Yanik Silver on Maverick Trips And High Level Mastermind Groups - I Love Marketing With Joe Polish And Dean Jackson - Episode #165

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and.

This is the I love marketing podcast. Hello, everyone, it's Joe Polish. And I've got my good friend Mr. Yannick Silver on the line. And today we're actually going to talk about high level groups because that's kind of what me and Yannick do, high level networking groups and he does adventure trips. I do Genius Network. He has a group called Maverick Business Adventures. So first off, Yannick, where are you right now? And let's give the listeners a little bit of context around what we're going to talk about today.

All right, cool. Hey, Joe, I am. I'm home, which is nice. So hanging out here with the kids, they're about to get home from camp. And so you mentioned Maverick. And you know, you and I are both very fond of high level groups. And I kind of, I look at it as, you know, my role has almost like become to connect the connectors. And my wife Missy gives me a hard time because I always say to instigate the instigators or to catalyze the catalysts or, you know, I could go on and on like that. But I feel like you and I have a lot of similar aspects there. But then there's also some interesting key differences because we do it in slightly different ways. How did you get started with your high level right now? The 25k group, the genius Network, it used to be. Was it something else before?

Well, where it kind of started and even what you just asked made me think that we should even kind of give a background for someone that is not totally familiar with either one of us or. Because I'm going to certainly share this with my audience. I know you're going to share it with yours. Me and Jannik have done a lot of things together from the Necker island trips, which we'll talk about on Richard Branson's island, to all kinds of stuff. But I got started really doing coaching in group coaching. Probably my first official group where it was on a regular, ongoing basis, where it was beyond just selling people information, products, knowledge products and doing seminars. Where it became true, you know, coaching and discussion groups and masterminds was back in 1998 via teleconference, where we did it over the phone. And then, you know, back in 2001, I launched a $10,000 person group for professional carpet and upholstery cleaners and people in the fire and water restoration industry, which is the industry that I came out of, and it was called Platinum. And people would meet, you know, Four times a year, a day at a time. And it was, you know, $10,000 a person. And, you know, we had all kinds of contests. But, you know, it got me thinking, Yannick, that the similarity between me and you, me and you have known each other since the mid-90s, maybe even early-90s. And we were, we kind of came from the same school of, you know, Gary Halbert, direct response, you know, Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, that sort of world selling, you know, information and training in niches. And it basically was first initially just teaching people how to use powerful direct response. And then you really gravitate towards the Internet. But I'll just say for myself, and then I want to pass it over to you. I started out as a Deb row carpet cleaner, living off credit cards. I learned marketing because I needed to eat, I needed to survive. And I first initially learned it never thinking I would run high level groups like I do today, or that I would ever train thousands of people. At this point, tens of thousands. And now I have hundreds of thousands of people that listen to my podcast and things like that from a large mass audience, but from a coaching group. It's small numbers, but it's very high level people. I'd do any of that stuff. I simply needed to learn marketing to survive. So I became a convert of my own system. I created a solution for my own company that never existed, and then I started offering that solution to other people and then it ended up turning into stuff. So that's sort of the short version. There's a lot to it, but that's kind of how I planted the initial seed. Now, how did that happen for you, Jannek? I mean, kind of go back to when you first started and maybe give some history of how you even came into this world and then we'll talk about the groups.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it has to go back to my family actually immigrating from Russia when I was three years old because that immigrant success mentality really hit home with me because that's.

How I grew up.

And my dad, very quickly from coming here, kind of typical immigrant success story, $256 in his pocket. Not much use of the English language, but he ended up starting a medical equipment sales and service company. If you are raised around a family business, you pretty much do whatever is necessary. And so at 14, I started Telemarke, and then 16. The deal was I got a car, but I had to go cold calling doctors. And so I pretty quickly learned that cold calling sort of sucked. And it was actually A doctor of mine who gave me a Jay Abraham tape, which is kind of cool, when I was about 17 and just really turned the lights on for me. And I started applying this to my dad's business, grew them from a regional player to a national player just using these really long form ads. And my dad's like, nobody's going to read all this. And I'm like, come on Joe, let's just try it, see what happens. And so that, that worked. And then pretty quickly, you know where you started with carpet cleaning? I started with doctors because that was my, the market that I was talking to all day long. And I started with dermatologists, I started with plastic surgeons because they wanted more cosmetic patients. And so, you know, I used a very similar system like, like what you had with carpet cleaners, which is giving them marketing results and. Right. And then that grew into, you know, me creating my own publishing company and getting this itch to start my own thing. And then pretty quickly went on to Internet. And So this was 2000 and created my first million dollar product which is called Instant Sales Letters. And then people were like, well, how.

Did you do that?

And maybe you could teach me how to do the same thing. And it just kind of went from there. And one of my favorite things was running these high level groups for at that point with just online marketers where we get to get together and talk about what was working. And then it kind of evolved from there. And so, you know what I find really intriguing is like little hints of what we should be doing and where we get the most satisfaction and where we provide the most value for other people. So it's like when you were doing these groups for the cleaners, charging $10,000, I bet it was probably some of your favorite work, some of the most lucrative work that you could do. But you were also having a tremendous impact on those businesses.

Yeah, totally. It's one thing to sell somebody a book, a tape, a course or a seminar. And I used to say this and I'm sure, totally live, eat and breathe. This too is, I would tell people that, you know, this seminar, this book, this course, it's going to define the game. It's going to explain what the game is. It's going to show you some moves on how to do it. It's going to give you tools and templates, the actual coaching. The groups are going to continually and repetitively and consistently teach you how to play the game better. And I always get amazed and sometimes people hear it so much that it becomes kind of Overused, it's still tr. I mean, can you name any world class top in their game, in any sports arena, in any sort of, you know, it's usually athletics where the top players do not have a coach, they do not have assistants, they do not have a variety of people that are helping them play the game better. And these are people that are the best in the world. And then you see all kinds of other business owners that oh, I want to be the best carpet cleaner, I want to be the best doctor, I want to be the best Internet marketer, I want to be the best whatever. And they try to do it alone or they just try to do it through maybe reading a book or something. And of course a lot of people will say, well, I'm kind of, I don't do groups, I don't go to groups, I'm already a guru and everyone follows me, so God forbid I'm going to not join another group. It's that sort of mentality that's always struck me as bizarre because if you see the top people on the planet, they always have people that they will go to to help them hone their game and to be better at it. And so when I started the groups, I saw people that were already having success with what I was selling. And the moment I organized and facilitated a discussion, it doesn't sound really sexy, a discussion group. When you actually get together and talk, it just opens up all kinds of doors. I've always taken these three words. There's really four words that I love from my dear friend Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach, which you're friends with. Dan. Also, where what I sell people, what we really sell people is we people. Direction, confidence, capability and clarity. So even though you have your stuff, your training, your set of methods, strategies, processes, when people get together in like a maverick business adventure group, of course you've built it around stuff that you like doing for your lifestyle that's fun and enjoyable and cool and crazy and wild. But you've actually molded it into a business experience for people that have that same sort of interest. But you have discussions and you have meetings and in the process of people sitting through those groups, as do I in Genius Network, people walk out of there with more direction, more confidence, more capability, more clarity on where they want to go. And then of course you tie it in with philanthropy and helping young entrepreneurs and you have a whole philosophy built around your group. But that's what happens when you bring like minded people in a particular area of interest and you put them together and you Go deep with it. It's instead of a shallow understanding there become a depth of experience and more is caught than taught. That's what me and Dan Sullivan always talk about is you can go learn from something, you can go hang around, you can have a group. But it's one thing about having a speaker, someone teaches something. But what you catch through just the camaraderie is you can't even define that until you actually pay the you ante up the money and the time and you show up and you do it and then all kinds of interesting things happen.

As a. I always say that your life changes by the books or resources, material that you read or study by the people that you meet and the events or experiences that you have. And so putting yourself in a room with other high achievers is probably one of the best things you can do. I mean you look at industry tycoons from Ford to Edison to the sitting president at the time, they would all go off and actually go have these retreats in the middle of the woods. And that was some of their best discussion. And you know, those guys are not. Firestone was part of it. It was like not, you know, they probably had lots of things to do at their time but they always found time to go out and go not only enjoying each other's company but, but be challenged by each other. Be, you know, constantly learning. And also it creates a really deep, high level network where, where you can call on each other for. To help with what your biggest mission is or what, or what you're really. And you know, it's not something I think that comes. So you know, what I think would be really useful with this recording is probably going to be for two people. One is the kind of person who's potentially looking for a group and trying to figure out why they might even be part of a group. And then two, maybe for someone that wants to start their own group and maybe what you and I have learned about that a little bit.

Yeah, let me speak to that too because I thought about that. We had a brief discussion about the outcome of what we would want for this sort of recording when we first initially started talking about doing this. Because me and you are constantly asked all the time and I mean we both get it. What's the difference between Maverick and this? What's the difference? You know, even our own groups, people will compare, you know, what's the difference between Genius Network, which is also called the 25k group or Maverick and both of us, you know, or what's, you know, why should I join this person's group or that person's group? And there's a lot of people that seem to have different groups. And of course, it for one, depends on the interest. So one of it is we were like, hey, let's just talk about it, and we'll just share what we do, how we do it, why we do it, how we we got started doing it. Think about it. So that would, of course, appeal to people that are thinking about joining a group, why they should join a group, why they should not, who it's for. And then, of course, people that want to do their own. How are these things actually built? I don't want this to be super serious either. What people need to realize is that maverick business adventures, you do some crazy stuff, and it's really catered towards degenerates that have large sums of money. Is that not accurate that this want to go out? Well, I'm totally kidding by the ways.

In shapes and forms, it is.

It actually, you know, kind of started.

As like scratching my own itch like seven years ago. I looked at my life and I was making a lot of money online and had a great reputation, great family, but I wasn't totally happy. And I knew that, you know, there could be something more. And what made me the happiest was hanging out with really smart individuals, other entrepreneurs, and being engaged by them, and then also working on how do we impact the world in some way, how do we have some fun? So, you know, they start off as just these adventure travel trips combined with business and combined with charity in some way. And now it's kind of morphed into more of a global network. And the adventure is still a part of it. And it's, you know, I think each group also takes on a maybe a shadow of their found there in some way or because, you know, it's definitely about what interests me. And that's also one of the good things about creating your own group is you can kind of pick and choose.

What gets you excited.

And there's gonna be other people that would be excited as well.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I would say, you know, let's go to, you know, kind of the beginnings when I first started doing my platinum group, the way that I actually started Genius Network. So if we could fast forward, you know, I started my marketing company in 1994, started training other carpet and upholstery cleaners how to do what it is that I was doing. And I, you know, when you have a solution that the world is Desperately needing, but they can't find anywhere. And you can assemble that solution together and you can provide it to these people. That's huge. And I did large boot camps, typically anywhere from 400 to 750 people, for 15 years straight. My very first one I did, first event I did, had 62 people at it, which was pretty funny at 1,000 bucks a pop. The event I'm doing next month, my Genius Network annual event at 10,000 a person, has currently, at the time, time we're doing this right now, 202 people registered and we can hold 220. And that will be sold out and we'll have a waiting list, which happened last year too. So it's been a huge thing on how things have transitioned. But basically I would always tell people at the beginning of my seminars, no one wants to come to a seminar. No one wants to join a coaching group. Nobody wants to read a newsletter, watch webinars, listen to teleseminars. None of you, I think, would want any of that stuff. And people would be like, what the hell are you talking about? We're sitting in a room that we just paid for and you're telling us we don't want this. And I would do it purposely to get them thinking. And I would say what you really want is you want results, but in order to get results, you need capabilities. In order to get capabilities. The best and only way that I know how to train people capabilities is like, what we're doing here. So you're really here. And now some of you, of course, like the camaraderie, you like to hang out. And that's what's kind of cool about what you're doing with Mavericks, is you're tying in fun along with business. And then it takes a lot of people that typically wouldn't go on a Baja trip or fly an airplane or go shoot machine guns or all the shenanigans that you do in Maverick, they just probably wouldn't take it upon themselves to organize it or plan it or block out the time to do it because they're busy and they got a lot of work to do. But if you can tie it in with meeting other people and getting some work done and contributing to some foundation or some young startup entrepreneur, then it feeds a lot of the psychological elements of those people. When I started doing the boot camps in these events, I saw that people got so much capability and so much growth. I was like, well, let's extend it into coaching. And then I started doing the over the phone coaching we would do monthly teleseminars and we started seeing fantastic results. And then I got hired by a guy to help him with his marketing named Bill Phillips, who wrote a book way back in 1997 is when I first started consulting with him. He had a company called eas. It was a sports supplement company, ended up becoming the largest sports supplement company in the world. It at the time, in a very quick period of time, he had invented a product with another doctor called Metrex and it was a protein powder. And he had hired me to help him with his marketing. And I sat down with him in a day and gave him an idea that generated $5 million for him within six months, or six, I'm sorry, six weeks with him of first hiring me at $4,000 a day is what actually is 3,850 bucks a day at the time. And it was really just. He was a great marketer and he was doing about 60 million a year in revenue when he first hired me. And within a two year period he had generated over 200. He was doing 200 million a year predominantly on many of the ideas and strategies that were implemented as a result of our consulting. Because I started consulting with him on a regular basis and I was seeing these people in these physique transformation contests that subscribed to his magazine, read the materials and listened to the stuff he put out there and all of this. What's kind of funny about me and you, Yannick, is that we started doing what we're doing before the Internet existed. I mean, we were direct mail guys. I mean, we were sending out cassette tapes and VHS tapes. I mean, there was no YouTube, there wasn't any of that stuff. So we have this whole scene, all these different ways. And I saw what happened with these people when they were given rewards because everything measured improves. Everything measured and reported improves exponentially. And so I saw what happens when you install accountability into any sort of training mechanism. And so what I decided to do at the time, Dan Kennedy, for the first nine years of my business, wrote all my sales, and not all of it, but much of my sales and marketing copy for my seminars and for my kits. And I sat down with him at lunch and I said, you know, I want to start a really high level $10,000 person group where I'm going to meet with people in person several times a year. And I want to give away this Jaguar convertible that Bill Phillips had given me as a gift for helping him basically come up with the idea that ended up leading to the book Body for Which at the time was the number one fitness book in the world and all these physique transformation contests and stuff. And Dan was like, nah, it's too expensive. No one's going to pay for it. He hated the idea and tried to talk me out of doing it. Dan, of course, was my guru that I would listen to everything that he said almost at the time. But I didn't listen to him. And I was like, I think I can make this thing work. And so a week later I literally launched this $10,000 a person group and said I'm going to do a thing called better your best contest. That's the name I came up with, Better your best. And it's for. And I'm going to start a group called Platinum, Platinum plus and Platinum plus because I had a Platinum membership. But this was like now in person, Platinum plus. And I, you know, announced it and said I'm going to, you know, give away the car to the winner. I'm going to have two categories, whoever, you know, systemize your marketing and advertising or you know, improve your gross or net profits and you're going to compare, you know, a three month period from your current year to a three month period in the upcoming year. And then we're going to have, it's going to be like a Mr. And Ms. America contest where you're going to not only compete with your results, but then you have to write an essay as to why you deserve to be the winner. And the winner was going to be called the Piranha marketing spokesperson, ambassador to the industry. And that person would be rewarded with his vehicle. And I only sold three people at the event for ten grand. Person giving away a car that cost $80,000. I was going to give away the car in a year at the next annual event. And I was like, oh. So I followed up letter to everyone letting them know. We ended up signing up from the letter and the follow up from the conference. 35 people joined the first year that I launched that. So we had 350,000 in revenue. But I was giving away this car. But I knew there was a starting point, then all of a sudden it just skyrocketed. I mean the results from these people was amazing. And I'm sure you have a similar experience. Tell me if you don't, that the people that ended up paying me the most money to join my groups were the ones that ended up making the most. So it's not that they were paying me more money and they weren't getting any more results. Their success Multiplied dramatically because we met in person, I offered a goal that they typically the average carpet company would not go out and buy themselves a convertible Jaguar. I mean, even if they made a lot of money, it really wasn't within their comfort zone. So every year I gave away a brand new Hummer. The following year, the year after that, I gave away a brand new Corvette. And over the years, I've given away four Land Rovers, two Mercedes, a Cobra, which was one in a contest by Dean Grazingosi. I gave it to my 25k member, Peter Diamandis, trips to Necker island. Because I started doing trips to necker island in 2007 and then me and you started collaborating on that. But I started coming up with all of these contests and lo and behold, now of course, once it started working, Dan Kennedy started writing about how we created it together, when in reality he tried to talk me out of the whole damn idea in the beginning. But then once it worked, then all of a sudden, this is a great thing. And then it went.

What's the saying? It's like, success has many fathers.

Or you know what? I've actually, I've not heard that say. But what you just said is so true. And again, look, I love Dan. I mean, he's a brilliant guy. He's made me a shit ton of money. I've even given. Dan still drives a car that I gave him. I gave Dan a Ford Explorer just as a gift one day because I wanted to see how he would respond to someone giving him a gift without any sort of attachment. Like it was a tit for tat thing. Because I'm pretty much, I do my best to be a giver. And I mean, it freaked Dan out. I mean, he's like, well, what do you want? Do you want more access to me? I'm like, no, I made a lot of money from you. I just want to give you a car. He had to think about it before he could even accept my gift. But yeah, once you're successful, everyone wants to take credit for it, but for all the. And I'm fine. Dan helped me innovate so many things that are awesome. And I've always recommended that if you really want to learn direct response, read every book that Dan's ever written, go watch his events, I mean, all that sort of stuff. But it all starts started with that. And so after I. And I'll shut up here in a moment, Yannick, because I want to not only hear your perspective on it, but hear your version of how your thing went. And then we'll get up to the modern current state of how our groups look. But after I started doing that for a while, the success of my students was amazing. I taught this to other information marketers that started using my contest model. A lot of them came out of the Dan Kennedy world. And Robin Robbins was a perfect example. She's like the top marketing guru in the world for the IT industry. And she hired me for two hours of consult for like six grand at the time, because I was $3,000 an hour at the time. Now I'm like 25 grand for half a day if I do consulting at all. But I try to talk people out of doing it and I say, just join my group. It'll be a better use of your money. After the two hour conversation, she's like, why don't you start a platinum group for information marketers? And I said, well, it's not that I haven't thought about that, but like, with anything, it's got to be organized, it's got to be delivered, you got to package it, you got to market it. I go, but if I did, what would you recommend? I char for it. She's like, well, I just paid you six grand for two hours and I got tremendous value out of that. She's like, I would easily pay 25 grand a year for it. And so I repeated back to her, so if I did something like that, you'd pay 25 grand a year? She goes, absolutely. And I would refer other people to the group. And I said, let me think about it. So after that, I called up some of my best marketing friends that I would actually call them for advice and I would organize meetings for free. I've been doing it for years. I would just do these one off sort of things where I'd have John Carlton come down, Brian Tracy, Gary Halbert, all kinds of people would just come down. And I was really good at organizing discussion groups and people would always say, hey, Joe, when are you going to do another one? When are you going to do another one? But since I wasn't getting paid for it, and since it wasn't really formalized, there was never real consistency. I started calling up a lot of these people and saying, hey, if I consistently do this and we meet three or four times a year and I charge 25 grand a year for it, would you join? Lo and behold, like, almost everyone I talked to said, yeah, I would definitely do that. I've already gotten value out of every time we meet. And so I asked all the people in the beginning to send me a check so that I could show that real high level people were truly paying me $25,000 a year to organize this group. And I was just going to do a group with 20 people.

That was it.

I wasn't going to do anymore. I was just going to do it for myself. Kind of like what you said, Janik, about how you built Maverick around your own personal interests. I started the first group that way and I had 20 people join the first group. Dean Graziosi, Robin Robbins, all these people. And, you know, it was like, it became my favorite thing. I was like, oh my God. You know, people are paying me money to facilitate these discussions. And I never made it around me as a guru because I don't want it to be known for. Joe Polish MARKETING GURU that's not my thing. I want the group to be known for the people in the group. And so it ended up becoming like such a huge multiplier for me. And I started seeing the results that people were making, you know, and a guy like Dean, you know, Graziosi, he was doing 12 to 20 million a year when he joined the group last year, he did close to 200 million in sales. I mean, the guy's 10 times his business over that. Predominantly from the people he's met, the learning he's implemented, things like that. And I was like, man, going, wow, this is an amazing thing. And Genius Network was born and I charged 25 grand. And the members started calling it the 25k group. I didn't even come up with that name. They weren't referring to it as Genius Network. And I was like, well, now I'm trying to decide if that was a good idea or a bad idea because now it's kind of branded as 25k group. So when I start my 100k group and all that, you know, people are going to be like, what's 25k? Is that the same as Genius Network? So sometimes there's a little bit of confusion, but it's the same thing. But that's pretty much how it started. And here we are, you know, nine years later. And at the time that me and you were doing this, you know, this recording and it's, you know, we got 150 members and all kinds of crazy stuff. And we, we still meet three times a year, two days at a time, 20 to 35 people. The average size is 30, 35 people at my office in Arizona. And then once a year we have an annual event. So people come to two meetings a year, two days at A time at my office and then one annual event where everyone in the group comes together. And if for some reason they can't make any of the dates, I do multiple meetings a year, so they can start at any time that they want, and they can come through three meetings a year. And everyone's always, you know, some people just pay because they want access to the relationships and the contacts. Some people only come to, you know, one or two meetings a year. You know, and I've. And I've got, you know, all kinds of people in it, from Brendan Bouchard to Peter Diamandis to Dan Sullivan and all of that. One last thing before I shut up. I also have an advantage, too, as I've been in strategic coach. Dan Sullivan, who is a good friend of both of ours, and both of us have been in strategic coach. I've been in the group for 17 years at, as of right now, and Dan's coached more successful entrepreneurs than anyone in the world. And I do a podcast with dan Sullivan called 10xtalk.com I've sat through many, many coaching meetings, and that has taught me a lot on how to run groups. And Dan is one of my best friends. There are years where I've spent 30 days in an entire year just with Dan Sullivan. So all of that history comes in how I form my group. So that's kind of my thing. And there's more. I could. I want to babble all day here. Now, when I look at a guy like you, Yannick, there's a very similar thing that I see. I mean, I have, you know, me and you have. Not only we both have our own seminars and events and many that we've done together, but you've attended a ton of events, you've invested a ton in your own education, you've read many books, many courses, and, you know, the amount of money we could ever charge our members to parlay to them what it is we know what it is we've learned. Other people that we bring together, there's no way in hell they could ever, for the prices that we both charge for our groups, ever assemble what it is that we do for them without spending literally hundreds of thousands of dollars that both me and you have done ourselves. And so I think there's a lesson in that. But I'd love to have you kind of go through how your thing is and how it started, because I think that applies to one, explaining the group for people that are thinking about joining, and then secondly, people are thinking about starting their own. It's not just throw up an online video and say, hey, I' got a high level mastermind group, give me money. I mean, these things, you know, don't just happen overnight.

Yeah, there's definitely a clear, there's a pathway of doing it and, you know, it's nice. I love how yours is so organic. And with Robin, she's like, you know, kind of, kind of goading you into it and then how, you know, you, you accepted the money and then, and then contacted some of your friends that you're already doing meetings with. And so the way we got started was, I think, ours. I was trying to go back my files and just look when the first meeting was that I ran. And I've been doing smaller groups of like 12 to 18 people for several years. And I think it goes back to 2005 or 6. I'm not 100% sure, but it was, it started off at I think $15,000 a year. And it was just three meetings. But it was very selective where we're looking for top online marketers and everyone we're looking for what they kind of brought to the table and what they could contribute. Because the way that we ran it was half your time you would present something that was, that was exciting in your business that everyone can learn from. And then the other half was a kind of more freewheeling, like brainstorming about a big problem or a big opportunity that you might have in your business. And so they would show up and tackle those. And our members were getting tremendous results, just like you were talking about. And I loved it. I mean, it was fun. It's what I was really. I'm really good at facilitating and jumping in when I need to jump in. But it wasn't about me being the guru, just like you said. It was more about me being that glue and creating almost like the space for all these people to come together because they wouldn't have met each other almost any other way. And the very first way that we got this going was, I think at one of my seminars. I just introduced it and said, hey, I'm thinking about doing this and let me know if anyone wants to join as an application process. And then from there it's a bit of follow up inside our list to get to, I think our first 12 members. And then it was sold out for every year afterwards. And we opened up a second group because I wanted to keep that very intimate feel so everyone could get a lot of time, individual time. And I love what you've been able to do by scaling it out with 150 members right now. And so the way I was currently running it at that point, I didn't really see where it would continue to grow. And it was also very locked into this Internet only. And I realized that that's not the only place I really wanted to play and wanted to work with all sorts of entrepreneurs that were having an impact and doing that were mission based and had a meaning to what they were doing. Interestingly, if you look back in your history, there's always these little hints. So with our mastermind group, I would be run an optional half day adventure in between. So the two groups would meet back to back and there's a one day in between that there's a shared adventure that they could do. We went like powerboating one year. I remember we went on a field trip another time. And so kind of like that experience of starting to incorporate it because I really love experience into everything that we do. And so once again, a little glimmer and a little hint. And then I had this idea for Maverick Business Adventures. And so I just kind of pushed but put a date out there on the calendar. And I had no idea because it was kind of a really different business model of, you know, we're going to put together a trip. And I had no idea about how to do the travel thing in a real way. And I wanted to bring a celebrity guest. And we ended up getting Jesse James our first Baja trip and we brought like 26 people and shared with him a little bit about the vision of what we're trying to build with Maverick. And a whole lot of them, how.

Could I forget that mean you shared a room the whole time.

Yeah, well, that was, I think, I.

Think that was year two.

I think that was the second year.

Oh, okay, you're talking the first time you did the Baja. Yeah, the very first year. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Because the one year. Excellent.

Yeah, he came the second year too. And you know, that was really cool. I mean it was a great just format bringing in really awesome entrepreneurs, doing something cool, having great business discussions. We'd also spent some time teaching some of the kids. We're in Mexico. And so it's just bringing all those three elements that I really love, which is growing your business, having some fun and then also making a difference in some way, creating an impact. And so then it's morphed over the years where it was, you know, some.

People are like, well, it's, you know.

Just a big fun shindig or whatever. And so we're Attracting different kinds of people. Like, some were in it for the business, some were in it for the impact, some were in it for just the fun. And just doing trips by themselves was a really tough kind of business model. And so kind of went back to more of a little bit of structure, where we actually had meetings set on the calendar, which gives people a great.

Excuse to, you know, if you don't.

Have something on your calendar, you're usually not going to get away from your business and kind of elevate yourself outside of it and get a different perspective. So then we start creating what we're called, we've called them 3X retreats, where it's one day a business, one day of some sort of impact, and one day of an experience. And that's worked out really well because there's a structure to it. And then there are different themes. Like, we'll do story selling, and, you know, we'll have Gary Goldstein from Pretty Woman come talk about story or, like the world's top spoken word poet come do an exercise with us on spoken word poetry, which is pretty wild. And, you know, or do one on raving fans and bring in just people that have all these amazing raving fans, what they're doing, and also tie the experiences into it and then still do the optional, interesting, epic excursions, like we just got back from Japan, or we're going to Machu Picchu this year in September and so forth. And then the necker trip that you and I have done together for several years. And so that's. That's kind of how ours has evolved. And we also have an annual summit a little bit different in island setting and just a reason for everyone to get together.

Yeah. You know, and I will say this, too. I mean, so someone's listening and they're, you know, I mean, we have someone does. They can't even go to my, you know, annual event. The annual event that I do is the only event I do that people that are not in Genius Network can actually attend to get a taste of it. And that's the $10,000 person event. And we don't even have people sign up for that if they don't fill out an application. I mean, we literally qualify everybody. And I know you have similar qualifications of who it's for and who it's not for. And the way that I kind of structure my business now is I give away a ton of stuff for free, as do you. We have the I Love Marketing podcast, where the numbers right now are about 10,000 new downloads. Every day I do the 10X Talk podcast I do with Dan Sullivan for affluent entrepreneurs. My whole thinking is I'm just going to give away some of the best marketing, best business building information. All kinds of interesting interviews that I've done with Russell Simmons, who you recently had at one of your events, my interview with Russell and Arianna Huffington and people, Tony Robbins and Branson and all that stuff for free. But people that really are high level people. That's what Genius Network is for. And the same thing with your thing. If people don't ever join Mavericks, they can still learn a tremendous amount of stuff from you. Talk about that real briefly because I for people that aren't, you know, I'm going to put this out to I love marketing. And although I've interviewed you with Dean Jackson for I Love Marketing, a lot of people may, this may be their first introduction into Yannick Silver. So how do they get more Yannick even if they're, you know, and we'll talk about our groups and where people can go so they can not only if they want to join them or look at joining them. We'll give you that process, you know, towards the end of this, you know, this interview. But you know, how do people just find stuff out about you that's just you sell that you put out there for free? Yeah.

Right now it's mainly on my blog, which is just my personal name, Yannick Silver Y A n I k silver.com which, which I'll post periodically too. And it's all lately been around this concept of evolved enterprise which is leading and creating a business from your true self and your true heart that has impact all wrapped around it, that creates this amazing community of customers that love what you're doing and engage in a different way and your team engages in a higher. They got a bigger mission around what they're doing. So that's kind of lately what I've been writing about. You know, my 34 rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs has been a best seller and they, you know, people can download that from Maverick mba.com. so yeah, I give away a decent amount of stuff. We haven't done the podcast route. I love what you're doing with the I Love Marketing podcast and of course the TEDx talks. It's just a really smart way of, you know, not only delivering great information, providing value and you know, the other thing that it does Joe. And you know, I know that I think, you know, you realize this is having media is a very smart thing to have because then it gives you, gives you leverage when, you know, you and I both enjoy connecting with interesting business icons and celebrities when there's something that really draws us in, I think, from an authentic place, not a. You know, it's fun to go hang out with Richard Branson, but, you know, I'm really intrigued by what he's done with his 300 companies and the way he lives his life and so forth, and providing. Providing me, you know, one way, if somebody has a new book out, then it becomes really interesting for them to come on and do an interview or whatever the case is. And it also starts building a relationship, and that's something that you. You're really a great expert at.

Yeah. You know, like the interview we have with Branson, you know, that I organized and me. And then you and Marie Folio. That interview was done one of our trips. And that interview on YouTube's been viewed 100, maybe 90,000 times, maybe 200,000 times. But the amount of downloads on the podcast, the audio version of that is several hundred thousand. So, I mean, collectively, that interview has probably been listened to or viewed by half a million people. And what's really cool about it is I interviewed one of my 25 team members yesterday for I love Marketing, where he's like, you own the media. We live in a world today where you can own your own media. Back in the day, you could, you know, if you wanted to get a message or video out, you had to, you know, pay money to go on television or, you know, do radio. And, you know, everyone has their own ability to have. Create their own version of Oprah power. You know, a lot of people want to go on Oprah and ted, not because they're enamored with Oprah or ted. What they're enamored with is the fact that these are large platforms where there's a lot of viewers and they're seeing it as a place to get their message out. And what a lot of people haven't connected the dots on is you actually can create your own. You know, you can create your own following. You can create your own group.

You can do it.

And so even if you're doing all the media, even if you get a lot of PR and you go to different channels, I mean, the one that you're gonna really have the most control over is the one that you own the audience, you know, not going where someone else owns the audience and stuff. So, you know, the thing is doing a combination of both. What I'd like to do, Janik, is talk about some of the things that are actually taught and delivered in the groups on how we structure. Because I really have nothing to hide. I mean, I have no problem telling people what I do, how I do it, why people join the group, what they get in the groups, how we structure it. You can go first, I can go first. But I'd love to kind of get to the nitty gritty of what do we actually deliver in our groups. When someone comes to it, what do we do, how do they work? I can speak for Maverick from my experience, although there's a ton of stuff that I can't speak to is you do really wild adventure trips. You incorporate fun, you incorporate philanthropy, you incorporate helping in training, you incorporate giving people the opportunity to talk and brainstorm and discuss with other people and share ideas and all that sort of stuff. But what do you actually, what do you think are like some of the top things that you do in Maverick that make it cool?

Yeah, what's so interesting is I've studied groups and communities and tribes and so a really originally with the Mastermind group, it was more of this group, but nobody would say, oh, you know, I'm part of Yannick's Mastermind. And they'd want to have a tattoo of it or something on their arm. The most interesting thing that we've developed is a true identity that people really, really care about. And we've had members ask if they could tattoo Maverick on themselves. One guy wanted to put it on his ass, so I was like, well, let's get it somewhere else first and then we'll figure it out. But they love wearing the gear and all the stuff. And it's, I think, pretty deliberate with some of the things that we do in there. So some of it is structural and some of it is just in the situations that we put them in. Like you said, the really unique experiences, like we go out of our way to create unique access and unique experiences that most of them couldn't do on their own. Definitely not with the kind of people that they're around. So that right away creates a higher level bond. And then there's, there's rituals and things that we, we do and think about and then there's unique language that we've incorporated. Whether it's Maverick moments where we're talking about what happened, or it's, you know, Maverick mayhem or, you know, there's a lot of M's and we'll talk about, you know, Maverick, Maverick Mondays. It's just like a lot of times our events will start on Tuesday. So a Maverick Monday is A random Monday out that turns into something somewhat wild or who knows what happens with it.

So they're so hungover they can't enjoy the rest of the trip?

No, I've got away from some of the heavy partying, but yeah, I think probably some of the members might still. But Maverick Monday could really be anything from like ending up in a, I don't know, like a drag queen karaoke place or something like that. That's hysterical.

How often do you do drag queen karaoke places?

That's my. Every weekday.

Let me highlight that without it sounding too weird and creepy. Okay. The thing is you actually strive not in an embarrassing way, although I'm sure you probably enjoy embarrassing people in a way. You want to pull people out of their normal day to day lives. You want to pull people out of their everyday experiences because that's how people have breakthroughs. You said a very interesting word, which was said in passing, but I want to touch on is bonding. I'm a big believer and a big fan of 12 step groups for people with addictions. And there's a lot of people that poo poo. Twelve step groups, like, oh, they don't work and I've gone to meetings and blah, blah, blah. But 12 step groups are not attendance groups, they're step groups. So you go to a meeting, but you go to meetings to get experience, strength and hope on how to do the steps for something built around a horrible brain disease, which is addiction, that causes a tremendous amount of human suffering. And what 12 steps groups really do for people that consistently engage is they help people bond. And high level entrepreneurs, a lot of them are very lonely. I mean, they're surrounded by people that don't understand the drive, the perseverance, the sacrifices they've had to make in order to build groups. I mean, these are typically. The ethical entrepreneur is a deeply caring, resourceful, driven, obsessed, and sometimes obsessed in a negative way because they so badly want to do what it is they want to do that they can live a very painful, lonely existence if they do not connect with other people. And so when you do crazy things with these entrepreneurs and take them on your adventure trips, I mean, it really pulls them out of their element. It pulls them out of their box and it allows them to bond. And you know as well as I do that, you know, bonding is the most incredible thing that you can do to, you know, build a relationship. Because, you know, as my friend Dean Graziosi says, people don't, you know, people will refund a transaction. They don't Refund relationships. And when you develop these deep relationships, when you're getting together and doing these things, that's where it starts opening up some joy and some happiness for people that in business get so wrapped up in it that they forget how to have fun.

Yeah, absolutely. And if we can create a little ROI on their fun, then all the better for them. And so just structurally, the way we organize our meetings are typically that, you know, the maverick Monday, which is more optional. Something might happen and go on. But then that, let's say it's Tuesday, would be a work day, be a business day. And around our theme we'll bring in different speakers and presenters. There might be the members themselves sharing. We might do a roundtable where members will lead different roundtables and discussions themselves. So you know, a typical meeting might be 50, 60 people. So some of it is interactive. Like we don't do, we don't do keynotes. We'll do much more informal Q&As with people that come in. And it's just more of like one big conversation. Sometimes it gets broken up into multiple conversations. Sometimes we'll do these eight minute big ideas is what we've been calling them, where everyone posts up what they can share about and then members will vote and who they want to hear from. And then the top five, 10 people, whatever we have time for, will get to present something. So the business day can take on any of those looks. And then the second day is typically an impact day where we've been experimenting a couple different formats for this, but usually it's working with a non profit or cause partner in the morning, sometimes going to them like as a field trip in la. Just recently went to Homeboy Industries where they have these different entrepreneurial ventures where they've created jobs and job training for ex convicts and ex offenders coming in. So we worked with them, saw what they were doing and then continued a relationship with them. For the members that were engaged and wanted to help them, their business units. And then we'll also give a. Like we provide a. We have a Maverick impact fund where members automatically contribute $300 per month of their dues into this fund that gets dispersed. And then the second half of the day we normally will work with startups. We'll typically bring in startups and mentor them, talk to them. And then they're also competing for a bit of seed capital and some mentor relationships. And then the third day is usually some sort of unique experience, something that really gets people out of their comfort zone. But all along we're really creating a whole entire experience for them. But the third day is really that sometimes over the top experience.

Right. Right now that's pretty awesome. And you know, and I want to mention Too, like, in 2006, I had dinner with Richard Branson and a friend called me up. He's like, do you want to meet Richard Branson? And I'm like, what's the catch? He's like, well, there's a friend named Mike Faith who you're friends with Jannik, who is doing this dinner. And It's a minimum $5,000 donation to Richard's foundation, Virgin Unite. And so I said, it didn't even take me 30 seconds. I said, I'll make a $15,000 donation because of course I want to meet Richard. And I had an idea of who he was, but I never met him before. And so of course he's done a fantastic job of creating a PR campaign that positions him as one of the most likable entrepreneurs in the world. And so I went to this dinner and everyone's asking him serious about the environment and global warming and all kinds of stuff like that. And I'm sitting there thinking, well, this is a guy that signed Boy George and the Sex Pistol and Sex Pistols and jumps out of balloons and he's kind of crazy. So I'm asking him questions of what it was like to hang out with Johnny Rotten and all kinds of really not serious questions. So I somehow developed some kind of dinner rapport with Richard and then I shared with him the idea I'd given Bill Phillips on how to donate money to a children's charity and Make a Wish Foundation. And it ended up making Bill Phillips implemented the idea, the largest individual contributor in the history of the world for Make a Wish. And I shared this idea with Richard and said it's education based marketing and many people don't know all the different things that Virgin Unite does. And I really gravitated towards the Branson School for Entrepreneurship, which is teaching young people all over the world, in different impoverished countries, in some cases, how to build and grow a business. Because my whole thing, your whole thing is building and growing companies and entrepreneurs. That's who we both want to be a hero to. And so he's like, can you put that in writing and email it to me? And I'm like, yeah, give me your email. So, you know, I think I was the only one there that he gave an email to that I can know, but not 100% sure. And it really doesn't matter anyway. But I followed up with him via email. And I have this whole premise that don't ask anyone to do anything for you if you can't create value for them first. Now, certainly I'd already made a contribution to his foundation, but I said, you know, why don't you set up an interview with me and the lady that runs Virgin Unite, Jean Olwing, and I'll interview her so we can create an editor educational thing on, you know, on Virgin Unite, and I'll help share the message with my audience. So I did, and it really created this really great interview and sent that out. And then I was like, okay, how can I really parlay this relationship and get a deeper understanding of Richard? So I ended up, you know, seeing if I could have him speak, and he blocked off the dates, but he wasn't 100% sure that he could speak live. And so I literally made a $200,000 donation out of Pocke. First time I ever paid a speaker. And that's a lot of money. And he didn't even show up live. It was via satellite for my live boot camp in 2007, and I had a bunch of high level people there from Ned Hallowell and Bill Phillips and people speaking at my event. But he came in beamed through satellite. And so I interviewed him live. And people can see that interview. I think it's@joepolish.com Richard Branson. I mean, we still put that original speech that I paid. And also at the time, you can do this stuff via Skype now. Y. I mean, you know this. But it cost me $35,000 to fly a video crew to Necker in order to do a live stream, in order to do this. It was insane. So that by the time this thing was all said and done, I had a quarter million dollars that I put into it. And at that point I said, you know what, if we can do trips to Necker island and people could rent the island, but they usually didn't include Richard. And so I did the first trip to Necker and we charged $75,000. The first year that we did, we had a handful of people to come on that trip. And you came on that trip and it worked really well that starting the next year, me and you partnered and we started doing the trips together. And I ended up becoming the single largest individual contributor for Virgin Unite. But I wouldn't have done that without all of the different people, including you, being one of the biggest ones. So we collaborated on that. We started doing trips to Necker and we've been doing that now the last trip we did was the sixth, you know, week long trip that we, you know, did to go on the island. And it's not only brought a tremendous amount of people together, but it's raised not only a lot of money, you know, several million dollars for Virgin Unite, which has gone, you know, as much as I can. I always try to put it into stuff for entrepreneurship and fistula and teenage homelessness. You know, we, you know, I do have some say as do you and where like the money that we raise actually goes to. But you know, that's been pretty craz and we've sold out all of those trips that we've been doing for years there. But that's just part of where this sort of stuff could lead to. It's not just, and I was the first one that I'm aware of that ever negotiated the trips there. They had to include Richard. So people don't just go on the island, but he would literally have lunch and dinner and hang out and spend hours and hours with everyone throughout the entire week. And that's pretty much just one of the things. But those are byproducts of coming up with a goal and pursuing something and building something around what it is that you do. Do you want to say anything to that? Because I'll say a couple of things about how I actually do Genius Network because I haven't talked about some of the elements, but yeah, let's hear how you structure it. Yeah. So one of the things I learned is that people that are very successful entrepreneurs, they love ideas, but they simultaneously can sometimes hate ideas because there's so many of them they can't execute on them. And so what I learned is that from Gary Halbert, who I learned marketing from, he had this great line where he one elegant idea is worth more than a thousand semi good ideas. So when people come to Genius Network, we really focus on elegant ideas. Most of these people by themselves with a napkin can come up with better ideas than they're going to get at many marketing seminars or many business seminars or many groups. So they really need elegant ideas and elegant solutions. So I have a whole premise where if someone joins 25k, if they don't make at least a quarter million dollars, I always think in 10 times multiples. If they don't make at least 10 times return 250,000 dol joining the group, I don't want them to renew for the next year and I want their money, but I also want them to get a result a 10 times multiplier. Because I don't want people just to sign up and no, they're people with money that are going to be seminar junkies. I mean, I want people that are looking for a group that they can develop a long term ongoing relationship that they not only put a lot of value into, but they actually get a huge return from. So I have a sheet called $250,000 ideas and we actually record it. I also have people give 10 minute talk and so they have a whole process, they have to fill it out, they go through the whole thing. And we have people in the group that deliver 10 minute talks and in 10 minutes they share a best practice strategy or idea that's been worth at least a minimum of a quarter million dollars or more to them and they have 10 minutes to deliver it in. So that each minute is worth $25,000 seems to be a good return for a 25k investment. If you can actually hear a 10 minute talk that's worth a quarter million bucks. And so, so the annual events are all kinds of people giving 10 minute talks, sharing best practices and best ideas. Then we have three person hot seats. So we do a lot of thinking. I've structured 25k genius network so that it doesn't seem like you're having to take three meetings a year and put it on your schedule and have to fit that in between a lot of work or that you have to hop on a plane and fly somewhere. I realize the time commitment for very successful busy entrepreneurs is it's not even the money. I mean, the 25K is just the ante to get into the group. The real thing is the time commitment and you have to set it up so that it's not just them going there and getting ideas, but they have to go into the meetings and feel like I am doing work in implementing things, in pursuing the realization of my goals and objections, eliminating problems, eliminating challenges, reaching my opportunity. I am doing work that I typically don't know how to get done or couldn't get done as effectively if I didn't do this sort of group. So I structure it that way. I haven't figured out the best way to market this. What I'm about to say. I'd love to hear your insight privately if you have any sort of great marketing copy for this. But what I really want to do is not just help people build and grow a business. I actually want entrepreneurs to reduce suffering. I mean, we talk about addictions, we talk about depression, we talk about relationship problems, hiring and firing, reputation management, CEO level Stuff management things that keeps these people up in the middle of the night pulling their hair out of their heads. Because I want to remove angst life problems is from health and related things. So we don't just introduce business stuff. I mean we talk about a whole gamut of things that high level entrepreneurs experience and we develop these deep relationships and I want people walking out of there with a smile on their face. I want them to not sacrifice the incredible drive that they have that has allowed them to become the successes that they are. I don't want it to become, you know, a detriment to their success. And so that's. Those are some of the elements that we do.

I love it.

Yeah, that's cool.

And you know, having, having some structure but also enough, you know, looseness that everyone can walk away feeling like they've gotten, they've gotten something out of it. You know, I love the 10x kind of rule. That's something that's been in my journal for pretty much since I can remember, which is I get rich by enriching others 10x to 100x what they pay me in return. And I think it's a great benchmark to try and shoot for because anytime we can deliver that multiple in value then we're doing something right.

You want to talk about?

I think we should probably wrap up but I think it might be useful to talk about maybe some, some easy ways that people can set up their own groups. Because you were doing this kind of informally beforehand. I've done other types of groups where it's been a little bit more informal and I've had a lot of experience with virtual ones. I've done where I've been paying for groups. I've done obviously a lot with my own groups. I think those groups are really, they're powerful because a, they bring in so many different perspectives. It brings in additional resources for you. You had talked originally about confidence and I think capability. I Talk about our three Cs are Maverick Matrix which are new connections capabilities and then also channels. So they're distribution channels or where they're influencers. And that's one of the things that we look for when we're trying to bring members in is kind of what's their footprint in what industry. Go ahead.

I'm sorry, Sorry. One thing you just made me think of is if someone's going to start a group, it's almost something that me and you could tell people as it will relate to selling what it is they sell. Write the sales letter first. Sit down and construct what does the ultimate group or coaching or whatever it is you're thinking considering about delivery? What is it going to provide people with? What is the value proposition? What is the offer that you're going to make? And write that up. Because in the process of doing that, not only are you going to create some of the stuff that's going to be needed to communicate it and market it and position it, but it's also going to allow you the opportunity to think it through and put it down on paper. So you can really. I always tell people, start with the sales letter. Even my 10 minute talks, we say you're a 10 minute talk away from transforming your future. And one thing I also want to point out is, and I think me and you are very similar in this is we like to give. I mean, not stupidly, not ignorantly. We don't like to throw pearls before swine. And I don't enjoy suffering fools. I mean, I'm not talking about that sort of stuff. I'd like to do as much as I can to be helpful and useful to people. But I like people that are contributors. I don't want anyone in my group that's not willing to participate. I don't want people that are just going to pay a fee so they can come in and get all the relationships. Try to have your agenda where you want to pitch your stuff. But I never want to participate. That's why we take people through an application process. Because there's a lot of people that just want a handout. They don't want to pay. Secondly, charging people money, and this may sound like a setup for a pitch for why you should give me and Yannick money. The fact is, if people don't pay, they don't pay attention. People that really want advice, want connections, want relationships, want experiences from other people and they're not willing to pay for that. It's like what planet are you living on? Who entitled you to that? You don't get anything in the world as the entrepreneur, if you're ethical without creating value first and you don't walk around with an entitlement attitude. The two don't exist very well with a value creation proposition. That being said, the way to set it up is listen to what your audience wants. Who do you want to be a hero to? Something Dan Sullivan always talks about? What are you extremely passionate about? What is a problem that you can solve? What is the result that you can create that if you assembled it and delivered it in such a way, people will invest money for it they will pay to have that happen. And how can you actually facilitate it? I think that's just a really great place to come from, philosophically. Be a giver. If you're not, read the book by Adam Grant, give and take. I mean, I'm going to interview Adam soon for my podcast. But there's three types of people he talks about in the world. There's givers, takers, and matchers. And what's funny is that he finds out in the very beginning is that givers get taken the most advantage of. They sometimes make the least amount of money. They spend the most time trying to help people. But then when he did the research deeper, he found that, oh, the people that actually do the best in life and make the most money are still the givers. There's a suspect. So the whole, you know, like, one of the main things that I focus on in Genius Network is that in order to have a genius network, which is not just a marketing term, it's to have a network of people with true capabilities, true wisdom, you know, true skills, you have to be a genius network and you have to be a genius networker. In order to develop a genius network, you have to do genius networking. It's actually a behavior. And so one of the things that I do in Genius Network, because we have a genius network process, we even have a genius network app. And people look at who are their top relationships and what skills or capabilities do these relationships have? And then you think about what can you do for them before you write down what can they do for you? And I really get people thinking of who are the most important people in your life, what are you doing for them, what do they really want, what's important for them and how can you help them? And I've always started everything from how can I help someone? And if I don't get a return for it, who cares? I mean, you know, you put goodwill out into the world. I mean, it's karma. I mean, you put enough karma out into the world, you're going to fill up your spiritual, your financial, your mental bank account with psychological capital, relationship capital, spiritual capital. And that goes way beyond money. And so I think when you tie that sort of stuff in. So to answer your question, question about when you start your own group, define it, name it, describe who it's for, what are they going to get out of it? And more than anything, start just freaking. Go out and talk to people and interact with them. And anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Now, you shouldn't do it. Poorly on purpose. Meaning you're going to have to start somewhere. And so the whole fear. I love the whole line. It's a cliche. But what would you be willing. What would you attempt to do? What would you be willing to do if you knew you could not fail and really take that question seriously and say, what would I attempt to do? What would I really attempt to do? And start writing it, putting it out there, start communicating it, and do it. And lo and behold, if you're willing, if you develop that marketing muscle, if you develop that stamina, you might show up one day with a business that's bringing you in millions of dollars while you're simultaneously contributing like crazy to other people. I mean, when I have. My group is for industry, Transformers. I mean, I focus it on the very best people. And when I can help transform an already existing Transformer, man, that's a hell of a lot more than I could ever do on my own. So I don't ever kid myself for a minute that I'm the smartest guy in the room. I mean, if you think. If you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room. And so I want to be in a room where everyone's getting smarter. So that's just the way that I think about it. And there's two ways to also develop a group. You do the guru model, where you're the smartest guy, you know everyone, you lord your power over them, you pontificate all of your ideas all day long, and you just deliver skills. And I'm not saying that's bad. I mean, I'm probably saying that in a way where it sounds kind of insulting. I don't mean to. I just don't think that's, you know, that doesn't fit my model. You know, my model is bring a whole bunch of smart people together. There's people in my genius network that make more money than me, that are more skilled than me in all kinds of different areas, but they don't have the skill set or the time or the ability or interest of facilitating it. Whereas I'm willing to facilitate that. And same with you. There's a lot of people that love all the adventures that you do at Maverick, but they're not going to go organize that trip. They don't know how to do it. They don't have the relationships that you do. They don't have the drive to go do that stuff. So you kind of show up and you solve all of that for them. And all they need to do is cut a check and participate. That's a pretty damn good deal. Those are my things. That being said, why don't we give people our websites and any direction on where to go so they can see and I will tell people this if adventures and content contribution and doing awesome stuff with people. I tell people all the time, if you want to join both groups, join my group and join Yannick's group. Is there a time commitment? Yeah, but what the hell else are you doing with your time? You're going to build and grow your business anyway. You're going to brainstorm and learn ideas. You're going to go out and network and develop relationships with people. You're going to work with, cut a check and go do those things. And you can have the best of both worlds. But if one resonates more than the other, just look at both of them and see whatever resonates the most with you and whatever you think will be the, you know, the best value, do it. And even if you don't join mine or Yannick's group, I would highly encourage you to be in a group that resonates with you the most because, you know, I wouldn't be in strategic coach for 17 years if I didn't get a ton of value out of it. So anyway, that's my, that's my spiel.

Yeah, Agreed.

Good.

So if people want to check out what you're doing with 25k, what's the best website for that? Joe?

25Kgroup.Com is the main site, but geniusnetwork.com also goes there. I should probably just tell people geniusnetwork.com and I own this office building in Arizona here and there happens to be landscapers blowing like we had a big dust thing here in Arizona a couple days ago. And so if you hear this vibrating in the background, I apologize, but it's super annoying to me. I can barely hear myself talk right now. But geniusnetwork.com and then the annual event that I do is geniusnetworkevents.com but it's all genius Network and that's how you find out. And there's an application process and if you fill it out and you're a right fit, we will contact you and have a personal discussion before we ever take a check from you. Because there's some people, they can cut me a check, but I've actually sent money back because someone has to be a right fit.

Yeah, I mean, that's such a big deal. And we have actually a person on our team that we Call them are Maverick DNA decoder. And that's their only role. And they actually can't even take a credit card. Their only role is to interview prospective members and see if they're a fit. And conversely, if you know what we're doing is a fit for them, not always the right fit. So people that are kind of interested in what we're doing, it's at Maverick 1000 Calm because the idea has been to create 1000 of these game changing entrepreneurs that really want to change the world in some way by coming together. And we have about 20% international right now, about 200 some members, maybe about 100, about 150 active. So in that same general range as what you're doing with 25K.

Yeah, totally. And I would tell people that Jannik is organizing trips that I can assure you, you probably would never think of ever doing. I mean the stuff that you come up with is pretty, pretty wild and pretty crazy. And so take a look at it. And also if you want to hear more about Jannik's knowledge and stuff, we've interviewed him as a guest on ilovemarketing.com, the interview with Richard Branson and me and yannick is ilovemarketing.com so we have stuff there. But what I would say is I hope that people that are in groups thinking about starting groups, looking for a group. I hope this answered a lot of the questions me and Jannek get all the time. That's one of the reasons that we want wanted to do it because me and him get constantly asked questions about each other's groups, about how we do it, how we market it. And I hope this answered a lot of the questions for people that are out there. And if you have any famous last words, Janik, go for it. I just want to wish everyone great success.

And no, I think that there's so much power.

Yeah, there's so much power in groups.

Even if you're organizing them or being part of them. I mean I know that's something that I will continue doing I think for the rest of my life. And, and it's just such a really amazing, powerful thing when like minded people come together. It's just incredible.

Awesome, awesome. Thank you, Yannick. I appreciate it and thanks everyone and hope to see you at one of our future groups. Take care.