How Beyond Curious Host Brandon Fong Built His Business Relationships

Hey, it's Mark with your favorite niche real estate website.com and on this week's Art of Passive Income podcast. I am so excited you guys are in for a treat because Brandon Funk is just a gem of a human being. And to give you a little bit of his bio, he is a husband to his high school sweetheart Leia, new girl dad, which is super exciting conductor and host of the top 1.5% globally ranked beyond Curious, that's trademarked podcast. His life purpose is to create a more deeply connected world by catalyzing curiosity. Every week on his podcast, Brandon interviews incredible and curious humans including Olympians, seven to nine figure entrepreneurs, New York Times best selling authors, Ted speakers and even an occasional FBI hostage negotiator, decorated air force pilot, illusionist, Hollywood legend, NFL player, shark from Shark Tank, and even the man that invented the cell phone. He's also the founder of Curiosity island, an immersive mastermind that specifically serves curiosity driven and deep connection driven entrepreneurs creating community with their thought leadership. He's obsessed with playing Spike Ball, which I think I've heard of. Spike Ball has completed a marathon, the Spartan Ultra which is a 34 mile 60 obstacle race. Types on a dvor keyboard instead of loves traveling with Leah, 23 countries and county and loves being a dad. Brandon, welcome.

Mark. I love you brother. Super excited to be here. Thanks for the energy. Love who you be and this is going to be an epic episode.

It, it really is. And you know, if we rewind the tape. Tell me a little bit about your early exposure to business and in networking.

Yeah, so I, I grew up on the free lunch program in a school district that was one of the wealthiest school districts in the state. So I got open enrolled and I was always embarrassed the fact that I was on free lunch and my friends were getting picked up in really nice cars. So that's kind of like what catalyzed me to drive in to go into business. But essentially the catalyst of the whole thing was I entered this business plan competition when I was 16 years old and, and I came up with a business plan for this food truck called the Sizzling Ninja. It was the coolest thing my 16 year old brain could come up with. My, my email address was Asian Ninja221@gmail.com and it was the coolest thing I could come up with and I ended up taking first place in this state competition with this business plan. Found out I got to go to internationals and the cost of the trip was way too expensive. And I met a mentor at that Time who took me under her wing. And she's like, well, why don't I just show you how to fundraise for it. So before I knew it, I had this mentor that took this 16 year old with email address Asian Ninja 2 to 1@gmail.com and was introduced me to the biggest players in her network. And she told me one thing that completely transformed everything. She says, if you ask for advice, you'll get or, sorry, if you ask for money, you'll get advice, but if you ask for advice, you'll get money. And so she's like, I'm going to introduce you to these people. You're going to ask for feedback on your business plan and once they've done that, you can ask if they would help and support your trip. And so she ended up doing that. And that literally opened my eyes to like, holy shit. There's the hard way of doing things and there's the easy way of doing things. And the easy way is always how do you find the right people, how do you build the right relationships, how do you invest in relationships? How do you show up for people? And that's kind of led me down this whole path of having this podcast and curiosity island and hanging out with some really cool people and finding my way into really high level rooms at, at, at a young age. So just really grateful, really blessed and shout out to Brenda Campbell for taking me under her wing when I was 16 years old.

Yeah. So Brenda Campbell, I, it's so funny because I actually give that same advice to land investors who are looking to raise money and always, you know, start talking about your business and don't ever ask anyone directly for money. Ask them for advice and say, hey, look, I'm, you know, I'm doing this and I've got this track record, but to take to the next level, I, I, you know, I, I need to raise say $100,000. You know, knowing what you know about me, my business, what, what advice you would give me because I'm thinking about the structure like this, you know, maybe I'll give investor 12% and it's, oh wait, 12%. I would be interested in that. Right?

100 instead.

But if you just ask for money, it's like, whoa, whoa, you know, yeah.

There'S, I mean there's a huge difference. We can go down this rabbit hole, but there's a huge difference between prescribing something versus it becoming someone else's idea. So there's a, there's the difference between like a direct ask and an indirect ask. So if you ask for someone, it kind of engages our like fight or flight, like, oh, I don't know, this makes me feel uncomfortable. But if you ask for someone, if they have an idea or what are your ideas on this, and then they share their ideas and you become a thought partner with them, that's really where you can co create and lead to the outcomes that you're looking anyways because you can envision together instead of it being prescriptive and kind of like overly forced. So 100% agree.

Yeah. When you talk about co creation, I know that you like to talk a little bit about the IKEA effect when it comes to business, so can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

Mark, you've done your homework, you've done your research, my friend. So, so the, the IKEA effect. So I'll, I'll ask you this question, mark. So when, when actually there was this study that found out that people valued IKEA furniture more than other types of furniture, do you have any idea as to why they might value IKEA furniture over other furniture?

So as somebody I've done with Colby and I forgot what, what it was, but like, I'm one of the people that needs to hire a, like a handyman to put together furniture. And so for me personally, I have no, you know, engagement with IKEA furniture. That being said, I can imagine if you spent the time and the instructions going through it and you put together your own piece of furniture, you're going to have that sense of accomplishment, that sense of pride. That's that sense of I, I built this along with ikea. So yeah, I think that it bonds you to that furniture in a way that when you just buy something doesn't.

100%, you nailed it. I mean, this is why Build a Bear can charge approximately $3 million for their, their teeny little Build a Bear with stuffed toys. I mean, think about it. They literally like, they, instead of making the toy, they make the kid make the toy and then they can charge more money for it. The, the gist of it is just like IKEA furniture, just like Build a Bear just value what we invest into. Whether that's relationships, whether that's building something, you know, anything that you can co, create, invest into, we value more. And so that's another thing that I think about when I build relationships is not only how do we add value to each other, but how do we exchange and invest into each other's ideas. And that's really what makes people value their relationships more. So it ties exactly into what you were saying before about building feedback or building ideas. You know, if you turn someone into a thought partner, you're starting that process of investing into each other's ideas. And that's really where the strong relationships happen, is when you're going through that loop of investing into each other. And that's where all the best relationships are made.

Yeah, I agree. You know, it's interesting because I was talking to some friends the other day and even I don't know if you saw that documentary on WeWork. It's, I guess, not a documentary. It's actually a really well done movie with Anne Hathaway and Jared Leto on Apple TV about WeWork. And the founder of WeWork is talking about creating this co working space that's very similar to that magical experience that people have in college where they're all bonding together with this sort of, this shared experience and the struggle of going through college. And so, and I think back to my closest relationships, those college experiences in my college buddies that I've had now for, you know, 30 years. It started, I think, in the midst of struggle and adversity and anxiety and the shared experience combined with lots of joy and, and fond memories. And in thinking about that and applying that to business, what do you, what do you think about that? Because you and I, like, when we're talking about business, we have shared problems, we've shared experiences, but we also have, okay, where can we add value to each other's lives? And in doing so, that increases the, the trust, that increases the connection, that increases that, those good feelings in a similar way that, you know, we can't really share a beer together.

Right.

Yeah, but what do you think of that theory?

Yeah, I love that. No, it's a great question. So a while back, I'm going to start with a story and this will lead back to where we're going. So a while back I had been interviewing all these really high level people and for a while, I think most people tend to think about podcasts as the value being the audience. But what I realized is that the most valuable asset I owned was not the audience, but it was how I was curating the guests that were coming on my show. And I realized that there's a huge opportunity to connect, connect the guests that have come on my show in really unique and value added ways. So maybe plant a seed in your mind as you're listening to this. You're like, brandon, I don't have a podcast. Like, well, what are, what are the ways that you could bring your high value clients, strategic partners, people together under one spot because that room is inherently valuable. And how do you co create that opportunity for people to invest in their ideas and build relationships there, add value and that can open the doors to all these other incredible relationships. So in 2021 I started hosting these guest exclusive events for podcast guests. And I would create an opportunity for people to invest in people's ideas and go through what's called vulnerability loops. Right. So that's another thing that creates connection. Which by the way, I would check out John Levy, he's been on my show, he's got a book called you're invited if you want to learn a little bit more about this. But vulnerability loops are what makes us human as well. It's where I need help and someone helps me and you need help and I help you. And we provide different perspectives to get unstuck. And so part of the way that you can build onto the AK effect and do exactly what you're doing is create an opportunity for these highly curated groups of people to come together, share a story and observation. So this is part of what I do on Curiosity island when people come to my mastermind events is I'll do something like I will have them journal on what is a. What is a story of you living in your pure brilliance. Like what is an example of a story of you being in flow, of you sharing something that is fully aligned and the result that you created was amazing and it felt effortless. So one of the things that I'll do is I'll have people share that story and everybody else is listening and I'll create a collaborative Google Doc and I will ask everyone to pay attention to what this person's unique ability, what their strengths, their superpowers, their 4% is. And everybody has a column in the Google Doc. So in one time you get to watch six people making observations about this person and what their strengths are based on this story that they just told. And this creates this beautiful vulnerability loop of people sharing, observing and being reflected. And there's this quote that you hear in Genius Network all the time that I heard from Genius Network originally. You can't read the label from inside the jar, right? So it's like this is such an amazing opportunity to create these experiences where people are feeling seen, they're feeling heard, they're feeling connected, and they connect deeper with themselves through connecting with other people. So anyway, it's kind of a long rant, but I think there's a huge opportunity for anybody listening to this if you want a way to open the door from a purely value add perspective, don't forget about how you're curating people. You are showing up in the world. You are being someone, you're inviting people into your world, whether they're clients, strategic partners, and that group of people is inherently incredibly valuable. And if you can create an experience for people to go through these vulnerability loops, invest in each other and then you get to own that spot in their mind is having catalyzed those deep relationships, it opens so much. So rant over.

I love in that rant you brought up a really interesting. Excuse me, percentage, the 4%. Yeah, explain that please.

Yeah, no, thank you. I love that question. So lots of people are familiar with the 8020 principle, which states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions. And I think that's really cool. That's really powerful. You can go read the four hour Work Week and go read Perry Marshall's work and all this kind of stuff. Actually, Perry's been an amazing guest on the show and he helped me a lot on this. And I think 8020 is really effective. But when you examine 8020 a little bit closer, you, you realize that 80 20, there's like a pattern within the pattern. So I'm going to try not to get too numbers based, but you can do an 8020 of the 20%. So if 20% of your actions are yielding 80% of your results, if you examine that 20% and then you do an 8020 of it again, what you find is that there's 4% of your actions that are yielding 64% of your results. And in my mind that makes a lot more sense of how can I find my four, how can I find my 4% of activities that are yielding the majority of the results in my life? And how do I build a team? How do I build structure? How do I build an opportunity to stay inside of that 4% and delegate leveraging other people or systems and activities to stay outside of that. So that's really the whole goal of what I'm doing with, with Curiosity Island. Everything I'm building is how do I help people find their four collaborate from within, therefore, and create multiplicative opportunities from that. And it's been the most incredible work I've ever done on myself is uncovering what that 4% is and designing a life around that. So great question mark.

Yeah. So when you, when you say this most incredible work that you've done on yourself, can you give us sort of a case Study on, on the work that you did where you were able to see and really shine the light on your yourself that have that self awareness, like, oh, wait, this is my 4%. And, and was it fact based? Was it feeling based? Was it a combination of that?

Yeah, it's a great question. So I'll take you guys back to the end of 2021. I was working on a business with a partner that I really trusted. And I won't go into the details, but it blew up, right? Like we all, as entrepreneurs, as investors or whatever, we had those experiences where shit hits the fan. So at the end of 2021, I had this experience where I was like, well, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. So, like, everything blew up. So why don't I build from the ground up for what I know is true? And I realized that I had to sit and I had to ask myself the tough questions that are not easy to answer. And those questions are, what do I want? That's the first one. And that is the hardest question to answer because you can have somebody that's incredibly successful. I've interviewed so many incredibly successful people on my podcast that build incredibly successful businesses. They built investments. And they, they did it because it was based on what they thought they were supposed to do, what what their family said they were supposed to do or what their friends thought they were supposed to do. So it's not what other people want is what do you want? And that is a hard fricking question to answer. So that was just one of them. But what, you know, what do I want? What is my purpose? What are my core values? What are my 4%? What are my superpowers? Who do I want to serve? These are all questions that I think in society, we think we can sit and journal on it and do an exercise, and you're just going to come up with the answers. But I literally spent a year answering these questions, and I've come up with different ways that people can uncover those. But I think there's so much that you can do. And I don't know if you want to go this deep down the rabbit hole, but we could give some people some experiments as to how they can actually go about doing some of those. That would be kind of fun. But, but that's, that's the gist of it, is that I sat, I went back through all the conversations on my podcast that I ever had, and I, I, I studied. What are the, I asked myself, what are the relationships that I most value? Who who is it that really resonates with me and why? And, and that's an exercise. I would encourage anyone to ask that question if you want to go down this path. A really cool shortcut question to uncovering these 4% activities are, who do you most look up to and why? And if you really want this to sit in, pause this right now and don't listen to what I'm about to say. Because, like, if you take a second and answer that question, I'll tell you why I'm asking you that question. But the question is, who do you look up to professionally and why? Pause it if you want, or you can continue and find out why I want you to do that. Because there's two different ways that you can leverage a question. You can leverage the question for the question's sake, and then you can use a lens to look at your answers of that question in a different way. So what I found is that question reveals part of what your 4% is. Typically, the people that you look up to have a world. They have a manifestation, they have a way that they're leveraging a skill set that you most likely have seeds of, but you really respect them and that's why you appreciate them for that. So if you simply ask that question, who do I look up to and why? And you look at their strengths, you look at their superpowers, that's often an indication of some gem or some, some of your 4%. So I have like a bunch of those kinds of things that people can do, but this is the, this is the work that's super fun because I believe my purpose is to create a more deeply connected world. And I believe that that starts with connecting deeper with yourself. And then once you connect deeper with yourself, it empowers you to connect deeply with others. So another rant. But hopefully, hopefully something valuable in there.

Yeah, I think there's really a lot of valuable pieces in there to unpack in the way that these are really deep, meaningful questions. This is not going to be to your point, like, it's not a one day journal and it's, it's, you know, a year long thing. I'm, I, I don't know if I told you I'm going to Orokum for this darkness retreat for five days.

Oh, that's epic. I think I remember you saying that.

Yeah. And I think that's one of the reasons. Yeah. First of all, I like, like you, I want to do hard things, but I think that's really going to help me sort of, you know, have that time and space just to really. That's all I'm doing is just trying to ask myself these, these, these deep questions and there's no distraction, there's no escape from it. It's just me and in the room in the dark. So I think that'll be really interesting. But to your point, like, I know a lot of successful people. There's a lot of mis wanting out there. And I think that the listeners it to this podcast, they resonate because they know their values and they like the idea of passive income without the headaches and so that they can have not just more money, but they want more time at the peak of their life, right? That trifecta of money, time and health while they can do it, so they can live their best lives. And so someone like, young, like you, you're a new dad. So talk to me about how you're incorporating being a new dad, being a husband. This is a very tough time of life. There's a lot of stress and an entrepreneur and how you manage it and how you use your 4% to leverage making the best day, the best life possible for Brandon. Wow.

This is a fun one to unpack. And I'm still learning and I don't have the answers, but I'm experimenting right now. So I think the coolest thing about my, my spending time with my daughter Kaya is like, there's, she's like, purely present, purely source. Like, no, like, it's so funny. She's in this stage right now where she's discovered her hands and feet for the first time. And it's like, it's the coolest freaking thing in the world when she's like, whoa, what is this thing? And like, I'm putting this thing in my mouth and I'm experiencing it. And so I'm really excited for Kai to become my mentor is like, as much as I'm here to share some of the, like, things that I've learned along the way, I, I am excited for that stage of raw curiosity. I mean, I'm all about being beyond curious. What better opportunity for someone asking all these bajillion questions for you to think about things or say things in a weird way. But I think what, what my relationship with my wife has taught me and what my, my growing relationship with my daughter is sharing with me. And I think we, it's that any, anything that ever triggers you or makes you frustrated or kind of like, like is giving you an. It's an opportunity to reflect inside of yourself. So I think that's kind of like this whole parenting journey, relationship journey that we're on is like, even if somebody cuts you off in traffic, like, instead of getting mad, it's like, what. What is it about this that this is showing me, right? And so, like, that's the lens that I have as I go throughout these experiences and these conversations is instead of wondering why, like, blame. Assigning the blame, but rather going inside and leveraging that as an opportunity to ask myself the deeper question and realize what it's uncovering. So I think that's like the ultimate container is like, holding that space and being fully present. And then in those opportunities where you have an opportunity to reflect back on yourself, to really analyze and see what. What is the. What is this teaching me about myself that I haven't examined or seen yet?

So, so interesting. And it's so funny because I actually wrote a. I do a. Like, a weekly digest, and Rossi, who is our. Was our chief problem solver, had a newborn, and she went and moved on and is now raising her. Her son. But I actually wrote about her newborn being my mentor.

And.

And it's so true. Like, you can learn so much from these babies and. And. And being beyond curious about the world and. And just the awe of it all and the novelty of everything, and somehow as we get older, we lose that, but babies have it, and to get that back is. Is. Is so, so special. So. Which leads me to what does it mean to be beyond curious?

Oh, man. So I'll. I'll use a baby example for beyond curious. And this is, like, hilarious. I've never shared this on a podcast before, so there you go. Guest exclusive for. For you guys. Like, beyond curious means I wonder what breast milk tastes like. But beyond curious means I have to try my wife's bread. I need to try it. Like, what. What does it taste like? I need to know, right? And so there's, like. I view there's, like, two different kinds of curiosity, right? There's, like, people that are intellectually curious, right? They can sit and they can study so many different things, and they're really engaged with the world. And that's amazing. But there. There comes a point when you have to go past this surface level understanding and experience it for yourself. And that's what beyond curious means to me is like, I don't know if I can do this. I am so excited. I'm so. I want to know. But there is a point where I have to literally go past this point of, I've studied up enough about this Thing, I have to actually go in and bring this thing and make this happen. So that shows up for me in many different way. It showed up for when I did the Spartan Ultra, which is like this crazy thing that I've never done before. But it's like, I don't know if I can do this crazy race that is, you know, 50k, 60 obstacles, but I have to go past the point of curiosity and actually make that happen. I don't know if I can design a life where I bring people to a Curiosity Island. They all live in brilliance bungalows and they're. They're operating and collaborating from within their 4%. And I don't know if I can really bring 50 people to Curiosity island to celebrate my 50, my 50th birthday, my 30th birthday on February 21, 2026. I don't know if I can have that, make that happen. But I have to go beyond curious because this is important enough for me to actually go and make that happen. So that's, that's really what, what that's all about for me and the people that I interview is like, what is that thing that is so burning? You need to know for you, Mark, it's like you had this glimpse of dirt, of somebody saying how they can make money from dirt and build a passive income life around dirt, and you couldn't have. You studied up about it, but eventually you found yourself in those rooms where you're, where you're negotiating for a piece of land for that first time, and you've made that jump. You went beyond curious to actually make that happen, and you built a life around that. So to me, that's what it's all about.

Yeah, I, I'm, I'm kind of the same way with you, but I'm, I'm not as extreme when it comes to being beyond curious. Like, I, I like to try things and see what sticks, what doesn't. So I guess I am kind of beyond curious, but like to wake up and think, oh, yeah, I want to do a Spartan Ultra. Like, a marathon's bad enough. Talk to me about, like, what made you want to do a Spartan Ultra and what was that experience like? And what did you learn about yourself in. In accomplishing something that difficult?

Yeah, I always wanted to do it, so I did. I did this Spartan. So for those that aren't familiar with Spartan, they're these obstacle course races. And when you start by doing. When you start with their races and they have like a three mile, a five mile, and a Half mar. Or three mile, eight mile and a half marathon is the main series. So I did that and I always was like, that'd be really cool to really do an Ultra one day. But I knew that my deadline was having a daughter. Right? Like, having a baby is so much harder to train for. So, like, the moment that we decided that we were going to. We were going to start a family, I was like, okay, like, this is my timeline for actually making it happen. So I set this goal to do this Spartan Ultra. I texted my buddy of mine and he responded. I said, will you do this? This is my friend Luke Greenke. And he responded back with a screenshot of the purchase confirmation like, well, fuck, here we go. So, so now we're running the Spartan Ultra. And. And yeah, I mean, it was a lot of training and I got. I had a knee injury with my IT band. Went out kind of like mid. Not midway through the race, but like a few weeks beforehand. So I had to. Actually couldn't train for the last part of it as rigorously as I wanted to. And we showed up and it was 31 degrees and raining. So like, that was the. It was, it was in Montana, so I think it was. I don't remember how much elevation gain it was, but like by the end of the track, we were literally running through like soup. It was like so cold. We were soaked. It was miserable. And you couldn't do any of the obstacles because like anything that required grip strength, like, I, I got to up to a five minute dead hang with my, with my, with my grip and it was completely obsolete because everything is slippery as you can't hold on to any of them, but you can't hold on to anything. So. So, yeah, I mean, it was like when you're sloshing through that and when you're really in it, there's this point I'll say was, last thing is again, beyond curious. Like, the way the Ultra works is that there's two loops. So the biggest race before the Ultra is the Beast and it's a half marathon. So for the Ultra, you run the Beast loop twice. And so there's a point halfway through where you get to go and you get to access your bin of all your supplies and all the energy drinks and all that other kind of stuff. That's where all the dreams go to die, right? Because you're like halfway. You're like a little bit more than halfway through. You get a chance to sit down and that's where most people quit. But. But like that's the point to go beyond curious and really see what you're made of and really continue to push through it. So it ended up being one of the highest DNF rates of any Spartan Ultra that they've run. They sent an email afterwards, but, yeah, we ended up. We ended up finishing it and jumping over that fire at the end. And it's one of those things where it's a mental upgrade. Right? Like, it's like once you've seen yourself, once you've witnessed yourself do something, it really completely transforms the way that you show up in all other areas of your life. So I would encourage anyone to find that thing that they think they can't do and go do it and watch what happens to your brain. I'm super excited to see what happens with this darkness retreat for you. I'm sure that's scary, you know, like. Like sitting with your thoughts and being in silence. So any. Anyone that does that kind of stuff, you. You receive infinite upgrades from that, from that point forward. So that's my little bit of my experience on the Spartan U. Yeah.

So the brain, while you're in doing that Spartan Ultra, wants to quit. You're completely exhausted. At some point, you probably feel like dying. How do you. How do you, you know, embrace the suck and go past that point? Because I think entrepreneurs feel the same way. Whether it's a financial hurdle, it's. This is. This is not for me. You know, we all have those doubts. We all know those fears, those anxieties, and it. At some point, there's that little voice in our head that says, what happens if I get through that wall?

Yeah. So it's funny, when I ran the Spartan Ultra, I was transitioning to Beyond Curious as, like, the brand I rebranded. I was so misaligned with the way that my other brand was, and I was in this really, like, icky period of, like, feeling like I wasn't. I had outgrown who I was, and I didn't know what that new thing was. And I had just. So the. The. I did all this deep work on myself in 2022, and then I met this person named Alexander Watkins on my show. She named Wendy's Baconator and all these other, you know, Amazon Coca Cola products, and she came up with Beyond Curious. And so I had had the session with Alexandra about revealing Beyond Curious several days before I went on the Spartan Ultra. And so when it got hard, when it got to that point, when I was like, this is terrible. I don't know why the hell I'm Doing this, I realized that was my point, to literally go beyond curious. Like, that was literally my moment to like jump, like to push past what I ever thought was possible and step into it. So for that entrepreneur that's, that's listening to this, that's going through that moment. I know it's, it's been said before and there's a reason why things show up, but it's really connecting to that greater purpose. Right. Like I, doing this work on myself, I, and I, I'm a huge proponent of being flexible in your thinking. Right. So like I believe in having my pencil, my, my beliefs in pencil, not a pen. But as it comes to understand right now, like my purpose is to create a more deeply connected world. And like when I'm going through these hard things, it's always powerful to remind yourself of that Northstar that you're heading towards and, and making those micro calibrations and realizing that you're doing this for something greater than yourself. So whether that's, whether that's a, a life purpose mission or your family or whoever it is, that's another reason why connecting to that deep purpose is really going to help you in, in many different ways, from your decisions to getting through those hard times that you're talking about.

I, I love that. I think that's a really good segue into the AV approach.

Yeah. So this is kind of going back to the beginning. So again, connection to me is all about connecting with yourself and that empowers you to connect deeper with others. And so AVE is this approach that I develop that helps me to develop the relationships with the people that have kind of come on my show. Right. So like, who is I? Some, again, beyond curious, who is I? Some 22 year old kid to show up in these high level networking rooms and build relationships? Who was I to create this podcast and reach out to these high level people? Like I, I, I, I had to go beyond curious and, and figure it out. And so this AVE approach is literally the methodology that I use whenever I'm going to reach out to someone to build a relationship with them if I don't know them. How, how do you actually send a message that's actually going to encourage the IKEA effect? It's going to encourage people to build and invest in your ideas and start those relationships from a transformational, not a transactional approach. How do you do that? Right. And so I realized that any relationship can be created if you take the right avenue. So that's where they made up the acronym ave. It stands for Appreciate Value and end with a question. And I will say, like, some of the big guests that have come on my show that are coming to my birthday tomorrow, the day that we're recording this, Mark's coming to a birthday event that I'm coming to. Some of the biggest guests on my show I've reached out to, have said yes because of an AVE outreach. So my question for you as you think about this, as you listen to this, is like, who is that relationship that you really want to build? Who is that investor that you want to start a relationship with, or that mentor or that. That person that you want to have on your podcast? And how might you think about leveraging this approach to being able to do that? So the first part is a. So it's Appreciate. So if you open your email inbox right now, or LinkedIn or whatever it is, I guarantee you're going to see so many different approaches of people saying, this is who I am. This is why I'm so Portman, and you should listen to me. Right? It's everybody's pitching their ideas and their stuff. So the idea with Appreciate is the starting point is you want to do the exact opposite of that. You want to show up so completely differently in people's inbox that they're like, wow, this person actually took a time to get to know who I am and how I show up in the world. And so the way that you do that is specificity, right? And I kind of have a little mini formula inside of this step. I call it the Loved plus specific formula. So if I were reaching out to Mark for the first time, which I didn't. And by the way, this snowballs because once you build relationships, you just get intros to the coolest people, and then you don't have to do the outreach anymore. But if I were reaching out to Mark for the first time and I didn't know him, I would say, hey, Mark, you know, I listened to episode 6 or episode 43 of the podcast, and I loved when you shared that story about your dad being a grocery store clerk.

And.

And you had to learn about the power of, like, knowing the different price and how that transformed your experience and showing up on the show. Thank you so much for sharing that insight. I really appreciated that. So probably butchered that. I did that 100% on the fly. But, like, what is that one thing that applies only to the person that you're reaching out to that cannot be copy and pasted to anyone else? That shows that you actually took the time to know who the hell they are. Right. And so that's, that's the final check you can do on your appreciation is if you can copy and paste that message and it applies to anyone else on the planet. You didn't get specific enough. So go listen to their podcast, go read a book, read something about their blog post. How do you make something so specific and appreciate them? I can keep going or you can, you can pause me at any time you want, Mark, but I can. Do you want me to go through the remaining ones?

Yeah, I want to, I want to hear about V and E. And you know, it's because I have a follow up question to it as well.

But okay, so, yeah, so, so again, we, we stood out. We, we show that we appreciated this person. We gave them a genuine appreciate. Then the next part is V. Value. What is the value that you can add to this person? So part of the amazing thing that Mark and I have done is we have a podcast that's an immediate way to add value to people. Right. And so this is where, or maybe again, we'll go back to the earlier part of the conversation. Maybe you're curating an event to bring these kinds of people the relationship that you're doing. So you might say something along the lines of like, hey, you know, appreciation, I wanted to run an idea by you. And then several bullet points that outline the value and what's in it for them. So if I were reaching out to come on my show, I would say, you know, It's a top 1.5 globally ranked show and I'm really grateful to say I've had some high caliber guests on the show and that I would link to like this testimonial video of these people gushing about their experience. And then I would say, you know, I love making connections between my guests that make make sense. And if they've seen the kind of people that come on my show and the value that I bring, they're like, oh my God, that's super valuable. And so, and then I think there's a, I'm missing the third bullet that I might include in that. So like, that's an example of like me thinking about from their perspective, what is the value that I can add. Or if we're going to the event route, you can say, hey, I have an idea. I'm curing an event. It's specifically for this kind of group of people, right? And if they resonate with that group of people, like, oh, that's cool, you curated that. And it's Invite only. I'm not charging for it, but like, I promise it's gonna be a transformational event. Boom. Massive value, right? And so that's, that's the next part about it is like making it all about them. How do you think about how you add value to them? And then the last part is E. And with the question, the, the emails that are the hardest to respond to, I guarantee this is the. When I share this on the stage, this is what I share with people. The emails that are always hard to respond to are the ones that you don't know how to respond to, right? It's like I don't, I don't know what to do. Like I'm just going to snooze this for forever or I never respond to it because like it's so hard laid out. So if you end with a very clear question at the end and nothing after that, it makes it very clear that, that they, it's easy for them to respond to. So I try to get it to the point where my first outreach is so easy that they can respond with one word or less, not less. That's not possible. I don't know how you scratch that one word. At least one word, right? So a few things I'll do in this E and with a question that I've tested, right? When I get. I've done campaigns that have received 60 plus percent open rates and reply rates on these kinds of things, right? So the way that I tested is this specifically. It's 100% up to you and totally fine either way. But what are your thoughts on me sending over blank or what are the thoughts on coming on my show? What are your thoughts on attending this event? And so there's a, there's a bunch that goes into that one is that whenever our choice to be affirmed is. Is like re described like 100 up to you and totally fine either way. Like no one likes being forced into something. So I use that almost all the time whenever I'm making an ask. I always give people an out because I honestly, why? What's the point of convincing someone to do something if they actually aren't invested in it? There's no point to it. So 100% up to you and totally find you the way and then coming up with an opportunity to make it a very clear yes or no at the end of it. So if it's coming on my show, 100% up to you and totally finding the way. But what are your thoughts on me sending over next steps to come on the show. I'm not saying, here's the booking link. Grab a time. I'm asking them to lean in and say, yes, I'm interested. Send me the next step. Because that's a lot different than throwing something in someone's face so that, that simple. Opt in. Again, talking about the loop of people investing in their ideas, if they respond, yes, I'm interested, even though you're slowing it down, you're slowing down the relationship, once they've replied back and said, yes, I'm interested, that significantly increases the compliance rate of somebody actually going through with it. So, final recap, you take a second, you appreciate them, make it so specific that like they can't, they can't copy and paste it to anyone else. Think about it from their perspective. What is the value that you're adding? How can you add value to them in their life? And then very succinctly come up with a way to structure it so that it's easy for them to end with a question and know how to respond within a yes or no answer. Because it's super easy and skimmable. So there's, there's av. Yeah.

So I, I love the ave. I, I think this is really super tactical, but I think when you talk about it first, first of all, you have to think about it strategically and then you go down to the tactic. I think one of the problems that people, you know, at least I see entrepreneurs making, our clients making, is they want the tactic. They want the tactic and they're not thinking about, well, what is the tactic going to? Why am I doing this tactic? What's the overall strategy behind it? And then I think the intent gets lost when you're just going in and implementing on this tactic. Right. But that's not here or there. I'm going on a tangent. What I be curious about is how do you see ChatGPT, all the AI tools affecting our relationships in positive and negative ways. And one of the negative things I, I'm, I'm seeing is let's just talk about the, the A strategies. Like something to appreciate. Right. Where I know when someone's actually written. It's been chat GPT wrote the email to me and it wasn't them. And I can feel it. I know it. Yet, you know, look, we only have so much time, so it's like, oh, here's this great tool. It's going to save me time. How do you think about that? How do you think about things that when it comes to relationships and connecting, that don't Scale.

Yeah, it's a great question, and it's something that I'm still answering. So I'm going to. I'm going to give a shout out to, like, one of my dear friends. He's been on the show. His name is Blake Fly, and he leverages unexpected appreciation to build relationships with people all the time. I think it's so important to remember how to infuse more humanness into everything that you do. So I think part of the downside of ChatGPT is somebody's always going to be wondering, was this written by AI or was this. Actually, I think, right. I can say right now, but probably not in the future. There is still an opportunity to say, hey, he really actually did the deep dive because, like, how would you train ChatGPT to go and reference page 47 of a book? You can't, right? Or, like, a specific timestamp inside of an episode, Right? So, like, I think there's probably an opportunity for Chad to get that good. But, like, the kind of appreciations that I'll write, most people are like, okay, he actually wrote this, and it's a legit compliment. So the intention behind it is important. But going back to my friend Blake, there's a huge opportunity to, like, leverage video and voice messages in ways that, like, are hilarious, funny, and, like, there's. It just kind of infuses, like, the relationship. So, like, for example, this might not be an outreach. I'll see if I can make it tie in my head. But, like, maybe I'm going on a walk and I see a massive pile of dirt on my walk with my daughter, right? I might stop for a second, pull out my phone and find my buddy Mark's phone number, and I'll pull out a video, say, like, hey, Mark, I'm sitting here on a walk with my. My daughter Kaya. Say, hi, Kaya. She's, like, chewing on her fingers or whatever. I just want to let you know I'm thinking about you because I see this massive pile of dirt back here, and then I pan over to this massive pile of dirt, and it blows me away that you've made such a big impact in your life and other people's life by helping people buy and sell raw land and want to let you know that I've been thinking about you and I hope you have an amazing day. And then I send. Send that video, right? So, like, that is, like, there's. There's. We have to go back to those elements of, like, infusing fun and play of video because it's like everybody's thinking, is this deep faked, Is this AI Right? Like, but AI is not going to recreate being on a walk with your daughter and seeing a pile of dirt and stopping and telling someone that you're thinking about them. Right? So as far as, like, leveraging the ave, I think there's a level of specificity that makes it still legit. But the takeaway for you here is any. Any relationship that you. That you have in your life, that's an important relationship. Instead, the next time you think about them, instead of just saying, oh, I wonder how they're doing, stop and stop and tell them about it. Like, send them a voice message, send them a video message. And. And that's how you continually build these relationships, is that you just let people know that you're thinking about them. Like, who wants. Who wants to. You. We all know that person that shows up when they want something, like, I haven't heard you in five years. But then they want something, right? Like, but like, how do you constantly stay top of mind? It's that, like, you know, whenever you're talking, like, you mention your friends, you mentioned your clients all the time. You know, you finished a zoom call and you were chatting with your. About how awesome your client was. Just message that client, say, hey, I was just on a zoom call. We were talking about how amazing you are. I just want to let you know we were thinking about you. I hope you're having an awesome day. See you. Right? It's so easy, it's so simple. We have our phones, we have our emails to communicate this kind of stuff. And I think that's the lowest hanging fruit is going back to. What does it mean to be human? And what does it mean to be human is paying attention to the relationships, the things that are important, and taking a second to appreciate someone. So this whole appreciation thing, if you take nothing away from the ave, but just the appreciate, just inject more of that into your life and send someone a video today. I would encourage you to pause right now. Whoever you're thinking about, maybe you thought about someone in this episode. Maybe you thought about a client. Like, take a second, send them a video, tell them what you appreciate about them, and you'll be amazed about what that unlocks. Because they're going to be like, oh, you know what? I was actually thinking about you too. That happens very often. Or, oh, there's this introduction I want to make. But if you're constantly stimulating these, it's going to open a lot. So long roundabout Answer, but inject more humanness into everything that you're doing and appreciate people as much as possible.

This, this podcast has been so, so good and so valuable and so enlightening. I recommend all the listeners listen to this one again. There are so many just gems, and if you just apply one or two things that Brandon's talked about, it's going to literally transform your life. You're going to have better relationships. And we all know by. At the end of life, that's what we really look at. It's. How is it? That's a little happiness, right? The quality of your relationships, and there's the tactics involved, but just the mindset that Brandon is infusing into life so that he's fulfilling his purpose. This is someone definitely to emulate. And, yeah, I'm, you know, 100 years older than him, but there's still. It doesn't matter. I mean, there's still that deep wisdom, and you, you can learn from anyone. And, And Brandon's one of those people that's just wide beyond his ears. He's precocious. And, you know, I, I, you know, to express appreciation, man, it's. It's been just a pure joy and just getting to know you. Just, you're just a gem, brother. So thank you.

Absolutely. I'm getting tingles down my arms from that. And I, I just, you know, every once in a while you meet a person, you're like, you're going to be in my life for a while. And, like, just since the first time we talked, I'm like, this is a legit guy. Like, he, he cares. He. He's willing to be goofy or willing to just kind of share what's on the top of your mind. You got the amazing Anchorman V. All, all those things. So I, I am equally grateful for you and anybody that's listening to this show. You're listening to an amazing human, and you're in the right spot. So I appreciate you too, brother.

Thanks, Brandon. Thanks. Well, we're at that point now, and your, your mentorship has been invaluable. But now I'm gonna put you on the spot one more time and ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

Oh, man. Is this the part where I give, like, another exercise, or do I just kind of give? I'm. There's so many different ways I can go about this. I would say my, My My tip is actually to just do what I just said. Like, it would just. It would create so much more connection, so much more relationships in the world. Just the next person you think about, send them a voice message, send them a video, and just tell them what you appreciate about them and why you're thinking about them. No call to action besides that. If you do that over and over and over again, you're going to be blown away by what happened. So I will give. I will leave that as my fun hack to create more connection and wisdom in the world.

Amazing. Amazing. Well, my tip of the week is going to be learn more about Brandon. Certainly follow Beyond Curious. It's. It's. And I. And I. You know, I'm not saying this to grease my local poll. Brandon's in it. Like, I don't know how many podcasts I've done. It's. It's got to be close to a thousand now. And he researched me so well. He was asking things that no one's ever asked on any podcast. And so if you extrapolate that. And he's got amazing guests on there, but they go deep on this podcast. It's.

It's.

That podcast is going to be one that you will definitely. And just. You can tell just listening to Brandon, imagine him interviewing somebody. How, how great, how great it's going to be. So definitely follow Beyond Curious and, and listen there. But, Brandon, you have a. A special link for us as well. Yeah, I'm going to be sharing, so.

We'Re gonna try to time this. So Mark's episode will be live. Go check it out. The first question I asked him is about organic baby food. So if you want to figure out why we talked about organic baby food, if you haven't heard Mark talk about that, you go check out that episode. It was a good one. Thank you for playing Pull Out. So, yeah, I created a special link for everyone. It's a short link. This is a fun little hack, too. I know you guys like hacks, but I bought a domain from Nigeria because I wanted a short link. So the short link for me is befong bfo.ng/API. So that's the link you can go to bfo.ng/API for the art of Passive income. And what. I'm going to put a few things for you there. And the reason why that's a short little hack too, is like, if you write a book, if you're doing a podcast, like what I just said there, that can't be changed now. It's going to be in the show notes. And so I hate being part of show notes or books where links don't work anymore. So I can always go and I can change this. So at least as of right now, here's what I'm going to promise for anyone that's going to go check it out is if you found value in some of these different ways I've been able to connect connect with people or build around my 4%. There's one thing I put together called my brilliance multiplication system. So how do you stick inside of your 4% and build systems around that? So I kind of did a walkthrough of some of my favorite automations and systems to help you stick inside of your brilliance instead of being bogged down by what doesn't matter. You can go check that out, we'll include that. And then another thing I'll link up in that in that if you decide to grab that is episode 140A on my podcast. I did a deep dive. It's a three hour masterclass on answering those big questions. So if you were hearing like, ooh, I don't know how to answer what do I want? Or I don't know how to answer what my superpowers are, I give a full breakdown of how to answer all those questions. So we'll link that up as well and maybe I'll toss in a few other bonuses as well. So go hop over to bfo ng API. Or if you want to ignore that, just go check out my episode with Mark on the show and you'll have a good time with that.

Amazing. Amazing. Yeah, the word that comes to mind is just generous. Just so generous. So yeah, listeners, I just want to thank you and just a little reminder, the only way I'm gonna get Brandon to come back and and give us even more value and be even more generous with his time and knowledge and wisdom is we do three little favors. Follow Rate Review the podcast. Send a screenshot of that review. Support the Land Geek.com I'm going to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich. But do it. Don't do it for the book. Just do it. Because selfishly, it it helps us get even better guests. Today's podcast is sponsored by Flight School Schedule Call. Learn how you can start building that passive income without any renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents. I know you're thinking the tuition, it ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're going to make that money back 180 days or less. Just show us your work. Learn more at thelandgeek.com forward/training thelangic.com forward/training Brandon, are we good?

We're good. Thank you, Mark. I love you. Appreciate you. This has been epic.

Love you, brother. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents? Schedule a free consultation at thelandgeek.com forward/training let freedom ring.