The School of Greatness - 289 5 Ways to Get Paid with Joe Polish

Episode Date: February 12, 2016

"How are people who are powerful treat people who are less powerful than them?" - Joe Polish If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/289

This is 5-Minute Friday, episode number 289, with guest Joe Polish. Hello, my name is Joe Polish, and what I'd like to talk about today is something that I learned very early on in my business career when I was a dead broke carpet cleaner living off credit cards. I heard someone say, be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way down. And you may have heard that before, but to me, it's had a profound impact on my life because as I go through the world, I see a lot of people that when they're first initially starting out in business or in their careers or they're pursuing something that they literally, you know, can hit it big.

They can have a lot of success early on and how you interpret that success or a lot of, you know, the gifts or contributions or luck or whatever you want to interpret it as that come your way. There's a lot of different ways that you can respond to it. And some people, if they become successful and they start having people think, oh, you're awesome because you wrote a bestselling book or because you have a big following or you've made a lot of money, it can either build confidence or some people it gets translated into arrogance. And what I have done, having surrounded myself with a lot of very smart, capable people, many that are financially

successful but not successful in other areas of life, it's given me an opportunity to observe people in many different ways. And so the way that I actually gauge the value of another human being in terms of how cool they are or how awesome I think they are is how are people that are more powerful treat people that are less powerful than them? For instance, if you're out eating dinner and there's a waiter or a waitress and someone is rude to that person or looks at them like, oh, you know, they're not as successful as me and they just don't have, you know, common human courtesy or someone opens a door and they don't say thank you. I really pay attention to that sort of stuff or people that think they're so cool that

when they're around someone that they want to impress, they present themselves in a certain way. But then if there, if there's nothing they're going to get out of the person, they're a different way. So be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way down. I have always found that I will run into people that I met five years ago, 10 years ago, in this case, 20 years ago. I mean, six days ago, I turned, you know, 48 years old. So I've been in business for a long time and I have ran into people that I met 25 years ago. And you can really, you know,

if you start having a lot of success, you really want to double up your efforts to be, you know, grateful, to be thankful, to be useful. And I have met so many people that have gone into business and have made far more money in some cases in a matter of a year or two than I've made my entire career. I mean, people that have made millions and they think they're the greatest thing in the world. And then look at them three years from now. So people that are impressive to me are not someone that's just had a lot of success, but how are their relationships? Because financial capital is just one thing. Spiritual capital is another. Physical capital, relationship capital. And people that have the attitude that time is money, well, I've never hit an alarm clock and then piles of money were sitting there.

Relationships are money. And so all the money that I've ever made in my business or that I'll make in the future is always going to come from developing and creating value for other people in the form of a relationship. So relationships are very important. So some of the things that I would encourage you to think about is who do you appreciate? Because if you take the, you know, like the farming definition of, you know, like appreciation, you know, something is either going to appreciate like a crop or the economic definition, it's

going to, you know, depreciate. How do you look at relationships? Are you going to water them? Are you going to nurture them? Are you going to grow them so that they're more valuable? Or are you just going to strip mine them? You're just going to take everything that you can. And so life, you know, life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. And if you want to make a lot of deposits into your bank account, make a lot of deposits into being useful and grateful and appreciative in relationships. And so one of the things that I think about, I have a company called Genius Network, but that term came from, I don't just want a lot of Facebook friends. I just don't want a lot of acquaintances. I want to have a network of people that have a genius and have a wisdom.

And I've thought a lot about the concept of if you can't write it on the back of a napkin, it's probably not worth doing. And whenever I come across like a challenge, like what do I need to do in this area of my life? I can literally pull out a napkin. I can pull out a piece of paper and I can draw a circle in a moment and say, this is me, this is Joe. And who are the most important people in my world that can help me with this problem? So if I want to get in better physical health, do I need a nutritionist? Do I need a personal trainer? Do I need someone that knows something about eating? Do I need a massage therapist, a yoga instructor? Okay, let's say I want to improve my ability to manage. Who do I know that I can think about in my network that has this capability or skill? If I want to develop a marketing campaign, do I need a web designer? Do I need

a conversion expert? Do I need a copywriter? And so I always think about what are the capabilities I need and then what are the people that I have? And because I've spent so much time wanting to be as useful as I can to other human beings, I have a giant network of people that have, you know, genius level knowledge, which I call my genius network. And so I think everyone really should focus on developing their genius network. And that starts with early on, just like compound interest. You may not see a lot of value in the beginning, but anyone that has worked out or done anything, it's, you know, you don't eat a really healthy meal and then you're healthy. You know, it's a consistency. And so relationship developing is consistency. And a lot of times if your whole focus is, I just want a lot of friends. I want to have a lot of

opportunities. I want people that are going to discover me. I mean, you have to put in the work, just like exercise, the consistency. You just want to do it day in, day out. And so what I would encourage you to do is think about all of the people in your life right now, the things that you want to accomplish, the things that are most important to you, who are the people that bring the most value to you and really appreciate them? I mean, as simple as this sounds, send them a personal note, like handwritten snail mail. In the world of electronics, when's the last time you actually hand wrote a card to someone and said, thank you? If you have a life partner, if you're married, if you have children, when's the last time you literally sat down and wrote something that said, I appreciate you. Now, if you do it all the time,

just do more of it because anytime you do that, you're going to get feedback. People love to, you know, love to be appreciated and respected. And that's just something I do. And so I want to, the last thing I want to mention is something I learned from Dan Sullivan that has served me incredibly well. Dan is a dear friend of mine. He's a founder of a company called Strategic Coach. And he has this concept where it's called the opportunity filter. And whenever you're looking at all of the different options in your life of what opportunities you're going to take, you can look at them from, well, should I do this or should I not do it? And when it comes to business, there's five different ways that you get paid. Now,

most people think of getting paid as just money, but money is just one part of getting paid. So these are the five ways that you get paid in everything that you do. The first is reward. They pay you financially. The second is they appreciate you. The third is they utilize you. Now, I'm in the how-to business. I do podcasts very much like Lewis.

I basically offer and dispense advice. So do people utilize it or do they just hear it and then go on? The fourth is, do they refer you? And the fifth is, does it enhance you? So again, five ways to get paid. Reward, appreciation, utilization, referrals, and enhancement. And when I first started in business, I would read all these books on how much is my time worth per hour, that sort of stuff. And I found myself frustrated because I would work on opportunities that didn't make the most money, but they were just interesting to me. And so after many, many years, I realized the most important thing for me whenever I work with anyone is, does this enhance me? Does it make me a better person? Secondly, do people

utilize me? I don't like giving advice to people that don't use it. Third, do they appreciate me? Four, do they refer me? And fifth, do they reward me? Now I am a capitalist. I think money is very important. However, it's not the most important thing. Making money is one thing, but all different money's treated differently. If I just get paid, but someone doesn't appreciate me, doesn't utilize me, doesn't refer me, it doesn't enhance me. It enhance me, it's like prostitution. I mean, it really is. It's like all you're getting out of it is money. And so when I look at that criteria, it allows me to filter everything so that I focus on elf. Is it easy? Is it lucrative? And is it fun? So do I have an elf business or do I have a half business? Hard, annoying, lame, and frustrating.

So I look at relationships this way. Is this relationship elf or is this relationship half? And if you treat people well, if you give, just generously giving and trying to be useful, then you will develop a lot of valuable relationships in your life, and I think you'll be a lot happier. Now, I think that went over five minutes, but I hope that was valuable and I wish you the very best. And so what I'd like you to do right now is write five personal thank yous to whoever the most important people in your life and just tell them, thank you. I care about you. I love you. I think you're awesome. You've added

value to my life and do that on a consistent basis and you're going to develop more relationships than you can ever imagine if you keep that up for a year. This is five minute Friday. Make sure to check out Joe Polish, geniusnetwork.com and ilovemarketing.com for more. Thank you. you