Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we have a special treat, one of my oldest friends, and maybe the most influential man in my life... Joe Stumpf.

I'm sure you've heard me talk about Joe in the past. We spent many years together delivering our Main Event to realtors all over the country, and any time we get to chat great things happen!

This call is no different. We cover it all... So, no need to say anymore except, go listen now ;)

Show Links:
ProfitActivatorScore.com
BreakthroughDNA.com
EmailMastery.com

Want to be a guest on the show? Simply follow the 'Be a Guest' link on the left & I'll be in touch.

Download a free copy of the Breakthrough DNA book all about the 8 Profit Activators we talk about here on More Cheese, Less Whiskers...

 

Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 158

Dean: Joe.

Joe: Hey.

Dean: I'm super excited about this. For people who have heard me mention this mysterious Joe, maybe the most influential man in my life.

Joe: Wow.

Dean: I'm going to go there. That is... There we go.

Joe: I just spoke at Eben Pagan's coaching summit in Portland, last week, or two weeks ago, and it was deja vu. I mean, it was Eben on stage, me in the audience, and then Eben...

Dean: Richard Miller.

Joe: Richard on sound, Andy on guitar, and is new to the band. Then Eben introduces me as one of the most influential guys in his life.

Dean: Well, that's true for both of us.

Joe: Yeah. You remember those days? I have this memory of us sitting next to the pool at my apartment, and you guys sitting down and going, "We've got to show you this. We've got to show you this."

Dean: Yes.

Joe: And we go, "Select a target market, compel a prospect to call you. Motivate him to meet." And remember that, you laid out, what you called the eight profit activators.

Dean: I didn't call them the eight profit activators then, but that was the beginning of it. You're absolutely right.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: That was before, during and after.

Joe: But that was before, before, during and after. That was like, the kind of foundation of it. Before, during and after came maybe 10 years later. But that was epic, because it gave us such an amazing container. Like, okay, day one is select, compel, educate. Day two is present and deliver. Day three is, create lifelong relationships. It was just so cool that, the way that we laid that out. That's your genius, Dean. Your genius is creating global context that almost anything universal, that if it's going to work, has to fit in those containers. I love that because when you get an idea, you pull out the container and go, "Oh, I don't think that fits," or, "I have to squeeze that in too hard."

Dean: Right, smuggle it in.

Joe: Yeah, and if it doesn't slide right in there, like a smoothie, I just had into a beautiful cup and it just fills the whole cup up, and you go, "Mmm, that's good." I can't tell you how many times I've heard you speak and go, "Oh, that's good."

Dean: That's good.

Joe: That is really good shit, you know? So yeah.

Dean: It's so funny. Yeah, I talked to Eben a couple of days ago, and he was telling me about how great it was to have you up there in Portland.

Joe: Yeah, we had a good time.

Dean: There's a lot of good memories in Portland. That's right.

Joe: Yeah, all kinds of memories in Portland, man.

Dean: That's right. The Red Lion.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: Oh my, oh my. Yep, that was really my favorite ever memory. You remember my favorite memory.

Joe: I don't even want to go there.

Dean: Okay, good.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: It wasn't what people were thinking, but it was something.

Joe: Here's what I want to share with everybody. The two greatest contributions that have come into my life. One came from Eben. I think that they're the two most underrated inventions of the 21st century. Number one, the tongue scraper.

Dean: Yes.

Joe: Underrated, but how many mornings do you wake up where you give it a good scrape, and you go, "Wow."

Dean: And you can't believe, I know.

Joe: Wow, you've been living there all night? That is amazing. Then the other one that I just got as a gift for my girlfriend is the potty squatty.

Dean: Wow.

Joe: Are you potty squatty-ing?

Dean: I've tried a potty squatty. My friend, JJ Virgin, has a potty squatty. A squatty potty? Squatty potty.

Joe: Yeah, a potty squatty. As you know, I'm a little dyslexic. But I have them in every bathroom, so if you come here, you won't have an option.

Dean: I can't wait, yeah.

Joe: You're just going to have to drop, and figure it out.

Dean: I can't wait. Well, that will complete the set, because I recently met, Joe Polish is having Suzy Batiz at the annual event, who is the inventor of Poopurri.

Joe: Oh, that would complete my set.

Dean: So there you go.

Joe: Okay, good. Well, great meeting with you today.

Dean: With that foundation laid here, I know that you wanted to talk about some podcast formats, because I think, yeah.

Joe: Yeah. What I want to talk to you about is coaching. So, I've been in this business for 35 years. Have a coaching company with, we have 2,100 members, and we've been staying right around that number for 10 or 12 years. You know how that game is. Take 10, bring 10 in, 9 leave. Bring nine in, lose eight. You just bounce back and forth. Remember we did that equation on that?

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: One day you brought in the algorithm, that famous algorithm. It was like, "I finally figured out what we need to grow." Well, for 5,000, we're going to need to do 12 main events a month.

Dean: Right.

Joe: Because the equation of...

Dean: When we reach the balance point.

Joe: Yeah. So anyway, we've been hanging out there. About 2008, when you and I, we went into the world, to a broader audience and still serving real estate agents. I just started my little niche there with the real estate agents, so I have spent probably, I'm going to say 8,000 hours of coaching, both one-on-one and in small groups. A beautiful thing about small group coaching is you coach one person at a time, but obviously you have to witness it.

Dean: Absolutely.

Joe: And the witness can reflect receiving it. It's the same. And so, I have been evolving this practice of coaching leaders how to coach their teams. And so, I went through all of my journals, and I've got thousands of them. Every time I do a coaching session, I have a little debrief session before and after, and I have a look at, what did I do, and what did I not do, and what was the outcome? So I started gathering these all together, and I put together this course called 28 Conversational Coaching Skills. Then I've been teaching people how I coach. What's my method of coaching? I arrived at, I think you'll find this interesting, is that there's these different roles. There's the cheerleader, that's the encourager. Like, "Come on, you can do this, Dean. I know you've got this. Go for it. You've done this in the past, this is not a big deal. Suck it up. Go for it." That kind of coaching.

Then there's resource coaching. I've got two great books I want you to read, there's a podcast I want you to read, and I want you to go to this seminar. You are giving people hacks, that can get them along the way. Then there's advisors. Now, advisor is different. Advisor is a person who has a direct experience, and has been where you're going, and they're coming back to say, "Okay, here's my advice." They're giving you a very clear experience they've had. That's why real, high-end advisors are paid a real lot of money, because they've already been there before, and they can come back and tell other people about it.

Then there's friends, like you have a friend. Actually, in many ways, Eben presented the thought that some coaches are just paid friends. You just need to have somebody who loves you unconditionally, and just accepts you where you're at, and just hangs with you. Then there's catfish, and you remember that metaphor I created where they shipped the whitefish from the East Coast to the West Coast in the early 1900s, and they figure it out by the time the whitefish get into the port, they're real soft and mushy. So what they started to do was throw a catfish in there, and the catfish is the archenemy of the whitefish and would chase it around.

Dean: They- 

Joe: Yeah, and so sometimes you have catfish. Somebody who gets on your ass who says, "I'm going to hold you accountable, and there's going to be consequences if you don't get this done." And then the last one is a coach. A real coach, and a coach is a person who incites insight. So, they ask you the type of questions that provoke within you good ideas, provoke within you, even revelations or realizations. Even, I've had coaching sessions where I've had awakenings. Like, "Wow, that is a complete shift in identity." I've had a coaching session with Jamie Smart once, and Jamie give me this metaphor. He says, "If you were to look at your life right now, you are like a torch going from city to city, lighting people up. The shift could be maybe a lighthouse, where you stay permanent and stand still, and people come to you."

Inside that insight, it was like, it oriented all of my new behavior. And so, he didn't give me strategy, he just gave me an insight on how to identify myself. That's what a great coach does, is asks targeted questions. There's real specific laws around questions, I've learned, that incite insight, and then questions that advisors use. Questions that cheerleaders use, questions that advisors use, questions that catfish use, but there's specific rules for coaching if you want to incite insight, and so I thought that was pretty cool. The first thing is, the rule in conversational coaching is, no advice. Advice has a very short shelf life.

Dean: Right.

Joe: You tell people what to do, it sounds good, you feel relieved, like your value was made. Because here's what you do, Dean. If I tell you what to do, you'll approve, because I'm your coach. You want to approve, you know? But the likelihood of you to do it, because it's my idea, probably slim and none. But if it's your idea, and it's your revelation, or your realization, or your awakening, or it's your good idea, there's a real good chance that if I tried it, and I really honor it, and I really help you dig into it, and I really help you explore it, that you'll take action on it. Do you hear the distinction there?

Dean: I do. I think that there is sometimes, every one of the things [inaudible 00:11:08] used to say is sometimes awareness builds its own momentum.

Joe: Yeah. Isn't that, like awareness, just so I'm really clear on this. When I'm coaching somebody, I'm first checking for awareness. What's your self-awareness? How aware are they of how they're feeling? I'll just say, what are you feeling right now? I could just listen, like thoroughly unaware people will say things like, "Pretty good. Pretty good." Really aware people will say, "My chest is a little tight right now, and I'm feeling some nervousness coming up through my throat." And so, just that question, that can go a different direction depending on internal awareness. Then there is external awareness, how they're being perceived. If I'm doing a Zoom call, and somebody comes on, and there's a lot of background noise. It's chaotic, and it's not good lighting.

I go, "Oh, okay, they're not even bringing to the awareness how they are being viewed by me." Where another person brings a really laudable awareness, like they set up the environment, they're really tuned in. And so, those two things really guide how, where can you go with somebody, depending on your awareness in the area. Then I use a rule called the 80/20 rule. 80% of my questions will begin with the word "what." And then the rest start with how, and why, and where, and who. A "what" question drives you into imagination. Most of the other questions, like, "How are you going to get it done? Why are you doing this? Where are you going to do it?" It drives you into memory. How are you going to do it? Then you have to go back and think, "How have I done it in the past?"

But if I say to you, "What happens if you imagine taking advantage of this opportunity?" Now, that takes me somewhere completely different, as opposed to, "How do you think you'll take advantage of this opportunity?"

Dean: That's something. I think what is, I've been saying, "what" is the entrepreneurial question. More than, I've been talking about this idea of how is probably the most useful question for entrepreneurs.

Joe: Right. No, it really is.

Dean: Right? That's the thing, but we're conditioned to two, when presented with a new idea, with a "what." When presented with something new that you want, to immediately go down the path of, "Well, how do I do that?" Which you don't know.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: And so, they're committed to now, I say writing. It's like writing a check, a blank check with the only resource that you have that is nonrenewable, your time, to know for some undetermined amount of time that it's going to take you to figure out how to do something, and then once you figure out how to do it, you still have to then do it slowly, and poorly, and probably not with the outcome that you were hoping for, versus finding a "who" who will bring a "how" with them.

Joe: What does it feel like, Dean, to know that you shared that idea with me at the La Mirage, in a little hotel there, about five years ago? Because it was before the Crossfit Games. And now, I see that showing up in public domain as, "Don't ask how, ask who." You know?

Dean: Right, exactly. Don't ask how, exactly right.

Joe: Yeah, I'm with you 100%. So the question, depending on awareness gives you a degree of what question you can open up with when you are questioning, you are coaching somebody. I just got off the line with a pretty high end client of mine, and the question I asked him, because he's looking right now at what direction does he go next? He's looking at his current business. The question I asked is, "What costs you the most money, energy and resources to create and support, that is valued, meaning consumed or impacted?" The least, that is valued the least, by your very best clients. Now, just let that question settle.

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: It takes you deep into a place, you know? You have to look at the existing things, and then you have to really ask, "Is it costing me energy, time, resources?" Thinking, worrying, all that stuff, the cost to create. To create, to make it, and then to support it after it's made. That's actually valued the least by your best clients, and I put that layered and on top of my company. I go, "God, I've got some of the things that takes us time to create, and support, that is valued, but by my least valued clients." Not by my very best clients.

Dean: What would be some examples of that? When you say that, what do you mean?

Joe:  In my world, I could invent a lot of things that create support, like the design of a workbook, like the design of handouts, the design of handing out materials. But then, when I'm with the group, what they value is me. They value my interaction with them. They value my presence with them, my real-time creation and real moment. Like, a channeled energy versus a prepared script. My best clients do, you know?

Dean: I get it.

Joe: My least valuable clients, they go, "Can we get a copy of the notes? Can you give me screenshots of that?" Which is valuable, but it's not, my best clients aren't asking for that.

Dean: Right, yes. They're there to receive it, right there.

Joe: Yeah, and it takes time to create, and then the team to support it, print it, all that stuff. I look at it and go, "God, we spent a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of energy, and my very best clients actually sometimes forget, they leave it on the table." It's not even all that important to them, but they will come up to me and say, "The insight that you shared with me during lunchtime, that was profound." And I go, "Wow, what you want is me."

Dean: Yeah, they want to drink the milk straight from the cow. That's the whole thing, you know? I really agree with you, there's so much. How I use that thought is that, I realize that in the way I do these podcasts, the way I do all my podcasts, really, is realizing that that's the raw material, right? That's where everything comes from.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: But then also to realize that there's so many derivatives that you can take from that, that other people can create. I don't spend any of my time, or energy on the creation of all of those other things, and I know that used to be a thing, you know? I think it would be something that a lot of entrepreneurs, or a lot of coaches, or consultants, or people who are running coaching programs, or running consulting, or whatever. That they feel this need to, what I call be a self-milking cow, where they make the milk, and package it, and process it. I put up a funny thing the other day on Facebook. I just had this insight that cows don't make ice cream. All the cows do is, they make milk. All these other things that come from it are because of unique teamwork with people who love to make ice cream, you know? Or love to make yogurt, and butter, and cheese curds, and all that stuff.

Joe: Yeah, so this guy that I was just working with, I asked him that question. He kind of drops into some deeper silence, mindfully, and I listen to him. I listen to his silence, and I say, "So, what's coming to mind first?" And he says to me, "The first place I went to was, it's not what. I think it's who." Which is an insight for him. I said, "Is that fresh thought for you?" He goes, "Yeah, I've got two people on my team right now that I'm really wondering how much value they bring to my best clients. Then I've got a couple other people on my team that bring a ton of value to my best clients, and so my question is, what can you say about these two people? Are they creating stuff and supporting stuff?" Like, he hadn't really looked at that.

And he says something like, "Well, those two people that bring the least value, they do support the lower end clients in our system. And my best two people, they support the higher end people." So it's like, it really got his imagination going. A great question to ask for insight, once something gets stimulated is, "So, what do you imagine the opportunity is now?"

Dean: That's great.

Joe: You know? And just allow the client to arrive at their own insight, without prompting them. If you were to prompt them, like prompting would be like, "Well, of those two people, which costs you the most? Which one would you not hire again? Knowing what you know about them now, which one would you not hire?" Which are good questions, but not insight provokers.

Dean: They come from more of a place where you want to help close the loop on that, or to help come to a conclusion on that.

Joe: Right, and it draws you into your memory. If you weren't going to hire them again, who would that be? You'd have to look back and go, "Well," you have to look into your history. It doesn't push you forward. I'm just fascinated by, actually a partner I worked with, a guy named Josh Keane. He and I formed this company together, and we were writing an article after I watched Mitch Simmons speak. Do you know who Mitch is? Or Michael Simmons. He writes for Medium. You know who he is, right?

Dean: Yeah, I know him.

Joe: Yeah, and so he did this study on blockbusters. Have you heard about this?

Dean: Tell me a little bit.

Joe: There is a book called Blockbusters, and he did a talk at Eben's conference. What they did was to study the books, and the articles they get the most read, because content is exponential right now. Consumption is going down. But he was saying, what's getting consumed is very few number of articles are getting exponential consumption. A few authors are getting exponential consumption, but there's so much coming out that people are sorting through, and they are just going for their favorites. And he identified what the qualities were of what gets consumed. It was really interesting. He said that for an article, it's 90 hours per article, with five social science, academic papers citing it, and at least 10 or 12 books citing the article, that goes exponential.

That just speaks to the amount of content that's going out, people blogging. What's their thought for the day? And it goes out there, and it just becomes white noise in the world of content. That was, that really made me... I don't know where I was going with that, but that really made me think. What is, here it is. So, I'm writing an article right now with my partner called the Neuroscience of What. We're doing all this research on what "what" does. I'm going to put 90 hours into it. I'm going to do the deep work, where in the past I do my Morning Joes, I whip out two a day. And my consumption is good, but it's not epic, you know?

Dean: Right. To what end, though? Let's talk about that, because that's an interesting thing. To what end is the 90 hours? That's a lot of hours.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: So, if we look at this, if you're going to invest 90 hours into this one thing, what is the outcome that you are hoping for?

Joe: Well, I think there's two things, because it is also a means to an end. The means is, I love writing, I love researching, I love the creative process. I get up every morning at 4:30. From 4:30 to about eight o'clock every morning, I write, but my rush is to deliver. I love that delivery process, but I'm looking at, how can I hold back on delivery, and go a little deeper into the work? And then see what I could deliver after 10 sessions, not after two hours, to explore that. It's more for me, like what's possible that I could create if I really dug in and did the deeper work on it? What's possible? I'm only saying that because I saw the talk two weeks ago, and now I want to experiment with it.

Dean: love that about you. That's your model, right?

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: You love to go deep onto things like that. I look at the thing, and I would look at, what could happen? If you compare, let's say 90 hours on one article, compared to two live coaching, conversational coaching podcast episodes every week for a year, transcribed, summarized, highlighted, all of the derivative things that could come out of that, that you're 90 hours into something. I don't know, I just look at that and have to say, what could be a greater...

Joe: What are the possibilities, right?

Dean: Yeah, what are the possibilities of that?

Joe: On the output of the consumption of it, and what we'd confer from that. And try this on for a minute. What is true about all the hours that have already been put in, of years, and years, and years of reading, and coaching, and studying, that allows you to be spontaneous on those conversational goals?

Dean: That's what I think, that's the barrier to entry. That's why I'm saying that you said earlier that the thing that your highest, the thing that your best clients value the most is you and your brilliance at that moment, in real time.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: Bringing your best self, in real time, to that thing. It's an element of improv theater, in a way, right?

Joe: Exactly, yeah.

Dean: That's what happens. It seems like it's happening effortlessly, but it's only because of the 35 years. You finally tuned that your best self is present right now, presented with that. Only flavored a little bit by your most recent model, or your lens that you are looking through. I don't know, I look at...

Joe: Now Dean, here, this is an insight. You are giving me an insight. The thing is, prize this insight. You just created some space for something to rise in me right now. I'm really looking at that like, "Wow, that's so true." I know at. I know what you're saying is true for me. Something is happening, that is true. Then I'm looking at, now help me on this path. So, I'm going into this new arena called outside real estate, and I have this thought called, I want to write one great article that gets published in Fortune Magazine, that gets out into the mainstream. That's when I'm watching him up on the screen. He writes for Medium, and he has seven million readers on one of those articles.

I'm thinking, "Wow, that is..." Now, would I put 90 hours into get seven million, or is it a year of doing podcasts to get seven million? That's where I was coming from on that.

Dean: Right, but you don't need seven million. That's the thing. To what end, right?

Joe: To what end, right.

Dean: To what end? Michael, and Ben Hardy is a good friend of mine. He's the guy that wrote Willpower Doesn't Work. He is, I guess they're neck and neck, Michael and Ben Hardy as the two top writers on Medium. We've had conversations about this same thing, about what, where does that go? What is the thing that you are actually going to know? How would you know that it's making the boat go faster? And I think the [inaudible 00:29:48] is moving in the direction of the end that you're looking for. I look at the thing that, we've had these conversations about books, and what I've learned about books, and the way my thinking about it is that I want to start. I want to ultimately help people get a result, right?

You and I have talked for years about bankable results. The bankable result is the thing that is like a significant benchmark along the way. So, in non-real estate business, in any business, a bankable result is the exchange of a good, or a service, or a product for money, or other considerations. It's that transaction part of it, right?

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: And that is the result that people are paying for. Everything along that way, especially if we're thinking about it as a business context, that it's the purpose of what you're doing is to drive a business, then there are certain things that are going to move that forward. We used to talk about, leads are a measurable, bankable result that you can get from something. Is it getting you more leads? Is it getting you more appointments? Is it getting you contracts or closings, or referrals? Those are like the five bankable results, right? And so, if I look at the writing anything, book, article, email, anything, in what context is the role of it, right? Where does it fit? Is it to generate leads? Is it to convert the leads that you already have into them saying, "I want to work with you"?

Is it for the people who are working with you to continue working with you, and to get a result? Or what is the end-result of it? So, I look at it from a book standpoint. There's so many things pointing to the fact that consumption is way down, right? And so, you only have so much attention right now, but what, if I'm using a book as the before unit activity to generate leads, the things that actually matter, that make the boat go faster, that trigger the, "I want that," mechanism in somebody's brain is the fact that you have a book, which is kind of revered as something valuable. Historically, for hundreds of years, thousands of years, it's been that way. That you've got a title that, as soon as they hear it they say, "That's the book for me." And you've got a way for them to get it. Those three things are the only things that matter in that context, right? Of getting into the conversation.

Because now that there's all the digital data and stuff, all of the readership data is available now. There was a big article about the state of readership, and it seemed crazy, but they're saying 58% of books that are bought are never opened.

Joe: Yeah, that goes way back, though. Remember Tom Peters talk about that, In Search of Excellence?

Dean: Yeah. I don't know what he said, but...

Joe: He opens up his first chapter, he says, "If you're reading this, you make up about 45, 50% of the total population that will actually even open this book."

Dean: That's great.

Joe: Then further on he goes, "If you're on this page, we're now down to 22%. If you're reading this last paragraph, you're about 4% of people that have actually read this book."

Dean: That's funny. The numbers have held up, because the 22% of the people who do open a book, only 22% get past the first hundred pages.

Joe: Isn't that amazing? Yeah.

Dean: Yeah, so I say to people like, that's why I love the concept of a 90 minute book.

Joe: Yeah, I love it.

Dean: Get all of that. It triggers that mechanism, and it gets you in the conversation, which is now going to lead to them getting the result, because they are not going to get the result from reading the book anyway.

Joe: Yeah. No, actually that's part of, I'm with you 100% on that. I love your thought process on, the book that we're writing right now is 101 "What" questions every coach must have instant access to while they're coaching someone. I know that when a coach sees that title, or something similar to that, their thought is, "I've got to have it." Because people want, my experience is whenever I am coaching coaches, they are like, "Can I get a list of those questions?"

Dean: Yeah, they want a cheat sheet. That's exactly it, but that's the thing. It's like this shortcut. It's like there would be...

Joe: Can I just ask you for permission, if I can put 90 hours into my book, please?

Dean: Yeah, absolutely. You do you. That's it, yeah. In the words of my other friend, let's count our piles, right?

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: Your pile is bigger than my pile, I've got to listen to you. Your stack is bigger. That's right, you've got 10 years on me, so there.

Joe: I love that. I love that. But Dean, that whole bankable result is when you boil everything down. That's what, in our business, keeps people coming back. I mean, if there is a moment where they're going to cancel, if they don't cancel, they can draw a direct line to their bank account.

Dean: Yes.

Joe: Yeah, and if they can, it's like it's inconceivable for them to even think of leaving, you know? Yeah.

Dean: So, I'm excited about the stuff that you are thinking of doing outside of real estate. What is that looking like?

Joe: Yeah, we've got a good model that we set up, so the process that... I mean, we're experimenting with it, and hashing out all the content, and putting together the course curriculum, but we started with an eight week program where people meet once a week for two hours, on a Zoom call, and it's all coaches and team leaders. I bring a person on, and I just basically say, "What do you want to talk about?" And that's it. Then you've got 12 minutes, and in 12 minutes, what I know is I want to incite some insight. I want to get some fresh thinking that causes them to really look a little deeper on, what their next step?

Then people witness that, and then I play it back. So, we instantly have the recording of it, and we instantly play it back. Then I unpack it, and I stop every second, I say, "In that first 30 seconds, what just occurred?" And then I can actually point out and say, "If you watch his eye movement, or you watch his head, you just watch how he started to adjust himself. How can I tell if he even grokked what I asked him? How come I asked him a third time? How come I asked him a fourth time?" What I find is, it's like Michael Jordan, sitting with another ball player in the NBA who is playing game film from the championship game, showing him every shot that he took, and then unpacking it.

Now, you see my right elbow? See how I am pushing off to the right? And then my left hand is coming up here. The reason I'm doing that is, I can see the guy coming up on the left-hand side of me, and I know I've got to get this shot. It's like, really fascinating to see what, to show them what they didn't even see.

Dean: Yeah, right.

Joe: And that, I've done two or three of those. We've done three of those classes. I probably unpacked 100 so far, and now we're putting that all into a book, and the book will teach the lesson, and then there's the QR code where they just wave their phone, and that little coaching session pops up, that little skill is taught.

Dean: I'm back on QR codes now.

Joe: I am, too.

Dean: They're boss.

Joe: I saw somebody in my Mastermind, I can't remember who it was, but he came up with a book for tennis, and he's got the 40 most popular moves. And so, he explains the move, and then he has Martina. What's Martina's last name?

Dean: That's Will. Yeah, Will.

Joe: Yeah, Will? What a great idea. Then he has the QR code, and the book comes up. Will is in my - group, so that's where I got the idea from. So we started crafting the whole coaching, conversational coaching, unpacking through the QR process.

Dean: Yeah, that's amazing. Once I found out that you don't need a reader or anybody, I've been testing it with people on the street. If you hold your phone over this, and see if you can figure this out, and everybody can, and it's the best because literally all you have to do is pull your phone out. That's just like, that's revolutionizing direct mail. The way that we were hoping QR codes were going to.

Joe: Yeah, I remember when it first came out, it was like, all of a sudden you had to download an app.

Dean: Right, nobody is going to do that.

Joe: You have to get your 13-year-old kid to figure it out.

Dean: Ain't nobody got time for that.

Joe: Yeah, so I'm big on that wagon right now, and then taking that into what we've been doing here at my home. We do retreats, high-end retreats, so we have been doing one a month right now where we're bringing people here, and just filming the whole thing, and people coming up and doing one-on-one coaching, just one right after another, for three days straight. Then like anything, deliberate practice. That is the skill, like take the, "Here's 100 questions," embed these questions so that they are reflexive. That only happens through practice, over and over, and over again. That's the thing that is the separator, is the people who do the work, like the deeper work of practicing, and doing the work.

I don't want to call it preparing, but doing the deeper work of really understanding the theory, and the philosophy, and the why behind it as opposed to just trying to memorize questions.

Dean: Yeah. I mean, I like this whole context of what, if that's going to be the model. Like, if all of this is in support of, I saw the pictures of your yurt up there. Yeah, I loved that. But if that's your, if it's all in service of that, just having that constant stream of people, rolling in there. That's very similar. I say to people, just from the context of it, you and I did... You did more than I did, but together we did 15 years worth of every single month, a big event, a big main event with hundreds of people. I always say, when we stopped doing the main events, that you and I both were aware of how long it took to get that rhythm out of our systems, you know?

Joe: Yeah, right.

Dean: Like literally, we've spent the better part of our lives trying either, recovering from or getting ready for a new big event, and now that I do these smaller events, where people come here, or I travel to, I just did my little world tour over the summer here in Toronto, and London, and Amsterdam, and going to Australia in November. But I just love that small event of having...

Joe: Oh yeah.

Dean: You know, 12 or 15 people. If that's the thing, literally, what a great way to set up, if all you were doing is the thing that you really love.

Joe: That's all I wanted. That's all I do. I don't want to do anything that I don't absolutely love to do. First thing, I love waking up in my own bed. That has become like my highest priority in life, is to organize everything so I wake up in my own bed. That was the premise of why I built this house, and built this ranch, and built this whole setup. Now, I've watched you do those business blueprints, and I remember saying to you, or you saying to me once, "People come up to me and go, how do you fill those rooms? Well, you spend about 20 years talking to thousands of people."

Dean: Yeah, step one. That's true, yeah.

Joe: I know we sent out this process here, and we fill it every month, and we're booked out for three or four months right now. That's what my future is. My future is, once a month, 15 people come to Compassion Ranch for three days. I've got a world-class chef who cooks the most amazing food, so I get to eat like, extraordinary three days, because I don't eat a lot for the rest of the month, but I get to gorge for three days, which I love. Then I have the pride of being in my home, and sharing my life, and letting them knock me off the pedestal, and come up on the pedestal with me. Take me off. Don't set me up to crucify me, you know? I'm a human being, and I'm going to work with you, and we're in the trenches here.

That's a real gift to give people, do you know what I mean? When you're sitting with them at a table, as opposed to being on the stage.

Dean: Right.

Joe: You're the guide by their side, and there's some richness in that relationship, which you remember. The main event, we didn't even know anybody. We were like, "Hey, hey."

Dean: Hey, you.

Joe: Hey, is everything okay?

Dean: Yeah, how's that thing? How did the thing work out? Is it really good? Yeah.

Joe: Yeah. You love them, but you don't know them, because you're on to the next city, you know?

Dean: Yes, that's exactly right. You recognize them, but you don't have any context for them, yeah. I get it.

Joe: Here, you are deep into their life, and you're deep into the business, and you know their concerns, and you know their frustrations. I love what Joe Polish said. He says, "People don't care how much you understand," I think he said. What they care about is that they feel understood.

Dean: I hear that, yeah.

Joe: Yeah, in the small setting, when there's 15 people in the yurt, and you're going one person at a time, giving everybody your full attention. Everybody is giving them feedback, because feedback is the breakfast of champions. If you can get great feedback from people who are in a conversation that everybody is tuned into, that's where growth occurs real quick.

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: That's what we set up the whole environment for, because when you are coaching, it's, "I need some feedback. What are you guys seeing that I'm not seeing?" And then you teach people how to give feedback, because that's where insight lives. Insight lives inside feedback, but it's not constructive criticism. "Here's what I'm experiencing," is feedback. So, when you come from that place, people get to see how their behavior is impacting others. That's all they need to know, and very rarely do we ever get feedback from anyone. Most people are so focused on themselves, they can't. It's not even part of their mindset, like, "You want feedback?"

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: So, that's what I love about this environment. We're doing it here, and it's quiet, it's a way. It's in Sonoma County, and people rarely ever come here.

Dean: Right.

Joe: I love the thought that you go out all over the world. I mean, that must be fascinating, and maybe one day I will look into that.

Dean: Just for the summer, because I want to go to some of those places, you know? But most of it is, I've kind of taken an academic year approach now, where I looked at September through May as like, the academic year, like being here in Florida. Then any of the traveling, aside from Australia. I'm going to go to Australia in November. But aside from that, I do all of the events are here at Celebration.

Joe: Oh, beautiful, yeah.

Dean: So, right in my backyard. You know?

Joe: Oh yeah, that's nice. I mean, that's right on your golf course there. It's right there, right?

Dean: Yeah. That's where I was thinking about, that's why my mind immediately went to 90 hours. If you're doing, have you got the podcast, like right now, you're regularly producing that?

Joe: You know, I haven't gone down that path yet. We're putting it all in the can right now. We're creating all the product around it, and I'm going to, my first thing is to always step out here, because I already have a base of people I can step out with. All of the team leaders, all of the guys that are in management roles, all of the people who see themselves as a future team leader for in the real estate business, they're our first natural clients. That's easy to step into, but the nice thing about this is, it's something that they can refer someone to that they're not competing with, and that's always been my challenge. By referral only is a well-kept secret, because I don't want to tell anybody in the office about it.

Dean: Yeah, exactly. I remember. That's the thing.

Joe: Yeah, and so now what we're experiencing is that the people who come through the real estate agents or team leaders, they're introducing us to, I've had a dentist come up here who has got a big staff of people, and he just wants to learn how to coach them better, and wants to be a better leader of his team. He sees the missing piece is coaching, and so that's the direction that... Dean, I really want this to be by referral only. This has that kind of capacity, because even a coach, they can't really do a lot of marketing if they're doing one-on-one coaching, because their schedule is pretty impaired by that.

Dean: Right, yeah.

Joe: What they can do is build a referral business and fill their account up, if they do that with intention. That, we're taking the by referral only model and laying into the coaching world. Big opportunities, cool. It's like the first time, like you, you know I want to make as much money as possible, but there's not a need to do that. So it can come from a place of real creation, as opposed to, okay, we've got a deadline, I need to make payroll.

Dean: Right, exactly. Yeah.

Joe: And that circus world, that world of the circus, going from city to city with 1,000 people and main events. You're paying the last main event with the next one, and that's just part of that cycle.

Dean: I know, I remember. I remember, yeah. That's the great thing about the podcasts, that can go and reach way more people than we would ever reach with a workshop, you know?

Joe: If I could just find a guy who knew anything about podcasts.

Dean: That whole model, we just launched our podcast service called Dial Talk Done, and this whole model, what I really discovered about this is that the thing, if you're really going to embrace your bovinity, embracing your inner cow to realize that the thing that you're bringing, you create insights. That's your milk, right? That you are bringing. The best way to do that is live, with, in conversation with people. And so, we got it down to where literally, my total time investment in my business to run everything is 417 hours, including the podcast, the events, the member calls that I do for email mastery. That whole thing, because all I do is talk. Like, we dialed in.

You and I were texting this morning, and this, we've been talking for 15 minutes now, and at the top of the hour here, that will be what we wrap up. That's all I do for this whole episode. Like, everything else will be taken care of. But this will, what will happen is that this will go up now, and it'll live. It'll be out in the world. It'll get transcribed, and we have a writer who takes the transcripts of these, and she'll find two or three, 300 to 500 word insights or little articles. Those become the emails that I send every week. So, I don't write emails that go out, but I spoke them, so it's all my words that are being sent out, but they're crafted, or polished by my writer who does that, and then the team send out these emails three times a week.

Every email has an invitation for whatever is timely and topical. I'm starting a new email mastery group, or I'm doing a Mastermind. Right now, I've got a Mastermind coming up in September, in Orlando, so we'll put that in the PS. Then the super signature of, whenever you're ready, here's four ways we can help you. And so, every time those emails go out, that stimulates all of this activity. The events get filled, the email mastery program gets filled, one of the things that people can do is be a guest on More Cheese, Less Whiskers. So, the podcast itself fill themselves. I see this exact model could be identical, for you.

Joe: Right.

Dean: All we have to do is talk.

Joe: Yeah. No, we do it in bits and pieces, but not as a cohesive outcome to bring people to Compassion Ranch. That's what I love.

Dean: Right.

Joe: I love that question. What's the means to the end? What's the end? That sets that process all up. That's great, Dean. 

Dean: That's great.

Joe: What do you really want to create next?

Dean: So, my thing now is, now that I, the only reason that I calculated out how many hours it took was to realize that I have all kinds of time, and I have all kinds of insights and capabilities that I can deploy, conversationally, in collaboration with other people. And so, I look at that, that's my... I have what I look at now as 1,000 investable hours that I can invest in things that have a... I look at it almost like capital allocation, right? Where I can invest my time and my capabilities, and my resources into collaborative relationships where they can create a bigger outcome, without ever going outside of my unique ability. What I've realized is that I am a catalyst, and I look at that what my joy is finding the scale ready algorithm, and figuring out what it takes to reach an outcome like connecting all the dots, the blueprint for something that happens.

Not unlike, you and I, when we had dinner in earlier this year, I was sharing with you how on reflection, the collaboration between you, and me, and Terry in all those years of growing by referral only. Each of us, with our unique ability, contributions to that reached results that none of us individually have been able to do on our own.

Joe: Right. So, what is the new belief that you have acquired, that allows you to think bigger? I'd say bigger, or think differently today. What's the new belief?

Dean: The new belief is that I don't have to scale. I don't have to. I don't have to have skill or interest at scaling. That's a different thing. Scaling is about disciplined execution. It's about Terry doing the work, executing the plan that we lay out, right? That's what keeping everything on the path, you know? That's not a skill that I have, that I want to develop.

Joe:  And the new belief is that is not needed in order for you to be skilled.

Dean: Exactly.

Joe: Right.

Dean: That's exactly right.

Joe: Right, yeah.

Dean: That I can be a contributor, and a collaborator with someone who's got an engine that's already up and running. Now, I really have real belief that the idea is a valuable piece, you know? In the context of this fetishizing over years of time, of ideas versus execution, that execution is the most valuable thing. Because ideas without execution are worthless, right? I think that is true, but it's also equally true that you can't execute nothing. They don't go. Execution can't stand on its own. You have to be executing something, and you can execute something flawlessly...

Joe: But it's not a good idea.

Dean: The only thing that improves flawless execution is executing a better idea.

Joe: Got it, yeah. So, in a way, with technology, execution has become more commoditized.

Dean: Absolutely, yeah.

Joe: Whereas ideas are becoming, better ideas are becoming rarer. [crosstalk 01:01:39]. But to create an executable idea...

Dean: They're getting a chance to rise to the top.

Joe: Right.

Dean: Yeah, to execute. We're in a phase where ideas are more easily executed than ever. If you look at Kylie Jenner, the reason Kylie Jenner is a billionaire with a seven person team is because she collaborates with other people who do the execution. She's partnered with a white label manufacturer who makes and packages all her stuff. She's partnered with a distributor who distributes and fulfills all of her stuff. She's partnered with Shopify, who does all of her e-commerce. She's partnered with her mom, who does all of the administrative business side of the business, and her, and her seven person creative team do all of the R&D and product development, and what we're going to create. What are we going to make? We're going to make lip kits. What are they going to look like? What are we going to call them? What colors are we going to do? They're making all the valuable "what" decisions. "Whats" are ideas. That's the power thing, right? Whats are.

Joe: You know what you are, Dean?

Dean: How's that?

Joe: You know, there's an archeologist, there's biologists. You are an ideologist.

Dean: Ideologist, I like that.

Joe: Because you excavate ideas.

Dean: That's true, yeah.

Joe: And you find them in the most obscure, hidden places, and you bring them to life, and then you bring them over to executionologists.

Dean: You know what's so funny, though, is that I tell that story about Kylie, and people immediately don't get the insight. They don't get what that is. They immediately default to, "Yeah, but she had 150 million Instagram followers, and she's a Kardashian, and she had all of that money. Nobody else could do that." But then, I had the most beautiful gift happened that just two weeks ago, Old Town Road became the number one song ever in history.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: And that was created by two 20-year-old kids that nobody has ever heard of less than a year ago, and they were able to collaborate.

Joe: Right. Are a whole bunch of artists doing renditions of that now? Is that what I was reading somewhere?

Dean: No. Well, he's done remixes with different people.

Joe: Remixes, yeah.

Dean: Billy Ray Cyrus got involved. When he put out the first version, and it got on the Billboard Country charts, and Billboard said, "Hold on a minute now, we can't have that." So, they took it off the Billboard charts. Lil' Nas is like, "Quick, can somebody get me in touch with Billy Ray Cyrus?" And then Billy Ray, because what's more country than Billy Ray Cyrus? So he got involved, did a verse on it, and the song went to number one, on the regular, on the Hot 100 charts. Just last week, or two weeks ago, it became the number one song in the history of the Billboard charts. No one has ever been number one 17 weeks in a row, and that one did it. That's the thing that... Yeah?

Joe: Well, what inspires you to contextually think this way? What's the drive and inspiration behind all that?

Dean: Just following my bliss. That's my bliss, is the curiosity of it, you know? I like that kind of thing.

Joe: The curiosity of it.

Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think that's really, that I just... One of the things that I really love is to just focus on things that I'm really interested in. You know?

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: For me, that passion has been marketing. That's the lens that I look at it all through, and then I take it all in, and I filter it, and I put it through that marketing lens, and then even more specifically how it applies to real estate marketing. But it's just such a... For me, it's joyful. I love that.

Joe: I've got a kind of curious question for you. I asked my nephew this question, Matthew Monaghan, and I would love to get your answer on this. What advice would you give to a 14-year-old today?

Dean: I think back about when I was 14, entering high school, 1980, and what a different world it was. No cell phones, no real technology, any of that.

Joe: Was email around?

Dean: No.

Joe: Email wasn't. No, AOL wasn't even born yet.

Dean: No, AOL, it wasn't until 1995, '96, when it all sort of started, you know? I mean, the bulletin boards and stuff like that, early '90s. But the modern Internet was really 1996.

Joe: Okay, take yourself back 14 years, or to the age of 14 now. And you know what you know now.

Dean: But now I'm 14.

Joe: Yeah. Say you're 14 now, knowing what you know now. What would you be curious, what would interest you at 14, that you would say to another 14-year-old, "This is where I think we want to." If you've got interests, I think this is where you want to put your thinking, or this is where I want you to look around. What would you say to a 14-year-old?

Dean: I think that it's whatever they want. Whatever.

Joe: Whatever they want, yeah.

Dean: Right now, whatever they want, you can do whatever you want. And if you're fortunate enough to find that one thing early, without hopping around. Most of the people that come to what they really love later in life have only, it's because they've spent years doing what other people think they should do. Like, their parents, or relatives, or somebody telling them, "You should be a doctor. That's where it's at. Or you should be an accountant, that's stable. No matter what the economy does, they still need accountants." That, people, that's a recipe for hating what you do. I think that when you look at the reality that, the only reason... Well, I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but for me, practically, the only reason really to be in a business or whatever is to support the life that I really want.

Joe: Well, I was thinking more like, you got really curious about marketing when you were 20. I mean, even younger. When you were 14, 15, you were doing all kinds.

Dean: That's true, right.

Joe: Entrepreneurial, but marketing, right? Like putting a hot dog stand outside the bar.

Dean: Right.

Joe: That's curious. Like, they're drunk, and they're hungry, and everything is closed, and they will give us four dollars for a hotdog or whatever.

Dean: Exactly, yeah.

Joe: That was real curious, but there's also, I asked my nephew that question, Matthew, who has done pretty well. He said, "Travel the world." You know, make a commitment to know the globe, because we're a global place. Once you can understand other cultures, you'll understand a bigger context for how, what you want to do in the world, which I thought was brilliant. Then he also said, on another note he goes, "If you have an interest, understand blockchain." He says, "Just understand blockchain, and what that means 20, 25 years from today." If you could understand that and know what that means, you'll be part of a bigger future, which I thought was kind of interesting.

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: Then he said, his third one was this. He goes, "The future value is going to be in design and art." It's already in that, but he goes, "Understanding art, and the symmetry of things, and how things..." If you understand the globe, you understand the world, you understand cultures, you can see art differently, and you can see symmetry in everything.

Dean: That's great.

Joe: Isn't that cool?

Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Joe: Down that vein, what would you say to a 14-year-old?

Dean: That sounds good. I'd say, "Look at the map." Yeah.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: I mean, that's obviously, I think that's good. The whole thing about, I would just want people... I would want to know at 14, that you literally can do anything you want, as long as you want.

Joe: Right. I think that's critical, because that is something. Matthew even said to me that the greatest gift I gave him, because he came and lived with me when he was 14.

Dean: Yeah, I remember.

Joe: And he said, "What you taught me, just by your behavior is, I can do anything I want."

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: Because I was living in this thing called, "Go to college, get your degree, dah dah dah. Then I watched you selling tapes on stage, in a ballroom, and making millions of dollars, and going oh my God, you can actually do whatever you want?"

Dean: Right, yes.

Joe: That's a revelation, you know?

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: And then the other thing you said, which, if you're listening to this, don't step over this, especially if you've got kids. The longer you're on your path, the more... I found my path when I was 21. I learned.

Dean: Right, me too.

Joe: I teach, I package, I sell, and I've been doing that for 39 years. I do see guys that, you see them stumble into our lives that are 58 years old and they're like, "Yeah, I'm just getting into real estate." And I'm thinking, "Oh, okay. Okay." You've got maybe 10, 12, 15, 20 years left. And there is nothing, you do your best, you meet them where you're at. But for a 14-year-old, find it early so you can be on the road for a long time.

Dean: Yes. It goes fast, doesn't it?

Joe: Does it go fast? I don't know. It feels like that.

Dean: I guess it goes where it goes, but looking back, I think about, it does feel like yesterday.

Joe: Dean, are they not almost like different lifetimes? I remember sitting in Western Virginia, you and I sitting on the couch. We looked at each other and we said, "We're going to do this the rest of our lives."

Dean: Yeah, I do remember that. Yes.

Joe: And we are, in our own way, you know?

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: But it's a different lifetime. I think that, Michelle Zwicker did a talk the other day around the cycles, like the seven year cycle.

Dean: Oh, that's funny.

Joe: And that as we cycle, we have this period of time where we're wondering what's next. How do I take all my wisdom and bring it to the next level? And in between cycles, there is a word that she used that we don't hear very often. It's called sabbatical. The in-between time where you don't grit it out, try to figure out. You disengage, go out to the desert for two weeks, three weeks, a month, and you let it come to you. As opposed to, I can look in my cycles, and I have gritted a few cycles out. Worked hard, worked through it, and they got to the other side and it all worked out, but I have enough resources that I could take a couple months off and just let it come to me.

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: That's actually where the word sabbatical comes from.

Dean: I mean, I was looking in my journal. I'm looking at the '20s now. I look at this as a transitional period right now, into a new phase here in the '20s, and looking back, I was literally just doing this over the last couple of months here, over the summer. I reckon that there's been, I'm entering chapter nine, and if you look at that in your seven year cycle there, it's pretty accurate. I think you take the first seven years as like, you're not even awake, right? And then 7 to 14, that's kind of another age, and then 14 to 21 was the high school, college years, and then my 21 to 28, and then meeting you. We did two cycles together, let's call it. No, really, that's really pretty accurate, right?

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: If you think 14, 15.

Joe: And they were totally different relationships as those cycles evolved.

Dean: Absolutely. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Joe: It's from hanging out, friends, and working out, and then to you and I onstage together, like we do this together.

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: That was the second cycle, you know?

Dean: Yeah. Amazing, right?

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: So, that's true.

Joe: In a lot of traditions, the cycle starts at 10, because that is the age of innocence, like 10 is that age where a child hits puberty, and now in tribal traditions, they go out into the jungle, you know? And they meet themselves.

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: So, if you go 10, 17, 24, 31, 39, 46, 53, 60, 67.

Dean: 53, so I'm at that right thing, yeah.

Joe: Yeah, so I'm in this cycle at 60, and I can actually see shifting from torch to lighthouse, to lighthouse builder.

Dean: I see.

Joe: Like now, coaching coaches to go out and coach others, and building lighthouses.

Dean: Yeah, yeah.

Joe: If I don't evolve to that next cycle, what I do is, I get better at what I'm already doing, but the unfulfillment, you know? There's what you spoke of, the deep joy. I do this for the deep joy. I think that's what we're all looking for, as we go from cycle to cycle, is doing what we're doing, but deepening the love of it. And sometimes the environment has to change, and the things around it have to evolve, and you have to let go. Like, I had to let go of the freaking sacred cow, the main event, in order to be here right now, you know?

Dean: Yeah. And here we are.

Joe: And here we are. Isn't that cool? Here we are.

Dean: It really is.

Joe: Yeah. What's the date today?

Dean: What is the date today? I don't even know.

Joe: Is it August? What day is it?

Dean: Yeah, Monday, I think. Monday, August 12th.

Joe: Monday, August 12th, look at that. Monday, August 12th, 2019.

Dean: The year of our Lord.

Joe: The year of our Lord. So, we've known each other for, 2019. When did we meet? Back then would've been 1994?

Dean: Maybe 1993, or '92. Whenever you first came to Toronto for the main event. What's that? Yeah, you were married.

Joe: Okay. I was married to Kathy.

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: All right.

Dean: And Traci was kind of brand-new.

Joe: Yeah, Traci was brand-new. That was '92. She was born in '92. I just spent the weekend with her. She is amazing. She's following her bliss, just one project after another in the comedy world. That's a real...

Dean: She's funny.

Joe: And she's been at it a long time.

Dean: What's her Instagram? I can look her up.

Joe: Yeah, Traci Stumpf.

Dean: Traci Joy.

Joe: Traci Joy Stumpf, yeah. Or just if they go to Tracistumpf.com, just check out her website. She's got all of her little videos up there, and she does some cool spoofs on her dad.

Dean: She's funny.

Joe: Yeah.

Dean: Well, this has been fun.

Joe: Yeah, thanks for taking my request.

Dean: "I have a request to hear Joe. Could I please hear him, please?" Well, let's have our people get with your people, and how does now work? Does now work for you? That's the thing when you run the show, Joe. We can just make these things happen, you and I.

Joe: I know, yeah.

Dean: Now, it'll go out to the world, and they'll get -.

Joe: You've inspired me, Dean. You've inspired me into things. Let me tell you the two things I've gotten from this.

Dean: Tell me.

Joe: Podcasts.

Dean: Yes.

Joe: So, I've got so much in the can, and I don't know if it's a belief, or I've got, I don't know what it is. Something that says the world is already filled with podcasts, and I know that's bullshit, but there's something around that vein, you know?

Dean: Yeah.

Joe: That I'm not sure what that is. But you opened up that package for me, certainly. Actually, the only one. That's the only one, that's a really good one, though.

Dean: Well, that's good. There you go.

Joe: So, what was your insight?

Dean: I think I'm going to reflect more on these cycles, because I think that there's something there. Something funny that you mentioned it, because that's what I've been thinking, too.

Joe: And noodling on it. Well, I'll just leave you on this note. One of the themes that I'm running in my life these days is the value of conversation. Like, how important it is to talk to people, and that if I enter into a conversation with only one purpose, that is to leave the person better than I found them.

Dean: Yes.

Joe: And so, I love to end my little conversations with, am I leaving you better than I found you?

Dean: Much better.

Joe: Yeah, me too. Thanks, Dean.

Dean: Awesome. All right, I love you.

Joe: I love you too, man. Have a great day.

Dean: Okay, thanks. Bye. And there we have it, another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation, or go deeper in how the eight profit activators can apply to your business, two things you can do. Right now, you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com, and you can download a copy of the More Cheese, Less Whiskers book, and you can listen to the back episodes, of course if you're just listening here, on iTunes. Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the eight profit activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process, and you can download a book, and a scorecard, and watch a video all about the eight profit activators at breakthroughdna.com. That's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business.

That's really the way we think about Breakthrough DNA as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business, and immediately look for insights there. So, that's it for this week. Have a great week, and we will be back next time with another episode of More Cheese, Less Whiskers.