Why This Multi Millionaire Coach Runs His Events Barefoot (with Taki Moore)

Taki, awesome to have you, man.

Thanks, man.

You're such a good guy. One of my favorite people in the world. You're one of 3 people, 3 is being generous, that I know that is the same person on camera, on stage, in person, having coffee, lunch, just, you know, shooting the shit, that kind of person.

Yeah.

Has it always been that way? Did you have to work through some demons? What, like, that's very, very rare.

That's a Weird. I think I'm more comfortable being who I am everywhere now than like even sitting down here. I was a bit like am a bit nervous because there's like three cameras and you know a crew and all the stuff. I just think it's maybe I'm just old, and you just get beyond the fuck it and you just don't care anymore. There's probably a little bit of that. I think it's hard to be who you're not long term, and I've been running this business for like sixteen-ish years. Yeah. And so. You know, I don't think I would have kept it up if I wasn't me.

That's been my experience. Like, you know, we've been doing this for a while and you get to a point where it's just like not being yourself is not really working and you just get frustrated and you're just like, I'm just gonna do what I want.

Yeah. Like, I remember we run an event 3 times a year, you know, March, July, November. And for years I put shoes on to run the event because, you know, who would run an event barefoot? And I was like, well, I don't wear shoes anywhere else. Why am I putting shoes on for these guys? kind of paying to come and learn from me. I'll just be myself. So I left, took my shoes off and did the event. I remember Jack De Losa, one of our members, was like, are you not wearing shoes? I'm like, no. He goes, huh, cool. And then that was it. And now I could just be me. So that was the last hurdle of freedom.

Yeah.

I think there's nothing more attractive than someone who's comfortable in their own skin. I'm not doing it to be attractive. I'm just more comfortable without shoes. I mean, there's something, I don't know. I think that's what we all like. The people I look up to are the people who are like, they've got something great to say and they're very natural and not forced. Yeah. I don't know if it's a learned skill. I don't know. I think I'm just quite comfy.

Yeah. Did you copy somebody in the beginning? For me, people.

Yeah.

For me, it was Tony Robbins. I always tried to be Tony and I realized like, I'm not Tony Robbins. I'm a brown kid from Long Island, parents immigrated from Egypt. Like Tony's got— Tony's Tony, you know, and I love Tony, but like, I tried so hard to like, because he was the person that was in my ears, CDs listening to in the car while I was driving to work. Who is it for you?

I think when you start something, like it's very rare that you've got your own everything together. And so, you start by like modeling bits. I think I've got bits of a lot of people. So, when I started like business model-wise, the only guy I knew who had this kind of information style business was a grumpy old dude called Dan Kennedy, who's amazing, by the way.

Oh, Dan.

Right.

Copywriter.

Yeah, he's a writer, seems to be an introvert. And his model was like, I'm going to send people a paper newsletter and a monthly CD and a weekly fax. So, guess what I did? A weekly fax and a monthly CD and a paper newsletter. And I was like, dude, I hate writing. I'm a talker. And so, but you got to start somewhere. Presenting-wise, I learned from 2 people. I was in a seminar, in a workshop once with Brad Sugars. And I remember he asked a question of the audience and they didn't reply. And he just got indignant and like puffed his chest up and said like, since when was it okay not to participate in one of my workshops? Like, oh, you can like lead these people. And then Ethan, our son, was nonverbal for like 4 years. And we took him to this speech class called Hanen, which is about how do you help a nonverbal kid to communicate.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of tricks like, you know, you get down on their level so you're not big and scary and intimidating. And you like leave the end off a sentence and you wait for them to fill it with something. So I think like, you know, public speaking-wise, I've just got to— I've A lot of those skills.

Yeah.

I don't know. I think you just like see bits that you like and you, you adopt it as much as you can until you got your own thing and then you adapt it.

Yeah. One of the things that I believe has helped our podcast do so well is that like I try to lead as much as possible with empathy.

Yeah.

I, I still remember what it's like to be struggling financially, struggling with my business, my voice. I personally felt like I was trying to be Tony Robbins because I felt like who I was wasn't good enough. So, I have to put on this performance so that I can be able to be good enough for my audience because who I actually am is maybe not blockbuster and larger than life. What advice would you give to somebody who's listening right now? It's like, okay, Taki, but you're big and you're huge and you're making millions and millions of dollars. How do I present without feeling inadequate?

I think the real you, the one with the broken bits, is the more attractive you. And I think if you want to help somebody, like it can be aspirational to look up at Tony Robbins, who's like extraordinary, but like it's very hard to go, wow, I could see how I could do that because he's like, he's up there and we're down here. And I think just realizing that everybody you're trying to help or communicate with, whether it's a, you know, an audience member or a potential client or whatever, or a customer, they're going through some stuff and the vulnerability makes you super relatable.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I write an email every day to my audience. And they're often quite funny, but if there's a joke about a person, it's always I'm the stupid one.

Yeah.

And the audience is the smart one, partly because I got ADHD and I do dumb stuff all the time, but also deliberately self-deprecating because of approachability. And I think the real you, warts and all, is very attractive.

Yeah.

If you're going through some hard stuff, talk about the fact you're going through some hard stuff. I think maybe there's a spot for like, do it when it's scars, not open wounds, maybe. But I think just being honest with people about where you're up to and what you're working on, and you don't have to have it perfect. You just got to share the journey. Like, this is what I'm going for. This is what's hard right now. This is what I've figured out. And I think that actually, I think the thing that makes it tricky is when you pretend you're the I've got it all together guy and you don't. That's the piece that eats you alive and people can sniff that. But if you don't pretend you've got it all together and you just go, here's what I'm learning, I think you do really, really well.

Yeah. 100%. Um, a lot of the episodes that came out of this podcast came through the struggles that we had growing our software company, Webinar Ninja.

Yeah.

Um, people would come up to me in person and tell me like, I just listened to your episode about like, you know, one of your key teammates or team members got poached. Is everything all right? It's like, yeah, yeah, that was like a year ago. It took me a year to get over it and to be like, okay, I'm comfortable teaching, but Those episodes pop because you're teaching out of experience and you're, and you're teaching, hey, this is what worked for me when this happens.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and it's going to happen. You're gonna have struggles. You're gonna have people, close friends of yours.

Yes.

Poaching your team members.

Yeah.

And it's just like, no phone call, no nothing. What do you do? Do you sever that relationship? Do you do the same thing back to them? All, all this stuff. Like, how do you wanna play this game?

Yeah.

But I find that anything that's hard, like it's really hard to share that. That's when it really does well.

Yeah.

Anything that's like, I got to pull this out somehow.

I think so. And you let people into your world a little bit. I think, you know, on the content side of things, really, I'm trying to share 2 things. You know, my worldview is the thing that people buy, but what makes that relatable is my world. And I think your world, my world has a bunch of characters in it.

Yeah.

You know, Nicole's a character. These guys are characters. The office is like this. This new amazing studio is a character. And so letting people into your world Makes you super relatable, and I think there's a bunch of people on the internet. Yeah, and all you see is the highlight reel, like the Instagram life. It's very perfect, and I think the real is where it's at.

We've been buddies for a while now. I think about we've known each other for about eight years. Yeah, when I moved out to Australia ten years ago, more than that, 2016 was when I moved. Yeah, so ten years ago, before I moved out, Michael Port, Book Yourself Solid. Michael Port, he's extraordinary. Yes, and he's a good friend of mine, and he was like, "You're going to Australia. You got to know Taki more." Ah. And I was like, okay, and I looked you up, and I watched your videos, and da da da da. And then, you know, I was probably just busy trying to move.

And I think I met you at Dale's paella party.

Yeah, and that's where we met. And then I was like, okay, I got to know you a little bit, da da da da. And like we've been buddies for a long time, but the first time I saw you speak on stage was last year at the thing I did with Dan. Yes, yes, the Media Empire event. Like I just knew you as a friend, and I never saw you in person, like doing your thing.

Yeah.

I don't know if you remember this, but when you finished that event, I was just like, I don't know what the heck you do for a living. You should be doing this, man. Like this, you were magic, dude. Like, I was like—

Yeah, it's the most fun ever.

You were so— the whole room was glued to what you were— I think you were doing, um, this session about, uh, a pocket banger. You have this framework of how to do short— Yeah, short-form content.

Yeah.

And even, even the name, a pocket banger, you put it in your pocket and all that stuff. It's these little cards you put in your back pocket. When you're done with it, you put it in the other pocket. But I thought in that moment, everybody in the room was just like, I can be successful, as successful as Taki, because Taki feels very relatable. And he's fun and interesting. And I have this like thing, this kind of archetype of what I have of you is like this reluctant hero kind of person.

Retired Jedi. Is that how I refer to it? I know that's inappropriate, but that's how I think about it.

Yeah, no, but it's this idea of like, Hey, I stumbled upon this thing. I'm no genius, but I want to share with you. And people for some reason are a lot more— and it's not an act.

That's who you are. No, totally it is. Like, I treat my business like a lab. We're testing out new stuff all the time. Half of it blows up in my face, which is hilarious to me. It's like, I should have— we had a program that was designed to get someone to $10,000 a month, and the goal was to get people to $10,000 a month so they could join us in Black Belt. In order to qualify for Black Belt, they need to do $10,000 a month for 3 months in a row. So that's That's the business goal for me. The program was 3 months long, which is— I was like, why aren't people upgrading? Well, they get to $10 grand a month, but they couldn't have got to $10 grand a month and hold it for 3 months in a row if the program isn't long enough for them to do that. Right. And so like, you make all these stupid mistakes, you realize afterwards how obvious it was, you laugh about it, and then you've got a story to tell that's useful for others. Yeah, I don't know if it's reluctant hero, but it's definitely— I'm in the lab, I'm testing stuff out, and I'm happy to share both the stunning successes as well as the stupid failures.

Yeah.

Especially if I find them entertaining.

Yeah, I mean, I say a good portion of your content is you making fun of your old self. Yeah. And the business that you built that you hated.

Yeah.

And then how you're like, hey, I woke up, I was like, I don't like this anymore. And the reason why that's so relatable, because a lot of entrepreneurs do that. Of course, they, they go after something they think they want, they like the idea of it. Yeah. And then they live it.

Yeah, this sucks.