Michael F. Schein on How to Learn the Science and Master the Art of Hype

Living a life in full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout and I hope you enjoy this episode. This episode is brought to you by the new fellowship and certificate programs now being offered by the center for Global Initiatives. As you may know, the center is an all volunteer organization and the same is true for the faculty in these programs. So all the tuition goes to support the work of the Center. It has always been our ethos to open source humanitarian intervention and these programs use the same approach in that all the materials we use are freely available all the time to anyone, everywhere, even if you don't take a course. We have built a world class faculty and contracts with other universities, medical schools and partnered NGOs. There are two fellowship tracks, one for those wishing to start their own nonprofit or non governmental organization and one for those seeking mentorship for career development and advancement and humanitarian work. Our initial certificate programs include humanitarian intervention, social entrepreneurship and global health practice. Please consider taking a world class masterclass with us. Visit alifeinfull.org and click on the CourseWorks tab to learn more. Thanks. Welcome to another episode of Living a Life in Full. I hello, I'm your host Dr. Chris Stout. I'm so happy to have Michael F. Shine back on the show for round two. Michael was first on in episode 30 and as he has a new book debuting the Hype Handbook, I wanted to have him back on and tell us about it. As you may remember, Michael is the founder and President of Micro Fame Media, a marketing agency that specializes in making idea based companies famous in their fields. His client list includes ebay, Magento, the Medici Group. Yeah, University of Pennsylvania, Gordon College, University of California, Irvine, United Methodist publishing House, Rico, LinkedIn and Citrix, just to name a few. Before that, Michael was Vice President of Solution Development at the Results Companies where he developed and launched the company's first content marketing campaign. During his time there, the company's revenue grew from less than 20 million to over 100 million. His writing has appeared in Fortune, Forbes, Inc. Psychology Today and the Huffington Post, and he's a speaker for audiences spanning from northeastern United States to the southeastern coast of China. Michael graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with honors and got his start at Spin the Bottle, the production company behind VH1's hit to show Pop Up Video. He also created, ran and moderated the New York Tech Alliance's Interactive Marketing panel series. His new book, the Hype 12 Indispensable Success Secrets from the World's Greatest Propagandists, Self Promoters, Cult Leaders, Mischief Makers, and Boundary breakers, is to be published by McGraw Hill. It will be available everywhere books are sold starting January 12, 2021. Welcome back, my friend. It's great to have you back on.

Thank you, Chris. It's so great to be here. And it was great to get that introduction. I feel really like an important man, you know, here, here.

Well, you are. And, you know, just. Just in case you forgot any of that stuff, too. So. So I. I want to set all

together in one place. You know, it's. It's. It's more impressive than it sounds. More impressive than it really is.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. When. When I get complimentary intros, I always tell people, you know, I appreciate that, and most of it's actually true. So. So that's. I know what you're saying. So I want to do as we talked before the show started, you know, to talk about your book and kind of deconstruct it. There is so much cool stuff going on in that and such impressive work with it. But before that, I just kind of wanted to catch up with you since, you know, a lot of stuff has happened since our episode 30 and, you know, working in a media company, working in marketing, writing about Hype. These. These have been kind of strange days with COVID Has. Has your company or is. Has your work been impacted by it? And if so, how?

Well, yeah, I mean, it got scary for. For a long minute. I mean, when it's funny. So we do definitely rely on a steady stream of new clients, you know, And I remember a guy who. I won't say the name, you know, but he flew into town specifically to see us and me, and we did our. Our little strategy session, which we do instead of a sales meeting. And he basically said at the end, listen, you can do the proposal, but I'm basically going to hire you. So I was like, oh, that's great. That's in the bag. That's good. So about a week later, he basically said, if you're doing any work on the proposal, stop. Let's delay it for a couple weeks. Because I heard about this virus thing, and I'm feeling kind of weird about it. And I remember saying to one of my co workers, I Was like, this guy is a real hypochondriac. Like, what is he talking about? This guy's a little nutty. I mean. Yeah. And then, I don't know, like, three weeks later, I think I had, like, four potential prospects or four prospects in the pipeline. They all froze and pulled out. So I got nervous. And not just nervous. We were impacted for a minute, but things are coming back in a big way. I mean, things feel definitely not back to normal, but people are. I think people are either realizing that this is here to stay and they got to learn to live with it and they still need to bring it down, attention to their businesses or something like that, you know, But. But yeah, I got. I got real nervous for a minute, so.

Okay, well, good. I'm glad things are kind of turning. Turning the corner. So are there any hype takeaways or examples from what we're seeing in the media today about the pandemic or with fake news or a lot of the things that seem to be kind of front and center on just about any media channel that people are tuning into?

I mean, yeah, you know, that we could talk all, all day about that. I mean, I don't know how, you know, I don't know how many of your listeners know what my definition of hype is. I mean, the way I define it, it's usually considered a negative word, and it has historically been, but I've taken the liberty of taking it back and repurposing it. So the way I define it is any set of kind of activities or strategies that you use to get a large number of people emotional, to get them to take an action on their behalf. And traditionally, some pretty nefarious people have been better at this than others. But a lot of good people, a lot of the Martin Luther Kings of the world and Richard Branson's of the world have as well. But I would say that the elephant in the room is Donald Trump. I mean, he is. I don't know what else he's good at. And we can take, you know, I don't know what people's politics are, and it almost doesn't matter. But he's tremendous at hype. And yeah, he. I mean, and this isn't a political statement. He lies a lot. He tells a lot of untruths. But that isn't what I consider the hype part of what he does. He is really good at framing reality and using language in. In a way, even though it's sometimes not elegant, that gets the people he's trying to get emotional. Very, very emotional. Right, like so. I mean, an obvious example in the first election, Hillary Clinton's slogan was. What was it? I don't even remember. I'm with her. You know, it was a clever play on words, but that's it. Whereas Donald Trump's we all know, is make America great again. And if you break down why that works so well, hype artists have done this for centuries. It's future focused, right? So it's, you may not be happy right now, which none of us ever are fully, but in the future we're going to make America great again. We're going to make this, this utopian thing and we remember the City upon a hill that comes from this Puritan preacher who used to call America city upon a hill. We're not great right now. You might be starving right now here in New England in 1600, but we're going to create the new Jerusalem in the future. Right? And then the other thing is, it's vague. Make America great again. How so? You know, Hillary Clinton was Talking about Hillary clinton.gov here's my 17 point policy thing. And Donald Trump's like, we're going to make America great again. And that can mean anything to anybody. If you're a flagrant racist white supremacist, you think that's a time where there was segregation and if you're someone who's for unions. And when, when all the work was done in America and not in China, you can say, oh, it's when made America in America was a good thing and you could make a living wage. But he never clarifies it, right. So he's very, very good at that.

It allows us to project onto it, you know, with whatever hopefulness from whatever constituency I guess we come from. That is, that's, that's very clever. And I never really thought about that because it is, you know, hon, regardless of a person's politics, it is catchy, you know, it's sort of like hard to argue with, you know. Well, no, I don't want to do that. You know, it's hard to push back up against. So that's good. Well, you, you know, I think you've got your hype newsletter, you've got the hype book coming out. I think you do some, you know, trainings and things around that. But there's also like some hype competition with the Gartner so called hype cycle, which I never really figured out was a cycle. It always just, you know, it didn't seem like it replicated Its. Or something. But how does hype relate to the hype cycle? Or does it in the context of how you think about it?

So if I'm not mistaken, you're referring to the Gartner hype cycle, right? Is that what you're. Yeah, it's very funny because I. This may not be the answer that's exciting to hear, but I had come up with the term hype in my own mind. First of all, I had never, I had not come up with the term hype. I co opted the term hype. But. But I had no idea what the Gartner hype cycle was. You know, I took that term and I, and I came with something else and then I found out about it and I was like, this is very exciting. I'm going to look into what this is. And obviously, you know, Gartner has figured out too, and it has very little to do with what I'm talking about. I was almost a little disappointed that they used the term. It's, it's really about how, you know, I think it has mainly to do with technology and businesses and it's the idea that like kind of early on in technology, it's the early adopters and I'm not even sure if this is right, but it's. This is the basic theme. You know, people get very excited in the early days about something, then it plateaus and becomes cheap. But again, there's going to be people writing you how I got it wrong because I read it about it once and I was like, this has nothing to do with, with what I'm doing. So I kind of discarded it.

No, that's fine. No, because I did want to kind of distinguish it because you're absolutely right. I mean, I've seen it in a number of, like, it just seemed like the proverbial opening know slide number two in everybody's pitch deck or slide deck for some new startup or whatever, that there's the hype cycle of people getting, not knowing what's going on and then finding about this. And then it seems like it's got some, you know, potential and momentum and back to this, you know, sort of exciting what the future may hold. And then it get, you know, it gets released or it gets published or it gets whatever. Then it kind of plateaus and then kind of, you know, fizzles and people get bored with it and on to the next version 2.0 of whatever that was. So, so maybe that, that is a

good clarification, you know, where I actually. Oh, I'm Sorry, what was that?

No, that's a good clarification. So thank you. But what were you going to say?

I was just going to say I actually got the term, now that I remember from a very different place. And I don't know who used the term hype first, but I got it from hip hop because in, in rap music, especially rap groups, especially, like when I was a kid, you know, everyone thinks of hype as a negative, right? But in hip hop, that wasn't the case. You always had a person in the group called the Hype Man. And like the, the, the, the idea. The preeminent example is Flava Flav and Public Enemy, right? Like, like Chuck D was the serious rapper and Flava Flavor was the Hype Man. He got the crowd, but he rapped on the songs as well. But, but it never was looked at as a negative. It was considered part of the act. Like in rap, marketing and promotion and the art are not mutually exclusive. They're all part of the same thing. And it, and it adds a lot of color to it. It's not like, oh, you know, unfortunately, we have to promote this stuff, but our real art, it's like, no, the promotion is part of what makes it fun, you know, And I thought that was a really cool concept. So that's kind of what I stole. That's.

That's good. That's good. So to. Then I just, I have to. I love the title of your books. I'm just going to say it again. I just, I think it's so clever. The Hype Book 12 indispensable. Maybe the subtitle is kind of what's really, you know, gets me. 12 indispensable success secrets from the World's Greatest propagandists, Self promoters, cult leaders, Mischief makers and boundary breakers. And I just want to thank you again for the early draft version. I so enjoyed reading it, and I'm obviously not the only one. I want to give a couple shout outs here. Jonah Berger, bestselling author of Contagious and the Catalyst, said about your book. It provides a wealth of new insights into why many people act the way they do, even when that behavior seems irrational or counterproductive. The Hype Handbook has taken its place on my bookshelf, right alongside the other classics on persuasion and human nature. The CEO of meetup, David Siegel, said, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Hype book advance. Advance an idea that I built my life around, that interpersonal relationships are the core of all forms of success. Anyone who wants to rise to the Top of business or any other endeavor needs to pick up this book. And finally, Franz Johansson, CEO of the Medici Group and author of the Medici Effect, said, I want to be the next Elon Musk. Innovators must not only create amazing products, they must rise above the noise to sell them. These stranger than fiction stories and mind bending concepts will show you how. So just well deserved, Michael. I think those are really spot on and I just want to start off. I really love the stories and I want you to share some of those shortly. But first, from the title. Some may mistakenly presume that the book's about bad people doing bad things, but it's. That's not really the focus. Say, say more about that.

So, yeah, it's a great question because I worry, of all the things that I'm trying to get across, this is the thing that I worry that people will misconstrue because I think it's sort of subtle, right? So what I realized at a certain point in my career was that there are certain principles of human psychology, especially in groups, that just are. You can wish that they weren't so, or you can assume that, you know, you can let your sort of feelings about these things take over and be blind to them. But the fact of the matter is the human mind is not designed to be accurate. It's designed to survive and pass on its genes. And a lot of times seeing the world a little bit inaccurately has helped our species do that. So if we're going to accept that human beings perceive the world a certain way, especially in groups, we can say to ourselves, okay, I'm going to either figure out what these things are with the idea that I'm going to be ethical, you know, I'm going to live an ethical life. I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to cheat, I'm not going to steal. But if I want to get my message out there, or get my product sold, or get my artwork looked at, or get my cause looked at, I need to make sure large numbers of people get emotional and take action around my ideas. So I think the main thing is why a lot of quote unquote, bad people are better at hype than good people. On average, this is not an absolute thing, but on average is because a lot of quote unquote, good people don't. They don't see the world the way it really is. They have a lot of guilt. They say, you know, yeah, it might be true that, you know, this or that principle is the case and we can talk about what some of those principles are. But I wish it weren't that way. And I want my. The cream should rise to the top anyway. And then they don't understand why people aren't, you know, accepting their ideas. Whereas, you know, you know, on the farthest end of the spectrum, sociopaths and narcissists and people like that, they don't care. They see people as pawns and as a result, they see the world a little bit more clearly. So the thing that I have kind of tried to figure out in my career is, okay, are these tactics bad? Because if they are, I want nothing to do with them. I want to find another way. Are they unethical or are they just the way the world is and can apply ethically? So what that means is A, some really good people have done these things over time as well, which I found to be true, which I found to be the case. And B, there's no real morality or immorality to these tactics. So instead of, let's make the case of the value of these principles so people doing really good and ethical things in the world can have a shot for once instead of all the bad guys. Because that's what we typically see.

Yeah, yeah, that's so true. I mean, I have friends and colleagues that have like, within psychology, I mean, sometimes we're our own worst enemies and there's sort of like a delicate balance. And this is just totally my perspective. I'm not representing psychology and what I'm about to say say whatsoever. But I've seen some folks that are very humble and modest about their clinical services and clinical abilities. And I know because I've collaborated with them or worked with them or worked at the same clinic with them or whatever in the past. And they hate marketing. They feel it's self promoting. They feel it's P.T. barnum. They feel it's diminishing of the profession. I've seen other people who are probably this. More outside that I'm sure are very competent clinicians, very well credentialed, been to good schools, etc. And are more, you know, show people and, and have very successful practices. So I think sometimes people have a little bit of envy. You know, it's like, oh gee. So then they diminish the. Well, they're just, you know, blowhards or they, you know, they're not really. That they're not as good as I am. But, you know, we can't really see that because the, you know, the privacy of the work that we do. But there is Sort of this taintedness of, you know, if someone, you know, beats their own drum, it's always great to have somebody else beat your drum. But if you do your own, you know, a lot of times it's the jaundiced eye that gets cast upon you and sometimes can work against you. So I appreciate that. I think it is a good point to kind of make that distinction. So I also want to say about your book, I love your sardonic style of writing. I mean, it comes through in your newsletters and in our conversation. I just love that. And it's ever present throughout the book.

Thanks. Because I really do go for that. I'm glad that you picked up on that because that's sort of. I really.

Yeah. I have a quote. I'm going to force you to listen to me say yours in a little bit in this conversation because it's just poetry. But I want to say that too, that this isn't just like poking the sacred cows and stuff, which is great fun. But honestly, Michael, this could be used as a textbook, but I don't know if it's just. Would be for a college history class or a psychology class or a sociology class or even a neuroscience class. Contextually. How did you go about doing your research? I mean, it just seems, you know, quite diverse and voluminous. But, you know, as a writer myself, it's like that's. That's not the fun part. But how did you go about parsing it out and searching out these stories and doing what you did to. To build the foundation for the book?

Weirdly enough, for me, it was the fun part, and I never knew that it would be the fun part. So as you. You mentioned my. Yeah, I really enjoyed it because, you know, you noticed from my. You mentioned my hype book list, which is, you know, every once in a while I send out a list of the books on this topic that I'm reading. But as you've noted to me in our kind of private communication, it's never the typical kind of top five marketing books that you can buy in the airport. It's usually some weird stuff. Right.

Thank goodness.

And. Well, that's the thing. I mean, you know, I've been researching this stuff kind of informally for a long time. I guess I'm a writer before anything else. You know, I own an agency. I love it. But I never wanted to own a business. I wanted to be a writer. And. Excuse me, as a result, I mean, most writers start by being readers, right? So I really, really like to read a Lot. And I used to feel like I was wasting time when I was reading. I know there's a new fad, everyone. You know, reading is the hot thing now, that if you want to be successful, you should read. But for a long time, I sort of felt like I was watching TV when I was reading. You know, it was like, I like this too much. I'm just sitting here doing this passive activity. So a lot of what I'm starting with is books. You know, I certainly interviewed quite a few people as well. I've learned a lot from my own business practice because I don't think things should be totally theoretical, but I'm always reading. So I read these obscure books like the Crowd by Gustav Levan. I read biology of really eccentric characters. Like, you know, the founder of the Nation of Islam was one, which is funny because I used to write a column for Forbes, and I wrote a column about. After reading that book about what you can learn about marketing from the Nation of Islam, and they fired me.

Wow.

Yeah. So that was interesting. But. So, yeah, I think. I think that the first thing is I really, really like reading interesting, colorful books. And I just read countless books, and I looked and saw if I could discern themes, and I really could. I mean, at all of these diverse characters. You know, basically from Ayn Rand to Richard Branson to the founder of Nation of Islam to Thomas Edison to Amy Semple McPherson, who was an evangelist. You know, they. You can break down their tactics into like 12 strategies. So that was the first thing. The other thing is, it's important to note that I started reading these books because I wanted to be a freelance copywriter after I left my corporate job, and I almost failed. I mean, I didn't know how to market myself at all. And I read all the regular marketing books, and they really failed me. So I had had kind of a past of being into this kind of stuff. You know, like I said, I was an art kind of person. And so I started reading about the characters that really interested me, like rock band managers and cult leaders and whatever. And I said, huh, I wonder if I could apply this stuff ethically. And so I built a marketing program around these ideas, and then I started to do it for clients. So I only included this stuff I've actually tested. There are all kinds of ideas that seemed interesting, but I could never really make it happen in real life. And those I kind of left out. So that was sort of my weird research process.

That's cool. I didn't realize the personal experience with applying these Kinds of things. So you talk about the between the lines kind of aspect of hype with your 12 indispensable secrets. I'm sure you just like Cheshire Cat grinned when you had that as part of your subtitle. So with. With those, did you. I guess maybe you sort of said this, but maybe let's put a finer point on it, at least for me. So did. Did these 12 things sort of come organically in this experience of. Of putting together things for your company or was it sort of, you know, vice versa, that you kind of said these things seem to exist and I need to go look for examples and evidence or. Or a combination of the two.

Yeah, I mean, turning it. Combination. Turning it into the 12 principles came when I was writing the book. So I would regularly discover things that I thought might work and apply them, but I didn't know I was writing a book. So, I mean, the example I talk about a lot, and if you listen to any other podcast I'm on, I probably bring this up at some point was the thing that kind of rescued me from almost going broke was I wrote an article for income for Inc. The magazine called why Gary Vaynerchuk Is Flat Out Wrong. I mean, I talk about this a lot, but he responded to me like 24 hours later. And he was agitated and he made a video where he mentioned my name. And it was great. I mean, I, like, launched my career. And that is. I noticed that a lot of the people I was reading about, for example, in this case the person I was inspired by was Malcolm McLaren, who was the Sex Pistols manager. And his whole thing was always, you know, cause controversy, like. Like when the Queen had her. This is the famous story when her. The Queen had her Golden Jubilee or Silver Jubilee, whatever it was, they rode a boat down the Thames river singing God Save the Queen, which called the Queen a fascist. You know what I mean? And as a result, they cracked the charts. So I applied that stuff and I would do things like that, you know, regularly. But then when I decided that this would make a cool book, then I started to really say, okay. You know, I was actually inspired by a very terrible book called the Anarchist Cookbook. And I say terrible because it's caused a lot of harm in the world. Have you ever heard of this?

Oh, yeah, yeah. How to Make a Bomb and all sorts of things. Yeah, yeah.

And it's a terrible thing and it never should have been created. That being said, I remember being a teenager and this was before the Internet and people just saying, oh, you gotta see this thing, it's got. Anything you want to do in this one book, you know?

Yeah.

You can get. You can get high using, like, marigold seeds or whatever, which I never did, but I just. All these crazy. And I thought that, like, it was a horrible thing to unleash onto the world, but I just thought the concept of, like, the one handbook for any kind of rebellious, terroristic activity that you want to do in this shopping.

Yeah.

And I was like, yeah. I was like, what if I could do the same for hype? And, you know, I would read all these marketing books, and it was like, the secret to marketing is Instagram and sales funnels. I'm like, really? Like, that's your. Is that going to be relevant in six months? You know, there's got to be something deep, like, that's more fundamental than. Yeah.

So in that context, do you have a favorite strategy or do you feel like there's any kind of hierarchy? Like, some are more effective than others or more. Some more broad spectrum, and some are more specific and targeted?

I don't think there's an absolute hierarchy. I do think that some strategies are better for certain people, depending on your inclinations. So, like, to give you an example, theatricality was really good for. I'm trying to think of a good example from, you know, modern life. You know, I don't know. I'll think of an example from past life. Yeah.

Talked about the Parisian circumstance. Was it like doing plays in a church and that kind of thing?

Yeah. Right. So that was an actual theater troupe, the Grand Gwynne, y', all, who. Who created these gruesome theatrical displays and got all this attention, you know, and the plays were arguably not very good. Okay, so Amway. Right. For a bit. For Amway, which is a business. A lot of, you know, if you really think about it, how many people do you know who can name one of their products? I don't know many. You know, I know Tide. I don't know what their detergent is.

Right.

You know, for better or worse. That being said, they're. They're so big that they have an arena named Tide after them, so they're doing something right. And what they do, you know, so. So they. They bring people into a room and they get them all hyped up with lights and loud music and, you know, so theatricality for that company, it fits their inclinations. Even though I'm a real fan of theatricality, I don't think it fits my inclinations. I'm not. I'm not that kind of Person by nature. I. I don't really have the organizational abilities to create an event like that. But something that really does fit me is a strategy I call piggybacking, which is make things seem like it's a grassroots following, but really build sort of a secret society behind the scenes of people who are going to make things happen for you. And I'm really good at building relationships, so the piggybacking strategy. I'm constantly nurturing this web of people behind the scenes who, the minute I need to bring attention to something, I pull those levers and it just blows something up. But it always looks like it's happening organically. So that fits my personality, you know what I mean? So I think it's more about that, like, who are you? You know, don't, don't try to, you know, if you're not the loud David Bowie type, don't try to, you know, David Bowie be over the top. Theatrical. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, but if you are theatrical, be theatrical. And you can do that on video, you can do that on all kinds of things.

Now it seems like that's also kind of a match pairing too with who that audience is or who you want to like, you know, your thousand best fan kind of philosophy about things that not all. And maybe even saying that it maybe generalizes more so, like, I love your example of, you know, Alice Cooper in London and like how that even though you may not like Alice Cooper's music or not know, you know, you sure knew who Alice Cooper was after, you know, that sort of thing. And then, you know, the theatrical aspects that, you know, they just kept, kept them coming. You know, I was a big Alice Cooper fan as a child and, you know, in the album.

He's great.

Yeah. And the albums would just freak out.

Yeah, they are awesome.

Yeah, yeah, they are awesome. Right, right. And it, you know, it's that same kind of thing. I mean, I also see this level, obviously that's, you know, theatrical. Theatrical because of his performance and being, you know, you got to have some good, good songs and good stuff too. But then taking that, that next level of then, you know, if you will, before the merch was such a thing, but like, just the albums. I remember I had an album where it had a calendar on it and Alice was, you know, being. Or, you know, Vincent was being hung. And there's another one of, you know, like Billion Dollar Babies. You got a whole like pop out card set and. And there was another one.

Yeah.

Where it was like an album cover that Opened up into being like a school desk. And the album had like, like, you know, girls underwear on it and stuff. And it was just sort of like, man, you know, it just, it's the, the creativity behind it. I guess maybe that's kind of a, A, a hallmark or a thread that stitches a variety of these, you know, people that have been successful with it, you know, they've got to have. There's got to be something to what it is that they're selling. I don't know if, you know, if, if Amway is a good example of that, but sometimes it's an idea, you know, like a, like Ayn Rand or, you know, sometimes it's a, it's an approach. But can we talk about, you know, I love your, you know, picking fights and making enemies. You know, kind of starting off in your, your great Gary story. Can you give us a few more little highlight reels of some of the interesting folks and some of their stories? I mean, I like, I, you know, know Tucker Max and I know of his, you know, kind of transition, but I wasn't quite as familiar with, you know, a similar kind of metamorphosis with Ryan Holiday and Neil Strauss. Can you talk about boys for a little bit?

Yeah, sure. So the first thing I want to do, if it's okay with you, is go back to the Alice Cooper example. A, because Alice Cooper's great, but B, I thought, you know, you might listen to some of those Alice Cooper things and think to yourself, yeah, you know, that's great for a rock band, but like, I work in, I don't know, business process, outsourcing. That's something I never am going to be able to do. Right. But I think there's a lesson that goes beyond that. I actually think beyond all the really cool stories about Alice Cooper, which are, which you can learn a lot from and are just fun in general, is I think their manager, Shep Gordon, his entire approach was really worth learning from. So what he said to himself was, okay, you know, everyone else in the rock world, this was in the 70s, was trying to get on the COVID of Rolling Stone or in Rolling Stone or in rock publications or whatever else they would. They have that Cream Circus, whatever it was, Right? Yeah. And what he thought to himself was, okay, pair. Every kid at some point in their life, before they become adults, needs to rebel. And so why compete against all the other bands in Rolling Stone? So what he wanted to do, because for rock bands there was a wide open space. He wanted to get in traditional publications. And that seems Counterintuitive, because how could a rock. I mean that's hard to get in traditional public, but not if you're a rock band because no one else was. So he said if he could get a Newsweek and the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about how awful they were and how offensive they were, every parent in America would hate them and by extension every kid would like them. So I think the lesson beyond the picking fights is look for, look for, kind of come in at an angle. Like if all of your competitors are trying to get into Forbes and Inc. And whatever, is there some kind of outlet that would cover you? Because there's no one doing what you're doing and you're trying to get a different reaction than what most people would expect. I think that's where the creativity comes in even more than the awesome fold out album covers and things like that. You know what I mean? Yeah, if that makes sense. Although that stuff was really, by the way.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And the background that you give on Shep and there's I think a Netflix documentary on his work and things too, just again, back to his creativity and, and you know, you really, it's spot on if you, if you do just like a, whatever rock band that you can think of at whatever point in time of being the, you know, the kind of thing that freaks out parents. You know, I remember like, I can't think. Right, Seamus. I can't think. D. Snyder, who is I think the lead singer.

Oh yeah. That was my first tape that I ever bought.

No kidding.

Yeah, I was like 7 years old. Yeah, I remember I bought that in 1984 by Van Halen on the same day. And I went to my grandparents house and my grandpa was looking at back. Hey, look at this. Hot for teacher. What the hell is this?

It's an anthem, grandpa.

Yeah, exactly.

But it's those kinds of things. I mean, I remember Even in the 90s, I think it was like Dee Snyder started giving lectures and stuff about freedom of speech and childhood development in a very sober, articulate kind of way, not in a radical blue mascara, blonde wig kind of thing. So let's. And I love you. I felt like I had always kind of just heard what was kind of publicly known about, you know, little bits and pieces of some of the stories. But you also like, I, I learned a lot more about Andy Warhol and his background from reading your book than, you know, having, you know, what I knew about him. And then there was just some brand new, I mean I, I liked the new York Dolls when, you know, no one. When I was a teenager in Indiana, no one else knew who the New York Dolls were. So I. Reading this, you know, Chrissy here in good taste. Oh, thank you.

I don't have to talk about it.

Okay, well, I'll have a third episode here with you. But like Chrissy Hine and David Johansson and Johnny Rotten. Can you share that story? Because that was brand new to me. That was a treat.

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting because Chrissy Hind, who ended up, you know, fronting the Pretenders. And by the way, I haven't forgotten about your Ryan Holiday and Neil Stroud.

Okay. No, I'll circle us back. No, I like our rabbit holes thing.

Yeah. But talking about rock music is always a lot of fun. But Chrissy Hind, who ended up fronting the Pretenders, which, beyond being some kind of niche band, became a massive, massive superstar act, no one really pegged her for being a rock star. I think she was relatively older when she finally made it. She was certainly relatively older when she started playing guitar and singing. And so she just went to England to sort of hang around the rock scene. And the way that she sort of made it, which was a very difficult thing for especially a woman to do in the rock world back then, was she really just formed relationships with all these guys. I mean, she was what they called back then and what you probably couldn't say today, a quote unquote cool chicken, you know what I mean? She knew all the bands she could hang. So she became friends with John Lydon. She became friends with Lemmy, who ended up fronting Motorhead, and he was in Hawkwind before that. She became friends with John Lydon before he was Johnny Rotten, before he joined the Sex. She just saw something in him. He was a weird kind of guy. So she sort of saw people before they blew up. She would notice if they were unusual or interesting or had some kind of spark and sort of become friends with them. This is kind of my idea about creating the Secret Society, because once those people started to get in bands and form connections, they would hook her up. You know, I think John Johnny Rotten found her first producer. Lemmy hooked her up with. With maybe her first deal. I'm getting these wrong. I don't even remember who she hooked up with. I don't mean. You know what I mean, she. Who got her what right connection. But basically she became bigger than any of them in the long run. You know what I mean? So. So that's sort of that. That whole concept yeah, that was.

It was just felt very insider to be able to you know, see learn and see those kinds of things. So I guess maybe this is a. An attempted transition. So talking about like how she later age developed, you know, became you know, kind of. They became in. In her shadow. But then there's also some folks you talk about that you know, kind of had to change genres. Like I remember Tucker Max talked about the sustainability of his. Of his brand was. Was relatively. With a you know, limited, with a short shelf life. And. And you know, Ryan Holiday has kind of, you know, become the. The stoic stoic and kind of the, the stoic guru. But that is certainly not the roots from when, you know, from whence he came. So you know, let's maybe circle back to those boys and tell us some stories that you shared in the book about them.

It's funny with them and you really hit the nail on the head with this because they're all friends with each other. So Ryan Holiday, Tucker Max, I mean in that same circle I think is James Altucher and just a number, Neil Strauss is friends with them who wrote the game, which is that pickup artist manual. So what's interesting, which I think you're alluding to is that you got to know when to shift, if you want to shift. You know, a lot of times people are trying to be discovered, right? You see that with these sort of like YouTube influencers and things they hit for this very goofy thing. So like for example, there was this thing named Jeffy that was on the Internet. This guy had this really obnoxious offensive puppet who smacked himself in the groin, you know and like real quickly he was the favorite of 12 year old boys everywhere. And the guy immediately went out and bought a Ferrari and this and that and then it died because there was nothing to follow it up. It was a one shot stupid thing. You know what I mean? Which is fine. But what's interesting is. And he was kind of a trickster, he offended people. But that was it. Ryan Holiday and Tucker Max, both of them are now sort of these elder statesmen. So what's interesting about Tucker Max is that he start his brand was they literally came up with a genre for him fratire. It was the just boneheaded going his exploits getting drunk and picking up girls and you know, all of this and offended a lot of people and made a lot of money. But I mean if that the guy now is worth millions and millions of dollars. Many years later he has a wife and family and he's an adventure Capitalist. I mean, he does all kinds of things. So how did he make that jump? Because he's very strategic. So he didn't just randomly fall into this book when he started to build a family and he knew that that old thing wasn't working and obviously the, the climate of our world has changed. All that time he was building relationships and so he found. What's his pivot point? Well, okay, books. He may not be able to do any of the offensive frat tire stuff anymore, but he knows something about books. He had a couple of bestselling books. So he said, okay, what if I take that small piece of what I do and find a way to blow that up for my next evolution? So he created a company called. It used to be called Book in a Box. I think it changed its name to like Scribe Media or something. But the concept, yeah, the idea is that like, if you need a business book to help you get clients and speaking gigs or whatever, they have this efficient process for helping you write books, what have you. And it's become very successful very quickly. And he just called all of his friends and said, put me on your podcast. And they all had a million download followings or whatever. And the thing blew up in two minutes and he totally reconstructed himself. He's in his picture with his wife and kid, all dressed up nice, you know, like, almost like a mass amnesia. Now. People still remember him because he was a public figure. Ryan Holiday, who promoted Tucker Max's books. It's very ironic because Ryan, when you think of Ryan Holiday today, I don't know about you, I think of a very, very serious character. You know, I like his writing a lot, even just as a writer, not just as a business writer, but he's really. He borders on the self righteous. I don't think he quite crosses the line because he has a lot of substance, you know what I mean? But he writes in this almost classical style. He talks about stoicism. He's kind of severe in his recommendations. He's a little bit. He only speaks when he has something important to say. A lot of classical allusions. He talks about these dense books that he reads. So you think to yourself, okay, wow, that's an example of the cream rising to the, the top, maybe. But what you don't know about him is that he was a complete trickster in the beginning. And that's what gave him the cachet. I mean, he, he got hired by American Apparel as their like, youngest ever head of marketing. And the reason they hired him, he would do these completely I, I call it being a trickster. It's like being that mischief maker, you know, he would. For a clothing company. He, he took out a billboard and put Sasha Gray, who's a porn star on the COVID wearing nothing but socks. Get it? You know, clothing, you know, clothing, not wearing clothing, you know. And that, that got a lot of things. The way he promoted Talk for Max. He went out in the middle of the night and spray painted himself, spray painted his own billboard for the Tucker Max movie that said like sexist pig or I forget what it was. Yeah. And then did an anonymous tip. Yeah. Saying this is. So then like feminists everywhere started protesting and it got all this attention, you know. So then what was so brilliant when he decided he wanted to make that pivot? What did he do? He writes a book called Trust Me, I'm Lying where he says, listen everybody, I repent on everything I've done and I'm going to expose how horrible the media is that I was able to take advantage of and don't, you know. And he basically said, do what you will with these tactics. Now this is the part that's a little disingenuous because he presents himself as this highly moral character, which I think he is for the most part. That being said, he gave all his secrets away. So he took the high road and was like, this is my repentance. But he basically created a manual for everyone who wanted to game the media, which they did. The alt right used his book as a manual. Then he wrote a self righteous article saying don't trust the alt right. I created their playbook. So that's the one thing about Ryan Holiday that's kind of funny. He, you know, always, he's positioned himself very well as this high ground kind of guy, but he's self serving, you know, but, but you got to take a page out of his book. Look, look how skillfully he does it, you know.

Yeah. And, and it's, I think you're right. It's an interesting pivot for him because it was sort of like, if you will, some ways a transparent pivot, saying, hey, here it is, here's, here's, you know, here it is all kind of laid out and you know, use it for good, not for evil. And people can use it however they want to. But to kind of call himself out in that way, I thought was kind of different than like a, a Tucker Max kind of kind of circumstance or something. So that, yeah, so, and just a final thing for me with Ryan Holiday, I mean, I do feel like A lot of the stuff that he writes is so thoughtful. I mean, I will transparently admit I am part of the Daily Stoic, you know, email list. Yeah. And I really, you know, they're short little nuggets, but, man, you know, you read four paragraphs, there's like six hypertext links in there, you know, that are, you know, chock full of, you know, fully dense kinds of things that are, you know, kind of beyond my ability to appropriately appreciate from a philosophical perspective.

So, yeah, I completely ripped off. I ripped off his idea for a book list. I mean, I felt comfortable doing it because I don't just write about every book that I'm reading. Ryan Holiday, if he reads a book, writes a book, reads a book that he likes, no matter what it is, he recommends them. I do the same thing. I stole the idea from him, but I. I only do it for hype books. You know what I mean?

Right, right.

But his ideas are fantastic.

Yeah.

And I have. I have no problem ripping people off and reapplying it. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's derivative, so.

Yeah. So, no, it's. It's inspiration is what it is. Yes.

Yes. Well, what is it? What's the. I'm not going to get the joke right. I'm so poor with these kinds of things. But, you know, there. There is some cliche joke about, you know, artists, you know, ripping off other artists.

Good artists borrow, great artists steal.

Steal. Thank you. That's it. Thank you.

So there's actually a famous graphic designer named Gary Panter who did, like, the Pee Wee Playhouse stuff and everything. And he said if you rip off one person, you're derivative. If you rip off 100, you're a genius.

I like that. Yeah, it's very good. Well, I mentioned earlier on I wanted to embarrass you. It shouldn't be an embarrassment. But I just, you know, just. I love this. This one reference that you made to somebody which. People have to get the book and see what I'm talking about because I'm not going to say it on the. On the show, but you have a line in the book about someone that's very currently popular business consultant that I just, again, I just thought was poetic. Mike, you described this person's style was achieved by. And here's the quote, repackaging kitchen table advice and popular wisdom in a gauze of neurons, dendrites, and hormones that has helped the motivational speaker slash consultant create a movement. Close quote. I just. That, you know, I just. I love that. I read that to my wife. I wanted to read it on the show because I just thought that kind of speaks to your, like, surgical level of, like, you know, saying the emperor has no clothes, saying stuff that, you know, kind of, once you read it and read it in the context of who you're talking about, about, you go. You, like, slap yourself in the forehead with the palm of your hand going, yeah, that's it. I kind of felt that same way, but I could not put it into words. Was it just me? No. Thank God. Some other people are kind of seeing this as well. And again, I just want to say, if people like that style of writing, in addition to feeling like you're going to get a really good graduate level of education from reading your book, that's why I think it'll just be flying off the shelves. I think it'll be very successful because it's very, very fun to read. I'm, you know, I have. I read a lot of books, too, and most of the ones that don't wind up with guests being on the show are the ones that, you know, just aren't. Don't have that extra little, you know, I don't know, a little bit of spice to it or a little bit of, you know, grin at the end of a chapter kind of a thing. So a few more things.

I'm honored, by the way. Thank you. I'm really honored.

Gosh, man. It's. Absolutely. I'm a big, big fan. So. So one of the other things that you talk about in the book is something that you define as psychological arbitrage. Could you unpack that and tell us a little bit more about it?

Yeah, it's just this concept that you can go a long way if you sort of play with discrepancies of understanding or maybe not even understanding of sort of prestige between one world and another, one realm and another. So, like, let's say that in a certain world, everybody knows that a certain business publication, which used to have a really exclusive sort of, you know, cache in print, maybe everybody knows in a certain world that, you know, there are hundreds of writers on that publication now, maybe even thousands because of the Internet. But if you're talking to a stodgier audience or an older audience that's not Internet savvy or an audience in another country, they don't realize that. So you can say to them, listen, I write for this publication, or I was in this publication, and it means the same thing to them that it did in 1985. And then you can, to use a Ryan Holiday term. Trade up from that. So you get prestige from that. And then someone might recommend you to an even more prestigious publication. And before you know it, you're writing for the print publication or you're appearing in the New York Times. So that's the idea. It's that you can look for sort of discrepancies between audiences and play with

that a little bit to serve to kind of build that intellectual bridge between it or like in psychology. It's also there's like a halo effect that if there's something good about this, then there's a good feeling about that person or that circumstance or whatever. Gotcha. Okay, good.

I mean, think about it. Donald Trump did that a little bit, right? So like if you think about it. So I mean, he's really done that his whole career. So I've never thought about this before. But let's consider this. So he inherited money from his father. In fact, this might be his second greatest talent. He inherited money from his father and inherited the family business or went into business with his father. So they were known in Queens. So what did he do? He went to Manhattan, where nobody knew his name, but he had the capital to create a big building. He created one massive building at this one deal that was a famous deal. And he used that for the next 15 years to raise money wherever he went. Most of the Atlantic. So Atlantic City. So in New York, I'm from Philadelphia, which is close to Atlantic City. Before long, everyone knew that he was shyster in New York. But so what did he do? He went to Atlantic City in Philadelphia, where they didn't read about it in the New York press every week. And he got into the casino business there, right? So then he got everybody, you know, he got everybody in Atlantic City to all these small businesses. You know, he shafted all of those people. I mean, this is, these are just the facts. He literally didn't pay those people. So he burned out his name there, went into massive amounts of debts that kind of went on the down low for years. And then he got together with Mark Burnett after having had failures for the last 20 years. And he said, well, middle America doesn't know who I am. My name is ruined on the East Coast. Let's create a television show, you know what I mean, where I come across as the world's greatest businessman, right? So he does that. So now everyone thinks he's the world's greatest businessman. We now know that he was massive dad. He didn't have any real assets. And then what does he do? Everyone has been saying for years, we need someone to run this country like a business. He says, I'm such a good business person that I could run this country like a business. But the whole time he only is considered a good business person because he created a show based on being a business person, which if you trace it all the way back, was because his father gave him money. So he arbitraged his way into the present agency.

Wow. Well, that's good. I think this is going to be at the start of your sequel of the book. That's great. Well, Michael, you've been very generous with your time today, my friend. Is there anything that we didn't cover

that's still my pleasure?

Oh, good, good. Me too. It's always a kick. And we need to have maybe a round three and talk about music and stuff. But is there anything else about the book or any topics or anything else that needs to be said that we haven't at least highlighted a little bit or given a little bit of a shine onto?

Gosh, I don't know. I mean, you asked a lot of really good questions. I went some places in this interview that I normally go to, which was really fun. Of course, there's plenty of stuff we didn't talk about, but it's only, you know, it's a relatively short interview. There's, you know, there's lots of other things. But I guess that's why I wrote a book about it, you know.

Good.

Yeah.

Well, it gives me an excuse to have you back on. I mean, we could probably do an episode per chapter or something. It seems as well too. That would be fun. So it's always a kick to have you on. I also want to just highlight again that. And we'll put this in the show notes that, that the book will be out on 12 January worldwide. But if listeners want to know more about you and your email list and your work, what are some of the best ways to do so. We'll stick this in the show notes as well.

Yeah. Thank you for letting me plug myself. I mean. Yeah, I mean, you know, the book. Obviously, if you have a local bookseller in these crazy times we're in, and they certainly ask them to order it, but of course the easiest place to get it is Amazon. You know, My website is michaelfshein, spelled S C-H-E-I-N.com and my company is Micro Fame Media. Yeah, the book list. I know you'll put it in the show notes. It's hypereads.com list. And yeah, if you sign up there, I'll send you all my crazy recommendations.

Excellent. Good, good. Well, we will make sure that that happens. And just I look forward to your emails and kind of what you've been reading and up to lately. I really appreciated the book as a compendium of that and just the added treat was your writing style. So keep up the great work.

And by the way, that's in some ways the best compliment you can provide. It's like I said, I always thought of myself as a writer first, so to hear that even in a business book where a lot of people don't pay attention to those things kind of warms my heart. So thank you.

Good, good, good. Well, I wish you the best continued success. I know the book will be a knockout. So thanks so much for the time today and I look forward to keeping in touch my friend.

Thanks Chris. Me too.

Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knot, LLC. Assistant producer Gracie Wong Music Dan O' Brien executive producer and host Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website A lifeinfull for show Notes and please recommend us to your friends and subscribe on your favorite platform. And as for the obligatory disclaimer, this podcast is for general information uses only and does not constitute the practice of psychology, medicine, nutrition or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical or psychology advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I take conflicts of interest seriously. For all of my disclosures as well as show notes, please see livingalifeinfull.org podcast and my LinkedIn profile. Thanks and until next time.