SPEAKER_01
What are you pouring? I hear you're pouring a beverage.
SPEAKER_00
I am pouring the most prestigious and pristine sparkling water that I found in my journey for said product. It is the Saratoga Springs Sparkling Water, the quality with the blue bottle.
SPEAKER_00
Not financial advice, not an investor.
SPEAKER_01
Of course. I'm also drinking some sparkling water. You know about this? Arc? I don't know about this.
What is this? It's like a soda stream, but way more beautiful looking. But I got to be honest with you. I'm not just drinking sparkling water.
I'm also drinking it with Como's tequila.
SPEAKER_00
Excuse you. All right, then fine. I will crack open the bottle of body vodka.
SPEAKER_01
OK. It's going to be one of those podcasts.
SPEAKER_00
If you're going to start the opening, trying to one up me, I'm not not going to feel threatened and try and overcompensate.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. I'm looking forward to this podcast. This is going to be good.
While you pour yourself a drink, I checked your LinkedIn before this. And you have quite a time.
SPEAKER_00
It could go a few ways. Yeah. My LinkedIn is either the worst thing in the world or the best pre-qualifier for who I want to work with or not.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Well, usually I like to introduce people. Your title is Insert Very Important Title Here at Vayner Fund.
What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00
That's accurate. It's not really important what the title is in our little fund, I guess. It could be partner.
It could be janitor. It could be anything. But whatever it is, it is very important.
And I want people to know that, that I am very, very important at Vayner Fund. But it's actually just a litmus test because one of my life models is don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive.
And I think that being the marquee title on my LinkedIn stresses that. So I truly don't take it that seriously. I don't care how important anyone thinks I am.
But if you can't take the joke and use scoff at that title, we're probably not going to work well together.
SPEAKER_01
Exactly. And the reason I wanted to bring you on is because I think you live a really happy and good life. And you don't take things too seriously.
And you kind of just go with your curiosity. And I'm curious, just like, is that intentional? And yeah, how do you think about crafting your life?
SPEAKER_00
It is absolutely intentional at this point. I think it was subconscious prior to recent years, I'd say. But now I take a very active role in, I guess, just evaluating how happy things make me from a business perspective, but also from a life perspective.
Because it has been drilled home that, what do you know, we only have one life. Had a minor health incident that wound up not being a big deal at all that I'm aware of because the doctor did close a loop on that by saying, I guess, we'll just call it a medical mystery, which is not very comforting. But as far as I know, totally fine.
Happened last year. But it really put life in perspective. Because for a brief moment in time, I genuinely was convinced I was going to die.
And that reframed so much for me where it's like, oh, how could you not want to just optimize for being happy every single day of your life? Because it's the most important thing. And you're the one that has to wake up and live in your body every day.
SPEAKER_01
So you've got to go you first. So I saw a TikTok video as I was like, I don't know, it was like 2 in the morning. I know you don't have TikTok.
And maybe that plays a role into your happiness. But I was like trying to fall asleep. It was like 2 in the morning.
I'm like, swipe, swipe, swipe. And I get this video of why are dogs always happy? And this is whole TikTok around. Like, well, for every one day, that is equivalent to one week for a human.
So basically, dogs know their own mortality. And they know that their life is short. So they're just by definition, even if you leave your apartment to go get the mail or something or coffee or gone for two minutes, your dog coming back to you.
And they're stoked to see you. It's like, oh my god, where are you, Bill? Where have you been? Which is great. Like, everyone, go get a dog.
Completely. What concretely did you change in your life after you had this new lease on life?
SPEAKER_00
I would say it empowered me to say no more and say no more confidently. Because I just felt confident in saying, this doesn't suit me right now and or ever. And that's speaking in generalities.
But I think just empowering me to take control where I know I can take control, and that's a really beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_01
Could you give an example of something that you said no to of the last year and something that you said yes to that you might have not five years ago?
SPEAKER_00
The easiest thing is mostly cutting out networking events. And those have always been somewhat of a bane of my existence, because in the field of venture capital, it's kind of important to schmooze and network and mingle. But it's usually done with a lack of intention that I think is detrimental.
I'll go so far as to say to your mental health, because you're kind of floating around. You're show up to this event, whether or not you drink doesn't matter. But you're showing up with no real goal and hopefully meeting people.
And then you have folks just like staring at the name tag. If there's a name tag, and oh, you're not important or I don't think you're important or whatever, and it's just kind of soul crushing. So really looking at how you spend your time and showing up in person is a really powerful thing, in my opinion.
So you should only be showing up if you actually want to show up, because people can tell. And you just lead a happier life.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, if you're trying to make it in startups or venture, do you need to go to networking events? Because both of us don't go to networking events. I think our vibe is just like, and correct me if I'm wrong, our vibe is like, we'll just bring together interesting people and good things happen. But it's more just among friends.
Like it's never like. Yeah. Yeah, although we did meet at South by Southwest. But that was before.
SPEAKER_00
That's like, we're talking 2010, 2011. That's who knows.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly. Shout out to Five-Eye. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01
What did we know? Yeah, knowing what we know now, knowing what you know now, Phil, do you need to go to networking events if you want your best shot to win at startups or venture?
SPEAKER_00
I think you still have to show up places. I think if you are showing up intentionally at certain events that are hyper-specific to what you're interested in, I think that's great. I think you can pre-curate a hat tip to what you're passionate about, what I know you're excellent at, which is community.
I think you can find a sub-community or two either on Reddit or on X now or something and go to events either online or in person in that circle, kind of to the point that you said. We like to only go with friends. Well, usually our friends know interesting people.
And one of my favorite things to do is to host a small event where it's like, hey, you show up. Bring one person that nobody knows. Or you think nobody knows and say that to 10 to 20 people.
And what do you know? You have a 50-person event, but it's really close-knit, intentional. I brought this person because, and I think that's a much more interesting way to go about it. But if you are trying to get your start and you're trying to break in, try and narrow in on what you're looking for a bit first, rather than the broad I want to break into tech.
But what sector do you want to be an engineer? Do you want to aspirationally be a COO one day? Do you just want to be a CEO? Or do you have ideas? Something hone in on what it is and find the sub-community. And I think that's a really powerful and interesting way to go about it because you can learn a lot more that way, I think.
SPEAKER_01
Totally, and also the host is underrated. Totally. If you're the host, it's like if you're the person reaching out to people and being like, hey, I'm curating this dinner of D to C founders in New York who have between $1 million and $5 million a year in revenue.
Even if you're not one of those people, but you're trying to be one of those people, I feel like it's a pretty good move.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and people remember that you bring people together. And that holds a special place in people's hearts. And it's really nice to facilitate that.
I personally enjoy that feeling quite a bit. And I'd say even to this day, it happened maybe two days ago. The listeners don't know this, but they're going to know now.
We co-hosted an orange wine party in Brooklyn right before the pandemic. Somebody literally brought it up to me yesterday that was a plus one saying how fun it was. And this happened in 2019.
And it was pretty low lift from our part. And it was awesome.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we did, however, full disclosure. We did bring the COVID-19 virus to America and spread it across the world. Because it was January 2020, I think.
And we did have one member, the DJ in fact, Tyler Lemko, comedian Tyler Lemko, did spread. Like they were using names. I thought we were having an honest conversation.
SPEAKER_00
Open honest, yeah. I appreciate the transparency.
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I also randomly get people mentioning those events and that event. And it pays dividend both work-wise and just personal. Some of my happiest moments have been throwing these events.
And I feel like people listening should just like don't go to events, throw events.
SPEAKER_01
To summarize. I think that's great advice. So that's something that you learn, I guess, in your 20s.
No networking events. Be the host. What's something that you're saying yes to more of these days?
SPEAKER_00
I think no networking events is too rigid. I think no to attending events without intention, I would say. What's an example of a yes? A few years back, I was at a group dinner, curated dinner.
Great. Awesome. On theme with what we're talking about.
This gentleman wearing a very wacky blazer. Talked to him for maybe 10, 15 minutes. And he invited me in a few weeks to his birthday party.
The birthday party was a bit unconventional because it was a three-day event. And it wasn't hosted in New York City, where we met. He was going to host a large group of people in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and program an entire trip to Tulsa to show the city.
Because there's a huge entrepreneurial vibe. He was leading the charge on awareness around Tulsa as a hub for business and SMB and technology and opening folks' eyes to a city they may consider just a flyover situation. That, in that moment, I said yes.
I'd known this guy for 15 minutes. And I couldn't think of another time that I would have just a curated view into the inner workings of Tulsa. And I was like, yes.
This sounds interesting. Worse comes to worse. I book a flight and leave early if it's terrible.
I didn't think it was going to be. And I wound up being an awesome. And I met a lot of incredible people that I'm actually super close friends with to this day.
SPEAKER_01
I actually said yes to something that I wouldn't otherwise say yes to last week, which is I went to a Tony Robbins event last week.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. I mean, I wasn't going to publicly talk about this or even privately talk about it, to be honest. But here we are.
So I went as a guest to the Tony Robbins event. It's the business mastery event, which is more focused on how do you grow your business? I don't know if that makes it any better, but that's what it is. And I was invited as a guest from Ali Abdaal, who's like a big YouTuber.
And this guy, Joe Gannon, who helps me with the podcast and a few other social content stuff. So they invited me. They're like, hey, literally ticket start at $10,000.
You're going to be sitting courtside, like front row. And Tony Robbins was literally like spitting on me. Like I should have brought an umbrella, honestly, in retrospect.
And I got to say, one of the better things that I said yes to in the last 12 months is going to this Tony Robbins thing.
SPEAKER_00
What's driving that?
SPEAKER_01
And I want to preface it with I always had a lot of mixed feelings about Tony Robbins because he's like a cult leader in a lot of ways. And I felt, at least before going in this, he's like a bit taking advantage of people, selling these crazy expensive seminars. And maybe people don't have the money and bringing them into his quote unquote cult.
But two reasons I went. Number one, I was like, he's probably the greatest sales person ever. So I just want to be in the room with a world-class sales person, number one.
And the second thing is, if he is leading a cult, there's a fine line between a community and a cult. So I want to understand how he does it. Fair, right? That feels fair.
Very fair. Yeah, very fair.
SPEAKER_00
So I gave up five days. He has curated a hell of a community.
SPEAKER_01
Yes, he has. He has. Like say what you want about him, objectively, he has.
So I gave up five days in my life to spend it in West Palm Beach. And it was so good for so many reasons. But number one, he is the greatest sales person of all time.
How he structures his, like the whole seminar and how he uses music, like basically what he does is like the whole five days, he's using the same five songs over and over again. He gets you to get up and shout. And then at the point of peak state, he comes in and he'll be like, oh, by the way, you should totally sign up to another seminar, mind.
You're so stoked and jazzed. Yes, yes. Yeah, yes, yes, yes.
So what he would do, to give you a concrete example, let's say we're learning, because there's a business mastery, let's say we're learning about finance. And he would be talking about, hey, let me go through Robin's research, which is one of his companies. And the P&L from Robin's research.
And you're going through it and you're like, see, if I do these strategies, I can increase leads. And if I do this, he'll put like Katy Perry's, what's that song? Firework? Yeah, he would be like, it's your company and fireworks comes on. And he's like, raise your hand if this is your company and you're stoked that this is happening to you.
And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then at the end of it, he makes an ask and be like, hey, by the way, buy my thing. So that's just one example.
He's an incredible salesperson. He understands the power of state. And I liked it.
I thought it was very valuable.
SPEAKER_00
I also, not to put words in your mouth, but as you were telling that story, I was thinking around, and I don't know if this is going to be the next episode, there's or anything, but I know you've been very hot on the concept of multipreneur. And I would say that is a peak example of multipreneurship where he is essentially not a personal holding company, but he has a holding company of sorts and every piece that's in. And I see why that probably resonates with you.
He's a multipreneur that curates a rabid community. Seems like a Greg Eisenberg cup of tea first and foremost.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I actually didn't realize the multipreneur bit until going. So first of all, the guy's nearly a billionaire. Didn't know that.
He co-owns 110 companies. That's wild. Yeah, it's wild.
Absolutely wild. And the way it was structured was the event. It was at Palm Beach Convention Center.
So there's the stage in the Convention Center. And then as you're walking in, there's like different booths, but the booths are his companies. It's like his accounting firm, his legal firm.
So he doesn't accept advertisers and sponsors to his events, which is totally like multipreneur, creator, led sort of entrepreneur vibe is to like obviously sell your own stuff.
SPEAKER_00
That seems like the dream, the multipreneurship dream.
SPEAKER_01
He's definitely doing it. And he's got a lot of subtle ways that he's able to sell people. Another kind of like interesting thing that I didn't know is if you're going to a Tony Robbins event, like bring a Canada goose jacket because he sets the, he like I literally walked by the thermostat.
It's 60 degrees. He sets it to be really cold. And the reason he does that is he wants people to like get up and move so that they get like the energy flowing.
And it's like a Tony Robbins thing, apparently. Quick interruption from me. If you're listening to this on Apple Podcast or Spotify, you're getting any value.
You need to come to YouTube and 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 press Subscribe. Thank you.
Enjoy the rest of the show. The interesting thing is while the event was happening, Alex Hermosi, who's like a popular, like he's really popular. Do you know him now? Nope.
I'm not surprised you don't know him. So Alex Hermosi wrote a book called $100 million Offers. It's like how to craft an irresistible offer.
He's like big on YouTube.
SPEAKER_00
I also keep in mind I asked Steph Curry to his face what he did for a living because I just didn't know. And I didn't really follow the NBA in this years ago. But especially if I don't know somebody, that's the worst slimmest test.
I don't realize who anybody is.
SPEAKER_01
Totally. What did Steph Curry say, by the way?
SPEAKER_00
He said he played ball for the Warriors, and then we moved on.
SPEAKER_01
You know who co-owns the Warriors? Tony Robbins. Tony Anthony Robbins. Ah.
SPEAKER_00
I didn't expect the middle name to get in there.
SPEAKER_01
No, I think it's Tony. I don't know if his middle name's Anthony. No, it's Anthony Robbins is a co-owner.
I've his 110 companies. Is definitely. Yeah, it's wild.
So all roads lead back to Tony Robbins. Alex Hermosi, guy went from like zero to millions of subscribers in the last 18 months. He went on, he got on Twitter like 18 months ago.
And like now he's tweeting and getting thousands of likes within the first hour. He also threw, while the Tony Robbins event was happening, he threw a launch event for his new book called $100 million Leads. And he had more than 500,000 people in the live stream at the event.
Wow. Yeah, which is. That's wild.
Completely wild. And anyone who's interested in like crafting offers or lead, like how do you like get leads? Like you should watch it just because like the same reason I went to Tony Robbins, like learn how to be the best salesperson of all time. Alex Hermosi, same sort of thing.
And the interesting thing about Alex Hermosi and Tony Robbins is the stage for Alex Hermosi when he was doing his live webinar was the exact same stage that Tony Robbins has, where in the back you have all these like Zoom people watching and it's all these like kind of Brady Bunch style. You got to check it out. So while I was at the event.
I will. While I was at the Tony Robbins event, I was like, hey guys, did you did you see the Alex Hermosi event yesterday? And they were like, yeah. And I was like, doesn't it look like the Tony Robbins set? One of the people I was with said, oh, Hermosi is like one of the biggest Tony Robbins followers.
And he specifically crafted his stage and vibe to be like a Tony Robbins event, which leads me to my thesis that Alex Hermosi is the modern day Tony Robbins for young people.
SPEAKER_00
I like to just show up where there's a large cultural event happening, not necessarily going to the event itself because, A, that gets wildly expensive and B, you just don't have to. I mean, case in point, we met at South by Southwest. The only time I've ever had a badge to South by Southwest is when, for some reason, they let me do a panel or speak.
I've never gotten one on my own. But I've gone eight times at this point. You go because it's the largest group gathering of people that you likely want to know or are relevant to either your goals or interests or something.
Showing up at a large cultural event and all the ancillary things that happen around it is a huge unlock because serendipity lends itself very well to these situations. And you wind up leaving with a bunch of either new friends or contacts, goals. And it is actually wildly productive where I thought that previously you're just showing up to party.
You don't have to party. You just have to be there. And then another point to the whole just show up where things are happening.
Other people are more prone and open to meeting and engaging. So there's always something to be done for me and probably you in LA. There's always some sort of business deal or some thing we can accomplish if we visit there.
But the pretense of it being a major cultural event, I think people are more apt to meet with you or get that coffee. Whereas if you just show up randomly January 21st for no other reason, hey, I'm in LA. No, sorry, I'm busy.
There's stuff going on, whatever. But if you're there and other people are there for an event and everyone's already in that mode, you're more likely to be able to sit down with folks you aspirationally wanted to sit down with or needed to book time with or something. There's just the receptors are a bit more open, I find.
So it's a good hack.
SPEAKER_01
But isn't the counter to that? I have a friend who lives in Austin. And I actually went to South by Southwest. And when I texted him, he was like, dude, South by Southwest is so busy.
Meet me at this dinner. And I spoke to him for 15 minutes. He's like, why don't you come to Austin when it's not South by Southwest? I feel like going to an event, a big event, you can get quick hits of people.
But if you really want to spend time with them, I don't know if it happens during the big events.
SPEAKER_00
What do you think? Oh, no, I fully agree with that. I think to deepen or advance a relationship in a meaningful way, whether it's friendship, business, whatever, it's really tough to do in that setting. But I think for the initial contact and making it in road, I guess, it's perfect.
It's the quick hit. It's great. You see if it's even interesting for the other person or for you.
And then you can take it from there, because then you necessarily don't have to be in person. You could hop on a Zoom, FaceTime them. You have the open line of communication to text or send a message or send an email.
And you just have the context of that quick hit and meeting in person that I think is more important than anything. Because you're never going to forget the initial feeling of meeting somebody or the initial 15 minutes that you spent with somebody. And as long as that went well, the door is open and it's kind of yours to mess up from there.
Definitely agree with you that it's really tough to go deep and build something super meaningful in that context. But it opens up way more doors.
SPEAKER_01
I was chatting with someone this morning who was telling me having a place, like a secondary home, in a cool, interesting place as a destination to throw events, she was saying that that's probably one of the most valuable investments that you can make. Like what was it? Michael Rubin, you saw him through the white party. That was crazy.
I know you know what that event was. Tell people what that event was, who Michael Rubin is, and why that was the event of the year.
SPEAKER_00
Michael Rubin is a wildly successful businessman that has catapulted in popularity in the past few years, despite him being a wildly successful businessman for decades now, I'd say. He's done an absolutely incredible job of tapping into culture as a whole and making sure that he is top of mind, culturally, hanging out with the most interesting rappers, up-and-coming rappers, musicians, television stars, surrounding himself with key people, and seemingly doing it in an authentic way, where he has established this white party that he does in July every year now as the event of the year, for the most part. It's the who's who of relevant folks held at his house in the Hamptons.
The video that was cut up this year from this white party essentially looked like a Hollywood trailer, for the most part. It was wild, super jealous that Gary got to go and has gone to go to everyone. Still don't have that plus one, but that's OK.
That's on me for not being relevant enough. But another point to Michael Rubin and his strategy, it's not just him kind of swagger jacking. Well, that's a terrible term.
It's not just him trying to commandeer culture and inauthenticability, just post selfies with famous people. Like, sure, he'd post that. But he did have a pretty interesting soundbite where somebody's like, well, what do you get out of speaking to Quavo or another rapper or something? Like, what's the point? Are you just trying to be relevant? And he's like, well, no, they have really interesting techniques for how they've either marketed their own music or products that they've sold.
And it gives him a different perspective to accomplish business challenges that he has in his own business by speaking to these musicians because they've obviously been successful in their own right. And it's just a thought exercise for him where maybe he can add some value from a business perspective to them. And they provide insights that he normally wouldn't have.
So he's really, really intentional and smart around curating that.
SPEAKER_01
Michael Rubin, just to be clear, he's the founder of Fnaticz, which brings in billions in revenue. They own the licenses to the NBA, NHL, stuff like that. I'm looking at some of the guests.
The guests were Kim Kardashian, Jack Harlow, Travis Scott, Laurie Harvey, Justin Bieber. I guess I look at that and I'm like, yes. Obviously, he's an incredible businessman and has done really well for himself.
But Gary, for example, in my mind at least, he's on the same level-ish and why isn't Gary throwing the white party? It must have been his main goal, to throw an event like this, right? A and B, and this goes back to my earlier point, which might not relate to a lot of people, but having the second home as the destination, super valuable. I think I'm looking at pictures of his place. It's pretty insane.
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it's epic, yeah. But it goes back to what we started speaking about almost at the beginning, where it's be the host and listen to how we're speaking about it right now. It obviously makes an impact.
We have not gone. We haven't been invited. But now it's maybe this aspirational thing.
And we see that he is the speaking that brings together really relevant people that's really interesting. And we're talking about that. So that in and of itself, I think, is pretty important.
And then I know you mentioned maybe it's not attainable or accessible for folks to own the second home as the destination. But we can even walk it back quite a bit as host and have a destination. Yeah. You don't have to own it.
SPEAKER_01
And just to be a beacon. When we hosted our party in Brooklyn in Williamsburg, we got a free space at a. Shout out to Gerties.
Gerties. That's right. And they basically were like, so picture this listeners, because anyone could basically throw their own version of a white party.
That's my come to Jesus moment right now. So I agree with you. Yeah, I love where this is going.
Yes. Basically, I started having coffee at this coffee shop, met the owner. He basically was telling me, yeah, I've got this amazing space downstairs.
I wish someone would use it. And I was like, well, me and Phil might could use it. And then he was like, yeah, well, you can.
He's a brunch place and a coffee place, right? Like they close early. And he was like, if you give me a percentage, was that how it worked? I don't even remember. I think we give him a percentage of, yeah.
He was operating the bar, and we give him percentage of the bar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is totally cool for us. We got to use this great space.
And he made money because he wasn't using the space. Actually, he was stoked. And I remember him in, he was like, oh, come back any time.
He was so, so excited. In fact, when COVID hit, he was like, oh, I wish we, you know. During peak COVID, he was like, yeah, they're on event.
I was like, dude, I don't know. But the point is, you don't need to own the place. You need to own the mission.
And you need to own the idea of the event. And then you could knock on some doors, get the space. And then the space could be in attractive girdies.
Maybe isn't that place. But maybe it is that place.
SPEAKER_00
For what our goal was, yeah, it was. It was perfect. You can do varying scales of this.
I mean, when I thought about what it meant to throw an event maybe years ago, it's like, oh, it's so expensive. You need sponsors, you need everything. You need to do open bar.
You need to do this. Overthinking it. You don't need to do any of those things.
Yes, you can. Yes, you can build it up to that. I'm pretty sure that the white party didn't have a cash bar.
Sure. But you just need to host, have the space. And whatever you negotiate from there is great.
People are just very excited to go to something like that. It doesn't matter that they're going to have to pay for drinks. That's fine.
If you don't have a sponsor, don't want to cover the cost for people's drinks or the venue or whatever, that's fine. There isn't this expectation or anything. I think you just need to go that mile and host.
SPEAKER_01
No one's going to remember the cash bar. That's not what people remember from the event. They remember the people.
SPEAKER_00
And if they do, then there probably was something else wrong with the event.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Trotty, if people are coming to the event because they're getting free wine or free whatever, free food, I don't know if they're there for the mission.
SPEAKER_00
That's the most commodity of commodities is the free food and drink. It's like, well, our event has free food and drink. And it's like, yeah.
So are the other 10 that I probably found on Groupon. So thoughts?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I'm just thinking to myself, I should be throwing some more events. I am going to be throwing some multi-printer events. I want to say that IRL is just underrated.
IRL events are underrated, especially post-COVID. People are excited to go to events. So there is an opportunity right now for people.
The chance of your event working in 2023 is higher than the chance of your event working in 2019.
SPEAKER_00
And it all is rooted in what you mentioned, like the purpose, the mission. Why are you holding this event? What's the theme? As long as you keep that top of mind and organize it accordingly and curate the right people that you think fit the bill for the room that would get value on any side of it, it's great.
SPEAKER_01
Before we head out, give me one or two stories of some of the best events you went to and why they were so good.
SPEAKER_00
One of the best events that I've been to was thrown by my friend Dan, who I actually met on that Tulsa trip that I mentioned. The pinnacle rule was you cannot talk about work or what you do. And that in and of itself was powerful and, I think, freeing at the same time, because I think a crutch that people tend to use for better or for worse is just the first question out of your mouth, what do you do? That's a pretty loaded question.
And usually the context means, like, what do you do for work? But it could be anything. But eliminating that, I think, is really key.
SPEAKER_01
Especially in a place like New York, I don't need to explain that. And I guess that's bringing it all back, like, insert very important title here at Vayner Fund. That's why you're like, OK, real people will get it.
And maybe that's the best way to do it, to get really interesting people attracted to you. Maybe. So some takeaways I have from this, one, be the host. Two, be like Dan and create something that's unique and interesting and unlike everything else out there.
Three, you don't need to go to the event. Like, you don't need to go to the Super Bowl. But there's something that magical happens at some of these bigger events, where it's like, go to the side event.
Don't go to the main event. And then I think it's just taking stock in what you're saying yes to and what you're saying no to. And being OK.
Intention, yeah, setting attention. That's very Tony Robbins of you, Phil. And then last but not least, in terms of multi-punerorship and sales prowess, like, go watch Tony Robbins and listen to him just as like, you don't have to listen to what he's saying.
But just like in the fact that understanding his techniques for talking and selling and creating events is mind blowing. And same with the Alex Ramosy event. Like, go watch that.
Listen to that. And it's no matter what you're doing, like, it will help you become a better sales person. And life is sales.
So it's a good skill to know. Phil Toronto, one of my closest friends. It's an honor to have you here and jam on this sort of stuff.
Your light on social media. Chances are, the way you're going to learn more about Phil Toronto is if you like this episode and you want more Phil Toronto, we'll bring him back. So by we, I mean I.
So the best place to find Phil Toronto, besides his handles, is this podcast and my YouTube. I would say it's where it happens. Exactly.
And my YouTube has now changed to at Greg Eisenberg. So because I'm now throwing up other YouTube stuff. So Phil, tell the people to subscribe to me on YouTube.
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Subscribe to Greg Eisenberg on YouTube. Please, if he brought you any value whatsoever, stop what you're doing. Don't necessarily pause the video, because we want the view count.
But please, subscribe. Do yourself a favor. Do Greg a favor.
Do me a favor.
SPEAKER_01
There's no ads on this podcast. There's no ads on my newsletter. So check out the YouTube.
Subscribe on all the podcasts, Spotify or Apple, whatever you use. And my newsletter as well, leechechout.substack.
com. And Phil Toronto, you know where to find him. Thanks for hanging out.
It's been a pleasure. Cheers, man. MUSIC