Power of the Rockefeller Effect

Around the time of the Depression, a young entrepreneur was the number one printer in New York City. However, his attitude was bad, and he started to lose clients, team members, and even his family. Before long, he couldn’t sustain being in business, and found himself unable to pay his bills. Things got so bad that he even considered suicide. While sitting on a bench in Central Park, he encountered a distinguished elderly gentleman. The young entrepreneur told the story of what was wrong in his life, and the elderly gentleman handed him a check for $1 million, asking him to come back in a year and explain what he had done with the money. He looked at the check, saw the name John D. Rockefeller Jr. in the corner, and excitedly thought that his life was finally changing for the better. Instead of cashing the check, he carefully tucked it away in his safe, resolving to see what he could do without it. Over time, he won back his customers, his children, his vendors, and eventually his wife. The important thing to note here is that his skills hadn’t changed at all; the only difference was his attitude. Within a year, he was number one again. He brought the uncashed check back to the park bench a year later, only to find that the man who had given him the check was not actually John D. Rockefeller Jr. As this shows, belief can be just as important as reality. This story illustrates the be-do-have scenario: you become the person you need to be, do the things that person would do, and finally have the things that person would have. The idea that you need to have before you can do or be is backwards. In this episode, you’ll learn about all of this, as well as how to get A-players to join your team (believe it or not, salary is reason #5!), why beliefs determine behavior instead of the other way around, why B-players and A-players don’t like each other, why attitude isn’t learnable, and much more. Tune in to learn all these powerful insights that you can apply to your business! In This Episode: [02:06] - Alex talks about the three key insights into becoming an ethical influencer that you’ll learn in this episode. [02:50] - We hear a story (that may or may not be true) that illustrates the importance of having a good attitude. [04:58] - Within the story Alex is telling, the young entrepreneur encounters an elderly man who will change the course of his life. [07:34] - Alex takes a quick break from his story to point out that more millionaires were created during the Depression than at any other time during the history of the United States. [11:15] - The young entrepreneur came back to the bench a year later, as planned. Alex explores the surprising turn of events that happened then. [11:56] - Alex talks about the moral of the story, and what we can take away from it. [10:19] - One of the keys is “going first” and being vulnerable with the people you want to change your relationship with. [13:30] - Alex brings up Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Mother Teresa as examples of the point he has been making. [14:18] - The Alexism for this story is this: you don’t need a parachute to skydive. You just need a parachute to skydive more than once. [15:14] - How does this story and its lessons apply to your business? [16:32] - Alex offers advice he learned from Brad Smart, the author of Topgrading. [19:18] - We hear about Jack Welch’s strategy to encourage high performance, as well as the story of Jim Carrey’s check to himself. [20:35] - Alex recaps the insights that he has covered in today’s episode, as well as the story of a team winning due to their attitude. [22:30] - Speaking of reviews, if you haven’t already reviewed a previous episode of this podcast, please go to this link and type in your biggest takeaway from this episode as a review! [23:20] - Alex offers listeners a final gift in honor of this seventh episode: a free copy of his book Alexisms! To learn how to get your free book, tune into the episode. Links and Resources: Alex Mandossian MarketingOnline.com Skipio - where mass business texting gets personal! Alexisms by Alex Mandossian All Selling Aside on iTunes Topgrading by Brad Smart Jack Welch Jim Carrey Jim Valvano