The 3x3 Framework That Changes How Entrepreneurs Think | Mike Koenigs & Dan Sullivan

What happens when timeless entrepreneurial thinking tools meet Ai -powered execution?

In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Mike Koenigs explore Dan’s 3x3 Framework and show how combining a few simple tools can radically change how entrepreneurs think about ambition, freedom, and future growth. The conversation moves from creativity and long-term thinking to time structure, project clarity, and the way Ai is accelerating the path from idea to real capability.

At the center of the discussion are three Strategic Coach® tools: Lifetime Extender, Free Focus and Buffer Days, and the Impact Filter. Dan explains how these tools reinforce each other, while Mike reflects on how they have shaped his own thinking over the years and why they feel even more powerful in the Ai era.

The bigger theme of the episode is simple but powerful: capability expands ambition. Instead of chasing possibility in the abstract, Dan and Mike argue that entrepreneurs grow by building real capabilities that create more freedom of time, money, and relationship.Aimatters here not just because it speeds things up, but because it can help turn knowledge, conversations, and patterns into action much faster than before.

In this episode, Dan and I break down:

• How the 3x3 Framework helps entrepreneurs connect ideas in a more structured way
• Why Lifetime Extender changes the way people think about their future
• How Free, Focus, and Buffer Days create more freedom and less friction
• Why the Impact Filter sharpens projects, teamwork, and execution
• How capability expands ambition more effectively than vague possibility
• Why Ai is a capability multiplier, not just a productivity tool
• How capturing conversations and past knowledge can create faster insight and action
• Why entrepreneurs need more freedom of time, money, and relationship
• How better capabilities lead to a bigger sense of future growth

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Welcome to the “Ambition Amplifier” episode

01:11 Why the 3x3 tool is so powerful and human

01:36 Steve Jobs, creativity, and “putting things together”

03:09 Dan introduces the three core tools inside the 3x3

04:37 Lifetime Extender, Free Focus and Buffer Days, and Impact Filter explained

06:22 Mike’s take on what these tools actually do in real life

08:59 How combining the tools expands entrepreneurial freedom

10:55 Mike reflects on how Lifetime Extender changed after cancer

12:36 The hidden number people carry about how long they think they’ll live

19:04 Freedom of time and the danger of shrinking ambition

26:46Aienters the conversation

27:30 Why Ai changes medicine, science, and possibility

33:11 Mike explains why Ai feels like a real leap, not just an upgrade

34:18 A real-world Ai story using Starlink and Gemini in the desert

40:05 Freedom of money, productivity, and focusing on profitable opportunities

51:38 Freedom of relationship and long-term collaboration

58:18 From microchips to Ai creating more powerful Ai 

01:00:23 Capturing conversations and using Ai to find patterns faster

01:23:34 From frustrating work to fascinating work

01:25:15 Mike’s closing reflection on creativity, connection, and hyperspace 

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Creators and Guests

Host

Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach

Dan Sullivan is founder and president of The Strategic Coach Inc. A visionary, an innovator, and a gifted conceptual thinker, Dan has over 40 years’ experience as a highly regarded speaker, consultant, strategic planner, and coach to entrepreneurial individuals and groups.

Host

Mike Koenigs

Mike Koenigs helps business owners and entrepreneurs get paid for BEING, instead of DOING by becoming Transformational Business Influencers, authorities and thought-leaders to create impact, income and a great lifestyle.

What is Capability Amplifier?

Join the eternally curious, interested, and interesting hosts, Mike Koenigs of the SuperPower Accelerator and Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach®, to amplify your capabilities, value, status, and authority on the Capability Amplifier podcast. Ever episode focuses on a new mindset, shortcut or deep thinking exercise that will improve your performance and lifespan. Learn more at: https://www.CapabilityAmplifier.com

Mike Koenigs [00:00:00]:
All right, welcome to another episode of Capability Amplifier. This one is really, really intense because Dan is going to take us on a lightspeed journey into the past, into the future, and talk about creating greater ambition, greater focus, and greater possibility for yourself by expanding your capabilities. He's going to show you his three by three tool and explain it in ways even if you're in Strategic Coach you haven't heard of before and combine some tools in way you haven't seen before as well. And along the way, we're going to reflect on how AI is affecting your ability to make all of this real in real time. This is the Ambition Amplifier episode of Capability Amplifier. You're going to enjoy this one. Thanks for watching. All right, Dan, you just did something called a 3x3 triple play today, and you started off a whole new group of people inside Strategic Coach.

Mike Koenigs [00:01:11]:
This is absolutely one of the most powerful tools, and it is one of those tools that AI can't really get its head around. That's one of the reasons I like it, is it's very human and it's imagination and a consciousness expander. So why don't you explain first of all what this is and then I will show the screen so everyone can actually see the actual product and see how it works.

Dan Sullivan [00:01:36]:
Yeah, well, you know, I'll just go back to Steve jobs sometime around 1980, 1990, and you know, he was at a talk and people talked about creativity and Steve, can you explain what creativity is? And he said, putting things together. And then they said, well, what if you're really creative? And he says, putting a lot of things together, you know. And so, you know, I have, in Strategic Coach, we have very creative entrepreneurs who have distinguished themselves by putting things together that aren't really logical. So I created a thinking tool so coaches, all thinking tools. We've been at it. I've personally been at it for 52 years. And our program for entrepreneurs has been together for 36 years. And so I decided to create a tool where you could do putting things together in a more structured way.

Dan Sullivan [00:02:52]:
But it starts with having three things that you want to put together. And so the process. We have a diagram here, and I don't need to see the diagram, you can see the diagram, but there it is.

Mike Koenigs [00:03:08]:
Yep.

Dan Sullivan [00:03:09]:
So the way it starts is you have three arrows in the middle, and those are the three things that you want to put together. And I'll explain what I put in the three. Three. The three arrows there. Those are the three. And these are the first three thinking tools that entrepreneurs, when they join Strategic Coach, their very first workshop. So the first program is called the Signature Program, and this is workshop one. And at the same time, right at this point in history, we're starting to recontextualize the entire Strategic Coach program as expanding personal ambition.

Dan Sullivan [00:03:51]:
So I'm going to show how these three tools actually, first of all, how they reinforce each other and then how they actually expand ambition. So that's the. That's our. That's the. The purpose right here. It's always to know before you go off track what you were intending in the first place.

Mike Koenigs [00:04:13]:
Yeah, yeah. Have a destination first. So you've got. Here are the three tools. So Lifetime expander, Free Focus, and Buffer Days.

Dan Sullivan [00:04:21]:
I'm sorry, that should be Lifetime Extender. That's life.

Mike Koenigs [00:04:24]:
Okay. All right.

Dan Sullivan [00:04:25]:
Yeah, like, see already? Yeah, I don't think it'll. I don't think.

Mike Koenigs [00:04:31]:
I won't edit it right now, but we'll just say it says lifetime extender. As far as everyone's concerned. That's enough.

Dan Sullivan [00:04:37]:
Yeah. So establish exactly how long you're going to live and what matters most to you. Okay, so that's the first hour of the first program, first workshop, and Strategic Coach. And so we'll. We'll explain as we talk through what happens. And then the second tool is we have a particular approach to different kinds of days. So you have free days, you have focus days, and you have buffer days. So we have three different kinds of days.

Dan Sullivan [00:05:08]:
And increasing rejuvenation, profitability, and preparation quarter by quarter. So that's the second one. And then the third one is actually a project tool that's called the Impact Filter. So every project is clear, concise, and collaborative, increasingly productive teamwork. And it's all designed for expanding teamwork with the entrepreneur at the center. But then showing people how to hand off a particular project, and it gets team members very, very clear from the beginning what the intent of the project is and how you measure the success of the project. They can see, you know, what it looks like, and then the person can go off because it's. You know, there's a military term called the commander's intent.

Dan Sullivan [00:06:01]:
And so what you do is say, when this project is finished, this is exactly what it looks like. And this is the reason I'm doing that. It's very important. It's got a. It's going to have a real impact. So those are the three tools. And all three tools happen during the very first workshop when everybody is in Strategic Coach.

Mike Koenigs [00:06:22]:
Got it. And I'll add a little Bit of my take on each one of these. So the experience through as, as a member of Coach for as long as I've been in it now is lifetime expander is giving yourself permission.

Dan Sullivan [00:06:37]:
Lifetime extender. Lifetime.

Mike Koenigs [00:06:39]:
Lifetime extender. Yes to you. You have time and the world isn't going to stop with you off of it for a little while. It's really permission to take vacations as well. And during that time it's amazing how your brain expands and you make different connections and you find out that nothing's really going to die and blow up while you're away for a little while. But also the fact that you know, you gave yourself permission to live to be 156, you gave yourself twice as much time and it changes your internal psychology. So the free focus and buffer days are, the distinction is you've got focus days, which is getting stuff done. Buffer is your in between because there's always some overlap and I'll say connecting the dots, there's people, teams, it's where you need, you got a little bit overlap.

Mike Koenigs [00:07:38]:
The unpredictables in life, the free days are where you shut off the business and interactions so you're again, your body and your mind have time to expand. And you know one of the greatest gifts that you see the, the most successful implementers and Strategic Coach have is they're like, here's how many free days I was able to give myself because I've been creating a self managing company. Then the impact filter of course is, you know, what Dan would say is nothing happens without an impact filter. I can't start a project without an impact filter. So it is a form of discipline and also getting absolutely crystal clear with your team members and anyone associated. So for example, I started doing impact filters with clients. We'd sit down and build one together. What's the outcome? What is it we're trying to achieve? Here are the ways we're going to measure success.

Mike Koenigs [00:08:36]:
Here's what a failure looks like. Here's what success looks like. And it just creates coherence. Project coherence and coherence Team coherence.

Dan Sullivan [00:08:46]:
Yeah.

Mike Koenigs [00:08:47]:
All right, how are we doing so far?

Dan Sullivan [00:08:49]:
You get an A. You get an A.

Mike Koenigs [00:08:52]:
All right. Hey man. All right, so then we've got the second.

Dan Sullivan [00:08:59]:
So what we're doing is that we're going to put the arrows together two at a time and since there are three arrows, we create three more boxes. Okay. And the whole intent of Strategic Coach is that entrepreneurs should increase their sense of freedom. My sense is that the reason why you become an entrepreneur is to be free, is to be freer. And that would be free freedom from. A lot of people, you know, become entrepreneurs to increase their freedom from a life that they didn't like it, you know, it might have been an employment life. It may have been just, you know, they, they had big sense that they could do so much more as an entrepreneur than they ever could have in an employment situation. I think it happens very early in life.

Dan Sullivan [00:09:59]:
So, for example, we just take two of the arrows and when we're doing the program, we say pick one of the pink boxes and I usually just go to the upper one. And I'm showing that the combination of the lifetime extender and the combination with, combined with free focus and buffer days actually creates you a complete lifetime time structure. And then it brings down to 24 hours by 24 hours. So you're satisfying two things. You got a really, really big picture. And what's your sense, Mike, on the lifetime extender, if you can remember when you did it and do you have any sense? Because it's a long time ago since your first workshop. Yeah, yeah. And actually you did, you did this before you had your cancer.

Mike Koenigs [00:10:55]:
Yes. Yeah. So that, that, that is an important distinction. So I, at the time, I think I gave myself permission and let's say this is 15 or so years ago. So I turned 60 this year. So I'm in my mid-40s. And I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to follow Dan's lead. And.

Mike Koenigs [00:11:18]:
And you know, I was like, all right, let's just say. And at the time, I think I probably had like 130 or 135 was the number that popped. No particular reason. And then after cancer, like your whole filter of life changes after you have a death, near death experience. And I really wrestled with this, which was, oh, well, I realized that when your body is in a lot of pain and you're not sure if you're going to live, I was more interested in quality than I was in quantity. I was like, if I just get past the next day and I've got free freedom. And so everything blurred. And you know, to this day, right now, I'm grateful for every single extra day.

Mike Koenigs [00:12:09]:
It feels like a bonus round. And I don't have a scarcity mentality. I still don't 15 years later. So all my internal psychology changed. And I don't know if I'm answering your question, but I just looked at every single part of life and impact differently through a quality perspective. And I knew I'd be able to do more impact.

Dan Sullivan [00:12:36]:
Yeah. My contention is that everybody has a number without knowing what the number is.

Mike Koenigs [00:12:43]:
Yeah, yeah.

Dan Sullivan [00:12:45]:
I think part of it comes from family history. You know, you know, you're, you're aware of how long grandparents lived, how long parents, parents lived, if their parent, your parents are dead. But nobody actually really nails it down. They say, this is the exact age I'm going to live to. And I think that your brain is waiting for a real number to work with because I think that every thought that we have in our brain is actually time conditional. In other words, we allow ourselves to think certain thoughts depending on what the number is that we think we have before we leave. But when it becomes conscious and you have the person actually put the number down. And in the exercise when we do it, let's say someone says 85, they give, they give their birth year when they were born.

Dan Sullivan [00:13:50]:
I was born in 1944. And I would suspect you were born in 66. 66. And then you go and you say, you know, whatever the year is. But if it was 80, 85, then you would be shooting at, you know, 20, 51 would be the number, but you would put down 85, not the year, but you would put down the actual year. And then everybody does this. Everybody. And I haven't had anybody who says, well, I don't know what the number is.

Dan Sullivan [00:14:25]:
Everybody just writes down the number which tells me that it was sitting just below the surface of their consciousness and they had the number. And then we say, well, we're not going to talk about that number. We're going to talk about the year before. So if it was 85, we talk about. And then we have a box for 84. And we say, well, okay, how do you want to be physically, mentally, financially, relationship wise, and also your sense of assessment, your sense of achievement? And everybody gives the same story. Really, really healthy, really fit and mentally, really sharp and financially, you know, no problems, everything taken care of and relationship, lots of warm, close, supportive relationships, interactive. And then if their life is.

Dan Sullivan [00:15:23]:
Went all out, did everything I possibly could. And then I repeated back to them and it's the same answer. I've done it with 7,000 people. And the answer is always the same. So I said, okay, if you were this way at 84, then what do you think the chances are that in the very next year year you would die? And they say, oh, no, I want. I wouldn't die. And I said, well, you have to remember I asked you when you were going to die and you wrote down 85. And we did a little thinking about it, and now that's not what you're really committed to.

Dan Sullivan [00:15:59]:
So I say, how many years beyond 85, if you were this way at 84, how many years would you live? And it goes up 10, goes up 20. And you know, some, it varies in the room. Everybody's number is really different. But my sense is that when they've gone through this thinking, there's a sense of certainty that comes in and that sense of certainty informs how they're thinking about the rest of their life. But in Coach, most people go over 100. Yeah, we actually did a research project with John Bowen where he had 2,000 entrepreneurs and then he had another thousand that were strategic Coach. And one of the questions in the survey was, what confidence do you have that you would live older than 90? And it was very interesting. The 2,000 entrepreneurs he had, it was about a 10% confidence that they would live over 90.

Dan Sullivan [00:17:10]:
With strategic coach members, it was 85% that they thought they'd live over 90. Reflected on a lot of their other answers about their future, confidence about, you think your future is going to be positive as you go forward. My sense is we've been doing it for 30. I think we started in 93 with this tool and by far the majority. We have had 25,000 go through the program, and they've spent at least three years in the program. My sense is that this change of 1 number related to your longevity has a powerful impact on people's thinking about their future.

Mike Koenigs [00:18:02]:
Right, right. Well, it is time for me to re examine, but I'm going to just say 120 now because then I've got something fixed in my head because the truth is I feel a little rusty. And when I listen to this, I'm like, yep, I've heard it before, but it means something different to me now.

Dan Sullivan [00:18:19]:
Yeah. And you're essentially doubling from where you are right now. Yeah, yeah. And we both know because we've, you know, we've heard doctors and we've heard scientists and people, and we have them in the program in Strategic Coach. And we're living in extraordinary times from the standpoint of regenerative medicine and age reversals. So. But a lot of people don't have any reason to live a long time, so they don't take advantage of the breakthroughs. They, yes, they have no reason for the breakthroughs because they have no purpose to live longer.

Dan Sullivan [00:18:57]:
But in Coach, they, they have a purpose now.

Mike Koenigs [00:19:00]:
Yep. Well, let's, let's move Back to the boxes. And I wanted.

Dan Sullivan [00:19:04]:
So we've got the lifetime extender. So we're putting together lifetime extender and free focus and buffer days. So the big thing is there's just an immense increase in your freedom of time. There's greater sense of certainty about personal and business future, increased energy, and there's a big elimination of time conflicts. They, you know, I think that what ages people, entrepreneurs especially, is that they, they want to do this, they want to do this and they want to do that, and they realize that they actually don't have enough time, so they're going to give up some of their ambitions. And so as they get closer and closer to what they thought the first number was, say they're 60 and they put the number down 85. Well, it's 25 years. And, you know, their health may not be the greatest and, you know, their finances may not give them a sense of reassurance.

Dan Sullivan [00:20:12]:
And they're watching what other people do because at 60, people start bailing out of their entrepreneurial career. Have you noticed that at all?

Mike Koenigs [00:20:22]:
Yes, very much.

Dan Sullivan [00:20:23]:
The conversation really starts at 60, the one I've discovered. So you're right at the point where people are saying, well, Mike, when are

Mike Koenigs [00:20:31]:
you going to retire?

Dan Sullivan [00:20:32]:
When's enough, enough? You know, when's enough? And I say, enough what?

Mike Koenigs [00:20:36]:
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Dan Sullivan [00:20:39]:
Yeah, it's.

Mike Koenigs [00:20:43]:
I know right now there's more opportunities are being presented and I'm mentally and cognitively more in control of my fear and anxiety than I was last year or five years ago or 10 years ago. And that's part of what I'm excited about.

Dan Sullivan [00:21:01]:
You have longevity in your family, don't you?

Mike Koenigs [00:21:05]:
Well, both my parents passed, so the truth is. No, not really. Well, it depends on what longevity is. So grandparents, 60s parents, they made it into their 80s. What they weren't doing well with is cognitive. One had dementia, one had Alzheimer's, and I'd say there was a three year gap. And for the record, I attempted to enroll them in and give them access to some remarkable tools, but they were just either resistant or, you know, there was always some reason why they couldn't. So I think those are the two hallmarks.

Mike Koenigs [00:21:44]:
Again, it's like this, this notion of when are you going to and giving yourself permission, and the other one is wherever that resistance comes from. It's, you know, it's the comfortable prison you live in. So it's, again, why ambition is so important. And I want to go down one small rabbit hole here because I think this is an Important distinction that when Dan is leading this process, everything is time. So you get. Basically have the blank sheet. You have Dan's example. You look at this and he's going to ask you some stimulating questions, like he did right now.

Mike Koenigs [00:22:22]:
That's part of the strategic coach experience. And when you go to the external boxes, like the freedom of time or whatever you're working on, again, this tool is a universal tool that can be used for a collaboration. And you start out with a question, you fill out the boxes, and then you start connecting the dots. And this is where the Steve Jobs creativity comes in. You start combining what could be super abstract ideas. And because you have a specific time limit, it's like, move on, move on, move on. It's like, what do you think? And you just trust your hands and your pen. It's just like when you start writing.

Mike Koenigs [00:23:05]:
The secret to writing a book is you just got to start moving your hand. And your brain has a funny tendency to follow when there's movement. So what do they say? Movement beats meditation? There's some truth to that.

Dan Sullivan [00:23:21]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that the big thing is that normally, I mean, there are too many situations in life where you would even be thinking about these thoughts or nor would you be having a discussion with it. Although I find, you know, I'm not one for social events that much. You know, if I had a choice between a really great novel or a party, I probably opt for the novel. And. But I've been at parties where I said. I said, can I just try an idea out with you? And I said, based on family history and your knowledge of how long people live, at what age do you think you're going to die? And I found people mostly.

Dan Sullivan [00:24:14]:
Well, they're. They're a little bit surprised because they didn't come to the party thinking this was going to be discussed. But they do that, and what happens is really interesting. We'll get about five minutes into this and they say, hey, come over here, come over here. This is really, really interesting. And then, you know, I have a lot of experience doing this, so, you know, people ask me questions and I said that like that. And pretty soon I've got eight, nine people. Eight, nine people are there and they're doing it.

Dan Sullivan [00:24:44]:
And. And, you know, it's. It's of keen interest. It's a. Yeah, yeah, it's a top. And you can tell that that number, which they're not too sure about, is. Is something they're reflecting on. I mean, especially if they're, you know, in their 40s or 50s, they're starting to think about this.

Dan Sullivan [00:25:06]:
You can't, it's hard to do it with 18 year olds because they think they're immortal.

Mike Koenigs [00:25:10]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:25:11]:
And besides, it's, it's not of interest to them because, you know, for their, they're going to go to college or they're going to do something else and everything else. But if you get them when they're above 40, they start getting interested in the, in the topic. Yeah.

Mike Koenigs [00:25:29]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:25:30]:
But it's, it's. They. What I notice is people really appreciate having the conversation about this, this lifetime extender concept to really. And they begin saying, boy, well, I'm going to have to be in a lot better shape if, you know, even if it's the number that I think I'm going for, you know, I'm not even sure that the way I've treated myself and how I sleep, how I exercise and everything. Yeah. So it's really interesting. But you said just earlier in our conversation that you now want to redo it to bring yourself up to date with it.

Mike Koenigs [00:26:08]:
Yeah, I think part of it was as I was listening to you, I'm like, okay, who's the ghost inside my head? And I think the, the, the thoughts are. Well, I had an old story of, well, that's just not realistic going on and I wasn't paying attention, I just wasn't paying attention to the ghost that was tapping on my head. And you know, I think part of it also is just witnessing, you know, family history. So it's, it's, it's just a, a limiting belief that.

Dan Sullivan [00:26:46]:
Yeah. Fully conscious of the, the one thing that, the one thing I have to ask you here because three years ago a whole new capability entered, entered the scene and you were the fastest out of the, you know, out of the gate to maximize the, the value of AI, you know, and everything. So Justin, if we can bring that into the conversation, because I think it's not only crucial and important for you, but I think it's crucial and important for all entrepreneurs right now. So what would you say with AI now on the scene and what it does for your ambition, what does it do for your lifetime extender?

Mike Koenigs [00:27:30]:
Yeah, I think too there's the inside world and there's the outside world, and the inside world is I truly believe that AI is going to multiply science, medicine, longevity, just like it already is with energy. There is right now, from an AI perspective, AI is figuring out how to make AI a lot better and a lot more efficient. So it's several orders of magnitude more efficient with the same amount of energy that goes in. And chips, because of AI are getting substantially faster and more dense. And so we're seeing this incredible hockey stick. And scientists are able to process so much data so quickly and do effectively millions of simulations in a synthetic artificial world that mirror our own. So it's like what's going to happen to the fda? Our ability to test new drugs is happening inside AI and it is truly a time machine. So, so that's the both the inside outside is, I think medicine and longevity is going to naturally logically.

Mike Koenigs [00:28:54]:
But the second part is the amount of what can be done inside. The same amount of time is also orders of magnitude. And the limiter is, is learning to cooperate with this new tool and act more like an orchestrator than a direct implementer. And that is again, there's an inside game. Just like sitting down with a strategic coach tool is what happens inside your mind is a lot bigger than what happens on the outside.

Dan Sullivan [00:29:32]:
Yeah, yeah, let's look at it. Because we were just at Genius Network.

Mike Koenigs [00:29:39]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:29:39]:
A week and a half ago or last week. A week and a half ago. We were there.

Mike Koenigs [00:29:43]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:29:44]:
And there was, you know, the usual out of control sort of discussion that goes on anytime.

Mike Koenigs [00:29:53]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:29:54]:
Bring up AI among entrepreneurs. And it's not so much about them, it's about their team members. They. They talk about their team members. And I did a very, very fast perplexity article. The reasons why people might be resistant and negative. Actually negative towards having, you know, having AI be there. I won't say they were coerced to do it, but the, the entrepreneur, the owner of the company is, is sort of hinting that probably their future in the company is going to be dependent upon how they embrace and utilize AI.

Dan Sullivan [00:30:37]:
Would you say that that's generally a widespread discussion going on right now?

Mike Koenigs [00:30:42]:
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's a combination of holy cow, this is moving a lot faster than I. Than it should or I'm comfortable with. I think the conversation of whether or not it's important is past and whether or not it's useful is past. There's a lot of concerns about the danger of it and also where's my value? That's consistently. And I did a. So down here in Mexico we do this little thing Vivian calls. It's a Spanish word, but it basically means sometimes every other Thursday.

Mike Koenigs [00:31:29]:
And it's a little get together. So I did an AI event where I taught it and we had people who were very wealthy from the neighborhood all the way to our massage therapist, who's Mexican, who brought her 12 year old son and her husband. And so we had this really interesting conversation and one of the women here just said, where's my place in all of this? And there was a designer here. And you can either look at it as an adversary that's going to take your job or a massive multiplier that's going to make you three to ten times more effective. And this just has to do with our discomfort of rapid shift and a lot of unknowns being thrown at us.

Dan Sullivan [00:32:15]:
Mike, you're like the OG in my life as far as technology because you start, I mean, you're 60, but you've been at technology I would say easily for over 40 years.

Mike Koenigs [00:32:31]:
Yeah, 14 is when I started coding.

Dan Sullivan [00:32:34]:
Yeah. So 46 years you've been at this. Is this just more of something that you started when you were 14 or is there something uniquely.

Mike Koenigs [00:32:48]:
This is a.

Dan Sullivan [00:32:48]:
This is not just a difference of degree, this is a difference of kind. Would you say that AI seems to represent a real, A jump? It's not, it's not just more, more of the same, but maybe faster hardware, maybe, you know, better hardware. Faster, faster software and everything. Are you seeing that?

Mike Koenigs [00:33:11]:
Yes. I have a little goofy story, so I'm going to answer the question first, which is finally I have a companion that keeps up with my imagination, my ability to create anything I imagine in near real time. When you used to sit around with your friends in a sandbox and play let's pretend you could sculpt or if you play with Legos, but you couldn't find the right pieces to make it the way you imagined in your head. And now there's something that you can make a mini movie in a matter of, you know, it might take 20 minutes or an hour, but it's something that would be either impossible or take months and teams of dozens and like that, that is the profound shift. And something crazy happened this weekend. Vivian and I were out in the desert in single track roads to go to a hot spring. And it was rustic and remote where there's no connectivity at all. And it's four wheel.

Mike Koenigs [00:34:18]:
And I have this Starlink mini which is powering our conversation right now. So now I put it in our. It's a big Toyota Sequoia, it's made for the Baja. And we're driving along and there's a car in front of us and a couple who, I immediately said they're for sure either Canadian or European. They just have that look. They're Looking confused. And I saw this lady and she's trying to get something working with her phone, but her phone doesn't work. And the guy is walking away and I come up and I'm like, is there a problem? Do you need it? And again, this is dusty remote, there's nothing.

Mike Koenigs [00:34:57]:
And she said, our car just quit working. And so I said, who's that up there? And she said, well, my husband's walking, trying to get some help and two other people from our party already took off, they're trying to find some help and it's a long ass walk to the nearest town. So I said, well, I've got Starlink, why don't you connect and let's see if we can get help. So he comes back, we start to dial and the Mexican car company they rented from can't be reached. Go straight to, I mean it's just like a shite show of epic proportion. And finally some other guy pulls across as a pickup. Mexican guy comes along, he's got a test probe and he opens up the hood, nothing happening. And finally I'm like, huh? I took a picture of the car, I connected to Gemini.

Mike Koenigs [00:35:46]:
And I said, the car doesn't work. We're stuck out nowhere. We can't get rid of the da da. I explained the context in the situation. I said, what should we do? It said, well, basically disconnect the battery, it'll restart the car, otherwise it gave me an instruction on how to reset the fob, the key fob, because you know, you couldn't, you can't even, can't even move the thing anyway. Started up 15 seconds later. It's like, ta da. And you know, that wasn't possible.

Mike Koenigs [00:36:14]:
That just wasn't. I mean, Starlink wasn't possible. None of this was. And I think that's, I was given superpowers for long enough to matter and anyone can do that now if you just ask.

Dan Sullivan [00:36:27]:
Yeah, well, what I'd like to do now is to imagine that it's 15 years ago and you did your lifetime extender and you did pre focus and buffer days just from the story that you told in the context of first of all, satellite with StarLink and a AI that can entertain your problem and come up with a, a solution in, in a matter of seconds. What's that do for your, your sense of your lifetime extender and your free focus and buffer days.

Mike Koenigs [00:37:04]:
Yeah, first of all, I, I, I, I realized as I was telling the story how excited I got and how much more ambitious I was and how much more I desire of that to solve problems and imagine more than. And share that with some. With other people. You know, it's. It's like the Impact game. So, you know, the first number that came to my head is like 140. 140. So five more years than I had imagined.

Mike Koenigs [00:37:33]:
And now, you know, 20 more than when you asked me the question when I was playing the realistic game and. Yeah, and. And maybe I'll be even more excited and have. 160 will be my answer the next time around. I've just felt into it, though.

Dan Sullivan [00:37:53]:
Yeah. So would you. You know, and I'm putting this together because first of all, I haven't had this conversation with the AI context. So this is the first time I've ever talked to anybody about it. But you're the person to talk to because it's, you know, you're passionately interested and you're also extraordinarily capable. Capable to the degree that. Would you say your. Our sense of the longevity.

Dan Sullivan [00:38:23]:
Longevity is really a function of what kind of future capabilities that we can have.

Mike Koenigs [00:38:28]:
Yeah, that. That is true. And a sense that there's a. There's a place for a better future. A place for. For me. Right. And I'm not speaking for.

Dan Sullivan [00:38:42]:
You have a role.

Mike Koenigs [00:38:43]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:38:44]:
Yeah, you have a useful. A role that can become more and more useful. And this was a great test because it was totally out of the blue.

Mike Koenigs [00:38:52]:
Yeah, well, that's. That's the beauty of the. Of the little arrows is a human conversation with a time limit and, and something that lets you re. Examine a belief and realize that some of these beliefs are just embedded or repetitive habits, not a conscious decision that's based upon a more impactful future with greater capabilities.

Dan Sullivan [00:39:24]:
That.

Mike Koenigs [00:39:24]:
That is. You know, when we named this podcast many years ago now I think are we going into our seventh. Ish. Is. I can't remember how many years it's been, but. And you said capability amplifier. I was like, I didn't understand how impactful that idea was. And I'm so proud of the name now.

Mike Koenigs [00:39:52]:
Knowing that it feels like we can have infinite capabilities.

Dan Sullivan [00:39:57]:
Well, we can have endlessly expanding. I don't know about infinite.

Mike Koenigs [00:40:01]:
Yeah.

Dan Sullivan [00:40:01]:
Yeah.

Mike Koenigs [00:40:02]:
Okay. Yes. That's much more precise. Thank you.

Dan Sullivan [00:40:05]:
Yeah. Okay, so if so I just. We just did two arrows and we created one pink box. Now I'm going to take one of the arrows that we use, free focus and buffer day, and I'm going to add in the Impact filter, which is this project planning tool that creates teamwork and what I'm saying here is freedom of money. You immediately increase your own productivity, focused on the most profit, profitable opportunities. And if there's one thing that I've observed about you, podcast to podcast. And then in our workshop discussions, you've vastly increased your own productivity and you're increasingly focused more and more on the most profitable opportunities. Can you talk about that? Because I've noticed it's, you know, it's like it's not just jump to the next lock in the canal is that you're, you're jumping to a whole level of altitude.

Mike Koenigs [00:41:09]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:41:10]:
And that, that happens when I see you quarter to quarter. Now there's a jump in what you think can be achieved.

Mike Koenigs [00:41:19]:
Yeah, well, part of it too is now that I'm, I've got this amazing tool at my side, I'm making it up and making it real in real time. So the beau of the specifically to the impact filter, I did a real one today for Charlie Epstein. So Charlie reached out to me and he wants to do more for vet suicide prevention. He also wants to create more content that connects money and vets to better solutions. So he sent me four separate impact filters, and they're all for different audiences. And so we've got a meeting scheduled for two days from now. And he said, now I want your impact filter. So I looked at them, I thought about it, and I had a conversation with AI and I explained that Charlie and I are meeting.

Mike Koenigs [00:42:15]:
Here's the stuff we worked on. And it just so happens that I have every session we've done and every recording in a product called NotebookLM. So it's a Google product, so it's years of wisdom and knowledge. And I said, take all this new stuff, take all the old stuff, and where can I create the most impact and build an impact filter for me? And boom. It did a remarkable job in the right tone and the right language, and it was almost perfect in the first try. And usually what I do now is I just look at the drafts that I get and, and I'll say, well, this isn't right and this isn't right and change this and change this and it redoes it. So it effectively did hours of really hard contemplative thinking, accessed memories, conversations and data I had completely forgotten about. I mean, going back years.

Mike Koenigs [00:43:16]:
And the net result is that's an example of a, a separate impact filter. We'll say it's, you do one for me, I'll do one for you, and let's put something together. But the most fun I've recently had is when I do them together either with team members or a client. And it's because we get to decide what the outcomes need to be and how we're going to judge success. And we have an agreement on the spot and we both know instinctively that this is a collaborative, profitable future focused new capability and an outcome super exciting.

Dan Sullivan [00:43:56]:
Yeah. Let's bring to the whole question of money and because you know we the way that I explain money for entrepreneurs, you know, it's not the game on the field but it is the scoreboard.

Mike Koenigs [00:44:12]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:44:12]:
It tells you whether you're up or down and in terms of the game that you're playing. Just in terms of let's say compared to 15 years ago when you we had our first coach session. How do you look at money now? How do you look at money? Because it seems to me that anything you set your mind to, it'll be a exponential different number regarding money compared to projects that you undertook. Certainly before chat GPT came on.

Mike Koenigs [00:44:52]:
Yeah, well I've, When I, when I look, look at it now, what's changed is. It's, it really is buying time so I can buy free time that expands and it multiplies. So I took my longest off grid vacation of my life a month ago which I that alone was enormously powerful. We live in different countries now that wasn't possible. So it's access, it's time I think comfort in knowing that I can't. Like you said for many years, if you can write a check, you don't have any problems. Let's see, how do you say it? It's about the.

Dan Sullivan [00:45:59]:
If you have a problem and you can write the check, then write the check and you don't have the problem.

Mike Koenigs [00:46:06]:
That's right. If you can make the problem go away, that's effectively it. I also think that it's turned into a belief in a system that I can afford greater team members and giving myself permission of that fear gap that you live in when you take a risk as an entrepreneur. And I think erasing fears about risk is another huge part of the equation. And I think for me going back to my youth, I've always measured my capabilities based upon my ability to afford tools to multiply my capabilities. And I'll invest in a great chair, the fastest computer, the biggest screen because I know it expands capabilities and that again it's risk tolerance increases and fear decreases. And in turn when I look back 15 years ago, the value I can produce in a compressed period of time has multiplied and that means I can Ask. I can ask for so much more.

Mike Koenigs [00:47:26]:
And we've always increased our prices like every few months by a substantial amount. And now I have a new mental ceiling I've recently run into. I've just only become aware of with regards to that. I don't know if I answered your question, but there's no.

Dan Sullivan [00:47:45]:
It does because, you know, I mean, we're operating within a structure here that's been, you know, it's been tested out since 30 years. But I think this is a breakthrough session with these three tools.

Mike Koenigs [00:48:02]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:48:02]:
I mean, the tools are still the same. They, they still mean exactly what they meant when we created them in the 1990s. But the environment in which the tools are being used and combined is a radically different environment,

Mike Koenigs [00:48:18]:
for sure. I remember the first time you came out with the three by three and I can't remember if we did a show about it before you showed it or it was right after because there was a lot going on. And first of all, I know when I listened to the buzz, there were a lot of people in coach who were like, I don't get was a big leap where you were combining all these things. And my recollection of the experience was just trust me and follow directions and keep up was the feeling I had. And then it was like watching popcorn in the room when people are like, oh, I never would have thought of that. I never would have thought of it. And the power of this is not just doing the exercise and making the connections, but it's listening to someone else's experience. And that's when you're like, I never would have thought of that.

Mike Koenigs [00:49:18]:
And there's something about the spontaneity of being around an environment of like minded entrepreneurs upgrading their operating systems simultaneously.

Dan Sullivan [00:49:28]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's really, it's interesting to me because we've had, you know, many, many conversations. Certainly half of your 15 years has been our capability amplifier podcast. So we've been talking about this. But I have a further question. How do you look at all the work you did from 14 onward up until now? Do you see that as real preparation for what you're doing right now? Yeah, I mean, there was high points and there was low points during. I mean, it's 46, it's 46 years of experience. Do you look at that positively or negatively now that you can do so much more?

Mike Koenigs [00:50:22]:
Yeah, for sure. Positively. And every, every bump, every opportunity makes sense now. And I have to remind myself of that now because like there's, it feels like tomorrow's a New unknown. Right. Next week's a new unknown. I have a little pressure on me at the moment. In a few days I'm going to be presenting to an audience of strategic coach people.

Mike Koenigs [00:50:51]:
And I'm really, really thinking about, like, what's this experience going to be like and how to make it better. And I just have to remember that it always works out. It's always going to be powerful and we'll see some patterns and create some opportunities that didn't exist two hours before. That'll be quite profound. And I have to really trust in what now feels like a straight line. But if from, in hindsight, but certainly looking forward, it's like none of it makes sense except trust your past and celebrate it. And that goes back to, you know, and a beautiful operating system that came from Coach.

Dan Sullivan [00:51:38]:
Yeah. Okay, we got two more arrows to put together. So we have lifetime extender, so we're using that again and we're using the impact filter, but we're using them together. So it's grade, say, freedom of relationship. You increasingly establish and cultivate long term teamwork and collaborations in all areas of your life. Where are you seeing that in terms of the relationships and the collaborations and the teamwork that you're doing now?

Mike Koenigs [00:52:12]:
One of them is trust and access. So I'll put it in this context. It's just an incredible honor to have a relationship with you and be able to collaborate and incredibly mind expanding. I love the fact that very frequently people who were like untouchable authors after we met, I became very, a very useful resource to them and we built deep, meaningful relationships. And my life is filled with deep, meaningful relationships. And now I have the ability to create a lot of value for people who start out as clients and then become deep, meaningful friends. And I get to meet their children and their spouses and. And you have that.

Mike Koenigs [00:53:14]:
It's so much of your life as well. The, the depth of value you get to create and the depth of meaning that gets created is, is the payoff.

Dan Sullivan [00:53:27]:
Yeah. You know, and what's really interesting about this conversation so far we've talked about your capability, but we really haven't talked about the technology at all. And most conversations when I get, you know, they're not necessarily coach people, they would be people outside. They want to talk about the technology. Yeah. And I said, well, it seems to me that the important thing here is does the technology free you up? And it's the freedom and the greater capability that seems to me that is the timeless discussion. Because, you know, I often say the Tools like the three that we have here on the triple play. I said, you know, if, if I time traveled backwards to.

Dan Sullivan [00:54:21]:
It's the marketplace in Rome in the year one, you know, year one in Rome, and if you could, you know, didn't have the language barrier, this would probably be a useful discussion for somebody 2,000 years ago. And if I went to the Star Wars Cafe. Star Wars Cafe, you know, in Star Wars, I said, probably if they were entrepreneurial, this would be an interesting discussion for them. What I strive for is thinking tools that are timeless, that, you know, and since we're dealing with entrepreneurs, I think entrepreneurs are good testers of whether something is timeless. In other words, it always works and everything. And I'm just seeing, I mean, I'm very excited about this discussion because we're bouncing against the most exponential technology that's been created yet.

Mike Koenigs [00:55:18]:
We are. I had a download when you were talking about the timelessness of this, which, first the observation, which is what an unbelievably unique gift you have in being able to create these thinking tools, because it's just unusual and you've got a willing audience of highly invested people that you get to test it on all the time. So you think about this Garden of Eden that you're surrounded with. It's profound. It's taken decades to cultivate the skill, the talent, the listening ability, the questions which you evolved into or you were gifted with that seed at a young age. It's part of your corner story. As you always talk to adults, you grew up, up in a world of both imagination and the outdoors in the Midwest and a bunch of adults. So what led to your ability to intrigue and create questions and being able to drive by tickling different possible future is, is profound and unique.

Mike Koenigs [00:56:29]:
Okay, so, yeah, you're welcome. And then I. The download I had is, well, so when you have this freedom of time, money, relationship, it's interesting how ambition seeps in and, and wants to take up that space if you allow it to and you give yourself permission to create more value and be a multiplier. So I, I look at, you know, do I have more freedom? I have the freedom if I choose to take it, but it's the, if there's any vacuum, there's just more ambition there because we have this reward system and a feedback loop, much like you do, where you're arguably at your most productive of your life right now. Past 80.

Dan Sullivan [00:57:17]:
It's more ambitious at 80 than at 50, certainly.

Mike Koenigs [00:57:22]:
And at 90, it'll be how many, how many more Times, how many, how many more times? Ambitious, right?

Dan Sullivan [00:57:28]:
Well, it depends on how many capability amplifiers we have podcast between this. But the interesting thing that I, you know, I've, I would say early because I started coaching entrepreneurs in 74, 1974, and that was just when the buzz about microchips was getting started, you know, and what the impact of the microchip which was it had been developed over a 15 year period, but it wasn't named until, you know, 73, 1973, they started talking about microchips and it just struck me that this was a new world that was emerging.

Mike Koenigs [00:58:17]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [00:58:18]:
That the big thing about the microchip is that it was an unusual invention in the sense that you could use the invention to create more powerful. You could use microchips to create more powerful microchips. And now you're using AI to create more powerful AI. But it starts with the microchip 3040 years ago. So we've just a little review of what we've done here. We started with three strategic coach tools. Lifetime Extender Free Focus and Buffer Days and Impact Filter. And then we saw that the putting these tools together expand freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationship.

Dan Sullivan [00:59:03]:
But now what we're going to do is we're going to jump to the third level where we put the pink boxes together. So we're going to start off with freedom of time and freedom of relationship. And this is where I'll say that without being a I, I'm at the trailing edge of technology in many ways. You know, I, I, I let Mikey do it first. I let Mikey

Mike Koenigs [00:59:32]:
look at this.

Dan Sullivan [00:59:33]:
Let Mikey do it. And then I watch Mikey look at this stuff. Some cereal. It's supposed to be good for you.

Mike Koenigs [00:59:41]:
I'm not gonna try it.

Dan Sullivan [00:59:43]:
Let's get Mikey.

Mike Koenigs [00:59:44]:
Yeah. He won't eat it. He hates everything.

Dan Sullivan [00:59:49]:
He likes it.

Mike Koenigs [00:59:50]:
Hey, Mikey.

Dan Sullivan [00:59:51]:
Mikey comes back from a trip. And I talked to Mikey about it. But the point is, can you see, quite apart from whether it's about me right now, entrepreneurs, if they get on the line, that they're using the tools but, but using AI to support their progress, that there's every reason in the world why they could be more ambitious in the future than they are right now?

Mike Koenigs [01:00:23]:
Yes. And I'm going to give you an exact reason why. And this is what I try to communicate more than anything is first of all, capture every conversation, every little bit matters and journaling matters to get something out. But you know where everywhere I go now, I carry my little plod device with Me and I ask, is it okay if I record this conversation? I'll send the notes to you. No one ever says no if you're going to give them really good notes, especially if you're helping them solve a problem. So you press the little button, you start the recording, and this thing grabs everything. And then AI processes the conversation and you get amazing notes. But when you take all your stuff, and it can be years of notes and information, even scans, and you put it in a tool like Notebook lm and you say, now combine all this stuff together for me and help me see a pattern.

Mike Koenigs [01:01:24]:
Or here's my outcome, here's my mini impact filter. Effectively take this stuff and make it real and make it true. And 15 seconds later you've got. And then you can say, model Steve Jobs mindset. Model any great mind. And for example, what I do now is I have a notebook with every one of Dan and Mike's interviews and then every other interview I've done. And whenever I need a little bit of creative juice, I'd be like, okay, take all the wisdom, knowledge, experiences, and give me some great questions that I can ask Dan. And I start the imagination.

Mike Koenigs [01:02:05]:
But it's based upon our collective history. But I can. I can combine a collective history from you with a collective history from someone else, and you can add 20 collective histories with an outcome and boom, the dots are connected without it hallucinating.

Dan Sullivan [01:02:26]:
Yeah. And, you know, it's very interesting that one of the things that, you know, it's just a, you know, more or less an observer's insight that all the emphasis is put on information, but, you know, data information, you know that, you know, the data is the big data is the new oil and new energy.

Mike Koenigs [01:02:52]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [01:02:52]:
But it strikes me that the real value may lie at the further. So I've got a way of thinking about input that you have data which might last seconds, you have information which might last a week. Then you have knowledge which may last half a year, but then there's a big jump, and it's in wisdom. And wisdom generally comes in the form of stories. I would say that wisdom, the great author Angus Fletcher talks about that we use logic. And it seems to me that logic, he says, you use logic to win arguments, but you tell stories to take action. And I think that in the scheme of things, people. People really want the ability to take action more than they want the ability to win arguments.

Mike Koenigs [01:03:52]:
Ooh, well, that's a keeper.

Dan Sullivan [01:03:55]:
So it's not. It's not good in relationship. Now we're in the Outer level of the three. Three, arguing about whether you can be more ambitious at 80 than you can at 50. That's an argument to be more as, well, I don't know and everything like that, but to actually just be more ambitious at 80. Yeah, 50. That you don't really have to have an argument about it because you have the capability to do that. And it seems to me that maybe we'll become less argumentative as we can take greater and greater action.

Mike Koenigs [01:04:34]:
Man, I'm going to challenge you on that and I'll tell you why. So I want that and I think about the human experience and I'd be like, okay, did social media create more peace and more action for some?

Dan Sullivan [01:04:51]:
Well, I don't think it did either. I think it gets them sort of entangled.

Mike Koenigs [01:05:00]:
Yeah. And so when you think about all these new capabilities, humans have a funny way of ignoring tools and not focusing on the prize inside and using that tool as a multiplier, a true capability amplifier and a capability multiplier and expanding their prosperity. It just seems like it's a new thing to argue about.

Dan Sullivan [01:05:28]:
But it seems to me from listening to your journey over the last three years since, yeah, November's very famous November 30th. Yeah, 22. I haven't detected many arguments. I've detected a lot of action.

Mike Koenigs [01:05:45]:
Yes, yes. And I, I, I. So that I think is. And I'm not. This is not about me. It'll be like the, the brain type. When you've said before that you think the planet's basically made up of 5% entrepreneurs and the rest not. I wonder if the action is inside that mindset versus the possibility.

Mike Koenigs [01:06:14]:
Because when you think about every major leap in technology and capabilities, this is different. There's no question that AI is just like an alien life form amongst us that's growing so, so fast. And just in the past couple weeks, something new happened. Tiny rabbit hole. But there's a platform that was called claudebot C L A W D B O T. It's a super smart agent you can install on your computer and it basically remembers and it thinks it can plan ahead and you can give it little instructions. And the problem with it is it's so freaking smart. And if you're not explicit on what not to do, it'll start answering your emails and take over your text messages.

Mike Koenigs [01:07:06]:
And it can use a lot of resources as well. But it's another profound shift in what's possible in the agentic technology world. Again, I think the question is, are you willing to open up your mind and test out a new tool and play a little bit without fear of being wrong and whatever that mindset as well.

Dan Sullivan [01:07:40]:
But in your experience, because you've just had some remarkable problem solving experiences, creations of new capability, it seems that in the final analysis, you took action that provided people with a new capability.

Mike Koenigs [01:07:59]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [01:08:00]:
And you can go back 5,000 years in history and that would still be the test of reality.

Mike Koenigs [01:08:06]:
Right on. Yep. Yeah. So whether you're in the cantina in Star wars or Nero's time. Yeah, you're right. And that is, I think, here's an interesting thinking tool which is expanding your openness to a rapidly multiplying universe of possibility. How do you open up and create even more elasticity in your brain for the possibilities? So it's the possibility amplifier.

Dan Sullivan [01:08:44]:
Yeah, but. But really, capability is better than possibility.

Mike Koenigs [01:08:51]:
Yes, I agree.

Dan Sullivan [01:08:53]:
Yeah. We, we did a whole series of podcasts several years ago where we went through your six, six businesses. I would say you're your number six. Seems to be infinitely expandable. Yes, infinitely expandable. But each of those taught you something about what constitutes possibility. That's interesting. But it doesn't work out.

Dan Sullivan [01:09:20]:
And capabilities that you use to stack on top of each other. And it's actually the stacking of capabilities. It's real every time you jump to another level. The capability is real in terms of. Of the value you can create for other people.

Mike Koenigs [01:09:38]:
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Much like when you created Free Zone and you had a whole bunch of people raise their hand and say, I'm willing to pay double. Right.

Dan Sullivan [01:09:52]:
Yeah.

Mike Koenigs [01:09:54]:
And not only did they come in with different expectations, they came in willing to see the tools through a different lens. So there's a whole bunch of magic in that formula, which interestingly goes to your third box of expanding prosperity, increasingly supported and encouraged by like minded, ambitious collaborations. That's the whole point of Free Zone. And it's like what you have here is a pretty remarkable sales tool to help people see why they want to stick around. It's great stick strategy too. I just saw that.

Dan Sullivan [01:10:35]:
But wait, there's more.

Mike Koenigs [01:10:37]:
Yeah.

Dan Sullivan [01:10:38]:
Okay, we're back to the Sunday afternoon infomercials.

Mike Koenigs [01:10:44]:
Yeah, yeah.

Dan Sullivan [01:10:45]:
But here they're actually experiencing it. I mean, it's one thing to say this is a possibility, but what seems to me is what you're achieving. If I just watch you as a ambitious entrepreneur, you're not talking to people about possibilities, you're actually talking to people about capabilities. Which brings us, if we put two more of the pink boxes, freedom of time and freedom of money. And my feeling is that capability. A lot of people create vision, but they lack the capability. Here you're creating capabilities and they extend vision.

Mike Koenigs [01:11:26]:
Yes. So there's that combination of vision which is seeing the possibility. Capabilities are about making it real.

Dan Sullivan [01:11:41]:
But what you've done is that you've vastly shortened the time period between possibility and actually having the capability.

Mike Koenigs [01:11:51]:
Yes. I'll give you another little mini example here. This is super short. Something I've been demonstrating lately is you can go. I consider YouTube to be one of the best sources of knowledge. And there's a built in rating system which is the subscribers, the popularity and the speed by which these creators create. And I was explaining this to this little 12 year old Mexican kid, his name is Anthony, who is here this week. And I said, what do you want to learn about? What would you love? And he goes, I want to learn about bitcoin investing.

Mike Koenigs [01:12:31]:
And I showed him how he could find the best influencers, the most knowledgeable, popular and highest rated with a little search, add them to a notebook so you could get like 10 or 100 videos super fast. It would compress and compile all of the best stuff. Click a single button and boom. He had an infographic on their principles and you can tell it to wait and bias based upon who has the most celebrated, the highest authority. But then I said, well, now let's make it in Spanish. Click the button, boom. We've got it in Spanish. And his dad was super happy, who speaks English, but he's a native Spanish speaker of course.

Mike Koenigs [01:13:19]:
And we just had this new bilingual conversation. But I was like, you have the ability to learn infinitely faster immediately with the very latest information and cross cultures. I said, do you have any idea how powerful that is for you? And just what I showed you is what every business person wants and needs from someone just like you. And you're only 12. What a great time to be alive and live in a world of infinite possibilities where you can learn and know everything. But here's where there's the, the one step is I can take that notebook and then I can say, now I want you to do it for me. We're, we're moments away when you take this knowledge and you say, now solve my problem with someone else's knowledge that's aggregated. That's when your capabilities multiply again by an order of magnitude or maybe two.

Dan Sullivan [01:14:22]:
Yeah, just the box here. Capabilities, great vision. Every new capability automatically expands your present sense of future growth.

Mike Koenigs [01:14:30]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [01:14:31]:
So a lot of people say, well, I want to really Create the biggest possible vision. And I said, I want to tell you, you don't have have to do that. All you have to do is focus on the capabilities, and the capabilities will create the next accessible, available adjacent vision. It'll automatically create vision. So I think we're going through a different phase here simply because of the speed with which new capabilities can be acquired.

Mike Koenigs [01:15:03]:
Yes. And at. I agree with everything you said and the gap I can hear someone saying is, yeah, but I need a who to help me.

Dan Sullivan [01:15:16]:
Yes.

Mike Koenigs [01:15:16]:
Or they don't even know how to communicate or describe that capability or describe the who, much less know where to find them and score them. And at the speed of change right now, it's finding someone who can absorb and continually expand and upgrade their capabilities. I see there's a whole new opportunity here for orchestrators more than ever before. Orchestrators of these amazing tools.

Dan Sullivan [01:15:59]:
The interesting thing is you talked about that just a month ago you had your greatest period of actual free time.

Mike Koenigs [01:16:07]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [01:16:08]:
Yeah. And it's always a problem with entrepreneurs because in my sense, the difficulty of acquiring new capabilities has interfered with their personal life.

Mike Koenigs [01:16:25]:
For sure. Yeah.

Dan Sullivan [01:16:26]:
And so you've eliminated the need for the. The acquisition of capabilities to interfere with free time.

Mike Koenigs [01:16:38]:
Okay, give me the formula that you've. You observe if we were going to communicate what that is. Because I heard it, I understand. I'm too close to it to know what it is.

Dan Sullivan [01:16:51]:
Well, I'm just saying I have the proof that you just a month ago had your greatest free time. Right at the time when you're also going through a period where you're acquiring new capabilities at an exponential speed, but it lets you live a more balanced life.

Mike Koenigs [01:17:12]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [01:17:14]:
Because you can drive yourself crazy with this. I mean, and people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike Koenigs [01:17:21]:
Yes. Okay, I'm clear.

Dan Sullivan [01:17:23]:
So the reason why we put in free focus and buffer day. So you don't drive yourself capability, drive yourself crazy with new capabilities, huh?

Mike Koenigs [01:17:32]:
Yes.

Dan Sullivan [01:17:33]:
Yeah.

Mike Koenigs [01:17:34]:
Right.

Dan Sullivan [01:17:34]:
I mean, you take a month off and you come back and tech world has created an entirely new set of capabilities that you didn't have to. You didn't have to spend any time on.

Mike Koenigs [01:17:44]:
Yeah.

Dan Sullivan [01:17:44]:
Because you know how to investigate and immediately make into practical form what the capabilities are.

Mike Koenigs [01:17:55]:
Okay, that. That is that what you just said is exceptionally profound. Well done. Well done, Dan Sullivan. I always like to say, I think we just had our best episode yet.

Dan Sullivan [01:18:14]:
Well, I think the big thing is the best use of the tools that I've ever had. I mean, I've been at this for decades of creating new thinking Tools. But this shows the combination of thinking tools supported by the new technology. Actually you can do the business side of your life super fast. Create value so that you have a part of your life where you don't have to worry about the capabilities and what's happening.

Mike Koenigs [01:18:48]:
Yeah. Yes. I think it shortens focus time for sure. Three to ten times the buffer time can be used for capability expansion, capability amplification while you get stuff done. So it's. That's what you were just talking about is your buffer and your focus. It intensifies and the byproduct is free, which, yeah, you got to get out of your entrepreneurial PTSD head because that certainly is a byproduct of this crazy making for sure. So that was really good.

Dan Sullivan [01:19:33]:
Then we can go and we can put freedom of money and freedom of relationship together. Because my feeling is the value for humans is in the depth and the, you know, the depth of really great relationships. I mean, like ours. I mean ours. We couldn't do this when we started the series seven years ago, but look what we look, I mean, in some ways that what we did today equals what we did in the first seven years.

Mike Koenigs [01:20:04]:
Yeah.

Dan Sullivan [01:20:06]:
I'm simply taking what I've developed and you're taking what you've developed and we've created something entirely new. And so expanding prosperity, increasingly supported and encouraged by like minded, ambitious collaborations. That seems to me as good a definition of prosperity for an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur as it is. It's the, you know. Yeah.

Mike Koenigs [01:20:33]:
And your body's ability to express it Right.

Dan Sullivan [01:20:37]:
Well. And you got to be in good shape. You got to be in good shape. You know, your health and your fitness and your. Has to be in really good shape. But this has been terrific. I mean this has been, this has turned out to be much larger than I ever imagined. Chatting with you at the restaurant a week and a half ago.

Mike Koenigs [01:21:01]:
Yeah, this is. I'm walking away more excited, more ambitious and I've got clarity on how I want to teach and communicate.

Dan Sullivan [01:21:17]:
And you have an opportunity next Tuesday, next Monday?

Mike Koenigs [01:21:22]:
I sure do. I. So I'm jigger. I'm rejiggering the curriculum and simplifying it at the same time. So that's in another episode. But any. Do you have any closing thoughts as we.

Dan Sullivan [01:21:41]:
Well, I have a tool. I have a tool I created about 15 years ago and it was first. It was first expressed as three circles and you had A, a circle, a B circle and a C circle and, and what people do. And I'm suggesting that we use this tool for your presentation next Monday.

Mike Koenigs [01:22:06]:
Okay.

Dan Sullivan [01:22:07]:
List all the things that. The activities that you're doing that you hate doing.

Mike Koenigs [01:22:13]:
Yep.

Dan Sullivan [01:22:13]:
And then all the activities which are okay activities. You do them that they don't make you mad. They don, you know, they don't irritate you and frustrate you, but they're okay activities. And then there's the activities that fascinate and motivate you. So why don't we start off where everybody does this, and then they say, well, give me an example of something that drives you crazy. And then you bring your AI knowledge in and say, well, you could do this. You could do this. You do this, and you do a couple of those, and then you can go to the okay.

Dan Sullivan [01:22:47]:
And you say, but what's okay today may be really irritating and frustrating in six months from now, so maybe you ought to give a think about just eliminating them now so that you. You can then focus on fascinating and motivating and. And you can. Where. This might have taken three years of really hard work. Work and a lot of negotiation with reality and scarcity of teamwork and everything else, but now we can get to fascinating and motivating really much more quickly.

Mike Koenigs [01:23:28]:
Awesome. And for everyone who's listening right now, what's the name of that tool? Dan?

Dan Sullivan [01:23:34]:
Yeah, I've renamed it, and I have to go back. And because it's already a patent, we renamed it to put it in for a patent. So it's already a patent. But first thing in the morning, I'll send you the upgraded tools so that you can take a look at it. Well, I'll put sample copy in for. For myself. But this is really terrific because entrepreneurs are always angsting about their things that frustrate me and why do I have to do this and everything else? Well, you have to do it for cash flow. And what if your cash flow within a very short period of time can just be fascinating and motivating?

Mike Koenigs [01:24:15]:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. All I do is just meet with founder entrepreneurs and solve their problems in real time and build tools and opportunities and offers that get them access to audiences that want to reward them for those gifts.

Dan Sullivan [01:24:35]:
Right.

Mike Koenigs [01:24:36]:
It's. It's. It's. It's improv. It's back to improv.

Dan Sullivan [01:24:40]:
We're back to him. We're back to improv, you know, which is a theatrical form, you know, and, you know, this is the book that Jeff and I have just met. You know, we just submitted the manuscript called Casting not hiring. What you want is people with powerful roles, not job descriptions.

Mike Koenigs [01:25:00]:
Right on. It's. I've got a tool idea. I've got an AI tool idea for you, Dan. All right, well, let's, let's wrap this episode up.

Dan Sullivan [01:25:11]:
Okay, your wrap up on the tae. Okay.

Mike Koenigs [01:25:15]:
All right. So first of all, I've been in coach for 15ish years we've been doing this show and every time I use a tool, I use it to create new opportunities and it inspires me. It always turns into, oh, I've got an idea that'll solve a problem for someone which basically turns into a product. What I like about this is it felt like we traveled through a time machine and the tools are much more powerful. And if our listener, viewer just walks away and says, how do I combine all these ideas in a creative way and find the connections. And when you opened up and you talked about Steve Jobs, about what is creativity. Creativity is making connections. And I just had.

Mike Koenigs [01:26:17]:
It felt like I went through hyperspace, the original Star Wars. When you launched into hyperspace and you saw the stars going by, that was what this experience felt like to me, past and present. And I'm super excited about jumping into lightspeed and continuing the journey with you. So that's my take.

Dan Sullivan [01:26:37]:
Good. And we just created a great yesterday.

Mike Koenigs [01:26:42]:
Yes, we did. That's another episode coming up.

Dan Sullivan [01:26:45]:
Yes. Because tomorrow, when we wake up, when we wake, wake up. This is what we did. Today is yesterday. And this is a very, very well spent yesterday that we just created.

Mike Koenigs [01:26:57]:
Fantastic. Well, I'll just say it out loud. This has been another episode of Capability Amplifier. This is my good friend Dan Sullivan, truly my favorite collaborator. Always, always thinking at in light speed feed mode. And I can't wait till the next episode and creating the next yesterday with you, Dan.

Dan Sullivan [01:27:20]:
That's great.