Everything I Learned About Social Media Being Around the Top 0.01%

If you've been creating content and watching people pass you by, even though you're doing the work, there's a reason for this, and it's not what you think. Over the last few years, I've shared stages with people like Jesse Itzler, Cody Sanchez, Grant Cardone, Tom Ferry, Alex Hormozi, and I've built two businesses to multiple seven figures in net income. And I've spent the last six years teaching thousands of people across the country how to build a powerful personal brand that doesn't chase followers but actually builds a business. What I've noticed is the people who break through do a handful of things differently, and everybody else who stays stuck is missing this. I'm gonna walk you through these 6 things I've learned from being in these rooms, 6 shifts that separate the people who are winning from everybody else who's trying to. So the first one starts with a guy named Shiran Srivastava, who has become a really good friend of mine. Now this one starts with a video that I almost didn't post. Last year, the Super Bowl was in Las Vegas, Chiefs versus 49ers, and my friend Billy Jean and I had waited to go to this thing. We were thinking about going and watching the ticket prices, which were insane, by the way. And then right before the ticket, the seats that we wanted on the 50-yard line dropped to $15,000 each, which is crazy, but this was an insane experience and I had never been to the Super Bowl before. So we get to the stadium early, we're making content before they kick off, just enjoying taking in the whole experience. And right before the game starts, I shoot one of these reels and I post it into the feed of Instagram. Okay, this is just me walking in the stadium with trending audio, just super hyped to be there. Now, real talk, I almost considered not posting this at all 'cause I didn't wanna look like I was showing off. And then I was about to post, I almost just put it in my story, but I decided to say, okay, let's just send it and post it as a reel in the feed. Now, literally the first comment on this reel was from Shiran. And the comment said, turn around, bro, right here. So I look up behind me and Sharron is in a box in the same section where I'm sitting at the Super Bowl. Now at the time, he is the president of Real Broker, the fastest growing publicly traded real estate company in North America. I didn't know him, he didn't know me, we'd never met, but he had been following my content and I didn't know this, but he had been sharing and, and learning and we'd just been connecting without my knowledge. And so anyways, I went up to the box, said hi, we got to shake hands, take a selfie. He's like, yo, just enjoy the game. Let's connect afterwards. And so I went back to my seat, watched the rest of the game, enjoyed it. And then afterwards when everything was over, I went back up and we ended up talking for about 30 minutes. Now that single conversation kicked off a relationship that has completely changed my business. Sharon ended up bringing me to speak at their annual event in front of thousands of real estate industry people. I've had him come speak at my events. We've connected with multiple people and just honestly become real friends. And none of that happens if I didn't post that reel. And so here's the thing. Most of you watching this video right now have content sitting in your phone that you're convinced would give off the wrong idea, or for whatever reason you didn't want to post it. Videos are sitting in the camera roll right now, and this is some of the most important content you could ever make, and you just have to hit send. So this week, what I want you to do is post one thing that you never posted. Stop second-guessing it. Not on your stories, by the way. Post it in the feed and just write about it. Even if it's personal, just do it and watch the conversations that this kicks off. Now, the second one is from Codie Sanchez. So I had Codie at one of my events last year, and if you don't know her, she's got millions of followers across multiple platforms, bestselling author, all in on personal brand. And she's somebody I wanted to talk to specifically about content strategy because she's built what I think is one of the smartest content businesses of anybody out there today. And so we're up on stage in front of my entire audience, and I ask her what she thinks about content strategy for her business. And so she walks me through something she calls the Tornado Strategy. And the way she explained it really stuck with me. She said most brands do an ad that's like, hey, if you're thirsty, buy this water bottle. And the Tornado Strategy is completely different. You don't even talk about your product. You give value instead. So there's a 7 to 12 point touch cycle before anybody buys something. And so you create a tornado of trust, a tornado of value-added content that involves circling someone before you ever talk to them about buying your product. And then she said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about. She said, the future belongs to those who can steal attention by educating, not advertising. Here's why that hit me. Most creators making content for their business, they're still creating ads in disguise. Here's what I do. Here's why you should hire me. Here's my offer. Book a call. That's not a tornado. That's just a tap on the shoulder. And people are scrolling past taps on the shoulder all day. The people I've watched win at content, they're building so much value-driven content around their audience that by the time the audience is ready to buy, there's not even comparison. They're not weighing options. They're not thinking about competitors. They're just thinking, oh, that's the person who's been helping me think about this for months. Of course I'm going to work with them. That's the tornado. Value first, receipts later. So look at your last 10 posts. If more than 3 of them are about you and your offer, you're not building a tornado. You're just simply running ads through content. Flip that ratio this week and watch what happens. Now, the third one is from Alex Hormozi. And honestly, if you remember one thing from this entire video, I want it to be this. For context, I had spent 3 and a half years trying to get Alex to speak at one of my events. He kept saying no, but eventually I was able to make it happen. And so we sat down on stage in front of 1,000 people and asked him what he's learned from building one of the biggest personal brands in entrepreneurship. The guy has 8 million followers across all platforms, billions of impressions a year, and one of the biggest, if not the biggest personal brand right now. I'm thinking, okay, this guy's about to tell me about hooks, thumbnails, strategy, retention, some elite content tactics that only he knows. And then he says, and this is a direct quote, if you only get one thing out of all the stuff I have to say here, it's proof. And he goes on to give us an example that broke something open in my head. He said, take Gary Vee. He's brilliant. But imagine erasing VaynerMedia. He's just a dude talking about social media. How do you guys know what he's even saying is true? He has no proof. And so I want you to sit with this for a second because most of us spend our time trying to make content sound better. We're trying to work on the scripts, the strategies, the hooks, maybe even our delivery, which is all important. But what Alex is saying is that none of that matters as much as the receipts. And here's the part that I think a lot of people watching need to hear. There's this quiet belief that creators carry around, the belief that some people winning have something that you don't, or they have this it factor, charisma, some quality that you're either born with or not. And so even when you learn the frameworks, the posting consistently, the strategies, you hedge a little because somewhere in your head you've decided that these frameworks only really work for people who already have the it factor. Alex's answer to all of that is no, there's no thing. The people winning have done stuff. They show it. Proof is the moat. And the good news is proof isn't a personality trait. You can't be born with it or not. It's a stack you build over time. You take more shots, you log the wins, you show the receipts, and eventually you become someone whose content doesn't sound like it needs to convince somebody because the proof is doing it for you. Even if you fail, you can talk about that and that is considered proof. So for your next 3 posts, lead with a result, not an opinion. A number, a screenshot, something specific, a before or after. Let the proof do the talking. All right, the 4th one is from Cole Hatter, and this might be my favorite story in this entire video. A few years ago, Cole, who at the time was running Thrive, which was the biggest entrepreneurship event in the country, was a complete cold contact to me. We had some mutual friends, but we had never connected directly. I wanted to speak on his stage, and he didn't know who I was. Some of the biggest names in business were speaking at this event. I was way out of my league even asking for this, but I DM'd him anyways. No reply. I followed up. And I got a one-line response that said, thanks, you can buy a ticket, but you can't speak, we're full. Now, it was pretty cold, so I think most people would have stopped there. That's a no. But I decided not to stop. I had some mutual friends, Brad and Billy, who could vouch for me. And so Cole got a message from them saying, Neel's legit, you should talk to him. So he ends up taking a call with me, and he's polite, but he's like, look, man, I got to say no. So I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. I want to quickly tell you about something that's really helping my audience. Once a week, I send out my Forward Focus Email. This is one tip that's gonna help you move the needle in your business, your personal brand, your content strategy. And honestly, I have never received this much positive feedback from a single piece of marketing ever in my whole career. So I know this is really helping people. It takes you about 60 seconds to read and just gives you that clarity in a world of all this chaos and noise. So if you wanna get access to this week's issue and get this every week from me, just check out the link. It's in the description below and I'll shoot it over to you. And, uh, for now, let's get back to the episode. No, again, I'm happy to talk. We're full. Would love to have you at the event, but thanks, but no thanks. So that was strike two. And so I just decided, look, I'm going to fly to Vegas, show up at the event like a regular attendee, and see if I can find another angle. And here's where it gets pretty crazy. I'm sitting in the audience and Cole's wife is on stage giving her keynote, and her entire keynote is about how she relentlessly pursued The Rock to get him on her platform. And she uses this one line: persistence wears down resistance. And so I'm sitting there thinking, man, that's literally what you're telling me to do right now. So I decided to go even harder. Later in the event, he's on stage talking about how this is the final event. They need to clear all their merch. And so everybody go buy the merch. So I decide, hey, maybe I can help them out. I go over to the merch table and offer to buy the entire thing. I'm like, look, tell Cole, Neel's going to buy everything. And so she calls up Cole and tells him this. And I'm like, man, this has to work, right? This is definitely going to get on his radar. And so I end up buying the merch, but it doesn't work. So later in the day, Cole speaking on stage and my friend Trevor sitting right next to me, he ends up grabbing a few epic shots of him on stage speaking. He ends up putting together a pretty sick edit of this. Just like a 15-second edit with sharp cuts and great music. So at the time, his media team was not posting in real time, like they were capturing content, but they were going to do it later. So I ended up taking this off his plate by posting something epic in the moment. He ends up seeing it and shares it immediately across multiple platforms. And this becomes another point of contact. And so the next morning I'm about to give up on this whole strategy and I just decide, look, I'm going to text him one more time. I say something like this, look, I'm just doing what you guys taught me to do. Be persistent. And so he texts me back finally and he's like, look, man, you're one relentless guy. Meet me backstage. I'm going to put you on right after lunch. I had no spot. He just made a spot for me and I got to speak at Thrive. He put me on the website and everything. And so it was an amazing experience. I got to connect with so many other entrepreneurs and Cole and I are now friends. He's spoken at my events. We've done business together. But none of this happens if I would have took those first 3 nos at face value. And so here's what I learned about watching the people who win at this game. They don't treat rejection as a closed door. They treat it as data. So that approach didn't work. Let me try a different one. Let me try a different angle. The door is almost actually never closed. People just stop pushing. Now, you have to be smart about this, but you can pick your spots. So what I would love for you guys to do is pick one person that you reached out to once and never followed up with, but not in the same way. Find a new angle and see what happens. All right. The fifth one is from Jesse Itzler. If you guys don't know Jesse, he's the founder of Marquee Jet, which he sold to Warren Buffett, co-owner of the Atlanta Hawks, married to Sara Blakely. These guys are billionaires. And this guy operates at a level that most people in the room only read about. He was speaking at one of my events and we were backstage talking before he went on, and he said one thing to me that I think about almost every week. He said, Neel Dhingra, the greatest gift you can give yourself is to get over the fear of being embarrassed. That was it. No framework, no system, just that one sentence. Then he walked off to go on stage. I want to tell you why that line has stayed with me, because I've watched people and they hold themselves back from making content for years, both in my own community and in my own head. And it's almost never strategy. It's almost never resources. It's the quiet fear that someone you know is going to see the video and think, hey, Who does this guy or gal think he is? That fear is the gate. Everything is on the other side of it. The audience, the clients, the opportunities, the version of yourself you keep telling yourself you want to become. All of it is on the other side of that feeling. And so here's what I notice about my own content. Every single time that I post something where I was genuinely worried about how it's going to land, a mistake I made, something I struggle with, something I got wrong, the response has been the opposite of what I feared. People don't pull away. They lean in. It's resulted in so many connections and conversations. The reason why this works is because we admire characters more for their struggle than their success. And most of the influencers I see right now are only posting wins, highlight reels, awards, polished outcomes. There are very few of these people talking about what didn't work, what they're still figuring out, what actually made them feel embarrassed, what they screwed up. That gap is your opportunity. The person who's willing to post the slightly cringe, slightly personal, slightly vulnerable thing is the person who the audience actually trusts because everybody else is performing and you're being real. The people you watch winning at this aren't braver than you. They got embarrassed earlier. They posted the cringe video, they survived the awkward comments, and then they built this callus. I had somebody tell me, that you have to make them cringe before they'll binge. So just remember this, the creator that you want to become is on the other side of the content that you're afraid to post. So what I want you to do is next time you have a post that scares you a little bit where you're about to talk yourself out of posting it, that is the one I want you to hit send on. Now, this last one is from Irwin McManus. If you don't know Irwin, he's a bestselling author, communicator, one of the most respected leaders in the world, honestly. And we got to meet at a mastermind a while back. And after we connected, he started following my content and so did his son Aaron. Now his son would share his posts with his dad, and I had no idea that any of this was happening. I was just posting every day and being consistent. Now, one day, Tuesday, 2 in the afternoon, completely out of the blue, Orwin texts me and he says, hey, would you come speak to my group on Zoom? And I was like, yes, of course. I'd be honored. When? And then he says, at 4 p.m. I'm like, bro, today? Like 2 hours from now? And by the way, my calendar was full. I had every reason to say no because I wasn't prepared. And honestly, my first instinct was to start coming up with a reason to say no. But before I could talk myself out of it, I just replied, okay, I'll move things around. I'll be there. So I show up to the Zoom call 2 hours later. It's called the Arena Online. And it was a community of entrepreneurs from all different industries. And I just start teaching. We took them through a framework and then did some Q&A, answered all the questions, and the feedback was just incredible. It was so strong that afterwards everyone's like, man, you did a great job, Neel. I want to invite you to come in person to speak in Los Angeles at the arena live. Now, the lineup at that event was insane. There was a billionaire speaking, an NFL guy, multiple bestselling authors, and then me. Like, I was way out of my league. But Irwin liked what I had to say, so he invited me there. Like, I have this thing on my desk right now. It says, stay ready. Like when the opportunity came, I was ready to go because I had been posting content, had been speaking in the past. That opportunity wasn't actually luck. It just looked like it. The luck was the call coming. But the reason the call came was my content, my personal brand. The content is what put me on Irwin's radar for months without me even knowing it. Your content is your luck infrastructure. Think about it like this. You don't post to go viral. That happens. It's awesome when it does, but you're posting to widen the surface area so good things can find you, so you can create opportunities for yourself to get lucky. And they will find you. And then when they find you, you just have to say yes before you can talk yourself out of it. So to get ready this week, post one thing and say yes to the opportunity before you fully thought it through. Both of those are the same skill. It's the whole shoot first, ask questions later. So here's what I want you to know about these 6 lessons. These are not 6 different tactics. There's 6 versions of the same idea. The people winning at content aren't winning because they have something you don't. They're winning because they post the thing that they almost didn't post. They give value instead of selling. They show proof instead of making claims. They push past the first no. They get over being embarrassed and they stay ready for opportunities that their content is quietly building behind the scenes. None of those are personality traits. All of them are decisions, which means all of these you can do. Now, if you want to see how I take everything I've learned in these rooms and turn it into a system that actually you can use to build a powerful personal brand that brings you not just views but clients and business opportunities, you can make sure to check out this video. Now, this video right now that I'm showing you is the first video in a new series I've been wanting to make for a long time. I'm going to releasing the next one soon. So if you got value from this, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss it. I'll see you guys on the next one.