Podcast appearances and mentions of babs smith

With the Co-Authors of The Greater Game and Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach and John Bowen of CEG Insights Louis Diamond speaks with Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach® and John Bowen of CEG Insights about founder dependency, enterprise value, and the architecture behind scalable businesses. In Summary Many advisory firms grow successfully while remaining highly dependent on their founders. Dan Sullivan and John Bowen argue that the difference between a successful practice and a valuable enterprise comes down to architecture. Louis sits down with the co-authors of The Greater Game to discuss founder dependency, enterprise value, intellectual property, and why some businesses scale beyond their owners while others do not. The conversation offers advisors a framework for thinking differently about growth, succession, and long-term optionality. The Storyline Many advisors spend their careers helping clients build valuable businesses. Far fewer stop to ask whether their own firms are being built the same way. That tension sits at the center of Louis Diamond's conversation with Dan Sullivan, co-founder of Strategic Coach®, and John Bowen, founder of CEG Elevate Group and CEG Insights. Their new book, The Greater Game, challenges a common assumption about growth: that bigger businesses are simply the result of working harder, adding more clients, or improving existing systems. Instead, they argue that enterprise value is created through architecture—the deliberate design of a business that can scale, transfer, and thrive without its founder at the center. The discussion introduces a framework for understanding why some entrepreneurs remain trapped in optimization while others build enterprises that compound in value over time. Along the way, Dan and John explore founder dependency, intellectual property, succession planning, strategic partnerships, and the role advisors can play in helping entrepreneurial clients navigate each stage of growth. For advisors, the framework creates an important mirror. The same forces that limit enterprise value for entrepreneurial clients often exist inside advisory firms themselves. The result is a conversation that extends well beyond business growth and into questions of optionality, transferability, and what ultimately makes a firm valuable. Topics Covered Enterprise Value Creation Founder Dependency Risk Business Architecture vs. Optimization Intellectual Property & Scalability Strategic Partnerships & Leverage Succession Planning & Optionality Legacy, Impact & the “Greater Game” Mindset > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors What is The Greater Game—and why does it matter to advisors? (17:57) Dan and John introduce the framework behind their new book and explain why advisors should think about it both for entrepreneurial clients and for their own businesses. Why do only a small percentage of entrepreneurs create exponential enterprise value? (22:24) The discussion explores the difference between “architects” and “optimizers” and why most business owners remain focused on improving what exists rather than designing what comes next. Why is founder dependency such a significant valuation risk? (35:00) John explains how businesses that depend on a single individual often struggle to scale, transfer, or command premium valuations. How does expertise become intellectual property—and why does that matter? (35:00) The transition from expertise to transferable systems may be the most important bridge in the entire framework, creating leverage that extends beyond the founder. What prevents many advisors from fully serving entrepreneurial clients? (18:00) The conversation examines why most advisors are well-equipped for traditional planning needs but less prepared for the governance, succession, and enterprise-value challenges entrepreneurs eventually face. What does the next game look like after you've already “won”? (50:00) Dan and John discuss why many successful entrepreneurs and advisors eventually shift their focus from accumulation to significance, impact, and legacy. What's the single most important move an entrepreneur can make? (52:30) Dan shares the concept of Unique Ability® and explains why simplifying around your highest-value strengths often creates the greatest multiplier effect. Key Takeaways Enterprise value is created through architecture, not effort. Many successful businesses continue to grow while remaining highly dependent on their founders. The firms that command premium valuations are often built differently from the start. Founder dependency acts as a hidden valuation discount. The more a business depends on one person, the more difficult it becomes to scale, transfer, or sell at a premium. Intellectual property is often the bridge between a practice and an enterprise. When expertise becomes codified, transferable, and repeatable, value begins to exist independently of the founder. Advisors and entrepreneurs often face the same challenge. The same founder-dependency issues advisors help clients solve frequently exist within their own firms. Strategic partnerships create leverage that expertise alone cannot. Many of the most successful entrepreneurs grow through collaboration, ecosystems, and coordinated expertise rather than attempting to solve every challenge themselves. Most advisors are trained to solve early-stage problems. Entrepreneurial clients eventually require guidance around succession, governance, scalability, and enterprise value—areas that extend beyond traditional planning. The next stage of growth is often not about growth at all. For many successful entrepreneurs, the question eventually shifts from accumulation to significance, impact, and the legacy they want their business to create. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY5xOB8GTQY Quotable Moments “The exit multiple is downstream of the architecture.” “The difference between a three-times and a fifteen-times multiple is often whether the business depends on the founder.” “You have to simplify in order to multiply.” “We're not talking about a 10x game anymore. We're talking about a 100x game.”     FAQs Why do some advisory firms command higher valuation multiples than others? Dan Sullivan and John Bowen argue that valuation is often determined long before a transaction occurs. Firms that reduce founder dependency, codify intellectual property, and build transferable systems typically command higher multiples than those built around a single rainmaker. What is founder dependency and how does it impact enterprise value? Founder dependency occurs when clients, revenue, and decision-making remain concentrated around one individual. While those businesses can be highly successful, advisors find they are often more difficult to scale, transfer, or sell. What is the difference between an architect and an optimizer? An optimizer focuses on improving an existing business model. An architect builds systems, intellectual property, and structures designed to create leverage, scalability, and long-term enterprise value. What does Dan Sullivan mean when he says “100x is easier than 2x”? The concept challenges entrepreneurs to stop thinking incrementally. Rather than working harder within the current model, transformational growth often comes from redesigning the model itself through better leverage, collaboration, and systems. How can advisors better serve entrepreneurial clients? Many entrepreneurial clients eventually need guidance beyond investment management, including succession planning, governance, intellectual property strategy, and enterprise value creation. Understanding where a client sits in their business journey can help advisors provide more relevant advice and coordination. What is the expertise trap and why does it matter for advisory firms? The expertise trap occurs when critical knowledge, relationships, and processes remain inside the founder's head. Until that expertise becomes transferable and repeatable, enterprise value often remains limited regardless of growth. Dan Sullivan and John Bowen argue that valuation is often determined long before a transaction occurs. Firms that reduce founder dependency, codify intellectual property, and build transferable systems typically command higher multiples than those built around a single rainmaker. Founder dependency occurs when clients, revenue, and decision-making remain concentrated around one individual. While those businesses can be highly successful, advisors find they are often more difficult to scale, transfer, or sell. An optimizer focuses on improving an existing business model. An architect builds systems, intellectual property, and structures designed to create leverage, scalability, and long-term enterprise value. The concept challenges entrepreneurs to stop thinking incrementally. Rather than working harder within the current model, transformational growth often comes from redesigning the model itself through better leverage, collaboration, and systems. Many entrepreneurial clients eventually need guidance beyond investment management, including succession planning, governance, intellectual property strategy, and enterprise value creation. Understanding where a client sits in their business journey can help advisors provide more relevant advice and coordination. The expertise trap occurs when critical knowledge, relationships, and processes remain inside the founder's head. Until that expertise becomes transferable and repeatable, enterprise value often remains limited regardless of growth. Related Resources The Greater Game by Dan Sullivan and John Bowen Strategic Coach® CEG Elevate Group The Greater Game Dashboard Diamond Consultants Advisor Transition Report Dan Sullivan The world's foremost expert on entrepreneurship in action, Dan Sullivan has spent the past five decades empowering business owners to reach their full potential in both their professional and personal lives. His strong belief in and commitment to the power of the entrepreneur is evident in all areas of his company, Strategic Coach®, and its successful membership community. Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the UK Dan and Babs reside in Toronto. John Bowen John J. Bowen Jr. is the founder and CEO of CEG Elevate Group, the holding company that includes CEG Worldwide and CEG Insights. Through these companies, he helps elite financial advisors serve fewer, wealthier clients exceptionally well while building more valuable and scalable businesses. Before founding CEG, John spent 26 years as a financial advisor and built a $2 billion wealth management business. That firsthand experience grounds CEG’s work today across advisor coaching, enterprise programs, empirical research through CEG Insights, and practical frameworks for advisors who want to move beyond practice growth to enduring enterprise value. John is the author of 21 books on wealth management, entrepreneurship, and success. His newest book, The Greater Game: Your 100x Blueprint for Exponential Growth, Freedom, and Legacy, co-authored with Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach, will be published by Hay House Business in May 2026. Today, John and the CEG team work with leading advisors and enterprise firms — including some of the largest advisor organizations in the United States — to help advisors deepen relationships with affluent clients, build scalable practices, and design lives of greater significance. NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. View the transcript of this episode… Architecting 100x Growth: A “How-To” From Legends Dan Sullivan and John Bowen A conversation with Louis Diamond and Co-Authors of The Greater Game, Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach and John Bowen of CEG Insights.      Louis Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is Architecting 100x Growth: A “How-To” From Legends Dan Sullivan and John Bowen, a conversation with the industry’s top coaches and co-authors of The Greater Game. I’m Louis Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education-driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Louis Diamond: Most entrepreneurs and many advisors spend years optimizing for growth without realizing they’re building a business that still depends entirely on them. Revenue and complexity grow; enterprise value, transferability, and freedom often lag far behind. Dan Sullivan and John Bowen argue that the issue isn’t effort or intelligence; it’s architecture. No doubt these are familiar names in the wealth management industry, but just to set the stage, Dan is the co-founder of Strategic Coach, and John is the founder of CEG Elevate Group and CEG Insights. Together, they spent decades coaching and studying high-performing entrepreneurs and advisory firms. Their latest book, one they joined forces on, The Greater Game, lays out a very different framework for thinking about growth, one built around scalability, transferrable value, and long-term leverage rather than incremental optimization. What makes this conversation especially relevant for advisors is that the framework cuts both ways. It applies to the entrepreneurial clients that advisors serve, as well as to the advisory firms themselves. And in many cases, the same founder dependency and expertise trap that limits a client’s enterprise value is quietly limiting the advisor’s business too. We talk about the difference between operators and architects, why 100 times growth can actually be easier than two times growth, where businesses tend to stall as they scale and how advisors can start thinking differently about their own firms, particularly when it comes to enterprise value, succession, and long-term optionality. It’s rare access to a conversation with two of our industry’s legends whose advice and counsel has not only helped to transform the business lives of many of our listeners, but also my own. So let’s get to it. Dan and John, thank you both for joining us today. Dan Sullivan: Thank you, Lou. It’s a real pleasure. John Bowen: I’ve had the privilege of joining you before, but never with my co-author, Dan Sullivan, and I’m excited to share what we’re doing because I think it can make a big impact in our advisor industry. Louis Diamond: No doubt about it. Yeah, this has been an interview I’ve been very excited to host. So let’s jump right in. Dan Sullivan, I think you are a man that needs little introduction. So many advisors in the industry are fans or clients of your firm, Strategic Coach, but for those who aren’t as familiar or need a refresh, can you just give some quick context into why you started Strategic Coach and what the company does today? Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, it goes back to 1974. I was a copywriter at BBDO, the Canadian branch of BBDO, big global advertising agency. It still is. But I’ve been sort of a lifetime coach. I remember once when my mother finally caught up with what I was doing in life and I was describing what I was doing, she says, “Well, you were doing that when you were a child. You were talking to adults and you were asking adults about their experiences.” And I said, “Yeah, I could do this when I was eight or nine years old, but it took me a long time to get a business model wrapped around it.” But I jumped out in 1974 and started coaching anybody, but it actually turned out that entrepreneurs were the best people to coach because they would write a check on the spot and they would make a decision on the spot and I needed cashflow and I did it. So I’ve been personally, as a Strategic Coach, which was named by someone else. You’re just out there trying to get cashflow to pay for the rent. So I started in ’74, and I was lucky and it really relates to your target audience, Lou. Right off the bat, I got what are called top-of-the-table life insurance agents. And that was really, really great because life insurance agents are purely a conceptual business. So someone can get a new idea at breakfast and they can have a new business by dinnertime just because they can change their mindset. And that moved on. And I did that for 15 years, just one-on-one, 1970s, 1980s. And then, I’d had enough experience that we turned it into a workshop program in 1989. We’ve been at it ever since. So I was at a talk. Joe Polish is a great friend of ours, Joe Polish with Genius Network. And he had a speaker there, and he says, “You’re one of the original gangsters, aren’t you? You’re one of the first people.” And I said, “I don’t know if I’m the original, but I think I’m the only surviving one.” So it’s 52 years that I’ve been doing what I’m doing. And I had the good fortune to meet John in around 2009. John, was that the year? 2009? John Bowen: Yeah, in the little economic downturn that everybody knows about here. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And John had a great coaching program and we had a great coaching program. And over the years, we’ve talked a lot about what makes a entrepreneur exponential in their thinking. And finally, about two years ago, we decided, let’s write a book about this. And that’s the new book, which is called The Greater Game. That’s where this all started. It’s just been a great pleasure because we sync very well. Louis Diamond: Amazing. And Dan, I think a lot of people likely know you either from Strategic Coach. I know I’m personally a big fan of two of your books and I know of others, The Gap and The Gain and Who Not How. We’re going to talk about your new book, but I think it’d just be helpful. Can you talk about the key premise of some of your prior books, The Gap and The Gain and Who Not How? Dan Sullivan: As a result of my membership, I’m a member in other groups. And so Joe Polish of Genius Network fame, he’s been in my program for 28 years, and I’ve been in his program for 15 years. And there was a writer who was in one of the first Genius Network workshops, and he approached me. And I created a lot of books, but I create small books and they’re self-published. I do a book a quarter. I’m 82 in about three weeks. So when I was 70, I said, “I’m going to give myself a 25-year project. I’ll write 100 books in 100 quarters.” And this is quarter number 47, and I’m writing my 47th book. But they’re little books. They’re 60, 70 pages. They’re one-idea books. And Ben Hardy, who was, at that time, the number one writer on Medium, which is a blogging type medium, he approached me, and he said, “I know you don’t write big books and you don’t have publisher books. But,” he said, “if you ever did,” he said, “I’d like to collaborate.” And that was a great good fortune on my part. So we produced three books in five years. The first book was Who Not How. Who Not How basically says when you have a goal, the biggest problem with the goal, you’re excited about the goal, but you’re not excited about doing it. So you find “Whos” who help you and you build teamwork around it. And that was a big seller. And then, we had another concept which was called The Gap and The Gain that entrepreneurs, depending on how they measure their progress, can be perpetually unhappy or they can be perpetually motivated. And it all depends on how they measure their progress, how they measure their goal setting and their goal achievement. And then the third book, which has really turned out to be the big one, up until this book, this book will be bigger. It’s called 10x Is Easier Than 2x. So hence, Coach, everybody has a 10x game plan. Whatever number they want to choose, revenues, personal net worth, whatever, you have a framework of 10x, which is sometime in the future, but you use that future framework for deciding what you’re going to do today that will end up as a 10x result. I thought that was going to be our formula for the rest of my life until I met John. And then John is a great AI practitioner. And I began to realize that that 10x is now becoming 100x for really top-notch entrepreneurs, but the 10x is easier than 2x. And we just crossed the million mark with the three books, which is really good. And it’s great for lead… we’re having people show up and they’ve really bought into what Strategic Coach is. We have a good size company. We’re not a small company. We have 120 team members. We’re in five centers: Los Angeles, Vancouver, Chicago, Toronto and London, England. But it’s been really great because we’ve really grown with technological change and it’s basically, we teach people how to think about their thinking. And Lou, you were in for three years, both in-person and virtual. So you know what the starting structure of it is, but I’m in love with entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are crucial characters on the planet, but mostly they operate alone and what we’ve done is create a community for them. Louis Diamond: Fantastic. Thank you, Dan. And John, I think perfect segue to you, because I know you’ve spent your career serving and helping entrepreneurs as well, mostly within financial services or within wealth management. And you’ve been very kind to share some of your amazing research on advisors serving entrepreneurial clients in the past. But for anyone who’s missed those episodes, similar question for you, can you share what your companies do? CEG Elevate, CEG Insights, your new research, and then we’ll dive into your exciting new book. John Bowen: Thank you, Louis. And Dan and I are very excited about just entrepreneurs in general. Dan is, because he’s working with them directly. The best clients for financial advisors are entrepreneurs, largely, if you’re going to go high net worth, ultra-high net worth. So we have a company, CEG Elevate, which is our parent company. Two of the companies that are really interesting for this podcast is CEG Insights and this is our research arm. And we’ll study about 20,000 high net worth, ultra-high net worth clients this year in depth and 6,000 up to 7,000 we’ll do just of entrepreneurs. And this is in the partnership. Lou, I invited you up to… We were skiing two years ago in Park City and you couldn’t join us. But Dan and I made a deal to do a 25-year partnership studying entrepreneurship, one for Strategic Coach and his coaching clients, but really the opportunity for financial advisors. And it’s probably just as well because I came down, and I think, Dan, you were 80 at the time and I was 69. I’m 70 now. And I was skiing with a whole bunch of 40-year-olds, and they’re all going, “You guys are way too optimistic.” And Dan and I are just getting started on this. And the other company that’s applicable is CEG Worldwide, where we have the privilege of coaching and training some of the top financial advisors, those aspiring, and also working with the enterprises to really help move up market and do this great experience. Louis Diamond: Fantastic. Dan, question for you. What was the core problem you and John were trying to solve in your new book, The Greater Game? What is it that existing frameworks weren’t touching? And then John, I’ll have a follow-up question for you after that. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. Well, by the very nature of what we do, we’re not going for wannabes. We’re not going for entrepreneurs who hope to be really successful someday. We’re engaging with and we’re registering into both of our communities, people who, they’re already great. They’re already doing so many things right, but they’re kind of doing it unconsciously. They just have a unique ability for growth. They have a unique ability for networking and expansion, but the very, very core is they’ve done it on their own. And they’ve done it out of intuition and they’ve done it out of ambition and motivation. But their biggest problem is that they’re really lonely. I’m in my sixth decade now of coaching entrepreneurs, and people say, “Well, what’s the number one problem that entrepreneurs face?” And I said, “Loneliness.” They can’t explain themselves to the family they grew up with. They can’t explain themselves with their lifetime friends. They have thoughts about how they’re operating. And they take enormous pride in their ability to transform difficulties into breakthroughs, but they don’t have anybody to talk to. So what we’ve created is a community where when you walk in the room, everybody in that room immediately understands you. Everybody immediately applauds what you’ve done. Everybody is inspired by you. So my framework is I call, “What you’ve done on your own, you’re great. You’re a winner already, but who do you talk to?” You have to hide a lot of your success because they just won’t understand what it is that actually motivates you. And the beauty of the partnership with John is the vast majority of our clients are in 70 or 80 different industries, so they’re not peculiar. We start off with financial services, especially life insurance. But what I notice is that all the difficulty they get into life is they’re trying to communicate with people who don’t understand them. And what we’re saying is, “Stage one, you did it on your own, you’re great by any standard whatsoever. You check all the boxes for being a successful person, but you don’t really have any way to actually check out how other people are doing this.” And so we’ve created a community, and John has created a community where people, immediately, there’s understanding. And not only that, but there’s opportunity because they’re unique in their own ways. Every one of our entrepreneurs has created a very, very unique pattern of success that if they were with 10 other people, they could learn from this. If they were with 30 other people, they would learn even more. So that’s what we’ve done. So stage two is now joining a community where everybody gets you. Louis Diamond: Interesting. And that’s the premise of the book. We don’t want to have people not buy it, but what is the greater game? What’s the game that folks are playing and pursuing and how do you make it greater? Dan Sullivan: I tell you, what I’ve always been lacking, I’m sort of intuitive like most entrepreneurs are. We’ve done about 300 times growth since we started the program. But it’s intuitive. I don’t have any research to back this up. I’m low on fact finder. I find, generally speaking, the best facts are just the facts that I make up, but at a certain point, you’d like to have some actual research to back me up. So I’ve gone as far as I can go with our company without real research. Then John comes into the picture, and now we got some real research. And I will say this, this is generally true. It’s not just a problem with me that I don’t have research. I find that entrepreneurism is one of the least researched subjects on the planet. And John comes along and he’s done all the backfill for how entrepreneurs actually perform and I’ve got research to prove it. Louis Diamond: Perfect. Yeah, John, question for you. So what is The Greater Game? And then, how do you think it relates to what financial advisors have been missing? John Bowen: One of the things that we as financial advisors all want to work with people who have already won. And there’s no better group than entrepreneurs, successful entrepreneurs. If we look at people with 25 million or more of investible assets across all households in the US, 90% are entrepreneurs. And at the 5 to 25 million of investible assets, it’s three out of four. So at CEG Worldwide, we’ve always wanted to really understand advisors. And we said we’ll partner with Dan and his passion with entrepreneurs, we’ll go ahead and study them so that we can bring insights on how we can better serve them. And the very first thing we want to do is understand, yeah, there’s very different stages that we see of entrepreneurs and we talk about the whole concept of The Greater Game. And the idea here is we wanted to identify… And I’ll share some PowerPoint slides. I know a lot of us are listening and I just want to walk through this, but Louis will have it in show notes, his team will. We really saw four areas. The first one was level one, stage one was foundation for freedom. They had ambition, the vision, but they really needed security. And Dan calls this, and I love this term, “cash confidence.” But it’s really using a financial advisor to have security. And one of the things, the last time I was on with you, Louis, we talked about there’s 59.2% of entrepreneurs who want to switch advisors because they don’t believe they have that security. And that’s kind of the foundation. And this is why you’re never going to read a more friendly financial advisor book for entrepreneurs than this because in our coaching program, we’re developing workshops and so on to bring this message out. And then the second level is where now we saw… and there were four levels. Dan and I identified 5.4% of these entrepreneurs that were just killing it and they were going through all four levels. The second level was energy for expansion. They were very motivated, they were excited about getting up and really the intellectual property, and Dan’s been one of the big leaders in this, is so much of what we know… And as I go through this too, I want every one of the advisors to think about it’s not only your entrepreneurial clients, this is for you too, is having this intellectual property, getting it out of your head so that your business is not founder-dependent or personality-dependent. You’ve got this enterprise. And then, the third level where it really took off was collaboration and multiplication. And Dan talked about the power of community and this is so big. And for advisors, the community is often working with other professionals, the accountants, the attorneys, the investment bankers. Matter of fact, when we survey, we found that 40% of the people with 25 million or more that they invest with an advisor came through an investment banker. So creating that community, teamwork, having the right team and then autonomy. Can you step away from your practice? The entrepreneurs step away 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, making that independence, moving from the founder-dependent to the enterprise. And the last level was exponential. And this is all along the way, the AI opportunities to accelerate this and augment this is really real, but the agency where the blue ocean, creating new markets, then getting the commitment and courage. And at each of these levels, we saw different entrepreneurs just really taking off. And one of the things that’s so important, Louis, for what we’re talking about today is advisors all are ready to treat stage one, the foundation for freedom, but they don’t really understand the other stages, and that’s really what entrepreneurs want. So if you want to work in this market, it’s very important for you to understand what you can do to help. The difference is often for an entrepreneur, a three to five multiplier versus 15, the level one or stage one to stage four. And this is where it gets really exciting. Louis Diamond: This would be a question for John. You found, and he’s mentioned it, that only 5.4% of entrepreneurs operate as architects versus optimizers. Can you explain the difference between those two personas? John Bowen: Well, I’m going to set up the research and let Dan really bring it home. But Dan and I came up with this framework, The Greater Game and the 10 Multipliers, and we’ve got that and we’re putting it in order and we wanted to really confirm. And everything we do is empirical research. So we reached out to 1,000 very successful entrepreneurs, 1,016. And it became very clear that the 5.4% of them were actually executing on all these levels and they were just distancing everyone else. And what we came up with, and Dan mentioned it earlier, that his book, 10x Is Easier Than 2x, but we said, what we’re seeing… and we’ve got a whole bunch, I think it’s 26 stories in the book of entrepreneurs, we’re seeing so many people blow this out that 100x is easier than 2x, and it forces a whole different mindset where if you’re optimizing, you’re kind of looking incrementally. But when you step back as an architect, big picture, wow, huge opportunity, both for entrepreneurs and advisors that are entrepreneurs to make a real big difference. This is something you’ve really coached to and had the privilege of working with thousands of entrepreneurs helping them on that journey. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. One of the things that was confusing for me, Lou, when I first started coaching, because everybody who came in to coach, you remember when you came into your first Chicago workshop, that everybody in the room was motivated. I’m not a motivational speaker. I don’t have to motivate the entrepreneurs who are in Coach. They’re already motivated. The problem is the focus of their ambition and focus. And what we discovered was that there were two types that showed up. I didn’t really understand it, but they’re what I call status-oriented entrepreneurs. And what they are when they were a kid, they didn’t have anything. Their family wasn’t at the top of the pole. When they were born, they grew up in a certain community, but there were certain people who lived in the right part of town and they had really big houses and everything about their lifestyle was way above everybody else in the lifestyle. And they saw the lack of what they had, because of the way they were born, that they were going to match it. But the matching was based in not only what the big home looks like. They’ve got other homes, they’ve got vacation homes. They belong to clubs. There’s clubs for the winners, and the losers aren’t part of those clubs, golf courses and boating clubs and everything else. And what I noticed was their motivation was simply to get to that point where they had the same sort of status. And they’re interesting for a while, but once they’ve gotten to that level of status, they’re not interesting anymore. They go on cruise control at that point and they just want to stay within that framework. But the really interesting entrepreneurs, and we really highlight them in the book, it’s just about growth. So when they get to one level, they say, “That’s great. Okay, now I’ve got a new baseline and now I want to grow even further.” And we have one story, very, very interesting. When he came into my Chicago workshop, I met him and he said, “I’ve got a big engineering company.” This is Paul VanDuyne. He’s out of the Quad City area of Iowa. And he says, “My ambition for your program is for three years, I’m just going to plan my retirement.” And I said, “Well, we’ve got some thoughts about that.” So I said, “Just do your first workshop and we’ll talk about it 90 days from now.” And he came back and he had an entirely different game plan, and he’s grown basically 250 times in his last 13 years. He’s completely transformed the industry that he’s in and he had this growth. So what we’re looking for in The Greater Game, we’re looking for those entrepreneurs who are already successful, but they don’t see any stopping point. They’ll grow to one level and then they say, “Okay, that’s the new baseline. Now I grow to another level.” Meanwhile, three years ago, what happened is the world got a new capability called AI. AI, you’re not talking 10x. If you use it properly… a lot of people are in the very early stages here, but we can see the ones who are applying it for growth. John has set up an entire research structure just to measure the people, and what are the people who are just motivated by growth? They don’t see any stopping point. They don’t see any retirement age. They’re just growing. They’re in better health now than they were when they started their ambition. One of the great breakthroughs we’re having now is the impact of AI on physical fitness and health right now. And so you have 70-year-olds now who are way more ambitious at 70 than they were at 50. So we think a whole new world is being created in front of us, but there isn’t the research to measure what the real winners of this new game are actually doing. And The Greater Game is a lot of Strategic Coach thinking tools, but it’s also the phenomenal research that John is doing, and we’re measuring exactly what are these people who just constantly grow, what are they actually doing? John Bowen: Louis, if I can jump in, I want to go back to Paul just for a second because he was going to do something classical, and Dan is also my coach and I was going to do something similar. Paul told Dan that he was going to retire at 65, and his wife. And he were going to open up a little mom-and-pop coffee shop. And the reason so many of the entrepreneurs are caught in the 2x optimization is they’re grinding it out. They’re working harder to be more successful and the desire to do that isn’t very high. That’s why you retire. On the other hand, what we found, the ones working on 100x are building platforms and ecosystems. They’re architected. And as we were writing the book, CEG grew by 58%. I’m going to give a lot of credit to the book, because as Dan and I were working on the processes, I wanted to walk all the talks. This is where the world is changing. I want everybody to think as a financial advisor, you’re being served twice, one with The Greater Game, they don’t care about a few basis points on returns. That’s table stakes. So much of the level one is taking care of the investment side, mitigating taxes, taking care of the areas, protecting the assets, some charitable planning, maybe shoot in some succession planning. I can tell you only 6% of the entrepreneurs actually feel they’re getting that from you, but that’s only level one. If you can help them from each of the stages, stage one through four, and help them create that vision, they’re going to love you to death. Because many of them want to continue in this path and create tremendous value, bigger impact, not creating legacies in the sense of enduring legacies, but active legacies. Last year, my wife and I set up a private foundation. I called it The Greater Game Foundation. I just love this so much, the difference that you can make, and I want to do it while I’m living, not while I’m gone type of thing. I think that’s one Dan and I very much share. Louis Diamond: Awesome. You wrote the book 10x Is Easier Than 2x, but now you’re claiming 100x is easier than 2x. How can that be the case? Dan Sullivan: The interesting thing, one of my points of proof on the original idea, the 10x Mind Expander, I use a lot of what the entrepreneurs have already done to prove the future. In other words, I said… You’ll remember the exercise, Lou. And I said, “I want you to pick your best number.” Everybody’s got a best number. It’s revenue, it’s net worth, whatever. And I said, “I just want you to multiply by 10.” And immediately there’s this reaction. He says, “You know how hard it was to get to just where I am 10 times?” And I said, “Well, you’ve already done 10 times. You’ve probably done 10 times twice. So let’s go back to the beginning. When were you 1/10 of where you are right now?” And they can nail it. They can tell you the year, they can tell you the month when they were 1/10 of where they were. And I said, “Let’s write the actual structure that got you from 1/10 to where you are right now.” And there’s five stages, and usually it’s an event, it’s a new relationship and all of a sudden they get a big check. And we measure, as entrepreneurs, size of check is a good scorecard. When you’re first starting, you got a $10,000 check, that was the biggest check. But about five years later, you get a $100,000 check, and all of a sudden it seems strange at breakfast, but by dinner you’ve normalized the idea, “Well, I know what it’s like to get a much bigger check, a 10 times check.” And so I have them create five growth stages that took them from where they were 1/10 to where they are right now, and I said, “Now let’s go back and talk about doing 10 times more.” And what they recognize, 80% who’ve got them 10 times the first time is going to be the same. It’s relationship, it’s having a great team, it’s having a simple approach that always works and it’s about the kind end customer. It’s not about them. It’s about who is it that you’re being a hero to in the marketplace. Because the truth is people don’t want to have a lot of relationships as they grow. They’d like to have one relationship to grow. They’d like to have an advisor who’s growing with them. But then John introduced me to the whole world of AI and I said, “We’re not talking 10 times anymore. We’re talking 100 times.” I said, “If you apply this new form of thinking, because it is an entirely new form of thinking, to what you’re doing right now, you can see that 10 times is going to happen just by doing three or four things where you’re eliminating waste, you’re eliminating things that just don’t work anymore, changing relationships, changing teamwork, changing collaborations in the marketplace.” But meanwhile, this new world of thinking is making you healthier. It’s making you more fit. So where before you thought you wouldn’t have the energy at 70, you now have more energy at 70 than you had at 50. So you’re the only one who says when it’s going to stop. I’m 82 in three weeks. We’re having this… I’m 82 and I’m way more ambitious at 82 than I was at 52. And the world is, because the world outside in terms of technological capability and access is way, way bigger in my 82nd year than it was in my 52nd year, and I love the growth. I have to tell you that the greatest point where AI is going to have the impact is going to be making money. The big titans, the Metas, the Googles, the Nvidias, what do they have in common? It’s about the money and where AI is being applied most is how you do new things with money. So that’s where the 100 times now comes from. I’ve normalized it. I said, “We’re not talking a 10x game anymore. We’re talking 100x game.” But the number on the scoreboard isn’t the issue. The scoreboard is, are you actually having fun? Louis Diamond: Yeah, we call it living your best business life. That’s our major barometer in charge. John, I don’t know if you could pull up your slides again, but I want to talk about the bridge between stage two in your pyramid to stage three. So that’s from expertise into scalable property. Can you explain how this relates to a financial advisor or an independent business owner and why this concept is so important for the valuation of a business? John Bowen: The book, it’s written for entrepreneurs, but I wanted to create some bridges while we’re together with Louis on really what’s going on for financial advisors and how you can help them. So if they’re at our stage one, Dan and my stage one of The Greater Game, and they want to go to two, they’re kind of dreaming oftentimes, and we want to help them begin creating the architectural structure. And as an advisor, this is really going to encourage everybody to read chapter two, The Greater Security. It talks about really the VFO, Virtual Family Office structure that they want, and you got to help them get financially solid, building personal wealth outside of the business, tax, estate, insurance, business structure. That’s what we all do today. Then though, if they want to move from level two to three, what we find over and over again, advisors are not equipped to do this, because what we’re taking is that founder where everything’s in its head, we’re now helping them move from just having that expertise to having scalable property. This is that codifying the process of building IP that’s transferable. And this is where the real valuation changes. Now, I’m not asking financial advisors to be the IP experts, but what the entrepreneurs want is they want somebody to help them curate and then coordinate between each of these levels. We go from three to four that the founder is indispensable, oftentimes at three. Now we want the team there to be invincible. And it’s not just the individual team as Dan was talking about. It’s the community. The collaboration is where this really takes off. The noise of AI is making it harder to market, but by partnering, particularly as financial advisors, we can very quickly have groups. One of the reasons why I’m collaborating with Dan, I want to help our financial advisors to work with entrepreneurs. Dan wants that research. So this is the natural collaboration. But they’re interested here in governance, self-managing teams. One of the things that Strategic Coach is brilliant at, the pre-transaction they want. And what we find so often is the indispensable discount. So many businesses sell, if they sell at all, they’re selling for three to five times multiplier, not advisory, but traditional businesses. Well, if you can make it to four, all of a sudden you’re now talking to 10 to 15 times multipliers. And think of it as if I’m a buyer and I’ve been involved in 50-some transactions, what happens is if the business is the guy, the gal, they’re the business, then you’re buying a very expensive job type thing. So let’s just keep a simple one. They’re having a couple million dollars of EBITDA. And let’s say the high range of that, five times EBITDA is $10 million. Well, the difference at 15 times two million is 30. Now, a few basis points I don’t really care about. I really care about capturing that difference. And because there’s a machine working without, I can buy that machine and generate that cash flow and it’s also taking advantage of the vision. And then when we get to level four, this is where most advisors make the biggest mistake is, “I’ve won. I’m at level four. I’ve got tremendous wealth.” Okay, but I’m now looking at significance. And I do want to go, “It’s not enduring legacy I’m looking for. I’m looking for active legacy. I’m looking for family governance.” Do I want to continue to build it like Dan and I’m doing at 70? I’m building the business so I can continue doing it as long as I want to do it. At the same time, and I love the impact we have and I know you do too, Louis, for the impact you have. Why not build the platform that’s going to allow you to do that as long as you want to do that? And if you don’t want to do it, let’s create the most value to transfer. When you start having conversations like that with families, entrepreneur families, it just changes, and very few advisors can do that. And that’s what we’re finding. We have a coaching company, training company, we train those things. They’re winning, quite honestly, almost 100% of the time because entrepreneurs didn’t know that was available to them. Louis Diamond: Interesting. It seems like the difference between stage two in your pyramid, to leap to stage three or four, that seems like a pretty massive pivot point for valuation for building a scalable business, having a self-managing company, et cetera. Do you find or have you seen that advisors or entrepreneurs that are in stage two themselves, they kind of pattern-match when they’re working with their own clients and kind of manage their own clients into stage two, or is it not really connected? John Bowen: I think that once you get the bigger picture and see the greater game, you can help your clients. That is a very small percentage. Remember, it was only 5.4 of when we surveyed successful entrepreneurs were actually playing the greater game, all four levels, the 10 greater multipliers. So I think what we tend to do is we get stuck on what we can do. And all the training is for level one for financial advisors. We don’t know how to guide them through the other levels. And really, the big difference from two to three, Dan and I’ve talked about this a lot, and I think Dan’s one of the biggest champions of this, is collaboration, putting together strategic partnerships. It could be with your competitors. This is for entrepreneurs, competitors, it could be various vendor partnerships. But the ability to open up markets that way when you have now put together in level two your IP, value creation’s huge. For advisors, it’s putting together partnerships with centers of influence. When we survey top financial advisors, 70% of their best clients came through COI, Centers of Influence with accountants, attorneys, investment bankers, and so on. Well, let’s do it on purpose, be successful on purpose. Louis Diamond: Dan, question for you. In all your experience working with successful financial advisors, insurance producers, probably any entrepreneur, what do you feel are the most common things that folks do unintentionally to really hurt their enterprise value even long before, or if ever, they decide to sell their business? Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is they stay entirely within their industry. One of the first questions that we ask our entrepreneurs when they come into the program and where you see it most is in the professions: lawyers, accountants, engineers, architects. I’ll say, “Well, what is it that you are?” And they’ll say, “Well, I’m a lawyer. I’m a tax lawyer.” And I said, “Are you a tax lawyer or are you an entrepreneur who has a specialty in tax law?” Okay. It makes a big difference, because if you see yourself as a tax lawyer, then you’re saying that you’re a better paid factory worker. You’re a manual laborer. But if you’re an entrepreneur, it’s a fairly recent idea in human history. There’s always been entrepreneurs, but it wasn’t until about the beginning of the 1800s that you start seeing this really different class of people in the marketplace, who, it didn’t matter how they were born, they were taking advantage of some new multiplier technology. Steam power being a great example. Around 1800, steam power came on. And anybody who had a bright vision for themselves and had the wherewithal to figure out what needs could be satisfied with a new technology, all of a sudden they became rich. They became rich. And it was very disruptive, because up until then it was based on aristocracy and you were born into wealth or you were born into poverty. There was no crossover. So what we’re saying is anybody who comes into Strategic Coach, I said, “I’m not going to tell you anything about your particular industry.” I said, “You know all the best practice people in your industry and they have workshops and they have conferences and you go to them, but they don’t know how to be entrepreneurs. You know how to create a really well-paying job, but you haven’t created a company.” A company is a totally different realm and I would say the vast majority of entrepreneurs, 95% of entrepreneurs haven’t really created a company. They’ve just created a really well-paying job which requires their presence and their attendance. I said, “You don’t get any payout for your company. If you’re the company, you need to have a structure.” I’ll give you an example. We started the company in 1989, and we’re about 270 times what our first year revenues were, and that was a great year. I was very happy for the first year, but we’re about 270 times. Along the way, what I did is I created other coaches so it wasn’t just Dan, the coach. So we have 16 other coaches. And I’ll give you a little example. In 1994, that year our company did 144 workshop days, 36 per quarter. One coach: me. Last year we did 600 workshop days and I did 12. 588 were done by other coaches. And our coaches are great. They’re clients who have coaching instincts and they do it. So about four years ago, I met one of our clients who’s an M&A specialist, and I laid out all the facts just in conversation, “This is our revenues. We have no debt. It’s repeatable income, around 70% is repeatable for one year.” I put the whole structure together. And I said, “So right off the top, I don’t have any relatives on staff.” The first thing they look for, “Any relatives working for you?” And he gave me a number. It was a big number. It was probably four times revenue for that year. He said, “We got a lot of structures.” Then something happened in the marketplace, and this is a great breakthrough that the US Patent Office sometime in the last 10 years recognized that up until about 10 years ago, to get a patent, you had to have a technological component for what you were doing. Sometime in the last 10 years, the patent bureaus decided that the internet is the technological component. So they’ve introduced education and entertainment as patentable processes. So in the last three years, we’ve gotten 82 patents. 82 patents. And these are our thinking tools, Lifetime Extender, Free Focus and Buffer Days. You know the routine that you learn in the first three days, and we’ve got 82 of them. We’re averaging about 25. I get a new patent about every two weeks. So I saw this M&A specialist, and I said, “This has happened in the last three years.” And he said, “Immediately it doubles the valuation of your company.” So what John’s saying here, as you go through the four stages, more and more you get paid for your creativity, retail, you get paid for your retail. But if you structure it, you record it, you package it, it is even greater than what you got paid for your creativity. Louis Diamond: Super interesting personal anecdote, and I appreciate you sharing that because that definitely did drive the point home for me. I see the applicability to probably any industry, but especially to any financial advisor. Dan Sullivan: Oh, yeah. Louis Diamond: The best RIA firms, the best advisors, they pretty much all start off with a cult of personality founder who’s the rainmaker. And then the practices that really grow and scale and are valuable are more platforms. That’s what private equity wants to invest in. And those are the firms that get the higher multiples. Dan Sullivan: Yeah. So the big thing is there’s a really, really great IP lawyer. He’s in our program and he’s made the breakthrough, and he’s the first IP lawyer that doesn’t charge by the hour. He charges by the patent. If the IP lawyer charges by the hour, it’s a very slow patent. If he charges by the patent, it’s a very fast patent. But the big thing, he showed a slide that in just big corporations, 1980, you took big corp, Fortune 500, the S&P 500, more than 80% of their valuation was tangible. It was property, it was real estate, it was fleets, it was equipment. Last year, more than 80% were intangibles. It was your ideas, intellectual. If you look at Elon Musk, it’s all intellectual capital. If you look at Meta, you look at anything, it’s intellectual. It’s not tangibles. So we’ve entered into that new world and AI has introduced us to that new world. It’s new processes, new structures, new approaches and it’s really interesting. It’s hard for entrepreneurs to get their idea that your creativity is actually property. Louis Diamond: It sounds like the ultimate challenge for anyone listening is translate your process, your ideas, the stuff that you’re doing by instinct as you both had said, and turn it into something patentable or something repeatable that another advisor, another executive, another owner can pick up and deploy and scale. John Bowen: We share the process in chapter four. It’s the fourth greater multiplier. And we actually share Caldwell, the attorney that Dan’s talking about, his story and the value creation. He’s now the major player in that space. And this is where we as advisors, we’re given a twofer, Dan and Louis, is that you can help your clients, but you can do this yourself too. You’ve been involved in a number of large transactions. The difference, I had a $2 billion advisory practice I sold in ’98, and we sold for 16 times earnings. And a big part of it, we were in that blue ocean. We had agents that we created and strategic process that would run without me, and it did type thing. And it continued to grow and went for about 10 fold what I sold for a number of years later. This is something that’s very real. Louis Diamond: Absolutely. I got two more questions for you guys because I know you’re both busy. For an advisor who feels like they’ve won the growth game, they grow 10, 15, 20% per year, they’re charged up, they’re on the Barron’s list, the Forbes list, they’re hitting their AUM milestones, they built an amazing team, they have a family member in the business. They have everything that anyone could want. What does the next game look like for them? What’s the next frontier once you’ve achieved all those things that from the outside looking in, seems like you have it all? What’s the next game to play? John Bowen: Well, we’re going to both say The Greater Game, but the- Dan Sullivan: Well, tell them about the dashboard, John, because the book is just part of the deal here. It gives you the landscape. There’s a great tool that comes with the book. So tell them about the dashboard. John Bowen: Really what we wanted to do is to create kind of a community just around the book. Dan and I and team built a dashboard. We were very creative on naming, thegreatergamedashboard.com. You can go in and we’re now studying every month over 500 successful entrepreneurs. We have that data in here. You’ll be able to see how you compare at each of these stages, the four stages, the 10 multipliers. And you’re going to get specific recommendations. This is for entrepreneurs. But again, you should do it. If you’re a financial advisor, you have an equity ownership, you should definitely be doing it as well. And one of the things that we see over and over again, and Louis, you probably see this a lot in the conversations. They have advisors who have already won. They don’t know what the next game is. And it’s easy to check out at that point. It’s easy to frustrate the next generation of leaders and so on. If you take the time to really see what the opportunities are and architect to realize that vision, you can create, whether it’s selling the practice, creating tremendous value there or designing a role for yourself, maybe it’s executive chairman type for that business that you can guide it with the vision and what you’ve brought and strategy. But bring that team up. That’s going to create so much value, so much impact and you can design it for the life that you want. And that’s where I get very excited. Louis Diamond: I can hear the passion in your voice. Dan, let’s finish with you. Given all of your experience working with entrepreneurs, advisors, business owners, et cetera, what’s the one move that you’ve seen the most successful entrepreneurs in your orbit make that’s changed the trajectory of their firms and their life more than anything else? Dan Sullivan: I’ll answer it in a little roundabout way. Periodically, I have a thinking tool. I said, “If everything was taken away from you as an entrepreneur and they moved you 1,000 miles away, what’s the one thing that you would take with you? It has to be portable. So what is the most portable thing that you have that you would start over again with the greatest value that you had created previously? What would it be? And then you would rebuild what you’ve already created, but you would do it much faster. What would be the one thing?” It’s an interesting thought. But in our concept, it’s called unique ability, that there’s something about you, as an individual, that first of all gave you enough confidence to become an entrepreneur because it’s risky. It’s a risky proposition. It’s guessing and betting and it’s risky business and it’s unique ability. So the starting point for all growth in Strategic Coach is that there’s something about you that’s absolutely unique. You don’t have any competitors on this and it has two qualities. One is that you’re so good at it, you don’t take it seriously. You’ve done this since you were a child and it just comes to you naturally and you don’t see the significance of it. When you’re in Coach, you start seeing the significance of it. And the second thing is you just absolutely love doing it. It’s what you love doing most of all. It comes to you naturally. You don’t even have to think about it. And then you begin to realize that anything else you’re doing as the founder and the owner of your company, probably somebody else can do. So you’re doing 20 things, but really you should be doing three things. The other 17 things still need to be done but not by you. And that’s the breakthrough. You have to simplify in order to multiply. Louis Diamond: I absolutely love that. I know when I was in Coach, that was my biggest takeaway or realization was figuring out what my unique ability was because I think the two components,

Joe Polish sits down with Strategic Coach Founder Dan Sullivan and The CEO of CEG Worldwide John Bowen to explore the research-backed framework behind their new book, The Greater Game — a 100x blueprint that reveals why only 5.4% of Entrepreneurs are playing a completely different game than everyone else. Together they unpack the shift from Founder-dependent businesses to scalable ecosystems, the finite-vs-infinite game divide, and why AI is less a technological revolution and more a cognitive one. Here's a glance at what you'll discover in this episode: The number that reveals whether you're winning or losing the only game that matters... and why 94.6% of Entrepreneurs are optimizing a game that's already coming to an end (you've probably already done 10x without calling it that — what you do next is the whole point) Dan Sullivan's quiet observation after 52 years and 7,000+ Entrepreneurs... the exact moment a successful person stops growing isn't failure — it's something far more seductive, and almost no one catches it in themselves (the first exercise he runs at Strategic Coach is designed to show you you've already crossed the line once) Joe typed a question into AI and got back the most brutal case study in modern business history... Blockbuster, Kodak, Borders, Toys "R" Us — and the one invisible shift every company on that list missed before it was too late (this isn't a technology story — it's a thinking story) Why John Bowen started three new companies on his 70th birthday... and the dashboard he and Dan built for roughly $2,000 that a top vendor quoted them $50,000 a year to provide (his tech team called after the first meeting and said "we'll just build it and give it to you tomorrow") The four-hour version of something that used to take Dan Sullivan four weeks... and what it reveals about the only AI upgrade that actually changes your trajectory (this isn't about using AI more — it's about using it in the right direction entirely) What Joe Polish teaches Genius Youth Members that no business school has ever covered... and why writing handwritten postcards in an age of AI might be the single highest-leverage thing you do this week (the killer app of 2026 is not what anyone is selling you) If you'd like to join world-renowned Entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network Event or want to learn more about Genius Network, go to www.GeniusNetwork.com. Show Notes: The Book: The Greater Game and the 5.4% Dan and John's new book — published by Hay House and instantly a #1 Amazon bestseller — grew out of a 25-year research partnership to study what separates the highest-performing Entrepreneurs from everyone else. Their research across 7,000+ Entrepreneurs found that 94.6% are still optimizing the game they're in — while only 5.4% are architecting a completely different one. The book maps out exactly what those 5.4% are doing. The book's central premise: "Every system that got you here is optimized for a game that's coming to an end." From 10x to 100x: Dan's Framework Dan has been coaching Entrepreneurs to 10x since the 1990s — starting with an exercise where he had Clients identify when they were one-tenth of where they are today. Everyone in his program had already done 10x without labeling it that way. When he challenged a Client who said they couldn't go 10x in three years, the Client responded they could do it in 15 — and then voluntarily suggested doing it again. That's when the 100x idea crystallized. Dan's thesis: give yourself a long enough time horizon, use AI as a genuine collaborator, and constant growth becomes the natural state — not the exception. The Four Levels of The Greater Game Level 1 — Foundation for Freedom: Vision, security, and financial confidence. Getting off the couch. Level 2 — Energy for Expansion: Motivation and IP development. Dan has built an extraordinary amount of intellectual property; John and Joe have too. Level 3 — Platform / Ecosystem: Moving from Founder-dependent to a scalable system. John's own company grew 58% while writing the book — by walking the talk of this level. Level 4 — Agency: Creating markets. Courage, commitment, and building an ecosystem where you're generating the category itself. Finite vs. Infinite: What the Game Shift Really Means Finite game: competing for market share, managing dependencies, staying indispensable personally, reacting to market pressure. Business value: 3–5x EBITDA. Infinite game: designing an ecosystem, multiplying unique genius through others, engineering your own absence, redefining the market. Business value: multiples that reflect systems, not the Founder. Joe's examples (finite → infinite): Blockbuster → Netflix, Kodak → Apple, Borders → Amazon, taxi companies → Uber, Toys "R" Us → Lego. The pattern: finite players optimize the current game; infinite players keep changing what the game is. Dan's real-world example: Paul Van Dyne came to Strategic Coach planning to retire at 65. He went on to take his engineering firm from #40 to #1 nationally in nine years through M&A — and now plans to build his gourmet coffee shop inside one of his medical centers. AI as a Cognitive Revolution Dan's framing: AI isn't a technological revolution — it's a cognitive revolution. He compares its impact to the introduction of zero in mathematics, which made economics, double-entry bookkeeping, and science possible. Practical example: Dan used to need four weeks to structure a new book. With AI, the same work takes four hours. He now writes a new book every quarter. John's vibe-coding story: his Team built the entire Greater Game Dashboard for roughly $2,000–3,000 using Lovable — after being quoted $50,000/year from a top vendor. They own the code and iterate freely. Joe's counterpoint: the killer app today is being fully human — knowing how to bond, connect, and think for yourself. "Write with your hands, think with your brain."  The Greater Game Dashboard John built this free interactive tool at TheGreaterGameDashboard.com to put the book's framework into action. The 15-minute assessment shows you exactly where you stand relative to peers and the 10 Greater Multipliers. The dashboard automatically calculates what your company is worth to a buyer today — and shows how each improvement raises that number. Dan calls it the greatest tool he's seen in 52 years of coaching Entrepreneurs. Monthly updates include an Entrepreneur Pulse confidence index. Useful whether you ever intend to sell or not — knowing your number changes how you invest in your business. Building Great Teams: Cast, Don't Hire Dan's principle: Strategic Coach treats itself as a theater company — with backstage and front-stage roles. They don't hire for jobs, they cast for roles. Every new hire is there to free up someone already in the company. Babs Smith built the Strategic Coach Team around Dan from the start — several Team members have now been with the company 20–30+ years. Beware the Founder-as-salesperson trap: if you're great at selling, you'll hire the wrong people — you'll confuse their excitement for the role with fit for the role. John, Joe, and Dan all find talent primarily through communities — mastermind groups, Genius Network, Strategic Coach — rather than ads. Great people seek out great people. Dan's upcoming book (Hay House): Casting Not Hiring. IP as a Strategic Asset Dan has had 82 thinking tools patented by the US Patent Bureau (none rejected), with 75 more pending. Each patent is a borrowable asset — you can borrow up to half the appraised value, creating a private intellectual property bank. Joe Polish's company operates as an ESOP — all Team members become equity owners after a vesting period, creating a true ownership culture without requiring employees to buy in upfront. Genius Youth and the Human Connection Advantage Joe's Genius Youth program focuses on skills AI can't replicate: human connection, handwritten notes, cold plunges, cooking and hospitality, ethical influence. Joe's 2026 Genius Network Annual Event —  features Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler (Authors of We Are as Gods), live robots, and a mystery musician on 300M+ albums. Resources: The Greater Game (Book) — Dan Sullivan & John Bowen The Greater Game (Audiobook) — narrated by Gord Vickman, Hay House Business TheGreaterGameDashboard.com — free 15-minute assessment & company valuation tool 10xTalk Podcast — Subscribe — 10xTalk.com 10xTalk on Apple Podcasts Strategic Coach — Dan Sullivan's coaching program Genius Network — Joe Polish's community for elite Entrepreneurs Joe Polish's Genius Network Annual Event CEG Worldwide (John Bowen) — research and coaching for financial advisors Cleator Ghost Town, Arizona — Joe's 40-acre ghost town & the Cleator Bar and Yacht Club Inside Strategic Coach Podcast — Episode on Hiring — Dan Sullivan & Shannon Waller AI Killed the Modern Company (Video) — Peter Diamandis & Salim Ismail Why Microsoft AI Chief Predicts AI Automation of White-Collar Work in 18 Months — Fortune / Mustafa Suleyman

When life partners become business partners, tension can quickly intensify—or multiply everything that matters. With the right tools and mindsets, that partnership can become extraordinary. In this episode, Kerby Skurat and Cristina Edelstein share how Strategic Coach® has helped them build a thriving business and a strong marriage at the same time. Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:How life partners Dan Sullivan and Babs Smith co-run Strategic Coach.What Strategic Coach has helped Cristina and Kerby achieve with their business.How Cristina and Kerby grew their real estate business into a $10‑million‑a‑year company.Cristina and Kerby's core values.What led Kerby to the decision to shut down a $16-million company.Why both members of an entrepreneurial couple should attend Strategic Coach workshops. Show Notes: Many entrepreneurial couples end up with an almost adversarial business relationship that spills into their personal life. Unique Ability® gives each partner a clear lane, so “best with best” teamwork becomes possible instead of competitive. Entrepreneurism usually shows up early in life and quickly becomes a lifelong way of operating. Choosing the entrepreneurial path means you've opted out of the job market and into creating your own game. Strategic Coach provides the structure, tools, and community that support this unique way of life. There's an art to staying in your lane, especially when both partners are strong‑willed and driven. Every individual has a distinct way of creating results, and honoring those differences turns conflict into collaboration. Real data, real statistics, and real projections give you the confidence to make clear decisions and smart adjustments. A business can be big and profitable and still be the wrong one for you. Shutting down a good company can be the smartest move if it frees you up for great opportunities. Time away from your team, in a room with other entrepreneurs, often leads to the biggest strategic decisions. Hearing other entrepreneurs' success stories can inspire you to take action on your own goals. Strategic Coach workshops create a thinking space where you can focus on what could be, not just what is. Getting help at deeper personal levels, like marriage counseling, can dramatically improve your business teamwork. Strategic Coach tools work just as well at home as they do in the office. In a team of any size, the speed of the leader determines the speed of the pack. When both partners are in the same coaching environment, it's far easier to stay aligned on vision and decisions. Resources: Unique Ability® Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn't Show On The Front StageEverything Is Created Backward by Dan SullivanThe Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Gary Keller EOS® Worldwide Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy How To Sell Transformation Using This One Question Do You Know What's Keeping Your Clients Awake At 3 A.M.? Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan

Joe Polish and Dan Sullivan host a LIVE, unscripted 10x Talk episode on why ambition isn't a limited resource—it's a capability you can develop for life. You'll learn how alignment, free days, courage, and human connection (especially in an AI-driven world) keep Entrepreneurs energized, productive, and excited about what's next. Here's a glance at what you'll discover in this episode: Why ambition isn't something you "use up," and how treating it as a capability creates an endless flywheel of growth. The prime directives Dan and Babs use to protect alignment, independence, and momentum—so nothing (and no one) gets between them. The Lifetime Extender exercise that instantly expands your timeline, reignites motivation, and changes how you make decisions. The real reason Entrepreneurs lose ambition: trying to eliminate courage—and the hidden cost of losing excitement. How to use AI without losing the human edge: systematize the predictable, humanize the exceptional, and reclaim your time and attention. If you'd like to join world-renowned Entrepreneurs at the next Genius Network Event or want to learn more about Genius Network, go to www.GeniusNetwork.com.

Kevin Osgood and John Craemer from the USCG Auxiliary join the show to promote boating safety courses. It's that time of year again, and Kevin and John say that about 80% of people on the water have not taken a safety course. We're hoping to help change that. You can click HERE to see the upcoming dates for courses in Northeast Wisconsin. John and Kevin also presented Challenge Coins to Jim, John, and Todd. It was an amazing honor. Then another amazing friend stops by: Babs Smith. Her organization is planting another 50 apple blossom trees in with the Apple Blossom tree planting event at the Apple Creek Trail at Cherryvale Avenue in Appleton. It's coming up on Thursday, May 8th, at 10 am. Babs also released her latest book: Day Tripping Kayak Wisconsin Waters of Green Bay West Shore: Green Bay to Garden Peninsula Upper Michigan. Maino and the Mayor is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 6-9 am on WGBW in Green Bay and on WISS in Appleton/Oshkosh. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast lineup. Follow the show on Facebook and X to keep up with Maino and the Mayor! Guests: John Craemer, Babs Smith, Kevin Osgood

Kevin Osgood and John Craemer from the USCG Auxiliary join the show to promote boating safety courses. It's that time of year again, and Kevin and John say that about 80% of people on the water have not taken a safety course. We're hoping to help change that. You can click HERE to see the upcoming dates for courses in Northeast Wisconsin. John and Kevin also presented Challenge Coins to Jim, John, and Todd. It was an amazing honor. Then another amazing friend stops by: Babs Smith. Her organization is planting another 50 apple blossom trees in with the Apple Blossom tree planting event at the Apple Creek Trail at Cherryvale Avenue in Appleton. It's coming up on Thursday, May 8th, at 10 am. Babs also released her latest book: Day Tripping Kayak Wisconsin Waters of Green Bay West Shore: Green Bay to Garden Peninsula Upper Michigan. Maino and the Mayor is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 6-9 am on WGBW in Green Bay and on WISS in Appleton/Oshkosh. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast lineup. Follow the show on Facebook and X to keep up with Maino and the Mayor! Guests: John Craemer, Babs Smith, Kevin Osgood

The day starts of with discussions about Chihuahuas, Maino's short-lived time working for ESPN and how it ties into Jessie Ventura. The guys take anonymous call from a listener to verify Maino and Nick (back in the day) were mooning people at New York New York in Vegas. The guys debut their very first Tuesday Travels which took them to Appleton last week to plant crab apple trees with Babs Smith. Maino and the Mayor is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 6-9 am on WGBW in Green Bay and on WISS in Oshkosh. Subscribe to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast line up. Follow the show on Facebook and X to keep up with Maino and the Mayor!

On Today's Episode We welcome back Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. A returning guest to the show and one of the most influential people on host Dr. Mark Young, the guys cover a variety of topics. Tune in for more - Get Dan's Books Here - https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dan-Sullivan/author/B003ZFP2L4?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3&qid=1713965028&sr=8-3&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true Dan Sullivan is founder and president of The Strategic Coach Inc. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker, Dan has over 40 years' experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups. Dan's strong belief in and commitment to the power of the entrepreneur is evident in all areas of Strategic Coach® and its successful coaching program, which works to help entrepreneurs reach their full potential in both their business and personal lives. He is author of over 30 publications, including The Great Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, Creative Destruction, and How The Best Get Better®. He is co-author of The Laws of Lifetime Growth and The Advisor Century. Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K. Dan and Babs reside in Toronto.

Babs Smith is on the show. She was recently on Wheel of Fortune, which is cool enough. But she also writes books about kayaking in Wisconsin AND she raises money to help plant apple trees in Appleton. She may be retired, but she hasn't slowed down! So lucky to have Erick Brundidge with Life Love Incorporated joining John and Jim to talk about his journey of playing football and creating a brand that is deeper than just the art and the threads. An amazing story from and amazing individual. Here is more information on his brand: https://lifeloveincorporated.com/ Maino and the Mayor is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 6-8 am on WGBW in Green Bay and on WISS in Oshkosh. Subscribed to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast line up. Follow the show on Facebook and X to keep up with Maino and the Mayor!

Babs Smith is on the show. She was recently on Wheel of Fortune, which is cool enough. But she also writes books about kayaking in Wisconsin AND she raises money to help plant apple trees in Appleton. She may be retired, but she hasn't slowed down! Then Pat Casey is on from Discover Oshkosh to kick off their Craft Beer Week! So much fun! https://www.visitoshkosh.com/ Maino and the Mayor is a part of the Civic Media radio network and airs Monday through Friday from 6-8 am on WGBW in Green Bay and on WISS in Oshkosh. Subscribed to the podcast to be sure not to miss out on a single episode! To learn more about the show and all of the programming across the Civic Media network, head over to https://civicmedia.us/shows to see the entire broadcast line up. Follow the show on Facebook and X to keep up with Maino and the Mayor! Guests: Patrick Tracey, Babs Smith

One of the most genuine, positive, and enthusiastic people you'll ever meet, Shannon loves nothing more than seeing people become better, happier, more successful versions of themselves and facilitating the honest, practical conversations that help them get there.  Since joining Strategic Coach in 1991 as both a team member and participant, Shannon has helped grow the business beyond what founders Dan Sullivan and Babs Smith ever imagined possible, far surpassing the initial goal of reaching 500 clients. She's the creator of The Strategic Coach.  Shannon showed us how to make a huge difference in our lives by harnessing the power of collaboration. Forget about trying to go it alone - Shannon helps you break free from that 'I can do better myself' mentality and level up with teamwork!  She also delivers a reminder that life is about focusing on the things you're naturally good at and giving it your all. Find what energizes you instead of draining you in order to make work enjoyable! Rewire yourself, know yourself, and watch how many improvements you can make. In this episode, we discuss:  -Shannon's story and how she started The Strategic Coach.  -Shifting your mind to ‘teamwork'.  -Identifying and doubling your strengths.  -Shannon's piece of advice on how to make personal progress.  Connect with Shannon Waller:  www.strategiccoach.com  Connect with Pantheon Investments:  Join the Pantheon Investor Club: https://pantheoninvest.com/investor-signup/  Website: www.pantheoninvest.com  Podcast: www.pantheoninvest.com/podcast  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PantheonInvest  Instagram: www.instagram.com/pantheoninvest  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pantheon-invest  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pantheon_Invest   Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8EsPFlwQUpMXgRMvrmbAfQ  Holistic Wealth Strategy Book:https://www.amazon.com/Holistic-Wealth-Strategy-Roadmap-Financial/dp/B089CS58F1  Email: info@pantheoninvest.com

Surprisingly, we don't have an immediate answer to the topic of what we are truly good at because we are so preoccupied with following trends that we forget about our unique qualities. Join us in this episode as Julia Waller illuminates the lifelong journey you and your kid will take to uncover the gifts already within you.   Key takeaways to listen for Unique ability: What it is and why it is important to embrace it Why positive feedback is the key to discovering your unique skills How to foster your child's unique abilities at an early age Powerful ways to beat your doubts and trust your own unique ability How to strengthen your weaknesses while focusing on your strengths Develop a deeper connection through embracing your child's authenticity   Resources mentioned in this episode Integrate the Golden Rule Into Your Life to Live Boundlessly with Ben Greenfield Using Strategy for Success with Shannon Waller Dan Sullivan and Babs Smith  Embracing Your Flaws and Imperfections to Become a Better Person with Dave Rendall CliftonStrengths Online Talent Assessment   About Julia Waller Julia Waller, a teacher with a masters degree in international education, joined the Strategic Coach team in 1997. A key leader in the company, Julia is one of the main designers of workshop programs, tools, and systems. Her passion for Unique Ability led to the development of The Unique Ability Discovery Process. She has worked with numerous team members and entrepreneurs to identify their Unique Abilities. She is all about uncovering people's passions and talents, allowing them to be not only who they truly are, but to be their “best self.” She's an invaluable resource for her clients and her team. Connect with Julia Website: Strategic Coach | Unique Ability   Connect with Us To learn more about us, visit our website at www.18summers.com or email us at info@18summers.com. To get a copy of our book “The Family Board Meeting,” click here. Subscribe to 18 Summers Podcast and leave a rating and written review! Social Media Channels Facebook Group: 18 Summers LinkedIn: Jimmy Sheils Instagram: @18summerstribe

Today, in a very special episode, Bill celebrates his 100th episode milestone in his podcast journey with a special friend, coach, and mentor, Dan Sullivan. They talk about how Dan started his organization with his partner in business and life, what pushed them to choose to coach entrepreneurs, and how it all started for Dan in his childhood. Dan also shares how he stays consistent with his habits and how he plans to do what he does for another lifetime.   Dan Sullivan is the founder and president of Strategic Coach®. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker, Dan has over 40 years of experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups. Dan's strong belief in and commitment to the power of the entrepreneur is evident in all areas of Strategic Coach and its successful coaching program, which works to help entrepreneurs reach their full potential in both their business and personal lives.    He is the author of over 30 publications, including The Great Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, Creative Destruction, and How The Best Get Better®. He is co-author of The Laws of Lifetime Growth and The Advisor Century.   Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate Strategic Coach, with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K.   Learn more about Dan at: Website: https://www.strategiccoach.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dansullivansc Show notes: [2:02] How has he been able to create an incredible organization with his wife? [5:14] Why did they choose to coach entrepreneurs? [10:11] why is it important to understand your childhood and your past? [15:36] How important is it for Dan to be around grown-ups? [25:30] What it means for Dan to be 78 [35:32] What were Dan's biggest takeaways after that first session? [38:47] How has Dan stayed consistent with his habits? [46:04] What is Dan's favorite part of being a coach? [51:57] What's Bill's takeaway today? [54:11] How to find Dan and learn more about strategic coach [56:35] Outro   Connect with Bill Bloom  Web: https://www.bloomfinancialco.com/ https://bloomfinancialco.kartra.com/page/bNJ87 Email: bill@bloomfinancial.us  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bloomfinancial/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/retireasyoudesirepodcast   Securities and investment advisory services offered through Woodbury Financial Services, Inc. (WFS) member FINRA/SIPC. WFS. is separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of WFS.   Views expressed in this podcast are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide or be a substitute for specific professional financial, tax or legal advice or recommendations for any individuals. Information is based on sources believed to be reliable; however, their accuracy or completeness cannot be guaranteed.

Dan Sullivan started coaching in 1974 and was a rugged individual until he and Babs Smith started Strategic Coach®.  Dan shares the struggles his ADD created before creating a structure around him to support his Unique Ability® at Strategic Coach®.  André and Dan discuss various aspects of ADHD/ADD that can be harnessed when you do things that don't bother you. The Impulsive Thinker is sponsored by the Centre of ADHD Awareness, Canada.  Please donate here! We would like to hear from you!  Please send show ideas, questions, or feedback to questions@theimpulsivethinker.com and join our mailing list here!  Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn. André Brisson can also be found on LinkedIn. Produced By Tactical Breakthroughs Strategic Coach® and Unique Ability's® is a registered trademark of The Strategic Coach Inc. All rights reserved.

Mark and Dr. Gladden welcome Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach back to the show to talk about the thinking behind his latest book, My Plan For Living To 156. He discusses his mindset shift toward greater longevity, rather than believing he would only live about as long as his parents. Dan talks about one of the most important changes he’s made in his life for his mindset. Dr. Gladden talks about the difference between being committed to a question versus being married to an answer. They talk about how the mind has the ability to overcome so many physical conditions, so it is key to reprogramming the body. Dan goes through some of his plans for getting to 156, including how he’s developing good habits and strengths. SPECIAL GUEST Dan Sullivan is founder and president of The Strategic Coach Inc. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker, Dan has over 35 years’ experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups. Dan’s strong belief in and commitment to the power of the entrepreneur is evident in all areas of Strategic Coach® and its successful coaching program, which works to help entrepreneurs reach their full potential in both their business and personal lives. He is author of over 30 publications, including The Great Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, Creative Destruction and How The Best Get Better®. He is co-author of The Laws of Lifetime Growth and The Advisor Century. Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K. Follow Dan on Twitter @StrategicCoach and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StrategicCoach/ For information on his business strategies and programs, visit https://www.strategiccoach.com/ Get a free copy of My Plan for Living to 156

Dan Sullivan, founder and president of Strategic Coach Inc., join Dave Will on this episode of EO 360°. Dan walks us through the different levels of thinking and how changing our thinking can change our reality. He also talks about living up until the age of 156, and how he thinks this feat can be achieved. Listen now! Timestamped show notes 01:16 Dave introduces today's guest, Dan Sullivan, founder and president of Strategic Coach Inc. 02:01 Dan credits his partnership with his wife, Babs Smith, for the immense growth of their company, and they recently earned 1 million in revenue in a single day. 05:54 Some entrepreneurs, even if they are successful and potentially have a lot more freedom, are unhappy, because they are not measuring themselves against the ideal, and not on where they started.  09:04 Dan is clinically diagnosed with ADD. He was able to handle it better later in life after getting it properly diagnosed. 16:43 Most people think about things and most daily thinking revolve around objects. But there is a high level of thinking, thinking about people and connecting with people. And there's a higher level where you think about other people's thoughts. But there's also level which is thinking about your thinking, your own thoughts. 20:58 The importance of asking the right questions to unlock the answers entrepreneurs already had in order to improve their mindsets and the way they operate. 22:52 Behavior changes and the reality that comes as a result of that also changes. 23:43 With science and technology becoming more sophisticated, Dan envisions living until he's 156. Friends, money, and purpose are important aspects to keep growing in order to live longer. 27:06 On creating a tool to help entrepreneurs think about their thinking, that goes beyond 360 degrees. 29:42 Dan talks about his latest book, Extraordinary Impact Filter, that can help express our thinking in a way that others can easily understand them. 32:45 Dave mentions Dan's documentary video that can be accessed on the Strategic Coach website.   Key takeaways You can't measure against an ideal because an ideal is actually a destination, an illumination where you want to go next. When you have a goal, don't think in terms of how to get to the goal, think of who is going to help you get you to the goal.   Resources Entrepreneurs' Organization Extraordinary Impact Filter book Game Changer: The Dan Sullivan Story

Dan Sullivan’s Strategic Coach® program is how Mark and Dr. Gladden met, and Sullivan describes how he came to imagine a different kind of longevity than most people. He talks about how just thinking differently about the possibilities and changing his mindset about aging has helped him feel better and more capable of achieving his goal of living to 156. In Strategic Coach, Sullivan says, “Your eyes only see and your ears only hear what your brain is looking for,” which applies directly to the mindset you need to live much longer. In the reverse, he talks about the three factors he believes predispose you to die. For information on Vasper, watch this video: https://vimeo.com/159245493 For more on This Week in Longevity Science, visit the following links: http://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/ketogenic-diets-promote-longevity-and-memory https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/eat-fat-live-longer/ Dr. Gladden weighs in on the ketogenic diet, offering some tips on how to approach it. However, every body works with food differently, and Gladden says that food may be the most important thing you can pay attention to for your mental and physical performance. Dr. Gladden, Mark and Robb each talk about their individual experiences with ketogenesis. Longevity requires the mind to be first, and then you bring your body along. Ask yourself, “What different questions would I be asking today if I knew it was possible to live a vibrant 120 years?” About the guest: Dan Sullivan is founder and president of The Strategic Coach Inc. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker, Dan has over 35 years’ experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups. Dan’s strong belief in and commitment to the power of the entrepreneur is evident in all areas of Strategic Coach® and its successful coaching program, which works to help entrepreneurs reach their full potential in both their business and personal lives. He is author of over 30 publications, including The Great Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, Creative Destruction and How The Best Get Better®. He is co-author of The Laws of Lifetime Growth and The Advisor Century. Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and in life. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., with offices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K. Follow Dan on Twitter @StrategicCoach and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StrategicCoach/ For information on his business strategies and programs, visit https://www.strategiccoach.com/

In this Episode of 10XTalk, part 2 of a 2-part series, you’ll discover the prime directives of creating a self managing company, the power of your team as multipliers, relationships, and a behind the scenes look at what makes Strategic Coach work with Dan Sullivan, Babs Smith, and Joe Polish. To listen to first part, and gain access to the entire recording please listen to episode 100 - or visit 10xTalk.com/100. The episode starts with the conversation in progress. Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn in this episode: How to set standards and criteria when it comes to teamwork, partnerships and work relationships Joe, Dan and Babs discuss the intricacies of intimacy Dan gives you a smarter way to think about creating hassle-free partnerships Why a no-entitlement attitude is essential when building and growing your organization One of the best ways to help your clients and customers and have them more easily buy into your ideas The reason why it’s important to communicate care before you communicate knowledge Paying Yourself First: A better way to think about your time, productivity and freedom How to align yourself with people who are aligned with you, create significant work and achieve more in your business and life

In this Episode of 10XTalk, part 1 of a 2-part series, you’ll discover the prime directives of creating a self managing company, the power of your team as multipliers, relationships, and a behind the scenes look at what makes Strategic Coach work with Dan Sullivan, Babs Smith, and Joe Polish. Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn in this episode: A behind-the-scenes look at how Babs and Dan work together to make Strategic Coach work How to know who you should have as team members and where you should focus your time, attention and energy A key lesson Dan Sullivan learned growing one of the top coaching organizations for entrepreneurs Why it’s important to find relationships that just work from the beginning The difference between a business’s ‘frontstage’ and ‘backstage’ and why both are important Dan and Babs share their Prime Directives that help create a self-managing company Shownotes and links from this episode (including the full BONUS recording) can be found at: www.10xtalk.com/100

https://www.strategiccoach.comDan Sullivan is founder and president of The Strategic CoachInc. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker,Dan has over 35 years' experience as a highly regarded speaker,consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurialindividuals and groups. Dan's strong belief in and commitment tothe power of the entrepreneur is evident in all areas of StrategicCoach® and its successful coaching program, which works tohelp entrepreneurs reach their full potential in both theirbusiness and personal lives.He is author of over 30 publications, including TheGreat Crossover, The 21st Century Agent, CreativeDestruction, and How The Best Get Better®.He is co-author of The Laws of LifetimeGrowth and The Advisor Century.Dan is married to Babs Smith, his partner in business and inlife. They jointly own and operate The Strategic Coach Inc., withoffices in Toronto, Chicago, and the U.K. New workshops are alsobeing held in Los Angeles and Vancouver. Dan and Babs reside inToronto.