The Transformer Mindset: A Conversation with Dan Sullivan and Joe Polish - Part 1

All of you know this man. He really doesn't need an introduction. What I will say about him, though, is that so many people in this room, who they are, what they do, how they live, how they think, how they run their businesses, how they run their lives, has been massively influenced in positive ways as a result of Mr. Dan Sullivan. And so, come on up.

D.

Right or left matter?

I'll do right.

Okay, so I've got a few questions for you, and here's the thing. I've been in strategic coach since 1997. Me and Dan do the 10X Talk podcast together. Hang out quite a bit over the years with Dan and Babs and even up at their, you know, cottage. And, you know, we spent a lot of time together doing a lot of things. And you have the. You've taught me how to really look at things that I invest in as a cost versus an investment. And you also have done extraordinarily well in Genius Network. And what I really admire the most about you is that you're at a position where it'd be really easy for you to just constantly be the smartest guy in the room or be the quote, unquote guru. And you always have a beginner's mind as you approach things. And so even though you've coached more successful entrepreneurs than anyone in the world, you are great at being a student and participating in ways. And a lot of people that haven't even done 1/100th of what you have done, I see a level of they start believing their own PR and they get arrogant and they think they're really cool or they swoop into an event, and as long as they're on stage, that's there and then they're gone. And so you're not that way at all. And you're constantly learning, and you also help other people with how to take that approach. So I've written some questions that I want to make sure I ask you in the right way. What's your perspective and definition of cost versus investment is the first one. But if you want to say anything before that, I just want to make sure we set it up right.

Yeah, I think the. So my focus in any situation that I get into is just what's my mindset going into the situation? And what I try to do is to treat the past as raw material. In other words, you know that I'm very interested in my past, but I'm only interested in my past as raw material that can be transformed into new lessons for the future. So I'm constantly going back, taking situations for my life. And I was so impressed with your video. And I've been enormously impressed with Joe ever since I first met him. In spite of his best efforts, when I first met him to seem like he was really odd, I didn't see how odd he was, but I saw this incredible capability in the middle. And so what I say is that one of the keys. And I guess I'm proving it more now for a lot of people because I'm over 70. But my number one rule is that you always have to make your future bigger than your past. And that has to do with that. The past is simply there for learning, and the future is there for winning. And so that's my basic attitude. So when I walk into Genius Network, every time I do a little thought process before I come in, and I say, okay, we're starting fresh, so what is it that I'm actually looking for when I come to Genius Network? And it's kind of funny because even before we started, we already got two crucial pieces of information. One on an AI program that actually does wonders on your website. And that was just in a chance conversation that we had at dinner the night before. Somebody mentioned this. I said, bingo, there's one. And then the next morning, we were sitting in the restaurant here at the hotel, and this man was sitting at the table next to us, and we said there was a hi and everything like that. And then we started chatting, and then we invited him over, and we talked for an hour and a half. And from Australia, Jason. Where is Jason here, anyway?

Over there.

Oh, there he is. So anyway, I have a phrase that our eyes only see and our ears only hear what our brain is looking for. So our number one responsibility is just to tell our brain what we're actually looking for. And then your eyes and ears are out there picking up what you're doing. And then. So I really zeroed in on Jason, and then I knew somebody in Strategic Coach Program who would be very interested in Jason. So the first thing I did when I could yesterday, I introduced the two of them, and I said, you two have a lot to talk about. And then when Beau came up, I said, you know, it's time for me to do Beau's course. So I went up to Bo and I said, next year, I'm gonna do your program. So, you know, even before, you know, the first hour of Genius had started, three things that already happened that corresponded to what I was looking for.

Right, Right. No, and see, one thing that I. When you Showed me the impact filter that you did for the 100k group. So Dan joined 100k right when we first started it. And the interesting thing was watching how he thinks about something before he goes into it. So me and Dean Jackson and I love marketing, we actually teach a model of the before, during and after unit. Because there's three stages of your business. There's the before unit, what you do before you start interacting with a client, doing business. Then there's the during unit and then there's the after unit. After somebody gives you money, how do you deliver world class service so that they love you, appreciate you, and repeat business and generates referral business. And so as business owners, it's a real simple framework to not just think of, oh, I got to grow my business. Well, do you have to. What do you want to grow? If it's growing the business, the before unit, do you want to do better in the during or the after unit? Because some people are really great at before, but they're not very good at during. Some people are great at during, but they're terrible at after. They never interact with the clients after the fact. So if you look at your business as having three different units. But then I realized by watching Dan with any sort of learning experience, it's what he does. It's kind of like what Robert Cialdini was talking about, pre suasion. It's what do you do before the event? So before every genius network event, Genius X event, Dan does thinking beforehand and you don't spend a lot of time doing it. Yeah, but what he does is this is great line. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Well, the juice is worth the squeeze to the degree that you are able to squeeze to the degree that you're able to go into it very thoughtfully, very intentionally. And so where's Alex Van Dozian? Is he in the room yet? Okay, Alex. I wasn't at the breakfast thing. How was that, by the way? Yeah, thank you. And so Alex held an event called Pathfinders and I went to it and before the event I read every bit of the program and made notes beforehand. A lot of times I've not done that in the past, but I do that thinking about Dan because Dan goes into things very thoughtful and it just made a world of difference once I was there. And. And so a lot of times people that don't do any sort of thoughtful, intentional thinking before, they go to something, then they're waiting for that thing to impress the hell out of them, when in reality it was up to them to create the experience. Because the experience you have in Genius Network or here or any sort of environment, as a matter of fact. So it's the same thing with Strategic Coach. But the big thing I want to point out though is the cost versus investment. I'd love to have you speak to that because you've articulated it better than anyone I've ever heard.

Yeah. So what I see is you have a choice. And I believe the more that your life going forward is a choice rather than a risk that things happen to you and then as you say, you react to them. But just using Robert Cialdini yesterday, that it struck me as Robert was talking that the best way to be a pre suader of other people is actually to be a pre suader of yourself. And therefore I don't see Genius Network as any kind of cost whatsoever. You know, because I pre suaded myself that. And can I give you some numbers? I just want to tell you in I did a form, a thinking process that we have in Strategic Coach called the Impact Filter. And it's a way that I prepare my mind for any kind of situation, whether I'm doing a new workshop, whether I'm doing podcasts, whether I'm writing a new book. And I pre swayed myself before what the optimum outcome is. And I tell myself the breakthroughs I'm going to have, even though I don't even know what the experience is. And then I just sit back and I watch how these breakthroughs are coming. And they never come quite the way that I've defined them, but they're usually better than I've defined them. And I think the reason is because I've persuaded my mind for breakthroughs.

Yes.

And so I was thinking of Robert because I persuade myself continually that I'm going to maximize or optimize any situation that I'm in. But then I just let reality present itself to me. And then I say, well, there's one, there's another one, there's another one, and it works. But therefore, I've invested a great deal to set up the situation so that the best possible thing can happen. And it's always a surprise. I mean, it's not like it's predictable. What's predictable is that the experience is going to be a great spirit. And I'll contrast that with what I see with a lot of people. And I even see it in my program. I see it with people, you know, and we're getting big. You know, I've noticed a trend that as we've gotten bigger as a company. We've started to attract companies that, that are our size or bigger. So we're about 130 team members now. We're in three countries. We operate in 10 cities. But I've noticed people who are incredibly successful come in, but they still have a mindset that I would call a consumer mindset. And I like to contrast the consumer mindset with what I call the transformer mindset. And the consumer mindset is that the world is supposed to do it for you. Okay. And you retain three mindsets. The one mindset is a critical mindset. So you retain the right to criticize what's going on. And number two, you retain the right to complain about what's going on, and then you retain the right to blame. So it's criticize, complain, and blame. And it's amazing to me that entrepreneurs have gotten to such a high level of success with those mindsets. But the problem is nothing's ever good enough for them. Nothing ever matches their ideals. So I don't have any ideals. What I have is measurement. I have pre suasion. Then I have measurements of how well my persuasion has identified things I didn't even know I was looking for. The opposite of that is what I call the transformer mindset that you go in and you transform the actual experience that you're having. And there's three mindsets there, too. And the first one is that you contribute. Contribution is just the magic password. You're going to go in to actually create value for other people. Number two, you're going to collaborate with other people. So to the degree that teamwork is available during that period of time, then you can collaborate. And number three is that you create. You just create new things. And so to me, at 74, I'm not trying to get anywhere. I'm just trying to expand my transformer mindset of contribution, collaboration, and creativity. And so I feel that time is actually slowing down for me. It's not speeding up.

Wow. Well, so you. What, what are your thoughts? Because you're a big fan of Ben Hardy. Of course.

Ben Hardy. I'm a big fan of Where's Ben? Did I mention, did I. Did I mention that I'm a big fan of Ben Hardy?

You just did. Yeah. You just did. And so, so Ben, you know, with his book Willpower Doesn't Work. And I know he's doing a book with you. Who not how.

Who not how. Yes.

And Ben is a great example because people say, why is it that you do certain Things with certain genius, like there's some sort of click or favorism. There is a click within Genius Network and it's like, well, a lot of that depends on the energy, the collaboration, the contributions of people. It's not just like, hey, I'm going to single out, see people that I really attach to, single themselves out by just exhibiting great sort of. I mean, you're the same way. That's why me and you do so much together. Because you hear the same thing at Coach about me. Like what? You know, like people that don't understand our relationship probably, you know, they kind of have their own story about it. So Ben writes about willpower doesn't work. And he writes about the environment and creating the sort of environment and what you've always been a master at. And I think from the very early stages of Strategic Coach, Strategic Coach in a lot of way is AA for workaholics that are super high achievers. And you bring them in and you talk about free days and focus days and buffer days and that if you want to, you know, a lot of your perspectives, that a entrepreneur that is too tightly scheduled cannot transform themselves. Right. And you give people freedom. And a lot of entrepreneurs, if you ask, why are you. What do you want? Well, I want freedom, but a lot of them don't have any time freedom. A lot of them don't have relationship freedom and a lot of them don't have money freedom. Although compared to the average person, you could probably say that they do. And you give them ways to think about freeing that up. But you create an environment and you show them how to actually set that environment up. And then you surround yourself with people and that support you in what it is that you want to do. And before I quit rambling here, I remember hearing from you, if you spend a lot of time working on what you're weak at, your weaknesses, at the end of your life, you have a lot of really strong weaknesses. And so your whole thing is focus on your strengths and surround yourself with a unique ability team. So you go to environments where you can tap in the capabilities. So genius network for you, from my perspective is you're coming to find other people that can just. You're not going to spend the time, the money, the energy, you're just going to go and latch onto that and access it and collaborate with it and continue to build and grow yourself. But a lot of this has to do with the environment and how you self select that.

Yeah. And it's a skill. So, you know, I mean everything it Starts with mindset. And mindset alters your behavior. So when you look at people's behavior, it tells you nothing unless you go back upstream and look at the mindsets that actually determine the behavior. And what I reflected in my description of my first five years in Genius Network with Babs. And by the way, Babs, right here, Bab Smith is my partner. And, You know, unless I know Babs, I haven't created Strategic Coach. I mean, we actually had T shirts last year on her birthday that said, no Babs, no Coach. And I said, my life is. Has two stages. It's BB and ab, and it's before Babs and after Babs. And if I hadn't met Babs, I'm just a smart drunk worried about the rent, you know, and, you know, and I say that honestly because I really required that collaboration with a person not only who is my partner in my personal life, but my partner in my business life. And I'd gone through a lot of setbacks and a lot of frustration until I met Babs. And then, bang, you know, there was just this huge jump and it's gone. You know, we're into our collaboration. We're really into our, like, 35th year, going into our 36th year. But when Babs and I came to Genius Network, the very first thing you said when we started, you said, you're paying 25,000 for this, and if you don't get $250,000 of value out of it in the first year, I won't let you come back. And so I was sitting there And I said, 10 times, 10 times. And we had done a thinking exercise in Coach, which is called the 10 times mind expander, where you go back 25 years to when you were one tenth of where you are. And you talk about the stages of growth that got you to where you are. And, you know, we just create a structure. And people say, amazing. You know how I did that? And I said, now you're 10 times where you were when you were one. 10. But could you have predicted how you were going to get to 10 times back then? And of course you couldn't. And I say, okay, so we're going to do it again. Now, I've given you proof that you've already gone 10 times. And now what I'm going to say is, we're going to pick a date in the future when you're going to go 10 times, and then we're going to work on that. But I came up to you after the first. I said, you know, I'm going to create a whole program called the 10 Times Ambition Program. And it happened in the first half hour. And at the first break, I came up to you and I said, I just got my. I just got my money back. And it turned out that that first insight in the first hour of my first 25k, after 5 years, had netted a $16 million. 16 million, which turned out to be a 64 times return on investment. And it was just bang, I got the idea. And then, so when I started 100k, so first 5 years going to be a million dollars, I said, we're going to get $64 million. And the very first workshop I was in, I met Ben. And all my career in coach, I've been looking for. For the writer who just. He's not an inside writer, but an outside writer who just totally gets what we're talking about. And he's got a reputation and he's got an audience and he's got a reach and he's got an agent and he's got a publisher and they have a big budget. And I said, bingo, there's my writer. And so we have our first project. It'll be written during the next year. And then we go. And Ben said, you know, after this book, can we do another book? I said, you bet.

That would be a bad idea.

Yeah. So I sweetened the deal and I said, ben, all the money we make on these books is your money. I just want the customers who come from your books. So just like that. And it's going to be 64 times. I know it'll be. Plus, I've gotten an enormous amount elsewhere. I thought. I mean, I've talked to John Ratliff a lot over the years about his thinking about this packaging your company as if you're going to sell it. And I tell you, the two hours yesterday afternoon, you know what it was for me? That was a threshold. Two hours for Genius Network, because you're now jumping where we're not just talking about entrepreneurs, we're really talking about entrepreneurial companies. And I just felt it was like time for Genius Network. Everybody put their big boy pants on and actually started thinking about companies. So it's really great. So that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for $64 million of value every time I come here, which is.

Okay. So I love that, for one.

You just have the intention and then you keep your eyes and ears out because. Because you don't know where the actual opportunity's gonna come from.

Yeah, well, so everyone has in their folder here that tool that says 250k ideas. Now, part of that is a trick in the same way that when I. And I don't emphasize it as much as I used to, but for the first eight years of Genius Network, I would say if you're here for new people that would join the group, and those of you that have been in the group for a while, you've heard me say this many times, where I would say, if you don't get at least a 10 times return on your investment, I don't want you to renew for the next year. And it's not that I don't want the money, because I want the money. I'd like the money. What I want though is I want you to get a 10 times return. I want Genius Network to be a school that pays you to attend. I don't ever want it to be a cost. And what I'm doing though is I'm doing a trick. Because if your brain asks and listens for $250,000 ideas, and if you are truly asking and looking for that, your brain cannot avoid the question. And so in a lot of ways, it's a way to. Because there's all kinds of stuff you can focus on, but if you focused on what am I going to hear that's worth at least a quarter million to me, you're going to get a 10 times return on that. And the idea for the 10 minute talk was how could someone share a concept, a strategy, a methodology in 10 minutes that if someone actually took seriously what it is and they had to have to deliver, not all of them do, but a lot actually do that. Each minute of that 10 minute talk would be worth $25,000. If you could literally do a $250,000 idea in 10 minutes, that would be a pretty damn good return on investment. And so we've done like in the membership site, there's so many 10 minute talks that are worth a quarter million dollars, but only to the degree that someone interacts with it that way. So when you're talking about mindset, when you're talking about this, what would prevent someone, even though you're talking about it, even though you're explaining exactly what you did, even though I just shared the whole idea and a lot of people are very capable of saying this is what I want, and then they go about doing what is needed in order to get it. What would prevent someone from being able to do that? Because there will be some people in the audience here that are hearing this, but it just doesn't land, it just doesn't penetrate.

Well, I think there's a decision, so there's a choice. But there's an interesting distinction between the word choice, because choice can only come from the inside, you know. In other words, the choice is that you have a picture of yourself in the future and you choose that that's who you're going to be in the future. And entrepreneurs, I would say probably become entrepreneurs because they have that ability to a degree that the general public doesn't, that they can see themselves a year from now or three years from now, and they can actually engage intellectually, intellectually with that. That totally makes sense. But also they emotionally commit to it. You know, they're committed, but there's no evidence of it yet. So literally, who you are as an entrepreneur constantly gets created by your vision of who you want to be in the future. But that's the choice. But the decision is that you have to give up criticism, complaining and blaming for the rest of your life. That once you enter onto this path, you can no longer stand back and say, well, if it works, if it doesn't work, I get to criticize, complain and blame. Because you don't. That's the decision. And that is the real, what I would say, the fork in the road. You know, Yogi Berra said, when you come to the fork in the road, take it. And my feeling is that I took this the one fork a long time ago. And then there's all sorts of mindsets that build up around being a transformer. And also your behavior changes and then your behavior becomes automatic habit. And then what you notice is you start noticing other people who have the same mindset. And that's where the payoff is. Because our brain is not our intelligence. Our ability to access other people's brains is really our intelligence. And the school system, starting at junior kindergarten now, where they have proms at the end of the year, they teach people to be isolated individuals who think their intelligence is inside of themselves. So you get 20 years of that in the educational system and it disenables you from accessing the intelligence of other people. Entrepreneurs, by necessity and also by choice, really, really access the intelligence. And that's really your intelligence. The creativity and the contributions of other people. But you don't access other people's capabilities intelligence, unless you give up criticizing, complaining and blaming, you can't do it anymore. It's just not part of your life.

Yeah. So for people that are conditioned with self talk, that is extraordinarily negative or destructive. And I of course say this from experience. Being an addict, you usually don't wake up in the morning feeling very serene and very peaceful and very harmonious. You're seeking chaos. And so addicts have as the Guns N Roses first album, Appetite for Destruction, there are some entrepreneurs that are just very destructive. And so there's a lot of unwinding and unlearning because I think unlearning is more important than learning. And so recommendations for reconditioning yourself to not be a blamer, a criticizer.

Yeah, stop doing it.

We should maybe just. What's that? Bob Newhart? Stop it.

Yeah, stop it.

You ever seen that video? He just thought, yeah, stop it. It's quite funny.

Well, no, no, I mean, I don't have an office. So at our two headquarters we have a Toronto headquarters and a Chicago headquarters. And I just have a table, we have a cafe and the one in Toronto, we have about 50 seats in the cafe. And I just sit, I'm there all day and people are coming in and out and I'm talking to them. But I have lunch sometimes with clients who are in for specials. So we have special one day programs that are quite a deep dive. And one of them is unique ability. And there was a woman there from Georgia and she said, you know, I'm just so hard on myself. And I said, well, stop doing that. And then she'd go on and then she'd say, yeah, I just can't find really good people. I'm always dissatisfied with the people around me. I said, well, stop doing that. And she brought up about five things in a row. And I said, well, stop doing that. I said, the reason why you have these thoughts and your behavior is because you continue doing it and after today, just stop doing it. Just don't do it anymore. And you know, it seems really funny, but it strikes me from the movie, your documentary by the way, I can picture situation in the future where we're all gathered here and everybody in the room has a documentary video of themselves by Nick Nanton. You know, it's actually a goal of mine to get even 10 more people after you and David Berg and Nick actually threw in. And Devine, by the way, who first of all I'd like to give another hand to Devang because I thought that where is he? Yeah, but Devang, since he's come in to 10 times program has gone at least 25 times. He's gone, you know, in about six or seven years. So Devang is Real, he's a real player. But what I got, and Nick really caught it last night, was that you were deep into your drug throws and you know, you had your all time, that was like a six star day, the things that you did on that one day. And then you stopped it. You just stopped. You just stopped. And then you haven't done it again for 30 years. So stopping things is an incredible ability, you know.

Well, and the thing with recovery, I do it with a lot of support and a lot of rituals and a lot of practices and I believe that, you know, just, and I'll say this in a way so it is applicable to everyone's life here is in recovery, anything you put ahead of your recovery, you're going to lose. So if someone is an addict and you put your business ahead of your recovery, you're going to lose your sobriety, you're going to lose your recovery. If you put your relationship, if you put your kids ahead of it, you will lose your kids at the worst stages. And that's a really hard concept to take something like that, that's so important and make it your number one thing. And so I see people that are very functional addicts. Like there are several people in this room that are incredibly functional addicts that don't see it easily. I mean they may know it, but there's a really hardcore like industrial band. Anyone ever remember the band Big Black? Anyone in the room ever heard of Big Black? Couple people, yeah, like hardcore band. And there's a song called Bad Houses and there's a lyric in the song that says, I tell myself I will not go even as I drive there. And so if you have that compulsion, I'm not going to be online past 10 at night and you're online past 10 at night or I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to do this thing. I'm not going to have that second drink. But you have the third drink and the fourth drink, you know, if you have any of that. I tell myself I will not go even as I drive there and, and that compulsion and you can't seem to stop it. Well, create the environment, you know. So let's take your office concept because this applies. So you have a no office concept for me. For you.

Yeah.

And you've, and not saying that everyone should do this. However, I've heard dozens of people throughout the years are like, you know, I gave up my office and man, I'm just way more functional because as you talk about, offices can often be places where entrepreneurs go to escape real work?

Well, they go to hide from opportunity. Most people's offices, you walk in, they go in there, they're hiding from opportunity. Nothing useful can come when they go into their office. They don't make their money in their office. They make their money through creativity and relationship and network. But they go to their office, and I think it's a carryover. They want to see themselves as CEOs, because CEOs have offices. But that's not the world that we live in. We live in the world of taking resources from a lower level of productivity to a higher level of productivity. Do you need an office for that? I don't think so.

Right.

So I just haven't had an office for 25 years. You know, first of all, it's a messy office if I have an office. And, you know, I've seen some people who are actually really good at office, but I haven't found many of them in the entrepreneurial world.

Yeah, that's great.

Plus, you're paying for useless real estate. Why do you pay for useless real estate?