Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork with Dr. Benjamin Hardy, Joe Polish, and Dan Sullivan - Genius Network Episode #154

You have a vision of some achievement, a much bigger and better goal than you have the achievement, and then you're excited about getting to that bigger and better goal, but you're suddenly run into an obstacle that there's a lot of hows. There's a lot of hows involved in getting to the bigger, better goal and you don't have them. And what most people do is number one, they never get any farther with the goal because they think that they have to do the hows. It's so painful to have a vision of something bigger and better and then not achieve it. And you fail once, you fail five times, you fail 50 times. And after a while, what I notice is people don't have goals anymore because the process is too painful.

If you've still got your nose buried in how to books, you're doing something wrong. Ditch the dummies book and learn the true formula for accelerated growth and success in today's episode of the Genius Network podcast with Ben Hardy, Dan Sullivan and Joe Polish. In this episode you'll hear Ben, Dan and Joe talk why entrepreneurs need to start asking who and not how. You'll also learn why this simple question and its proven formula will free up your time, take the things you hate off your plate and transform your business for better. If you'd like to join world renowned entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network annual event, then apply today for your invitation to attend. If you'd like to learn more about the Genus Network annual event or to apply go to genusnetwork.com hello, this is.

Joe Polish and Dan. I guess I'll let you just say who you are. And then our special guest.

Yeah, this is Dan Sullivan and it's really great, Joe, because there's so much collaboration among the three of us over the years. Starting with you, Joe, 23 years ago and then through you. As it's true of almost everybody I.

Meet in my life, I met through you, I met Ben. And I had really been had in the back of my mind that I would not go for a major market book until I had like the perfect collaborator, someone who really understood major markets. So I create a book every quarter as part of the value that strategic coach clients get. But I said, you know, some of these books could really go big, but I'm not going to be the one who did it. And at the very first meeting that I was at of your 100k workshop, I met Ben within the first hour and I put like a 15, 20 minute presentation together for the concept of the book that we're going to talk about today, who, not how. And, and Ben said, oh, I could write that book. That's a great book. I'd be able to write that. And so the actual birthing of this actually happened because of my relationship with you, Joe, and joining your program and then going to the highest level. Babs and I were the first check writers for your program. And if there's one higher than that, we'll be the first check writers for that program.

That is wonderful. Thank you. So, yeah, so we have Dr. Benjamin Hardy with us. Ben. So how are you doing?

Awesome. And I'll just say that I learned about Dan's work through you, Joe. My aunt Jane joined Genius network back in 2014. I think it was during the first year of my PhD program. And I started listening to your stuff. I started listening to Dan's stuff and then, you know, made it my dream to join Genius Network. And once I got into Genius Network, learned a lot more about Dan and Strategic coach and that's what led this all to happen. So thanks for the inspiration, both of you.

Well, thank you. And if any, if anyone picks up anything from this conversation, just from the get go, is the whole concept of collaboration and working together with each other versus how some people attempt to work with other people. So this is a wonderful collaboration and we're going to talk about a formula to, you know, the subtitle of this book is the Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals through Accelerating Teamwork. So I want to talk about this and I want to talk about the book and why it is not just a book. It is a formula. It is a process. And right before we started recording, Dan had mentioned about his father, who had no concept of who not how and how many people are rugged individualists and they may be talented, they may be very smart. Without understanding and knowing this, it really can limit their, not only their progress or success, but certainly their happiness. Yeah, let's. I mean, so the whole. Let's talk first about how did you know? How was this seed planted? Who, not how. I mean, you do dedicate a thing to Dean Jackson in the book, our friend. I mean, all of this is really a collaboration of taking ideas, developing them and turning them into a really usable formula. So let's talk about that and then I'll get into some of the, you know, some of the main concepts and I will recommend everybody right from the get go, go and get this book. Who not how.com is the website. It's a really great cover. You know, so it is a formula for Achieving bigger goals. So that is the process. And yeah. So one of you go first.

Well, I'll go first because I'll talk about the moment when the term who, not how was actually spoken. And through you, Joe, going back probably 12 years, I met Dean Jackson, with whom you have a podcast series. I love marketing. Then Dean was in your program, and then he was in my program. I just love talking to Dean as a result of you introducing me to the concept of podcasts. And we have the podcast 10 times talking, Dean and I. One day we were having lunch in Toronto and I was telling him my observations about something, and that was that I thought that procrastination was given a bad name, that procrastination is actually a good thing if you look at it in the right way. And what I described to Dean is that you have a vision of some achievement, a much bigger and better goal than you have the achievement. And then you, you know, you're excited about getting to that bigger and better goal, but you're suddenly run into an obstacle that there's a lot of hows. There's a lot of how's involved in getting to the bigger, better goal. And you don't have them. And what most people do is, number one, they never get any farther with the goal because they think that they have to do the hows. And then it's so painful to have a vision of something bigger and better and then not achieve it. And you fail once, you fail five times, you fail 50 times. And after a while, what I notice is people don't have goals anymore because the process is too painful. And I said, the procrastination is simply telling you that something else is needed. So that's as far as I got. And Dean was at the table and he said, have you known this for years and you haven't shared it with me? And I said, no, no, I just thought about it yesterday. He said, so I'm the first one you've told about this? And I said, yeah. I said, I knew I was having lunch with you today, so I thought I'd bring him bring it up. So he said, well, we should do a podcast. We called the podcast the Joy of Procrastination. And we started the next day and Dean's got a real fast get started with a podcast process that he did. And we did it. And we did it right up until July of this year. So this would have been three years in total that we did the Joy of Procrastination. And then because of the events of 2020, where a lot of people have been introduced to virtual conferencing, zooming. Dean said, I've got a better name. Let's just cap it at three years and start a new podcast, which is called welcome to Cloudlandia. It's really interesting, but about a year into the previous project, the Joy of Procrastination, Dean came to me and he says, you know what it is? He said, we're mixing up things here is that you have a goal that's bigger and better, and that's the what. And then immediately you're confronted that there's going to be hows needed to achieve the what, and you don't have the hows, so what you have to look for is the who. So it's really who, not how. And so I just want this on the record. And we dedicate the book to Dean and that the who, not how happened that day. And within a week, I had it all diagrammed. I had a thinking process in the Strategic coach, and it's been huge. I mean, our book tells stories, roughly about two dozen stories, that Ben Hardy here has interviewed people, all sorts of different areas of life, and talks about people who, when confronted, that they didn't have the hows to capture their bigger and better what, they found who's that did it. And once they did it once, they never went back to thinking that they were the person who had to do the how. All they had to do is have a bigger and better goal, identify the hows that are necessary, and then find who's who actually do the do the hows. And it's a formula and it seems really simple. And I have a lot of people say, oh, well, that's pretty obvious. And I said, well, do you do it? And they said, no, because, you know, I don't have the who's. And I said, yeah, but you didn't know that you had to look for them. And I said. And they said, well, I've never found anyone who can do it as good as I can. And I said, yeah, so they're not any good at doing what you can't do. Is that what I mean? Is that what you're saying here? Because you're not doing it and they're not doing it, so who's doing it? Who's actually getting to that goal? And they say, oh, oh, I see, I see. I said, so here's the thing. Do you want to get to the goal or do you want to say, I learned all the hows to get to the goal or do you just want to get to the goal? If whose can actually help you get to the goal? So it's a, it's a shift, Joe. It's a, it's a shift. And there's an entire gravitational system, because of the way we're educated, that prevents people actually from developing the ability to find the who's who will help them get to. Who will do the house for them to get to what they really want.

Yeah. You know, there's an interesting way that I think about this, and Ben Hardy's actually written an article about the first domino, the concept of the first domino. And at the last Genius Network annual event, when we were doing it in person, I gave out a domino to, you know, the 300 plus people that were there. And I had a tool called the first domino where you think of a. Or a, you know, event that happened in your life that was, you know, that put you on a trajectory in a very either positive way or very negative, because you can have dominoes that impact you both positively and negatively. And I believe this concept, I believe this book, for anyone that takes it very seriously as a first domino, it will truly be. You know, there's many books and there's many concepts and there's many ideas, but one of the things I've said for years in Genius Network is, you know, one elegant idea is worth more than a thousand semi good ideas. One elegant solution is worth more than like a bunch of just regular solutions and who not how is truly an elegant idea. It is an elegant solution. It is a first domino. And even before this book existed for people in strategic coach. Having spoken about this and we've seen lives change, we've seen completely reframing of how work is done, and now this podcast is introducing this. You know, I'm so curious to see where this goes for the people that really take it seriously, like, oh, just another book to read. No, this is not a book. This is a formula and this is a recipe. And this is a way to leverage yourself in such incredible ways. Because I often think of the two words, you know, productivity and leverage. You know, productivity, maximum results, least amount of time, and leverage, maximum results, least amount of effort. And if you find the right, you know, who's, they bring the how with them. And so the whole world of how to do this, how to do that, you know, a lot of it is completely unnecessary if you just find the right who. And so, Ben, what would you say about it? How would you describe it? And then I'll, I'll ask you some specific questions about the, the contents?

Yeah, well, who not how is a totally revolutionary idea. Actually, I had one of my good friends, his name is Richie Norton, I actually threw some of his story in the book. But his father in law is the man who. His name is Greg Link. Do you know who Greg Link is by chance? Yeah, no, him personally. Yeah. So Greg Link was very influential in selling all of the copies of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I think he was responsible for selling tens of millions. And so I actually let him read who not how and he's like, holy cow, I've never seen a book like this before. He's like, no one's ever talked about this before, you know, as far as in the business books. And he would know because he's right at the center. And he just said, this is a really important book. And I felt the same way when I first heard Dan explain. The concept is that it really is a first domino idea, that if someone actually gets this, it will change how they do everything. It's changed how I do everything. When I first joined Genius Network, I was basically a solopreneur. I saw myself as an author, not so much as an entrepreneur. I had a single assistant, but even now, just barely, I now set a new goal because I'm shifting over to doing YouTube videos because I just want you to grow on YouTube. YouTube's a really great platform. And so before I Even started making YouTube videos, I hired a full time video editor because I just knew that I didn't want to do that. And so one of the beautiful things that who not how allows you to do is it allows you to do five. You know, it allows you to do as much as you want simultaneously. You know, I don't, I can film videos, but I don't have to edit them, so someone else can be doing that simultaneously while I'm doing what I want. Whereas if you don't apply who not how, then you now have given yourself way too many to do's. And so if you want a lot of flow in your life, flow being like the optimal mental state where you're focused on what you love, you're totally absorbed in what you're doing. You need to have less things on your plate in order to have flow. You need to have like one or two priorities so that you can do those things well. And so if you're not applying who not how, if you're doing too many of the hows, you won't have flow. You also won't recover because you're always. You have too many things on your to do list, so you won't be rested, recovering, and enjoying your life. And so I just feel like if you want results and if you want an enjoyable life and if you want the results to keep getting bigger and bigger without you having to do them, you need other people to do it. And it's, It's. It is a. It is a mindset, and it's also something that I think a lot of people don't believe they can do. Me being one of those people who initially didn't know that I could hire people and build a team and be a leader, but it's just a simple mindset that everyone can apply.

Let me ask you about that. About mindset. You just hear the term who, not how that does sort of define what it is and the ability to embrace it. I mean, taking an idea or a concept into actual implementation, I think with most entrepreneurs going through, looking at the very beginning, it starts out as the rugged individualist. I mean, I remember Dan almost all. Yeah, Dan. 23 years ago when I first joined Strategic Coach. I think a lot of people go there for a couple. Well, many reasons, but I think a couple of the big ones and then I can speak for myself, and I think this applies to others is like, okay, how do I expand my business? How do I grow my business? How do I do more? How do I make more money? How do I achieve these aspirational goals? How do I do that? The other is. Which almost sounds like the complete flip side. How do I not work so much? You know, how do I have a life? And so the whole concept of multiplication by subtraction, you know, how do you do that? And this is one way. One way to do that. And I think one of the.

I think that this is the centerpiece, Joe. I think this is the centerpiece on how to do it.

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I agree. So to go to your point about mindset, how does one actually hear an idea, hear a concept? Take this book. And actually, now, obviously, it's sort of a setup. You know, if you don't have the recipe book, you don't really understand the recipes. Right. So the thing I'm really getting at is how does one take on a mindset? I mean, what. You know, so when we. You hear a lot of. I mean, the book. Mindset is a great book. There's, you know, by Carol Dweck. I mean, there's. There's a lot of things spoken about with. With mindset in this actually Think Dan.

Wrote a little book on it called the 4C's formula. But I'll explain it really briefly. Basically, I think you just have to try it. You commit to. But here's kind of, I think, how we explain it in the book, and Dan can probably, you know, further expand upon it. But I think one of the things that stops people from who, not how, is that either they've got some excuses to why they can't bring on a who. A lot of it's because they don't think they can afford it, or that the who won't do it as well. They don't trust the who. But if you see getting a who as an investment, just like you'd buy a book or go to a seminar, you know, like, if I can make a YouTube video, for example, and in an hour I can make 100 bucks, and I can. Instead of me doing all the work myself, I hire someone for 20 bucks to edit it. Then all of a sudden, I'm making an investment in myself. And so you always want to view adding people to your team as adding capabilities to yourself, not adding costs to your bottom line. It's not a cost. It's an investment in yourself. And when you look at it as an investment yourself that you now have more time to do higher leverage opportunities, you can create better results. You know, it does take courage, though. It takes courage to initially start hiring people and realizing that you can do it. I don't know, Dan, you want to add to that?

Yeah, well, I think, you know, we're born helpless. I mean, so, you know, when we're babies, we have all these people who are doing things for us. But the moment that we start becoming conscious, we enter into an educational system where we have to learn how to do hows. You have to learn how to read, you have to learn how to write, you have to learn how to do arithmetic. So to a certain extent, there's a part of the educational system that's absolutely crucial because there are certain capabilities in the. Let's just talk about our century, 21st century, that probably you're going to have to not only get reading, writing, and arithmetic, you're going to have to get a handle on electronics. You know, you're probably foundational concepts, foundational. I think, you know, the virtual capabilities that come with an iPhone or they come with a computer. I think they're just going to be crucial. They're going to be crucial for anyone to make their way. But the school system itself is actually run by rugged individualists like if you think about every principal, every teacher who's in the educational system from junior kindergarten to advanced graduate school might be 24 years of a person's life. You're only graded as an isolated individual. You take tests. Well, you can't take tests with a partner. You have to take tests on your own. You have assignments. You have to do the assignments yourself. You can't put a team together to do your assignments. That's cheating. And you're, you can't even do that.

At the PhD level.

You can't do it at the PhD.

You have to learn your statistics. You have to. I mean, I had to do a million things on my own.

Yeah. And so the, the whole emphasis of education. And remember, this was an educational system that was put together in the 19th century, in the middle 1850s, 1860s, when people could look forward to working in a factory all their life or working in a office building that was connected to the factory. And you were responsible for moving this from here to here. And that's all you were responsible for. And you got graded and you either kept your employment, you kept your job, or you were fired and somebody else replaced you. And I think that we, it was actually teaching human beings how to be machines. I think the educational system was that we have machines and they're very, very expensive, and therefore we have to have highly trained machine like humans who will make sure that the industrial equipment is properly maintained, that it works in the right way, and that you're not doing anything to undermine the industrial machinery. And I think that we had a huge growth of population because that system actually produced a lot of food and it produced a lot of convenience. And you know, I think we got to a billion finally in human history in 1800. Now we're at 8 billion and you know, just a little over two centuries. And I think, how do you, how do you get human beings to be as machine like as possible so that they don't screw up the actual machinery? And, you know, I went through that system in the 1940s. First year was 1950, and I went through 1950s, 1960s, went to university, you know, normal, normal path. And what I noticed about that is it really didn't have anything to do with what I really liked doing. It really didn't have to. I had to develop my real skills as hobbies. I had to, you know, it was a, you know, I was making myself better for entertainment. But when it came to actual work, I was doing houzz that other people wanted me to do their house and I had a job. And so. And Joe, you and I have talked about entrepreneurship from day one. And entrepreneurs are not good machines. They're really crappy, crappy, crappy machines. You know, they're, you know, their. Their attention wanders.

They.

They get tired, they get fatigued, they get bored. They. They do, you know, they do all sorts of things. They don't. They don't stick with things. You know, they're. They're not doing what they're told to do. They have no respect for authority. You know, they don't apply themselves. And these are all machine judgments that the human isn't being a machine. And I said, well, I said, yeah, but they do invent new things that are better than the machines that exist. Okay? So on the one hand, you got these people who aren't any good at using the existing machines, but they're real bright, and they create bypasses to the existing machinery. And we notice that things get better when people invent new things. So which way do you want it? Do you want them to be machines, or do you want them to be bad machines who create better machines?

Right, right.

So, I mean, I'm just get the entrepreneurial, because who not how is really, if you have a great entrepreneur, the great entrepreneur is really great at who not how.

Well, I would also say in based on what you and Ben just explained, I'm thinking right now of your collaboration with Babs, you know, your partner, and even Strategic coach as a who not how and how that applies. Can you explain that one? Because without even that, I mean, that's. That's a very long, very successful collaboration that if. If you would have not. You didn't call it that back then, but that's really what it is.

Yeah.

Well, I've been working on, you know.

What we're doing in Strategic Coach. I can remember the early thinking on this when I was a teenager. You know, I was saying, you know, there's got to be a better way to, you know, to just. For me to live my life and then for other people to live their life and the way I'm being taught. And just a short note on that. When my mother died, my oldest sister, who's nine years older than me, sent me a package. And in the package was 24 report cards. I got two report cards from grade one to grade grade 12, and my mother had kept them, and I got them all, and I went through them, and it was interesting. I was Catholic school, So I had 12 years of Catholic school, and it was serious Catholic school when I, they, you know, they hit you back then to get your attention, they hit you. And a lot's been lost I think sometimes from that. And they were tough, they really kept you busy. But there were two sides. There were your grades and I had good grades. I'm pretty fast study and I'm good at learning things. But the other side was the interesting one because the A's and B's and C's that you got on your grades, that was about this life. But they had another page that was called conduct and that's the one that got you into heaven. So they were really concerned about whether you got to heaven or not. And it was really interesting. It was report card after report card.

After report card, the same comment. Has no respect for authority, shows no respect for authority. And I said but I never misbehaved. But they were picking up something that what they were telling me. I was kind of saying, well, interesting information, interesting information, but it's not the real thing. I was looking for something else. And strategic coach has actually been my best success at finding where the center of things are. And first of all it's about entrepreneurism. That entrepreneurism is the highest life form on the planet. People who become entrepreneurs benefit other human beings in way that is unprecedented. And that the key, the essence of being an entrepreneur is that you don't do the hows. You identify the what's, you get a feel for all the hows that are going to be involved and then you find who's who actually do the hows. So that's the two things here is that entrepreneurism I think is the. Is the best way to live your life on the planet. And I think that the key to being a great entrepreneur is who not how and. But the educational system isn't trying to produce entrepreneurs. They're actually trying to produce machine like people who maybe will get a job from some enterprise that an entrepreneur has created.

Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. So here's what I'd like to. I want to give a sort of a summary of what people because again to go back to using the formula so you have this book broken up into four different parts. Freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationships and freedom of purpose. And I want to go right to the last section where it's chapter 10 is called stop competing and start collaborating. And chapter 11 is who's expand your vision and purpose. I'd like to speak to the way that how most in the business world they are competing, they're not really collaborating. What do you guys mean, by collaborating.

You want to go Dan? I mean collaboration.

I'd say that there's three skills. There's what I. In this interview, there are three unique abilities. And what I mean is that, Joe, you've learned a lot of things during your life, and you hang around a lot of people who are producing new ways of getting things done faster and quicker. But your real genius is that you can connect one innovator, one inventor, one with all the other inventors. You're a network creator, and you've experimented, and you find that networks work better if you fill them up with geniuses. That's why you call it Genius Network. But at the heart of Genius Network is Joe Polish's unique ability. Okay, so I just want to say that you can tell all you want about the theory of networks and the theory of genius, but unless you have somebody at the center, you are the genius network. You just happen to, you know, keep increasing the membership of who you are. You know, it's like you're filling yourself up with geniuses and extending the network. Ben has a phenomenal ability to kind of grasp all the psychological and social research that's been done and show how it's mostly worthless until it actually translates into somebody actually doing something. Okay, And I can bring up any concept in Strategic Coach, and Ben will say, yeah, so and so wrote about this. So and so wrote about this, and so and so wrote about this. The only difference is the stuff that I come up with actually works in the lives of entrepreneurs. The other people just wrote theories, and I create shortcuts. But the other thing is, Ben is a phenomenal writer. I mean, he's just. When I read the who not how book, and I had written a little book called who not how for a quarterly book, and I write one every quarter, and I'm going to do it for 25 years. Four books a year for 25 years. I'm going to have 100 books. And they're really little books. They're about 60 pages. And the reason there are 60 pages is that I get bored on page 61. I don't want to write anymore. If I can't explain something in 60 pages, it's not worth writing. And Ben got a hold of a little book, and then he just connected it with, you know, well, you should have a story about this, and you should have a story about this. And by the way, there's very famous psychologists who actually explained why this works. He never explained how it would work for him, but he explained how it would work. For other people. And he did this. So you got this. Now, I only know Ben Hardy because Ben Hardy's a genius who joined Genius Network, the only way I would ever know Ben Hardy. And I, you know, I send him my submission. I'm an aspiring genius, and will you accept me in your network? And you said, yeah, yeah, yeah, mind your manners. Don't, you know, don't cause trouble. And I said, yeah. And I've got a lot of people in my strategic coach program who would benefit enormously. So is it okay if I just send them to you and you say, yeah, well, I've got some people who would be good for a strategic coach, too. Well, that's collaboration. And what it means is one of the big things about collaboration, you don't keep score. You don't really, really keep score. You have a sense that there's a flow between you and the other person. You say, if we just combined our capabilities, Ben with me, Ben with you, you with me. If we just combined our capabilities and didn't worry about what the score was, but extended it in our thinking, 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20 years, 25 years. Why don't we just collaborate for the next quarter century, and I'll introduce things to you, you introduce things to me, and we all learn a lot and we'll all get better. And I think that's collaboration as opposed to competing, where he got a bigger piece than I did. Hey, hey, I did something for you, and you didn't pay me for it. So it's a difference between. Ben put his finger on it before we started. Today, it's transformational. You transform things, but you become transformed through the collaboration where competition is. It's really, really trying to see who can end up with the least amount. If we're really tough on each other. And I got to watch him like a hawk and everything else. And we're taught in this world, remember, up until 40, 50 years ago, the world couldn't feed itself. You know, there was a lot of scarcity in the world. Now it's pretty. Well, I mean, if people are starving somewhere, it's a government problem. It's not a food problem. You know, and, you know, and if things is violent somewhere, it's not because people are violent. It's a government problem. I mean, we got a major problem called government that, you know, that's now starting to interfere with human progress and because people have a natural tendency, you know. So we'll describe the collaboration we actually have on this book, because there's going to be nine more on tap with it. And what my part of it is, what part Ben is. And then Ben added two other collaborators to it. Now we're on your podcast series, and we're, you know, collaborating with Joe. Yeah, we're collaborating with Joe. So the big thing is that once you have the microchip and once you have instant communications, and we've certainly seen it this year with virtual conferencing, you don't want to be doing the hows. You just want to find the who's who have the unique hows that can get you where you want to go.

I'll share with you a quick story, Joe. Oh, go ahead. I'll share with you a quick story after you're done.

I was just going to say that one of the things with Genius Network, now that you guys have started doing the languaging, is people are like, oh, yeah, I want to find the who's in. Genius Network introduced me to the who's, you know, and I've thought a lot about this. You know, Ray Kurzweil has the concept of a brain extender. And I think of the, you know, as capability extender. You know, how do you extend your capabilities? Well, you can either learn them all yourself, you can try to master a bunch of stuff, or you can just say, who you know, who has it? What's the capability I'm looking for? What's the resulting thing that I need, who has it? And do I compete with them and do it better, or do I collaborate with them and we all win? And I'll tell you, this is. Even though we can talk about it, we actually do it. A lot of people just. They can't grasp this mindset. They don't do it. They're not collaborative. And so therefore, they, you know, they. They just don't make the progress and certainly don't have the reputation that we all have in the marketplace as a result of it.

So.

So go ahead.

Well, this is a story that I tell in the book for that chapter. And it was really funny because a lady I met, she was in one of my groups, she told me that she was struggling, and I was like, why? What's going on? Well, she's like, well, there's a thing that I've been wanting to do for several years. It brought up the whole procrastination concept, but she's felt really compelled to write. And this is a woman that I knew named Karen. She had been really compelled to write a biography about her. I think her great grandma, who was A big social figure in the black community and someone who had done a lot for social rights. And so she had been wanting to do this. She had slogged her way through, like, 200 terrible pages of writing this biography herself. And it had been taking her years and years and years. But she had a lot of other business things going on that really excited her, and she just didn't have time to write this biography. But when she came to me, she said, I really need to complete this biography in 2020. Here's why. She said, I got an email from a professor. It was at some big university, a historian. And he said. And she said, this professor is now writing a biography on my great grandmother, and I need to finish mine before hers. She's like, because, you know, I need to finish my biography before she finishes hers, because I need the first one out. She was all upset that this woman was now writing a biography on the same woman that she had been wanting to write this biography on. And the professor had reached out to Karen because she knew that they were connected. She knew that Karen was relative, and she was just coming to get more information. She didn't know that Karen was writing the biography. And Karen was all upset about this. And she's like, you know, I'm like, well, do you have time to write this biography? She's like, no. I'm like, what are you going to do? And she's like, I don't know. I just need to find a way to do it. I said, what would happen if you just asked this woman if you could co author the book with her? She's a historian. She's a much better author than you. She's written also biographies about connected social figures. This is a history professor on black rights and things like that that you're wanting to be influential on. Why? What would happen if, rather than competing with this woman and trying to come up with a biography and withholding information because you have all this private information, what if you just gave her everything, gave her your 200 pages and no longer had to write a single page and let the who do it for you? She's a much better writer than you. She's a historian. She's a biographer. And now you two could combine forces. The thought had never crossed her mind. She did not even think that was a possibility because she was thinking that she had to do the hows and that she had to compete with this person. And as a result, she was frustrated, and she'd been procrastinating this thing for years. I said, Send an email. This woman would probably love to co author the book with you. 24 hours late. Within. Within a few hours, the woman had responded and was excited about the collaboration. And now this woman, Karen, no longer had to do a single page. The book's gonna be a million times better because she's not the one writing it, because she's not a biographer. And now they get to share all these forces. I mean, that's the difference between competing and collaborating, is that now the whole becomes way better than the sum of the parts. And that's the idea of transformation as well, is that when two people come together because of what Dan explains, they have two totally different, unique capabilities. The whole becomes unpredictably better than the sum of the parts. Me and Dan, as an example, writing this book. Dan could not have predicted what the book would have become because he didn't know what I was going to bring to the table. He didn't know. And, you know, and I brought Tucker in. I didn't know what the book was going to be until I brought Tucker into the equation, and he helped me structure the book in a really intelligent way. And so collaboration creates better outcomes than you could have ever considered as an individual.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I mean, look, the whole thing with what we're doing here, for people listening, I mean, this is a continual collaboration. Anyone that knows us personally knows that we are all stronger and more valuable as a result of working together, not competing in any way, shape, or form, or trying to pursue some sort of, you know, who's the smartest one, who's the best one. I mean, we're all. We all have our skills, we all have our talents, we all have our capabilities. We merge them together, and our businesses benefit, our clients benefit. And I would. And we benefit, certainly. And so what I'd like to do. I'd like to do another episode with you guys to go a little bit deeper on some of, you know, the concepts. What I would like people to do, though, is get the book. And I want this to be. I want this to be a starting point of a sort of a skill that is developed. The. The skill of collaboration, the skill of identifying and finding who. So a couple more questions. So what will this book do for someone that gets it and takes it seriously?

Well, I'll tell you what, because we introduce this in the very first workshop in Strategic Coach. Strategic Coach. I have people in their 32nd year of strategic Coach. Strategic Coach is a lifetime learning structure and process, and it just consists of entrepreneurs. So it's entrepreneurs learning together and then sharing their learning. And it's very collaborative as they go along. So after I developed this idea and Dean Jackson was totally good, you know, about me taking the idea, he said, well, you know, you've got a lot in coach that supports this already, so there's no problem, which is a collaborative attitude. And so, and I, I just have a series of diagrams in multimedia where I said, this is you. This is a bigger and better goal that you want. And, and you start going towards the goal and you're stopped because you don't know all the hows to get to the goal. And so you said, well, that's not a very good goal. I mean, well, the whole point is any goal that's bigger and better than the. The success that you're getting right now is going to require houzz that you don't have. If you had the houzz, you'd be there. So anyway, I said this so you get frustrated and you get fatigued and everything else because you can't get to your goals. And then I show the who. So strategic coach is about who, not how. And the whole room goes like this, oh, my God. Who, not how. Who, not who, not how. These are successful entrepreneurs. You don't get into that level of the program unless you're already making half a million dollars. So these people got to half a million dollars without knowing who, not how. It just shows you how successful people can be without this concept. But once they get the concept, I said, so you have a goal in the first year, you're going to free up 1,000 hours from the hows that you're doing right now, and you're going to put it on things that you're really great at that you love, or setting up bigger and better projects for your who's to do. And they just jump. They just jump. But it happens at all levels that when you say the words, remember, it's not about you learning the how. It's about you setting the goal so that other who's can do the how. That's it. And it happens. It happens in an instant. The recognition, it just goes, oh, I didn't know you could do that. I thought that was cheating. I thought that was cheating. Because in the school system, doing having somebody, some other who do the how is cheating. You know, you're going to be. Your essay won't be accepted. You'll fail the test if you get somebody else to do it. So there's a lot of reinforcement not to do who, not how, but the world only rewards people who are good at it, doesn't reward people who are steady plotting hows. It only rewards people who are good at it. So I would say that's the biggest thing, Joe, is that there will be individuals who read this book and they read the first three or four pages and they said, oh my God. And they don't finish the book because they already got the concept. But if you read the book, you'll see how it's possible in every area of progress it's possible. And that all the really great people on the planet who get so much done, this is how they're getting it done. They're not howers, they are people who get the who's to do the hows. So that's it. And you know, I mean, I've watched you over 23 years, Joe, the number of who's that you attract, who open doors for you, who get things done for you, and everything else is, you know, it's not ten times greater, it's a thousand times, it's ten thousand times greater. You know, and so I'm just watching people, but there is that thing. And you know, Ben just explained, well, I own this and I'm not going to allow anyone else to get credit for what I've developed here. And so it never goes anywhere. You'd rather have 100% of nothing than 50% of something, right?

And I will say there is a one. So this book is obviously about developing relationships, and it's about using relationships as a way to grow everyone. And, you know, since we're on your podcast, Joe, I will say there's an entire chapter dedicated to you and, and the strategies you teach people how to do to develop collaborations, because you teach people a lot of brilliant strategies that if they actually apply, can lead to brilliant collaborative situations. You know, being a giver and always investing in the relationship, you know, not keeping score, as Dan would say. I mean, there's, there's so many elements to becoming a collaborative person that, that you've taught me. And so, yeah, just to quickly explain, you know, my thoughts, if people apply it, as Dan said, it will shock them how much freedom they can have. You can accomplish way more and work way less. You can take time away those free days that Dan talks about and realize it's going to be taken care of because you have a who. Who's actually doing it. And yeah, I think the goal is that you get freedom in those four key areas. You have freedom of time, where you control your time. You do what you want, and you let the other who's take care of that. You have freedom of money, meaning that your money continues to grow and that you're making, as you guys would both explain, good money rather than bad money. It's. It's elf money, as Joe would say. You know, it's money that's made where you're doing what you want to do and other people are doing the rest. And then you have the relationships where you're collaborating with better and better people, and then ultimately your purpose expands. Because now your purpose isn't just about what you can do in 24 hours, but it's about what a team can do, and that's where the real transformation takes place. So I just. I think that this book really teaches people true freedom and true collaboration. And, you know, I'm just grateful that both of you teach me that every single day.

Well, no, thank you. Thank you so much, Ben. And, you know, the whole thing about freedom. One of the things I've often said when people ask, you know, what do you sell? You know, what are you offering? And I always talk about how I want to help build a better entrepreneur. And one of the collaborations that we all operate from, I mean, me and Dan have talked about this numerous times. You know, people are like, well, you know, you've got two programs that are, you know, competing programs. And it's like, well, I'm not necessarily sure they're competing programs. They're. Dan sends.

They compliment each other.

Yeah, we have a great line.

People say, which should I join first, Genius Network or Strategic Coach? And I said, oh, go to Genius Network first, because you're going to learn marketing. So that when you join Strategic Coach, you're going to have all these great marketing capabilities. You. You'll just access incredible capabilities of other people. And what do you say, Joe?

I say join Strategic Coach because you're going to get your life together, and when you come back with your life more together, you're going to be more receptive to learning all the marketing strategies and things that we could teach you and all of the different ways we could leverage you as someone who's in the middle.

I'll say you should definitely have both, because both is the superpower.

Here's what happens to it, though. And this is a really important point. I mean, I don't think we've talked about it quite like this, is that when you have respect and appreciation and admiration and, you know, there's tremendous value from someone, Someone else's product, service, experience, whatever the relationship, then you edify it. You, you speak highly of it. You, you have a level of respect, you know, you, you know, you treat it well. Okay, it's, it's. And you don't, you don't, you don't come at it from like a taker sort of energy. It's very much an abundance sort of giver sort of thing. And you know, one of the things me and Dan have talked about like, look, I send people to Strategic Coach because you're going to make a client of mine better. And even if they, you know, even if they don't stay a client of mine or become a client of mine or whatever, because I've referred so many people to Strategic Coach over the years, I know it's just going to make them better as an entrepreneur, as a human being. And you know, that's to the degree that they're willing to engage. You know, some people, they, you know, they don't engage with things. They're put on the planet to just figure out how to keep things difficult for themselves. But people that really are wanting to, you know, wanting to grow, people that really do understand that all money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation, when you offer them something of value, they eat it up. I mean, it's nutrition to them. And so one of the most interesting things about this that I'm constantly learning about is that if I want to help build a better entrepreneur and my goal is really to never recommend anything that I don't truly know or believe is going to best help them and you don't recommend or promote, I wouldn't be telling anyone to read this book or taking this so seriously or devoting a podcast episode and hopefully multiple podcast episodes to this. If I didn't absolutely believe with everything in my being that this is going to make everyone that's listening to this, that takes it seriously and reads this book and applies it, and this concept is going to make them better. Because one of my main goals is, is to reduce suffering for the helpers of the world. Like people that are out there working really hard to that. You don't have to work that hard in particular areas. I mean, they're going to work hard anyway. Any achievement minded entrepreneur is going to put drive and effort and talent and resourcefulness. They're going to invest in teams, they're going to build companies, they're going to, you know, they're going to put their butt on the line. I mean, these are warriors in a lot of ways. They're going to, you know, and if they're going to go out and do their thing, I want them to be the best version of, of themselves that they can't. And part of that is quit carrying that sword. If there's a who out there that is going to do a better job with it, it would be willing to do it with you. I mean, why would you put yourself through that level of misery? So in a lot of ways, what I'm offering people here is not just growth and money and expansion and all that and freedom, because I think freedom is the key word here. I mean, that's why the whole book is really about freedom. This is. If you want freedom in your life, read this book. What, what, what I'm looking at is that, you know, it's. The sun is always there. The sun is there. You know, when the sun's out, that is. But there's a lot of clouds that are in the way. And how do you clear out the clouds if you just want to see the sun? Well, you clear out all the crap, right? And a lot of this crap is your, your inability to let go of that and find other people that will just, you know, bring it to you. And that's, that's the whole point. And you know, it's, it's really, to me about reducing suffering. And so is an investment of a few dollars in a book, in a process worth, you know, a lifetime, whatever your lifetime is that you have left? Absolutely. I mean, it's, you know, making the decision to do this even so much. So like, like, so if someone goes to who not how, you can buy the book. You can certainly.

Who not how dot com.

Yeah, who not how dot com. But also, you guys are going to put together a thing where people can buy 50 plus copies of the book. Now I'm going to buy a copy of the book for every one of my, of my. By the way, we're recording this right now before it's actually the book, the book is out. So once the book is out, you know, and that's when I'm going to release this, everyone will hear it. Then is, you know, I'm getting a copy for every one of my clients. I will be giving away a copy of this book for a long time because I know that every person that I give a copy of this book that reads it is going to thank me and they're going to be like, wow, you just gave me, you know, maybe part of my life back, right? And you just gave me an extension of capabilities that I never Thought of in quite the same way. And so one of the best ways to take something like this and make it part of your culture is really, you know, buy books for everyone and they could be a collaborator for you. Because if you want other people to work with, like, it's like, hey, I heard this concept. We should maybe collaborate together. Just give them the damn book.

Well, the other thing is Ben and I are going to create the 50 book club. So if you read 50, if you buy 50 books and get them out to 50 people who, you know, you really want them to improve their lives, we're going to have live, you know, kind of live podcasts.

We'll do a zoom meeting. Right.

Q and a zoom meeting to do that. And, and my sense is that'll be collaboration in the world. You know, 50 people that we don't know. We've got a vehicle that's going to enhance and transform the relationships of 50 people that we don't know. But it'll just take the, you know, the expense that you pay for the book. But then we'll give you, you're a member of our club and we can tell you what other people are doing with their networks, their 50, their 50 book network. So.

So I saw on your team from Eleanor, that actually the zoom meeting we're going to do for anyone who buys 50 buck books or more, it's on November 17th. And so, but yeah, I mean, basically down below, I'm sure somewhere on this page you just go to who not how dot com. If you go to who not how dot com, there's a lot of options on where you can buy the book. You can go to Amazon and buy one copy. You can go to Barnes and Noble and buy a copy. But there's also a link that says Porch Light. Porch Light is where you can buy multiple copies. And if you buy up to 50, I think you get the books for like 12 bucks a piece rather than like 20 bucks a piece, but it ends up being about 600 bucks. But 500 if you buy 50 books or more. You can join Dan and I for a live zoom meeting. And I think it'll turn into a lot of collaboration. It's kind of fun.

You know, I think even just hearing the concept of who not, Helen, having you guys explained, it's probably worth 50 bucks.

It's what Dan would call an intellectual shortcut. It's an idea that completely changes everything that you do.

Yeah, Paul, I'm sorry, Joe. I wanted to talk about a client.

Of ours, Paul Heiss, and There's a whole chapter in the book about him. So Paul's very, very interesting. He's a big manufacturer of parts that people use to make bigger construction. So you think about Caterpillar or Peterbilt or really, really large, you know, equipment, construction equipment and vehicles. And so he started in Wisconsin and then he spread out and he has three factories in China. And about two years ago, because of negotiations between the United States and China, the United states put a 25% tariff on all products being manufactured in China. So this was factories and took the profit right off the table for him on his machines. And he looked like this is going to go on for a long time. So he said, you know, I've got to get a factory in India because India, you know, the skills are there, you know the markets there and the skills are there. And he said, how am I going to get a skilled factory? How am I going to get a factory in India? And it was just at the time that we were introducing who, not how in the program and he said, who.

Will show me how to get a factory in China? Long story short, he put together six who's and six months later he had his factory. And in the first year he made $20 million profit as a result of that. But he didn't do anything except talk to six who's one who found another who, another who found another who. And he put it and now he's going to build more factories in India. And but then the other thing, he says, why I'd like to build a factory in Mexico so it's a little closer to home. And so he said, who will help me build my factory in Mexico? So he didn't do any of the hows, he just kept locating the who's who knew this, who? Who knew this who who knew this? And all the who's put together and put his factory, it's transformed his business. And now these large companies are coming to him and said, you're doing such a great job with our parts. Would you like to assemble our entire machine for us? We'd like to kind of get out of that business because you've shown that you can handle any size project. So not only did he solve a problem, an immediate problem because of the tariffs on China, did he get a new capability? But he said, yeah, we can. Now who's going to show me how to set up a factory? Who's going to manufacture this whole product? Not how am I going to do this? Who's going to do this? And he said, you know, and Paul's getting to the point where a lot of his friends are retiring. And he said, this is better than any part of my business life. He said, this just gives me another 10 or 20 years because I don't have to do the house for the next 10 or 20 years. So anybody who's at that level will immediately transform their thinking about their future. They'll immediately transform their marketplace. They'll immediately transform their relationship with all their customers simply by asking, now, who's going to do this for me?

Yeah. No, I love it. I love it. I mean, even on the tool that I've used, my genius network, where you've both have done this many times, where you have your own, then any particular project or any business, any area that you want improvement, it could be fitness or health, it could be writing a book, building a website. It could be starting a new business. And you identify who are the people that you know in your life and what are the skill and capability that they have. And, you know, I never thought of it this way when I first created that tool, but it really is a who network. It's like, then defined who are the who's. And when people are like, well, I don't know, someone, it's like, well, then what's the capability you're looking for? Because if you can at least identify the capability or the skill that's needed, then you can find the who. And so, yeah, it goes back to with the. The right who's willing, the how with them. And so hope that this conversation becomes a starting point in any area of your life bogged down by how. And you're reading how to books and you're going to how to seminars, and you're trying to learn all of these hows. You know, the question you need to ask yourself is like Dan just said, it's not how do I do it, it's who. And that's why I want you to have the book, because I want you to. Really, if there's anything to master here, it's the mindset of saying, yeah, this is a possibility, and here's how to do it. And so the continual reinforcement of it will show you areas of your life where you would love expansion or you would love freedom that you currently do not have, simply because you have not yet developed that part of your brain that's like, I don't really need to develop all these skills. I just need to go do this thing. So, Ben, are any famous last words from both of you? And then I'm going To recommend everyone go to whonothow.com and buy, buy at least 50 copies. Actually, you should buy like 5,000. But what would you say, Beth?

I think we've covered it pretty good for this, for this initial episode. Just a pleasure to be with you guys. And definitely I would just say as a final thought that just try it once you free up those first 20 hours. You know, I'm talking 20 hours a week. You get someone to work for you 20 hours a week, maybe hire a digital assistant. You know, you will be shocked. You've just freed yourself up, what, like a thousand hours for the year?

Thousand hours.

Yeah. So I mean, just, just, just try it once. You'll realize how much your money and your time go up and then your, your confidence. And so I just say read the book, try it once, get your first two, and then realize that you'll never go back.

Yep.

Love it.

Anything, any final words from you, Dan?

Yes. You know, and I'm just talking to anyone who's listening to this, that I would love you to be a who in my life, to actually take the book and give it to people who, you know, once they read it, you'll be a who in their life and you'll just pass it forward. It'll be passing it forward because, you know, people have been educated the way that they're educated, and I'm not going to say anything about that, but I think that with the capabilities, technological capabilities that are in the world right now in the year 2020, this is the way to think about having people who have these technologies, they have these technological skills, they would like to help you. All you have to do is tell them what the what is that you would like them to use. Their capabilities and skills are. So anybody that you would really want as a who, I'd give them this book and, you know, write down the list of 10 who's I wish I had in my life and identify the individuals and get them in this book. I'd like to do a lifetime collaboration with you, but we both have to read this book and then we have to create something together. So that's how I would approach your future.

Great.

Great. Yeah. And I'd say I've said this line kind of, you know, I didn't come up with it, but I've heard. I know where I first heard it, but it was, you know, today is the last day of the way you used to be. And in this particular context, I think it's really important, you know, today is the last day of the way you used. Because if you have been spending so much of your time pursuing how, how, how, how and all of a sudden, you know, this light bulb goes off, then there's a tremendous amount of growth there. And I have a friend, Steven Pressfield, who's written many books. He wrote, you know, the War of Art, which is about resistance with a capital R. And then one of his follow up books was called Turning Pro. And I really would apply that here. This is really about turning pro and you, when you, when you become a, you know, a who, not how sort of mindset, individual and you utilize this, which you guys have written the roadmap here. I mean this is the blueprint for this. You really have gone to another level of success and this is really about turning pro.

Yeah, Joe, just you thought of something. One of my favorite sort of mystery thriller writers is a British writer by the name of Mark Dawson. And there's just a little line in one of his books and an assassin is telling somebody else the difference between an amateur assassin and a professional assassin. And he says, what's the difference? He says, well, an amateur in anything practices until they can get it right. He says professionals on the other hand practice until they can't get it wrong. I think a lot of people have.

House that they get right but their.

How may not be right for the future. The better skill is know how to get who's to do anyhow in your life for the rest of your life. That's the difference between being an amateur achiever and a professional achiever. Love it.

I love it. Great examples. Well, Dan and Ben, as always, always a pleasure talking with you guys. And for everyone listening whonothow.com go get the book comment Wherever you listen to this share this episode with anyone that you know is bogged down by how's who needs to be freed up by whose. And let's take this on and we'll continue the conversation. And so yep, I wish everyone the very best and get a great day.

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