Successfully Selling To Young People with Connor Blakley - Genius Network Episode #107

We're the first truly digital native generation. So we were the first generation since birth to be able to FaceTime our friend, order a pizza and text our mom all at the same time. Which is super interesting when it comes to consuming online content, sharing online content. This eight second attention span that in reality is just a very quick BS meter when looking through social media. We're not digitally adaptive like millennials.

Connor Blakely runs a company called Youthlogic that helps brands understand youth culture to further their marketing strategy to successfully sell to young people. There are four secrets to doing it. Here they are. Remember to subscribe to Genius Network so that you don't miss a Future episode. Visit geniusnetwork.com subscribe for more.

Okay, this is Joe Polish. I'm here in Connor Blakely's kitchen in Cleveland, Ohio and we're recording this off our little smartphones, if you want to call them that.

Yeah.

So Connor, for people who don't know who you are, how do you describe who you are, what you do?

So my name is Connor Blakely. I'm 19 years old. I live in the beautiful city of Cleveland, Ohio. I run a company called Youthlogic that helps brands better understand youth culture to further their further their marketing strategy, online presence and all that fun stuff.

Yeah. So we've known each other for what, maybe like three years now.

Met in 2013 or 14.

Okay. And let's see. Cameron Herald.

Yep. Met through Cameron Herald and Gordy Buffett.

Yep.

Yep.

They made kind of the introduction and back. You actually had. You come and give a talk when you were 16 years old. I think you're the first one that ever gave a 10 minute talk at Genius Network. That was 16.

I was 15.

15.

And it was, I remember cause I didn't know that I was giving a talk until like five minutes before. And I came up with this theory. I came up with this theory called the real roi. Return on interaction rather than return on investment. And how that can apply to your marketing strategy and brand strategy. And to be in a room like that and give that talk at 15 was just, it was the biggest learning experience. It was, it was one of the biggest learning experiences I've had.

Awesome.

Yeah.

And you've done very quite well since then. And you're going to be pretty much heading up a youth panel at my Genius Summer county event where we've got really amazing young people, some under the age of 18, a couple that. But everyone's like, I think we might have someone 25, one of those old people at 25 years old. Yeah, one of those old ones. Yeah, exactly. So I turned 50 years old this year, which is interesting. And I still think some of the same thoughts I did when I was 18 or maybe younger, I don't know. So I don't know if I've matured much. But that being said, there's all these different groups from Gen Z and Gen X and Gen Y and Millennials. And so you're in the Gen Z, Gen Z, yeah. So what defines Generation Z and how are they different and similar to Millennials? As an example, this kind of starts us off with.

Yeah, I think that we could, if you ask a lot of people who are self proclaimed Gen Z experts or generational marketing experts, they would sit here for one or two hours and run you through all these generational differences. When in reality I think that there's only two that actually would impact any business. The first one is we're the first truly digital native generation. So we were the first generation since birth to be able to FaceTime our friend, order a pizza and text our mom all at the same time. Which is super interesting when it comes to consuming online content, sharing online content. This eight second attention span that in reality is just a very quick BS meter when looking through social media. So that's like, that's the very first thing is we're not digitally adaptive like millennials, we're digitally intuitive and digital. The first truly digital native generation. I can't stress that one enough. The second big difference I would say is worldview. I hear a lot of older, I say this with air quotes. Older people talk about how young people have never really had to eat shit or go through anything. And I couldn't disagree more. I remember when I was in the fifth grade, fifth or sixth grade in 2008 hit stock markets crashed, worst economy since the Great Depression. My family went from living in a $450,000 house to living in a shack. And that had like, my friends couldn't ask their parents for like money to eat anymore. It was like it created this hunger and it made a lot of us realize that we couldn't see the world through these rose colored glasses that we'd previously looked through. So I think we really understand what it means to have the essence wholeheartedly of the American dream. And that is everything from how we're not only consuming information and sharing it, that's the first part. But the second part is how we are about buying things. Like when we're in the store, what's attractive to us. So for instance, if you're Abercrombie and Fitch. Why do you have your store with these perfect, beautiful models where it smells like you're walking into a flower shop every time you're portraying this perfect brand when we all know that the world's not a perfect place, that we can't resonate with something like that? So making those tiny adjustments and those micro decisions make all the macro difference.

Yeah, that's great. So, I mean, not a lot of people your age are like you, except maybe the ones you hang out with or maybe they are, I don't know. So, I mean, what motivates you to do the stuff you do? I mean, because you're very much at an early age into hanging out with business leaders and entrepreneurs. I know you've done some work with a lot of really well known entrepreneurs and business owners. You know, people like Mark Cuban, you've worked with the NFL. You've done a lot of interesting stuff.

In your long, long career.

Yeah. So I mean, what, where did this drive come from? Was it your parents? Was it teachers? Were you born this way? Were you developed this? I mean, what did it come out of? Inspiration? Desperation? I mean, what?

A little bit of all of those things, which is interesting. So there's a couple different parts to the story. I always sucked at school. I never like when I say sucked at school, like I just didn't care. I was like, why does this matter? I've always been someone who was. When everyone was going left, I'd find a way to go right. Because I thought that if I went right then I could be different and be more successful. But I think that's inherent. I don't think entrepreneurs are made, I think they're born. That's a pretty unique opinion, but I truly believe it's a DNA trait. So that's kind of like the first thing I was always hustling when I was little and stuff. And then I remember When I was 13, I almost got expelled in the eighth grade for starting a homework selling network because I was just bored with school. I was like, let me try to make some money. And I got called into the principal's office with my dad. I'd never seen him more disappointed in my life. I got grounded, I almost got expelled and around that same time I got diagnosed with dyslexia, ADD and adhd. So I'm like, shit, I'm a bad kid. And I'm super like. And I'm super depressed because I'm stupid in air quotes. I fit society's mold of stupid. So around that time I Google ADD entrepreneur and I see this TED talk by this guy named Cameron Herold, who's the one who introduced me to you, Joe, and it's let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs instead of lawyers. I remember watching it and like I almost started crying. I was like, oh my God, there's someone who fits society's mold of stupid, who is, is still like everything that like I aspire to be. So I reached out to Cameron, got on a call with Cameron, totally changed my perspective and outlook on life. And keep in mind, this entire time I think that I'm the only 13 year old kid in the world who is having these problems and is thinking like this. And I'm the only. Keep in mind, I didn't even know that there were like older entrepreneurs who thought the same way that I did. So fast forward a year later, that's when I'm at your event, I speak at your event and it for the first time and I'm still super fucking depressed at this time. Like I, when I say depressed, like I would sit in the basement and literally just eat and play video games all day. Like it was the wor. And it sounds crazy to say, but looking back, it was the lowest point of my entire life. And my, like, I felt like I didn't belong, to exist because it didn't fit society's mold of what a young kid should be. I didn't care about any of those things. And especially being around, I was a big athlete. I was around all these athletes who like get good grades, want to go to college. I'm like, oh, this really isn't in the picture for me. So when I spoke at your event that first time, it felt like home. It felt like I was around people who were like outliers and like did things the way I did, like approached things the way I did. It made me feel like we're all anomalies, but like it made me feel like less of one to the point where I felt accepted somewhere. And that feeling of acceptance somewhere is what made me want to keep going. And it's not even the money, it's not even all this other stuff. Even though it's nice. It's that feeling of being around people who want to take you. And I'm going to take a Keith Ferrazi new word co elevate all to a new higher level to make like real change. Right? Yeah.

You know, that's something I hear a lot too when we do groups. It's one place where people feel Abnormal in other parts of their lives. But they come to a place where they see all these entrepreneurs that frankly, are aligned with their thinking and they're risk takers and they're driven and they're creative, and all of a sudden, they feel like they belong. I mean, the truth is, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of creative people, a lot of artists feel utterly alone in many parts of their world or their family circles, their social circles. And that's why I think it's really important to find the right genius network that fits. I think any problem in the world can be solved with the right genius network. And what I mean by genius network, even though I have a company called that, I think of a genius network as a network of people that have skills, capabilities, and just are. They're different and more results oriented, which is what entrepreneurs are. See, because no entrepreneur gets paid if they don't produce a result of some sort. You just can't. And so there's thought leaders that are running around that are academic thought leaders, but I tend to like result leaders because I like people that produce a result.

We need a T shirt that says it. It's coming on a Shopify store soon. But I couldn't agree more.

Cool. All right, so we can talk about a million things, but I want to keep this one because we got a limited amount of time because your ass is driving me to the airport after this. And so, yeah, I just. I had a quick stop in Cleveland on the way back to my hometown in Arizona, and we decided to do this in your kitchen. How can businesses create marketing campaigns that appeal to Gen Z's? I mean, because it's a big, big group of. Of individual.

So I don't think that you can create marketing campaigns that resonate with young people. I actually. I think it. It's a myth. I don't think it exists. All you can do and what I do with my clients is sit in a big boardroom with a big whiteboard, and I just sit there and ask them questions. And then at the end on the whiteboard, we'll have a bunch of adjectives, and those adjectives turn into their. I know you hate this word, but core brand values, what does it mean?

I know it'll make sense to some people. First off, I like core values, and I like David Ogilvy's definition of brand, which is the personality of your product.

So that's exactly what we're figuring out when we're putting all those adjectives up there. And I say we can't create Anything that doesn't exist already, all we can do is totally go in a new direction or find a way to take culture. Culture is relevancy meeting coolness. Culture is relevancy meeting coolness. And by the way, coolness is something that everyone can resonate with but isn't talked about enough because everyone remembers when they were in high school and weren't cool enough. Right? So it's like kind of a word that has a stigma attached to it, but it's one of my favorite words to use. How can we take something that's cool and relevant, ingrain it in culture, so we take those adjectives and what's relevant in culture at that time. Just try to create something that people would look up to, want to watch themselves. You can't. It's my belief, like, if this is for Fortune 1000 companies, like, you can't push something onto young people, especially that they don't. They, because they have so many options with the phone in their hand, they don't have to give a shit about whatever you're saying and keep it. That's the first part, which is reacting to culture, which is essential for, like, the first kickoff of your brand. But what's even more interesting to me is how do we create it? So I talk about, like, the four cultural pillars that are right now. So if you wanna sell shit to young people, if you wanna understand young people, if you wanna make your brand cooler, more relevant, here are the four things that very quickly will impact your business to an entire new level. Number one, esports and gaming. Do the Drake Ninja research and how that impacted culture. It's gonna be bigger than the NFL, bigger than the mlb, bigger than you could ever imagine. You need to watch the movie Ready Player one, and that's what the world is going to be like. So that's the first one. The second one is wellness. It is now cooler to be healthy. Why? Because you can take an Instagram story of yourself eating a salad and put it out. So Jamie and Sally in your math class know that you're healthy. Being fit and healthy is the new cool. Doing yoga is cool. Getting a healthy smoothie at robax or Jamba Juice or any of these places is cool. Really dive into how you can ingrain the aesthetic of health and wellness into your brand or company. The third one is less of a cultural framework and more of an understanding of the new social economy, which is it used to be cool to wear the new Jordans on the first day of school, but now it's cooler to Go and take a selfie with DJ Khaled at Wingstop, and then all your friends feel like they missed out on the experience and the opportunity. So. So we cling on to experiences that breed the ability to share, to make ourselves cooler. And, you know, it's a common thing. Everything has to do with our social stature in business. What we talk a lot about is personal brands and all of this stuff. You want to talk about a difficult personal brand to maintain and curate and keep. Think about being a high school kid. Like, you have all of your social media, you have everyone judging you constantly for everything. Putting yourselves in those shoes and then reverse engineering it and working backward is really, really, really difficult. But it's essential to be able to do that. And the last pillar that I always like to include is the authenticity pillar. And everyone says this word, authenticity, but no one actually knows what it means. They just assume it means to be authentic. I like to say it means to not give a shit. Like, if you're authentic, you don't let any outside factors deter you from what your core values are and what you're meant to do. So you combine those four things along with, like, obviously, like, there's certain things in culture that, like, you need to adapt to, but if you align with those four things, it's really hard to. Hard to mess up right now.

No, that's great. That's great. You know, I was gonna ask you, what are the top things entrepreneurs need to know about, you know, Gen X, Gen Z? Well, actually Gen Z, even though you can maybe speak to Gen X, what do they need to know?

People?

No, but I think you kind of covered a lot of stuff there. Is there anything else that you would say that people are just not aware of that they would be well served to know?

I just want to reiterate the fact of, in a world full of connectivity, that no young person will admit this, but there's no real connection. So give young consumers the keys to. To be able to experience things in real life. So I have. I tell all my clients, buy billboards and do direct mail. It's not that billboards, indirect mail.

Aren'T.

Relevant anymore for young people. Everyone is like, digital, digital, digital. I'm like, when everyone's zigging, go zag. My. My sister is 13. If she gets something in the mail that she can hold in her hand that says her name on it alone, she's freaking the hell out because she never gets anything like that. Direct mail is not the problem. The way that direct mail is done towards Young people is the problem. I love that.

I love that because I'm such a huge fan of the physical.

Yep.

You know, it's in. I mean, it's just obvious. And we're merging a world of physical and digital, so.

So I. We are mutual. John Rulin, his Giftology strategy. I'm trying to figure out how we take that giftology strategy. If you haven't read the book Giftology, you need to go read it. If you haven't read the book Giftology, I'm thinking, like, how do we take that entire strategy and tie it into a brand level? Because that's like, for example, like, Joe, like, me and you have a great relationship. I'm thankful for you. I send you something, and it's very meaningful and crazy. Like, oh, my God, like, you love it. You take a video, you send it to me, you thank me, you call me. How can brands do that with kids? That's. You have them for life if you do that.

I agree. I totally agree.

Yeah.

I mean, the thing is, you can sell products or services, but when you can make it an experience, people, it's the feelings, it's the emotion, it's the connection, it's the bonding. And one of the most important things that you could ever do as a business owner is bond with your clients. And if you bond with them, you have a much different relationship. In the same way, it's dating versus marriage.

Yeah.

All right, so you're going to be. You're going to be on my crazy panel at Genius Network. So what can entrepreneurs that are attending the Genius Network Annual event expect from the Millennial and Gen X panel that we're going to be doing?

So, first off, you're already a genius for attending the Genius Network annual event. It's the greatest collection of people that I've ever seen or been blessed to be a part of. So that first. And that's just not me kissing Joe's at, like, that's like, real shit. Like, it literally changed my life. And I'm excited to see how we can impact other people's lives. But what you can expect is a breath of fresh air. I feel like a lot of the stories that are told about young entrepreneurs and how things are done now are just a load of a load of crap. So I worked with Joe's team to kind of collect a lot of my best friends who were the top young entrepreneurs in the world, in my opinion, really in the world to kind of dive into a lot of these problems. So can't give away too much. Can't spoil the panel, but just, just get ready. Awesome. Awesome.

So what are the biggest misconceptions that people have about Gen Z? I mean, you've talked about some, but I'm just going to dig deep on some of these.

So I. It's the, the laziness thing, I think, I think that's BS because of everything that we talked about with the worldview. And I really see that like a lot of people, millennials especially, and I hate classifying entire generations and generalizing these topics, but I really see this in millennials. Like they'll just talk about it. I think Gen Z does it. I think that we're nitty gritty in a sense of how we get things done. Tony Robbins said, it's not a problem of resources, it's a problem of resourcefulness. And I think Gen Z embodies that holistically. Maybe it's because of we were born with a phone in our hand the whole time. Maybe it's because of a combination of that. We're digital native in our worldview, but we find a way to get shit done. And if you're going to the event that will be one of the main takeaways is how much we use the things around us to actually get things done. It's crazy. When I was 14, Gary Vaynerchuk said, hey, come shout at me at south by Southwest for two days. I had $400 in my bank account. At 14, bought a plane ticket for $325. We've got 75 bucks left. If you've gone to south by Southwest in Austin, Texas, then you know you don't have to pay shit for food because all the events will give it for free. So take food out of the budget. I sleep in a 24 hour gym. Get this, I paid $25. I've got 50 bucks left. I'm sleeping in a 24 hour gym because we couldn't afford a hotel room.

And you go with anyone else?

Yeah, I went with my friend Max, who was also 15, 14, 15 at the time. We slept in this 24 hour gym, showered there, changed there, and then we went out and hung out with CEOs, Fortune 500 companies all day. That it's like these crazy stories, they sound super anomalistic. But I'm telling you, you do some research and Googling, you will find some crazy things you would never expect to hear. So I really want to harp on the resourcefulness and the attitude collectively of this generation. You want to know something even crazier I think we end racism. I think that we're the last generation that has prejudice in that way. I'm such a believer in because of our worldview and because of our access to our phone that we know that the color of your skin doesn't mean shit, means nothing. And we see through that. We see through all of those old ways of thinking and how things used to be. Because if we're gonna have to live in this world, we want to make it a better place.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. So, you know, one thing that you just said about anti racism, you know, obviously, you know, my whole focus on changing the global conversation about how people view and treat addicts with compassion instead of judgment, and there's a lot of young people that are struggling with addiction. And when it comes to racism, you know, right now the criminal justice system is treating addicts instead of a more compassionate industry. And I can't even say the medical industry per se would be the right industry, because here we are in Ohio, which I believe has the highest opiate overdoses of any state in the US and the thing with drug laws in the way that they're currently done is there's no way. I had a former mayor of one of the largest cities in the United States say there's no. He told me he's a friend of mine, I'm not going to name the city because I don't want to have. I don't want to have them getting attacked. He basically said that there's no way to ever fairly enforce drug laws without making it a racial issue, because inner city kids in inner cities and ghettos tend to have more minorities than wealthier areas. And when they will do drug busts, they focus on where people are not going to pay to get out. And so it's always going to be a race issue as long as there's these drug laws. And it's very fascinating, if anyone's ever read Chasing the Scream, the first and last days of the War on Drugs, where you hear about what actually started the drug war, which is a guy named Harry Anslinger back in the early 1900s who was a huge racist. And so much of racism today is actually because of the way we have drug laws.

Oh, for sure.

And so if you're, you know, as Gen Zs, if you're going to end racism, there's a lot of things that are going to have to be changed in policy.

I know this kid, Zayad Ahmed, and his big thing. He runs a Gen Z consultancy and his big thing is he says, Gen Z deserves a seat at the table. And I used to think that was bullshit. And I am Gen Z, and I thought it was bullshit. But then I realized we, like old people mess up everything.

Yeah, like a freaking ice machine in your video.

All right, it's gone now, but I was listening this guy talk and he's. It was actually a comedian. And I forget the comedian. He's saying, old people start wars, old people kill people, old people do all these shitty things, and yet we always shit on young people. And. And I go, oh, my God, like, he's joking. But all the best jokes contain true shit. And that was some real stuff. So the more opinions and the more seats that we can get at the table for real. Diverse thought is the goal. Is one of my biggest goals in mind.

Yeah, well, you know, it's. Boy, how so? David Bowie had a song that I used to listen to in high school called Changes. And, you know, I used to love David Bowie. And one of the lyrics in Changes were in. These children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through.

Yeah.

And, you know, I mean, I think that's just as relevant today as it was, you know, when I listened to that when I was, you know, 14, 15, 16 years old.

You know, all generations want this. I think that all generations want the same things, aspire the same things. It's just the way that they get there and how they talk about it is the difference. And how quickly they get there and talk about it is the difference.

Gotcha. So what are the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make when your whole thing about marketing to them is interesting? Because I always think of marketing as storytelling. So I think you can always do marketing to any group of people.

People.

Because you tell a story, right? And how you frame that story. When I say tell, it could be tell, present, feature, whatever, invite. But, you know, what are the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when selling marketing and communicating with Gen Z? And what should they do?

Assuming that they care? You have to tie into things that they already care about or make something cool enough that they do. This is a classic example. I was in a meeting with, I won't say the company, but they're a Fortune 50 telecom company. And I was like, hey, the CEO is sitting there and he goes, so, what do you think of our brand? And I go, well, it's bad, it's dry, you're not. And he goes, that's an Understatement. He goes, this is shit. He goes, what do we do? And he goes, how do we become cool and relevant and all those things you talk about? And I go, well, no one really gives a shit. I know what, I'll just say, no one cares about Sprint. No one cares about Sprint. This is like two or three years ago. No one cares about Sprint. But you know what people care about is how, how to make their life easier and give them actionable insights in their day to day life. So what we did was we created this campaign called Live Unlimited. Tell us how you Live Unlimited. What does it mean to you? Inviting crazy. So there's two parts of it. Not only are we inviting an entire generation to take part of this collective message of like Live Unlimited, like be yourself, like screw everything up, like all the things I was talking about earlier, but we're also inspiring user generated content. USG is. That's how you create culture. If you get people to talk about something that's associated with you on your behalf, that breeds more engagement and people sharing it and creating their own versions of it, you can't lose that. You, you cannot. If you create culture, it doesn't matter what the end result is because you can't lose from a brand awareness standpoint.

Love it. Love it. Very helpful. So what are some good examples or maybe companies that people listening to this should pay attention to that are really effective with gen zers.

So there's a company called Dirty Lemon. I would really, really, really go check out Dirty Lemon. It's very hard to articulate and explain, but it's like one of the cultural trends. I was talking about the aesthetic. The aesthetic in the feel is freaking everything. Now look, I can say all these campaigns do all this stuff, but a big part about Gen Z specifically is they want to, they want to see. So quick example, we worked with Johnson and Johnson on this product line directly aimed at Gen Z called CNC by Clean and Clear. One of the first questions they asked me, what do you think about the coloring? I said, matte black. Matte black, Bright matt.

You think we're playing drums here?

I talk with my hands. It's. It's matte black with bright colors.

Yeah.

There's something about the aesthetic that makes you want to share it to be cooler. And I think that in a digitally focused world, if you go the opposite way. And you said something earlier, it's that I thought was cool, that I say a lot. Tying in physical with digital. I don't even, I wouldn't even look at it as tying in physical into digital. Because even when you say that, you're still figuring out how to tie it into digital. So with my clients, I 100% focus on physical. And then how. You let young people figure out how. Because here's the thing. Young people are going to share whatever it is regardless. So you give them the keys to tell the story on their behalf. They've grown up on these platforms. They know all this stuff. They're going to tell the story in the way that suits them best then. So if you're only focusing on the physical aspects and you just let them tell the story, then it's a home run.

Got it? Got it. Okay, cool. So due to timing, I just want to get into some of what you do and a couple other things, and then you're going to take Mass to the airport. So what does your consulting arm, Youth Logic, do?

So we help brands better understand, relate to, and engage young people. And a lot of that is honestly. So I say this all the time. People say, connor, what do you do? And I say, if you're the Cleveland Browns, you're playing the New England Patriots, and you're down, you're down by two points in the fourth quarter with 30 seconds left. You've got the ball, and the other teams on the other team's 20. What you're supposed to do is line up, line up, line up for a field goal, kick it, win the game. What a lot of brands do is they have the right intent. They line up to kick the field goal. When they kick the field goal, a gust of wind comes in from the right and it goes wide right, and they lose. So what youthlogic helps brands do is stay on the course of authenticity, trueness, and culture by making sure that the ball goes through the uprights and that gust of wind doesn't come in. Because the reason that I struggle, when you ask me name a brand that's really resonating with young people, it's because not a lot of them do. I can't think of one off the top of my head, and that is an issue. And I think about how we do that with brands and. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, well, so you're a big reader. You're a big studier. You know our buddy Harvey McKay. You're doing a lot of stuff with Harvey. He's in his 80s. Freaking guy keeps going. I mean, this guy's got more energy.

Than I'd be on a beach, man.

Yeah. I mean, he's a character. Yeah.

But.

But you know what advice do you give to young people to develop themselves?

Self belief to the point of people thinking you're crazy? Following your intuition to the point of your detriment. That's what it takes, and that's the learning curve that it takes. If I would have followed, you know what? Screw that. I did. I did follow. Like, I'm still learning to trust it more, but I had people call me crazy. I lost friends, I got kicked out of high school, I quit sports, that I loved. All of these things purely based on my intuition. I was having a conversation with my dad the other day, and I go, I was saying, At 14 years old, 14, I had nothing. This is right out of the depression. After I watched the first Cameron video, I was like, I'm gonna be a millionaire by the time I'm 20. I'm gonna work with Pepsi. I'm gonna do all. I'm gonna meet all these crazy people. My dad, he goes, connor, I always believed in you, but that was some crazy shit. I was like. He goes, connor, I was like, oh, maybe he'll dip his foot into the entrepreneurship stuff and do all of these things. I've gotten screaming matches with my parents every night of high school because my teachers were calling them, yelling at them that I wasn't doing homework and was working during class. And then they'd yell and scream at me. And my dad actually recently apologized to me and said, I should have listened to you and your intuition. I let all the outside shit clog who you really were. Your own family, your best friends, everyone who you think is gonna know you best is gonna shit on you to the point that you're gonna question everything about yourself. You need to have the blinders on, say, fuck that, and just keep going. And to. A lot of. A lot of parents are gonna be listening to this and be like, I know what's best for my kid. No, you don't. You know what's safest for your kid, you know what's the most natural path for them to go down. So I told my dad, I said, dad, you're my dad and I love you, but at this point, you're a consultant. You can't make decisions, decisions for me anymore. I think a lot of parents need to take a step back and take that to heart. I had a very dear friend and mentor pass away recently. Mark Hoverson. He was a mutual friend. Mark, I can say this in full confidence, is probably top three of the greatest human beings I've ever met. I met him after he was diagnosed with cancer and stuff And I never knew because he never talked about it told me until a couple years, couple years after I met him. And I just sent him a message and I said, I love you, dude. Like I did. And this is like way before he passed. And he goes, you found out that I was diagnosed with cancer, didn't you? And I go, I did. Someone told me. And I. It really made me think and reconsider all these positions. And the reason I bring up Mark is because I watch how he parents his kids.

Yeah, he has four children.

Yeah, his four. On the. I'm telling you, like, there should be a documentary about his kids, dude. They are unbelievable. They're the most self sufficient, amazing loving kids ever. So, Mark, I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to say they're not, but I think it's a great lesson for everyone. Mark smoked weed all the time his last year. He definitely wouldn't care me saying this. He smoked weed all the time. All the time. And we're sitting at his kitchen and he was telling me when he was smoking, he was talking about how he parents his kids and how Jesus, he was a very religious man. He said Jesus didn't treat everyone as their equal. Who am I as a parent to put myself above my kids? All I can do is bestow the things I've learned, my wisdom to them and give them what I believe is the right moral pathway for them to go down and let them take control. And that it hit like, that hit me like just watching how amazing he was as a person. Like everyone should Google Mark Hoverson and just like try to just watch some shit because I don't know that it had a very profound impact on me. And I obviously haven't had kids, so I can't talk about parenting or like how to doing that stuff, but I can talk about what I think I wish my parents would have done differently.

Do you still feel like a teenager since according to your age you still are?

All the time, dude. Like, I like older people and business friends ask me this all the time because they'll always see me traveling or working. Like this summer I traveled one time. All my friends are home from college. I was like, I want to party with my friends and travel with my friends and spend time with people I love, care about and have my back and grew up with. And you said something in the beginning of the interview which I thought was interesting. You were like all these young entrepreneurs who like maybe you only hang out with now. So I have like two different sex of friend Friend groups. Like, I have my boys from the time I was in like the eighth grade. Or like, I consider them like family. Like my brothers. They work at Dairy Queen and a broke college students and are like, they're going to be lawyers and like, they're totally opposite of me. But like, I champion that shit. I'm like, go do that. Go be a lawyer. Go dominate. Go run your dad's company. Like, I want that for them. Their version of success and what they want. Who am I to say that that's not right? Because it's not like me. I want them to go after and get in any way I can support them to do it. They can't. Then I also have the young entrepreneur sex. I'm saying S E, C, T S, not sex, but sex of individuals. And they're just amazing. I consider them like family too. It's just I have two. Two different sides. I'm a Gemini. I got two different sides of me. I hang out. I hang out with my personal friends and mess around. Not to say I don't mess around with my entrepreneurship friends because when I'm a lot older and richer and can say a lot more things, I'll tell those stories. Tell those stories. That's great.

I remember. Do you remember the conversation when you were asking me if you should stay in high school or not? We were tired.

Oh my God, dude. I called. So it's junior year and I get out of a meeting with my principal and the president of the school and. And this is when I get kicked out for the first time for traveling, for business. And I called Joe and I was just like, dude, I am so mentally fucked right now. Like, burn. And I say burnout. Like real. I was working every day from the time I was 14 to 17, from 6am until like 1 in the morning. 5 hours sleep, wake up for school, go work all day at school. Didn't even look at my. We were allowed to have computers in class. So I was just burnt out, Sick of the bullshit system, sick of everyone telling me I couldn't do what I wanted when I was trying to follow my intuition and say, screw everyone else. And I just called Joe and was like, dude, what? What do I do? What do I do here?

And I. Hopefully I gave you good advice.

No, it was good. It was great advice. And it led me. Your advice led me to getting kicked out. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But I did get kicked out for traveling for business my junior year. And then I got kicked out again. Senior Year for traveling, for business.

Yeah, you know, it's one of those tough things, too, because it's like, on one hand, you're telling me about what's going on with the school, what's going on with your parents, what's going on with you. And I'm sitting there, you know, trying to give you a frame of reference of what everyone is experiencing and also doing the same thing that's going to best serve you and having to know, knowing that there's not any perfect solution or any right way to do stuff, and knowing that you have all this resistance, including your own obsessions and all of this craziness, which, like, when I was in high school, I was a drug addict. I mean, I didn't know how to fit in. I didn't. So I numbed myself to drugs. So, I mean, you certainly have made far better decisions at your age than what I was doing. But the thing is, I mean, a lot of times parents will see their kids and they will so disagree with where they're at, and it won't make any sense to them. And, I mean, I just, honest to God, think the best you can do is just love and support as best you can, and knowing if you try to hold on to something so tightly, you can crush it. And don't handicap your children by making their lives too easy, but at the same time, don't handicap your children by trying to make their lives so fricking hard. And there is a medium with a lot of this and there's this. It's complex. But if people would have looked. Looked back at me at your age, there never would have been, you know, probably would have guessed I would have been dead, you know?

Yeah. And I mean, I give my parents so, so, so much credit for my. They never said no. They said, do this instead. Yeah. And you can't. Yeah, they did. They just said, do this instead. Don't do this, do this. This is the. This is the better idea. And I believed them and I did it. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. Okay, so we'll have to do some quick ones here.

Rapid fire.

Yeah. Any action steps you'd recommend that our entrepreneurs, which are most people that listen to my stuff, start. I mean, connecting with more Gen Z and millennial attention and just.

Yeah. So this is actually the fourth pillar that I kind of forgot about. And it kind of goes down to everything. Hip hop music. If you want to pay attention to culture, what matters to young people. Go read Complex every day. Go read Complex every day. Spend time in Twitter Search and just look at what's trending. Young people are creating all of their culture on Twitt. Actually, focus on meme culture. Those are funny frames of reference for you to talk to young consumers. I would also. I got this one from Gary Vaynerchuk a couple years ago. Every morning while you're taking a shit, go, go scroll through the app store and look at the top grossing and trending apps. That's how you'll see what's gonna pop next. Even if it's like 49 or 50. Like, follow your intuition on what's gonna climb. So those are just some quick hitting.

Does one have to be taking a shit while they're doing that?

No, no. You can go number two. Two too.

Okay.

Or number one. Whichever one's your favorite.

But you have to be using the restroom.

You have to be in the bathroom. All the greatest things come in the bathroom. The shower, the toilet, brush your teeth.

That is comedy. So you've done some stuff with Mark Cuban. So what's one or two things you like about that dude?

So I'm a big fan. I truly. Kanye said it recently. Words get in the way of communication. Words complement communication. Mark Cuban has an infectious energy around him that makes you want to elevate. And I can't really explain what that means more than that, but that. That's probably the biggest thing about him. When I'm around him, I'm just like, damn, bro. Like, I want to, like, like be a beast. Like, he's just a beast. Like, he. A hunger. Mindset of learning all the time. Like, I've. I've spent some time around him and with him. And like, that's my biggest takeaway. It's. There's this guy named Charlie Walk, former CEO of Republic Records and guest on the Four. I've kind of spent a lot of time with him recently. Same thing. It's the energy. Yeah, the energy is transferable. So the more time I spend around people, I try to emulate that kind of energy. But Mark is like, I love that. He's just unapologetic and doesn't really care, like, what other people say, maybe even to his own detriment. Sometimes I feel like everyone does that and maybe he'll look back and be like, ah, I shouldn't have said that. Just like everyone else does.

Yeah, I think everyone has that. At least people that are doing anything in the world, you know, what's the whole thing? There was that whole cliche. There's a lot of. There's few statues that were ever erected to critics, but there were no one that's ever had a statue erected that wasn't highly criticized.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

So where should people go to learn more about you and work with you if they want to?

So my Instagram is King Connor and my website is connorblakely.com just drop me a note on there whether it's. You want to say what's up, advice, anything. I'm not gonna sell you unless you're a Fortune 1000 company. So you can, you can.

You're gonna sell the shit out of.

It, then I'm selling the shit out of you. I'll just tell you right now, if you're a fortune, I'm coming after you. But I'm really just happy to help and create value in really any way I can. So even if it's. You want my advice on something regarding business personal life, you don't know how to talk to your son who's entreprene. Seriously, any way I can help her contribute to your life, let me know.

Awesome, man. Well, great. Well, you know, I would love to go further, but we're going to keep that for the panel at our annual.

Event, which you all need to go to and sign up for.

Yeah, well, go to geniusnetworkevents.com if you are not signed up already if you want to check that out. This is not a cheap event. This is the highest level marketing event and industry transformer event in the world. It's going to be amazing. And yeah, one of the things that me and Connor, we, the group of amazing young people are going to do is mind blowing. So geniusnetworkevents.com I'll probably do another episode with you, Connor, talking about things that we talked about before doing this, which is about how do you. What do you do about people that you offer your networks to and you connect with and then they go around and they screw you or how, you know, where's integrity come in and how do you navigate the whole business world, the good and the bad, good and bad and the ugly. So all good stuff and what the.

Tony quote you told me. Yeah.

You're either winning or you're learning.

You're either winning or you're learning.

Yeah. So go win. Or at least learn something right now. Thanks, Connor.

Thanks.

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