#130: How You Can Productize Your Genius To Scale Your Impact… w/ Lucas Garvin

Hey, Brandon here dropping in with 2 things. One, a heads up, and 2, to tell you about something crazy I did for you. So first, the logistical heads up. You're listening to an episode that was originally released under the name 7 Figure Millennials, and the show is now called Beyond Curious. To preserve the integrity of how the show evolved, you'll hear an older version of me introduce the show and the guest as was originally aired. But more excitingly, what is this crazy thing I did for you? I released a special series on Beyond Curious called The 4% Files. This is an 11-part Beyond Curious series where I surface the most powerful, high-impact insights buried inside the over 334 hours of published episodes prior to when the series started. If this is the first time you and I are ever meeting, you may be wondering why 4%? That's an odd number. So for those of you that aren't familiar with the 80/20 rule or the Pareto principle, It's this magical ratio that appears all over the place that shares how 80% of results only come from 20% of the efforts. So 80% of profits in a business come from 20% of customers. 80% of a language can be communicated with only 20% of the words. Basically, it's this magical rule of thumb that to me, when I knew about it, it helped me to focus on the tiny efforts that produce the biggest results in every area of my life. But what's even more magical about 80/20 is that it is fractal, meaning it is a repeating pattern that it continues at every scale. So in other words, you can do an 80/20 beyond the initial 20. And what you discover is even more disproportionate, that only 4% of your actions are responsible for more than half of your results, or 64% to be exact. And the same thing applies to this podcast. So this is why I'm calling this series The 4% Files. I dug through 267 episodes and thousands of hours of my research to identify just the 4% of the content that I believe will give you disproportionate impact in your life. All you have to do to access this is to jump ahead and download episode number 269. But you are here listening to this episode, which I know is amazing. I would just highly recommend you also check out episode number 269 to access my most comprehensive synthesis of the wisdom shared on this podcast to date. All right. With those 2 things in mind, here is your episode. Well, hello there and welcome to today's episode of 7 Figure Millennials, where together you and I are choosing to do things We are choosing, we are committing to prioritizing our happiness, health, and relationships while we build a business that creates a meaningful impact in the lives of the people that we love and generates the wealth for us to design a beautiful life on our terms. And if you are here as a first-time listener or a seasoned listener, I'm so grateful for you being here today and taking the time out of your day to invest in yourself, to invest in your knowledge on how to create a greater impact in the world. Every single week I'm interviewing amazing humans, doing incredible things, making an impact in their own way so that I can pull out their best wisdom and knowledge to support you in creating the impact that you want to create. And today I'm super excited to introduce you to my guest, Lucas Garvin. And in this episode, you're going to learn so much, but I want you to look out for 3 specific things. Number one, Lucas's story of how he closed a $7,500 contract when he was 15 years old and what that has to do with how he met his current Co-founder. Number 2, how you can productize your genius by creating a unique approach that impacts people's lives. And number 3, how to create a 90% automated, 10% personalized system that is the best of all worlds in the coaching and consulting industry. So those 3 things are all incredible things that you can look out for in today's episode. And now I want to tell you a little bit about Lucas. So you deserve the freedom to wake up and do what you want, go where you want, and spend time with who you want. No hassle missing out on sales or fighting with your calendar required. That's exactly what today's guest, Lucas Garvin, is here to help you do. Lucas is one of the founders of the Thought Leaders Institute and has mastered something that's a total game changer for any expert or knowledge-based business owner: how to launch, deliver, and scale a hybrid group coaching program on Evergreen. After years of working behind the scenes as a marketing agency for some of the biggest brands and names in the expert industry, Lucas and his business partner Jim Hole decided to completely flip their model on its head to create more freedom in their business and lives. So they founded the Thought Leaders Institute and set out to create a self-scaling business. It was one of the best things Lucas ever did with his business and life. And he has now helped over 5,000 coaches, consultants, experts, and agency owners in over 100 niches worldwide serve way more people, increase profits, and experience the freedom of a truly self-scaling business in Thought Leaders Institute's world-class training and coaching programs. I am super excited to share this topic with you. It's something that we've kind of covered all over in different places, but this is the first time I think we have gone deep on what it's like to productize A something that is inside of your brain and making massive impact with the knowledge that you have. So I'm super excited for you to listen to this interview with Lucas Garvin. If you had to pick between A, making a ton of money, B, being happy, healthy, and surrounded with people you love, or C, making a meaningful impact on the world, which would you choose? The good news is that today we don't have to choose. So the question is, how can entrepreneurs like you and me who have a vision for our lives and aren't willing to settle for anything less? How can we become financially successful and have a big impact while prioritizing our happiness, health, and relationships? You and I are on a mission to find out, and we have an incredible journey ahead of us. My name is Brandon Fong, and welcome to the 7 Figure Millennials Podcast. Lucas Garvin, my friend, welcome to the show. Super excited to have you here. This is going to be a ton of fun. I know it already.

Yeah, I'm excited. Thanks for having me here.

Yeah, of course. So, one of the first things that stood out to me when I encountered you and your work was how you wrote your LinkedIn bio. And so, as I read your headline, I'm gonna read a chunk of it and then I would love to kind of like zoom into a little bit of this one to kick things off. But your headline says, I build brands.

I haven't looked at this in a long time.

No, it's good stuff, man. It says, I build brands that empower people to live their best life. I think that's simple. I think it's clear. And then you also said in your profile, growing up, I witnessed and experienced the effects of financial hardship, lack of freedom, and watching people I love lose lifelong dreams. At a very young age, I've known that my work needed to be more about just money. I wanted to live my life, pursue entrepreneurship, and do something that truly helps people and make good money too. I firmly believe with the right information shared the right way at the right time, it can transform someone's life forever. My life is certainly proof. So, I love that on so many levels. I think we're aligned on our values and the way that we want to create impact in the world. But I would love to zoom in on some of your earlier experiences that kind of caused you to jump into the entrepreneurial world. And I heard from another training that you had done was something happened around 2007, 2008 that kind of was like an eye-opening experience for you. So, we'd love for you to share a little bit about that.

Yeah. So, around that time, I was in my, gosh, I don't know. I don't know exactly how old I was, but I was like, I don't know, like realm of like 12, 13, 14, something like that. Maybe not even that old. I'm not quite sure. Anyway, I can't do head math right now. But point is, relatively young. I have twin sisters that are about a decade younger than me. And so at the time, they were super young. And my parents had just completed building a home. My dad was a general contractor. And the recession hit. And it was a time where, you know, we were buying, you know, canned green beans, the cheap general brand from Walmart, and the cheapest deli meat you could find and slapping a rationed portion of those things out for meals. And, you know, I just, I think to my parents' experience at that time, and I just, I feel for them now being an adult. having children and having a kid say, I'm hungry, can I have more? And having to unfortunately say no. And it was a really challenging time. The recession hit my family really hard. My dad was out of work. And having just finished building this house, mortgage note, all those kinds of fun things that happen with all of that, my parents had to essentially give up the home. They Were able to sell it, but for less than half the appraisal, went over 6 figures in debt, and we moved in with my aunt and uncle a couple of states away, back where we originally lived in Savannah, Georgia. And it was 8 people and 3 dogs in a small 3-bedroom home in the middle of summer with no AC in the South. And that was, that was an interesting time. I was sleeping on a cot in what was originally sort of an office. And back in Savannah after a number of years out of it as a kid. So sort of like moving away from home and then back to where it originally was home. And just an interesting experience where I, I literally watched my parents' dreams dissolve out of their hands. You know, their dream was to live in North Carolina, to have this home in, in nature and in the mountains and to have horses and whatever. And they had the land, they had the house, and it was just like right there in their hands. And then recession hit and it all just washed away. And it was really hard to, as a kid, sort of reaching a certain level of consciousness of like what other people want and how they're living their life and values and desires and things like that, to watch those dreams wash away. It was really an interesting time.

So was your response to that like, because there's 2 ways anyone could choose to handle that situation. One is, woe is me, this sucks. And I'm just going to be miserable. And the other is like the more empowering, I'm going to do something about it route. And so, I'm assuming that you kind of took the latter route and kind of maybe that— I'm assuming that's kind of how you got into some of the entrepreneurial experiences that you had. So, maybe walk us through what that was like when you were kind of going through that on a personal perspective, but you decided to kind of take things into your own hands and start building something and making a change for your future and maybe your family's future as well.

Yeah, I mean, I had, uh, as, as a kid, I, I did relatively well in school in general. Um, uh, and I, I just, I think that I always enjoyed learning to some extent. I enjoyed learning, not so much being taught. And so that was an interesting experience for me. I, I never really loved boundaries and rules and, uh, you know, authority and things like that. I always sort of bucked the boundaries a little bit. But around that time, I was already teaching myself a lot about business and a lot about online business, which back then was in many ways sort of early days of online business, maybe not early days of internet, but early days of online business. And so the interesting thing was I was already beginning to work with clients and help them do things like build websites and optimize those for Google search, you know, SEO, things like that. Which I know sounds weird for an 11, 12, 13, 14-year-old to be doing, but that's how I spent my time. I didn't have a whole lot of friends. And so I built hobbies and my hobby was building a business. And I know, weird thing, but that was me. And so when all of this sort of hit and, you know, the recession hit and we moved in with my aunt and uncle, you know, and I started to see these financial struggles. I was like, you know, wow, having a job is not necessarily the secure thing that people think it is, right? And, you know, I see how my parents are struggling and I really don't want— I want to not personally be in this place at any point in my future if I can impact that and control it. But I also want to you know, lift some of the burden of my own experience of life and my own needs out of my parents' hands. And so by the time I graduated high school, I mean, I was already making what the average adult in the US was making and more, and more or less supporting myself with the exception of sleeping in their home. And so that was, you know, an interesting experience to be going out of high school sort of already set more or less.

Yeah, 100%. That's so cool. And I want to zoom in a little bit right at this period. I'm assuming it's at this period. So I listened to another podcast that you were on and your co-founder told the story about how you guys met. And it's so funny because this is where, when before you and I started recording, I talked about how I had a guess as to our past being very similar. So my entrepreneurial, one of my biggest entrepreneurial starts was I saw somebody that I really respected and admired that had a podcast with all these online course students and all that kind of stuff. And I reached out and I pitched him free work and ended up working with him. And that turned into me running his marketing for several years and opening the doors to all these kinds of things. And so, I don't want to say that that was necessarily your experience, but I kind of guessed that it was something along those lines, that you were a young, ambitious guy and you kind of started developing a relationship with somebody that was a little further on than you. So, not to tell the story for you, but I would love to hear what that was. How did you meet your co-founder and what kind of set that relationship off?

Yeah, so my, my business partner at Thought Leaders Institute, his name is Jim Hull, and, uh, we met originally, uh, via my uncle. So my uncle and Jim were doing some work together in a nonprofit organization, and, uh, I was coordinating with my uncle to visit him in New York City for the summer my sophomore year of high school. And, uh, I was, um, really, really excited about coming to New York, and I can imagine my uncle, you know, being busy having his own work and job and things to do, figuring out how he's going to entertain a teenager for 30 days. How are we going to keep this kid busy? And so, you know, in his work with Jim, they were doing sort of like website builds and graphic design and things like that for this organization. And he was like, hey, Jim, you know, I've got this nephew that's coming up for a month. And he does something sort of webby and you do something sort of webby. So Like, maybe there's a mix here that could work out for both of you. And Jim was like, I guess I can take an intern, sure. And I was like, sure, I'll do some business with somebody. To me, it was like a business partnership. To Jim and to my uncle, it was very clearly an internship. And so I went in with that mindset from the beginning. This is an opportunity for me to add value and for me to create opportunities for everyone. And that was just sort of how I went into it. you know, can I go get you your coffee? Or, you know, what can you do? What can I do for you? Thank you very much. It was, you know, let's do this thing, let's do business. And to me, doing business was getting sales and serving people and creating a great experience. And so that was exactly what I did. I was there for 48 hours. I went to a barbecue with my uncle and some of his friends, and I sold one of his friends on an SEO package. They had a a cupcake shop in the Village in Manhattan and, you know, $7,500 sale in my first 48 hours. Boom.

Wow.

And that was, you know, that was sort of the start of the summer in New York City.

So was that okay? Like, this just seems kind of funny. So like, in his mind, he thought you were an intern. In your mind, you're like, I'm a partner. And so when you made that $7,500 sale and came back, it's like, all right, I got a client. Was, was that discrepancy ironed out or was that like, what's going on here? What was that? That situation?

I don't think it was ever spoken. I think it was unspoken.

Okay.

And so it was, and it was maybe more of a mindset than a, than an agreement. Um, and so, uh, really the, the more spoken agreement was I'll be in the office these days and times during my time here in New York, and I'll contribute value as much as I can, and Jim will make sure I don't get up to trouble, uh, which I wouldn't have done anyway. I was very Like straight edge, if you will. But, you know, I think the interesting thing about it was, you know, I came back into the office, you know, Monday or Tuesday or whatever it was, whatever day I came in, and I was like, hey, Jim, so we have a new client. They're paying $7,500. I've already got a check for the first $2,500. We'll collect the rest in the next 2 months. And you'll get 50%. So when I go deposit this, I'll get you a check for your balance. And he was like, what just happened?

And you're 16, right? So you're 16 at this time?

I was 15 or 16, but yeah.

Okay. So I want to zoom in on here because this is an interesting detail. Not many 15 or 16 years old, year olds have the balls, for lack of a better, more eloquent term, to like ask for a $7,500 contract. So like, what, what do you think? What was going through your head when you made that offer? Was that something that was easy for you? Was it just kind of how it came up? Or like, was it— were you kind of scared shitless when you did it, but it worked out? Like, talk to us a little bit about the mindset of growing up without that much, but asking for a lot of money for those kinds of contracts at that point. What was kind of going through your head at that point?

I think the concept of value-based pricing always sort of came naturally to me. And I think it might have had something to do with never having a job, frankly.

Sure.

You know, and really what it came down to was, I know that my skills and expertise have the ability to add significantly more than $7,500 to your business. And so in this, you know, more or less the subconscious going through my brain. And so knowing what that is worth, knowing what the market is already supporting in terms of price points for these types of services, which in many cases was actually much higher than what I ultimately charged, in some cases lower, but not the same quality. And, you know, that for me was like all I needed to know. And I had already been selling services just like this, some at lower most at lower price points than that. But this is New York City and there's a bigger opportunity. And for me it was like, I know I can make a difference for them. And so, uh, yeah, why not?

That's, that's freaking cool. Maybe we could also chalk it up to, and this is coming from a very loving spot. Like I've always viewed myself as kind of an alien. So maybe it's just that alienness in you that was like, yeah, this is the value I bring and that's what I'm gonna charge, which is pretty freaking awesome. So awesome. So I think people, people have like a glimpse of the mischievous but serious and impactful and just somebody that's just pursuing growth relentlessly from a very young age. So, let's jump into a little bit more of what you're up to today. So, before you and I hit record, I was telling you a little bit about my context. And part of why I was super excited to chat today is because the world that I came from before I jumped off on my own was I was running an online education company where we had over 250,000 students. And that was an incredible opportunity. We changed thousands and thousands of lives that way. But one of the things that you talk about and that I've experienced is that as much as it's been glorified to have a massive impact by having thousands of students, there's definitely some flaws in the amount of impact that you can create and the transformations that happen as a result of different kinds of models. So you've kind of jumped into this world of impacting lives through content, but you and your partner have kind of developed a really, what you call like a hybrid model that kind of takes the best of some of these different models that are out there. So I would love for you to maybe just kind of give us a high level of your thoughts on how you've landed at this particular model and maybe kind of some of the thoughts that went through your mind as you created it.

Yeah. So when I look at, you know, different ways that services and products can be delivered, I, and I look at it in terms of how it might impact the people that are buying it. I look at it as really a measure of 2 things, right? What is the breadth of impact, meaning how many people can be impacted by this? And then what is the potential depth of impact, meaning how deeply Can they be transformed and supported and impacted by what's being sold? And so, you know, for where I got my start in my career, being in sort of like done-for-you services and very high-touch, you know, private consulting, you know, there's a lot of depth of impact there, but there's not so much the breadth of impact because there's a lot of time invested in every single client that you work with. Compared to, say, a fully automated, you know, no coaching, no, you know, support type course, right? Or online training where there's, you know, the potential for significant breadth of impact, many people that can be impacted by it, but in many cases, maybe not as much depth of impact depending on how it's sold, delivered, what's in it, etc. So For me and Jim, when we were looking to increase our breadth of impact without sacrificing depth of impact, right? We were looking at, okay, how can we sort of bring some of the benefits and the, the pros, if you will, of things like online courses and memberships that have a significant breadth of impact to the sort of traditional coaching, consulting, and even some services-related components into one offer where we could maximize both breadth and depth of impact. And so that is ultimately where the hybrid coaching model was born and where many of the products and services that we support our clients with today came from.

Let's zoom in there because I think people are probably listening. It's like, okay, well, that's interesting. I know one of the things that you talk about in this model that you've built is it's 90% automated and 10% personalized. So, you've kind of found the sweet spot of having the backbone of content that supports and creates a transformation that you're willing to create, but also providing that space of community and personalized coaching that allows them to actually get the results. So, maybe expand on that a little bit. So, when you share in your content that it's 90% automated, 10% personalized, what does that mean?

Yeah. So 90% automated really comes down to first and foremost having a clear path for people to follow to a specific result that they're seeking or a specific series of results that they're seeking. And so that having that clear path is step number one. And that's so that's why, for example, we help our clients create what we call a unique approach, which is the path that they've developed to help their clients get the results that they're seeking. And once they have that, that's really the foundation for whatever content, you know, trainings, tools, resources, could be checklists, could be processes, could be calculators or quizzes or whatever are necessary to help someone facilitate going through that process to experience and receive the results and benefits of it, right? And so that's sort of where a lot of the automation of clients getting results comes from, because if someone, for example, is very self-motivated, sort of self-starter, and is like, I just need a path to follow, and I'm going to get results eventually. Perfect, right? That they're, they're handled right off the bat. They've got everything that they need in theory, between, you know, training and, and courses element of it, as well as the tools and resources to go and do that being a self-starter. Now, I've found that humans live on a spectrum, and we aren't necessarily black and white, one way or another way. And so some of us might lean more self-starter, and some of us might need more encouragement, support, community connection, you know, prodding, whatever you want to call it, accountability even, to move through a process where growth and stretching and shifts are required in order for us to produce a result. And so that's why Sort of that 10% personalization is where the coaching comes in, is where the community comes in, and the ability to personally, not necessarily intervene, but to personally impact, to personally touch and support each client that needs and wants that support is there in that model.

You just planted so many incredible seeds. I'm sure everybody's like, okay, well, what's a unique approach? How do I build a unique approach? I think So I would love to zoom in there. But before we get to that, I kind of want to paint a different, another picture that maybe will kind of build on this concept for people. So it's like in this space, lots of people are familiar with the concept of like a value ladder or where you have like different levels of products where you have like the $10 book and then you have the $200 course and then at the high end, you got the $30,000 mastermind, right? This is the kind of thought leadership world that we live in. And so, when somebody is hearing this approach, I think it might be helpful for them to kind of understand where does this fall in? Because I think also when you're talking about impact, it's correlated to the amount of price that you're charging. Because if you're charging for a $9.99 course, you may, like, that person isn't as invested in the result or actually getting that impact. So, maybe share a little bit. I think you have this concept called like the ambition line or however you want to answer this question, but I would love to know where does this fall in the world that has been Where do you price this for impact and results for people? How do you think about that?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to know that, again, I think we all live and exist on many different types of spectrums. And one of those is what I call the ambition line. And the ambition line is really sort of a way of representing where any given prospect, client, follower, audience member, whatever, might be on their journey toward getting results inside of the work that you do as an expert, right? And so, you know, on one hand, we have people that are sort of lower levels of ambition, and along with that typically come smaller goals as well as lower levels of awareness about maybe what their problem or challenges or even desires might be as it relates to the work that you do. etc. And then we have sort of the higher end of the spectrum, which is, you know, high levels of awareness of what problems or desires there might be, as well as potential solutions for those, in addition to typically bigger goals. And along with that sort of correlates willingness and in some cases even ability to invest in solutions. Right. And so, you know, with that sort of spectrum existing, you know, sure, the, the $9.99 book Definitely is on the much lower end of the spectrum, as opposed to, say, a $30,000 mastermind, as you gave an example, at the very high end of the spectrum in many cases. And so a hybrid, a hybrid coaching program typically exists in the middle to medium-high, if you will, on that spectrum. And the reason for that is, is that it is geared toward people that are seeking significant life or business transformations. And it is designed to create significant life or business transformations for them. And along with that comes a medium-high price. And so it's typically in the thousands of dollars, $3,000 to $10,000, maybe even more, and would fit either as your core offer in your business, sort of the central main offer. Some cases it could be more of a premium offer depending on how you wanna set up your business model and things like that.

But Yeah, love that. Love that. Well, I think too, just to, we could keep going down this rabbit hole of like building out the kind of the business model behind this. But I think another thing that would be important to talk about at this point too is what freedoms does running this model provide you as the business owner that's running this? So maybe talk a little bit about if you have this hybrid system running where you're making an impact, it is a slightly higher price point. So you have higher lifetime value of a customer. What, maybe share a little bit about like what kind of freedoms this has allowed for you or why you love running this model specifically?

Yeah, I mean, what I love is waking up and seeing clients posting in our client community in our own hybrid Evergreen Business Accelerator saying, I just, you know, closed out my launch of my hybrid and, you know, got $20,000 in new sales and, you know, 5 new clients in 2 weeks, you know, and I talked to them 2 or 3 times over that time on a call. That took me, you know, an hour to deliver each week. So I spent 2 hours and somebody made $20,000.

Hmm.

I mean, you know, like how much better does it get? Meanwhile, the systems and the structure of the program enabled that person to do all of the necessary background work and to essentially achieve this result with what was ultimately minutes of my contribution, even inside of those 2 hours. And so I think that that is just a really empowering and incredible model, not just for the ability and the depth of impact that that has on the client, but also for me to be able to impact more people, right, over the course of that hour, maybe touching 10, 15, 20 different people that are creating similar types of results in just minutes each, but in a very focused manner. Meanwhile, In those 2 weeks, I spent 2 hours working with clients.

Yeah, it's so cool. And I mean, just to kind of build and add color to this too, from my experience before of running all these students through these online courses, another model that we had played with was the membership model where we had like a $97 a month kind of ongoing thing. And the challenge with that was it got so much to create the content and create the engagement of keeping the engine running, it was just exhausting. And so I think it's cool that you built this hybrid that takes the best of all the worlds where you're not— I mean, you could obviously if you added some kind of ongoing structure where you were creating new content, but you're not necessarily dependent on production of content every single week or every single day that kind of keeps you on this hamster wheel of sometimes kind of exhausting. And you've kind of found that hybrid, which is incredible. So, Amazing. Well, I think someone listening has kind of seen, okay, this makes sense for me on a core value perspective of the impact that I can create and the freedoms that I want to create. And it kind of fits where it's in. So, before, you alluded to something that you called your unique approach. And I think this is really important for people to kind of think about too. If you're considering doing something like this, obviously, you could also take some of Lucas's courses and content, which we'll make sure we have linked up in the show notes. You alluded to this unique approach before. So maybe share a little bit about what that is and what the difference is between having a unique approach and not having a unique approach, how that shows up in your business.

Yeah. So I mean, so for many of us in this sort of expert thought leader industry, if you will, right? So many of us have careers, in some cases even decades, and in some cases, of course, less, but essentially lots of experience, right, that we're bringing to the table. Or knowledge that we're bringing to the table in a particular area to help people get results with. And many people start out, uh, by more or less just helping people one-to-one, sometimes even for free, sometimes for a fee, sometimes hourly, sometimes in a package of some kind, whatever it might be. Um, and so a lot of times that's very intuition-based. It's based on client presents some sort of symptom or issue that needs solving our intuition experience sort of gets tapped to go and solve that issue in the moment. That's great. And that can work really well with someone one-to-one for a time. One of the challenges with that, though, is that if you want to then take that expertise and you want to serve lots of people with it, the intuition is no longer sufficient. And the reason for that is, is because in order for that intuition to get tapped, you have to be presented with symptoms, challenges, issues, problems that need solving. And so imagine 400 people barking in your ear, here's my symptoms, problems, challenges, etc. You can't possibly respond to all of them fast enough and actually serve people well. And so what you have to do is you have to go through the sort of extraction process of extracting your knowledge, your wisdom, and turning that into something that can serve people at that kind of scale. And to be able to take what you know and turn it into something that is evidence-based from your experience in producing the results that people seek in working with you. And so that's exactly what one of the first steps that we help our clients do is produce that unique approach because it's so foundational to helping people at scale.

Yeah, I think a quote that I share all the time on this show that's really important to me is you can't read the label from inside the jar, right? So like if you're sitting inside your jar, you can't read the nutrition facts that are sitting outside your label. And the same thing I think goes for your expertise. It's like if the expertise only lives inside of you. It's not as easy to optimize or tweak for results if it just lives inside of your brain as opposed to you've extracted into some kind of system that you can observe almost externally. I think someone else on the show, Josh Vonger, talked about looking at your business. I think this was a comment about operations, but I think the viewpoint is still the same. It's like an outside and slightly elevated perspective on what you've created. And You know, then once you have kind of extracted it from your brain and it's this thing that lives outside of you and you have people going through it, it's a lot easier to optimize and tweak for results when it lives outside of you, instead of your brain. So I love that.

Yeah. No, and it can be challenging, right? It can be challenging to like extract your consciousness into a different place where you can actually even view your expertise, right? It's sort of a weird thing to do. And that's why we've developed those processes around those things because yes, it can be challenging, but it's also really, really important if you do want to be able to make an impact at scale, but also maintain integrity and results and to be able to scale results with the scale of impact. So yeah, it's really important and really powerful.

Super cool. Well, if you're down for it, maybe for those that are listening, let's turn Lucas into a brain surgeon for pulling out your thought leadership into a unique approach. So if somebody's interested in doing this and maybe they have some ideas or some programs they've created in the past, or they have some ideas to what their unique approach could potentially be, now that we've been talking about, they have this kind of like fuzzy idea of what it is. What are some of the steps that you take people through of extracting that from their brains that is this thing that they can work on and then help people get results from?

Yeah. So There, there is sort of a specific process to this. I think the first thing that you'd wanna do though is you would want to really think about what are the outcomes that people seek in working with you. And I, I'm a big fan of reverse engineering things. And so what that really looks like is like keeping the end in mind. What does the end look like? What does success look like? And creating that clear definition first. And so one of the first things that we have our clients do when they're creating their unique approach is to exhaustively list and brainstorm all the outcomes that they know people come to them for and results that they're seeking. And then to really whittle that down to like the top 5 to 7. Because at the end of the day, so many of those other ideas are sort of wrapped into those top 5 to 7 in most cases. And so then to sort of systemize that, okay, so in what order would be ideal for someone to experience those results or to seek those results? And knowing what you know about getting those results, the things that they would need to do in order to get them, what would be the ideal order to do that? Once you have that order, then turning that into something that's branded and unique and your own so that it becomes more marketable and becomes sort of a foundation for what would ultimately become your hybrid or other programs.

Have you heard of the book Decoding Greatness by Ron Friedman? I feel like that you'd be a huge fan of that one.

I haven't.

Okay. I'll have to make a note to send that link to you because Ron's been on the show. But the whole thing is how the world's best people reverse engineer success. But I think that's so true and I think that's like so relevant for— I've realized this is how my brain works is I build little Lego blocks all over the place where it's like I go deep with all these interviews. I hang out with some cool people, which I'm grateful to say, but it's like I get super excited and I build this little Lego block that like lives there and I'm like, oh, Later on, 3 months later, I'll go take that LEGO block and I'll use it something else. So that's hopefully what you're doing too as a listener right now. It's like all these incredible humans are sharing their little LEGO blocks that they've built. And you can kind of mix and match and create your own. Maybe it's a Bionicle. I played with Bionicles growing up, not LEGOs. But I think it's super cool. Yeah, I know. Those are good times. Every once in a while, my brother and I still have the gigantic mixed container of all the arms and legs of Bionicles. So we'll go back and revisit. But all that to say, I think Lucas is providing lots of really cool Lego blocks. I would also encourage anybody to listen to the episode I did with Pia Silva. If you're taking more of a service-based approach, she's got some great content on this. So amazing, Lucas.

I know Pia really well.

Really? That's awesome. I love Pia. She's awesome. So you alluded to a bunch of other stuff too about this extraction. So somebody can go and they can take a list of maybe like 5 to 7 of the results and maybe you bullet pointed it out and you've extracted it in order and you kind of have like let's say 7 outcomes that you're interested in that kind of turns into the MVP or the first version of your unique approach. You alluded to branding your approach, which I think is also super powerful. And I think your course name for the one that at least that I went to is just a testament to the power of this. Like the course that I went through was called Simple and Scalable Groups. Like if that doesn't explain what the benefit of the course is, then I don't know. Because I think that anybody listening to that that's in this world is like, yeah, I want a simple and scalable group. So maybe share a little bit more. Let's zoom in a little bit on this branding thing, maybe not only packaging the entire thing, like I just said, simple and scalable groups, but like naming and labeling and packaging the steps inside of that and maybe why that's important and how we could begin to do that.

Yeah, man, I think one of the things that people frequently do not do enough of, especially in this industry, is to really think about it, uh, and to like pull it apart and to, and when I say it, I mean what it is that you do, why it is that you do it, and to really pull apart why it is that your clients seek out what you do.

Okay.

And that's so, so important because it forms the foundation ultimately of your messaging. And I think that sometimes people leave their message and their messaging up to chance. They leave it up to, oh, well, this sounds good, or that sounds cool. Or, you know, I know somebody said that word last week, so I'll say that. And, or sometimes they just look at what else is in the marketplace and like, you know, cherry picking and, you know, Frankensteining from what else they see out there. And the reality is, is that that frequently will not fly. It frequently will not create the results that you're seeking. Not only that, it won't sound like you, it'll sound like something else. And so you really have to sort of dig deep into why it is that people are seeking what you do, specifically the results, the outcomes. inform your decisions and your messaging based on that, based on what they want, and to mesh that with who you are and your values. And to, again, I think this is really, really important, be specific. I think so often we go in with messaging and we're like, I want to empower people. That's amazing. I love that you want to empower people. Empowering people is incredible. And that's actually part of my personal mission in the world is to empower people to live their best life, as you said before. And if all I did was say what I do is I help people, you know, I empower people to live their best life, you'd have no idea what I do.

Right.

You'd have no idea what life looks like after working with me or after experiencing what I have to offer. And so the challenge for many experts is getting to that level of specificity and getting to that level of specificity requires just really pulling apart your work and what you do and why you do it. And why people seek you out.

Yeah. I was just listening to Tim Ferriss did an interview with James Clear. It was either James Clear or Mark Manson, one of the two that I was listening. They were just kind of talking about like packaging their intellectual property. And Tim was talking about how important it was for him when he wrote The 4-Hour Workweek that the contents of the book was an acronym of DEAL. I don't even remember what that all stands for. I just remember that it was DEAL. But I think that's so true too. That naming and labeling your process makes it much more accessible and memorable for the people. It's like being user-friendly. I'm just kind of going on a bunch of tangents, but I also interviewed Darius Mehrshahzadeh, who wrote The Core Value Equation. He talks about like coming up with unique names for your core values so that they're actually memorable. It's not just like, for me, my number one core value, it's curiosity. But like, my number one core value named and labeled in his way is childlike curiosity. And you can kind of create an image and a brand around that. And so, I think it's really important that packaging it exactly like you're saying creates a much more 3D version of what you're doing instead of like a one-dimensional version of it. And it also makes it much more exciting and tangible to go into it. So, you kind of mentioned making it more specific. Are there any tips that you might have for people? Like, let's say they have that bulleted list, like 5 to 7 outcomes and It currently says empower people or something more vague like that. Like, like outside of just saying, you know, how can you make it more specific? Any tips that you have for actually naming the steps of your unique approach that would help people?

In terms of naming the steps of your unique approach specifically, you wanna keep them very action-oriented and very short. So we don't want something where it's like complete the path to empower your health and the people around you, whatever, you know, that, that's really long. and it's also vague. The one good thing about what I just said was that it was action-oriented, complete, right? There's a verb in there. And so what we want to do is we want to have it typically start with a verb. We want to drop -ings, -ings as we call them, because those are frequently in past tense as opposed to present tense, which is really what gives it a more present sort of action-oriented feel to it and creates more of a process feel to it as well. And so those are some general tips, but in terms of identifying specificity, it really comes down to imagining a client actually doing whatever it is they're doing in the process and the results that they're going to experience from that in visualizing it, right? The more that we can visualize and get clarity on the actual experience, the feelings, the sights, the whatever, whatever is actually different, tangibly impacted and changed in their life, The more specific we can be in the way that we articulate it in messaging and in copy.

Yeah, that's so cool. I think learning how to position and package and name and label all your stuff, it's like, it's a super underrated skill set. Like it's so powerful and messaging is just one of those foundational things. I recently, I haven't worked with her yet, but I hired someone, her name is Alexandra Watkins. She wrote this book called Hello, My Name Is Awesome. And she's got a branding company called Eat My Words. And she was actually the person that named the Baconator and like all these other cool things. And so I think it's just so important. And some of her considerations that I'm just kind of diving into is just like being very intentional about the world that you're creating with like the words that you create and the way that you package it is just so important. And I think it's glossed over. So I think it's really cool that you have content that supports people in packaging that in a really effective way. Awesome. So I know we're kind of coming up on time, Lucas, but I think there's a few remaining questions that I have that I would love to dig into in the model and then we can kind of wrap things up. One of the things that we talked about before was the fact that your approach is evergreen, which I think is kind of an interesting concept in this space for this particular model because lots of people do like cohort-based groups where, you know, you're launching once a quarter and so you gotta get in before the March 31st deadline to start on April 5th. And it kind of creates this like journey. But the way that you've designed this is that it's a cohesive, or people can drop into the process at any given point in time. And I think that personally for me, that kind of breaks my brain. Like, how do you keep people moving through it and not make it feel disjointed and like celebrate the people that are coming in, but pair it with somebody that's new and someone that's— so like, so what are some of the ways that you How does that work? I guess not a very elegant question, but how the hell does that work?

I mean, I think one, I've not actually used this example before, but I'm gonna give it a go and see how it flies.

Go for it.

You know, so think about like a party, right? You're at a party and maybe there's 20, 30 people there and somebody walks in the door. When they walk in the door, do you just boo at them? Oh, you don't boo at them. You welcome them in and it's a community, it's an environment, right? And so, you know, maybe not every party, But, uh, these hybrid party, a hybrid community, uh, is intentionally designed in that way. And the point behind this is, is that I don't care how you've structured your program. The people coming in are all different levels and all different places anyway, because that's how humans are. Like I've said before, we all live and exist on many different spectrums. And when it comes to your work and the way that you help people and help them get results, uh, you know, just because someone's joining a program that starts at step 1 and goes to step 2 and goes to step 3, whatever, on some sort of schedule doesn't mean that that's actually where the people coming in are all at, just because you're organizing it that way. And so I have nothing against cohorts. I think cohorts are amazing in many respects. We're running one right now for a different type of program that we run. And I think they have a time and a place. But what I love about the hybrid coaching model specifically in it being evergreen is that people can come in at any point wherever they are and be met exactly where they're at and get exactly what they need. And so, you know, a client just came into our program Evergreen Business Accelerator the other day. They have, you know, 20 years of experience in the expert industry selling thousands of online courses in a prior business that they just sold. And they came in and they said, okay, I don't have an audience. I'm starting fresh. But I really know what I'm doing and I have, I need to be able to build an audience quickly. Where in your process should I jump in? And they're gonna jump in at a little bit of a later stage instead of an earlier stage because that's where they're at. And so that client gets to be met where he's at because it's evergreen. He came in, he's getting what he specifically needs exactly when he needs it. And so are all the other clients, but they're all on a similar journey. And because they're on a similar journey, they're all on the same spectrum. They have shared interests, they have shared goals, they have shared values being part of this group, and they get to be a community on that journey, on that spectrum together, as opposed to having to be sort of squeezed into a specific point at a specific time together, regardless of where they're actually at.

So am I understanding correctly that like the content portion of the delivery isn't gated? They just have access to the whole thing when they get it. And then Tom can join and have 20 years of experience on the same week that Timmy joins and has maybe a year or 2 of experience. And they could both show up to a group coaching call and ask questions at different levels. Am I understanding that correctly, that that's how it's designed?

Yeah. And people frequently guess that that will be a disadvantage, that people will not be able to get value from people at different levels because it's not immediate completely quote unquote relevant to what they're specifically working on or challenged with. And the reality is, is that having people at all different levels actually means that they get to hear different perspectives more frequently, and it creates a more complete picture and understanding of what it is that they're doing and up to. And so, for example, if you're an earlier stage, you know, at an earlier stage of a journey, hearing someone who's at a later stage of the journey gives you a preview of what's to come. inspiration, motivation, excitement for the journey ahead that helps you stay motivated and stay plugged in and connected, even though you're, you know, ultimately on a journey where there's quite a bit of work ahead of you, or there's some things you need to work through and to accomplish and do. Or maybe you're at a later stage of the journey and you're hearing someone at an earlier stage of the journey who asks a question or who's going through something that you previously solved but haven't thought about in a while and needed a refresher on. And so you get a refresher on that, you get to go and plug that into your business because you've done it before and reenergize and improve results in a certain area that you had previously sort of let fall away. And so there are lots of different scenarios like that where learning from people at different stages and having a mentor who has a deep understanding of all stages can guide you through those.

That's super powerful. And I think that I think part of that too requires the right culture, like that you don't, that mixing those different quote unquote levels of people, like at least the people that are like further along in the journey come from that spot of like, oh my God, yeah, I totally forgot that I was crushing it on this referral component of my business and this person started asking about it and now I've incorporated it. It's like, well, you experimented with a party analogy. So I'm gonna experiment with a random analogy that came up in my head is I'm a pool player, I'm a billiards player. And so I was playing with someone the other day and he like, I don't know the diamond system for anybody that's played pool. You have like the diamonds that go across it. And so you can do these crazy kick shots where you'll hit like a 4-railer and you can like predict where the ball's gonna go after 5 rails. I have no idea how to do that. But so I could just see that, you know, even though that somebody is hitting 4-railer shots or whatever, if they're in a room with somebody that's still trying to figure out the basics of like a stroke that like you remember the basics of what made you good in the first place and having to go practice those things is really valuable. And so I love that as long as you have the right culture and the right mindset, that you've created an opportunity for people that are further along in the game to get as much value on the basics or the building blocks as somebody that is forecasted ahead. I think that's brilliant.

Yeah, I mean, I think I completely agree. It comes down to culture and some of the values that we espouse and that we run our community on and that we encourage our clients to build into their programs is No competition.

Love that.

We're not here to compete with each other. There's plenty enough opportunity for all of us. What we are here for is an opportunity to grow, to contribute, and to, you know, achieve our own goals inside of our businesses. And in a business space, that makes sense. But also in a personal space, you know, sort of applying that to something outside of business or making money, it comes down to This is a safe space for growth. This is a safe space for people to come and to share parts of who they are or to share what they're going through and to be able to get real-time support from mentor or from community members, uh, to break through that. And this is not about ego. This is not about being the best or not the best in the room. This is not about comparison. Uh, it's about growth and about opportunity and doing that together. with support. And so, yeah, I mean, that's— you're right, the culture does come down to it. And there are some communities out there in the world where ego is a big part of the culture. And I just— I don't personally subscribe to that. It's something that I think, you know, we could all be more aware of from time to time, myself included. And I intentionally work to, you know, minimize in how we facilitate communities so that That doesn't become a barrier to people's success.

Yeah. One final comment on this topic, because I think this is super powerful too, is I've found personally is that when you also have the opportunity to teach, you deepen your understanding so much deeper. So like if you put that correct culture that we've been talking about, if you have somebody that's more advanced that actually helps someone else out by teaching it to someone else, they actually solidify the concept in a different way than if, you know, they hadn't been in that environment where that was a cool spot to do that. So I love that.

Yeah. And not only is that a benefit to the members, but it's a benefit to you as the mentor because now you don't have to be the only person who can add value.

Yeah, 100%. One more open loop and then we'll kind of wrap things up. So how long are people coming into this program? So I think lots of people are familiar with the concept of now it's become so popular. It's like I go, I buy a course and I get lifetime access to the course and, you know, whatever. Maybe there's a 365-day guarantee or a 60-day guarantee. For the hybrid model, is it, is it they're getting access to the community and the content for like 6 months, for a year, 3 months? How do you structure that?

Yeah, so with the hybrid, we typically recommend a year, and that's what we most commonly see people do and have the most success with. Second to that is 6 months, and then sort of third to that would be 3 months or some other timeframe. And the reason for this is that when someone is seeking major, and I mean major, life or business transformations, right, they're looking to completely change their health, to completely change their relationships, or to completely, you know, to double their business, whatever the goal might be, it's a significant goal or a significant challenge that they're seeking to overcome. Transformation takes time, right? You know, you're not gonna pop into a program and just because you have a path and you have a community and you have a mentor, all of a sudden the next day you're, you know, blazing through, you know, top-level success. You know, it just doesn't really work that way when we're going for big life or business transformations. It does take some time. And again, that's yet another spectrum, right? Some people move a little bit faster. Some people, you know, need a little bit more time. It just depends on where they're at. And so with that being the case, that's one of the reasons why we typically recommend a year if not a year, 6 months, generally speaking, because that gives people enough time to create major life or business transformations, but also allow life to happen in the middle and not have fear that they won't have resources or support available to help pick them back up on the other side of whatever happened. You know, a parent gets sick or a kid has an issue or a relationship falls through or a tree falls on a house in a storm, whatever. There are all kinds of life examples that can derail people for a little bit from making progress in areas that are important to them. And when they have that, you know, extended period of time, 6 or 12 months, they really have an opportunity to get back on their feet with support inside of a program like this.

Love that, man. Well, you listening, you've gotten a whole masterclass today on learning how you could create a hybrid program to create a massive impact. And I think that, like I said, I think it's just so valuable to see people's different approaches to creating impact, structuring it, how to name and label and package it. And so there's so— I know if you're still hanging out with us right now, you've gotten so much gold and some ideas that you can incorporate and build into everything that you're doing. So I want to kind of wrap with something that we kind of— I always— my interviews always kind of come full circle. But like in the beginning, we talked about in your LinkedIn bio, one of the things you said was you're a personal development junkie. And so We'll kind of shift away from the world of hybrid coaching and more into the personal development side of it. And you were just talking about ego and letting go of ego, all that kind of stuff, which is that kind of world. But one of the questions that I love to ask my guests towards the end of the interview, Lucas, is what does happiness mean to you? What is your definition of what happiness means for you personally?

Well, first and foremost, I think most of the time happiness is a choice. And it's something that I do my best to choose in every moment. You know, obviously, there are times where that choice is a hard one to make and to feel and embody. And I think the more that I consciously, intentionally pursue that and choose that every day, the more frequently and consistently I experience it, and the more the intensity of that grows with time. But what does it look like? I think it looks like getting to spend time with my husband. It looks like having freedom in my day to not have things stacked back to back where I'm always rushing to something. It looks like being able to travel and have new experiences and to be able to have conversations with great people like yourself and to learn things and to contribute and to add value and to see people experience growth in their own lives as well as growth in mine. And so that's what really brings a lot of joy to me personally. And yeah.

That's beautiful. That's so beautiful. I think that at the end of the day, happiness is the— it's in the simplest of things. And so I love that answer. Don't want to add anything to that besides where the heck can people find out more about all the incredible stuff that you're up to? So just before you answer that though, and you can kind of maybe think about it, but for me, I personally went through their program on their site, Simple and Scalable Groups. And so if you go through that, It'll be an opportunity to go way more in depth and kind of hear at a much deeper level some of the concepts that Lucas has been sharing today, which I would highly recommend. But besides that, where can people find out and get involved with your world, Lucas?

Yeah, absolutely. Simple and Scalable Groups is a great place to start, especially if what you heard today is something, you know, that made a difference for you or something you want to look into more and learn more about. And so you can do that at simpleandscalablegroups.com, just spelled out exactly like it sounds. Or you can go to thoughtleadersinstitute.com and you can see, generally speaking, all the different things that we have available and what we're up to there. And yeah, that will be the best place to check us out.

Amazing. Amazing. Well, I just want to have a really quick conversation with you listening right now. And I say this at the end of every episode, but I just, I'm so grateful that you are hanging out with us today, that you took the time to invest in yourself to expand and grow and learn a little bit about a different way that you could approach creating impact in the people that you love and the people that you serve. And so, I'm confident at the end of every episode that there is something in here that could absolutely change someone's life. I think lots of these interviews and lots of these concepts that we talk about, it's like the first stage is awareness, right? Like, you just have to be aware that things like this exist. And so, maybe for someone or for you personally, you just had this whole new level of awareness that was cleaved open in your brain of like a different way that you could make a difference in someone's life. And maybe some ways to structure this. So whether it was learning about the different ways of creating a hybrid coaching model, or maybe even the beginning, hearing Lucas's stories about having creating businesses from a cot and selling a $3,000 or $7,500 package to his undefined relationship as an intern/business partner that ended up becoming his business partner. These are all things that can inspire people and make a massive difference. So my ask for you listening is if you've heard one of those things today, that you share this episode with somebody that you think it would make a difference with. Not only will it make my day, it'll make Lucas's day as well. But whether you choose to share the episode or not, I appreciate you for hanging out with us today. And Lucas, any final things you want to say before we head off for today?

Well, I'll leave you with something that I learned from Ryan Holiday, which is the obstacle is the way. So, if there's something in your life right now where you're feeling some resistance or you're feeling some challenge there, lean into it, lean into the challenge, lean into the obstacle, move forward. That's something that I'm personally working on a lot right now, and I'm receiving a lot of growth and benefit from that. And it's just sort of a little bit of a mindset shift. Sometimes we experience a challenge and we shy away from it a little bit, like, I don't know if I want to deal with the stress or the struggle of figuring that out right now. And sometimes that's a great thing to do, and sometimes we can lean into it and we can experience that growth and that result a little bit faster.

So beautiful. I'm not going to add anything to that. Lucas, I appreciate you so much for hanging out with us today, and we'll talk to you soon, my friend.

Thanks.

Great being here.

Take care.