How to Make Sense of Networking: 7 Tips from a Pro

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of make sense to make sense of the complex and challenging. So if this is your why, then you are driven to solve problems and resolve challenging or complex situations. You have an uncanny ability to take in lots of data and information. You tend to observe situations and circumstances around you and and then sort through them quickly to create solutions that are sensible and easy to implement. Often you are viewed as an expert because of your unique ability to find solutions quickly. You also have a gift for articulating solutions and summarizing them clearly in understandable language. You believe that many people are stuck and that if they could just make sense of their situation, they could develop simple solutions and move forward. In essence, you help people get unstuck and and move forward by helping them solve their problem. So today I have a great guest for you. His name is Mark J. Carter and Mark has always been curious about how successful people got where they are in life. He's been interviewing successful people for 25 years, posting interviews online for 12 of those years. Each interview is a how to interview, which means as a viewer, a reader or listener, you get actionable advice on how to grow personally and professionally. Mark's other projects include events and marketing initiatives. He's collaborated with TED founder Richard Saul Wurman to create a world class conference and help with branding for the world's largest chapter of Meeting Professionals International. He's launched book tours and events for New York Best Times selling business business authors, helping them share their big ideas with the world. Mark still enjoys interviewing people and posts many of the interviews on his YouTube station and his Idea Climbing podcast and Idea Climbing Internet radio show. Mark also serves as A podcast host for B2B organizations and entrepreneurs, Mark's interviews culminated in his recent book, Idea Climbing how to create a support system for your next big idea. Mark, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Looking forward to this.

Well, that was a mouthful, but there was a lot to be said there and you've done a lot of stuff over the last few years. Last many years actually. So let's jump in and learn more about you. So where were you born and what were you like in high school?

Mark I was born in Detroit, Michigan. Grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, a few miles outside of Detroit in high school. The first two years introvert I was one of the geeks and then I found some friends out. Not intentionally, but I found I started working at a fast food restaurant where just by chance was dear me. Nobody from my school worked there, which meant nobody knew me. So the label Heat didn't follow me there. And I found this whole new world of amazing friends. I became much more outgoing, much happier, and it was an amazing coincidence that I just so happened to fall into somewhere where nobody knew me. And without knowing it, I reinvented myself. Two years in high school.

I love it. And so what, what kinds of things were you into in high school?

In high school, swimming was one of them. We had to swim the mile and it came out top of my class. Never as far as officially like time swimming. I hadn't done competitive swimming before. They said you need to join the swim team. So it was that I was still collecting comic books, baseball cards. That side of the geek me was definitely still there. And I love being outdoors. I mean anything outdoors, whether it was exercising or hanging out with friends, even if I was just hanging out with friends, a lot of times it was a walk and talk or a bike and talk. And that's what kept me busy.

So if you were not the geek outside of school.

But inside of school, did that change for you after you kind of changed yourself.

A little bit?

People would still some people still looked at me the same way, but a lot of it became when I went to school, I just knew I there were days it's like I just have to tolerate this. It's going to happen so and so is going to pick on me, someone's going to say something. I just have to put up with it for whatever it was, three to five minutes between classes. But what the respite was when I left, I knew I was leaving that behind me. So it's not like it was this Miraculous change in a popular kids embrace me and everything like that. Some people laid off a little more because one of my friends who was one of the bigger boys that I met, who ended up being my friend in my same high school, would he would step in for me when need be or tell people, hey, just stay away from him. So that helped. That helped a lot. But more of the mental mindset that helped me was knowing that this is only temporary. Where the first two years it was like, oh my God, how long is this going to last? Another day I'll have to get up and go into there and I know what's going to happen when I go in. And it was not fun the first two years.

So off to the work at a fast food restaurant. And then what would you say, Your reputation or what you were known for at that fast food. Fast food restaurant. And with those friends, what were. What would they.

How those friends would definitely describe me as outgoing, fun loving, very social. Basically the polar opposite if you were to ask somebody in my high school who wasn't that one guy, but definitely outgoing. I love to have fun. I was very. I became with them very social. I was the life of the party. We just had a lot of fun together, laughed a lot, joked a lot. And again, just a complete, complete 180 from where it was.

Were you good at solving problems at work?

Yes, they put me on the management track and helping other people. They definitely. I was one of the people, even before the management track that they had me training new people just because. And I didn't really think about it until you just asked me. But they would ask me if the trainer wasn't in or even if the trainer was busy and still in the store. Hey, could you help Dale? You could really use some help with this, that and the other thing. Or help get them acclimated. You seem to know everyone. Could you introduce them around, get them to feel comfortable? Get them to feel comfortable on the first, second, third day? I definitely started playing that role earlier, before anything came as far as like a management track or anything like that.

Okay, so you graduate high school, off to college or no college?

Off to college.

Okay.

Where did you go.

And.

Why did you pick Eastern and, and what did you go into?

I picked Eastern. I applied to all the big schools, got wait listed on a couple of them, but I went to Eastern. I went. When I went to University of Michigan, I got waitlisted. But I figured I'm gonna go sit in. People told me counselors go sit in classes if they'll let you to see what you're getting into. And I had picked business. I didn't. I had no clue. My. Oh, my God. My freshman year, I went to a community college for a year, transferred to credit as it would. So I had no clue what the major is going to be, but I figured, I'll check it out in the business school. And I noticed that some of the. Some of the schools, it was a teacher's assistant teaching the class. It's like, wait a second here. The person whose name is on this book is not standing in front of me. What's the deal with this? I went to Eastern Michigan University, sat in on those classes, and oh, my gosh, it was like the teacher was saying yesterday when I was in court for business law yesterday running my sports business. Here's what we did to market our latest client. It's like, oh, my God, I can save money and have people in the trenches teaching me. And they were very much more how to focus. Not lofty goals or lofty expectations, but like I said, in the trenches. This is what we did yesterday. This is what I'm doing tomorrow in my business. This is what I'm going to teach you today that you can take into your business life and use in the business world when you graduate. And that sealed the deal for me, without a doubt. Love it.

Okay, and so you're at Eastern graduate. Tell us, what was your first job? Where did you go from there?

My first, I waited tables through college to pay the bills. It was always easy money, cash in hand, pick up extra shifts, take off if you want to. My first real job school senior year that they became part of the job afterwards was I worked at something called a place called the Customer Loyalty Institute. And I came on at an awesome time. It was a small, about five person operation when I came on board. And soon after I came on board, the founder sold it to ar, the consulting company. So I got this unique experience of experiencing an entrepreneurial organization for a little while, and then I got to experience, okay, now Aon comes in. Now we have all these new rules and all this new stuff. But they got more successful. I got to watch them literally knock down walls in the office building to expand offices, hire vice presidents. It was great. It was market research, and I knew I wanted at that point. I did choose my senior year of marketing because they were the most fun people, honestly, that I met. I was like, these are fun people. I dig what they're doing. I want to do marketing. But what I did was I Went into marketing research not knowing any better. And I found out after I still remember it was 11 months in and I went from data entry to having two interns working for me. In 11 months, I would spend 39 hours behind a computer crunching numbers to maybe give a one hour or sit in on or maybe partially give a one hour presentation. It's like this is not what I signed up for. And I switched gears through. I was networking before I knew what networking was. My best friend's dad owned a graphic design company in Plymouth, Michigan and they brought me on board as they paid my rent and then everything else was commissioned to do sales and marketing for graphic design company. And in 1999, 2000, we got this awesome opportunity and I love it. It's great memories. We got to branch these businesses out. We went to manufacturing and tech parts where we could just cold calling or literally knocking door to door in an office park to convince companies why they needed these new things called websites and that they needed to have a web. What do you mean a website? We're doing fine with our catalog and our brochures. So that that was a very unique point in time to be in graphic design.

Wow, okay, so you went from the researcher to the.

Yes.

And what was that transition like for you?

Ignorance is bliss. So I didn't know exactly how hard sales was supposed to be. I didn't make a lot of money, but I did. I paid all my bills. I ended up leasing a new car. My first car was a 99 grand AMGT that I leased brand new. So I was making enough money to be comfortable. And transition really brought out the outgoing, more social side of me. And like I said, a lot of it at that time was cold calling or cold knocking on doors. And I have a few people. One client stands out, the controller at a Ford dealership. And I only realized this in hindsight, really took me under his wing, mentored me, taught me a lot about sales and at the time I thought I was a good salesperson. I'm sure he was just thinking like, you're so cute. Oh yes, you're a salesperson, you're so cute. But he helped me so much and he taught me about sales. And I did that for about a year. For about a year, until we successfully branched them in the web design.

And then everything became part about webs.

About websites, everything became part about websites. And that's why I read a Tony Robbins book, did a complete pivot, which I would not recommend anyone, at least the way that I did it. At the time. I have better advice now. I went back to waiting tables, took all the same certifications that Tony Robbins had. Neuro, linguistic programming, hypnosis, certified seminar lead, everything I could. Because I thought I wanted to be a public speaker, keynote speaker, and a coach, because that's what he did. So I went back to waiting tables and started speaking for free to get my chops whenever I could.

Wow, that is a huge pivot.

Yeah.

What was the moment that you knew you were going to do that?

What.

What possessed you to do to make that change?

In the book that I read, it was Awaken the Giant Within. It was a second book. Unlimited Power I read after was his first book. And I remember, I don't remember exactly what it was because it was a while. It's still been a while since I've even reread them. But he was describing his life in this. Coaching and helping people and traveling, seeing them, seeing amazing places where the biggest thing was he was helping people change their lives. Like, that's so much better than sales. Oh, my gosh, I can change people's lives. Let's do this. And he did it in his 20s when he got started. I mean, he was a hockey stick learning curve. I mean, with his career, I experienced nothing like that. But that's what made me realize, like, if I could help people solve problems, this sounds cool, I'm going to do this. And that's what took me back to waiting tables hindsight 20 20. At the time, if I could tell my younger self something, it would have been, even if you want to wait tables, because it was such easy money and such quick cash when you needed an influx, pick up an extra shift or even pick up a double and bam, there's your rent. You're safe. I would have told the younger me, for the love of God, volunteer at a speaker's bureau for as a free intern, pay your rent with waiting table, but do something related to the career you want to have, even if you volunteer and do it as a free intern. But I went all in. Lone wolf. I'm going to get famous like Tony Robbins. And like I said, got all the same certifications he had. It turned out a little bit differently, but that was a huge. In hindsight, even talking about it now, crazy pivot and a very quick one. I didn't gradually save up the nest, eg. I just said, I'm out the door. Bye, bye. I'm going to go back to waiting tables and be Tony Roberts.

And so what happened? You had all your certifications you went out to start helping people and, and what happened to you?

We ended up moving to Chicago in 2002. The first few years in Michigan, everything was a cold call. And again the mentor, you know, when the student's ready, the mentor will or teacher will appear. One of my regular customers in the diner was long time high school administrator and he was living, I forget what it was, but he'd mentioned a few times a very, very comfortable living for someone who works in high schools. And he taught me little things. I was cold calling to be a speaker, to talk to high schools about self help anxiety, things that I learned about neuro linguistic programming, things that I learned coaches are supposed to talk about. And he said, I told him like I'm not getting any results, what's going on here? And he asked me simply, I showed him. When I was cold faxing, I would call up and ask them who was in charge of hiring people to speak or speak to the students. They'd give me the name of the person. I would cold fax them. He looks at it and I still remember he goes, one hour presentation. Yep. 149 bucks. Yup. Unless you say at least 1500, they're not going to take you seriously. So I had so much and I learned hard lessons that way where like I said, if I would have done it and had somebody else coaching me, working in like a speaker's bureau, I would have known, oh, here's what your rates start at. But I didn't know. But mentors kept popping up again and again and again. And then that's when I moved to Chicago, tried to be a results coach because that's what Tony Robbins started calling himself because everyone jumped in and said I'm a life coach. Cold calling, same thing. And I realized cold calling and Ann Arbor, Michigan, barely work Chicago, this ain't going to work. I got to do this thing called networking. And I got no, I had never done official networking in Michigan where you go to an event, you have a business card, you do what you and I know networking is. I did it without trying through friends. I got my first job from a best friend's dad, things like that. My first job through my big brother for my co op professional business fraternity. But then when I moved to Chicago I realized, here we go, dude, you're gonna have to learn about networking. Everything changed.

So you went from being a public speaker to being a networker or were you networking to be a public speaker?

I was motivation to be, I was networking to be a coach, to coach. Yes.

And did that work for you?

What ended up happening was it's funny where the breadcrumbs will. When you follow the breadcrumbs, where it'll lead you. I the story of my life for everything is from this point on, anytime I thought I wanted to learn something, what I wanted to learn about public speaking, that's when I found the mentors. For 99 to 2002, I was interviewing any successful person that would talk to me and it was everyone from the high school administrator, my first two formal interviews on the phone, Grammy Award winning jazz musician and the head coach university to Michigan's basketball team at the time that was doing pretty well. And since then, everyone in between. So I said I got to learn this networking thing in Chicago. I just found anyone who wrote a book, anyone who was in Cranes, the business publication in Chicago, in the news, anyone I could Google. Well, not I don't think it was Google at the time, but anyone I could look up. I just cold email and or cold called them and just told them what I just told you. Here's my situation, I need help. What the heck did you do to build a business through networking? And I started learning how to network really well. And I still remember the first time I was still trying to be a coach and the CEO of this group, I got referred through a higher end first, like how did you do this? And I told him when I told you, here's what I'm doing, I'm interviewing anyone that'll give me the time of day about networking and relationship build. And he said, you know this coaching thing you're doing, if you can teach my team and my people how to get referrals and how to network, I'll pay you for that. So the next few years I kept doing I've all I'm constantly now like you said in the introduction, now it's podcast, radio show, YouTube. I'm constantly interviewing people, learning more. And then that's when I became the referral guy for mortgage, real estate, insurance, things like that. I started getting hired based on. It's like if you can get referred in through this high level friend, you must know what you're doing. And then I became the referral guy for three, four years.

Wow, okay. So by just doing as many as you could, you learned the. You put your 10,000 hours in and became the guy that knows how to refer. The guy that knows how to network.

Yes.

Okay. And so how did you monetize that?

Through public speaking was part of it. And a lot of it was facilitating training sessions for teams. So that became come and teach my people how to do this, you know. So it became what I would end up doing, which is facilitation much more than any type of public speaking.

Okay, gotcha. And now you learn the secret.

You.

Did you get the bug for networking? Did it just kind of become, well, wait a second, I love doing this more than I like any of the rest. Or how did you determine to kind of pivot into mostly? Would you say now you do mostly network?

It was. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was within a few months, no cold calling, all networking. And I was going, we're talking like three, four or five events. This was in person too, of course, back then. Sometimes three, four or five events a week, plus all the interviews that I was doing to learn from other people, plus the trainings. And then that's what led to the next thing, which was social media came out. And when Facebook became public and open to the public in 2007, it was the winter time trainings, all this stuff, the industry it does basically doesn't exist. Everyone's doing holiday parties. November, December, then New Year stuff in January. Like, I got some time on my hands and I never wanted to do it. I was never on MySpace, forget it. And it's just like I still can remember logging into Facebook for the first time and my girlfriend looking over my shoulder going, what are you doing? Because I was always like, MySpace, no waste of time. So I got time on my hands. I'm going to see if what I'm doing offline, works online as far as approaching people, introductions, all that stuff. So I went into Facebook, friend some friends that I knew. And that's when you could, you could add people with a message. Now you can't do that because they, they want to assume they know you well, they had a bar there, you could add a message. So I would go into like the Chicago marketing group on Facebook. I would make a cut and paste, you know, hey, Dale. And I would just say, my name is Mark. I'm in, I'm here in Chicago. Also. I love marketing. Let's hit send, hit to the point where I've got my Facebook. I found out, I forget what it was. There was a limit that I found out I couldn't hit every month. So I would do right up to that limit. And then I started Facebook has events, they have groups. So I started groups have events, I started promoting events. The same thing with networking and referrals happen with social media. This was this new thing to Most people. And when everyone got into it in the new year 2008, I'm having events. I'm getting like 30, 40, 50, sometimes a hundred people in a room. Like, how did you do this? Like, Facebook. And at the time, there were still people. I was like, what is Facebook? Much less leveraging it for marketing. Same thing as referrals. Teach my team how to do this. So then I became the social media guy, helping people build relationships on Facebook, which then started including LinkedIn, which then started including Twitter. So I became the social media guy for a few years, too.

Wow. So the referral guy, networking guy, and the social media guy.

All in one for a little bit there. Yeah.

That's a lot. But I can see how they're all connected.

Yeah, that. That's the one. It wasn't like I was the real estate guy over here and then the biology guy over here. They were all. It was all. At the end of the. It was all about building relationships, getting referrals. And then it eventually started to be. Then it became getting into the events industry.

Okay, so 25 years ago, you started interviewing people, and then you started recording those. Initially wasn't recording them. It was just interviewing them and learning what you could.

Yeah. And taking.

And then it became the recording. And so you've had a podcast for quite a while.

I've had a podcast for a few years. But with the podcast, at first it was a hobby at best. It was very sporadic. It was something that I was still learning how to do a podcast here and there. I got serious into it, probably.

40, 50 episodes. Then I started to make it more regular, and I had a format. I was more comfortable. At the time, it was audio only, but I was more comfortable in an interview situation. And then it became more and more regular. And just now I'm bringing it over to summer, a little bit of a break, and bringing it back to a weekly cadence now.

Nice. And so now tell us about your book idea.

Idea. I realized a few years ago, with everything that we're talking, I was like, I got all these notes. And again, the key with the notes was if I had 30 minutes, 20 minutes on the phone with a CEO or an entrepreneur, I only had 20 to 30 minutes. I didn't have time for small talk. There was none. I had to get right to the meat. And I got unknowing where. Not knowing, obviously, in 1999, there wasn't podcasting everything else, not knowing where I'd end up. I by. As a byproduct of just doing What I was curious about, I got good at getting right to the point of, okay, I need one actionable idea from every interview I go into and I would know ahead of time. Like with a Grammy Award winning jazz musician, how do you discover your passion when you're young and turn it into a career? University of Michigan's head basketball coach, how do you build and motivate teams? So I went in with an agenda. I did my homework. I never went in with just willy nilly, how'd you get successful? And I interviewed them. And that's what translated into the podcast was I would get into it a little bit more stories because it was, it wasn't a stressed out 20 minute phone call. Now it's become almost all referrals. But even back then it was a friends of friends for the most part. So I had 20, 25, 30 minutes. So we would get into a few more stories, but it was always stories about how they did something. I would start with how you built a business, how you found your next mentor, how you started a radio show, whatever it might be. I had a focus. I didn't know what we would end up talking about with the minutiae and the details, but I went in with the focus of I'm going to find out how to do X. And that guided the interview.

I love it.

So how many interviews do you think you've done now?

People have asked me that with just a basic number.

At least five to be reserved. I mean we're talking 25 years going nuts with him for the first part. A hundred podcast episodes, however many YouTube videos. I mean 500 would be a very low number, probably closer to a thousand.

Thousand. And can you pick out, do you have a favorite one that you still have? Favorite interview you've ever done?

Favorite interview I've ever.

One of them would be the first one with the Grammy Award winning jazz musician because that was my first time. And I did my homework, I did my research and he got engaged. And it affected me because I realized with someone at his level of success and he was, he was actually guest at the diner. Not a whitetail table, not a white tablecloth restaurant, mind you, a diner in Michigan. And when he left, one of the. While the waiters go, oh my God, that was Earl Clue. Like, okay, like he's a grab me. He told me, I'm like, took off my apron, had someone take over my section. He said he's going to buy a computer at the store across the street. Waited outside the door, stalking him. He came out with his computer. And I told him, here's the story of what I told you, here's what I want to learn. Can I talk to you sometime? He gave me his home number and said, give me a call, we'll talk. So as far as favorite content, probably not. But as far as interview, for my first time to have someone be that receptive, I'm not sure what would have happened if I would have asked five people and got turned down five times.

How about your favorite content?

Content. Because I was so involved with, I'm getting back into it. So involved with the meetings and events industry for 20 years. My first video interview ever, and you mentioned him in the introduction, was Richard Saul Wurman, the founder of ted. And at the time, I mean it's the events industry. So he's him. And I did my research. He, I booked, I called him cold. I ended up booking him to speak the keynote lunch. And I called my videographer. I'm like, it's not going to hurt. Set up in a quiet room. Worst he's going to do is say no to an interview. And I did my research because I did not not want to be on video. And he was always a talking head in every interview. I found like, cool, I'm safe. Point the camera at him. I won't even be a voice in the final cut. Less literally using the word correctly. Less than five minutes before we started, he grabbed me over and said, hey, you're in this with me, aren't you? Like, I guess I'm in this with you. Okay, no plan of what to say. And we went. It ended up being because a full video is now it's on YouTube but it's also on a couple profiles and it'll be nine and a half minutes. And now when I interview people, I'm sure you can relate to this as an interviewer. I love when I can get someone to say, get them to think like that's a good question. And I forget what I asked him. The first response for the first question was that's not a good question. Let's start over. I'm just thinking, poker face dying inside. Don't show it on camera. But content wise, he was because of who he is. He gave nine and a half, ten minutes of amazing advice for the meetings and events industry, which it's nice to have him on camera and have that notch in the bell. But learning that much from him that quick that I could then apply to my events, the events portion of my business, that was an amazing benefit that I didn't see coming because I didn't even know if he was going to say yes interview, much less how it would turn out.

So have you gotten back into doing live events or are they mostly online events?

I'm putting my foot in the water. I'm getting back together with friends, my old friends looking at doing more live events. I've probably done not probably four or five since the pandemic. Nothing big. But I am looking at getting back into live events, taking what I do virtually for interactive events. And I'm going to take the same 60 minute virtual event and where it's right to the point breakout rooms learn. Breakout rooms learn and turn those into two hour live events. I know it'll be the conference come November is the next one that I know of that I'll be. I'll be. When I speak, I do an interview. I call it a keynote conversation. It's me interviewing the person with me like me and you on stage. Then we get the audience. But because of an improv background, I involve the audience. So it's instead of a presentation at the audience for 60 minutes, it's a conversation with the audience for 60 minutes and I'm in my element. I love not knowing what's next hand. The next hand that goes up, what question they're going to ask. But that's where I'm comfortable being uncomfortable. So I'm looking forward to. Because you can't replace the energy of a live event with a virtual one. You just can't.

No. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you next. What do you see as the difference between live and virtual.

Live is.

Well, for networking it comes down to the same thing for being on the stage. But in a networking event like it open, you know, two hours, come get your wristband, go to the bar, come with your name tag you. It's the body you can pick up. Whether you know you're picking it up or it's unconscious. You can tell when you walk up to someone within like five seconds if you're going to vibrate and it's the body language and are like standing back, are they fidgeting or what are they doing? And you can tell a lot. And that's why with networking people working the room, you work the room because in two minutes you can just be like this is not happening. I better go off. You know, word of now I always tell people break away with word of networking event. I guess we better go network. So you get out of the conversation. In a virtual event you might Get a vibe. But you're only seeing. Well, actually, yeah, you're only seeing this.

So you're not seeing if they're fidgeting, what they're doing, or sometimes you can't even tell if they're standing or are they sitting. You only have the tone of voice to go with. And then when you're on stage, totally, you can. If, if you tell. If you make a joke or something funny comes up, you can see the. Even the corner of your eye, you can see the ripple effect in the. Yeah, we're on to something. Let's keep this going. A virtual event, especially if you use PowerPoint, which I don't. But if you use PowerPoint, you can't see anyone. Even if you can, if you're doing it right, you're looking into the camera, so you're looking into their eyes while they're looking at you, which means I can't see what's on my computer. Computer. It's just, you can't tell. Which is why I like to do breakout rooms, because it keeps the energy up. I teach, they learn, I teach, they learn. But as far as I don't do any webinars presentations for anyone anymore. I have three events that I do that are completely immersive, interactive, and I turn down anyone that wants a presentation or anyone that wants PowerPoint.

Really. So no PowerPoint at all?

No. None.

Even online?

Even online. I. I'm not saying I've never done them. I've done PowerPoint in person and I've done PowerPoint online. But what I just told you I didn't like and in my 40s I hit a point with, which is why I do. Everything I do involves interviews. Now it's like life's too short to do something because you should. I don't like doing PowerPoint PowerPoint presentations, so I'm not going to do them anymore. Because if I don't like it, even if it's just my tone of voice, they're not. They're not going to like it. And it's also, what's in my head is, you know, talk. The voices in my head while I'm giving the presentation is who on the phone who's really listening? Is it paying attention if I try to be funny? Doesn't land. So I just started doing immersive, interactive experiences.

So let's talk about that. We bring you in to work with our audience, our group. We start the event and so how soon is it? How have you scripted out or have you scripted out your program?

There's three events. They all involve mastermind groups. The mastermind group event is experiencing two mastermind groups. And then I teach you how to run your own. So what it is is I teach people what I learned in the book Idea Climbing People. When it came to mentoring advice, I like to. I like the term mentoring, but mentoring advice, anything like that. The people I interviewed, when I really boiled it down to however many hundreds of interviews I've done or whatever number it is, it always, it seemed. Not always, but it came down to one or all of the three. Support and connections and advice. Is experience done the way I they told me it was done right was experiential advice. This is what I did when I created the opportunity you want to create. This is what I did when I faced a problem you want to solve. So it's not opinion, not politics, not what I read in a book. So I teach them. Write out the chat. Where do you want to be in 12 months? Write it down, bounce it, bounce it off in a breakout room and then go into the breakout room with these expectations. You're going to share where you want to be and you're going to share what you don't know yet. Give advice, support and connections to everyone in the room. And we do breakout rooms with three people in a row. So it's, it's things like that with the other two events too, where I teach them what to say, I give them a structure and then they do it. A structured do it. And in the Mastermind group event at the end I say, oh, and by the way, here's how to run your own Mastermind group. Merry Christmas. Go do this with your network. Your networking will explode because you'll have six to eight conversations in one hour instead of three or three to five hours if you do 30 minute conversations individually.

So you've also become the speed dating guy.

No good friend of mine. Run speednetworking.com I've used to do a lot of speed networking events. I would facilitate them. This is much more of an idea exchange. So there's no elevator pitches. I take those out and replace them. I take out a lot of the traditional things and replace them with what I learned from interviewing people, what it becomes. If you want to sum it up, that's what I would call it. It's an idea exchange to solve problems and or create opportunity.

So if I'm a listener now and I know that Mark has been doing networking for so many years, what have you seen as the key to a great networking event versus A not so great networking event or what's the mindset you go in with?

Well, for the event itself I found that the generic events with 2 and 300 people. While I get it, the organizers are making a boatload of cash when he or she does it right. Because sponsorship, ticket sales do the math. I get it. But what I found in the people in my circles that I exchange ideas with or we just have similar networking philosophies, it's like as soon as I hear and they think it's marketing and to some people it is. 26 professions will be represented at this event. Expect 300 people in a bar. It's like no, because it's 60 if it's. Especially if it's in a bar and there's 300 people. Much less if they have risked it 60 to 90 minutes into a two to two and a half hour event. The drinks have been flowing. It's not networking anymore. And even if you stick with networking and the drinks aren't flowing. 26 industries. Come on, that's crazy. The best events that I've run and that I've seen run and the ones that I like to attend now even now, virtually have a niche. One of my favorite ones that I go to and help run every week is for an organization, H7 Network. And for that group it's B2B Hub. The people in the room are professionals and entrepreneurs that work with B2B service companies. That is valuable because you're walking or this case virtually going into a room where you know what to expect as far as professions go. The live events, the same thing. I ran a group for young entrepreneurs because I couldn't find one in Chicago. So I started my own for and ran it for a few years. You know from the name the Young Entrepreneurs alliance doesn't exist anymore. But at the time you know what you're to expect when you walk in the room, you know what to expect as an audience for the speakers that I brought in or the sponsors that I brought in. So for the event itself, the niche is definitely the way to go. I think for a mindset is I go in with as far as expectations. If I can get one good connection, which means there's a possible two way street we vibe. Things look good in a conversation. I might be able to help you and or you might be able to help me. I'm happy and it's making a connection to build a relationship. Which is why like I said, I would do three to five events a week. When I started I tapered off. Because if you do it right after two years, you don't using all caps you shouldn't need. Then my business will die if I don't sell people five nights a week. You're doing something wrong after a year or two. You should have relationships, centers of influences and referral partners and trusted advisors that help you build business. So the mindset of I'm going to. If I can find one person to hopefully build a meaningful relationship with two would be great. That's in my niche. And you know, it's not. We're both B2B. We might be able to refer each other. This isn't, you know, business friend networking. It is business networking at the end of the day. But the expectation of one or two people that hopefully continue a conversation to build a relationship with that will then lead to business. Once no like and trust takes over. Those are my expectations for events.

I love it. That's super helpful. So if there are people that are. Well, let me ask you this question. What. What's the best piece of advice that you've ever been given? Or maybe the best piece of advice you've ever.

The best piece of advice I'd ever been given, which took decades to sink in and I'm not joking about that. When I was a teenager, looking at it was still a ways away, but, you know, the college talk was starting. What do you want to be when you grow up? All that good stuff. Best piece of advice I ever got. And I can still remember my uncle, ridiculously successful, nice guy. I mean, we're talking like when he's in his 80s, he's no joke. He had smile lines on his face because of his attitude towards life. And I still remember we're talking about this and that and professions and taking personality tests. He said, if you do what you love, the money will come. It sunk in later than I would have liked, but it sunk in. But that is the best piece of advice. If you do what you love, the money will come. That I ever got and I got at a young age. I adopted it at a slightly older age.

I love that. Well, Mark, if there's people that are listening that want to follow you, want to get your book, listen to your podcast, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

I'll give two ways. One way to go right to my YouTube station. I'm back to publishing at least one interview a week. Markjcartertv.com Again, markjcartertv.com will take you right there. You don't have to look for me on the station. Everything else is housed at markj.carter.com. the books on the front page, the podcast, radio show, YouTube links to eight unedited minutes. My other show guest appearances is it Mark J. Carter?

I love it. And now have you been back to a high school reunion?

No. Because of my experience as far as my reputation within the high school, not my external friends, I have had no desire whatsoever to go back to a reunion. None.

Well, have any of your old high school people reached out to you? You run into them anywhere and they say, well, what happened to you, man?

My best, one of my best friends at the time who introduced me to the woman that I'm still with. We touched base every once in a while. And he wasn't, he was one of the outliers. He had a similar story to mine. We were both geeks. We both, it was separately and then we reconvened in college, but we both had the same story of, oh, we made all these friends outside of school, somehow reconnected through an outside mutual friend. We'll, we'll exchange messages once in a while. But for the most part, when I left Michigan and came to Chicago, my life started over in Chicago.

Oh, that's awesome. Well, Mark, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for taking the time to be on the show. I look forward to staying in touch and doing some things.

Sounds good. I'm looking forward to possible collaborations, too.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see you on the next episode.