The Transformer Mindset: A Conversation with Dan Sullivan and Joe Polish - Part 2

So I think almost everyone here, if you found one area of your life that you could really just rearrange the furniture, totally upheave something, and change the environment, something that you just dreamed you wished you had, and just say, well, I have enough money to solve this problem. I'm just going to do it. And if you actually created a more conducive environment and. And if you got rid of people in your life or on your team that just, you know, if you took the approach of, you know, the Derek Sivers thing, it's either a hell yes or a no. I mean, if you look at any of the people on your team and you ask yourself, knowing what I know now, would I have hired them? And the answer is no, then rotting food doesn't get better with age in the refrigerator. It gets worse. You know, so. So if you look at all of the rotting milk in your life, somewhere that you just tolerate that, you just let it stay there because it's not so smelly, it's not so toxic, you're not really drinking it, but if you did, you'd be poisoned. You'd find all kinds of areas where there's thorns, where there's mosquitoes, where there's things that bug the living shit out of you, but they bug the living shit out of you. Not enough for you yet to do something about it. But if you emphasize the removal of those sort of things and creating the sort of environment that is most conducive. I mean, I love the whole tool belt, toolbox, tool shed. You know, if you have a phone with a broken screen and you're like, I just haven't made the time to get. But you're, like, looking at it all day long. Fucking fix the screen. It's like $150 if it's an iPhone. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Fix the screen. But see, that's just a representation of, like, you know, there's different ways of saying it. How you do one thing is how you do everything and just. But these little things that irk you, these people that irk you, all of these things that aren't elf, they're half, but they're not so painful, and the ability to extract them out of your life. I mean, a lot of you, your life would just simply be transformed if you just either eliminated or removed 10% or 5% of everyone that is toxic, negative, dishonest, out of your world to set up better rules of engagement. You know, that sort of stuff. So when I was talking in the beginning Yesterday, like I've been working on a document of rules of engagement and going forward, what am I actually going to allow into my life? What am I going to take on? Where am I going to show up? Who am I going to show up with? And a lot of this came from a Genius Network member who I never should have allowed into the group. But this person was referred by a couple of people and he said all of the right things. And even though I said, well, you know, he wanted to kind of start in the group and midway through and this guy just extracted everything. He came to, you know, multiple meetings and perfect example, like after every one of them, he and I used your line with him several times. I even sat down with this individual just to listen to him. And you know, he just blaming, criticizing. I'm like, well, what are your expectations? Well, you know, we just keep going back, just this whole thing and every person has a purpose in life, even if it's to serve as a bad example.

And no, it's very true.

Yeah. And Matt. And so. But what it did though, it was so helpful. And because I'm going into going, this guy is just an asshole. I mean there's like the amount of energy and work now. I also know that people that are hurt hurt others. And I also feel bad for him because, you know, I mean there's some things that made him the way he is. But I am in Genius Network. I'm not a rehab center that's he's better served for Genius recovery. And even though he's addiction is not his key thing, it's more like narcissism and arrogance and all that. But the thing though is I went into that whole experience just taking what he's sharing. Not his narrative is a completely different world the way you see it. But the amount of juice that I extracted out of this and how I'm going to set up barriers to not let individuals like that come into the group in the future. What it's done for me to be more thoughtful for people that are in Genius Network that are very caring. And the biggest thing I got out of it is, is I don't want people in Genius Network that are like drive bys, you know, let me just pop. Because what I learned running high level areas is there are a lot of very successful financially, not in other areas of life, but there's some very successful seminar junkies. They just go to more expensive shit like all the time, but they just pop around. They pop around and they don't commit themselves to stuff so for people to get the most out of Genius Network, since you and Babs have done so well and there's so many amazing members that are in the room right now, what would you say in terms of commitment for people? How to think about this group, how to get the most out of it and if you're not there, don't do it, don't stay. I mean, because there's a lot of different, you know, your time is really valuable. And look, I would love to have the right people as clients, but I don't want the wrong people as clients. I want right fit clients. And I want everyone listening to do the same thing in their own lives so that they set up the right fit. Because, you know, everyone here wants people that are going to utilize them, appreciate them, refer them, enhance them, you know, and reward them and reward them financially, which is Dan's model of five different ways you get paid. So how should people here look at the commitment to this and getting the most out of it?

Well, I think the big thing is.

That.

And you know, and this is a lifetime activity that you always have a picture of yourself that's kind of measurable in the future, that's bigger and better than the person you are right now. And that becomes the law of your life. And therefore everything in your present world either supports that or it opposes that. And you just very specifically start eliminating every factor in your life that doesn't support that picture of yourself. Because, you know, we live in the present, but the present is a moving line. And so we have two ideas. We have the idea of our future self and we have the idea of our past self. And it doesn't take any talent to have a past. You just got to keep breathing. You know, having a future really requires work and a lot of people. And what I notice, I never get real excited about amazing 30 year olds. And the reason is you don't know what the source of the amazement is because they might have had great parents, they had great teachers, they had an amazing support system that got them. And I was talking to someone yesterday who is in his 30s and I said, I find for entrepreneurs, the age between 30 and 40 is the toughest age because there you have to choose to actually be a unique individual. Up until then, it's like muscle. Our bodies grow muscle until we're 30, but afterwards we're on our own because nature are only, you know, you're supposed to have done what you're supposed to supposed to do by 30, which is reproduce and keep the species going. You know, but after that, I mean, nature really wants the parts back. They'd like to, nature like to recycle you after 30 unless you're doing something really useful. So my feeling is the reason why I eliminate criticism and complaining and blaming is because it just keeps you from getting to the person and you're always giving yourself an out. So the word decision means to kill off the alternative. That's the actual definition of decision is that you kill off the alternative and you have this picture of yourself. So my image of myself, you know, when I'm 99 is really powerful. You know, it's actually when I'm 95 because I set a 25 year goal for myself and who I would be, who Babs and I would be and who the company would be when I'm 95. And that's the governing law of my everyday. So what experiences am I having today that I can use to support that picture of 95? And what do I get rid of? And you know, and you know, it's very specific. So you know, things either give you energy or they take your energy away. And if a person takes my energy away, I'm going to try to not have that person in my life. I had to laugh. There are some people who are such useful bad examples that I never want them to change. That is true. Because they're so good. Because I see them, I say, oh.

It'S like a reminder.

Oh, it's a reminder.

It's like a neon sign.

Do not change a thing. I love, I love what you're doing for me. So I'm getting. So you're the gift that keeps on giving, you know, I just, whoa, don't want to go there.

Yeah. Well, here's what I would say then based on what Dan said, you know, so the word decide comes from the Latin word homicide. To cut off.

Well, side means to go off. The Latin, the Latin word, you know, homicide, infanticide, you know, it's to kill off. And what you're killing off is the alternative. And so you've made a choice and then you kill off the alternatives except for that choice. And you know, it sounds, it's at a conceptual level by talking about, it's actually demonstrated to little choices that you're making continually, every day, you know. So I have an exercise that I've done for Today was day 622 and I don't do well with diets, you know, thinking about food, you know, what I can eat, what I don't eat, I just find it A bothersome thing because it seems to be focusing my attention on the wrong thing. So I just established a habit. Before breakfast every day, I burn 1,000 calories of exercise. And I've done that for 622 days. And what's interesting.

What did you do this morning?

I did. I did about 1200. 1200.

What are you doing?

Elliptical. All sorts of other work. And, you know, I.

As it seemed, if he's doing something weird in the room. Babs, that you guys.

Yeah. No, Like, I get up real early and it takes about 80, 90 minutes to burn a thousand calories. And I just do it every day. And I, you know, it's a habit now, but what I've noticed is my eating has changed, my sleeping has changed, and I've added a lot of other exercise, stretching and, you know, doing it. But I just have that one habit. And it's like the one habit that solves 20 other problems. And so, you know, and I have to. Because, you know, nature at this point, at 74, really wants the parts back. And, you know, you really feel the pull and you feel a pain. People dying around you because they think they're supposed to die.

Tell me your thing about, like, if you're going to compete with people, it's good to compete with older people.

Yeah. Yeah. If you've ever thought about competing with your peers, wait till after 70. They're really easy. Except for Joel and Joe Sugarman. Joe Sugarman. You can't compete with those guys. But everybody else, that's.

That is great. Is there anything else? Because we do.

But you gave me bonus time today.

Yeah, no, exactly.

Yeah. Just. I have a question, because I've known your story, you know, like the incidents of your story, and I thought Nick did a masterful job of creating a marvelous mosaic that really had unity to it. Last night. I just wondered, you know, after a sleepover night, how it's hitting you now what you saw, because it was hard. When I first saw my video, I went into fact, finder mode. Well, I said, that's not quite right. That's not exactly the way. And after a while, I said, screw it. It works, right? Yeah. So I just wondered what the impact on you last night, because I thought it was very masterful.

It was. It's still sort of surreal. Like I mentioned last night, it was. I was pleasantly surprised. I was a little worried because I had said to Nick, I don't want a fluff piece. I don't want to. You know, I mean, I am a marketer, so I know how things could be spun, and I actually thought it was really well done. And the bigger thing that impacted me was all the comments from everyone that came up to me in just the absolute generosity of Devane to, you know, to finance that and to put it together. Where are you again? That's right. Right there. Okay. Yeah. And sorry, the lights, sometimes up here, you can't see as easily. I'm just blown away by that. It's such a gift. And there were several people that came up to me that. That had tears in their eyes and were so impacted by it and were sharing personal things with me about their addiction, about their family members. And I have to watch it again. And not in a state of like, you know, like, wow, because it was sort of like a deer in the headlight look, watching it last night and realizing, is that really a piece about me as a business guy or just this human being? Yeah. And that was the. And there's so much other footage that we did. And so I'm now thinking, you know, I was talking with Geeta about it, like, how can we utilize that to inspire and encourage people along with my objective and my mission with addiction. Because there's so many interviews that were done, including me doing art with Layla that is not in there, which I love to have people see how we create art. You know, I mean, there was a. There was a lot where I was throwing ceramic pots with a guy I went to high school with, you know, because when I was throwing pottery in high school, it was the only thing that allowed my brain to escape at the time, other than being high. And so we threw pots, we did poor art. You know, the mannequins that you see that are painted around here. Layla is Layla in the room? She. Anywhere. Yeah. So I might actually, if we have time, demonstrate doing art to show everyone how they can do that. But it really was really powerful for me. I was really pleased. And the other thing, too, is how still it's difficult for me to take in compliments. That's still something where. And a lot of times I can connect other people, but still not really connect with how deeply that impacts others. And I guess I think we all have that.

Can I add one thing to that? About 20 years ago, I made a decision that if it's the right audience, the audience is right. So when people tell me it's really great, it's great. And if they tell me something else, I take that seriously too. So I think it's a thing in your mind that for so many Years you had to be the source of your own confidence, but now you can get confidence from like minded people.

Yeah, yeah. And it.

So stop, stop rejecting compliments.

Yeah. You tell me to stop it right now.

Just stop doing that.

Yeah. And so I wanted to bring Dan up here because I genuinely want everyone that is in this room to not just get the most you can out of Genius Network. I want you to give as much as you can to Genius Network. I want you to give as much as you can to people that are givers. And I would like people to receive as much as they're able of receiving, including myself. They're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy learning, going to places. There's a lot of different things that we could all do with our time. There are a few places you can plug into that will absolutely transform your business, your perspective, how you think about things, the relationships. And when you're in an environment like this, when you're in an environment like Strategic Coach, you can, while you're there, you can really, just through proximity, you can think of, think in ways that you won't do on your own. I mean, it's just like the thinking tools. Left to their own devices, people will not do this sort of stuff. And this is an invitation for you to get the most. I mean, I want this to be a school that pays you to attend. I don't want Genius Network to be known about for me. I want it to be known for the people that are in the group and I want you to get the most out of it. And I also, if you're kind of sitting on the fence about things, I would just say either determine how to go deep with something because we live in a world of shallow. We live in a world of shallow. And going deep with anything is how you're going to get the most out of it. I mean, you're better off reading and mastering one book than you are reading in a very shallow way, 20 books just to say I read that book. So obligation elimination is important. Distractions of things that aren't the most important are critical. And I would like people to be committed into this for a long time. When we talk about return on genius, that's the last thing I'll ask you is return on genius. It's a term that I've been talking with Dean Jackson for a while and we've created some return on genius tracking forms that we've not launched into the group yet. And we're going to do it in 2009-1920-2009-2019. So that people can look at where they're at and what's the return on genius. So you actually can see that this is not a cost, but also when you know what's working and it's one of the main reasons I brought the business panel up and how much emphasis you saw on several people talking about financial statements. When you actually measure and track, you know what you're doing, you're going to get improvement. When you have to report it, it's going to improve exponentially because everything measured improves and everything measured and reported improves exponentially. And I want the return on genius to be massive. Not just financially, though. See, that's the trick. You know, a lot of this is, well, we can measure money and that's great because then we can validate. See, it's not costing you any money. And if you see if you're in Genius Network and say I don't raise the price and I probably will, but let's say. And that was kind of a setup there. So genius network is $25,000 in 10 years. That's $250,000 investment. In the scheme of things, if you're actually applying anything of what Dan was just sharing, you're going to make your 250k back like immediately. The question is, where is it going to take you in your life in 10 years? It's the same reason I'm in Strategic Coach. So I think strategic. If you're not a Strategic Coach member and you don't have a team built, if you're out of control with how you're. Your personal time is strategic, they just align with each other. So. Well, that's how many members are in Strategic Coach are in the room. Yeah. See, and so Genius Network and Strategic Coach, this is where people come to connect with amazing geniuses and wisdoms and learn about marketing and other things. And Strategic Coach is where you go. And what's the summary of for people that aren't coach? To summarize, what is coach, what do you guys do?

Well, we talk about that. The person we're looking for is successful, talented and ambitious and they have at least 10 times ambition where they want to go. And we've got six levels and the first one is changing your personal game. And like the deciding to be a transformer rather than a consumer is changing your personal game. And then you change your teamwork game. Because a lot of entrepreneurs are one person operations and they see people like team members as a necessary evil to be avoided. So you really have to buy into that. You've got certain abilities, I've got really good, unique abilities, but I have to magnify that through the unique abilities of others. The third level is that you actually have a company and the company means that you're making money whether you're there or not. And then the next one is you're transforming your market with a, what we call a self managing company, which frees you up just to create the future of the company. And then the fifth level is transforming the industry that you're in, that you're doing things that other people in your industry generally just can't understand how you're doing it, because you're going outside your industry and doing collaborations with other creative entities. It could be corporations, it could be other entrepreneurial firms. And then the other thing is you're playing a global game, because in the 21st century, individuals can play a global game with a company that really works. And the panel yesterday really told you what you have to do to actually have the company that can change the world. So that's what we do. And we give people 25 years. So we're very unusual in that we have a 25 year framework and you have 100 quarters in 25 years and you use each quarter to do five things that would have a compounding effect going forward. And you know, it's a room where all the weird people in the room are normal.

Kind of like this.

And one of the, I think one of the main reasons for addiction is that you've never been anywhere where you feel normal. And the addiction for a short period of time makes you feel normal. But when you come to coach your biggest goals, everybody applauds. Your biggest successes, everybody applauds. And that makes you normal. And there's got to be a place where the weirdest people in the world have to feel normal. So that's what we've tried to do.

And you can go to those rooms, which is, yeah, very powerful.

And you're weird, I'm weird. But we're normal.

We're all characters in the Star wars bar.

Yeah, yeah.

So give it up for Dan Sullivan.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank.

You.