Joe Boyd | On the Homefront with Jeff Dudan #76

Joe Boyd, welcome to on the Home Front.

Thanks for having me. Excited to chat with you.

Yeah. So great you're on. Been consuming your content for a while, and I know that leadercast has been a huge success for you and you've got something new going on, but, man, let's get to know you a little bit. So who is Joe Boyd and where does he come from?

The nice broad question I'm from. I'm an Appalachian kid. I grew up, was born in actually Boyd county, which is my last name in Kentucky.

Okay.

But not related. Came from about 13 generations of very poor people. And when I was 12 years old, my dad got a promotion. We moved to Columbus, Ohio, which felt like Manhattan because it was so different than Kentucky. So I went to high school there. I was a church kid, total kind of church nerd, and thought knew I wanted to be a preacher since I was like 8 years old and went to seminary to pursue that. And along the way, sort of realized that my belief system that I was discovering as a person growing up was a little different than my religious heritage. So that created some tension in my life. So I worked through that stuff early on at the church and then had a career path that most people think is pretty crazy but from. So went to Vegas and worked at a church and. And then stopped doing that and started doing improv comedy.

Were you doing. Were you doing weddings at one of those chapels in Vegas or what? Or was it.

I was at an actual real church, but.

Weekends and evenings maybe.

I got the only job I've ever been fired from. I don't think I've ever said this on a podcast, was the wedding chapel. I got fired. I was the backup officiant at the Luxor wedding chapel in Vegas. So I would do like two or three weddings a day, and they'd always be like 9am noon and like 11:30pm so they're all over the place. It was before iPhone. So I was batted with a calendar and I totally blanked one. Some poor couple didn't get married because I didn't show up. And then I got fired the next day. So my wedding chapel career was about 10 days long.

Hey, look, half of them don't work out anyway, so, you know.

Yeah, save them some time.

That's exactly right. Exactly right. Well, that's awesome. So that was. We dug out a new factoid on Joe Boyd today. So awesome. So you're in Vegas and pastoring a church and doing the side gig, and then you went into acting or improv.

Yes, improv. So I was about in my late 20s. I was really having a crisis of faith in many ways, which is hard, which almost everyone does in their 20s if they think a lot about it. But I would happen to be leading a church, so it was awkward. And I was doing. My wife signed me up actually for improv classes with the Second City to kind of help me because I was depressed. And, you know, I confessed to her. Like I, I say I always wanted to be a pastor growing up, but my secret was that I wanted to be on that Saturday Night Live. That's really what I wanted. But it never sounded as noble. So I didn't tell a lot of people that growing up, but she knew and so she got me. You know, Second City and the Groundlings are the two sort of training centers that most SNL people come from. And nobody was expecting me to make it a career. It was just going to be fun. But I took to it pretty quickly and within about nine months of training, I was an understudy in that Second City show and then worked in a show called Tony and Tina's Wedding for three years, which is an improvised show in Vegas. And, yeah, kind of overnight went from working at the church to being a full time comedic actor.

So you were married during this time?

I was. I got married super young. We're about to celebrate our 30th anniversary. So we got married at, yeah, 20 and 21. So. And my, my line about that is that my wife's been married to four different men with the same Social Security number. So she's, she's a good woman because I've morphed a lot. She's, she's changed, of course, too, but especially early on, I was, I was not the same guy she married five, six years in.

Look, it's probably a good thing because you got to keep it fresh. So if you just change yourself out every seven years, you probably, that's probably a good deal. But think about it though. I know I, I know a good number of pastors and that's a high demand career. You're always on call. There's fellowship, there's deaths, there's crisis, you know, so you're, you're. Those people work really long hours. They're never called in when. Well, if they do a wedding, that's great, but generally there's something going on there. So it takes a toll on people. And there's been quite a few failed marriages as a result of the call and the demands of that job. And then, of course, if you're on the Strip, you're probably working nights. Those were night shows. Would do one or two shows a night? Two.

I did one show a night, but six nights a week. The show actually ran every set. It was never dark. It ran seven nights a week, but everybody got a day off. We traded roles. So. Yeah, but I mean it was great. Apart from like the kids were little and I missed bedtime and, But I was home until 2 or 3 in the afternoon every day and then got home around 11 or before midnight.

Yeah. If you had to do an open mic right now, how much you got?

Well, I didn't do a ton of stand up, so I can answer that two ways. Either zero or as long as you want me to go. So, because I'm an improviser, so if I had to stand up, if I had to do stand up right now, I just start asking the audience questions and go for it. Um, I, I, I think I have the skill set to be an okay standup comedian. I tried it for a little bit, but I found it super depressing actually. It wasn't good for me, my mental health and it's, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting kind of, I don't know, I don't want to get like kind of a dark lifestyle. I don't know. It just didn't work for me. Whereas improv, you know, it's more like whose line is it anyway? Or something like that with. So you, you're there with a team and so it's, it's kind of fun to totally bomb like with your friends on stage. It's pretty awful by yourself. So that, but yeah, I could probably fake it better than most people walking down the street, but not as good as an actual comedian.

Yeah, most of those improv skits, man, if it doesn't work, that's even funnier.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who, yeah, right. And a B plus. A B plus feels like an A because people know you made it up. So.

That's right. Awesome. Well, so you went through, through that phase and then, and then all of. How did you transition from there into leadership and that career?

Yeah, it took quite a few more turns to get to that. But I, so I was doing that in Vegas and then, you know, started. I got an agent in la. It's about a four hour drive. So then I started auditioning a lot. So I was doing my shows and then trying to make it as a improv people. Called a straight actor just means like, we don't think we're real actors, but we can pretend to be. So I was getting commercials and soap opera roles and sitcom roles and things like that. So eventually we decided to move to LA to kind of give the real acting deal a shot and spent three years walking into rooms every day. The people that were just better looking than me but looked a lot like me, like that's what auditioning is. Did that. I think I went on over 400 auditions in three years. Learned a lot about rejection and failure and how a lot of it's out of your control and, you know. But landed some okay gigs. Started producing a movie because I wanted to kind of show what I could do really as an actor. But it was an improvised mockumentary like Christopher Guest style movie, if you're familiar with any of those. But it was called Hitting the Nuts. It's a poker movie. And so that was the first film I produced and realized I think if I was going to stay in la, I had more chops really as a producer than an actor and kind of had the realization I don't think I wanted, I didn't want to do that in LA at the time. So in a full circle sort of coming home moment. Came back to Ohio where we started, got a. Tried the church job thing again, got a job as a teaching pastor at a large church and it went really great for about three or four years until I realized it's still not for me. And ironically had produced that kind of rated R poker movie on the side while I was being a preacher again, which was a fun thing to navigate. And that opened the door to producing some more movies. So ended up producing movies here in Cincinnati where I ended up actually was a little easier here than out in la and made four or five feature films that had various levels of success. Started a production company, left the church job, started a production company with my friends and ran that company for 10 years. And it eventually did a lot more sort of corporate video marketing videos for Procter and Gambles here in Cincinnati and Kroger company. So a lot of places like that. Leadercast was one of our clients for about 10 years. And so during COVID the owner of Leadercast asked me to step in and run that company. And ultimately that's how I became involved with Leadercast. It's hard to tell that story any shorter than I just did, but that's what got us here today.

Now here's my takeaway. You have an incredible wife.

I told you.

I mean that's, that's a lot of change. And you know you have at least some level of explanation you have to do when you're getting ready to make a career change. So. Yeah, you know, good on you. You can sell.

So, so, so it's like I was killing it anyway, right. It's like I'm gonna try something else that might or might not work. We'll see what happens.

Well, you know what? It's seasons of life, man. It's so great to have. I'm that in many entrepreneurs, we're all the same. It's you, you. The variety and the newness of something is something that we seek. And I've had four or five lives within a life and they've all been great. They've all been time appropriate. And, you know, now I'm. I'm just in this one for right now.

Right.

But no, very cool, amazing story. And the production background as it relates to something like leadercast, which was very high production value, is. And is that why that was such a good fit for you? But I guess you had been. They had been a client for a while, so you, you, you knew the ins and outs of the show for sure.

And I, I mean, you're not supposed to have favorite clients, but they're one of my favorites. I just really resonated with the message that they had. And in some ways, you know, my church life was always in bigger churches, like churches with five, 6,000 members. And, and I was used to kind of that weekly kind of presentation in a big stage. And, And Leader cast is. That's kind of the, the engine that drove that machine was a yearly event like that. So it just felt really in my skill set, combining what I knew from church and also what I learned as in production. And it was coming out of COVID very much a startup, and I'm an entrepreneur. I mean, It'd been around 20 years, but it was, it was, it had to be reborn. So that's kind of what I signed up for. And it was, it was hard. It's a struggle. We got it, we've got it in a good place now, but it was, it was a great company with a great legacy. 22 years started by John Maxwell way back in the day in Atlanta. And the business model needed completely changed. It needed change before COVID but Covid kind of almost killed it and so took a lot. It took, it took like the height of my ability to, to sort of lead, to get it where it was and to continue with our theme. Two weeks ago, I stepped down as CEO at leadercast. So I ran it Actively for two and a half years. My hope was always be able to step down really as soon as I could and handed it over to a team that's way more qualified than me now to run that kind of company. But I felt like I probably had it in me to turn it around and get it where it needed to go and, and I think I did it, but it was a struggle and now I'm at a season of my life where really, although I haven't actually actively started a brand new thing for 13 years, cause the production company sort of morphed into Leadercast. So I'm actually pretty excited right now to start something new.

Nice. Well, I'd love to chat about that. One or two questions on leadercast, the scope of offerings there. I know it's an event, but is it also masterminds, classes, programs, materials, other things like that?

Yeah, it's basically an online leadership learning portal now. So the events are still our sort of engine that drives us. But the big transition was taking it from an event company to a 24 7, 365 leadership development platform. So that's what we've done with it. So you know, it's a lot of companies, organizations, government entities will buy seats for their folks and you'll be able to go in. You get our events for free if you're, if you're part of the subscription service. But you also get a ton of classes, kind of like masterclass around leadership from some really well known smart folks and lots of other sort of self directed leadership videos and content that you can use.

Got it. Awesome. And you're moving into a new season of Life. I get the sense, Joe, that you've got a real heart for people. It seems to be kind of a thing.

I think I do.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I do. I'm an introvert, but I do. Yeah.

But if you want to enter. My experience is that people that want to entertain, people that want to be in front of the group have something to say and they want to, you know, have people to say it too.

So.

So now you're, you're moving into this new venture called For Adventure. What's that about?

Good question. Like a good improviser. I started it 13 days ago, so. Okay, it's.

Well then we called you at the right time.

Yeah, I did a vision exercise back in August last year that was that I'd done stuff like this before, but I've been putting off doing this because I knew I was. I knew that I really was not in the right place. Career wise. And I was kind of afraid to do it, but I did it. And it was basically a writing exercise to see where you want to go in three to five years. And I was shocked what came out of it. In some ways, like it totally makes sense now. But what I wanted to do is help people find their unique calling in the world and take that. You know, I'm a big hero's journey, kind of. Joseph Campbell.

Yeah.

Fan and nerd. And this idea of crossing the threshold and receiving a call from adventure and playing a little bit of the role of mentor in that hero's journey. When every time in a great story, every time the hero is presented with a call, they always deny it, they're scared, they say no. And usually a mentor comes along and says, no, you got this. And they usually give them a sword or some superpower to use. So I fancy myself, I guess. Not that I'm super smart, but I'm old now, so I'm 51. I just turned 50. Oh, it's my birthday today.

Happy birthday.

Birthday. Thank you. I appreciate it. 51.

51. Nice.

Yeah. So, you know, I feel like I've got, I'm at a pretty, I'm at that great age where I'm, I'm old but not old yet, you know what I mean? Like, I got some energy still in the tank and a lot of, lot of failures and life lessons so called for. Adventure.com right now is basically a daily blog that I'm doing and collecting folks that are really interested in finding their calling. This summer we'll start doing in person workshops that I've been sort of piloting, figuring out to help people kind of go away for a weekend and come out kind of knowing what's next for them. And so, but I said since day one, you know, I, I'm not going to pretend like I'm not an improviser. Like there's, there's a basic direction we're heading, there's a, there's a clear, like North Star, that I'm going to help people find their unique calling and live a grand adventure. But in terms of business plan, we're making it out a little, making it up a little bit as we go with the people that want to be a part of it.

Who do you expect is going to resonate with the program?

You know, that was. I had a hunch it might be people about my age. And when I was talking about it with my marketing savvy friends before I launched it, they said, who are you going to Target. You should target millennials and Gen Y. And because they're younger, they really need to know what to do with their lives. I was like, I can see how this would appeal to them. But I also feel like, first of all, nobody targets Gen X for anything because we don't exist. Evidently people have completely forgotten about us, which is what they predicted. But we're about the same age. When our parents were this age, there were two bestselling books. One was the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, and the other was a book called Halftime by Bob Buford. And they were both about for boomers entering their 50s. It was kind of though it was that time that they started to ask, what's life all about? What's my purpose? What's. I got a lot of time left, hopefully, and I feel like I would like to kind of play that role for my generation a little bit. I don't need to be the only one, but I feel there's a place for me to kind of help people say, okay, you know, and of course everyone's life stage is different, but a lot of us that chose to have kids in our 20s, they're getting, they're starting to leave the house and, and they're saying we could live to be 120. I don't know if I can, but you know, some of us still got 70 years left. We should probably figure out what to do with those years, right? How about at least the next 20? At least the next 20 we should figure out.

Yeah, I feel like my, I'm watching reruns all the time now. I don't know about another 50 or 70 years of this. It would have to get really interesting. Joe. Oh man.

But that's what fires me up is something. And you know, so far it's only been a couple weeks, but just the folks that Connected at about 500 people Connect Sign up to be a part of it with, with no marketing or anything, just kind of word of mouth. So I'm pretty happy about that. And just kind of, I said going in, I don't care how many people are, are a part of it, let's just find like minded folks and start to figure it out together. And it really wanted to, to grow into a community, not just kind of an online platform.

What kind of unique challenges do people have today that maybe in your time as a pastor has really changed it? You know, everyone, everyone talks about, of course, social media, the Internet, there's, I mean we've got a, we have a disrespectful culture now where people have moving from online into in person to be overtly disrespectful. And it seems to be more so than it used to be, especially when I grew up. I mean, it was. I mean, you didn't talk back to parents. You didn't do that kind of stuff. So, you know, in. There's. There's a lot of work to do here in the space that you're talking about. What types of things are you detecting today that were maybe a little bit different than in your leadership roles of churches that you were dealing with?

Yeah. You know what I mean? What comes to mind first is like, I don't. I feel like everything's more performative. And it does tie in, I think, to. To social media, but. Or that we're constantly trying to capture moments, especially ourselves, in our best light. And that's very normal. Like, if our parents had social media, they would have done the same thing. It's very human. I think there's just. There's an intersection with the technology we have now and our human instinct to have people want to like us and see us in our best light that is sort of making everyone a bit of a performer in a. In a 247 way. And that as a performer myself, like, I know you can't live on stage all the time. Like, like, and it'll destroy you. And then you. You live, you know, for approval and likes. And one of the things I just did a. My blog today was 51 things I believe of 51. And the first one was, I know one of these is wrong. I just don't know which one. That's the first thing I believe. But, you know, one of them was that nobody is thinking about you as much as you think they are. Like, and the other things, that's a good thing. You know, people will say, like, you know, I. I forgot to. I forgot to say happy birthday to so and so. So I'm afraid to talk to. They don't know. Like, and if they do, then what a weird friend to have that would be mad about that. Like, I. I just think there's, like, I think we are constantly assuming because of the world we live in that everyone wait. That people wake up in the morning, look at their phone and. And say, what's Joe doing today?

Right.

But. But they don't. They don't like. And I think they're. I think maybe I don't want to age you, but when we were growing up, we still had those insecurities. I did. But was in real time. And it was with real. Yeah. Face to face. And. And that was still hard enough to deal with. So I. I feel like the other thing I would say is we talk a lot. We should. We talk a lot about kids growing up this way and how detrimental it is. But my parents are that way. They're in their 70s. Like, it's. We're all that way now. It's not just kids. And so I think we need to, like, it's going to take discipline at some level to use the do not disturb on our iPhone and to go on a walk. You know what I mean?

Well, yeah, man. And, like, I just wrote down a few comments, and, you know, and part of it is, I think we used to be more present because we didn't have a choice. I mean, it was like, when you're out, you don't have a phone and you're out. No, your parents can't get you unless you.

They.

You know, they start calling around people's house looking for you. Like, you're. You're with the group you're with. As Deion Sanders said at our conference, he's like, you. You are. They. You be where your feet are. Like, be present, like, wherever. And I think he. He hits on that because so many people aren't. Man, you're looking at your phone. You're with you. You see it all the time. I see it in my family, man. There'll be times I'll look around. We're sitting in the same room together. Everybody's looking at their phone. It's like, hey, and for me, I don't have a big friend group. Like, everybody I know is here, so I don't have to look at my phone. They're all in the room. Yeah, anybody. Anybody who's going to text me or Snapchat me is sitting on the couch right now.

But.

And then I saw something on the Internet today, or maybe my wife was sharing it with me last night. But, yeah, she was listening to a podcast, and there was a study that said kids that grew up being outdoors were remarkably happier than the kids that didn't. And I think the inference is that the kids that were outdoors had less time, that they were just going from screen to screen to screen, and they were actually out there and, you know, they had developed a little bit more patience. Not everything's going to happen. Right now I'm in a hunting stand or I'm fishing or I'm doing some of these other outdoor activities, and they become a little bit more resilient. Or, you know, they're, they're, you know, like for me, even at my advanced age and I'm older than you a little bit, but I, I have the same problems with social media that I'm not immune to it. And I'm constantly going down the rabbit hole and saying, you know, that was just 30 minutes that I just absolutely wasted and now my brain's tired and I should know better than that type thing. But we're all susceptible to it.

Yeah. And also doesn't do a lot of good to like, I don't know, dad, to like pile on. We're all addicted to it at some level. So yeah, it's, you know, when you're struggling with an addiction, you don't, you don't love it when there's someone in your life constantly telling you to stop. Like, you guys, you got to figure it out on your own. Right. So I think one of the other things I wrote today is I just think curiosity solves a lot of problems. And so when you feel like something needs to change instead of, instead of telling yourself or others around you, we need to, you know, instead of saying, okay, we're not, we're not going to use our phones from 7 to 9pm every night and then the kids are just upset with you for two years, you know, let's ask questions with the kids if they're old enough to process about, what do you all think we could do without our phones? What would be fun for you? Like really trying to approach things from curiosity versus we should be doing this or we shouldn't be doing that. Because in my experience, nothing makes people want to do things more than when you tell me they shouldn't do it. You know what I mean?

100%. Yeah. I'll tell you. I went to Seinfeld in New York and he was at the Beacon Theater and it was a gift. And I went with my wife and here's a 69 year old guy. There was a warmup act. She was good, she was a popular comedian and she did well. And before she even got off the stage, he came sprinting out there at 69 years old, grabbed the mic stand, swung it around his head, put it down like a matador and just, and just commenced to just crush for like an hour. And but the first thing that he did was everybody, because he's one of the few comedians, big time comedians, that doesn't make you put your phone in the bag. So now you go to a show and it's, you know, Chappelle and all, you know, it's like, hey, every. You put your phone in the bag. They don't want their bits getting out there so that people don't feel cheated when they come to see them. They'll put the crowd work out there online, but they won't put their. You know, they won't put whatever. Whatever their bits are right now and ever. So all these phones are up. He's like, sure, you know, go, go. Go ahead, take a picture. You know what? He goes, you and your phones, you're never where you are. Here's what you're doing. You're gonna send. You're gonna take this video, you're gonna miss my show. You're gonna take this video, you're gonna get. Send it to somebody, and they're gonna say, nice. He goes, and then the first time you're gonna get to watch the show is eight years from now when it comes up in your memories.

And.

And then that's when you're going to get to watch the joke. And it was like everybody's phone. Just like he shamed them into putting their phones down. And I don't think I saw another phone up for the entire show. I put mine away and I would. I like, I felt like I'm not going to pick it up and get a picture because. And, dude, we sat there and had the best time just being present and knowing that we weren't going to have a recording of it or any of it. Um, it was about 30% stuff I'd heard before, but about, you know, the rest of it was. Seemed relatively new, but it was. It was really interesting. It was such a mature way to handle it, and it's probably why. He's the best.

Yeah. Very smart of him. Quite calculated. And he. You know, he's. He's a. He's kind of a neurotic freak, but in a good way, I think. I actually don't mind. I. We went. We saw Bruno Mars in Vegas a couple months ago, and they took our phones and he did a song, a song called I took your phones away. That's how he started the concert with a song that he wrote. And it's actually kind of nice. I was like, oh, yeah. Because I was holding it, so I knew no one's using it.

That's right.

It was kind of nice. I need to get one of these at home that I can lock my phone up sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So.

So play it. Play it forward for me. Five years for you, Joe. What. What's. You. You Took time to write the Vision. Can you give us a little bit of insight into what's in it?

Sure. I. In five, it was five years. So four and a half years from now, I was doing three things. I was launched this called for Adventure. And that was my main sort of career outlet. And it was primarily doing these workshops around the world, doing some keynote speaking with it, and then helping folks online find their calling and making a living with that. My wife's a travel agent, so about a third of my time was spent traveling with her. She gets all these. She's going to Hawaii tomorrow. I'm not so part of my dream step of job.

That's a happy birthday for you, sir.

Right. I get to go on about a 30% of the trips right now. She does great. So she gets. And she turns things down so she. She could be gone 20 weeks a year on free trips. And so I'm like, I want a job where I can do that or don't have to work all the time. So I'm in five years, I'll be traveling with her more. And. And then my. The thing. So the. The visioning exercise that I did, you write for 20 minutes without taking your hand off the page, about as if it is five years in the future. I learned it from a man named Ari Weinswig, who. Who's actually going to speak at leadercast this year. So it was towards the last where my hand started to cramp, like 10, 15 minutes in, and I was like, I don't have anything else to say. And what was interesting is the last things I wrote was about producing a comedy show in Vegas and moving back there, at least having a place there. So according to my vision statement, in five years, I'm getting ready to put up a comedy show in Vegas.

Oh, that would be. That would be outstanding. You know, events. There was a lot of consternation about events, about trade shows during COVID Everything moved online and people said, this is just the way it's going to be from now on. But my experience is that trade shows and events are just making a strong comeback right now. Do you, you know, what did you. What have you seen with Leadercast? I know that you just stepped down as the CEO, but, you know, what's, what's been the trends. And then I'm really interested. Anything that you could share if somebody was out there wanting to put events on, like, what's the, you know, what's, what's the funnel to get somebody, you know, connected? Is it. Is it pitch the event first and then you get people into the programs or, you know, how do. How do people enter that environment? Like, what's the entry point for. For people in. Inside of an ecosystem like leadercast?

Yeah, I mean, first of all, trade shows are back for sure. Leadercast is not a trade show.

Right, right.

There's always, you know, the. I guess there's the cynical part of me a little bit that's like, you know, on the company dying, we get to go to somewhere warm and sell our stuff and listen to a few people and it's not bad. That's the way the world works. Sure, I've enjoyed a trade show myself from time to time, but part of what makes the economy of a trade show work is that it's really networking and cross selling. Right. That's a huge part of it. Leadercast was never that. It was just a leader cast. It was just a leadership event. That the revolutionary thing about LeaderCast 20 years ago was it was simulcast all over the world. So we did this big event in Atlanta with 5,000 people in an arena, and then at one point we had almost a thousand what we called host sites around the world that would show it at the same time. So 20 years ago, it was kind of a big deal to be able to pull all that off.

And that was Satellite. Was Maxwell involved with it at that point in time?

He started the first year or two. Then my buddy Jeremy Kubecheck took it over and he's the one that really built it out. He's with Giant Worldwide now. Jeremy's a great guy. So the original pitch of leadercast worked great until it kind of didn't, which was going to like smaller chambers of commerce, more rural areas and other places and saying, look, you can't afford to have Peyton Manning and, you know, Seth Godin and whoever on your stage. You know, the. There were years leadercast Price spent half a million dollars on Honorary. So the pitch was, you'll never get these people to come to your chamber of commerce in Iowa, but you can have them live on video. And then really leadercast started these little lot of chambers. It was like franchises. So they would actually make a little bit of money at it. They would license it from us, put it up in their community. People pay 30 bucks ticket to come see it, that kind of thing. And it was really working great that way. 20, 16, 17, then started to decline a little. And I think in our world, what really shifted was we still have some folks that do that. They love it, it works for them. It's Great for them. But a lot of other people saying, look, we were doing like before COVID we were doing eight to 12 events a year and Leadercast was one of them. And we're trimming that down to three or four like that. We were doing too many. So it's not that in those, in that chamber world, a lot of them were hearing back. It's just we don't want to have a full time person to do all these events. We're just going to do a few. So for us, what, what, what we. And the other thing that shifted for us is we started having a lot more private. We say private, but like companies and organizations that wanted to license our content just to show to their people they weren't trying to make money off of it or do their own event. You know, NASA's one of our biggest clients, Home Depot, Marathon Oil, like they just want to show it to their 5,000 people. And so we, we started to see that, you know, these companies still like the idea of it feeling like an event, but they kind of do want people to be able to watch it at their desk or at home, you know. So for us that's what shifted. But it had started to shift just in the culture pre Covid and then Covid sort of really changed it. You know, I would say. I don't even know if I answered your question, but that's where we're with leadercast. But the. For folks that want to like just do events, you know, I, I just think that you need to know why. And, and generally the best events, usually the event itself is not where you're looking to get the bottom line roi, right. So you're, you might do a big event, but you have, it feeds something else. I think it, I think it's pretty hard to do like a, a huge leadership event unless you have someone like a Mark Cuban or someone behind it. Like some, some face that you can draw in. Like Dave Ramsey does his pretty well. I'm sure he met that guy, makes money all the time. So. Yeah, but, but you know, if I would say it can fall into the Money Pit category if you just want to put on something really cool and get people there. It's a lot. Like when I was producing movies actually they used to say you should have at least equal your production budget for marketing. So a lot of people would make an independent movie for $5 million and then have no money for marketing. Nobody's ever going to see it. So I think there are some similarities there. But like, I love the X2 conference in Utah. And you know, that whole thing is just a leader for. To get folks interested in their product, which I. It's totally failing because I can't remember the name of the product right now. The one that does surveys, I'll think in a minute. But the. So anyway, that's a lot of rambling, but. So my. That's how I would think about event stuff. And you know, it's obviously, concerts are back, comedy's back, all this stuff's back.

Oh yeah.

But I think in the business world, some of it's. It's a little different than the entertainment stuff for whatever reason, just feels that way to me. It's not, it's not. All the business conferences didn't come back. You know, it's a little harder sledding.

Yeah, I'm thinking about it the same way as you. So I've got a. I've got a business partner that does trade shows. But you know, they real get is leads, people that might want to get into a business. So, you know, and, and I, I don't know the economics of it, but I assume it's a loss leader and there's good, there's heavy marketing around it. You want to get people walking through. You got education going on there, so you want to stack the value. So there's all kinds of seminars going on all the time that's well publicized. You can get in there, you know, how to get an SBA loan, how to do this, how to do. You know, just all the different topics that people might be thinking about are happening two or three at a time in different breakout rooms around the floor and stuff like that. And then there's other people that I know that are moving, doing a lot of acquisitions in different industries and I mean, they give away a lot of content to get these businesses in their orbit and just to be able to spend two or three days with them. And maybe it's only. Maybe it's only two or 300 people in the room, but that might represent 100 target companies that they might want to partner with or something like that. So I think to your point, it's like an event is. An event is not the objective an event is. It's a sales tool.

It's marketing spend.

Yeah, yeah, it's marketing spend. However, for me, I'm. I'm very susceptible to those environments because that's really where you get deep. You're full. When I go to something like that, man, I'm fully engaged. I feel like I'm getting Value. And, you know, even with all the business I've done, I'm like, well, I'll be lucky if I can get to talk to these people that, you know, are up on the stage or, you know, having, you know, sharing their experiences and whatnot. So, yeah, it's an, it's an interesting time for all the technology. And this kind of goes to where we just. I just answered a question for somebody that came in on one of our feeds and I don't even know what it was, but I did. You know, we had a podcast on AI and the question was, what are the jobs in the future and the careers that you're going to hire salaried people that you, that companies are continue to hire salaried employees for versus what's going to get eliminated with AI? And, you know, I really don't know from the perspective of saying which, you know, I mean, I know that like, AI is doing a lot of coding. It's creating a lot of copy, it's writing a lot of content, it's launching campaigns, and it's doing all this kind of stuff. That being said, if you don't look at it, sometimes it doesn't make that much sense. It's not, you know, it's. It's not, you know, the machine still doesn't have the ability to say, this is an interesting hook. It says, this clip's the right length, the right amount of people are talking. I heard these words. But the clip, you look at it and it's like, well, that's. As a human, I'm not at least bit interested in what that thing kicked out. But if you go all the way back to Google and how Google built their company, and there's a great book called How Google Works and Smart Creatives. So as we go forward in this world, people, not that have the answers, but people that can ask the better questions are going to be the ones that are of high value. And then it gets right back down to, we're tribal people. So getting face to face with people, hanging out with people, people that can are warm and they can smile, they can build relationships. Like, those are the types of skills that are going to come back and be, I think, of the highest order of importance because a lot of this other stuff that you used to have to spend a year, you know, coding a program, like, you ask the right question, now it'll spit it out for you. Yeah, build me Tetris, you know, in code. And here it comes. So, so, so it's interesting. And I. And I think for a lot of people, and then because of there's all different personality types and learning styles out there, people that, I mean, it really can create a lot of, I think, confusion or angst about what people should do with their living, especially now. And I, I think that's why I get so many questions about that. You get these young, 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds. It seems to be a particular amount of people that actually get my book Discernment because it's kind of targeted towards them or, you know, you know, consuming our content. And they're, they're questioning, they're trying to figure out, like, okay, you're an older guy, you've been around a little bit, like, tell me where to go and what to do and where to focus. And you know, I'm not really sure that I have the right answer all the time for them, which I guess is.

Nobody does.

No, I don't.

But, you know, I. So, you know, I. Well, I hate to keep going back to my list today, but one of them was AI is going to destroy us. Or it's not. I don't know. That's one of the things I believe. Like, it was just so early. Like, we don't. It's like, it's like you're. I mean, it's like the Internet being born. No one could actually predict. Of course we know it's going to disrupt our lives. We know that for sure. We know it's going to bring opportunity and we know it's going to automate things that are going to take jobs away. We know that for sure. That's what always happens when we, that's what. There aren't a lot of Wagon Wheel salesmen anymore because of Henry Ford. So.

That's right.

Like we, we know that's going to happen. So I think there's some like, common sense things like I, I don't know if I send my kid in to get a coding degree right now, but I also think we, you know, I'm still pretty big fan of like pursuing your, your passion. And there will, I think there will always be a way to do that. I think paralysis would be the weird. The thing that I would worry about with younger folks is that they, they don't do anything because they don't know where it's going. Because when none of us knew where it was going ever, you know, those of us I think about like things like Covid, obviously, and then like 9, 11 folks our age, you know, non. On September 10th, everything's normal and Then one thing happens that really directly affects a lot of people, but not most of us. And then our whole world has changed forever. So it's always we believe in a myth of like predictability, right? And so AI is just one of those things that's showing us. No, you can't predict it, but we got to keep going, Gotta keep marching. Can't be sad.

Oh, man. Ray Dalio. Have you ever seen his 28 minute video called On Principles, the little caricature thing. So if you go to YouTube and you Google Ray Dalio principles, there's this 28 minute video. I watched it the year I sold my business, man. I watched it like 50 times. It's the greatest 28 minutes. By the way. He's pretty sharp, made a few bucks and, and he talks about the mistake that he made is that in making and bankrupting his company early basically was because he didn't look far enough back into the patterns. And if he only would have looked back far enough, he would have seen that the pattern was there, but he didn't look far enough back. And people's biggest mistake that they make is believing that the immediate future is going to be some small variation on the immediate past. And that's like, I see that so clearly now and I think that way and it's like, well, you know, we can spend all this money because we're just going to, you know, we're just going to make more and it's always going to. I said, there's no guarantee that what's been happening or happened to you once is going to happen again. And you know, so the, you know, this, you know, this, you know, people, and of course we want to get comfortable. We want to, we, we don't like things that change that much. But the rate of change that we've learned to accept since really 2007, when all the things came out and, and you know, and phones and all of this kind of stuff, but it's, it's potentially accelerating and it accelerating right here. And, and I think to your point, what I really like about called for adventure is that it, you know, it puts a sense of purpose into people's minds regardless of what the universe gives them. And I've said to my kids over and over again, I've said to anybody who asked me, everybody needs an adventure in life. I had one, you had several, including working at a chapel in Vegas. I mean, like, that's such a great story, right? And, and like how many people can claim that, that they did that? And what'd you learn and what are the people you met? I can't even imagine some of the couples that came in, what their, you know, their stories and did you, did you talk to them and ask them like, what do you want me to talk about? Or was it pretty much just.

That was such a weird gig. It was fifth. They did four weddings an hour. So I. You did. You could do. There's 15 minute weddings and you know, they, they choose if they wanted religious or secular and off you go. And that was it nice that it was a. It's a weird job. I, I might have purposely subconsciously like got fired because I don't know if I could have done it for very long. But yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things I do deeply believe is that it's our failure and the pain that we go through that actually is what informs our life calling. Which is part of why it's a little easier for me to work with folks that have had some measure of pain and failure. Because I think looking back on it, that there's something about having gone through that that shapes us in a specific way, that's unique to us, that then propels us to do something about it into the world. And I think if we don't do something about it with our positive instincts, we will end up doing things about it in a negative way. So for me, when I talk about being called for adventure, it's a lot of work, some work in what you've done well in your life, you need to take that into account. But it's a lot of work, especially the repetitive sort of failures in your life and the things that you've had to learn the hard way, you know, for many people, creates a passion to help other folks through that sort of thing. And so the, you know, I'm a pretty simple guy in that sense of I think we're here to help each other along and that we actually, in the second half of our life, whatever that is, where most of our meaning actually comes from, you know, I, I was offered my dream job several times throughout my life, five years after I wanted it and I was, I turned it down. Half the time I was like, eh. So there's, there's something about ambition that gets you to a point of realizing, you know, kind of like a. It's a little meaningless. A lot of the stuff we chase after, that's very Ecclesiastes. To go back on my biblical roots, everything's a chasing after the wind, right? But that's such a beautiful day when you realize that. Because in our own insignificance, we start to build back a significant role for ourselves to kind of help people along. So I sound like a pastor again. I guess that's what I'm doing. So, I mean, I'm just a secular pastor at this point.

Yeah. Well, look, it's a little bit about letting go to regain a toehold again.

Yeah.

In a better. In a better place.

And there's nothing more. I always talk about failure gives you humility and wisdom, and it's actually the only. It's the only way to get it. If you've never met anyone that feels like they've never failed, they probably have, but they feel like it. You don't want to be friends with them. They're the worst. They've no, like, no humility, no wisdom. They're just been successful their whole life. Now, the people you want, when you, when you, when you sit on the porch with it, with. Or when you're an old man brought on your rocking chair, sitting on the porch, you want to be the one that the neighborhood kids want to come up to and talk to because A, you got stories, but B, you're approachable because you've learned that these kids are worth my time. Right. And then. And you're humble. You don't want to be like hiding in your private jet. You can, you can have one, but you want to be accessible to the world. So I want to create a bunch of folks that have that kind of spirit about them or help them become that.

Joe, that's awesome. Excited for your new venture? How can people get in touch with you?

I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. Joe Boyd. And then called for adventure.com. right now, it's just a link to my substack. So you can sign up for free. There's an option to pay. That's just to kind of be supportive. You get. You get everything for free. So if you go to called for adventure.com, give me your email address and I will appropriately bother you about 9:00am Eastern every workday.

Nice. Outstanding. All right, and if. Joe, last question. If you had one sentence to speak into somebody's life and make an impact, what would that be? I know you just did 51 of them.

I did. Hold on.

Pick a good one.

Try not to make it a rant.

Go for it.

Almost every day you interact with someone that's having the worst week of their life, but they. They won't tell you. So assume it's everyone.

That is beautiful.

I love that it's about Grace. Yeah, it's about, you know, treating. Treat everyone the way you would want to be treated on your worst day.

Love it.

Yeah.

Well said. This has been Joe Boyd with Jeff Duden, and we have been on the home front. Thanks for listening.