Transform Your Business with Cutting-Edge AI Tools - PODCAST with Brad Hart & Mike Koenigs

Foreign to make more marvel. My name is Brad Hart and I am blessed and so excited to have Mike Koenigs on the podcast today. What's up Mike? How you doing today?

Good to be here with you, my friend.

Thank you for making the time. I know we've worked for most of this year to get this on the book, so I'm very excited to chat with you and there's a few things I have some notes on. But first I want to just really get a sense of, you know, what is, what is on your heart right now, what's, what's, you know, lighting up your soul. What are you excited about? What do you want to share with the people at home?

Well, I just finished up a something called a free zone meeting with strategic coach. So I've been in strategic coach for around 10 years now and I do a podcast with Dan Sullivan and we, one of the things that Dan does is we do these exercises, he calls them thinking exercises or thinking tools. And one of the things that I brought up today after he went through this really intense process and I shared something I think about a lot. But it really hit me hard today, which is simpler and fewer doesn't mean less. And to me the word more has to do with increasing value. So life gets better when I simplify. That means having harder rules, no messy middle, faster no's, slower yeses and deeper and more meaningful increases intimacy. So that's on my mind. And then the other thing that's on my mind, my 91 year old mother in law is staying with us right now, who I love and adore. She's amazing. What a gym.

That's beautiful. So she, let's see, 91, she would have been born, let's see, in 30, 32 or 33 or so, right.

Holocaust survivor, lives by herself still in Queens. Just a remarkable human being.

What a jam.

And then I'm a dad. Dad of a 21 year old young man who's dealing with 21 year old.

Young man challenges which are all encompassing for him and like, whatever. To us, it's another Tuesday for us, right?

Unbelievable. I mean it's really, this is a difficult time for a young man to be alive. Yeah, it's, I'll just, it's as simple as that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But those are the things that I'm thinking about right now and how do I just spend more time doing what I love and what I'm great at. And I've got 80 or a lot of 80 year old friends in my life right now. And I'm, I'm scared. I'm scared to lose some of my best friends because they're getting up in age and two of them are using walkers right now. And. And so, you know, I, My days are much more precious than they were 20 years ago.

Yeah, no, I feel you on that.

You asked.

I'm grateful. I'm grateful because I hate small talk. So this is like my way to cut to the heart of things, of like, what's actually going on. Because, you know, anytime you meet somebody, it's like, oh, yeah, talk about the weather, talk about where you're from, talk about what you're doing for a living. Who cares, right? It's like, what's the stuff that actually lights you up and gets you thinking and, and you know, I want to give a big shout out to Dan Sullivan, who's been in my sphere a lot lately, reading his books. Thank you, Dan. Yeah, everything you're doing with AI and the cutting edge of tech, I'm interested in all that stuff. But like, you know, when you, when you speak about what we're losing as a society, you know, one of the greatest generations ever to be, like, my grandfather was a World War II veteran and, and I took a Holocaust literature course in college and it changed the course of my life and how I thought about things in the world. It wasn't something that I even expected. I was just like, oh, this sounds like a fun elective. Nope, not fun elective. Horrifying, awful and life changing.

100%.

Yeah. So when you speak of these things, it touches a part of my soul that I think everybody can relate to is like, hey, yeah, we're talking about the cutting edge and the new and exciting and the shiny objects, but we don't want to lose track of what makes us who we are and what's exciting. And I'm grateful that your 21 year old son, what's his name?

Zach.

I'm grateful that Zach has a father like you to guide him through some of these challenges because at least you're a cool dad on the cutting edge. My dad was not equipped in any way, shape or form. I can remember when we got a cordless phone. Not even like, you know, we just upgraded from rotary. So not a cell phone, not a smartphone, a cordless phone. And he yelled at me for 15 minutes about how this thing doesn't take incoming calls. And I'm like, dad, I promise, just nobody's calling us yet. It reminded me of that old UCB bit where the guy got seven cell Phones, like, nobody's calling me. All these phones are broken. It's like, no, dude, you're just a loser.

Yeah, well, that's. Yeah. My parents growing up were very anti technology last to get a microwave. Computers were bad time sucking time, wasting things. And then my dad apologized to me for almost 30 years for how much of how luddite he was and how he, you know, because he saw I had a couple of pretty big wins, and it's like it was all about computers. I used to get a lot of crap from my. My cousins at the time, and, you know, they were big football fans and cars and, you know, whatever they were, they're great at sports. And then eventually you can't celebrate your high school touchdown pass when you're 50 years old and your knees don't work anymore. Yeah, I ain't making fun.

I'm just saying, yeah, we'll all get there. And I think it's so important, like, as fast as we're progressing as a society, we have a duty and an honor, I believe, to both cherish the past, learn from the lessons, and realize, like, hey, you know, we're all going to the same place. But there may be ways to alleviate some of the worst symptoms of. Of age, you know, dying of decay, and maybe extend our lives, which is really exciting. So we. We live in a really incredible time. And that's a perfect segue into some of the tech tools that you're really excited about. So before the interview, you share with me an article on success, which is really fun because I saw my wife' in there being advertised as well, which is a whole nother set of stories.

Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay, now, I was trying.

So the John Wooden course is obviously by John Wooden, but she actually did her little bit to it. She ghostwrites courses. So I thought that was really fun. And I got to catch up on some of the things you're doing with tech. And just generally, you're a helpful guy who has a lot of tools that you want to share with everybody, and I want you to share some of those as well. So why don't we just open up the floor and you kind of tell me what you're excited about, some of the tools that you're up to and what you're building and all that cool stuff.

All right, well, back to. I'll go back to a little Dan Sullivan in here and. And strategic coaching, which was this past year was remarkable because my wife Vivian would say, finally, you've got some tools that Keep up with your creativity. You know, we're, we make a lot of things. I've got an amazing team, and having AI means you've got to like a best friend that never complains, is up when you are, and you literally can invent or create almost anything in real time. And I love to iterate, like, and I've got a developer who's this young German guy, his name is Consty and he develops, like, I think so I love to iterate. We're constantly on WhatsApp. All the time we've been building a tool that solves one of my biggest challenges that I'm super excited about. Well, the problem isn't what something I'm excited about. The solution is, which is anyone who has a business knows that if you want to enroll a lot of customers and generate a lot of business, what you need to do is follow up with leads really quickly, learn as much as you can about them, make sure they're qualified, and then be able to present an offer that's 100% relevant to them in a way they understand. So what this tool does, we call it the AI sales multiplier. You can start it up or either on WhatsApp, which, the benefit of WhatsApp is it's international, it's 100% deliverability, or through the web. And yes, and this thing will ask you some questions and then it'll follow up with an audio, which is my voice, my video, and it's all about you. So it asks you, you know, what are your biggest opportunities that you're excited about? What are the biggest challenges you're dealing with, what's your biggest dream? And then also, what's something you wish you could solve with AI, but you don't even know if it's possible or not that you'd like answered? And this thing researches you, so it does what's known as lead enrichment. It finds you on LinkedIn, it visits all of your content, and then it writes back in a thoughtful way, in this case, in my voice, about you and how we can collaborate or work together. And we're adapting it right now for real estate, wealth management, medical purposes. But, you know, if the. Again, as a business owner and a founder, one of the frustrations we always have is, okay, is our team following up right away? Secondly, is it doing, are they doing appropriate research on someone? Thirdly, are they message and brand compatible? In other words, are they compliant with telling the stories and the way you've shared with them?

And is that even a replicable skill outside the founder.

Right.

I don't even know that you can train a lot of that. Right. Knowing what story to tell and having the experience and being able to match the right person, the right product and ask the right questions and there's all the authority and different bits that go along with it. Like, who's going to do that? As well as Mike Koenigs and my.

Canvas, it's really, really, really hard. It's really hard and it's doable. Like, I've got Aaron who works with me, who' really, really talented. He does a great job. But it took. He. He could convert well right away because there we had a good system. But when it comes to making sure, you know, and, and the last thing you want to do with any. Anyone who works with you is get scared and be so afraid that they're going to screw up that they do nothing instead. Right. So that's really what happened is this thing takes care of the ugly, messy middle that we all have and make sure that everyone can spend more time doing what they love to do. So that's been a technology opportunity that really excites me. I know you and I had dialogue because I put a little demo up about the new Apple Vision Pro and I've been really excited about that, mainly because it does so much cool stuff and it's a beautiful creativity enhancer if it's used properly. And I've been taking it everywhere with me and demonstrating it and showing it off and people when I show it contextually so it's not just a dumb toy that frankly is, you know, it still needs a lot of work. It's. It's very imperfect.

New category.

For sure it is. But when you, when you use it right, you do it right and you have your aha moment. You're like, holy crap, this thing changes everything. And it's. To me, I get. I got. Is. Can't believe I'm going to use this word is giddy. Is the first time I sat down, I used a TRS 80 Model 1 computer at Radio Shack in 1977, which dates me horribly. But. And it was like then the Apple to, you know. And I was just like, my mind was blown away. And the first time I really experienced the Internet and I'm like, this is everything. You can do anything. And I was, I was in love with microfiche in a library in the old days, which was.

I remember microfiche. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And you know, all these little technology things. But this. I felt much in the same way as the first time I pulled a Macintosh out of a bag. Like I worked at an Apple store for a while doing retail and I just got the butterflies when I was around tech and I felt like this was the thing. It was like freedom is inside these boxes. And, and, and so the Apple Vision Pro is a re experiencing of that same childlike, oh, well, I love it.

So much because, you know, Steve obviously was the driving force behind Apple for a very long time, especially the creative side, and he had a great team. But you just don't know when a founder dies, if it's going to continue in that arc. And they've done a really great job of continuing to innovate in ways that nobody could expect. You know, it's really amazing.

It totally is. It totally is. And I, I actually brought up, if you want, I can share my screen and show you what I showed or I show.

I literally just posted on the video. So if you guys want to go check out that little six minute clip that you did that I watched, it was great. He kind of walks through some of the bits and pieces of, you know, what it looks like to present. The question I had for you just before we move on from that is, do you anticipate a world where everybody's going to have these on and be able to view your speech as if, you know, they're in the room with you or you think that's, that's a little too heavy handed for the tech?

No, no, not at all. I, here's what I, I think. So first of all, I'm going to just push, get the negative out of the way first because I know this is, they're like, oh, AI is going to. And I'll be like, well, actually here's, here's what AI and the Apple Vision Pro really are and represent is it's going to turn addicts 100 times worse. Okay. Just like all of technology. All right? If you put a, if you put the wrong stuff in front of people who use it improperly or don't see it for what it can be, it's going to be used improperly. There's no doubt about that. So if you think heroin's great, try fentanyl.

Yeah, I get it.

Yeah. This is going to open up a whole new level of sex addiction. Now. Pushing that away, I prefer to focus all my energy and attention on the positive, which is, how do you multiply your value? So what I think it's going to do is it's going to make people who are already productive 100 times more productive. And you're like, how's that going to happen? Well, one of them is what the demo I showed you. And I'll briefly share the screen here so others can see it, too. So this is what I had posted, and you put this thing on, and you can say, hey, I want to present my keynote presentation inside a theater. And so when I put this on, this is my point of view. So I'm looking at the carpet, I'm looking at my hands. There's a giant display behind me, and, like a confidence monitor. And then I'm clicking through my presentation, watching video, and hearing it as though I'm in the. In the theater. So, yes, it's going to make the experience of doing meetings and creating intimate connections with people in any part of the world significantly more effectively. And then you can wear this as a display. Like, here's something. This is a panoramic shot. So we traveled the family to Ireland. So I'm inside this video, and it is so rich and lifelike. It's. It's as though you're there. And the same is true with videos and movies. You can sit in a theater, and then, you know, there's this other experience where here's a butterfly and you can bring it up to your nose so this thing can. Can detect your hands. Now that that image of my hand is actually a video representation of my hand, and you're just interacting with these a whole new world. And then this is a dinosaur experience. And you can wear these goggles in lieu of using your display and your computer. So the bottom line is it's a great tool to be a lot more productive and create any environment to work in and be creative in. And like I say, it's a massive capability multiplier. And those who choose to diddle and dawdle around on TikTok or Facebook and do absolutely nothing and waste their time will be a hundred times more effective at wasting their time and doing nothing.

Yep. Well, and that's the other thing about Apple is they were, you know, in Steve's days, he was like, get rid of the stylus. The stylus is stupid. You got styluses on your hands, right? And now it's like those. Those little paddles that you get with the Oculus, which are fine. You know, they're just in favor of.

That's okay. Yeah, I hate them. I hate them.

But it's an iteration, right? It's like, hey, we had to start with the. The mouse and the keyboard, and then eventually this, and now we're, we're getting back to using the digits and the tools that we already are gained with. And I just love that they thought of that. Right. It's like, okay, how can I make a digital representation in your hands? It doesn't throw off your, your gyroscope inside your brain, that. That is looking for that, and you get to use that to interact with this device. Now that we've created, I mean, you know, for a $3,500 product, which is out of the range of most consumers for a gift or a, for a, you know, you know, a purchase, they've managed to move 200 or 300,000 of them. And it's pretty amazing in a short time to, to do that.

Yeah.

So leave it to Apple to once again push forward the, the whole thing. How far away do you think we are from Ready Player one? Now.

I think here's what. I'm going to answer your question indirectly, and then I'll answer your question. So here's what happens. The first time you put these on, and they're so immersive. The audio is great. They're spatial, so when you turn your head, the audio is coming from the direction of wherever the action is. And when the dinosaur walks up and basically sees you and you interact with it, the level of detail is like your brain doesn't know what to do with it. The first time the dinosaur walked in my proximity, my animal self got scared and it was like, wow, okay. And then. And when you use the interface and all you're doing is looking at something and clicking with your thumb and forefinger instead of those stupid paddles, which, by the way, I. The part of, the, part of. The reason I reacted like that was Mark Zuckerberg got on, he said, well, you know, the Apple Vision Pro isn't that great. We were already doing all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And the paddles, you know, he's defending the paddles and it's like, dude, don't be the BlackBerry guy. If anyone saw the BlackBerry movie that idiot was talking about, you know, pushing back on. He's literally covered in a dead elephant and a dead whale on the beach, it was rotting, and he couldn't get his damn ego out of the way. And so this is another example of the hubris. And the point of this is the interface is profound, but this is like version 0.9, but when you put it on, you'll get it and you'll be like, yeah, it ain't great, but it's really profound. It's A shift. And suddenly when you take these things off, even though they're heavy and they're bulky, you'll be like, this is the next thing. And this world augmented is actually incredibly powerful and useful. So back to the original question of how far are we from Ready Player One? I think we're probably like, it'll take a little bit longer, but we're going to see a couple of killer apps that are really very spectacular, just like when social media came along and, like, people got it and like, wow. And the cameras and the integration and the App Store. So I think we're going to have some iterative profundities that are unexpected, and we're probably like three to five years away. And then we'll, you know, we're going to have these pressure suits so, you know, more sensory feedback. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's, you know, it's one of those things where part of me is like, shoot, yeah, three to five. And then there are some things that we don't know that are going to be 20 years away, because when you start splitting the atom and start looking down the fractal hole, you know, some unexpected complexities are bound to show up that we haven't solved yet. But I also think AI is going to solve them for us faster than we realize. Because, yeah, our systems are learning around us all the time in ways we just can't even imagine or fathom. And the answers are probably straight in front of us. Right?

Yeah. We're moving from the linear exponential to the exponential curve. Right. It's like AI now can come up with customized medicines faster than we could come up with any medicine with humans working on it. It's just one of those things I like to. To your point, keep the original iPhone I bought, which is an iPhone3, on my desk with the single camera lens and one button. And when you Compare it to a 12, which is not the newest, but when you compare it 12, it's like not even the same thing anymore. So Your Apple Pro 0.9, as you say, by the time it gets to version 12 or 15 or whatever they're going to end up with, is a whole different thing. It's a pair of glasses. You could barely, you know, you could barely understand where it's going.

And I'll show you one more thing, just briefly. This is. Now, you can't get this fully, but it's like the movie Brainstorm. This is spatial video shot on the 15 through the lens of the Apple Vision Pro. Now, it looks like, meh, right Here, but It's full on 3D, completely immersive. And when you move your head, you're the spatial audio experience. Like when you're. You get closer and further and like, this is going to completely change memories. Because now, like, someone was talking about. I was. I'm on this Apple Vision Pro thread on Reddit and this guy was bragging about how he brought his camera in to the birth of his son and his wife got to experience the birth through his lens.

That's cool.

Now you could be like, ooh, that's gross.

Or you could be like, pretty awesome.

What a memory. Right now I don't want to be that kid, but sure, sure.

Well, do you even have a choice anymore? Like, you're going to get recorded at every turn. It's whether you like it or not. You know, it's just a matter of whether your parents are super into it or not. But it's kind of everywhere now. Okay, so new tech, I think the AI strategy with, with sales qualification of customers, I think that's really worth checking out. If people are interested in networking, they go just your website, mycanix.com.

Yeah, what you do is go to mechanics.com, get AI and that'll bring you to the page where the, this AI bot lives, and it'll pop up and say, hey, do you wanna, do you wanna do this on WhatsApp or do you wanna just use the, the chat interface?

Yeah, so that's worth checking out. I went through that, I tested it out, I sent it to my team to look at as well. I just put all these links underneath the video. If anybody's. If anybody's live, hit hashtag live. If anybody's watching the replay, hit hashtag replay. Let me know you're out there. And this is out on YouTube as well. So we'll collect all those links for you. Okay, so moving right along, I read your success article. I'm really interested in how you starting to think about giving and charity, especially with these new tools and what you're. That's been on my mind a lot lately. It's like I'm starting a foundation. I'm looking to launch it by my birthday. This is a new world for me. I'm trying to like, do it right, you know, it's like anytime I enter something, I want to get my arms around what's happening, what strategies people are using, and find one that really like fits my, my strengths and, and try to get it right before I just, you know, throw myself at it. So what are your Thoughts with that?

Okay, so let's play for a moment and I'll, I'll, I would love to save you an enormous amount of time, frustration and energy and allow you to fulfill your greatest goal. Would you allow me to support you in that mission?

Yes, please, Mike. Thank you.

Okay. All right, so with your nonprofit, with your foundation, with the work you wish to do, what kind of impact, like, and if we look at this through the lens of, let's pretend we're celebrating five years from today or five years from your birthday, which is, which is August 7th. Okay. August 7th. My son's is August 1st. So you're, you're a Leo.

So is he wonderful.

Yeah. So you. Five years, we're sitting down, we're celebrating with either your. A glass of juice or your favorite cocktail of choice, celebrating some profound thing that your foundation has done. And maybe we even think about what's the 25 year celebration? It could be 5 or 25. But what will have happened for you to say that was incredibly impactful and meaningful and purposeful? What has happened?

So I can give you the one year, the five year and the 25 year. So the one year is IP around bringing crypto into a charitable role where money starts to flow naturally towards charities from the cryptoverse. So that's thing one. We have a lot of ideas around that, a lot of IP around that. We're developing smart contracts and ways for people to give for sweepstakes and all different types of things that are going to be endemic in the way we approach it five years out. I'm all about lighting the fuse. What I mean by lighting the fuse is I believe categorically most people in the world are spending, and I'm sure you feel this way too, they're spending 90 plus percent of their time, energy, attention and money on survival, or survival near like that lower part of the Maslow hierarchy. I want them up there creating and giving and contributing more. So the way to do that, in my opinion, is to get them to a place where food, utility, shelter and education are lower cost, more accessible and democratized, demonetized in a way that's, I don't know which way that goes. Is it proto capitalism? Is it ubi, Is it robotics and AI kind of creating abundance for everybody? I don't know, but I'm kind of working towards that. And I want that to be a functional model within five years that other charities can adopt and be like, hey, okay, you've got a way to crypto enabled transparent transactions on the blockchain so you don't end up being the Red Cross that, you know, hundreds of millions flows in, but only 7% ends up in the people's hands that actually need it. Using that model to really benefit people, to free up their time, and then within 25 years, I will have mastered that to the point where it's really making an impact around the world. And I can stand on the stage and say, hey, this is what we've done. This is what we've created. We've impacted millions of people. More importantly, we've created a new model that allows more marble makers and less Hungry Hungry Hippos grabbing for all the marbles, which is the kind of ethos that I've always been chasing after. It's this idea of how do we create system structures in a way that allow people to attack this problem from the core foundations and really solve it versus just throwing money at it and usually missing.

Okay, so I want you to think for a moment of a charity that comes to mind that's already doing things like this. It could be 1, 2, or 3 that your solution could enable and make it 10 times more effective.

Yeah. So I really love what Feeding America is doing. They're taking underutilized food resources and making them very cheap and accessible for many people. I love what Charity Navigator is doing because it's allowing people to understand what charities are actually doing. Because I don't want to reinvent the wheel.

Right.

I want to find other charities like Feeding America that are doing this. And I like our. Because they're not afraid to get their hands dirty and go and like, find the. That are actually doing the thing and taking them out of commission. So, like, those are three examples that. That come top of mind.

Okay? So I'm going to challenge you on three things, and I'm going to declare them as, like, my opinion. But it's also, from I. I'll say a reasonably educated point of view. After my wife's run, Just like my Child foundation for this is her 17th or 18th year, started in Uganda, extended into India, done work in the US With Native American tribes. And here are some grand lessons about starting and running a charity. First of all, you're going to spend all your time raising money, and it's going to start by going to people, you know, and asking them for money. And. And eventually they get sick of it. All right? The next thing is, you're treated like a criminal by the federal government, okay? You will have a target on your back because they assume that you are a criminal hiding Money, and that sucks. And it will bleed into your life and it's just a matter of time before someone, for no reason other than they don't like you, for some reason is going to effectively lie about you. And you'll get targeted and investigated, which will waste your life force and no one wins. Okay. So while you're raising money, you're raising money. And the reason why very little goes somewhere is because oftentimes it's really expensive to raise money.

Right.

Salaries have the infrastructure to do that. And so the smartest thing you can ever do is make a lot of money and, and deliver that to someone who is professionally in charge of doing what you want to accomplish already. And if you have a lever that you can stuff in the middle, you'll, you'll be much more effective than trying to start something that operationally is a giant time wasting drudgery. And it's, it's, it's horrible. It's like running these things is horrible. Now there's a lot of satisfaction in it. But it's sort of like in between the carrying water, you know, back and forth and the chopping wood, you'll have a couple of minutes to sit around the fire and enjoy your water. And I hate, I hate to deliver it like that, but it's really, really hard.

No, I think the, the one caveat that we're trying to do is like a better functional mechanism for, for transactional giving that's very transparent. And I'm not trying to create the re. Recreate the wheel with regard to that. Like I'd rather give the money to the charities that are already shown that they've built infrastructure that can do it.

Yes.

And the only piece that, that I for sure don't want to get involved in is being in the weeds like you're talking about. That sucks.

Right?

I just don't want it. That would make me.

Yep. So again, what if I were to make a recommendation on a model is prove the model commercially and then as one of the things you do. And I'm going to just give you an example of something I just saw in a grocery store this year. So I'm going to get super tactical for a moment. But you'll get it where at the store. And I'm going to actually show you the pictures at the checkout line. They gave me these tokens and you get a token for each of the bags that you bring into the store. Okay. And then they add boxes. So here's outreach San Diego. Here's the center for something Something Kitchens for Good, Humane Society. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. So there's six of them. And you basically put your tokens into the box that you want to support and they showed, you know, how many tokens they've given away, how much money they've raised. And I mean, it was really good. It was. I was so impressed with it. And you know, you. And you know what they do is they're encouraging a behavior. So bring your bags, get the tokens, pick your, pick what you want. So you're giving. Given some control and they're effectively forcing a positive behavior.

So they're taking that 10 cents. You would have got to bring the bag and get the rebate. And you're just putting it into these boxes, essentially.

Yeah, yeah. So you feel like you're contributing and you get X number. And I saw someone come in and they had a lot of bags and they got a whole bunch of tokens.

That's cool.

And, and so it's this participatory thing. So what if when you're with your real clients that are paying you money for something, you're like, oh, by the way, this isn't going to cost you anything more. But we've got three charities we're supporting and enabling with this technology. And for you to do X behavior, we're going to enable you to support them. And like I say, all it and it. And you know, you can reward paying customers. So now I'm gonna also challenge an assumption that a lot of people make. And look, my son talks about this all the time and you know, he's Mr. Anti Capitalist and look at all the rich are getting richer, etc.

Oh, yeah, I don't believe that personally, but I just agree that just like mercantilism and feudalism were the law of land, that capitalism supplanted, I believe that one day we'll have a better system. I don't have any earthly idea what it is. I just know it'll show up once eventually.

Yeah. So if you want to hear something that I happen to agree with. And it was AI ified. It was the new president of Argentina speaking in front of the World Educational Economic Forum. And they converted his. They translated his Argentinian Spanish into English with Hey Jen. And he basically talked about socialism and how it's an absolute total failure and it doesn't work. And there's proof of that, which again, I happen to agree with. Now, there's issues with some modes of capitalism, but the bottom line is I, this is Going to sound. You know, I'll get roasted for this. But I'm going to just say it the way I believe it. If you're poor, you're. You're participating in poor people behaviors over and over again.

Sure.

And I can guarantee you that you're providing very little value with your energy in and wasting your only resource that matters, your time on things that provide no economic value. And no. Yeah, yeah, right. And. And the first cure for this is put down your mother effing phone. Okay. That is a time wasting soul stealing. If you spend any time on Oops. Social. But it's like, it's. Where are you using that time and. Or are you.

I actually have a tech thing for you by the way. Before I forget. There's this thing called the brick. Have you seen this yet? It's just a little magnetic thing that you can set up on your phone that you tap it and you bricks your phone. It turns, it turns off all the apps you don't want to be distracted by. You have different modes for different parts of the day. So I have one for work, one for relaxing, one for social, and it's literally on my fridge. I have to go to my fridge and tap it to like turn my phone back into a phone.

What if you just didn't do it?

Well, again that comes down to are you able to or not? Do you have the discipline or not? Are you an addict or not?

That's an addiction.

I can't have sugar in my fucking house. I can't have alcohol in my fucking house. For the same reasons is because I have sugar around, I'm going to eat sugar. If I have alcohol around, I'm going to drink alcohol. So I just keep it out of my life.

I got it. Yeah. Okay, good. I know myself. Yeah, that's. That's the first, that is the first battle. It's like. And look, I, you know, at the end of the day I'm like, yeah, you know, we all. Anyone who enjoys a cocktail will be like at the end of the day rolls around. You're like, man, I'd love a cocktail.

10 years.

So working for me the morning of, you're like, I'm not gonna have another one tonight. And that's a sure sign of our little, our little pesky friend, the addiction that lives inside us.

So yeah, I think we all are addicted to something. Some of them are positive, some of them are negative. You replace positive ones with with negative ones and vice versa. Like you just got to choose like and what do you which, which battles are you going to fight? How many decision points am I going to use on little like that versus the big that actually matters, you know?

Agreed. So anyway, back to the original thing of, of talking about nonprofits and philanthropy. The best part of America in a lot of ways is the fact that our tax system supports philanthropic giving and deducts that positive behavior. That is freaking awesome. And in the fact that you can get creative with your, the way you create positive behaviors with parties and that kind of thing. Now again, there's a lot of rules in this whole thing. That's the kind of the criminalization and it's because naughty people did naughty things and the state comes in and does what the state does, which is regulates. Unfortunately, in my, in most cases, it creates more destruction than positivity. The best thing, the best kind of government is the smallest and weakest possible.

Yeah, it's like this FinCEN thing or the, the RAA stuff. It's like, you know, any kind of rabbit hole you go down to in a regulated business, they just basically want to cut your legs off because some people did some bad things at one time. It's like, well, right. Even if that's not you, now you got to deal with the punishment of people that probably wouldn't have followed the law if it was in place anyway. Right. Like the same thing with gun laws is like responsible gun owners aren't running around shooting up schools. They just aren't. But we all have to suffer for that, for that issue, you know?

Yep, yep. Worst thing you can do is let one dictator have all the guns. So.

So from your perspective and your wife's perspective, I agree with your points. I don't want to get in the weeds. I'm going to be looking for a better model that I can then use to funnel that, that fun into, into somebody that's already proven to work. And I don't want to reinvent the wheel.

Yeah, yeah. Create a really, really successful business that's super useful and make as much money as you can so you can give it away and not be involved in the oversight. Like you're a creator. Right. And, and as soon as you've, you know, like when is a lion out of lion? When you put them in a cage and they're not allowed to do lion things. And that's what you never want to do to an innovator creator is stick them in a cage. And I'm telling you, the bureaucracy is so unbelievably maddening. I'm setting up on that Topic.

So besides being a consultant to some of the biggest companies in the world, working with Tony Robbins and all these really wonderful people, one of your greatest strengths, in my opinion, is your ability to distill information in a way that's really accessible for people. And you do this through speaking, you do this through authorship. And you shared some things in our little private group that we put together about stages and speaking and sponsorship, about the way you get on the stages and the way you build relationships. I'd love for you just to maybe spend a few minutes on. On that and. Sure. Just give a little bit of. Of your strategy there.

I can. And. And maybe just to get this thing rolling, I shared a lot of things. What was the thing that left the. The biggest impression on you? And I remember a couple of them. But I also want to make sure that I start with the thing that you've. You had that big. Aha.

Yeah. Well, first and foremost, that the thing that comes top of mind is referral parties. So Charles and I have been doing these referral parties at least every other month, and we got that idea from you, and that's been huge. The. The next thing is, you know, you spend quite a lot of money on masterminds and whatnot. That's also something I've talked about at length, arriving a day in advance, introducing yourself to the staff building with those folks mingling, getting to know who the people are in the room, just to kind of get the. The wheels greased here a little bit.

Yes.

Some of the places you found, you know, again, you've been a part of a lot of big masterminds. Like, what are maybe the three that you would pay for over and over again until you die? I guess that's a good way to go.

Yes. Okay, great. And then we'll make sure everyone gets. So we'll do referral parties. Second, I'll do how I do events because we'll give away the book. Here's the technique that I've. I've done for years, and I learned this because I've been a producer of lots of shows and I've had a lot of production people work for me, and they work so freaking hard behind the scenes. And here's what typically happens. So I'm going to tell you what a really good speaker does, and I'm going to tell you what a crap one does. Someone who's hated and will be sabotaged and not know why their stuff isn't working. Okay. So to get on the good side, what good speakers do is they show up a day in advance and they go introduce themselves to the team and they let them know right away, here's my speech that I give them. My name is Mike Koenigs. I'm going to be speaking tomorrow at this time, and I have my own technology, my own cables, and I have backups of everything. I want you to know that I work for you. So what I'd like to know right now is how can I make this an absolute win for you and be the easiest speaker you've ever worked with, that you'll welcome back again? And then you shut up and you listen. And first of all, they can't believe someone's coming up and doing that, because what they're used to from a bad speaker is some jerk who shows up late, doesn't have their act together. They're like, hey, hey, do this. They give them commands and they treat them like they help, okay? And I'll be like, these people, a lot of them have been working in this industry for 25 years, so don't be a jerk. And the next thing is, they know how to whisper in the ears of the people who run the event. And they're going to blackball you.

That's right. They're gonna say, don't invite this guy back. He sucks.

Yeah, he's an ass. Etc. Etc. So. And I'll, I'll tell them right ahead and I'll let them know, like I've. Here's my deck and I'll have it open, ready to go. And I'll kind of show them. And I'll be like, I have audio, I have video. I've checked all my audio to make sure that's all the same volume out. But I let them know I will come in at 6 or 7, whatever time you tell me to. To come in to test this out, make sure everything works. And I let them know I have a backup computer with me, which is going to be. Both of them are set up. I have cables, I have a spare remote, and even if you don't need it, I got your back. Just like I know you have mine, okay? And they're like, no one ever does that. And then I, I know their names, I write them down, and I make a point of. While I'm doing my presentations, I actually involve them in my act. So I'll say, hey, Tom, I got an audio coming up. You ready? And he'll be like, yeah, I'm ready, Mike. So I'll have rapport with the team. And I'm like, by the way, give this team a round of applause. They've been working their butts off for you. So I'm going to make them the heroes of the show.

Do you let the person who invited you or whoever, the runner of the event, know that you're going to show up a day early and, like, tell them that, or do you just kind.

Of show up there? People who know me know I do that. People who. But yeah, I'll text them ahead of time and say, just so you know, I've got two laptops. I take. I bring all my gear. Most people at this point have known me for a while, know I have my act together and I come in with bags of cables, extra remotes. Like, I even have a spare projector if I need it. Like, wow. I don't leave it. I order. Like when I'm doing an event, I order a television from Amazon that's delivered. If I'm doing breakouts, like, they got nothing to worry about. I got everything delivered. And I think ahead, because I've been screwed a bunch of times after 20 years, you ought to learn your lesson, right? So. But getting back to what's important is I remember the folks. I take care of them. Sometimes I tip them. I'll. I'll, you know, give them a 20. Sometimes I'll give. Like, if there's an event producer and they got good cameras, I bring in. I bring an SSD, big hard drive, and I have $100 laying on it. And by the way, always put, this is important with all your gear. Make sure you have stickers of your face from my sticker face on all of your gadgetry, because they'll be like, oh, that's Mike's right.

Can't miss it.

And I'll slip them a little bit of dough and I'll say, by the way, I'll make sure it's okay with the event producer, but can I get the source footage before I leave? And you know who they take care of? The person who asks, who treats them nicely. And they don't do that for anyone because it's a giant pain in the rear end. So I think that's sort of like the best way to package that one up. And that's. I don't know.

Yeah. And guys, if. If you have any chance of. I got the best advice I ever got from Thomas Blackwell, who's my. One of my speaking coaches was, if you're great at speaking, it'll keep coming. If you're not, it'll stop pretty quick. So this is one more way you can, you know, even if you're just getting good at speaking, like it doesn't matter, like the content, like this is just a way to be an awesome, rad human that really takes care of people and does the work and get invited back for that reason. You know, they're going to. They're going to build the event around you versus, you know, you fighting and clawing your way to get in there. So thank you for sharing that.

That's really beautiful. That is true. I'll give you one more engagement. This is how I get, how I will get a lot of people to give me their contact information in a room. Because obviously if you speak, one of the things is you want to grow your business. You want to do it in an ethical way that's not corrosive, itchy or yucky to the event producer. So a, everything I'm telling you, you got to tell, you got to ask the producer ahead of time. But what I do now is I run, just like I'm doing right now, a copy of Otter in the background, which is. And I run it on my computer or, or my phone. And right now I'm running that. So here you are. Here I am. And we've got a transcript. And it's also taking pictures. But what I do is I say, hey, by the way, who here would love a copy of my slides? Who would like a transcript of this? And of course, the whole nut, you know, room goes nuts. And I will provide a means for them to provide their contact information. So I'll follow up, I'll give them the slides, I'll give them the transcript. And now built into Otter, it also does a summary. So you're providing this value add. And then, you know, at this point, I've got really, really good footage of me speaking. And I'll give them a link to that. So for example, this is one I did recently that was like, I would say a. You know, it. It was like a career maker, but it was. I shot atthe tennis channel.com ypo group. I had seven monitors there and we programmed these. Yeah, there's Brad. Yep. So Brad and I taught at this thing. But you know, they. And they had a crane there, camera crane. So there you can see. I mean, this is like unbelievable footage. And you know, super hyper interactive. Well, they let me teach for almost three hours. It was insane. Yeah. And you know, highly engaging and interactive. Lots and lots and lots of case studies. I guess it was two hours. Sorry. Not three. It's a three Hour event. But there's a lot of time. And. But it was fantastic. But.

And that supercharges everything you do. Right. Because now. Okay, let's say I don't. I don't have all these tools, but you can hand me the summary at the end. Now I can promote this interview better to my audience. Right. Because I don't have to think about it and go through and remember, oh, look, all the cool stuff Mike did. It's all right there.

Yep. And then another one that I'm using right now. This is a really good tool, which I'm going to do for you. So part of the other thing that I do is whoever my. Is doing an interview or an event, I do all the work for them. Okay. But I do it in a way that there's no homework. So this is another fantastic tool that I teach and use all the time. It's called Cast Magic. So what you do is you can import. And I'm going to do this for you when we're done. I'm going to upload our audio from our podcast today. And once it's in here, what this thing will do is. Let's see. So this is an episode I just did with Dan Sullivan. It's our predictions episode. So it goes through, listens to, and transcribes the entire thing. It comes up with 10 titles, looks at all the keywords. It writes bios for the speakers. It rewrites an introduction, gives you time stamps.

Oh, that's great.

Gives you a list of all the questions. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that used to take someone a day to do it. Even writes your newsletter, outbounds. Writes your. Your Instagram threads. I mean, it's so freaking good. And again, what I've been doing when I speak is I take my interview, pop it in there, and I'll have another value bomb to give to the audience when I leave.

And that's CastMagic AI or what's the IO?

CastMagic IO.

I'll check it out. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. It's a beautiful, beautiful product. In fact, I've got a link here. I think you get a bonus if you just go to my website, mike koenigs.comcastmagic. there's like a. It's an affiliate link, but I think you get a better deal.

Don't hate that. Castmagic. All right, thank you, Mike. I'll check that out.

Boom.

Very cool. All right, so referral parties. Just share my own personal story about referral parties. So I do A lot of masterminds. I help people build masterminds. And I'm always excited about better networking technology. And this is something that I learned kind of not from Mike directly, but like he spoke about at Flight Club. But Charles, Bert and I are like people who interact a lot, and we do a lot of connections with each other. I'm like, what if we brought in Nick Bradley? What if we brought in this person, that person? We just did a referral. So we did like two or three of these. And they were great because everybody gets to share what they're working on. And then literally everybody loves on them for 20 minutes. And then you go to the next person, you go to the next person. It's the best two hours you spend all month. And then you keep track of the referrals and just amazing things start to happen. So they are well worth their time and worth their weight in gold. But since we have Mr. Referral Party here himself, I'd love to hear it from the horse's mouth. So thank you, Mike.

Yes. Okay, so I'll, I'll, I'll set up by just showing you one that I did recently. But here's the basic idea, and if so, if you and I sat down, I'd say, hey, Brad. And the way I frame it, and by the way, so just so everyone can have it, if you go to referralparty.com free, you can have the book for free. So that's. That's the book right there. I'd say, Brad, all you need to do is just tell me what you got. I'd like to know about your current offers, who your perfect customer is, and I will look through my database of contacts in real time and see if I can hook you up either with direct customers or some potential referral partners to help you grow your. Your audience and maybe some stages as well. And of course, you would not say no to that. And the key to referral parties is, number one, don't do this so you can get referrals from someone else. If you don't walk into this with a giving mindset right away, you're an assay and no one want to do it first.

Everything will sort itself out.

Yes. Okay, so that's number one. If you enter this with scarcity on your mind, you're screwed. Secondly, you're going to find out really well right away based upon what happens next, what your reputation and your value actually is. Okay? And sometimes it's painful to wake up and find out that you're the taker the way it would work is you schedule one hour and you'll say, by the way, if, if you want, it's totally optional, if you want, I'll share what I've been doing too. And you might know some folks. So it starts out and you'll tell me what your current offer is, who you're looking for, who your perfect customer is. And I make a list in real time and I look through. Now, for me, I'm a texter. I check my email, I have my assistant do it, I check it every other day or so. But I've got a, you know, I've got at this point a 35 year Rolodex. And I stay in touch with people, have been in my life since I was 6 years old. I have a lot of books and I'll be like, direct customer. Who's that? Who's that? Who's that? And my goal is to come up with four to 10 and then I fire up and if I'm using zoom and I prefer to do all these over zoom, Zoom, when you pay for it, allows you to make YouTube videos. So I stream to YouTube or you can record inside. But it'd be like, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a direct video of me introducing you and it would go something like this. Hey, this is my friend Brad Hart. He's the best in the world at insert your particular thing here. I'm connecting you two because first of all I think you'd love working together, your values compatible. And I'm going to have something really specific to say. And there's one thing in particular I think he can help you with right now. So Brad, why don't you just Give do a 1 minute pitch for Blanco here and you'll be like, dit da dit. Nice to meet you, Blanco. Yada da da da da da da da. I like Brad. How do they get a hold of you and you'll say, go to here, text me back and I go, all right, so then I'll wrap up and I'll say, so here's what I want you to do. Just I've texted both of you, let me know when you've connected and tell me what happens. That's all I ask for. Okay, so the next step is up to you. And I literally will create a text message, I'll grab that link to the video, I'll send it to both of you at the same time. I'll say, brad, this is Blanco. Watch this short Video and you'll know exactly what to do. Now, in some instances, you'll want to ask that person's permission first. Hey, Blanco, I want my friend Brad. Yeah. Now people accept my referral parties a because I don't put jerks together with jerks. If I'm putting you together, there's a reason, and I will not waste your time. And that's why they take my calls. Right? So this may take a little evolution, but I typically create a generic one, and then I create a few specifics. But my goal is to create four to 10 intros within that 30 minutes, which includes, tell me what you got, tell me who you're looking for, me, researching, me, making the videos, and texting them. Invariably, if you've created some value, they're like, holy crap, this is amazing. Can I do it for you? And I'd be like, sure thing. The good news is I already did all the work for you. So I've pre written the text messages, I've pre written the emails, and I'll, you know, it'll be like, so what do you got? And I'd be like, well, I got my AI, you know, fractional AI officer. We're doing these developments. I'm speaking, and I do my superpower accelerator thing. Build a brand in a week. Great. Who's your perfect audience? They're founders of B2B businesses. They're high. They're usually. They have more money than time. They've had it. They've had a recent exit. They want to attract higher value customers or they want to create a strong personal brand. Great. I can think of a few right now. Good. So at this point, I know how to pitch me and I'll say, tell me about so and so, blah, blah, blah. Great. Take care of the intro. I'll do my quick pitch and then boom. All right, and then we'll do, like I say, a generic one. And then there may be two, three, four specifics. And then from there, while we're together. And this is the most important part about a referral party. So for me, I don't do homework. So if I don't get it done while we're together, it ain't gonna get done. My follow through, I'm a one on the Colby scale. So my rule of life is I'll do it with you now, or if it's important enough, I'll schedule the time to do it with you, or I'll delegate it or it has to be a no. And then what typically happens is if I've gone first and I've done the intros that person is getting. If I sent 10, they've got four to six responses by the time we're done with mine. And they're like, holy crap, this is freaking amazing. And they're like, one call closes because you're getting edifying. Edifying. There you go. First day with a new mouth kicking in.

Well, what I love about this is we're doing it similarly. We don't always do the video on the YouTube and like all. It doesn't really matter like how you execute it. The fact is you booked out the hour or two hours, 90 minutes, whatever it is, everybody goes. Everybody does it right then and there. I prefer like, you know, a quick intro and then voice note, whatever. It works for you. And I always double opt in. I really feel like that's just paying attention to people's time. Unless somebody's giving me carte blanche after three or four intros, like anybody you want to send my way, Brad is cool with me. Then I'll just do it right. But I think that's such an over. An overlooked point that people don't get is like don't land people in each other fucking business inboxes without contacts, we're all busy. It sucks. It's like I want to serve this person. I don't want it to be a chore or, you know, somebody that I'm shuffling in the back of the room here. You know, it's a little bit challenging. So I love the referral party. I love those pieces of it. I love how effective that is and the fact that you know yourself with regard to being a follow, a follow through person and you, you operate around that you work around, that is, is really effective as well. Like I found, you know, I either got to do it now or I got to schedule it now or it's just not going to get done right.

Yeah.

So that's really interesting as well. Mike. We're going to have to wrap it up here because I do have another call coming up, but it's been an absolute problem. Would you have any parting words for the, for the group here? Anybody you want to shout out, anything you want to point people towards and how can we serve you best?

Well, part of what brought us here together, I think we always have to give credit where credit is due. It's Glenn Ledwell.

Oh my God. Yeah.

And the mastermind we belong to. So do you want to put in a shameless plug?

Yeah. So Flight Club is one of my favorite masterminds. I am just enamored with this group. It's very curated. Glenn's been doing it for 10 years. It's typically one to $50 million businesses. It's mostly Internet marketing focused. We learn a lot about cutting edge AI and tech and just everything related to how to communicate better and basically how to ruin more things as marketers tend to do. But yeah, it's, it's wonderful. Mike's a part of it, I'm a part of it. Will I see you this weekend? Are you coming to Vegas?

I will not be in Vegas. I wish I could be. I have a, a family thing I have to do.

That's okay. Hey, you got different priorities. I understand. But yeah, if you ever are listening to this and you're like, hey, I'm a 1 to 50 million dollar business and I want to learn more about Internet marketing, connect with some of the greats like Mike, like Glenn, like Marissa Pierre and John Davey. You got Matt Boggs, you got Eric Berman who monetize and manages a lot of brands. Brad Costanza, who we mentioned earlier, just all the really great people in there and many, many others. If I forgot you, I'm sorry. Just reach out. I'd love to get you set up. The way I love that Glenn does it, which a lot of masterminds should follow. This model is they give you a free look, they let you go on your own dime for free. Check it all out, decide, hey, if this is right for me, I want to continue or not. That's fine too because it's not as easy to know. You know, you can't read the label from outside the bottle and you're not going to invest 25 to $100,000 for some of these masterminds without having an experience first. And seeing, hey, is this my vibe? Are these my people? Can I learn here? Can I grow here? Can I help these people? So yeah, that's, that's really important. And then Mike, how can people find you and follow up and you know, I, I shared some links but I'd love to know what the best.

Well, the easy way is just Mike Koenigs.com there, there's resources, my books.

And.

If you'd go to my site, mikekoenings.com free, you'll get some AI resources. My other, let's see, this is one of my other books, it's called you'd Next act. And this is really a good entry into some of my work which is, you know, it's really all about reinventing yourself, creating a business you'll love for the rest of your life. That's high net, low overhead, fewest moving parts that you work with, people you love doing what you're best at.

I love it. And you know, if you get a chance to see Mike speak, he's an incredibly dynamic speaker. Check out his books, check out everything he's working on, especially on the AI front. And stay tuned for more paradigm shifting Apple products because I can guarantee they're not done yet. Thank you, Mike, for taking the time today. We're so grateful to have you in our lives and I hope to see you again very soon.

You will, my friend. Thanks a lot. I appreciate you. And I'll make sure you get the transcripts just as I promised.

Thank you very much, Mike. Have a beautiful day, everybody. Have a beautiful day. Talk to you soon. Take care.

Yep. Bye. Bye.