# The IRL Tribes That Could Change Your Life

Channel: Greg Isenberg
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqgFjmig28g
Duration: 56 min
Language: English
Words: 10699
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/SqgFjmig28g

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[0:00] [Music]

[0:16] [Music] thank you I want to start where we started which was over 10 years ago Los Angeles we had a Founder's Mastermind that's where we met describe to people what that what that was and maybe why you think it's important that people do it that was one of the most uh amazing experiences in my life and I've had the opportunity over my life to facilitate and Lead many quote unquote masterminds if you will intentional communities coming together to make one another better and when we did this man we had such an amazing group of individuals of course it was young Greg Eisenberg I don't think you had your driver's license yet

[1:15] we had people like Julian Smith of breather Fame and his new amazing amazing coaching product we had Rob Sandy we had Dario Melly we had Malone I'm not going to try to pronounce his last name right now uh just an amazing group of people that came together to get each other better I think what's unique about it Greg is that in this age people are super super competitive and and they hold things super close to to the chest and they don't want to share what they're working on but Our intention was to come be vulnerable share what we're working on and then get input from like seasoned accomplished

[1:54] successful men to make it better and that's exactly what happened and out of that very first weekend when we did that and we've had more of those some companies have been made they've iterated he probably had two companies that were formed that weekend that have been sold Julian Dario as well and it's just a reminder that how important humility is and how important it is that of course in this amazing digital world that we can see people on screens like you and I are seeing each other right now but magic happens when you're when you're in the same room and you're around folks that uh are going to make

[2:28] you better and push you I think that's a key word that happened that time we spent together over the years is that folks were challenged in a positive way I like to think about it as some people call people out that that group had called people up you know what I'm saying so what we did is we rented like a mansion in LA we got a private chef and we were there for 72 hours and you moderated the whole thing and the way it worked was every founder would go up I think there was a not a whiteboard but like a plant white uh blank big Post-its yeah Post-its

[3:08] exactly and everyone would wear their heart on their sleeve and say what's going well with their business what's not going well um and some people even just didn't even have a business but wanted to start something uh why do you think that format works so well well one it was intimate first and foremost uh two that format worked extremely well because in some shape or form trust had been established not everyone in that room had had met one another at the previously so they had trust because Greg knows this person or Dario knows this person Etc but also it was very clear what the intention was I think a lot of times the

[3:52] reason why masterminds and these type of group things they don't succeed or people don't get value out of them is because there aren't clear intentions there aren't clear metrics kpis why we are here and we we before we even sat down and started breaking down business ideas we asked some key questions we asked questions like what does success look like when we're checking out of this this mansion in a few days for you to say this investment from a dollars and since perspective from a Time perspective Etc what is it going to tell you that this was successful so we established that not only that we did some intentional

[4:27] grounding I'm not sure if you recall Greg we went around the room we talked about how do you like to receive feedback do you want a blunt do you want to direct or do you like to receive it a little bit differently because one thing we didn't want to create was an environment of posturing or creating people who are starting to get defensive you know some people like Top Line bullet points right some people need to pause before they hear anything some people like more of a story some people like to hear examples so we set created that container where people could come in with the clear intention of what the

[5:00] goal was they could be successful in that and I'll say the last thing and we I touched on this in the beginning was the trust component of it like there was a we didn't even need to say hey what happens in this room stays in this room we know these were good dudes who were vetted there's going to be confidential and it was trust and you could look at every man it happened to be all dudes you can look at every man in that room know that that dude that dude was a dog like he was a beast already it was like having an All-Star team like when all

[5:28] NBA All-Star team comes together you know those are some big personalities and egos but they're on the same mission to win the game Rob Sandy so this was a guy who our our mutual friend Shane Mack was like oh Rob should really come to this event type thing and we're like okay he sounds cool he had a company called it was called vid IO now it's called vid IQ it's one of the most popular tools for creators to use none of us knew him and he he did like he took a chance on us like he flew all the way down and he was this like loving bear-like

[6:06] you know she want to give him a hug type guy and do you remember like the shift in his business from that from that first weekend I don't remember the exact details of that shift but I do recall what you just said in terms of us not knowing him and him like taking a bet on us but also remember him showing up being very different than everyone else I think it's fair to say that he was very much a heart-centered kind of guy a heart-centered leader from an entrepreneurship perspective uh but what was wild I want you to share what was it what happened between his business

[6:43] before and after but even like a company like breather and I'm not sure how much we can share right here right now what breather ended up being this amazing space where you could get on your phone and go rent an amazing office space for an hour or for a day or a conference room that was not where Julian came in with his initial idea for this thing it was so far removed from that so the iterations that took place where were pretty extreme so with Rob he came in with his concept was called or he had built a prototype or early product called vid IO and everyone was like is it video is it

[7:20] vid.io and he's like I don't you know he didn't really know and we're like dude if you don't know how to say the name of your company you might need to change the name of your company yeah and he changed it to vid IQ and the same with Julian right Julian came in and he was like okay this is you know my concept for this thing called breather.com he had just bought the domain and and he was open to feedback and iterated from it and I think what's interesting about that weekend that we had and these types of masterminds is when you think of like founder events

[8:01] right now you have these like really big South by Southwest type things or Collision conference or all these really big events and then you you don't have enough sort of small intimate stuff you have big events and then you have you're with your team and you're working with your team so you know I just wrote a post actually I just published it and I said one of the biggest regrets in my 20s was not doing that event every single year those things are so transformative versus the big group type of of setting and they're revealing in many ways as well I think for leaders and entrepreneurs who are

[8:41] building things uh nine times out of ten you know they look to be the individuals or they're the individuals that everybody comes to and assumes they're going to have the answers very rarely can they find them in a space of peers where they're not leading where they can actually participate they can get feedback they can learn Etc and not be the drivers and for a dude like Rob and a dude like Julian and do like Dario maloon Etc to come in and be willing to Pivot to hear some maybe some some critical feedback things that may not be easy uh but because sometimes you don't know someone well

[9:14] you're willing to hear that right sometimes the people who are close to us of course we don't want to listen to them right it's like amazing you're dating someone and you've been giving your girlfriend advice for a long time and she won't take it but then she comes back like oh I was on the plane some guy gave me some advice and here's what I'm gonna do and you're like that's what I told you to do six months ago and sometimes the people that you gotta have that distance from individuals that you can build that trust with yeah I think uh it's it's building trust and it's and

[9:42] it's also just being open to the feedback um deep down I feel like a lot of us knew what we should do with our businesses but we needed someone to tell us uh I needed like Dario to be like hey this isn't you know this is a bad idea we've also had like quote unquote famous internet people come to this event right we had um Sean Pourri from my first million come to the event and he pivoted his product uh shortly thereafter so I think reminiscing about this is just making me long for doing this more often and I'm just wondering what advice could you give to people who want to start their

[10:27] own Mastermind like this yeah uh well one even before we talk about that I'm trying to flash back to the name of what your product was you're working on at that time it was uh not fly by it was uh the initial yeah it was called five by yeah five five I forgot about that that was that was beautiful man uh I still remember like really enjoying that being able to put in the subject matter push and play and it being great um but in terms of what you can do like the strong components to have a strong Mastermind uh one you probably want to drop the word Mastermind because I think

[11:03] in these day and ages people hear that word I think it scares people more than it actually excites them some recommendations first and foremost six to eight people Max probably six is the is the perfect number of individuals uh second you want to have a facilitator some type of coach or person that's guiding and leading the conversation taking notes on the Whiteboard Etc picking up on things that haven't been heard I know there are a lot of masterminds that don't have facilitators or leaders and I find that those typically don't work out well you need that person the referee if you will or the MC to move things along but also

[11:40] someone who's has experience working with groups like that have a strong format to the day uh pretty much standard format for us is what someone would get the opportunity to present about what they're working on for 30 or 45 minutes and then we'd have a build session after that where we dig into it we ask questions we provide feedback Etc we also had like quote unquote Learning and Development sessions as well that that person that you hired a facilitator lead that you should walk away knowing you learn something as well you added something to your to your toolkit that you walked away with make sure you don't have to think about

[12:16] things you don't want to think about when we woke up breakfast was ready lunch was taken care of by that private Chef sometimes we'd go out to a nice dinner in the evenings make sure outside of the build sessions and the learning that you're doing in this Mastermind over the course of a day or a few days make sure there's ample room for play I mean we we did surfing lessons we skateboarded we uh dare I say we shot guns we shot guns like Not Just Guns but like these massive guns and what's cool about the play the walk from the house to the restaurant or the walk from the house to

[12:57] the gym or after you finish surfing you're going back to the vehicle powerful moments happen then because then like it can be like kind of the one-on-one conversations and you're like hey something you said earlier you know it's really been sticking with me and so those moments are that down time is critical and something else that's that's key Greg and I'm sure you would agree with this is what I've come to learn in my life is that sometimes our biggest breakthroughs can happen when we're helping someone else for me that's where the magic is the masterminds of us helping someone else these weekends as much as you walked

[13:30] away with progress and everyone else did a lot of the progress we made came when we were helping someone else like we're we learned something about their business we're like oh wow now I can actually apply that to what I'm doing as well so have a clear structure and format I have a facilitator make sure you have some down time and some play that's involved make sure you don't have to think about the eating and that kind of stuff um move your body sweat and it can lead to an amazing experience the gun thing let's just talk about that for a second so especially like the look on on the faces

[14:07] of the Canadians who don't really like you know we had a lot of Canadians in the room and there's you know there's not many guns up up North so to speak so I felt like the Americans had a bit more you know uh they were more acclimatized to what a gun is and how it works and we went to I don't know I think it was like an Inglewood or somewhere where no it was in the valley somewhere it was in the valley we walk in I just couldn't believe it like we gave our driver's license and there's like okay like now go pick from these like 20 guns and

[14:41] not just any guns we're not talking about small pistols we're talking we're talking about big massive powerful guns and all I remember is you getting one of those guns and I don't think you probably knew at the time now listen you're Canadian you wouldn't have known right how powerful this doggone thing was I can still see you shooting it and it's just taking your arms just you just flew you up and I think I saw the shock in your face like what hey what are we doing here and and B that was that was pretty awesome I mean I didn't realize it and I remember you telling me this

[15:15] you're like dude like there's recoil so when you shoot a gun it's gonna hit back on you you have to like kind of protect yourself and it was in these moments of fear where we all got to know each other and that trust was built so I think layering on of you know I'm not suggesting people you know need a shoot a shotgun to to build trust but like yeah like things like this are going to build trust yeah it's the things that happened some like even like when I think about the traditional like you know University experience most of the learning that happens on a college campus it doesn't

[15:53] happen in the classroom it happens outside the classroom when you're living right that's why as much as people are major proponents of remote work and I have nothing against a remote work I am a strong proponent of in-person elements as well like if you lead a remote team it is so critical you get together in my opinion at least on a quarterly basis face to face for a couple of days or a day because those collisions that happen when you're uh with one another are just so powerful that they're just different remote is great video is great and there's something magical special that happens in those conversations that

[16:31] happen again on the walk to the restaurant when you're leaving shooting guns that you probably shouldn't have been shooting uh when you see someone like you see someone get off of the phone like in a break of a mastermind and you can tell they just have maybe a tough conversation with an employee or with a girlfriend or something like that that's where intimacy is created when people don't have access to like these types of people like what should they do so for example like someone's listening to this and they're like wow that sounds really cool that you had like the coolest bunch of people come together and you had a bunch of

[17:10] breakthroughs and a bunch of people raised hundreds of millions of dollars some people took their companies public I live in Idaho and you know I'm working on a startup or I'm a product manager at Procter and Gamble but I'm like inspired by startups how do you go from not having these people to having these people to showing up and then at an event like this that's the biggest feedback I get like must be nice it must be nice Tony to have this kind of community like you know my thing is this Mad Morning Community a newsletter here in Los Angeles and we meet every Thursday and

[17:47] it's just a ridiculously amazing group of guys in their chapters that are popping up popping up all across the country but the feedback even in my book stop being on autopilot is how do you find these people and well one thing I'll remind everyone is that this crew these people one they don't always have to be your best friends I think we have to think we have to be really close with these people like they don't they've been people you respect you have an admiration for but they don't need to be your best friends you kick it with and you talk to every single week the

[18:16] mission is that you have a mission to be better at X Y or Z so so just know that first and foremost uh second I always like to invite people to go where people grow go to find places where people are learning you know uh in your local community there could be a variety of places if you're in the middle of nowhere some of those options may be virtual as opposed to in person but where there are people who are going to grow and learn go there that may mean you need to invest in getting on a plane and attending a conference every single year and mix it up going across the

[18:47] country maybe even all across the globe where you can put some names and faces to the handles and the people you see on Twitter and then you see on LinkedIn and Beyond so find those conferences and those in events where people are mingling and get together and get uncomfortable and go to that guess what this is breaking news for a lot of people and this is the biggest resistance I see Jeff um Greg so I'd love to see your perspective on this is sometimes you have to write a check I think people feel so much resistance for paying some for something there are so many amazing online virtual communities

[19:21] that also have like in-person components but you have to write a monthly check it's a membership model or if you're writing annual check to participate in these and sometimes these things aren't necessarily cheap you know you can look at something like you know Sam Powers building right now with Hampton that's a nice check that those Founders have to to write but the odds are that that check they write every single year or month they're probably making that money back like tenfold if not more based on the learnings that they're getting so whatever hesitation people have to writing a check to being willing to invest in themselves I just invite you

[19:57] to press pause like I'm a coach I've been coaching you know leaders and Executives for over 10 years now and guess what I have a coach and I write a nice nice check to every single month I write a check to an online community that I'm part of of other folks that work in my field and do similar work so I can learn and stay up to date with what's what's happening so one sometimes you have to write a check these communities exist online they are there join a cohort based group learning something like Community College that like like you have Greg with his ongoing learning

[20:29] um so I just hear a lot of excuses for that but most times it may have to start online but then and don't forget to get on a plane and go see folks face to face as well yeah if it was a few years ago I would be like way more PG with my answer and be like no you know make some make a bunch of money and have it in a bank account once you have in the bank account then go and invest in it and now just like being honest like I was a teenager and like swiping my credit card and like getting on a plane to San

[21:03] Francisco to like meet people and that's kind of the price you need to pay for a seat at the table like I think that a lot of people expect to get into these rooms and they get frustrated when they can't but either you need to fly to where these rooms are and where these events are happening and where these you know courses or events you know intimate Gatherings are happening or the other idea is you you just you do with the Summit Series people did Summit started off uh Elliott biznow started off basically on a credit card I think he I think it was like in Utah

[21:49] or somewhere where he brought together a bunch of well-known entrepreneurs when he was like 21 22 23 put on his credit card and like just cold DM them and hosted this event in Utah and it became a really big event now with like you know they just had one off Miami and Richard Branson I saw was there and all these people right so what do you think about that idea if like you if you don't have that Network actually just going and creating a landing page creating a mission and start cold dming people yeah well I think the first one Ellie did was actually in DC I remember hearing about

[22:26] that many years ago and different folks that were there well and briefly to your point sometimes you got to get on a plane and like you said swipe that credit card before I became an author and speaker and doing the man morning Community I was a guy that worked in the television industry in New York City for over 12 years for major networks I was like I'm live tv as a correspondent with NBCS and Bets and Nickelodeons Etc and guess how that started you moved to New York City with less than a thousand bucks in my bank account the cliche story and three years later guess what

[23:01] three years later I found my way on live TV every single day but in between Landing with less than a thousand dollars in my bank account and getting on live TV one thing that I did being in New York City I did informational meetings every single week and what I've come to learn is that and you know this Greg nine times out of ten people are willing to help you people are willing to support you they're willing to give you their time uh if you ask for it and second if you happen to be there and if the people that you emulate the people you respect that happen to be in San

[23:30] Francisco they happen to be in New York they happen to be in New Orleans if even if you're not going to move there you got to find your way there and put some some some faces to these people you see on the internet and yeah that means writing a check that means buying a plane ticket it may mean staying in an Airbnb or sleeping on someone's couch but the most powerful thing you can say if you're trying to get someone's time in that Twitter DM and that LinkedIn DM or that Instagram DM hey I'm actually going to be in the Miami area in two weeks Greg for an event if you have time

[24:01] I'd love to meet you and buy you a cup of coffee now when you send that message you may have no no itinerary no reservation made but if Greg says okay great I'll have a cup of coffee you buy that ticket I've done that many times in my life with with success now do you need necessarily to start your your own event and put it on a credit card you absolutely can but my suggestion for step one is just fly to where the people are if they're in the bay go to the Bay they're in Seattle take a week trip to the Seattle save your save your coins

[24:32] and make that happen people want to help you but a you have to ask and B you got to be there dude I remember one of the first times I went to San Francisco swipe the credit card get there I had found on Facebook there was this boat in the shore of the bay and it was like I don't know 40 I don't know I think it was like honestly 25 bucks a night and I was like perfect I'm just gonna stay it's like 25 a night and it's other Founders who are staying on this boat wow was like kind of cool I show up it's

[25:06] like midnight landed with like my carry-on like we're not talking about a super yacht that that was the you know in my mind I'm like oh yeah I'm sure like the it's pretty nice no no it's like this is I was like this is a boat that was like from the 1940s that was used in in like World War II and the lit let's just say it was basically like sleeping on a floor of a of a boat and sometimes you just have to just do it and just be like okay like this is the price I need to pay if I want to get into this room yeah most people

[25:42] unfortunately in my experience you know I get DMS probably like you do all the time from from people who are just beginning their career or people probably like you Founders who are trying to start something and they ask questions how to do X how to do why how to do Z and I'm like one one if you ever want to get a job in New York City guess what you need to be in New York City uh it's hard to get one if no one's flying you out for an interview no one's flying you out for an interview in uh in San Francisco yeah I get it there's remote

[26:07] interviews those things that take place but there's proximity is such a powerful tool and the story you just told Greg about sleeping on on the floor of a boat right in San Francisco I stepped on the floor for over six months in Queens in New York before I ever got you know I was able to get get a bed those are the stories man that's where you build up certain grit you build up resilience you build up some confidence in yourself you start to have this track record and what you're doing also is like living an interesting life I love some told me once live an interesting life no one

[26:39] wants to talk to an old person who doesn't have interesting stories to tell right and that's something that you totally have so many of and I even think about you even after you were quote unquote successful I mean you even went back when you went back to college in Alabama and lived that life and to learn more about your product and how to make that product even more successful you know how a few Founders even if they were successful would be unwilling to go back and live on a college campus not not very many but obviously you built a little different yeah and I think uh

[27:10] well first of all I appreciate that but I also think like I hope people listening kind of get that that gritty Vibes that we're talking about because I actually think that you know if you're going into startup land you can't be soft like you need that grittiness but at the same time sometimes you can get lucky so one of the first times I went to San Francisco I was on the boat but after I went back to Montreal and I was like I never want to sleep on that boat again I had like nightmares so I actually went into a Facebook group that was Canadians in Silicon Valley I

[27:45] was a no one I joined it and I asked hey would anyone be willing to rent me their place in San Francisco an apartment at like a reduced rate and there was a woman and her husband who said yes to me they were starting a company called cloudflare oh my gosh yes so um today I'm just checking the cloud fair is a 20 plus billion dollar company good Lord Michelle's zaitlin and her husband moved into a two-bedroom apartment and they had still this lease to this one bedroom at this studio apartment and they gave it to me for nothing not because I was a kid not

[28:28] because I had a lot of I was well known at all like people will take chances if you shoot your shot if you shoot your shot and you have a few things you can point to right showing some some track record but again most people are unwilling to ask I've during my early New York City days I can't tell you the the amazing people quote unquote successful people that I had coffees with that gave me their time those 30 minutes what happens Greg is you know is most times when people give you that 30 minutes or that 15 minutes folks don't come up prepared I've experienced that I

[28:59] get I get requests all the time for can I get can I pick your brain got 15 minutes the same way you probably get it then I jump on a zoom or I jump on FaceTime and the folks aren't prepared they haven't done their work they don't they don't have specific questions that they can ask so I invite people a hundred percent to to be prepared in those moments because the truth is people are gonna some opportunities do only come once I think you know we have this mindset of you know it's never too late yes it's never too late and the longer you wait to pursue something the

[29:30] harder that it's going to get so this is a reminder for all of us it's something you've done consistently in your life Greg something I've done consistently you got to shoot your shot and you got to shoot it more often you gotta follow up more often some of the life-changing meetings for me that first email that I sent wasn't responded to that second email I sent wasn't responsible sometimes the third or fourth follow-up when they finally get back to you so keep shooting that shot quick Interruption from me if you're listening to this on Apple podcast or Spotify they're getting any value you need to come to YouTube and

[30:07] subscribe to the where it happens podcast YouTube channel I promise you the experience is richer more interesting so if you're getting any value just stop what you're doing open up the YouTube app go to the website and press subscribe at where it happens on YouTube and if you're watching this on YouTube and you haven't subscribed what are you doing go go press subscribe thank you enjoy the rest of the show you're shooting a new shot now with uh man morning oh man yeah and it's a shot so tell us tell us The Good the Bad and the Ugly of man morning yeah well man morning I'll

[30:50] give you some background on it and how it was founded you know seven years ago Greg eight years ago according to the internet your boy Tony was living his best life ever traveling across the world as a speaker publisher or a publisher of published multiple books married newborn twins living That Dope Southern California life with the White House with the white picket fence not far from the beach uh according to the internet I was living my best life ever but behind the scenes my life was a hot mess I was struggling even though my business was successful I had primarily came from a nine to five background and

[31:22] so I didn't know what it really meant to be an entrepreneur I was so I was struggling with the growth of my business which which is a good problem uh a guy that has experienced six different divorces growing up between my mom and dad I was struggling with my marriage you know being married to my wife and we were just going to marriage counselor after marriage counseling not being grown up not having a father growing up for a good period of my life I was struggling to connect with my kids and I found myself in a spiral like a lot of men do I I gained like almost 30

[31:50] pounds of weight man I had like I grew this big beard to hide the weight gain which which didn't hide the weight by the way fellas if you gained a lot of weight the beard doesn't hide the weight it's just an indicator that you gained weight um found myself drinking a little bit too much in the evenings your boy even became a a secret cigarette smoker behind the scenes amidst all of this again the internet though the internet said your boy was doing great and but I was stuck I was burned out and I started isolating and I when people would ask me how I was doing I said two of the most

[32:23] dangerous words a man could say Greg how you doing two of the most dangerous words someone can say as dudes what do we typically say when we talk to our buddies how you doing haven't seen you online a lot you haven't been posting what's going on I'm fine those are two dangerous words thank goodness because of my community here in Los Angeles we started something called we didn't call it man morning at the time but we started getting together every Thursday at 7 A.M for an hour-long hike or walk and I met with amazing business owners entrepreneurs some were married some weren't some were fathers some weren't

[32:55] but our mission every Thursday was to get together and just make each other better and be there for one another and so I shifted Greg from from isolating and disconnection to being fully connected and being seen and I couldn't hide behind those two words of I'm fine anymore and and since that started seven eight years ago where my life has gone is just just a different magical level of places from business success with multiple books and the speaking of the marriage is like strong and better learn how to be a great father uh and I can tell you other things but what I wanted to do is now just to provide that kind

[33:35] of love and encouragement to other growth-minded men across the country and across the world who do want to get better and maybe they do feel a little bit stuck but they want that ongoing uh place to show up if you will so we started off with a newsletter that's happening right now that goes out every single Sunday and we have a few thousand men on there at man morning where each week she get insight on key areas of life to get better from Health Fitness business Etc we have different man morning chapters growing now all across the country there's a few Global ones as well there's gonna be

[34:08] more coming with that from a community perspective as I continue to learn from everything that you're doing as well and the men for the some of the feedback I've been getting from the men is that they finally feel like they have a place they have a hub where they can actually be honest and and they can be real don't get me wrong this isn't a place where dudes show up and complain and say whoa it's me no these are super successful men that are are reading this and engaging in this but it could be those men that have become a little bit disconnected from their life maybe from

[34:38] their goals Etc and this is just a place to every single week to reset to recharge and to to refuel for people how does someone join the like the Thursday man morning hangout like can they how does that how does that work yeah so the one in Los Angeles uh and so we have our established group but we invite guests so like for example if you're in town like we get permission from the group going back to buying and Trust hey Greg Eisenberg is in town dope dude he's gonna can he join us this week and typically it's all good so you can come join us for that sometimes as

[35:13] attrition happens and people move to different parts of the country we welcome in you know new men into our tribe uh in the newsletter I talk about how people can start their own man in the morning so you got these starting in places like Ohio uh in Northern Florida and Tampa in different areas of Arizona and typically what happens is you pick a day of the week where you get together typically we recommend getting together first thing in the morning seven or eight a.m and that's very intentional Greg because I'm sure you agree with this we found that the conversations that people have at 7 A.M over a cup of

[35:45] coffee or a cup of tea are very different than the conversations you have at 7 pm oh over a cocktail or a beer don't get don't get me wrong we like to have adult beverages as well but the intention when you start your day with this this meet and greet is so powerful and we typically lead each session with one of two questions we'll say share something you're celebrating and share something that you're navigating and that just opens up so much and we also have different type coaching type questions that we also just had our first uh every year we do a big Retreat together we did when we

[36:17] rented a massive Mansion down in San Diego and did that similar to what you know we talked about at the beginning of this talk last year we took not we took all of all of our families to Italy for a couple of weeks so it's just been an amazing experience and the feedback has been powerful where do you want to take man morning so in five years from now best case scenario what does it look like oh that that gets me really excited I think about five years from now uh first and foremost I want to have a strong online community where men know they can show up where they can be seen

[36:50] where they can be heard where they can continue to learn grow and get better and key components of life so there's going to be a really really intentionally strong online community I want a chapter like in every major city all across the United States and hopefully globally as well but also I want to do those in-person events like I want to have like maybe that key like big annual event that happens for man morning you can imagine what that could look like over the course of a couple of days but those Regional events those chapter events as well that are happening for individuals so folks can

[37:26] experience what we talked about at the beginning of this talk you know about intentionally making one another better creating a community of allies that support one another that encourage one another that fire one another up that challenge them and hold them accountable to be the best version of themselves because right now for men isolation disconnection not having a strong community of friends is a real important topic and I I don't want to get too heavy on this but if you look the numbers correct like 80 percent of men commit suicides 80 percent like the suicides that happen is 80 of men and I think a lot of it is because at some

[38:01] point they kept saying the words I'm fine I'm fine but they really weren't and something we take for granted is someone say someone like you Greg we assume because Greg is successful he posts life-changing content for us he has these amazing communities he has amazing things that he's building Greg must be doing great his life must be perfect but you and I both know that you know everything's not not perfect in everyone's life who's winning maybe at business so we want to create a safe place for folks to Come Share what's what's really going on an actual like the people who share the most perfect lives are the ones actually who are the

[38:39] most hurt and are vulnerable in a lot of ways that's a good reminder right there just to check on your friends and even more check on your strong friends yeah check on your successful fans who you think are doing great Greg you and I do something that's so powerful and this with the man morning ethos is all about but I'm gonna invite every person who listens to this to do when you and I get together whenever we get the chance to see one another we both pull our phones out this phone right here we pull it out and we throw that bad boy at airplane mode and there's something about that

[39:10] intentional moment of like I'm going in airplane mode to say that I'm fully here for you I'm fully here for us that's what happens in our man morning meetups right it is so pivotal because it is so rare that that happens and those conversations that we have whether it's 30 minutes we have together for a walk in in Venice or if it's a dinner that we're having like in Hollywood somewhere those airplane mode moments are so powerful yeah I think uh I think we're really starting to see just this trend towards towards in person intimate Gatherings like I feel like we went too deep into the internet for so long that

[39:48] now you're starting to see this trend I mean you mentioned Hampton from Sam par like he's crushing it it's like a seven figure business I assume uh just by a lot of friends there's so many of my friends are in it he charges seven thousand dollars a year and people I know he's doing Retreats now like people want this and I think the cool opportunity for you is like you've defined this uh Mission and you've decided defined your Niche and you have your product which is an IRL product and a digital product um both by the way have retention built in because you're you're man morning

[40:29] weekly Thursday ritual like people are going to want to show up and your your daily email content or your content that's coming in on a ritual basis so I love the and I love the brand too like it's a it's a it's a good brand um so my question to you is what questions you have for me if you're trying to you know grow this thing like what can I what could I answer for you and let's just like live jam on how we could take man morning to the next level yeah I would say I I didn't anticipate this but now um I'm excited the question I have for

[41:08] you man is what what am I probably not thinking about because already you know the feedback from the newsletter is great it's a Weekly Newsletter it started off actually three times a week now we went to weekly and Scott and even better and the next step is building what that Community is going to look like uh a cohort if you will so I'm trying to debate right now for the first step if I want to do like a six week cohort or something like that or even just go all in on a on an annual kind of model where you can sign up for that membership each month and you have XY

[41:38] XYZ deliverables that are happening every single month very similar to I'm sure what happens in Hampton and other you know groups that I've had the opportunity to lead over the years and Retreats I've held internationally so when you look at a community like that what would be your next move as it specifically relates to monetization I think I'll do you one better I'll give you an idea that will help with monetization and it will help increase your newsletter subscriber count win got it I think one of the most underrated channels right now is email based courses email based courses is when you want to teach someone something

[42:24] uh over a period of days via email so I'll give you an example we have a community called you probably need a robot.com it's a AI Community where people learn about productivity we're launching a free email based course it's called five tools five days and so now you can use your social channels Twitter Instagram whatever post about um post about the course and it's free also spend money on like Twitter ads Etc to drive to that and why that's important is it's so hard to grow a newsletter organically right now uh because there's so many people with newsletters so basically what's happening is when people are like if you like this

[43:15] tweet you'll like this newsletter it's like people become blind to it and the way to actually go around that is you do something like an email based course where it's like I'm gonna give you a carrot I'm gonna give you this free course it's normally worth three hundred dollars all you have to do is put in your email once they are in the funnel five day let's say you do a five day course 10 day course around um rediscovering who you are as a man at the end of that course you put them in to something that's called a fomo sequence and the fomo sequence is a one

[43:52] to five email sequence after the free content that upsells them to the premium offering so for example you probably need a robot that five tools five days thing at the end of that we actually created essentially a deeper version of that course five dual uh five tools five days where we're taking the exact same tools but we're going way deeper on each of those tools now why that and then we're selling that course now why that works is because you've given value you've proven to these people that you can create value and they're also kind of hooked on the format they're like wow I'm making this

[44:39] a part of my everyday routine and I don't want to lose it so why I'm a big believer in things like email based courses is gives you the carrot that you can use on social content and also use paid ads against it and then it also gives you the ability to earn trust with this new audience and then it also gives you the ability to upsell them really quickly right after I love that and I love that I already have like something like this that already exists all my my hard drive so that's great and I'm gonna employ that immediately obviously a second question I think this is a very

[45:14] unique question for you based on what you're doing I come from a really analog world where you know my brand for the past 20 years but even past 10 years as a speaker an author has been me I like a lot of people show up to get paid for the group coaching I do with organizations the keynote speaking I do the big organizations across the globe Etc as I think about this newsletter specifically man morning is it possible to do this without my name attached my it seems like what I'm seeing right now in the marketplace from a brand perspective and as I think about late

[45:43] checkout I think about if you need a robot uh it's still Greg but it still has a strong brand and I feel like your stuff could still exist even if Greg wasn't in the signature so is it possible how critical is it to have me attached to it so it's a great question I think initially it's helpful to have you be attached to it because like you're on a podcast right now if we get a hundred thousand downloads plus a month on our podcast a bunch of these people are gonna listen to it and they're gonna be like oh Tony like I've resonated with that guy man morning I resonate with

[46:16] that concept boom I'm gonna give my email address in so it's helpful that that you're out there screaming about what you're doing and the truth of the matter is people resonate with people more than they resonate with brands that being said I don't think that you necessarily need to be that person um long term so I think that you can like shift out of it at one point so one option is you shift out of it once you are starting to see I don't know 50 100 000 Subs multiple major cities um that are really working in different chapters and then you just kind of like

[46:52] shift out of it and then you just employ like a Toastmasters model which is like there's no person behind Toastmasters yet Toastmasters is an incredibly big but you know business I think is a non-profit probably does tens of millions a year in Revenue if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenue and there's no person behind it people just show up to these events pay pay their dues to be a part of it the other opportunity that you have is you've essentially built a prototype that works and a product that works and the question is who would be the most interesting Creator to be attached to this company

[47:29] or or product so for example you know I used to work with these guys Adam and Jordan Bornstein they actually used to produce this podcast and they just launched a newsletter for Arnold Schwarzenegger wow no I haven't they launched it like recently like within the last like 90 days and it has like half a million subscribers wow now that's a big deal because when you look at products like uh morning brew that sold a majority of their business for 75 million dollars or the hustle which I think sold for 20 or 30 million dollars when the you know when the hustle sold I think they had like a million and a half

[48:09] Subs so or when morning Brew sold I think they had like a couple million Subs so Arnold Schwarzenegger has basically made like eight figures of of potential value via leveraging his name and creating this newsletter now my question to you is if you can have any Creator celebrity to attach to this who who would it be and why yeah that's a that's a fantastic question and I do not have an answer for you right now on that but that's going to be a good thought experiment for me because when I think about the ethos of the brand what it's about what it's not about I know the demographics of this

[48:48] guy extremely well who who we're talking to so now it's for me to transfer that to who who is that man out there that exists right now so that's that's a dope exercise I'm going to do and I'm going to give you uh an update on that soon I have a last question for you and I don't always get to see what's going on behind this scene we get to talk offline obviously quite a bit as well as I think about this next chapter and working with man morning and have a vision for other newsletters down the road Etc targeting targeting men what's your perspective on

[49:15] if one should pursue having a partner in something like this or delegating higher pros of course there's a lot of great newsletter agencies out there right now and people you can write checks to to implement and do certain things uh when you course when you look at say that the morning Brew motto or the hustle looks like you always had strong tandems you know strong partners that were doing things together as you look at me would you say Tony you're going to go further if you're not doing this this Jam by yourself I mean you always go further when you're not doing it yourself I think you want to have bright Minds at

[49:53] the table who've done this zero to one before they don't necessarily need to have you know worked at Facebook or Google I actually think that's like a red flag you know you you I'd rather I much prefer like they've you know I was telling I was telling this to Rob Sandy actually who we talked about in the beginning of the call right before this he you know he's trying to hire uh someone on his team and there's a difference between hiring someone zero to one and and hiring someone who's you know just optimizing something that's working and I think if I'm you all I'm thinking about is how do I get zero to

[50:30] one because if you get to one and you have real product Market fit that that's really taking it off taking off both on um physical and digital this is a thing that could scale to hundreds of millions of people so I think if I'm you I'm open to either I think uh how I would approach like my framework for thinking about do I need a partner is what am I really good at what am I missing if you find someone who fills those gaps who's the Yang to your ying you know is it worth giving up a percentage of of the business to accelerate it and have them thinking

[51:11] about it 24 7 like probably um your other option is go to agencies like with a lot of our uh I've been sending this publicly or anything but there's a lot of like our um like you probably need a robot and things like that like we've hired agencies to run uh a lot of it uh for example content and stuff like that and I'm not afraid of hiring as an agency guy now who owns a bunch of agencies I'm also not afraid to hire a bunch of agencies like no one hires more agencies than us because we like we're kind of like yeah it's a it's

[51:46] the the most amount of equity you're gonna give away is going to be now pre-product Market fit so therefore I'd much rather spend a little bit get further along prove that and then have to give up less Equity after no that's that's great advice and I love that the agency hires agencies that's what's up totally I mean we bought an agency in 2022 as a result of we were hiring this agency they were amazing and we're like hey like can we work more closely together and that might happen to you you might be like wow I found this incredible agency that does newsletter growth and I need them on my team to be

[52:30] thinking about this all the time and I think if I'm you I'm trying to think of like don't don't look at big agencies look at like these are three to five people eight people 12 people small that have something to prove are gritty want to make this work hold them accountable to a kpi be like I need my number like I'm making this up but you need to I want 50 000 high quality subscribers by this day and all of our efforts need to be focused on that if you hit that that is going to be successful and I want to like double down with you if you don't I

[53:08] don't I don't know we'll have to revisit it yeah that's good so the three key takeaways I'm getting from you is one the email course that's going to come out fast uh for now it's gonna be me your boy Tony as the brand and I'm gonna identify who that other person or people could be down the road in three yeah as even as you say that I'm more excited about that Prospect of working with agencies I can write a check now versus like you say giving up Equity uh long term so those are three three great insights for you man I appreciate it what's the um what's the address where I

[53:37] send the check for that no address I'm I dude like I'm I'm the biggest Tony uh Tony fan so I I love what you're doing I love uh the concept like I actually think it you know has a lot of legs I I had uh Natalie Ellis on on the podcast about five months ago she she runs a she started off as like an Instagram account called boss babe Inc and now it's like 3.4 million followers jeez and it's all about female entrepreneurship and and accelerating that Journey for a lot of a lot of folks and getting them excited and providing them with tools resources and community help them get there and

[54:18] the business is massive if people are listening to this and you've made it to the deep end here uh you know check out that interview because she's making millions of dollars a year and she's like kind of living the dream for her and I think you can actually do the same thing where you're providing these physical and IR physical and digital experiences you bring it all together with this email there's retention there you're providing tools Community content and I think you've also dialed into this trend that like Sam par and others are dialing into which is people just want IRL and they want intimate this is very helpful man

[54:58] I'm fired of right now and I can't wait to listen to that episode and your boy is gonna be grinding this weekend so I appreciate it man thanks for coming on man where could folks find you and man morning and and get involved yeah man morning.com like the beginning of the day man morning.com and everything uh me is uh at the Antonio nevs that's a handle on all socials at the Antonio nevs I love it and can you tell people to subscribe to to this YouTube channel if they're just like ask them to subscribe hey everybody if you're listening right now like Greg said you made it to the deep end odds are you've

[55:37] got value out of this or some other content that Greg has provided you with not only this month but probably last month and over the years it costs you absolutely nothing right now to smash that subscribe button and it helps Greg and the work that he does so he can continue publish free amazing content like this for you so not only are you gonna press that subscribe button but share this episode with a friend as well I knew I knew you'd crush it because you were on TV so that was like for me that was like I'm watching a Nickelodeon TV ad right now like that was amazing

[56:13] I got your back man I I share your newsletter and your work not not your work not just newsletter your work with so many people I sing your Praises far and wide love you man and uh you'll have to come back on the show again love you homie appreciate you

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