Dan Kennedy’s Most Valuable Piece of Advice
You'll avoid jumping through all the unnecessary 'traditional' business hoops once you own the 'Kennedyism' revealed here today
Hey you,
It’s #2.
In the comments section of the rare article posted by Dan Kennedy here, Brian, asked “What’s the biggest lesson or takeaway you’ve gotten from all of Dan’s stuff Nerds?”
So, today I wanted to reveal to you the one distinction I’ve deemed most important to the success of your business as well as your life.
And first, to help illustrate why this point is so important I’d like to introduce you to a man I’m extraordinarily fond of a man by the name of Robert Dilts.
Anyone who’s very familiar with NLP (Tim, Nick S., John Richards), Neuro Linguistic Programming is definitely familiar with this man and if you aren’t and you’re interested in becoming influential to anyone in your life, you should be.
Here’s why.
Some of Robert’s programs are super technical and loaded to the hilt with NLP jargon that might send the beginners hand reaching for the stop button on their Ipod.
The one I’d like to introduce you to today is not. It’s a three day program called Conversational Magic.
The premise behind the title/theme of this seminar is that whenever you seek to influence anyone toward a resourceful way of thinking, doing it in a way that goes under their radar, conversationally, rather than confrontationally, is what allows someone to change for the better, faster.
Even if this was the first time you’ve ever heard of NLP, this program would give you an outstanding overview of it, while giving you tools to become even more aware of why you do what you do and why others do the things they do and how to talk to people in a way that opens them up to what you have to say instead of resisting it.
If you’re not making the correlation as to why this is important to you and your business, you might not have a pulse.
Communication is vital to all of our relationships, especially the relationship we have with ourselves. While we may work from home and only talk to 1 or 2 people a day, we communicate non-stop with ourselves from dusk to dawn.
Today I wanted to tell about one of the most dangerous ideas every human battles… The Thought Virus.
A thought virus is not a belief that you generate on your own. It’s not a generalization that you come up with because you can say “Well, I’ve had this experience, this experience, this experience, and look it all means this.”
For example, we may have some ideas in our head, for instance that we should be certified by some kind of a organization or committee before we can have authority in a niche. But it may not actually be a reflection of our actual life experience.
If anything, guys like Dan Kennedy show us the counter examples to this, people with “Zero official credentials” going out and self aggrandizing themselves “Experts On”, “Kings Of”, “Gurus Of” with nothing but their own belief in themselves.
But the idea that “We Can’t” still influences us even if we’ve never even tried.
Most racial prejudice is based on thought viruses. It’s not something people come up with based on their own experience. It’s something they pick up like a virus from other places.
Now what happens is these ideas are nothing more than self fulfilling viruses. And it’s this way why? Because it should be that way!”
Here’s a story that illustrates this beautifully…
A group of researchers take a group of monkeys and put them in a room. There’s five of them and there’s a stairway in a certain part of the room and at the top there’s a bunch of banana’s hanging there.
But they have it rigged up so that if any of the monkey’s go on the stairway, everybody is soaked by a water system in the ceiling. All the monkeys get wet.
Well, pretty soon the monkeys figure out, hey, it’s something about going to those bananas or trying to get the bananas that leads to us all getting wet. And so if they see one of their colleagues going for the bananas they don’t want to get wet, so they stop ‘em.
Eventually they all learn, “Don’t go to the stairway and go for the bananas.”
What’s interesting is that in the next part of the experiment they turn off the water. The monkeys still aren’t going on the stairway so they never know the water is off. Then they take out one of those monkeys and put in a new one.
The new monkey’s never been on the stairs, never gotten wet and of course the waters off anyway. But if that monkey starts going toward the stairs the other 4 stop him. The harder he tries to get to the stairs, the harder the other ones stop him.
Pretty soon he figures out he not gonna try to go to the stairs anymore.
Then they take out another one of the first group of monkeys and put in another new one. Same thing happens. As the new one starts going toward the stairs, the other ones stop him, including by the way, the first new monkey who’s apparently rather enthusiastic about it.
“I don’t get to go to the stairs, you don’t get to go to the stairs.”
Of course the water is still off. Then they take out another one of the old monkeys and put another one in and the same pattern happens until they finally have all new monkeys. The water is off. They’ve never been wet. Why don’t they go to the stairs?
“Because you shouldn’t. That’s the way it is. It’s always been that way.”
And this is what Robert means by a thought virus. “It’s just that way. That’s how it is.” It’s interesting because a thought virus is also a belief that gets so dis-associated from it’s positive intention.
By the way, in the monkey’s case what’s the positive intention of the belief? Why does the new monkey finally give in? To not be ostracized, rejected, fought against. Even though it doesn’t know why.
So much about change is rooted in thought viruses, beliefs that are passed on culturally and not directly by your own experience.
I grew up with two parents who were public school teachers, government employees. So a thought virus inherent in most people who work for the state is the whole “Ladder of Success” concept. You earn authority, raises, respect with tenure, not on results.
My good friend, Chief here was living on his own and beating the shit out of grown up adult men when he was 13 years old and as a kid started doing telemarketing where his reward/status was directly in proportion to his productivity. So naturally his thinking got wired up to believe that “If I assert myself, excel and bring value to any situation I can create instant authority.”
Two different mindsets. Two different scripts played out in life. All entirely subject to change, modification and enhancement if need be through role models like Robert & Dan. I can’t recommend Conversational Magic highly enough.
I feel the way you offer value to people could be deeply influenced by this program. Throughout it he illustrates how powerful language is through examples of movies, personal experience and historic speeches and he does a magnificent job of doing so.
I try to do the same while talking to you.
Go find this program. If you want to enhance your ability to leave a lasting favorable impression on anyone you’ll be grateful to me in the future for telling you about this today.
However, I’m sad to say my little hunt for the site to send you to, so you could buy it came up empty. He will, however, begrudgingly, let you buy some of his other stuff though at http://www.nlpu.com/. If anyone can find the link to a site to buy Conversational Magic, please post a link in the comment section below.
The Kennedy Concept That Had The Most Significant Impact On Me
Countless numbers of people for years and years have told Dan Kennedy in letters, during personal consults or when brought up to the stage at his events “I know this stuff works in _________________ industry but my business is different.”
Years ago I listened to Dan talk about this in his Renegade Millionaire Time Management System and give an answer to in a specific, compelling way I don’t remember ever having heard before.
Don’t get me wrong. He hammers this idea dead but this time was special. Here’s what he said…
“This is unfortunately is the knee jerk excuse that pops out of everyone’s subconscious mind and then their mouth for not doing all sorts of effective things.
So, it’s exactly the same thing that’s said about the type of advertising/marketing that I teach and it’s the same thing said about the time management methodology I use.
We’re now joking about it because what happens in question and answer sessions at events, and I noticed at the last super conference three different people asked questions, and Bill had the huge “But my business is different” up on the wall, and each one began their question like this…
“I probably shouldn’t say this but… my business is different,” and from there, go into their question.
Why?
Look, All Businesses Have The Same Fundamental Functions In Common…
They have either a customer or a client or a patient…
They provide either a good or a service or both…
They may go to the customer location or bring the customer to their location…
They have to have some method of attracting new ones…
They need some method that’s selling repeatedly to and keeping ones they already have…
The differences between the cosmetic dentistry practice to the manufacturer of widgets that go inside vibrators, to the furniture store, the differences are really very small, very nominal and the commonalities are much greater.
Most of my approach to time and to communication and to customer/client management has a lot more to do first of all the individuals attitude and the individuals decision making process and then with universal principles than it does with things that can be said to be business specific.
Everybody thinks their customers/clients can’t be trained.
Everybody thinks that in their business they have to be immediately and constantly accessible. And in industry after industry where these beliefs are religion, at least one person and in many cases many, have initially skeptically began to adopt some of the same things that I do, have proven that wrong.”
What he’s recently added to this that’s been rather amazing to me is using this concept as a pre-frame at his 2008 Super Conference Bonus Day.
He tells people that they’re gonna be tempted to sit in their chairs and come up with the 90 reasons why all of these strategies won’t work for them because their business is different.
“There Is No Money In Finding Reasons Why Something Won’t Work”
Then he says, “If you’re gonna think up all the reasons you can’t use what’s being taught here you should’ve just sent your lowest paid employee here. They’d be really great at coming up with this list. The thinking that allows them to do so is what makes them the lowest paid person in your organization.
The real money is in taking what works in another industry and adapting it, fitting it, and making it churn off money for your business.”
This, in my humble opinion, is the thought virus Dan helped me slay and helps other people overcome that allows for any of his advice that comes after to transform our lives for the better.
Without overcoming this thought virus, most of his precious gifts would disintegrate upon impact.
Now, what’s the most important lesson or takeaway you’ve gotten from Dan’s stuff?
Be hearing from you soon,
Note Taking Nerd #2
P.S. Remember… I’ve decided to commit to spending at least One Hour of my time responding to any thoughtful question or comments made about posts I’ve written. I’m not perfect yet and after spending hours writing this I’ve had to leave some stuff out. So feel free to point out anything I wasn’t crystal clear on. What you say might exhaust the whole hour (if you’ve seen my responses in previous posts you’ll see I don’t wimp out here). And, if it’s of the ” ‘Great’ or ‘Shitty’ post” type, it may not warrant any further elaboration but yet will be oh so appreciated. I’m here for you and I’d love to hear your voice. Just let me know what you have a question about in today’s topic. The doors open so go on ahead and deepen our relationship today by coming on in and talking to me.
P.P.S. My personal most valuable Dan Kennedy breakthrough came through his Renegade Millionaire System thinking. If you own Renegade Millionaire and don’t have at-a-glance notes you can refer to or… if you’ve put off getting it CLICK HERE and you’ll see where we’ve put together all the secrets in the system and made them easily accessible so you spend less time ‘learning about making money’ and more time ‘making money.’
