In this inspiring episode, Derek Dombeck sits down with his friend and mentor Kyle Wilson—entrepreneur, marketer, publisher, and former business partner of the legendary Jim Rohn. Kyle shares his journey from small-town Texas to building a global platform that promoted world-class thought leaders like Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Les Brown, and many more. He reveals his marketing philosophies, the power of building authentic relationships, and why consistency, generosity, and connecting the dots are at the core of success.
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Welcome to the Generations of Wealth show. I am your host, Derek Dombeck. Today’s show is extra special to me because the guest is a close personal friend of mine. He’s done a lot to help me and change things in my world. And also is the publisher of the two books that I was a part of, which are behind me. If you’re looking at video, Next Level Your Life and The Transformational Journey, Kyle Wilson. He’s just an incredible man. And, you know, we are going to have some giveaways in this episode, so just be aware of that. But his journey is just one of the most inspirational journeys of anybody I’ve personally known for a long time. So before I bring Kyle on, real quickly, he’s changed my life because he’s so giving. I want to be that same way towards you. Anything I can do to help you, anything I can do to help connect you with people or, you know, money sources, deals, education stuff, my podcast, guests, anything like that. Just reach out. Let’s have a conversation. That’s what this is all about is to help each other. So go to DerekDombeck.com or TheGenerationsOfWealth.com. Shoot me an email, Derek@GlobalGOW.com I’m not that hard to get a hold of. So let me help you. And with that, I’m really excited to bring you my friend, Kyle Wilson. Well, now I got somebody that, honestly, you guys know if you listen to the show regularly, I usually don’t go into their bios. I don’t go into a whole lot of details on them. But Kyle Wilson is a little different, a little special to me. He’s been a big part of my life and changed a lot of things in my life in the last few years. And so I’m not going to give you guys Kyle’s bio, but I will tell you the bio that I’ve seen. When I met Kyle a few years ago, we had lunch together. We were at an event. And a week after that event, he reached out to me and offered me a position in the Next Level Your Life book, which if you’re watching a video version of this is right behind me. And then he offered me another co-author position in his next book, which was The Transformational Journey. So through working with Kyle, working with his team, and just everybody that’s involved with him, life-changing for me. Kyle Wilson, thank you so much for being on the Generations of Wealth show. Derek, it’s my pleasure. Well, now you can go and tell the rest of the world about yourself, but your version probably is better than my version.
Oh, hey, I like your version. Where are you from? What’s your background, Kyle, for those of you that are living under a rock and have never heard of you? You know, I’m from a small town in Texas, Vernon, Texas. We did have rodeos, actually grew up with horses, cutting horses, but I never tried to do what you’ve done. and you talk about it in front of the books. And that’s, so you would write, you did bull. I got on a bull. Yes, I got on a bull. I own bucking bulls, but I got on one. Just to say I’ve done it. Yeah, I’ve done a lot of crazy things. That’s not one of them, but. There’s still time. There’s still time, Kyle. I can make it happen.
But you don’t, I can go into some of the stuff I’ve done, which I’m not, by the way. And you’d say, no, you’re just stay the course. Small town, never went to college. Actually did drugs, sold drugs, all of that. And then really changed my life at age 19. That led to my first entrepreneurial business, which was a gas station. Actually, before that, it was a detail shop. You being a Midwestern guy, you can appreciate that. And, you know, early on, you know, that second business, which was a gas station, And I grew up to 10 employees. I mean, I’m like 22 and had no money. It was just crazy. The things I talk about today in marketing, the things I did to go build a million plus list. When I look back, I was doing the same things back then. I was connecting the dots, great customer service, really trying to bring a great value to the marketplace. But Derek, at age 26, had a little bit of a God whisper and decided to sell my little modest house, sell my business. Didn’t really make a profit. Went to Dallas, no money, and started another detail shop. But I really felt called to go there. And within a year or two, very serendipitously, I met a guy.
He invited me to a seminar, and he then recruited me to be a salesman for him. And that’s how I got in the seminar business. And within a year, I’m his number one guy in the country, which was crazy because the thought of having to go speak for audiences terrified me. I still don’t like doing it now, actually, even though I lead masterminds and events. It’s just not second nature for me. But I could do the 100 calls a day. I could do the work. And that led to me going out and starting my own company because with him, I was getting a couple of hundred people for an event in Dallas. But I had a vision to get 2,000. And within two years, I’m going to a new city every 90 days, Washington, D.C., Chicago, L.A. And we were getting 2,000 people. And I would hire Jim Rohn, hire Brian Tracy, hire Ogmandino. And that last event I did, Jim said, hey, Kyle, could you pay me directly on the next event? My partner owes me half a million dollars and we’re breaking up. And I’ll just take it off the tabios. And I’m like, Jim, if you’re definitely breaking up, I think you’re the best speaker in the world. I’m a pretty good promoter. I would love an opportunity to have an exclusive. Well, that sounded better to me than it did him, I think. He’d already had two partnerships that had lost fortunes. You know, when he talks about Tony Robbins, you know, used to work with him. Well, that company was Adventures in Achievement. And they’re filling up all these rooms all over the country. And he said, after we lost $800,000, we shut it down. Well, this was his recreation 10 years later, and it was $500,000 in the hole. But I knew that, right? So I said, well, Jim, how about this? It’ll be my company. I’ll pay for everything. You won’t have to spend a penny. And I’ll just pay you off the top. Give me an exclusive. When I book you, I’ll pay you like a speaker’s bureau, 25% off the top. I’ll go create products. I’ll pay for it. And then I’ll pay you a royalty. We shook hands. We shook hands that night. And that first year, I took it from 20 speaking dates to 110. I tripled the speaking fee. And it was magic. And what happened from there, though, now I’m getting Jim Rump. I’m having to learn this whole other business.
I’m a seminar promoter going into cities, filling up rooms, but now I have to learn to be an agent and work with all the other promoters, my competition, to get Jim into those groups, but also to get him into corporate America. And that’s really where the idea for the little book that I moved six billion of came from, was I thought when I send out these corporate packages, how do I put something in the package that makes Jim look different? You know, he’s such a wordsmith. and Kyle how many of those did you move six million over like 10 years because six million of those little quote books of which I have that quote book and it’s awesome but that was a marketing yeah the guide download I was searching you know Jim would quote the bible if you search you’ll find rarely does a good idea interrupt you and I was searching how do I take Jim from, like he had no list. I got nothing, no list, no previous companies he spoke for. And that was my opportunity, right? So if he had all that, he wouldn’t have needed me, right? So the lack thereof is what created the opportunity for me. And the second part I just want to add is because now I’ve found the systems and the connections and the team to go to 110 dates and create products, I thought, you know, by the way, let me go backwards and say, when I was doing these seminars in all these cities, we’re talking 92, 93, this is before email, right?
Yeah, that’s what I was actually going to ask you. Yeah. And so the promoters would literally kind of come in and rape and pillage a city. Like they just took, took, took, took, weren’t really too concerned about, you know, how hard they sold. I had the totally different approach. I did the Jim Rohn approach. I’d come in, I’d give as much value as possible. And at the end, I’d say, hey, here’s a great offer. And it really was this, you know, 99 bucks to go see Jim and Brian Tracy. And hey, if you’d like to go, I’ve got tickets. I’ll hang out for 15 minutes. If not, no worries. I hope you got some value. So at the end of our event, and I have a whole formula on how do you put on a great event, and a lot of it, 80% of it’s before the person even shows up. You know, how do you handle all the pre-stuff and how’s the, you know, the parking and all the different things. And so at the end of all the events, I would always keep an email list, or not an email list, a mailing list. So really, when I created this, I was able to go out to thousands of people that had attended our events and give them one free. I made an investment, but I gave them a little sheet how they could buy $10 for a dollar each, or they could buy $100. And, of course, they didn’t know I was Jim Rohn’s agent then, and so I also had to catalog to buy all of Jim’s products. And that was just the beginning of a viral marketing campaign for that little booklet. But now that we were getting Jim in all these companies, I thought, how do I take Brian Tracy and Wes Brown and Mark Victor Hansen and Dennis Waitley, Nito Cobine, all these Bob Berg, how do I get them into the same companies? And we got really good at that. So I started another company called Your Success Store.
So not only were we taking these people through the companies, we were selling their products. And then when the internet came around and I started building an email list, I had, you know, a lot of different products. In addition to Jim Rohn, I could go sell our list. And we went all in on building, you know, using the internet, building the list. So fast forwarding to today, and then we’re going to go back and forth in this conversation anyway, Kyle, but fast forwarding to today. If you were starting from zero, how would you build that marketing, that same marketing plan? How would you build that out?
Well, I wouldn’t say the same plan, but there are common things. Everything I did in 1993, three, shook hands with Jim, drew a circle on a sheet of paper, called it the wheel. In the middle was a hub. Here’s Jim. Each spoke is a product or service. And the key is how to get people on the wheel and take them around. And different than a funnel, people want to call it a funnel. Funnels have agendas. The wheel is, hey, if I meet you, I get you on my email list or my communication list. And then I just give you value. And occasionally I give you something to raise your hand for. And then like you, you were in one book, but then you were part of Manor Circle. And then you were in another book. And you just, if you can create an ecosystem, if you can create great stuff, that’s the key. Second is how do you get the word out? So in today’s market, and you know, I sold all my companies. I sold everything in 2007, including the million plus list. So when I came back out in 2015 to do a mastermind and do books, I said the number one thing is to get on social media because not only can I find anyone, they can find me. And I’m not overly active on social. I’m not one of these guys that post every day. But you can find me and I get found a lot. And, you know, Instagram is my favorite. but I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn and also TikTok because you can reuse it for all of it, right? You just create one post and you got it. So a lot of times I’ll do an email to my list. I’ll repurpose it on different social platforms. But number one, I would say email or excuse me, is social media. Number two is be building the email list around the people you connect with on social. go to live events, go to the type of events that your avatar people are at. That’s how I met you. I met you at a common event. So if I’m at an event and, and this is, I’ve done this a thousand times. We start talking. Eventually you say, what do you do? Or I ask you what you do. And I’ll answer with, you ever heard of Jim Rohn? If they say, oh yeah, my favorite. Boom, we’re in. If they say no, I’m like, okay, you ever heard of Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins? I’m like, no, okay. You heard Mark Hanson because I did Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul. No, okay, well, I sell magazines. That’s not my avatar, you know. But once they tell me who they are, I say, listen, I got a powerful book, Lessons from Thought Leaders or Success Habits, really whatever I can connect the dots with. You’re in a book with Layla Dahlia. We’ve got Bill Cullen and Def Leppard. So depending on where I can connect with them, I’ll tell them I have a book. I’m happy to send them the digital copy of the book. What’s their email? And they’ll either give me a business card or I hand them my phone and I say, type in your name and email. And then I’ll put some notes around it. You know, you’re from Wisconsin. You, you know, buy and sell debt. You have a mastermind, things like that.
Love Jim Rohn or love Zig Ziglar or whatever it may be. And then, you know, a couple of few days later, I’ll follow up. But more importantly than following up is I put you on my email list. And now you’re just going to get my stuff. And I’ll tell people, oh, by the way, you’re going to start getting on my propaganda. Derek, I’m hardly ever selling. Like, I’m just not. I’m just giving value. And then when I have something to offer, I give it to my list first or the first ones to know. And I will just say this. I think the number one mistake, and I’ve coached a lot of people that you know, and I would see them have a podcast and never try to get emails from their podcast. But you don’t own the list of your podcast and you don’t own the list of people that follow you on Facebook or Instagram. So another great thing about the books is I’m constantly doing, you know, a post on Les Brown, you know, or Brian Tracy or Phil Collins. I say, by the way, they’re co-authors in my book. If you’d like their chapter and also the entire book, just direct message me and I’ll send you the digital copy. So there are ways to convert social media into your email list. And then I want to use them both in conjunction. And if I’m on a podcast, like we’re on this podcast today, so I’ll have a way that people want to get stuff from me for free. They can give me their email. And again, I don’t do funnels and things like that. So social media is number one. Build an email list. How do you build an email list? You get involved at events. You get involved in common things. You get on podcast. I’ve always liked to be the platform builder. That’s how I made my money the last 30 years. So I have a podcast as well. So I don’t like just being a guest. I like to also host so I can be the guy connecting the talent with the audience. So starting a podcast, it’s a lot of work. It’s not overnight. It definitely needs to be in conjunction with social media. It needs to be in conjunction with an email list. Have an inner circle member you would know who’s very talented, but they have a full-time job. They’re a really good speaker. They’ve been in a few books. And they brought up yesterday about maybe wanting to start a podcast. I’m like, it’s a lot of work, but here’s number one. Do you already have an email list going? No. Okay. Really consider making sure you have that all going first. So when you jump into the podcast, you already have those type of things put together. And then it’s just going to take time. And here’s the other thing I’ll say. Here’s one more hint on how to do what I did. And I did it back then. I’ve got events. So if you can create an event, you’re going to, you know, when you go market for an event, so whether you’re using Facebook, Instagram affiliates, everyone that signs up is now part of your ecosystem, right? You get to talk to them through your email list. So that’s where you spend money to make money. But the ultimate outcomes, you’re also building a list. So I’ve always looked at advertising. I would never advertise one penny, radio, TV, Instagram, newspaper, whatever, without getting an email. So my number one goal in any type of promotion is to get the email first so I can have a long-term relationship. It’s not to sell them into a funnel, something quick or fast. It’s just to build a long-term relationship. And it’s up to them to say, oh, this is the right time. This is exactly what I want. Let me say yes to this offer Kyle has.
Yeah, and because we’ve talked about these things internally, and I’ve been blessed to learn a lot of your marketing, I’ll call them secrets at this point, but they’re really not secrets. I mean, what you do is just, I think, what most people do wrong. It’s consistency. And you’re consistent. And you do it over and over again. And you do bring value with everything that you put out. And yes, at those times when there is a potential to work together, is it an offer? Sure, it’s an offer, but it’s a mutually beneficial offer that’s a no-brainer. So I know that you possibly get the misconception that you worked for Jim. And you did say that it was your company. You kind of explained it. But did you have that shadow that you kind of had over you all those years of, you know, you were kind of in the back. And by choice, you were behind the scenes building this. But you built a really, really incredible thing with and for Jim Rohn. Did that ever cause any rifts or any problems between you and Jim? No, it didn’t cause, no, not at all.
We had our challenges, don’t get me wrong. But Jim not only didn’t want to do what I did, he wasn’t going to do what I did. My biggest fan was Jim’s accountant. He’s like, you’re the guy that’s made Jim the most money. if there was ever a riff as a count, it’s like, Jim, let’s look at the last 20 years. Let’s look at the past five with Kyle. No, we had a, we had a phenomenal relationship and you’re right. I want it to be, I wanted it to be Jim Rohn International. People didn’t care about Kyle. They cared about Jim. They didn’t come to an event to hear Kyle. I wouldn’t even introduce him. So Dennis Whateley, Zig Ziglar. And I’m filming it. I’m thinking of a million-dollar product we’re going to create from it. It was the intention behind the event. And my name’s never mentioned. I don’t get on stage. Because guess what? 2,000 people in the room, how many of them want to be up there doing what Jim does? So now I’ve got 500 people. And these could be doctors, could be all kinds of things that still want, they have a vision. That’s partly why they’re attracted to those type of events. Derek, I don’t have time for that. And I do think, I do think one of the reasons it works so great with me and Jim, and I was just in this bubble. So I can’t take credit for it other than it was just this perfect combination. But I never was, I never was like a groupie. And I remember like even filming with Phil Con and Def Leppard, you know, they’ve sold a hundred million albums and pour some sugar on me and he asked me to come to his place this is 10 years ago and we were creating a product called rockstar fitness phil’s incredibly fit and we have the film crew everyone during the breaks are just wanting to you know oh fill this fill that you know and i’m like we got work to do guys it’s like no we guys uh we got to talk strategy about why we’re doing this and i think I was that way with Jim. You know, Jim would come to town because I ran all this in Texas and he lived in California. He’d come to town and I’d have signed books for him to do. So like if I did the treasury of quotes, I’d do 5,000 hardbound treasury of quotes books, but I’d do 5,000 signed and numbered for the life. 5,000 and then 5,000 signed and numbered. We did signed and numbered so many times. And finally he said, Kyle, quit doing signed and numbered. I’m getting tired of signing all these books. But that’s part of the magic. And I can’t take credit for that because I wasn’t doing one thing not to do another. It’s just I saw this massive opportunity to get Jim’s message out in the world. And I was wired to do it the way I did it. And so I wasn’t. Jim changed my life on a personal level. But equally, he changed my life through his books, his audios. You know, I was already drinking the Kool-Aid when I asked him to start speaking at my events. You know, I was already, my life had already been changed. So I was influenced by the stuff that anyone today could be influenced by as much as anything. And then to have the relationship with him was, you know, a phenomenal honor. But I think same thing with Brian Tracy. I probably did 50 events with Brian Tracy. And again, I wasn’t a fanboy as much as I was a collaborator on Let’s Do Great Work because my future work with them was based on results. Let me say this. When Jim and I did a handshake, I’m betting on myself, right? I’m betting that I’m going to get results. And I think I was just totally focused on results. And what would that look like?
And that’s what I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve never been the guy that goes gaga over celebrities either. Like I look at everybody’s really good at something. If that happens to be you’re a good actor, actress, okay, great. You’re in front of a TV camera all the time. That doesn’t necessarily make you any different or better than anyone else. You’re just really good at what you do. And in growing this relationship with you and, you know, knowing you the last few years, being a part of your inner circle, you know, getting to meet co-authors in Next Level Your Life and the transformational journey. And, you know, everybody, and I say this genuinely from my heart, everybody that I’ve ever met through your inner circle, they’re just good damn people, you know, and they’re down to earth. Nobody walks around like they’re any better than anyone else. And they’re always willing to give from the heart. And that’s what really draws me to continue that relationship with all of them and you sincerely. But I also know the other side of that coin, right? Like all those people that we know and you know are amazing people, but we all have life that happens. Right. And, you know, I’ll go back to a meeting that I was at with you and a great group of people, you know, at an inner circle meeting. And you interview all, not all of us, but you interview some of us and just ask questions. We have a conversation. And I went into a topic that’s been happening in my world. And it wasn’t something I really necessarily thought I was going to talk about. And I was literally embraced after that by these people that I could easily put on a pedestal. I mean, for so many reasons, they could be way up here, right? but the part that I’m kind of getting at is all of us have shit that happens and you know you promoting Jim and living a life on the road Jim living a life on the road I’ve lived that life for a long time as well from the outside looking in especially on social media it’s always you know the misconceptions of well you’re so lucky you get to travel all the time you get to do this you get to do that. And I just want to sit on my deck and have a beer and watch my horses and not be at an airport or not. I mean, can you talk about that a little bit? Because I don’t think people really grasp the sacrifices that are made by many entrepreneurs in all genres of business, but especially if you’re in the promotion business and the marketing business and trying to build what you built?
Yeah, a couple of things. Before Jim and I partnered, we would literally go live in a city, me and my wife. So we didn’t have kids. So we’d go live in Chicago for 90 days. So that was an adventure. When I partnered with Jim, I had a guy, Steve Fleming, that traveled more with Jim than I did. I stayed, I didn’t travel that much. So, uh, and then when I lost Steve, I got Charles Moore and they traveled 80% of the time with Jim, the Ron White or Dennis Waitley or Chris Widener. I ended up being the agent for six different people. And, uh, so yes, I worked incredibly hard. I didn’t travel as much. In fact, I remember Jim going to Fargo, North Dakota in February and he’s like, oh, do not do this. You know, here I’m back in Texas at 70 degrees and I was unaware of some of the stuff I was putting him through. One of my good friends, Darren Hardy, one day, you know, we’re texting, he’s like in Buffalo, New York about to do a speaking gig and I had to share that story and he’s like, yeah, no more Buffalo in February type stuff. But as far as working hard, yes. And I think the key is you got to love what you do. I remember having dinner with Brian Tracy and we were at this restaurant. And so here’s something very different. Every speaker is different. Jim was so private. Like if you would have, you know, someone bringing 100 people to an event would want to have dinner with Jim the night before. He didn’t want to do that. You know, or if he was speaking for a big conference, he didn’t really want to do that. I could make it happen if it was important enough. Brian always wanted to have dinner, you know, with me, the promoter, or with whoever we’re doing it for. And we were at this restaurant, and I’ll just never forget this. And he would start just really engaging the waiter, waitress about the menu and about the wine. And I can’t tell you how many times the owner or the head chef would actually come out to talk to him because of some of his questions in a very positive way. And they would have this engaging conversation. He said, Kyle, people that own these restaurants love what they do. And you can tell when they come out. And they almost always volunteer to make them a special thing that’s not on the menu. And I think that’s true for entrepreneurs. You’ve got to love what you do. And when you love what you do, yes, you’re still paying a price. You’re still working hard. And you just got to keep your eye on the ball not to drop the things that are important. And for me, the thing I think I dropped the most was always my health. So I was there with my family. I did a really great job on so many levels. And my health, I wasn’t great at self-care.
And I’ve been making up for that the last several years. I have been releasing the need to try and replicate what I did in the business world. And I focus much more on spiritual and health. And I’m happy about that. I have some colleagues or contemporaries that give me a hard time. They’re like, why are you disappearing from the scene? It’s like, you’re asking me to go do something I’ve already done. Why do I want to go keep doubling down on something I’ve done when I’ve neglected my health so much? Or I’ve neglected key relationships or spirituality. So I think everyone’s just got to figure it out. And there are strategic times in our life. One more Brian Tracy story. I was early promoter and I was at Brian’s house. It’s 1992, 93. And he said, Kyle, you don’t have kids yet. You’re young enough. You know, getting an airplane off the ground takes so much energy. He’s like, the plane’s going 80 miles an hour down the runway and it’s just burning so much fuel. But if you can get it off and you’re 300 feet in the air, it’s burning less fuel than it was on the runway. And he said, most people never get it off the ground. They spend their whole life just giving just enough, but never more than enough to get it off the ground. He said, I really invite you the next three to five years, go all out, pay the price, and you’ll get to benefit the rest of your life. Well, that was 33 years ago. And it’s so accurate. I’m benefiting today from some of the things I did 30 years ago. And so sometimes an entrepreneur has to hear that, that the price you’re paying will have a long-term ripple effect, a long-term benefit. Just be careful what you’re neglecting. You know, you’ve got to figure it all out. Like, don’t do it at the cost of something you’ll regret. But there is a price to pay. And sometimes, more often than we’d like to admit, the price is not watching TV, you know, or giving up, you know, something that, like, I play pickleball. but I don’t have to play golf. You know, if I had to give up, I don’t need to do three things. You know, you just pick my one and, you know, I don’t have to do everything else. Well, I knew pickleball was going to come out in this conversation for sure. Because you can stop here. You don’t have to keep talking about it.
No, no, no. I’m not a connoisseur yet of pickleball. But I know a lot of our mutual friends and your friends that you play with on a semi-frequent basis. So, and they’re not, they’re not going to lay down and let you win type of people, right? Chris Gronkowski being one of them, you know? So Chris has had a podcast with, former NFL player, incredibly competitive. Like, you know, just one of those guys that’s, you know, he doesn’t care that I’m, should I say my age, I’m 64, you know, and he’s 38, you know, he doesn’t care. Like that didn’t even register in his mind. But that keeps us young, right, is when we’re with younger people that are competitive.
Oh, absolutely. And that’s the other part that I love about when you’re around the right people is age gets thrown out the window, right? Like, I’ve had conversations with, you know, with Colonel, and, I mean, he’s got a few years on me for sure, but those conversations are just priceless. And I do the same thing for people in their 20s, and, you know, I’m just about 50. So I’m kind of two-thirds of the way there probably. But when you’re in the right room and the right people with the right mindset, age doesn’t matter. And even experience doesn’t necessarily matter as long as everybody’s there trying to better each other. I know there’s a woman named Natalie that you’ve brought in to chat with us about AI. And she is a ball of energy at, what is she, 23, 24 years old? 24, yeah. And absolutely kicks all of our asses with her knowledge of AI. And you know what? She’s less than half my age and I can sit and listen to her for hours and not even absorb a fraction of it because she’s that good at what she does.
So, again, you’re just in the right rooms with the right people. And I want to play off that a little bit. The culture you create impacts everyone else. Like there were people in the past. It’s like, I don’t know if they’re going to be a good fit. And I’m talking about someone maybe that’s a little bit more aggressive or a little bit more, you know, needs the spotlight. And they would come in and you’re right. You hang out with Colonel Tim Cole or you hang out with Ron White, two time memory champion, who’s super humble, super quiet, Tom Burns. And I just noticed people really self-regulate and they become the best version of themselves. So with Natalie, if she was here, I’d say the same thing. I used to call her the assassin because she can make deals happen. And I said, hey, listen, I’m going to invite you to come speak because AI is a great topic, but here’s the rules. And she’s now spoken five times. She has just been amazing at just giving and sharing. And I’ve even watched her. She is just not working the room, which is a great way to work the room. You know, just be genuine, just be giving. But you know what? It’s easy for her to do that when she gets to watch everyone else and how they show up. And no one’s really selling and no one’s, we all have our own agendas. Don’t get me wrong. But, you know, people really are playing at a higher level of consciousness about what works and what doesn’t work. And so, yeah, when you get around good people, it begets more good people, you know, as long as someone didn’t get away with something too much. And so that’s when my job comes in. We’re just like, OK, we’re not going to tolerate that.
But I think people can can use the word agenda and just automatically think that’s a negative word. I don’t think there is anything wrong with having an agenda as long as you’re doing it with morals and ethics and not to harm anyone. And, you know, my agenda was the same as your agenda. The day we met and had lunch for the very first time, we got to know each other. A week later, we, you know, you reached out, we kept talking. You asked me to be part of a book. That benefits me. It benefits you, right? So we both had an agenda, but we both benefited from it. So I like the word agenda when used properly. Speaking of books, you know, mine are these two, Next Level Your Life and Transformational Journey. They’re always available at my website, DerekDombeck.com. But I know you, Kyle, and I know that you love giving shit away. So what can you do for the listeners of the Generations of Wealth show?
Yeah, what I like to do, thanks for asking. My most recent book is called Lessons from Thought Leaders, and it’s got Brian Tracy, Phil Collin and Def Leppard, Chris Gronkowski, Les Brown, Todd Stoudemire, 15-year Major League Baseball player. One of my mentors, Dennis Whateley, who passed away in July. He and I had done four retreats the past four years. Amazing human. Maybe still T.C. Cummings, NBA championship coach, Kevin. Excuse me. Yeah, thank you. Bob Berg. I mean, just… So anyway, multiple stories. I do about every fifth book, I’ll do one that’s more like 70 authors, 400 pages. Takes us over a year. This took us a year and a half. And so I’ll give them that digital copy, but also multiple other copies, interviews with Phil Collin, Darren Hardy, Les Brown. So all they have to do, send an email to kyle at kylewilson.com. Say send book, and I will. But also, hey, if they’re a Jim Rohn fan, if Jim’s impacted their life, or Brian Tracy or Darren Hardy, or if Derek’s impacted their life and you’re a big Derek fan, just let me know. I’d love to find out more about you guys, and I’ll send you the link to go grab all these. And, yeah, it would be my pleasure. We have some amazing stories of entrepreneurs. We get rave reviews on the books. Every book hits number one. Every book, we donate 100% of the launch profits to a very cool charity, usually charities that feed people, clothe people. So, yeah, I’d love to share the love.
Well, I appreciate that. And for all of you listening, you don’t have to go through the generations of wealth to do it. You just go to Kyle directly. But in the subject line or whatever, just let him know you heard him here. And that way him and I can collaborate and, you know, because I have an agenda and Kyle has an agenda and you as a listener should have an agenda as well. And we just established there’s nothing wrong with that. So I want to know how many people can I bring for Kyle to impact and vice versa. So just let him know that, you know, I’m pretty sure I’m one of the only Derricks in his everyday life currently.
So if you just say you heard it on Derek’s show, you’ll probably know anyways. But I appreciate you saying that because I literally reply to every email. I read every email. And I remember being on a podcast with someone with this huge audience and I did the same thing. He’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You do not want to do this. I’m like, this is what I do want to do. Like, if someone takes the time to send an email because they’re interested in my stuff, And especially if Jim changed her life or they got some value from this, what better thing could I be doing? I mean, that’s where I think a lot of people miss in the marketing world. And I call it disconnecting the dots. They create all this separation between them and their audience and they throw money at it to solve it instead of realizing it really is the connections. Brian Buffini, amazing guy, done over a billion in his world, the real estate coaching world, had me on his podcast. But I remember him saying, and this guy’s got this huge, huge thing. And he was going into one of his events and one of his people came up and said, Brian, I’m so excited. And he goes, hey, listen, we’re going to impact people one person at a time. And I believe that. So I have done events where I’m speaking for 1,200 people and I give them their email Over the next two weeks, I still reply to each one at a time. And that might turn people off thinking that’s a waste of time. But to me, there’s gold in there. You never know the person that’s going to say, hey, I was homeless, da-da-da-da, got a Jim Rohn book, this changed my life. It happens all the time. And that’s valuable to me. I kind of semi-retired. It’s valuable to me when I know people are out there hustling, they’re trying to make it. It’s difficult right now. We get that. And so wherever they’re at, yeah, I just appreciate them sharing their story.
Well, it was just two days ago. A guy called me out of the blue, and he had picked up my business card that was at a title company that I do business with three hours away from where I live. And he saw generations of wealth. He saw what I do, looked it up. And he puts on a small meetup group, you know, 20, 30 people. And he’s like, I just really, and I answered the phone. It didn’t go to voicemail. I answered the phone. And he said, man, I just really appreciate you taking the time and talking to me for 15 minutes because I’m leading a group and you obviously lead groups and you know what you’re doing. Well, to me, even still having paper business cards, most people don’t do it. I’ll hand those things out like water. Maybe I hand out a thousand of them before I get that one person, but that could be a connection for all kinds of upside potential. And even if it’s not, it’s still a connection in my network. So I agree with you. I like, and I give out my email address on this podcast all the time for that very same reason. I wonder where I learned that from, Kyle.
You know, I have this talk I’ve done forever called Seven Strategies for Marketing, Building Your Brand. And the number one is connecting the dots. And I always say it’s not about manipulation. It’s not about being clever. It’s just knowing what your product and service is, who you can best connect that to, and then knowing how do you bring value and connect the dots to that relationship. And, you know, again, if you’re copying what everyone else is doing, you’re missing it because everyone else is not you. They’re not your product and they don’t have your avatar of customer. So that’s the connecting the dots. You got to figure it out. And it’s all pretty intuitive. It doesn’t take any secret strategies, as we said earlier. It’s like, and I’ve always said, Derek, I’ve learned everything by doing. So I didn’t know how to be an agent. I didn’t know how to create products. I didn’t know how to be a publisher. I didn’t. But each one that came in front of me, it was the next most important thing. And then over time, you end up creating a bit of a body of work. And then if you can create systems, which is what entrepreneurs do, learn to do and then get people, you know, people are some of the best leverage we have. It’s not just banks, it’s people.
Well, I didn’t know how to be an author until you and your incredible writing coach walked me through that. So you’re right. You’re just going to do it. Takara is amazing. Takara is awesome. I will say, Derek, you know, I read, we do three or four drafts. I read every draft. I give all my feedback back to Takara, who talks to the authors. And yours really impacted me when you talked about vision. And I remember at the last Inner Circle, I interviewed you about that topic. And I think you might have done a master class on it later because it was such a resonating topic. So that’s what’s exciting is to be able to, you know, this, whatever you want to call it, this place to allow people to start doing a deep dive and these things uncovered, right? And I was telling Takara yesterday, because we’re on the third drafts of our next book, there are some amazing stories that I was pretty worried about the first draft. You know, it’s like, wow, these third drafts have come so far. And guess what? It wasn’t just her editing. It wasn’t just the coaching. It’s allowing ourself the process to go through it. And that can happen when we journal. That can happen. Guess what I’m saying is, you know, Jim Rohn talked about journaling. I’ve been journaling for 30 years. And so whether we’re telling a story in a book or we’re just journaling and we’re being reflective, that’s where these ideas come from, right? Meditation. I’m a big believer in meditation, getting quiet. And that’s across the board in whatever business you’re in, right?
Like, obviously, we’re talking about the promotion business and marketing in general. But being genuine and giving people time, responding to their emails, you know, opening yourself up to that connection, that it does not matter what business you’re in. That’s universal. And listen, when someone is scaled so big, I’m not saying they can go and say, email me and I’ll reply back. So I’m not trying to say that’s what Tony Robbins should do. But, you know, every time I get an email from Phil Collin and Duff Leppard, I mean, these guys get $100,000 for a pick endorsement. When Dennis passed, you know, he sent me a nice email. And when he’s been in our books three times and I send him an email, he’s always one of the quickest to reply back. And so, you know, one of my fundamental beliefs is people are doing too many things. And so back to my point about I will reply to those emails. Why? because they took the time. We’re talking my avatar. So people are spending time chasing people that aren’t interested and ignoring the people that are. You know, so it’s just re-engineering our lives to focus on, like I believe marketing, which is very different than selling. Marketing is putting the bait out in the lake for the fish that you want to attract. It doesn’t mean you’re chasing fish, You’re attracting the right this and marketing’s attracting the right people. But when they show up, you need to be available, right? Yeah.
Yeah. It’s like, I often say when I’m talking about my negotiations training or during my negotiations training, there’s always people that will spend tens of thousands of dollars to market and to get, you know, leads coming in for real estate deals, but they don’t actually know how to talk to people because they spend zero time learning how to talk to people. Right. It’s just silly.
They want to automate it all. They want to automate the front part of getting the leads, and then they want to automate the follow-up. Well, hey, if I’m going to go invest $100,000 in a deal, I tell this to our, we have a lot of investors in the group. Everything’s different. You know, if you have a $10 commodity, yeah, by all means, automate it. If you have a $100,000 deal, the goal is to get on a phone call with someone. Yes, you need to do some filtering, But don’t get ridiculous, you know. Yeah. Type of things you want people to jump through. Absolutely. But I would also say, since I brought up $100,000, cold traffic is really the toughest traffic. You know, that’s where lawsuits, rebuts, all that happens. That’s why I really love the concept of the wheel. The wheel is you get people on the wheel and then you build a relationship. My best people, it took a year or two years or three years before they actually ever bought anything. But that’s where the trust happens, right? And so the higher the dollar, the more important I think it is to have a relationship with that person and to be building a relationship and less automation for sure.
Absolutely. Well, Kyle, I have one last question for you. My audience knows what it is. What’s one question I should have asked you that I didn’t? And it can be about anything. Even pickleball. This is where I’m tempted to think of what would Derek say. I don’t think any of my responses would hit the mark. So let me see if I can answer that seriously. It was a great conversation, Derek. And I think, you know, we talked about things, hopefully, that can benefit your audience. And we had a good time, too, talking. So, no, it’s great. Okay. Well, I appreciate you being on here. And publicly, I will say you have changed a lot of things in my life. And I appreciate you for that. So, with that said, we’re going to wrap this up, Kyle. Everybody else? Oh, go ahead. Let me jump in. Derek, I appreciate that so much. You’re such a valuable person to me. I always love interacting with you. I appreciate your authenticity. I definitely have always resonated with you, but the more we have gone deeper into the real stuff of life, it makes me appreciate you even more. And after this past hour, even more.
Thank you. Great question, honestly, and great, great conversation.
Appreciate it, Kyle. Well, for those of you that are our regular listeners, thanks for being here. Those of you just finding us, thanks for finding us. Help us grow the Generations of Wealth show and the family. Spread the word. Give us all the likes and loves you can. And until the next show, go out, live your vision, love your life. See ya.
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Kyle Wilson is a motivational speaker, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to helping individuals unlock their potential and achieve personal and professional growth. Drawing inspiration from the teachings of legends like Jim Rohn, Kyle focuses on leadership development, mindset transformation, and practical strategies for success. He engages audiences worldwide with his authentic approach and actionable insights. He’s worked with the top names in the personal development industry including his 18 year biz partner, friend and mentor Jim Rohn, as well as Brian Tracy, Les Brown, Darren Hardy, Denis Waitley, Mark Victor Hansen and many others.
Kyle is the host of the Success Habits of Super Achievers podcast and recently published the book with the same title with stories and lessons from long time friend and iconic thought leaders including Les Brown, Denis Waitley, Darren Hardy, John Assaraf, Phil Collen of Def Leppard, Brian Tracy, Mark Victor Hansen and many others. Kyle is the author of over 14 #1 bestselling books and partnered with Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield on Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul. Kyle has filled huge seminar rooms, launched and published multiple personal development publications and has produced/published over 100+ hours of programs.