Make More Marbles Podcast with guest Blake Farrell Q&A - How To GROW Relationships

What's up, everybody? This is a new thing that we're doing. One of my clients here, Blake Farrell, he decided, hey, Brad, you know, a few things about a few things. Why don't you teach me through an interview series what it is that you do to build relationships and network and mastermind and all the things that you do? Because after you do something for 10,000 hours or whatever, you end up becoming unconsciously competent. And I realized, like, as I was coaching him, I was having difficulty parsing out and picking apart the things I was actually doing to get the success I was having, if that makes sense. So this is not an ego trip for me, I promise. This is just genuine questions with a genuine human who wants to understand how my brain works, and some of the things that I don't know that I'm doing that are very powerful and effective. So, anyway, so without further ado, this is Blake. Blake, introduce yourself, and let's rock.

Oh, hi, I'm Blake. I'm a novice entrepreneur, and I'm trying to learn how to grow relationships.

I want to do. I want to learn to do things good with good people.

Okay, that's right. That's right. Okay, first question. How do you define your relationships? And how many types would you say that there are?

Yeah, so I've thought about this a lot, actually. I don't know that I have a system that I would categorize necessarily, and it probably shifted a bunch of times, but there's, like, there's people who have my phone number. That means we've met in person. That means I prefer you to text me if you call me. Like, that's fine, but I might not be able to pick up. I just, you know, pretty busy guy, right? And. And that's like a level, A contact. Like, and then there's, like, people above that, obviously. Like my family, my girlfriend, my mom. You know, like, people that, like, whenever they call day or night, my phone's going to ring. So that's like A level contacts or A plus, right? Then there's like, B level contacts. Those people are typically connected to me through social media. You know, we've maybe talked to one or two times, and, like, we're acquaintances. Like, I kind of know their face, but maybe I don't know who they are. That's the kind of person, like, if I saw them out, I might be like, oh, what was your name again? You know, Sorry, I don't remember. And I used to be, like, really ashamed of that, by the way. I used to, like, pride myself, but Then I started reading more on Dunbar's number. And the reality is, human beings, we have real time. We have a real hard time. Like, we'll remember faces. We have a real hard time remembering names and details about people more than a couple hundred at a time. So you only have so much space in your brain. So you just have to be open and honest with that. Like, hey, I know we met. Can you. Can you remind me a little bit about yourself? Just re. Kickstart. Because it's in there, right? The context is in there. Just. Just give me a kickstart. So that's been really effective. And then I would say C level is just. Anybody else, right? You're on my email list. Maybe we ran into each other one time years ago. Like, I don't really have a relationship with you, but I might recognize you if I saw you or if you gave me some contacts. So that's kind of how I look at it. And I focus my time and energy on developing relationships with the A people. And it's kind of like the S&P 500, for lack of a better word. It's like there's companies that thrive and grow and take over market share, and there's companies that fall off and they're no longer part of the S&P 500. And that's not because they're bad companies. They're just not. They're not that fit. Right? And I only have so much market share and so much brain power to focus on so many relationships. So I'm constantly refining that and I'm pushing people either up the list or down the list. And that kind of happens naturally. It's not even a conscious thing that I'm doing necessarily, but like, if I haven't talked to somebody five years, I'm going to prioritize relationship that's new and exciting. That's just how human nature is. I don't think I should be ashamed of that. You know?

Got it.

That person. Not that if that person. After five years. Like, I love relationships where I can't. I won't talk to somebody for a year or two. And it's like we, you know, we just pick right back up. So I love that, and I really do love people. My whole life I've desired to be close with people and have great relationships. I believe I've achieved that now it's about further stratification and new goals above and beyond that. It's not that I can be everybody's best friend now. It's like, okay, I have to really choose the people I want to go hard with, you know, because you're the, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So I try to make sure that everybody I'm giving my time to is, is benefited by me being in their life. That's important. And also vice versa, you say it's.

Like not really a completely conscious thing. You just kind of like naturally go towards.

Yeah, yeah. And it kind of depends on what I'm working on too. Right. If I'm, you know, I, I went to Africa with Tim Ferriss one time. Oh cool.

Love that guy.

It was about a 10 day trip. Yeah, I was, I was like in love with him. I'd read his book like eight times. I was a four hour work week junkie and he really spoke to me. It was the lifestyle that he was living that I wanted to live. But what you got to realize when you meet your heroes, and I've done a lot of healing around this, this is not like said with any knowledge or whatever, they're human beings going through their own stuff. Like the age I was then 11 years ago, whatever it was, is the age I was then. I'm the age now that Tim Ferriss was then, give or take a few years. I think he's maybe three years older than, or eight years older than me or something. So like I'm a little older than he was then and I think about, okay, well how do I view relationships now versus then and then, how much busier was he and how many more things did he have going on in his life then? Was he than I am now? And I can start to extrapolate. I can't really understand because nobody can understand, right? I can, I can begin to appreciate how busy he was and how little he might want have to had a relationship. So that's the context for what he said, which I still think was not the optimal thing to say. But at the end of 10 days of hanging out and like doing all these cool adventures, being in Africa together, I thought we were more like buddies. Right. I didn't want to like bother him all the time, but I was like, oh, we can keep in touch. I'm like, I'm looking forward to seeing you again or whatever. I forget exactly what I said. He's like, oh, I don't really spend time with people I'm not working with. And at the time it just crushed me. I was like really upset. I'm like, dude, really? What? Who says that? And for years I was like, damn, Dude, I, like, I had a rock in my shoe about it, to be perfectly honest. But I think what he's trying to communicate was this. Every communication is either a loving response or a cry for help. Every single one. When you break it down, it's either a loving response or a cry for help. In that moment, he was feeling overwhelmed. And instead of communicating it in a loving way and healing through it or building relationship through it, he could have said something like, yes, I hope our paths cross again. Right. I would have been fine. Cool. Like, you know, I'm not saying, hey, dude, we gotta be best friends. He's not saying, hey, we gotta hang out next Friday.

Right.

He's not committing to anything, but he didn't have to let me down and crush me either, you know?

Yeah.

And I think he was trying to be kind in doing that, but by being clear. But at the end of the day, you know, it's. You have to choose if you're gonna provide a loving response or a cry for help. And if it is a cry for help, do it in a way where you ask for forgiveness, you know, and. And for support with the thing that you're struggling with, not in a way that's like shitting on the other person. So I guess if I was in Tim's position back then, which I'm not, and I can never understand, exactly, I might have said something like, yeah, I hope we get to hang out again. Or, yeah, I hope we get to cross paths again, you know, and not made any commitment to the sort, you know, not creating. Like, I didn't have his phone number. Like, I wasn't going to, like, bother him all the time.

I.

And people ask me to this day, like, oh, do you still hang out with Tim? I connected with him a few more times over the years. You know, we saw each other things. We were amicable and we were friendly. And he even helped me when my Forbes article launched. He helped me promote it. He put it on his Twitter, and that was huge. So I'm forever grateful to Tim and what I learned and meeting Charlie, who's still my friend to this day. We don't hang out all the time either. But, like, as I've grown up, I see all the ways that he's impacted my life, and I'm still grateful for that relationship. I have no ill will towards him. I know he's gone through a bunch of shit, too. I haven't followed it all completely, but, like, you can dig into that if you want. Like, he had a ton of trauma when he's a kid and you know, have probably led to situations and interactions like that. But I think being able to unpack it now, whatever, 12 years on, has given me a lot of clarity into like, hey, you don't know what it's like to be Brad Pitt. I'm not saying Tim or I or is Brad Pitt, but like, you don't know what that's like until you're that person. Right? Until you can't walk down the street without people hounding you and like, you literally can't have a public life. Like, Tim was somewhere in between where I'm at now and there at that time, it gets difficult and you might communicate in a way that's more of a cry for help than a loving response. So I think just reminding yourself, like, hey, how am I? How am I showing up? In any given situation, there's always a way to find a loving response. I hope that answered the question.

Yeah, yeah.

Because guess what? Not everybody's supposed to hang out with everybody. Just because you want to hang out with Richard Branson doesn't mean it's a good fit for you and for Richard Branson. That's why I'm so big on double opt ins. Like anybody asked me, like, I'll introduce you to whoever if it's a good fit for them and it's a good fit for you and you both opt in.

Cool.

Like, that's freedom of choice. But landing somebody in somebody's inbox, now that's an obligation and that looks poorly on you and them. So I would prefer never to have that happen. I don't know that this is a masculine, feminine thing or the way men are raised or women are raised too. But like, I've noticed a couple things as I get older and this might be interesting, but like, as a man, there are a few things I will never do. I will never let a door slam in a woman's face. Never once. I will never, ever do that. I'm always looking behind me. I'm always holding the door. For women especially, but people generally, right. Women do not have this societal contract built in for whatever reason. Like, the vast majority of women will slam the door in your face. Not even realize they're doing it. They're on their phone, they're not paying attention, whatever. It's just not in their mannerisms. The other thing I've noticed some women do, again, I'm not not trying to cast a Paul against all women is they will just intro you to people without getting double opt in and Men do this too. I'm not saying just women, but I've noticed, like, if I were to parse it out, like, I'm getting a lot more emails just landing in my inbox from women, like, hey, you gotta meet Brad, he's so great. And da, da, da. And I'm like, why the hell is this person in my inbox versus, you know, men who would like ask, hey, is it cool if I make an intro and that's the preferable methods. Like, it protects my time and it doesn't create an obligation or a to do list. Like, my inbox is not your to do list. Or, you know, your, your agenda is not my to do list. Right. So. So again, I, I don't know if this is a man woman thing. I don't know if this is a societal thing, how a raise, what the expectations are. I don't know. I don't want to unpack that right now. I'm not trying to get on soapbox. I'm just explaining. These are some observations I've made that I wish more people understood. Like, hold the door for people. I don't care what your gender is or what you choose to be. And don't put a cold intro in my inbox without asking me first. You just do double opt in and hold the doors for people. I would feel like I made a huge impact in the world.

Hell yeah. Okay, perfect. I will definitely always do those two things. So what framework do you use when you want to produce a certain type of relationship? For example, you just see somebody on Facebook and you say like, I want to create a business relationship with them or I want to create a friendship with this person.

Yeah.

Or if you ever even do that.

Yeah. Here's the thing is, like, if there's a reason for me to connect to somebody, like they're doing similar things. Like, really? Right now I'm. I want to talk to anybody who's interested in masterminds. I want to talk to anybody who's interested in money, like managing money, investing, all that kind of stuff and crypto. Like, Those are my three big things. If you're like a crypto web3 nut and you have a relative understanding of risk and how to manage it, and you really think deeply about these topics, there's a likelihood we'll have a good conversation. And I also realize I can't have a coffee date or a single one on one call with every one of those people. So what I've done instead is I start to build communities around these topics that I love. So I'll use a quick story to illustrate. So I'm here in San Diego. I used to live here for four years. I now live in Phoenix, and I go back here for summers, right? Because it's really hot in Phoenix in the summer. So I get a lot of people that reach out to me or did. And when I was living here, like, hey, let's grab coffee. Let's jump on a call. And it got overwhelming. I'm like, okay, I want to. I don't want to do a cry for help thing. I want to do loving response thing. So what's loving response? Hey, I'd love to see you. Let's have you come to the Mastermind on Wednesdays. We do them every week, and it's free. You can come or donate or whatever you want. And we'll hang out at that, right? We'll do two hours of hot seats. We'll get some benefit. Everybody will meet each other. You'll not just get to hang out with me. You get to hang out with everybody. And we'll network afterwards as well. So that's a really easy way to deflect all of these individual requests into one place. So that grew to 500 people over two years, and that was awesome. And it kind of fell apart with COVID Now it's coming back again because I'm in town. So that's awesome. Same thing in the virtual space, I have a. A Facebook group called Masterminds for entrepreneurs, which is 5,000 people now, because they're all interested in Mastermind groups, right? And they want to come and get training. And anybody who's interested in Mastermind groups, I say, hey, check out my book. Hey, go to this Facebook group. Hey, you know, do. Do whatever it is. Which takes 0 of my time, right? I don't need to have the whole spiel. And by the way, I spent years perfecting those things so that even if you got the spiel from me, I would probably not give the spiel as well as the book would or as the audiobook would, or as the trainings would or as the Facebook group was, because I'm in a different place than when I was building all that. And yes, I'm updating it, yes, I'm growing it. But the reality is, like, when you're asked to do something impromptu, it's based on how you feel that day. When you're asked to give something that's prepared, there's years that have gone into it, multiple iterations. So I'd prefer to give you that even though you're not going to get it from me directly because it's going to serve you better, that's a better way to be served. And then you can still come back to me and ask questions that I'm okay with. If people said, hey, I read your book, I had a question, I'm going to answer that question a hundred percent. Right? But if they say, hey, tell me all about masterminds, I say, hey, read my book. That's everything you need, right? So we do that for masterminds, do that for crypto, we do that for master, you know, all of it. Right. And we create these communities around ideas and around things that I want to connect with. So when you ask the question of like, you know, how do I connect with people? It's usually based on common interests and what we want to see for the world. Like, you, we're probably not going to get along if you're like a hyper competitive, win at all cost type of person. Not there's anything wrong with that. I think there's a place for that. But I'm more of like, okay, yeah, I want to compete up to a certain point and I see the benefits in that because iron sharpens iron, it makes us better, et cetera, et cetera. But I also believe in a bigger, more abundant world where we collaborate. And I feel like if you're just competing and winning at all costs, you're missing out on a lot of the potential upside of collaborating. So I want to marry the best of those both worlds, you know, find that abundant line between miser and martyr so that we can create win win relationships. That really expands the pie for everybody. Because I'd rather have a smaller part of a bigger pie than 100% of small pie.

Okay, Absolutely. Okay. Something just stood out to me right there. You said you used to like go on coffee dates and like, et cetera, to try to meet people one on one. And it got overwhelming, which I'll still.

Do, by the way, if it's the right connection. And it's like a really high level person, 100%. I'm not saying I don't do that ever again, but just the vast majority I funnel into one of these things at this point.

Got it, got it. And so you say you eventually just had to graduate to, you know, making these communities and doing that.

I don't care who you are, if you're the bum on the side of the road or you're Richard brans, you got 168 hours a week. How are you going to spend. And a coffee date's not just a coffee date. It's the scheduling beforehand, it's the thinking about the coffee date, it's the remembering the coffee date, it's the sketch. You know, it's like all of the mental bandwidth, energy, attention that it takes to show up on that coffee date. I, I don't even drink coffee. I didn't want to go on coffee date. I'm like sitting there, I'm drinking a water, I'm talking to this person, you know, that's why I'll do like a 15 minute Zoom call over a coffee date. Like, I don't want to travel, I don't want to do all these different things. I want to find parking, I don't want to risk my life out on the fricking roads. Like, there's all these things that I just prefer not to do at this point which allow me to then protect my space. Like today I can serve you. I can serve this audience like you asked me. And this is, this is another thing that just came up. Like, how does it feel when somebody makes the request? Does it feel heavy or does it feel light? Does it feel exciting? Or does it feel like, oh, I don't wanna do this. So I'm really good at tuning my gut into. Like when you make a request, I'll either turn it down, I'll say no, and I'll just. I don't need an explanation. No is a complete sentence, right? Or I'll say, how about this? So when you made this request, hey, I wanna interview you, or hey, I can forget how it started exactly, but hey, I wanna ask you, like, how do you do this? How do you build this network? I'm like, cool. That feels heavy though. Just to do a one on one on that. That felt heavy. However, if we do this interview and it can potentially impact other people, that feels expanded, it feels expansive and it feels good, right? So it's like, all right, well, how can I renegotiate so that you get what you want and I get what I want and it feels good for other people. Now it's an impact. Maybe somebody's gonna watch this and change the way they think about things and for the rest of their life? Like, that's, that's, that's closer to my heart.

We were talking about producing a relationship.

Like creating a relationship. All right, so, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna make sure that I have multiple ways to, to field requests. Now in the beginning, when you're first starting, you don't have this problem that's. It's called a quality problem, right? There's problems of having too little money, there's problems having too much money. They're both problems. You just gotta learn how to solve them, right? So having these different tools is a great way to do that. In the beginning, I gave everybody my time because I had to learn how to be valuable. I had to learn how to communicate value. Because being valuable and communicating value are two different things, right? In the beginning, I had to spend the time to learn how to do that. I had to get on the phone with people, I had to learn how to get on the follow people. I had to learn how to communicate with people. I had to learn how to position a conversation for the mutual benefit of both parties. I had to learn how to ask people and how to preempt their objections to the ask. I can relate to what somebody must be thinking based on the way I'm communicating and understanding what they're. What they're doing. And again, I can never completely understand. That's a violent word. Like, I can never be Blake, I can never be Tim Ferriss, I can never be Richard Branson, but I can relate to some of the things they might be thinking or going through and then preempt their objection to the response. And that shows that you are somebody who actually cares enough to do those things. Because that's service at the end of the day, right? If you walk into an establishment and they. They anticipate every one of your needs, every one of your objections, every one of your fears, every one of your doubts, and they have a solution for it. Holy shit, are you going to give them a good review? Holy shit, are you going to give them more business? Holy shit, are you going to refer them? So do that in your interactions. Preempt, understand, and relate to things that might come up for people. Not annoyingly so, right? Don't do it from a place of supplication, but do it from a place of I respect you. I respect your time, I respect your energy, I respect what you built.

I respect.

I'm not here to take from you, I'm here to give to you. And I'm only here to make an ask that is mutually beneficial and serves your goals and needs and values. And usually that ask is, how can I do more? How can I show up? Right? A lot of that comes from listening. Like, that's the key skill. Like, I just had a great conversation yesterday with Rich Sheffern. If nobody knows Rich, he's one of the godfathers, of the Internet marketing realm. Like, he taught Russell and a lot of other people. Like, he's great. And I never met Rich. I kind of knew who he was, and I wasn't seeking him out, but I was at a mastermind, and I added a lot of value through making some very specific connections for somebody who just happened to be really good friends with Rich. And then he's like, dude, you gotta meet Rich. You'd love Rich. You guys would really buy. I'm like, cool. So I got on a call with Rich and Rich was like, how the hell did you get here? Like, he doesn't talk to anybody. Like, oh, you know, so and so connected us. Donnie. Donnie connected us. And he's like, oh, Donnie's here. And then Donnie comes, said hi, and we had a nice conversation. He's like. And all I did was just listen. You know, he asked me question, I answered it. I shut up, right? And then he talked for like 20 minutes. I'm like, okay, so if I'm hearing you correctly, right? I clarified. You said X, Y and Z. And then I repeat back to them what they said and the. The important salient points, and I shut up. Is that correct? Right? Yes. Okay, cool. Based on that, I believe that I can help you. Hear, hear. And here. And I'm willing. It sounds like you got a lot going on. I'm willing to just show up and grab a shovel, right? Because I believe in what you're doing, and I believe that you have some things figured out and you obviously have an incredible track record, right? This guy's like a kingmaker in the Internet marketing space. So, like, if I'm gonna work with him in some way, I have to show up and support first. I can't get into my ego and be like, oh, how great I am and all the shit I've done. Unless he asks, I'm not gonna tell him any of that because he's already been told. I have to presume by Donnie. Or I haven't even. I wouldn't even have gotten on a phone call. So they're like, it's a little bit of three dimensional chess. Like, I could either talk about how great I am or. And blow the conversation or just show up in service. And that's what I prefer to do is like, I'll show up in service. I said, how? How can I serve you? How can my network serve you? That's something I learned from Larry Binet. You know, it's not just me. I'm not that great, right? But the people I know are pretty awesome and. And start solving problems that they're having. And then I do things. Like, I go above and beyond. Like, he sends me videos. And the thing, I go through it. I give my feedback. I tell them when things are broken. Like, Internet marketers love to know when their funnels are broken. Because guess what? Nobody who's going through that thing, who has no relationship with you is reaching out and saying, this is broken. They're just. They're just going about their day, and you're losing all these incredible, valuable leads and relationships potentially, or clients or money because of that. So, like, I'm pointing out, hey, this is broken. You know, I'm gonna go back through it on Saturday. I scheduled some time. I'm gonna actually look at some of the videos and get a sense for it. You want to meet on the platform. Like, I'm just using this example. I'm not trying to blow Rich up, but, like, this is how I start to think about relationships. Like, what can I do to make this better better? Like, this might already be a great situation, but I don't care who you are, there's always something that. That can improve. And people who want to work at those levels always love constructive feedback. Not, hey, this is a piece of shit. It's like, hey, I noticed this isn't working as intended. Or, hey, what, have you tried this? Or just making suggestions that you might be helpful if you have domain expertise and experience, if it's outside your domain and you can still be helpful by referring somebody, that's great. Like, for example, the way that all happened was Donnie asked me. He's like, hey, I'm launching this app. I'm like, I know the best app guy. He's amazing. You want to meet him? Great, cool. I connect him. He's like, dude, if you never connect me to another person in my life, that was the best thing ever had happened. That's like his literal words. I'm like, yeah, dude, I know my shit. I collect relationships so that I can make magic happen in the right time at the right place, and they have their own benefits. But when you're on the outside looking in and not understanding what that is, or if that's not your natural thing. Like, if you don't like people, just disregard what I'm saying, right? This is like, this is only if you really want to get close to people and build great relationships. If you're like, I'm a spreadsheet guy or a coder or I just. I don't like to be in front of people. I don't like dealing with people. It gives me anxiety. Maybe this isn't for you, I get that. But some of these principles might still apply because you're probably building something, interacts with people. At the end of the day, all businesses, at least for now, you know, interact in such a way as to add value to people. So if you're not relating to, and understanding and, and thinking about how people behave and why they behave that way, then you're not gonna have a strategy that's effective to, to support that. So again, I went on a tangent there, but I just, I kind of want to get this out because I, I feel like these are strategies that I haven't really talked about before, but they could change the game for people. And, and like you said, Blake, there's stuff that I don't know that I don't know or that, that I, I know so well that I don't really think about anymore. I've just done it so many times over the years.

Yeah, and actually that's, that's a perfect segue because I was going to ask. So, you know, we, we started this place where it's like one to one time, we're learning how to provide value. We learn how to hit the phones, we learn how to serve. What would you, or like, what is the action plan for somebody whose pipeline is not full? So what would you suggest to the person who hasn't done the 100 thing yet? So how do you say to the person with like 330 Facebook friends? You know, just old high school buddies?

Great. So, so here's how you do that, right? You're in the desert. You have two options. You're gonna die. You got so much time before your, your water, your hydration, your lifespan runs out, right? And you got a shovel. Well, you can either just start digging where you are and hope for the best. Maybe you'll hit water and maybe you won't. Or you can head in the direction of the nearest body of water, the nearest river, the nearest oasis, nearest lake, the nearest ocean, the nearest tributary, whatever it is. All of those are controlled by somebody who has got something figured out. So if your pipeline is empty, go to find somebody's pipeline who's overfilled, who has more business than they could ever service. They're out there, I promise you. And find a way to talk to them and find a way to add value. Do the pre work, do the homework, find the ways without even having to talk to them. So that when you go to pitch them on having a quick meeting, like 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minute meeting, you already got some things in line that, hey, I can solve this for you, right? If you're a web developer, go through their website, do a quick loom video, right? Point out two to three things, make some bullet points, send it in an email to that person, right? Or whoever on their team is responsible for that, but ideally to that person because they'll send it. It's better coming from them first and then, then going for them. So like, you know, if I was a web developer and I went to a website and I saw that their videos were wonky, or I saw that, you know, the code was off, or there was a. I'm doing this all the time. Like it's just little stuff. Like I can only speak to Internet marketing because I've been in there so long. Like people want to know when their shit's broken or it's not working. It could be better. And not every single one of those things would be a priority. But if you're. Somebody shows up and says, hey, I think I can help you and is not asking for anything in return, that's immediately somebody who I'll at least give my time to, I'll at least respond to, right? So that's one thing. I know this is a little bit more difficult now because a lot of people are using this strategy, but it does work. Like my friend Miguel, when you have something really valuable, he just straight up went and looked at Hipmunk because he was like, he was a fan of Alex Ohanian who started Reddit and he was in Y Combinator and he had this new startup called Hipmunk, which is no longer around. But Hipmunk in the beginning was like a, a travel service where they would sort flights based on agony. Like how hard was it to do this flight, how many layovers, how much of a pain in the ass it was? And it would sort based on agony. It was like kind of a new concept. So it started to get some traction and Miguel loved it. So he made a video without being prompted, like a really nice animated video explaining what Hipmunk was in about two minutes. And he sent it to Alexis Ohanian. He said, hey, what do you think? Not hey, hire me. Not hey, you know, give me $10,000. You know, what do you think? If you like this video, let's use it, right? And it was just like cool at the time. Nobody was doing that, right? And he, Alexis really liked it. He sent it to all his people and they got an email back from like every department. They're like this is the coolest thing ever. Explains our mission, explains the problem we solve. It's really clear and people just get it in two minutes. And they didn't have an asset like that. It's like expensive and difficult to think through that and get that off the, off the line. Maybe they weren't even thinking that direction but it solved the problem that they didn't even know they had and added value in a way that was non needy. So then when he did went to him and it was like it got his, his, his attention. And then Alexis is like we're going to use this and by the way anybody who needs an explain a video or demo video and all of our network is going to get your business. He did a million dollars of business off of that one introduction because you got connected to all his Y Combinator startups.

Wow.

Yeah, just that one thing. It doesn't always work out. Like I'll give one example that did work out and one example that didn't work out. So the didn't work out. One was later Miguel built an app for Tim Ferriss which was like a Tools for Titans app and it was based on the book and like you could search through it. It was pretty cool, right? And I was like, he's like, can you get it to Tim? I'm like sure, I'll send him an email. So I sent him an email and he's like this is cool. And he looked at it and he's like we're not going to move forward with it for X, Y and Z reasons. Cool, great. Like you tried, right? It's not always going to work out. And that's not bad on Tim. That's not a bad on Miguel. Like he gave it a shot and the shot didn't connect. No big deal. But he got the attention of the person regardless who's very busy and hard to get a hold of as we know. Right?

Could have worked.

Could have worked, right? It was, it was the right shot. It just didn't work out. And it was not anything outside of Miguel's control. But guess what? If he does that 10 times.

It'S.

Going to work out. You're going to get that one that's just a banger, right? And we won't talk about the failures. Nobody cares about the failures. It's the fact that you keep trying to. Right? And the right one at the right time could be a million dollar thing or more. Right. You just Never know the right deal, the right connection, the right person at the right time could change your life. So that's what I want to really reiterate for people is like, hey, you know, at the end of the day, what we're doing here is we're taking calculated risks and we're taking shots that are towards our goals to connect with people who have more bandwidth or, sorry, more pipeline than we could ever even imagine. And we do that in ways that, that, you know, utilize our talents and things that we'd already want to do anyway. Like, Miguel already loved creating videos. He was already doing that. He already had a business doing that. So why not just do that for the people that are like the crazy people? Because then everybody else who goes and says, oh, crap, he did these videos for all the Y Combinator is going to hire him, right? Because he took that first shot. It's like the best marketing you could ever get. You know, like, anytime somebody is like, I don't know, what do you think about the three people who they worked with? And I send them a crazy client list of like 30 people that are amazing. They're like, oh, objection. Solved, Right? You can either be the best or not. And like, that's how you get to be the best, is sometimes just doing free work. And Charlie Hone, who again, I met through Tim, he was his director of special projects, worked with Tucker Max, or meet Sati and Seth Godin and all these really incredible people before going on his own, wrote two books that I think are really great. One's called Play It Away. It's not really the conversation we're having now, but he wrote this article about free work. I don't know if you could still find it. I think it's on Google somewhere where he talks about how he got in front of all these people and became indispensable to their organizations, was through doing just this, right? So these strategies, they work, but it's not like every single time it's going to work and put all your eggs in one basket. It's like a identify 10, do 10. And if two work out, that's amazing. If one works out, you're still in the game, right? But it's unlikely that zero will work out if you really put your heart and soul into them. Uh, maybe five will work out, I don't know. But it's, you know, you're playing the odds there. And then you're in a position where you are in somebody's pipeline who has more than they could ever, you know, like I have more deals than I could ever look at. I have more opportunities, more clients. Like, I have more stuff that I can ever look at at this stage. And I'm only looking to go bigger. So, like, I'm on the rise. I'm working. I'm still working every day to do that, but, like, I'm pretty established at this point. After 10 years of, you know, finally an overnight success, there's plenty of people that are a lot further along than me that I can dive into. So, like, I don't know, for example, if I start a mastermind, Rich Sheffrin, you know, we partner up on that, and he can't do it. He doesn't have the bandwidth. But he has an opportunity and he wants to help. He wants to create something that didn't exist before. Well, I can just step right into those shoes. I'm the guy, right? I've already done the bestselling book and been the top affiliate and spoke and trained for Tony Robbins and did this 10,000 hours myself and built all these masterminds and helped hundreds of people do it, and 2 comma club and all this crap. Like, I don't know anybody else who's done more crap with masterminds than I have. I just don't. Or at least they're not. They're not identifying themselves.

I've been following you for years. Since that time we met at the. At that. Since we got coffee together.

And that wasn't 100 years ago. That was how many years ago, before I even started all this stuff. Like, it doesn't take. Yeah, it doesn't take two decades to get to the top of your game. You can do it in three to five years. But you gotta start. You gotta. You gotta really think about it every day. Same thing with anything, right? And I think it's really more of a function of the relationships you can build as quickly as possible. And then once you have that. I think the two most influential things that I found are authority and novelty. If you can become an authority and you can do something that's new and exciting, you got people's attention. That's it. Those two things, everything else, influence wise, persuasion wise, comes from those two things. And you can't always manufacture both at the same time, but if you can manufacture one, you're well on your way to manufacturing the other.

Got it. Really loving this interview. All right, next question. All right. How this might be. This might be kind of. This might be a little vague, but how does the way that you message the person change? Over the course of the relationship. And I'm going to box that with another question. How personally or unfiltered do you become with a person?

Yeah, you want to know.

And like, how do you even. Yeah, and like, how do you navigate that?

You want to know a secret? Everybody's weird. Yeah, everybody's a weirdo in their way, right? My girlfriend and I are fucking weird. We're weird people. My mother in law, Susan, she's a wonderful lady. She came and visited with Scott, her father, and spent the weekend with us, and we had a really good time. And at the end she's like, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you guys are weird. Like, we know, and our weirdness works for each other. And guess what? Your weirdness is not always going to match with everybody else's weirdness. But find the weird. That's where people are, like, not polished gems on a mantle piece. They're just people.

All right?

Find that. And like, what, what that means. Like, Cole Gordon, who a lot of people know is a friend of mine. And I met him when he first left traffic and funnels. And now I've met Taylor and been part of his mastermind and got to connect with him and, you know, like all this stuff. But like, early on when Cole was kind of figuring out this entrepreneurship thing, he had already had like an incredible amount of talent from selling and working with Taylor. He already used to write copy. Like, he was a real triple threat. That's why he grew so fast, in my opinion, is like, you know, he's obviously a hard worker. So he's like a. I call him the. I call him the honey badger. Like, he's obviously a hard worker, right? He obviously can sell, he obviously can write copy, and he obviously can lead people. So he's built a really incredible organization. $30 million a year in record time, like three years, right? Which is amazing. But even he, in the beginning was. Was figuring out like, hey, man, like, how do you know all these people? Like, cause I make it look effortless that I just happen to know all these people. I don't make a big deal out of it. He's like, how do you do it? I'm like, okay, well, I'll show you. Like, I basically, like, I brought him to an event with Oren Claff, you know, as my guest or whatever. And we went to this. It was right before COVID happened. And we're sitting there and I just scrolled through my phone, I showed them all the text with Oren and like zero of them were about business. It was all like, what's your sleep score today? How's your kid? You know, like, what's this going on? What's that going on? Like I just be a friend to this person who is really freaking busy and really popular and a lot of people want their time. It's non threatening, it's like, you know, it's good. Like I love Oren. We're not like the exact same person. We have differences of lifestyle, differences of opinion, different values in some ways, but we really geeked out on like certain things and now, you know, we're talking about doing more business together because it's just, you know, who do you call when you need something that you can trust, that's competent, like you want to build that pack of people that are a players that can get shit done. And Oren sees that in me. I see that in Oren, obviously. And that's why we work. And I don't bug them all the time. But if you like go back over our history over many years, I don't remember how we got connected, you know, I'm never like badgering him for shit. But when I need something, occasionally I'll reach out and say, hey, what do you think of this? Which leads me to my next thing. I don't ask the people for things. Typically I ask for advice. I don't ask people to invest in my companies. I ask them for feedback on my pitch. I don't ask people to become my client on my new offer. I ask them for market research.

Right?

I always make the non threatening, don't put you on the spot, ask. Because when you ask for advice, you win twice. You get the advice and maybe you got a client out of it because you're planting the seed of the idea in their brain. You're not forcing it, you're allowing it to become their idea. Like oh yeah, I want that or oh yeah, I want to invest in that versus oh, you know, when you push on somebody, they push back. When you allow somebody, they come right towards you.

Got it, got it.

So I think that's a really key point is like, hey, I'm not, I don't have any agenda, you know, I'm not like trying to get something out of somebody the second I meet them. I'm just collecting a stable, if you will, of superheroes, right? I'm assembling the Avengers so that one day if the world is under attack, I can, I can call on the Avengers or one day I need to achieve Something that's very important. I can call on the Avengers because I built it before I need it. And I'm always seeking to add value before I get anything in return. And I think just those principles by themselves will change the way you do networking forever. And it'll be a fun, exciting game because now you get to show up in service. I have a deep faith and belief in God I don't, like, ascribe to. The best way to not be Catholic when you grow up is to be raised Catholic and go to Catholic school. So I'm not really like traditional religion, but I believe that there's a spiritual being that unites us all. And. And I don't know what that is, but I believe that when you show up in service of that, and you show up as an instrument of that, magic starts to happen for you. When you show up to give and contribute, magic happens for you. And the best way to 10x your investment on anything is to give first. That's what I believe, right? So I just do that, and I try to, again, filter that through. Am I. Am I crying for help or am I giving loving responses? Because people have needs. We are all needy. And if you can put off your needs and without being a martyr, make sure people get what they need, not always what they want. By the way, you know, there's a difference between being a supplicant and being kind or being, you know, a martyr or being a miser. You know, like, there's. There's lines, there's extremes here. We want to find the happy medium. But I think if you can just show up in service and really focus on getting clear on what people's problems are and then connecting resources, opportunities, people, and systems. I have this acronym. It's called Seeds and Crops. I do some masterminds. I do this with people.

Right?

Seek in every encounter to diagnose, serve, support, and solve by connecting resources, opportunities, people, and systems together. That's seeds and crops. Seek in every encounter to diagnose, serve, support, and solve by. Create by connecting resources, opportunities, people and systems together. That's how you add value, in my opinion. So it's the. The clarity with the right solution at the right time.

So it looks like we have one more minute. Do you have. Do you have a deeply. Maybe not. Maybe not super deeply, but do you have, like a personal slash intimate question in you?

The question I ask people most often is, what are you excited about right now, where they're from? I don't ask them. I don't care. Like that's data, right? That's not who they are, where they're born, what they do for, like that's, that's like a hint, but it's not the whole thing. It's like, what are you excited about right now? What. Keep, you know, we'll get you out of bed in the morning. Like, those are the excited, what are you grateful for in your life? Those are questions that get to the heart of somebody. And then there are conversational threads as well, so they'll answer that question. It'll give me three other questions I can ask. But it's a good starting point. And I've noticed that my aversion, like, I hate small talk. I really hate it. I want to go deep with people fast. Has led me to thinking up some really great questions and to be entertaining. And I haven't even talked about humor in any of this, right? So, like, I'm always trying to make the joke that's maybe a little crude or maybe a little shocking or whatever.

I'm always trying, I'm always trying to push and find.

Yeah, it's an art. I'm not saying that's right for everybody or every situation, but I'm always trying to make people laugh at their level, right? It could be the nerdiest, goofiest, cleanest joke, the dad joke. Or it could be this most savage, sarcastic, you know, dead babies in a blender kind of joke. Like, it could be that, you know, you just got to figure out what you're, what you're dealing with. But if you can make somebody's laugh and figure out what their preference is and make them laugh like you own it, like, that's, that's you win right there.

Got it.

Like, I only start to relax with a conversation with somebody when they start to laugh.

Same, same. That's what always makes me comfortable.

So that's my goal. I want to make them laugh. And I don't always know that I'm doing that purposely, but, like, that's, that's one of the things I'm always trying to do, uh, even to the point where, like, I have a few one liners when I start my speeches now just to ease the tension in the room. Like, I'm going to give a speech to 800 finance people, private wealth managers, family offices, on Tuesday and Wednesday in Rhode Island. And my opening line is, my name is Brad Hart. I'm from Long Island. My pronouns are you and you. And my love language is sarcasm, right? I get the whole audience laughing and like, what the Hell is this guy talking about? But then it eases the tension, and now I can actually keep their attention.

You and yous.

Good line. And I've tested it, and it works. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna stick with that.

Yeah, I was about. I was about to put my pronouns on this thing as just dude. Just Blake slash dude. That's funny.

So be who you are. I think people want to embrace that. If you show it right, if you just give them that stilted, polished business Brad. Like, nobody wants business Brad. They want real Brad. Nobody wants business Blake. They want real Blake. And, yeah, you got to modulate your behavior based on appropriate situations or not. But people want to like people who are funny, who are smart, who are sharp, who care about their needs versus their own, who. Who pay attention to what is important to them. Like, they want to do that. We're wired to do that, and they want to reciprocate that. If you show it first. So you got to go first.

Makes sense. Okay, so it's 10:18. Is that all the. Is that all the time we have.

Or we go a few more minutes? So another thing I was asking people is, how can I help? Right? How can I help?

How can I help?

That's it. How can I help?

Who do you ask that to, and under what circumstances do I want to help?

You know, if they got a problem, if they're. They're excited about something, they don't know what to do next or whatever, how can I help? I might ask clarifying questions to get really clear what it is and how can I help?

Okay.

If I don't know how I can help that person, maybe I'll find somebody in my network who can. Or I'll ask on Facebook. Facebook is like the magical genie lamp. I've been building it for years to the point where basically any problem I have with very few problems. This has actually been a year where I've had a lot of ongoing problems I haven't been able to solve because I'm pushing myself in ways I never pushed myself before. Like, I'm launching multiple companies right now. I'm launching a fund. I'm launching three blockchain projects. I'm launching new offers and building my team and growing. It's like there's, like, things I know I could solve if I just can focus 100% of my energy on very quickly. And there's things that I can't solve yet because they don't exist or that the solutions are so few and far between. It's not going to go down to my local neighborhood dollar store and get a crypto auditor that's legit and will actually audit my fund. Right. So there's stuff I just. I have to learn to have patience and again, trust God that it's going to work out in the timing that it needs to. I always, always, always look for the good in every situation, and I get frustrated a lot. Like, that's my not self theme. Right. If you look at human design, I'm a manifesting generator. I like a lot of stuff going on, and I get frustrated when I feel like I'm not in momentum. But I've learned to look for the good in every situation, or at least try to. I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm working on it.

It's fantastic. Fantastic.

You want to wrap the sucker up?

Yeah, I do.

Great. If you've been watching this interview live, hashtag live. If you've been watching the replay, hashtag replay. I want to say thank you to Blake for. For offering to do this, for being open and flexible to. To both of our needs, for showing up in service. And tell us what you do, Blake. And if anybody is listening that can help, I would love that.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. So I'm. I'm an operations guy. I help people build organizations and train people, hire people to just like, I try to get people to automate themselves out of their own businesses. So business owners. I know people end up taking on a lot of tasks. I help. I help you figure out how to get somebody else to accomplish those tasks.

There you go.

I also want to save time trucking logistics.

Yeah. You understand how to get things and people and places moving stuff from one side of the world to the other on an ocean, on a boat, whatever it is. So, yeah, if anybody needs help streamlining their operations, then talk to Blake. Okay, that's it. Have a nice day, everybody. I hope you got value and love to hear your comments. All right, talk soon.

Thank you so much again.

Take care.