How to Build a Powerful Network of Successful People
An 88-minute sit-down with the founder of Mastermind Talks on how to get into rooms above your level, and how to stay there once you're in.
Posted
1 weeks ago
Duration
Format
Interview
sincere
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908
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
If you can't get invited into the room, build it yourself, then earn your place in it with great work, specific service and deliberately maintained deep relationships rather than follower counts.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A founder or creator who keeps watching peers' event photos on Instagram and wondering how to get into those rooms.
Someone with no network who is willing to do the organizing work of a dinner, mixer or small event to meet people above their level.
A creator with a large following who wants members to connect with each other instead of only with the host.
A community or mastermind operator looking for concrete curation, onboarding and engagement mechanics like triads and praise cards.
Anyone who reaches out to busy people with 'How can I help?' and gets nowhere.
SKIP IF…
You want online audience-growth tactics. This is about in-person relationships and curated rooms, not followers.
You need a step-by-step event-planning checklist. The logistics are sketched, not detailed.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Relationships with people above your level are built, not stumbled into. If no one invites you, host the room: start with the easiest yes on a ten-person list, land an anchor tenant, or partner with a bigger name who lacks the bandwidth to organize. Access comes three ways: money (buying a seat), moxie (cold outreach and eight seconds of courage) and service (a specific, pre-scoped offer of help, never 'How can I help?'). Approach well-known people with leaving energy and plant seeds rather than pitching. Long term, great work raises your hit rate on everything, deep relationships multiply your luck, and a friends-only update with one clear ask keeps those relationships alive. Communities beat fan bases when members connect without the host, through curation by values, random triads and an ask, give, praise rule.
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Teaser montage: create the room, the ten-person outreach list, making people feel seen, fan base versus community.
01:23 – 04:21
02 · From two friends to Mastermind Dinners
The guest built a successful business at the expense of relationships, had two people at his bachelor party, and cured the loneliness by cold-inviting magazine-listed entrepreneurs to an eight-person dinner.
04:21 – 08:04
03 · Build your own table
Instead of waiting for an invite, host the room. The host gets the status, and lower-lift formats like two-hour mixers and dinners work before full events. Summit Series began as a sponsored ski trip for 40 people.
08:04 – 12:25
04 · Landing the first yes
Three ways to fill a room: easiest-first outreach list, an anchor tenant (Tim Ferriss for MMT, James Clear for the author mastermind), or partnering with a bigger name who lacks bandwidth.
12:25 – 15:41
05 · Organizing above your level
The host plays city-league volleyball with NCAA players because he runs the team. Being the organizer is a gift people thank you for. Curated events also buy you speed.
15:41 – 22:55
06 · Money and moxie
Buying access: a $57,000 Bill Ackman lunch and a $10,000 Tim Ferriss event. Moxie: cold emails to freshly funded startups, Dan Gilbert at 2 a.m., and standing up Mark Zuckerberg. The host admits chickening out of joining his heroes.
22:55 – 29:57
07 · Eight seconds of courage and leaving energy
Skydiving taught eight seconds of courage. Leaving energy turned a 45-second hello into a relationship with Chris Brogan and a late-night call with Steven Bartlett. Don't put people on a pedestal; plant seeds.
29:57 – 36:06
08 · Service that is actually specific
Ryan Holiday apprenticed under Robert Greene. Benjamin Graham told Warren Buffett free was overpriced. Replace 'How can I help?' with a scoped offer, like leading a book street team to 250 reviews.
36:06 – 39:49
09 · Relationships that weigh you down
First relationships form by proximity and may not match new ambitions. Get the right people on the bus. All relationships go dormant naturally, which cuts both ways.
39:49 – 46:02
10 · The hierarchy of rooms
Entrepreneurs and creators are isolated by public scoreboards. Conferences, workshops, professional organizations, masterminds and communities sit on a ladder of relationship depth.
46:02 – 56:00
11 · Great work raises your hit rate
Forget networking, do great work. Quality turns one-in-a-thousand outreach into near-certain replies. Most people aren't ready for the biggest podcasts; put in reps and media training first.
56:00 – 59:32
12 · Surface area of luck, redesigned
Kit sponsor read, then the luck formula: do great work, let others know, and add deep relationships. 500 people who have your back beat 50,000 followers.
59:32 – 1:08:27
13 · Friends-only updates
A private update email with one clear ask saved MMT in 2020 via multi-year credits. Filters for the list, an 85% open rate, video versions, and the 90-minute quarterly update.
1:08:27 – 1:15:45
14 · Fan base versus community
Be the bouncer: curate by demographics, values and synergy. Run a community like a company. Random three-person calls (SUPs at Kit, MM3s at MMT) build depth between members.
1:15:45 – 1:24:11
15 · Ask, give, praise
Every post is an ask, a give, or praise for a member. Praise cards written at events and mailed 90 days later reinforce value and reveal the quiet culture carriers.
1:24:11 – 1:27:46
16 · Why Community Made
The title came from Zach Anner, who told an MMT audience he isn't self-made, he's community made. Building relationships is half the battle; asking for help is the other half.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
If you can't get an invite into the room, you can usually create the room, because people want to connect but few will do the organizing work.
Whoever commands the focal point of a gathering is granted status by everyone in it, so the host of an event becomes the highest-status person there.
When building a guest list, put the hardest person to land at number ten and ask the easiest first, so each yes makes the next one more likely.
One anchor tenant, like one well-known guest, changes the appeal of an event for everyone else on the list.
A $57,000 charity lunch with Bill Ackman turned into a $40 million investment because the buyers showed up insatiably curious.
Not everybody has $57,000 to buy access, but everybody has access to email.
Eight seconds of courage is often all it takes to start a conversation that changes your trajectory.
Bring leaving energy to a famous person: a 45-second hello and an exit removes the pressure and leaves them wanting more.
Almost every quick, no-ask hello at a conference turns into a real conversation within 48 hours, because you'll cross paths again.
Asking 'How can I help?' puts the burden on the busy person to invent a task for you; offer one specific, measurable thing instead.
Free help can be overpriced, because the other person still has to train and manage you.
Every relationship goes dormant on its own, so the ones you want to keep need deliberate effort and the ones you don't can simply fade.
Most mastermind labels are really conferences charging a higher price; if a guru runs the front of the room, it isn't a mastermind.
Relationships move at the speed of trust and vulnerability, so a curated, values-based room condenses years of networking into days.
Doing great work raises your response rate on every cold outreach, turning one-in-a-thousand odds into near-guaranteed replies.
Most people spend 90% of their effort getting booked on a big podcast and 10% on delivery; invert it.
It doesn't matter how many friends you can count, it matters how many friends you can count on.
A friends-only update with one clear ask saved an events business in 2020 and led to a credit model worth seven figures.
Run a community of 150 people like a company of 150: curate on core values, then coach members up or coach them out.
Praise cards mailed 90 days after an event reveal who your real culture carriers are, and it is often the quiet members.
Takeaway
Build the room, then earn your seat in it.
WHAT TO LEARN
Access to people above your level comes from hosting, specific service and courage, but staying in those rooms depends on great work and relationships you deliberately keep warm.
02From two friends to Mastermind Dinners
Being well-connected is a learned skill; a lonely founder with no network built one by cold-inviting strangers from a magazine list to an eight-person dinner.
Proximity to ambitious people is worth organizing for, because a well-curated dinner can run four and a half hours without the conversation skipping a beat.
03Build your own table
When you aren't invited, host the gathering yourself, since the person at the focal point of a room is automatically granted the most status.
Start with low-lift formats like a two-hour mixer or small dinner before attempting a full event, and look for sponsors to cover the cost.
04Landing the first yes
Rank ten target guests by difficulty and ask the easiest first, so each confirmed name becomes social proof for the harder asks.
Land one anchor guest or partner with a bigger name who lacks bandwidth, and offer to do all the heavy lifting yourself.
05Organizing above your level
Organizing the team or room lets you play far above your level, and the high-status people in it will thank you for doing the work.
Curated rooms compress time, letting you absorb a network in two days that would otherwise take a decade to build.
06Money and moxie
Paying for access only works if you arrive curious and interesting; the $57,000 Ackman lunch paid off because the buyers asked great questions.
Cold email is free moxie: short, specific notes to people who just raised money or are doing work you admire open doors money can't.
07Eight seconds of courage and leaving energy
Only the first eight seconds of an intimidating approach require courage, so commit to the opening line and trust yourself after that.
Bring leaving energy: a 45-second hello with context and a clean exit beats lingering, and usually leads to a real conversation within 48 hours.
Never treat someone as on a pedestal, because it signals you aren't peers; plant a seed and assume you'll cross paths again.
08Service that is actually specific
Skip 'How can I help?' because it hands the busy person homework; look at what they're working on and offer one scoped, measurable task.
Free help still costs the other person training time, so make your offer self-directed and tied to their current goal, like 250 book reviews in 30 days.
09Relationships that weigh you down
Audit your existing relationships against where you want to go, because every yes to one relationship is time taken from another.
Relationships fade on their own, so let the draining ones go dormant quietly and put deliberate effort into the ones you want to keep.
10The hierarchy of rooms
Entrepreneurs and creators are isolated by public scoreboards, so seek rooms where you feel among peers and leave energized.
Judge rooms by relationship depth: conferences spark, workshops connect, criteria-based groups match stage, and values-curated communities build trust fastest.
A real mastermind taps the group's collective wisdom; if a guru runs the front of the room, it's a conference with a higher price.
11Great work raises your hit rate
Great work raises your response rate on every outreach, so improving the work can matter more than sending more messages.
Before chasing the biggest podcasts or stages, put in media reps until delivery is strong, since you often get only one shot.
Spend most of your effort on the work you control rather than on getting booked, which you don't control.
12Surface area of luck, redesigned
Luck grows when you do great work, tell people about it, and invest in deep relationships; depth beats follower counts.
13Friends-only updates
Send a candid friends-only update to people who've invested in you, and include one clear ask every time so they can actually help.
Only include people who would be glad to get the email and whose reply you wouldn't dread, and make unsubscribing easy.
If the full update keeps slipping, cap it at a 90-minute block and send whatever you have, the way you'd catch up over coffee.
14Fan base versus community
A community differs from a fan base when members value each other even when the host isn't in the room.
Curate on demographics, values and synergy, then coach members up or out on those values, just as you would employees.
Recurring three-person calls, random or curated, build depth between members and scale without the host.
15Ask, give, praise
Limit community posts to asks, gives and praise, which cuts self-promotion and keeps the channel useful.
Public praise between members constantly signals that the community invests in each other, and builds a library of proof stories.
Collect written praise at events and mail it back months later to re-ignite the experience and identify quiet culture carriers.
16Why Community Made
Building relationships is only half the work; the other half is being willing to ask for help.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Mastermind Talks (MMT)
An invite-only, heavily curated community and annual event for entrepreneurs, built around shared values rather than an open ticket sale.
Anchor tenant
A real-estate term for the big-name store that draws other tenants to a mall. Applied to events, it is the one well-known guest whose yes makes everyone else more likely to say yes.
Leaving energy
Approaching someone with a short, warm, no-ask interaction and then exiting on your own, as opposed to lingering and making them end the conversation.
Surface area of luck
The idea that luck grows with how much good work you do and how many people know about it. This version adds a third input: deep relationships.
Social exchange theory
A psychology model holding that people consciously or unconsciously build relationships with those who can advance them, which is why being excellent at something attracts a network.
Friends-only update
A periodic personal email sent only to people who have helped you, sharing candid news, goals and one clear ask that you would never post publicly.
Triad (MM3 / SUP)
A recurring three-person call where members are grouped at random or by design, so relationships form between members instead of only with the host.
Ask, give, praise
A posting rule for community channels: every post must be a request, an offer, or public thanks for something a fellow member did.
EO / YPO
Entrepreneurs' Organization and Young Presidents' Organization, criteria-based peer groups that require seven-figure and eight-figure businesses respectively.
Valuegraphics
Screening people by their values rather than demographics. It is the middle layer of a three-level curation process: demographics, values, then synergy.
“In 2020, our business went down to zero. We were about to lose our house.”
high-stakes story opener with a payoff→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
1:15:05
“People come for content, but they stay for community.”
classic line with a renewal angle→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
1:25:51
“Unlike most of you, I can't navigate the world without help. I'm not self-made, I'm community made.”
emotional origin of the book title→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
Topic Map
Where the conversation goes.
01:23 – 04:21steadyOrigin story and loneliness
04:21 – 15:41denseHosting the room yourself
15:41 – 36:06denseMoney, moxie, service
36:06 – 39:49steadyPruning and dormant relationships
39:49 – 46:02denseTypes of rooms
46:02 – 59:32denseGreat work and luck
59:32 – 1:08:27denseFriends-only updates
1:08:27 – 1:24:11denseCommunity mechanics
1:24:11 – 1:27:46sparseBook title
The Script
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
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metaphoranalogystory
If you can't get an invite into the room, maybe you can create the room. Do you want to know how to get into rooms with people who are several levels above you and have a lot more status and influence? Jason Gaynor is the reason about 50 of my favorite entrepreneur friends are in my life.
An event like what we do, you can absorb an entire network within two days, really condensing a decade of networking into a couple days. He wrote the book Community Made, which tells you exactly how. By going into how to find your people, create a list of 10 people, the hardest one you think to convert, put them as like number 10 on the outreach list.
And then you go after the first easiest person. How to invest in people. The deepest way to invest in a relationship or to start a relationship is to make people feel seen.
And then how to ask them for help. I had nothing to offer him, but support him to launch his book. And I promised him I'd do all the heavy lifting.
That became a beautiful relationship. There's a big difference between building a fan base and building a community. What you've done with MMT...
You created the whole thing. You curated the group. But the magic continues even when you're not in the room.
It doesn't matter how many friends you can count. It matters how many friends you can count on. I much rather have 500 deep relationships, people who have my back, than 50 ,000 followers on Instagram.
By the end, you'll know how to make it into a room where you're wondering, how did I even get here? Or you can even buy access to find yourself in the right room. But it's what keeps you in that room.
Amazing.
So Jason, I've had the experience of hosting a lot of incredible people at my house. And I realized that most of them come back to relationships that I met through you. So I was watching the World Cup and with Philip McKernan and his son Charlie and his whole family.
And we were just having the best time. And I had this moment of, you know, they're huge soccer fans. And I realized like, oh, this is because of Jason, right?
They're coming to stay on my farm. Ben Greenfield came to stay on my farm. All of this is because of the relationships that you've built.
And so I want to dive into how you do that, how you've created, you know, at this point, like probably 50 of my entrepreneur friends are because of you. And there's obviously a science to it and we'll get to all of that. But before we do, like, I want to talk about the early side of relationships for you.
Like, were you always this business relationships, super connector? I actually know that you weren't. Well, if you read the book, you'll realize very much.
I wasn't, no, I wasn't that relationally focused. And in fact, when building my first business, I did it at the expense of relationships, not burning those relationships per se, but I just didn't invest any time. And for me, I ended up with a very successful business.
But when I got married, I had two people at my bachelor party. I had my brother and my brother -in -law. The entire wedding party could fit in this room right now.
So it was clear that I was playing the wrong game. And as I transitioned out of that business, which ultimately I discovered I built a business I hated to enable me to buy things I didn't need to impress people I didn't like. I just felt very much out of alignment and I had to find something else.
And the first thing I was trying to cure was this sense of loneliness that I had. And I was inspired by Seth Godin. I had an opportunity to go to a workshop that he was putting on.
And I've always been a big fan of Seth's work, but never had an opportunity to kind of see him live in person. And it turns out the theme of it was the connection economy and how there's huge value connecting like -minded individuals. So for me, I saw that as a source of inspiration and I planned something I called Mastermind Dinner, which was an evening geared towards bringing eight entrepreneurs together for dinner.
And because I had no network, I went through a magazine. list of like some of the top entrepreneurs locally. And I said, Hey, I'm doing a dinner for entrepreneurs of this magazine, if you want to join, I probably had a 5 % response rate at best.
But eventually I had my eight guests and the first dinner I did, I was incredibly nervous. I didn't think I could keep my food down. I didn't know how I was going to facilitate this.
I didn't know how conversation was going to to keep throughout the dinner, but conversation didn't skip a beat for four and a half hours. And I just got clarity that being in proximity of people like that was something I wanted to do to some capacity for the rest of my life.
And that was first dinners then became MMT. And then I became very, very relationally focused from that point forward. But no, it was not always like that.
Yeah. So you have this line in the book. I'm going to find it.
Never beg for a seat when you can build your own table. There's an experience that. I think a lot of us have had where you see an event happening, especially because now it's on everybody's Instagram stories and there's reels about it and whatever else.
And you realize like, Oh, all the people like that person's there. Are that like, I want to be there and you haven't done anything yet, you know, or you didn't get an invite. And so you feel some amount of like jealousy, loneliness, uh, you know, or you're like, am I worthy?
What do you do with that feeling when you have it? And you say, Oh, I didn't get the invite.
What can I do instead? Yeah, I mean, the premise behind that quote was I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine, and I don't know who the original source of this was, but he was struggling to get picked to speak at events. And I said, instead of trying to be in a position where you're picked by other people, why don't you build your own stage?
And this is a similar kind of philosophy is if you can't get an invite into the room. maybe you can create the room. And it's actually a lot easier than people realize because there is a desire and appetite for people to connect and to have a space.
However, it's a lot of work to put it together. So if you're willing to put in that effort and that energy. then you can ultimately be the catalyst that brings these people together.
And there's a lot of value in that, not only being the fly on the wall of these conversations and hosting people, but David Buss, who's an evolutionary psychologist, talks about how from an evolution perspective. There's a level of status bestowed upon whoever commands the most focal point throughout a gathering. So if you're a speaker on a stage and it's your event, you're getting most of that focal point.
And as a result, everybody in the room naturally puts you on a higher status. Yeah. So that's something I wasn't aware of when I was starting to do events and that kind of stuff.
But that turned out to be. big kind of ancillary benefit and there's a lot of different examples of people who've done exactly that who didn't necessarily have a network but had an interest in a certain area or industry and just started bringing people together now an event is the extreme there's so many things you can do in advance of that that are a lot lower lift whether it's Nick Gray is world -class at his two -hour cocktail mixes.
If you want to go a step above that, it could be dinners like I was doing, which are, again, relatively low -lift. And then eventually you can work into something like what we've done with MMT would be at the extreme. I don't know if you're familiar with the guys from Summit Series.
Yeah. They have a beautiful, simple... origin story summit series is like enormous they do summit at sea where they book out a cruise ship every year it sells out every year they bought a mountain in utah which is like one of the largest ski resorts in in north america um they so when people see them from the outset and like the type of people that go to their events they're like wow like you know they don't understand the humble beginnings right but how summit series started was it was just a bunch of young guys that uh again wanted to be found in these circles.
So they started with a ski trip. So they invited like 40 people in tech. And it was like Travis from Uber.
But this was pre -Uber. Yeah, exactly. And which just leans into the philosophy of amazing people becoming increasingly amazing over time.
So if you can spot those diamonds in the rough, there's huge value in that. And the one thing that the Summit Series guys did is they had got sponsors. They were like, hey, after they got the 40 people to opt in for this ski trip, then they went to Staples and a couple different sponsors and said, hey, would you like to sponsor this?
They got the whole trip paid for, and they were the catalyst that brought it together. Fast forward 15 years, I mean, it's amazing, obviously, what Summit Series has achieved. So it's a playbook that a lot of people have used really effectively.
Yeah, I was thinking about this idea of organizing the room. So to get into a room that you wouldn't normally belong in. So that dinner, in this case, you're not in the magazine that you're sourcing people from.
But it gets to a point, like the first person might be like, what is this event that I'm saying yes to? But once you have two or three, they're like, oh, that person's going? I've always wanted to meet them.
We might live in the same town, but we've never connected. And so you're creating that. And even the experience that you describe in the book of like, taking a step back at the dinner and realizing like oh it like just curating the group got us what 50 % of the way there 80 % of the way there you know and then it didn't even have to be are you famous well respected or whatever else it was like are you willing to do the work to get the people in the room yeah and I think that's um a challenge that most would encounter early on is like how do I get the first couple people yeah um and I think there's there's two different approaches you can take the first is if you let's say you create a list of of 10 people the hardest one you think to convert or to get to agree to your dinner, let's say, you put them as like number 10 on the outreach list.
And then you go after the first easiest person. And after you get them, you go after the second person, the third person, you build this momentum. By the time you get to the 10th person, you can be like, hey, I got these nine other people that are fascinating and on their own right.
they're going to be much more likely to agree as a result. Your conversion rate is likely to increase. Yeah, exactly.
The other philosophy, there's a principle in real estate called an anchor tenant. So if you have a mall that is just like flailing and is not getting any traction, you know, if you get a Neiman Marcus or an Apple that can completely change, like just the. the appeal of other tenants to to want to kind of uh sign leases as well so that is kind of what i did uh with the kickoff of mmt i didn't have a network at all but i did have a relationship with tim ferris and when i got tim to commit it made it much easier for me to reach out to other people right who were either friends with tim they never find themselves at the same at the same time, same place.
So as a result, the event could be a catalyst to reconnect him with all his close friends. And I could also reach out to people who would want to be connected to Tim to speak for the event and that kind of stuff. So that is the principle I used for, to effectively kind of launch MMT, but both of those kind of frameworks work for sure.
I've done that with some of these masterminds that we've hosted. Like we have an author mastermind, you know, in the relationship in that space that I have is with James Clear. We've been good friends for, I don't know, 14 years now.
And he's building a publishing company. I'm building an email company, serving authors. And so we're like, wait, we're trying to reach the same group.
Let's just team up. And our hit rate for people who say yes. to that event is just insanely high because our anchor tenant is the guy who sold 30 million.
I will say getting back to what you said at the beginning of this episode, when I saw photos of like your first mastermind and some of the people there, I was like, man, what could I do to get in that room? Um, I feel so grateful. I don't want to like, yeah, I don't want to jinx it, but, um, a hundred percent.
That's another strategy as well. Um, that I forgot about is the act of partnering with somebody.
Again, putting on these experiences can be a lot of work. And years ago, two good friends of mine, Michael Fishman and a guy named Ramit Sethi, who's actually the more popular of the two, especially now, they partnered on hosting a dinner in New York once a month for years. And they had six people.
Michael would invite three people. Ramit would invite three people. And they would do the dinner.
And at the end of the year, they would do a closing party for the year, invite all the dinner guests for the dinner. And I don't know the dynamic. If the dinner were to happen now, again, Ramit is like more of the draw.
And Michael would be doing a lot more of the orchestration and the heavy lifting. But the partnering is actually a brilliant philosophy as well. And there's even people I know that are...
big name individuals, lots of reach and great networks and that kind of stuff who want to bring people together, but don't have the bandwidth to do so. So if you're willing to be the person who's willing to do that heavy lifting, it can be a fantastic win -win. Yeah.
I love that. I got to put that in the book. That was smart.
Gosh, we should have done this interview six months ago. Well, I have an advanced reader copy. You have the finished one.
But you're still marking up the finished one. It will forever be, yeah. It's never going to stop.
That's how it goes. You know, along those lines of being the one to curate the group, a strategy that I do is I love playing like city league sports. So volleyball and soccer.
And I didn't play sports growing up. And so I want to play at a level that's far beyond what I would get invited to play at. But no one wants to run the teams.
and be sending out texts of like, hey, there's a 9 p .m. game on Wednesday. You're going to be there.
And so if you're just the one to facilitate the group, like on my volleyball team, more than half of the team played in college at a very high level. Like one player is a NCAA Hall of Fame player, like all of us, right? And I love playing at that because they just make me so much better.
But I have no business being on that team except for the fact that I organize it. And they're all so grateful that I put together the team. Thank you so much for inviting me to this.
And I was like, You've played on ESPN. And, but it's like putting the room together and the same experience, right?
So you introduced me to Will Godera. He's been on the podcast and he came to our author mastermind and I had two different experiences with him. One was we're at this like really fancy hotel, like farm resort outside of Nashville and watching the hotel staff.
absolutely lose their minds that Will Cadero was staying at their hotel. They're just like, you wrote the book, you know, all that. So that was one experience.
And the other experience was Will being like, man, thank you so much for inviting me. This was amazing. You know, and we're like, thank you so much for coming.
But he was so grateful to be in the room with people that he could learn from and all of that. And so being the person to put together the room is like a huge gift. Yeah.
And I mean, I experienced that with you at MMT to some degree. I mean, it's, it's very much people come up to me afterwards with like appreciation.
And I was like, this would not work if you were not here. You know what I mean? Like you, the magic of this is, I mean, a room is simply four walls, right?
So the magic is the people in it. And yes, there's an element of like curation and all the work that goes into it. But the magic is, is truly the people who, who, who show up.
So yeah, it becomes, it's just beautiful kind of reciprocal thing, but there's, There's the one way of building your own table. And then there's the other way of potentially buying access.
Whether that's finding yourself in the right rooms, going into the right events. And those experiences can really deliver on one of the most valuable assets for folks, which is speed. The speed of relationships specifically.
Because if somebody comes to an event like what we do, anything that's highly curated specifically, you can absorb an entire network. within two days, really condensing a decade of networking into a couple of days. So there's many ways to the mountaintop.
I started again doing the dinners and all that kind of stuff, which evolved into kind of MMT. And now thankfully I'm starting to finally, after all these years, get invited into the right room. So hey, just a quick note before we keep going.
If you usually just catch episodes whenever they pop up in your feed, take a second to hit subscribe or follow. We've got some great conversations coming up and that's the easiest way to make sure. You don't miss them.
Thanks so much for your support. Well, you have this section in the book here. I love the illustrations in here.
But you're talking about three ways of getting access. And that's money, moxie, and service. So break those down.
The story I share in the book. pertaining to money is a good friend of ours uh andrew wilkinson and he's famous for many reasons uh but he is the co -founder of tiny which is ultimately a hold co of wonderful internet companies they own aeropress and letterbox and slew of uh just again great businesses and it was probably about five years ago now he won a charity auction to have lunch with bill ackman It was $57 ,000, which a lot of people thought was insane at the time.
And he had the lunch with Bill and his partner, Chris, at a restaurant called Marea in New York. And they were just peppering Bill with so many questions about Starbucks stock or parenting. And they were just so insatiably curious and fascinating in their own right, which was important.
And I share that because Bill actually enjoyed the conversation so much. He's like, I would have done that for free and invited both Chris and Andrew to their offices after the fact to meet his team and all that kind of stuff. And fast forward about a year later, Bill became the biggest investor in WeCommerce at the time.
I think it was a $40 million investment and helped take the company public. So the ROI from that one dinner. Of that $57 ,000, which again, a lot of people thought was wild, was pretty significant.
So that is one way is you can buy access. I shared a story with you offline of one of the things that set me on a completely different trajectory was attending an event that was $10 ,000 to go that Tim Ferriss put on. I had no...
No right to be in that room. But I courageously cut that check. And that event completely set me on a whole new trajectory.
So that is one way to kind of build a network is being willing to invest capital and to get access to those rooms. The other one is Moxie. The other story I share pertaining to Andrew, ironically, as well, is well before he was minted a billionaire.
And he still does this to this day, which I admire him so much for. He would send emails to people cold all the time. So when he was starting Metalab, he would find companies on TechCrunch that had just raised money and would send them a simple email saying, hey, I just saw you guys raise money.
We should work together. That was the essence of the email. And that led to some really big clientele.
So he's just super - Well, Metalab designed the first version of Slack. as an example yeah right so if you to give you an idea of the caliber of people that they what it's grown to over time for sure um but he was just religious with like cold outreach And he stumbled across Dan Gilbert's story and ended up emailing him at like 2 a .m.
one day just saying like, hey, I think what you're doing is fascinating in Detroit. So Dan Gilbert is the founder of Quicken Loans. Yep.
Rocket Mortgage. Yeah. And it's worth a couple billion dollars and like invested, I think like five billion or something like that into like Detroit.
Yeah. He's trying to reinvigorate downtown Detroit. Yeah.
Single handedly. And that really inspired Andrew on some small level. trying to do that with Victoria, where he's based out of.
And he was just fascinated by that. So he sent him a cold email and he said within like 15 minutes, this was again, the middle of the night, Dan replied, yeah, I'd love to meet up. And so he invited him to Detroit.
And it was, again, Andrew and his business partner, Chris, they spent the full day with him in Detroit. Again, he met his team and all that kind of stuff. And that was just from a simple email.
So not everybody has $57 ,000 to buy access, but everybody has access to email. And in conversation with Andrew last week, I mean, he has so many wild stories. He emailed, Colt emailed Mark Zuckerberg like seven, eight years ago.
I don't know if I could share this story, but we'll keep it in. I'm sure he'll be okay with it. He cold emailed him because he was going to Vancouver or something like that.
And Victoria, where Andrew lives, is a 30 -minute flight. And didn't think anything of it. Never heard a response until the night before.
And Mark's like, yeah. He asked him if he wanted to do dinner. It was like a super quick cold email.
Asked Mark Zuckerberg, do you want to do dinner? And the night before, Mark said, yeah, sure, let's do it. And then the funny thing is, This is why Andrew's legendary.
He couldn't get off the island to go to, he couldn't catch a flight. There was no flights to catch. He couldn't get a ferry.
He was trying to see if he could rent some rich guy's boat to like carry him over. So he actually, then he emailed Mark. He's like, I can't actually do dinner.
So he's like the only person who's ever stood up Mark Zuckerberg. But the amount of doors that have opened as a result of his cold outreach. is wild and it's still something he practices to this day.
So if you can't cut a big check, then cold outreach is a great option as well. And then the final one is - Well, before we get into that, I mean, I love the idea of Moxie because it's something that as a really shy teenager, I've not talked to anybody. And I remember actually the first real conference I went to was an event, it was called An Event Apart and it was a web design conference.
So all of the biggest founding names in the web standards movement web design. We're all speaking there.
And so this is everyone that I had learned from. I'd read all their blogs and all of that. And I went to that conference.
I'm like, oh man, I'm going to be in the room with all these people. And I met two people the entire time. And they were both people that I sat next to at like a meal or something who introduced themselves to me because I was so shy.
And I had this experience of walking from the venue back to the hotel on the Seattle waterfront and realizing that all the speakers were walking like a hundred feet in front of me. I'm like, wait, these are the people who I've learned everything from. And so I like sped up a little, like I walked a little faster.
So I'm going to join their conversation. Like, this is going to be amazing. And then I like got to maybe 15 feet away and totally chickened out and like slowed down again.
And then I was like, I can do this. Okay, let's go. And did it again.
And they're like, yeah, no. And so it's like this accordion, like, and they were probably like, what's this guy's deal? But then they turned and I realized they're staying at the same hotel I am.
And I had dropped back a little bit because I kind of get discouraged. And they walked into the hotel and they turned to go to the lobby and like the little restaurant and a bar area there. And they all sit down and I was like, okay, here's another opportunity that I can join.
It's a more casual setting than accosting them on the street. And I just kept walking and went straight to my room and didn't. Because I couldn't get up the moxie to say hi to them.
Well, I appreciate that transparency because I think people look at folks like you and I, that we can just walk into a room and own the room. To this day, I still have to psych myself up. I have so many stories of being in the hotel, my hotel room, in the washroom, looking in the mirror, trying to psych myself up to go downstairs for a cocktail mixer.
So it's important, but there is also... It is good to see other people who are bold, how those moments of boldness can compound into incredible things over time. But one of the things that has always helped me is this philosophy that like eight seconds of courage can change your life.
And I learned this through skydiving. I'm terrified of heights. So I thought the best way.
To overcome being terrified of heights is to hop out of a plane at 10 ,000 feet. Didn't work. But regardless, have you gone skydiving?
I have. So you're going up in like circles. It's a little plane.
It takes forever to get up there. It's brutal. So you're there and you're like, oh, this is taking forever.
And then the door flings open. And then it feels like you're getting sucked out of the plane and it's loud. And I remember I was just like frozen.
I remember telling myself. Eight seconds of courage will change your life. All I have to do is get out of this plane.
And then like, whatever happens, happens. If I die, I die. But like, I just need eight seconds of courage.
And that has served me well. If I need to step on stage and I don't feel comfortable delivering a talk in social situations, again, like you're just breaking into a conversation. And then once you're there, you'll have to figure it out most likely.
So yeah, I just appreciate that share. And the eight seconds of courage frame has been helpful for me. There's another version of it that has been helpful for me.
I try to contrast, like if I'm talking to someone, especially someone famous, I don't want to be the, like, I don't want to be a burden on them. I don't want to intrude and all this, but I really want to meet them. And so the thing that I always think about is two types of energy to bring to a conversation.
And there's lingering energy and there's leaving energy. And so I just always try to bring leaving energy. So if I come up, you're talking to your friends and I'm like, hey, sorry to interrupt, you know, all this.
And then I'm like, it's so great to meet you. I'm a big fan. And I'm like, this is lingering energy and it's awkward.
And then they might be like, okay, like they might want to end the conversation. And that's not the feeling that I want to leave anyone with. And that idea is going to put me in a place where I'm like, well, I don't even want to have the interaction to start with.
Yeah. So what I started doing is what I call leaving energy. So the first time that I did this.
was actually Chris Brogan had given a talk at Social Media Marketing World. And afterwards, everybody lined up. And we'd exchanged emails before.
This is in like 2016 or something. And so like I had a bit of an online presence and all of that, but I wasn't a speaker. I wasn't any of those things.
And I walked out, you know, 20 people lined up to talk to him. And I walked past the entire line. I said, Hey Chris, great talk.
I'm Nathan Barrett. We emailed earlier. Um, just want to say that was fantastic.
Would love to catch up later at the closing party. I'll catch you later. And then walked away with leaving energy.
And so it was a 45 second interaction and it, I don't know. I don't know if this is arrogant or what, but I gave him, I was like, you know, you've got, you get your fans, all of that. I'll get you when, you know, you're not doing your thing.
That feels like some Neil Strauss. And so what happens is it takes all the pressure off. Yeah.
Because if I am wasting someone's time, okay, I wasted 45 seconds of their time. And then I actually did this at, I was at the Cannes Lions Festival earlier this year. And so it was like all the biggest marketers and creators and all of this.
And Stephen Bartlett is about to go on stage and I'm there for his talk. I know some people on his team, but I've never met him and all that. And I realized that from where I'm sitting, it's like this outdoor stage.
he's sitting across the stage, like kind of, kind of half backstage and all that talking to someone. I don't know if it's someone that he's never met before. I don't know if it's his team member or whatever.
I'm like, Oh, this is a perfect opportunity. He's not going on for another six minutes. I should go say hi, but there's like tons of people on the way.
And I realized I can actually like walk backstage easily and around the stage and get to him. And so I did that. And I got up, walked over and was like, Hey Steven, my name is Nathan.
I run a company called Kit. You guys have actually used us for some of our stuff. And he's like, Oh, I know Kit.
Like, that's great. And we talked for like, a minute.
And then I was like, all right, I'm going to go. And you know, I knew he was both captive and he knew that I knew he had to, you know, it was super quick. And they ended up following me on X a week later.
And then, uh, after that, and I was like, that's random. Okay. Yeah.
And then we ended up having a, like an hour long call on WhatsApp at 11 PM. Cause he was like, I want to dive into the email world and, and all of this stuff. And it's just that idea of, okay, leaving energy, eight seconds of courage.
Like, let's just make this happen. No, it's such a, beautiful story that you share because that's how relationships are formed and one of the challenges a lot of folks have when meeting somebody is they put them on a pedestal and when you put somebody on a pedestal unconsciously you're almost articulating that you're not on the same level yeah so when you do have that like cool approach with what you did with chris brogan of just like a quick hello and like we'll we'll cross paths even if you don't if you see chris a year from now or two years from now there'll be many touch points you'll have i have i have had the same but similar experience with a lot of other people.
And for me, it's almost like I look at it through the lens of like, I just want to plant the seed of the relationship and look at it through a long -term lens that like most likely will cross paths in two, three years. And they know I've never put them on a pedestal, which is I think really, really important. Well, I think it's also an abundance mindset versus scarcity mindset.
The scarcity mindset is this is my one shot to convince Tim Ferriss, whoever else, like this is. In two minutes, I've got to pack everything in and all that. And you're like, that brings off like not an energy that people want to hang out.
Yeah. But the abundance mindset is like, oh, we're going to be in rooms together. I don't need to make a whole big campfire right now.
I just need to. plant a seed, have a spark, any of those things. Because like, look, you and I are the kind of people that are going to cross paths in the future, but I just need you.
I need to have that first interaction now. A hundred percent. Yeah.
And I mean, just go one step further. Just if you embrace a little empathy and put yourself in their shoes, you got to think 98 % of the interactions they have, people want something from them, whether it's a photo investment, whatever the case may be. If you don't bring that in that energy to the first interaction or first couple of interactions.
You know, they let their guard down. And as a result, it gives you an opportunity to actually forge a proper relationship as opposed to this like weird dynamic of like you're a super fan or whatever the case may be. And I would say almost every time I've done that at a conference, the opportunity to have a real conversation has come within the next 48 hours.
Yeah. Because you will cross, you know, there's only... 200 500 people at the event and like you will cross paths again and you'll you'll catch you'll see them at a time when they are leaving a conversation or walking into a room and like do i know anyone and they're like oh i know you yeah i know you for 30 seconds from yesterday but yeah i mean for what it's worth i just attended an event recently and one of the strategies i have um is like to plant as many seeds as i can so i'll introduce myself to somebody really quickly and then like If maybe we won't have space for a deep conversation, but that serves as a great jump off point for a follow up after the event, which can then lead to a call or just, again, a bigger planting of the seed.
So you're good at this stuff. I will say. Learn from the best.
So of those three, we covered money and moxie. And the last one we have talked about, which is service. Is there anything else on service that we haven't covered that?
Yeah, so service is actually the act of really supporting somebody, oftentimes through the lens of donating your time, apprenticing, that kind of stuff. I think apprenticeship is a lost art. And somebody who I think has done that exceptionally well and navigated that really well is Ryan Holiday.
He was effectively a college dropout. And then started working with Tucker Max to support him with his book launch and then was introduced to Robert Greene and became his research assistant and did a lot of like the tasks that Robert Greene didn't want to do and did it with a smile and did the best work he could. And that blossomed into a beautiful kind of relationship.
But then when it was. time for Ryan to do a book. Then he had Robert Greene's support.
And as Robert Greene's stock has kind of continued to climb in the world, as has Ryan. And even some would say, Ryan has almost eclipsed him to some degree. But one of the beautiful things about Ryan is he always holds Robert in such high regard as a mentor and always kind of looks at him through that lens.
But I share that because it's a great opportunity to reach out to people. I mean, you probably get this all the time, too, though, like people reach out to you and like, hey, I want to volunteer or help or whatever the case may be. And they almost put the onus on you to come up with ways that they can be helpful.
And I remember there's a story about Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham. Yeah, it's a brilliant story where Warren Buffett wanted to work with Benjamin Graham, who was his professor at the time and had his own investment kind of arm. And he's like, I'll volunteer for you.
I'll do whatever you want. And Benjamin. I'll work for free.
Yeah, he's like, I'll work for free. And he's like, it's not free to me because I have to take you on. I have to train you and all those kind of things.
And Warren was persistent and eventually ended up kind of working with Benjamin. But I think that's the thing that a lot of people forget, which is even like the notion of almost gospel around relationships that you should ask people, like, how can I help you? And to me.
I think that's incredibly problematic because you're putting the onus on the other person to come up with ways that you can be helpful. And they don't have full inventory of your experiences, your expertise, all that kind of stuff. So coming from a place of service, if you are going to reach out to somebody, again, it's a fantastic way to forge relationships.
I forged a relationship with a guy named Shep Gordon. I had nothing to offer him but support him to launch his book. And I promised him I'd do all the heavy lifting.
And that became a beautiful kind of relationship. But I reached out to him cold and said, hey, I know you're coming out with a book. I know what your goals are.
I know what it takes to hit New York Times if that's your, you know, in focus for you. And I'm willing to do the work if it speaks to you. And I'll fly to Maui and we'll see if there's synergy.
And yeah, the rest is kind of history. So money, moxie, and service are three great ways to tap into a great network. Yeah, I want to focus on this idea of The line specifically that Benjamin Graham said to Warren Buffett, Warren's like, I'll work for you for free and all that.
And Benjamin Graham says, you're overpriced. That's the line. Yeah, you're over good memory.
It's in the book. But, and I just think that's so important because it was like, how could free be overpriced? Because you have to put in this work.
And so when someone says like. you know, Jason, I'll help you with anything. Like, what do you need?
And all of that. The response that I want to have is like, first, I need you to use your eyes and then you use your brain, like look around. So in this case, if I was like, okay, Jason, I really want to connect with you.
And I want to do it through service of these options that I've chosen. You know, I'm not going, I could apply for MMT, but like, maybe I don't have the money and I don't have the reputation. Like, I'm not going to get past the curation process yet and all of that.
So like, okay, what do you need? So some people might say, oh, I'll volunteer at MMT. And it's like, well, there's actually a lot of volunteers already.
Like that's pretty well set. But if you use your eyes and you really look around, it's like, what does Jason need right now? Well, he's coming out with a book.
And so he needs to sell copies. He needs to get in front of the right rooms. There's even like, he needs reviews, you know, on Goodreads and Amazon and all of that.
And so you're like, okay, can I? lead your street team, like a very specific thing. Can I lead your street team for the book where I, my whole job, my KPI.
You're getting me excited. I'm like, of course you can, Nathan. Please, this is going to be great, fantastic.
But my whole KPI would be like, okay, over the next 30 days, I'm going to get you 250 reviews for the book. And it's like, yeah, of course. You know, it's like, hey, I'm going to need you to.
share this thing or like give me access to the buyer so I can email them individually or help them pre -write reviews or any of those things. But like, it's a very specific thing to help with. And so many people are like, yeah, I have no, I would love to do that, but I have no idea what it's like.
If you spend a couple minutes looking, you can figure out what is this person trying to accomplish and come up with something really specific. Yeah. I mean the, the deepest way to invest in a relationship or to start a relationship is to make people feel seen.
So if you're able to, again, invest that time and be like, what is most likely most important to this person right now? uh given that they're busy and all that kind of stuff reviews are a great example um you know if somebody came to me i was i was i was getting so excited as you were saying all that stuff and i was like that's so kind of you nathan um i've got the whole day cleared we're gonna get some reviews fantastic but no it's i think it's uh if you're young and don't have access to capital and that kind of stuff and there's also an element i i don't say i get challenged on this but like I look back on my journey and I've had a lot of lucky breaks.
The right relationships at the right time and that kind of stuff. And I feel almost a responsibility that if somebody is young and has energy and grit and is honest and wants to help from a genuine place. I will do everything I can to make that happen and make it a win -win because I've been afforded those chances as well, which has brought me to where I am today.
So I think service is overlooked because it obviously requires effort and energy, but it's still a fantastic way to just plug into incredible networks or build incredible relationships. Okay, so we've talked a lot about relationships as a whole, how we've acquired them and all that. But I want to go to this.
This illustration that you have in the book, tell me about this one, because it's much more about where the relationships, like what purpose do they serve? Because it's like, I have lots of relationships, but like, why does that matter? Yeah.
So the opening of the book, I talk about, we forge our first settled relationships based on proximity. The schools we go to, the companies we work for, the communities we belong to, the volleyball teams and all that kind of stuff. And those are great.
But if you're an ambitious individual, as you start to have these ambitions and goals, sometimes you'll realize they're not in alignment with the existing peer group you have. That doesn't necessarily mean you need to cut these relationships or any of that kind of stuff. But some of these relationships may carry as weight.
I don't know what your experience was leaning into entrepreneurship. And sometimes family members and that kind of stuff, there can be a lot of friction. And again, you don't cut them off completely, but when you bring awareness to them, you realize just how much they're weighing you down.
So the act of getting clear where you want to go and really what are you optimizing for serves just as a really good thing to kind of keep top of mind. And when looking at that through that lens, Jim Collins has a brilliant philosophy in his book, Good to Great, that you want the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.
And I take the same lens when it comes to relationships. If my intention is to go here, who are the people I need on the bus? Who are the people I need off the bus?
And who is going to go in what seat effectively? So yeah, that's what this one is. So I think people always think about, okay, net new relationships, right?
But this illustration is... Really like, oh, these other relationships that you're bringing along might be not preventing you from getting there, but sure, making it a lot harder. Yeah.
And listen, at the end of the day, you have finite energy and time and bandwidth. And as a result, every relationship you say yes to here is keeping you from a relationship that can help you to get to there. So I think there's an opportunity cost that a lot of people are not aware of.
And at least if you bring awareness to this, it just makes those, you can start making micro, decisions one could say. And again, it's not, I think the mistake a lot of people make is like, oh, I have to have a hard conversation with this person or that person.
As we talked about, a lot of relationship building is just how much energy you're willing to invest into it. So if you're going to be the person to bring people together for an event or a dinner or whatever the case, maybe that's quite a bit of energy that not a lot of people are willing to do. But if you are willing to invest that energy, amazing things can happen.
When you bring awareness to some of those people that may be holding you back a little bit. you realize like oftentimes you're carrying a lot of, you're breathing a lot of energy into those relationships. And if you slowly start scaling back, those relationships will naturally go dormant effectively.
Well, I think the truth about relationships is that they all go dormant naturally. Yes. And that's a double -edged sword.
Right. So if there's a relationship that you don't want to continue, you don't have to sit down and be like, Jason, we can't be friends anymore. It's like, yeah, it's just like, Oh, if we just gradually like more time between touch points and all that, like it will naturally correct drop off.
But then the, the downside of that is that if there's a relationship you really want, you have to really put in the effort to maintain it. Dude, that's brilliant as well. I should include that in the book.
There's plenty more podcasts. This one I love because I have spent so much time in rooms and conversations, whether it's early in my career at a chamber of commerce business event or that sort of thing where I'm like, I don't know, man, someone told me I should network. This is the worst thing ever.
Tell me about this illustration in the book. Yeah. So the idea is this is through the lens of.
entrepreneurs um but creators specifically same thing it is a isolating career path right i think one of the things that makes it isolating at least for entrepreneurs is the scoreboard is very clear it's like capital raise revenue locations headcount all these things that we like to throw out there so there's always this like comparison uh and the same thing with being a creator it's like how many likes and views and comments do you get on on threads and that kind of stuff so as a result this sense of isolation is is very very strong with those two career paths specifically um and for me uh again the premise of like you are rare unless you find yourself in the right room so if you're an entrepreneur on your second mountain, there are groups and organizations like MMT that would make you feel like you're amongst companions on the path.
They're heavily kind of curated rooms. If you're a creator and you're not going to craft and commerce, like, I don't know if there's any, is there any other alternatives? There's the event in Dubai, which I know you.
That's a totally, we can get in, that's a whole conversation. But the average like creator, there's nothing else out there. No, and yeah, that like not, like that you can just buy a ticket to.
Yeah. but is carefully selected for the right kind of people. There's not a lot because there's a lot as we'll get into this in some other illustrations, like as you get into masterminds and that sort of thing.
There are other events, but it's important to get. So this is if you're a creator alone. This is if you go to craft and commerce.
Exactly. Next slide. Done.
Sales pitch right there. But it's true though. I mean, I've talked to people like Jay Klaus and like a slew of others that craft and commerce is like almost annual, pilgrimage of other creators where you are amongst again best practices will get shared naturally and all that kind of stuff and you'll leave with a great roi but just being amongst companions on the path is such a normalizing experience and to me a great indicator of like a worthwhile event or conference is if you leave like feeling energized and like that would be the case you know i see people talk about crafting commerce and this is not to promote graphic commerce uh per se i'm just like if you're a creator you should go like that's the only place i know that you can buy access to like -minded peers so yeah yeah and that was you know the reaction afterwards that was something that's really special this year and when we talk about events later we'll talk about the momentum it takes to get there but yeah seeing
I actually went on LinkedIn and did a search for all the mentions of craft and commerce. I did it yesterday because I was working for a presentation I'm giving on Monday. And it took a minute and a half of just straight scrolling to get through all of the recap posts that people had put just on LinkedIn.
And you're like, I mean, it was insane, but it's because exactly what you're saying. People are leaving energized. So then as we talk about.
different types of communities there's a lot of different ones from very broad to very narrow i love that this illustration that you had here on the quality of relationships over time yeah so um not all environments are the same um from uh especially to drive again the quality of relationships so i put in a bit of a hierarchy and as we were kind of talking about offline i've never heard anybody really define what is a conference versus define what is a mastermind sometimes people label something a mastermind because they could command a higher price point but it's really just a conference if i need to charge more than five grand it's a mastermind a hundred percent uh and like communities you know hinge very much on curation and community gets thrown around a lot yeah there's a lot that don't necessarily just live within uh the one kind of category something that's a conference may have some similarities to a mastermind like mmt has it's community, but has like some mastermind type components to it.
But ultimately, you know, conference is where anybody can kind of sign up. It's usually around an interest or what have you. So it's a great place to meet some people with a similar interest, but there's.
usually a couple hundred people there a couple thousand um it's it's a great way to get a lot of people your awareness but there's usually also not a lot of space to deepen relationships it's like usually session after session after session so they're not optimized for relationships workshops generally a much more intimate environment and there's this like feeling that you're both uh or everybody's committed to the same kind of path or journey which can be very kind of connective um Professional organizations would be something like an EO or YPO for entrepreneurs.
They're great. And they're generally criteria based. So for the entrepreneurs organization, your business has to do seven figures for YPO, your business has to do eight figures.
And again, you know, I think statistically, 3 % of general population are entrepreneurs and 0 .4 % of that 3 % have businesses of seven figures. So to find yourself in an organization where It's criteria based where the people you're around are similar sized businesses is a really unique opportunity.
And then above that, you have masterminds. And again, this name, the label gets thrown around a lot. But at the end of the day, if it doesn't tap into the collective wisdom of the group, then it's not a mastermind.
If it's a guru at the front of the room. It's not a mastermind. And then communities are based on really shared values.
So for us at MMT, we have kind of core values at the forefront of our curation process. We have a pretty extensive curation process. But that makes...
A really unique experience where, again, you truly feel like you're amongst companions on the path at a probably similar stage of life and business who, again, value the kind of same things. And in the book, I talk about this funnel of relationships and how to kind of forge relationships quickly. And ultimately, when somebody's been vetted and you find yourself in a space like this, it's a high trust space as well.
And conversations here, conversations here tend to be like very surface level. And then you're trying to like weigh people out and all that kind of stuff. Conversations here tend to go pretty vulnerable pretty quick.
And relationships move at the speed of trust and vulnerability. So an environment like a community that is curated and it's held with care, person leading ensuring that there's no liabilities in the room and that kind of stuff. You can really condense decades of networking into a few short days.
Well, an example of that. I think about an early conference for me was one called New Media Expo, which was in Las Vegas. I don't know, 2013, 2014 or something like that.
And I met a lot of people that I've been friends with for a long time later. But it's these little sparks. Yes.
And you're exactly right. You're not going deep or any of that. Extreme contrast to that would be at Mastermind Talks this last year where there were two instances where I went from meeting someone.
Or it's like talking to one friend there and talking through like a struggle that I had or whatever else. And they're like, oh, you have to meet this other person. And then like 10 minutes later, we're having like the deepest conversations about like marriage and relationships and these things that really, truly matter.
And the shared values drive that, you know, there's an immediate amount of trust because it's like, okay, well, if Jason has allowed them to come multiple years in a row or whatever, they must be incredible. The level of expertise. And then just this idea of like, oh, we're in similar places.
It's not, you know, if you're like, okay, everyone here has built a really meaningful business. Everyone is doing work from a place of values. And so the level, I mean, I guess in a short way, I had conversations at MMT that in normal relationship would take years to get to the point where that level of authenticity and vulnerability could happen.
And that to me is a community. Thank you for that. Whenever you put anything together, like an event or a community or what have you, it's rare.
It comes up. It bubbles to the surface every once in a while, but oftentimes you don't get to hear some of those meaningful interactions. I always say music is a space in between the notes.
Sessions are great. Maybe you'll get a great light bulb moment from hearing a speaker. usually the value can be found in like, you know, in the lobby or over dinner or those kinds of things.
And sometimes it's hard to keep your finger on like those magical moments. So I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah, for sure.
So we've spent a lot of time talking about how to be intentional and curating relationships and getting in the right room and all of that. But something that you and I have both experienced is at a certain point in your career, a lot of these opportunities just come to you. And I think people feel jealous of that or like, oh, I'm not at that point.
But this next illustration that you have. is really about great work attracting those people and so what kind of way it's easy to say like oh great work will attract opportunities but how do you actually bring that to life this was based on a quote by naval ravikant where he says like forget networking do great work and your network will kind of find you and i think it's a good frame To just offset what we've been talking about, which is a lot of like actively trying to find relationships, bring people into your world.
There is an element of like you should pursue a craft and be world class and really commit to that. Because no matter how you slice it, there's something called the social exchange theory where we naturally, consciously or unconsciously, want to surround ourselves with people who are assets, who can advance us, whether it's.
you know our businesses our careers um even just like advance us uh relationally and and those kind of things so uh as a result that also makes my life a lot easier when i have a peer group of people that are world -class in different domains because i can easily connect them to each other and that kind of stuff so i think there is this element of Yes, you can be the person if you wave a magic wand that brings all these great people together or you can even buy access to find yourself in the right room.
But the quality of your work and what you're known for is what keeps you in that room. So I do. I mean, for me, in theory, the last 14 years, I've pretty much committed my life to building community.
And like that is very much like my space. And when friends reach out to me, it's usually on that topic. So, yeah, that's what this was.
designed to illustrate. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, this idea of swimming upstream, like every, I think a lot in terms of conversion rates, you know, it's like, okay, how do we get attention with an idea?
And the better the idea is, the more attention we'll get. And then how do we go from that attention to, um, you know, whether it's watching a video and then from watching the video to an email list, and then maybe ultimately buying a product or whatever else. And I think about what are these leverage points that will increase your conversion rate all the way along.
And so if you think about like Andrew Wilkinson's example of Moxie and like reach out to anyone and all of that. Yeah.
And if he has a one in a thousand hit rate of that working, like, Ooh, that's a pretty rough thing. It's like, okay, but what would have to be true for Andrew to get to a one in a hundred hit rate? Because that now all of a sudden it's hard, but it's worth it.
And then what would get us to a one in 10 hit rate? Cause then it's like, well, I should be spending every morning sending out. 10 emails or that sort of thing.
That's worth it. And doing great work is that thing that elevates everything else that you do. Dude, I should have wrote this in the book.
That's a great, it's a brilliant frame because again, Andrew still does these cold outreaches to this day, but his hit rate, given who he is now, it's like every outreach gets a response, right? And the response might be, I mean, like if I were to host this author mastermind 10 years ago and I were to do it by myself, right?
I might be at a one in 10 response rate, let alone who actually shows up. I would still go. I appreciate that.
Right. But now with where I'm at, the relationship, the room we can curate and all of that, we have a hundred percent response rate. And if people say they can't come nine times out of 10, it's because I have a keynote speech that I'm being paid $50 ,000 to give on that same day.
Otherwise I would be there. And so I just don't think that people obsess over doing great work enough because. It's the conversion rate increase, your cost, everything that you do.
Yeah, and I share a couple stories in the book of people doing great work and then found the spotlight and then blew up. Because nothing's worse. I have so many friends that are working on their personal brands and they're like, oh, if I only just got on Diary of the CEO.
And I'm like, you don't want to go on Diary of the CEO. You are not ready. Have you seen James Clear interview on the Diary of the CEO?
It is so tight. I watched that interview and just in... marvel of like how clear of a communicator he is or vanessa van edwards another mutual friend like vanessa told me that she did 70 hours of crap for her dire of a ceo episode and she's already world class like you know what i mean like i've gone that's so thank you for allowing me to be on your show uh But I'm not ready for that.
I know that. I'm probably five years away of a lot of this hard work before I'm ready for the larger stage. And I think people want it too quickly.
And again, through the lens of relationships, the whole Andrew Wilkinson story is a great example. The reason why Bill Ackman took interest in Andrew is because he found him fascinating. The reason Andrew was able to build a relationship with Charlie Munger, who was Warren Buffett's right hand, and Charlie was actually, asking Andrew questions about like online businesses, he'd be as, he is like world -class and like online businesses.
So I do think that there is this element of like, you need to be known for something. Uh, there was that saying in business, you're known for something or you're known for, or remembered for nothing or what have you. Um, so I think, um, yeah, it's just really, really important.
And I, I never thought about it from a hit rate perspective, but you're, you're so, so right. When I think it's like really putting in the work and the reps. and doing it in a practiced way.
So two people that have really stood out to me that kind of started their online businesses at the same time are Cody Sanchez and Nick Huber. And so really around this 2019, 2020, 2021 is when they started to take content really seriously. And I actually met Nick at Cody's conference that we were both speaking at.
And spending more time with them, I realized like, oh, they're so polished on camera. And I made a comment to Nick about it. And he was like, you just have to put in the reps.
And we were at a kind of a little mastermind event in Cabo driving a golf cart. And he was like, he was just talking about, you got to put in the reps, you got to do this. And I was like, okay, but how do you do that?
And he pulls the golf cart over, grabs his phone and goes, okay, I'm here with Nathan Berry. Nathan, what is your number one piece of advice on hiring? Go.
And I was like, ah, and he just goes, yeah, do more of that. And then I had a conversation with Ramit Sethi a couple of weeks ago because I'm working on a book launch as well. And he's like, yeah, if you want to talk book launch advice and everything.
And, you know, I'm, I'm happy to chat. And so talking to him and he said, you know, I was asking him about like, how do I craft the right pitch to go on a podcast? Cause I have all these relationships that I don't want to ask for something, you know, and all this stuff.
And he's like, that's not the thing to focus on. And he's like, you're not good on camera yet. What you need to do is you need to focus on media training and you need to put in all these reps.
Cause you're going to put in, most people are going to put in 90 % of the effort to be like, okay, how do I get on Rich Roll or Diary of a CEO or some of these other things? And then 10 % on actual delivery. And he's like that, like invert that completely.
That's a good friend. Yeah. Yeah.
And so that's the thing that I've been thinking about. I was like, okay, how do I keep doing great work? Cause then people will see the, Oh, when Nathan goes on these shows, it's one of the highest view counts that we had, or the retention is really good.
Or I love the interview or something like that. And you're like, okay, I'm focused way too much on. the outcome and the things that are not within my control and not nearly enough on the great work, which is entirely within my control.
And the beautiful thing is, I mean, you only have one chance at bat, like on those larger platforms. And if you're good and you hit it out of the park, like Vanessa did, like they want you back. Right, she's done it three times.
Yeah, and she has like one of the top 10 fastest growing like episodes or top five fastest growing episodes on Diary of a CEO because like it's so well done. I'm such a huge fan of hers. Yeah, I mean, I think, again, people try to jump ahead too quickly.
And I think it is very much a mistake. Hey, so you may know me as the host of this podcast, but I'm also the founder and CEO of Kit, an email marketing platform for creators. I built Kit because I needed a better way to grow my audience and sell books and courses through email.
Kit helps you build an audience that you own and will create automations that keep working for you so that you can focus on creating. As a listener of this show, you can get an exclusive 10 % off KitPro if you go to kit .com slash Nathan. Okay, but then this last idea that I want to talk through is the idea of how doing great work isn't enough.
Yeah, so there's a fantastic principle called increasing your surface area of luck. It was initially coined by Jason Roberts, who's, I believe, a developer. This is probably 15 years ago.
And there's been a couple people, Sahil Bloom, one of them, that has really popularized it as of late. And the idea is if you want to increase your surface area of luck, you want to do great work and you want to tell people about it. There's a lot of people that do great work.
Don't tell people about it. I'm guilty of that. There's people that don't do great work and talk a lot.
We all know those kind of people. And the sweet spot is, again, doing great work and talking about it. The one thing I think that principle misses is the importance of deep relationships.
Because I always say it doesn't matter how many friends you can count. It matters how many friends you can count on. And I much rather have 500 deep relationships, people who have my back, than 50 ,000 followers on Instagram or what have you.
So that is why I redesigned the surface area of luck to have basically do great work, let others know, and invest in deep relationships. And then as a result, your luck multiplies. Well, I think that's such an important idea because it's not just about, Oh, he got lucky.
Well, of course, Jason happened to be at this event, you know, and then that was where he met this person and it went on from there. Right. It's all of these things that increase your service area for luck.
And then it's like, yeah, I actually get lucky quite often because there's so many opportunities for that to happen. Yeah. But the depth is so interesting because I feel like that's what most communities are missing is they're like, okay, we got really.
high, uh, high profile, very successful people. And, you know, we put them in the room together and we curated the room, but then they don't go and actually create the environment where you can share. And so it's like the questions that you might ask in one of those rooms is like, Hey, what's, what's worked best for growth for you in the last year?
You know, and then you're like business growth. Yeah. Yeah.
Business growth. And they're like, Oh, well this one thing that we didn't increase our revenue growth by 10 % or something like that. And when you really go to the depth, Then, you know, you're like, hey, you wouldn't lead with this question, but like, you know, what are you struggling with as an entrepreneur?
Yeah. You know, and building these relationships. And so I think about MMT and the depth that comes from it.
You can just dive deep into these conversations. Like when Ben Greenfield came over to my house, you know, we're talking about parenting and rituals within our families and how we want to show up and what we struggle with and all of these things. The container that we met in and the types of people that were like, that just became entirely natural.
And so I love the approach, not just on depth and relationships, but also in... the style of how you go about it. One thing that I'm so curious about is how do you systematically create that depth?
I guess what plays on this is something I stumbled across. I think it was actually initially from Jay Papazian, who I know has been a guest on your podcast. And this was probably back in 2017 or so.
He was sending out these. this email newsletter to friends. It was just like a little insight as far as what was going on in his world, like personally and professionally stuff that he wouldn't put on social media.
And I had done a similar type email for the last couple of years. And a couple of things really reaffirmed the value of this exercise. First, let me be five years ago, five, six years ago, I started investing in companies.
I used to put that on my LinkedIn. That was a mistake. Then I just started getting a bunch of pitches.
And also investing is romantic until you realize like, Oh, I'm now like on your unofficially, like not on your payroll, but working for you to like make more introductions. And you now work for me. Exactly.
Make more introductions. So I don't invest anymore. But one of the things I enjoyed about the investing process was like the monthly or quarterly emails I'd get from founders as far as like updates, as far as what was going on in their business.
Because on some level I could feel like I had, um, insight as far as what was going on and maybe ways i could potentially support them i was just emotionally invested in these updates and i thought about it that i have so many people who have invested in me not necessarily financially but have their fingerprints on my journey and i'm not providing them any kind of updates so as a result i started getting much more religious with these like these uh what I call friends -only updates.
And there's a handful of friends of ours that have something similar. Nick Gray, we were talking about. He has a brilliant one.
It's just so, so creative and so engaging. Andrew Wilkinson, who we've mentioned a few times, has one as well that's kind of public. You have one in your own form, which is an annual update, which I've read every year, except for this year because...
Oh, I didn't write one this year. Shame on you. I don't know what's going on in your world, and I can't, as a result...
Make introductions and increase your luck. Because for the first time in a decade, you don't have a list for me of what my goals are for the year. I don't know what your goals are.
I don't know what your focus is. I don't know what some of your challenges are. And so I've, religiously, that's a lie.
Because they can be a lot of work. I don't get them out as often as I want to. But when I do, the value is incredible.
Example. In 2020, our business went down to zero. We're in the events business.
All of our products skew is one thing. It's a live experience. Terrible industry to be in in 2020.
We were about to lose our house. And I sent out an email to these people on my friends only list saying, hey, I'm looking for. So it's always an update.
And then because I have a hard time asking, the forcing function is like I have to include one clear ask in every email. And the ask in this email.
was I'm looking for creative financing solutions for our home because we have a farm. It's hard to get mortgages for. My business is zero.
I'm broke now. We're about to lose our house. And I had a handful of people reach out, say like, I'll lend you the money, all that kind of stuff.
And then somebody reached out and said, hey, have you ever thought of selling lifetime memberships for MMT? And I was like, no, I'm not going to sell. That's nuts.
Nobody's going to buy a lifetime membership for MMT. But then it gave me the idea of like, well, maybe I can sell one, three and five year credits for MMT. And as a result, I sent out an email to our membership.
We brought in like half a million dollars within a day or within two days. And ultimately, that saved the business and has led to like seven figures because we've used that same model every year. There's some people like Noom in the community has nine years of MMT.
Every time he has an opportunity to buy more credits. I hope I'm still alive in nine years to deliver on these. But that one email led to so much stuff like that.
So every time I send out these emails, it increases that surface area of luck. People know what's in focus for me, know what's a priority, can open doors that I never kind of could have predicted. So that's the actual tangible way that I increase that surface area.
Quick random question. Yeah. First, I've seen so many people do that.
And I use kit to send, I do. Yeah. I do.
It's amazing. I mean, you look at, you should look at my open rates. I actually refrain from sending, trying to send any other emails because my open rates for those friends only emails is like 85%.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's such a great, great tactic because it's the, I just want to hear from my friends when their guard is down and there's no polish.
If we were sitting down and having coffee and I was like, Hey man, how's life? That answer. That's what you put in the friends only update.
And because it's not going out to tens of thousands of people and whatever, like you can do that. And one of the things I'll just share that shows this tangible value from a relationship that's at scale perspective is every one I do, I record a video to accompany it. If anybody wants to like hear my voice instead of read the email.
And I'm shocked how many people watch a video. Sometimes it's an hour long. They watch it from beginning to end.
And there was one I sent out recently where the video, and this is a small group of people I sent it to, had 200 hours of watch time. And I was like, that has saved me 200 hours of updating people what's going on in my world. So although it's a lot of work to craft this email, it's hugely valuable from a leverage perspective.
And the one thing I'll just throw in there really quickly, because a lot of people are like, well, who do I put on the email? I, as a rule, I only email people that I feel like if they were to receive my email, they'd be excited when it lands in their inbox. I still give them the option to unsubscribe and I encourage them.
I'm like, if you feel like this is noise, like there's a lot. going on in your inbox anyways, I will not take offense. The amount of people who've unsubscribed in the last like six years, I can count on one hand.
So that is the layer or the filter of like who gets included in the email. And then on the backside, it's a two -parter. If they were to reply to the email, I don't feel dread that I have to like, oh gosh, now I have to answer to this because we have those sometimes too, right?
So that is as long as they pass both of those filters, then they're included in the email. I love that you have all these filters on curation. And they're always simple.
Yeah. But they're really meaningful. Very tactical questions.
If you were in this position of being slightly more than halfway through a year and you feel guilt about not writing the update. Because I have written that update every year in a row for 13 years. 13 years?
Yeah. Dude, wow. And maybe more.
No, it's probably 2011. That's for 15 years. Yeah.
Except for 2025. So you're the originator of this. I don't know.
Well, I got it from Chris Guillebeau. Oh, really? Wow.
I've learned so much from that man. And I always say that I read it for myself. And so I actually have one that's halfway written.
I just at this point, like I ran out of time around the holidays and all that. So I didn't actually finish it and publish it. It is a lot of time and I like put it on the photos and all this stuff.
Yeah, yeah. But now I just feel like, oh, it'd be super weird to put out a 2025 annual review in August 26th. Yeah, exactly.
2025 .5. Yeah. I don't know.
There's also the element that you don't want to break the chain doing this for 15 years. Right. Is, uh, so yeah, which you don't want to gap awkwardness and, and yeah, the, the gap would be way worse than awkwardness.
So I got, I got to buckle down. Dude, I'd be so, if you just sent like a quick email of like, Hey, I messed up. Jason called me out on my podcast.
Here's the half written version. I'd be, I'd be the first one to reply and be like, good on you, Nathan. It's great to see what was, you know, 2025.
Yep. I will. That's powerful.
That's really powerful. No matter the way you do it, whether it's annual updates, if you don't have something like a trigger. like, oh, it's the turn of a new year, it can sometimes be easy to push it back and push it back and push it back.
So the idea of doing it annually at a minimum, I think is fantastic. I also know someone, speaking of triggers, who does it quarterly. And he just has a 90 -minute block once a quarter.
And whatever he writes out, he just hits send at the end of 90 minutes. Because it can grow. I might spend 10 hours.
Writing an annual review and formatting it in WordPress. Which photos do I want to include? And all of that.
And so it can just grow and grow. And so he was like, no, if I'm having coffee and catching up with a friend, it's probably for 90 minutes. And so I'm doing that at scale.
And I'm like, did I tell? The update of what's going on with my kids to Jason the most perfect way. No, I told them the version that fit within the time that we had.
Yeah. Done is definitely better than perfect. And I'm sharing this vulnerably that I struggle with perfection as well.
And I don't do it at the level of cadence I should. But potentially embracing that 90 -minute frame, I actually really like that. Yeah.
So the last thing that I want to go to that might be the most important for our audience is this idea of the difference between a fan base and a community. Because I think so many people listening will have tens of thousands of followers. And they're like, oh, I have this great community.
Or if I were to host an event or whatever else, like lots of people would come. We've sold things out. And everyone is there because of that one person.
And what you've done with MMT is you've made something that you created the whole thing. You curated the group and all of that. But the magic continues even when you're not in the room.
It's not like, oh, we're all huge fans of Tim Ferriss. And so if he doesn't show up, we're devastated. We'd be devastated if you didn't show up to MMT, just to be clear.
But like, it's so much more about the community. And so I'm curious, what advice would you give to someone who's like, I don't just want fans of me. I want all of, I want to bring people together to really connect.
And this will be through the lens of in person? In person or online. And maybe it's different answers.
Yeah. I mean, for me, and I obviously would appreciate you chiming in here because you have experience and expertise in this arena as well. I do think there's nothing that compares to in person.
I mean, that's just a matter of fact. To have people in a room is just such a gift, especially if they're disconnected and are on their phones and that kind of stuff. It's such a rarity where they're not getting hit with different responsibilities and emails and all that kind of stuff.
And then the whole shift. of not being focused on the individual and more about the community. I mean, there's a couple of things that I try to consciously do.
Like I see myself almost like as the bouncer in front of the club, ensuring that the right people in the room. So for us at MMT, there's three levels to our curation process. There's demographics, value graphics, which are our core values, and then synergy.
And one of the most important things that I realized many years ago is how you run a community of 150 people is exactly how you run a company of the same size. So the importance of keeping like core values at the forefront of your curation process. And then people were in the community, coach them up or coach them out based on those core values.
It's a distinction I often share and people are like, oh yeah, that sounds, no, like it's so valuable. Like just do that and you'll have an amazing community. I draw so much inspiration.
The most inspiration I draw as far as how to make a better community environment is all through hiring best practices and culture. You gave me an idea years ago. which eventually became our MM3s, which are one of the most highest rated things our community does in between our live events, which is a thing that you instituted at Kit.
Can you tell? Yeah. We call them SUPs.
Yeah. Just a conversation. This is a Slack bot that we have.
Yeah. Every week it goes and grabs three people at random and says, you should all have a 30 -minute call this week. Yeah.
It picks one of you to be in charge to pick the time and to make sure that conversation actually happens. And it will, we go back and forth, but it'll often give a conversation starter as well. Yeah.
And basically the idea is that the two of us together are going to have one type of conversation. We might pick up one from six months ago or, you know, might be about the work overlap that we have or whatever. But if you add in the third person, it's a totally different dynamic.
And you can basically have unlimited combinations. of three people. And that has built such deep community and relationships within our company that when people show up for our team retreats, which I'm here in Toronto right now for our team retreat that's kicking off tomorrow, there's like real depth and meaning.
And they're not like, hi, you know, my name is John. I work in engineering. Who are you?
You know, they've had all this community and interaction and it matters so much. Yeah. So you did that with MM3s.
Yeah. So we integrated that in MMT and people love it. We just pair three members together virtually.
We get them to fill out an intake form in advance so we understand what their focus is. So maybe we can make pairings because what people love most about our MMT live experiences oftentimes is the assigned seating and the curiosity that they have of like, oh, why am I seated next to this person? So we just took that idea and brought it kind of digitally.
I share this because, again, there's so much inspiration you can draw. from culture best practices in business that you can bring into the community space. Because there's not a lot of good resources on how to build community, how to get the right people on the door, how to kick people out.
But again, it's very much just culture principles. And then for me, I see my role, again, as that curator and the protector of the community. So if we have to kick people out, which happens.
I'm the bad guy in that case. And then when it comes to our live experiences and that kind of stuff, I think one of the most important roles I have is to set the container on the morning of day one. So like, why are we all here?
What are the rules of engagement? All that kind of stuff. And do it in a much better like storytelling type way.
You don't want it to be kind of dry. But getting people to fly in formation early. is great.
And then I can kind of get out of the way. And then we design our live experience. So there is a lot of space for people to kind of connect outside sessions and, and those kinds of things.
But yeah, I mean, my area of experience or expertise is very much community building kind of like in person. I always am in awe and marvel those who build communities like online and have active, you know, communities on circle and that kind of stuff. Um, so yeah, is there anything you could chime in there?
I'm especially, I guess on the, maybe the digital side. Well, I'm thinking about, since you brought up the idea of, um, you know, these, these triads of like bringing three people together. Yeah.
It's something that I don't think enough online communities do because really any, it scales. It doesn't require you as the host, uh, cause you could, you could fully automate it. Or you could go fully curated.
You could decide any of those things. There's a fun in the like, I don't know, this is the random group in the company. It's like, all right, we've got our accountant.
We've got our COO. And then we've got our head of brand. And they all, all right, what did they end up talking about?
Or there's also the magic of like, no, I think that you three would have a great conversation. But I don't think communities do that enough. I think about...
You know, these online communities like Jay Klaus's The Lab, you know, that would be such a good fit. And maybe they've done something similar. Yeah.
Right. To continue that. Because all of these online communities, the thing they struggle with is how do I get continued engagement that's not just about the training or about the host?
Yeah. And he's a great example of somebody who is trying to bridge that gap and now investing quite heavily. uh on like in -person experiences and there's a learning curve to that but he's doing you know obviously a a great job but there's that saying that people come for content but they stay for community and like that is oftentimes like the deciding factor um when it comes up for like renewal and that kind of stuff.
And if you could do a good job of making those connections, whether it's activities like that at MMT, we have a session every other month where we bring our members together and I facilitate two breakouts, which is an opportunity for them deep in his existing relationships and connect with new members. I also try to do a good job spotlighting the genius in the community because there is so much, you know, genius effectively.
So things like that go a really long way. On the idea of maintaining this engagement and not just being about the content, I think the ask, give, phrase model of MMT is really powerful. Can you talk about how that works?
Yeah, so I stole some of this from an event I went to in 2011 that Tim Ferriss put on, and theirs was ask and give. And Tim came up with this frame because he saw a lot of, Our community for that group lived on Facebook.
And they can be filled with people who don't know what to post. There's no rules, no clear rules. So people will be like, oh, I just did a new blog post.
And like, well, then if you did a blog post, well, I'll talk about my, here's a tweet I did or whatever the case may be. And then it's just become - Here's my Amazon affiliate link. Exactly.
And there's just a lot of noise and very little signal. And what Tim framed for that group was everything has to fall under an ask or give. So you're either asking for something or you're giving something, nothing else.
And I thought - Then it's really clear because then it's not like, oh, I'm telling you about this great resource. And if you really like that, you should buy this product from my company. Well, sometimes people get a little creative.
They're like, well, I would love to give my blog post to everybody. So sometimes moderation is required. But ask and give, I think it's a very relatively clear set of guardrails without like micromanaging every single post and creating almost like this.
Sometimes you almost create this uncertainty because we do have members reach out sometimes. They're like, hey, does this fall under an ask or give? But to me, what I've seen the last 15 years, it serves really well.
And the one thing we added on top of that is praise. And that really reinforces the value of the community. So that's when a member has an interaction with a fellow member that they want to spotlight.
And so oftentimes we'll see somebody make an ask of like, hey. We got one this morning of like, I need a litigation lawyer for a bad business partnership. Within three, four minutes, there was like four or five suggestions.
I guarantee there's like, that's probably dealt with now. As far as that person being on their path, I would not be surprised in two weeks time, they'll close the loop and say, yeah, thank you for the connection. I got it all solved or whatever the case may be.
So the praises are just a great way. Also from a community building perspective, the storytelling is so rich. hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of praises over the years that we can point to of like how the community has paid off significantly for people.
So everything falls within ask, give praise. And we also integrate that as best we can at our live experiences. Uh, so we use praise cards, which is a really cool activity that we do.
Um, and, uh, and that kind of stuff. So that's been our model. There's a couple of things I love about that model, but particularly the praise portion of it.
Um, one is at the live events. it gives you this moment of reflection a few times throughout the event. And it, if you think about, you know, like value is a nebulous thing.
Was it valuable for me to come to this conference or whatever? Yeah. And then like flipping through my notebook later, like what were my takeaways?
Was it worth the ticket price or the, or more, more so the ticket price, the, was it worth time three days, you know, four days to be here, but you're basically solidifying these, the, like the value that I got over time and like writing it. we're writing it on a card, but we're also writing it on our subconscious simultaneously.
And then the second thing that I think it does is it reinforces the idea of the value of the network. Again, if you think about the model of, I don't know if there's an event, let's say like an Alex Hermosi, something like that, right? Where if you go to a workshop that he's putting on, you're here to learn from him.
Did he answer your question? Yes. I'm sure that if it's an expensive event, there's probably other interesting people there who can afford the ticket.
But like, it's very much. Yeah. Back to him.
But the praise is just this mechanism that constantly reinforces like, what interactions did you have with these other people? And then the virtual praise, you know, when people are doing it in the Facebook group or the WhatsApp group, it sends this constant signal to everyone else of like, oh, we're the type of community that invests in each other, that like shows up in meaningful ways and then meets in person.
Like lots of the praises are for thank you to this person for hosting a great dinner in Washington, D .C. the other night. Or thank you for this person for taking me to this, you know, ball game or like whatever else that it is.
And so it's this subtle thing. Like as you're just watching it, you're like, oh, you know, like, oh, MMTers meet up in person. Yeah.
Right. Benny Greenfield wrote a praise for like, thanks, Nathan, for having me on your podcast and like dinner on the farm and all that. It's like, right.
MMTers. show up in person. And so it's just this constant reminder that doesn't have to, it's entirely, you could say, you know what would be great this year that I'd love to encourage at MMT is more people to meet up in person outside of the event.
And people would be like, oh yeah, that's a good idea. But it's so different if the community is constantly like, I met up with this person who's amazing. And then you kind of flip back through your Rolodex to the event and go.
oh, who do I want to meet up with? Or who are the MMTers that I know in the city? And it's this flywheel that just keeps reinforcing.
You and your flywheels. I love them. They're always there.
If you don't mind, I'd love to touch on two quick things pertaining to the praise activity, which I think is really powerful. I think every event, in -person experience, should have a praise activity like this. And basically, to what you said, we use it as a reflection tool every day.
It's one of the first things we start with in the morning, saying like, Some variation of like reflecting on the last day, share a, think of a conversation you had, maybe it was, you know, in the hallway, maybe it was at dinner, what have you, but reflect on that, that interaction and write that person like a praise post.
And it could be about the event. It could be like, hey. six months ago this person showed up for me in a big way uh but we get everybody to process it by putting on paper first uh we have these cards we usually get them to do two or three then we'll get a couple people to share out loud which is a important factor uh and then we collect all these cards at the end of the event we'll have well over a thousand of these cards which candace then organizes them all and then mails them all out but she mails them 90 days later and what happens is usually you're on this high of an event and then afterwards uh You're back to normal in your day -to -day life.
To get this surprise package 90 days later with all these praises just brings you back. And the amount of times people end up doing another praise post in the community because they got the cards and they're like, I was going through a really rough day today or a really rough week and these really lift me up and that kind of stuff.
And then from a community builder's perspective, one of the cool things for me. is getting to see who gets the most praise cards. Because it's not always the most extroverted people and that kind of stuff.
But those are ultimately like your culture carriers. And those are the people who drive the community. So as a result, you can be very top of mind that like.
I would say put golden handcuffs on them, but to some degree they really drive, you know, the value of the membership. So that's a, you know, a little behind the scenes insight, which is really valuable. You get this data because there might be someone that you brought into the community and you're like, I think they're going to be a really good fit, but are they going to gel with everyone and all of that?
And then you look back and they get a whole bunch of praise cards and you're like, yeah, like it might be just be this open loop in the back of your mind as a community organizer, like. I took a bit of a chance. Did it pay off?
And you're like, oh yeah, it paid off in a big way. Amazing. Well, I mean, and then naturally you automatically.
often think that like, again, the extroverted people, you'd like, you feel drawn to them and you're like, they, the community, they are the community. When you realize that sometimes it's oftentimes the more quiet people that like, we'll have deeper conversations and meaningful conversations with people that really drive the experience.
So as somebody who's constantly curating the community, that Intel is just invaluable. Yeah. I mean that, that feedback loop is so powerful, but then I'm also thinking about from a marketing and business perspective, because often these flywheels that you create are so simple.
But then they have these byproducts. And one of the byproducts is if you ever want to do a talk or whatever else and say like, okay, what is the value of being an MMT? Then you're like, hmm, over the last decade, which of these thousand stories would I like to pull from?
Because you made a system that tells not only you, but everyone else about all the ones that people want to volunteer. Yeah. Never thought of that.
That's good. And now you can find them all. This is actually, ladies and gentlemen, secretly a coaching session.
I appreciate that. That's awesome. Well, we're going to do a whole other episode on the book launch and everything else.
But one thing that we haven't talked about yet that we'll just wrap up on is the title of the book. Everyone talks about entrepreneurs being self -made. Why did you call the book what you did?
Well, God knows I got flack for it. Anytime you ask anybody for feedback on book titles, you'll get feedback. And it just muddies the water more than anything.
But, you know, the stance of the book is challenging this notion of being self -made. It's one of those things every time I hear the term, I have like a reaction to it. And I just want to like plant my flag in the sand that like that is the wrong approach.
Because no matter what you strive to achieve in life, the fingerprints of others will always be on your journey. And that doesn't like that could be if you have a company, it's like your team. It's like the people mentors and people who've kind of facilitated connections and that kind of stuff.
So the actual quick story, if you don't mind, like how the term community made came about was in 2017, we hosted. And normally I open the gatherings by setting the container like we talked about. So I usually do a talk and that kind of stuff.
That year, we decided to do something different. We brought somebody on stage. They were sharing their story.
So this individual was doing fitness videos on YouTube and was a comedian and packaged everything in a book. And everybody was just hanging on every word. And at the end of this talk, he said.
Unlike most of you, I can't navigate the world without help. And as a result, I'm not self -made, I'm community made. And that individual, his name is Zach Anner.
And he has cerebral palsy. So he was on the stage in a wheelchair. And the reason I got him to open the event is so many entrepreneurs.
There's a lot of entrepreneurs that don't or individuals that don't focus on building relationships. Then there's a small segment that. Understand relationships are important.
So they build and invest heavily in relationships. But that's only half the battle. You need to be willing to ask for help.
And having Zach as an example to me was going to really kind of set the tone. But when he said, I'm not self -made, I'm community made. I was like, I'm going to go take that domain right now and give him credit wherever I can, because it has done just such a beautiful job to like solidify.
just a different position to like those who take this self -made stance. So, um, so the fact that he crystallized that into the term community made that naturally felt like the title, uh, for the book. And even through all the pushback I got at different stages, uh, I stuck with it.
And now I feel, um, it's the perfect title. Oh yeah. It's so good.
Well, the book is community made the truth about success and the relationships that create it. Jason, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate you, my man.
If Jason got you thinking about what makes people want to keep coming back to a community again and again, then I think you're really going to like episode 127 with Will Godera and Brian Canlis. In fact, Jason's the person who introduced me to Will. Will wrote the book, Unreasonable Hospitality, which has sold millions of copies.
And in the episode, we get into so much more than just hospitality in the episode. Like the video if you enjoyed it, hit subscribe on YouTube or wherever you're listening. And I'll see you next week.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Most networking advice assumes you've already been invited. This conversation starts from the other end: a guest who once had two people at his bachelor party, cold-emailed names out of a local magazine to fill an eight-person dinner, and turned that dinner into one of the most curated entrepreneur communities around. The rule he lives by is simple. Never beg for a seat when you can build your own table.
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