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Key points
- The main contributor to success is how much you can help other people.
- Addiction is prevalent in the business world, but recovery and business success have the same common denominator.
- Performance addiction can be as debilitating as any other form of addiction.
Most entrepreneurs at the top of their game don’t reveal the mistakes they’ve made, let alone the depths of their darkest times.
Joe Polish is not like most entrepreneurs.
The mastermind behind modern-day masterminds, Polish attracts entrepreneurs in all fields to his Genius Network, where, at costs ranging from $25,000 to $100,000 a year, leaders get to connect with each other. Their meetings cover marketing strategies, sales techniques, and other ways to make money, but Polish also shares with his group about his former addictions.
Now Polish has published a book, What's in It for Them, which provides a surprisingly spiritual approach to success that’s actually quite similar to the recommended path for recovery from addiction—in short, that helping other people is the key to success.
I spoke to Polish about his book, the prevalence of addiction in the business world, and how to protect yourself from the takers in the world.
AD: Why did you write this book now?
JP: Because I wanted to protect the givers of the world from the takers—the sociopaths, the narcissists, and the psychopaths. I also wrote it for myself—so I can remember how important it is that the people who interact with me and come into my world have relationship traits that I would want.
I wrote it in a lot of ways to win the right friends and influence the right people. But I also wrote it so people could take this book and use it for their teams, use it for their friends, use it for their family. It’s to actually empower the givers of the world to be better-boundaried so they're less taken advantage of by the takers of the world.
AD: Would you say addiction is common in the in the business world?
JP: Absolutely. The biggest are work, alcohol, and caffeine. But these are very functional addicts. I also see a lot of performance addiction, deal-making addiction, status addiction, crypto addiction, gambling addiction. There are a lot of behavioral addictions that very high-level functional people have. And those are the trickiest to see. It’s easy for us to get compulsively caught up in performance addiction.
AD: What can someone in that situation do?
JP: Well, what happens with a lot of people is they're too afraid to walk into a therapist’s office or a 12-step group and deal with their shit so they start a podcast interviewing therapists as if that's the same thing. It's better than doing nothing. But it ain't the same as doing the work.
When I spoke at a recent event, I put up a big overhead slide that said, GYMS DON’T WORK. And I said, “I can’t tell you how many times people have come to me in the recovery world and said the 12 steps don't work. And I'll say to them that most of the people that say the 12 steps don't work have never been to a 12-step group. And if they have, they've only been to maybe one or two meetings, and they just sat there and didn't do the steps.” It’s not an attendance group. It is a step group, and for people that do the work, the recovery rate is quite high. You wouldn't join a gym and go sit on the bench and say, “Gyms don't work.”
AD: What else does your book focus on?
JP: A big part of the book talks about being a pain detective and getting people to focus on being useful and helpful to other people, which is also one of the principles of the 12 steps: You have to give it away in order to keep it.
It’s about not having taker energy. People talk about servant leadership, but how many people are really out there doing it day in, day out? Do they really ask the question, “What's in it for them?” Are they really looking to bond and connect with people in a place of pain? It’s about thinking: how can I help invest time, attention, money, effort, and energy in relationships?
AD: Why do you think taker energy is so prevalent in the business world?
JP: Well, you have things like that Zig Ziglar quote: "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want. But you can help a lot of people get what they want and they won't do a damn thing for you. And the more you do for them, the more they will realize they can abuse you and take advantage of you because givers are wired to give and takers are wired to take."
If you're a giver, you are a target for takers, and the world is filled with them. And often people are trained through selling, through marketing, through persuasion, through social media, that they're entitled to get opportunities without having to do anything.
And if you have a bunch of people that are gaslighting the globe, people have a hard time thinking well, why should I be a decent person? Why should I care about other people when it just seems like the people that take advantage are the ones that are in charge and making all the money?
And the challenge with that sort of attitude is, one, it's not an accurate representation of a real successful person, since most of our external exposure to people is media, movies, music and politics. And when it comes to real connection, people who really have deep relationships usually aren’t broadcasting that because they're too busy just living their own lives.
AD: Are people in the business world ever freaked out when you talk about addiction?
JP: Not really. I just spoke at one of the marketing world’s biggest conferences where I started by asking, “What do you want to know?” Half the conversation wasn't about business but about addiction.
