 The time before the event starts, the time after the event ends, it's almost like that parking lot conversation after an event with the three, four, five people that kind of are lingering around is the best part of a meetup. What's up everybody and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. It's one thing to attend like a conference and have a thousand people at that conference and be totally overwhelmed and have like become a wallflower standing back against a wall, kind of maybe walking over and seeing a couple of people huddling together. It's another thing where there's only like, the average meetup event only has like nine people on average that attend the event. So it's small. And when there's that few people, you're not gonna stand on the sidelines. Like there's gonna be a greeter. They're gonna welcome you in. You're gonna, they're gonna get your name. They're gonna learn more about you and it makes it very welcoming and people could be more vulnerable. You know, in smaller situations, when people could be more vulnerable, as I'm sure you tell people, that's how you build deeper relationships. We're able to share things about yourself. Other people share things. And then the depth of conversation is a heck of a lot more meaningful than talking about like the freaking weather or like, you know, or whether or not, you know, the Bucks are gonna win the championships or whatever. I wanna also add to that. Upon meeting in real life, your manners and how you relate to other people changes completely in order for us to connect and build these relationships. Whereas whatever niche group that you might have found on the internet, there is still no way that that person can reach through the screen and punch you in the mouth if you say something wrong or you don't like what they had to say or that just, there's somebody there for the specific reason of just trolling the group. That doesn't happen in real life and or if so, it's more that somebody is a sociopath and they have to play a role for a while to make those connections, to do that damage. But people have a decorum that allows them to connect, act differently, allows for these things to transpire. And then this goes back to allowing you to feel good and to feel connected because no matter what, no matter what you've been conditioned to think throughout the last 15 months of being online, your salvation and feeling connected, feeling good, feeling positive, feeling wonderful about the world around you is going to be through the connections and the relationships that you build in real life. Nothing is going to compare to that. And I'm gonna also add that through this show, we had looked at a lot of research that has shown that though I'm talking to you through this screen right now, this is the equivalent of an interaction as a cheeseburger is a McDonald's cheeseburger to my health. It's going to fill me up in that moment, but in the long term for the nutrients, it's just not there. And right here, yes, there's a connection. We're talking, we're enjoying something, we're building a relationship. However, I cannot read your micro expressions. I cannot be there in your presence and have that take over the interaction which builds those connections and allow us to feel fulfilled in our connections and relationships and bonding. Well said, empty calories, empty calories, right? We drop great content each and every week and we wanna make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that, you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell. And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this, make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends. It doesn't involve alcohol. And I think going along with health and wellness, so many of us have come out of this pandemic looking at our health, looking at alcohol choices, hopefully consuming less like myself and being more intentional with it. And I think for many, they feel like, well, they have to go to bars, they have to go to events with alcohol and maybe even they have to drink to fit in and they struggle with that. And a lot of our clients are trying to be healthy and trying to avoid poisoning themselves with alcohol, but they feel an immense amount of pressure, like that's what I have to do to meet people. I have to go to bars, I don't wanna do that, but I have to and meetup is that platform where, as you said, there's so much in the wellness space of people who are getting out in the sun, which we know has been great for COVID and doing things that don't involve alcohol. So if you're one of those people who are cutting back or avoiding or being abstinent in terms of all alcohol consumption, meetup is a great platform again to utilize to remove that part of the equation. Because we've all been there, I understand it can help you overcome some social anxiety, but being seen and heard sober with like-minded open people is far more impactful on your mental health and building quality relationships in your life. It's beautifully said, I think the average person gained whatever it's 10 or 15 pounds during the pandemic. The number of people that have consumed more alcohol during the pandemic is also kind of off the charts. And I think when you're able to find people that create a comfortable setting, that's when you no longer need alcohol. If you're, I spoke to a woman who's an organizer of Dungeons and Dragons Meetup Group and there was some social anxiety. She had a lot of social anxiety generally in life and a lot of the people had social anxiety, but you walk into a Dungeons and Dragons group and you're a person who loves Dungeons and Dragons, you don't need alcohol to play Dungeons and Dragons because that's what you love doing. So when you find the thing that you're passionate about and everyone has something that they can be, even if they're not now, that they can be passionate about, the need to have some external stimulation is just not needed because you have the best thing in the world, you have your internal chemicals that are natural, the oxytocin, the dopamine, and the serotonin and the adrenaline kind of pumping, which is better than any kind of drug or alcohol, though I haven't had many drugs, so I can't really say, but I hope, I'll just say that's the case. Well, we can speak from experience on that realm. I think the key here is it's important to realize whether you're introverted or extroverted, coming together, being in community, being fully seen and heard is important to your life fulfillment, your happiness. There are tons of studies that show this. As we talked earlier, many of us feel disconnected coming out of this pandemic, and we encourage even our most introverted clients to host an event. And one of the excuses that Johnny and I hate the most is we send someone to meet up and they go, oh, well there's nothing in my area with my passion. So why stop there? Why not be the one to start the meetup group for that passion and realize that meetup is a platform that will send like-minded people to you? So how many of us feel like it's trying to find a needle in a haystack to find that Dungeons and Dragons loving photographer who also hikes on the weekend? Well, meetup, you can literally host an event, put that exact thing as the title. This is what we're gonna be doing. We're gonna go on a hike and then we're gonna play some D&D after. And you'd be amazed at how many people in your area, no matter how big or small it is, are gonna come out for that event. And I think that's the hidden gem. I think many of us feel like, oh, that's great for the extraverts. They wanna host, they wanna host events, but I can't find anything. I encourage the introverts to host. And now I wanna talk about what you, again, going back to the data, have recognized about the most successful meetup groups, the most successful hosts. What's the secret sauce? What's the recipe that makes some of these groups really sustainable and gives that host an advantage versus the other ones that just sorta get thrown up and then disappear on the platform? Okay, thank you. And you're right. Much like when you teach, you actually learn more than anything else. Similarly, if you're an organizer, you actually gain more than anything else because you're organizing the group. And the satisfaction that one gets because you're an organizer of a group that is changing 5, 10, 15, 30, whatever number of people's lives is just so meaningful. There are people that have said that, they have a full-time job, they have family, but they feel like the most meaningful thing that they've done is to create this meetup group that has helped so many people that deal with whatever thing that they have in life. So number one thing, by far, which you already said, A.J. and Johnny, is the organizer. What makes for a great organizer? So number one is persistence, much like an entrepreneur, meaning if you have your first event and two or three people show up, you might say, oh, man, oh, failed, whatever, I give up. No, that's two or three people, that's a start. Like, that's how you start a community. You start a community with two or three people and then you ideate with those people and you bring those people in to be your co-leaders of the group and then you go from three people to six people or eight people or 10 people. So if one has a need to get enormous success, kind of day one, and doesn't understand that building a community actually really does take time, then that's gonna be a big challenge. So persistence is one kind of really important attribute of a great organizer. The second, without a doubt, is creating a safe environment where every person who's present can be as vulnerable and who they are and their authentic self as possible. If anyone feels like they're being judged in a meetup event, whether it's any kind of event, doesn't have to be just, I'm not just my support event, I'm talking about every possible type of event, then the best organizers are one who share things about themselves and create an environment where people are sharing experiences among each other. The third is just interactivity. There are some organizers that are just, they want to just give a presentation or something like that, that just doesn't work. The best organizer experiences is what you've also referenced, which is building relationships between people and really interacting with each other and having that like downtime, meaning the time before the event starts, the time after the event ends. It's almost like that parking lot conversation after an event with the three, four, five people that kind of are lingering around is the best part of a meetup.