 Welcome to behind everyone podcast. My name is Wilson Lee your host today Behind everyone there is a story a story of how they're faced with their biggest fears Rejections and challenges a story of where they rose up to occasion and transform their lives The turning point of where it all began be inspired by the raw stories from top performers and entrepreneurs across industries So you can start unlocking your potentials and start living your dreams now. Let's die right in You know what we're gonna start that right awesome. Thanks so much Matt for doing this interview with me. That's freaking awesome I I actually forgot where I met you, but it's been a while. Yeah We've had at a mastermind pretty much. Yes. Oh, it's being a mastermind. You are the founder of The biggest internet mastermind in not in Vancouver, but in the world We are we are the largest internet marketing meetup on meetup.com Okay, and in and it's called internet masterminds But I don't think the internet masterminds is a traditional mastermind like we were at where there's a small group of people sitting right at boardroom Sharing ideas and solving problems. Yeah internet masterminds traditionally has been a place to Educate the public about the best practices of internet marketing by inviting a local speaker to come and share their case study It's something that they did locally internationally and some of the past be a marketing campaign Yeah, they basically share what they did to achieve that success Yeah, and we typically get dozens hundreds of people coming out to hear those stories Yeah, so it's a little bit different than like a typical mastermind that we're part of that's awesome. Um, and How many people are in this meetup group of yours? So right now our meetup is that over 7,000 members? Yeah our goal over the next two years is actually to get to a hundred thousand members and Through growing globally and getting to a hundred groups around the world My goal is to be within at least ten countries a hundred groups and a hundred thousand members in two years Why originally just made up that goal and then I actually researched to find out for this feasible and I found a lot of other organizations that actually exceeded that goal Yeah, not even trying within a two-year period and so I'm really excited now that we actually have a plan in place We're actually building technology. So actually have our own platform that we can actually do this to scale So yeah, really excited about it. It's what we've been working on for the last little while. Yeah, and getting ready to Go global go global. Wow. Is that another hashtag brand of yours? Go global go away Go global. I know at the same time you also have your social media director License, I actually have a few friends actually took it I think the impact that you're able to make in other people's lives has been tremendous because you know these kids that come our university They have nothing to do or even these moms They just take your course and then now they're killing it through Facebook. Yeah. Yeah I mean traditionally our course is you know Facebook ad and sales funnels Yes, we've had people that come out of school college, right? You know college you're learning Textbook material it's good Lot of people come out not understanding, you know the world of business one thing from learning from someone who's Actually done it is that you're learning like real-world business practices and strategies versus again to somebody who's you know I only teach stuff. I actually do yeah stuff that I just I read in a book, right? Yeah, and so not too, you know to yelling horn No, no, I mean I'm not trying to talk bad about college universities I think they help a lot of people But I have noticed that people who study, you know marketing specifically and get out of marketing I don't know a lot. Yeah, and again some some people are you know good and they you know They're reading books and they're you're looking up blogs watching YouTube videos like while in school Well, there's others who just rely on the information. They're getting called university. They come out and like You know, they still need more real-world experience And so that's why I think whether it's our course or someone else's course learning from someone who's actually in the industry Yeah, I think it's just the best way to learn. I think the whole info marketing world I think that's why it's grown so much over the last decade And I think for sure you grow is because you're learning for people who are actually in it And I think that's the reason why you're so influential in this space like any internet marketers that I talk to you They all know who this mad guy is and I'm like wow like your stuff is actually really really good now before It actually got to be such the scale it is now that you're able to touch thousands of lives like How did it all began for you and like was it as easy as like, you know what I came out and this is why I started I started the internet master Masterminds and it's super well or where are there any stories where you like oh fuck this sucks so You know originally I think the way it started was I started my company Which is web-friendly and I started the internet masterminds meet-up group around the same month It's in like a one to two month period Both so I started my company and then you know internet masterminds kind of happened very organically you can talk about that I was originally my goal was to be able to be a public speaker Oh, so they're going like toast master and things like that and I remember someone I actually was Roger killin Yeah, we said you want to get good at speaking you just got to go out and just speak more Yeah, you know and so I think I'm actually and then I heard someone else say like do something every day That scares you or something. I was like well public speaking here is me So any opportunity I would get to be able to speak in front of a group, but I would do it So I was part of this internet masterminds group, which was originally started from a craigslist ad But it wasn't my craigslist ad it was somebody else's ad and basically a setting Mondays seven o'clock Inside this dingy old hair salon. Yeah, you guys can come in and we're gonna talk about internet marketing originally We were watching videos of Frank Kern and other internet marketers that we'd watch a video then like discuss it, right? So these other guys were like organizing this event and then one day I show up and you know, there's you know before we had like 56 people coming out and this one day I show up and there's like 20 people there And the main guys who are organizing it didn't show up and they decided it wasn't for them anymore And we didn't have an email list or a meet-up or any way for them to communicate that yeah The guy whose hair salon I was had the doors still open the projector was set up and you know Whatever but the guys didn't show up, right? So then everyone's just sitting there like what do we do now? Yeah, and then I was sitting in the back and I you know Shily put my hand up and I said I Saw a video online Vicky to watch yeah, and I played them a video of Gary Vaynerchuk And at that time this is 10 years ago. This is 2009 Yeah, nine years. Yeah, it was almost 10 years ago and at the time, you know Gary Vee was you know I think he had 30,000 followers on Twitter You know he wasn't as popular as he is today And so yeah show them this video and everyone's like wow this is amazing And he was talking about how social media was gonna be like the next big thing so Social media sounds amazing. Can you teach us more like what's Twitter, right? Yeah, they really like what's Twitter, right? And this is like, you know, we're talking Twitter before Justin Bieber was there or Oprah was there Ashton Kutcher like once those celebrities started getting on that's when Twitter really blew up, right? This is a prior to that area, right? So they said can you teach us about Twitter so then the next Monday came along and I was getting to my very first like public Speaking presentation, and I was so worried. I actually there's another friend that was in the group And I asked him if he would present with me because he had some public speaking experience I said just in case I screw up so bad that like you just pick it up in case I don't know what to say I ended up being able to fulfill and like I did most of the presentation And taught everybody about like how Twitter works. Yeah, it's basics They're like, that's great. Can we learn more, right? So, you know fast forward six months later every Monday night We're doing a type masterminds, and I was just teaching what I knew. Yeah, and then I thought started thinking well Like I'm not getting a lot of value to this like all I'm doing is teaching everything that I know But like I want to learn stuff too. Yeah, I didn't realize at the time. That was actually quite naive I didn't realize that when you teach you learn, you know, you process things, you know the information in your mind You basically it's kind of like blogging or writing, right? You actually can like figure out what you actually know by the time I didn't know that so I was like I want to find other speakers to come in here So then I started finding other speakers every Monday night. We'd have a new speaker and And then that grew and grew and grew and then that's what really became what internet masterminds is today So you're teaching your course in the back of a salon for the longest time. Yeah Just doing these little workshops like one hour top. Yeah, and then eventually I said hey I'm gonna do a weekend workshop. Yeah, the first time I did it. I charged $375. Oh, yeah, I just came up with that number somewhere and then I filled it up We did it inside of a small board room in the back of a coffee shop Okay And then I remember that we had our projector set up in the small room and the projectors the heater in the Projector would get so warm so by the end of the day this room is so hot Yeah, we're all sweating if you look at the very first picture of our first workshop You see everyone had like armpits wet It's really bad then you know slowly I you know I raise the prices You know more and more then I realized that I was able to fulfill my the lifestyle ahead of the time Yeah, not an elaborate lifestyle writing means but I was able to pay my own bills Yeah, that's what I think by just you know working one weekend a month And I you know I kind of in a sense like I achieved the four-hour work week nice plus a weekend Yeah, and then you know I continued going eventually moved all the courses online And that's what really scaled the business for sure where it's at today now you charge in like thousands for your course Yeah, right now our course is $2500 Yeah, I mean, but it's much more than what it was for sure Yeah, it's like before like it was like literally like how to set up a social media product How to set up a Twitter I had a set of a Facebook I was logging people in creating accounts on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube Yeah, now it's like we're actually teaching like how to like actually get leads From 375 to 2500 USD yeah that growth in that valley that you bring and the scalability that's huge That's awesome cool that now from during that phase like how you grew Were there any times where you like screwed over because we kind of talked a little bit about that you like You know what let me talk about it later on sure So, you know, I try to put the you know the past behind me. Yeah times like that, but I Will share the story only because I think that it is an important lesson to anyone who's maybe facing this right now or I'm just thinking about becoming an entrepreneur and afraid of getting screwed over. I will say that if You believe that you are on the right I think it's all gonna work out for you in the end if you go out and you have the scarcity mindset of Trying to screw people over or trying to you know get some Early returns or whatever. I think it always doesn't work out for the best so what happened when we started to masterminds it was started between me and the other gentlemen who owned the Property in which we're hosting the events Yeah, and What happened was we had to buy a projector and a screen made to buy chairs up like that And it was all coming out of our own pockets So we say well we should start charging something for this event They were originally just free So we started charging like five bucks at the door just to cover our costs, right? And we were charging five bucks at the door for I think I want to say like three years two or three years And he was like our treasurer anytime. We had to Needed a projector we need to grab chairs would break or you know, whatever would happen, right? One time we did like a barbecue for everybody Yeah, we bought all the burgers for everyone. It was just like a you know, whatever Community event we took it out of our So then I started getting this idea I said hey, it would be great if we could film all of our talks Yeah, and people would always say I can't make it the event, but I'd love to see it and I'll pay for the video So I said it would be great if we could film the events Put those videos into a membership site and then sell a membership that we include Access to all the videos as well as access to all the events. Yeah, let's build the technology to do that And so I said let's count our cash because we have them all you know I thought we had them all into separate envelopes for every night There's how much we made who showed up and like like they were always a sealed envelope that was going into a safe Yeah, and I started asking, you know, the other you know You know co-organize here at the time and saying hey like let's meet up and let's count the cash Let's figure out what our budget is right? Yeah, and I noticed that there was this avoidance and avoidance and avoidance and it went on for quite a while So one day I showed up before an event and I said what's going on and He said basically that he wanted to be able to have a share of those funds to basically pay for rent And so, you know, I said, you know fine I mean it's fair enough, but the challenge was that he wanted to be retroactively paid For for that three years. Yeah, and then apparently the calculation that he made apparently equaled all the money And just so happens a so yeah, I mean I you know, I'm gonna I had the ballparking because I don't know how much money was actually there I just you know the number that he gave was in range of the number that I thought we might have or whatever so We actually got a mediator involved. There was other people who we call our founding members that were there as well Mostly everyone was kind of in a sense. So I want to say kind of siding with me or you know, trying to we were trying to find a resolution and We were not able to find a resolution and basically I said I see you containing your anger inside. You're like, no, I'm not. I'm not just like all these like words I'm not angry. I'm actually really disappointed because this this person was actually a friend of mine at the time Yeah, I think you might see this, you know, and I don't Look to start sorry. Sorry. I don't know. Yeah You know, it is what it is right, but the point being that you know at the end, you know I just you know move forward on my own. I said, I'm gonna let this go behind me, you know And you know, we just moved to a new location. The new location was only few blocks away We now needed to raise money because I wanted to fill my dream of the o3 cord Made this site. So we started charging 10 bucks at the door or sorry 10 bucks to get in So our reasoning was $10 online and we made it $10 online 20 at the door Yeah, you know get people to register earlier or whatever And then within that first year, I believe that we raised More money than what we had in the previous three years, right? And and then I built the site and I now we have a membership site and now we're doing this and now I I'm gonna go globally. So, you know, it was It was a hard business lesson at a time. I remember I was really angry I wrote this long letter that I was gonna send to the home eat up being like This is what's going on and did it, you know, whatever and I sent it to a few We're gonna call the founding members that were kind of there at the beginning and I said guys This is what I plan to send out. You know, I am feeling angry. What do you think? So yeah, I hear one person ready to just don't send it don't say anything Nobody knows. Yeah, who's organizing what like you, you know, you have all this information But most people come don't realize. Yeah, any of this stuff what's going on, right? So they just don't say anything. Okay, so I just never said Yeah, I mean it was hard at the time but now the group has, you know, continue to grow and You know, I've always I want to create kind of an environment that I want to be a part of so when I do an event I organize the event that I would go to if I'm a speaker when we talk about the topic We talk about the topic that I'd want to learn about No, for sure. When I get out of my office or out of my bed or out of my house or whatever to go to this event If the answer is no, I'm not gonna do it even though I'm the organizer. Yeah. Yeah for a long time we were doing events where We were just, you know, anyone who wanted to speak about what topic you want to speak about they would do it And I had sit in the back. I planned my phone at the door during the event So that I almost shut the group down because I wasn't really feeling like I was enjoying it Yeah, but people were coming they were learning so as soon as I switched it to be like the kind of environment kind of event community that I want to be a part of Yeah, you know the value of having your own in-person community like that is Like I think that's like my whole business was basically based off of that There's so much value I've actually realized that I think that I've created more value You know in the world or the community through internet masterminds. Yeah, even though it's not me Teaching people internet mastermind. There's people bringing people together. No for sure I realized I'm so much more of like a connector who always come to me and say hey, can you connect me with this person? Do you know somebody here? Right? So it's like we've done a lot with social media director and I love that and I You know, I could take a little bit more credit because I'm showing people specific strategies that I spent Oftentimes hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to try to figure out Well, you know, what's gonna work and then I just give it away, you know Where as an internet masterminds, I'm bringing people together giving them insights giving them inspiration and And I've seen that create a huge impact in the community as well So I guess like the biggest lesson that for our viewers is that, you know set the The foundation right right from the get-go right have everything out in the clear Hey, like where does the money go instead of being like, hey, you know what? We're buddy buddies, you know what we'll deal with it later kind of thing, right? Yeah, yeah Sort of yeah, I mean I read or it doesn't have Like how the money was collected. No, it's more so like hey, you know what for for entrepreneurs or leaders Or whatever it is that you know what what can learn from your stories from just now Yeah, I think that You know, if you're gonna do a community event like that, I think it is a good idea to charge something Sure, like at the time I don't think we made a mistake by saying let's just charge my box and figure it out later What we have to do right because we're not trying to make money I still don't make money from the internet masterminds meetup right like our profit per event is in a few hundred dollars And when you look at them at the time invested and so on in it It's not it's you're not gonna do it to make money Yeah, you do it to build a community to build the connections build your influence There's other ways that you can profit from doing something like that. Mm-hmm. So the intention is always to not make money I actually always look at how do we spend this money to market our events to bring more people in Yeah, we have expanded our marketing budget per event to bring more people in We've done deals where we actually fly speaker in and we pay for their expenses And you lose money on an event, but we've made money on the last three so it works, right? So the intention was never to try to make money from the event. So it's more so that like I Think I'm gonna go into that in lesson where I just kind of like I wrote the angry letter And then I just didn't send it and talk about it. Just that was it right? I didn't go out and try to Refash this guy's name retaliates Right Yeah, you just just move on, right? I mean there was another time too where like we did some consulting work a consulting we actually built an attire we rebuilt an attire business and It was a large project for us in the time We got a small deposit that hardly paid for the expenses of rebuilding we built sales funnels new copy new website New logo we actually rebranded the name but the domain like we helps this this organization like rebrand everything and then at the end We were we were delayed like by like about three weeks or so because we had some video guys They were doing some work for us that you know They're they're doing for a little was a small cost compared to what we were getting and you know They were late it was during Christmas time Like I want to say a month late, and they were just like you're a month late We're not paying and the whole thing was like dude like we made no money Like this is an agreement that we had you spent that your initial deposit was to get all this up done This is all like in writing this is our deal right it was really pissed right because I was like We were expecting one is that we're supposed to get a percentage on the sales I was supposed to get this other part which is our actual profit for doing all our work So the way that we structured the deal we were being very generous and fair we want to work with these guys let's let's let's make it happen and You know they didn't pay us and then you know my initial thought well, well, but they were even right here Let's go to court. Yeah, this is a small claims court This is pretty opening up close. Yeah, it's like, you know, we are deserving of this funds And I was doing that with another partner at the time and we both agree that it just wasn't worth our energy Yeah, all the negative energy of going in and you know finding them about it We're a court and like you know it's like going to court alone We probably take us, you know one day or two days, you know, it's like if we just spent a day or two Prospecting for a new client will get a new client. That's gonna be worth way more. Yeah So just kind of like just like okay, we got screwed over let's just move on. Let's let's go on let it go Yeah, that sort of thing great. I actually have a similar story like that We remember a bank every winter on the land. Yeah, I got two guys That wrote me a check that bounced. Yeah, and just went on and on and on back and forth back and forth It was like I think it was like for grand I was trying to fight like actually asked these guys for it And they're like, you know what don't worry. I'll send you guys a new check better that and so on so forth Send me two checks both checks bounced and then they timed it so perfectly that by the end of the event Like that was when I was cashing on my check That was when I would get the notice that oh my bound my check was bounced So once again, I was in the same issue as you as like, hey, should I go to same the small courts or and deal with it Or should I just you know move on from that whole thing because it's already on the bridge There's really honestly, it's probably not their first time doing something like that. They are pretty kind of Educated in their field to keep pulling this stuff off, right? So I'm like, you know what? Let's just bite the bullet and just move on. Yeah, I think just not letting that negativity Consume who you are and just being positive and just you know what? Let's let's move on. Let's move on I learned this concept a long time ago. It's like whenever there's friction in your life. Yeah, whatever that might be You have to either deal with it or let it go and I remember when I first learned this concept And I I did the 80 20 principle on it Yeah, so I wrote down all the areas in my life where I had friction Yeah, and then I ranked them. Yeah, and then I say well if I just dealt with You know, maybe made a list of 10, but I'm not just let you know dealt with the first two Yeah, it would lift so much, you know Stress off my shoulders or whatever it was and I remember at that night. I remember my things were your girlfriend This is a long time ago. Actually, I was was a girl There was yeah, an ex-girlfriend where like we broke up and decided that we just wouldn't talk for a while Just so we'd have some space, right? And I felt like I needed to get like closure or something. So I like the guy Called a message or text or something. I said, hey They're good and then you know, let go One of my good friends I was making some like your mama jokes to him One night and I thought it was really funny. Yeah, but he didn't We were talking for like a month or something and I just had like hey, man Sorry, I'm making fun of your mom whatever you know and And the other person was like I was in an argument by dad about something I can't remember what it was that was well, and I called them. I said, let's meet for a coffee We hadn't talked for I don't know how long it was a week or something about two weeks We met for a coffee and I just remember like feeling this release of stress immediately happening and And then yeah, I just always now whenever there was some friction in my life It's like how do I deal with it or let it go because if you don't It's gonna stop you from maximizing your output in the world and your productivity and your creativity Yeah, you know all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I've been really big on that anytime. There's something like that It's like try to avoid in the first place. Yeah, it is great. It which is bound to happen. Yeah, you got a deal of it So I guess that theory or that concept and Has been part of your success Absolutely Do you have any secrets or not even secrets like epiphanies or theories or principles that you think has been like just super Life-changing for you Aside from you know deal with it or let it go like for people who want to excel in business or even within their industry or just excel as a self-development Because I know you're really into this kind of thing like that's the reason why I'm like I want to find out if you have any Yeah, okay, so there's something that's been coming out for me lately And I've been hearing more and more of it and it's around this idea of like having a scarcity mindset, right? Like being afraid that There's not enough for everybody You know holding your cards tight, you know, and and I didn't know that I am I don't have a scarcity of mine I think there was areas where maybe I Maybe did in some areas of my life, but for the most part in business I don't and I thought was great and I started I started noticing people around me who did and There was you know one particular person that I was working with very closely that was you know Always kind of assuming that I was going to do something wrong or you know Rip them off or you know, whatever and I was insulted by it, you know internally I was like, why would you think that I would do that? Yeah, it's not even it's beyond my character It's not logical right now. I realized it was more in the mindset So I heard somebody say this this concept. I don't know where it came from But basically like if you look at yourself five years from now and you think You know if I lived every single day Meeting everybody and thinking what can I get out of this person? What's your life? And what's your business want to look like in five years? Versus if you go out every day and every person that you meet you think about how can I add value to this person? Yeah, and then what's your life? What's your business look like in five years? I really sat down and I really thought about it Right, it's like I don't want to see my head light in five years where I'm just going to see what can I get out of somebody? What can I get out of somebody right? so it just like I know to me just like opened up my mind to The fact that you know the more value that you had it's not doesn't just you know Happy make more friends or whatever, but it's it's a mindset that Applies your entire life, you know, so in all aspects of life. I think coming like working in abundance is what you're saying Yeah, don't work in a mind frame of Scarcity, yeah Yeah, so and again, I think just because I've been over the last couple months kind of dealing with some people in my life that I felt were Coming from that place and I wasn't able to pinpoint identify the kind of what it was about a personality that we're kind of not Managing then when I started hearing it with this concept, you know, I see you know became You know, you know, it's you call like a mental model, but I was I realized that people were into and So yeah, so now I'm able to identify people, you know based on their character What they say and so on and if I feel like they're in that scarcity of minds if I know them close enough I might address it with them. Otherwise. Yeah I You know, otherwise it's just like don't don't deal with those kind of people right and just kind of like let it go It's the same thing looking back at those two people that You know, that's gonna be over and to get back to them and their personalities There was definitely scarcity mindsets in both both places, right? And now that I know how to identify it if I meet someone would be a client or potential You know student or business partner or whatever once I see that they have that sort of a mindset I know to kind of back away from that. It's not not gonna be like that. So wow, that is actually a very very profound Principle and I find that as a recurring Theme when it comes to like super successful entrepreneurs or industry leaders is that they're so giving Yeah, whether it be their time knowledge value, whatever the case may be and The law of attraction just brings it back. It just bounces it back right the more you give the more you receive and it's It's such a mental thing that it's not something you can teach Yeah, absolutely. It's like something you gotta feel for and yet it's such a profound thing that But I said I just I don't know if I really believe that there is Like like karma, I kind of believe in karma But I don't think that it is like karma or like the way the world for sure It's the way that one will react react to a situation psychologically Yeah, that makes a huge difference You might think well if I'm giving more in the world and I will get more back It's like the more value you create the more you receive it's it's not karma, right? It's it's how you actually reacting to things and you're you're looking at opportunities in different ways And so it's you know, it is your actions. That's that's creating the value It's not just like the way of the world kind of thing So I thought a lot about that as well. Oh, so you don't deep into that. I used to really be a big believer in karma Okay, yeah There's this technique with with running a business where if you give something to someone They're more prone to buy from you Like that's the reason why people give samples because like oh shit I feel like I owe this person something so you know what I'm gonna buy a bowl of tea or I gotta buy Yeah, yeah, it's something along the same principle of human psychology that If the more you receive the more you kind of have to like on now after get back or something like that, right? Yeah Yeah, I just thought of another point. Yeah, I would be interested to just I'd be curious as a chat with you about it, too Because it's probably gonna be relevant to when this gets uploaded to yeah Yeah, so we talked about like, you know influencing people by giving away free things. I think about the book Persuasion yes, Robert Caldini, right? I think that's marketing If anyone hasn't read the book persuasion by Caldini, you know, it's always anybody who asked me You know, he's gonna get the marketing. It's what book should I read? It's always like you have to read that book, right? I've read it twice anyway So I think it's interesting So he when he's really when you read in the book and what the way that he was written is like He's very much saying like he was writing it not so marketers could use it for evil to persuade people But so consumers could understand what marketers are doing to persuade them So it's written in that context. It's actually written for a consumer Yeah, right, but of course marketers eat it up, right? So, you know and he knew when he read it wrote it back marketer's gonna want it however There's all this news happening right now around Facebook and You know the Cambridge and we're just talking about it. Yeah, right and it's interesting because you know at the time of this recording You know face Mark Zuckerberg, which is up the Senate answering questions or at the Congress answering questions And they were you know referring to this, you know Cambridge thing about how they were using this information to influence people during the election And I'm not sure I'm curious your thoughts and this is more of just a discussion And I would love to this be a discussion. Maybe in the comments for this video. I'm curious. I When I heard that I was like, isn't that what a good marketer does? if I were to go and You know do proper market research Yeah, I go out to Google and I find out a lot of my audience so that way I could write a better ad Create better content and persuade them to buy Is that wrong, you know And by the way, just so nobody freaks out I understand why it was wrong that they got the data the way they got the data. I get that part I'm gonna get flamed and my video is going to take a ticket taken down because of your question I would I think that marketers and entrepreneurs kind of get it. I think it's a consumer's work for the understanding Right, it's kind of like why Kelly wrote the book is to educate the market, right? But they seem to be saying like oh that uses data, you know Influence people during the election and I was like, but that's what you need to do Yeah, that's what you're supposed to do, right? So yes, I get that the way that they claim the data is up But there's other ways to find the information beyond that like Facebook alone if you look at this tool is probably gonna be gone That's how this goes up, but it's been around for a long time, but it's called audience insights You look at Facebook. Do you think it's gonna be gone? So Facebook audience insights if you go on there right now and you yeah, you type in Women in Canada that are between the ages of 21 to 30 it will tell you what kind of shows they like books. They read whatever, you know, whatever you want Yeah, and it'll tell you that kind of stuff, right? So it's like that data is already there and Facebook is just one example There's a lot of ways you could find there's a lot of market research Oh, I know the Vancouver Public Library I think it was like last year I heard that they bought a whole bunch of data That's actually available in the back in the library if you want to do lots of market research for your business, right and Especially marketing research right anytime. I'm gonna do a campaign. I'm gonna do a lot of marketing research about the audience, right? So but to backtrack on this as well This is another interesting thing is a friend of mine took me to landmark. Yes Yes, I was totally turned off by landmark So wait a second you give us some more context for people that don't know what landmark is is basically a three-day Discovery or as actually they provide you with a tool To view what the world is like is I could sure it's a personal development workshop Yeah, so no look up landmark a lot of people have probably been there probably Yeah, they either love it or they either hate it. Yeah, so my thing with landmark was I was there and the whole time I couldn't get over why Was all the staff by all the staff are volunteers. Yeah, I was like, why are they volunteering that's I couldn't I was like trying to figure it out the whole time in my mind. I was like because these are very successful business people You know CEOs of large companies CFOs a little woman who led our workshop I think she was like a CFO of like a multi-billion dollar company milestones CEO of milestone. Yeah, we're right Like they had like influential people that are smart, you know, they lemon They they put all their staff through landmark as well. Yeah, right So I was like but I was like why are these people volunteering so I was trying to like what did they do to persuade them? Yeah influence them to do this, right? So I was it was going my mind, right? And then you know for me I was listening to the words that are being spoken very carefully. I'm familiar with NLP hypnosis and so on and My perspective. Yeah, okay, and let's not don't bash me in the comments here But my perspective was that they were using a lot of that. Yes 100% and they were They were shifting the mindset of people during the audience, right? And in order, you know, get them to enroll. Yeah, they specifically use the words enroll Which is also, you know, something to be looked at right and just the psychology of the wording that they're using and so on It's not wrong, right? Yeah, but they were persuading people in that sort of way influence people in that way Then there was the people who were actually Leading these workshops. Yeah volunteers, right? And I know why were they volunteering like well I had such a big impact in this they would give this like a rational reason or rational I don't know like they were giving this reason that was just like but why like what do you mean? Like why don't you just do your own workshop or what? You know, like, oh, but this is a community And like, you know, then there's this whole thing about like having a significance Community around you a lot like I know when I was at Tony Robbins When people would go to the back of the room and you sell something He would bring them on the stage so that way they She would show them significance a community on the stage, you know, I noticed that as a marketing thing I didn't think it was wrong if it was interesting, you know But there was something about landmark that turned me off and so later I told my friend I was like, I'm not sure, you know, whatever by the next day. I was like, dude, landmark is bad You got to get out of there, you know, whatever and I was like really turned off by it later We had dinner as with a group of friends and I was you know We're kind of doing this whole back and forth about is landmark right or wrong I couldn't pinpoint what was wrong about it. And then you know, we had a lot of discussion about it and by the end I Felt that because they weren't being upfront with people about what they were what kind of tools they were using to Shift their their minds which they were doing in it They're they're shifting their minds in a positive way to impact them in a positive way in the world Yes in their life, right? Yeah, but they were still using these tools to influence them, right in order to make them better people Right. Yeah, so we were discussing whether it was right or wrong to be using these types of tool when I say tool I'm talking language patterns and you know physical movement with their bodies and so on, right? That's like, you know familiar in psychology psychology a lot a lot of human psychology techniques and everything, right? Yeah I tell my I tell my my the people that don't know it's like when you go in go with the mindset of you know What 70%? No, sorry, I'll say like 60% sales and 30% of real content And that's how I see it and if you can see bass the sales techniques and everything and not them not letting you stand up You know putting you through a 12-hour day of just sitting in a chair and listening to people cry and just About all the emotional shit that they put you through if you can just take the content for what it is I find it very useful. Oh, yeah, and a lot of people do, right? But at the time there was something that turned me off. Yeah, it is by the way that they were doing it Yeah, and I'm not and I do believe that their mission and what they do is actually a good thing So I'm not I'm not I don't think their landmark is a bad thing or anything However, just going back to the discussion on what is fair use of Techniques, yeah People yeah, like yeah, okay Cambridge Analytica found out certain information about a certain demographic that they could change their messaging based off of that You know like where do you draw the line on what's right and wrong, right? And I think it's really interesting because I had this whole like, you know, I was like In kind of an argument with a really good friend, right about like this whole thing and I was healthy debate It was a healthy debate. Yeah, it actually definitely turned into a healthy debate But yeah, it was but now looking at you know marketing in general, right? It's like now we have all this knowledge and now it's like our society, you know based on the news and media saying it's not right to Research your market to influence them. It's like what do you draw the line? I personally think that you know, that's a very good example either like Facebook marketing or Whether it be landmark marketing whatever the case may be people are using these techniques and I think it's free for all It's it's up to like what you're saying is up to you to get the knowledge What happens when the government has all these crazy technology that's not Public access yet. They're using these on us Yeah, exactly like I already are right exactly and then who are they to judge people who are using public access? Information on telling people that they're wrong Yeah, right. So I mean I'm not trying to draw a line here or whatever the case is But hey if you are so against it Then go ahead and do something about it like as in hey I'm gonna start something that is counteracting what you're doing with the same principle of techniques Like for me, I think that's a much better way of doing it because it's a free world That's the beauty of what we're living at right now I think the other side too is that if consumers were to be more educated about What marketers are doing What is their choice though? Like people don't want to be educated they love lying in the freaking the sofa watching Kim Kardashian like even my wife Like I'll be like, hey, what are the self-development course with me? She's like no I want to watch my reality shows because I love being when not my brain being numb like Yeah, it's the same thing as marketers like I love to buy stuff, but then they don't like to be sold So it's our job to make them want to buy and sell shit But to the point of like the government stepping in saying You know you unfairly in or this company and unfairly influence people and then they're looking at Zuckerberg saying what's the solution, right? I Think what a potential solution is is that the types of material in the book like influence Yeah, should be in the curriculum of like high school Right, so that way we're treading on like waters. I think so. I think that like that way people understand You know what you know what they're you know how they're being marketed to and how they're being influenced and stuff So you can be more aware of it because when I went to landmark because I was aware of what they were doing I was like, no, I don't want to I don't want to be a part of it for whatever reason. I didn't like the Feel the board of a reason I didn't like it, right? But I got to make that decision if I didn't have that knowledge of what they were doing or whatever You know, I never I would never even thinking about I go other things I would just like yeah, this is awesome. You know, I'm gonna go go to the thing, right? So, you know before we get sidetracked too much. Yeah, this is a good healthy debate, right? No, but thank you so much for dropping so much knowledge and bomb and nuggets for us because you know, that's exactly what we that's exactly the whole point of this show is to Allow us to look behind of people who are successful who has done it and look from their lens to see how You can take from what we have in our brains and go and create your own success Your own aspiration or whatever you want to achieve, right? So that on that note I really appreciate your time and thank you so much for you know coming on this interview and just dropping so much bombs for Thank you. Thank you Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode Really hope that you guys enjoyed it and took away things that you can take action right away If you guys enjoyed it leave us a review That's gonna mean a lot for us if you guys don't like it also leave it below So I know how to improve for future episodes until next time. See you guys later