Video Transcript: What is Success Factor Modeling?

Hello, I am Robert Dilts. I am Co-founder of Dilts Strategy Group and Co-developer of Success

Factor Modeling, which is what this series will be about. I'm also a - I have created a number of

other companies and organizations. I’m a bit of what you might call a serial entrepreneur.

In the early 1980s, I co-founded a company called Behavioral Engineering, and we made

educational software, which was actually sold through Apple at that time. Apple was actually my

first corporate client as a consultant back in 1980. I also established a company called Neurolink,

not to be confused with Neuralink of Elon Musk, although there was some similarity in the fact

that Neurolink used signals, measured signals from the body - things like heart rate and galvanic

skin response - in order to read things about the internal state of the user. And that has now

evolved into an organization or a company called Somatic Vision.

I’m also a co-founder of NLP University, Neurolinguistic Programming University, here in Santa

Cruz, California, which has been around for over 30 years, and is one of the premier NLP

training institutes, globally, and also of an association called the International Association for

Generative Change, that I established with my colleague, Steven Gilligan, to promote the

generative change work that we do. So, a lot of experience working with companies. I’ve been a

consultant for many years. I work as a coach. I'm an author of over 30 books on a variety of

topics that include things like leadership, that include things like team development, but also

other kinds of issues like beliefs and coaching and even work with health.

So, I have a wide background. I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life and what I would call a

“Next Generation Entrepreneur.” And that's what this first master class is about - first of all,

what is Success Factor Modeling, and what is this program going to be addressing with this

notion of what we would call a “Next Generation Entrepreneur?”

So what I’m going to do is - and this will be similar to most of the master classes - I’m going to

do some presentation on PowerPoint, and then actually we’ll be running a little practice exercise

that will be drawing upon what we’ve been exploring in that presentation. And, basically, what I

want to do here is give you some of the overview of the background of Success Factor Modeling

- where it came from, and where we’re going, and this whole series of master classes.

So, let’s begin. I’m going to go to the PowerPoints here. So this idea of Success Factor Modeling

- of course, obviously, I’ll be saying a little bit more about what that is and what that means. And

then this idea of “Next Generation Entrepreneur,” which we would say is the ability to live your

passion and create a better world through your business.

So there’s sort of three different dynamics there. One is, is you’re finding your passion, your -

what it is that brings you energy, enjoyment, satisfaction - what do you love to do? And then

how do you... can you turn your passion into a product or a process that can benefit others? So

this idea of creating a business and a better world through that business, through what you're

doing. So these three things: you want to live your passion, you want to make a better world, but

also have a successful business. And that’s what we mean by a “Next Generation Entrepreneur.”

On this slide, you see that some examples of people that we have explored or examined in using

the process of Success Factor Modeling, which again, I’ll explain more about just shortly. And

you see, these are people like Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple; Richard Branson, who was the

founder of the whole Virgin Group and another serial entrepreneur, sort of somebody who's

helped to start over 400 companies; Jeff Bezos, who, of course, created one of the major

companies in the world today, Amazon; Howard Schultz, the... he is not a founder of Starbucks,

but was the one that took it, internationally; Elon Musk, who was, obviously co-founder of, or

founder of Tesla, SpaceX, and a number of other companies after beginning with PayPal; and

then Anita Roddick, who was founder of the Body Shop.

Now, these are all people that, in our view, or somebody that, clearly. they’ve all created

successful international businesses. You probably are very familiar with most of these

businesses. But one of the things that we would say is that these people didn’t just do this only to

make money. They were doing it because this business reflected back something that was… that

they were passionate about, that they really wanted to do. And, also that it hopefully contributes

something positive in the world.

Now, of course, these can all be debatable, given our different perspectives, but that’s the idea.

And we’re going to look at what are some of the things that people like them have done. This

program is not limited to them. And this, I want to be very clear, this is not about the personality

of any of these people. This is the notion of Success Factor Modeling. We want to really look at

what were some of these key factors of success that allowed somebody to create a successful

business and to do it through a sense of passion. So, that’s kind of the basic idea of a “Next

Generation Entrepreneur.”

Now, Success Factor Modeling has - it’s now… there are three different volumes on this whole

process. There’s the “Next Generation Entrepreneurs,” which is obviously about this course. but

there’s also one on what we call “Generative Collaboration,” which is about releasing the

creative power of collective intelligence. So this is about working with teams and groups. And

then there’s “Conscious Leadership and Resilience,” which is all about orchestrating innovation

and what we call fitness for the future.

And I’ve also written another book on modeling with NLP, which is a bit more specific.

But modeling here, what we mean by modeling, modeling is essentially driven by asking this

question: “What's the difference that makes the difference?” What we mean by that is, let’s say I

grew up in the Silicon Valley. My father was a patent attorney from the Midwest, started off in

Princeton, New Jersey, where I was born, was working for RCA at the research labs there, and

then came out when Silicon Valley first started - actually, before it started, before it was all

silicon.

So I grew up here and then grew up in this area of new businesses, entrepreneurs. That was - sort

of my whole life was touched by that. And one of the things that becomes obvious is that you see

a lot of different players in different markets with different products. Some of them succeed,

many of them, or if not, most of them don’t. And so that’s where there’s this big question, well,

“What is the difference that makes the difference?” What is it that allows some people to reach

these high, incredible levels of success, what they call “unicorns.” The “unicorns” are these

companies that reach a valuation of at least a billion US dollars, which is a very high evaluation,

but quickly, versus those that sort of disappear.

So that’s going to be part of our exploration, where we’re going to be mainly, in this course,

focusing on “Next Generation Entrepreneurs,” although we will be bringing in some pieces of

the Generative Collaboration and Conscious Leadership. But we will cover those in depth in

other courses, other online courses with whole groups of master classes.

Now, again, so we’re looking at this idea, we're going to really focus on this idea of

entrepreneurship. So let's start with this idea. What is an entrepreneur? So we've said a “Next

Generation Entrepreneur” is somebody who is living their passion and making a better world

through their business. But what does it mean to have a business? What does it mean to be an

entrepreneur?

So as this is a definition out of the dictionary: "an entrepreneur is a person who manages an

enterprise or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the

outcome.” Now, I think that’s key right there. There, of course, obviously we think if we're

managing and organizing an enterprise, a venture, and it could also be a project. but the key here

is that, and it’s why not everybody is an entrepreneur, and why it’s not so easy, is that there are

inherent risks and there’s significant accountability. It’s not simple, it’s not easy, it’s not what

you might call a “walk in the park.”

So, we could say that it’s a person who’s willing to take on essentially a new venture, project or

enterprise creating value and creating value for your customers. This is this idea of hopefully

making a better world, by offering a product or service and accepting full responsibility for the

outcomes, the results. So here we get this notion of there’s an outcome orientation, there’s

significant risks, but there’s also organizing and managing. So all of these things are going to be

part of what we’ll be looking at in this overall program.

Now, we also - I think it’s also important to acknowledge the notion of what’s called

entrepreneurship. So we tend to think of an entrepreneur, somebody who’s out on their own,

starting a new business. But oftentimes, even in a larger company, for example, I know, big

companies like Google, they survive on innovation. And they also, they want to support people

to have an entrepreneurial attitude, even though they’re working for them. They’re an employee.

They’re not on their own with a separate business.

So an intrepreneur, it says here, is the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within

a larger organization. So you’re undertaking something new, typically, without being asked to do

so. And it’s, you could also say, it’s the practice of a corporate management style that integrates

risk taking and innovative approaches, as well as the reward and motivational techniques used by

entrepreneurs. So it’s like an internal entrepreneur. There’s a focus on innovation and creativity

and transforming an idea into a profitable venture or product while operating within an

organizational environment.

Another way of describing intrepreneurs is “dreamers who do.” You could say that’s also true of

entrepreneurs, but they’re people who take hands-on responsibility for creating an innovation of

any kind within a business. So they’re often known as, so the secret weapon of the business

world.

So I say this because this program and this master class and this bigger program is really for

anybody. It’s not just for somebody who has some idea for a business. And in fact, we would

even say that this idea of wanting to live your passion and create a better world, that better world

could simply be your family. We’ve had people come through this program that have said, “This

transformed my family life.”

So it’s wherever you have a dream - you have a dream, and you want to turn that dream into

some kind of reality because that dream expresses a passion of yours, and you think that dream

can also be a contribution to others. So, when we talk about mastering entrepreneurship,

mastering intrepreneurship, we’re going to be looking at things like successfully implementing a

new idea for a business or a project, or it could also be growing your current business, if you

already are somebody that has a venture, has a business, and you want to take it to the next level.

But also maybe you are coaching entrepreneurs and executives to be more successful. So the

whole idea is that this program has a wide application, and it’s for many different kinds of

people. It could also be used, for example, by human resource managers who want to encourage

more entrepreneurship.

So now, what is this idea, we said, of a “success factor?” Success Factor Modeling is, then,

we’re going to be focusing on, as we explore these different aspects, what are these “differences

that make a difference?” Now, I said I’m a co-founder of Dilts Strategy Group, a co-developer of

Success Factor Modeling. And I founded Dilts Strategy Group and the notion of Success Factor

Modeling initially with my late brother, John, who unfortunately passed away in 2010. But John,

just to give a little background, I was - my work has been in this area of primarily human factors

of human development. You know, my sort of early background in Neurolinguistic Programming

is all about sort of the psychology of achievement. How do you think? How do you speak? What

kind of things you do to have an exceptional or remarkable performance? And that’s also the

notion of modeling. Modeling of any type, whether it's Success Factor Modeling or not, is all

about trying to capture the significant elements that are responsible for some type of effective

performance. And, of course, contrasting those with those that don’t. So, what’s to be avoided as

well as what is to be focused on or attended to.

Now, John’s background was different. John was - his background was in law and finance. And,

in fact, in the 1990s during - there was a big tech boom, and it was during the early internet days

in the Silicon Valley, and John was working at one of the major law firms in the Silicon Valley,

a law firm that represented some of these bigger companies like Cisco or Yahoo or some of these

organizations that we all know of. And, so, but they, this law firm, also represented new

entrepreneurs, people who had some new ideas. So there was a glut in this time. There was this

big boom, they call it a “bubble.” And so John was constantly sitting in on these meetings

between potential investors and entrepreneurs or bigger companies and people who might be

wanting to be have something contributed or acquired. And he noticed this thing - that some of

them, first of all, some people got funded, some people didn’t. Some people, the venture

capitalists would say, “Wow!” “Great! This is a good idea. Give them money." Others, they’d

say, "No."

He also noticed that the ones who got the money were not necessarily always the ones who

succeeded, and started really wondering, “What are the - what are some of these factors of

success? What are these differences that make a difference?” And of course, there was a lot of

different possibilities to examine because this was in this bubble. Again, many of these

companies, if not most of them, didn’t succeed. A smaller number succeeded, but succeeded

greatly and survived.

So, this is this idea. We said - we got together, and he was saying, “Well, I know that some of it

has to do with the business with the business aspect.” So there’s a business plan. But he said, “I

know that the people who have the best business plan, first of all, they don’t necessarily get the

investment, nor do they necessarily succeed.” And so he would often ask, if a venture capitalist

said yes to somebody or turned them down that he was representing legally, he would say, “Why

did you - what was it that convinced you to make this choice?” And he said, a lot of times the

person might say, “Well, I just believe in the person.” It’s that it’s about the people more than the

plan. “I know that no matter what happens with this plan, this person is so committed to this,

they’re so passionate about it, they’re going to make it happen.” Or they would say, “Well, I

didn’t invest in this product because the product is just one product. I invested in this person’s

bigger vision.” So he realized, now, this had to do with these other elements that were sort of my

area of specialty.

So we got together and we said, “Okay, let’s look at both this idea of how these - this behavioral

skills and behavioral aspect and these business practices go together.” So this is the idea of

Success Factor Modeling that we want to - and our goal was let’s identify these so that we can

support not only ourselves, but support our clients, support others in being able to be maximally

prepared and situated to create, recognize and take advantages of opportunities.

So now what we mean by this is then - kind of our metaphor for this was you have different

locks and different keys, so there’s no single one big recipe, right? There's going to be many

different situations where you’re going to need the key to that situation, and it’s not always going

to be the same set of skills. So if we think of the key as a set of skills and the lock as some kind

of challenge to be met, or problem to be solved, or goal to be achieved, you’re trying to find

what’s the right key, what’s the right sort of shape and type of key that’s going to open this lock?

And so what we’re doing is, in Success Factor Modeling, is we’re kind of looking at, well, both,

you’ve got to identify, well, what the lock is, but then also what the key is. So, that’s one of the

things that we are doing - we’ll be doing, and you’ll see how that works. And now I want to just

kind of go over some of the main aspects that we work with in Success Factor Modeling. So

what do we look for when we talk about success factors?

Well, interestingly, one of the keys that we start with is what we call “Mindset.” Because the

belief here is, and it’s the whole foundation of Success Factor Modeling, is that the way that you

think is going to drive the way that you act, in the same way that the software of, probably

whatever device you're using right now, the reason that you can see me and hear me is because

there’s some sort of software driving this. It’s not just the hardware. There’s the software that is

what’s determining how the hardware is functioning. And then that actions, of course, create

outcomes.

And one of the things that we are looking at, and here’s this idea of the locks and the keys here -

so let’s say that these locks are the things that are going to open up our ability to accomplish

these, fundamentally, these five things. And there’s many, many different aspects and

dimensions to this. But one key is some kind of satisfaction - what I’m doing, personal

satisfaction, or of my team, or of my whole organization, or of my customer. And then there’s

another one, which is contribution, meaningful contribution. That’s another one. I’ve got to

contribute something. I’ve got to make something of value. Another is innovation. I’ve got to do

something new. I’ve got to do something that’s not just the same, and this is more and more true

in today’s world.

When I first got started in consulting, innovation was considered something that was sort of a

you do it as a sort of side thing, but everybody knows now it’s the driver of most success in a

changing world, in what's called a “VUCA World,” a Volatile, Uncertain Changing, and

Accelerating world.

So now the next is profitability. Now, of course, to have a successful business, you can’t just be

satisfied, and you can’t just be making a contribution and being innovative. You’ve got to turn

that into profit. And then ultimately, growth. Once you’re profitable, you want to be able to

grow. So these would be some of the locks.

And now the keys to those locks are going to be the Mindset and the Actions. And that's what

we’re going to be exploring throughout the rest of these master classes. We’ll be looking at

different keys, different locks, and, of course, there are different, as we said, these five basic

outcomes have also many other dimensions inside of them.

Now, the last thing I want to just address in this master class as a sort of introductory master

class giving you the bigger picture of what we’re doing before we start going into the details is -

so we’ve talked about this idea of success factors and modeling and entrepreneurship. But when

we talk about this notion of Success Factor Modeling, what is success?

And again, success for me is going to not just be the one measure here. It’s not going to just be

profitability. It can’t - it’s not going to just be growth. You can be profitable and you can be

growing and not be contributing. You can be - it can be win-lose. You can not be happy or

satisfied. So, in fact, if we kind of look beyond - and I think this is an important thing - these five

things, the balance of these five things is going to be part of our measure of success.

But there's another, which we would call sort of the internal measure of success. That because

people can have - I’ve coached and consulted for over 45 years - people can have a lot of money.

They can be, they can - seemingly they’re growing, they’ve contributed a lot. There’s many

people we know, that, even though they’re outwardly some of the most successful people in the

world - I’m thinking of, unfortunately, of somebody like a Robin Williams, who was one of the

great successful comedians, an actor greatly loved, and then ended up committing suicide. He

also has this other aspect of something missing. So now, not to say anything about Robin

Williams, but just to say, well, so when we look at people who do feel successful, and even in

the places where they do feel successful, maybe, of course, there are other areas where they

don’t.

But when you do feel successful, what is the inner experience of that? Not the outward, but the

inner experience? So when we look at success, the basic definition of any type of success is it’s

the ability to reach your desired outcomes, whatever they are.

But also success is developing the motivation, skills, resources necessary to reach these desired

goals. But when you reach the goal, what happens? How do you know you've reached the goal?

It’s not just an outward thing because people can keep wanting more and more and more, and it’s

never enough. That’s one of the key things we sometimes talk about, that certain kinds of success

are actually compensation for the deep lack of success inside. “I’m never going to feel enough,

I’m never going feel good enough.”

So what is it that people feel when they are successful? Truly? And this comes down, for us, to

sort of these two fundamental things. The first being gratitude, that I’m grateful. I did it and I

know that I didn’t just do it on my own. I know that there was a lot of support, a lot of - as we’ll

explore a little bit later, there’s chance involved. There are many different things involved.

So there’s this feeling of gratitude. And if you don’t feel grateful for what you have, it doesn’t

mean anything to you. You’re not successful, you don’t care, right? “I’m not grateful for this. It

doesn’t really matter, or it’s not enough.” And then the other side, which I think also relates to

that, is generosity. “I have enough that I can, whatever it is that I’m successful in, that I can share

it, I can give it away and not feel that I’m losing anything.”

And so we find that the most successful people are both grateful and generous. And in fact if you

look at people like Bill Gates, who started this foundation where you have some people - some of

the most wealthy people in the world - commit to give away 80, 90% of their wealth while

they’re still alive, not after they’re dead. And I think this is important. Why? It’s because then

you do not get to feel the gratitude or the generosity. You know, if you hold onto it into your

grave, then it means you haven’t - you’re not really generous, right?

So, what I’d like to do, and I’m going to invite you to join me in this as a starting point here, just

to get a sense of, well, what do we mean by success? And what I’m going to invite you to do is

for yourself, and maybe - I often like to do this, we’ll be doing this periodically when we do our

little practices. We’ll do a first practice here and I invite you to stand with me, because I like to

do this not just as only a head exercise, right? This idea of feeling generous and grateful is not

simply a a cognitive mental construct. It’s something that you experience in your heart, in your

being, in your body.

And so to kind of get a first, let’s call it a a reference point, a touchstone of how - of the kind of

things that we’ll be working with, and what I’m going to be inviting you to do throughout this

program, for each of these master classes, I’m going to be inviting you to be working on some

project or venture that you want to take to a next level, or that you want to begin, or that you

want to continue. And again, we want to be kind of starting from this idea of how are we going

to be able to know and ultimately measure success?

And so the first thing I’m going to invite you to do is to think of, in your life, anywhere in your

life, where do you feel gratitude? What do you feel grateful for? I mean, you could start by just

feeling grateful for life, for being alive. You can be grateful for your family. One of the things

that I often do as a kind of a meditation on gratitude, in fact, is I think of how many things am I

living right now that used to be a dream. So it would be, some time ago was a dream, maybe

even an impossible dream. And now it’s part of my everyday reality. And there are so many

things, so many things.

Another way I often think of gratitude is what are things that I didn’t have to create or to make or

put effort into, but I get to benefit from? I mean, like right now, all the technology that we’re

using to make this happen I did not have to create, somebody else did it. So, wow, I’m so

grateful for that.

But especially in my life, the things that I have been involved in, or the places that I feel most

that sense of gratitude. And I - certainly there's so many things. I feel just so grateful to be able

to be standing here before you living, having lived so many of my dreams being able to travel the

world, being able to share my passion and my dreams with others to be able to make a

difference. And, of course, to be paid for that. I mean, that's amazing.

So what are some of the things that you’re grateful for? And then where can you be generous

What are some of the places in your life where you can be most generous? You know, it could be

money. A lot of people can be generous with their money. Some people, they don’t have enough

money even to be generous with, but you could be generous with your time. You could be

generous with your knowledge. You could be generous with your support, with your

encouragement.

So what is it that you have so much of, that you feel you have so much of, that you can give it

away without losing it? And again, not just give it away for no reason. You want to, you’re doing

that because you’re - it’s a way of supporting others, but you have enough of it that you can offer

it to others.

And this, I think, is going to be our foundation and how we’re going to know throughout this

whole program - this is kind of, I used to call this my inner compass - that I know, okay, even if

I’m not sure how something’s going to end up, I know this is taking me more in that direction.

So, and again, I think this idea of the foundation of success is not how much money you have,

how big of a house or a car you have, etc. Those are great, but they’re not the ultimate

indicators of success. Those ultimate indicators are going to be “I feel grateful for where I am,

for what I’ve done, for what I have. And I can be generous in many, many different ways.”

So for this program, I’m going to wish you a lot of opportunities for gratitude, a lot of

opportunities for you to find those places where you can be generous so that you’re able to give

as well as receive. I think that’s another thing. Success is being able to give as well as to receive.

And so we’ll be exploring that more and more as we go.

So, this is our, kind of our overview, our introduction. Of course, I’ll be giving you more insight

and more examples of all of this as we go. But, for now, I want to say, thank you for joining me.

I’m looking forward you to you joining me in the next master class. We’re going to actually be

talking about creating the future - what are going to be some of the foundations for creating the

future of any type, but especially as a “Next Generation Entrepreneur?”

So I look forward to seeing you then.