The Power of Simplicity: 3 Simple Ideas for Simplifying Your Business and Life - I Love Marketing Episode #343

And in four hours, I doubled four months of activity. I'm Dean Jackson, he's Joe Polish, and this is the I Love Marketing podcast.

Joe Weldon knows the secret to keeping it simple in life and business. For over 40 years, he's been one of the most highly respected and sought after keynote speakers and sales trainers in North America. Companies that hired him four decades ago are still hiring him today because he gets results. In this episode, Joe Weldon discusses his three ideas for simplicity and his three pronged method for business success. Go to ilovemarketing.com 343 to access the show notes for this episode, along with an exercise to help you take action on what Joel discusses.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. The wise Chinese philosopher Confucius said that over 3,000 years ago, and it's true today. You've heard the acronym KISS for Keep it simple Stupid. That's what Joel Weldon's topic Keeping it simple is about. Joel is simple in his approach to life and business. He's focused on one career for 43 years as a professional speaker. 43 years. Can you freaking imagine that? And speaking skills coach. For many of you in this room, Joel is always enthusiastic. I've never seen him complain about anything inside or outside of meetings. He's just a genuine guy. And his diet and sleep and recreation advice on how to live an amazing, awesome life are great. So if you want to learn from a guy who's been very ritualized and very routine oriented and just loves his life, you know, get to know him. So here's one simple idea that Joel created, which is this. This was seven words. Success comes in cans, not in cannots. This has been his business card since 1974. It says, Success comes in cans, not in cannots. So today, over half a million people, and I think some of the half a million includes some of you that have 10 of these on your desk. You know, have this can, and most people do keep it on their desk. So the title of Joel's presentation is the Power of Simplicity. Please help me welcome the always amazing Joel Weldon.

Thank you, Joel. What we're gonna do is talk about three simple ideas. One that relates to this group directly, one relates to business, and one relates to your life. We're gonna spend most of the time on the third one. So welcome to simplicity. Steve Jobs said, you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. Steve Jobs So the first example is Genius Network. Joe, have you ever heard that word elf for the four people out of here for the first time? It's not the movie with Will Ferrell. Elf started. And many of you might not know this. Joe trademarked that term in 2002 because he was teaching people how. Do you have a successful and great business? You could read thousands of books. But Joe said, what? And what is the acronym? Mr. Polish, since you created it?

Easy, lucrative, and fun.

That's it. That's elf. That is so simple. That's the first example of the power of simplicity. Elf. Uber. How many of you use Uber? Okay, that's more than half of you. How much simpler could a business model be? You take a taxi, you add the Internet, and you put your smartphone on, and what do you have? $77 billion since 2009 in market value. That is a simple idea. This guy said a long time ago, Leonardo da Vinci. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. So the Third idea are six words with 24 letters that were created by a man named Earl Nightingale in 1956 when he recorded the Strangest Secret Record. On the 15th of September is the 50th anniversary that my life changed when I heard that record. 50 years ago, I was 25 years old. I was making 62 bucks a week as a carpenter, banging nails, digging ditches, and going nowhere. Then a guy in my church hired me to sell encyclopedias door to door. I was shy, I was self conscious, I had no confidence at all. And I set a company record. In the first four months, I made 1200 sales calls and I earned $48. I made one sale, I turned it into the manager, and he said, joel, you are the worst salesman I have ever hired in 22 years. Quit, go back into construction. But you'll never make it dealing with people unless you change your thinking. You have the worst attitude of anybody I have ever met. And he handed me this record, the Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale. He also told me it was the largest selling record in the world and a gold edition. And he reached into his desk and he pulled out the gold edition for a million copies sold. And I heard six words on that message 50 years ago that was so simple. I listened to it for a whole week. I went out with the same product, same territory, same price. And in four hours, I doubled four months of activity. I made two sales in four hours and one sale in four months and doubled my income on just those powerful words. Six simple words even a dunce like me could understand. Them, if you keep it simple now, before I give you the words, because I know the 15 of them know it come back in a time machine. 1933, Long Beach, California, library. And a 12 year old boy named Earl Nightingale goes in. His father had left the family, they had no money and he wanted to become a success. And he went to the librarian and he said, how do I become successful? Where are the books on success? And she said, we don't have any. This is 1933. But then she put the butt in there. But what if you read about successful people? What if you started to see if there was some commonality in there? So she showed him the biographies and autobiographies. See if you could find the secret to success. So he became an avid reader. He read everything he could, and then he wanted to see the world. He joined the marines at age 17. And three years later he was on the lookout tower of the Arizona as Pearl harbor was attacked. And 1177 of his shipmates died that day. And Earl was blown off the top. And he and 92 other people lived. And he knew his life had a purpose. He became a radio broadcaster right here in Phoenix, eventually moved to Chicago. And in the 50s, he was the highest paid radio voice in America. And he retired at age 35. He had made enough money to retire. He had fame and riches. And he bought an insurance agency. And he would go in and do a monthly sales meeting. And then he told the manager, I'm not coming in Monday, I'm going fishing in Canada. Well, who's going to run the meeting? Earl said, well, you run it. He said, no, I can't run it. Why don't you make a record so I could play it at the meeting, since you're not going to be here to talk to the salespeople. And as Earl sat on my houseboat at Lake Powell two years before he died, he told me what happened. He said, At 4 in the morning, Joel, I got a Eureka idea. I got. Took me two and a half hours and I wrote down the strangest secret. And then I recorded it, gave it to the manager. They played it, it electrified the audience. They wanted copies, so they sold them at $15 a record. This was in 1956. So I did the math. You figure out that was $137 in today's money. Talk about Bitcom and all these other things, Mike, look at that increase in inflation. There's a $274,000 idea, that one record, and it's downstairs if you haven't seen it. Joe has been so impacted by that, it's mounted on his wall. And it started a whole industry. The learning by listening industry, all based on six words with 24 letters. Could I have a drum roll, please? And the words are for those that know it, say it. We become. We think about. That's it. What could be simpler? So fill in the rest. We think negative. We become. We think positive. You become. You think in cans. Success comes in cans. If you're Kevin Donahue who thinks about women, he does not become a woman. He's thinking about something else. With women, if you think sickness and disease and illness, you become sick, diseased and ill. Think health, wellness, and strength, and that's what you become. Think when you walk in this room, $250,000 idea. You get a $250,000 idea. Think Solutions. You get solutions. Think happiness and joy and love. And you become happy, joyful and loving. It is so simple. So I have a test for you to see if it really works. Seven days. Every time you look at your watch, to check the time, look at your phone to check the time, look at the clocks on the wall to check the time, look at your sundial if you have one, just ask yourself, what am I thinking? Just ask yourself right now, what are you thinking? Are you thinking about what you can do or what you can't do? Are you thinking about that great $250,000 idea? Are you about what are you thinking about? If that can live since 1956 and still is the largest selling recording ever made of a spoken word message built on six simple words, we become what we think about. It is so simple. Whether it's Elf or Uber or Earl's, we become what we think about. So for the rest of today, when you check the time and for the next week, just ask yourself, what are you thinking about? What are you thinking about?

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