Joe:Hello everyone, it’s Joe Polish.

 

Dan:And this is Dan Sullivan.

 

Joe:Welcome to another episode of 10X Talk where we help entrepreneurs think about growing and building their companies and other areas and aspects of their life 10 times. It could be quickly. It would take a period of years but it’s really focusing on exponential growth, goals that matter, impact where you can make impact and basically working in a way that multiples you and the people that are most important to you and the projects that are most important to you. So Dan at the last couple of episodes we talked about the 50 connector future, how to build a network of people, why it’s important. We talked about a criteria on the last episode that I’d love to have you kind of do a refresher on and then I want to talk to you about an abundance neighborhood versus a scarcity neighborhood.

 

Dan:Yeah so what I’m going to do right now immediately connects to that conversation. And I said that if you look at the world in terms of people who just always grow and seem to create something valuable in the world, that they actually have some personal characteristics and then because of those personal characteristics which are three. They are then able to take advantage of some incredible capabilities, resources and opportunities out in the world and there’s also three of those. So the three personal qualities or characteristics that they are very grateful people and they really enormously appreciate everything in their life raising the value of it and they’re very good at creating things and putting things together which at first look don’t logically belong to each other.

 

Steve Jobs said creativity is putting stuff together. Well some people, they don’t put things together because they don’t actually appreciate the things they have so there is no point in putting them together. But the other thing is that just logically they’re living in a limited world and they can’t see bringing something from this point to another point. And then because of their gratitude and creativity they have high ability that keeps getting better of cooperating with other people who also have gratitude and creativity as part of their makeup. So there is an explosive multiplier effect when people like that get together. And that sets them up, those three qualities then set them up for three conditions in the world and one is massive bigger opportunity and they personally get more skillful and opportunity to take advantage of extraordinary ingenuity out in the world. People are uniquely gifted at creating an entirely new solutions. Then the combination of opportunity and ingenuity produces exponential capabilities in the world and we see this of course in the high tech world and all the 26 years olds that end up with their picture on Time magazine.

 

It’s getting to the point now that the man of the year that’s ending up on Time magazine can’t even shave yet. And we’re going to have 12 year olds who create ingenious solutions which transform the world. It’s the age we’re living in and it’s kind of neat in some ways. You can get very successful in that multiplier world, the 10X world but if you cut off what got you there if you stop being grateful and you stop being creative and you stop being cooperative then the electricity gets cut off and none of your equipment works anymore.

 

Joe:Can I ask you about something related to – let’s take the Malcolm Gladwell when he wrote about the 10,000 hour rule. What are your thoughts on that for people that really young but do incredible things right out of the gate? Are these individuals lucky or were they born with something that other people weren’t. I mean of course probably a combination of all of those. But what is your take on people that are very new to something but they have incredible impact and build a company that sells for $1 billion and they’re 23 years old or something.

 

Dan:Yeah and you know a lot of people who have that experience blow their brains out then with all sorts of excesses in their lives. They can’t handle the successes. You see it in the entertainment industry all the time.

 

Joe:Oh woe, woe I have to mention this while you saying that. I mean even Jordan Belford, they made the movie the Wolf of Wall Street. I actually had an interview with him two years before the movie came out that we put up on ILoveMarketing.com. And it’s really interesting to see the transition there. But you talk about a very young person that comes across a lot of money. Now of course he was a completely out of control maniac. But with that being said, you’re absolutely right. Al to of people that come into that level of financial success, ethically or unethically they could really come out in very weird vices.

 

Dan:Yeah I mean emotionally and psychologically they’re not geared to take advantage of what they’re unique ability has actually created in the world. People burn out. A lot of people have a unique ability but they burn out really fast because the other parts of their life doesn’t support their success. But the real aspect of this is that’s part of the world. I mean there’s the part so the city where you live that are better for you to be in. There’s parts of the world that are better and the reason is and I call them neighborhoods because people who are really, really successful live in really, really successful neighborhoods. And I don’t mean really great houses. And I don’t really necessarily mean really rich or wealthy lifestyle. What I mean is that the neighborhood that they operate in from a connection standpoint who their relationships are, they’re actually characterized by those six characteristics of gratitude, creativity, cooperation and then those were relationships introduce them continually to great opportunities, great ingenuity and greater exponentials.

 

So what I’ve really, really noticed is that compared with 20 years ago I’m significantly handing out more than the abundance neighborhood then it’s opposite and I can just take about five minutes and describe what the opposite looks like although I don’t want to spent too much time on it. But it’s important for people to know what the negative side looks like. What the bad neighborhoods looks like. But the big thing is that if I’m training someone I said you’ve got all the skills. I mean everybody who comes to me at Strategic Coach has really good skills and already they’ve achieved beyond the norm for any industry that they happen to be in that they would be considered role models by many other people. But they’ve got certain personal attitudes and they’ve got certain mindsets about the world which is basically they’re hit a ceiling. So if they don’t make significant changes. And I just ask them questions. How are you looking at that? I mean you can’t trust people. I said well poof. And that’s an interesting thought. Does that do you any good that you can’t trust anybody. And I said is this completely true? You have not trusted anybody.

 

So a lot of people have some thoughts or beliefs about how they operate and how the world operates which are very, very limiting thoughts. And we all have them. I mean I’m very successful but I’m running into limiting thoughts all the time. But my limiting thoughts are 100 stories higher than some other people’s limiting thoughts and we all do that. The smartest and most successful person in the world is still hitting limiting thoughts.

 

Joe:Yeah totally. So I mean what are some of your limiting thoughts that you’ve experienced in the past that you’ve transformed?

 

Dan:Well I mean when I first started coaching back in the 70s, I had the notion well you can only do this with one person at a time. For the first 15 years of my coaching career I only had one on one relationships. Babs and I had a notion on a much nicer house than we had and I said we’re not going to get to that nicer house until we change our thoughts about who we can coach. And then realized that we knew enough that we could do with a group of six people. And then we got a notion well yeah you can do it with a group but you can’t do it with more than 20 people. And then we wanted to furnish our house and have a lot of lifestyle.

 

Usually you’re driven by some internal improvement so you want to make to your life and then you have come that there is something the way you’re thinking about things which prevents you from actually achieving that external results. And that’s entrepreneurs very, very much. They’re driven by external achievements in terms of the life they’re living and the ease with which they can do their work.

 

One of the things that I realized at a certain point that if I really wanted to make a fundamental breakthrough and really go for it as an entrepreneur, I just had to construct a neighborhood and live in the neighborhood in terms of my connections and my relationships, where everybody just had those six, those three personal qualities they were also looking for the three breakthroughs in their life. And every year I’m surrounded by more and more and I can measure the results first of all just in the enjoyment of what I’m doing. In my sense of satisfaction what I’m doing. But also the significance of what I’m doing and there’s three things which really measure a great life and one of them is success, the other one is satisfaction and the third one is significance. As I’ve done and then of course the revenues and the profits. They’re almost like byproducts and we’ve really gone up and I’ve used the number 50 because this whole conversation over the whole last number of sessions has really been about surrounding yourself. And 50, I mean that would take your lifetime to really develop 50. I figured 25 years I can have 50 and I’ve got about nine or 10 which are head and shoulders above the others right now. And I’m learning an incredible amount. I’m not pushing it real fast but I know over 25 years I’ll have 40 these connections and all of them are creating this significant what I would call a world changing capability not just for me. Not just for them but for in some cases millions a billions of other individuals. It’s just a very, very enjoyable activity being involved.

 

You’re one to them. I think the whole Genius Network concept that you’ve created is just in its very early infancy as you add other people’s capabilities and connections so it will just to worldwide. It won’t be in its present form probably in 10 years.

 

Joe:Right and I mean I think even 10X Talk can – I love marketing that I do with Dean Jackson really came out of Genius Network because Genius Network started out with interviews. And then these were interviews on cassette tape when I first started doing interviews. I mean I’ve interviewed over 400 different business people and entrepreneurs and athletes and you know it, all kinds of interesting folks. And part of it was this wanting to connect other people with wisdom and I called it Genius Network. And then it eventually became real genius getting together and meeting and talking with and developing relationships with other genius’ to get genius’ to collaborate. And genius is an interesting word because there are skills in genius in all kinds of areas. From marketing to business to technology to all kinds of artists and musicians and you know it. You put these people together in a room interesting things happen and the focus is on abundance not scarcity the world becomes way more exciting. They’re world, I don’t mean the world in general. I mean their world. If you want the world to change you change your own world.

 

Dan:Can I just say something about that Joe because you asked me the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour thing. So my definition of genius is that you find out what your unique ability is. I go back to that definition is you’re totally passionate about it. You do it all the time. You would do it whether you got paid or not. But you do it to be a hero to someone else in the market place and providing an incredible value to someone you want to be a hero to, produces a multiplication of revenues, profits and reputation. And that’s your unique ability. Now do your 10,000 hours which for entrepreneurs is very easily accommodated probably in less than 10 years because most entrepreneurs probably put in about 1,500 hours to 2,000 hours even if they’re taking a lot of free time. I mean the 10,000 hours thing, there’s a hitch to it. You got to be doing something great at the beginning to multiply by the 10,000 hours. I mean I’ve met people that I know that very early in their life, they discovered they were a genius at boring other people and they’ve put in almost 30,000 hours and they’re incredibly boring. So you got to be very careful with what you’re multiplying by the 10,000 hours. I put in my 10,000 hours yeah but what did you start with being annoying and boring. I mean some people they’re geniuses but you know and they’ve obviously put in a lot more than 10,000 hours. But are you being a hero to anyone. Is there any multiplier in it?

 

Joe:That is total comedy.

 

Dan:No, I mean people they have these formulas but they don’t back the formula up far enough to figure out where did they start. I mean it’s like garbage in, garbage out. If you have a really bad message and you put it on the internet you just multiplied by it a million times. But has it done you any good?

 

Joe:Exactly, yeah exactly.

 

Dan:I wish I could remember the despair.com. They have this one about blogging. Never has there been so many people saying so little to so few. Anyway, once you create a platform there’s no telling how quickly you could spread nonsense that no one even reads. And you’ll meet every nonsense lover in the world very quickly.

 

Joe:Yeah there’s an infinite. So I don’t know if you ever heard me talk about this book I read called, It’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You. And the title actually came from a conversation with Charlie Rose and Steve Martin I think in 2007 when Charlie Rose was interviewing the comedian Steve Martin. And he asked him about how do you become such a great comedian and he said you know be so good they can’t ignore you. And so this guy names Cal Newport wrote this book called So Good They Can’t Ignore and they did a pretty exhaustive study on how people actually excel in their careers. And the tag line is how skills trump passion and his whole premise is that passion, you know find your passion and do what you’re passionate about is not only bad advise in most cases but it’s actually dangerous because if someone just pursues passion but they have any skilled attached to it, then they never develop a skill which he calls rare and valuable. That you develop it to a point to where you’re actually producing results and creating value and it gives you career capital where you actually have control of your life. And he says where someone just blindly follows what they want to do but there is no skill attached to it and it’s like trying to follow your passion. Those people tend to just jump from thing to thing to thing because they never put their roots in the ground.

 

What’s always struck me is interesting because I love your concept of you do you want to be a hero to and when you combine passion and who do you want to be a hero to. And the thing with Strategic Coach, well they’re a people that talk about passion from a rah-rah get excited standpoint but they don’t have sort of back up to the build these people as more capable and skillful. Whereas everything in Strategic Coach and everything I ever hear you talk about is never just like some blind. If you’re passionate about football, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have unique abilities. It just means you could be really interested in football.

 

And so I’d love to get your take on since we’re talking about an abundance neighborhood which consists of the criteria exponentials, ingenuity, opportunity, being grateful, creative, cooperation. What is your thought on people following their passion because I never thought of Dan Sullivan as a guy – I’ve never seen you do the passion talk without backing up unique ability and value creation and I think a lot of people just take that whole concept and they misinterpret it entirely.

 

Dan:Well it’s a really good question and again it’s one of those things that you can only explain from how you experienced it. I’ve very, very passionate but I have a particular communication style where I’ve got enough of a sense of theater that it’s what the audience wants to experience. It’s not what you want the audience. In other words, that communication has a lot to do with its receptivity to the audience. I mean if you go to the movies, you see people emoting enormous passions but if you notice ordinary life, almost nobody does that. Maybe they do it in Hollywood I don’t know. But I think Hollywood people you know I was watching a movie the other night and it was just over the top in people’s emotions and their anger and their angst and everything else. I said Hollywood people are the most clueless people in the world because they think the rest of the population actually experiences life the way they do. They think the rest of the world is totally conflicted and neurotic and everything else. And they impose their own personal experience on the rest of the world. I said most people aren’t just kid of agreeable and friendly. They’re kind of cooperative. They go about their life and they think all right. And a lot of the actors they just have some very, very serious problems. And they live a lifestyle and they work in an industry which multiples their personal problems.

 

Who was the actor he as 24 actor and he said don’t go to Hollywood trying to find out who you are.

 

Joe:Well Glen Warshauer he was on every episode of 24 with Keifer Sutherland. He’s played more military roles.

 

Dan:Yeah he’s been fully employed since he was about 18 years old. I mean because he’s everybody’s favorite not star but somebody you always want to have in your cast.

 

Joe:Yeah just an incredibly nice caring guy. Very grateful for his fans. I’ve had lunch with Glen many times. He’s a really nice guy. And he said that if you get into the entertainment industry without knowing who you are, it will misinform you.

 

Dan:Yeah and that’s the big thing about circumstances and proper training and preparation and to go back you know that’s a great story because that story is worth a session in itself because there are a lot of people who are not stars in a particular industry but when you add up the total of what they’ve done in their lifetime it’s 20 times bigger than the biggest stars because 90% of the actors in the world are unemployed 90% of the time. But there are some actors that are just fully employed all the time and they’re employed when they’re in their 20s and they’re employed when they are in the 70s and there was no break in between. But they’ve learned to take their passion and make it to be a hero to the people they work with and there is this constant multiplier. They just have a constant paycheck and they might not win and academy award. They might not ever be featured NOS. But they just have found a groove in a world where they’re just eternally useful and valuable to other people, which is a great formula for life.

 

To go back to this other thing about passion because it’s misinterpreted because people think it’s an external expression but it actually isn’t. It’s an internal motivation. I know a lot of introverted people who are almost not noticeable who are just incredibly passionate about what they do and they’re created a structure around it and everything else. It has nothing to do with expression. There are useful individuals in the world you just combine both worlds. They have the internal motivation and they also have amazing external expression. You’re actually one of them. You’re a great, great front stage guy. You’re a better front stage guy that I am because you actually like it. And that’s part of it and then you got to be a hero to someone that you actually want to be a hero to.

 

And then in my world over the years having tested other possibilities I’ve just decided I just want to be a hero to talented successful, ambitious entrepreneurs who want to grow 10 times while simplifying their life and gradually differentiating themselves from everybody else in the market place. And that’s my formula and I’m just looking for those kind of people. And having said that they have to be grateful, creative or cooperative or I don’t want to do anything with them. I don’t want to deal with them.

 

Joe:So let’s talk about the flipside because in the scarcity neighborhood when I was taking notes I wrote down zero sum depleted, unfairness, MV guilt, anger, indignation. And so is it a choice to kind of the abundance neighborhood or scarcity neighborhood or is there a build up in this. I mean some people will operative out of an abundance mindset and they will fall back into the patterns of scarcity. You’ve obviously going to experience your life and the world much differently when you’re coming from a mindset of abundance versus scarcity. So recommendations for our listeners and what do they do to not only create an abundance neighborhood but the abundance relationship so it does fit into the connection future which we’ve been talking about for the last couple of episodes.

 

Dan:Well it all has to do with consciousness. If you’re conscious of what constantly develops and expands your neighborhood of greater and greater connections on certain criteria, you’ll never fall back because you’re working on it every day. But there are a lot of people who just luck into the abundance neighborhood. They might be born in the right circumstances or they just have a personality that opens doors for them. But that’s not really conscious and they don’t even really know the basis for their success. So I’m great proponent of understanding consciously the principles that make you successful.

 

And once you do that then you can see the opposite. You can see the principles that guaranteed will make your life negative. So just to do the flip from the abundance neighborhood, the number one thing that immediately gets someone into the scarcity neighborhood is envy of other people. Envy is a killer. Envy produces nothing but bad results. The moment you go into a state of envy, in other words being angry at someone because they have an ability or they have a condition or circumstance that’s better than you, it kills all gratitude. They are mutually exclusive. You can’t be grateful and envious and the same time. And if you’re envious you’re not going to be grateful. If you’re grateful you’re not going to be envious and then there’s two other things that fall out of ht at and then the next one is guilt. You’re very, very guilty of the things that you have that are better than other people. Guilt and envy are the flipsides, the same coin but two different sides. And then that sets you up for kind of being angry at the world because you’re feeling angry at yourself and you’re feeling angry at other people and then you export it to the world in general. So you’re angry about politics. You’re angry about what’s going on in the world. You’re angry about this. You’re angry about that and I just noticed that people were envious and guilty. There is just this low level anger all the time and I think the entire psychiatric profession really depends on those characteristics.

 

They sit there you know, I’ll just sign you up for one week, every week for the next 10 years and you’ll pay me $200 an hour to tell you how angry you are. And what you’re feeling guilty about and what you’re envious about and we won’t make any progress but I’ll make a lot of money.

 

Joe:That is funny. So I mean are you absolutely opposed to therapy?

 

Dan:No, here’s the thing. I think there’s some phenomenal psychiatrist or some phenomenal therapist on the parent but the reason they’re really, really great has to do with them personally. It has nothing to do with their training.

 

Joe:Gotcha, that makes sense.

 

Dan:It has nothing to do with their profession. I’ve ran into psychiatrists who can read a person up and down in about 15 seconds. And Ned Hallowell has kind of that ability and that’s why he’s created his own unique psychiatry. Ned can talk to you for about five minutes and he can start asking questions which tells me that he just intuitively understands what’s going on in you but it’s not because of his training at Harvard that he is that way. It’s not because of the degrees on his wall that he is that way. He’s just naturally that way.

 

Joe:Well what I like to do with the remainder of the time that we have is I’d like to give people that are listening to this something that they can do everyday that is very simple tool that could have a dramatic impact on their life and just a short period of time. It’s something that you created called Wind Streak and it’s an app where people can immediately build the gratitude muscle and the wining muscle. So I’d like you to just talk about what this is, how people get it and why they should use and we’ll wrap up.

 

Dan:I’m glad you brought that up because we’re expanding the Wind Streak to include a gratitude component. But basically almost every entrepreneur, everybody who has been successful has a sense of certain times in their life when they’re kind of winning and there is a momentum and other times when there aren’t. And what I have discovered that you can actually create a momentum and reinforce it every day and the momentum never stops and that is before you go to bed every night just think about three things that were wins for the day. In other words, you made progress. You feel good about it, feeling very, very proud and that becomes the explanation of that day that you just lived and then you set up three wins in your brain to approach the next day so tomorrow is going to be about these three wins.

 

So we always did that in the program but it was on paper and we had journals where people could write in their journal. But you know we live in the iPhones and the cell phone age and I said well there are these great things called apps. So one of our talented and successful people that I have in Strategic Coach by the name of Cathy Davis, she took it upon herself just to create this app. And it’s going great guns and it goes by person to person. We don’t advertise this or anything else. One person gets it and they can just send it onto their friends. You can just say hey, download this app. It’s free. And it’s starting to go viral. We are starting to get days where we have 500 downloads on a single day. These people are not known to us. I just want to get that out just to reinforce it. But the other thing is Joe when you talk about a win, where you have been very, very specifically grateful to someone in your life and who you’ve actually communicated to them, that is a win under any circumstances. The impact on you personally, the impact on them appreciates value. You appreciate yourself more if you’re grateful and the other person feels growth and appreciation because you appreciated them and the relationship grows. So if you’re just going to start this attitude of being in the abundance neighborhood just keep expanding the number of things in your day that you’re grateful for and then the number of people that you actually express your gratitude to and that takes on a momentum.

 

And then people who don’t respond to it well, or who don’t reciprocate, gradually they won’t be in your life and more and more you’ll be attracted to people in your life who really appreciate gratitude and really demonstrate gratitude. And you become sort of the center of a ring that goes out into the world and you do it to one person. He does it to another person or she does it to another person and it spreads to families. It spreads to all sorts of relationships so when in doubt, be grateful. When you don’t if for something to do if you’re in a loosing streak or you feel like in a funk, just spend a whole day being grateful to people and within 24 hours you’ll be out of your funk.

 

Joe:Yes exactly and plus you can just scroll through and you can just look through all of the wins that you’ve had.

 

Dan:Yeah I mean it goes back to when you started the process so you can go back 10 days. And then we have neat little messages. I mean we’re quickly making the apps so if you do five days in a row it says congratulations. You’re on a five day winning streak. Twenty one days is huge because you get to 21 days in a row and it’s probably pretty strong habit. And then we’re going to gradually expand it until it’s a community app where you can have 30 friends who are telling each other about how they’ve been in a winning streak and everything else. We’re just letting it grow at its own pace and kids just love this. I mean you get a 6-year-old and 6-year-olds are better at their cell phone than you are. Kids just lock into this and you get a kid to do this for about five years, they’re locked in for the rest of their life. They’re going to be in the abundance neighborhood for the rest of their life.

 

Joe:It’s better than the McDonald’s playground is what you’re saying.

 

Dan:No it’s not a substitute but it’s an add on to the McDonald’s playground.

 

Joe:Oh my god so yeah I would highly encourage everyone to do it. It’s really simple.

 

Dan:And Joe you’re just always doing this. Every week I get about 10 things from you that are a form of gratitude and you’re always doing this. I’ve got a poster on the wall and I have a little light and light the light every night and I say a prayer to Joe. We’re both born Catholics so we understand the ritual you know.

 

Joe:We should start doing blooper videos and start putting them up. So people can actually the get serious when it starts going down this totally different path. That’s great.

 

Dan:I mean that realistically. I mean you stand out in my life as the person that I’ve shared all these values, I mean next to Babs who is my life partner. Outside from my immediate relationship I mean you’re the central person and I’m in my 70s and I’ve not met anyone like you.

 

Joe:No thank you thank you. And that seriously makes me feel good. I think it’s amazing that the one individual that I’ve learned from about running a company, thinking about life, behaviors. Like everything acknowledges and we’re even have this wonderful collaborate relationship and friendship that we have. So it’s phenomenal. Who I would probably say why wouldn’t’ everyone listening want to develop these sort of collaborative relationships and hopefully the conservations that me and Dan have been having give you some insights, some direction, some understanding of the importance and the value and usefulness of going out and starting with one person, changing your life, changing their life by adding value. This is not super complicated. It’s simply where you place your focus. And using my elf criteria you can develop an elf business, easy, lucrative and fun or you can have a half business which is hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. I really tend to apply that to people. I want people that are easy, lucrative and fun and I don’t want people that are hard, annoying, lame and frustrating. A lot of things in life they’re not that way in the beginning but if you stick with it, and it becomes a ritual, it becomes a happen. Just like Wind Streak. It will be maybe a little clunky for someone but I would just encourage everyone to go and download Wind Streak right now. It’s free and just use it for the next seven days. And I guarantee you in a week from now for something that will take you like a minute or two a day, at most, you will be thinking differently.

 

Dan:Yep a week from today.

 

Joe:So that’s it. So thanks Dan. As usual, another great episode of 10X Talk. I want to thank all of our listeners. Comment if you want to go to 10XTalk.com. We also have a great report that you can download on the website if you want to opt in and actually have us email you things. And as you can tell we don’t spend a lot of time using 10X Talk as a blatant sales pitch towards our programs and Strategic Coach and 25K Genius Network are for high level successful entrepreneurs and these conversations are to talk about the things that help people become more successful in their business. If you want to check out Strategic Coach it’s StrategicCoach.com and GeniusNetwork.com. So any final last words Dan?

 

Dan:Yeah Joe, we’re never blatant but we’re always selling

 

Joe:Of course. And if anyone has an issue with that then he’s one thing I will direct them to do. Go to Google and type in is selling evil. That’s all you need to type in. You don’t even need to type in my name. That’s the first thing that will pop up is a very short three and a half minute video with me talking about and answering the question is selling evil when they interviewed me a documentary and this video was so well liked by people that we actually had it animated by the draw shop and we have an animated version in there too and both of those will pop up. So if you have any problem with selling and you think it’s a bad thing then hopefully that three and a half minutes will give you a perspective change and as Dan said, definition of selling is getting people intellectually engaged in a future result that’s good for them and getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result. And we talking about that in a future episode of 10X Talk. So thanks Dan.

 

Dan:Thank you Joe.