Capability Amplifier EP#81 - A Hero Mindset and Scorecards

All right. Imagine for a moment being able to attract a perfect, right fit client into your business. What we call a hero. And Dan loves to say, who do you want to be a hero to? But also how do you communicate, how to get anyone who's around you, whether it's an employee, a friend, a spouse, to think correctly so you get on the same page in the shortest period of time. What we're going to talk about in this episode is something that Dan coins and talks about, which is a scorecard. Every single one of Dan's books has a image in front of it with a grid pattern in it, eight mindsets, and then across the horizontal part of this. So if you imagine the mindsets go vertical, up and down, and then across the top is a score, which is 1 through 12, and individual mindsets that you can identify with so you can self score. So today my goal is to deconstruct where these came from, how Dan makes them, because he makes a ton of them, and also how you can really adapt your brain so you can make them faster as well. So, Dan, that's about as good as I can do of setting this up for you, but let's talk a little bit about what scorecards are, where they came from, and how you make them so fast.

Well, I'll tell you what my first scorecard was, and that'll get us off to a start. So I was divorced in 1978, and I came out of that with a commitment that I would be married again, but I won't get divorced again. Okay. And in Canada. So I was in Toronto when that happened. We still had a carryover, you know, some of the old religious tradition that you were separated for three years before you were actually divorced. So they, you know, they.

Divorce was much more of a serious problem 100 years ago than it is today. First of all, the woman is, you know, the woman has no future if, you know, if there's a divorce. And we know even from present circumstances that generally both partners economically do worse off after divorce. And the children, you know, the children are, you know, they're caught in the jet stream of what's happening. So the whole point that there was a lot of encouragement on part of society, you know, to patch this up and perhaps you'll have a trial separation and then. But I was. I'm the one that triggered the divorce, and I was committed to it. And, you know, and I said, you know, whatever discomfort I have to go through, I'm going to go through because this isn't going anywhere. This is not going to be better 5 years or 10 years from now than it is now because we were going like this. You know, we were met when we were crossing, but we were actually going in different directions. And so during the three years before the divorce, I had said, you know, I think the problem is that I'm looking for a person and what I should be looking for is a relationship. Okay. And so my sense is I'm not going to put my goals in terms of a particular type of person, but I'm going to outline some, some standards for what the relationship has to be. And the first one was the most important one for the conversation that we're having on.

The scorecard, mindset, scorecard. I said, it's a relationship that you don't have to work at. It's just a relationship that works. So I said, if there's any work required, I don't want to have the relationship because the last one was all work. And I thought that was a big thing. You know, you work and you work and you work and there's breakthroughs and there's enlightenment and there's transformation. Well, there isn't.

And so I said I got to have a sense that the next one doesn't require any work. And it's interesting. This happened on a particular day in August, my putting together the scorecards just after we got the final divorce. And, and I went to a cafe and I, I just sat there and I kind of created. I didn't put numbers to it, but I put the, you know, I put the, you know, I put down. I had, I think, seven. I don't remember the exact number, but it was at least seven. And I put it down. And one year to the day, which I found really, really interesting, I was at a weekend conference. It was sort of a workshop on workplace communication, workplace teamwork, which I'm always interested in. And I was late. I was late getting there. And what happened was that I had to choose that day before between going between going home for a family reunion back to Ohio, or going to this weekend conference. And I didn't make up my mind till about 3 o'. Clock. And so I got to the conference late. There was one seat left, and I sat down and next to me was this very, very tall redhead. And I sat down, I looked at her and I looked at her a couple times and she said, what are you looking at? And I said, I'm looking at you. And she says, and, and I says, I like what I see. And, you know, and, and Anyway, that.

Sounds like someone I know.

And, and what happened, Mike? And I'll just make a very long story short that it wasn't anything dramatic. There was just a comfort. And during the weekend we were together in certain activities and then, you know, periodically, you know, we had each other's numbers afterwards and you want to have breakfast and we go for breakfast and we just chat. And it was very easy. It was just very easy going and there wasn't any big deal about it. And she had a lot of confidence and you know, I'm pretty confident person and everything else. And one thing led to another and then it was right about the time when I had created my first thinking tool which is called the Strategy Circle. And I said she had a business, she had a very, very high level nutrition, wellness, massage practice and she had some really top notch clients like airline crews and ballet dancers and stunt people who did stunts and movies. Toronto is a big movie city anyway, but so I said, I'll show you how it works. I'll take you through your business and what your goals are for your business. And you know, and I worked with her, asked her questions for about two hours and put together a game plan for three years down the road. And we got finished and she says, you know, this is going to be really big. And I said, your business? No, no, she says, not my business. What you're doing here is going to be really big. This kind of thinking that you're doing, this is really, really big. And so that was the beginning, you know, and I had created this and you know, I was out on my own and I was doing thing, you know, I was doing the, the work and but I'm a front stage guy. I'm not a bad back backstage. So I was keeping my bank account and my, you know, my tax obligations in my head, which really doesn't work long range. And anyway, she said, you know, you need help, you need help. And she said you need, it was basically who, not how. She, she, you know, put the proposition out. She said, you know, you shouldn't be doing this, you shouldn't be thinking about this, somebody who can actually handle this. And she said, I, I'm kind of tired. She says, I've been doing this for 10 years and it's not going to get any better in the future. So why don't we just partner up here and I'll handle the backstage and you handle the front stage and the rest is history. So that was 1987, 1988, and the workshop program started in 89. And here we are. So that's it. But while I was getting to know her for that first year, I had the list and I never told her. I didn't tell her about this for about 20 years. I never told her that I did this. And I check, check, check, check, check. And so the thing that really struck me is that in personal life, but also in work life, trying to make relationships work is just a very, very wasteful experience.

In my sense is all my worst personal experiences where I tried to make something work that wasn't workable, and all my worst business experiences where I tried to make something work that wasn't workable. And I said, why don't you just create the kind of mindsets that the. And what I got to was it was a function of mindset, that behavior follows mindset. In other words, that we. We generally get into trouble with people's behavior because we hadn't checked the mindsets out beforehand.

That's. Boy, I'd love to go in a million directions on this. But the big takeaway is effortless. Is the key function here in a relationship you don't have to work at. It just works. And as I was listening to you and playing this back, I think about how much wasted energy.

I've expended over a lifetime. And even recently, Dan Kennedy has a crass saying something along the lines of, if I wake up thinking about you three days in a row and we're not married, it's time for you to leave.

I remember the first time I heard that, I was like, ooh, that's sharp. But I think knowing and getting really, really clear on that. And just earlier this week, I met with Kim White, who's our. Our mutual energy coach. And that was one of the key things that I had to work on was I had a very, very complex relationship that just turned weird.

Through no fault of my own. But it just had to do with a lack of communication. And it's like the thought of trying to make it work has kept me up at night. And it's like there's a lot of positives, but the negatives energetically just outweigh the incredible financial and celebrity aspects of it. To the point extent that it's like, it just makes me feel gross. And that's one thing that.

I think is very important is checking in with your body and saying, do I feel good? And am I going to be happy? And am I happy? And if not, why? And if it's out of your control and it's relationship oriented.

Take some inventory. But it's just time to end it fast.

I mean, Mike, you could probably go back to certain situations and on a previous podcast we talked about entrepreneurs really getting the maximum value out of their past experiences, you know, and yes, taking past pain and turn it into future, you know, future capabilities and future, you know, future resources and. But you know, I mean, you were right there at the beginning, the early days of the digital economy. I mean, you were there right from the beginning and I bet there was a bit of a drug like, you know, kind of a drug like high with some of the possibilities of those early days. I think of Traffic Geyser and you know, the first time you, you did one thing and you got a thousand results. I said it must have been like a drug high. You know, you had a drug high and yes, and you meet people in that world who are also drug high people, but they're bad for your health, you know, they're bad for your health, they're bad for your future and everything. And you think you have a great deal of things in common with, with, with them, but in fact their mindsets are wrong for where you're going. So I'd like you to sort of maybe, you know, zero in on one of them where it was.

I have got a great story I've never told before, Dan, and I'll tell you where I used to get. I don't get gamblers high. I'm not a gambler, but I know that feeling because I've played the game before where you're just like, and it's definitely a drug high and I'll tell you where I used to get it. So you and I have that very similar Midwest farm community upbringing.

Very little if any money or resources. So if you got something, it's because you earned it and you self mentored and figured stuff out so you could improve the quality of life. For me. I was very motivated to be free financially and I was bad at school for all practical purposes, unemployable.

And.

You.

Know, just endlessly curious. So just the short attention span, all those things rolled into one. So I learned how to code and program with the intention to write video games. But what happened is I didn't have any money. So the way I learned is I.

Bought a late 80s, early 90s.

Here it was mid-80s. So I started coding in like 1981. But like I graduated high school in 84, 54 right now. So here's what happened. I pirated software like crazy and I used to get on These pirate bulletin boards. And I'd get together for software swap parties where everyone would come with big boxes of floppy disks and it'd be like we'd be swapping files and copying and getting games. I was fascinated with tools and applications because every new tool represented a new capability. And I found that when I would work with someone and if you fast forward a couple years, what I built a capability is I learned how to crack copy protection because back then floppy disks had copy protection. And what I learned how to do is disassemble the code in spot where the program would search for like a floppy disk sector where they actually purposely would laser engrave a flaw that would, when the head of the floppy disk would go around, it couldn't register a one or a zero. So basically when you'd hear the floppy disk it would go.

And it's looking for a flaw or an error. And if it noticed that it wouldn't get the right data, it was in fact the original copy. So what I figured out how to do is disassemble the codes. It would literally mean cracking into the software and waiting for a search where it looked for the bad sector. And, and I basically would put something called a no op, a no operation in its place and save the software. So it basically would quit looking. And I just figured out how to do that. Well, what it really led to.

Today I've got $500 an hour legal pit bulls who are searching for a guy like you.

Yes, I get it. And the reason I've never told the story before is it's like well you damned thief. But you got to understand, here was my mindset at the time. A, I had no money, B I was fascinated and C, when I learned that skill, I was the guy. I got invited to all the parties because I'd basically be cracking software, but more importantly, my first real job writing computer games. The guy who started it was a well known pirate, but he actually created copy protection. He not only was in the copy protection business, he was in the copy cracking business. He was a hacker. And because I didn't have money, the only way I got access to these tools, I wasn't selling anything. And the people I was swapping with, they'd never buy it. They were hoarders for all practical purposes. Pirates were hoarders. And they're usually like the 400 pound, never been kissed, living in their grandma's basement type of guys, right? Big and sweaty and stinky. Fascinated. In fact, one of my favorite guys, his name was Quaz Qazzle he ended up working for NASA. But here's the point of the story. You fast forward a few years to the beginning of Digital Cafe, which started in 1989. We were one of the first digital marketing agencies. This is pre Trafficizer, pre instant Customer. We started doing Photoshop work before Photoshop was even available to the public. We did video capture, we did video game design and development for movie studios. But our tools. I had access to literally thousands of applications. Much of it never even made it to the market because in the background, the coders who are writing this stuff there were pirates and swappers, too. The way they learned is by accessing massive volumes of knowledge and sharing ideas. So it was true white hat hacking that didn't have an economic impact. It was pure intellectual curiosity. So I think.

The point of the story is.

We can all rationalize an intellectual form of skateboarding, actually. Right. Yeah.

I never thought of it that way before, but, I mean, it opened up doors. You can't imagine. And when I got introduced, I'd be meeting executives and they wouldn't say, well, Mike's former programmer who wrote video games and has done da da da. No. They'd be like, he's a hacker and he used to crack. And they'd go into. Because some of them would know my history, which I'd never talk about publicly. But the way they got the attention of the CEOs is like, bring in that guy because he can hack business, he can hack marketing. And that was the fascination. It was a little bit of bad boy, you know, and it's like, bring in the nerds, right?

Yeah, yeah, he's a thug, but he can be our thug.

Our thug. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You told me that.

It's brilliant. Brilliant.

Yeah.

So.

We went way down. A tangent.

No, no, but just talk about the horror story, because there was a horror story that triggered this. Well.

Where excitement doesn't equal mindset, you know, like, yes, momentary. You know, you know, you know, people you have drug guys with, you don't have reunions with them 20 years later.

Yes. Well, I think what I realized.

I'm told, I'm told, yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some dude told you on the street. Well, there's two things. One of them is, I think where it stopped for me was I realized this is a habit. It is literally an addiction to acquire and hoard. I spent more time getting and grabbing and building the stockpile because it was currency. It was trading currency instead of actually doing something with it. So I knew that was a problem. But also On a practical level, is all it would have taken is the wrong person hearing about this, who could just destroy my reputation, justifiably so, for being a thief for all practical purposes, even though that was never the intent or the mindset behind it. And I started really examining that part of me and going, ugh. So I really examined like my, my grandfather was a massive alcoholic, a philandering alcoholic on my mom's side. And there's certainly people in my family who have addiction issues. And I really wanted to say, okay, what's my brain type here? I want to make sure that that side of the brain was well recognized. So if that itch ever came on, I learned to turn it off.

And instead become an intellectual amplifier. And I think that was the scary part is there were. I also pirated cable. So I used to build and create basically pirate cable boxes and blue boxes, if you remember those, to overcome long distance. And.

There was a period of time where the FBI was just looking for hackers to make examples out of them. And I knew a couple of guys that got busted. And again, I fell in love with the criminal get away with it energy. And it just scared the hell out of me. And I quit before I was 18 because I knew in my mind if I got caught as a minority, it wouldn't have been as bad. They weren't prosecuting minors back then for hacking.

But yeah, the way, you know, in Strategic Coach that I would approach this and you know, you can do the same kind of mindset analysis with things that you totally want to multiply in the future or things that you totally want to eliminate in the future. That, and you'd say, the kind of person who's going to pull me into a situation like this. And you pick three of them, you know, you pick three of the craziest hacker friends, you know, or cohort that you had back then. And you say, if I had to identify mindsets that these eight, these three people had, let's pick the, the one who most represents it. And what's the mindset? Well, first of all.

Absolutely no economic base. It's just for the thrills, you know, so you could go down and you could say, can't stay with anything for more than about three weeks. And you go down there and you go around and you'd get a complete mindset profile. And I mean, and it's in your nervous system. You don't have to, you don't have to go imagining you experience this head on for a long period of time. And you'd say, okay, this would be early warning red light signals. You know, these would be like little sensors. And if my foot comes down on one of these, an alarm goes out. And therefore I could create this and say, what are all the situations I'm in now? And how would I grade them in terms of the people that I'm dealing with or the people I'm likely heading towards and everything? And it would create a mindset.

Alarm system for you. And then you could say, but at the same time, as a result of my experimentation, who seem to be the people that.

That I would really get rewarded for the skill I developed? Who are the people out there? The CEOs, who are the people and what are they looking for? And you say, well, I'm, I'm looking for a CEO that not only is it okay, that I was a hacker.

Puts me at the top of the list. And then you go through. And so then you start saying, yeah, there was a dark side to it, but guess what? There was also a, there was also an escalator, an express elevator. If I had that experience and, and I had the, know how to go along with that. There was an express elevator. So I do a mindset of the people who are looking, you know, looking for my type of person, my personality, my type of. So that's how I would do it.

Okay, so I'm going to just make sure I'm clear on this. So when you're creating scorecards.

You have a model in your head of the person first and you're basically profiling their values and their qualities. So it's, you're modeling real people and now you've got 3,000 to talk to every.

Well.

At this stage, you know, I've been coaching, pushing 50 years, I've been, you know, it's, I'm in 40, you're 47 right now. And I'm a great listener, you know, and I'm a great listener and I always drive with open ended questions. You know, if you had to say the last year, and we've been doing this because it was March to March with COVID And I'm calling that the, I'm actually calling it the Zoom year. The Zoom year was between March of 20 to March 21st. And I said.

What are the three things that really, really had you nervous at the start of March 2020.

That will turn out to be the biggest breakthroughs for your next 10 years? And I don't know the answer, but it's really funny with entrepreneurs, they've never thought about it in these terms. But you give them the question and you give them 90 seconds and you say, just find the three. They find the three. Well, why is it? Well, because it's actually in their experience. They just haven't, they haven't just brought it forward and put it under the spotl but just asking the question. And I say, okay, for those three things. Now tell me, you know, tell me why of everything bad that happened over the year, over the last year to the people, you know, to, you know, businesses, you know, and everything, 10 years from now, these will be the three greatest things that you got out of the bad year for everybody else. And they've got the answers. So that's how I do it. So I have 10, you know, you know the famous 10,000 hour thing that you've worked on. I got like 50, 60. I got 50 or 60,000 hours of entrepreneurs telling me their, their history. And I've seen, you know, I mean, I've seen every dance move. I've seen, you know, I've seen every entrepreneurial thing. And I've got sort of a spectrum from people who are constantly transform themselves to people who just find new ways of failing.

You know, and.

Right, right.

And then in between, I have people who are not failures, but they're just incredibly frustrated. Okay. And then I've got people who think that they're really successful and now they've got status for their success. Okay. And what I've noticed is that you don't want to be as prospects for a strategic coach. I don't want to get anywhere near someone who thinks they have status.

And I don't, I definitely don't want to talk to failures. Okay.

Yeah.

What I want to talk to is people are frustrated because they're frustrated because status isn't going to be good enough for them. They want to lead a transformative life. Okay. And I can just spread this out on a scale of 1 to 12 and then ask questions. I don't even ask questions. I just make statements. And I say, I'd like you to do a little scorecard here which represents you now and which represents where you would want to be in three years. And.

All the ones who qualify for our program say, I'm kind of frustrated right now, but in three years I want to be totally transformed. None of the successful people say that they don't even want to know there is a level higher than where they are. So I've discovered that. I call them lifestyle entrepreneurs. Their whole goal for being an entrepreneur is to have a lifestyle that gives them status. And I said, I'm not interested in that person.

Yes, that's.

And is that because you found them to be less coachable, less open? What's the. Or is it just the big ego and there's emotional and.

Behavioral and personality properties that just. You find unpleasant?

Game's over.

Yeah, okay.

Game's over. Their life is over at 60, they're nothing that happened. You know, it could be 50, it could be 60. I don't know. I've seen people do it at 45. I've seen people reach the end at 45, and I want people who had 80. They're starting to feel they're getting hanging. Of what? Their futures.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Well, I think you said it best.

Not long ago, we were talking, and you basically said, death's going to find me by surprise. Something along those lines, or get me by surprise. I'm not going to see it coming, and I'm not slowing down. And I love and admire that. That's a tremendously powerful statement. And I know I'm probably butchering your precise words.

Well, the thing is, I noticed that people pick up dead language as they go along. They say, you know.

If I was 20 years younger, this would be something I would take on. And a message, an email goes through to the center of the universe, and death says, we got a live one here. You know, and then they say, yeah, I'm kind of winding down email to the death center. And they said, yep, better get ready for a pickup. People talk themselves into the grave. They talk themselves into dying. They, you know, they talk. I said. I said, that's tombstone talk. You know, you're talking. Yeah, I was with a famous. Famous marketer, you know, I mean, world famous marketer. And he's in the, you know, he. We both know who.

I know who he is.

And I'm about five years older. You know, I'm about five years older. And we're meeting in Santa Monica for lunch. And I said, so what's the big thing right now? He says, oh, I'm into the legacy stage right now. He says, you know, I'm just packaging up. You know, I'm taking everything I've done and creating a legacy. And I said, don't talk that way. I said, you shouldn't even have those thoughts in your head. You're killing yourself. I said, you're. I said, yeah. You know, death listens. You know, Death doesn't want to work hard. Death wants you to do the work.

Oh, that's good. Okay. I have one more question. This is a little bit on the woo woo side.

Go ahead. And what I've seen is that for the most part, you know, the vast majority of people look at behavior as the indicator of someone what they are. And I says, no, no, you got to go further upstream. I say, you got to go to the spring. Behavior is simply a downstream result of mindset. And I said, but if. If you're looking at someone's behavior to figure out whether it was a smart decision to be, you know, hooked up with them, you are way too late. It's going to be nothing but pleasant, unpleasant surprises. And I said, what you want to do is check them out on the mindset level, you know, and. And so that's what I do. And then I write my books on this basis and I get a handle on the person who is the most transformative person. And then in the book, I just talk about that person. You're person who does this. You're a person who, no matter what stage of success you are, it's just the platform for further jump, you know. And I'll say that. And it's all written in the second person singular. It's you do this and you do this and you do this and you do this, and you're the kind of person who does this and you don't like this and you like this and everything like that. And people say, well, what kind of research do you have? I said, I don't need any research. I said, what I have to do is I have to get the reader right. And I said, you know, if I say something that isn't true about them, they'll throw the book away. I have to get it right right from the beginning.

Yes. And that is probably the greatest thing. Again, you always talk about how you've got check writers. They've already said yes. So if you write for and about the people who've already invested, you're going to attract more like said that. That's the secret is right to an audience of one. Here's my last big question for you, Dan. You've been meditating for how many years?

I started in the.

I think it was February of 72. 72. So I'm 49 years.

All right, so that's number one. And number two.

I think one of your key cornerstones is asking great questions.

And you also just talked about how behavior is a byproduct of mindset. So I am curious.

What your thoughts are on tapping into universal consciousness and what you believe to be True. So, in other words, you know, one thing that I've noticed that as I age, I really see how perfect nature is and how universally, you know, it's like tapping into universal God consciousness. That's the bottom line on the way I view things. And I know.

The more you meditate, the more you think the answers appear. And I'm just curious what your belief is about tapping into universal consciousness when you're meditating, accessing that and accessing wisdom that is sometimes unexplainable or how you think of it.

Well, I'm not a believer in, you know, universal intelligence, first of all.

Okay.

What I do is believe that as a species, we've had a couple hundred thousand years experience and actually our nervous systems have been formed out of a lot of struggle, you know, a lot of.

Persistence and a lot of having breakthroughs and everything else. And I think we're kind of hardwired based on our experience. And when someone really, really gets in touch with who they are, you know. You know, and the big thing for me is you gotta like who you used to be or you're not gonna have any personal insight. Okay. In other words, if you're trying to always get away from who you used to be, you're. Yep. It's. You're. You're also. You're always going to be surprised by how stupid you are.

You're just going to get endless experiences where it's proven that you haven't learned any. You know, you haven't learned anything. What I, what I believe is that when all people and, and it's not everybody, it's not everybod. I mean, yeah. In the scheme of things, could I take anyone and, you know, you know, kind of spend the time to try to get them to kind of understand who they are? I said, yeah, I could, but I. I'd be bankrupt and, well, one, I'd. I'd be bored before I'm bankrupt. So anyway, and I said, so I found that a particular type of entrepreneur, and I've created a formula that out of all the people who say they're entrepreneurs, it would be one person out of 400. One person out of 400. And entrepreneurs are about 5% of any population. You know, people who are technically.

Not paid, you know, they're not employed, but they're making a living, so that's an entrepreneur. And out of Those, there's probably one out of 400 where you can have a conversation with them about.

Continually growing, constantly transforming themselves, and not just creating a job for themselves. But creating a company and then creating a company that they don't have to manage and a company that multiplies itself. So there are stages of growth.

What my belief is, why we feel that we're tapping into a.

Universal consciousness, is that the more we get in touch with our experiences, the less conflict there is between what we're thinking and our feelings about things. And when we talk from that point, everybody who's done that on themselves says, he's one of us, he's one of us. I get a feeling you're talking just to me. Well, we've both done the same amount of work, and we recognize in another person that they've also done the work on themselves, you know, that they've. You know, they've been courageous enough to go back and look at, you know, bad things they've experienced or bad things they've actually done, you know, and they've come to grips. I mean, one person that I just immediately find easy to talk to, you know, and he's just, you know, exploring the entrepreneurial world, is Andre Norman. You know. You know, Joe, you know. You know, and, you know, he's got a book out where he talks about. He was, you know, a teenage gang member, and he got sent to prison. He spent 14 years in prison. And he was the big deal in prison and everything else. And then.

You know, he had us. He had a. An experience where he just, you know, kind of, you know, made a supervisor. You know, he's. Andre is black, and the supervisor was white. And he walked into the kitchen and says, get me. He says, get me a hamburger and fries. And the guy says, you're not supposed to be here. And he said.

He said.

I bet your wife. Do you have wife? And he says, yeah. He says, you have kids? He says, I said, I think they'd be really unhappy if you didn't come home tonight, right?

And the guy says, get him two hamburgers. Get him two fries. So he got them, and he walked back to his cell. Big deal, you know, and even the guards opened the doors for. He wasn't even supposed to be in the area, but that's the kind of control he had over the prison. And he was sitting there eating the hamburger, and he says, yeah, here I am. And he gets to go home tonight.

I think he's got more to teach me than I have to teach him. So he flipped just like that. Boom. Like that. Column number four, Transformative. And it was like that. And, you know, he said he had this argument with God, and he says, you know, what I really want is freedom. And he says, yeah, but God said to him, no, no, he says, as soon as you're out, you'll be back here, okay? Because you can't deal with freedom. What you got to do is be successful. Successful will get you out so that you can stay out. And he says, quit talking about freedom. Start talking about success. So, you know, and he's a very charismatic individual. He's very smart and everything else. And through a series of connections, he got to. He was in Massachusetts, got to go to Harvard, special program, everything else. And now he's, you know, now he is, you know, great platform speaker, great. You know, I mean, and, you know, works with gangs, works with prison inmates, you know, and, you know, tries to steer, you know, 14, 15 year old who are on the same path he was not to. Not to go that direction. Everything else. And I can sit there and talk. I have nothing in common with this man as far as experience, but the trip. We recognize each other's trips. You know, we recognize, I was here, I was here, I was here. And we recognize each other. People who have constantly transformed themselves immediately recognize what meditation does. It allows the static to go away so that you can actually be present. And I've done. I mean, I've done it every morning for 49 years. You know, it's supposed to be twice a day, and, you know, afternoons aren't predictable enough for me to do that. So I said, first thing in the morning is predictable. I do it first thing in the morning. That's just what I learned, you know, it's tm Transcendental Meditation. I went. And like most of those things, you pay them for the skill and you stay away from their organization. That's right. Yep.

Yeah, it's definitely. It's a.

It's.

It's an. It's another cookie religion.

I went to aston, you know, EST in the 80s, you know, and.

People say, what is. I said, I think they. They tell you the importance for the rest of your life of showing up on time. And I said, it's worth a couple weekends and. But don't go near them as an organization. I said, the biggest set of losers you've ever seen in your life. But what they have is really good for a couple of weekends.

Yes. Yeah. No, I went through it, too, and I don't know if you and I ever had this conversation, but I know Stuart Emery, who was one of the co founders, who's a beautiful man. He and his wife Joni, he lives in the Bay Area. But the founder is Warner. Yeah, Warner. He's still alive, but pretty much lost it now, so. Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna.

Yeah, but, you know, I mean, things can be valuable, but, you know, I mean. Yeah. And.

It was actually interesting because Babs was a. Enrollment manager.

That's right. Yes.

Enrollment manager for them. And you know, and.

She really had, you know, she's really smart and she picks up on things and she got an inside view of the organization and she said, you know, it's going to be easy to create our organization because it's just 180 degrees away from everything that esteem.

Remember 10 things that really, really were painful about them. She said, just, just do the opposite. You're ahead of the game, you know, and. Yeah, and I, you know, I meet, run into people that I knew a long time and they're still somehow involved with it. And I said, you know, have you gone anywhere? They haven't done a thing with it, you know, they're, you know.

Right, right. I mean, now they just wanted a religion.

Yeah.

It's a religion that did nothing and. But, you know, having that connection with a static belief system gives those.

Well, I don't know, I'd sound. It's just a different brain type. Not my type of brain. There's no, no pleasure in that environment for me whatsoever.

All comes down to chocolate or vanilla.

Yeah, yeah. Yep, I'll have what I'll have or whatever they aren't having is what I always said. You know, it's like, I know. Oh, go ahead.

I remember when I left, you know, I mean, I went to one seminar and then, you know, they want you to sign up for life and sign up everyone, you know, for life. And, and, and I said, nah, I'm not coming back. And they said.

What'S your, you know, what's your issue here? And I found no issue. I have a choice between coming back or not coming back. And I choose not to come back. They said, well, what do you mean? What do you mean? I said, chocolate or vanilla?

That's good. If I ever, I remember years ago, if I'd get in an argument with someone who was Bible thumping me, you know, and, you know, the hell thing would come up. It's sort of like all I said, I don't remember how it was. Said something to the effect of I want to go wherever you and people like you aren't. So.

Yep.

Well, let's leave on a positive note here. First of all, this was endlessly fascinating because we got into I think the nuance of your mindset and how you think through the scorecards, but also knowing your history behind it and where it's tapped from. I found this, again, endlessly fascinated, fascinating, and I took a ton of notes. So one thing I want to do is make sure that our audience, if you've enjoyed this, make sure you head over to Capability Amplifier, you rate, review, share, and if you text CA to the phone number 858-434-5316, you'll not only get updates, some information, a way to communicate with Dan and I if you have some questions or some ideas you want us to cover, but I'm also going to send you a video about the strategic coach experience. You're going to see in six minutes what the mindsets are that you can use to elevate your own mindset, your business, and achieve the four freedoms we talked about here. Freedom of money, time, purpose and impact. Or, oh, rather, help me out here. I'm having a senior moment. Time, money, purpose and relationship.

There we go. Time, money, relationship and purpose.

Purpose. There we go. I always get it mixed up.

Doesn't matter. Doesn't, doesn't matter.

That's why you're here, Dan. You make me. You make me 10 times smarter than I am in real life.

Does not matter. Yeah, you had one of them. You're ahead of the game.

True that. So. Well, that's all I got. You got anything else you want to add, Dan?

I would just say, Mike, you know.

I think what makes us so easy, the, you know, our podcasts and our conversation as we've got the 30 or 40, I mean, we started more or less in identical circumstances, you know, Midwest. And one thing in the Midwest, no matter how great, great you are, don't get above yourself, you know, like, you know, you get like that. And I think that's a poppy. Yeah, I think that's a useful skill because it.

Kind of encourages you to include other people in the success and include other people. Because farming, I mean, there ain't no wealthy single farmer, I'll tell you. I mean, you farming is totally team. I mean, some of the big farms, we have one just, I mean, just to close off here, I had on our workshop yesterday and it was from the uk. We did it at seven o' clock Eastern time, so they start at noon. And we had one of our clients from Saskatchewan was on it. Boy, he was really, he was really up early. And I said, so how many acres do you have? And he said, 28,000. I said we had a farm in North America. We had a farm in northern Ohio. I said, 28,000 acres is like north northern Ohio. Oh, my God, that's a lot of acres. And he said, yeah, yeah. But he says, you know, you know, one thing leads to another, and. But he says, you know, I've got 50 people who, you know, I got 50 people who, you know, handle things.

So.

Well, and if you're a polygamist Mormon, you could have a whole bunch of family slaves, you know. So I say that with jest. I was just joking. Yes. But anyway.

That'S a lot of acres. I'm still spinning on that. My best friend growing up, their family was, I think, 7,000. And I couldn't get my head around that much. So 28,000 is unimaginable to me.

Well, Dan, he lives in country where if you dog runs away, you can watch it for two days.

Yeah, that's so funny.

Yeah. Yeah.

Not a lot going on out there, that's for sure. Okay, well.

Thank you.