In this interview, entrepreneur mentor Mike outlines his systematic approach to building a high‑performing team and the strategic relationships needed to scale toward a $100 million‑plus business. He emphasizes designing job ads that speak directly to the strengths required for a role, using personality‑based micro‑tests to verify candidates’ follow‑through and integrity, and leveraging his pattern‑recognition ability to spot A‑players early. Mike argues that top talent should be led, not managed, granting them autonomy to execute. He stresses that founders must first identify their own zone of genius and then structure the organization around their strengths and weaknesses. To accelerate growth, Mike adopts a “Dream 100” relationship strategy, targeting influential mentors and peers (e.g., Russell Brunson, Tony Robbins) who both open doors and provide personal energy. He highlights the importance of choosing relationships that energize you, noting that bodily cues reveal authentic connections and guide one toward purpose and profit.
Chapters
I want to establish myself as America's top entrepreneur mentor, but before that, I want to establish myself as America's number one expert at helping high achievers find their deepest area of genius.
We know that it's important to figure out, like, your unique talents so that you know what you're good at, you know what you're not good at, but how do you effectively find those people to backfill and to take over the things that you're not good at because you thought you were setting yourself up, but obviously didn't work out so well. So how do you find those A-players that could really help you?
Yeah. So now in my hiring process, like, I think I've got one of the best recruiting processes of A-players I've ever seen. And I, you know, our mutual friend Natasha, you know, is asking, hey, Mike, how do you attract these, these A-players? Your team is in sync. I love your team. And I'm grateful for my team, but I also am very intentional about creating space for them to play to their genius. And because of that, they're more fulfilled, they're more alive, they're more excited about their brand and their, about what we're doing. And so I start from the beginning. I intentionally design the job ad to speak to the strengths I need in that role. So if I'm writing, for example, a job ad for someone that's really detail-oriented, and really administratively gifted, 'cause I'm not so administratively gifted, then I need to have the language and have the thought patterns and even look at some of the personality tests and what will indicate that they are gifted in this way. And then give 'em a little micro test. I give micro tests typically before I hire someone to see how good they are at that and do they actually follow through? Are they men or women of their word? Do they show up on time? They complete things on time? And then also, like, when I have— it's almost like I have— it's almost like I'm in the Special Forces and I have those seeing night goggles where I can see things that others can't see because I can see patterns. I can see people's strengths, especially once I know certain data details. Now it's almost like patterns pop like popcorn for me. And so as I'm building this next chapter of my entrepreneurial career, man, I'm like, I'm building my next, what I think will be a $100 million plus business. And I'm looking at the team and making sure I got the A players, you know, A players, they need to be led, not managed. And they'll show their colors if you know how to evaluate and test. And I bat about 70%. And then when I help others optimize their hiring process, the first thing is figure out what your genius is as the business owner and then design the business, design the people you bring on around your strengths and weaknesses.
After you— and I want to go through sort of each of these 4 key areas because I think they all have merit to just sort of like dive a little bit deeper into them. So you've established your A-players, you have a process that tests You let them, you know, you, you lead them, you don't manage them. You give them a little bit of, uh, control over how they're gonna execute. And that's sort of how you get the best out of them.
Um, actually a lot of control generally, a lot of control.
So you're, you're really, this is why it's so important to figure out the process, um, when you're bringing people in, because once they're in, then you let them like do their best work on their own. Um, second, the second component, if you wanna add more, that's fine. But the second component I wanted to touch on is key relationships. So how do you build these key relationships? How do you foster these key relationships? How do you, what is the point of having these relationships in respect to zone of genius? Is it a mentor relationship? Is it a business relationship, peer relationship that they're gonna open doors for you and get you in front of the right people? What do you mean by key relationships?
So there's a lot of different things that it can mean. So in fact, tomorrow I'm teaching a workshop and I'm gonna be doing monthly workshops on the Dream 100. And I've bought the domain dream100list.com. Have you heard of Dream 100 List from like Chet Holmes and Russell Brunson?
Yeah, I have. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, so you think of a couple things in key relationships. First, who brings you life versus who brings you death? Second, where do I already have a natural, like, just unusual amount of relationships? Like, I'm friends with the author that sold more books than anyone else in the world history, Mark Victor Hansen. So I'm friends with that guy, right? I'm friends with 30 other bestselling authors that have, you know, sold millions of copies of books. That— how do I get friends with these guys? I don't even have a book out. I have one book out now. So like, that's a little weird. And I love being around those guys more than I love being around the guys in the real estate industry. I was in— I was driven. I felt— I lit up. I felt inspired by being around those types of people. So that was a clue. And then if I look at the next layer, strategically, how do I build great key relationships? All right, where do I want to go? I, I know where I want to go. I want to establish myself as America's top entrepreneur mentor. But before that, I want to establish myself as America's number one expert at helping high achievers find their deepest area of genius. So now I'm looking at, all right, who influences, who already has an audience of my ideal 4% client, the people that I most want to reach? Oh, Russell Brunson, John Lee Dumas, you know, et cetera, et cetera. We go through the Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi, Craig Ballantine. I just got booked for his podcast today. So, like, you, you go through that, that list of like, oh, these are the people that I really want to be around, and, and they serve— they already have an audience of hundreds of thousands or millions of email subscribers. And then now I'm going to build that relationship with those people on my Dream 100.
And then, so that's actually— I wanted to just, I wanted to just reiterate a point you made. So it's— there's a lot of, of tactical things that these, these relationships these Dream 100 will give you in your aspirations, wherever you want to take your business or otherwise. But I think that the one thing that you mentioned that is potentially, I don't want it to be overlooked, is that they give you energy. These are the people that give you energy. That is like so undervalued. I think that's so important because you said like, listen, being in a room full of, you know, multimillion and potentially billion-dollar real estate developers is not a bad room to be in. By any means, they're going to get you in a lot of doors. They're going to get you— they're going to make you probably very successful if you build that network out. But if it's not giving you energy, it doesn't matter. It's not, it's not what you're meant to do. And that's actually very, very telling. That's something that I think a lot of people should take into account when they start to look for the next thing, the next job, whatever. Is it giving you energy or is it like, it feels like a weight on you? And if it feels like a weight, that's not it.
Yeah. That your body doesn't lie. You know, think of why, why does the FBI do a lie detector test on your body, not on your words? You can lie through your mouth all day. It's only 7% of communication. But lying through your body, it's really freaking hard. Your body will tell you who you want to spend time with. And anyway, so yeah, there's clues right there that also it points you to your destiny, points you to your calling, points you to your purpose, points you even to your pathway to profit. Might not— it's not going to be a smooth ride to get to your full pathway to profit, but it's there.
