Proximity Pays: Why the Right Room Changes Everything

All right, this is a fun one. So before Facebook, before MySpace, before any of that social media stuff existed, there's a guy who built the original social network and raised $75 million. He grew from 3 people to 400 and then lost it during the dot-com crash. But instead of crawling into a hole, he turned around and built one of the most powerful digital marketing agencies around. He was working with legends like Brian Tracy, Jack Canfield, Phil Town, and other experts in helping them build empires. What he's here to talk about today is something that I think is really, really cool. One of the hardest things in the world to do is building communities that actually work, and those are real thriving relationship-based business communities that scale. And this is one of the masters of scale that I know, Eric Berman. So hey brother, good to see you.

Wow, thank you. Great to see you. Glad you're back in town. It's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me on today.

So to give everyone a little bit of context here before we get into it, um, you and I originally met— was it before— did you introduce me to Brian Tracy? But we met through, uh, a series of business relationships back when we started the original Speakeasy Mastermind, right? And back then we didn't call it that.

That's right, it was the San Diego Downtown Mastermind Group or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, something very original.

But that's the way, and I talk about you all the time now because I shared the story of that first meeting, you know, that we had with you, John Assaraf, Darren Hardy, and kind of like the initial foundation of what has now grown, which I'm sure we'll get into. But yeah, that was probably, gosh, I keep trying to do the math, maybe almost 20 years ago, 18, 19 years ago, it seems like now.

Yeah, yeah, it is forever ago. And from there, we just had a natural sync. And our original mastermind that we put together way back then, we had, um, Darren Hardy, John Assaraf, Bob Serling, you, um, Stephen Cox. Who else started, uh, joining and attending those?

I think Greg Habsfrit was an early member. Greg, um, we had— and then just get back. I mean, this—

okay, yeah, this, this might be boring. Some of you don't know these names, but It was in the earlier days of early online marketing and we got together and just shared everything. It ended up being a support group, a mastermind group. In addition to us running our own businesses, we would oftentimes bring in really interesting guests and it turned into some of the foundational work. I know, let's see, Dan who wrote Buy Your Time Back attended one of our events later on.

Yeah, Dan Martell was there. He's a big fan. Yeah. By.

Yeah, yeah. So it, it turned into a beautiful boiling pot of, uh, brilliant people. And then once the big marketers started moving to San Diego, a lot of them came and attended events as well. So, um, so then let's, uh, we'll go back and forth. I, you know, we always time travel when we're ever together. I want to ask you, first of all, you decided, along with Glenn Ledwell to really take this and turn it into a franchisable concept. So, why don't you talk a little bit about what the Speakeasy Mastermind is, what it represents, and the pain that it eliminates for business owners?

Yeah. So, no, thanks. It's funny. We went back and as I was looking into running an agency and kind of having my head sore, my body aches and sore from running an agency, hitting my head against the wall, it's like looking into the future, what's next? What is going to be my next act, as you teach and do such a good job of? And I think what we find sometimes as leaders, shit that we're really good at seems easy to us, and we don't realize we actually have a natural skill, and others do, and they look at it and say, wow. And I think part of, you know, me walking in, I mean, I mean, just to share, you know, some vulnerability, you know, we had our first meetings with you and John and others, you know, I'm like, definite imposter syndrome. I'm like, what am I doing in the room here with these brilliant guys over here? And, you know, and I quickly learned over time that the value I was providing— sure, there were shares and learns and all that, not, not at the marketing chops of somebody like yourself, or, you know, I wasn't a guy like Asraf sitting on stages— but other ways to contribute, including just wrangling entrepreneurs and facilitating and keeping a good, good community going and always making sure there's value every time, in itself is a skill that I never really understood. And I only got credit— I kind of learned over time to take credit for that. Because it seemed natural. But, you know, struggling with the agency side, what is next after, you know, I mean, how many times did we have guests show up and they're like, when are you going to do this in my city? Like, this is amazing. And I think after about the 10th time of hearing that, and when you start to mentally decide maybe I need to start thinking about what my next act is, you go back and say, well, wait a second, what's easy? And as Joe Polish teaches, what's ELF? What's easy, lucrative, fun, potentially? Well, it was easy, it was fun for me. I didn't know if it was lucrative yet. So that L was kind of missing, and I think from there I said, "All right, well, I think I can get this model. Let me run some numbers." And it doesn't take long to go beyond a spreadsheet and say, "All right, well, if you can build this many chapters in this many cities at this kind of price point, wow, numbers actually could be quite interesting." And then the devil's in the details of how to go about and do that. I mean, it was like, "Okay, how do we take this concept and go into all these cities?" And, you know, as we talk now, you know, we're at 26 different cities now in about Shit, took about 3 years to get there in various formats. And it's— and but there's so much we've learned, so many mistakes, and, and we're off building this, you know, not quite a franchise but more of a— more like, like a franchise model where we do share, um, revenue with our city captains, our city, city leaders we call captains. But yeah.

Yep. And just to put this in perspective, the typical structure and format of this and the value Like when we first started out and all of us contributed thinking, you know, like, how can we make a super valuable mastermind experience that encourages people to keep continue coming back? And what I remember of it is we'd have usually some sort of a lead share that would be, uh, uh, kind of like a headline topic that, um, someone would come in and deliver. And then there would be, um, we'd all share some big wins some big asks, but also some sort of a contribution that everyone could benefit from. And going back to giving you some credit where credit's due, one of the things that you are always doing is taking impeccable notes and minutes from the meeting. So, you know, when you'd walk away from there, you'd go, God, I know that was a good meeting, but I don't remember why. And then boom, here would come Eric's, uh, follow-up, follow-through, and also the commitments that were made and making sure everyone fulfilled their commitments, which again, it's easy to say that isn't what matters, but it's the only thing that matters at the end of the day. Otherwise, you just got a bunch of bumpkins showing up who are good at talking, bad at remembering, and even worse at following through and following up on their promises. They all walk in with the best of intentions, but you turn the intentions into breakthroughs and takeaways. You gotta keep that as the headline. That'll be a good one for you.

Yeah, no, thank you. And that's exactly right. And it's funny what you said, that's almost exactly what we model now. It's really that combination of, hey, let's get together, break bread, let's have the discussion topics on what's hot. Clearly AI is dominating almost every meeting now these days or some form of that. Yeah. And other things too, of course. Roundtables, let's all share what's working and hot seats. You know, who's got an issue, who wants it? And part of what's great about community, and I'm such a big proponent of community now where I'm going out there and talking about it, Now more than ever, I will just put my fist on the table and say, it is so important now to get in a community and find the right room for you for whatever that might be. It's getting more and more lonely out there. A lot of us are behind desks and shit, what the hell is real now anymore? We don't even know. And things are happening so fast. We almost need to say like, what do I do? What tool are you using? How do I do this? How do I solve that? And it's gonna get worse. You actually talked about the cost. And it's funny, I came up with something else. I was just working on a book for this and it came up with a thing called the isolation tax. You know, it's like, what is the isolation tax? You know, how big of a tax are you gonna pay for not getting, for sticking your head in the sand and not getting out there? And it's hard for people, I get it. You know, it's comfortable in the comfort zone of your desk or your office and your home and your families. And, you know, versus schlepping to another meeting and, you know, getting in the car and you're exhausted and the emails are coming in and the phone's ringing and, you know, all that, I understand it. You got to do it.

Yeah, breakthroughs don't happen behind barricades, that's for sure. Um, so, um, well, let's— I think we're going to come back around because I'm going to ask you some questions about the business model and how that works, and also the recruitment model. Because when I think about this, I think any business— first of all, every business owner should belong to some kind of a mastermind. And I think Speakeasies a really good one because it's an easy lift, and the fact that you're in lots of cities right now is awesome. And, um, one thing to do is text me a list if you have them handy of all the cities you're in, and I'll make an image or an animation for it while we're sitting here. But, um, that leads me to the question that is about building these, because, okay, so our living laboratory was the San Diego one. And then you and Glenn said, hey, let's turn this into something more. And then what happened next is, um, you got your first city, and that was just from networking, and the second, and it was basically people saying, hey, why, why wouldn't you do this in another city? But how did you turn it into a business so it actually had, um high perceived value. You clearly exchanged the curriculum. You created the circle group where all of us can communicate. So there's the media community and then there's the outreach community, but also the rules and guidelines that are working. So take us on a little tour of the— of what makes it work.

Like anything, it's, it's, it's the structure of leadership and the core and the core members and One, and it's the same as, it's the mistakes I've also made along the way to get there. You said some stuff earlier. There was things I was doing inherently and naturally that are just my personality. And it's what, like you said, it kept accountability, the notes, it kept us organized. You made sure we showed up, you got fined if you didn't show up, you know, little fun things we did along the way to get it going. And it has to start with the right culture and leader who is following the playbook. Now, Mike, one of the biggest mistakes I've made is, you know, I'd find amazing people Like let's say a Mike Koenigs I found in a different city, you know, legend, big name, huge name that would anchor the city and that would say, yeah, I'll do this. I love to do it. And let's just say, you know, I reached out to you and you heard about this in San Diego and I talked to you. I'd be like, well, shit, if Mike wants to do it, I'm gonna let Mike do it. And that's how it started. The reality is you and I know deep inside you'd be a horrible leader as much as I love you and do this, 'cause just all the things, you're too busy. You know, you'd be a great name that would draw people, So we have a role for people like you, but not the, not the person that's being the head facilitator. And I think part of the mistakes I made early on was just that. And then, and we'd have entire groups implode because we'd have a great person with a huge name be there, but like they weren't doing the little things, the follow-up, the facilitating, the making sure stuff was— because they were too busy, they were doing other stuff. Um, so I think part of, part of it is just getting the person to follow the playbook of the things that we didn't and, and and just not going too far off the reservation of what we did. Um, so good leader. And then ultimately, another— other mistakes we would have is who is the core group outside the leader? And now the way we launch— and I know you said we'll get into later, but kind of tied to this question— is start with the leader. You go get your 5 anchor members, and now when you walk into a city, it's already got a great base. Because if you start to slip and get like, well, I'm just going to invite my buddy over here, this and that— and let's say I'm going to use you again— let's say you walked into Atlanta and you were somebody looking to join the group and you're like, first question you're gonna ask is who, who are these people in this room? Yeah. And so it's obvious when you say it, but as you built it out though, it was kind of like a scramble for like, we just want to get to be successful and let's just get people to sign up. And so, you know, did we take money sometimes and get people on that probably shouldn't have? Absolutely. It was mistakes that we made. We know better now as we re, you know, as we do all these chapters and we launch things.

Yep. And what's the, um, what's the sweet spot for the pricing? How's the business model itself work in such a way that you as a founder of this are getting paid and then the, the other people? And, you know, share whatever you're comfortable with sharing.

Yeah, I don't mind. Wouldn't be hard to find out. I mean, I mean, the way we built this, so I mean, do we go franchise? Do we license? All that stuff. I mean, for now, this might change, is right now we just do more or less a net revenue share with our We say, look, you're doing work, you're moderating, you're running the things. Let's just split the pot of whatever's left over after we bring in membership dues and minus, you know, fees to bring the person in. We'll just split it up. You run the meetings, you pay for the dinners, and you do things on your end, and we cover everything else. Pretty simple. And what we learned— and here's another thing, Mike, that we learned that's interesting, and it's about personality type. When I interview people and they start asking a bunch of questions about the money, they're not the right person. Like, you're going to make money. I call it mailbox money. You're not doing this to make rich. We're not asking you to spend tons and tons of hours. We're saying spend 5, 6 hours a month, a few hours, and you'll get a nice check every month. But if you're so worried about nickel-diming, it's the wrong— you're not the right captain for us. And it seems easy again, but these are little tweaks I learned over the way. We want people to say, I love doing this. I just love— I wanted to build community. I've been wanting to do this. This is great. I wanna leave. Just like what happened when I, in theory, volunteered my time for the 15 years. You know, it's not like I ever made a dime for that, right? It was just like, I enjoyed doing that. I selfishly wanted to get, I was like, I'm the smart guy in the room. I'm the guy going out there and getting Mike Koenigs and Josh Asraf and surrounding myself with people smarter than me. And shit, I'd be paying to be in my own room. But I created a room and offered the value. So it's like, it wasn't about the money. And that's sort of what the message would be to, somebody leading, let's look into lead groups like this. It's like, think in terms of the value you're getting for being a leader amongst your peers, and then you can surround yourself with incredible peers, level yourself up.

Yeah. And what, uh, what have you found are the types of people who should not be there? You've had to, you know, drop the hammer down. So you got the ones you want, you got the ones you don't want. So I'd love to get your column of both what you want, what you love, what you don't want, and then what you're willing to tolerate because sometimes there's a toleration factor as well.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say— I mean, I'll make that a macro/micro question. I think for anybody looking to join a community in general, I think this is a really important question whether you're looking to build or buy is spend the time making the checklist of what your non-negotiables are, what you want, what kind of people you want. Be crystal clear on that. As well as if you're looking to join a room. For us in particular, it just happens to be the flavor we play with. You know, we're looking for entrepreneurs, we're looking for people that are actually in the trenches. And I like to call it a little bit more point of the spear is what I call marketing-centric or market-driven entrepreneurs. Another way of saying it is we're growth-minded. We're the guys that are, guys and gals that are rolling up our sleeves. We're into the tactics, we're into the latest trends. We're hungry for knowledge. We're growing quickly. Oftentimes the unhireables, the ones that couldn't go into the corporate job, are who we are. And it's a little bit easier to say who we're not. I should say, and we're also successful, meaning, you know, if you look, you know, we don't have a send us your tax returns, we're gonna, you know, grill you on your numbers. It's more of a, you know, is this somebody I'm gonna wanna connect with once a month? As a guideline, are you doing over $1 million if you're, you know, revenue, you know, usually 1 to 50 if you're running a company. If you're a solopreneur consultant, are you doing a quarter million or close to that or on your way? You know, the smell test, bottom line, is do I want to be in a room with this person every month learning from them? Are they going to be taking energy away and just sitting around? And yeah, I'll pay my money to be in a room to learn from people like Mike and other people. Or am I going to be somebody who's going to give and take equally? That's, that's the kind of person. And I think a big no, and I'm sorry to some of the listeners out there, but it's just who we are, is we're less professional home services companies. This isn't a room of real estate agents and lawyers. You know, more like people that are in like the BNI crowd that are doing professional service type things or, you know, home services, plumbers and HVAC. You know, it's not that I don't love them and they're, I'm an EO, a member and they're in my EO kind of groups. This is the roll up your sleeves kind of grinders that we bring in.

Yeah.

I'm sorry. And one more part of your answer. No a-holes. Like there have been people that walk around like, yeah, I heard about this thing and sure, Eric, I'll, almost like they're doing me a favor for putting themselves in the room. As soon as that happens, I'm like, "You know what? It's okay. We don't need you." It's like we don't need the ego and people walking in talking about how great they are. If you've been invited, you're probably pretty solid already. And if you think you're that great, then you don't need us. Then just go in a different room then. You've already served your time.

Yep. No, that's great. That's really good. And then what do you think? So, looking back at your history, so I'm going to brag about you a little bit because this will explain you know, how we met, which was you were working with Brian Tracy at the time. And because of that, I mean, really it's because of you that I built a wonderful relationship with Brian. And, um, you know, over time, I think through some other means, I ended up meeting Jack Canfield. But we, we crisscrossed paths over a lot of big name, um, authors, etc. and you had your agency. But, uh, if you go back further, um, you started the social media company, you raised your $75 million, your brother was one of the original founders of MySpace. Talk a little bit about what from your past really made you exceptional at what you're doing right now.

Yeah, well, thanks. Yeah, no, the company called College Club way back then, for anybody who wants to go into the, the, the annals of history to look that up, um, or whatever that word would be. Anyway, so it's I was a 21-year-old kid coming out of UCSD and just, I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur, had that gene until you just get out of college and for some reason, you're not attracted to that big corporate job that you're getting recruited for. I wanted to go build something. And the first person I walked in there was building something with a vision. I'm like, "That sounds cool. Where do I sit?" And that was a conversation when there was 3, 4 of us and big backstory. I don't even know. You might know this or not. I didn't even get paid for the first 18 months. So, here I am building something without— out of college, you know, UCSD degree, you know, 3.6 out of UCSD that could have gotten a job anywhere, decided not to take a salary. I didn't give a shit. I was about building something. And to me, that was so cool. And I remember like talking to my parents one day and they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, you understand I can go out and get a job for way more than I ever thought because look at all the skills and stuff I'm building. So, you know, what that taught me to your question is, you know, A, you don't know what you're good at when you're that, you know, when you start off. So it was just like getting my hands dirty in everything. And I kind of ran every department, built every department. Learned a lot of skills, how to hustle. I mean, that was 7 days a week sleeping in mattresses kind of thing back in those days. And just figuring so much out. I was blessed that I got introduced to Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins during that phase where we were listening to them every day to learn life skills and business skills, 'cause you don't get taught that stuff in college. So I was fortunate to do that. But ultimately, and a lot of that is what helped me get through the goods and the bads. I mean, just the grind and the skills and how to set goals and how to manage time and how to, have communication skills, really was foundational to learning, listening to Brian a lot and Tony, of course. And then when things dissolved and we imploded when the market crashed in 2000, 2 months before going public and me being retired at 27 or 28 years old, it was a tough time for sure. But like, you know, I think the mentality, what got driven in my head was always grinding. And I remember, you know, just listening to Brian and others, it's like my favorite quote, I am responsible. I am responsible. And I just kept saying that. I'm like, you know what, what am I gonna do here? Like sit on the ground and mope? Like nobody gives a shit beyond, you know, the close families for about a few days. And it's up to me to pick up the pieces and say, wait a second, what's positive? Look at the shit I just learned in 7 years. I wouldn't have gotten this in MBA at any other company. I would not have gotten this through college. I learned so much about business. I'm super, I'm rich. I'm rich in information. I'm rich in knowledge that more than any 28-year-old or most 28-year-olds would be at that time. And so what? I mean, I always say it's harder to lose money that you actually have in the bank than lose money that was just, you know, a piece of paper on a stock certificate that I never had. So it was like, okay, well, you can't take this away from me. Let me just take this knowledge and go build something else. And that led to the conversation with Brian, where a family friend said, hey, you know, Brian Tracy needs help with this website thing. You know, we're talking now 2001. He needs help with the internet. Can you help him? And I walked in his office, you know, trying to hold back the drool of seeing my legend and my hero, and said, Brian, I could, I could, I know what you need. I could do this. Here's my background. And by the way, don't pay me till I make you money, which is another one of the biggest tips I offer when I, when I'm on shows like this is like, you know, look, if you have the balls and you have the time to do it, no better way to get your foot in the door than offer your services and say, I'll take it on the back end. You know, I'm so confident I'll be able to do this, then let me show it. You know, what was Brian going to do at that point? You know, a kid that had this experience, 28, and said he'll do it without paying him? He was like, he's like, Eric, great, you're my kind of guy, let's go. And that was a relationship that lasted— here we are, 26 years later.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's, uh, that's— it's really awesome. I think that if there ever were a, uh, a career maker for you, that's absolutely one of them. And then you look at the other, other people too who um, still to this day, you know, are very much handshake-based business owner leaders. You know, they don't make them like that anymore. Um, and I want to get to the, um, the action part of this, which is, um, getting back to Speakeasy. So you are always on the lookout for captains in specific cities Also, you're looking for people who invite. What's someone who's really interested in getting involved, what's the action to take and what's your recommendation? Then I'm going to show something to you also while this is happening.

I have actually a page which says, "What are we looking for from leaders?" which I'll just drop to you. Somewhere. Okay, uh, I'll just, you know, I'll send it over to you so you can share that. Um, but I mean, for leadership, you know, I mentioned some, some of the things we're looking for. You know, ultimately, if you're out there— and often the, the best thing we hear— and it's funny, earlier today, literally right before this call, I got off the phone with somebody from Dallas who went to an Alex Moscow event and said— and one of the messages was, you know, he talked about putting on events and building community. She's like, I really want to be building community out in Dallas. And I said, well, you found the right home. And for her, it was like such a magical conversation that happened out of nowhere, which is, if you have that desire to say, wow, I want to go out there and find— oh, that's funny— if I want to go out there and build something in my own city, and I want to surround myself with some incredible entrepreneurs, that is what we're looking for. You know, A, do you fit the profile of what you and I talked about earlier as far as the avatar person. And then are you good at, um, you know, can you find 4 or 5 leaders? Now, if you're introverted, that's okay. You know, do you know a few people you could bring out there? You don't have to be making tons of phone calls. Who's your core people? Can you invite a few people? And then from there we build. Now, some of the skills I'll say— high— you said it earlier, I am a big high-follow-through guy. It's one of my pet peeves. It's a rare trait for an entrepreneur. You got to have some kind of high follow-through and be responsible as a leader. I know it's easier said than done, but I've learned to find that most entrepreneurs are shitty at that skill on their Kolbe. On the Kolbe, what is it? The second number, I think, is usually really low.

Yeah.

And we need a high Kolbe second number there. So if you're taking that test or I would say on a Myers-Briggs, you need to be a J, a rare J as an entrepreneur would be helpful. So that's, you know, that's what we're looking for. I mentioned again, you got to be doing it for the love of building community and growth and learning. Now internally, we do a lot to try to elevate our leaders. Every time there's an event, every time there's a speaking opportunity, we're finding those around us that we know, which clearly are the leaders, to say, hey, we'll get you in front of people outside just your city as we do virtual events, things of that nature. So there's great opportunity there for that. And if you're somebody just looking to join a community and you're like, this sounds pretty interesting, yeah, check, check us out at the website. And, you know, Mike is showing off all the 26 different chapters that are out there in various, various stages. And we also have, we also have what's called a global membership, meaning if you're out in South Dakota somewhere where we don't have a city, no offense to our South Dakotans out there, come call me if you're interested. But if you're out there, we do have something called a global membership, which means you still get access to all the community, but you just don't do the local meetups yet. But one of the cool things we did, I'm going to kind of do a tie on this. We took what Mike talked about earlier, which is the notes. And every time we took notes, now thanks to AI, it's replaced me, thank goodness, on the ability to take notes. And so now every chapter is actually taking really good prompt AI notes from all the meetings and all of our members get all the wins. So like Mike is literally sitting there every week and getting all the wins from Miami and Boca and all his friends across the different cities. Those are coming to him every, every, every week all the time. So like global members also get access to that. So you can, take a look and see what we're doing. Welcome to stop by to our big annual event coming up in San Diego. But by the time this comes out, might be gone, but we have an annual event once a year.

It'll make it out. It'll make it out. Yeah.

So there's April 16th, 17th in San Diego. Yeah.

Yeah. No.

So there you go.

There we go. Look at that.

Look at that. There he is. Look at that. You're like, shit, I didn't say that, did I? Yeah. No, you did. And then And then what's not on that list, which is fun, Mike, you don't even know this yet, we actually are about to launch, I think others that are on, not on there is Dubai. Pretty pumped about that.

It was on the list. Oh, it was on there, okay, cool. Yeah, it was on the little thing that made the animation. It didn't do 'em in the right order, but yeah, it built an animation. That was Claude working in the background. But yeah, this will be fun.

Yeah, so I love seeing these global chapters go out there. I mean, closing in on Portugal, that'll be fun. I know you head out near that area once in a while. Mexico City. So it's exciting. And each, you know, another key thing is we only limit, we limit it to about 30 per city. So we keep it intimate. This isn't about us saying, hey, let's go chase down as much money as we can. We're like, hell no. It's all about creating the experience. What's gonna get a Mike Koenigs to come back into the room? You know, that's kind of our mission. You know, what's gonna get a John Assaraf? You know, what's gonna get high-level people to come back every month? We gotta keep the quality high. So try to cap it to about 30 people.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's right, right size. You know, when we're meeting, we're meeting at someone's house, or when I'm in town, uh, we've done a few over here. And, um, it's— it— I think you said the right word, which is intimate. You know, everyone that is— at least until very recently, um, I've gotten to know every single person on a deep, meaningful, personal level, and This is very compatible with any other kind of an organization or group you belong to. This is not designed to supplant it. It's more to create the deep meaningful relationships that you build outside of the business connections and the relationships. I mean, real friendships are born out of this and continue. I'm still in touch with the majority of everyone from our original mastermind. I mean, we're talking about lifelong friendships like you and me. Besides just going to speakeasymastermind.com to learn more and if you're interested in coming to San Diego for the annual event, it is super worth it. You'll meet some really good people there and joining a chapter or potentially being a captain. Where do people go? What else did I leave out that I— or what should I have asked you that I didn't?

Um, that's— I think those are the main bits. I mean, there's, there's individual city pages, but that's hard to find. So I think you just go to the website, you'll be able to easily find out where to apply if you're interested. Um, and then we'll kind of route you to the, uh, to the appropriate city from that. You can meet the city leader, make sure it's a fit. We even do 90-day— we do 90-day, um, uh, 90-day trials for everybody. I mean, you get in, if you're not happy— it's obvious for us, we're not about locking people in. Like, look, if this is not the right fit for you, then just, just Great. You know, it's, it's gotta be mutual. We want you in there for a long, long time and for the same 18 years that you and I've been playing. That's, that's the goal here.

Yeah.

And, and I think just, I mean, I'll just round it back to the point I made earlier. I think everybody needs, that's listening, needs to sit here and think about the communities, analyze the rooms they're in, ask themselves the question, do they give you energy or do they take away energy? If they're taking away energy, you might wanna think about swapping it with something else. Find the community for you. There are a lot of them out there. Do your research, but get in something. You got to do it. You got to get in there. And hopefully, Mike will be sharing my new book. I just told him we'll talk later or now. I mean, the process now of writing a book is so interesting. And I'm not talking about just having a 3-minute interview with AI and telling it to spit out a book for you. Yes, using AI to help you with certain structural things, but, and some of the skills you can do with cloud and everything else, it's just insane. And I'm pretty excited that I get to get my first book out after all these years talking about the three phases of community and the structure really is, you know, find the right room, you know, start with the community. And then once you're in the room, how to have proper relationship or leverage, how to work, how to be good and how to be right in the room. How to learn how to, and I'll just share a couple things too, a couple nuggets for you. You know, how to, one of my favorite things I learned from Brian Tracy is active listening. How to shut the F up initially when you walk into a room and observe and learn. And the only question you should be asking is, how can I give value to these people? Especially when you first meet people. Stop worrying about bragging and telling about how great you are. Think about what you could do to serve. It'll all come back. The law of reciprocity works in amazing ways by you serving others. So shut up and listen and get there and be insanely good at follow-through. If you say you're going to do something for somebody, especially early on when you meet somebody, there's no better way to create a positive relationship than listen intently, show that you care, say, find something that you can serve them, make a note for yourself, and then actually serve them the thing you did. Immediately, they're like, holy shit, what a cool guy I just met, or gal. I just met them, they just did this thing. They actually followed through and they sent me that. I mean, how often does that happen, Mike? It's so rare that people do the simple things like that. And that's what's memorable. And so, you know, I talk about that. And then ultimately, you know, once you're in the right community is what can you do to lift the community? What can you do to make it better? And so that's a little bit what I teach in Proximity Pays that's going to be coming out.

Oh, that's great. And it's a great title for a book too. I really like it. Proximity Pays is awesome. I think when I— It's one of Dan Sullivan's great sayings is— I'm going to frame this because I can't remember if I remember the last one, but this is the Dan Sullivan saying is, "Say please and thank you. Show up on time. Do what you say you're going to do." I know there's one other thing, but I can't remember what it is. But I just popped that into Claude to find out what the hell it is. Um, and, uh, it's the fourth principle. But anyway, I think you're, um— oh, finish what you start.

Finish your stuff. Yeah, that's—

those are, those are two things that you're exceptional at, you know, is, is do what you say you're going to do and finish what you start. And, um, yeah, it's really, really good. So one more time, speakeasymastermind.com is where you, um, follow Eric and, uh, find out if you want to find my LinkedIn too.

Yeah, I got a bunch of links on LinkedIn too. You can find me there as well.

Yep. Yeah, sorry, he's, he's easy to track down, easy to follow, and easy to like. Um, after all this time, I still like you and I love you.

So you too, brother, you too.

Yeah, yep. No, it's been a hell of a ride. So with that, I will, uh, I'll finish this up by saying this is Capability Amplifier. This is my friend Eric Berman. Uh, follow him, get to know him. He's really well worth getting to know and, uh, and spend time with. And I hope you enjoyed this episode, so share it with someone you know, like, and, um, yeah, just like and comment. And I'll see you in the next episode very soon. Eric, appreciate you so much. It's great to be home.

Yes, thank you so much for having me. Appreciate you. Love you, brother.