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TRANSCRIPT:

*this transcript was mostly generated by AI, please excuse any mistakes

Gary: [00:00:00] I give your dad, Chet, uh, Jay Abraham and Tony Robbins credit. For giving me the tools and the courage to, you know, start my own bill.

I’d always work for somebody else. Joan and I decided to start a publishing company, which was a risk and to do something that we’d never done before. But between the three of them, you know, we had both the, you know, the courage and the tools that we thought we could succeed.

Here is your daily dose of the Ultimate Sales machine coming to you from the new edition. Visit ultimate sales machine.com to get your copy or multiple copies. Hi, I’m your host, Amanda Holmes, CEO of Chet Holmes International. What you’re about to learn has assisted a quarter of a million businesses to generate billions of dollars working faster, better, smarter.

Amanda: Hi. How are you? Good. How are you? Wonderful. Where are you? Where is this? 

Gary: I’m in the conference room of the, uh, building I live in. It was probably the quietest place in the building. 

Amanda: Nice. It looks [00:01:00] nice. 

Gary: Yeah, we, uh, we sold our home about three years ago and, uh, bought a condo and a high-rise downtown so we could travel.

So basically it’s our laundromat. In between trips, we, we just come home to do laundry here. 

Amanda: That’s hysterical. 

Gary: I mean, so far this year we’ve been to Egypt for a couple weeks. Uh, we did a cruise. Southeast Asia from Bangkok to Tokyo. Then we came home and saw you at Think Summit, and then we got back on a plane and flew to Ecuador to go to the Galapagos Islands and then to Peru to go to Machu Picchu.

So, wow. We’re back 

Amanda: from there. Oh my gosh. 

Living your best life. Yep. Yep. How so? For three years, you’ve been that aggressive in your travels, or is 

Gary: that. Well, we, yeah, we continued to travel, but, you know, there were some [00:02:00] limitations. I mean, we were, we were on a cruise ship that had sailed around the tip of South America and the trip was supposed to conclude in Peru, and we were supposed to go to Machu Picchu.

Uh, our last stop where we were able to get off the ship was in Chile. And then we sailed the next day towards Peru and we, we got word that Peru had closed its ports because of the pandemic. So they turned us around and sent us back to Chile and told us make travel arrangements to fly home from Santiago.

By the time we got back to Chile, they had closed their ports, so they turned us back around, sent us back north again. We sat outside the, uh, Panama City while the cruise line negotiated for a couple days for us to go through the Panama Canal. And sail home to Miami that way. So the, the 21 day cruise ended up lasting 29 days cuz we were on the ship in eight extra days.

Uh, oh my god. Couple good things happened. Nobody on the ship ever got sick. And the last [00:03:00] place we stopped in Chile, they repro, provisioned the ship because the next day we were all supposed to get off. 1200 people were supposed to get on and go back the other way around South America. Those people never got on.

We never got off, but we got to drink their wine and eat their food because they had loaded the ship up with supplies. So it was like, you know, for people who had to get home to dogs and kids and jobs and pets. Yeah. Things like, um, and I worried about people, you know, having 30 or 20 days worth of prescriptions and then suddenly they’re on a ship an extra eight or nine days.

But for us, we didn’t have jobs or kids or anybody that we had to get back to. It was, it was a blast. 

Amanda: You never know. Oh my gosh. So all of this came from you starting 417? 

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. Well, for 25 years I was in the TV news business. I was either a reporter [00:04:00] or a newsroom manager, um, and some including Atlanta and St.

Louis, and it’s some, some big markets. And then my last TV job was back actually here in Springfield, Missouri. As the general manager of a TV station, but my, the reason they hired me is they were trying to shore up the news department and they knew that as a news guy that I could help. So that’s, I came to Springfield.

So the reason I mentioned that is I. TV news, the whole game of television news. As you find out what the worst things that are happening to people or the worst things people are doing to each other, and you stack those up at six o’clock or at 11 o’clock and you, you know, you run some cur commercials in between ’em so that all the bad news doesn’t bang into each other, but your whole life is looking for bad news.

Yeah. So when we started the publishing company, That was a chance to even out my karma. So we started a publishing company where we produced. Uh, lifestyle [00:05:00] magazines and all we do is point out all the best things to do. Who are the, where are the best neighborhoods to live, the best restaurants to eat? Who are the top doctors?

Who are the fastest growing businesses where, you know, what day trips are, you know, um, the magazine just produced a cover story called Dining Day Trips, and it’s where to go out of town for the day and. You know, try a restaurant you haven’t, haven’t tried before. So we did that for, you know, 22 years and then, uh, sold it, passed it on to Logan.

So 25 years of TV news, 22 years of publishing good news. I’ve just about evened out my karma. 

Amanda: And then, and now you’re just living all the places that you talked 

Gary: about and wrote about. Yeah. And the idea, and I give, um, your dad, Chet, uh, Jay Abraham and Tony Robbins credit. For giving me the tools and the courage to, you know, start my own bill.

I’d always work for somebody else. Joan and I decided to start a publishing company, which was a risk [00:06:00] and to do something that we’d never done before. But between the three of them, you know, we had both the, you know, the courage and the tools that we thought we could succeed. 

Amanda: Wow. Wow. I just love that. Uh, it meant so much to me.

After the keynote to hear you talk about how you’ve incorporated that. 

Do you remember any, any? Um, 

Gary: sure. I went back and reread the book. Oh, did you? Yeah. I was surprised. You know, pl you know, plus I had the Advantage Chet’s. Um, a big part of his story was, Uh, turning around some magazines. Yes. So I didn’t even have to decode that on how it might have meant for if I was in a different kind of business.

I mean, I knew exactly what he was talking about, but as I went back and read the book, I was reminded of how many things I, um, I. What’s the, what’s the euphemism for stole, uh, st. Um, I emulated, I emulated several things, and one of the one, one of the ones that [00:07:00] first jumped outta me is the rule of six. Now, I took the rule of six even beyond, because not only did I ask people, tell me the six things you wanna accomplish this week.

Yes. And so they had a, they had a list of six on Monday. Okay. And I told ’em at the end of every day, I wanna see what you’re, Rule your list of six is for the next day. Now the six for the week could be big, you know, big chunks. But each day break down, you know, your list into six bite size chunks for the day.

And they will tell you that I would come around, uh, often, you know, you in what, what gets inspected that happens. And I would, yes, what you, what 

Amanda: you expect in or what you expect. You 

Gary: respect what you respect. Show me what, show me your six. And they’d go, okay, here’s, there’s my six. Um, and then he talks in the book about, you know, how he tried or he thinks the optimum company is run by people who have no more than six direct reports.

Yeah, and that’s exactly what we did. We set up not only the [00:08:00] time management and list management rule of six, we organized our company around six direct reports and every. Uh, every month we would publish a magazine and we would send it to the printer on a Friday. So everybody had a deadline. We got, you know, gotta get it out of the, out of the building and upload it to the printer by Friday.

On the Monday afterwards, we had once a month what we called Impact Mondays and those six departments, it would be art and edit and promotions of the business office, the sales, there were six of them and we had impact meetings. Where it was an hour of, okay, we just got through an addition of the magazine, what could we do better next time?

How could we refine this so that it gets, you know, better and better? And sometimes you would find out that, In a, in a deadline driven thing, it’s a, it’s a chain of command. You know, an idea starts, then somebody’s gotta write the story, then somebody’s gotta edit the [00:09:00] story. Then somebody’s gotta illustrate the story.

Then somebody’s gotta, so the whole thing depends on everybody doing the right thing on deadline and that, that was basically our rule. As long as you meet your deadlines, you can work here forever. If you miss a deadline, you can’t work here tomorrow. And, uh, everybody, everybody, you know, they adhered to that.

But we would have these impact meetings and say, what can we do better? And sometimes we found out that something that the art department had done had, uh, had hindered what the edit department. So, okay, our impact meeting now is with two groups. So let’s figure this out so the next time this doesn’t happen.

So that’s why now, 22 years later, Logan could take the publishing company and just take the systems that are in place and refine them. But it was always done with the idea of, let’s have a business that is self-sustaining, not dependent on me making every decision or taking every action. And so we, we, you know, pushed that down and the impact meetings became the way [00:10:00] we refined it.

And so, um, you know, and as you hire people, you, you can plug them into the system and, you know, this is how we do things. But we, we also had a rule that said, if you ever say we do it that way, because we’ve always done it that way, that’s the sign of a bad system. Let’s break it, reinvent it, you know. So we had, we had the rule of six and the direct reports and the impact meetings and then the rule of six on to-do lists and time management.

Yeah. So that was a refresher as I, you know, reread the book of how much of that we emulated. 

Amanda: Yes. Institutionalized.

I’ve just been screaming from the rooftops this concept of you see theories and you know what you should do and there’s such a big difference. I had just pulled up a quote, I. We ran this new group, uh, training program that I just launched.

It was something like, um, around how Ideas without Action as failure or something like that. And it [00:11:00] was a Helen Keller quote. And if someone that’s blind and deaf can get medals of honor because of that shift. Anybody can. And, um, you are a walking demonstration of what I’ve been preaching of how do you take it from theory into actual practices.

And it’s a very rare amount of people that institutionalize it, so it becomes a fabric of their business. But, One of the fastest ways that’s the least sexy, which everybody wants to talk about. Dream 100 and education based marketing in these big concepts. But if you really wanna move the ME needle quickly, if you just work on your prioritization and your time management and running more effective meetings, you’ll get there faster than anything, which is something that nobody wants to talk about.

And yet, 56 million in effective meetings happen a day. So in the US alone, So I love you. Like I actually do back tears hearing you talk about this because I just, it, it’s such a great, [00:12:00] you’re such a great example of this, of you read a book, you go, okay, I’m gonna institutionalize this, and then now in retirement, how many people in retirement.

Actually live a prosperous retirement. It’s very rare, right? I don’t know this date on it, but I do have clients that have bought core stories, that we have data on the infinite sibly, small amount of people in retirement that actually enjoy their retirement or can afford retirement. And here you are traveling around the world and part of the institution of what your business is is on my father’s book.

I mean, it’s just. It, it means so much to me that you would share that. 

Gary: Yeah. And the, the good part is the company that we handed off to, Logan people asked me, so how is she doing? Yes. And I tell ’em, she’s doing better than us. Which is the idea is you hoped you could hand something to somebody and they can improve on it so that it, you know, it sustains itself and you don’t have to sit and watch something you’ve built.

Fall apart, you know, that it can continue to grow. And I think Logan would tell you that many of the same things that we [00:13:00] put in place are still in place. They just may be refined a little bit, but systems are, and Logan being your 

Amanda: daughter, for everyone that will hear this later on, Logan’s your daughter, so was, I’m just curious because, you know, I didn’t get the experience of being in the business with my father.

I had to inherit it and then figure it out. Backtracking, was she a part of the business before? 

Gary: Yes. She, she came probably, I don’t know, 12, 15 years ago, and we made her do every crummy job in the building. She, she had the right story. She had to take pictures, she had to set up sales meetings, she had to, you know, uh, sell.

And, uh, now she’s a publisher, so she, Uh, publisher kind of straddles the two worlds, both the edit, where you’ve gotta make sure the stories are, you know, checked out and, uh, harmonized with the audience you’re trying to reach. And then also make sure that the sales department is taking care of clients.

And, uh, but she didn’t, she wasn’t born on third base. [00:14:00] She had to get her own, she had to get to first base on her own. And she had worked for, uh, I guess some chambers of commerce in St. Louis. Oh, okay. And the other, so she had, you know, she like me, she has a degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Mine was, mine was in broadcasting and hers was in marketing and advertising. But she grew up in a news household. Right. You know, she saw, you know, she saw me operate, uh, newsrooms and was around that, and, and her mom was in, uh, PR and marketing. So she was, she had that part of it. So she got to the magazine.

She was pretty steeped in experienced, but we didn’t let her jump, you know, jump the line. She had to do all the crummy jobs first. 

Amanda: Oh, that’s so great. And I love, so for me, the 417 summit that we were, that I met you at, um, I loved the people there. I mean, I, I now recognize after the fact [00:15:00] that you do a whole, um, What is it?

Best places to work basically. And, and, and, uh, people get awards. So every company I met there, I’m like, why are all these people so wonderful? And it’s because you actually cultivate them and uh, do a contest on who is best places to work. So I found that to be really beautiful too. It makes me wanna go, oh, where are more organizations that do, um, judging on best places to work?

Cause I wanna work with those people such great 

cultures. 

Gary: Well, before we, we didn’t start four 17 Magazine, we rescued it. Another group had started it and it was just about to go out of business. Um, and so we, before, but before we bought it, I went back to the University of Missouri, uh, school of journalism and met with a couple of professors and said, I’m thinking of buying this magazine.

Do you think a magazine like this can you know, survive in Springfield, Missouri? And the um, the dean said two things. He said, one, you should join the City and [00:16:00] Regional Magazine Association, which is made up of other magazines like ours. Chicago Magazine, Los Angeles. Yep. Boston, Philadelphia, big markets.

And he said, you will learn best practices from them. That’s great. Uh, so he said, the other thing is you should concentrate on refrigerator journalism. Perfect. What’s that? He goes, it’s the kind of stories you cut out of the newspaper or, or a magazine you put on your refrigerator and think, I, I need to do that.

Here are the five books you should read on vacation at the beach this summer. Or Here are the five best motorcycle tr uh, route to take to see the fall colors Just put in. Lists and things that people would stick on the refrigerator as ah, those are the five best sushi restaurants. I need to try those out.

Yeah. So really that’s, that’s what we did. And so to cultivate the audience we wanted Yeah, because we wanted the, the most active, affluent readers in the market. Okay. And what they [00:17:00] wanted was, where do I spend my money? Where do I go on a weekend? Where, who are the best restaurants in town? Where are the best, you know, uh, bed.

Bed and breakfast in the region. And so we were able to do that, but what the way we turbocharged that to borrow a, a word from the books title, it goes back to the affiliate idea. So who has those people already? I love it. 

Amanda: Dream 100. Okay. Who was 

Gary: that for you? Well, for the, the readers that we wanted.

Now this is not the Sales Dream 100. This is the subscriber Dream team, uh, country clubs. Hmm. Uh, the Springfield Symphony had a mailing list of affluent and active and art loving people. Yep. The, um, performing art center. Does a Broadway series and they have season ticket holders to that. So we made arrangements with all those people.

You have who we want as readers. Yeah. We [00:18:00] will, uh, bonus you advertising to reach those readers if you will make part of their annual subscription or country club dues include a subscription to our magazine. Uh, so we were able to build that audience, uh, very quickly through affiliate partnerships that continue to this day.

Now. Now we we’re to the point where, you know, those subscribers pay us directly and those advertisers pay us directly. But in the beginning when we just, all we had was the magazine and the pages in the magazine. We used the pages in the magazine. To, to create that partnership and, you know, they benefited from the promotion and we bid benefited from having access to their clientele.

Amanda: Oh my gosh, I love that so much. It’s such a great example of Dream 100 and, and when you don’t have a budget to do anything of it, it’s just, you know, what’s a win-win? Right. That’s so good. Well, 

Gary: the mag, the magazine had to be good. If [00:19:00] they, if the magazine had been poorly done, they would’ve said, we don’t see any value in handing this piece of junk.

To our, our clientele that we protect. So we had to perform and then they said, ah, we see that the magazine is pointing people to the best things to do. We want to be considered among the best things to do the country club to belong to the, the symphony, uh, performance to attend, or the Broadway show to, to attend.

So it was a, it was a mutual respect effort. Hmm. 

Amanda: I just have one more que one question, and I don’t know if you know anything about it, but I would be curious what your take is, or your belief system, after being so many decades in journalism, how do you feel about the whole AI and chatGPT and where are the future lies with that?

What are your thoughts on that? 

Gary: Well, I may be optimistic. I think the AI can help, uh, journalists and newsrooms. [00:20:00] Take care of some of the more mundane tasks, but to elevate it beyond, you know, basic. Uh, storytelling and to really put a voice to it and some personality to it, where you would think, uh, I can recognize who wrote that, and I, I appreciate who wrote that, and I trust who wrote that.

The person who wrote that might be able to help manage their time and their efforts and may be able to focus on some of the, the things that set them apart without having to do some of the more mundane work. That’s my hope is that it helps, you know, Nobody likes to sit and type, you know? Right. You gotta type to do the story.

Yeah. Well there may be some place. Okay. I see how this is already laid out. Now I’ve now I’ve got the time to put my voice to it and my personality to it. That’s my Pollyanna view. I may be, may be way off. No, I think 

Amanda: it’s, it’s totally, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately cuz I’m about to do a keynote on AI [00:21:00] and it really is, how do you.

How do you incorporate the human aspect, but use the machine to get, to get the small tasks done, and maybe even the prompt that starts the, the fuel to the fire. I mean, when I’m using, when I’m using ai, it’s not like it gives me the answer and I just use what it came up with. It’s back and forth and back and forth.

It’s, it’s my co-writer now, right? Uh, I understand the framework, I understand the strategy, I understand the goal, and I’m just asking it to write with me. So, It’s a great songwriter. Well, I’m, I’m 

Gary: an amateur songwriter and I Why you? I’ve taken a couple of, you know, half baked songs that I wasn’t sure what was the chorus?

What was the verse? And a few strangling li I don’t know where, how to fit. You know, I just kind of vomited on the pla on the page, my lyrics, and then sent it to AI and said, what do you think is the chorus and what do you think are those are the right ver? And it came back. And got me through, um, you know, a little [00:22:00] bit of cruise block and I thought, oh yeah, that’s a good idea.

I’ll try that. And was able to take, so it didn’t write the song for me, right. It, it arranged the song for me. And, uh, you know, I I, I know that there are songs now that are being produced that sound like certain people and they’ve even. Convinced, um, you know, apple Music or Spotify or something, that this is a song worth streaming because it sounded like, you know, Taylor Swift or Kanye West.

Mm-hmm. But it wasn’t, and I know that the musicians are very nervous about, I’m sure being replaced. And I said I would change that around if there’s a song that sounds like you and it’s got a million downloads, the whoever the pirate was in the studio that made that. It doesn’t have the mechanism to go on tour and capitalize on it.

Yeah, you should go on tour and make that one of your songs. If everybody loves that song, go You. The song that you heard. That [00:23:00] sounds like Amanda Holmes. I’m Amanda Holmes and I’m gonna sing that song. Yeah, turn it over. 

Amanda: Fascinating. So fascinating. I went to school, I went to college for music, uh, and we studied the, the business of music.

And it was, you know, after Napster, but before, what’s happening now is about, you know, a decade ago or more, and. I just, it’s wild what that industry has gone through. Very fascinating. We’ll have to talk on music too at some point because I 

Gary: crude. Uh, I started with a song called, uh, remember these are the good old Days.

And I played, I, I wrote it for my grandkids. And the, the chorus is, uh, always remember when we’re together. These are the good old days. Uh, and so anytime we’re all together and you know, we’re doing something, we’re fishing or we’re on a raft trip, or. It doesn’t matter. I’ll stop ’em. I go, you know what these are?

And they go, yes. Wicker. These are the good [00:24:00] old days. I, that’s right. Remember that? Cause I wanted, I wanted to remember that. You know, I, I, I do wanna talk about one other thing that I think made a huge difference in the publishing company that came, uh, from Chet. And that is the, uh, recruiting of salespeople and the interview.

Which, which in our company we call the Crying Game. Every time I did an interview, I had to make sure I had box of tissues because inevitably there was some point where the interviewee would break down a two. I mean, there is, there are questions in there about, can you tell me about a personal challenge that you had had to overcome?

Yes. Well, the number one salesperson still at 417 is a lady who, when I asked that question, said, Well, I guess when my four-year-old, I had to tell my four-year-old that her dad had died of a heart attack that day and I had to take over his construction [00:25:00] business and I had to sort things out and, you know, had another lady who said, you know, when I dis when I learned that I had, well I was pregnant, but I had also, um, cancer.

Oh, and I had to figure out if there was a way that I could do the cancer treatments and, you know, come to terms with the, um, the pregnancy. So once you, people, you, the, the interview got people telling their stories and revealing who they were. Sometimes they didn’t hold back and we’d end up crying together.

But that last question about, um, you know, how do you think you did? I just, I just don’t see it. The people who stood up in their chairs and almost came across the desk and said, then you’re not listening cuz I will be the best salesperson you ever had. And if I’m not the best salesperson for you, I’m gonna go across the street and I’ll kick your butt.

And I, you, you start on [00:26:00] Monday and I love that the people in the sales department, Um, they all remember it and, but the ones who fought back and just didn’t go, oh, okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to take up your time. But the ones who came back at me and then tried to sell me after I told them, I don’t think you’ve sold me.

Those are keepers. And it changed everything. 

Amanda: Oh my gosh, I love that so much. You know, very rarely. And I find from having done the process that those questions about their life and their challenges are so impactful. But every time I talk to people about it, it’s very rare that I hear. The, the epiphany that they have asking those questions in the probe part.

Right. That is so good. I find out that you said crying that it was like when you turned them down that they cried, but then for you to say it was them sharing that they, oh, when 

Gary: they revealed themselves and you know, the, some questions like, what would your mom say about you? [00:27:00] Uh, or what would your siblings say about you?

So, you know, the people who are genuine and are willing to, you know, share themselves and, you know, they’re good storytellers and they’re good listeners on their own. You know, they, they don’t, they, they’re not superficial about that stuff. It gets real and it gets authentic, and those are the people you want.

Amanda: Oh my gosh. So for everyone that’s listening, Gary Whitaker, this has been such a joy. Thank you for taking a moment from your travels around the world to share with us your journey. This is so beautiful. 

Gary: I don’t mind, you know, I’ve, I’ve probably spent what, 12 or $15 on that book and can imagine, can you imagine how much money I made from those 12 or $15?

So I figure I owe you, since I can’t repay che, I’ll repay you. Oh, 

Amanda: well thank you. It, it gave me goosebumps and, uh, hearing your story reminds me of why we do what we do [00:28:00] to have, um, a beautiful, happy ending. You know, I mean, everybody, so many business owners want to sell their companies in such small amount, actually do, and in such small amount, actually have an ability to have a life after that.

So the fact that you’ve gone through. All of those iterations and transformations and are still just loving what you’re doing. It just, it means a lot 

Gary: to me. Well, good. Um, I’m glad. Thank you for the invitation to, to be with you. 

Amanda: I saw your face, like, why are you, why do you wanna talk to me? I’m like, I knew it.

I knew something was gonna 

Gary: be great. I appreciate you coming to Springfield of me in part of the, uh, think summit of Meant. Oh, it’s lovely. And if you’re back in town, let us know. 

Amanda: I will, I go there four times a year. I’m on the board of j a c I know, I was just there last week. 

Gary: Okay. We could have done this in person.

Amanda: I That is true. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, well, next time. It’s such a pleasure. Gary and Anna, [00:29:00] we’ll have to pick up again. I, I would love to pick your brain on one more topic. It’s more on the nonprofit side and, um, On my vision of, or the nonprofit’s vision of creating a 500 year sustainability plan.

And I’ve been looking for land and everybody keeps telling me that I need to go around Springfield, Missouri. And I have a feeling, you know, a few, a thing or two about the area. So Sure, someday 

Gary: Springfield, there was something that came up a couple weeks ago of the best place to work from home. Oh. Matter if you, if it doesn’t matter where your corporate headquarters are, but you just wanna pull the strings from the most ideal place in America, where would it be?

And Springfield, Missouri ended up number one on the list. No 

Amanda: way. 

Gary: And I think it’s, you know, it’s a combination of, we’ve got universities here, it’s a college town, two huge hospital systems, so it’s great healthcare. We’ve got lakes and rivers and fresh air. I live two blocks from the [00:30:00] uh, St. Louis Cardinal’s aa.

Baseball team, the two blocks. The other direction is the performing arts center where I’ll go see the symphony on Saturday night and there’s, there’s big city things on a small scale, plus we’re three hours from St. Louis, two and a half hours from Kansas City, two and a half hours from Tulsa, three and a half hours from Memphis.

So if you need a big city fix, yeah, you know, you can do it in a day. 

Amanda: Wow. Well, you sold me on that right there. If you know anybody with a thousand acres, that’s what I’m looking for. 

Gary: I’ll find, I’ll find you a thousand acres. 

Amanda: I would love that. Okay. I have, um, I also, Kirk Elmquist is trying to assist me with that as well.

Gary: Kirk and I, uh, worked together on a, we were in a, in the same rotary club together. Oh, okay. And I are the ones who pick the speakers each week. 

Amanda: We were talking about that the next time that I come in, I would love to speak for [00:31:00] the Rotary Club. It’d be great. 

Gary: What I, I haven’t read the revised edition. Oh. What’s new or different now than the original? Oh 

Amanda: my gosh. Um, Well, my favorite, so the, the Forward, instead of saying, dear Reader, I.

Changed it thanks to my book coach Julian Eason. She said, why don’t you write a letter to your dad so it would be dear dad instead. And originally I thought, oh my God, I would never do that. It’s too, too emotional. But I ended up powering through it and I wrote it in one sitting, just with tears streaming down my face.

So, uh, in the new book, I’ve had a lot of grown men crying on like d uh, page three, because it’s such a. Transparent letter to my father. And then, um, my favorite part. So I usually say, read that forward and then read chapter 13 first. Because I found this letter that my father wrote about how he generated more wealth in six months [00:32:00] than the prior eight years combined.

And it was because of this one thing and that letter, I ended up turning into chapter 13. I called it the encore. He never got to give on how to live a rich and full life. And I wrote 94 versions of that chapter. It took me four years and I, cuz I wanted it to truly just be perfect so that I recommend people read the forward and read that final chapter cuz that puts everything else into perspective.

Then the updates are in there. Um, Around, you know, seven months of marketing. My father only talked about radio, television and billboards, and I’m thinking, oh my God, the internet became a thing, right? Websites was two words when my father first wrote that book, so had to make it one word and talk about online digital presence and all of that.

Smartphones 

Gary: weren’t even a thing. Say that again. Smartphones weren’t even a thing yet. 

Amanda: Right, 

right. Yeah. Text [00:33:00] messaging, ringless voicemails. But so I try to make that jump. So obviously the strategies are timeless. It’s just the tactics that have changed. So what my father did from faxing, I show how you can do it on Instagram reels.

Right? Or what he did on radio. I showed. I actually did a couple of experiments where I took his radio ads and I reproduced them on Facebook with the exact like nearly exact same messaging, and they pulled 30% better. It cost me 30% less just using his same messaging to show that 20 years later it can still work.

You just have to have the strategy in place. So the tactical implementation. Of his strategies is what I changed throughout the book. Chapter four had a big edit, and chapter seven had a big edit and then just sprinkled all through with more case studies and, um, people like you that took the book and have done wonderful things with it.

Gary: Look like you’re ready to have a Japanese tea ceremony there. [00:34:00] 

Amanda: Yes, I, um, so we decided to create an immersion program where people could take the book and actually put it like we’re saying from theory into results, because do you know that only 4% of people that go through online trainings actually finish them?

Like those that buy it, only 4% actually finish it. And what percentage actually do get results from it? It’s even more infinitesimal and after I was so upset by that, I started creating boot camps where they were live, so we were getting 10 x. That response we’re getting. 40% of them in 30 days are generating leads, 30% of them are generating sales.

Um, and then now we’ve just launched based on those concepts, a group training so that there’s gamification. Right? So yesterday, our first session, We’ve covered the time management secrets of billionaires and instead of just saying, here are the six steps, okay, here are the six steps. Now [00:35:00] you’re all in competition with one another.

If you actually do these steps and you send us your time sheet, right, of your top six and, and we give them worksheet, you get points and the people with the most points end up winning cash prizes, right? So we’re just trying to. Tailor everything into actionable steps. We talk about the bigger strategy, but then make it bite size and step by step in the tactical, uh, deployment of it.

And we called it a dojo cuz my father was a karate Ka. Right? And I’m very Asian in my, um, like inside. I’m actually more of an Indian than I am an American. I eat like an Indian, I pray like an Indian. I sing like an Indian. So, Uh, this whole concept of having a dojo, which taking it back to its root is actually from Sanskrit, and it means the place where Buddha reached en enlightenment.

So I have everybody bowing in before we start and just getting in the right head space to honor and respect yourself and one another. It’s, it’s been a lot of fun. [00:36:00] And why not have fun while you go through it? You know? So this is my backdrop for that program. 

Gary: Our, our trip that went from Bangkok to Tokyo was eyeopening in.

The exposure to the temples and Buddhism and Shintoism and everything in between, and um, it’s just a different vibe. Uh, when we were in Bangkok, the joke there, no, I’m sorry. Saigon was the, the joke there. The, the, the tell on themselves is there’s 10 million of us that live here and 13 million of us own scooters.

Whole place is just one giant motor scooter parade. And the amazing thing is nobody honks, nobody gets upset. There’s just this sense of. I need to be in the flow along with everybody. And you can be on an eight lane highway and a pedestrian with a baby carriage can walk across. While all these scooters, nobody gets hurt.

Nobody, nobody [00:37:00] gets impatient. Nobody gets upset. They just all harmonized together and, and go where they’re going without, um, you know, any of the, the rot rage that we see here and it, that, that sort of spirit I saw everywhere. 

Amanda: Hmm. I love that so much. I, 

I really love Asian culture. I feel that there’s a lot of honor that can be had and, and the humility and the care for the different generations as well.

You know, um, a big part of this initiative that I, the 500 year sustainability program is how do we create a place for people to go that are in the sunset years of their lives, where they don’t have to take a bunch of pills to get over the pains and aches in their body, and they don’t have to be sent away to maybe, A home where nobody cares about them.

Like, can we create an ecosystem that’s self-sustaining where, um, the, our brilliant elders can share with the youth that want the attention, but [00:38:00] instead they’re given a phone to, to give them their attention. Why not have that marriage of everybody in this circle of life? Uh, because I’m very passionate about when my father got ill.

You know, I stopped what I was doing and I was a full-time caregiver for him. And I would love to see more of that here in America, which is very institutionalized in Asia. And, and same with like Mexican communities as well, you know, they just take in their whole families. I think we need more of that in our society and it would be great to have that in our, in our big plan, our big impact plan.

Gary: Are you, uh, familiar with a gentleman named Peter Atia? No. Um, he just published a book called Outlive. Mm. And it is, and it’s not how to have a long life. It’s how to have a healthful long life. Mm. And, and, and basic, uh, takeaway is don’t stop moving. It doesn’t have to be. [00:39:00] You know, you don’t have to be boxing or running marathons.

Right. The things that I see in the Asian community, in the Mexican community is just simple things like gardening and taking a Yes yes. And people looking out for each other to make sure that they can still pick up a baby or pick up the groceries and, uh, just avoid becoming sedentary late in life. But, uh, the book’s got some great insights.

It’s called Outlive. I love that. It’s probably, Um, of a, of interest to me because I’m now, I just turned 70. I’m interested in having live a healthful, but if it, if I’d had had it, uh, access to it when I was 30, it’s, it’s one of those things, if I’d have known I was gonna live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself.

Amanda: Well, 

I got obsessed with that because of watching my father go through cancer. Right. I became vegetarian. I lived in a communal garden for a while. Um, Just trying to [00:40:00] take better care of my health because watching him, what he went through. So I get very passionate about all of these things and gardening was actually a huge thing for me.

My guru taught me that, which I was, you know, born outside of San Francisco and lived in Los Angeles, so I didn’t really have much exposure. But it’s amazing what you can do just working with the Earth and it’s so simple. You don’t have to take a pill, you don’t have to go spend all those money. Just dig some holes and see how you feel.

Gary: It’s, or walk through somebody else’s garden if you don’t, you know? Yeah. That’ll change your attitude. Yeah. 

Amanda: I love that. Well, Gary, you’re such a gem. I, I look forward to coming back to Springfield and uh, we’ll catch up then and maybe somewhere in between I’ll find some way to be able to spend more time with you.

Gary: Cause I’d love to stay in touch. I’ve enjoyed it. I would love 

Amanda: that. All righty. Okay. Have a wonderful rest of your day. 

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