Mike Zeller - Entrepreneur, Mentor & Author | How To Find Your Genius

Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show. They have so many tools that can help your business. The one that I want to just mention today, so you go check it out, is their new AI chatbot. It's called campaign assistant. HubSpot's campaign assistant is a game changer for creating marketing campaigns at scale. It turns your key selling points into a cohesive pitch, which helps you deliver knockout emails, ads and landing pages in minutes. Just choose your content type, input a few keywords, key points, pick a tone like friendly or witty, and let the AI robots handle the rest. You can copy and paste the content to whatever channel you'd like or even convert it directly into publishable campaigns without leaving your HubSpot interface. So let campaign assistant take care of the campaigns so you can get back to growing your business, work smarter, not harder, at HubSpot.com slash campaign-assistant. Well, Scott, excited to be here, and man, I think when I think about my entrepreneurial journey, I would say it really began in college where I was waiting tables at a restaurant and I was like, man, I don't want to just work a normal job. I want to own a restaurant someday, and I'm going to have a BMW by the time I'm 30 and make $100,000 a year by the time I'm 30 and sure enough, I did all those things, except I got an Audi instead of a BMW, but I like my Audi pretty, pretty great. But man, I think I knew I was meant to create my own path. And then I remember being in the mortgage business and just hating going to the office and hating being directed by a manager. So some of us we know pretty early on, I think. It's funny, I actually thought about getting into mortgages at one point, because I'm originally from Toronto and like everybody and their mother is like either a real estate agent or a mortgage broker, and that's actually a very entrepreneurial career as well. Right? It's not like that's not entrepreneurial. You eat what you kill with that business. So anyway, so you're doing mortgages. Where did you where did you go from there? Where did you want to start helping people working with other entrepreneurs, helping them build their businesses, all the things that you're currently like working in now. How did that evolve over time? Yeah, so I was selling real estate and investing real estate, building down a little real estate empire. And that's where I went after the mortgage career as a joint, you know, just started creating wealth through real estate. And I remember doing positive affirmations or incantations as Tony Robbins called him through Tony Robbins personal power to and I did did them for the first time. I remember writing down the seventh one. And it said, I'm mentoring lead some of the brightest and best people in the world. I knew that I was meant to do that. But at the time, I was just investing in a real estate, building my own little real estate empire selling a little bit of real estate. And but I was like, I'm supposed to do this at some point. I don't know how I would get there, but sure enough, four or five years later, I had started at that point, five or six different businesses. And I was doing like 30 million a year in my businesses. And I felt like I was called to start mentor and mentoring because I had people reaching out to me every week saying, Mike, can I get 30 minutes Mike? Can we grab coffee? Can we grab lunch? Can we do this? And I was spending like half my time mentoring people pro bono. Well, you just so you just dove into you dove into real estate. You started building other businesses. Obviously, probably a lot of lessons learned there that you could teach over to other entrepreneurs. What do you think when you went to sum up what you do in a sentence, like what do you think the value is that you bring to entrepreneurs that when you go into a conversation, they are looking to solve X and you bring Y to the table. So the next conversation after our podcast interview is with a former Ivy League graduate that is looking for a career change. And what I end up doing more often than not is I help entrepreneurs and high achievers step away from the lanes that they suck and step into the lanes that they're an absolute genius. But I get in the greatest clarity they've ever had about who they are, what an earth they're meant to do and how to monetize their genius, their brilliance and their passion. Why do you think that so many people and I always sort of bring it back to like let's pull out lessons from your own journey. You figured this out you were self aware enough to know what you like to do and what you weren't you know you didn't love doing and you just pursued passions and you failed and you tried and you succeeded in whatever that's that's great. But why do you think so many people have an issue figuring out what makes them happy what they're a genius at what they should be what they're you put on earth put on earth to do when they just they can't see it for themselves and they just end up sticking in a job their whole career. Not that's a bad thing or maybe a job they hate or they end up being an entrepreneur and building a job that they also hate because they accidentally did that as an entrepreneur and they they aren't living their best life. Yeah so two things come to mind first imposter syndrome sneaks its ugly face and and so we all doubt our genius we all doubt our gift in our calling at some point and then secondly when we're on the inside of a bottle it's hard to read the label. So that's why we need coaches that's why we need people that are smart thoughtful and supportive of our dreams and vision to give us feedback. So I found a man most most of the clues for your genius are also littered about your life. They're all over and they're mainly in four main quadrants but no one's organized and synthesize them so that you can interpret and understand the data. Understood. Yeah so that's what you do that's what you do so okay so this is this is what I want to do for this show I want to first of all I even mentioned we were chatting before like one of the shows you did with jail the entrepreneurs on fire it was titled four lessons from losing one million dollars. So first I want to understand how did you lose one million dollars tell me that story then I want to understand those four lessons and then I want to go into those I think those four traits I think you mentioned four traits that are core to finding out how you can basically be live you being I think you called the zone of genius is the best way to put it that's that's what you speak about when you do podcasts or in your book as well. So let's let's go through that story because I think that story is interesting and that's going to bring out a lot of perspective for people that now understand how you can help people through losing a million bucks probably learn a thing or two so definitely learn a thing or two. Well first my genius what what my gifting was also has a shadow side right all of us when we have a genius are we have a drawback of that genius so what am I really freaking great at if I go through the wealth dynamics I'm a creator like so I'll give you a little backdrop four key quadrants that indicate clues about your genius first your unique talents have people go through five different personality test. Second your key relationships relationships of the people that bring you life versus the people that bring you death the hot beds the clusters of relationships that you naturally have you know it's not accident that I have all these relationships and the entrepreneurial and author space like I looked at my life pathway I was like why do I have all these best someone authors as friends and I haven't written a single book yet. That was a clue. Third thing you're defining life moments those moments where things went really wrong those moments where you had whispers in your soul whispers of like oh you felt alive you felt connected you felt inspired and then the fourth thing your values and passions so there's clues in those four main quadrants so rewind my genius I'm really great at galvanizing momentum driving progress growing things. And then things off the ground I'm a high risk taker I can I can improvise and think on my feet pretty quick and move fast drawbacks I'm not so good at managing details and operations and the legal administrative side so when as a business grows and scale and complexity if I don't have the right operating partners I'm going to suffer and I did right and I thought I had the right operating partners at different points at the end I really didn't and that was a handcuff for me and if I said that I'm going to have a stable you know all of us can play out of position for a bit I can go over here and do my accounting for a little bit I can go over here and you know if you look at athletes athletes can play out a position for a little bit Dennis Rodman can you know when he was with the bulls he could play and you go down low and score if he needed to but he wasn't really good at you wouldn't want him down there long term. So if you play out a position too long you just get frustrated and unhappy when the science actually shows that when you're playing to your strengths your tendency to step into this this psychological concept called flow and actually more than doubles. So if I'm in my strengths I'm more likely to step into flow if I step into flow that's where work becomes play that's where I'm just unconsciously great. So I did all these things then I grew these businesses but they got beyond my ability to manage and I didn't have the right managing partners in place and then that's when the crack started forming one by one by one. One business falls crack started forming this cash cow business my cat real estate business was my cash cow was working 55 to 10 hours a week in that business making a nice multiple six figures in profit. Boom that that falls apart had domino effects in my other baby businesses some of those businesses were baby businesses and and I really then I had a real estate investment go bad my first and only one that went bad out of like a dozen. But it went really bad like it cost me $250,000 and then I lost like a couple hundred grand in my agency couple hundred thousand dollars in my men's clothing line all all combined. I just I went through a season where seven out of ten things didn't work when I was used to six out of ten things working. And you think that this is because you were not at the time aware of what that unique talent was in your life and you tried to play outside your company you tried to play outside that zone it didn't work out you didn't have the right operational partners. So going forward this is this is obviously what we have to solve for right like this is one of the things we have to solve for. And then extrapolating on that point okay so we we know that's important to figure out like your unique talents so that you know you're good at you know you're not good at but how do you effectively find those people to backfill and to take over the things that you're not good at because you thought you were setting yourself up but obviously didn't work out so well so how do you find those a players that you could really help you. Yeah so now on my hiring process like I think I've got one of the best recruiting processes of a players I've ever seen and I you know our mutual friend in Tasha you know is asking hey Mike how do you track these these a players your team is in sync I love your team. And I'm grateful for my team but I also am very intentional about creating space for them to play to their genius and because of that they're more fulfilled they're more alive they're more excited about their brand and they're about what we're doing. And so I start from the beginning I intentionally designed the job ad to speak to the strengths I need in that role so if I'm writing for example a job ad for someone that's really detail oriented and really administratively gifted because I'm not so administratively gifted. Then I need to have the language and have the thought patterns and even look at the some of the personality test and what will indicate that they are gifted in this way. And then give them a little micro test I give micro test typically before I hire someone to see how good they are at that and do they actually follow through are they men or women of their word they show up on time they complete things on time. And and and then also like when I have it's almost like I have it's almost like I'm in the special forces and I have to see night goggles where I can see things that others can't see. Because I can see patterns I can see people's strengths especially once I know certain data details now it's almost like patterns pop like popcorn for me. And so as I'm building this next chapter my entrepreneurial career and like I'm building my next what I think will be a hundred million dollar plus business and I'm looking at the team and making sure I got the a players you know a players they need to be led not managed. And they'll show their colors if you know how to evaluate and test and I bad about 70% and then when I help others you know optimize their hiring process and both you know first thing is figure out what your genius is as the business owner and then design the business design the people you bring on around your strengths and weaknesses. After you and I want to go through like sort of each of these four key areas I think they're all they all have merit to just really dive a little bit deeper into them so you've established your a players you have a process of tests you let them you know you you lead them you don't manage them you give them a little bit of control over how they're going to execute and that sort of how you get the best out of them. Actually a lot of control generally a lot of control out so you're you're really this is why it's so important to figure out the process when you bring people in because once they're in then you let them like do their best work on their own second the second component if you want to add more that's fine but the second opponent I want to touch on his key relationships so how do you build these key relationships how do you foster these key relationships how do you what is the what is the point of. Having these relationships in respect to zone of genius is it a mentor relationship is it a business relationship pure relationship that they're going to open doors for you and get you in front of the right people what does what do you mean by key relationships. So there's a lot of different things that it can mean so in fact tomorrow I'm teaching a workshop and I'm going to be doing monthly workshops on the dream 100. And I've bought the domain dream 100 list calm you have you heard of a dream 100 list from like chat homes and Russell Brunson yeah I have yeah yeah yeah so so you think of a couple things in key relationships first who brings you life versus who brings you death second where do I already have a natural like just unusual amount of relationships like I am friends with. The author that sold more books than anyone else in the world history Mark Victor Hansen so I'm friends with that guy right I'm friends with 30 other best selling authors that have you know sold millions of copies of books that how do I get friends with these guys I don't even have a book out I have one book out now. So like that's a little weird and I love being around those guys more than I love being around the guys in the real estate industry I was in I was driven I felt I lit up I felt inspired by being around the those types of people so that was a clue. And then if I look at the next layer strategically how do I build great key relationships right where do I want to go I know where I want to go when I establish myself as America's top entrepreneur mentor but before that I want to establish myself. As America's number one expert at helping high achievers find their deepest area of genius so now I'm looking at all right who influences who already has an audience of my ideal 4% client the people that I most want to reach. Oh we're also Brunson John Lee Dumas you know et cetera et cetera we go through the Tony Robbins in Grazia see Craig Valentine I just got booked for his podcast today so you like you you go through that that list of like oh these are the people that I really want to be around. And and they serve they already have an audience of hundreds of thousands or millions of emails subscribers and then now I'm going to build that relationship with those people on my dream 100. And then so that's actually I wanted to just I wanted to just reiterate a point you made so it's there's a lot of of tactical things that these these relationships these dream 100 will give you in your aspirations wherever you want to take your business or otherwise but I think that the one thing that you mentioned that is potentially I don't want to be overlooked is that they give you energy these are the people that give you energy that is so undervalued it's I think it's that's so important because you said like listen. Being in a room full of you know multi million and potentially billion dollar real estate developers is not a bad room to be in by any means they're going to get you in a lot of doors are going to get you they're going to make you probably very successful if you build that number go. But if it's not giving you energy it doesn't matter it's not it's not what you're meant to do and that's actually very very telling that's something that I think a lot of people should take into account when they start to look for the next thing the next job whatever is it giving you energy or is it like it feels like a weight on you. And if it feels like a weight that's not it. Yeah that your body doesn't lie you know think of why is that I do a lie detector test on your body not on your words. You can lie through your mouth all day it's only 7% of communication but lying through your body it's really freaking hard your body will tell you who you want to spend time with. And anyway so yeah there's clues right there that that also it points you to your destiny points you to your calling points you to your purpose points you even to your pathway to profit might not it's not going to be a smooth ride to get to your full pathway to profit but it's there. The next point defining life experiences how do you know which life experiences you should place value on and the reason I so when I think about this point what I think about is I had a negative a negative experience I learned from it or I have a negative experience now I never want to experience that again are there certain life experiences that. Can can benefit or are some just like net net negative when you when you say defining life experiences that can contribute to your success what do you what do you want people to look for. Great questions Scott see why you're such a good interviewer. I just ask things that I think of like that I find interesting I just want to like double down and and pull it out because defining life experiences could mean so many things and there's sometimes when I see a negative life experience that technically could be a positive because it's taught you something that can contribute your success in the future and you would have had that perspective if you didn't have that negative experience so yeah yeah exactly so I I don't think any experiences in life are wasted and pulling the hells famous for saying behind. Every setback is the seed of an equal or greater opportunity so if I look you know losing a million dollars I'm like all right well that's going to set the stage for me to make 10 million or make 100 million because of the life lessons I'll learn from that night but the thing that we have to do with hard life experiences and not every life experiences hard but is is look at a seed when you think of that quote what do you have to do with this. What do you have to do with the seed let's say I've got a walnut I have to crack that seed open I have to bury that seed in the ground I have to give it water and sunlight and fertilizer and good soil and make sure that's not choked out by weeds so you have to apply a lot of intentionality with the seeds of your failures with the seeds of your mistakes with the seeds of your setbacks most people think oh it's just going to automatically come to me no you have to heal you have to reflect you have to ask questions. What did I screw up in what opportunities does this present what what valuable lessons does it give one of my favorite stories Thomas Watson senior in the middle of the Great Depression founder of IBM this the senior sales executive comes to him and he had just lost a million dollar deal for IBM which is a lot of money in the middle in 1933 I think it was and and he he comes and hands in his resignation to Thomas Watson senior. To Thomas Watson senior and Tom says son I'm not letting you resign and he's like what I just paid a million dollars for your education get back out there he didn't want to why he's already lost the money yeah why did you learn something out of this yeah you know what versus he would go to another company and use that education for that other company's benefit so that's the first thing. And then if I look at defining life experiences theater Roosevelt one of my favorite examples alright so he he's born with asthma you know this story so he's born with asthma I don't know this story no I knew the last story I didn't know this story though yeah so he he's born with asthma and he's like you know what I don't want to be a weakling his dad his family used to think he was going to be a weakling and this is before they had advanced treatments you know it's like 1800s late 1800s he decides I'm not going to let this hold me back starts training outdoors like weight lifting working out before they had real weights you know he's lifting bricks or whatever he's lifting and writing horses you know that was a big workout and he built he overcame asthma through that then eventually and that also felt helped him fall in love with the outdoors and with woods and hunting alright then 22 years old his wife dies after giving birth to their first daughter 24 hours later his mom dies in the same house so he's distraught just for Lauren right and he's incapable of raising an infant daughter when he's suffering with such deep grief so he hands off his daughter to his aunt and goes out to South Dakota North Dakota and lives in the wilderness retreats in his place of solace for like six months hunts lives you know with the settlers and different things and lives with nature kills animal after animal he was a great hunter and all right let's rewind comes back to New York is in a much better mind space cleared his head eventually runs for office again eventually becomes police chief of New York City cleans up the corruption because he had saw his dad was a big proponent against corruption in the New York City in New York in general and fought against corruption so that scene was planted then eventually obviously he gets elected or becomes president when the president then he was elected with his vice president the president he was with dies I forgot the name of the president that died and then he was elected for a second term while he was in office gets guess what he does he preserves more national parks more of America's greatest nature parks than any other president that were really all the rest of presidents combined secondly he also sets up our anti monopoly laws he had enough courage and gumption to take on federal you know standard oil you last steel break up these massive companies that would make some of them not please of today look like you know peanuts and breaks them up he takes them on and takes on anti corruption because he had had practice life experiences pointed to both of those things amazing I never knew that story so that is and I don't know if you can say with the hundred percent certainty he did that purposefully but it is an incredible example of how your life experiences especially if you're very self aware of your life experiences and understanding what these life experiences can add on to your personality and your proficiency like just being aware of that is just huge so I don't know if he was or not but it shows you what you can do if you do sort of take these and let them build on to who you are as a professional in a person and let them even if negative like there is always a positive out of it. 100% and the thing is we can all connect you know Steve Jobs said you can't connect the dots looking forward you can connect the dots looking backwards but if I connect the dots if I do a better job than most connecting the dots looking backwards I'm actually going to see some of the future dots. I'm not going to see all the dots but that all those like if I look at my life I love reading grown up I love one of my inspirational figures is a guy named Peter Drucker where he wrote 38 bucks up until the time he was like 98 and then passed away so I have him as an inspirational figure of like writing great business books so I want to be like Peter I want to. If I look at my passions for business certain things around sustainability those were clues that my mom infused in my values set. How I lead people my dad was always very strong and emphasizing respect in others and creating space for others and being kind and thoughtful so now I do that as a boss and as a leader. A quick break from this podcast to recommend another podcast the app to check out it's called the product boss is hosted by Jacqueline and mean that it's part of the HubSpot podcast network if you have a physical product this podcast is hyper tailored to you it's going to help you take your business to the next level in a recent episode for example you spoke about the power of tiktok or product businesses and how to use it to drive sales and as somebody who is a little new to tiktok I really learned some great tips for creating content. That actually converts viewers into customers they have a workshop style format that makes it really easy to follow along to take your business to the next level so if you sell physical products subscribe to the product boss wherever you get your podcast to unlock social media marketing and business strategies that create your dream business and then your dream life. That sort of dovetails quite nicely into the fourth point which is values and passions so values and passions just being self aware enough to understand how your talents your relationships your life experiences all have such an impact on who you are and then living those and and and championing those and then evangelizing those values and passions and literally every interaction you have and everything you do and every business you start like what is what is values and passions. Yeah so it's a couple things the value side if you look at hey what do I stand for what I stand against like I don't I I've made the mistake before of having potential partners business partners that I was exploring that we're a little more ego driven and you know I have a healthy ego but I'm not ego is in dominate Mike is you know my poop doesn't stink type deal. And I want humility I want devoted devotion to the greater good I want contribution innovation that I believe business exists first to serve the world and make it a better place but profit is necessary but secondary for sustainability. So that's one of our values that it also culturally customer client experience we want to thoughtfully anticipate our clients potential challenges and so then I will stand against things that are like selfish ego just purely ego driven. And I'll stand for some of these things of human potential like one of our core elements of our mission is unleash human potential. And so everything I do is oriented towards that in some way so that becomes a filter your values become a filter of like who do you let in who do you let out who do you protect yourself from. And then the passions are like hey what am I insatiably curious about what could I study all day long what who could I spend time with more and more like whom I'm not going to get bored being around like I used to think I don't I don't want to be around bankers I don't want to be for the most part I don't want to be around lawyers and real estate investors I like real estate if you're real estate investor but you have something else. Then 100% I'm game but I have four or five friends that have a hundred million dollar real estate portfolios I'd rather go spend time with a best on author friend. Interesting yeah so that's it's all about again it comes back to also what gives you energy so all these all these areas they like these are not mutually exclusive they all basically create just a really healthy strong persona that you are self aware of that you can sort of take into and that sort of brings me to my next question. How do you how do you build a business knowing your zone of genius that is built on these four key areas because that must be the best that's why I hire you right. There is it is you're right and and but it also look look at people who do extraordinary things what's in common with them they put themselves in extraordinarily right positions are you a sports fan. Yeah yeah depends on sports though like I'm more hockey than then football but I don't mind the Steelers they're okay they haven't won my hockey team well none of my hockey teams have won the long time because I'm Canadian so it doesn't matter. Sure yeah you guys have had a suffering yeah out but but the Toronto Raptors you mentioned earlier from Toronto right well few years ago they won the NBA championship so how did they win the NBA championship. Quite Leonard he was in the right position right time warriors get injured Clay Thompson and Kevin Durant go down there hobbled extraordinary results come from people put in themselves and extraordinary right opportunities with. So if you look and business Richard Branson hits the timing right Amazon hits the timing right with right in the wave of the Internet they were the you know they want to be they just want to sell books initially now Bayzo said a bigger vision but we've at the time people were afraid of buying things online when Amazon started now we're like no big deal by whatever you want online. So you have to think in my writing the right wave some of us have been right I realize I was writing some waves that were dying like I was in a socially minded car dealership that was a dinosaur industry if you look at the diffusion of innovations what is it a laggard business is in it you know late majority is about to go out of business. Or the industry is about to be majorly disrupted do I want to be a just do I want to be the disrupted or do I want to be the disruptor so now you know bothers them in the thought later space hey. That's a early stage venture still and there's a lot of innovation a lot of opportunities within that bio hacking I'm launching new bio hacking venture because that industry is going to go from a 12 billion. Dollar industry to a 54 billion dollar industry from 2019 to 2027 so I'm jumping into that space and I'm doing it in a way that I'm aligned with my genius I get to create I get to architect the business and I get to put people in their zones of genius. And attract people that I'm attracting a dream team I know I'm not a great operating partner so this time I'm not freaking starting the business without a great operating partner. No you so I love this so what the last thing I wanted to touch on and I think it's just interesting because you mentioned you mentioned a good point like so you know what your zone of genius is you you want to be you know like you have certain industries that you can disrupt so that you're you're not you don't want you want to be disrupted not disrupted. And that's sort of where you position yourself one thing that you've spoke about before is a $10,000 per hour activity so my question I think that's an interesting point because just even like just saying it just sounds like funny just like a funny sentence so somebody who wants to somebody who wants to start a non serviced based business that can understand as a coach. If you want to be a coach this makes a lot of sense you're trying to up your billables and you have to create more value and these are and there's things you can do to up your value when you position yourself to your customers but this is more like a mindset I find in just like a truly $10,000 per hour activity so what does that actually mean for somebody who is somebody who wants to start a dog walking business somebody wants to start a software or a SaaS business what does that actually mean and how do you find that. So most of us come from a middle class mindset what's a middle class mindset hey if you want a job done right do it yourself right that's that's a middle class mindset billionaire mindset if you want a job done right what what's a billionaire do Scott. Pay someone else to do it you find the best person to do it for you yeah exactly find the best person to do it for you because the billionaire knows that what the biggest amount of value that he creates is smart decisions strategic decision. Bezos Jeff Bezos. I listen to this great podcast series about Amazon versus Walmart and on it it said said that Bezos has one goal every day to make two smart strategic decisions so that's his goal he's not trying to do things he's trying to decide things. So $10,000 per hour activities they are not the doing of things even the very best attorneys in the world maybe get $500 to $1,000 an hour for billable hours so your income is kept there. When I was in real estate I calculated that my average hour if I was setting up the deal and would spend one hour with a potential client get them on board as a client hand them off to one of my junior agents to to work with them and close the deal. So that was a $5,000 an hour activity is what I would average that's still limited right in $1,000 an hour activities are massive strategic positioning offer decisions leadership decisions sometimes is who you hire who you bring on as a partner. It's your offer if you craft and ears this will offer they go to gangbusters cool thing about business you know if I hit and baseball I played college baseball. If I hit a grand slam the most runs I can scores for in business if I hit a grand slam I can score a thousand runs from that right now I might you know craft an offer is where maturity comes into play too I gotta know that nine out of ten offers are probably going to strike out or not do that great. But if I get to that 10th offer and I keep learning and kicking butt man I could do I could hit a massive home run and get that $10,000 an hour activity so $10,000 an hour activities are usually longer term strategic elements than the short term ones. So I'm glad that I clarified that so it's it's nothing to do with how you up of course is great to increase your own value if you want to bring you know value to the world but it is I love that. 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Be very, very intentional about it. Most of us don't have enough clarity about our zone of genius. That's why it's the first domino to fall. You got five C's and the first C is clarity. If you get more clarity, that's what you're going to show up with more confidence. If I show up with more confidence, guess what I'm going to show up with? Also more courage. And because of the greater courage that I show up with, I'm also going to lead and make decisions and act with greater conviction. And then when I have greater conviction, my commitment level is going to rise. But the first domino to fall, the first C is clarity. That's why Socrates said, to know thyself is the beginning of all wisdom. To know thyself is the beginning of all wisdom. So you want to be a great leader? You want to build a great business? Know yourself. Know yourself better than anyone else because then you can put yourself in an extraordinarily right positions. So go back to another guy, one of the oldest guys I've ever talked to, but still bright and brilliant. Dehawk. Do you know who Dehawk is? I actually don't know. You mentioned a couple that I know. I know Drugger, but I don't know who Dehawk is. Most people don't know him, but most have used one of his products. Do you have a Visa card? I do. All right. So he's the creator of Visa. Really? Founder of Visa. Yeah. And last year, he was 98 years old at the time. He founded a little company called Visa as an Visa credit cards. And after he retired and sold his equity in Visa, he started writing for Harvard and writing for all these other publications about leadership. And one of the things he found over and over and over again with the very best leaders in the world, they did something that ordinary leaders did not do, which was they focused more than 50% of their leadership energy on leading themselves. So we think of, oh, where's my best leadership energy leading others leading up leading down leading sideways. Nope. Leading myself, emotional leadership, put myself in emotional self, you know, self management studying myself, put myself in the right position leading my company in the right way you have in that self reflective moments. That's what the best people in the world do. Tom Brady goes to Tampa Bay, wins the Super Bowl first year with no training camp. COVID pandemic, new team, new playbook, everything's going wrong. And they suffer. He he screws up a couple of times in a public way and I can't get in sync, right? But then they have a biweek last year. Biweek, he gets everybody right and he had enough determination, enough confidence, enough self leadership that he's like, we'll figure this out, guys. We will. And they did. So self leadership, very good, if people want to get the more of this book, if they want to connect with you, where do they go? You can go to the genius within it's genius within book.com. We got a free copy there, guys, just have to pay the ship in New Hanline or you can get on Amazon. I will also have an audible version very, very soon. And then you can also get a six steps to finding your genius guide. Just text the word genius you to 474747. And that's where we'll start. And of course, on my Instagram, have a link and we'll have jazz too. Okay. And most important question, are you doing your own audible? I am. Yes. Good. Because people want the author to actually read it and so that's why I don't necessarily like to read it much, but yeah. All right. Let's do a couple of rapid fire. Just to close the close this out. So biggest challenge that you've had in your personal or professional life, what was that? How do you overcome it? Shame of failure. I'm going to type three on the Instagram man, when all that stuff hit in 2018, 2019, dude, I wanted to be the dog with the tail between his legs, the ostrich with the head in the sand. And I was at times. There was moments where I was just hiding. I wanted to hide. I was embarrassed. I was frustrated. I was sad. I was despairing all the all the juicy stuff there. So battling through that, that's where I went really deep on, I was like, I got to fill my tank. I got to fill my tank. And I know this is going to be a seed that that becomes a set up, a setback that becomes a set up, a setback that prepares me for my comeback. And so, but I had to really train myself and overcome those fears and traumas. And I also had to create an alter ego, like I had, I called my, my shameful self weak ass willy. And then I, I called my, my bad ass self, magic mic because I had a client nicknamed me magic mic because I was creating magic in her life. So I had to redo that whole identity. If you had to choose one person, although there's been many, but one person who's had the biggest impact on your life, who was that person? What did they teach you? Mm. Living wise, I would say Tony Robbins, I mean besides parents, of course, but Tony Robbins I spent 14, 947 hours with Tony, going to his platinum partner and his other mask my experiences. The dude is a gem. I think he's a saint, he's a force for good. No one more impactful in my opinion than Tony and inspiring and imprinting upon me belief. It's funny. You know that program that you mentioned from Tony Robbins, everybody who, I can't remember the name of the program. It's at the beginning, but everybody who I know, yes, anybody who's taken that program has said that's been the single most impactful, powerful thing they've ever done in their life. Like that's like what just like changed the course of their life. So something to be said, I even knew in this for a while too, so he's, yeah, he's been doing for a minute. Okay. Yeah. Your favorite source to learn or grow a book podcast, something you'd recommend that you, that you like. I love mastermind experiences. Are my favorite? That's why I host my own masterminds. I think there's nothing faster for growing because you grow in identity. When you're around a select group of 15 to 20 other high achievers and you see that hey, I'm learning from them. I can do just as good as them, but also the collaboration and the synergy. It opens up your like your tribe. When your tribe lifts and rises, guess what, your identity rises by default. One of the things I ask my mastermind members and my symposium mastermind, which is for the successful thought leader, what I ask is, hey, what does my environment have to look like for success as I define it to be inevitable? Because if you design your environment so that you're automatically going to rise, that you cannot seek. You'll eventually get to where you want to go. I love that. Very good. That's a good recommendation. No one's ever said that. They always, they always default to a book or a podcast, which is not a bad thing, but I know people who listen to my podcast too. Yeah, I know. I know you do. I just, I appreciate that. That's good. If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be? Justin and mastermind being a part of a high level mastermind sooner because I was reading books and doing seminars and online courses and all that, but it wasn't until I got real relationships and that my identity and my belief barriers were shattered. Like when I was in Tony Robbins, platinum partner, the first, first two days I was there. I was like the youngest guy I squeaked in on my credit cards is $100,000 a year program and I'm like, I don't belong here because the guys, you know, the second guy I had dinner with, he had just sold his business for $110 million and then, but by then and that week and by then that first year, I was like, yeah, I do belong here. They're no smarter than me. I can forget this out. They just, they just use their genius till at a higher point of leverage. Can I, I don't, I didn't want to go down this road too much, but I think it's important because you mentioned masterminds twice and I have one final question for you. But I think for the mastermind point, I see value in it, obviously with people that haven't gone into it yet, there's always apprehension towards pay to, you know, pay to play kind of programs and whatnot. So question is, how do you figure out what is actually going to help you versus what is smoking mirrors and BS because I feel like there's too much of that out there. So what's your process of figuring out what's, Tony Rob is a big name. I mean, that's a big, but other, other ones that aren't so big. Sure. I think, I think you got to test, you know, no, no, the leader, ideally or, or connect to an interview with, just as their interview and you, you interview them, secondly, look at the real testimonials and real results. Thirdly, do you resonate, do their values intersect with yours? Do they seem like they are supportive and they believe in you? What's the risk factor as well? Do they have it like a guarantee? Like I'll often add a guarantee. I have a basic guarantee, but I'll add additional guarantees if I feel like I can truly help this person, but they're, they're, they're on the fence and they just need a little extra risk removal. I'll take on the risk. And I'll say, hey, hey, if we go through this and you don't, you know, do XYZ, like one of my favorite stories, Kristen Boss, she came to me. She was $100,000 a year hairstyles and a tough, tough spot in her life because she had all these home repairs, her husband was in, in mid-point jobs and all that, which she's like, she actually had applied for my mastermind back in April, I think it was in its October. So she hadn't had said I can't afford it at the point. Well, I launched a low ticket, like $2500 program, she said, Mike, I can, that would take up like the last amount on my credit card. I was like, all right, she's like, I can't do it unless, if you really think I will get results, I will do it, but you got to promise me that you'll get result, that I'll get results. I was like, Kristen, you'll get results if you do the things we ask, but you got to do them, like you can't just, you know, absorb knowledge. And sure enough, she did them, and she did them, and then some, like I said, hey, you got to do 10 discovery calls with who you think your ideal client is, so you get intimacy with them, and you get your 4% client. Well, she does the 25 discovery calls, that program is in October, November, it's a six week program, by the end of it, in December, she does $28,000 a year, and they're first full month. Really, she was still a hair salon, so she's doing it 20 hours a week, then January, February, same thing, 28, 25, 26,000, whatever, I think in March, she did 40,000 for the first time, June, she did 60, by the end of the year, she did over a million dollars. She tripled what I thought she'd earn, actually, I was like, I think you can do 360,000 dollars, because she ended up joining one of my masterminds, too. And I had guaranteed her that I would initially, on that first investment, I said, hey, I'll give you your money back if you don't get basically 10x return, but you have to do the exercises. And so, you know, I'd say, I bet about 75, 80%, I don't nail it for everyone, but sometimes there's some, you know, there's three seasons that many of us are in, we're either in the seed planting season, we're in a growth season, or we're in the harvest season, that massive external results come in the harvest season, like she was in a growth season, but she was pretty close to a harvest season, I just needed fine tune, a few of the things that she needed in the irises will offer for her ideal client, her zone of genius, need to be dialed in, which we did, all those things. So that's, that's my two cents, and I'd say also, it, don't operate from scarcity. I mean, at 80% of the investments I've made in myself, I've invested over half a million dollars, they paid off 80% of them, but that's still 20% hasn't paid off, but that's still a learning lesson, and, and so that's my two cents is like, man, the wealthy have a different embrace of failure and mistakes. They don't see, like, Sarah Blakely's dad used to ask her when she was a kid, hey, what did you fail at today? She had a different interpretation of failure, so go for it. I think in life, more often than not, our biggest mistakes are not going for it. Agreed, agree. Good. And last question, what does success mean to you? Being aligned to my purpose, impacting and serving, and unleashing people's God-given potential, and going for it, not playing small, I play him full out.