SPEAKER_01
Okay, so here's where I want to start. I want to start where we started which was Over ten years ago Los Angeles we had a Founders mastermind. That's where we met described 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

SPEAKER_00
Amazing experiences of 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 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 Malune. I'm not gonna try to pronounce his last name right now Just a 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 then 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 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 You probably had two companies that were formed that weekend that have been sold Julian Dario as well I like to think about it as some people call people out that that group would call people up. You know what I'm saying? So

SPEAKER_01
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 big post it's sheet of paper post it's exactly and Everyone would wear their heart on their sleeve and say what's going well with their business What's not going well and some people even just Didn't even have a business but wants to start something. Why do you think that?

SPEAKER_00
Format works so well well one it was intimate first and foremost To that format work extremely well because in some shape or form trust had been established Not everyone in that room had had met one another 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 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 KPI is why we are here Now we we before we even sat down inside of 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 cents 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 grounding I'm not sure if you recall Greg. We went around the room. We talked about how do you like to receive feedback? You want to 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 a clear intention of what the goal was They could be successful in that and I'll say the last thing and we touched on this in the beginning What was the trust component of it? Like there was a we didn't even need to say a what happens in this room stays in this room You know, these were good dudes who are vetted and it's gonna be confidential and it was trust

SPEAKER_01
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 He took a chance on us like he flew all the way down 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 vid.io? And he's like, 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 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 right now, you have these like really big South by Southwest type things or Collision conference or all these really big events. 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 was said one of the biggest regrets of my 20s

SPEAKER_00
Was not doing that event every single year. Those things are so transformative versus the big group type of setting And they're revealing in many ways as well. I think for leaders and entrepreneurs who are building things 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 of peers where they're not leading where they can They actually participate they can get feedback They can learn etc and not be the drivers and for an I do like Rob and a dude like Julian and do like Dario Maloon etc to come in and be willing to to pivot to hear some maybe some some some critical feedback things that may not be easy But because sometimes you don't know someone well You're willing to hear that right you sometimes the people who are close to us, of course We don't want to listen to them right you got to have that distance from individuals that you can build that trust with

SPEAKER_01
It's it's building trust and it's and it's also just being open to the feedback deep down I feel like a lot of us knew What we should do with our businesses, but we needed someone to tell us I Needed like Dario to be like hey, this isn't you know, this is a bad idea You know, we've also had like quote-unquote famous internet people Come to this event right we had Sean Puri from my first million come to the event and he pivoted his product shortly thereafter I'm just wondering what advice could you give to people who want to start their own mastermind like this?

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, 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 a Not fly by it was a yeah, what was it the initial?

SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was called 5 by

SPEAKER_00
Yeah, 5 by I forgot about that. That was that was beautiful man I still remember like really enjoying that being able to put in the subject matter push and play and it being great but In terms of what you can do like the strong components to have a strong mastermind One you probably want to drop the word mastermind 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 Second you want to have a facilitator some type of coach a person that's guiding and leading the conversation taking notes on the white board 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 emcee to move things along But also someone who's has experience working with groups like that Have a strong format to the day pretty much standard format for us was what someone would give 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 things you don't want to think about when we woke up breakfast was ready Lunch was taken care about 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 dare I say we went out we shot guns like not just guns, but like these massive guns and what's cool about the play that the walk from the house to the restaurant or the walk from the house to 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 like hey something you said earlier, you know, it's really been sticking with me And so those moments are that downtime is critical So have a clear structure in format. I have a facilitator Make sure you have some downtime and some play that's involved. Make sure you don't have to think about the eating and that kind of stuff Move your body sweat and it can lead to an amazing experience

SPEAKER_01
the gun thing let's just talk about that for a second so Especially like the look on on the faces 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 There were more climatized 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 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

SPEAKER_00
Now go pick from these like 20 guns and 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 hit them Dylan, right? How powerful this dog one thing was I can still see you shooting it And it just taking your arms Just you just flew you up and I think I saw the shock in your face like what a what are we doing here and And B that was that was pretty awesome.

I

SPEAKER_01
Didn't realize it and I remember you telling me this 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, you know, I'm not suggesting people need, you know need to Shoot a shotgun to build trust but like yeah, like things like this are going to

SPEAKER_00
Build trust. Yeah, it's the things that happen something like even like the one I think about a traditional like, you know University experience most of the learning that happens on a college campus It doesn't happen in the classroom. It happens outside of 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 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 happen Again on the walk to the restaurant when you're leaving shooting guns that you probably shouldn't have been shooting 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 had maybe a tough conversation With an employee or with a girlfriend or something like that.

That's where intimacy is created

SPEAKER_01
when people don't have access to 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 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 Proctor 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 edit at an event like this

SPEAKER_00
That's the biggest feedback I get like must be nice Must be nice Tony to have this kind of community like you know My thing is out this man morning community newsletter here in Los Angeles and we meet every Thursday And it's just a ridiculously amazing group of guys and their chapters that are popping up popping up all across The country but the feedback even in my book stop living 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 let that's in 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 mission is that you have a mission to be better at x y or z so just know that first and foremost Second I always like to invite people to go where people grow Go to find places where people are learning, you know 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 and getting on a plane and attending a Conference every single year and mix it up going across the 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 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 because 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 something for something.

There are so many Amazing online virtual communities that also have like in person components But you have to write a monthly check as a membership model or you have to write an annual check to participate in these and sometimes these things aren't necessarily cheap Now you can look at Something like you know, Sam Parr is building right now with Hampton. That's a nice check that those founders have to write But 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 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 that 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 They like like like you have Greg where there's ongoing learning I just hear a lot of excuses for that but most times it may have to start online But then don't forget to get on a plane and go see folks face to face as well

SPEAKER_01
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 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 Francisco to like meet people and That's kind of the price you need to pay for a seat at the table 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 do what the summit series people did summit started off Elliott is now Started off basically on a credit card. I think it was like in Utah 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 if you don't have that network actually just going in creating a landing page creating a mission and start cold DMing people.

Yeah, well, I think the first one Elliott did was actually in DC

SPEAKER_00
I remember hearing about that. Oh right years ago and different folks that were there 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 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 a guy on live TV as a correspondent with NBC's and BET's and Nickelodeon's etc And guess how that started? You moved to New York City with less than a thousand bucks in my bank account That's a cliche story 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 10 People are willing to help you people are willing to support you. They're willing to give you their time If you ask for it in second if you happen to be there And if the people that you emulate the people you respect that happen to be in San 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.

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 the Instagram DM Hey I'm actually going to be in the Miami area In two weeks Greg for an event. If you have time, 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. 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 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

SPEAKER_01
Get there. I had found on Facebook. There was this book that I had found on Facebook There was this boat in the shore of the bay.

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 dollars a night And it's other founders who are staying on this boat I was like kind of cool.

I show up. It's like midnight Landed with like my carry on 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 it's pretty nice. No. No, it's like this is a boat that was like from the 1940s That was used in in like World War two Let's just say it was basically like sleeping on a floor 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

SPEAKER_00
The proximity is such a powerful tool and the story you just told Greg about sleeping on the on the 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 grip.

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 someone told me once live an interesting life No one wants to talk to an old person who doesn't have interesting stories to tell right now.

I even think about you Even after you were quote-unquote Successful I mean you even went back. I mean 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 Do you know how few founders even if they were successful would be willing to go back and live on a college campus?

SPEAKER_01
Not very many but obviously you built a little different. Yeah, and I think uh, well first of all, I appreciate that but I also think like I hope people listening kind of get 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 the boat again. I had like nightmares So I actually went into a facebook group that was canadians in silicon valley I 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 cloud flare. Oh my gosh So cloudfair is a 20 plus billion dollar company.

Good lord Michelle's Zaitlin and her husband had moved into a two bedroom apartment and they had still this lease to this studio apartment And they gave it to me for nothing because I was a kid Not because I I was well known at all like people will take chances If you shoot your shot

SPEAKER_00
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 been doing 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 to greg as 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 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 And then I get I jump on a zoom or I jump on FaceTime and the folks aren't prepared.

They haven't done their work They know they don't have specific questions that they can ask So I invite people to 100 percent to to be prepared in those moments because the truth is Some opportunities do only come once. I think you know, we have this 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 harder that is going to get so this is a reminder for all of us There'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 got to 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

SPEAKER_01
Keep shooting that shot. You're shooting a new shot now with a man morning. Oh man, and it's a shot.

So tell us Tell us the good the bad and the ugly of man morning. Yeah, well man morning

SPEAKER_00
I'll give you just some background on it and how it was founded, you know, seven years ago Eight years ago according to the internet. Your boy, tony was living his best life ever traveling across the world as a speaker 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 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 so I didn't know what it really meant to be An entrepreneur. I was so I was struggling with the 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 when we were just going to marriage counselor after marriage counselor I'm 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 gained like almost 30 pounds of weight man I had like I grew this big beard to hide the weight gain Which didn't hide the weight by the way fellas you gain a lot of weight the beard doesn't hide the weight It's just an indicator that you gained weight I 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 dangerous words a man could say Greg.

How you doing two of the most dangerous words someone can say I'm fine 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.

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 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 from isolating and disconnection To being fully connected and being seen and I couldn't hide behind those two words of I'm fine 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 marriages 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 to provide that kind of love and encouragement to other growth-minded men Across the country and across the world who do want to get better 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 inside 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 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 is 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 their goals, etc. And this is just a place to every single week to reset To recharge and to to refuel for people

SPEAKER_01
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 go press subscribe. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of the show How does how does someone join like the thursday man morning hangout like can they how does that how does that work? Yeah, so the one in los angeles

SPEAKER_00
uh, 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 buy in and trust Hey, greg isaberg is in town dope dude, he's gonna join us this week and typically it's all good So you can come join us for that sometimes as a true man For that sometimes as attrition happens and people move to different parts of the country. We welcome in You know new men into our tribe In the newsletter, I talk about how people can start their own man 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 7 or 8 a.m. And that's very intentional because I'm sure you agree with this we found That the conversations that people have at 7 a.m. Over a cup of coffee or a cup of tea Are very different than the conversations you have at 7 p.m 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 it 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 use so We also just had our first uh every year we do a big retreat Together we did one and we 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 because right now for men isolation disconnection not having a strong community of friends is a real important topic and I don't want to get too heavy on this but if you look the numbers are correct like Like of the suicides that happen is 80 of men. I think a lot of it is because at some 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 who's winning may be at business? So we want to create a safe place for folks to come share what's what's really going on

SPEAKER_01
an actual like the people who Share the most perfect lives are the ones actually who Are the most hurt and

SPEAKER_00
You know are vulnerable in a lot of ways check on your friends and even more check on your strong friends Check on your successful fans who you think are doing great Greg you and I do something that's so powerful and this is what the man morning ethos is all about That I'm gonna buy 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 an airplane mode And there's something about that 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. And 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

SPEAKER_01
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 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 charged us $7,000 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 defined your niche and you have your product, which is an iRL product and a digital product Both by the way have retention built in Because your your man morning 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 and I love the brand too.

So my question to you is What questions you have for me? If you're trying to grow this thing Like what can I what can I answer for you? And let's just like live jam on how we could take man morning to the next level The question I have for you, man is what what am I probably not thinking about?

SPEAKER_00
Because already, you know the feedback from the newsletter is great. It's a weekly newsletter it started off actually three times a week that only went to weekly and it's gotten Even better and the next step is is building what that community is going to look like a cohort If you will so I'm trying to debate right now for the first step If I want to do like a 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 then you can sign up for that membership each month and you have 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?

SPEAKER_01
I'll do you one better. I'll give you an idea that That will help with monetization and it will help increase your newsletter subscriber count got it win-win 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 over a period of days via email So I'll give you an example We have a community called you probably need a robot calm. 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 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 Because there's so many people with newsletters. So basically what's happening is When people are like if you like this 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 going to give you a carrot I'm going to give you this free course. It's normally worth $300. All you have to do is put in your email Once they are in The funnel the five day let's say you do a five day course 10 day course around 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 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 five tools five days thing At the end of that we actually created essentially A deeper version of that course five tools five days where we're taking the exact same tools But we're going way deeper on each of those tools And then we're selling that course Now why that works is because You've given value you've proven to this People that you can create value And they're also kind of hooked on the format.

They're like wow I'm making this a part of my everyday routine and I don't want to lose it so Why this 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

SPEAKER_00
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. I'm going to employ that immediately.

I have a second question. I think this is a very any 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 and 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 It seems like what I'm seeing right now in the marketplace from a brand perspective And as I think about late checkout I think about if you need a robot It's still Greg, but it still was a strong brand I feel like your stuff could still exist even if Greg wasn't in the signature So how critical is it to have me attached to it? So

SPEAKER_01
It's a great question. I think Initially, it's helpful to have you Be attached to it because like you're on the road Be attached to it because like you're on a podcast right now If we get 100,000 downloads plus a month on our podcast A bunch of these people are going to listen to it and they're going to be like, oh, Tony Like I resonated with that guy man morning. I resonate with that concept.

Boom. I'm going to give my email address in So it's helpful to 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 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 That are really working in different chapters And then you just kind of like shift out of it and then you just employ like a toast master's Model which is like there's no person behind toast masters yet toast masters is an incredibly big You know business. I think it's a nonprofit 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 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 or or product So for example, you know, I used to work with these guys Adam and Jordan Borenstein. They actually used to produce this podcast and They just launched a newsletter for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wow. Have you seen it? 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 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, you know when the hustle sold, I think they had like a million and a half 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 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 would it be and why? Yeah, that's a that's a fantastic question

SPEAKER_00
And I do not have an answer for you right now on that But that's gonna 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 guy extremely well Who we're talking to so now it's for me to transfer that to who is that man out there that exists right now So that's that that's a dope exercise. I'm gonna do and I'm gonna give you an update on that soon. Tell me I have a last question for you Uh, yeah, I have a last question for you And I don't always get to see what's going on behind the 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 if one should pursue Having a partner in something like this or delegate and hire 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 when you course when you look at say that the morning blue 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 gonna go further? If you're not doing this this jam by yourself

SPEAKER_01
I mean you always go further when you're not doing it yourself. I think you want to have Bright minds at 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 I'd read I much I much prefer like They've 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 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 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 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 like my framework for thinking about do I need a partner is What am I really good at? What am I missing? and If you find someone who fills those gaps who's the yang to your yang You know, is it worth giving up a percentage of the business to Accelerate it and have them thinking about it 24 7 like probably um, your other option is go to agencies like with a lot of our Uh, I haven't said this publicly or anything but it's a lot of like our like you probably need a robot and things like that Like we've hired agencies to run a lot of it 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 that's dope. No one hires more agencies than us because we like We're kind of like the most amount of equity you're going to 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

SPEAKER_00
No, that's that's a great advice and I and I love

SPEAKER_01
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 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 and Hold them accountable to a kpi be like I'm making this up, but I want 50,000 high quality subscribers by This day.

Yeah, 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 don't I don't know but we'll have to revisit it. Yeah, that's good. So the three key takeaways

SPEAKER_00
I'm getting from you is one the email course that's going to come out fast For now, it's going to be media boy Tony as the brand and I'm going to identify who that Other person or people could be down the road and three Yeah, as even as you say that I'm more excited about the prospect of working with agencies Where I can write a check now versus like you said giving up equity long term. This is very helpful Man, I'm fired up right now and your boy is it be grinding this weekend. So I appreciate it, man

SPEAKER_01
Thanks for coming on man. Where could folks?

SPEAKER_00
Find you and man morning and and get involved. Yeah, man morning.com like the beginning of the day man morning.

com And everything me is at the Antonio nev's that's a handle on all socials at the Antonio nev's

SPEAKER_01
I love it. And can you tell people to

SPEAKER_00
Subscribe to this youtube channel. Hey everybody if you're listening right now, like Greg said you made it to the deep end odds are You've 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 cost you absolutely nothing right now to smash that subscribe button and it helps Greg and the work that he does So he can continue to 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

SPEAKER_01
I knew you'd crush it because you were on tv. So that was like for me. That was like I'm watching a nicolodeon tv ad right now.

Like that was amazing

SPEAKER_00
I got your back man. I share your newsletter with so many people. I sing your praises far and wide

SPEAKER_01
I love you man. And you'll have to come back on the show again. Love you.

Help me appreciate you