8
IS GENIUS NETWORK A SCAM?
"I WALKED AWAY WITH IDEAS THAT COULD 10X
IF NOT 100X MY BUSINESS AND THE NUMBERS
OF SOME PEOPLE WHO’D ALREADY DONE IT
THEMSELVES."
food being served and never had to worry
about having to speak in front of this
intimidating group. Or so I thought.
“Why don’t we hear Anna’s thoughts?”
They were the most terrifying six words
I’d ever heard and they were coming from
Polish’s mouth roughly a half hour into the
meeting. I ran upstairs, heart palpitating,
to share my new career insights, pretending
I wasn’t speaking to the largest group of
successful people I’d ever come across. It
was like being temporarily promoted from
the kids’ table to the adults one if the adult
table had 50 people at it all smiling at me as
I held a mic and explained my epiphanies.
By the time I came upstairs to share,
I’d realized that this was no scam. Just
hearing one longtime Genius Network
attendee mention that the best way to
get the most out of the experience was
to not let one connection go by, I saw
that I could spend decades pursuing
connections to people like this, untold sums
of money and still end up not knowing
them. Time check: 15 minutes in.
After a brain dump (an exercise where we
spent two minutes writing about everything
that was taking up mental space) and a
diversion into the benefits of blue-blocking
glasses—entrepreneur coach Alex Charfen,
who would occasionally duck downstairs
to shoot Facebook Live videos, swore they
allowed him to sleep less and be more
productive—we got into the intros.
Joel Weldon, an ever-smiling dead ringer
for director Garry Marshall, described his
speaker coaching business. Lee Richter
GENIUSNETWORK.COM
talked about her marketing company,
Annie Hyman-Pratt her experience as CEO
of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (she, for the
record, 10X’d that business). And so on.
But rather than just leaving the rest of the
attendees with a notion of who they were,
everyone had to clarify where they needed
help. Some of the requests were fairly
general (“I’m trying to create more strategic
alliances”) while others were as specific
as specific gets: take Bedros Keuilian, the
founder of Fit Body Bootcamp, who said
he’d like help getting 50,000 copies of his
book into the hands of entrepreneurs.
And then we moved into
our first presentation.
It was about how to have the perfect day
and it came from Canadian personal
development guru Craig Ballantyne.
Ballantyne’s speech was undeniably
effective even before he explained that he
developed these methods after suffering
from crippling anxiety attacks. And yet the
most illuminating part of the talk was what
followed—when Joel Weldon provided
feedback. Because Ballantyne’s presentation
focused just as much on personal success
as on career success, Weldon suggested
that instead of asking people to simply
picture their life with the partner, telling
them to imagine waking up with warm
feet next to them in bed. In an instant,
the audience is emotionally connected.
More worksheets followed—sheets where
we filled out where we are and where we
want to go, “Elegant Ideas” sheets where
we jotted down new concepts occurring to
us and then one called “Write Yourself a
Swimming Pool,” which had the following
Paul McCartney quote printed at the top:
“Somebody said to me, ‘But the Beatles
were anti-materialistic. That’s a huge myth.
John and I literally used to sit down and
say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool.’”
To me, the Swimming Pool sheet embodied
the philosophy of this group: essentially,
that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to
make money. While the overly PC would
surely balk at this notion and run out of
the room shrieking “Capitalists!” the irony
the capitalist-shriekers probably wouldn’t
see is that the single most significant focus
of this group is on helping others. In
12-step terms, members learn that it’s in
being of service to others that they most
help themselves. And, like magic, that
pays off 10-fold—in turn transforming a
blow up plastic pool into an infinity one.
More exercises and talks followed—one
from a seven-months-pregnant wealth
planning firm COO named Brittany
Anderson about how to eliminate toxic
people from your life being a highlight—
and arguably the most exhausting
day of my life came to a close.
Fortified by sleep, an epic massage, more
gluten free muffins and Bulletproof
coffee, I was ready for day two. By now,
the 25K-ers felt somewhere between old
friends and people with whom I’d survived
a natural disaster. I’d learned about Kevin
Thompson’s desire to find entrepreneur
affiliates, real estate guru Rick Harmon’s
spiritual practice and Joe Foley’s printing
business, among many other bits.
But nothing could have prepared me
for the day’s first talk: a life-changing
presentation by real estate investor and
infomercial king Dean Graziosi. (Graziosi
is Polish’s partner in Genius Network’s
100K group.) True confession: I’d always
considered infomercials a bit cheesy. True
confession number two: I’m actually in
an infomercial for Leeza Gibbons’ Sheer