Podcast Payoffs

Do you feel like your team can’t function without you? Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman reveal why entrepreneurs should get out of their own way, and how constant availability stifles growth. Learn the "6 p.m. doorbell rule," why deleting 660 emails was a breakthrough, and how to reclaim your time without losing control. Show Notes: Constant availability as a founder signals to your team that you don’t trust them to operate independently. The “6 p.m. doorbell rule” reminds you to set boundaries. If someone’s reaching out after hours, it’s usually for their benefit, not yours. When you mass delete your inbox, you learn how little truly requires your direct involvement. Being needed for every small decision is a trap entrepreneurs often set for themselves. If you’re always accessible, you teach your team to rely on your thinking, preventing them from growing their own capabilities. An entrepreneur can build in layers of teamwork between themselves and whoever might want to contact them. Value your own time as highly as your company’s best product. Stop giving it away to anyone who asks. True opportunity is rarely missed by stepping back; in fact, real opportunities come from protecting your focus. If your company falls apart when you’re gone, it means you have a job, not a business. Resources: What Free Days™ Are And How To Know When You Need Them The Impact Filter™ The Transformation Trilogy

Feeling overwhelmed by AI’s endless possibilities? You’re not alone, but it’s nothing to worry about. Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman share how top entrepreneurs avoid tech fatigue by focusing on clarity, delegation, and human strengths. Learn why mastering one tool beats chasing shiny objects, how to lead teams without being a tech expert, and the mindset shift that turns AI into your ally and not a threat.  Show Notes: Getting great at one AI tool is far more valuable than feeling overwhelmed by dozens. Humans aren’t computers, so your creativity and intuition are irreplaceable. AI is here to stay, just like electricity, so focus on how it can serve your goals.You don’t need to be a tech expert. Just know enough to guide AI toward what matters to you. Too many choices can freeze progress, so simplify and focus on what actually moves you forward. If you feel behind on AI, don’t worry. Most people are just starting to explore it too. Your team likely has someone who loves this stuff, so be sure to tap into their enthusiasm and knowledge. Nobody tinkers and experiments like humans do—that’s where breakthroughs happen. Leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking the right questions.  Resources: The AI search engine discussed is All AI Tools Learn about Mike Koenigs and Lior Weinstein Perplexity The Impact Filter™ The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Join Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman as they explore the rapid growth of podcasts and how the most successful shows get things done. Why are so many people turning to podcasts over traditional media? The answer, Dan says, is relationship: The best podcasters know that it’s not about them—it’s about you.Show Notes:Why podcasts exploded in popularity.Why creating a podcast is no longer just fringe marketing.The importance of building relationships with listeners.A marriage analogy for building a show from a seed.The importance of understanding the listener's needs.A timely transition from broadcast to podcast. Resources:Most people agree that the inventors of the podcast were Adam Curry (a former MTV VJ) and Dave Winer (a software developer). These two friends wanted to find a way to download online radio broadcasts to an iPod—a game-changing device that had been released a few years earlier in 2001.

In one of our most popular episodes, Dan Sullivan, Gord Vickman, and guest Mike Koenigs share what it takes to build an audience. A lot has changed about broadcasting. It’s not as hard, risky, or expensive as it used to be. There’s no barrier for anyone to go online and start broadcasting—which can be both a good thing and a bad thing.Show Notes: It’s desirable to be trained and taught by people who have been through what you have or worse because you’re looking for shortcuts. The activity of selling has to be facilitated by technological solutions, especially as they get more powerful. Using technology to promote, market, and create buying behaviors is always a moving target. Taking on whatever the cutting edge is without alienating the masses is a delicate balance. The biggest challenge anyone has now is that everyone is online, and it costs nothing to broadcast. People can sense authenticity very quickly. The rules that work for scarce mediums don’t work for abundant mediums. Unlike with traditional mediums, there are no gatekeepers when it comes to online broadcasting. Audience-building might have as much to do with your personality as it does with the work you’re putting in. Some people just know how to manifest and manage energy in a magical way. Resources: Download your FREE digital version of Mike’s bestselling book, “Ai Accelerator”The Strategic Coach® ProgramGrowing Great Leadership by Dan Sullivan

Is social media fact-checking becoming obsolete? This episode explores Mark Zuckerberg's shift from using professional fact checkers to employing community-driven content moderation on Facebook, mirroring broader changes in digital discourse. Dan and Gord discuss the implications for information sharing, the evolving political landscape, and the potential democratization of online truth verification. Show Notes: Facebook is moving away from professional fact checkers, eliminating partnerships with approximately 90 fact-checking organizations due to perceived political bias. A fundamental political culture shift took place during the recent U.S. federal election. Mark Zuckerberg is adopting a community-driven content moderation approach similar to X (Twitter), implementing "Community Notes" where users can flag and verify information. This shift represents a significant evolution in how digital information is verified and shared across social media platforms. The change could potentially disrupt the business models of existing fact-checking organizations, many of which relied on Facebook contracts. Younger generations have grown up in a hyper-connected world and feel the need to be well-informed, but stepping back from the constant barrage of information on social media can have a positive impact on mental health and productivity. Dan Sullivan’s secret to staying focused and productive in the digital age? Treating his attention as his most valuable property (i.e., being highly selective about what information and media he consumes). Podcasts have become the most trusted form of media available today. Resources: The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan Your Attention: Your Property by Dan Sullivan

Do you believe confidence is a prerequisite for success, or could it be the reward for taking bold action? In this episode, Gord Vickman and Dan Sullivan discuss The 4 C’s Formula®, a four-step process of commitment, courage, capability, and confidence, and share how to embrace fear and uncertainty as essential steps toward growth. What happens if you outsource one or more to technology? Show Notes: High achievers commit to action before feeling confident. Others wait for confidence to act.Commitment means pushing through challenges to develop new capabilities.New capabilities always lead to increased confidence.When you gain confidence, you can restart the 4 C's process at a higher level.With greater confidence, you can make bigger commitments.Building new capabilities on top of existing ones compounds your confidence.AI is now an option to skip steps, but will that damage the process?Growth stops when you stop developing new capabilities.All genuine capabilities must be earned, and true confidence follows capability development.Our 21st-century progress is built on the capabilities developed by countless predecessors.Confidence feels good. Courage feels scary.Courage is necessary when you lack capability.Once developed, a capability becomes a permanent asset.Whether consciously or not, all achievers have used The 4 C's Formula. Resources: The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan Casting Not Hiring by Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy Learn more about author Ryan Holiday The Strategic Podcast Network

Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman examine the intersection of emotion, artificial intelligence, and human consciousness—and explain what will always set humans apart. What does it truly mean to be conscious in a world increasingly overwhelmed by technology?Show Notes: The entire human experience of being an individual is consciousness.The scientific community still doesn’t understand why humans are conscious or how to measure consciousness.By 2026, experts predict 90% of online content could be AI-generated.AI lacks the multi-sensory and emotional depth of the human experience. It can never fully replicate human consciousness and interaction.Technological advancements often fade as fads because they can’t substitute the richness of human interaction.Humans tend to project significance onto new technologies that simply isn’t there.Google Images has started delivering AI-generated results.AI is a capability, and it becomes increasingly more useful the more you view it through this lens.Our ability to advance AI technology is limited by the physical resources this technology consumes. Resources: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman Perplexity Thinking About Your Thinking by Dan Sullivan

Most business owners grow by hiring the right people, but a theatrical approach offers unique advantages that accelerate your success. Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman discuss the groundbreaking concepts in Dan’s new book, Casting Not Hiring, and share the simple tool that virtually guarantees success when you bring someone new into your company. Show Notes:There are two possibilities for bringing new people into your company: hire them, which is the corporate model, or cast them, which is the theatrical model. The emphasis in casting is on the uniqueness of the individual and the role, whereas in hiring, it’s the job that matters, not the individual. Treating your business as a theatrical performance means there’s a constant series of new projects, just like there are new plays in theater. The people you bring into the organization are the organization. Walt Disney is a great example of an entrepreneur who did casting, not hiring. The most important question in casting someone is, do you match up? All of Strategic Coach® thinking tools are positive. As the world becomes more technological, live theater becomes a more valuable experience. The way that start-up entrepreneurs bring people on board in the first three months determines whether they're going to be successful. Resources: Book: Casting Not Hiring by Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff PerplexityThe Collaborative Way® Podcast: Inside Strategic Coach Podcast: Anything and Everything Personality: The Lloyd Price Musical

Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman discuss the importance of partnership between AI and humans—finding a balance between technology and the human touch. Dan also shares his insights about where ideas come from and the differences between creativity, wisdom, and intelligence. In This Episode:Dan and Gord share the importance of AI-human partnership, addressing concerns of AI replacing human creativity.Where does Dan get his ideas? Through conversations with ambitious people and those who faced setbacks, as well as by thinking about his thinking.Intelligence manifests in Unique Ability®, like Larry Bird's situational quickness and unpredictability in basketball.Human creativity links unrelated concepts, while AI focuses on patterns and predictability.What’s the difference between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom?Journalism's decline linked to AI's inability to replicate the classic journalist’s three Ws: waiting, wondering, and wandering.News reporter Barbara Frum interviewing the Shah of Iran's consort, tapping into the listeners’ reactions in a way that AI never could.Dan sees AI as just another tool, not a replacement for human thinking, and emphasizes maintaining agency and partnership with technology.Resources: Larry BirdBarbara Frum, from the CBC archivesThe Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr SolzhenitsynThe Strategic Podcast Network

In one of our most popular episodes, Dan and Gord discuss how entrepreneurs can leverage ChatGPT to save money, grow their business, and streamline the most boring tasks while keeping teamwork alive and thriving.In This Episode:ChatGPT is the next level of written communication that started with the teletype.AI has not yet reached the level of being able to tell a good story.Great teamwork is completing any project through greater productivity and achieving greater profitability.If you’re wondering how an AI tool can be useful to your business, first ask how it can help make your team more productive, and second, ask how it can help increase profits.Garbage in, garbage out: AI results are only as good as the instructions.Dan points out that ChatGPT’s response is strictly positive because the company OpenAI is most profitable when we see its benefits and consume its service.Gord and Dan wonder what exactly we’re being sold. Is this just a toy to generate meaningless social media content or a tool that can allow anyone to be a creator of useful material?No matter what new technology comes up, Dan’s approach is always to keep a very smart human between him and that technology.AI might generate the first 80% of the content, but a very smart human can take it to the next 80%.Resources:Learn more about Ray KurzweilLearn more about Mike Koenigs

There's a misconception that podcasting is a quick way to make money. But if you're only in it for the cash, you'll likely be disappointed. Start a podcast for the right reason: to create value for your audience. When you focus on creating great content for your listeners, the money may show up in other ways. Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman explain how Strategic Coach® has seen consistent growth for decades by doing just that.In This Episode:Most entrepreneurs develop the courage to become entrepreneurs because they’re good salespeople.Marketing is what allows you to have the opportunity to be in front of someone.If you see a problem, set out to solve it, whether you get paid for it or not.You should do it because it’s valuable, regardless of the money you make.Don’t listen to the people who are trying to throw you into “The Gap” by saying, “Oh, you must do this because everyone else is doing it!”Don’t force people to learn something new in order to get value from you.A podcast is like a message in a bottle. Most will sink, but others wash up on a beach where somebody will read it and say, “I’ve been looking for that!”Existing clients listen to our podcasts faithfully. They come to the workshops and talk about the subjects that the podcasts cover.The goal of the Strategic Podcast Network is to attract people and marinate them in the content in the hopes that they become successful, talented, ambitious entrepreneurs.It’s not tough to make money if your focus is on making other people successful.Resources:The Strategic Podcast Network features all our shows in one place10xTalk podcast, featuring Dan Sullivan and Joe PolishJoe Polish’s Genius Network®Inside Strategic Coach podcast, featuring Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller

Joe Stolte is the CEO and co-founder of Daily.ai, an innovative artificial intelligence newsletter that designs, writes, and tests itself to cater to user preferences. He shares with Dan and Gord the ways AI is “eating software”—posing an existential threat to huge software businesses like Google, yet creating exciting new opportunities for entrepreneurs. In This Episode:Never before has a new technology been adopted as quickly and widely as AI.People are using AI passively without realizing it, but many are also quickly finding active, strategic, intentional uses for it.Investment in technology is often about placing bets rather than backing quality innovations.Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are in a symbiotic relationship.Large software companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google are having to shift their thinking around user experience.Thousands of talented tech workers have been laid off, which could lead to many simple, smart, easy-to-use innovations.Short-sighted, user-hostile thinking is an organizational culture cancer.News media being funded by subscriptions leads to giving subscribers only what they want to see, creating echo chambers and divisiveness.Strategies for growing an email newsletter: You can pay with your money or with your time—and either is fine. (Ads aren’t “dirty.”)“AI is like a really, really good intern: You wouldn't ship intern work to the marketplace.” —Joe Stolte Resources:Learn more about Joe Stolte and Daily.aiDan Sullivan’s AI newsletter is The SparkThe Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton ChristensenPeter Zeihan, author and geopolitical strategist

Joe Stolte is the CEO and cofounder of daily.ai, an innovative artificial intelligence newsletter that designs, writes, and tests itself to cater to user preferences. Dan, Gord, and Joe explain all of the ways entrepreneurs can benefit from AI that might not be obvious, and share what questions content creators should be asking themselves before trying different things. In This Episode: You learn more from start-up failures than successes. People project their belief systems onto what’s going to happen in the future.AI plays a crucial role in content marketing by shifting the focus from outputs to outcomes, emphasizing personalization and enabling one-to-one marketing versus the one-too-many conversation we’re used to in marketing.With generative AI, the cost of content creation is rapidly approaching zero. Generative AI allows anyone to create content, which means we’re going to get a lot more content coming into the world than we’re even seeing now. There are three forms of truth: what a company thinks the market wants, what the market says they want, and what the market actually wants. Almost half of the content people are pumping out right now serves to push people away from the sale. This is because it’s not useful, and it’s intrusive. Data has a feedback loop to improve what's going out into the market to actually give people what they want, when they want it, through the channels that they want it. The biggest problem with any new technology is that it’s unfamiliar. You simply have to normalize the experience of engaging with it. Resources: Learn more about Joe Stolte and daily.ai Dan Sullivan’s AI newsletter is The Spark The advanced AI assistant discussed is Perplexity Podcast: 10xTalk with Dan Sullivan and Joe Polish Book: Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy Unique AbilityⓇ Article: Time Management Strategies for Entrepreneurs (Effective Strategies Only) Article: How To Sell Transformation Using This One Question 

Statistics show there’s no shortage of people pitching their expertise and services, but no one’s really paying attention to them. Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman explain why so many pitches get ignored and how to actually engage with the people you’re pitching to. In This Episode: People can pay attention to only one thing at a time. Nobody’s looking for answers. They’re looking for questions. Instead of thinking about a marketplace, you can focus just on relationships. The pitch can’t be about you. It has to be about the client. People who work in competitive organizations might keep their future aspirations a secret. Everyone has developed pitch filters as well as content and entertainment filters. There's a crisis growing in the technological and marketing worlds where it’s taking more effort and more money to not get a result. Having questions that get another person to think about their future is 100 times more powerful than any answer you could give them.  Resources: Your Life As A Strategy Circle  by Dan Sullivan Learn more about Strategic Coach Article: The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs Walter Payton – Hall of Fame NFL running back and philosopher Anything And Everything - Podcast with Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff

Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman share some secrets of teamwork that Dan highlights in his new book, Everyone And Everything Grows. When a crisis hits, your team should be positioned to come out stronger for the challenge. Learn how Strategic Coach® pulls it off, how technology assists, and how an amazing company culture makes the whole thing possible. In This Episode: Video conferencing platforms like Zoom aren’t communication tools, they’re transportation tools. Competitive internal politics always interfere with company culture and great communication. Build your team so they don’t have to spend any energy on defending themselves. At Strategic Coach, when something doesn’t work, it’s usually not an individual problem but a system problem or a structure problem. There are only two teams you should be on: the winning team or the learning team. At large corporations, everything grinds to a halt because people spend more time trying to avoid mistakes than actually creating things.  Resources: Everyone And Everything Grows by Dan Sullivan The Impact Filter™ The Experience Transformer®: How To Transform A Negative Experience (Video) Unique Ability® Welcome To Cloudlandia podcast with Dan Sullivan and Dean Jackson AI As Your Teammate by Evan Ryan

Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman discuss the importance of deciding who's in the room when it comes to podcasting. They highlight how Strategic Coach® is selective about who they allow in their workshop rooms and how this consistency extends to other “rooms,” such as your audience. They also mention the possibility of niching down and specializing in podcasting, citing an example of a podcast for optometrists with a very strange focus.In This Episode:Sometimes, the smaller the niche, the bigger the market.Bureaucracies love solutions like lockdowns that let them catch up.How to wreck a radio station. Playing it safe is not how to stay at the top.The difference between style and fashion. (You want to find your style.)The freedom of cash confidence. Or, how to say no to jets and dinners. Resources:Always Be The Buyer By Dan SullivanThe story of Diogenes and AlexanderTotal Cash Confidence By Dan Sullivan

Evan Ryan joins Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman for another episode to share some valuable insights about how to regain control and use technology to enhance your creativity and freedom. Evan is convinced that AI’s best use is to amplify human potential rather than replace us. In This Episode: Dan mentions his new quarterly book, Owning Technology Like A Great Dog, which emphasizes the importance of humans being in charge of their technology, and not the other way around.Evan explains why it’s critical to know what you want. Then, you can make the technology work for you.Dan shares his experience of using Joe Stolte's Daily.ai newsletter platform and how it leads to significant increases in open rates and engagement.Dan makes a distinction between data, information, knowledge, and wisdom.There are four freedoms of being an entrepreneur—time, money, relationships, and purpose—and technologies like AI can help or hinder that freedom.They discuss the shift from manual labor to knowledge work. Working with AI now presents people with an even bigger “conceptual chasm.”Some people have an almost religious view of technology that can veer into misanthropy—resenting the realities of relating to other human beings.Evan describes the freedom of the “digital nomad” lifestyle that he enjoys because of technology.There are technological “demarcation lines” that Evan won’t cross.Dan: “Humanity is always infinitely bigger than anything that humanity creates.” Resources: AI As Your Teammate by Evan RyanEvan’s company is Teammate AIDan’s AI newsletter is The SparkOwning Technology Like A Great Dog by Dan SullivanJoe Stolte’s Daily.ai newsletterUnique Ability® (website, book)

Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman are joined by special guest Evan Ryan, an expert in artificial intelligence (AI). Evan shares his decade-long experience with AI and its entrepreneurial possibilities. They discuss Evan's book, which explores the potential of AI in various aspects of life, and provide valuable insights into how entrepreneurs can integrate it into their workflow to achieve more in less time—and make life more fun in the process. In This Episode: AI can be defined as a computer doing something that a human used to do. Evan’s goal is to allow his team to be less robotic in their lives, and to free themselves to do more fun, creative things. A lot of people think of technology as something that happens to them. There are two kinds of problems that a business can face: growing business problems and dying business problems. AI isn’t going to help companies that aren’t using their teams well, or creating value in the marketplace. Artificial intelligence is not artificial wisdom. Humans are still required for that. Those who remain resistant to AI are usually people who want to maximize their billable hours, not improve their workflows.  Resources: AI as Your Teammate: Electrify Growth Without Increasing Payroll by Evan Ryan Evan Ryan’s company is: teammateai.com Unique AbilityⓇ Perplexity AI

Believe it or not, podcasting has now been around for two decades. Dan Sullivan and Gord Vickman delve into the history and share their personal stories of how each of them first got involved. You’ll hear where podcasting is headed and learn the art of having compelling conversations that make people laugh, think, question, cry, and always come back for more. In This Episode: The first podcast was published in 2003 via RSS, marking the beginning of the era. Podcasting allows for a more intimate connection with listeners, creating a loyal and supportive audience.The greatest compliment you can pay anyone in broadcasting is, “I feel like I know you.” Podcasting is a relationship-building medium. You don’t have to sell anything if you don’t want to. AI-powered capabilities are only going to increase and expand, making the medium more accessible to everyone.Podcast listeners count on two things: they want to learn something new, and they want to be entertained.Giving away free content in podcasts can inspire listeners to investigate your company and write a check.Even a 20-year-old podcast is new to someone coming across it for the first time.With podcasting, everyone who’s listening to you made the choice to listen to you. They’re there because they want to be.Resources: The first podcast ever Dan’s first podcast ever with Joe Polish I Love Marketing Podcast with Joe Polish and Dean Jackson Open Source podcast with Christopher Lydon Chris Voss, author of Never Split The Difference and former FBI hostage negotiator The Strategic Podcast Network

Gord Vickman and Dan Sullivan dive into the concept of "Geometry For Staying Cool & Calm" and its relevance in the emerging age of AI. Drawing on a recent MIT Sloan study on the impact of AI in the workplace, they explore how anyone can thrive when they focus on constantly creating new things. In This Episode: Dan and Gord share the concept of "Geometry For Staying Cool & Calm" as a mindset for living in the digital network economy.An MIT Sloan research paper showed that AI can significantly boost productivity for less experienced workers.Academic credentials are being left behind in a networked world where people only care if you create value for them.The current educational system is stuck in an industrial economy that makes little sense to continue following.  Podcasting invites everyone to have their voices heard without needing permission.Dan makes an important distinction between efficiency and effectiveness.Productivity in the future won’t be contingent on tenure but rather on one’s ability to leverage AI and embrace the habit of always creating new things. Resources:MIT article: “Workers with less experience gain the most from generative AI”“Geometry” For Staying Cool & Calm by Dan SullivanThe Strategic Podcast Network