(dramatic music)
Now, there's six levels of ability, how many levels?
[Dan And Audience Members] Six.
Now, first level you have brilliant, what is it?
[Audience Members] Brilliant.
Then you have great, you have what?
[Audience Members] Great.
Let's try that again, you have what?
[Audience Members] Great.
Now, I want you to yell back
the answer, it keeps the energy what?
[Audience Members] Up high.
Does that sound high to you, fuck.
(audience laughing)
Man, keep the energy what?
[Audience Members] Up!
That's better, then you have what, third level, good?
[Audience Members] Good!
And then you have what? Average.
And then you have? Poor!
Poor, and then you have?
[Dan And Audience Members] Terrible!
First task I want you to do, I want you to take a minute,
I want you to write down the three tasks, how many?
[Audience Members] Three!
Three, that you're brilliant at.
You are absolutely brilliant at.
Just three, tasks or skills.
Some of you might be thinking, I don't have one.
(audience laughing)
Then we need to talk. (chuckles)
(audience laughing)
Three that you're brilliant at.
- [Audience Member] I have three.
Okay, anybody who doesn't have three?
Okay, two? Yeah, okay, good, okay.
Here's what I want you to do, let me give you
an example just to show, to illustrate.
So, I'm only brilliant at three things.
I'm brilliant at business strategies,
I'm brilliant at internet marketing,
and I'm a brilliant communicator,
both verbally and in print, but that's it.
Not brilliant at cooking, not brilliant at mowing lawns,
not brilliant at, you know, cleaning dishes, washing dishes.
Three things, very clear, and that's how I make
all my money, those three things, that's it.
So, whatever, it's brilliant for you.
Now step two, what I want you to do,
I want you to list as many tasks that you're terrible at.
As many as possible, go ahead and do it.
It shouldn't be difficult.
(audience laughing)
List as many tasks as possible you're terrible at.
- [Audience Member] Singing.
Okay, singing, anything you're terrible at.
- [Audience Member] Managing my time.
Yep, in the business context, ideally, for what we do.
We might need 10 minutes for this. (laughs)
Okay, so, many tasks that you're terrible at.
How many have more than five things
on your list that you're terrible at?
How many have 10 things you're terrible at?
Greg. (laughs)
How many have 20 things you're terrible at,
20 things, any of, okay, who thinks you have
the biggest list, gimme a number, how many?
- [Audience Member] 30.
30, anybody can beat 30?
Oh, you're the one, give him a round of applause.
(Dan and audience clapping)
It's a good thing, though, it's a very good thing,
because the next step, what I wanna do is,
at first, what I want you to do, people ask me,
what do I want to start delegating?
I want you to start delegating
only the terrible, only the what?
[Audience Members] Terrible.
The things you're terrible at.
The thing you're not, you're terrible at.
Why, because you learn the lessons of delegating,
you hone your skill with your terrible abilities,
then you want to work your way up from terrible,
and then to average, and then good, and then to great.
You don't just jump to good,
you don't jump to great, from terrible.
Because it's easy to find people
to do the stuff you're terrible at.
I'll say it again, it's easy to find people
to do the stuff you're terrible at, because you are?
- [Audience Member] Terrible.
Terrible at it!
(audience laughing)
It's very simple, anybody can do a better job!
A monkey can do a fucking better job!
Cause you're terrible, not the brilliant,
find stuff from terrible, start from that.
So, give me an example, yell the answer.
What are some of the things you have
that are terrible on your list?
- [Audience Member] Administration.
Administration, yes?
- [Audience Member] Excel spreadsheets.
Excel spreadsheets, how many hate Excel spreadsheets?
(audience member groans)
Okay, good.
- [Audience Member] Same thing.
Same thing, Excel spreadsheet, yes?
- [Audience Member] Management.
Management! Bookkeeping.
Bookkeeping, how many hate bookkeeping?
How many hate bookkeeping, and you
still do your own bookkeeping?
Ah, okay, good.
- [Audience Member] Sales follow up.
Sales follow up, okay, yes?
- [Audience Member] Cleaning up.
Cleaning up, yes, couple more answers, yes?
- [Audience Member] Focusing on a
mundane task for a long period of time.
Mundane task, a long period of time, that's a
little bit vague, but okay, I'll accept that, yes?
Yeah?
(audience member coughs in embarrassment)
He's shy. (audience laughing)
- [Audience Member] Mowing lawns.
Mowing lawns, yes, gimme one, yell it!
Gimme one, come on, yell it out, gimme one.
- [Audience Member] Organizing stuff.
Organizing stuff.
- [Audience Member] Internet.
Internet still, okay.
So, all these things you're terrible at,
you will delegate those first,
then you earn the right, you earn the what?
[Audience Members] The right.
You earn the what?
The right! You earn the what?
[Dan And Audience Members] The right!
To delegate higher and higher tasks.
You earn the right to delegate higher,
you don't get to delegate great and good
overnight, you gotta work your way up.
So here's an exercise, step number three.
I want you to establish a delegation of every task,
right, that you're terrible at, a delegation.
So now you know you have the list, right?
That you're not good at these things,
I want you to take a moment and
establish a delegation for every task.
Who are you gonna delegate to,
how are you gonna delegate it.
Okay, let me give you five minutes for that, go for it.
Any questions, questions, yes, Jill,
go to the mic actually, go to the mic, Jill.
- [Jill] I just wanted to--
Okay.
- [Jill] I just wanted to know your three brilliant things
that you mentioned that you're great at.
Yeah.
- [Jill] Communication--
I just show you.
- [Jill] Strategy and Mark--
Business strategies, internet marketing and communication.
- [Jill] Thank you.
Actually, Jill brought up a good point.
Shh, stop for a second.
Jill brought up a good point, that those
three things that I'm brilliant at,
guess what I'm working on, improving all the time.
- [Audience Member] Those three things.
Those three things, I'm already damn good at it.
Guess what book I'm reading right now,
How to Be a Better Public Speaker.
I'm already a damn good public speaker.
But I make that stronger, because,
write this down, if you spend your life
working on your weaknesses, at the end of your life,
you have a lot of strong weaknesses.
(audience laughing)
If you spend your life working on
your weaknesses, at the end of your life,
you have a lot of strong weaknesses.
I wanna know, this is my strongest skill,
I want to make that even stronger.
I don't even want to, it's like you're running a marathon,
I don't want to be a little bit ahead.
I want my competition to look at me
like, how the fuck does he do that.
I want the distance to be, not like this,
I want it to be like that, it's like you watch a master,
doing his things like, oh shit, like, fuck, man.
How does he do it, I can never do that.
Good, 'cause I don't want him competing.
I want him to look at my skill, shit.
May as well just partner with this guy.
But seriously, when you are that good,
when you're brilliant, the world line up at your front door.
Because very few people are brilliant at anything.
I'm talking world class, not just in Vancouver,
world class, world class, world class.
And you gotta work at it, and you're not gonna get there,
are you gonna get there in a few months?
[Audience Members] No.
No, are you gonna get there in a couple years?
- [Audience Member] Maybe.
You might get to good in a couple of years.
It takes years to be brilliant, a master, yes, Hassan?
- [Hassan] So Dan, like, you're saying,
work on those three brilliant things?
Yes. Rather than focusing on
the weaknesses, but be a master at like those--
Correct. Correct.
- [Hassan] Become like a master--
Master, and you study everything you could, every book
on the subject, go to every seminar on the subject.
- [Hassan] But what if you have, like, weaknesses?
Wouldn't those weaknesses kind of affect, like,
the three brilliant things you're good at?
Okay, wouldn't that, the weaknesses affect the
things you're brilliant at, what is the answer?
- [Audience Member] No.
No, what's the answer, wouldn't
your weaknesses hinder you, hold you back?
- [Audience Member] Yes.
- [Audience Member] Of course it would.
Yes?
- [Audience Member] That's kind of
what my next question was about.
What's the question?
- [Audience Member] You can ask me this, but
my question was, how do you define terrible?
Is it something that you're not good at,
or is it something that you recogni--
Oh, come on, you know what you're terrible at.
(audience laughing)
- [Audience Member] I don't, because there are
some things that take you way more time than
they would have taken a professional, but I'm
happy with the result, am I terrible at them or not?
If it takes you way, if it's, if you're
good at something, should it take you long?
[Audience Members] No.
No, if someone can do it cheaper or maybe not cheaper,
in half the time, the result might be,
you don't know if the result is good.
- [Audience Member] Does that put me in
a terrible, or is that--
Maybe good? Maybe average?
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
But we're started, we want to start
delegating from terrible first.
- [Audience Member] Something where--
You just, you know you suck at it, everybody knows
you suck at it, but you still do it, yes?
- [Audience Member] How do you determine what you
think you're good at and what you're actually good at?
Oh, how do you determine what you're brilliant at?
The truth is, people will tell you, and you'll know.
People will tell you, and usually,
they'll gladly pay you a lot of money for that skill.
Like, you know that when you, example would be,
let's say for me, let's say for,
let me give you an example, real life example.
So when I was still traveling as a professional speaker,
and I was a platform sales speaker,
do you know what a platform sales speaker is?
- [Audience Member] Selling from the stage?
Yeah, you're selling from the stage.
How many of you have seen seminars, and,
you know, there's a speaker, they speak 90 minutes,
you go to the back of the room and you buy some stuff.
Right, whatever they're offering.
So, I was a platform sales speaker and I was traveling,
now, I was the only Chinese guy in the group,
and I was traveling with all these world-class speakers.
Very polished, they do their thing,
and, at first, I remember the first time,
DJ will tell you, I spoke at his seminar,
and I offered my product and package, I sold zero, zero.
No sales, and eventually, I got one sale,
I got a little bit better, I get a little bit better,
I was working on it, right, I was determined
to work on it, and I love it, I love it.
So, eventually, I got to be a little bit better,
and I was closing about 10% of the room.
Anybody walks in, I was closing,
10% of people would buy my offer.
Then I was closing 15%, I was closing 20%, to a point,
then I know as I'm traveling with these other speakers,
me, young guy, speak with an accent, I outsold everybody,
every single speaker, that's when I know I'm good.
When these other speakers, been doing it two, three,
five years, asking for my advice,
how the hell do you do that, then I know I'm good.
The peak, I outsold everybody combined.
That's why I know I'm brilliant.
And that's when I got out, don't need to do that anymore.
Because I got my skill, now I can just teach.
Then from that point on, platform sales, I mastered,
then I learned how to facilitate, more like this, right?
How to be a facilitator, how to be a better storyteller,
I work on those, I keep working on those.
So, the world will tell you, because they will
gladly pay you money for it, they'll come to you for it.
Then you know you're brilliant at it, does that make sense?
Now, ideally of course, you want to be brilliant
at something that has value in the marketplace, has what?
[Audience Members] Value.
Yeah, delivers value to the marketplace, you know?
You may be very brilliant at drinking beer, right?
We might have a challenge, we might have a challenge.
Okay, so, establishing delegation, so going back, Hassan,
no, because the stuff, you're weak, what do you do?
[Audience Members] Delegate.
You delegate.
Don't try to work on, with the amount of time
that we have as human being, you cannot possibly
be a master in a lot of things, you have to delegate, too.
- [Hassan] Delegate those tasks--
Your weaknesses.
Am I good with knowing how the sound system works, no.
When David bought all this equipment,
do I have any idea what the hell he bought?
- [Audience Member] No.
No, does it work?
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
That's all I need to know.
- [David] They used to rent, and I walked in, I volunteered.
I didn't even, I just walked up and helped DJ out,
and then I told DJ, you gotta go buy this.
And he was like, well, no, but I went, Dan,
look at these three systems, one, two or three.
DJ, go get that one.
Yeah. And we figured it out.
And I said yeah, go buy it, there you go, that's it.
'Cause at first, our sound system actually,
we had a problem, with feedback and all this shit, right?
I said, I gotta figure out how to fix this problem.
Now actually, I didn't know this, but David actually has
a sound engineering background, at the time I didn't know,
'cause he was just doing social media for us.
So, you think about it, so I delegated the
social media aspect to David, but at the same time,
when I found out he has another talent he's brilliant at,
so then I delegate additional responsibility
for him to handle sound as well, does that make sense?
Social media as well as sound, so for in some cases,
you've gotta find out what are the skills,
what are hidden talents that your people may already have
that you might not be aware of,
that you're not fully utilizing, okay?
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