Mike Zeller describes a method for finding your purpose by collecting clues across four areas: natural talents, pivotal moments, relationships, and values. He wakes at 4am to write, producing a first draft in 30-35 days, then spends months editing. Zeller argues entrepreneurial success comes from repeated failure, strong fundamentals, and an adaptable mindset.
Questions this video answers
Around 4–5 AM each morning for about 30–35 days (writing ~3 hours/day).
About 10–11 months (first draft in ~30–35 days; then ~6 rounds of editing and proofreading).
Mind-mapping, voice-dictation (voice-talked points), and AI transcription to convert speech to text for the first ~40–50 pages.
He cited having accrued over $5 billion in assets under management and having founded roughly 12 companies.
Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm here with Mike Zeller. We are talking about winning. And so Mike, thanks for taking the time out and sharing.
Excited to be here, Larry. Looking forward to diving in again.
Tell me about your book.
Yeah, so it really was a quest to create a formula for how do I figure out what on earth am I here for? What's my purpose in life? How do I make money or a good living from my gifts, my talents, my and also still be fulfilled? So it really answers that age old question, what on earth am I here for? And then finding that unique natural pathway that is there for everyone that leads to greater impact, increased fulfillment and increased prosperity. So basically, as I've been mentoring entrepreneurs over the years, I've realized, hey, not everyone has the same talents. That's the first quadrant. Not everyone has the same or similar life experiences. That has an influencing factor. Third, your relationship are different. And fourth, values and passions also shape your destiny and shape your genius. So if I gather the greatest accumulation of clues about who on earth you are, what on earth you're meant to do, especially in hey, where are you Amazing. Where do you suck? That's your unique talents. What are those pivotal moments in your life that shaped who you become and who you're becoming? And then third, what's your relationship network look like? And who do you have in your life that brings you life? And then who do you have that brings you death? And then the fourth thing, your values and your passions. What do you stand for versus what do you stand against? And what are you insatiably curious about? That's the process as simplified with, you know, of course I take people with the 8020 principle and so much more. But when someone goes through the whole process, they have more awareness and clues about who they are and what on earth they're meant to do than anyone in anyone they've ever met, typically.
And tell me about writing the book. How did you go about writing the book and what was that process? How long did it take? What did you learn from it?
You know, it was hard, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Partly. My wife was pregnant with our little baby at the time. It was first trimester And I literally spent. She was going to bed at like 9:30. I'm like, you know what, I guess I might as well go to bed too and get up super early and write this book that is this important project that is not urgent that I've been putting off and putting off. And I got up every morning for about 35 days in a row. Somewhere in that ballpark. I did take one day off a week. But I got up at 4 to 5am, had my, you know, super alert focused nootropic supplement that helped me just lock in. Took drink some matcha latte and is cranked and wrote for three hours a day for about 30, 35 days. And had my first draft done, handed it off to editing team and went through, I don't know, six rounds of editing at least. And then I had a book ready for proofreading and it took all altogether. It still took about 10 or 11 months, but it was really good to get it done.
How did you get it in your mind that this was the way to get this thing done?
I've been in the author world.
All of us go through times in our life where you mentioned bookkeeping and things like that. Here's the deal. You want to spend most of your time, things you like to do. You're good at your strengths, you know, and the enjoyable parts. But there's always the nasty parts. You know, there's, there's, you've always got to eat, you know, you've got to have some start, you know, some sand, some grit in your diet for digestion. You know, you're going to have to have some bookkeeping. You got to do the books or work for somebody who will do the books. And so you do the books or you hire someone. You know, you can hire someone, you know, if you bust your ear early in your career and get yourself out of survival mode, then you can start adding to you people that are great at doing necessary functions that you're not that great at. And you can start to really build an enjoyable, super productive life. But you know, these projects come up from time to time where there's something you don't have to do, but you really know you got to do it. Otherwise it's just stuck in your head. So how did that come to you that I'm going to take this, you know, be this proactive because most people are not awake at 4 in the morning, hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something in My case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion in assets under management, and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up.
No, I'm usually not either. But, you know, I started mind mapping this out. I love to mind map, but books, it's a secret creativity hack that da Vinci used. And I mind map out concepts and businesses and business plans and all that too. And one of my friends, Michael gelb, he's written 18 books, and he said he mind maps every single book before he actually writes it. So what I will do. How do you spell that, Michael? And then Gelb, G, E, E. I'm sorry, G, E, L, B. And he wrote a very excellent book called how to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. Yeah, this is the most famous one. And then. But man. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna mind map this out. So what I would do, what I actually did to write the book was I voice talked. I mind mapped it, then I voice talked each point and used AI transcription to get the first, like 40 or 50 pages done. And then I edited and added to it, because you don't want to write and edit. But I was like, I've been creating this process really for five or six years as I was mentoring entrepreneurs. I want to help people find who they are and how they're wired to lead and create their business because everyone is different. I'd been working on the process for a while. I'm like, you know what? This is a perfect starting point for me because it's based on one of my unique processes, and I think it will be a good entry point. And now I've got two more books essentially done as well that I gotta come out with soon.
Okay, congratulations. Well, the thing is that there are books and there are books, and some of them are. Most of the books actually on coaching and how to get things done are fantasy books because nobody's ever actually use them. And. But somebody studied, somebody who has been successful, and they said, this is what I hear, and therefore I get it. Yeah, but you don't get it because you never use it. And so what those guys are great at doing is telling you almost how it works, but they don't know exactly how it works. Because they've never done anything. And that's why when you got on here, I Talked about the 300 million in sales, I talked about launching 100 startups and things like that. I think you said you founded 12 companies. The deal is that you have a track record of doing, of just not creating things, but being successful with them gives you skills because you've got, you know, you have your fundamentals. But I always say you go to greatness using fundamentals. And the fundamentals are like building blocks. But what people want to know is how do you build with the building blocks? And that's why we want, you know, a lot of it is, it's intuitive and a lot of what you're missing pops into your mind. That gut thing pops into your mind. Listening to someone else who's success, who's been successful, talk about it and then all of a sudden a light bulb goes on in your mind. It's like, that's it, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And so it's not. People are going to tell you where most of these guys who write the phony books is. They think they can tell you, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. You know, it's all in the manual, follow the manual. But life is insanely complex and I'm sure you run into that all the time.
Yeah, it is. And it is, you know, being an entrepreneur and leader and creator, like I've had, for every success I've had, it's like two failures, right? Like you get used to failing forward and you even have that mentality of like, hey, I'm going to learn along the way. And there's so many things like the real estate developers, I was just consulting and some of my long term clients and they were like, yeah, we got a PhD in real estate construction and development from all of our experience and they're like, we're still learning. There's new variables, new challenges, new shifts every day. And so, and especially in today's world, one of the crazy things, Larry, in the next 10 years we're going to have a hundred years of technological change. Next hundred years we'll have 10,000 years of technological change. So what that means is the ground is shifting beneath our feet faster and faster and faster. So I've been asking myself and been asking a lot of my entrepreneur clients, coaches, authors, speakers, etc. And e com guys, hey, how do you actually position yourself to not just flourish or not just survive, but to flourish in the changing landscape? And one of the most important things is have an adaptable and nimble mindset and business model. They can move if the economics or the marketplace shifts again because it's, you know, it shifted fast during the during COVID as we might remember when the whole world shut down for a little bit, everything changed in a matter of days and it could change again that.
You know, what a great question. What a great subject. Let's take a break right here and jump back into that because I want to spend some time on that. Thanks so much, Mike. Appreciate it. If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world. I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.
