Spark Your Success: Unveiling the Hidden Secrets of Relationship Mastery with Kevin Thompson

And and then he says, one never knows where a well planted seed will sprout. And right then, Joe, the seed was planted for me where I started just thinking, wouldn't it be cool if I had a business where I got to do that all the time.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

What's up? I am back. This episode is with my friend Kevin Thompson, who I met years back at a Perry Marshall conference. I brought Kevin onto this podcast because this guy is a master at connections and doing that at scale. Now, he started off not doing this at scale and he tells a really cool story about Joe Polish and giving him a stage to do this. And you'll hear the story and how this resulted in $16.1 million of sales of his own products and services, all done through strategic partnerships and being a Conn nectar. Kevin's gonna break down what he does and how he did that, not at scale at first, but then scale that into what he's doing now with his podcast, which is essentially connecting on steroids. And that is why I love this podcast so much, especially when it's in its flow and I have all the systems dialed, which they finally are, along with that new website, hustleandflowchart.com just gotta shout it out. Kevin is crushing it with his million Dollar relationships podcast. I was recently featured, soon to be released, but definitely go check out his podcast. That's how he's doing this connecting thing at scale. So I break this thing down along with Kevin on how he's doing this and how you can replicate this in this whole connecting at scale thing. And he'll challenge you and how you can apply that to your own business, your own personality. Even if you don't think you are a connector, you are someone that can definitely be a powerhouse in there with your own ways of Going about things. Kevin's going to help you out, so it's a fun episode. Stick along with us and have a good time. So see you there. Kevin, we're gonna kick off the show here and appreciate you hanging out today with me, my friend.

Yeah, same. I'm looking forward to it. This'll be fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you had me on your show, so thank you. You're gracious for doing that. Probably won't be heard for many years because you're on a tear with recording episodes. I'm just kidding. You've been cranking out episodes of your podcast, the Million Dollar Relationship podcast. And so I wanted to shout that out because that's what got us connected.

And.

And shoot, I'm. Now I'm blinking on who it is that actually connected us, because I know we've met before prior to that, so.

I know Brad had connected us and stuff. And you know what? You're right. I. I could totally find out.

Yeah, me too. I'm like, I don't want it right now.

But shout out to them for sure. You know, because, you know, like, you know, it was interesting, you and I, you know, the last time we saw each other in person was in.

18 at Perry Marshall's event in Chicago.

That's right. And Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone event. Yes. Yes. And, you know, to get connected with somebody via a mutual friend that we both have this admiration and just respect and trust with, there is no way, no better way to meet somebody, you know, And. And because it just allows us, like, in our case, you know, we hadn't seen each other a number of years. It's not why. I mean, we knew of each other, we certainly didn't know each other well.

That's right.

But because we were reconnected by a mutual friend who said, hey, you guys really need to talk. And in this instance, it was because they were saying, you need to interview Joe for the podcast. Yeah.

And shout out to John Davey. That is who. Who connected us some like.

It was John. Yeah, there we go. See, I knew we'd come up with it. And because of John, you know, you and I, we just. It's like, you know, even though we run in the same circles and we knew of each other and met on one occasion, but now we just had this conversation where we just, like, know each other for years.

Right. And I don't know what that is. It's probably a personality thing. Shared experiences, shared mutual relationships. But the fact that I think, like, we think very similarly in the power of relationships. Yeah, you know, the, the power of, of not taking people for granted or the time we're spending with people or investing with people. It's, you know, it's a two way conversation. It's actually further than that with the podcast. You know, it's this whole scaled approach, which is why I love this because we can share conversations in like our relationship. That's that we're going to. And I have so much to learn about who is Kevin Thompson, you know, and, and your, your past when it comes to the way that you operate because you've been, you've been doing this a while. Do you have, you know, some of the gurus in the space? I see a lot of pictures and names dropped on Facebook of people that have been on the show. Think Garrett Gunderson was one of them that you recently called out. I'm like, hey, he's been on the show like long time ago. I actually worked with him as a client too. So I was like, wow, okay. There's all these layers. You know, we're talking about Rich Sheffrin. You're recording with him later today. I just chatted with him earlier. So it's like, yeah, cool stuff. Hey, I want to pause this and give a quick thanks to my friend Greg Merrilies and his team at Studio One Design. They're the ones that built my website over@hustleandflowchart.com I couldn't be happier. They nailed it. It looks so professional. They basically read my mind on the vision and they executed it beautifully. I now have a perfect offer to display. It looks super clean. I've already been getting a lot of people asking all about it and I've been referring everybody to Studio One. So they actually put together a quiz for you if you're looking to optimize your current website or build a new one as a full quiz that gives you a ton of results on how to improve and optimize what you're doing. So go complete that quiz@studio1design.com Joe. That is studio the number one design.com Joe. It'll give you a free report after you finish that quiz. He's also given away some cool bonuses, so go check it out at studio1design.com/joe. So let's get into. I want to get in your background slightly here and then we'll get into like how you're using the power of relationships and connecting. And I know podcasting has become a really good tool for you to do that all at scale. So tell us about like walk us back. What should I. And what should we know about you that is maybe kind of prefacing this the super power of years of connecting and let us in your world.

I used to own a cleaning and restoration company, which is how I first met Joe Polish years ago. I started that business in 96. By 97 I was failing miserably, not knowing what to do. And. And I found an article by Joe Polish in a trademark trade mag for the industry and ended up responding to that, requested some information that he was offering and from there invested in his marketing help and got into a mastermind that he was hosting for the industry too.

Was that Piranha Marketing by chance?

It was, it was Piranha Marketing.

Such a good course too. I listened to a lot of it.

Yeah. You know, I joined up with Joe in 97 and over the next three years, with his help, we completely transformed that company into a by referral only company.

And.

And I was, you know, in the top 3% of companies, 1:1 truck operator companies in the whole doggone industry. And I just had one guy that I would send out cleaning and stuff. And being a by referral only company was just, that was a big deal, you know, and it was really profitable. And, and one of the things that we added after going to a Dan Kennedy seminar in 1999, I met Perry Marshall and Yannick Silver at that time who were doing some really cool stuff online. And I thought, man, wouldn't it be cool if I could use the Internet for my business so that I. And it wasn't about the idea of, of making all this money. I was thinking, like, man, wouldn't it be cool if I could expand and have a nationwide or even a worldwide reach and somehow impact lives that way? And so we ended up starting one of the ugliest websites on the Internet called Get Mold Solutions. It is still there. There's not a doggone thing going on at that website, Joe. Nothing. Nothing's happening there.

Is there? Mold growing on the website now I.

Just leave it there because I want to remember where I came from, you know.

Okay, yeah, I like it.

And so I pay for the hosting and all that. And it still sits there doing nothing.

It's like the first. It's like the first dollar. You made stuff to the wall or something.

Yeah. And. And we grew that website where it was producing, you know, 12, 13,000amonth in revenue for the business.

Wow.

We did that by 2000 or excuse me, 2000, we launched a website by 2003, we were doing, you know, that kind of revenue, that's crazy. I was talking with Joe in the spring of that year in, oh, three, and he used to put on this big event every year, annual event for the cleaning and restoration industry. And he's like. Kevin's like, why don't you come down here to this year's annual event and show everybody what you're doing with your website? And I was like, all right. And he said, okay. He said, now, before you come, he's like, make sure that you document what you do and how you do it. And you put that into a course, because once you share, there's going to be a certain percentage of the people that they're. They're going to want your help, and just make sure you're prepared to offer that to them.

Smart.

So I did that, and I ended up speaking at his annual event that year, and about 60 minutes. And I'm going to tell you, Joe, I was so dang nervous. I mean, I never spoke in public before, much less to an audience of, I don't know, 250, 300 people. And then I'm like, going, gosh, please let me do right by Joe. You know, I didn't want to let Joe down because I'm like, you know, and it ended up being okay. At the end of that presentation, I just said, hey, if you appreciate what I've shared, if you feel like I might be able to help you, well, here's what that would look like. Here's what the investment is. And we ended up making $35,000 in sales worth of that course. Wow. And Joe, I. I was just completely. I'm just like, wow. You know, I didn't realize it at the time, but hindsight's always 20 20. And what I discovered is, was Joe and I, you know, I just did my first ever strategic partnership. And what was so instructive about that is that Joe and I, we never talked about, you know, hey, if we do this thing together, we're going to make all this money. That was not the focus. That. The reason why Joe invited me to come down there and share was because he felt all the people that were attending that event would get value from that. And that, of course, is going to further his relationship with them. And the byproduct of that is creating revenue. And Joe would have never put me in front of those people if he thought for one second that I would have damaged the relationship that he had created with all those people. It didn't matter how much could have been been made financially, he would have never done that. That's right. And when I really started to look at that stuff, you know, that course that I created. Now, granted, over the next 12 years, we. We made a lot of updates to it over time and all that, but I went on to sell $16.1 million worth of that course. And. And we did it pretty much all through strategic partnerships. I did almost 600 strategic partnerships in that 12 years. And in doing that, I got world class at creat.

And. And because I understood the value of relationships, and I saw it every day, and I'm like, wow, the better you get at creating relationships, and the better you get at treating people really well and giving them a great experience. That's what gets them talking about chance stuff. And so I got really good at that, and. And that led me to what I do today.

Wow, Man. Kevin, this is. This is great. And I love the advice that Joe gave you before going is. Is document. You know, document what you do, because that thing can scale from you, even if you weren't even imagining it. He just planted that seed. He's like, get prepared. This is. This is possible. Most of us, I mean, never even document anything that we do, let alone share it with our team so we can make ourselves replaceable in, you know, the one truck operation that we might have going on in our lives right now. Because that's. That's what's fascinating is you started with that one truck, and it was that concept. Now, boom, packaged up, expanded, and then that opened up all the doors, and I'm sure maybe other ventures with the relationships that you created just naturally not forced, you know.

So I'll tell you, you know, in doing all those partnerships, what I never reached out to people saying, hey, will you promote my thing? I never once did that. I always showed up trying to be of service to other people. And what I discovered through this whole process was that I have what Dan Sullivan would. Would call a unique ability that I. I can just have a conversation with an entrepreneur. I love talking with entrepreneurs, find out what they're working on, what's got them most excited, what problems they're dealing with, And I always naturally default to who do I know who might be able to help them with this? And so I have been just making introductions like that for years. And. And the first big. I mean, like, really big introduction I made was 12 years ago. It was for these two guys, Perry Marshall and Brian Kurtz. At the time, Brian was working with Marty Edelston at Boardroom Reports at the time, and they're a big direct mail company, but they were trying to figure out the Google AdWords platform. And he was telling me, he's like, man, we're just pulling our hair out with this stuff. This is not our thing. They don't know what we're doing. And. And I'm like, well, you know Perry Marshall. And he's like, why don't have him? I'm like, well, that's their thing. That's what they do. I said, you should talk to Perry and his team. Those guys can totally help you. And he's like, you know Perry? And I'm like, yeah, I'll get you guys connected. So I sent an email, introduced those two guys. Perry's team did help Boardroom out with the Google AdWords thing, but a year later, these two guys are hosting a seminar together called the Titans of Direct Response. And they held it back in Washington, D.C. and on opening day of that event, I'm getting text messages from like three or four friends of mine who were in attendance at that event. And one of them is like, friend Paul Bingham. And he's there at that event. He's like, Kev, he's. I'm just letting you know I'm at this event that Perry and Brian are doing this week. And he said, they're on stage opening up right now, talking about you in a really, really good light. You're the guy who connected them, and none of this would even be happening if you hadn't connected them. And, and, and then he says, one never knows where a well planted seed will sprout. And right then, Joe, the seed was planted for me, where I started just thinking, wouldn't it be cool if I had a business where I got to do that all the time?

Yeah, man.

And so 12 years ago, the seed was planted. And I look at what is unfolded. It took some time to germinate and grow a little bit and all that, but in 2017, it started happening big time. And, and now in the last six years, I mean, that's what I do.

Yeah, well, you can't stop it, right? It's like this, this snowball. The more connections you make and more great people, it's like those type of people like yourself. And I feel like I do that to a minor extent as compared to the sound of like just the, the sheer experience and time you've been doing this, more people get attracted to you of, of that caliber and it speeds up. And yeah, I feel like there's just, just so many more Fun things to do with better people around you. And I'm getting to the point of podcasting too, because now you've elevated. Well, not elevated, but you've changed and morphed and maybe scaled relationships via your own podcast. Yeah. I'm curious to how you approach that show. And, and it's not all just about making content for the podcast sakes. I'm sure, you know, obviously want to share conversations, but tell me about, like, how your connectedness and like, what do you do may during and after a show that. That's unique to you.

So. And I gotta give a quick shout out to Brad Costanzo, because Brad was the one. You know, he'd been hosting a podcast for a while called Bacon Wrapped Business. And, and hosting a podcast. Joe was not even on my radar at all. I mean, it hadn't even occurred to me. But Brad was like, Kev, for a guy like you who values relationships so much, he's like, man, you should really look at doing a podcast. And I'm just kind of like, you know, man, the business world doesn't need another Me Too podcast.

Right?

What am I going to talk about? And he's like, kev, you are going to talk with entrepreneurs about their most valuable relationships. And as soon as he said that, I was like, dang, that sounds awesome.

When I got back home, I just started reaching out to some friends of mine. I mean, one of the first people were like, like Alex Sharfen. I interviewed Alex Vinnie Fisher. Just few close friends. I just reached out to him and said, hey, I want to have a conversation with you around the most valuable relationships in your life. And, and I just wanted to have the experience and see what it was like. And, and after about three or four interviews, I was totally hooked, Joe. I was totally hooked. I'm like, this is so. I don't know where this is going to go and what's going to come of this, but this is cool. And, and, and most of these entrepreneurs have never been asked this question before. And so these interviews end up showing a side of them that they've never talked about, never revealed before, because nobody's asked them this kind of question and stuff. And so now here we are, we're about a year and a half into this. We just recorded the 170some episode of the podcast. We've released a little over a hundred. I am, Joe, I'm having such an amazing experience doing this that recording episodes way faster than we're releasing them at two a week, you know.

Well, you mentioned earlier, you're on a. You went on a tear this last month.

This last month, yeah. So normally I'm. I'm doing eight to ten podcasts a month. And. And it's not like I set out to do this. I didn't set out to this, but we did 22 interviews last month, and it just happened. And I will tell you that, you know, when you're doing eight to 10 interviews normally a month, you know, going to 22 might. It didn't seem like, oh, she's. I'm all of a sudden doing a ton of inter. It didn't seem that way at all because those conversations are so engaging.

Right? Yeah.

And so it does allow me to create a lot of content. It also allows me to connect with entrepreneurs in a really deep way and talking about a topic that is near and dear to their heart, which is these most valuable relationships in their life. And. And so some of the cool stuff that has come from this. Sometimes when Alex Charfen, he was the first guy go back, and I think he's interviewed six or seven that I.

Nice.

And he got very emotional talking about his most valuable relationship. And. And it was his high school teacher that he accidentally got put into this teacher's class. Didn't even want to. He was going through a rough time at that point in his life. But yet through this teacher, this teacher taught speech, and they did speeches and all this, and that teacher even got him some speaking engagements. Wow. And of course, now, this many years later, Alex has spoke to millions and millions of people, and speaking has become a huge part of his life, all because of this teacher. You know, when we got done with that interview, I said, you know what? I was like, alex, you should really share this interview with him, as I appreciate being able to hear all. Just all that you said, and not only what you said, but how you said it, you know? Yeah. And because one thing I've learned is that no matter who somebody is, no matter how successful they are, no matter how big a business, no matter how great things look on the outside looking in, there's not a person on the face of this earth. We don't want more appreciation. Nobody gets too much of that.

We all want more of that. And this podcast has become such a thing of just being able to show appreciation for people. So almost all my guests end up sharing their interviews with the people that they were talking about and stuff. And what a cool byproduct that has become.

It's a ripple effect. Yeah. This butterfly effect that you're spreading out there and it's a purpose behind the show. And I could see why I'm imagining with the 22 recordings you did this last month. It's because they're referring people. Well, I know you did this. You want to get introductions as well to more folks. And so talk about how you do that in this process of podcasting. So I think this is something that folks listening, if you have a show or if you've been thinking about it, if you're just thinking of a reason, even connect with people, record and put yourself out there. It doesn't have to be this big, big behemoth of a thing like, oh, I got to do a podcast. It's just chatting with people. And. And yeah, curious to hear your. The way that you really. Because this is one of the objections, I guess, to is how do I get connected with folks? How do I get great people in my podcast? Well, perfectly. And it's similar to how I've been doing it as well. But lay it on us.

Yeah, it's so easy. So I learned years ago in the other business, in the publishing company I ran for 12 years, what gets people talking about is what gets people referring us. So many entrepreneurs think, oh, well, you know what? I. If you send me referrals, I'll give you 10 or 20% of whatever revenue that comes in from it. Like, okay, great, that's generous and all that, but that's not what motivates people to refer. You know what motivates and inspires people to refer and tell us, tell other people about us. And not just tell other people about us, but rave about us, is the experience that we give them and when we give somebody an amazing experience. And that's what I focused on my. In my other business and doing all those strategic partnerships, I wanted to give my partners an amazing experience, and I wanted to give all their people an amazing experience, regardless of how much revenue was produced.

Yeah.

And so I focused on doing that, and I got really damn good at doing that. And. And the same is true with this podcast. When somebody is a guest on my podcast, my goal is I want to give them an amazing experience. I want to let them be able to use the podcast to appreciate people in their lives. And so afterwards, I let them know that, hey, you know, it'll be a little bit of time until the podcast episode releases, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to get the video uploaded to YouTube for you. I'll have my assistant. We'll shoot that to you tomorrow so that way, if you want, you can share it with the people or the person you just honored and you can show your appreciation for them and stuff. And so when I send them the link to that video the next day, we just include, you know, a little short snippet in there that said, hey, here's, here's the recording of our video, video recording of our interview so that you can share it with whoever, whatever the names are, the people that they honored. And, you know, if you had a great experience doing this interview for the podcast, who are one to two other entrepreneurs that you feel I absolutely should be interviewing for the podcast. That's it. That is it. And that's, that's why I got 22 interviews last month, 100 all people getting introduced to me by people that I'd already interviewed. And, and it just keeps on going.

That's it. I mean, yeah, you stop asking. It'll slow down and stop or whatever. But yeah, the more, the more you ask. And that's, that's the big thing is getting out of our own way and not, you know, seeking people to seek. It's just ask and, and trusting that the right, and that's why I mentioned earlier, the right people kind of show up the more you do this, this type of, of connecting. And I almost said the, the networking word. I feel like it's almost like a dirty word because it's like, I don't know, I feel like there's a, you know, that's the thing that most people feel like they gotta do. I gotta go network. I gotta go hang out in these. Great. Go hang out. You know, that's a different thing. I feel like that's a whole different, like podcasting, specifically. You know, I feel like you spend what, 30, 45 minutes or something smiling back, back and forth through a camera. If you're looking at each other, at least you're hearing each other. There's a connection made. And I know this is the case for you, but, like, when I think of a guest I want to bring on this show, I know that we're going to have a cool chat. I hope it's going to be, you know, an awesome chat that also helps at least one other person. But I'm pretty, pretty aware that that thing will keep spreading if that can help that one person maybe improve their lives or business, share that with a friend to improve. There's this big snowball effect. And when I kind of finally realized that for this show and like, oh, wait, that's doing a big service for a lot of people more than I will ever know. There's a lot of that. We don't. We don't hear back from our listeners. Yeah, just even showing up solo, but with a guest. I mean, maybe even more important, it's that ripple effect, and it's because of the network behind the thing, you know, the doing of the conversation.

Yeah, we've all had shitty networking experiences. We've all been in a networking experience, had a networking experience that totally sucks. And, you know, but we also have had the experience where we've made a real meaningful connection with somebody, too. And. And. And, you know, and that's what I want to do is I want to make meaningful connections. I want to leave people in a better place than they were than before. We got an opportunity to connect and have a conversation and stuff. And. And it's this whole thing of giving people this gift of. Of feeling seen, heard, and understood, that that's what they remember. That's what they remember. And when we can give people that gift, which hardly anybody ever gets to receive, but we can intentionally set out to give people that gift of feeling seen, heard, and understood, man, that's a powerful thing. And people will forever remember how we made them feel. Feel.

Yeah, man, that's true. Because I know a lot of people will just not even fully connect that much anymore. And I've caught myself in those moments, and it's like, no, hold on. We're here for. For a reason right now. And the. And the better, you know, we are to each other. It's. Honestly, it rises all ships, and even if you can't see it, just do it anyway, because that's the right thing. So, Kevin, I want to hear about what you do also with the groups, like, because I know you're bringing a bunch of people together. And was it like. It's in a mastermind kind of sense. Right. With the impacting legacy.

It's. It's kind of. I mean, it's got mastermind components for it. But the. The real focus is we are. We are facilitating relationships that impact millions of people. That's the focus. And of course, revenue is the byproduct of that, you know, I mean, and make no mistake about it, yes, we want to produce revenue.

Right.

But it's with the focus on making an impact first. I only want to serve exclusively entrepreneurs who are all about impact and already have those foundational things in place, because that, like you said at the beginning, that's where stuff gets done, and it gets done. I mean, when you eliminate, you know, because trust or lack of trust is always the friction or the thing that slows things down.

That's right.

But when there is trust, both character and competence, well, all of a sudden now there's like zero friction. And when there's zero friction, stuff just happens. I love providing and a container or an environment where there's zero friction because stuff just happens and it happens now. So I love doing that. And, and the cool thing about the podcast is, gives me an opportunity to see how people show up and stuff and, and how I feel and, and engaging with them. And when it makes sense, I'll invite. I do these virtual roundtables on Zoom and it's small group and it's very, I'm very intentional about who I invite because curation is everything. And once you got the small group curated, which, you know, for entrepreneurs, Max, I never let anybody else know who's going to be there because I don't want nobody Googling each other and researching each other. I just want everybody to show, show up ready to contribute, to help, to serve, to pour into the other participants and they're all going to do the same exact thing. And what I will promise is you will leave there having made some very real, meaningful, long term, valuable relationships with people. Not this surface level BS stuff, but real relationship. And that's what I love doing. And through those, through those round tables, from there, it's really simple for me to reach out to the right people and say, hey, if you got value from that and you'd like somebody like me, you know, focusing my effort on your behalf, I'd be wide open to having that conversation. And I just get to cherry pick the best people that I know that I can help. And, and if I feel that I can help them and they feel the same way, that that's worth an exploratory conversation, then we can have that conversation. And if not, that's totally cool too. No harm, no fun, you know, so that's cool.

I like the fact anytime you can bring people together for one, you know, like we're doing that virtually through a podcast, but like something like this or a party where you want to bring some people together, it's like they're always going to remember the connector, you know, it's that person that brings, because you're, you were the one that extended the invitation. And there's always some special thing to that, you know, and the fact that you're, you're picking and choosing the folks, which, you know, I'm going to be attending one in the coming weeks or so. So I'm like, ooh, who's it gonna be? So, yeah, it's, it's, it's very interesting. You know, it's getting the invitation is cool because you're walking into and there's value all around. And like, when you explained that model to me originally, I was like, that's clever. That's really cool. Because you can. Any of us that have, you know, an audience could be an email list of even a hundred people. It could be less, but it's like, invite, invite them or maybe cherry pick some of those based off of whatever, you know, for you, it's the podcast. You can kind of vet people out more or less right then and there. Anyone could do this in no matter what format. And it's just extending that conversation and then connecting a small group together and seeing what happens, you know, knock it down the walls, basically.

One, I'll tell you at this point, I've done over, I've hosted over 350 of these intimate virtual roundtables. And I can tell you that after doing that many, you get a flow down for one. But now it's like there's stuff that takes place and conversations that take place that, that there's no way I could have possibly choreographed it because I didn't know certain things about certain people, you know, but they come up in conversation on the round tables and, and have to do with business. It might have nothing to do with business, but I, you know, whether you want to call it God, the universe or whatever, I definitely have felt for a long time now that I'm collaborating with God, the universe, because the more I step into this, this role of just being this conduit of trust for these entrepreneurs and stuff, amazing things happen. And there's, there's that unknown piece of it that, you know, that it's unknown that like every time I do a roundtable, it's like, I don't know what's going to happen because everyone is unique because it's always the participants that make it what it is. But what I do know is it's going to be really good, man.

It's going to be good. Just you wait. I love the way that you view people and how you can do that in a way where you can almost have little containers and mechanisms of extending that relationship even further and scaling that. And in doing that, it's really bringing people together, you know, at the same, same time. So I can't wait to go attend, attend that in the coming Friday or so. Definitely. Everyone check out Million Dollar Relationships podcast. It's. It's incredible. And the names and the people you know and are connected with, obviously they're. They're your guests, and so it's pretty cool to see the network and a lot of those, including Alex Charfen has been on this podcast, too. And that guy's incredible.

I love the way he thinks Alex and Katie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I want to go listen to episode six now, or whatever it was he said. Alex is so. Anything here that, you know, Kevin, that you want to point people to other than the podcast before we call it.

But if it's cool with you, I'd like to just kind of issue a little challenge for anybody listening to this, because, you know, the, this thing I learned from my good friend of mine, Jesse elder, back in 2012, so it's been 11 years now, where he taught me this, this concept of active appreciation. We were talking about this before that. You know, there's not a person on this earth that gets too much appreciation. And, and I really challenge you, too. Don't look at this as a strategy. Just let it be who you are. And, you know, we all have cell phones with contacts and, and it can be business, it can be family, it can be friends. For the purpose of this exercise, it doesn't matter who it is. But what I want you to do in the next 24 hours, send 10 messages to people that you have contacts for. And in those messages, you're going to let each of those people know one thing that you genuinely appreciate about them. And that's all you're going to do. You're not going to ask for anything in return. You're not even going to ask for a response in return. You're just going to send that out to. So you're going to send out some love and appreciation, and you watch what happens. And you do this one time, 10 people in 24 hours. You watch what happens. And as it happens, you get to realize and come to the. Come to terms with that. You know what? I caused that to happen by the action that I took, I. I facilitated that. I caused that to happen. And that was pretty dang awesome. And I can do more of that whenever I want. And that was a game changer for me. And, and, you know, so I would challenge you to do that just so you can have that experience, so they can have that experience. And my guess is, is once you do that one time, you're going to be hooked and you're just going to want to. I Mean, not that we have to send 10 messages every day, but just, you're just going to be hooked on showing genuine appreciation for other people. People.

I love it. I love it, man. Yeah. And I actually tell myself it's one. One a day is what I do to just touch base with friends or family. But I don't specify the appreciation part, but I'm going to take you up on that challenge for the 10 showing appreciation. I love it, man. And yeah, yeah, there's, you know, don't be daunted by, you know, the responses. I like the fact it's like, don't feel like you. You got a warrant of response. It's just giving appreciation.

Yeah, yeah.

And I will tell you, you know, being genuinely appreciative of other people has opened so many doors for me and opened so many conversations and led to it, just not. I mean, it's led to business for sure. But what for me, what it's led to most is meaningful relationships.

Yes.

You know, and. And that's where I feel, at least in my life, I am, like, so blessed that I have so many amazing relationships in my life of people that I just enjoy being around, enjoy spending time with, enjoy getting to know, enjoy being of service for all of that stuff.

Why the heck not, man? In a time where a lot of us might have gotten a little distant with the whole, you know, all the stuff in the world or whatnot. So bring it back. Yeah, send those 10. You got 24 hours. Kevin, thanks for the challenge, and I appreciate you so much, man. Can't wait to share this with more. So have a good one. We'll talk soon.

All right, thanks, Joe.

All right. All right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But, you know, work can be fun, and it should be fueled for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, and I will see you next time.