Unlocking Transformation Through Better Communication with Michael Bernoff

When someone accomplishes something, whether they make a big sale, they get something done, they're like, hey, Eric, I got this thing done. A lot of us like to say, great job, you're awesome. And that gets the little kid happy, like, yeah, thank you. What we say in our company is something a little different. Of course you did. That's what someone like you does. And you watch the smirk. And the smirk, I call it the shit-eating grin. What that does is this gives you dopamine and a little oxytocin. You feel proud of yourself. This builds legitimate confidence in who you are as a person. It leaks what's called serotonin, which is the feeling like you're doing the right thing.

Welcome to the Speakeasy Mastermind Podcast, where the real conversations happen behind closed doors with the boldest entrepreneurs, creators, and growth minds in the game. No fluff, no filters, just the raw strategies, personal stories, and mental models that move the needle. I'm Eric Berman. Now let's get into it. So excited for today's episode of Inside the Speakeasy Mastermind, where Michael Burnoff, a legend in human performance, is going to be dropping some amazing, amazing tips, just a lot of nuggets. So you got to stay and really listen in strong because there's probably about 6 or 7 takeaways you're going to walk away from this podcast saying, oh damn, those are some great tips. I can't wait to implement immediately. We're going to share some fun stories and we're gonna have a great time today. And hello, welcome to the Inside the Speakeasy Podcast. I am so excited for today's guest, my good friend from many, many years. How long has it been now, Mr. Michael Bernoff? How long has it been?

I think it's been 14, 15 years.

Probably 15 years.

15 years. Yeah. Before Maya was born. She's 13 now. Deborah and I just got married. So, yeah, it's been about 15 years.

Oh, I'm so pumped. I think there's gonna be a lot of people excited to listen to this. I'm hoping, cuz there's a lot of people love you, especially within our community, especially, and I love you. So I love you guys too. Yeah. I mean, how did we meet again? So we, I know I went to one of your events.

We met prior to that. We met through, I think Matt introduced us when you were helping Brian Tracy with stuff. I think it was just literally an affiliate conversation. It was one of the original Speakeasies. You guys, it was either John or Matt introduced us and said we should connect and maybe did a promo or something for, with Brian. And that's how it started.

That's right. And we've been brothers ever since. And then we met and then you actually, we got, became friends and you were one of our first speakers at our first, when we had a little mini Speakeasy events before it was a global Speakeasy. We had little mini meetups in San Diego with a bunch of people and you came and that was awesome. You rocked it.

I would say that that was fascinating. The first one you asked me to speak at, I tell that story a lot. I speak at events. I said, I'm in this room. And 90% of the people that I admired their marketing or their business accolades. Your brother was there talking about starting, one of the founders of MySpace or something like that. It was nuts. The level of the people that were the first one. And I remember he asked me to speak for about 10 or 15 minutes at that. And I don't know what happened. Everyone's like, can you go a little longer? And you had a happy hour going afterwards. They brought the happy hour in the room. And I think I spoke for an hour answering questions about language and communication. So. I made some of my closest friends from that first speakeasy we ever did, and it was amazing business and friendship-wise. It was a big impact, one of the best events I ever attended in my life.

Oh, well, thank you. And it was so awesome to have you and you really helped us get going. But I mean, you just mentioned it. So for those of you who don't know, and I wanna share a personal story that you've helped me. And in fact, the podcast that I just did with Glenn, we talked about you as well, and we both had a similar issue you helped with. But let's just take a step back for those that don't know you and the amazing work you do with human performance, communication. Just give a quick intro to what you actually focus on.

Yeah, my focus is simple. I love figuring out what makes high-functioning people do their best, whether it's athletes, whether it's business owners. And the biggest modality that we work on is communication and language. We found that the way people communicate with themselves and others impacts the actions they take, the results they get, the influence they get in this world. And the minor tweaks in language change everything. And the language is like your mindset. So people always like, oh yeah, I work on mindset here and there. And I will tell people that the majority of the world looks at mindset as an additive afterwards. Our company treats it as the actual vehicle, like how you've set your mind has everything to do with the results, the performance, how people respond to you, what you do. So whether it's communication, whether it's influence, that's the game changer. So that's the 2-second version. I think you'll learn more about me as we talk more.

Yeah, I know I have some burnoff-isms in my head that I still, uh, you know, continue to think through. I think the one that you did actually at our last event, you talked about, I should be so proud of myself instead of you should be. That was one great example of just that alone, right? The way you reframed that whole conversation.

So like, I'll just give you an example. So we, in our company, so whenever you're talking with people, there's who you're actually talking to and how they got to this point. So this isn't like psychology or psychotherapy. It's psychology, but it's not some weird psychological thing like We do things because of what we did. So what happens is when we're dealing with people, we've got this inner child inside of us that really wants praise and said, good job, it'll be okay, and blah, blah, because all of us as kids. And then we got this like badass inside of us that like wants to conquer and destroy. And you never know who you're going to get. So one of the frames that I have, and it's great for every company, like, have you ever had anybody in your company do something really well? Like just someone accomplished something, like did something?

Of course.

Yeah. Like give me an example of something somebody did really well.

I'll just think of somebody, Wendy in our team who's just, you know, working over in the Philippines doing all sorts of things, 40 hours a week working on Speakeasy Mastermind stuff. And you know, I'll give her a small task and she'll come back and just like, wow, went above and beyond and like just was thinking the way I think.

Yeah. So when someone accomplished something, whether they make a big sale, they get something done, they're like, hey Eric, I got this thing done. A lot of us like to say, great job, you're awesome. And that gets the little kid happy, like, yeah, thank you. What we say in our company is something a little different. We, of course you did. That's what someone like you does. And you watch the smirk and the smirk. I call it the shit-eating grin. What that does is this gives you dopamine and a little oxytocin. You feel proud of yourself. This builds legitimate confidence in who you are as a person. It leaks what's called serotonin, which is the feeling like you're doing the right thing. So the example you had earlier was all about when somebody says, does something great, you don't say, I'm proud of you. You say, you should be proud of yourself. And the reason we say that is we want to let them have all the glory, all the power. We typically love to steal the power, the glory of our team. So when someone gets a big sale, close a deal, marketing campaign goes well, they're like, oh, you know, our conversion rate was great. Go, of course it was. Of course it is. That's why you're on this team.

Right.

And that little line gets the right chemicals going. They feel empowered and you give them the same thing they've wanted their whole life to feel good about themselves.

It's amazing. Just even you saying that, I put myself in that frame and I'm like, God, it does feel like a little bit better. Like, yeah, like, well, you had confidence in me. Like, yeah, I wasn't expecting anything better. This is how good you are.

You are that good. That's why you're on this team. Why do you think we brought you on in the first place? I wouldn't have you here if you weren't. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. Well, let's talk about the shirts. I mean, shit, you and I both walked into this call And we're both wearing the same shirt. And so for a lot of it, it says average sucks. Where does that come from?

Yeah, it's one of our sayings. We say— I wrote the book Average Sucks for a reason. It's really about— really a testament to how I grew up as a person. I grew up very middle class in New Jersey. I always wanted more. I watched people that were wealthy and rich and happy and did all things. My parents love each other. But then I saw that other couple, like my friend's parents, all over each other, loved each other differently than my parents are. Very— my parents are great. They love each other their way. But then what I realized in life is that Many of us are trained to be our average. We do what we do every day, and there's the thing that we do, and then there's this thing we want to do. And it is our average that holds us back in life. Like, people do the same thing every day. Like, if I were to call— I don't know Mark Zuckerberg personally. I've met his sister, Randi. But if I were to say like, hey, Randi, sneak me in the office, I would find out what you clicked on, where you went, how much money you spent, what went on, all the data. And I'd find there's an average of how Eric lives his life. Which is not the life you want, which is the life you live. Our average will never make us happy. Our average is good. It's nice. It's okay. And the reason I say average sucks is you should make sure you have the average you want, not the one you have, because really you should have that one.

And that's what you're expecting because we are better than—

yeah, we're so much more capable than what we're doing. We know you are. The reason we stay up late at night is not because we're doing bad, is because we know we could be doing better as parents. We could be better parents. It's like you ever with your kids, You sit down like, oh, you're exhausted at the end of the day and you just like throw on a movie. Fine. Every once in a while. Yeah, fine. But above average parent gets out a craft project and starts doing something totally different. Parenting, totally different game. So there's above average and average. It's not about comparing yourself to others, it's comparing to what you're capable of.

Got it.

I love that.

And that's such a good— even just a small little example. You're right. And it's just that extra push. You're right. It's going above average and doing the extra. And we can. And our life's going to be better when we push ourselves out of that.

If you're average, changes. Like most people go on the same amount of vacation every year, have the same amount of money, invest the same thing, have the same returns on thing, hire the same person 45 times until you're willing to change what your average is, period. It's a changing of your standards. Love it.

Love it. So we're going to go in the time machine here. And you talked a little about you grew up in Jersey. So we know you grew up in Jersey and we knew your, you know, life was okay. It was average.

I had a good life. I mean, I think we literally had a white picket fence out front. I grew up a Gen Xer. Yeah.

Okay. And then what happened? Like, how did you get into this amazing where you're in front of You know, very high-paid, sought-out, you know, speaker and coach and, you know, mentor for so many and big stages. How'd you get to that point?

It's an interesting question. I have a good story too. So I'm a child of the ADD generation, right? So I didn't like to pay attention in school. They told me I had ADD. I wasn't really good to even take my medication. I was going to— my parents finally found this guidance counselor that was going to find the right college for me. That was going to give me like, this is a funny story. They were going to give me like these extra time on tests and where I could go to college and where I could go. And my parents paid $3,000 to find, to take this test, to find a way to go to college. This is 3 grand, 1994. Okay.

Yeah.

And they found this counselor and I'm gonna, they go, oh, you gotta go to Arizona. And they found a school. And it wasn't until they sent me to Arizona State. It wasn't until my junior year when I needed this like extra special help on the testing, I realized it wasn't available. I found out 3 years later, she sent me to, instead of University of Arizona, which had the program for me, sent me to Arizona State, which is the largest party school in the world.

Right.

And which is nuts, right? So I'm at the school, second year, I think I was invited to not come back, like, 'cause my grades were horrible. I went to a junior college, right? Mesa Community College. I don't think you even know the story.

No.

And I failed outta school. I got a job valeting cars and I work at Alamo Rent-A-Car learning sales. I'm 18, 19 years old. And I take a class at the junior college from real teachers that run real businesses.

At this point though, 'cause you got natural good communication skills. I know you learned a lot, but like, you must have good gab even at that part though, right?

I had good gab because I was an insecure child.

Okay.

I was insecure, so I had to play, I had to like come up with stuff. Like I was very insecure as a kid. I had to like figure it out. So I, a little bit of gab. I went to junior college class and there was a teacher there. He owned a couple restaurants. Another one recommended this. And I remember like there was a list of books we had to read. I hated reading and you could pick a book. One was like, Wealth of Nations, you know, one was, you know, the American economy. One was How to Win Friends and Influence People. Okay. Still got the copy today. This book, I didn't even read it at all, but I understood the COVID and I'm like, wait a second, you can get better. I thought influence was for— I like, gotta remember, this is before personal development, before coaches, before everybody was doing this stuff. This is mid-'90s, right? I had no idea I could become influential. I thought you're either born that way or you're not. I had no idea. So I get the book, start reading it. I got a little business going on the side and I got a little personal development. It wasn't until a couple of years later I met a guy named Tom at an event. I got holes in my shoes. I'm promoting this direct sales product. I'm not even 21 yet. And he said to me, have you ever heard of neurolinguistic programming? And I said, heard Tony Robbins talk about it, but what is it? And he goes, You know, Michael, I think you'd be pretty powerful. Guy believed in me. You should check it out. I asked him, said whatever. And then long story short, a couple of months later, I wound up at an event, said I've been thinking these thoughts my entire life and activated something inside of me. And I don't think it was attending an event. It was while I was there, something clicked inside of me. Go, wait a second. I've been having these feelings my entire life. This is big. And from that moment on, I've been obsessed with human nature, communication, what makes people do what they do. Helped my business grow when I graduated. And then boom, from there I said, I'm way better off helping people than just selling a product. Wow.

I love it. That's a great story.

There's way more to it than that. That's what we have a few minutes on the podcast version.

Well, it's also fascinating. Again, you know, we're only off to the races with this podcast and that book has now come up twice within the handful. It's one of my favorite books too. It's incredible. Just the, you know, the story. So that's, it's interesting how that's being woven in already. Yeah. And my first. Experience. You know, I had an amazing experience with you too, where you sort of helped me get over, you know, I came over there and taught us how to be on stage, how to— I mean, so that's scary. I mean, you have multiple products. I mean, you have multiple stuff. One is Fear of Speaking, or not just how to present, right? How to be on stage, how to tell a story on stage. And then you have— what are the 4 main channels again? You got to— yeah.

So I have, I have literally how to run your life, how to run your mind to be able to do whatever you want to do. I have how to control your unconscious mind, which is human interaction technology, how to speak to people at a deeper unconscious level to get them to create real change. And we teach people how to present effectively, how to share information in a way that works for them, not in a way that makes you happy, a way that makes them be what they want. So most people, when they do a presentation, write the presentation they want versus the one the person needs to hear.

Got it. I think, what was the one? I can't remember the one I went.

You went to Rapid Presentation Mastery. I haven't done that live in a while. I have a virtual course of it now.

Yeah.

But it is, that was life-changing. I stopped doing it because I marketed it wrong. I kept on marketing it to people that didn't speak Got it. First, helping people improve their speaking. Now I do that stuff one-on-one with people. Very cool.

Very cool. And then my other personal story I just have to share, because again, it's just amazing how this came up in yesterday's podcast I was doing, is just, you know, I called you in a panic and we talked about that I had a panic attack and it was coming up again, the feeling. And I've come to find that my partner in this business, Glenn, had the same issue, almost had the identical conversation with you.

Same human, different accent.

Same human, different accent. Yeah, exactly. But same issue, right? And just helping people get over that fear of speaking. And really it's not only that, it's panic attack that you get right when you're on stage and you're like that, oh shit moment where you start to sweat and all of a sudden you can't speak and you help get through that. Anything you want to share? Any tip on that? Or I know it's—

I think a lot of times, I mean, people say people got a fear of public speaking. I help people with everything. I help people get over major challenges. I worked with famous influencers that now is a boxer. I helped him get over girlfriends in his head. Like I've helped people, all kinds of people with their major challenges. And a lot of what it is, everything in life is just pictures, sounds, and feelings. That's all it is. Anything that's already occurred, all that's left is a picture, a sound, and a feeling. So based on what picture it is, what sound it is, and what feeling it is, that's all that's going on in your head. So people like, I have panic attacks. Actually, you don't. You have a set of pictures, a couple of sounds, and the feelings that make this occur. So I don't believe that you actually have a panic attack. I believe you have a pattern that creates something that you call a panic attack, which is a form of breathing, a form of stuff. So I'm not denying that it doesn't exist. Forgive me. What I'm saying is we have a world full of people that have not learned how to communicate with themselves effectively yet. Because the first time you went on stage, if you would have had that panic feeling— like I tell my daughter, she's a competitive figure skater, my little one, and she goes, I'm getting the butterflies. I'm like, great, that's awesome, they're back. And she goes, yeah, they're back. I go, flap your arms, it'll make you go bigger. And we leave those butterflies as we're driving, we let them off on the side of the road. We left a couple in Burbank. We do it. And the funny thing is, I tell her, if we don't get them, I'd be scared. Like, I hope to God you get them, because if not, we can't compete. Eat today, right? That's how a parent needs to respond about that. But instead you go, holy shit, what's wrong? What am I doing? What's wrong with me? I can't breathe. And someone's saying, you're having trouble breathing right now, aren't you? I am. Good, good. That's good. That means you're about to talk. We just need to take a deep breath now and get calm. What's amazing is it's how you respond and other people respond. As parents listening, careful when your kid's getting that. Do not call it a freaking panic attack. You just can say, you have not learned how to communicate with yourself emotionally at this type of moment. And let's work on coming up with something. Boom. Boom.

Love it. Thank you for that. Oh, that was awesome. And it's really helped ever since then. And just hearing you say that, and I love it. I remember the other tip the last time I was with you. God, I think every time I'm sitting in a room, I get some great tips. We're going back to parents. So parents listening, we're going to get some good tips here today. Well, there was two actually good ones you dropped when I was at Amber's Four Rooms event.

Yes. That was supposed to be about marketing and sales and everybody wanted to talk about their families.

Yeah. Yeah. It was good. Like, how do I get my child who's not listening to like do it and you just sort of said like, I think it had to do like, well, when you're ready, you come talk to me. Like it was more versus pushing them into something.

Yes. Our own insecurity makes people insecure. So what happens is, as a parent, we bow up and we're like, I'm better than you and I know more than you do. And I do it too. I'm guilty of it. So the key is how this happened is there's a podcast that I was on in early this year in Orange County, and I'm on this podcast and the guy says, okay, Michael, how do you motivate your kid? I go, well, motivate your kid to do what? He goes like, want to be better at basketball. I said, here's what I want you to do. Tomorrow morning at breakfast, I want you to go up to him. Now, I know you know you can help him, but you need to make it his idea. So I want you somewhere at breakfast to look him in the eyes and say, son, if you ever want to get better at basketball, let me know. I might have a couple of ideas, but not now. Just come to me later. If you give him the answer now, it comes from, I'm confident, you're insecure, and I make you more insecure. Kid comes in the next day and remember he called me on the phone. He goes, Michael, he goes, I don't know whether to love you or kill you. And I go, why? What's up? He's like, I did the thing with my kid. And I go, what'd you do? He goes, I said the thing. And now he came to me the next day and says, Daddy, I want help. And now I got to get him a freaking coach. I don't know, to kill you or love you, Michael. But the point is, why am I saying this? Because if you got a salesperson or a teammate you want to help, hey, listen, I got a few things that might help you. Not now. You come to me when you're ready. When they come to you, they feel confident. And then when they come to you and say, you know what? I really want to applaud you for stepping up. Be proud of yourself, my friend. The fact that you actually had the courage to come ask me about this says a lot about you. Then they feel confident. So the goal is how do we empower the people in our lives so our lives gets easier because we have empowered people, not weak, pathetic people around.

Right. Empower. And that was the other example I love. That was the word I stuck into is to just really honing in and reminding people it's all about empowering others. Even on that, that sales call when I can't get past, I can't get past the front desk person or whatever it is, like you can't close that sale. They're not responding. They're not letting you in. You had a great tip on that.

The sales call, like one of my favorite ones, I was in a hotel checking in and the lady said, I said, hey, is this the best? Most people check in at a hotel, they just check in. I walk up to the lady at the front desk and I go, is this the best room you can get me? And which is a command, give it a shot. If she gets you a better room, better. And she goes, yeah, well, it's the best one I can get. If not, I have to talk to one of the leaders in the company. And I looked at her and I said, you're a leader.

Yeah.

You're going to figure it out. So when I call people, I'd say, Julie, I'm glad you picked up the phone. I always love getting one of the leaders of the company to talk to. Well, now they're a leader of the company. They're not going to give that back. Now the leader of the company said, great. So could you lead me in the right direction? Could you show me how's it best to get ahold of David?

I mean, you're right. Because if they don't, they basically are telling themselves they're not a leader anymore, that they're lesser than you just put them on the pedestal to be.

You got it. And it's not tactic. It's not cheesy. It's literally, it's the way people want to feel. Our kids should walk around thinking they're great because they've done great things, not thinking they're great because they did nothing. They should be walking around. Our team should feel like the fact that you're here, like I always tell everyone, if I'm still talking to you, we're good. If I stop talking to you, we got a problem, right? So I'm talking to you. I want you here. We win every day.

Yeah. So you said something interesting. It's not— you said, hey, it's not bad. Like, so you actually got me to think about something. Every once in a blue moon, you hear the naysayers say, oh, this NLP stuff. And it's, you know, if you do it the wrong way, it's manipulative. Like, I hear that word. It's manipulative.

It is. So we're always manipulating. I'm telling you, we're all manipulating all the time. Manipulation is only a negative word if you make it that way. Haven't you manipulated your body to sit in a car?

Yep.

I mean, I get it. I'm with you. But what I'm telling you is good people do things for the right reasons. Bad people do things for that reason too. So sure. But also manipulating someone. You want to know big form manipulation? Acting like you don't know what you're doing and acting insecure manipulates someone to do it for you.

Love it. Yeah. I mean, your bottom line is you're saying, look, if you have a skill, you could do good with a skill. You could do bad with a skill. Sure. You can. Probably turn it and make people real bad, do bad things if that's really what your interests are, which I know they're not. So that's interesting. That's a good, good response to that. Currently, I know we talked about some stuff, but what are you seeing right now? You know, we're in this new world now. There's just, you talk to a lot of people, you do a lot of one-on-one coaching and people are paying you big bucks to do that coaching. What is the kind of current state that you're seeing people in, whether it's just what's going on in this world, maybe it's just AI, maybe just people in general. What are you, what are you finding the most that people need help?

I feel like people are very overwhelmed. I'll just be very frank. They're overwhelmed. There's a lot going on, especially us Gen Xers. We grew up in a simpler time. There's a lot going on and trying to keep up with it all.

Yep.

And where I'm seeing people win the most right now is picking a lane and running with it and ignoring the other stuff. You can't do it all. You can't be the master of LinkedIn and the master of YouTube and the master of AI and the master of Facebook and the master of Snapchat and be the greatest parent in the world and do this. You can't do it all. It's just, it's not possible. Like when I got started, there was the option of a phone book and you could put in the back of a magazine. Okay. I had an opt-in page on like businessopportunities.com or something like that. I could put a little classified ad or something. There were no Facebook ads, there were no pixels or anything. So pick a lane. If it's online marketing, it's online marketing. If it's social media, it's social media. If it's a little bit of both, it's a little bit of both. But I think there's a lot of overwhelm going on in the world right now because a lot of people are trying to do everything. And I don't think enough people are saying, pick a couple and get really good at those couple things. Pick your modality. Like, my daughter had a tough conversation. Do I love gymnastics? I love dance, but I cannot be a highly competitive figure skater and to dance at the same time. So she does a little dance in school, a little dance class. But you can't be a master of many things, especially as an entrepreneur with a company that's got less than 10, 12 people.

Got it, got it. Love it. I've known you for a while, and you have an amazing wife, amazing family, amazing kids. Probably, you know, a question that many might have, I would have, what is the Burnoff method? If, you know, how do you deal with just the balance? I mean, you got a lot going on. You just said there's a lot of overwhelm. Your kids are doing amazing stuff out there. Look, I mean, they're all in. They got a lot of work in your office and they're hustling. They love it. They got, like you said, a world-class figure skater. How old is your daughter?

And yeah, she's 13. Tara's got her own art business. It's impressive.

Obviously you have an amazing dad who's able to teach in the right way. What else? What other tips do you have? And also the balance, like how much time How do you balance that with your family and all the work you do?

Well, number one is we don't try to balance. We go first thing, next thing out. Like, as soon as the podcast's over, I'm running to a competition today. Literally, I'm literally going to leave here eventually and boom, get in the car, go to the competition. They're either going to go with them or I'll meet them there. The reason I'm bringing this up right now is I really don't believe in balance. I believe you're going to have to calendar stuff. I put my family first. If for some reason I book one of our masterminds or events the same weekend as a family thing and it's already been booked, I'll do my best to move stuff, but I'm going to do the event that I had to do because I committed to people that I have to do it. We calendar this stuff out, but at the end of the day, we did not decide to be average. We play at a ridiculous level. Like, I'll just give you my life is crazy. Like, I booked 3 plane tickets to go to Vegas to an event last week. I had to book my rooms at the Green Valley Ranch 4 different times. Does that make sense? 4 different ways to get the room. I've got to get 2 extra rooms attached so we can get up and work in the morning while Maya's still sleeping. I missed our flight because we were at the dance thing and had to have a driver drive us there. So my idea is you need to build a business that gives you some flexibility and makes you enough money to solve the problems you have.

And for those, obviously nobody knows what time you and I are talking. I mean, he just gave that example. It's 2:30 in the afternoon and he's talking about running out and going to the recital after this at 3 in the afternoon.

And I have 3 in the afternoon, getting the mindset, 3 in the afternoon. Run to the house, get my little Team Burnoff jacket, go to the rink. Does that make sense? And not the rink here, a different rink in town. She's competing at 6:00 tonight and I'm going to fit all that in. And if for some reason we got to go, we'll figure it out. So a lot of it is realizing it's not going to be perfect. And I'm building a house in the middle of all this. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it's crazy. My life is nutty, but we love chaos. We love craziness. We love a lot at once. I'm not looking for steady and easy. I'm not a guy that likes to sit on the beach. I do when I want to. But I do not want to just sit around.

I feel like sitting around doing nothing is very stressful to me.

It sounds weird, but it's just like, I think it's a trauma from childhood, right?

Yeah. It's like, oh my God, that sounds horrible. So as we've got to sort of wind down, you know, I guess back to that talk case, you talked about, you know, just trying to stay in one lane. Let's talk about you and what you're focused on. Like, how could the community, for anybody, like, what's your favorite thing to do? If somebody says, wow, I want to get together with Michael, or what is his top thing right now? Or maybe a new project you're working on, how can we support you?

I love to share what I'm doing with people that work with communities that want to make a difference. And I love sharing my message. So that's my favorite thing. The reason I love Speakeasy Mastermind Mastermind is I love the time, time I get to share there. I love sharing what we do because what I do is universal. It's communication. So I love working with, like, I just spoke to my buddy Adam. I'm going to get him involved with the community as well. He's out of Colorado. Do you have a Colorado group? Denver group?

Yeah. Denver. Yep.

You're going to love this guy. Great guy. I spoke to his group of roofers. Absolutely amazing. And I got a chance to connect, share, just share. And I, he shared with me. I love sharing the value of communication, influence with other entrepreneurs, their tribes and organizations. And if somebody finds that would be valuable, that's my favorite thing. And that's how we do what we do. And if some people are interested in doing stuff, great. That's wonderful. I love, that is my biggest favorite thing in the world to do is to share.

She got it. Awesome. Any other final words of wisdom or thoughts for the entrepreneurs of Speakeasy Mastermind?

Well, you got a great group. This is a very special organization. It's a community, it's an organization, it's a family, it's a team. It's very special because it's made up— it, man, it's diverse. It is unique and diverse and different and a little everything. Am I right, Eric? It's like if you ran this group through Facebook and you try to build lookalike audience, it wouldn't look like anything. You know what I'm saying? It is a little bit of everything. So my advice is whatever you've got to do in your market to really protect and keep and keep this ball rolling called Speakeasy, because it's special. It's not your typical mastermind, but man, it really is what a mastermind truly is. It's really groups of people getting together, connecting. Like, I don't love going to the dinners at other events and doing all that stuff and this, but at your events, like the big one, I love it. When we do it at my building or I get a chance, I like it. I have to like throw people out at like 10 o'clock at night because I love hanging out. So I love for some reason the heart of what's going on with this. That's my big, my big takeaway for everybody is really whatever we got to do to protect and keep this thing rolling and bring more people like my buddy Adam in Denver and that whatever we got to do this because this is our network, this is our support group.

I love it. Well, I appreciate that so much. And if anybody out there that wants to connect with Bernoff, you'll find him in the community. He's out of Scottsdale. Come visit the Scottsdale chapter or come meet him. And if you're lucky, we're doing it at his incredible office. And by the way, shout out if anybody's looking to do an event out in Scottsdale. He's got a world-class facility, like it would blow your mind. And how big is that? How big is that TV, that AV?

36-foot by 18-foot video wall, all the tech built in. You could do a two-way video screen. I know one of your other members, Allison Maslin, is doing a full-blown Zoom here, her entire event. She's doing her entire— what do you call it— her entire course for her scale event is in the building. So if anybody needs anything, I'm not a big fan of paying hotels money, guys. I don't think anybody in this group owns a hotel, do they?

Do not think so. And I will echo that. But yeah, say your piece.

I hate giving hotels hundreds of thousands of dollars. You come see me for a couple of grand, between a couple of grand to whatever you need. I got all the AV techs, everything built in. So I don't think it's fair. We've all spent probably proportionally, we could talk to Walker and everybody else, probably a few hundred million dollars between Unsworth and all the people over the years and Glenn on hotels. If we can save you some money, I'd love to help you guys out.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And to add to that, I mean, for those, when we were obviously recently in the Austin event, those that went, I mean, loved that we did it down at the Central Library. And my God, if people can understand, you know, what we paid and what we got for that compared to the hotel, it's night and day. And I don't, not one person complained about the experience and most thought it was great. I mean, you just got to get creative. You got to go to do a full loop here. I mean, going to a hotel is average slash less than average. You push yourself a little bit more and you get above that. And there's way really cool ideas to have your events. Well, thank you so much for your time. I know you got a lot going on, including the ice skating, the figure skating. And thanks for carving out time for me and the community today. And I'll look forward to our next conversation. Love you, brother.

Love to do this again. I'll bring even more goods next time.

I love it. Thank you. And that's a wrap from the Speakeasy Podcast. If something sparked for you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it, review it, and pass it to the one person who needs to hear this right now. Want in on the Real Mastermind? Tap the link in the show notes to apply. Until next time, keep scaling, stay sharp, And don't be the smartest one in the room.