Wendy Lipton-Dibner: John, I am on fire and ready serve. Let’s do it.

John Lee Dumas: Yes! Wendy is the world’s leading authority on business development through impact strategy. She’s the president of Professional Impact Inc. and founder of Move People to Action. Wendy is internationally recognized for her unparalleled ability to help clients maximize and capitalize on the unique impact they bring to people’s lives through one-of-a-kind marketing products and services. Wendy, take a minute, fill in some gaps in that intro and give us a little glimpse of your personal life.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Happy to do that, and hello Fire Nation. So, I think what people don’t know mostly about me is that I’m actually a social researcher by training. I’m an entrepreneur by choice. So, I’ve spent my entire career developing and testing ethical influence business formulas. My whole thing is about how can we move people to action so they let us impact their lives and then I use those formulas to build my own businesses, to build all my clients’ businesses. But for me, it’s never been about the money, it’s always been about the impact. In fact, I’ll tell you. I have a wall in my office that is covered with my thank you notes, and my speaking tags. And for me, that’s it. I have no idea what money comes in or out, my husband takes care of that. All I know is I live in a home I love, I live a lifestyle I love, as long as the thank you notes keep coming in, I’m good. I learned a long time ago, when you focus on impact, the money just comes.

John Lee Dumas: I love that, because I will be honest as I always am, but for a while, for about six years from my mid 20’s to early 30’s, I was focused about the money and failure after failure was the result of that. But when I followed one of my favorite quotes by Albert Einstein, “Try not to become a person of success but rather a person of value,” everything changed for me. Because that was where Entrepreneur on Fire came from was just being that person of value. And you can easily exchange that word “value” for “impact,” Wendy. And that’s what you’ve done. You’ve become a person of impact and those letters that you get every day show that you are changing the world, one person at a time. And now, let’s just say you’re at a networking party, and someone comes up to you and says, “Wendy, what exactly do you do?” How do you respond in ten seconds?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: I help entrepreneurs build and grow multi-million dollar businesses by maximizing and capitalizing on the unique impact you bring to people’s lives through one-of-a-kind marketing products and services.

John Lee Dumas: Multi-million dollar business and I think a lot of people have a lot of interest in that. And Wendy, let’s talk about the dollars and cents. I know that your husband deals with a lot of that stuff, but you must have a decent idea about what does bring revenue in if it’s not the exact numbers. That’s what we as Fire Nation, as entrepreneurs are looking to do, are build viable businesses. So, how do you generate revenue?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: To your point, of course I know what everything brings in because I’m the one who sets our fees. So, if I see that there’s a ballroom filled with people, I know what they paid to be there. So, it’s not like I’m completely not paying attention to this. To explain, for the first 30 years of my career, it was, for me, all about building and growing my own businesses – my retail and services business. And I did that largely by platform speaking and publishing and conducting these six figure consulting and training things, and then when I released my first best-selling book, something shifted. Because all of a sudden, all my clients started asking me to teach them how to do what I’d done. They wanted out of these prisons that they were in. They wanted the high paying speaking engagements and best-selling books. Mostly, they just wanted to build a profitable lifestyle business as I had done. And since I had built so many different ones, I was starting to attract lots of different people.

So, about four years ago, I decided to walk away from that, if you will, guaranteed income stream that I was having, and start all over again, again. And I began taking people behind the curtains of my own career and what I found out was so amazing. I never expected this. I thought that it was me, right? We all have these egos, so it must be me that’s doing this, but in fact, what happened was, it wasn’t me at all. It was the formulas that I had built, and that was the most exciting moment of my career because that’s when I realized, all I have to do is teach the formulas. So now, the revenue still comes from high profile speaking engagements and in house organizational training, consulting kind of stuff, but mostly, my revenue comes from entrepreneurial consulting from group coaching and mentoring programs. Sort of ongoing, recurring kind of things, and offline info products, online info products and of course, my live events, the Move People to Action, the Difference-Makers Summit.

John Lee Dumas: Wow, Fire Nation, that’s what happens when you build a viable solid foundation on your business and just keep going from strength to strength. I love that. Wendy, thus far, these first five minutes, Fire Nation’s probably scratching their head being like, “This woman can’t do any wrong. She’s been on a rocket ship to success her whole life,” but we both know that’s not the case. We have the ups, we have the downs, and we always will as entrepreneurs. It’s that roller coaster. But what I want to hear next is the worst moment that you, Wendy, have ever experienced as an entrepreneur; so, your worst entrepreneurial moment story. So, take us there, Wendy. Take us down to that moment in time.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Absolutely. And to your point again, John, I had to search for which one I was going to pick. There were lots of worst moments, but I’ve gotta say, the worstest worst was in the 80’s. I had been incredibly fortunate. My first three businesses went skyrocket fast, the way you’re describing. Oh my gosh, I used the science, I did the formulas, I tested them out, I threw it out there to see what would stick, and it stuck faster that anybody expected. So, as a result, I started getting lots of invitations from small business for consulting and training and all this great stuff, and about six months into this, I got an invitation by a multi-national telecom company to submit a training proposal. I’d never done anything like that. It certainly never worked in big organizations, but I was on such a high from all my success, I figured what the heck. It would be a great learning experience if nothing else. I had no idea how big a lesson I was gonna learn when this thing started, so I accepted their invitation.

I went for the initial meeting, I spent three hours asking a bajillion questions because that’s all I knew to do. And then I put together a proposal that basically said, “Okay, here’s where you are, this is where you want to be, and I’m gonna get you there. And I’m going to do it by doing this, this and this.” And understand, I didn’t actually have a this, this or this. I was just making this stuff up, but I figured they’re not going to say yes anyway. I have no viable resources or references that I could give them and this was just a logical solution. They’re here, they need to be there. So, I also had no idea what to charge for this, so I called a friend, and he told me that I had just designed a quarter million dollar training consulting package. Remember, that was in 1988, so today that would be like half a million. So, I was green. I was just green and I kind of choked on the number. But again, it never occurred to me they’d say yes. So, I just typed it in, I sent it off, and as it happened, they loved the thing. They loved the proposal. They had a few issues with a couple of things and asked if I would change them, and when I said yes, that meant it actually doubled the length of the program, which of course then doubled the fees.

So, the next thing I knew, I’d sold a half million-dollar program that didn’t exist. And now, I had to come up with something. So, I grew up in New York City, so went to the one place I figured I would have nothing to do and that was a little hotel room in Waco, Texas. And I, back then, had nothing. So, I just sat in the hotel room and for three days, I just frantically wrote the program that I had sold, and I was making this up based on the formulas that I had used in my own business. So, I delivered this to the first group about a month later, and the program went so well that the next group came in and it was even better and better. And 30 days after the first group went through the program, their sales had increased by more than 200 percent, and the other group started to show the same results and everybody was so excited. And I have to tell you, John, nobody was more surprised than me, and all I had done was just teach them what I had figured out to do in my own little businesses, and it was all about making a measureable impact.

So, the point is, it was all very exciting, and next thing I know, I’m getting all these invitations to train other departments within that same company, and getting all these referrals and suddenly, this money was rolling in. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. In the first three months I was with these guys, I made more money than I ever thought I’d make in my entire life. So, pretty soon, everything shifted for me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the money. As you were saying before, it’s all I could think about and how much I was making and how much more I could make if I had my own sales team and I was like, “Well, why don’t I get one.” So, I built a team of ten people, ten strangers, I set them up in satellite offices all across the US. We traveled every week, I did public events, I sold training consulting services, I spared no expense because all this money was coming in, so everything was First Class all the way. And every city I went to, people were saying, “Yes. I’m getting these five and six figure contracts.” I was having the time of my life and I started to lose track of the little things – the little things that I had just always done, like sending thank you notes and having these long conversations with my team every day about impact and about ethics and all this touchy feely stuff. All that went away.

And my team calls became less frequent. Finally, one of my team members used my low visibility as an opportunity to take advantage of the trust that I had placed in him. And he accessed the bank account that I’d opened in his town, helped himself to $100,000 in cash. It was never found, and the crazy thing is, I don’t even care. I had all of these contracts. There was going to be plenty of money coming in, so I just kept pushing and going from city to city doing these promotional speeches and filling my calendar for the following year, and somewhere in all of that, John, I missed something really important. There was a critical error in the contracts that were being signed that left me unprotected if people ever cancelled or postponed. But gain, I wasn’t worried. Nobody’s’ going to cancel. I was on such an ego high. I mean, they’re so excited, why would anybody cancel? And I got the answer to that on August 2, 1990; the first Gulf War began. And in times of war, the first thing to go is training, and of course, I didn’t know that at the time. So, our phones started ringing off the hooks with cancellations and indefinite postponements and since my contracts didn’t have a clause to protect me, all the deposits that we had collected had to be sent back, which wouldn’t have been a problem except I’d already spent it all on marketing. I really thought it would just be coming back, and since this business was relatively new, I wasn’t paying myself a salary. I had been drawing from savings that were left from the sale of my first business, and I used that up really, really quickly to cover everything I had to pay back on these contracts.

So then, I just started using credit cards to cover all my expenses and one by one, I just started maxing out all my cards until finally, I was out of money, I was out of options. You hear about things, the humiliations that people go through. I had no idea what that meant until one night I’m sitting there going through all my bills, and there’s this banging on my door and the sheriff was banging an eviction notice on my house. And I didn’t know what to do. Obviously, I had to declare bankruptcy but that wasn’t the worst moment. The worst moment was when I had to call each individual team member who had just sweated bullets for me doing this thing, and just let them go. And they had put so much into this and the tone of their voice stays with me. What is this, like 30 years ago, and to this day, I remember their voice and it taught me so much, and those lessons have carried me through ever since. It was crazy bad; that’s why I keep saying I don’t think about money any more.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation knows that I am rarely left without some kind of lesson that I’ve learned from this, but for this situation right here, there’s just so much. There’s so much that you just went through. There’s so much heartache and so many missteps and so much to learn from that, Fire Nation, my call to action here is to hit the rewind button a couple of times and go back and just listen to this again. And if your business or your mentality is showing any similar traits to what Wendy went through, then you need to step back, take a deep breath and reevaluate where you’re at. And Wendy, let me challenge you in just one sentence. In 15 seconds or less, sum it up for us. What do you want Fire Nation to make sure that they get from that story?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: The more you focus on money, the money you end up having to spend because of the mistakes you make when you focus on money.

John Lee Dumas: Oh, so well said. Now, Wendy, let’s tell another story that’s a little more uplifting. I love how honest and raw you just were there. It’s gonna help so many people possibly prevent disasters. But let’s talk about an epiphany now. Let’s talk about an Aha moment that you’ve had. You’ve had a ton, but you know my audience. We are entrepreneurs, small business owners; tell us that Aha moment that you’ve had that you think is going to resonate with our listeners and take us down to the ground level to tell us that story.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Oh, I would love to. Ironically, that story picks up right where the last one left off. So, the moment I signed those papers and cancelled everything with my team and sent back all that money, I knew what I’d done. I knew exactly what happened to me. The ego, the putting everything into the all about First Class, the putting myself into a position of being someone who I really wasn’t at my very core. I had completely changed, and I had just taken my eyes off of creating the impact that had been my dream since I was a little kid. So, I knew. We all know the Vince Lombardi thing, right? I just had to go back to basics, and since I had to do something to make money fast because I was living on noodles and cottage cheese, I really had to do something. So, I got a job working at a major department store chain selling cosmetics, which was easy for me because one of the businesses that I built was a full-service spa where I did that. So, I walked into this place ready to work and sell cosmetics and make my $4 an hour or whatever it was, but when I’d stood there, I couldn’t make myself do it because the one thing I knew that had taken me down the bad track was getting all into trying to make money.

So, instead, what I did was every day I would stop people walking through the store, and I would start asking them questions about what they loved about their lives. And that led to me holding these little mini-seminars at the cosmetic counter. And I would just stand there on the flip side of the counter, not even behind the counter. People said I was holding court, but what I was doing was just teaching anything that came up, any questions that people had about how to build their success either personally or professionally, I was holding these seminars. And the crowds started to build more and more and more each day. They were four or five, six people deep in the store; we were blocking aisles. It was crazy.

And while they’re listening to me speak, they would start handing me things and pointing to things in the counters that they wanted to buy and rather than being distracted from serving, I would just hand those sales off to the other people – to the colleagues behind the counter while I was focusing on making an impact in their lives. And my colleagues were ringing up the sales and taking all the commissions and that’s how I wanted it. I had my little check, my expenses were covered; that’s all I cared about. And what came from that was in month, our tiny little counter in the middle of one little department store broke all retail sales records for the entire cosmetic company of any store they had. So, they brought me in as a consultant. “How did you do this? What did you do?” And the next thing I know, I was back in business, and the rest just happened. The business grew again, the consulting, the training, everything that had gone away was all back in 30 days. So, the Aha moment from all of this that I really need you guys to hear is that the real secret of building a multi-million dollar business is to focus on impact. When you focus on impact and you do it strategically, the money just seriously rolls in.

John Lee Dumas: Feel the passion in her voice, Fire Nation. You can hear the excitement, the motivation that Wendy is feeling when she’s going through this, when she’s sharing the importance of impact and how much impact the word “impact” has had on her life. It’s that mentality shift that we all need to have. It’s that feeling of abundance, not scarcity. And Wendy has shown time and time again, what that means. Get excited about the story; that’s you, Fire Nation, waiting to step up and create your impact. Wendy, again, just like I didn’t know if you were ever going to have a worst moment because you just seem like you’re always such a rock star, I don’t feel like you have a weakness. But I’m sure you think you do, so what is your biggest weakness as an entrepreneur?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Thank you, I love that question. And again, that was a tough one because I’ve had $30,000 worth of psychotherapy which is something that you’ve got to do in order to become a psychotherapist, which was one of my businesses, and so I could sit here all day and tell you about what I used to think were my weaknesses. But, what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt in terms of my entrepreneurship is that for the longest time, my biggest weakness was that I didn’t know I was an entrepreneur. So, I really thought there was something wrong with me because every time I built the mountain, I wanted to move to a new mountain. And I would look at all my friends, and gosh, they were so stable. They did one thing for 30 years and just the thought of that made my skin crawl. Ironically, it was ten different businesses that I built, and it was only a few years ago when I was teaching at one of my live events, and suddenly, I attended my own seminar. Do you ever do that like you attend your own podcast?

John Lee Dumas: Yeah.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: I heard myself talking about brain wiring and all this stuff that we all know, and suddenly I realized, “Oh my gosh, I’m talking about me.” It was the strangest moment, I can’t even tell you. And suddenly, I realized my biggest weakness has actually been my greatest asset, so we, as entrepreneurs, have this extraordinary ability. We see the interconnections between things. We see possibilities that other people miss and we’re constantly chasing new ideas, and when you see the spark, oh my gosh! I mean, how do you not ignite with this thing, right? So, now, I’m so deeply grateful for what I thought was crazy thinking.

John Lee Dumas: I love it.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: I just didn’t understand it.

John Lee Dumas: “Ignites.” I love how you just have been able to reframe that weakness as your biggest strength. And Wendy, you have a lot of things that you’re fired up about right now. But what’s the one thing that you’re most excited about today?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: I’ve been helping clients focus on impact for a very long time, and I was actually well ahead of my time and did a lot of research on thousands of businesses to prove that in fact, focusing on money was what was causing their problem. So, now, of course, suddenly this has become a critical tool for the new global economy. Everyone’s talking about impact, but to date, no one has publicly defined how you can make a greater impact in business and capitalize on it where impact is defined by the measurable difference you make in people’s lives as a direct result of contact with you and your company and you’re marketing your products and your services. So, impact is the new global currency, and after all of this time, it’s now time for me to reveal this strategy that I’ve been using for all this time. To help my clients maximize and capitalize on their unique impact. So, that’s happening in two ways, which I’m so excited about, I don’t even know where to put myself.

First, as you know, John, I just released my newest book. So that’s “Focus on Impact.” I’m very excited about that. “The 10-Step Map to Reach Millions, Make Millions and Love Your Life Along the Way,” and that’s obviously got me very fired up. But what has me over the top ignited, is this thing I’m doing. It’s called the Focus on Impact Celebration Tour. It’s not about me, it’s about everybody else. What I’m doing is I’m traveling across the United States on a 10 state tour, not to shine the light on me or my book, but to spotlight other entrepreneurs and executives who are making a measurable difference in the world through their own marketing products and services. I’m so excited. So, I’m giving out Focus on Impact Achievement Awards to those who meet my criteria for measurable impact. That’s happening on site at these events. The press is covering this; it’s actually being covered by two Forbes contributors as well as a bunch of other people. And my entire goal is to shine a light on the innovators and the difference makers that I meet along the way. And honestly – I’m gonna cry – this is why I’m so excited to be with you today because you’re the guys that I want to be the first one to win this award.

John Lee Dumas: What?!

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: You are. I mean, you inviting me to this show is what gives me the chance to thank you in person for the extraordinary that you bring to people’s lives. Every single thing you do for entrepreneurs that makes it possible for people to just put something in their ears and get ignited and get the tools and the skills and the inspiration they need. So, John, as corny as this sounds, it is truly my honor to present you with the very first Focus on Impact Certificate of Achievement Award in recognition for the measurable difference that you’re making with Entrepreneur on Fire.

John Lee Dumas: I mean, Fire Nation, I have goosebumps right now. It may be hard to believe, but I hope you do because you know, Wendy, I feel like you can feel hear genuineness, and you know me. I’m just an honest guy. This is the first moment I am ever hearing about this, and this is such a cool experience. Wendy, I’m honored.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Oh, no. It’s my honor. Thank you for your extraordinary impact, John. Your certificate will go into the mail and the address you just posted for me, and we will make it happen.

John Lee Dumas: Oh, man. I really – the hair on the back of my neck is standing up, and this is – I don’t even know how I can finish this interview. This is so awesome. This means so much and Fire Nation, I hope you realize that you’re sharing in this with me because you, the listeners, you’ve given me the inspiration to do this show every single day for the last 1,000 plus episodes and 1,000 plus days. And, man, I am truly touched, Wendy. Can we go to the Lightning Round? I feel like now we have to end strong. What do you think?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: I’m all yours, honey. Go for it.

John Lee Dumas: Ah, man. Okay. Well, Fire Nation, we are going to hit the Lightning Round, but before we do, let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors. Wendy, are you prepared for the Lightning Round?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Absolutely! Let’s do it.

John Lee Dumas: In one sentence or less, what was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: My family convinced me to stay in academia, so after I did a research study that landed me at the US Senate and helped millions of people, I realized I had to get out of there and I did and went on to live my life.

John Lee Dumas: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: After being bullied mercilessly in college, my mother told me, “Wendy, if you don’t like it, change it.” And I haven’t stopped.

John Lee Dumas: What is a personal habit that contributes to your success?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Okay, this one’s really corny. Every hour I’m awake, no matter how busy I am, I have to connect with my husband and tell him I love him because I thrive on doing that. And the more I love him, the more successful I become.

John Lee Dumas: Wow! Love that. What’s an internet resources like Evernote that you can share with our listeners?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Okay, you’re totally going to hate this, but the truth is, my favorite internet resource is my checkbook.

John Lee Dumas: I don’t hate it! I don’t hate it. You need money to survive.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: That’s it. I don’t want to have to deal with any of those things, so I pay people who have the skills to use them and they tell me what to buy and I buy it.

John Lee Dumas: If you can recommend one book for our listeners, Wendy, to join Focus on Impact, your book, on our bookshelves, what would that book be and why?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: In addition to Focus on Impact, I would have to say my first bestselling book, which was, “Shatter Your Speed Limits.” It’s the piece that you need to get out of your own way so that you’ll really let yourself have what you really want in life.

John Lee Dumas: Fire Nation, if Wendy is resonating with you right now, make your next two books Focus on Impact and Shatter Your Speed Limits and you will be prepared to ignite. And Fire Nation, I know you loved audio so I teamed up with Audiobooks and if you haven’t already, you can get an amazing audiobook for free at EOFireBook.com. And Wendy, did you make either of these books into audiobooks?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: They will be coming, but not yet.

John Lee Dumas: Okay, we’re throwing the gauntlet down because you know, Fire Nation, we love audio; and this is the last question of the Lightning Round, but it’s a doozy. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world identical to Earth, but you knew no one. You still have all of the experience and knowledge you currently have, and your food and shelter is taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500. What would you do in the next seven days?

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: That’s easy. I would do the same thing I’ve done every day for the last 35 years. So, I wake up, I brush my teeth, I ask myself one question. “Wendy, are you making the impact you want to be making?” And if the answer is no, I turn on my laptop, I record a few quick videos teaching practical tips, set up a landing page, I would offer the free videos. And then – here’s the kicker – spend the rest of the morning researching all of the businesses within a 60-mile radius. And then, that afternoon, go out into the community, walk into each small business and offer to help them by increasing their traffic, by doing free speeches to attract new customers and bring back the people that they haven’t seen in some time. Do everything for them, use part of the $500 for refreshments, then I’d invite them to partner with me to align with a non-profit locally to help them raise funds and awareness through our event.

The next day, I would get up and then go visit the local non-profits, find out what they’re doing already to raise funds and awareness, invite them to promote the speeches I’m doing to their current boards and donors. And it would be a collaborative project that gets them more visibility and raises awareness through the community events that I’m doing. Day three, I got to the local media. I tell them the story about how local entrepreneurs are coming together to support local non-profits, invite them to cover the events at their local businesses as a community interest piece. On day four, wake up, ask the question, start again.

Now, this is not made up. I actually call this a community formula. It’s an acronym. It’s the exact formula that I’ve used to build every business I’ve built. It’s the strategy I give to many of my clients that have grown theirs from scratch. The secret to this is you seriously have to strategically focus on impact, set up the landing page so people can find you, and then forget about your own success. Focus on growing everyone else’s, and if you serve them fully and completely, that brings you more money than you can ever imagine. Just focus on impact.

John Lee Dumas: Wendy, your message is stirring. Fire Nation, I hope that the hair on your arms is prickling like mine is because this is what it’s all about. That Albert Einstein quote, that got me going. And what Wendy is sharing, it is so similar to that, that if you can just get that, and understand the power of impact, and what that means, and what it’s going to mean to your future, the sky is the limit. And Wendy, let’s end on fire with you sharing the best way that we can connect with you, and then we’ll say goodbye.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Either on the Focus on Impact Tour, through the Focus on Impact book, on Facebook, I’m everywhere come find me.

John Lee Dumas: Come find Wendy, Fire Nation. Make it happen. And Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You’ve been hanging out with Wendy and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to EOFire.com. Just type “Wendy” in our search bar. Her show notes page will pop right up with everything that we’ve been talking about. And Wendy, number one, I want to thank you for the incredible, incredible gift that you’ve given me on this show. Again, completely took me by shock and surprise; I had no idea what was coming. All you did at the beginning of our pre-interview chat was ask me for my address, which I gave you, and then you just hit me at the same time Fire Nation got hit with that news. And I am so beyond, beyond honored, so thank you for that and it’s unbelievable.

Wendy Lipton-Dibner: Yay!

John Lee Dumas: And I just want to thank you another time, Wendy, for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, and we’ll catch you on the flip side.