How To Ensure You’re Only Getting Into Good Relationships

Hello and welcome to Capability Amplifier. My name is Mike Koenigs. I'm here today with my good friend Mr. Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach and in Capability Amplifier, we're going to be talking about relationships today. I'm going to be asking Dan some strategies he uses that enhance the quality of relationships and actually connect with more people more effectively. So, Dan, it is great to be here as usual with you, sir.

Thanks, Mike. You know, I've been living through the technological since the 70s. Actually. I got onto the microchip was going to make a difference 1973, and it really triggered my thinking about being a coach to entrepreneurs. So this has been 45 years in the making. But I didn't start in the technological age. I came out of the radio age and the cradle telephone age. And there's lots of talks, you know, like you don't need relationship anymore if you have technology. And I said, you know, it's a foolish thought because even with the high technology, if it's good technology, it just enhances your ability to have great relationships. So I'll just say that as my first point, that you start with relationship and work outwards with any new capability that comes along just to actually enhance relationships like we're doing right now with the podcast technology.

Right on. Well, I'm going to get this going. And just to frame this question, where this came from is I was brainstorming with my wife, Vivian, and she is in the nonprofit business, but she raises money. We actually just came back from her 31st trip to Africa, it was my sixth, where we visited schools, hospitals, all the work that she's been doing. And a big part of what she does is raises money. And she has gotten in front of some very big. So most recently, Michelle Obama reopened their Let Girls Learn program. So she actually has direct connection with the Obama family, as well as the Wynn family, for example, and a number of other sizable ones and the Bush foundation as well. Texas A and M recently did a whole bunch of work for her. So the point of this is she's at the point now where to maximize her time, raise the maximum amount of money, but actually have real significant relationships. Not using relationships, but those that matter. Her question specifically is, what's the best way to have one on one relationships when you don't have time for a one on one relationship. And again, I thought this would be a very relevant question because all of us as business owners are in a spot where you see people try to maximize time all the time, and they end up having shallow relationships with lots of people, and everyone knows it and they don't feel special. So what's your strategy? How do you maintain so many significant, meaningful, intimate relationships with people that genuinely like and love you, but also want to do business with you and are connected with you on a very, very deep level? Dan?

Yeah, I think it's really a great question. So I'm going to just introduce that. You have to have filters, and the filters have to have criteria. And that is, you know, we can get pulled in all directions out of our enthusiasm for creativity, enthusiasm for a new enterprise. And I think that the number one criteria that I have right off the bat, it's a bit like Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett says, you know, I obviously look at the numbers before I make an investment. And we have all sorts of criteria on investment. And he said, the first criteria I have, do I actually like the person that I'm going to be investing with? The second one is, do I trust the person? You can like somebody, but they're not trustworthy. And the third one is, do I admire what they've created and do I respect the way that they've gone about growing it? You know, so it's like trust, admire, and also respect. And he said, if those four check off, then I really look at the numbers. But if those don't check off, I don't look at the numbers at all because the numbers are meaningless. And my sense is that we all know the feeling of people that we like what that feels like. And so that's been developed since we were born. I would just stick with that and not be fooled by all sorts of other considerations until you've checked those four out.

That's very good. So that's definitely the quantitative, which makes a lot of sense. So if you were going to. I'm just kind of curious, this is more from my perspective, but how do you weigh these? So it's sort of like, look at the numbers. And that Warren Buffett one, which. The first one is, do you like them? Do you trust them?

Well, the numbers come second. I mean, he's interested in the numbers, but then he checks out, right? These are really the qualitative checkoff boxes, not the quantitative. Then he says, let's look at the numbers, if it really makes sense from a business standpoint. But he said the relationship standpoint has to be established before I actually look at the numbers. And Mike, you and I have witnessed an enormous number of people who have been willing to get involved in bad relationships because they thought the numbers were so good. If I take a look at Vivian's situation. There's a lot of people with big money around the planet who could write a very, very big check. And I know she has a special interest in girls education of, you know, really creating a much, much better way of encouraging girls. And the reason is if girls get educated, it's the single factor that makes the biggest difference in any society is educated girls. Okay? Because educated women raise good boys. We were at JJ's wedding, and there was a raffle, and, you know, we just wrote a big check because of both Babs and I totally believe in what Vivian is doing. But here's the thing, Mike. Think of a situation where the numbers tempted you to get involved in something where you were leery about the relationship on the one hand, and on the other hand, it's somebody you just wanted to work with the person, and then it turned out from a number standpoint to be a lot bigger than you ever thought because the relationship was good. I mean, just contrast those two situations.

I couldn't agree more. And that is there's two words that pop into mind when I listen to you. One of them is compromise, and the other one is coping, which is if you violate any one of the qualitatives from the very beginning, and I did mess that up earlier, the qualitatives, you wind up compromising and coping. And then on the greed side, the same exact thing happens, which is it is a lot more expensive to get out of a bad relationship than any benefit you'll ever get on the front end, which is, are you playing the long game or are you playing the short game? But the next thing that I think is interesting and worth looking at is just from an energetic perspective, how you do one thing is how you do everything. I don't know who first said that, but I think when you look at. And you get to know someone by asking some great questions, which is really what leads me into my next question for you, is what kind of questions do you ask people in order to get to know them really well, very quickly? Because I know from past experience, when I fall in love with someone too easily, my greed gland gets activated. You can make a snap decision and jump into a relationship very, very quickly. You know, I actually know someone who got married after meeting someone a week later, and it's like everyone around them shaking their head. I know in my past, I've made partner mistakes, you know, because I, at the time, I got what looked like cheap labor that was good enough. And eventually some other partners, myself included. We outgrew the person and it would have been a lot better off just paying them a salary, even if it would have been difficult in the beginning because the business outgrew the partner. I outgrew the partner and they failed or were unwilling to grow, expand and increase their capabilities and skillset. I know in one instance I had a partner that literally cost me millions of dollars to, to buy out. And at the time, writing out checks for millions of dollars meant that there wasn't money going into my bank account for a good chunk of time. Right. Or was there available to invest capital? So that leads me back again to the question that I have for you, which is, what are some of the questions that you ask in order to get to know someone really well? And again, I'm going to just repeat. So like questions. Let's just start with like questions. What are some of the things that you find out you want to know in order to get a sense other than just an energetic presence or their charisma or their being?

It's very, very interesting because you constantly discover new and better questions to ask. I'm smarter now than I was 20 years ago about this and one that I found particularly fruitful because it either generates no conversation or it generates an amazing conversation. So I mean, you can pick up a lot if you get people to talk about what they're really passionate about. And this is one that has emerged for me just in the last six months and its relationship to the new program that we have in Strategic Coach called the Game Changer. The question is 25 years from now, if you devoted yourself for 25 years and you created something that was really extraordinary, who would you want to be a hero to as a result of those 25 years? You're giving them a time frame and what it tells you is that they can think in terms of a long time frame. The other thing is that they would devote themselves to a particular thing over 25 years. And the other thing is their biggest payoff for 25 years of creativity and productivity is that they would be a hero to some particular person who they actually have in their life right now. So for me, it's entrepreneurs who would be willing to devote 25 years of their life to create some new form of game changing value in the marketplace and they would be hero to a particular type of person in the world. So in the answer to it, it's about creativity, it's about growth, and it's about relationship. And we're not talking about money anywhere along the way. Okay? I said, if you did this, you'd probably make a great deal of money, but you're not doing it because of the money. And the other thing is, I'm looking for Mike and you'll really appreciate this one is I want to see if they have cash flow confidence right now that they could actually be a big player going forward. So there's a lot of people who have dreams and they're very passionate about the dreams, but they haven't handled the present well enough for them to be actually a good player.

Very good. So let's dive into that last one, the definition of cash flow confidence. So that's their ability to generate cash flow now based on who they are and what they do and what they.

Know and what they've done up until now, and what kind of team do they have around them, what kind of relationship do they already have with the marketplace? So there's a predictability to the cash flow. And quite frankly, the criteria of having cash flow confidence is really unique to each individual. I would say here, and it's sort of an underlying theme here, my preferences is dealing with entrepreneurs.

I completely agree with that. I think again, I'm going to go down this rabbit hole a little bit. I'm attracted to entrepreneurs too, and the ones that I've enjoyed working with the most. And what I really dedicated the next chapter of my life to which I'm in the process, as I mentioned, of selling my current business. And I decided to liquidate a whole bunch of stuff around me because there's a lot of things I'd been doing for decades. And I realized that I outgrew a lot of them. And I'm like, huh? And what is it that I like the most? And one of the topics that I want to dive into on a subsequent episode is something I call my Dream 100 list. It's a strategy that I use for figuring out who I want to surround myself with. How do I message, how do I communicate and how do I. Who do I identify, who I want to be a hero to or connected to. So that's just a little seed to pop in your head for another episode. But anyway, what I look for are reinventors. And my definition of reinventors, part of it is I consider myself one. So that's why I'm interested in it. This is the self interest part, but it'll be entrepreneurs who are serial entrepreneurs with the willingness, the guts, the confidence and the courage to. To outgrow what they've done, be willing and able to leave it because think about how many people get stuck and for the sake of fear, they continue doing what they despise and wind up being miserable. Either alcoholics, their relationships fall apart and you can tell they're just dying inside or dead inside. And then those who again are able to just liquidate, move on, start something new and reinvent from that perspective, cold, so to speak. But the second are those who are willing to reinvent inside their current organizations and reimagine, rethink. Because again, to go a little bit deeper there, I was working with a particular client of mine who I absolutely adore, who she does hormone replacement therapy and she thought she was going to have to get rid of her existing business in order to rebrand herself because she thought she had priced herself too low in the marketplace and wanted to establish herself as being a higher end business. And after just an hour, I was able to help her rethink who she is, how she presents herself and shift her language patterns in a way that she repackaged herself. And the conversations the next week allowed her to repackage, reprice and start bringing in a lot more money, effectively tripling her revenue. So that would be my answer to what you had said is respect for that. So let's go on the next question then. What's a question that you would ask in order to determine if someone is trustworthy or that you trust them?

Well, we came up with this about 25 years ago because there were knockoffs of this out in the marketplace. We trademarked it as the Dan Sullivan question. It's a question that I actually asked the entrepreneurs to memorize. And some of them are very resistant to that. But after a while they come back to the actual wording of the question and the way it goes. And you've heard it many times, Mike, and this in a business situation. But if we're actually at the threshold of entering into any kind of relationship with anybody whatsoever, I always say, if we were having this discussion three years from today, and then you name the date, so today's the 30th of November, and we would go three years to whatever the date is in the future, 30th of November. And we were having a discussion looking back over that three year period, what has to happen in your life for you to feel happy with your progress, both personally and professionally? It's a very interesting question because you find out immediately, does the person have a future that they've clarified for themselves, which gives you a sense of trust. But the big thing is they will either Answer the question or not answer the question. So I always tell people that if someone says, well, you know, this is a bit personal, and I don't think I'd like to talk about this right now. You know, there's no trust. There's just no trust. They actually don't want to have a relationship with you. They would like to see if they can get some free information from you or some free knowledge from you. So I tell people, you know, if the person hesitates to answer the question, they don't trust you. And I don't trust people who don't trust me.

You know, right off the bat. I mean, if you don't trust me, I mean, I'm a good guy and you don't trust me, then you've got bad judgment. So I don't trust you. But the other thing is, does the person actually have the ability to create a future for themselves and are they committed to that future, and are they someone who actually measures their progress? And you'll know, first of all, if the person doesn't answer the question, you just save yourself a lot of bother. Okay? And I always say to the person, you know, and I've had clients who would not answer the question, and I said, well, thanks for that response, because my job was to come here and see if there's any way that I can be useful to you in your future. And you've just told me that it's none of my business. And so I just want to thank you for that clear cut answer. I appreciate the minute that you've given to me. And it jolts people when you walk away, because what I'm saying is that I'm actually the buyer here. I'm actually the buyer, and I think that's an important thing, is to have your own personal standards. You used the word before, Mike, of compromise, not compromise. And ultimately, the person who has an attitude that I'm buying good future experiences and I'm very, very careful who I get involved with just does well. And I would say in both of our cases, you know, if you look at where you are right now, Mike, and you can talk a little bit about this, that you've cut clean from your past, essentially you're treating everything you've done in the past as a big stage one, and now you're starting a stage two, and you want all your time back, but you've developed certain standards for the type of activity and the type of relationships you want to have now, which are at a much higher level than they were when I first met you, I met you at Eben Pagan's event in Miami Beach. That's where we first met. But who you are now compared to who you were back then, just from an outside standpoint is really transformed. And I think that, you know, you have a lot of insight into the transformation that has gone on over the last dozen years or so.

Well, thank you for that. I'll address that one first, which it is fascinating. The truth is you can do this all in your mind with great imagination, which is imagine you're starting off from scratch. You have to create a framework in your mind and a brand new play field where again, you're not in a state of compromise and coping. Compromise and coping very often for entrepreneurs comes from a space and a place of fear. Actually, I have a whole file. I'm going to show this to you visually for people who are just listening to us. I've been thinking about documenting observable fears that I see in entrepreneurs and also what the top ones are that men and women have and what their triggers are. And those are the things that keep us stuck ultimately. And the origin points, the traumas that create repeating fears which actually occur and become habits. And that I think really drives character, which all of these questions really are designed to extract character traits very, very quickly. So going back to starting from scratch, what I've noticed is just like when you were talking about having the ability to just walk away after asking a question and say thank you for the clarity, you know, if you're useful and the idea of being trusting or trustworthy, which you can't have a relationship if someone doesn't have the ability to have trust and think that, oh my God, someone's just trying to trick me or you know, get something from me that indicates habitual trauma, that is an infection and a virus. And you cannot make that your problem. They're going to be the worst poverty stricken clients as well. They're not going to be good friends. And so again, those words of compromise cope. The way to get away from compromising and coping is being able to qualify quickly. That's the note I took down here. And also just having that clarity and the confidence. So just addressing the Dan Sullivan question that you talked about, there is a sales process that actually is originated and derived based on the Dan Sullivan question. And I don't know if you knew this at the time, but asking the question, if we were to have this conversation three years from now, looking back, what would have to happen? That is a future pacing mechanism. And when you came up with the question, were you aware of and did you know about NLP and future pacing?

Well, the big thing is that we can talk about this. I'm just going to drop it in 30 seconds here. It's the future perfect tense of the verb and it's not taught anymore. And the most skillful people in the world are the people who can operate in the future as if it's the present. In other words, they can visualize themselves and they can have a 360 degree picture of themselves in the future. And it has to do with your mastery of the language. So if we were having this discussion three years from today and you're looking back, well, that requires a lot of brain power. It requires a lot of personal perspective and everything else. And then you have to be confident about that or you're not going to answer the question if somebody asks you about it. So I'm checking out all sorts of qualities about the person just by asking the. And if they don't answer, then no game at the stadium today, so I just leave the stadium. But if they do answer, then we've got the basis for a very creative and very productive discussion. And I'm all ears to what they tell me about that. And the other thing I know about the answer to this question, no one's ever asked them this question before. And the fact that they respond positively and confident to a question that they've never been asked for actually tells me a lot about the person.

It really is genius. It is brilliant. And I really get that because that's one thing I look for from a quality perspective. The people I like most are resourceful and have the ability to have a conversation that is future focused, but they can bring it into the present and have the ability to connect an enormous number of wires, which is some of those are who and how things. I know you talk about who all the time, but it's like being able to say I know exactly how that can be done. And I already have a network of the who's who can make it occur. And that's what builds the confidence, right? It's the clarity and the confidence. So let's move on to the third question, which is admiring what they created. Talk about that a little bit. What's a question that you would ask that would extract that knowledge and that information rapidly?

Yeah, well, I have a technique that I use and I use it in selling with someone's thinking about the program. My first question, I mean, after I've asked the R factor question, but usually They've been screened by a salesperson before. I'll talk to them about this. But then I say, can you just tell me how you got here, the jumps that you've taken to get to the point where you're now considering Strategic Coach as a growth stage of your life? I mean, where did this start? One of the things that's really interesting is that again, Mike, it's one of these questions that seldom people are asked to do. And I say if you had to fix five particular jumps that you've made since you first started in business, and tell me what each of those did for you. What comes across is whether they feel badly about their past or they feel proud about their past. If they feel badly about their past, they're going to feel badly about their future. So I want to know if people are actually proud and they've learned a great deal and they have a real sense of significance and importance about the future they've already led. And if they don't, it won't be any different in the future. And they're going to be looking at you to provide them with the positive reinforcement. You're like a wall plug and they're going to want to plug into you to get the energy. And I want them to come with batteries included.

Very good. That is brilliant. You know, as you were talking about that, I couldn't help to go to my son, who's 16 right now, of finding ways to reinforce that thinking. Because if you think about how do you instill remarkable self confidence and self respect and a sense of well being in a child, it's to be able to reinforce that thinking more than anything. And again, I'll give you a real life example. So from this trip I mentioned earlier that we just got back from in Uganda, Vivian brought 20 donors with her families. Along with there were a total of seven adolescents, two of which had been in some kind of a treatment program in the past. And kids these days, we know that due to social media comparing themselves, they're accelerated into low self esteem and addictive behaviors more than ever before. More incidents of anxiety and depression in young people, as far as I know. I don't know the total statistics, but it appears that way. One of the ways out of that is by instilling a sense of giving back, contribution and participating in those kind of programs. So I think again, going back to significance and validation, that makes a ton of sense.

But do they have the ability to do that to themselves or are they dependent on outside factors to make them feel good about themselves or do they have an internal ability to do that themselves?

Right on. So let's just hit the last question really fast, which is being respected. Why don't you talk a little bit about that last question?

Yeah. And this may seem a little bit strange because I don't second guess people's positive feedback to me. Okay, so one of the things is are they able to take praise and are they able to take other people's insights, which are very positive insights, and actually take them in and say, well, that's proof that I'm really doing well. Where I've met a lot of people who are outwardly very successful, very skillful, but they reject other people's praise. They reject other people's, obviously their compliments and, and it's a real downer because if they can't accept positive feedback, they won't be able to accept negative feedback either. They're kind of isolated and they're resisting your observations that your observations about who I am don't have any value to me whatsoever. Well, it's a relationship factor that my best relationships, both from a standpoint of pointing out things that are doing extraordinarily well, they're able to profit from that, they're able to grow from that. But consequently, where I make observations or I ask them questions about things that aren't working well, I know from the one whether it's possible for them to accept the other. So that's another way of looking at it. So my attitude now you know where I am right now, Mike. If it's the right audience, the audience is always right.

I love that. And that is the greatest speakers and presenters I know are also the best empaths. They can feel an audience and actually experience feedback based visually. They have this second sense that allows them to pull that and also ask the right people for the right kind of information, which to me the only people who get the votes are the ones with their wallets that are open and willing to make an investment. That's the kind of feedback I listen to. Not always. Obviously the non buyers get a certain level of a vote as well. Again, going back to positive feedback, I want to get the majority of my feedback from those who say yes and provide a means and a mechanism and feedback to get more and to receive more.

These are great questions. I mean, you got my head spinning here over the last half hour. So I just want to tell you a great question is always ten times more impactful than a great answer.

Oh, well done. Well, I have to again thank my brilliant wife for this one because she got me spinning this morning. I thought, man, this is a perfect Dan Sullivan question. We'll call it the Dan Sullivan question number two. So this brings us to the end of this episode. What I want to encourage our listener to do, that's you, is head over to Capability Amplifier. Because one of the things that we are adding to the website is the ability to ask questions and provide feedback for Dan. That's a great opportunity for you to participate and actually drive the content of this program for you and allow us to filter and even make your questions potentially better. Because that's one of the things that Dan has this innate ability to do, is sprinkle in his wisdom and experience and his observations on life that are going to make this even better. I want to thank you, first of all, Dan, for a remarkable episode.

Thank you, Mike.

Yep. And for you, our listener, head on over, give us some feedback. Head on over right now to capabilityamplifier.com there you can get show notes. We're adding transcripts as well. So you can read this episode, examine it, maybe pass it along to your sales team, because this is the kind of question and series of questions that you can use to enhance the quality of the questions you ask people that you want to screen, work with, maybe have work for you, and find people that you want to add to your team as well. So once again, Dan Sullivan, thank you so much and we'll see you soon.

Thank you, Mike.