TRANSCRIPT 🔗
Dan Sullivan [00:00:00]:
Hi, this is Dan Sullivan. This is Capability Amplifier with Mike Koenigs. This episode, we're going to really, really show you the incredible opportunities that are being opened up to really ambitious entrepreneurs just as a result of a new technology, artificial intelligence.
Mike Koenigs [00:00:18]:
And one of the things that Dan draws out of me in this episode is which capabilities does AI amplify? And we go through a couple use cases. We created and disrupted an entire industry with AI tools that enable us to tell a story more effectively, completely transform and create a better future for the founders and investors in this organization. We'll take you on a journey of how that happened, what got created, and give you a mental model that you can follow yourself for creating a better future for yourself, creating more ambition and also collaborating more effectively and which skills AI amplifies best. So all that and more in this episode of Capability Amplifier. Stick around.
Dan Sullivan [00:01:11]:
Hi, everybody, it's Dan Sullivan here. And this is the next episode of Capability Amplifier with Mike Koenigs. And Mike, every time we do a podcast, every time I see you at Genius Network, every time I see you at Strategic Coach, your whole world has been revolutionized since the last time I saw you, because you are a deep diver into the world of AI. And it occurred to me that something we had a. We've now we're approaching the third year.
Mike Koenigs [00:01:45]:
Third year. November 20th.
Dan Sullivan [00:01:47]:
Yeah, 30th. November 30th, OpenAI came out and it's been very tumultuous, very, very disruptive. Three years in the technological world. I think it's going into all other worlds. But if you just sat back and took a 10,000 foot view of the whole, who is benefiting from this and who is not benefiting from AI? And to tie it in with the name of our podcast, the Capability Amplifier, which, which capabilities right now do you see being amplified? You know, and this is just out of your own personal experience, looking at yourself, but then looking at who already had capability, that's being, you know, made exponential and whose capabilities are perhaps hit a wall.
Mike Koenigs [00:02:49]:
Yeah. So the, the fastest way to zero into this are curious generalists who have a stroke of innovation. And what I mean by that is I, I was just watching and reading a little article on Reddit last night, and it was a photographer. And right now, a lot of photographers, artists, designers, are like, AI, it's terrible, it's taking away jobs. But, but the photographers that imagine how can I use AI to amplify my current capabilities and make me a more effective photographer? And where can I find the niches? So I Just was spending the past week with a multi billionaire who's raised and deployed tens of billions of dollars actually in his firm in the hundreds of billions range. And what we did together is we imagined together. We talked about what he thought the future of business should be in the investing world. And just through that conversation, I took all of our conversations and what I did is I took that, turned it into a script, I fed it into a tool called InVideo IO where I and it made a three minute marketing video that articulated better than he could.
Mike Koenigs [00:04:18]:
And it did the work of an entire production team what would normally take weeks and tens of thousands of dollars or even months and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And he said, that's it. And from there we were able to iterate to the next level. So what we did is effectively walked into a teleportation device, a time machine, as he would say. It took all the process out of creating something and we got to focus entirely on strategy. So that was step one, because we imagined a brand new business. We got together on the second day and just again started dialoguing. And that imaginative conversation turned into, well, why don't we create a software product? So I created a pitch video about the software product and he said yes.
Mike Koenigs [00:05:12]:
I took that script, put it into a code generator, and Instead of just one, I put it into 10 at the same time. It's the equivalent of hiring 10 software development teams all at the same time. Each one took a completely different approach and produced a semi functioning software product within two hours, which then we brought on one of his biggest deal providers. And the guy talked to us as though it was already real and live and saying, could you add this? Could you add this? Which I gave this thing instructions, I gave all 10 of these little developers instructions to add some new capabilities. And right before his eyes it was added. So by the time we were done at the end of the day, we had reimagined an entire software platform that could do what he wanted to do. And he said a large corporation could never have the foresight or ability to hire 10 development teams. And even if they could, it cost them millions of dollars in probably six months to do what we did in one day.
Mike Koenigs [00:06:18]:
And then over the past three days, we built the entire business plan, the model, the pitch deck and the story. So the answer to the question is right now, those who are willing to forego process, have conversations, use it as a collaborator, and realize that the next opportunity for human capabilities is to see ourselves as orchestrators and giving different AIs different problems and being have an interactive conversation that literally is outside of time. So as he would say, we did six months worth of work and in one day. And he said if I would have done it the old way, I would have lost interest or even the market would have changed. He said that's always the problem with startups is we get the idea, we have to get a ton of people involved, get process involved in systems. And by the time I get to pitch it and talk to it and raise the money,
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something may have changed so much that we can't reposition ourselves. And I think the opportunity we live in now is seeing this new world with AI as a teleportation device. We can operate outside of time and skills capabilities and live inside of strategy.
Dan Sullivan [00:07:38]:
Yeah. So two things I picked up from your comment. One is that. And I'll approach the negative before I approach sure. Positive. And the negative is all the people who could previously say no to creativity have been taken out of the. They've been taken out of the process.
Mike Koenigs [00:07:59]:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan [00:08:00]:
Okay. You know, you get an idea, but you have to take it to somebody and they say, well, we think about this and the person can say no. Okay. Or the person can complicate the situation if they don't say no. They can say, well, you have to do this and this and this and this before we get. And it describes bureaucracy. I'm basically describing. So everybody without talent who has power and control has been eliminated from the process.
Mike Koenigs [00:08:32]:
Yeah, that.
Dan Sullivan [00:08:37]:
Wow.
Mike Koenigs [00:08:37]:
Say that one more time, Ben.
Dan Sullivan [00:08:39]:
Yeah, everybody who doesn't have talent. In other words, they're not creative talent. They're. They. But they do have control and they can, they can say no, we don't want to do this. Okay. They have the ability to say no. They don't have the ability to say yes, but they have the ability.
Dan Sullivan [00:08:57]:
Ability to say no. Wow,
Mike Koenigs [00:09:01]:
that's really profound. And I think the answer is a big. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan [00:09:06]:
This whole point of bureaucracy is to have a lot of gatekeepers who can say no to new ideas because we're invested in the old ideas. And if we went through the prediction, the pre AI days and that's we're just approaching three years, so we're going back to 20, 20, 2021. Somebody could have stopped this idea.
Mike Koenigs [00:09:38]:
Yes, I think that's true.
Dan Sullivan [00:09:42]:
But now you can't. Now you can't stop the idea.
Mike Koenigs [00:09:45]:
You can't.
Dan Sullivan [00:09:46]:
And if you can create it in a day, you can test it the next day.
Mike Koenigs [00:09:51]:
That to me is the profundity is
Dan Sullivan [00:09:56]:
you don't know if you have it right, but you have something that's immediately useful to test because you still have to test things.
Mike Koenigs [00:10:03]:
And we are now, I've said for quite a while, and now it's more real than ever before. For many, many years, we've given up our agency to institutions, governments, educational platforms, politics, hierarchies. Oh, yes. And now, before they can create resistance, you can have an answer to anything. And this is very biblical. But in the beginning, there was nothing. And then I am that am now with the word, I can communicate an idea and make something real. And if there's one thing that's happened now that I think is quite profound,
and I heard someone talk about this not long ago about, okay, if there are aliens out there, why haven't we seen them? And I think you've said something along these lines before.
Mike Koenigs [00:11:07]:
It's like, think about the billions of years that have gone by and the distances, and you'd say, well, maybe we just missed them. Or maybe, you know, whatever the maybe is, some people would say, well, maybe they figured out how to communicate or live on a completely different plane. But here's what I heard that was very profound, is now that we're living inside a digital world, for most people, many people, including those with their phones, the digital world is a lot more interesting and real to them than the real world. And what his opinion was, whoever this person was, said he thinks the aliens would be a lot more interested in their virtual worlds and their digital worlds than taking the time and expending the energy that would be required. Because to move across time, space, dimension, whatever it is, requires a son's worth of energy. And. And it just might not be worth it. And now we can live inside a world that we cannot discern between that which is real and not.
Mike Koenigs [00:12:16]:
And we can make it real. So this idea, and I think the real answer to the question, Dan, is this is the time for the greatest storytellers ever, and anyone can have the power to be a better storyteller. And storytellers are the ones that make it real. Steve Jobs, great storyteller, great captivator. Elon Musk, not only a great storyteller, captivator, he realized that in order to not get shut down and not be controlled by governments and bureaucracies, he bought Twitter and X and he became the media.
Dan Sullivan [00:12:55]:
Yeah, well, he became the media for his purposes. So, I mean. Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing that I really see here, because I've been reading a whole series of histories of Great Britain, late 1700s, I'm up to 18, 20, 18, 30, and all these inventions are coming in. And they're, you know, ironworks. First of all, they're creating iron. You know, they have factories for creating iron.
Mike Koenigs [00:13:30]:
Yep.
Dan Sullivan [00:13:32]:
All sorts of products. And then they're now starting to experiment with steel. They've just floated the first metal boat that floats and they have an engine on it and they can take. They can't go out to the open seas yet because it's not stable, but they can go across. They can create ferry services both for cargo and people across rivers, and they're starting to experiment up having steam engines on tracks, you know, and all this new stuff is coming in. And it's very, very disturbing to the establishment in England that these nobodies who are getting interested in this are suddenly becoming rich. And the old families, which were totally agricultural families, they just had big, you know, they just had very, very large farms. They had very, very large plantations.
Dan Sullivan [00:14:29]:
But these individuals now have more money than they do and they have more access and you got to pay attention to them. But they don't have any family history. So family history is becoming less and less important. Oh, yeah. And these people who have capability and capital are just taking over society. So there's continuation from that to the present day. And that just started 200 years ago. This did not exist 200 years ago.
Dan Sullivan [00:15:03]:
And you have steam power now, so you have this new energy source. And the engines are getting better, the metallurgy is getting better, the propulsion that you get from the engines is getting better. And their imaginations are going wild with what you can do with this. Yes.
Mike Koenigs [00:15:22]:
So what, what my take on that is that disrupted.
Dan Sullivan [00:15:26]:
That disrupted British series that you have individuals you can't say no to.
Mike Koenigs [00:15:33]:
Yes. So here's what I was experiencing when I'm listening to you is steam was a time machine, Right. An order of magnitude, just like wind was. You know, the clipper ships, or any major technological development for that matter. Email, what that did to media and disintermediation, disruption, combustion. Yes. Every.
Dan Sullivan [00:16:02]:
With diesel and gasoline.
Mike Koenigs [00:16:05]:
I just don't. And we've talked about this before, if you don't have your nose inside the world of AI experimenting with this constantly right now, I think the order of magnitude that this is shifting is so profound, so that when I mentioned earlier of the strategy of orchestrating 10 AI development agents, for example, at once now, I'm still using a really primitive version of this because I'm the orchestrator at the moment, with just 10, we are moments away and Because AI development tools are getting so good. Like a couple weeks ago, one of the biggest problems that AI development tools had is they were not secure. So they would write code that could be easily cracked or had big security holes in them. But because there were hundreds of thousands of developers using them all at once, and then the developers are going in and correcting the master engine that's paying attention to this is learning about what the holes are and figuring out how to plug them because they were being orchestrated and managed by humans. And suddenly a new version of the software came out that self debugged and plugged up the holes. So when you imagine that us as humans are training the AIs right now and creating all kinds of best practices and seeing patterns that simply can't be seen by humans without spending, you know, let's say 100 years worth of labor or a thousand years of labor on it virtually instantaneously. The self correction.
Mike Koenigs [00:17:53]:
This is basically why what Elon's been doing by training his cars is going to be loaded into these robots and they're just a giant network of self correcting devices that are constantly learning and gathering
data. So what I believe to be true, that we will see the first trillion dollar company or first trillionaire beyond Elon, are entrepreneurs who, let's say some smart person lost their job because of AI and robotics and said I'm not going to put my hands in the power of an institution or a company again. So. And I'm going to utilize these tools and I see a niche in a business that could be disrupted by this. And I've got a friend who's a multi billionaire in a different country. All he does is models the trend in US and brings it over to this other country. And yeah, it's in Spain. And he's done this many, many times before.
Mike Koenigs [00:19:10]:
So Spain's behind us technologically language wise. But instead there are so many opportunities for technological disruption. And this is where two things I'd
Dan Sullivan [00:19:25]:
like to say about that. I, I keep getting the fear message about AI. Okay, not from me, not from me, no. But what I'm saying, they say if you don't get involved in, you see, but I said it doesn't matter how you get involved with AI, you're going to be better as a result of it. Yes, I approach it from that. Anybody who says this is really important for my future and I'm going to start working with it like I've worked, I'm just the diametric opposite to you. I've been working with one AI platform for a year and a half and I can write a book four or five times faster. I bring out a book every quarter, but the amount of work for the last quarter was about maybe 20% of the work a year and a half ago.
Dan Sullivan [00:20:18]:
Okay. And I just work with it. It's, you know, it's got my voice and I keep playing with it and I'm, I'm saving my prompts, the really good prompts, and so I can structure a chapter and I say, I just want to apply my, my prompt on how I develop copy and out comes the copy. The copy is, you know, the copy is really good. And I keep learning new things and I keep experimenting with new things and. But the interesting thing is that there's no writer's block. I mean, if I'm willing to put a structure, you know, just to put a structure, we use a fast filter. It's a strategic coach tool.
Dan Sullivan [00:21:00]:
And I say best result, worst result, five success criteria. Write me a chapter. It writes me a chapter.
Mike Koenigs [00:21:06]:
Yep.
Dan Sullivan [00:21:07]:
You know, so here's, here's. I just sent you an article and you read it. But that article was written in about 20 minutes, start to finish. That was written in about 20 minutes. I went in and I say change this around. Change this around. So my sense is that this is a new power. It's a new capability on the planet and it's available to anyone who wants to try it.
Mike Koenigs [00:21:33]:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:21:35]:
Okay, here's a quite a gatekeeper. There's no gatekeeper that's going to say you can't use this capability. This capability is open. So what would you really like to do? What would you really like to do? You know, there's an AI
capability that will move you forward. This really changes things.
Mike Koenigs [00:21:54]:
Yes. So do you think so you're right now you just talked about how you're writing your books in about 20% of the time. Do you believe that at this moment you're staying at parity in terms of the quality or your quality of product is increasing also? Or is it.
Dan Sullivan [00:22:16]:
Quality is better? Yeah, the quality is better.
Mike Koenigs [00:22:19]:
So that I think is.
Dan Sullivan [00:22:21]:
And the reason is that rewriting takes seconds where before it might take two days.
Mike Koenigs [00:22:29]:
Yes, that, that is. And again, this rapid iteration feedback, it's
Dan Sullivan [00:22:39]:
taking, it's taking the process, it's taking the labor out of it.
Mike Koenigs [00:22:45]:
That is, that to me is, is one of the most profound aspects of this. It's not the speed, it's the quality. And this becomes a self licking ice cream cone because the deeper you get, I think it takes a lot of discipline, like what you're doing where you've decided to focus on using one tool, which is very, very smart. More tools isn't better. The biggest reason I use a lot of tools is I'm constantly testing and I'm looking for my mindset these days is where can I gain an additional tool 10 minutes every hour.
Dan Sullivan [00:23:28]:
Yeah, but you're creating a platform. You're creating, you're creating a creative platform. Like we went through your histories, your entrepreneurial histories. And this is the seventh platform that you've created. And so you, you have the ability to create entire communication platforms. Yeah. Okay. So it's the 30 years that you put in before AI that came along is what's allowing you to do this.
Dan Sullivan [00:23:55]:
Because you've made millions of improvements in your mind over 30 years to the available technology that you had. And now the technology is caught up with your creativity. You would have liked to have done this 10 years ago, but you couldn't do it because the technology wasn't there to do it.
Mike Koenigs [00:24:19]:
Yeah.
Dan Sullivan [00:24:20]:
The other thing is the people that talk to, to use the technology on has improved enormously.
Mike Koenigs [00:24:27]:
Yeah. Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:24:30]:
I mean, proving something in a day is better than improving, proving an idea in one day is a lot better than proving an idea over a three month period.
Mike Koenigs [00:24:40]:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:24:41]:
Where you have no way of knowing during the three months whether the person's even going to like it. Right here, you know, within an hour whether they're going to like it.
Mike Koenigs [00:24:51]:
Yes. Yeah. That is, that to me has been
Dan Sullivan [00:24:54]:
participant and they're a participant in the creativity where before you take it away and you had to work on it and we hope we, we hope we got this right. But you've, you've eliminated all that time.
Mike Koenigs [00:25:10]:
Yes. So as I'm, I'm listening to
you right now, in thinking through this, I've been dividing the process, the capability amplification process into four primary quadrants, which is enhancing your superpowers, which is really just a mind journey of understanding. You don't give up your agency. You've got these tools that make you better and faster at what you do. And in your case, 20% of the effort is producing a better product in less time, triple win. So it's possible to be fast, good and cheap before you get to pick two. The second is an individual has superpowers, even as a generalist. So the, the being a specialist I think is advantageous if you use that specialty to focus, because as a specialist now you can be a generalist and a specialist simultaneously.
Mike Koenigs [00:26:12]:
But I think a generalist can also be both without all of the effort or the time of mastery. The second is the speed of storytelling and the quality of storytelling, which is you can produce Hollywood quality products in a matter of minutes and or days. This past week or so, the latest version of Sora was released by ChatGPT. That's producing like mindbogglingly high quality stuff and also lots of garbage. The third is elevating your status or your brand and you know, attract better customers and creating more value so you can charge more so that that multiplier effect. And the fourth is the fact that orchestrating these agents to do more process for you while you get to spend more time in your unique ability. Those are the four areas. And then constantly rinsing and repeating.
Dan Sullivan [00:27:24]:
Now I know the answer to the question, but I'm going to still ask the question.
Mike Koenigs [00:27:30]:
Okay.
Dan Sullivan [00:27:31]:
I saw you three weeks ago.
Mike Koenigs [00:27:33]:
Yep.
Dan Sullivan [00:27:34]:
Okay. Would you say you're quite a bit more ambitious right now than you were three weeks ago?
Mike Koenigs [00:27:39]:
Yeah, for sure.
Dan Sullivan [00:27:41]:
That's another point that you've capability creates greater ambition and greater ambition creates higher capability. You're in a positive loop now where your ambition is encouraging you to keep adding new AI capabilities to the platform. And every time you do, you become more ambitious.
Mike Koenigs [00:28:07]:
Do you want to know why? What happened between three weeks ago and now? I'll let you guess first because I'm really curious because you're always so perceptive. Why that is true. And then I want to tell you, but I want to hear your perception first. I'm curious what your guess would be.
Dan Sullivan [00:28:33]:
Well, I think one of the things, it wasn't just you interacting with AI, it's you being empowered by a. Having a completely different type of conversation with a potential client or customer.
Mike Koenigs [00:28:47]:
Yeah, yeah.
Dan Sullivan [00:28:49]:
And that's your interaction with the marketplace, which is really the most important thing here.
Mike Koenigs [00:28:53]:
Yes. Here's what happened. I
performed in a playfield that I wouldn't have the courage to dance in not that long ago. And in this particular instance, I was creating value with, well, a multi billionaire who's been involved in hundreds of billions of transactions. And I had validation of how unique and special this process was. Where three months ago he said, I didn't even know any of this was possible. And then if you would have told me what was going to happen or what to expect, I wouldn't have believed you. I had to be here to witness it and watch it for myself.
Dan Sullivan [00:29:49]:
Um, and he, he, he's, he's also more ambitious.
Mike Koenigs [00:29:55]:
Oh, he. This He. Effectively. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan [00:29:58]:
I mean. I mean, yes. He was a person whose past was actually bigger than his future.
Mike Koenigs [00:30:07]:
Yeah. And he.
Dan Sullivan [00:30:08]:
Because he didn't know what to do with his money, now he knows what to do with his money.
Mike Koenigs [00:30:12]:
Yeah, yeah. It totally shifted his focus.
Dan Sullivan [00:30:17]:
But when somebody has more money than they know what to spend it on, it means that their past is bigger than their future. You just gave him a future that's bigger than his past.
Mike Koenigs [00:30:31]:
Yeah. Wow. So that has to be packaged and messaged.
Dan Sullivan [00:30:45]:
That's a real gift. That's a real gift.
Mike Koenigs [00:30:47]:
Oh, wow.
Dan Sullivan [00:31:01]:
I bet he was frustrated.
Mike Koenigs [00:31:04]:
Extremely.
Dan Sullivan [00:31:05]:
Yeah, I bet he was frustrated. You know, what do I do now? You know, I mean, that's the worst. That's the worst point to reach in your life as an entrepreneur is, gee, what do I do now? Well, you just gave him a new lease on life.
Mike Koenigs [00:31:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. He cried five times at different points, so that was remarkable.
Dan Sullivan [00:31:38]:
I always find men crying as indicative of something big. Yes. As boys don't cry. Yeah. No. I think this is, You know, one of the things I bet you've said to yourself a million times in the last 30 years in your technological exploration. You said, well, I wish there was a technology where we could do this. I wish there was a technology where we could do this.
Dan Sullivan [00:32:20]:
Well, all your wishes have been answered. You now have the technology that you can do anything you want when you want to do it with a great deal of ease. With a great deal of ease. Faster, easier, bigger impact, higher quality result.
Mike Koenigs [00:32:38]:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:32:38]:
It's a pretty good deal.
Mike Koenigs [00:32:40]:
It's a great deal. And as I'm listening to you and thinking about this, one thing I've really gotten clear on over the past few years is I. I like collaborating so much. What. What inspires me is a partner with a need and a problem. Because I find it easier to live inside the world of problem solving and imagining with and multiplying than doing it with or for myself. I like a close creative team doing
Dan Sullivan [00:33:19]:
that just for money.
Mike Koenigs [00:33:21]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Sullivan [00:33:22]:
That's where it's transactional. It's transactional. You don't like transactionalism.
Mike Koenigs [00:33:28]:
Now, that's not a primary motivation at all. I like exactly what just happened, which was a profound shift in consciousness and someone living inside of a bigger future, bigger possibility. And after going through this cycle, right now, what I'm contemplating, what I don't have a solution for, I guess this is a creative exercise I've got to explore, is crafting the next story to attract an even bigger problem that can be solved. This way. And I told you not long ago when I spoke at NASA, that was an opportunity to operate way outside of my comfort zone in a world where my, I wasn't really worried about this or concerned, but I, I worked around it, which was, I know I'm, you know, I, I don't have any degrees or specializations in space science technology. And I went up there representing and saying, I'm going to show you how to solve your biggest problems. And I'm not you, I'm not an engineer, I'm not a space scientist, I'm not a specialist. But I want to show you a bigger future for yourself.
Mike Koenigs [00:34:48]:
And if there was a fear, it was like someone saying, well, you didn't think about this. And I declared it right up front. But what this tool is given me is a lot more courageous to collaborate without having to be an authority or an expert. And the same thing happened when I had spoken at UN earlier is I used the tool and demonstrated the tool without having to be something I wasn't.
Dan Sullivan [00:35:20]:
Yeah.
Mike Koenigs [00:35:21]:
So back to the story.
Dan Sullivan [00:35:23]:
Well, the difference between this situation that you just had and NASA and the UN is there's a lot of people in the UN and NASA who are going to say no. This person said yes.
Mike Koenigs [00:35:38]:
Yeah,
Dan Sullivan [00:35:41]:
I mean they were ready to launch that day.
Mike Koenigs [00:35:44]:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:35:45]:
He was already talking about people, talking to people who are going to write very large checks.
Mike Koenigs [00:35:51]:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:35:52]:
Yeah, that's pretty quick. I mean, when you think about it.
Mike Koenigs [00:35:55]:
Yeah. There was, there's another little secret here that made this super valuable that I think is ultra important. So when we started working together, we looked at every one of his most valuable investors he's ever worked with over his 30 plus year career. And we, I had him rate them on their probability of saying yes to a bigger future like he was saying yes to. So we had a framing and then I wrote all those down. I put them right in front of the camera because we were presenting and performing to my team as we built all these things. And what happened is because he was looking at that list of people, I said, no, I want you to perform and, and overcome all
their objections. That became part of the story.
Mike Koenigs [00:36:54]:
All of it's being captured with a variety of AI tools. And then that got turned into the next video we got to watch. So we got to see and hear and watch this transformation taking place through the lens of all the people who needed to say yes. And so closing that loop of intimacy was something that couldn't have been possible before. Yes. So I'm just curious if you have any read on that? Which is back to the. And he also said something quite profound, which you always say, always be the buyer. He had a big realization that he wasn't asking for them to buy anything.
Dan Sullivan [00:37:46]:
No.
Mike Koenigs [00:37:46]:
He said, this is an invitation.
Dan Sullivan [00:37:49]:
No. For you. It's the buyer. He's the buyer.
Mike Koenigs [00:37:51]:
That's what it shifted. That was the other profound shift.
Dan Sullivan [00:37:54]:
Yeah. And that's. Yeah. I mean, John Bowen and Carrie and I, we just went through the last contract discussion that we'll ever be through. And because our publisher has been bought out by a much larger publisher who's been bought out by a large multinational corporation, and the lawyers are now in charge. And so we didn't like their contract. So. And John is really, really good with AI and he came back and he put through all the contract and AI said, you know, you got a 70, 70% better if you just self publish rather than you go through the publisher.
Dan Sullivan [00:38:43]:
So we brought that information back to the publisher and we said, you know, we like you and we think that it'll be good that we have your capabilities, but we don't need your capabilities. Then they scrambled like math to hold on to the project. Okay. And I told John, we're the buyers here. We're the ones who have the manuscript. We have the idea, we have the. All the networks that this will go through. They don't have any of that.
Dan Sullivan [00:39:17]:
All they've got is a lawyer who says no. And, you know, so they accept it. And the project is going to go forward next week. Yeah, we already had the manuscript finished. You know, it wasn't that we need this so that we can write the manuscript. We already had the manuscript. Yep. So the.
Dan Sullivan [00:39:40]:
I think that what. What I'm seeing here is that we, the history of the world has been of less capable people being able to stop capable people. More capable people. And you've just proven that. That's. That's in the past now.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:09]:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:40:10]:
I mean, I think there's a lot of confusion and polarization in our society.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:15]:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:40:16]:
Right now is that a lot of people who thought they had permanent power just discovered they don't have any power. And that can really disrupt things.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:26]:
Yes. And
Dan Sullivan [00:40:29]:
it's all storytelling. It's all storytelling.
Mike Koenigs [00:40:32]:
Yes.
Dan Sullivan [00:40:33]:
You know, none of the stuff you created weighed anything. Didn't take up any space. Yeah. This. This is a weightless world that you're operating in. It can be instantly moved. It's weightless. Things that weigh.
Dan Sullivan [00:41:07]:
Take time. Yeah. Well, take this project, Take this project back four years and weigh it takes three months. Takes three months. A lot of equipment, a lot of meals, a lot of travel, lot of sleep.
Mike Koenigs [00:41:42]:
Oh man, you gave me a large.
Dan Sullivan [00:41:45]:
There's no more. Gravity.
Mike Koenigs [00:41:47]:
Yes. Gravity, weight, time, energy.
Dan Sullivan [00:41:59]:
Yeah. Distance.
Mike Koenigs [00:42:01]:
Yes. So the profound consciousness shift. Opportunity. I'm trying to. As I'm listening to you, Dan, I'm trying to think of how to communicate
Dan Sullivan [00:42:15]:
this
Mike Koenigs [00:42:18]:
in the shortest period of time to attract an even bigger dreamer. Because the. The what? As I listened to your. Your evaluation of this, the opportunity to. To rewrite and create a bigger future for yourself, it's not about rewriting anything. It's just about creating a bigger future and making it real faster. So when you hear this, how would you tell the story in a compelling way? How would you package that? What happened? So both your greater capability or greater future, how would you synthesize this together?
Dan Sullivan [00:43:10]:
Well, I think it's not about really about you. It's really about they have dangers, they have opportunities and they have strengths and they've got problems with all three of them. And what you did is that his danger was that there was nothing big in the future. That's his biggest danger. For an entrepreneur, that's the worst danger. That's the worst danger of all. I mean, he has no meaning in the future that's bigger than the meaning he's already created. That's the number one danger for an entrepreneur.
Dan Sullivan [00:43:52]:
And you solve that. Okay, but I mean, if you go back and just do a little history of how the whole situation transpired, that's your story. That's your story. This is what we happened. And one day we completely created a new industry that the other people were totally engaged in, totally invested in. And we did that in one day. And the only difference in their life is that they met Mike Koenigs. The only thing different happened is that they spent time.
Dan Sullivan [00:44:41]:
It was five days actually, I guess.
Mike Koenigs [00:44:43]:
Yeah, well, it was one day. One day, three days. So one to rewrite a new future and see a bigger opportunity and imagine. Yeah, imagine a bigger future for self that others would buy into. The second was the missing piece, like the talisman. That was the platform, the software. The third was crafting the story that would create maximum engagement and buy in and overcome all the objections and tighten the compelling story and then make it look real. That was the other thing, is we
created simulations and versions of the.
Mike Koenigs [00:45:29]:
The product that is real. Yeah. And that's a complicated problem. That was a complicated five day problem. I think there's other problems that aren't as complex.
Dan Sullivan [00:45:46]:
Yeah, see here's the big thing. You're performing miracles, but they're not big enough.
Mike Koenigs [00:45:53]:
That's the way it feels.
Dan Sullivan [00:45:55]:
Yeah. And I would say, why don't we just stay with this miracle for at least. 10 experiments. Why don't we just, you know, I mean, first of all, the technology people are going to be working on new things over the six months and you'll catch up with them when you have to. But my sense is that you have the habit of always looking for the next capability that's better than the capability I have. Why don't you just create a six month period where this is good enough for the next six months and let's solve, let's solve 10 big problems.
Mike Koenigs [00:46:36]:
All right, I can do that. Yeah. Good thing is I got two, two weeks to prep in this particular case to perform miracles for an audience and show proof that they get to experience. So that's the, the compelling content that I'm developing right now, which are always relevant use cases. And they can do it. In this case, I'm showing them how to do it themselves or they have an opportunity to do it together faster. So that's. I like that a lot.
Mike Koenigs [00:47:15]:
All right. 10 experiments. My team will buy into that too.
Dan Sullivan [00:47:19]:
Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, I mean, you can be aware, you can still be tinkering with new stuff. It's just that you're, you're not rewriting your whole, you're not redoing your entire platform for the next one. Let's just do it. You're way ahead of the world, first of all. But the world doesn't even know you're doing this. So, you know, so, yeah, that's how I would do it. To just give yourself periods where you just get to see how it works and how it's done.
Dan Sullivan [00:47:56]:
And then you'll be a lot smarter six months from now and you'll be a lot more experienced and the reputation will spread because the people you're solving the problem for are your marketing team.
Mike Koenigs [00:48:08]:
Yes. Yep. All right, well, I've got clarity. This is, as usual, not what I expected. I didn't have any expectations going in, but you always pull out the best, the best of me. I appreciate that.
Dan Sullivan [00:48:25]:
Yeah.
Mike Koenigs [00:48:26]:
All right.
Dan Sullivan [00:48:26]:
Yeah.
Mike Koenigs [00:48:27]:
So, well, let's, let's wrap this one up and say. And then we'll do the intro like we always do. So I've had a fantastic time and this was just fascinating. Really good. And I'm looking forward to our next episode. Dan.
Dan Sullivan [00:48:43]:
Yeah, well, it's great because I'm working on the whole thing of positioning myself as, you know, as being the authority on entrepreneurial ambition. And you just gave me a lot of material for my whole point that when an entrepreneur gets a new capability they become more ambitious and there's no reason for that to stop at any time during their lifetime. Yeah.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:14]:
And as I listen to you talk about that, I think the ambition amplifier is collaboration. That is what creates the 10x experience
Dan Sullivan [00:49:30]:
or the hundredx or millionx.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:33]:
Right. Yeah. I love living in orders of magnitude and I love two zeros, not just one. So I felt like this was a two zero opportunity and ambition amplifier for me. So thank you for the a gift.
Dan Sullivan [00:49:51]:
Good.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:52]:
All right.
Dan Sullivan [00:49:53]:
Gift to me too.
Mike Koenigs [00:49:55]:
Good. Let's, let's wrap this up. Thanks for watching Capability Amplifier. Share this with someone who you think would really enjoy it and we'll see you in the next episode.