What is a Free Zone Frontier? You enter into a Free Zone when you increasingly create unique collaborative possibilities and payoffs that are amazingly free of competition. Join Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach and Steve Krein of StartUp Health as they launch the Free Zone Frontier podcast. Learn the concepts as they relate to their own companies, and how this transformative mindset is the future of entrepreneurial growth.
AI is redefining what’s possible for experienced entrepreneurs who are willing to think differently, experiment, and take risks again. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explore how AI multiplies both success and dysfunction, why the real edge now belongs to seasoned founders, and how to use AI so your future is bigger than your past.
Show Notes:
Many successful entrepreneurs start avoiding situations where they could fail, believing they’ve already had all the breakthroughs they need.
The real risk isn’t AI itself, but refusing to reinvent how your entrepreneurial life and AI work together.
Like the internet in the mid-‘90s, AI can multiply the success you’re already achieving if you choose to engage with it.
The comforts of time, money, and experience can quietly erode your willingness to take the risks that create your next breakthroughs.
The advantage is shifting toward older, more experienced entrepreneurs who combine decades of judgment and pattern recognition with AI’s raw intelligence.
AI is even surprising its creators, which means there’s no established playbook—only entrepreneurs willing to think and experiment.
A fast-growing group of entrepreneurial 10‑ to 20‑year‑olds is bypassing formal education and building businesses directly with AI.
Experience plus AI creates a “jetpack effect,” letting seasoned entrepreneurs take ideas much further and much faster than ever before.
Resources:
My Plan For Living To 156 by Dan Sullivan
Unique Ability®
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
The Greater Game by Dan Sullivan and John Bowen
The Greater Game Dashboard
The Impact Filter®
The History of Money: A Story of Humanity by David McWilliams
Casting Not Hiring by Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff
Entrepreneurs grow fastest when they combine their unique capabilities with the right collaborators—both human and AI—so everyone creates bigger results together instead of working alone. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explore how teamwork, technology, and ambition multiply one another in the new era of collaboration.
Show Notes:
Working with AI can feel highly personal because the tools remember your past thinking and mirror it back to you in powerful ways.
Division of labor is still the starting point for creating wealth, but now the labor includes both human team members and AI agents.
There’s a big difference between having a job made up of tasks and having a role defined by the results you create for the team.
When unique capabilities get combined, the result is something that probably didn’t exist yet.
If you automate activities that don’t work, it will just amplify what isn’t working.
For successful entrepreneurs, growth alternates between greater meaning and more money, and AI only matters if it increases both.
Evaluating how someone contributes to teamwork gives you a clearer read on their character than any assessment or profile.
The most valuable team members going forward will be AI-first and AI-native, using agents as collaborators rather than occasional helpers.
Resources:
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Unique Ability®
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Casting Not Hiring by Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff
Kolbe A™ Index
CliftonStrengths®
No one can control the future, but something we can do is make sure we have a great past. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss how a good life is when you focus on making every day a great yesterday.
Show Notes:
Entrepreneurs often fall in love with exciting future possibilities and end up pulled in 10 different directions at once.
When you commit to creating great yesterdays, you naturally think less about abstract futures and more about the quality of what you’re doing right now.
Today is real. The future exists only in your mind.
Like strengthening a muscle, you get better at creating great yesterdays the more you practice it.
Seeing each day as tomorrow’s yesterday changes your behavior, even in frustrating situations like travel delays or schedule disruptions.
Thinking of today as tomorrow’s yesterday increases your intentionality, so more of your time goes to activities that compound.
As a result of new technologies and tools, what you can accomplish in a single day is radically different from a few years ago, which makes your daily choices even more important.
Many entrepreneurs suffer from too much opportunity and too much achievement, which makes it hard to stay grounded in the present.
The greatest challenge that entrepreneurs face is loneliness, but Strategic Coach gives ambitious entrepreneurs a community where they feel understood and can talk freely about their goals and successes.
Resources:
The Entrepreneur's Guide To Time Management
Unique Ability®
The Impact Filter®
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Casting Not Hiring by Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff
My Plan For Living To 156 by Dan Sullivan
Thinking About Your Thinking by Dan Sullivan
The 4x4 Breakthrough
In one of our most popular episodes, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein reveal why every entrepreneur has something to offer clients, but most attempt to make convincing arguments rather than compelling offers. They explain the differences between the two approaches, how to reframe everything as a compelling offer, and why this step is critical to sell your solutions.
Show Notes:
A lot of the turmoil that entrepreneurs go through makes up the length of time before they can get to a sale.
Entrepreneurs trying to make a sale have been trained by their industry to argue against the way things are done and argue against competitors.
The school system teaches students that the more convincing you are with your arguments, the further up you're going to go in the academic world.
A compelling offer is when your client has been exploring something, they don’t have a solution, and you come in with something that exactly matches their thinking.
An investment is a bet that something is going to be better than what’s out there.
When making a compelling offer, you don’t talk about what your competitors are doing, but about the difficulty the client is facing in getting something they really want.
Innovations have value if the customer says so.
The vast majority of entrepreneurs are creative without having any appreciation of what they've created.
Resources:
The Profitability Packager
The Impact Filter®
Who Do You Want To Be A Hero To? by Dan Sullivan
Unique Ability®
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith
Wondering how you should be using AI and what will it mean for the future of your business? While the technology feels new, this kind of moment isn’t. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explore how today’s AI wave mirrors past major technology shifts, most notably the dot-com era 30 years ago, and what we can learn from those transitions.
Show Notes:
AI has quickly become impossible to ignore. If you’re not using it at all, you may already be relying on tools that are becoming outdated.
Every major technological boom in history has also come with a bust—and AI will be no different.
At its core, innovation isn’t about inventing something from nothing. Every new creation is simply a new combination of things that already exist.
AI dramatically shortens the distance between vision and execution—often eliminating barriers that once required teams, time, and resources.
AI changes how feedback works. You no longer need as many people—or sometimes any people at all—to test ideas, refine thinking, and move forward.
To use AI effectively, you must be clear about what you want. The tool amplifies intention; it doesn’t replace it.
Of all the goals someone can pursue, making money is one of the most harmless.
It’s unpredictable—and potentially dangerous—when consumers suddenly gain powerful new capabilities.
The faster you make a thoughtful decision about how you’ll engage with AI, the more freedom and leverage you’re likely to gain in return.
Resources:
Thinking About Your Thinking by Dan Sullivan
Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future by Reid Hoffman and Greg Beato
Unique Ability®
Free Zone Frontier by Dan Sullivan
The world’s changing faster than ever, and predicting what’s next is tougher than it used to be. But some entrepreneurial truths hold steady. Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein explore how staying ambitious, embracing fresh possibilities, and surrounding yourself with the right people lets you keep setting bigger goals no matter what the future brings.
Show Notes:
New technologies unlock new entrepreneurial capabilities, giving you more ways to grow.
Economic policy shifts, like recent tariffs, signal consumption is now more important than production in the U.S.
The U.S. is the greatest consumer economy in the history of the world.
Over just the last six months, the strength of your consumer base became the new measure of future success.
Predicting the future based only on past trends is getting harder, as possibilities matter more now than probabilities.
Rapid change means it’s a whole new game; fresh opportunities are opening up for the next decade and beyond.
Retiring can create social friction because if you’re working and your friends aren’t, you have less in common to discuss.
Ambition is the opposite of envy.
Surround yourself with other ambitious thinkers; your environment shapes how far you’ll go.
Resources:
Always More Ambitious by Dan Sullivan
Ambition Scorecard by Dan Sullivan
Unique Ability®
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
Bill Of Rights Economy by Dan Sullivan
In the second half of their discussion on ambition, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explore how ambition can remain fresh and exciting at every stage of the entrepreneurial journey. They reveal why measuring progress correctly, creatively managing your time, and building personalized systems help you stay motivated, resilient, and focused on a bigger future.
Show Notes:
Ambition means always having a future that feels bigger and more exciting than your past.
The urge to see how far you can really go unlocks an endless cycle of growth and new achievements.
Progress is best measured by looking back at how far you’ve come, not by comparing against some distant, moving target.
Focusing only on what’s next makes it hard to appreciate the real gains you’ve already made.
Most Strategic Coach® tools are created to solve the feeling of being stuck or falling short.
Celebrating even small wins keeps momentum strong, and progress doesn’t have to take forever.
Structuring your time around a handful of priorities, like five tasks over three days, offers creative flexibility and less pressure.
Every thriving entrepreneur has built their own time system that fits how they work best.
Working nonstop isn’t a badge of honor; you’re better off building in time for rest and recovery.
Resources:
The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
The Impact Filter™
Time Management Strategies For Entrepreneurs (Effective Strategies Only)
The Positive Focus®
Primal Intelligence by Angus Fletcher
Always More Ambitious by Dan Sullivan
What if your ambition isn't a finite resource you're destined to deplete? Dan Sullivan introduces a transformative idea that ambition is a muscle that strengthens with use. Learn how to grow this core capability at any age, why contentment and ambition can coexist, and how to build a collaborative environment that fuels your future.
Show Notes:
Ambition is a fundamental capability that enables all other capabilities.
Many people misunderstand ambition, thinking it’s a natural gift (and a finite resource) rather than a muscle to develop.
It requires significant energy to maintain your ambition entirely on your own.
Being surrounded by ambitious people fuels greater ambition and makes big thinking easier.
Contentment and ambition are not opposites; both can be present when personal growth is the focus.
Social norms often discourage ambition after 60, but real impact happens when entrepreneurs defy those expectations.
Transitioning from solo effort to teamwork, then to external collaboration, marks an entrepreneur’s real growth journey.
Strategic Coach® is where already ambitious entrepreneurs become even more ambitious.
Collaborative ambition multiplies results and helps entrepreneurs expand their reach by combining capabilities.
The Strategic Coach community supports entrepreneurs by enabling collaborative, not competitive, growth.
Facing headwinds around ambition is normal; Strategic Coach offers tools to overcome them and extend longevity in business.
Your “here” is always expanding into “there”—ambitious entrepreneurs never settle at a finish line.
Resources:
How To Foster A Longevity Mindset & Reap The Benefits
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Free Zone Frontier by Dan Sullivan
Unique Ability®
The importance of intellectual property is undeniable, but not everyone knows as much about their own IP situation as they should. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein chat with Keegan Caldwell, the founder of an intellectual property law firm, who explains how IP law can benefit entrepreneurs beyond just protecting their creations.
Show Notes:
Resources:
Learn about Keegan Caldwell
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
How To Live To 156 by Dan Sullivan
The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
Why do some companies continually grow while most fail? You need more than a great idea; you need to surround yourself with others who are thinking the same way. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss the successes of Steve’s unique, collaborative StartUp Health network, the mindsets entrepreneurs need in order to achieve the greatest success, and the things they do that most entrepreneurs won’t even think about.
Resources:
Unique Ability®
The Strategic Coach® Program
What Is Rugged Individualism? And Why You Might Be Guilty Of It
Innovations in the realm of age reversal are accelerating. Getting physically younger while getting older in years is a real possibility. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explain the advances, discuss what’s needed for further breakthroughs, and share why age reversal developments are critical for entrepreneurs to be preparing for.
Show Notes:
Resources:
The Strategic Coach® Signature Program
Learn more about Steven Krein at StartUp Health
My Plan For Living To 156 by Dan Sullivan
Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein delve into the power of the “When Are You Great?” tool, discussing how it serves as a crucial planning aid and a potent marketing resource. Using real-world examples, they explore the implications for crafting compelling offers, narrating impactful stories, and leveraging a marketer’s secret weapon.
Show Notes:
Resources:
The Four Freedoms
The Self-Managing Company by Dan Sullivan
The Strategic Coach Entrepreneurial Time System®
The End of the World is Just the Beginning by Peter Zeihan
In one of our most popular episodes, Steve and Dan revisit why there’s a big difference between convincing someone with an argument and compelling them to take action with an offer. And in the market world where we all live, people don’t want to be convinced—they want to be compelled.
Show Notes:
A convincing argument is about the speaker, but a compelling offer is about the listener.
In the education system, you convince someone with your argument, but it doesn’t get them to take any action.
Characteristics of a compelling offer are that it happens very fast, and the clients don’t have to do much work to get it.
Humans aren’t computers, but meaning makers.
The basis of a compelling offer is that everyone is thinking in one direction, and then you present a message that changes the way they’re thinking about things.
Data is what you need to make an argument convincing.
Some people see situations in black and white (it happened or it didn’t happen), and don’t see the progress being made.
When you make a compelling offer, people want to be involved regardless of when the success will come.
When someone is facing a new experience, it will be a good experience if they have something new as a solution, and a bad experience if they don’t.
Resources:
Deep D.O.S. Innovation by Dan Sullivan
You Are Not a Computer by Dan Sullivan
Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explore the powerful 4 x 4 Casting Tool™, which can transform how you integrate new team members into your company—and galvanize your current team members to take ownership of their roles. Discover how treating your company like a theater project ensures you have the right people in the right roles for maximum impact.
Show Notes:
Resources:
Anything And Everything Podcast
What Is A Self-Managing Company®?
Unique Ability®
Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
Entrepreneurial Operating System®
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage
The Impact Filter™
The Great Crossover® by Dan Sullivan
Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss the Free Zone Frontier® and the StartUp Health programs. They both believe it’s crucial to have the right people in the room, sharing their experiences and collaborating. Connecting like this with a community of ambitious, calm entrepreneurs makes it possible to experience five years’ progress in three months.
Show Notes:
Resources:
Learn more about Steve’s company, StartUp Health
The Strategic Coach® Signature Program
Ever wondered what the success formula is for top entrepreneurs? Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss “The 25-Year Framework” and how it benefits entrepreneurs by helping them prioritize their biggest goals and measure progress every quarter. They explain how having a quarterly rhythm can be transformational, and provide insights into how to achieve long-term goals, adapt to advancements in technology, and overcome crises in the marketplace.
Show Notes:
Resources:
The 25-Year Framework by Dan Sullivan
The Strategic Coach® Program
StartUp Health
Free Zone Frontier by Dan Sullivan
Unique Ability®
The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management (Free Days™)
Should businesses be focusing more on engaging their customers virtually or in person? Since some customers prefer one and some prefer the other, you’re alienating people if you go too far in either direction. Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein discuss the incursion of digital elements into various aspects of human life and what this has your potential customers feeling—and seeking out.
Show Notes:
There was an industrial phase where everything old was torn down to build something new. And then there was pushback.
A good city is for both the people who live there and the people who only come for a few hours, then go home.
There’s a 50% renewal rate for Strategic Coach® clients who stick to virtual, and a 75% renewal rate for Strategic Coach clients who attend in-person workshops.
Some people have decided to just not travel anymore.
Virtual strengthens what happens in real life; it doesn’t replace it.
Testing something out on 50 people gives you a good idea about whether it works.
People are now pursuing what they’re interested in, and it’s harder to get their attention for what you want to share with them.
News stories disappear from public discussions much faster than they used to.
In the 1940s, the notion that you were supposed to enjoy your work didn’t exist.
There’s become a complete disconnection between higher education and the job market.
When people don’t know where they’re headed in the future, they go back to what they know and defend it.
Resources:
Thinking About Your Thinking by Dan Sullivan
Unique Ability®
The Transformation Trilogy set by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
The Unique EDGE® Program
For most people, entrepreneurship used to feel out of reach. Now, technology has provided the necessary tools for anyone to start a company that has all the potential to give them freedom. Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein discuss the many invaluable ways AI can be used by business leaders, and how it’s opened doors for dreamers.
Show Notes:
Entrepreneurism by its very nature creates disruption and inequality.
Entrepreneurs like talking to other people who are entrepreneurial about their ideas in order to develop them further.
AI is creating a whole generation of people learning how to learn differently.
It might be more interesting to consider what using AI does to your brain versus what it does to your business.
Ten years from now, everybody's going to be using AI just as a matter of interacting with their computer.
People who would never use ChatGPT are going to have AI built into what they’re already doing on their phones and computers.
AI will eventually become so normal that it’ll become boring.
Resources:
Perplexity.ai
The Kolbe A™ Index
The Impact Filter™
Blog: Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage
Book: AI As Your Teammate by Evan Ryan
The Transformation Trilogy: Who Not How, The Gap and the Gain, and 10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
As of this year, Dan Sullivan has been a business coach for half a century, and Strategic Coach® has been helping entrepreneurs lead their best lives for 35 years. In this episode, Steve Krein and Dan discuss the inaugural CoachCon event that recently took place in Nashville, how the three-day conference came together, and the secrets that made it a resounding success.
Show Notes:
When people are committing to an event that requires traveling, they give it a lot more thought than they did before COVID.
You’re going to see that almost all businesses have three tracks: a technology track, a teamwork track, and a coaching track.
Technology does not coach itself. Teamwork doesn't naturally expand itself.
Dan sees it as a form of progress when great things can be created in his company that he has no involvement in.
Most conventions and conferences are overloaded with content with no time to think.
What gets talked about in free periods during conferences is a more important takeaway than anything heard in the panel discussions.
Sponsors of communities are not always authentic members of those communities.
If people have a great experience, they'll tell a few people about it. If they have a bad experience, they'll tell a lot of people about it.
Resources:
Article: Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage
The Impact Filter™
The Strategic Coach® Program
Visual Capitalist
Ever been to a concert where everyone sings along to every song? That's the power of community. Dan and Steve explore the emotional side of entrepreneurship, discussing the benefits of building a strong community. It’s an environment of shared language, shared opportunities, and shared experiences where everyone can gain and grow.
Show Notes:
In any community, shared language and experiences create an environment where people feel more comfortable.
When you bring entrepreneurs together, there’s a shared language and also shared challenges that they’re all deeply familiar with.
When entrepreneurs share networks, it’s an instant capability.
Entrepreneurs can have shared opportunities not only individually, but collectively.
Questions are more powerful than answers.
Technology is actually about taking things that already work and putting them into a new form.
You can create a new lesson and a new course of action out of any three of your past experiences.
You want your existing clients to be part of your marketing team.
When you get involved with investors, there are two numbers that really matter: 51% and 49%.
Resources:
The R-Factor Question®
The Entrepreneurial Time System®
Unique Ability®
Genius Network®
Abundance 360®
The daVinci50 Mastermind®
Perplexity.ai
The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan
Serial entrepreneur Lior Weinstein returns to the show. Teaming up with Dan and Steve, he shares his systematic approach for tackling business challenges and leveraging AI alongside human capabilities. Three entrepreneurs operating at the top of their game promise valuable takeaways to transform pains into new revenue streams and fuel your success.
Show Notes:
Every company has a history and constraints they bring along.
Good marketing requires empathy.
Too many entrepreneurs overthink, overengineer, and overbuild.
Though it may seem counterintuitive, it’s better to build the website before building a product.
When an amazing technology launches, people make predictions without appreciating or understanding the actual engineering problems that underpin the technology.
The rate at which the open source community is creating competitive products is incredible.
You’re only as smart as the quality of your questions.
Search engines are becoming answer engines.
We're going to learn more and more about human intelligence by interacting with AI technology.
Resources:
Book: The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan
Article: The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs
Unique Ability®
Perplexity.ai
Book: The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein welcome Lior Weinstein, a serial entrepreneur who specializes in simplifying complex concepts into actionable steps. Lior shares his background, starting in Israel and moving to the United States, where he expanded his entrepreneurial career after serving in the IDF's Intelligence Corps. Lior's experiences taught him about teamwork, tackling big missions, and winning with small teams.
Show Notes:
Resources:
Who Not Howby Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
Podcast: Anything And Everything with Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff
Article: The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs
Unique AbilityⓇ
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
Total Cash Confidence by Dan Sullivan
The Impact Filter™
Many entrepreneurs don’t hire well, and those that do mostly dread the activity. Dan Sullivan aims to change that. He explains a mindset shift about hiring differently as entrepreneurs, exploring how thinking of hiring as casting a play creates a new perspective on team building and collaboration.
Show Notes:
Resources:
The Impact Filter™
The Front Stage/Back Stage Model®
Unique AbilityⓇ
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein delve into the power of the “When Are You Great?” tool, discussing how it serves as a crucial planning aid and a potent marketing resource. Using real-world examples, they explore the implications for crafting compelling offers, narrating impactful stories, and leveraging a marketer’s secret weapon.
Highlights:
To figure out what gets talked about, you have to combine everything you’re telling with everything you’re being told.
You share when you’re good because you have competition. Others share when you’re great because they don’t think you have any competition.
Saying when you’re good is trying to make a convincing argument. Being told when you’re great is your compelling offer.
How you're making people feel transcends what you do for them.
Your messaging should include both what you do and what happens when someone participates in it.
Measuring impact is hard in the short term, but unavoidable in the long term.
Resources:
The Four Freedoms
The Self-Managing Companyby Dan Sullivan
The Strategic Coach Entrepreneurial Time System®
The End of the World is Just the Beginning by Peter Zeihan
The end of a year and the beginning of another is a great time to reflect and plan. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss effective ways entrepreneurs can look back on what’s happened and look ahead to what they want to accomplish, sharing insights from their own experiences running successful businesses.
Highlights:
A lot of people feel uncomfortable talking about long-term planning.
You can use the new year to reflect on the progress you've made over the last 12 months and what you need to do over the next 12 months while fitting it into the context of what your long-term mission is.
You can reuse your past any way you want.
It’s much easier to think about 25 years as 100 quarters: a quarter is enough time to get stuff done, but not so long that you’ll lose your way.
No one can predict the future. It’s all just guesses and bets.
Consistency over time in your past is crucial for building your future.
For the most part, entrepreneurs starting a new business don't have any structure or process that works.
There's a quick deviation from values sometimes when you're trying to just get financial return.
The more you plan backwards from the future, the better you get at it.
Resources:
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Learn more about Steve Krein and StartUp Health
The Strategic Coach® Program
Learn more about Unique Ability®
No matter how long a company has been around, it’s vital that everyone is clear on and maintains their core values. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explain why this is so important, discuss why all team members need to be aligned, and share some of their own companies’ core values.
Highlights:
In the U.S., core values used to be structured into the environment you lived in.
Reminding team members of the company’s specific purpose can help avoid distraction.
The value reinforcement of a company today is 10 times more important than it was in the 1950s.
You either do or don’t have passion for, have conviction for, and are inspired by a mission.
People who aren’t aligned with a company’s mission wreak havoc during times when things shift.
Company leaders need to represent the values they want their team members to have.
Every entrepreneur is in the continual process of hiring or removing wrong-fit people.
In a period of high flux, you go to the organizing structure that actually works.
Resources:
Everyone And Everything Grows by Dan Sullivan
Unique Ability®
The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management
“Geometry” For Staying Cool & Calm by Dan Sullivan
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Strategic Coach® is approaching its 50th anniversary, and Coach co-founder Dan Sullivan is coming up on 50 years of coaching entrepreneurs. In this episode, Steve Krein and Dan share some of the significant changes to entrepreneurism that have happened over the past 50 years and what the future holds.
Highlights:
Steve and Dan discuss what is currently the number one resource on the planet
If you look at cultural heroes in the business world and American life itself, they’re the great entrepreneurs.
The original definition of an entrepreneur is someone who takes resources from a lower level of productivity to a higher level of productivity.
If you don’t have an appreciation for what it means to be an entrepreneur, it can look intimidating and mysterious.
Government, corporate, and large non-profit bureaucracies see unpredictably innovative entrepreneurs as their main enemy.
Big breakthroughs in technology empower entrepreneurs, not large bureaucracies.
When single individuals and small groups create something that goes viral in the marketplace, it upsets everything.
Most of the obstacles to becoming an entrepreneur that existed 50 years ago have been removed.
Resources:
The Strategic Coach® Signature Program
The Impact Filter™ tool
Article: The Four Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs
Learn more about Steve Krein and StartUp Health
My Plan For Living To 156 by Dan Sullivan
Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein continue their discussion about the power of thinking tools and how they can help entrepreneurs achieve their goals. They explore the importance of tension, shortcuts, and tools in simplifying complex problems and generating new opportunities for yourself, your team, and your clients.
Highlights:
Resources:
StartUp Health
Video: How To Transform A Negative Experience
The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management
Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan
The Impact Filter
How do you find great people to join your organization? How do you train them, coach them, and guide them? The answer lies in what makes Strategic Coach® different from all other companies. In this first episode of a two-part series, Steven Krein and Dan Sullivan share the thinking tool culture of Strategic Coach, how it has transformed Steven’s StartUp Health, and how you can use it to upgrade any organization you choose.
Highlights:
Strategic Coach team members use the same tools as our members do.
Thinking tools are at the core of StartUp Health’s value creation and scalability.
Entrepreneurs can’t have a more confident future until they have a more confident past.
Your past experience is your property, so you can do anything you want with it.
Your past is there for learning.
You’re always either on the winning team or the learning team.
Thinking tools are structured forms, either digital or on paper.
You can’t change past events, but you can change your interpretation of them.
Never fall in love with your tools until the check writers fall in love with your tools.
Resources:
StartUp Health
Video: How To Transform A Negative Experience
The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management
Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan
The Impact Filter
Most entrepreneurs believe they have to be in constant competition. But there’s a much more enjoyable way to live your entrepreneurial life to achieve bigger and better results: you can enter a zone of collaboration with like-minded people that’s entirely free of competition. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explain how to start. Hint: it’s all about simplifying before multiplying.
Highlights:
Finding collaborators who think the same way as you do is one of the most important activities an entrepreneur can undertake.
Don’t fall in love with an idea until customers fall in love with it.
You can’t have simplicity in your entrepreneurial life and complexity in other areas because the complications will catch up with you.
You need both simplification and multiplication to constantly grow.
Most people are too close to cash flow urgency to be able to even think about collaborating.
Once you’re in a competition-free zone, you can continually expand it for the rest of your career.
Uber and Airbnb started off as Free Zone Frontiers, but got really complicated because they got a lot of headwind from who they were disrupting.
Apple has been the best company at maintaining the quality of “Free Zone Frontiering.”
There are people who don’t see Amazon as a competitor, but as a capability.
If you don’t know up front what success in a project looks like, it’s dead on arrival.
Things that are currently underestimated or not even known are going to become entrepreneur capabilities in the next decade or two.
Technology companies are really hard-pressed to keep up with what people actually want to do.
If you create a disruption, you aren’t responsible for it causing a loss for someone else.
Resources:
Simplifier-Multiplier Collaboration by Dan Sullivan
Free Zone Frontier by Dan Sullivan
The Impact Filter™ tool
Total Cash Confidence by Dan Sullivan
Innovations in the realm of age reversal are accelerating. Getting physically younger while getting older in years is a real possibility. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explain the advances, discuss what’s needed for further breakthroughs, and share why age reversal developments are critical for entrepreneurs to be preparing for.
Highlights:
Many entrepreneurs retire out of social or societal expectations.
Setting a goal that might seem crazy serves as a magnet for what you need and as a repellent for what you don’t.
You treat your remaining years differently depending on when you think you’re going to die.
Thinking about your legacy means you’re thinking about being gone.
There’s the expectation in society that once you turn 65 or 70, you don’t take on anything new.
The solution won’t be possible if you don’t have the goal.
Medicine is going to become the fastest growing industry in the United States.
There are hundreds if not thousands of parts that need to be worked on to enable true age reversal.
There’s a paradigm now that all disease is simply an aspect of aging.
There's been an incredible drop-off in venture capital funding of all areas except health and medicine.
American progress in all areas is driven by adventuresome consumers.
Mission alignment is the single most important predictor of success in long-term health-related entrepreneurial ventures.
Resources:
Learn more about Steven Krein at StartUp Health
My Plan For Living To 156 by Dan Sullivan
The Strategic Coach® Signature Program
A lot of entrepreneurs are scared right now, while others are excited, feeling like this is the best time to be innovating and creating value. Why these opposing mindsets? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein explain why some people are experiencing anxiety about the future while others are staying cool and calm.
Highlights:
Some people see “scary times” as opportunities.
The people who we expect to be in charge are responding not only to an event, but to other people’s responses.
The majority of people are less prepared now for something different to happen.
Strategies, tools, and concepts have prepared Strategic Coach® clients to not be shaken by whatever happens.
If your confidence comes from inside yourself, you can find a way to be confident in any situation.
When people feel uncertain, they hold onto their money.
Entrepreneurs should have enough security to go one or two quarters without worrying about cash flow.
In uncertain times, it’s your job to keep your team members’ confidence up every day.
Make sure you come out of uncertain times with the same team power you went into it with.
When your clients are uncertain about their futures, your job is to enable them to create a new future for themselves.
Everyone is 100% responsible for their own feelings.
If you’re immersed in just getting your job done, it’s easy to ignore what’s going on in the outside world.
Resources:
StartUp Health
The Dan Sullivan Question by Dan Sullivan
“Geometry” For Staying Cool & Calm by Dan Sullivan
The Strategic Coach® Signature Program
Scary Times Success Manual by Dan Sullivan
The Positive Focus®
Thinking About Your Thinking by Dan Sullivan
My Plan For Living To 156 by Dan Sullivan
Capitalism—And Everything Else by Dan Sullivan
Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein discuss Dan’s latest quarterly book, Capitalism—And Everything Else, and explain what capitalism really means, why many people believe they don’t like it, why it’s misunderstood, and its five growth stages.
Highlights:
Some people incorrectly approach capitalism as a rival to ideologies like communism and fascism.
Capitalism isn’t in competition with anything.
Capitalism involves capitalizing on your own talent and time, your production, your abilities, your profitability, and on living in a world of greater prosperity.
Communism, feudalism, fascism, and Nazism aren’t methodologies, they’re ideologies.
If you multiply the impact of your uniqueness over a span of years, you’ll have done it through the methods of capitalism.
There’s a deep emotional element to success from capitalistic activities such as building a business and entrepreneurship.
Systems that are anti-capitalist in their ideologies invariably use capitalist methods to achieve success.
Wherever capitalist methodology is followed, things improve.
Some people are bothered by capitalist methodology because it demands extraordinary individual accountability.
Philanthropic efforts often fall flat because they don’t operate within a capitalistic framework.
Resources:
Capitalism—And Everything Else by Dan Sullivan
Thinking About Your Thinking by Dan Sullivan
The Strategic Coach Program
Steven Krein and StartUp Health
Ever wondered what the success formula is for top entrepreneurs? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss the “25-Year Transformation” and how it can benefit entrepreneurs by helping them prioritize their biggest goals and measure progress every quarter. They explain how having a quarterly rhythm can be transformational, and provide insights into how to achieve long-term goals, adapt to advancements in technology and crises in the marketplace, and maintain a transformational mindset.
Highlights:
Resources:
StartUp Health
The Strategic Coach® Program
Free Zone Frontier by Dan Sullivan
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy
Unique Ability®
The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management (Free Days™)
Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss the Free Zone Frontier® and the StartUp Health programs. They both believe it’s crucial to have the right people in the room, sharing their experiences and collaborating. Connecting like this with a community of ambitious, calm entrepreneurs makes it possible to experience five years’ progress in three months.
What does it take to make a significant impact in battling a disease? In this third episode of their three-part series, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Dr. Timothy Nelson discuss the innovative model Tim has developed for combatting congenital heart disease, the incredible commitment from others that it’s taken to reach this point, and how many other areas of medicine could be influenced by the work he and his partners are doing.
An astonishing discovery has taken the concept of stem cell usage and regenerative medicine and put it permanently on the map for future generations. In this second of their three-part series, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Dr. Timothy Nelson discuss the latest breakthroughs and possibilities that exist in stem cell research. Free Zone collaborations are making it all possible!
Dr. Timothy Nelson is an entrepreneur with a specialty in curing congenital heart disease. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein chat with Tim about the discoveries and motivations that led him to this position. Tim explains how he and his team are on a mission to leverage the philanthropic community to focus on rare diseases that are too often neglected. Join the show to learn about some incredible, and almost inconceivable, breakthroughs that have occurred in just the past few years.
Why do some startup companies continually grow, while most fail? You need more than a great idea. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss the successes of Steve’s unique, collaborative StartUp Health network, the mindsets entrepreneurs need in order to achieve the greatest success, and the things they do that most entrepreneurs won’t even think about.
On the cutting edge of the construction, Carson Holmquist creates the most value for his clients by exploring opportunities in off-site and modular construction. In the second episode of a two-part series, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Carson explain how to innovate when an industry feels too established for any wholesale change.
Carson Holmquist is a true innovator in the field of construction, and a member of the Free Zone Frontier program at Strategic Coach. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein share what has allowed Carson to thrive, in what ways everyone involved is benefiting, and how he sees the future of modular construction.
Every entrepreneur has something to offer their clients, but most of them attempt to make convincing arguments rather than compelling offers. Dan Sullivan and Steven Krein continue their conversation and highlight the differences between the two approaches, and how you can use this to effectively sell your solutions.
There’s a big difference between convincing someone with an argument and compelling them to take action with an offer. And in the market world where we all live, people don’t want to be convinced—they want to be compelled. Join Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein to learn the differences between convincing and compelling, and the very different effects each has on your customers and clients.
Too many entrepreneurs don’t spend enough time focusing on issues related to their intellectual property early on in the development of their companies. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein share why you need to value your ideas, and the steps you need to take to protect that value.
In this constantly changing political and economic landscape, entrepreneurs can benefit greatly from understanding intellectual property. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein continue their discussion with Keegan Caldwell, founder of one of the fastest-growing IP firms in the world, about what entrepreneurs should know when it comes to their IP.
The importance of intellectual property is undeniable, but not everyone knows as much about their own IP situation as they should. In this second episode of a three-part series, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein chat with Keegan Caldwell, the founder of an intellectual property law firm, who explains how IP law can benefit entrepreneurs beyond just protecting their creations.
There are many exciting ways in which entrepreneurship and law overlap. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and special guest Keegan Caldwell discuss the issues from all sides, including intellectual property and how lawyers and entrepreneurs can best communicate. Keegan helps clients defend their intellectual property assets. Have a listen to hear how that’s done!
Age reversal has been a hot topic for about 20 years, and there are more factors at play in its advancement than you might think. In this episode, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and guest Regan Archibald talk about the great strides that have been made and what needs to happen for even further advancement in this field that will impact us all.
It’s possible that, through the right set of circumstances, health-care advancements can allow people to have longer lives. In fact, all of the necessary ingredients already exist. Dan Sullivan, Steven Krein, and special guest Regan Archibald discuss what needs to happen in order for health care to help people extend their lives.
Join Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein as they revisit one of the earliest episodes to share the mindsets that were critical in the creation of the Free Zone Frontier. You’ll learn how to start thinking 100x about your company, and how that opens up enormous possibilities. To have a huge impact, you need to think huge. And taking your business to that level might be easier than you think.
While it can take years for an entrepreneur to establish credibility in their industry and marketplace, it can be destroyed in moments. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explain why credibility is so important for entrepreneurs, various ways it can be established and built on—and the risks of losing it.
Cash and confidence are rewards for entrepreneurs, but there are steps that need to be taken before they appear. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explain the process that you will need to go through to create something profitable and the dangers of skipping important steps.
There are many overlaps between entrepreneurship and both American business and American politics. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and guests Matthew Pinsker and Howard Getson discuss the entrepreneurial mindset and structures displayed by Abraham Lincoln and other former U.S. presidents.
While many entrepreneurial companies eventually get stuck in their growth, Paul Abel devised ways and designed systems to help others avoid traps and bypass competition. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein continue their conversation with Paul about his strategies and why they’re so effective for modern entrepreneurs.
Paul Abel was a successful franchise owner, but going up against government regulations, he always lost. Fifteen years ago, inspired by an experience he had with a workplace injury, Paul decided to start his own business informing employers how to avoid fines and lawsuits. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Paul cover the responsibilities of employers as they relate to government regulations.
With so many media platforms out there, it’s hard to know which you should be spending your time on. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and special guest Nick Nanton explain how you can most effectively reach your desired audience—and keep them engaged and interested. If you don’t become part of the story happening all around you, you’ll become irrelevant very quickly. If you engage with a platform like it’s just a hobby, you won’t get the same results as you would if you engaged with it at a professional level.
After 15 years as an entrepreneur working with celebrities, Nick Nanton has made the shift to helping other entrepreneurs stand out in the marketplace. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein chat with Nick about his personal growth, what’s changed, and what’s the same. Since entrepreneurs were not meant to work for other people, a sign of business wisdom is being able to make complex things simple. Being authentic is critical, as is sharing your vision with the best collaborators you can find.
An entrepreneur’s proper role can be as the explainer, the contextualizer, and the protector of a vision. If you can’t find great people to work with on that, it might be that great people aren’t looking for you. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and guest Brett Kaufman explain what makes for the best entrepreneurial collaborations—and collaborators. Find out how to find great people to work with and how to be a great person to work with.
Too often, people focus on the negatives of what’s changed, but the past year has shown that entrepreneurs are in a position to adapt quickly and even step up their game. During the lockdown, a lot of people re-evaluated what they actually like doing and are taking action to do more of that. In this episode, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and guest Brett Kaufman explain how it’s possible to flourish if you have the right mindset.
Everyone acts and thinks differently depending on who they’re dealing with. Part of what dictates this are the differences in how people see you. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and guest Howard Getson discuss the kinds of people who raise your capability, the best tools to communicate with them, and the kinds of people who limit your thinking. If you’re still emotional about something that happened a long time ago, it’s possible you’ve not over it. Stay in constant motion to correct your course.
While some entrepreneurs are satisfied once they reach a certain status, others are always moving onto the next stage no matter what. Join Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and special guest Howard Getson to learn how decision-making processes are discovery processes, and why creating technology to handle unpleasant tasks might be easier than you thought.
The best entrepreneurs are always looking to improve by gathering useful tools and concepts and by coaching others. Knowing how to present new information to entrepreneurs is critical because they often don't have the patience to sit through a deep analysis of problems. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and guest Dean Jackson share what’s worked best for them in terms of both entrepreneurial learning and also coaching others to gain clarity for themselves.
There’s at least some uncertainty in a lot of ventures, and entrepreneurs can do the best job if they acknowledge the uncertainty instead of pretending to know everything. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and guest Dean Jackson explain the value of believing in your projects and how uncertainty itself can shape how well they develop.
In one of our most popular episodes, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explore how confidence isn’t always obvious in your communication with other people. It’s often clear when you’ve given way to others’ skepticism and you’re no longer sold on what you’re talking about. The key to remaining in your ‘Free Zone’ is to hold an unwavering belief in the projects and collaborations you’ve created. This will draw only the best people to you who can see your vision and want to participate in its growth.
It often happens that once an entrepreneur finds success, what led to their company’s success can go missing. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Lisa Cini discuss ways in which entrepreneurs can continue creating value once their company has grown. In order to achieve a big goal, you might need to look decades ahead and to big collaborations. You have to stay in touch with the emerging capability that got you started, and keep going back year after year.
Let’s jump back to the episode that started it all! The essence of a “Free Zone”—a brand new realm of value creation where there is no competition. This idea of forging ahead into new, competition-free “frontiers” has become the foundation of the program and is unique and particular to the experience of entrepreneurs.
Most Americans can’t afford health care in addition to food, transportation, and shelter, but one entrepreneur has created a way to make it accessible to everyone. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein welcome David Berg to explain his system for providing health care to employees with no funding wasted on administration or unnecessary costs.
Even if two entrepreneurs are at the top of their game, that doesn’t mean they’re the right fit to work together. Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Lee Richter explain how everyone is either a Simplifier or a Multiplier, and how the best work happens when one joins forces with the other. You’ll know if you’re a Simplifier or a Multiplier based on your first impulse to take action in a typical situation. It’s important to learn if you’ve been acting in a role in which you don’t fit, and find someone to work with who can complement your vision.
Some entrepreneurs find that their industry is actually working against innovation and breakthroughs. It can be incredibly difficult to go against the status quo in this case, but it’s easier if you’re not working alone. In this episode, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Lee Richter discuss challenges they face in the healthcare industry and what entrepreneurs need to have in common in order to collaborate.
Worrying about cash flow is one of the main reasons why entrepreneurs hold themselves back from exciting opportunities. In this episode, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Lee Richter explain how having total cash confidence means you can engage in the best and most profitable collaborations and projects.
Most entrepreneurs choose to operate alone, and while they can still be successful, there are dangers that come with isolation. What if there were a better way? Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss why it’s critical to be part of a community, and how it’s vital that everyone involved has the right mindset to move forward fearlessly during good times and bad.
During “scary times,” entrepreneurs can be among the most effective, positive contributors. Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein continue offering strategies, including forgetting about what’s missing and focusing on what’s available. There will be a period after this in which the general public will be more thankful, and complain and criticize less. It’s good for morale to have tangible proof that productive work is getting done every day.
While many people in the world are isolating themselves and being alone with their own fears, a lot of entrepreneurs want to help but aren’t sure what they can do. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein provide a list of strategies for being useful in a time of crisis.
What tools do the biggest companies in the world use? You might be surprised to learn that they’re the same tools they used at the very beginning. In this episode, Dan and Steve explain how the farthest-reaching and most profitable companies have found success by staying focused and eliminating as much complexity as possible.
Every entrepreneur would be happier without competition in their life, but you have to make the choice to stop competing. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explain how to focus on unique value creation and collaborations instead of paying attention to what your competitors are doing.
If you’re an entrepreneur with a big vision who never wants to stop growing, there are steps to getting there and certain mindsets that you need to have. In this episode, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Kevin Brady talk about cash confidence, recognizing your role, and entering into collaborations with the right kind of people.
There’s a lot of improvement that can be made in the health care industry, but it’s not going to happen by itself. In this episode, Dan Sullivan, Steve Krein, and Kevin Brady explain how certain kinds of collaboration are necessary and give examples of how such collaboration is leading to huge improvements and benefits.
Many entrepreneurs only look so far ahead, which limits what they can envision achieving. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein explain how having a bigger framework can lead to bigger success and collaborations.
Like many fields, health care often involves entrepreneurs working independently, but StartUp Health is different. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Steve Krein discuss how the supportive, ambitious, global community was created, and how it operates.
From The Game Changer, to Free Zone Frontier.
The essence of a “Free Zone”—a brand new realm of value creation where there is no competition. This idea of forging ahead into new, competition-free “frontiers” has become the foundation of the program, and unlike “Game Changer” which has become a ubiquitous term on many different fronts, is unique and particular to the experience of entrepreneurs.