Solving For Success: Game Theory Decrypted!

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to Success Secrets Exposed. Tune in live every Tuesday at 7 PM Eastern Time or Wednesday mornings in Australia on W4CY Radio and Talk4TV. Every week, Sally leads intimate conversations with today's thought leaders, changemakers, disruptors, and masters of their inner genius to bring you Tips, strategies, and insightful perspectives on various topics shaping our lives and business growth, revealing the human element of success and challenge.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good day to you all, and welcome to another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Today we're going to be talking about Solving for Success: Game Theory Decrypted. So I hope that's got you intrigued. Today we're joined by Chris White, founder of Now Group, a networking visionary transforming the way professionals connect and grow. With a background that spans the Royal Air Force, health coaching, and business strategy, Chris brings a unique perspective to the world of business relationships. He's here to help share how Now Group is actually rewriting the rules of networking by applying game theory and AI-generated matchmaking and a values-first mindset. We're going to explore the real drivers of cooperation, like trust and communication, and unpack how strategic networking can create meaningful long-term business results. So if you're ready to ditch the outdated networking models and embrace a smarter and more collaborative way to grow, and if I hear a great big yes, then please help me welcome to the stage Chris White from Now Group. Welcome, Chris.

Sally, it's great to be here. Looking forward to a good chat, another Saturday chat.

Another Saturday chat. We had— we've had a couple of great Saturday chats and we're up for another one today for this particular show. So welcome. It's been an exciting week waiting for me to talk to you about unpacking not only networking but the game theory concept, etc. But before we dive into that, can you tell us how you've sort of had that shift, a little bit of a backstory scenario of how you shifted from the RAAF to being a networking innovator? So if you can share a little bit of your journey of how you went transformed from that communications engineer in the Air Force to founding the NOW Group.

Yeah, sure thing, Sally. Yeah, so I mean, I actually joined the Air Force when I was 17, so I was really, really young. And basically, my dad was an engineer and my granddad had been in the Army, and they, between them, tried to point me in directions they thought were going to work for me. I was a bit of a mathematician. I had a reasonable head for maths. Dad said, oh, you'd be a great engineer. You'd love it. You'd love solving the problems, etc. Granddad said, oh, you'd love it in the forces because you could just play sport all the time, which at the time was important to me. So I was like, oh, that all sounds quite attractive. So then I looked at all the forces. Air Force jumped out as an option, discovered there was all these different trades of engineering types, and one of them was comms engineering, which covered off airfield radar, network administration and IT, and general sort of IT. And there was also air defense radar as well, which actually I never touched any of that. But I did go to the other 2, including satellite comms. So essentially, I spent a lot of time actually working on networks and how well nodes were communicating. That was my job, was to set them up, connect them, understand the protocols, and work out how to— work out and fault find when things stopped working between nodes and different things and that, and data storage and all that sort of thing. So Among that and alongside that, different points in my career, also communications between airfield radar and planes as they were coming in to land. I did a bit of that for a couple of years, particularly in the Falklands. I did that for a wee spell. And also I did satellite ground terminal comms. That was about 3 and a half years working for NATO. And that was really interesting because we actually worked on the Skynet satellites. Yes. We had these massive, you know, the goldfish bowl, sorry, golf ball that people see in the movies.

Yes.

We used to work on one of those, reasonably sneaky piece of equipment. And yeah, that was really interesting, a lot of fun, a lot of learning. I had to really suffer in that role because I had to go to Italy 3 times to do training. It was a really hard case. Yeah, it was really tough. So no, so I had a good time in the Air Force, but Intriguingly enough, you know, working on networking communications, um, from an engineering perspective. So I was drawn into that because of, you know, Dad and Grandad's influence, um, but also I, I really wanted to travel. That was a major driver for me. That was the real reason I was— I probably took the leap was I quite fancied going and living and working abroad.

Mm-hmm.

And eventually that, that's probably what led me to New Zealand, actually. So, so that's how it all sort of began, um, And, uh, yeah, and, uh, really good career. Applied to work abroad with the RAF 3 times. Got really close to Creech, Nevada, which is where they control Reaper drones out of. Um, got really close to Poggio in Italy because I'd been to Italy a couple of times. I'd been to Rome on holiday. I love Italy. I think it's a beautiful country, and Rome's a fantastic city to visit. So I quite fancied that. And The wife did as well, she was partial to that, so we applied there and basically I kept missing out by like, in one case there was a guy who literally joined a week before me, I knew him all through his training, I knew him in my trade training and we had both applied for the CREACH role and he got that ahead of me and there was a week's difference. The way it worked was If you'd never been abroad, you could almost— after the time I'd been in, I think I'd been in about 12 years at that point, something like that. Maybe it wasn't quite that long, maybe 10 or 11 years, but I've been in a while. And then basically my seniors were like, if you apply, you'll get it. So I was like, cool, rubbing my hands together thinking Vegas would be nice. Anyway, didn't come off. This guy got the job. I phoned him up and sort of swore at him a few times, whatnot. Congratulations. Yeah, congratulations, you lucky insert expletive. No, we did have a laugh about it, and I was like, God, that's so strange how that's happened. And a similar thing then occurred with the Italy job not long after. I thought, well, let's try Podgorica instead. That could be fun. And that would have been working for NATO again in a different role. I was like, that sounds interesting. I'll get to work with all different nationalities. That was quite appealing too. Anyway, so I applied for that role. I'll get the opportunity to go further into the application process, but funnily enough, in between that that sort of chain of events, we booked a holiday where we would end up in Vegas on holiday. And the holiday was a drive from the northeast sort of corner of the US— New York, Washington, all that— and then pick up an RV, drive across the top of it, drive down the middle, and then drive across the bottom a bit.

Yeah.

Um, big old trip, a month or so in the States. And, um, and basically to carry on my application for Podio I'd have had to have given up on that holiday and forfeit my deposit and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so I didn't want to do that. So I decided, no, I'm not willing to do that. It's going to cost me quite a bit of money, but more importantly, this is a, you know, I say a trip of a lifetime. It wasn't a trip of a lifetime, but it was certainly pretty singular. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so why is that all relevant? So long story short, I meet 5 Kiwis in Las Vegas, uh, sorry, 4 Kiwis in Las Vegas, a couple of couples. We hang out all the while we're there. They then jump in our RV and stay with us for another 5 or 6 days driving across the south, southern western part of the States, ending up in LA. We basically made fast friends, and 2 years later I was in New Zealand on holiday, and then 2 years after that I was here full-time. So, so it's funny, the travel thing took me into the Air Force, and it kind of is what took me out of the Air Force, which is kind of strange. And yes, it's strange. I'd never really thought of it in those terms. But yeah, that's basically how it went down.

Yeah. And serendipitously, as you said, you've made fast friends and then ended up in another country where they came from and then have ended up residing there now as well. So this is obviously what's given you your insight and joined these dots from the communication elements that you were doing within the Air Force or the Defence Force. And then, you know, the opportunity of networking and people and how networking with the right people—

So true.

—which I know we're going to go into, opens up the world of new opportunities and new connections and all those sorts of things. So, even though you sort of shared the story from a career perspective, I can actually sort of see where those dots have joined. Do you feel that that opportunity and the serendipitous nature of that has sort of given you the insight as to what networking really can be from a business perspective? Where do you think the crossover is for yourself?

I mean, look, there is definitely a relationship. So when I did the health thing, when I went off on that journey for 5 or 6, 7 years, I came across that AI tool. And without going into that right now in all the detail, the AI tool basically tells you what hormones drive you and what motivational frameworks are, you know, as hardwired as can be in you, and they act as really informative on your wellness and health picture, but also generally, you know, what you're going to aim at in the world and what you're going to naturally thrive at in the world as well. And the long story short is when I did that, I discovered I was a connector. Now, and that means that, well, technically what they call an activated connector on the cusp, so that means I love adrenaline and I love connection and I love New things and new people would come into that, new ideas, new concepts. That's the travel piece connecting in. We might be spirits! Yeah, yeah, we might well be, Sally. Yeah, to be fair, that's been notable in these Saturday chats and chats we've had, to be honest. But yeah, so that was what happened there. So if there is a connection back to those days, there was something that happened in America where when we planned it, we— so my wife loves planning. She, of the two of us, she— the idea of moving all those parts and getting, you know, itineraries locked in and booking tickets for places and certain maps we need to download and all that. She was all over that. Yeah, exactly. So I was like, yeah, cool, get in your genius space, you enjoy that, and, um, I'll just come along for the ride, you know, with a little bit of input on where we wanted to be. And I'd lived in America too, so I had a little few insights on things we might want to do anyway. But when we were flying out, I think, or maybe we were in the airport, we landed, I can't remember exactly when, but somewhere between leaving the UK and landing initially in Washington, or technically Pennsylvania, and then you drive into Washington. And then I said to the wife, I said, look, I know we've got this really cool itinerary and it's really amazing and I'm excited about every element. Like, we need to kind of acknowledge it and stick to it to a degree. I said, but let's make a pact that if we meet some really great people, that we take the itinerary and we throw it out the window and we put the connection first. And it was one of the most Like, it was a very strange moment because I knew it was significant as I said it. And I— Yeah. And that's honestly the truth. And, you know, the wife's next door. I could bring her in and she could corroborate that. But, um, it was a strange moment. Like, I felt, I don't know, something, and just present and very aware that I was doing something that kind of aligned with who I am that maybe I hadn't really honored properly. before. And yeah, and so that was an interesting moment. So there is definitely a connection, and maybe that was a small sort of spark in a long chain of events that got me to New Zealand, at least. I hadn't really ever drawn the link between that incidence and the connection piece and the networking as such beyond what I experienced in the health space and learning about that being a real key part of my My nature.

Yeah.

Um, but it was really interesting. So I made that decision, and we did— when we drove from Vegas to LA, we were supposed to go to the Grand Canyon, and we, we sacked the Grand Canyon off to, to, to compromise with the Kiwis that we met. Yeah. Yeah. And we said— and we were like, hey, it's a good excuse to come back because we, we quite fancy doing the opposite journey in a couple of years anyway. And we're still planning that and thinking taking little ones now and and doing it with the little ones, which is like a 3 or 4 year plan. So we're like, well, we just hit the Grand Canyon there, ain't going nowhere.

Yeah, exactly. And I'm, you know, I'm seeing more dots joining just as you're talking there. So I love that you've had that— I'm going to call it a personal insight— when you actually expressed about throwing it out the window. And I think when you have, though, when you can look back and join those dots, or someone helps you look back and join those dots, being a, you know, Steve Jobs fan and talking about joining the dots retrospectively, you can see where the path moves forward. That personal insight of throwing it out the window and letting opportunities rise as it did is really significant. Obviously, the starting point of almost that self-discovery of appreciating your perspective and the genius that you're bringing to the world in quite a unique way because there's lots of people that are really great at networking, but the conversations I've loved having with you is how you've got this really incredible perspective. to networking. And obviously, that's all the dot joining and the experience of being in the Defence Force and etc., and working with all of that big technology, etc. Because if one of those little things, widgets, go, everything's going to go, and communications is stuffed, so to speak. So let's have a little bit of a talk and just drive into the business world because I do want to get into the game theory and the AI stuff next. But let's have a talk about some of the problems as it relates to that traditional networking. I know you, when we've spoken, you've identified some key flaws with networking groups. I'm going to ask you to talk about those key flaws and how you've designed the NOW group to overcome some of those challenges. One of the phrases that I've loved that you popped in your notes for me was the territorial and the parasitic. Mm-hmm. I'm going to let you just go with this conversation and Take it where you would like.

Awesome, thanks, Sally. You've thrown me right in the deep end with that. I have, yeah. Yeah, look, so look, they are keywords, territorial particularly. And so we're going to talk about game theory in a bit, so I'm going to just lay a little bit of a tenuous link right now into the future, if you will. So when it comes to territory, you immediately risk trust as soon as you play a territorial game in any guise, let's say business. you increase a certain set, a behavior set of closed-sum thinking, like if I win, you lose. And as soon as you apply that value set to the networking world, you integrate or introduce— is the word I'm looking for— you introduce a factor that will take, you know, trust and essentially put it on a cliff edge, if you will.

Yeah.

Like, it risks trust immediately. So So the territory piece we can go into in more depth. I've got some personal experience of that and it did shape me quite a bit. And then on the parasitic, it's like essentially having been in groups for a long time and watched that the ROI is not necessarily reflective of input. And for me,

Hmm.

and let me say that in simple English, it's like the people who put in a lot weren't necessarily getting out a lot and it was a real mixed bag. And the ebb and flow of that has— there's so many factors at play. It's a complex set of variables. And it's fair, it's not that you should expect so much just because you're doing a lot. That's not exactly my point. But I do wonder, I couldn't help but wonder, and what I became aware of was how long would that have to persist before you have to question the fundament of the system? Like, if, if the people putting in the most are getting out the least, and that seems to recur and recur and recur, What's happening here? Something doesn't feel right. Um, I couldn't exactly pinpoint it, but what I could say was in a very practical, real-world, right in front of your face sense, there was, in my opinion, the value exchanges were imbalanced. Yeah. The, the way the groups were set up, the way that members were asked to show up and contribute to growth and things like that was not necessarily reflective of, of you know, a really strong value set and even in some sense the apparent culture of the network itself. So there was a level of contradiction in what was being, you know, invoked and then what was actually happening and being actioned and coming into being, if you will, you know.

Yeah.

That was my sense. It's not a particularly complex problem to solve, even though it might be a complex problem to understand, arguably, possibly not, but could be. But it's quite easy to solve. You just simply look where can we add value quicker? Where can we add value fairly? Like, what's fair in this scenario? And building a business model, my belief has always been that you can build a more successful not necessarily faster growing, but perhaps that grows either quicker or with more depth, i.e., it's got longevity in its base because it's been built right. My sense was that networking is a genuine value add to people when it's done well. And if we could create an environment where the value exchange at the baseline is better balanced, what could be the compounding impact of that throughout the wider network and even beyond that? What could that spill out beyond the network. So that was my, honestly, almost unconscious awareness at first that then developed into something more clear the longer I've been involved with Now Group.

Yeah, terrific. I'm just going to add a couple of my own insights just for the audience and from my own experience, both from an individual, and I think everyone's been to a networking event where they've experienced the individual, we'll just call them the business card ninja that's, hi, I'm blah, here's my business card. Hi, I'm blah, here's my business card. Hi, I'm blah, here's my business card, which relates to that checklist that I know we'll get into. So we've all experienced and felt that really hinky feeling of somebody going around being the business card ninja. We've also experienced the person that's just pounced on you because they want to sell you something, which is a different version of the business card ninja. Yeah. And we've all been in— and I know we're talking specifically more around networking groups, and sometimes you're in a networking group and you're there because you love some of the people, not all of the people, but you're there because you love some of the people and you sort of keep going back and there's that something's not quite right but it's not uncomfortable enough for you to actually realize that it's not quite right yet. So you sort of tend to stay there and I shared with you when we spoke last week about when I joined one of the community groups that I'm in and I suddenly felt like I was home. I was no longer in a competitive environment. I was in a collaborative and a co-creation environment which I had never experienced before. This is where we started to deep dive into the conversation around how groups— when a group is set up right, potentially with the culture, but also has the like-minded values and understands and moves similarly. That's my version of it. I know you say it very differently. Yes. This opens up the conversation to talk about how you've innovated the right sort of group because of the understanding of the game theory. I'm going to ask you now, how does game theory shape the structure and the member dynamics of a really well-created group and what you see that you've created that with the NOW group? I'll let you pick and unpack and scratch at that one.

Yeah, of course. Like, you know, I— so the game theory essentially, just for everyone listening, game theory is a field of mathematics and it essentially takes the kind of the meta options in a given scenario. To say it in sort of simpler terms, it's like in reality, let's take a price war as a good example. There's really only 4 things that the businesses can choose to do. They can either choose to down price, up price, hold. And the 4 conditions happen because essentially they don't know what's happening. So it's a choice to, without knowing, it's a choice to cooperate or cheat, as they call it, or take the deviant condition, as some people call it in game theory. There's another team which I quite like. But anyway, so the main point is this, is that we tend to think in terms of nuance and like, oh, these are decisions we've got to make. There are all these factors to weigh. But actually, the choices available in a price drop scenario or a price war scenario are quite limited. Like, you can only go a couple of directions.

Mm-hmm.

But here's what's interesting with the price war scenario. It's a great illustration because in the end, if you put your price down, you essentially decrease the sum available to the whole. So that's to say that, say you've got 50 competitors or you've got 1, it doesn't really matter. If I put prices down and people start buying my product instead of someone else's, I've shrunk the pie for everybody. So, so, and my competitors don't know I'm going to do that. They can't, they can only react. They can't collaborate as such or plan. They can only react. And in the, in their reaction, they'll likely define the absolute impact too. But the long story short is with game theory, you can simplify the probability prediction on what people will do and what the impact of that action will be. So that's what game theory allows you to do, and you can scale that out and look at really complex systems and actually draw them down to these potential avenues for change, you know, choices, if you will. Yeah. And sometimes, yeah, and in doing so, you can simplify your approach and your sort of your viewpoint and your perspective on a given range of options in a given domain or set of scenarios. And what's really interesting, and then you can look at what happens when you run repeat scenarios. So what happens if I play this probability game, let's say the price war challenge? What happens if I keep playing games across time, and what does that do to the probability sets and the impact of the choices and things like that? So game theory is prevalent in biology, it's prevalent in psychology, you know, massively in business and economics and politics. It is everywhere, it's studied everywhere in every possible academic domain you could think of. So it's really useful, it's super practical and ever-present, even though it can sound a bit cerebral.

Yeah.

It's actually really simple to understand and you can really learn a lot about a given domain if you understand a couple of things. And I'm going to try and— let me try and lay them out nice and linearly. So you need to understand the conditions that create particular games. So particular games being outcome possibilities, positives and negatives. Some games have more options for good outcomes and less options for bad. And those games are preferable to play, if that makes sense.

Yep, absolutely.

Yeah, and some games map out where the unfair advantage might be. So you might be able to see that if I go this way and I persist, over time I'll create unfair advantage to me and to those who I game with. And basically what sets up the type of game we play is the conditions going in. So that's to say that within the game there are players. The conditions— the players— the conditions in which the players find themselves determine what game you're playing. But here's where it gets interesting. What happens in game systems or game ecosystems is people at a certain level will either inadvertently or very knowingly set the perceptions of the game conditions for those below. Or adjacent. Yeah. So, so our job is, in my opinion, as people, as humans, is to try and choose the game we play rather than have the game choose us. Yeah. So what that means is we need to understand the conditions that define the game we're playing.

Yep.

And we need to then actually go, well, how do I shift the conditions? By physically changing them, or is it simply a matter of perceptual shift?

Yeah,

yeah, exactly. So, so the conditions going in really do define the game. There's a couple of other things that we need to just cover off, and that's to say, in the simplest sense, a game is 2 agents with options, and they're either gonna pit against each other or work together. And that's all game theory is about, is like— now, just to be clear, you can actually have agents who are unknowing agents if that that makes sense. Like, in certain ecosystems, games can be happening and the players aren't necessarily fully conscious, so, but they're agents. And what makes an agent an agent and what makes, um, what's the word I'm looking for, and what makes a network a network is that if something takes an action, it changes someone else's choices.

Choices, yes.

Yeah, so, and that's, and outcomes, and that's the interdependent relationship.

Yep.

So another part of the definition of game theory and a game itself is that we have an interdependent relationship. So Apple and Microsoft, interdependent competitors, apparently competitors that will, that if entered into a price war, one takes an action, it does affect the other. So that's that interdependent relationship piece. So point number 1 is we need to understand game condition. Point number 2 is there's always agents and there's always decisions and outcomes. Um, point number 3 is that in, in human games, at least, let's, let's just zero in on that particular subset of games for now. So in the world of human games, trust will always define the, um, the likelihood of cooperation. So it's just I just wanted to lay that point out. So trust is an ever-present— you could say it this way, it's an ever-present condition and it's there. The level of trust is a factor that will affect the game. And if you can baseline trust higher or bring up the baseline of trust, then you could shift the game condition from the outset, if that makes sense.

Yeah, perfect. Can I jump in there? Have you got something?

Yeah, go for it. Please do, please do. I'll talk for a long time.

No, no, no, I love that. So what I've— how I've heard that is, I'll put it this way, every network is a game at play.

Correct.

Alright? And when you can look at it from the outside in, you can see the— you have the opportunity. But when you're in it, you don't always see it. But when you look at it from an external perspective in, you can see the game that is at play. And that'll either be an uplifting game or a zero-sum game where it's going around the other ways, or someone will be swinging The way in which the outcomes for themselves are occurring. But when you go into a great network, as we've talked about, and you can actually— and as an observer, you can see the game that's at play, and it's a collaborative game, and you can see that people are uplifting, and you can sense that the values match, and you can start to sense and see more when you suddenly find the right space. And you can then see that, that human— the human dynamic. So instead of it just being a game, you can actually start to see the human dynamics of that game and how people are playing the game collectively, even though they've all got their own individual games that they're playing. But you can see the collective sum of the game, and there, as a result, everybody is helping to lift everybody up, and everybody is on that upwards, upwards cycle of a winning team. winning game. Said very differently, but that's sort of how I've seen great, really, both really poor quality networking groups where you feel you go in, it feels really good for a little while, really great for a little while, but then you can start to unravel the real game that's at play and you can feel like a pawn within that game, so to speak, and it's not, it's sort of dragging you down. Whereas the reverse, when you end up in the right network with the right culture that's playing the game collectively, not as sort of wanting to be the individual within it, you can actually see how it uplifts and makes a very different— creates very different outcomes and opportunities.

Absolutely. I mean, look, to give it a real-world, a really feelable example, if you will, Sally, like, you know, I've spoke to a number of people in the last couple of years about networking, obviously, and joining networking groups. And one of the famous quotes is, I walked into the room and I felt almost like a piece of steak, you know, like new blood that people were ready to suck onto. And people have been to events and experienced that, and oh, what an icky scenario that is to find yourself in. And look, I can empathize with networking groups playing the game like that because there's in-group and there's out-group, and it's natural.

Yeah.

And what they're really doing is thinking probably about their community. So if I was going to give them some quarter, it would be, hey, thinking about your community in-group is natural, it's human, it's tribal, it's what we are, it's what we do, right? But there's a better way to play the game, is to realize that— and, and funny enough, there's real precedent for this throughout, right, you know, not only ancient history but cross-species of what happens when— how do you, how do you negotiate with an outgroup in a way that actually creates value and then grows your influence from the ingroup to the outgroups? Yeah. So, I mean, how do you conduct yourself in a way that builds network Even without, if that makes sense. So with that in mind, it's like when you look at some other networking groups with this, we've got to grow, so we've got to invite people, and then we've got to make them stay, and we've got to do it through this way. And it's

either we gotta, we gotta.

Yeah, yeah. And it's all hardcore sales, either from the, from the company or from the individuals. And if the company's doing it, of course the individuals are, because the company is the leadership in that space. They are the cultural control center. And if that is not properly calibrated, then this is what happens, right? So we start looking at people with bated breath and salivating mouths, and it's horrible. It's horrible and it's unnecessary and it's not even optimal. Strategically speaking, it's not even optimal because ironically, if I was to meet someone tomorrow who's got a 10,000-person audience, you know, and, you know, and you get into a conversation thinking of them as the prize rather than the value of the connection. They're the prize. Like, they might spend $600 on me or $6,000 or $600, whatever it might be. It's like thinking of that as the prize is missing the point entirely. Totally. Um, you know, whereas the connectivity could grow and be something That's far more partner-focused. Now, if someone identifies themselves as a client and says, hey, I want to pay you money, that's different. If that's what they want, then you'd be a fool to not, you know, and not only that, it'd be quite rude to say, nah, I don't want to work with you, sorry. But like, you know, that wouldn't be wise either. But the point is this, is like, what's the absolute pinnacle of what we could achieve together?

Together.

Right? What is that? Let's zero in on that as a possibility. If it isn't, cool. Move down the rungs. But ultimately, like a lot of networking groups historically, and certainly a lot of younger networkers in terms of their experience and maturity levels,

they

focus in on that immediate goal right down here. I don't know about that. And what that does immediately is it brings that trust baseline down to relatively low or zero. there's not even a focus on establishing trust so much as, you know,

an

outcome. What can I get out of this? Yeah, exactly. Hopefully that added a bit more to what you said there, Sally. So yeah, so that's an important one. So I guess, you know, from my perspective within our group network, in our way, to speak to another scenario, when people used to come to groups I've been a part of in the past, there was, yeah, there was this tendency to get into that mode of kind of closing them in and sort of, you know, oh, you've got to sign up or whatever it might be. And I watched that corrode trust as often as it worked. It did work on occasion. Some people are happy to be sold and saw the value, etc., etc. But the real issue was it kind of created a scenario where you'd never get a visitor come unless they were going to be sold. And that was another weakness in the plan. It was another suboptimal strategic move. And I nearly lost my train of thought there. I only just grabbed that back there, Sally. That's alright. Yeah, what I was really driving at there was there's a real value in someone coming to a network just as a visitor.

Yes.

You know, like, they're still part of the network. They, they don't have to be a continuous paying member on repeat all the time. Like, yes, we need some of those, and those people are gonna have closer relationships. That's the idea for sure. But there's a subset number of people who aren't ready yet or have a whole network of their own, and therefore they're dealing with that, and they want to dip in when they can and be a visitor now and then. And to be able to cater to that and to be able to be open to that and not Not be just saying, no, no, you can only come if we think you're going to buy. It's like, you know,

that opportunities of shared intel, of an insight that they've just experienced, and someone drops in and shares that insight, you completely miss the opportunity of other viewpoints and other fresh eyes on certain scenarios. Yeah, that's a

big one. That is a big one. But it also makes me think about what you said before, Sally, about when I was in the States and we made that decision to allow a certain level of flex and opportunism built into our mindset. I think one of the things, you know, with networking that is natural for me and not natural for everyone is I always think it's almost, there's almost always an opportunity, there's something. Yeah. Maybe not for me, but, you know, or you as an individual, but when you meet with someone, there's— if you've got a reasonable network and you've been reasonably active learning about your network, as in what people do, what they need, what they're looking for, who they're looking to collaborate with, all of these things,

and

you go into a conversation, my mind naturally goes, there's an opportunity here. That's the assumption, right? Yeah. And thinking back to that moment, it's probably, if I honoured myself, probably in a few ways. One of them was being more reflexive and opportunistic. I didn't know back then, I thought of myself as a, as a J type, as they put it in Myers-Briggs, which is judgment and planning, whereas actually I'm a P type, which is prospecting and opportunism. So, so in that moment, I chose opportunism, and now on reflection, that's like a streak that if you could channel when you're networking— what are the possible opportunities here? For me, yes, that's fine, but for you and for our wider 3, 6, 12, 30 most important At least, and see how that reframes the way you think about the meeting, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Now, on that note, because you and I are very similar in that we are both— we see that we are the opportunist and we are the connector, and we do, when we're having a conversation, both you and I do think of, oh, I'm listening, I'm understanding what you're wanting, I'm also understanding who you're looking for, so I can go, oh, I know blah and I know blah. Because you'll always have that, oh, I know somebody that can help you. And I dare say, do you get asked the question, oh, hey, hey, Chris, who do you know that can help me with blah, blah, blah, and blah? Because people know you as a connector. So we are a certain breed, so to speak. We do all of that naturally. And not everybody sees in that way, which is why I love having these conversations, especially when we're playing it to game theory and biology and psychology. Mm-hmm. it sits in the background of how in which we operate. So for those people that come to those networking communities and groups that know that they're not quite like you and I, but they're looking for those sorts of opportunities and they know they need those sorts of connections and they need to understand and feel all of the things that we need to feel to be able to operate in that. When we spoke the other day, and I'm going off on a tangent now, you talked about how it was— You very, very I'm going to use the word prescriptively, but I don't quite mean it as rigidly as that. But you've been— intentional is a better word. You've been very intentional in how you've actually set up your community and how you educate and help people understand what they're bringing into the community as it relates to the value set and how they play the game and how they'll be perceived when they're in there and all those sorts of things. So, can you talk us through how you've gone and created that sort of, I'm going to call it a strategic approach to create the NOW group in a way that helps people find their quest as it relates to being part of that community and collaborating within that community. So it's that culture.

Yeah, sure. So that was a pretty big question.

I know.

Yeah, I mean, look, so no, no, no, it's good. It's good. And I love the use of the word quest because we have a system called Quest Path, which is our introduction style when we're focusing on the logic and linear process that a client goes through and things like that. So it's one of the ways we get our members to talk about their mission. But coming back to your question, Sally, so look, if I was going to talk to the strategic side of it, like, and this is a bit of a confession to any of my members listening, I'm sorry, I apologize for the next moment. This is how I've manipulated my members, Sally, to make them better networkers. Look, I think what we do in business, right, is we loan a piece of ourselves to others to empower them to know what it would be like to be able to pattern recognize, connect with people, blah, blah, blah, blah, what it might be like. Or maybe it's, you know, the accountant loans their— obviously their knowledge, but their skill set and their nature of being fastidious in completionism and dotting the i's, crossing the t's, making sure that 5's in the right box on the Excel spreadsheet, you know, all of that sort of thing, you know, the formulas are set up correctly and being thorough in that way. So we loan a piece of ourselves to each other. So if I could say my strategy has been to loan the parts of me that have looked at networking and seen where things could be done systematically that still create that organic connectivity that feels like, yeah, this is working. I'll give you an example. Right, like a really good strategy for a first meeting with a new contact is really simple: focus on them, focus on them, right? And, you know, there's a classic quote in networking that took me a hard while to swallow in some senses: be interested, not interesting.

Interesting.

Yeah, exactly, and it's great advice, and not easy for me as an extroverted connector, not that easy as a someone who wants to build influence, you feel you need to tell everyone everything so that you do that, right? But here's the funny thing, it's like Stephen Covey, who's a bit of a hero of mine, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says, to be understood, seek first to understand. So if you take the interested, interesting, understood, understand, and you compile all this wisdom into one space, it's real simple. It's like, I create a process that encourages our members to interview other people in a structured way as a first step and a first impression builder. There's things that we can do even previous to that. Make sure your LinkedIn profile picture is good, you know, silly things like this, or any of your social presence. Make sure it's accurate, make sure it's what you want to be seen as, the balance of warmth and competence you would like to purvey and propagate into the world. And look, mine isn't perfect right now. I've got an old picture. I feel guilty about it. I can't wait to change And this isn't about perfection, but it's about— there's probably 17 things, maybe it's 117 things you could do before you even get on the call that could make an incremental difference. Change 5 this week, change 5 the next, and eventually you'll be where you need to be. But be sure that before someone even gets in the call, you've already made an impression, right? So work on what that might be. A good example, go into Zoom, log into Zoom on the online desktop login and set up a slideshow or a video in your waiting screen and be disciplined enough to have anyone you meet with for the first time watch it. Great way to make an— even if your first impression up to that point has been a bit— if that's a video with audio and you're personable and professional, that's going to baseline and create a level of a nice starting point to build on for the rest of the contact point. So we've done that, brilliant, we've got a little video and a little slideshow over Zoom, this is all in our native network, Of course, these these bits of advice and some ways to do it and what you could cover and things like that. Anyway, then you get into the Zoom. Don't be fumbling for your headphones. Don't be looking down at your phone. And I've done this, of course. We've all done it before. But try and be ready to say, "Hey, how are you?" And I'm not doing this arbitrarily. It's like this. This is signaling trust. Palms signal trust. You know, little things like that. And And as much as it's tempting to think, oh, does that really matter? It's like, well, if you think of what you are doing and you think of what you could do and you move from A to C, if you will, go with the could-do and let that win for you, if that makes sense. And it takes a bit of time to build up these habits, but once you have, it becomes easy and you're building trust very, very quickly and very early. So So get those things right. Now we're actually into the meaty part. It's like, now focus on them. So we provide all— everything I've just said is in our course material for a starting point, but then at least have a structured way of getting information out of someone on their needs in business.

Their business.

Why is that? Why is that? Because people love to be heard, right? It's that simple. They love to be heard. They love to feel like someone actually gives a hoot about what they're doing that day and what they need right now, and, and that they're actually gonna go out there and maybe even look for it. I mean, the thought of that for most people is quite a relief, to be honest. Yeah. So if you want to be a high-value networker, you know, that general approach is good, but certainly first impression, yeah, it's a simple thing you can— nobody's got any excuses not to do that.

Yeah, yeah, beautiful. I'm gonna ask you another question if I'm, if I'm not interrupting your I love

it.

Cool. Purely because I knew this conversation, we'd end up deep diving and we're getting, you know, getting close to that, the end time with the episodes so quickly when you have such a great conversation. You talk about, and you've touched on this a number of times, networking should serve the people, not the other way around. And you've just spoken and shared with us how you sort of help teach and share and encourage people to bring and continue the culture that you've developed within your network. How are you helping the network serve the people when you've got people in that community now?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's a good question.

And I know it happens because I know a number of people from within your community. So I've seen it first, I've seen it and felt it firsthand. So yeah, just love your insight on, you know, networking

Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, look, one of my values is that business is about people, not about money. And I hear way too often people say, oh, we're all here to make money. And it's like, well, do you know what? When you've made $140K New Zealand a year, you're actually— your quality of life ain't gonna go up. So you're not here to make money necessarily. Most of our members are not there for money per se. Like, yes, there's a bit of that, that, but they've probably, all of them are entrepreneurs or work for themselves. They've chosen a job that has some level of resonance within them that means they're at least expressing their genius and helping people in a way that resonates with them. So bearing that in mind, it's like you've already positioned yourself to help people more than you know. And so with that in mind and that principle philosophy of of business is about serving people, not just creating money. It's like, in a minute, money could disappear. And I mean that literally, as in, in a minute, there could be irrevocable changes to how we exchange value. Currency is possibly at end of life. That is really possible right now. Um, so will we— if money isn't even the same thing anymore, why are we only working for that? Is a fair question, in my opinion. It's so abstract, but What we're really working for is to create value exchanges that make our lives easier, something like that, right? So with that in mind, it's like, it's a good way to position your mind in business. And it certainly, I feel, is what's helped me in terms of how do I set up Now Group in a way that provides value. So with that in mind, we then looked at, you know, I also have a bit of an esoteric side and I believe in mirrored value exchanges. So if you want someone to come in and be trustworthy, be trustworthy. If you want someone to come in and add value, plan to add value. Like, allow— give yourself the best chance by creating a mirror. And that's this— I can go into the, you know, mirror neurons, FP7 regions, and all kinds of neurological bits and bobs as to why that will work, or we could just trust that it kind of works and play that game. Now, with all that in mind, I decided as a leader and as a culture, if the company or if the entity, NOW Group, really the people, me and my team as we grow, my group pioneers, my VA Rob, etc., if we show up to give value, what does that look like practically? We take all the information on your ideal client profile, we compare it to our prospects and our members, we then give you 5 introductions within 2 weeks of that, that should make a bottom line business, have a bottom line business impact, um, that helps you generate more, more impact or more money, whatever your currency is. Um, but it will help you do that. So, so just to, just to come back a step, like, for us to create the right mirror, I wanted to provide direct value to each member as they onboard. And then hopefully, if all being well, and as we develop things, I'm certain we'll do this, we'll be able to do that ongoing month on month on month on month using the same techniques that we use in that initial instance. So, so as much as I could talk about AI and get really excited, I love tech, I could talk about AI all day, we'd come on and do a 6-hour one on that, Sally. Yeah. But really, that's not the important thing. The reason I've invoked AI is because it can work at scale. So when we get to 400 members, I could input someone's name and details on their client and their business goals, their networking goals, and I can ask it to search my database and see who else is on the same path, and then I can bring those people together, right? Or who are the prospects that could act as partners or even clients to that person and set that connection up, you know? Um, I did that really to create the mirror more than I did to leverage AI, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it does.

Yeah, so, so look, I don't need people If people can't buy into the mirror principle, then buy into the fact that we give you 5 introductions in the first 6 weeks. If they're not that impressed by that, then buy into the fact that no other networking groups do it, and no other networking groups are paying attention to them. Mirror games and the exchange of value and energy from the center to the periphery, if you will. Yeah. And with that in mind, we're back at the parasite. mindset. So let's flip it into symbiosis. How do we as an entity become a symbiote for every business that interacts with us? And with that in place and the philosophies mentioned before underpinning, we hope to create continual value that gives everyone confidence to do the same for their fellow networker. So that's well said.

Remember, if you want to be sought after and sold out, as well as being known as the obvious expert in your industry, you need to speak with Sally, our host of Success Secrets Exposed. Sally, welcome back. Now he is the founder of Monetize Your Content, a done-for-you content marketing agency that helps you be easy to buy. See you next week on another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Tune in live every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Eastern time or Wednesday mornings in Australia on W4CY Radio and Talk4TV.