Predicting the Future: Strategies for Success from Internet Marketing Pioneer Rich Schefren

Which means that there is a data exhaust of everything that you've ever done online that's being captured now. Being captured by whom is the question that you know and that no, you know. I guess that all depends, right?

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy. Hey, welcome back to another episode. In this one we went on a journey. So my friend and mentor, he is the first guru. Let's give him that title because he rolls with it. He is the guru to the gurus. He's the first gu. I was following online in digital marketing. That got me thinking as a digital marketer, a direct response marketer, and also just strategist in general, like strategy of how this thing all works. And ultimately, I gotta give this guy credit. His name is Rich Sheffrin, by the way. I gotta give him credit because he gave me the confidence and the vision of what's possible. I don't know if I've executed on it perfectly, but you know, what I got here this far. It's been 16 some odd years or whatever. Rich Sheffrin, now, I'm honored to say, is a good friend of mine. And we work closely together. We have some clients that we work together with some amazing people, some that have already been on this podcast. And Rich has always been a visionary and a amazing strategist when it comes to not only marketing, but business and life. Honestly. I mean, Rich is. He's wise and he reads up a lot. He studies. He knows he's probably the most connected or is the most connected in this online digital marketing space. So he's tapped in with the smartest minds and that's why I like to bring him on this podcast. It's been two years since we've had him on and since then, you know, he made some crazy predictions back then about Google and algorithms and, you know, Basically how they're taking over the world in some ways, in a lot of ways. And he's right. He was a little ahead of his time because now we're talking about AI and how. Woo. He has way more predictions now and not all of them are beautiful and cool and shiny object like AI is. A lot of times it can be a little frightening. But at the same time, I feel like this conversation will open your eyes and perspectives and show you the control you have as a human, as a business owner, and also knowing where things can go in the future when it comes to online privacy, when it comes to strategic thinking and actually planning for the next year or two, because it's very difficult to do with this changing tech and ultimately how you define your own version of success, because that is the. The North Star. It's the thing you can control. And with all this input that we have now with not only AI, but just media, with algorithms, with all the big tech and little tech too. I mean, we all have platforms, so knowing your own version of success and your North Star is huge. So get ready for a big, fresh perspective on all sorts of things. And let's go on a ride. Get your pen and paper out. It's going to be a lot of good stuff here. And definitely go follow Rich. Go find him over at Strategic Profits. Com. That's been his website forever. And Steal Our Winners is his. It's his collaboration with a whole bunch of other people where he's talking about the latest and best strategies. So if you want to dive into that, go check it out over on his website, Strategic Profits. All right, let's get into it. Rich, it's been two years since you've been on the show, man. Thanks for coming back.

My pleasure. I'm surprised it took this long considering how often we talk outside of the podcast. Right. Certainly not been two years since we've last spoken, that's for sure.

I feel like we're tighter now. Yeah. Shared a lot of clients, helped each other in a variety of aspects of our businesses. Thank you for that. A lot of the people I've had on, you know, chatted with Caleb o'. Dowd, Amazing guy. So it's. You're like a central hub for a lot of the marketing community. Course you've been doing this for. For a while, and you were the very first, I would say guru. At the time, I didn't even know the term, but Internet manifesto, our Internet marketing manifesto, that is. Was the very first read back in the day. I feel like it's still relevant. What do you think?

Yeah, people still read it today. You know, obviously if I were to rewrite it today, I'd add a lot more other stuff, but sometimes, you know, you don't mess with success. So no reason to change it, I guess.

Yeah, no, I've, I've definitely used it and picked out some nuggets with Chat GPT and I know we've gone back and forth with the using AI to optimize what we're already doing strategically, but give us, I guess, for two years, like, what's changed in the last two years for you? Because last time we had you on, obviously Matt was here as a co host, but we talked a lot about what you're doing with live streaming. Steal our winners is still your core thing. You're doing a lot more. Yeah. Catch me up a little bit. What's new? And then.

Well, I'm. You. The first thing I guess I would say is that I'm kind of bummed. Right. Like from the standpoint that not. And I don't mean this like to give myself a pat on the back or anything like that, but like, I just wish we. I don't know, I just wish timing was different, I guess, is what I'm saying. But like, when I was on last, right. Like pre. If it was pre the CSIB thing, which I think it might have been, or there wasn't, then I've done this. Okay, so just to go all the way back to that one for a second, like, the main thrust of that was distrust of big tech. And at that time, no one really gave a crap. Right. And then like two years later, that became like, the thing. And as far as like distrusting big tech. And it just, I wish that somehow the, you know, the campaign could have been like, pushed forward two years because then it would have been even that much more successful. But such is life, right? The life of an innovator. It's always more profitable to be a fast second. But I need to be because of my ADD or whatever. I like to do things that no one else is doing. And so that forces me to do. Maybe a little bit premature, but such is life, right?

That's a really interesting perspective. That is life. But it's also partially your life and your superpowers because I, I believe we all have some kind of superpower. And the fact that you, you really hammer into it. Like you. Csib. Yeah. Was talking about Google algorithms and all these things that are essentially running our lives in ways that we don't even Know, but now with AI, I'm sure is what you're meaning and ChatGPT and all these things, I mean, I don't think people are totally aware of the wave of automation and how things are going to change. I would call it the next two, three years. What I'm hearing from some of these other AI experts been in the game for 30 years in some case one of the guys I've been chatting with. And so yeah, I guess in the last two years, what have you learned over like these predictions? Because you've always been ahead in your thinking and that's why I love bringing you on is telling us which we, you know, kind of be peeking around the corner and thinking about. So I guess two years, what have you, what have you gotten? Right? You know, are there some things that you failed? But then also what. What's coming up? What's on your mind?

Well, yeah, I mean like I was, I did a presentation at Marketing Funnel Automation live right. In 2018. So Todd Brown's company at his last event on AI. So once again, just a little bit too early, I guess. But what I would say is like immediately what I believe will happen next, like with AI, right, like dill right now, the flavor of the month are prompts. But I'm thinking that people will get away from that relatively quickly. Many probably have already gotten away from that and like would imagine the next big like as it relates to ChatGPT. And what's going to take over for prompts is probably workflows that'll be the next most obvious thing. So instead of like, can you give me a prompt to get this out of ChatGPT? Can you give me a workflow that will take a single video and figure out what it's about, write posts for it, break it up into numerous pieces, populate it everywhere. Like, you know, can you give me a workflow for that? Right? Can you give me a workflow for, you know. Now you're seeing companies develop that kind of are that, right? Like, you know, load up a video here and we'll automatically cut it into clip, you know, closed caption on it, et cetera, et cetera. So that's. Companies are like birthing to have a workflow which is their software, right? And but what I believe you'll also see are people who are creating these workflows just like right now creating prompt. And maybe not a software company, but you know, maybe it's with Zapier or Workflowy or any. Or make any of the, you know, tools that People can use to put together together numerous steps of the process as opposed to the steps being, you know, human originated or initiated. Right. So I think that'll happen. But I would imagine also that there is like, you know, there's people just need to think about AI a little bit differently than maybe how they're thinking about it. And the way that I like to think about it came from a book that I read years and years ago. The book, they have a new book out, I haven't read that one yet. And I only found out that they have a new book cause I was recommending the old book and someone just came to me and told me that like they wrote a new book, but the name of the original book was Prediction Machines and it was about AI or machine learning. And written by these people that have a base, they come from an economist type background. And so they were looking at the changes that happened from computing technology, right. And to then model out what will happen with AI technology. And if you reduce computing technology down to its core essence, it really is just multiplication, but at the end of the day, right, everything's converted to a 0 and 1. And that computers can do arithmetic, arithmetic better than humans can. And they can do it faster, cheaper and more accurately and based on better arithmetic. Look at all the things that have been created. But at the end of the day, the computing revolution is just better arithmetic. Artificial intelligence is kind of a misnomer because it's not intelligent, it's machine learning. And machine learning is just like computing power is arithmetic, machine learning is prediction. Like it doesn't. And you know, the difference between machine learning and this idea of intelligence is, is like when you ask ChatGPT, like what' the capital of New York State, it doesn't know it's Albany, right? It doesn't know that it is a prediction based on language Model that capital, New York State. What the user is looking for, it's predicting, right, is Albany. And so it's not intelligent in and of itself. It's just a prediction machine. And so when you think about AI that way, right? What when prediction becomes cheaper, faster and more accurate, what is going to become more valuable? What's going to become less valuable? And that's really what you have to look at to understand where things are headed. And so if people are interested in that, like I'm giving it a very surface Y kind of explanation, and they could probably just read Prediction Machines because it's been like six or seven years since I read it or however long ago. But, but that you know, so I think AI is, you know, certainly the flavor of the month right now. And, and I would just think that people are also kind of thinking about it a little bit, not like the right way from the standpoint that the, like, if you look at other times in history where there have been game changing technology, right? Like we, that the first one was the Industrial revolution, right? Like, and the people that got rich were Rockefeller, Carnegie Mellon, like those types of people. They were not the people who were building machines. They were the ones who figured out a business that could leverage the fact that machines were being built and people were moving into cities and stuff like that.

So kind of work.

The computing revolution. Yeah, and the computing revolution, right? Like you had people like Gates and Jobs and those were the people that got rich. And certainly Apple created computers, but I would say that that was not the reason they became so successful. There are a lot of computer makers and you know, Microsoft didn't even make computers, right? So these were the people that they understood computing and understand like how to have a company in it. And lastly, like the Internet revolution, right, you have people like Bezos with Amazon, you have the Google guys, you have Zucker, right? Like you have all these people, Bezos, right? You have all these different types of people. But they were not the people that invented the Internet, nor were they the people who knew like the technology of the Internet. They understood what the Internet would create and therefore created businesses that could leverage what that was. Right? And so it's going to be the same here, like thinking that the place to go is not to study AI, like to really learn computer science or anything like that, or to be thinking about, you know, how can you sell a few prompts? Because that will come and go. But like with better prediction power like that, machine learning provides. How can I build a business that leverages something that wasn't able to be done before based on better prediction that now can be done? That is one way of thinking about it. Another way of thinking about it is like, okay, what is going to become more valuable as prediction becomes more certain? Certainly like the most obvious thing is value and discernment, right? Like that certainly is one element that will become more valuable. Other things will become less valuable. And that's kind of the thinking that needs to be done if you wanted to become the next oligarch or, you know, trillionaire billionaire, whatever.

Yeah, that's interesting.

It's not my thing.

Well, I think it's, I think we're playing a part in at least creating these workflows and like you said, discernment right now. Like the way I think of machine learning or AI, this who period we're in right now. And I feel like the next few years are going to be this whole shift in how we think and how we leverage technology. It's like I had Lee Richter on recently and she's like, technology never goes backwards, keeps pushing forwards, and of course it's speeding up at all times, but there's still that human element, there's that humanity side that we're still the input into these machines and it's up to us to figure out. For now, that's good. And I would love your thoughts on that too. But yeah, you mentioned Bezos and Job and Gambling Gates. They're figuring out some kind of, you know, they're looking at the humans in the need of. Of what are wanted and they're assembling the components of these revolutions and creating a business around it and might start with one piece, but then it's like this hub and spoke thing starts to build out like a network. And. Yeah, I'm curious of your thoughts of the for now piece. Like, the humanity, like, how are people going to play into this? Obviously, discernment, like you said. Any thoughts on that specifically?

It's really hard because I have such mixed feelings about humanity in general. So, yeah, I find it hard to think myself personal. Hard for me to think clearly about that because when I talk to any individual, like, I see their humanity and I think people are inherently good. But when I think of humanity collectively, I don't necessarily feel that way. And I think people are inherently bad. Right. But like, when I talk to any individual, I don't feel that way. And I think that partly because, like, we're social beings and it's easy for us to get swept up. And I don't like where things seem to be headed, you know, with greater and greater polarization. We're each in our own bubble that is very created by our own biases. My. Myself included. Different. Right. You know, and so I don't know where that all leads us, but I don't think it leads us any place good, you know, and I don't know, I think we talked about this maybe on one of the previous episodes, but Neil Postman, who was a sociologist, wrote Bowling Alone, and one of his theories was, is that technology at first brought us together and now it was taking us further apart. And, you know, like, I remember one of the examples being like the tv. Right. So there was a time when, like, not everyone had a tv, right? And then someone on your block got a tv and then your neighbors came over and everyone watched TV together, right? And then time lapse, and then every home had a tv, but it was one TV in the house, maybe in the den or something like that. And the whole family got together to watch tv, right? Now like everyone has a TV in their room or on their phone. Now you are isolated and watching, not bringing people together right? Now what's even worse is, is that what you see on your screen is being informed based on your biase. So not only are you watching alone, but now you're also kind of propagating this one way of seeing things. Yeah. And I think it's really not good. And then on top, I don't think that's good. I think that's really bad. And I think that compounding the problem is that is restrictions on free speech, which makes it even worse right there, you know, And I can say that like at least when I went through my midlife crisis and I went through a lot of transformation stuff, I remember this one, like kind of distinction between hearing and listen, right? So hearing is a very, like there's a sound, I hear it, right? But listening, like taking it in and assigning meaning to it is a much more based on who you are and how you listen. And we all have a preconceived way of listening. And my. I say this, not proud of it because I think it's horrible what I'm about to say. But like my preconceived way of listening is I already know, right? Like, like when someone's talking. My default in the back of my head is I already know this, right? And that's not good for learning. It's not good for. It's not good for any. Anything. It's not good for learning, bonding, anything, right? But this is what naturally pops up into my head most of the time when I'm talking to someone that I have to suppress because if I don't suppress it, I'm not going to learn anything new. I'm not going to like, you know, there are. It's not a reflection of who I'm talking to. It's a reflection of my own shit, of why that comes up, right? So I'm very familiar with this idea, right, of bias. Because I have my own bias. One of my biases is I already know, right? That I have to force myself get past. Because more often than not, I'm completely wrong. I don't already know it, right? And there's tons of stuff that I could be learning, right? And so I have to force myself to kind of get past that in order to get to the gold, right? But in our own bubbles, there's nothing forcing us. We're just consuming what we already know, believe to be true, et cetera. And there's no penetration, right, of, like, getting out of that, especially if free speech is limited. Especially, you know, like, as a Jew myself, I have no problem with anyone who believes the Holocaust didn't exist. I think they have the right to say that. And I. And I want them to be able to say that, because the alternative is, is that they believe that and it's suppressed. And now they're sharing it in groups like some hidden kind of thing. And it's never addressed that maybe it did exist. Right? So I'm a believer in free speech and. But the idea that of free speech being limited on top of people being in their own bubbles and then having AI be very good at predicting what people in their own bubbles are potentially going to do is a recipe for a lot of not good stuff. And so I remember this one book, and I know I'm going on, like, a couple tangents here, but keeping track of a little bit here, okay? Like, I remember this one book, I think it was called, like, Weapons of Mass Destruction or it was something. It was a play on that, but it was about algorithms and, like, how they could be destructive. And I remember the woman who wrote the book, like, doing a presentation, maybe a TED Talk on it, and she was talking about how, you know, people who are manic depressive when they go into a manic age are very irresponsible with their money. Right? Like, they will overspend to a ridiculous amount, right? Because they're in this main. They're experiencing mania. They're manic at that time. Right. They don't need very much sleep. They can, you know, and there's certain physiological things that are happening to make someone be able to operate with very little sleep, have a lot of energy and excitement, and. And some of those things also block out any concern for repercussions, et cetera. Right. So Facebook can pick up on whether someone's manic depressive based on their posts. So that's true. Right. And is it then to target someone who's going through a manic stage? Right, right. Special deal to Vegas, right? Like to go gamble or, like, you know, some very expensive impulse items or other things. Is that fair? Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Because the technology Already exists for that. And that's where, you know, a prediction machine starts getting pretty scary. Right.

And especially maybe integrated in platform like a Facebook or where a mass community is in there posting and digesting content. Yeah. That exchange.

Yeah. And thinking that like what you're seeing is what everyone else is seeing when it's not. You're just seeing what you're seeing based on what's predicted that would be most beneficial for either an advertiser or a platform, but probably not your own health. That's not being even taken into the equation. Right. So that's where I mean like I don't know how to think about all the implications of that as it relates. Relates to humanity.

I don't know if we can, man.

We'll see where it goes.

Yeah, yeah. You brought up even more connections and layers that. Because yeah, I feel like a lot of us are just thinking of the surface layer. Like maybe it's chat GPT. Oh my God. It can decipher all this information and give me predictive, you know, analysis of my data or whatever. But yeah, you start stacking it on the powers of algorithms, of platforms of I guess, capitalism in general. You know, people want to sell their shit.

Yeah. And it's crazy. Like I'm talking so they're like, this is a total aside, but just to kind of let people know what's out there already there already. What I'm saying right now is there already the. So speaking to a company that wants me to be kind of a spokesperson for them for small business, that they have penetration at the enterprise level, but not small business online especially. And it's a company that gives people the ability to have a QR code that doesn't take people to a website. Website we can consider like the QR codes of today, like dumb QR codes because they just take you to a site. Right. These QR codes will actually open up your text messages and pre populate the text like and so all the person has to do is hit send. So you could have a QR code like for your pre report or video or whatever. Right. Click here. It could be on a webpage or wherever. Right. Or it could be a button or it could be a QR code, whatever. Right. So let's say it's a. If it's a button, people press the button. It just automatically opens up your text message. Message and it's text is already written out. Please send me, blah blah, blah, blah blah. And the person hit send or QR code. You take a picture, it opens up your text messages pre populate same action, right? When you text that. So that's kind of cool and novel and stuff like that. But when you text that, right, what also gets sent through that text? Your name, right? The phone number that you just texted from your home address, your email address. It's all embedded in it. So the company, they want me to kind of start talking about, and I would talk about it here, but I don't want to necessarily name the company yet because I don't want people running to the company. But here's thing, they've already linked up with another company that can do a quick credit check on that person, right? Immediately once you send that text, they know. They know whether you're where you're at. Are you someone that should be passed along to the phone room? Are you someone that should be pushed aside based on, you know, your credit? That is not anything. That's new technology. That's the first thing I want to just kind of the ability to text like through QR code or an rfi, you know, that is new. But. But the idea that there is very few things that are really anonymous in this world, like most people think and that there really are no secrets online and that, you know, anyone who's given any thought to this should kind of recognize that, that like in order for retargeting to work, just like that's the most basic thing like retargeting, you went to a site and now you're going on CNN and they're showing you an ad for that site. How does that happen? That happens because every time you land on a page on the Internet, there's a broadcast that we have this visitor that's unique on this page, that's unique to that page. What is the bid to show ads for this visitor on this page? Which means that every single page that you go on, there's a broadcast of who's on that page, right? In order for that to work, which means that there is a data exhaust of everything that you've ever done online that's being captured now. Being captured by whom is the question that you know and that no, you know, I guess that all depends, right? There's no privacy online. Most people believe that they have more privacy than they really have. And when you start like layering in that you have no privacy, that there are these machines that can predict extremely accurately what's going to turn you on, what's going to turn you off, what excites you, what doesn't, what you know, I'm all for ads that are relevant to me.

Yeah.

I'm not for ads that exploit me as the human. As the unique human being that I am. And there's a fine line between ads that are relevant and ads that are exploiting my specific issues that I would find very difficult to say no to based on all the data about me that I would prefer that like. Right. That is only I know if I even am aware of it. Odds are we're not. Right. This stuff could get really dys. Dystopian and. Or will. Yeah. Really fast. But like, you know, and the cat's out of the bottle, right? Like the, you know, like whatever the expression is the. You can't put this back in the jar.

The genie. Yeah. And I've heard. Heard that on. On mold from multiple experts and people is like, yeah, this has obviously been around for a while and now it's layering and stacking these technologies. But the fact that now everyone has control or access to ChatGPT and these large language models, they can layer in their own custom thing on top of the LLM and shit, you could do anything. Terrorist stuff, you know, it's like, I'm sure that's being, you know, things states, you know, big countries doing things that are definitely not wanted by the masses. But what the fact is everyone has the technology, so it's. It is a human thing.

Yeah, I mean, I agree. It goes back to human thing and like, you know, threads just got released recently and I haven't. Not that I'm looking for it, so maybe people have. But you know, think about all the additional data now that Facebook will get if threads really start to be on par with Twitter. Right. They own Instagram, so they already know what visually excites you. I think they own Facebook, they already know who your friends are. But it would be great for them to also know like what's on your mind ten times a day as you post to threads, like what's going on. Right. So it just helps them build out a better profile of you. Right. Not to scare anyone. Like, I kind of like the idea of Twitter being on a different platform so that it's not all one just behemoth who has all this information. I mean Google has a ridiculous amount. Right. Between the Google browser, people will search for stuff that they would never share with anyone else. They own the Chrome browser, right? So like anything that you're surfing on Chrome, they know. They know they own YouTube. So anything that you're watching, they know, right? Like it's. And they. If you use Gmail, they know every email that like you send and receive. And that's a scary amount of information for a company, for a single company that does leverage AI to have on you about being exploitive, what they can exploit you with, right. You know, it's kind of like not the, like I just heard this crazy theory. So I'm not saying I believe what I'm about to say. I just want to share it, right?

Please.

So it's a gent. I have a problem with this law too. But like I don't even want to go down this road in a way because I don't want people to come after me. But, and I'm not, I don't say that in a paranoid way that are watching this. They'll be like, Jeffrey is an asshole. But okay, so it's a crime like that you go to jail for if you have pornography on your computer that where a child is underage, right? Like, like and you go to jail for a considerable amount of time. I have a problem with that law just because like to me it seems more like a free speech issue. I certainly believe that anyone who was responsible for creating that needs to go to jail forever, right? But the idea that possess possession of something would put you in jail for a very long period of time to me, just as scary, right? I'm not into child porn, so it's not because of my own self interest, for the record. But so I heard one theory about why. And I'm not saying this theory is true. Like I just. But it's just I want to like, you know, it's just as an example, like just start thinking about this kind of stuff. So Jeffrey Epstein, right, Like, you know, he definitely, regardless of what you believe, what you don't believe, he certainly associated with some intelligence organization, whether it was Mossad or the CIA or their. Was intelligence built into this, right? And him being thought of as someone who compromised people, high level people, he would compromise them, right? With underage girls a problem, right? Like that's a compromise that you have leverage on someone and now can get them to do what you want or they could end up in jail, right? You have photographic evidence of someone with someone like underage, like what Prince Andrew, I guess has circumvented because he's part of the royal family, but nonetheless, right? Well, there's an Israeli company that can place something on your phone. Phone like without ever being in proximity of your phone, right? It's against the law to be in possession of any pornographic material with an Underage child.

They could just load your phone up.

I don't need Jeffrey Epping anymore. Like, the conspiracy theory is, why did Jeffrey Epstein get caught and why did he get killed? Because they didn't need him anymore. Because now they can compromise someone without having to send them to a private island, without having to entice them with whatever to compromise them, because they can just zap. And they don't even need your phone. They don't even need to be close to your phone. They just need to know the number and that's it. Right. Like, so, yeah, it's a crazy world that we're headed into, and I don't. I don't know where it all goes. But, you know, like, before we started this podcast, right, I was showing you some stuff that we've been working on, and, you know, we have this new offer right now that I was completely not involved with. That is an avatar of me. It sounds like me. If you look at it for more than a couple seconds, you can recognize that I'm not moving the way I should, because I'm just standing there like this and that, you know. Right. Like, you know that after a few seconds, because I'm not. My shoulders aren't moving, and, like, nothing else is moving except my lip. Right. Like this. Got your.

Like, it did really well there.

Yeah. And, you know, my team has access to that. So, like, you know, the first couple of days, it was kind of a joke. Like, my team was making funny videos of me saying stuff I would never say. Right. And, you know, it's only a matter of time until we. And I. Who knows, maybe it'll be this election cycle that comes up in, you know, next year, where you can't trust your eyes anymore, you can't trust your ears anymore. So I don't know where it all heads. I guess my point is, is that, like, you asked me this question about, like, with humanity and everything, and I'm just like, yeah, like, it's. It'll be interesting. Like, I think the Chinese Kurd, you live in interesting times or something like that.

That's.

We are certainly going to be living in some very interesting times.

And, yeah, we thought the last handful of years were interesting. I think, yeah, the next years are coming. And you're right. And what. What I've thought about, because I've thought a lot about what you've said, but you've just layered on a lot more because you're always thinking. Thinking that way. I mean, you digest content, I know, at a rapid pace. And I don't know. I'd love your thoughts on, like, what do we do as an individual or even as a business owner, obviously, like, planning strategically, years ahead. I don't know if that's even possible.

You know, I don't know if this answers it, but this is the first thing that comes to mind, right? And it's. So I'm a huge fan of watching the CrossFit games, right? I don't do CrossFit. Right. Like, you know, but I'm a huge fan of the CrossFit. I jump rope like a maniac. I actually started to jump rope in my office here, too. So it's kind of like in between calls now. Feel bad for Julianne because it must sound like just so annoying. Plus, my jumping is definitely not light on my feet. All 200 pounds of me going up and down too many times in a minute. But I'm a huge fan of the CrossFit Games and I'm a huge fan of the CrossFit Games because. And like, probably the two sports that I like to watch the Most are the UFC, right? Like fighting and the CrossFit games. And to me, those two sports represent. Are more accurate reflection of life than other sports. And let me explain what I mean by that. You know, like football, baseball, there are preconceived rules. You know what you need to do in order to win. And so you can very specifically practice exactly what you need to do with fighting. That is not the case at all. Right. You don't know what the person, you know, like, is the person going to be in an orthodox style or a southpaw style? And some people switch back and forth and are they going to try and hit you? Are they going to try and take you down? Are they going to try and kick you? Are they going to try and elbow you? Are they going to try and sweep your leg legs, what are they going to do? Right. The CrossFit Games is even kind of, I think, easier to get your head around because you don't know what you're going to be competing in. So how do you compete when you don't know what the competition's going to be? And how do the same people win it year after year of what the things, the activities that you're doing are constantly changing. And the way that happens is, is that you cannot train for the thing. All you can do is train to be your best so that whatever comes up, you're able to handle. And to me, that is more what the entrepreneurial pat is. And that's more what life is, right? That I can't tell you what you're going to like the next obstacle you're going to hit or the next obstacle that I'm going to hit, right? So I can't specifically train for the next problem I'm going to experience in my business. I can't specifically train for the next problem I'm going to have in my personal life. But what I can do is I can be the best me that I can be and by doing that, like, be most prepared for the thing that comes next, right? So, you know, so along those lines, right? Way that best prepared is by thinking about things like, you know, it's still probably my biggest critique of humanity and other human beings is not enough thinking that it's so easy to get into a. Into like a rut. But I don't know that other people might consider it a rut where you're doing no, like, time, no significant block of time of just thinking. And I find it very easy for myself to fall into that kind of routine where, like, I'm constantly listening to YouTube going on. Like, so. So when I'm not working, I'm listening to YouTube in the background. Like, there's always some other kind of thing going on so that there's very little time of me just sitting alone in quiet writing thoughts and thinking through things. But if you spend no time doing that, you're much more likely to kind of be swept up in the drift of life. And the way that like, like, if you don't, if you're not clear where you want to end up and you're not thinking about those things on a, like where you're giving it deep thought, then other people can p you very easily, right? Like the way we were just talking about, right? So I would say the thing that like a CrossFit athlete needs to get into the best shape possible so that they can handle whatever comes up first is, is that you have to spend time thinking on a frequent enough basis to even get a sense of what you truly believe and what you don't, what you truly want and what you don't. Because in the moment that'll be more by impulse and will not be your best thinking. So I would say like, definitely spending some time, whether it's a journal, whether it's just like talk to your spouse, whether or your kids or someone, but like time where there's no outside stimuli and you're really kind of getting to the deeper things of what matter to you, right? So I would Say that that's probably most important. And I was reflecting on that because like last night, like in my journal, I have not been spending enough time myself thinking deep thoughts and stuff like that. Because it is so easy to just get wrapped up in this constant barrage of stuff. Yeah. You know, and I make fun of my girlfriend who likes to watch reality tv, but is how much worse is that than me, like just walking around with my phone on all the time, listening to information about fighting and CrossFit games and stuff like that. So. So I would say probably of anything, the most important thing spending time thinking. And then I would say the second most important thing is making sure that you're spending enough time. And I'm like, I don't know why I'm using my hands for it. But with other human beings, like not this way, like through a screen. Right. But actually like out with other humans doing things that I think we're social creatures, we need a certain amount. Like even me as an introvert who my own devices would never leave my house or talk to anyone. I know that if I did that and I fell into what my inclinations are, I would also shrivel up and die because like that is not a recip for health wellbeing, you know, good thinking.

Right.

And so you have to, you know, it's like for me, the reason I write in a journal is because like I don't want to be in front of my computer. I don't want things, I don't want it digital because not because I have anything against it being digital, I actually scan them all and I have digital versions of them. But I want to get away from my computer. Like I want to not be in front of the multi screens that I'm currently sitting in front of right now. Because that's not what at the end of the day provides any meaning in my life. And it certainly doesn't. It's not recharging. And so I would say spending more time thinking and spending more time with other human beings are probably the two most important things. Because technology has a way of eating up time, getting you to think less and spending less time with other human beings. And I think all of those are not good things.

And holy crap. Yes. And this is why I have journals as well. Same exact thing. And something I'll add, which I've noticed in myself recently is I'm taking siestas every day and it's just might be like 10 minutes, but it's like doing an NSDR getting older. Yeah, I know, right? It's it's the midlife crisis.

No, no. It's like I used to be able to work until like, you know, the next day. And now at like 5, 6 o', clock, I'm like, oh man, I'm tired. I don't want to think anymore.

Hey man, maybe I'm getting smarter. But think about this. And. And I'm curious if it's the same for you. I think maybe it's safety when you lay yourself back on a bed, you know, or wherever, even a floor, but you're like kind of just open. I find that's when these thoughts just kind of start connecting, you know, away from a screen. Doesn't have to be any inputs. Maybe there's some, I don't know, some nsdr, yoga, nidra, that kind of thing. But even without that, just laying there for 10 minutes, like, things connect and you become. I feel like. Yeah. Less impulsive, or at least I do. I feel like it's. You're right. The technology, it's inputs, it's time consumption, it's going to pull you down. Other people's intentions, whatever that might be. An algorithm or a person. Yeah, that's something I layer in there with journaling. And spending time away from screens is like taking time to meditate, but it's really just chilling the hell out, being open and not. Not chasing.

Yeah. And you know, it's not something like, I am serious. At least for me, if I gave in to my inclinations, I would spend zero time thinking and time reflecting and zero time in silence. Right. Because there's. I love Andrew Huberman, I love this. I love Joe Rogan, I love, like, might as well always have that stuff just like on. In the background. Right. Like constantly just going on. Right. And I remember when I was seeing last time I saw a therapist, which was around my midlife crisis. Like, continued to see her for many years after that. And you know, she was trying. It took the longest time, like, to just. She wanted me to just sit and do nothing. Right. And that to me seemed like. Like, why would I want that? That's uncomfortable. I'd rather be reading, I'd rather be writing, I'd rather be studying. I'd rather be talking, I'd rather be listening. Like, just sit there. Like, just sit there. Like. Well, that seems so unappealing. And that's the point. Like, because you don't. Like. Not that it will be unappealing, but that it's unappealing, which is why you never do it. And there's a payoff on the other side of it like that of what you really think, right? Like books are what other people think. If you never spend time just in quiet, you don't know what know what you think you know, you know what others think. So yeah, the, you know, and I think it was, it was Pascal or whoever invented calculus. I don't know, I forget who invented calculus, but it looks like said like most of men's problems stem from his inability to sit in a room by himself quietly alone or something like that. I'm certainly, and I to a certain extent agree with that. Like it's just very easy to get swept up. And the things that matter most are generally not the things that sweet. You don't get swept up into those things. You actually have to make time for those things. Once you make time for those things, you can get swept up into them. But they're not what our culture and technology is throwing at us. So if you can spend time pulling away from that, where you spend some time outside of the matrix or outside of the Internet, where you get to spend some time thinking and bonding with people, then you're at least doing like the minimum healthy, viable stuff that should be done to kind of keep your humanity in place as opposed to kind of being just a cog in machine of life and being swept up and you one day realize that you spent 20 years and you have no idea where it went. You know, I mean I easily can go a week and I'm like, where did that week go, right? Like. Cause I didn't check in with myself and it just seems like I was on autopilot and what, that's what you kind of want to avoid being on autopilot. I think there are a lot of people that are autopilot their whole life, right? Check in on job, go to the job, work in front of a tv, eat dinner, sleep, go back to work. Like it's just a routine, right? And I remember this is like a end my whole long tangents on this, right? But I remember another book I read and it was talking about one of the most important things. I think it was like forget the name of the book, not important, but it was a best selling book. And if I said the name of it, other people I'm sure have read it. One part of that book which was not the primary part of the book stood out to me and it was talking about cognitive, like how to stay cognitively good, right? And what leads to cognitive decline. And they were talking about like people like in an old age Home and you know, the meals are served three times a day. Right. And there's though there's a big difference cognitively between just like going to eat breakfast, going to eat lunch, going to eat dinner like at the scheduled times versus deciding that I'm hungry and I should eat breakfast now, I'm hungry, I should eat lunch now. Like anytime you make a, a decision, like a decision to act in any way, shape or form or not act, you are coming out of autopilot. It's actually decisions like when you have to consciously choose, even if you're consciously choosing what you're already like tending towards on autopilot, it's that conscious choice that actually is taking you out of this like automated way of being. Right. And so you know, if you're not making the choice and you're just going with the flow there like, and you go with the flow too long, you're not making any choices which has you in autopilot, right. That's not a good thing. There are certain things that should be autopilot maybe, right. Like the outfit that you wear. Maybe that's not worth the mental like, you know. But no, thinking no choices is really bad and making choices is really good because it gets you out of autopilot. And the tendency for the brain is to be on autopilot because it conserves energy and it a lot easier. So make more decisions. Even if those decisions are the same thing that you'd be doing anyway. But just deciding is important.

Interesting. So it's the decision making. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because it breaks you out of that. It's almost like we, we, we get safe feeling when it's the same thing. We have a schedule, something's predictable, we have expectation, you know, of our day. Like I said old folks home, everything's kind of predicted for you. So you're brain just kind of, you know, rots for whatever reason. But yeah, man, I mean that's why like for me I have a habit tracker. Every single day there's a small group of guys that all of us have like 10 things that we want to tick off every day. Perfect. No, but it's things like you know, a hundred pushups a day or sit ups or whatever, you know, going to bed at a certain time, waking up, you know, getting enough sleep, journaling, you know, things like that, like little micro actions that can kind of engineer. I feel like we can all do. Matter helped tremendously, man. I feel like Rich, this is maybe the, I don't know, it's the only solution we got is to at least control our decision making here. And then what? Be dangerous enough and understand where the hell the things are going in the tech world and everything else around us. And yeah, studying people, man, it's fascinating. I feel like, you know, the algorithms and all that, they're reflections of us. We're obviously creating them, but they're kind of compounding and taking a life of them, their own with the more inputs and things that we do as people to essentially refine those machines. But I don't know, it's hard to define. This thing's going to be interesting. Like you said, interesting times.

I would say that in the time that you do spend a while where you are thinking, one of the things to think about that's probably, in my opinion, one of the most important things to think about is what do you really want for your life? How would you define success personally for yourself? Because if you don't, then there'll always be FOMO about what's going on in the world. There'll always be a reason not to unplug. There'll always be like, you'll be swept up in basically what society has decided is success. And you need your own definition of what success means to you personally. And that then becomes your nordar for you specifically to be able to resist all the temptations that are out there. Like, I don't spend much time on social media and I say that proudly because I don't want to waste my time there, nor is that any. That has no importance to me. Zero. Right. And so it's rather easy for me. I don't feel like I'm missing out. Right. Because none of those things matter in my definition of success to me. Nowhere is it it like staying abreast of what a million people are doing on a daily basis. I don't care. And so I think that, you know, for me it's about having a great circle of friends. It's about enjoying life, it's about leaving people better than when I found them. There are a bunch of things that I've decided are important to me and that's then what guides my life forward. And like always interested in how I can leverage technology to have more of that in my life, but not going to allow technology to take any of that away from me. And that's only because I've spent the time thinking about what is it like that is most important to me? Not like what sounds nice. Oh, family is most important to me. Well, if I don't live that if I don't really run my day like it is, if I don't, like, stop what I'm doing when my daughter calls and it's not. Right, like, so what is really important to me, even if I'm not going to say it to other people, so at least I know, right? Like, so that I can make the appropriate choices come out of, like, the drift, right? Of like where society is going, where I can be much more intentional about where my life is going to go and what I'm going to do and what I'm going to experience. Because I've given it at least some forethought of what's important to me. And I'm checking in with myself on a consistent enough basis to determine am I getting closer to that or am I moving further away from that, and if so, like, what do I need to do to change it.

This is this defined strategy, strategic profits, but it's more than business, right? It's like us as humans. So it's, it's. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I guess you have kind of defined how to strategically plan for ourselves in the next upcoming years, because it does start with ourselves. It's that North Star. And that's the foundation for everything we get to do in life. It's not a get to, it's going to be a have to because someone else is called the shot. And we do have autonomy to a certain extent. But yeah, man, you laid it out.

More than we realize and more if we exercise it. But most people don't, right?

The choice, let's leave it there and let's do a check in maybe sooner than two years because stuff's moving quickly. So mentioning Steve, Strategic Profits, though, I know that's your website. You got some really cool stuff there. That's like your hub, right? So Steal Our Winners is there, which briefly mentioned. And that thing is. So you're listening to a podcast right now or watching a podcast. Steal Our Winners is essentially kind of like a podcast, but. But it's extremely tactical. You get so deep in there. There's action guides, there's all this, all this cool stuff to really take the best tactics and strategies that are working right now. So what else can you, can you leave us with? Point people to, you know, what they should check out with you and the folks?

Yeah, well, what I would say on that front, right, is that I spent, you know, I've been online for over 20 years, and I spent the first 12 or 13 or 14 of those years really teaching people how to be more strategic, how to build systems, how to really kind of do a lot of things that like an entrepreneur should be able to do if they want to have a successful business. And I pretty proud of like what I've been able to, what I was able to accomplish, plus like the clients that I had, what they were able to accomplish. What I realized about, I don't know, like five or six years ago was that when you also looked at my success personally and the success of my private clients, plus the success of my group coaching clients, et cetera, when I looked at what caused success and what didn't, there are certainly mental things and those kinds of things. And I actually wrote a report a long time ago ago called the Hidden Obstacle Report about the mental side. But when it comes to the business side, the thing that I found probably that never really occurred to me was that every single person that I know that's been successful and that is successful, that has a successful online business has had at least there's a marketing tactic or strategy far exceed their expectations. And then in other words like I was just a coach, I wrote a single report hoping to get a dozen clients and that single report like got me tens of thousands of clients clients over a decade, right? And totally changed the income bracket like I was in within three weeks and totally changed my life. There's really my life before that report and then after and then the next big jump my business was when we invented the automated webinars and then again this huge change. And when I looked at also all these like much the results they delivered were far exceeded what I could have ever not only expected, but hoped for. Right? And the. And what's behind that, right? Or when I brought brought like the VSL to Agora and you know, they immediately grew like crazy. The what's behind a strategy or tactic far exceeding your expectation. And if you've never had one, if you've never had a tactic or strategy far exceed your expectations, then my guess would be that you're also your business is not where you want it to be. And you're probably in the grind, right? Because what causes momentum is something like that, right? All of a sudden a lot more results without any more effort to get said results is life cycle of any marketing strategy or tactic. That's what's behind whether or not you've ever had something far exceed your expectations. So I created Steal Our Winners because one, most people I don't think are really cognizant of the fact that a strategy or tactic is far more effective when it's first innovated, and then it degrades in performance over time. And that the resources, the skill level, the effort all increases over time of what's required to get the result from that same tactic or strategy. So I developed Steeler Winners and we publish two strategies or tactics a week to give the general public, you could say, access to what people like me have access to, which are strategies and tactics that are currently crushing it that most people don't know about yet, because they're most effective when most people don't know about it, when they're early on. And so steal our winners. That's what we try and provide people. That's what we do, provide people. So we're providing strategies and tactics that are currently crushing it that most people don't know about that are more likely to actually exceed your expectations rather than be below your expectations. And if you've only had stuff meet or be below expectations, my bet to you would be that you're only using strategies and tactics that everybody already knows. And if you're using strategies and tactics that everybody already knows, then the likelihood of the performance far exceeding your expectations are somewhat slim, if not non existent. So if you want to have a tactic or strategy far exceed your expectations, you need to be doing it, leveraging it, using it before everybody knows. And so what we do at Steal our Winners is that we publish twice a week these types of strategies that are considerably more likely to give you those kind of results because they're working right now and most people don't know about them yet.

Man, epic explanation and way to present that. Because it's true. It's very true. I've used it for a variety of things and you're already pointing to something with YouTube and you were.

Yeah. And I mean, that's the part, that's the part I'm probably most proud of, is that because I would imagine we both know a lot of people, it's not the more common thing that when you're talking friend to friend, right, outside of a business context, that they can be confident in referring you to something that they actually sell to help their friend with, like whatever their friend is doing or relative or whatever. Right. And that part probably says more about Steeler winners than I can possibly say. Is that like, you know, like I recommended a specific episode for you to watch based on what you're trying to achieve right now. Right. And that's a very common thing for me to do with my closest friends because that's, I think probably the biggest statement of what I could say about how good I feel the content is and how proud I am of it. Because generally, you know, people aren't sending their friends, you know, to do their courses or their content.

Right, that's very true. Yeah. No, it delivers and exceeds. And I always kick myself when I forget to check in or I don't look at the latest things or, you know, try to think for myself kind of thing. Because to be honest. No, definitely, definitely the most amount of people in the marketing space or online digital space that I know. And you're bringing those folks together. So definitely. I urge everyone to go check out steel our winners. You can get their steel Strategic profits dot com. I'm sure it's linked up there.

Yeah. And I think if you go to steal it. Let me see. I don't even know. I think if you go to steal whenever it takes you to strategic profits. Let's see. Does it take us to a park page? That would be wonderful, wouldn't it?

That's why I was hesitant.

Takes you to strategic profits. Cool.

Like, I know the strategic profits works, so. Yeah.

No, but also if they went to steal our winners, it would just take them back to strategic profits.

Well, rich man, I appreciate the insights and legitimately, friend to friend, it's been so fun getting to know well you. But see how your brain works. And you refer books to me, documents to read. And you know, as I'm getting older, maybe it's a midlife crisis. I don't know if I'm there yet yet, but I feel like I'm getting some. I hope not either. I feel like I'm elevating in a lot of ways and you've. You've assisted me in that. And I hope that does the same for people listening. So appreciate you, my man.

Very cool. Yeah, thank you.

All right, all right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live. If you need to do the work. But you know, work can be fun and it should be feeling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything help. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, and I will see you next time.