Michael Lovich and Hollis Carter on Building a 7 Figure Business from a Community

We never actually put ourselves in the picture. We only were the container and the setting. So I think it was more a conscious awareness of not doing it that allowed it to happen. For most people, I think, just default to be the other way.

The quality of the people are so much better humans than we are as people. So we can't even be leaders if we wanted to be now.

It'd be impossible.

So, so for you guys, like, what is it like? What does it mean to have a successful community? Or what is a successful community?

I've never thought about it like that. It evolved.

It didn't—

it's not like we— I tell everybody, it's revisionist visioning. Like, we never had a vision coming in of a community.

What was the vision? Like, how did it—

We wanted to— well, I had exited a company and Hollis had too. And then I used to drink a lot on my other card. And my wife knows I drink and everything, but then when Hollis and I were going out, he had just left his, I left mine, and we'd go out drinking and I had to use my personal card. And my wife knows I drink, but Jesus Christ. And I was like, so Hollis, I said, we need to do a company fast. I need a card because I can't have her seeing these fucking bar tabs. So it was really the shared credit card was the first reason we started something together. I don't even know.

I mean, I think what we started that was to do a consulting gig. And so then we had an LLC and a card so we 'Cause we were both like done with our— we met for like almost a decade going to events together, even though we had completely separate companies. But one thing that was in common is we went to lots of events and we hated the same stuff and liked the same stuff. So we were good buddies at events, even though we weren't there for the same financial reasons. But we both moved to Boulder. We found ourselves brainstorming what to do next constantly at the same bar, little restaurant thing, having dinner every night.

Ramble.

We ended up getting a consulting gig together because we needed to do something. And so we created a ridiculous name of a company. It was the first funny thing we came up with. It was Baby Bathwater, which is a term we had used internally. We did that. But, uh, what really did happen is like Michael's right, it's a revisionist vision. It's like we sponsored this event because we met this lady in town.

Oh yeah.

And then we were like, hey, we don't really like this and we just brought a bunch of people here. Let's throw another party. So we each put in, I think, like $10 grand or something and We rented this bar and a bus and got a bunch of people together. That was sort of the start. We just kept revising and listening to people and reforming it from there.

Hollis had the Utah connect because of his investment. So we had this place that nobody else was going to, which is like, wow, he somehow finagled us going there. This is before they allowed people to go. We had this thing and then we were like, fuck it, if we're going to do it, let's do it differently. Our biggest complaint about other events and masterminds, I was part of the bigger— all this shit.

We had joined all those.

Again, there's baby in them. Every event, every mastermind, there's something. You always meet somebody cool and there's always something you learn. But the bathwater is like, what is all the bullshit? And it was like all the status games and just in the boring Marriotts. And even though it was a nice place, you were stuck in a room and then you wouldn't— I wouldn't want to share my best stuff with people I didn't like, or if they were doing shady business, why would I share my strategy and help somebody scam people?

So I would normally not help people with these things.

I wouldn't share my stuff. Why would I want to share with you people?

Yeah, I think it was a bit chaotic of us just talking a lot and then picking little lanes, right? Like one thing is the echo chamber of circle jerking. We hated it at masterminds with everybody's in the same industry swapping each other's email listings. Like, let's get lots of different industries but similar level of people. I think that'll help people be more helpful learning from people. That was like one idea. The other one was also reducing the status. I can tell you at the beginning, the hardest thing for me, and I'm sure it was for Michael too, was calling people who get paid to go to events and tell them they got to pay to come to an event. The whole first year was being like, well, if you want to be around beers, this is how this is going to work. And it was the biggest uphill battle for 3 years straight.

The big thing is we wanted to be the first person out. So the problem, the big problem though of all of them was you could get in if you were doing this 8 figures, or, you know, all the applications for how much money, this or that. We're like, we don't give a fuck about any of that. Who are you? Because the theory was that people would help you if they liked you, and they wouldn't if they didn't. And if you were nice and you were not scammy, that people would start to help each other. Because that's what always stopped me from helping people. I think all of us as well. So let's vet the person, not the company, and let's vet who they are, not how rich they are. And we're not going to allow that. And then at the event, that's why it's all-inclusive, is give no way to show status. And that way that, you know, you go to these masterminds. I remember when I first went to my first event, I had to like stay at my aunt's house because I couldn't afford the hotel. And I didn't want to go to the bar because I couldn't afford it. And I like hid a bottle of whiskey in the bushes outside and I would get a soda water and go outside and pour it because the only way I could hang out at the bar, I was like, fuck that. So if anybody's going to be at our thing, there's no way. That's why everything's free.

That one guy who's renting the penthouse and only inviting people up who have certain badges and things like that. I just felt sort of like, it was like, I kept saying it, like high school never ended. People are still playing these social games.

Like, where's the real party at? So you're like left out, right? So if you're not a big deal and you go to any other mastermind, there's even like the VIP one, there's like 5 other people going out that are the real big deals, right? Fuck. And so it's like, fuck them. We're not gonna give them any opportunity. There's no way to do that here. So that was kind of the initial idea. It wasn't a community. It's like, let's throw a great event. It wasn't about the community and the events happened and then people—

A great point actually to your original question was what's a successful community? We didn't intend to start a community. When we started, we liked going to events that lit us up and talking to fun people and wanted to get rid of some of the stuff that we felt was BS and do that. It evolved into a community when we realized an event business model was terrible. We were losing money left and right. There's one other thing that I also knew, having a business that you sold something to entrepreneurs, they know how it works. A lot of people always tried to say like, we're doing this for this charitable reason or this and that, and you look at the ticket prices and all the things, you're like, no, you're doing it to make money. But you come to our event, you'd see how much we're spending and how it all happened, that it was clearly they're betting on some future that we don't know what it is yet. It was sort of clear that we were in it with them and we wanted to be there too. You know, I fainted standing up at the first 4 because I was hanging out too hard with everybody and trying to run the event.

That's insane.

Yeah. That's funny. It's, you're sort of like almost starting with like, you wanted to create a different event for yourself because you didn't like the ones. And the one part that you actually mentioned that was interesting was like someone renting out the hotel suite. Because I've been to an event, someone did that. I didn't realize actually till you said that how it is sort of weird because yeah, not everyone was invited.

Yeah. I remember the suite you're talking about. I came to it.

Yeah. They always said, yeah, that's a tactic used by douchebags. Anyway, I can't take it. So, you know, other things about now Revisionist is we were careful about the people. So we actually kicked out a lot of big deals for the reasons that people We didn't have rules like the beginning like we do now, but if people were assholes or they were status monkeys or they were weird or mean to our shuttle drivers, like little things, we wouldn't invite them back. We didn't invite back a lot of people who were way higher status than the people we did. So we stuck to our guns that way because if we're going to be about the people, it has to be. And that's what I think over the years, because it took 4 years to create our actual membership, it was that that I think did it. I don't think we're ever going to create a community, but it was getting rid of that and not allowing that behavior that we actually did and lost a lot of potential money and potential people because those people are pretty big influencers that we didn't allow back. They can move tickets, but they would have ruined it and their people would have ruined it. More slogging through the regular people. Then what happened is a lot of the regular people actually are doing better financially than those people anyway. You find out a lot.

They're almost more competent business people and more useful to other members when they chat. Where at the beginning, I can tell you, when we were scrounging and, you know, paying the next event deposit off the losses of the one before, those things that when someone who's a recognizable name comes, you pop into the old method, you're like, oh, that'll help people sign up because they'll know that X name is coming or whatever.

That's it.

Look now, over 6+ years, we've already been doing it. Almost none of the names are recognizable. That's taken time to get used to that that's a differentiating factor.

The irony, if you look at their financials, their financials are better than those people. So that's really what's interesting is that all the no-names actually do better than the names. So we've learned, we kind of knew that, but now we actually know it, know it. And that's kind of fun to watch. And then it's kind of fun not to need those people or want them unless they're actually super nice and humble. There are those people with names that you see them in the group that are super fucking nice and humble and they're great. But not that many.

It reminds me of that book Outsiders about CEOs where people who you think would be great CEOs aren't and different. Can you guys talk about sort of— so you started as an events thing. At what point did you start seeing it becoming the community, or at what point did it become intentional, or was it not?

What? That was when we got Cynthia. So we were so ragtag and Cynthia came on and she's pro. We're not. I mean, you should have seen the— I don't know if you came before. I don't know if you were pre-Cynthia or post-Cynthia, but—

I came 3 years ago the first time.

I think she was just there and we were good. The events were crazy good and blah, blah, blah. But it was also like, are you in on the shit show? So they're great. But there was also a beautiful disorganization. We couldn't have handled a community without somebody like her. And all of a sudden it got pro. And then there's some—

You can't see a vision of things that you want to do until you can do the things you're already doing.

Right.

So we were barely getting done the things that we were committed to doing. But as soon as those just started happening and we had a team, like, you know, there was a point me and Michael both were not able to even take a single dollar out of it for the first few years. We had coaching clients on the side, by the way, both spies coaching. And there was a point like, oh my gosh, this is working now. Could we go full-time and hire some people? And once we had like a small team, we got a little circle house that had no right angles in the whole house up on top of this mountain, and we were there for days on end. It was very startup mode. But all of a sudden, there was a product that we knew if I got off the phone and this person was great, the handoff would happen and they were going to get their information, content was going to be scheduled, their rooming was going to be done. It wasn't ragtag anymore. And then we were able to open our eyes and go, what else can we do now?

I think it was John Rose, because remember John Rose is OG. He loves us and he's He had the financial company. He's like, you guys are just going to keep losing money. This is never going to work. So he advised it. We modeled it with John, and then we started. It's like 30 people the first time.

Yeah. I actually have a picture from that meeting with him at their office in the accounting office. I'm being like, a membership model will be much more stable for you because me and Michael are also running ourselves ragged because we would do an interview call for every single person. So luckily most people returned, like our return rate's really, really strong, but we wanted to keep growing in size. So we had to do those calls for every event. If you have a membership and then you just say they can come to things in the future and you just send them an email and they can sign up, their lives are going to get easier. We just, we always did everything the hard way first until someone smarter in the group told us what to do.

We're not great business modelers. I wouldn't put that as our skillset. So we have a lot of—

what's funny is a lot of them really well because we have all these people to talk to all the time. But when it comes to our own execution, we almost, I think, have a little programming that the harder way is uphill both ways in the snow is the right way to do it.

It seems like every year we get 1 or 2 new cheerleaders that are smarter than us that join the group who see like something we don't. And actually, like, we didn't take it that— we wanted to have a great time, but it started meaning stuff to people. And these kind of big deal people would be like, this means everything to me. And we're like, whoa. And then they'd have ideas for us and they're way more sophisticated than we'd listened to them. So almost everything came from a friend or a member who had a better idea for us, who's like, no, you don't realize what you have, and kind of them motivating us. It's almost been driven by one or two people every year who comes into our life who sees something we don't. And then they're smart and then we take their suggestions and then they help us.

Can you share some examples of those?

Genres.

Real quick, if we could do that, like a differentiator from other groups is we've potentially tried not to be like the gurus of the group, right?

No.

Right. Most relationships in these things is here's the guru and he tells you what's going on. We're just like, we're trying to get done what everybody wants to get done. You guys tell us and we'll listen and we'll try to figure it out. So like the feedback loop between the organizers and the people who are part of it is very different than the normal Feedback loop, which is like the one-way street. Yeah.

Very few big ideas we've done are ours. They come from the group.

That's really interesting. Actually, I was talking to a friend of mine about it because I'm in the process of starting a community for creators. And I was talking to her about what makes a community, right? And she said something really interesting. I was like, how do you define success in the community? Because you see right now, there's a lot of like marketers that start community Facebook groups, which is basically them talking every day, right? That's like people and there's no one else posting. And like her insight was community is actually about the number of connections that happen outside of you between members. And I thought that was interesting. So, so can you talk more about that, which is like not being the faces of it or trying not to be, and how do you sort of encourage that within the group and making sure people connect and stuff?

Yeah, I mean, the big thing is just making that a rule that you go by. Most people don't take the time to acknowledge that because they think when people are buying a ticket or investing in the community, they want to hear from them. But we realized that we're very clear about that and we check ourselves with it. When we go to design the experience, we pull up a giant— we have a huge meeting with the whole team. We put everybody's— we used to print everybody's faces up and put them all over the wall. Like figure out what their skill sets are and be like, oh, the content's going to be created from these people. These people need to feed each other. We never actually put ourselves in the picture. We only were the container in the setting. So I think it was more of a conscious awareness of not doing it that allowed it to happen. For most people, I think just default to be the other way.

It's also about who you get. Because we were also curating, you know, as it evolved, like we realized we're not a great place for introverts. We stopped, we told people, if you're an introvert, probably not Good for you unless you know somebody. So the people are so gregarious and almost everybody who is in, they know how to make friends. And the people who don't, they're out fast. So the kind of people you get is really it. It's not the little thing we might, you know, we do, you know, we make intros, we do blah, blah, blah, but it's not as much this technique about getting people to talk to each other. It's about the type of people in there and the variety and the fact that they're all going to dig each other and that they're extroverted. The people, not the technique.

The vetting process led to it versus the reverse where, you know, the typical model would be pick your keynote speakers and then the people who want to hear them and worship them or whatever are gonna come. Let's see how many people we get signed up for these interview referrals and then let's build it out after we know who's coming.

You see on the site, we don't put people sharing content, we don't even call them speakers, we don't put that on until like a week before. I don't want people coming for that.

Because we don't know. People on the phone are like, who's speaking? I'm like, well, I don't know until I know who's coming.

We don't want them on there. But yeah, the way that you said it, because it is a community that way, you can't have a community if they rely on you. We're the rules and we decide who comes to the party. But if you have a party and you're the— you know, you go to people's parties and then they're like, or somebody's wedding and they're in front all the time. That's not it. Yeah, nobody's coming for that shit. They're coming for each other as long as you know it. And then we have our good friends within the group and then other— we're not best friends with everybody in the group, but we don't pretend to be.

Well, that's a good memory I just remembered was like I think it was the 4th or 5th event when we snuck back to our condo and it went on until like hours and hours after we left. Like, we did it. They love each other enough that they aren't looking around to see if the organizers asked them.

It was like event 4 where we could leave and nobody knew we were gone. It could be 9 o'clock at night, we could leave and nobody would even say, where's Michael and Hollis? That was when we won. Or we'd just like go watch, we'd go like up on a hill and watch everybody and just watch everybody and be like, look, they're talking their fucking faces off. And they don't— nobody's looking around for us. They don't need us. That's not why they're here. And that was the win.

And the technique thing you mentioned is funny too, because yeah, there's other events where like they have all of these games and stuff to get people to talk. But I think what you're doing more is like get the right people and treat them as adults and let them do that.

Yeah. People don't want that shit.

Yeah. So switching gears a bit, like going a few steps back, um, Let's talk about sort of the process by which people come into Baby Bathwater. Because I remember last year you were in Austin, Michael, and I was talking to you and I'm like, yeah, like, how's it going? You're like, I hate this. I've been on the phone for 6 hours every day talking to people. So sort of like, can you talk about that process and how you ensure that the people are good and sort of like what you look for?

It's so gut feel.

I mean, yeah, I mean, there's no— there is no insurance or guarantee. No, we've gotten better at it. I'd say there's 2 things. They either come from online or referral, but 99% come from a referral. The online ones we kind of get to when we can, but because the referral method has evolved now, obviously at the beginning we were cold calling people we liked that we'd met through our decade of conference philandering and LobbyCon.

Yeah.

But like, you know, the referral does make it right. Like if someone's been to an event, they met people, they usually have 1 or 2 friends, they're like, oh my gosh, they're gonna love the people here and they're gonna get a lot out of it. And you get on a phone call and it's either 5 minutes or it's 90 minutes and you're like excited and energized by it or you're not. And it's really honestly, it's just, it's a, we explain what it is. I ask them what they're doing and it turns into something great. Normally I have like immediately a few connections I can make or something real to do after it. If there's nothing real to do after the call, the event probably isn't going to work. Um, but if I'm like, oh, I got a connection to these 2 members and Ooh, this idea, I want to talk to you more about that, then you know that's what's going to happen in that room too.

It's so gut feel. They have to talk to you. Hal says, right. So if I'm on the phone, even if I'm a referral and it's 5 minutes, nothing's happening, I'll just be like, yeah, and it's over. But if I'm on the phone and it's 90 minutes later and I've lost track of time and I'm laughing and shit, and we've already done our little background stuff, because again, we don't care if you're rich or poor, so we're not looking at your income, just make sure you're not doing some weird shit. It's all that matters. And you just lost track of time. The conversation was so good. I assume they're going to be like that with everybody. And it generally is. So it's really just, did the conversation flow? Was I having a good time? Were they interesting? Did they not show off? Like you ask them about themselves, if they give you this show-offy shit, it's over.

But if they're humble— I really look for the self-deprecating a little bit because that seems to be a good little theme that kind of plays for the right people. But, you know, my goal is that they come, they're gonna get a lot of value and feel like they won. If it's forced, then I'm gonna have to deal with the problem later too of them not being happy about it. 'Cause it isn't for everybody. But I have learned from being a part of other community groups and stuff, everyone wants to know, what's the system? What is the list of Google Sheet questions you ask?

No.

It doesn't exist. It's everything that is The way we've done this has been a revisionist vision of chaos.

Remember the beginning was, we can't promise it, but our goal was not one bad conversation. So I'm there imagining when I'm talking to somebody, if they're sitting next to so-and-so, will there be a good combo? So it's a lot about that.

It's all we used to say when we first started, like, they're not going to sit next to anyone at dinner who's going to be a bad conversation you want to move from.

That was like the only measurable Or like, what was our tagline like 5 years ago? Conversation's so good you need a cigarette after. So we're looking for like that. So that's really the vetting. It's just, but it's all gut. And then I get half, Hollis gets half depending on the referral. And so we also are different people. And so it's also a variety. So you get kind of the people I jive with really well and Hollis, and usually there's a nice overlap. So it's not all my judgment, not all Hollis's. And generally the blend is really cool.

And, um, how many calls would you say you guys have done total? So by this point, like thousands, right?

Just for Croatia, there was, uh, we— I remember Ferg, who came on, has helped us a lot, which is one thing we haven't done with Planet as a Brand was we never hired salespeople, which I've noticed most people eventually put salespeople. We have a person who helps us do all the follow-up. We haven't outsourced that part. I remember him being like, you guys did like 1,200 calls a piece or something for Croatia, for 200 people.

We can't outsource that part. It's just impossible. Yeah.

If you look at those calls generally, are there patterns? If you sort of step back, are there patterns or surprising things you've learned about people or people in business that might be interesting?

I think there is a pattern of the flow of the good ones and a pattern of the flow of the bad ones. Recognize real quick, right?

Yeah.

But the thing I would say is the, uh, the offshoot is the amount of amazing— the reason there was 1,200 calls to 200 people is not because the mass of them were bad, because the mass of them are busy. So we actually have a ton of people who come, they just can't come that date or whatever. It's— we've met so many great people because of this that the— maybe we're not making dollars from those calls, but we're Making a really cool relationship equity that then we can connect to other members. And there's this weird sort of chaotic goodness that comes out of it because even if they didn't come to an event, we made a really good connection through Baby Bath Butter even though nothing happened.

Yeah. I've referred business to people who've applied that want to come but haven't been able to make one yet, but I've already given them business and know them on the phone because they have clients from me anyway. They couldn't make an event. And then I try to, if I can help somebody, even if they don't go, even if I don't invite them, I try to help them in some way. Because you don't want to like— you want to help them out. And even if somebody's not right for the event, you can tell like, great person, but not a baby bathwater person because they're not weird enough, let's say, or not extroverted enough, but great human. I'll help them all day. So it's not like, you suck, you can't come. It's like, probably not for you. I just don't think you'll have a good time. But hey, you do this, you need to meet so-and-so and so-and-so. So they're not like out. We don't have that attitude.

There was a sales SOP I've tried to work with like Berg on, is that after a call, it's not just, here's your link to get signed up and you're Or sorry, it wasn't a good fit. It's, hey, I told you I'd connect you to X, Y, and Z because you said this. So there's the network of people we've, you know, brought into our membership events. Then there's a whole network of people we've met who haven't been able to come or weren't a great fit who still are being kept in this system. And like, hey, let's connect this person to this person. Like, so there's this like little net that we can use to help people out.

Yeah, 'cause—

Usually you can at least make one connection. someone after a call.

I have tons of baby bath— not baby bathwater friends and business associates that just aren't right for this group. And they're awesome folks. They're just not right for me. It's not a value judgment. And we're still— and they're glad not to come because it's not for everybody. And they're happy that I don't bug them about coming because they don't want to come. It's just, it's all good.

And that might be an interesting filter. And maybe I'm just hearing this, which is, can you already make a connection for them? Or are you already thinking of making a connection for them? Because if you're not doing that, it's probably not the right fit.

Right. That's like if I had— we don't have a checklist or like an SOP for getting people into this or not, but it's generally a gut feel. If you can't do something for them from an hour-long phone call or whatever, then it's not probably a good fit.

The worst thing for us is if somebody comes to an event and have it not be the best thing they ever did. That's not good for anybody. So if there's somebody that I know, it's probably not going to be great for them, Then somebody says, how was baby bathwater? The last thing I want is somebody going, it was okay. I don't want that shit. It's not even about like, are they a fit? It's, can we really help them? If it's not going to jazz them up, it's not good for us either.

The chicken and egg thing is funny though. At the beginning, I don't know who all is coming to each thing. Then about halfway through, I know who's coming. Like, oh, you're definitely going to want to come because X, Y, and Z are going to be there and this and that. In the beginning, it's like the first people sign up and then you're layering on and I'll kind of chase little rabbit holes. Oh shit, we have way too many people in e-com. Now we need some more people on this side. Too many service people. And so I'll kind of prioritize making sure it's a heterogeneous stew versus just everybody being the same.

And I've seen this in a few people I know, which is like, your brain sort of always looks at connections or like, these people would be a good fit with this person. Yeah. Where do you think that comes from? Or like, can you put that into rules or is it just like, it's just there?

I think it's a personality thing. Hollis has it since the day I met him. I've always been like that.

I don't know. I can tell you we're terrible. It's maybe what we're not good at because we're not good at systems and processes and things that would make that work for a systems and processes person. Like, um, that's all I know.

Well, you know, like the people, I'm not going to mention names and they're not bad people, but they have the how to network books and some people keynote on this shit. And then you meet them, you're like, you're fucking awful. Like, they're not naturals. And they have systems and they do well, but it's never real. And I think we're like, I think Hollis is— I mean, I was throwing cake parties in high school. Like, it's just, I think we've both always been doing this. And Hollis has a whole thing with this. Hollis puts together ski trips his whole life. Like, ever since I met Hollis, he's always putting together groups of some kind doing some cool shit. Just what he does.

And what you're saying, and you didn't specifically mention, but I know, like, you guys, like, look for, like, long-term fit because if you don't, if someone comes for just one event and then they leave, you've almost like wasted your time.

A little bit.

Yeah. So once, let's say like you guys have like selected the people, how do you guys, and this is sort of like shifting to now, but like communities are going to change because they're going to be more online. How do you guys think about event design and community design in terms of, let's say like people come, like what creates a good experience for them? And the reason I'm asking this is like, I want to create a community for creators. If I put them in a Facebook group or a Slack group or whatever, like, what do I do next?

We are figuring that out. I don't— if we had answers, we'd be lying.

I would say that I think the problem is looking at tactics and tools before knowing the goals that you want to have, like, emotionally happen. Like, you've got a book on how to start a community from someone who sells books on how to start communities. It'd say first thing you do is you start a free Facebook group, then you move it to a paid Facebook group.

Yep.

It's more like an— it's like we have a Facebook group, but I don't think it's the best solution. It was more like, how do we have people connect? It feels a little more of a social way. It's an extension of the event. It's funny you mentioned the switch too, now to more virtual, because our focus has been 99% offline and then 1% online. Now we're forced to sort of Do it. I actually broke both the stats for this call, how many things we've done online in a short period of time. It's, you know, a lot.

Good.

Now we're having to look at it, but I've always just viewed that as a way of keeping the offline thing rolling. Now it has to kind of stand alone, but I still just don't think— I think it's more coming up with a really clear thing of what you want to deliver, how you want them to feel, and then trying to find the— whether it's Slack or Yeah, I can tell you Slack, I've interviewed a bunch of people about it. It feels too close to work because everyone's on their teams.

Yeah.

And then Facebook, a lot of really smart people are, you know, not on it.

That's, that's, that's interesting. They like not looking at the tactics and looking at more how you want people to feel.

You see, we're doing all these webinars. It seems people like it. We tried the, you know, the Zoom barroom kind of fell flat. So we're trying stuff. Some of it's Some people are taking to, some they aren't, so we don't have anything to teach on that, but we're in it like everybody else trying to figure out the best way to use these tools and what our goals are.

The first year we built a whole custom website when we launched membership, but it got no adoption.

We're the wrong people to ask on that part.

I guess maybe taking off the tools and tactics. How do you guys think about how you want people to feel? And this could be like the events, the live events too, because I think that translates to online.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's the business and connection side, and then there's like the hospitality side. And like, I know I generally enjoy thinking about the hospitality side more than the other parts. I think people at this level are smart enough to find their business connection and their learning through The content, the connections, and things like that. But it's like, I don't want them to want for anything. I want them to take this little window of time that they've committed to and be able to get the most out of it by— that term in flow is a little too used, but to be in flow because you're not thinking about, oh, I got to get a cab, I got to get my coffee, I got to do this. I want health stuff, party stuff, wellness things, hospitality, all of it figured out so they can just flow through it. and not have to worry about all the little things. When I go to a conference at a big hotel, I spend a lot of my time figuring out what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it versus just doing the thing I'm there to do.

I think back to the feeling, I want people to— besides being jazzed, obviously, it's all about experience. I want people to feel more energized than before from the community and any interaction, but the main thing is trust and safety, which I think most groups don't do. So, I think the most important part is the business is not— all these tactics to get people to do business aren't going to work if there's no safety.

Right.

And that's all about the people and the rules. So, what I want them to feel, whether they're at an event or not within the group, is that they're safe with other people and that if they're not, they're safe to come to us with those things and knowing there's not going to be— you're not a tattletale because a lot of people don't want to tattle or don't want to do this, that we're all in it together. We're going to protect you. And of course, there are going to be people who slip through. We'll fix that. But I want people to feel safe, and that's the way business happens. That's the way friendship happens. And that's— without safety, none of this shit works.

Yeah, the safety is a big broad term. I'm glad you brought it back to the actual question, which was feeling, right? I went to tactics, um, and the feeling of safety is huge. Like, when you know someone's a sponsor for a reason to sell you something, you have a different conversation if you're there on equal footing just to actually help. I think it was Kurt Malley who pointed it out the first time. He's like, this is crazy. This is like competitive giving. He's like, I can't even find out what people do or what they want from me because they're so interested in learning about me. They truly are interested. And I think it's because there's that safe container of— this is how— we used to use the term, the current is strong all the time. Because it started as a small group of 50 and then it slowly grew, but you would feel how they were acting towards each other. And it was very much geared towards how I can help.

Our biggest role is safety offline by far. And when we don't do it right, which we have slipped up, I mean, we try our best, that is the most damage done. So whenever we take our eye off the ball and we let things go that we kind of see but we pretend not to see, which we do too, everybody, we do that.

What's an example of that?

Just if somebody is pitching and stuff, like we say, you're not here to sell members, those kinds of things. It happens and we see it and maybe you hear a comment, but you're like, ah, not really. Then all of a sudden, if we hear about it, it's a little murmuring, it's probably really big, but we don't see it. To not do it fast enough, then it happens like, oh, whoa, that person just— what the fuck? Then people don't trust the group as much because we allowed that. Then you've seen us, we come out and we fix it publicly, not humiliating the person, but we fix it. That's to show people that, yeah, sorry, and now you're safe. That's a lot of work. And that's the big work of the group.

And that's a big thing with people with services in the group because we do such a good job creating safety and a feeling of, you know, you can trust these people, but we're not, you know, we can't be everywhere at every time and all these things. But someone with a service, we've noticed they can come clean house. If we don't watch them. If they're not in line with wanting to truly be helpful. You see the people with services who stay, they're not just in it to Is that like, if I had a marketing service or an accounting service or whatever, you could come into a group like this with a bunch of founders who just trust each other and they have these related experiences. You obviously can make a lot of money selling this.

Yeah, the danger is the intimacy is high because of the kind of peak experiences and the people are so nice. Yeah, a couple of people can mess things up. Like, even little things, like I had a call this morning from somebody and this is nothing bad yet, but I got a snippet is they did a deal together. One of them invested $300K and the other, And just pulled out for whatever reason, who knows why, but now I know that now. And I'm gonna see what happened. And instead of just acting like I don't know it, I'm gonna know it and nobody's in trouble. You know, now let's make sure nobody got weird. And then let's say that person who pulled out did it weirdly. Well, now people should know that or maybe not. So it's digging in, being fair, and stopping these things from being weird before they happen. And it's probably on the up and up. It's just knowing and making them—

There's a bunch of really interesting internal rules that we don't have. We do have some rules. The only ones that me and Mike will follow as guidelines for us to keep it in check, this is like, we'll never sell the next thing at the event because I've seen that happen a million times. I first started in network marketing, that's how you close the back of the room.

It's the FOMO factory.

Right, because you have people in an elated experience, they have a false sense of safety, trust, and connection. And so we don't do that ourselves. We also don't take referral fees between people in the groups because that's One of the quickest ways I think to drown out a community is they feel like when they bought their ticket or bought their membership, that was the entrance fee for you to make more money on them. Now, we don't talk about that too much publicly or show that in any of our marketing, but it helps us keep things on the rails. And so we're hoping if we're keeping that standard, the other people who are jumping into the tub are going to hold a similar standard to themselves.

It's a challenge.

So that it can stay tight.

We have a word we want to— if we come up with a— people said, what will we teach? Like, we do a lot of business, we have a lot of other businesses together, and we do a lot of deals, and we have a thing called resentment inoculation. So we go into every deal and like, okay, let's go into this. Like, how could we end up hating each other? We start with that. So you work backwards and you go, how can we resent each other later? You don't do it until you figure it out, if-then on all that shit. So most people don't think about that. So we're trying to get people in the group when they do business together, because a lot of business happens, a lot of new companies start.

Yes.

Have you gone through a resentment inoculation process first before just getting together? Because usually people do business together, it's well-intentioned, but somebody doesn't do this, somebody doesn't do that, now they hate each other, and then they say some bad thing. Let's stop that and start what can go wrong before it goes wrong and have a plan so you don't hate each other.

Very similar to the lose to win is something we do a lot too, because it's another long-term thing. It's like, oh man, this guy's gonna do a deal together, we could get 2% because we connected them, or we could take nothing. And when they come back later and have an opportunity for us, or they join us, like, there's so much long-term stuff that's unpredictable. It all starts to compile. I've even sent gifts of advisory shares and things because we've said no to what a logical transactional person would take, a brokerage fee or things like that.

I love these little rules. I was actually talking to a mentor of mine who does something similar where He'll start companies with people and like they'll offer him like some percentage and he'll be like, actually, no, give me less because it sets it up for the long term. And he knows he doesn't want to be involved long-term. You mentioned, um, people sort of like coming in and like taking advantage of the group, right? And like, again, without going into specifics, um, can you share examples of maybe when that's happened and how you deal with that?

Because— They're all different.

In one case, like you're bringing in these people and they're obviously like making friends, right? And then if someone comes in and has made a lot of friends in the group and maybe like, then they start doing this, how do you think about handling something like that?

So they're also contextual because there's— everybody has a different personality and everybody— and it's also how nefarious is it? Like sometimes it happens and it's totally by accident, right? So you always give people the benefit because there's people breaking rules unintentionally and people doing it intentionally, right? It's very different ways we deal. So if it's just like, oh, I didn't know, and it's real, Just, hey. And they're usually like, oh fuck, I'm sorry. And that's it. And then they don't, and they usually don't do it again. So, and it's because sometimes it's our fault for not being clear. Right. So that's easy because usually they're cool and like, sorry. And they usually feel horrible. And then that's great. But the ones that are doing it, it's a slightly different intention. That's a warning. And then that's it. One more warning. And then, and then they are escorted out.

And then people never get like struck with one mess-up, right? No, no way. I told someone something, it wasn't right, or whatever. But it's when it reappears. And I'm like, I would say one thing, and Michael does most of this work, is being diplomatic and finding out the facts and making sure before anything is taken, we're not just hearing one echoing little Nancy opinion over here without talking to Paul over here, right? Making like, looking at it in a real light, like, whoa, There's a lot of facts here that this is probably not good for the group.

In the last one, I would call people up, I'd say, Baby Bathwater Investigation Services. People would laugh and they kind of knew what I was going to call about. And I got— I talked to over 20 people. And so, yeah, I get your fucking back straight.

Yeah.

And because you don't want to— it's like the US Constitution, like better innocent than proven guilty. You don't want to ruin somebody's reputation on a whim.

But I can tell you operationally, it's very costly. Which is why the vetting process is so important and referrals and all that, because when one of those happens, look, 20 calls, those could have been 20 calls for people to join instead of investigating facts and then sending someone money back.

That was at least a week, complete work week done.

And then it's also like 20 people who might now feel weirdly about the group if they're friends with the person or something along those lines.

What you usually find is those people generally didn't have the friends they thought. So what you'll find is that it's not just the behavior that those people actually didn't have friends. So that's another thing that you assume they're all friendly because you see pictures and then you find out when you're investigating, it's like, oh, wait a second. Why didn't I know about this fucking 8 months ago? What, you all hated this person? Like what? And then I'm a little peeved. So we're trying to get better at learning quicker. That last one should have been done a lot earlier and that was our fault for not digging in. And we kind of saw it, but we pretended not to.

And as a consequence, long-term, like, how are you guys thinking about that? Because like the question I had was, okay, let's say I put like 50 people in a group, right? And right now it's all going to be virtual. What are sort of like rules or like day-to-day things I have to do to make sure that like something like that doesn't happen or people are having a great experience? Because one bad experience like can make them—

Well, actually it's super hard at the beginning. Like we were really militant the first couple of years because we were new. And it was really like we were harsh.

And we were much looser on— say, we might have 10 interviews and none of them worked out, and then we might let someone slip in because we just needed the dopamine hit of getting someone signed up. And then we saw the backlash of it. So we were looser. We had to be tighter on the rules because we were looser on the sales.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Our people ended up so good that we got a little lax on the rules because everybody was so cool, but then that was a mistake. So at the beginning, at least what we did, I don't know if it's the right way, we were pretty harsh. So, because especially if it's virtual and you don't, you know—

Yeah, Michael actually threw someone out and refunded them in the middle of an event, sort of publicly.

I'll buy your ticket fucking home.

Yeah, so what was the reason for that?

It's arrogant.

And being transactionally selling.

There's more arrogance. It's too early to allow anybody like that. It's just yuck. So anyway, didn't matter. But yeah, we were harsh at the beginning. So if you're starting something where you're not— we've had interviews with people and these are friends of friends. So at the beginning of these, you don't know these people that well. So that means the rules need to be really harsh because there's no— you don't know them well enough to give them flexibility. Right. So it all depends on the level of intimacy. We— yeah. And that could bite in the ass because we kind of got there and then we forgot to be militant.

Right. I do think it comes back to what we've kind of defaulted to, is leaning more into the community for everything. Is that There's so many people we— like, we're not the people who are gonna find out first.

Right.

But if it's safe and they feel like we're not going to throw names under the bus and do things like that, then it's gonna come back. We have a good communication flow of people in the group, or somehow we'll find out about stuff even though we're not present for most of those situations. We're tracking everything, and we're trying not to be too ruly because I don't want that. This is actually supposed to be a pretty the kooky group that's fun. And so we try to stay away from that. But you need to have that sort of trusted container so that the value is insane that people are getting, the amount of businesses that they've started together and the trust they have when they make connections. But it has to be checked from time to time.

Yeah.

It's almost this duality of keeping everything fun and light, but also being really militant on certain things.

Yeah.

It's a lot like the guiding world on the mountains and stuff. It's fun, it's light, jumping cliffs, you're skiing, you're doing all this, but as soon as anyone goes in that zone that could cause an avalanche to kill everyone, that person's getting creamed to the point where they never do it again, right? So like, there is a— it's so— everything that's super fun has an edge that could go over pretty quickly if it's unchecked.

Yep, completely.

That's interesting. And you talk about like having like kind of like members, like going to members and stuff. So So do you have members in mind that you'll go and ask these things, or do they come to you, or how do you guys think about that? Keeping a pulse on everything happening in the community?

Oh, for sure. I mean, you're saying how do we know what's going on?

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, obviously there's people who've been in it longer that know us better. You've been in it for a while now. You know us better and better and better. So yeah, there's the people we've known forever that we rely on more than others. Like the lady you just interviewed, Jenny, I'll mention her name. I've known Jenny 14 years now, way before Baby Bathwater, and then she's early. I go to Jenny a lot for advice, especially on things I don't know about, because one, I just completely trust her and I just know her better than everybody else.

Yeah.

Hollis has his too. So yeah, we have certain members that have been with us longer, or that even though we have relationships way before Baby Bathwater, sure, I go to to get a deeper pulse on things.

But it's for different reasons, right? There's some people like, hey, I just need to do a little sense-making with you because there is no— like, I think why both Michael and I have like ADD, we want to do lots of random stuff. We look at our other businesses, we don't do anything more than like 3 years, right? We've been doing this for almost 6. It's because there is no model. We're not following a playbook. There is no right or wrong turn, there's just turns. And so, hey, we're thinking about going this way. I wanna make some sense with you 'cause you've been in here.

Yeah.

And then there's some people who are, I think, believe in the group and what it is way more than us or the team even does. And so I go to them for more like, I don't wanna ruin what this is for you if I decide to take this whole thing on a right-hand turn that'll pull that rug out.

Can you give an example of something where like maybe like you guys thought you were gonna do it and then someone else was, one of those people were like, no.

Good question. So, I mean, obviously we get excited about doing things like, oh, let's not do content at all at any of the events, right? That's how people really want it. Or doing the small little things that— because the diversity is huge. So, you know, we had Berg make these stats where we've already done a bunch of these little like meetings in Boulder that are very informal and more geared towards just business. There's some people who love that. And there's some people who just want to stay up and party and talk about life and music. So, but sometimes we get our priorities of what we want to spend our time doing. We have to remember that there's pieces of this that have been built that everybody— we need to respect everybody's thing for it. Some people are in different stages where they really want to be here to learn and connect on the business side. Some people are more here to sense-make about life, and we gotta respect not taking any of this away.

That's a It's also contextual. You saw in that email, but Joe McClensky, Joe's been in a couple of years. Was I that close to Joe? No. I was like, wow, how's this guy in our group? I was almost like, what the fuck's he doing here?

Yeah.

He's too good. But then when this corona thing hit, I relied on him a lot. We became good friends because he does this stuff. He's at this level and he's consulting to the New York Fire Department and stuff, big deal stuff. All of a sudden I found myself calling him every day and then relying on this guy who— and then I became good friends. So it's also contextual who we rely on because he was the guy in the group I looked at, like, this guy I can trust. And then he came through big time and helped us make this whole thing. So it also depends on what we need and who's qualified to help us.

That makes sense. And I remember the—

I do like that it's gearing more towards like a family feel than it is a business feel where it's like, you also want people to be able to shoot you straight in the eyes when you need it. Which is— that changed. Beginning, like, it was me and Michael's people we met who did marketing and had businesses and were trying to make profit. But over 6 years, it's evolved.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It's still very much entrepreneurially focused, like, that's the core, but it's more like keeping people on the real, hey, you said you were gonna do this, did you do it? And like, is that the right decision? I want to check you on it. They're starting to get to know each other better and have that trust to do that, which is like It's like a mix of things that you get in little chunks other places, all consolidated to one.

We have nonprofits now. We never would have thought in a million years we'd have—

Ranches and hotels.

Yeah. The people in the group are way better than we are. That was the cool part that we didn't envision. Like, the quality of the people are so much better humans than we are as people. So we can't even be leaders if we wanted to be now. Impossible.

I mean, we had Ron on and he's just amazing. All the work that he's done and everything. If you guys were to do like a content session at Baby Bathwater, 80/20 of like creating and running a successful community, what else should I be thinking about or asking about that I haven't?

Successful? I mean, I don't think—

It's funny because Sinix, who you know, is like the one who's driven a lot of the formal content stuff because he asked for it and that's the thing he loves. And me and Michael gear away from it because like, it's good what you asked earlier. I was like, well, there's like a personality type that does some things one way and does it this way. It's super hard for us to teach it because it's really more about being comfortable with uncertainty and be like, we're gonna try this for a little bit and kind of self-check it and come down this lane. Like, I don't really know what—

I hate the word successful too. That's— I'm averse to that word.

What's a better word?

We actually just lost like 2 Yeah, financially this is not a successful community.

What would be a better word than like, like think about community?

I don't know.

I mean, like, I love driving. I love doing it. I guess the thing is like, it's only because who knows? Everything's so contextual. Like I think also like I love doing it every day.

You're good at it actually. So this is, this is real. It's like you actually want to do it. Like we mentioned, we've never done anything for more than 3 years on our other ventures. We have a ton of other side businesses that we put that actually are scalable companies that can make real money. This is not a No. We put 99% effort into it because we truly enjoy the game of playing this game. And it's everything. Like you can see our team loves it. We love it. We should be focusing on our consumer product business and our marketing company. We give that the most minimal effort compared to the thing that we like that is unscalable.

Yeah. I never want to be talking about how to create this because then it's like, yeah, because I think you have to do something 20 times to say, you know how to do something. So it's like we're an end factor, you know, we're a variable. N equals 1. So this is just one experiment, right? But as far as how to enjoy having it, I think you got to really dig— I mean, you got to really dig people. Yeah.

So I mean, well, it comes back to this, I guess, a repeating theme is the long term. Michael and I are both on the same page that we really want this to be around past maybe even us, right? I want to be a whole different dude who's old and got a cane and being funny dancing with all my friends because I had like High school, I had college, and then I had like my first entrance into entrepreneurship and I met a bunch of friends and a lot of them were shady and I don't want to grow old with them. I wanted to like, how do I continue having a social scene that gathers? Like, I love going to weddings and seeing my friends and doing that. I want that kind of feeling constantly.

We could answer, I think, how to be happy running a community. That's the only thing I think I could answer. And so I think You got to love people, like people, and you got to recruit the people you want to be around, and then treat them cool and make sure you like your partner, and then make sure you find somebody like a Cynthia who can actually do things. Then you can be happy.

It's super weird a lot. Weird nights with little sleep and all that, but Michael's point, I don't think— if someone's thinking about starting a community, and you're looking at a model to make Profit. And like, it's a bad model.

It's not a good model.

And if you're looking at them as customers to move through an ascension of some kind, you're gonna not enjoy it. If you look at the rate in which these communities live and their cycle, you know, it's pretty poor when they follow these models. Ours is a— you can ask our finance guys— not a very good model. No, no, but we love it. And There's a profit in loving what you're doing, I guess, and enjoying it and all the connections and stuff.

It is fun to watch the finance guys just shake their heads and we're like, it's okay.

If we want to do it anyway, we'll figure it out. Yeah. I guess how to be happy running one is like a certain—

if you like a certain type of person, try to get as many of those people in your group and try to make them happy. And then find somebody who can organize if you're shitty at organizing.

Yeah.

And running things. That's really it. I mean, the other stuff, we're just experimenting too. Like, there's no— you know what I'm saying? Like, there's probably a million ways to do it, but I think if you don't have that, you're never gonna have fun doing it. And if you're just doing it for the money, great. You're not gonna be happy.

It's funny, I never really thought about it in these terms, but now that I look at my favorite moment of the event cycle was the one that they lost, I think, close to $700,000 on the first island event. Because I didn't realize it cost so much money to bring shit on ferries and do all that. Yeah, we got killed. I like the one-to-one with my team and everybody coming and Being a part of something that was almost about to explode at all times, that was probably one of my favorite parts, but it wasn't because we did a launch that worked out really well. The second one was profitable, that was great, but it takes time.

And then I'm hearing the experimentation is so key. I love what you said about the ascension. Yeah, because you go to events and you're almost like, what am I going to be sold next? And you're like, we're not doing that.

Exactly. That's when you feel safe, right? When you know that that's not gonna happen. Or else you kind of, as an entrepreneur, have a spidey sense. Like, I know, like, my parents, when they see me looking at marketing materials, like, oh my God, you get what's happening. So I was like, no, that guy's just trying to sell this.

Yeah, you see it all.

It's like so clear, right? Like, like what's going to come next and everything.

We assume people are— we assume people are smart. We have smart people. So even if we tried that shit, hopefully it wouldn't work anyway.

Which is why I don't give people workbooks and tell them what to do. I'm like, On my interview calls, I'm like, I assume from knowing you, I can give you a little guidance of a few people to meet, some content I think will be relevant, but you know way better how to navigate this thing than me saying, wake up at 7, do this, this, this, this, this. Like, you might need some rest from your family and your business, so you sleep until lunch and then you go to one content session and party because that's what you need. Or you're deep in the grinding, you got all the customer acquisition thoughts, you just launched a new product.

Yep.

I love that. So switching gears a bit, one of the comments I got when I was doing research from the group about what to ask about was— Mike's like, uh-oh. It's like how you guys are so different, right? You're almost like yin and yang. So there's a few questions around that. Like, one is like, how do you guys decide if you disagree on people to bring into the community? Like, that's more tactical.

We give each other free rein on that. So on the inviting to an event, We don't ask each other. Um, I take it, he takes it. We— I trust him. And then on the membership, we all get together and it's pretty unanimous. It's not just Paulus and me. So once—

The whole team is involved in that too.

Yeah, once it's— once they go to an event and everybody meets them, it's a whole team and we call other members.

So that's actually really fun. It's like, uh, it's— we call it, you know, what is it, football, reviewing the film. Um, so after the event and everyone's gotten sleep, which is another reason we tell anyone if you want to do that, Don't buy anything from anyone. Don't do any deals. Don't get married to each other. Don't do anything until you've had some good sleep and you're back and you have your real life problems again. So we wait and then we pull up the list of everybody. And we also, we've talked to the shuttle drivers and the cooks and the service people. And honestly, I'd say that's one of the most telling is if anyone was rude to service people, they're out.

Or if they're mean to Natalie or Ferg or the people they don't think matter, fuck them.

They're gone. So I think that's a big one. But reviewing the film is fun because you go through all the details of it, and it's pretty comical and fun. It seems to be what people want to know most about.

Every once in a while, we'll have a person like one of us wants, and then we'll take a bet. And then Halsey— like, we had one that's in now that we're very happy with, and Halsey's like, oh no. And I was like, I'll fucking bet.

They were 50/50. There's one that I was betting against that's a superstar now, and there's one that I bet against hard is done now.

Yeah. No, I'll be like— I said, I'll put my name on it, and then if that person sucks, you can just yell at me. So I'll take a risk because it's social risk, because then it sucks to want somebody and then they do suck. And then the whole thing—

I told you so. It's a unanimous decision that we go through, but it's on someone if you vouch for it and other people don't agree.

Yeah, I vouched for somebody really hard. He turned out great, but I had to fight for him. It turned out wonderful.

And this one's for Neeraj. Actually, it was a very specific question about the vetting process. I would love to know about the vetting process from first-time event guests to membership invite and the ratios for guests to invites to yeses. It's very specific.

So the— I think like 1 out of 4 people who go to an event might get invited to membership. People who get— so people make it to the call.

One caveat on it is the process is getting better from the beginning to the end. So the numbers are tightening up. At the very beginning of this community starting thing, it was very small. And the amount of people even invited back to just another event or something was less than 50% because we sucked at vetting it the first year of this. Now every year it's getting tighter and tighter. So it's an evolutionary process for sure.

1 out of 4-ish that get invited. And then of the people we invite, I guess we never looked at that. We do get nos, but usually it's, I can't do it this year. Very rarely has it been a no-no. It's been, I can do it next year with finances. I don't know. Berg might have that, but it's pretty high of when we invite that they do it. Maybe 1 out of 2 that we invite buys that year. And if you look at that over the next year or 2, it'd be more.

I would say there's 2 factors. It's not just us playing God or whatever, which we hate internally. It's a psychological issue we're having to deal with. Some people just don't have the time and energy to. So on a front-end interview call, I think we have a list of over 170 people I want to come to an event, but it's never worked out the dates. I would say the biggest hurdle to our model of feeding people is that the right people have friends and family and businesses and lives, and it's super hard to lock that down. But once they come, generally they make the time, but that first one's tough.

I was asking how many people who come to an event do we invite to membership? That's like 1 out of 4. And then how many people do we invite actually buy membership? I'm not sure on that one for the people we invite to membership, but I imagine it's like over half. And then the ones that they'll often come later, it's usually a time or a money thing, not a no, I don't want to be in it.

We're also not too aggressive on our sales process.

That's another thing that won't work.

The stat I do like is the amount of renewed from last year was great. It was like over 98% or something.

And that's really what matters, right? Another thing I was curious to ask you guys about, and this is a general question.

100% next year because it's free.

Yeah. So you guys have like been co-founders for a long time and you guys have been public about working with Esther Perel as your business therapist. Can you talk about sort of like that experience and what you've learned about yourselves and each other and working together from that? Because to me, that's just like super interesting. When I first heard that you guys were doing that, I was like, that's really freaking smart.

We used her a lot more at the beginning. I mean, she doesn't really teach you about yourself. She just teaches you how to work with the other person. So it's not like— and the biggest thing she says, because you do that, I do that. And we, we interviewed, so she—

her big thing— There's been milestones of highlights she's given us. And one of them was, you know, because you do this, I can do that. That was a huge moment for Michael and myself. And actually, can you explain that?

Like, what does that mean?

It was like to say you're getting angry because maybe I'm putting in more hours than you, or you're putting more hours in. But you have to recognize that you can't do the thing you're doing if that person's not doing the thing they're doing. And so no matter how much time, energy, money are going into those, if it's not perfectly balanced on a spreadsheet, it's, you know, psychology doesn't work that way. You have to let that person do that.

It comes from her, like, her Mating in Captivity book, her whole thing on relationships. It shouldn't be intertwined. It's unhealthy in any relationship to be intertwined. The whole idea is that The goal in a relationship should be to free the other person to be that other person. That's her advice to couples or anybody would be, no, you're not in it to grow deeper. You're in it to give that person freedom to be that human being they are. And so instead of me going, well, I'm doing content and stuff, which I don't really enjoy, so I can do that. And then if I'm— so Hollis can go do his music thing or whatever. And then you're like, wow, I'm doing this so that person could be free, as opposed to I'm just doing this and I hate it.

Right.

So then you're like thinking about the other person and, wow, because I'm doing this, they get to do that. And feeling good about that person, and then you're on their team. That was the biggest insight to me on working with Hollis or anybody else now is, yeah, because I do that, they get to be this person. And because of that person, my company's gonna do way better because they're happier and they're gonna do cooler shit. Like Hollis gets to do all the music. I'd suck at it anyway, but because I did some dumb— some other stuff, he gets to do that. And then our events rock. 'Cause he gets to be excited about that and he's free to do it and it's what he was meant to do. And then everybody's like, wow, you guys got great music. I got nothing to do with it because I do some drudgery. Music's great. So that kind of thing.

Love that.

Well, on the point of Esther, like it's funny, she's one thing, but we do a lot of stuff 'cause we're very, we're running an interesting business together where we spend a lot of time, but we'll have binge nights just to yell at each other about the things that are driving each other crazy. She's been very helpful at pivotal things where we need an opinion that's trusted and knows all the details.

Right.

So like, there was a group that was creating itself inside our group that we viewed as dangerous, and we called it out to everybody, but then it kept growing and growing. We thought we might be wrong. She had great soundbites to give us to go back and work with that. When me and Cynthia started dating in the company, she helped create a framework for that. But I moved away from the office, she helped. That's what it's basically— we've used— and we actually do this not just with her, with many people in the group. We were making a big decision and we're worried about just being in our echo chamber. We're very— we do like having opinions that we respect to give us feedback.

And that's so important, like turning to outside people for counsel.

Very.

And this one's from Jenny. This is a really important question. Who would win in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu match?

I don't even know what Brazilian jiu-jitsu is, so probably not me.

I'm old. He'd wear me out. I think I'd probably pass out after 30 seconds. I think Hollis would just wear out.

I guess whoever has McKellen on their team.

Yeah, exactly.

Whoever goes in like Pace McHale for coaching. So I know we're coming up on time. So last 2 questions, and this is one actually Zion suggested I start asking, which is for you guys, what does it mean to be a conscious creator since that's the name of the show?

We're unconscious creators. I don't know. It's a weird frame.

I guess we actually are pretty unconscious. Like, the word's like polluted, right? Like it's a pretty word, but what we kept talking about was like, We have really good checks and balance systems so that we can kind of be crazy and have wild ideas and try them, but they usually don't— if they're too wild and crazy, they're gonna hurt anyone, they don't make it to the finish line. Together, Michael and I are more than willing to try things that are very counterintuitive, just like that book club we're doing in the group right now, Alchemy.

Alchemy.

A lot of it makes sense where it's like, let's do things that look completely costly to us, like take away membership.

Or if you're posting on an island, you have to get us access to Roy Sutherland. Come on.

I don't know him, but I want to meet him too. Like, yeah, his book is amazing.

It's fucking incredible. Yeah, we read it. We're like, this is the way we think. That is, we can't articulate it, but I love the way he thinks. And it's kind of just don't do the obvious, don't— and don't do— don't be rational.

Yeah, and maybe that, that is the answer, is like, like to be conscious, like have the checks and balances. So you can be completely crazy with what you want to do.

Right, which has happened from having a community that we're part of, not leaders of, and having a team that we respect their opinions and stuff as well. But one pattern I've noticed in the back of my mind as we talked about this is we just don't follow the playbook of other things because it's predictable and you know where it's going to go. I would like to continue to be unpredictable, And I think that keeps the people excited. Like for 2021, I know, I don't know what it is yet, we're going to come up with something that is completely unpredictable and different and irrational that is not seen in other groups. And that's— I spend more time on that than, you know.

Yeah, it'd be really boring to know what we're doing.

And speaking of unpredictable, as you guys sort of like think of the future of Baby Bathwater and with everything going on, what's next in Where can people go to learn more? I'm glad I've done this interview because if anyone asks me about Baby Bathwater, I'm just gonna be like, go listen to this.

We made you a page. It'll be up Tuesday. So you know the URL. You have a special page.

babybathwater.com/creators, right?

Yep. That's a special page for you. It's not so secret page just for you.

Not so secret anymore.

Yep. And there'll be some kind of special thing for people who listen to this that we have to come up with. And yeah, no, it's gonna be fun. I mean, yeah, this new normal, whatever it is after this, it's funny talking about events made me forget that we're living in it for almost 40 minutes now. It's been great.

Yes.

You know, I think there's gonna be stages where we come out of it, but I think people are gonna want connection and community more than ever. We have like 6,000 engagements or something since the pandemic started in the Facebook group, where before that would have taken a year to achieve. Yeah, it's great to go online. But like the sense of community online is getting stronger. But all I want to do is open the doors again. But I think there'll be phases we have to go through to get to that.

Yeah. It might be smaller events that are more spread out. Right. So we just don't know.

Yeah. And I think what you said about the sense of community, I think, or connection community, I think whenever I even talk to people who have an audience now and they're like, what does my audience want? I think that's where everything is going towards is like people want sense of Connection, because there's so much loneliness in all of it.

Yeah, I think what we got— we didn't plan for this. We're not preppers in that direction. We got lucky that we started an event thing first when we could have events. Then we switched to a membership because finance people explained to us that it was a smarter model to do so we'd be stable. But because of the membership, now we had something to do during the time when we couldn't have events. And so when it comes back around, I I don't think you can have the— it's very hard to build a virtual foundation. I don't think it would be how it is if we didn't have that first step. We would just be tooting a horn that shouldn't exist if we said, oh, we've got this great virtual community, but it's only because they've spent so much time getting to know each other. I think it's hard to skip that step.

That's a great point.

It's a weird word.

You can't create a community. Anyway, it has to happen. Then you're like a planned community in the suburbs, which aren't really communities. You might as well be like Del Webb. I mean, those suck.

So it's—

I know you try to architect a constructed community, it'll never happen. That's not how they happen.

A little bit, yeah. And, and be willing to change its direction pretty quickly.

Put up a couple sheetrock houses, a strip mall, call it a community, right? That's what a lot of people are doing right now online when they're saying community. They're not really creating Yeah.

And that might be the perfect place to end. Thank you guys for doing this.

Thank you.

Super insightful for me and hope you guys enjoyed it.

And thank you.