Leave Nothing To Chance

 

“Be ye therefore perfect,” but in order to be perfect, you need to be present every single day. You need “genshai”. Let that be your new word today. Never treat anyone as small, and that starts with you and what you say to yourself every day. Learn how to show up for yourself with John Solleder and his guest Dan McCormick. Dan is a legend in the network marketing industry. He is the Og Mandino Ambassador and a network marketing coach. He is also the host of The Greatest Salesman Podcast. Join John and Dan as they explore the meaning behind “genshai” and why you should show up every day, especially in network marketing. Also, find why great management and leadership make a successful business. Learn many new words in today’s episode.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Learn The New Word With Dan McCormick

It is a pleasure and honor of mine to welcome a prior guest of the show. He is a man who is an icon in network marketing and, I’ve got to say, one of the hardest working people in network marketing because Dan never stops working on Dan. One of the life lessons that I learned from him is to never stop working on John. The job and reading are never done. There’s not enough that you could know.

When we say a student of self-development, he is the poster child when you open the book and see self-development. He is at it all the time. Every time I talk to him, he enlightens me with what he’s reading, doing or acting on. He is an icon, legend and one of the top runners in the industry. He is a great guy and a grandfather to fourteen grandchildren. Dan, welcome to the show.

It’s great to be with you. I remember the first time we spoke about your book and we talked about what an amazing accomplishment it is to be an author. If I recall, what I was so impressed with about your book was each of the chapters was a principle. As I explained on the last show, I love the word principle because Arthur Watkins, at the age of 96, was a linguist. He knew every Indo-European language. When I asked him about the word, principle, he crossed his arms, closed his eyes and went, “PRIN. That’s a strong channel and then PLE is moving you forward.” Your book is a principle-based book full of strong channels moving people’s life and business forward. That’s my recollection. When I see your background, I remember that. I lit up because I love principles so much.

Thank you for the compliment. Let’s start. What is on Dan McCormick’s coffee table as we speak? What are you reading? I know you’re always reading.

I’m always working on my body. For the mind, you need the books, the journals and all the stuff I got surrounding me, but I go in regularly and have a series of people that work on my body. I got acupuncturists and Stecco massage people, which is an Italian deep tissue. I also have Feldenkrais, which is an Israeli soft tissue. I have all these different kinds of people.

I go in to see my local Chinese acupuncturist and give the credit card to her secretary. She’s wonderful. I’m walking out the door and I go, “What’s this?” It was a stack of these books. I thought I should probably read that so I said, “Why don’t you put that on the credit card as well?” She said, “Those are free,” so I grabbed this book from this New York Times bestselling author called the Greatest Forgiveness.

 

It is a great title. It reminds me of The Greatest Salesman in the World, The Greatest Secret in the World and The Greatest Success in the World by Og Mandino. When I saw the Greatest Forgiveness, I’m a word junkie, so the word caught me. I keep it next to my bed. I try to read a few pages every night, ponder and think about what is the greatest forgiveness. That’s for you and the audience to decide for them. If you want to know what I’m reading, that’s what I’ve been reading.

Who’s the author?

It is by Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha.

I know that you probably have a new word for us.

We talked about principle, the origin of the word. I’ll go back to my friend here, and that’s Arthur Watkins. God rest his soul. He was an amazing contributor. All four of our daughters were teenagers at the same time. We would have a word of the year. We would have a crossword puzzle in the family with each person picking the word, and we carried that on for several years with our kids and then their husbands. I remember my wife printing this off because she was so impressed. I remember Kevin Hall, the author of the book, Aspire. I’d be happy to recommend an introduction to you if you want to have him on your show. His new book will be coming out really soon. It’s going to be special.

The word that became the secret word referred to around the world is the secret word by Kevin Hall in his book, Aspire. It has nearly 1 million copies sold now. It probably has been out for many years. He was visiting Austria to go visit the widower of the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl. He was going to visit her because Victor Frankl had a vision of having not just the Statue of Liberty on one coast but another statue on the other coast, and then holding hands together, bringing the country together. It was the Statue of Liberty on one coast and the Statue of Responsibility, if I recall, in San Diego.

Genshai means to never treat another person small. It starts with you and what you say to yourself every day. Click To Tweet

While he was going to meet her, he walked into a fabric store and this gentleman got talking to Kevin. He says, “I’m here to meet with Viktor Frankl’s widower,” and he says, “If you’re here to see her, you must sign my book of greats.” Kevin says, “I could never sign your book of greats. Mother Teresa is in your book. You’ve got all these amazing people on your book of greats. I could never sign that.” He says, “We’re new friends. Let’s go to dinner,” and then he says, “Let me teach you the word that I learned from my parents, and the word is Genshai.” The secret word is Genshai. What that means is something interesting whether you’re reading as a spouse, a son, a daughter, a friend, a neighbor, a grandpa, a grandma or a network marketing entrepreneur.

Think about how you would feel if you understood the meaning of this word. As our friend leans over to Kevin, he says, “Genshai simply means never to treat another person small.” Where does that start? It’s with yourself. Think about all of the thoughts that go through our minds. Think about how we can say, “That’s another dumb thing by me,” or, “I should have done it.” We have these thoughts and I try to coach people that there are words that you got to get rid of in your language whether it’s, “I’m scared to do this,” or, “I’m nervous to do that,” or, “I’m no good at this,” etc. Kevin signed the book of greats. It is an amazing thing to think about the foundational elements of Genshai, never to treat another person small and it starts with you and what you say to yourself every day.

You’re hitting a nerve with that word and concept. I’ve never heard that concept before. You and I have both been around some successful people not only in network marketing but in other business, sports and all sorts of things. What amazes me is most people that are successful are consistent. For example, I saw Zig Ziglar get out of his car when his wife’s hair salon was next to my gym. He walked around, took her out of the car, took her arm, took her in, and then came back and picked her up a couple of hours later. Nobody was watching to his knowledge, but I was.

You see that but you see the other side of it. You see somebody who will kiss up to somebody to get what they want in business and then they’ll have a $100 meal and tip a waiter $3. That’s inconsistent with how you should live your life. That waiter is working hard for his or her money too. They showed up and have bills to pay. At least give them 18%, assuming they did a decent job or they yell at somebody who is supposedly beneath them and you go, “That’s inconsistent with what you talked about.” It’s so important that we’re consistent throughout our lives with treating everybody with the respect that all humanity deserves. I love that word. What’s the origin of that? It sounds like maybe a Japanese word.

It’s Indian. Pravin Cherkoori is the man that owned the fabric store that I was fortunate to meet one time. You’ll read the entire story in detail when you pick up the book, Aspire. I’ll get Kevin for you. His new book is close to being done, so maybe you’ll want him on for this one and then one for the new book. When you think about what he did, he tried to write by discovering your purpose through the power of words. If you ask your audience organization, teams or whoever’s reading now or might be reading 6 months or 6 years from now, if you think about what is your favorite word, we all have a word. You used one of my tops there, which is consistency.

As a young man, when I got started in network marketing at nineteen, I thought, “Maybe I can’t do that meeting well. Maybe I don’t answer that phone very well when we answered phones but what I can do is show up every day.” I had a friend share with me a concept. This is valuable. It’s worth writing down for those that are taking notes and that is if you’re going to be here for the good times, you have to be here all the time. That’s what I thought I could do. I thought I could show up.

 

Let me share a story with you about my showing up. There are a lot of errors, flaws and chinks in the armor, as they say. I have this friend of mine who’s a high-level security guard. He has out-of-this-world stories you couldn’t believe. I go over to the gym and he and his wife had been a customer for years. We happen to have a new best-selling product out that I thought he would like.

I’d been over to the gym a couple of times but I don’t go to that gym anymore. I thought that since he has been on my products for years, I should take him this new product as a gift. I went in and caught him there. I said, “Joseph, I’m going to leave for Idaho again soon.” I live in Orange County, California, but I live in Idaho in the summers. I was like, “I wanted to give you this gift. I think you and your wife would love it.”

I showed him some before and after pictures of better hair, skin and nails. He went home, thanked me profusely, and his wife ordered two boxes online. That is me showing up thanking a true customer that has never been a business person with me but somebody that uses my product. I love showing up. I’m not the best at anything but I am pretty good at showing up.

If you don’t show up, nothing will happen. How many years are you at your company?

I’m in my twentieth year in 2022.

How many years are you doing this for a living?

If you're going to be here for the good times, you have to be here all the time. Click To Tweet

Thirty-nine in 2022.

He still has the desire to go and say, “I got a customer. That customer might like my new product and I need to tell them about it.” Let that be a lesson for all of you younger folks in the business. Whether you’re younger chronologically or you’re chronologically younger in the business, Dan still does that to his credit. Let me ask you this. The last few years have been nuts. How does Dan McCormick keep his attitude of being so level-headed and enthusiastic about everything, from his business to his life to his family and his faith? How do you keep it all together with the way you have the last couple of years?

I got another word for you and this will answer the next two questions or your follow-up question. I’m trying to think out loud in front of what your next follow-up question might be. Here’s the sacred literature that I read every morning. Most people are familiar with this Matthew scripture that says, “Be ye therefore perfect.” I’m thinking about your question and this Matthew scripture.

Let’s think about a couple of things that potentially I could be perfect in. Showing up every day would be one. Let’s say that I want to be a perfect tithe payer. I make $100 and give $10 every time to my church. I can be perfect in that but there’s a new word that struck me. In order for me to be perfect, I’ve got to be present. I’ve pondered and thought long and hard about it because most of our lives are lived through the paradigm of what has happened to us in the past and what we’re looking forward to in the future.

Let’s say that you are a student in Kansas or North Carolina. What did you spend your entire weekend doing? You’re thinking about the future of what that game could be or let’s say you have tickets to the Masters and then it gets rained out. There are so many things about how we are looking back and looking forward. I thought about your question. How do you keep your attitude during all the craziness and how do you lead your teams during the craziness? Nothing is more important than being present for them. If I’m consistently present then I believe that I’m doing the best that I know how to do and I can’t be anything more than that.

People have known me for years. My kids are going to fill the line in where I was. Someone saw me and said before I could even answer the question, “He’s having the best day of his life.” I’ll never forget getting on an airplane years ago and this guy sitting next to me was so puzzled that I could be having the best day of my life. He looked at me with complete stress, like, “Do you have kids?” I said, “Yeah. I have four daughters.” He says, “How can you be having the best day of your life?” I said, “That was the most spiritual four days of my life, watching them coming to this world.”

 

People say, “How can you be having the best day of your life?” I often will say, “Tomorrow is not here and yesterday is gone, so be ye therefore perfect.” I have to be present. I have to have the best day of my life. I’m not promised tomorrow. Og Mandino says that in The Greatest Salesman in the World. Why are these words, concepts and principles favorites of mine? They’re my weaknesses. I’ve got to remind myself of these things. I’ve got to say these things. I’ve got to live these things. I’ve got to ask myself, “What is the greatest forgiveness for me?” Hopefully, I answered your question.

Let’s take that to network marketing. We’re going to take a concept or what I call the art in my training classes that I do. I do a whole training class every single month for my teams called The Art on the third Saturday of the month. What is the art that you and I have grown up to know? That is, we live in an event cycle. This is an event for you and me to put on that somebody will be watching later but if you and I were doing a live meeting at the Western Hotel, Dallas, Texas, you and I both know that the flyers and promotions would be out.

The distributors would be texting, calling, Zooming, three-way, and everything they could be doing to promote that John Solleder and Dan McCormick are doing a meeting, and they’re going to be talking about personal development, Leaving Nothing to Chance, etc. That’s the art of recruiting and promotion. That’s the principle.

I live in a world of knowing that I have to be present to promote what is in front of me, but I’m living here now to do the best I can for my team. I have this feeling that our industry is always going to find a bull market for somebody. There’s always something to sell, like an event or product. I love the idea of be ye, therefore perfect. How do I do that? I can show up every morning. I can prepare myself. By the way, I keep a list of all of my favorite words that start with P and I’ve got pages of them. Think about the word present, preserve, purpose, privilege, precise, prudent, plead, prosper, all these words. I keep a list of my favorite words that start with P because it’s my favorite letter.

During the pandemic, was there anything special that you did in addition to what you shared to keep people on track?

I made a mistake a few years ago and I promised myself I wouldn’t make this mistake again. I had this lady that joined my team that if I told you the volume she did in her first month, they would hang up on this call. It was a volume that was so staggering, we yearned to do it in a year. Someone yearned to do it in a lifetime and she did it in a month. She was the first person on my team that did something in a very big way on social media.

In order to be perfect, you need to be present. Click To Tweet

I stepped back and I thought to myself that because technology changed and there’s a new rhythm to social media that took over, I wonder if they know something I don’t. She’s barely in the business now. Here was the mistake I made. I stepped back from the most important thing you can understand. Too many times I say, “The most important thing,” or, “It is the thing,” but it’s one of the critical things. You and I both know that if you and I had to go out and rebuild starting tomorrow for unforeseen circumstances, we might be able to rebuild pretty quickly. However, it takes a minimum of 18 months to 36 months to create a new culture. I didn’t get this team indoctrinated into self-help personal development leadership culture.

By the way, in leadership, LEA is path, DER is finder. You can’t ever assume for a minute that you can take your foot off the gas of culture. That’s why I never stopped doing what I do. If there was anything that I learned from pre-craziness times to get it, it is to not veer from principles. Remember, those are the strong channels that move you forward. You’ve got to show up when you don’t know what to say. You’ve got to show up when you’re not sure if it’s going to resonate but here’s the thing. The reason my show has been a success for years every single Saturday is that principles always resonate with somebody. People may choose to leave your team. People will never forget the title of your book, Leaving Nothing to Chance, and those principles being taught in it.

You already have 20 years with the same company and 39 in the industry. You’ve been successful everywhere you’d been. I got some hard questions for you. Here’s the first one. What makes a great company? Why have you stayed where you are for twenty years? There were some ups and downs. Everybody always thinks that for guys like us, it’s all up. Everybody we talk to comes into the business. We never have a bad day or a declined credit card. They think everybody we’ve talked to is all Bill Gates and their credit cards are good. Everybody shows up and we never do a Zoom call at the wrong time. Nothing ever happens to us.

Let’s talk about the company for a minute without specifics. We can keep this generic. What makes a great company? Why have you stuck around those guys instead of being some of our colleagues that are in the MLM of the month club or MLM of the year club? What makes you a great company which made you stay all these years and keep building?

In the world of the stock market, there are over 10,000 publicly traded companies. Very few of them become iconic companies. There are biotech companies that are constantly doing research. There are technology companies that change technology and there are airlines, transports and all kinds of cyclical nature to companies. Usually, it comes down to great management. You want great people who can manage a company, and you want great distributors that can promote the company, the product and the future vision.

If there’s something that I feel like I’ve learned early on from a lot of the mentors in the industry is even though I am in the present, there’s always a carrot out there for somebody in a new organization or a new team to be working towards the dream of putting their toes in the sand. That is special. I remember hanging out with our friends on the beaches of Waikiki on my very first trip going, “Wow.” There I was at nineteen years old going, “Wow,” and then some time ago, I went to that same beach and said, “Here I am. This is where it started.”

 

Great management cannot be underscored enough. Let’s surmise that you have a great product and awful management. You’re going to be out of business if you can’t manage finances, inventory or what your comp plan is paying out. First and foremost, it’s management. Certainly, you need a big story. You and I tell a big story. We tell a story that’s in the billions and trillions.

These markets are massive in scope but at the end of the day, no matter how big, you and I both could get off this phone and we could list the 20 or so companies that do $1 billion a year or more in our industry. There might be another 50 or so to do $100 million or more, but there are hundreds and thousands that have labored on the bottom end that have gone in and out of business, management changes, leadership changes, product changes or comp plan changes galore and you can’t get that rhythm.

Hopefully, I answered your question but if I look at publicly traded companies and I’m going to make an investment, I want to know that I have great managers who understand their fiduciary responsibility. I also want to have a product that tells a big story. You and I both could look at 2, 3, 4 or 5 of those bigger billion-dollar companies. They don’t pay out like your company and my company pays out but they created a culture and they got great management, have an event cycle and have products that are good enough for the masses.

I think I answered your question and I hope that anyone reading this, if you know you got great management, you have to ask yourself, “Am I on it and in it for the journey or am I flipping quarters just to say next?” I don’t think so. If you’ve got great management, great company and great products then it’s up to you. You’ve got to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “What am I doing?” We got some of the fastest-growing people ever. It’s crazy.

It shows where the industry’s going. Before I get to my last question, Dan has referenced my books a couple of times. My wife says I have to run an ad on these shows or she won’t let me do them anymore so I’m going to do that.

Do me a favor for our audience that has not read the book. Open the table of contents and read the first three chapter titles because I didn’t bring mine in the room. Maybe it’s in my house in Idaho.

If you have a great product but awful management, you're going to be out of business. Click To Tweet

Principle one, wake up excited for the day.

Did I cover that?

You did. Principle two, listen to your reason. It’s the heart of the matter. You hit that. Principle three, instill the right mindset and you’ll have no choice but to succeed.

I love it because those principles are all moving lives forward.

You can get it at Amazon in English, Spanish or digital, and you can get my prior book, Moving Up: 2020. Give them away. Not only has Dan talked about that one book but so are many other leaders because these books aren’t about me. I just collated the information from all of these great leaders like Dan and others that you can use for your business.

One of the things I’ve loved about this business for 39 years is once you hear an idea and it comes out of somebody else’s mouth, it’s yours. Many years ago, you and I heard the same statement. For things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to get better and I always thought that our friend, Larry Thompson, had created that. I don’t know why I thought that. Larry never said he said that. I was talking to Ron Henley, the curator of the Network Marketing Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia, and Ron said, “No. That came from Jim. Jim Rohn had said that back in 1958.”

He might’ve heard it from Mr. Shoaff.

He may have heard it in church. Who knows? Once we all heard it and repeated it, there were thousands of people around the world on that one statement alone that Dan and I have said repeatedly as well as other things that other people have used and more importantly adopted.

Say that statement one more time and then I’m going to read you the reference to it in the scriptures.

For things to change, you have to change. For things to get better, you have to get better.

Here’s King James’ version, Romans 12:2. This is where I think it came from. He says, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” For things to change, you’ve got to change. For things to get better, you’ve got to get better. How can you possibly become what you’re not thinking about? If you’re going to be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you’ve got to go back to principles number 1, 2, 3 and all the things we’ve talked about here. It can have a profound impact on your life if you will be there perfect by being present each and every day.

We could go on for days. Folks, we are going to go on for days because Dan and I are going to do two more interviews. We’ll have dates for those, but one of them is going to hopefully be with somebody significant that Dan has worked with. I won’t mention him until we get him confirmed, but Dan and I, one way or another, will be talking about one of his favorite subjects. Do you want to give a commercial, if you would?

 

The first book ever put in my hand was The Greatest Salesman in the World. The Greatest Secret in the World is the journalized version of that book. It’s by Og Mandino. This is interesting. He passed away one week after his final speech was given at our company convention in 1996. Rich and Jay held Og Mandino’s books up on the Amway stage in 1968 and said, “Everybody should read this.” We’ll talk a lot more about those scrolls and principles, if you will, in The Greatest Salesman in the World.

We’re going to do another show similar to one that we did with the great Joe Garcia from a company that he’s with in Canada for 21 years, and Keith Hooper who’s with the company he’s with for 25 years. We’re going to do a show with Dan and one of our other colleagues that are yet to be named on the longevity of staying with one company for a long time. One thing you and I know is a lot of successful people. One of the things they have in common is they have stuck around. They went through those ups and downs.

I relate to this day and I’ve got to do one for you because you give me so much. I’ve got to give you one to return. Think of the scene in round fourteen of Rocky I for a second. It was the third time that Apollo’s knocked him down in a round. Burgess Meredith, his manager, even says, “Stay down.” Rocky grabs the rope and works his way up. Even Apollo looks across the ring like, “You are insane.”

If you’re going to build a network marketing business or any business for that matter, that’s what it can be like some days but it’s not getting knocked down that matters. It’s getting up that matters. You were a person who has done that throughout your life and career. I know your early life story. Certainly some of our audience do from prior shows but you’ve become such a great and respected leader in your company and throughout the industry.

Anybody I mentioned, I’m like, “I have interviewed Dan McCormick.” They said, “I heard him here. Dan McCormick is amazing. I love him.” You don’t even know who they are. You’ve got fans all over the world because you understand leadership. My last question for you on this interview is what makes a great leader?

When you think about the word pathfinder, LEA is path and DER is finder, you think about what leaders do and oftentimes, the greatest leaders I’ve ever been around challenge. Great leaders don’t just lead by doing. They challenge their leaders. Oftentimes, I will get on my top text stream of leaders and I will challenge them. I will recognize and congratulate them but I will challenge them to do more, be more, love more, serve more, follow up more, recruit more and all of those other things. Great leaders often challenge.

One of the things that I challenge my team to spend most of their time on is constantly looking at their systems and asking them, “How do I keep it simple? How do I make it streamlined even better to onboard?” You and I both know that Larry used to teach early on that if we could get someone to have success in that first 24 or 48 hours, that’s a big deal. How do I get someone to put money in their pocket? It doesn’t matter the amount. It could be something or anything so that they can feel rewarded. Great leaders challenge. I also love that my greatest mentors in life who are truly genuine, authentic, beautiful and real souls that care about people when the camera’s not on, challenge.

I know you love a challenge. I love a challenge. Thank you. This was wonderful and insightful as always. I could listen to Dan forever. We’ve got a lot of great people that have been on here but every time you’re on, I get people that go like, “Who is that guy? That guy is amazing. Where do I go to his seminars and speeches?” I’m like, “Call him. He’ll talk to you,” and he’ll talk to you. Dan will talk to anybody. He is a giver and a leader. Thank you so much and I’m looking forward to that next show.

You’re the best. Thank you, everybody. God bless you.

 

Important Links

• Dan McCormick
• Last Show – The Ubuntu Episode with Dan McCormick
• Greatest Forgiveness
• The Greatest Salesman in the World
• The Greatest Secret in the World
• The Greatest Success in the World
• Aspire
• Man’s Search for Meaning
• Leaving Nothing to Chance
• Moving Up: 2020

 

About Dan McCormick

“In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.” – James Allen –

══ MOTIVATION ══
I have a plethora of industry experience building thriving businesses and speaking around the world in nutrition, skincare, the anti-aging industry, and personal development. This book inspires me and has such a transformative impact on people’s lives in their genuine authentic approach to being their very best.

Podcasting is a remarkably effective form of communication—especially these days. There’s never been a more beneficial time for the greatest salespeople podcast. My goal is to let the world hear from the people who apply this to their daily lives and the tremendous positive impact it has. It’s important to hear real stories from real people to empower others to follow these same successes in their life and their business.

I’ve been living these Ten Scrolls from The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968) by Og Mandino every day for thirty-seven years:
I. Today I begin a new life.
II. I will greet this day with love in my heart.
III. I will persist until I succeed.
IV. I am nature’s greatest miracle.
V. I will live this day as if it is my last.
VI. Today I will be master of my emotions.
VII. I will laugh at the world.
VIII. Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
IX. I will act now.
X. I will pray for guidance.