THIS is The ONLY Definition Of Success You Need To Live A Great Life Feat. Peter Thomas

The word success to me is the attainment of a predetermined goal.

That's all it is.

I think the most important thing that you find out is what you're good at. I am going to do this. I'm going to do this. But failure isn't an object. If it wasn't for us in this room, this world wouldn't exist because we are the keys of the economy, we entrepreneurial spirits. You know, every relationship you should get into. Everybody, can I share? Do I care and do I trust? Because that's the most important thing in the world.

Like, in general, you're just one of the most energetic people that I know, and you're awesome. And I've had the good opportunity to spend a good chunk of time with you, and you've been a huge supporter of genius recovery. And so I just want to get into it because this guy knows a lot. You know, it's funny. I threw down the questions and I kept the bio.

Oh, boy.

I'm a real piece of work here today. All right. Not that I even need them. What did I not say about you.

That people should know I got the most fantastic wife in the world? Yes, Honey, stand up, please. Just say hi.

Yeah, that's Rita. Go ahead, Rita, stand up.

She's got me on trial still, by the way.

Yeah.

So I hope I do good.

And by the way, I wouldn't even know you if it wasn't me talking with Rita. And for Jennifer, who invited me to an event while I was on my sabbatical, and it was like a party in North Scottsdale at a private Air Sky Share. So I just decided to go to this thing because I wasn't. Am I on?

Yeah.

And I started talking to Rita about depression and about addiction. And then she introduced me to you. And then you're like, hey, I love what you're doing. Can I support? I remember saying, well, I'm on a sabbatical, so I'm not doing any business stuff. And we just became friends.

That's right.

And that's kind of where it started. We hiking and all kinds of stuff. Yeah. We've done quite a few things together. So you do have an amazing wife.

But I don't say that lightly because especially this part of your life, I say from the 50s, 60s, 70s, a lot of you younger. But this is now when you're choosing your spouse. But it's the critically most important thing in your life for me, 100%, you know, so. Yeah. Thank you. Because it's, you know, you Share everything. And when you get your. You go through your whole life, you do your work, you get your kids, you raise your family, but in the end, there's you too, you know, and me and I, it's been a blessing for, you know, We've been together 37 years now, and every day is just a new day. So I want to just get that clear first.

Every day. When you say a new day means some of those days must have sucked.

Oh, yeah, A lot of them. A lot of them. A lot of them. I thought I'd go through some of that, you know, the starting up, the difficulties, the things like that, you know, and getting started. I remember once when I was kind of just really getting going my steam under me, and I was out of the Army. And one of the most important lessons I learned, I never realized how powerful it was for everything is I started as a salesman selling mutual funds when I got out of the army and I had a sales manager who just got lucky again. One big part about my success has been luck. I just seem to get the right people at the right time. Somebody once said, the harder you work, the luckier you get. Maybe that's what it is because I'm a hard worker. But I have had, I feel like my staff, my team, Joe Eunice, people are angels, literally. And they carry me. You know, I sort of blunder my way through, make mistakes, lose things, all this type of stuff. And I guess I learned very early in my own career, and I was going to say, when you talk and Joe, you remind me, when we're born, just imagine in our heads, it's like a deck of cards. Every one of us here are just a deck of cards. And some of us have got aces. Some of them, you get your hand that you get played when you were born, you have nothing to do with it. You got a hand. And I think the most important thing that you find out is what you're good at, what is your natural ability. And when you get your natural. When I learned in the army, it kind of was communication. It was being with people, visualizing. And so as I moved along, I learned that keep out of the. Get people around you that can do the stuff you're bad at, and then you do the stuff that you can do. And always in every thing that I've had, just. You mentioned the Four Seasons Hotel. That was the vision. I was the vision guy. I came out of Canada and I had a bunch of real estate. I sold some stuff. I come down here, what to do, and I Looked around. Well, I know real estate, and I know franchising. So I looked at this land. Somebody said, well, there's. There's land, you know, go at the other end of the desert. And it was on the end of a real. In those days, 25 years ago, it was, like, nowhere. And I looked at this piece of dirt, and I don't know, I just looked at it and I said, wow. You know, golf course and the city and the energy and all that thought, you know, this is a. This is going to be amazing, you know. And I didn't know Izzy Sharp, the chairman of Four Seasons. I didn't know them at all. I just saw Four Seasons. I just saw in my head there would be a Four Seasons hotel there. So I got back and I learned that I was going to go back to my first lesson in selling. When I first started selling, my manager, I said, well, how do you sell? How do you make presentations? How do you all that? He said, here's the secret. 18, 3 and 1. What does that mean? 18 calls, 3 presentations, and you get a sale. What about this? What about that? No, that's the most important thing you do. Don't take any failure from somebody saying no to you until you make 18 calls, get three presentations, get one sale. And I carry that through me to today, all my time. In fact, I used to take 18 paperclips, put them in my pocket here. And at night, I didn't go to sleep. I had the 18 paperclips over here. Just that simple.

That's smart.

Just that simple. And so I did that. Well, you know, you do 18 calls, three papers a day. Probably most guys would do. Well, they try and do three present, no calls, one presentation and one sale. That's what you kind of try to do. But if you're the 18, I didn't know I got out of the army. I didn't know anything about selling or anything. And you kind of learn as you go along, and then you learn how to handle people. You learn how to take control of meetings when you need to take control, and you learn all the nuances of getting to the close, and you just learn those naturally. And anybody here can sell it. If you do 18, 3 and 1, you don't have to be that good. You'll get one sale. But if you've got a propensity to be a salesperson, you get better and you find out you don't need to make 18 calls. You can make 15 calls. All of a sudden, next thing you know, I remember in his office, I used to have all these calls. And then you learn to ask for referrals, you know, and then you learn as you're going through, you make all these presentations and at the end they tell you they got no money. So then you realize, oh, I should maybe ask that up front, find out who I'm talking to, you know. But you learn all. You don't have to be smart. I've often really said, and I want to say some of the Genius network, I want to share something. Joy, you triggered another thought. I am a pure example. You don't have to be smart to be successful. But what you have to be is kind of intuitive and you have to be open minded to say, I come back to the deck of cards again. So I think I got maybe dealt one ace. That was the vision I'm pretty good at. I'm going to talk about the visualization vision, but I'm not good at a whole bunch of things. But like Rita is fantastically good at organization, just so many things. So I don't need to be because she is. I've got a CFO, he's phenomenal. I've got a guy, Mr. Fix it, that works with me, Matt. He's been with me 28 years. And like something in my world breaks no matter where it is. If I own a piece of it up here. He goes, fixes it for the partners. We got, for example, a deal right now in Seattle. It's a problem because Seattle was just killed with the, with the COVID and all that, you know, and homelessness and it's just horrible. The city of downtown Seattle right now, if anybody's from Seattle, they know that, but. And we have a doggy daycare there. It's like a disaster. It's just a disaster. Well, I send Mr. Fixit in, you know, next thing you know, daily numbers and things are happening. You go, so you take other people. You need four aces to get by. To have a 1000% life, you do need four aces, but you don't have to be that four aces. And with the Genius network, what you guys do in this room here, you know, you might have an ace. You got another ace. You had, there's two aces over. There's all these different levels of amazing experiences in the room with, you know, Joel, you have nothing. Like one thing I like to call what you get when you come here is sharing, caring and trust. You feel safe in the environment that Joel creates. And in that safe environment, your genius can come out in that safe environment. And that's what you, as individuals in your organization, need to create up front, create a safe environment for the people. How do you get that? Have you seen a guy more transparent than Joe? I mean, you get like, somebody say that about me? You know, what you see is what you get. That's what Joe. There's no surprises. You see what you get, that transparency? Well, that isn't that. It's like common sense. You know, they say common sense. It's not that common, actually. And so when you have that type of environment, that's why Genius Network is successful, because you all here get to share your brains and elevate each other. When you do that meeting of four, you get three more brains in your head figuring out, looking at it from a different perspective. I'm sure each one of you got so much out of that meeting over each other's goals and plans. So using the deck of cards, Joe.

No, that's great. Thank you. And by the way, I was getting a little note that you're. Do we need to put another mic on him?

Rubbing against his buttons. The less you move, the better. Oh, that's a tough one. Okay.

Yeah, no, I want to definitely make sure we capture all this because it's great, by the way. So Peter's new book, the Dream Factory, there's a chapter in here that I wrote, which is great. I sent a copy to every Genius Network member. This is what, your sixth book?

Fifth. Fifth book. Okay, sure.

Some people here have read it. For those that haven't, what's it about? What's the Dream Factory even mean?

Well, I'm involved with an organization called the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards Program. And it takes kids who are trying to be entrepreneurs and they. They're going to school, and they can compete for a Shark Tank type of a contest, and they. And they get to win. Like. Like Phoenix has got a place in it. And every city in the States and every city in all across the world, we have this. And so these kids all compete. And as the winners come up, they get to win the Entrepreneur. The final is the Entrepreneur of the Year. You get the Entrepreneur of Phoenix, then the Entrepreneur us, then the Entrepreneur of the World. And so that program is very dear to my heart. And so what I thought I'd put down, I can tell you guys what to do and tell you, well, here's what you. But then I thought maybe I should write some of this down so that people could have it in the future as future references. So if you go into the Dream Factory, that is you come out a successful entrepreneur. So if you read the book, listen to what it says, it just gives you the things that I found are critically successful. And there's three or four things that, if you get those mastered, you can become a very successful entrepreneur.

We're going to come to some of those things. What I want to. So in America, there's a book that Michael Fishman really likes called the Culture Code, and the question of what do you do? The code is who you are. So we look at, like, when someone says, what do you do? Your career, your business is your identity, it's who you actually are. And there's. I think there's a lot of misconceptions with success. I mean, you clearly have a lot of money, you have a couple of private planes. I mean, you've done very well financially. You've mentored God knows how many people over the years, but you work out every day. You should watch this guy's new Instagram channel. He's just started it. It's hysterical, and it's great. It's like him working out. It's really good.

Follow me. Follow me.

Yeah. Plus, you're trying to build it, too, so you might as well have people follow you. Right. You know, you.

What is it? Peter H. Thomas.

Peter H. Thomas.

It's on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Yeah.

A couple more. Facebook.

Yeah. So, I mean, it's like, it's one of these questions where there's so many different ways to answer. People have their canned answers. But what is. How would you define success at this stage in your life?

Well, the word success to me is the attainment of a predetermined goal. That's all it is. It doesn't matter whether it's money, whether you're a mom having your first baby, whether you're going to a school examination, no matter what you are. So get your head around success, to be successful at the outcome and the people you surround yourself with. The reason I became successful, I think, is because of these angels again guiding my path once I set my goal on whatever that job was, like the 18, 3 and 1. Well, I just took that one formula and used it and believe. The other thing is believe in people. Like when people tell you something, try it, try it. Usually the simplest way is the best way. And I think I was a real learner. And, you know, in the army, there's another saying. They say that, like when the sergeant says, duck, you don't say, why? Martha likes that one. Yeah. You know, you duck. Well, the business is no different. And Joe, you reminded me, you know, as I got into business, got more into business, Joe, when I was like, I've been at. I'm 85, like I said. So I've been at this about 50, 60 years. And I remember when I was a young businessman getting in business, the image of a businessman was a fat. A fat guy with a cigar. That was what you saw as a business guy. And, you know, I just abhorred that because I wasn't that guy. I didn't feel like that guy. I didn't like that guy. That was that guy. And I think one of the things that drives me is if it wasn't for us in this room, this world wouldn't exist because we are the keys of the economy. We entrepreneurial spirits. You know, we're so necessary that I know one of the things I want for my life is to. So you can be proud of being a business person. You can hold your head up high and be very proud of what we do for the economy and for the world. Because without us, it wouldn't work. It just wouldn't. So I think that keeps me driving.

Okay, so you built one of the most successful real estate franchises in the world, Dogtopia. Has anyone ever heard of Dogtopia? That's one of his businesses. And so you've been the Chairman emeritus of EO since 1974.

Yeah. No, I can't remember. Yeah, 70. Yeah, we got it started. Organization.

I was six years old at the time. Yeah. And so. Yeah, so you're one of the most successful franchises in the world. I remember when I first met you, you said, I know a lot about real estate, I know a lot about franchising.

Right. That's it.

And how have you done so much but stayed within. If you have. Maybe this is. You haven't stayed within your wheelhouse, Stayed within that. That zone of genius. Stayed within the areas where you really have excelled.

My experience sort of has been if I stay in real estate and franchising, usually that's okay. Then I. Whatever I make there, I blow it. Try another stuff. Yeah, the other stuff you definitely work for. Well, what did you.

What did we call. We were talking one day about investing in startups, and you're like. What was that term you use? This is like charity money. Half the time you just, you know the money's going to go away. You're like trying your.

Yes.

Yeah.

Like people come. Come to you, you know, and they. They have something for $50,000. So you just. Well, it's only gonna cost me 50 grand. So you invest it. No, you'll never get it back, you know, so. So one day I looked at. I had about 20 or 30 of these $50,000 on my balance sheet. The accountant says, like, what are these for? And I said, almost everyone didn't work. Like, they. They did not make any money. So I thought, well, maybe I should quit doing that.

Well, it goes back to. Sometimes the best thing are the simplest things, right?

How I learned that, by the way, Joe, I tell you what I learned. So it's really hard to say no. Like, I'll meet somebody here, and you guys say, look, I'm starting my deal up and I'm doing this and this and this, you know, and do you want to invest 50,000? And, well, gee, you know, you're a nice person. It's hard to say no, I don't. You know, I don't.

God, please don't anyone hit him up for liking him in his.

No. But I'll tell you my deal now. I say, you know what? I'd like to take all of it, the whole thing. Well, how much? What are you raising? 6 million. Okay, I'll take the 6 million. I want you to meet with my accountant, meet with my lawyers. Then you really look into the deal. Because on the 50 grand, you don't do the due diligence you should do. You just don't even read the papers. But this way, I say, I'll take it all. I'm interested in the whole thing or nothing. So that way. I haven't done one of those yet.

Because then you find out what they'll do.

Usually they wouldn't pass the sniff test, you know.

Yeah, it's got it.

So don't say no.

You know, Let me ask you. This is a little off. I didn't think I would talk to you about this, but I'm going to ask you since it kind of lends into it. So, you know, I can't tell half the time if these people that are presenting these things which ones. I've gotten better at it, you know. But I'll tell you, I had to lose a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of stress and people blowing a lot of smoke until I realized that there are people that. They have it. They are going to do whatever it takes. Doesn't mean they're going to succeed, but they're going to do whatever they possibly can to make it a success. And other people, it's just bullshit. They're selling a dream that they really have no intention of going the whole race and they're hoping that at some point they're going to exit or sell it off to someone and deposit their problem or their supposed vision.

So.

They'Re coming to you with an idea. And if they don't have a track record, how do you evaluate if it's worth betting on that person? What are the characteristics or what are the things that you look for if someone has not had, quote, unquote, successful businesses, that they've done this before and they're asking for money. And I've never built any of my businesses by raising money. Anytime I need money, I find what people want, I figure out how to sell it to them. And that's how I raise my money, is I do it by selling stuff that people want to people. And there are businesses that require startup, there are businesses that are capital intensive in the beginning and they want to scale or whatever. But I'll tell you, words like monetize and scale and all this stuff, these Silicon Valley words are some of it's such bullshit. It's this hidden ways for people to con their way through getting people to get. And I think some people's business models is just raising a bunch of money and selling it off and then doing it all again. And I'm very suspect now of things. And I wasn't in the beginning. I mean, Jim could speak to this. I have literally thrown away probably $5 million, like just on bullshit. And it didn't sound like bullshit in the beginning, but you look back going, oh, okay, yeah, they were just. It's kind of a con job. And so what do you look for?

Well, you know, my wife and I were in Switzerland. We lived there for a while. And this UBS is a big bank. They came to us and they were raising something like $50 million. And they cordially and just made me feel like I was so honored to be invited to this presentation they were going to put on. And they invited this other guy and he said, well, he had to give them my name. So about 10 guys were in this room in Switzerland and UBS had their best guys in Switzerland, Geneva, pitching this new fund that was going to invest in China. So they were in there and they made you feel very honored to be there, you know. And so I sat there, listen, listening to him. And this, my guy here, my friend, he was listening and I couldn't understand it. Like, I just didn't understand it. Let me understand. Hands up in the room. And I kept. I was the Guy that I felt like a bit of an agitator because everybody else was nodding their heads. You know, everyone's going like this. And it just didn't add up to me how you could buy. How are you going to invest in China? Well, how do you get it out? You know, the first thing I said, how do you get it back? You know, well, we're going to sell the companies and you know, the economy is going to go up and they're going to make all the money because China's doing so well. A billion people, you know. But how are you going to get it back? How are you going to actually exit strategy? What are the rules of the game? You know, all that and it's ubs. You shouldn't like they looked at me like I was a dunce. Which reminds me of another story. Same way. Anyway, so I was the dumb guy in the room. The guy with me put in 5 million bucks. Now what would you say if they didn't do a good job? How much would they lose if they didn't do a good job? Like of the fun? 10%, 20%, 30%. Yeah, they lost all of it. That fund. 50 million bucks was gone. You know, and it's like that another, you know, I was in New York and I was just putting my company together and I got this company and now I'm just a salesman selling mutual funds and then a salesman selling real estate and so hire some guys. I'm going along. I need an accountant and I need this and need that. You know, I don't know how to do that because I didn't learn how to do that. So I thought I better learn how to do that. So there's a course in New York that you go to and there's a like an eight hour course and it says for 400 bucks. And I'm living in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada. So 800 bucks, you go there and learn how to be a businessman. You know, I'm in, you know, 24 hours, fly the plane, night flight, get back, you know, so I go, so I'm in, I'm in this room with 400 of these guys, suits and ties and real smart guys up there. And they were talking away and honestly I didn't understand the thing they were saying. Nothing and it said that you can learn. I mean, I paid $400 to learn, you know, so, you know, I said I sat on my hands because a lot of times I want to talk, but other people. So I just sit on my, I sit on my hands and not talk, you know, so I'm sitting on my hands, sitting on my hands. I said, excuse me, my name is Peter Thomas. I said, I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. And I honestly don't understand the thing you're talking about. And the room I. The room of all these big guys, you know, she went down like that, and I'm thinking, oh, my. Just chill. I just felt, you know, all of a sudden, this big, deep voice come from the back room. My name is Robert Chernick, he said, and I'm a CPA here in New York City. And I don't understand a thing you're talking about either. I look back, you know, there's Robert. And next thing goes, I don't understand. He's. You know, all of a sudden, the whole crowd started to move around.

You know, no wonder your mic is scratching. I mean, you're pretty excited.

Yeah, they shut the meeting down. They literally shut the meeting down, you know, And I went to the back and met Robert afterwards.

Wow.

And talked to him, and he became my friend for life. And I hired him. He's my CFO for 30 years.

How do you know that story?

Yeah, that's.

Here, let me more. For aesthetics, I just want to make sure you look good on camera here.

Awesome.

No, that's great.

But really, the answer question, Joe, is if you don't understand it, don't do it. Yep. Just say no and don't be embarrassed about it. Just like, I still get embarrassed, but do it. Force yourself through the embarrassment. Yeah.

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. That is such a good point, because so many people. It's similar to. Many people would rather be well known than well paid. They would rather look good than, like, be embarrassed. And I'll tell you, that's probably just the honesty and the admitting of. I don't understand. This is. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So talk about your son, Todd.

Sure, sure. Well, Todd had mental health issues all his life, and we had him till he was 35 and we lost him. When he was 35 years old, he took his own life. He leaped off the Plaza, the Plaza Hotel in New York. And, yeah, he's my chairman. He's my chair. I Talk to Todd all the time, you know, and how he'd feel about stuff. And I, you know, I learned like a long time ago. I always had this feeling when I was younger that I didn't, I wasn't smart enough, didn't know enough, you know, but just get punching ahead, punching ahead. That's what you got to do. Because you'll never be smart enough. You'll never know enough. So you surround yourself with people who are smart, who you can trust, who are good. And, you know, I remember when I was in 1974, that same year, I was blessed. I got accepted by the Young Presidents Organization and they more or less went by results, not how smart you are, it's what you did and what you had and who you were. And so I got invited into that organization and I, I was in it for many, many years. That's like whatever 74 is 50 years ago, you know, I get in. And when I lost Todd, I wanted to quit the organization. And I was on the board of ypo. And we had a board meeting on my boat and the chairman of YPO was on the boat and they had a committee on creating the next university. And I was a member of that committee. And I announced I'd lost Todd. I was done. I'm done, I'm leaving. That's when Reid and I went to Switzerland. And I said, I'm finished, I'm done, it's over. I'll call you when I'm back, you know. And I had a book with me that was kind of the book of my life. And so it was on my boat. So the book was sitting on the counter. It was just a three ring binder. And it was all stuff that I come meet like this, I write stuff, and then I go sit on the beginning, I write some more stuff. I always feel this, I need to learn. I need to learn all the time. I can learn from everybody. I want to read everything I hear about. So the book was a dream binder and it kind of organized. And the chairman of YPO walked by the book and took a look at it, said, what's this? And I said, well, I didn't know it was out there. I said, sorry, I left it. There's my diary. He said, can I read it? I thought, you know, sure, I guess so, why not? So he took it away. He'd gone for three hours, never came back. Came back, said, peter, I want you to teach this to ypo, to the form. I want you to teach this. I said, how do you teach it, it's my book. So anyway, he said, I want you to come down to Austin, Texas and I want you to teach our YPO people this. So I said, okay, you know, and I said, okay, let me try it. So I took the book and condensed it into a program we called Life Pilot. We renamed it and branded it and became a program, a four hour program into that book and I carry just for the exercise purpose for you, to tell you how deep you can get into this kind of stuff in this thing we called Life. Life is a gift. It's such a gift. Right. What are the chances of getting here? You know, it's interesting. I lost one of my best friends. When you get to be 85, you start losing people. It's just crazy. I lost my 82, he was 82. And I lost Michael. And I get a bit of counseling and you know, there's grief and there's grieving and you've got to move from grief to grieving. Grief is very sad because it's you alone feeling sorry for yourself of your loss. It's about you. But when you get to grieving, you can celebrate. Like with Todd. I'm grieving, but I celebrate his life all the time. You know, I forgot where I was going to go with this. Which one?

Well, you're talking. So you did Life Pilot. You started doing Life Pilot. And then. Yeah.

I want to give you a bit more about Todd. But anyway, we did this program, Life Pilot and. Oh, I know what I want to do. Yeah. And so I'm always wanting to be organized. I love organization and if you're not good at. But I'm not good at a lot of things that organization has. So I get people to help me organize, you know, to get to keep. Like Rita, she's the most organized human in the world, you know, so that gives up for some of my life.

I can actually attest to that. The supplements of the house, like everything's pretty formula.

So one of the things I have is a formula. I have lots of formulas, like little, little letters and words that mean things to me. Like this one, this formula. It's like this is my. This is my. That same book, Life Pilot. Then this is over 50 years. This is my 2024 goals. Peter Thomas, my 2024 goals. And it's Peter Thomas, 1120. I finished it on 11-7-23. And my formula for holding is clarity, focus and execution. That formula you can use for everything in your life. When you're looking at anything new, first get clarity. Like do you understand what it is. Like, you're looking to buy a company. You're looking to start a new business. You're looking at getting married. You're looking at going on a trip. Get clarity. Let's just take a little example. Like somebody says, hey, Joe, you want to go to Greenland? So Joe says, yeah, let's go to Greenland. Then Joe goes, what's Greenland like? What's that about? He learns where it is. Would you ever want to go there? How many people live there? What do they do there? What's my interest in going there? You learn all about that. You get clarity, then say, okay, I'm going to focus. How much does it cost? Who do I want to take with me? What time of the year is a good time to go? All that stuff. Focus. And then you just execute. So all my life's been about that. That formula really works well for me. So clarity, focus, execution on everything you look at. Because a lot of times we do things and we don't have clarity. In fact, like when you're buying companies or starting companies or you get full clarity and the economy changes, you're all set to go, and something you didn't figure out passed you on. A couple of books you should pick up and read. And I'm sure that when I show our hands, half at least will go up. But the half that isn't going up, take care and read it. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie. Those two books still today are as good as they are, as good as they ever were the first time they came out. And you can read lots of current books. I try and read books all the time. We're just reading a book right now. Son of Hamas. I don't know if you guys ever read it, but, oh, my gosh, you sure understand what's going on in the world. The bigger problems, you know. So one thing I do is read all the time, Joe. I love to keep up reading and doing that kind of stuff. But this book here, this book, it goes right to another huge thing, like my little table of contents on it. It's tiny habits. Like, habits are so critically important, you know, and everything I have, like my wallet. My wallet's in a certain place. If it's not there, it's gone. Like when I get out of my pocket, it goes into that little pocket and it's there. So everything has a place, and there's a place for everything, you know? But you're. I just. Some of these tiny habits I thought you just, I don't know, it might be fun for you to see.

But, you know, it's funny, when you, you gave me. We had met at Starbucks really early in the morning, like before 20, I think it was the end of 20. And you gave me your 20, 23 goals. And I took them and then I wrote all over them and it's like. I mean, he's thoughtful about where he wants his life to go. And it, you know, that's when I really began to understand. Yeah, you designed this life. You created this stuff because you're very intentional about it. And you write it down and you focus on it.

Yeah, yeah, you gotta be.

So I'm curious to compare the newer ones to where you were and see where. Yeah, so.

Well, like, for example, I try and get up every morning, five o', clock, and I go to bed nine. That's just kind of try and do that now. You don't do it every day. You're traveling, stuff like that. But five to nine and then I get up, I go five and snuggle. Rita, have a nice snuggle and then get out of bed, make Rita a cup of coffee. Gets her day going. She loves that. And I get a lot of points. I get big points. It makes my day, you know, so she's happy, I'm happy. We have a cup of coffee. Yeah, happy life, happy wife. And so we do that. But then. And then I got. Remember how much minutes matter? Because I tend to be slow. So I remember, get on with it. Because I got to work out at six. My trainer usually comes at six or wherever I am, I got to go at six. So shower, all that kind of stuff. They weigh in. And then I have a thing I call the word of the day. For me, the word of the day. And I just take a word and choose. Like, today was be kind. That's my word. I want to be kindness. But you have gratitude. You can have execution, you can have focus, anything. You think you can put words down, there's many, many words fit. But that word sets your intention for the day. And you know, you take a word like gratitude, like, what are we grateful for? Well, you know, it's so incredible because you'd be grateful. I mean, I was grateful for my secretary. She was amazing. She saved my life kind of thing, you know. But you can be grateful for all these different things and you honor the things you should be honoring in your life and you do the things to make those things that make you work, you can give back to Them with gratitude. I have a big giant glass of water every morning before I sort of get going. Take my supplements and my pills, which Mrs. Thomas makes me take. I don't know what's in them. Check your texts, check your emails. This is all before six. And then my mits. I try and do it the night before. I start with five. I usually don't have five, but what's the five things I want to get done today, the next day? So I do that the night before and think on them. Then you think during the evening, they sort of melt themselves. They solve themselves most of the time, the big stuff. And you know Brian Tracy, 100 years ago he wrote the book called Eat the Frog. Just eat the frog. Take your week, all the frogs get them on. Monday's a good day for frogs. You know, I try to get everything going on Monday. Do that, your exercises, your workout, read the papers with food. I, I sort of, I've sort of got to the point where I try and I try. Ice cream doesn't count, but I. Most of the food, you put something in your mouth, put it in for a reason. Like what is it doing for me? Like what does this, what does that, what does it feed me rather than just eat it for? Because it makes me feel good, you know, like give you a. Emotionally a short high. So look, look at. I said when putting food in your mouth, I said ask yourself if it's healthy, you automatically do that. But I got here, except for ice cream, hang excited, hang upside down. I do that just for my back and stuff like that, you know, keep going. And yoga. Many times that our dinner's all things are, things are on time. Like I sort of eat at that early morning time. I have a bite to eat and then lunch at 12 o' clock I want something to eat. And then about five or six we eat. So I do three a day, you know, and everything works. Like everything just keeps working sometimes. Right. The most down throwing things. Yeah. Let Rita know how much I love her and give her constant snuggles and words of praise and encouragement. I probably tell Ria 100 times, 50 times a day I love her. You know, I can't. I can't say enough, you know, for myself so that it. And I get the same back. I mean I get back in multiples. Like, you know, it's just so important in your relationship. Research people deal, travel, just research stuff all the time. Make a happy call every day. Make one happy call every day. Make someone feel good. Someone else. Call Morley, call Joe's having a shit. He goes, hey, Joe. And you know, don't bother me. I'm busy, you know. No, no, I just want to stop for a minute. Just take it easy. How you doing? How's it going? What are you calling me for? Just. Can I. I'm just checking on you. How you doing?

I don't ever respond that way, by the way, I'm making that up.

Yeah, no, but I just. But do that and that can. And start with. And start with your own family. Like, start who? Who haven't you call who. What sister is out there that you haven't talked to? What's, you know, what child, what? You know, but just make the one happy call a day and don't put down five because you're going to get excited. Hell, I'll make five. You won't do it. But one happy call a day, seven calls a week. And you know who gets the most out of making a happy call? You do. Yeah, exactly.

Can I ask you about, like, the responding and reinforcing positive stuff? I think it's something like 90% of marriages when they have a death of a child end in divorce. It's really hard when you are losing it. When the grief is so overwhelming. What do you do?

Well, you know, what happened to me was when we lost Todd, one way of expressing it is almost like I was flying my airplane in a cloud of milk. My head was in a cloud of milk. I could hear you. I knew what was going on out there, but I couldn't see anything. I didn't care. I just didn't care about anything. And, you know, you have to. There's always things you have to do when you lose somebody you're not aware of the funeral, all that stuff, you know. And so we had, of course, the ceremony and I had to give the eulogy. And I looked at all these people. It was terrible. It was awful. So I said, you know, I've got to be the strong guy. I have to take leadership here. I'm the head of the house. I got to do this. And I literally did a eulogy that was a day of celebration of Todd's life. And I reminded everybody this is what Todd would want. He'd want you to celebrate his life, you know. And he wrote, you know, Todd wrote the most beautiful letter, you know, letter to me as a dad, you know, and he let me know I had nothing to do with what he was doing. He was in such pain, you know, from his mental health issues, his depression. His depression. And he couldn't get out of it and didn't want. He made a decision. He was done. He was finished. And he was 35. Mostly used people, they said to me, around in their early 20s, like, 20, 19, 20, 21. So he went 35. So we had him, you know, a long time. I know the story I was going to tell you is about life and grieving and a story I lost. Like, I lost Todd and I lost Michael now. But they say that when. Oh, man, when you lose somebody like this and you think about their lives, this guy said to me, peter, I want you to just think of this. He said, just getting born. Us here right now, just getting born. You won the lottery. I mean, you know, that little seed making it through and getting you born, like, so one in a billion or something, you know. So you won the lottery there. So if you live for 50 years on this earth, you had 50 years of winning the lottery, enjoying the lottery, enjoying what that presented all your life, Joe, you were doing the fun, the excitement, the living life, right? When Michael lived for 82 years. And I thought, my gosh, you know, that's a. He had that dart and he had a lottery with this guy. This guy was crazy. He had four wives. He had, like, I don't know, 25 grandkids. I mean, he had a life, like. And he was successful. Yeah, he was successful. I mean, he was an unbelievable guy, you know, And I thought, you know, man, that guy, I am so sad that I've lost him, but I am so happy to have had him, you know? You know, so happy. He enriched my life. Wouldn't be as rich as it was without Michael, you know, or without Todd. So it's. It's. It's accepting realistically what it is. And that really helped me. That really helped me in grief thinking about that, that we won the lottery, you know, having that life so. Well.

Yeah, well, now. So now you have the, you know, the Todd Thomas Foundation.

Right. And that's what mental health is, where you and I boom.

Exactly.

Go after 100 grand, I give it to in eight seconds.

So now you're helping a lot with my addiction foundation and everything, too, which I greatly appreciate.

I tend to do more. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, it's one of the things. It's interesting to me in America how much people hide death. I mean, unless you're a doctor or someone, you know, you're a firefighter or police officers, you can often go your entire life without seeing someone dead. And if you do, it's like open you Know, there's not a lot of talk about pain and grieving and stuff. It's more now today than ever before. And I think, you know, I think just the ability to process that. And if people don't, it. It will process you.

Yeah, well, you know, getting on a happier. On just a happier side of it. Each one of us are responsible for ourselves. Each one of us are. So we've all got the same thing. We've all got 24 hours ahead of us. So what we do with that 24 hours, that's what's different. Like, what's different to you and the richest guy in the world. Kings and queens. It's time. It's just what you do with that time. So one of the things I. That's one of the reasons I do this. I organize myself because I take the calendar, for example, and I say, okay, there's an empty calendar now. Well, what are we doing, honey? Where do you want to go? What should we do this year? Where should we go? You know, so, well, let's go to Vegas. Let's go, you know. Okay, when. Okay, put it in the calendar and you get the date going. Is that a good time? What other shows are on, you know, and that's what we do. And it's just so phenomenal, like. And put things in that you're kind of fun. Like, for example, there was that. Do you know that zero plane that. The plane that goes up and down and dives down. Zero gravity that they sell. I thought, I gotta try that, you know? So four of us. So four of us go on that plane, like a year. A couple years ago. And Michael. Thank God I went with Michael. Well, they threw me back and forth. I was the smallest guy, you know, so the other guy threw.

I've done it once. I mean, you're like a beach ball.

I was the ball. I mean, it was just crazy fun, you know? And one of the things. Another thing I wanted to do years ago. Do y' all remember the Concorde? That airplane, The Concorde that they had? Has anybody been on the Concorde? Okay, so here's me. I'm sitting there. That looks interesting, you know. And then we're talking about canceling it. They were talking about years ago. So I said, well, I better. But I had nowhere to go. I wasn't going anywhere. Well, I'm gonna go. So I went to England for the weekend. I went on the Friday so I could fly back on the Concorde to New York. So I get on the Concorde, but I gotta Tell you experience. So we're on the Concorde, and I am so excited. It's like a long Lear jet, and it's very narrow, Very, very narrow. And two and two. And the aisle has a special cart that's about that wide. You're really. You're kind of close. And so. Well, and they put you in a. Like, you get there in the airport, and then they know we're going to a special place in the airport. They got a special place, red carpet. And then you're meeting with, you know, there's maharajas and things. You're thinking in your head anyway, all these people. Because it costs like, crazy stupid money. It cost like maybe 10 grand when a ticket to England was maybe 500, you know. But anyway, so I'm there. I'm in there, and I just getting excited. I can't wait. I get on the Concorde and they start the thing off. You know, you get now, ladies and gentlemen, seat belts down. Fasten your seat belts. Trays up. We're going to Concorde. Thing goes brr. Takes off. You know, I'm excited. And he gets up and he goes up and then starts leveling off and about 35,000ft. And I'm going to look out the window. I mean, it's great, but not that great. You know, I had air Canada experience there, was just as good, you know. So I'm wondering what they. Take your seat belts off, remove your seat belts, sit back, tear trays up, and the girls are starting to serve stuff like, holy crap, 10 grand, you know, and I got to go to all. So anyway, we're sitting there for about 10 minutes. Seatbelts, fasten your seatbelts, put in seat belts. They're taking away stuff. They're going. Right. We're now going to go into Concorde flight. Oh. So the plane's sitting like, you know, about 35,000ft. It's like this, you know, you'll love this, Martha. And it takes off a second takeoff, just like the first takeoff. It's at 35,000ft, and it goes straight up to 52,000ft. Well, at 52,000ft, you actually can see the curve of the earth. It's just the beginning of seeing it, you know. Well, I looked at. And they got a little. Just exactly that clock right there, that big clock that got Joe and it turning like this. The seven's going. It's going five, four as it gets in and come. Because I think it's 2,000 miles. I think it's 2,000 something like it breaks the speed of sound. That's what they can't fly it over. So you're going faster than the speed of sound. So the experience was, like, crazy, unbelievable. And it lasted me for a long time. So what I challenge you guys to do every one of you here, go on a Concorde flight. On your Concorde flight, it might be a toboggan up in Alaska. It might be go to Greenland. Just go and go for a weekend, like, whatever it is. But the reason I'm so excited all the time is I'm doing exciting stuff all the time. I'm not doing just with exciting people. And I surround myself with these great people. So you're always happy because tomorrow is going to be better than today. So you keep yourself, if you can keep yourself motivated. And the way you get that, it's just like, you know, some people. That's my heroine is doing exciting, fun stuff with fun people. And it might be just having dinner. I see Jennifer back there, you know, I mean, Jennifer's been a buddy for, I don't know, 30. More. More than 30 years, you know, but she's fun, she's happy, she's excited about life. Everybody know her. That's who she is. So surround yourself with people like that who love life so that you can excite each other. Right?

That's great advice. So what is the secret? If there is, you know, secret is an interesting word. What's the secret to getting wealthy?

I think this might be it.

I think that has a lot to do with it. Okay, well, I'm doing exciting things.

They're doing fun, exciting things. But I want to. I pulled this one story in here, by the way. I read this stuff every Sunday. I read this book every Sunday. And it might take me 15 minutes because, you know, I know it pretty well. I've been back and forth, but it reminds me all the time. But just listen to this one. Do you all remember if I say the name Eddie Arcaro, who he was? How many people know, Joel? Who was Eddie Arcaro?

Here's a Mike. Here's a Mike.

A real tiny guy. Eddie o' Carroll was a jockey. He was the first guy to make major money. I'll just tell you a wee bit about him. He's one of the most famous jockeys that ever lived. George Edward o'. Carroll. He was known as Eddie to millions and millions of people. He was the only man to win two Kentucky Derbies. He won 17 Triple Crowns races and two Triple Crowns on Whirlaway. You heard about the Horse Whirlaway and of course Citation. He did those two ways. He was the leading money winner for three annual years. He was a leading moneymaker in horse racing. When he retired, he had won 549 stake races and over $30 million. That's, you know, a few years ago. Both were records. But what is overlooked about all this success and this extraordinary career? Now listen to this one. This is crazy. He lost his first 250 races. Now just think of this. Well, I want to be a horse racer. So I'm going out to the stable today and having my first race. How'd you do? Well, I lost my second race. Well, I'm going to be a horse racer. How'd you do? I lost 250 times. He didn't lose in his. He was getting, he was getting to win. He was getting closer to winning, that's all. And I said it's the same to you. If you're bent on your goal, failure isn't, it's not there. You don't fail at something. You just keep trying until you win, you know, until you win that, until you get that prize. And that's what I tell you success was before. What did I say? What did I tell you? The definition of success was a preset goal. That's what Eddie set his goal. I'm going to be a successful jockey. And he did. But that's not the only one. There was another one I had here, the same thing. Yeah. Baseball. Time magazine did an article between the definition of failure success of these baseball players. A top league hitter who hits 250, 250 hitting average makes about 50k a year. If he boosts that up to 333 from 250, he makes 500, from 50,000 to 500,000. In order to go from 250 to 350. The difference between that is he needs one more hit every three games. If you three whole games just get one more hit, he moves from 250 to 300 and he becomes a half a million dollar a year earner. So it's the same with us. If you just keep it, you're like 18, three and one. You make those darn 18 calls. You put on those three presentations, you get to be better. You just get better and better. You start hitting better next time, you know, I'm not going to strike at that one. This looks good. And you'll get to know how to not practice makes perfect those 10,000 hours, you know, and that type of thing. So don't don't, don't try something. Well, the attitude I'm going to this is, I am going to do this. I'm going to do this. And then you gather around whatever you need to do it. But failure isn't an object.

I love it. So I'm 56 years old right now.

Therapy session, Joe. Therapy.

Okay, guys, so what would you tell your 56 year old self? What I would, you know, everyone's like, what would you tell your Ask. What would you tell your 18 year old self, Joel?

And I saw you writing the board on there. You wrote one of those things on that card. It was about the Joe Polish show. And you put down why should I do? Was your question. Why should I do it? Why should I do the Joe.

The reason of why I'm doing a variety show because there's so many different interesting people that I interview that don't really fit into marketing or don't really fit into business. Yeah.

What I was going to say if you and I were sitting down, I was in the back room thinking about. I love the idea, by the way. So I thought, why wouldn't you? I never thought, why would you. I thought, well, why wouldn't Joe. It just seemed to be a perfect pinnacle. I wouldn't. And I call it the Joe Polish Show. Yeah. I wouldn't say the show or you.

Know, what's funny about too. I've had the domain name for probably a decade.

Yeah.

I just didn't pull the trigger on it.

Yeah. I would do that because it's a perfect platform for you. Yeah. It's the perfect next step. Like me just trying this social media thing I'm doing right now. I never dreamed in a million years I'd do anything. Social media, A million years. Next. You know, angels came around like, you know, this guy got a gal in New York. Yes. She's a crazy. She's unbelievable. She's just great, you know. And read my little. Did you bring a hat, honey, with you? What does her hat say? It says.

That is funny.

Read. The sister said, I have Matt. So you can't. We cannot do it anymore unless you got Madam Director, you know, move to the airport. And we'd say, okay, I'll say, I'll do a one minute. A one minute shot. And I've actually trademarked the one minute mentor. So you're going to all see, effective March 1st, you're going to be Peter Thomas, the one minute mentor. Just one minute shots. Like, for example, the frogs just boom, you know, and say stuff that's topical. It's right now. So it's going to be fun. That's like your Joe Polish show. You don't know where it's going to go. I just checked this morning because I don't know how many followers we have. You know, I looked you guys. Yeah. All follow me. It'd be kind of fun and taking you on the journey with me. But I got 9,600 followers. To me, that. 9,000. I come from a town with 1,000 people. You mean I'm nine times.

Where do they have 9,000 at?

Because that's on 9,600 right now. On what platform it's on. If you. Oh, I'm adding them up. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok. Okay. Those all added to. LinkedIn's the biggest. But Instagram is just booming up. Yeah, that's the one that's really coming now. Yeah. And LinkedIn was the biggest one because that's what I started with. Right. So it's kind of. So I'm measuring was like. And I set a goal. I said, like my whole team. I said, okay, we're going to do this thing till March 30th. I'm done March 30th. So prepare to wind up, see how we're doing. Then we might make a decision to do it for the whole year. But it's fun in something you're not quite sure of. You've got to find your way. You got to talk to. That's why I've been talking to Michael and I've been talking to Evan. You know, same as you. Right.

Which is great. Well, and see, that's genius networking. It's finding people that have skills and talents. You put them together. Yeah. In order to have a genius network, you have to do genius networking and you have to be a genius networker, which means you actually approach people with what's in it for them. You approach them and being helpful and.

Useful and all you guys get the ones. You're getting started and you're running challenges. I could tell you a story that inspired me. It's called the Fly Story. So sitting down, looking at a board one day. I'm from a small town in Alberta, northern Alberta, and probably the flies are that big there. They're huge. So I have a lot of fly stories. But you go, this. There's a window like this there, like that. The windows there. There's an open window right here. And this fly was going against this window, you know? You know, anyway. So I would leave it alone for A while come back and there's no more. I look right down the ledge, there's about 15 dead flies. You know, they're just laying there dead. And there's an open window here, an open window. I'm wondering, why wouldn't the fly back up and instead of going, bzzz, bzz, bzz, go through the open window? It'd be so much easier. I said the same thing to you. When you're doing your work and you go, some people do that, you know, you hear people get stuck and you get stuck. The fly was stuck. He just like, he. He couldn't see the glass, couldn't see it. So he just didn't know any better. If that stupid fly went to school and learn, look at things and look at the world as a whole. Look at. Why isn't it going. You know that you have this great plan, you're ready to go, you're going to make it work, but it's just not working well. And that's whether you're a genius network. Pick up the phone, call somebody. Call. Look, I'm. But you know, a lot of times we got this stupid thing called our ego, right? And it, you know, we're so champion, we walk the earth and we're big and smart and all that stuff. That's just so much bs, you know, we're not, we're just. Everybody will tell you if anybody who's successful, that I know, look around the amazing people they have around them. Look at their networks. Look at, look. That's when they're amazing. Because that means that this is a journey. This life is a. It's tough. It's really, really tough. It's not easy, but it's easier. Easier if you can share it and if you have people around you who you can trust, you know, like a trust. And that's a huge. What I said. Sharing, caring and trust. Every relationship you should get into. Everybody. Can I share? Do I care and do I trust? Because that's the most important thing in the world. And what you get here.

I love it. 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 them.