Episode 168: BMX and Building a Podcast with Michael O'Neal

Okay, how do you fake spontaneity?

You don't.

You can't.

You can't.

Yeah, I think we just did become an actor. I think we just did. There's a thing who's. There's a comedian, Michael maybe. You know, he makes fun of celebrities, and he wears a hand puppet that looks like a dog with a cigar in his mouth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's Triumph the Insult Wonder Guy.

He is so. Have you ever seen this guy?

No.

He's so under HB Sean. You said that you were one under HB Sean. I shoot you now. I'm done.

Yeah. He is so funny. All right. That's how you fake spontaneity. Now we can kick things off.

You're listening to the Profit first podcast.

Episode 168, my friends. Oh. Ow.

There it is.

E E. All the bells. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I am Christina Bolduc, your co host.

And I'm Mike Mck Kalowitz, the hostess with the mostest. And I mean also the author of Profit First. I don't know if he knew that.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

No idea.

Yeah, you did.

Seriously, what book is that?

How long did you ask work here? Gosh, we really need to improve the education around this place.

Right?

So this is a book I wrote about profitability, and my golly gee, you should be listening to it. And if you didn't recognize one of those voices, you know that was Christina Ayers.

It was Christina Ayers.

No.

We're one now.

I look at you, Christine.

We are one.

You are one. Well, ever since that whole Disney thing. Oh, my God, I love that Disney song too. I work out that too. Kelsey Buldock, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much.

And you, my friends, you're listening to the train wreck of a show called the Profit First Podcast, where we actually take train wrecks and reassemble them into very profitable machines. You can do with your business too. No matter what the status of your business, you can make it profitable. That's what you learn on every episode. Except perhaps today. That's the one episode you may not learn. Where can they find us, christina?

Profit first podcast.com. but if you can't go there, you can go to itunes, stitcher, Google Play, and tune in radio.

Exactly. Please check us out, subscribe to us, and get all the juicy stuff that's out there. And before we do all the. The fanfare and admin, we need to do, just. How you guys doing in general? How's life treatment?

Life is great.

Yeah.

Okay, I Can't believe that summer is over, you know?

Yeah. I haven't had one beach day at the summer. It's been too hot or rainy or. But we're going. We're gonna make at least one beach day.

Gotta go.

Summer ends.

Gotta go. That was the best thing we did. So we went down to Long Beach Island.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And just loved it. Want to go again? You gotta go to the beach or something therapeutic about the salt air, you know, salty air.

Yeah.

And jelly jellyfish slimming down your back. You ever go in the ocean and the jellyfish gets on your back? No, it's never happened. You go in the ocean?

Yeah, I love the ocean in New Jersey. Yeah. I haven't actually gone to New Jersey in a long time.

Okay. When the water gets a little warmer. Yeah. When the water gets a little bit warmer around September, there's these jellyfish. Not like, not the man of war ones that will kill you, but these smaller ones. And they sting.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You come out, what the hell is happening? You get all itchy and there's a jellyfish on you, man. That was my dad as a kid. I'm like, that. My background.

There's a jellyfish.

Is that your wife that does that?

There's a jellyfish on you, man. Jellyfish on you, man. Michael, you ever have a jellyfish on you?

Yes.

It stings, right?

Oh, yeah, you sting. I love the Amy Schumer bit on that. Which is like, apparently you're supposed to pee if someone's supposed to pee on you if you get a jellyfish sting. At least that's what the guy peeing on me told me.

That's good. That's good. You know who doesn't like jellyfish? It's our sponsors.

Oh, that makes sense.

So fund box, nextiva receipt bank. And right now we're going to give a special shout out to them right now because we promised them a special shout out. You know, that's our construction site.

Construction everywhere.

Here's the irony of today. Michael is in Vegas with a construction site going on. We are in Boonton and there's a municipal lot behind us and the construction equipment just pulled in. Write networks, they don't deal with construction equipment. Ironically, what they do do is they take your old apps, those ones that you love but are not cloud based, and they put it on the web for you. So I use all these different apps that I love that I've downloaded over the years, but I can't put them on the web and it becomes so Frustrating, you know, I want to work from home. I got to come back into the office real quick. No more Right Networks takes the old and makes it new again. So go to writenetworks.com not wrong networks, rightnetworks.com or you can call them on their special 800 number, which is actually not even 800. It's 888-41-74448. Extension number one. They still close. 800 numbers. Don't mock me. Don't mock me.

They're in the 800s.

You guys are a holes. You wanna know that?

You're the one who said it.

No, no, no.

His name is Michael o' Neill. Have you heard the Solopreneur Hour?

I have, yes.

Hold on. This is a total mess. It says right here. Oh, no, this is right. I'm looking at the wrong. No, they said Brian Kane. I mean, that's our producer. But you guys had in the right section. I read it wrong. He's monetized. He's monetized the Solopreneur Hour into six figures within six months. He doesn't believe in software recording. He's had over 8 million downloads in his. On his podcast since December 2016. And here's three things we asked every guest. Just tell us three things that are significant about you or unique that other people don't know so we can share them. Kind of like seed it during the show. We don't really usually read them off, but these are so impressive. I thought we'd start off the show by reading them. Now, a lot of people don't know Michael o' Neill can levitate. Oh, that's one thing. He's a professional yodeler.

Professional, yeah.

They make money. And he's great at telling dirty jokes. Michael, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks.

Appreciate that.

I didn't know any of those things about, so that's great. Yeah.

What are you doing in Vegas? Are you putting on a yodeling levitation dirty joke show?

I'm here levitating as we speak, actually, which is why you hear the construction sounds in the background and making sure I don't hit anybody. I'm here for two things. One was a conference for a company called Isagenix that I've been taking their shakes for, like, eight years, and I caught the tail end of that. And then I'm speaking at a conference called Amplify on Friday, which is. Yeah. Which is probably in the far distant past after this show was recorded. But I'm speaking at Amplify on the art of conferencing. Like how to conference better.

Oh.

Which is something that was. Yeah. Which was something that for me was really. I can really trace a lot of any success I've had to the relationships that I've had from meeting people at conferences and kind of doing it the right way. So I thought it was something that was underserved in the industry. So here we are.

Okay, so how do you make. If a conference is about a better conference, that must be the most amazing conference of all time.

No, the conference is not about a better conference. The conference is sort of your standard amp, you know, your standard entrepreneurial. You know, I think Lewis Howes is speaking and Russell Brunson is speaking, and they're going to do what you do. I know what I'm attempting to do is make sure the attendees get more out of the conference than they would otherwise.

Tell me more.

Yeah, yeah. How do you do that?

So I like to go in with intention. So that's kind of the first thing is walking into a conference and have a plan. So it's like, all right, I need these two questions answered this weekend. So have like an actual strategy for whatever those two questions are. So let's say you talk to 50 people over the course of the weekend. You have two questions, like, how do you convert more people to your mailing list? Or how do I, you know, what's your best way to set up a sales funnel? Whatever it is, if you ask those same questions to everybody you talk to, you're gonna have a pretty good idea of the best practice by the end of the weekend.

Oh, that's pretty cool.

So that's one of them. Another one is how to first of all introduce yourself and have a proper intro. Because we've all been places and I'm like, hey, what do you do? And it's 10 minutes later and I still don't have a clear idea of what they do yet.

Right.

So it's something my buddy Clay, a bear, talks about, which is the six word intro, which is typically you can break it down with I help blank doctor. Okay. So it's kind of like, what's interesting is it's a really sinister way of getting people to figure out their brand and sometimes getting that little distilled six word intro. And it doesn't have to be six words. It's just the idea takes months to get it right. So I can say something like, I help other unemployable people like myself build a business out of their hobbies and skill sets. That's what I can say about the Solopreneur Hour, because that's my intention for that show and what I do. So. But that summarizes it, and it gives people two or three things to latch onto within that context. So if I say unemployable, it's kind of funny. And people go, oh, dude, I'm totally unemployable, too. Then we've got a conversation. We're starting to establish rapport. I can talk about hobbies and skill sets, and a lot of times they go, well, how do you do that? I say, okay, well, you know how You've been a TV cameraman for 20 years or a producer, whatever. Facebook Live is the latest, greatest, and I could teach you how to build a business around something you already know how to do.

Hey, are you buddies?

So that's the gist.

Are you buddies with Chris Winfield?

I do not know that name.

Oh. So Chris Winfield put on a dinner, and I met Clay, which I thought his last name was pronounced Herbert, so now I feel embarrassed. But I met Clay there. And Todd Herman, I suspect you know Todd Herman.

Yep.

Okay.

Yep. I do.

I didn't see.

And by the way, I don't know if you. We know this about each other, but I grew up on LBi, so we.

Used to have a boat.

Yeah. So we used to have our boat docked in Beach Haven. And so I. I worked. I worked at Stefano's in Beach Haven, and my favorite restaurant I've ever worked is a place called Raymondo's in Ship Bottom. And it's insane, amazing Italian food. So I saw many, many of my former years there.

Wow. What years did you grow up there?

So we had our boat dock there in the late 80s, and then I was there pretty much 911 90. Actually, 90 through 97.

Okay.

So I would basically go there and work the summer every time. So I'd go to college and come back. Took me, apparently, seven years. I worked college and then come back to. To work at LBi for the summer and make a bunch of money and then go pay for college.

That's what I got, Jersey in your blood. That's why we like you.

Yeah. That's why you're so amazing. Right?

Oh, see, there you go.

Yeah. Best beach on the East Coast. I really believe that, too. Dude, you do podcasts like no one else. Like, I go on Facebook or Instagram, whatever. And then there's a picture of you with a microphone in hand on an airplane.

Yeah.

You see this, right? And I'm like, what the hell is this? Guy doing, like. And it's just the pictures are so engaging. I have to listen in.

Oh, see, that's nice of you.

Yeah, but you're a genius, man. How did you come up with these ideas?

I think it's a matter of. It's funny because if I actually had the gear that I brought plugged in, my sound would be so good on this show. I've got these nice microphones that have a ton of rejection. I don't know if you've heard of the Heil PR40, which is the. A lot of podcasters use that mic. I've got the portable versions, the handheld versions of that mic, which means that I can record pretty much anywhere, even if it's super loud and get great audio. So I try to. I try to make a practice of that and have a lot, you know, if I. If I'm with someone, we'll go, like, go to the lobby of the hotel and do a show because you got this great ambiance around. So I do that at conferences. I do it at conferences all the time. And I've done it in. So I've. I've done Plaincast a few times. I've done Pool Cast, where we recorded from a pool in the Philippines. I've done Beachcast. I've done a bunch of hotels, a lot of hotels. I've done Portiacast, where I recorded a show while I was driving my car from San Diego to la. And they say that texting is distracting. Try recording a podcast while you.

I don't have any laws against that. I mean, I haven't heard of any. Yeah, right. So it's totally legal to have a big microphone in your face blocking your vision. That's legit.

Right. But so anyway, it's fun. It's fun for me to. To do it. And then it takes a lot of the. You know how it's hard sometimes to coordinate everybody and you all have to be in the studio or whatever. It's just harder to do all that. So this is, you know, it's fun. It's fun. Good energy, you know, you put your.

Entire, like, life out there. I guess everything's on the. I know you play drums. I know you are a BMX guy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that fun?

I love to hear a little more about those, but I want to know, is that a strategy or that's just who you are in building your online Persona? Because he's a big deal, you guys. Like, he. He is the guy on the web, on. On the. In the podcast channels. Like, is that a strategy or that's just who you are?

I want to. If it's okay with you, after I answer this, I'd love to follow up the. The next. I have got five more little bullet points to help people conference better and I think it might be useful for everyone, so I'll start.

Oh, so you want to put us back on track is what you're saying?

No, not at all. But it's totally a strategy because my. So you guys have all seen Harry Met Sally, I hope, and if not, we're not friends. So the world famous diner scene, which is like the most famous scene of the movie, where he says, I can always tell if she fakes it and she goes and she puts on this performance. Do you guys remember the next thing that happens at the end of that scene?

I want what she's eating.

Exactly. I'll have what she's having.

I'll have what she's having.

So my. Since probably 2010, I latched onto this idea that if you want to have any success with social media, you have to act. It has to be less about buy my thing and more about I'll have what she's having or I'll have what he's having. So if I'm going to talk about how to build this solopreneur life of time freedom and financial freedom and location freedom, the best thing I can do is show people what that looks like when you're living it. So that's why I'm really agnostic about the kind of people I interview as long as they're solopreneurs, which means I can interview comedians and actors and athletes and real estate agents and network marketers or whatever. They all fit into that category. And I want to show people what it's like when you can just go, hey, you know what? I'm going to go to this conference and think of it the day before and then go, you know, or drive across the country with your brother and go check out the Grand Canyon, because you can. So that's always been the idea of the show and what I'm putting out there.

I do want to ask about those five bullet points. I do have another question, though. I think some people abuse that emulation mentality. I've seen info marketers that put on this air of extraordinary financial success. They drive up in the Bentley and they show off their house and yeah, I really, I really question authenticity. You know, I don't do any research behind the scenes, really question if that's legitimately them. But I know the motive, if it's legit or not, is they know they can sucker people in to believing they can have that lifestyle.

Right.

But I'm hearing something different from you. So it sounds like there's a flip side to this too, though. There's a dangerous side, I think.

Well, I think that you can, I think you can counter that by. I think Snapchat started helping and now I think Instagram Stories really helps with that because you can't fake. If you're gonna document what your day looks like, you can't really fake that. You could theoretically stage everything you do. It's easier for me to stage a, a video shoot or a photo, but it's not as easy to stage when I'm literally just like shooting these little 10 second videos throughout the course of the day.

Yeah.

So for me, it's like I want to. It's almost documentary style where you want to feel kind of what that person is doing and what they're seeing, but absolutely, it's rampant. And I've been to that guy's house you're talking about, and, and it's. I mean, I suppose at some point you can take a bunch of money, but I don't know, like, it's. I don't know what the sustainability is to that. You know what I mean? Right.

Yeah. Like, I, I think it's manipulative intent is. Oh, yeah, that's what.

And you're creating your Persona for that.

At some point you got to sleep.

That's what it is. You're creating a Persona artificially.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. And I know a couple of those people, by the way.

Yeah.

You know, I'm not close to them, but I, but I know them. And I'm like, man, that's a bummer. In fact, I've met people that I've seen out in the world and been. There was one guy who just surrounds him every time he goes somewhere, it's just like a circus. He's got people with him and there's a bodyguard and everyone's hoarding around him and he's got the latest 20 year old that he's dating and it's like this whole thing. And I ended up sitting next to him and we talked for a couple minutes and it was just. He did this, he did this, he did this. And I turned to him and I said, can you ever be alone? And he just like, almost like I punched him in the chest and he was just like. And he had no answer for that and he walked away. And the girl that he was dating says, we've been dating for four months. We've only had one single night that we were by ourselves.

That's weird.

It's super weird.

Yeah.

Super weird.

What is it like to be that guy?

So. And I promise you we'll get to your five bullet points. I gotta know about the flip. We got to keep flipping around here, dude. But your lifestyle, it's almost like. Not that I'm a voyeur, but maybe I am in your life. I know your girlfriend. I know your BMX tricks.

Cool.

I know you can kick Neil Peart's ass if you had to. Wow.

You even said his name right. That's amazing.

Yes, he is, amigo. I learned it from you.

Nobody knows how to say his name.

I learned it from you. It's not Pert, it's Peart.

So it's pure.

Yeah. Well, I'm a big. I'm a big Rush fan, so. I recently saw them in concert. And those guys are well, in their 60s now, literally. Oh, yeah, Alex. No, it wasn't Alex. One of them. I can't remember who was halfway through the concert. They say they play, like, something from moving pitchers and. All right, we gotta stop. We're in our 60s now. We need a break. And they just walked off stage. I was like, God bless them. Yeah.

That's so rad.

That was pretty cool. I know. And I stood up. That's the only time I stood up and applauded. I'm like, yes, I love that. Because I was too tired to stand up the rest of the concert. It was an awesome concert, but I know everything about you. Does that get weird? I mean, do people run into you street and say, oh, Michael, you know, I liked your wife's new. Your girlfriend's new dress, or, hey, it looks like you had a good time here. I mean, that must be kind of creepy.

I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I suppose it is the second side of that coin. I'm hearing myself in my ears. Are you guys hearing that?

No.

Is it just me?

No.

Okay, cool. Sorry. Yeah, that definitely happens. And I don't know, it's kind of cool. I think it's kind of cool. Like, I was just at this conference for a couple days, and five years ago at this conference, I had been doing all this social media training for this company, so it was hard for me to get through a room. You know, it was. But it was super fun because of it. I got to have a million conversations and I love that. I don't know. I just. I don't feel like I have an.

Overly uber fan come up to you. Do you have some story about that? Like, some uber fan comes up to you and it's like, it's a little bit creepy.

I've had that happen a couple times. Yeah, but what's actually funnier. What's. What's funnier is someone says, what do you do?

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Keep telling the story.

What they've said before is they're like, hey, what do you do? And I say, I'm a podcaster. I'll introduce myself. Hey, I'm Michael o' Neill. Blah, blah. And what do you do? I'm a podcaster. And then we'll talk for a few minutes. And five minutes into it, they're like, well, so what's your podcast? I'm like, it's called the Solopreneur. They look at me, stop twice this has happened. They stop and go, wait, you're Michael o' Neill? I'm like, yeah, I said that. We talked about that five minutes ago. And then they pull out their phone and go, I totally subscribe to your show. So that's happened a couple times and been fun. I don't know that I think it's different for dudes. We don't. You know what I mean? It's like, our creepy is usually flattering. It's usually someone who's just been like, I know. Why do you actually. You know what's really funny is I had a BMX story from that, which was I had a dude that was hanging around with myself and John Lee Dumas, who's a entrepreneur on fire at a conference.

Dude, I did call him Jalood on the air because I go pair people's initials. So jld, he's like, hey, it's jld. I'm like, oh, that's Jalood. So the rest of the show is Jalood. Keep going.

MTO is what mine is. And that's your name, too.

Hey, Motto. Oh, I like motto. What's up, Motto.

Anyway, so he. This guy says, will you come and be. This guy followed us around the whole conference. Like, he was just all around the whole conference. Like, you know, it's not that we couldn't shake him, but he was pretty much always there and super cool dude. And it was just like, all right, I guess we're hanging out with this guy today, and he says, will you come on my show? And I Missed our first appointment. And then I didn't go to his studio, and we sort of did it on Skype, even though he lives 10 minutes from me. And so we did the show, and I put it out there on social media. I promoted it. And my buddy Jeff, who's in Yardley, Pennsylvania, says, dude, is that. And he says the guy's name, and I go, how do I know that name? He goes, dude, he was, like, on the GT freestyle team with Martin and Eddie. Like, so growing up as a BMXer, he was on the same team as these legends that I knew. I was like, holy crap, I forgot about that. And so then I had him on my show and we talked about BMX and all this stuff, but it had a happy ending is the point.

It had a happy ending. Do tell, sir. So, no, that was the creep factor. I just tried. So, dude, I have. This is true. Two people have tattooed themselves with tpe. That was Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.

Really?

Two women, but. But not creepy. Like, creepy if they put my face on them. That's creepy.

Yeah.

But still odd, though.

But they're like. They're like. That book was life changing to me. I'm like, really? That's kind of a weird thing to tattoo.

Yeah.

And then what do you. How do you explain it? Like, 20 years old. Maybe the weird thing is a reflection.

At least it was just initials and not, like, a toilet paper roll.

Yeah. Could you imagine?

Yeah, I am imagining.

It's hard.

It's weird.

Slow down, slow down.

That's good. So, all right, let's get to your five tips, because you got these five bullet points on making a conference better. Where are they?

Well, I think it matters because so few people sort of take it seriously. You know what I mean? Like, they don't realize how much. How difficult it is to get all these people in one room, especially when it's quote, unquote, influencers and you have a chance to really have a conversation with them. It's a really big deal. And you can really, like. I can literally trace back. I can trace most of my success back to me writing an email to pat flynn in 2010. Like, and just. And then an introduction from there to, I think, Amy Porterfield, who then introduced me to. I think I met John Lee Dumas, who then introduced me to Nick Unsworth and Natalie Sisson and Chris Ducker and all these people that I know now because of this kind of one thing. And I sat down with Pat at a conference in 2011, I think. So it's crazy what can happen. So, anyway, we got seven things, and I already said, have two distinct questions about your business you'd like to have answered this weekend. So, like, have those things at the ready, and then have your intro ready. And here's the other thing I think is really important is to get an intro partner. So what I'll have people do when I speak is I'll have people pair up. And then what you do is typically, if you meet somebody and you're at a conference with them, you'll kind of go around to the different events together. You know what I mean? You might go into the lobby together and you're hanging out. You might grab lunch, you might do whatever, have that intro partner know how to introduce you. And this is where this whole thing came from, because I ended up making a course called Conference Topia. That's all. It's conference topia.com. it's free. And someone last year at this very conference I'm going to was introducing me to this big influencer guy, and she was just like, hey, this is my friend Mike. And that was it. Which leaves all the heavy lifting on me to try to go, oh, yeah. And I have this podcast. I have this thing. I'm doing this. You know, he has this tattoo of.

Your name on his shoulder.

So have. Have someone. If I was introducing, you know, if I was hanging around with Mike at a conference, I'd be like, hey, this is my buddy Mike. He wrote this great bestseller book, a number of bestseller books, but my favorite is Profit first and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And give people context about who that person is.

Yeah.

And that. That gives you so much more leverage and not leverage. Like, you're really trying to take advantage of everybody, but it's a lot less work for you. It's just a party. Right.

It is more natural. Michael, do you make that deliberate? Meaning? Do you say, hey, you're my wing introduction partner. Could you please introduce these people?

That's right.

Okay.

Yeah. These are the two or three things that, if we happen to introduce each other throughout the course of the weekend, this is what I would like to do. Like, I was sitting at a table, and there's a guy named Shawn Stevenson who's this great trainer. Do you know Sean? He's in a wheelchair.

He's just. I got to tell you a story about Sean.

Oh, rad.

All right.

Yeah, go for it.

So I'm with Sean. This is about five years ago. Sean is three feet tall, maybe, Michael.

Yeah, okay. Something like that.

He has a hereditary disease that's caused deformity in his arms, legs, somewhat facially. The sweetest guy with a dirty mouth, really. And he's effing hysterical. I'm at a conference in at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and there's 100 people there. Sean Stevens. Sean's the speaker. He goes, and we're on the second floor of this thing. This is when the Michael Jackson thing broke out, when he had one of his babies and held the babies out. He goes, someone quickly put a blanket over my head. And they're like, why? He's like, hold me over the thing. And so. And Sean used to travel with his father. He subsequently gotten married, but he used to travel with his father as a caregiver because he's not that mobile. And his father's like, no, no, don't do it. And someone starts picking him up with this thing over his head. It was the funniest thing I've seen in my life. He is funny. So keep going about Sean Stephenson. I love the man.

Anyway, I wanted to meet him and we were all at a big table, lunch table. And so instead of just me going, hey, I'm Michael, blah, blah, I talked to my buddy Peter, who was sitting next to Sean. I go, hey, man, will you give me an intro to Sean? And so then he introduced us. And it was such a better flow, you know what I mean? There's just this third party validation that happens that's so much easier. So have an intro partner. And then I have a technique called the form method. If you are a shy person or if you have any anxiety around talking to people at a party or something like that, I do. You can use this method as just a general framework. And it stands for family, occupation, recreation, motivation, so F O R M. And so what you could say is, I could hear you talking about LBi and go, wow, you take your family there all the time. You could say, oh yeah, blah, blah, great. And then could you get the time off of work? Or what are you doing while you're there? And you're like, oh, no, I'm an author. I do this, I do the podcast, blah, blah, great. And then what do you do for fun there? What's fun happening there? And then maybe, why do you do it? Or why are you involved in the thing you're in? And it gives you. They say it takes five connecting points to establish rapport. So having a form to, well, a kind of an outline to follow as you're having these conversations takes a little bit of the anxiety off of small Talk, you know, because ideally you get this info and you latch onto a couple things and then you can sort of dig down and go, holy crap, I didn't know you went to LBi. Where do you go? What beach? You know?

Yeah.

Then you're kind of in the conversation.

What does the M stand for? I missed the M. Motivation.

So why, like, why are you doing what you're doing or. That's a little bit of a deeper question. And it's not my favorite question. My favorite question of all time. You can't lead with this, but I'll ask you this right now. Mike Michalowicz, what did your childhood smell like?

Oh, smell like.

Yeah, go for it.

Blueberries. And I'm about to cry.

You're looking up to the left right now, but tell me more.

This is getting weird. So who's the Boyer now? I know exactly. What are you doing, you creep? So we used to go to Maine, the blueberry capital. I think of the world. And my father's best friend, who subsequently, sadly, has passed away, had a farm in Maine. And one of my favorite moments was it was an 80 acre farm. I was maybe 11 years old and I would just run out in the farm. They had a golden retriever dog. It was their dog. And I just chased this dog around. No parents known around. And there was blueberry field, wild blueberries. And I would just sit in the blueberry bush, is just eating blueberries, playing with his dog. And I spent like six hours out there. It was like the best time of my life. And now I'm looking to the right.

So here's what's cool about that question. Make him feel good. No one ever answers that question without a story. Oh, cool. So when someone says. Because you started with blueberries. And I just didn't really say anything. And you went into. But from that one little story you told, I could extrapolate a whole lot about you. You know what I mean? I could tell you probably came from the northeast, you loved pets, you liked playing outdoors, you were probably close to your family. At least you were taking family vacations with them. Like, I have an idea of sort of what's the guy who did the New Yorker covers. Remember, like that sort of Americana lifestyle, 70s and 80s kind of vibe. So I would probably be able to extrapolate that into, oh, wow, so are you from the Northeast? And then start digging into some of that. Eventually all things lead back to LBi. We would have talked about that.

Yeah, exactly.

So three quick other ones and I'm out of it. So the magic happens at the bar. So sleep when you're dead. I know a lot of people that are like, oh, God, I'm too tired. I'm gonna go to bed at 8:00. I'm like, this is not the time to do it. Do that. Okay, It's. I will name drop a little bit. I had breakfast with Larry King again the other day.

I saw the pic, I saw the picture.

Yeah, he's looking pretty.

Pretty, not ripped.

Yeah, that's right. We were talking about, you know, sales or just getting to know people, establishing relationships. And he's like, in my day, you better learn to play golf. Right? That's just what it was. You just better learn. You better learn to golf. Because that's where all the business happened. And at a conference. It happens at the bar. Everyone's at the bar. At the party, after the conference. And that's when you, you know, really make friends.

Let me ask you, when you go into the bar and you arrive and you see everyone engaged in conversation, I feel really awkward to be the guy that kind of stands up and stands next to two people already talking and like, kind of tries to peek in. Hey. And they're like, trying to ignore you almost, or it's very awkward. How do you break into the bar scene when you're the. You're not there with anyone else.

When you're a Hill loader, it is almost Mike, as if you are looking at my list and saying, what's number six? Mike? Which is body language around other people. So if you and I are so. And this is what I would. You can't guarantee that people are gonna know how to do this. But when you get around people that are that kind of get it, you know, like, let's say you were talking to Jack Canfield or something, and someone stood sort of to. Jack Canfield's right behind his shoulder. Jack would take one step to the left and he would rotate right to open up the conversation to you.

Yes.

Because he's been to thousands of conferences. He knows that there's no way he's gonna have this super private one on one conversation at a bar after a conference.

Right.

So he has to take the. We all have to be responsible for paying attention to the world around us. And if there is somebody that's sort of awkwardly hovering, which is what I did yesterday at this little event, like, I didn't know anybody, and no one's opening up the conversation to me. And this just. It just, you know, it made me recognize how Important this particular piece is, which is like, you gotta. You gotta include. Gotta be inclusive to people. So there's no. It's harder when you're the outsider and they're not doing that, you know?

Yeah.

Other than. Yeah, other than eavesdropping and being. Oh, yeah, Senator said that to me last week.

Yeah, right. The awkward. Yeah. Oh, I recognize that. Is there a secret to breaking in? If you're. If they don't get it, they're not being the includers. Is there a way to break in or is that where you just kind of cut bait?

You know, maybe I'll try it this weekend. But what I might do is say, hey, guys. I don't literally just tap them on the shoulder and feel like, hey, I don't want to interrupt, but I'd love to chat with you guys or something. You know what I mean? Like, just be super vulnerable about it and maybe it lands. But. Yeah, I wonder if you did the question.

Hey, guys, this is so weird. I really don't know anyone here and I just kind of overheard your conversation. I'd love just to be part of it. Do you mind if I cling? I wouldn't.

Yeah, I think that's probably the way to do it.

Yeah.

Anyway, and then finally, and this is the part I think that most people forget about is literally on your calendar, just like you would when you're doing your allocations for the month or twice a month schedule a a day or a couple hours where you follow up with the business cards and the emails and stuff like that. So you'll collect a bunch of cards in context during the conference. Literally put on your calendar before you go to the conference. I'm going to follow up with everybody on this day. And then you have a plan for that. So you've got business cards. And how you follow up is up to you, but at least have an idea of when you're going to follow up. And then you'll follow up. And the fortune's in the follow up, as they say.

It totally is. I want to add a tip too. Maybe you can use it in your presentation. I don't know if it's a good one, but this is what I do. I noticed, like, when you speak, you're speaking tomorrow, Mike.

Friday.

Yeah, tomorrow. So, Michael, you're going up there tomorrow on stage, I suspect before you speak, like the 20 minutes before, no one will talk to you. You kind of get. You're getting in your mode a little bit, but, like, people are just kind of gathering in and talking to each other. The second you finish speaking, the entire audience comes up and trying to talk to you and tell their stories and so forth. I found when it comes to speaker, do not try to talk to him after speech. Try to talk to him prior to speech and basically go up. What I do is I go up and say, hey, I know you're speaking a few minutes and you're maybe getting in the zone. I just wanted to introduce myself because I'm a big fan of your work. Would it be okay if we talk later on? Or I can learn more about you? Can I get your card now? And some people love that idea. Let's talk now. Others say, yeah, thanks, and then grab a cup of coffee. So that's what works for me.

I love that idea. One of the. In the. In the main course, in the main conference topia, I say the best time to connect with a speaker is before the conference, like via Twitter or email or whatever. And then, you know, then you'll get a chance to connect with them and say, hey, I would love to shake your hand at the conference. But, like, right after they get off stage is a toughie, right?

Yeah.

So you do a lot of public speaking. You had the most embarrassing moment on stage or anything like that?

Oh, dude. Oh, yes, absolutely. Like, very much at the. At the ready. So I was probably speaking of drinking at conferences, was with a buddy of mine who's a dentist and a guy. This is a guy that's made millions and millions and millions of dollars becoming really an entrepreneur around the dental industry, has really done amazing stuff. But he has these conferences where he essentially upsells people into his mastermind. He's got, like, a $20,000 mastermind that he sells people into and does really well. He says, dude, we're having a couple drinks in San Diego. And he goes, dude, will you emcee my conference? And I love this guy. And I was like, dude, totally. Well, it came time to pay the piper, like, six months later, and he's like, yeah, come down. He flew me down to Phoenix and got me the hotel. And so I get to the stage, and first of all, there's no reference monitor. Okay? So there's. So for speakers, it's great to, like, right in front of the stage, they typically have a monitor right there so that you can see how much time you have left. If you have slides, you can see what the slides are, that kind of thing. There was no reference monitor, so I knew that I had to intro, like, 11 dentists over the course of two days.

Well, every last name ends with steam. That's the one, Ruben.

Well, they're all. They all have super specific skill sets, and they're all like these long, like, you know, this guy is an orthopedic. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. With this, like, has all these long things. And so before the conference, I went around, I said, let's have a little cocktail hour, Mark. And I'm. I'm want to get to. I want to get to know these guys. I'm going to jot down some notes about them. Just things that people maybe don't know about them or whatever.

That's cool.

So I did that. I made myself my little cheat sheet. And then I decided just at the last minute, you know what? I'm going to print these out. No. Just because I didn't know. Reference monitor. So I went to the business center, I printed them out, and the only thing I could do is stick them, like, literally with tape to the front of the front tables. So I've got, like, these nine sheets stuck to the. The cloth of the front tables, right? And so I'm doing fine. Doing fine. We get after lunch, and I have to, you know, I have to bring this guy on stage. I talk to him. I said, man, I'll bring you up in a minute. And I get on stage, and, dude, I. If you had pulled the trigger, if you had had a gun to my head, I could not remember this guy's name to save my.

The ultimate punch. Yeah, that sucks.

And I. I was like. I mean, I flop. I didn't even. I've never known what flop sweat was. And I learned what flop sweat was like. I mean, full red. Full sweat. And what I did is I stalled for a minute. I said, you know, it's really great for Mark to have us here. And I'm pacing around stage and I'm trying to read my papers that are stuck to the front of these tables. From a distance, the font is too small. The font's too small, and I can't quite see the guy. And finally, after probably 90 horrifyingly long seconds, I find the guy's name. Because I really literally had to walk to the front of the thing and say, oh, my God. And I got it. And I got him on stage, and Mark said, hey, man, thanks so much. Like, nobody had any idea.

Good recovery.

And I was. I mean, drenched. It was terrible.

Yeah.

Yeah, thankfully. Well, here's what's crazy, is if that had happened today, I've got a lot more under my belt since Then. And I would have been like, hey, you know what, guys? I gotta bring a guy up. And I completely 100% forgot his name. Hang on. And I'd bring him up and just grab the piece of paper, and I would. I would own it, you know?

Yeah. That's what I do. I just own my own. Everyone. It's called the Solopreneur Hour with Michael o' Neill. It's a. It's a podcast you got to access. Actually, you probably already have, because 6 million down, 8 million downloads. And if you haven't yet, well, you're living under a rock, so go pick it up, Michael. Where else should they get stuff about you, learn about you, all that stuff?

I'm loving Instagram, so Solo Hour. And if they can't spell, nobody can spell Preneur. So they can also just go to SoloHour.com. but, yeah, that's cool. And then I have a new. For one of my little hobbies, which is, like, audio nerd stuff. I just started a new podcast called Beginner Audiophile, and it's super fun, so I've been doing that too. So if you guys want to experience music in the way it was intended, have a listen to that one. That's pretty fun, too.

Guys, I'm telling you, no more Pandora, no Spotify.

I said no more Pandora. No more Spotify.

Yeah, I'm with you guys. Michael o' Neill, my favorite podcaster, I swear to you, my favorite podcaster. So much fun. So intelligent, too. Just, you gotta listen to stuff. Michael, thanks for joining us, and be safe out there in your construction site.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Hey, we did really well with construction beeps this whole time.

We did. We did.

I hear one in the distance. But when we started, the guy was like, six feet for me, so it worked out great. Thanks, guys. Always a pledge, and we'll see you on the other side. By the way, Mike, love the revamp and love the book. I mean, you know this already, but I will tell you unequivocally, I was so happy that you exist in the universe during tax time, because I was able to just like, painfully but freely write a check or, you know, in my case, electronically transfer all my tax money to the irs. And it was already there, and I didn't have to worry about it at all.

So thank you. If you're wearing your hard hat right now in that construction site, I am. Just visualize this. I have an Indian headdress on. I'm running. I'm hugging you and kissing you, and we break into YMCA together. Thank you.

Here we go. Here we go. Yeah.

All right, we'll see you right away.

Thanks, Michael.

Bye.

Thanks, ladies. Thanks. Gentleman.

I do love him. He is.

Oh, he's great.

He is just an affable, approachable, real guy. Wildly successful. Being the real deal. I mean, just being himself.

And that's why he's successful.

That's why successful. Yeah. And if there's anyone that deserves it, it's Michael o' Neill. It's Jalood. There's just some people I just, like. I'm so happy they're successful in all aspects of life.

Yeah.

Because they are so successful in all aspects of life. I know some people are, like, really rich, but. And deserve it because of what they did. But they're not encompassing all success, so I don't feel like rah rah for them.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay. Michael, Neal, just.

We feel rah rah for him.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Rah rah. So here's the deal, Leo. We're going to share what we learned, of course, and we'll do our big, you know, outro music, and everyone's gonna get pumped up. We know that's coming. The one thing you may not know is coming right now is this.

Oh, I think they probably knew.

You gave me the. The. You're like, let's just throw my head jerk. All right. Like, you just did. Like, that music just blew your head.

I know.

It does it to me every time.

No, that was just cute of you. You're like, let's do this for Mike. Here's the thing. You don't know. You know what we did?

What?

We went to the Habitat of Humanity.

Oh, yeah, we did. Yeah.

And I was really impressed by everyone's work ethic. So I just want to give you guys shout outs. Christina, you worked your ass off there. There was no BSing around. And here's the part that impressed me. We were moving scaffolding. I've never done in my life. Have you ever moved scaffolding?

Yeah.

Oh, you have?

Well, I did something similar to Kentucky, and we were doing siding there, too.

Okay, so you have some experience. I never have. These are big, heavy pieces, and they need someone to move it. And Christina's like, oh, this is how you do it. She goes under it, and that's all that work out of the gym. She squats this stuff.

She was grunting the whole time.

She was. I'm trying to pick it up. I'm like, how do you get leverage? She's like, just like, this and then she walks and puts it down. And I was really impressed by your work ethic. No bullshit, you too. Here's what impressed me about Kelsey. Shutdown time was 3:30. Ish. I think.

See, I didn't even realize that was happening.

I think you did, because everyone's like, kelsey, are you done? And you're like, you're. You're putting up studs.

Yeah.

And I think it was 4, 4:30. When finally he's like, we gotta go. It's getting dark. And you're like, your work ethic. You were not gonna stop.

Yeah, I had no idea. I had no idea what time.

But you were not gonna stop. You were so committed to making this successful for the family that's gonna move in there. I mean, everyone was the. The interns.

Yeah.

And she was trying to carry one of the pieces of scaffolding down the stairs by herself. And I was like, okay, don't be a hero.

Izzy's like 80 pounds and, like 4 inches tall.

Yeah.

And she's. She. She's reaching up to the highest point. Unbelievable. Yeah. She's the ultimate. And putting stuff in. Ron, who can be a little bit of a prima donna, working his.

He worked his butt off too.

He is swings. Blood coming out of his hands. He's like, I am not stopping.

You knew he was serious, but he didn't have gel in his hair. No gel in his hair.

I do really like that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

Can we talk about Jake? So Jake has a fear of heights. This is Mike's son has a fear of heights. In the beginning, he was like, oh, yeah. Actually deathly afraid of heights. And he was at the highest level of the scaffolding. So this is three floors high. Yeah, three levels of the building high. So it was multiple levels of scaffolding high.

Yeah. And he's having 10ft. So 30ft up in the air. Yeah.

On like, two planks of wood.

Yeah, on two planks without a brace. Like the bracing system.

We have enough leftover, no siding.

Yeah.

I was impressed with him too.

Yeah. Everyone impressed me. That was an amazing event. So that's why I wanted to shout to you guys. I was really.

Yeah, shout out to you too, for letting us and for working so hard.

That was fun. Yeah. That was a great day. I want to do that again.

Yeah.

Okay. Now we'll thank our corporate partners. These are other people I want to give a shout out to because they are supporting our organization for sure. So fund box is a cash flow accelerator. They're going to be at profitcon which, when this airs. Oh, my God. Did you miss the event of the century? I'm sure did. So, you know our goal is 150 tickets.

Yeah.

Boom. 125 tickets. As of this recording over a month ago, I think we're about 125 tickets, right? Yes, roughly. And you saw one yesterday. You hit the gun.

Yeah, I hit the gong.

Yes. Yeah. You missed it.

I did.

You missed it.

I hit it twice yesterday.

Yeah.

She got the sponsor receipt bank.

Yeah.

We had to, you know, to finalize the deals, they gotta get the check in, and Bing got the check in. Christina's the one who made sure that came through.

Fell on my face.

Nice work.

And talking about receipt bank, they stepped up to the highest level of sponsorship. Why? Because they love working with entrepreneurs. They have the system that you can scan in all those receipts you get, and it connects to your accounting system, takes care of everything automatically. Fundbox, like I said, it's a cash flow accelerator. And. Excuse me. Get so excited. Nextiva's gonna be there. Nextiva, voiceover IP phone system. Honestly, the ultimate supporter of organization. I call up Yaniv over there, I say, hey, Yaniv, we're doing profitcon. He's like, how much? Right? But he's almost like saying, like, kiddingly. I'm like. He's like, mike, you know, we're in. He's like, just tell me how much. He's like, we're. We love your organization. We love the people. So next to you is in and between them and. Right. Networks and I think two other people. QX Limited.

Yeah. And Heartland.

And Heartland all stepped up. ProfitCon is covered. It's expensive to put an event on. Oh, yeah, they covered the event, and that's a beautiful thing. So we can really have an amazing event. We got. So what happened? The. The giveaways we have are the best ever.

So great.

The best ever. By now we can share wine glasses there.

We got engraved wine glasses. We have. We upped our game with the tote bag this year. Gorgeous tote bags.

You ever notice every conference you go to, the tote bags are these. They're throwaways, quite frankly. It's glorified plastic.

Yeah.

Not this year.

You know, these were like, I want. I want to take them all home.

We got extra. I upped it at 250, so you guys can get some extra if you want.

That's what Ron was complaining about this morning.

Yeah. Yeah. He was like, you spent this much? I was like, you were the one that told me to get you know to step it up with the giveaways this year. So yes, that's keep our people happy.

Yeah, Yeah. I love when Juan gets fired up. And then last company is right Networks. I talked about them already. They're amazing. They take that old antiquated software that's working so well for you, but you can't do anything with it because it doesn't go on the web. They figure out figured out how to put on the web and they'll do it for you. So go to rightnetworks.com give them a call. 888-417-4448, extension one if you prefer that way. Or it's go to right networks and get that software that works for you, but now webinaze it.

That's my homework webinar.

All right. What'd you guys learn from Michael o' Neill today?

I have a page. I don't even know where to start.

Yeah, that was fun.

Do you want to go first, Kels?

Sure. I would say my biggest takeaway. I feel like the form method was my biggest takeaway. I think I love talking to people in new environments, but I don't always know what to say and I feel like more often than not I'm just awkward. So I think this is a good, you know, mindset I can go into. I have a set method I can approach it with. And this six word intro is pretty cool too. Although I have no idea what mine would be.

Your six word.

Well, you think about it. Yeah.

I usually have the word love in it and it's jewelry. Like I make jewelry that expresses love. I don't know. That's not it. But there's something I think like that. I don't know. I don't know. What do you got?

This is just a recurring theme I think that I'm noticing on our show lately is just to be a freaking genuine person.

Yeah.

Just go out there, enjoy your day. Stop trying to pretend to be someone else. Try and sell your product. Just be you put your true intentions in it. Go about your day and good things will come back to you. What you release in the universe will come back. I truly believe that. And Michael is a prime example of that.

Yeah, there's no question about it. I. For me, it was the two questions. Like have two questions ready to go at all times or were there the big two questions you want answered and you ask them person after person after person and you run basically a survey. I thought that was cool. Buy a heel PL40. You know, that's the microphones we use here. Oh, they say heil not a heel.

The only reason I remember is because of our talk about one of our members last name.

Oh, Heil. And I got all fired up. Yeah. Was that so funny? So I. Ingrid Heilke is one of our members. And I said, everyone's pronouncing it Helki, right? I'm like, it's not Helki, guys. I found out it's Heil key. And Mike, the Hawaiian lumberjack goes, oh, you mean like heel key? And you, Kelsey, goes, absolutely not like heel key. It's actually Heil key. So that's funny. So I didn't realize it's Heil PL40. And that's spelled. We have right here. H E I L. So I want to get one of those microphones for when I'm on the road. And then the. I'll have what she's having.

Yes, yes.

What insight.

Yeah.

Just put so much of your true self out there, Right? Because we were talking about the first that people are just like, I want that. And that's.

I don't think people want that. If I put my true self out there.

If you put your shoe. What do you mean?

Yeah, Like, I don't really think there's something to emulate so much.

Oh, shame on you.

Yeah.

Shame on you, madam.

Yeah.

Are you kidding me? No.

But you know that Your personality shows 100% in your jewelry and what you do.

You are the most loving person, literally, on this planet. Do you know that?

No, I don't really think I know that.

Oh, my God.

Well, now you.

We gotta work her over.

Yeah, we do.

Yeah, we do. I don't know. Did you punch that into her? Like, how do you. How do you get to teach someone that with love? Yeah, we love it. Start beating. No, but you really, you gotta know this. You are. You are literally the most loving person on the planet.

Thank you.

I really think so. And you're welcome. And you got to keep putting that. Well, I think people aspire to have.

That, like, positive energy out there.

You brought something new to this office.

Yeah.

That has uplifted our office. Oh, no. Seriously. And just keeping it out there. And that's true for every person here. Everyone's brought a personality that. The more they put it out there, I think it's aspirational.

Oh, yeah.

And you know, that's true for Christina. It's true for you. It's true. It's true for Ron. It's even true for me. You know, Ron and I. You guys see Sometimes we go toe to toe on things. I love that guy. I think he is extraordinary. And I think the common theme is everyone has a gold golden heart here.

Yeah.

Expresses different ways, but I think you're the mama bear golden heart. So bring it. It's very aspirational.

Thank you. Okay, I will bring it.

No more of that talk.

Yeah, no more. No more. All right, so that was so exciting. No, we gotta get out of here. That's what we gotta do. That was so inspirational. We gotta get out of here.

The magic happens at the bar.

Let's hit the bar now. All right. Bring it to me, Christina.

Yeah. So wherever you're listening to us, post ratings, give us a comment, tell us what you took away from this episode and from Michael. Go on itunes, any podcaster, stitcher, Google Play, and Of course, profit.profitfirstpodcast.com.

Yeah, and you can visit us on Profit first Professionals. You know, our organization drives profit in your business. We do it through our members. They are accountants, bookkeepers, and coaches who've become certified in profit first. So go to profitfirstprofessionals.com right now. Click on the find button, and we'll hook up with one of our Profit first professionals. But here's the big call of action, or call to action I want to give you today. Go to solopreneur Out Hour, that podcast. Listen, I love our podcast. I hope you love it. Solopreneur hour is my favorite. That's the one I like to listen to. So why don't you hop over there, go to solopreneur hour, listen to what Michael o' Neill's doing, and have the time of your life. All right, I'll catch you guys later.

Bye.

Bye. It.