How to Take Care Of Yourself First With Dan Kuschell

Dad, Thought Leader, Humanitarian, Angel Investor, and Business Growth Specialist – Dan Kuschell

What is the “Opportunity Bug” most entrepreneurs are cursed with and how to neutralize it before it gets you. The “three layers of growth? and how to transition from one layer to the next. What is the “Fun Times Tool” and why you need it in your toolbox right now. (It’s the one thing that will help you run a “millionaire’s life” even before you become one!) The importance of choosing words carefully and how language can have a huge impact on everything you do. Why you MUST have a Not-Ever list and why it is way more important than your To-Do list. How staying away from terms such as “routines” and “habits” helped Dan actually create them AND stick to them!

Check out GeniusNetwork.com and GrowthToFreedom.com for more info.

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript: Download

Jamie:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jamie Masters and today on the show we have Dan Kuschell. Now, he runs a lot of different things but he also works at Joe Polish at Genius Network dot com. He has publishing platforms, serial entrepreneur. Like we went over the gamut from beforehand.

[00:06:59]	His publishing platform is called Growth to Freedom dot com. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Dan.

Dan:	It's a pleasure, Jamie. I love it.

Jamie:	We were just going over a myriad of tons of things that we could go down today. But first, what I really want to get into is you've bought, sold craziness with 11 companies and now you're working with Genius Network. Why go from something on your own to something with somebody else?

Dan:	It's a good question. Part of it I think comes from my sports background. I love being a part of a team. It's a key value of mine is to be part of teamwork. And so Joe and I certainly could go out and build independent businesses of each other and do really, really well. And we figured that by coming together, both of us could exponentially help each other grow. And essentially that's what we've done. It was about four years ago. Joe and I actually met about a decade - no, 15 years ago. It was about 2000, 2001. He bought one of my publishing products at an event I was speaking at because I used to do more speaking.

[00:08:00] 	He was sitting in the audience and he stood up actually about halfway through a presentation in 2001. You were about - what were you in 2001, like e or 4 years old?

Jamie:	Yeah, I wish. I wish. Thanks.

Dan:	Yeah. So he was a catalyst for just about everybody in the room buying that high end product. And that started our relationship. Both of us were in Phoenix together. And then it seemed like every six months or so he'd call me and go: hey, I've got Jack Kenfield, or I've got Less Brown, or I've got Brian Tracy; might you want to come by? I'm like yeah, hell yeah, I'd love to come. When is it? When is it gonna be? And it always seemed like 15 minutes, right; one of those sorts of things. But I appreciated his generosity.

	Fast forward to 2006, at that time I had built up a couple companies. And he started this group. It's ow called Genius Network. I remember it was called the 25K Group and he said hey, I'm starting this group; do you think you want to be a part of it? And I said yeah, actually if I enroll in the group, I'll probably start showing up to all these cool things that you put together. So yeah.

[00:09:00] 	I did that for five years and then I continued to build my companies. And then I ended up having a health issue in the late 200s. At the time I had about 200 employees. We had five companies; I had a lot of stuff going on. And I woke up with chest pains two weeks after my son was born, Kyler. And I ended up in a hospital for four days. I had a procedure done, a surgery. And during that four days I had to sign a disclaimer with the surgery that said I had a one in X chance of dying on the table, right? And it freaked me the hell out.

	Two years later I sold my companies and I took some time off. I got my health in order. What I realized, Jamie, is I had unhealthy, workaholic, entrepreneurial tendencies. And I was in my 30s.

Jamie:	[Inaudible] -

[Crosstalk]

Dan:	Yeah, exactly. So I was in my 30s. I don't know your thoughts on it but when I was in my 30s, I thought I was freakin' invincible.

Jamie:	Wait, I am. Wait, what do you mean? No?

[00:10:00] 

Dan:	Right. And for me for a decade I had virtually worked 18-hour days pretty regularly. For a decade I had slept on the average two to four hours a day. And that was it. So why did I end up in the hospital? The reality was burnout. I burnt myself out. I had unhealthy habits. And I made a commitment to make a shift and make a change. And so I sold my companies, worked on my health worked on being a semi-full-tim dad over all. Took the two years away from Genius Network and the group and then I came back into the group.

[00:11:00]	And one of the members was like; what the hell are you doing? And I'm like fun projects and being a dad and so on. And they were like, have you ever thought about teaming up with Joe? And I was like no, I really hadn't thought about it. But we got together. We actually spent about six months figuring out how we could massage this entrepreneurial relationship and make it work. And ultimately, we did and it' now been four years and we've had this exponential growth and it's been a lot of fun.

Jamie:	Okay. So many things that we can dive into on that. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, also and we do have this innate ability to just love what we do so much that we want to do it all of the time at the expense of absolutely everything else, right? So tell us how we can sort of mitigate that. What do we do? Because we don't want to be told stop doing everything and sell everything. That hurts our heart. You had such a scare, it was easy to have that pain and then the decision afterward - well, not easy; don't get me wrong. 

I'm sure it was not easy. But what sort of advice do you have for somebody who does feel like they're a little bit of workaholic but because they love program and seeing results and that sort of thing to really shift the way that they're thinking?

Dan:	Yeah, it's probably not what most people think, Jamie. If I had to narrow it down, I hired a coach right after that experience in the hospital. Her name is Christie Lopez; I still work with her today. She got me to really think about three questions. Everything I do today, every decision I make, being in this show with you is part of the framework of those three questions that I'll share with everybody.

[00:12:01]	I remember hearing stuff like this in my 30s when I was building my companies, by the way. And I want to make sure we help your audience avoid the danger of what may happen. It did for me. I would hear something like this and I'd go: well, that's not gonna happen to me. I already know that. Like these are a couple of the curses of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur gift, if you will. And so I just want to challenge you to really listen to what I'll share with you and challenge you to apply what I'm going to share with you with these three questions.

	Because it will transform the way you think about building a business and building your business, and building it for the right reasons for you as you do this. So the first question is what do I want? And it sounds so damn simple. However, when I first went through this, what I found in going through the coaching with Christie, I mean it took me about a month to get through this one question.

[00:13:00] 	Clearly, with authenticity and not all the noise around it and all the BS around it and all that sort of thing. When I really got clear what I wanted; not what did my wife want, not what did my kids want, not what did my 200 employees want, not did my family who I moved from one part of the country to be with me, and family members who worked in? strip away all that onion and get clear what you want; it's amazing what you start to discover.

	And so for me, I started to discover the real essence. And for me, one of the things I realized, Jamie, was the fact that for well over a decade, I was making decisions that had nothing to do with me. It was all about others. And it was about being a people pleaser and shit like that.

Jamie:	This hits so much home for me. I've gone through the yes, yes, preach, yes. Okay, keep going.

Dan:	So No. 1, what do you want? Right? Or first person: what do I want? No. 2 is who are you? Peel away the onion. Who are you really?

[00:14:00] 	For me as a male and a dad and a husband, strip all that shit away, too; husband, dad? That's important but it's who are you as the characteristics, the qualities as a human being overall; the compassion, the contributions, those types of things. So who are you at the core? And then the third one is what do I stand for. And the what do I stand for are the values. Lots of companies talk about building culture in companies; you've got to have your core values, your company values. Well, start with yourself. Like this is a great thing to do at home, and at home starts with you. 

You can't have great core values in your company if you don't have great core values as a human being personally, in my opinion. It's a chain effect. And when you get really clear, Jamie, at least my discovery in this process for me and others that I've shared this with; I've seen what it's done to transform their life when they really get clear. What do I want, who am I, what do I stand for?

[00:15:00] 	The clarity that come out of it? As entrepreneurs, we have the gift of the entrepreneur, we have the curse of the entrepreneur. We're idea merchants. We need new ideas like we need a damn hole in our head, right? And what happens is you start to get very clear on the yeses and the nos and the not nows. Or at Genius Network, one of our exercises as we cal it is the Not Now list and - you have your To-Do list but your Not Now list becomes far more important, and your Not Ever list becomes far more important than the To-Do list. You know, the old who is really well known for this is - I'm drawing a blank - big investor, not Charlie Munger, worked with Charlie. Oh, Warren Buffet.

Jamie:	Buffet, okay.

Dan:	So Buffet. Apparently he's got a punch card that he gives himself in his lifetime only 20 opportunities. So you have to learn to say no. This three-question process, when you answer it and get really clear on it and identify - and it may take a week, it may take a month, it may take a year.

[00:16:02]	And it will evolve. My list today is a little different than it was a couple years ago. When you get really clear on this now, when you have opportunities that come your way, or that gift you have as you're listening right now and you're an entrepreneur, and you can manifest almost anything; you'll start to get clear on what that is. I've turned down lots of opportunities because they didn't fit the exact criteria of what I wanted to be doing and how I wanted to show up. So that, for me, was probably one of the biggest breakthroughs. 

And then I also, on top of that, now create rituals, Jamie, that I book in my day. The other part is what is success to you? And that's a question to think about. As you're listening right now, what is success to you? For me for so long in my life, I'm very driven, I'm a very achievement-oriented person so for a lot of my life it had been more about the achievements than enjoying the journey. 

[00:17:00] 	And I think that's part of my journey is to learn how to enjoy the moment more, frankly.

Jamie:	I think all of us, yes; go ahead.

Dan:	And so no matter what I did, how great the achievement; first it was my first hundred grand, and then it was my first million, and then it was the first 10, and then it was the first 50; keep going. Or the first time I sat I with Richard Branson and had a conversation, and then it was the second. You cross it off the list and then it's like what next, what next," And what I found later, when I sold my company,. All those dreams that I had; oh, my God, selling two of my companies! Whoo-hoo, I'm a champion! I'm the king of? and then it was like three days later, I was depressed. 

I was freaking - I was missing me. Like what was missing? And I find this happens a lot with entrepreneurs who are not conscious about this stuff. So today, what is success has nothing to do with any of those achievements, although it plays a part. What I do today to play the game with myself to protect me essentially from me, because left to my own devices I'm a workaholic.

[00:18:05]	I have alcoholic and addiction tendencies. Joe calls it the respectable addiction, being a workaholic. A lot of entrepreneurs suffer from it. So today I book in, Jamie, the day. I coach people. I've now been fortunate to coach over 5,300-plus entrepreneurs, or small business owners, or emerging companies. The rituals that we can create for ourselves either support ourselves on the journey or can tear us down. And so I just decided okay, what is success to me - and it's different for everybody. But for me, I'll give you - would it be valuable to share the simple approach that I take to this?

Jamie:	Who says no to that question? Yes, go ahead.

Dan:	Alright. My No. 1 role is a husband, 1A is a dad and then everything else; the businesses, the companies, all that stuff. So for me, what success is is A) I've got to take care of me.

[00:19:00]	Sean Stevenson, who's one of our Genius Network members, amazing human being. He talks about self care being important. So that's a way to look at what are you doing to give yourself self care So for me, I wake up most days between 5 and 5:30 in the morning. And the first thing I do is go exercise. It's circuit training or cardio, or whatever it might be. But I spend the first 30 minutes to an hour with exercise. Then usually I follow that up with writing, which for me I love to write. 

And I don't like technology writing; I like writing. Here's my journal. I write all of my notes in my journal. I have a stack of them up over here on the shelf, all year long it records my life. Jim Rhone, one of the best personal development people, recently passed away, says any life worth living is a life worth recording. And so for me, journaling is a way to do that; flushing out questions or elegant ideas, that sort of thing. So writing. And then I usually like to meditate as part of that process. 

[00:20:00] 	So that starts my day. Then usually followed by breakfast, either I think my wife or my kids, and that starts the day. So for me, success is? Tony Robbins talks about six human needs that we have, emotional drivers, emotional desires. Certainty, uncertainty, significance, love/connection, growth, and then contribution. So for me, how many of those do I fit in those things I do with meditation, writing and exercise? 

For me, I'm fitting almost all six of those emotional needs in the first hour of my day. So for you, what game could you play to figure out okay for me to meet my emotional needs, as many of them as possible, what would have to happen to do that?

	It could be a walk, it could be exercise, it could be take your dog to the park; whatever. But it bookends the start of the day. On the end of my day, I have a series of rituals I have adapted; part of it in our family. We have ore values in my family; it's champion. It's an acronym; C-H-A-M-P-I-O-N: choose, health, action, mastery, purpose, invest in yourself, opportunity seeker, never quit on you.

[00:21:04]	I encourage you to have your own personal value system, have family values. But then what happens as part of our time together overall, because hey, as entrepreneurs we can get busy and sometimes what are family gets are leftovers. Well, what would it be worth to take that same entrepreneurial creative energy and give them the first things in your life, the most important things? So these five questions, Jamie, are the core of our family ritual. Not that we ask all five questions every day; that would get kind of robotic and that it?s really the same five. 

But these are the core that all the other stuff comes off of. So it?s what am I grateful for right now, what am I happy about right now, what have I done well today, what mistakes did I make, and what did I learn from it. Now, I don?t know about you, Jamie. In your household when you were a kid, did your family embrace make mistakes upon you or did you get kind of ridiculed over bad grades or mistakes? I?m curious.

[00:22:03]	

Jamie:	I was a straight A student. I was harder on myself than my parents were on me but yes, it was never an unimportant thing to make mistakes, for sure.

Dan:	Yeah. When I grew up, mistakes were kind of a bad thing. I remember my dad making me run laps if I swung and missed at a pitch in baseball.

Jamie:	Really?

Dan:	Oh, yeah. And you know, there's good to that and there's bad to that. For me, I embraced the good in it and I think it made me better in a lot of things. For my kids, my kids today as of the time we're doing this show, they're 11 and 9. So what is the biggest treat for me, first of all if you ask my kids who are 11 and 9 what are your Kuschell core values, they'd go CHAMPION. Choose, health, action; they'd go through it like that, at 11 and 9. And then if I asked them what are the most important skills to learn in business, they'll go: well, sales and marketing. Okay, what is sales? 

[00:23:00] 	They would say sales is influence; marketing is storytelling. How do you make money in the world? Especially my 9-year-old son he just loves this stuff.

Jamie:	My son is 9 and loves this stuff, too. That's hilarious. Okay.

Dan:	You go, how do you make money? He goes transformation and innovation. I'm sorry; value creation and transformation. So at the end of the day with these five questions, the one that they resonate the most with, at least my perception is, they actually love talking about their mistakes. And then they love talking about what they learned from it. And imagine if you did this daily. 

Maybe it's not every single day but many days in your week throughout the year; in three years, where are you as a human being if you have all this gratitude, happiness, things that you recognize that you've done well? You recognize your mistakes but you don't hold onto them, which we may have a tendency to do as entrepreneurs; hold onto shit.

[00:24:00] 	And then we're able to let it go and learn from it, just like that. And not only anchoring that in ourselves but anchoring that in our loved ones, too. So that's how I bookend my days. And so whatever happens in the middle, which there's some pretty cool stuff we're up to and things that I love to do and so on. But regardless, those two bookends of rituals solidify my day and I feel successful when I do those.

Jamie:	Okay. So how did you get to those? Because Hal Elrod, Miracle Morning, he lives in Austin now; he's a very good friend of mine. And it's one of those things where I am not like a morning person. I definitely have a beginning routine; I am totally going to steal some stuff from your ending routine. I do some of the stuff with my kiddos but I don't have a family set of values, which I now will have to do.

Dan:	Awesome.

Jamie:	But how do we start figuring those things out? Because it's a question that comes up over and over again that we're testers, we're entrepreneurs. We want to find the best fit for everything for us. How did yo get to that perfect morning routine for you, and the perfect evening routine where you actually do feel successful in that?

[00:25:00] 	And stuck with it too, by the way, because that's a question that a lot of people have afterwards.

Dan:	I started my first company back in 1992. I got introduced to personal development when I was 10, thankfully, by my dad. So I've been fortunate in a lot of ways to basically test and adapt and evolve. I imagine my process will be a little different in two years than it is today because the other part of entrepreneurship is an old quote from a movie called The Shawshank Redemption is get busy living or you're busy dying. 

And so what that is, it's about disruption, it's about innovation overall. So I challenge you not to fall in love with any of it. And instead of the perfect solution, look for the best solution today. And then know you're going to disrupt it, innovate it, make it better, create a hybrid off of it, and so on, right?

[00:26:00] 	So that's one thing, is be okay with that. The other part is the mindset. I hear a lot of people use terminology, Jamie, like - and I used to, too, which are routine; I've got my routines. And I've just chosen to stay away from that terminology. Because first of all as an entrepreneur, when I hear routine at all, I'm like screw that. Screw that deal. I'm like eh, I want to fight it. I don't like meetings, I don't like routines. And entrepreneurs will probably -

Jamie:	We're so typical; it's so funny.

Dan:	Right? Isn't it? So how can you play that game? For example, most of us in our business - so I want to turn this back because we have a lot of your business people here and hopefully I'm going to share one thing of value. Go look up the definition of these two words, when you get a chance: client and customer. For example, so language has a huge impact on everything that we do, subconsciously, consciously, and so on. But go look up those words. And short version of it is a customer is more of a commodity, is more of a transactional situation and lanier.

[00:27:04]	A client is you're a custodian of a client. You're a protector of a client. That's what client means; you're a protector of. So what business are you in? Are you in the business of generating customers or are you in the business of generating clients? Well, Dan Sullivan, even in Strategic coach - he's one of our Genius Network members - he calls it being a multiplier. So he's even gone beyond a client to a multiplier. And his team is a multiplier, not an employee, not a team member but a multiplier. So these have a huge impact.

	So the other part is any of these things that we do, one, look for excellence, not necessarily perfection; and the other part be willing to adapt. And then lastly is shift from a routine, perhaps, to rituals. These are my rituals that I'm building in, for now because rituals can change. And it gives you the freedom not to feel the heavy weight. Like I journal regularly.
[00:28:00] 
	But I'm not going to be a guy here who says I journal every day because I hear some experts - and I'm sure you have, too- it's bullshit. They don't journal every day. I've been with them. They may ay they do but they don't. I don't ever want to be that guy. Just like these five questions. I don't ask these five questions every day. If I had to pick one go-to question that I ask myself and/or my spouse or my kids every day, though; it's what am I grateful for. Because I don't think we can have too much gratitude overall.

	So anyway, maybe that gives you a framework of how to be able to play that game better, and also to decide for yourself what works. The other part, Sean Stevens who I brought up earlier; self care. My version of self care is probably different than yours. So one of the ways that you can do it is sit down and go: what are the things that I love to do to pamper myself and give myself self love, self care? 

[00:29:00] 	Like I love massages, so almost twice a month -

Jamie:	Me, too.

Dan:	Right? I get massages, as crazy as it sounds. I get pedicures, I get manicures monthly. I do these things that I enjoy but they may not be what you enjoy or what your listeners enjoy. But getting conscious of what those things are, in our Genius Network we call this the fun times tool. It's a fun times tool to identify what are the things that turn you on, that inspire you, that activate you, that charge you up? And then you can start to build around those because you don't even have to wait to be a millionaire to do a lot of these things, right? 

I remember when I was building and growing things years ago, I went to - they had these hair salon people that would go to these schools and these aestheticians and so on. When I couldn't afford the higher end stuff, I would go with a student and do this stuff. But I started taking care of myself because I had a mentor who taught me that if you're not willing to take care of you, who else will? So build it in.

[00:30:00]	That's a way to look at it. There's plenty of ways, but that's a way.

Jamie:	Okay. What's amazing is that you're going through my journey of negating everything having to do with me and making everything about everybody else, which is a martyr, which is awesome until you, you know, die inside.

Dan:	Yes, exactly.

Jamie:	You're like: oh, wait, oh gosh, okay, what do I want? I actually can't answer that question. That's horrible. And then the evolution of that, of going okay, now I'm paying more attention to myself, and making a space in your life for those things. So tell me about how you actually keep journaling? One question that actually came up on one of my groups that I run today was, I've heard all this stuff. These are six, seven figure entrepreneurs. They've heard all this stuff, quote-unquote.

Dan:	Yes.

Jamie:	But getting themselves to do it all the time, especially like the journaling thing, if it's not every day - because we're told do it every day; it'll become a habit.

[00:31:00]	And then we don't do it for a day, and then we don't do it for a couple days, and then we don't do it for? and then it is just not now a ritual; it is not now a habit and we didn't consciously make that choice. So how do we embody that so that it does keep coming up and we actually end up years later still doing the same ritual or habit without it letting go?

Dan:	I don't claim to have the exact answer on this.

Jamie:	I love that you said that, but good. Okay.

Dan:	That's No. 1. No. 2, I would say for me, Jamie, I think it's coming back? A question one of my mentors taught me years ago that he anchored me with early on, I'm talking in my late teens, he said instead of looking at why should I do something, he says what if you don't? So in my DNA today, if I'm running up against myself, like the things that I should do or shouldn't do, the question that immediately pops and is anchored in me today is what if I don't do this?

[00:32:05]	So Tony Robbins has been teaching for years, and other people in the field have, which is people do things out of one of two reasons: the desire for pleasure or to avoid pain. So that question is the avoid pain question. Because what if I don't build in the journaling? What will it cost me? And when you start to get clear, if you think about that, you start to inflict some pain on yourself, right? And do I want this to be the consequence? What is the consequence? What is the risk?

	And then the other one that follows that is what am I doing, what's getting in the way? One of the best questions we can ask in any of our businesses as a self consultant for ourselves is what's getting in the way, what's holding me back?

[00:33:00] 	And check in with that. Is it a mindset? Is it an emotional thing? What's happening overall? So those are a couple ways I work on it myself. Because again, I don't have this perfected, either. I've gotten good at it, really good at it and probably above the norm but I still battle with it at times, and so on. So that's another thing. And the other part is think of this paradigm. In all the work that we do, we do it for a reason. And I'll speak to me, not anybody else but this has been part of my journey a I reflect on it. There's layers of our growth. 

And we can kind of jump from step one through step 12 if we want. It may not be the smoothest. Usually people will go up the ladder progressively. But it's also getting conscious about it. Here's my framework around ' and I didn't invent this; I'm sure I learned it from somebody, and/or adapted a few people's; I just don't remember where. But No. 1, when we get started as an entrepreneur in this journey, Jamie, maybe you can relate to this.

[00:34:00]	Usually, we start because we want freedom. For me, it was I watched my dad get laid of ten times at a big company in the auto industry with two letters that I won't say the name but you may be able to figure it out now. And as a kid, there were times we were on welfare. And as young as 8 years old, I remember going: I'm not doing that. I'm not going to follow that typical, traditional route that we've been taught as kids. So we do it, No. 1, for selfish reasons. We want to make more money or have more freedom. That's the first layer.

	The second layer then becomes once we get that out of the way and we hit a certain amount or lifestyle, then it's about taking care of the people that are important to us. It could be our family, it could be kids, setting them up. So that becomes the second layer; the close people around us. Then the third layer, when we've gotten beyond layer one and layer two, my observation is that it's about taking care of something much bigger.

[00:35:00] 	And I'll refer to this as cause; we'll just call it cause. So the cause, it could be humanitarian efforts, it could be philanthropy, it could be an organization you start or that you've got strong affinity with. And that becomes the main focus. But you got layer one and two out of the way, so now ' and you see a lot of the high achieving people, the Bill Gates of the world, the Steve Jobs, the Warren Buffets that dedicate to a billion dollars a year that they're donating to a cause. 

So I see that there's this three-layer tier we all go through. So you have to A) identify where you're at on the layers, but then get conscious where do you want to go. Because the deepest level of I think contribution that we can make as an entrepreneur, one our attendees, Naveen James, he runs a billion dollar company. And he just says it so matter-of-fact, it's just so funny. He goes: oh, yeah, it's pretty simple to build a billion dollar company; just focus on impacting ten billion people.

[00:36:00]	that's all.

Jamie:	No big deal.

Dan:	Yeah, no big deal. And he's done it, so for him to say it, it's just congruent with who he is. But scale it all the way down to wherever you're at listening right now, if you want to build a million dollar company, well, just go help impact ten million people. If you want to build a hundred thousand dollar lifestyle, just ten times that; how do you impact a million people? And then all the way up, depending on where you're at. 

So A) you can get that layer one out of the way, get to layer two a soon as you an and then start really looking at what's the bigger impact, the bigger contribution factor that I want to have, the legacy that I want to leave? And that could be in your community, it could even be with the family around you, or it could have some bigger cause built beyond it. So that's just a couple ways that I think about it, as cray as that may sound.

Jamie:	It's not crazy at all. It's very Maslow hierarchy of need; we can't pay attention to anything else if we're hungry. That's the first thing that we go to.

Dan:	That's it.

[00:37:00]

Jamie:	Okay. So when we're going through - and I love how we're not talking about the core of like, then you have to do sales, and then you have to do marketing, which I know you also know a ridiculous amount about. We could totally go down that path, too. But I find it so interesting that when I started doing all of these interviews, is that it really does come down to how we're feeling as an entrepreneur, also. Like do I feel like I'm on the trajectory of growth or do I feel really crappy and don't want to get out of the bed in the morning? 

Well, which person is gonna do better work, right? And which person is driving themselves crazy as a workaholic, thinking that they're doing something important when they're actually killing themselves and not realizing it? So these are things that just keep coming up that no offense, we as entrepreneurs kind of negate; we like push under the rug. Like no, no, I'm tough; I can do this any way, like no matter what.

Dan:	Yes.

Jamie:	So I love that you're highlighting these pieces. How did you find the time to really embody this, to really be a full-time dad, to go through some of this stuff? Because I feel like this is why we work ourselves to death.

[00:38:00] 	1) We're workaholics and we think that's amazing and awesome and it makes us feel good. But 2) the idea of creating that space doesn't feel valid or that we should go down that path because there are so many things to do and not enough time to do it. Do you know what I mean?

Dan:	Oh, I definitely know what you mean. Most of us are cursed by the opportunity bug.

Jamie:	Yes, right? There's a thousand things I could be doing right now.

Dan:	Yeah, and most of us as entrepreneurs, as you're listening right now, you can take most mediocre ideas and make them something spectacular, and that's just who we are.

Jamie:	Well, I'm sure everybody listening, they're either working out right now, or already driving, or multi-tasking in some sort of way, right?

Dan:	That's right, exactly. So I think for me, anyway, first of all I - running 11 companies, I've made my share of mistakes. I've made a ton of mistakes, and I've failed. So part of it is the learning journey of failure, overall. I've been through divorce. I've been through bankruptcy. I've had companies that were successful and then lost, and all this stuff.

[00:39:00]

Jamie:	We love hearing this, by the way, especially when you're talking about self care. I had a health scare and then I was just able to be a full-time dad; we're like that sounds so wonderful, as far as being able to make the choices that you want. I had no idea about the divorce and the bankruptcy and all that stuff. It makes us feel better about ourselves, by the way, just highlighting that. Continue.

Dan:	Yeah, exactly. Here, let's throw some salt in there. Yeah. And you know, they're all - Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach who is a Genius Network member, he shares the story of he went through divorce and bankruptcy on the same day, like whatever, X amount of years ago. And I don't have that good of a story. But for him, the way he describes it which I love this framework because again, it's the language and what we attach or detach from, he called it extreme market research.

Jamie:	It's gonna be a good story later; alright, yep.

[00:40:00]

Dan:	Yeah. So for me, I this journey, what I've discovered is again, when you define what is success to you, and you can strip away the stuff, the attachment to a certain outcome, not to give Zen because I'm certainly not your Zen guy, although I have good rituals; I have good rituals. But there's people who are far more Zen that are going to teach you that kind of stuff. I'm not that one. But I, for me, have found peace and more presence - because if I had to pick what's another one of the things that I'm learning is to be more present more often, in anything and everything. 

And it starts for me now. Success for me now is being a great husband, No. 1, and 1A is being a great dad. I have this mantra that's adapted from the Tom Hanks movie, Forest Gump. My version is leadership is as leadership does. Right? And first of all, I think leadership starts at home. 

[00:41:00] 	And if you can't be a great leader at home with yourself and then with your spouse and then your kids, it'll show up eventually. That front stage/back stage will go for so long but then it cracks. And then after it cracks, it either gets fixed and you have to repair it, or it breaks; one of the other. But you don't have to go through that. Just be a front stage and a back stage person all the time. So leadership is as leadership does, for me it starts with me. 

And I'm not perfect; I make all kinds of mistakes and I'm okay with that. As I mentioned earlier, part of that framework was - because I used to be guilt-ridden, shame-ridden, beat myself up about what I didn't accomplish compared to others, comparing myself; all that sort of stuff. So I learned lot of how to detach from that and just have a better way to think about it.

Jamie:	How did you do that? Tell me more about that because everybody's saying that exact, same thing; I should do, and this and this. How do you detach from that?

Dan:	It comes back to that question, what if I don't?

[00:42:00] 	For so long I lived in guilt and shame, and anger, even; comparing myself - like that person. The big myth that many - well, me, and maybe I've seen in reserved others have which is the confusion of being good and getting paid. It's like man, I'm so good at this. They are nowhere near as good as me and they're killing it; like I suck. And then I'd go inward and go: I suck, I?m terrible, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing these things wrong. And after so long when you do that, wow, there's a certain type of person you become. And I didn't like that person I'd become. 

And then I started really anchoring like what is this costing you, what if you don't shift this and you start focusing more on just you? And the it comes back to the what do I want, who am I, and what do I stand for. So these all are interchangeable pieces that work together, I think, to create the holistic person. I also don't believe in balance anymore. 

[00:43:00] 	Like I think anybody who thinks balance is the way to go perceive and pursue life, they're missing the boat.

Jamie:	Wait, say more about that. Yeah, go.

Dan:	Yeah, so I would describe it as an integrated life. And how I perceive that is my background is sports. My dream was to play probably baseball. I had a career developing and then I got hurt. But I was lucky enough to be around a lot of great athletes. And anybody that's great at anything, especially like sports, they're obsessed. In the wintertime when everybody's celebrating the holidays and Christmas and shit, they're out in Puerto Rico playing winter ball. They're obsessed. 

I had friends of mine who played in the major leagues and these guys were obsessive-compulsive about their craft. Now, that being said, it comes back, you know, self care. Great, professional athletes, they take care of themselves. They get massages. They have coaches for all kinds of things; we can learn a lot of lessons from sports. 

[00:44:00] 	When I played ball, even at a semi-pro or college level, and then I coached a college summer all star team, we had a base running coach, a fielding coach, a pitching coach, a hitting coach. So who are your coach? So A) surrounding myself with coaches/sounding board - you brought that up a little bit earlier. So having your own sounding board, whatever that means in our world, everybody has a genius network. You have a genius network. I have a genius network. 

We all have our version of a genius network/sounding board. That we're that sounding board or that genius network away from solving any - any - problem. Health problem, and so on that we can go get guidance and support. For me, one of the challenges with me, Jamie, and I still deal with this today, although I've gotten much, much better. When I would run into a problem, I thought I was the only one. I would isolate myself. And you see this a lot in a lot of things. Like I have a couple friends of mine that have gotten cancer. And I remember talking to them, and they're like I don't want to tell anybody, I don't want to tell anybody.

[00:45:00] 	And what happens is they start to hold that in. But if they realize it's a gift that can be shared, not only do they let go of it and detach, it allows others to have some blessings from it, too, and learn from that experience. So instead of going the natural tendency - I think, at least for me and some I've observed - is going inward with stuff. Is to get your sounding board of people, or even it could be just one to start with, or two people to start with. Start wherever you're at and whatever one you're in, and develop that place. 

And whether you're having a business problem, or a business danger, or an opportunity you're unsure of; go outward because others will benefit and learn from it. And it gives you a place to come from, which is contribution which is one of the highest emotional means we all come from. I could go on on this but I think that's a good place to stop for now.

Jamie:	I know, your self awareness is so impressive. You're like, and then I looked at this little part of my brain, and then I looked at this, and then I asked questions, and then I kept evolving and evolving.

[00:46:02]	And I love how we can hear your entire journey in the small span that we have. But just a reminder to everyone, this is an entire journey, by the way. Don't compare yourself to Dan and be like: oh by the way, I'm not there yet; man, I suck. I know we have to start wrapping up, too, but I literally feel like we could talk about this forever because people, especially business owners that - I call it entrepreneur crazy brain because this is sort of the way we've been wired; we have to unkink all of those wires and actually look at them and realize what we have and what we don't have in order to make the conscious choices that we need. 

So I know we have to start wrapping up so I'm going to ask you one last question, and it's what's one action - I know we want over a thousand - what's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward to their goal of a million?

[00:47:00]

Dan:	One action. Listen to this show regularly, come back to this episode, and re-listen to it five times and hopefully you'll get the five questions: what am I grateful for, what am I happy about, what have I done well, what mistakes did I make, what did I learn from it. Perhaps you'll get the framework to think about the three questions, which are what do I want, who am I, what do I stand for. 

And, you'll get the framework to think where am I on the scale of - you know, the selfish purpose of just getting yourself stable and helping my family, immediate people I love and care about, and/or are you at the high level of coming from pure contribution. That you do it regardless - and ideally, you've gotten those first two layers out of the way. Anyway, that would be what I would recommend in this example.

Jamie:	All of it. We should create an auto responder that just sends those questions every single day to?

Dan:	That's right. Okay, in all seriousness, here's one thing I would ask everybody to think about. All of us have a gift, and all of us have a place in the world. 

[00:48:00] 	And it's probably bigger than we think. So A) realize that. There's a quote - when I read Disney's biography that stood out; my version of the quote is: you can steal the idea but you can't steal the magic. Find out what your magic is and go offer it up to the world. It's that simple.

Jamie:	you gave me goosebumps. Great way to end. Okay, tell us where we can find more about you, your companies, the Genius Network, all of this fun stuff; where do we follow up and make sure we don't lose touch with you?

Dan:	Awesome. I would say the easiest way is go to Genius Network. It's our platform where we offer access to high level entrepreneurs in the world so geniusnetwork.com is real simple. If you want to go deeper at some point with our community of high achieving enterprises, it's available. So geniusnetwork.com. And then I have our show at growthtofreedom.com, and we'd love to have you visit our show, learn more about what we're up to there and share your feedback. So that simple.

[00:49:01]

Jamie:	Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Dan. We really, really appreciate it.

Dan:	Jamie, it's an honor. And I just want to also? For those of you who have the good fortune to work with Jamie, at such a young age with what she's doing and the people she's surrounded - who you've surrounded yourself with, I mean you are just a little angel in this community. And I just want to let you know that your work is being recognized and you're doing great work. And any way I can help support you on the stuff that you're doing, please let me know. And if you get a chance to work with her, make sure you do. She's doing some great things.

Jamie:	Don't make me cry on my own show, geez. Thank you. I really, really appreciate it that.

Dan:	You're welcome.

Jamie:	You're amazing. We'll meet soon. Awesome. Thank you so much again and everybody, check out Dan. Make sure you go follow up. We're going to put everything in the show notes so you have it all written down so we can implement everyone that you say. Thanks so much, Dan, and have an amazing day.

Dan:	You, too.

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services

Tags: Entrepreneurship, fun times tool, habits, Opportunity Bug, routines, three layers of growth, to-do lists

Categories: All, Featured Millionaire Interview, Millionaire Interviews, Personal Development, Visioning

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