MBA1654 5 Things I Learned From 5 People in 2020
2 Feb 2026 · 11 min
Omar Zenhom shares five lessons from 2020: Dale Beaumont on generosity, Taki Moore on teaching, Todd Herman on alter egos, Ryan Holiday on product quality, and Naval on creating shortcuts for customers.
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Despite all the challenges we experienced, we can always look back and ask ourselves what did we learn? And today I want to share with you what I've learned from five people that I've gotten to know, gotten to learn from in this year. I'll share with you who they are, what they do and what I learned. Every time I do this, I am fascinated by how many smart, intelligent, incredible people are around us in this world. This is why it's so important as an entrepreneur to network, to get to know people. It's impossible to create a significant business, an important business, a successful one, without the help of other people. And they don't have to be team members, they don't have to be co founders. They could just be friends that inspire you. We got a lot to cover in today's episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Let's jump right into it. Five things I've learned from five people in 2020. The first person I want to share with you is Dale Beaum. I have the pleasure to call Dale a friend. He's the founder of business blueprint here in Australia, and he's incredible. Not only has he built an incredible business, he is huge here. He is one of the biggest thought leaders when it comes to business and leadership here in Australia and beyond Australia, around the world. But what I learned from him, actually, is the fact that he is so, so generous. I've gotten to know him over the last couple of years. We've had dinners together, we have lunch. I've had the pleasure to speak at his events. But despite the fact that Dale is incredibly busy, he runs a huge, huge business and helps hundreds and thousands of business owners build their business and grow. And he has a large network, yet he makes time to check up on me, to send me a message, to invite me to his house for dinner. And there's something about generosity that makes a lasting impression. It's more impressive than anything else. It's more impressive than somebody's accolades or if you think they're confident or if they're good conversationalists. I'm so impressed by how generous Dale is. He's such a giver that it compels me to want to help him, want to be as generous as him, not only to him, but with other people. And he really breaks that stereotype that, you know, successful people are jerks and arrogant. He is the exact opposite of that stereotype. And I think, in my opinion, it's the reason why he's been so successful. He gives and therefore he receives. Even though he is what I consider highly, highly successful in business, he's still interested in learning and meeting new people. And he gives him the time of day. I find it incredibly inspiring that with all his success, he's still super humble. The next person that I Learned from in 2020 is Taki Moore. I've gotten to know Taki in the last couple of years. He's the founder of million dollar coach, and he's basically the biggest coaches coach in the world. All the biggest coaches in the world have heard of Taki, have taken his training, are part of his community. Called black belt in the coaching world. Taki is a big deal. Now. The interesting thing is that I got to know Taki as a person through dinners before I even looked into his books or into his materials or his videos online, it's usually the opposite, right? But when I did look into his materials, his book is very, very good. I highly recommend it, and I'll probably be doing a must read on it soon called Million Dollar Coach. And when I looked into his videos, I found his style and his delivery of content very interesting, very original, and very disarming. And I am a big, big lover of great te. If you're a great teacher, I have a lot of respect for you. I come from a teaching background, as many of you know. I was a high school university teacher for 13 years. And a lot of times, I would say most of the time when I go online and look at online marketers or online personalities or coaches, they're not the best teachers in my eyes. I'm a little judgy there because I know I have that experience. I was a teacher trainer for a very long time, so I know a good teacher when I see one. Taki is a great teacher, and I actually want you to go out and check out his materials. Go follow him on Facebook or Twitter or wherever he's at and check his videos. The way he explains things is actually really well done. The one takeaway I want to share with you is he talks to his clients. He talks to his audience, his customers, and potential customers, like friends. It's very informal. It's very friendly. It's not official. He's not trying to make you feel like he's like this super duper guru. He's not pounding on his chest and say, listen to me, I'm the authority. In fact, he actually gets his authority through his clients. Most of the praise and the authority he gains in his sessions is through sharing the success stories of his clients and being their biggest cheerleader. So go ahead and check out Taki's materials and see what a great teacher looks like. The next person that I learned from in 2020 is Todd Herman, who is the author of the Alter Ego Effect. This is a fantastic book and a fantastic concept that reinforces an idea that you are in control of how you show up to all things in life. And you are not the same person in every situation. A lot of us, we think that, but the reality is, no, you act differently with your parents versus your friends versus your nieces and nephews versus your high school friends. You have a different ego, a different personality. So what if you applied that skill to different parts of your business and your work so you could show up the way you want to show up? Show up like the hero you want to show up. It's a great concept because we're all familiar with it. We've experienced this in life, but we haven't applied it to our advantage. So check out the Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman. Learned a ton from him. The fourth person I want to share with you is Ryan Holiday. And I learned something incredibly important, something that we all know, but he really drilled it home. I've known Ryan Holiday and his work for quite some time. I wouldn't consider us friends. We know each other just via email. We've had a few exchanges and I've seen him speak live in person recently at a conference in January. One of his books is called Perennial Seller and one of the things he really drills home in this concept in his speeches about this book is how do you build a business that lasts? How do you build a business that is a household name that has viral marketing built in because of the word of mouth marketing that happens? And here's the biggest takeaway I learned from ryan holiday in 2020 it's if you want to build a business that lasts a lifetime, that lasts 10, 20, 30, 40 years, you can't take shortcuts. You have to. You have to have great quality products and a great quality experience for your customers. At the end of the day, if whatever your customers experience is not the best that they've experienced, they will just forget you and they'll shop around. Let me give you an example. When I dress up, quote unquote for dinner, I wear a pair of slacks or chinos called Bonobos. It's a brand called Bonobos. And the way they cut their pants, it fits really well. For people that are tall or thin, it's not too baggy in the bum. You know, it just makes me feel good when I wear these pants and they last such a long time. Like I've had the same pants for over six years and they look like new. Even after several, several washes, they're super comfortable. And I don't buy any other kind of pants because of this. I've never experienced a pair of pants of this quality and of this type of experience or satisfaction. So I'm really happy with this product. And it's because they didn't cut corners. They really use high quality materials. The cuts and the designs are really well thought out and therefore I will buy their clothing. I have my sizes saved in their system and I will reorder a pair of pants. And every single time, I don't even hesitate. I don't even think about it. I don't shop around. I need a new pair of pants. I go to bonobos. And that's what Ryan Holiday is talking about. To be a perennial seller, to be around forever, you have to have a really high quality product and not cut corners. I got more in today's five things I learned from five People. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor.
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All right, my fifth and final takeaway from somebody I learned from in 2020. Here it is. And it's from Naval. If you don't know who Naval is, he is a pretty interesting thought leader, not only in business, but in life and philosophy. I follow him on Twitter and he's got a great podcast you should check out. There's an epic episode about how to get rich. It's all about wealth and money. It's a little bit of a clickbaity title that he admits himself, but it's about a three hour episode. But in that episode there's so many golden nuggets. One of them that I want to share with you that really resonated with me is that if you want to really have a successful business, you really need to give society what it doesn't know how to get. If you present a product in the marketplace that does that, you have a very high likelihood of winning. Basically, you want to create a shortcut for people to secure something that in their mind is out of reach. Here are some examples. Why is Airbnb successful? Even you know, they're going some rough times during the pandemic. But why are they so successful? Because they allow people to have experiences they normally would never have. Experiences like they you can rent out a villa in Lake Cuomo in Italy and live like a celebrity. And it will only cost you a couple hundred dollars because, hey, you're just renting it for the night like a hotel before Airbnb. This would be very, very hard to achieve if you wanted to arrive in style in a luxury car. Ten years ago, you would have to rent a limo and it would be expensive. Your other alternative is a taxi, which is not really luxurious. Now, you guessed it, Uber, right? You can order an Uber Black. That's how they got started. And it doesn't have to be so sophisticated. Like, for example, with us, Webinar Ninja, our webinar software, we create a shortcut for people that don't want to learn how to put together landing pages or registration pages or thank you pages or email notifications, or, you know, have a whole system of running webinars and saving the recording and all that kind of stuff and sending it out. They don't want to have to hire somebody who is tech savvy. They don't want to hire designers or developers. They just want a tool that will give them a shortcut to a result. And that's really what we offer, right? That's the product. It's not really a software. It's really a result. So think about this in your own business, what shortcuts are you giving society? What shortcuts are you giving your potential customers to save them time, money, make them feel better, Give them something that they wouldn't normally have access to. And this can be a service as well. For example, a personal trainer back in the day, 10, 15 years ago, would be incredibly expensive. But now, because of the Internet and the democratization of services, people can get personal trainers and do group coaching and all that kind of stuff and get results and feel like they have access to something they normally would not have access to because of your service. So there you have it, guys. Five things I learned from five people in 2020. I hope you love this episode. I loved sharing with you all these takeaways. Please check out the works of all these great people that I shared with you. Dale Beaumont, Talking Herman, Ryan Holiday, and of course, Naval. That wraps up today's episode. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button. It's absolutely free to subscribe and you get access to over 1600 episodes in our archives by hitting subscribe. So do that right now on whatever you use to listen to podcasts, whether it's Stitch Radio or Apple Podcast, Spotify or on them all. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I was surprised how much I've learned from different people, even though I've been, you know, locked in at home, quarantined like everybody else in the world for the vast majority of the of the year. So I think that we all can learn locally. We can learn on the Internet. Don't let this situation of, you know, Covid and quarantine and social distancing stop you from meeting people virtually networking and growing your knowledge. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.
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