The SECRET to Business Success: Lessons from Brian Tracy & Tony Robbins

What actually makes a successful business, that most of what is taught in the entrepreneurship faculties of the universities is nonsense. In fact, if you he said that there's something 1,687 professors of entrepreneurship and their primary focus is drinking their own bath water and telling that entrepreneurs have to have a business plan and if you have a business plan, you'll be successful. And they spent two years in their faculties teaching people how to set business plans. And. And 49 out of 50 businesses are started without a business plan, including some of the most successful businesses in the world today. So we are now just starting to learn what we really need to do to build successful businesses. And what Joe is doing here is absolutely marvelous because it can save you years of hard work, hundreds, even thousands of hours of hard work to understand how to do it much, much faster to shortcut. We say there's always a learning curve in anything. And what we want to do is we're going to jump the learning curve. We don't want to spend years and years learning what we need to learn to reach a certain level of income. And so I've majored now in the last few years on doing seminars and talking and books and articles and programs for owners and would be owners of small and medium sized businesses. Now I've got 45 minutes, so I'm going to have to condense what sometimes I share in seminars for days, but I understand you're some of the smartest people in the world so that you could take a lot of information in a short period of time. Is that true? Did anybody not understand the question? So I'm going to try to bottom line several of the concepts. One of the first concepts which I thought was interesting was a little story that was in the papers recently. Warren Buffett, who is one of the richest men in the world, and Bill Gates, who is the richest man in the world, and Bill Gates Sr. Were at a dinner party and, and the three of them are good friends and they were talking and a gentleman came up to them and said, you know, I was looking at you and you gentlemen are very successful. What would you say is the most important quality of success? And all three, according to a bystander, all three broke off their conversation and turned and simultaneously said, focus. Focus is the most important requirement for success in our fast moving world today. If you can focus, you can succeed, and if you cannot, you cannot. It's almost a black and white thing. Well, I thought that was interesting because the way Joe and I met is I put together a program some Years ago called the Focal Point Program, which basically brought in business owners like yourselves and taught them to focus. And we spent three years going through every single aspect of Life. We had 82 exercises that dealt with family and business and marketing and product and service and competition and positioning. And it was focus, focus, focus. And my offer, which is not as good as Joe's, but my offer was that you will double your income and double your time off within 12 months or there'd be no charge for this program. And I never had to give a refund. In fact, many people doubled and tripled their income within 30 days just by learning to focus and just by thinking in terms of focus. So it's really, really important. I read an article about myself. It was a very successful entrepreneur in New Zealand, and the article was sent to me last week. I'm reading this article. And he said the turning point in his life was when he went to a Brian Tracy seminar and learned how to focus. He was broke, he was unemployed, he had no money, and he walked out of the seminar a completely different person, and he had written goals. He then looked around, and as it happens, he saw an article on coffee shops and Starbucks success in the United States. And it said, coffee shops are a good business to be in because more and more people like the idea of a specialty coffee shop. And if it has a WI fi, then they go there. It becomes a social center and so on. He knew nothing about coffee, and before the dust had settled, he owned 80 coffee shops in Australia and New Zealand. And then he says he got into a divorce and had to sell it for $50 million to share the proceeds with his wife. But he did not share. He did not sell off the worldwide rights to it. So he's rebuilding. Anyway, his point was, at the end of the article, they said, well, what would you say to aspiring entrepreneurs who want to be successful? And he said just two things. He said, focus and fail. Fast. Focus and fail Fast. Learn quickly. Try something new. And I thought I would just pass that on because it's sort of what I have discovered over the years is the faster you fail and learn, the faster you succeed. You actually learn to succeed by failing. You know Thomas J. Watson's famous line, if you want to increase your rate of success, you must double your rate of failure, because success lies on the far side of failure. Well, over the years, I've done a good deal of reading, and I came across a concept that I want to share with you. And we were talking about this a little bit earlier, and the Concept is the question is what is the most valuable and highest paid work that you do? It's a really interesting question because when I heard the question, I didn't know what the answer was. What do you think the highest paid and most valuable work is that you do? And the answer is thinking. Thinking is the most valuable work. Now, I am the best selling author in the world in time management. Also on goals, also on some other subjects. But I began studying time management about 30 years ago. And I came across a word in my studies and the word was consequences. And what it basically said is that something is important if it has big potential consequences. And something is unimportant if it has low or no potential consequences. Number one reason for success is people focus on things that have high potential consequences. Number one reason for failure is people focus on things that have low or no potential consequences. Exactly what Joe was saying earlier, the famous Drucker quote. Very worst use of time is to work intently on something that need not be done at all. And one of the things that is holding back entrepreneurs, business owners, is killing them, by the way, and it's wiping out an entire generation, is this obsession with technology. I see people that walking with their phone, it's almost like drug addicts that are mainlined. They cannot stop staring at their screen, they cannot stop pushing their buttons. I hate to say there are people in this room that had that problem, but the fact is that this obsession with looking at the screen and staying connected is killing people because it stops them from focusing. You cannot focus if you are distracted, like an attention deficit disorder dog. So you're constantly ringing and responding to bells, almost like a crazy person in a toy factory. And so just as a quick aside, if thinking is the most important thing you do because of the consequences of thinking determine the entire quality of your life, then the quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life. And so the more time that you spend thinking and thinking well and thinking clearly, the more successful you are. Over the years, I worked with some very powerful people, billionaires and multi billionaires, people who are on the Forbes 400 list repeatedly, over and over. And I've had a chance to be with them during crises and at times where something was happening that was serious, it was a major problem. And I noticed that they all had one quality in common, is they all went calm. It's just they went calm. People around them were angry and upset and worried about what happened and who did it and so on. And they would just go calm, almost like a pawn would go Calm. And they knew. And I learned later, I didn't know why this was. I, I admired it, but I didn't know why it was. Is that when your mind is calm, your entire cerebellum, the thinking and deciding brain, functions at its highest level. Like turning up all the lights on a dimmer switch, it's functioning like a Christmas tree. But when you get upset and angry, what happens is your thinking reverts to your limbic or emotional system and your ability to think clearly diminishes dramatically. And you make a lot of mistakes. That's why when you are facing a difficult situation, you have to use every skill, trick, game, whatever it is, stay calm. And that's why they teach you to meditate. And they find that meditators in business are far more successful because they can automatically trigger their mind into the calm of meditation when they're facing a crisis. It enables them to think with greater clarity. Now, a couple of years ago, a man named Daniel Kahneman, a very fine man from reading him, who had won a Nobel prize in psychology and neuroscience, wrote a book called Thinking Fast and Slow. And this book was a very esoteric book and I don't recommend that you read it. It's 500 pages of hard slogging. I will give you the essence of. I will give you the essence. I do the reading, pass it on. I will give you the essence of the book. He said that there are two types of thinking. There's fast thinking and slow thinking. Fast thinking is intuitive, it's instinctive, it's automatic, it's reactionary. I think of it very much as how you would drive through busy traffic. You're not giving a lot of thought, you're just interacting. He said the other type of thinking is slow thinking. And slow thinking is where you just slow down the thinking and take time to think through issues. Now, if an issue has little or no consequences, then you can think quickly. What do you have for lunch? What do you pick up on your plate from the buffet? Where do you park your car? The consequences of these decisions are almost non existent. But if it's a major issue, then you say, wait a minute, this requires slow thinking. Here is his contention that made the book a bestseller is that the biggest problem that people have is that where they should use slow thinking, they use fast thinking. And entrepreneurs are extremely guilty of that. As we make important decisions that have long potential consequences, including affecting the lives of people and costing money and even leading to the bankruptcy of a business, we make those decisions with fast thinking. When in reality, we should be making them with slow thinking. Now, I'm a great Drucker fan, as many people are, and Mike was saying something about hiring the right people. And hiring the right people to work with you is very important. And the biggest mistakes you make is hiring fast. You hire people quickly. The best decisions you make are you really take your time to hire slowly. And Peter Drucker said that fast people decisions are invariably wrong people decisions. Hiring an important person for an important job has tremendous potential consequences. So therefore you need to take a long time. One of the things I teach, which is in my book how to Hire and Keep the Best People, is a simple rule that will increase your hiring accuracy to 90%. And I've taught it to Fortune 500 companies and they make it a rule within their companies to use. Brian's rule is to. This is you cannot hire except by doing this. And I didn't invent it. I just studied the hiring practices of the companies that hire the best people and keep them the longest. And they all, at the beginning, have a certain process that they follow and they follow it religiously, no exceptions. And so their accuracy in hiring goes up to 90% or better because they think more. An interesting professor at the University of San Diego last year wrote a book on sort of, not sort of thinking fast and slow, but it was on decision making. What he said is the longer that you take to make an important decision, the better the decision will be. The higher quality decision. And Lord Acton once said, when it is necessary, when it is not necessary to decide, it is necessary not to decide. In other words, the professor said, buy as much time as you can for a decision. Put it off. If you can put it off for a day, a weekend, a week, a month, put it off. Some of the best decisions that you make will be decisions that you will allow to steep for a while, like water and tea. So thinking is the most important thing you do. We call it thinking fast and slow. So remember, anything that is important that has long term consequences is a candidate for slow thinking. Discussing it with other people, sitting quietly, going for a walk, letting it ruminate in your mind, sleeping on it. You know, they say if it's a big deal, sleep on it. So there's three thinking tools I want to give you and then seven ideas. So the three ways of thinking which I start off, the first way I start off every seminar is what I call zero based thinking. And everybody who knows me for any period of time knows that I harp on this. Zero based thinking comes from Zero based accounting where you instead of increasing an expense in the next accounting period, you ask, should we be engaging in this expense at all? Now with zero based thinking, you look at your entire world and you ask this question, knowing what I now know, is there anything that I am doing that I would not start up again today if I had to do it over? This is one of the greatest thinking tools I've ever learned, because in a time of turbulence, you always have an answer for this question. Each person has an answer. Some people have multiple answers. There's lots of things that they're doing today that knowing what they now know, they wouldn't get into today. They wouldn't start them up, products they wouldn't offer, people they wouldn't hire, investments they wouldn't make. And these are the greatest drags in life. These are sort of like a sea anchor, you know that you drop it and it drags, it slows down the boat. Well, how do you tell if you have a zero based thinking situation? And many of you were asked to write your problems, challenges, opportunities? The answer is stress is whenever you experience chronic stress, it's something that buzzes around when Joe's talking or somebody else is talking, you're busy thinking about that, you drive around and you think about it. Keeps you awake at night.

Night.

It's something that pisses you off, it's something that irritates you and angers you and frustrates you whenever you have chronic, which means ongoing, continuous. This is a candidate for zero based thinking. So you ask yourself the question, if I was not now in this situation, knowing what I now know, would I get into it again today? If the answer is no, the next question is, how do I get out and how fast? How do I get out and how fast? If ever the answer comes back that I would not get into this again today, it's too late to resolve it. It's over. The only question now is how long do you suffer? How much emotional suffering, how much financial suffering do you make before you walk? And so the most important requirement for practicing zero based thinking, which a lot of people don't like to practice, is courage. I call it the C word. You need the C word. You need to have the courage to look at every part of your life and say, is there anything that I'm doing that knowing what I now know, I wouldn't get now? The starting point of zero based thinking is always with your relationships, and those are both personal and business. Whenever I've given this talk, by the way, within a Short period of time. Divorces take place all over that city. People go home and say, geez, if I hadn't married this person, I would never marry them again today. And that's what's making me miserable. And many people are working their heads off on the outside to achieve success, but inside they're frustrated and on unhappy because they're in a situation that, knowing what they now know, they would never get into. So I call this a Kwink analysis. And I'm going to ask you to do this for the rest of your life and help other people do it. Kwink. Knowing what I now know, do a kink analysis on everything. Do a quick analysis. In my company, what we say is we look at every single person on a regular basis and we say, if we had not hired this person and they walked in today to apply for their current job, knowing what we now know, would we hire them? If the answer is no, they're gone that day. There's a little rule, by the way, that in one of my books, it says the best time to fire a person is the first time it crosses your mind, because after that, it's only pain and suffering. And the longer you keep them in place, the more likely they are to sue you. And the longer they sue you, the more it's going to cost. So therefore, if you find that you've made a mistake, belly up to the bar, have the courage to admit I made a mistake, and cut your losses. There was a great book by an author called the Zurich Axioms some years ago, and it was Principles of Success. And anybody who's in finance has probably read the book because he's a very successful New York financier. And he was talking about the gnomes of Zurich, whoever they are, and the rules that they go by. And he said, the number one rule for success is in business, personal lives, cut your losses when you realize you made a mistake. Bad investment, bad hire, bad relationship, cut your losses quickly. What do they say in Las Vegas? You know, cut your losses, let your winnings ride. So in life, that's what we do. And the faster you cut your losses, fail fast, the faster you can start doing things that are much more productive. The second area has to do with every part of your business. Joe and I were talking about what I think is a revolutionary new field. Though it's not revolutionary and it's not new, but it's business model innovation. And it's based on the concept that whatever business model you're using today is probably obsolete. If you're in any kind of a business that uses technology to market it, especially an information based business, knowledge based business, consulting, services, training, anything else, chances are your business is obsolete. The way that you and the business model is your method, your step by step process of generating profitability. Now there are some companies that struggle along, struggle along, struggle along, then find a new business model and the next year their business is up five or ten times. Profits are just overwhelming. They're living in big houses on the hill, driving Cadillacs and flying private jets. And you say what on earth did they do? They changed their business model. And if you don't change your business model, if it's the wrong business model, two things are going to happen. Your competitors are going to come up with a new business model and eat your lunch and, or you're going to go broke. So it doesn't mean that your business model is wrong. It just means that you must be open to the possibility that your business model is obsolete. And that just means that there is a better business model, there's a superior business model and your job is to find it. And again, there's no fixed answer to it. But I think that this is a great area of thought. I think this is a great area and it's sort of like a tool for you to have. I wonder if I need to change my business model, which is your way of generating sales, producing and delivering products and services, getting payments and achieving profitability. Well, so coming Back to the second is look @ anything in your business. Look at your products, look at your services, look at your people, look at the way that you advertise market and ask is there anything that you're doing today that knowing what you now know, you wouldn't start up again today? And the only question that you ever ask is does it work? Does it work? Does it work? If it's not working and you can tweak it, then that's fine. If it's not working, have the courage to admit this isn't working and abandon it. Now the third area has to do with investments in zero based thinking, investments of time, which people hate to lose. Someone said earlier that people hate to lose. It's one of the greatest emotions. We hate to lose time. If we invested a lot of time in a course of action, a project, a business, a relationship. The second is emotion. If we put a lot of emotion into a course of action, a product, course of study, a relationship or money, we hate to admit that we made a mistake and that what seemed like a good idea at the time has turned out not to be a good idea. And knowing what I now know, I wouldn't get into it and have the courage to cut your losses and run. Now, the reason I teach this first is because you can't make any progress unless you clear the decks, unless you get this 800 pound gorilla that's holding you back out of your life. And then many companies that I've worked with literally transformed, became multimillion dollar companies. When everybody said, all right, we're going to go through and do a quick analysis on this whole company and realize that half the things we're doing and half the people working here are, are not the right people for us at this time. And half the products that we're offering aren't selling and never will. They've been replaced by better, cheaper, faster products in the marketplace. So cut your loss. What happens when a big, big company gets into trouble? They bring in a quick analysis man and he comes in with a chainsaw and he shuts down all the factories and all the stores that are not profitable. And the company goes from profits to losses in one year anyway. The second thinking tool that I teach people is WPO thinking, which is worst possible outcome in everything that you're doing. Always ask yourself, what is the worst possible outcome of this course of action? And can I survive it if it were to occur? And if not, what could I do to make sure it doesn't happen? One of the number one reasons that we worry about anything in life is because of fear. And when you ask yourself, what is the worst thing that can happen in this particular situation? And then if you can say, all right, if that happens, I'll live with it, then your worry goes away and your mind goes clear and calm. And now you say, now what can I do to make sure that the worst does not happen? And then you become proactive and you take charge of your life. The third thinking tool. I hope I'm not going too fast for it. The third thinking tool is called the principle of constraints. And it's one of the most important thinking tools ever discovered. It says, between you and anything that you want to accomplish, there is always a constraint, a limiting factor or a choke point that sets the speed at which you accomplish your goal. So I was just talking, doing a teleconference a few minutes ago. So the question I said is, let's always set the goal of doubling our income. You want to double your income? Okay, want to double your income? Then why isn't your income already twice as high? Now, in business, we don't think of doubling our income. We think of doubling our profitability. What we're concerned with is net cash flow. We're concerned with the amount that we take home to our family at the end of the day. Not the gross, but the triple net. So we say, if I want to earn twice as much and everybody in here can and will earn 2, 3, 4, 5 times as much sometime in the future, if I want to earn twice as much, why aren't I already earning twice as much? And the number one reason for most people is distraction. So they're so distracted they're doing things of low or no consequences. But we found the 8020 rule applies to constraints. 80% of the constraints that are holding you back from achieving your financial goals are within yourself and within your business. They are not on the outside. They are not the competition, they are not the market. They are not the people in Washington or the taxes or regulation. They are not 80% are within yourself. So the mark of the superior person is whenever they have a problem, they say, what is it in me that's causing this problem? Mike and I know this very, very clearly. What is it in me that's causing this problem? In illness, by the way, 85% of illness is psychosomatic. As Dennis Waitley said, it's not what you're eating, it's what's eating you that's causing the problem. And so the starting point and the first thing a doctor will tell you or a psychologist is what is it that you're not dealing with? And you go back to zero based thinking. What is it that you have in your life that if you had to do over, you wouldn't do it. So ask yourself what's holding you back? And usually it's the quality of self discipline or it's a skill. Now, one of the things that changed my life forever was when I learned that all business skills are learnable. You don't have to be a genius to learn any business skill. You can learn any form of technology, as Mike has proven that with his products. You can take a person who's basically shoveling shoe polish in shubokin and teach them how to be technologically superior enough to earn a living from it. Every business skill is learnable. And so I say, what one skill, if you are absolutely excellent at it in your business, would help you the most to double your income? What one business skill, if you could wave a magic wand and wake up tomorrow morning, superb in this area, what skill would it be? And you know, when you ask that question, everybody knows the answer. They know what it is. But here's the challenge. You don't like the skill because it involves rejection, embarrassment, ego, potential failure, loss. You've tried it in the past, you haven't been good at it. But nobody asks you what would be an easy skill to learn. They just ask you what skill would help you the most to double your income. And here's what we have found is that most of us are only one skill away from doubling our income. And all business skills are learnable. And if you study the people who go from the top to the bottom in the Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000, they found in 25 years of research, these people learn one skill at a time by climbing the ladder of success and the ladder of income. Like sniper. One shot, one kill. They don't try to learn 50 skills. They learn the one skill, focus, the most important skill. And they get their company focusing on the one skill that can help you the most to generate sales and.

Profitability. What's the key to success? You just had it and there's no shortcuts. And it doesn't take any genius. Well, no offense. It just takes starting and completing your most important task. And if you'll just do that, get my book. My eat that frog. And I'm not trying to sell books because you don't get very much with a book. But the thing is, the book is now 50 languages. Can you imagine that? 50 languages, two and a half million copies. And by the way, it's probably closer to 10 million because there are several countries like Iran that don't pay royalties and other have publish the book without telling anybody. So it's published all over the world, but they cheat you on their royalty. So it's probably 10 million copies of it had been sold. And so that's my starting point and everything else. Here's another thing, by the way, and I love what the lady was saying about values. I had a good friend, maybe you know him, his name is Mark Waldman. And Mark came to my office when we were doing our coaching program some years ago, and he just dropped dead. He lives in Northern California, San Francisco. And he said, I said, so what's happening in your life? Is it a break? He said, well, I've come up with a new question. And he said, I'm just walking around teaching everybody. And the question is, what is my most important value in life right now? What is my most important value in life right now? And I thought, geez, that's a great question because all of us think about values and are impressed by values. So I asked everybody in the room, what is your most important value in life right now? And he said, you have to ask this question every day, all day long, for a week, every day. Just keep asking the question. Your first answer will be love and truth and God and things like that. Just keep asking the question and keep drilling down deeper, keep drilling and drilling until you finally, the most important value pops out and that can change your life. And so what I did is I did the same thing. I asked the question for a week, what is my most important value? And the way you can tell your values are because of your behaviors. What you do is you look at your behaviors and especially your behaviors under stress, when your behaviors in difficulty, you'll always demonstrate who you really are inside by what you do on the outside when you have difficulties or challenges. So I finally concluded my most important value is what the lady said is freedom. Freedom is my most important value. And you know something? America was established by people for whom freedom was their most important value. And it changed the entire world. There is still no country in the world for which freedom is the organizing principle. Freedom is a concern for everybody, but Americans more than any other.

Nationality. Thank.

You. Love freedom. And so therefore your job is to have freedom. How do you have freedom? Well, one of the things is you have to have enough money so that you can buy the things that you want, that you can take care of your family, that you can provide for your spouse and for your children. And when you achieve freedom, more freedom, you feel happier, you have more energy, you have higher self esteem, you feel more in control. And everything that you do moves you toward having more or less freedom. So that was a turning point for me is that freedom is the key. And then I look at my family, everything I've ever done with my four children and my wife has been to increase their freedom, give them more freedom, open doors for them, open up opportunities for them. So freedom is mine, so what is yours? That's a great question. And the way you tell is you simply look at what do you do under pressure. What do you care about more than anything else? What is really your value? And it's great question, great organizing principle for your.

Life.

Yeah. Brian, as you know, most genius network members have teams, many have running multimillion dollar businesses. What is the dark side of success in the midst of building and growing? What have you noticed where things become out of control, out of hand, where people start losing it? Because as you know, a lot of Entrepreneurs, because of the success they have, comes responsibility, obligations, messes, navigating things. And here we are in the middle of a pandemic. What have you found to be success traps that people have gotten themselves into that you would have any advice, suggestions, or insights on either how to avoid or how to navigate if you're in the middle of.

It? Well, Joe, that's a really tough question, but you and I have talked about this subject. Is that what is our ultimate goal in life? Remember, the old thing is write your own obituary. You wrote your own obituary. What do you want people to say about you when you pass on? And I went for a long walk on a beach near Brisbane in Australia some years ago. And it was about an hour, two hours of walking. And I asked myself that question. And the answer that came up for me and never changed again is that after I pass on, I want. When my children meet someone who knew me, they say, oh, yeah, I knew your father. He was a really good person. That to me, was my ultimate goal in life. I knew your father, he was a good person. And I have never deviated from that. I never have done anything or said anything to anybody under any circumstances that would cause anybody to say other than he was a good person. And so you have to keep that in mind. See, this is the purpose in life. And one of the things that I learned is that success does not change you. It just makes you more of what you already are. It just makes you more of what you already are. If you're a good person, you become a better person. If you're a jerk, you become a worse jerk. If you're honest, you'll be more honest. If you're dishonest, you'll be more dishonest. So you always have to think in terms of long term. One of the things that I found, and I've written about it extensively, I wrote a book, by the way, a couple of years ago called Get Smart. And it has 10 ways of thinking that have been developed over the ages. And basically it says that successful people think this way. And in the same way of thinking, unsuccessful people think that way. The most important, which I learned from Drucker, from many others, is long term versus short term thinking is really successful people think long term. Unsuccessful people think short term. In other words, they go for advantage, opportunity, making money. They're short term thinkers. Whereas the very best people think long term. They think, where do I want to be in five years or ten years from now? What do I want people to say about me when I'M gone. And so long term thinkers, surprisingly enough, when you think and act long term, you accomplish vastly more than if you're a short term.

Thinker. Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy.

There. And the book get smart has basically 10 different ways of thinking. One of them comes from Daniel Kahneman, who got a Nobel Prize for it. He's an economist, a philosopher. And it was, you know, it.

Was, what is.

It? Two ways of thinking. Think fast, slow, yes, thinking fast and slow. And what he says is basically successful. People think slowly about important things in their life. One of the things that Kahneman sort of touches on, but which I hammer, is the word consequences. And consequences, as you always ask, what are the likely consequences if I do or don't do this? And everything in life has consequences. And the true measure of how really smart you are is your ability to predict the consequences of doing something or not doing it. Milton Friedman said this, exactly this. The Nobel Prize winning economist. He said the quality of your thinking can be measured by how accurately you predict what will happen as a result. One of the greatest thinkers of history, a man named Frederick Bastiat, said, he said the same thing back 200 years ago. He said that the primary consequences of everything you do are good. You eat this, drink this, do this because the primary consequences are good or why would you do it at all? He said, but it's the secondary consequences that are more important than anything else. And your ability to accurately predict the secondary consequences of a behavior determines your whole life. And so, for example, the people who belong to the genius network, one of the reasons that they belong, one of the things that they get is they get ideas that can affect their lives and work long term. Truly superior people are long term thinkers. And they make the sacrifice and they travel and, and they invest the time and the money. It's all aimed at long term results, consequences, what happens as a result of what you do and then what happens, and then what happens. And so that's what you and I learned right at the very beginning. As we started exchanging ideas, we read Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich and how the mastermind was the starting point of success for so many people. And then we started Doing it. And then it was sort of like a baton in a race. We handed off the baton and you took it and ran with it. And here you.

Are. This room is filled with some very high achievers. And obviously what I wanted to derive from you guys is just some insights, some how to, some what it is you do to just give them, you know, perspective and stuff. And I carefully chose some questions, and this one is you're both masters at achieving what most people consider impossible. And I mean, really like what you guys do, most people consider absolutely impossible. So when something is considered, quote unquote impossible, how do you reframe it so it becomes possible in your mind? And how much of that is.

Mindset? I think impossible is not a fact, it's an opinion. When someone tells me it's impossible, I always just look at them. Anybody around me knows that they can't do that. That's part of it. But if they didn't know me, it's your opinion. And they'll say, no, science shows. And I say, yeah, how many times does science show something's impossible? Now? Science shows it's possible things are impossible until somebody does it. And so I find that most of your business people, you look at businesses and what does it take to make a business grow? It's not impossible to make a business grow. Business been shrinking for a long time or it's been stuck. The real problem is always the chokehold, is always the psychology and the skills of the leader. Always. And 80% of that is psychology and 20% is the mechanics. Like if you don't know how to read your financials and you're trying to fly the plane of your company, I mean, come on, you know, if all you do is go down, you look at profit, loss and you see what it is and you have a beer either way, you either celebrate or get the brass. You know something, you know you're going to be in trouble, right? But if you have the skill sets, that's one thing. But you can get any skill set if you have the psychology. And anytime a business is not growing, it is not because it's impossible, it's because they aren't innovating. And they're not innovating because they believe it's impossible. I mean, if we all know, what does it take to transform, obviously help people. It takes three things to create a breakthrough in anything. In your personal life, in your business, anywhere. You need a strategy. But that's not the first place you should look. And it's the first place all of us. Look, me too. It's our inherent thing. You want to lose weight? Well, how do I do it? I want to grow my business. How do I do it? It's instinctive. We've been trained to think that way. But the problem is the how to is usually not that complex. I mean, come on, 70% of America is what, 75% of America now is overweight. Is that because it's so complex? How to be fit and strong? Right. You know, only the 1% know the answers. They hide it from you. You have to work your ass off to not hear what it takes, right? And so, you know, I remember I went to this. I went to a Ted Med center and I watched about 12 doctors, one after another, get up and do these stories about how we could just get patients to take their medications and try to figure out the whole thing. And I was just looking and going. You're all talking about strategy, and you've forgotten psychology, because strategy is wonderful. I'm a strategist in my whole life, figuring out strategies. As we both know, a strategy could save you a decade, right? And business strategy could save you. It could make the difference between success and failure. But most people have strategies available. Or they could get them, or you could create them. But the problem is you got a story. And your story is why it isn't working. And the story is, I've tried. What? What? Everything. If you tried everything, you'd be fit, right? If you tried everything, you'd be profitable. If you tried everything, you'd be there. But people say it, you know, I'm big. That's what I used to say. I'm still big boned, but I'm 38 pounds lighter than I was 25 years ago, and I've never gained it. Back right when I was big boned, that was my story. All the good ones are gone. That's why I'm not in a relationship. Or they're gay and I'm not, or I'm gay and they are. Whatever the story is, there's always a story. And what I tell people is if you can just divorce the story of your limitation and marry the truth of your unlimited capacity, then the whole game changes. But it's hard to do that because when you're in your story, you don't even realize it. So you need a third piece for breakthrough. And that's really what my life's about, which is changing people's states. Because in a different state, we're different people, you know, can mean people be nice.

Yes. Or.

No? Yes or no? Of course they are. When they're in a nice state. Can nice people be.

Mean?

Sure. They get a mean state. So really learning to train yourself to be in an ideal state where the best of you comes out for yourself, for your family, for your mission, for your world, for your coworkers. To me, that's one of the most important decisions in life to make. You ask me out of all the people I've met, all things I've seen, you know, what creates a magnificent life? You know, everybody has goals and dreams that are different. Some people want, you know, picket fence. Some want to make a billion dollars. Some, you know, want to have this huge breakthrough in technology. Some people want to write poetry. Whatever is right for people is what I want them for themselves. I don't want them to be like me or you or anybody else. I want them to have their dream. But to have it, you need two skills. You need, number one, to have the science of achievement. It's a science. You have to know how to take your vision and make it real. And most of the people in this room have already figured that out, and this guy sure as hell has, and you have, and I have. So most of us know, and we can all refine our skills in that area, but we know how to take what we dream about, make it real. And if you don't, you can learn from somebody who does. You know, simplest thing is get crazily hungry for something we all know. When you get so hungry, so desirous, your brain starts coming up with answers, and then it's massive action but effective execution, which is all modeling, which is, I assume, what this is about. Find the best example, Compress the time. Let someone else take 20 years to figure it out. You do it in two weeks or two months or whatever the period is. We should all be standing on the shoulders of the people around us instead of reinventing the wheel. And then there's this thing called grace. You work your ass off. You're totally focused. You're trying to serve something larger than yourself. And you, you really are executing what works. You need a little grace. Might want to call it luck, if you prefer God, the universe. But it's there, and we can all achieve. But I think the more important skill, if you ask me, is to have an extraordinary life. Is the art of fulfillment. And it's an art. It's not a science. Because there's a science to making money. I don't care who you are. If you do certain things, you're going to have too much financial stress. You do other things, you're going to have an abundance. There's a science. There's a science to your body. Everyone here is biochemically different, different genome. But there are certain fundamental patterns that if you and I follow them, you're going to have tons of energy, going to feel good. If you break them, you're going to pay the price and have low energy or disease. But fulfillment is an art. What's going to fulfill you is different than the other person next to you. You're not going to learn that from anybody else. And you got to find it. Because success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And I get those phone calls all the time for the multi billionaire entrepreneur or politician or business person or the person just won their Academy Award and they're depressed and they can't tell anybody because they got all their goals, but they're not fulfilled because they really don't have that sense of meaning in their life. They went for something and they got it. They achieved. And if you doubt this, what I'm saying is relevant to you or us or anyone, just think about a year, what a month ago, we lost what I consider to be a national treasure, Robin Williams. How many of you loved Robin Williams? Look around the room. Keep your hands up. Look. And most of you didn't know him almost every and then where you go in the world, people love Robin Williams. By the way, was he great at achievement? Oh my God, that guy. He said he wanted to become a great comedian. He did that. I want to make the world laugh. He did it. I want to make my own TV show. He did. I want to have the number one TV show. He did it. I want to make movies. He did it. I won an Academy Award for not being funny. Not his skill set, drama. And he did it. I want a beautiful family. And he did it. And then he hung himself. Make everybody happy but yourself. Not a good plan. So if I had a gift to give you, it would be maybe make a different decision. And the decision is that no matter what happens in your life, you're going to live in a beautiful state. A beautiful state. And that could be happy, that could be grateful, that could. That could be being generous. Those are all beautiful states, aren't they? It could be curious, it could be fun, it could be playful. You're not limited to one state, but it's different than suffering. And most people suffering and all suffering I've ever seen. I've traveled 100 countries, I've dealt with presence of countries and, you know, presidents of businesses, CEOs. I've dealt with people in prison. I've dealt with you. Name average people. Suffering always comes because you're obsessed about something related to you. You can only be depressed if you're focusing on yourself. You say, no, I'm depressed because it's my kids and they're not doing well. No, you're depressed because you feel you failed your kids. It's about you. It's about how you think, what you should have done or shouldn't have done, or what someone did to you or didn't do to you in the past or the future, which don't even exist. So I have a simple goal. My goal is help people make a decision that says, I don't know what's going to happen. You might get a divorce even though you don't think so. You might find a family of your family with cancer. You might have your house get burned down or have a tornado go by. And if you live in the same place, it happens every two years. And you move back, we should talk. But, you know, some people seem to do that for some reason. You can't control those things. I can't control those things. I don't want those to happen to you or anybody I love or anybody who's even a stranger to me. But they're going to happen. True. Not positive thinking, bullshit, just the truth. So if that's gonna happen, I say make a decision now. That's says, I'm going to live in a beautiful state. And I'm going to find beauty in whatever life brings me. Because life is too short not to. I see a little buddy over here named Sean. I remember when I got a phone call from the Make a Wish Foundation. So you have a young man that's about to die, and he wants to meet you. And he came to the seminar and then I took him out afterwards. At the time, if he coughed too much, they said, you can't grab him. I said, I want to take him across the fire. He said, take him across the fire. Said, if he coughs, he breaks the rib. I said, I'll be really gentle. We're going to do this thing. And he did it. And afterwards I sat down and I said, man, I don't have the answers. But if your body is. You're just coughing and it's going to make you break a rib, your body is so acid. I said, you should get alkaline. Let me put you together with a doctor. How many years ago is that? You're 19. You're now 36. I like seeing you here. So, brother, you give him a hand. He's beautiful, man. Beautiful. But Sean. What made me think of Sean is Sean lives in a beautiful state. He could be bitching and complaining and whining. What does he do? His whole life is not about himself. That's why he's so happy. He doesn't live in himself. He lives outside himself, serving things he loves. He still takes care of himself and he's funny as shit. And he likes to seduce women and things like, I can't talk about right now, but. Oh, you're married now. Okay. Well, it's good. I'm glad to hear it's about fricking time. All right, John, good to see you grew up. Now, the bottom line is this young man over here who now, is a different stage of life he's always been, who is. I think he lived because he lived for more than himself. I'm sure he felt pain. But we only suffer when we think about what's being done to us or what people are gonna think or what they should have done or hadn't done. And you can't control that stuff anyway. I mean, why be pissed when people are gonna do that? Are people gonna be mean? Yes or no. Are people gonna be unfair and unjust? Yes or no? Are people gonna be beautiful and generous? Yes or no? You just never know when that shit's gonna happen, so might as well enjoy yourself along the way. And I suggest today, if you want, if there's any gift I came by to give you, it's to tell you what you know already, but get you to make a decision about it. To actually decide. I'm gonna live in a beautiful state. That doesn't mean I don't get angry or pissed or tired or whatever. You know, suffering arises and you end it the moment you go, holy shit, I'm thinking about me. If I leave this, I'll always be suffering. The human mind is always looking for what's wrong. The human brain is not designed to make you happy. It's designed to make you survive. Happiness. That's your job. And you only get it if you draw a line in the sand. That's how it's going to be. And I can tell you, the few people that do it, I know a few people that have done it, they have magnificent lives. And when you're in a beautiful state, the best ideas can be. This man lives in a beautiful state. Every time I talk to him, I love seeing Peter. Peter's just Always on fire about something. But notice, you know, he's doing unbelievably well. There's nothing wrong with that. But almost everything he's doing is about more than himself. And so that's why he feels so alive. He's not suffering an ounce. He's in ecstasy. He's not lucky. He's living life a certain way. It's a beautiful way. I'm honored to have you as a.

Friend. Thank you.

Brother.

Wow. Now say something better than.

That. I mean, like, let's really see.

How good you are here, man. Oh.

God. Yeah, it's got going through my.

Mind. I'm like, there's no way to follow.

This. What the hell was the.

Question? You don't know say anything. Truthfully, he doesn't have to say anything. He lives this shit. I'm just telling you what he lives. He really does. I'm not saying that to blow smoke. This guy lives it. If you meet this man, how many met this man before? And he was in a wonderful state. Let me show hands. I don't think I've ever seen him not in a wonderful state. I've seen him have some painful, challenging places. But he doesn't stay there and look what he's able to create because of it. He is a nine year old boy who's on fire. He's on fire. To light the world on fire with what's possible, it's a beautiful thing. I honor.

You. So the contribution I'll.

Make. Thank you.

Tony. And I think it was about impossible in mindset and so forth, is the reality is there is very little that's impossible, period. It just is. And your mindset, as soon as you say something is impossible, then you shut down every possibility for solving it. And we all know this. And the challenge is that it's really hard not to be in that state because we get thrown stuff all the time. And what I want to share with you is an experiment, which is to say, okay, not only how do I make it, not how do I make it possible, but how do I actually go 10 times bigger? And you've heard me speak about this moonshot thinking, bold thinking, whatever the case, whatever terminology you want to give it, and most of us in our life are trying to make a 10% improvement. And we know this. I'm trying to increase my revenues by 10%. I'm trying to reduce my sales by 10%, save 10% more of the lands out there. Whatever it truly is, we all have this sort of beaten into us by life and by the rest of the universe that you can make these small incremental improvements. But the fact of the matter is that there are those in the world that go ten times bigger. And every one of us can be that. And as soon as you say, I want to not only solve this thing, but go 10 times bigger in my work, in the things. And can I say this in something that you're truly passionate about, not just about earning a little bit more money. I mean, it really should be in something that you care truly about that is bigger than yourself, that is impacting the world. As soon as you try and go 10 times bigger, three magical things happen. Number one, even if you have no idea how to solve it, no idea how to get there, you'll be amazed at what you come up with. And what's interesting is our legacy, our past anchors us to where we are today. And you have to let go of that. You truly have to let go of all the stuff in your past, what you thought you'd done, all of the infrastructure that you've built to let yourself go. When Elon Musk built Tesla, the reason Tesla was such an amazingly better car is he didn't have 100 years of Detroit to hold onto. He started with a clean sheet of paper and imagine what could be. The second thing is when you try and go 10 times bigger versus 10% bigger, it's 100 times the value proposition, and it's never 100 times more expensive or 100 times harder. And so you get this increased capability. And then the third thing is when you try and go 10 times bigger to solve a problem 10 times bigger, you've got to reinvent stuff. You have to actually go and figure out, okay, I have no idea how I'm going to solve that, but you're going to start to reinvent things. So when Eric and I were working on asteroid mining, we had to reinvent. We had to have so much computational power onboard the spacecraft, we had to come up with brand new sensors and hyperspectral and midwave IR that didn't exist, had never been licensed, because these spacecraft were going to be operating at 200 million miles away. And that forced us to come up with new kinds of capabilities that were not currently possible. And you'll be amazed with those capabilities that you create in your business, in your life, enable you to do. And so there's this massive benefit, this payoff, this dividend that comes from expanding your mind and not being anchored to the past. And so I think that there are very few things that are truly impossible. I think that impossible is a state of mind. And I'll say one other thing. The people in your life are part of that anchoring. And so how do you anchor yourself with a new set of people? I'm looking at my dear friend Naveen Jain here with whom We've opened up XPrize India and are really working on solving women's and girls issues in India and providing abundant drinking water in India. I mean, so how do you surround yourself with amazing people who live in the state of anything is possible. I'm blessed at Xprize, at Singularity University, at HY&PRI. I live that constantly. And so how do you do that? Where are you doing that? What is your nothing is impossible community here? Yeah, it is here. It is truly here. And so that's really critically important because once you get into that mindset, then you start freeing yourself from the bullshit that other that you tell yourself and people tell you. Because we are living in a world where constant amazing miracles happen. The other thing, because I'll put my commercial into this. Stop watching the news. Stop watching the news. You could not pay me enough to have the crisis News network or the constantly negative news network, whatever you call cnn, pollute my mind. Really. I have social networks, I have, you know, Google filters and so forth. I was just telling Arianna about this and hopefully she'll do this. I want. On the front page of Huffington Post, I said, I want a slider where I can control the percentage of positive news.

Stories.

Right? How would you like that? Instead of because right now it's. Because right now it's 10 to 1 negative to.

Positive.

And. And that pollutes your mind. And we heard an amazing presentation this morning. I apologize. Who was the gentleman who was talking about that? Talking about a few minutes of negative news in the.

Morning. Sean, thank.

You. Yeah, Sean, it's true. It's like, why would you possibly invest in the world and in the life and all these things if the world is falling apart, if the crisis. New network is like showing you airplane accident. If airplane accident. Airplane accident. What problem is that? The news networks never tell you there was no school shooting today at this school. Or this airplane actually flew LA to New York and actually made it and everybody survived. That's not news. And so we get this disproportionate view. And so our minds are constantly. The mindset you have when you watch the negative news is awful. Not that it's not going on. It's not that there's this amazing hardship and lives that are on the precipice of. Of hunger and death around the world. But the world is getting better at an extraordinary rate, and you can make a difference in it. And there is no problem. There is no problem we cannot.

Solve.

Period. End of.

Statement. What makes a successful producing entrepreneur? And I'll let Marie do the.

Honors. Ah.

Gosh. What makes a successful entrepreneur? I'm not sure that somebody will know that they're an entrepreneur from the beginning. I think they will have a desire to make a difference to other people's lives and, you know, they'll see that, you know, that something's frustrating them. There's a gap in the markets. They feel they can do it better themselves and they'll try to, you know, fill that, fill that gap in the market. And, and, you know, that's, you know, and then. And then they almost become an entrepreneur by, you know, it. By defaults. You know, I don't think. I don't think you can sort of set out to become an entrepreneur. I think you've got. You've got to set out to make it make a difference to other people's.

Lives. Well, what are the business principles that have stood out for you, that just have worked really well for Virgin and for even building any sort of organization or.

Cause? Well, again, I don't necessarily think of them as business principles. I think the word, you know, I think the word business, it becomes the business. But what you're doing is you're painting a picture. You're trying to create something to make a difference to other people's lives. You have a blank canvas and you're filling in every little bit of that canvas to get every single little detail right. And if that canvas, you know, sings out at you at the end and it's, you know, it's a beautiful picture, your. Your business is going to be successful if, you know, if bits of the canvas are not quite right, your business may fail. So if you set up a. If you set up to change people's lives, you've got to get every single little detail right. You've got to make sure that the people that you're working with 100% believe in what you're trying to do. And you've got to make sure that what you are trying to do is worthwhile spending your time on. And the end of the day, you want to be sure that the people's lives you've affected, you've really affected them and benefited them. And if you get all that right, hopefully you'll be able to Pay the bills at the end of the.

Year. Well, I know you've started so many businesses.

Richard. I mean, you have, I think.

300 some companies right now. And you know, so many entrepreneurs. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are startups, who are in.

Their growth phase, who are even in.

Their, you know, legacy phase. And if, if you're in a.

Startup mode, I mean, you just talked about this painting the canvas. That's really.

Incredible. What is there like one tangible.

Piece of advice that, that you wish.

That you had when you were just starting your, your first.

Business? I mean, the absolute key and I, and like an old stuck gramophone record that existed in my day is how, how good you are with people. And if you, you know, if you genuinely care about people, if you can surround yourself with people that, you know, genuinely excited about what you're doing, if you, you know, if you can draw out the best in people, if you, you know, if you're good at, you know, lavishing praise on people and not criticizing your people and inspiring your people, you know, that's, that's something you just have to do from day one. You know, never use the I word. I mean, it's, you know, you're a team. We're doing this, we're doing that. Just never ever, you know, let it sort of center on yourself and just be a great leader of people. And if you can do that from day one, even if you've got one other person working with you or two other people working with you, then you can enjoy the good times together. But there will be bad times and your people will pull around for you. They'll work day and night to try to keep whatever it is you're creating alive and make sure that you, make sure it survives. So the number one lesson is be a great people.

Person. That's.

Great. And I got a quick follow up and the follow up would be.

You know, so now you've started to, to make it as a business owner. So now we work with a.

Lot of, you know, seven figure, eight figure nine figure business owners. What did you do to take.

It to really the whole, whole next.

Level? Well, I think, I think the next stage is, you know, is to be a great delegator and not try to do everything yourself. Try to find people who are better than you all the time. Try to find people who are better than you to put you, put you out of business effectively. So, you know, whatever you're spending all your day doing, try to find someone who's better than you to do that to replace you at it, so that, you know, you can go off and, you know, think about the next big picture. You know, an entrepreneur is not a man, not a manager. I mean, an entrepreneur is somebody who is great at conceiving ideas, starting ideas, building ideas, but then handing over to really good managers to manage the businesses. You know, the moment you've got more than one business, you can't be hands on doing everything. You know, if on the other hand, you are, you know, you're not really a great entrepreneur, but you're a really good manager, you know, then fine, just immerse yourself in the business. Know, worry about every, every detail. Don't worry about having to, you know, move on to other businesses. So it slightly depends on what kind of person you are. You know, in a strange way, Steve Jobs was more a manager than an entrepreneur. I mean, it sounds slightly strange to say that because, you know, but I mean, he, he was somebody that, you know, focused on, you know, you know, almost specifically on, on one subject matter, you know, immersed himself in that business. He second guessed everybody with everything. No bit of artwork could go out without his approval. And he built a formidable business, but pretty specific business in one area. And, you know, and it worked very well for him. But, but, you know, if you want to be a true entrepreneur and, you know, build a lot of different businesses, you've got to be a great.

Delegator. How would you define an entrepreneur? I mean, what's, what's entrepreneur? I mean, I know the original definition. I don't know if you ever heard it, but.

I. Well, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard my definition, but my definition is an entrepreneur is someone who's too incompetent to work for anyone else. And really, you know, I was, I had like big ideas. I had things I wanted to do and I'd get into a company and start working. I'd just go like, I can't work in this maneuver minutiae. I have to like, no, I want to do this. And so I became somebody that wasn't a very good employee. And so, okay, it's kind of chip, if you don't like the way we're doing things here, why don't you go do it yourself? And finally, I had no other option. It wasn't even a choice. It was like, if I want to feed myself, I got to figure something.

Out. No, honestly, I was in the same boat when I started my own company. I was 22 years old. I could not work for other People. I just had this thing in me, even to the point where I, you know, was in debt for, you know, two years. Credit cards, just, you know, clean carpets, doing hard manual labor. And I was even going broke doing it. And I was like, you know, there's so many ways to go broke. You know, sitting on a couch watching TV is an easier way to go broke than doing hard manual labor carpets. But it was in me. I was wired and I wanted to do.

It. And you learned probably something.

There. Oh, my God. Yeah. And I think entrepreneurs, they solve problems for a.

Profit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's very.

Good. Yeah. And like Dan Sullivan says, you just make it up and make it real. So you came up with all these things and you actually made them real. And so there's a lot of people that will be watching this that will look at you as an incredibly aspirational role model of how to build and grow a successful enterprise. And they're trying to take their ideas and. And make them up and then turn it into something. And I remember saying this years ago in a seminar. If I would have known how difficult being successful in business was, I would have stuck with being a loser. It was just a.

Lot. Unless you have a.

Passion. Exactly. So, again, it's another version of advice you would give to the person out there that hasn't quite nailed it yet. And I say this because even the people that really have reached the top, most of them don't think they.

Have.

Right? There's never any top. Yeah.

Exactly. And so the world's highest achievers live with the highest levels of.

Dissatisfaction. I mean, I agree with you. Yeah, not.

Me.

Any. I chose not to. But I could see my mind moving into that realm if I wanted it.

To. Well, that's something I want to highlight.

Too.

Then. I'd love to speak to that mindset that you've had about that, because, look, if you're going to play the game, you might as well enjoy it as best you can, because a lot of times you could be winning, but feel like you're losing totally based on how you frame it, how you look at it. And so when I ask questions like, what would you say to a young person? The truth is, I'm really talking about everybody because this is all available to anyone that's willing to do it. So if someone is wanting to just become better and they're, you know, they don't. They're not hitting it, what advice would you give them? Or what do they need to do? They need to change their attitude do they need to look at a different business model? I mean, what are some of the factors? I know there's not just one answer, so I want to get some of your.

Perspective. Well, I go back, I can only say about me, but, you know, there was that time when I was like 18 when I just decided that I wanted to learn everything I could. And I think there has to be. Knowledge is based on the knowledge you already have. So the more, you know, the more, you know, I find that some people just aren't. They say this is. They say they want to be successful, they say they want to do it, but then they play their video games or they watch football games on Sunday, or they, you know, they're not really driven. I think mostly because they haven't found their passion. And I think they haven't found their passion because either when they were in university, they didn't take a myriad of courses to find out what was really easy for them, which is where their passion is, or they haven't read enough to actually find something they're passionate about. And it almost seems lame, like talking to people like, find your passion. But I think I would have made athletic clothing for no money my whole life. Just enough to pay my. To feed my family, just enough to pay the mortgage would have been fine because that's what I was put on the earth to do. Right? You know, and so I think it's up for people to get out there and find that. And as we've talked about before with the landmark, it's like figuring out what the blocks in my life were that had me view the world from a place of ultimate possibility rather than being constrained from my.

Past. What scares you, if.

Anything? Well, I think the normal things, like one of my kids dying would be number one. I'm actually not concerned about climate change at all. I think the world is moving at such a rapid pace, technology wise, that we're going to. We've got to solve for everything it's coming. Like the knowledge that's on the web and the way people are able to crowdsource information and solve things at such a rapid rate, I think is far faster than climate change is.

Occurring. Yeah, well, I agree. And there's a lot of technology, and I will say this because I'm still, as far as I know, Richard Branson's largest fundraiser. I've raised a few million dollars, and a big chunk of that money has gone into things that have to do with climate change and the environment. And I've also been around a lot of people that are in that world that call themselves like the saviors of the planet. And it's that I don't find to be very, you know, very high integrity individuals. And I think a lot of it is used as fear tactics and things. And there's enormous solutions. And I look at both sides and I'll interview people on to get completely different perspectives. And there's a guy that I interviewed, Alex Epstein, oh, very good, great guy. And he wrote a book called the Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. And it's very fascinating because he doesn't sell anything related to that field. He just took a look at how much propaganda is put out about climate change and things, and this other side didn't have a voice to it. And of course, his favorite book is Atlas Shrugged, which is one of the, one of my favorite books and one of your favorite books. And we can even maybe talk about that. But yeah, I mean, I think technology coming from the mind of entrepreneurs and the creation of things can solve almost all world problems. And I don't think we have a resource problem. We have a distribution problem when it comes to food. And some of the greatest resources are human resources employed in a certain way. And if, I don't know if anyone's ever described this you this way, I think you are a brilliant deployer of human resources by empowering them in a certain way. Like the original definition of entrepreneur, the first time it was recorded usage was in 1804 by a French guy named John Baptiste who said an entrepreneur is an individual that takes resources from a lower yield to a higher.

Yield. Okay.

Interesting. Yeah, from a lower level of productivity to a higher level of productivity. And so when someone thinks of, you know, there's an ax to chop down a tree and someone invents a chainsaw, they've made an invention. But I think when you take a human mind and you take it from here and you make it here, be more productive, higher integrity, more resourceful, more happy. That's entrepreneurship. And then you apply that to technology or anything where there's world problems, you can improve it. And there's plenty of people that use business principles to sell toxic foods, alcohol and tobacco, pharmaceuticals, things that are damaging. But there's a lot of other individuals that are what I would consider empowering and doing things that do good for people. And I think the way that I think of you, which is one of the reasons I wanted to interview you, is there's very few people that not only have transformed an entire industry and have made billions of dollars as a result of it, but have empowered literally hundreds of thousands of team members. Because when you take someone, get them to read that book or go through landmark or whatever sort of thing, you've not just improved that person's performance and their career, you've improved their family, you've improved their family's family and then.

Their community and then it's extraordinary how that.

Works. How would you define marketing and why do you love.

Marketing? Well, marketing connects people and for my companies, I'm always looking for a way to allow people to see what do we do, how do we do it and how we can serve them. So, like in the veterinary industry, we have a holistic hospital. So we're looking for that top 5% of people who love their pet so much they will do anything and they come to us and we teach them proactive care and we teach them how to have a longer, healthier life with their bed and people who want to do better in the world. I just absolutely love supporting them on their.

Journey.

Yep. So, Dean, we're going to talk about mindset. So wanted to ask Lee, what is your perspective on the entrepreneurial mindset? I mean, what does that actually mean to you and how do you think about mindset? Because, you know, we can give people all the different strategies and ideas all day long, but their ability to do something with, I think has a lot to do with their.

Mindset. 100% starts in mindset. And we actually just did a five day auction online, a five day challenge online. And one of the things that we learned is the very first day we brought in a mindset expert to help the entire community have the same frame of reference around how to approach things. And the first thing is I start every single day in a gratitude circle. Sometimes with my team, sometimes with my family, but every single day I'm looking for the good, I'm looking for the things to celebrate. And I realized that in anything, you could look at a perspective one way or another. You could look at it that it's empowering you and helping you have a better life. Or you could look at it that it's hard and a struggle and everyone's going to have things that are difficult and struggles, but how do you convert it to something that's more empowering in your life? Right. A friend of mine, Brandy Gilmore, taught me years ago to look at my stories, whether it's in work or personal, look at my stories. And as I'm telling a story, looking for the piece that's most powerful and most amount of love for myself and stop the story there. Don't continue the story to when something went wrong or something didn't show up or somebody disappointed me. She said, why are stories in your brain? So that it's the most empowering, filled with the most love, so that you're carrying those stories forward with.

You.

Yeah.

Great. All right, so with that, let's talk about something that me and Dean have spoken, spent hundreds of hours discussing on I love marketing, which is how to get more customers. So what are some of the best ways that you've discovered in your careers, your businesses, to get more.

Clients? 20 years ago, I bought a veterinary hospital that had already been around for 40 years, right? So it was 2001. It started in 1961. When I bought the hospital, it had 3,500 current clients. In the following 10 years, I took that 3,500 and turned it into 25,000 clients who literally came and saw us in person, one at a time. And what I learned is it really is consistent action every day, every single day, we had different ways that we reached out. And in the center of my mind map, it says attracting new clients. And then we had 13 different ways they could find us. Right? We had a mind map, 13 days, 13 ways. And the reason it is 13 ways is because there's 13 weeks and a quarter and every deep dive on one of them, One might be networking, one might be JVs, one might be social media. Doesn't mean we ignore the other ones. But each week we deep dive on one and get really crystal clear on our plan for that quarter and then we repeat it the next quarter. But it started with the mind map I wrote maybe 20, 25 years ago, and I still use that foundation. But in 2008, when the market crashed and veterinary hospitals were empty, they had hallowed halls. They were taking clients and making them part time employees. We were bursting at the seams and the group was wondering, like, how did we always have more clients coming in, even in a down market? And it was because consistently, every single day, we were doing marketing things every day, no matter what. Something I would test might be Facebook ads in another city and then count how many new clients we got from that city. But I made it fun for the team, too. I will give them ways that they can participate, kind of gamify it at the front desk. How many calls did they close and turn into appointments for the team? How many people came to us from Yelp? And counting it and seeing how they converted it. And the more we gamify it make it fun for the team and they get to win as well. The more fun it is for.

Me. Love it. Well, you know, you're quite familiar with elf. Go ahead, Dean, what are you.

Saying? I was gonna say there's a lot like ipower. Like what? Getting your team members involved in. In the process, because everybody's got great ideas. You just need good direction. By framing the question that's going to elicit the great response. I remember reading there's a great book about Albert Lasker, who was one of the old, original advertising men. And when they were selling refrigerators back when refrigeration was brand new, one of the things that people were afraid of is that they didn't want to have something that was plugged in all the time and sucking electricity because they were new to the whole. You had this meter outside your house that you could see it moving, and when that's moving, it's costing you money. So people were weighing the benefits of having refrigeration versus their fear of this bulk, bottomless pit of electricity spent. And they said. He tasked the entire company. He said, we need some phrase that makes people comfortable with Frigidaire as the brand that they can trust for refrigeration. And somebody who was like the equivalent of in the mail room came up with the idea of that every Frigidaire is equipped with meter miser technology. Just those words, Meter miser said exactly what you need words to say to say, it's watching your back. It's not going to take any more electricity than it absolutely needs to. That was really the thing that made people comfortable choosing Frigidaire over all the others, because all the others are just money pits. But you better get that meter miser, because that one will save us the most.

Money. So really big key you said in there, Dean, too. And it's genius, which is coming up with the right phrase that allows your customer to feel comfortable with their decision. They want evidence they made a great decision. Right. And one of the things I taught my front desk, Joe, which was really important in the shift in closing clients at the front desk is no matter what the client asks them, the first thing to say is, yes, I can help you with.

That.

Absolutely. Because then it puts their mind at ease that they have the right person and the right person who really cares about helping them. And just by using that one phrase, even if they have to say, you know what, I have to check on the answer and call you back, it's okay, because they set up the relationship of I Do want to help you. And I think that that's just been really key in my business, is that my clients feel like the team sees them and listens and.

Cares. Hey, Joe, I just saw Evan Carmichael's here.

Too. Yes. We need to do a shout out for Evan. And Evan is just a master at YouTube videos. If you don't follow him, follow him on YouTube. He's got 2.6 million subscribers, over 385 million views. I know that because he was just a guest on the Genius Network meeting we just had. And we're going to be doing a jam session with him at the Genius network annual event November 2nd, 6th, 7th and 8th, because it was such a big.

Hit. But interview on his on his channel right now with Kevin o' Leary from Shark Tank. He brilliantly did a two parter with him where it's one half of the interview on his channel, 1/2 on Kevin O' Leary's channel. So what is a great model for collaboration.

There? Well, Evan, why don't you pop on and explain what that is and then post it in the link so people can watch those interviews. And if there's anything that you want to say to each other, either make fun of Dean or to ask Lee or mention anything, feel free. Wherever you're at out there bouncing on his trampoline, I'm sure where you.

At right now, I am on my trampoline and I just discovered Dean is a fellow Torontonian. So we can't make fun of him. We gotta only show love. Shout out to Lee and her website too. Because I was on and she's got this. If you haven't seen Lee's website, I popped it in the chat and it's this epic video across the top of her coaching and speaking and with Oprah and high fiving and it's like, wow, how did she do that? I want to. I gotta get Lee's website people on board, but I think that's a great. Joe's on there too. Joe, you made your appearance. You're like right after Oprah on there. The link. I don't know where the link is. I'm sure it's somewhere off my YouTube channel. But Kevin O' Leary is trying to grow on his YouTube channel and. And he wanted to do something. He wanted to do more collabs and he happens to be in Toronto as well. He wanted to do something in person because all of his stuff has now been, you know, remote and, you know, Covid era. And so we connected and we did a two part series. We had two hours or so of time to talk. And what we did was we took questions from both of our audiences. What do you want us to answer? And then we went through about 11 or 12 questions, and we put half on my channel and half on his channel. And since I edited it or my team was editing and filming it, we took our favorite questions and then gave him the rest. But they're still good on both channels. And one of the great things you can do on YouTube is there's a thing called an end card, which in the last 20 seconds of every video, you can call things out and it's clickable. So that could be your PDF download, that could be your lead magnet, that could be sign up for your email, that could be your website, that could be your offer that you want to send people to. And so what we did was we did a thing at the end, we said, hey, if you want to see part two of this interview, go check it out on Kevin's channel or on Evan's channel. And we call it the Kevin and Evan show for that day. And it's just great to do collaboration. So anybody who's doing YouTube, I always love Genius Network events. They're great, amazing people. Huge, warm hearts here. And so I'm looking forward to these annual event and jamming out with all you.

Guys.

Awesome. Yeah. And there's a bunch of Genius Network members that are here, too. So Evan's going to do a whole session on just how to really build and grow a sustainable YouTube channel, which is awesome. So, Lee, you know a lot about elf. Easy, lucrative, and fun. Running an elf business versus a half business, which I refer to as hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating. What does an elf business mean to you? Because you tend to have a lot of fun in what you.

Do. It's true. And that is the actual criteria when I'm taking on a project. Is it easy? Is it lucrative? Is it fun? MIT knows it as well. They run it through the same filter. I actually spoke to 8,500 event planners last month, and I drilled this home so much that one of them sent me a gift with Lee Richter. Easy, lucrative, and fun. I'm like, well, it's actually Joe Polish. But I think they just have heard it so much because I think, why make it anything else than easy, lucrative, and fun? Especially at this time in my life when I have so many choices. And that is literally the filter I go through first for every project. It has to meet those three criteria. Seems so simple. But there are things that don't meet that criteria and I cut it.

Out. Yeah, I love it. And that actually that term was given to me by my friend Mark Schneider, who recently passed away. And you know, it has been a great criteria on not just marketing because I've actually trademarked ELF marketing. Right. And so if you do use it, you have to give me credit because else we're going to just sue.

You.

Really? No, I'm kidding. Well.

Depends. We may see.

You. It depends if you totally plagiarize my shit. But I love the term ELF and I recommend using it as a criteria, use it as a process and it's helped me. I used to think of it just as marketing know doing automated robotic types of marketing methodologies. But I now apply ELF to people, projects, anything. Because if it's not money, it's is it easy, liberating and fun. I even applied into my personal life. So I'm going to take next year as a sabbatical. And so there's going to be a lot of things that need to be just ELF for me that aren't money related, but they're, you know, it has to be liberating. So I highly encourage it as a filter because the genius network members that we have a tool called ELF versus Half, where they list what are the people and the projects and things in their life that are ELF and what are the things that are hard, annoying, lame and frustrating and really take a look at how do you eliminate the half and how do you get to the elf? So one thing I want to I have this question I wrote down here. And then I'm going to ask Jeff Madoff to ask you a question about pr. How can people utilize tough times? As many people in the world have been going through incredibly difficult times with the Pandemic, how can people utilize tough times as a springboard for greater success? And what does that word that gets thrown around a lot success, mean to.

You? Well, success is that I have freedom of time and I can make choices on how to spend that time. That's what money buys me, is freedom of choice, period. That's how I see it the way right now. You know what, looking at tough times, the first thing I did, I remember on March 16, I sat down with my manager. I'm like, what has changed in our world right now? We wrote a list of 25 things that have changed based on Covid and the Pandemic, but immediately turned it into what can we do about it? And then a week later on Slack, they were celebrating how things were actually getting better. But it was because we were identifying the challenge and overcoming it together that they were excited about it. Right? It wasn't. They weren't afraid anymore. And they also knew if any changes happen, they'd find it on Slack. So they didn't have to worry about us making different changes and doing things in the company unless they were included. But I tell you, we have had so many more opportunities come out of this pandemic. Our company's up 31% this year. The team feels essential. They feel excited. They feel like people really need them and want them. And so what I do is I highlight that every Friday I write, here's 10 things we're celebrating right now. And one of the things I've learned is to share that list with our clients coming in too, so that they could see the value of the team. And by sharing it not only with the team, but with the clients, they could see we're celebrating the team, but also what we have to overcome as well. Because the clients are coming with their perspective of what they have to overcome, but they're not thinking about all the things we have to do to be there, ready for them, them. And so I think by highlighting that it's now elevated on both sides, the appreciation, the clients appreciate the team more, and the team appreciates their position more. They have seen so many people lose jobs, lose opportunities. And even last Friday was boss's day, and they came in and they wrote me this beautiful card. And each one of them is like, thank you for being a leader and helping us be happy rather than scared. And I think a lot of that is just being consistent, sharing what is the challenge and then overcoming it together.

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

Here. Do it.

Now. Come.

On. Thank.

You. Watch.