Super Connector Kelli Richards on Working with Steve Jobs and the Importance of Trust and Timing

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now.

Welcome to Make More Marvels.

My name is Brad Hart and I have this fun, super cool things. You're watching the video right now. I kind of look like Apocalypse now with a little bit of lighting. But I'm here today with Kelly Richards, who is a super connector between the worlds of Silicon Valley entertainment. Welcome to the show, Kelly.

Thank you so much, Brad. Great to be here with you.

Absolutely. And you know, I just love having folks who make their living and kind of really understand that people dynamic because I can basically wind you up like a top and just ask a great question and just let you go. So I'm going to do that right now. I'm going to ask you what's been your kind of heroine's journey so far for the people who haven't heard about you before, what you're up to in the world.

One of those rare people that knew what they wanted to do at the age of eight, which was to be a record producer. And I studied it in earnest all through high school, actually went to a school for learning to be a recording engineer and a record producer, and was promptly told when I got to Hollywood, sorry, no go, you're the wrong gender. But my passion was about, you know, bringing out the brilliance and creative talent, primarily musicians. And after getting lucky and going sideways into becoming a young A and R exec at a major record label, Los Angeles, working out of the Capitol Records tower, the famous round building, I wound up getting tapped to come home to my hometown of Cupertino, where Apple was the Wonka factory in the backyard. And wound up launching the music and entertainment division at Apple, which I ran for the 12 years of my tenure there, laying the foundation for what would later become itunes. And I was privileged in that I had Steve Jobs as my personal mentor from my days in high school all the way until not long before he left us.

Wow, that's incredible. So you have to work directly with the great Steve Jobs.

Indeed I did. For.

I want to dig into that a little bit. I didn't want to cut you out, but I'm just, I'm blown away.

That inspires so many people just to finish the journey. So I've sort of been blessed like a Forrest Gump journey to work with all manner of tech innovators, rock stars, celebrities, media execs, always living at the tip of the innovation sphere, bringing emerging technologies to the content world of Hollywood. And so I literally spend my days between Silicon Valley and Hollywood and have my whole career. I also started a company while I was at Apple with Todd Rundgren, the rock star and tech innovator in his own right. We birthed the earliest form of artist to fan direct engagement about 22 years ago in the mid-90s. That's just one example of many of where I've had a vision for where innovation and technology were headed. But then the crystal balls cracked about the timing of when it gets adopted. So that's been repeated time and again in my, in my career with VR, AI360, immersive audio, mobile. It goes on and on.

So would you say, Kelly, that you have dabbled in all of these various technological industries or do you kind of just, you know, gather these stories and hey, this is coming and you're more of an abandoned list or you're more.

Of a technical person? I have, I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm a deep techie, Brad. I'm a business development strategist so I can understand what the opportunity is in the market and then go make deals happen for the companies that I'm working with, typically ranging from funded startups all the way to Fortune 100 companies where I go in either as an advisor or as an acting head of or VP of business development strategy. So I've been working with all kinds of companies like that since leaving Apple and I've also been a couple other points to share to round out the picture. I've been a trusted advisor to high achieving individuals or those who aspire to be again typically out of tech or entertainment because those are my sandboxes. And what that means is when people just sold their company or maybe they're Forbes, 30 or 40, under 40 person or somebody who's way at the other end of the spectrum, wildly successful at the apex of their career, but they're at an inflection point, they want to make a transition. They don't know what's next or they might know what's next and they need a navigator. So I come in and work with them as a trusted advisor. I'm their coach, strategist and super connector to help them get from where they are today to where they want to go all the way making sure that they're crafting a life that really matters around their values. So that's that part of my life. Trusted advisor. And then finally I've been a talent producer. One side of the coin, other side of the coin. Celebrity wrangler for 30 years. So I've been the talent producer on award shows and celebrity fundraiser events and then the opposite of that, bringing talent to Silicon Valley. Celebrity wrangler to perform for various corporate events or private high net worth anniversaries or birthdays or what have you. So now you've got a better picture of the different facets of my work.

Absolutely. And I think it's really important for people at home to understand the depth and the breadth of your experience and all the amazing things you've accomplished. And I just want to say on behalf of everybody listening, congratulations on everything you've done. I guess the next logical thing to talk about is what are the next five to ten years for you look like? What are you trying to create in the world right now?

Well, thanks for asking, Brad. I mean I love what I do. Everything I just shared with you is by design. I crafted all those things and so I'm very much a renaissance person. I'm reluctant to let any of those things go. I left out the fourth table leg, duh. Which is being a thought leader like yourself. I've had a podcast series for well over five years, hundreds of interviews. I publish hundreds of articles in different key publications. I've published several books. So there's this whole speak at events. These are all this thought leadership stuff. So I don't know that much is going to change for me. I might weight things differently. I might. I expect I'll be doing more of the trusted advisor one on one work or maybe even with some groups because I really love that work the most. But I also love being a consultant leveraging my network as a super connector in service of companies that are driving emerging technologies need to have deals made with decision makers and influencers that are otherwise hard to reach.

So what I've noticed about people, people which I believe view to be, is that they tend to be less detail oriented. Now you said you're not as much of a techie personally. You really understand tech at a deep some of the ways you manage all of this, like how do you keep track of all these different relationships? How do you stay up to date with all these different people who are, you know, certainly busy in their own right. But what are some of the strategies you employ or the systems you use to make sure that you're not dropping the ball on any particular thing?

You know, honestly Brad, I've never dropped the ball. I'm proud to say. There might be times when I'm overbooked and I've taken on too much, but somehow time management and keeping in touch with my network just come naturally to me. So I do. I'm extremely organized, very disciplined. You know, I wish I could give you some actual tools that people could take, but really that's just my own personal system for doing what works and staying on top of everything.

A tool could be a notebook, it could be an index card. I mean, it doesn't have to be something crazier.

I mean, you know, honestly, we could all do better, myself included, in terms of creating structure and systems that can support us and being that much more productive. But my system is pretty straightforward. For better or worse, I use my calendar as my to do list and my calendar. So every day it's got all the things I need to get done, plus all the calls and meetings that are scheduled in my ical. Simple as that.

And then do you have a team to support you as well? Do you have an executive assistant or anything?

I do, Funny enough, For the first 12 years of running my business, and I'm about to celebrate the 20th anniversary. First 12 years, I try to do everything you. I try to do everything by myself. That was a fool's errand. I could not possibly have built the thought leadership part of my practice and run all my client work and run everything else I do by myself. So I finally got smart and hired a virtual assistant, and she carries a lot of the weight for me. I have two other regular staffers, if you like. One is an individual who's my show producer for the podcast series, and she does a whole lot of work in that regard, from booking to editing. And then I have a content marketing firm that helps me shape and publish the various articles I put out in different publications, primarily my ink.com column, but other publications as well. And there's no way I could keep up on all the content marketing stuff without. Without that. So those are my three vendors, if you like.

Now, do you find that these people gravitate towards you as a function of they want to work with you and be mentored by you, or do you find that you have to reach out and find these people?

No, I. None of them. None of those three reached out. Well, that's not true. The third one, the content marketing firm, did reach out to me. I don't mentor them. They are in service of me.

No, I get it 100%.

They're my team. I mean, I suppose I mentor them when that's necessary or desired, but that's not really the structure of that relationship. So, no, mostly they were happenstance. They came to me, they were recommended to me. In the third case, that content marketing firm found me.

I guess that leads into the next question, which is what I'm really digging for is what are the leadership lessons that you've learned over the years in working with a team and working with large organizations that you might want to impart upon our guests today?

Sure. A lot of it's just common sense, Brad, and probably not rocket science. You know, following up, you'd be surprised how rare that is. So when you make a commitment to somebody and you actually deliver on it, or you've met somebody and you actually follow up, you've had a call and you send a thank you afterwards saying, I'm so glad we met or talked, all of that counts for a whole lot. Your brand is absolutely the most critical part of your success in your career. And you need to create that brand. And once you've earned it, you've got to manage it and keep it sharp. So I think just some of those things, showing up, doing the work, following up, being someone that people can rely on that does what they say they're going to do is probably over 50% of the situation. Also, always be looking to add value. So that's another hallmark for me is whenever I'm out and about, if I see something that can serve someone in my network, I make sure they know about it right away. If I think of a connection I can make that's going to make a difference for somebody, I do that. Introduction When I'm looking to work with someone, either as a trusted advisor or as a consultant, my first order of business is to make sure that there's a fit and that I really can add value. If there's not a need and I can't add value, we move on. As far as leadership goes, I think you walk your talk. I think corporate culture is paramount. I wrote a book on it in terms of my time at Apple. The magic and moxie of Apple. An insider's view all about dissecting what makes the company great from a culture standpoint that other companies could and may want to emulate to their own success. So I think those are some key things. The biggest thing on leadership is walking your talk, setting an example and then following through. Being somebody that others can look up to, want to follow, and, you know, again, you walk your talk.

I've repeated Myself, no worries. This is beautiful because I think that demystifying this process for people. Right. Obviously you've been doing this a while and you've had a lot of wins under your belt and well deserved. But when you really break down to the core common steps, most people think it's some, you know, far off thing that they could never attain. It's really just those little bits every single day for year over year.

Yeah.

And just showing up as somebody that people can rely on, somebody that adds value. It's really not rocket surgery at the end of the day. It's just give a crap.

And I left out one important one which was maintaining the relationships. So people say, what's your one secret of success? One, just one. I would say I build and keep long term trusted relationships. That is the secret of my success as a super connector. I might not be in touch with a colleague for two, five or 10 years, but do you know what? They go up in the ranks in their own world and there will be a time when I need to reach out to them where I'll bring something of value to them and doing a service for a client at the same time. That's the power of having those deep relationships built. You don't need to be in touch with them all the time, just when you've got something relevant and a value to present to them.

I love it. And Kelly, let's talk war stories. What are some of the most proud moments? What are some of the biggest failures? Because I believe truly that, you know, people will respect you for your successes and certainly you've had a lot of those, but they'll love you for your failures because more people can relate to failure than they can to success.

Well, I think there's a couple of failures. We've talked about some successes, so I don't mind talking about the failures. And I agree with you. You need to fail in order to thrive. I don't know anyone in my entire network, living or dead, who had, who didn't fail multiple times, including the great and glorious Steve Jobs, who was, you know, obviously famously ousted out of his own company, but he came back even stronger. Right. So I myself, I have worked with countless startups that I believed in and I've been a part of many emerging technologies, all of which were too early. The startups wound up in the boneyard, the technology. Some are thankfully coming back at the right time in the market 20 years on. But I can't tell you how many times I've been a part of something that would Be deemed a failure just because the timing was off in the market or a founder, an early stage founder, first time got too arrogant and otherwise pushed investors away that showed up to write checks and imploded the company. Right. Leaving Apple when I did, in hindsight, was probably not the smartest move.

What year was that?

It was in the late 90s, not long after Steve came back. And it wasn't really my choice. I was involved with a toxic boss and frankly was pushed out. But I kept running through the halls saying, music is the holy grail. Music is the holy grail. Nobody wanted to embrace that at the time. And so.

And how right you were. Oh, my God.

Yeah, yeah, it was like Chicken Little. Right. But unfortunately, that was not the focus of the company when they were trying to save their life, you know, with one quarter left of cash remaining in the bank. And Steve, did it really get that dire? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And Steve had just come back, thank God, as I predicted he would again, nobody believed me. He's running two companies. Stop saying that. You know, he was running Pixar next, of course. But I had, I believed he would return because it was his company to kill or keep. You know, he built it as his baby and he would return. And he did, thank God. But I went out with the bathwater because of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Steve did away. Even if I had stayed, I would have been let go because Steve did away with all areas of the company, products and markets that he would have deemed irrelevant at that time to save the company. So it was five years after I left, before itunes launched. What was I going to do for five years? So I went a mile down the road, started my own company and kept my focus on music and entertainment, converging.

With technology, and that's huge. So let's talk about today and what do you see some of the bigger aspects of, you know, like what are you telling people, what kind of conversations you having with people right now about what the future is going to look like in your industries and the things that you're really excited about. What are you most excited about, I guess is coming?

Well, again, I'm most excited about the fact that I get to create my world and be of service and add value to my clients. Whether it is working with someone and helping them shape what's next as a trusted advisor, helping them create a life that matters to them, that is extremely fulfilling, as you can imagine, or whether it's being at the tip of the spear of a technology that has Game changing consequences, for example. And I'm. And again, these are technologies I saw coming 20 years ago, but the timing was off. I'm very involved with Venture, sorry with virtual reality and augmented reality right now. Vrar and also artificial intelligence, especially with regard to music. And also content protection for all types of content, primarily music, film and tv. Those are just three examples of technologies. I'm excited about that. I have been for a long time that are finally here to deliver primetime.

Right?

You got it. You got it. You said it.

Who do you really look up to in these spaces?

That's a funny question. I'm not sure I do because I'm so immersed in them as a peer to anybody I'd be working with side by side. I don't really put people on a pedestal.

No, I get that.

I'm not sure I can actually name people I look up to in that regard. Unfortunately, most of the people I did look up to have passed on. So I don't mean to sound old, but they were young. But you know, listen, I love Oprah. An obvious choice because she went from nothing to being incredibly impactful in the world from a transformation perspective. And I wouldn't be entrusted advisor or a certified coach if it hadn't been for watching Oprah do what she does. So that's a big role model. But otherwise, I mean, I respect almost everybody I work with in my worlds. People that have been very successful and some that for whatever reason didn't take off as big. You know, they weren't asteroids, but you know, maybe they, they still made an impact, a dent in the universe in their own way.

Absolutely. Kelly, we talk a lot about at make more marvels how people need a way to generate money. And that's certainly one of the things you do is you help basically create new industries and help people win in them, but also how to grow that money and give it back. What are some of the ways in which you're growing your wealth and also giving back?

In a way it's funny, I just published an article about philanthropy in Silicon Valley and how there is this trend towards social impact. For a long time that wasn't the case. And now we do see there were quiet high net worth families that were giving back like the Sobrato family in Silicon Valley, but the Gates foundation, you know, Bill didn't start that foundation until he married Melinda and well into his later in his career. Likewise with Mark Zuckerberg, with Priscilla Chan and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. So a lot of these guys didn't Start off to become philanthropists, but you make so much money and then what? Now it's time to look after everybody else. So for me personally, I get involved as I'm involved in a couple of nonprofits, one of which is called the Gratitude Network, which helps early stage entrepreneurs that are doing social impact work across multiple different industries by helping create connections to sources of funding and deal making for them to grow and expand their businesses. Because otherwise they wouldn't get on the radar or they might not. It might take a long time for them. So that's one way of giving back that I'm involved with.

Is that a local meetup? Is that something Silicon Valley specific?

It is Silicon Valley based, headquartered, but not specific. It has entrepreneurs with ventures that are global in scale and it's designed to impact a couple hundred million children over the next five years.

Wonderful.

With all the different companies, how can more yeah, go to gratitudenetwork.org awesome. To learn more about that. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you for the heads up. Sounds like our missions are very much aligned. Kelly, if you had a microphone that went direct into the ear of every male and female entrepreneur in the world right now, what would you say to those people?

I'd say don't try to go it alone. Every successful entrepreneur that I'm aware of has had strong advisors, coaching, mentors, obviously putting the right team around them to complement and shore up their own strengths. But beyond that, having an experienced mentor, advisor or a board of people like that can really ensure that entrepreneurs avoid making critical mistakes just out of ignorance or arrogance and can accelerate their growth cycle. So I would strongly encourage everybody to look for someone like that.

Yeah, everybody loves the story of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Richard Branson, but that's one person, right? They're a visionary. Certainly they're setting the pace for innovation. At the end of the day, hundreds of thousands of people go into creating that vision.

How about millions.

End up consuming those products and services? Some of the bigger ones, they touch a billion people. Like the Facebook crap. So yeah, it's a bigger story than just one person. But I think as human beings, we kind of, we think about things linearly and locally and we tend to gravitate towards the identity of one character versus their part in the whole.

Exactly right. Exactly right. It takes a village to build a successful company. It really does. Of really bright people.

What are some of the things you gleaned from working with Steve directly that you'd like to share with us today?

You know, honestly, there were a lot over many years My favorite part of how we interacted was walking meetings, which he kind of pioneered. I think it's now very popular to do that, where people are just side by side as peers as opposed to sitting across a desk from somebody. So whenever I can with my clients, I really love it if we can get out and walk side by side, solve problems that way, talk through issues. But one of the things that he gave me, well, he gave me a couple that I want to share in this context. One was the ability to discern very quickly, to tune up my radar in terms of who to make time for what ventures to get involved with, whether something was going to be worth my time or not really valuing my time because you can make another dollar but you can't make another minute. So I've got a very finely tuned barometer about what to invest time in. And I manage my time pretty carefully accordingly. Also trusting your intuition. I got off flight 93. I was booked on one of those flights that went down on 911 and I was supposed to be working on a Michael Jackson concert honoring Michael's 30th anniversary in the industry in New York. And the second show, it was a two night show, the third day was going to be 911 where I was booked to fly from Newark to San Francisco on 93. And I didn't get on the flight, which saved my life obviously. But the reason I didn't get on the flight was because Steve instilled in me the importance of honoring my intuition. And that's probably the most extreme example of when I did that to my own benefit.

Could you tell us the story a little bit about how that felt and what came up for you in that day and what led to you?

Well, yeah, I mean, I was nudged quiet voices, as they say, with intuition for weeks before going to New York. I didn't even go to New York. I had a terrible, terrible feeling that something bad was going to happen. And I was nudged gently at first and then like a brick wall to cancel my plans, which was really hard because it was going to be a high point in my career to work with Michael Jackson. And I finally got the message. I said, I don't know why, but I'm canceling the trip. And then on 911 I was sitting next to my grandmother who was then, oh gosh, almost 100, watching the first plane hit the building and then watching the second, or I guess we had just missed the first building. We were watching the second hit and realizing, oh my God, look at the date, look at Your ticket. I was on that fourth flight 93 that didn't make it. So that was chilling, but it was also incredibly validating that I had honored my intuition. If you really want to know what Steve's insights were, watch that very public speech that he gave as a Stanford commencement speech that millions have watched in the time since. Steve is a very private person. In that 15 minutes, you will hear a lot of what I learned and experienced personally, where he made public the key points that I'm sharing a couple of with you right now. But, you know, that's really how to get insights into the man himself and to get his best advice.

That was a beautiful, beautiful speech. And one of the quotes that I live my life by is, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them going back.

I use that all the time as a dot connect, as a professional dot connector. But I do love that quote a lot. I really, really do. That's beautiful, and it's so true.

It really is. Everything that's ever come into my life has been a result of things that made no sense at the time or.

That looked like a tragedy, or, you know, accidents or people winding up paralyzed and then they wind up curing some incurable disease as a result. You know, Michael J. Fox with Parkinson's is a great example. I mean, there was this guy at the apex of his career, got taken out, so now he's going to help find a cure for Parkinson's as a result. We don't know why these things happen to us, but it's up to us to make lemonade out of lemons.

That's right. That's right. And if you have that attitude, then if. You know, I always say, famously, if you can be grateful for your pain, then what the heck can stop you? It provides which you can then be grateful for the things that you do have. One of the things that people say a lot, and you've made a lot of very successful people in your life, is don't meet your heroes. You might be disappointed. Who are some of the people that you were really just blown away by how genuine they were behind the Persona?

Well, Michael Jackson's a great example of that. I mean, if you ever had a chance to sit with him, you would get to experience that firsthand. Very shy, very introverted, but very kind and easy to talk with. I had the opposite experience at times with Prince. Prince would call me from time to time and ask for my input on a certain technology or a business model. He was thinking about going into. And I would get so excited when I see Paisley park on the Caller ideal. Oh, here comes Prince. What does he want today? But sometimes it was a big pain in the butt, like when he called me to get the CEO of Napster on the phone to take his songs down and I tried to explain to him that they were just going to get put right back up because that was the nature of Napster. It wasn't the company, it was the people using the 70 million people using the program. But in reality, I don't think I've ever dealt with anybody who was such a pain that I just didn't want to deal with them ever again. I try to keep clear of toxic people that are going to be vampires of time and energy, but luckily I haven't come across too many of those that I just don't ever want to talk to again.

Well, I'm just grateful on behalf of everybody at the show and Make More Marvel's community that you decided to invest your time with us today. And I'm just really grateful and appreciative.

It's my pleasure, Brad.

Thank you. Kelly. I want to just give you an opportunity to maybe talk about some of the things that you, you want to create in the world or some of the things that you're working on right now that maybe we can help with. I mean, here at Make More Marvels, we're all about winning more through collaboration.

Yep.

So that looks like to us is what's a connection, what's a resource, what's an opportunity, Who's a person or maybe a system that can help you move your mission forward faster?

Well, I'm always looking for better tools for time management and to optimize productivity. There's no doubt about that. But honestly, the very best thing you can do, Brad, or anybody listening or watching this, my success and my ability to make a difference in the world is all referral based. So if there's somebody out there listening where I can add value to your company and help you support the right strategy for your growth and accelerate your success as a company in my role as a consultant, I'd love to talk with you. If by the same token, you're an individual who is already a high achiever or aspires to become one and would like support one on one in kind of talking through what's going on in your world, what comes next, what you'd like to make happen, that's my role as a trusted advisor. Referrals in both cases are very welcome. Also, if you have A budget. And you want to engage celebrities or artists to perform at your company function or a private event, I'm probably the best person to reach out to. That's why I call my company the All Access Group.

I love it. And how would people reach out if they had a referral or they needed.

Yeah, just contact me, send an email to. I've got two websites, kellerichards.com, kelly with an I is my trusted advisor site. The All Access Group, or AllAccessGroup.com is my consulting site. And if you want to reach out to me for any reason, just send an email to infollaccessgroup.com Done.

Absolutely. And I'm sure people will be reaching out. Kelly, let me ask you a question. What are some of the craziest stories from all your time working with celebrities in Hollywood? Just, let's. Let's have some fun here. What are your favorites?

Oh, boy. You picked the wrong person to tell stories. I'm, you know, known to keep my mouth shut. That's another hallmark of success.

There you go. There's another hallmark of success.

Honestly, I don't. I don't talk stories.

Funny stuff.

There is some funny stuff, but I don't do that, because if I did, I'd never work in this town again. Sorry to disappoint you on that one, Brad.

I get it. Hey, you gotta ask, right?

Yeah.

Okay, well, let's. Let's be creative here. So talk about your life growing up. Talk about your home life, and.

Well, oddly enough, that's a funny story, because I did. Cupertino, where Apple is headquartered, is my hometown. Yeah. So I literally grew up among orchards. Cherries, apricots, plums, peaches. I literally picked apricots to lay out on trays to dry as a summer job, where I later worked in a building, an apple building on the same ground. Now, if that's not the definition of roots, I'm not sure what is. I'm not sure why I'm still here, because I've tried to move away several times, but it just. I'm in the heart of innovation here in Silicon Valley. I'm still within a mile of the two campuses at Apple. I'm just like. I can't seem to escape the gravity pull of the mother ship. I don't know why that's true, but.

Yeah, I mean, every single type of tree or fruit but an apple, they have apple orchards.

Well, not so much in Cupertino. That's crazy. Maybe other parts of the valley, but no, we were known for Stone fruit here, you know, the ones with pits. That's really what created the. It's the bread basket of the valley here. But no, I mean, I just, as I told you earlier, I was one of those prescient kids that always knew what I wanted to do. And I was deadly serious as a teenager. I probably could have had more fun, but I was fiercely focused on music and technology and that's really become a touchstone throughout a through line throughout my whole career, as well as making a difference in people's lives before I knew what coaching was, you know, just being a good listener.

What would be your most unpopular opinion if somebody were to ask you and like, what's the most contradictory thing that you have to say to the world?

Well, I'm not the biggest Trump fan, but that's not going to be too exciting.

Not a shocker.

I've always been a contrarian. That again, is a through line. I've always gone left when others have gone right. I've always taken the road less traveled. I mean, you know, you heard me tell the story at my own peril about seeing the vision for music at Apple and being told, you're crazy. We're not going to focus on that or, you know, working with Todd in the mid-90s on direct to fan. What do you mean? Artists are going direct to fan? What do you mean? They're not going to use record labels. So that's always been my, you know, my claim to fame as being a contrarian. I'm not sure I'm not far off in terms of the world I operate in. I'm very sort of left leaning in my political and world views. And I. And so are most of the people around me in California and Silicon Valley and, you know, Marin, San Francisco Bay area in general, even Los Angeles. I mean, I. I'm not sure I stand out in terms of my belief systems. I do believe in the universe and I don't know that a lot of people really go there, but I do believe that we're not here by ourselves. I think that we have support from forces beyond ourselves, whatever name you want to give that. And that defines a lot of who I am in the world and how I operate in my work with people.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster, if you will.

That's hysterical.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're absolutely onto something there. I think spirituality has to play a role.

Right.

If you talk about being a DOT connector and everything starting to make sense over time, then, you know, by and large I think you'd have to believe that there's something bigger to all of this. We're all connected somehow.

Well, you're absolutely right, and I do. And that's why I chose the two individuals I did with their coaching programs to get certified, because they're both spiritually based people. Alan Cohen and Debbie Ford. Debbie's moved on. But, yeah, I mean, spirituality is foundational, and I think a lot more people are embracing it the more time goes on. You know, when I was a kid, we had the Fifth Dimension singing about the Age of Aquarius, and people like, what the heck are they talking about? And now 50 years on, I think that people are embracing what the impact of that is. Absolutely.

And of the people you've been able to interview over the years, who have been some of your favorite interviews that people can check out from your podcast?

Yeah. Boy, I have had so many. I think one that I especially loved was God. Let me think about that. Oh, a relatively recent one. One with a member of the band Styx. I had intended to interview Tommy Shaw, the leader, but he was not available, so he wound up sending the keyboard player, Lawrence Gowen. And Lawrence has been with the band for 20 years. We had more fun on that interview than a barrel of monkeys. I mean, we talked about everything. The guy is incredibly sharp, smart, funny, intellectual, and we really talked about all manner of things. That's a really fun interview. Also, I just recently interviewed Todd Rundgren, my longtime collaborator, who should have been, like, in the first 10 interviews, but instead it was like, number 500. If you listen to one of a couple of interviews with Ty Roberts, one of my very best friends and other fellow music tech, digital music pioneer. Those are fabulous and fun. So just a couple of starters to tease out.

I love it. Yeah. Wanted to find your podcast where it's on itunes.

Yeah, it's called All Access Radio, and you find it on itunes. Or the episodes are also sourced in an archive@allaccessgroup.com under Resources.

Now, I know that you don't have any trouble connecting to people, but if there was one person that you'd really love to get to, that you could connect to, who would it be?

You know, again, I hate to sound like a. Like a boring, broken record, but probably the one person that's alive that I have not had the fortune of spending time with, who I know I would love to is Oprah.

Okay.

And it's not, because she's who she is, and I put her on a pedestal, because I don't. I honestly think we'd have a peer to peer conversation, probably cooking meal together because we share a lot of the same worldview. And I just think we'd have a ball. We have so much in common.

If anybody's listening and knows Oprah.

There aren't too many other people that I have not actually connected with that I have wanted to. Many musicians have passed on in the last five, six years that I have had the good fortune of either working with or interviewing or spending time with in one form or fashion. I was just thinking about David Cassidy last week. Sorry. He passed away now two weeks ago, right before Thanksgiving. And I had the biggest crush on that guy when I was a little kid in the Partridge Family, you know, and in my role as a talent producer, booking presenters and performers for award shows over the years, which I've done for like three decades, I booked a lot of my heroes just so I could have a chance to hang out and spend time with them. He was one, you know, and I'm really glad I did because a lot of them moved on.

I want to get you connected with some people you may not know who are also super Connectors, if that's okay.

I would welcome that. You bet. Come on. Super Connectors love to connect with Super Connectors. I don't even know it was a term. People have to call you one, by the way. It's awfully arrogant to call yourself one. So if somebody hadn't called me one, I wouldn't use that label myself. But. But yeah, they're out there now. It's a thing. And I've met several of them. In fact, I even got interviewed on the Super Connector podcast.

I haven't heard of that one yet. There is one who's the host of that.

I cannot recall her name. It was about a year ago and she was in Australia. I'd have to look it up, but it was kind of funny.

Yeah, it's funny. Like the people all go to network and they do it very inefficiently. I always tell people, use the hub and spoke. Right. Find the hubs in any community or any industry or any vertical you're looking for, you know, like yourself, Kelly, that would know, you know, that. That meeting between entertainment and Silicon Valley.

Yeah.

For example. Or Dave Meltzer is another great example. Somebody who's really great in sports and philanthropy. You know, there's. There's so many others, but like, Keith Rossi is another example.

Exactly. Yeah.

If you want to. If you want to just meet, you know, because then you can manage 5 or 10 relationships in each industry and not 500 in each industry.

And by the way, that Keith, for what a great guy in terms of coming up with that notion of never eating lunch alone. You know, I don't know why people are so afraid of approaching a stranger somewhere. If you don't want to sit alone, look for somebody interesting and see if you can't strike up a conversation. You never know where that could lead. I can't tell you how many happy accidents I've had on airplanes doing that. And I've written an article about that which is archived somewhere. But just happy accidents on planes where you wind up connecting with someone. That's one degree of separation from somebody you want to meet or they become a client or they refer you to somebody else. It's happened time and again just by opening your mouth and not hiding behind your book or whatever you're watching on your iPhone or your iPad.

We had a great guest on named Zachary Hall. He's a younger guy, but he wrote a book called Never Sleep on Planes.

There you go.

Very much that message. And I recommend listening. Check out that interview. Zach's a lot of fun, high energy. He's actually a mascot for a popular sports team. I won't tell you which one, but.

Well, Brad, I'm curious to ask you a question. How can I best support you and your listeners or viewers?

That's a great question. And Kelly, actually, believe it or not, I set out to do this as a make more marbles came out of this concept. I used to work in real estate and finance, which are both very zero sum game industries. Right. Only so much room in every deal or every trade or every investment. And what I was thinking one day was, hey, why don't we just stop being the Hungry Hungry Hippos and grab for all the marbles and instead try to make more marbles. And this message of collaboration amongst entrepreneurs, investors and philanthropists has been kind of my life's work ever since. And I run other companies as well. But this is, you know, certainly the most public facing. And what really stood out to me was this goal of like, okay, can we reach a million people? And I'm proud to say that we've actually done that. Like over a million people have been, congratulations.

Wow.

And now I guess the next phase or iteration of the company is like building that back end business model which has been a fun leadership challenge. To grow it, we do the master mentorship portion, which is, as you said earlier, is the number one thing. If I had to throw every, you know, tools but two away, it would be Masterminding and mentorship and it's a fun alliteration. Make more marbles. Masterminding, mentorship.

Love it, love it.

Messaging. So there you go. But if I were to try to get to the next level, I mean I've been published in Forbes now a bunch of times and we're talking entrepreneur. We just got approved for Thrive Global and HuffPost. I think more like that. Like Entrepreneur Inc. I've met a lot of the people but it just hasn't quite clicked yet or we haven't quite found the niche or the hole that we can fill.

Kind of building out your brand more, huh? Yeah.

I really see Make More Marvels as a media company one day because I perceive in my hallucination in the world that there's so much negative messaging and just not enough positive, inspiring, uplifting messaging. I truly believe that entrepreneurs, investors and fortunes philanthropists can win more and grow the pie. Right. That's a backwards for each other as well as themselves by just working together as opposed to competing with one another.

And actually make a difference in the globe. Right?

Exactly. So if we're going to solve the existential challenges and crises of humanity in a sustainable way, we all need to be working together towards outcome. But first you have to think it's possible.

Yep. So anything so well said. It starts with your belief systems. If you can't, if you can't conceive it, how will you ever get there?

Exactly. Well, and one of the books that changed my life in addition to Never Eat Alone and a few others. I'd love to get some more recommendations on books by the way, if we have time.

Sure.

Is a book called Abundance by Peter Diamandis and his follow up book which literally changed the way I look at the world forever. And that was planted. And I got to meet Peter this year. I was super excited. I got him a few photos with him and whatnot. At his mastermind. Abundance 360. It's just realizing that we now have the technology to provide for more people than we've ever done in the world before. So like for example, the United States produces enough food every day to feed the world for a week.

Wow.

There's no incentives and there's no distribution. A billionaire from the five Hour Energy empire. I can't pronounce his name. I'm going to butcher it if I try. But he's giving all his money into clean water technology and energy technology. Elon Musk is another great example. Through Tesla solar and power and battery storage. And then finally shelter 3D printing and other technologies have created opportunities to create shelter at a reasonable cost for everybody. So my whole crazy vision is how do we light the fuse? And by fuse I mean fews food, energy, water and shelter. How do we get that basic and sustainable and affordable for every human being on planet Earth? And from that place, if we're not living in scarcity and worrying about our very basic needs, what can we create? Most people spend all their time just surviving.

Yes, very true.

That was all unleashed. What if you let the fuse of human creativity. You talk about Age of Aquarius, this is like 2.0, 3.0, there's no doubt about it.

And now we have the means to actually get there. We have the mindset in mass and we have innovative leaders who can really take it all the way. And I, and I would say if you would like a couple of book examples. Sure, I'd love to share a couple with you in the remaining time we have. I don't. You're managing the time. I know, but I keep them on my shelf at all times. Right. You know, I'm a book. I read two books a week, but there's a handful that I keep up for permanent reference right above me here. And one of them is called Thrive. I have two living mentors. They're both named Alan. Yeah, there you, here's yours. Alan Weiss is one of my mentors. He's got. Both of these mentors have at least 30 books that they've written, each translated into many languages. Globally they're best selling authors. Alan Weiss is a book I'd like to recommend called Stop Wishing youg Life Away. And Alan Cohen, one of his many dec. You know, 30 some odd books is called Enough Already and it's the art of being content with what you have. The third book I'd like to recommend is called Straight Line Tools for Living With Velocity and Power in Turbulent Times by my colleague Dusan Jukich. D U S A N D J U K I C H Three very powerful books. So powerful that I usually wind up giving them to my collection clients that I work with as trusted advisor. So how's that for starters?

Yeah, I'll be digging into those for sure. And thank you very much.

Yeah, you got it.

You mentioned the idea of being content with enough in your life. And one of the funny jokes that one of my mentors told me was, hey Brad, you're always making more marbles. Why don't you stop stressing out so much? When are you going to have enough marbles and it got me thinking. I'm like, you know what that food, energy, water and shelter thing. One day we will have made enough marbles for everybody and then we can finally stop. Right. Because a mission without an end date is not a mission at all.

That's for sure. Yeah.

One day we will have made enough marbles, we can finally stop.

And then you'll come to me and we'll talk about what's next.

Yes. And hopefully we'll all have a lot more time, energy and attention to focus on the bigger challenges and the bigger creative issues and the bigger abilities that we have, you know, our God given gifts that, you know, unfortunately are squandered so much.

Well, I think both of us are kind of living the dream, Brad, in terms of having that life, what matters in our lives, we're actually living it in alignment with our own values. And I don't think a lot of people are actually doing that. I think their goal has been to make a lot of money. When they've done that, whether they're 37, 47 or 57, it's look around and say what's next? What really matters.

Is that it? Yeah. I've hit the. I'm sure you're a Tony Robbins fan. I saw some of his languaging on your. On your website.

But there's been an influence over the years.

Yeah, yeah. There's one thing that Tony says that always hits me between the eyes is success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And I was, I was very fortunate to make a lot of money at a young age and just not be fulfilled. And that was actually the best thing that could have happened to me because I wouldn't be living the mission I'm living now and impacting the lives that I'm impacting. And it's not just me, it's all. It's the whole community. I can't even take responsibility for it. Sure, I lit the spark, but this has gone a lot further, a lot faster than I could ever anticipate it. And I'm truly a believer in the maxim that a leader creates more leaders, not more followers.

Yes. That's if you do it right. And mindfully. We haven't even talked about mindfulness. You have to be aware that you're doing mindfulness. I mean, you know, knowing what's going on around you and how you choose to show up in the world and how you choose to take action and understand the consequences, that's mindfulness. You know, really being in alignment with yourself day to day.

Kelly, I just Want to say how grateful I am on behalf of everybody in the community and everybody listening, please reach out. If you have somebody that, Kelly, can help change the world, because that's what we're here for is, you know, we want to create a better future for everybody, including ourselves, because we are people, after all. And, you know, if you have something that is burning inside you to create in the world, don't try to do it alone.

Right.

We geek out on different tools like wealth dynamics for a reason. Because everybody has their special gift. It's usually one of four things. Ideas, people, timing, or numbers.

Right.

And if you've got one of those, well, now you can find other people who have the others, and pretty soon you have a thriving. You have a good chance to thrive.

Listen, that would be the goal. Yeah, yeah. I love that formula.

And, you know, as we go through this crazy world, it's really easy to get down sometimes and. And think, oh, you know, well, what can I do? And I really. It rubs me the wrong way when somebody looks at a problem and says, somebody should do something about that. I'm like, well, aren't you somebody? But I understand where they're coming from because I used to be that person as well. And here's the thing. Everybody can do something. And when you start doing something, other people start showing up to help you.

And like you said earlier, don't try to do it alone. We isolate ourselves. And that's probably one of the biggest mistakes we can make. Even having one conversation with somebody can create a collaboration on a dime, and then miracles are possible.

One of my favorite. So Charles Darwin is quoted by saying, the survival of fittest is the number one predominant, you know, species winning formula, essentially. But it's when you read that book, and I have it on the shelf over there, the Origin of Species, he actually only talks about survival of the fish fittest about twice in the whole book. He talks about cooperation being the number one trait in successful species about 90 times.

Wow.

I don't know how that got transmuted into popular culture, but it did. I think it's part of that kind of fear mongering that happens and that is pervading our newsfeed nowadays. But just understanding that love and collaboration and cooperation is our number one chance as humans to do great things, and that no person in and of themselves is going to be great in a vacuum is the first step towards creating something amazing in this world.

Agreed. And while you're at it, be respectful of other people.

Absolutely. Well, Kelly, thank you so much. For being on the show. I'm going to just wind it down here. Do you have anything parting words to say?

Oh, I just want to thank you, Brad, for having me on the show. Truly, I've enjoyed our time time together. And to honor the people that you're serving with Make More Marbles, all your listeners and viewers, and the people that collectively we're all going to serve to.

Everybody'S advantage, thank you, Kelly. And thank you so much for being on the show. On behalf of everybody on the Make More Marbles podcast, thank you. Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles podcast. For more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing, abundant life in your health, wealth and relationships, whatever that means to you, head on over to make makemoremarbles.com check out our cool explainer video about what we're about and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play wherever you listen to your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.