Willpower Doesn’t Work with Benjamin Hardy, Joe Polish and Dean Jackson - Genius Network Episode #82

Do you know where people go wrong when it comes to Willpower? In this sneak peek at a coming I Love Marketing episode, Joe Polish and Dean Jackson speak with Genius network member Benjamin Hardy about his new book, Willpower Doesn't Work. Did we mention a chance to win Joe Polish's Tesla? For more about the I Love Marketing podcast, please visit ilovemarketing.com for more about Benjamin's book, please visit Willpower Doesn't Work. If you would like access to the complete presentation, the show notes, the links, and the special resources for this episode, please visit geniusnetwork.com 82. That's geniusnetwork.com 82.

Hey, everybody, it's Dean Jackson and it's me.

It's Joe Polish. And we have a very special guest by the name of Ben Hardy. We're just going to jump right into this, Dean.

Okay. Why wouldn't we go with that?

Yeah, why wouldn't we?

Yeah. So. All right.

Ben, can you hear us?

Okay. Oh, yeah. All right.

You're somewhere in the world right now. I'm in Arizona, Dean. Where's Dean at? Where you at, Dean?

I'm in Florida right now.

Okay, lovely. So, all right. For people that don't know, Ben Hardy has been the number one, not number two, not number 10, the number one writer on medium.com since late 2015. And basically, the guy's written a ton of amazing articles, writes all the time, brilliant writer, and millions of people have read his articles and have used them to guide and transform and change their lives for the better. And he's, you know, he's gone from 0 to over 325,000 email subscribers with zero paid advertising, which is quite a feat in and of itself. And his very first book, which is Dean and I have both read and I've listened to the entire thing on audio also. It's called Willpower doesn't work. It was. What was that, Dean? What was that sort of weird noise you just made?

Show off. I said showing off.

Yeah, yeah. So it was released on March 6, 2018. And so Ben and his wife Lauren are the enormously proud parents of their three recently adopted kids. And so, Ben, welcome to the I Love Marketing Podcast. Today I'd like to talk about, you know, some of the ways that people, you know, need to become a better human. What did I not say about you that people should know? Before we just launch into some questions.

About for you, here's what some people should know. Half of what you said is true. I'm just kidding. No, I would say this is One of the things that I want people to know right up front is that joining Genius Network, you know, and this is a fat plug in the front, but it's just true. Joining Genius Network is one of the core reasons why a lot of that stuff was even possible. I mean, I was the number one writer before I joined, but a lot of the concepts that allowed me to write Willpower Doesn't Work. And even the title of the book is a product of being Ingenious Network. I couldn't come up with a title until I met Joe and then we met JR and so the book would have been called something else. And a lot of the insights that allowed me to finally come up with the book are a product of being around Joe and about and around being in that group. And one of the big concepts in the book is about, well, we'll jump into it. But I mean, one of the big concepts in the book is obviously putting yourself in the right environment. And that's one of the things that you've been doing for a lot of years. So I just want to plug that straight up front that the book wouldn't be what it was and I wouldn't be able to think about things the way I do now without being around you and being around Genius Network. Thank you.

I really, really do appreciate that. And I think at this point, I think we should just end this episode and everyone should immediately go. Good night, everybody. No, in all seriousness, thank you, Ben. And it's great to have you in the group because you are a. You're a giver. I mean, you're a total giver. And right from the very first meeting, you know, I don't think you ever had spoken before, Dean, are you putting together like a model airplane or something in the background? What's all that noise?

I'm not going to tattle on anybody, but I'm sitting here perfectly silently still.

You doing your dishes or something here?

What's going on?

So right from the get go, when you joined Genius Network, you immediately started being helpful and useful to everybody, which is one of the things I love so much about the people in Genius Network. And through that collaboration, we have that environment. I mean, we've created that environment within Genius Network. And having you come into it just makes it that much better, which, of course is kind of one of the big takeaways that I think people are going to get from this episode and what you have just done a masterful job with writing about. And, you know, willpower doesn't work. So, Dean, unless You want to ask or say anything about Ben or about the framing of this before we jump into. I just want to kind of go into some questions.

Yeah, let's do it. I mean, I'm super excited. This is one of those books that I said it from the moment I read. I read the whole book in one sitting on the plane from Orlando to the last Genius Network event. And I said, then this book is really like a perennial wisdom book. I mean, that's really gonna be what happens. We're gonna look back and this is one of those books kind of like Robert Cialdini's influence, you know, like, it's been around for 30 years. But I think we're gonna be referring to this as a game changer book. So I'm super excited to talk all about it.

Yeah.

And so much so. I should probably mention this right from the get go in case someone just doesn't listen to this entire episode, which they would. You know, their life would probably not even be anywhere near what it will be if they do. However, go to willpowerdoesntwork.com I literally have put up my Tesla as a contest prize because Ben is doing a Willpower doesn't work contest. I know this is going to transform people's lives so much so that I literally have built a contest with Ben around this, and I think it's pretty amazing. And it's solely just to get the message out about this book. I am contributing my Tesla into this. So you can literally win my Tesla. There's like three states in the United States that you can't compete based on just contest laws and whatnot. But for the most part, everywhere else, you can. So if you live in the United States and you want to compete in this cool contest, do it. And even if you don't want to try to win my Tesla, just going through it and using what Ben will talk about today, it can absolutely change your life. So, Ben, what's the big idea behind willpower? Doesn't work.

Yeah, definitely. So we live. Sorry, this sounds a little weird. I just jumped into a big room, so I'm going to step into a different room. So we live in a very individualistic culture. So when you think about self improvement, probably one of the first things you're going to think about is something like willpower or goal setting or mindset or a bunch of other things, you know, and that puts a lot of pressure on a person, especially if they've tried to change their life over and over and over again. And, you know, you And I have spent a lot of time talking about addiction. And I grew up, you know, my father was a meth addict. My younger brother's gone through intense cycles of addiction. I've even dealt with it to some degree and from a. From a behavioral standpoint, you know, and just trying to change your life. So the last thing an addict can and should do is try to. Try to fight a silent battle, try to will their way out of an addiction. And how I started looking at changing your life is kind of the same way. Because, you know, what. What. What's his name, Harari says in his TED Talk, is that the opposite of addiction is connection. It's about what's around you. It's about seeking help, about being vulnerable. And kind of the big idea of the book is, is that willpower or any individual attempts to change your life without actually changing your environment. It just isn't going to work. Like, from a psychological perspective, what psychologists say is that all of your behavior is outsourced to your environment. So how you feel at a rock show is going to feel and be totally different than if you're at a cemetery. Like, and, you know, if you're on an airplane, you're not going to be able to smoke cigarettes, you know, unless you're on an airplane that allows for that. But most airplanes won't do it. It's because your environment controls your behavior. It controls all these things around you. And just one other example. Think about driving a car. Like, when you first start driving a car, your brain is working a million miles an hour because you're thinking about all the cars around you. You're thinking about the gas pedal. You're thinking about all these little things. But over time, it eventually becomes unconscious. And you can drive a car while not even thinking about driving. You could be reading a book. I mean, not reading a book. You could be on the. Sorry. You could be on the phone. Sorry, I got you, Dean. You could be a. You know, you could be on the phone. You could be thinking about a million other things and not even realizing you're driving. And so what that concept is, it's called automaticity. It means that almost all behavior is automatic, and it's based on the environment. And that's how most people live. Almost all of our behavior is unconscious. And we don't even realize what we're doing. And we don't realize that what we're doing is being shaped by the people around us, by our society, by all these things. And so what I talk about in the book Is that especially in today's culture and in today's society, we live in an environment where addiction is so rampant, the first thing someone's going to do when they wake up is probably 85% of adults. First thing they're going to do is look at their smartphone. And it's because the environment has been set up for them to unconsciously and reactively get zoned into an addictive, distractive behavior. So the environment's been set up. And so the big idea is just you are a product of your environment. You can't do it through willpower. Willpower is an energy source that runs out. And so rather than trying to will your way to behavior change, the book is about creating and controlling an environment that is in alignment with your values and goals. And really that's the only way you can change. And we can go, we'll go further and further into how to change your identity and personality and stuff. But you know, if you want to make any permanent, long lasting change in your life, you can't do it in a goal conflicting environment because your willpower is going to run out and because your behavior is outsourced to your environment like you're, you're a product of your situation. And so that's kind of one of the big things I wanted to show is that if you want to make a big change in your life, you can't do it through willpower. You've got to change your environment because you and your environment are two parts of the same whole.

I love it.

Let me say something too. Just because there's going to be a. There's easy ways to like say, well, you know, almost everyone, every human being can point to something where they gutted their way through something, where they will power their way through something. And I've thought a lot about this whole concept since I met you, since I've read the book, since we've had conversations about it, and more and more, I absolutely believe that if you can get this concept of what you write about in the book, and that's why, you know, people may need to really kind of go deep into this because there's so much in self help and personal development that has, you know, tried to teach people to willpower their way through it, to control your mind, to become this level of mental toughness and all of this discipline and those things directed in the right way could be very beneficial to traits. I mean, certainly, you know, one thing though that has really hit me is there's a guy named David Goggins who did a great episode with my buddy Tom Bilyeu on impact theory, and he did an interview with Joe Rogan. And, you know, so he's got a lot of media that's starting to go out there. He's Navy seal. He's endured some of the most insane physical challenges that any human being could ever go through. I mean, tons of broken bones, surgeries, all kinds of crazy stuff. He's 43 years old. I spent an hour on the phone with him day before yesterday, and we're going to do a podcast episode with him in a few months, and I'm going to, you know, help him as best I can with a new book that he's got coming out in the future. And just. This is a guy, when you hear him talk, he's like, you know, he talks about willpower and everything, but he. You know, I listened to all of his stuff and even said it to him, you know, on the framing of. Well, you know, you. One of the environments that he created and embraced for himself was suffering, that he literally. He would put himself in a situation where he would suffer, and he would. Now, in his mind, it's willpower, and it certainly was willpower. I mean, this guy probably has more willpower than anyone I think I've ever personally met. That being said, though, if you look at all of the things that he did in the situations he put himself into, there was always this environment attached to this and this thing that he was trying to overcome, like this pain and this struggle and this, like, the way that he would look at himself, like, I'm a pathetic human. I mean, just a very fascinating thing. And when you would hear that, I think most people would hear him and. And say, oh, yeah, man, this guy just has the strongest willpower of anyone on the planet. And they would miss the part that. I think you are the first one I've ever seen describe it in such a, you know, an articulate way with tons of, you know, research to back this up. I mean, you have your PhD now, right?

No, not yet. Not yet. I kind of. I kind of stalled it, you know. You know, involved in Genius Network and a million other things. But it'll be. Well, that's probably even.

That's probably even better.

It is. It's a much better education. Trust.

No, but.

But the point is, I can attest to it, actually. But. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, that's a whole nother conversation. But. But the point is, you've been researching and studying this for quite a while, and I Mean, at a very young age, you have, like, really discovered a lot about what makes humans tick and what makes them perform. And I mean, this is the thing that. That you discovered. So the point is, like, I want people to be very open to this, because I think what so much of what I have been taught and what I had accepted as truth, once I read your book and have learned a lot from you, I realized, wow. I mean, so much of what is fed to people about what creates success is just wrong. I mean, it's a myth. And so, you know, so we're not saying don't develop your mind and your mental abilities and your patience and your discipline and all that. I mean, there's a million different ways that you can set up qualities and characteristics to achieve, to learn, to grow, to be a better, different person yourself. I mean, in the field of addiction and recovery, I mean, I see it all the time. You change the environment of someone that's struggling with addiction. The environment has more to do with someone being a drug addict than drugs have to do with someone being a drug addict. And that's very. Most people would hear that, and they're like, what the hell are you talking about? And, you know, this whole war on drugs is like a war on addicts. I mean, the drugs are actually a solution. The behaviors, the. You know, and you can be in a beautiful, peaceful environment in the mountains, by the beach, you know, whatever is serenity and joy and paradise to you. And then you bring in a smartphone or you bring in some sort of electronics, and you've now interrupted in that environment. So, I mean, even the thing you started with 85% of people, approximately, whatever, look at a smartphone immediately because they have an environment set up to do that. Well, boom, you're right into that. You got sucked into that vortex of distraction. Since most of the people listening to this are entrepreneurs, why don't we talk about how this applies to. I mean, it would apply to anyone, for that matter. But where do entrepreneurs go wrong when it comes to willpower? And then, Dean, I'm going to quit, you know, babbling and let you ask some questions, too.

But I want to. I want.

I want to know. I want to know so much.

Well, I mean, I'll jump in. I'll jump into the entrepreneurs. I want to. I want to quickly go back to this guy who you're going to interview, who's this super endurance athlete for a second, you know, then I'll jump right into entrepreneurs. But I'm thinking about this, you know, when it comes to endurance athletes. There's a lot of really cool research. So I guess I'll just quickly say there's a few things related to willpower and how it exists and stuff like that. So this guy, my guess is. So there's a, there's a poem, my favorite poem, and I share a little bit of it in the, in the book. But the poem is, it's by Douglas Malik and it goes like this. Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees, the further sky, the greater length, the more the storm, the more the strength. By sun and rain and rain and snow and trees and men, good timbers grow. And so basically the idea is good timber does not grow with these. And so like if you look at trees, am I talking actual trees? Trees that are actually in a really strenuous, intense, difficult environment. They're forced to shoot down deeper roots, they're forced to adapt, they're forced to grow, you know, harder bark to deal with the tree. Like if you were to put a palm tree, some really intense environment, it would be blown over in a second just because it's not ready for that environment, you know. And so when I'm thinking about your guy, you know, I forget his name even.

David Gargan.

Yeah, David. I'm thinking that this guy, he's purposefully put himself under rigorous, you know, situations and challenges, you know what I mean? In an environment and a situation are two of the same thing. I mean, it's not just about what's outside of you, it's about all the things related. I mean, he's competing in all these difficult challenges. So there's like the story of the kid who, who back in 1982, his truck fell on top of him and his mom came out and was able to lift a 2,000 pound truck off of him, you know, and, and you know, that situation summons some deeper side of, of this lady. You know, if her son wasn't under the truck, she wouldn't have been able to lift the truck. So situations are also part of this. It's not just about what's directly outside of you, but it's about the overwhelming, the all around situation. So my guess is that this guy, whatever it may be, whether it's stuff from his past or competition, whatever it is, there's aspects of this guy's situation and also his decision making abilities that allows him to do this. I'm not saying he doesn't have willpower because, I mean, obviously there's a lot there. But Clayton Christensen, he's The Harvard Business professor, He says that 100% commitment is easier than 98% commitment. Like, when you're 100% committed to something, which is really hard to do, it's hard to be 100% committed to something. But if you're 100% committed to something, if you've actually made a tangible decision, then you don't have, you know, then you don't have to think about it in every situation. So, like, if you're only 98% committed to anything, then in every situation you're in, you have to. You have to make a choice. You know, it's like, am I going to eat the cake today? You know, and I know that, Joe. I know you've gone, like, long periods of time without eating sugar. And sadly, whenever you're with me, somehow it happens, you know, but, but like, but, but like, when you just know, for example, when you say, I'm going 100% sugar free, like, once you've made the decision, then when you're in a situation where you're out at dinner or something like that, you just say, no, I'm not. I don't do that. You know, I'm not eating sugar right now. Like, you don't let the situation govern what's going to happen. But if you're 98% committed or if you're not 100% set, if you haven't actually made a decision, you know, if you haven't made a decision, then in every situation, you have to make a choice. And when you leave it up to situations, often the situation wins. And so, you know, a lot of. I think what this guy has done is he's made choices. You know, he's made a decision about how far he's going to go or about what he's going to do, and then that, that allows him to overcome even difficult situation. So that's. Those are just some thoughts. One of the quotes from the book is that willpower is for people who haven't yet made a decision about what they're going to do. If you've got willpower, then you're still dealing with the inner conflict. And another definition of willpower is decision fatigue. You know, it's about making choices. Like, there's this whole book called the Paradox of Choice. And, you know, if you've got. If you've got a million choices, then it's sometimes hard to make any. Like BJ Fogg, he's one of our, you know, mutual friends. He talks all about how willpower is a myth. You know, and about how to eliminate willpower with small habits. So it's like if you don't, if you want to make less choices, like in the morning, for example, like if you want to get yourself to floss, for example, just pull out the floss the night before and put a piece of floss on your, on your, you know, right next to the sink. And your chances of flossing are a million times bigger than if you just have your floss in the cupboard and you've got to get up and decide, am I going to do it? If you've already laid it out, like if you've laid your clothes out the night before, then the decision was already made. You don't need to make a choice. And that's how you eliminate willpower, is you just make choice. That's one of the ways is making choices. Obviously a big component of what we're talking about is environment as well. But anyways, do we want to. Joe, do you want me to dive into entrepreneurship or should we just pass it over to Dean?

Dean, why don't we pass over to you, then we'll come back to that. And here's the whole thing about entrepreneurs because I mean, there's many similarities to everyone and there are some differences. So let's just, everything that we talk about, let's just do it under the frame that most people that are going to be listening to this are people that operate in a world where their ability to make a living, to make an income, to grow wealth, to become better is totally based on their, you know, ability to create a result. And your knowledge and what you write about and talk about in your book is exactly how to set that up to give yourself the highest possibility of success. So let's just, you know, let's just talk about everything under the frame that we're talking entrepreneurs.

You know, there's an interesting thing. I found a article in the New York Times just recently that may be an ally of not needing willpower, an ally of environment kind of thing. But the article is called the Tyranny of Convenience. And as I read this, it was really interesting because it goes hand in hand with environment. But I'm just going to read a couple of things from it. It's amazing actually. It says convenience is the most underestimated and least un understood force in the world today as a driver of human decisions that may not offer the illicit thrill of Freud's unconscious sexual desires or the mathematical elegance of the economist's incentives. Convenience is boring, but boring is not the same thing as trivial. And Evan Williams, the co founder of Twitter, recently said, convenience decides everything. Convenience seems to make our decisions for us, trumping what we like to imagine are our true preferences. I prefer to brew my coffee, but Starbucks isn't an instant is so convenient. I hardly ever do what I prefer. Easy is better, easiest is best. Convenience has the ability to make other options unthinkable. Once you've used a washing machine, laundering clothes by hand seems irrational, even if it might be cheaper. After you've experienced streaming television, waiting to see a show at a prescribed hour seems silly, even a little undignified. To resist convenience, not to own a cell phone, not to use Google, has come to require a special kind of dedication that is often taken for eccentricity, if not fanaticism. And it goes on showing this whole thing about how convenience, which is really like an extension of environment, is one of the most underrated kind of triggers of our decisions. And I've been employing that, you know, to great. Like I think when you look at, if I look at the things that sort of trigger food choices, for instance, that getting. Being hungry or being, getting to a point where you're. Where now I've got to go seek something out, the natural tendency is going to be to seek out something that's not the, the best because that's an environment that I've been conditioned in. So now surrounding myself with adding fruit or JJ Virgin's protein bars, like right there, right in the places where I am when I am going to get hungry. But thinking ahead to keep that stocked has. I see the evidence of that trumping the extra effort that it would take to go and get something that would be a worse choice. I'd literally have to climb over or trip over the healthy, easy choice to go get something that would be less, less healthy, you know, and that's made, that's made a big difference. It's.

Yeah. I mean, everything you just said reminded me, it's connecting so many dots between so many things that Joe, that Joe has actually taught me. So like one, one of Joe's, one of Joe's concepts. So Joe has like these concepts that are all different, but I can, I'm starting to see the connection. So like, you know, well, when it comes to convenience, like, Joe talks a lot about elf, you know, and about like, yeah, doing things, doing things that make sense. And he talks all about, you know, having a genius network, you know, and about, you know, really when you, when you have what you're talking about, a lot of it's just Setting things up so that it's. So that things happen, you know, like I bought MTC oil because I'm starting to try to go ketogenic. And like when you have healthy foods nearby, like I bought like, you know, beef jerky and all sorts of things and I just have healthy foods nearby as my default option. I keep. I make it convenient to actually eat the way I want to eat. You know, it's all about setting up the environment, you know.

Yeah.

You can make it convenient to sleep. Well, you can make it convenient, you know, to connect with the right people. I mean, I think what you're saying is 100% right.

And I think you hit on something there that it's about proactively setting up in advance. Right.

So we.

It's kind of like this dance. I saw Kevin Smith had a thing on his website is the Facebook where he talked about this. You know, our idea of our future self is that they're going to have more willpower or they're going to have more have stuff figured out. Right. So to keep putting stuff off to future self and thinking that they're going to magically somehow be equipped to make better choices at some point in the future. And is the reality is that future self depends on present you to make the decisions now that are going to set up future you for the win.

Like, I mean, I think now that.

You'Re going to put the dental floss, you know, right out on the counter so that it's the first thing you see in the morning when you wake up. That choice is setting up future you to win.

Yeah. I mean, one of the things I love about what Dan Sullivan says, one of his. One of my favorite quotes of his is that it's better to remind yourself with people who remind you of your future than people who remind you of your past. Yeah. You know, and so it's like basically what you're doing is you're setting up an environment that allows you to evolve into the person you want to be. You know, like, that's one of the main reasons I joined Genius Network is because I was able to, you know, surround myself with people like you guys. People surround myself with people who are where I want to be and it makes success convenient. You know, I think that's exactly what Joe talks about all the time. You set up environments, you set up situations. You surround yourself with people that make. Make it convenient.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I agree with you. Yeah. It's about being intentional about setting up the environment. That's what that's that's what. What's his name? Marshall Goldsmith said. He said if we do not create and control our environment, it creates and controls us. And so many people don't think about just setting it up. It's like, who is. Who are you going to become? You know, and I think that's why Dan Sullivan says if you surround yourself with people who remind you of your future, then you're going to become that person. But if you continually, continually stay in situations or remind yourself with people who remind you of your past, you're get stuck there. You know, if you don't just take the time to set things up because, you know, it takes time to adapt. But. Yeah, go ahead, Dean. I like it. Yeah. I mean, that whole thing.

So when you look at it that really. It's about taking the time. Now when you're not in a. What's the right word?

In a.

Well, let's call it a triggered environment. Right. Where you're not in a. In a triggered. And that's really it. Where your environment is either there, it's convenient to do the new behavior that you want, or you're in an environment when you're triggered that it's more convenient to go to your deep.

Yeah.

Like it's. Yeah. It reminds me like it's better to set yourself up before you're hungry to eat good food than to try to make that decision while you're hungry. Right. It's like if you're craving, for example, like, you know, a drug or something, if you're gonna. If you didn't set things up so that you have a shot at, you know, not jumping into the craving, if you just waited until the trigger happened and then you made a decision in that situation, you're probably not gonna make the right choice. Right. So, yeah, in the book, I actually call that Implementation Intentions. It's a psychology idea. It's about planning for failure. You know, it's about planning. It's about planning on getting triggered. It's about planning on knowing that the situation. That bad situations are going to hit you. And that's exactly what athletes do as well.

Yeah.

The if then kind of situations. But setting them up with an environment like. So I really. I do look at that as.

Yeah.

Investing kind of some time right now today for. To set up future Dean. For wins. That's really what it's about. It's kind of amazing because it's a. It's a multiplier too. You know, it's like that the little bit of time that you take to just ask, what can I do to set up future Dean for this win? And you know, when you. All these things, this is part another, you know, great testament for being part of a genius network that a lot of these things dovetail together.

Right.

If you take this idea of willpower doesn't work and, and you marry it with Craig's idea of the perfect day and setting up that environment so that your, so that your environment supports your intentions for that for the perfect day.

It's.

That's magic.

Yeah, Go ahead, Go ahead. No, no.

So Dean, what do you think in terms of things that you have done in the past that were counter. That didn't work, that were setting you up for failure? I mean, you made the examples with just like foods to eat. And I know you've been on that journey. We actually shot a video about that.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a perfect, There's a perfect example. So a lot of morning, so morning routine that would, you know, get me. That was just sort of like becoming. That was a default pattern was going for breakfast to Starbucks and right next door is the Panera Bread. So getting a, you know, a bacon, egg and cheese on a sesame bagel as a breakfast sandwich with mocha as a breakfast is setting up for failure. Right. So I could, you know, had switched to making that same thing if. And then kind of thing if I go to Starbucks for breakfast. You know, it's making trade outs of having a. They have a protein bistro box and a green tea as an example as a alternate choice better.

And.

But here's the thing is some morning when I go there, they would not have the protein bistro box.

Right.

So then it requires willpower to make another choice as opposed to just, okay, well I have the bagel and the, you know, so as soon as you have to exert the willpower, that's a, that becomes an issue. So what we've been doing like since I got back from Phoenix is now we have been having breakfast at home and creating the perfect no fail environment for it. Right. There's no. Because I know that we have everything we need and that it's right there. And it's much more convenient to have breakfast here. And I know that everything is there and it's effortless. It's great.

So what advice would you give to people, Ben and Dean? What are mistakes? To go back to my question, where do people go wrong when it comes to willpower? I mean, how could we get people to understand that you may be putting forth an enormous Amount of effort and not getting to where you want to be, which could pretty much account for any human that has any expectations of betterment. What is the switch, the mental switch or something? I mean, obviously, read Ben's book. I mean, you really need to get a. And by the way, if people go to Willpower doesn't work, you can literally enter the contest. You can get the book through Amazon or whatever, and you can. We'll talk. I'll ask you questions about the contest in a few moments. But basically, I just want to. I would really love to have people take away from this, like a great paradigm shift that could just help them a lot.

Well, I think one of the questions that you kind of asked by setting up an environment is what would be an environment that would make willpower unnecessary? I mean, that's really what. That's the corollary to the, you know, right on within three pages of the introduction of the book that he hits you with this. You know, to be frank, willpower is for people who haven't decided what they actually want in their lives. If you're required to exert willpower to do something, there's an obvious internal conflict. And, you know, you mentioned that the difference between 100% committed and 98% committed is. Is really profound, actually. You know, because you think about it if I mentioned in Phoenix that.

If.

You take two glasses and in one glass you have windshield wiper fluid, and in the other glass you have Mountain Dew. In that kind of an environment, I'm 100% committed to not drinking windshield wiper fluid. That requires zero discipline or willpower. My part, even though it looks delicious, I'm not gonna do it, you know, and so, yeah, I'm 100% committed to it. So it's that. That's really. That thing is, how do you then get to that point where I don't think that I'm ever gonna be a hundred percent committed to never drinking Mountain Dew because it is delicious, but I can be 100% committed to having a Mountain Dew free environment.

Yeah, I would. Yeah, go ahead.

Don't lose your thoughts. I'm just like. I'm like 110% committed not to drink almost any sodas, because that shit's like.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah. I was gonna say, you know, to Joe's point, you know, the only way to actually make a committed decision, you know.

Yeah.

So the environment's not going to be enough if you're not committed to whatever it is you're trying to do. Like, if it's just that you're shielding yourself from Mountain Dew, you know, I mean, but you don't really want, you know, you really internally want the Mountain Dew. And you're not committed to actually, you know, eventually you're gonna be screwed. You know, like, you can't just avoid, you know, you can't just avoid it. I mean, the whole idea is go.

On a Mountain Dew bender.

Yeah, well, eventually you might. You know what I mean? And so I think the idea is if you want to make a true decision, you've got, you know, you then have to create an environment that facilitates that commitment. But, you know, and the environment isn't going to be enough if it's something you don't want. That's one of the things I say in the book. Like, if someone changes your environment for you, you know, like, if they take away all of your Mountain Dew, you're not going to be upset. You know, you're actually going to be internally conflicted with that environment because you really want the Mountain Dew. And so you ultimately have to make a proactive decision to change your environment. You know, and let's just say you want Mountain Dew, but, you know, it's not good for you. And then you come to some point, like Joe said, and you said, you know what, the costs are just way too much. You know, I am committed to this. And in fact, I'm so committed that I'm not going to rely on willpower anymore because it's not. It's not served me in the past. I'm going to freaking create a lot of external layers of accountability. I'm going to. Going to actually invest in a nutritionist or I'm going to invest in a personal trainer. I'm going to actually hire a health coach. I'm going to do all of these things to increase my investment and my commitment to this goal because I know that I can't do it alone. I can't fight this silent battle any longer. And so, like, not only do you need to be 100%, 110 at this point, Joe, he's made that decision, he's made that commitment, and he no longer probably even desires or is interested in soda. In fact, probably the reverse. My guess is when Joe drinks soda at this point, like, he's thinking about all the negative components of what it's doing to him. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

That'S exactly it. And so when it comes to. Let's talk about, how does someone set up their environment so that they achieve the results they Want. I mean, we've spoken to it, we've talked about it, but I mean, really, what are some of the recommendations, Ben, that you have? And I know you go on the depth of this in the book. Here's what's really funny. Before we started the podcast episode, I went and did hyperbaric. I was in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber today, and I've been doing hyperbaric stuff, and I came to my office to do this podcast after I was done. And your book. I left on my. My table in my home this morning, and I just did not put it in there. And I've like, all kinds of notes on all the pages and everything. And. And it was funny. And as soon as we started, like, oh, my God, I can't believe I left the book.

I have a funny question for you, Joe. I have a funny question. Go ahead. Why do you put your body in a hyperbaric chamber?

Well, for me, you know, Daniel Amen, who's a Genius network member, he scanned my brain six different times. And when I first did my first brain scan In 2010, I did 35 sessions of pressurized hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

And I went with you. So one of those.

Oh, yeah, one of those.

You.

You seem to love that experience, Steve. I really did. We won't even talk about it, but it was so funny. It was. But, yeah, it's a completely different one now. I get actually in a smaller chamber and it's like a tube. And if you're.

If you're claustrophobic, wear the space helmet.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You just put like the oxygen thing in your nose. But I do it, Ben, for. Oh, man. There's all kinds of benefits from wound healing to improvement of the brain, depending on. I wish I could speak really intelligently to why the heck am I doing it. I'm doing it for better sleep, better performance.

How long your sessions?

I literally will go in for anywhere between. It depends on the day, but I think in the last two months I have done. I think today was my 17th session, and I'm going to do 40 of them. And basically I go anywhere from an hour to two hours, depending on my schedule.

What do you do in there? Do you read and stuff? Is that your.

Today I read this great freaking experience of Jonathan Levy, who I actually have to thank Cameron Herold and Ben Hardy for recommending into Genius Network.

From Australia, right?

No, Israel.

And he.

Well, I don't know where he's originally from, but he lives in Israel and he's going to actually publish this article on medium.com Jonathan Levy about his experience at Genius Network. And so I read what he had wrote, and it just blew my mind, just how great it was. And he actually mentioned you in it for thanking him. And he talks about the environment of. Of being in Genius Network. And so I read that and I just underlined and highlighted, and I was like going, wow. I mean, it's such a. Just a beautiful piece that he wrote. And I've been listening to. In the new chambers. You can listen to stuff before.

Not loud.

Yeah, yeah, but I've been listening to. I mean, I'll tell you, I listened to most of Ben's audiobook. Willpower doesn't work while read, so it's funny. So I will listen to it and read the book at the same time.

Yeah, with.

With different things. And so, yeah, I just read or I write or I meditate. I mean, I have meditated half the time. I will do, you know, tm. And in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, just kind of sit up and. And just meditate.

Yeah, I'm gonna bring up just a couple. I'm gonna bring up a couple concepts. The only reason I asked about the hyperbaric chamber and then you brought up all this other beautiful stuff. There is something about that environment, whatever it is, you're purposely putting your body in something that then changes your physiology, your biology, you know, your sleep, your mental health. Like, you know, the. If I were to sit in my kitchen and try to willpower my way to experience all the benefits of the hyperbaric chamber, it probably wouldn't happen. You know, maybe it would. But my guess is you're putting yourself in that environment because, you know, there's some scientific evidence that there's something that happens, you know, on a biological and mental health level, you know. But then you were talking about how, like, just being in that situation allows you to focus and do things differently. What's interesting is that when you brought up Jonathan Levy, he told me that the reason he wrote that article is. We know. So I was on his podcast about four months ago, and I was talking all about the stuff in Willpower doesn't work about investing, you know, upgrading your psychology, putting yourself around people who are just thinking on a different level and how it changes you. And so he said that he was going to make the leap and he joined. But then, you know, one of the things that I really talked to Jonathan about was that the way to win an ingenious network is to be a giver. And about how one thing I just pulled out my headphones and about how. Sorry, one sec. And about how that's really what the culture of the group is all about. And that if you're not a giver, then you're not really going to get much out of your investment, you know. And so he told me. He shot me an email after his Genius Network event. He was, you know, and he said, dude, it was beyond what I expected. Blew my mind. I'm going to do what you did. I'm going to write an article about Joe, you know, and. Or about the experience because it was so transformational. And I was like, you absolutely should. You should for a lot of reasons. You should because it's the right thing to do. You should because you're a giver. He would have never had that thought had he, you know, And I sent him the article. I wrote an article about Joe on Genius, I mean, on Huffington Post. And it said, you know, how I turned $25,000 into, like, 300,000. And it's because when you make an investment in yourself and when you put yourself in that environment, not only do you put yourself into proximity to amazing people, but you also just change your thinking. And he. I sent him that article, and he read it, and he loved it. And I don't know if he would have written that article had I not sent him that one. Not because he didn't have an amazing experience, but he wouldn't have even thought to do it. And I'm glad he did. And you're right, he had a different experience. He's got a different skill set. And I, you know, I think I just told him the only way to win in this group is to be a giver. And he loved it. And. And so one of the ideas in the book I talk about is that people actually don't act according to their values. They act according the social norms around them. You know what I mean? And so, like, you know, a lot of people value. They have the value of being healthy or being successful. You know what I mean? Like, they want to do that. Yet, you know, as a country, you know, America is very unhealthy. And the reason isn't because it's. They don't value health, they value it. It's just that it's the environment. It's the social norms around most people that cause them to not be healthy. And so when you create an environment like Genius Network, where the social norms are to be a giver, to help other people, to be useful, you know, all the things on Joe's wall, you know, and when you actually create that social culture, then it changes how people think. And one of the things that happened when I was in Genius Network, so I was. I mean, so many things that happened. I'm actually going to write an article soon, Joe, about how I took $100,000 and turned it into a million because, you know, because I joined Genius and then it blew my mind. And So I joined 100K. And, you know, it's just. It's changed exactly everything. It's changed everything about how I view the world and about how I view relationships. And one. And during one meeting when I was at Genius Network, and it might have even been my first meeting, actually, I think it was, Kevin Donahue was giving a talk all about adding a zero to your price point. I don't know if you guys remember that talk, but he, he was giving a talk all about how if you just add a zero and if you charge more, it changes your confidence, it changes, it changes the value you give. And because the environment was set up where I was surrounded by all these people, I was already hyper invested. I'd paid over 25. You know, I paid $25,000 just to be in that room. So I was totally there, totally present. I was around all these people. And when you're in that type of situation, you're a lot more receptive to ideas. You know, it's like someone could have told me, I could have just been scrolling through Facebook and saw a post that said the same exact thing. You know, add a zero to your price and it probably wouldn't have had the same impact. It wouldn't have, like, you know, it's like soil. You know, like the ability for a plant to grow or a seed to grow is not dependent on the seed. It's dependent on the quality of the soil. And when you're in that environment, you just. It's just like a seed that hits the right type of soil. And when, when Kevin was talking about that, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. And that's exactly what Dan Sullivan talks about. He talks about how when you're in the right environment, I mean, when you're around the right types of people, you're going to get a lot of different ideas than you could ever get if you were just in a neutral environment or if you were in a goal conflict. If you're just in a, you know, your chances of getting these profound insights are so much lower. And so when, when Kevin was talking about that, it just hit me and I made the commitment in that environment, and that's. And I could talk to you about Sean Stevenson and about how he recently did that while he was in Africa, about how he was in this really intense environment, and it triggered him that he needed to go home and change his business and not work with his family anymore. He couldn't have done that had he not been in Africa and had these profound experiences. And when you're in. When you have these intense experiences, what. What some, like learning theorists and stuff would call transformational experiences, you have these experiences that then can lead you to that commitment. So, Dean, when I'm thinking about your, you know, your Mountain Dew, you know, you need to have some form of transformational experience that makes it real for you, you know, where it's like, I can't do this anymore, you know? But when I was listening to Dean or. Sorry, not Dean, Kevin. Kevin Donahue, in that moment when he was talking about what he was saying, I was like, I'm doing it. So I have an online course that I. That I do for a full year, and I take people through, and I give them a new module once a week. And in 2017, I charged 200 bucks for the course. And so when I was in that meeting with Kevin, I didn't actually add a zero, but I decided, I'm going to make the course a thousand bucks. And at that meeting, I actually met Dre Redfern, who helped me with the launch. And I didn't have the skills to do a launch or to do a webinar, so not only did I meet someone who partnered with me in that environment, but I got an idea that allowed me to go much bigger. And so I got some help. I did a much better launch than I've ever done in my life, launched this product, and, you know, I made like, four times as much as I did the year before. You know, actually way more than that. I made 10 times as much. So in 2017, I made like $70,000 on the course, and I sold it for 200 bucks. And then after joining Genius, after having this psychological upgrade, after getting help from people who are super talented, I launched the course at the end of 2017 and made $750,000 on that launch. And there's no way I could have done that had I not joined Genius Network, had I not met Dre, had I not given that 10 minute talk, had I not heard Kevin Donahue's talk. And there's a really cool concept I just want to quickly convey, just kind of pulling all this together, you know, and this doesn't have to be viewed as a religious thing. But, you know, there's a parable that Jesus talks about. He calls it like the parable of the. The sower or whatever. And I heard a concept that it really isn't about the seed, it's about the soil, so it actually should be recalled. The parable of the four types of soil. And so if a seed is plant, you know, so the four types of soil in the parable are. One is just literally a concrete street, you know, like, the chances of a seed getting planted and growing on a, on a concrete street are like almost zero, you know, and so, like, the soil is not going to go anywhere there. I mean, sorry, the seeds not going to go anywhere. And the seed doesn't change the possibility. The potential of the seed is the same in whatever environment. So on one environment, number one is a concrete street. Environment number two is a light bit of soil on top of a. On top of a bedrock hard rock, you know, so the soil can. There's a little bit of soil there, but underneath it there's just nothing. And then there's a field that's infested with weeds and thorns and stuff. And even though the soil has potential, it's just totally cluttered with other stuff. And so the seed's not going to get anywhere. And then there's other types of soil. What's cool about this, though, is this in the parable it says in certain types of good soil, the seed can yield 30 times like 30x increase in some 60x increase and some 100x increase. So different types of soil can yield different types of increases in the seed and what it can produce in the grain. And one of the things that Dan Sullivan talks all about is 100x thinking and about how when you, when you're in the right environment with the right people and you create the right collaboration, you can get 100x thinking. So that was a ton. But there you go. I love it.

No, I mean, there's. You answered a lot of questions there too, about, you know, how do you. How do you actually set up the environment? Here's what I'd like to do, because I know that. And you even write about this in the book. We've said this for years as it relates to putting someone into a contest, sort of situation, into a challenge, joining something, deciding to sign up. I mean, you talk about psychological upgrades by joining Genius Network. When it comes to a goal, you want to get in better shape, you want to recover because you're struggling with addiction, you want to make more money, you want to have a better relationship. There's so many things that can come from just making that decision. So there's now the Willpower doesn't Work contest. And I can speak to it. But I'd rather ask you, what's the contest that we're doing with your book all about? And what will people get by entering the contest?

Totally. And by the way, contests are one of the smartest ways to eliminate willpower, as interesting as that sounds, because you get, you get motivated by the con, by the incentive itself. You know, Joe obviously has so many testimonials about how competitions have changed people's lives, you know, and competitions are how he's watched people who are going bankrupt become seven figure earners. And that just shows it wasn't really willpower necessarily. It was just this incentive, this competition, the situation, and this public competition that changed everything. And that's actually one of the concepts I go into in the book, is public competition. When you do something in public, it just, it changes everything. But so Joe being, being the person he is, I, I mean, I would never have asked him to do this. Was somewhat even uncomfortable by the amount of generosity, but he donated his Tesla as a part of this competition. So basically, here's what the competition is. If you go to willpowerdoesntwork.com, you're gonna see a video of me and Joe, and you're gonna see Joe's blue epic Tesla. And so the competition is really simple. You have to register on the page. You can do it by just pushing the Facebook icon or just typing in your email. And then the competition is so simple. You pick a challenge, one out of four categories. You can either focus on income, you can focus on, you know, health. You can focus on a side project, like a passion project, whether that be starting a business, writing a book, or you can focus on addiction. And then you buy the book. Willpower doesn't work. And you just read the book. And then by some future date, which is on the page right now, I think we have May or June 6, but we may end up changing that, considering we know me and Joe are in the middle talking about that. But basically, you just read the book and you use it to change your life in one of four ways. And then you write a 500 word essay just describing how you've transformed your life. And the person who changes their life the most is going to get Joe Tesla. And then there's going to be 14 other winners who will win either a cruise or their choice of 2,500 bucks. And there's a lot of people engaged in the competition right now. There's almost 4,000 people in the competition. And I get tweets every day of people who, you know, hashtag willpowertesla. Today I got a tweet from someone that said, one of the chapters in the book is all about changing your defaults. And so one of the guys said, you know, what if they only served vegetables in. In movie theaters, how would that change behavior? You know, like, if you just change the default, you know, I mean. But yeah. So I would recommend anyone buy the book, change your life, have a shot to win Joe's Tesla. But what's really cool is, is just as, you know, there's so much evidence, you know, not only in Joe, but scientific evidence that if you can join one of these competitions, it will. It will. The strategic byproduct, the most important component is that you're going to win, that you're going to change your life. It was actually, Joe, a competition that I joined that allowed my first article to go viral. I had written like 30 or 40 articles, and none of them took off. And then there was a competition, and there was a guy with a huge blog, and he said, if whoever writes the best article, I'll share it with my 100,000 email subscribers. And that's when I wrote my first really viral article. It was eight things every person should do before 8am I didn't win the competition, but because I was in a competition, I wrote a really great article. And that's what changed the trajectory of my writing career, was a competition.

Yeah, I love that. It's a whole change of the trajectory. And what I was going to say, I actually didn't mention it, is the whole premise here is everything measured improves, and everything measured and reported improves exponentially. And so when you enter a contest and you start measuring the area of your life or your business that you want to improve, and then you have a. You have to report it in order to compete in the contest, that alone is going to create improvement. I mean, like, dramatically accountability.

It's just accountability. Yeah.

And, you know, I mean, it started when I was helping Bill Phillips with, you know, the body for life competitions that started in the late 90s, you know, the physique transformation contest. And I, you know, I've done contests for years, and this is one that I'm super excited about. It's a Model S. The incentive prize is the Tesla Model S. And it's you know, it's 85D, so it's. It's amazing. And I've had some of the most famous awesome people that have. I've driven around in that vehicle. It's kind of got some sort of energetic sort of magic to it. But that being said, yeah, I'm putting that up. So I'd like people to go to willpowerdoesn't work.com and just watch the video from me and Ben, get a copy of the book enter the contest, and just let us know your results.

It's funny because you mentioned that thing. Everything measured improves. Everything measured and reported improves exponentially. I think it was on the Onion or on somewhere else that there was a third thing. Was everything reported measured and reported and verified returns to the mean. Returns to the mean or returns to normal or whatever it was the magically, like, measured and reported to someone else. What they were saying is it gets exaggerated, you know.

Oh, totally.

Yeah.

That everything then validated returns to the median or which of the norm or something like that.

That's funny.

It was pretty funny.

There's actually a scientific law, though. There's a scientific law. I think it's called, like, Pond's Law or something like that. And it's what you're saying, Joe. I mean, yeah, yeah, it's true. It's a true principle.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I invite everyone to do it. I mean, if you.

If you really want to, you know.

If you really wanted to see some dramatic effects. And what I also tell marketers is I tell people, you know, enter the contest so you can actually see what happens. Because if you have a client base of any way, shape or form, you're going to want to create ways to incentivize them and create the environment that's going to give them the highest possibility of success with whatever it is that you're offering. So a couple more things and then we'll wrap up. Ben, what are a few surprising insights that you found from all of this research that you've done into willpower that people may be surprised to hear?

Totally. Yeah. So, I mean, there was a lot of surprises when I. When I went into this book. One of my favorite parts about going into a creative endeavor like this in the first place is that the process of creating, it actually changes you. Like, I don't think if I. Truth be told, Joe, if I hadn't attempted to write that book, I don't know if I would be in Genius Network, because I was. I felt compelled to join and I Wanted to join Genius Network for three years before I did, but it was. It was kind of like I felt the pressure of writing this book, and I was kind of clogged, to be honest with you. I was. I felt stuck writing it. And then it just kind of hit me that I had spent all this time growing my medium platform and stuff, and I felt like I could actually contribute to the. To the Genius Network. And so I was like, you know what? I need some insight. I'm stuck on this book, and I feel like if I joined Genius Network, it would open me up, and that's actually what happened. So, I mean, had I not joined, I would. Had I not been writing the book, I don't know if I would have joined when I did. But there's a lot of insights I got. One is just personality. So you and I have a really good friend, Gabor mate. Well, he's your good friend. He's becoming a good friend of mine. He's awesome. And basically, one of the things I say in the book is, is that it's not your personality that creates your behavior. It's actually your behavior that creates your personality. And there's a really cool psychological idea called self signaling. And basically what it means is that when you behave in a certain way, you signal to yourself the type of person you are. So, like, you know, if you go to a hyperbaric chamber, you know, you're gonna think to yourself, I'm the kind of person that goes and does hyperbaric chambers. You know, like, you signal to yourself, based on your behavior, who you are, the kind of person you are. And so when you start acting in different ways, you start to believe you're a different type of person. And so your personality is actually very fluid. It's not a fixed thing. So, like, what Carol Dweck would say is, you either have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. And kind of as I dove deeper and deeper into this research and into these ideas, for me, it just really hit home that people actually can change profoundly. And that's really what I wanted to come up with when I wrote the book. But even after joining Genius Network and watching, watching myself change as a product of that environment and as a product of investing in myself and making bold behaviors, you know, writing big checks, which I never thought, you know, I never saw myself doing, it just changed how I viewed myself. It changed how I viewed money. It changed how I, you know, and those things transform your confidence. So, like, there's another kind of cool line of research that I dug into when I was writing the book, and that was all about confidence. And it's the same thing. Most people think that it's confidence that creates success, but it's actually the opposite. It's success, it's successful behavior that creates confidence. And you can't have confidence. You know, confidence is a kind of a product of self trust. It goes back to self signaling. If you're acting a certain way, then you can't, you know. And so what I just love about all these things is that, you know, human beings are very fluid. They can transform in powerful ways, especially if they're open and receptive to it, if they're willing to invest in themselves, if they're willing to be intentional about putting themselves in the right types of environments. I mean, my belief is that if I. If I wanted to become, you know, a billionaire, you know, that's not necessarily my goal, but if I surround myself with billionaires and learn how they thought, you know, think that there's a huge shot at doing it versus, you know, if I. And so, you know, just by surrounding myself with people like you, and it just. It's changed me. And so I just would love for people to read the book because I know that people have challenges. Just to be honest, the reason I wrote the book is because of my younger brother. I wrote the book to and for him, but not formally, you know, like I wrote for my younger brother because I've watched him over and over and over and over and over try to change himself. And he'll tell me in all sincerity that this is the time. Like, this is the time he's ready, like. And I just watched him fall into patterns over and over and over again and just continue to surround himself with the same people, you know, and fall into the same cycles. And so I was. I was just sick of it. And. And so I wanted to write a book that just. Was all about how that. That just doesn't work. And then I met you, and I learned about God bor mate. And I learned about trauma, and I learned about personality, and I learned about all these different things, and it's just coming together. So, yeah, those are just a few of kind of some of the things that really were interesting to me throughout this journey. And it really validated just this idea of a genius network and about creating an environment where people can create what Dan Sullivan would call 100x collaborations, where the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts. So, yeah, I'm just continually humbled and blown away by all of this.

No, I really appreciate it. You know, let me. Let me ask you to. For this, too, because you. I mean, you. You've done more than enough plugging in such positive ways for Genius Network, and I just genuinely appreciate that. And I almost feel.

I mean, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it out of any compulsion. You know what I mean? Like. Oh, no, no.

I mean, yeah, hopefully I didn't say that in the wrong way. I don't. Yeah. I mean, I. Thank you for like, just. I mean. Yeah, don't stop.

Don't put it all twisted.

Yeah.

Here's the thing. Like, you. You actually.

Your.

Your aunt Jane Barlow, she. You know, she has been a member of Genius Network, and she. The story. Because you write about it in the book.

You.

She had a luggage tag that she had given you that said Genius Network. And it's. It's like a great story of visualization. And that's a seed that was planted several years ago because you just recently turned 30 years old. So you're a young guy, and, you know, basically. Well, to me, I mean, for all the millennials out there, they're like 30 years old. That dude's ancient, right? He's old. I mean. But, Jen. No, but I just turned 50. I don't act like it. I'm incredibly immature. But still, tell that story about how you. Because I think a lot of it, no matter what someone's goal is, if it's to be in group, if it's to do something, this. This. The whole thing of visualization, and then you now had set the stage for something that you turned into reality. Because that's kind of what I know about you. I mean, when you set your mind to something, you will, you know, you will pursue it, and in most cases, you achieve it.

Yeah. So this was a good one. So here's. Here's why I got so interested in Genius Network and why I have such enthusiasm for it, aside from all the research, you know, on what I've studied and then kind of just experienced on a real level. So back in 2014, in the fall, I started my PhD program in organizational psychology. And it was right around that time that my Aunt Jane joined Genius Network. She was in Genius for, I think, two or three years. And what I saw happen when she went to her first annual event was so cool. So she went to her first event, and she was a different person when she walked out of there. She. She changed her business, she changed her approach to marketing. She was way more confident. She just Said it was one of those soul expanding moments. It's kind of like the quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes. He says, a soul that is expanded by experience can never go back to its previous dimension. And so that's what I saw. Like she went to an annual event, she joined, and she just, she was. Her business incredibly blew up. But more than that, I just saw a change in her. And we just, we talked about Genius Network. We actually filmed, you know, and I bet you could find it, Joe. We actually filmed a goofy little 10 minute talk of me because I had written a small ebook, you know, in 2000, like right around that time, you know, it was before I ever wrote a blog post. But we wrote, we filmed this goofy little 10 minute talk. And I think she even sent it to honestly. But she gave me a tag, a luggage tag that said Genius Network. And when I just saw the change in her, I just decided to myself, I'm going to eventually be in this group. And I told myself I wanted to be in the group before I finished my PhD program. And so I stuck the luggage tag on my backpack and. And I would always go to the Clemson gym. So I go to Clemson University. I always go to the Clemson gym and stick my backpack in one of those small little lockers. And every time I'd see the Genius Network tag, and I just remember always thinking to myself, like, man, I don't want to be on this college campus. Like, I'm surrounded by all these college kids. I want to be at Genius Network. And so I just, I use that tag as a, as an environmental trigger that every time I saw it, I would just remind myself that I'm going to join Genius Network. I want to be around all these people, all these people who are like my favorite authors are in Genius Network. I didn't even know what the environment was like. I just knew that it had a really profound impact on my, on my aunt. And I watched a lot of the videos with her, you know, from like some of the annual events and some of the 10 minute talks and I just loved it. And so I just wore that tag for like three years and just was, you know, I just knew that that was my number one goal. Whenever I had the financial ability to join Genius Network, I would make that 25k investment. And, and then, you know, once I, once I did join, which was in, I think July or August of 2017, just last year, I remember, I actually, I joined and then when I was with my Aunt Jane in Utah before, right before my first meeting, she told Me that we should call Rochelle and that I should sign up to give a 10 minute talk. And I was super glad because she's like. She's like, you need to give a 10 minute talk at your first meeting. I didn't know I. She said she didn't know that you could do that. And so then I did it and I met Joel Weldon and he helped set me up for the talk and set me up to have a really awesome first meeting. And that just kind of set everything up that's happened since. Yeah.

And your talk was so valuable and so useful to everyone that we ended up having you do a 10 minute talk at the Genius Network annual event. And now here we are doing all the things that we're doing. Me and Ben will probably co author a book in the future because so much of what we've been talking about is using this, which is a whole other interview and a whole other discussion of the application of this to people that are really struggling from addiction. Because we can, you know, I think this. Not. I think. I know taking this to different people's lives could. Will save lives, not just greatly enhance it. I mean, what we're really talking about, the positive aspects of this, there's a lot of people that are just living really pained existences. And if they knew this and if they could apply this, it would transform. I mean, so I take this concept and this knowledge very seriously. Dean, anything else from you that you'd like to say or ask Ben before we wrap up?

This was fun. It's really great. I mean, we got a couple of new insights from the conversation, but the. Yeah, just a testament again from reading this and experimenting with environment changes, that it really does. It really does work. It makes things easy. And what I'm finding is that you can layer them on top of each other because they help build momentum in a way.

Right.

Like if I look at, you know, looking at the idea of setting up something in advance to create an environment that helps win the morning, that. That then creates momentum that. That keeps and makes it easier to win the afternoon as well, you know, so I'm excited. Awesome.

Awesome. And Ben, anything that we could or should have asked you that we did, not that you would like to share.

No, I think it was. It was always just fun. I just appreciate the podcast, all the listeners, you know, definitely, if you can, you know, which I know you can, if you're listening to this, you can afford a book. You know, go check out Willpower Doesn't Work and check out Willpowerdoesn't work calm. And when you can, when you can make the investment, you know, check out Genius Network. I mean, if you're listening to Joe and Dean, why not actually put yourself in the physical presence of these guys, you know what I mean, and make that investment. And that's going to upgrade your psychology and it's going to upgrade everything about your life. And so one of the big concepts in the book is just literally investing in yourself and investing in your relationships. And if you've been listening to this podcast for long enough, that's, that's what Joe's been teaching for a long time.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ben. So the book is Willpower Doesn't Work. The author is Benjamin Hardy. Go get a copy of it. Go check out the website. Enter the contest. And I love to see an I Love Marketing listener win the Tesla. That would be amazing. Your feedback and share this with anyone in your life that is a, you know, that has spent a lot of time, money and energy pursuing success, reading self help books, going to seminars, read the book. It totally debunks so many myths that are out there and it'll just enhance this conversation that you just heard. If you've not yet read Ben's book, so get a copy and keep us posted and we'll talk to you on the next episode of I Love Marketing. And if you're not a subscriber, then go and subscribe to I Love Marketing immediately. So you get every episode. Thank you. Take care.

Bye.

Thanks for listening to the sneak preview of I Love Marketing on Genius Network. If you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network annual event, please visit geniusnetworkevents.com that's geniusnetworkevents dot com if you would like access to the full presentation, the show notes, the links and the special resources for this episode, please visit geniusnetwork.com 82 that's geniusnetwork.com 82.