Who Not How: The Secret to Unlimited Growth and Happiness – Dr. Benjamin Hardy

What I hope will come out of who not how is really a tremendous amount of time freed up so that you can spend your energy on the most important activities that produce results. And you'll be a happier person because you can learn a billion different business strategies, but which ones are going to move the needle? I mean, in Genius Network we talk about elegant ideas where one elegant idea is worth more than a thousand semi good ideas. One elegant solution is worth a thousand semi good solutions. And so Dean, why is who not how an elegant idea and an elegant solution applied? I want to hear your perspective on this and I want to hear Ben Hardy's perspective on it. Because I really think Ben has just having to written this book. It's not about just writing, it's about a deep dive into this particular subject. And so that's what Ben does.

Yeah, well, part of the most elegant thing is that who not how ultimately allows you to escape gravity. It allows you to get out of the gravity of linear doing anything. Remember when I showed that picture and I showed the time units that it takes to do things? Time is a linear thing that you. It has to be established and it has to be experienced in real time. So the only way to learn how to do anything is to invest the time that it takes to learn how to do it. Now when you're doing that, when you're faced with this, I want a what? I want to do this thing, but I don't know how to do it. So you have to go down this path now and you're writing what I call this blank check for the only non renewable asset that you have, which is time to do something that you're not even sure you're going to be able to learn how to do well, or how long it's going to take you to do it. And so you go down that path and then once you learn how to do it, you're still not done. Because now you just get to the point where you could actually attempt to do the thing that some units of time ago you didn't know how to do. And of course, like anything, the first time you do anything, you're probably going to do it poorly and slowly and probably with mistakes. So you have to redo the thing that you did. And all these units of time that are taking up your prize jewel, which is your attention, your focused attention on something, is gone. Now if you take the who path and you find somebody who knows how to do whatever it is, they're going to bring the hell with them. And you immediately get this fast path to the end of that line. They don't have to. First of all, they don't have to know how to do it. They don't have to figure out how to do it. They've got the knowledge, so now they just need to do it. And because it's what they do, they're going to be able to do it much faster than you would be able to do it at their expert level of getting it done. And you get a predictable outcome because they're presenting themselves as a reliable someone who can do that. Now, once you've got this capability stack, once you've got this. Dan mentioned the words cash confidence. The next level of this is capability confidence. If you've got now the capability to do anything that anybody knows how to do, it changes your vision. Right now you don't have to limit your vision to what I was just contemplating on this in my journal over the weekend that I don't have to limit my vision to what I know how to do. I can expand my vision to what the world knows how to do. Because now I've got access through Cloudlandia to every capability, every in the world. And it's a multiplier. And that's what's really where we're talking about this. That's the biggest thing that we're doing now is this migration as a society to Cloudlandia where the rules are different. It's not a linear. We're in a digital and a multiplier kind of a atmosphere. The atmosphere is different. Right. So you get to move about that faster. The pull of gravity is different. Just like when you go to the moon or you go to Mars, the pull of gravity is less so you don't. It takes less work to. To do things. That's what we get now if we embrace this who not how, you know, setup equip ourselves with finding who's. That's where something like a, like genius network is a way to expose yourself to who's who know how to do stuff and to expose yourself to ideas.

What?

Yep. Well, you know, that's. That's the way that I. You know what, Dean? I think of what are the connections? Because if there's anything that really is about. What I attempt to do is I connect people. I want to connect people with the right ideas, the right methodologies. I want to disconnect them from the things that cause them suffering, which is why I do so much work in the addiction recovery world. And I want to connect them with the right who's so Genius Network is like a giant who network. And I think that's why many people invest to come to Genius Network so they don't have to go find these who's. The who's are there. And I assemble them. So the question becomes, how do we access them? I've read through some of the comments, and certainly there's so many I can't read through them and stay focused at the same time. I pop in and look at a few of them. There was one early on along the lines of, you know, but aren't the who's really expensive? And finding the right who's. And so I have a couple thoughts I want to ask you guys about. And when I say you guys, I mean Dan and Ben and Eudean, where there's that one line which is hire the best and only cry once. Right. Versus, you know, don't hire the best and cry many times. So that's one thing. The other is a lot of who's don't require money. I mean, if you actually, you know, I have a tool and Eunice, who's up in the room, can you get grab at some point? I'll bring it up. My Genius Network. Can you grab me that tool, please? Thank you. And so, you know, like, who for me is my assistant, Eunice. I mean, she's been with me for 25. Is it 25 years or you're now 26 years?

Years.

25 years, yeah. She's going to after 26. She's probably done now. But the, the. So the thing is, is like, if you just simply are helpful to people, a lot of who's you already know, but you haven't thought of them. Thank you so much. Like, I have a tool in Genius Network called my Genius Network, and we have people write down who it's for. And then I have these, you know, these circles which I started. This is one of the first tools in Genius Network where it's like you in the middle, see this little. Can you see it? Okay, little red person. And then there's these circles. And I would have people write the name of, like, if you think of the eight most important people in your life, you know, who would you put? And then you put the skill or capability underneath. That's one way to use it to identify, you know, who's your Genius Network. Another way is say you want to get in better physical shape. Who are people that, you know that are geniuses at eating and exercise and nutrition? Maybe a yoga instructor, maybe, you know, a massage therapist. That can help you in health, Any type of trainer, if you want to write a book, who are the right who's. So what happened in Genius Network? Tucker, Max, Reed, Tracy, Ben, Hardy, Scott. You know, I mean, there's different individuals that allowed this who, not how book to happen. But the way it works is then I have people transfer the name of who are they? See, it says right here, it says who, right? I've been doing this for 15 years. Genius or wisdom they have. What's the genius of wisdom? How can I help them and then how can they help me? And that's where everyone that is not a collaborator messes it up. When working with whose is they always think about, oh, I want to meet this person so I can get something for me. Instead of what does this person actually how can I help them? And there's this wonderful thing that my dear buddy Robert Cialdini, who wrote the book Influence, has been writing about for 30 years called Reciprocity. And you know, when you are helpful to people, they naturally want to help you back. And so whatever who's that you want to identify in your life. There's plenty of things, if you just thought about it. And the book is a roadmap. That's why you need to read the book. The book actually explains what to do and how to do it. You can literally develop the skills of making yourself such an incredible asset. So you're a who for many people. I mean, how many of you know that you're somebody's who raise your hand. Yeah, okay. And there's a lot of stuff that I suck at that I have no clue how to do. And then I could learn how to do it, or I could just find someone that already knows it because Ben and Dan and Dean have said it already. If you find the right who, they bring the how with them. And I can't imagine how much of my time I wasted trying to learn things that if I just would ask the question, which is early on in the book, Ben actually lays out. Here's the distinction between two different questions you ask yourself. Not how do I do something? But who and really take that seriously. And then if you operate from a standpoint of not a taker, but a genuine giver, not even with an agenda. I mean, most of the things that come to me, it's not, you know, I'm the same person to someone that's holding the door open for me that I don't know. Or if I'm at a restaurant and someone is serving me something, I mean, I've said this before. Who becomes my true friends? Or I look at people that are more powerful. How do they treat people that are less powerful than them? You know, I'm going to be helpful and courteous to a lot of people when it comes to your time, your energy, your effort, and your unique ability. If you direct that in the right ways and you find the right who's to do everything else, not only do I think will your income dramatically multiply, your free time will dramatically increase if that's what you want, but your happiness will be much bigger. So Dave Strean, who I mentioned earlier, he's the one with Charlie who was doing the meetup groups. He had a question about Dave. Can you unmute yourself and ask Dan that question that you private messaged me? Yeah. First off, I wanted to say real quick that I'm the perfect example of you and Gina. You know, I asked you, should I.

Join Genius Network first or see to coach?

And about a year and a half ago, you told me strategic coach, and I'm so glad you did.

I just signed up for my second.

Year, and I told Dan at the morning buffet that the first, before the first meeting even started, that I already got my money back tenfold on it.

Because the prep work changed my thinking.

Already so much that it's just been phenomenal. And so, yeah, I'm a living story.

Of that reciprocity back and forth between you two.

So, Dan, my question was if you can touch on a little bit about your concept of unique ability and how that applies to finding the right who.

Yeah, I think that. And this is just my experience now, I have, you know, kind of a different kind of experience because for the last 46 years, virtually all my focus, my relationships, you know, my productivity has been geared just to people who are really outliers. They're not normal people. And entrepreneurs are really outside the norm because most people don't choose to earn their income that way. They're not willing to take the risks, and it's lonely. The other thing is, the biggest single problem of entrepreneurism is loneliness. If they're addicted to something, it's because they're lonely. If they're, you know, they're. They're unsuccessful in their personal life, it's because of loneliness. And if they get blocked in their business, it's because they don't have anyone to talk to who gets them. You know, they just don't have anyone to talk to them. So what I say is every. Every human being has a unique ability, and it has two features. One is it comes to you effortlessly. It's a thing that's so easy for you, you can't understand why other people don't do it. Okay, in other words, well, that's real simple. You just do this, this and this and this. And that tells you it's a unique ability. And the other thing is it's actually very enjoyable to you. I mean, you like being in this activity, but you don't take it seriously because it's easy. And you've been told that if there's no pain, there's no gain. If it doesn't take a long time, if it isn't hard, it won't be valuable to you. And my sense is, well, first of all, that may have been true 100 years ago. It may have been true. But once you have the Internet and once you have, as Dean talks about quadlandia, all the rules of the world change. They change. If it isn't easy for you, then, you know, it's easy for someone else. Just. So just find out the person who it's easy for and you know right off the bat that if you ask them to do it, they'll love doing it. And Dave, I just like to get across a distinction here because you're in your second. You know, you're in your second year of coach. Who's your, who's your coach, by the way?

Chad Johnson.

Oh, yeah, Chad's a wonderful president, by the way. He has 11 children and they're all home schooled. They're all home schooled. So anyway, the thing about it is this is not delegation. Okay? So I want to make a sharp distinction here that who not hows is not delegation. And a lot of entrepreneurs really hate delegation.

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.

It's.

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.

And the reason is because the person they're delegating to, they think is not as good as them. They're maybe 80% as good. And then they're going to have to train that person, which they don't really, really like doing. And then once the person does it, they're going to have to manage that person, which they really don't like doing. And then if it's a failure, then you got to start all over again. So the distinction I like who not how is that you're going to someone who's way better than you. You're not going to someone who. And you don't have to train them in anything. You don't have to manage them at all. What they like is that you're using their skills to achieve your goal. And if you utilize people's skills in an exciting project, they'll even do it for free. They'll even do it for free because the world doesn't give them many opportunities to use their skill. And you're giving them a skill. And so I just want to point out that, you know, the biggest who not how of my life is Babs Bab Smith, who's my partner. So we've been together for 38 years. And just to give you a test of how good this collaboration is, when the COVID started, the pandemic started, our way of making money was completely ended because we do in person workshops. Okay. And so within two days, the whole company switched from in person backstage to virtual. And within 10 days, we had gone virtual with our offering. And all of our workshops are in person. And now we're starting virtual only workshops so people will only. And we just had our first 60 people, and they come from 21 countries. So my feeling is that being forced to go virtual will take us 10 times in about the next 10 years, just because our market expanded by now 100 times with that. But I will tell you this. This is seven months. We did the transition, and I didn't spend one hour on that transition. I didn't spend one hour. Babs and the team and our tech department and everybody else, they did the whole transition. I didn't do anything. So I was completely free just to go on working with Ben, creating new workshops. The way out. Normally, my life was not changed at all. I didn't change. And because Babs runs the company and she's my. Who. Who runs the company, and I. I'm just responsible for what's presented new in the workshop. So, you know, I mean, and the first time I met her, I showed her my thinking and she. I used her company. I took her through my company, through my thinking process. And she says, this is going to be really big. And I said, oh, you think your company's gonna grow? She said, no, no, your process is going to be really big. And about two years later, she said, forget my company. I want to run your company. So that's.

Yeah.

And she's really. Babs is so magical. She doesn't even know what the magic trick is. I mean, she just has a phenomenal ability of putting teams together of people and, you know, she's created the whole company. I often say, if I hadn't met Babs, I'm just a smart drunk worried about the rent.

Yeah, well, you know, and it goes with what you said about being nice to people because it's like one of my favorite quotes. I don't even know who Rich is. Be nice to the people you meet on the web because they're.

You may say them on the way down. Yes, that's so certainly true. And you've seen people like that that are just mean spirited and that. And then you don't hear about them anymore. Yeah, unfortunately, to mean, you know, the mean ones, they kind of pushed their way in there. But I think the tortoise and the hare, you know, I'm a big tortoise guy.

Right.

I think the tortoise. Just building your brand and having a huge foundation. My team was just an Vegas at the licensing show. And what they realize is people used to try to invent brands, you know, like facades. This is a real brand. This is a brand that's built on actually accomplishing important things in the world. Disney has accomplished great things in the world. But everybody thinks that, well, you know, I can do a mouse and some imitations don't work the original.

It's a real substance to it.

Yeah, get some substance to it, live it, you know, dream it and then share it. But my foundation and my brand is built on accomplishing super high goals in the areas of the environment, protecting the environment.

Well, what's interesting is your belief in sustaining things. And even in your bathroom here, which I think is kind of funny, there's a little sign that says, keep it nicer than it was before. And that's kind of your philosophy where you want things to be left in a better place than they were before you showed up. You know, the ocean, everything.

Well, you know, nobody's perfect either. But you don't have to be perfect. All you have to do is do a little better. Okay. So if everybody does a little better, and what's ironic is if everybody does a little bit, you make a world of difference. You know, in the last century it was all about like Jacques Cousteau. He went out himself and did things. Now it's about partnerships. So we're partnered with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. They do the greatest science, you know, on oceans of water. And then we bring the art. So when two groups come together in that mastermind theory, you can accomplish big things. When a lot of groups and individuals come together, you know, they can change the world.

Absolutely.

And I'm here to help change the world just in my little part, my little art part that I know. And you know, writers, you know, people say, you know, do what you know, I've always known the art thing, you know, it's instinctive to me. But the greatest reward that you can have is when you share it with somebody and they appreciate it. The little lights come on, especially in those young eyes and minds. It's a great thing.

Well, okay, so let's talk about your foundation and people that are watching this and they want to get involved. They want to find more information.

Key word, get involved. Get involved in any foundation that you feel strongly about. Mine is the Wyland foundation. We celebrate our 16 years this year. And in those 16 years, we've developed art and science programs that are unparalleled that regard every drop of water on the planet. And using the art component, you know, you can go further. Art, you can go deeper. But using art and science together, it's super powerful. Usually there's curriculum on science or art. We combine both creatively and we use some of the greatest scientists on the planet. Dr. Sylvia Earle, for instance, is on the Wyoming foundation board. And Bob Ballard, who discovered Titanic. And then our creative team, we really don't follow any rules. We're here to break down all the barriers and all the rules and just say that what we're providing is unique in the world of education.

Out of all the books you've written, is there anything you'd recommend, where to start for anyone that wants more information about you? I mean, what's the.

Yeah, I say go to wyland.com wy land. Get it? Wy land. Anyway, go to wyland.com you can see all my books there. There's one called hold you'd Water. Kind of an unusual title. And it gives you 67 things to do to keep the planet blue. Ocean blue. And in the back, you can total little things you can do to protect the quality of water. And by protecting water, by protecting the energy and shutting off the lights and the water, when you're brushing your teeth, you're actually saving money, too. So, kids, you're doing your family a favor. You're doing good things in this economy. So you're going to see the green revolution really take hold with Obama. And if you're not green in this century. You're gone. So I'm going to give you a heads up. Go green.

Well, yeah, if anyone has a perspective on that, it would be you. Now at your foundation meeting that I first met you, I met Jane Seymour there. She collaborated.

Ms. Jane, sure.

Yes.

And she's very nice.

Lady Jane is awesome. She's an up and coming artist, emerging artist. She's also official US Olympic artist. Like I am supporting our US Olympic team through the arts. And she's super cool. She cares about water. She's one of those givers, too. You know, Jane doesn't have to do any more than she already does, but she's a real genuine person that cares about certain issues. She has her open hearts. All right, Jane. Anyway, what's cool is if all the people, all the good people on the planet unite, we can have not only a great society, great kids, but we can have a clean, healthy ocean and environment and clean lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, wetlands. We have a beautiful, pristine environment. The health of the ocean and clean water is tied not only to fish, but to our health. Okay? That's a health issue that we need to get in front of. And that's why I'm so passionate about it. Plus, water has played the most important role of all in my life. I'm a water sign, you know, and when I'm immersed in water, I'm reborn.

I feel I'm Aquarius, by the way, just so you know.

Okay.

All right, Beth.

So all the water signs out there, but water is so critical and it's important to get in front of issues, not. Oh, by the way, you know, we don't have any more water to drink. So I believe the investment that I've made with water, my Wyland foundation, is the most important investment of all. And that's educating and inspiring kids to get involved today in issues that they strongly believe in. And art is the gateway to all that creativity and all that soul. Because if people see the beauty in nature, they'll work to preserve it. And art is a great way to present that. That's awesome.

Well, I want to wrap up here. I want to just give you an opportunity for famous last words. We'll do that. One last question then. Famous last word. I'll give you a chance and maybe think about it. When you get discouraged, when you get overwhelmed, when anyone that's watching this is like, gets derailed. I mean, what recommendations would you have? Because you're, you know, you have a lot of insight on a lot of things and you deal a lot with the creative mind. I mean, the mind can invent and develop so many enormous things. And it could also be a huge form of self destruction for someone too. And I've seen a lot of artists go off the deep end. What recommendations or things could you share with people?

I always say, go back to your core. Go back to the things that give you joy, and go back there often. I mean, the thing that gives me joy, I'm a diver. I like being immersed in water. Okay? If I can't get in the ocean, I'm in my bathtub up there. I don't care. There's something about water that reinvigorates your soul. And so, you know, and then getting close to animals, you know, the native people would tell me, if you're eye to eye with a bald eagle, that's the highest level of consciousness. Well, for me, being in the sea, swimming eye to eye with a humpback whale, I mean, it's unbelievable.

Why whales?

Why whales?

Well, a whale has been iconic to me ever since Cousteau. And then eventually, as I started diving and I started getting close to whales on their terms, I realized that the whales don't have a voice. So maybe I could be the voice for great whales and other life animals. And I've expanded not only from whales to other aquatic animals, but freshwater habitats and now land animals realizing that the forest, the land, the air, the sea, it's all connected. If we're going to protect the ocean, we need to protect it all.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, famous last words then.

Famous last words. This is a good wyland1. There's two types of people. There's anchors and motors. Lose the anchors, get with the motors.

That's awesome.

And let's get the job done.

It's a race to save the planet. The motors are gonna lead the way.

Out of, if you can. One of the best ways to build rapport with someone is to identify an area of mutual suffering and pain. The reason 12 step groups work is because there's a community of people that have been through pain. And when prisoners of war would go to therapists and psychologists and stuff, and they would not get any help, but then they would take those same people and put them into a room with other people that have been through the horrible situations they've been, there'd be inside, instant rapport. Now, to put that in a positive light, one thing that I do with a lot of people that I meet, and I've met some very famous people, and I'm good friends with them, I haven't just met them, I've developed relationships with them. Is I have the understanding that most human beings are just insane and completely fucked up on many different levels. And I'm not saying that like, to be just for effect. It's true. I mean, people are people and they have issues and they enjoy having fun. They like building rapport. And I just like goofing around. I don't think that someone is like God or some messiah unless, you know, I run into God or messiah. So Evan, you know, shoots an email over to Tony. How do you pronounce his last name? Shea Shay, Because I always say his last name. Tony Hsieh. He's the guy that's the CEO of Zappos. And I've met him before, but, you know, he had dinner with. With Evan, went and had dinner with him with Joe Sugarman, who's a good friend of mine, the founder of Blue Blockers Sunglasses, and sends back an email to Tony saying, you got to connect with Joe. And then he also demeaned me in the email in a very funny way. But that built instant rapport because he just knew, yeah, it's cool to talk shit, you know. And so I shoot back another email, kind of doing the same thing. And all of a sudden, you know, now we're going to do a tour Zappos and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Going to do an interview with them. And that's just a real simple, quick connection. So when you meet other connected people, just become buddies and, you know, they'll introduce you to everybody. And one of the things, just some stuff that everyone can do. If you want to meet someone, first off, find their birthday. Know everyone's birthday that you want to meet, send them cards, send them gifts before the holidays, send them stuff. Robert Cialdini, who a good friend of mine, he wrote a great book called Influence, and there's a chapter on reciprocity. Learn to use reciprocity. Giving things to people will help you tremendously. But don't just give them goofy, silly things. Find out things that they really would find valuable and interesting in terms of, you know, gifts. If they have any sort of pain.

You know, Hang on a sec on that. Just to give you a window inside of Joe's mind and how he thinks. Just an experience that I had with him. I was out with you, I think it was after one of your big seminars a few years ago and you needed to buy. You need to buy a ladder for something. And we're out driving around to find A ladder. You want to change a light bulb or something? And I'm like, why don't you just have somebody else do it? And you're like, because I want to buy a ladder and I want to change. I know it was after a seminar, so you were just winding down, and, like, I just want to get out and be a regular person for a little while. So we went over to. I think we went to Costco. And do you remember this?

No. I'm trying to figure out what the hell you're talking about.

Okay.

Okay. No, I really want to give you, like, the model of how a genius thinks, all right? Just, like, a window inside of his mind, like a perspective you wouldn't normally get. So we're walking down the aisles in Costco and trying to find a ladder, and we're looking at a bunch of different things. And, you know, whenever, like, two people that are interested in the world go out, we're talking about what's going on in Costco. We come around one of the end caps. It's, you know, the huge piles of goods and stuff they have there. And Joe's stand there, and he's like.

Wow, look at that.

That's, like, that's awesome. And I'm looking, and it's these boxes that are. They're probably about, you know, 2ft wide, 3ft tall, and about 8 inches thick. And they're these big, like, porcelain Dutch figurines, like, yard figurines. And it was a big box that, I mean, probably weighed, like, 40 or 50 pounds. And Joe's like, that's great. He goes, you know, that's the kind of thing that you, like, send to someone on their birthday or for Christmas with, like, a really thoughtful card. And they go, what the hell am I gonna do with this? And then when you come over, they've gotta, like, put him outside on their lawn. And he's like, just. He was mesmerized. He was like, I could see the wheels turning. Like, this is amazing. This is great, because they were, like, 20 bucks for the whole set.

You're absolutely right. I mean, I sent Marty Edelston, one of those little samurai guys. You see those in the airplane magazines, The Sumo dude? They're like, 95 bucks. I've probably sent to 10 of those to people. What the hell do you do with it? You gotta. They're always forced to have to think about you. That's actually, you know, I don't remember that, but that's the sort of stuff I do all the time. So, yeah, Marty Edelston loves that thing. He's the guy that owns Boardroom Inc. Now he sends me a personal letter at least every three weeks and has done so for at least three years. And this is a guy that's running a hundred million dollar a year company that's just a great dude. But it all started with sending goofy stuff to each other.

Yeah.

Every three weeks, Joe gets a letter that says, where'd you get the Dutch figurines?

No, no. He writes, you should see the crazy shit that Marty sends me. He's twisted, but yeah. So, you know, find something that they would really find interesting. Send them weird gifts, send them cool stuff if they have any sort, you know, let me do like the strategic stuff. Being a marketer, I learned a lot of. I learned marketing from Gary Halbert, who was brilliant and demonic and neurotic and weird, but just a genius. And he said that one of the things that lacks in most marketing is theater. So you want to be theatrical in the stuff that you do. So for instance, if I was, if I wanted to meet a bigwig, I mean, I've never had a situation where I've wanted to meet someone that I've not been able to meet and it's gotten me into, you know, I mean, the stuff that, what I would do, for example, if I wanted to meet someone and I had a message I needed to convey to them, I would get a little mini DVD player, I would shoot a video of yourself, put it in the DVD player. I would send them a mini DVD player with a post it note on the top of it that said, you know, press open this up and press play. And I would send that DVD player to them by uniform courier that they personally have to sign for. So it gets through all the gatekeepers and everything, it gets right into their hands or at least their key right hand person's hands and just get it to them that way. Stuff like that, simple to do. Might cost you $100, $200, but to me it's a more effective use of time than calling someone 50 times. But what Evan was saying is, yeah, be persistent to a point, but you know, be persistent in a smart way. Do things, you know, send them letters with $100 bill attached to them. Always be willing to pay for someone's time. If you want to talk to somebody sometimes just hire them, cut a check. I mean, I've always been willing to cut a check. What you said here is that you were having the, I don't know the person, but you said when you were Wanting to find out how to expand in foreign markets. You talked to someone and you said tens of thousands of dollars is rolling out of their mouth. I think that's something that you just said 15 minutes ago. I wrote a picture of a mouth, a head with diamonds rolling out, and I'm going to have my artist actually illustrate someone talking, and all these gems just coming out of them, and one conversation could be worth a million dollars to you. And people are so cheap. I mean, they're just not willing to cut a check. And if you have enough money to solve a problem, you don't have a problem. That's what Dan Sullivan says. And so be willing to cut a check and meet the person. Another thing is, you know, people come up to me all the time and they're like, oh, let's do this, let's do that. First off my filter immediately as well. Have they ever bought anything of mine? Do they. Have they done any research whatsoever about what? They want me to sell their dog food, but do they eat my dog food? And so one of my criteria is I have a $25,000 person coaching group, and people come to me and they're like, oh, yeah, we're going to make a ton of money together. It's like, well, you know, then one of the filters is, if we're going to make so much money together, then join one of my groups, and then we'll spend time together and don't do it, because that means we're going to. To do a joint venture. Do it because you sincerely want to work with me. If not, then all I am is a financial target and access to a list or something. So I try to think about, do they actually really care? Like, if someone wants to meet and do something with you, you know, I mean, you're going to respect someone more. That's an actual client, someone that really appreciates you and, you know, they study your work. So pay for their time. Always say please and thank you a lot. Really acknowledge people. Thank them. You know, and this applies to anyone, even if you want nothing out of it. I mean, people that are rude to waiters and people that are just rude in general, they really don't get that far. You know, it's like the whole saying, be nice to the people you meet on the way up, because they're going to be the same people you meet on the way down. You know, just start living your life that way. And you'll. You'll. The one thing that you have got to protect more than anything else is your Reputation just constantly create value for people and operate and live that way. And by living that way in a very karmic way, opportunities will just present themselves to you that won't exist for people that aren't that way. So connect with their friends, with their, you know, for instance, one of the people that I want to. I met Bill Gates at All Things Digital earlier in the year. And I took a picture with me and Bill Gates and I talked with him for just a couple minutes about doing an interview. But I know that Bill's like in another world, as are most billionaires. And so I talked to his wife, Melinda, and I'm going to do my best to set up an interview with her about the foundation that they have, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And that will eventually lead to something with Bill. Very much the same way that I ended up developing the relationship with Richard Branson. And I really admire what he was doing with Virgin Unite, his charity, which he fully funds and supports out of pocket. So 100% of the money from that charity goes to the front lines of all the different things they do, from homelessness in America to teaching entrepreneurism in Africa to all kinds of stuff. And I interviewed the lady that ran Virgin Unite, Jean Olwang. And of course Richard really liked that. And that eventually led to me doing interview interview with Richard, him speaking at one of my conferences. And now we're doing trips to Necker island once a year in raising money for Virgin Unite. But find out who their top people are and do something and work with them. Another clever technique which everyone could use because it is a technique. There are some things you just sincerely do because you're talented and skilled and there's other ways to trick people into talking to you. So if you've got no ability to talk to anyone and you just want to use marketing tricks, that works to a certain point. One of the things you can do, and I learned this from Brad Anton years ago, I teach carpet cleaners how to basically sell carpet cleaning services. That's how I got into my marketing business. I was a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards and I needed to eat. And so I had to figure out how to learn how to sell stuff in order to survive. And all of the stuff I do today is purely an accident. It's a strategic byproduct. They have to figure out how to make my carpet cleaning business work. And it's weird where life takes you, believe me, that and enough drugs, you can go anywhere in life. And so one of the things that I'VE taught a lot of my carpet cleaners to do because they need to go in and do bids in commercial buildings, and they need to talk to the right person. They always have these gatekeepers. So what I have them do, and I learned this from a couple of marketers from years ago named Brad and Allen Anton, is you call up their stuff assistant and you find out the person that you want to talk to. He or she, their. Their shoe size and say, you know, I want to send them a pair of shoes as a gift. Can you find out the shoe size for me? Now, they always. They will do this for you because they think it's kind of cool. No one calls up and says, hey, what's the shoe? Because they're like, all right, what the hell? And so you find out the person's shoe size. Say it's like size 10. What you do is you go down to, you know, any store and you buy like, a pair of Nikes or Reeboks for 70 or 100 bucks, and you take one of the shoes and you write a note that says, Dear Mr. Bigwig, Mr. And Mrs. Bigwig, I have something really important I want to share with you. And I felt the best way to get my, you know, my foot in the door was to send you a shoe. And I'd like to meet with you. And when we meet, I'll bring the other shoe. And then you send one shoe to them with a little handwritten note. Send it uniform courier, so it goes to. Directly to them. And here's the deal. Anyone that's an entrepreneur has no one that works for them that thinks like that, and they just appreciate creativity. Isn't it true? I mean, honestly, when you go out into the regular world, not places like this, where people actually think, you know, it's like, amazing to see, like, creative people. And every carpet cleaner I've had, I've taught that to so many people. Everyone that actually does it, I say, if you send 10 pairs of shoes to any big commercial account, I guarantee you you're going to land a 10 or $20,000 job. Always. But here's the deal. One out of 100 people that I'll tell that to actually will ever do it. But the people that do it, they always get in. Send coffee mugs, send anything, but just. That's theater. That's what I mean by being. Sending theater. Send in a DVD player, sending a little flip video with a recording of yourself saying something. You know, Bob, I wanted you to have this really cool camcorder, but Press play. Every single person here could do something like that. That's something. And then, of course, I have to come back to demean them in front of their friends. I have built more rapport with people with very sick, twisted, really bad, very bad forms of humor in front of them just to know that, hey, the person really chummy. And it instantly breaks down walls because people are constantly walking around trying to be all professional. And I know that everybody, no matter who they are, is a hosed up human being that has some area of their life that's completely dysfunctional. And the moment you can get into that, it just takes down walls. It'd just be fun. I mean, people just love people that are fun and be a ray of sunshine as best you can. And, Eben, I don't.

I want to underscore a couple things you said. Contacting someone and saying, I'd like to hire you to do something. I'd like to buy an hour of your time. Very powerful. I mean, I can think of three people that come to mind, all of whom, you know, that I've hired to do an hour on the telephone. The lowest in the last couple years. The lowest cost one was $1,000 for an hour, and the highest one was 2,500 bucks for an hour on the phone. And you know what? They gave me great information, they gave me great advice. And you know what else? Now I can call any one of them anytime I want and talk to them because I made friends with them. Do the math. Another thing, you know, you recommended Gene Landrum's book, Profiles of Power and Success. Get Gene Landrum's book, Landrum L A.

L.

Gene Landrum, Profiles of Power and Success.

That's a very intense book.

It is. It's like the. The alternate perspective of the lives of highly successful people. He profiles a bunch of just, you know, super successful people like Walt Disney and.

Maria Montessori, the Aviator, Frank Lloyd Wright, Howard Hughes.

And you get to just see, like, all the common denominators of these people. But what you realize is that they're way more screwed up than the average person. And Joe has an intuitive sense of that. He knows that the geniuses are way more screwed up than the average person. And he goes right for the jugular.

And I mean that. And it's honestly because I'm about as dysfunctional as a person could get.

And when I say goes right for the jugular, I mean it in the funniest way because he makes fun of their foibles. And I mean, if you Find something that they're insecure about. He just makes fun of him. I mean, it's like amazing, but it's the most profound instant friendship formula that I've seen. Now, I tend to mess with people too. And that's why the two of us.

Richard Branson on tape, I said, if you were to get in a fight with Al Gore, you think you could take him. And I mean, you say, and when I talk to Rupert Murdoch at All Things Digital, you know, I'm talking to him, like in front of huge audience, I'm like, do you believe in God? And he's like, yes, I do. And then I had a drink with him after the speech, you know, because who the hell says shit like that to Rupert Murdaugh?

Yeah, so those are just kind of underscoring a couple of your points.

If you treat.

If you meet one of these people and you treat them like they're some perfect high status being and you start acting weird around them and you become all formal and stilted, what are they going to do?

Feel weird.

Right, they're going to feel weird. Exactly. They're going to be like, okay, another person acting weird around me. On the other hand, if you do what this guy does and says, hi, I'm Joe Polish, do you believe in God or mess with them in any one of a million ways? It's like instant rapport.

No, like one thing, which I do in elevators a lot. But you could also do it with really well known people. That everyone's always serious around them is, you know, the best thing is try it here in an elevator with people you don't know. When it's all silent and there's room, just turn around and say, can I ask you all a question? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior? Now just pause enough to say, no, I'm kidding. Because there's a difference between goofing on people and being cruel. But you know, your own version of that, because some people, that's already offensive to them.

But, you know, you know, as an alternative, you might try, if the money were right and it could fit into your schedule. Do you have a minute to take a look at an opportunity? I learned that from my friend Sean back there. And.

That'S a good one.

But see, the weird thing too is I've had to figure that out because, I mean, I am a introvert. I am not an extrovert. I have forced myself to have to go out and have to talk to people. Especially when you get into the public speaking thing the first time I ever had to do a public speech. I mean, now I've actually spoken. Largest crowd I've spoken in front of is 5,000 people. But, man, when I first had to do it, it was just nerve wracking. And the second time I had to do it, it was nerve wracking. And it was nerve wracking. But, you know, eventually you just kind of. But I realized that if I want to get checks, you got to talk to people. You know, that's what entrepreneurs have to do. So there's one thing that my good friend Dan Sullivan says is, you know, two things you need to be successful as an entrepreneur. You need courage and ignorance. And I had a lot of both in the very beginning. And so I still do. So, you know, first off, be willing. And I've also reframed the thing about rejection and stuff. You know, it's not rejection. It's taking a survey of who has good taste and who doesn't. You know, stuff like that. And, you know, but also remember the Wayne Gretzky thing. Always remember when you're thinking about it, you know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and just go out there and take the shots and just do it. Because, you know, the world does not reward people that don't go out there and do it, you know, and you only lose if you fail to lose the lesson, you know, stupid little cliches. But here's the other thing, too. I never ask anybody to do anything for me without creating value for them first. And sometimes that value, simply wanting to make them laugh, even with my goofy jokes and the way, I mean, it's truly. I'm just trying to be fun with people. I'm trying to make them smile. I'm trying to just have a good time. And if I can't do any of those things, at least I amuse the hell out of myself. But always create value for people. I never ask anybody to do anything for me. Give me an. Do an interview with me. And I've interviewed some great. I mean, next week I'm interviewing Hugh Downs on video. I've got a verbal agreement from Tiger woods to do a genius network interview. You know, part of it is. But I always think of, how can I create value for this person? And if you show up with that attitude, you know, the whole. I don't know who originally said it, you know, you can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. So always think about what is the value that you could Create, provide, give, offer, link them to. And if you use that approach, you can pretty much meet a lot of people. And when you don't know anyone in the beginning as a marketer, you have to manufacture your own credibility. That's where learning marketing techniques and things come in. But after you've interviewed someone that's really famous or, you know, someone that's really connected, it just builds upon it. So in the beginning, you're going to have to build up the momentum, but it's a lot easier to maintain momentum than it is to create it. So just be willing to spend a little bit of time creating it and doing some things in the beginning, and just, you know, your life and your income and everything will grow as a result of it. And, I mean, I could say more, but I don't want to hog the mic.

Thank you.

What does the word connection mean to you?

Yeah, it means engaged. It means, like, locked in. You know, for example, with employees. You know, I tell people, if you haven't grown professionally and personally when you're in this company, I haven't done my job. So we're not just about professional development. That's why we bring in these radical coaches.

We.

We're talking about feelings. People are, you know, we do it with our whole company, you know, and it's amazing, the transformations that happen, but that's connected. Like, we're locked in, and we're dialed in with you, and we're here, you're committed, and let's do this thing. And it's so funny. Like, you'll see me say, like, you know, we'll be in a meeting, and they'll say, I feel really angry. And this reminds me of when my mom was, you know, when I was young. And we're like, okay, go ahead and process that, and then we'll move on. Like, that's the way we're doing things. Because it really is. There's no difference. Someone just said, there's no business problem. It's a personal problem. Who said that? This morning. Yeah, that's it. Right. So there is no problem within our business that doesn't go down to our core.

Totally.

And I'm interested. I'm not interested in making a ton of money. I do, and it's amazing. It's an amazing outpouring. I guess I am interested because it happens, but I'm interested in my own personal development, the personal development around people, around me. That's the reason. That's fine. I'll be on the floor processing this $30 million deal. You know, I'm gonna do it. I don't care. Because I want to get down to that, to clear that, and that's my MO Period.

That's awesome.

And if you think I'm crazy and stupid, whatever, but this is my commitment.

No, I think it's great. So what's something you.

It's not normal.

Well, look, I mean, well, this is a Star wars bar here, but see, that's the luxury.

When you've lost everything, you're like, I don't care. Like, come on, this is the way I'm doing it.

Yeah, I often think that in terms. And look, I mean, this is. I only see the world through my own interpretations and viewpoint. I don't think the treadmill of shit in business ever stops. I think it's just nonstop, and in many cases it speeds up and it gets bigger and more intense depending on how much you're growing it. What does change, though, is you. And when you change your tolerance of it or your. Like, there's one of the signs up here that says, don't react, respond. And the more that you can respond to life, you're going to just be more functional versus react. And so, you know, the more tired you get, the more stupid everyone seems. Is what Dan Sullivan was just talking about. Yeah. Like, you know, you notice the more fatigued you are, the more annoying and more ridiculous and stupid other people appear to be, you know, sort of thing. So what's something that you want to change about your life?

You know, I love. That was a hard question for me when I just saw it earlier. I don't have a life partner, you know, so I haven't done love.

Well.

Yeah, I have. I've achieved success. I'm happy. I know my heart and I know my soul. My being like that to me, and I haven't found or made space or room. So I'm working with Annie.

Great, great. Yeah, she's calling me on all this stuff.

God, she's good.

Isn't she good? She's so good. Yeah. She's the one that helped me, you know, helped me with my profile, which you've read.

Yeah.

Using marketing to find true love. And as crazy as that sounds, it's sort of. It's not really about using marketing, which sounds like trickery. It's really about using identifications of what you want and what you don't want, what your standards are, what you're looking for, and being able to put it out in the world so that you can, you know, attract what it is that you're looking for. And when you have a tree that has ropes and all kinds of things pulling at it, that tree never grows straight. It's got roots that are, you know, weird in certain ways. It's interesting because I look at a lot of spiritual leaders that in some are, I think, incredibly authentic, and others are the biggest frauds that the world actually perceives them as being. Oh, they're so real, you know, and also my friends. Oh, what do you like about that person? Oh, they're so authentic. It's like you have no fucking idea. They're just really good at faking authenticity. Like it.

There's a book, Authenticity.

That happens a lot.

Yeah.

Instagram.

Well, no, you know what? Think about this, though, because I'm going. This will be a little bit of a tangent, but it ties into what you're saying is, like. I often think about, like, the who the world admires, and having seen a lot of these people behind the scenes in their worst stages, from, frankly, being in addiction groups and seeing the people and the world looks up to them until you find something out about them. They get exposed or they. Or they're human or whatever. And when you would look at people on tv, from politicians to sports figures to artists to celebrities, I mean, you name it. Just all the different people that attract followers and fame. And when people used to say, oh, the media is bullshit. Well, then there's this thing called social media, as if somehow that makes it more real. And now when everyone is the head of their own PR department, and the more that they edit things and they put it out there. So we've got a whole world where young people are viewing their worth based on how many followers they have. You know, we've talked about Instagram a little, and my idea is I want.

To do an Instagram.

Instagram movie of a documentary to help kids realize that your worth is not based on how many followers you have. Because what a lot of these young people don't know is all of that is strategized.

Oh, yeah.

It's.

All people are hired, and it's. You know, it's fake. And I mean, I have people that I work with that you would think their lives are so amazing, that are suicidal on a regular basis. But they just put Instagram things on. They put Facebook, and it's. And it's just like. And I sit and think of all these young people where. Who do they admire now? Who are the role models? It's fucking thousands of fake things. And this worth is, you know, based on that. And then, you know, this is going to sell. You know, the largest group other than people over the age of 60 that have erectile dysfunction, males between 18 to 24. Because they've consumed so many hundreds of hours of Internet pornography, by the time they are holding hands or kissing someone, they can't even get aroused without that. And it's like, so you're thinking, like, I think love relationships are so difficult, you know, and even the people that.

Oh.

I can count on one hand the couples that I know that really don't seem like at some point they have not gone through enormous struggles. Not that there's not many. It's just my own experience with it. So just the fact that you say that publicly, most people would not say that. And actually, I really like that. I mean, I really like it when someone's like, what would you like to change about your life? Oh, you know, so what are you going to do?

Well, that was on my screen.

It was like, oh, find love. Why aren't I living by the ocean? Why don't I live in Dallas? So those were my goals.

Yeah, but those are awesome.

Yeah, they were. It was incredible to just look at that. Like, yeah, why don't I live by the ocean? What am I doing? Yeah, yeah. So is there any real estate for sale?

All right, so I'm going to start with two seemingly completely non related questions. Has anybody in here ever been married, dated, or is currently dating someone? Okay, good. Now, second question is, has anybody in here ever had to work with or has hired anybody else in their organization? Okay, cool. So as we go in here, I'm going to come back around and I'll explain to you why these two come together. But I want to loop back to something that Alex said. So Alex took us on the arc of contribution yesterday. He had a series of questions that he had us ask. And I want to focus on something that happens for entrepreneurs in between these two. How do I get further ahead? And then he said, eventually we shift to how do I help my team get further ahead? Any entrepreneur that makes it from here to here, right at this point of the arrow, has a massive realization. Actually, it's not a realization. It's an acceptance of reality. And that reality is that in order for us to accomplish our vision and in order for us to maximize our contribution, it will take team. Now, this poses a challenge because most entrepreneurs, quite frankly, suck at hiring and they suck at bringing people on board. And what it does is it creates a lot of frustration. So what I want to cover Today are three lessons that dating can teach us about building powerful teams. Alright, so number one, fit, not skill.

Okay?

Now this is important. Now think about this. If you're going the dating process, if you go through the dating process and all you're looking for is skill, just imagine how that's going to turn out, right? I'm looking for someone that can cook really well. I'm looking for someone that can clean really well or makes a lot of money. Now some of you, and I'm not going to ask for volunteers, but some of you may have learned this the hard way. Okay? Now when we go into the hiring process, let me give you five things. What entrepreneurs love to do is we love to go out and we love to find the person that is the best designer, the best copywriter, the best social media person. I'm going to give you five other things that you ought to be considering in addition to those. Because skill set is not the end, it's the beginning. That's where the conversation starts. So five things. And again, it's all about fit. So what we're talking about here is alignment to these five things. And the first one is your vision. What are you trying to accomplish? Is the person aligned to your vision or are they aligned to the job that you're currently looking to fill? There's a big difference between the two. If they're not aligned to your vision, you should not even be considering them. Second is values. Does this person look at the world the same way that you do? For example, our number one core value at sixth division is amaze. I don't believe in doing anything that's not amazing. As Travis commented downstairs, in the middle of a conversation, he added slightly anal retento. And that describes me. Now here's why this is important. It's a value for us to amaze. If there's somebody who's okay with like good enough, we're not going to get along very well. And so we need to make sure that. I understand this presupposes that as an entrepreneur we know what our own values are and there's a process to, to go through to do that. But we have to make sure that the people we're bringing on board share our values. Otherwise we're going to butt heads, nothing's going to get done. Number three is attitude. And the way that I can best summarize this, I was at Fort Hood and in the military they have a phrase and it says, in the absence of further orders, attack. So the question here is, do they have an attitude of success. Do they know how to be successful? If I drop them in a room and I give them half of a set of instructions, can they finish the instructions and finish the project or do they sit down and curl up in the fetal position and start sucking their thumb? Right. Okay, number four, environment. Now I might find someone that is totally aligned to my vision. Someone who matches my values, someone who's got the right attitude, and somebody who has the greatest skill set ever. In my office, we play music 247 and it's loud. Two and a half. We go above two and a half. The neighbors come tell us to turn it down. If you can't work with music playing, you can't work with us. They have to be able to fit to the environment. And then the last one is chemistry. You've got to stop and consider when you're going to bring another person on board. You have to consider what that new person will do to the overall chemistry of your team and your organization. When we were going to hire our office Manager, we had two finalists. Maybe 20 year old lady, by far the most magnetic personality I've ever met in my life. And then we had an older single mom, raised four kids. One of the kids had special needs. And as we sat down to decide who we were going to hire, it boiled down to when people walk into our office and we have the mom, it creates an entirely different complexion in our office. And everybody else in the organization shows up differently when the mom's there as opposed to the 20 year old. So you've got to consider chemistry and if they're going to be a fit for the chemistry you want. So fit, not skill. All right, number two, hiring, not interviewing. Now again, let's go back. Like, what we like to pretend like is that we're clinical psychologists, right? So what we do is we go online and we search for the. We do Google, what's the best question to ask in an interview, right? And then we get a list of like the 19 questions asked. We'll tell you everything you ever need to know. And then we sit down and we ask the question. And then they give us an answer. And we're sitting there on our side and we're like, yeah, that sounds like a really great answer, but I have no freaking idea what to do with the answer you just gave me. So we just nod our head and we check off on a list and we come back up. We say, okay, cool, next question. And we're like, well, you don't really sound like you're Crazy. And you kind of gave some good answers. So I guess I'll hire you now. Imagine what happens if we do that in the dating world. If you start to date and then you're about to get married and all you've done is you've just gone on dates and you've had conversations. How much do you really know about the person across the table? Not that much. So here's a process. We've identified what we want in terms of fit. Here's a process to actually identify if they're that person. It's hiring, not interviewing. So what we're going to do is we're going to create a hiring process that's based on skill set exercises. Meaning if somebody says, hey, I can build funnels and that's what the job requires, then we're going to have them build the funnel in front of us. If somebody's supposed to manage my email, they're going to manage my email in front of me. And we're going to administer those skill set exercises in a way that will reveal character and attitude so that we can determine fit. So we're hiring our office manager and the first assignment we gave her was, hey, I need you to plan a trip where I'm taking my daughter to the American girl doll store and then I've got to find flight to a business thing to speak. And that was all the instruction we gave her. Again, I want to check attitude. Can she just fill in the details? And then what I also wanted to see is how does she send it back? Remember, number one core value for us is amaze. So what I'm looking for is the person that will put together a word doc, take our logo off of our website, put it into the header of the word doc so it's styled. That's what I'm looking for. We got about five people that did that and the person that we ended up hiring sent back. It was literally like a 10 page document. She had thought through travel plans, flight plan plans, like car everything, and had our logo on top of the documents. So what we've done is I know she can do the job and I've set it up so that as she demonstrates that she can do the job or he, if that's who you're hiring, I know that they're going to be a fit to both the culture and they have the right attitude. And so we should never, ever, ever hire. I was at a conference recently and I talked to a guy like, yeah, I've got 40 employees and here's how I got them. I hired 400 and I fired 360. Reminds me a lot of Joe. You quoted Dan Sullivan. Getting results doesn't take time. Not getting them does. That reminds me a lot of that. What if we could just go hire the right 40? It ought to be that before we provide an offer. We already know that they can do the job and that they're gonna fit. We don't have to wait until afterwards and cross our fingers and hope. All right, so that's number two, hiring, not interviewing. Number three, leadership, not management. So what I want to introduce to you is a matrix for leadership. Across the bar here, we've got challenge. Okay? Low challenge is the person that does stuff for people as a leader. High challenge is where you require the person to learn and grow to be able to do what they're supposed to do. Support is your Y axis. High support is someone that says, hey, you're great. I'm behind you. I'm in your corner. Low support is the person that says, hey, you suck. Now let's go back to dating. In any relationship, anybody ever tried to manage a relationship instead of lead in a relationship, we're going to walk through this, and I think you'll start to see where it comes in. So low challenge. Low support as a leader is an abdicator. It means that you don't require anything of your employees, and you don't also give them anything. And what you create is a culture of apathy and low expectation. I don't think anybody in this room is here. I don't think you get in this room if you're here. My guess is you're going to find most of yourselves in here. Next is Dominator. So you've got high challenge, low support. You demand a lot of the people on your team, but what you don't do is you don't create support to actually help them accomplish what it is that they need to be accomplishing. Right. Think dating. Same problem. Not a good relationship to be in. Now, where I found most entrepreneurs that want to do something important in the world, they actually end up here. It's the protector. And the protector is the person who has high support. I'm in your corner. You're great. Low challenge. When something doesn't go quite right, instead of me forcing you to figure it out, I do it for you. Anybody in here ever stepped in and done something for an employee as opposed to letting them learn how to go do it? Protector. Now we get to the liberator, and this is where leadership comes in. The liberator is the person who has high challenge and high support. So when something doesn't go right, the liberator doesn't step in and fix it. The liberator says, hey, this didn't go right. I'm willing to have the conversation with you to establish the boundaries of, hey, this is what you were supposed to do and it didn't happen and you need to go fix it. And I'm here to help you. So leadership, not management. So I'll recap. And for those of you that don't speak Spanish, that stands for the recap. Fit, not skill. When you're going to hire, skill set starts the conversation, it does not end it. Second, hiring, not interviewing. You want to put them into skill set based activities that are administered in a way that allow you to determine their character and attitude. And then the last piece is leadership, not management. You want to be a liberator. You want to be the person who both supports them, but also challenges them to learn and to grow. Now for me, as I look at this, this is an equation. And the end result of this equation, if I draw a line right here, is you have a powerful culture and you have a powerful business and a powerful culture and a powerful business can move mountains. And the reason why I think this is important goes back to our mission. Alex talked a lot yesterday about the entrepreneurial personality type. I don't believe that that's a separate set of people. I believe that it is something that's inside of everybody that just hasn't been awakened yet. And I believe our responsibility as entrepreneurs is to do these three things so that what we can do is if we exist as powerful entrepreneurs, our employees can't help but exist as powerful people. And then we all go home and the families can't help but be powerful. And when families are powerful, communities are powerful. And when you communities are powerful, nations are powerful. And that's how you change the world.

How do you stand out in an extremely crowded space? So that's the question. And so we picked questions. And when I say we, I mean my team has gone through like a thousand of these questions and we're categorizing them as we do these. We'll continue to answer them. And so. But they picked ones that they felt would be helpful to most people here also. So how do you stand out in an extremely crowded space? And the notes that I wrote to this, and then I'll have you go, Dean is for one, where do you want to stand out? Right. It's one thing like, why do you want to stand out in a crowded space? Can you niche it down, narrow it down and be in a space where you're not so crowded? That's one way to think about it. And then I want to say this up front because this is going to apply to many of the messages, questions that people will have, which is Dean Jackson's quote about a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. Compelling offers 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. So write that down. We say it on almost every I love marketing meetup group, but it's worth, it's worth understanding. So, Dean, answer that question if you could, sir.

So this reminds me of this thing we've been talking about where, especially in times when people are contracting, where I'm assuming they're saying, how do I stand out and get people to do business with me? That's really what the essence of the question would be. And the thing that is where all the competition is, is at the purchasing desk. That's what everybody's trying to get the attention of the purchasing desk saying, hey, give me a purchase order. Give me a purchase order so that I can deliver these wonderful goods or services to you. And you're trying to get, you're trying to compete for that attention. That's where it gets crowded. And one thing that just kind of dawned on me and things like this is that there is almost zero competition at the receiving dock. And if you just go around the building and bring things into the business, you're met with open arms. Everybody's 100% authorized in any business to bring money in to the business. So if you can, instead of spending time and money trying to fight for attention to convince somebody to give you business, if you spent that same amount of time and attention and on just getting a result for them and leading with that, as opposed to, you know, trying to convince them to give you business, you're going to find that it's a much easier path. It's far easier. Anytime you have the possibility to give somebody a result for free to start the ball rolling, that's going to be a win for you. And it's easy to get attention when you're, when you come bearing gifts, money, the thing that they, that they want business, you know, that's really the, that's really the thing without knowing the context of what the, what the actual situation is. But I'm on the call. You could apply it to any. Oh, you are? Okay, There you go. Let's see what.

Aaron, go ahead and Elaborate.

So I'm in the, I'm in the real estate pirate industry. We were, you know, we buy the motivated seller houses and five years ago, four years ago, we could send out two or three thousand letters or postcards and be inundated with calls. Like more calls than you could take in a two, three day period would come in. Now you can send 5,000 postcards and you're lucky if one or two people call. So I switched it up. I went to the Genius Network annual event and I met the guys from Tool of Marketing and I had this idea like maybe I'll do a newsletter and I'll send a newsletter out to kind of my target audience and bring value to them. And we did that for a few months and it was like the calls we got were, is this a joke? Is this a scam? Who are you? Why are you sending this? And very few people called in. So it just, it produced, I thought, delivering value and giving them. I mean we're in California, so there's all kinds of information on, on the laws that are constantly changing and how it affects landlords. And that's really my primary market is marketing to burnt out landlords and then acquiring their properties. So I thought doing that, presenting a newsletter with a lot of content would, would generate more leads. It didn't, it didn't work. So now it's, you know, we have a lot of Wall street buyers and Silicon Valley buyers in our market space now just become very inundated with bigger players who, and they can spend a hundred thousand dollars a month on ad spend and being backed by Silicon Valley, it's almost as if they don't need to show profit, they just need to show revenue to get a million dollar valuation. So yeah, like, oh, we bought 800 houses last year. We made, you know, we lost $100 million. But worth, we're worth $5 billion now and we should go public.

So you have the mom and pop.

Guys like me who want to buy just 25 to 50 houses a year. And across the board we're all struggling.

So what's your number one challenge, do you think like when you're, if you, how are you selecting the homes that you want to buy?

So it's based on criteria about the type of house, like I know very pinpointed on the type of property that I want to buy. So when a call comes in, it doesn't matter the situation of the seller. I know that that house fits. It's a square peg and a squ, you know, whole situation.

So We're.

Can I surround the letters? So we're trying to do stuff like. Like, you know, we're sending out letters and, you know, we're putting in, like, big dinosaur stamps and we're putting in, like, you know, little heart stamps on the outside. Like, I'm thinking like, if, if, if. If this shows up and it's addressed to. This one's addressed to Caesar and his wife gets it, the open rate on this is going to be a hundred percent because it has a nice big heart stamp on the outside in the handwriting.

Yeah, right.

You know, women's handwriting and blue ink. So, you know, there's a response from that. I don't know, but at least it gets opened in a red. And then maybe we can listen to response from that.

And what's inside? What's the offer? So you're saying we want to buy your house. Call us.

Well, yeah, it's a little more personal.

You know, we're.

I can read you the letter. It's around here somewhere.

But just, I mean, just the music.

Just have some information about, hey, I'm local, I'm a veteran, and, you know, I'm interested in buying your business property. It's a really easy process. So, yeah, it's, you know, typically you like yellow letter stuff, but trying to do a little bit better on it.

And how. How did Caesar get on the list?

So this particular campaign is driving for dollars campaign, where, you know, we have somebody who drives around and just looks at looks for properties that have signs of financial distress, like a totally burnt lawn or it's overgrown, broken windows, bad roofs. So we have about a couple hundred properties on that list that. That somebody's visually driven by and seen and said, man, that's the distress situation.

Yes.

Doesn't care.

Got it. So if you're. So then everybody on that list, you're kind of like, there. They fit that bill.

Correct.

And so you wonder what would happen with them over the next hundred weeks. Let's say over the next. Like, if instead of thinking we're going to mail the letter, he's going to say, oh, what a relief. Thank God somebody sent me this letter. Let's get out of this today. But what if over the next hundred weeks, if you looked at it, how many of those are actually going to do something? If you took a longer approach to it instead of just one time, like going. And, you know, I call it strip mining, like just kind of going through, mailing the letter. They call. That's how it used to be.

Forever.

Right? You could just mail it, they'd call and you'd buy, and it all happened quickly. But what if those, those distressed houses are a problem and even if they don't reply to your letter, there's still a problem? And what would happen over the next, you know, two years if you take a thousand? How many of those homes do you have on your list?

This one.308.

Okay. So of those 308, if you take that sort of longer term approach to it more than just like the one one kind of thing, I wonder what that would look like. How many of them actually do something? How long have you been doing this now?

So in the past, I primarily have just mailed postcards for years. And then kind of this younger generation came into the business and they got into skip tracing and cold calling and texting and voicemail and really just beat us older dudes out. Right, right. So now we've skip traced this whole list and we're going to, you know, do the mail, but then hit them multiple times through different aspects. So we'll, we'll hit them with the mail. We'll try to, you know, find them on social media and do some targeted marketing that way. But, you know, I open up my mailbox, I have dozens and dozens of rentals here, and I open up my mailbox and there's, you know, multiple letters on a weekly basis from Sunday, from Opendoor, from seller, from all these companies that are, you know, doing basically the thing. But yeah, now with the heart stickers and handwritten.

Yeah, yeah, it is. So yeah, it's, it's, it's noisy now. Right. Like, and that's the thing is what, what would be the thing if you were to think would be a softer step than call us to buy it kind of thing. Like one of the things we do with the. I work with traditional realtors who want to list those houses. Right. And instead of mailing postcards that are, hey, list your house with me or call me and start packing or any of those, you know, personal promotion things, we start offering people the a report on like the October 2020 report on winter Haven lakefront house prices to start the ball with somebody who's kind of moving forward. You know, what, what else would they be looking at? Do you think? These guys, like, what if they're not going to sell? What, what do they need? Or what would be the answer to their problem?

That's a great question. I've not been in that situation. So, you know, we're trying to discover that and, and figure out how can we. So we were doing the newsletter and I thought it would be really effective. We had some, you know, lawyer writing some stuff about.

Yeah.

Statewide rent control law and.

Yeah.

But very, I mean, not. Not inexpensive marketing strategy. But, you know, the return was not good.

Yeah, yeah.

Very challenging.

It is. So I think I would look maybe at the. Going back to the ones that you had from a year ago kind of thing when they first come on that list and just to get a sense of how. What is the scope of this? How. Because they're what we call visible prospects, you know, you know who they are and it's, you know, likely that they're going to be. They're going to do something at some point. Yeah.

Our code enforcement eventually will get involved as well, Right?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Another opportunity may be to think upstream about who else is interested in like not all distress homes are run down either. There's no visual. They're not necessarily 100% of the time visually distressed as well. Right, Absolutely. Yeah. So part of the thing is I might look at aligning with a real estate agent who is also wants to get traditional listings. You know, are you licensed?

I'm a broker.

Yeah.

Okay. So, you know, part of the thing is looking. You may want to attempt that. Try the. Our getting listings program. And then when the people reply, you've got the opportunity of buying their house right there for them or then selling those leads to a real estate agent.

I'm an in house agent.

That.

Yeah, we do that already.

Oh, you do?

Okay.

Yeah, well, that's what I got.

Aaron, is that helpful?

Yeah, you know, I appreciate, you know, this, this is amazing that you guys are doing this. I just want to thank you very much.

Been, been fantastic.

I love being on these calls. So. Yeah, thanks a lot, Dean. I really appreciate it.

Awesome.

Yeah.

And let me always mention this too. Even though we have a, you know, podcast here called I love marketing and there's so many answers on specific topics that you guys can go and listen to that are there for free. I wish we didn't have to do any of this marketing stuff. I wish people would just do business with us because we were caring and we were kind and we delivered products and services. But it's a very competitive world. And so the purpose of marketing is if this was easy, everybody would be rich, everyone would be doing well and it just isn't. And so the more that you can invest marketing, it's applied psychology. It's what you say and who you say it to. And I have met people that have mastered different areas of marketing, that know more about human behavior than many psychologists that I've met, because they have to not just understand what people do and what causes them to do the things they do, but getting someone to actually respond and to give you money and to pay attention to you, and. And so there's. There's a lot to it. So whenever you're in a highly competitive market, you have to, you know, find ways to actually break through. And that requires, you know, constant thinking about the, you know, the mindset of the person. I mean, I've always liked the Robert Collier line where as a. As a marketer, as a copywriter, you want to enter a conversation that's existing in the prospect's mind. And so, you know, the prospect has a conversation, there's something that they have there, to use a Dan Sullivan terminology. They have their dangers, they have their opportunities, and they have their strengths. And so we need to know what their dangers are. We need to know what their opportunities are, what you can bring to them, and being able to get their attention in many ways by reinforcing their strengths. So. And if anyone, this is not really a marketing book, but I highly recommend it. You can get it on Amazon. It's called the Dan Sullivan question. It's all about that. Highly recommend reading that book. 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'll be useful and awesome, click here.

Go ahead.

Drove here.

Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you. Watch them.