Notes from final MM call of the year with Ryan Levesque and the

NLM family, December 17, 2015 by Katie Karlovitz

This call was fascinating in its emphasis on the power of words
when stripped down to their essence, and the only way to release
that power is to think things through. When you can distill your
beliefs on a variety of subjects down to a single word, youll have
gained a deeper understanding of your core values.
Ryan compared his top 10 beliefs of 2014 to those of 2015, and
told us two of them are now off his list-hes changed his mind.
In 2014, they were:
1) define a category of one (not sure what this means)
2) double down on whats working
3) fancier wrapping paper doesnt make me more money
4) a lot of people talk a good game (few deliver)
5) you have to kiss a few frogs (dont give up)
6) part time experts, full time execution
7 BHAG + Broken Down = $$$
8) 80/20 rules everything. I mean everything.
9) simple attracts money, complexity repels it
10) screw it just do it
Can you guess which 2 are off the list? Most on the call couldnt
but they are 3 & 6. Ryan discovered that in order to provide a
premium user experience, they would have to invest more energy
(in terms of time and money.) He spoke later of the only thing
people are paying for now is a transformative experience.
He cited a recent example of a weekend program that he and
Tylene flew a chef in to cater for his group at the hotel they were

inhealthy, fresh ingredients that made a vast difference in how

the group felt and greatly enhanced their experience. In past
years, theyd simply gone with the hotel chef, but this added
effort really took things to a higher level.
Another way that hell be upgrading is in the membership site.
Plain wrapping paper days are over for us. This should be fun.
As to #6, hes found that letting go of his need for perfection
(meaning some days its ok to let his kids dress themselves even if
it means they wear their underpants backwards) is actually a good
thingless he has to monitor. He discovered the same lesson this
year while working with his teamyou have to be willing to let
them make mistakes, to even anticipate that they will. Its ok.
This freed up more time in his workweek to do the important
things, such as spending time with his children.
2015- This year, Ryan had another list of 10 ideas and all were
distilled down to a single word. He did this exercise at a LEAP
retreat and it goes like this:
1) write out your biggest insights from the weekend-your AHA
momentscircle the one thats most significant to you, and
from that, boil it all down to a single word.
2) Everyone in the group reads their sentence, and then their
word aloud.

Here is his Top 10 list of words for this year:

#10- Less. As in less is more. His aim is now to go deeper in his

approach in business & home life. This means fewer emails per
week to the group, in order to go more in depth on the topics.
Fewer calls of partner promos, cutting back from 2/month to
6/year. This forces selectivity and enhances user experience.
He mentioned this book that Tylene is reading:

and the FB group lit up-many of us are reading it and loving it. On
the home front, he realized that he doesnt need to stress about
wardrobe so he can easily supply himself with 10 shirts from
Target and call it a day.
#9- Choose. You cant do it all, nor should you even try, so what
do you really want?
His own company is an example-he grew it to such a size in 2015
when he launched his agency, that he no longer felt the strong
connection that hed had when it was smaller. He had to hire
some people and then fire some people before concluding that he
was spread too thin. He could either be a world-class agency or a
world-class educator but not both. He had to choose and
discerned that for him, education is in his DNA.
Hell also accept fewer speaking engagements going forward,
making sure that the ones he commits to are exactly what he
wants, rather than running all over the place every time someone
asks him to speak.
#8- Fit. If the shoe fits, wear it. If not, get one that does. This
applies to the team you hire and the business models you choose.
Its possible to have the right person in the wrong position, or the
right person for now but not necessarily going forward, as the
stakes get higher. He gave a sports analogy where you can see
lots of people at the recreational level at the field or ball park, but
very few of them will make it to the pros. As the game changes,
not everyone on your team will be able to play. His own advisor is
Annie Pratt, whos an expert on scaling up in big business (she
grew Coffee Bean from 7 stores to 70 when she was CEO of it)
Annie says there are two types of fit in business:

a) culture
b) competency
Your intention should be less about selling and more about
determining the right fit for your client.
#7- Safety. Here he played the one word exercise again. For
Ryan, his word would be ASK. For Jeff Walker, Launch. For Annie
Pratt, Safety. She encouraged Ryan to get out of his day-to-day
role in over-seeing business in order to focus on his vision and
strategies. He had to make his team feel that it was safe for them
to step up so he didnt need to drive every decision himself.
In order to make them feel safe, he had to ensure that they are
encouraged to speak the truth, rather than yessing him to death.
And he let them know that it was ok to mess up. This was
challenging for him (Type A, self-confessed) especially when the
mistakes being made were costly. This was meaningful to Ryan.
He said being a CEO is 2 jobs- one of predicting (envisioning) and
one of delegating (managing.)
#6- Experience. This one was an epiphany for him. He spoke of
the Star Wars event he just attended- how the booming music,
people in costume and general frisson in the air made for a highly
effective and memorable event. This led to him asking What
experience can I offer thats comparable?
Flying the chef in for his event was one way to up the ante. He
went further by giving each person a gift basket of healthy food
sourced locally.
Then he really outdid himself when he gave everyone a Lego
superhero figure, carefully chosen for each person. It was a huge

hitall of these extras became essential to the ultimate

experience.
# 5- Buy. Buy yourself a little something nice. Fly first class, stay
at the Ritz-Carlton, and be a consumer of whatever it is that
youre selling yourself. Get yourself coaching/advice in order to
experience the value of being a buyer.
# 4- ASK. When Inc.com just listed Ryans book at #1 in the
country for biz books, he became afraid. He wondered if so many
new users of his method would somehow diminish its value? In
fact the opposite proved true. Before ASK he was generating
14,000 leads/month; after ASK hes at 100,000 leads/month. The
moral is hes seen happier customers making more money than
ever. The only ones losing out are the ones not implementing
ASK.
#3- Legacy. In other words my why. Dr. Robin Brooks says
there are 4 types- wheel drivers if you will, in business.
They are: those who seek mastery (the how of it) those who want
purpose (why is it) those looking for belonging (who are my
peeps) and those craving autonomy (where or when shall I)
Ryan allowed that being one whos always focused on mastery, he
never thought to ask what his purpose was. He had an epiphany
around this on a retreat, when he realized that he feels a duty to
educate people about on-line marketing, to all who have made
sacrifices because they believe so firmly in him.
He went on to deride the idea that freedom is put on a pedestal
as a self-serving cause (The 4 Hour Work Week) but if you have
freedom without doing any particular good in the world, freedom

by itself is empty. He wants to see more people who have a duty

to help the world, instead of themselves alone. He also said that
anyone who claims success and freedom from working hard is
either lying about their success or lying about not working hard.
He does acknowledge the value of freedom, but its not at the top
of his list. He wants to work with people who value discovery,
confidence, freedom, reflection, mastery, impact, and legacy. I
want to work with people at level 7-legacy he told us.
#2-Confidence. This is the single most important thing we must
all be vigilant about protecting, because haters are determined to
hate and we dont want to let that energy in. Those who dont
want you to succeed are the ones who need to justify their own
lack of effort. Stand up for your beliefs, and dont let the haters
get you down.
Dont be afraid to be vulnerable while building your confidence.
He said that when he included his letter in ASK, he was quite
concerned about being so unguarded. Though never his original
intention, he decided to go with it and its the most loved/hated
part of ASK.
He advised putting all of your negative feedback into batches, to
be reviewed infrequently on days when youre feeling especially
strong and in the right frame of mind. See if you can spot any
patterns emerging from the comments-if perchance theres
something valuable that youve been missing.
#1- Gratitude. He labeled this the penicillin for entrepreneurs,
and its able to cure just about anything. When his server went
down recently, instead of getting uptight, he was able to feel
gratitude for his team and his circumstances in being able to

afford them and the equipment, despite a temporary snag. He

thinks its a good practice to end each day with a list of what
youre grateful for. He said he was inspired to do this by the NLM
group, and hes grateful to us!
For 2016:
#1- Upgrade. Membership site and other places.
#2- Book. Yes, hes at it againstay tuned.
#3- Launch. We are 90 days from a pinnacle flagship online
training center, with the goal of delivering transformation in your
business.
Theres an Ask Me Anything coming up on New Years Eve.