Why So Many People Retire… And Then Fall Apart ft. Gary Sirak and Max Sirak
Gary Sirak, a third-generation insurance CEO, and his son Max discuss why retirement often leads to crisis. Work provides purpose, identity, and structure; without a plan, people fall apart. They share the seven strategies from their book, including community, humor, and giving back, plus concrete habits like tracking expenses and writing daily.
Chapters
Can you imagine a life where you actually retire with money, with happiness, with connection, and you're not going through your life just trying to figure out how to make money, but you're going through life with people that love you, are engaged with what you do, that care about you, you care about them? You're about to hear from two individuals that have not only created a blueprint for this, but have figured out how to do it. So watch, stay tuned, and apply what you're about to hear. Hello, this is Joe Polish, and I'm here with a couple of friends of mine, uh, Gary Serach and his son Max. And I'm going to do the official real quick bio from my phone so I don't screw it up. All right. So today I'm joined by my friend Gary Serick, who spent more than 30 years helping people pursue their version of the American dream. Uh, he's the CEO of Serick Financial Services, a firm his father started nearly 70 years ago, and the author of 3 books, including How to Retire and Not Die. And joining us is a surprise addition, which was not planned. So we had to rearrange the mics here, uh, is his son Max, a Colorado-based writer. Collaborated with Gary on the latest book. So you guys have been hanging out here in my office. I showed up a little bit later than you did. Uh, what do you think of it so far here at Genius Network headquarters?
Uh, the word awesome. It's amazing to me. I could spend about an hour just looking at artwork and then come back and do it again. It's incredible, Joe.
Awesome. Thank you. Well, so here's the thing, even though I started podcasting in 2010 and I officially recorded my very first podcast for an event I was doing in 2005 when no one even knew what podcasts were. Like iTunes, you know, it just, Apple had just started this thing called podcasting. This, uh, so I've been doing this for many years. And prior to that, in the '90s, I started doing interviews on cassette tape and all that stuff. And today, you know, they call it podcasting. But the funny thing about it is you guys are the first official ones that I'm actually recording a podcast for in this room, even though we've used it since I've been under renovation. So this is the new. Podcast studio here at the Genius Network headquarters. So this is the first official one, even though I've done hundreds of pod— I mean, probably I'm sure over 1,000 podcasts, we've got millions of downloads. This is the first one we've actually done here. And so welcome.
It's an honor, man. And I have to say, uh, your bathroom, coolest bathroom I have ever seen in my life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have to admit, I took a picture of the toilet. I've never seen anything like that in my entire life.
A lot of people take that.
At least I know I'm not that weird.
I did get that toilet from Europe. And I almost think we don't even tell people what the toilet is because they're like, what is that? You could, you could maybe find that out there. Yeah. But it's funny. The point is, I want people to, uh, I want things to be memorable. I want people to have fun. One of the things that I teach is ELF, easy, lucrative, and fun. So how do you build an ELF business and an ELF life versus a HAF business, which is hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating? And in a lot of ways from your books and everything, you know, we've, we've known each other for quite a few years. I think that's very much within your methodology too, is like, you know, how do you make things easy, lucrative, fun to the best of the ability? And anyone that runs a business knows that in order to have an health business and an health life, you have to set it up. And the setup oftentimes is not easy. The setup could be very hard in order to get to health. Just like in order to get to great physical shape, you have to put forth effort. You have to work., you have to learn things. You have to let go of a lot of stuff. And so, uh, you know, you have a lifetime of, uh, helping people with their, their finances and with their money and how to think about, uh, that. And so two things I want to cover today. So you have the latest book, which I got right here, which is, uh, How to Retire and Not Die. We'll talk about some of the concepts in there. Uh, but I want to talk about things that necessarily aren't in the book because people can go read the book. Uh, So I want to speak to, uh, what you know, what your expertise is, but also want to talk about the American dream because in 2017 you wrote this other book, uh, The American Dream Revisited. And like yesterday I was going through, you know, what I wanted to like the very, the highlights in the very back, you know, Thomas Edison. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of Thomas Edison as a person, but as what he created a whole different scenario. But opportunity is missed by most people because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work. And then you go through, you know, these 7 strategies that summarize what you've learned with successful people. And I'm just, I'm going to speak to these in a little bit, but what I want to do is first ask, what did I not say about both of you in the bio that would be important for people to know before we kind of launch into talking about what I hope will be helpful for everyone watching or listening to this.
Well, we, we have a lot in common, Max and I, a few, few years in distance. But what happened is that I like to write and Max is a writer. And so we really collaborated on this book. And I said, you know, I have some vision issues, so writing isn't quite as much fun as it used to be. And so I said, Max, I need help. And he said, Dad, I can help you with this. So Max conducted, what, 24 hours of interviews with you?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
There was a great whiteboard with time signatures and time keys, like you understand, um, and, uh, to just figure out how to write it. What I think is great though is it's all because of the conclusion of American Dream Revisited that we began to collaborate, because you had the whole book done but were struggling with that conclusion. Yeah. And one day, as a writing exercise, I was like, you know what, I've read the book, I edited it, like, I'll go ahead and Write him a conclusion. And the way I remember it, like I just kind of left it for you on the kitchen counter when I was visiting and you woke up at like, when I woke up in the morning to get a cup of coffee, you just gave me like a big hug and said, thank you. And that was like the start of our father and son work relationship.
Yeah. And it's funny because I really was struggling with that last chapter. I just couldn't get it. And I was really perplexed and Max has this exercise where he writes 1,000 words a day. And so we took it on and there's a coffee shop we used to go to all the time and he would go to the coffee shop and do his writing.
Was that Karma Cafe or a different pub?
A different one. That one, unfortunately, their karma turned out to be not good. Okay, got it. That happened. Anyway, coffee was good karma, not so good. Anyway, though, fascinating. When I read the chapter, I said, God, this is exactly what I wanted to do. I just wasn't able to find it. So that was how we really teamed up together and And this book is pure teaming up. I mean, Max took all those things, the interviews, wrote them, sent them to me. I edited them. We went back and forth. It took us what, how long to write the book? Oh, it took a while. Yes, it was over a year.
Let me ask you, because this was done before AI, and I'm really like today, I look a lot at information. Like one of my friends, Kamal Ravikant, you know, he wrote a book called Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It. And I got a couple of great interviews with him and his brother's involved. Well, he was a very well-known investor and I mean, they know all the Silicon Valley people from back in the day and whatnot. And their philosophy is that some of the best knowledge and wisdom in the world is the original source material, right? Like Adam Smith, you know, some of the very first things related to business. And I'm often finding Uh, today that there's incredible stuff that can be filtered out, uh, utilizing AI and the access technology stuff. But there's, there's something about me, this is my personal opinion. I'm not saying this is even a good idea. I actually am finding myself drawn to things that were created, uh, before AI existed because there's, there's something that seems more authentic and real. And there's an effort that was put forth in it that oftentimes may not exist anymore at the level it did unless people absolutely just refuse to. So when you say you write 1,000 words a day, you still doing that? Oh, absolutely.
Well, and I want to point out too, you mentioned about cultivating that environment and setting it up. And like, so I think there is something about the effort, right? Whether it is like the thought or finding the thoughts or chewing on the information that You know, like that's the, the actual rep to get stronger.
If people don't have to wrestle with something, they don't really build strength and endurance. And again, this is not saying like you shouldn't utilize tools. It would almost be like if I was a lumberjack and someone invented a chainsaw and I'd be like, no, I refuse to use a chainsaw because I must use an ax, even though, you know, however, I'm really, I wrestle with this whole concept right now. Cause I think, you know, I have this amazing artist named Ray Villafane who, uh, is crazy as it sounds. He's the top, uh, pumpkin carving artist in the world, which often sounds weird, but if someone wrote, like, did a search in top pumpkin carver and looked at what he carves out of a pumpkin, you'd be like, oh my God, when people hear it, but then when they look him up, they're like, this dude's unbelievable. And he has a couple of places at, you know, in my ghost town. I own a ghost town, 40-acre ghost town, Cleator, Arizona, with a couple of people. Couple friends that we bought a few years ago, and he has a spot there that just blows people away. I mean, he's been commissioned by Marvel Comics, all kinds of stuff. He spends hours just creating stuff. But we were up there filming, uh, I don't know, a few weeks ago. And there's a guy named Brett Underwood who came to visit our ghost town, who also owns another ghost town. Uh, and he was interviewing Ray and talking about AI and music. And Ray's like, I love AI. There's so much stuff that you could do with it and you could just create exactly what your brain is thinking. He was going on this whole riff about how as an artist he's utilizing AI. But then he said one line, he goes, however, if you really are in tune, you can actually see what AI music is missing, a soul. The soul is missing. And, you know, I thought about that. Is that true? Is that just something he's saying? I don't really know, but I, I didn't get that thought out of my head and I started thinking about that right now. And I think it goes back to what you get. It's effort. Something received free of charge is seldom valued. And when you think of, you know, I always tell people that are complaining about how difficult it is to do marketing and advertising or access, whatever, whatever they're trying to accomplish. If you go back to the 1970s, I was born in 1968, people in like, and you'll remember this, of course, Gary, uh, if you wanted to lay out a whole page ad, there was no internet. There was no digital marketing. You're using an X-Acto knife and whiteout and a typewriter. Light table. Yeah, exactly. You know, and the amount of effort it took for, so the generations of people that come before us, I think it's a real damn shame to miss out on, on the wisdom, uh, that has gone there. So with that said, Let me launch into why'd you guys, let's first, we're going to talk about the book. Sure. And then we're going to get into some of it because I want to frame a couple of things. You wrote The American Dream Invisible in 2017. And, you know, you have a great story in the Karma Coffee Shop that you heard for, you know, young people and one person, they were saying the American disaster versus the American dream. So I want to talk on that. And then I want to talk about the subject of how to retire and not die. And the reason I'm interested in how the two tie in is because, uh, when the pandemic started, uh, that nonsense, that craziness, that insanity, um, I think a lot of people's dreams got shattered and their view completely changed, way different than pre-2020. So I wanted to, you know, why'd you, why'd you write that book? And then let's talk about How to Retire and Not Die. And my goal and objective for this interview is that anyone watching or taking the time to listen to that leave with a perspective that will make them a lot more capable, hopefully more optimistic, and realize that you actually design your own life and your own future. It's not, if you let it just happen to you, or you come at things from a victim mentality, even if you are a victim and everyone's a victim of something. That doesn't give you any power. So I really want people to, you know, listen to us today and hopefully, you know, when I say listen, I don't think you're much of giving, uh, you don't tell people what to do. You kind of, you know, offer them an opportunity. That's it.
We're here to offer some suggestions.
Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below. In the description, or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.
Sometimes when, uh, when it's apropos, you know, it's funny, the, the coffee shop thing. Every morning I would drive to the coffee shop and there's like 3 of them on my street. And I would pick one and I would just go sit there and get my mocha in the morning, kind of addicted to those. Uh, if we had 8 days a week, I'd get 8 of them. But I literally read one every single day. Every single day.
Wow.
Yeah. It just, yeah, a little bit. Wow. Sometimes, but usually just one. Uh, but it's really a good way to fire up my brain in the morning. At least I think so. So I'm sitting in a coffee shop one morning and just minding my own business, doing what I do, which is sort of meditate, contemplate what am I doing and what's the week going to look like. And these 4 college students, and they were definitely college students, sit down right behind me. And they start talking about the American dream and 3 of them just smashed it and said, there is no American dream. It's the American disaster. And you know, we have these huge college debts. We have credit card debt, you know, there are no jobs. It was pretty ugly. And I heard that. And then this one young guy who hadn't said a word said, you know, I really disagree with you guys. I'm going to graduate from a really good school. I'm going to have a loan. Yeah. I'm going to pay it off. I'm going to get a good job. And I'm going to have a good life. And they just put him down and he never said another word. And then they got up eventually and left the coffee shop. And I just sat there listening, thinking about that. It really bothered me. And I wasn't sure why it bothered me so much, but it irritated me. I left and it was kind of on my mind. Then I went to sleep that night and probably 4 o'clock in the morning, Joe, I woke up and said, this is wrong. They are missing this. And I started thinking about that book and that literally that book showed up at 4:00 AM in the morning. The next day because I couldn't get it out of my brain. And then I decided to write a book to defend the American dream, but not the one about becoming a billionaire. It's about food, clothing, and shelter and why that's important and who our ancestors were and what my family did. And, you know, that's what it was all about.
Yeah.
Okay.
So let me say this just because I, you know, saw some just stories in here and, um, here's who I like. Summary. So the, uh, the 7 strategies, the person pulled us is determine what your personal dream is. This, you know, which is simply like what excites you, right? There's a way to get to that. And none of us can tell anyone here what their dream should be. And a lot of people adopt other people's value systems. And the more time you spend hoping, wishing, following, even, I think there's a lot of destruction that comes from Pursuing the value system of someone else without developing your own.
I mean, you mentioned power and like, again, it's like that giving away of your agency.
Yes. Right. No, totally.
Totally.
The second is, uh, there, there's going to be frustration. I always tell young people, if I would have, uh, if I would have known, uh, how much work, uh, being successful is going to be, I would have stopped being a loser. So there are going to be dark moments. And, uh, the third is. Successful entrepreneurs have an ability to remember where they came from, both literally and figuratively, or remember you do not have to do this alone. Yeah. Worrying alone is, uh, yeah, look, I have an addiction to company foundations, industry company, which you have kind of contributed to. Thank you very much. And one of the things is, uh, silent battles are the hardest battles to fight. And, uh, don't fight it because you, you, you know, you lose all the time. So, uh, and then number 5, lighten up and have a sense of humor, especially about yourself and your circumstances, which is so critical. I had a friend, Dave Kekich, who spent half his life in a wheelchair. And he said, there's this credo, he created Kekich Credos. One of them is, uh, things are seldom as bleak as they seem when they're going, uh, well, uh, or I'm sorry, going wrong, or seldom as great as they seem when they're going well. Lighten up and live longer. That's a good point. So it's pretty much, yeah. And then number 6, don't be afraid to follow your intuition. And number 7, give back, which I'm a big believer in givers. So I will shut up. I'm doing too much talking and I need to be, you know, hearing from you guys. So Max, let's talk about the newest book, which is How to Retire and Not Die. If you had to summarize this book of what is the core lesson and idea we're getting at, let me know and then we'll kind of dig into some questions. Sounds great.
First, I want to say, because it is relevant to two things you mentioned, to bring in both points so far, the original manuscript for How to Retire and Not Die, I sent him, he sat on, he sent it back to me with one note for the entire book. He was like, hey, I like it. Can we make it funnier? And it got to my inbox the day that we went into lockdown for the pandemic. And so to tie in point 5 of make it fun, and what you mentioned about the pandemic. And so that was my project. It was like, okay, we have a bunch of good ideas in there. Like, how can we make it more fun and not as serious? Because the version I sent him was like much more dire and dark and like, oh, you know, lots of fear. And so we're like, no, let's make it fun. And what's our policy on swearing on this show?
Are we—
Oh, great.
Okay, so here we go.
The main premise of the book. Work does a lot of things for it. We give work a lot of shit. But the truth of it is value, worth, identity, social connections, structure, if you're lucky, passion, purpose, work can do all these things for us. And if you don't have a plan to meet all of those needs, when it just goes away, you're gonna go into freefall. So just think about how you want to meet those needs.
And that's the premise. So, uh, what are, what are the biggest mistakes that people make when it, when it comes, like, I know at a stage in your life, you actually would try to help people and tell them what to do. And then there are people that, you know, you've gotten to the point. So, uh, you, how would you, if you were to say, at what age would you actually got into the business you're in now? Your mother started at 30. 30 years old. Okay. So what was your worldview about money and about life at 30 compared to now that you think would be helpful for people to hear and understand this instruction?
Well, when I started, I took a 50% cut in pay, had a wife and this young man and a home. And, uh, and I was making $35,000 a year back, you know, a long time ago. And which was a decent living. I mean, we had a nice home. I belonged to a country club. I liked to play golf, all those kinds of things. And then I, but I didn't like my job, Joe. I was really bored and it got to me. So I said, I need to find something that has purpose and that will make me feel better at the end of the day. My family owned this business. I had never had any interest. I was an English major and a hippie and probably didn't, two of them go very well with life insurance and doing what we were doing. And my dad and I got along sort of, but not great. So anyhow, I just stayed away from, well, 5 years into my career, I really disliked what I was doing. We were in Florida on a golf course and this friend of my father's, we're sitting on the 10th tee waiting to tee off, and this friend of my father's says, uh, can I ask you a question? I said, sure. Like I could stop him. And he said, uh, do you like your job? And I said, no, I don't. He said, then why aren't you with your father in the insurance business? And I said, why do you say that? He said, he was one of the best in the whole country, which he was. And he said, he has no one to take his place. You would be a good person to take his place. And I said, okay. Um, never thought about it. So for the next 9 holes, I never hit a good shot. Not even one, Joe. And I just couldn't get it out of my brain that night at dinner. I talked to Linda. She said, yeah, you know, you're miserable doing what you're doing. You may as well do something else. So we're sitting at dinner and having a really nice dinner at a country club in West Palm Beach where my dad belonged. And I said, dad, I think I want to go in the insurance business. He was holding a glass of red wine.
He dropped it. Oh, wow.
Totally freaked out. I mean, he said, what? He was like stunned because I—
Like in a happy way or—
Oh, totally happy way. Just like amazed and kind of said, are you serious? He said, I never dreamed this would happen. He was like beyond himself. And I said, yeah, I think I want to try this. So I came in knowing that I need to earn a living and that made it really hard. And it wasn't until much later that I understood if I could get that thought out of my mind, I would be much more successful. And my dad kept trying to drill that in, but I'm pretty stubborn. So it took me a long time to really understand that once I got that switch flipped, it was amazing.
What, that's probably didn't even get out of the way.
That I was working to make money. And instead of working to make money, Joe, I started working just to help people. So my whole world was wake up in the morning and think, okay, who can I help today? And instead of saying, oh, I made $1,000 today, I said, okay, who did I help today? What did I do for them? And how did I improve their life? And that's what I started thinking about. And so instead of thinking about, okay, sales and all that stuff, I put that on the back burner and said, I'm just going to focus on seeing what I can do to make other people's lives better. As my father said, Gary, stop worrying about money. You'll make more than you ever dreamed. Yeah.
I want to, I want to kind of go into this a bit too, because, uh, just as I think people hear that, they kind of understand it. However, in my experience, there are people that are wired to be collaborators, and there's people that are wired to be competitors. There are people that on the surface, you know, you say you can be in the relationship business or the transaction business or the transformation business or the transaction business. And even until it is integrated and internalized into your behavior, it's just like a cliché motivational idea. You know, money earned ethically is a byproduct of value creation. Yes, it is. However, if someone doesn't know what value represents to someone else, they don't provide it. Secondly, most people would be like, I'm going to be really valuable, buy my shit. You know, when it's like, well, is it a right fit for the person you're trying to sell it to? Have you, do you really have a result-producing solution? You know, we talk about in In Genius Network, you know, the signature result, you know, that if you could only get paid if you produce the result, it makes you rethink what you're selling because some people, what they sell doesn't require a result to be produced in advance. Like you ever go to a restaurant and be like, well, you could, we will only get paid if you really love the meal and it nourishes you. It would completely change, you know, fast food and industry. Exactly. Uh, and, and, and, and not, I'm not even saying people need to do that because some things that are sold are just entertaining or whatever. They're not going to be transformational to someone, you know, I mean, you ever go through an airport and stuff. I don't think most people in airports thinking about selling transformation, you know, it's very cheap. They're just trying to move them along. But the reason I'm bringing this up is that that is a huge insight to switch. And if you don't switch that. You're going to forever be chasing money in a different way versus really being conscientious and caring. I've interviewed over, probably at this stage, I'm sure close to, if not over 2,000 people. And I've heard a lot of conversations about money. People have all kinds of different ideas about money and some of the people like really say the words that they care about people and other people genuinely care about people. And the ones that seem to care the most are not the ones that are bragging the most about how, you know, how they're helping people and all that. Uh, so I know enough about you that you will help people for no other reason just to help them. Right. And if they're not going to be a right fit for your company, you're not going to take their money, even if they will give it to you. And I know you've had stages where you had pain in the ass clients and you moved him out the door and you were happy to do that. What is he glad to learn that, right? You know, so when you're 30 years old, you're probably like, yeah, I got to pay the bills. I got to make money. It's a different scenario than now when you're telling them.
Yeah. I will tell you one funny story. We had one client. Yeah, you're right on point, but we had one client that was such a royal pain in the ass. And I finally, finally fired her and my office clapped. When I finally, they literally, there's like 15 people and it was like standing ovation because we, this lady went away because she was so difficult to deal with and so unhappy and you could never make her ever, ever even close to what her expectations were, which were absurd. So finally, and she had a lot of money and I just said, thank God someone else can have her fun and joy because she was, uh, what a piece of work. And, and so I've learned a long time ago, no is a good thing. And sometimes you just say no. I have one right now. This lady came to us, goes, referred in by a friend of mine. And I said, okay, if you were referred by her, I'll meet with you. Met with her twice. And my nephew Jeff, who's in business with me, he and I sat down one day and said, do you think we really should take her on? And I said, no. And she had millions. And I said, no, no, we're not touching her. And he said, yeah, I got this bad vibe. I said, oh, if you got a bad vibe, Jeff, let's follow it. Cause I have one that my stomach was erupting. I said, this lady's bad news. So you get to a point where you look and you say, trust your gut and go with the people that feel right. And if they don't, you know, a friend of mine said, some will, some won't, so what next? And I really live by that. Some will stay with you, some will go, so what next? Because, you know, there's 300 and some million people on the planet here in this country. So there's a whole lot of people to kind of interact with.
And no, absolutely. You know, the gut feeling, I think, is I think having an addiction recovery foundation and having been in recovery for many years myself, being an addict, I think we— pain is a messenger. Uh, whenever you're hurting, it's a signal. Uh, nobody likes pain, so we have created all kinds of ways to avoid it, uh, numb it, uh, inebriate it. Hide it when oftentimes it's one of the greatest signals we have. And if we ignore the gut feelings, and that's hard for some people because if you're really numb, you don't even feel it. Some people, if they are constantly in escapism, you know, if you're questioning yourself, you can now pick up a phone and look at a screen and immediately get a dopamine hit. And then all of a sudden you compartmentalize the signal that's telling you danger zone, danger zone. And you don't want to mess up your spidey senses when it comes to clients. And, uh, and, and, and what I think has to happen, especially early on in business, is you got to get your heart ripped out a couple of times. So you step into a bunch of holes. She hopefully doesn't kill you. Uh, however you learn, um, I don't think there's anything we can often say to people. They have to., you know, have their own struggles and pain to realize that, oh, I, uh, you know, I should have not gotten into this. I don't know if there's any way to avoid it. As a matter of fact, I don't want to take away someone's struggle. What I want to take away is their unnecessary suffering, uh, because the struggles are actually how you get stronger. You know, if you were to tell anyone that wants to get in better physical shape that you're going to go, you're going to work out and it's going to be So joyous. You're going to get easy, fun exercises. No, you're going to exert some effort. So what's, uh, what's, what's the— so you're writing 1,000 words a day minimum. Yeah. Uh, what— let's talk about effort. Uh, let's talk about what does one have to put forth in order to get to a better place in life, financially, what, even writer, whatever, because I think Uh, that would be, I'm curious to hear your guys' framing of that. Uh, what effort is worth it? What effort is an absolute waste of freaking time? I want to talk about winning formulas and I want to talk about losing formulas, the things that people didn't lose. And, uh, because that's what your books are about. And, and American Dream Revisited is really starting with just, uh, an optimistic attitude towards there's opportunity here. And if you can't freaking make it in this country, you're not going to get transplanted in most places and all of a sudden you're going to, you know, although environment matters. So let's talk about those things. I love it.
I mean, I'm reminded you talked about AI and some of that oldest wisdom being the truest, right? And I think to riff on what you said, what you put in is what you get out. You get what you give. And so, you know, whether it's talking about like having a good retirement, whether it's talking about having a successful business, getting in shape, whatever it is, writing, you gotta put in that effort if you expect to get any results that are worthwhile. And I think there is some sort of calculus of what goes in comes out.
Do you guys know Chris Voss? Never Split the Difference?
I've been reading his book and actually he's the one I emailed you about his podcast, that whole thing. Yeah.
Okay.
I have a lot of respect for Chris. I don't know him at all, but boy, I read that book and said, this man is It's pretty impressive.
He's great. And we do, uh, he's a Genius Network member for several years now. He's a big friend and we've done a lot of events together here and, you know, he teaches negotiation, uh, techniques and methodologies. Uh, but his whole thing is you've got to do the reps. If you don't do the reps, it doesn't matter. You know, you can repeat the words, but when you do the reps, you actually internalize you integrate it. And I think integration is what is missing with a lot of stuff. That's why when I have someone that's like, yeah, I listen to 20 podcasts a week at double speed. It's like, that's like, how do you eat food at twice the rate without chewing it? I mean, yeah, you're going to eat, but you're not digesting it. You're not assimilating it. And that's my fear with AI. It's that people will just put stuff in, they'll get produce, but they don't get understanding.
Well, and you mentioned too, with just like the amount of information, like I think there's a way to sort of distract yourself. Like if you're constantly consuming information about success, whatever it is, but not actually doing the work to get there, like it's just some sort of weird pacifying where it's like, oh, I, it's like screaming into the void.
Right. Yeah, it is. So what are the reps that someone Needs to do with money. Well, let's talk about that. I'm curious to see, because over all the years you've guided people to, and money's always an interesting subject, even though like truth be told, I don't much rather talk about anything other than how to make money. But what I've learned is sell people what they want, give them what they need.
Yeah. I, uh, yeah, I feel the same way a lot of ways. The reality of it is most people. Were not very educated in money. And so that's why I wrote the first book, If Your Money Talked, What Secrets Would It Tell? Because I was so frustrated how poor our communications are with younger generations about money. So they're out there in the real world trying to figure this out. They got credit card debt, they got all these things going on. And what happens is that it would be very frustrating talking to them and I thought, wow, there's no education here. So that was the first motivator to write that book. But what it also showed me is that older generations also didn't have a great idea either. And so they weren't doing things that were really proactive. There was pretty much destructive in some cases, um, between gambling and other things they would do. And a lot of it now it's even worse because everything's legal gambling. But in the old days, I would talk to these individuals and say, well, tell me what retirement's going to look like because you seem like you're spending a whole lot of money now, but you're not putting any away for later. And they said, well, I'm going to keep working. I said, yeah, everybody says that until they stop. What's really going to happen here? So money to me is a, it's a wonderful tool. I'm glad I have some. I'm glad I get to give some away. Um, is it my primary focus? Oh God, no, not even close, Joe, but it was when I was younger and I had to learn how to flip that switch. So now I find out that people don't really have resources to go figure that all out. So I have clients come to me and they sit and they walk in, blows me away. They hand me a stack of papers this high. And it's their financial stuff and they're going to retire. And they say, here's all my financial. I said, no, no, no, no, no. Let's talk about the rest of your life. And so what do you mean? I said, well, you know, that's going to be stuff we'll deal with the retirement money side, but let's talk about how you're going to spend the rest of your life. Tell me about your first day, first week, first month, first year of retirement. And they say, oh, we're going to go to Italy for a month. I said, that is so cool. When you get back from Italy, tell me about the first day, first week, first month, first year. And they have no plan, Joe. And so what we're doing is we're planning, we're dealing with money thinking that's going to be the solution for everything. And it's just not. And that's what we really got focused in on. That's really why we wrote the book. And we have a course too, which we'll tell you about. But the reality of it is it's all about that. It's about how do you figure out the rest of your life? Because the money, you know, someone asked me in an interview a couple of weeks ago and they said, so, Financial planning. Tell me about financial planning. I said, well, I said, I don't want to make this too simple. I said, but if you don't have enough money at retirement, keep working. If you have enough, but not a lot, work part-time. And if you have plenty, let's talk about that. And they look at me and said, well, that's really simple. I said, no, that's factual. And those are pure facts. You can paint them any way you want. Now everybody fits in that category differently. I mean, you know, how you value money and what you need to retire on compared to someone else, that's all different. But the reality of it is those 3 things work. And if you don't have enough, don't quit your job because that's very stressful. Change jobs. I'm okay with that, but you need the money because you can't earn a living. Uh, you're in trouble.
So, uh, what do you, what do you think are the biggest mistakes that even though there's no lack of people dispensing advice on how to make money, manage money, save money, spend money. Uh, from your perspective, what are the biggest mistakes that you see people make over and over again?
Risk. They take on way too much risk and they think it's going to— I think procrastination is number one though. If you put down a whole list of things, number one problems, procrastination. They just put it off and, well, I'm going to save later. I can do this later. I can do that later. Everything's delayed to the point where you can't overcome the delay time. You know, time helps, uh, time plus income, big deal. And when you short out the time side and you make that a real short window, you've got a problem. And I find people coming in all the time. Oh, I'm going to retire in 10 years.
I said, on what?
And the answer is that, well, I'm going to put more money in my 401(k). I said, yeah, you're about 20 years too late, but you know, good luck. It's sad, but that's one of the biggest issues, I think.
What have you found is one of the most effective ways to wake people up that are going through life sleepwalking in this area and they hear it, but it doesn't turn into behavior? Because I often think that one of the ways I can gauge when I'm being a good teacher or not is if I'm able to transfer what I know that has worked for me Works for others and I share it with someone else and then they're able to do something with it. And I don't mean like he's giving them like a book of stuff or whatever, because there are people that read your book and change your life. There's other people that read your book and then they'll read the next book and then they'll read the next book. And I always thought, you know, back before the internet existed, you know, I heard, I don't know who said it, maybe my buddy Brian Tracy or something. Uh, if. If having access to knowledge is what makes someone successful, then every reference librarian in the world would be a multimillionaire because they are trained how to access almost every bit of information. So there's a lot to do with the person. They're, I mean, everything, their upbringing, their education. I don't think entrepreneurs are made. I think they're born. Some people have a risk-taking type of thing for business that others don't, but the What is the, what have you been able to transfer to people or what do they need to hear in order to be like, I am going, I'm going to screw up my life if I don't make this decision, or I'm going to end up where it's too late. But what you talked about when it's too late, that's a really sad state. And I think that's not the minority of people. I think it's the majority of people. I mean, people just simply ignore this until it's too late to do anything about it.
And then they're miserable. So one of the things I have them do, and they always shake their heads, well, I'm not going to do that. So no, if you're going to work with me, you are going to do that. We're going to track what you really spend in a month. I said, I want to know where your money's going. Because they don't know. And I said, so pull up your credit card bill and show every, everything you spent your money on. And I said, I want to know what you're really doing. And I want to see what your balance sheet looks like. I said, if you're in a deficit position, how are you getting out of it? What are you doing to fix that? If you aren't in a deficit position, you have no money. What are you spending it on? They don't know. So I had a gentleman, I'll never forget this. He came to me, he was referred to me by a business consultant. His name's Ed. And I sit down with Ed and Ed was the president of a company making about $400,000 a year. And he had no money. He had this 401(k) and I said, Ed, where's your money going? And he said, what do you mean? I said, you make $400,000 a year. Let's take off taxes. Here's where you net. Tell me where you're spending your money. And he said, I, I'm doing this. I'm like, no, no, I want to know on paper exactly what happened. So I said, I want you to take a full month and I want you to track your expenses and your wife's expenses. He said, well, I should probably count my kids too. I said, do they have your credit card? And he said, yeah. I said, yeah, I want those also. And so he did that. Um, begrudgingly, he wasn't happy and he bitched a lot, but in the meantime he did it. And when we got back together, he said, oh my God. And I said, where did you find out? He said, my family is spending all my money. And I said, okay, what do you mean? He said, well, my daughter and my wife, no offense to Starbucks, they go to Starbucks twice a day. I said, twice a day? And he said, yeah. And they go every day because they're open 7 days a week. And he said, I realized how much money I'm spending with Starbucks instead. I did buy their stock, but I don't think it's going to help. Anyhow though, it was fascinating to hear what he said and what he did tracking this thing down. He said, I had no idea where our money was going. I now understand. I said, well, that's great. What are you going to do about it? And then that's a different conversation, also tough. But I give that man credit. Uh, he did fix some things and he is happily retired and he's doing okay. But had he not done that little exercise, I don't think he would ever gotten his arms around it.
So I think there's like a through line here because you just said exercise, effort, pain, like the actual effort to go through and track all of your finances. And then the pain of realizing like, oh, this is where the money goes, I think is a great awakener.
Like I believe as an example, and this sounds often kind of weird, is that disgust could be a huge motivator. If you get to where you're disgusted with like the way you look, where you're finding your money's going, but you don't do it until you measure it. A lot of people don't want to look under the hood because they might find a problem. But then it's like, well, an avoided problem doesn't get better with age. It gets worse. It's like rotting milk in a refrigerator doesn't get better. It gets worse. And so you have to find—
leaking faucet, same thing. Like it's not going to fix itself.
Yeah.
I think too, desperation is something that opens minds, right?
Like another, like, yeah. No, I, yeah, you're, you're right. You're right. There's, So I've become friends with Dr. Till, which I never thought I'd be friends with Dr.
Till. I know very few people that can say that.
Joe Polish. Yeah, he's great. And I had him at my last Genius Summit annual event. And just, I mean, incredibly gracious. And we didn't even find till later that the day before, he was at the dentist. He had to have an emergency dental surgery. Tripped over a cord, broke his forearm, didn't take any pain meds because he didn't want to be groggy for our interview that I did with him and his wife, Robin. He was a surprise guest. You know, and even knew he was coming. Never had a single complaint during the entire time. And I was like, no matter what someone's perspective is of Dr. Phil, what they think who he is on TV, like talk about a pro, right? Like, and he, I didn't even know this till 3 weeks later when he sent me just the nicest text message. About how much he enjoyed it, blah, blah, you know. So we're talking about doing all kinds of interesting stuff together. And, uh, one of the things that I asked him over all these years of doing— not at the interview, but this is when I met with him, you know, from when I first met him, uh, you know, uh, I said, you know, out of all this stuff that you learned, what's like— what is sort of the way that you open people up to try to change their life? Because what I've said These words more than probably you, you'll recognize this. He will say to people, how's that working out for you? He's like, someone will get there to bitch about their relationship, their cheating husband or wife, or their kids that are doing, you know, and they're going down this whole path trying to fix it, trying to fix it. And they're, you know, just frustrated because it's not getting them where they want to go. And how's that working out for you? And part of it is to stop and say. No matter how much I think I'm right or whatever, this ain't working. So we got to try something different because he wants to get people out of the victim mindset. You know, he wants to get people out of the, the way. And I'm sure there's a lot of things where with well intentions, no one can be right all the time. But you can lead people to a place. You can help them look at their own lives, but you can't run their life for them. You know, you, you, you, you, you can present, present it to them. So what are the things that to go along that path? How's that working out for you? When people come to you and they're like, why is it that you have to help redirect that? What, where do you find yourself usually directing them what to think about and how to, how to look at stuff? I mean, I would imagine if the family for this individual are spending all their money, you've been asked to have a conversation with his family.
Oh, it was serious. People at a coffee machine said, make your own damn coffee. He cut them off. He said they had Starbucks cards. He said, get rid of those. I want them. He cut them up. He literally said, we're done. You are not going to do this again. And he ran, I mean, it was in the thousands of money that he was dropping on Starbucks. He said, so he came to me and said, no offense again, I'm not picking on Starbucks. But, uh, but he said, if I took this much money, they'd given it to you, how much would you have made last year? I said, well, conservatively, whatever the number was. And he said, okay. They've been doing this for 10 years, Gary. And I said, well, you never put the stock on. And he said, yeah. I said, how was that conversation? He said, oh God, it was brutal. And he said, they're still mad at me because they were so addicted to going to Starbucks. And he said, I don't think it was the coffee. They just wanted to be in the shop and see who was there. And he said, it was a whole image thing also that I never thought about. But I guess if I can get people to really realize what they're doing with their money or what they're not doing. Sometimes, you know, you can lead them to water. You can't make them drink, Joe. And sometimes it's very frustrating because you say, wow, if you just did this, I will tell you a good story. I had a client of mine, he had maxed out 3 credit cards and he was a doctor. So he made a really good living except he couldn't stop buying stuff and he would just put stuff on credit cards. So he and his wife were sitting with me and he's probably 50 and we're looking at their retirement, looking at what they're doing and saying, yeah, we're in trouble here. I said, here's what I want you to do. And I said, I want you to cut up 2 of your credit cards. And he said, why? I said, because I don't want you to ever put another dime on those 2 cards. And I said, furthermore, I want you to put a cap on the one you have. And I want you to call the company and say, this is all I want. This is the max I will accept because, you know, they up it every year. And he said, why am I doing that? I said, because we're going to cut your credit card use down dramatically. And I said, here's what I want you to do. He said, I want you to start paying for cash for everything. And he looked at me and says, cash? And his wife said, yeah, you know that green stuff that you don't have in your wallet? I mean, she was on his case. It was pretty fun, but she basically said, we're doing this. And she took over and she said, for the first time ever, I'm going to manage finances. You've always wanted to do it, but we're pretty screwed up here. And I don't think we're on a good path. So they had this discussion. I just was like ping pong back and forth. Finally, they resolved it. And she took over and she gave him an allowance of what he could spend cash-wise. And she started paying cash for everything. And literally within a year, they wiped out the 2 credit cards, which were substantial debt. And they got the other one very much under control. She paid the bill every month, so they didn't run up any big bills or interest and they flipped their life. And I have to tell you, I ran into them now. Gosh, I haven't seen them for a long time, but I ran into them probably 2, 3 years ago at a symphony function, they came up and says, by the way, you changed our life. And I said, well, thank you. Their son got into business, so they kind of moved away from me and went to their son, which is fine. But they said, you really changed our life. We were, uh, we were going downhill fast. And until you told us that, and really it's hard to conversation. And they said, and then we had to have it with our kids and explain exactly what we're doing, why we're doing it. So, you know, going out to dinner, all these different things that we'd always not doing that. And we're going to get our finances in order. Yeah. I felt really good about that, Joe.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what, what is your reflection?
Well, I think that, uh, I was actually, I was sitting there thinking about, uh, you know, talking about habit change, right. And, um, just adding a little bit of friction into the things that you don't want to do. And so, I mean, cards are so easy, like literally just tap and there's such a step away from the actual, like, money behind it all, that even just, you know, the action of pulling a bill out and handing it to someone and getting some change back, I think is— there's more moments to pause and reflect, to realize what you're doing. And it's just a little bit more difficult than the card, which maybe is all it takes, because there's that moment of like, oh, Yeah.
Well, if you could go back in time when you were 30 years old, starting out, knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently? And I almost want, I want Max to hear this as much as I'm curious to hear what you have to say.
It would be about not thinking about the money side and just trying to focus on helping people. I mean, it's, it's critical. It changed everything, literally financially. Business-wise, my business took off tremendously once that mindset really got embedded. And once I woke up in the morning and said, okay, who am I helping today? At the end of the day, I'd look at my calendar, see what's on, conversations. I'd think about them. And I still do it every day. I mean, I'll have a con— this will be one of my thoughts today, Joe, before I go to bed tonight, I'll think about this interview and say, huh? And it'll be a really positive experience. And so I look at things where I can impact people in a positive way. If I could have done that when I was 30, oh my God. How many more people could I have helped? And that's really what it's all about.
Okay. Well, let me say this then, because before we were filming, you were starting to tell a story about selling and I'm like, save it, don't tell me, because this sounds like it would be really interesting to share and it might be really valuable to people that are listening or watching this. So if you are watching this or listening to this, I should say, wherever you listen to podcasts, we, I will also have a video up on, on the YouTube channel, which now I have Polish.tv, uh, www.polish.tv goes directly to our YouTube channel. But the, the thing that, um, when I hear that, you know, add more value to people, just start helping people. I also have to look at the frame of reference that, you know, I had some pretty good financial success early on. You know, I sold $250,000 worth of my courses, you know, when I was like 26, 27 years old. That was a lot of money way back then. I was in the '90s, right? And then I became a millionaire before the age of 30. And but during that time, I didn't feel successful. I was working my ass off. I was dealing with addiction challenges. You know, which I struggled with, you know, I was, you know, I was a bad addict starting at 18 years old. Right. And I got free from drugs, but I didn't deal with the trauma that led to it. And so I still had very different behaviors. Right. And so if I look back at myself, I was like, my God, I was actually, you know, I kind of have some respect for that young guy that was working his ass off, but I was not happy. I mean, I wasn't miserable and I was making money, which It was awesome. However, the struggle was real. And I also learned marketing. I learned how to sell. So even if I would've had the mindset, like, I really want to help people, if I would've not known how to package and market and write sales copy and write ads and offers and go through niche and actually sold something that worked for people, that belief of just add more value would've done nothing for me because there's no relationship between being good and getting paid. There's a relationship between being good, being good at selling and marketing and getting paid, but you can be the nicest, caring person in the world. And there are millions of them that can't make money that don't know how to make money. So my question for you is when you match that operating system of putting your emphasis on helping others, you actually have to attract those people. You have to market, you know, who's— I, I, let me say it this way. Think of selling as influence. Think of marketing as storytelling. You gotta tell a story that enrolls people. You have to be able to influence people. So you have that mindset and you had said, if I could go back in time, I'd focus more or less on money. Absolutely. However, if you were doing something though, to be able to get people to buy from you or to become clients, how did you do that?
What was it? I think that they trusted me and they knew that I was sincere and that I was looking out for their best interest. I was also making money and they knew that. And I think they just came to grips with the fact that I made a promise to them, which I have no idea what the hell I was really thinking about. I said, listen, when you get to the point where you get to retirement, I'm going to help you. And they look at me and say, really? And I said, yeah. And you're going to need some help at retirement because I've been in this business long enough. And when people get there, They're struggling. And he said, financially. I said, well, there's lots of things they struggle with, but that's certainly a piece of it. And if you do the things I'm suggesting, you're going to make your retirement better 40 years from now, 30 years, whatever it was. Oh, absolutely. Unbelievable. I mean, I have a person in the other day, 40 years they've been with me and they rave about me and Joe, I get, and you get the same stuff. I get cards and emails and letters and And I read these things and I have a drawer where I put them all in my drawer because, I mean, they're touching. I mean, all of a sudden, oh my God, you changed my life. I got one the other day, really nice lady. And she wrote out this note and it basically just said, thank you, thank you, thank you. You have no idea how you've impacted my life. By the way, have I haven't said thank you, thank you. I mean, she just was all, it was incredible. And she said, please let me know when we can get together for coffee again. I so much enjoy that. And so, you know, I look at that stuff and I have a whole drawer of those. So when I get down a little bit, we all do, you know, stuff happens. I open that drawer and start reading those notes and saying, damn, dear, I did okay.
That's funny. I'm glad to hear that because I do the same thing because there are times where I just feel like, why is all of this worth it? Where you're just really frustrated and you need to snap yourself back into like, yeah, you know, there's people that appreciate. What we do.
Yeah. So, well, I got to tell you, Sullivan, Dan Sullivan, instrumental in my life. And the way that happened was, and Max, you were with me, we were in Vancouver. I was president of the Guardian Leader Club. Okay. Okay.
I didn't appreciate that was Vancouver.
All right. Yeah, that was Vancouver. And I had to give a speech and I was struggling with the last part of the speech. Max wrote it anyway. It was really cool. So he really did.
I got to It's kind of neat.
And it's kind of a funny story. Um, when I was a kid, we didn't have any money. So I, and I'll go back to Denzel in a minute, but we, as a kid, we didn't have any money. So I wanted to go to camp and the YMCA on Saturdays, my mom would put me on a bus and give me 50 cents and I could get a hot dog, a beverage, and watch a movie, go swimming, whatever at the Y, but I'd get out of her hair. And it was kind of a ritual every Saturday. Well, one Saturday there's a person there handing out a flyer. And it's, and then they have this whole presentation about the YMCA camp, Camp Tippecanoe. And I came home with a flyer and I handed it to my mom and said, mom, I'd like to buy these mints and sell them because if I sell enough, I get to go to camp. And my mom said, well, that's a problem, Gary. And I said, what's the problem? She said, well, you don't speak. I said, what do you mean? She said, well, you don't talk to people. And I thought about it. I said, yeah, I really don't. So I was very shy, painfully shy. And I kept bugging her, bugging her. And finally she said, okay. So we went down to the Y, we got 2 cases of mints, 48 boxes. And I came home and I put them on my wagon and I walked the neighborhood and they sold for a buck a box. They're really good mints. And, uh, and I sold for a buck a box and I sold all 48 boxes in one afternoon. And my mom was floored. I came in and I dropped all this money on the table, all this cash. I never had $48 in my life, Joe. And anyhow, and my mother said, how did you do that? You don't speak. And I said, well, I pulled out a piece of paper and said, hello, my name's Gary and I'm selling mints to go to the YMCA camp. Would you like to buy that? Whatever, they're a dollar a box. And I would just hand them to people and they bought shit. And so they, I sold a lot of mints. Anyhow, I get to the, they have this ceremony and I show up and You know, every Saturday, and it turns out I was the leading salesperson of the entire campaign. I got 2 free weeks, but the most important thing is they gave me a t-shirt. I had never had a brand new t-shirt like that with the YMCA and about the camp. And they gave me a hat and all that stuff. Anyway, 20 years later or whatever, Max and I were together and I told Max the story and said, you know, why don't we do that? Because Guardian had given me a t-shirt and the same thing, Joe. So I gave this whole presentation with Max. It really works.
Anyhow, it's funny. I mean, you know what it reminds me of though, is Gary Halbert, who I learned direct response from. He became a good friend of mine in the '90s. He has a line, any problem in the world can be solved with the right sales letter. I mean, he literally went hunting people with sales letters.
I think that's—
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's how you sold, which is like, you were literally given—
they probably felt sorry for you. They did.
Right?
Absolutely.
You were using tools in your toolbox in order to, you know, build whatever level of rapport. And you know, my whole thing is, as long as it's legal and ethical, use whatever you can in order to persuade people. And hype used ethically is mass enthusiasm for what you're selling. Hype used unethically is lying, misleading, bullshitting. So obviously, like, I'm a big believer of, uh, be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They will save you for the people you're going to meet on the way down. Don't mislead people. Don't lie. And use the tools in your toolbox, you know, look at all the forms of leverage, but there's, there's great lessons with that. I was sitting there thinking right now, I wonder if I went into a room of very, you know, successful, um, you know, entrepreneurs and I actually had a card that said, I'm not going to talk to you right now, but I just need you to read this. You need to go fill out an application at geniusnetwork.com or something like that and then see what the hell would happen. That would be really just Pretty interesting.
Yeah.
Remember that dude that used to do the infomercials with all the question marks on him? Oh, yes. Lasko?
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, it was so over the top ridiculous. And I look at the modern day version of how does someone get attention? And I'm not saying this is a good strategy because you have to be a personality that can pull this shit off. But it's like, um, Jesse, uh, you know, Cole at, at, uh, Savannah Bananas. Oh yeah.
Okay.
You know, where's his— like, he's a friend. He actually spoke when I was on a one-year sabbatical. He spoke at Genius Network when Dean Jackson was running one of my events while I was on a one-year sabbatical. So Jesse came in, but I'll tell you, I mean, people looked at him as ridiculous in the beginning. He told me the very first game that they ever did, they— I think they sold 2 tickets. Like the people paid for it. And now it's one of the biggest things, I think. Massive. I mean, millions of people on a waiting list. But it, you know, the point is though, you gotta do the reps. You stick with things and that sort of stuff.
And not quit because like, think about selling 2 tickets to a stadium and seeing like 2 people.
It is so easy to pack up your things and stop after that.
Right.
Right. As opposed to, to keep going. And the thing is, is to go back to the American dream, you couldn't do it without the enthusiasm and the future belief. Like, you know, one of the lessons you talk about is, you know, with all the people that are the stories in the American Dream Revisited is that they, it's very similar to Dan Sullivan's The Gap. It's how they measure instead of looking at how far you've not gone, how far have you come from it? So speak to that because You know, Dan, Dan and Ben Hardy both are Genius Network members and they actually, uh, I introduced them and they put that book deal together in a Genius Network meeting, The Gap and the Gain, one of their trilogy books. And it's, it's such an important concept and it's hard for people to grasp. And I'd love for you to be able to explain it in a way to where people can actually truly get what this means, because this one belief can change and will change your life if you adopt it.
The gap was introduced to me in Vancouver. So I'm president of this organization with, I don't know, 3,000 insurance agents. I get voted in by the agents. So I mean, I've had a really successful career, remarkable actually. And I'm there and I'm making the speech. I was like number 8 in the entire company in production, which is a whole lot and all these things. I'm sitting at the president's table and I'm emceeing the entire event. And anyway, one of my friends afterwards, we're sitting in the bar and he says, can I ask you a question? I said, yeah. He said, why aren't you happy? And I said, excuse me. And I thought maybe I need to get another old-fashioned. But anyway, I said, what do you mean? He said, Gary, I've known you for a long time. He said, you're not happy. And he said, why? And I said, I don't know. He said, you don't seem to appreciate where you're coming from. He said, you're in the gap. And I said, what's the gap? He said, well, that's Dan Sullivan's view of when you're chasing your horizon, you can't catch it. You're never going to catch the horizon. Well, you're chasing goals. And for some reason you're lost in that and you're not appreciating where you came from. And then I thought about that a lot and I joined Sullivan's. I think I joined coaching next week. I literally did some research and said, yeah, I'm in. And so I just, you know, I had to qualify and all that stuff. I got ahold of somebody and they said, yeah, you're qualified. I sent them a check and end of story. I was there for about 15 years maybe. And, uh, but what I learned from that is that I was in the gap and I wasn't appreciating these things. So one of the monumental changes in my career was realizing what the gap was, how I wasn't really appreciating where I came from. I mean, my first job, I made $100 a week, Joe Polish. I mean, you know, and the guy that was paying me thought I was overpaid. Uh, that was debatable, but I thought it was worth $100 a week anyway. Um, that was an interesting first week discussion, but nonetheless, uh, I thought about that and I said, yeah, I've had a remarkable career, remarkable life. I have a wonderful son. I mean, there's so many things that have happened. You know, I've been married almost 50 years. It's crazy how many good things have happened. So I have to step back and appreciate that. And I still find myself in a gap, Joe. I still find myself drifting into that and I have to go back and say, dear, take time, pat yourself, give yourself one of these because you need one. And sometimes you got to give it to yourself. And it really caught me off guard how much that happened. And so I think a lot of what I've done since then is really trying to help other people avoid the gap. And help them realize where they're coming from and say, listen, you know, I think you need to take a step back here and look where you came from. Let's talk about how you started. And then they start thinking about that. And I say, okay, so why are you unhappy? And then you're looking at me and they say, are you a psychologist? I said, well, I have a minor in that, but anyway, uh, not so good. But the reality of it is my business has become more psychology. My book, How to Retire, Not Die. Psychology and sociology. It's, it's not, it's not insurance. It's not investments. It's none of that stuff. And I think that's what I end up spending most of my time doing now, Joe. And it really came a lot from Dan Sullivan's group.
Yeah. Well, okay. So that's great. Yeah. And really, I think it boils down to your happiness. Human happiness could simply be how you measure it. Yeah. And I always, Think about the line, feelings are not facts. I could feel shitty, but be doing really well. And sometimes that's an attitude change. Sometimes it's sleep. Sometimes it's not being in a HALT state, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. You know, there's ways that you can change things, or you can feel fantastic and your life is in shambles. That's where people get really high on drugs or if they're really drunk, you can feel amazing in the moment while you're on a path to self-destruction. So the gap conversation is really how do you measure, and there's a lot to be said with it. So you said one thing, which is also one of the, the, um, the American Dream Revisited, one of your, um, things is, um, not strategies is, uh, you, number 2, there's going to be frustration. And then the end it says, and sometimes, uh, in those darkest moments, the only fuel you have is the passion of your dream and your I will not quit attitude. And you said, don't quit. Now here's what I want to get the flip side of that. So Annie Duke, you know, you know, Annie Duke is a professional gambler. Yeah. She's written books on, you know, bets and how to decide. And she has a book called Quit, right? And I love the line. The best way to get out of a hole is to quit digging it. And, you know, Winston Churchill, never give up, never give up, never give up. There's a context to that because something you absolutely should give up on. And when you have a book called, you know, How to Retire and Not Die, well, retire for a lot of people is quitting. So I don't think you guys are saying don't quit anything. It's stick with the things that are worth sticking with and put in perseverance because you may not be winning for several years, but if you don't put in the reps, you're never going to get the winning, you know, and you're going to, you know, in the marketing world, it's called, uh, testing in the real world is called failure.
Right.
So, uh, and if you're not willing to fail, you're never going to be a good marketer and good salesperson because you're going to get rejected. So I want to ask you about the cons before we quit this interview. I want to ask you the concept of like, what does retire mean? When should someone quit and when should someone stick with it? And I know that's an individual thing for a lot of people and we're not here, you know, as, as we can diagnose every single human problem. And these are complicated. There's no easy answer to this stuff. I just want to get more perspective on it because you guys have to, in order for your success, that your client the family needed to quit spending money at Starbucks, right? So quitting is a contextual thing. And had you not stuck with, had I not stuck with the things, if I would have quit early on, I never would have. So it's an interesting concept of what to say yes to and what to say no to.
And I want to get your thoughts on this. So Max and I, we wrote this book, we sold 20,000 copies around the world, which I'm really proud of considering no one knows who the hell we are., but it seems to be traveling on whatever it travels on, which is fun. And then we decided a few years ago to do a video. So Max and I spent 10 hours in the studio recording, much like this, but yours is cooler because you have better scenery. Anyway, I wish I had those at ours. Anyway though, but, uh, but we spent 10 hours in the studio recording this whole course. And, and we really, what you're describing is actually, Max and I would talk about how do you figure out the rest of your life? And so we would have these chapters. One was on the wish list, which was my take on the bucket list, which I never liked because that meant dying. Wish list meant, okay, I can add a wish to it and I can add and keep going. And my wish list, quite frankly, Joe, was almost 100 when I started. And it's probably 75 now of things that I really want to accomplish before I'm gone. And it could be visiting the Savannah Music Festival, which by the way is on my wish list. You know, I was in Savannah. I said, oh, you guys have a cool music festival. A guy said, yes, one of the best in the country. Went on the list, you know, and then I crossed a couple out. So I look at that as a, as a work in process. So when Max and I sat down and really started doing those interviews with us, and it was much like this kind of conversation, we just had a chat and we turned it into a course. And the reason we did that is because people don't read. And so we said, well, they do watch YouTube. They do watch TV. Movies, let's, let's do that. So Max and I kind of teamed up on that. And in that, we really hit some highlights. We talk about likes, loves, and hates, something Dan Sullivan talks about, but we completely flipped that into a whole different category. And I would ask people, you know, you're retired, so what do you hate doing? And they said, what do you mean? I said, well, I'd like you to do a little exercise. So I have them do this exercise and the hates is about that long and the likes are about that long and the loves are about that long. I said, so why are you doing all these things that you hate when you don't have to? And, and I make them think a little bit, at least we try to make them think. So Max and I went through this whole exercise thing and we would take, um, all these different topics that we would discuss to really help them figure out what the next 26 years of your life is going to look like. And that's why on that picture in that book, there's a guy holding a flag at the top and he had climbed the mountain. And now he's got to walk, he's got to live the marathon, 26 years. What are you going to do in your marathon?
What are the other things too? I had read a book years ago called The Right Mount, which the title is interesting because it's like sometimes people climb the wrong mountain. They get to the top and they're just, there's nothing there in the gap. Right. Yeah.
So, so what are your thoughts on this?
So you asked about quitting and I'll say, so first off, the, just the simple reframe of like thinking about what you're retiring to instead of what you're retiring from.
Right.
So just giving you that idea of something to look forward to. But I think when it comes to walking away and quitting, it goes back to something we said earlier and you said, um, intuition and that pain. Like, I think those are your two sort of ways to decipher when it's time to walk away and if you should, right? Because if so, but you've got to have a sense of your intuition, which like we talked about is really easy to get distracted and convoluted in the world today. And then I think unfortunately, like that feeling, that pain, and is it, you know, is it like your biceps sore cuz you did too many curls or did you tear something and are you hurting yourself and need to get out?
Right, right.
Yeah.
And I mean, all of us have had to walk away, maybe not all of us, but certainly the three of us have had to walk away from relationships that in the beginning were scary and hard. And you're like wondering what's going to happen. It could be a client, it could be a friend, it could be a love relationship. But I'll tell you, if it's not a right fit, once you get through the, you know, the rumination and all the other things that go along with it, you're like, whew, you know, it's like, my God, I, if I would have known How much that would've taken pain out of my, it would've taken the metaphorical knife out of my body. I would've done it a long time ago.
I think that's it.
Like if you like can imagine walking away and quitting and you just feel that wash of relief.
Yeah.
I think is another good indicator.
Totally.
Totally. And that's, and that is the complexity of, you know, I, I, I often say to We'll be at a Genius Network meeting and huge amounts of complexity with the entrepreneur translating their visions, their dreams and everything to a group of people that work for them and getting everyone rowing in the right direction. And also knowing that then again, this is my belief. I was talking to my friend, Robin Robbins, the other day, uh, where it's almost impossible to get everyone rowing in the same direction. You may have a 10 or 20% differential and there are people that just are not either understanding or have the skills and talents, or they're just defiant, compliant, whatever the hell it is. But you can't have like 80% of everyone rolling in the wrong direction, 20% right, because it's absolute chaos. And so there are, you know, there are continual, uh, you know, challenges in being an entrepreneur or business owner, which is the majority of people that will be watching or listening to this. And I will say in junior sales, you know, the best thing about being your own boss is you're your own boss. I mean, you can make decisions, you can hire people, you can, you know, kind of have to a degree levels of freedom that other people have, but you also have levels of freedom that entrepreneurs don't have any freedom. Sometimes they're team members in some areas, not all, of course. Uh, and so the best thing about being your own boss is you're your own boss. The worst thing about being your own boss is your own boss. And if you don't develop those leadership skills and capabilities or figure out what your kryptonite is, and you know, it could be absolute chaos. And even with the best of things, uh, no matter what it is, I am yet to ever go into— to use Dan Sullivan's Front Stage, what the clients experience in the backstage, what it takes to put on the show. Uh, I am yet to walk into any If you go into enough closets behind someone's business, there's always something that is completely a clusterfuck and it just is a mess. And most people don't want to talk about it. And so I have to create those environments where people can come and in a, where it's a safe place to be dangerous because most entrepreneurs that are out there, they're dangerous, you know, to other people. They have dreams, they have visions, they have aspirations, they have an ambition. The people that cannot match their ambition will never understand, you know, and it's like, and that ambition can get you into a lot of trouble if it's misdirected. And if you put your ambition into certain things, you got to quit some things and you got to say yes to other things. But I, I, but I know what you guys mean by don't quit. It's like most people, uh, they're not very inspired. They're not very encouraged, uh, in the beginning. And if you're not willing to work through the burn. You're never going to lift weights or work out. You got to go through the burning. If you're not willing to work through the burn, if you quit before you get to the other side, you're never going to get in better physical shape. You're never going to accomplish much of anything. So yeah. So what did we not talk about today that we should have? What did I not ask you or bring up that would be important before we wrap things up?
Well, I think it's important. Everybody asks me, um, with the retirement side. So 95% of people come in my office to visit with me. Talk, want to talk about money. And I think it's really important, but they spend no time about the rest of their life. So we touched on that a little bit, but inside that, there's some things that we really try and help people with. So Max really developed this more than I did, but the purpose, the passion, and the plan. Why don't you explain those, Max?
Because I think those are really important.
Yeah, no, I'd be happy to. Um, subtitle of the book, Purpose, Passion, Plan. Uh, I'm sure you can appreciate we started talking about environments and how like, that's your plan. Like, you just have to put a plan together for how you're going to meet these needs. And it turns out we use a super def— super simple definition of purpose and passion. Purpose, what you do for other people. Passion, what fills your cup and what you do for yourself. And that nobody works their entire life to have a shitty retirement. Everyone wants to enjoy it. And so as long as you have a plan that you're willing to amend that meets all your needs, that's full of purpose and passion, like you're well on your way to accomplishing the goal you've arguably spent 40 years stepping up that mountain for. And I mean, I know for you, when you pitched me this idea, like it goes back to that relationship building. And, you know, since you, you help someone amass enough money to get to this place that they want to get to, only to see it slip away in less than a year because they don't write. And so to be able to just put some information out there to help people think about that is kind of what, what we try to do.
Got it. So if, if people were to start with one of, one of the books, which book would you recommend first?
How to Retire and Not Die. It's something that if they look at that, they can, So if they're young, their parents are going to be in that position, which by the way, amazes me how many young people have bought that book to give it to their mom and dad who are going to retire. I will give you a really cool story. I'm at a United Way function. They asked me to be a speaker and I said, sure, I'll be glad to do that. It was myself and another author. They interviewed us and we did our thing. They gave our books away and really nice building. We were in this guy owned this company and I'd never met him before, but it was really pretty building and I complimented on the building. Um, about 6 months later, I went to another function, this time at his home, equally lovely. And a lady comes up to me and I had no idea who she was. And she walks across the room and she right in my, right to Linda and my, and she says, can I hug you? And Linda, I looked at Linda, I don't know who this person is. I said, uh, why would you want to hug me? She said, well, I picked up your book and I said, okay. And she said, well, actually that's not true. I picked up two of your books when you spoke at the United Way. I said, why two? She said, well, I have two parents and they don't communicate real well. So I got them each a copy since they were giving them away. And I have to tell you that they were both going to enter retirement, same age, and they were at war. They could not figure this out. They were not getting along well. And I'm just looking at this train wreck that's about to happen. And I'm, terrified. I gave them each your book. They read the book. They said, oh my God, you now have a plan. We now can figure this out. And she said, I just, she was crying. And Linda said, I think you can hug him. So, you know, it was one of those things, Joe, you just say, okay. And you know, something like that just made it all worthwhile. So when I think about this and I think about how we're hopefully really impacting people in a positive way, Yeah, and it just feels good. It feels like it's the next course of what I really want to do in my life. And I'm certainly not retiring. You know, people say, why are you still working? I said, well, the boss didn't fire me. He said, aren't you the boss? I said, yeah, I haven't fired myself yet. I work about 5 hours a day and I take 9 weeks vacation off and we have a really good life, but I'm not going to quit this because I still feel like I can help people and impact them in a positive way.
Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, I, I actually enjoy being productive. And I always say, not that this is a very conscious sort of thought most of the time, I have different stages in my life depending on fatigue level and energetic level is I will trade peace for productivity. You know, like I wouldn't do the addiction recovery stuff. It's not, that's not always fun. It can be actually quite difficult. However, the rewards of seeing the byproduct of it benefiting other people and benefiting myself, because I am, I really don't like people that try to pretend they're philanthropic, uh, as if they're not getting anything out of it. You know what I mean? People like, you know, it's wonderful what you do in the recovery space. And it's like, well, it's not because I'm some philanthropic angel, it actually helps me in my own life. And if you're doing something for a living that is not benefiting other people and yourself, you need to rethink how you're approaching it. Like, for instance, in the carpet cleaning business, that's— I was a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards. I learned marketing because I needed to survive. I created a methodology that worked for me and figured, I wonder if this will work for other people. Uh, I kind of accidentally fell into it, uh, because I was studying marketing. And I was reading all this stuff about people in the direct mail business back in the '90s. And I was like learning all of this about how to package knowledge and stuff, which I never went down that path. I was just trying to pay my bills and I was trying to figure out how to be, you know, successful carpet cleaning business. And along the way I discovered some stuff and I became a convert of my own system. And I have often found that people that are in the teaching, information publishing, consulting, coaching world, but they only got into it so that they can coach other people. They never were converts to their own system. They just wanted to be advisors. They don't seem to do well like people that have actually transformed their own life on something. And what I find about most successful people, I'm yet to find anyone that did not have some, had the, you know, adversity that was incredible that launched them. So, I mean, we're not just dealing with knowledge, we're dealing with identity. And if people don't adopt an identity shift, uh, you know, because I always say people working out, well, we're putting everyone through a contest right now. We're giving away a Storyteller overlay on SprinterMate. And it's, uh, you know, it's this contest. We're going to reward people. And part of it is in order to have a breakthrough, you got to break something. And it's not going to be easy. People have to, they're going to come face to face with something they have to throw out and a new behavior for something they want to do. And so someone visions a bigger future. It is not just an intellectual exercise to get your body to go along with the goals and the dreams and the desires that your brain is thinking of and wishing for. Like when you say your wish list, right, versus a bucket list, you can write it down, but your body has to go do that thing. If it's going to go play golf in Savannah or whatever, get on a yacht or climb a mountain or, you know, go and feed homeless children. It could be anything. Your body has to come along with it. So what my hope is, is that, uh, yeah, it is, is basic as this sounds. If you resonated with anything that we talked about today, go and pick up a copy of the book, um, How to Retire and Not Die, the 3 keys that will keep you young., and read it and, uh, see what you can apply and see what you can adopt. And then last thing, because I want to make sure, uh, I thought we would end right here. Uh, going back to the American Dream, you just said there's a lot of people that became discouraged since the pandemic. Why, uh, do you feel that the American Dream is not only, uh, alive, but it's a real possibility for anyone that pursues it?
It's, it's a mindset. And I think there's a lot of people that are just so negative about what's happening and what's going on in their life. And I, and I see that all the time, but I also see the other side. I mean, I'll give you a great example. I have a young college guy that just joined me from The Ohio State University. Uh, anyway, and, and he's learning the business and we were talking about the American dream and I said, tell me what American dream is like to you? And it made him think. And he said, you know, that's really an interesting question. I think it's, you know, helping people do things. And I said, what's your American dream? And I don't think he'd ever thought about it for a minute. And so I think what I'd like to see happen with the American dream is that people start talking about it again. And again, my basis, the American dream is food, clothing, and shelter. I think there's a whole lot of people that that's going to become really important again to Joe Polish Polish Polish. And I think that's going to matter. And it's not about being a billionaire or mega rich. It's about how do you take care of yourself, your family? How do you have a good life? Um, I have a lot of clients that are not wealthy and have wonderful lives. And I tell people that all the time. I said, my richest people aren't very happy sometimes. In fact, most of them, I won't say most, but a lot of them are pretty miserable. And you've experienced the same thing, I'm sure.
Uh, all the time. Yeah. There's, uh, success is, uh, I'm very careful to not tell someone what a successful life is. We can look at successful marketing campaigns relative to what they were doing before. We can look at, you know, different forms of winning that people would consider success, but to tell people what successful is, some people's being a great parent, other people's getting in great physical shape, other people's a deep spiritual connection, other people's making a lot of money, but thing is, is, uh, yeah, if you don't win a game you don't want to be in. Um, so the thing is picking the right game, designing the game the right way. And yeah, success traps are oftentimes harder to get out of than failure traps. So that's why we see a lot of wealthy people that are miserable. And some of the happiest people I know, they don't make a lot of money. They're just engaged with life. So hopefully, uh, this will help you be more engaged with your life, uh, how to reframe retirement. And, uh, and I appreciate the time. So it was great chatting with you guys. Joe, what a pleasure. Yes, man. A treat, man. Thank you.
Thank you. Onward and upward. Hey Joe, this is on my wishlist. Thank you.
Thanks, Joe Polish.
Oh no, this was— damn, I have him on my wishlist. Yeah, this is—
so thank you. Thank you. And if you listen to this or you watch this and you have someone in your life, young or old, in between, that would benefit from it, please share it. And wherever you're listening to this, please comment if you liked it. And if you found it valuable, what the heck are you going to do with it? So until next time, see ya. Thank you. Okay, I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. They're over here. Do it now. Come on.
Thank you.
Watch them.
More from Joe
This FBI Trick Can Command Respect Without Saying a Word ft. JEFFERSON FISHER & CHRIS VOSS
How To Stand Out, Be Different, and Create Raving Fans, Customers, and Employees ft. Jesse Cole
90% Of Businesses Fail In Their First Year, Here's Why! ft. Dr. Benjamin Hard & Dr. Robert Cialdini
The 1 Piece of Business Advice I Got From Elon Musk That Changed Everything Ft. Kamal Ravikant
The 6 Traits You CAN'T Teach in Entrepreneurship ft. Richard Branson & Gino Wickman
The Leg Method: How to Make Your Book into a Million-Dollar Asset ft. Anna David
7 Millionaire Mindset Hacks for Daily Success and Wealth ft. Brian Tracy & Dan Sullivan
