070: Mike Koenigs on Connecting & Becoming Unforgettable to the Rich & Famous, Building a Media Empire, & Investing in Yourself

[INTRODUCTION]

 

Welcome to this episode of the Elite Advisor Blueprint Podcast with your host, Brad Johnson. Brad’s the VP of Advisor Development in Advisors Excel, the largest independent insurance brokerage company in the US. He’s also a regular contributor to InvestmentNews, the Wall Street Journal, and other industry publications.

 

[00:00:26] Brad Johnson: Welcome to the Elite Advisor Blueprint, the podcast for world-class financial advisors. I’m Brad Johnson, VP of Advisor Development at Advisors Excel and it’s my goal to distill the best ideas and advice from top thought leaders and apply it to the world of independent financial advising. Today, I’m talking with Mike Koenigs. Mike is a serial entrepreneur, an investor, 13-time number one best-selling author, podcast host, TV personality, and advisor to Tony Robbins and other celebrity clients. He’s a cancer survivor and a true master of helping business owners and entrepreneurs build empires. In today’s episode, Mike is sharing his proven secrets to showing up different and making meaningful connections with highly influential people. There is not a whole lot I can promise you that Mike hasn’t done. So, today you’re going to learn, number one, how to build a platform that increases your circle of influence and lands you high net worth clients. Number two, the psychology behind how A+ clients choose their financial advisor, including how Mike personally filtered out all of the different prospects he had and decided on the best advisor to handle his own business. And number three, Mike’s proven framework for successfully getting featured on virtually any media outlet you can imagine. 

 

Okay. Before we get to the show, as a special thank you to you blueprint listeners, Mike was kind enough to offer all of you a free download of his e-book. It’s titled Money Phone: How to Turn Your Smartphone into a Six Figure Money-Making Marketing Machine and Close BIG Deals Quickly and Easily with Mobile Text and Video Marketing. Yes, that’s the full title. It’s the same strategy he used when we actually first met and from experience, I can tell you that it leaves an incredible first impression that will help you stand out from any crowd. The book also happens to include a step-by-step video tutorial that outlines how to find prospects and close four or five and even six-figure deals. 

 

[00:02:29] Brad Johnson: If you’d like your free download of Mike’s book and access to the training videos, there’s a graphic right at the top of the show notes at BradleyJohnson.com/70 or if you happen to be listening in on a mobile player, most times just simply scroll down into the show notes. There will be a link right there to get to it. So, that’s it. As always, thanks for listening and without further delay my conversation with Mike Koenigs. 

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

[00:02:57] Brad Johnson: Welcome to this episode of The Elite Advisor Blueprint. I have special guest, Mike Koenigs, with us. Welcome to the show, Mike.

 

[00:03:05] Mike Koenigs: Hey, it’s nice to be here, Brad. Thank you very much.

 

[00:03:08] Brad Johnson: Now, this conversation isn’t quite as interesting as of place venue, I guess, as our first conversation. I have the opportunity when I was out in San Diego for a conference. My good friend, Justin Donald, said, “Hey, I’ve got a buddy, Mike. You have to meet him.” And it just so happened I’m trying to remember. It was what? Raised By Wolves. 

 

[00:03:26] Mike Koenigs: Raised By Wolves. It’s got a Scooby-Doo entrance into a bar that you sit in a couple of chairs and it rotates around into this old-style speakeasy. It’s one of my favorite places to take my wife. It’s so funky and chill and they got really good drinks in there too, I might add. 

 

[00:03:43] Brad Johnson: Yeah. That was a fun way to meet for the first time. So, we won’t go too far off track because I think our 5 to 10-minute conversation before we went live here could have been a podcast all on its own. So, there’s so much I want to take the knowledge, the wisdom that you’ve developed over years of being an entrepreneur, and I want to share with the audience here. So, let’s just go straight into this. You’ve had the ability for those that aren’t familiar you’ve bought, I should say, started, sold multiple businesses. You’ve worked with some of the who’s who between Tony Robbins, and some of the other big names out there that have massive platforms. Let’s just start there. You have a knack for connecting with ultra-successful entrepreneurs, high earners. What’s your secret to that? Because there’s a lot of advisors out there that they want to learn how to do that as well. 

 

[00:04:30] Mike Koenigs: All right. Well, I’ll start with a story because stories always teach the best thing and maybe a little backstory, so you’ve got some framing. I grew up lower-middle class. My dad’s a barber. I’m the oldest of four kids growing up in a tiny little town in Minnesota called Eagle Lake, and I know you’re a Minnesotan too originally, Midwest guy. 

 

[00:04:48] Brad Johnson: Midwest, for sure. Yep. 

 

[00:04:50] Mike Koenigs: Yep. And so, I grew up without resources, mentors, tools and I knew three things growing up. One is we grew up without money. My dad worked a lot besides having a barbershop. He was the city clerk building inspector and he volunteered a lot of time at a Catholic church. And then my mom was a work-at-home mom. We basically grew up eating out of the garden and catching fish. And so, when people have said, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I said, “I want to be rich, warm in fur.” So, I taught myself how to program. I started working full time the day I turned 16 and I was making money from seven years old on delivering papers and anything in between, anything I could do to make money. 

 

And so, I fell in love with business and entrepreneurship but I also dreamed and fantasized about Hollywood and stars. But you know, I wasn’t good at school. I wasn’t good at anything really. It was like how the hell am I ever going to get and be around that? I wanted to explore and understand celebrity. And I was fascinated by movies and music. So, if you fast forward to not that long ago, one of the ways that I began building my own platform or my own celebrity is by helping other celebrities build their platforms. So, one of those things I wound up, we’ll get back to this at some point, but I wrote a book. And I was on a flight going to South by Southwest just a few years ago and I overheard two guys, in fact, they were financial advisors talking in front of me, and they were talking money and they said, “Hey, do you see who’s in front of us?” and other guy goes, “Yeah. I saw him on the way in. It’s Richard Dreyfuss.” 

 

[00:06:35] Mike Koenigs: And I’m like, “Shoot, I want to meet Richard Dreyfuss.” So, one of the things I always do whenever I travel, I’ve got some of them here is I always have at least one of my books with me in my bag, just in case I meet someone. So, what I did is I quickly researched Richard Dreyfus, and I’m like, “What kind of an introductory phrase can I have that will really grab him?” And that’s really the first thing is you need to have a reason why, and a good hook if you’re going to meet anyone with any status and you cannot walk up and say, “Hey, I really like your movies,” or something stupid. You’ve got to stand out and be unique. And so, what I did is I researched him and one thing I know about every celebrity is they always have a charity or a nonprofit that they’re affiliated or associated with. They’re always raising money for something. And the illusion about celebrities is they all are rich or they’ve got a huge amount of cash available to them. 

 

The truth of the matter is they’re surrounded by vampires. Very few of them have a lot of cash at any given time. So, I looked him up and sure as heck, he had a nonprofit. And what I did is I took my book and I always also travel with a sharpie. So, I quickly pulled up my book, I signed it, I put my phone number in the book cover and my email address. So, as the plane landed, I quickly wedged myself up right behind him. And just as we’re getting on – what’s that thing called where you’re walking to and from the plane? Not a gangplank.

 

[00:08:11] Brad Johnson: Yeah. A little walkway.

 

[00:08:12] Mike Koenigs: Walkway. There you go. Thank you. It’s nice to be talking to smart people. All right. So, I walked up and I said, “Mr. Dreyfuss, my name is Mike Koenigs and I have some ideas to help you raise money for your nonprofit.” And he turned to me and he said, “Come with me.” He goes, “Boy, I need you.” Anyway, we ended up having this conversation, and we went back and forth and he asked me he’s like, “So, where are you going?” I go, “I’m going to South by Southwest.” He goes, “Me too.” We had a connecting flight. It was in Salt Lake City. He goes, “What flight are you on?” and then he goes, “What seat are you on,” and I go, “This one.” He goes, “We’re not sitting together. Not yet, but I’ll make sure we are. I have a little pull around here.” So, anyway, he ended up negotiating, getting us seats next to each other. I sat next to him the whole flight from Salt Lake to Austin, Texas and spent hours together. I ended up getting a great selfie shot, of course, have this conversation.

 

He says, “So, what’s your big idea?” And I went on, I’m like, “Well, one way,” and he told me he says, “I had surgery on my back. I’m in pain. I’m an old guy. I’m tired of traveling. But I got to show up if I’m going to raise money.” So, I said, “Well, how about this? Why don’t you come to my studio? I got a studio. I can interview you. We can do an interview that sets you up, tells your story and the reason why you can share the video and city you always having to show up. And that way you can make money remotely. I can also show you how you can do webinars,” because he’s not a technology guy. Well, he was surrounded with tech people. And finally, I said, “Have you ever written a book?” and he goes, “I’ve been working on a book for five years.” So, I said, “Tell you what, I’ll sit down with you. I’ll outline your entire book for you on how to frame your nonprofit so your book can raise money too.” And he was so grateful. And two weeks later, he’s sitting in my studio, the same one that Tony Robbins has been in, Paula Abdul, lots and lots of celebrities and business leaders. 

 

[00:10:06] Mike Koenigs: You know, Brian Tracy’s another one. The list goes on and on. But the way I’ve connected with them was always have a hook. Always be of service and find a way to accelerate them to the destination they want to hit really, really quickly. And you’d be amazed at how busy people, busy celebrities will make time for you because they’re always used to someone sucking them dry. And of course, they can smell someone who’s a user very, very quickly but he knew that I was speaking from service. I never asked for anything other than I got some great photos, ended up building a relationship with him, and he’s like, “Call me anytime whenever you need.” But that really was the key. And for me, having a book means you can get past the velvet rope and connect with someone. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. It’s just your basic story, who you are, what you do, why you do it, and who you do it for. 

 

[00:11:00] Brad Johnson: That’s an awesome story. We were talking before we went live here and you said you don’t use business cards. So, is your business card your book? Is that how it all comes together? 

 

[00:11:10] Mike Koenigs: It can be. So, that’s one. What I always do now like one of the nice things is when you publish on Amazon and you use what’s known as Amazon KDP like this is a friend of mine, Curtis Estes, who wrote a book called Smart Money. He’s a financial advisor. And you can print books like this and this is thin. It’s only like, yeah, it’s less than 100 pages. So, you can print a book. Here’s one of my books and it’s actually the strategy that I use for how I meet people I call Money Phone. And this book is also, yeah, it’s less than 100 pages. This thing cost me less than $2 to print for color, color, cover. And as an author from Amazon, you can order books, have them shipped to wherever you are. So, before I’m going to be somewhere if I’m speaking, I just order a couple of boxes of books. It doesn’t matter if you’re ordering two or 2,000. It all costs the same. 

 

You show up and I always use them as a way to introduce myself if I’m speaking or connecting with someone. How are you going to be memorable? Well, no one remembers a business card. It’s like who’s this from? Give them a book, sign it. They’re not going to throw that thing away. It’s meaningful. It has value. But the other way, and this is how you and I met when Justin introduced us, the whole premise behind Money Phone is this. You always have your mobile. And, you know, when we met, I pulled out my phone, and I quickly put up the phone and I grabbed a selfie of you and me. And nowadays with the latest iPhone, the iPhone 11, in this case, this thing rocks. It is so good. It looks so great. But I’ll take a really nice photo, a portrait, and now I even tweak it a little bit but in the past, I just took the snapshot and said, “Hey, what’s your number?” I text it really fast. 

 

[00:12:57] Mike Koenigs: And then if I’m at an event or a place where I’m meeting folks, while I’m there, I’ll find a location that looks memorable and I will do a short video and it would be something like I’d hold it up and I’d say, boom, “Hey, Brad, it was really nice meeting you at Raised By Wolves. While we were there, you and I talked about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m going to follow up in 48 hours. Or if you want, I’m going to just text you a link right now and you can schedule a quick appointment on my ScheduleOnce calendar and we can talk about blah, blah, blah.” Boom, okay? I’ll make either a generic one for everyone. It’s like, “Hey, you and I met at blah, blah, blah,” and send out 10 of those. I’ll have four meetings scheduled and because I’ve got a system and a process for asking questions that are service-related, providing value, my enrollment rate is insanely high. 

 

And then, periodically, what I do every two weeks, I open up my phone, I open up my messages, and I look through all the people I’ve met or connected over the past couple weeks. I make a list of them and I do a quick follow up message, which is, “Hey, blah, blah, blah name. Is there anything you need from me?” And all I’m looking for is engagement. Well, over time, you know, if you’ve accumulated whether it’s 20 or 50 or 100 connections, I guarantee you in your phone, there are hundreds of people that you forgot to follow up or they forgot to follow up. And because I have their name, and I have a picture, I remember exactly who they are and what we talked about at that moment. And all I do is I put my phone in airplane mode while I create responses and think about it so I don’t get interrupted. Otherwise, you’re going to have the OSHA moment. You know what I mean? thinking about, “Oh, I forgot to do, I forgot to, I forgot to, I forgot that.” Don’t let that happen. Don’t get overwhelmed or distracted. 

 

[00:14:58] Brad Johnson: What’s so funny is when we connected at Raised By Wolves, it was very natural. It didn’t feel salesy or used car salesy. It was like, “Hey, let’s grab a picture. Let me get your…” and then you sent the picture. 

 

[00:15:15] Mike Koenigs: Yeah. I had no like, “Oh man, I’m going to get something from Brad,” moment. None of that. All I do now is my value to someone is, first of all, if I’m really good at building platforms and making people celebrities in their category, what I call a category one, everyone needs it. So, I don’t have any insecurities about my value but I’m really good at making connections and creating meaningful relationships. And people who know me remember me because I introduced them to someone of value. So, to me, knowing people who love to create and provide and share value is what I live for. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt the universe is going to take care of me. I’ve got a great wife, a great son, a great life, and I’ve done it. I don’t need more stuff. But I want deep, intimate, meaningful relationships. I want narrow and deep. I don’t want wide and shallow. And that’s philosophically the place I operate from.

 

[00:16:16] Brad Johnson: And the other thing you do is you show up differently, like even the Richard Dreyfuss story. Everybody else that tries to meet him, “Oh, I saw you in Mr. Holland’s Opus. You were amazing,” and like even to the video connection, it’s funny. So, Justin, our mutual friend, I had a birthday in August. And, number one, I don’t want to downplay any of this because anybody that reaches out to you on your birthday and says, “Hey, happy birthday,” I appreciate that and a lot of people don’t even make the effort. So, any effort is amazing. But I had all these texts coming in and then all of a sudden, I was like, “Man, I’m like sitting here, like this is a birthday present. I’m trying to respond to all these.” I had like two friends. One of which is John Ruhlin, who I’m guessing somehow you probably connected with over the years, sent me a video. Like John sent me a heartfelt video from the back of an Uber. It was probably 30 to 45 seconds long, like, “So glad you’re in my life. Here’s what you mean to me. Hope you’re having an awesome birthday.” 

 

And I was like, “Man, he just showed up way different than everybody else.” And so, ever since then, Justin and I actually, we challenge each other. We’re like, “Hey, do a birthday video. Don’t do a birthday text,” and it’s amazing the responses you get. So, I’m sure you’ve already seen a lot of that with these video messages where you’re showing up way different than everyone else. 

 

[00:21:29] Mike Koenigs: Well, I’ll give you another example. And right before we started recording, I told you that I’m on Elevator Pitch on Entrepreneur, which is a TV show. It’s like Shark Tank. And the way I got that gig is and I firmly believe the best thing you can do as a business owner and business leader these days is build a home studio. Now, where I am right now, I had a million-dollar studio, seven sets, completely automated and I’ve media trained hundreds of people and been in the business for 30 years. But however is I built the studio that you can see behind me, I’ve got these nice walls for anyone who’s watching the video. There’s really good lighting here, a big monitor so I can brand myself, depending on what I’m doing at any given time. 

 

And the other thing that I think is more important is no matter what, I can shoot really good video on demand. And in my case, I’ve got multiple cameras. So, if you were here, for example, I’d switch live and be able to do like this shot and your shot and go back and forth. I don’t even need an operator. It’s a little sophisticated for the average bird. But here’s what’s important. I don’t do any video proposals. All right. I mean any proposals? I don’t do any written proposals. I do video, I talk to people, and then I follow up with a video and they all look professional. So, the way I got that deal is I met a friend who wrote for Entrepreneur and I said, “Hey, is there any way I can ever write for Entrepreneur?” And he goes, “Yeah, let me hook you up. I’m going to introduce you to someone.” He introduced me to a guy, we had a quick conversation, and they said, “Yeah, we’d love to have you as a writer.” 

 

[00:23:16] Mike Koenigs: It’s not that hard to get. You know, you can get this and you can even pay for some magazines like Forbes and stuff like that. So, they made me a writer, they passed, and I started publishing. And then just through a series of things I heard about the president and I had a couple ideas that would help the magazine make some money. So, I made a very nice looking video and I said, “Hey, Bill,” the President’s name is Bill Shaw. I said, “You and I haven’t met, but we have these two friends in common and I have three ideas that’ll help Entrepreneur make more money, engage more readers, and increase the value of your advertising.” And I just rattled off the three, “And if you want to talk further, and I don’t need anything from you. I’m already a writer. I just want to serve and support because I’m here to create some value and who knows what’s going to happen next?” He followed up that day, and he said, “Holy crap, no one’s ever made a video like that for me before. Never just given and been so succinct.” 

 

We had a conversation and the first thing I said to him is I said, “If it’s okay, do I have full permission to tell you exactly what I think?” And he says, “Of course,” and I said, “You guys are in the sales and marketing prevention department, and here’s why.” And I go, boom, boom, boom, and he goes, “I completely agree with you. That was refreshing.” And we had one more conversation and then out of the blue, he says, “Hey, Entrepreneur’s doing this show. You ever seen Elevator Pitch?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ve seen it before. It’s great.” He goes, “You want to be in a couple episodes?” And I go, “Hell yeah.” So, not too long ago got the invite straight up LA studio, real production, super high quality, walked in there, ended up doing enough episodes. Now they’ve asked me back to be on the majority or all of season 6. And this is a big deal. Each video gets seen well over a million times inside of 48 hours. It’s massive exposure. 

 

[00:25:10] Mike Koenigs: And it’s positioning me as an investor and as a VC, which is something I’ve been working on but it’s sort of like you’re being blessed. So, that was a long-winded way of saying, first of all, be unique and be different. These days, think about it, like you said, when’s the last time you got a video Happy Birthday message? When’s the last time you got a succinct video proposal? You said if someone says, “Well, give me a written proposal,” I’ll say, “You write out a check for $10,000 and I’ll give you a written proposal.” I don’t do that. We can have a conversation. After that, you write out a check. I deliver results. You’ve seen the results I provided. You want to be part of this? You come to me, not the other way around. So, the power in this new media is always be the buyer. I’m never a seller. 

 

[00:26:01] Brad Johnson: So, there’s multiple places I want to go. But let’s go here first, because I’ve found by creating your own platform, which is exactly what you’ve done with the studio, what I did with the podcast accidentally, and then I started to realize the power of it later, right? It’s you have a stage, you have reach, and you will be amazed when you invite somebody on there for the benefit of them, not necessarily for you how many people say yes. So, let’s go down that path because there’s a lot of financial advisors out there, many of our top performers have radio shows, many are on TV, many are starting podcasts, many have YouTube channels, what are some secrets to I’m getting a very give value first, here’s how this can benefit you to having that studio, having that platform, and inviting the right connections on to that? What’s your framework for that? 

 

[00:26:52] Mike Koenigs: Well, I’ll begin with I’m going to make some basic assumptions because I’ve worked with a lot of financial advisors in helping build their platforms. And what I always tell them is definitely write a book and become a best seller and have a podcast. Those are the two most valuable things you can do and know that you are in the business of elevating other people and in exchange for elevating other people, they elevate you. Now, there’s a couple of lenses which is that also means that yes, you can be in service, but you’ve got to protect your brand at all costs. So, I’m going to say this in the harshest way possible to make a point which is beware of a turd in the punchbowl. Right? So, you’ve got to be very careful about who you’ve got and who you associate with. 

 

And so, I’m very, very specific, like, for example, the podcast I do with Dan Sullivan, from Strategic Coach. If you’re not familiar with Strategic Coach, there’s a lot of financial advisors who are part of that. Dan Sullivan is a guru. Strategic Coach is about to celebrate its 35th year in business. Dan, as an example, writes a book a quarter. He’s 75 years old. He burns 1,000 calories before breakfast every day. This guy is a machine like no one’s business and he is the most interesting clear-thinking human being I’ve ever known. I consider him he’s like a best friend, brother, father, grandfather all at the same time to me, and we met 15 years ago and we just really enjoyed each other’s company. But here’s a guy with the substantive platform. They’ve trained over 35,000 business leaders and business owners over their careers. 

 

[00:28:36] Mike Koenigs: So, just having a podcast with Dan Sullivan instantly gave me status in an environment, an access to some remarkable people, and I get to sit down with a guru. You know, like I invest tens of thousands of dollars every year to be part of Strategic Coach. And I went there to learn originally, and I loved learning from Dan, but he’s a guy who says no. So, anyway, I’m setting that up because having the podcast has given me remarkable access to a great audience. When you write a book, you’re instantly elevated. When you have a podcast, people recognize you. They feel like you are a celebrity. And as long as you accept that gift and you wear it appropriately, and you don’t water it down, it is very powerful. 

 

And what I’ve learned is, like I’ve been interviewing a lot of celebrities lately on the podcast. So, when Dan and I do every other episode one’s one with him and me and the other one’s just me interviewing a celeb. And I’m fascinated by comedy right now. I think comedy is the fastest mechanism to communicate an enormous amount of complex information in the shortest period of time. And because your heart is open when you laugh, you can open up to content that you’d normally say no to in a non-comedic situation. So, I love the psychology of comedy. And so, the fastest way for me to learn is by interviewing the masters. So, I interviewed a guy named Adam Conover who a show called Adam Ruins Everything. I interviewed one of the greatest comedians from the 80s. His name is Yakov Smirnoff, a really fascinating, lovely guy. 

 

[00:30:28] Mike Koenigs: And now I’ve got access to some really big A-listers through their agent. So, I’ve access to a very big Hollywood agent. Every time I go out and I meet people, I’m connecting and they’re like, “Oh, yeah, Mike’s the host of a podcast.” So, now that I’ve kind of laid down that framework, what’s important is the way I gain access to people is, number one, I invest in my ongoing personal development. Last year, I invested over a half-million dollars in me and that’s paying for coaches and advisors and also belonging to groups like Strategic Coach, Genius Network, Archangel, Mastermind Talks, Abundance 360, XPRIZE Visioneering. Those are just a few of them. 

 

And if you’re going to look at this from a mercenary lead generation perspective, which is not my psychology looking in, but again, I’m going to reduce it to its lowest fundamental frequency here, those are programs that the investment is $25,000 to $50,000 to go to these things. What kind of people do you think are there? Right? There is no chaff in that week, baby. There’s a poser shows up every once in a while, but they’re gone. They’re gone after one time. Like I’ve been part of the Genius Network for 10 years now. I’ve known Joe Polish for 15 years. He’s a really, really good friend of mine. And when people see that I am an active participant, I’m in a lot of the marketing materials, I speak at them all the time, I give and give and give, I don’t have to go through any get-to-know-you phase. This is more like I’m furniture. I’m a familiar face. 

 

[00:32:07] Brad Johnson: You’re guilty by association in a good way.

 

[00:32:10] Mike Koenigs: That’s right. And so, I invest in long-term relationships and I invest and I invest. And just having access to those circles means I am basically a phone call away from celebrity and movers and shakers. And now when I work with people, for example, when I work with individuals who want to build their platforms, I can say to them, “Look, I’m going to help you invent and engineer a new vision for your life, whatever that may happen to look like. And one of the first things we’re going to do is I’m going to interview you. We’re going to do video. I’m going to turn it into an article. I’m going to get you published. You’re going to show up an Entrepreneur. You’ll be on the first page of Google in less than a week. And we’re going to be talking about the new you in the future you. Okay? We can invent a new vision in the future and present it and project it, which creates momentum.” 

 

And again, I just packed a whole bunch of stuff into all the stuff I talked about there, but I think it’s all tied in and as you elevate, you escalate your own personal net worth and your value. A platform enables you to never go without. You’re a phone call away, you’re one offer away from as much as you’ll ever need or want in terms of just taking care of yourself financially and from an abundance perspective. 

 

[00:33:30] Brad Johnson: Yeah, I think that’s such good advice, Mike. One of the things that’s very interesting to me is how our industry and I’m speaking about financial services here, they will spend all kinds of money on public events, seminars, radio shows, TV shows, where it’s a very kind of pushed-based marketing where in reality, if they kind of flipped that script, and looked at it as I have this amazing platform, whether it’s speaking publicly a couple times a month, I’ve got clients on the top radio stations all over the country. But if they flip that and said, “Who could I invite to ride shotgun with me where I could bring value to them?” because a lot of these big-time CEOs, they’re not calling in off a radio show. They’re not calling, you know, going to a public seminar. But if you brought them on and interviewed them as a peer, like half of them would show up with just an invite. And I’ve tried to share that, but it’s helpful to hear it from your perspective of how you’re not in financial services, but it works over and over and over.

 

[00:34:30] Mike Koenigs: Well, I’ll give you a model, a business model that one of my clients used and it was one of my favorite stories for a long time, completely correlates to this. And it would apply and work with someone in any kind of financial market. So, the net-net is interview the people you want to work with, okay, which means if you interview them and they get to talk about their favorite subject in the whole wide world, which is themselves for 20 or 40 minutes, and then after the interview is done, you say, “Hey, I’ve got a couple ideas that will help you blah, blah, blah,” whatever the blah, blah, blah, may happen to be, increase your net worth, save on taxes, increase your wealth, decrease, improve blah, blah, blah. They’re going to be like, “Of course.  What?” They’re open. Again, their heart’s open when they’ve been talking about themselves or about their gifts and their abilities. So, here’s a brief story that’s relevant to that. 

 

I had, for years, one of my businesses, helped business owners, business leaders write books and become bestselling authors. We helped over 1,800 of them and like 350 were financial advisors, so that’s why I know your market pretty well. And this particular guy was an airline pilot, had been flying for American for almost two decades and he was just sick of it. And, you know, a lot of people don’t know, pilots don’t make jack. It’s not a lucrative space to be in and he was also just tired of it and he wanted to have another business. So, he went through one of my courses that not only taught you how to write a book, but also how to do book writing and create books for other business executives, because he could make a really good living helping people share their work or their words. 

 

[00:36:15] Mike Koenigs: So, he went to a convention with a bunch of doctors at, but you could just as well say a bunch of financial advisors would have been the same thing here. And it turned out the conference was geared around medical tourism, in other words, flying or going somewhere to have some sort of medicine done like you go to Thailand for stem cell treatments or whatever, whatever. And while he was there, he talked about building and growing your business with social media and books. Well, he got a bunch of doctors come up to him and say, “Yeah, I want you to help me create my book.” So, he got like $50,000 or $60,000 worth of business while he was there but he also connected with all of these hospitals that do medical tourism. And at that moment, he decided to start a podcast. The podcast was called Healthcare Elsewhere and all he did is he interviewed the founders, the owners, the primary doctors from each one of these medical facilities all over the world about what they do and how they do it. 

 

And then, of course, the immediately following they have a conversation, the enrollment conversation, “Hey, how would you like some help with your social media, writing a book, and building your platform?” And he built a very nice, very lucrative say around a seven-figure-a-year business eventually to the extent where a country that was doing medical tourism, as part of its entire city, the city asked him to be their marketing advisor. So, he became a marketing advisor for a country because he started a podcast. That, to me, is a remarkable story of transformation. And he knew nothing about medical tourism but he suddenly became an expert, and then he took all the transcripts in the podcast and wrote a book called Healthcare Elsewhere. Suddenly the number one expert on medical tourism, probably in the world. 

 

[00:38:13] Brad Johnson: Yeah. Oh my gosh, there’s so many different places we can go there, but I love just that soundbite, interview the people you want to work with. And it’s just I ran this experiment for a while, right? And I think where a lot of financial advisors kind of get caught up in the weeds, you’ll appreciate this. This is directly from Dan Sullivan. It’s the who versus how, right? And I think a lot of people like, “Oh, I could never figure out how the technical side of running a podcast, all that.” You don’t need to. I’ve got a guy named Charlie. The hardest part of this podcast is having this conversation right here with you, Mike. The rest, handled. What are your thoughts if you’re going to give advice to financial advisors out there that wanted to start a podcast? How tough is it from your perspective?

 

[00:38:59] Mike Koenigs: That’s incredibly easy. So, first of all, the podcast itself is the easy part, which is scheduled faults. You can use a tool like what we use ScheduleOnce. It schedules. It sends all the follow-up messages. Anyone can set that up. You can hire someone for a couple hundred bucks off of Fiverr who would do it or your personal assistant can do it. If you don’t have a personal assistant? Get one. This isn’t that complicated and from there… 

 

[00:39:23] Brad Johnson: Real quick, I just have to throw this in because this is one of my favorite lines from one of our biggest clients. He says, “If you don’t have an assistant, you are the assistant.” So, for those of you out there that don’t, just go ahead and bite the bullet because it pays for itself 10X over. 

 

[00:39:38] Mike Koenigs: Yeah, if you want, I’ll tell you a great how to hire a personal assistant story because I have a whole system for that when we go back. Alright. So, back to starting a podcast. It’s so easy and I’ll give you a, for example, just yesterday, I am actually starting a second podcast with another podcast partner. The guy’s name is Gay Hendricks. He’s a very well-known author. He has a huge platform. One of his biggest books is called The Big Leap. I highly recommend. A lot of people know of this book and it’s all about your next big leap or your next phase in your professional career and getting aligned with what that is and then what stands in the way of it. But he’s got a very interesting way of thinking, very similar, in fact, to Dan. And now I think about it, he’s in his early 70s as well. He’s probably around 75, same as Dan. 

 

And I consider him one of my great friends and mentors but Gay and I have actually built and sold a couple businesses together, separate from my main four. And we stayed in touch for a long time and he reached out to me the other day, and I said, “You know what, why don’t we just start a podcast together?” He goes, “That’s a great idea. Let me think about it first.” So, yesterday, we had the conversation. And the reason I set this up is because now we’re actually doing it. So, here’s what’s going to happen. 

 

[00:41:05] Brad Johnson: So, 24 hours basically. 24 hours and you’re running.

 

[00:41:08] Mike Koenigs: Yeah, that’s right. So, I’ve got an assistant who’s working with me. You know, I could do it all but I’m not going to because it’s a bad use of my unique abilities and my talents, my superpowers. So, we’re going to call it the big leap. I hire some musicians. We’re creating some custom music and I said, “Hey, Gay, what’s your favorite kind of music? What should it be like?” And he goes, “I love Ska.” I go, “Great.” So, we grabbed a couple concepts like a Sublime. There’s also a song by Amy Winehouse. We’re having some knockoff music created. I’m going to hire a designer and we’re going to create the podcast art is going to look like an album cover. And we’re going to call it The Big Leap. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like yet, but we’re going to run a design contest on 99designs. And then from there…

 

[00:42:00] Brad Johnson: Which real quick because some of the audience might not be – that’s actually how I created my podcast cover art was 99designs. Can you just give an overview of what 99designs is? 

 

[00:42:09] Mike Koenigs: Sure. What you do is you establish a prize and they call it crowdsourcing. So, you fill out a design brief and you say, “Hey.” So, let’s say, for example, I wanted a cross between the Police yet Zenyatta Mondatta cover. 

 

[00:342:26] Brad Johnson: I’m picturing Sublime, the album that I – if you’re going Ska, you know? 

 

[00:42:31] Mike Koenigs: Totally. Yeah, exactly. But you could say I want something like this, I want something like this, I want something like this. And all you do is fill in the blanks describe it and say the prize I’m going to award for this artwork is $699 because they start around $500, and then you can pay more and that essentially gets you more engagement. Of course, the bigger the prize, the more designers. Then about 50 people over a period of a week are going to start creating drawings and artwork and pictures with the hope of winning the prize. And then you grade them and you rate them and you say, “Make it a little like this, do a little like this.” And because it’s all open, everyone can read all the comments. So, you always have some little shysters in there who start knocking off other designers and kind one-upping but in general, you’ll probably have like 30, 40 people designing over a period of a week. And as long as you’re active and participating and providing feedback, you won’t believe the incredible results. 

 

And from there, you pay. Once you’ve paid, you get a full copyright release, you own everything, and then you can also if you want to pay for maybe a runner up or a second runner up also, and then you’ll own that artwork. And I do the same basic thing with music. So, I use a service called Fiverr and a couple others where I come up with. So, I’ve had knockoff music of Thunderstruck by AC/DC, Back in Black by AC/DC, Right Now by Van Halen, Empire State of Mind by Jay Z and Alicia Keys. And because it’s royalty-free “knockoff music” it sounds like but it doesn’t violate copyright. Now, whenever I speak, whenever I make videos, I’ve got my own theme music that I use. And of course, that’s what we’re going to have for our podcast as well. 

 

[00:44:20] Mike Koenigs: Now, I say this because, first of all, what is critically important if you want to start your own podcast is you want to be inspired and energized. You want to feel something just when you hear your own music open up, and people will associate a brand and brand value with you and your goal is to own a word in someone’s mind. I call it a category of one. And then the notion is, it’s like when you hear the word Alicia or Sting or Michael or name a celebrity, Elvis, you want to own an idea and a feeling and a thought and a concept. And, of course, a lot of people might go, “Yeah, but I’m a financial advisor. It’s nothing special, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” and it’s like If you want, I’ll tell you an amazing story of someone I just worked with that was pretty transformational and breaks that mold and there’s nothing easy about it. Okay. It’s grueling hard work, but it’s absolutely possible. 

 

[00:45:26] Brad Johnson: So, this is the issue talking with you, Mike. There’s always like this is a hard interview. There’s eight different ways I can go at all at the same time. So, let’s…

 

[00:45:35] Mike Koenigs: Want to hear a badass story about a financial advisor who’s not boring anymore? 

 

[00:45:39] Brad Johnson: Yeah. Let’s do that. 

 

[00:45:40] Mike Koenigs: You take it anywhere you want to take it. 

 

[00:45:41] Brad Johnson: Let’s go. Does this relate to the team that you’ve assembled for yourself? Because I’d love to get into the psychology of how that happened. Yes? 

 

[00:45:50] Mike Koenigs: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll put it together. Because, again, I’ll provide a little bit of a backstory here. Nah, I’m just going to dive in. It’ll all make sense. 

 

[00:45:57] Brad Johnson: Yeah, go. 

 

[00:45:58] Mike Koenigs: So, I’m at an event. It’s called Abundance 360 run by Peter Diamandis. Peter is a good friend. I’ve advised him and helped him when he started creating digital products and selling his first book. And his number one, her name is Marisa, who’s worked with him for many years works with me now. And so, I’m at Abundance 360 and this guy walks up to me, and his name’s Charlie, Charlie Epstein. And he labels himself as America’s 401(k) coach. Again, if he asked me, I’d be like snore, not that interesting sounding. I’ll be like, “Oh, geez. Not one of those.” But he’s an interesting guy and he’s funny. And he just walked up to me, he says, “I want to work with you. I don’t know what we’re going to do but I want to work with you on something.” I’m like, “Well, tell me about you.” 

 

And it’s like, blah, blah, blah 401(k) do this coaching thing financial advisor. I don’t hear anything. I’m always looking for what’s unique. What’s unique? What’s your uniqueability? What’s your superpower? What can I amplify? What can I accelerate? What can I turn into your superbeing-ness? And finally, I asked him a couple other questions and he said, “Oh, and I used to do standup comedy and I did a one-man off-Broadway show about 30 years ago.” I was like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And before we got to that I was like, “Have you written a book?” “Yeah, I’ve written three.” “Have you done this?” “Yeah, I do this,” and everything was a no because he makes plenty of money. Money is not his issue. So, the more money you have, the more you’re unwilling to put up with a certain amount of stress because you’re comfortable. There’s nothing worse than a little bit too rich 60-year-old. Because their tolerance for risk and doing something special goes like this, they’re afraid. They get very fearful.

 

[00:47:52] Mike Koenigs:  And I say this because I’ve gone through my own phases where I lost my courage. I got scared, and I was too scared to fail. But I said, “Look, Charlie, I have an idea and I’m going to give you 30 seconds to say yes or no or I’m just going to walk away.” He goes, “Alright, shoot.” I go, “All right. I know some comedians and what I’m going to do with you is I’m going to put together a kickass comedy team and we’re going to write you a one-man show about money. And it’ll be a play that can be chopped up into 20, 40, 50 minutes in length and you’re going to come up San Diego. I’ll put you up at my place in the beach, I got a place in La Jolla, and we’re going to overlook the Pacific Ocean. I’m going to bring these guys in. We’re going to write you a show and it’s going to be funny as hell.” And he goes, “I’m in. Where do I wear the money?” 

It didn’t take 30 seconds. It was just like that. He got it. So, what wound up happening, brought him in. I’ve got great photos to illustrate this I can give to you so you can see him. 

 

[00:48:51] Brad Johnson: Yeah, please. We’ll put them in the show notes. 

 

[00:48:52] Mike Koenigs: All right. So, Charlie comes in and, first of all, he is a funny guy. He’s dynamic. He’s one of those guys. He is a loud guy in the room and I found so a guy used to work for me who’s a comedian. He’s what I call B tier but he’s an A-lister meaning he does shows as a headliner all over the country now. Another guy who’s written viral videos that have been seen hundreds of millions of times. If you’ve ever seen the Dr. Squatch viral videos on TV, it’s a type of a soap? If you haven’t seen it, just look up Dr. Squatch Soap, and watch them. They’re hilarious. Him and another guy, Jessie, who was voted funniest person in San Diego. So, I got all these guys together, sat them down. I’ve got Marissa, who’s what we call the synthesizer in the group. That means she’s organizing all this weird content all at once. And the way I work with someone is we do – I get a little woo-woo. We do some exercises. 

 

I always say, what’s the number one emotion and feeling you want to experience right now today and for the rest of your life all the time? And he is like, “I want clarity. I want certainty. But more importantly, I want this to be my ministry.” I was like, “I got it.” So, all of us were unified at that moment and we started drawing and I’m like, “Okay, what are all your rules of money? What are the myths of money? What are the lessons you want to teach?” And then breaking it down and I just had them tell a story, story, story, and eventually, all the walls are covered in, you know those great big 3M whiteboards? They’re like post-its, giant post-its. And my place on the beach is just all windows so the windows are complete. We’re plastered in with all these drawings and then we start stacking and organizing them. 

 

[00:50:41] Mike Koenigs: And then, Jesse, the comedian and I stack them in order and we performed the play for Charlie. So, he could feel the flow and he’s like, “Holy cow.” Anyway, at the end of two days, we had finished the entire show. We had it all outlined. We know what all the content was and it was all organized in a document. And now over the next six months, we’re actually making the play for him. We’ve got dates scheduled, again, custom music, artwork. It’s called Yield of Dreams.

 

[00:51:11] Brad Johnson: Yield of Dreams. Nice. So, this is in process right now? 

 

[00:51:15] Mike Koenigs: It’s happening right now. 

 

[00:51:17] Brad Johnson: So, what is Charlie going to do? Is he actually going to take this out and perform it? 

 

[00:51:21] Mike Koenigs: He’s going to perform it. He wants to make it a Netflix special and he wants to destroy the myths of money. 

 

[00:51:27] Brad Johnson: Wow. 

 

[00:51:28] Mike Koenigs: Now, I think to just take a step back so there might be an advisor money person going, “Well, I could never do that. That’s not me. I’m not this. I’m not that.” Yeah. This is Charlie’s. This is his unique ability. Everyone’s got a super beingness. And we all need a coach to get this out of us because we’re all too close. I’m too close to my own stuff. I kind of know what I’m good at because I’ve been doing it so long but I still have to talk. I surround myself with really, really, really smart copywriters who charge millions of dollars to do what they do, who just so happened to be friends who I advise. You know, I’m able to get the kind of advice I need and I invest hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in myself to get accelerated and amplified. But I think everyone’s got a thing, a special something.

 

[00:52:19] Brad Johnson: You know, what’s interesting, something Dan Sullivan said. I think we talked about this, but I went to my first 10x meeting a couple months ago and everything you’ve said about Dan is so spot on. My joke is he’s like, “If Jesus were living for business, it’s like Dan Sullivan.” He’s like a sage and he has this framework of you’re either a multiplier or a simplifier. And what’s interesting is just as I look back at the conversation we’ve had to this point, Mike, you bounce back and forth between those two worlds. For Charlie, you were the simplifier. You took all this noise that was going through his head, you brought in a team, you simplified it, put it into action. But then now you’re with your other buddy, you’re a multiplier. For Dan, you’re a multiplier because you’re doing these podcasts with them. And so, there’s so much power to knowing where you’re the simplifier for what audience? And then where can you take your stuff and amplify it with these multipliers in your life? So, do you have thoughts around that? I mean, do you purposefully kind of stage that as you think through where you’re going for the year. What are your thoughts around that? 

 

[00:53:21] Mike Koenigs: I do. I’m going to answer the question with a mini-story and I’ll give you a longer one because it’s relevant. So, it turns out Charlie also he’s been in Strategic Coach for it’s either 20 or 25 years. And Dan and I just recorded a couple podcast episodes this last week and he told me that Charlie was there and walked up to him and he said, in 20 years, I haven’t seen him so lit up. And Dan’s been on his rear end for 20 years saying, you have to do something with this side of you, and it’s dying. You’re dying because you’re not doing something about it. And Dan just said that it’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him and the most lit up. And we ended up doing a whole episode of the podcast just about Charlie in the experience and what I learned going through this and building this. 

 

So, that’s the first thing is it affected him so positively. He reached out to me. Charlie reached out and he said, “I want to take our wives to – who’s the guy from Aerosmith. Tyler? Steven Tyler?

 

[00:54:22] Brad Johnson:  Steven Tyler. Yeah. 

 

[00:54:23] Mike Koenigs: Yeah. He goes, “He’s having this big thing. I want to take the wives there.” So, the other thing that I started doing ever since I started doing this deep narrow work with people amplifying and creating their empires is I play with my clients now. I used to always have like a line between that. Now, I just took a couple to Guadalupe, Mexico. We’re taking another group of clients to Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway meeting. Well, actually, Justin’s going there, too. He’s coming. And then I’d taken a group to Paso Robles. A good friend of mine is a master sommelier. So, I’m just trying to mix and create these incredible experiences. So, getting back to answering your question, Dan, in my podcast, you can see it behind me. It’s called Capability Amplifier. 

 

And Dan’s perspective is that as you grow in age, if you’re not using all of your skills, all of your capabilities, all of your talents all the time, the universe wants its parts back. The great recycler in the sky will take if you’re not using them all. So, your goal is to constantly increase your capabilities. And his latest work, his latest book, and focus is something he calls the free zone frontier, which is about becoming competition-proof through collaboration, and creating competition-proof zones by innovating constantly. And the way you innovate is by increasing your capabilities and collaborating with innovators. And so, this notion of amplifying your capabilities, the premise behind the podcast, and really all of the work that I’d say he and I are doing these days is finding that one thing. 

 

[00:56:11] Mike Koenigs: In Strategic Coach terminology, it’s your unique ability. In mine, I call it your category of one. I want to create a category for my clients so they’re incomparable. And when you own a word or an idea in someone’s head, they’re like, “There’s no one else but you.” I want someone to not say, “Oh, you’re just like…” That sucks. Then you’re either second or third or you got to really race to be number one. I don’t want to just be number one. I want to be the only one. And I want you to be the only one too. 

 

[00:56:52] Brad Johnson: Yeah. So, you said one word. We talked about it before. Let’s circle back around. You said you have a one word. I think you call it an intro or offer. Does that correlate or is that something completely different?

 

[00:57:05] Mike Koenigs: Yeah. Okay. So, there’s a little backstory and I can’t help it. This is a Sullivan story as well. But it is a one-word offer. In this one idea, it changed the way I think. Okay. Not just about it completely changed the way I think because it reframed how I think about behaving and engaging and interacting with the world and the people I work with. And so, here’s what happened. Every time Dan and I do a podcast, we come to the table with some ideas. Sometimes they’re just a word. Sometimes it’s a sentence and we perform Jazz, kind of like what you and I are doing right now. We didn’t have an agenda. You didn’t have a whole series of questions. 

 

And I asked Dan, what’s the best pitch you’ve ever heard? And part of the framing was, I’ve been doing this show for Entrepreneur, The Elevator Pitch and I’ve listened to a lot of good and bad pitches. And I’m really thinking about like, how do you engage? How do you story tell in the shortest period of time? In Elevator Pitch, you have 60 seconds. You walk in the elevator. You make a pitch. And the judges decide if the doors open up and you get to continue on and maybe you’ll get investment, otherwise, we send them down. Well, so I asked Dan, what’s the best pitch he ever heard? And he said, “I’ve got one.” He said, “Back in the times, this is about 48 BC. Julius Caesar is just coming into power in the Roman Empire and the way the Roman Empire grew is that of course, it conquested different countries.” And then when your country got overthrown by the Roman Empire, you fought in the Roman army. 

 

[00:58:55] Mike Koenigs: And at the time, there were a bunch of conquered armies and they had fought for Rome but they didn’t have one thing. You know what that one thing was? Alright, so here’s what happens. When you are a soldier in the Roman army and you come back, you get property. When you have land rights, you’ve got legal rights. And they have legal rights in Rome in a world that didn’t have law and order. It’s a democracy. And to be part of the Roman Empire was great. So, all at once, hordes are marching towards Rome and there is going to be bloodshed. And just before the bloodshed happened, Julius Caesar stands on something and he says one word, “Civitas,” which it’s C-I-V-I-T-A-S which means fellow citizens. Everyone immediately knew what that meant. They were recognized as Romans. He granted citizenship with one word. So, it was a one-word offer that stopped, not only bloodshed. So, the great takeaway from this that changed my life is I started thinking from a reductionist point of view. 

 

If I can pre-frame you with stories of transformation and feelings, and experiences and then with one word, say you can have this thing, yes or no, that’s not only immense power, but another Dan-ism that’s coming out. It’s always be the buyer. Okay? If you are a seller and you’re saying, “Hey, can I help you with something? Is there something I can do for you?” you’re in the crappiest place possible. You’re a slave. You are a commodity. You’re a less than. But if you’re making an offer, people know what it feels like, they experience a transformation just by thinking about that, you are a buyer. Someone else has to buy you. Okay? They have to apply. A very different mindset.

 

[01:01:19] Brad Johnson: Well, what’s so interesting about that, Mike, that whole story on Julius Caesar is not that different from the offer you made Charlie. You figured out. They wanted citizenship. Charlie wanted that kind of was you said he’s lit up now. He had missed that part of him that had gone away and he’s like, you brought those together where you could merge his business today and his passion from the past. Now, I don’t know if you broke it down into a one-word offer but you definitely simplified it. It took him what? Thirty seconds to say yes? 

 

[01:01:51] Mike Koenigs: Not even. He was in right away. He got it and it didn’t take a big setup. Now for him, what he knows in his heart is, first of all, he gets to be him 100% which is this performer, entertainer. But think about it. If someone walks into a show and learn something and experiences because he’s got a great life story. Every myth about money that he talks about is coupled with his unique perspectives, his unique stories. He’s got, you know, he went through a very difficult divorce. He’s had lots and lots of failures and he’s got lots and lots of funny, crazy stuff that’s happened. And the people who are in there, if he just says, “Oh, by the way, if you are…” and part of his whole deal, he doesn’t do retirement planning. He does desirement’s planning. He desire. If you want a life of desirement, come talk to me. 

 

What do you think the conversion rate’s going to be in that room? Okay. For one thing, financial advisors are going to want to hear this story and they’re going to be like, “Damn, this is awesome.” And then when he’s doing shows, and he gets people who are of the right age in the room, he’s going to have a whole bunch of conversions. He’s going to be able to do what he does best, which is to be a storyteller and an amplifier, and his team can do all the other stuff. So, Yield of Dreams is three words. Again, there’s always you have to iterate to get to the thing. You don’t get to the thing immediately. Now, your first draft of your book is going to suck. It’s going to just be a giant steaming pile of horse manure but that becomes part of it. This is a gross way of looking at it, but it becomes clay. You know, you just start shaping and reshaping and reforming. 

 

[01:03:43] Mike Koenigs: You know, you’ve heard the old story about Michelangelo and David before, “It was just a piece of marble, even what’s inside it,” and he carved the excess away, but David was inside. And I believe your greatest story, your most magnificent you is already in you, but unfortunately, it’s surrounded by chaos and noise and lies and trauma and fear. And we’ve got to wipe away that thing, get back to your childhood, energetic wholeness, and work with that and amplify it but it’s inside everyone. Our specialness is always there. But having the courage, having the clarity, making the commitment to do something with it requires starting out with a giant pile of steaming manure a lot of the time and iterating. 

 

[01:04:38] Brad Johnson: Well, let’s keep going there. It’s funny. You’re segueing perfectly for me. And I know we have a mutual friend in Bo Eason. He’s been on your podcast, he’s been on this podcast, and he’s coached a lot of our advisors over the years and a lot of what you’re doing with Charlie, it’s the misconception in finances, I need to educate and I need to go through all the tactics of qualified, non-qualified. In reality, what you’re doing with Charlie, they need to like and trust Charlie, and you’re letting that inner story come out, which is what Bo Eason’s coached a lot of our advisors on as well. So, let’s go to this because we talked about before we went live, how to take what’s interesting about you as an individual and segue and use that for media appearances, TV. You’ve been very successful with that which goes a lot around story and all of that. So, what’s your framework there? What can you share with the audience that might be helpful? 

 

[01:05:30] Mike Koenigs: Well, I think the most important thing what anyone who is in the media, done the media always says you got to have a hook, and you’ve got to have a reveal. And in any great movie, you’ve got, generally speaking, you know, the hero’s journey. And that’s going to be in some way, shape or form, what that looks like is you’ve got your main character, which needs to be the audience, okay? It ain’t about you. They need to see themselves through you if you’re talking about you. Even when I’m talking to you right now, my objective even though I’m saying me, me and I, I is I want the listener, the viewer of this podcast to see themselves in that story and go, “Oh, that’s just like me. I want to be that too,” or the subject, or see themselves as a student of Dan’s or ours, right? 

 

So, that becomes second nature as you practice it. And the key thing though is you’ve got to have a big takeaway, and think through what’s the offer, what’s the takeaway, what is the transformation that the audience needs to experience as a result of that? Not how am I going to tell my story and make myself look like a blah, blah, blah? That’s further on down the line. So, I think that’s really where I begin and I’m always looking for what’s your origin story, what’s your reason why. So, when I’m doing, I have a new way of thinking about how I engage with someone and work with them. And in the past, someone might say, “Well, you need to pitch someone and you’re going to close them.” 

 

[01:07:21] Mike Koenigs: I’d be like, “Energetically, I think that sucks. I hate it.” No one wants to be pitched and closed. It’s impersonal as hell. It’s what sales rapists do to someone, okay? I just made that word up, but no one wants to be sales raped and…

 

[01:07:37] Brad Johnson: I got a visual on it so I think it was a good one. 

 

[01:07:40] Mike Koenigs: What was that?

 

[01:07:41] Brad Johnson: I said I just got a visual. I think it worked.

 

[01:07:44] Mike Koenigs: Yeah, it’s not good. So, next up, as I evolved, I realized, well, I’m going to have an enrollment conversation, okay, which felt a little bit softer. And the whole idea is it’s do we want to work together? Do you see the benefit in the alignment? And that actually brings to the third, which I like more, which is an alignment conversation. Are we mutually compatible? Do we have the same value system? So, in my world now, I pride myself in saying I don’t have one A-hole in my life, not one. No one’s allowed. Only positive energy, period. And if someone’s reeks of it, I cut them off instantly. There’s no going back. I don’t have time for that. None whatsoever. So, if we’re aligned, and those are just a series of questions. 

 

So, again, all of these concepts, these constructs can be built into a story. So, having said that, I want you to ask the question again, and then I’m going to directly answer it, either with the information or another story. So, ask it again, now that you’ve heard that kind of phrasing. 

 

[01:08:51] Brad Johnson: So, if I was a financial advisor that let’s just say wants to engage with media, you mentioned get on TV or be interesting to the media. What’s the framework for doing that? 

 

[01:09:02] Mike Koenigs: Great. So, first of all, let’s assume that we know who our audience is and let’s pretend, for example, it’s going to be… 

 

[01:09:09] Brad Johnson: Retirees because that’s who the bulk of our audience is working with.

 

[01:09:12] Mike Koenigs: Great. So, it would be and let’s say it’s morning television, which is easier than hell to get on, by the way. And the first thing you want to do is have a prop, and ideally, a book so you’ve got recognizable status and some sort of an object. I always like to have a talisman, something that represents something and can project a feeling. So, if I were going to go into and pitch, I’d say, “Hi, my name is John Smith. I am the best-selling author of,” let’s see. I use Curtis’s book as an example here, Smart Money: 8 Strategies for Financial Security, Success, and Significance. 

 

And it turns out that next week is financial blah, blah week. Okay, so you try to hook a date or a time or did you know that the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting is taking place on blah blah blah? So, you just tie it to a current event and again, you’ve got recognizable status. And I’ve got three tips that will help retirees who are afraid of running out of money, retire with money left over that they can give away even if blah, blah, blah. And I’ve got some great props and I’m able to come in and I’m available for, you know, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for your show. So, that would be the basic hook. 

 

[01:10:57] Mike Koenigs: From there, they’d say, “Do you want to know more?” And they go, “Yeah.” And then you’d say, “Well, what I’m going to do is I’ve got this great little trick I’m going to show. It uses a glass of water, two popsicle sticks, and something.” So, I mean, what I do is I’d search online for a trick or something where I illustrate how the glass fills, it doesn’t overfill but then it does this or this. It’s something visual that would be entertaining for the audience, and then it would illustrate a point. So, I do a little bit of research on YouTube. I try to find someone who’s doing a trick or some sort of a gag and I try to put something together like that. I’d say and by the way, I’ve got a great takeaway, which is, anyone who watches the show can get a copy of my book for free. Or it’ll be a free video or a quiz or some sort of an assessment. And you’d be surprised like I’ve done plenty of TV where they let me give away my books. I basically list build, built on television. 

 

[01:12:01] Brad Johnson: Such a missed opportunity. I mean, so many of our advisors have written books, and then it just sits over there on a dusty shelf. That is the ultimate way to list build. Just give away your $2, $3 book all day long. Pass on TV watchers, passive listeners are now active real leads. You mail them a book. 

 

[01:12:17] Mike Koenigs: Absolutely. 

 

[01:12:18] Brad Johnson: I’m curious. So, you made me think of I think he recently passed away the late great Dan Kennedy. I don’t know if you ever crossed paths with him. 

 

[01:12:26] Mike Koenigs: He’s still alive. He’s recovering. Yeah, it’s crazy. 

 

[01:12:27] Brad Johnson: He is? Is he? 

 

[01:12:30] Mike Koenigs: Yeah, yeah. He’s actually out of hospice right now. He’s just with a couple of friends two days ago, and, yeah, made it. 

 

[01:12:35] Brad Johnson: So, I got misinformation then. Wow, that’s good to hear. 

 

[01:12:39] Mike Koenigs: Speculating is evil. That’s why I don’t spend any time in the giant toilet of social media. 

 

[01:12:44] Brad Johnson: Well, the last I heard was hospice, which is never a good thing. So, we did an event with him a decade-plus ago which you just made me think of with the prop and the demonstration. He had this thing called dramatic demonstration and he told this story from Houdini, and obviously a very, very famous magician. And he said, “What’s interesting, if you really deconstruct Houdini, he really didn’t do that unique of tricks. He would get out of the straitjacket just like all the other magicians of his time. The only difference was he’d hire a crane, hoist himself like 40 stories up upside down, and then he’d get out of a straitjacket.” And so, that’s all you’re talking about is take the entertainment factor in the presentation up a couple of notches and guess what, it’s going to impact the audience at a different level. Do you do other things like that just as you’re thinking about connecting, demonstrating because that’s a really unique, cool idea that I haven’t heard a lot of people share?

 

[01:13:36] Mike Koenigs: Yeah. So, I’m a big fan of props. I’m a big fan of giveaways. That’s the first thing and, you know, someone will be like, “Oh, what happens if 10,000 people respond?” Look, I’m going to tell you right now, you get 100 on TV, you’re lucky. Most people watch TV are slugs and wrong fit so don’t ever worry about that. You can deal with that problem if it happens, but people are worrying about success and using that as an excuse not to move forward. So, the other one that is surprisingly easy is if you let’s say go to on any news outlet, and again, I’ll use entrepreneur as an example. 

 

Like every single writer is available by just clicking on their names and reaching out to them, and you can give them a pitch. You know, typically what it is, is you’ve got what we call a headline. So, as long as you know who the audience is, you can say, “Hey, so and so, I saw you wrote an article about blah, blah, blah. If you have two minutes, I’ve got a great story idea for you.” And you might send them the headline, and five points, and reach out to him on the phone. No one calls reporters anymore. They’re all trying to get through with email. Well, do something different. Now in my case, I make a video and I send them the damn video. Okay. “Hey, so and so, blah, blah, blah. It’s Mike.” This is going to take 90 seconds. I am a blank. I have a blank. Here’s the idea. I’ve got a good story for you. Here’s the headline. Here’s a couple of points. Let me know what you think. Here’s my phone number and try to track them down. 

 

But getting on Forbes, Fortune, Entrepreneur, Success, Wall Street Journal, every writers, they got their name there, you can reach out to them on social. You can direct message them on Instagram, LinkedIn, and ping them on all at once. I just send them the same damn video. 

 

[01:15:39] Brad Johnson: Well, what’s so interesting, Mike, and we’ve now shared multiple different versions of how you connect. And if you really deconstruct it, it’s a give first mentality. It’s not what’s in it for me. It’s what’s in it for you. I cared enough. I read this thing. I thought this could help. And then you’re showing up differently. Like if you really deconstruct at a very high level and then it’s just using that playbook over and over in different areas of your life. 

 

[01:16:04] Mike Koenigs: Yeah, and my promise is I promise I will simplify your life. I will not complicate it. In fact, you don’t need to do anything except show up and have a conversation with me. I will extract your perfect genius out of you. I will distill it, I will reformat it, I will make it incredibly interesting and attractive to the audience that you want to be attractive to. And I will help you increase your value 3 to 5X. So, with the writer, pardon me? 

 

[01:16:33] Brad Johnson: I said, that sounds pretty simple to me. 

 

[01:16:35] Mike Koenigs: It is. Just show up. Now, you got to write out a check, obviously. None of this comes for free. I have to put 30 years’ worth of experience behind whatever this is. But for a writer or a reporter or a celebrity is like, “I am going to do all the work for you.” In fact, I’ve studied you enough, which doesn’t take long. These days everything’s available online. I studied their writing style. I say, “I know how to write in your voice. This is what it sounds like.” And they’re like, “Holy crap, dude. All right. I’m sold. I don’t have to work. You did my job for me.” That’s what they want. They don’t want to get fired and they want to get their stuff done, and they got to crank out material. And once you’ve got citations, you know, as seen on Entrepreneur, Success, that elevates you and brings it to the next level. It opens up doors. 

 

Now, all my intros that I have, I have a tool that I automate my LinkedIn marketing with that it sends out messages, connection requests. And once someone connects, the follow-up message is, “You can see me on Entrepreneur’s Elevator Pitch show.” Here’s a recent episode with a link. Well, they see it goes right there. They see me as a celebrity. They’re like, “Shoot, I want to work with that guy.” That took me a while to figure this stuff out. If I were starting all over again, and basically what I’ve been doing with people I work with is I give them that positioning in a couple of weeks. Now, there’s way to bypass decades. It’s me to figure this stuff out for myself. But getting elevated does not have to be a two-decade-long process. You can be a best-selling author in four months easy and get it done in a month if you’re really cranking but Amazon will publish it for free. But it still means something and that becomes that unique differentiator. 

 

[01:18:34] Brad Johnson: One of my mentors, I mean, he really broke it down. It’s anything in life you want to achieve. It’s drop pounds at the gym. Go find a coach that’s like specializes in that and does it and then just go shortcut. You know, go pay some money and shortcut your way to success. And it’s all of the most successful people that I’ve ever dealt with. It’s very much their model. It’s their playbook and so 100% behind that one. Okay, so I know we’re getting down close to the time here. I want to respect your time, Mike. I’ve got one last question and then we’ll get to some philosophical questions if we have time. 

 

[01:19:05] Mike Koenigs: Yeah, go for it. We’re good. We’re good. 

 

[01:19:06] Brad Johnson: So, one of the things the audience loves, obviously, we got a bunch of successful financial advisors tuning in here, we talked about this before we went live, you have a financial advisor and actually more of a team. Share with me the psychology of how you came to that decision because everybody out there that’s listening, they want to know, “Hey, Mike’s like an A-plus client. Seems like a pretty chill dude I like to actually hang with. How could I work with a guy like Mike?” Can you go through the psychology of how that relationship came to be? 

 

[01:19:33] Mike Koenigs: Okay. I’m going to open this up and it might sound a little bit jerky at first, but it’s protected me. And I don’t do this anymore but I’ll tell you what I used to do. I had mounds and mounds. There’s a period of time where I was extremely visible because my marketing was very wide and shallow, as very visible and had people coming out all over who wanted, wanted, wanted. They’re just vampires everywhere. And a lot of financial people they’re like, “I want to manage your money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can we have a conversation?” I go, “Here’s the way our conversation will work. You show me your net worth and your tax returns and if you earn more and have more than me, then we can have a conversation.” Guess how many people showed me their stuff? So, that was my filter. 

 

[01:20:17] Brad Johnson: Good filter. Got a lot of the riffraff out of there.

 

[01:20:21] Mike Koenigs: Got rid of all of it. But the group I did end up working with came to me via a referral. So, I think that’s the first and most important thing is you have got to focus all of your energy as a financial advisor on actually talking to your clients and your customers, adding value and pressing the flesh and grabbing dinner and bringing people together. If you are a connector. This is something that this guy, Curtis Estes, he’s with Northwestern Mutual. This dude is in service. His whole life is about connecting valuable people. I met him through someone and he’s already opening up connections for me. So, do you think I’m going to want to talk to him about money? Hell, yeah. I’m going to give him some work because I feel this reciprocity and he didn’t ask me for anything. I want to really help him. 

 

So, here’s what happened with the people I’m working with. First of all, they’re strategists and then there’s financial advisor, an attorney, CPA. They all talk together. They all work together. We meet twice a year in person and then a couple times a year by phone, even if it’s just for half an hour, and everyone talks to everyone. So, my trusts, everything set up in trusts, taxes, financial planning. So, we’ve got defined benefits plan, we got 401(k). We have multiple corporations, everything synchronizes and we’ve got a schedule and a calendar of what the taxes are due. And then some tax reduction strategies or avoidance strategies that are perfectly legal and sound. But I haven’t had a surprise in 17 years. And because everything is set up, I have certainty. 

 

[01:22:19] Mike Koenigs: And what I want is a client, our two levels of certainty. And I think anyone can say this. One is I want the certainty that I’m not going to have surprises. Two, I want the certainty that I’m going to have “enough” when I choose to retire and not run out of cash. And the third thing is I want to make sure that no one can steal my stuff, okay? I want to know that I’m protected and my family’s protected. Now, later on, we’d be concerned about legacy, for example, and that’s going to be a topic of discussion, whatever that looks like. And how my family’s protected or if there’s going to be buildings made or whatever, whatever, whatever. But what was unique about these guys and I’ve seen this strategy more and more is coming to the table with a full solution. 

 

And I had my financial reports just what they are managing separate from some other assets and they showed me the paperwork a couple of months ago. I was blown away. It was significantly more than I thought it was. It was like, “Holy cow. This is freakin awesome.” And immediately I picked up the phone, I introduced him to two big influencers who’ve got substantial net worths and they’re big earners. And last I talked to them, we went and saw them again with another meeting and they said, “We really want to thank you for that referral. We got seven new clients as a result of it.” So, and I’m thinking to them like, “I want your marketing damn it,” you know? It’s like okay, I make one referral. They get seven from that? 

 

[01:24:05] Mike Koenigs: I’ve given them easily 30 high producers over the course of 17 years, maybe closer to 40 who are still working with them and the ones who aren’t are the ones saying, “I should have stuck with those guys. I was an idiot.” 

 

[01:24:21] Brad Johnson: Is this a family office? It sounds like a family office setup. So that’s why I asked.

 

[01:24:26] Mike Koenigs: It operates that way but that isn’t what they are, but they do behave that way for us for sure. And then I’ve got a private banker also with Merrill, and they handle our cash and other stuff but like them, you know, they came to us. They’re new in the family and right away of course, “Hey, we’d like to see all your…” They said basically, they want to pitch us a whole bunch of stuff and I go, “Look, here’s the deal. You haven’t earned my trust or anything. You have what’s in the bank account. You tell me what we’re going to do there. You show me. You prove it. I have to decide if I like you. Then we’ll have a conversation about the rest.” So, I think for financial advisors, you got to be in it for the long game and be willing to earn that trust. And the way you earn the trust is by pressing the flesh. 

 

And these days, the illusion, the grand illusion, this is one of the reasons why I avoid the toilet of social media. I don’t look at it. I don’t spend any time on it. Now, am I on it? Yup. It’s because I pay someone to do it and they filter it because I can get 10 times the clients, the work, and the exposure by being with already screened people. Again, I told you before about all these groups I belong to I invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in. They spend millions of dollars in marketing. They filter it and brought the creme de la creme into a room. So, if I were a financial advisor, what I’d be doing right now, my wife and I do these things, we call them superbeing dinners. So, we get together about 20 people, we cater in, I bring in my master sommelier friend or some sommelier friend and we wine, we dine, and I don’t have an agenda. I just bring awesome people together, and they rave about the people they meet while they’re there. Connect them. 

 

[01:26:15] Mike Koenigs: And then when I do reach out to them, and I say, “Hey, there’s this thing I’m working on.” They’re like, “What do you need?” And I’d be like, boom, boom, boom. I’m not doing it to get. I’m doing it to connect. If I were a financial advisor, I’d put really, really awesome people together who are high-quality potential clients. I’ll tell you one other example of something that I literally pulled out of my rear end, but it illustrates this really well. Last year, I went to the Warren Buffett’s annual event and I had a great time. If you haven’t gone there before, you just need to own a B share and you can get four passes to go to this thing. There’s 75,000 people in a stadium, okay? It’s like it’s huge.

 

[01:26:55] Brad Johnson:  It’s insane. Yeah. 

 

[01:26:56] Mike Koenigs: And he’s a cult figure to Chinese people. So, there’s like 30% some maybe 40% of them are Chinese folks. They don’t speak English. It’s wild. And it’s an Omaha, Nebraska, which no offense to Omaha. I live in San Diego. I like where I live. I’m from Minnesota but I go there, food’s not that good, the housing blows, transportation is impossible, and it was harder than hell to find a good bottle of wine. And so, I thought, oh, and I wasn’t there with – I went there alone. I like pulled out just the last man. I’m like, I’m going to go I got to see this thing. These dudes are old. So, I was at a Strategic Coach meeting a couple of weeks ago. I get this idea. I go, “Hmm, I wonder what it would take?” So, I quickly connected with my assistant. She found a mansion, rented it, contacted a couple of limo services, talked to my friend who’s the master sommelier and then I connected with a chef and then I made a video 10 minutes long. I sent it out to a few people. 

 

I said, “I’m going to create a bucket list opportunity. I got room for eight couples in this mansion. You’re going to fly in two days before. You’re going to get picked up by a limo, brought to the mansion, drink some great wine from my master somm, have a nice dinner. And then the next day we’re going to mastermind. We’re going to talk about money and I’m going to make sure there are right fit people in the room. We’re all about elevating each other, having a great time. And then the next day we’re going to take the limos to the event. You’re going to meet these guys because they’re old. Charlie’s 95. Warren’s 88. This is like seeing the Rolling Stones and The Beatles at the same time in concert,” and we know the Beatles aren’t alive anymore. So, it’s like, who knows? “And then we’ll pick you up, bring you back, wine and dine. And then the next morning we’ll take you to the airport, you can get out of there. And trust me, this is a million times better than the way I went last year.” And I filled it up in 24 hours. 

 

[01:28:57] Mike Koenigs: And so, the point of this is, and by the way, the kind of people who are going there, three of them have net worth over $100 million. And they came to me through referrals, by the way. I just mentioned it to a friend of mine, who by the way is one of the judges on Elevator Pitch. He said, “I know this guy, you got to reach out to him.” And so, the point of the story is, you’d be amazed at how creating a cool experience will create connections with people who are previously unattainable and unreachable. And when you create a legend and you create an experience, and I believe the key to massive financial wealth and growth, especially in the next few years in an impersonal world, filled with hype, hysteria, lunacy, stupidity, and idiocy in our political system and our news cycle is by creating intimate, meaningful, transformational experiences. And when no one is doing something, that’s when you want to run towards it. 

 

[01:29:59] Mike Koenigs: And when everyone’s doing something else, this is why I avoid social media. Everyone’s on there. It’s a giant steaming stinking toilet of the lowest common denominator, and vermin and filth. So, I avoid it at all costs. Never run to where the lemmings are going, because they’re all running to their deaths and it stinks on the way there. You know, to me, my idea of hell is Disneyland. It won’t be as explicit as I’d like to be, but I’m sure you can fill in the blanks. But why would I be around a bunch of sweaty overweight tattooed people standing in line? It’s hell. Okay, avoid hell at all costs. 

 

[01:30:36] Brad Johnson: We finally got the true Mike came out right here at the end. This is good.

 

[01:30:41] Mike Koenigs: I hope I did not scare.

 

[01:30:42] Brad Johnson: I just kind of want to let you just keep going. I want you to keep going. 

 

[01:30:48] Mike Koenigs: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. 

 

[01:30:49] Brad Johnson: No, I love it. One thing I love is like, that’s what’s so fun about just podcasting in general. It’s like, I feel like, well, actually, I did have DLynn Proctor on here. He’s a somm and we actually were drinking wine as we were doing the recording. So, in hindsight, we probably should have each cracked a bottle while we went into this. Well, Mike, I know we’re right at the end here. I want to respect your time. I know you’ve got a busy schedule. I’m going to close with one last question. 

 

[01:31:14] Mike Koenigs: Go for it. 

 

[01:31:15] Brad Johnson: Let’s go here. Obviously, you know who the audience is here. What is the one piece of advice you can share with a bunch of financial advisors out there that’s led to your success to this point? 

 

[01:31:24] Mike Koenigs: All right. This isn’t what you’re expecting, but I’m going to tell you what it is. I’ve been married 18 years. I’ve just about messed it up three times by just being a stupid dumb man. And a couple years ago, I started waking up in the middle of the night with anxiety attacks and I was depressed for the first time in my life that I know of. I did not want to get out of bed. Some of it was hormonal. Something was wrong. I felt off and I started being super emotional. I started crying and like for what seemed like no reason and I was sad, and I felt trapped. And it took me a lot of work. I got coaching, I got support. I got a really good therapist I worked with. I didn’t realize it until I had gone through some gyrations that I had outgrown who I was, what I did, why I did it, and who I did it for. 

 

I knew if I didn’t change my life and reinvent myself, I’d get sick again. We didn’t even talk about cancer but seven years ago, I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer and just about beat it and I’m perfectly healthy now. That took a long time, but even that, my wife stuck through it, and we were not good during that period of time. And what ended up happening is I realized that I couldn’t be a healthy, good man if my marriage wasn’t 100%. I became 100% committed to reinventing and renegotiating our marriage and talking about everything like is this still working for us? Who do I need to be? And I became a different man to serve my wife. I did really simple stuff. 

 

[01:33:14] Mike Koenigs: I just made the bed every single day for 90 days, expecting nothing, just serving and showing up and holding her energetically and physically and just cradling her expecting nothing in return just to be a strong force for her. And it completely changed my life. I’ve got a 17-year-old son and I could see that even when I started showing up differently for her, he saw something change and he became a stronger person as well. And all of our friends around us are like, “What in the hell’s going on with you? You’ve never been more at peace. I’ve never seen the two of you more connected, and I’ve never seen your wife, Vivian, happier or more content.” So, my advice is get your marriage in order and have the hard conversations you’ve needed to have for a long time and clean that up. 

 

And I could go on. That could be a podcast episode by itself. And if there was a part two to this, I got my butt in the best shape of my life. I bought a gadget that I highly recommend. I bought a Peloton. I get on that thing and I sweat like a pig every single morning. Like before we started your edit, I had just been on like there 25 minutes before I stopped but I was sweating. My shirt was pouring and when I had to come back, I had to change my shirt because I was still sweating, but I can’t tell you how much better I feel. And if you’re after the age around 50, get your hormones checked. I guarantee you as soon as your testosterone drops below 400 and you have trouble sleeping and you’re anxious. If you’ve lost your courage, you’ve lost your drive, and you’re feeling like you don’t want to get out of bed and you lost the you, you know you are that you’re feeling off, it’s just your hormones are off. 

 

[01:35:16] Mike Koenigs: Check out, investigate bioidentical hormone replacement, and I genuinely feel like I’m about 33 or 35 again, and I’m a 53-year-old cancer survivor without all my parts. They had to carve me up. And I still have some digesting issues but like everything works and I’m healthy and my blood looks better than it has all my life. So, that’s not just one thing. It’s a little stack. But you know, get clear with your God. You better learn how to forgive and forgive yourself and anything that’s gone around, just release, release, release. Again, if you want to do another one just on the fuzzy bunny feather and crystal spiritual stuff, we can go deep, brother. 

 

[01:36:01] Brad Johnson: Yeah. No, I realized that really quick upon meeting you out in San Diego. And those are the type of conversations I like to have where you can talk about stuff that actually matters. And I’m thankful we ended this conversation this way. We talked a lot about business. But none of that stuff matters if it’s not right at the home, if you’re not being a good husband, dad. I mean, all the money in the world can’t buy you your health back. So, if you’re not checking that, and you see, I mean, we’ve both seen it. We’ve run in circles of entrepreneurs that are there. They’re burning the candle at one end and neglecting the other and that’s a really lousy deal you’re getting yourself. 

 

[01:36:37] Mike Koenigs: Yeah. I have a very, a very good friend who just passed a couple weeks ago. He’s a pretty high profile individual in the online world, and I tried talking to him. I saw it coming. I saw it coming. I offered to provide connections and relationships with great doctors and there was something in like when you’re not clear and clean, if you’ve got self-doubt, self-hatred and a lack of forgiveness, it prevents and blocks all sorts of stuff whether it’s energetic, money coming to you, relationships and connections. And, look, you got nothing, nothing to fear, nothing to be afraid of to just be real and raw and show that compassion and love no matter what. 

 

And that’s what people are going to remember for sure. All this business stuff is all fine and dandy. I’m happy and glad too. I don’t feel like we did it anything but enjoyed each other’s company here and hopefully, the listeners and viewers are going to appreciate and enjoy it as well. But I love talking raw and rare and when people feel that, you’ll find what I found is when I take the first step and show that raw vulnerable side, it triples down the depth and connection in the relationship on the other person too, who’s just afraid to go there for whatever reason. And you got to go first. 

 

[01:38:10] Brad Johnson: We’ll bring this conversation to a close but just even you bringing up, hey, when things weren’t right, you sought help. And what’s funny is the same stuff that works in business, works in everything else. It works in relationships. It works in health but the guy in us, the pride, the strong man where a therapist is weak and one of my good friends who was a CEO of a very large company, and was a workaholic, self-admitted, his marriage was falling apart and he went to a therapist finally, like kind of got drugged there and the words out of the therapist’s mouth were, “It’s the healthy people that come see me.” All the others that avoid me, they’re the ones where they don’t get better. They’re bottling it all up. And so, I just love that you shared that because I guarantee there’s somebody listening right now. They need to take that step and their pride’s been too high or they thought it was weakness. It’s not weakness at all. 

 

[01:39:07] Mike Koenigs: Well, I’ve got something we should probably end on this, but I will say it because I do say it to people who have mattered to me, I say prides are for pussies. Dead men are proud and, for that matter, dead women, too, because we’ve got an epidemic of boys who’ve been raised by single mothers for generations. We’ve got women who have masculated themselves in order to survive in the economic environment that’s been created. And as a result, no wonder that there’s sexual confusion that happens on a societal basis. No wonder we’ve got this imbalance. No wonder there’s this rage. It’s because there is a lack of polarized masculine leadership that exists on this planet and the imbalance is what we are feeling. 

 

We’ve got a depolarized female audience and I’m not talking about gender-specific, you know, I’m just talking about energetically. That’s what makes us attractive to one another. It’s proper, real masculine leadership. It’s proper, feminine when the feminine is allowed to feel flowy and open. You know, first of all, you can’t get pregnant if you’re masculated as a woman. You know, why do we have all these fertility issues? It’s a lack of polarity and energetic imbalance, and that is caused by generations of men not being men and women not being women. And again, I’m not talking about old fashioned BS here. I’m talking about like, Native Americans really understood this. I spent a fair amount of time in natives and there’s celebration to go on. Again, this is a deep topic, and I just spun up another rabbit hole. 

 

[01:40:56] Mike Koenigs: But something I’m very passionate about is if anyone if they’re not familiar with David Deida, check out his stuff. He’s really, really good and understands this on a deep, deep level. 

 

[01:41:09] Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, Mike, thank you. And I knew like I already knew getting into this conversation. I told you, I was like, give me a hard stop, because I know we could probably just go on for days and let it go. So, super thankful to have you on here. This is going to bring a lot of value in a lot of different areas for financial advisors. And what I love is it won’t just be on the business side. It’s going to be on a lot of the other stuff that also matters. So, thanks, my man. I look forward to the next time our paths cross whenever that may be. 

 

[01:41:37] Mike Koenigs: Right then. Well, let’s deepen our relationship. You’re the kind of guy that I want to spend time with and go deeper and the greatest gift I’ve given, this is going to sound a little wild but what I reserved for people who really matter to me is, “I want to die with you.” And I hope you know, like that is a gift, like when you develop a deep, meaningful, intimate relationship with someone that goes somewhere. That is an intent that I put out is creating something that’s meaningful, and hopefully, that resonates as well, but it’s been my pleasure. It’s my pleasure to give and hopefully, your audience enjoys it, too.

 

[01:42:18] Brad Johnson: Yeah. Well, hey, one last thing since you’re going to be in Omaha, which is just a little north of me about three hours or so. If you can’t find any good wine in Omaha, it’s close by. It’s a little bit of a road trip but just swing on down.

 

[01:42:31] Mike Koenigs: All right. Well, we’ll talk about that offline. I got a couple ideas for you.

 

[01:42:34] Brad Johnson: All right. Thanks, Mike. Until next time.

 

[01:42:36] Mike Koenigs: Peace. You got it.

 

[CLOSING]

 

[01:42:42] Brad Johnson: Thanks for checking out the latest show. On to this week’s featured review. This week’s review comes to us from user Dale Sm., actually one of our clients out in Kentucky so fun to read this. He says, “Investment Advisor Rep. Five stars. I stumbled on this is podcast, shortly after being introduced to AE. I quickly realized that AE was more than just another IMO/FMO… they are true business partners! Brad does an amazing job interviewing very notable guest and breaks it down for advisors of all experience levels. My favorites so far are CAMPFIRE EFFECT, THANK YOU PROJECT, and THE 7 ENEMIES OF EXCELLENCE. Keep up the good work, Brad. I am looking forward to my partnership with AE in the future.” That was really fun to read. Number one, Dale’s one of my favorites out there. He’s a client. The cool thing is this review actually came in right at a year ago so February of 2019. 

 

And like many of you out there, if you’re listening to a podcast, you’re wired where you’re all about self-improvement, getting better, not just listening to sports talk radio to and from the office, and that’s exactly who Dale was when he called in, young advisor, small team that really wanted to do big things and grow his firm from a solo practice into an actual business. And it’s cool to hear that from a year ago, because seeing the evolution Dale’s business has made over the last year. I’m proud of you, Dale, if you happen to be listening, because you’ve put in the work, you’ve put in the reps. You now have a proprietary process. You now have a brand. And it’s because of the work you put in. We were just a catalyst to help you get there. So, I love to read this. Thank you so much for taking a moment to share your thoughts on the show. And it’s really cool that that was how we actually connected was through the podcast in the first place. So, that’s why I keep doing this. Number one, it’s fun. I love to have interesting conversations with people that inspire me and I can learn from. 

 

[01:44:38] Brad Johnson: But if it can inspire you out there that are listening in and you can learn and if it’s a great filter where the right advisors reach out and connect with us that we can help, that makes it all worthwhile. So, really appreciate the review, Dale, and we’ll keep the shows coming. So, as we wrap for this week, those of you that may have interest in diving in deeper similar to Dale, he was just sitting out there listening to a few episodes and said, “You know what, that sounds like the type of firm I want to build,” and if you’re wondering if our team may be able to help you, it’s as easy as just going out to the website and putting an application and our job, I’m not just a podcaster. We do happen to consult financial advisors from all across the US on how to grow their business and design a practice that serves them versus them serving it. And the cool thing is, it’s very, very possible. We’ve done it over and over, over the last decade plus, helping advisors grow their business and actually working less. It’s a model we’ve replicated on the West Coast, on the East Coast, on the Midwest and the South, essentially all over the country. 

 

So, if you’d like to apply to see if it makes sense for us to have a one-on-one conversation on how to overcome what may be getting in your way, you can do that at BradleyJohnson.com/Apply. It takes about five minutes to fill out the application so we can understand what your business looks like, what challenges you may be facing, and how myself and my team may be able to help. Taking the first step it’s as simple as applying at BradleyJohnson.com/Apply. So, that’s all for this week. Thanks for listening in. I will catch you on the next show. 

 

[01:46:14] Brad Johnson: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Advisor Blueprint. For access to show notes, transcripts, and exclusive content from our show’s guests, visit BradleyJohnson.com. And before you go, I’ve got a quick favor to ask. If you’re liking the podcast, you can help support the show by leaving your rating and review on iTunes. Not only do we read every single comment, but this will help the show rank and get discovered by new listeners. It really does help. Thanks again for joining and be sure to tune in next week for another episode.

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The information and opinions contained herein are provided by third parties and have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed by Advisors Excel. The guest speaker is not affiliated with or sponsored by Advisors Excel. For financial professional use only. Not to be used with the general public or in a sale situation.