Speaker 1  00:08

This is the Ultimate Advisor podcast, the podcast for financial advisors who want to create a thriving, successful and scalable practice. Each week, we'll uncover the ways that you can improve your referrals, your team, your marketing, and your business operations, helping you to level up your advising practice, bring in more assets, and to create the advising practice that you've dreamed of. You'll be joined by our hosts, Bryan Sweet, who is moving fast towards a billion dollars in assets under management, Brittany Anderson, the driving force for advisors looking to improve their operations and company culture, and Draye Redfern who can help you systematize and automate your practice's marketing to effortlessly attract new clients. So what do you say? Let's jump in to another amazing episode of the Ultimate Advisor podcast.

Brittany Anderson  01:07

Welcome back to our Ultimate Advisor podcast, we have a very special guest today. It's Brittany Anderson here I've got Bryan Sweet, I'm not gonna give away the guest. Bryan, I think you should do the good graces today.

Bryan Sweet  01:24

Well, I appreciate that I am really excited. We have the one and only Dan Sullivan, with Strategic Coach with us today. So we are going to have a jam packed fun session today. Before we get going, I just wanted to let everybody know, I've been in coach for a little over 20 years. And one of Dan's favorite sayings is have a slow learner with money. So I think I qualify for that. But Dan is really been one of the keys to our success. And so I get to personally thank him on our podcast for all the things that he's helped us with over the years. And the one thing I will tell you about strategic coaches been doing it a long time, it's as good if not the best it's ever been. And his new platform called the free zone is just absolutely amazing. So thanks for all the great wisdom you share for everybody in your program. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Brittany to get us started. Thank you, Bryan.

Brittany Anderson  02:30

Excellent. Well, Dan, you know, thank you again for being here. And I would love for you just to give some context to our advisor audience. If you've been listening for a while, you know that we have referenced Dan and his teachings with Strategic Coach many, many times over our 100 plus episodes. But Dan, if you could share a little bit of your journey, and actually what got you to spending your time solely focused on this free zone that Bryan mentioned, where you're really helping, I guess shaped the way entrepreneurs are looking at an executing on collaboration? Hmm.

Dan Sullivan  03:06

Well, Brittany, Ohio farm boy, I grew up in northern Ohio. Fifth of seven in my family and so I was given kind of a lot of freedom as a kid, you know, by the time number five comes along the parents have it sorted by an automatic and, you know, I was just given a lot of freedom on the farm and, and I have always really been fascinated with people's experience. So when I was five or six years old, I could keep adults going for an hour or so and just asking them about their experience. And when I was born, I was born in the last year of World War II. So when I got to talking, talking age and asking question age, I was talking to people who had been through the First World War, they had been through the Spanish Flu epidemic, they had been through the depression, they had been through the second World War. And I was just fascinated with it. And so I just developed this ability for asking questions where I could get people to, perhaps see their experiences in different ways. So this is me at six or seven years old. And now in a couple of weeks, I'll be 77. So I've had about 70 years to kind of zero in and then in the 70s. I was a writer for a big ad agency. I wrote copy wrote ads, wrote commercials, but I always had this desire to and I didn't know the words right then but to coach people, in other words, that it wouldn't be managing people but it's actually actually when you have somebody who's just got really great abilities and they have really big goals. I developed this process This is where I could ask him questions about what they're seeing in the future. And then also take them back and see where they've had real breakthroughs in the past, and then kind of knit their experience together their past their present in the future. And what I noticed is that the best people to do this were with were actually people who own their own businesses, in most cases, they had started their own business. And actually, your particular profession, financial services is where I started. And a lot of really top life insurance agents in one year, there's a organization called top of the table, which, you know, is, you know, some of the most successful life insurance agents in the world. And I think they had a membership of 500 that year, and I had 250 of them as clients in the program. And these are individuals, if they can just get clear about what they want & get themselves too complicated with the details, they can make really, very, very rapid progress. And you know, and easily, I've seen 10 times, I've seen 20 times, I've seen 30 times. And the fundamental idea that I had, and it's really at the heart of everything that we do in Strategic Coach is that people have unique abilities. And each individual is different. And it's a kind of activity, where the activity actually produces energies so that they can actually do the activity all day and they wouldn't get tired out. And my job working with entrepreneurs is to convince them that they're not managers, they're leaders. And they should have great teamwork around them where all the backstage of the company is handled. And then they should have collaborations outside the company where they're combining their unique ability with the unique ability frequently of other entrepreneurs to create entirely new types of value creation in the marketplace for a particular type of client that they really want to be a hero to. And so I just summed up 70 years and about four or five minutes, but I'm just passionate about what people are unique at. And I've got really good ability to talk to somebody and pretty clearly within about a half hour an hour. If I talk to them, I can kind of find out roughly where their unique ability is, and definitely where it's not.

Brittany Anderson  07:37

You know, I think that is I don't think I know that is a really interesting gift. And you know, you bring something up here where you talk about people having unique abilities. One of the things that we do within our Ultimate Advisor Mastermind is we bring together like minded entrepreneurial advisors. So one thing that I'd really love you to push on a little bit is the difference between going into it with a mindset of being in competition with those around you, versus being in collaboration and how that collaboration can make that you know, 10x 20x growth that you talked about?

Dan Sullivan  08:12

Well, I would say with financial services, especially financial advisors, it's very much of a relationship based business. So in all the years that I've been coaching financial advisors, it's very, very seldom that someone is actually competing for your client. Unless you haven't done a good job of staying in touch, you know, they during 08', 09' I know a lot of not so much in the insurance world. But in the investment world, there was a big shifting of clientele. But the reason was that a relationship hadn't actually been established between the advisor and their client. And when advisors didn't have anything to sell, or thought they didn't have anything to sell, they stopped communicating. And that was leaving the clients sort of isolated, during, you know, a very confusing time, a very, very complex time. So my feeling is that if you have a unique ability, you also have unique relationships with your clients and customers. And there's no competition for it. And we really encourage you know, those financial advisors, since we're talking about your group, that it's not actually their products or services that they're selling the products and services is how you execute. In other words, if it's an investment or it's underwriting, you're implementing something but that's not what you're selling. What you're doing is you're selling the client on having a bigger future. You're getting them clear about the business future. They want the personal future they want. And that's your real gift. And that's what we do to our you know, we help our clients that way, but we say pass it on. Now, you actually go out and ask people very, very interesting questions that you don't know the answer to, they know the answer. But they don't know they have the answer until you ask them the question and then you put their vision together. And then there are certain products or certain services that have to be put in place to actually implement their future. And investment and underwriting are two of the biggest ways of implementing. But it's not about that. The companies, you know, that sell these products and service, they may think the industry is about that. But it's actually the rail industry is generated by advisors, who are helping their best clients to, to see their future much more clearly.

Brittany Anderson  10:44

You know, Dan just made me think of something, you know, we both obviously know, Joe Polish, the Founder of Genius Network. And one concept that's really resonated with us that we focus on constantly is the whole idea of life gives to the giver, and takes from the taker. And, you know, that's, that's really what you're, you're speaking to a little bit here as well, can you just push on the concept of giving and going into whether it's coming into Strategic Coach and being willing to just freely speak to your best ideas, and what that actually does for people and for their own return?

Dan Sullivan  11:18

Well, you bring up Joe and Joe, as you know, very, very close friends. So he's been in coach for 23 years. And interestingly enough, at the beginning, it was hard for Joe to have a free hour, you know, where he just kind of rested, he's very, kind of very, very active. And some of it is out of skill. But some of it's out of fear, too, you know that I had a very happy childhood. And it shows you that someone with a very happy childhood can be friends with someone who didn't have a very happy childhood. So I don't really, I'm just interested in how Joe thinks about he's a very brilliant, brilliant thinker and a tremendous connector with other human beings. He's just got, I told him once that if we wanted Vladimir Putin on our podcast, he could probably get Vladimir to come in. I said, Joe is that type of connector, he phoned up and said, I've got this podcast. And I just wonder if Vlad would come on for an hour. So it won't be much he can do it from his, you know, he can do it from one of his 25 houses, whichever one, whichever one feels safe. And Joe would you know, Joe, he's just one of the most remarkable connectors I've ever seen. But he couldn't take time off. And as a result, he didn't really have much of a personal life. And this year, he's taken a whole year off. So this is 23rd year. And we talk but we only talk about how the sabbatical is going. And I count that as a real plus in terms of that, it's just been our constant reinforcement that he can have good people in his organization, who take care of things, and his Genius Network program is going on. And I attended three of the workshops now, three of the two day workshops, and, you know, other people are taking over. And it's going to be a big growth here, when Joe gets back, because he isn't tied down the way he was before. And other people can do what he does, and he can create new things. So with Joe, Joe's great giver, okay, so you brought up the term and probably one of the most generous, just naturally generous people I've ever, ever met. By the end of the world of marketing and the world of workshops, there are people who are really takers, you know, and you have to be very, very careful, they'll just take your stuff, and they'll say it's theirs, and, and they'll use it. So you have to develop a kind of an intelligence about who you have around you to so in the free zone program that Bryan just joined by Bryan, it's been 20 years, but we just started this program about three years ago. And the whole thing is that you have a great capability, somebody else has a great capability. And both of you want to be a hero to the same end user. So it's a how the collaboration comes about. It isn't about you and them, it's about both of you want to be a hero to somebody out in the marketplace to help them, but you do it different ways. But if you put the two of them together, you can create a third thing that actually is unique in the marketplace. You couldn't do it alone. They couldn't do it alone. But together, you can do that. And so the underlying philosophy now we're in our 32nd year of the program, we call who not how and that is That you have a big goal for yourself. And it's gonna require a lot of hows to get there. But they're not not your how. Your job is to identify what the big goal is, and then attract other who's, who can combine with you to attract a really big goal. And most entrepreneurs can't think real big, because they interpret the really big goal as more hows that they have to do. And so they limit their goals, they limit their vision of the future, because they've always said, Well, I'm the one who has to do the how. And I said, No, you're the one who asked to put the vision out there, but you're not the person, you attract other people who have big whos, and they can't do what you can do, but they can help you achieve the goal. So that's where we are now after 32 years.

Brittany Anderson  15:50

You know, I will say and I know Bryan is going to agree 110% with this one that the who not how concept is probably one that has made some of the biggest difference for us in our businesses across the board. So Mr. Sweet, I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit here. I would love for you to share. And then Dan, I'm gonna, I'm going to tap your genius here too. But Bryan, can you share a little bit what the who not how concept has done for you personally, as an advisor as an entrepreneur?

Bryan Sweet  16:21

Well, I can easily say that one concept is absolutely had the most impact on our business, because it's gotten us to realize that if you can connect with the person, or the who, that's the expert, or the best at whatever you're trying to do, versus, you know, putting stress and strain on yourself, your team or others. First of all, it's a lot easier to do and get it completed and get it done. Right, because the who is already the expert in it. And they're not recreating the, you know, the process again, because they've already executing it. And if you just really think about the concept, like who is the expert? And how can I collaborate with them, to bring them into what we're doing? Just absolutely amazing results that we've gotten. And we literally asked that question at every meeting when we have a project, who it's on all of our forms, actually, you know, who's the person that's going to deliver that? So thank you, Dan, for that idea. I know you work with Dean Jackson, and Ben Hardy to come up with a book, which we'll talk a little bit about, but...

Dan Sullivan  17:37

Yeah, well, you know, I went through a school system where you had to do, you had to learn how to do everything, and I think most people do. And in fairness to the school system, it really doesn't know how people are going to turn out afterwards. And they've got to, you know, get across basic skills. And there's some basic skills that everybody needs to have. So you'll have to learn how to do it. But I think it's not clear yet who's just going to take charge of their future and, you know, create something new. And I sometimes think that if somebody is really super successful and really bright at 30 years old, you still don't know anything about them, because they just might might have had great parents, they might have had great teachers, they grew up in a great system and everything else. But I think as entrepreneurs, men and women get to about 40, you've, you've either become sort of like everybody else, or you've become unique. And so I have a real nose for the ones who just create a separate vision for themselves. But I want them to uncomplicate their life. Because along the way that they take on everything. And they work nights, they work weekends, they don't take free days, with their family. And I said, you know, you've earned the right now just to focus on where you're really great. And you've also earned the right to be in collaboration with other people are great. And together, you can create something that is really unique in the marketplace. And my sense, Brittany and Bryan, is that we've moved into a period of time in the world, where people who are different and really, really unique are getting more rewarded than people who used to follow the rules and be part of that, you know, team, I'm talking about business owner. So it's just that I think it's just a period of time that we're in right now. And you can see the great creative empires that have been created in the last 20 or 30 years, that 100 years ago that person would have never developed. And this is just a really good time for people to have their own vision of the future. And then are willing to create a unique organization around themselves, both inside their company and outside network outside of their company to achieve them. Yeah, I don't think you could have done it 50 years ago, but you can do it today.

Brittany Anderson  20:14

And Dan made me think of something there too is when we think about the successful advisor, the driven advisor, like, let's just use the pandemic, as an example here. The ones who have created a multitude of opportunities are the ones that looked at that and said, Oh, my gosh, this is a chance for me to serve, this is a chance for me to level up and lean into my vision. Whereas some of the ones that we've talked to that were like, Whoa, we're stopping meetings, we're halting, we're kind of putting our head down. Those are the ones that are struggling, and they're still struggling, coming into a new year, and, you know, times changing and things kind of opening back up. So I think you just bring up some some brilliant points there about, you're either gonna differentiate and stand out above the crowd, or you're not, and it's really an active, it's a choice, it's a choice for your future.

Dan Sullivan  21:04

Well, the other thing is that all my opportunity is in my clients future, you know, that's my fundamental rule, that I have to figure out what's unique about their future, and to the degree that I can provide really unique capabilities to them. That's, that's what I'll do, but then I have networks of people who have other capabilities. And I can bring them to bear too. So I think it's just being really, really useful to other people's futures. That's the number one skill. And Bryan does it one way, you do it another way. And I have, you know, I coach about 500 individuals, we have about two and a half 1000, who are in the program, we have other coaches. But it's so much about relationship. And I think the last, let's say, March since March of 2020. That's what's been resilient is where people have formed, really powerful relationships. They've done that in their personal life, but also in their business life. And that's why I think it's been the response on the part of entrepreneurs, as you mentioned, Brittany, as for some people, who was the best and most remarkable year of their career, and for other people, it was the worst. But I think the ones who are looking just to be useful are the ones who had a great year, and the ones who said, I can't sell my product. You know, people aren't paying for my product, they're not looking at the person, they're looking at how they get paid. And I think that the last year disrupted that.

Brittany Anderson  22:47

I agree with you wholeheartedly, and I'm thinking back to March of last year, actually, when we're looking at how you show up to serve your audience and serve your clients and, and really opportunity being in their future. I mean, everything started shutting down, and we're talking to advisors, and they're down in the dumps. And that's literally the first time we created an advisor summit. Now, it's because we're like, these advisors need a light at the end of the tunnel, and they need guidance. So how do we pull this together? And it was finding Who's that could make it happen.

Dan Sullivan  23:16

Well, the other thing is that everything in the world is three clicks away now.

Brittany Anderson  23:21

Amen.

Dan Sullivan  23:22

Yeah, I mean, I had a workshop three weeks ago, and I was just thinking, we have a big suburb next to Toronto. It's called Mississauga. That's where the airport is. And then there was a person from Miami. So I had three, I'm sorry, I had Mississauga. I had Miami. And then I had a client from Mumbai in India. And they were all on the same call. And I said, you know, it's really interesting to Mississauga, which is about a 45 minute drive, three clicks, Miami, three clicks, Mumbai, three clicks, everything in the world. The time to get there is three clicks. And I said, interesting world, isn't it? If the if you have a who the who is just three clicks away. You couldn't have created your you probably couldn't have created that group under normal conditions.

Brittany Anderson  24:12

No, you're dead on the three clicks. I'm actually making note of that, because I love that saying.

Dan Sullivan  24:19

It is for me, I usually have to, I have to make three clicks.

Brittany Anderson  24:23

So maybe it's only one.

Dan Sullivan  24:25

Maybe.

Brittany Anderson  24:26

Hey, Brittany here, stopping and pausing for a moment to talk about something that we've had so many of you inquire about and that is our Ultimate Advisor Mastermind. Now, I'm going to start by saying if you are not a growth minded individual, if you are not somebody who is focused on taking your business to the next level, if you're not focused on engaging your team, and helping them to help you in turn, level up, the business, the service model, how you provide that why? experience to clients. If those things are not your focus, just fast forward right now, because the Ultimate Advisor Mastermind would not then be for you. However, if you are looking to take your business to the next level, if you want to experience exponential growth and feel supported along the way, if you want to start working smarter and not harder, if you want to help your team members to work within the God given talents that they were provided, and use those skill sets in a way they haven't yet to help support you and your business to help them realize their biggest goals, their biggest dreams. If you want creative approaches to marketing, I know that can be an intimidating word. But we're not talking here about the fancy Facebook stuff, or you know, the latest and greatest, but rather looking at how you can market what you do, how you can express how you're different, and how you can truly differentiate yourself in a crowded market space. If those are problems you're looking to solve, then you absolutely want to go check out ultimateadvisormastermind.com to learn more about how we can help you on your path and journey to growth. 

Brittany Anderson  25:02

So Dan, you brought up the who concept again, and I want to circle back to this a little bit because our audience has had the wonderful pleasure of listening to Dr. Benjamin Hardy. He's been a podcast guest of ours, he has spoken actually at a couple of our summits. And he's just a really genuinely amazing human being. So I want you to have a chance to talk a little bit about not only the who, not how book, but the story that you share about how Ben was the who for you, and how you were able to basically turn that around back to him and completely give him autonomy to run. I think that's such a beautiful example of how a who partnership actually works.

Dan Sullivan  27:09

Yeah, the interesting part is that the idea of who not how it comes from Dean Jackson, and he's a longtime friend, and we have a podcast series. And he had sketched this out about five, six years ago. And he had it but he really hadn't any go. He's an idea guy. And he comes up with a lot of ideas. But I had developed a unique ability concept for, you know, 25 years, I had self managing company for 25 years. And the moment he said who not how I said, you know, this is the center of everything. So I had that. And Dean was totally supportive and happy that I took the idea and ran. But I want to mention that the idea comes from Dean. And then shortly thereafter, I had created a whole visual for a dime artists by training. So I see ideas and diagrams. And so I did it on a whiteboard at Genius Network. And Ben Hardy had just joined Genius Network. And he gave a presentation and we're at lunchtime, and he came up to me. And first of all, I'm about 43 years older than Ben. So, you know, he's in his 30s. And I'm 77. And he came up to me and he said, You don't write major market books do and I said no, I've got a little book that I've created. You know, I do one a quarter. And if I can't get it started and finished in 90 days, it's not going to happen. And I said, publishers, you have to deal with them for a year, year and a half. And they've got all their roles. And I could never respond to that. And I've had offers from publishers and I said, No, I just can't. It's got to be 90 days. If it's not done in 90 days, it's not going to get done. And he said well I write books and he said I'm a major, you know, major author on Medium. He got a became really famous on the wide platform, the Google platform or Microsoft acquired Microsoft maybe. So he said, if you ever wonder I'd major market book, I would do it with you. And I've said I've been looking for you. I said I knew somebody would come along someday who had this skill, and we'd have known I said, I like how you approached me I like... So we talked about it. And he had an agent and he had a publisher. And the problem was his agent didn't take the book who not how would be anything. And his publisher didn't. They didn't want that book. They had a set of books they wanted him to do. So that was a obstacle. And then he talked to Tucker max. And Tucker is a great, great book strategists book packager. And he helps 1000s of entrepreneurs actually get their books. He's got a company called Scribe. So what I had said to Ben, I said, you know, if you write the book, you get all the money for the book. And he said, What? I said, Well, publishers given advance and they give royalties. And if we write the book together, all the money from the book goes to you. He says, Why would you do that? And I said, because I get paid for people reading the book, and then deciding to sign up for a Strategic Coach. He said, Well, this could be a lot of money. And I said, Well, we make a lot of money. So he said, Wow. So then he said, You know, I think we need Tucker, because Tucker can negotiate contracts and Tucker. And he says, So could we have Tucker on the team? I said, Well, it's your money, you can hire anybody you want. I said, it's not my money. It's your money. So, you know, put the team together. You right. And it was so unique for Ben, and it was so unique for Tucker, because, you know, a lot of people, you know, they'd say, Well, I, let's put it 5050. I said, No, no, I said, you don't get any action out of 5050, you get an action where one person gets 100%. And I said, I know if the book has really good, a lot of people will sign up for coach. So anyway, and Tucker really couldn't quite believe it either. And I said, Well, sure. So long story short, attacker and bad and found Hay House, which is a great publisher. It's almost the perfect publisher for us, Reed Tracy is the owner. And they went out one night and had dinner with him. And they said, Dan Sullivan's ready to write major market books. And we'll, we'll be the team that actually puts it together, we got the deal. And then, because his publisher, an agent wouldn't do it. So we got the deal. And then Tucker, we got off to such good start. So we had the fastest start of any book and Hay House history. We had $75,000 in three months, I mean, and we're at in seven months, we're at $135,000. And this really best seller is $15,000 in the United States for nonfiction books. So we're eight, eight times eight, nine times. And at the seven month mark, we've had 90 signups for a Strategic Coach, just because of the book, which I knew would happen. And so now we have a second book that goes in at the end of the month, which is the gap and the gain. And we're already talking about the third book. So Tucker, got a 10 year 10 book contract with him. And he said, Every one of them's going to be like this. So it was a really good deal. Now, here's the thing, I'm not having any of these conversations with anybody. I'm just doing what I normally do. Ben is just doing what he normally does. Tucker's just doing what he normally does. And Hay House is just tuckered. We just created a deal that creates a lot of money for a powerhouse of talent. So a lot of people said, Well, why don't you get some of the money? And I said, I said, You're not thinking big here. I said, We'll sell a couple million bucks in 10 years. And I said, you know how we'll get 1000s of people signing up for a Strategic Coach. And they're phoning us, we're not phoning them, they're phoning us. So that's the that's the deal. A lot of people really say, Yeah, but not even a little bit. I said, you know, you're not understanding here. It's about talent. It's not about money. It's about unique abilities.

Brittany Anderson  34:01

It's such a perfect representation, and I think perfect alignment of talents and your term unique abilities. You know, one thing that I keep thinking about too, as your speaking is one of the part of the premise of Ultimate Advisor Coaching is we push heavy for the entrepreneur, the primary advisor to bring their second in command their person along with the journey, because implementation escalates immensely. Yeah. And another example of you really being a great model for your business in putting who's putting the right butts in seats. I mean, I think about my own journey through Strategic Coach and just kind of backing into this. So I came in. I've been working with Bryan for about 13 years. He's like Strategic Coach, this is the lifeblood of the business. This is how we think we need to get you exposed. So I came in to actually the team leads moved up into or I'm sorry, team tools moved up into team leads. Then worked my way as Bryan and I actually partnered and created other businesses into the entrepreneurial class. And I think that's something that's really important. So I'm just going to give a shameless plug here for Strategic Coach as a whole. Is it you know, we get jokes all the time, Bryan, people tell Bryan, where can I get a Brittany? Well, if you want to get a Brittany, have people go through the Strategic Coach levels. So, Dan I would love for you to talk

Dan Sullivan  35:24

Oh the other thing is, Brittany isn't just looking for anyone to partner up with.

Brittany Anderson  35:30

Correct.

Dan Sullivan  35:31

And so I tell people, you know, people say why can't find good people? And I said, Well, they're there. It's just that the good people aren't looking for you. Who do you have to be that good people who would be attracted to you. And you've got to be committed to a vision, and you have to be willing to just focus on what you're great at so that they can be heroes, you know, people don't want to work for someone that don't have big goals. I mean, great. People don't want to work for somebody who doesn't have a big vision. And they can't be a hero who gets rewarded more and more for the teamwork. And so, you know, I mean, everybody's out there that you would need, but you have to show up first before they all show up.

Brittany Anderson  36:15

I mean, there's so much truth to that. And a part of one of the stories that I love, too, is I was talking to one of your class leaves Marine, we all know and love Marine. And she's like, yeah, Dan, I mean, he doesn't even know who who's really hired or working here on a given day, because that's not his unique ability. And Bryan's the same way. I mean, we introduce them to people pretty much on their first day.

Dan Sullivan  36:33

Yeah. Well, Bryan and I are sales people. You'd never want salesperson hiring someone because they treat it like a sale? He said, Yes. Yeah. Wrong person. They didn't want the job. They wanted your job, because you were so excited, you know? Yeah. So the big thing is that there's a thing is that the people who do hiring in our company are like poker players. And they've got a neat trick that they put a paperclip on the table when the person comes in. And if either one of them picks up the paper quick, means that the person's not going to be hired.

Brittany Anderson  37:19

Interesting.

Dan Sullivan  37:20

And they are absolutely pokerface they're absolutely pokerface. And they, you know, they, they're not selling.

Brittany Anderson  37:28

That is a really interesting premise. And I kind of love that actually. Yeah. So Dan, I want to shift gears a bit here, because you brought up this next book that is coming out the gap in the game, this concept is one that is needed in the entrepreneurial world. So can you please elaborate on this a bit and just share what that means even?

Dan Sullivan  37:51

Yeah, so everybody has goals. I mean, I think it comes factory equipment on human beings that we have goals. And what I mean by that, that you can see yourself in the future, getting better results, you're performing better. And so I think people don't realize that your goals are actually you in the future. I mean, you can say it's money, but it's you in the future, making more money, it's you. It's an achievement in the future, but it's you in the future achieving bigger things. So we're actually projecting ourselves in the future. And as far as we know, other animals don't have this, but we have it and that it's a cause of great excitement. It's a cause of innovation. It's a cause of really uniqueness in the world. And it's also a source of enormous unhappiness for a lot of people. And the reason is that you get an image, but it's sort of an ideal, you're sort of projecting an ideal out the air there in the future. But in order to actually achieve anything, you have to set goals. So I think that people oftentimes think in ideals for themselves, but the only thing that really works is where you have a measurable goal, you know, in other words, it could be a number, this is the number now the number is bigger in the future, that's a measurement, or it's an event, haven't done this, but in the future, you've done it. So there's an event. And if you put a number an event together, it's more powerful goal, because our brain rarely takes goals seriously when there's numbers and events. So you get there, and I'm going to show you one way of doing this, then I'm going to show you a different way of it works exactly the same. You have an image, you have a goal, you work from now and you get to the goal. And then when you get to the goal, you measure, okay, you measure what have I achieved, okay? So I can do that on this side and I can do it on this side. The person on this side, it gets the Goal has made real progress. They were very successful, but they measure against the ideal. And it seems like they haven't achieved anything. It's like being outside and get into the horizon, you don't get to the horizon, the horizon is just there so that you can see where you are. And then you can set a goal. So a lot of people are high achievers, a lot of people are very successful. Other people outside of them, admire them, they think they're great. They think you've got all the reasons in the world to be happy, but they're not happy. Okay. And the reason is, they're measuring yourself against an ideal. And the other side, that's called the gap. So there's always a gap between what you've achieved and the ideal on this side, I call it the gain, you go out and you achieve the goal. But then you turn around and say, Where did I come from, and you feel a gain, gain makes you happy gap makes you unhappy? And I think there's a lot of powerful reasons why people are trained in the gap. And it's the images that we see on social media, the images we see on television, and movies. And you're, you're always asked to measure yourself against somebody else, okay? And doesn't matter what you do, it isn't going to make you happy. But if you just measure against who you used to be, you'll be happy, even if it's not completely what you want to achieve. You always feel good. So what I noticed and you know, I've talked to some entrepreneurs, and I said, you know, nobody had to teach you about goal setting. You're born goal setter, nobody had to teach you how to achieve goals. You're a born goal. achiever. You know how to measure, you know, measure, you just missed the class on being happy. And they said, Well, that's right. That's right. I said, No, yeah, the class was scheduled, but you missed it that day, because you were out achieving, you can never be happy measuring against the ideal, you can only be happy measuring against where you started. So you have to measure backwards, you, you set your goals forward, but you measure your progress backwards. And that's the gap in the game. And I've seen people's lives just shift like that. You know, I tell you a story. I had a client. Very, very successful. Yeah, I had planned to be a doctor, but he became a financial adviser who could get people insurance when the insurance company so it was called Second Opinion. So he knew everything about medicine. And he said, you know, the doctors who do insurance medicals are oftentimes they're not great doctors. And he said, they have rules, and they just check off the boxes and you pass or you don't pass. So what he would do is he would get second opinion, and he would oftentimes get people insured. So anyway, he was in his workshop one day, and I introduced the gap in the game. And he just sat there. And he looked at me like this. And he was in the morning. And at lunch. He said, Can I just have lunch with you? at the workshop when we're doing in person? And I said, Sure. And he that he said, I want to tell you the story. He said, I was home, visiting my father, my mother died about 1015 years ago, but he said I was home with my father. And we were at the dinner table. And he says, not been an easy relationship. And he said, my father said, I don't know what you were thinking. I don't know what you're thinking. He said, What are you talking about that? And he says, well, when you went to high school, you had 40, grades 39 A's and one B, if you just tried harder, you could have gotten 48. So this is like 25 years later, is like 25 years. And as father is saying, Why? Why didn't you just work harder and get the 40 a day. And he sat there. And he didn't know what to say, you know, it was just a weird thing. But then he said he was on his way home. And he suddenly realized that he was doing the same thing to his daughter that his father was doing to him. That's impossible. Perfection and going for ideals says you're not teaching people how to measure their progress. And if they can't measure their progress, they can't be happy with their success.

Brittany Anderson  44:30

Wow, that is powerful. And I would imagine that for our entrepreneurial minded advisors that are sitting out there listening that that one hit home big time.

Dan Sullivan  44:41

Well, it's one thing I give you an example that the astronauts who walked on the moon, okay, so there are 12 of them. The total number of people have lived on the moon is 12. And they did lawn psychological studies on them afterwards because they're the first human beings who walked on the moon and the There's a profile that turns out that they had wanted to be pilots very early in their life. They'd become pilots very early on in their life. And given the history of what had happened. They had been fighter pilots in the Second World War, Korean War, they've been test pilots. And there are 1000s of people who applied to be astronauts, and very few were chosen, and very few are still actually walk on the moon. So what they did is they said, you know, this is a big deal. I mean, that's just unique so they could study them. And they all had something akin to nervous breakdowns when they came back, you know, and I saw I've actually Michael Collins, who didn't land on the moon, but Neil Armstrong and somebody that the two of them landed on the moon and he went around the moon 30 times while they're doing that, he just died last week at 90. So I said, this is probably how it played out. You know, you came back home from walking on the moon, you got a ticker tape parade, you went to the White House, you met the president, then you went back to Houston for the weekend. And on Monday, you had to go into NASA headquarters, and your wife said, Well, now that you're going to be around here a little bit, can you pick up some ground beef on the way home? Do you know who I am? I walked on the moon. Yeah, but yeah. But what do you do after you walk on the moon? You know, I mean, what do you do after you win the Superbowl? What do you do after? You know, what do you do after you win the Academy Award, there are all these ideal type of goals. And you think they're going to transform you as a human being that they don't they're just, they're just a measurement. You know, you're still you after you've achieved it, you know, and I think some people think that success or achievement, it's going to change them as a person you're but the future when you get there is just today.

Brittany Anderson  46:58

That is so so good. So Dan, I could I could sit in conversation with you all day, I think you just have so much genius to share with the world. So I want to ask you one final question, Aside from the obvious to join Strategic Coach, because I believe that every entrepreneur needs that program, what is one piece of advice that you would give to a successful driven financial advisor?

Dan Sullivan  47:24

Yeah, well, I think that the big thing is to whether they come to coach or not doesn't really matter. But what I would do is, do a exercise that we do in preparation for people to get in touch with their unique ability. And that is just say that you're going through exercise where people will tell you that if I should focus on one thing, more than anything else, that they can see that I'm really good at that I seem to really shine at, what would it be. And in the Strategic Coach program, we have a person who actually takes people through a deep dive takes about a day and a half, one of the Warriors Shana, Omar's sister does this. And you'll be a very, very surprised that people really can see your unique ability much cleverer than you can. So it's like a Venn diagram where there's overlapping circles, but they all hit a certain area. And mine would be that I can listen to people and I said, you know, you should do more of that. So that, you know, I can talk to them for 15 minutes, I've always had this feel for sweet spot is now in the program. We take people extensively through layers and layers. You know, Bryan, you've been through it and Brittany, you've been through it. And we keep reinforcing, reinforcing, reinforcing. Don't do excellent things when somebody else can do it uniquely, you know, that keep creating this organization where everybody's unique, and what they do, just sort of accept there was stage one of your life that got you to where you are here, and you had to do everything. But now From now on, you just do what you're great at, and you surround yourself with other people who are great. And you can do that the long, hard way, or you can train Strategic Coach and do it in the fast way.

Brittany Anderson  49:24

I love that. I love that show. So Bryan, before we wrap up any other comments, final thoughts that you want to share?

Dan Sullivan  49:33

No I just wanted to say one thing about the program is that we started off being very dominant with financial advisors, but it's about you know, it's 60 different industries now, and we had a introductory last year last week, and we had 170 people on and there were 15 financial advisors. So the other so it's everybody now, but I had no Going back in the 70s, that if I got the great financial advisors, I get all their entrepreneurial clients through. And that's that's basically what I did. That was a strategic game plan. And it worked.

Bryan Sweet  50:14

Yeah, I would agree with that. It's very interesting. The collaboration with people that aren't even in our industry. And that's really where the power comes is just, you know, finding out what others are doing, and then applying it to your industry. So you're a great place to meet those people and learn those concepts. So this has been absolutely amazing, Dan, as I knew it would be and, and as always, thanks for sharing your wisdom with our audience.

Dan Sullivan  50:45

You didn't even do the how, Bryan.

Bryan Sweet  50:48

You're right.

Dan Sullivan  50:52

Brittany, you're a great who.

Bryan Sweet  50:55

That's an understatement.

Brittany Anderson  50:58

Well, thank you, Dan. wholeheartedly. We appreciate you sharing your time with us today. This has been an absolute pleasure. And I know it's going to be a total value add for our wonderful advisor audience.

Dan Sullivan  51:11

Yeah, you can get the book at Amazon, you know, and I'd appreciate a review. I have to tell you as funny story. So do you know Robert Cialdini?

Bryan Sweet  51:24

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Dan Sullivan  51:26

So I was at genius two weeks ago, and he's come out with a new version, you know, an updated version of influence. You know, he's, yeah, he's, yep. He's really considered the key. And this is called pure-suasion, of persuading people who are kind of like minded and, you know, in a way, but he was telling us that your reviews for books, it's five stars, but he said, Actually, he says the best position is between 4.2 and 4.7. That if you have all fives, it's not believable. And if it's less than 4.2, it's not not a great book. So we're at 4.6 with about 900 reviews. But I was looking at some of the reviews and somebody gave me a one star. And I said, you know, one star, What's this about? And the person said, well, you don't have to read the book. The answers on the cover. Said, I thought I thought that was a pretty good review, actually.

Bryan Sweet  52:29

Yeah, no kidding.

Dan Sullivan  52:31

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brittany Anderson  52:32

Oh, so good. So yes, Who, Not How on Amazon by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Absolutely a brilliant read. I know Bryan and I have read it multiple times ourselves. So I cannot say enough good things about that.

Dan Sullivan  52:48

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Brittany Anderson  52:50

Awesome. Well, that wraps up this episode of the Ultimate Advisor podcast. We will catch you right back here next week. Hey there, Brittany Anderson here. If you are loving what you're hearing on our Ultimate Advisor podcast, don't keep us to secret. Share us with other advisors that you think would benefit from the messages that you are hearing. The easiest way to do that is to simply send them to ultimateadvisorpodcast.com. And if you want to learn a few other ways that we could potentially serve you as an advisor, go check out ultimateadvisormastermind.com. As always, we are so happy to have you here with us as part of the Ultimate Advisor community and we look forward to a continued relationship.