Trailer: The Greater Game

John Bowen: I want to welcome everyone to our mini-series podcast where we're going to be covering all 10 of the multipliers. Dan, I mean, this is so exciting to be doing it. You know, we can see our books going out now or depending on when you're listening, it's out, The Greater Game. And this is something both Dan and I are really passionate about. But Dan, why don't you give a kind of the framing of why did we do this book?
 
Dan Sullivan: I think the big reason is that entrepreneurism is now the center of the culture. You know, for most of the last 200 years with capitalism, entrepreneurs have been these sort of side issue characters and corporations were the big deal. And that's because of industrialization that required really big factories that required really big management bureaucracies. But once the microchip happened in the 1970s, and you got personal computers and everything that came from the microchip, more and more, the most interesting people in the economy were the entrepreneurs who created new ideas, new products, new services. And that was propelled outward by the microchip. And you had individuals who are really small companies develop capabilities that were equal to large corporations. And I think now with AI and everything that comes with AI, we now have the people who develop the new ideas and have AI capabilities can now become not only major players economically, but major players culturally.
 
John Bowen: You know, I couldn't agree more. And that's why we did the book. And I want to share one of the things that we saw is there is a window of opportunity, a rare one right now. And we're seeing so many entrepreneurs, you and I over the last two years of study, well over 6,000 entrepreneurs. I own a research company, CG Insights, and we did the study. And one of the things that we saw over and over again was this whole concept is so many entrepreneurs have won the game, but they're playing the wrong game. We find 94.6% are optimizing the game they've already won. And this is that incremental moving from, you know, kind of trying to 2x over a bunch of years type thing, Dan, that you talk a lot about.
 
Dan Sullivan: You know, to use an analogy that you're at the top of the ladder, it's just that you've discovered that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
 
John Bowen: It really is. I mean, I want to set the stage on this. We open up the book with the 20 million growing revenue. This book is for successful entrepreneurs already. You've got a good business, but you know you're capable of a lot more. You've got a solid team. You've got respect in the industry. But Mondays feel heavy. And one of the things we want to do is show you that there is some big opportunities along the way. And in the study that we did just for the book, we came up with the right 1,016 very successful entrepreneurs. And we found, though, that only 4% were really working from orchestrating their business rather than, from an architectural standpoint, rather than really an operator that's optimizing. And we came up with, Dan, because of AI, because of the teams, what we're seeing with platforms, the network effect, that you really could do 100x versus 2x. I mean, how did that come about? Because that's a big difference.
 
Dan Sullivan: This is my 52nd year of coaching and, you know, that takes us from the 1970s. You know, I was very inspired by the introduction of the microchip and then we've seen all the jumps with personal computers and with the internet being created and then software became the incredible multiplier that, with software programs, every aspect of a big organization could be handled from a personal computer. I remember I started with 10x. I have a book out. Ben Hardy and I collaborated on a book, 10x Is Easier Than 2x. But as we got into our project and we began to look at the research that your company uncovered, I think this is a discovery, is that those who think in terms of taking their company 100x will actually have an easier time that people are just slugging away with the normal notion, you know, I can double my company. But the big thing here is not so much the goal of a 100x, because I think it's just going to naturally happen to a lot of entrepreneurs. The question is how much of a time frame are you actually giving yourself to do this so that you can do it in a way that has a high-quality existence, not just a high quantity, but a high-quality existence over a 25-year period. And I'm sure everybody who's watching this podcast of ours can say, you know, if I had 25 years, sure I could go 100x. And it's because of the technological environment that we're both enjoying. You more than, in many ways, you more than me, but I'm using my AI. And so the whole point is that entrepreneurs have a unique opportunity to refocus themselves and reposition themselves. That's never been possible before.
 
John Bowen: Well, the thing that I'm excited about, Dan, I want to share with everybody, you know, you and I spent a lot of time on the framework and we call it the Greater Game Pyramid. And you've already won the game, but we want you to play the greater game, if you will. And through this podcast series, we're going to walk you through each of the 10 multipliers. And why I'm so passionate about, Dan, is we're writing the book together. Last year, we grew by 58% CED, the whole ecosystem. And I'll describe it a little bit later. But this year, we're on path to grow even faster. And it's because, I think, as we're doing this, I really felt I have to walk all the talk of what we're collectively talking about. And I want to share that just real quick, because this is what we're going to be covering. We found that there were 5.4% of the entrepreneurs that were really using all four levels, the 10 multipliers. And what we see is the very first level, this is kind of for all entrepreneurs. You've got to have a foundation for freedom, ambition, and security are so critical. I'll go through these quick, Dan, and I'd love you to have just an overview. The second part is, once you get that, then it's all about expansion. And this is, think of ambition as the vision, security as the cash confidence. When we go to motivation, that's really where you're excited about making a difference, and you can.
 
And then Dan, one of the things you've helped me an awful lot with is IP, and we've created a lot of IP together now, intellectual property, but this is how you get the energy for expansion. Then the third, and this is, you know, I've had the privilege of working with you since 2009 in Free Zone, and this is all about collaboration. And what we're seeing is the ability to have collaborations, creating a larger community than your own team, your team, and then the autonomy where you have that freedom in your business. It's such a multiplier. And then where it really took off is the last level, the exponential growth, where you have the agency. And we're going to talk about all of these. Each of these are one of the podcasts. But on agency, you're creating your own market. And then the commitments encourage. I mean, I get so excited sharing this stuff because I know the difference from what you've done at Strategic Coach, what I'm doing here at CEG. It's making a huge difference. I mean, how do you think about this pyramid?
 
Dan Sullivan: I started coaching entrepreneurs in 1974, and my biggest difficulty was actually explaining what an entrepreneurial coach is. There's an editor of a very famous publication, and he says, I never realized you're one of the original gangsters, aren't you? And I said, well, I may be the only surviving original gangster. I don't know if I'm the actual original one. But what I got a sense was that the technological breakthroughs of the past 50 years have created the conditions where entrepreneurs with an idea that was really valuable in the marketplace could experience growth without it creating a lot of complication, a lot of complexity. As a matter of fact, their life could actually get simpler if they just looked at the issue of freedom. Our attitude toward freedom is that this is the main reason why entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs. A lot of people who aren't entrepreneurs say, well, it's all because of the money. And I said, well, it's more nuanced than that. What they want is freedom.
 
And the first freedom is time freedom, that more and more in their company, they're doing the things that they love most doing as an individual. And then they create a team around them that more and more frees up the entrepreneur to explore the new opportunities, create entirely new markets for themselves, where their best capabilities are focused that way. And then they get freedom of money. They got greater quantity of money, and they have greater quality of money. And that comes because they can become very discerning about the relationships in the marketplace that they're talking about. And it's the combination of freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationship that creates freedom of purpose. And they've created their own unique market. You know, sort of that book, The Blue Ocean, they're creating blue oceans. And I've seen it because I've been with these entrepreneurs who've done that over the last half century. And I've seen more and more every four or five years, there's a new technological support for their ambitions.
 
John Bowen: I mean, you've seen it through Strategic Coach working with so many entrepreneurs, and I've seen it at CEG. I have the privilege of coaching some of the top financial advisors in the world and really seeing that their best clients are entrepreneurs. And we both see that and we see what's missing. One of the things that we've done is we've created the Greater Game Dashboard. There's a QR code on the screen if you're watching this with video, and if not, it's pretty simple, thegreatergamedashboard.com, and you'll come to the website. And you can go ahead and take a simple assessment. You can preorder the book, or if you're watching this after we've released the book, May 26, you can order the book and it will walk you through what you can get.
 
And I got to tell you, Dan, you know, one of the things I've loved is you and I are both so research oriented that you can see where you are in each of the four areas, the stages, you know, a little bit on your, where your financial readiness is, how you've changed. You can come back to this. We have an entrepreneurial pulse that you get. We survey 500 of your peers, successful entrepreneurs every month. What are the three things you should do? Whether you should get a second opinion, accelerate. And then, you know, where are you on the value? And then lastly, you can compare yourself against the peers in your revenue side or the top 5.5. So, you know, definitely go ahead and go thegreatergamedashboard.com. And Dan, anything before we go to, I mean, we're both so excited. I want to record the next one where we're going to dive into ambition, but anything as we close this.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I would just like to remind people there was a very famous, one of the very, very early business researchers, Great Britain, this would be around 1900, his name was Karl Pearson. And Karl Pearson had a great line, which is axiomatic. In other words, at the moment you hear what he said, you know it's true. That which gets measured automatically expands. The moment you measure yourself against really good criteria, but if you measure and report, in other words, that you actually commit yourself to measuring yourself against the best capabilities, the best successes of other people who are in the very, very forefront of your industry, it will automatically motivate you, but it will equip you to take the next jump. Measurement is crucial.
 
John Bowen: It so is, and we're talking about our book, but this is a journey that we want you to be on with us, where we're constantly doing new research every month. We'll be sharing it with you, stories of success. Just go to the dashboard and then join us at the next podcast.