Episode 59 Geoff Woods: How to surround yourself with highly successful people [PODCAST]

Today’s guest, Geoff Woods is a highly successful sales professional in his own rite. He’s been operating in the business world at high levels for years and recently decided to take a few years to establish his own forms of online business that could provide passive income for him over the long haul. But he didn’t do it like many who dive in with no safety net. He’s keeping his full time job and working hard for the day when he can replace his full time income entirely. The main strategy he’s taken is to produce a podcast that airs the mentoring sessions he has with 5 highly successful business people he’s been able to connect with. The Mentee podcast is a huge hit and Geoff’s already on his way to stepping out of his full time job within the next year. Hear David’s great chat with Geoff on this episode.

The difficulties of moving toward a new entrepreneurial venture.

Geoff Woods began his foray into the online space through doing it as a side hustle. He still works his full time, 6 figure job while developing a business that will support him through passive income in the future. It’s not been an easy transition. Since he’s not taken the plunge all at once by quitting his job, Geoff sees his family for an hour every morning and a couple of hours every evening, then he’s at the computer building his business. How does he do it and keep his family life healthy at the same time? That’s one of the topics he and David dive into on this episode so you’ll want to give it a listen to hear how he and his wife have partnered together to make it happen.

Purposefully bringing influencers into your life.

There’s an old saying, “You are the average of the 5 most influential people in your life.” When Geoff Woods heard that saying it struck a chord in him and he began looking around to see who those 5 people were. He didn’t like what he discovered. That’s the moment when he made the conscious decision to seek out and find 5 people who were more successful and more accomplished than he was and figure out ways to surround himself with those people. What’s happened as a result is staggering. You’ll hear his entire story on this episode as well as receive Geoff’s advice on how you can go about developing the skills that would cause people more successful than you to want to be around you. That’s a deal you won’t want to miss!

What is passive income and why is it important?

There’s no such thing as “passive income” in the sense that you never have to do anything to earn it. Truly passive income requires plenty of hard work on the front end as you get your strategies and systems in place to keep the income flow coming. But once you have it operating and the systems fine tuned, the income continues to come in whether you get out of bed in the morning or not. That’s the kind of income today’s guest, Geoff Wood, is heading toward. It’s his goal to have his family entirely supported by passive income within a few short years so that he can step out of his 9 to 5 job (that he loves) and spend more time with his family full time. You can hear Geoff’s amazing story on this episode.

A sure fire way to NOT hang around with successful people.

One of the mistakes that David T.S. Wood and his guest, Geoff Wood, have seen up and coming entrepreneurs do over and over is to approach a person of influence with a request. You may have something that the successful person could truly help you with, but you don’t want to start your relationship with them by asking for something. The most important thing you can do is to add value to their lives in some way, whether that’s by making introductions they might find helpful, offering to do something for them just to help out, or by showing yourself to be a willing student of anything they’d be happy to pass on to you. But if you start out by asking for things, they’ll be sure not to be around the next time you come calling.