Creating Connections That Count: Steve Ramona's Strategy of How to Master Networking.

Whatever you're doing, listen. But there's two parts of it. There's the shut up and listen. Because what I've learned is people will shut up and they'll do this, and they'll go, yeah, sure, Chad. And they're not paying attention. They're not listening. So putting those two components together, you can learn about somebody and then you can bring them value.

Can you just tell me a little bit more about how you're giving back and what's your kind of strategy and how much that comes into play when you're starting over?

Network's your net worth. And network doesn't always mean financial. And here's the cool thing about me closing the company, because I had a large network working in a health club for 20 years, meeting thousands of people and building relationships. When I started my company, my first hundred clients were from that network. And guess what? This network starts spiraling. Your network is like this snowball effect as it runs down the hill. It just gets larger and larger in every aspect of your life if you have a forefront of your mind, and that's bringing value to people.

Okay, so welcome to our in depth interview series. I'm with Steve Ramona, who I've had the pleasure of interviewing before, and we're going a little bit deeper today. He is. He runs a popular podcast called Doing Business with a Servant's Heart. And after my interview with Steve, the reason that I wanted to go a little bit deeper is because I saw one of his taglines which says learn.

It said.

I think it said learn to shut up and listen, which I thought was really funny. And I really like to just relate to it, and I think it's a great tagline, and you don't usually see something like that. So welcome to interview, Steve, and it's good to have you here.

Thank you for having me, Chad. I love that tagline, too. I'm pretty proud of it.

So just give me a little background on it. Why is that your tagline? Why do you kind of lead with that?

People say you need to listen. A skill set. Listen, listen. Whatever you're doing, listen. But there's two parts of it. There's the shut up and listen. Because if I keep talking, talking while you're talking, I'm not listening. Here's the other part. It's got a bridge from shut up to listen. Shut up is really strong. So when people like you got Chad, oh, my God, that's a hell of a tagline. Because what I've learned is people will shut up and they'll do this and they'll go, yeah, sure, Chad. And they're not paying attention. They're not listening. So putting those two components together, you can learn about somebody and then you can bring them value, which I've been doing for years and now even more so with my podcast.

Yeah, no, I love that. I love reading about that. And I love, you know, I agree. I think it's incredible. Way to do business and to be a giver is special. And it's kind of like your little niche.

Right?

I mean, it's like everything. I was reading about you, I was doing some research, and I was wondering if you can kind of give me a little bit more depth into the fact that you want to give so much and you want to add so much value to these people that you're talking to and that you're working with and collaborating with. I mean, you've had a pretty tremendous career.

You've been.

You've done a lot of things. And I'm curious to know how much of that comes into play when you're restarting, when you have to start over. I saw one of your stories was that you had to close one of your businesses. And I'm just wondering, you know, the networking piece of your mastery of what you've been able to gain over your course, your career. Can you just tell me a little bit more about how you're giving back and what's your kind of strategy and how much that comes into play when you're starting over?

That great question. Network's your net worth. And network doesn't always mean financial. It could help you find another job and do different things. And here's the cool thing about me closing a company because I had a large network working in a health club for 20 years, meeting thousands of people and building relationships. When I started my company, my first hundred clients were from that network, who then told other people in their network, and guess what? This network starts spidering, and next thing I know, I'm making a ton of money, making a lot of people happy, serving my community. I was doing computer electronic recycling. So that is the first part of the network I was able to start a business. So if you're out there thinking of starting a business, delve into your network. And I always tell people when I mentor them, have you ever talked to your family or friends about what you do when you're starting to do it for 20 years? Most people haven't. They're like, oh, they don't really care. Who doesn't? It doesn't matter if they care. They love you because your family or friend don't drop them in their network. Hey, I'm looking for a chiropractor. Oh, I got a great chiropractor, Steve. You. Not that I work with chiropractors, but here's my practice. I'll introduce you to him. And then the question you really asked was closing. It's hard. It was a failure. I learned a lot of lessons. They didn't want to do it. Worried about my two employees. Where are they going to get work? All my customers can't now recycle. But I thank God I have a great cousin Jeff, and my dad, who's a smart businessman. Both of them are. You know, you got to shut it down. It's just not working. But the great thing. Here's the greatest thing about network. Two months I was in a hole. A lot of people are. We lose our job, lose our company. We don't know what to do. We're depressed and worried and all that. I get a call from a former member of the health club that's in my network, Jim. He says, meet me at a restaurant. I want to talk to you about opportunity. We sit down. He says, why don't you come work at my restaurant? You be the manager, and you cook and run it. I go, that's cool. So for three years, I started building another network because I would sit at the counter cooking and having conversations and building relationships with customers. Not just, hey, Chad, thanks for coming in. Here's your bill. 50 bucks, whatever it was. So your network is like this snowball effect. As it runs down the hill, it just gets larger and larger in every aspect of your life if you have it forefront of your mind, and that's bringing value to people.

Let me ask your question. So I work with a lot of college kids and networking just to get a little deeper and go down the bunny hole with networking. Like, talk about the execution of. Most people think networking. I'm gonna go to an event, and I'm gonna have to go talk to people. And it creates anxiety for people. They don't want to have to go up to strangers and have. So talk to me a little bit about, like, just the ABCs. And I always say people sometimes have the curse of knowledge. Like, you don't. I mean, you have the gift of gab. There's no question. I could tell people are attracted to you, and there's a good feel and a good vibe, But a lot of people don't have that initial feel. And so they have to be good at networking. And nowadays everyone's texting and not even talking. So when you think about how to network, what are the basics and in your opinion, like what is networking?

Networking is building relationships flat out. That's it. What comes from it is maybe a sale, maybe a partnership, maybe a referral or maybe just a good friend. It could be a mentor or maybe it's nothing. And hey, thank you, Chad, great to meet you. We move on with our life. That's really as simple as it gets. Introverts is what you're talking about. It's a great. This is so great. Talked about this on the show three weeks ago. This is why Law of increase from Think and grow rich I come from is so powerful. Because when an introvert tells Chad, hey, you should meet my friend Tony, he can help you with this. I want all you introverts out there think, how did you feel? You're going to feel good because they feel good. You offered it with nothing in return. That's the power of serving and bringing value. It's a feel good movement revolution, I guess you could say.

So tell me what some of the tenets of how to build the relationships. If an introvert is not used to making new relationships, it's probably easy for you to do that, but for some people it's not. So talk to me about how can people go about building new relationships if they don't know how to shut up and listen.

First of all, let's go right back to that. You jump on that one first. You get a network and don't network with everybody. Don't make it this pillage of, you know, there's 50 people there. I want all 50, you know, 50 people to network with me. Find the people that you connect with, meet with them, you know, watch them. Body language. But set up those one on ones. I know it's hard for introverts, but here's what makes it easier. You jump on a call and your first thought is value. Shut up and listen. In this case, Chad, you're talking to me. You work with college kids. Well, I've got a gentleman that speaks to college kids about business. I'm going to connect you with. That's a real life example of I shut up and listen to what you said in my head. I'm thinking, what value can I bring, Chad, with these college kids? That's all anybody, even an introvert needs to do. Just listen. You don't have to talk much. I learned back to old school, pad and paper, you can't see it on pad and paper and pen and write those down and then go back to them and go again. I heard you talk about college kids. I think I can help you here. This you helped you hear. So every time I jump on a call, I'm always thinking of how I could help. First with a referral, then a resource and then a tip. And I'll give you a real life example. Last week, last Saturday, I met a gentleman in Columbia, Jason, incredible guy. And we're in, five minutes in, he was talking about his YouTube channel. And I said, let me show you a trick with your YouTube channel to get it on a podcast. I don't know about that. Sure. Within five minutes I showed him. We became best friends. We're meeting again Saturday to do some business together. Because I brought him something, didn't charge him, and I didn't think about it. I said, hey, you will get a suggestion. I can help you. Yeah, show me. And we jumped, shared the screen and did all that. It's as simple as that. And then the other part is following through. Make sure you send the referral. Here's the biggest thing that I learned, Chad, a few months ago from a very successful guy that he made millions just serving people, which is people go, that's crazy. He said, steve, you gotta close the loop when you go and serve somebody and give him a referral. When they ask you, you gotta receive it. Yes, Chad, here's what I need. I need an author for my podcast. I need this and this, if you know anybody would be great. Don't force it, like please give me. But just say, here's what I'm looking for. Do me a favor and I'm gonna announce it right now. But I did that on LinkedIn and Lee Steinberg, one of the top sports angels in the world in sports. You probably know Lee, he's going to be on my podcast. I reached out to him and said, hey, I love you on a podcast. He goes, I'm looking to mess right here. Call Alex to schedule.

So it's so great because like, you know, second time I'm getting all this information from you and like your whole essence is not about like maybe just this one business that you're in or like what you're doing on a day to day to like create that income. And it's like you're doing the things that most people won't want to do because they say they don't have time to do it. But yet you use that as your number one strategy because the Result is going to be all the results you're getting. And I read something about you that you had talked about. What you had done in the last year was more than what you had done in over the last few years. Can you just tell us a little bit about that? And like, what did you do? What did you change? Because you've been in business for a long time. So what did you really change that made such a difference?

Well, first I'm going to say you're a great interviewer. I thought I was good. You are fantastic. Because that's a great question. And what I did was, is I learned to receive, I want to receive that gift. For 10 years, Chad, I've been serving people and never receiving anything back. And I, I wasn't growing, I wasn't making money, I wasn't building any businesses. And once this gentleman told me the earlier story, I told you, I started doing that. And my new partner and mentor, Josh Tapp with Pantheon, I think we've talked about, has told me that. And he's showed incredible growth with it. You know, Josh Lee Steinberg, I met a gentleman who won the super bowl with Tom Brady, but he built a headset where deaf people can hear. Now we're partner, we've partnered up for the last eight months, eight weeks. Excuse me. Because of my podcast and he was the only, he hasn't even been on my podcast yet. But putting out good energy, the serving, the helping, the supporting, it's a bull ring. It comes back. When you receive that gift, you don't know how, when or where. And don't worry about that. It's not a scoreboard. Just know it's going to happen. Have faith.

So you mentioned, I think it was think and grow rich.

Think and grow rich.

So I started off my career and I had my entire team read that. And so I'm a big Napoleon Hill fan. And it's incredible how today you just, you don't hear people talking about it very often. You don't hear that model. And you know, the big thing is, you know, people don't think. They just don't think. And unfortunately people are thinking and sometimes they're thinking negative and they're down on themselves. They don't have the self esteem or the confidence. And I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about how that's played a part in your life and how big of a part of it does it play in your life and how much do people know that about you?

Here's a million dollar tip. When you're down and out. We all have down days. You said it, Chad. When you have that down day, downtime, that big sale didn't go through. Stop what you're doing and go serve somebody. I don't care what it is or bring value. It depends, whatever you want to call it, just go do that. I've done that. I'll tell you a quick story I've told a lot of shows. Three years ago, tough day, no sales, somebody didn't show up. You know, those typical things happen. My emotions were down. So it's two o'. Clock. I don't usually leave my office early on my girlfriend time. What are you going? I say, I'm done for the day. You never do that. I'm great. Let's take advantage of it. But I went to the grocery store and for me, I have faith. And I was standing there in line, I'm like, I'm going to buy this lady's groceries. She's holding the baby and gave my card to the clerk and she's like, no, no, no. I said, no, let me do this. Got a calling and I want to do it. Didn't get into many detail. And he's looking at me, dude, what are you. Dude, you're going to pay for a girl who does that, you know, I said, just please, can you do that? Here's the great thing that happened. Got done. She starts crying as we're walking out because Steve, my. My husband just lost his job last week. We didn't know how we're going to pay for these groceries. We're just going to put on debit card. You really, really helped us and it was a great thing I did. But what the bigger picture of all this is, what's she going to do when she goes home? Chad. Hey, honey. This guy Steve just bought her groceries. I don't know where. Well, that was a pretty cool thing. I just changed their mindset indirectly to start paying it forward and giving value to somebody else.

That's beautiful. It's really cool. It's really good. I'm curious, do you have. You've grown your company so your podcast is really popular and how much of your time is spent with the podcast versus any other kind of venture that you deal with?

It changes week to week. Sometimes I'll do eight to 10 shows, sometimes two to three. I'll be a little more liberate. What's the word I want to use? Not taking everybody on at the very beginning, I just wanted to record and learn making mistakes and find out what my niche is. I'm a little more particular who's on my show just because I really want to make an impact. Somebody that has done very well or a celebrity. Lee Steinberg. People are going to listen. Like, you're thinking like, Lee Steinberg. Wow, that's great. My business partner, I just got off the phone with Max. I told him. He's like, wow, that's awesome when that happens. And he says some things that can change the world and change people. That's what my podcast is all about.

So does it serve the purpose that it's like the foundation of your networking kind of strategy? Is that your podcast put you in touch with all these incredible people? You're learning, you're giving, you're getting, now you're receiving, you're doing all these things. But are you using this as your business, too? Are you generating an income from your podcast?

I am. I've got coaches that paid me for clients, you know, that saw them on the show. The listener reached out. Or I'll do a referral. I'm working with a gentleman out of Columbia. He's American. He's in Columbia. He's got this cool project. We just talked yesterday and got a ton of referrals. He's gonna pay me thousands of dollars. And again, all because I served. I brought him a ton of referrals. I work with them, had them on my podcast. We've built. I mean, the guy goes, steve, you're incredible. I've got to take care of you, and I want to take care and pay you. That's awesome because I just served. All I did was serve. I know it's hard for some people when I say that. I got to be careful because it's not. For some people, it's not that easy. Like introverts, right? But think of value, and then I'm gonna stop. Well, let me do this. So I'm going to tell your audience and listeners, here's a challenge I put out to everybody. Starting on Monday. I want you to write down every person you physically or virtually meet and serve them. Bring them value, and write that down. Help. The lady with her groceries called my best friend, gave him a tip, gave five referrals to Jim. And write that down. When Friday or Saturday comes, I want you to think three things. How did you feel at the end of the week? How do those people feel when you brought them value? And the third and most important, how did your week change?

Let me ask you a question. A lot of people feel like they don't have a lot to give. And so a lot of people can get stuck and paralyzed with like, what can I do? What can I? You know, you know, who am I? And the things you're talking about, These are things that anybody can do. And part of me, when I hear you talk about it because you and I have. I'm aligned with you. I agree with everything you're saying. And I try to do these things, and it kind of come nat. It comes a little bit natural for me. And I can tell for you it probably does, too. But for me, not everybody's so nice. Not everybody is thinking that way. And I'm curious to know why you think that people have such a hard time doing some of these simple things. And do you just think that they don't realize what they would gain from it if they did, Meaning how they'd feel, not what they're going to get, just how it's going to make them feel? I mean, what stops everybody from doing more of this?

Part of it is how you feel. Just try it. I started doing this because I jump on one on ones and I pitch. I even had a guy on my show who's a big coach, big time. And we reconnected, and I said, you know, you told me I jumped on a call with him three years ago, two years ago, and I started pitching on my product. And he said, stop, Steve. You're pitching me. I don't know anything about you. And that turned the corner for me. Like, I need to do better one on ones. Thinking real rich came into my life more. And I read the law of increase and, like, just bring increase to people. Don't sell them, but bring them value. Bring them a gift, whatever that gift is. The other thing, too, is when you're serving, always think about how you can help, how you can help, how you can support. You know, we get a call from somebody, their family members in the hospital, we all run down the hospital, be there for them, you know, how can I help you? It's natural in every single human being, no matter where you're at. We all have that in us. But you always want to be thinking about it. But I also think it's a skill set, Chad. You need to practice it. If you've got to write it down, if you got to do affirmations, if you got to have something on your computer, your wall that says bring value today, bring value, whatever that is, that's what you need to do. Because I started practicing it, and then weeks go by, and I'm Going, wow.

And when you say practice it, you mean just doing it, right? Just offering or just because I think today, you know, look, AI technology, it's shaking a lot of things up and it's going to, it's going to create a, an acute pain for people who have to shift. And once they find their new skill or they transition to a different industry, they're going to be okay. But in the short term, it may hurt. It may hurt. And I think, you know, for a lot of people, when you think about skills, they don't think about soft skills. And I'm a big believer that that's your most valuable asset because you can learn a hard skill, but it could get replaced tomorrow. But when I go interview with somebody, if I have a great soft skill in building relationships, you can get people to hire you over the person with the degree. How do you practice soft skills outside of just doing it? What advice would you have for people who are just like, I want to get better at building relationships, but I just don't know how to do it?

Well, how do you. So I tell people this, you have a habit, you want to stop smoking, then you do whatever it takes to stop smoking. Because you can call this a habit to serving and bringing value, or I call it a skill because it's a skill. Because it can make you money, it can grow your business. You gotta may change your mindset and whatever way to do, to do that, that you're gonna bring value. But I tell everybody, just try it for that challenge. For the week. I've had people reach out, Chad, like, oh my God, my week changed. I got a sale. I've been on a sale in three weeks, or you know what I got, people call me, I haven't talked to in months that want to talk to me about my business or talk to me about what I'm doing today. Doesn't have to be a sale. It's about growing every day. And if you bring value to people every day, you're growing again. How, when or where, we don't know. That's all up to the man upstairs and faith. But it's something that you just, you, you have to believe in it.

Have you, have you, have you always been this way?

I've always been a connector. I've always been. Because I started in the health club industry meeting people you've heard that story. I've talked about on shows I've been on. I learned the power of, you know, we're people, right? I got a billionaire. Call me. Well, three years Ago, I would have hung up the phone and never answered. I don't know the phone number. I answer it and the guy's like, I heard your podcast. I heard you're doing great things. I want to work with you. I want to pay you a lot of money because I love what you do. I'm like listening for an hour. I'm listening to his story and him talking about himself. But he's needing me, right? Billionaires or people that work eight to five making a hundred thousand year are human. And we all the same. We just have a label of, well, healthy or successfully successful or just getting by whatever that title is. All it is is a label everybody wants to.

Besides Napoleon Hill, are there any other books that you've had in your past that have had an impact on you when it comes to that soft skills, building relationships? Is there anything, anyone that you can think of that you could recommend?

Ryan Holiday, the Daily Stoic.

Nice.

Unbelievable book. My best friend, I just got married last year. My best man, know my Mike for 45 years. Shout out to Mike, he said, hey, I want you take a look at this book I bought right away and what we even do with it again, Serving each other is we text every day. Hey, client, like yesterday was about kindness, opportunity and kindness. How good we feel. We're serving each other even though we know each other for 45 years. And my other friend Sean, we're in this little group text, but we're serving each other. You know, now he's got his wife on it. And you know what I've done? This is how I think and how people should think. I'm loving what we're doing. I've got two other groups of people that bought the book and we're texting back and forth. And like Steve, this is the greatest thing. And one of my friends was fighting cancer. Thank God and thank the Lord he's cancer free. Part of that, not all of it is because I served him, brought him value, gave him an inspiration, motivation inspired him and he did it. We go deep with this.

Very cool. Yeah. So I've only had one that has had a huge transformational impact. It was early in my career. It was Dale Carnegie's how to Win Friends and Influence People. Just because he teaches you how to build those relationships and to do those things. And it is you learn those things and if you practice them, they work. It's not rocket science. You just have to do it. And I like your advice on that was just do the nice thing. You don't know what kind of an opportunity opens the door? When you say something, open the door for someone, give someone a comment. And it's. It's incredible how you look back on your life and see how those things all led to certain things that had happened. But people don't tap into it. And I think, you know, I think it's a victim kind of a mindset sometimes that people can fall into.

Yeah, you know, Chad, we're an ROI society. And here's their ROI on serving and bringing value that you feel better. Right. Who wants a little shot of adrenaline, a song of positivity in their life? We all do. And sometimes it's bigger than others. And that's what I see. This is all about, hey, I'm nothing. I'm not special. But I'm special that I took the action and did it. And I learned that. I wouldn't have said this three years ago. I never like talking about myself. But I'm not being braggadocious. I'm telling you, it's changing my life. And anybody can do if they're willing to listen and want to get help. And on the side of a book, there's another book out, Positive sides of the Street. Napoleon Hill. They found all his tapes, his team, last year, a year and a half ago, and put this in a book. It's even better than Think and Grow Rich. That's cool.

Very cool. So I know our time's limited, but I like the authenticity piece of not only Authority magazine, a lot of things that I do. And you seem very authentic and transparent. I got a couple hard questions for you. Wouldn't be a good interview if it wasn't some hard questions. So my first one is, can you share whatever you're comfortable sharing? Obviously. But the hardest thing that you ever had to experience and how you dealt.

With it, closing the business. If you have a vision and a mission and care about your employees and your. And your customers, it should hurt you hard. And that's what I was told. It's gonna hurt. I relate that to sports. I'm a big sports guy. Play a lot of sports. When you get that pit in your stomach before a game, that's a good thing because you care. That was really difficult. And I said, you know, for. I'll be very transparent. For two months, I sat and watched Oprah, daytime soaps on the floor. I could. I could picture it. Now what am I going to do? I was with a health club for 20 years. I started this business. You know, I was in a restaurant. It died. Now I've started this business. It died. So that's three opportunities gone. Wow, I'm. Was I 44, 45, something like that? What am I going to do? I don't have a resume. I have a resume built up, but not the Reuters, Harvard, Yale, Stanford resume. I didn't work for Google, Apple, which are on there. I mean, I didn't have that kind of resume. But the best resume I had was my network. It's really cool.

And I'm curious, when you were going through those tough times with your businesses, was there someone in particular in your life that you leaned on for support? Who's your go to? You know, like, you know, I mean, you do a lot for other people and you're meeting people and you're. But when it comes to your inner circle, when it comes to people that you're. You're rocks in your life. How many of them do you have? And who's the one that you went to? Or did you have someone?

Yeah, that's a great question. And first I'm going to add to this. You have to have mentors, whoever that is, because we can't do this alone. We need a village. If it's one person or ten, doesn't matter. Again, that's part of the network thing. But you need people. So my dad, Ralph. Ralph, Ramona, my cousin Jeffrey, Mona were there. And then these people I mentioned already, that's why they're my mentors. I love them. And Mike Sullivan, let me get emotional here, because you can't do this stuff alone if you care. And it's going to hit you in your heart and it's going to be hard on you, but you can come out of your side, but you got to get that people there to help you and support you. You're doing the right thing. Here's why. Not just cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are great. These three were not cheerleaders at all. They were, hey, here's what you need to do. Here's what we think. What do you, you know, they work with me even though they were family and my best friend, and they're just. They're essential. Love them forever.

Yeah. I call those truth tellers.

Yes.

And you're blessed if you have a couple people that will tell you the truth. And especially when it's a blind spot that you can't see and they hit you over the head with it because it's what you need to hear. Because, look, everybody's struggling with something, right? So at that time, you're struggling. Let Me ask you this. You know, when I had some tough things happen in my business and I knew that it would set me back, when I lost a big client, I had to lay people off for the first time. Time. You know, people have this immediate need for things to happen now. How long were your blips and, and, and, and did you. Were they shortened over time when you had a different. Another blip? I mean, in your mind, like when you have to be patient with time, how long did it take you to rebound? You know, outside of kind of getting off. Off the floor and not watching TV anymore, to kind of get your butt going. Just talk to me about the time frames.

Well, that's a great. A great question. So 2000, when we left, I left the health club we had sold, and they asked me to move on. And it wasn't till three years later that I found the restaurant job.

Wow.

And that was three years. And then the recycling job came in just a little bit after. So it started shortening. But after the restaurant job ended, it didn't affect me as much as losing the health club. You do somewhere 20 years. I mean, that's your whole life. That was my whole life. My whole life. I say that it's amazing, which was great, but it's also when it gets cut off and you're no, you know, gone. It's gone. It gets easier. So I also was part of a network marketing company. They got a call from my partner, and he said, what goes down? I remember it was a Thursday, striving to play softball. And he calls and says, you know, I thought he was calling about a meeting Saturday that we're gonna do. 100 people are going to be there. I'm speaking to a great group of people. And he says, the company's closed. SEC come in the office and shut it down. $7,000. My wife's gonna hear this. Go, yeah, last. But that was years ago. So she does. She wasn't around back that time. That was easier to get over because I remember back to the health club. I remember back the restaurant. I remember back with my dad, my cousin, my best friend Mike said about the recycling company, there's other opportunities and the doors are going to open. And they did. That's really cool.

I'm going to switch gears real quick because I know we only got a little bit of time left. So best advice for someone who wants to start a podcast, outside of just doing it and getting your reps in and having to learn experience, like something that you wouldn't necessarily get On Google. Look, you're really good at what you do and you've got a lot of episodes behind you and you learned a lot. So something you learned over time and some advice you can give to anyone who's trying to build up a good podcast.

Another great question because it's going to this answer is going to be very different than people are going to find on Google. Josh, who I mentioned earlier, our first meeting because I was part of this group to help with my podcast because I didn't know what to do. Josh, I'm ready to roll. I'm fired up. I'm excited, which we all are when we start something. I said, josh, what do I do? And he says, steve, just start recording. Build content. Build content, build content. You'll get better in time. You'll understand graphics and different things. And you look at first show to my 204th show. It's night and day and it's getting better every, every time I do a show and changing it up. So just record. Don't worry about what you look like, how you sound. Just make sure they can listen and it's good content around what your podcast is about.

Very cool. All right, switching gears again. Your prediction for healthcare in the future.

For healthcare. That is a loaded question. No problem answering. First, it's got to change. There's opportunities out there. Actually part of a medical cost sharing program where it's community based sharing. We need to take the money out of the corporate sites and put it back into the people. How we do that I don't know. But I think the future, I think things are going to happen now that we see Covid Israel is happening now, of course Ukraine recession, prices are going up. It's going to come to a head here and the people are going to have to take it over.

How does your. I don't know that much about your background with the meta. I asked you the question because I saw some stuff in your background. How does it align with your mission and all the things that we're talking about like that side of you in the business world. I don't know. I mean I owned a medical collection agency. I saw the end of the. A tough business. Right. But I know that it's really hard for doctors to be in business right now and they're making it even harder, you know, and it's like it doesn't really motivate kids coming out of college to want to go into medical school. It just doesn't. But you're doing things with medical cost sharing. What exactly Is that so?

It's a community based. It's a member. It's like a health club.

Okay.

But for medical. For medical, you know, it's medical and a few other things. There's components, but what they've done is people put in their membership. Their price was, I think I was paying because I'm not part of anymore. I still sell it, but my wife got free insurance. So you can't guarantee if you're free. Right. Or cheap. It's very inexpensive. Don't like the word cheap. Inexpensive. But what it is, you put in to this membership and the money grows and they manage it. When you have a D, they call it a need. You pay $1,000. So say you break your leg playing basketball. Well, surgery is $28,000. Well, normal insurance, you're gonna pay 10, 15,000 deductible, maybe 5. With us, there's no deductible. It's you pay the paid 1000, IUA insured, initial uninsured amount and then you never pay again for that injury until it's healed. So if you need physical therapy for six months, it's all covered. Right.

So you recommend everyone go down this route?

I do. If you're a solopreneur and don't have, you know, you got to pay insurance. Absolutely. Because what I've seen, I'm not a super expert, but I've seen, I've talked to people like, hey, you know what? Here in California, or maybe it's Obamacare, it's everywhere. You know, I pay 0 monthly, but your deductible is 20k. Well, when something happens like that, guess what, you're bankrupt. 80% of the world can't. United States can't afford 20,000 out of their pocket. So they got to pay. They're going to get insured, you know, interest, and they're going to be paying that debt for years, never moving up financially. So this covers that. Right?

Interesting.

Okay, good.

One last question for you. So ChatGPT comes out last November, you know, a little bit over, you know, a year ago, whatever, it got launched out. My first question is, when did you get introduced to it? When did you play with it? Have you played with it? And has it, if you have, has it changed anything for you?

I have. I started probably the beginning of this year, just a little bit after it came out. I'm a big tech guy. I built my first computer in 79, 80. I'm an old guy, but I just love computers. It was weird because I was an athlete and my sports Guys or group friends would go, what's that thing in your computer, your bedroom? That's a computer. I could do stats, doing stats and keeping shot baseball and football and all that. But that's weird. I said, it's going to make money for somebody someday. I wish I would have moved forward. I didn't and that's okay. But now I lost train of my thought with that. Oh, regards to chat GPT, it's a technology. I, I've been trained on it. I use this summer for my podcast. But here's my caveat. My take it doesn't talk about your heart. I can look up Chad Silverstein and say, hey, write a summary of Chad Silverstein. It's gonna go all over the place. But it's not Chad's heart, it's not Steve Ramona's heart. So we gotta keep in mind with AI is keep the heart involved or we're gonna fall down a. Yeah.

The empathy, the emotional intelligence, those soft skills, like, it's just, you can't replace those. Right? Like, you can go out and learn all the hard skills. And I always say if people are applying for jobs and they've got the degrees and they've got the skills, but if you've got the human touch and you connect with someone, a lot of times people hire who they like and you don't have to be that qualified in order to land a great job over someone who's more qualified because you know how to articulate and connect. And I love, I heard someone say, a quote said, shoot for the. Shoot for the heart and then the head. And I love that. Right. Because I'm with you and I think I led my whole company like that always. And I think you get more from people and you end up, like you said before, you get more back. And I think that makes you feel a certain way. You get things back and it's a road less traveled, unfortunately. It really is.

Amen to that. And soft skills can be very inexpensive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, listen, Steve, I really appreciate your time. I know I was all over the place, but I like to just be curious and just try to pick people's brains. And I really enjoy talking to you. You seem like really good dude and I just want you to know, just to kind of follow your aim in life. I'm aligned with you. And I want you to know that even though I don't know you that well, if you ever need a third party with, you know, to give you to bounce an idea off of or to get brainstorming or you need just some feedback from someone that's outside your circle, you can always call me. That's what I want to give you, is a green light to always call me if you ever need anything like that. And I'm going to try to think of someone that would be a great guest that you would want to be deliberately interviewing, because I understand you have a great podcast and you want to be, you know, picky with who you have. And I'm going to try to think about who's in my network, that I can make a connection, because I really like what you said about that, and I agree with you, and I think it's a great thing that you're doing that for other people. And I just want you to know how much I appreciate you having, having you on this interview.

That's real life serving right there, listeners. That is it right there. It's as simple as that. Thank you. This has been a great show. I love the tough questions.

That's great. Okay, sounds good. We're signing off.