 We've had you on the show before Jory. Thanks for coming back Jordan, I'm really glad to be here. Yeah, we are IRL and real life friends, you know, we went to go see The Daily Show and we hang out in New York and then I got food poisoning I know that was that was pretty sad to see next time. No cyanide. I promise you've written a bunch of different books and knowledge, I guess you would say like Knowledge and info materials because they're not all books It seems like you've got a lot of little products and courses and things like that And you even have a Grammy under your belt what you got from networking because apparently there's a Grammy for networking now kind of That's right. It's a it's a legit Grammy But I like to I like to call it my Grammy for networking in air quotes So why don't we start with that story because that's an unusual I just I mean nobody that I know has a Grammy especially people who don't play music Yeah, thank you, Jordan. I I did actually get a couple of Grammys I like to call them my Grammys for for networking because really that was that was where I put in the real effort rather than Musically, but it all actually starts with a couple of fellow AOC guests kabeer seagull and ben michaelus I live in new york and ben organized a gathering of authors and I met kabeer We hit it off and of course one of the things that I try to do in networking This is something that I know you stress in your courses is the importance When you're connecting with people to just be scanning the horizon and looking for other folks that you can connect them with That would be a win-win and somebody that could positively impact their lives And so kabeer was a serious jazz musician. He had toured with winton marsalis He had written a book about jazz, but he didn't know a friend of mine who was a big band leader and a composer And so I thought the two of them should connect But instead of just doing a typical e-intro, I decided to get a little bit more creative So I threw a party and invited all of my musician friends There were about a dozen people there Some of them were professional musicians Some were very serious hobbyists and I brought them together just to see what would happen And within a few minutes kabeer and my friend marie the big band leader and composer Connected and decided that they were going to collaborate on a project together to write an opera about the european debt crisis And that it's it's pretty intense. So for the past two years they've been working on that They brought me in as a producer on it and essentially as a thank you kabeer invited me to become involved In another project he was working on a jazz album called presidential suites by the ted nasch big band And it turned out that earlier this year it won two Grammys and so as a producer on that album I was able to to go to the grammy's uh be be part of that that whole process and and that team It's something I never would have been able to have access to but through networking I was able to tap into a completely different world and have this amazing experience It seems strange to me that You not strange Highly unusual that this would be the result of making an introduction, right? I mean you ended up going to the grammy's As a producer as a thank you for making an introduction. Is that is that normal? That doesn't seem normal That seems very extraordinary in so many ways Ha ha well it it is absolutely the the far end of of What you might typically expect something to happen? I mean Typically we we network and you know, maybe maybe someone introduces you to someone else or maybe maybe you get lucky enough to have A job offer or something like that But what's Powerful and amazing about networking is you know, there's always that adage You never know what's going to happen. You never know where it's going to lead And I think this is the definitional case of it. I had no idea that I would ever get to go to the grammy's I'm I'm not a musician. I played two years of guitar in high school Basically so I could impress girls. That is it See the same reason that everyone starts playing the guitar basically 100. Yeah Nice. Well, we everyone's got that in common two years of guitar in high school To impress jigs got it. All right, and what are you working on now? I mean, you've always been sort of in my Estimation you've always got these cool opportunities going on, you know, you've got the grammy's okay fine But you taught in Kazakhstan you work at a as a I guess you would say are you uh A instructor or a teacher or professor at a business school? I don't know which which fancy title you might hold for that but you're teaching these courses to To at a legit business school and they're they're obviously very popular because they keep inviting you back And you've got books and you've got online courses. I mean you're very diversified And I can only imagine that what you are working on now has to be equally Uh Has to be equally valuable in order for you to keep Doing this doing what you're doing and diversifying the way that you're doing it because Otherwise, well, actually let's back up a little. Why not just focus on one thing? Well, it's a good question in the sense that so often the career advice that people have is Focus specialized you can you can go a lot further by doing that and I think in many ways that's true Um, certainly if you're if you're just starting out and you say, oh, I want to be an expert in sports Well, I mean, okay, you're competing against ESPN. You're competing against the entire world No one is ever going to notice or hear it and so for that it makes a lot more sense to become an expert in one particular team or You know one particular sport if it's, you know, maybe, you know, a sport like badminton or something like that where you can max it out but for me I have a couple of principles that I I like to follow professionally One is that I have a philosophy. I like to I like to optimize for interesting and what I mean by that Is, you know, ultimately a lot of people in this world Try to maximize for money But all the the studies that are out there that have been done by research Psychologists show and you know, this is something you've talked about that money certainly does impact your happiness Up to a certain point in in the u.s. Average It's about $70,000 a year if you don't have enough money if you are Suffering because of that it's a big problem But above that threshold where you can support yourself reasonably well It doesn't make that much difference. You know what matters a lot more is your connections with people your opportunities to do cool things And so even though i'm i'm actually bringing in a really good salary now, which is great I have not tried to maximize that i've tried to maximize Experiences because I think that that really leads to longer term happiness and ultimately more money as you get exposed To to more people. I think that that's that's really the the key principle there Yeah, this this does make sense and of course a lot of people are sort of torn between this But it almost seems like all right fine easy for you guys to say optimize for what's interesting I actually made this mistake as well. I made the money mistake. I became a lawyer because it was like look I can at least do this it pays well I'll do it for a few years figure out what else I might want to do But at least I'll have a way to make money and I'll have this law stuff under my belt And I was just checked out the entire time. I mean most of law school didn't care most of my Career didn't focus on anything really was always looking for the door and when the economic downturn happened I was like good fine Everybody should get fired from this stupid job, you know Like it was kind of like that and I'm just now starting to do things like Teaching a little class at a business school or going to a bigger global event And I wish I'd known about this stuff earlier because it really is a great shortcut to Meet fascinating people become a fascinating person aid in your network building build credibility Social proof like you'd mention that makes it easier for you to get other experiences under your belt monetize those experiences And we really spend far too much time thinking okay I've got to like buckle this particular area down and then I can worry about doing all this other stuff And it reminds me of the concept of uh that we talk about in social capital and when it comes to networking Which is oh, well, I don't I can't network now I've got to get my prototype up then I got to get my website up Then I got to get my business cards Then I've got to get my first couple of clients and then I can start all this networking stuff And it's like no do the networking first and then the rest of this gets a lot easier And as you probably have found certainly that I've found you start to change directions and then you go Dang it. I wish if I'd optimized for the interesting first Maybe I wouldn't need a website and about law and business cards about Attorney and this certain in real estate finance, you know, I would have done everything differently Had I had this smorgasbord of opportunities that the networking and the optimization had presented to me in the first place So it looks like it sounds like optimizing for what's interesting is this weird luxury when really It's backwards to do it the other way around it's sort of backwards Long game it's backwards to try to figure out how to make money first and then do this because it just takes longer to do everything I think that's exactly right Jordan and just to pick up on a point that you mentioned in a lot of ways Becoming an interesting person yourself is really the key here because when we think about All the things that we want to do, you know, we want to network successfully We want to connect with uh with folks that we admire You know, I think for for all of us we probably have people that we Wish could be in our social networks that that we you know, would like to hang out with or get to know We'd like to be part of their circle And I think also for a lot of us there's this question Well, what would I even talk to them about or what value could I bring? What could I offer to these people who have more Experience or who you know are doing all these cool things and the truth is it's it's one of the best life hacks out there If you can make yourself really interesting in certain areas People are going to want to come to you because they they hear about that and you know Even very accomplished wealthy successful people they'll say oh, hey, you're you're the guy who's been to north korea X number of times right jordan and they're gonna want to seek you out for that Yeah, it very much does become this strange this strange funnel Of opportunity that comes right at you and you don't build it by accident You can sort of build it by accident over 20 or 30 years But if you do it in a focused way you end up with the same amount or more opportunities earlier on which gives you time to capitalize on them And look, I mean had I thought for one second That I would be a broadcaster right now. Maybe I would have focused on that in high school I remember in high school thinking oh, it's so cool My friend brian has his own radio show But it kind of sucks because he has to get up early and he has to drive to the other high school because that's where our city's Radio station was it was connected to the other high school across town and he had a morning show And I remember thinking like but that's still really cool Maybe it would be worth it And then I never really got that experience because I thought oh, well, you know Who cares about a high school one if I want a radio show I'll do it in college and then college came around and my roommate worked At that radio station and the television station and I was like oh, that's kind of cool But you know, I'm studying for the other stuff I'm not gonna really go into that because you probably can't make any money doing that And you know, it's hard to get jobs doing that so I'm not really gonna do it And then in law school I started podcast fall in love with it and I'm thinking crap I totally would have liked this had I tried it before And maybe I wouldn't be doing things the way that I'm doing them now and it's great to rationalize Well, it all works out good thing. I have a law degree because blah blah blah credibility It's not hurting me in that way. Sure. Maybe I optimized for some interesting things there, but opportunity cost-wise There could have been a very different path and I could be talking to you right now Instead of being 37. I could have been 31 and been in the same place that I am now had I focused more on Optimizing for the interesting because I would have gotten these skills sooner figured out what I wanted sooner And had more time to capitalize on those same opportunities Yeah, I think I think that's a great point and you know At the other end of the spectrum sometimes people Fear that if they take different paths that they'll wind up, you know Maybe they'll say, oh, well, you know, I'm I'm 37 and I am just doing this thing now because I did 10 other 10 other things rather than me just focusing and becoming a law school, you know a law firm partner But the truth is you once you are able to accrue a certain amount of social proof from your various activities And building really broad wide-ranging networks from having circulated in different universes You are actually able in many ways to leapfrog The traditional path and go faster than other people because of a principle in psychology known as the halo effect Where when people look at you and they say, oh, wow, he's been successful at this or this He's probably going to be amazing at this other thing. They attribute universalizable goodness and and Strength of character to you and it enables you to actually Circumvent a lot of the slogging that other people are forced to do So what else can we focus on here if we if we think oh crap? I waited too long Is it ever is there a time when it's just too late like what if I'm already established in my career? Can I start optimizing for what's interesting now or Or am I kind of already on a path? No, I think I think that it's never too late to do it And in fact if you have been following one particular path if you've become pretty successful at it The good news is that gives you a lot of social capital and it gives you a lot in some cases of financial capital That you can leverage to be able to access those universes The question is what what you do with it how you deploy it? And so this actually ties back to a piece that I wrote for the harvard business review a while back about How to analyze your network and there's a concept from the harvard sociologist robert putnam That it talks about how a well rounded network a really effective network has what is known as bonding capital and bridging capital and basically what that means Bonding capital is the ties that you have with people who are like you bridging capital is ties you have with really different kinds of people and most most folks Because they just they don't put a lot of thought into it their networks kind of happen to them They have way too much bonding capital. They you know if you work at a certain company Okay, well all your friends all your professional contacts. They're all at that company or your friends are all Folks your exact same age because they were people who you went to college with or something like that We have to consciously try to create that bridging capital so that you can get exposure to different communities different ideas and so maybe it means you know taking some of the the money that you've saved And you know making an effort to go to an ideas conference You know something Something where you can meet different types of people and tap into different networks Maybe it's reaching out to friends of yours who are As different from you as possible and saying hey, who who do you know that I should meet? Maybe you have you know one filmmaker friend because you went to college with this random guy He probably knows a hundred filmmakers. He can introduce you to them and get you part of their world But you have to consciously choose it out and seek it Yeah, that's that actually is quite true in my experience as well because it's really easy To start in a niche like I know tons of podcasters, right? but it's not a great place to end up as you'd mentioned in our chat before this because If sure great, you can be the best biggest and best podcaster around and it's not bad, but Where are you going from there right and it can get you well known in a niche? It's a great sort of way to kick things off But you then could be a big fish in a small pond and it doesn't even matter how big the pond is it could be You could be talking about actors and actresses and movie stars and things like that It's a nice big pond that gives you celebrity around the world But you'll probably get bored and we see this with World famous actors who then are like I need a tequila brand I'm going to start doing this kind of stuff or I want to play the banjo. I need to run for governor. I need to be president exactly exactly exactly and You you mentioned the halo effect we could transfer that credibility elsewhere And I've made this mistake too right getting into the entrepreneur niche, which is it sounds broad But really it's vague and if you go to these conferences with entrepreneurs it's like There's kind of two groups and they're all six hundred or a thousand people and it's all the same people in each one And they're all at the same events and you know, I'll go to an event with A couple of people and I see them at the next thing the next month And I'm going to the Philippines and then 90 overlap and who's there from this other thing And I'm thinking how is this even possible and it's even in giant worlds like online business or entrepreneurship It's the same people and it's fine I don't consider it a mistake to know those people But I see other people Making the mistake now of sticking with a particular niche only hanging out in say the freelance entrepreneur world or the biohacking world or something like that and Years go by and then they they're kind of just Where they were before with a newer website or a different podcast or a more instagram followers And it's it's not really the kind of growth you'd expect. I feel like it's it's like the fire is burning But you're not throwing any gasoline on it Yeah, that's that's exactly right when you're starting out a niche is great because it allows you to Make a market it allows you to get noticed in a small subset But you you have to branch out strategically from there and there's there's plenty of ways to do it I mean Ultimately one of the best ways that I like to think about it is almost picturing Venn diagrams if you can You know think think back to junior high math where they have those overlapping circles And the the thing is you don't want to be jumping Randomly if you're jumping from podcasting to oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna suddenly do you know professional dog training It doesn't it doesn't make a lot of sense and and there's no there's no benefit. There's no overlap It's kind of random But if you're able to to move slowly and steadily Into bigger realms and into the realms that you want you can essentially hopscotch from one circle to another just by Inhabiting that overlapping area and then moving into the place you want to go Yeah, I I like this it reminds me of what dr. Serini Pallet said on an earlier episode of this show which was that It he has this concept of tinker dabbled doodle try and dabble is kind of like well steve jobs he liked Calligraphy or something like that so he took a class on it in college And later on that's why the mac has all these serif and san serif and all this and other computers just had like One font and he's like no no no we should have different fonts And of course the designers of the mac were like why who cares? And he's like no no no this is going to make a difference for things that are displayed and for and The early mac was just so much better at things like that like word processing and displays and print and graphics because it had different fonts because he had messed around in this little hobby area and it later became a part of mac os you know 1.0 or whatever it was called back then and This dabbling makes a whole lot of sense to be doing to dabble inside your own Inside your own pond inside your network as well to think like okay Well, i'm a broadcaster, but if I take a voiceover class and I network with voiceover people Then I can look at ways in which voiceover might improve things that we're doing here on the show And of course it has that connection that nexus might be really obvious But where we find next next eye that are not as obvious Are you making an introduction between two friends of yours ending up at the grammy's and now when you reach out to people You can say you're a grammy award-winning Networker or whatever That gets people's attention because even if they're like, oh, you know I don't need another business person or some networking person. It's like well. She want to grab me. Well, okay. That's pretty cool Yeah, sure. Let's have her come and speak because that's that sets you apart no matter what It's top of the tinder profile for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is What about the idea that Does this well does this blending over this dabbling in different networking areas? Does this Does this crossover into diversification of income streams we're talking about diversification of Our intellectual property our work product our network does this Fully transition and translate over to diversification of income streams I mean, I know of course you've got books and online courses and speaking and things like that But is that is that something you recommend for everyone? It it actually is jordan and this is something that Sunk in for me really early on Because my very first job out of graduate school was I was a political reporter And I've been doing it for about a year and I came in to work one day And the HR guy, you know very very casually You know gives me a call and says, oh, hey before the end of the day Would you mind stopping by my office? Bring all your crap too because you're not coming back to your office That's right. I was 22 so I didn't realize exactly how ominous that was And and so of course I I got laid off and I these, you know, incredibly generous people Gave me a week's severance. So I I had to I had to figure things out Immediately it was it was terrifying and I realized in in that moment That what seems secure, you know, you've got the steady paycheck quote unquote You have the secure job It literally can be taken away at a moment's notice and I think that At the other at the other end of the the spectrum people get it, you know, everybody knows Oh, okay, if you have money, you shouldn't invest it all in one stock, you know, everybody knows that's a bad idea You need to diversify there But for our jobs for how we make money, I think many of us most of us have One one way we make money and it it can be very risky And so I've really come to To believe and and have done a lot of research over the years that one of the best ways that we can create real real legitimate Security and professional stability for ourselves is by choosing to cultivate multiple income streams And that's certainly true for entrepreneurs But even for people who work inside a company cultivating A side income stream of some sort whether it's having an etsy store on the side or doing a little bit of coaching or having a You know workshop now and then whatever it is, you know doing doing a little bit of paid speaking Having that sideline gives you additional protection against uncertainty and also has a lot of other benefits, frankly It helps you develop your skills. It helps you build your brand all things that were down to your benefit back at work How does it help you build your brand? What do you mean by that in this case? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll give you one example Um, this is uh, this is a story that I cite in my new book entrepreneurial you There's a guy that I got to know a few years ago named Lenny Achan Um, I was consulting for the Mount Sinai hospital in New York and I kept hearing about Lenny You know every everybody was just sort of talking about him Because he was he was considered kind of a a comer at work, you know Everyone was like, whoa, you know, what's what's up with this guy because he had a crazy story He started at the hospital as a nurse And in a pretty short period of time had worked his way up to become the head of communications for the hospital I mean, it's just a crazy trajectory that you wouldn't expect. No and Yeah, it was it was really surprising. So finally after after doing a couple of months of consulting I ended up having a meeting that he was in and so afterwards I cornered him And I said Lenny, you know, I've been hearing so much about you What what's your story? How did you how did you get to where you are? And so he he started to tell me and essentially what what he did He had been experimenting on the side He just decided because he was an intellectually curious guy. He was interested in the internet. He was interested in The online world and so with his own money on his own time He started building apps and he built a couple of them And you know, he's just sort of nursing them along kind of, you know marketing them in the in the iTunes store all of that And eventually one day he gets he gets called into the office. Fortunately for him It was not it was not the HR office like it was for me But it was his boss and his boss is Lenny. I hear you've been making some apps And of course, you know, he goes white because you know, oh man, am I in trouble? Did I violate some policy? Did they think that I did it on company time? What is this? And he pauses a minute the world stops and his boss said That's actually really impressive. I wonder if you'd like to head up social media for the hospital And he was not expecting that at all But he took the job and eventually he did such a good job at that They promoted him to run all of communications. It was Him taking this independent initiative creating his own independent income stream learning to be a successful entrepreneur that got him noticed and recognized And just skyrocketed his his day job career That's fantastic because initially I was like, ah, do I really want to go down the path of Diversify your income? It's good advice, but it's kind of you know, we've heard this before probably probably even from you But then it's like, all right. Well, tell me a story of how this has helped somebody really do something extreme and Lenny really nails it here because of course, he was just thinking Look, I can program something as a little side hustle Maybe I can learn something on the side if I ever get sick of nursing At least I'll know how to code and suddenly he's probably probably got his salary tripled for being communications ahead of communications at a large organization like a hospital and Yeah, he doesn't have to clean any bedpans or at least fewer bedpans as a result. Absolutely only metaphorical bedpans Right, exactly. He's cleaning up messes. All right, but usually only Only in the media. That's great. I love that idea and I I think this does dovetail nicely with The concept that there's a lot of hard work that successful people do for free That many Maybe less motivated people don't see the point of and it's the the old Saying that you don't make money from something you make money because of it. Can you take us down that road? Yeah, absolutely So this actually came from a conversation that I had with a gentleman named doc serles. He's uh, sounds old and wise He is so old and wise. Absolutely. He was really an internet pioneer And uh, he was a co-author of something called the clutrain manifesto, which is considered this The seminal tract in internet theory back in the day but one of one of the pieces that that we talked about And uh, you know, I included this in in my most recent book stand out is that In the old days It was it was pretty simple, right? You would do something and some job and you would make money because of that job So for instance, I used to be a journalist. I would write articles. I'd get paid for those articles simple But in the internet economy Something interesting has happened and that is the the work and the money in a lot of ways have become separated and that creates a lot of opportunity but also a lot of potential pitfalls and Here here's what I mean We probably all can think of examples of stories that we've heard about people who have gone huge online Maybe, you know, they have, uh, you know, whatever millions of youtube views or things like that And yet later you hear about it. They hardly made any money at all. They're struggling to support themselves They might have a huge brand name. They might be big on the internet but they're not able to monetize that successfully and In a lot of cases The the activity has become decoupled from money and you have to get creative about it. So for instance, I'm not a journalist anymore Um, you know, in fact in in the 15 years since I got laid off more than 40 of american journalists have lost their jobs Wow Really? Yeah, it's it's about 290 thousand people have lost journalism jobs So it's you know, it's very hard to get paid for writing anymore. However Ironically, I actually spend most of my day writing now. I write blog posts for free I write books for very little money. I create content that goes out there and I'm actually making Literally, I mean I was an extremely underpaid reporter, but I'm literally making about 20 times what I made as a journalist now Way more money and it's not from the writing It is because of the writing you do that for free And you're able to create revenue streams on the back end But for people who haven't really thought that through it just becomes a sieve It becomes a missed opportunity And so one of the things that I'm really passionate about helping people do is number one Make sure that their ideas get heard that they can figure out how to break through the noise So that really good ideas can can get out there and make a difference in the world and number two Making sure that people really understand how to monetize their ideas because if if they can't if they're not sustainable Then they're going to go away as soon as the people say geez. I need to support myself I better go take that insurance job and that that is unfortunate. Can you explain how Doing something for free like writing can lead to More money on the back end because I I I think I understand how this works I mean it's in large part what happened with the podcast, but I think it'd be great if we got really granular with this absolutely, so essentially The writing in this case or podcasting in yours Uh, it starts out as a brand-building activity if if people are going to do business with you particularly high ticket items high trust items like hiring me for consulting services or coaching or maybe You know giving a keynote talk They want to be pretty darn sure that they like your message that you're reliable That they that they trust and respect where you're coming from and so writing You know in my case for the harvard business review Or I spent about three and a half years writing regularly for forbs It exposes people to my name to my ideas and especially If you craft it right it can encourage people to sign up for your email list So it gives you an opportunity to communicate with them more regularly And it's it's after that trust building first first brand building then trust building period that people begin to say Oh, I would really like to do business with her And that's where the sales process becomes really easy because you don't really have to sell it all people already have decided They'd like to do something so all you need to do is really present the offer and say hey Sometimes I give speeches and they say oh, well, I would like to have you give a speech I think very similarly and you know, we spoke about this you're actually, you know One of the one of the stars one of the case studies of entrepreneurial you Originally AOC was not getting advertising revenue or anything like that it started as a as a passion project But over time you were able to monetize it initially through the the workshops that you teach in the courses And you know as it grew of course, you're able to do advertising revenue sponsorship and things like that But but originally it was really a brand building play that encouraged people You know who are interested in your approach liked what you did to come out and come to the the courses that you offered Yeah, the the whole idea behind a lot of folks say the things like wow, you know, how do you get paid advertising? Well, yeah, that's one way and that's what most people's go to is because they're not really thinking about the other ways In which you might be able to monetize But what I've noticed is now that podcasting is very trendy We're kind of I think maybe at the edge of that bubble or possibly it's getting worse. I don't know It seems like it's very trendy, especially among Entrepreneurs and consultants and things like that It seems to be a great way to brand build for them But a lot of folks they'll quit most people quit at before I think Jason what is it like six episodes or nine episodes or something? It's like 90 of people quit podcasting Episode 13 is the the magic cutoff number if you can make it past 13 you can make it anywhere But yeah, there you go episode 13 because it's a lot of work, but also they're going. Oh, there's just not that high of a return on this particular Investment of time and it's like well, yeah, but I you know people go, uh, you know, I tried that it didn't work I've been doing it for almost 11 years. It's 10 and a half. We're going on 10 and a half years here at art of charm It in in the last maybe year in change We've ended up probably the last couple of years We've ended up with an amount of ad revenue that we could survive on if we had to But before that it wasn't about that at all So you can't really look at the opportunity or the lack of opportunity right in front of you You really do have to look at what you have to almost have a blank Set of expectations and think like this might work later or it might not but either way I'm still happy doing it which is why my my bit of advice for anybody considering podcasting is only do it if If you don't care if anyone else listens to it because there's a pretty damn good chance that that's going to be the case For the next few years if you make it that long Yeah, right on I think that's that's exactly right if you if you undertake an activity like that It really starts with building an audience first and building a connection with them And once you have that then the opportunities for creating multiple income streams Is enormous because your audience will tell you what they want They will tell you what they would like to to learn from you about and Then it's it's not really you selling something in the sense of you know Oh, let me let me create this thing and then uh, you know keep pummeling people until they buy it It's you saying hey you guys asked for this Who would like it and the sales process becomes Almost almost immediate Yeah, there's a lot here for people who want to Create their own business But of course you don't have to to quit your job and to start making different income streams things like that looking at It's the guys named Lenny who became the head of communications at the hospital This stuff works just as well in or better inside a workplace as it does when you're starting your own business I because I feel like a lot of folks might be like well, you know, I'm not really starting my own business So I don't know how some of the supplies you actually have a lot of really great advice for people who want to start Taking the first steps towards Entrepreneurship regardless of whether or not they're trying to make something their full-time gig or whether it's a it's a Lenny style side hustle One of those which is just get one consulting or coaching client How would we go about that because for a lot of people that's really an intimidating step And that was for us too I remember people telling us I want you to coach me and I'd go uh, this is 10 years ago Me and AJ were thinking well, we're not really coaches and they're like no you don't understand I've hired other coaches and they don't know the things you're talking about on your podcast I want you to coach me. Well, you know, we're not really coaches and I remember people being like I'm sending you money You are going to teach me this stuff It doesn't matter if you don't think you know what to do We're just going to get on the phone and I'm going to ask you questions and I'm like fine I can do that and this guy gave me like five grand and me and AJ were like, oh my god, this is amazing Right, and then he goes step one raise your prices except with me step two You're a coach. You just don't realize it all the stuff your teaching is useful And I mean he basically had to like force us to coach him and this is a mortgage banker This is a guy who's very successful He had millions and millions of dollars and he he forced us into making this a business and it took longer than it should have Yeah, I I think I think that's great and For almost anyone Starting a little bit of consulting or coaching on the side is such a powerful Exercise in understanding first of all what you are really good at what you might be qualified to impart to somebody else and number two What what the market is interested in and Where where those things overlap? So for instance another Case study that I shared in entrepreneurial you is about a guy named bozi dar And he actually yeah, he's a cool guy based based in new york originally from serbia And he is somebody who has created an entrepreneurial side hustle for himself while having a very prestigious day job a vice president at a fortune 500 You know biotech company So, you know really a very very high level respectable You know day day job But he was fascinated with entrepreneurship and the idea of how he could think More entrepreneurially and bring that to his job And so in his case He actually like lenny initially experimented with apps He got this great idea for an app and he poured a lot of money into it But it didn't go anywhere. It just did not succeed and you know, he learned some things From that process number one He learned that before you you pour a ton of money into something You really should actually check with customers and see if they think it's as awesome as you do Which you know is sort of valuable learning for anyone working in the business world But what was even more important and more valuable for him is that as he was kind of smarting from the wounds of losing all this money and having his entrepreneurial venture not really succeed He started paying attention to what people Actually kept asking him about and in his case He had been promoted a lot at work. He you know for for whatever reason, you know, his sort of magic combination of skills He kept getting promotions like clockwork just moving up in the organization and people started seeking him out and saying Hey, what are you doing? This is this is really cool. You're doing something. I want to learn it and so He certainly could have taken in the direction of coaching He was uh, he decided instead to do an online course But it was one that was focused specifically on this question of how do you get promoted? How do you get more successful at your job and move up the ladder? And when he created that it was it was an almost immediate fit Because that was something that people already wanted from him He knew that there was a market and so he's been able to be hugely successful with that You know making tens of thousands of dollars from it and taking that learning back to the company He says he's an entrepreneur, but he's also an intrapreneur bringing that knowledge Every day back to his day job and keeping getting promoted as because of it You do a lot of speaking as well, which you'd mentioned brands you really well gets you in a I guess you would say a position of high visibility Where you're perceived as a leader and or at least a thought leader in that specific area How do we start? Making that how do we start branding ourselves that way? Obviously a lot of us are afraid to speak That's that's part of the problem But I think a lot of folks even if we're not super scared of speaking Or we know we can go work on the skill set. We might not do it because we think yeah Yeah, I can go to toast masters for six months, but How am I going to actually get a gig where this becomes useful? And I'm not just hanging out at the ymca with people who giving speeches to each other in a in a class Yeah, absolutely speaking is actually one of the most important things that you can do to really get your talents Noticed in the workplace. There's been research done on the concept of so-called executive presence By the center for talent innovation, which is a think tank in new york And what they discovered is that when it comes to executive presence this sort of ineffable quality of you know, what what looks like a leader One of the most important characteristics Is your oral presentation skills that matters a huge amount And so if you can move the needle on that it makes a dramatic impact on whether people perceive you as leadership Material and so yes, absolutely if you're uncomfortable with it, you know toast masters is great just to sort of force yourself to to get up to sort of neutralize the You know all the stress hormones and get okay being up on stage But once you get past that threshold the the real question becomes how do you get practice? How do you how do you get real gigs out there? And so there's actually a lot of opportunities if you start to look for them. So for instance most most Conferences that that you might go to as part of your job Have open calls for speakers and for panel discussions You don't even if you feel like oh man. I don't even know what I would you know what I would talk about I'm not sure if I'm an expert Fine. Okay to get to get started Why don't you propose a panel and you can recruit a couple of other people? This is a great networking opportunity Recruit a couple of other people that you really think are interesting and respect and you posit yourself As the host of that panel and so your job is to ask smart questions and to draw other people out And maybe you know make the opening and closing remarks that gets you noticed as a leader at work It could be something as simple as working on a team project and just proactively volunteering and saying I would be glad to present this at the next all-team meeting and getting up on stage And demonstrating to people that you are good at this that you enjoy this the more people see you The more the opportunities are going to come to you because people Don't want to go to an unknown quantity When it comes to something as important as an oral presentation if you're good They're going to keep they're going to keep keep throwing the ball to you Nice, I like that idea and the way to prove that you're good is actually In many ways you could probably just ask Hey, I'd like to present this particular bit of information that I've done To the company at the next all hands meeting or hey if we get time It would be great if I could present this to the sales team Sure and they can a lot of companies are jumping at the chance to have internal learning and when I was an attorney We had to we had continuing legal education and half the time it was like I remember emails going around the office that were like pete, you know one of the partners He needs c le credit and so as a partner or somebody who's been in the game for a while You can get c le credit by either teaching or by attending a class so these partners would be like all right, uh We're going to have c le during the lunch hour for the next five days You don't have to come but you should because we all need c le credit You guys need to be learning and I need to be teaching So then he would just go up there and kind of ramble and I'm thinking well Thanks for putting thought into this but it but it ended up being fun in a funny way But I'm thinking a lot of companies probably either have requirements for this in their profession Or they really need it and they're thinking, oh, you know, we should do training, but Uh, I'd have to find somebody and then we'd have to bring them in and when can we do this? And then if we have to reschedule it's going to cost money But if you're in the office down the hall and you want to present Something about social media and why it's important to maintain the brand even on your own personal social media That's a great opportunity for most companies and they would jump at the chance and if they need to reschedule it They know where you work. So it's not a big deal Right and that gives you visibility and you can do this to get visibility several rungs up the ladder You might have a managing A c-suite person or a managing partner or something like that attending in a learning Event that you run and you could be a first or second year associate And then suddenly that person knows who you are and you're the only person at that level that the c-suite has ever heard of And that's a huge advantage It's a great way to attract mentors and sponsors for sure I mean, I think I think you are exactly right Jordan that with speaking opportunities Sometimes it really is as simple as volunteering is raising your hand people often think. Oh, it's so competitive It would be so hard to get this but the truth is very few people put themselves forward for it I mean a very similar phenomenon in fact is leadership opportunities on Professional associations. This is a strategy that I actually recommend in my first book reinventing you Where a lot of times people think that a good move in terms of networking or just you know Kind of being out there professionally is to join 10 different organizations and the truth is that's not a good move It spreads you too thin the better play is to become a leader of two organizations Or even just one but really invest take on a leadership role where people see you in that Opportunity and a lot of these roles. Nobody wants frankly. They're volunteer roles You can be the membership secretary You can be you know the treasurer or whatever the stuff that that nobody wants to make the time for But people see you around it gives you an excuse to talk to whoever you want to talk to And people begin to say oh, wow, you know, she's really taking initiative there And it makes a difference in how you're perceived Perfect. All right. And last but not least you've got a great idea about organizing something you call a mastermind day And I think these types of groups are very useful masterminds are trendy now too, right? Oh, I've got to have a mastermind. Oh, there's this mastermind. I'm running. I'm going to this mastermind Very very few people think though that I can actually create something Where I'm curating and I'm making it's something special for myself And we have a mutual friend Danny eni who's really really good at this And he was spending a lot of money going to events and now he he has a different focus Yeah, that's exactly right. Danny is is another person that I profiled extensively in entrepreneurial you and one of the things that I thought was so fascinating about his story Is that he really it took the conventional wisdom and flipped it on its head So you're right masterminds these days super trendy a lot of people are paying A lot of money to be part of things and he was too He was he was laying out a lot of cash to be part of these these gatherings where you could interact with high level people But he wasn't really getting what he wanted out of it And so eventually he thought you know what if I'm putting all this money into it Why don't I actually create something that I feel like benefits me and is structured to something that I would find helpful And can add value to the participants So instead of just paying dues to other people what he decided to do was Organize his own events and he would pay for the you know the conference room rental He would pay for the food all of that and he would reach out To people that he thought were the smartest and most interesting people that he knew and he would do this you know, let's say Few times a year and he'd invite 10 or 12 people and say would you like to come to this mastermind event And it wasn't an ongoing thing. It was just you know a day or a weekend But he would custom pick them and invite them to come They would pay their their travel expenses But once they were there he you know, he'd feed you The actual event was free and everything was organized thematically So people had a common interest that they were talking about And people jumped at the chance because they wanted to be around Danny They wanted to be around the other high level people and it was able to be structured to be exactly the information that Danny Most needed to hear from the experts that he had brought together So for for any of us listening to this, I think that we can kind of take a page from this You know, whether you're self-employed or you work in a company all of us need Professional guidance of some sort. We you know, we all need Outside eyes saying hey, you know, am I heading in the right direction? Am I doing the right things I need to in order to get to this destination a year from now Three years from now five years from now And so If you're able to really identify some some folks in your life that you feel like are are interesting or smart are also interested in self-examination and personal growth you could reach out pick a date and say hey, can you make this And creating something like that positions you as a hub a connector a leader And can actually be a really meaningful experience for everybody involved. This is really great I love the idea of creating your own event. I think Instead of never going to anyone else's event. I think the the good balance for me might be something like create one on my own or You know creates something similar that daniel is doing or create something similar that Danny is doing Who's also been a guest on the show, but also balance that with Withgoing to other folks events as well because I do think that there's something There's definitely value in going and attending other people's events. However, having your own is great It does set you up as the hub You can end up spending the same amount of money you spent to go somewhere travel somewhere And be a part of someone else's event and curate your own And if you're if you really do spend a lot of money going to other events You could you could have an event where you even pay for Everybody's travel if you really wanted to do it right if you wanted to get the right people And you wanted to make the friction that much less and you're spending 10 grand a year Going to events yourself you could spend that same 10 grand bringing five people to you for the weekend Which would be an incredible thing and I think a lot of people would jump at the chance frankly I know there's some events Summit series is one that comes to mind that started with I believe the organizers just flying a handful of people To a place an aspen where they could have a gathering And that turned into one of the most highly curated sought after events anywhere Yeah, that's that's exactly right and my mind was going to the exact same place When when summit series started out it was it was literally a group of college kids They didn't have you know huge amounts of money to be throwing around But they they made a very calculated bet that if they could get a group of Very prominent influencers together that they could get sponsorship for that event and so they promised hey We'll pay all your expenses. We'll we'll make this amazing event this This cool location for you. You will bring you together with other high level people you want to meet Who wouldn't say yes to that and so the influencers were in once they had the influencers They were able to leverage it with the sponsors get the funding they needed and it kick started a brand that has been very strong and and continued Into a series of events now they own a mountain or they have all these retreats. So it's worked very well for them Dory, is there anything else that I haven't asked you? This has been phenomenal There's been just a lots of highly practical things here new ways to think about our career or about leaving our career Or about branching out and diversifying our career or our work. Is there anything that you'd like to deliver that? I haven't mentioned at all Jordan, thank you so much One thing that I'll mention for folks that are interested in thinking more about ways that they can diversify their own revenue streams Build in a little bit more professional security for themselves is I have a free entrepreneurial use self assessment It's 88 questions that walks you step by step through how to do it Folks can get it for free at dory clark.com slash aOC. Nice. Thanks, dory much appreciated. Thanks, jordan