INTRO / PRE-SHOW MESSAGE
TONY: Hey, everyone, this is Tony. Before we start today's conversation, I want to give you a quick heads up. At the very end of this episode, I'm going to share a piece of music that's very close to my heart—my newest hit song. If you've ever seen those four words on every coin and every dollar in the US, hearing them in a song gives them a whole new weight. So stick around to the very end. I can't wait for you to hear it.
Welcome back to the podcast. Most entrepreneurs and business leaders don't fail because they lack ambition. They fail because performance eventually hits a ceiling. And basically, tactics stop working. You know, you can hire coaches, you can buy software, you can run more ads, and you can train your team harder. But at some point, growth slows anyway.
Now that's the moment that most people don't talk about. It's that invisible ceiling which is created by belief, identity, and internal language. My guest today has lived on both sides of that divide. Jim Effner spent years as a strong producer and then made the leap into elite performance, not by chasing more tactics, but by rebuilding the internal operating system behind performance.
Today, Jim teaches what he calls the three levers of sales success—mindset, systems, and language. The forces that quietly separate top performers from everyone else. Now, in a world where AI and automation are changing selling and how to sell faster than ever, the real question becomes what part of performance still belongs uniquely to the human, to the human being?
Well, if you're an entrepreneur, advisor, executive, or anyone responsible for revenue, this conversation is going to challenge how you think about growth, leadership, and selling in the years ahead. It's really going to change quite a bit here. So settle in because this isn't about selling harder. It's about performing at a level where success becomes repeatable. Let's dive in. Let's bring him on.

INTERVIEW – PART 1 (THE BACKSTORY)
TONY: Hi, Jim. Welcome to the show.
JIM: Oh, thanks for having me, Tony.
TONY: You know, we're all looking forward to learning about how mindset, systems, and language can create this unstoppable sales performance. We've heard it from different angles, but you've got a very refreshing point of view on how to do this, and I'm very happy to have you on the show to talk about it. But just a little bit more for the audience here. If we could get a little bit more info on you. What's your backstory, Jim? How did it all start for you?
JIM: Well, it all started for me as far as a career goes thirty-seven years ago. Came right out of undergrad, Valparaiso University in Northwest Indiana. I was a corporate finance major, and I really had no background in business. I grew up in a middle class family. I was one of five children. Only I and my older brother went to college. My mom and dad didn't go. My other three siblings didn't go. And so I didn't know what I didn't know.
And I signed up for some practice interviews, or so I thought, with insurance companies, just to get, you know—I was a corporate finance major. I didn't want to get into insurance at the time. But, you know, I fell in love with it. And I came walking into a company called Northwestern Mutual in the May or June of nineteen eighty-nine. And I started selling. I sold at a high level, and I achieved a lot of success at that time. And in today's dollars, that was making seven figures in my late twenties.
I grew that into being an owner and a CEO, managing partner of a firm that I started at thirty-three years old. I sold that in mid-twenty fifteen. And then I started the company that I'm with now, P2P, in January of sixteen. So I sold for twelve years. I ran at an executive level almost fifteen years, a large firm with about four hundred people in it. And now I am an author, a speaker, a trainer, a consultant, coach, all the above to the entire financial services industry in the work that I do at P2P.
So I kind of have a unique resume that I sold. I recruited and trained others how to sell, and then I consult to a wide variety of companies in the industry today.
TONY: What a resume, what a background. You've accomplished quite a bit in a very short time. And I'm curious, with your expertise and knowledge in sales, as you've gone through your career and you've been a top producer, obviously there was a moment—that's what we're going to talk about—when you realized that tactics alone weren't enough. What did you notice there and take us to when you realized that it's got to change? It's just not being done the way it should be or the right way.
JIM: Well, tactics, hard work, discipline, a compelling vision can take you, as you mentioned, so far, but it's not necessarily how far it can take you. It also becomes exhausting. And so the reality of it is that you really don't want to—the best saying I've heard is muscling it, you know, and using the skill sets, the tactics and all that and working harder when you want more. It's like bang your head against the wall, work a little bit harder, work a little bit harder. At some point the engine's going to blow, right?
And so I think I learned pretty quickly in my career that I needed to stop muscling it. I needed to stop pressing the pedal to the metal harder, and I needed to do a better job of stepping back and systematizing my business and letting the systems run the growth of the business in a much more sustainable and predictable fashion.
And so that's when I think I was able to get out of the Volkswagen Jetta, so to speak, and get more in the Ferrari. Because I was in a Volkswagen Jetta. I was making a lot of money. I was doing one hundred and twenty-five, thirty miles an hour, but it was at like eight thousand RPMs and it wasn't sustainable. The engine's going to blow, right? And when I systematized my business, I was able to get out of that and get into a Ferrari—not literally, but figuratively—and allow to go even faster at one-fourth of the RPMs where it's just humming. And that was a big aha for me.
TONY: It's very interesting. And from there you went in and you created your website is P2P—the letter P, the number 2, P—to P2P-Academy.com. So now you teach a lot of what you've learned about mindset, systems, and basically the right language. I mean, I've been in sales for decades, and I can't claim to be even good at any of these particular points. But you've gone beyond that and you've created actually a whole academy, a whole sales, whole training process on this.
JIM: Yeah, I have. And once again, you know, things happen for a reason and you evolve over time. And there's no question that what I'm doing right now is in my wheelhouse. It is what I'm—God has blessed me with. This is my space. I'm not good at a lot of things, but I'm really good at this. And so, but I wouldn't be able to do this at such a level that I do it now had I not spent twelve years in the street selling, spent fifteen years running a firm and all the things I had to do with that to now own and run P2P. All those fed into what we do now.
And it started out really by me taking a number two pencil on a yellow pad for about six months after I sold my firm, which was June of fifteen. I didn't start P2P until January of sixteen. And in that six months, I identified six core sales cycles that are really critically important and dominant in the overall financial services industry. And then I systematized each one of those and said, you know, for example, the very first one is prospecting. How do you get a referral? Well, I built an eight-step system to that. And so I did it for the next and the next and the next. And then I trademarked it. And that became the backbone and the foundation of P2P.
And now how I apply that is in a multitude of different fashions. And P2P Academy are videos that demonstrate that. But the difference I would tell you that is big is I have friends that are really successful in this industry that make millions of dollars a year, but they—and I say this to them jokingly, and I'd say it if they were here right now—they're unconsciously competent. They're incredibly gifted, they're incredibly good. But they couldn't teach it. They don't. They just do it. You know? It's like Michael Jordan probably wouldn't have been a good coach, you know. Um, but he could just do what nobody else could do with a basketball on a gym floor at freak levels, but probably couldn't teach it because he doesn't really even know how he does it. It just happens. It's like magic, you know. That's like the one-tenth of one percenters. I have friends like that.
And I think what was really unique about me is that I was a consciously competent. I knew why I had success, and the benefit of that, the critical benefit of that, is then, therefore, you can teach it to others. You can replicate it and teach it to others.

INTERVIEW – PART 2 (BELIEF SYSTEMS)
TONY: Interesting. You know, while you're saying this, I'm thinking back. I've been through a bit of sales training. I've read some of the classic sales books out there, and most all my training that I've had in the past and the books were really about tactics. And we mentioned this a couple times in this interview, just really briefly, about a belief system. And basically that's what you say drives performance. And that kind of goes over my head a little bit. It's like I want to break down what is a belief system and how that can impact something just right at the beginning. Is it because I feel things have to be a certain way? What can you kind of take us through that?
JIM: Yeah, well, let's start at a high level and bring it down to ground level. At a high level, I don't only believe—I mean, I believed when I was younger. I know now that our mind leads and our body follows. And what goes on in the six inches in between our ears—our mindset, our beliefs, our convictions—drives our behavior. Big time, big time. It's been proven and proven and proven.
You mentioned you read some sales books. If you go back and read some of the old really mind books—so the first one that comes to mind is, you know, you have the oldest one would be Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. And then you could go to Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret, and then you can go to more modern day Simon Sinek. Understand Your Why. And, you know, there's so many books over a span of one hundred and twenty plus years. They all say the same thing. It hasn't changed. It's our minds powerful. Our mind leads. Our beliefs drive our behaviors, not vice versa.
So what one believes is critically, critically important. And a lot of people, most people that come to my workshops don't really realize the head trash they got going on. Uh, I call it self-defeating thinking, but even more importantly, unconscious self-defeating thinking that holds them back. And you've got to get rid of that, and you've got to be consciously aware of it. And then you've got to take a big old jar of empowered thinking—beliefs being a big part of that—and pour it in so that you're appropriately situated to have a bright and successful career.
So yeah, it's everything. Your mindset is everything. And so when you talk about that and I teach it, it's important to get it right. And without getting it right, you don't have a chance.

SPONSOR BREAK – MONARCH
TONY: And in just a moment, Jim explains why so many companies unknowingly build systems that actually sabotage their own growth. But before we get to that, let's pause for a moment because what he just said connects directly to something every entrepreneur also needs—clarity on their finances.
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All right, we're back with Jim Effner. We've been talking about the importance of getting the structure right inside an organization because without the right systems in place, even talented teams struggle to succeed.

INTERVIEW – PART 3 (THE THREE LEVERS)
TONY: Just thinking with this, and I'm almost maybe talking out loud. I'm thinking with this going, it's what's in your head. We hear this a lot. We hear it from some of the biggest motivational speakers and salespeople out there in the world, and I'm still trying to grasp my mind around it. Maybe I've been trained the wrong way. Maybe I've been chasing the wrong thing.
I don't consider myself a salesperson anymore, though I've done a lot of sales and I've done miraculous sales, if you want to say, or big deals in the past. And for me, it's all been—if I believe in the product or the service, if I really believe in it, then I can communicate it to people and get them to believe in it. To me, it was just that simple, whatever it was. And I've done this, even if it was just an idea on a piece of paper. I could communicate that to others and get other people to buy into it. And that's because I believe or know that what I'm doing is very positive, it's very proper, it's what people need, or it's great for a niche. So is that the key part? Because you also talk about mindset, systems, and language as part of the levers of sales success. But we're talking about belief systems. So maybe kind of put that all together and explain that part.
JIM: Well, when you commented on your beliefs, that's only one segment of it. You said that I believed in the product and that was critical to you. I had to believe in it so that I knew that what I was selling to somebody was in their best interest, and it was the right thing to do. That was really important. Hands down, no question. I don't think anybody would argue that or defend against that. That's true, but it's not the end.
You also have to believe in you and your vision. And so both are really important. You can believe in the product, but if you're full of a bunch of insecurities and self-doubt, you're not going to be wildly successful. So it doesn't stop at just believing in the product. You have to believe in the product. You have to believe in you, and you have to believe in the fact that you deserve your own vision of where you're going and why you're going there. And all of those put together are the formula for success.
And so beliefs—yeah, you mentioned my three dimensions—beliefs, systems, and language. Uh, and beliefs is first because it's the most important. If you'd like me to go into systems and language and give you kind of a Cliff Notes version of both of those, then you can ask me questions. I'd be happy to do that. Or do you still want to stay on beliefs?
TONY: Uh, no. I would love the Cliff Notes on the systems and language because I want to ask some other questions, but I want to get an understanding of those three pillars first.
JIM: Yeah. So there's a lot of challenges in sales, salesmen and saleswomen. And one of them probably at the top is that most salespeople wing it. Uh, in other words, they say, do, and behave based on how they feel or what they're thinking at the moment. And because we're all human, we don't have our A-plus-plus game twenty-four/seven, three hundred sixty-five. You know, we go up and down emotionally, and then your results go up and down because it's in alignment with however you're feeling at the moment you are selling or whatever you're thinking because you wing it, right. And that's not healthy. And it's also not sustainable. And it can also be very exhausting.
And so the antithesis and opposite of winging it is to be able to systematize it and get out of your own way. The moment you start saying things, doing things, behaving certain ways based on the emotional state that you're in, you get very unpredictable, inconsistent results. When you can get out of your own way and let the systems run the result, it's much more consistent, and any good business is run by systems. People run the systems, systems run the business.
And so the reality is, what salespeople need to realize is that they're their own business and they need to systematize their sales processes. So it's extremely consistent. And when it's extremely consistent, you also get to be a master at it because you're doing the same thing at the same time, the same way all the time. And you don't sound robotic in nature. Uh, it's authentic, it's real, but it's consistent. And so I have built systems for all the different stages of the sales cycle, from the very start of the sale till the end of the sale. And it's you step here, you step here, you step here, you step here, you step here. And you become a master at the art of that. That's the systems.
TONY: Before I go to language, questions on that. Not yet. I may ask a question about it, but I wanted to get the three pillars a little bit better. And then I might ask different questions on how they fit. Because right now I'm wondering how do these all fit? And so give me the last piece and then I'll be able to ask some more questions.
JIM: Yeah. You bet. So, you know, different sales industries have different nuances to them. I'm only in the financial services industry now. It happens to be massive. It's bigger than the auto industry. But it's a big industry. But that's all I know. But I think there are similarities. Uh, in pharmaceuticals, in auto, in steel, in real estate, you know, sales. Some people say sales is sales. Certain aspects of it, it is. Certain aspects, it's not.
But in financial services, it basically encompasses two things to overly simplify—managing assets for the benefit of financial security and insurance for the protection of a premature death or disability. So this is life and disability insurance. This is managing assets in that space. Okay.
In that space, the number one thing that prevents advisors from being great is their fear. And it's in all of us. It goes all the way back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And the essence of the fear is the fear of what other people think of us. And humans are programmed to want to be respected, to want to have a sense of belonging, to get approval, to be validated, to be loved. Uh, it's a human need.
And so if I'm talking to you and I'm worried about what you're going to think about me, I'm going to do things that aren't necessarily in alignment with getting the ultimate result that you need and you need me to help you get. And that gets in the way. So people's fear is a big inhibitor, right?
And so in our industry, you have to be a leader, not literally, figuratively. You have to lead your clients one at a time. It's not like selling suits or shoes at Nordstrom's. If I'm calling on you as your financial advisor, if you end up liking me, that's a bonus. That's not important to me. What's important to me is that I can deliver financial security for you and your family. I can help you get to the area that you need to be.
Sometimes I might have to tell you things that you don't like to hear, but you need to hear. And sometimes I don't. But I need to lead you. A big enemy of people in America of being better savers, better planners, and more financially secure is procrastination. "I'll get around to it later. I'm young. I'm only thirty. I don't need to start saving for retirement now. That's forever away. I'll start in ten more years." Procrastination is a big problem.
And so one of many examples for a good financial advisor is their job is to help their client stop procrastinating, stop making excuses, and start spending less and saving more today. Right. And there's an art to delivering that. But at the end of the day, no client really wants to hear that. They like spending money. They don't want to have to save. And you have to deliver that to them. But they could perceive it in a way that you're being too salesy. They could perceive it in a way that you're only telling them that because of the commission you're going to make, or the trip you're going to earn or whatever. But only you know the truth. And that is, "I'm not going to apologize for how I get paid. But at the end of the day, I'm telling you, you have to do this because I've taken the time to understand you and you need to do this, and it's in your best interest."
And I'm not really—it's like in a different world if you had cancer and I was an oncologist. If I'm a really, really, really good oncologist and your cancer patient, all you really want me to do is save your life. You're not looking to build a friendship with me. You want me to save your life. So my bedside manner isn't all that good, or this, that, and the other. But I'm the best surgical oncologist, and I can save your life. That's most important to you. Or at least it should be, right? If we become friends afterwards, great. But that's not what you're meeting me for.
It's the same with the financial advisor. They have to be on a mission of helping you get to the land of financial security. And in order to do that, they have to lead you. They have to know when to give you a high five, when to know when to kick you in the butt. And sometimes it's hard to do if you're possessed with that fear of always wanting to be liked.
So now we're into language. So if I could, in my space, in my industry, learn how to make that fear go away, I would be a billionaire ten times over. It's impossible. We all have that fear. And as long as you're a human, you will have that fear. So it ain't ever going away. So then, as a trainer, consultant, coach, my job was to figure out, okay, if it's never going to go away, how can I get more people to go through that fear? Because there's never going to be an absence of it.
And language is a tool that gives reps a higher degree of self-confidence. Because if I know what to say, how to say it, when to say it in my sleep, I'm not full of a bunch of "ums" and "ahs." I don't have uncomfortable, slumping shoulders. I'm not nervous. I'm going to be articulate. I'm going to be humbly confident. And I'm not going to be stumbling on my words. So my language in the critical areas that need to be good—you could wake me up at three in the morning in my deepest REM, and I could go, and it would sound just as good as it would in the crispest day.
Reps need to have that, because those are arrows in their quiver that build their self-confidence to take the courage that's necessary to be a leader to their clients, one at a time.
SPONSOR BREAK – SHOPIFY
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All right. We're back with Jim Effner. Before the break, we were talking about leadership and the responsibility leaders have to serve their clients one relationship at a time.


INTERVIEW – PART 4 (LANGUAGE VS PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE)
TONY: So language is important. Not because when you get good at it, people buy from you. People buy from you when they trust you. People buy from you when they understand that you genuinely care about them and that you have their back, and that you understand—not because of your language. The language is for the advisor to give them confidence.
Jim, the language sounds just like that. You have to know your product inside and out. It sounds to me just like being an expert in your product or service and knowing all the ins and outs, the pros and cons and the whole thing. How is that—or is that different than the language that you teach?
JIM: It's very different. Knowing your product is logical. Language is much more emotional. They both play a role in selling, but you're dealing with human behavior. You know, as a financial advisor, I mean, if you don't know your product, you don't have a chance. It's not a differentiator. It ain't rocket science. You're not a nuclear engineer. You know, um, the stock market, the underlying assets in that—you know, every financial advisor has got access with technology and everything else to the world of what's out there. And they better understand it and they better be credentialed. They should be a CFP. I mean, that should just be a given. If you don't know your product, like I said, you don't have a chance.
But the emotional side of how you manage human behavior and connect with people, uh, that goes far above and beyond and deeper than knowing your product.
TONY: Okay, I got you. And we're entrepreneurs and business people in this audience here. What of the three levers, which of the three levers do we neglect or not really give the right focus on that we should, out of those three?
JIM: That I preach about? By far, mindset. Yes. Yeah, beliefs, the head space.
TONY: And why do you say that the entrepreneurs and business people of the world today don't follow that, don't have that in place? What is that? Do you think they don't have a deep enough connection to their purpose and their why and really clearly understand why it's important to them?
JIM: And, you know, first of all, let's just agree that if you are a business leader and an entrepreneur, you're doing something that's hard to do. If it wasn't, everybody would do it. And whenever something is hard to do, you're going to hit bumps in the road, you're going to hit barricades, you're going to hit hurdles, and it's going to be tempting to throw in the towel. It's going to be tempting to quit. It's going to be tempting to settle for being mediocre. And in order to pursue the vision of being great, you better know why that's important to you. And, um, I think a lot of people don't have that sense of clarity.
TONY: And you think that if that's the first thing that we focus on, the mindset, that we would get, you know, if we just started for the next month, just focused on that, we would get the biggest difference in our business?
JIM: I think that'd be a phenomenal start. Yeah. It's like, um, yeah, think about it this way. Get out of business. You set a goal. You and I are too old to do this now. But maybe ten, twenty years ago that you want to run a marathon. Okay. But you told me you spent some time in Chicago. I used to go watch the Chicago Marathon. It's not quite as big as the New York or Boston, but it's a big deal in Chicago. You know, a couple hundred thousand people do it. And there's a lot of people that are first-timers. They just have this crazy goal. Uh, and by the way, I've never done it. But this story is still relevant. They want to run the marathon.
You know, how they train, their nutritional program, their diet, you know, all that kind of stuff. I'm not discounting that. It's relevant. But the most important thing for them is their sense of achievement, drive, commitment, and determination. When the gun goes off that through hell or high water, no matter what happens, they're crossing the finish line. They could be in the most intense pain of their life. It doesn't matter. They're crossing the finish line. Their why and their drive is so intense that there's no physical derailment that can stop them. And how they get around it, they won't even remember what choices they made. All they knew is you could cut my arm off, my leg off, I'm crossing that finish line.
Entrepreneurs a lot, they have that. They start a business and people—"How did you make it? You know, ninety-seven percent of people fail. How did you make it?" This, that, and the other. A lot of them don't even know. They just know failure wasn't an option. Me being successful was so important. Every roadblock I hit, I figured it out. And most would give up.

INTERVIEW – PART 5 (IMPLEMENTING THE LEVERS)
TONY: Okay, I'm an entrepreneur, business person. I've listened to this interview and I'm pumped up. Going to work Monday. What do I do different? Now I've got my sales. I've got my product. I've got all my things that I do. How do I incorporate and integrate these levers into my day, into my work week, into my daily thing?
JIM: Well, as you could probably imagine, I could spend hours on that question. You know, that's a complicated thing. You're an entrepreneur. You're a business owner. You're going to go into work on Monday, and you're going to take these three things and bring them to life.
First of all, you've got to start with your culture and you've got to have alignment with your people. You know, if you're an individual, you're a one-man band, that's different. But if you've got a company with ten or twelve or fifteen or one hundred people, y'all got to be singing the same tune. You know, what are your beliefs? Why are they that way? How do you communicate them to your team? Why should people do business with your company? You might have that down as the CEO, lead entrepreneur, but can all of your employees sing the same tune the same way you do? You know, do you have alignment created in your organization?
You know, what you bring to market, whether it's a service, a technology, you know, whatever it is, is it full of DNA? Is it different? Is it new? Is it attractive? And how do you talk about it and how do you communicate what makes it DNA? And can all your employees do it as well? And what's your vision and why is it important? And is it compelling enough not just to you, but to your entire team? So I would say that those are the areas that you've got to start and over-communicate early and often with your team as to what those things are.

INTERVIEW – PART 6 (AI & THE HUMAN ELEMENT)
TONY: Okay, now I'm going to throw a wrench in the works. I'm going to disrupt everything here because today the world has changed. It's not like the day when I used to do sales and beat the street and do a ton of things. We've got AI, we've got computers, and we’ve got software that says, "Do this, this, this and this." We've got whether we developed it for the company we worked for or others have developed it and we've adapted it—wonderful ways to sell or produce or provide our product or service. But now we've got AI. So it's all automated, kind of—not maybe all automated, but a lot of automation. And it's telling us what we need to do.
So I'm thinking, well, you know, I go in Monday or whatever day of the week and I've got my computer or my AI telling me, "Do these things, Tony," and then call it a day. And now I've just listened to this interview with Jim and Tony saying, "You've got to have these systems in place." And I'm just looking at both of these going, "AI's changed everything." Let's look at how that's changed. What do we keep? What don't we keep? Maybe that's the way to look at it.
JIM: Well, I think I've probably said this two or three times already in this interview. I only know my business. I only know my industry. Right. And AI hasn't changed everything in my industry. So. But let's get out of my industry so I can prove my point. Okay, let's get into the industry of physical fitness and personal health, right? Because, you know, I'm assuming, you know, there are at the flip of a switch, there are coaches, trainers who—you tell them your physique, your age, your BMI, your weight, your height, your blah, blah, blah, blah—they'll tell you, they'll spit out in two seconds your diet, your meal plan for the week. They'll spit out in two seconds your exercise routine with videos instructing you how to do it, boom, boom, boom. You have more than you could possibly handle in five seconds in all of that space.
So why the hell would you go out and hire a personal trainer for two hundred bucks an hour when you can get it in three seconds from AI, right? Because there's so much more that computers and AI can't replicate. And that's a good example, because if you are seventy-five pounds overweight and you're a chain smoker, you'd have to be an idiot to know that that's not good. That's not healthy, right? So that person knows that.
But then if they know that, why wouldn't they just click on an AI button and four or five months from now be ripped and quit smoking? Because it's not that easy, right? And there's all kinds of baggage in their head. And there's all kinds of stuff from their childhood. And they might be addicted to food for insecurity reasons. And they know diets work. They've tried ten of them. None of them work. You can tell them how to do it, but it doesn't work.
And so in my industry, people don't grow up young, get a college degree and say, "Well, I'm forty-five. I want to be in middle management. I want to have credit card debt, and I want to be broke." Nobody says that. Nobody sets out on that path. But yet a high, high, high percentage of Americans are. They don't like it. They don't want to be there.

PRE-INTERVIEW CONTINUATION MESSAGE
TONY: And in just a moment, Jim shares an insight about leadership that many entrepreneurs only discover after years of experience. But before we continue, I want to take a moment to thank you for being here. Your time and attention truly matter to me, and I appreciate you choosing to spend part of your day with The Tony D'Urso Show.
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All right, let's get back to my conversation with Jim Effner.

INTERVIEW – PART 7 (AI CONTINUED)
JIM: An AI agent could tell them, "Here's how much you should save. Here's how you plug in your income. Here's how much you should spend, no more. Here's how much you should save. Here's how to save it"—in two seconds. They don't do it because there's so much other stuff that goes with that. And it's so hard. And AI and computers in our lifetime, Tony, ain't ever going to do that.
TONY: No, it won't. And I tell people, there's an empty lot across the street from us, and it takes one sentence to say, "Go build a house." Yeah. Okay, great. But it takes a lot of work, as we all know, to really get a house, a proper house, to get what you want in it and so forth. And where I'm kind of going with this is I'm looking at culture. I'm looking at, uh, how we work inside our company, regardless of the size. Even if it's just a small operation, you still have subs and associates and brokers or agents or whoever. You still have people in, and/or a team that you work with or both. And you all got to kind of work together.
And I'm just thinking—and yes, what you've said about AI is very, very, very true. Totally, totally correct. But it still does make some people think, and it's all you need. It does make millionaires right away if they get on the right code or the right combination, let's put it that way, with the right things. But that isn't the end-all. You still need that human aspect. We've talked about this a few times and I'm thinking of what role this is all going to play in, especially in high-performance organizations. You're very familiar with that.
And perhaps maybe kind of take my question in this way. Those three levers, what they've done and what you've seen them change in terms of performance of companies. In other words, they've taken a company from one level to another. And just I kind of want to go into how important that is. And despite the fact that AI, as you mentioned, has one sentence that says, "Do this or whatever," it's not the end-all.
JIM: Yeah, I agree with everything you said. I'm a little bit unclear as to what you're asking me.
TONY: I'm just kind of like looking into the culture. Maybe what we see coming down the road in terms of the culture, because the AI culture is hot, is heavy. More and more communication is out there in social media and just about everywhere—AI, AI-driven. A lot of fake AI. And as you mentioned, anybody can look up AI right now and it will tell them how to do their job, how to make sales or how to do anything better, how to lose weight, how to get ripped, how to do whatever.
It's starting to change the culture, but it seems to me it's not as real. It's not connected. For example, you and I sitting here having a real chat. AI could have created an animation and created this whole mock interview, but it's not real. I guess that's where I'm going. It's changing the culture. And if we see that that's where things go, we can stay clear of that and use that to help us. And those pillars are very, very important in that, in building that organization.
JIM: Well, earlier I was talking about a person could just go to the desk and say, "AI, you know, whatever. I need to sell this. I need to do this. I need to produce this. Whatever." AI is just going to spit stuff out. People are going to do it. Call it a day and say, "I'm done with my work." But did it really make a difference? Did it really get things taken care of? Did it really help? Did it really handle? I'm kind of going into the culture of that as opposed to mindset, systems, language, and that as a culture that we should or could embrace in the higher performing organizations to really make a difference.
TONY: Yeah. And I think, Tony, that that varies dramatically by industry. You know, there's some industries that, um, you know, have been unbelievably renovated, transformed, and are dramatically different today because of AI and because of the benefits that AI has brought in a positive way. And then there's some that aren't as dramatic. And then there's some that are in the middle, you know.
Um, for example, you know, let's say that, uh, you were in the manufacturing business and you owned a steel tubing company, and you framed Amazon distribution warehouses, and you had, you know, a bunch of people that were like the best at going out, precision measuring, you know, every square inch of those warehouses so that there was no over, you know, inventory of steel bought and this, that, and the other. And it was like a unique skill set. It was a gift. And your company thrived because your guys that do that were like the best of the best, right? You paid them well. It was important.
Well, now you go out there with your iPhone, take a picture of the place, and the AI tells you precisely what the one one-millionth of an inch, how much steel you need. And, uh, those people are gone. That job doesn't even exist, you know? So that does happen. That does exist. And then in others it's not as valuable.
But here's what I tell you, Tony. I've had debates with friends, and I'm not a technology guy. So I know conceptually how AI has changed the world, how it's changed my kids. My kids are twenty-nine, twenty-seven, twenty-six, and it's changed them. I mean, it's had a dramatic impact on our society. But I teach, I coach, and I've had friends say, "How much longer do you think you'll go?" I'm like, "Well, I love what I do. I'm fifty-eight, but I don't feel like I'm fifty-eight. I'm going to go as long as I keep loving it."
"Well, aren't you going to become outdated pretty soon?" I mean, what are you talking about? "So, like, pretty soon AI is going to replace you." I'm like, "No, it's not." Like, "Oh, well, it is, because not the technical definition, but a naive, non-technical guy, the way AI software works is you feed it information and then it takes it."
So I have a book I wrote that is a how-to, everything I teach. You just give AI that book. It reads the book and it can teach like Jim Effner. You know, if you gave AI my manual for all of my curriculums, it would just read every single letter, every single word in that. And then it could teach like Jim. I make the argument—no, it can't, because there's an emotional human connection in teaching and consulting that, at least in our lifetime, computers can't replicate.
Now, there are some things that AI makes really cool. Like, for example, uh, I'm doing a new website. Uh, and it is an expense and it is time, but it's about a tenth of the expense of what it would have been had I done it ten years ago, like when mine—right now—is eight and a half years old. And, um, they didn't have AI then, and the amount of time and money it took to build my first website, which, by the way, now is antiquated, my LMS website. The one I'm going to launch in March is like ten times better. It was like twenty times faster and like one-twentieth of the cost because you don't have computer programmers manually writing code to create your website. That took weeks and months. You've got AI that does it in two seconds, you know.
And so that I think is a really cool thing. And I've got to have an LMS platform webpage to put all my online curriculums on. So that part of my business, AI has really helped me. So it's cool, you know?
TONY: No, you got it right. You've got to use it where you can. It helps me. It helps me, but only to a point. But you still have to look it over. You just can't let AI go do everything by itself. It requires that intelligence—refer to it as human element, perhaps—to look it over and make sure that it's right and correct and it's what we want. Because otherwise it can just spit out garbage. It really can. I've seen it. I've seen it, just because AI doesn't care.
JIM: Yeah, it doesn't have any understanding. It's just—if I say write a post, it's a little brutal, but it's not enough of what I really want. So it always requires that human. We'll never get rid of that. And I really appreciate everything that you've had this little chat on multiple things. We talked about belief drives revenue and how we talk about the three levers—mindset, systems, and language—how that creates unstoppable sales performance. We really didn't kind of get into the sales, but I think it's understood that these points really create that infrastructure. And with that, you can really accomplish quite a lot.
OUTRO
TONY: Jim, I just want to thank you so much. Oh, and your website again for everyone is P2P-Academy.com. That's P, the number 2, P, dash, Academy.com. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was very, very good. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for that.
JIM: I was really good to have you on. I really appreciate it. It's very stimulating and it tells us sometimes, guys, what's important, what's not important. And yes, we can use AI for whatever we want, but at the end, you still need to look it over, make sure that it sends that letter or that post, or does whatever you want it to do the way that it should for your benefit, for your purpose.
TONY: All right. Well, guys, if you like this, share this with your friends. Tell them about Jim. Tell them about the three levers. Tell them about what he's been through and what he's accomplished. He knows where it's at. He's built quite a system. We barely touched into it. Uh, but the three levers are really powerful, so please check that out. And wherever you're getting this, please follow the show. It helps to bring more amazing guests to you. All right. Thank you so much. And let's use this and let's help you move on your journey to success.
Thanks. Remember, guys, just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. So good seeds, do good deeds, and I'll see you on the next episode.

CLOSING SONG – IN GOD WE TRUST
TONY: And before we close today's episode, I want to share something special with you, something I mentioned at the start of the show. This is my brand new song, inspired by four powerful words printed on every US coin and every dollar. You've seen these words your entire life, but when you hear them as a song, they carry a whole new meaning. It's called "In God We Trust." Here it is.
[SONG LYRICS]
Walking by a bus stop
not even a book
Feeling everything is just plain old stuck
a dime on the ground, I held it to the light
what it said restored my sight
In God we trust, the words shine true
guiding my steps and all I do
through trials and storms I find my place
In God we trust, amazing grace
Yeah
I took the next bus, though my pocket had no fare
I told the driver my life with a humble prayer
He gave a smile and said, "Go on, son"
I knew then that my hope had begun
In God we trust, the words shined through
Guiding my steps and all I do
Through trials and storms I find my place
In God we trust, amazing grace
I found a diner with a crowd at the door
and asked the kind lady if I could do more
She smiled and said, "You can stay if you try"
With a dime in my hand, I whispered on high
When the road feels heavy and hope runs thin
That coin reminds me where faith begins
One small coin, yeah, the truth so wide
In God we trust forever, my guide
In God we trust, the words shine through
guiding my steps and all I do
through trials and storms, I find my place
In God we trust, amazing grace
Forever we sing
In God we trust
forever we sing
In God we trust
TONY: And that is "In God We Trust," the song that truly came to me as a gift from God. I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to hear your feedback. Thank you for listening and thank you for spending this time with me today. I hope this episode and this song gives you something meaningful to take with you. And by the way, this song is part of my very first album, which is now out. If you want to hear more of the new music, visit TonyDUrso.com/Music. That's TonyDUrso.com/Music.