Capability Amplifier

Do you have someone in your life you’re in awe of? Someone who’s been such an incredible mentor, teacher, inspiration, and friend that you feel blessed to know them at all? Joseph McClendon III is one of those people for me. Joseph is one of the most sought-after Performance Specialists in the world. His unique techniques rapidly trigger personal change that effectively moves you to take more consistent action and go further faster with your personal and business achievements.  This week, my long-time friend Joseph and I talk about his personal experience with prejudice, being homeless, raising a kid in today’s crazy world, evolving as a human being, and what kind of legacy he wants to leave behind.  I started the conversation by asking Joseph, “What is the scariest thing you’re doing right now?” and his answer might surprise you. It wasn’t business, money, politics, the environment or health ... it was being a parent.  Joseph has a 12-year-old son who’s getting to the age where he’s going to start doing things on his own. Joseph knows he’s done a great job preparing him but with everything that’s going on in today’s climate, it’s not an issue of trusting his son ... it’s the WORLD out there he doesn’t trust. (I’m in the same boat as Joseph. My son, Zak, is 17 and I have the same concerns.)  Joseph came from a background of having some pretty horrible things happen to him right around the age his son is now. He recalls seeing a news clip on TV during the civil rights riots of a black man who had driven into a part of town where they were having a white supremacist rally. The man was pulled out of his car and beaten badly because of the color of his skin. That was the first time Joseph realized that, as an African-American, the same thing could happen to him and that it was a dangerous world out there.  When he was 17, he was attacked by three grown men who tried to take his life because of the color of his skin. He became homeless because that experience destroyed his self-esteem and confidence. That was the genesis of his journey into personal development and growth.  Joseph feels that he’s “an evolving soul right now.” He knows he has a lot more learning to do, but he’s really focused on what he’s going to leave behind when he’s done—his legacy. He feels an urgency to focus 100 percent of his attention on giving people the tools, strategies, experiences, and results of hedging that bet and beating the ridiculous odds of not being able to succeed in your health, your wellness, and your lifestyle.

This week on the show, Dan and I discuss “Not Being Bothered,” It's a big idea that Dan loves to talk about. We dive deep into Burnout, The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma and how to retrieve your passion once it has been CONSUMED by business details and the grind.  Tell me if this sounds familiar: You were led to believe that if you’re a marketer, you can teach people how easy it would be to build a BIG business by using social media and “systems,” but soon found your complicated machine required 25 people to run—most of whom you don’t even like or like to manage.  You’ve grown tired of “team.” Tired of hiring, firing, legal stuff, customers, and the list goes on... and now you’re in a situation where it's a constant grind of being shallow and wide from a lack of focus instead of being deep and narrow, which is really the experiential side, the human side, of having a great business. You’ve reached the level where your business bothers you SO much that it’s time to escape. To reinvent. You’ve reached BURNOUT.  Remember the ambitions and goals you had back in your 20s and 30s? By the time you reached 40, you probably far surpassed those ambitions. Have you taken the time to reassess and take your ambitions to a new level yet in your 40s? Now imagine if that happens again in your 50s and 60s. Maybe it already has. You burn out because your life becomes about your past only, instead of including your future.  Dan is 75 and thinks that sometimes “entrepreneurs run out of future,” and I agree with him. Take retirement, for instance: Dan’s perspective on retirement is that the moment you stop being useful or providing value, the universe wants its parts back.  When thinking about retirement a lot of entrepreneurs revert back to a non-entrepreneurial way of thinking. Why? You chose to be an entrepreneur by thinking and doing things differently, so why would you buy into a traditional, non-entrepreneurial idea of retirement? Use the talents that got you here to plan a retirement that fits YOUR wants and goals! Get creative and innovative. DO YOU.  As an entrepreneur, I find creating is easier than managing and growing a business. When I was younger (and should have been focusing on building a real business), my identity was wrapped up in my company, which didn't need me from the start. As a result, I started becoming a “specialist.”  Not long ago I heard the phrase “Specialization is for insects.” Generalists WIN in the new economy. Resilience. Innovation. Reinvention. Co-creation. These are the values that win.  You can't spend your whole life being special and then complain about what comes with being special. It's part of the deal! As an entrepreneur, you never wanted to make your living in a conventional way. There are ENORMOUS rewards to doing so but there are also disadvantages. You have to know that going in and accept it or suffer the consequences.  So at what point in your life would you like to know that something isn't working? Would you like to find out five years from now? 10 years from now? 20 years from now? Dan and I have both done long and short suffering and we’ve decided that short suffering is a lot better.  Enjoy!

This week’s episode features the strongly opinionated and often controversial Jordan Harbinger, a top podcaster with millions of downloads who is referred to as “The Larry King of Podcasting.” He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to podcasting AND he’s done his research on YouTube so he has some real, honest insight into both platforms. If you have a successful business and are thinking about throwing your hat into either the podcasting or YouTube ring, but aren’t sure which platform is better for growth, time management, and monetization, then you’re going to want to keep reading (and listening).  I begin the interview by asking Jordan what worries him the most about his business in the current climate of super-short attention spans and “Kardashianized” marketing. Here’s what he had to say: “What worries me comes from an old saying, don't build your business in someone else's walled garden. In other words, platforms you don’t own or have any control over like Facebook or Apple iTunes. I have a podcast so, at the end of the day, I am still beholden to the platform. It stinks and doesn't stop me from doing anything... BUT there could be a millennial that works at one of these companies, woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and there goes your income stream. You just have to piss off the person who runs the content review team at some company, and you're done.” In today’s “cancel culture,” YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter could decide for some arbitrary reason that a piece of content you created five years ago offends a short, plump, three-legged, green alien who decided to unionize your business, and THEY could remove your channel and all of your followers because someone’s feelings were hurt when you expressed your right of free speech. Where would you be then?  We live in a world now where open rates and click-through rates with email are miserable at best. I think the most engaging platform is podcasting, but it really comes down to how you train your audience to react and respond to you. My message has always been the same: Get people to leave a platform page, get their email address, and build a REAL relationship with them because it's easier to monetize. There is no Holy Grail, and I think right now, the world of “platforms” is more scattered than ever before.  Virtually every “influencer” on YouTube is screwed right now because they’re being demonetized and penalized, losing their incomes and sometimes their channels AND they never took the time to think ahead and build a list they controlled.  Jordan has been asked many times why he hasn’t started and focused on building a YouTube channel. He definitely thought about it but ended up sticking with podcasting, and here’s why. He asked a lot of his YouTuber friends who are highly successful with a million-plus subscribers and found some pretty disturbing figures from people he thought would be printing money. They aren’t. They aren’t dirt poor, but they’re certainly not wealthy from it either.  But here’s the REAL rub ... these guys are doing 12-hour days because YOU CAN’T OUTSOURCE YOUR PERSONALITY. You can outsource the comments, the email, the customer support, the editing, but you can't outsource YOU being the guy that does all the funny stuff in the videos. They have teams of 16 to 20 people, they’re filming eight hours, and editing. They look like they haven’t had a vacation in two decades ... because THEY HAVEN’T!  It's just not all it's cracked up to be. There's no asset to sell. “Influencing” isn’t a real business.  There’s also the whole “optimizing for YouTube” quagmire that people fall into. Maybe you start off doing a podcast talking about topics you really enjoy—things that are conversational, intellectual, and thought-provoking—but your download growth rate is SUPER slow so you try YouTube because it’s easier to...

Happy Holidays! I sincerely hope you’re taking time to relax and enjoy this time of year with your family and friends. My gift to you is an extra special, feel-good podcast with a little touch of “woo-woo” on top. This week on the show, I had the privilege of interviewing my friend and one of the stars of the movie The Secret, Marci Shimoff, about her life, her many reinventions, what scares her the most, and what she would wish for if she had a magic wand.  When Marci was 16 years old, she started doing TM (transcendental meditation) and was SO changed by the practice that she decided to attend Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. The only difference in her education was that they learned everything in the light of natural law and everybody practiced transcendental meditation, from the students to the staff and faculty.  Despite her parents’ trepidations about her attending a non-traditional, unaccredited university AND their doubts that she would survive Iowa winters (being a California girl!), she went on to graduate. At first, she was embarrassed to tell people where she graduated from so she went on to get her MBA from UCLA so that she wouldn’t have to confess. Today, she’s VERY proud of that background and feels like it has served her well.  Proof positive, we now know from a scientific AND medical perspective the benefits of meditation, and if you're not meditating, you're not performing as well as you could be.  During her extremely successful career as a #1 New York Times bestselling author and transformational leader, she has reinvented herself many times. In fact, she is heading in a brand new direction right now, so I was curious … “What terrifies Marci Shimoff?”  Her answers might surprise you: things like letting go of working too much, never learning to play the piano or speak Spanish, and not doing more philanthropic work. But there’s more, much more ...  Marci is an exceptional soul and a fascinating woman who’s lived an extraordinary life of service to others. Enjoy!

No religion, no capitalism. That’s the focus of this week’s must-listen episode. I’ve never been afraid to talk about controversial subjects like religion, politics, or money. Change and growth come from doing the difficult stuff rather than going along with the crowd or playing it safe.  To me, crowds are dangerous. Whenever there’s a big group heading in one direction, I move the opposite way. Lemmings plunge off cliffs. Never jump into a boxcar without asking a lot of questions first. Know what I mean?  This week on the show, Dan and I are tackling a subject that in today’s crybaby climate and outrage culture can be very challenging to talk about, BUT it’s a subject we’re both endlessly fascinated by: Without religion, capitalism couldn’t exist.  A little background on Dan and me: we were both raised as Catholics. Dan considers himself a “godly” person, not a religious person. Ever since he was a kid, he felt that he had a one-on-one connection with God. It isn’t about a “belief” in God, but rather an experience.  I went through 12 years of parochial education. The messaging and delivery mechanism, combined with the authoritarianism, never resonated with me. I felt institutionalized, and I didn't like it. From my perspective, life didn’t begin until I was eighteen and free from being forced to go to school and church. I didn’t need a building or someone else’s rules to define my relationship with God.  There's something that's very necessary for capitalism to exist. Extraordinarily talented people are given an enormous amount of encouragement, not only for their skills and achievements, but for their rewards too. We admire people who use their skills and talents to create something really big, and we honor them for it. Capitalism is the only system in the history of the world that has done this, and Christianity was the first step in making it happen.  If you spend a bit of time going deep into why war and crime occur, you’ll find that two primary causes are envy and jealousy. Keep reading ...  Christianity conquered society’s most inhibiting emotion ... envy. There’s a difference between envy and jealousy that is often misunderstood. For example, when someone has a set of skills that you don’t possess, you’re jealous of that skill but can’t have it until you’ve gone through the necessary training and commitment to acquire that capability. Jealousy can actually be a positive thing in this way. Envy NEVER is. Envy is when you see that someone else has something you want and you want them to lose it.  Envious people do BAD THINGS. They steal. They hurt. They do criminal acts. That isn’t good for society. It isn’t good for business.  Christianity created a path beyond envy through “HEAVEN.” It said life on this planet is basically good luck and bad luck, depending on a roll of the dice. You can be born an emperor or a slave and you should be okay with it. When they die, both the slave and the emperor are equal before God on Judgment Day. In heaven, the emperor may be a second-class citizen, depending on how he lived his life, and the slave may be a first-class citizen.  It wasn't until you had the promise of an afterlife that you would put up with inequality and people doing much better than you in this lifetime. You could enjoy someone else's success because it gave you ideas about what YOU could do. This meant that great talent and achievements could blossom. We started seeing progress and an upswing in society because of this promise of a reckoning ... Judgment Day. Paradise. Everlasting life … Heaven.

When I was growing up, Blade Runner was one of my favorite movies. I’ve also been a big fan of Peter Diamandis and his books Abundance and Bold. Both make me think about infinite abundance of materials available to us in space. This week on the show, I connect with Jim Keravala, co-founder and CEO of OffWorld, to talk about the incredible things he’s doing with robots and outer space. So what exactly is OffWorld? (Sounds like some serious Blade Runner material, doesn’t it?) Their ambition is to build infrastructure in space so that civilization can expand into the solar system and beyond in addition to building industrial processes and capabilities in space to help rebalance the Earth’s ecosystem. Their challenge was to find a future-paced business model that worked in the NOW. OffWorld treats Earth as a celestial body, and their autonomous, industrial, robotic workforce of AI-powered robots operate ON EARTH in the mining, construction, infrastructure repair, city sewers, seabed operations, etc. to do the dangerous jobs (that are normally done by humans) with a high degree of collaborative intelligence and move people out of harm's way. While they’re building their space program on the backs of commercial contracts in the mining and construction sectors, they’re simultaneously building a platform for expansion into the solar system. Bottom line — they have a great prototyping platform and an opportunity to test everything here on Earth, get paid while they're doing it, PROVE the model, and then launch the program on the moon, Mars, or beyond. Their intention is to become a multi-billion dollar company here on Earth and use their income to underwrite their own pilot projects in space. Where did this CRAZY, cool idea come from? Jim has been passionate about getting humans off the surface of the Earth and into outer space since he was a teenager. He read An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Robert Malthus. The premise of the book is that if you're in any closed economy or system, at some point you're going to reach an imbalance of resources and run out of space for your waste products and the possibility for population expansion. The book was talking more in terms of regional boundaries, but being a complete space nut as a kid, Jim immediately expanded that into the Earth and space arena. He realized that, conceptually, we are in a closed system if we stay on this planet. That’s when his passion for expanding beyond Earth's atmosphere began. It was a fascinating and eye-opening experience chatting with Jim at the Near Future Summit. If you’re interested in space and what’s to come in the VERY near future, this episode is for you!  Enjoy! Mike

Are you tired of your business and want a big change or shift in your life? How about SIMPLICITY? Would you like to “get off the road” and out of the grind? Are you the type of person who likes things to stay the same and last forever OR the type who likes change and reinvention (like ME!)? This week, Dan and I talk about when it's time to quit and reinvent, and what happens when you know you're done and ready for the next evolution of your business and life.  Dan and I have super similar origin stories/backgrounds but very different entrepreneurial backgrounds. I'm constantly reinventing (currently in my sixth, from a business perspective) and after 30 years, Dan is still leading Strategic Coach®.  I believe that’s what makes Dan and me such great partners: DIFFERENT perspectives and experience, SAME values and end goal: Capabilities Amplified.  Dan started Strategic Coach with his partner and wife, Babs. They built it around their values and a “set of rules.” Based on this, they brought the same principles to other business owners who became annual subscribing participants.  They show up every quarter to go through this same process ... and I'm one of them! They use the concepts and principles to build, grow, and expand themselves and to achieve the Four Freedoms (Time, Money, Relationship, and Purpose), and they also bring these processes and principles into their businesses.  Initially, Strategic Coach was a one-on-one coaching service. It then went into a workshop format and THAT turned out to be the real magic bullet. Dan discovered that entrepreneurs really wanted to share and compare their ideas and challenges with other entrepreneurs.  Because of Dan’s continued and proven success, he’s constantly expanding and inspired to create new “stuff”: “I would say that's our number one strategic activity—constantly creating new concepts and tools that would encourage people to stay in this process.” But there is an important distinction. When is it time to stop and when is it time to grow and reinvent inside your own set of rules?  I, on the other hand, see myself as an innovator FIRST and then as a performer, entertainer, and creator. The sheer enjoyment of creating new concepts and new thinking tools is primary over maximizing the profitability value of what I'm creating.  I remember, many years ago, hearing Tony Robbins say, “I'm 80% entertainment and 20% content,” and I was OFFENDED by that! Years later, I now understand the importance of being an entertainer. If you can’t get and keep attention, you’ll never get a chance to sell your products and services.  Look at Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, for example. Yes, they're very good at what they do, but they’re also entertaining, interesting people who make the process of investing and doing business with them ... interesting! That's what keeps people coming back.  That’s why having the best products and services is of secondary importance to having great marketing. Beyond that, having a great brand and platform is paramount.  We need to be relatable to our audience in order to create a good “brand,” but understand that everyone has their own, personal operating style. My daily passion is trying to figure out the next concept and put it together in a way that will translate into an interesting entrepreneurial experience for my audience.  That’s what drove me into my latest reinvention, which is working one on one as an advisor to business owners to help them build celebrity-class personal and business brands, grow their platforms, and increase their value 3x-5x while simplifying their lives.  Enjoy the show!

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know that I’m a total TECH GEEK! I love learning about ANYthing new in the world of emerging technology: AI (artificial intelligence), ML (machine learning), VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), IoT (internet of things). The future possibilities are super exciting and at times ... can be scary as hell. Tech is a double-edged sword. It can be used for good or evil ... even though technology itself is neutral. Well, except for Facebook. On the record, I think it’s evil and not to be trusted any further than the Chinese government. That’s a whole different story and rabbit hole we won’t dive into today.  This week on the show, I got to chat with David Ewing Duncan, the author of Talking To Robots. It’s one of the COOLEST books I’ve read in a long time. It’s half nonfiction and half fiction, and chock-full of robots! Twenty-four to be exact ... from teddy bear bot to sex bot to Facebook bot to warrior bot and even god bot! Here’s the concept: David interviewed some of the greatest thinkers of our time (people like Kevin Kelly, Tim O'Reilly, and Brian Greene) and asked them, “What kind of robot would you want to meet or be afraid to meet in the future?” Then, he shares a story about each one. Normally, David is a nonfiction writer, but this story is actually told from the future. There's a narrator, but we don't know who it is. It could be a man, it could be a woman, it could be a robot who lives in the future and actually knows how things turned out! An overarching theme of David’s career has been writing about technology, mostly biotechnologies, genetics, and synthetic biology. Like me, he’s interested in the technology and the people doing it, but he’s MORE interested in how it affects society. The book is structured to give us some possible future scenarios. David’s opinion (and mine) is that we are at a pivotal moment in human history where we are about to have the power to build robots that we've thought about and are trying to understand ourselves. It’s about trying to understand our emotions and how things might play out in different scenarios. It's a little bit playful, it's a little whimsical, and at times it makes fun of our culture. Case in point: The chapter “Politics Bot” pokes fun at our current government and the unbelievable lunacy/soap opera in motion. Vladimir Putin makes an appearance too! It was an absolute pleasure chatting with David about his book at the Near Future Summit, and I HIGHLY recommend checking it out. We had such a great conversation and so much more we wanted to touch on, so there will be a follow-up interview in the future.

This Is MY FAVORITE podcast episode! What if you had just ONE MINUTE to pitch your product, service, company, or yourself to your perfect client? What would you say? What would make them BEG to work with you, buy your product, or invest in your business?  Have you wondered what a WINNING pitch sounds like? You know ... the one that could completely change the course of your life and business?  Recently, I had the incredible opportunity to be on “Elevator Pitch” with Entrepreneur.com. Have you ever seen the show “Shark Tank”? It’s a bit like that ...  It’s really well produced and was a SUPER fun experience. I got to listen to a ton of pitches (both good and bad), but completely blind to the deals and the other judges … that’s part of the fun! The judges can either cut deals together or screw each other over, and it happens. That’s TV. That’s drama. Gotta get those views!  I learned a LOT on this show—plus, it was the first time in 30 years that I had the opportunity to RELAX and JUST be “talent” instead of producer, director, writer, marketer, AND talent for my own productions. The whole experience brought up a burning question … what makes for a really great pitch?  This week on the show, Dan and I dive deep into this subject. Keep reading to hear the BEST pitch you’ve ever heard ... AND what Dan shared on the show ... IT WAS A ONE-WORD OFFER. And took place approximately 50 years BC! Intrigued? I’m not going to give it away ... but it’s awesome! A “pitch” is basically selling yourself, and there are two parts to selling:  * INTELLECTUAL – Engaging another person with a future desirable outcome that REALLY appeals to them AND is good for them. * EMOTIONAL – Supporting another person to make the emotional ACTION to give them their future desired results.  You HAVE to create rapport, connection, and trust with a potential client. Clarify their past in a way that's meaningful in order to enter the future. You can never have someone committed to a bigger, more confident future unless you let them have a more confident past. One weakness that a lot of entrepreneurs have is that they discount their past, trying to get away from it as fast as they can ... but there’s GOLD in the past!  Enjoy!

Do you ever get nostalgic for a simpler time when stand-up comedy was king and Johnny Carson was the BIGGEST star on the planet, like I do? Our next guest is one of the MOST recognizable and talented names from the heyday of comedy in the 1980s. But unlike most of the stars of that era, he’s still active, going strong, AND committed to massive self-growth. He went from humble beginnings as a poor immigrant not even knowing the language to living the American dream ... performing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, starring in countless TV shows and movies, performing for four U.S. Presidents, and obtaining his American citizenship in front of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. His mission statement is “to experience happiness and teach it with passion through comedy and sensitivity.” He has an ongoing quest for knowledge and understanding about relationships, and earned his doctorate degree in psychology and global leadership at Pepperdine University.  Meet Dr. Yakov Smirnoff!  Yakov is so fascinated with different ways to create happiness that his doctoral dissertation was called “Law of Laughter” (LOL for short). This was his way of looking for a formula or a law that most people were not aware of.  As a comedian, he was given a set of skills that allowed him to listen for happiness. Every time the audience laughed, he knew they were happy. Even if they were going through a difficult time … at that moment, when something triggered them to laugh, they became involuntarily happy for a moment.  Yakov realized that in his personal relationship with his ex-wife, laughter was there in the beginning, but it slowly disappeared, and he wasn't paying attention to it—something he normally did with his audiences. “If they don't laugh … the next day, there's going to be a different approach to the routine,” he says. But with his wife … it was too late by the time he discovered what was happening.  This became his focus for the next 20 years—figuring out that “formula.” In the end, he was able to prove and defend his formula with his dissertation, and it’s very basic: “It’s having complementary opposites.” If you picture the audience and the performer, one person is talking and the other is listening. In situations like a political debate, everybody is trying to talk at the same time, nobody is listening, and that’s not healthy. You need the performer AND the audience. You need the complementary opposites.  Then, you need to consciously understand what the needs of the other person are because in the beginning of a relationship, it just happened spontaneously, because Mother Nature wants us to procreate! She gives us hormones that make us happy, we laugh, and have a great time. Then a year later, all of those hormones check out and we start separating and finding other sources of creating happiness. Unfortunately, most of the time, it's very difficult to get back to the beginning.  Yakov is an endlessly FASCINATING, talented, and super smart guy. Did you know that he’s also an accomplished artist AND developing a residential community in Branson, MO, called “Yakov Towers”? Who knew?!