Before I get a chance to ask about his entrepreneurship strategies, or his numerous bestselling books or even the nonprofit work that’s meant to be the focus of our conversation today, Mike Koenigs has a whole string of questions for me.
“Do you want me to record this?” he wants to know. “I can do it in multiple ways, including a full transcript and everything else. And would you like high-quality video as well?”
By the time I ask Koenigs a single question about his work with startups or the fundraising he’s done for the Just Like My Child Foundation, he’s sent me a private YouTube link to a 4K video of our Zoom conversation, a real-time transcript via Otter.ai and a handful of other assets I won’t even have time to dig into until after we hang up. “Full nerd attack, whether you like it or not,” he chuckles.
It feels like Koenigs in a nutshell: energetic, enthusiastic and extremely helpful, using all of the cutting-edge technology he’s mastered over the course of his career to make everyone’s life a little easier. He has the tools to succeed; he wants to make sure you have them. He wants us all to.
Who is Mike Koenigs?
Koenigs is an immensely driven guy. Known as “the Superpower Accelerator,” his days are spent helping businesses and individuals reinvent themselves to be the best possible version they can be. Basically, he says, “We build entire brands in a week.
“We meet with founders, and we will invent the brand—we’ll do the packaging, positioning, messaging, content, videos, the offer—and have it ready so you can start selling something within days,” he continues. “And we do around 20 of those a year. We’ve done over 100 since I started doing this.”
Just Like My Child Foundation
But Koenigs’ penchant for entrepreneurship is rivaled by his charitable work, specifically with the Just Like My Child Foundation. Founded by Koenigs’ wife, Vivian, in 2006, Just Like My Child has delivered programs in health care services, education, microenterprise, social justice, leadership and empowerment to more than 200,000 people in rural communities of central Uganda and Senegal. (The work is a family affair: For his bar mitzvah, Koenigs’ son Zak raised enough money to build a library in Uganda.) Their primary focus is on supporting women and young girls; the idea is that focusing on adolescent girls can effect generational change in these communities.
“To me, we have a social responsibility, not just to our own communities but to the world, to keep young girls safe,” Koenigs says. He believes that to break the cycle of poverty, young girls should be educated—both in school and in knowing their rights—and kept out of harm’s way, so they’re not only empowered, but also fully capable of making their own decisions on whether to get married or have children.
To date, the organization has built seven school structures and transformed the Bishop Asili Hospital in Uganda’s Luweero District from a struggling health clinic to a state-of-the-art medical facility—complete with an operating room and dental center. That would be impressive enough on its own, except it’s not all Just Like My Child does. Koenigs is especially proud of Just Like My Child’s Girl Power Project®, a program designed to keep girls in school and teach them about their bodies, preventing unplanned pregnancies and forced child marriage. It’s a self-replicating curriculum, taught in simple, straightforward language that can empower young women and truly change lives.
Mike Koenigs wants to democratize technology
In everything he does—with personal and professional development, with Just Like My Child, and with Wealth Longevity International, the early detection health care company he founded after surviving stage 3 cancer in 2012—Koenigs makes use of the same technology that’s become fundamental to him in a business application sense. “I have a view that the democratization of technology is going to bring a lot more wealth and abundance to the world,” he says. “And I also believe that entrepreneurship is an international language of peace and abundance.”
As AI services become both more powerful and more accessible, Koenigs has a vision of bringing those tools and the mindset of integrative alternative medicine to developing countries, “where not only do they not have the mindsets, they don’t have the tools and the resources,” he explains. He references a program called DoctorGPT, which can actually pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination—what if everyone, in every community, had a tool like that, letting them take real ownership over their medical care?
To be clear, Koenigs doesn’t see himself among the “unrealistic entrepreneurs” or “big-hearted givers,” the people who—well-meaning as they may be—don’t have a scalable, cost-effective plan to empower the underserved.
“I think handouts breed resentment and entitlement,” he notes. “Suddenly, you think that somehow you deserve something that you didn’t earn. That isn’t to say I don’t believe in social responsibility. But I think an entrepreneurial mindset is healthy because, again, it’s focused on providing value.”
Mike Koenigs is here to help
Before we say our goodbyes, Koenigs has a few more offers of help. He’ll send over a recent webinar he did with Tony Robbins (“there’s great tools in there”), and he’s happy to give away copies of his books (“I think it helps you dream bigger and better”). Among his bestsellers is one called Referral Party, which helps build a referral business; another one, Punch the Elephant, covers the tricky topic of selling more effectively. “Punching the elephant in the room as soon as you walk in, basically,” he chuckles.
What he really wants is for people to have the power—and the tools—to make great changes in their lives, whether that’s through one of his speaking engagements, through working with him directly or through any one of his books.
“The most successful people are great storytellers,” he smiles. “The most successful leaders are great storytellers. You’ve gotta inspire to move mountains.”
This article originally appeared in January/February 2024 issue of SUCCESS Magazine. Photo courtesy of Just Like My Child Foundation.
Cassel is a Minneapolis-based writer and editor, a co-owner of Racket MN, and a VHS collector.
