Today on the Listing Agent Lifestyle podcast we have a great show for you because I'm speaking with my good friend Eelco de Boer.
As you know, I was traveling over the summer, and while in Amsterdam for our 4th annual Breakthrough Blueprint event, we got to record our Periodic Podcast. It's a kind of 'year in marketing' review for both of us.
We talked about a lot of the things that we've done over the last 12 months, compare notes, reflect on our successes, and talk about what we see for the future.
It's perfect timing as we're moving into the 2020s to look at what are the things shaping not only the next 10 years on a macro level, but what are the technologies, the sentiments, and the tools that we can actually take advantage of right now.
I also want to give you a heads up that October 19th and 20th in Toronto, we are doing a marketing and real estate event about the future of real estate marketing.
The first day is in conjunction with the Archangel summit where there'll be a few thousand people with Seth Godin, Todd Herman, Elizabeth Gilbert and lots of other amazing speakers. Then on the second day, we'll have a day just for real estate agents, so it's more like a mastermind where we can talk about all the things that are going to be important in getting poised and ready for deploying the marketing, mindset, and tools for the 2020s
So if you want to get ahead of the curve here, just send me an email to Dean@DeanJackson.com, and I'll get you all of the details.
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Transcript: Listing Agent Lifestyle Ep089
Dean: Hello, Listing Agent Lifestylers. This is Dean and we're back. I hope you enjoyed our summer series over ... where we went through the 10 money getting ideas for your business. Well, I'm back in Florida now and you'll hear it in just a second, but I wanted to give you a head's up that October 19th and 20th, in Toronto, we are doing a marketing and real estate event about the future of real estate marketing. It's perfect timing as we're moving into the 2020s here to look at what are the things that are shaping not only the next 10 years, on a macro level, but what are the technologies, and the sentiments, and the tools, and the things that are going on right now that, as we're moving into the '20s, are the things that we can actually take advantage of right now, and how should we be thinking to get ourselves poised for thriving in '20s?
So, the way the event works is we do ... it's a two-day event. And the first day is in conjunction with the Archangel Summit. My friend Giovanni Marsico does a big event in Toronto, and there will be a few thousand people there with Seth Godin, and Todd Herman, and Elizabeth Gilbert, and lots of other amazing speakers. This is a really incredible event. This is the fourth one, now, that I've been to, and last year we partnered for the event last year. And this year, we'll do on the second day, the Sunday of the event, just for real estate agents. So, it's more like a mastermind, then, to talk about all the things that I mentioned earlier. All the things about getting poised and ready for deploying all of the marketing and mindset tools for the '20s, looking forward. And so, we'll have a wonderful event there.
And if you would like to join us, we'll have all the information up this week. But if you want to get ahead of the curve here, send me an email at dean@deanjackson.com, and I will get you all of the details for the event. So, enjoy this episode, and then I hope to see you in Toronto in October.
Eelco: Mr. Jackson in the building.
Dean: In the house.
Eelco: In the house.
Dean: In the ... what do you call this now?
Eelco: The cave.
Dean: The cave. This is great. I always envy your Virgin Megastore sign, since the first time I laid eyes on it.
Eelco: Let me see if we got the remote control. I don't know [inaudible 00:03:24].
Dean: The video.
Eelco: Can you put it on?
Dean: Oh, turn on the sign?
Eelco: Yeah, of course.
Dean: I would have that thing on all the time.
Eelco: Yeah, we should.
Dean: Yeah.
Eelco: You know the story behind it, right?
Dean: I do because I was immediately drawn to it the first time I walked into your old man cave when we did the first event. It was just like a center because I've got really good feelings about the Virgin Megastore because that's where I used to go and write stuff. And one of the greatest things, I made millions of dollars from writing the very first money making website in the Virgin Megastore.
Eelco: Did you write Stop Your Divorce in the Virgin Megastore?
Dean: Mm-mm (negative).
Eelco: Okay.
Dean: But I did write money making websites there, yeah, and so many other things. That was the place.
Eelco: Have you ever written those pages handwritten or always?
Dean: Always handwritten.
Eelco: Wow.
Dean: Yeah, I've never anything but.
Eelco: Oh, really?
Dean: Yeah, there's something about the hand. Now I'm getting ... this is the big insight of the last year. This is what I like about doing this periodic podcast, is the reflection on what's happened, the evolution. And so now, my whole thing, everything that I'm really geared to trying to do, is get it so that all I do is talk. And when I realized that that's really the very best thing, it's really been a big change for me.
I think last year we talked about the ... I must have talked about the MOO method, multiplied oral output, of just talking, doing the podcasts, and having them transcribed, and having a writer who takes them and creates those emails every-
Eelco: That's so good, yeah.
Dean: ... three times a week, right? So, I don't write any of those anymore.
Eelco: That's been a big game changer.
Dean: It has been because it goes out even while I'm traveling and I'm here, they're going out. And people look at me shocked when I say that I don't write any of them.
Eelco: Nothing.
Dean: And I-
Eelco: But it's really your voice.
Dean: ... but it is my voice, but I said everything in there. And so, that goes a long way. But really, the truth of that is that the fastest bandwidth way to get something from your mind into a digital format is through your mouth. There's nothing faster.
Eelco: True, true.
Dean: Until we get a way to just suck your thoughts out, through your mouth is the fastest way. And when you get it out in your mouth, when you get it out by talking and then transcribe it, now it's digital and somebody can take it, and edit it, and make it print, and all kinds of different uses for it. But to spend any amount of time ... I try and really get to the point where I'm not doing anything that requires opposable thumbs.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And so, that makes a big difference.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: When I was talking about that, trying to get to the point where everything I'm doing is talking, you know I do the Joy of Procrastination podcast with Dan Sullivan. And that whole idea, there's zero procrastination in talking. Joe Polish and I were having ... we spent a day with Ben Hardy, who's number one writer on medium, he wrote the book Willpower Doesn't Work, and he's working on his new book, but he was struggling a little bit writing. We were joking, but I said, "You know what I never get? Talker's block."
Eelco: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dean: You never get talker's block. You get writer's block-
Eelco: That's true.
Dean:... when you're sitting down trying to-
Eelco: That's true.
Dean:... wiggle into doing something.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's why The 90-Minute Book concept is such a great concept.
Dean: That's it. You know, when I realized that was the way ... I mean, that's five years now, maybe, something like that?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And that was how I was writing books was talking, and then getting them transcribed, and edited into a book. And by the way, that's not ... I mean, Gary Vaynerchuk, every book he's ever written has been that way, and a lot of authors. Any of these celebrities that are writing-
Eelco: Richard Ransom doesn't write his-
Dean: ... memoirs.
Eelco:... own books.
Dean: Oh, they're not writing.
Eelco: Kiyosaki's not writing his books.
Dean: Nobody's writing. They're talking and a ghost writer is turning that into written stuff. So, I can't recommend enough, but people don't realize that it's okay to just do the talking.
Eelco: Yeah. It's about-
Dean: It feels like-
Eeco:... the idea, about the concept, about the words. It's not about writing.
Dean: Yes.
Eelco: Well, it is about writing, but somebody else is probably better at writing.
Dean: Right. But it's about being an author. And that's the distinction, is not letting having to write get in your way of being an author. That you can have the authorship of an idea, the authority of it, that it's your idea and you created it without having to actually write it.
Eelco: Yeah. So, what do you think of Amsterdam, how is Amsterdam treating you?
Dean: I love it. It's our fourth time to Amsterdam, and I love the city. It's such a cool place, nice vibes.
Eelco: Yeah. What's the difference with my groups, because every year we do the Break for Blueprints, and the other groups? Do you do by yourself or?
Dean: So, funny, there's some differences. I think that, first of all, there are more introverts it seems, like a definite thing, but that may be partly language things that they're ... because we're doing it in English. So, being expressive or whatever in English may be a different thing. But very, very thoughtful and very wholistically approaching their business and their life, which is the most attractive to me. There's a lot more questions about lifestyle stuff than hard-driving, so much like scaling, growing big business. So, I love that. That resonates with me.
Eelco: Yeah. That's good.
Dean: What do you think? You've been-
Eelco: I've been to London once.
Dean: ... yeah.
Eelco: And I think it's more new for the Dutch audience. The whole idea of really doing the nine-word emails, and super signature, and really ... I think it's more new for the Dutch people. And also, I think a big difference as well is that most of the people that come to your other events, they 100 percent know you.
Dean: Yes.
Eelco: They show up because they're on your list and they've been following you. With this group, not everybody knows you.
Dean: Right.
Eelco: For a lot of them it's a surprise, who is this guy?
Dean: Who is this guy? What [inaudible 00:11:15] on him.
Eelco: And because people talk about you, it's ... because they've been to the other events and it's a real thing. So, for some, it's like they get in-
Dean: Or Skyping in or Zooming in-
Eelco: ... yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dean: ... for one of your bigger events.
Eelco: So, yes, I think that's probably a difference as well. The other groups, they might be a little bit more advanced with your material.
Dean: That's true, yeah. I never thought of it like that, but that's true. Speaking about super signatures-
Eelco: Are we going to talk about this? Are we really going to talk about this?
Dean: ... I mean, you brought it up.
Eelco: That's true.
Dean: Four years later, five years-
Eelco: Are you going to embarrass me on the periodic podcast?
Dean: ... no, I'm not going to embarrass you, I'm just going to give ... I'm opening it up to conversation and we'll see where ... whatever you want to do with it.
Eelco: Yeah, man. I tried it, it didn't work. So yeah, so when did we start the super signature, do you know -, I think January or something? February. So, like six months ago because I made this. I reflected on my email behavior. And I'm training people on email marketing, like for a long time. So, oh yeah, in January I did a challenge, it's called the Internet Fasting Challenge. It was an online challenge where we got thousands of people that join, but it's the first challenge I ever did. And Dolly, our friend, she's the queen of challenges. She built her whole business on challenges.
So, she followed my challenge, seeing what I was doing. And in my challenge, we ended the challenge with a webinar. And on the webinar I closed for my program, it's called Master Moves. And it was great. We had a 5X return on investment. So, all the ad spend we got a 5X within a week, so it was great. So, I was all happy about the challenge. And then I had a meeting with Dolly and she was, "Well, can I be honest?" Sure, sure, sure. "Well, your email behavior, it kind of sucks." I was, "What do you mean?" "Well, you're pushing and pressuring people into ... because you have the webinar and everybody had to attend the webinar, and like really blasting for the webinar."
And of course, in first hand I was, yeah, come on, I'm the email guy. You're not going to tell me that my emails suck. And then I was, let me check because we had a lot of unsubscribed during that challenge. Oh, you get 5,000 people on the list and a week later you've got 1,500 unsubscribes or whatever. And I never really checked the unsubscribes, but now I saw that. Hmm, this is interesting. And then actually I was, hmm, let me go back one or two years and check all the emails I ever sent.
And I'm a relaxed guy. If you look at my Instagram posts they're good and they're inspirational, when you listen to my podcast it's relaxed and valuable. When you look at my videos, it's good, everything is good. My webinars, they're masterpieces, my program's amazing. My email, I'm just this peer pressuring guy, like pressure, pressure, pressure. So, I just checked my emails for the last two years and I got really ashamed. I was, wow. And then I noticed this is the business leak that I have. Everything is on point or at least pretty good, and this was a big leak. I was just this different persona by email. And I don't know when I started that, but in the last two years, 80 or 90 percent of the emails they were all with one reason, that's just to get a click.
Dean: Yes.
Eelco: A click to whatever. And then I realized, man, this is hurting my business and I don't want to be that guy. And then, I actually thought maybe I'll ... after four years of listening to you, I'll try the super signature thing. So, what we used to do, and what we still do, we do a lot of webinars. That's our main way of doing business. And so, we sent an email for a webinar, that's what we used to do. And now what we do is we provide value. So, it could be-
Dean: Hmm.
Eelco: ... yeah, go figure. It could be 12 sentences, it could be three sentences, it could be whatever, and then the super signature. P.S. These are four ways I can help you with your business.
Dean: Yeah. Whenever you're ready.
Eelco: Yeah. And in the P.S. we promote the webinars. And now we have less people on the webinars, but it's consistent. So, I don't need to send out solo emails for a webinar, for example. And now we get people on the webinar who actually really want to be on the webinar because they saw the value thing and then they see, oh. So, I rotate a lot of P.S.s now. So, we rotate for two weeks and we could talk about that as well.
But one of the P.S. is hey, I'm doing a webinar. We've got two different webinars, so two different P.S.s. One other P.S. is not even a P.S., but it is four ways. One is my podcast, one is my next event, and one is my YouTube channel, and it's been really consistent. So, it just really works. Every week it works, and we see way more consistency in the business, and we actually get people who are really happy with receiving the emails.
Dean: Oh yeah. That's the best part.
Eelco: Which is something we never had, obviously, because I was this pressuring guy. So, it's been a big game changer. So yeah, we applied the super signature, and guess what? It works.
Dean: Guess what.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: Four years later.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: That's the best. Yeah, that funny ... I mean, it's amazing to me how well it works and how consistently because now I've been doing it for so long, just the consistent thing. So, my big breakthrough around lead conversion this year has been the realization that what we're really pursuing is we're pursuing now. And as soon as I really understood ... and I understand it now in a deeper, more profound way ... that the only two time frames there are is now and not now, and that it's okay if it's not now for someone. It doesn't matter whether it's not now on it's way to 90 days or nine months, it doesn't matter. If it's not now, it's just not now.
And this whole ... you're really shifting the mindset about your list and list building into a mindset of building an asset. That the asset is the number of people who you have regular communication with. And the bigger that that number is, where they are paying attention to you and reading your valuable emails, that the odds are, over time, that at some point it's going to be now and you're going to be there, right?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And this whole idea that ... I've got a definition for brand now that's been new and is pretty exciting. Because we hear it all the time, right, you've got to build a brand, you've got to establish a brand, but nobody can really explain what a brand is.
Eelco: Right.
Dean: And so, I decided on an acronym for brand, like B-R-A-N-D. The one that fits for me as we're trying to ... and establish is the right word, we're trying to establish, like get it rooted in there, a brand, which is a buying reflex affecting now decisions. So, if you have established a brand in somebody's mind, that the moment that they're faced with a now decision, their reflex is to think of you, that's when you've done your job.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: And people talk about that. Like Coca-Cola has the big, global, worldwide brand that if somebody says to you, would you like a drink, or if you're at a restaurant and they say what to drink, that the buying reflex is-
Eelco: Coke.
Dean: ... I'll have a Coke. Right. And they've done that to billions of people all over the world. They have the widest distribution of any brand globally, which is really interesting. In the deepest, most remote parts of the world, you can get Coca-Cola, you know.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And so, the distribution of them.
But establishing that brand, it seems daunting or overwhelming. Like they say, how are you going to unseat the winner, the leader in a category and stuff? And when you realize that the only value of a brand is that it's established in the mind of one individual, all right? So, you don't have to, and it's impossible to think that you're going to unseat a market leader at the scale that they are overall, but one at a time you have an opportunity to win the hearts and minds of individuals. As many as you can reach and establish that brand in.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And there's something to that. There's something ... you go to local markets ... I don't know whether this works in Amsterdam, or in the Netherlands, that in the U.S. a big thing now is microbrews. Like breweries-
Eelco: Oh, yeah, yeah, we-
Dean:... that are-
Eelco: ... have them.
Dean: ... you have microbreweries?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: So, if you go to a particular town-
Eelco: Yeah, we have many of them here in Amsterdam.
Dean:... yeah. So, you go there, and you may go in a pub, or do into a restaurant, and somebody might order that brand of microbrew because they've established a buying reflex in that group of people, right? Whereas all the way on the other side of the country, in that non-local market, they may not even have heard of that brand, right?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: So, it's really about figuring out where you ... the scope of what you're trying to accomplish, and establishing it for one person at a time, and at whatever scale you can afford. But when you're establishing that brand, you've got to think about how many people can I afford to establish that brand 100 percent of the way?
It all made sense when I heard Roy Williams, a big radio advertising guy, talk years ago about the choice in radio is that do you want to convince 100 percent of the people 10 percent of the way, or do you want to convince 10 percent of the people 100 percent of the way?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And talk about reach or frequency. And so, often people want to reach as many people as they can with their message, when the better ... the reality is that you're better off to constrain to a smaller group of people and convince them 100 percent of the way. Make that your choice, you know?
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: But it's fun. I mean, that whole ... and that's really where this super signature of understanding now versus not now, that if every day we take all of your prospects, we take 100 prospects that you've generated today, and we know that ... and I think we've talked about this in further ... earlier podcasts that our ideal come from is that the guiding thought that we have is that half of the people that inquire today are going to do something in the category of whatever they're inquired about in the next two years, and only 15 percent of them are going to do it in the first 90 days. So, it means five times more people are going to do something 90 days or more.
And if we're running ads to bring people to a webinar, and then hammering them, hammering them to get them to come on that webinar now, without the regard for that maybe they're a little bit later down the road-
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: ... you end up chasing them away, like you were saying with their unsubscribes, because they're not ready. It's not now. Now is not the time. And so, to have that mindset that we're going to allow people to be on your list, allow people to move at their own time, and that's where I had this visual of taking ... if we were to line up ... imagine visualizing a line, a row of LED lights, okay, that are stacked on top of each other. There's 100 LED lights in a row, going from the bottom to the top. And that each day you get to flip the switch on that light row and see that everybody who is ready now will turn green.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: That the light thing will turn green. So, bloop, you flip the switch and there's three people that are green and ready to go right now. And then, each day you get to flip that switch and see who is ready today. And if you were to do that every day for two years, that you could flip that switch and you would see that 50 out of those 100 will have bought something regarding whatever it is that they inquired about.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And that's kind of a fun thing. That's why you get people into this mindset of doing, at the very least, a weekly email. And then you're sending that super signature once a week saying, whenever you're ready, here's four ways we can help you.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And they get the ... it's the equivalent of flipping the switch. And the ones that are ready can reach out to you, you know?
Eelco: Yeah, man. That's so much better. I get people re-posting my emails on social media, that stuff never happened.
Dean: Right.
Eelco: And now I have people waiting for the email. So, every Sunday we have Seven Weekly Wisdoms, so that's an hour theme that we do every week, and then we send two or three emails with just sometimes a short sentence, sometimes a good email.
Dean: I like it.
Eelco: Yeah, it's good. And like I said, we have a two-week variation of all the super signatures, so I have 14 different super signatures. So, we-
Dean: Why did you have to make it so complicated?
Eelco: ... no. Well, it took me like an hour or two hours to make, so. And so, that mixes it up as well. It's good, it's nice.
Dean: That's good. Well, I'm super excited that you're on the super signature train now.
Eelco: Might do the [inaudible 00:28:01] one day.
Dean: Hey, wait a second.
Eelco: A couple years, you know.
Dean: Yeah, once it got you reunited with your best friend from-
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: ... yeah.
Eelco: That was funny.
Dean: That was a funny story. So, I'm super excited about that as a thing, this whole lead conversion idea of now, not now, and establishing a brand as your buying reflex. That's really what the thing is. I don't know whether I shared this, but a couple ... it probably was about a year ago now that I had somebody in my real estate group, in one of the forums, posted up a question. And they said, does anybody know where I can get the carpet replaced today because we have a closing tomorrow and we need to get it replaced. The painter's just spilled paint all over the carpet and it's ruined.
And what I realized, what happened ... I tell people it was both startling and amazing at the same time because my mind, without even thinking about it, reflexively ... that's really how this works ... my mind started singing the Empire Flooring jingle from the commercial that had been running for over 20 years. Smuggled into my brain, waiting for me to be triggered by somebody saying same day carpet. And I started, 800-588-2300, Empire, and it was just like ... I felt like a passenger. I felt like I wasn't in control of my brain just then, that that happened against my will.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: I couldn't have stopped that-
Eelco: No, no, no.
Dean: ... if I wanted to. And I had never thought of it until that moment. And I thought, man, that's just ... now you get it. And now that opened up, I see all these other people who are doing the same thing. All these attorneys on the TV that are trying to get me to remember that with their, hurt in a car, call William Mattar. Safelite Auto for the replacement glass, and all these people that are establishing this brand in my mind.
Eelco: Yeah, that's cool.
Dean: There's something to it. Just amazing how our brains work.
Eelco: For me, last year, since the last episode, what I really fell in love with is ... I call it creating marketing masterpieces.
Dean: Yes.
Eelco: And the way I do it is now mostly with video and webinars. So, I just really take the time to really work on something that is just the best work that I can make it. You make it once and it can work for you forever.
Dean: Yes.
Eelco: And so, I created two pieces last year. One took me a couple of months to create and it's a four-hour video. And I tested this 18 months ago. I created a video, it took me also a long time to create it.
Dean: And do you serve that up to people in one shot?
Eelco: No.
Dean: Like they watch one four-hour thing?
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: That's what I mean-
Eelco: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dean: ... when they go to watch it, it's-
Eelco: Yeah, it's one video.
Dean: ... four hours.
Eelco: Yeah. And the first call to action is after 75 minutes.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: But with my first video, I remember when I created it, a lot of slides and really put a lot of work in, and I wasn't sure if it's going to work. And recorded a video, but I don't record a video in one time. I record a two-hour video in like 15 times. So, I'm not going to re-do it 15 times, it's 15 pieces. And then I'll have edit the video.
Dean: Yes.
Eelco: Because if you talk for two hours, your voice get-
Dean: Yeah, your throat-
Eelco: ... yeah.
Dean: ... your voice gets -
Eelco: You need good energy in a video. And so we made it, we created the video. And then I had Suboss edit the video. And when he was done, he looked at me almost sad and disappointed, like I'm sorry, but the video is two hours and 8 minutes. And I was like, fuck, two hours and 8 minutes, it's way too long. This is not going to work. I'm probably going to annoy people. And we launched the video, and it was the highest converting video and the most profitable week that I ever had in my life. And I was, wow, this actually works.
And not just that. A lot of people were talking about the video because they really enjoyed watching the video because it's so ... it's just my best work. Really captivating, and valuable, and gave a lot of people great insight. And even friends that ... one of my best friends from back in the days, he's not entrepreneurial, but he's on my list. And he clicked the video. He was replacing his tires at a tire center and he couldn't stop watching the video. I was, wow, I'm on to something. And it was the best week of the business ever.
And then, last year I really took a lot of time, literally months, to create a better version of that video and that's a four-hour video. And it's working, it's working consistently. I remember when I launched that video, I was having dinner with a friend and we were talking about it. Yeah, right now at this moment I'm having the best sales conversations that I could ever create, with hundreds of people at this moment. And that, combined with the super signature, it's just such a great thing. Because the super signature is super low key.
Dean: So, they can go start that journey at any time because one of your super signature-
Eelco: Yeah, right.
Dean: ... items is watch this epic video.
Eelco: Yes.
Dean: Do you call it a video or a webinar?
Eelco: I call it a marketing masterpiece.
Dean: Marketing master ... that's so great. How do you not want to see what a marketing-
Eelco: Exactly.
Dean: ... masterpiece looks like?
Eelco: Yeah. So, when we launched it, we launched it as a webinar. We didn't say it's a webinar, we said now there's a live viewing party of the marketing masterpiece. And people wanted to see the marketing masterpiece, and you can build a story around the video. Yeah, it took me months to create, and I went to Bucharest to finish the video.
Dean: Oh yeah. And you went to the wrong ... I remember when you got the Four Seasons, the wrong Four Seasons, right? You made a reservation in Budapest, and then you went to Bucharest.
Eelco: I wanted to ... stop laughing so much.
Dean: That's funny though.
Eelco: I wanted to go to a Four Seasons in Europe. And so, I was-
Dean: The Budapest one is beautiful.
Eelco: ... yeah, I went there with my wife six months ago. But I wanted to go earlier, so I went online. Four Seasons Europe, Budapest, okay cool. Let me book a ticket to Budapest. And then I went to book a ticket and I wanted to book the hotel in Bucharest, I was, where is the Four Seasons in Bucharest because I just bought a ticket to Bucharest.
Dean: I bought a ticket to Bucharest.
Eelco: And I was, screw it, man, I bought a ticket to Bucharest instead of Budapest. So, I went to Bucharest to finish the video, to create a-
Dean: At the Holiday Inn.
Eelco: ... well, I think it was a Hyatt. It was okay, but it wasn't Four Seasons Budapest.
Dean: Yeah.
Eelco: And so, I didn't finish the video there. But yeah, I can build this whole story around the video. And it's working now, and it will still work in two years, three years, four years. And we're going to translate it in English, and it's going to build-
Dean: Still waiting.
Eelco: ... yeah, I know.
Dean: So, is it all slides or some live action, all slides and-
Eelco: I think there's two or three live actions, and you're included in one of them.
Dean: ... oh great.
Eelco: So, there's like a one-minute clip of you where you talk about the whole Stop Your Divorce thing. And so, it's all slides. It's actually ... I never told this, but the four-hour video is 3,800 slides.
Dean: Wow?
Eelco: So, it's 10 slides per minute. Every six seconds it's a new slide. And it's funny because when I tell people, they're, yeah, but it will never work. I told my father-in-law because he's fascinated about the way I do business.
Dean: Yeah.
Eelco: And Daniella, my wife, tells him, oh man, he just launched a video, and did this, and this, and this, and he loves it when I'm making money.
Dean: Right, that's fun. My baby girl's going to be okay.
Eelco: Exactly, exactly. And so, my wife explained, this PowerPoint with this many thousand slides. And he was, yeah, that will never work, can't work. So, I got home and he was there. Well, one thing about the video, you should remove the slides because PowerPoint doesn't work because I remember. He's from corporate business. I remember when we had PowerPoints, people were sleeping after 40 minutes, plus people's attention span can never be longer than 40 minutes.
So, I asked him, have you ever been to a movie and do you fall asleep after 40 minutes?
Dean: Yeah. People binge watch-
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: ... they binge watch all the time.
Eelco: Yeah. And it's these assumptions we all have about certain things. And I created that video pure by instinct, gut feeling, knowledge from the best obviously, and this is just captivating. This will work.
So, now I have two. I have a four-hour and a five-hour, 15 minute version. And they're all just really-
Dean: So, do you say that in the super, watch this four-hour-
Eelco: Oh, no.
Dean: ... no.
Eelco: Oh, no.
Dean: So, you do the whole thing.
Eelco: No, no, no.
Dean: But it's all one video. So, they go and they start-
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: ... and they're going to bookmark their spot, and come back, and watch the whole thing.
Eelco: It's really a thing. I was at the gym and there was a guy come up to me. And he showed me all the screen shot he made from the video because he was, yeah, there's so much knowledge in the video, and it really does something to people. So, that's been a big game changer for my business, to really create one piece, one piece that can work for years instead of like 1,000 small pieces. No. Just one piece and it will drive the business.
Dean: Yes.
Eelco: Which it forces you to really think deeply about what you're going to say and how you're going to say it, and what aren't you going to say, and how can you make it in a way that it could survive years, and years, and years. So, I'm not talking about Facebook ads in the video, I'm not talking ... it's super-
Dean: That's exactly ... the context is what doesn't change.
Eelco: ... yeah, exactly. So, it's 100 percent timeless, and the offer is timeless. So, that's been a ... when I look at my business, it's been a huge game changer. And most people will never do it. That's why it's competitive because ... and I'm a good marketer. So, me as a good marketer spending months on one piece, yeah.
Dean: I know, it's against ... I'm like that as a speed content creator, right?
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: So, for me to be thinking about creating something epic like that, which I am, and I shared with you that when I go from here, I'm heading back to Toronto. I'm going to be there for a month. And that's my intention is while I'm there of creating something that I'd share with you, creating this series of ... an epic video that's really putting in the effort to put something together.
Eelco: Yeah. It's so good when you really make something, where you're really proud of as a marketer. Man, this is really, really good. And if that's the intention, it's going to survive time.
Dean: Yeah, there's something about that because we're definitely ... we reward, as a society, things that take time and effort. That's funny how it's like that, like movies or art, works of art. That's really the whole thing. I'm excite ... I look at somebody like Quentin Tarantino, as an example, somebody like that as an artist, in a way, that he's got ... he's going to do 10 movies and this one coming up is his ninth movie.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: So, yeah, I wonder how that's going to play out. But looking back at his catalog, it's kind of a ... that will stand the test of time for a long time, all his movies are timeless.
Eelco: I had a conversation with Dolly about it last week, about content creation. It's so easy to create a lot of content nowadays. You can post two, three, four posts a day on Instagram, you can put on a YouTube video every day and all that stuff, or you can really do it the Tarantino way and what you create has to be 10 out of 10. It has to be amazing. And if you do that, even if you would send out one email a month, but it's the most amazing, valuable email ... it's funny, I got an email from John Reese a couple of weeks ago. And it was this 20-page email.
Yeah, well, the guy doesn't send out five emails a week or a daily email.
Dean: But it's like, when you get an email from him-
Eelco: It's interesting.
Dean: ... it's an event.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I was thinking, imagine having an Instagram page where you post once a month, but it's the most amazing thing ever.
Dean: I was just with John in Miami, just the day before I saw you in Miami actually. We spent two days together, nonstop. So, it's funny that you got an email from him.
Eelco: Well, it's the same thing with the million dollar launch. In 2005, I think it was, when he launched Traffic Secrets. That was a marketing masterpiece. The whole thing was perfectly orchestrated, and that's why it was a million dollar launch.
Dean: Yes.
Eelco: And it was no half stuff. No, the sales space was amazing, the affiliate ... everything was good. The product was really great, it was really well orchestrated. And I'm falling more in love with really orchestrating great stuff.
Dean: That makes sense, yeah.
The other thing about content, we talked a little bit about things being timely. I like contexts that are timeless.
Eelco: That's what I meant, by the way.
Dean: Yeah. There's a show in ... I'm sure you have part of it here, too ... but in the U.S. the longest running news type show in television is 60 Minutes. And they've had the same format for 50 years. That was every Sunday night at 7:00, you can count on it, right, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, 60 Minutes. Three 20-minute or 15-minute to 20-minute segments about the three most fascinating, timeless things that are ... or timely kind of things that are going on.
Eelco: Yeah, sort of.
Dean: But the context of-
Eelco: Is timeless, yeah.
Dean: ... Sunday night, the three most fascinating things that are going on right now, that is timeless, you know? It's kind of a ... there's something about that that we're always ... knowing the difference between the things that are going to continue for ... I always use 25 years as a benchmark, the frame work kind of.
Eelco: What's the idea of the name 60 Minutes? I never got that.
Dean: That's how long the show it.
Eelco: No.
Dean: What do you mean?
Eelco: I think it's like 20 minutes, right?
Dean: No. The show is 60 minutes.
Eelco: Oh, it is?
Dean: The show is 60 minutes long, and in that is three 20-minute segments-
Eelco: Ah, now I get it.
Dean: ... or 15 ... whatever with commercials, 15- to 17-minute segments.
Eelco: Ah, because we don't have it here.
Dean: Oh, okay.
Eelco: And when I watch it online it's, yeah, but this whole show is like 15 or 17 minutes. Why it's called 60 Minutes?
Dean: Right, yeah. Because they show the individual segments on-
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: ... the thing, yeah. That's what 60 Minutes-
Eelco: Ah, okay.
Dean: ... in 60 minutes it's a deep dive into things that are going on right now. So, they might do something about Iran right now and whatever's happening, or whatever's going on in the news.
Eelco: What's one of the best movies you watched last year?
Dean: Last year, what is one of the best movies I've seen? I'll tell you what is overtaking my mind as you said the best movies is I'm excited, right now, to see, today hopefully, this Yesterday movie. Have you seen the concept of it? So, it's a Danny Boyle movie. And this guy is a musician who's struggling in the UK and he's about to give up. But then, as he's driving home from one of his gigs, he gets hit by a bus. And at the exact moment, the lights, or the power, or something happens all over the world, that when he wakes up out of his coma, that nobody remembers The Beatles. Everything about The Beatles has been wiped off the face of the earth and he's the only one that remembers.
So, his girlfriend buys him a guitar, and they're at a picnic, and he's playing Yesterday. And they're all sitting around the table going, that's the most beautiful song I've ever heard. When did you write that one? They think he wrote it, right? And it's so funny because he's the only one that remembers, and he goes on to have this amazing career. So, the premise for that movie had me right at the beginning because that's a unique concept.
Eelco: Do you think he's going to be exposed?
Dean: Yeah, of course. I think that's the big thing at the end, I think, is that ... it looks Paul and Ringo kind of show up. Perhaps, I don't know. But they don't tell you. It's just the premise of the thing that he becomes.
What would that be like if you were the only person in the world that remembers The Beatles?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: But the funny thing, when they say that's the most beautiful song I've ever heard. But the girl's friend's going, well, it's not Coldplay, it's not Fix You.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when we watched a movie in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, before they show the movie they show this clip about all the Beatle pieces in all the different movies. Do you remember?
Dean: Oh yes.
Eelco: And maybe it was a pre-frame for the movie.
Dean: That could have been, yeah. But this was ... what did we see in Toronto?
Eelco: Book Smart.
Dean: Yeah.
Eelco: Book Smart, right?
Dean: Yeah, Book Smart. Which was cute.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: That was well done, too. And then, so I saw that. I saw a movie in Toronto called Echo King, which was a documentary about the music scene in Laurel Canyon in the '60s and '70s, when everybody moved there. And so, all these bands that were ... that was like the epicenter of The Beach Boys, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and Neil Young, and Mamas and the Papas, and all these bands that came through there. And it was really, really well done.
Eelco: Have you seen Finding Sugarman?
Dean: Yes. That's old, but loved it too.
Eelco: Yeah. People are going to hate me for this, but I just searched for it and now there's this article about the whole movie, why they sort of framed him in a completely different way. And the guy who actually created the movie, he committed suicide because a lot of it wasn't really true.
Dean: Oh really?
Eelco: And Sugarman now, he's an addict for a long time, heroin addict. It's a super bad story. But the movie, it was-
Dean: We love a feel good story.
Eelco: ... exactly, yeah. I haven't watched the movie. I wanted to watch the movie, but it's not on ... it's funny. A lot of movies that were on Netflix are not on Netflix anymore. Like Supermensch, Shep Gordon is not on Netflix anymore.
Dean: Really?
Eelco: Here in Holland, which is ... we should go to Shep Gordon again.
Dean: Yes, that was awesome. I liked Shep. That was a really ... that movie was fantastic. I like everything about him just so much.
Eelco: You sort of have the same vibe, in a way.
Dean: Maybe that's why I resonate with it so much, that it's just that. He's crystal clear. He's just got a great life. I mean, that's the funny thing, you know. How long has he been in that house in the Hawaii? Like since the '70s, right?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And it's like ... you go there and, I mean, aside from it being on the ocean and this amazing location and stuff, but it's a fairly modest house.
Eelco: If it didn't have the history, it wouldn't be that special. It's a great house, but yeah.
Dean: But just the fact that that's ... the consistency of it, that he's been there all that time, that became the action central for Maui for everybody who's coming through there. But what a great ... I learned so many lessons from that movie. Coupons.
Eelco: Coupons, yeah.
Dean: Living relationship, equity. Yeah, something about it. Have you heard from him or done anything?
Eelco: By email. We had some email exchange.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: And then Danny, his friend, he came and visited us last year here. So, we went to buy and eat Bitterballen.
Dean: Oh wow, nice.
Eelco: He wants to build his Bitterballen empire.
Dean: A Bitterballen empire, in the U.S.?
Eelco: Yeah. He sees this franchise. So, we went to the [inaudible 00:52:09], it's something here in Amsterdam where they have really good Bitterballen. So, we should go.
Dean: Yeah. Joe Polish has kind of built a nice relationship with Alice Cooper.
Eelco: And with Danny as well.
Dean: Yeah. And so, that's kind of a ... that could be a fun thing. We talked about doing a live interview with Shep and Alice at the-
Eelco: Annual?
Dean:... annual event.
Eelco: Yeah, that would be great.
Dean: Something like that. That would be awesome.
Eelco: Yeah. Who's somebody that you would love to meet?
Dean: Max Martin.
Eelco: Who, he's the producer?
Dean: Yeah. Yeah, for sure, that's number one.
Eelco: He's from Sweden, right?
Dean: Right, Sweden. Max Martin, Rick Rubin.
Eelco: Rick Rubin, I was just thinking about Rick Rubin. I was talking about you have the same vibe as Shep sort of. And then I was thinking, well, you definitely have the same vibe as Rick Rubin.
Dean: So, I was this close to having dinner with Rick Rubin a few years ago because my friend Neil Strauss is good fiends with Rick Rubin, sees him all the time every day in Malibu. And Neil has said that same thing to me, that we have the same energy, that same thing. And so, he had arranged that we were going to have sushi at Katsuya one night. And then I think he was working with Aerosmith at the time, and they were working on stuff late and it didn't work out. But I had invited Tim Ferriss to come to dinner. So, I said to Tim ... or asked Neil, I said, "Listen, I know Tim Ferriss really wants to meet you, but he would love to met Rick. Can I invite Tim?"
And so, Tim was up in San Francisco. I called him, I said, "Get on the plane and come down, and let's have dinner with Rick Rubin and Neil Strauss," because he had never met Neil. So, I'm kind of like Shep, doing ... get relationship equity kind of on stuff. So, Tim came down, but it didn't work out that we got to meet Rick. But he got to meet Neil, and they've become really good friends because of that. So, that's kind of ... I feel like a nice matchmaker there.
Eelco: And Tim did a great podcast with Rubin.
Dean: Yes, exactly, because he's gotten to know him through Neil. Yeah, so it's-
Eelco: Interesting story how he recreated his health.
Dean: ... yes. Yeah. It is pretty interesting.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: That whole ... yeah, from resetting his whole hormonal thing, getting out first thing in the morning and getting sun on your body. It's an interesting thing. But that's ... those two are on my list, Max Martin, Rick Rubin. And it's funny how I look at that as to why I'm so attracted to the kind of what you might call behind the scenes kind of guys like that. But I don't look at it like that so much as I look at it as they're idea guys really.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: That that's really the thing, that's what I look at, what I am. And I was sharing with you yesterday this idea of the scale ready algorithm. Those are words that I've really come to put on what I create. Where if I can figure out how ... like a direct response campaign that will get a result, once I crack the code that, that that's ready to now roll, that there's a difference between scaling something and getting something scale ready. And that's my goal. My joy is to crack the code and get something scale ready. And then I don't have any interest in scaling anything because there's absolutely nothing about scaling that appeals to me. It's definitely ... I mean, the rewards of scaling are appealing to me, but the ... in terms of the disciplined execution of a scale ready algorithm is what scaling is about. And where I'm more drawn is to the discovery the scale ready algorithm.
And so, I likened that to what ... that's why I'm so attracted to somebody like Max Martin or Rick Rubin, who can be a catalyst with an artist, who is then going to take that scale ready algorithm. A song is a scale ready algorithm, and they're going to take and run with it. And I think about, I just love the fact that if you take the top ... all the top people who have written number one songs in the world, the list goes Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Max Martin. And nobody would be able to pick Max Martin out of a line-up. He's a 50-year-old Swedish guy, living in Sweden and Beverly Hills, that just is in the studio cranking out the hits. And as soon as he's done with one, he's back in the studio.
I just love that ... you know he did ... with Katy Perry. He's written basically all the songs that you hear on the radio over the last 20 years, right? They're all his. And so, when he did ... Katy Perry had five number ones on one album, and she toured on that for three years. And you look at the ... Taylor Swift, all of her number ones that she's had have been Max Martin songs. Her whole thing is two years of the cycle of the world tour, and meanwhile he's back in the studio working with Justin Timberlake, or working with Pink, or whoever, Ariana Grande, and making more songs.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And that's just like ... I find that joyful. That is the kind of thing where you get to stay in your bliss, you know?
Eelco: Yeah, yeah. It's good.
Dean: Yeah. So, that's it. I think a lot of that is the permission. You know, I was saying with Dan Sullivan that we all have clues, right, as to what your unique ability is, what the thing is that you're maybe better than anybody at, or that you feel you're best at. And I think that the clue that you're on the right track is when it feels like, well, I can't possibly just get paid to do this.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: That feels like that's the right thing. That's the clue that you're on the right track.
Eelco: Yeah. I mean, look at Joe with Genius Network. He started Genius Network, he would have done it for free. But somebody advised him, no, you should charge 25K so you get good people and they're committed. Okay, let's do it, but he would do it for free.
Dean: Yeah, and did for years. We used to have these great meetings in Joe's office.
Eelco: When did you get into 25K?
Dean: So, I mean I've been there since before 25K.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: I mean, the whole thing, we used to do ... in the '90s we would do these mastermind meetings with all the guys that were doing info publishing. That was the hot new thing back then. So, all of us were not getting together as anything other than peers, sharing the ideas of the stuff we were discovering and working on, sharing ideas, and critiquing copy, and helping brainstorm and stuff with everybody. And that would be what we would do.
And then, Robin Robins is the first one who suggested that he ... he was thinking about putting a paid group together and he did it. And that was, I think, 25 people the first and then kept growing from there. And now it's up, you know, hundreds, and it's taken a life of its own. But there's the thing, where Joe ... it's not coming to learn from Joe. Joe's curating and connecting people to this Genius Network. It's a great thing, it's right in his go zone, you know?
Eelco: That's great.
Dean: He hasn't seen this yet. I did this as a surprise for him. We did a podcast called The Magic Rapport Formula.
Eelco: Yeah, I remember.
Dean: You do?
Eelco: Back in the day.
Dean: Yeah. So, I shared with you my new capability, my unicorn that does the visual notes. So, here's the ... I had her do that episode for us. So, we've got all the visual notes from that episode all done. So, I'm going to give that to Joe. But I think that ... there's another example. This girl, Lacey, who does these notes, there's a perfect example that ... when we were talking about the things that she does, one of them is she takes amazing visual notes, with drawings, and illustrations, and perfect summary capsule notes. And I met ... she came to Breakthrough Blueprint as the marketing director for a company that I work with. And I was just amazed at her note-taking ability, it was great.
But anyway, when I reconnected with her to do some stuff for me, it was funny how her words about the visual note-taking were the things that her ... she said, "Well, my ears perked up when you said that because that ... if I could just do that, that would be my dream come true, is just to do visual notes. And you can't believe that that's something that somebody would pay you for." And it's funny how you avoid looking for opportunities to really do the thing that you would do for free because you think that can't be it, you know?
For a lot of years I kept thinking to myself that it can't just be the ideas, you've got to actually do it and scale stuff. But I have no interest in that, you know?
Eelco: No, no. I told you, next week ... or this week when we do the breakthrough group, there will be a girl. And again, her note-taking capabilities are ... it's unbelievable, you're going to love it.
Dean: Better than these?
Eelco: I don't know if they're better-
Dean: Oh, okay.
Eelco: ... but-
Dean: They'll have a note-off.
Eelco: ... yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dean: But the same kind of thing?
Eelco: Yeah. And really grasping the idea, and then within minutes creating a great image. And for us, as creators, we love that.
Dean: I do. I love it.
Eelco: It's the best present you can get, when somebody does something with your idea and makes something of it.
Dean: Yeah. And that's the kind of thing, when you look at, that's the value again of creating content like that. Of creating content that is audio, that you've got ... that's a derivative of the audio. If it wasn't for this audio, then we wouldn't have that as an opportunity, you know?
Eelco: Yeah. That's so good.
Dean: I like it. I think Joe's going to love this, it's kind of funny. Talk to me about your biggest insight throughout the year.
Eelco: Yeah. So, one of them was really making marketing masterpieces, that was a big one. I think that was the biggest one, that really focus on one thing where you know, okay, this is going to change everything. It's going to work for years. Also, one big insight was taking more time off to work on that, and to take the time to think and digest. That's been a big one. It's so easy to go, go, go, and to be busy.
And also, I did a lot of internet fasting this year, so I was off line for a long period of time. That's also ... it's such a game changer. It's really being off all the impulses.
Dean: Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about that because looking at you, you've melted away certainly since the last time. So, in addition to the internet fasting, it looks like you've been doing some intermittent fasting or some selective fasting.
Eelco: Yeah. It's funny-
Dean: Let's talk a little bit about that because we had a conversation about it a year ago and here you are.
Eelco: ... yeah. So, a year ago ... I think a year ago in two weeks, something like that, it's ... because I remember when we did the Breakthrough Blueprint last year I'd just started. Something clicked in my mind because I was 130 kilos, which is like 290 pounds or something I think. And I was just heavy, and tired, and wasn't in a good place. And then, halfway June last year I woke up in the middle of the night and I was, why am I ... why can't I get to sleep, what's wrong? Because my life is great, good family, good friends, business is doing great. I'm feeling good. My life is really good, but I'm not feeling good.
So, I got this insight that okay, it's probably a physical thing. I'm physically out of balance and that's why I can't sleep. That was the first thought. Then the second thought was ... and it sort of got triggered by Joel Welden, also from Genius Network. At one of the Genium Network events, he started sharing about like 40 years ago there was this guy on a plane, sitting next to him, who was almost harassing him. Yeah, you're unhealthy, and you're drinking Coke, and you're eating steak, why do you think you're tired?
Dean: He said that to Joel?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: And Joel was overweight and?
Eelco: Yeah, he was overweight, he was tired.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: He just came from a speaking gig, exhausted. And that was the moment for Joel. And he explains it as in, I always thought two plus two equals five. And that was the moment something clicked and I noticed, okay, that's not true. Two plus two equals four. And once you see that two plus two equals four, you can't un-see it. You can't-
Dean: What do you mean, reality you mean?
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: Once you really saw the realities?
Eelco: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he shared that he didn't had sugar for the last 40 years or something. And he didn't hadn't dranken anything else but water for the last 40 years.
Dean: Really?
Eelco: Yeah. And the whole group was like, wow, really?
Dean: Yeah. That seems-
Eelco: And when I tell people what I did or what I'm doing, they'll be, yeah well, you can't sustain it, or it's going to be tough, or whatever. But when Joel shared it, I saw the results.
Dean: Because he's fit.
Eelco: The guy's like 78 or whatever, and he's doing water skiing a couple times a week, and he's speaking everywhere. And he's not just fit, but radiant.
Dean: Fit as a fiddle-
Eelco: Yeah, exactly.
Dean: ... as they say, yes.
Eelco: And so, I saw the accumulation of 40 years nothing else but water and I thought, that's interesting, but that was like two years ago. And sometimes, you know, you get an insight, but it doesn't really click.
Dean: Right.
Eelco: So a year ago, while I was awake, first thought was why can't I sleep? Second thought was, what would happen if for the rest of my life I would never eat sugar anymore? And what would happen if for the rest of my life I won't eat any bread, and I would just drink water? So, I made this rule for myself-
Dean: That ain't living.
Eelco: ... yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what we thought. And so I made this rule, what if I would have had the big six. The big six for me is meat, fish, chicken, veges, nuts, and eggs.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: And if I would just have that for the rest of my life, what would happen?
Dean: The big six.
Eelco: Yeah. And so, I was thinking-
Dean: I'm going to write that down because that's some-
Eelco: It's easy.
Dean: ... profound wisdom right there. That's a wisdom bomb [inaudible 01:11:38] we need a little audio bumper here, wisdom bomb coming at you. The big six.
Eelco: That's the big six. It's a good title for a book, The Big Six Diet.
Dean: The Big Six Diet.
Eelco: It's just the keto, but also call it big six. And so, I envisioned how would I feel in a week? Oh, probably horrible because my body will scream, give me some sugar, give me some carbs. How would I feel in a month? Well, probably pretty good already. How would I feel in a year, how would I feel in two years? And then I started envisioning myself getting older and older, and seeing my kids and my grandkids. And I was, wow, if I would just do this, if I would commit to this for the rest of my life, my whole life will change.
And so, I just made the commitment.
Dean: The cascading, you saw all that.
Eelco: Yeah. I made the commitment, in my life I will never have sugar anymore.
Dean: Wow.
Eelco: In my life, I'll never have certain types of foods that I was addicted to. And yeah, I just made that commitment. And I mean, I made that commitment ... I made a commitment to get healthier a million times before, every day. Every day I made the commitment, today I'm going to get healthier. Or tomorrow I'm going-
Dean: Today is the day.
Eelco: ... to ... yeah, yeah, exactly.
Dean: No, tomorrow. Starting on Monday.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to eat-
Dean: Starting on Monday.
Eelco: ... yeah.
Dean: That's another thing that you realize there's only now or not now.
Eelco: True, true.
Dean: And any time, no matter what, Monday, beginning of the month, next week, any of that stuff, it's a very clever way that our present Eelco tries to trick future Eelco.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's just really the decision like never again instead of once in a while. Because I'll know if I will have a donut right now, I'll be 60 pounds heavier in two months.
Dean: The big six diet. One, meat. Two, fish. Three, veges.
Eelco: Chicken.
Dean: Chicken. Chicken. Four, veges. Five, fruit?
Eelco: No fruit.
Dean: You're mad at fruit?
Eelco: Yeah, yeah.
Dean: Yeah, you're mad at fruit. Five is nuts?
Eelco: Yup.
Dean: And number six is eggs?
Eelco: Yup.
Dean: So the big six, meat, fish, chicken, veges, nuts, and eggs, and no fruit.
Eelco: No fruit.
Dean: You sure about the fruit?
Eelco: Yup.
Dean: You're mad at fruit.
Eelco: I'm not mad at fruit, but I'm addicted.
Dean: It's a gateway to Krispy Kremes.
Eelco: Yeah, it is. And so, I'm not saying ... so, a lot of health experts would tell me, yeah, but you need fruit, or you should have some dairy, or whatever it is. But for me, I made the decision I want to have the foods that are not stimulating me. And fruit, I know I would eat a lot of bananas, and apples, and oranges because it's sugar. There's sugar in it. So, fruit is not bad, but what it does to me, I'm just addicted to the whole feeling of the highs of, for example, sugar, or the saturating effect when you have coffee.
Dean: So, just so I'm clear, no fruit.
Eelco: No fruit, zero.
Dean: No fruit.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah. I know that's tough. And I'll have some supplements.
Dean: Well, that changes everything. What kind of supplements? It's all chemicals.
Eelco: Yeah. Magnesium, multi, and fish oil is what I take. So, I went from let's say, when it comes to health, last year I was a three out of 10 I think, two out of 10, three out of 10. Now I'm at 7.5 out of 10. So, there's some improvements to make, but I'm not worried about that. I mean, I lost almost all of my excessive weight.
Dean: 50 pounds.
Eelco: Yeah, 55 pounds.
Dean: He looks like a pre-teen Swedish boy.
Eelco: Exactly.
Dean: Yeah. I mean, that's-
Eelco: So, in the whole year, no struggle. No pain, no discipline, no ... I just don't see it anymore. It's just not there anymore. I have zero ... I can, for example, be super hungry and there's chocolate, or chips, or all the things that are ... and it's not even an option. So, it's the whole 100 percent idea.
Dean: So, what about some ... what about the incidental sugar in some of the-
Eelco: It happens.
Dean: ... sauces or something with-
Eelco: It happens.
Dean: ... [inaudible 01:16:36].
Eelco: It happens.
Dean: Yeah.
Eelco: If it's there, it's there, but I won't order it.
Dean: I got you.
Eelco: So, I've had plenty of sugar probably the last year. I won't eat a lot of chicken wings. So, I'll order chicken wings, and then if there's chili sauce or whatever, well it's filled with sugar. Yeah, whatever.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: Or I'll order spareribs, and the little barbecue sauce and stuff. I wouldn't order the barbecue sauce, but if it's on top I'll just eat it. But it's just ... yeah, I don't even think about that.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: Or when you have, for example ... like we had breakfast this morning and I eat a lot of eggs. And when they have the scrambled eggs, I know this is not pure scrambled eggs. There's probably cheese or whatever in it because it's a different moisture, and I'm not that anal about it. I might become that anal about it in the future, but right now it's no.
Dean: It's working right now.
Eelco: Yeah. And, again, it's the ... so, I've been just really ... I'm 39 next week ... or no, in two days-
Dean: I know what that's-
Eelco: ... and it's-
Dean: ... it's all downhill.
Eelco: ... and until my 38th birthday I was struggling with food. And from my 38th birthday to now, no more struggles and that's been the biggest game changer. It's a silent struggle, it's a silent addiction, and a lot of people from it. It's the same way. I mean, Joe's been an addict for a long time with ... been a drug addict for a long time. If you would tell Joe, you know what, you've got to enjoy life a little bit, man. Just do one snort of cocaine a month.
Dean: Ah, yeah, just one.
Eelco: Just one.
Dean: Just a little bit.
Eelco: Come on, do a micro-
Dean: It's your birthday.
Eelco: ... do a microdose.
Dean: It's your birthday.
Eelco: Yeah, just enjoy it.
Dean: Come on, you going to make me do this on my own?
Eelco: Yeah, yeah. And you're smart, man. You're a successful entrepreneur, you're smart now.
Dean: You want to have a birthday bump with me?
Eelco: And I know, yeah. I didn't know that in the beginning, but after a month, two months, yeah, I'm just addicted.
Dean: A sugar addict.
Eelco: Yeah. Addicted to-
Dean: Food.
Eelco: ... yeah, food that gives a certain feeling. And that's why I don't do the fruits because I know the fruit gives me a certain feeling. And when it gives a certain feeling, I'm getting addicted to it. So same with coffee, for example. I think coffee is fine, I think coffee is not bad for you. It actually has a lot of health benefits. But I knew I'm craving coffee because it gives me a certain feeling, so I cut out the coffee as well. I just want to get off of the whole addicted feeling towards certain foods, and that's been the big game changer. Not feeling dependent anymore on food.
Dean: Right.
Eelco: So, that's been a ... of course, lost a lot of weight. I think I lost most of the weight in four months and after that it was really slow. But no more.
Dean: More stabilized, yeah.
Eelco: Yeah. No more inflammation, sleep much better.
Dean: You just feel better all over.
Eelco: Yeah. I'm comfortable on stage now. Yeah, I feel better, better ideas, not anxious anymore. It's just different. So, if we talk about game change from last year ... and I remember with breakthrough group last year, I had a big bottle ... like I have right here, a green smoothie. This is my power drink. This helps, this just gives me everything. But I was ... but something already clicked-
Dean: Did someone make that here for you or do you?
Eelco: ... no. My wife just brought it.
Dean: She brought it to you.
Eelco: Yeah. But something clicked last year around June 14th, and we had the breakthrough group in two, three weeks after and I was in the middle of ... the first couple weeks you're detoxing. But I was drinking the shakes, but I was still like 300 pounds, or 290. But because it clicked, I already felt healthy and I already knew, hey, I'm going to get healthy. And that's also something that I envisioned, what will this do to my body? And I wasn't thinking about losing weight, I was thinking about how can I restore all the organs, like the liver, and the gut, and all that stuff.
And when you connect with that, you think differently about food as well. And so, that was on my mind the first couple of months. Well, I've kind of lost that thought the last couple of months, so I want to get back to that. Really almost meditating on what happens when you put certain foods in your body, and what happens to ... so yeah, I feel like a 7.5 out of 10. And the goal for the next year ... because now I see the value of a year, what a year can do, if I can get to an eight or nine out of 10 next year, that will be dope. That will be cool.
But the whole ... I saw this great post from Charles [inaudible 01:21:46], who passed last year or maybe this year, and it was about advice. That most advice is good for most people, but some advice is horrible for great people or certain people. The advice you get when it comes to health, it's always you need balance, you need to enjoy once in a while, everything with moderation, all that stuff. And for me, that's the worst advice ever. And I think for 90 percent of the people it could be great advice, good advice. For me, it's the worst advice ever.
Dean: That was funny because the popular wisdom of having a cheat day.
Eelco: Oh, man.
Dean: Just have your cheat day on Saturday.
Eelco: It will destroy my life again.
Dean: It's an interesting ... J.J. Virgin, she says that's like saying to an alcoholic, after your first six days of being sober-
Eelco: Get drunk.
Dean: ... yeah, go ahead and reward yourself with a cheat day.
Eelco: It's so true.
Dean: Go on a bender for Saturday night-
Eelco: It's so true.
Dean: ... and then you can start right back on Sunday.
Eelco: Yeah, that's so true. I don't know. I think it will work for a short period of time, but you can't sustain it. If you do a cheat day every week, or even every two-
Dean: Then you start to think ... I know exactly what happens because you start to think ... this is why one of the things we talked about over the course of the year here, this idea of 100 percent is easier than 99 percent.
Eelco: It's the best quote ever. I live by that quote now.
Dean: And that's really the thing because as soon as you allow room for that ... if you have a cheat day or cheat meal, if you allow Saturday night you blow out and do pizza or whatever else, and then by Monday you're back, and you're on track, and you have nothing really happen, you're like, okay, that's great, see I can handle that. Nothing happened there. And then you're looking forward to Saturday as your cheat day instead of this cheat meal. No, it's a cheat day, that should be fine.
Eelco: And then you go on a holiday for two weeks and, you know, I'm on holiday.
Dean: Exactly.
Eelco: Or a cheat holiday.
Dean: Nothing happened. And then maybe just on Wednesday, hump day, I'll add something. I'll have a little something on hump day and that should be fine. And then you start to realize then you're negotiating and slowly it's wedging its way.
Eelco: And the next thing you know, you'll be having sex with a goat.
Dean: That's one, two, three, and you're having sex with a goat.
Eelco: That's what Joe Polish said. When we were in [inaudible 01:24:27], I was like, here, you want some chips? Nah, next thing you know, you'll be having sex with a goat. Yeah, so true.
Dean: That is pretty funny.
Eelco: But yeah, so the 100 percent-
Dean: Frightening, but funny.
Eelco: ... yeah. So, the 100 percent idea, that's the whole thing. There's a devil and what are you going to do? Are you going to let him get in? Yeah, let's get him in and he'll destroy everything. So, I just don't let the devil in anymore. And I just know this is for life. This is for life and it's not a big deal. People make it a big deal. For the first three months, I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell anybody that I was going to go forever. I mean, people started noticing after a couple of months. Hey, you look better, and you're losing weight, and you're drinking smoothies and stuff.
But I was eating healthy ... I was always aware of eating healthy, I just messed up every day. So, I drank my smoothies, or I had my steak or whatever, but I just messed up every day ... or most of the days. And it wasn't knowledge because I knew exactly what I had to do. And so, I didn't tell anybody. And oftentimes when you go do something like that, you want ... people say, yeah, you need to tell other people, you need accountability partners, all that stuff. And for some people, that might work well. For me, it was more powerful to keep to myself. I didn't tell my wife, I told nobody, until 100, 120 days or whatever, and then I started sharing with people.
Dean: You were on your way.
Eelco: Yeah. And so, yeah, that's ... it's been a big game changer. And for me, I also feel that this is something that ... I did a big event last weekend, two days ago, and this was also a topic that I spoke about. Not the weight loss, but the whole idea of 100 percent. Like what's the one thing that, if you could fix that in your life, would be the domino effect for so many other things?
Dean: Right.
Eelco: And if you could identify that one thing and make the decision, okay, never again. So, there's one guy who stood up and he's, yeah, I want to eat healthy as well, and I'm drinking too much, and three or four things. Yeah, good luck. It's not going to work. You're not going to and stop this, and this, and this, and this. And so, he wanted to get a little healthier, eat better, and stop the drinking. And I was, how much do you drink? Well, not that often, a couple of times a week. But from zero to one, that's a big leap. But from one to eight, it's easy, one to eight beers.
Well, we spoke about it and I was, what would happen if you forget about the food for the next year, forget about it, just do what you want to do, but you skip the drinking, what would happen? And he was, yeah. Well, in a year you'll be a different person. It might not be a huge gain, but it will be a game changer. And I was, okay, but also what would be tough? Let's not kid ourselves here, also be real. What's going to be tough? Well, social pressure, okay?
Dean: Yeah.
Eelco: And then ask yourself the question, could you handle that social pressure? Are you stronger than that, yes or no? And if the answer is yes, well, go ahead, stop the drinking. And also, what would happen if you stopped the drinking for the rest of your life because that's the whole thing? We stop drinking for a month, or we make a commitment, okay, the next six months I'm going to stop drinking, whatever. But then, again, you keep the door open for the devil. And just don't let it in, never again, just never open it again. And that's the whole ... so I feel that I would love to help people with this, as well, in the future. And, again, not just about food, but the whole concept of 100 percent and for life.
Dean: What's been the hardest thing for you?
Eelco: Nothing.
Dean: Nothing's been hard about it?
Eelco: Nothing.
Dean: What do you think is the ... so you've never ... what are the things that were the biggest triggers for you, or how do you ... what kind of strategy did you use to get through that first 100 days, whatever that was?
Eelco: For me it was like the first 30 days.
Dean: Okay, 30 days.
Eelco: Yeah, I was 290 pounds and unhealthy. And when you're like that, you need ... I think you need like 30, 40 days to go through it. I knew, okay, I'm going to change forever, and I also decided it's going to be easy. But I also knew that it's going to be sort of hard in the first couple of weeks because your body ... it's just a physical thing. So, I knew ... I really made the conscious decision, everything that's going to happen in the next 30 days is a physical thing. And don't listen to yourself because you're going to lie to yourself. All the thoughts that you will get in the next 30 days, they ... not all of them, but most of them, they're just not true because your body is lying to you right now because it's detoxing.
And so what I did, I made the decision to walk every day. So I was, if I'm really tired, super tired, I'll sleep during ... because I have my dip every day around 2:00, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., 2:00, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., that's when I got the dip, so I got super tired. And I did one of the two things, I went for a walk, just fresh air, or I went for a nap, or I just survived. Okay, it's just another day because you've got to go through these first 20, 30 days. And acknowledging, yeah, that this is going ... physically it's going to be tough. So, that was every day the dip.
Then, in the first two weeks every other night I couldn't sleep. So, one night I could sleep and the other night I couldn't sleep, which is messing with you as well big time. But I saw it as a journey. I was, okay, I can't sleep, why can't I sleep? And that's how I found out about the smoothies. I couldn't sleep. I was, why can't I sleep? I went to Google, sleep combined with no carbs and no sugar. And I'm not an expert, but what I saw is that when you cut out sugars, and carbs, and that stuff completely, when you sort of go keto, the body doesn't produce as much serotonin. And if it doesn't produce as much serotonin, it doesn't make melatonin.
Dean: That's sounding right.
Eelco: And when you don't create melatonin, you can't sleep.
Dean: So, you have to take ... yeah.
Eelco: So I was, let's look at this whole journey and what can I learn from this, okay? And then I was, which foods increase serotonin? And I found a couple of seeds, I found spinach, all these things and went to the supermarket ... super tired because I didn't sleep, but I went to the supermarket, bought all that stuff, created a smoothie. And I've been drinking smoothie ever since because-
Dean: At night?
Eelco:... yeah. No, during the day.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: And it's a healthy smoothie. It's spinach, and broccoli, and cucumber, protein, cacao powder, chia seed, pumpkin seed, two other seeds I think, avocado, and it's just a really good ... but it increases serotonin, which increases melatonin, which made me sleep. Literally, two days after I started drinking the smoothie I started sleeping. I said, wow.
Dean: Wow.
Eelco: Yeah. And so, that helps. So, I just saw it as a journey. And the first 20, 30 days, yeah, physically it was hard, but mentally I was, this is supposed to happen.
Dean: So, do you have a system for the eating part? Do you eat at home, do you eat out?
Eelco: Everything. I've been traveling-
Dean: All of it?
Eelco: ... I think for the last 12 months I've been traveling for five months total. And like this morning-
Dean: Yeah, right.
Eelco:... I had a big breakfast. I ate eggs, I had bacon, I had sausage, I had nuts, I had seeds, I had all that stuff. I eat a lot of ... man, I ate more steak than I ever I have in my life. I eat spareribs, I eat chicken wings, I eat just those six things and I have no system. And the only system is those six things.
Dean: And you can get them on basically any menu.
Eelco: Yeah, all menus.
Dean: No matter where you go, yeah.
Eelco: Every restaurant has chicken, or fish, or meat.
Dean: They all have food, they all have ... yeah.
Eelco: Yeah. So, I would-
Dean: You can eat meat, fish, chicken, veges, nuts, or eggs. If they don't have that, what are they doing?
Eelco: ... yeah, exactly. So, I eat hamburgers, I eat all that stuff. And I think the first 10 months I ate a lot of meat, and now I feel like I need to cut down a little bit on the meat, and now I eat more fish. But it's-
Dean: That's funny. There's a restaurant in the U.S. called Arby's, and they're a meat restaurant. Like a McDonald's alternative kind of thing, Arby's.
Eelco: Okay.
Dean: But their advertising statement is, we have the meat, like it's the meat place.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dean: And so, everybody's talking about going to a plant based diet, plant based vegetable diet. Well, they're coming out with meat based vegetables. So, they have carrots that are made from meat.
Eelco: That's so funny.
Dean: Meat based vegetables. It's so ... talk about knowing your audience though, right? They're exactly the kind of person who's not going to ... they're not going to get sucked into a plant based vegetable diet, yeah. Meat based vegetables.
Eelco: Also, I never count calories.
Dean: No, you don't worry about that. You just-
Eelco: No, zero. Zero.
Dean: ... you're either hungry or-
Eelco: Yeah. Again, I'm eating-
Dean: ... I guess because you're doing all those things and you don't feel bloated, you don't feel-
Eelco: ... yeah.
Dean: ... and the combinations of the vegetables. What about like potatoes?
Eelco: No.
Dean: Oh. See, now that's a vegetable though, you've got that in there.
Eelco: It's a carb.
Dean: So, now you're ... ah, but you didn't mention that.
Eelco: No, no vegetables.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: Also no ... sorry, no vegetables ... no potatoes. Of course-
Dean: No potatoes.
Eelco: ... we do vegetables. But it's my personal rule, it's carbs.
Dean: Rice?
Eelco: Nope.
Dean: No rice?
Eelco: Nope. No pasta, no carbs.
Dean: Right.
Eelco: Of course, there's carbs in spinach and stuff, but you've got the carbs [inaudible 01:35:18].
Dean: You know, your boy John Reese is a potato lover, he's a potatoes only kind of guy. That's his big-
Eelco: Yeah. I'm not saying ... I think potatoes are great. I think-
Dean: ... that's what Penn Gillette, from Penn and Teller, when he lost 100 and something pounds. I spoke at Dan Kennedy's super conference, and Penn Gillette was speaking there. I had never met him, but I saw him at this event, it was the first time. I had always seen him on TV, and it was right on the heels he had just literally lost 120 pounds or something. But he did it ... started out just potatoes, nothing but potatoes. And the thing was, more importantly than that there's any magic about potatoes was breaking the addiction to food.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: That you realize, okay, we're just doing a reset.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah. So, again, I'm not anti certain foods. My wife is eating yogurt, whatever. I'm like, yeah, well I'm not eating it, but I'm not saying that it's bad for you. But for me, I cut it out.
Dean: Yeah. How do you ... I mean, with the kids and the house, there's bound to be Oreos or some-
Eelco: No problem.
Dean: ... yeah.
Eelco: I can literally-
Dean: It doesn't matter.
Eelco: ... the moment I made the decision, I don't see it anymore. We go-
Dean: Isn't it funny how we don't ... yeah, it doesn't require any discipline to not eat rocks-
Eelco: ... no, exactly.
Dean: ... because we don't even register that as food. It doesn't take any discipline to not eat this bottle, or if this was full of windshield wiper fluid, I would feel no compulsion to drink it.
Eelco: We went to Italy a couple weeks after I made the decision. And it was an all-inclusive hotel, high end, and-
Dean: Pasta.
Eelco: ... the buffets and then the dessert. It was the most beautiful thing you ever saw, but I didn't see it. It was just ... it wasn't on my radar. I saw it. It's not that I didn't see it, but I had zero cravings or it was ... it's just not an option. You just don't do it.
Dean: That's awesome.
Eelco: So, it's the whole 100 percent a day for the rest of your life. It set me free. Again, this works for anything. This works for food, this works for internet addiction, this works for anything. If you're addicted to porn or whatever, yeah, you can't do it just once a week, just never do it again.
Dean: Yeah, without saying-
Eelco: Yeah, with everything.
Dean: ... cheat day.
Eelco: Yeah, yeah, cheat day, yeah.
Dean: Saturday.
Eelco: So, it's with everything. And I never thought about it that way until I thought about it that way, and it changed everything. And I've had people come up to me who have stopped drinking, stopped smoking, and I never ... I don't know how to stop smoking. I never smoked in my life. But because they heard this story, they're okay, yeah. Well, this is what it is.
Dean: It's interesting because Tony Robbins also said that change is instant.
Eelco: Which I never really believed until I experienced it. And it was, wow, okay.
Dean: Change is instant. It's the moment when you decide, that's it.
Eelco: Yeah. And you have to decide for yourself because I thought about this at my event and I told them, don't decide right now. I mean, you're now high on this event. You're, oh yeah, I can do this. Understand this idea and do it whenever you're ready. When you're ready, make the decision, but when it's extrinsic, it's not going to work. It's got to be your decision. And make the decision whenever you're ready. I mean, you can do it now, or in two months, three months, five months, whatever, but make the decision to never again if you're addicted. If you know I'm addicted, okay, never again.
And you think you'll miss out on so much stuff, but you'll miss out on nothing. It's the same if you go off, I don't know, Facebook or whatever. You're, I'm missing out on a lot. No. You figure out, after a couple of days, not really. You've got your best friends are in your phone.
Dean: Yeah. I look at that. That's something that I've been observing a lot lately is just the frequency of stuff. Realizing that back 25 years ago we only ... the frequency of stuff was getting the mail once a day, and you would see the news or whatever, the newspapers and the magazines and stuff, that was your intake to the stuff. And I just recently read that ... and we did the calculations on it ... that in every hour or every minute of every day right now, there are 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube right now. Every minute.
Eelco: 300 hours?
Dean: 300 hours a minute.
Eelco: Maybe even more.
Dean: Times 60 ... yeah. So, 18,000 hours per hour-
Eelco: I think more.
Dean: ... times 24, 432,000 hours of video, divided by a 2,000 hour work year, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. It would take you 216 full work weeks, nonstop, to watch one day's worth of video that's posted up on YouTube. And so, you start to realize we're beyond the point where we can keep up. There's no hope for keeping up.
Eelco: Impossible.
Dean: And I think we're getting ... but we're still trying. I mean, everybody's ... that's why there's novelty and there's new. We're constantly ... there's new stuff. That's why Facebook goes to great lengths to make sure that there's novelty, that you're getting the dopamine that's like the slot machines. When you press your updates, let's see, are there new people? New updates going on here? And it's fresh squirts of dopamine, and you keep coming back and keep recycling.
Eelco: Yeah, man.
Dean: So, to artificially put yourself in a position where it only comes once a day, it's like pushing the pause button.
Eelco: And it slows down time. You get so much more time.
Dean: Yeah. So, what do you do with all your time now? So, you wake up ... you don't have any ... used to be check the phone constantly.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: How often were you checking stuff or being ... consuming?
Eelco: Well, if I had access, all the time. And the first second you get bored, you check your phone. I was never bored anymore.
Dean: And then two hours later.
Eelco: Yeah. Just consistently, yeah. And whenever there's a moment, you check it. It's almost impossible not to check it.
Dean: That is really interesting that our minds ... I think I was sharing with you that that's one realization that our brains use 100 percent of our time.
Eelco: All the time.
Dean: Our attention is engaged 100 percent of the time that we're awake. And we're so afraid of not being engaged in something. Like I was mentioning, I've started when I get in the car turning it ... not turning on the radio, or a podcast, or anything, and just driving the 10 minutes to Starbucks with nothing.
Eelco: I mean, how much more information do we need to do what we need to do?
Dean: There are simple swaps, like that. I think that, as an exercise of swapping out listening to podcasts, or listening to the radio, for just listening to your thoughts, and then instead of watching another episode of Shark Tank on reruns, just take that hour and have an episode of think tank yourself. And that's such an amazing thing.
I consciously, in my schedule, set aside three or four sessions a week of just-
Eelco: Thinking.
Dean: ... thinking.
Eelco: Yeah, man. That's it.
Dean: Like labeled that for a 50-minute focus finder, 50-minute time frame.
Eelco: Did an interview with Keith Cunningham last week, two weeks ago.
Dean: Yeah. I didn't realize, but he's big on thinking time.
Eelco: In his book, it has over 700 thinking time questions.
Dean: Okay, that's great. I didn't know that.
Eelco: He built his whole business and everything around thinking time.
Dean: Yeah, I love it.
Eelco: Yeah, it's great. It's really great.
Dean: That's great. I need to read it then.
Eelco: Yeah. His book, The Road Less Stupid, is one of the best books ever.
Dean: That's great.
Eelco: I ordered 100 copies.
Dean: Oh really? Wow.
Eelco: So good. I think he's one of the best business thinkers of all time, and one of the best business teachers as well.
Dean: Where does he live?
Eelco: Austin.
Dean: Oh, he's in Texas, okay.
Eelco: He was at the Genius Network last time, and he'll be at the annual event as well.
Dean: Oh, that's great.
Eelco: No, he's extraordinary, extraordinary.
Dean: Now, did he come to Tony Robbins' Business Mastery?
Eelco: Yeah. He teaches at the Business Mastery.
Dean: Okay, great. So, now that's the same guy.
Eelco: We have him.
Dean: Oh great, nice.
Eelco: I'll give you ... I have 100. I got a message that they were stalled at [inaudible 01:46:02]. Nice.
Dean: manifested them.
Eelco: Yeah, we just ... yeah. But yeah, I was at Business Mastery like five years ago, and he was talking about accounting, which is the most boring topic ever. But in four hours, really, really help. The boss is getting scary with a knife.
Dean: Yeah, exactly. Over there.
Eelco: Yeah. But he teached accounting for four hours. And there were people in the audience who were accountants, and they said, yeah, I've been studying this topic for four years. And I learned more in these four hours than in these four years. Yeah, the guy's brilliant. I went to his four-day MBA a couple years ago in Austin. He's just super prolific and great teacher. So much wisdom, and all based from real experience.
Dean: Right on.
Eelco: And one of the secrets that he almost never talks about is that the whole book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, is based on him.
Dean: Oh, he's the rich dad.
Eelco: He's the rich dad, yeah.
Dean: Oh wow, that's interesting.
Eelco: Yeah, one of the best thinkers I know.
Dean: Nice. But he doesn't seem to be old enough to be Kiyosaki's rich dad.
Eelco: I think he's in his 70s.
Dean: Okay.
Eelco: Here, you get a signed copy.
Dean: Oh wow, look at that.
Eelco: Here you are. Look at the thinking time. Okay, just pull out one thinking time question-
Dean: One thinking time question.
Eelco: Random.
Dean: Let's have a thinking time question.
Eelco: And we'll answer it.
Dean: Advice from the Chairman of the Board. Okay. So, I just scroll through thinking time.
Eelco: Yeah. What's the question?
Dean: Okay. Where are we relying on the story and not the facts? I'll read three, then we can pick one. Where are we relying on the story and not the facts? What solution have we created that is not working because we don't have the skill set, experience, or bandwidth to successfully execute? That's a good one. What opportunities in front of me require additional knowledge or new skills?
Oh, I see. So, these are ... this is ... I mean, there's hundreds of questions in here.
Eelco: Over 700. And every question, you could think about it for 30 minutes to 50 minutes.
Dean: What decisions have I been postponing in the irrational hope that the problem will somehow resolve itself?
Eelco: It's so good. If you just ask that question to yourself-
Dean: Just honestly ask yourself that question.
Eelco: ... and think about it for 20, 30 minutes. Imagine the wisdom you come up with and the real ... it's really good. It's a great book.
Dean: I love it. Well, thank you, this is awesome. I like-
Eelco: Yeah. He autographed all of them.
Dean: ... the discipline of thinking time. So this great, but I've already got the thinking time. So, now it will be good to have the thinking questions.
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: I like that. The Road Less Stupid.
Eelco: Cool, man. Any last words of wisdom?
Dean: Let's see. You know, it's so funny. How long have we been talking because we could keep talking forever? This is-
Eelco: I think for a while.
Dean: ... yeah, it's funny.
Eelco: Let me check.
Dean: Going Joe Rogan style here.
Eelco: 90 minutes.
Dean: Wow.
Eelco: Yeah-
Dean: Well, there we go.
Eelco: ... something like that.
Dean: Well, that would be ... I'm sure we'll do another session, but that's all good stuff. I love to catch up.
Eelco: We should ... we could increase the periodic podcast to like a quarterly podcast or whatever, or stick to this one.
Dean: We could.
Eelco: Bonus episodes.
Dean: Yeah. Or we'll do bonus episodes while we're here, but we only recording them in the time that they're here.
Eelco: Yeah, exactly.
Dean: That's funny. Yeah, because we've got ... we can talk about some more stuff, and maybe we've got some special guests-
Eelco: Yeah, that's a good idea.
Dean: ... too, right?
Eelco: Yeah.
Dean: That would be a good thing.
Eelco: Cool, man.
Dean: Okay. Let's get some meat, or fish-
Eelco: Or chicken.
Dean: ... or chicken.
Eelco: Yeah, let's do it.
Dean: But none of that sugar.
Eelco: No, no, no.
Dean: Okay. And there we have it, another great episode. And if you would like to continue the conversation, you can go to listingagentlifestyle.com, you can download a copy of the Listing Agent Lifestyle book, the manifesto that shares everything that we're talking about here, and you can be a guest on the show if you would like to talk about how we can build a listing agent lifestyle plan for your business. Just click on the Be a Guest link at listingagentlifestyle.com. And if you would like to join our community of people who are applying all of the things we talk about in the Listing Agent Lifestyle, come on over to gogoagent.com. That's where we've got all the programs, all the tools, everything you need to get listings, to multiply your listings, to get referrals, convert leads, and to find buyers. And you can get a free, truly free, no credit card required trial for 30 days at gogoagent.com.
So, come on over and I will see you there.