The Self Serving Goal Of Being Useful And Interesting - Episode #6

I'm Dan Sullivan. And I'm Joe Polish and welcome to 10 Times Talk. Hi, it's Dan Sullivan here and I'd like to welcome you to this edition of 10 Times Talk. I'm here in Toronto and in Phoenix, I have my great friend, Mr. Joe Polish.

Like nail polish or shoe polish or however someone wants to pronounce it.

Yeah. So Joe, one of the things that we were talking about last time and you were very, very kind to mention that you find that I'm able to deal with a lot of high ego people rather easily and I'd like to return the favor as we start off because you've come at it from a completely different direction than I am. My life has been entirely about coaching and yours, you know, looking at it from a distance, you know, and I've talked to you many, many times over the years about that. I think you're the greatest connector of the world of taking different kinds of talents from, you know, hundreds of different industries. Geniuses, really, people who are geniuses in their own right. And you have an ability to put these people together and in amazing conversational and discussion groups where, you know, from my perception, because I'm a member of your 25k group, you know, which is one of the, I think probably the greatest mastermind group in the world. And there's just a flow to the conversation and you know, I. It's been mentioned many times in 25k. Everybody just checks their ego at the door. They come in, they've got, you know, things that they're happy and excited about that they want to share with everybody. They've got issues that are really frustrating them and they'd like assistance. Could you kind of talk about it yourself? Because you have always been able to jump to the next highest world in connecting with people who are in many cases world famous. They're in the headlines every day. How do you do it in such a way that you can stay very low key and you know, you don't. I have never seen you in an arrogant or, you know, egotistical fashion. I just wondered how you came to it. I came to it one way and you came to it another way. Yeah.

You know, first off, thank you. I really appreciate the nice words. You know, I guess the way that I always thought about it was that human beings have tremendous amounts of suffering in screwed up areas of their life. And no matter how much someone has achieved, you got to be very careful to put someone on a pedestal and to kind of give away your power. And a lot of People tend to do that. And when people that are powerful people watch this happening, where people are groveling at their feet because they wrote an amazing book or created a speech that bedazzles people, or they're a musician or an actor and they've got lots of admirers. I've seen many people start believing their own PR and thinking that they walk on water and. And I've also witnessed a lot of these people. And this is going to sound very strange, Dan, but I've done, unlike you, I've done lots of group therapy and I've dealt with addiction challenges in my life and all kinds of stuff. So I've put myself in situations where I've got to meet very famous people in places where most people would never encounter them, like the backstage of their personal life. And I've also had lots of clients that were some of the top psychiatrists and therapists in the world. And when the marketing hat is on and they're the student or the patient, I get to hear all of their challenges and stuff. I sort of came up with this understanding that people have lots of areas of their life that don't work and are really screwed up and that they're just human beings. And the real goal is to be incredibly useful and interested. Now as I go out and interact with people and I meet powerful people and I meet people that are famous and that really have great wisdom and knowledge, I mean, there's a self serving side of me. I want access to that, I want to leverage it, I want to learn from them, I want to tap into it. And so my whole thing kind of goes back to that cliche saying that maybe Zig Ziglar was the first one that said it. You can have anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. And I took that seriously. And the approach that I take with Genius Network is if you want people in your network that are at a genius level, that are people that you admire, that are incredibly skilled and capable and you want to tap into their capabilities, the very best way to do that is coming at it not from a taker positioning, but from a giver position where what can you actually give to the person that would create, not in a manipulative way, create a feeling that, wow, I really, I really want to know this person, I really want to help them. And how can you do it to where it's fun and not an arduous process? For me, that tends to work. Not everybody is going to get off on doing the sort of things that I do. Going out and interviewing people and meeting them and coming up with clever ways to bust on them and use sarcasm in fun ways, which I do. I just really enjoy it. I like bringing people together and creating situations for them that I just know on their own they won't do that. And one of the ways that I do that is I just go out of my way to be funny and not that I need to manufacture it. I just think it's easier to get work done when people are laughing and when they feel comfortable and where they feel chummy and creating an environment where people are free to talk. And that's how I sort of run my mastermind groups.

Yeah, I mean, one of the things, you know, we all learn from each other and, you know, just observing you over the years, I've always really admired your, you know, your totally unpredictable outrageousness. You know, that you have this ability in a situation that just catches everybody by surprise to be outrageous. And yet it's not hurtful, you know, I mean, nobody is ever the object in your world. You know, you're the one being outrageous and you're allowing other people to participate in that activity. And it's almost like an art form. And I don't even know if you're conscious of it all, because I think it comes very naturally to you. But you have the ability, whatever formalities and whatever barriers that people have put up out of defensive reasons to do it. Your outrageousness almost suddenly, it just dissolves everything because people will laugh and they'll, you know, they have to join in and everything else. And it just creates an incredibly great environment, you know, and I've just admired this so much. You know, I'm a coach and, you know, I, you know, I'm on stage and you know, I've got, you know, really high powered people in front of me, But I've really picked up a lot and you've probably observed it over the years. I've picked up not 100% Joe Polish proof outrageousness, But I think I'm more outrageous now than I used to be. I'm mildly outrageous.

You certainly are, all things considered. It's funny because I do my best to try to teach other people how to do some of the stuff that I do. And I've come to the conclusion that there are just certain things that I can say that if anyone else even dared tempted to say it, they would just offend the hell out of a lot of people.

Yeah, there would be duels, you know, I mean, people would have you know, be duels in the 21st century, you know?

Yeah, I remember I had Richard Branson speak live at one of my events in 2007. He was on a big screen, and I said, you know, just right in the middle of his speech, I said, you know, if you were to get in a fight with Al Gore, physically, do you think you could take him? And it completely threw him off. But I said it in such a way to where, you know, it wasn't intended to, like, completely derail him. It was just intended to be a total pattern interrupt, and it completely loosened him up dramatically. And personally, I would love to see him actually physically take Al Gore. I mean, that would be like a celebrity death match. That would be worth watching.

I'd really, really take bets on that one. Yeah.

But, you know, the whole thing, though, is just, you know, the same things. And really, this is a learned behavior, though. I mean, you really can learn how to be a little sarcastic, a little funny, without being cruel, without being rude. And part of it, though, is I just want to put smiles on people's faces, and I want them to loosen up, because I think corporate America, I mean, if there's one thing that, if I could suggest that would make interactions with everybody work better is this, like, loosen up. I mean, don't take things so seriously. My good friend Dave Keckich, who's in the wheelchair, he's been in a wheelchair for over 30 years, and he's had to really learn how to adapt to life, because this is a guy that got a spinal cord injury in the 70s when exercising and running every day wasn't a cool thing. And he was rich and had all of the trappings of success. The convertible Mercedes, the beautiful girlfriend, lots of money, house on the beach, all that sort of stuff. And working out every day in the gym and running. And overnight, he got an injury and lost use of his legs. He's paralyzed from the chest down. And it took him a couple of years. He traveled the world trying to find a cure. And back then, they weren't technologically advanced like they are today. And it took him a while to come to the conclusion that, this is my life. How do I make the most of it? And he became a very positive, very upbeat, very smart, very productive guy. And he's in his late 60s now and still in phenomenal shape. Anyway, the reason I bring him up is he has this saying where he's like, life is seldom as hard as it seems when it's going bad, and seldom as good as it seems. When it's going to be, well, lighten up, you'll live longer. And the whole thing is keep things in perspective. And so I just want to do my best to get people to, you know, I think that's why I admire you so much, too. I think just in your own way, you're the same way. You know, you're out there just trying to connect people to become better versions of themselves.

Yeah, well, the one thing that, you know, and I've got a rule around our company, you know, and most people who, you know, come into Strategic Coach and they're backstage, so they're with our team, after a while, they're saying, jeez, it's so relaxed here. You know, everybody seems to be having a good time. And, you know, and this is probably a whole subject for another talk. And I said, yeah, you know, when Babs and I started putting the company together, this is Bab Smith, who's my partner, my. My wife, and also my business partner in Strategic Coach. When we put the company together, we came with a rule that we would never consider one of the people who was a team member in Strategic Coach. We don't call them employees, they're team members. That we would never consider a person who is in Strategic Coach as a cost. We would only treat them as an investment. And therefore, we want the biggest possible return out of them. You know, if someone's an investment, you want to maximize them. If they're a cost, you want to minimize them. And I said, you know, one of the big problems with corporate America just taking it back is that the attitude towards employees is that they're a cost. And if you're a cost, you're going to put up all sorts of barriers because, you know, you're being scrutinized as something that can be possibly minimized. You can be fired, you can be downsized, you can be replaced with technology. And I think the uptightness of the corporation and goes right to the top CEOs can get fired. I think it has to do with this attitude towards human beings. There's no. In my mind, you can't ever, ever have the word cost in your mind and human being in your mind at the same time. You can never, ever treat a human being as a cost. But if you treat them as an investment, then you want to maximize, you know, what these individuals can do. So you want to put them, you know, you want to kind of blueprint the conditions so that they can be who they truly are, that they can really express their talents. And I Think that has a lot to do with both of our approaches. You and the genius network and 25K and our strategic Coach. I just see human beings as investments. Nobody is a cost. Right, right.

And the moment you have that sort of perspective of cost, you start trying to constantly view everything that they do. Are they worth it? Are they worth it? It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I mean, if you view human beings that way, you're going to come up with ways to, oh, they're not measuring up here. Oh, they're not measuring up in this area versus how do I grow and develop this? So it continually becomes more valuable for both people and then it becomes a total win, win situation. And I think there's so much win lose perspective in areas of business that it just turns out that way for so many people.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's a fascinating thing because we're talking about things that allow you to take, you know, to go 10 times. Well, you know, in my world and in your world it's only other human beings who can actually take you 10 times. So you gotta, you know, if you're into the 10 times business and you're into the 10 times future, then you've got to understand that you got to put other human beings in the best possible situation that you can at all times that they are, you know, that they're going to be multipliers for you.

Yeah. I remember a conversation in Strategic Coach this must have been, boy, six or seven years ago and you made this comment where, you know, people talk about time is money. And you went on to say, well, you know, it's really, you know, I've never hit my alarm clock and had piles of money sitting there. It's really relationships are money. And if you develop the right sort of relationships and you nurture those sort of relationships, that's where your future is going to come from. Because your future is in the relationships with people with capabilities that will help you get to where you want to go, that you're going to help them get to where they want to go. And you talk even about a value creation monopoly. And so, you know, one of your quotes out of your. I'm not sure if it's out of the quotable Dan Sullivan or never own anything that eats while you sleep. But it's the fastest way to change your circumstances is to become more useful. I always think of usefulness. The more that I can make myself more useful to other people, the more those other people are going to want to do business with me. And the more fun and silly in the right context that I can be, the more they're going to enjoy doing business with me. Because people, given the choice of someone that has really good stuff and you like the person or you dislike the person, you're going to do business with people that you like. With a salesperson, if someone likes them, that will probably get them the first sale. But they've got to deliver value. They just can't be charming. You've got to have some substance behind it. And if you have substance and likability, you're just in a great position in your whole perspective of looking at your team members as an investment that completely shifts how you treat them, how you respond to them. This may have started out as a conversation about building rapport and genius networking and all of that, but I think a real emphasis on how Strategic Coach works. One of the things I tell people when I recommend Strategic Coaches Coach, because I refer to a lot of people to join Strategic Coach, one of the things I say to them is like, look, I can't even tell you what you're going to get out of it. You're going to have interesting conversations, you're going to do some planning, you're going to do some thinking, you're going to do things that you never will do, left to your own devices on how you think about your company and you're going to learn a lot of stuff. And that alone is a reason enough to join Strategic Coach. But another thing that you're going to get out of joining Strategic Coach is you're going to enter into a relationship with a company that is so well run in the front stage of how they interact with their clients and how you see the team interact with each other. It's like watching a great play. You're just seeing people that are working together and collaborating together. And people talk about this in seminars, people write books about it, people record audio programs on how to run and manage a great company. But most of the time, if you ever go see those companies, the people that do those seminars, they're complete cluster. I was going to use a profane word like cluster effort, rude word. But basically Strategic Coach actually does that. People always think, what's the secret of how do they do that? Well, you kind of revealed one of the secrets. It's how you view the people that work for you. They're not cost. You are really looking at these people is real human beings that have lives and capabilities and you need to care for them and they need to know you care about them because if they don't, what's their motivation for coming to work every day and putting all their efforts into working for some asshole? Not that you can't pull that off. I mean, Steve Jobs certainly did a great job of doing that to a certain degree, but that is very rare. And there was a lot of depth to what Apple created in spite of having a CEO that many considered a total tyrant. But, you know, that's not how to model the average company.

Yeah. And, you know, I mean, I've been reading the biography of Steve Jobs, and, you know, he was a complex guy. It wasn't. I mean, there were sides of him that if you look at it from the outside, you'd say, gee, you know, you know, kind of like a jerk, you know, but, you know, the people who were with Apple, I mean, one of the things you have to say, how long were people there? And he had, you know, he had people who were really there right from the beginning, and they stayed, you know, with Apple. So you got to say that there was some huge psychological and emotional reward that people got. And I think the reason is that he demanded that people go way, way beyond what they thought their abilities were. And for some people, that's the greatest reward in the world. And, you know, maybe there was a downside and, you know, some of his personal interaction and everything else, but I got to believe that the lives of the people who were really in the inner circle at Apple, who created the greatest corporation in the world. You know, I was looking the other day, you know, at Microsoft, because when Steve Jobs came back and, you know, he and Bill. Bill Gates knew each other forever, and, you know, Steve Jobs had to go and borrow $150 million from Microsoft just to keep the company afloat. And I was looking at just this interesting statistic last week that just the sales of the iPhone this year is greater than all the money that Microsoft will make this year. It's just one product area for Apple. And I think the reason is that there was a particular type of person who was out looking for a particular type of organization where if you were really good and you were really talented and you, you know, you really contributed to the creation of a great product and a great quality service. I gotta believe that Steve Jobs probably left you alone. You know, what he couldn't stand is anyone who violated his sense of beauty or his sense of high quality and everything like that. So, you know, I mean, life's complex, you know, I mean, but having said that, you know, you know, I just want to finish Put the finishing touc on the cost investment concept, Joe, and that is that. Having said that, I also said, you know, that we've had a hundred people with Strategic Coach who aren't at Strategic Coach anymore. And even though right from the beginning, everybody gets treated like an investment, some of them aren't good investments.

Right, right.

And the reason is because they don't match up with us. You know, they will invest in you, but you got to match up with us. You know, you got to be useful to us. You know, you got to bring your uniqueness to the table every day. And if you don't, you know, you're not. You're not a good investment. We can't go on putting resources into you. So, you know, but you're not a cost. And the reason is if we tell somebody, you know, you're not an investment for us, but I think you'll be a great investment for someone else. The big thing is not to depersonalize a human being, not to, you know, in any way denigrate them as a human being. It's just not a fit, you know, where you're going and where we're going, it just doesn't match. And you know it, we know it. Let's, let's, let's part. And, you know, we have an enormous number of people who say great things about us after they've left coach, and they'll actually send people as possible new staff members who come from people who we've had to end the relationship. So, you know, you treat people right from start to finish. You treat them like people who are talent, and you maximize them. And it doesn't always work. That's just the way life works.

Yeah. One thing I learned early on in my marketing career, when I first got into it, I heard this statement, be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because they're the same people you're going to meet on the way down. And I was in my, you know, mid-20s when I first started. I was 26 years old when I first started my marketing company, and I was hanging out with people that were 10, 20, 30, in some cases 40 years older than me. And they had been in business for many, many years. And a lot of them had many ups and downs. And I was able to, you know, have conversations with them and witness it. And I sort of made an agreement with myself that I will always go out and just treat people well. Not that I wasn't already doing that. I just wanted to be really aware of that and never Sell anything that I didn't think was aligned with my clients and making sure I was having relationships with people that I really liked. I mean, I let some bad people come in and I've had misalignments, I've had embezzlements with employees that I put in charge of things that I didn't have systems and processes in place, some of the things that you learn. But what it's done for me over the years is I've ran into many of the same people that I've run into people that I haven't seen in 15, 20 years. And because I really never screwed anyone, because I always was aware of your actions can affect somebody. The level of relationships that I have right now, my relationship equity is huge. There are so many people that I can call upon if I need anything and they're there because it's an operating system. And it's an operating system that's worked really well. My assistant, Eunice has been my personal assistant for, for 17 years. I mean, I really strive to have long term relationships. And you're the same way. I mean, one of the things that we've talked about is that you want clients for 25, 50, probably. We never talked about the 100 year mark, but it wouldn't surprise me if you don't have visions of someone that's been in strategic coach for 100 years, which someone will have to go through your life to time extender process in Strategic Coach. Understanding what we're talking about here, but basically it is about maintaining relationships. And the thing you said about alignment is gigantic. I mean, if people just did an 8020 analysis of their company, their clients, their team, and really who are the people that are most aligned with you and eliminate the ones or give them the opportunity to go somewhere else where they're going to be more aligned so you can free up their life, not only will your stress level be reduced by at least 80%, you're probably going to multiply your company by 10 times, which is the whole purpose of 10 times talk anyways, to just get you thinking about this stuff.

Yeah, I mean, you're the one who introduced me to, you know, I mean, I haven't met him yet, but you've talked so much about Tony Hsieh at Zappos. Yeah. And the thing that they do, you know, they hire people, they screen them, they train them, you know, they give them a job and then they give them an offer that if they would quit right now, they'll give them a check.

I know it's so fantastic to just weed out anyone that is not, quote unquote, you know, a zappo fanatic.

Yeah, well, they're not aligned with the big vision. You know, they, you know, they're there for a job and they look for the paycheck. And they said, well, you know, since you don't want the vision, we'll give you the paycheck. You know, well, give it to you. But they just saved themselves probably years of problems for probably a pretty low cost, you know, it wasn't a real. They invested in their non future.

Exactly. And you know, the thing is, and you talk about this a lot is, you know, have some standards. I mean, you know, what do you really stand for? Who do you want to be a hero to? What do you sort of represent? And that's. That I think is the greatest key behind what Steve Jobs was able to do is the guy just had really high standards. He really wanted the very best people. One of the things that recently came out was a video documentary. It's a Steve Jobs documentary. And there was an interview that had been done in 1995, a year before he actually went back to Apple. And he is about an hour and I think maybe like an hour and 10 minutes long, hour and 15 minutes. And you can rent it on iTunes for $3.99. And it's literally just a talking head of Steve Jobs in 1995, just answering questions of a reporter that you don't even see the guy who's asking him the questions except at the very beginning. And this video went missing. They put some parts of it in a documentary, but then it was sent off on a VHS tape and literally got lost. They weren't able to locate it until earlier this year. This guy found a friend of his, contacted him and said, I have a copy of this interview. So they just made this thing available on itunes. And Steve Jobs is just talking about. He's using the term a player before I'd ever heard that term. Now maybe Brad Smart, who wrote Top Grading, who I've interviewed before, who me and you spent. He was with us on our trip to Galapagos back in 2009, who's known as one of the world's leading hiring experts, talks about a players and Steve Jobs is talking about a players and hiring the very best people. But what he also says about Microsoft, he goes, you know, he's like, I don't fault their success. He goes, I don't want to take anything away from them there. He goes, the one problem I have with them is their products are just. They're third rate. He's like, they're just crap. He's like, they're McDonald's. And it was the funniest thing because you can just tell his sense of everything being just good. He wanted products that the clients loved and that were really just the best that he can make them. And there's a lot to learn about Steve just by obviously, not only reading the big, huge book on him, but also watching that documentary. But it's really about standards.

Yeah. And I think that there are standards in how you create products, and I think that there's standards, how you treat people. And I mean, that's really been the talk, you know, one of our. Joe, one of our favorite people. And you can just see an audience light up with when anytime that, you know, Dean Jackson talks, you know, that you can just really tell, you know, that Dean just embodies goodwill.

Right.

You know, and I think it's just his attitude about being useful in the way that you were talking about it. And, you know, because he's. We work with Dean all the time. He's another individual who I think just naturally attracts people. People love talking to Dean. And, you know, he's got this great new marketing seminar that he does now, the Breakthrough Blueprint. And, you know, you just love working with the guy. I just love spending the time with him because there's. He doesn't set up any kind of competition. He's an incredibly smart guy, but, you know, he's just all questions and, you know, he asks you questions and he tells you stories and he has observations. It's really a pleasure being. I know. You know, I met Dean through you, so I just wanted to get that in.

He's a chummy guy and he's very funny. And we have this running joke on our podcast of Batman and Robin, of who's Batman and who's Robin? But we let our listeners try to determine whoever they think that is at any given time. He did an interview with me on how I actually develop relationships with people. And I go through the whole magic rapport formula. And then me and you did a. Me and him did a great interview with you. Just totally off the cuff on video. And what I'll do is I'll put those links so people can watch the interview of me and dean with you on 10timestalk.com and also to go deeper with what you started with, ask me about building rapport with people. Literally, I go through my whole process on how I actually do and It's a magic rapport formula. So we'll put that up there, and then we'll let everyone, you know, comment on all this stuff. So that's pretty much it. I think we're.

We're at 31 minutes now. We're at the witching hour here. And, you know, in two minutes, we turn back to pumpkin stage. So anyway, I'm gonna. I started off and I'm gonna wrap up today. So this is 10 times talk. So you just go. And you. If you haven't been listening to this, you just go and punch in 10 times talk. And you'll get further conversations with my great friend Joe Polish. And we covered a lot of territory today. We'll do that again next time. We don't always know when we start, exactly where we're going, but we hope you really love this. And just remember, you know, that it's all people, you know. And, Joe, last word from you, just thank you.

And go out and, you know, be funny today and stretch yourself. And if you don't consider yourself funny, then, you know, watch a comedy. Go to clown school, do something. But the world needs to laugh. And it's your job to bring sunshine into people's lives. So however you do it, go ahead and do it. Thank you so much, Dan.

Okay, thanks, Joe.