How To Get What You Want By Helping Others Get What They Want

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0:56Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Chance and my guest today is Joe Polish. He's the founder of the Genius Network, one of the highest level groups in the world for entrepreneurs. Joe has helped build thousands of businesses and generated hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients. He's also the author of a book that we're going to talk about today, What's in it for them? Nine genius networking principles to get what you want by helping others get what they want. So Joe, welcome to the show. Thank you, John. Super great to be here with you.

1:31Is it possible this is the first time you've been on the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast? It is, which is hard to imagine. You've been on my podcast, but I've never been on yours. So this is really good. We're making up for it then. So do you have like the three minute version of your life story. Not everybody probably listening to this knows who Joe Polish is. Although, you know, you are one of those people that has like people we're going to talk about in your network. Everybody knows who they are. You're kind of one of those people that has, has quietly done some amazing things, I think. And maybe it's not a household name because of it, but I think your story is amazing.

2:08No, thank you. Yeah. And by the way, I try not to be famous because oftentimes I work with a lot of people in the world of addiction recovery because I've been in recovery myself. So I focus on entrepreneurs and people that struggle with addiction. And oftentimes they're the same people. And so my life story, the real quick version is boy, crazy bit of a childhood. A mother died when I was four, a lot of abuse, growing up, a lot of disconnection, a lot of moving around, very introverted, very shy, very disconnected. And so it's weird that today, what I have built is like one of the best connection networks on the planet and really try to connect people.

2:42And a lot of that came out of just pursuing entrepreneurship and just trying to do something in the world and make a living and survive. The other part of it is it feels really good to be around people that you feel connected with because people are either communicating, they're connecting, or they're trying to escape. Those are like the three types of ways that I would frame it. And I write about that in What's in It for Them, trying to describe what is connection, what is disconnection, how do you connect. And so I was a Debro carpet cleaner was my first endeavor into running a business. I lived off credit cards.

3:16I went pretty deeply in debt, you know, back in 19, late 1989 to about 1992. When I first discovered marketing, then I turned this small carpet cleaning business around. And then I just fell in love with marketing and with words and how to use education-based marketing. And even back then, what's in it for them was, you know, one of the best ways to sell something the people and your master at this is you educate them on how to make a buying decision so that your advertising isn't about price your advertising is about education and leading people to make buying decisions then i started teaching other carpet and upholstery cleaners in the 90s i built the largest training organization in the world for that industry over 12 000 cleaning restoration companies worldwide became members i licensed it to all kinds of other service businesses and along the way I started doing group you know programs and that became Genius Network which it is today and now it's as high-level entrepreneurs it's a connection network and I bring people together to focus on health mental and physical health wealth not just making money but not losing it which are two different skill sets and what I call health which is easy lucrative and fun so you can have an elf business which is easy lucrative and fun or easy liberating and fun if it's in the personal relationship or health or elf half versus elf, which half is hard, annoying, lame and frustrating, or it could oftentimes be hard, annoying, lucrative and frustrating, but not all money's created equal.

4:42So my whole thing, it used to be elf marketing. Now it's people projects. And I think that was longer than three minutes, but there we go. Yeah. That's sort of what I do today. I look for how to have aligned elf relationships with people. So on the surface, maybe somebody read this and think, oh, this is a networking book, which I guess on the surface, it kind of is, but it's not your typical networking book. You're not going to read things in this book that you've probably read in other books about, you know, how to go to networking events or how to build relationships. What made you want to write this book now?

5:18We'll get into like the details of what I just said, but what made you want to write this book now? Yeah. Well, you know, oftentimes all their authors say, you know, I just really wanted to share my message with the world and I feel so blessed and all that sort of stuff. And to a certain degree, I mean, I think a decent human hopefully comes from that place. I mean, most people write books and stuff because they want to make money. They want to build their businesses. They want to do stuff like that. This is my fifth book. This is the first book though, that I have done as a mainstream published book by Hay House.

5:45And so there's going to be a lot of effort put behind it. Almost all of the proceeds, probably all of them. I say almost all because we haven't, you know, we'll see how this plays out. We'll go to Genius Recovery, which is my addiction recovery foundation. So I didn't do this book, quote unquote, for money. I mean, I have very high priced programs, I do very well, most of my clients are very successful, all that. The reason I wrote it is in a lot of ways, for myself, my own purposes is I want to sift, sort and screen narcissists, and sociopaths and psychopaths from entering my groups and entering my world.

6:17And the book is a roadmap of who I like doing relationships with my value system, my moral system, my ethical system. But hopefully I want to empower the givers of the world to be better givers, better boundary givers. And I want people to be quick coming at relationships from being a taker because everybody wants something. I mean, you know, everyone listening to this listens to you because they want something and they want more business. They want a better business. You know, for me, that people often want an elf business. They want to make money. they want to sell their stuff, but ultimately we all want something.

6:53Like later today, I'm going to want lunch. And so I want to go eat lunch. When it comes to relationships with people though, you want to show up with a give that's either greater or equal to your want. Because if we think, you know, in our own lives, who is it that annoys us? It's people that ask for things, but all they have is an ask. They want something from you, but they don't show up with something. so all they care about is themselves and so I wrote the book for the younger version of myself you often hear people on podcasts what advice would you give to your 18 year old self or your 16 year old self or your 20 year old self or your 30 you know whatever and I'll be 55 next year you know in February and if I this book is a combination of how do I meet people how do I connect with people what are some of the methodologies and the strategies and the capabilities so it's a capability book however it's really a character book disguised as a capability book because it's not just about having capabilities to connect and how to connect but it's also to be a decent human and to protect yourself from the takers of the world because life gives to the giver and takes from the taker and I've had so much horrible situations with people that I have helped in my life and there's that famous Zig Ziglar line which I really like in the right context which is you can have get anything you want in life or have anything you want life if you help enough other people get what they want possibly because you can spend your life helping a lot of other people get what they want that not only won't do a damn thing for you but they will abuse you they will mislead you they will betray you they will take from you and I love how to win friends and influence people amazing book even in the beginning of my book I you know say if you ever read that book and this book wouldn't even exist.

8:38I say this book, I'm pointing to it. This is what it looks like. It's got this crazy little yellow cover. It says what's in it for them. That's the question to ask yourself. That's the, that's the point behind it is, you know, how to win friends and influence people is great, but not if they're not great people. So my whole thing is how do you win the right friends and influence the right people? How do you develop relationships with people that are aligned with you? Because I don't want to work on relationships. Like our friend Dan Sullivan says, I don't want to work on a relationship. I just want a relationship that works and not that networking requires doing no effort.

9:14You know, networking, though, handing out business cards, making contacts is a total waste of time. If you are coming at it from let me have an agenda, let me pursue, you know, let me be an opportunist. So there's nothing wrong. As a matter of fact, both me and you have spent so much of our time helping people identify and access and reach and make real the opportunities that they have in their life. But there's a big difference between pursuing an opportunity, developing an opportunity versus being an opportunist. So the point of the book is to protect the givers from scoundrels and to be a better giver and to hopefully create a culture where people are more thoughtful of why they're going into relationships because it's not only more fun that way, but you just don't leave scorched earth.

10:05And people that are these, you know, there's connecting where you really connect with someone. And then there's connecting where people connect by conning people. And I don't I want to get rid of the con stuff because it's so much of our marketing world, as you know, is filled with people that just they're not ethical. From my value system, you know, again, I'm only speaking from what I consider what is a good way to walk the earth. And now a word from our sponsor. You know, since 2010, the Hoth has been the go-to authority for all things SEO. And as a loyal listener of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, you get access to 20 plus free marketing tools, plus 20 % off of any of their marketing services.

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11:44With chat-based commands, you can manage contacts, run reports, and even ask for status updates. the easy to use crm just got even easier head on over to hubspot.com slash artificial dash intelligence to get early access today to both content assistant and chat spot you talk about your struggles with addiction i've i've heard you talking about it openly it's in the book as well and i found it interesting that step one i think it was in the book how how they're suffering find out how people are suffering and how can I help? I mean, does that come from your suffering? Absolutely. You know, my mother died when I was four.

12:29My father lost the love of his life. He was brokenhearted. He never recovered. He was tormented. He, you know, would move every year or two. We would, you know, just start to develop friendships because, you know, depending on if someone's extroverted, introverted, shy, not shy, et cetera, it was really hard for me to develop relationships. Then I had a lot of physical and sexual abuse as a kid. And that really messes with you. I mean, you know, a lot of trauma. And so addiction is a response to trauma. And so with, you know, with that level of disconnection, I had a lot of pain. But I found that if I smile, which in the beginning as a kid, it was a way to protect myself from my father, you know, getting very angry.

13:12And so it started as a survival mechanism. Now in the business world, enthusiasm covers many deficiencies. You know, if you're just simply, if you have enthusiasm though, coupled with value, with the ability to be really helpful, then you can connect to people. And so one of the things that I suggest to people in the book, and I try to go very deeply, try to actually do, one of the feedbacks I get from a lot of people is like, wow, this is not what I thought this book would be about. I talk about pain and to be a pain detective because I believe what humans want, John, is they want more woo and less ah.

13:49That's what we want. You know, like more woo. You know, like this is going to make me feel good. This will, you know, more money, more business, more access, a better body, better health, more fun. And there are certain things that are ah, but they produce woo, like exercise. Or I do cold plunges in saunas almost daily. Believe me, stepping into a 32 to 38 degrees cold plunge is ah in the beginning. But the dopamine that you get, the feeling that you get, how you build up a, you know, just a physical tolerance that then leaves you feeling better produces more woo. So there in order to have a really good network, you know, everyone's probably heard that saying, you know, your network is your net worth.

14:34You're going to have to work. I just spoke at an event a couple of days ago at a friend of ours. And I said, yeah, I had on the screen, you know, there's about 450 people in the audience. And I had a slide that said gyms don't work. And I said, people often come to me and they'll say, you know, 12 step groups don't work, which are often said by people that have never gone to a 12 step group or only sat in it. If someone said, you know, to you, like, you know, John, I read your book. I've been to your, you know, I've went to your strategies. I've been to your events. It doesn't work. It's like, that's like saying gyms don't work.

15:05You can't join a gym sit on the bench and then say, you know, I'm not lifting the weights I'm not riding the bike gyms don't work. He would never say gyms don't work, but people say that about Personal development learning marketing strategies learning every sort of education Well, you're gonna have to work it you have to put in your what I call Tammy your time attention money effort and energy Which are the things that you can spend but where I try to suggest is come at it from pain find the pain in someone's life because what entrepreneurs do is they solve problems for a profit you know look where you can find pain look where you can find suffering in there if you can reduce the suffering or in many cases eliminate it or at least give them ways to do it not only is that a quicker way to build rapport with people it's a more authentic way to build rapport I love people that come into my life and not only help me remove angst and pain and annoyances but they actually come and approach me from a very thoughtful way so if there's any agenda because I suggest don't go don't interact with people with an agenda what I really mean is make sure your agenda is not a taker agenda if your agenda is to be a giver that's a much different agenda if your agenda because pain is where you know I wouldn't have I wouldn't have recovered from addiction and when I say recovered I could easily fall back in the into addictive behavior if I have enough stress, enough angst, enough overwhelm consuming my life, because addiction is a solution to pain.

16:37The opposite of addiction is connection. So when I'm disconnected from myself, I'm disconnected for others, and I will look for oftentimes negative ways to scratch the itch. And so we're in the middle, like right now, I think the timing for what I wrote this book for, I took a one-year sabbatical last year. And the one thing that was helped me, you know, I didn't publish the book. They wanted me to publish a book. I'm like, I'm not going to do it. But what I did in a one year sabbatical is really look at the world, really look at what happened with the pandemic, the global trauma that has been created of what through what everyone's went through.

17:13And I'm like, OK, you know, what do I know? What have I learned that I could write about that would be the most useful for people not only to connect with others, but to connect with themselves first. into, you know, if I could just help people by 5%, be more focused on what's in it for them, what pain do they have in their life, and how could I be useful to them first before I want them to be useful for me, I think it just takes away so much of the crap that people try to do in order to get what they want in life. I mean, get what you want in life by helping the right people get what they want, the useful people get what they want, help the givers become better at getting what they want.

17:51And if you approach people in that way, really focusing on pain reduction and reducing suffering, man, they will appreciate you just like the economic definition of appreciation or depreciation is you go up in value. And so that was one of the things that I hope to do with the book. I think it's a good practical way for people to think about something that I think we all get, but it's a good practical way to think about it. But another thing you, for those of you on watching the video portion of this, Joe's wearing a Genius Network t-shirt that has been a great, as you mentioned in the intro, has been a big part of your life's work for the last decade or so.

18:29You have an exercise in the book, and I think I've been through this exercise with you. So I know you've been teaching it for a while, but telling people to create their own genius network. And I think it's, the nice thing about it is it's so doable, so practical. it creates priority and focus rather than saying, I just need to have this big network. So maybe explain that concept in the exercise that you teach in the book. Yeah, absolutely. It's called My Genius Network. And I believe any problem in the world could be solved with the right genius network. And what that means is a genius network versus a network is a genius network is a group of people and individuals that have capabilities and skills and resources that if you can access them and you can combine them with yours, it will actually produce results because there's a lot of talk about thought leaders in the world but any idiot can come up with a thought as a matter of fact a lot of thought leaders steal other people's thoughts present them as their own and then they're called thought leaders but i actually like result leaders like john you're a result leader you do work that actually produces results for people so it's like okay so who do you know in your life that has skills or capabilities what is their name and then the exercises i have people write circles like eight circles and they put a line through it a you know a horizontal line and they put the name of the person on the top and they put the skiller capability in the bottom and i say think of people that are dominoes like it in the book what's in it for them i end every chapter with the dominoes which are what are the ideas or the things that could make a big difference so who's been a domino in your life and what is the skiller capability then once you've identified their names, you list who they are, what skill or capability do they have?

20:10How can I help them? That's the next question. After you've identified who they are and what their genius is, what that genius skill or capability is. And it doesn't need to be like Einstein genius. It could just be an expertise or a capability that's useful. They've done something you want done. Yeah. Yeah. If you want, if you want to do a genius network on, I want to get in better shape. You want, you may want a personal trainer, a nutritionist, a yoga therapist, you know, a massage therapist, you know, I mean, like people that can help you. If you want to write a book, do you want an editor?

20:38Do you want a ghostwriter? If you want a web design, I mean, what are the skills and capabilities? You can niche it or you can just take who are the most eight most important people that I want to be a hero to and who have been a hero to me. And then you ask, how can I help them? And then when you direct your brain to that and you all of a sudden you're like, you know what? I really admire these people. I respect these people. I appreciate them. They're part of my genius network. and you approach your interactions with them, then they will naturally want to help you. And that's the goal. And there can be stretch names on there, right?

21:09I don't have to know that person or have access to that person yet today, right? And that's one of the best ways to future focus your future relationship is who is this person? And then how can I be useful to them? I say in order to develop a genius network, you have to be a genius networker, which is approaching people with the question, what's in it for them? And you have to do genius networking. It's actually a behavior, but it's not just it's be, do, have. In order to have a genius network, you have to be a genius networker and do genius networking. And if you actually approach it that way, and this is not complicated.

21:45I did not write this in a way that, you know, no one could do it. You have to be some superstar. You have to be some extrovert. As a matter of fact, I'm an introvert that forced myself to go and meet people because the one commonality is everything that is good in my life comes through relationships with other people. Even the things I do like meditation and that I do in quiet, that was taught to me by someone that I was helped by someone. No one, you know, silent battles are the hardest battles to fight. You're as sick as your secrets. When I, you know, all the stuff that I do in addiction recovery would not happen had I not had other people that cared about me and in many cases cared about me more than I cared about myself at a certain point in time.

22:28So I want to be a domino for people. I want to help people with all because the number one question I get, how do you meet all these famous people? And people think it's knowing famous people. It's not. I mean, you know, John, you've met a lot of famous people. You've met a lot of rich people. Some of them are jerks. Some of them are miserable. You know, I mean, you don't want to just meet well-known people. Some of the greatest heroes in the world are, you know, people working at hospice centers, you know, single moms raising kids. I mean, there's amazing people in the world that are not celebrities.

22:56I don't want Genius Network to be known for me. I want it to be known for the people in the group. It's a connection network. And so, you know, I'm just wanting to convey those things that I've learned so that other people can build it because a more connected world is a happier world. A more connected person is a happier person. And I would argue to say way more likely to make a lot more money and do a lot better when you're coming at it from that way. And there's a lot of people that make money in the world that go to bed every night with guilt and shame and remorse because their methods of getting to the money, getting to the opportunities are not coming from a place of giving.

23:32They're coming from a place of taking. And so I want to give, you know, even one of the things I have in the book is like how to use marketing to find true love and actually show an example of a singles ad on how to actually write a letter about yourself so that you can identify the right aligned partner. And I have have people that are already in relationships and married that use the process and it improves the relationship that they have with their existing partner. And I learned it from a brilliant love coach. And we have an interview with her as part of the bonus of the stuff that I talk about in the book.

24:05So I really try to cover not just business, but as a human, it's really about being a better human. So you mentioned bonuses and resources. You want to tell people where they can find the website for the book. Obviously, the book will be available anywhere, depending upon when you're listening to this November of 2022. But people where they can find out more about the book and connect with you in however you'd like to invite them. Thank you. The website for the book is literally the name, what's in it for them.com. We have shorter versions of it, but I finally secured, I had to pay a lot of money.

24:36It's so funny for the website, what's in it for them.com. But now we have that set up. And one thing too, I want to point out, there's some really amazing people. Steven Pressfield, Chris Voss, the top former FBI hostage negotiator, read the whole book. He's one of my Genius Network members. BJ Fogg, the Stanford professor, one of his students used his model to create Instagram. His book, you know, was voted the best business book of the year by Amazon in 2020. Robert Cialdini, the best influence guy. I've got some of the top negotiations, research, behavioral professors, and the top influence guy in the world that have read the entire book and endorsed it.

25:11You know, great blurbs from people. But the reason I bring that up is every single person that has a blurb in this book and on the website, they've read the whole book. I'm not using any testimonials from people. So it's whatsinitforthem.com is where to pre-order the book. Or if you're hearing this after November of 2022, whatsinitforthem.com, it'll be sold at every bookstore too. So if people pre-order it right now, if they hear it, I would appreciate it. Awesome. Well, Joe, thanks for taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast and hopefully we'll see you again one of these days soon out there on the road.

25:44Thank you, John. Thanks for all the work you do too. You're awesome. I appreciate it. Hey, marketing agency owners, you know, I can teach you the keys to doubling your business in just 90 days or your money back. Sound interesting? All you have to do is license our three-step process that's going to allow you to make your competitors irrelevant, charge a premium for your services and scale, perhaps without adding overhead. And here's the best part. You can license this entire system for your agency by simply participating in an upcoming agency certification intensive. Look, why create the wheel?

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