Author: AJ Vaden

Ep 621: The 5 Luxury Levers: Neen James on Creating Irresistible, High-Ticket Client Experiences

Neen: But the most revered position in a hotel is the concierge and the [00:00:05] concierge anticipates needs you don’t even know you have. And what I want our listeners to think about [00:00:10] is I want you to think like a concierge, not a bellhop. [00:00:15] A bellhop is transactional. A concierge is transformational.

Rory: Well, [00:00:20] today I’m gonna bring you a fabulous high energy interview from one of my [00:00:25] longtime friends, uh, in the speaking world, and I’ve known through the National Speakers Association, [00:00:30] NEN James.

Her new book is number one right now on Amazon. She [00:00:35] works with some of the biggest and brightest and best companies, uh, in the world [00:00:40] to talk about creating luxury experiences and luxury price [00:00:45] points, is what we’re gonna talk about. But she’s worked with the Ritz Carlton, with Fairmont, Comcast, [00:00:50] Viacom, uh, Cisco, the Four Seasons.

She [00:00:55] recently was appointed to the Board of the World Luxury Chamber of [00:01:00] Commerce. Um, she is a favorite speaker, a longtime friend, and we’re gonna talk [00:01:05] about what does it mean to create elevated experiences. Um, [00:01:10] and, uh, her new book, by the way, is called Exceptional Experiences, five Luxury [00:01:15] Levers to Elevate Every Aspect of Your Business.

So we’re gonna talk about how to. [00:01:20] Sell those experiences and how to deliver, um, exceptional experiences. [00:01:25] Nen, welcome to the show

Neen: Goodday. Gorgeous. It’s great to be back serving your [00:01:30] fabulous viewers and the listeners to this podcast.

Rory: Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s not that often that we [00:01:35] have somebody back, but we’ve had you, uh, uh, a couple times.

It’s been a while though. [00:01:40] Um, well,

Neen: yeah,

Rory: it’s been a minute. It’s been a hot minute. So, um. Tell me about [00:01:45] exceptional experiences and, and here’s the thing, I guess to tee this up a little bit for the audience. You and I were [00:01:50] talking about this before. We’re seeing very consistently right now, both in our business [00:01:55] and with our clients, that ironically, it [00:02:00] seems almost like it’s easier to sell.

More expensive offers [00:02:05] and that people are willing, more willing than ever to pay for [00:02:10] an elevated experience for a higher level offer, they’ll pay more money. It’s [00:02:15] our top level offers that are selling out quickly. And it, in a way, maybe it [00:02:20] seems almost offset by, like it’s harder than ever to sell these sort of, uh, lower [00:02:25] ticket, more generic type offerings that are available to everybody.

So I’m [00:02:30] noticing that. As a pattern and a trend in our monetization strategy. So [00:02:35] I just wanted to kick that over to you and go, is that part of the timing of this book? Are you seeing that same [00:02:40] kind of thing?

Neen: You know, as a client experience expert, I have the privilege of working in [00:02:45] some incredible brands as you read out.

And if I take for example, the luxury travel [00:02:50] industry, when the world changed, that industry ended up investing [00:02:55] more in more exclusive experiences. So if we think about top tier [00:03:00] clients, so whether you are a consultant or whether you have a dental practice, you have top [00:03:05] tier clients. And one of the things that we’re finding is those top tier clients are [00:03:10] the ones that we wanna focus on.

Because if you look at your revenue split and think about the old. Greater principle, [00:03:15] right? Mm-hmm. The 80 20 rule, you’ll often find that it is those 20% that [00:03:20] are generating 80% of your revenue. What we noticed in the luxury travel industry is what [00:03:25] people wanted as more unique experiences. They wanted to be first to discover a [00:03:30] location, and then they wanted to share it with others.

The same could be true of businesses. What [00:03:35] people want is they want more exclusive behind the scenes. Access. [00:03:40] I loved the interview that you and Marcus did about the questions with endless customers, and one [00:03:45] of the things he was talking about was having videos showing behind the scenes, so people should go back and [00:03:50] listen to that particular episode.

What we are seeing is it doesn’t matter whether it is luxury [00:03:55] travel, whether you are in financial services, what people are willing to do [00:04:00] now because what they. Associating is they’re associating that [00:04:05] exclusivity, that exceptional experiences with their own values and success. And so [00:04:10] it’s, it is a lot easier to sell a high end item where people already perceive the [00:04:15] value will be there because of the ticket that you are charging for that.

As [00:04:20] opposed to you, you know, some people thought it was a volume game, like those small things, you know, they would say [00:04:25] start the funnel with something kind of. Free or something low end. And [00:04:30] that might work for people. But what I’m noticing is people want a personal touch. And what [00:04:35] luxury brands do better than anyone else, Rory is personalization and [00:04:40] customization.

Mm-hmm. And you don’t have to be a luxury product to provide a luxury level of [00:04:45] service. So regardless of what kind of product you have, when you’re listening to this, you [00:04:50] could easily offer a luxury experience. You just need to know how.

Rory: Hmm. [00:04:55] Yeah. Well I wanna talk about that. And I mean, we’ve definitely seen this, um, you know, people [00:05:00] are paying more to just be in a small, intimate setting with [00:05:05] myself and like some of what we call these events, mastery events that we started doing.

Mm-hmm. [00:05:10] Where it’s like I get a little bit of time to work with each person directly [00:05:15] one-on-one, uh, versus like, you know, a huge. Virtual or [00:05:20] in-person presentation where there’s hundreds of people in the room, uh, to that point about personalization and [00:05:25] customization. So, uh, you talk about five levers that, [00:05:30] you know, basically business owners can pull.

You call ’em the [00:05:35] five luxury levers of the experience elevation model. So [00:05:40] can you just tell us what are those, because I think it’s, um. [00:05:45] People start to go, okay, is there an opportunity for me to create a higher level [00:05:50] experience? What would that look like? How do I go about [00:05:55] doing that? Uh, walk us through the five levers.

Neen: Sure, because I [00:06:00] consult to so many CEOs and their, uh, teams around the world, whether it is luxury or [00:06:05] legacy brands, what I’ve been able to apply this experience elevation model to medical, [00:06:10] to hospital emergency rooms, to, you know, media companies, obviously [00:06:15] to hospitality. And what I’ve found is through my consulting and through the [00:06:20] research that I did, I have the only research study of its kind luxury as a mindset.

And so [00:06:25] what we discovered was that really, when you want to think about two things as a [00:06:30] leader, this book is designed based on my consulting model that I already used to [00:06:35] drive. Two things. How do you capture attention? Let’s call that mind share. How do you [00:06:40] drive revenue? Let’s call that market share. So if you are listening to this, imagine there’s a [00:06:45] triangle and at the bottom it’s about capturing attention, and that’s mind share.

At the top of the [00:06:50] triangle, it is market share, where we want to take those clients, we’re capturing their [00:06:55] attention and have them become advocates. The whole goal is to have people out there also [00:07:00] talking about your business. This book will help you do that. It’s like a playbook with all the [00:07:05] systems, the first of those luxury.

Levers you say, I say levers. The [00:07:10] first of those levers is entice. And using. Entice is how do [00:07:15] you then tell the story about your business? How do you position yourself? You [00:07:20] know, at Brand Builders Group, you already help people do this, to identify the type of client that they wanna [00:07:25] work with and to really elevate their reputation.

So storytelling is one of the techniques you [00:07:30] can use here, okay? But I challenge people to also share your origin story. Why is. [00:07:35] Your business so important to you, how does it align with your values and that your reputation would [00:07:40] be demonstrated there. The second of the levers is invite. Invite [00:07:45] is where you bring people into your business, into your community by speaking the language they [00:07:50] need to hear.

We even outline different digital and analog communication [00:07:55] methodologies in the book to be able to deepen those connections. Then we [00:08:00] move up to the luxury level of. Excite it’s here that we want to be [00:08:05] doing things that are shareworthy. Are your clients, not only do you have their attention, but [00:08:10] are you doing things that they wanna talk about with others?

It’s about engaging the five [00:08:15] senses, Rory, and if you have a digital business, it’s about using [00:08:20] language to create a more sensory experience. But if you have a physical business, how [00:08:25] can you then think about elevating that, using the five senses? We then move into the [00:08:30] luxury level of delight. This is one of my favorites because this one here [00:08:35] is where you show people that you know them really well.

This is where you also make [00:08:40] people feel like they’re seen and heard and valued. And just between you and I, Rory, that’s a whole [00:08:45] stealth message of this book is how do you really make people feel seen, heard, and [00:08:50] valued. I’m using examples in the book from luxury brands, but we can all do [00:08:55] that every day.

And then the fifth of the luxury leavers is ignite. This [00:09:00] is where you create advocates of those same clients. This is about helping educate [00:09:05] them to give you those referrals. Maybe it’s about hosting exclusive events so people could [00:09:10] feel like they’re really important to you. Maybe it’s to developing a gifting strategy, [00:09:15] but it’s surrounding their lifestyle so you become top of mind and top [00:09:20] of market for that particular client.

So we start with entice. Then we [00:09:25] invite, we then excite, delight, and finally ignite. We drive [00:09:30] mind share and market share using this model.

Rory: Mm-hmm. [00:09:35] Yeah. Um, uh, talk let’s, I wanna talk about the Shareworthy [00:09:40] stuff a bit because I think that is hard [00:09:45] to do. I mean, it’s, it’s like. Getting, it feels like it’s getting harder and harder to [00:09:50] impress people.

Um, you and I have a mutual friend, Eric Chester, and I, uh, Eric was one of [00:09:55] my speaking mentors. Right. And I remember growing up in the business where Eric was like, you know, when [00:10:00] I used to do presentations, people would go rousing, applause. And they were just [00:10:05] absolutely nuts. And today they just kinda like, okay, good job buddy.

[00:10:10] Like, you know, like, it’s just like the, the. There I, I [00:10:15] guess the threshold or the level of expectation of like what blows somebody’s [00:10:20] mind just seems to be getting higher and higher and higher and higher. [00:10:25] So what do you think are some of the kind of things that [00:10:30] people do to create those, you know, I guess.[00:10:35]

Remarkable moments or make ’em shareworthy as you say, to go like, [00:10:40] this is what you do when, when you do this. This is the kind of stuff that [00:10:45] people are gonna share about. Because that also is like even creating free content. We’re trying to make our [00:10:50] content shareworthy. Mm-hmm. Of like, sure. We’re trying to create something that people go, yeah, hit the share button.

Like that’s still like, yeah. [00:10:55] Perhaps the most important button on social is the share button. Yeah. So, yeah. What are you [00:11:00] seeing are the dynamics, components, characteristics of things that really reach [00:11:05] that shareworthy status?

Neen: Let me give you an example that’s not in the book, because it was [00:11:10] something I experienced after I was in the process of publishing, but I want people to listen [00:11:15] and remember about making an emotional connection because when we have an emotional [00:11:20] connection to something, we are more likely to then share it.

So one of the keys to this is emotional [00:11:25] connection. I love the luxury property in Alexandria called [00:11:30] AKA. It’s a brand of, there’s a few of the hotels, but the first time I checked into this [00:11:35] beautiful hotel, they have a hotel dog called Senna. He’s named after the F1 driver for any of the [00:11:40] listeners who are F1 fans.

And so he’s this massive big dog. So when I went to the [00:11:45] reception area, here’s Sena. I was on my knees cuddling this beautiful puppy as soon as I checked in, [00:11:50] because I love a furry baby When I travel, hotel, dog or cat, I’m, I’m here for all of that. [00:11:55] Someone snapped a photo of that Rory. Fast forward to the second time I stayed at the [00:12:00] AKA Alexandria, but wouldn’t you know there’s Sena there.

And I was like, oh, that’s an amazing [00:12:05] coincidence. And then Isaiah at the front desk said, no, no, n we knew you were checking in. We wanted to make sure Sena was [00:12:10] here to greet you. Amazing. Get to my room, Rory. [00:12:15] And there is a framed photo of Senna and I from my first visit [00:12:20] on my bedside table. But wait. There is a handwritten note [00:12:25] from Senna with a paw print on it saying, I’m so glad you’re [00:12:30] back at the property.

Mm-hmm. Now that plus less than $5. [00:12:35] Right. But what it was for me was that emotional connection. It [00:12:40] reminded me of the lovely visit, the fun that I had last time. It was incredibly [00:12:45] personalized. It took a moment to hand write a note in our digital [00:12:50] AI world. Analog systems get attention that handwritten note.[00:12:55]

That sweet, kind, thoughtfulness, that creativity of making it [00:13:00] from center the puppy as opposed to Yes. Chris, the general manager wrote me a note as well, but [00:13:05] Center is the one that I remember of taking them time to frame a photo. [00:13:10] Something that was a memory, because they’ve had systems in the background, what I call [00:13:15] systemized thoughtfulness to make that happen.

And what will we need to think about no matter what kind of [00:13:20] business you have. Perhaps one of the shareworthy ways that you could look at capturing the [00:13:25] attention and demonstrating your expertise to people is analog. [00:13:30] And it could be the simplicity of, let’s say Rory, when a friend of ours, Chris [00:13:35] Ducker, published a book, long Per Leader, I would buy 25 copies of his book, and [00:13:40] I would write a handwritten note to all of the people that are important to me, and I would send them a [00:13:45] copy of Chris Tucker’s new book.

And that is going to arrive in a hot pink bubble [00:13:50] mailer. It’s physical mail, it’s lumpy. It’s not a white envelope, which probably has a bill in it [00:13:55] if you get your mail. All right? That’s what we think about, and so it’s an extension of my brand through the [00:14:00] hot pink packaging. It doesn’t say anything about me, it’s just.

Hey, Chris’s book [00:14:05] is really great. As a leader, I think you’ll benefit from chapter four. This would be really powerful for you. [00:14:10] It’s personalized, it’s customized, and it’s saying, I thought of [00:14:15] you. So when it comes to doing things that are shareworthy Rory, it’s about [00:14:20] thinking creatively. It’s not just about sharing on social, and that’s really [00:14:25] important, but what people want is they wanna know that you are important to them.

Now an [00:14:30] easy way to make things shareworthy in a digital way is give us [00:14:35] behind the scenes. Give us what’s happening. Let us meet. Yeah.

Rory: What does that [00:14:40] mean? What does that mean exactly? So tell me about that. So let’s, for

Neen: example, let’s see, you’re a dentist office, right? As a [00:14:45] dentist office, there’s gonna be things that are happening behind the scenes.

As a client in the dentist, [00:14:50] it would be really cool for me to know who are the team members? What’s the process? What are they [00:14:55] go through in a day? What do they joke about? What are things that we need to know? You could shoot that video [00:15:00] and, and put it on the Instagram stories. It doesn’t have to be on the grid.

But it’s an easy way for us to [00:15:05] get to know, wow, this dental practice has personality. This is someone I’m like, oh. So [00:15:10] when I go to see my hygienist, I say, oh my gosh, how was your trip to Bali? How’s your family? Like, [00:15:15] little things that help me feel more connected. So what we can do is if, [00:15:20] for example, uh, at a hotel.

They might interview the chef about why they [00:15:25] designed the menu they did. If you’re a mechanic, it might be about showing us behind the scenes of how you [00:15:30] set up, how you take care of the cars. We need to think more creatively about using [00:15:35] video. Video is the future of communication, as we know, and people want to see the [00:15:40] unedited, unfiltered, genuine, because you know, [00:15:45] with what you do with people and their reputation, building that trust is so [00:15:50] important.

So. Would it be? An easy way to do it is capture some video, interview [00:15:55] your team, and then post that and share it. Or even with me as a keynote [00:16:00] speaker, as soon as I arrive on property, I will take out my phone. I’ll shoot a short video for the [00:16:05] meeting planner and say, Rory, I just arrived. I love my hotel. I can’t wait to see you at soundcheck at 7:00 [00:16:10] AM Have a great night.

I’ll see you and your wonderful audience tomorrow. I just text that off to the [00:16:15] meeting planner. It takes me less than two minutes to do that. Meeting. Planners love it because [00:16:20] it’s personalized. It’s digital, it’s easy, but it just [00:16:25] helps you. Then the meeting planning goes, it’s one less thing I have to worry about.

The coffee’s hot, the [00:16:30] room’s gonna be warm enough and needs arrived. So what we wanna do is also think about how can we [00:16:35] stand and service of our clients in a unique way, and video is an easy way to do [00:16:40] it. Using digital or analog, there’s so many ways you can capture attention.

Rory: [00:16:45] Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like, um, it seems like personalization and analog [00:16:50] are two really prime parts of that, that you, you go, [00:16:55] uh, the more, the more hyper-personalized it is and yeah.

The more analog it [00:17:00] is or that it feels, um, is really key. I wanna talk about the [00:17:05] definition of luxury and what you consider the definition of luxury, because you know, in a way you, [00:17:10] it’s like analog maybe is like, even that word is like, doesn’t sound luxury, but here you’re saying [00:17:15] like, no, that that is luxury.

Um, so what are, what are some of the misconceptions you [00:17:20] think that people do have about luxury and what do they, what, you know, how do [00:17:25] you sort of reframe that? Um, because, you know, is it just [00:17:30] expensive and it’s just Louis Vuitton or is it something else?

Neen: You know, I think luxury is a [00:17:35] divisive word.

Roaring people associate it with expensive or it’s elitist, and I [00:17:40] want to change the narrative on that. Mm-hmm. I believe luxury is both inclusive and [00:17:45] exclusive. Here’s what I mean by that. It’s inclusive because everybody deserves it every [00:17:50] day, and it’s exclusive because you can roll out the red carpet experience for people.

Like I [00:17:55] said, you don’t have to have a luxury product to provide luxury experience. But in my research [00:18:00] study that I did, what we discovered is of the hundreds of people that were part of the research [00:18:05] study, there were five words that appeared constantly as the main characteristics [00:18:10] of how luxury is defined.

They are high quality, long [00:18:15] lasting. Unique, authentic. Indulgent. [00:18:20] Mm. Now, for most people listening to this call, the only one they may not relate to as much is [00:18:25] indulgent because as leaders we wanna be high quality. We want to have legacy and be long lasting [00:18:30] in our brands. We want a unique approach to our thought leadership and the way we share out in the [00:18:35] world, and we wanna be authentic.

So those same definitions of luxury apply to the [00:18:40] businesses listening to this. But one thing that we need to think about is some people see [00:18:45] luxury as time. Others, it is about the fabulous handbag. But what [00:18:50] I discovered of all the research was two things were common in my research [00:18:55] study. Everyone agreed luxury is about, uh, a [00:19:00] reward for hard work.

Hmm. And the second thing that was my favorite finding in the [00:19:05] study and something I’ve personally believed my whole life, because I do believe luxury is a [00:19:10] mindset, is that luxury is about experiences. Not things. And we have [00:19:15] the data to support that. And what we can all do is we can all provide this [00:19:20] experience for our clients, for our team, customers, guests, patients, [00:19:25] students, whatever community you serve.

But what you can do is just elevate it a little [00:19:30] bit so that people feel more seen, heard and valued.

Rory: And, and what [00:19:35] does that mean to be, to, to help people feel more seen, heard and valued? I mean, is that [00:19:40] just like personalization? Is that basically. Think

Neen: that’s one of the strategies to it, but I [00:19:45] think one of the things that often happens is.

I’ve worked with brands where they’re so [00:19:50] eager to tell the world about their product or service, that all they do is talk, talk, talk. Right? So they’re [00:19:55] just vomiting out all this information, all this content, and it’s all about them, right? [00:20:00] And one of the things that I wrote in my book, attention Pays, and it was one of the best [00:20:05] lessons I ever got from my little five-year-old friend Donovan.

And he and I were in this heated [00:20:10] debate, and I don’t know if you’ve ever debated with a 5-year-old with your kids, but you know what? Every day

Rory: as it turns out, right?

Neen: And [00:20:15] so I remember he, he thought that I wasn’t listening to him, and he got so mad at [00:20:20] me, Rory. He jumped in my lap. He grabbed my face in his tiny little hands.

He [00:20:25] turned it towards him. And he said, this nin, listen with your eyes [00:20:30] now. From the mouths of babe, come to the best [00:20:35] wisdom. We don’t just listen with our ears, we listen with our eyes. We listen with our heart. We listen with our [00:20:40] soul. So if we want to, as business owners, whether you are an entrepreneur, whether you are a [00:20:45] thought leader, we need to listen with our eyes more.

We need to be able to listen for what the [00:20:50] clients are not telling us, for the concerns that they aren’t sharing, and we need to [00:20:55] anticipate in a way they haven’t thought about it. One of the things I love worry [00:21:00] about hotels is I love a good bellhop. A bellhop will move your bags really quickly through the [00:21:05] hotel.

Their job is very efficient. They wanna get those bags up into your room. It’s a [00:21:10] transaction. But the most revered position in a hotel is the concierge. [00:21:15] The concierge is the go-to person. They know everything about that community. They [00:21:20] can get you that hot ticket at a restaurant or that seat at a table.

And the [00:21:25] concierge anticipates needs you don’t even know you have. And what I want our listeners to think [00:21:30] about is I want you to think like a concierge, not a [00:21:35] bellhop. A bellhop is transactional, but a concierge is [00:21:40] transformational. How are you anticipating needs people don’t even know they have, [00:21:45] so that you can be the person who can help them with that?

Rory: Yeah. I’m a, I’m a big [00:21:50] believer in anticipate the need, like just going, if you wanna be a [00:21:55] great employee, anticipate the need of your employer, of your customer. Mm-hmm. And like, if you wanna [00:22:00] blow someone’s socks off. Anticipate the need. Give them the, give them [00:22:05] the thing they don’t even know they need before they have a chance to ask you for it.

Neen: [00:22:10] Mm-hmm.

Rory: Exactly. Uh, and the, the, [00:22:15] I think that’s also what makes a great gift giver is like when somebody’s like, [00:22:20] they hear you be like, oh, like I’ll never forget. So when AJ and I first started dating, [00:22:25] uh, actually we weren’t even dating was right when we first met. Um. [00:22:30] We all, uh, we were, we were living on the road.

We were living in these corporate like apartments [00:22:35] and we were all just kind of meeting each other and stuff. And it was my birthday. And [00:22:40] what had happened was we had all started going to like these, uh, yoga classes together. And we had [00:22:45] never done it, but we were like, it was close by or whatever. We were just looking for something to do and, [00:22:50] and she gave me a yoga mat for a birthday present.

And I was like, I was so [00:22:55] touched by. How thoughtful it was. Mm-hmm. Because I was like, [00:23:00] oh, she’s not just like googling great gifts [00:23:05] for, you know, random guys that I just met. It was, it was like [00:23:10] she was, she was thinking

Neen: mm-hmm.

Rory: About what I [00:23:15] was doing and going, what could I get for you that would [00:23:20] be so useful for you, but you haven’t even thought about needing that [00:23:25] yourself.

Neen: Yeah, and I think, you know, personalization requires information, right? [00:23:30] Customization requires connection, but anticipation requires fascination. And so if [00:23:35] what’s fascination, whoa, whoa. Go

Rory: back and say all that again. That was a lot of shun and that was really good. I wanna hear that again. So [00:23:40] slow that down.

Personal

Neen: personalization requires information. Personalization requires, [00:23:45] requires information.

Rory: Information, okay?

Neen: Customization requires [00:23:50] connection. Okay. Anticipation requires fascination. [00:23:55] Mm. She was fascinated with you and what was gonna make you happy and things that, so [00:24:00] that fascination is the same fascination we need.

When you ask about making people feel, [00:24:05] seen, heard, and valued, are we truly fascinated with the community that we serve so that we [00:24:10] want to be able to find ways to make their lives more exceptional, to [00:24:15] elevate every experience where it can be the simplicity of using someone’s name [00:24:20] when you. See them, the server, the valet, the barista, whoever it [00:24:25] is.

Just by being able to be kind and just instead of just sending these mass [00:24:30] emails out to people, could you look for opportunities to customize it so that people [00:24:35] realize that yes, you’re important to them? Yes. You’re still using automation. You can still [00:24:40] use systems to elevate things, but can you do it in a way that makes people feel like, oh, [00:24:45] I see you.

I get you, and what we need to do is leave room for that. Gifting [00:24:50] is one of the strategies we talk about in the book because really people who do this [00:24:55] well, I love hosting people in my home. It’s one of my favorite things to do because I am [00:25:00] always in these luxury hotels. I’m always learning. I’m always watching to see what do they do That makes me feel really [00:25:05] great as a.

And I wanna extend that into my home. So every time people stay [00:25:10] with me, Rory, I’ve already done my due diligence on their favorite fragrances, their [00:25:15] flowers, their dietary restrictions, how they have their morning beverage, what is it? And I create these [00:25:20] gift packs so that when they arrive, everything is self-contained for them.

That’s. Easy thing for me to [00:25:25] do and I have a system. I literally have a checklist for every time people stay at my house. And so [00:25:30] what we can all do is think about how we apply that to our team. What are the things we’re doing in the [00:25:35] team spaces? Do they really get, feel like they’re being taken care of in [00:25:40] hospitality?

In hotels, we talk about front of house, back of house. Often our clients only see [00:25:45] front of house, but the people who are taking care of our clients. Often back of [00:25:50] house. So are we paying the same attention to provide a luxury experience for our team [00:25:55] because they’re the ones who are providing that same level of service to our clients.

So think about [00:26:00] elevating all those experiences so everyone can deliver luxury, whatever luxury feels like to [00:26:05] you.

Rory: Yes. I think it’s, it’s amazing that it’s like this [00:26:10] is a great business strategy, but it’s also just a great human strategy of just [00:26:15] going, you’re showing people that you care. You’re showing people that you pay attention.

And [00:26:20] I have found that like the best marketing strategy in the world is to actually care [00:26:25] about people. Like when you actually care about people, like when you actually care about your [00:26:30] customers. They tell other people about you when you actually care about your employees? Yes. They [00:26:35] recruit all the other employees for you?

Yes. This is

Neen: also being shareworthy because [00:26:40] you’re, you’re giving them this shareworthy experience. They can’t help but tell other people, this is a great place to work. This is a great [00:26:45] person to book to speak. And so what I want people to think about as they’re listening to this [00:26:50] inside the book, it’s like a playbook of how you can apply all these different strategies to your business no matter [00:26:55] what kind of business you have.

But one of the things that we wanna think about too, when it comes to [00:27:00] this elevation, is we wanna make sure that. As people are [00:27:05] experiencing you as a leader, that you are also choosing to be exceptional. [00:27:10] That you are choosing not only to pay attention, but that you’d be so fascinated with people [00:27:15] that you, I think it’s like, for me, it’s a game.

How can I surprise and delight and get this [00:27:20] person excited about what I’m doing because I love it. But what that also means, Rory, is [00:27:25] you need to be really clear about who your clients are. Who are you for, and [00:27:30] who were you not for? And so what, that also makes it easier to provide a more exceptional experience [00:27:35] if you love the people that you take care of.

Rory: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Um, [00:27:40] so cool, Neen, where, where do you want people to go? Uh, if you to learn more about you. [00:27:45] I mean, obviously they can go get the book, exceptional Experiences. It’s out now. [00:27:50] You’re helping us create a more luxury experience, giving us the playbook for how to do that. [00:27:55] How else do you want people to stay connected to you?

Neen: You can find [email protected] or [00:28:00] follow my adventures every day on Instagram, but I love LinkedIn as well. But if you reach out to me on [00:28:05] LinkedIn, make sure it’s because Rory is our connection, so I get to know that in your invitation. [00:28:10]

Rory: I love it. Um, well thank you for this friend, and thank you for, uh, you modeled this [00:28:15] so well in your personal life of just surprising and delighting your friends and being such a [00:28:20] delight.

So, um, I love that you’re doing this. I love that you wrote the book now on this [00:28:25] and, um, I’m a hundred percent convinced that like this. [00:28:30] Conversation. This strategy is really, really key for personal brands in this moment, right now. [00:28:35] As you say, like in a world of ai, it’s, I think it’s the analog that wins.

It’s the [00:28:40] exceptional that wins. It’s the customized, the personalized, uh, and the more [00:28:45] kind of intimate, you know, heart based human connection that is, [00:28:50] is going to win. So thanks for sharing us. Thanks for sharing your insights with us, and, uh, we wish you all the [00:28:55] best friend.

Neen: Thanks. It’s been a privilege.

Ep 620: Lead with Generosity: How to Build Influence Through Authentic Relationships with Keith Ferrazzi

Rory: if [00:00:35] you’ve ever heard the story about my son coming into the office and I have hundreds of books on the [00:00:40] shelves and he grabs one off the shelf and I talk about it was one of my favorite [00:00:45] books, never Eat Alone. That book was written by a number one New York [00:00:50] Times bestselling author named Keith Far.

That book and many of Keith’s [00:00:55] teachings inspired me early in my career about the power of relationships. [00:01:00] Um, any of you who earn affiliate commissions from us every month from Brand Builders Group, or if [00:01:05] you’ve ever, uh, if you know, if you’re the result of someone who referred us. Uh, [00:01:10] referred you to us, your friend makes money.

And a lot of that comes back to the book that [00:01:15] I read when I was starting out in my journey. Never Eat Alone, and about the importance of building [00:01:20] relationships, adding value, uh, depositing more into people than you extract, [00:01:25] staying in touch with people. And that book was written by Keith Razzi. I’m so excited.[00:01:30]

That you’re about to meet Keith Razzi. So he’s the number one New York Times bestselling [00:01:35] author. Uh, he consults with many of the top Fortune 500. He is [00:01:40] in all different types of businesses. He is one of the most respected consultants I, I [00:01:45] think, in this space. He is, had a couple decades in this career, uh, and he has a new [00:01:50] book that just came out called Never Lead Alone.

So we’re gonna talk a little bit about that. We’re [00:01:55] gonna talk about a little bit about Never Eat Alone and really. The career arc of his journey of [00:02:00] how he built one of the most recognizable personal brands in the world. So Keith, [00:02:05] welcome to the show, man. It’s such an honor to have you,

Keith: Rory. What a beautiful introduction.

And [00:02:10] I’d never heard that story about your son, that it was really touching. Thank you. And, uh, you know, it [00:02:15] feels like a homecoming. I’m excited to meet your, your team.

Yeah, so I, I’d like to start [00:02:20] with, with never eat alone. Um, a lot of the techniques we teach, we teach this thing [00:02:25] called the relationship switchboard, where we track every introduction that we’ve ever made.

Uh, our [00:02:30] business model is inherently connected to paying people for all the introductions we’ve [00:02:35] made. Uh, how do, how do you do relationships [00:02:40] the right way? Versus the wrong way in this space. ’cause there’s a lot of [00:02:45] like, oh, I’ll do this for you only if you do this for me. And there’s some [00:02:50] weirdness around around that.

So I would love to just go like, how have you built relationships [00:02:55] and what are the mistakes kind of you see people doing in this, in this space specifically?

Keith: Yeah. [00:03:00] Well, let me give, if you don’t mind, I’d like to give just a slight backstory. To [00:03:05] how I cultivated the knowledge about the relationship world that we’re in today.[00:03:10]

Um, when I was a young kid, I was born into a very impoverished [00:03:15] family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the crash of the steel industry. And the [00:03:20] challenge, uh, for me growing up was I had no effective role models. You know, I [00:03:25] was, uh, I, I had great aspirations for tons of extraordinary success, [00:03:30] but nobody in my family had ever gone to college.

And it was a woman named Mrs. Poland who worked at [00:03:35] the country club where I was working, who showed me the gift [00:03:40] of how a person can open doors of opportunity. When you didn’t [00:03:45] have, when you weren’t born into it. So like I was always bemo, be bemoaning when I was a [00:03:50] kid. The lack of nepotism. Oh yeah, I wish I was born into these rich families, like the kids I knew from [00:03:55] school, et cetera.

And what I learned is that you don’t have to be born into it. You could earn into it through strong real [00:04:00] relationships. Mrs. Poland opened beautiful doors for me and when I asked her, ’cause I was [00:04:05] her caddy, I asked her years later, I was like, why did you, why did you do this for me? She [00:04:10] said, Keith, you took two strokes off my golf score.

And [00:04:15] it really leveled home to me that, you know, I, I showed up at the golf [00:04:20] course a half of an hour early ’cause my pop said, get up there and hustle. I never lost [00:04:25] a ball. I was always on it. And, you know, I really busted my ass to be [00:04:30] of service. I outta scarcity, to be honest, in fear that I would lose the job.

I needed that 20 bucks. It was the [00:04:35] same money my mom made as a cleaning lady. But it, it, I learned early on that [00:04:40] some of the most powerful people, and she was incredibly powerful compared to where we were in our family, the [00:04:45] most powerful people in the world. If you, if you seek out and think about the question, how can I be of [00:04:50] service, it’s absolutely game changing Now when I show up to [00:04:55] anybody.

That I feel is an individual that’s important to my [00:05:00] network. I do my research, I call it the seven Ps. My dad used to call it the seven Ps prior [00:05:05] proper planning present prevents piss poor performance, the seven Ps, uhhuh, and [00:05:10] uh, I’ve, I’ve identified what I believe to be the five packets of generosity. I can give this person.[00:05:15]

Five packets of generosity. I’ve done my homework. I know whether or not they’ve got a kid about [00:05:20] to go to college. And I’ll ask and I’ll offer to be a conduit to internships. I know [00:05:25] what their, uh, what their most important, um, charity is that they, [00:05:30] they’re interested in. And I’ll do my research in my network and figure out who I could introduce them to.

For that, [00:05:35] I will ask them whether they’ve thought about ever writing their book. Because I’d say, I’d love to be a [00:05:40] Sherpa through you for this process. So whatever it is, like, and, and it’s, it’s what I [00:05:45] call, and I what I teach early on in never alone call it the generosity pyramid. [00:05:50] It’s like at the bottom it’s how do you show up Being the kind of person people want to hang around.

And [00:05:55] that has to be with do with your ability to be authentic, to, yes, be generous, but just be [00:06:00] the kind of person who can, who can care about people who listens and asks questions and is, [00:06:05] and is dotting on people. And letting people know how much you admire them and respect them. And, and [00:06:10] that whole milieu of how do, what does it mean to build that kind of charisma.

That doesn’t mean you’re an [00:06:15] extrovert, I’m an introvert. These are things I had to learn because I’m not natural at it. [00:06:20] And what Rory teaches you in terms of how to build your personal brand. You don’t have to be a natural [00:06:25] at it to be great, right? You can work at it, you can practice it, and that’s what I did all my life.

So [00:06:30] number one is lead with generosity. The second thing is make sure you follow with vulnerability and authenticity. [00:06:35] There’s nothing that’s more of a turnoff to me when I meet somebody is when they [00:06:40] go straight into transaction mode. Right. They go straight into, you know, [00:06:45] what can you do for me? What can I do for you?

That sort of thing. And I understand that that’s a natural inclination [00:06:50] of people, but you want to take people out of that. Just like Rory, when his introduction, he introduced [00:06:55] his son to me in the introduction. That is an act of [00:07:00] vulnerability, of authenticity, of bridging from the transactional into the personal.

The fact that [00:07:05] Rory represented early on in the, in our dialogue, that I was impactful to his life. That is an act [00:07:10] of currency. Right. So the la you know, I’ve got six sons through [00:07:15] foster care and adoption. Right now I’m struggling with one of my boys in mental health issues in, in [00:07:20] Phoenix, and I will openly share these things because, not [00:07:25] because I’m trying to make people feel sorry for me or, but it’s because I want to create the [00:07:30] universal bond between me and another person, which is my, my and your humanity.

[00:07:35] If, if when I was young, I didn’t do that when I was young, I probably stood on a pedestal and I wanted to tell [00:07:40] everybody that. I went to Yale, I went to Harvard. I was the youngest partner at Deloitte. I wanted to [00:07:45] prove myself right? And, and as a result, all I was doing is distancing [00:07:50] myself. Um, I talk a lot about this in detail in a TED talk that I give, which you can [00:07:55] see online.

Anyway, Rory, I’ve been going on too long. Go.

No, no, that’s good. So, so one of the things you [00:08:00] said reminded me actually. Uh, you were talking about charity. It reminded me of one of the [00:08:05] things that I, I learned tactically from you, which I want to ask you about [00:08:10] now, is getting high level introductions, [00:08:15] getting introduced to people of influence getting introduced.

I think that’s more important [00:08:20] than ever, right? It’s podcasters, it’s speaking opportunities, it’s whatever, consulting. [00:08:25] Um, what tips do you have? For getting [00:08:30] introduced to people and building authentic relationships with, with the person that, [00:08:35] like everybody wants to meet. And so it’s like everybody’s trying to get to them [00:08:40] and you’re trying to get to them, but you don’t, you know, you want it to be kind of in like a, a, a [00:08:45] warm, a warm way.

Keith: Yeah. Well, you already mentioned it. It’s warm [00:08:50] in that, number one, you should always put on your sleeve and tell people who you’re trying to get to meet. Right, [00:08:55] and so if you let it known, then the people who care about you, who trust you, who [00:09:00] you’ve served. Who have benefited from you. They may be like, you know, I know that person.[00:09:05]

So, number one, don’t be shy in sharing your short list of those to the world that you’d love [00:09:10] to meet. Hmm. Number two, ask people who you’ve already, you’ve already [00:09:15] delivered a lot of generosity to a lot of currency in their direction. Ask them. Sometimes I [00:09:20] find that by asking somebody for a simple favor, like an introduction to somebody they know, et [00:09:25] cetera.

Um, we’re not, you’re not asking to borrow a thousand bucks, right? You’re just asking for a [00:09:30] simple favor that actually strengthens the relationship. If you’ve been, you gotta start with your [00:09:35] generosity toward them. Then at some point just ask. Um, now, as I said before, make [00:09:40] sure you do your homework. I have shown up with, when I was early, early on, like 20 [00:09:45] years ago, um, I made a list of the people I wanted to get to know Tony Robbins, [00:09:50] Deepak Chopra, you know, um.

The, the both of the boys from, [00:09:55] um, um, no, uh, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor [00:10:00] Hansen. What was their, what was their book? Um,

chicken Soup for the Soul, anyway. Mm-hmm.

Keith: Yeah, yeah, [00:10:05] exactly. So like, these were the biggies at the time. Right. All of them now are best friends. They’re all great friends, [00:10:10] and they, by putting them on the list, that’s the starting point.

[00:10:15] But then doing research. I remember when a friend of mine, Peter Diamandis, I knew, [00:10:20] knew Tony Robbins well, and by the way, Peter, uh, is a [00:10:25] great, you know, was one of the greats now too. And I actually, Peter will credit the fact that he has [00:10:30] a speaking business today to me.

Rory: Hmm.

Keith: And because early on when he was running around [00:10:35] selling xprize, he saw the money I was making in speaking and [00:10:40] he, he was like asking me for some advice some day.

I was like, listen. Let’s book a lunch. Let me [00:10:45] bring the person who runs my speaking business to the table. You bring your admin and I wanna [00:10:50] give you the whole formula for how I run my speaking business and how it accelerates [00:10:55] my life, et cetera. And he gets, he gets teary-eyed when he talks about that, that I [00:11:00] spent that time with him.

And for him, he gets teary eyed and he’s like, you paid for my, [00:11:05] my kids’ college and then some based on that day that you gave me. [00:11:10] Um, so right there, you know,

so I wanted to just say something. So I [00:11:15] remember when you talk about doing research on people, one of the things that you [00:11:20] said was you can meet people through charities and serving on boards [00:11:25] and being involved with nonprofits.

You meet, you always meet high powered people. And then another [00:11:30] thing that you said was. Anytime you can be of value to someone’s family or their kids, [00:11:35] that’s like another really amazing way to add generosity because it’s like you help their kids, like [00:11:40] he gets teary eyed because of how much like you helped him pay for his kids’ college or get [00:11:45] them an internship game changer.

Keith: There’s a chapter in the book, first book, never [00:11:50] Alone, uh, called Health Wealth in Children. And if you wanna solidify [00:11:55] loyalty with a person, you are there for them when they’re struggling with a health issue. [00:12:00] Um, you help them make money, um, or you help their kids. Very, very [00:12:05] powerful. And on the health issue, early days, I always, when I thought about this, I always [00:12:10] collected doctors.

Interesting. I got to know, I got to know [00:12:15] when I meet, meet a doctor who’s a specialist. I would build a personal relationship. I [00:12:20] would DM, invite them over to my house for dinner. I’d build a personal relationship. I’d go deep. It was a real authentic relationship. I’d [00:12:25] send them, you know, clients, I’d, you know, refer them, et cetera.

But more importantly, [00:12:30] you know, when, whenever one of my network knew that if they got diagnosed with prostate [00:12:35] cancer. Or if their wife got diagnosed with breast cancer or whatever they were struggling with [00:12:40] diabetes, I would get a call and I would be able to open my doctor [00:12:45] network to them, and it would be game changing Sometimes I was the second call.

That an [00:12:50] executive would give after their spouse when they got a diagnosis. Um, [00:12:55] so, so there’s this whole area of leading with generosity. The next area is making sure you [00:13:00] show up with vulnerability and authenticity. I throw dinner parties with some of the most successful people in the world. I [00:13:05] do it, uh, you know, every other month up here in the Bay Area with major CEOs of the [00:13:10] Bay Area.

Now, combination of the, you know, the, the cutting edge. A hundred billion [00:13:15] dollar, uh, AI companies combined with the biggest juggernauts like Cisco and HP and others, [00:13:20] all the CEOs. Um, and they come to my dinners because I created an [00:13:25] environment where they can serve each other and they, and the format [00:13:30] is easy.

I start, but everybody goes around and shares what are they struggling with the most right now? [00:13:35] That’s it. Wow. What are you struggling with the most? And I set in an environment where [00:13:40] that’s safe. And, and that is, and people always say to me, it’s the most powerful dinner [00:13:45] they’ve ever been to. Mm-hmm. And they want to keep coming back.

And they do. Some of the most powerful CEOs come back [00:13:50] repeatedly in a given year. ’cause they just want it to happen in that network. By the way, I’ve [00:13:55] never believed that anybody has ever coming. I still don’t think [00:14:00] anybody’s ever, I have no desire to believe that people are coming for Keith Ferrazzi.

[00:14:05] They’re coming because of the environment I’m setting up and they’re coming because of the people at the table. Sure. I’m [00:14:10] one of them and I may contribute to that, but I’ve never had enough hubris to [00:14:15] think that somebody and I will never let anybody sell anything. I will never let anybody pitch [00:14:20] anything.

Um, I will only allow people to be of service to each other. [00:14:25] Mm-hmm. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. I, I think, you know [00:14:30] what, what, what’s interesting to me, and I think that some people struggle with is like, [00:14:35] like the things that you talk about, they’re strategic, right? You’re going, how can I add [00:14:40] value?

Who do I wanna meet? Who do I need to build relationships with that [00:14:45] can be valuable to other people? How can I curate experiences? But it’s so, it’s like you’re [00:14:50] intentional and you’re strategic, but it’s not manipulative. In the sense, listen, you’re only [00:14:55] doing it to get something back.

Keith: What I, there’s two lessons and rules you gotta [00:15:00] live by.

Number one is, this is not a balance sheet. [00:15:05] This is not a, I’m gonna help Rory, and Rory has to help me. I will help Rory. And [00:15:10] yes, because Rory is a very successful person who has access to great podcasters [00:15:15] and other people, I may accrue benefit, but I’m gonna help Rory if I can help Rory, [00:15:20] and if over time Rory doesn’t return that favor.

I might stop at [00:15:25] leveraging my energy in Rory’s direction, but if he does [00:15:30] and we continue to build that relationship of mutuality and service to each other, [00:15:35] et cetera, we’re not keeping score right? But it’s clearly a mutual relationship and a service [00:15:40] relationship. Then we keep it going and it’s, and it’s needs to be authentic.

You know, [00:15:45] I, but you’ve gotta lead with generosity, without keeping score, without expecting to keep score. ’cause [00:15:50] it will stink on you if in fact you’re showing up with that kind of transaction. So that’s the first, and

people are [00:15:55] always afraid that if I lead with generosity and I give, it won’t be [00:16:00] returned.

And I see, I see. If you, what the fuck? I mean, why are you, I’ve never lost.

Keith: It’s like [00:16:05] even if you do, even if you do. It’s like, what’s the big deal? You did a favor for [00:16:10] somebody. You, oh, you know, you introduced somebody to somebody. What’s the big deal? It’s like [00:16:15] live in abundance, not in scarcity. And this is something I’ve had to overcome as a poor, scarcity minded [00:16:20] kid for years, but live in abundance, not in scarcity.

The second thing you have to recognize [00:16:25] is that, so this, this was this idea of giving without, keeping score, right? Yeah. Giving [00:16:30] without keeping score is the other. The other one is just because you’re purposeful doesn’t mean [00:16:35] you’re fake. Right. So why live your [00:16:40] life through ma Through sheer serendipity, like I I, if I just walked [00:16:45] around the world and, you know, everything was serendipitous bullshit when I [00:16:50] started.

I said, I’m gonna build relationships with the most powerful speakers and thought [00:16:55] leaders that I knew at the time. When I met Tony Robbins through Peter [00:17:00] Diand, a referral through a friend that I’d already served, um, I, I showed up [00:17:05] to Tony and I said, Hey, Tony, you know, I, I don’t know what your B2B business is like, [00:17:10] but I am one of the most connected people in the Fortune 500.

You know, I’ve, that’s [00:17:15] my space. I’m not a consumer brand kind of guy. I am like you are. I’m a, I’m an enterprise guy. [00:17:20] Um, but if I, I think sales reps and high potential should be going to [00:17:25] your courses. I would love to think about how to put a strategy together to [00:17:30] sell B2B for you. And he’s like, okay, that’ll be great.

And he’s like, I want you [00:17:35] to come to all my events. And he put me in the front row. I met some great people in the process, [00:17:40] but what I did is I earnestly wrote up what I thought his B2B strategy would be, [00:17:45] right? And, and that relationship. Now I speak on Tony’s stage [00:17:50] several times a year. He’s a great buddy.

I text him all the time, you know, and, and I, [00:17:55] I, you know, this is a real relationship, but it was absolutely purposeful. [00:18:00] And you know, if, if, if you ask, if you said to Tony, Hey, Tony, he targeted you. [00:18:05]

Rory: Mm,

Keith: Tony would fucking laugh at you. He was like, why the fuck not, you know, [00:18:10] we are friends. What a great, you know, like I say this to Peter Diman, who’s one of my best buddies.

And [00:18:15] by the way, there’s two really good podcasts your folks should watch. Um, I’m Not in this [00:18:20] business. You are, and hopefully you’ll enjoy the content. One of them, Peter. So Peter and I sat, we wrote How [00:18:25] to Write a New York Times bestseller. We did a podcast on it. And then the other podcast is [00:18:30] How to Build a Million Dollar Speaking Business.

Do me a favor, [00:18:35] Roy. Watch those podcasts and tell me how I have my head up through my ass because you know how to do these things,

[00:18:40] but we’ll link ’em. Well, so Peter, uh, Peter is also a client of ours, but, uh, only one. He was a [00:18:45] private client of mine, actually one time we worked together. So I know him just a little bit, but [00:18:50] he’s so brilliant.

So if the two of you guys did that, we’ll link that up in the show notes for Yeah, link that

Keith: up. I think your [00:18:55] people will love it. You know, Uhhuh, um. So anyway, uh, but so, so back that what [00:19:00] you were

saying, I I, there, there have been relationships where [00:19:05] maybe I’ve given more to somebody and probably ones where they’ve given more to [00:19:10] me, but just because somebody doesn’t return the favor to you, it’s, it’s, it’s the [00:19:15] net.

It’s like it comes from somewhere else. You don’t have to keep score because it’s like you can’t [00:19:20] karma the universe. Totally agree. Yeah. You cannot give the universe,

Keith: by the way I’m dealing with this right now. Which it’s [00:19:25] so funny. I’ll show you how the I, this is a struggle for me. I got a buddy. Who, when [00:19:30] he and I went to high school together and he shot off to become a deca [00:19:35] millionaire, um, way before I started seeing a million bucks.[00:19:40]

Um, and, uh, and he and I talked to him and [00:19:45] I was building my enterprise business and, uh, he had a business that’s also sold into the [00:19:50] enterprise. And, um, and at the time I was doing a, a book had just launched, never Loan had just [00:19:55] launched. Uh, and. And I was, and he was really enticed by [00:20:00] my parties and he would come to things, et cetera.

He never invited me to one thing ever. You [00:20:05] know, and he’s always bragging about hanging out with Jay-Z and down in Miami on a yacht and [00:20:10] all this kind of stuff. He never invited me to anything. Um, and it was really [00:20:15] painful. They’re like, I got him, I got him introduced to my camp at Burning Man and he had an extraordinary [00:20:20] experience.

I don’t think he even said once to say hi. He said hi to me once when he was there. [00:20:25] Um, recently he gave me a call and he’s going through divorce, so he lost half of his [00:20:30] wealth. His business has slowed down. Um, a number of things have happened to [00:20:35] him, and he’s desperately trying to get into an audience that I have [00:20:40] in, in, in, in abundance.

He would like to, I have 106 of the [00:20:45] Fortune 500 CIOs, chief Information Officers that are in a community that I help [00:20:50] coach to transform their organizations with ai. So these are the [00:20:55] biggest of the biggest, the best of the best. He would love that introduction into that. Right. [00:21:00] Gosh, this is tough for me right now.

I’m like, I’m literally on [00:21:05] text with the guy. So there’s a couple of reasons. Number one, I wanna tell him, I so [00:21:10] wanna tell him that I felt so abused in the past. [00:21:15] Right. And, and I want to tell him. And there’s a piece of me that’s old school, like OG Keith Scarcity Keith [00:21:20] that wants to tell him just to tell him.

But there’s also a piece of me that was like, I [00:21:25] hope you’re not doing it anymore. Like, I hope that this could be a changing opportunity for you. Right? [00:21:30] So there’s that piece, right? But then the other question I am having is, you know, [00:21:35] yes, he’s a smart guy, but to what extent do I want to invite him into my network?[00:21:40]

So I get this. So, so, so here’s where I’ve landed on this, because every day I [00:21:45] get asked, can you introduce me to Ed my leg? Can you introduce me to Lewis Howes? Can you, and the thing that [00:21:50] I landed on is, is it’s one thing for me to give to somebody, but. [00:21:55] I decided I can only, I will introduce you to [00:22:00] somebody as long as you can add as much value to them as they can add to you.

Yeah. Right. [00:22:05] And so that be, and you

Keith: know what I think, I think he can do that. So that’s a good [00:22:10] litmus test. So therefore I should, I suspect he would deliver in earnest the work that he would want to [00:22:15] do for these people. Um, and so therefore, I’ve gotta pick apart whether or not [00:22:20] I’m still holding on to resentment.

Right. Which is not a way to live my life. So I [00:22:25] think the answer is I should make one introduction and maybe watch it and see how he does and whether [00:22:30] he gives and, and or, or abuses, et cetera in that relationship.

Okay. [00:22:35] So yeah, I’ll be, I’ll be curious if, I’ll have to text you to follow up to be like, how did that go?

Yeah, please do. I’m so [00:22:40] curious. But you know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting ’cause it’s like it always does come back sometimes not through that [00:22:45] relationship with some other one, but, um, okay. I know you have to go soon. I cannot [00:22:50] let you go. Because you are like the relationship guy and [00:22:55] you are also the ai, like you are consulting like the biggest [00:23:00] influencer companies in the world on ai.

Yeah. I just want to just hear you [00:23:05] riff for a, a couple minutes on how are relationships [00:23:10] going to change or not change or be impacted or not [00:23:15] impacted by AI or a, you know, how is AI going to replace or not replace that like. [00:23:20] What is your mindset? You’re so, so close to these two things,

Keith: [00:23:25] right? So I’m not gonna go to the, I’m not gonna spend too much time on the doomsday [00:23:30] scenario.

Um, but more than likely, [00:23:35] um, the preponderance of white collar workers will be unemployed [00:23:40] in five to 10 years. Um, AI is going to be able to [00:23:45] replace most people’s jobs, and to be honest. If right [00:23:50] now, um, I could create an avatar of Keith Ferrazzi [00:23:55] that would be better at answering questions about my [00:24:00] 24 years and five books than I would be, ’cause I don’t remember half the stuff.

Rory: Hmm. [00:24:05]

Keith: Right now would that AI be equally as good at nuancing a [00:24:10] new question like the one you just gave me. ’cause I might not have written this answer yet. [00:24:15] Right. Very soon it will, very soon it will be agentic and it can extrapolate. [00:24:20] So it could be that the best speakers in the world on and most influential speakers in the [00:24:25] world will actually beis.

And that’s what’s happening in the, that’s will, that [00:24:30] will happen in the future. Now, now that I’ve scared the shit out of you. Um, yeah. [00:24:35] Okay. So like, uh, right. Let me suggest what I would do if I were you. [00:24:40] And, and Rory to you specifically, you’ve just asked a very powerful question. And maybe this is something that you [00:24:45] and I could go on a, on a, on a joint effort around if I were you, Rory, I [00:24:50] would reach out to like folks like myself, the top [00:24:55] 10 most respected people that you have in this business.

People who are making, you [00:25:00] know, millions, dec of millions in the business of thought leadership, et cetera. And what I would do [00:25:05] is I would ask them individually if you could interview them. And about how they [00:25:10] believe the future of AI is gonna land with for them and their career in speaking [00:25:15] in thought leadership, et cetera.

And then say to them in the [00:25:20] aggregate, I’m gonna be interviewing 12 of the most powerful people that I know on this topic. [00:25:25] I would love to then share that information back with all of you. What a gift. [00:25:30] And it now puts you as the host of one of the most important questions that all [00:25:35] of us are thinking about.

And then you can start to build a community of us [00:25:40] who are, are interested in this topic, and you can bring us [00:25:45] together and we can share with each other. And we can what I call the, I created a word for [00:25:50] your ability to create a community. So I never alone was about networking. What I’m talking to you about now is creating [00:25:55] of a community, just like you have with budding authors and writers, et cetera.

[00:26:00] You could create a community just like I’ve done in Fortune 500 World. Of [00:26:05] people trying to crack the code and figure it out about AI worry. You should do that in the space. [00:26:10] Now. Any of you out there have your ability to create communities in your space, [00:26:15] but you don’t have to have the answers. You have to be the host.

The way to create a great community today is to be [00:26:20] richly curious and your ability to invite experts in to co-create the answer to the [00:26:25] cracks, the code of what you’re curious about, and therefore you’ll be out ahead of the curve if we keep [00:26:30] staying out ahead of the curve. AI can’t bite us in the ass.

Right. So the [00:26:35] key will be be curious and create community out ahead of the curve. There’s a wonderful little story I’ll [00:26:40] tell you. This is, by the way, this is an article I just wrote in Forbes Magazine that you all can look up. I write for [00:26:45] Forbes, fortune Inc. Fast Company, wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review.

This just came out in [00:26:50] Forbes, um, and it’s an old story where, uh, there were two [00:26:55] guys sitting in a park and they were hiking. A bear [00:27:00] comes out of the woods down the way.

Rory: Mm-hmm.

Keith: You know about this story. You know it, that’s a good one. And the bear comes outta [00:27:05] the woods and the guy’s sitting there and he’s, and he, and, and one guy just takes off running [00:27:10] and he’s cladding along in his hiking boots and the other guy bends over and takes off his hiking boots, putting out, puts on his [00:27:15] tennis shoes.

And the guy running heads a fucking guy, would you need to run? And, you know, [00:27:20] like, you cannot outrun that bear. And he goes, he said, buddy, I’m sorry but I [00:27:25] don’t have to outrun the bear. I just out have to outrun you. So [00:27:30] right now, I’m sorry, but those of us who are out ahead on this not [00:27:35] waiting to be victimized by it, they, we are gonna be the victors.

Rory: Mm-hmm.

Keith: So richly [00:27:40] curiosity bring together the best of the best. By the way, this is all stuff Rory that, you know, I, I [00:27:45] told you earlier, I just launched an eight week class.

Yeah. Tell ’em where they can go to get, tell ’em where they can go to [00:27:50] get that. And I also want to, where do they go to get the new book as well?

Keith: Well look. I’ll, [00:27:55] I’ll, I’ll give you a quick clip on Never Eat Alone in a second. Never Lead Alone. What we did is we [00:28:00] took my first three books, um, never Eat Alone. Who’s Got Your [00:28:05] Back Teaching? How to Build Those Lifelines around You. And leading without authority. Teaching how to [00:28:10] work, uh, how to build a team of people that don’t report to you like Peter and I are together, right?[00:28:15]

We’re like, we’re a team even though neither of us pays each other. How do you have that in your life? [00:28:20] And we created those three books and we created an eight week curriculum that you can go to [00:28:25] connected success.com. And join. It’s a small, limited group. [00:28:30] We only, we only allow about a hundred people in a class.

And the reason is because at the [00:28:35] end of it, everybody’s invited to my home in LA for graduation. Um, and it’s been an, it’s [00:28:40] been amazing. It’s been so much fun to be connected to this community that really wants to build a [00:28:45] relationships that are important to their, their future, and their life. So that’s what this is all about.

And now [00:28:50] let me give you a quick pitch on, um, on, on the book. Um, never lead alone For [00:28:55] 24 years now, I have coached the highest performing teams in the world. That’s what I do for a living. After I wrote, never [00:29:00] Alone, I’ve always been a coach of high performing teams. After I, after I left as [00:29:05] Deloitte and Starwood’s Chief Marketing Officer, and I started this business, ’cause I really felt teams were crucial [00:29:10] and it’s, it’s 20 years of research on what’s a high performing team.

I [00:29:15] sat with Jeff Bezos, his team, I’ve, I’ve gone deep with Jamie [00:29:20] Diamond and his team at, uh, at, uh, JP Morgan. This is 10 [00:29:25] shifts that every one of us needs to make with the team of people we’re working with. The, [00:29:30] the shift from being conflict avoidant to being candid and, and to have a challenge relationship [00:29:35] with those individuals.

Peter and I hold each other accountable, kick each other in the butt and always tell each other the [00:29:40] truth, right? Those relationships that you have have to be high degrees of candor. [00:29:45] Next thing it teaches you with this is, is in this virtual world, how do you ship from having [00:29:50] relationships being accidental?

To being very purposeful and managed and planned. [00:29:55] That’s another critical component of how you manage your team. So I’m so proud of this book, and, [00:30:00] and I would just say, you know, if you haven’t read the others pick, you know, start wherever you want. But this [00:30:05] is the conduit of 20 years of research on how to build a high performing team.

I love this. [00:30:10] I mean. Lead with generosity, give without keeping score. Be [00:30:15] rich in curiosity. Don’t, don’t have the answers. Be the host. I mean, these are [00:30:20] tenets and principles that like, they do not fail. They do not, they do not [00:30:25] fail. And uh, I think about going like, I don’t know what’s gonna happen with ai, but I do believe in those [00:30:30] tenets.

And if anything’s gonna make it, it’s gonna be relationships. And so it’s like these things are really, really [00:30:35] important. So, um, Keith. We will link to connected success.com. We’ll link [00:30:40] up to the book, uh, at this pod. I’m very, I’m gonna go listen to the podcast that you, [00:30:45] that you did with Peter of like both of ’em.

Keith: Yeah. Just text me. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on them.

Yeah. [00:30:50] Uh, so, uh, thank you for your wisdom. Thanks for your generosity. Thanks for giving us a way to [00:30:55] do. Relationships that’s purposeful, uh, and strategic and deliberate [00:31:00] and intentional, but not ever hurtful or, uh, you know, harmful [00:31:05] or manipulative in any way.

So, um, I really, really appreciate it, man. We wish you all the best. Thanks [00:31:10] for making time and, uh, we’ll look forward to following your journey from here.

Keith: Thanks Rory. Thank [00:31:15] congratulations on your success.

Ep 619: From $25 to $1 Million a Month: The Marketing Machine Behind a $300M Exit with Lee Pepper

Right. And we didn’t, we didn’t write it all day one. It was a living document that we [00:49:45] added to every month. Right. And that, and the same thing with technology. We had a, a, a very [00:49:50] detailed technology plan, and I think that’s where that came out of because being a former CIO and working for Ross per, [00:49:55] you know, we were very, everything had to be very well documented ’cause we worked a lot with banking and [00:50:00] healthcare.

And so the same thing if your marketing team is not. Willing to document what they’re [00:50:05] doing and it can be readable. Or in a presentation you have a problem. Hmm. Right, because it should be [00:50:10] accessible, right? Because you want to have things that when somebody leaves to go and [00:50:15] pursue other opportunities or greener pastures like that, knowledge just doesn’t go away.

And like, you wonder, oh, what [00:50:20] happened to all that testing we did last year? Well, I don’t know what happened to it. Like, you don’t wanna lose that. Mm-hmm. Like, it’s, it’s, [00:50:25] it’s valuable. And I think that was one of the things that helped us, A lot of people say [00:50:30] that when they, when we sold foundations, uh, what we really sold was, was the marketing engine [00:50:35] because it was a, a revenue, it was so much revenue generating.

Both: Mm-hmm. Yeah. [00:50:40] Thank you for this because I think you make what you talk about in [00:50:45] Never outmatched and the things you’re talking about today. It makes marketing about [00:50:50] data, documentation, and I would say predictability. Mm-hmm. It’s [00:50:55] all about going, what levers do we need to push and pull on? And we know exactly [00:51:00] when that mm-hmm.

If that, if we do that, then this is the outcome. Yes. And once you figure out that [00:51:05] equation. Yeah. There’s, there’s literally no limit to how far you can scale. [00:51:10] Absolutely. ’cause you’re just constantly tweaking and testing and it’s like, you don’t start out spending a million dollars a month. Right. [00:51:15] But you, and you, you might go a million dollars a month.

I remember when you said that, where you spend a million dollars a month. [00:51:20] I was like, like, I was like a million dollars a month on, on ads. But you go, [00:51:25] but you start with a hundred dollars a month. Mm-hmm. And you tweak it. Yeah. And [00:51:30] you test it, and you track it, and you document it, and you optimize it. And then you tweak it, and then it’s like [00:51:35] that a hundred becomes 500 and that becomes 1,010 thousand and 30.

And then. It’s a million dollars a [00:51:40] month and you go, of course nobody can compete with us. Yeah. We’re buying all the [00:51:45] traffic. Yes, we’re buying all the prospects and I think it really demystifies [00:51:50] marketing for everybody. Lee

Lee Pepper: Roy, the, the, the 2006 when I had left Perot and [00:51:55] gone to work for, pass along a digital music company that was starting up here in Nashville.

You know what our daily [00:52:00] paid search budget was back then? Mm. $25. Nice. And we were like, [00:52:05] oh, let’s don’t break the bank. You know? And it’s, it’s just funny how we, when you, when you mentioned the million dollars, I mean, [00:52:10] yeah. We got to a point where we were spending a million dollars a month and how do you go from $25 to a million?

[00:52:15] I mean, you know, it’s, it, you, you do it over time. Yeah. You know, and, and you get your, and you get the, the [00:52:20] expertise. You’re

Both: not guessing, right. You’re not just going, let’s throw a million and see what happens. Yeah,

Lee Pepper: absolutely. [00:52:25] Absolutely.

Both: Awesome. Well go get the book. Okay. Never Outmatched is the book. Uh, follow my [00:52:30] friend Lee Pepper.

He is a sage wis piece of wisdom and advice on all of these [00:52:35] things. Um, so make sure you follow him and check him out. We’ll put links to all that in the show notes. If you haven’t [00:52:40] requested a call with our team, this is the level of sophistication that we want to take you to with your personal [00:52:45] brand. We want to, we want you to know that.

Ep 618: How AI Will Affect the Future of Marketing for Small Businesses with Sara Nay

Rory: [00:00:35] Well, if you’ve been sleeping in a cave for the last two years, you’ve missed that. The entire world is [00:00:40] talking about marketing and particularly AI in marketing, and [00:00:45] how is AI gonna affect the future of marketing for small businesses? That is what we’re [00:00:50] gonna talk about today, and we’re gonna talk about that topic with somebody who [00:00:55] is the daughter of a really good friend of mine that I’ve had for a lot of years.

So you’re about to meet. [00:01:00] Sarah Nay. Uh, she is the CEO of Duct Tape Marketing Group. So [00:01:05] if you’ve ever heard of Duct Tape Marketing, that’s John Jantz, who we’ve had on this show before. [00:01:10] A couple times I’ve been on his show. Uh, and Sarah has worked in that business for [00:01:15] well over a decade. She took over, uh, as CEO of that business, like [00:01:20] a year and some change ago.

She knows this world and she [00:01:25] also has not only lived it and breathed it as they run their agency and they help small businesses, [00:01:30] she also released a book called Unchained, um, which is all about breaking free [00:01:35] from broken marketing models. And we’re gonna talk about that today. We’re gonna talk [00:01:40] about how marketing is changing for small businesses.

How does AI come into [00:01:45] that? And just everything you need to know to drive more leads for your business. So Sarah, [00:01:50] welcome to the show. It’s great to have you. Thanks.

Sara Nay: Yeah, thanks for having me on Rory.

Rory: So, um, [00:01:55] I wanna just dive in, right on the topic of, of ai. I know that [00:02:00] you’ve worked, you know, as a CMO with fractional CMOs, [00:02:05] um, but like, you know, I wanna ask you about the subtitle of the book.

So [00:02:10] the book, again, Unchained, but the subtitle I really love breaking free from Broken [00:02:15] Marketing Models. So, what are broken marketing models? [00:02:20] Why do you use that? Or like what are some of the broken marketing models that you see [00:02:25] small businesses doing today?

Sara Nay: Yeah, of course. And this comes from, as you said earlier, I’ve [00:02:30] lived the agency world for about 16 years now.

And so I’ve seen a lot of challenges [00:02:35] in the agency space, both on the agency side of things and also the small [00:02:40] business side of things as well. And one of the key things that I see broken in the [00:02:45] agency model or the outsourcing model is there’s a lot of small businesses [00:02:50] that get into business ’cause they’re passionate about.

A topic or a service or a product or whatever [00:02:55] it might be. And then all of a sudden they have to learn how to market their business. [00:03:00] And so either they’re forced to figure it out themselves, and so now they’re serving as the founder [00:03:05] and the CMO of their business. Or in a lot of cases, they end up just [00:03:10] outsourcing or delegating their marketing to outside partners as they’re in growth mode.[00:03:15]

And so where I see a lot of small businesses struggle is they out. Source their control. [00:03:20] And so all of a sudden they bring in an agency or a contractor and they say, okay, run my marketing, [00:03:25] we’ll pay you every month. We’ll have no idea what you’re doing and we hope that you get us some results. And they [00:03:30] keep paying over time.

Hmm. And there’s a lot of challenges in that and I’ve seen it as [00:03:35] extreme as, you know, companies outsourcing their marketing to an agency and the agency owns their [00:03:40] website, URL domain, all hosting all of the things. And so when they part ways, the company then [00:03:45] loses. S their biggest asset, biggest marketing asset, which is their website.

[00:03:50] And so the book is all about how can small businesses. Take ownership and [00:03:55] control of their marketing. And I’m not saying outsourcing is all [00:04:00] bad, um, but outsourcing to the right relationships is important. And so starting with [00:04:05] creating the business strategy, the marketing strategy, and then answering the question of who can get [00:04:10] this done?

And if you are bringing in outside solutions to get the work done, thinking of [00:04:15] them as a partnership, working together as a team, versus simply [00:04:20] delegating and having no idea what’s being done.

Rory: Mm-hmm. I, I recently, uh, [00:04:25] I heard someone say this quote and it was, uh, not like a famous thought [00:04:30] leader. It was someone that I’m actually in a mastermind with, and she said, my entire [00:04:35] goal is to insource [00:04:40] understanding, but outsource execution.

And it’s probably my, it’s my [00:04:45] favorite new quote. This is definitely my favorite new quote that I have heard [00:04:50] in like the last year is I want to insource understanding, but I want to outsource [00:04:55] execution. Um, so what [00:05:00] I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll ask you as an agency owner who, yeah, you know, [00:05:05] many companies do outsource some of their, their execution and some of their stuff to [00:05:10] you.

What are the things that you think a small business [00:05:15] owner can do and should be doing to hold their agency accountable? Right, [00:05:20] so I, I think you said like the wrong thing to do is just like to spray and [00:05:25] pray where you’re like, here’s some money. Like, solve this problem like. That’s not how it works, but [00:05:30] what are the kind of like metrics or reports or check-ins or, [00:05:35] uh, touch base points or, you know, call it, you know, internal [00:05:40] controls that somebody should install if you run a small business but you, you’re [00:05:45] working with outside marketing support.

Sara Nay: Yeah. I’m gonna take it even a step back further [00:05:50] before I get to that point. It really comes down to creating the business [00:05:55] strategy first, and then thinking about the marketing support from there, because that’s a key piece [00:06:00] where when someone brings in an agency or an outsource solution and they’re relying on that [00:06:05] agency to tell them what to do or to get the work done, you’re playing a bit of a [00:06:10] guessing game.

And so as the business. As the business owner, you should take some time to create an [00:06:15] overall business strategy to then help guide your marketing team or support in. And [00:06:20] so that’s things like your mission, your vision, your values, your current revenue, where you wanna [00:06:25] be in one year and three years from now.

Because all of that information is [00:06:30] important to then be able to say. Okay, now let’s think marketing strategy. And [00:06:35] so let’s say you, you’re not a CMO, you’re a business owner and you need help with creating the marketing [00:06:40] strategy. Then when you’re bringing someone in to help you, you wanna look for someone that is [00:06:45] very strategic on the front end.

And so they’re creating an overall marketing strategy and plan [00:06:50] based on research, identifying things like your ideal client and your core message [00:06:55] and your customer journey, and your biggest growth priorities. And then you can start thinking about. [00:07:00] Tactics. And so those are the components that should go into a marketing strategy.

Once that’s [00:07:05] created, you’ll, you’ll have a better understanding of what needs to be done in order [00:07:10] to move the needle and also who needs to do the work. And so [00:07:15] then you can start thinking about who, um, is actually gonna help us market or. Execute [00:07:20] on this marketing plan. Is it humans or is it ai? Depends on the tasks.

[00:07:25] Both are great solutions, but where I see a lot of businesses miss is they go straight into we’re [00:07:30] gonna bring the who the people in without actually thinking about what are we trying to [00:07:35] accomplish from a business or marketing perspective. So you have to do that work. First, and then let’s say you [00:07:40] identify, okay, we’re gonna work with an agency.

The things you wanna look for is the [00:07:45] fact that the edu, the agency is willing to educate you along the way. The fact that they’re willing to [00:07:50] communicate with you along the way, the fact that they’re transparent in the work that they’re doing. [00:07:55] Because, you know, when we work with clients as an agency, our goal is to set them up for success.

[00:08:00] Beyond working together. And so when they come and work with us, we’re teaching them why we’re [00:08:05] doing marketing strategy and why we’re doing the tactics that we’re doing. We’re teaching them what’s gonna [00:08:10] determine if these things are successful or not. So we can decide if we should keep doing these things [00:08:15] or move on to something new.

And so really our goal is to set them up to be better than when we [00:08:20] came along. And that way we’re really a, a. Advisor, we’re a [00:08:25] partner and we’re not just someone that’s, Hey, we’re gonna do all these things behind the scenes and show [00:08:30] you these fancy reports that you’re not even gonna understand. Because in those relationships and scenarios, [00:08:35] you’re in a worse case situation when you part ways than when you began.

Rory: Mm-hmm. So, [00:08:40] okay. So hot take here. In a world of ai, what matters more [00:08:45] strategy or tactics?

Sara Nay: In the world of AI strategy, I [00:08:50] still absolutely say, um, a lot of, I see a lot of businesses bringing in [00:08:55] AI tools and solutions right now without doing the strategic work on the [00:09:00] front end. And so now all of a sudden you just have all these tools that aren’t working toward, [00:09:05] towards the goal and that haven’t been trained properly on the front end.

And so it’s [00:09:10] confusing. It’s creating noise. It’s. Costly, like all of the things. And so [00:09:15] I absolutely recommend taking a step back and doing that deep work in terms of what you’re trying to [00:09:20] accomplish and who’s on your team, and then analyzing, okay, what AI systems can we build below [00:09:25] them to elevate our team members?

And then once you identify what tools [00:09:30] they are, you can then say, how do we need to train these tools on the front end with our [00:09:35] company, our vision, our mission, our ideal clients, our messaging, our stories. [00:09:40] And then once the tools are trained, then you need to put systems and processes in place to [00:09:45] help your humans all use the tools consistently moving forward.

And so, [00:09:50] absolutely, I still argue strategy is more important or is the [00:09:55] important piece. That guides the tactics and where a lot of people miss is they start with the [00:10:00] tactics and forget about the strategy on the front end.

Rory: Yeah. And we, we, we often get, [00:10:05] people will ask us the question like, what’s the right technology tool to use?

And they’re like, well, this CRM is better, or [00:10:10] that email tool is better, or this one has this thing. And we, and we always telling them like, guys. [00:10:15] Strategy is much more important than technology. Like all [00:10:20] technology sucks and all of it can be useful, but you have to nail the, the, the strategy. [00:10:25] The other thing that I’ve noticed, both in our business internally, like as an [00:10:30] entrepreneur and then in our clients, is to go chaos [00:10:35] multiplied by speed is exponentially more chaos.[00:10:40]

Like, it, it, it doesn’t, it doesn’t, it, it, it helps you zero. To [00:10:45] have complete chaos and then multiply it by AI and add speed, like it does [00:10:50] that, that makes it worse. Like you’re just going faster in the wrong direction. Yes. You’re, [00:10:55] you’re, you’re, you’re fastly, if that’s the word, fastly, [00:11:00] creating much more mess.

Um, so I, I, I noticed that you talked about [00:11:05] that and, uh, I, I just couldn’t, I, I so emphatically agree with you [00:11:10] that it’s just like, it’s not the tactics, like it’s all about, it’s all about [00:11:15] strategy. Um, one of the things that you said in that last answer, which I also really [00:11:20] love and I think is, um, a beautiful part of the future [00:11:25] that not enough people are talking about.

Is the [00:11:30] symbiotic relationship between humans and ai? It seems like so much of what we’re hearing is like [00:11:35] AI’s gonna replace jobs and people are gonna be jobless, or people are like, no. All that matters is [00:11:40] like human connection and authenticity and no one wants your fake AI crap. Right? Mm-hmm. And [00:11:45] I think, you know, I really think the magic is going to be the balance.

[00:11:50] Just like, you know, you can’t automate all of your email marketing with no human oversight or all your [00:11:55] social media without it, or all of your podcasts or video production, like, um, so talk to me [00:12:00] about, like you said, how do we create these two, how do we create the strategy, then create [00:12:05] the tools, and then create the systems and processes in place to help your humans?

What do you [00:12:10] see as that relationship between how humans and AI interact [00:12:15] specifically in the context of marketing for small businesses? [00:12:20]

Sara Nay: It’s a great point. Someone actually asked me on LinkedIn today, what tasks are you [00:12:25] using AI for? And I’m like, almost everything, but it’s because I’m using it as an assisted [00:12:30] approach.

Like I’m still layering on the human components and everything that I’m doing, [00:12:35] but I’m able to work at a higher level because I’m using AI as this. Assistant right now, [00:12:40] and so it’s a good point that you made. But I have an exercise that I talk about in the book, um, as well, which [00:12:45] we went through with our whole entire team, where, starting with myself, where essentially what I [00:12:50] did initially is wrote down all of the things that I do on a regular basis.

So. Skills, [00:12:55] tasks, like everything that I’m doing consistently. And then went through an exercise where basically [00:13:00] of everything on that list identified if those things are increasing in value because of [00:13:05] AI or, or they’re human based, um, if they’re staying stable or if they’re decreasing in [00:13:10] value because of ai, especially in the marketing space, there’s a lot of conversation about [00:13:15] that.

And then once you identify what’s. Staying stable or decreasing, then you can look at [00:13:20] what AI platforms or solutions should I bring in to help me with those things [00:13:25] so I can spend more time on the areas that are increasing in value. [00:13:30] And so it was a really great exercise for me to go through just to start identifying like, where [00:13:35] should I spend most of my time moving forward, and where should I delegate?

But then I also took that [00:13:40] exercise to our team as well because we’ve been talking to our team a lot about AI over the last few years, [00:13:45] as many have, and on my team, you know, some people are completely bought in, some people are a little bit [00:13:50] hesitant. There’s always this feeling of are we gonna be let go?

Are they just asking me to [00:13:55] be more productive and less time, even though, you know, we’ve been reassuring them all along, like [00:14:00] we’re using AI to elevate you all and ourselves. And so I had the team go through the [00:14:05] exercise, um, and it really helped everyone get bought in on we’re not bringing in these [00:14:10] AI solutions again to replace us all.

We’re bringing it in to help us do [00:14:15] better work. And I think if you can have that mindset shift on your team, you’re [00:14:20] gonna be able to be a lot more productive and bringing in different solutions.

Rory: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I [00:14:25] love that. I mean, it’s interesting because there is this. Sort of [00:14:30] like fantasy or dream that AI is gonna help us all get our work done [00:14:35] faster and like it won’t be so crazy and chaotic.

But there’s a [00:14:40] big part of me that wonders if it’s just like, it’s just gonna help us do more, [00:14:45] which is only gonna speed things up and, and create, create more work. Um, [00:14:50] but. Either way. I think it’s like humans are a necessary part of the [00:14:55] future, right? Like, there, there, there, there’s, there’s, there’s always some human level of oversight and, [00:15:00] and engagement.

Um, what, what are some of the ai what, what are some of [00:15:05] your favorite AI use cases right now? And let’s talk about marketing specific of [00:15:10] going, okay. Here are either some tools or maybe it’s not so much the tool, it [00:15:15] doesn’t have to be like a tool, but like, here is a, here is a way that we’re using AI [00:15:20] right now.

To increase, you know, as you say, do better [00:15:25] work. Um, yeah, in the marketing space.

Sara Nay: Yeah, so just to give you a [00:15:30] specific example, we’ve been doing an engagement for our clients for years called Strategy First, which is [00:15:35] 45 day engagement, where we create a marketing strategy before we think about execution.

[00:15:40] And so now in the age of ai, we are still delivering strategy first [00:15:45] over a 45 day period. And so it didn’t necessarily speed up what we’re [00:15:50] doing, but we have so much more information now available to help [00:15:55] us do better strategic work than we had. Without ai. And so for example, [00:16:00] some of the things we do is we do competitive research for our clients as part of the [00:16:05] process.

Before ai, we were doing, you know, there’s different tools you could use for some like SEO [00:16:10] specific research, but we were doing a lot of manual research looking at their websites and [00:16:15] social profiles and they had a hundred reviews online. We’d go read all the reviews and, and [00:16:20] look for themes. And now that seems crazy now that we have different tools available to us.

So now [00:16:25] in that specific. Case like we use, we still go out and look at their websites and we [00:16:30] still go out and look at their profiles because that’s the human piece that you still need to confirm on. But we’re able to [00:16:35] pull deep research reports in a tool like chat, GBT, and have a 35 page document [00:16:40] in 10 minutes that summarizes all the competitors and how they’re different than our client [00:16:45] and our opportunities to compete.

Um, if, you know, again, they have a hundred reviews [00:16:50] online, we can dump all of that into Che GBT and in seconds. Have an analysis of the [00:16:55] themes, and so it’s, it’s allowed us to have more information to [00:17:00] help guide strategic decisions than we’ve ever had before. But then [00:17:05] also when you go into the execution side of marketing, you know, gone are the [00:17:10] days where you need to have.

A content writer writing everything from scratch or a social [00:17:15] media specialist creating everything from scratch, because if you take the time to create the marketing [00:17:20] strategy and train something like chat GBT on that information. Now you can use chat GT [00:17:25] by human and on the front end and human on the back end where you’re having chat gt.

[00:17:30] You do a deep research report to write a blog outline, to write the first draft [00:17:35] of a blog post. But then as a human, you’re editing it, finalizing it, [00:17:40] publishing it, getting across the finish line. And I think that’s really the value of. [00:17:45] AI is, it’s helping move a lot of executors, from executors to [00:17:50] essentially managers in a sense where now they’re managing AI platforms [00:17:55] versus being in the weeds and doing all of the steps themselves.

Rory: Mm-hmm. Yeah, [00:18:00] no, I love that. And the way that you described it is also how I’m thinking about it. It’s like. [00:18:05] Basically, AI is my assistant. Mm-hmm. That just does a bunch of the [00:18:10] grunt work, a bunch of the middle work, a bunch of the like tedious work, whether [00:18:15] it’s researching, consolidating, summarizing.

Together, but it’s still [00:18:20] not really doing the thinking because you have to still tell it how to think. Like you still have to teach [00:18:25] it how to think in the way you want it to think. Uh, which, you [00:18:30] know, hopefully is the part of what still makes, you know, human insight and thought leadership sort of valuable.[00:18:35]

What, what are some of the ways that you think people are doing marketing wrong right [00:18:40] now with ai? Like, um, are there, are there some specific tactical [00:18:45] mistakes or? Even philosophical mistakes or [00:18:50] procedural mistakes that you see small businesses doing with AI that they really [00:18:55] shouldn’t be doing.

Sara Nay: Yeah, I mean, just look at LinkedIn and you can see a series of posts and [00:19:00] comments that are all AI generated, obviously, and generic.

I think the, you know, the [00:19:05] biggest struggle with small businesses is not knowing how to train these tools effectively to [00:19:10] create their unique voice out of the tools. And so a lot of people are just creating. [00:19:15] Volume of content that’s generic and that is not speaking to their ideal clients [00:19:20] directly and is not building trust and authenticity.

And so I think those, [00:19:25] and I talk about that in unchanged, like guiding people through your customer journey, understanding [00:19:30] them deeply, speaking them to, to them directly. Building trust along the way. I think that. [00:19:35] Always been important in marketing, but people are looking for companies that are real [00:19:40] and that are human, and that will speak to them and interact with them because all, a lot of [00:19:45] stuff is being automated these days.

And so, you know, again, where I see small businesses [00:19:50] missing is even either they’re leaning into AI and doing generic stuff within ai [00:19:55] or they’re leaning into it too heavily and they’re, they’re forgetting about that commun that, [00:20:00] that human element that needs to be in combination with ai.

Rory: Yeah, it’s sort of ironic because I [00:20:05] feel like that there’s been this sort of pendulum swing [00:20:10] where you go.

It used to be all offline, human, [00:20:15] face-to-face, like, you know, handshake relationship. Everything became digital and it was like, oh, who [00:20:20] can automate stuff and get me faster responses, response time and like, you know, more [00:20:25] accessible information and da, da da. But then it became so automated that it was like, oh my gosh, like I’m on [00:20:30] everybody’s automated newsletter and all this stuff.

And it seems like the pendulum was [00:20:35] already swinging back to human before AI showed up. [00:20:40] And. Ironically, you know, I, I think [00:20:45] it’s, it’s, it feels ironic to me because it seems like [00:20:50] humanness is our uniqueness. Like humanness is the new [00:20:55] uniqueness of going like. That’s what people already want it. And now like you’re saying, [00:21:00] AI is just exploding that out even more with more like garbage content and, [00:21:05] and that, do you agree with that or think about that differently?

Or [00:21:10] how, how, what do you think?

Sara Nay: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I think people are getting sick with [00:21:15] the automation and the perfectly polished content and like [00:21:20] the visuals people are putting out. I mean, I think really people connect with other humans, even if they’re [00:21:25] buying from a business. And so the more that you can show your unique selves [00:21:30] and tell your unique stories, people are gonna be attracted to that more than some [00:21:35] perfectly polished funnel or campaign.

I, I believe, and I, I agree with you, I was, we were [00:21:40] starting to see that shift swing back, and I think that it’s just sped up the direction that it’s [00:21:45] going.

Rory: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you, uh, the storytelling part is interesting. Do you [00:21:50] think that clients. Like, let’s take businesses. I mean, we, we, we serve [00:21:55] personal brands and, and that’s mostly who’s listening.

I think if you’re a personal brand, it’s like a more [00:22:00] obvious answer that you’ve gotta share your personal story. But if you’re working with small businesses [00:22:05] or even you guys work with some big businesses as well, do you encourage, like [00:22:10] executives, even let’s say it’s not a personal brand, let’s say it’s like a company, there’s a [00:22:15] corporate brand.

Are you encouraging executives and [00:22:20] professionals to share? More of their personality, more of their story, [00:22:25] or is it still more just like the company brand, the company logo, the [00:22:30] company tone of voice, or like how are you guys navigating that balance right now? [00:22:35]

Sara Nay: I mean, we absolutely encourage both. Like the company needs to have its own voice and brand and way it’s [00:22:40] put out there.

But also, as I said, you know, human people wanna buy from humans even if they’re buying from a [00:22:45] business. And so we absolutely encourage at least one person being the [00:22:50] spokesperson essentially for. For the company and putting themselves out there, um, to, to represent [00:22:55] the company because again, people, they buy from certain brands, but in a lot of [00:23:00] well-known brands.

But in a lot of cases, they wanna connect with other humans and they wanna trust other [00:23:05] humans. Um, I was actually at a mastermind group. Uh, event that I go to, uh, last week [00:23:10] and there was a speaker there that did a presentation and his whole topic was every single [00:23:15] small business needs an influencer or a spokesperson representing them right [00:23:20] now.

Hmm. And so I absolutely agree with a lot of what he shared, and it’s what we’ve been working on with our [00:23:25] clients and, and teaching over the years as.

Rory: That’s cool. Yeah, that’s, it’s [00:23:30] interesting. It’s, it is like, uh, definitely we trust people and it’s, you know, some of these AI [00:23:35] clones are fascinating to me because it’s like there are people [00:23:40] following these v uh, comp.

There’s a, there’s a lot of social media profiles that are growing that are [00:23:45] completely fake. Yeah. Like they, they, they are somehow generating [00:23:50] legitimate followership. But there’s a part of me that feels very much like the business world and the [00:23:55] corporate world is like. Always going to go, I want the real person.

I want a, I want a real [00:24:00] human, I want to know who I’m doing business with. Like, I don’t want this perfectly [00:24:05] airbrushed, like AI generated avatar talking to me. So [00:24:10] I’m, I’m very curious to see how that plays out.

Sara Nay: Yeah, I agree. I was actually recording a training [00:24:15] for our group yesterday, a training video, and I like stumbled over a sentence and I’m like, and I’m not gonna edit [00:24:20] that out ’cause I’m a human and I make mistakes.

And I kept going.

Rory: Great. So hopefully we’re

Sara Nay: [00:24:25] right here.

Rory: That’s great. That’s a great line to start using. Like, I’m not even editing [00:24:30] that out ’cause I’m a real human.

Sara Nay: Yeah,

Rory: that’s, that’s, that’s cute. Well, uh, this is [00:24:35] awesome Sarah. So where, where do you want people to go? Uh, again, the book is called Unchained.

Where do you [00:24:40] want people to go to get to get a, to grab a copy of the book if they wanna learn more?

Sara Nay: Absolutely, the book [00:24:45] is on Amazon, and then the book website is unchained model.com. And then our company [00:24:50] website as well is just duct tape marketing.com.

Rory: Really cool. Um, well thank you [00:24:55] for this chitter chatter.

Congratulations on taking over the business. You guys have had such a great brand over the years. [00:25:00] Uh, we’ve enjoyed a, a great relationship with y’all and, um, excited to see what the [00:25:05] future holds. So best of luck to you and, uh, here’s, here’s to stay in human. [00:25:10]

Sara Nay: Awesome. Thank you.

Ep 617: One Rich Relationship Is Worth More Than 100 Casual Connections with Selena Soo

Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand [00:00:10] podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you [00:00:15] learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden [00:00:20] and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of Fame speaker, and New York Times [00:00:25] bestselling author.

And this show is to help experts learn how to become more [00:00:30] wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. [00:00:35] One of the things that I believe firmly is that relationships are the [00:00:40] irrefutable accelerant to success. And I think a lot of people think [00:00:45] they’re good at relationships when they really are not.

And today you’re going to hear from [00:00:50] one of my good friends, uh, Selena Sue, and she is now a USA today [00:00:55] national bestselling author of this book, rich Relationships. She is also a [00:01:00] multis seven figure entrepreneur. She’s done many multi six figure and seven figure launches. [00:01:05] She’s worked with a lot of the biggest personal brands, uh, in the world.

Uh, she is featured [00:01:10] regularly in major news media outlets. She also gets a lot of her friends and clients [00:01:15] into major news media outlets and on stages and in front of audiences that they need to meet. And [00:01:20] this book teaches you exactly how to build meaningful relationships, deep [00:01:25] relationships, not just casual networking.

So we’re gonna talk about how you can do that to [00:01:30] get more speaking engagements, to get more consulting, coaching clients, more uh, clients for your [00:01:35] practice, for your advisory business. And we’re gonna do it authentically and genuinely with my [00:01:40] friend Selena Sue, welcome to the show friend.

Selena: Thank you for having me.

Rory: Yeah, totally. [00:01:45] So, um, I wanna talk about, I wanna start with the six circles. Okay. So you have a concept [00:01:50] in here about the six circles, um, and then actually there’s the six and five. [00:01:55] And you also talk about the mentors that everybody, or the relationships that everyone needs to have. So. [00:02:00] Pick one of those and let’s dive into those two frameworks.

Selena: Yeah, I would love to. So first, [00:02:05] I just wanna begin by defining what a rich relationship is. Okay? So a rich relationship is [00:02:10] one that brings financial abundance to your life. Mm. They’re with people who want to help you reach your [00:02:15] goals and dreams faster. They’re connected to your goals and dreams. And then last but not least, these are healthy relationships.[00:02:20]

They’re supportive. They’re people who inspire you. And so if you find yourself in a relationship with someone [00:02:25] where you don’t feel. Safe or you feel like they don’t have your best interests at heart, but they’re powerful and [00:02:30] influential. That is not a rich relationship.

Rory: Mm.

Selena: So just kind of starting there.

So it’s gotta be

Rory: like mutual, you gotta [00:02:35] feel safe and it, and you’re saying it’s, it’s specifically financial. Yeah. It’s

Selena: a relationship that can [00:02:40] create abundance for you. But there’s different kinds of abundance. Right. And sometimes it. Direct and [00:02:45] sometimes indirect. So if we look at, for example, the five rich relationships that you need to have.

Yeah.

Rory: So [00:02:50] this is what I was asking you about. Let’s start with there. Yeah.

Selena: So one, you need to have mentors, right? Mm-hmm. To help you [00:02:55] reach your goals and dreams faster. Right? They can shortcut things for you. Um, and then you also need [00:03:00] to have supportive peers so you don’t feel alone in your journey. Um, then I [00:03:05] also believe that everybody should have promoters in their corner.

So promoters could be referral [00:03:10] partners or affiliate partners who directly send business to you. Um, or they could be media or [00:03:15] other people who are singing your praises out in the world.

Rory: Mm-hmm.

Selena: And then of course, we all need [00:03:20] team members. And even if you’re a solo printer, you still need people to help you with different things.

Totally. You can’t [00:03:25] do everything on your own to reach your full potential. And then last but not least, we need [00:03:30] confidants. And so these are people who we can open up with about the hard things that we’re going through. [00:03:35] And so a confidant might make you help. Help you get your confidence back. So you go out there, it could even be a [00:03:40] therapist or an executive coach.

Um, maybe the therapist isn’t directly helping you [00:03:45] make money, but because they’re a part of your support network and a rich relationship, like [00:03:50] in, in a different way, they are helping you move forward with your business.

Rory: Mm-hmm. So it’s like you’ve got [00:03:55] you and your center and then you’ve got mentors, people who are helping you.

You’ve [00:04:00] got promoters. Mm-hmm. You, you’ve got uh, team members, you’ve got your confidant, [00:04:05] what was the, and then your peers. And then your peers. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, uh, it’s [00:04:10] funny about peers ’cause I really, really value that. And I think a lot of people don’t, they [00:04:15] underestimate how important it is to be like, like I respect the feedback of my [00:04:20] peers so much.

Like I will listen to what. Another writer or a [00:04:25] speaker tells me before, like the general population or the general Totally. The general public. [00:04:30] Yeah. Um, so I love that. And you go, these are [00:04:35] relationships that bring you abundance. Yeah. Money that create wealth. Yeah. Energy time. Mm-hmm. [00:04:40] And I love the word about feeling safe.

I think that’s important in any relationship. But, [00:04:45] um, yeah, if you don’t feel that, what, what was the thing that you said at the end? You said if, if there’s [00:04:50] someone who’s like. Intimidating to you, or they’re like very successful or they, or they don’t have your best back interests

Selena: at heart, they [00:04:55] don’t wanna see you win, then that’s not a rich relationship.

How do you know,

Rory: how do you, [00:05:00] how do you know who really has your back? Like what are some of the things, ’cause it’s like, you know, you have social [00:05:05] media friends that you kind of meet and people are like, oh, you don’t ever meet real friends. I’m like, I actually have met some [00:05:10] people on social media that have become like really important to me.

Yeah. That I really trust. Um, [00:05:15] but you know, what are some of the things that you look for in terms of going. [00:05:20] How do you know if somebody really does have your back?

Selena: Yeah, so I think that [00:05:25] people who have your back, like you see it in their actions, how they consistently show up. I mean, there is [00:05:30] also, you know, what happens in business sometimes is there is, you know, love bombing or people coming on [00:05:35] really strong really quickly where you’re like, oh my gosh, this is my new best friend.

But the reality is, is if you’ve only [00:05:40] had one or two conversations, you don’t actually know them. Right? So everything gets revealed over [00:05:45] time. Just seeing how they consistently show up for you. Do they follow through on their word? I think [00:05:50] there’s a lot of people that get excited and they say things, they make promises, but they’re not personally [00:05:55] organized and so they don’t follow through.

And that doesn’t mean that they don’t have your back, but there are gonna be [00:06:00] people who, it’s like time and time again like. They’re always there. You know, it’s like when you’re [00:06:05] like, I’ve got my book coming out, or I’ve launched my podcast, or I need help in this way. They’re always the [00:06:10] first to be like, I’m leaving that Amazon review.

I’m promoting your podcast. I’m showing up to the event. [00:06:15] I’m bringing friends. Right? And so it’s just kind of observing that. And I think a lot of people, you [00:06:20] know, they think about, well, who’s powerful, who’s influential, who feels hard to reach, [00:06:25] who’s got followers? And they think that those are the rich relationships.

Rory: Hmm.

Selena: Right. But your rich relationships are [00:06:30] people who are really there with you through the thick and thin.

Rory: Mm-hmm. You are such a great example of [00:06:35] that. As a friend, you promote not just for me, but like definitely for me, but all of [00:06:40] your friends that like, I know, it’s like mm-hmm. Selena is the one doing reviews.

She is sending out emails. She [00:06:45] is introducing people. Yeah. Constantly. Like if she says, I’ll, I’m gonna try to connect you to so and so, like, [00:06:50] you connect them to so and so. I think that’s a really, really beautiful thing about you. Thank you. Like [00:06:55] practicing what you preach. Um, so I want to, you have a phrase [00:07:00] that you, as you say about mm-hmm.

One rich relationship is worth. Um, and I want [00:07:05] you to talk about the difference between, um, connections versus [00:07:10] real relationships.

Selena: Yeah. So, yeah, so the phrase is that one rich relationship [00:07:15] is more valuable than a hundred casual connections. You know, that’s so good. [00:07:20] It’s

Rory: one rich relationship is better than a thousand, a hundred, a hundred casual connections.

[00:07:25] Although

Selena: really, like a thousand or 10,000. Yeah. Yeah, I came up with it during my BBG intensive, by [00:07:30] the way. It just, like, there it’s, yes. Came outta my mouth. So co-creation, so good. Um, but yeah. [00:07:35] Yeah. So, you know, people sometimes think like they go to events, they take pictures with celebrities. These are not your [00:07:40] rich relationships.

Right. So I think this is a perfect time to talk about the six [00:07:45] circles of connection. Yes. Because everybody, you know, falls into the six circles. And I think the [00:07:50] biggest challenge that I find with people, Rory, is that they feel overwhelmed by. [00:07:55] How do I manage my network when over my decades of life, I’ve literally met multiple thousands of people.[00:08:00]

So how do I manage my network? Sure. Right. So the first thing to do is think about, well, where [00:08:05] do people fall in the six circles? And the sixth circles are based on trust and the [00:08:10] proximity you give to them.

Rory: Hmm. So

Selena: we’re gonna start with circle one. So circle one. [00:08:15] These are your innermost circle of connections.

Okay. These are the people you’re doing life with. And [00:08:20] typically there’s only gonna be a handful, one, three, maybe four or five. [00:08:25] This would be your life partner. This would be your longtime very best [00:08:30] friend. Maybe if someone speaks to a therapist weekly and they’ve had that relationship over [00:08:35] multiple years, maybe they fall in there.

Um, but it’s people that you’re really [00:08:40] opening up to completely about everything that you’re going through. And you feel like if you said, I need help. [00:08:45] Like it’s automatic. Like you can count on them. You know, they say with relationships you shouldn’t [00:08:50] expect things, but for your circle one and your circle two, it’s healthy to expect your [00:08:55] most important relationships to show up for you.

Mm. Right. So if I asked a circle one in your [00:09:00] life, um, you know, what’s Rory up to this week? What’s happening with him? Like, they would have [00:09:05] an answer. So that’s how you know their circle one, they’re kind of on the pulse of what’s happening, if not day by [00:09:10] day, week by week. So are really close. And these are, these are circles

Rory: that are like.

Moving [00:09:15] out. Moving out? Yeah. From you in the center of like, uh, concentric circles. Is that, is that the term? Maybe not. [00:09:20] It’s concentric. Yeah. Okay. So

Selena: one is like the closest. So, and some people have zero, you know, in circle [00:09:25] one. Um, but typically it’s just a handful, like usually one to three.

Rory: Mm-hmm. Um,

Selena: then you have circle [00:09:30] two.

So these are your treasured connections. And these could be people who are like very [00:09:35] close team members, maybe a business partner. Um, really [00:09:40] close friends. Colleagues, maybe your, you know, top supporters in your business that [00:09:45] just consistently show up. You know, you can count on them. These are your circle two, right?

So that’s usually [00:09:50] like half a dozen to a dozen people.

Rory: Okay?

Selena: So six to 12. I’m thinking about Jesus

Rory: here. Like [00:09:55] Jesus had his three best friends and then he had the 12 disciples. Oh, like that is like. I love this [00:10:00] classic, uh, exactly what you’re talking about. Oh my goodness. In terms of the numbers. Yeah.

Selena: Okay.

Yeah.

Rory: [00:10:05] So then you get circle three.

Selena: Yeah. So circle three, this is a pretty broad circle. So this is your active [00:10:10] network, right? And so these are people that you’re close to and there’s three [00:10:15] characteristics. So these are people that you respect. Right. These are people that you’d feel comfortable [00:10:20] recommending and introducing to other people.

And these are people that are also responsive. [00:10:25] So sometimes we might think someone’s in our circle two or circle three, but if we’re texting them [00:10:30] and we need help and we’re like, and they’re ignoring us, they’re not in that circle. They’re in an outer [00:10:35] circle, right? So circle one and two, like two is always one and two will always show up for [00:10:40] you.

The things that one is on like the weekly pulse of what’s going on, right? Super, super inner [00:10:45] circle and then three, they might not, it might not be a guarantee that they can always do everything [00:10:50] that you want ’em to do, but they really would like to, they’re not gonna

Rory: ignore you flat out. Or if they do, they’re like, [00:10:55] I’m so sorry, I just couldn’t get back to you.

But they re respond. I think that’s a really key responsive, they’re responsive. [00:11:00] Yeah. So you respect them and they’re also responsive to

Selena: you. Yeah. So you would invite them to the party, you would feel [00:11:05] comfortable introducing them to treasured people in your network. But then if there [00:11:10] is someone where you’re like, ah, like I still want them in my network, but I feel like they need to be [00:11:15] a little bit of an arm’s length.

I’m not, I don’t want to be like, I can’t be their friend. There’s still [00:11:20] benefit. Okay. But there needs to be a little bit of distance. That’s circle four. Right. So circle four [00:11:25] are your distant connections. These are also called weak ties. So there’s, you know, three different [00:11:30] reasons why people are in circle four.

So one might be, okay, there’s things I like about them. Maybe we have [00:11:35] history, but there’s not total alignment. I just need to kind of manage that relationship. [00:11:40] Thoughtfully might, they might not even be good for your reputation to be like, closely aligned, but you’re like, you know what, they’re okay. [00:11:45] Right?

You can have them around

Rory: or there could be like a certain, a very specific type of person [00:11:50] you would introduce them to, or. Uh, introduce to [00:11:55] them, uh, if there’s like, maybe something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe

Selena: they’re, but it could [00:12:00] be something like, maybe they drop the ball, maybe they’re super negative and it’s like, okay, there’s a little bit of distance.[00:12:05]

Or another reason might be like, they’re just an acquaintance, right? Like, your life is so full and maybe [00:12:10] what they do is not as relevant to you and the people in your circle. So it’s like they’re more of an [00:12:15] acquaintance, okay? And like you value and appreciate them, but you’re not actively in touch all the time, but you [00:12:20] can tap into them.

When you need them.

Rory: Okay.

Selena: Um, or if you just met someone like the [00:12:25] first and second meeting, someone’s still gonna be in circle four. ’cause you could feel like, wow, they’re amazing. But the [00:12:30] reality is, after one or two meetings, someone is still a stranger, okay? And it takes time to build [00:12:35] trust in order to let them into the more inner circles.

Rory: So five. What’s then the difference between [00:12:40] circle five and Circle four?

Selena: Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people are in Circle four and there will not be many [00:12:45] people in Circle five. Oh, so Circle five is disconnected. So these are people that have [00:12:50] perhaps betrayed you. Um, these are people where you don’t feel safe around them.

It’s not [00:12:55] healthy for you to be in close proximity. Oh, interesting. You don’t wanna be associated with them [00:13:00] and. Most people have like a couple people over the course of their lifetime that have put [00:13:05] themselves into that category, and it’s just part of, um, you know, healthy boundaries. Basically. You [00:13:10] can be kind and cordial, but if there was a small brunch with four people and you were [00:13:15] invited and you were sitting next to your circle five, you’d probably be like, I don’t wanna go to that event.[00:13:20]

You know, and, and that’s not someone that I would recommend at all to others. Right.

Rory: Okay. And

Selena: what about Circle six? So Circle [00:13:25] six is everyone else out into the world. Strangers, basically. Yeah. So that’s like, you know, billions of people in the world, [00:13:30] but everyone falls into these different circles. And so I think that this is helpful to know, not because you’re going to [00:13:35] announce to someone, you’re in circle four or you’re in circle two, but you know, so if [00:13:40] you notice that someone is treating you a particular way and it’s like, wow, I like go for bat, I go above and beyond [00:13:45] for them, but they’re treating me like this or they’re showing up in this way, like right now, mentally.

I’ve moved [00:13:50] them to circle four.

Rory: Mm-hmm. And then

Selena: just being really aware of who are the people that show up for you? Who, who [00:13:55] prioritizes you? Who do you feel safe around? Who is responsive? Who supports you? [00:14:00] Right. These are your circle one, twos and threes. So those are gonna be our priority people. That being said, it [00:14:05] is good to have weak ties as well, um, but they don’t get the same consistent [00:14:10] energy from you.

Rory: All right. So let’s talk about how to get access [00:14:15] to influential people. Yes. Because. You know, influential people tend to [00:14:20] be influential for a reason. They can introdu, they can make things happen, right? Yeah. They, they can [00:14:25] knock down walls, they can get things moving, but they also tend to be the people [00:14:30] everyone is trying to get to.

And so it can be really hard to get to them. [00:14:35] And, um, also they, they reach, they reach a point I think [00:14:40] where they, they start to know that people are trying to get to them and it’s, mm-hmm. People want [00:14:45] something from them. And so they tend to, they, it’s like the more influential someone [00:14:50] becomes, a lot of times, I feel like the more guarded they become.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, how do [00:14:55] you build relationships with some of those people? Right. And it’s like, I’m thinking it’s like, it [00:15:00] could be a literary agent, it could be someone who runs a speaker’s bureau. It could be someone with a huge podcast. It could [00:15:05] be someone who’s a TV show host. It could be somebody who writes for a, an important publication.[00:15:10]

And over time, they’re like, oh, okay. Like a lot of the people who want access to me [00:15:15] don’t really care about me. They really care about my audience or my thing or my whatever. Mm-hmm. And so it’s like, [00:15:20] it’s sort of a tricky thing to go, how do I build trust with that person that [00:15:25] everyone else is sort of trying to get to?

Or it could be just like a celebrity endorsement or something like, [00:15:30] something like that.

Selena: So much to say about this. Yes. I feel like this is really power. Well, you’re really good at this. I

Rory: want to hear how [00:15:35] you approach this. Yeah,

Selena: so when I think about a busy, influential person, I think of them as his train, and [00:15:40] they’re on the tracks.

They’re going full speed ahead, and there might be moments where the train stops and it [00:15:45] opens up the doors and let people’s on. On, but then it, you know, continues forward. Hmm. And so a lot of [00:15:50] people, when they’re trying to connect with that busy, influential person, it’s like they’re trying to pull the train off the [00:15:55] tracks.

They’re like, Hey, this is my agenda. This is what I need from you. And it’s just simply [00:16:00] not going to work.

Rory: Hmm.

Selena: And so the way to really connect with busy, influential people [00:16:05] is when there’s an opening, you just. Jump on the train and help them get to their end destination [00:16:10] faster. And so you wanna be really good at understanding what people need.

And a [00:16:15] concept that I’ve coined is breathtaking generosity. Yes. And so it’s this idea [00:16:20] of, you know, being so kind, so.[00:16:25]

And it’s like your their new favorite person. [00:16:30] And so there’s two primary ways to be breathtakingly generous. So one is being a [00:16:35] pain detective. And I first heard Joe Polish, use this word, so a pain. Pain [00:16:40] detective. Detective, okay. Yeah. So it’s being really attuned to the pain in the people [00:16:45] who matter to you.

So some people might say, you know, Selena, Rory, how do I know when people are in pain? They’re not [00:16:50] telling me they’re in pain. And I would say it’s actually pretty obvious. There’s usually a few different categories of [00:16:55] pain. So one would be natural disaster. You know, many of us know people who’ve been [00:17:00] affected by hurricanes and floods and fires, right?

So that’s one category. [00:17:05] Um, relationships, maybe someone is going through a divorce or maybe they’re having [00:17:10] behavior. Issues with their kids or maybe their, you know, parents are aging and sick, [00:17:15] right? Health, um, maybe they have a chronic illness, right? Or someone that they care [00:17:20] about, um, financial, maybe their business is not doing well and things are falling [00:17:25] apart, or identity where it’s like.

I’m not married to this person anymore. I’m not a [00:17:30] part of this community. The, the business, um, topic that everyone knew me for is not [00:17:35] even a thing I do anymore, right? Mm-hmm. And so I think if we all slowed down a little bit, [00:17:40] I think that we could identify people in our world who are in pain. And so when I say when people are in [00:17:45] pain, be the first to show up and not the last to show up.

So I feel like I’ve [00:17:50] always been really good at just spotting when people are in pain and need help and I’m [00:17:55] just like, I’m right there, like right away. Mm-hmm.

Rory: And

Selena: I think that people don’t do it. Not because they don’t [00:18:00] care, but because they haven’t. Consciously prioritize that when they see people in [00:18:05] pain, it’s like, be the first, right?

Don’t be the last or the person who doesn’t show up at all. So that’s [00:18:10] one. The second is being a dream amplifier. And so really paying [00:18:15] attention to when people have these big goals and dreams, and you know what they are because they’re sharing them, they’re sharing them on [00:18:20] social media, they’re sharing them at.

On their newsletter, they’re sharing them in conversations. Whether it’s [00:18:25] like, you know, I wanna be a new and noteworthy podcast. I dream of being on the New York Times [00:18:30] bestsellers list. I wanna speak on stages. I wanna get this new business idea off the ground. Oh my gosh, I would [00:18:35] die if I could get connected to this person and maybe one day earn their endorsement.

Right? So [00:18:40] if you’re a really close to someone, you could. Them. But the reality is, let’s say if we [00:18:45] look at just entrepreneurs or personal brands, most people’s goals and dreams are exactly the same. You know what I [00:18:50] mean? Mm-hmm. They want to connect with other people that inspire them. Um, [00:18:55] they want to, you know, make more money.

They want. People to take things off their [00:19:00] plate. They want to have more peace, more ease. Um, and so when you really become that pain [00:19:05] detective and that dream amplifier and consistently show up with breathtaking [00:19:10] generosity, and when I say consistently, I don’t mean that like every moment of your life you have to do that.

But [00:19:15] when there is someone that’s important to you. And you see that opportunity, right? Just be the first to [00:19:20] show up and not the last.

Rory: Your metaphor about the train is so good. [00:19:25] I, I think that’s so powerful. And, and I know that you were talking about that a little bit before the [00:19:30] pain detective, but the idea that everybody is on a path to do [00:19:35] something.

Mm-hmm. And it’s like instead of trying to pull them over [00:19:40] to what you’re doing Yeah. If you can just like hop on. To their [00:19:45] train and help them do the thing that they’re trying to do. Like that is [00:19:50] the easiest way to, to get noticed. To be valuable. To be useful, yeah. [00:19:55] Um, I think not enough people understand.

Not enough people understand [00:20:00] that. And I think about, and I, I always use this story. Mm-hmm. Um, so a, a, a few weeks ago [00:20:05] I finally, um, well, so the story is of a woman named Gretchen Rubin who wrote The [00:20:10] Happiness Project. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. And I just thought, oh my gosh, she’s just so cool. And, [00:20:15] um, she was amazing.

And I saw that she had a new book coming [00:20:20] out and I reached out to her and I was just like, Hey. Is there any chance you’d come on my [00:20:25] podcast? By the way, I know I don’t have the world’s largest podcast. I have a great show, but I [00:20:30] also have a lot of friends that have podcasts. And if you’d be willing to come on my [00:20:35] show, I will proactively introduce you to all of these other shows.

Oh, [00:20:40] and she said yes, and then I did. Yeah. And that started a relationship, which has [00:20:45] now been going for like. 13 years and Oh wow. We just met [00:20:50] in person like a few weeks ago.

Selena: Oh, that’s incredible. And our

Rory: entire relationship was just over [00:20:55] like virtual. Um, but I met her because it was like that, [00:21:00] you know, book launches.

Are one of the times, yes. Where everybody needs [00:21:05] help and they’re open to receiving help. Like we use, again, that train metaphor of like the door [00:21:10] opens when someone is launching a book. Like you just need to know this. If someone has a book [00:21:15] coming out, they need help. They’re trying to get the word out and a lot of their [00:21:20] friends are ghosting on them and like they scatter like cockroaches.

And you’re going like, if you can show [00:21:25] up and be like, I’m excited about this project. I want to help and you do something that’s a great. [00:21:30] Window. And like you’re saying, you, you look for those windows Yeah. When someone’s starting a [00:21:35] new company. Mm-hmm. That, that would be, uh, you know, very similar when someone enters a [00:21:40] contest or, or if they’re going through a difficult time.

But it’s, it, it’s like you’re talking about it being a pain [00:21:45] detective. Mm-hmm. But it also seems like when they’re being like a dream chaser Yeah. It’s like [00:21:50] those two moments are like Exactly. That’s, that’s, those are the [00:21:55] two moments where people are most receptive. To help and thereby most receptive [00:22:00] to new relationships, right.

That they might not otherwise be. I love, I love that. So [00:22:05] yeah,

Selena: so there’s like golden moments of opportunity and you just have to be very good at stopping up there. Stops on the train. Yeah, [00:22:10] there’s, they’re, yeah. That’s a train stop. Yeah, that’s a train

Rory: stop.

Selena: And the other thing is, you were talking about the relationship with [00:22:15] Gretchen is that I think we need to cover this concept of reciprocity because I’m not a [00:22:20] fan.

Most people are always like, I’m looking for reciprocal relationships. Right? Or they feel like I [00:22:25] help people a lot and they don’t help me. So here’s the thing. I don’t believe in reciprocity at all. I [00:22:30] believe in generosity and I believe in energetic abundance. So, for example, in your relationship with [00:22:35] Gretchen, you proactively reach out to her.

I would love to feature you and you know, [00:22:40] and if you’re. You know, a yes to this. I also wanna, you know, make all these, you know, introductions and [00:22:45] support you even more. But it’s not like, let’s say if you hooked Gretchen up with 13 [00:22:50] interviews, you’re like, Hey Gretchen, can you introduce me to 13 of your friends?

Right. That’s not like the way [00:22:55] that Totally you do it.

Rory: Totally. And I

Selena: think that also sometimes. People are at different levels, right? [00:23:00] Of business, um, and in their careers. So we’re all equal as human [00:23:05] beings. Amen. Everyone deserves like respect and kindness. But if you’re reaching out to [00:23:10] maybe somebody that you really look up to, that’s like 20 years further ahead, that has [00:23:15] millions of followers and you support their.

Book launch and breathtakingly generous [00:23:20] ways, it is not realistic to expect that they reciprocate in the same [00:23:25] way. You know, they might have like 500 people in their book launch team. They just simply can’t do that. [00:23:30] And so, you know, when people try to create these tit for tat relationships, and I think that [00:23:35] if some people wanna do that, that’s fine.

The reality is it’s just extremely limiting. [00:23:40] And so I think it’s more important to think long term and think about how do I create energetic abundance? [00:23:45] Because there may be someone where it’s like, I’m gonna help them and they may never help me. But if they’re [00:23:50] grateful and we’re building that connection and I’m feeling alive and they’re feeling alive from it, it’s positive.[00:23:55]

You know, with like, say a mentor mentee relationship, typically the mentor is [00:24:00] always gonna give a lot more than the mentee, right? Sure. So looking for 50 50, [00:24:05] um, and looking for transactional relationships is very limiting. I call that transactional [00:24:10] giving. And then there’s indiscriminate giving where someone just feels like I need to say yes to everyone.[00:24:15]

Um, so that everybody likes me and you know, they kind of center everyone else and they forget about their own [00:24:20] needs. And then there’s rich giving, which is what I teach, which is being really [00:24:25] clear on who do I intentionally want to pour into which relationships. Feel [00:24:30] energizing and abundant, which relationships I would give even, you know, just because it [00:24:35] feels good to give.

That being said, there are nuances. Of course. If you feel that the person is [00:24:40] draining or they don’t care about you at all and they only want to use you, that’s not a rich relationship. [00:24:45] That’s not energetic abundance. Right. Um, so I think that that’s the way [00:24:50] is don’t look for reciprocal relationships if you’re saying, you know, people don’t help me, it’s.[00:24:55]

Because you’re either doing one of two things. One, you’re choosing the wrong people to invest in you because [00:25:00] the right people, when you show up with kindness and generosity consistently, they wanna help you too, [00:25:05] right? So either you’re investing in the wrong people, or two people don’t know what your goals and [00:25:10] dreams are, so they don’t know how to help you, or you never told them explicitly what they can [00:25:15] do to support you.

Rory: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I’ve always found too that [00:25:20] like you don’t really have to keep score because it’s like. [00:25:25] Even if, even if Selena gives me something and I don’t directly [00:25:30] reciprocate to you. Mm-hmm. I have found that like you can’t outgive God, like you can’t outgive the [00:25:35] universe. So even if I don’t reciprocate back to you equally, [00:25:40] someone else will like, it always comes back to me where it’s like.

It [00:25:45] may not happen through that person.

Selena: Right.

Rory: But eventually the blessings come back. You [00:25:50] always get paid, you always get rewarded for how generous you are to people. Always. Yeah. [00:25:55] Sometimes it’s from that person. Oftentimes it’s from another, but sooner or later it will, [00:26:00] it will come back to you. And here’s something I wanna, I [00:26:05] wanna articulate.

Well, let me, I wanna share. The single biggest thing, I’ve gotten clarity [00:26:10] on relationships in my own life just recently. Mm-hmm. And it’s about when I introduce [00:26:15] people to each other. Yeah. Because, you know, over the years we’ve built [00:26:20] some relationships with people who are like pretty, pretty influential.

Mm-hmm. And pretty much, there’s not a day that [00:26:25] goes by that somebody’s like, can I meet Lewis Howes? Will you introduce me to Amy Porterfield? Like, will you introduce me [00:26:30] to Cody Sanchez? Or who, you know, whoever the person is.

Selena: Yeah.

Rory: And. [00:26:35] I struggled with this for the longest time. It was so hard because I was like, [00:26:40] well, it’s, it’s not that I don’t want to introduce you because I, I [00:26:45] want to help you.

Selena: Mm-hmm.

Rory: But I, there’s something that doesn’t feel right and I [00:26:50] couldn’t, I couldn’t put my finger on. Why don’t I feel right about it? And [00:26:55] recently I did, maybe it’s like six months ago, or maybe a year ago, and it has been so clarifying for me. [00:27:00] And now I only have one rule when it comes to introducing people to each other.

Mm. [00:27:05] I say, I will introduce you to Lewis Howes. The moment you can [00:27:10] add as much value to him as he can add to you. Mm. And [00:27:15] if that moment comes. You won’t have to ask me. I will automatically [00:27:20] introduce you. Right. Because I care about you and I care about Louis. Mm. But if, you [00:27:25] know, I can’t add value to Oprah right now in a way [00:27:30] that she can’t get access to it somewhere else.

Right, right, right. So it’s gonna be hard for someone [00:27:35] to introduce me to Oprah. Right. Until. Or un [00:27:40] until it’s not right. Yeah. Until she’s maybe struggling with something that I have a specific expertise in. [00:27:45] Yeah. Or, you know, something that she can’t get anywhere else. Um, but I think [00:27:50] as, as we evaluate our [00:27:55] relationships with people and how much someone has been giving to us, I think it’s like we have to [00:28:00] also be mindful that we can’t be upset at friends who can’t deliver [00:28:05] things for us that aren’t.

Equally yoked with who we are.

Selena: Right. That’s so true. Yeah. [00:28:10] But,

Rory: but then it’s like, you know, sometimes they are so, like Lewis is a good example, right? Is to go, [00:28:15] well, I can’t introduce you to be on Lewis’ show, like mm-hmm. Because you’re a brand new person, [00:28:20] whatever, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. But then I go, oh, well, you know, the moment that Lewis [00:28:25] becomes.

Super. He comes, he becomes super interested and like, you know, [00:28:30] uh, you know, there’s a health crisis in his family and he needs a person who can help with da dah, [00:28:35] dah, dah. It’s like, oh, now I can introduce this person, because he has, [00:28:40] he has that need. Mm-hmm. And, and so I think you go, if you go through life just going, [00:28:45] and this is something you do really well, if you just go through life going, how can I add value?

Selena: [00:28:50] Yeah.

Rory: Where can I add value? Where can I contribute? Then. Sooner or [00:28:55] later, your name’s gonna show up in the hat on the receiving end of that. Somewhere else. Totally. Somewhere else. [00:29:00] Yeah.

Selena: I mean, you’re building your reputation, you’re building goodwill. I like to think of it that when you’re [00:29:05] investing in these relationships and you’re giving generously, you’re actually investing in your overall [00:29:10] network and your network just starts to get stronger.

Right. I

Rory: love the breathtaking generosity. [00:29:15] Yeah. Because that, that, that’s it too, is to aspire to go, how can I. [00:29:20] Blow their mind. Yeah. Like how can I knock their socks off? I would

Selena: love to share one example of this. Yeah, please. Yeah. It’s in [00:29:25] my book. So basically, um, this was a couple years ago and [00:29:30] things were, well, first of all, they were like up and down in my business launches that used to do, you know.[00:29:35]

Really well, we’re not doing well anymore.

Rory: Mm.

Selena: Um, I, you know, I had also moved to Puerto Rico [00:29:40] and everybody was like, you know, you should be investing in crypto. And, you know, you hear of people that put in a hundred [00:29:45] thousand and it becomes 10 million and you’re like, oh my gosh. Like, why am I not doing it?

And so I converted [00:29:50] my retirement savings into a self-directed IRA so I could invest in crypto. [00:29:55] Wow. Yeah. I didn’t know that. Yeah. And then I lost a hundred thousand dollars. Oh. Um, so [00:30:00] that happened. And then at the same time I was investing in real estate. ’cause you know, they say passive [00:30:05] income is so important.

I had a second property. But then what happened is that there were other properties [00:30:10] that were like popping up around that were more suited for that area. It was more a family focused [00:30:15] area. And so I was losing like $6,000 a month on my two bedroom. Oh man. So everything was like [00:30:20] kind of all happening at once and I was like, I need a money coach.

Like whenever I need help, I [00:30:25] always invest in a coach. So even though I’ve never done this, I need to find a money coach. So I just like Googled [00:30:30] online. I found like the Dave Ramsey website, I answered some questions and they assign me to this [00:30:35] coach, and her name’s Jenna Rose and she’s amazing. And I just start to feel very [00:30:40] confident and I have my game plan.

I’m like, okay, I’m like fixing things and really, you know, feeling good. And I have the kind [00:30:45] of personality where if I think someone’s great, I just like to tell everybody like, you gotta work with them. And [00:30:50] I would tell like certain friends, like my best friend, like seven different times to hire Jenna [00:30:55] Rose.

And she didn’t do it. And so I just thought, I just need to buy sessions for [00:31:00] everyone. And at around the same time, I was promoting a friend who had a money course. So I needed a [00:31:05] kind of like a cool bonus package. Package giveaway package. Yeah. So I went to Jenna Rose and said like, [00:31:10] what if I just bought like sessions and just gave them to tons of people, like I, you [00:31:15] know, um.

Like, what if it was like ended up being like a hundred sessions or whatever, what kind of price [00:31:20] point could you give me? So it’s like a no-brainer for me to use as some bonus packages and things like [00:31:25] that. And so this is a number that she came up with, not me. Um, but it was basically [00:31:30] she was willing to give me a package of four sessions with her for $200.

Hmm [00:31:35] one-on-one because she knew that a lot of times she might have to have like one or two [00:31:40] conversations or more, like before somebody even becomes a client. So she’s like, oh wow, Selena’s putting me in front of all these [00:31:45] dream clients. Like I’ll do it for 200 bucks. And so when I noticed people around me, ’cause I [00:31:50] wasn’t the only person that was experiencing these shifts in the marketplace, right?

Um, [00:31:55] people that were struggling with money, like dear friends of mine, people that were going through divorce, and [00:32:00] there’s like a huge financial consequence there. I would just like send a little voice note, like [00:32:05] 90 seconds like, Hey, I was thinking of you. You know, I recently worked with this person and it has [00:32:10] created so much transformation and I would love to gift you some sessions.

Wow. And just to [00:32:15] be super clear, like I do not need anything in return. I just wanna support you as a friend. Let [00:32:20] me know if you’re open to an intro and people. All my friends said yes. [00:32:25] And so I would introduce him to Jenna Rose. And I remember one person, she’s um, a single [00:32:30] mom, and she was like, wow, Jenna Rose also made me realize all this money that I’m entitled [00:32:35] to my divorce.

I didn’t expect another person was like, Jenna Rose showed me how to save [00:32:40] $15,000 a month. So I’m doing the math like 15,000 a month. 12 months. [00:32:45] That’s 18,000 in one year.

Rory: Hmm.

Selena: So I put $200 in. [00:32:50] It was probably two minutes of my time to send the voice note and make the intro. Jenna [00:32:55] Rose is doing the sessions, not me, and I’ve helped someone who’s important to me save [00:33:00] $18,000 a year.

And so breathtaking generosity doesn’t have to take [00:33:05] up a lot of your time. It might be connecting people to the right resources, gifting them a [00:33:10] session, right. But I’ve. I don’t remember how many people I did that, but I remember [00:33:15] after like losing $7,000 in Facebook ads, I just had like this personal goal, I’m gonna spend at least [00:33:20] $7,000 just gifting people sessions.

Rory: Mm-hmm. And

Selena: so there’s different things that I do like that, [00:33:25] or even with publicity. Um, you know, I might gift a session with my media coach, so it’s [00:33:30] not my time, but you know, the time with my media coach, if it’s something I’m paying internally, [00:33:35] it’s not. You know, it’s something that is financially manageable and then we can even get someone a [00:33:40] win from like one call, and then I make one introduction.

And in some cases it’s like, wow, now they’re in [00:33:45] Forbes. You know? And that could have cost them. You know, many thousands, you know, [00:33:50] working with a publicist. Sure. Right. A 10,000, 20, $30,000 contract. Sure. Make an introduction. But [00:33:55] we’re only, but I’m also mindful, I’m obviously not going to do like, you know, three months of [00:34:00] services for free, but like, maybe, you know, one call.

With a coach and one connection. So you [00:34:05] just have to be clear on what feels good for you, like how much are you willing to give [00:34:10] that actually feels expansive and exciting and creates so much abundance. And then just do [00:34:15] that same thing over and over again.

Rory: Mm-hmm. Um, and,

Selena: and that’s the important thing, like when you’re building [00:34:20] relationships, it’s not about doing a million different things.

It’s doing like two or three things. [00:34:25] Over and over again, whether you’re like the person that hosts dinner parties or you’re the person that gifts this [00:34:30] kind of service. Um, and it really has that compound effect.

Rory: Mm-hmm. I love what [00:34:35] you said about introducing vendor partners.

Selena: Yeah.

Rory: Because I’ve [00:34:40] come to realize that like I, I literally in the last [00:34:45] couple weeks I said this to aj, I said, I now [00:34:50] believe that more.

Then [00:34:55] 70% of solving a problem comes down to just finding the [00:35:00] person who knows how to solve the problem.

Selena: Right? Right. Like

Rory: it’s just going, if you can just [00:35:05] find the person who already knows how to do the thing you’re trying to do or has done the, I mean, it’s [00:35:10] like mm-hmm. The problem’s basically solved, um, and going, introducing great [00:35:15] vendors.

Is one of the easiest things that any of us could do. Now you’re doing it with money, right? Yeah. [00:35:20] You’re like buying a session, which is so awesome. Mm-hmm. But it’s like even if you’re not, yeah. If you go, you know how hard it is to find a good [00:35:25] babysitter, a good cleaner, a good chef, a good mechanic. Like [00:35:30] all a good lawyer.

A good dentist, a good CPA. Yeah. Like all of us [00:35:35] have vendors.

Selena: Yes.

Rory: And we never think of how [00:35:40] valuable, like if a vendor is blowing your mind. To go, like, I wanna [00:35:45] help them by in, I want to tell all of my friends and family about this vendor, right? Like these people do what [00:35:50] they say they’re gonna do. They’re really good at what they do.

They really can help you. And like they [00:35:55] have integrity and it’s like everybody wins and you get caught in the [00:36:00] crossfires. So much of how I built my relationships mm-hmm. Is like. I’m introducing people [00:36:05] to people who are way more influential than me. Like, I don’t even belong in the conversation, [00:36:10] but I like get caught in the crossfire of introducing people [00:36:15] to each other.

And then, you know, it’s like you introduce them to five people and they’re like, Hey, what [00:36:20] can I do for you? Right.

Selena: Right. And like, they’re really

Rory: like, they’re like, I, I honestly feel kind of bad. Like you, you’ve [00:36:25] connected me to all these amazing people. Like how can I help you?

Selena: Yeah. And then

Rory: it’s like, [00:36:30] okay, well, you know, so I I, it’s all in that breathtaking generosity.[00:36:35]

Um, and I love the tactical thing of introducing vendors, but that’s [00:36:40] super cool that you bought, like use your own money to pay sessions to help people [00:36:45] avoid making mistakes that like you’ve personally struggled with.

Selena: Yeah, and I think. I, I believe that [00:36:50] everybody should be investing money into their relationships.

I think a lot of people are comfortable making an [00:36:55] introduction, but when there’s anything financial like, uh, Uhuh and it like comes, you, you have a generosity fund. Yes. You have a concept. So I [00:37:00] actually like, recommend that everybody create a generosity fund Yes. For their business. [00:37:05] Right. And so I know like with, for example, we’ll Adera a reasonable hospitality, like what they would [00:37:10] do is they would carve out like 5% and just do these breathtakingly generous.

[00:37:15] Unreasonably hospitable things for people. Mm-hmm. And that was like, you know, that was just like a part of their business [00:37:20] model. And so think about what is it for you? Maybe it’s 2%, maybe it’s a [00:37:25] flat, you know, dollar amount. Maybe there’s a percentage of your services that you’ll gift to [00:37:30] people in need.

But when you think about like your VIP clients, your top [00:37:35] affiliate partners and promoters, and you think about all that they do for you and all that they invest in you. [00:37:40] If you carved out like 5% or 2% and like invested it back in them, [00:37:45] obviously like, you know, it would pay dividends, right? So, yeah, I think that’s really [00:37:50] important to think about.

Okay, who, who do I want to invest in? Like who is my generosity fund [00:37:55] for? Right? Is it clients? Is it team members? Is it promoters? Is it new [00:38:00] relationships I’m looking to build? How much do I wanna put in there? Whether it’s a percentage or a flat [00:38:05] fee. And then what are the specific things I’m going to give?

What are the services I’m gonna [00:38:10] give? What are the things I support? Maybe it’s something like around, um, you know, it could be a [00:38:15] charitable initiative or something that is like religious, but whatever it is, like these things I’m like [00:38:20] always a yes for that.

Rory: So great one. One of the best marketing promotions that we started doing at Brand [00:38:25] Builders Group is we give our clients.

A golden ticket where the client [00:38:30] actually doesn’t have to pay us the money. Yeah. We, but we gift them one ticket to [00:38:35] go give this to a friend. Yeah. And then we actually will pay our, our, our [00:38:40] client. A, a referral fee if they give it to a friend and a friend signs up. Right. But we [00:38:45] started doing that ’cause it creates this like, generosity loop of just like, we’ll give you a, a [00:38:50] ticket to give to somebody.

And that’s a really, uh, effective example of, of, [00:38:55] you know, doing that. But like, you know, that’s to what you’re saying, like, as a company, we [00:39:00] budget for that X number of seats for to be able to gift. You know, for our clients to be able to [00:39:05] gift. Yeah. Um, that’s really good. I, I got, I, I, I want, I want to know where you wanna [00:39:10] direct people, but before I do, I got one more question for you.

Mm-hmm. Um, I have to, I, I’m [00:39:15] so curious. This is completely a little bit off subject. Okay. But I’m so, I’m so curious [00:39:20] about your philosophy about AI and how is a, how is AI [00:39:25] gonna change the future of relationships [00:39:30] and relationship building? Do you see it? Being something that will change it [00:39:35] dramatically or not change it dramatically, like relationships are gonna, like.

I’m just [00:39:40] curious because you, you and I are both aligned in like Yeah. How important relationships are. [00:39:45] Are you, do you spend time thinking about how AI will. [00:39:50] Interrupt that or not really? Or what? Like what’s, what’s your thought there?

Selena: Yeah, I think that [00:39:55] business is being done differently now. So I think that there was a time where mass marketing was really [00:40:00] effective.

And I’m not saying don’t do it. I think you still do it, but I think mass marketing alone is not [00:40:05] enough. You know, before you could spend a ton of money on Facebook ads or send a million emails or [00:40:10] just do whatever, and you could get people. Into your programs and now like trust is lower than [00:40:15] ever. And when I think about when I’m making buying decisions, I’m always just asking my friends.

[00:40:20] I’m asking my friends, my mentors, my peers, people that I trust, who do you work with? Who do you [00:40:25] recommend? Like that’s the way I’m doing it. And so you want to be building those relationships with [00:40:30] people of influence. Right? And so, and and that’s something that money can. Buy. You [00:40:35] know, I remember a former team member wanted to get in touch with a very influential entrepreneur who I’m friends [00:40:40] with, and she wanted to support her with her launch.

And there’s no amount of Facebook [00:40:45] ads and Mars mass marketing or cold email, you know, marketing that would get that [00:40:50] highly influential person to say yes to that meeting. Um, but when I knew that was a dream of hers, I was like, let me [00:40:55] just send her a Voxer note and I just sent a note and then, you know, like two hours later they’re in touch, [00:41:00] right?

Mm-hmm. So like rich relationships can take you places that mass marketing never can. [00:41:05]

Rory: Mm. And the

Selena: other thing is now it’s easier to stay in touch because there’s more tools. And so I feel like [00:41:10] if you aren’t. Staying in touch with people, but others are, um, then [00:41:15] you’re not gonna be considered right, like out of sight, out of mind.

And I think that the [00:41:20] biggest thing that people need to focus on right now when it comes to rich relationships is actually the nurture piece. [00:41:25] I think yes, we can expand and build more relationships, but the way in which we’re [00:41:30] struggling as nurture, so there’s build, gotta know the right people and gotta know what my goals and dreams [00:41:35] are and create those initial connections.

Nurture. I have to stay in touch with people. So I’m top of [00:41:40] mind and people feel that I’m important to them, right, and that they matter. And then third is [00:41:45] activate. But you can’t activate successfully if you haven’t done the nurture, because [00:41:50] if you go from build to activate, then people will feel that you’re a transactional person and they’re not going [00:41:55] to want to support you.

So I just would love to like share this final example. So with my book [00:42:00] launch. One thing that I, I’ve always done well, but I definitely did this with my book launch, is like, I’m very [00:42:05] good at Nurture. So like, let’s say, you know, I’m working on the book cover [00:42:10] and, you know, texting people individually, Hey, here are three covers.

Which one do you like the [00:42:15] best? Um, I did something called rich Relationships Behind the Scenes, which was like [00:42:20] a webinar where I brought together my rich relationships. I didn’t send, you know. Mass [00:42:25] email. I reached out to people individually and said, Hey, you’re such an important person in my world and I’m launching my book.[00:42:30]

Um, I would love to share with you the behind the scenes what my big goals and dreams are. Um, [00:42:35] and so I did that and I got like a hundred influential connections. Cool. And then I shared my bulk buy [00:42:40] packages at the very end, right? And I did a lot of like different events to bring people together, virtual events, [00:42:45] in-person events.

Um, and when I hit, you know, the USA today bestsellers list, [00:42:50] thanks to you, I screenshot that in my phone. And then also. Um, LA Times [00:42:55] number three. And I started, yeah, I texted people like the two screenshots and [00:43:00] then the first sentence was always the same. Like, I hit number 10 on USA today and number three [00:43:05] on LA Times.

And then I would add a sentence like, thanks for pre-ordering our copy and making my [00:43:10] dream come true. Thanks for having me on my, your podcast. Thanks for having me on, uh, being on [00:43:15] my book launch team. That’s good. Thanks for cheering me on. Right. So it was, um. So, [00:43:20] but because I like organized in a way, and this is like going back to like, you wanna be doing the same [00:43:25] action again and again.

You don’t wanna be doing like, you know, 47 different actions you wanna do, like one action, [00:43:30] but just slightly personalize it. So it’s like upload, upload the two pictures, copy and [00:43:35] paste the one sentence, and then write one sentence. So, you know, at first I was like just [00:43:40] maybe reaching out to like, I don’t know.

Seven people, and then I’m like, you know what? Let me push myself. [00:43:45] And so that day I reached out to 70 people. Wow. And by the next day, I’d reached out to maybe like [00:43:50] 120 people. And then people started. I didn’t ask for anything. I wasn’t trying to activate, I was just [00:43:55] trying to tell people that you’re important to me and I’m so excited and I wanna share my [00:44:00] win with you.

So, you know, people like, um, you know, our mutual friend Jim Quick was like, oh yeah, I got the [00:44:05] book here I need to post. So then he did his Instagram story and then, you know, Mike Mcal is [00:44:10] like, oh my gosh, yeah, I’ve been meaning to support you. Okay. It’s going in the newsletter today. Um, and then a [00:44:15] colleague who’s a Circle four, um, his name is Francis and he’s just circle four because we’re not in [00:44:20] touch all the time.

But he sees my Instagram stories and even that’s a form of nurturing. ’cause people see what [00:44:25] you’re up to. Mm-hmm. And he was like, Selena, do you think I would make a dent if I emailed my list of [00:44:30] 600,000 people about your book? And I was like, are you for real? And I was like, okay, let me make it [00:44:35] so easy. I wanna create custom swipe.

But I didn’t ask anyone for anything, but I [00:44:40] did keep them posted on the journey. And when you just circle back in the right moment, [00:44:45] the right people are gonna be like, oh my gosh, let me jump in. So that’s, that’s like my number one piece of advice for [00:44:50] everyone. So

Rory: good is

Selena: nurture your network and the easiest way is just little pings to keep them [00:44:55] updated on what is happening in your world.

Rory: That’s so good. You are so good at that. And uh, [00:45:00] I love how you circled back folks. Rich relationships create a million dollar network for your [00:45:05] business. As you could tell. There was, so there I had like 20 questions I didn’t even get to. There’s so much. [00:45:10] Uh, there’s so much tactical frameworks mm-hmm. Into this whole world of [00:45:15] relationships.

As you can tell from our conversation. So, uh, Selena, where else do you want people to go [00:45:20] to? Learn about you and follow you and stay connected to what you’re doing.

Selena: Yeah, they can [00:45:25] go to rich relationships book.com/scripts. So one of people’s favorite [00:45:30] things in the book is scripts because you build rich relationships through conversation, right?[00:45:35]

And so this is how I’ve built my, you know, a hundred million dollars network, have achieved all these big things. So [00:45:40] I package all of my scripts in one place, and you can get [00:45:45] [email protected] slash script.

Rory: Awesome. We’ll link to the show notes. Uh, hopefully you enjoyed this [00:45:50] episode. Ask yourself right now who is a rich relationship for [00:45:55] you that you need to nurture.

Let them know how much you appreciate them. Figure out a way to add value [00:46:00] to them right now. Uh, and if you wanna be a part of our journey, you could [00:46:05] follow Selena on social. Say hello to her. We would always love a review or share this episode, [00:46:10] and maybe that’s what you need to do is share this episode with someone that you think it’ll be useful for.

Thanks for being [00:46:15] here. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand [00:46:20] [00:46:25] Podcast.

Ep 616: Why Physicians Need a Personal Brand: How to take back control and confidence through real content with Dr. Mina

AJ: Hey everybody. Welcome. We are so excited to have you today. It’s [00:01:55] not every day that I get to interview someone that I [00:02:00] know, like, and admire. Uh, I get to know Dr. Mina [00:02:05] and her brand, and her business and her mission. I’ve gotten the privilege of getting to [00:02:10] sit in the audience to hear her speak. And I’m so excited to introduce her to [00:02:15] all of you today.

Now, for all of those of you who are listening or watching, uh, [00:02:20] who her Face is new to you, or Dr. Mina, her name is new to you, uh, Dr. [00:02:25] Mina, I really would love for everyone to kind of get to know you a little bit and you have [00:02:30] kind of a unique journey and in my opinion, of what a [00:02:35] typical physician an MD, would go through Harvard trained physician to top podcaster [00:02:40] and entrepreneur.

So can you tell our audience a little bit about your [00:02:45] story and behind the, the skin reel and also just this whole concept of [00:02:50] bringing humanity back into medicine.

Dr. Mina: Oh my gosh. Thank you so much AJ, for [00:02:55] having me on. Uh, you and Rory and Brand Builders has really been instrumental in my [00:03:00] journey, so really thrilled to be here.

And I think this is such an important, important [00:03:05] topic and that’s why I wanted to talk about it. So, yeah, I don’t, I guess I don’t like to do anything the [00:03:10] traditional way prior to being a. I was a ballet dancer, and then I decided I [00:03:15] wasn’t a very good ballet dancer. Why don’t I go to medical school? And everything was going [00:03:20] chugging along great.

I was hitting all my goals. Go to med school, become a [00:03:25] dermatologist, become a MO surgeon. Have my own practice, become a partner. [00:03:30] Until 2020. And in 2020 A something, uh, pretty [00:03:35] big happened in my life. I turned 40. Now I know you were thinking [00:03:40] COVID happened and Yeah, so it’s like a double whammy, but I turned 40 [00:03:45] and I’m sitting at home.

I’m not able to see my patients. I’m, I’m [00:03:50] stressed out because my, my income relies on seeing patients. [00:03:55] I have no idea what’s, you know, we all had no idea what was going on and I, I didn’t have [00:04:00] like a way to pivot into, to something else, and it really just. Flipped [00:04:05] everything upside down and it made me rethink, okay, I’m, I’m mid-career.

I love what I [00:04:10] do, but what happens when I can’t physically see patients? What [00:04:15] happens when the pandemic happens? Um, you know, if there’s another pandemic, um, or [00:04:20] I become disabled. And I, I also was having a lot of questions for [00:04:25] myself like. I didn’t look like who I thought I should look like at 40. I [00:04:30] didn’t recognize the person looking back at me and I realized these bad habits that I had been kind [00:04:35] of pushing under the rug.

They didn’t seem like that big a deal, you know, by the time 10 years [00:04:40] later, um, I wasn’t the healthy version of myself. I wanted to be. [00:04:45] All of that made me, uh, really dive into podcasts, into kind of a, a [00:04:50] self learning journey. And I realized I can help people as [00:04:55] a doctor outside of my clinic walls. And that is really what drove me to [00:05:00] start the podcast, the Skin Reel, because I knew people like me, women my age, ’cause all my friends [00:05:05] were asking me like, what’s going on with my skin?

Why does my face, you know, all of a sudden, [00:05:10] uh, wrinkle like this? And I. Was disappointed with the information out there. [00:05:15] So it wa it was, uh, just kind of a journey for me to realize I can help my patients beyond [00:05:20] my clinic walls and, and there was a need for a physician, a [00:05:25] dermatologist, to be giving skin information to the public and yeah, so [00:05:30] that’s how it started.

AJ: I love this because I feel like every [00:05:35] great business, every great story, every successful brand starts with a [00:05:40] story like this. It’s, you know, I didn’t like the information that was [00:05:45] out there and all my friends were asking, and I was asking, and I was looking in the mirror and I’m like, [00:05:50] why isn’t there something more, why?

Like, why isn’t someone doing something about this? [00:05:55] And then you realize, oh, not for me to do

Dr. Mina: exactly. [00:06:00] Someone should change this.

AJ: And I love that when people take on the [00:06:05] responsibility of going, I’m not gonna wait on someone else to do it. I’m gonna do it. Right. [00:06:10] Uh, that’s, that’s my calling, that’s my thing.

That’s what I can do. And what I [00:06:15] love about this particular conversation and why I wanted you to come on the show is [00:06:20] we work with a ton of physicians, MDs, uh, chiropractors, dentists, [00:06:25] but we, we work with a ton of people in the medical field, at Brand Builders Group [00:06:30] and at our sister company, mission Driven Press.

We’ve had the privilege to work on a lot of books and a lot of [00:06:35] different, uh, brands behind the scenes. That have this real [00:06:40] unique expertise in the medical field, but yet the larger, [00:06:45] broader, efficient, uh, physician community isn’t [00:06:50] really delving into this, uh, uh, what I would say in more [00:06:55] mass appeal. And there’s a, what, how dare I say, I, um.[00:07:00]

I think a medical crisis. Yeah. In the United States, in my opinion, [00:07:05] and the trustworthiness of doctors is going down, down, down, [00:07:10] and the, the information that’s on the internet. It’s bogus. Right? [00:07:15] But yet that is what people are listening to because of an influencer, someone they quote [00:07:20] unquote trust versus someone who really should, should be the [00:07:25] voice of this educational information of all of this.

And, and they’re not, they’re kind of just [00:07:30] being quiet, just handling patients in their office. Yeah. And it makes me mad to be honest, [00:07:35] because. We’re going, can someone please tell us what, what we should actually know? Can [00:07:40] somebody give us real answers versus going after fad, after fad, after fad. I could go [00:07:45] on a very long tangent about this, but I’m not Yeah.

Um, but I, I wanna know, like [00:07:50] you really have embraced this concept of like, no, I’m gonna build my personal brand. I’m gonna [00:07:55] put truth out there. I’m gonna answer the questions that people are asking for, whether they’re in my practice coming through [00:08:00] my doors or not.

Dr. Mina: Yeah.

AJ: Why did you do that, and what would you [00:08:05] say to the entire, you know, physician community out in the US of like, why [00:08:10] should they do it too?

Dr. Mina: Yeah, I mean, so many great points in there. And you’re right, we’re in a [00:08:15] crisis right now in healthcare and patients are suffering. And healthcare [00:08:20] workers, doctors, uh, you know, I can only, I’m, I’m a doctor, so I’ll speak for doctors, but I know the nurses are [00:08:25] suffering. I know the people in the hospitals are suffering ever since COVID, right?

We’ve lost autonomy. [00:08:30] There is a loss of trust. Um, it used to be right, like you put on a white coat, you’re the doctor, you’re [00:08:35] gonna do, as I say, very. Paternalistic. And, and so I think physicians were like, well, [00:08:40] why would I, why would I need to put myself out there? And in fact, um, it was really [00:08:45] frowned upon to put yourself out there, at least when I was training about 15 years ago.

If I had told people, oh, I’m gonna [00:08:50] do an Instagram account, um, I’d be told, oh, don’t do that. You know, people wouldn’t take [00:08:55] you seriously. And I have to admit, when I started my podcast, I’m kind of embarrassed to say this. [00:09:00] I had no problem telling. The world that I was doing it, I was [00:09:05] so embarrassed to tell my partner, for my staff to know, for my immediate [00:09:10] community to know, because I was afraid they were gonna look at me like, who do you think [00:09:15] you are?

Are you trying to be an influencer? Uh, why isn’t this good enough for you what [00:09:20] you have? So even though I was okay pub, you know. Doing this podcast to the [00:09:25] world within my community that knew me. I was, I was kind of embarrassed. And it’s taken me a [00:09:30] couple years to get over that and to be like, you know what, I’m, I’m putting out good information.

And [00:09:35] I feel like, you know, I’m a part of this community of a lot of physician entrepreneurs, so I kind of [00:09:40] feel like, oh yeah, we’re all doing it. And then I go and I, I talk with like the rest of the physician community and they’re kind of [00:09:45] like, wait, you’re doing what? I do feel so strongly that [00:09:50] this is what we need to do more than ever, and I love how, uh, you and.[00:09:55]

Excuse me. I love how you and Rory talk about, uh, you have a personal brand. This isn’t a [00:10:00] question of, Hmm, should I get a personal brand? If you’re a doctor, you have a personal [00:10:05] brand, you’re just not creating it. Other people are the Yelp reviews, the Google reviews, the [00:10:10] administrators, your hospital system, whoever employees you, whatever they’re [00:10:15] creating your personal brand.

If, um, if you are not actively curating it, [00:10:20] so. I would just encourage physicians, you know, during this time where we do feel like [00:10:25] we’ve lost autonomy, um, medicine is not what it used to be. We’re having to [00:10:30] dispel a lot of misinformation. You know what? Turn on your webcam and [00:10:35] record, record a five minute, 10 minute teaching piece.

Put it [00:10:40] out there. It’s gonna be scary at first. And, and, and see it as I’m helping [00:10:45] patients, right? It’s not like, oh, I wanna be. I wanna be Instagram famous and a [00:10:50] star, right? Like come from a place of service, which is what, as physicians, we all why [00:10:55] we all went into medicine.

AJ: You know? I love that you say that because as you were [00:11:00] talking I was reflecting back on where did I find my [00:11:05] current groupings of doctors.

Uh, I was thinking about my dentist, [00:11:10] my chiropractor, my, you know, md like my, you know, general [00:11:15] practitioner. And as I was like listening to you talk, I just like, literally gut checked [00:11:20] myself because 10 years ago I would’ve found most of my doctors, [00:11:25] um, through insurance.

Dr. Mina: Yeah.

AJ: I would’ve been like, who takes my insurance?

[00:11:30] And personally, uh, we cut insurance out of our family three years ago. [00:11:35] Amen. I’m like, [00:11:40] I’m gonna go where I wanna go, who I wanna see. Right. And a lot of that shifted. It’s like our current, you know, we [00:11:45] have a, a concierge doctor and I heard him speak. Wow. And he [00:11:50] was speaking to my EO group and I’m like, I wanna learn more about what you do.[00:11:55]

And it was because there was this relationship built. And I think he does just as much [00:12:00] speaking as he sees patients at this day. And he’s built up, you know, other physicians in his practice. But it [00:12:05] was, I found him because he came to speak to my EO group about longevity. And [00:12:10] it was about proactive, not reactive.

It’s like, what can you do now? And there was [00:12:15] something in there that resonated. I’m like, yeah, yeah, why isn’t my current doctor talking about that? And we [00:12:20] left and then we left insurance and went to this concierge doctor. And then I think about, [00:12:25] uh, my dentist, uh, and it’s like, I’m pretty sure the first time I heard about him.[00:12:30]

Was at a conference that he was also a speaker at, but then he’s on every [00:12:35] page of every magazine in Nashville, Tennessee. He’s like a celebrity dentist here in Nashville, [00:12:40] probably also around the country. But it was this. Unbelievable [00:12:45] amount of reputation and trust that had been built up through books and [00:12:50] speaking and podcasting and interviews and magazines.

And it was like I couldn’t go [00:12:55] anywhere without seeing his face or his name. And that is [00:13:00] how most of my friends find their practitioners today. Right? It’s [00:13:05] through who are they learning from?

Dr. Mina: Right. And I, I love how you said, you know, 10 years ago, [00:13:10] right? You, you would’ve found ’em through insurance. But patients are wisening up.

They’re [00:13:15] realizing this whole thing is a racket, it’s a mess, right? You are paying every year [00:13:20] more and more for your premiums and deductibles, and you’re getting less. And less. [00:13:25] And, and so I’ll have patients too where I ask him, how’d you find me? And um, you know, it’s [00:13:30] ai, oh, it’s the mom’s Facebook group they’re a part of.

And, and they at recommend [00:13:35] people. My business partner just saw someone who found him on TikTok, and my partner is [00:13:40] in his sixties, and he said, well, I’m not on TikTok. And he said, well. They were posting about [00:13:45] you on TikTok and, and it was good. So you don’t know where these things are gonna come [00:13:50] from, but why not be the one putting out that information and, and [00:13:55] education, and I see this as this is a free resource for people.

It is. So hard to [00:14:00] find a dermatologist. I get it right. There are long, long waits and so at [00:14:05] least I can put out this free content for people to learn and, and hopefully [00:14:10] get some value. And if they wanna become a patient, then they can, but. I, [00:14:15] I do. You’re so right, like this whole landscape of healthcare is changing.

[00:14:20] Patients want to be more proactive. Doctors. We wanna be more, more proactive, right? Like, [00:14:25] it’s not that we don’t wanna discuss these things, we just feel like we have constraints, but it’s [00:14:30] time that we, we stop making excuses, right? I used to think, oh, healthcare will get [00:14:35] better. Someone’s gonna fix it.

Congress will fix it. It’ll, it’ll turn around. And, and [00:14:40] now I’ve realized 15 years later. It’s not gonna change. The only thing that’s [00:14:45] gonna change is what I do, what I’m willing to accept, and how I’m gonna practice. And [00:14:50] so I would, you know, any physicians listening or, or healthcare workers, like, don’t feel like you don’t [00:14:55] have the power.

Uh, it can feel like helpless at times, but you can [00:15:00] change how you decide to practice and how you educate patients. And that may be on a [00:15:05] stage.

AJ: I love that because yeah, it’s like, I mean, how many times am I actually [00:15:10] showing up in the office? Like I go to a dermatologist every single [00:15:15] year. Right. But I go typically once a year.

Right, right. And that’s just for like, you know, skin [00:15:20] health. But I go see my MD maybe twice a year. I see my dentist twice a year. It’s like. It’s [00:15:25] pro. I probably need some stuff in between, but I’m not likely gonna pick up the phone and call the [00:15:30] office. Um, so how am I gonna stay up to date and knowing should I come in a little more [00:15:35] often?

Did I notice something that maybe I should be looking at? That’s because you’re educating [00:15:40] us outside of the four walls of the office. I have, I have a question about this [00:15:45] because I think, you know, this is an interesting thing and I, I think it’s fascinating for to hear you admit [00:15:50] that, you know, five years ago, in 2020 when you were starting on this journey, you were kind of like, uh, I’m [00:15:55] not gonna tell anyone enough.

I’m doing this. Like, I’ll tell everyone else. [00:16:00] Exactly. Yep. What, what are some of the misconceptions that doctors or other high [00:16:05] achieving, you know, certain professionals, what do you think are some of the misconceptions they have [00:16:10] about personal branding?

Dr. Mina: I, I think the biggest one, and, and this is for [00:16:15] I can speak for doctors, is, is maybe a little arrogance.

Like, well, I’m a, I’m a doctor. Of [00:16:20] course they’re gonna come see me. I trained at Harvard, I trained at the top programs, and [00:16:25] I’ll tell you, when I was looking for a job, that’s when it first hit me. Like, oh, I thought people were [00:16:30] gonna be falling all over to get me to come work with him. They were not. And so [00:16:35] I, I think it’s a little bit of this arrogance, like, oh, look at my credentials, look at my [00:16:40] training.

I’ve given all these talks at these academic meetings. I have, you know, 30 plus [00:16:45] publications, but. Patients don’t know that regular, the public [00:16:50] doesn’t know that, and that’s not really what they care about, right? They want someone who is [00:16:55] approachable, someone they know, like, and trust, really. Right? Someone who they feel like, well listen to them.

They [00:17:00] don’t care if I was, you know, top 10% of my class, right? [00:17:05] So it’s this changing now, maybe 30 years ago, maybe that is what people cared [00:17:10] about, but it’s not what they care about nowadays. They really want to know, like, and trust you. They can [00:17:15] get the information anywhere they want someone who can help put it together in a [00:17:20] unique in.

In a unique way that kind of meshes with them. I’m not gonna be everyone’s [00:17:25] dermatologist. They’re not gonna always like my approach to things. I, I, you know, someone might be [00:17:30] more of a maximalist and they want someone with a different approach or more of a, a [00:17:35] masculine approach. I don’t know. Whatever it can be.

So, um, you just need to present the [00:17:40] information in your unique way so that people who are your people can [00:17:45] find you and they will.

AJ: Yeah, I love that. ’cause I think that’s such a great, that’s such a [00:17:50] great reminder, not just for, you know, physicians, but for anyone in business. We, I [00:17:55] think sometimes we all have the misconception of I will build it and they will come.

Yes. [00:18:00] They don’t, they didn’t come. They didn’t come. They [00:18:05] don’t come. It’s like, no, you have to build it and then you have to go tell everyone that you built it Right. [00:18:10] You know, it’s like we have this, uh, quote in our new book, wealthy and Well Known [00:18:15] that says, marketing is art. There is the art of [00:18:20] what you do, but then there’s the art of telling people that it exists.

Dr. Mina: [00:18:25] Yeah.

AJ: And a lot of us are really good about the art of what we do. ’cause that’s what you went to [00:18:30] school for. That’s where you spend all your time, money, energy, and resources. And we forget now. [00:18:35] We actually have to go tell people that this exists. I am here and here’s what we do and [00:18:40] here’s how we do it and here’s how we’re different.

It’s like we actually have to market our art. [00:18:45] Right? Yeah. And that’s a good reminder no matter what business you’re in. Um, I just, [00:18:50] I personally feel like in the middle community, that just doesn’t happen [00:18:55] near enough.

Dr. Mina: No.

AJ: I have to do so much research on my own to figure out where [00:19:00] to go and who’s good and the amount of people I get referred from.

And it’s like kind of exhausting. [00:19:05]

Dr. Mina: Yeah,

AJ: it would be so much better for us as consumers, the end users, [00:19:10] for you to help us find you, right? So for whatever it’s worth, [00:19:15] for anyone who’s listening in the medical community, uh, it really [00:19:20] is hard because there’s so much to filter through. If you were [00:19:25] more present, you would be so much more findable for your right [00:19:30] audience.

Right. And that goes both ways, right? Um, okay. So, Dr. Mina, here’s my next [00:19:35] question. Now, you know, not to say this is true for everyone, but I do feel like [00:19:40] in the medical world, the medical community, uh, people tend [00:19:45] to, you know, have long tenured careers. Okay? So for [00:19:50] someone who feels like maybe their season of influence has passed.

Right. Maybe they’re [00:19:55] like, well, I’ve been doing this too long. Uh, I can’t start doing that now. Or, you [00:20:00] know, things are just too different now. Whatever they might be saying, right. [00:20:05] This whole, I’m too late. Yeah. It’s too late for me to build a personal [00:20:10] brand, to start a podcast, to write a book, to go out and speak, like it’s just too late for me.[00:20:15]

What would you say to them?

Dr. Mina: Oh my gosh. Well, I, I’ll say I, I feel that way sometimes. I’ll [00:20:20] say, Ugh, I’m too old to start an Instagram account. I, I’m too old to get on [00:20:25] TikTok. My son, my children tell me, mom, you’re too old to get on TikTok, so that doesn’t help. [00:20:30] Um, I had those feelings too, like, oh, who am I at 40?

Trying [00:20:35] to, you know, totally steer the ship in a different direction. Right. Our patients [00:20:40] need this. And one thing, I mean, I have content for days. I will never run outta content [00:20:45] because every time I see a patient or someone dms me a question, or the grocery store [00:20:50] checkout lady is, finds out I’m a dermatologist and asks me a question like, that’s my content, that’s [00:20:55] what people wanna know.

And I think too, as, as you know, whatever you do when [00:21:00] you’re at sort of the top of your, um, career, um, you think, oh, everyone already [00:21:05] knows that, right? Oh, everyone already knows this is important. But they don’t. [00:21:10] You know it because you talk about it all the time and do it. So I think that’s hard for people [00:21:15] to, they think, oh, but this has already been done.

Everyone knows it. Another one I felt was I [00:21:20] see all these like 30-year-old dermatologists who kind of grew up with. [00:21:25] Social media, Instagram, they have, you know, hundreds of thousands if not [00:21:30] millions of followers. And I think I can’t, I can’t do that. And I also don’t really wanna do that, [00:21:35] which is fine, that you don’t have to be, you know, like you guys say, right?

And [00:21:40] brand builders, you don’t have to go wide, go deep, right? And the people. We’ll find [00:21:45] you no matter how old you are. I mean, I actually, some of my favorite people to follow, there’s a [00:21:50] neurosurgeon who I think is probably in his sixties, and he’s like, he’s like a dad figure [00:21:55] and he’s, I just love his content.

He’s not, he’s not doing all the marketing [00:22:00] gimmicks and things to get people to watch and all that, but he has a huge following. So there, there are. There’s [00:22:05] someone, there’s an audience for you. You just have to put yourself out there. And it is [00:22:10] scary, I admit, but just do it because it’s so rewarding [00:22:15] when I, someone comes up to me and says, I heard your, your podcast, you’re Dr.

Mina, [00:22:20] right? I’m not even that big. Right? But they’ll say that, really, I, I listen to that podcast and it really [00:22:25] resonated with me. Um, or when I’m seeing a patient, I can say, you know what? We haven’t really had a [00:22:30] lot of time to discuss this, but here’s a video that you can go watch at your leisure [00:22:35] that goes into it in more detail.

So love that. Again, coming at it from, you’re, you’re [00:22:40] helping patients. We’re not doing this to become TikTok famous multimillion dollar [00:22:45] stars or whatever. And, and not even to quit medicine, right? It’s just another [00:22:50] way to, um, to attract your, the patients that you wanna [00:22:55] see and the people you wanna help take care of.

AJ: Yeah. It’s like, you know. Hopefully for [00:23:00] most people in the medical community, they got into medicine ’cause they did wanna help people. [00:23:05] Right, right. Yeah. And it’s like, this is a way to do that.

Dr. Mina: Exactly. It’s a, it’s a new way to think [00:23:10] though, because medicine, right? Like we are just entrenched in these traditions.

We are slow [00:23:15] to innovate. We wanna see all this data. Uh, and, and again, it’s. It is [00:23:20] changing, but, um, it’s not changing fast enough and we’ve allowed other people to have [00:23:25] a loud voice out there, and we’re sort of hiding behind our white coats in our clinic [00:23:30] and, and not putting ourselves out there. So my, my hope is over the next [00:23:35] 5, 10, 15, 20 years, like this whole landscape changes and almost every [00:23:40] doctor, if not every doctor has a YouTube channel where they give education or, or some sort of [00:23:45] platform that they use to engage with their patients and, and.

The public.

AJ: [00:23:50] Yeah, I love that. Now, you said something, um, a minute ago that I don’t want to [00:23:55] wash over ’cause it’s significant. And for people who are listening, I just don’t want them to [00:24:00] think, oh well that’s just what she does now. This is what you should do. You said, I have content [00:24:05] for days. Yes. I’ll ever run outta content.

Every question I get, every dm, [00:24:10] every you know, person who’s checking me out at the grocery line, every, you know, whatever. Can [00:24:15] you just talk a little bit about. That a little bit more in depth. ’cause I think a lot of people [00:24:20] do have that, you know, kind of fear of, well, I don’t have anything to say. What would I [00:24:25] talk about?

Yeah. Or the, what you ever said. Well, the other thing you said, which is, well, everyone already [00:24:30] knows that. It’s like, yeah, no, everyone you know knows that. Exactly. Right. [00:24:35] So talk a little bit about how you create your content and what you [00:24:40] mean by Every question I get is my content.

Dr. Mina: Yeah. So, uh, I [00:24:45] think we overthink it, right?

We think, um, it has to be super complicated. It can’t [00:24:50] just be, do I need sunscreen on cloudy days? You know? Um, so I would say if you [00:24:55] don’t, if you don’t think you have content, like, um, keep a journal throughout the [00:25:00] day of, you know, if you don’t wanna write, like get one of those. Uh, we’re voice recorders that just [00:25:05] records you throughout the day and plug it into AI and say, Hey, uh, what were 50 questions, [00:25:10] you know, that I discussed today?

You’d be, you’ll be amazed, right? I think we just, we just see it so [00:25:15] routinely. But, um, sometimes I’ll invite dermatologists on my podcast and they’re like, oh, I have nothing to [00:25:20] talk about. I’m like, what do you mean you have nothing to talk about? And I’ll just tell ’em. I say, well, what [00:25:25] do you find yourself saying over and over and over again to your patients [00:25:30] or, or your friends who are texting you, Hey, do I really need this or that?

So I think we overthink [00:25:35] it. We think it has to be these really deep, complex questions, but that’s not really, really people [00:25:40] want, they wanna know. What order do I put my skincare products in? Right. And you may be like, [00:25:45] oh, it’s, it’s so obvious, but it’s not right. And, um, so that, that’s your [00:25:50] content. We just need to be aware.

We need to, um. Not just like, go through our day [00:25:55] and, and like, just ’cause it’s like, oh, here I go, I’m gonna give my spiel about sunscreen. You know, like, actually take the [00:26:00] time to be like, oh, that was a question someone asked me. And I, I really think use one of those voice [00:26:05] recorders because AI will tell you, they will tell you the, the 50 things you talked about with [00:26:10] your patients and, and give you questions, um, or give you content ideas if you’re struggling.

[00:26:15] But I think if you really just. Take a step back in your day instead of just [00:26:20] going through the motions, you’ll realize you have content everywhere. In fact, I have too much [00:26:25] content. I forget. I’m like, oh man, I wanted to do a video on that. Or I forgot that. So I have the opposite [00:26:30] problem. Like it’s, I don’t have enough time to record all the things I wanna record.

AJ: Yeah, I [00:26:35] would just like to what you’re saying, like I would encourage, for anyone who’s listening, who is a [00:26:40] physician too. Just spend a few minutes on Instagram or YouTube or [00:26:45] Or or on TikTok. Yeah. And look at all the false information out there. Right? Like what if you [00:26:50] just did that and said, you know what?

I saw something today that wasn’t quite accurate. [00:26:55] I’d love to put the medical perspective, the real perspective behind [00:27:00] this. Yeah. That’s one thing that I do with all my FRA doctors. Yeah. All these. [00:27:05] Tips, trends, you know, whatever that are happening online. I’m like sending them like, [00:27:10] can you verify this?

Like just real, I saw a video the other day just [00:27:15] because you know, you’re a dermatologist. Maybe you can speak to this where. This guy was [00:27:20] making this whole thing about like all the natural homeopathic things that you can [00:27:25] do if you don’t want to have fillers or Botox or do whatever. And he [00:27:30] said if you wash your face in ice cold water every [00:27:35] day, it’ll have the same impacts as Botox.

And it’s like, [00:27:40] I wish, trust me, I would have a bowl of ice water right here, [00:27:45] aj. I literally like, I’m gonna put like ice in, like what am I gonna, what? How you thinking am I doing? [00:27:50] And so I’m like sending this to all my friends and they’re like, who? Who said this? Where did we find [00:27:55] this? So again, I would just encourage, like if you think.

You [00:28:00] don’t have anything to talk about, just go watch. Yeah. Refuse and go, [00:28:05] let’s, uh, let’s talk about the science behind this. Right? Let’s talk about, you [00:28:10] know, so I just, you know, to what you were saying, Dr. Mina, it’s like there’s content for days, [00:28:15] especially when there’s so much false information out there.

Yes. Or opposing [00:28:20] information. And you know, a lot of people are buying into that because [00:28:25] somebody who has the real truth and the real answers just isn’t out there.

Dr. Mina: [00:28:30] Exactly,

AJ: and I think that’s like, why I appreciate you and what you do so much is [00:28:35] you, you answered the call. Yeah, it’s, I’m not gonna wait for someone else to fix this.

I’m not gonna wait for someone [00:28:40] else to do it. I have this experience, I have this knowledge, I have this expertise. [00:28:45] I believe that people in the medical field have a responsibility to help [00:28:50] reeducate the public when there’s a whole bunch of false junk out there. So I [00:28:55] just, I love you for just being like, no, I answered the call.

I didn’t wait on someone else.

Dr. Mina: [00:29:00] Yeah. I, I think this is where, this is the future, right? Um, [00:29:05] there’s not enough doctors to see everyone. There’s so much, it’s so easy to spread information, [00:29:10] including misinformation. So, um, I know it feels weird for physicians to think about doing this, but [00:29:15] this really, uh, otherwise you’re gonna be the world’s best kept secret, and, and that’s no good either, right?

AJ: If [00:29:20] that doesn’t help anyone. So on that note, I have two quick questions. I know that well, actually I [00:29:25] lied. I have like three quick questions. Um, but I think this one is, uh, this one is [00:29:30] interesting ’cause you’ve been featured in a lot of well-known me media, right? [00:29:35] People, wall Street Journal, glamor. Um, there’s a lot of mainstream media that [00:29:40] you’ve been featured in and I’d just like for you to speak to just for a moment, like, how can building a personal [00:29:45] brand create opportunities beyond just the immediate career field?

Dr. Mina: Oh [00:29:50] yeah. I, and, and I think especially nowadays, there’s so much physician burnout [00:29:55] out there. We feel like we’ve, we’ve done all this training, we’ve spent all this money, and now we’re, [00:30:00] we’re just like a cog in the wheel of this dysfunctional healthcare system. And so [00:30:05] burnout’s a very real thing. And what I love about cultivating your personal brand, it’s again, you are [00:30:10] taking ownership.

I can’t fix insurance. Single-handedly, but I can change how I’m [00:30:15] gonna show up and what I’m gonna do. And, and I just find that so empowering, [00:30:20] especially nowadays. So whether you’re employed, own your own practice, whatever, you can all have a personal [00:30:25] brand and the opportunities that it affords is really remarkable.

I, [00:30:30] um, yeah, I’ve been quoted in a lot of pieces. People approach me, I get approached all the time about [00:30:35] brand deals, which I wanna be really selective. If I’m gonna put my name behind something, it’s something that [00:30:40] I really. Use, I recommend I’ve already talked about it. Um, because again, [00:30:45] I, and I do think as physicians, we, we do need to be careful about that.

Don’t just take everything that [00:30:50] comes your way, really vet it, screen it and make sure it’s something you believe in. Because [00:30:55] people, um, I feel like that is one way to lose your credibility, right? But. [00:31:00] Lots of opportunities can come, come, speak at this event. Um, I really wanna [00:31:05] focus on women in midlife, basically me who are going through, who are, are [00:31:10] noticing changes and maybe feeling, uh, irrelevant.

Like, I’m invisible now. I’m, I’m, [00:31:15] I’m past my prime. And helping them see, wait a minute, you’re not. Just, and, and [00:31:20] how can you still be healthy and beautiful and have beautiful skin and, and really [00:31:25] taking an inside out approach. So that’s really sort of like my platform. Those are the people I wanna speak to [00:31:30] and, and help.

And it’s amazing how many opportunities will find you [00:31:35] when you start putting your name out there. And you’re not gonna say yes to all of them, but. It just [00:31:40] takes like that one connection, that one person that you meet, and who knows, [00:31:45] like, next I’ll be writing a book. Right. You know, all these, all these amazing things that can [00:31:50] come from just turning on your camera and helping people.

And, and that’s really [00:31:55] like, we’re physicians. We go into medicine to help people. So this is just sort of like [00:32:00] Doctor 2.0. Like it’s just the new, the new era.

AJ: Yeah, I love [00:32:05] that. And I think that’s so true. It’s, uh, people are looking for truth in [00:32:10] all different, you know, facets of life and medicine and healthcare is.[00:32:15]

Definitely one where we’re all seeking of like, right, what should I do? This person says this [00:32:20] and that person says that. Um, and then it’s like creating your own brand around like, this is my [00:32:25] take, right? This is my mission in the field. Um, and that does attract different things. [00:32:30] It’s not gonna be for everyone, but yeah, find your thing.

And it does start to attract some of that. Now, [00:32:35] we mentioned insurance earlier, and I had this as a side note. I wanna come back to it for a second because [00:32:40] I think there’s a love hate relationship with insurance, uh, for a lot of us. [00:32:45] Um. I think this is an interesting question, and this is a question that you [00:32:50] brought up and I wanna kind of like retack this.

Again, for those who are listening. [00:32:55] In your opinion, how does building a personal brand give doctors back [00:33:00] control when they feel powerless against insurance companies [00:33:05] and big, large administrators?

Dr. Mina: Yeah, so again, it, it gives [00:33:10] you options. Um, so for instance, I, I have two practices now. I have one [00:33:15] where I do take insurance.

I tend to do more surgery and I have a lot of Medicare patients who are [00:33:20] older and, um, and, and I love, I love that. Patient [00:33:25] population. I really love what I do, but I can’t really talk about preventative and longevity and [00:33:30] regenerative options for skincare in these short visits. So I realized I really need [00:33:35] to have something else where people can find me and come see me.

And so that’s why I also have [00:33:40] a, you know, outta network, uh, direct specialty care practice where [00:33:45] people, if I align with them, um, and they wanna spend, really the goal is to have [00:33:50] sort of a 12 month. Or more experience with me. Where we really [00:33:55] delve into all that is skincare, not just topicals or [00:34:00] procedures like kind of skin health holistically.

And, and so that’s [00:34:05] where I’m able to really take the time with these patients who, um, go over [00:34:10] nutrition, exercise, like all of the things that go into healthy skin. I [00:34:15] think too often we think it’s just what products you put on and, and I wouldn’t have been able to [00:34:20] do that if I didn’t already have a voice out there and a personal [00:34:25] brand that people knew and resonated with.

’cause otherwise I’d, I’d open up that shop, think [00:34:30] everyone’s gonna come hang my shingle and crickets, right? Like people have to know me. They have [00:34:35] to. Trust me. And, and that’s another thing I love when patients come in and they [00:34:40] say, I feel like I already know you because they’ve, they’ve watched me, they’ve followed [00:34:45] me, they’ve heard my podcast, they know my personality.

They know, uh, sort of what I’m [00:34:50] like, you know, they know my kids’ names or my husband’s name. So to me that just makes [00:34:55] the relationship more special because they already know me. They’re already invested [00:35:00] in, in working with me. And, um, it’s just super fulfilling and, and that helps. [00:35:05] With the burnout where I don’t feel like a cog in the wheel now because I have [00:35:10] options.

And, um, so I’m, I, I understand there is a role for insurance. [00:35:15] Not everyone’s able or willing to give up insurance completely. And I do think it [00:35:20] has a role for, um, you know, very, uh, you know. Expensive surgeries, [00:35:25] chemotherapy, cancer, catastrophic stuff, but it’s like, um, you know, [00:35:30] car insurance or home homeowner’s insurance.

Right? You don’t, you don’t use that for your oil [00:35:35] change, right? You save it for, you know, the wreck if it happens. And I do think people [00:35:40] are starting to realize like, wait a minute, I’m paying all this money for interns. I’m not getting what I want in [00:35:45] return. I’m told who I can and can’t see. And, um, so I think it’s.

Patients are [00:35:50] realizing this and physicians are realizing like, wait a minute, uh, I don’t have to accept this. I [00:35:55] can do this better. I can serve my patients in a better way. And so that’s why I’m, I’m [00:36:00] kind of playing the fence. I’m doing both sides, but, um, in different ways.

AJ: Yeah. But you [00:36:05] know, you said something that I think is really powerful.

It’s like you said, I love it when patients come [00:36:10] in and go, I feel like I already know you. And that’s a sign of like, people are opting [00:36:15] in to your practice, they’re opted in to your methodology, they’ve opted into your [00:36:20] way of doing things. So there isn’t like this, I have to convince you, uh, or are you gonna have [00:36:25] to educate you like you’ve already done the education?

That’s why they’re there. Like that’s a pretty [00:36:30] powerful thing when someone goes, Hey, no, I’m here because I feel like I already know you. I already have [00:36:35] a level of trust I’ve already learned from you. So they’re not coming in as a. I don’t know [00:36:40] anything. Tell me what to do. It’s like, no, I’ve been following you, learning from you.

It’s why I’m here. [00:36:45] Right? That’s a different patient.

Dr. Mina: Oh yeah. And, and it makes it, it’s a [00:36:50] relationship, right? And that’s where in healthcare the relationship, you know, now we’re, we’re [00:36:55] providers. You see someone new each time. People are always moving around and, and it’s frustrating. The [00:37:00] patients are like, I don’t know who’s my, my doctor who I’m really seeing and, and.

I [00:37:05] like the relationships. That’s why I love being a dermatologist. I love seeing patients over and over. I love [00:37:10] building that relationship with them and their families, learning about their families. Um, so [00:37:15] to me that’s the rewarding part of, of having that connection. And I love it when they [00:37:20] come in.

They’re already on board and, um, and, and we know it’s gonna be a match, [00:37:25]

AJ: you know? I love it too. You find? ’cause I was thinking as you were talking, like my [00:37:30] chiropractor, her name is Dr. Sarah. And at this point, since she only works [00:37:35] one day a week, I rearrange my whole schedule to only see her. So like [00:37:40] I don’t wanna see anyone else I for you.

And you know that’s because I like her [00:37:45] way of doing it. Now, could I see everyone else there? Sure. Do they likely do something [00:37:50] similar? Sure. I don’t want that. I want her. And I think that is, that’s, [00:37:55] that’s the type of relationship that we should be cultivating, that we should be [00:38:00] creating in our different medical practices is like, they’re here because there is a relationship.[00:38:05]

Dr. Mina: Yeah.

AJ: Right. It’s like I won’t see anyone but her. I’ll schedule everything else so I can just get [00:38:10] her for that, you know, 10 minute visit. But it’s important because I want her. Yeah. And I [00:38:15] think that’s a lot of what we’re seeing. It’s like you gotta, you gotta do work to build that relationship. Yeah. That doesn’t happen [00:38:20] when you see someone once a year.

This can happen. There’s gotta be something [00:38:25] outside of that. Absolutely. Okay, last question. What’s [00:38:30] one small step that a busy doctor could start taking [00:38:35] today to start building their personal brand?

Dr. Mina: Yeah. So I would say, [00:38:40] just start, I started, I, I, I didn’t have you guys, I didn’t have brand [00:38:45] builders helping me.

I, I, I, I did it messy, right. Just I, and that’s, that’s the thing. Like [00:38:50] physicians, we are perfectionists. We want it perfect. And in medicine yeah, you kind of want [00:38:55] your doctor to be a, a perfectionist, right? But. For something like this, it doesn’t have [00:39:00] to be perfect. You, you know, someone asked me like, wait, before you record, do you do your hair?

Do you do your [00:39:05] makeup? I, no, I’ve got like my hair clip. I was just seeing patients. I just threw it down [00:39:10] and it’s about to go right back up when we’re done. Like, you don’t, you know, I did invest in a ring light. Um, [00:39:15] so I do think a or a camera, uh, that clips on my thing, but you don’t, you don’t need that, right?

If, [00:39:20] if a microphone could help but just sit down. And do five [00:39:25] minutes and, and record, uh, what did you see today that you talked about? And [00:39:30] just put it out there. Because at, at first in the beginning, the good news is not a [00:39:35] lot of people are watching right? In the beginning. So you’ve got some wiggle room and, and just create like [00:39:40] a, just create like a library for your patients that you’re seeing.

Mm-hmm. Like, oh, I’m [00:39:45] always talking about how to take care of a wound, so I’m gonna do a quick five minute video. Here’s how you take care of a [00:39:50] wound and you’ve got it up on YouTube, it’s free, and, and then you just start adding to [00:39:55] it. But, um, I think we think it’s gotta be this. Big production. We’ve gotta have like [00:40:00] producers and all, all this stuff, which there are people who, who do that and it looks [00:40:05] amazing, but you don’t, I don’t do that.

And it, you don’t have to do it. That’s not what people are really [00:40:10] looking for. Uh, they’re looking for just good content. And if you don’t believe me, like [00:40:15] just go on YouTube and start looking up stuff. Like look at other doctors in your field. And, um, [00:40:20] sometimes I’m like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe they.

They filmed with, you know, whatever in the mirror that [00:40:25] we all can see. But hey, uh, just do it. So don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t think it [00:40:30] has to be perfect. A five minute quick video on something you talk about all the [00:40:35] time and just start creating a library of content or things you wanna talk about, a [00:40:40] blog, whatever.

If you don’t wanna be on camera, although I do think, um, people like seeing you. Uh, [00:40:45] so I would encourage that. But, um, I would say just start. Don’t be scared. You don’t have to tell [00:40:50] anyone. You can be like me and just tell the world, right? And don’t tell your [00:40:55] immediate people. Um, but I find like patients love it when I can say, Hey, I’m gonna send [00:41:00] you a, a video on how to do this, or I’m gonna send you a video on X, Y, or [00:41:05] Z.

And they love it. And, and I, I don’t think all my patients are older. They don’t know how to do that [00:41:10] nowadays. Everyone’s got a phone and, and everyone’s got someone who can help ’em click a link. Right. So I [00:41:15] find, uh, even my 90-year-old patients, they know how to work that phone and they know how to click [00:41:20] buttons.

AJ: Yeah. I, I can’t, you know, reinforce that more. And it’s like [00:41:25] the hardest thing to do is just to start. Right. It’s like pick one question that [00:41:30] one patient asks you today. Turn on your phone and record an answer. Even if you’d ever [00:41:35] send it. Just start building an archive in your phone. And when you feel just enough confident one day, you start [00:41:40] putting ’em out there, or you just have ’em for your, you know, patient body within the office.

But like, pick [00:41:45] one question every day that someone asked you that you’re like, hmm. I get asked that all the time. [00:41:50] Right? What? I didn’t have to repeat myself 14 times a day. That’s gotta be you for that. Yeah. Uh, [00:41:55] start there. Yeah. Uh, Dr. Mina, thank you so much for coming on the show [00:42:00] today. I think we have so many conversations with, you know, different types of entrepreneurs [00:42:05] and business owners and course creators, but, you know, I haven’t really had a [00:42:10] physician on the show to talk about what is building a personal brand look like as a doctor.[00:42:15]

Like, what does that look like in the medical field? And this has been so refreshing and so [00:42:20] enlightening, and I just wanna commend you for. Again, I said this three times now, but it’s, I’m not waiting around [00:42:25] for someone else to do it. Uh, I answered the call. I started doing this wasn’t perfect, [00:42:30] but you just gotta show up and look at what that has done in such a short amount of time for [00:42:35] you, your practice, your business, but most importantly for all the patients that you’re helping.

So if [00:42:40] people wanna stay in touch with you, ’cause you’re awesome, where should they go? Yeah, so [00:42:45] if you

Dr. Mina: wanna watch some of my videos when I started and wasn’t so good, uh, you, I, I [00:42:50] have an app where I put all my content in one place, my videos, podcast, blog, um, [00:42:55] and my, my email, my contact information is there.

So it’s the skin reel, which I have to [00:43:00] spell out in this day and age, REAL, like real skin. And, uh, it’s [00:43:05] on, uh, you know. Android Apple, uh, you can find it there. It’s totally [00:43:10] free. So even if you’re like, I don’t care anything about skin, maybe you’re, maybe you have a [00:43:15] patient who cares about their skin and you are like, Hey, just go get this app, right?

Uh, she’s got all [00:43:20] the content, you can follow her. But, um, all my information’s in there, the material I’m putting [00:43:25] out there, and you can kind of get an example of like. Is how she does it. And it, it’s not [00:43:30] perfect and it’s messy at times, but I’m, I’m giving real good information for my [00:43:35] patients and that’s what keeps me, keeps me going.

AJ: Love it. Y’all go to the App Store, [00:43:40] the Skin Reel app with Dr. Mina. We will put the link in the [00:43:45] show notes along with a link to her website, social Media Profiles, podcasts. We’ll do all the [00:43:50] things, but you can find all of that in the app, right? So go to the app store, the [00:43:55] skin reel to learn more from Dr.

Mina. Thank you so much for being here. [00:44:00] So excited everyone else will see you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. Bye [00:44:05] everybody.

Ep 615: Optimize Energy, Influence, & Income: Lessons from Ben Greenfield’s High‑Performance Brand

Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand [00:00:10] podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you [00:00:15] learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden [00:00:20] and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of Fame speaker, and New York Times [00:00:25] bestselling author.

And this show is to help experts learn how to become more [00:00:30] wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. [00:00:35] Hey, welcome back to the Influential Personal Brand Podcast. As you know, we wanna [00:00:40] bring you the stories. Of real life people who are making a difference in the world as [00:00:45] mission-driven messengers.

And today I’m excited to, uh, kind of meet with you, [00:00:50] a new friend of mine, Ben Greenfield, who is one of the, without a doubt, one of [00:00:55] the, the most credible, most followed people online as it relates to health. Uh, [00:01:00] he’s a New York Times bestselling author, if I counted right, I think he has done 13 [00:01:05] Iron Man. A hundred races has millions of people who follow his [00:01:10] podcast.

His social media, uh, covers a wide variety of topics, has multiple [00:01:15] different business models. All things we’re gonna get into to GA today about how he’s built that [00:01:20] business, how he’s built that brand, uh, and what we have to learn from him. So, Ben, [00:01:25] welcome to this show. The best part of the introductions, you called me a real life person.

That’s good. [00:01:30] Better than interviewing the dead ones. Well, that’s, that’s that, that’s true. They’re more engaging. But I think, [00:01:35] you know. Every, in some ways it’s like everyone’s an influencer, everyone’s a health [00:01:40] influencer. Yeah. But there’s a, to me, there’s a big difference. There’s a threshold between, you know, I talk about [00:01:45] things versus you study the science, you do the academic [00:01:50] research.

But then you also model and practice as like an an endurance athlete. Yeah. [00:01:55] Comma, never had aspirations to be an influencer. That’s all accidental. Yeah. [00:02:00] So tell us the story. Like how did you go from, ’cause you were, you, uh, you were a multi-sport [00:02:05] collegiate athlete. Mm-hmm. Tennis, wa, water polo, volleyball.

Yep. And then you. [00:02:10] Went from that. You are like into training. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, somewhere along the way you [00:02:15] got into like teaching people health and then and then more of science and biohacking. Yeah. And, and now [00:02:20] you’re like one of the leading voices in bio. I’m gonna sit here and let you tell my whole story.

I think you nailed it. Um. [00:02:25] Take off my, so these, these, I just flew in from London a couple of days ago, and these [00:02:30] glasses supposedly concentrate blue light from the environment to keep you awake. [00:02:35] Interesting. Uh, so they’re like the opposite of blue light blocking glasses, huh uh. But they also [00:02:40] make me look like a creepy stalker.

I just realized on the puck that’s So we’re gonna take those off. It’s just a side, [00:02:45] a side benefit though. Walking eye contact. Um, but, but they actually do, this is the first time I’ve used them after [00:02:50] international travel and they do work, huh? Like they in, in the past. Um. [00:02:55] What you would use for something like that is there are glasses that you can put on and you press a [00:03:00] little button on ’em and they make bluish green light, which is the spectrum of sunlight that [00:03:05] causes what’s called the cortisol awakening response and get your circadian rhythm back into [00:03:10] action.

Ah, and you can travel with these, so, so when you’re changing time zones, so when you’re changing time zones, basically you wear the blue [00:03:15] light blocking glasses at night, but then if you want to kind kind of take it to the next level, [00:03:20] you wear the blue light. Producing glasses in the morning and it actually works [00:03:25] really well.

There’s, there’s like, I travel a lot and there’s certain things for jet lag that are [00:03:30] called zeitgebers. Okay. Which is the, one of the only German words that I know [00:03:35] besides zeitgeber. Erst, I guess zeitgeber, it means timekeeper and, um, [00:03:40] timekeepers help you to align to a new time zone more quickly. And there’s four of them.

[00:03:45] One of them is light. Another one is exercise, right? So, so doing a movement session in the morning ing, send [00:03:50] your body a message that it’s morning. And by way, I know that the rock always works out. Like when he gets to a [00:03:55] place that’s like one of the things. Yeah, but he’s not, you know, he, he works out like 2:00 AM 3:00 AM whenever [00:04:00] he just works out, whenever gets there.

Yeah. He, he’s just a beast. He goes too. Um, but ideally you work out in the [00:04:05] morning because that jumpstart your circadian rhythm. And actually research as of two weeks ago showed [00:04:10] that when you work out closer than three hours to bedtime, you actually have. Poor sleep [00:04:15] patterns, whether or not we’re talking about jet lag or whatever, just to if you, even if you’re home, um, yeah.

Obviously [00:04:20] the best time to exercise is when you’re gonna exercise, but if you are able to get it done [00:04:25] with at least three hours before you go to bed, it’s better for sleep. But if you do it in the morning, it’ll realigns. [00:04:30] Exactly realize the circ rhythm. And the third one is food. So I do [00:04:35] a lot of intermittent fasting.

Okay. Not because it’s magical for fat loss. Like [00:04:40] you know, the amount of calories you eat and how much you move is how you lose weight. But there’s some pretty [00:04:45] good data on going certain periods of time without eating and longevity markers. [00:04:50] So for like. Anti-aging for, um, the turnover of your mitochondria [00:04:55] and cleanup of the cells.

Having a certain period of time during each 24 hour cycle where you go [00:05:00] without eating is generally a pretty good longevity principle. But [00:05:05] when I travel, I don’t do that. So when I’m at home in my normal time zone, I [00:05:10] get up at some point. Early in the morning I work out. Then later on I have [00:05:15] breakfast, and breakfast is always like 12 to 16 hours after dinner.

So I have like a late breakfast. Okay. But when I [00:05:20] travel, I eat and then go to the gym because eating is a signal to your [00:05:25] body, especially if you have protein in the meal that again, you’re lining to the new [00:05:30] circadian rhythm. Fascinating. And then the last one is temperature. So that means that. Like a [00:05:35] lot of people probably know.

So you said light exercise, food temperature, light temperature, exercise, food and [00:05:40] temperature. So a lot of people already know, like, you know, companies like Eight Sleep Mattress have made this really [00:05:45] popular, right? You get a cooling surface, you sleep in a cold environment. You don’t have a, a heavy [00:05:50] spicy meal before bed.

Back to the exercise thing, you know, exercise right before bed. But when it [00:05:55] comes to circadian alignment. It’s warm in the morning. Cool. In the [00:06:00] evening. So I don’t take warm showers when I’m at home, but when I travel, this is great. [00:06:05] It’s my little treat. When I travel, I get a nice like five minute steamy warm shower in the morning [00:06:10] because it gets you back into your time zone more quickly.

Because you came from London straight here, super cold night to Nashville. [00:06:15] Yeah, right, so, so I pull, yeah, I travel a lot internationally for speaking, for events, for conferences, and so a big [00:06:20] part of it is just like. Getting back on the time zone more quickly. So I, I mean, clearly just hearing you [00:06:25] talk and being around you for a few minutes, it’s like, whoa, like you, you were so into [00:06:30] this stuff.

Were you always just like drawn to like. [00:06:35] What now people would call biohacking glasses. Yeah. And like what everything you’re talking about, have you always been just [00:06:40] drawn to that? Great segue back to your original question that I didn’t answer. Um, so, [00:06:45] um, I was a total nerd growing up. I was homeschooled K through 12 out in the sticks [00:06:50] in North Idaho.

Christian conservative family played violin [00:06:55] for 13 years. Wow. President of the chess club. You know, my happy place was a library. [00:07:00] I wrote a fantasy fiction novel like 400 pages long by the time I was 13 years old. [00:07:05] Wild, just totally not a jock [00:07:10] into into the human sciences at all. And then. My [00:07:15] parents, and actually I like this principle and I adopt this same principle in my house.

Make your [00:07:20] home a really fun place to be so that your kids and grandkids want to hang out and come [00:07:25] over. Did you see, uh, SAHE Bloom’s book, the Five Types of Wealth Uhhuh? Yeah. Great. We are, [00:07:30] we are part of. Part of that. Okay. You are okay. Yeah. So great book. But one of the things I disagree [00:07:35] with in his book is that the amount of time that you get to spend with your kids is goes [00:07:40] down significantly decreased at a certain point in life after they’re 18.

That can be the case, but I [00:07:45] think you can also. Create almost like this pad that, that your [00:07:50] kids want to hang out at and stay home for. It’s so funny talking. Wanna you talking about this? That’s like my objective, but [00:07:55] the, yeah, so, so for those of you that know, so Sahil Bloom, he talks about statistically for most [00:08:00] people, once their kids hit like.

18 and even like back to 14, it’s like you, you, [00:08:05] you, you’ve spent, most of the time you’re gonna spend together. Right. And vice versa, if you’re a kid, you only see your parents like literal once a year or something [00:08:10] like that. But we’re building a house right now. Mm-hmm. And um, the first time we built a house, it was just me [00:08:15] and aj.

We never planned on having kids and now we have two. And so it’s, we’ve spent two years building our new house. We’re about to [00:08:20] move in and the entire process. Has been her vision is exactly what you said. Yeah. She’s [00:08:25] like, we’re gonna build a place that our kids want to come, their friends want to come one day, the grandkids will [00:08:30] want to come, is Exactly, yeah.

All the way down to putting the master bedroom on the second floor. So the kids have to carry me up the stairs [00:08:35] when I’m 90. Um, so, so we, you know, we have an obstacle course and a Frisbee [00:08:40] golf course and we converted our barn into an indoor pickleball and [00:08:45] basketball arena. Cool. And you know. Corn hole and bocce ball.

But my parents, um, they kind of had [00:08:50] the same thought pattern. Like they built a pool and [00:08:55] um, they had us on six acres of land where they were like motorcycle tracks dug into the hillside with a tractor. [00:09:00] We could take our dirt bikes out there. And they also built a tennis court and. I hired a [00:09:05] tennis instructor to come over and teach me and my siblings and I fell in freaking [00:09:10] love with the sport of tennis, like it was the first sport I was actually good at.

I, I felt [00:09:15] like I could actually perform well as the nerdy homeschool [00:09:20] kid in this brand new sport that I’d discovered. And that’s when I got into. [00:09:25] Running up and down the hills behind the house and going [00:09:30] down to the sporting goods store, you know, in town and getting a pair of 10 pound dumbbells that I brought home and [00:09:35] had no clue what to do with.

So I just like lay on the edge of my bed and do curls. ’cause I figured they’d make [00:09:40] my arms stronger for tennis and started thinking more about, you know, putting eggs in the, in [00:09:45] the pancake waffle mix so I could get extra protein. Uh, my, my [00:09:50] dad’s friend was the Washington State power lifting champion, and my brother’s best friend’s [00:09:55] dad was a professional bodybuilder, and both these guys kind of mentored me and started [00:10:00] to teach me about, mm-hmm.

How to build muscle, how to eat properly, all these things that, [00:10:05] you know, no offense to, to homeschoolers. I homeschooled my kids. They’re, they’re 17 years old now and they’re [00:10:10] done, but like. Physical education, the physical sciences, fitness, nutrition. Some [00:10:15] of that isn’t heavily emphasized in the classical homeschooling curriculum, but I was just eating this stuff up.

Yeah. [00:10:20] Nor nor is it in the traditional school system necessarily. Yeah. Now sad anymore. Yeah. Um. [00:10:25] So I, I got to the point where I, I wanted to go to college and, and [00:10:30] study exercise science. Like I was that into it. And my parents were like shocked ’cause they thought I was gonna be like [00:10:35] an author or a pastor or like a fantasy computer game [00:10:40] programmer or something like that.

Like, you know, to either, either a very nerdy or just like classical [00:10:45] intellectual position. And, um, I. Walked [00:10:50] onto the tennis team, the college tennis team at Lewis Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho, [00:10:55] just like all the other student as athletes, um, declared my major as, as [00:11:00] exercise science and began to study like anatomy and physiology and [00:11:05] biomechanics.

And long story short, as I got my. My degree in exercise [00:11:10] physiology. Mm-hmm. And biomechanics and physiology is just like a study of all the different [00:11:15] pathways in the body that create energy. Okay. And how you train for things like fat loss, muscle [00:11:20] gain, oxygen capacity, et cetera. And. Along that [00:11:25] path, I even made the decision that I wanted to go to medical school, so I applied and was [00:11:30] accepted to six different medical schools.

You know, took the MCATs and did the entire [00:11:35] pre-med course route. So you were heading down that path? Yeah. Totally headed down the path of wanting to go into sports [00:11:40] medicine or orthopedic surgery. And at. I did not get into two [00:11:45] programs that I really wanted to. They were specifically a, a Duke and New Penn’s MD [00:11:50] PhD programs.

I got a, a declination letter from both of them [00:11:55] and thought, well, I could probably make myself a little bit more impressive on paper and reapply. So I took a [00:12:00] job in the private sector after I got my master’s degree selling hips and knees, like hip and [00:12:05] knee surgical sales for a company called Interesting Biomed.

Uh, which, but you got your master’s degree, [00:12:10] Washington. Yeah. You were on that path. So went on, started working in the private sector and [00:12:15] hopefully this is a sponsor of your company. ’cause I’m holding it up now. It’s not but we should, probably, should [00:12:20] be down. Should we drink? We drink that stuff all the time.

They’re great. Um, they’re [00:12:25] lemon. Perfect. Um. I had a total [00:12:30] distaste in my mouth for everything related to allopathic and modern medicine after like nine months [00:12:35] in that gig. Interesting. I was standing there with a laser pointer teaching surgeons how to [00:12:40] install overpriced tips and knees into people. That, for the most part, would’ve been.

Better [00:12:45] served through the type of preventive principles I’d spent the past five years learning, right? Like [00:12:50] fitness, nutrition, movement, healthy eating, good lifestyle, sunshine. Um, [00:12:55] and this is something that I, I think there is this like epidemic of distrust with [00:13:00] modern healthcare, which is just, it’s really like it is spreading and it has hit our house hard.[00:13:05]

We literally don’t know who to trust because it’s like we’ve got so many [00:13:10] biohacking friends and clients, uhhuh, and then we’ve got like all these traditional like [00:13:15] medical people and it’s like, oh man. And then you’ve got like chat, GBT, the internet and all stuff. Yeah. My, my, my [00:13:20] counselors don’t trust either of ’em.

Uh, there’s, there, there’s, there’s a lot of, uh, [00:13:25] myopic and uh, and, and dogmatic opinions in both allopathic and natural [00:13:30] medicine. Everything with a grain of salt. Um, and, and even the [00:13:35] meha movement, I mean, not to rabbit hole too much. I, I wish there was a greater emphasis [00:13:40] on moving more and eating less and a little bit less of an emphasis on like artificial [00:13:45] sweeteners and red food dyes and primarily appealing to like, you know, [00:13:50] millionaire mommies who shop at Whole Foods.

Like there’s, there’s a big part of the movement that is kind of focused [00:13:55] on the things that are pretty good for Instagram clicks. But I think there needs to be a little bit more of an [00:14:00] emphasis on just like. Getting outside. Sure, sure. Lifting heavy stuff, not stuffing your mouth with [00:14:05] so much food on that topic of influence.

Right. So, so when did you start migrating? [00:14:10] Online. Yeah. So you have this distaste you, you go, I have this knowledge. Yeah. And then I’m [00:14:15] like, in this profession, I literally like walked across the street from the apartment I was [00:14:20] living in at the time, slapped my resume down on the desk of the Liberty [00:14:25] Lake Athletic Club in Washington State and asked for a job.

And at that point I had a really good resume [00:14:30] because I’d been like personal training all through college doing. Nutrition coaching, managing the wellness [00:14:35] program at University of Idaho. I had all the, you know, the student athlete profiling. I had the pre-med [00:14:40] stuff. So, um, they, they hired me as the personal training [00:14:45] manager at the gym.

So I spent a couple years at that job. I, I quit my [00:14:50] job in surgical sales. I never reapplied to medical school. And while [00:14:55] I was there working at the gym. Um, I became a fan of some of like the [00:15:00] OG guys in the fitness industry, like who was big back then. Ryan [00:15:05] Lee, Joel Marion, like, like a lot of these guys that had just figured out how to start, you know, making [00:15:10] money on the internet and, and, you know, writing newsletters and I, and, you know, running group [00:15:15] training programs.

Um, and, and monetizing a fitness facility. [00:15:20] In a manner a little bit different than the traditional just bio gym membership and personal [00:15:25] training type of scenario. Okay, so I’m studying these guys, I’m starting group exercise programs, [00:15:30] um, upselling people into, um, like, you know, 3, [00:15:35] 6, 12 month concierge style personal training programs that are bringing in a lot of revenue.

[00:15:40] And is this digital marketing? Is this really digital marketing or more in person? Well, I, I, I started a newsletter, [00:15:45] this is early on in the digital marketing, but I started a new What, this newsletter for the sort of in [00:15:50] 2000 and, uh, 2002. Oh [00:15:55] yeah. Okay. So this is 2000 is very early digital online marketing.

[00:16:00] Yeah, but I mean, I, I even like had my mom follow me out to the park and, and we shot a [00:16:05] bunch of videos and I wrote like a, like an online ebook and, you know, had that up on, [00:16:10] uh, wow, what was it? What was Click ClickBank? Um, you know, and was selling that via [00:16:15] PayPal and the website. So I, so I had a little bit of the digital marketing going on, but that was a total side project.

Okay. [00:16:20] What happened was, one of my clients, um. Husbands, uh, [00:16:25] Dr. PZ Pierce, who was the head physician for Ironman Triathlon and Rock Roll Marathon, approached me [00:16:30] with the idea of launching a one-stop shop for sports medicine called Champion Sports Medicine, [00:16:35] where we’d have like your physical therapist, your chiropractic docs, your massage therapist, your personal [00:16:40] trainer.

Everybody all under one roof. Mm. And over the course of a year, we did that [00:16:45] again for an in person facility. In person. Yeah. We launched that facility and, uh, [00:16:50] then I actually launched a sister facility in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. And that’s [00:16:55] when I, I became pretty successful in the personal training industry.

I mean, [00:17:00] we had doctors all over the Spokane Coeur d’Alene region referring their patients to us. Hmm. [00:17:05] I was managing the entire facility. We were doing like early on biohacking like. Platelet rich [00:17:10] plasma injections and, you know, high speed video camera analysis of gait. And we would have masks, [00:17:15] people would wear when they came in to measure how many calories they were burning and what their vo O2 max was.

’cause I, [00:17:20] I’ve always been buried into like the, the pointy cutting [00:17:25] edge of, of, of almost like the gearhead aspects of [00:17:30] anything I do, whether it’s triathlon or, or pickleball or, or training or whatever. So. [00:17:35] Long story short is about two years into operating those [00:17:40] gyms and, and I still continue to write a newsletter, operate a little bit of a website.

Um, and I [00:17:45] was doing travel blogging. I was racing all over the world as an Ironman triathlete, [00:17:50] and I had sponsors early on in the day, even affiliates. And so [00:17:55] between running the gyms and then traveling and generating some side income [00:18:00] with. Affiliate marketing via my travel writing. That was my gig. Uh, in [00:18:05] 2008, I was voted as America’s top personal trainer and that really thrust me [00:18:10] into the limelight of being on like the cover of fitness magazines and beginning to speak at, [00:18:15] at conferences.

I think it was actually at, um. At Bedros Ion’s conference [00:18:20] that I was speaking at about how to make money running a brick and mortar personal training [00:18:25] studio. Mm-hmm. That the shift that you’re asking about occurred, like the shift in in online [00:18:30] influencing. So that’s a moment you get a, you get a speaking invitation.

Yeah. Go speak at [00:18:35] an event and you’re like, I look back in my life and go, that was the moment that I started like a hard, well [00:18:40] kind of, but the reason is that my wife was with me. At that event and um, [00:18:45] she was pregnant and she was pregnant with twins. And my typical day, [00:18:50] Rory, at the time was I was up at 4:00 AM riding my bike 12 miles to the gym, [00:18:55] trading clients till noon, heading to the pool swim, training for Ironman, coming back to [00:19:00] the gym, training clients all day, getting done, lifting weights, riding my back, [00:19:05] back home, going for a run, having a quick dinner with my wife, going back into the office, writing my [00:19:10] newsletter, doing my online programming, going to bed, sleeping about four to five hours a night, and that was my life for three [00:19:15] years.

Wow. So now I’m at this event speaking, and [00:19:20] the way that I was raised is that I valued and still value the idea [00:19:25] of being a, a, a present father and husband. And I saw the [00:19:30] writing on the wall that there was no way that the life I was living at that point, it’s not gonna work, which is making me really good [00:19:35] money.

And I was like, you know, famous in my own little niche of the personal training industry was not gonna [00:19:40] work for me to be the dad and the husband that I wanted to be. And, um. [00:19:45] I remember exactly who it was. This guy came up and they called him the Million Dollar Man. And uh, and [00:19:50] he gave a talk. I think his talk was on VSLs.

Um, it was on, on [00:19:55] on VSLs or just sales letters in general. It was Vince del Monte. And so, so Vince gets up and gives a [00:20:00] talk and I’m sitting there in the auditor of this clipboard just taking copious notes. ’cause I, all I’d done at [00:20:05] that point was just like dabbled in the whole internet marketing industry.

Like, I had a little ebook, [00:20:10] I had a newsletter. Um, I had started a podcast. There were like. Four [00:20:15] pod. There’s like, this is early Jillian Michaels, Rob Wolf, like like three or four [00:20:20] podcasts back when you had to code your own RSS feed and submit it to Apple and wait two weeks and if it was over a hundred [00:20:25] megabytes it’d break and you’d have to use an RSS feed fixer to resubmit.

But I would sit there in my [00:20:30] office at the personal training studio just with my, my computer flipped open webcam. And [00:20:35] record podcasts and, and they’re mostly just about exercise science, so. Yeah. But you were also on that, to your point about being a [00:20:40] gearhead, like you, you were also on the cutting edge of digital marketing Yeah.

And testing things and going to conferences. [00:20:45] Exactly. And like learning from Yeah. So I, I like to do this stuff early. My son’s 17. My, my podcast is 18 years old. Right. [00:20:50] So, so even before this point, I was, I was into the [00:20:55] idea of, of, of spreading my message using [00:21:00] this thing called the internet, but had never thought about like.

Doing the [00:21:05] type of thing that you do, which is like, oh, here’s the system, here’s the [00:21:10] process. Here’s like the, the plug and play steps that you follow. And when you do it this way, it actually [00:21:15] works. Versus just like throwing noodles at the wall and seeing what sticks. And so I sat there next to my wife [00:21:20] in the audience listening to Vince with this little yellow legal notepad, writing down every step that [00:21:25] he was presenting about how to do like a long form sales letter for a website for a digital information [00:21:30] product.

I spent the next eight months working [00:21:35] on what I called the triathlon Dominator [00:21:40] package, so I hooked up with disc.com in Texas, we had $197 [00:21:45] physical package, $97 digital package. I took. Everything I knew [00:21:50] about Ironman training, ’cause I was also, I was like a name in the endurance sports industry and I was known [00:21:55] as the minimalist training guy.

The guy who could get you really good results, but still [00:22:00] leave you with plenty of time for your social life, for your friends, for your family, for your other [00:22:05] hobbies, for your career. So I designed this Ironman training program that promised to [00:22:10] get you across the finish line of an Ironman triathlon. With a smile on your face and [00:22:15] still have time left over for your family, for your friends, for your social life, for your career, for your hobbies.

So there [00:22:20] therein lies. Op, the beginning of real optimization. And, and well, yeah, my, [00:22:25] my, my hair-brained idea. Well, well, first of all. As, as I was working [00:22:30] on this program, I drove up and raced the short course World [00:22:35] Championships for Triathlon in Vancouver, BC and all the way up and all the way back I listened to a [00:22:40] relatively new audio book by this guy named Tim Ferris called Four Hour Workweek.

At that point, I [00:22:45] had never like, actually really hired anybody besides some college interns at my, at my personal training gym [00:22:50] to help train clients. Mm-hmm. So. I hired my first VA and one of her [00:22:55] first jobs was to get all the information for every triathlon club and triathlon [00:23:00] coach in the US so that I could contact them, so that they could sign up to be an affiliate for the [00:23:05] program.

Every Friday I spent four hours on this old thing called [00:23:10] forums. Where you used to actually be able to like post helpful advice and have your [00:23:15] link in the bio and get pretty good clicks back to your website. And I would literally just spend hours and hours [00:23:20] replying to people. Have the little link in the bio back to the triathlon dominator, [00:23:25] opt-in page.

Um, all of this was leading up to Ironman, Hawaii World [00:23:30] Championships. Where I was going to race. Okay. What year is this now? And this would’ve been 2008. [00:23:35] Oh, okay. So I, I was, it’s still super early planned out to be, do opt-in pages [00:23:40] and stuff. I had that, yeah. I was doing, I had, I had tweets pre-scheduled for like, oh, here’s [00:23:45] where I’m at in the race.

And, you know, I’d use the triathlon dominated plan and, [00:23:50] and I feel great. And here’s what I was eating. I got this out of the nutrition package from the Triathlon Dominator [00:23:55] plan. All my affiliates were ready to mail out that week and I wanted to launch that week ’cause [00:24:00] that’s like the biggest week in triathlon, you know, the Ironman, Hawaii World Championships.

So, [00:24:05] um, long story short is that week from the race to six [00:24:10] days after the race, I pulled in about $48,000. Now, for me, at the time, that was [00:24:15] basically about half as much as I was making as a personal trainer in a year, working my [00:24:20] ass off. Yeah. And all I’d really done was take the information up inside my head.

Put [00:24:25] it digitally on the internet and created a program that actually helped people and got them [00:24:30] results. And I realized that I could do that for what I knew about [00:24:35] marathoning and swimming and knee pain and back pain. Um, [00:24:40] so within four months after racing [00:24:45] Ironman, Hawaii. And successfully launching that product.

I had [00:24:50] moved all my clients onto other personal trainers in the community. I had sold my [00:24:55] studio equipment, ended my leases, moved into a home office, um, and started [00:25:00] full-time doing a lot of what I do now, right? Continued on the podcast, started doing online coach. [00:25:05] Um, writing, uh, published my first, uh, first and [00:25:10] only a New York Times bestselling book called Beyond Training, uh, which was, I [00:25:15] think that was 2012, I believe.

Um, but that’s [00:25:20] what, that’s what shifted me into the, into the online space, was [00:25:25] wanting to change up my lifestyle and be a stay at home dad, [00:25:30] homeschool my kids, and, um, just kind of start a new chapter in life. So. [00:25:35] What’s the, what’s the, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made online? [00:25:40] You’ve been, you’ve been in the online game.

Oh, big. You’ve been in the online game for a long time. I mean, like, I probably the [00:25:45] mistake that wouldn’t surprise a lot of people knowing how entrepreneurs operate, but like, trying to do it all myself. Right. So [00:25:50] I ran, you know, all my own PPC campaigns and, and wrote all my own copy and did all [00:25:55] my own affiliate management and programmed all my own websites and coded my own WordPress themed.

It [00:26:00] just did. Everything, which, you know, in retrospect, I think you could [00:26:05] make a case that if you know how to do a lot of that stuff, you know, if you’re getting screwed [00:26:10] over by somebody else who you’re paying to do it. But like biggest [00:26:15] mistake was not hiring early and hiring often. You know, when did you start hiring?

When did you [00:26:20] start building this? Good question for everybody. What when’s the right time to start building a team when you’re. [00:26:25] Building your personal brand or when did you, when did you finally do it? Oh, I don’t know what the right time [00:26:30] is, but when I, um, so I, I basically managed [00:26:35] my online coaching, my writing, my podcast, which I [00:26:40] recorded and edited myself, you know, literally garage band for years and years.

All the [00:26:45] way up until the point where I decided that I wanted some kind of a [00:26:50] brand that existed outside of just me, because I recognized that I couldn’t like even take [00:26:55] a day off. ’cause the entire thing was just Ben Greenfield coaching and you know, Ben Greenfield’s supplements [00:27:00] and Ben Greenfield’s triathlon riding.

And I was even taking groups of athletes around the world on, you know, [00:27:05] like triathlon tours of Thailand and booking everybody’s hotel and plane flight. Geez. Just, you [00:27:10] know, I, I, I’ve always been into creating, um. Multiple [00:27:15] streams of income, but it was pretty much just like me and uh, [00:27:20] one Filipino VA and her family.

And that was about [00:27:25] it until I reached the point where I wanted to start a brand [00:27:30] and I was white labeling. It wasn’t really white [00:27:35] labeling. Basically I wrote a PHP script that would allow people to go to [00:27:40] my website and make an order for the supplements that I was recommending [00:27:45] to people for racing, triathlon.

Okay. And then that script would [00:27:50] go to the manufacturer’s website. Then they would ship that order. So it was kind of like [00:27:55] an early version of drop shipping and these, and the reason people would do this for me was [00:28:00] because these were my sponsors. Like I was a race car, like I had, I had, you know, products on my [00:28:05] jersey and on my website.

I see. And in my travel blogs. So I worked with a lot of [00:28:10] different supplement companies. But then you were actually doing direct sales for them, I mean, affiliate basically, right? Yeah. Basically it was kind of [00:28:15] like affiliate sales, but both much higher margins. So. I wanted to [00:28:20] start my own supplements company because I was seeing how successful a lot of these companies [00:28:25] were.

And a lot of sold for hundred is for formulations. Hundred millions of dollars. [00:28:30] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. A lot. Um. And so at the [00:28:35] time, the supplements branch of what I did was called Greenfield Fitness Systems. [00:28:40] Mm-hmm. Because you’re still in this business today. It’s not called a re dink thing outta my home office and garage.

Huh. [00:28:45] So I hired this branding agency outta Boulder, Colorado to come to my house for a two day [00:28:50] intensive, where we came up with the concept of key [00:28:55] life force energy. We spelled it KI, uh, and I launched a [00:29:00] company called Keon. Um, I didn’t wind up working that long with the branding agency, [00:29:05] but I basically headhunted one guy who I really got along with who was incredible, his name was [00:29:10] Angelo.

He’s now the CEO of that company, Keon based out of Boulder, [00:29:15] Colorado. And so, um, we’ve, we started that [00:29:20] company. I think about seven years ago. Um, and that’s just like a standalone supplements company. I’m still a [00:29:25] majority owner. I don’t have a lot of direct involvement besides occasional calls with Angelo.[00:29:30]

So now I have the supplements company. And then besides that, [00:29:35] um, speaking coaching. Uh, podcasting with monetization of the podcast ads. Yeah. So [00:29:40] walk, walk me through the, how you make money today. Yeah. On a percentage basis. Yeah. What percentage of [00:29:45] your income comes from Right. Speaking books. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. I don’t [00:29:50] know exact percentages by far. Um, Keyon would outpace everything, [00:29:55] really. I mean, yeah. It’s a real business with a real rev. I mean, that’s a product that it, it’s a, yeah. I mean [00:30:00] that’s like, um. Uh, Keon is a math company. I [00:30:05] mean, that’s just, we, we do all direct to consumer and Amazon. We don’t do [00:30:10] wholesale, we don’t do retail, we don’t do shelf space.

We don’t want to deal with product out of stock [00:30:15] or expiry dates. Um, and we want last click acquisition knowledge of where [00:30:20] every single purchase comes from. So, um. We do, [00:30:25] like, I think last report we were at like 29 point a half percent net [00:30:30] profit with Keon, um, with a, with a sizable amount. And this, this is [00:30:35] like direct to checkout.

You, you own control the whole process. The customer Yeah, [00:30:40] exactly. The ingredients, the formulation, you know. And um, so you hired a formulator to help you put [00:30:45] this together? You use it yourself. And I formulate also like I formulate for a lot of companies, [00:30:50] but Keon is, um, like, this is what I think is the secret sauce in, in [00:30:55] the supplements industry is a lot of people will start a supplements company and [00:31:00] have an idea for like super complex formulas.

That look really sexy and look [00:31:05] really good and have like the 18 different things that are gonna help you to live a really long time. But it’s [00:31:10] hard to source those raw ingredients. Keep them all in stock. If one thing disappears, a lot of [00:31:15] times you are replacing it with a less expensive ingredient. A lot of times you gotta have a proprietary [00:31:20] formula, which is not transparent to the customer, just in case you’re, you’re low [00:31:25] on one item and you have to adjust another, um.

And it’s expensive and it’s [00:31:30] risky and it looks cool from the outside. But what we focus on at Keon are [00:31:35] super simple supplements that just work and are clean and fit base [00:31:40] needs, like whey protein, creatine, and not like fancy creatine with. [00:31:45] Unicorn tears and, and all the, just like pure plain, old creatine, monohydrate [00:31:50] coffee, um, uh, amino acids.

That’s, that’s our top selling product. Like our [00:31:55] wedge in the market, like 10 x sales over everything else is just amino acids. Hmm. And people like [00:32:00] them because they help you to gain muscle, even if you’re not exercising, they help with your brain. Like, one thing that’s interesting [00:32:05] about what you’re saying about that, which, which I, I, I think has been a trend but will [00:32:10] continue to be a trend in AI, is going.

It’s a simple supplement [00:32:15] I could get anywhere, but people, I suspect they buy it [00:32:20] from Ben Greenfield because they trust Ben. And they go, yeah, there’s, there’s a hundred versions of this [00:32:25] simple product, but I want the one that Ben says is the one. Yeah. And it’s just that [00:32:30] I say is the one, and that has the subtle nuances figured out, like where the [00:32:35] purest form come from.

Do the ratios and the amino acids actually mimic what’s in human [00:32:40] skeletal muscle, and did we throw in sucralose and you know, acid sulfate potassium, or did we keep it clean? [00:32:45] So. The, the basic idea with the supplements company is [00:32:50] it’s basic, it’s easy, it’s predictable. And [00:32:55] um, you asked me in terms of percentage of revenue, like you said it was a math company.

Definitely, yeah. It’s basically just a math [00:33:00] company, you know, and you’re just talking about a formula of how much we been on ad and what the cost per click is. The [00:33:05] Exactly. Versions the way down. Definitely similar to what you were describing for webinars yesterday. Mm-hmm. And knowing, knowing your [00:33:10] ROI on a webinar is pretty much very similar thing for a supplement company.

Um. That would [00:33:15] be the top source of revenue, podcasts, um, advertising. [00:33:20] And I’d also, how do I explain this? So if you were to come to [00:33:25] me and want me as an influencer to represent your brand, your [00:33:30] product, which is big money in the health space, I feel like that’s it is you, you, you, [00:33:35] you typically are not just going to buy, let’s say like.

Four [00:33:40] weeks of a, of a pre-roll podcast ad, or 12 weeks of, of, you know, like alternating [00:33:45] pre-roll and mid-roll to split test what works. You’re also typically buying stories. [00:33:50] Uh, posts, um, newsletter, either dedicated newsletters or I have a, a weekly [00:33:55] Roundup Friday newsletter where you’re, you’re getting, uh, exposure in that, um, [00:34:00] all social media channels.

So typically like you’re selling a package package, like as an [00:34:05] influencer, like a lot of people think, and this is true sometimes that an influencer’s just like you write me a check and [00:34:10] I do an Instagram story about your product. I’m more selling packages that [00:34:15] get a business exposure across a variety of channels.

Your whole platform, the podcast, the [00:34:20] YouTube channel, uh, YouTube shorts, reels, tweets, the [00:34:25] newsletter, the weekly roundups. So I can offer a lot to a company. When it [00:34:30] comes to how much exposure that they’re getting. So, so the more [00:34:35] channels that you’re active on, the more you can command as an influencer in terms of, of actual income.

And I, I [00:34:40] don’t run any of this myself, right? Like I, I have a, a partnerships manager and a social [00:34:45] media manager and a CEO and you know, and basically now all I do is. [00:34:50] And, and this is what I love about my job. I just vet and try cool products, and then [00:34:55] if I like them, develop a relationship with a company where I’m, I’m getting the word out about them.

[00:35:00] Yeah. How dos do you do, how do you do that balance? That’s a significant source of revenue also, is it just like ad [00:35:05] packages that companies are signing up through? So it’s not really a podcast, it’s just like sponsorships or like an [00:35:10] add package. Right. I, I use the knowledge up inside my head to vet products, figure out if [00:35:15] they’re good.

Try them out, test them, do the whole immersive journalism thing, you know, put ’em [00:35:20] through the ringer and then if I like them, give the thumbs up and the green light on them. And then people get to [00:35:25] advertise on the podcast. So you won’t do it unless you’ve used it, like you won’t. Oh, absolutely not. [00:35:30] And you would be shocked.

I mean, you probably wouldn’t be shocked at that. How much goes on in the industry in terms of people just like holding [00:35:35] up a product or, I mean. I, I won’t even do a podcast with an author of a [00:35:40] book that I haven’t actually read cover to cover. Mm-hmm. Like I am very picky about knowing exactly what [00:35:45] it is that I’m talking to my audience about.

Um, but I also love, like, I love to [00:35:50] tinker and investigate and, you know, yeah. Try new things. And I literally have like, you know, [00:35:55] my entire team knows you don’t book anything on my calendar from three to 4:00 PM ’cause I’m in my little [00:36:00] lab. Trying stuff out. Um, I don’t book most calls till like 10:00 AM because a [00:36:05] lot of my job is just like testing and trying and, um.

[00:36:10] Part of it is the whole like biohacking, immersive journalistic shtick [00:36:15] too. Right? Like, you know, I’ve done plasma replacement therapy in, in Austin, [00:36:20] Texas, the only state where it’s legal and blood filtration, Tijuana and gene therapy in [00:36:25] Mexico and full body stem cell surgeries. Your own little version of a crash dummy Guinea pig [00:36:30] like you.

Yeah. I’m a I, I’m a Christian and I do believe that we need to [00:36:35] take good care of this vessel that God has given us to Amen. Without our purpose in life. Uh, and so [00:36:40] I, a lot of people think that I just go out and do anything, but in reality, I put a great deal of [00:36:45] research and read a lot of studies before I let anyone come near me with a needle.

Sure. Know or, or, or try a [00:36:50] protocol. Um, so. Uh, that, but the same thing. You’re not talking about stuff, the [00:36:55] influencer thing, because I’m not just talk like I’m out there doing these things, right? Like if I’m talking about a [00:37:00] workout tool, like I put blood, sweat, and tears into that thing for three months before I’m actually, you know, [00:37:05] mentioning it on a podcast or doing an ad package with them.

But that’s a source of revenue. That would probably be [00:37:10] the, the second biggest source of revenue. Fascinating. And then, well, I mean, I’m doing [00:37:15] two podcasts a week for 18 years. How long are they an hour? [00:37:20] All of them are an hour long. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a lot. I mean, you know, 50 to [00:37:25] 75 minutes. So, so yeah. I mean it’s, um, yeah, you know, between that and, [00:37:30] and the actual entirety of the package that someone can sign up for, um, it does become a [00:37:35] significant source of revenue that I, and that’s kinda like.

You’re immediate company. When I said I never meant to be an [00:37:40] influencer like that part of my company, I never, like, all I wanted to do was just like talk to cool [00:37:45] people who would normally never give me the time of day, you know, and get to pick their brains and turn around and, [00:37:50] and tell people about it.

And now it turned into its own kind of separate. Side business. ’cause people want to [00:37:55] advertise on that content medium. Well, you’re the, the, the, the, the episodes that I’ve listened to, they’re very tech. [00:38:00] They’re very technical. Yeah. Uh, I mean, that’s how I would describe it as a layman in the like, medical world.

Like [00:38:05] they’re extremely technical and, you know, scientific, I mean, you’re using terms that I’m like, well, I’m, I don’t [00:38:10] even know what that term means. Yeah. Uh, so, so yeah, I should probably fix that. It’s real. No, I mean, [00:38:15] I, I think y you know, like just since we kinda became friends is really when I [00:38:20] started like, uh, I’ve never been into like.

Biohacking and really like, other than being like I [00:38:25] want to be healthy and like very base level, but I’ve never been an endurance athlete, like push myself to the neck. There’s a lot of [00:38:30] deep dark rabbit holes. Like, you know, there’s a lot of I people like Ben, why are you talking about freaking like, you know, [00:38:35] smearing coffee grounds in your head and putting a red light helmet on to, to grow your hair?

And I’m [00:38:40] like, well, because. You know, having done this for so long, I covered like bench pressing and how to run a 5K [00:38:45] like in the first 20 episodes, but you kinda, you kind of move on to things. Yeah. Well the thing that’s going on in my [00:38:50] life, you know, this is, is I had knee surgery, I had, I was playing whiffle ball with my kids, [00:38:55] tore my meniscus.

So to in two spots, you know, I [00:39:00] go in, I talk to the surgeon and they’re like, you need surgery? [00:39:05] Okay. And they’re like. You’ll be better, you’ll be better in, you know, a few weeks, [00:39:10] uh, you know, eight to 12 weeks full recovery. And it’s like, I’m going on month five. I can’t [00:39:15] walk down the stairs yet. Yeah. And I’m like, okay, so what’s happened?

So I’ve got 15 [00:39:20] people going. Why aren’t you using peptides? I’m like, what’s a peptide? Yeah. They’re like, go get BPC 1 [00:39:25] 57, or whatever it is. I think that’s it. Yeah. And they’re just like, go, go get this. And I’m, they all have R 2D two Star Wars. Yeah. [00:39:30] Yeah. I’m like, I don’t know what, I don’t know what this is.

And then y you know, and then I ran, I [00:39:35] met you. And then, yeah. And then they were like, I, I had a couple friends who were like, you need to listen to the Ben Greenfield [00:39:40] episode on that. I’m like, that’s so funny. Like we, we just kind of became friends and, and that’s what, [00:39:45] and I think that’s happening more, is people are going that.[00:39:50]

Zeitgeist in the general population is like, look at [00:39:55] alternative things more than just going to traditional. Yeah. Look at alternative things. And when it comes to [00:40:00] podcasting, when you have your. Um, [00:40:05] you know, your, your, your vocal worm inside the ear of someone for, you know, an [00:40:10] hour, twice a week. Uh, you know, when they’re lifting weights at the gym, there is a trust relationship that’s [00:40:15] built because they know, oh, I’ve talked to people for 18 years about this and it’s my job [00:40:20] to dig into this stuff, and I’ve jammed up these needles into my own knee and, you know, tried these different rehab programs [00:40:25] and yeah, I mean, back to the knee thing, you know, something as simple as if you source it properly, you know, [00:40:30] BPC 1 57 and TB 500, combined with something like.

Ben Patrick’s knees over [00:40:35] toes strengthening program is transformative for a lot of people who just have basic knee [00:40:40] issues and need to get back in action. Huh? So, um, you should listen to my podcast with him, Ben Patrick. [00:40:45] Okay. One, one of the best guys for rehabbing the knees. I will go, I will go listen to it.

Ben Patrick. And then, um, then the other [00:40:50] sources of income and, and, and why I’m sitting here in this chair with you would be, um, [00:40:55] books and speaking. Two, two areas that I will admit I have kind of severely [00:41:00] underplayed. Like I, I speak in the tiny little echo chamber that is like health conferences [00:41:05] with the occasional lucky how they find out about me, you know, keynote that I might give to a [00:41:10] financial group or whatever.

Um, but I love to be on [00:41:15] stage. Mm. I love to command a stage. I love to speak. I was on speech and debate in college. I’ve always [00:41:20] loved to deliver my message in a powerful way from stage, and I have. [00:41:25] Rarely, I shouldn’t say rarely, but I have, um, I’ve inadequately [00:41:30] focused on developing that part of my business, and I also [00:41:35] have, when it comes to books, written for me.

Which means I [00:41:40] like big technical coffee table style 700 page books with every last piece of [00:41:45] information that you’d ever need to know. And, uh, and it’s great when it arrives at my house. [00:41:50] It’s this work of art, but it doesn’t do a, a great deal of favors for the book scan [00:41:55] numbers. And so if there, if there’s two things, two, two reasons that you and I are sitting here and, and why we met [00:42:00] and why I came to you is I want to be a better author and a better speaker.

But, but, but those are, you know, those are [00:42:05] sources of revenue for me. Yeah, well I love that ’cause it’s like, I don’t know a lot [00:42:10] about a lot, but I know a lot about a couple things and those are two things that we, you’ve got the reputation we know, we [00:42:15] know a lot about, so, okay, so let’s talk about that, right?

Like, uh, you know, we have people listen to [00:42:20] this show that have hired me to speak and all this kind of thing. And so I think the connection point there to me [00:42:25] is to go, what do entrepreneurs. And employees [00:42:30] and entrepreneurs, and executives, what do they need to be doing? What do they need to know about [00:42:35] health?

That’s, you know, not the 700 page version, but it’s like, all right, what are the [00:42:40] things that I need to be doing right now to optimize my performance as an an executive? [00:42:45] As an entrepreneur, right? What are, what are some of those things? How do I get the body and brain that I [00:42:50] need for boundless energy at my beck and call all day long so I can, yeah.

And that’s said, it’s like, it may not be [00:42:55] bodybuilding, I just want the impact that I wanna make in life. Yes. Yeah. Not, not to be a bodybuilder. Um, [00:43:00] and, and if you, let me give you an example. If you were to read, let’s say, like, [00:43:05] um, men’s Health or Women’s Health Magazine, or, or most popular. [00:43:10] Literature in the health and fitness world, you would come across a lot of of advice [00:43:15] and admittedly pretty good advice about how to move well and how to eat well, [00:43:20] like.

Here’s the diets that generally work well for people, and here’s the weight [00:43:25] training or the cardiovascular programs that you can do. And that is the message that [00:43:30] a lot of people hear when it comes to health is, I, I need to move more and eat [00:43:35] less, or move differently and eat differently. And that is a hundred percent true.

Ep 614: From Bridal Shop Owner to Industry Icon: How Mindi Linscombe Built Two Empires from One Dream

AJ: [00:00:35] Mindy, this is such an exciting day. I love when I get the [00:00:40] opportunity to interview real live friends, and today is one of those [00:00:45] special days, so welcome to the show. Thank you

MINDI: aj. It is such an honor to be here.

AJ: You know [00:00:50] that in the introduction, I shared a whole bunch of stuff about what you do [00:00:55] today, but what I would really love to help our audience know is how did you get [00:01:00] into the business of owning and running what, honestly, one of the most [00:01:05] successful bridal shops in the country?

How did that start? How did you get into that?

MINDI: Yes. [00:01:10] Well, I was over 20 years ago, recently engaged and started shopping for my wedding dress, [00:01:15] and I went everywhere in Colorado that had a standup business and I [00:01:20] was like, okay, I’m gonna go check them out. And either it was an older rundown shop. With old [00:01:25] inventory and definitely not the vision that I wanted, but they had nice staff, or it was the [00:01:30] antithesis.

It was a beautiful showroom, gorgeous gowns, but not a [00:01:35] friendly environment. And so I remember shopping in both of those worlds thinking, [00:01:40] why can’t it be both? Why can’t it be a beautiful shop? Gorgeous. Products, but [00:01:45] then some of the friendliest people to help you feel beautiful for your wedding day. I mean, I felt [00:01:50] terrible shopping in some of these places, like maybe I didn’t have a high enough price point, or [00:01:55] my size wasn’t gonna be accessible, and I, I thought, you know what?

[00:02:00] There could be a better solution. And so after my wedding, I told my [00:02:05] husband, I said, I wanna fix it. I wanna create something that is both of those [00:02:10] worlds and I’d like to start my own business.

AJ: Okay. I think this is a really [00:02:15] big deal because all of you, uh, who are listening know that we often share this [00:02:20] statement, this sentiment that you are most powerfully positioned [00:02:25] to serve The person that you once were, and you and [00:02:30] Jordan, your husband, who guys are business partners.

You guys are kind of the epitome of that, and you didn’t [00:02:35] know it at the time clearly, but I mean, how long has it been? [00:02:40] We’ve

MINDI: been married 20 years and our shop’s been open. 18.

AJ: Yeah. So let’s take it back [00:02:45] 18 years ago to you guys. You had this experience 20 years [00:02:50] ago, roughly. Probably 21 years ago. Yes. You opened 18 years ago.

You identified a [00:02:55] problem and you’re like, I want to solve that. I want to make this different. [00:03:00] What was it? I guess, and I would love to hear like your thoughts and opinion [00:03:05] of like why Jordan said yes. Yeah. But like what was it about this particular [00:03:10] experience or about you specifically that was like, no, this is a big enough deal that I [00:03:15] actually wanna make a business around it.

MINDI: Well, I would say that I’ve [00:03:20] always wanted to have my own business. It was something that was like a deep desire in my heart, but I didn’t wanna [00:03:25] just start something, you know, in my twenties, that was just a random [00:03:30] start of business. So I was waiting. Honestly, I am a person of faith. I was waiting for God to reveal to me [00:03:35] kind of a need in a marketplace that would match my skillset.

And so it [00:03:40] kind of fell in my lap in a way because I had such a bad experience shopping and [00:03:45] wasn’t finding what I was looking for or the service I needed that I eventually went out of state and got my [00:03:50] dress. And I said to him, I said, if it doesn’t exist here, why don’t we create it? [00:03:55] And he thought it was a little wild because, you know, we were both teachers not making a lot of money, [00:04:00] but we had, uh, put a huge down payment.

Thanks to Jordan on our first [00:04:05] little house, our little home, and we were able to take a, take out, a home equity line of [00:04:10] credit to start this business. And um, you know, this was back in the day of Barnes and Noble. There was no chat [00:04:15] GPT. So I’d go and I’d buy these like business plan books and read everything about a [00:04:20] SWOT analysis and how do I start a business?

And we just won it. I mean. Kind of, [00:04:25] I would say ignorance is bliss because I, if I had known some of the challenges of [00:04:30] retail and overhead costs and things like that, it probably would’ve scared me away. But [00:04:35] because I was so passionate, like you said, to solve the problem of making a woman feel [00:04:40] beautiful.

Accepted and special regardless of her price point or her body type. [00:04:45] That those two things really made me feel like I am passionate enough to come [00:04:50] alongside and create that experience. But then also I, I recognize that that’s a skill that I feel like [00:04:55] God really gave me, and that’s celebrating others. I love making other people feel celebrated, [00:05:00] so I was like, that’s a very natural pairing.

From my gifts and the need in the marketplace. [00:05:05] And my husband absolutely agreed. He just was like, this is very risky. You know? [00:05:10] However, at that time we had no extra mouths to feed and if we were gonna go for it, [00:05:15] I felt like that was the time to go for it. So we went all in. Uh, and I just. [00:05:20] Did a hundred percent the business I didn’t like trickle in.

I, I literally quit my job, went [00:05:25] all in, didn’t make any money for the first three years and just put every profit [00:05:30] back into the business. And then it just grew substantially over the last 18 years.

AJ: So [00:05:35] I think that’s a good quick just, uh, reflection point. If everyone didn’t hear that [00:05:40] for three years. You basically didn’t make any money.

Anything you made just went [00:05:45] right back into the business. Correct. And I think it’s important because we live, which is not news [00:05:50] to anyone, but we live in a, I want it right now world. Like if it, if it hasn’t worked in the last [00:05:55] six months, then it’s not worth it. Or if it’s not succeeding in the first year, then this was a [00:06:00] waste of time and money.

But that’s not reality. That’s not what true success in business [00:06:05] looks like. It’s like it takes time. So can you just gimme a quick idea when you say, we made no [00:06:10] money for the three first three years. Like, take us back to those first three years for just a [00:06:15] quick minute and go, what does that actually mean?

MINDI: What does that mean? Okay. Well first of all, we took out a hundred [00:06:20] thousand dollars in 2007 as a line of key lock on our [00:06:25] house. So if we didn’t pay it back, we’d lose our home. I did everything in the meantime to [00:06:30] create extra revenue. So I worked seven days a week, but I’d teach piano lessons at the night.

I [00:06:35] would do errands for people for extra money. I would do whatever I could. My husband stayed as an [00:06:40] educator, so you know, we’re making 30,000 a year plus these piano lesson like on the [00:06:45] side. And so the first three years, our goal was to pay off the line of credit. Like just [00:06:50] before we pay ourself, we really try to live as much debt free as possible.

So we tackled the [00:06:55] debt and then. After the third year is when we were able to finally say, okay, if we wanted to take a [00:07:00] little bit of income, we could, but we paid that line of credit off first [00:07:05] and we lived very, very modestly. And people don’t actually [00:07:10] understand that. Sacrifices like that set you up in the long run.

So much better. But we [00:07:15] didn’t care that our friends got new cars or were having kids and everything. That was beautiful. [00:07:20] We were like, we see the end goal. And I would say that’s probably one of ours. [00:07:25] Superpowers Jordan and I is, we’re able to really just like be super gritty [00:07:30] for many months and years at a time if we know the bigger vision.

And so it is [00:07:35] something I tell people as I coach, I, I’m encouraging them. It does take three to five years [00:07:40] before you receive an income and it doesn’t just come to you [00:07:45] and it’s a grind. And so if you’re struggling with traffic or anything in your [00:07:50] business, I’m always like, well, how much have you. Done the grind.

How much [00:07:55] have you really gone out there and after it? Because it took us working in the [00:08:00] evenings, working in the Mor, like doing a lot of extra work that other people aren’t willing to always [00:08:05] sacrifice, but now we are reaping the benefit.

AJ: Yeah. I just think that’s just [00:08:10] really important for anyone who’s listening who you just feel like it’s not working right.

[00:08:15] You’re on the verge of giving up and if you just reflect back and go, well, how long has it been? [00:08:20] Yeah. A month, six months, a year, even two years, even three [00:08:25] years. Like I, you know, I relate to that because it was a full five years. We were in [00:08:30] year five of brand builders group before Rory and I started paying ourselves.[00:08:35]

MINDI: Mm-hmm. That’s pretty average actually. That’s, yeah,

AJ: five years [00:08:40] and. We were living off of savings. We had to sell a car. Uh, like there [00:08:45] was a lot of things that had to happen, but it’s like, I think it’s just [00:08:50] encouragement. If you’re listening to this to go, it can still happen, [00:08:55] right? Like totally. Uh, but it also means it requires.[00:09:00]

More of you in some cases than maybe you’ve been giving and that might be an opportunity to [00:09:05] reflect on it. I just think that’s like such an important part of so many entrepreneur stories. We look at [00:09:10] the success that you’re having today and we can compare it. We try to compare it to the [00:09:15] success or lack thereof that we’re having and it’s like, it’s that good reminder of like, I cannot compare my [00:09:20] step one to your step 1000, my year one to your year 18.[00:09:25]

That’s the problem is like you cannot compare those things that they’re not [00:09:30] the same. So I just think that’s like a good highlight moment of, for anyone who’s listening of [00:09:35] like, it might be looking good now. Yeah. On the backs of a [00:09:40] lot of.

MINDI: Man, I think of how many things we’ve missed, aj like you two [00:09:45] probably over the years of, you know, social involvement or, you know, [00:09:50] I’m thinking of the evenings that people went out and we were working bridal shows [00:09:55] or, you know, I, there’s so many sacrifices that you have to make as long as you have the big [00:10:00] picture in mind and the purpose of like, here’s who we’re here to help and we know the big dream is just gonna [00:10:05] take a long time to get there.

AJ: Yeah. And I think that’s an important part of, like, you, you [00:10:10] said a, a key word. It’s like who you’re doing this for. Right. And that’s what makes it [00:10:15] worth it. Mm-hmm. It’s not paycheck or dollar. It’s like, Hey, no, like. I had this [00:10:20] horrible experience. I never want anyone else to have that. And there’s women coming into my stores where [00:10:25] I get to change the trajectory of how they experience love and fashion [00:10:30] and body image on one of the most important days of their life.

Right? Like it’s a big, I think that who [00:10:35] part is, um, a big part of it. Okay. I could stay, I could stay right there for the next [00:10:40] 45 minutes, but I’m not, ’cause everyone else wants me to probably like move on. [00:10:45] I think it’s a really unique thing that Jordan initiated and you [00:10:50] eventually got on board with. How do you use your reputation?

How do you use your [00:10:55] personal brand to actually help you grow your bridal store business? And I [00:11:00] think this is a really important conversation for so many people listening, because I hear all the [00:11:05] time, all the time, everywhere I go, oh, a personal brand is just for [00:11:10] influencers. Or authors or podcasters or speakers, or you [00:11:15] have to be this thought leader to grow a personal brand, and that’s not what we [00:11:20] believe and that’s not what you guys have done.

I mean, you guys really have used your reputation, your [00:11:25] personal brand, to grow an amazing, thriving business in the [00:11:30] bridal industry. Can you just talk about how that has come about?

MINDI: [00:11:35] Yeah, it’s the word you used is what you’ve taught us anyways. It’s just been like brand is [00:11:40] like the same thing as reputation.

And I love how you and Rory put that because [00:11:45] it just simplifies the understanding of why so, so many people I think resist [00:11:50] going online about their lives because either one, they don’t wanna feel braggy. It’s really [00:11:55] kind of messy. ’cause you like live in a community where people know you in real life and then you don’t wanna be like, oh, and this [00:12:00] is also who I am online and try to be a different person.

So we’ve tried to. Show up [00:12:05] authentically online, the good and the bad, not just highlight reels of this is how [00:12:10] awesome we are. You know, we really want it to be, hey, sometimes there’s hard days, sometimes there’s tough [00:12:15] things, uh, and realistic. But I will just say once you can get [00:12:20] over the fact that like it’s a little awkward to show up online.[00:12:25]

You realize like we’re just highlighting the reputation, we’ve been living [00:12:30] out our whole adult lives. We’re just highlighting that on the, the, you know, [00:12:35] internet so that people who might not get a chance to get up close can [00:12:40] feel like they are. Because now if you come into my boutique on any day of the [00:12:45] week, I think you’re pretty familiar with Jordan and I, even if we haven’t gotten to shake your [00:12:50] hand, but people feel like they can trust the business they’re going to [00:12:55] shop at because they know the reputation of the owners.

And so as [00:13:00] we’ve grown over the years, I don’t interfa interface very often with the bride and groom. [00:13:05] I sadly, you know. That’s one of the things I miss. But as we’ve grown and evolved, I have the most [00:13:10] incredible team that does that. However, I still feel like the customer feels close to us [00:13:15] because of how much we’ve shown up online.

And so thanks to Brand Builders Group [00:13:20] and like you said, Jordan, uh, kicking me into doing this, I realize, [00:13:25] okay, this is actually super important regardless of your business [00:13:30] type. Like we happen to be in the wedding industry. Let’s just say that’s on the side. We have our personal [00:13:35] account so that you can feel like, oh, these people, like they’re raising kids, they’re trying to do the [00:13:40] thing.

They showed up at moments that were hard. They [00:13:45] care about their community. What are things that they value? And then if [00:13:50] people relate to those things that we value, they’re more bought in to be [00:13:55] customers ’cause they feel like they’re connected to us. It’s been so strange, even our, you know, marriage and family [00:14:00] podcast.

We’ve had people come to our bridal shop from hours away that found [00:14:05] our YouTube channel, loved our. You know, perspective on marriage [00:14:10] and then said, oh my gosh, I wanna come here to shop. And I didn’t get to personally meet them, but [00:14:15] my staff was like, that is so cool that they felt close to you and they [00:14:20] trusted us.

So it’s very reciprocal and more than I ever imagined. [00:14:25] But basically I would just like to say to people, your reputation if you’re only in [00:14:30] person, can only go so far. ’cause it’s dependent on who you run into the grocery store or see at the PTO [00:14:35] meeting. When you put your reputation online. It’s like a 10 x [00:14:40] effect.

So people are starting to feel like they know you and they can hang out with you. [00:14:45] It’s kind of weird, actually. I was at market last week in Atlanta and people would be like, oh my gosh, Hey Mindy, [00:14:50] how’s you know the dog? You know, like they felt like, I don’t even know them, but they knew my life and [00:14:55] they felt like we were friends.

And so that was cool from a coaching perspective, [00:15:00] because you know. This is a future client that I’m hoping to engage with, [00:15:05] but she feels like she can relate to me as a mom, wife, whatever. And it’s just [00:15:10] really neat because like I said, it’s just, it makes the splash a little bit bigger in the pool of [00:15:15] reputation.

AJ: Yeah, I love that. And I think it’s, it’s like you guys are really. I [00:15:20] think paving the path in so many ways for other people in your [00:15:25] industry to also be able to do the same thing. And I think that’s like a great reminder and like one of the [00:15:30] reasons that I wanted to have Mindy on the show, other than I know her personally and she’s just amazing and a wealth of [00:15:35] knowledge and she’s fun and so many other reasons, but it’s also because I think there is this [00:15:40] misnomer that personal branding is tied to.

All these other [00:15:45] things. Oh, you have to be a course creator and all these other things, and it’s just not true. It’s like [00:15:50] we all have a personal brand and you can leverage it to the benefit of what you’re doing right [00:15:55] now, of helping people get to know you, like you, and trust you, thus [00:16:00] then introducing your business to them.

But this is about you as a human, not what you [00:16:05] sell. It’s about right. Holding real life human connection in a way that we’ve never been able to do [00:16:10] it easier, faster, and cheaper than we can do right now online. And [00:16:15] there’s a, an acceleration of trust and reputation that happens globally [00:16:20] in some cases, that then allows you to grow your business because you’re allowing [00:16:25] people to get to know you.

Yes, there’s a lot of power in that. So [00:16:30] much power. I think you’re doing it really, really well now. You guys have, you [00:16:35] guys were already super successful at your business and already a [00:16:40] leading expert in the industry long before we encountered you at Brand Builders Group. So one of the [00:16:45] questions I have is, um, this concept that I, I think a lot of people struggle with, and I say this [00:16:50] from the Brand Builders Group community, but not just that community and a lot of [00:16:55] communities I’m a part of where people really struggle with this idea of imposter syndrome.

They [00:17:00] think that this knowledge they have is common knowledge and they don’t really think that what they [00:17:05] do or they have done is all that special or unique or special. Thus, they don’t believe they really [00:17:10] have the power to help someone else. So the question I have for you is, [00:17:15] and not just in a business sense, but in just like a human sense of like what were some of the [00:17:20] pivotal moments that you’ve had in business and in family [00:17:25] where you had this idea or you started to believe it’s like.

This can [00:17:30] translate into real thought leadership for an industry. It’s like what we’re doing is different. [00:17:35] Like there is something that’s working here that could help other bridal shop owners. [00:17:40] Like what were some of the things that led you to go, wait, maybe we are doing [00:17:45] something really unique. Maybe we are doing something that other people aren’t doing.

Because [00:17:50] you guys are, and you’re helping other bridal shop owners from around the country, like that [00:17:55] was an evolution of expertise and experience and success. So [00:18:00] what were some of those moments that you were like, wait, maybe we are doing something right [00:18:05] here. Maybe it could help someone else.

MINDI: Yeah, I mean, gosh, there’s a lot of [00:18:10] moments over the years that I think of when you ask me that question.

Anything from when I’m [00:18:15] seeing the amount of traffic and the amount of brides coming from so far away to have this experience, [00:18:20] and I hear that this door’s in the same town were dead and had no appointments, like I’m like. [00:18:25] We had 40 brides today and I would hear that they had none. [00:18:30] And I was like, that’s very different.

That’s interesting. Right? So lots of Saturdays like that over the [00:18:35] years. And I would hear that not from brides. I would hear that from brand reps. You know how they travel [00:18:40] from location to location to sell you their products. And they would go from their store to my store [00:18:45] and say, there’s nobody at that store.

What are you doing here? What’s going on? Like, what is the [00:18:50] juice? Are you serving people here? I was like, nothing. We’re just like doing our very best. But so I [00:18:55] started to realize, okay, in my own local market we were. We were just seeing so [00:19:00] much success with our processes of, you know, and I don’t wanna say sales, but just in [00:19:05] the sense of we are driving a ton of traffic, we were unique in how we [00:19:10] serve them.

Our experience is super personalized and we were just seeing a tremendous amount of [00:19:15] success. Then I would go to our industry market events, which is where we go and buy. [00:19:20] And you know, you start to have people come up to you and ask you questions like, Hey. How are you guys doing this? [00:19:25] Or, I saw you did this on Facebook, tell me about that, or what’s this sale about?

And then eventually, uh, [00:19:30] a friend of mine asked me to do a little speaking session and I used to be an [00:19:35] educator and I love training and development, so I was like, sure. So I spoke at Atlanta Merchandise [00:19:40] Mart for bridal shop owners, and it was kind of the first spark of, I, I [00:19:45] wasn’t coaching, I wasn’t speaking or anything.

But they asked me to speak on some marketing tips. [00:19:50] I did it, and afterwards I was like, swarmed by all these owners that were like, we’ve never [00:19:55] heard any of this before. Nobody’s ever talked about the way you explain how you promote [00:20:00] your, your, um, something new is the name of my bridal shop. Nobody’s ever talked about how they promote their [00:20:05] business this way.

Will you do some speaking sessions for our store? We, and so there just [00:20:10] started to be this little bit of a whisper. A clue that like this is [00:20:15] needed in our industry. Nobody’s thinking outside the box. What’s tricky is [00:20:20] when you’re industry specific, we all start to just look at each other for ideas. And [00:20:25] I would just say to you is that for me, since the beginning, since day one, I’ve never wanted to [00:20:30] go to my own industry to learn ideas.

I’ve been like a much wider. [00:20:35] Bigger net kind of thinker. I read books, not about bridal. I like to [00:20:40] expose myself to different ways of thinking. And so I’ve always said like, oh man, that’s how that works in the [00:20:45] tire industry. That’s really interesting. You know, if I go get my tires changed, I’d be like, how are [00:20:50] they selling these aftercare packages?

Let me listen to their spiel and I would listen to it. I’d go to a spa [00:20:55] and I’d listen to them do this whole interview with me about my skin type, and then make recommendations to [00:21:00] me about what type of products I need after my massage. And I was like. That was really fascinating. Can you say it [00:21:05] again and maybe like, you’re so weird.

You’re so weird. But I’m like taking notes [00:21:10] wherever I go because then what I would do is I’d say, okay, the world at large, [00:21:15] how are they successful in their experience? They provide customers so. [00:21:20] It doesn’t have to just be a Disney world, but everywhere you go you can like be a learner, an observer. And [00:21:25] then I would take it back to bridal and I’d tweak it and make it my own.

And so I think that’s [00:21:30] where I was different in this industry is that, like I said, everybody just kind of copies each [00:21:35] other. And maybe this is true for most industries, but I was like, no, I wanna kind of reach out. And [00:21:40] bring good practices and apply it to, um, our industry. And so I’m very different [00:21:45] and that’s why I named my brand something new.

I’m always trying something new. I’m always [00:21:50] exploring how can we do it better and what does a customer need today? ’cause it’s very different than what [00:21:55] they needed 18 years ago. What they need today. And so every year we’re evaluating how can we [00:22:00] be the best, how can we do better for our customer and get out of the way, you [00:22:05] know what I’m saying?

Like not make it about ourselves. So I would say that was a spark maybe six years ago [00:22:10] and um, slowly and truly started coaching, teaching. And now we have our own company and it’s [00:22:15] just pretty, pretty delightful. ’cause to your point, we’re serving who we once were. [00:22:20]

AJ: Yeah. You know, I think this is really.

Really [00:22:25] important for those of you who are listening, who undervalue and underestimate [00:22:30] what you do, that is unique, special, and [00:22:35] extraordinary. And I think that a lot of people, they [00:22:40] undervalue their own experience, their own expertise, and what’s [00:22:45] ordinary to you is most often extraordinary to someone [00:22:50] else.

You, you were able to pick up what was ordinary in your [00:22:55] everyday life, but when you went out to others around you, it was extraordinary. Right? But you also [00:23:00] made the decision of I gotta do something about this. Right? This isn’t just, [00:23:05] wasn’t just a compliment when you were out at market, this was like, no, there, there there’s something [00:23:10] here.

So today you guys still run the something new bridal shop. [00:23:15] Yep. Also have a thriving coaching business, coaching other bridal shop [00:23:20] owners. How was the evolution from, you know, 18 years [00:23:25] as bridal shop owners, which you still are using your personal brand to grow that business, [00:23:30] make it what it is today, which was again, already on a [00:23:35] fast path to success, to also being like, okay, now there’s this other thing [00:23:40] too that we’re gonna add in because you, it wasn’t.

You diverged. It wasn’t a divergent from [00:23:45] what you were doing. You’re still serving the same industry. You’re still serving a segment of the same people. It’s [00:23:50] just really more in connection with the, you know, it’s like you, you were [00:23:55] serving the person who used to be as a young bride. Now you’re serving the person who used to be as a struggling [00:24:00] bridal shop owner, right?

Mm-hmm. And so there was evolution in the who, some addition to [00:24:05] that. You didn’t have to do that. Y could have just like coasted off into the [00:24:10] sunset. Yeah. Had a really awesome business. I think about that sometimes.

MINDI: Like why did I [00:24:15] go for the hard, you know, I’m joking.

AJ: Like, what was it in all of that? Because I think a lot [00:24:20] of us are struggling with that.

It’s like, should I go do this new thing? Or I had a conversation [00:24:25] with, uh, a friend of mine who’s an EO last. Friday at a coffee shop, [00:24:30] literally. And it was, he just had a successful exit from his business and he is like, [00:24:35] now I could just go start another one of those businesses, but I don’t really want to.

[00:24:40] And he goes, but you know, it’s like this whole idea of coaching and consulting. He’s like, I mean, I feel [00:24:45] like what I do is pretty basic and I’m like. Okay, well, as [00:24:50] a avatar, I will tell you the words that you just used. I feel like I’m hearing Chinese, like I don’t even know what you’re [00:24:55] talking about when it comes to all this cybersecurity stuff.

So there’s just still this segment of [00:25:00] people underestimate the power of the knowledge they have and how it can help someone else. You guys [00:25:05] saw it. You noticed it, then you did something different. You did something about it, and you started a whole new [00:25:10] branch of business coaching bridal shop owners. So.

How did that happen? [00:25:15] Like how did you go from this brick and mortar business to now having a hugely [00:25:20] successful and growing bridal shop coaching business?

MINDI: That’s a great question. You [00:25:25] know, it kind of goes back to that six years ago when I was inundated with people after I [00:25:30] spoke, it was just enough to say, I’m kind of interested in this.

Also, I [00:25:35] pay attention to clues. I feel like God gives us little clues along our lifetime. And [00:25:40] remember, I, I used to be a teacher. My master’s degree is in education, specifically in [00:25:45] curriculum design. Which is crazy and I didn’t know how I would use that, but [00:25:50] fast forward, I’m sitting there going like, my passion and skillset, [00:25:55] natural skillset is training and development.

I know how to do something that these people are asking me about. [00:26:00] This kind of makes sense here. So after that event, I did a few one-on-one [00:26:05] coaching experiences, saw a lot of traction, and a really successful firm [00:26:10] in the bridal industry. Asked me to be a coach for bridal owners, [00:26:15] just as a one-on-one consultant.

So I said, Hey, that’s probably the next step. [00:26:20] It’ll put me on another person’s stage. It’s a good open door to start [00:26:25] and I did three years of one-on-one coaching with dozens and dozens of clients, [00:26:30] probably 80 people. I would look back and say, and I was really a student at the [00:26:35] time as well, like while I was coaching them, I was studying and taking diligent [00:26:40] notes on this avatar of like, what are their biggest pain points?

What are they [00:26:45] struggling with? What do they show up every single week and ask me about? So I was. Again, [00:26:50] delayed gratification, right? I was like taking in thought on, if I were [00:26:55] to really solve their problems, do they have enough, consistently same problems [00:27:00] across this big grouping of people? And after the three year, you know, coaching [00:27:05] one-on-one, which was so rewarding, but also to be honest, very exhausting.

It was the [00:27:10] grind, I mean. I would come home sometimes from eight hours of one-on-ones and I [00:27:15] couldn’t even like talk or listen and I realized I had to pause. I had to pause. It was too [00:27:20] much. ’cause I was also running my shop and I have four little kids, so I paused [00:27:25] and took a like three month sabbatical and said, I’m, I’m.

I left the [00:27:30] firm. Super great terms. We high five each other all the time. They’re awesome. And the three month [00:27:35] sabbatical was time for me to reflect and pray. Like what does it look like next for [00:27:40] me? I knew all this information. I knew how I could serve people, but in order to [00:27:45] scale, I couldn’t develop just hourly coaching plans anymore because you have a [00:27:50] limit on your time.

There’s only a certain amount of time you have every week, so I could only serve [00:27:55] however many people I had hours to serve. So it’s almost like a counseling session where it’s [00:28:00] like, once you’re booked, you’re booked. And so I was like, I have more people wanting what I know and what I [00:28:05] wanna share than the amount of hours I have in a week.

So now I think it’s time to launch something [00:28:10] else. So in that sabbatical, I really [00:28:15] spent time like, you know, interviewing really smart people, uh, praying, reading books. [00:28:20] How would it look? To solve the problem in more of a digital [00:28:25] format. So I created almost like a Netflix for bridal shop owners where you log into a [00:28:30] platform and you can search a keyword of whatever you’re struggling with.

And I have it all super [00:28:35] organized with over 60 courses and downloadables and templates and everything you can imagine from [00:28:40] the years of one-on-one coaching to know what their problem really is. Then I [00:28:45] created a solution that now is like a forever living database of my life. [00:28:50] Work on how to be a successful bridal shop owner.

So now we have people from New [00:28:55] Zealand, uk, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, US all over the world, over a hundred clients full on [00:29:00] in our program. And not just doing that is really cool. ’cause aj, I decided to be a [00:29:05] practitioner coach, meaning I don’t want to leave my bridal shop to just coach. My bridal shop [00:29:10] has become, in essence, a hub of research to try out [00:29:15] my solutions that I come up with and my crazy mind.

And I, I try everything out for a year [00:29:20] before I introduce it to my clients and I make sure it’s. Actually gonna work. [00:29:25] And then I teach on it monthly live. I solve problems every month and continue to add to the, [00:29:30] to the platform. So it’s just been really cool ’cause now it can scale. There’s no limit. I could [00:29:35] serve as many people as they want, like as many people as want that want to become [00:29:40] profitable in their business and have a bridal shop that they enjoy, that they don’t [00:29:45] resent because it’s weekends.

Every weekend I get to, I’m so fortunate I get to. [00:29:50] Use my shop as like a hub of education. And so our team is just [00:29:55] on fire in the sense of they realize they’re not just making a difference in the brides that we [00:30:00] serve, but they’re actually making a difference in the industry. And we’re teaching people how it can look [00:30:05] different and it doesn’t have to die.

Like most retail, it can be very focused on [00:30:10] providing a bride the moment she’s always dreamed of. And we’re hoping that never goes away. [00:30:15]

AJ: Oh my gosh, y’all, if y’all do not. Feel inspired. [00:30:20] Hearing that. Then I need you to pause, rewind, and listen to that again, because [00:30:25] I think this is a really important part of the future of business, right?

There is the [00:30:30] business, but then there is the benefit, the gift, the responsibility of teaching people what [00:30:35] you have learned. That doesn’t mean you have to leave your business, sell your business, retire [00:30:40] from your business. There is a way for you to be a practitioner and a coach. And I [00:30:45] think that’s a really important thing because a lot, we hear a lot of, well, you have to [00:30:50] go all in and you have to leave this one thing to do the next thing.

And sometimes that’s true, [00:30:55] but there’s another way too of going, I can have an [00:31:00] established business, have the business run and still do the other things that I feel [00:31:05] called to do that are. Forwarding the influence that are making a [00:31:10] bigger impact and that my team actually gets to come with me. It’s not something I’m doing [00:31:15] by myself.

It’s something that the entire team is coming along the For the [00:31:20] ride. I think that’s a really big deal and it’s a great reminder to me, and this is what I wrote [00:31:25] down when you were talking, is no matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’ve been [00:31:30] through. No matter your successes or failures or all the things you tried, [00:31:35] the things that you kept doing, the things that you stopped doing, nothing is for n all your [00:31:40] experience, all your trials, all your efforts, all your ex, you know, like, you know, [00:31:45] temporary, uh, endeavors, like whatever it is that we’re all going through, they’re like, oh, that’s a waste of time, [00:31:50] or That didn’t work.

It’s like, that’s not true. All the things that you have done and are doing [00:31:55] currently are preparing you for what’s next. And it, it’s a gift and [00:32:00] a responsibility to not forget that and to actually use it to do something greater.

MINDI: [00:32:05] Totally agree. I couldn’t agree more. He hasn’t like, I don’t feel like God has wasted a [00:32:10] thing or a moment, or a relationship or a failure.

All of [00:32:15] it can be used as lessons learned and applied for your future [00:32:20] decision making skills. So it’s, it’s been a ride to say the least, but it’s been [00:32:25] a really good one.

AJ: Also for the benefit of others. Yeah. Like [00:32:30] I, I love that old saying, it’s like you do not have to recreate the wheel. Right? There have been enough [00:32:35] people who’ve tweaked and fine tuned the wheel that you can learn from them.

You just [00:32:40] have to have enough people who go, I want to show you. I want to teach you, [00:32:45] and this doesn’t apply just to the bridal shop industry. This could be any industry. If you’re listening of [00:32:50] going, how could I start teaching all that? I have learned all that I know [00:32:55] in addition to not leaving the main thing, but I I can also create this thought [00:33:00] leadership.

Yeah. And education path too.

MINDI: Yeah. I think of all the mentors and business coaches [00:33:05] I’ve had, I’m sure you as well, and. I think that’s also a part of just a [00:33:10] gratitude piece here of saying like, I’m so thankful for all the people that [00:33:15] have shown me the way, even though it wasn’t maybe industry specific, that’s what I was searching for, but [00:33:20] because they did shed light or mentor me in a certain way or really, [00:33:25] you know, like I said, teach me new things.

I was so grateful that now it’s [00:33:30] almost like a duty and a responsibility to give back. And there’s a quote I used to always. [00:33:35] Tell myself when I was hungry for more and it was, life’s too [00:33:40] short to earn, to learn your own lessons. So you’re gonna learn [00:33:45] your own lessons, but why not also learn from others?

Because that is the [00:33:50] speed, like where I am today. 18 years is really where some people are at 40. [00:33:55] It’s only because I learned from other people’s lessons and I was so hungry. I asked a lot of [00:34:00] questions and I sought out education. There’s just so much value in learning from other people’s [00:34:05] missteps in addition to your own, because I basically doubled my time, right?

Like I, I learned from [00:34:10] their lessons and I learned from mine. So I just, like I said, I’m really grateful for the [00:34:15] mentors and coaches I’ve had along the way, and I hope that I can be that type of a person for [00:34:20] someone else.

AJ: I love that, and you’re just so great at that in general. Okay. [00:34:25] I have three questions that I hope we can tackle in the next 10 minutes.

So if I move [00:34:30] quickly, that’s why, because I’m watching the clock and I know that we’re, we’re running out of time, but I have three really important [00:34:35] questions that I think are super pertinent to this conversation. So here’s the first one. What [00:34:40] advice would you give to someone who wants to move from business ownership?[00:34:45]

Into industry thought leader,

MINDI: I would say to find where [00:34:50] those people gather and go start to talk to them. [00:34:55] Mm. So this could be a conference, this could be a Facebook group [00:35:00] online. This could be wherever they are. You just need to start by having [00:35:05] conversations and get to know what are they struggling with.

Because to your point, a [00:35:10] lot of times we think, oh, that’s obvious. Sometimes it’s not what’s [00:35:15] obvious to them as a successful person in our industry might be something that they’re struggling with. So I [00:35:20] think you need to get on the ground and really start to understand their problems. And that only starts with [00:35:25] conversations.

So if you can go in person, I’m a big believer of in person. [00:35:30] Experiences. Sometimes they have, you know, real estate network gatherings or things like that. And just [00:35:35] get around the people that are struggling, listen to their problems. And then the second piece to [00:35:40] that is start to serve them with free resources.

So if that’s free phone [00:35:45] calls, if that’s free downloadables, if that’s free website with a whole bunch of re like [00:35:50] tons of tips, however you can serve them, because at first. I did it for free. You [00:35:55] know what I’m saying? Like after I spoke at that first time and these stores started calling me with questions, I would just [00:36:00] answer them.

I wanna help you. I would just answer them. But then I kept track of what they were struggling with [00:36:05] so that I was prepared for more things to come.

AJ: Yeah, I think that’s good. I [00:36:10] mean, step one from going from business owner to industry, thought leader is like, you gotta know what the [00:36:15] industry is struggling with.

What are people like you struggling with? What problems do they have? How would you [00:36:20] answer them In part two is and start answering them, right? Yes, yes. Answer the [00:36:25] questions. Share what you’ve learned. Be on panels, speak at conferences, take phone calls, answer [00:36:30] dms. It’s just start giving away the knowledge you have for free.

MINDI: And I thought of [00:36:35] one more thing. A lot of industries have publications like Little Specialty magazines, and so you [00:36:40] can offer to be a guest columnist. Like every week you could say, Hey, I would [00:36:45] be totally fine just for free, providing you content every time you release a [00:36:50] magazine or a publication. And even though some of those are online, I just think that’s another place to show [00:36:55] up.

They appreciate the not having to write an article to fill page seven every week, you [00:37:00] know? But I’m just saying these are some really easy ways to just. Start to show up [00:37:05] as a person that does know what they’re talking about and provides free education and eventually [00:37:10] you can charge.

AJ: Love that. So, so good.

You just gotta make the effort, [00:37:15] right? Reach out. Yes. Make the effort, do the thing. Okay. Second questions. How can [00:37:20] leaders, business owners, but we’re say leaders identify when it’s time to scale their [00:37:25] influence beyond their company. When did you know like, okay, [00:37:30] this isn’t just something I’m doing in my company anymore.

I’m gonna scale this influence what I’ve learned [00:37:35] outside of the company.

MINDI: Well, I would say in your market, if [00:37:40] you’re kind of dominating, you know, not to be weird, but over the 18 years we’ve seen a [00:37:45] lot of competitors come and go, and so that was a key indicator that like we’re doing [00:37:50] something right because we’ve stood the test of time.

Right, and we’ve seen [00:37:55] consistent growth every year. So it’s like, okay, you might be doing something right. If you’ve seen [00:38:00] consistent growth every year and you have the longevity that has surpassed other [00:38:05] people trying to do the same work, then when you start to get asked questions, [00:38:10] that’s your clue.

AJ: Good.

Those are three things I’m gonna, I’m gonna recap for [00:38:15] everyone. Number two, it’s like when you’ve like really tested the [00:38:20] time. Test. Right? It’s like there’s longevity, like you’ve passed the time [00:38:25] test like you’re still in business, right? I think this is a good reminder. Yeah. It’s the majority of all [00:38:30] small businesses fail in the first five years.

Mm-hmm. When I say the majority, it’s like [00:38:35] 90% of small businesses fail in the first nine years, and less than 10% may [00:38:40] get past 10 years. So that longevity of just like, again, a [00:38:45] reminder, it’s like if it’s year one, maybe not it, but it’s like, how have you like really made it [00:38:50] through the test of time? So that’s one.

Number one, longevity. Number two, is that consistent growth year over year. [00:38:55] Do you continue to grow regardless of the market, uh, administration, [00:39:00] the economy, and whatever your competitors do? Are you continuing to see consistent growth? [00:39:05] Number three, when people just start coming to you. And I think [00:39:10] those are three great indicators of, all right, now this is, this is a great [00:39:15] potential time to start scaling your influence beyond your ordinary business of [00:39:20] you’re still in business check, you’re still growing check, and [00:39:25] people are now coming to you asking you, how are you doing that Exactly.

Those are simple, [00:39:30] awesome tips. Um, you heard it here first. [00:39:35] Those, those are great. All right, last question. Um, and then I wanna, uh, well, sorry, I [00:39:40] lied. Last business question then I wanna talk about this awesome freebie that you have for our [00:39:45] audience. On the same kind of topic, what’s one action [00:39:50] that you would suggest or recommend someone take to start building industry [00:39:55] credibility?

MINDI: That’s really good. I would say, first of all, I’ve already mentioned a [00:40:00] few, right? Offer free advice. Show up where they’re hanging out, be [00:40:05] supportive, be a phone call away for people having questions offer to write on [00:40:10] platforms that need a columnist or a specialist to answer those questions too. [00:40:15] But beyond that, beyond those things that we already talked about, it’s really [00:40:20] starting to use positioning statements in your marketing, in your personal brand [00:40:25] and reputation.

And when I say positioning statements, things like. [00:40:30] Our industry’s thought leader on marketing in such and [00:40:35] such domain, or for us Colorado’s best wedding dress shopping [00:40:40] experience. There’s so much power in positioning statements, and this is kind of a [00:40:45] nitty gritty thing, but I just think that if you can curate a couple really important [00:40:50] ones.

Start to kind of wrap those around all the different [00:40:55] places you show up, whether that’s online, on your website, on your Instagram handle. We’ve even [00:41:00] bought domain names like that before where it’s like the positioning statement so that we [00:41:05] own the search words of the positioning statement so that people start to come.

It’s [00:41:10] just kind of, it’s like laying a really good cement foundation for what you’re about to build. [00:41:15] So I, I think, you know, we wanna. Make sure that we’re [00:41:20] saying what we do and who we are and how we’re the expert, and then [00:41:25] offer all the free support around it. But sometimes if we just say on our personal [00:41:30] website or whatever, oh, I’m Mindy.

I’m a mom and a business owner, or whatever. No, I wanna be the [00:41:35] best. Profitable business like I will teach you profitability. If you’re a bridal shop owner [00:41:40] anywhere in the world, I’m the best coach for that. And then I own all the positioning statements, [00:41:45] wherever that is. Then I want people to think of my name synonymous with that type [00:41:50] of position.

Like this lady is saying, she can teach bridal shops how to be profitable more [00:41:55] than anybody else can, and that you need her business school more than anyone else. [00:42:00] So when I wrap around those business, you know, positioning statements [00:42:05] to how I show up, it’s a match. Because if I just showed up talking about [00:42:10] business, but didn’t tell people my purpose, mm-hmm.

I think it would be confusion. But I [00:42:15] love how they kind of go hand in hand and so. My business [00:42:20] pages give a ton of free support. Every video is like, Hey, these are ways to [00:42:25] increase your Google reviews. Hey, this is how you can retain staff. Here’s how you can pay people better. [00:42:30] I mean, I give all this free knowledge all over the account, but if you read who we are [00:42:35] and how we help people, it’s like we teach business owners how to be profitable so they can have a business [00:42:40] that they enjoy.

And so we’re really clear with how we’re supporting them. [00:42:45] We show up everywhere online that way. So I’m just saying that would be a first step for me is just start to tell people [00:42:50] who you’re here to help and how you’re gonna help ’em, but then do it and have it be a match. [00:42:55]

AJ: Really important, because I think that kind of comes back to this like little bit of a topic that we [00:43:00] had earlier around.

Imposter syndrome, like a lot of people don’t do [00:43:05] it because they, one, they don’t acknowledge or see what they’re doing as unique, special, even though [00:43:10] it is, but then they have a real hard time acknowledging that publicly to [00:43:15] others. But it’s kind of one of those weird catch 22 things. It’s like people [00:43:20] don’t know if you don’t tell them.

Right. Like they actually, you have to tell [00:43:25] them I can’t. I would just, it made me think about this funny. Funny event. I was [00:43:30] speaking at years, this was years ago. And I was a speaker on stage and it was at this huge advertising [00:43:35] promotional conference. And I was on stage speaking and I get [00:43:40] down and I just offered to do like an after session q and a for anyone who wanted to stick around.

And this [00:43:45] one person walked up to me and they’re like, so like, what do you do for like a real job? [00:43:50] And I was like, what do you mean? And they were like, like, what’s like your nine to five? And I [00:43:55] thought to myself. I’m a speaker. Like, what do you mean? Like, that’s what I [00:44:00] do is what I just did for you. And they were like, wait, you’re a speaker, like full time.

Like, [00:44:05] that’s your job. I was like, yes. Then, [00:44:10] so I, I, I had, I had this aha moment and I went back and I read my bio and [00:44:15] my bio did not have in there that I was a speaker, a [00:44:20] consultant, a trainer, or a coach. Isn’t that crazy? [00:44:25] They just sat in a room with me for an hour, experienced what I do, [00:44:30] and did not know what I did because that like so much of [00:44:35] it was like I didn’t tell them.

But I didn’t tell them this is what I [00:44:40] do, this is what I research, this is what I talk about, like my profession is what you’re [00:44:45] experiencing. And I’m like, this guy just literally thought I was like some volunteer that came [00:44:50] in and was like hosting a session. And it was like an aha reckoning moment for me of [00:44:55] like, they don’t know if you don’t explicitly outline and tell [00:45:00] them.

Correct. That’s our job.

MINDI: Correct. And so. [00:45:05] Yes. I just feel like it was one of the very basic first things someone can do [00:45:10] is get really clear on how can you explain it in 30 seconds or less [00:45:15] what you do, and that you are the leader in such and such. And so that is, is something [00:45:20] I’ve, you know, tried a few times in the sense of, you know, you try to explain it and, oh, they didn’t get it, [00:45:25] so I gotta reword it the next time.

And you experiment with it. You have to [00:45:30] tell the world what you wanna help them with if you want them to see you as somebody that’s a thought leader. [00:45:35]

AJ: Yeah. That’s so, so, so, so true and so good. And a good reminder to all of us is [00:45:40] that they don’t know if you don’t tell them. And so a part of that is that [00:45:45] positioning.

Okay. A transition as we’re wrapping up here. And so this [00:45:50] is two, part one is a question I have for you, and two is this [00:45:55] awesome giveaway, um, that we have for our audience. And so here’s my last question for you today. We’ve mentioned this [00:46:00] a few times throughout this interview that you and your husband Jordan.

Started this [00:46:05] bridal shop business together. You guys are still happily married and [00:46:10] happily in business, and he is also part of the bridal shop coaching business and [00:46:15] co-host with the podcast. You guys do so much together. So here’s my question. [00:46:20] What have you learned about working with your spouse [00:46:25] that you think applies to relationships universally?

[00:46:30] So what have you learned about working with your spouse that applies to relationships [00:46:35] universally?

MINDI: That you each have your own strengths and to let each other run in [00:46:40] each other’s own lane without getting upset that [00:46:45] they don’t operate just like you in your lane. So I thought just because [00:46:50] we were married that he would understand what I meant by things, or that there would [00:46:55] be this really easy flow, but our brains are so different and the [00:47:00] way we operate are so different.

I think that applies to my whole team, that [00:47:05] the more years I’m with my team and I have people anywhere from six years to 14 years that [00:47:10] have worked for me, the more I spend time, I’m realizing we’re all growing every [00:47:15] year. We’re all becoming different, better people every single year. And if we don’t [00:47:20] focus on realizing, hey, that’s actually what they’re passionate about, like I try [00:47:25] to.

Really tweak people’s job roles. Every year they’re with me to be even more [00:47:30] dialed in to their God-given strengths, abilities, and just passions, [00:47:35] and so that we’re each playing to those. And same with my spouse. It’s like we maybe started out with [00:47:40] certain roles, but we have evolved and transitioned into.

What [00:47:45] we’re passionate about, and it’s a constant dialogue of, there’s part of our roles that we [00:47:50] have to do just ’cause we have to do them right. Nobody loves everything that that comes along with entrepreneurship, [00:47:55] but there are people that in this relationship as a partner or as a team member, that are [00:48:00] better suited for certain skills and tasks.

And so I just would [00:48:05] like to say. Lean into that instead of fighting it, lean into it and the faster you [00:48:10] lean into it and celebrate those good things about that person, instead of being [00:48:15] frustrated that you wish they were more like this, I think you’re gonna have a happier work life [00:48:20] and marriage.

AJ: So good.

And you and Jordan have created [00:48:25] this amazing free resource. So for all of you who are listening, we’ll put this in the show notes, but there’s [00:48:30] this awesome free download that you guys can grab. It’s the Spotlight decision making tool for [00:48:35] working couples. Right, and so you can go to Jordan [00:48:40] and mindy.com, floor slash resources, Jordan and [00:48:45] mindy.com/resources.

We will put that link in the show [00:48:50] notes. Such a generous gift. Thank you for giving us this download. And like I said, E, [00:48:55] even if you’re not working with your spouse, these, these practices, these principles. [00:49:00] Apply universally throughout relationships, but this is curated really for [00:49:05] couples who are working together.

So thank you so much for that. Mindy, if people just wanna connect with [00:49:10] you because you’re so awesome, where should they go?

MINDI: I would say the place I am most [00:49:15] often showing up is on Instagram and they can follow my Instagram handle, Mindy Li [00:49:20] Linscomb. It’s just my first and last name on Instagram. And um, and then you’ll see all the [00:49:25] things that we do from there.

AJ: Yes, and I will also put that in the show notes as well. But then they [00:49:30] also co-host an awesome, the Something new show, which is an amazing podcast. We’ll [00:49:35] put that in the show notes. Mindy, this has been such an awesome conversation with [00:49:40] so much universally applicable information for anyone who’s going from business [00:49:45] owner to thought leader, taking what they’ve learned and starting to share that to help other [00:49:50] people.

In and outside of their industry. So thank you so much for coming on. I love [00:49:55] you. I love this conversation. I hope everyone else has enjoyed it as much as I have. And for everyone who [00:50:00] is listening, thank you for sticking around. Uh, stay tuned for the recap episode [00:50:05] and we will see you next time on the Influence.

Thank you personal brand. [00:50:10] Bye everybody. Bye.

[00:50:15]

Ep 613: Your Competitive Advantage in a World of AI | Ryan Levesque

Rory: You are about to meet someone that I only met recently. In relationship, but who I’ve known about for years and years through reputation. In fact, if you’ve listened to this show for any amount of time, you know how we talk about reputation precedes revenue, and that that personal branding is really the digitization of reputation.

So this man that you’re about to meet, that you’re about to learn from, as I learn from him, is [00:01:00] someone who has walked that path. He has built a tremendous reputation and he has built great businesses. He is a model of someone who has done the things that we’re talking about. So who am I talking about?

I’m talking about Ryan Leveque. So Ryan Leveque is a seven time ink, 5,000 CEO, which is extremely hard to do, particularly because the Ink 5,000 is based on growth every year. So that means you have to grow. Year after year, after year. Um, very, very challenging. He’s also a two-time number, one national bestselling author.

Um, he’s generated over a hundred million dollars in revenue. He successfully sold two of his businesses. He’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes entrepreneur. Uh, and more importantly, he’s somebody whose name I hear and have heard all the time. In the circles of like the most influential people in the space.

So today he is a strategic advisor to multiple different businesses. And we’re gonna hear about [00:02:00] his brand new book, the Return to Real and really, uh, not even the book, but the concept of how he’s living his life now and how his personal brand journey led him to what he’s doing. Uh, he’s also writing by hand personally every, uh, every single week the Digital Contrarian, which is his email newsletter that he does.

Personally, so we’re gonna talk about some of the evolution because he sold software companies, he’s built his personal brand, uh, and he’s made some changes here in recent years that we’re gonna learn about and, uh, it’s all tying into his new book. So Ryan, thanks for being on the show, brother. It’s great to have you,

Ryan: Rory.

It’s awesome to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation.

Rory: Yeah, so. I wanna hear, I, I, I wanna talk about return to real and I really want to get, I want this conversation to get to what you’re doing today and specifically how you’re living today. But I think before we can get to that, for people to have a full appreciation of.

What [00:03:00] was your journey to get there? Um, and also, you know, I didn’t mention this in your, in your bio, but if y’all have ever heard of Ask or the Ask Method, Ryan is the one who created that, which has been a, is a huge part of our, our space. So I would love to hear a little bit of like that journey from personal brand software company and then, you know, we’ll get into what, what you’re doing now.

Ryan: Yeah. You know, so, uh, I’ll try to do the, the TLDR version of the story to, um, get to the, get to the high points. Um, so, uh. You know, I grew up very modestly, first generation college, uh, student college grad. Um, worked in finance after college, university, and then very quickly thereafter, moved to Asia, China and was spending time in corporate, um, the corporate world in China.

In my mid twenties. I kinda had a quarter life crisis and thought, okay, is this my life? Like, do I, am I gonna be a corporate wage slave my entire life? And I said, no, I want to start a business. Hmm. Um, and I was on a real kind of fast track career and, um, decided to [00:04:00] quit my job in 2008. And started a business, uh, teaching people how to make Scrabble tile jewelry.

Nice. And, uh, yeah, it was like, you know, it was the craze in the world that year. Um, and, uh, and, and that business, uh, took off and then quickly fell apart and, uh, took me down this path to really figure out. How to enter new markets and how to figure out what a market wants. Like what is it that people actually wanna buy and how do you give it to them?

Mm-hmm. And so I went through that process 23 different times in all sorts of different random niche markets like market care and memory improvements and fish oil supplements, and just all these random markets. And along the way sort of built this methodology. That, um, as you pointed out, uh, became known in the industry as the ASK method.

It used a combination of surveys and quizzes and assessments to really understand a market at a deep emotional level. And, um, in, uh, 10 years ago, I decided to write a book, basically telling my story and, uh, the methodology. And I honestly, Roy wrote the book. Um, like most people, when you write a book, you want it to be like a [00:05:00] better business card.

Right. It’s like it’d be great to have like a book that I could hand people and I didn’t really expect it to do much more than that. And, uh, in the year that we launched it, it was, uh, it launched the week that we launched. It was the number one bestselling book in the entire country across all categories.

Um, you know, number one on virtually all the, all the counting lists, not the editorial list, all the counting lists and, uh, transform my life. And that book became the foundation of a company we started called the Ask Method Company, where we taught this methodology, uh, eventually built a software company called Bucket to implement that methodology.

And then, uh, in 2024, um, sold the company, uh, and kind of took it full cycle. So yeah, grew that company, uh, seven Time Inc. 5,000 fastest growing company. Um, and, uh, you know, transform my life. And the thing that I’ll say is, um, you know, for the tiny little corner of the world that, that I’ve, you know, been part of and that I’ve occupied, um, from a personal brand standpoint, this is, I think, an important lesson to think about.

Whenever I’m thinking about building a personal brand, I think about [00:06:00] how can you associate yourself with a single word.

Rory: So that

Ryan: way when your market, the corner of the world that you’re in, how do you create something so that when people hear that word, they think of you. And for me that word was ask in the world anytime that you heard about ask, my name would be evoked.

And that was very intentional, that was very strategic and it served me for the better part of a decade in the empire building season of life. And, um, built a very successful business that we’re able to, um, sell and exit on the back of that.

Rory: Yeah, I mean, you’re, you’re preaching our, you’re preaching our language.

We, we talk about finding your uniqueness, exploiting it in the service of others and nailing it to one word, like you are such a great example of that. The, um, so real quick, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least have you briefly overview the ASK method. It’s Sure. These five core questions because I know that this super tactical and applicable to people today and.

The premise [00:07:00] still holds true. I think that, you know, everyone is like shouting and you came in with like a whole different way of just approaching this. And so, you know, I’d love for you to just like, kind of briefly touch on the five questions and like, you know, the premise of Ask.

Ryan: Yeah. So the way I described the ASK method is, is as follows.

Um, you know, the secret to succeeding in business is actually pretty simple. It’s figure out what people want and give it to them. Um, the problem is you can’t just walk through the front door and ask people, Hey, what do you wanna buy? Like, people actually just don’t know what they want. We actually don’t know what we want fundamentally in life.

In fact, when you ask someone, what is it that you want? What do you want for dinner tonight? You’re accessing a part of your brain where you’re actually projecting into the future and guessing. You’re thinking, maybe I might want this, but I don’t know. Versus if you flip that idea on its head. So just real quick, they don’t want

Rory: one, one of my all time favorite quotes, like of all time is Henry Ford when he says, if I would’ve asked people what they wanted, they would’ve set a faster horse.

[00:08:00] Exactly. Um, you know, so I I I love that. So then, so then your method is helping them access a different piece of their brain.

Ryan: You have to figure out what to figure out what people want. You have to understand what they don’t want. You have to understand what has frustrated them. You have to understand what’s caused pain.

You have to understand what’s caused an emotional reaction to them relative to the problem that you help people solve. And by asking a series of open-ended questions, we’ll talk about a few of them. By asking a series of open-ended questions, you can figure out what it is that not only people want, but will people, what people will spend money on.

Solving. Hmm. And it comes down to paying attention to the open-ended natural language that people give you, and paying attention to deep emotional language that shows up. Hmm. And there’s a direct correlation between length of response, depth of response, and intensity of response to purchasing behavior that you can use as a predictor to determine where you should actually focus.

So first question that you always want to ask when you’re trying to. Solve a problem in a [00:09:00] person’s life. And by the way, uh, as an aside, I always tell our clients, fall in love with the problem that you solve, not the product that you sell.

Rory: Love that. So we get

Ryan: really, really excited about our book, our widget, our thing, and naturally so if you’ve invested your heart and soul there, but the real longevity in any business is falling in love with the problem.

And just being obsessed over solving that problem agnostically, irrespective of whatever thing you might sell right now, fall in love with that problem. So first question that you want to ask is what we call the SMIQ Single most important question. If you only ask one question, this is the one, and it’s this.

When it comes to x, X being the thing that you help people with that problem, what’s your single biggest challenge, frustration, or obstacle that you’re facing right now? Please be as detailed and specific as possible. So that’s the first question. Now you’re gonna pair that with two other questions. Next question is, how much time have you spent trying to solve this problem?

Rory: Hmm.

Ryan: And question number three, how much [00:10:00] money have you invested today? Now, what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna triangulate three different data points. First, in that first question, what’s your biggest challenge? You’re gonna pay attention to the longest, most passionate, most detailed, open-ended responses.

The top 20% is what we call the hyperresponsive segment of your market, and you’re actually gonna ignore everybody else. You only wanna pay attention to the people who say, Rory, I’ve been trying to launch my book for years, and I’ve launched three books and I sold like 300 copies and I’ve done all of the things right, and yet for some reason, I just can never get any traction with my book and it’s killing me.

I feel like I’ve got a message out there. What do I do? Exasperation that you hear in my voice. That’s what you’re looking for. Mm-hmm. Second question to you wanna look for people who have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to solve this problem? Not someone who went to chat GPT five minutes ago, typed in one query, couldn’t get their answer and jumped to you.

You need someone who’s had the pain of being unable to solve their [00:11:00] problem for a long enough period of time. Then last but not least, the greatest predictor of whether someone will spend money on a solution irrespective of the category that you’re in, is whether they’ve spent money in that category before.

Wow. Best predictor if a woman is gonna buy an expensive handbag is if she already has an expensive handbag in her closet. And that principle is true, whatever category you operate in. So you wanna be looking for the overlapping Venn diagram and that centerpiece and everything that you do in your marketing, your messaging, your product development in your overall business strategy is focused on just the people who are in the center of those three overlapping Venn diagrams, those circles, and ignore everybody else.

And it’s, it’s counterintuitive. Because you want to try to appeal to everybody, but when you try to be all things to all people, you end up being nothing to nobody. So the ASK method is based on that principle and those ideas. And of course there are layers and layers and layers beneath that, around data analysis and cluster analysis.

And now [00:12:00] how we can use AI to analyze language patterns, to find these hyperresponsives and the key language that we want to echo back to our market. Because your message should come from your market, not from your mind. Instead of coming up with your own catchy marketing slogan, don’t lean in to the temptation of sanitizing the language your market gives you and echoing it back in a more clever way.

Take the language verbatim. In the way that people describe it to you, echo it back. And what you’ll find is that what’s true for one is true for the many. So Ask Method is, is all about this. Of course, there’s, you know, there’s layers and layers and layers to it. Um, but that was the premise of the book, premise of the company that we founded, premise of the technology that we built.

Um, and the premise so that I wanna

Rory: talk about the technology because that, that, so that’s so powerful, right? And it’s so clear. Yeah. One of the, the other things that I really respect about what you’ve done, uh, you know, so, so one of the things that we say a lot is we say people don’t pay [00:13:00] for information, they pay for application.

Hmm. And so in the future, especially as information becomes commoditized, particularly with ai, it’s like the real game is rush to applying the principles, implementing the things. And many personal brands don’t do that, and they’re slow to move into that area. And you are one of the first that you. Built an actual tool around your methodology that made it real, that made it available that people could apply the information so.

How did that start? I mean, you went from like working in the corporate world to an entrepreneur, to all of a sudden now you’re developing software. Like I didn’t hear software engineer like in your background previous to that. Like you were doing Scrabble bracelets, like Yeah. What made you think you could pull this off, and then how in the heck did you pull it off?

Ryan: Yeah. Well, look, I mean, everything that you’ve done in your life is something that you’ve previously not done. Full stop. [00:14:00] Sure. And we all have different aptitudes and capabilities and personalities and skills in, in different areas. Um, I’ve never been afraid of, of taking on a challenge and trying something new.

So that’s, I think, the, the first part of it. But there are layers beneath that. Every product that we created was born out of a problem slash opportunity that emerged from a previous product that we developed. So, for example, when I, um. Uh, when I had the success in the different markets that I went into, what happened next is that big companies started approaching me and asking for me to help them implement this model in their business.

And, um, and I did that and I had a few businesses that I worked with that the, the, the basically the, the marketing campaigns and funnels that we built, um, led to explosive growth. Um, to the point that, like, for example, there was a, a, a project that I was involved in where we were doing about a hundred thousand.

Uh, leads opt-ins, email opt-ins a day, a hundred thousand leads a day, [00:15:00] um, in a high volume fitness space, um, that grew this company to nine figures. Um, I, I was part of two exits as a result of what we built. So one was in the golf market, um, built a company called Revolution Golf, built an assessment in the golf space to figure out what was wrong with your swing.

And we had, uh, over 10 million golfers go through that assessment. And then we sold the company to NBC. So NBC, um, the Golf Channel bought this business. Um, and I had a small sort of piece of that, not a big piece of that exit, but a very small piece of this. Um, the next one was a, uh, we did the same thing in the business funding space and, uh, we built a application called Loan Builder.

To figure out basically what type of business loan is right, you know, for your funding needs in your business. Um, and that company was bought by PayPal for about $180 million. So I saw the power of what I was doing in, in this process, and so that led me to this. Well, if I wanna, you know, I, I’ve seen these businesses, like I got a tiny, I got crumbs.

On these little exits. Maybe I’ve got [00:16:00] something here that in turn inspired me to write this book, build a company around it, shift my model from working with companies to actually build IP and infrastructure and a team. And, you know, had 14,000, um, uh, businesses that went through our training programs to implement all of this.

And along the way. What happened was people said, what tool do we use? Like Survey Gizmo doesn’t quite do what we need it to do and Google Forms doesn’t do what we exactly what we need to do. Like we need this, this, and this, and how do you do that? And my answer was, well, yeah, you just have your development team, you know, develop an application.

And as I was starting to work with smaller and smaller businesses. That didn’t have an engineering team, I realized like, I’ve gotta create a solution. So found a partner to answer your question in that space. Got it. Um, my development skills very, very, very limited. I know a little bit of, you know, back in the day coded my first website with, uh, H-T-M-L-C-S-S and PHP and a little bit of JavaScript, but that was just me, you know, as a hack, learning, trying to figure stuff.

I’m not an actual proper developer. Um, so I found a partner in that space. [00:17:00] Um, we did a pre-launch of the offer. We had, I think a thousand people, uh, pre-order the software. Like as soon before it was launched, they just put down a deposit and they said, we want this when it’s launched. Cool. And so we launched to a thousand, um, you know, monthly recurring revenue buyers just out of the gate.

Wow. And then scaled that business. Um, now along the way, what happens is, and I think this is important and relevant from a personal brand standpoint as well, is that your, uh, success will breed competition. People will see you. Whatever it is that you’re doing. And because most people are unimaginative and they need to see an exemplar of success in order to know what to follow, they’ll see your success.

So like in your company, um, you’ve got copycat competitors that, that come in and watch what you do. And the more successful you are, the more competition that you attract. So success breeds competition. That’s just like a universal law of capitalism. And so along the way we had, you know, 14,000 students who went through our, um, our process.

We bred our own competition. So, you [00:18:00] know, clients of ours, software, users of ours said, Hey, we can create something, you know, similar to that. So you get more competition in, in the marketplace. And um, for me, I recognized that this was showing up, um, that there was increasing competition. I recognized that the, the, the technological, I’ll call it development, uh, uh, lifecycle in a, in an application was shortening.

More and more, particularly with the advent of AI over the last few years, and I recognize that. I recognize the writing on the wall around SaaS as a business model. Like today, you can use through vibe, coding and uh, third party applications. You can say, Hey, that software over there, like that scheduling software that I use right now, can you just build me a version of that so I don’t have to pay?

A monthly recurring, uh, uh, fee on that software. And, uh, with reasonable success, you can build that. The paradigm has changed. So I recognized that. I saw the writing on the wall and I said, this is probably not the right business model to be [00:19:00] in for the next decade. Um, I’d also been on a decade long sprint, you know, empire building mode and hustle, hustle, hustle.

Clearly that, so it was just none of this

Rory: stuff. You’re describing it as like, oh, we did this, we did this. This is like, it’s like. That’s hours and money and pain and hustle and tears and team members and turnover and like that, that doesn’t just happen automatically. It’s all the things.

Ryan: Yeah, man. It’s all, it’s all the things.

So I kind of reached a point where, um, we, we brought our, our companies, our combined businesses to market in 2021. And, um, in that process we received a, a $70 million offer for the, for the combined businesses.

Rory: Cool.

Ryan: And we spent about a year, um, in diligence back and forth with the buyer. Went through a full, um, uh, what they call as a process in private equity.

Hired an investment bank, and, uh, received an offer from the same private equity group that bought Alex from MO’S company. So they bought Alex’s company and then they were looking to make an acquisition in our space. They identified our company as their target. This is 21 to 22. [00:20:00] Then in 22, uh, Russia invades the Ukraine.

Crypto markets crash, capital markets crash. The world is starting to feel like, is this gonna be World War iii? I remember when Russia first invaded the Ukraine, there was like fear, like this could be a big thing, right? No one really knew what was gonna happen. Um, so there was a lot of fear. In the market and headwinds really kind of, um, were taking over.

So after a year of diligence, uh, the group spent over a million dollars in, in, um, in, in diligence in the process. Um, basically said, we’re walking away from the deal. We’re at the, now, we’re like one yard line ready to get this thing done. And um, and then long story short, the m and a market, certainly in our space, basically dried up in 22.

And so I kinda had this moment of like. I just spent 10 years, like on this sprint. I’ve got two kids at home and, uh, my two boys, I knew, I only had a few years left with them at home. I said, do I really wanna do this another 10 years? And I saw the writing on the wall with SAS and everything that was happening, and so I said, I’m [00:21:00] gonna take a little bit of time off.

And I took some time off. We were living in Austin, Texas at the time, and I, I decided to live and work on a farm in the Mad River Valley of Vermont. And, uh, I took, um, most of the summer to just. Be up there. And I was literally living in a tent by a pond on this farm. Wow. And living a pretty simple life.

And I have an amazing wife who, um, was very understanding. And I’ll tell you man, when I was there, um, my heart just spoke to me and said, this is where you’re meant to be. Like that stillness, taking time off, finally having just a little bit of space to say like, what am I gonna do in the second chapter of life, like First Mountain, second Mountain, you know, first mountain of life.

Climb the mountain, build a big successful company, make all the money. Second Mountain is like, all right, am I gonna, you know, what am I gonna do in the second half of life I’d, I’d recently turned 40. So I kind of had like that, you know, midlife moment. And, um, and so while I was there, I, I called my wife and I said, um, something that we’ve been contemplating, which is [00:22:00] putting our house in the market.

I said, let’s, let’s put our house in the market in Austin. Let’s see if it sells. I think this is where we’re meant to be. And this was in the middle of a very hot real estate market in Austin, as you probably remember. And, uh, the, the house sold that day. All cash

Rory: man, full

Ryan: price. And, um, a 14 day close, geez.

So I had to rush back from Vermont to Austin. Um, we load everything that we own into, into, we hire a moving company out of Boston with a b They drive cross country, get all of our stuff, ship it up to Boston. We sell one of our cars. I, I keep my truck and we get a suitcase each, for each member of the family and the dog load in the back of the truck.

And we road ship our way from Texas to Vermont with nothing but a dream and a vision. Of starting a farm together as a family. Wild. And, uh, that’s so wild.

Rory: I mean, like, you’re like camping out in a tent to like, Hey, we’re living, we’re moving here. Yeah. This is

Ryan: like in a matter of a few days. Well, you know, the, the [00:23:00] truth is this is something that had been bubbling Yeah.

Sort of beneath the surface. Right. Um, and, and we’ll talk about this with return to real, ’cause I think this, it, it ties in and it’ll tie into the thesis of the book, which I think is really relevant from a personal brand standpoint. But. It took us a year, Rory, to find the place that we ended up landing. I thought we were gonna drive up to Vermont and I thought we were going to like, ah, a few weeks.

I had a bunch of showings lined up for a few different farms that we’re gonna take a look at. Um, but by the time we got to Vermont, uh, I think we had seven showings and five out of the seven showings were under contract before we even had a chance to see them. There was that much demand. Hmm. And when winter, uh, happens and snow’s on the ground, like big properties like that, there’s just, there, you have to wait till the next year.

So it took us about a year to find the site that we’re on now we’re on about 140 acres. And we kind of have gone through this journey of raising and growing the vast majority of the food that we eat as a family. So, um, just to paint a picture,

Rory: [00:24:00] I mean, just the dichotomy of this like fast paced software company, ramping revenue, like pre-revenue thousand customers to then like Vermont, growing our own food.

Like this is a radical change.

Ryan: Well, I’ll tell you, man, I’ve had some, what I didn’t, what I didn’t say is, you know, the steps along the way. Um, you know, I was in college, I studied neuroscience. I thought I was gonna be a neurosurgeon. My best friend, uh, at Brown University is a neuroscientist at the Mayo Clinic.

We were. Kind of, you know, buddies going on the same path. So, um, I thought I was gonna go into brain science. That was kind of like my original passion and my academic background. Um, then I decided, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to medical school, so I decided to take a few years off and work on Wall Street.

So I worked for Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. And became really fascinated with the psychology of money. So I kind of gave up medicine to go into Wall Street, then was on Wall Street. I also studied Mandarin Chinese in college. And um, of course you did. I mean, why not [00:25:00] neuroscience,

Rory: stock market, Mandarin only makes sense to be the next thing all the things,

Ryan: right?

Um, and then so I gave that career up on Wall Street to live and work in China and we spent about five years, uh, there. And then in 2008 when the world financial crisis hit. I kind of use that as sort of like a, a, an opportunity to, um, to take a a, to make a pivot. And that’s the Scrabble tile jewelry business.

So I say that because like each step along the way, and I think we go through these moments where we have these moments in our life where we’re on this trajectory, and I, I see it time and time again. Most people are afraid to give up. Good to go after. Great. In their life. And each step along the way, every human being around me said I was crazy.

Ryan, you’re you’re gonna go to medical school, you’re gonna be a neurologist or a neurosurgeon. Like, why are you going to Wall Wall Street? Well, I’m, it’s, I, I just feel called to do this career on, you know, making all this money. Goldman Sachs on Wall Street, [00:26:00] you’re gonna give that up to basically make $40,000 a year living in China.

Have that life, but it, well, it was an adventure. And then I grew that to making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year working in China. And then I just gave all that up to start the Scrabble business. And so I think most people will come up with all sorts of reasons why they can’t reinvent themselves totally along the way.

And this ties to the personal brand thing. So success breeds competition. And what it means is in order to stay relevant in your space, and not only relevant, but to stay true to yourself. As you evolve, as you grow, as you change as a human being, so every seven years you are a completely new human being.

Even at a cellular level, your cells have actually completely replaced themselves every seven years. So seven years ago, there wasn’t a single cell in your body that exists today. You are a completely different human being today than you were seven years ago. So to honor that, you have to listen to [00:27:00] what it is that is calling you.

This ties to Ask. So Ask was all about figuring out what everybody else wants, but what Ask didn’t cover was paying attention to the most important voice of them all, which is how do you listen to yourself?

Rory: Hmm.

Ryan: How do you listen to that inner calling? That’s what I describe as the contrarian voice of your heart.

When everyone around you says that you’re completely crazy for doing what you’re doing, yet you feel called, you feel pulled in that direction. How do you quiet all the noise? And listen to that voice, that real voice, that authentic voice that enables you to seek and speak truth. And so this journey that I’ve been on over the last few years has helped me really dive deep into this space, our relationship, especially in this age of AI with humanity.

Hopefully

Rory: you don’t tell me that I have to sell everything and move to Vermont and farm ’cause I’m, I’m an indoor type and I don’t know how to grow things. So I’m hoping that the book can [00:28:00] like step me through this without me having to get my hands dirty.

Ryan: Yeah. Well, well look, I think, um, so there’s a couple things.

You, you bring up really good points. So let, let’s talk about what is return to real. How is it relevant for anyone looking to build a personal brand?

Rory: This is the, this is the new book. So this is where, this is your journey coming full circle to like, here’s where you are now, here’s how this evolved. And I love that.

I didn’t, when, when we first met and talked about this, I didn’t make that connection. That ask was all about how to find what other people want. This is all about how to figure out what you want or what you were created to do. That’s a really powerful intersection. I love that.

Ryan: And what’s interesting is that it’s, it’s, it’s bringing this conversation sort of full circle.

The creation of everything that you build in your business will open up challenges and opportunities to create that next thing. And that’s exactly what I found, spent the past decade figuring out exactly what people want in all these different markets that I knew nothing about. But along the way, [00:29:00] I spent zero time actually paying attention to what I actually truly wanted in the process.

And, and, and I think, um, and so I started, uh, a year ago, um, I, I wrote a piece to our very large, um, email newsletter, and I called it an embarrassing Confession. And basically what I said effectively is I have an embarrassing confession to me. And it’s this. For the last seven years, every single piece of writing that you’ve seen with my name attached to it was actually not written by me personally.

It was written by one of our writers in house with my name signed to it. And increasingly, this felt more and more uncomfortable, something that I was not happy with, and for all sorts of different reasons, being a busy CEO, it just necessitated having a team of writers writing in my voice. But over time.

It started feeling like a photocopy of a photocopy. Of a photocopy. Of a photocopy.

Rory: Sure. And

Ryan: what started to emerge is that it started to taste like the watered down orange juice that comes from a can and not the freshly [00:30:00] squeezed version that you get at Sunday brunch. And I said this day for it, that changes anytime that you see something with my name attached to it.

It’s something that’s actually written. By me personally, and I did it sort of as an experiment with really no expectations, just to kind of, you know, get that off my chest. And that led to writing a weekly piece that I write every single week myself. Oftentimes these pieces are two to 4,000 words. These are, this is deep writing.

That’s a

Rory: lot. Yeah. That’s allocate

Ryan: an entire day, oftentimes 12 to 14 hours to write a piece like this. But since I’ve been doing that, writing authentically, real raw mistakes made, lessons learned, really coming from me, not just regurgitated AI bullshit, but actually coming from my own lived experience, Rory, I’ve had more opportunity come my way in the last 12 months than probably the last 12 years.

Rory: Hmm.

Ryan: And, and this ties into return to real because what the world is craving right now is, is more of that. [00:31:00] And they’re principles in return to real that I think are really provocative principles to be thinking about in your business. And I’ll share one or two to reflect on. Um, the first thing is this, the best things in life don’t scale.

Full stop. If you think about the best things in your life, they are the unscalable. It’s a hug with one of your kids. It’s an embrace with your partner, with your spouse. You can’t scale that. Yet we’re taught that in a capitalist paradigm that we need to figure out how do we scale? How do we scale this?

How does this scale? But an interesting question to ask in this paradox is, what is it in your business that you are going to do that does not scale in spite of the fact that it doesn’t scale? ’cause I believe that is the last true moat that we have in business. Technology is no longer remote. I can go to your website and I can use existing [00:32:00] technology that exists right here, right now, today.

And I can say, replicate every single thing that Rory’s company has done. Technologically speaking, go. Anybody can do that. But what I can’t replicate is I can’t replicate your lived experience. I can’t replicate your voice, I can’t replicate your heart. That’s not something that we can yet copy.

Rory: So you said a few minutes ago you said.

What the world is craving is more of that. Hmm. What is that? That like what? What is what If you had to like codify that into a word, would you call that authenticity? Would you call that connection? Would you call that humanness? Like do you, have you landed on what that word is for that which people are craving?

Ryan: So I’ll answer it in two ways. I’ll answer it in a philosophical way and I’ll answer it in a very practical way, which is one of the principles in return to Real, the Phil, the philosophical way is what people [00:33:00] are craving is truth.

Rory: Mm-hmm.

Ryan: We live in a world where virtually everything we experience is artificial.

From the food we consume to the content that we read and what’s emerged in the world is that because there’s so much artificial, everything, there is a distrust that underlies every relationship that exists here today. The fundamental thing that’s changed is the fact that with the advent of ai, deep fake technology and everything that comes around it, what we no longer trust is ourselves.

We no longer trust our own ability to discern with our eyes and our ears if what we are seeing right now is in fact real, is this truth. Is this something that was fabricated and it’s a fundamental shift that’s happened, it would really

Rory: blow my mind right now if you said that you’ve been in AI this whole time, in this whole

Ryan: conversation, and [00:34:00] I’d be like, oh no, you got me.

It’s a Pandora’s box That I think is, it’s a, it’s a fool’s errand to try to replicate yourself with an AI avatar because once that Pandora’s box is open, it can no longer be closed. Meaning that if your audience is looking at you at any given time and wondering. Is that real Rory, or is that Rory’s avatar?

And trust me, I get every argument around convenience using 11 labs and any technology say, you know what? I don’t have to record any of these videos for my book launch. I’m just gonna use AI to do an AI avatar of it. But when you do that without disclosure, what happens is every further interaction that someone has is they second guess, is this real or is this not?

So the principle in return to real principle number three. Is optimized for oxytocin, not dopamine. So this takes it from the phy, the philosophical to the physiological. What do we mean by that? Mm-hmm.

Rory: Take us back to Brown University. Okay, here we go. Now we’re going, now we’re going back to the, back to the you nerd style, Brian Ryan.

[00:35:00] So,

Ryan: uh, Oxy is the trust molecule. It’s the neurotransmitter of trust. Now, dopamine, as we all know, is the neurotransmitter of. Desire and virtually every Silicon Valley tech business has tried to optimize. Sorry, say that again.

Rory: We don’t all know. We don’t all know. We don’t all know that you said that.

Oxytocin is the trust, the

Ryan: neurotransmitter of trust.

Rory: Okay.

Ryan: So it’s often thought about as the neurotransmitter of love, because mothers will elicit oxytocin when they have their baby close to them. Men and women experienced oxytocin. It manifests itself slightly differently in different brains. Okay. With the different genders and different sexes, but you can think about oxytocin as the neurotransmitter of trust.

Rory: What dopamine.

Ryan: Dopamine is the neurotransmitter of desire. Got it. And so when we have all of these dopamine feedback loops whereby, for example, you go to social media and you post something, Hey, I just launched my book, and guess what? It hit number three on the New York Times list. And you’re like, ah, this is awesome.

Then you put your phone down, then you walk away, and then your body’s like, but how [00:36:00] many likes did I get on this post? So you rush back and then you look at. It’s a dopamine feedback loop because your brain ultimately is craving these happy neurotransmitters. There’s a few of ’em. There’s oxytocin, there’s serotonin, there’s dopamine.

Few others. Your brain is craving these chemicals, and that’s what drives basically all human behavior. We do things because these neurochemicals in our brain make us feel good, and at the end of the day, we wanna feel good and feel less pain. So we feel happy when we watch something funny or we exercise.

We have a, a, uh, you know, uh, an endorphin rush after a, uh, a workout at the gym. We do things because they create these positive feedback loops of good feelings. Now, oxytocin. In contrast to dopamine with a few exceptions, only is elicited through in-person experiences when you actually interact with someone on a face-to-face level.

And much of the loneliness epidemic and sense of disconnect that exists in the world here today is driven by the [00:37:00] fact that most people are operating with an oxytocin deficit in their brain. Now they don’t know this. People don’t know that this is true. But a much of the, of the dissatisfaction in the malaise that exist in the world here today and emptiness is because we’ve replaced so much of these deep, immersive in-person experiences with more and more proxy based experience lived through a screen.

And so we have this absence in our physiology, our bio, our biology is missing this right now. So in a world that’s been optimized around dopamine. I believe oxytocin is the next competitive advantage because once people experience that, they want more of it. Once they recognize that this is what they want.

So the whole thesis in the book is that in this AI era where we are questioning this, uh, a relationship with authenticity and humanity, the thesis of the book is that what’s good for our biology, what’s good for our body, what’s good for our brain is actually good for business because the world is [00:38:00] craving this right now.

To answer your question, the world is craving more of this. So the opportunity for those of us with personal brands, for those of us who are entrepreneurs, is to fill this void in the marketplace and give people what they actually want, which is ask showing back up.

Rory: I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s wild. I, so, you know, brand builders groups, so we have about 50 employees, um, right now, but they’re all, and they’re all remote and we’ve, we’ve built the whole company remote and it’s how we operate.

And last year. Aj. So my wife, our, my business partner, our CEO, she, she comes to me and she’s like, Hey, I found a building. We’re gonna buy this building. And I was like, buy a building. I’m like, none of our people are gonna want to go, like some of, like a bunch of our people live outta state. And she’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s not for our people.

She’s like, it’s for our community. We’re gonna, we’re gonna start hosting in-person events every single month for our community. Be because we started in 2018 and then [00:39:00] COVID happened. So our, almost our entire company was virtual. Like the whole encounter with us was courses and then live virtual events.

And then, you know, it was evolved and she was like, she was like, I just, I just think this is the future. Um, and just like outta nowhere, it’s like, okay, I guess we’re gonna buy a building. She bought a building. We bought a building and then, and now we have these in-person events and it’s been crazy. Like there’s the wait list are insane for these events, Ryan, like, you know, you’re putting a neurological description and profile to something that she felt intuitively,

Ryan: totally.

And, and so there’s, there’s scientific evidence and data that backs up that gut feeling that we have. And I believe the opportunity in front of all of us is to lean into that and it’s gonna show up differently. Your version in the business, the building that you bought, [00:40:00] and the in-person events that you’re running is a variation that works for you.

It’s real for you. But what’s right for you is not gonna be right for anybody else. Sure. So the question is, what does this look like? How are you reinventing yourself in this new era relevant? Is it in person?

Rory: Is that the main thing? Is like that’s

Ryan: one

Rory: of the principles.

Ryan: Okay. That’s one of the principles.

I mean, there’s, it’s um, you know, there the confluence of events that’s happening right now. There’s, there’s a three colliding forces. All happening at once in the world. Um, there’s an economic force and environmental force and an existential force. So, um, the existential force is the one that most people are most familiar with, and it’s our relationship to AI as, um, the deeper questions with ai, what does it mean to be human?

What is our role? What is our purpose? If we are not the most intelligent being or organism on this planet, where does that leave us? And there’s so many second and third order effects that are showing up around that. But in concert, at the same time, we’re experiencing economic. Forces that are [00:41:00] reshaping the world.

So Ray Dalio describes this as the big cycle, which effectively 80, every 80 to 100 years, we have a big debt cycle that resets. And the last time that this happened was in the Great Depression leading into World War ii. And we are due for that next reset. And these resets are when we have a change in the world order.

When a new superpower typically emerges amidst the ashes of this turmoil, this is where currency devaluation takes place. And the reality is that no living. People on this planet, say for the centenarians that are still alive today, have lived through that period. So our generation, even our parents’ generation Roy, have, have not lived through this.

So it’s uncharted territory for most living human beings right now to know what it’s like to experience that type of economic environment.

Rory: And we did a podcast on, uh, AJ’s grandmother. Uh, she just died a couple years ago, but she was 103. Oh my God. And I interviewed her on our podcast. When she was, I think [00:42:00] 101 and she was talking about like, so she was born in 1912.

So she was, she was, wow. She was talking about the Great Depression. She was talking about the first time she saw the airplane, like exactly what you’re saying. But it was like, yeah, so I think, I think she died like 2015, so it’s like the. It’s exactly what you’re saying. There’s no, there’s nobody else left that’s been through that.

That’s a crazy thought. We have

Ryan: no elders. You and I are closer to being our elders, the elders on this planet than we are to being youth. So we don’t have elders who have gone through this experience. So there’s that, the economic force of what that means. And then the third is the environmental force.

We’re living right now in the middle of. You know what, uh, Nathan Hagens described as the, the, um, uh, a carbon pulse where effectively we’ve taken 4.3 billion years. Of sequestered carbon in the form of sun’s energy that we’ve transformed into fossil fuel and we’ve extracted and used this fossil fuel.

And when you do the math and you look at how much [00:43:00] energy is a barrel of, of oil, it’s like, you know, a thousand humans, like a thousand humans worth of energy is contained in that barrel of oil. But that’s a finite resource. It’s not something that we have unlimited access to. And so we have. This reckoning that is emerging both environmentally in terms of the environmental impact that the infinite growth in a finite system is having.

We have the economic impact of this changing world order where China is emerging as the next superpower. We are living in a dying superpower right now in the, in the, in the place of the United States. And at the same time, we have AI as this force that we don’t know is it gonna solve. These economic and environmental problems, you know, the irrational enthusiasts of AI will assume that yes, AI is gonna solve all these problems.

And then, uh, you’ve got the, a cripplingly, uh, fearful segment of the, uh, population who thinks, no, no, no. AI is gonna take over the world and it’s gonna be this dystopian future and life is gonna be terrible. Um, and then you have the painfully ignorant segment of the population that has no idea that any of this is happening right now, which is the vast majority of [00:44:00] people who are walking, uh, sleepwalking through life.

And the question is, how do we navigate this next season of life? And this, to answer your question, is what the return to real is all about.

Rory: Hmm.

Ryan: It’s how we navigate this next season. Part of it is oxytocin over dopamine. Part of it is more time with God made things and less time with manmade things. Part of it is that the struggle is the solution.

Part of it is that the best things in life don’t scale, but it’s the combination of all of these things. That’s gonna help us navigate this very, very uncertain future that we all face. You face it, I face it. Nobody knows for certain what the next three to five to 10 years are gonna bring us. All we know is that we are gonna be facing a tremendous amount of change, perhaps some turmoil, and we’re gonna emerge in a very different world than the world we live in here today.

And that’s what the return to re is all about.

Rory: Yeah, man, that’s mind blowing. Um, you know, I, I struggle to get my mind wrapped around all the things with ai. I actually just did this post because it’s like, there’s a part of me that goes, whoa, like [00:45:00] AI can be used to create cyber attacks and viruses. Um.

Then AI could also be used to prevent cyber attacks and prevent viruses and heal people. Uh, it could be used for warfare. It also could be used to detect and prevent warfare. So a lot of it, I think, comes down to humanity and how we choose to adapt and evolve. Uh, the existential part is so big that it’s like, man.

I go, I can’t control what happens with China or the US debt. I can’t control what happens in the global energy crisis. I can’t control like what happens with ai, you know? And so I’m trying to just go like, all right, what is the best thing I can do? And as I listen to you talk, I’m just like processing all this in real time, it seems like.

At least from a business perspective, which is, you know, namely the category of this show. It’s contained in the title of what you’re saying, a return to real, more [00:46:00] realness, more authenticness, more genuineness, more in-person, more, more trust, more caring, more one-on-one, less one to many. Like that’s how I’m processing the controllable parts of that.

Am I, am I, am I capturing that?

Ryan: You’re hitting the nail on the head and it’s a recalibration. And this is coming from a guy that built a incredibly scalable digital business where, you know, we focused on clicks, not people. We’re focusing on opt-ins, we’re focusing on traffic, which is a very dehumanizing way to think about the actual human beings that you’re interacting with and supporting.

Right. And I think to the extent that we make these shifts and we don’t try to operate in an old economy model. And we think about exactly what you’re describing right now, which is the unscalable, which is, how do I deepen these connections? What if I think about Dunbar’s number and I focus on a thousand true fans instead of, uh, you know, trying to reach a [00:47:00] million people?

That I believe is the way of the future. And I mean, there’s multiple layers that go beneath everything that we’re talking about right now. But even the

Rory: most important thing, even the AI stuff, is you go like, what is the, the, the question I’ve been wrestling with is, what is the thing that I can do that AI can never do?

And it’s like, that’s the only answer I can come up with is what you’re saying is just like

Ryan: hug your kids. Yeah. AI can’t hug your kids. But what’s interesting, what’s fascinating is, or your clients layers or your clients. But what’s fascinating is that you and I are in a of a similar generation. Every generation experiences technology and has a relationship with technology in a different way.

So like I think about my parents’ generation, for example, text messaging is very natural to you and I. But for my parents’ generation, text messaging was something that they had to learn later in life. My parents are still more comfortable leaving a voicemail or calling me on the phone. Sure. Even if it’s for something short and simple than sending me a text message.

And so when you take that [00:48:00] sort of analog and transition it down to a younger generation, a generation that’s 20, 30 years younger than us, it’s not unreasonable to think that there will be human to AI relationships that exist among younger people that we think is just. Crazy. Like we can’t even envision it.

It’s not unreasonable to think that in the same way that we devote a tremendous amount of time, um, exploring, uh, gender politics and what’s politically correct around that. There’ll be a time where there’ll be a debate around is it okay to have an ai, human marriage or not? And there will be a side of that debate that is pro ai human and a side of that debate that is anti.

AI human. Now, we look at things like that and say, that’s, that’s science fiction. That’s crazy. That is not that far away.

Rory: Oh, I saw it on the, it was on a, B, C news, just did a thing of a guy that proposed to his AI bot last week. Like it was I saw, I saw what you’re talking about is, is here. Yeah. [00:49:00] Now the debate about it wasn’t, at this point, it’s so novel.

People are like, that’s insane. That’s crazy. That’s just, you know, that’s just hyperbole to gain attention. And it’s like, well, it didn’t look like this guy was crazy. Like this guy would look like a normal guy. Genuinely loved his version of his Chas GBT robot, which is like, whoa. So yeah, I,

Ryan: so if you’re not thinking about all of these questions and, and bringing it back to the relationship between these ideas and your business and your personal brand and what that all means, then you are putting yourself in a place to be made irrelevant and obsolete very, very quickly.

Rory: Hmm.

Ryan: So. This is the debate. This is the conversation of our time that I think as, uh, business owners, as entrepreneurs that we need to be thinking about. And, and the argument that I’m making right now is, now is the time to unite, because nobody knows the answers. I don’t know the answers. You don’t know the answers.

Nobody knows the answers, but asking good questions, [00:50:00] which comes back to ask, asking good questions will help you to seek and speak truth. I think that’s what the world is craving right now. They’re looking for truth. We’re looking for truth. That’s what we want. We want what’s real. We don’t want artificial bullshit that just fed to us.

We want stripping away the layers. We want what’s real, and to the extent that we can deliver that to our audiences and whatever products and services we sell that contain that you’re gonna be more successful, especially in this era that we’re entering into right now.

Rory: Amen. Uh, brother, where do you want us to go to get return to real?

Uh, all of you need to go buy this book. I mean, this is like, I mean, this has been like psychology and spirituality and like divinity and technology and neuroscience like, and marketing strategy. Like all wrapped up in one conversation. Like, uh, so where do you want us to go, Ryan, to, to, to connect with you in the new book?

Ryan: Yeah, so [00:51:00] best place is to go to the digital contrarian.com. Every week I write a weekly newsletter, and the writings from that newsletter have been, um, foundational to the book, which at the time of this conversation. Is not yet available for purchase, although I know folks are getting excited about this.

Um, that’s the best place to connect. That’s the best place to be notified as soon as the book is available for pre-order and to connect further around the ideas that we’ve explored here in this conversation.

Rory: Man, I love it. I, I, I’ve always said like, surround yourself with the smartest people and I feel like this has been an honor to just get access to your brain and what you’re, your journey of what you’ve been through, what you’re thinking on now, and, and using that to bring clarity.

And I. I love where we land on just humanness and connection and giving people hugs and, uh, in personness like that, it seems just like that has to be a part of the future because it’s, it’s the [00:52:00] only thing that I can think of that AI cannot do, and it’s the thing everybody wants and we’re all craving. So, um, I love this.

So we’ll put a link to digital contrarian.com. Uh, in the show notes. If you forget, you can go there. Uh, go follow Ryan and send him a message. Leave him a comment on social media and just let him know what you thought about, about this. Uh, so deep and powerful and also practical and tactical. Ryan, like, uh, what an honor, love getting to know you and, uh, definitely wishing you the best in this next chapter, brother.

Ryan: Appreciate it. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation and looking forward to many more.

Ep 612: The Double Win: How to Win at Work And In Life with Megan Hyatt Miller

Rory & AJ Vaden (00:00)
I’m so happy that we are finally getting to sit down and have this conversation. For those of you who don’t know, which is all of you, we were supposed to have this conversation like a couple of months ago and Megan got sick right before we were supposed to record. And then between summer schedules and life, it took us what, almost two months to find

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:11)
Yeah.

I know, it’s

kind of embarrassing.

Rory & AJ Vaden (00:21)
And also anticipation has been growing. So I’m so excited to be able to hit record and have this conversation today. So welcome to the show. ⁓

Megan Hyatt Miller (00:30)
Thank you so much AJ. I’ve been really looking forward to this too. You know, I feel like we have so much in common, not the least of which is our red hair. It’s like really red hair day today, which I love that. But we loved having you on our Double Wind Show. Gosh, that’s probably been a year ago now. That was so much fun, you and Rory. And I just, love that we’re getting to talk today.

Rory & AJ Vaden (00:51)
Yes. And I, and I love that we’re getting to have this conversation because as you guys know, Rory and I, ⁓ we run different parts of our business at brand builders group and we run very differently and all spheres of life, be honest, it comes to our circles, everything. It’s like, sometimes you’re like, how do y’all function as a team? we’re really different. And one of the things that I love because we’ve had Michael Hyatt on the show before, ⁓

Megan Hyatt Miller (01:07)
Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (01:20)
But what I love doing is having the business perspective to come onto the show and to help our audience get to know you a little bit. Like, yes, your dad is Michael Hyatt. You are the CEO. And there’s an evolution that naturally takes place. And this is definitely personal curiosity because I come from a family business. My eldest is taking over our family business right now that I, ⁓ at a very young age, knew I was not going to be a part of.

Megan Hyatt Miller (01:36)
Yeah.

Yeah?

Rory & AJ Vaden (01:48)
It’s in the construction business and I knew that it was not going to be the path for me. But I get to see like firsthand this generational shift from my grandfather started the business, my dad bought it from him in the seventies. Now my eldest brother is in the process of stepping in and starting to run the business while my dad is still in the business. And so to help our audience get to know you because you are not to discredit

Megan Hyatt Miller (01:51)
Wow, not for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (02:17)
Michael or anyone else in the business, but you are the CEO and you are running the behind the scenes and you have been spearheading a ton of scale and a ton of growth for Full Focus Planner and so many other things over the last several years. I would just like to start with, as you stepped into the role of CEO, which I think was 2021,

Megan Hyatt Miller (02:29)
Yeah.

2021 kind of unofficially in 2020, but officially in 2021 January. Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (02:42)
What did that transition feel like? And so that’s the first question, like to help everyone. It’s like, okay, for many of you listening, I just know it’s like, if you’re in small business mode or entrepreneur mode, it’s like you work with a spouse or a parent or a sibling or a child. There’s, there’s a lot of that that happens in this world. So that’s my first question is what did that transition feel like? But then my second question is what has surprised you about stepping into this role with family?

Megan Hyatt Miller (02:55)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Rory & AJ Vaden (03:12)
that you did not expect.

Megan Hyatt Miller (03:14)
Yeah, I love both of those questions. A couple of things. First of all, like you, my husband works in the business. He is our chief content officer. He actually reports to me. So that’s funny too, you know? And then my sister is, my youngest sister, I have four sisters, but my youngest sister, Marissa, is our chief marketing officer. And that has not always been true. Joel, my husband has worked with us for a long time since about 2014, but she’s just come into this role in the

years. And so we are really a family business. know, we have our, you know, leadership team is primarily made up of family members. And it’s so interesting. I’ll come back to that in a second. But you know, when ⁓ I transitioned into the CEO role, it was so unusual, because ⁓ COVID was still active and happening. And that was such a strange time in business, you know, in some ways, it feels like it was a million years ago. In other ways, you know, it’s like PTSD, it feels like it was just yesterday.

But it was a very interesting time from a leadership perspective because I was suddenly dealing with things both in 2020 and 2021 that wouldn’t have been a normal course of a CEO transition. For example, we were dealing with the sudden transition to being fully remote like everybody else. We were dealing with the loss of family members. We had several family members who had

parents or other family members who passed away due to COVID. And so I was suddenly dealing with some pretty significant challenges that would not have been the normal course that would have unfolded had that not happened. I think it was a good thing in a lot of ways. I think it challenged me to grow and to dig in, in ways to think about culture in ways that I wasn’t thinking about it before. was something that was kind of easy to take for granted before.

if you are a pretty good leader, as long as you have people in your office, you know, you could connect with them. But suddenly when they’re not in your office, that presents a tremendous leadership challenge, especially under tremendously stressful circumstances, right? You know, we remember those days of everybody’s trying to work with their kids home and, you know, trying to figure out all the protocols. It was just crazy. fortunately, I had the benefit of my dad making the decision many years before that he wanted this transition to happen. So probably

around 2016, 2017, probably 2016, he had made the decision that eventually this transition would happen. And I became not the CEO first, I became the COO. And that was a really great trading route. It was kind of like a little incubator for becoming the CEO where he was still acting as the CEO, but he really took me alongside him and folded me into the decision making process, explained.

how we thought about things like finance, which I didn’t have a formal background in finance. And so I really had to learn on the job. And he would explain to me things like ⁓ how to read a P &L and how to think about profitability and how to think about the relationships between different business units and all those kinds of things that a lot of entrepreneurs, as I have found now, know, fast forward, I coach a lot of CEOs and business owners and they more often than not.

as entrepreneurs, especially if they came from a solopreneur background, don’t have a financial background. And so I like, like everybody else had to figure it out. And he was such a great mentor in that process. And, know, he’s just such a great leader by nature. So I felt like I had the benefit of a lot of investment leading up to that transition, which was very helpful.

Rory & AJ Vaden (06:53)
So you said he knew that he wanted to make this transition and you in. When did you know?

Megan Hyatt Miller (06:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

That’s a great question. You know, it’s funny when we go through these things, if you are in the middle of a family business, like document this stuff because you will just forget. It’s like, I was somewhere with one of my kids the other day and they were asking me, I have five kids, so you know, it’s a lot of details to keep up with. But somebody was like, well, when did she crawl? And I was like, hmm, I don’t know, I forgot. You know, I feel like it’s succession planning can kind of be the same way because especially in a family business, it can happen sort of organically.

It’s not maybe the same as a big corporate transition where you have a succession and the board has to approve it and you know, etc, etc So I don’t know it was shortly thereafter that I knew and I knew that when he Moved me into the COO role that that was a transitional role and I was in that role for you know Quite a few years. So we talked about it I think one of the things for those who don’t know is that my dad Michael Hyatt comes out of the publishing world

And in his role as CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville, he had a couple of unique experiences that I think were the setup for how he handled our succession. Number one, ⁓ he worked with a lot of authors who will remain nameless to protect their guilt, who did really poor successions or had no plan at all. And so they’re either their children or kind of the heir apparent was not identified or.

adequately prepared and all manner of mayhem kind of came on the other side of that everything from it was difficult to retain talent or attract talent because it wasn’t clear what What the future of the company was, you know if you have for example like a an 87 year old founder of a ministry who You know didn’t have a plan for when he or she was gonna step away it’s hard to attract great talent to that organization because it

feels like your own certainty as a team member is unclear or insecure. ⁓ He also had a very dysfunctional transition, a succession transition when he became the CEO. His predecessor, and he talks about this openly now, who has now passed away, really had an identity crisis on the backend of that ⁓ succession. by backend, I mean like the day it happened, it was like.

If I’m not the CEO, who am I? He said to my dad and then spent two years trying to unseat him. It’s just crazy, right? So ⁓ I think he had seen it go badly and he thought, I don’t want it to go badly.

Rory & AJ Vaden (09:19)
yeah.

That’s interesting.

So, ⁓ sometimes, you know, the best and biggest lessons we learn are from when it doesn’t go right. there’s some gifts, right? There’s some gifts in preparation of like, okay, ⁓ not that, right? At least process it a little bit. So, you know, one of the things that I would love for you to share with this, you know, kind of audience is,

Megan Hyatt Miller (09:42)
That’s right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yes.

Rory & AJ Vaden (09:57)
we kind of get into this conversation around scale and culture and, and we, because I think you’ve done such a phenomenal job at all of those things is what would you say you have learned from the transition from employee to like executive leader and then executive leader, a CEO to the CEO? Like what, what has been the escalation of things that you would say these are defining moments that other people should realize?

Megan Hyatt Miller (10:01)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, like a lot of people and probably AJ, in fact, I know because we talked about it when we were opposite seats on our own podcast. You know, we learn a lot of things the hard way. Unfortunately, I wish it wasn’t that way. I wish that somebody could just hand us, you know, the cheat code. We could bypass all the hard lessons. That would be wonderful. You know, it just sadly does not work that way. And I think part of part of that is because when we go through those difficult lessons, it really shapes who we are.

And the truth is the CEO that I am today is far wiser and more mature because of the difficult things that I’ve been through and also the mistakes that I’ve made. And I think one of the mistakes that I made early on is that I was so focused on delegating, know, I knew that I couldn’t do it all, which was right, you know, of course I can’t, but it was very easy for me to find other ⁓ charismatic or

or people with high, what is the word I’m looking for, command. So I can think of people that I had on my team at various points who were very comfortable being in charge, who actually had a lot of ambition to be in positions of power. And in some ways that was great. I I love ambition in a certain way. On the other hand,

what that sometimes looked like is they were great at leading up to me. So the way that they served me, the way that they shared information with me, communicated was fantastic. The problem was what was happening downstream, I was insulated from and in one case in particular, there was some really dysfunctional things going on that I was unaware of. And I thought as I was hearing some things bubble up, I thought.

you know, that’s a them problem. Like that’s not, this person is not the problem, but in fact, it was that person. And I had to make some hard decisions to solve that. And then what was worse from a culture standpoint, you know, when you’ve had a toxic type of leadership in your organization, then you have to, you you have to play catch up and you have to clean it up. And I think that that was a powerful teacher for me of…

I have to maintain relationships throughout my organization. I have to know what’s going on. I have to be careful that delegation doesn’t become abdication, that I don’t just have one voice in my ear that is sort of like the one source of truth. I need to have, ⁓ you know, a group of sort of internal advisors that help me to see what’s happening and really create a culture that’s safe for dissent at all levels of the organization. And without my knowing, and that was on me,

That changed in our organization and I had to go fix it.

Rory & AJ Vaden (13:14)
That’s good. love that. think that’s sometimes a blurry line where it’s like delegation versus abdication. it’s like you can’t do all the things you need help and support, but that doesn’t mean you don’t do any of the things and you don’t stay involved and you’re not in the loop and you’re not communicating. But I think, yeah, that delegation and abdication line is, it’s a blurry one. And often all of us, have to learn through the mistakes and doing it wrong to like find your happy medium and to this is

Megan Hyatt Miller (13:21)
I know, it is. Yep.

Yep.

It is.

Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (13:44)
This is little gray area that I can sit in in between the two.

Megan Hyatt Miller (13:47)
Yeah,

yes, I think that’s right. And you’ve got to have people ⁓ who will tell you the way things really are and not manipulate you. Because as you scale, as we were talking about a minute ago, as your organization scales, whether you’re going from a solopreneur to hiring your first few employees, or you have 50 or 100 or more employees, the bigger you get, the more disconnected you become naturally. That’s what will happen if you don’t do something. ⁓

to respond to that. And so you’ve got to be really careful that what information, my dad, to his credit, he told me this and I feel like this was, I was a little slow to learn on it, but I certainly did in the end, that the higher you get in an organization or the larger the organization gets, the more information is filtered when it gets to you, whether that’s financial information or HR information. And we’ve got to be on guard for that as entrepreneurs, as leaders.

so that we make sure we have the information we need to make good decisions.

Rory & AJ Vaden (14:47)
Yeah, that’s good. ⁓ And that’s true. it’s like, again, it’s that kind of fine line of like, how vertical do you want your organization versus how small? And there’s a medium that we all kind of have to. I do I appreciate that a lot. And I think for a lot of us, like we hear a lot of people talk about, you know, delegation, right. And I love that nuance of yes, but not abdication. And I think that’s really important leadership trait of

Megan Hyatt Miller (14:56)
That’s right. Yeah. There is. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Rory & AJ Vaden (15:17)
What do you release completely versus where do you have to keep some oversight? Now, as I mentioned earlier before I asked that question, full focus has scaled significantly for your leadership. ⁓ So a couple of quick questions. What would you say to someone who is in growth mode, who is in a season of how have you maintained culture in the midst of rapid growth?

Megan Hyatt Miller (15:28)
It has.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I would say that culture is not something that you can delegate. If you’re the business owner CEO, this is easy to think this is just kind of like an HR function that as you build an HR team, you can just kind of hand that off, like, you know, to somebody and say, you plan the fun events and you know, maybe I’ll show up and maybe I won’t. Obviously somebody else could play in the events. don’t literally have to play in the events, but culture is really the soul of the organization. And as the CEO, ⁓

you are like the body that the soul lives in, you know, to say, to try to mix my metaphors a little bit. You’ve got to have your hands on the culture because culture is really just the externalization of your values and your behavioral norms and the connection that people feel or they don’t feel to each other. And so what I’ve learned over the years is that I’ve got to make sure that I am connected to my team.

now at different points and various stages of growth. That doesn’t mean I can know everybody intimately, but I want to try my best to know as many people as possible. I want to know about their personal life. want to talk about my personal life because we’re not just robots. know, we may have robots very soon, but we’re not robots and we want to be known at work. You know, we want to be seen. We want to be recognized. We want to feel like we belong. And I think in many ways,

the CEO is ⁓ the owner of that responsibility, though he or she may not do all the activities or tasks associated with that. So don’t think you can delegate that. It’s important for you to show up to things. It’s important for you to sit down and have conversations with people. It’s important that people feel like you’re approachable and accessible. ⁓

Rory & AJ Vaden (17:34)
Thank

Megan Hyatt Miller (17:34)
I think it’s really easy, I’m an introvert, so this may be particular to being an introvert, it’s really easy to just disappear into your office and try to let somebody else handle the people. That is a mistake. It does not work well. We’ve got to have connections and relationships because at the end of the day, that’s what growth runs on, our relationships.

Rory & AJ Vaden (17:56)
I love that. What would you say that you have seen for your team, for your organization? What are some of the best things that you guys have done or that you have seen done that really instill culture?

Megan Hyatt Miller (18:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, I’m gonna give you kind of a bigger, fancier idea and then I’m gonna give you something really basic. ⁓ First of all, our team is at this point mostly remote, but every Monday the team comes in and we have a team meeting and we have lunch together. And half of that lunch, so we have the meeting beforehand and then in the morning and then we have lunch afterwards. ⁓ The lunch has no agenda. It is not a meeting. The meeting part has already happened.

⁓ We end up telling funny stories about our kids, places we went for vacation. We just talk like people who like each other and we do like each other. And while that’s not productive time in the strict sense, I actually think it’s one of the most important things we do. We just hang out together and it is easy to dismiss the value of just hanging out. I don’t think necessarily you have to have some programming or play a game or whatever. We’ve done all that kind of stuff and that’s fun too.

But just having a place where, again, you can be seen as a three-dimensional person, if you can get people together in person, that is certainly ideal. ⁓ And you know what’s going on in each other’s lives. You know that Dave went out for his 25th anniversary last weekend and he went on a hiking trip with his wife. Or you know that Hannah did this or that. She was visiting some family members with her dog.

We just need to know about each other. And I think that’s what people really want from work. It’s not gimmicks, it’s being known. So the other thing that we’ve done at various points over the years is we’ve gone on trips with our team. So ⁓ way back, we went on a couple of cruises with our team. We have also been to local ⁓ resorts. I don’t think this has to be, by the way, super glam and fancy and expensive. It can be, and we’ve done it both ways. It’s really, of course, it’s fun.

But there’s something that happens. mean, just think about like when you were in college and you went on a road trip or maybe you went to Europe and you did like a Euro rail thing with a friend. There’s something that happens when you have unstructured time with people and you’re just together. You make memories that those memories become equity. And that equity you can really draw on when you’re in an intense or a difficult season, whether that’s somebody’s personal situation or the business itself.

And it’s so valuable. So I think if your culture is new or not yet in a great place, doing something like a trip could be really awesome. Even if it’s just a couple of nights. And we love including spouses whenever we can too, because we feel like people are whole people and that part of their life is really important ⁓ to integrate into our life as a company.

Rory & AJ Vaden (20:49)
I love that. And specifically because I think to still some degree, most people are hybrid remote at least now there is I have a growing sense of a lot of companies being like back in the office. ⁓ There is still this hybrid nature or still complete remote nature and that present itself with a new cultural challenge that really did this pre COVID.

Megan Hyatt Miller (20:57)
Yes.

Yes, right.

Yep.

Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (21:16)
Universally speaking, we’ve been, we’re in a unique position that we’ve always had hybrid environments, even in our company. But a part of our desire and about build buying a building last year was like, we need a home base for our people to see or to get to things that you said that I just find so fascinating because literally this earlier this week, I got totally Instagram marketed to by like one of the many parenting people I follow.

Megan Hyatt Miller (21:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (21:45)
And it was targeting me on this research study about kids and the importance of unstructured playtime with other people their age. Non-parental supervised, and it was interesting because this entire study asked children, not the parents, what parents need to know to help you stay off screens. What would incentivize you to stay off screens? And I thought the answer is

Megan Hyatt Miller (21:55)
Yes!

Yep.

wow.

Rory & AJ Vaden (22:14)
fascinating. And then the study also shared all these statistics around the percentage of kids that actually have non-parental supervised time outside of the home and how that has increased significantly since the 70s and then the 80s. And there’s this gradual decrease of, you know, like we track our kids everywhere, got air tags on them. They all have cell phones. Like,

Megan Hyatt Miller (22:29)
⁓

Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (22:41)
I’m gonna avoid any political thoughts on this. I’m just gonna state the facts. ⁓ But I do think it was fascinating that the number one thing that research studies showed and that kids actually said is, I just need unstructured time with other people. And to hear you say the exact, you haven’t said the words, unstructured time. It’s like, not all that different. Like we’re just older.

Megan Hyatt Miller (22:55)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I know. I

think that’s really right, AJ. I mean, it’s funny. It’s funny to think because like I said, I have five kids and my six year old daughter, who’s my youngest, ⁓ you know, we have her now free to run around the neighborhood and we have a bunch of kids in our neighborhood and play. And it was kind of unsettling at first because, you know, my husband and I, he was born in 1975 and I was born in 1980. Like we a thousand percent did that.

but that was not okay. Our 24 year old, who was our oldest, definitely he was not running around the neighborhood. That was unstructured time that was not supervised with friends. That would have been totally looked down upon at that time. feel like, like you said, there’s kind of this resurgence of letting kids be kind of wild and free, which I love. ⁓ But I think we need that as adults too. I think that as…

our human connections have kind of moved away from institutions. And, you know, we could have a whole discussion about that and good or bad, and, you know, there’s lots of opinions to be had, regardless of the opinions, it is a fact. Like our human connections are not primarily coming from organizations we’re a part of outside of work or church or other places. People are looking for that kind of connection and that kind of care from other people within the workplace and as owners and

CEOs and leaders, that’s easy to miss because we’re thinking about, I’ve to get this work done. You know, I need people to complete these tasks so that I can get these projects or services out the door so that I can bill for them, for example. But people are coming to us in part because they’re looking for meaning and belonging and significance. And that’s really easy to miss. But if we can tap into that and understand it, then our ability

to retain those people obviously goes up, but also it’s really satisfying to be in an organization where those things are happening. Honestly, even for us as entrepreneurs, it’s fun. It’s fun to work in a place where people enjoy each other and the kind of collaboration and creativity that you get is huge. And I think a lot of that comes from that unstructured time.

Rory & AJ Vaden (25:15)
Yeah, I love that. And it could be as casual as a lunch or it could be as elaborate trip, but unstructured time where people can just become friends. Um, and, I love that because it really takes the pressure off of you as the leader. I have to have this detailed agenda and we’re going to do these, you know, exercises or you just need to get people together and let community happen.

Megan Hyatt Miller (25:19)
Yeah.

Exactly.

It does.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Don’t do that.

Rory & AJ Vaden (25:41)
And I love that. think that’s ⁓ really valuable. And I love the trip part. Again, it’s back to, it’s like what it does, like a trip doesn’t matter if it’s an overnight, if it’s local, it’s, but what happens is like it expedites the get to know you process. That’s actually about like any sort of like mastermind or group coaching program up there. Like I think the reason leaving your home environment,

Megan Hyatt Miller (25:42)
Yes.

absolutely.

Yes. Yes.

Rory & AJ Vaden (26:09)
and going somewhere with other people is like, if there’s this relationship acceleration that happens because you’re in a new place, you’re making memories together, you’re learning new things together, it just wouldn’t happen in a normal everyday environment. I love that.

Megan Hyatt Miller (26:27)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think

it’s really easy in like a, you know, kind of a virtual or more remote context. It can become very transactional because really you’re dealing with people on zoom and Slack and it’s, it is all structured because everything is an appointment or responding directly to a message. And that’s, know, that’s all fine. It’s just, there’s not enough connective tissue there to keep everything together. You’ve got to have the other.

Rory & AJ Vaden (26:50)
I love that. okay, switching gears just a little bit. And this was a little bit of a conversation that we had prior to me hitting record, but connected to a similar topic that we’re on through, you know, scale and how do you maintain culture. But, you know, I’d love to talk about like a practice or a belief that has helped you stay grounded through seasons of intense growth as a leader, but then also company and kind of tied to

Megan Hyatt Miller (27:11)
Mm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Rory & AJ Vaden (27:20)
idea of how do we make sure if we’re winning at work we’re winning at home and this balance that kind of has to happen of what does success look like through all the different areas of your life not just your nine-to-five or just home but how do we have you know wins everywhere.

Megan Hyatt Miller (27:24)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, I think that’s really important because it’s easy, especially when you’re in growth mode. was just talking with someone about this this morning, especially when you’re in growth mode, you can become myopic and the only thing you’re focused on is the growth. And then you look up and you realize, oh my gosh, I did it at the expense of my health or my family. And I thought this was going to give me more freedom and it was going to give me a greater sense of wellbeing or flourishing or abundance in my life. And it’s actually done the opposite. I feel like a prisoner.

You know, and I think that that’s, that’s the opposite of what we want. Like nobody, nobody wants us. think most of us became entrepreneurs because there was a level of autonomy and freedom to align our life with our values. That is what we were chasing. And so we have to keep that in mind as we’re scaling and we don’t unintentionally kind of give that away along the way, you know, full focus. ⁓ We have pioneered this idea of the double win, which is winning at work and succeeding at life. And really what that means for us.

is more than just winning or success. It really means human flourishing. You can be successful or win and not flourish, but what we want is human flourishing. And the way we think about that is ⁓ we talk about it in terms of practices. I love thinking about practices because there’s something that feels inviting and…

gentle about that. And I think as entrepreneurs, know, our kind of default is much more like 75 hard, you know, or something like that. It just tends to be so intense. And we need less intensity in our life, not more. And so the six practices of human flourishing are first of all, tending to yourself, you know, we’ve got to care for our physical, mental and emotional and spiritual well being, we’re not going to ultimately arrive at a place where we can say I’m flourishing no matter what season of my life I’m in, if I’m not attending to those things. So tending to yourself.

Connecting with others, just like we were talking about, and a lot of that can happen within your own company, but it’s really critical that’s happening outside of your company. You’ve got to build and nurture meaningful relationships. And then doing work that matters, and this is probably the one for a lot of us that comes most easily, but we want to be engaging in purposeful work that makes a contribution to the world. And again, that one usually we can check off without too much effort because that’s why we started our entrepreneurial journey to begin with.

But this is where it gets hard in the kind of second half of these six practices, prioritizing recreation. If I have heard once, I’ve heard it a thousand times from clients who are business owners, this is really difficult. But if we don’t make time for play and hobbies, and I don’t really even like those words because I think most of us as entrepreneurs kind of viscerally react to that, but actually what we’re doing is there is a restorative

Rory & AJ Vaden (30:02)
Mmm.

Megan Hyatt Miller (30:25)
recreational as in recreative part of those things. For example, when I’m out in my garden, which I love to be, know, like I’m just out there puttering in the garden doing whatever that is kind of putting back all the little pieces of me that can feel all fragmented. puts it back together and it, puts me in a place where I’m at peace. My nervous system is regulated. I can come in and lead at a different level because I’ve prioritized recreation. So that’s number four.

Rory & AJ Vaden (30:54)
Can we pause on number four? Can we pause on number four for Mainly because

Megan Hyatt Miller (30:54)
experiencing nature? yeah, sorry, go ahead. Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (31:02)
I every entrepreneur I know I’m a part of EO Nashville entrepreneurs organ in Nashville and this concept of hobbies is like really hard for people to not win I mean when you think about work and then you’re like and if you have young kids and it’s like I have a spouse is like what am I supposed to have a hobby so you’re one it’s like well how do you fit that in how do you prioritize that but to

Megan Hyatt Miller (31:06)
Yeah.

It’s really hard.

Yes.

Yep. Yep.

Rory & AJ Vaden (31:28)
You said there’s something about being, and I think this was really important, about being in your garden that just, it regulates me. how do you find that? Because I think that’s what, when we think about how this isn’t just for the sake of going to do something that’s not work, it’s like, no, like what’s something that resets you? like, literally resets your system. So how did you find that in gardening? So there are two parts of like, how does this even enter into your

Megan Hyatt Miller (31:32)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Right. Yes.

Yep. Yeah.

Where does it fit in? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (31:58)
That is this interim time.

How do you find the thing that actually sets

Megan Hyatt Miller (32:02)
Yeah, I love

that. Well, I love that because those are the questions I get all the time. And those are the questions that I ask myself for years. I have five kids, three out of five of my kids have special needs. There’s always some crisis happening with my kids. ⁓ And, you know, I’m on the phone with the school, with IEP people, or I’m doing a therapy conference like I was last week. So my life is not…

is anything but not full. It is packed to the gills with all kinds of family and professional commitment. So I feel like if I can do it, anybody can do it. I’m a good case study because it’s not an ideal scenario. What I’m not talking about necessarily, unless you’re in a stage of life where this is realistic, is that you’re gonna go play 18 holes of golf on a Saturday morning. If you had a new baby last year or you just started a business, that’s probably not realistic. And so when I think about these practices of human flourishing, I’m thinking about

how can this be relevant in any season of our life? I’ve been at the stage where I did have a new baby six years ago and that looked very different than it does today. And so I think that first of all, hobbies, again, it’s not a great word. We don’t have a better word, which is so frustrating to me. like, there’s gotta be a better word. But hobbies sounds like something you do when you retire because you have so much extra time. And I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ve not sat around any time in the last 20 years and thought,

You know what, I just need something to fill up my time. I don’t have anything to do today. know, like it’s like literally never happened. ⁓ So I think instead what we need to think about this as like really enjoyable medicine to take. It’s medicine for our soul. It’s medicine for our nervous system. Most entrepreneurs struggle with anxiety. I know I do and

everybody I’ve ever coached, either diagnosed or undiagnosed does, I think it just kind of goes with the territory. Our nervous systems are not naturally regulated. We are not naturally people who are at peace. That’s sort of like diametrically opposed to ambition in a lot of ways. And so what we need are experiences that are embodied. Like usually this involves your whole body. So this is part of the answer to the second question.

It doesn’t count if you’re like reading and learning. That is not an embodied, I that’s great for your professional life, but if you just have a research hobby, that’s not what I’m talking about. That might be a hobby, but it doesn’t serve the purpose of what I’m talking about. I want you to do something that engages your body, your physical senses. If you can do it outdoors, all the better. The next practice is about being in nature.

And so a lot of times these two things can go together. You can ⁓ make time for recreation and you can also ⁓ get out in nature. think about when you go, maybe you’re on vacation and you go do something. Maybe you go on a hike. Maybe you just go on a walk on the beach. ⁓ Maybe you go to a new restaurant and you do like a tasting menu and you just feel yourself exhale.

You feel yourself come alive in some way and you just feel that sense of peace simultaneously. Like you feel at peace and you also feel alive. ⁓ and it can be literally anything. it could be, ⁓ you know, needlework. It could be a running group that you do with friends. So you’re now you’re getting connection plus the recreational part. it doesn’t have to be long. It could be 15 minutes, three times a week.

Rory & AJ Vaden (35:22)
Yeah.

Megan Hyatt Miller (35:40)
I will often go out of my garden and I’m just watering at night. You know, I put my daughter down to bed and I go water. And that’s like, it’s not any more complicated than that, you know? And that for me, just being, I try to be barefoot, I stand in my garden, I’m listening to the bugs, I’m listening to the birds and whatever other sounds are going on. I’m saying hi to the neighbors. And in about 15 minutes, like I come in and I just feel I’m breathing differently. My heart rate is at a different and lower place.

And that’s what we want. And it’s not about like checking off self-care boxes. I don’t like that because that just feels like another task. It’s like what restores my soul? What gives me peace? What fills me up? What puts me back together? Like that’s what we’re talking about in this particular practice.

Rory & AJ Vaden (36:29)
way more than a hobby. And that’s kind of why.

Megan Hyatt Miller (36:31)
Way more

than a hobby.

Rory & AJ Vaden (36:33)
And it’s because I feel like, I feel some of that. it’s like, yeah, this isn’t like just going to find something to do. It’s like, yeah, what’s that thing that we sell? That’s so good. All right. And then you said one was be in nature.

Megan Hyatt Miller (36:34)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep, be in nature, experience nature. And then the last one is stay open to the sacred. regardless of what your spiritual perspective is, ⁓ I’m a Christian and so for me, this looks like spiritual practices related to that. But cultivating your own spiritual connection, your sense of transcendence, it’s not healthy to feel like you’re God in your own life.

It’s not healthy to feel like everything depends on you. Like we need to have a sense in a healthy way of how small we are, that we’re a part of something bigger, that we’re held, that we’re cared for. Like those are very important ⁓ realizations. And so, you know, that for me, that looks like prayer time in the morning. Sometimes it looks like going to a midweek church service. It might look totally different for you. And that’s fine. There’s many ways that it can look. ⁓ But human beings are,

not meant to be ⁓ everything unto themselves and the pressure of being an entrepreneur can make it feel like we have to play God a lot and I think it can be so healthy and such a relief to stay open to the sacred and realize, okay, it’s not all up to me. It’s just like, ⁓ okay, good, I can exhale again.

Rory & AJ Vaden (38:03)
I think gosh, I had no idea what I was doing.

Megan Hyatt Miller (38:06)
Right,

right, I’m like just making it up.

Rory & AJ Vaden (38:10)
I love that. And I love those six practices. ⁓ mean, that is, it’s like when you think about the question, it’s like, what helps you stay grounded in seasons of growth or chaos or, it’s like, these are great practices ⁓ across the board. And I love it. It’s like, this is different than success. This is, what does it mean to flourish? Not just have success, to actually.

Megan Hyatt Miller (38:19)
Yes.

Yes.

Yep. Yep.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (38:35)
get peace within yourself and flourish. I love that. Okay, I’m watching the clock. I know that we have limited time, but I have like three other quick questions for you. Okay. What’s one leadership myth that you have overturned since becoming CEO?

Megan Hyatt Miller (38:43)
Great, let’s go.

Ooh, that you have to follow a conventional.

Rory & AJ Vaden (38:57)
Mmm.

Megan Hyatt Miller (38:58)
My dad before me was kind of typical ⁓ male CEO, big corporate background, ⁓ led a public company, then started a second company. That’s a pretty common story among people that are successful. I came in at the time as a mom of four kids, kids with special needs. Later we adopted a fifth child. I knew that I could only work from nine to three because I had to be home with my kids after school.

And that’s not a lot of CEOs are doing that. Not a lot of CEOs would give themselves permission. In my case, wasn’t so much about permission. It was more about this is what has to happen for my life to work, for me to honor the stewardship role that I have as a mother to my children and what I signed up for when I became their mom, since it was a little bit unconventional path with adoption and so forth. I set those boundaries really early on and I’ve stuck to that.

for years and years and years, and it can work. You can have big constraints, unconventional constraints, and still be very successful.

Rory & AJ Vaden (40:09)
Yeah, the hours you work, it’s what you do in the hours that you work. I love that. That’s so good. Okay, next one. What’s one unexpected leadership lesson you wish you had known earlier?

Megan Hyatt Miller (40:11)
That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Ooh, ⁓ how important data is. So yeah, like most companies in a high growth phase, there was a period where we were really growing, but our data, financial data, marketing data, everything was just a mess because the way that you typically build these things, it’s like, ⁓ you know, a patchwork quilt of this platform and that platform and this spreadsheet and this person that led to this person. And it just becomes a mess. And there comes a point

where you have to clean it all up. And I’m telling you that is a painful process. We are well on the other side of that now and I’m so grateful. But I think I underestimated how important it is, especially as someone who’s, ⁓ you know, to use the Colby assessment, if you’re familiar with that language. I’m a quick start, I like to take action. I’m not a systems person, like that’s not my gift. And it was easy for me to downplay how important it was to have systems that ultimately… ⁓

enable me to have high quality data that I could trust. And so I’ve had to kind of learn that lesson the hard way of making sure that all the systems talk to each other, that there’s integrity with all of them, and that I’m getting out of those things the information I need to make good strategic decisions. And so I didn’t know that early on in the way that I do now.

Rory & AJ Vaden (41:38)
I think that one of the things a lot of people like if I was to ever play a game and they said what’s something about you that people wouldn’t guess is that I’m a data nerd. I love I love Excel and people are like you do Yes, like I love so I love that and I think somebody told me early in my entrepreneurial career They were like the best decisions happen from good data That I just latched on to

Megan Hyatt Miller (41:46)
Yeah.

Yes!

Yes, 1000%.

Rory & AJ Vaden (42:07)
and became really obsessive about. ⁓ you’re right, actually getting data is not easy. It takes the right analysis, the right systems, the right analysis, the right frequencies, the right timing. ⁓ It really does take like a concerted effort. But if you do it right, which takes time and effort, it does make your decision simpler. Maybe not easier, but does make simpler. ⁓

Megan Hyatt Miller (42:14)
It’s not easy.

Yep.

It does.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, it does,

it does.

Rory & AJ Vaden (42:36)
the clock, I know I have two ⁓ rapid fires. So I’m going to split this into two. Right. So, and this is just for those of you who’ve never been introduced to the full focus planner and full focus. ⁓ I have a handy over there, but I use the, I use the quarterly planners. I just got like like eight by 11 planner. So here’s my question for you because it’s all in the realm of productivity and I’ve split it. What’s your favorite productivity tool?

Megan Hyatt Miller (42:53)
great.

Rory & AJ Vaden (43:04)
besides the full focus planner.

Megan Hyatt Miller (43:12)
I would say this is a practice in the full focus planner, but we did not come up with this. It’s not original to us. And that is doing a weekly preview process. So again, this is all guided in the full focus planner. But essentially what it’s doing is it’s looking back on the prior week and it’s saying what went well, what were my wins, which by the way, if you’re an entrepreneur, you have long since forgot your wins by the time you get to Friday. You can’t even remember what happened on Monday because so many things have happened.

So that’s great for your confidence, but then also assessing what worked and what didn’t and what I want to take into the next week and then what’s coming up and what do I have to accomplish this week? So in our language, we would say, you said a weekly big three, what are the three outcomes I must accomplish in the next week? And if I don’t go into the new week without that clarity, if I step into that and I’m just kind of like being whipped around by my calendar or by incoming requests, which of course happen all the time,

am not going to steward that week as well as I would if I go in with a plan. I know what’s happening. I don’t feel anxious. ⁓ And so I think that practice, typically do that on Sundays in the afternoon when my daughter’s having quiet time. I’ll just sit down for half an hour or so and I’ll go through that process. And it just makes me feel like, okay, I know what’s happening. I know what I need to get done this week. And as all the noise is swirling around, I am able to focus on what matters most regardless of what else is happening.

Rory & AJ Vaden (44:35)
I love that and I love just the concept of a weekly preview isn’t just the week ahead reflection of Last week that helped inform me. I love that. I wrote that down I’m gonna put that into my practice because I think what so many people do is they immediately it’s like well, that’s done What’s next that’s done? What’s next and just moment of reflecting of what worked what didn’t I think all of that is so

Megan Hyatt Miller (44:40)
Yeah. Yeah! Yeah!

Right. That’s right.

Hahaha

Yes. Yes.

That’s right.

Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (45:02)
The second

part to this productivity thing has a little bit more to do with ⁓ life, work, family, all the things. So if there was ⁓ one tip or practice or suggestion that you have learned, maybe the hard way of how do you help people who are in the throes of running and managing a business and running and managing a family.

Megan Hyatt Miller (45:20)
You

Yeah.

Rory & AJ Vaden (45:29)
Would you say just one thing that everyone needs to know that helps them flourish?

Megan Hyatt Miller (45:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. I think if you want to flourish in a season where your plate is very full at work and at home, you’ve got to establish non-negotiables. And what I mean by that is you’re not going to be able to do it all. That is completely a lie. You will not be able to be at everything. You will not be able to do every, every thing you want to do. You’re to have to make choices. And the question is, what’s the criteria for the choices? You know, when I made the decision, when I

middle boys came home from Uganda when we adopted them in 2011, I decided one of my non-negotiables was I was going to be done every day at three o’clock, which meant I said no to all kinds of stuff. But I was optimizing for being home at three o’clock. Like that was key. I also said one of my non-negotiables was that five nights a week we were going to eat around the table. I I cooked every night, you know, for that. Sometimes it was like Chick-fil-A, but we sat down at the table and we have done that for years and years and years. And now I can look back and say,

that feels really good to me that I’m so glad I made those two choices and those were personal choices, but I made my work submit to my non-negotiables and I didn’t make non-negotiables like 20 things. Like you can probably have up to three non-negotiables and that’s it. But really think to yourself and this doesn’t apply only if you have children or children at home. Think about what are you optimizing your life for outside of work and what does work have to do to conform to serve those outcomes? Because work is not

you know, of making a meaningful contribution. Success is not an end in of itself, know, money, achievement, like these are not ends in of themselves, like we’re usually pursuing these to make things happen personally in a lot of ways. And so ask yourself the question, what are my non-negotiables?

Rory & AJ Vaden (47:17)
and then make your work submit to those.

Megan Hyatt Miller (47:20)
Yeah, and make your work submit.

Rory & AJ Vaden (47:22)
I wrote that down. That’s so, so, so, so good. ⁓ Megan, I could ask you 15 more questions and take this another hour. And I know that we don’t have that. But I do want to encourage everyone, if you are not already connected to Megan, like connect with her. So Megan, if you were to tell people like, hey, if you just want to connect with me and hear from me, where’s the best place or what’s your preferred place?

Megan Hyatt Miller (47:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So ⁓ first of all, check out our website at fullfocus.co.com fullfocus.co. I’m getting ready to move my newsletter. You can sign up for that on our website right now. I’m getting ready to move that to Substack. So I’m really excited about that process because I think it’ll enable me to connect with a lot more people that way. But I do write a newsletter every other week and that will soon be weekly on Substack. And I talk about human flourishing there. So that’s a great way to connect.

Rory & AJ Vaden (48:16)
And also everyone should also check out the Double Wind podcast. I’ll put the link in the show notes. It’s an awesome podcast, co-led, co-hosted, and just really valuable for everything we talked about today. It’s winning in multiple places of your life. It’s homework, but ultimately how do you have human flourishing? This has been a phenomenal.

Megan Hyatt Miller (48:20)
Yes.

heat.

Rory & AJ Vaden (48:38)
episode. Thank you so much for being on the show. I wrote down personal notes. I now have three specific action items. So I took away something everyone else who’s listening did too. So Megan, thank you so much for being on the show for everyone who is listening. will see you next time on the influential personal brand. See you later guys.

Megan Hyatt Miller (48:45)
Love that.