RHS 004 - The Secret to Scaling Trust with Brian Fanzo

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Speaker 7 Today, I bring you Brian Fanzo.

Speaker 2 And while I wanted Brian to be on the show because of his career journey, which is very much a ground and pound, he's worked for every inch of success that he's gotten, he has earned it just through putting in hard work and being focused and doing all the things you need to do.

Speaker 6 This episode takes a turn in terms of some of the topics that we get into into, into things that are very near and dear to my heart.

Speaker 6 In particular, how we treat each other online and how in the coming months and ultimately leading up to the 2020 election and all the anger and hostility and

Speaker 7 division that is inevitable with an election like the one that's coming,

Speaker 7 how we can focus ourselves to stay positive and hold

Speaker 2 love and compassion in our hearts, even when we run up against people that we may not enjoy their perspective?

Speaker 2 I think it's incredibly important for us in life, and it's certainly important to us in business. So I am incredibly pleased, honored to bring you, Brian Fanza.

Speaker 8 It's good, man. It's good.
You know, trying to find my legs.

Speaker 8 It's an interesting, it's an interesting situation you know whole new industry

Speaker 8 uh don't know anything about

Speaker 8 basically most of what i'm doing so i'm just you know it's interesting how much i'm what i'm learning is um

Speaker 8 the net what the network that i had in the insurance industry meant um one

Speaker 8 uh two

Speaker 8 um

Speaker 8 how little

Speaker 8 Once you learn the basic principles of growing a business, marketing a business, selling, like the core principles of business in general, how little like intrinsic industry knowledge actually means to early stage growth.

Speaker 8 That's basically interesting. Yeah,

Speaker 8 I think middle and late stage growth, having the knowledge of the intricacies and nuances of the marketplace to separate yourself are very, very important.

Speaker 8 But early on, it's what's your value proposition? Can you sell it? Can you reach a market? Can you tell a story based on what you're trying to do and who you're trying to help?

Speaker 8 And that's going to get your your early adopters that's what's going to grow the business in the early stages and that makes sense you know i think eventually that you have to dig in you have to know what the space that you're operating in i i think that's very that's core but um it's been interesting that knowing nothing about fitness not having one network connection in the fitness industry um

Speaker 8 how far we've been able to get already.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 it's a fun test. You're going to have to like write some freaking or do some crazy, like, just story about that side of it, right?

Speaker 9 Because I mean, when you said that originally, I was like, holy, like, holy fucking pivot. Like,

Speaker 9 I know lots of people that have pivoted. Like, that's like a legit pivot in many ways.
But that's kind of fun to hear.

Speaker 9 Because, you know, it is one of those things you don't know until you hear people like yourself that have done it. Because, you know, I wouldn't even have thought of that in many cases.

Speaker 9 But you're also right.

Speaker 9 Like, part of it's like, if you're good at conveying trust, the trust, what's underneath the trust, there's a little bit of a layer of like, hey, I can trust you no no matter what you're working with.

Speaker 9 And then once we figure that out, you know, we better deliver on the back end, right?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think, you know, I was listening to,

Speaker 8 have you listened to Naval Ravakant's? He did a podcast based on a tweet storm that he created.

Speaker 9 It's called

Speaker 8 How to Get Rich or How to Be Rich or something. It's like a, it's a, it's a clicky headline, but what's underneath it is absolutely amazing.

Speaker 8 I think you dig it only because it's just an interesting format as a podcaster. It's basically like

Speaker 8 it's two-minute episodes, like two-minute to three-minute episodes.

Speaker 9 Oh, really?

Speaker 8 Yeah, he basically takes each tweet and he's got another guy that's with him. And the guy like gives him the core context of the tweet and then says, Hey, can you explain this?

Speaker 8 And he just goes into in like no more than five minutes an episode basically what he was thinking about. So there's like 50 episodes make up this

Speaker 8 match podcast. And

Speaker 9 it's

Speaker 8 yeah really really interesting oh i see right here yeah sweet yeah and is it uh oh yeah huh yeah so it's it's super interesting one the content is tremendous and two just the format and how he launched it and got it out and like what he was trying to do with it and since then he's added more of these kind of short form episodes but uh it's it's really really cool and um yeah i'll have to check that out i i just pulled up the website so uh oh that's super cool yeah one of the you know the the and then the point of my bringing him up is one of the sections in there that he talks about is trust in particular.

Speaker 8 And he basically says, like,

Speaker 8 um,

Speaker 8 it, you know, as everyone knows, like, it takes being around for a while to build up trust. And then once you have that, you can make a move or two, but there is a diminished return.

Speaker 8 And eventually, if you hop too much, people stop trusting you because now you just, you move around too much for them to, to, to trust you. So

Speaker 8 it's, it's, it's interesting. But yeah, long story short.

Speaker 9 Trust me once,

Speaker 9 trust you twice. And then like, wait a second, I got to reevaluate that trust, right? Like, I think that's.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I'm about to check that out.
I'm always looking for, I love creative ways of formatting, especially podcasting.

Speaker 9 I think podcasting is such an interesting medium in the sense of like,

Speaker 9 even for what people are doing today, we still haven't even really ventured into like all the different ways you can use audio formats, you know, just even like, you know, documentary styles and stuff.

Speaker 9 It's such a fun, fun meeting.

Speaker 9 I wish I had like the time and resources like a team to like do that kind of like testing and research but not have to check that out for sure yeah i i think that will come as monetization comes to the platform you know like like you just said like right now there's no no one's gonna come to you with a with an amount of money that that will allow you the time to go out and actually put that project together or at least it's rare yeah and when they do they usually handcuff you know because the medium is so weirdly like i did i just did i'm gonna write a blog post on it but i just did a presentation at a military uh influencer conference this weekend i was on podcasting and i said you know i've garnered six figures of podcast revenue in the last 12 months without sending download numbers once and everyone's like what the and i was like because i don't sell downloads because i couldn't figure out how to sell downloads like yeah i sell i sell like alignment with brand and i sell like you know direct business value and i sell you know like hey i'm gonna drive this many people to whatever your initiative is but you need to give me the bandwidth and time to do it but part of that's because like when i was trying to sell the other thing the medium you know the the monetization hasn't hit the platform in a way that you know is scalable or relates to like different like trying to tell i worked with three different adobe teams and all three different adobe teams had a whole different idea of what podcast advertising was and like how it worked and i was like i ended up convincing all three of them to do it my way but at first it was like god i could never work in this medium yeah it it's and it doesn't translate to what they're used to though the language different languages um that's for sure but

Speaker 8 all that being said i appreciate you being on the show man and you know one of the reasons reasons that I wanted to have you on this show, and we'll just kind of get into it.

Speaker 8 It's an interview show for sure. I'm going to do probably a lot of other stuff besides just interviewing.
It's really,

Speaker 8 I guess the thing that drove me to make the pivot that you initially asked about was

Speaker 8 my desire to help people find

Speaker 8 peak performance in their everyday life and whatever way, shape, or form that means for them. Like, you know, whatever that means for you,

Speaker 8 how do I I like helping them find the little hacks sharing things that I found mistakes that I made articles I found whatever it is it's kind of a menagerie of concepts and ideas with the idea that

Speaker 8 one of them might help you get a little bit better find that thing you know

Speaker 8 so in in in watching your career and and we've known each other for a while now in terms of just being in the same ecosystem and yeah um you know the thing that's always impressed me about you was

Speaker 8 kind of your, your, your ground and pound methodology.

Speaker 8 You know, you didn't,

Speaker 8 you just started doing the work, showing up, turning the Facebook Live on before anyone else was, or before it was kind of, I mean, I guess still people aren't really using that platform well, I guess you could say.

Speaker 8 But, you know, you just kept doing it and kept grinding and kept pushing and kept telling your story. And, and if you go back in the archives of your work, which I did in getting ready

Speaker 8 for this interview,

Speaker 8 it just kind of brought me back to some of the things that you were in watching the evolution. It's just so iterative.

Speaker 8 And with each, I don't know, episode or era of your development, it gets a little more refined and a little more tweaked.

Speaker 8 And then you can tell you kind of, hey, I'm going to shelf this idea for a while and now I'm going to attack this.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 I guess my first question for you, or or what I'd love for you to kind of kick this off on is

Speaker 8 you know early on like what you just said like you just said hey I made six figures in podcast revenue like for most people that's the headline whack you know there was a day when it was zero and you know that that's taken you a long time to get there and you've earned every one of those dollars

Speaker 8 what What kept you going in the early days?

Speaker 8 Like talk a little bit about, you know, everyone that kind of starts but I'm not so much interested in the start as I am the dip and what got you through the dip

Speaker 9 so yeah you know and for me being you know like we were talking a little bit about your pivot you know like I went cybersecurity to a data center to digital marketing right like and like in like the weirdest way I think the more I reflect the more I realize that collaboration like the element of collaboration is the root element that is the bond thing that links everything I've done since really since high school.

Speaker 9 High school, it was

Speaker 9 for me, you know, I was the only one, you know, like my family owned a frozen yogurt shop. I was a lifeguard.
I tried out for plays as a thespian. I was a baseball player.
I played hockey.

Speaker 9 I was like the only one that kind of like was the surfer dude that was also the sports dude that liked computers that also worked at a family business.

Speaker 9 And then that kind of translated into college where I was the only one that was a fraternity guy, the only one that was a computer science major, and the only one on the hockey team.

Speaker 9 Like no one on the hockey team was majoring in computer science and nobody majoring in computer science was going to join a frat.

Speaker 9 And I think for me, me like being able to bring groups together was always like man it was the thing for me like it's always been like the root piece of it but you know i i worked in a government contracting company giant 25 000 person company uh left to go to the data center which was at the time 250 i was a 256th employee um and then within two years we had 612 employees like we were hiring like 12 new hires a week it was um insane and then i went on my own and i think the interesting piece for me i guess like the dip was like i always knew i wanted to do something bigger.

Speaker 9 And I love how you kind of put that out there of like understanding that. Like for me, it was like, I always say, I want to connect great people with great people to do great things, right?

Speaker 9 Like, but there's no monetization on that. There's no like business.
There's no like, how do I package that?

Speaker 9 And I remember, you know, Jay Baer, a good friend and mentor, like one day, and this was probably four and a half years ago, and where I was kind of like, I don't want to be an agency, but I don't want to be a consultant.

Speaker 9 And like, where do I fit like who I am? And like, how do I put some monetization around it? But also, how do I like grow and learn this space?

Speaker 9 And I remember Jay said, he said a statement to me, and I don't think he knows how much it stuck with me, but he was like, Fanzo, I love what you're doing. Everyone I talk to loves what you do.

Speaker 9 My problem is, I have no idea what you do or how I would sell you. And I was like, yeah, that sounds like a problem.

Speaker 9 And for me, I think that was part of that piece of it was,

Speaker 9 and see, you know, and I read things, like, you have to package things, or maybe you need to sell stuff online.

Speaker 9 And I had this love for building community without the desire or need to monetize the community like it's like like in my weird big picture like I remember like I tried the agency thing after the data center didn't really like the agency model I just wasn't an agents like I deliver I over deliver I ground and pound I'm a hey we're gonna what's our goal we're gonna crush it and the agency model just didn't really fit that right I kept my the one that I was working the agency with you know we were business partners he's like dude everyone you bring on they work with us for six months and they move on and it's not because they're not happy it's because you've solved so many goals and help them do it like they don't need us anymore I was like yeah that's what I'm good at you know and he was like well that's gonna be a me're gonna turn into a business development team more than anything else

Speaker 9 and so I think like for me like it was this weird piece where I remember saying people would say well what do you want to be when you grow up and I would say you know and this was this was within the last five years and I was like well you know I was successful in everything I've done but there's not like one of these things was a path but I would always say like I want to be a CEO of my own company I just don't know what that company is I don't know what the, I don't know if it's software.

Speaker 9 I don't know if it's hardware. I don't know if it's online, if it's offline.

Speaker 9 I want to be, and I was like, because I knew that, I was like, I'm going to build community from the sheer sake of caring about people and engaging as much and as hard as I can.

Speaker 9 And for me, that was like, well, I got to try out every medium, like from live video to podcasting. Like, I had to figure out what worked.

Speaker 9 Like, I can say, like, I never thought of myself like, wow, I'm going to try out live video because I want to be a live video expert.

Speaker 9 It was, ooh, is live video going to give me an opportunity to build community, not only stronger, but you know, kind of allow me to scale.

Speaker 9 Because I think the hardest, the thing I've always known was scaling trust and scaling community has always been something that scares me because I really do, like, I love the idea of like, you know, intimate groups and I love connecting great people.

Speaker 9 But I've learned over time that, you know, as those groups grow and I, it can go everything from business to church group to sports group, whatever it may be, like that scale is really hard.

Speaker 9 And I think, so for me, that was a big fundamental piece.

Speaker 9 And then because I didn't want to monetize this community I was investing in, I was like, well, how do I, how do I make money as I'm going through this?

Speaker 9 And when I say I didn't want to monetize, I didn't want, I didn't want people, you know, it's the Gary V, jab, jab, jab, right hook, right? And Gary made a joke with me via Twitter a long time ago.

Speaker 9 He was like, fanzo, you remember the right hook part exists? Because I was really good at jabbing and giving people things without like having that right hook.

Speaker 9 And part of it was because I kind of learned, and this was something I think was one of those things that got me out of that lower, I say that entrepreneur stuff that I was in, was that

Speaker 9 I could monetize and work with enterprise-sized companies and big brands because they would want access to the community that I have without having to tell my community to buy an online course or buy my book or to hawk some webinar.

Speaker 9 And so

Speaker 9 when I found that out, I was like, oh, well, that's my whole background. Like my background was enterprise tech.

Speaker 9 And I was like, well, now I can tap into this network from a business perspective while still growing a community with my underlying goal of reaching kind of the masses.

Speaker 9 And for me, that was like that, that that's been like the path that's got me where I'm at today. But there's definitely been like, it's taken a lot of, I can tell you, self-awareness is the, uh,

Speaker 9 is the thing that I, I just, I would always say, like, I'm confident, I'm proud. I would say, be yourself.

Speaker 9 I would, um, but in the last three years or so, and really a lot of it had to do with my divorce.

Speaker 9 I was like kind of forced to become self-aware. And now that I'm becoming more self-aware, I know I know what I'm not good at.

Speaker 9 I know that I'm good at, but I'm also been able to look back at my decisions and realize, wow, if I'd only only been aware of why this didn't work because of who I was, I would have made so many different things along the way.

Speaker 9 And so it's been a heck of a journey, but I think that hopefully answers the question on that path.

Speaker 9 We both have a very interesting, if it's

Speaker 9 going from crazy different careers, but I think there's also that underlying element of what drives us.

Speaker 8 You know, it's really interesting. I think

Speaker 8 without really knowing it until you just said it, that, you know, that might be one of the things that has always enamored me to your work is I've struggled with that same thing my whole life.

Speaker 8 I always say to my wife that I have a job to support my willing, my desire to create. You know what I mean? Like I've never, I love, like, I'll tell you what I love more than anything.

Speaker 8 I wake up at 4.30 every morning and I write an Instagram micro blog every single day. Well, we'll call it six days a week.
It's the 2,200 word limit. Sometimes I fill it.

Speaker 8 Sometimes I don't even come close.

Speaker 8 But it is whatever I learned the day before, whatever i came in contact whatever idea i think can move people forward i do it every single day and i don't know why that platform i just like the constraints of the 2200 characters or whatever it kind of gives me a something to work towards which i could easily duplicate someplace else but

Speaker 8 um

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 8 like i have said to my wife before and this is probably even this is probably before i the job i have today but like i she's like why do you She's like, you like to do all this other stuff, but then you do this work over here.

Speaker 8 And I'm like, because that work pays for me to be able to do this work because I have no clue how to monetize this work in a way that just like you said, isn't courses and ebooks and, you know, paid webinars and all that nonsensical stuff that truthfully,

Speaker 8 even when it's done with the purest intentions, I can't stand it. Like, I just can't, it just.
rubs me the wrong way. As soon as I see the sales copy, I just start to barf.

Speaker 8 And I know that that, you know what I mean? Like, it's, and I know that that's a weakness in my, in my marketing game. And I'm not willing to go copywriter, even though I can do it.

Speaker 8 Like, I just, I, it just makes me feel weird. So I never, yeah.
So I, I, it's, it's funny.

Speaker 8 I never heard you say that, what you just said to me before, but as soon as you said it, I was like, wow, that sounds super familiar. I've had that conversation in my head before.

Speaker 9 It's funny too, on that element of like that weird, like there's a sales element, right? Like, like, I have no problem convincing people to give me the money that I know that I'm worth, right?

Speaker 9 Like that doesn't, that doesn't has never bothered me. But selling something, like this idea of selling something, you know, either a forced way or, you know, there's a, it's a skill set.

Speaker 9 And I was also, there's a skill set or a mindset of the people that purchase those things, right?

Speaker 9 And when you're neither one of those, like which I think both of us kind of fall in neither one of them, it is, it's like, I love the marketing space and I despise both, you know, and I used to get so mad at the people that were the marketing it that way.

Speaker 9 Then I started to like flip my brain.

Speaker 9 I'm like, well, if no one was buying it they wouldn't keep doing it and then i started to get like starting to like psychoanalyze that that layer that i love to really study that like the human condition and what makes us do those kind of things and i i realized like oh it's just not my personality on either side so you're right it's it's uh it's a funny mix because there's kind of the beauty of the world we're living in like you can find your own ways but when you kind of jump into a space where you know the short easy way is this way that like everyone's doing it can get extremely frustrating that like and to your point like i i mean like i've done an instagram story every single day since instagram stories was released and it's like my favorite thing and you and you you like feed copy i love like i wake up and i start the day and like i kind of go for this like weird programmatic thing in my head of okay what does my beginning start middle end look like and then i'm like what should i show or how should i show something to educate people or bring them along on my journey and i don't do like written out it's like this it's this like weird process and i can feel it i can feel like sometimes it hits me like 10 a.m sometimes it hits me at noon But like you, like, I, I mean, I've invested so much time and, and I, you know, and I study the analytic fine.

Speaker 9 I love the piece of it. But at the same time, like, nothing about my Instagram stories is monetizable or like, like, I'm not using it to, like, and everyone's like, oh, you have the swipe up feature.

Speaker 9 And I'm like, yeah, I usually use that for like an article or a podcast. And I'm like, you don't use that for dated content? I'm like, I don't have dated content.
I'm like, what? You're a marketer.

Speaker 9 It's just, it is, it just kind of plays in different ways.

Speaker 8 yeah, yeah, it's funny, you know. So, one of the things that you that you talked about too in there was uh was scaling trust, and this is one of the topics that I've written about, I've talked about.

Speaker 8 It's something I think about all the time. It's, I think, it's probably the reason that we are neither the person who buys the fancy copy course or that creates the fancy copy course is that

Speaker 8 I feel like

Speaker 8 anytime you inject

Speaker 8 madmen style copy into advertising, which I think that's what the break in that is,

Speaker 8 you're going from trust to convincing, right? You're kind of almost bullying someone into it.

Speaker 8 You're bludging them with reasons to trick their brain into clicking a button versus, hey, you trust me so much that I'm just going to tell you what you're going to get and you can choose.

Speaker 8 Like, those are two different things for me because, you know, Seth Godin sells courses on akimbo he's the farthest thing from a huckster marketer even though he is a brilliant copywriter right so so talk to me a little bit about about how you how you scale trust and and really I'm interested maybe start with what that actually means to you and then how you do it so I think this is one of those areas for me where I've never looked at like you know and I think it has a lot to do with my personality as well like when someone tells me what to do and my poor parents like I'm the guy like I mean even if I wanted to do it and and they're telling me to do it, like, I've always pushed back.

Speaker 9 And I'm not like the fight the system guy. I've always just kind of been like, hey, I want to like, let's come together and do this or let's work in this similar path.

Speaker 9 And I think when I looked at like, okay, in this digital world, like I never looked, I remember like, and I've thought about this a lot.

Speaker 9 I've always looked at social media and digital and like the internet as a whole as this vast opportunity to become connected no matter where we live, no matter what our background is, no matter our sexual orientation, no matter what it is, like you can find your people.

Speaker 9 And I think it had a lot to do with, like I moved in third grade from Pittsburgh to Virginia Beach, but my like, my roots are Pittsburgh. I believe black and girl sports.

Speaker 9 We still had season tickets for the Steelers, but because of my dad's medical condition, we had to move out of the cold weather.

Speaker 9 And like the internet came and it was like this like, oh my goodness, the people that think sports like me, I'm connected with, right? And I remember it being like this like, this pure joy.

Speaker 9 And I wanted to be a sports center center anchor, then I realized you had to know journalism, and I was like, are you good at grammar? Like, it wasn't my thing.

Speaker 9 And I kind of like pivoting into computer science.

Speaker 9 And I think, really, computer science for me, even like, if I look at that element where I was like, I like, I like results-oriented type things, but I also loved trying things out, right?

Speaker 9 Like, and I was like, oh, well, nobody that's done this could do that. I'm the person that does it, right? Like, I really like that piece of it.

Speaker 9 I think when I started in this digital space, putting myself out there, and I know the dates because

Speaker 9 the day I started on social media, but it was a date November 2nd, 2013.

Speaker 9 It was a date like my mom questioned on, I think I was vending to her on the phone something about like a social media post or she said she liked a post of mine.

Speaker 9 I was like, well, it took me an hour to write. And she was like, what? Like, you don't spend that much time on, like, what? You didn't spend an hour total on your homework.

Speaker 9 And I was like, well, I wanted to make it this, this, and this.

Speaker 9 And she said, like, you know, the basic words of, she's like, well, Brian, I hope that you remember what's made you great and who you are offline. She's like, you're unapologetically yourself.

Speaker 9 And she's like, and it's been something that I tried to change as a mom. And then I just kind of realized Brian's going to walk his own path and do his own things.

Speaker 9 And people are going to, for the most part, take it or leave it. And those that leave it, I have that desire to please everybody.

Speaker 9 I'm going to, you know, I'm going to try to kind of come back around and then for them to see that. I think

Speaker 9 when my mom said that, I mean, it was like a, I got hung up.

Speaker 8 I was like, sure, mom, of course I do.

Speaker 9 And I hung up and I just like sat there and I was like, oh my goodness, like I am not, like, I didn't have a hat on in my profile picture, right?

Speaker 9 I was, like, I had like this like weird persona and I remember always being like what do other people want to hear from me rather than saying what can I share to help other people right like that little ducks and for me that was like that was that moment of like you know what I'm gonna be myself I'm gonna put myself out there and those that that judge me based on my appearance or judge me based on maybe the way that I come about things I'm gonna build trust with them over the long term of caring and being a positive person.

Speaker 9 I don't inject negativity in anything I do. I don't support negative people.
Like someone screws me over,

Speaker 9 I don't post about it publicly. I just remove them from my circle, right? I don't amplify their things.
I don't talk about them.

Speaker 9 Even like going through my divorce,

Speaker 9 my ex was not one that was

Speaker 9 on social media posting publicly. And she posted 32 times publicly about our divorce.
And I posted zero. And it was because it was like, well, hey, she's a great mom.
She is still a great mom.

Speaker 9 My daughters are great because of her. And because of this, you know, disagreement of who we were, we kind of grew grew apart and whatever that may be.

Speaker 9 Like, I've always looked at it with like, I can grow. I can grow trust through being very transparent, which is what one of like my core pieces of.

Speaker 9 And I always say, like, transparency and oversharing are two different things, right?

Speaker 9 Like, oversharing and airing dirty laundry about my perforce and things that people didn't really need to know would have been the other one, right?

Speaker 9 But being very transparent in who I am, you know, what I've gone through.

Speaker 9 And then I've also kind of looked at things and said, you know, beyond like transparency, I'm going to care about other other people just as much as I want them to care about me.

Speaker 9 And I'm going to do it at like the maximum that I can. And I think when I looked at like what that meant, like online was just the easy path for me, right?

Speaker 9 Like I know that you can put me in a room, a networking room. And as extroverted as I am, I don't like forced conversation.

Speaker 9 Like, you know, it's the dad's birthday party and all the dads are standing by the grill like that despite.

Speaker 9 gives me the creep. I hate, I hate forced conversation.
I don't even like it on the airplane, but like put me in a room with a bunch of people, I don't shut up.

Speaker 9 Like I don't mind talking like when it's not forced. And I think when I looked at all these pieces, I was like, wow, I can do this online and share content, my conversations, who I am.

Speaker 9 And I think caring is so easy online, right? Like, I mean, retweets cost nothing.

Speaker 9 Amplifying, you know, calling someone else, it's all, it's like, it's so easy to do and yet so rarely done still that it was like, okay, well, I can do that in a way that builds trust over time.

Speaker 9 And I can tell you, like, some of my biggest, I would say, haters or those that like maybe we had a biggest disagreement with.

Speaker 9 I I just recently had a phone call with somebody that was like the first person I ever blocked on social media like I remember being like wow like this was bothering me and it's come full circle that person not only has apologized but made up to the person they alienated that really turned me off and we ended up having a great like 45 minute skype call and it was like it was like damn Brian I do have this like please everyone mentality but I think there's also that idea of trust is like I don't want to force you to trust me.

Speaker 9 I'm not going to tell you to trust me.

Speaker 9 But if you have a mindset or you're open perspective enough to you know learn from me or just listen to who i am and what i talk about um i believe you will trust over time i think that's that element of um you know i think that when people say like trust is a long-term game that's true but i think there's also an element of it's a long-term game with someone that is going into it more often than not not wanting to trust you right but but but for those of us that approach a lot of relationships very trusting to begin with Trust can be an immediate game if you have your, if you created your network and your community to kind of enable that.

Speaker 9 And I and that's kind of what I'm trying to embody now and I'm testing it right like you know as a full-time speaker now like that's my full-time revenue you know this is a it's a business development game nobody really hires you back-to-back years so everything is like okay you have to trust to see me you have to trust to work with me you know my speaker agent is like Brian you've been running this business speaking for four years you know without a CRM without all these like back-end things like as a team of one and I was like yeah I work hard on establishing trust today

Speaker 9 so that they might be able to hire me a year from now and that's how I've always done it. And I did it as a team of one, right?

Speaker 9 So, I started sharing articles for events that I wanted to speak at two years from now.

Speaker 9 I started sharing them today so that when it comes about in that event, they ask me six months out and go, Brian, you've been in our network sharing our stuff. I got to know you.

Speaker 9 Would you like to speak at our event? I'm like, Oh, matter of fact, I would. Little did they know, like, that was my strategy, you know, two years earlier in the process.

Speaker 9 And I think that's kind of like the fun of how this all works.

Speaker 8 Yeah, it's almost like what I hear you saying is that

Speaker 8 trust almost has like a like a compounding effect.

Speaker 8 Like as you build trust with one community and become kind of seen as a trustworthy person, more people are brought into that and maybe they're willing to

Speaker 8 trust what you have to say and who you are quicker than they would is if they hadn't heard from you or you hadn't established yourself. So it just kind of compounds over time.

Speaker 9 And I think that's where I always look at the difference between like a community and a network. And

Speaker 9 I think that's that's always like a fundamental piece for me.

Speaker 9 And I can't really remember who even like kind of opened my eyes to this. And maybe it was a couple of different people.

Speaker 9 But I always look, you know, like a community is our people coming together because of a shared purpose and a shared passion. They're not connected via one individual, right?

Speaker 9 And a network is the idea that you are invited in because of the people that you know.

Speaker 9 And yet, if there's a couple of people that are removed from that network, your attachment to that network might no longer be there because the person removed.

Speaker 9 But you can remove people oftentimes from a community and the community is powering on because they're joined by that purpose and passion.

Speaker 9 And I think that's also why like the words like monetizing community don't go together, right? Because it's like, wait a second, like we're bringing people together.

Speaker 9 And I think in the online space, like you can build followings on social networks. Very, you know, hey, we all know how that works.

Speaker 9 But I also think building a community that will follow you where you go is where the magic happens. That's the beauty.
But I mean, there's no recipe. There's no online course.

Speaker 9 There's no like one, you know, one hit wonder to make that happen. And I think even, you know, you can use the extremes.
And, you know, using Gary Vee is like using Apple and technology and animation.

Speaker 9 There's only one of him, and he did his own, his own way.

Speaker 9 And I don't like using him as an example, but there's lots of people I think are that are understanding this idea of building through trust and those relationships and putting their passions out there.

Speaker 9 And ultimately, that community ends up doing the story, the telling for them. And it's amazing because sometimes people will call them a podcaster.
Like, wow, they're a YouTuber.

Speaker 9 But if you look at like the fundamental core, it didn't matter the medium they were delivering their message on. It was more about the message that they were delivering.
It just happened to be that

Speaker 9 medium was the vehicle to get it to the people to bring the community together.

Speaker 8 Yeah, one of the things that you said in there was

Speaker 8 retweets and sharing of other people's content has become rare. Now, I remember, you know, I was an active blogger, content creator in 2008, 2009.

Speaker 8 And that was the currency currency of the internet. I mean, that was how anyone found anything was, you know, I know you.
I know the stuff that you like. You retweet someone else's stuff.

Speaker 8 And now I get introduced to somebody new. And I'm with you.
Like, that doesn't happen anymore. Like, people just do not, they don't link to other people's work in their articles.

Speaker 8 They are not retweeting other people's work. They're not sharing articles into their feeds from other people anymore.

Speaker 9 Even stealing people's quotes and not putting people's names under the quote. Like,

Speaker 8 this is like, this drives me nuts. What you just said is drives me nuts is quote from someone alive with a Twitter account on Twitter and then not at mentioning them on.

Speaker 9 I'm like, it drives me crazy.

Speaker 9 And the worst part is it does you more benefit.

Speaker 9 Like the, the, the, the, and it's, and I think this is that weird, you know, and this probably goes back to like a whole nother piece where we lived in a mentality and a life.

Speaker 9 And I think this was a lot to do with like let's say before the internet boom and just the lifestyle that a lot of people are living in was like you hold on to what you know and if you get hit by a bus everyone else is screwed and and you are defined by what you know and you are rewarded and the salary you have and I and we no longer live in that culture right and that culture is completely but there's still like fundamental little pieces that trickle in and when I see people do that right they don't mention the person that quotes or they're stealing quotes that majority of us know are from someone else and they're not not even putting that person's name underneath it and I immediately are like wow it's it's this idea that if I put their name underneath it it somehow devalues what I currently own and it's like actually no it now connects us with someone else that we can be inspired by and if that person ends up being someone we trust we we now have upped your level of trust by like wow I was connected by that person by that person right like it's and it's so weird that we've kind of got away from that I think there's also I think a lot of people are still looking for that shortcut shortcut, right?

Speaker 9 I think in,

Speaker 9 like you said, the early blogging days, the early social media days, even you know, Twitter, let's say Twitter five years ago, I don't think the shortcut was the answer, right?

Speaker 9 No one, there was no shortcut successors, therefore there was no one to be like, oh, we're gonna find that out.

Speaker 9 And then like this idea of like growth hacking and then like all these like weird things where you were getting rewarded for vanity metrics and all of a sudden people started trying to like make excuses for these bad behaviors.

Speaker 9 And I, you know, and it's weird because like my dad's given me so much amazing business advice. And for the long, for there was a good period of time that I was like, dad, that's great.

Speaker 9 But I worked on digital and like, you hate internet and you don't like email. And you sold peanuts.
He sold peanut brittle. He owned a peanut brittle, a global peanut brittle company that he owned.

Speaker 9 And like, now when I circle back, I'm like, man, like everything my dad told me about business and sales and trust and your word and you know, over delivering that he was like ingraining in me through everything that i like shunned is the is the core values of what still works it's just that you know unfortunately some people still see an easy button they're looking for that shortcut and you know i think that's been i mean if i like look at anything for me on like what keeps me going to which i think was like the first question you ever asked me because like i've never looked at anything that i do today as a need or desire for it to be short-term immediate success like that to me i almost i almost like

Speaker 9 like immediate success almost like scares me because like what happens when that goes away like you fall like building this like long journey and path that we're building like failure does not scare me because i won't settle for it and i got plenty of things to roll back on that i that are in my life and in my journey and so i think it's i have like kind of like the flip but there's a lot of other people that are like oh my goodness i could get that million dollars tomorrow or i could could go viral or i could do what you know i could be interviewed on this show or whatever it may be and i i've never had a desire to do that i i even look at it and say if that's a show i want to be interviewed on or I want to be up on the podcast, let's just say something like that.

Speaker 9 I'm like, you know what? I'm going to earn my keep.

Speaker 9 And if I get on it in five years from now, that to me is so much more powerful than me, like, you know, going around some back door to get something that I want like immediately.

Speaker 9 I think that is such a unique value that. Good news is I feel like people are getting exposed today at a much higher rate.

Speaker 9 Like we're finally at this like pivot point where like taking it to making it, selling unicorns and rainbows and not having actually the products or the services that you've been promising.

Speaker 9 Yes, they're still winning right now, but they're starting to get exposed slowly.

Speaker 9 And I think the people that are like, you know, 10 years behind us are like, wait a second, I might not want to follow those people that are now kind of, you know, including like the Me Too movement.

Speaker 9 There's so much of those things that were like, hey, this is just the way things were done.

Speaker 9 And now, thankfully, we're at this pivot that are kind of changing our society, which let's hope it changes sooner than later.

Speaker 8 Yeah. Well, there's a lot in there that I want to unpack.
You know, I, I,

Speaker 8 I, uh, you know, for me, the trust isn't a zero-sum game, right?

Speaker 8 Trust is, trust is, you don't, me showing, putting you on a pedestal or having you on my podcast, it doesn't decrease my trust and increase your trust. Exactly.

Speaker 8 The whole pool gets bigger, right? And I, I, I honestly believe that there are many people that just intrinsically do not understand that idea that your win is their loss. It's that scarcity mindset.

Speaker 8 You know, Seth Godin calls it the lizard brain.

Speaker 8 You know, there's all everyone has their own, their own way of describing it, but it's such a, it's such a toxic mentality because it does get you chasing that short-term. And

Speaker 8 that isn't to say that everyone doesn't have moments of it. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like I don't look at my Instagram stats and go, you know, what the hell

Speaker 9 this week I didn't, you know what I mean?

Speaker 8 That happens. I mean, obviously you have these moments, but it's being able to come back to the idea that,

Speaker 8 you know, there's a, there's a, there's a group in the insurance industry and their whole slogan is better together, better together, everything. They've been saying that for years.

Speaker 8 And to be honest with you, when I first saw it, I was jealous because I was like, that is 100%.

Speaker 8 I had to, it was just the perfect, it was the perfect way to describe what I believe is exactly how we have to operate.

Speaker 8 You know, and it actually takes me back to something you said that I wanted to comment on or and then get your feedback.

Speaker 8 You said, you know, the internet is a great place for you to find to find your people. And I agree with that at face value, but I actually think that the internet,

Speaker 8 I think that what I hope, and you kind of alluded to this, in the next wave of the internet and as the next generation kind of washes in and

Speaker 8 some of the mentality of the

Speaker 8 of the non-internet world kind of washes out of the internet is that it's not about finding your people. It's about understanding that everyone has a piece of you in them.
Yes. And

Speaker 8 because,

Speaker 8 you know, I,

Speaker 8 what I, I got a piece of advice from somebody because I do not comment on politics, but I do keep an eye on what is happening.

Speaker 8 I try not to participate in the negativity because it's because it's almost just tough to get away from, but I do follow it.

Speaker 8 And I had someone say to me, you know,

Speaker 8 I just was talking to them offline about a couple things that were bothering me. And

Speaker 8 they said, you know, it might do you some good to follow people who at face value, you don't know if you agree with them or not.

Speaker 8 So like at face value, you may say, you know what, I don't want to follow that person. I don't agree with them.
But what this person's advice to me was was if you do that.

Speaker 8 Over time, if you actually give them a chance, yeah, there's always probably going to be some things that you don't align with, but there may actually be some things that you do align with.

Speaker 8 And if our mentality could be, could go from what it is today, which is if you disagree with me on one thing, you're against me too.

Speaker 8 If you agree with me on one thing, we have a chance. And I think that that shift is really what I hope happens.

Speaker 8 And I, I don't, that just triggered that thought in me, but I feel like as we roll up on this next election, holding some of those ideas in our head is going to be more important than ever.

Speaker 9 And I mean, I think like that to me, it kind of embodies what like my life's where, like, like I use the phrase digital empathy and I don't think digital empathy is kind of like the the piece of it, but what I always looked at that was like, you know, removing toxic people or negativity and hateful people out of your life is important.

Speaker 9 That does not mean you remove the people that disagree with you, right? And I and I've always believed in this and this for me has been a huge one.

Speaker 9 You know, I was diagnosed ADHD at 31 years old, so later in my life.

Speaker 9 And the first time I shared that on stage, I mean, I remember the day, I remember the lady, I mean, I had a lady come up bawling and she had me FaceTime her son and her son was struggling with an illness.

Speaker 9 It wasn't even ADHD. And it was just like the fact that I put it out there in front of these thousands of people that like connected me.

Speaker 9 And it was like, the more that we realize that our vulnerabilities not only become our superpowers, but they're the things that link us in so many ways that we as humans are so much more aligned.

Speaker 9 I think this is where that, I love the way you're saying it's right. It's like, hey, I disagree with you, you're out of my life, rather than saying, well, we agree on this.

Speaker 9 And I think this is where, like, it's a skill.

Speaker 9 I tweeted this out this weekend and it got a lot of play and I was talking about this idea of compartmentalization and this this idea that if you can compartmentalize certain things or prioritize deprioritize how you evaluate them it allows us to kind of open up new doors and things that we maybe have always just siloed off but at the same time I also believe in having kind of like a backbone and your own morals and ethics and like for me like I'm very like I have a I have a few that are just like things that you know and it's and it's weirdly, it's like the same thing.

Speaker 9 Like when I got suspended from school

Speaker 9 my high school year, I'm my freshman or sophomore year, and my mom was just like so mad at me. And she's like, you're finally turning things around.

Speaker 9 And I remember my mom being like, she's like, what happened? And I was like, mom, I have like three things that I just, if these three things happen, I don't have rage.

Speaker 9 I'm not a person that wants to fight, but I have like three things that like, it's just at my core that I don't settle for. I will not back down.
I will not stay quiet.

Speaker 9 And it's funny, those three things still like are existing today, right? It's like, I don't want anyone that attacked my family, I have a defense mechanism.

Speaker 9 Anyone that bullies anyone from a place of power has always been a thing for me. And then anyone that hits a woman, right?

Speaker 9 Like, and those are like my three, like, and I, and at their core, like, they've expanded at a higher level now where, you know, I do a lot of work in the LGBTQ community.

Speaker 9 And I have a lot of passion for this idea of treating everyone equally as long as that person isn't harming other people, right? I respect, I don't care what their love or beliefs are.

Speaker 9 And that's at my core. core.
But, you know, I also grew up right-wing Catholic, right? And so like, I had to learn, like, how do I bring this along?

Speaker 9 And like, trying to get my dad to like come on board with me in high school on some of these thoughts that I had, like beliefs I had, was a lose-lose battle.

Speaker 9 And I would bump it with my dad, and I would realize we get nowhere. But over the years, I realized, well, I'm going to have him introduced to my friends.
He's going to get to know these people.

Speaker 9 And then slowly, he's going to realize that, like, some of his beliefs.

Speaker 9 that these people fall into were things that he just wasn't exposed to right and wasn't had nothing to do and and it's been like an amazing thing where my dad has come that full circle.

Speaker 9 But I think it goes back to this idea of like compartmentalization in the sense of like, you don't have to agree with the other things, but if they're not like part of that moral compass of yours and they're not like stuck in stone, you can kind of like, hey, I'm going to let that person have that.

Speaker 9 But I'm going to agree with them on this side, right? And I think it's like that weird alignment of brand and mission and message.

Speaker 9 And I think it's important too to always reevaluate that.

Speaker 9 Because, you know, I mean, Marcus Sheridan you know our mutual like I mean like I had three and a half hours with him at the airport two weeks ago and we we joked that we we literally talked 500 words a minute

Speaker 9 and like well at one point we looked around like the entire restaurant and the airport bar like could hear like because we're just loud and fiery and and but we like spent like the three hours together and majority of that three hours was our passion to

Speaker 9 worry about society a year from now, right, at the next election. And it doesn't have zero to do with politics.
I don't even think either one of us brought up Republican or Democrat.

Speaker 9 It had zero to do with that. It was more about like the divisity and the

Speaker 9 toxic element and how we as like business partners and leaders that have been aligned for years that are all of a sudden gonna have to, you know, are gonna quote unquote be forced to pick a side and what that's gonna do to startups and businesses and things that are going on.

Speaker 9 And I think we both like, we both were scared. We're both passionate to figure out ways to not allow that to happen in the arenas that we live in.

Speaker 9 But to your point, like on the idea where it's like, you know, it's that one thing that bonds us.

Speaker 9 And I think the more, and this is probably part of my whole empathy thing is that like my slogan is that empathy starts with me.

Speaker 9 I mean, backwards. And what I believe is that like we can't make the world a more empathetic place until we start putting our story out so that people can be empathetic towards us.

Speaker 9 And part of that is like realizing that there's people and cultures and beliefs that were not open to me until I started sharing some of these other things and all of a sudden connecting at these core values and you know like I would have never thought of myself as someone that would be connected with a Buddhist monk and someone that was that was truly in this like spiritual spirituality like moment like and their entire life is that yet we we connected on something else that we both agreed on and all of a sudden now he's opened my doors and my life um this is jared um and he has his great podcast noetic uh

Speaker 9 uh noetic nomad I believe it's that name of the podcast. I'll have to give you the exact one, but it's all about theory.

Speaker 9 And we connected on our love for podcasting, only to share our stories as intimate as you could have ever shared, thanks to a couple

Speaker 9 adult drinks.

Speaker 9 And all of a sudden, it was like this worlds that were open up to us and our singular bond, we started to realize, wow, we both grew up completely different worlds, but we have these same beliefs.

Speaker 9 And I think that's why when I say it on stage every time, I believe we're living the greatest time in history. That's hard to say when you have mass shootings and as

Speaker 9 we're recording this on September 11th, you know, on this day, you know, 18 years ago,

Speaker 9 but I truly do believe unity is the byproduct of where we're at. We just have to get to that pivot point or, you know, whatever, whatever, you know, whatever slogan you want to say.

Speaker 9 And hopefully we get to it without it being something that destroys us so much that it takes too long to kind of rebuild.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 8 You know, I have, I have, have, I have a lot of thoughts on what you just said. Um, I think I completely agree that we are living in the greatest time in history.

Speaker 8 We're also living in the most equal time in history. We're living in the safest time in history.
We're living

Speaker 8 in the best time in history. That being said, it's far from perfect.
And I think, I think what I, how I, how I would rather frame

Speaker 8 the people

Speaker 8 who would stand and say, you know, this country is,

Speaker 8 you know, a lot of negative things,

Speaker 8 I firmly disagree with that vantage point. I wish, but I understand their frustration and wish that it could be framed in maybe a more positive way.

Speaker 8 The problem is the media doesn't write stories about positivity. So unless you're, you know, blasting.

Speaker 8 you know, blasting the president or blasting someone else, you know what I mean, like, or, you know, someone on his side blasting back, you know, no one, no one picks it up.

Speaker 8 That all being said, what I think it's important to remember two things from my perspective on this topic is that

Speaker 8 a lot of misconceptions are formed based on signaling. When we're trying to signal the tribe that we would like to be part of or that we feel gains us the most points,

Speaker 8 that That creates a lot of misconceptions in the world about who we actually are.

Speaker 8 So I would just, anyone who's listening to this that cares, I think we need to be very careful about how we signal in the world and why we're doing that.

Speaker 8 There's a difference between having a belief structure and feeling the need to signal that structure into the world for a given reason.

Speaker 9 And oftentimes, I think like, and I'm going to jump in on you on that, but like that signal oftentimes either we don't realize that we're doing it or we don't have a desire to do it, yet we feel based on like cultural norms to do it, right?

Speaker 9 Like, and to me, like the easiest way to relink this into like the business world is I've been very blessed I get to interview a lot and have conversations with a lot of CMOs CEOs of really big companies and I'm also the guy that wears a backwards hat crazy shoes and and doesn't wear a suit and tie right like I have and people I mean the amount and this has happened a lot more recently we're like Brian like I'm starting to figure out like how this works for you they're like you treat everyone with the same amount of respect and trust if they have a title or if they don't have a title and the people that are that have the title, when they see that, they respect that at a deeper level than us signaling, oh, I'm just as equal as you and trying to either, you know, it's not even kiss and butt.

Speaker 9 It's more of like this idea of like,

Speaker 9 this idea that I have to prove to you that I belong to be able to have a conversation with you of meaning or to be a part of your business or life. And it's amazing for me where I connect people.

Speaker 9 I mean, and these are high-ranking executives and I'm connecting the dots.

Speaker 9 And the biggest piece of it was like, well, Brian, you hung out and talked to me as if I was a normal person and I built trust with you the same you would have built with an entry-level you know and so I think that is that piece of like you don't have to signal or you don't have to become either something you're not or even weirdly enough feel the need to be something that that someone values right and there are people that there are plenty of people in the world that value title and value a lot of that stuff but those aren't people that i'm playing the game with and if they are i quickly like and this is probably one of the other fundamental principles i think in for me and this is is one, like I call myself a change evangelist.

Speaker 9 And it was a title that one of my CEOs that I used to work for, one of the smartest guys I've ever worked for my entire life, he gave it to me because he was like, Brian, you're not a technology evangelist.

Speaker 9 That's the job title I pitched him. And he gave it to me.
And we put it on business cards. And he hated it.

Speaker 9 And he was like, you're not, he goes, because people assume that you want technology in all these places. He goes, you remove technology just as much as you install technology.

Speaker 9 He's like, you will identify a problem and look at it and say, does technology make it better or worse?

Speaker 9 And if it makes it worse, you have no problem removing technology from the equation, which he was right.

Speaker 9 And I think that element of like, quote unquote, change evangelist of what I looked at is one of the things that I think we also make a mistake on.

Speaker 9 And I'm guilty, I was being guilty of this many times in my career, is that you can't change the game unless you're playing in the game.

Speaker 9 And oftentimes we're like, well, they're not going to agree with us or they're wrong. And I think,

Speaker 9 I hate putting generalizations out there, but the millennial generation for all the stereotypes millennial generation has been given, That's one that is probably like the biggest one: well, they don't understand us.

Speaker 9 They don't, they're not, they're, they don't live in our world. Like, screw them, I'm not going to play in their game.

Speaker 9 And I was like, that's quickly how we just become two worlds that are working in two different arenas, and no one's kind of crossing over.

Speaker 9 And now, like, kind of even funneling into that compartmentalization thing, there are plenty of conversations, groups that I'm a part of right now, in the sense of knowing that me being there might just change one person or one narrative.

Speaker 9 But the fact that that if I'm not showing up there has the opportunity to change nothing. And changing nothing in things that I'm passionate about scares me more than anything else.

Speaker 9 And I think that's such a fundamental piece of,

Speaker 9 and I, and one of the most popular tweets I've had this entire year was that was just a simple tweet that just said,

Speaker 9 if your social media feed sucks, it's not social media's fault, it's people you're following. And I said, embrace the unfollow, the block, the mute button, right? And that was my tweet.

Speaker 9 It was just like, you know, a simple tweet.

Speaker 9 And a lot of people put it and ran with it it they loved it and then there were a lot of people that were like and I had to end up putting a second tweet and I was like hold on a second this does not really mean you remove people that disagree with you it does not mean that people that have a different opinion or sharing I was like I actually believe to be you know empathetic to be well-rounded you must understand all vantage points right and I think that's I mean we look at politics that's the that's the problems on both extremes is like neither extreme is willing to stop to understand even the place where other extreme is coming from therefore they just keep making it more diversive but I think for me that's where like this kind of come back to.

Speaker 9 And I was like, no,

Speaker 9 you remove toxic people that are attacking and that are saying hateful things that are full of negativity.

Speaker 9 But by getting rid of them, now you have some people that you can, your mind will be open to new possibilities. You'll have all these new things.

Speaker 9 And I think that's where, you know, not being part of the game, like... saying like, oh my God, I hate social media or blaming social media for like the Me Too movement or all these things that exist.

Speaker 9 Like, no, wait a second. Society and mankind have been bad for a long time.
Social media has exposed it.

Speaker 9 And we can either blame social media and continue to live in a society that allows these things to happen, or we can fix society and amplify the good with social media.

Speaker 9 And I think this goes back to you and I like at our core beliefs of like there is this element that together we can

Speaker 9 rise the tide, but in this world we're living in it still is

Speaker 9 unfortunately too rare in the in the space we're at. But I believe the businesses that are doing it well are the ones that see that.

Speaker 8 Yeah,

Speaker 8 I actually think, and this is, I think, a good topic for us to close on because I want to be respectful of your time.

Speaker 8 You know,

Speaker 8 I actually think that the negativity

Speaker 8 is the minority.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 when we see the hardcore negativity, what we are hearing is a very small portion of the population on both sides who... their identity is that negativity.
And that's just the role they play.

Speaker 8 And what I hope that we hold in our minds,

Speaker 8 in all things, when you're having disagreements at work or disagreements with your family or friends or in your community, is that

Speaker 8 the loudest, most

Speaker 8 or most negative voices in a conversation are often the vast minority. And not that we shouldn't hear them, but

Speaker 8 we certainly shouldn't hold them up as the banner for what that quote unquote side of the argument actually believes. Because I know a lot of

Speaker 8 pro-gun who are also pro-gender rights.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 if either one of the far extremes were to hear that you were one or the other, they both would kick you out. And then where do you go? And it's like, that goes for every disagreement.

Speaker 8 You may be pro-hierarchy in work, but also want your people to step up and question what you do. And it's this, you know, I think the easiest example is always

Speaker 8 in positive, I think, for this particular issue,

Speaker 8 But the idea transcends every aspect of our life when you're disagreeing with your spouse or your partner or someone in your family, your friends.

Speaker 8 If you're having, and in particular, I think this is coming more and more into work as people get into these, you know.

Speaker 8 You know, I just had a discussion the other day with someone about flat structure versus hierarchies, and I firmly believe in a hierarchy. I just do.

Speaker 8 I believe that you have to have a hierarchy to get things done. That being said, it places more intrinsic responsibility on the leader to allow their people to be value adds all the way up the chain.

Speaker 8 Now, that may not,

Speaker 8 with a weak or a selfish, self-oriented leader, that system falls apart, which is why people say hierarchies are the problem. Hierarchies aren't the problem.

Speaker 8 I'm way off on a tangent, but I don't believe hierarchies are the problem. I believe shitty leadership is the problem.

Speaker 8 So, you know, so we got back and forth. And ultimately, I think we both understood.

Speaker 8 um their sides and basically the person i was talking to side was how do you know if someone's a shitty leader you You know, and once they get to that position, how the heck do you get them out?

Speaker 8 And I said, that's a fair point. I think that's something that's what we have to work through.
But I guess my point is like, you know, if you can, if you, I don't ever think we should shut anybody up.

Speaker 8 And I don't believe in banning people

Speaker 8 because

Speaker 8 I just, I, I, unless they're really, unless you say really hateful, whatever, but, but I think we need to hear what the extremes are saying.

Speaker 8 I think we just always have to hold in our mind, remember exactly who they are and why they're doing it. It's, it's like you signaling as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and me as a Bills fan.

Speaker 8 It's part of who they are is hard to one side and negative. And

Speaker 8 everybody else is in the middle. And those are the people that

Speaker 8 I hope they just find one thing in common because when you find one thing in common, everything else seems to fall into place.

Speaker 9 And you'd be amazed too if you'd like looked at, you know, because you do have the extremes, like you said.

Speaker 9 But I think if you looked oftentimes at negativity that is in your life or in your feed or in our world today,

Speaker 9 the negativity is rooted in a desire to know that their voice is heard, not the negativity that the message is carrying.

Speaker 9 And I think this goes everything from kneeling on the football field to, you know, like

Speaker 9 there's a fundamental principle. And there's also there's a difference here of knowing that I'm heard and knowing that you have to listen to me, right? Like there are two different worlds.

Speaker 9 And I think we have this like weird thing where if we acknowledge someone that, hey, we hear someone, that means we ultimately have to do exactly what they're telling us and I think that's complete false and that's you know the amount of times I've had these conversations with leaders on social media and them coming to me and Brian putting vulnerabilities out there and doing all this stuff but yet how do you respond to this comment or this statement and I was like well you have to acknowledge it like that's but there's no I don't I don't you know I don't bet you have to acknowledge and they're like what I'm like because the lack of acknowledgement will now just spur the hate and the and the the engrees more right and this idea of like hey I hear you i'm gonna i'm gonna take it for the value that it has but i'm gonna decide how it's gonna be implemented but i do hear you right and and it's amazing where i think even to your point with your the friend that you had a discussion on the higher people right like if you weren't willing to to listen to the the fundamental element like hey this is what you were arguing wait a second like you argue that you're an idiot no you're arguing and then the root comes out to be oh yes we realize that shitty leaders have been rewarded for a long freaking time and it's really hard to get rid of shitty leaders and how do we prevent shitty leaders is not really a recipe.

Speaker 9 And I think this is where I think to me it excites me about where we're at because there is like find that one commonality, but at the same time, also, if you don't see the commonality, but they won't stop chirping and they won't stop making sure you hear them, maybe it's time to take a different perspective and a different mindset to what they're even who they are and what they're talking about.

Speaker 9 And I think that's where that one piece comes in.

Speaker 9 Some of the coolest moments in my life, I feel like, are,

Speaker 9 you know, and it has to do with a group group of speakers that opened me to this this world of people that are doing the same profession of me just do it differently they have like different passions and goals and they've come from so many different lives than i have and then there's like these core things that like i mean i i feel like in the last two years i've become a much more well-rounded human uh i don't i i don't and this is like you know not saying i don't judge everything but i i don't judge i look at every opportunity as a learning opportunity And I'm willing to listen.

Speaker 9 And oftentimes people look at her and be like, Brian, why did you just, why did you keep listening there? And I was like, because

Speaker 9 they have that passion that's rooted somewhere. And even if I don't agree with it, but I understand it better by listening, I improve.
And maybe I can help them improve even telling their story. And

Speaker 9 I think that's where you and I even agreed.

Speaker 9 I think part of the route where you and I connected with early on was just like our desire to help people, but also a desire to realize that like everything's building to a performance level that we can always grow on.

Speaker 9 And you've made the statement before. And I just literally ordered these shirts yesterday.

Speaker 9 I have a shirt coming out that just says, we are greater than me, bitter man sign, because if we can embrace that and realize that we're all connected by those one things, the world's going to be a much better place.

Speaker 8 My man,

Speaker 8 it is always a pleasure to spend time with you. Thank you so much.
I know you're traveling.

Speaker 8 Life is hectic. You're an in-demand speaker and you got places to be.
So I appreciate this time.

Speaker 8 It has definitely been fun for me and you got my mind going and I got a page full of notes, which is always amazing.

Speaker 8 Where is the best place for people listening to this? They want to learn more about you. Maybe they want to hire you to speak.

Speaker 8 They just want to be part of your ecosystem and kind of take in more of what you do. Where do they go to learn more?

Speaker 9 So, you know, I'm a big believer in, you know, consistency. Consistency is extremely important.
Probably one of the most underrated things online today. So I'm iSocial fans.

Speaker 9 So the iSocial, F-A-N-Z, or a Z at the end on every social network. So I always say, don't follow me everywhere.
I create a lot of content, a lot of noise. Follow me on your favorite channel.

Speaker 9 I would appreciate that. And then I'm speaking, my new speaker site is brianfanzo.com.
BrianFanzo.com is where all of my speaking stuff kind of goes through there.

Speaker 9 And if you want a podcast, I think that would probably relate to your audience the most.

Speaker 9 I host a weekly podcast called FOMO Fans, where I try to cure your fear of missing out around entrepreneurship, marketing, business, technology. It's a solo podcast.

Speaker 9 Literally, it's me pocking the microphone for 30 minutes. But

Speaker 9 it's definitely my passion project where I just love being able to share what's on my mind. And

Speaker 9 I think I rolled out episode 118 this week, so it's a lot of fun. But yeah, anywhere and everywhere, Brian, it's a pleasure for me.
I tell you what,

Speaker 9 I love that we can come from two different industries and walks of life. Social media was the link.
We ended up having some mutual friends that kind of ignited the trust we have together.

Speaker 9 But I've been cheering for you as you were pivoting. And I think we've both been been cheering for each other, which I think is

Speaker 9 a whole lot more fun with the conversation as we developed so much.

Speaker 2 Thanks everyone. Appreciate you guys.

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