people. The value of the content and the way that we position it. Because of course, the formula for how much you charge for anything is based on your ability to sell it.

Totally that, you know, and, you know, I think I heard John say, I don't want to commit to this, obviously, but if you buy that course and then you work with John, you get that credited back to whatever you're going to pay and sell your business.

End up doing a consulting thing with him. Yeah.

So that course is effectively, you know, you want everyone to upsell. So that course is effectively going to be free for a lot of these people included in the service that they work with John.

Yes, if they're the right fit client. Because there's a certain type of person that he will and will not work with. And, and here's, here's the thing too, though, as it relates to money making courses or things that have much harder to do with like exercise or so much harder or whatever. When you're selling how to make money, you can sell money at a discount. We're going to teach you how to make 100 grand. You're going to sell to you for 2,500 bucks.

This is why we sell for 1300 bucks. The branding New Academy. And we want to get it to 2,500 as soon as we have enough proof that we can go, look, this guy, we had this guy Gonzalo, I won't cut your next question off, but we have some case studies that we've shown, like people earning five times what the national average income is as soon as we get enough of those to where I can go, on average, you're gonna make 20 grand, 25 grand a year doing this. The first year you do it, then we're just gonna up the price to one tenth of that simple formula that I learned from Joe Polish.

Well, let me say this too also, you know, there's, there's ways that you can sell high priced things without even having to make money claims. And in some cases you're better off not making money claims. It's just having the marketplace do it for you. If you are really good and really caring and really produce value. As far as I believe everything that I sell for entrepreneurs is the cost to come to my school. Be it Genius Network, be it any of my programs, any of my trainings, my annual event, any special things that we've started to do here in the Genius Network headquarters is it's a school that pays you to attend. Most schools that people go to, they have to pay to attend. This school actually costs nothing. And I actually target people that get that because as my friend JR says for those that get it, no explanation is needed for, for those that don't know, explanation will do. We were even talking yesterday. We won't names. There's a lot of people that are famous that are successful and they're really cheap and they're pennywise and pound foolish and they're arrogant and they, you know, they think they're too cool for school and in spite of the success they have, they shoot themselves in the foot with because they are unwilling to invest in their own future or they think they're so cool that they can't attend or buy or whatever.

They can't be seen as a rank and file member.

Exactly. As a student or learner. And honestly I've seen a lot of these people that were amazing as friends when they first started their careers and then they get a little bit of fame and notoriety some best and they become these arrogant assholes and they start believing their own PR and they're so full of shit. And they were like 10 times better than they were students. So the reason I'm bringing that up is always be a student as much as you can. Never be too cool for school. And you will be a better service provider of value for your clients than ever someone that starts believing their own pr.

Also because the person in business who's going to end in life in a lot of ways, the person who's going to upset you and come out and steal your lunch is not going to be one of your big competitors. It's going to be some tiny, scrappy little guy who figures out a new way to do these marketing funnels. It's like, no one knew who Neil Patel was five years ago, right? But he's freaking crushing it on the webinar funnels right now. And he's innovated all this different stuff with how his registrations work and how his retargeting pixels work. You talk to any marketing agency, like, I've interviewed quite a few. We just hired a new. And they're like, oh, have you seen what, what Neil's doing? And I'm like, you know, do you think Frank Kern was worried about Neil Patel coming in and innovating? Like, no, it's not. It's not going to be one of the big dogs. And so it's like, don't discount anybody in business. I once, in my last company, we sold luxury luxury car parts on the web. And some kid reached out to me. I mean, at this point we're doing seven figures and I thought it was pretty damn smart as a 22 year old does. And some kid reaches out to me, he's like, hey, can I buy some stuff from you at wholesale? And I was a dick. And I blew him off. And I was like, why would I sell you my precious inventory? And so he just went around direct to the manufacturer. Three years later, he's my biggest competitor, growing faster than I am.

Oh, that's.

I was like, I should have just signed him on a wholesale contract and not been an asshole. And he would have bought from me, at least till he outgrew, you know, and it would have been building my business. Right. So that maybe I could have negotiated exclusive relationships with the manufacturers and cut him off, you know, and, and probably given him the same price that we were both getting because we weren't able to consolidate. So supply.

Right, Right.

Literally, I remember where I was sitting when I realized, like, holy shit, it's that guy.

Yeah.

You know, like one of the earliest, biggest bitch slaps I got in business.

Yeah. Yeah. Life has an interesting way of, of playing things out. But, you know, that's why I always try to look at every aspect. I mean, that's why even at this year's annual event, I'm doing a youth panel with five, five badasses, all under the age of 18 years old, that are doing all kinds of amazing stuff that I have no clue about. And even the people that are in the, in the audience, some that are world famous and running, you know, multi, multi Million dollar businesses don't even know the things that some of these 18 year old kids do. And I just try to bring the collaboration together anyway. So what are some success stories that you can share that people can learn from?

Yeah, for the online course thing or for the learning thing? You know, I'll give you one that's both. How's that? Yeah, we had this guy, Gonzalo, I don't know if I should share his last name, but Gonzalo, he lives in Uruguay and he was really struggling in school. He was in law school, really struggling. So he takes our super learner course powers through his degree, his third year of his degree. I think he ended up dropping out because the first thing he did was he took our branding you course. He's like, I can learn faster, let me learn how to build online courses. So Gonzalo, as I said, like, was starting out his career, didn't have a lot of skills that he wanted to sell. But it turns out that Uruguay is in this process of moving all their hospice and like private clinics and stuff. The government's mandated that they have to be on this new software for privacy or whatever. So they're just now moving from pen and paper to digital. Turns out that Gonzalo's mother is like a pro on this. She went to some seminar, she learned from the manufacturer. I don't remember exactly, but she's really good at the software. So Gonzalo convinces his mom, like, mom, let's go ahead and record a course. Fast forward. They're now one of the top course sellers in Uruguay. All these businesses are buying their course because they got to implement this software. I talked to him eight months ago, he was making five times the national average household income. So then he turned to his dad, who's an architect. He's like, hey, Dad, I wonder if we could build some online courses on all the strategies that you have. Similar to you, Joe, like, let's teach other architects how to run a successful architecture practice. And so they're building courses. I think his brother's getting into the business and it's just there, he's building online courses, helping other people, and he's producing the courses and they're printing money. Yeah, we had another guy, Olivier, he and his wife there, their kids left the house. They wanted to be location independent, which I think is one of the big selling points of doing online courses as opposed to leading a network every month, you know, where you have to be here. And they wanted to travel the world, they wanted some income. And so they started writing travel books and online courses for French speakers. And I think in one year they published 305 books. They're traveling the world and they got a place in Martinique and they're living in Singapore. And just incredible what they've been able to do. And only to French speakers.

Yeah.

So imagine like the English audience is so much bigger, but.

Well, here's the thing that when you, when you literally are the top person or one of the top in the world, in the niche.

Yeah.

It gives you enormous strength and power. And I actually recommend people the more that they can knit something down.

Great.

The audience, the category. Because there's a lot of people that are never going to be able to compete with like the talent of a Tony Robbins. But they can go into things like I did the carpet cleaning industry and dominate that entire industry and change thousands of lives and use that as a catalyst for what ended up becoming everything that I do today. I mean, I started out as a Deborah carpet cleaner and I put courses together for carpet cleaners. After I learned how to turn my carpet cleaning business around. I never learned what I learned, thinking I would teach it to other people. I learned what I learned because I needed to survive. And then once I did that and I had success with it, I packaged up what I did, how I did it and the mindset that I had. And I think this is very applicable even today. When I first had success, you know, when I was 26 years old, I sold a quarter million dollars worth of courses to carpet cleaners at 26.

Back when a quarter of a million dollars was a lot of money.

It totally was. Yeah, that was, that was almost 25 years ago because I'm 50 now, but basically then the next year I sold half a million worth of courses. The third year I was a millionaire plus. And then, you know, I was off to the races, right. And all in carpet cleaning, all just carpet cleaning, just teaching carpet cleaners how to build and grow their businesses. And the, and they were, you know, cassette tapes, VHS tapes, a 250 page manual and you know, quick start. I mean, people literally were putting VHS tapes and VCRs and watching 10 minute videos on how to go through the course. I mean, you know, I didn't have anyone like you or anyone that, you know, put it together. I mean, I, but I was always an investor in knowledge. I mean, I was even buying stuff on credit cards when I didn't have any money to learn how to do this stuff because it always, I always parlayed it. I, you Know, it's marketing arbitrage. I mean, one of the reasons people join Genius Network, it's marketing arbitrage. So they pay $25,000, they come and learn some technique from some world class person or something we're sharing and they go out and they apply it or they teach it to other people and make hundreds of thousands.

I was sitting in that seat right next to you when I Learned the whole 9 word email thing.

Yeah.

And that's made, that's covered probably about my Genius Network membership. And that's one thing.

Yeah, exactly.

One idea.

Yeah.

Which we Talked about at 9:30am on my first day.

Right. And you wrote that amazing, wonderful article and even recorded it. Yeah. Jonathan did a, he wrote up a great thing after his first Genius Network meeting, which was so nice and so awesome.

Well deserved to know.

I appreciate it. And you put that out there and like, yeah, people, if you just type in Jonathan Levy, Genius Network, it's, it's great. But it's like, so, so with what I did though, the, the mindset that I had when I first started selling courses was I went through hell. When I first had my carpet cleaning business, I went $30,000 in debt. I was a hard worker. I cared about people. I was certified. I did a good job. I mean, I did a great job. I cared about my clients. And I was broke and I was literally paying money to go broke. I was doing hard, man. You know, and I would always say, there's a million ways that you can go broke. Go broke sitting on the tv, you know, sitting on the tv, sitting on the couch, watching tv. Don't go broke doing hardcore manual labor and paying money to do that. And that's what I was doing because I so wanted to have my own business. I so wanted this little entrepreneurial dream to come true. And so after I learned how to turn it around, I started thinking to myself, what do I wish had existed when I first got into this business that wouldn't. I would not have to go through the hell that I went through in order to figure it out? And so when I created my course, that was the mindset. What is it that I need to deliver to these people? Was it the perfect way to deliver? No. My first course with the manual part was littered with typos. I mean, people would even send back letters like, you know, I love the material, but here's a bunch of typos. And they would edit it from, for me and they would send it back while they were also using it. So I also realized that it's better to be prolific than it is to be perfect, you know? Now, there's a difference, though. That doesn't mean put shit in a box and send it to people. It just means get it out there and just keep in, like you said. The beauty, of course, is you can edit them as you go along. So, you know, that's the whole thing. So let me. Let me. Let me ask you before we wrap up here, what are some of the most useful and important entrepreneurial lessons that you've learned?

Oh, so I've been an entrepreneur for now, 16 years, but probably before I had my first actual incorporated company 16 years ago.

Yeah.

When I was 16. Yeah.

And.

Oh, man.

Yeah. First off, my own companies for 30 years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's a. There's a lot of them, but I think the big one, and I think this is why I so resonated with you, Joe, is, I mean, it ties into the idea of elf. But what I realized, and we talked about it actually, at this genius network meeting, is that your business or a company, an entrepreneurial business, any business exists to serve the needs of real human beings. And the first are the ones inside the door, not the ones outside the door. And the first. First is you. Right. Your business exists to serve your needs. And those needs aren't just monetary. You have a need for learning, you have a need for relaxation, you have a need for lifestyle. You have a need for satisfaction. Right? And the. The. You have a need to impact people and leave a legacy. And it's like, meet those needs first. Because if you're not meeting those needs, you may as well go be an I banker. Right? And then the only need you're gonna get met is money. And let's be honest, like, how many I bankers feel like they're saving the whales? Not a lot. I don't. I don't know. I don't know that many I bankers, but if you're going to compromise on all that other crap, then go find another job. You make a ton of sacrifices to be an entrepreneur. You sacrifice your stability. You sacrifice peace of mind. You sacrifice plausible deniability. You know, like, whatever your company does, that's you. Doesn't matter if one of your employees did. At the end of the day, like, that's your responsibility. And in exchange for those sacrifices, you better get something in return. And it should be freedom, because I believe that freedom is the new currency. Like, I would rather make half a million a year and be free and travel whenever I want than make 5 million a year and be locked in and go to the office from 7am to 9pm Like a lot of I bankers do.

Yeah, no, you're right.

Like, you're right. And I think most people.

So that term I bankers. Yeah, expand on that.

Investment bankers, you know, the folks working at Goldman Sachs trying to push out IPOs and. Yeah, yeah.

And so the thing with. I do believe that too. I actually, Dan Sullivan, years ago, it was probably a decade ago, asked, he's like, what's the one word that you think represents what we're doing here at Strategic Coach? And he asked everyone and I told him, I said, well, you know, what's the one word? Because he had, I think he just read, you know, now rise Jack Trout book on positioning or something. And I said, well, I think the word is freedom. And he took that role seriously and he went and recorded the 10 freedoms of the entrepreneur. He went through all these sort of different. But it's true. And so there's a lot of people that live in prisons with golden bars.

Yes, And I think that's another great one. Most of the prisons in our lives, we build and especially as entrepreneurs. And that's why I sold my last company, because I had to go into the office every single day. And there was a culture that was toxic and I didn't enjoy it. And you know, that competitor that I talked about earlier was screwing up. And so I literally built this prison that I was living in. And I realized even now, not too long ago, I realized, like, I don't have an office. You know, I go into wework once in a while, but, like, I'm still in a prison. Like, how often do I actually fly across the world and hang out with my buddy Joe? And how often do I go sit on the beach? I live 10 minutes from the beach, you know, like, how often do I do it and how often do I go fly fishing? And like, I'm still in a prison. The prison is just sitting on my laptop and, you know, checking payment statements and replying to emails.

Right, right.

So.

So the key, the, the key takeaway here with that is that you're like, I think life is, you get on track, you're doing well, maybe your fitness is great, maybe you're feeling good, you don't have body pain, you're sleeping well, you have a great relationship. And then life happens, which it always does, and you get knocked off track. And what some, Someone asked me, you know, many years ago, it's like, why do you read all these books? Why do you Go to these seminars. Why do you go to these courses? Don't you. You haven't you already learned all this stuff? You already own this. You can just keep going back to it. I go, well, you know, it just keeps me up. It keeps me in an up state. And entrepreneurship can be lonely at times, and you can be very isolated, and you could have. You could be in this creative mode and no one seems to understand you, or at least your perception is. No one seems to understand you. But when I dip into other people's knowledge and their learning and I go and associate, it literally puts me in that upstate.

Yeah.

And that's the beauty of courses, that's the beauty of putting all of this stuff into a course, is that you're going to get off track. You're going to get into your stages where you're going to be in your own prison, and then there's going to be times where you get out of it. And so the more that you immerse yourself in methodologies and systems and really, you know, it's. It's like that Thoreau thing. An unexamined life is not worth living, but an unlived life is not worth examining. And so, you know, if you're gonna actually live a great life, record it.

Yeah.

And capture and share it with other people. And if you're not living a great life right now, then lay out what the great life or the great way to raise a, you know, an urban chicken or take care of a dog or teach a parrot how to talk or get in better physical shape or be a better parent or learn how to play guitar or whatever. Whatever software, whatever system, whatever methodology. The point is, winners find ways to win and losers find ways to lose. If you have a winning formula and you've not wrapped a course around it, then you are not only depriving yourself of deepening your ability to do that, you're depriving the world. As you so well stated. You know, from. From what could be.

What.

What they could be helped with. And you can make a shit ton of money.

Totally.

You just want to throw that in as like, I'm not a very caring, empathetic person that really wants to help others. I just want to make a lot of money. Well, create something that helps others and you might make a lot of money.

Yeah, that's. That's pretty much the only way to make a lot of money is help a lot of people screw them to.

Make money and feel good about it. Yeah. Sleeping. I mean, there are people that make money that are, you know, assholes, but. But they have to go to bed at night and, you know, and look, if you're. If you're so disconnected that you're able to, you know, screw people or whatever and still, you know, go to sleep, then, you know. But I believe that people that damage others, their. Their punishment is their own existence.

Yeah.

So, you know, so creating sad. Yeah, so creating an existence that you can be proud of and that, you know, at the, you know, because I see a lot of people out there that think they're total hotshots to go back to my thing.

Right.

You know, it's like, you know, it's not about winning the battle, it's about winning in the war. And when, you know, there's one guy that really, like when I was early on starting selling courses, when I was in my early 20s, mid-20s and onward, I had a long hair in a ponytail and I did not. And one of the things I wanted to do is like, I want to become a millionaire looking however the hell I want. I mean, I don't mean looking like a degenerate, but I mean with long hair. And I did. I actually created that. Now I shave my head. You know, the thing though is that there was one guy named Ralph Bloss who owned a company called Steamway and they sold truck mount steam cleaners. They ended up selling the company many, many years ago. But I knew the, you know, I knew the sons, Ralph and Doyle. And that man Ralph was the first one. He was an older gentleman. I mean, you know, God, he must have been in his mid-60s, close to 70. And he would. He saw me do a presentation and he's like, this guy's great. And they started endorsing me and recommending me when no one else would because of the way I quote, unquote, looked and that I was younger and teaching people that, you know, how to run their companies. And here I am in my 20s and these, you know, you know, kind of like an old boys club was like, you know, how dare this guy, you know, teach people how to run and, you know, build their companies. Although what I was teaching was better than anything that the professional carpet and upholstery, cleaning and restoration industry had ever seen. I mean, I literally changed the entire industry three years within doing it. I was like on the COVID of the Top magazine as the person of the year. I'd been voted person of the year by the. I mean, that's how quickly and how much I impacted it. But he was the very first person that literally would endorse me. That was a well known and famous in that industry. And I went, I remember when he passed away, I mean he was a super nice guy, helped so many people. And I went to his funeral and so many people there. The number one thing that was said over and over again, he encouraged me. He encouraged me. Like this guy encouraged so many people. Spent his whole life encouraging people because he put on seminars and he trained them and he helped them and he was just a good guy. He was a really good guy. And that always struck me as like, man, I just want to live my life and encourage as many people as I can. And you know, we all have that ability, but we will never have that ability to scale. If we keep it all in our heads, we're going to pursue it. So where should people go to learn more about you and work?

Yeah, in general, people can learn about me at JLE VI or just Google Jonathan Levy. You'll find me. L E V I L E V I.

How do you spell Jonathan and Levy? So there's many ways to spell Jonathan.

J O N A T H A N Levi L E V I. But it's just J L E V I. And that's got links to everything. And if people just want to go direct and learn more about personal branding, how to build online courses, how to podcast, how to write books, how to do all that fun stuff, stuff, then they should come to Genius Network. But the step before to get you so you can pay the 25k for Genius Network is brandingyou Academy.

Totally, totally. Yeah. And Jonathan is a master at doing this. And I, believe me, I've hung out with some of the smartest people on the planet just due to the very nature of being the founder of Genius Network. I'm around all these geniuses all the time and you're just a master at what you do. You're a good guy, you care and it's. I always like sharing people with the world that have that. So I think you're someone that people not only can model and learn from, but they can emulate in the way that you actually treat people. From my experience of you.

Thank you, brother.

Absolutely. Thank you. And so it was great. And so for everyone listening. Yeah. Please follow up at Jonathan, start laying out your course outline. And for those of you that are in Genius Network, me and Jonathan are going to put together a special program for Genius Network members on how to create badass courses. So go out and make some good stuff happen in the world and have a great day, and we'll talk to you next time.

All right, thanks for listening to this episode of I Love Marketing. If you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network annual event, go to geniusnetworkevents.com that's geniusnetworkevents dot com if you'd like access to the complete presentation, the show notes, the links, and the special resources for this episode, please visit ilovemarketing.com 336 that's ilovemarking.com 33.