Insight with Chris Van Vliet - How To Talk To Anyone - Rob Lawless Is On A Quest To Meet 10,000 Strangers

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

Rob Lawless (@robs10kfriends) is the founder of Rob's 10k Friends, a project where he's seeking to spend one hour with 10,000 different people to see what comes from opening doors for no particular reason. He joins Chris Van Vliet to discuss how you can talk to anyone, why he started this project, what his goal is with it, the difference between an interview and a conversation, what's he's learned about people through doing this, his interactions with celebrities like Ryan Seacrest and Kelly Clarkson and more! This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Get a FREE 1-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase at: http://athleticgreens.com/insight Find out more about Rob Lawless at http://robs10kfriends.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about CVV and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blen! Well, how are you, my friends? Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet, and this conversation today is going to open your mind to a different way of thinking, a different way of approaching the interactions that you have on a daily basis. Rob Lollas is the founder of Rob's 10K Friends.

It's a project where he's seeking to spend one hour with 10,000. thousand different people to see what comes from just opening doors, having conversations with no particular goal in mind. And as Rob explains here, there's no structure, there's no agenda to these meetings. It's just two people spending an hour together, getting to know each other, which, if you really think about it, that doesn't happen so much in our world at all. Both meeting and getting to know strangers, I mean, it's usually that conversations have a value exchange. What's in it for me. So this is such a fascinating project. I was actually just part of it. So if you check out Rob's Instagram, Rob's 10K friends, that's Rob's 10K10 friends, you can check out the conversation

that we have. And you can also find me if you're not following me already. I'm on social media at Chris Van Fleet. Our fan of the week is Charts 77 who says, great, one of the first podcast I ever listened to, and it's always so great. Well, thank you. you so much for the kind words. I read one review from Apple Podcasts on every episode, and Spotify now has ratings. So if you're listening on Spotify, please take a second, go in there, click those five stars. That's all you got to do. It'd be so awesome if you could do that. Love this conversation. I know you will too. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rob Lollas. Rob, it's such a pleasure to have you on. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you for having me, Chris. It's an honor. I think it's a

the core of this, it's such a simple concept. It's just the idea of meeting people and having conversations with them. What is, like, what's the goal with this for you? It started as a personal mission of, like, I always, I've always said I want to meet 10,000 people one on one one hour each to see what comes of opening doors for no particular reason. Because to me, I have this belief that every human interaction has the potential to change your life, no matter how brief. And to me, it's like you, by sitting down with a person for an hour, you're unwrapping the gift of your story and you have no idea what you're going to learn from that person, what you're going to walk away with on that meeting, when you're going to see them again,

how they're going to impact you a year, five, 10 years down the road. So for me, it's just really personally fulfilling and interesting and I'm curious about the people around me. But as I've gone through it, I also want to be a positive example to treat human connection as an experience rather than a transaction. And I think a lot of us, once we go through school and we graduate and whatnot, you're launched into this world where relationships are so transactional. I say all the time I felt like I graduated from Penn State in 2013 and I was super involved when I was a student there. and then I go to do consulting for Deloitte and all of a sudden it's like, oh, what's the point of meeting? Like, what's the ROI on this?

And if it's not networking or dating, then why are you doing it? So yeah, it became my way to like infuse authentic connection into my life. Yeah. And then to lead by example and encourage other people to do the same thing in their lives. It's such a fascinating idea because it's so easy to make friends in high school and so easy to make friends in college. Like, literally you'll be walking across campus with a pizza. It's like, hey, I also like pizza.

Let's become friends. And then you get into the quote-unquote real world. And all of a sudden, it's so difficult to make friends as an adult. I agree. And I think a misconception is that everyone thinks everyone's friend group is kind of solidified in place once they graduate. So everyone is walking around with this mindset that, well, I kind of want to make new friends, but they're already set in their group.

They wouldn't want to spend time with me. And I think once everyone walks around with that mindset, then no one takes the time to reach out to each other. And it's only when you move to a new city and you're forced to break out of your friend group that you start to go down that path. And there are things like their sports leagues, right, and whatnot that you can join like their kickball league to make new friends and whatnot. But yeah, I think it's something that people all secretly want, but just don't feel. the confidence to actually go out and try to have. Yeah, look, I think it's important here to make the distinction that you're not trying to have 10,000 interviews. You're just trying to meet 10,000

everyday regular people. Yes. Yeah, 10. And I always, I literally every person that I meet, I send them this thing, which you may have seen, it's a PSA. I say PSA, I'm not interviewing people because I just wanted to be a two-way conversation. Like, as if you were to meet someone at the as if you were to touch up with a friend you haven't seen in a while. And when you do that, you give people permission to ask you questions and to ask an answer. And the people who have thought that what I'm doing is an interview, they kind of come in and they sit back. I've had people show up and they're like, all right, Rob, grill me. And I'm like, I have nothing for you.

I just want to, I want to get to know you like a person. I don't want to sit here with a checklist of questions to go through. So, yeah, and I think it goes back. to that connection thing. Like if it's an interview, it formalizes in a way that's unnecessary. Yeah, I talk all the time about how there's a big difference between an interview and a conversation. And I think that in people's regular everyday life, the only time they're being interviewed

is like for a new job or God forbid like the police pull them over. Like that's it. And I think that that word interview scares a lot of people because it has a capital eye for them and it's like, oh my gosh, but when it's a conversation, completely different. So for you, what do you think is the difference between a great interview and a great conversation? I think a great interview. So we were talking, Jacob was the one who you saw my, my project through his podcast. Yeah. I mean, podcasts are conversations too, but I think he is an incredible interviewer. He was the most impressed I've ever been with a podcast first because he did so much

research beforehand. And I think interviews are like that. Like I used to be terrible at them in school because you just have to research the company, right? And tell them about what specifically about the company you like. So you'd have to do all this research and come prepared. Whereas a conversation is just a blank canvas and see what you can create together from it. I think the thing, honestly, I think the difference is that interviews have expectations

and conversations don't. So we said that, or I know that you don't prepare, you don't research the people that you're going to be meeting. So where do these conversations usually begin? I always say, hey, where are you calling in from? Or I, I, so for context, I've now met, I think it's like 4,600 or 4,768 people, something like that. The first 3,259 people were all in person. every single person was in person. And I intended for this entire project to be in person,

but obviously did not foresee COVID coming halfway through or a third of the way through. So when that happened, I went virtual. And then I started meeting people from all these different countries around the world. But in person, I would just say, if you're in Philly, where I'm from, or are you from here originally? Did you grow up in the city or elsewhere? Because it gives me an idea of where their story starts.

And same with when I'm talking to people virtually is like, where are you calling in from? Is that where you're from originally? And my style, what I'm genuinely interested in is just building out this person's life story. I think about every person's life, like a timeline. And then I just ask questions casually to fill in that timeline in my mind. So it's the same thing if you think about like the plot of a movie. If you wanted to know about it, you just ask questions like, oh, what happened in the beginning? What happened in the middle?

How did it end? people are the same exact way. We all have this arc to our lives. And I'm just interested in understanding what that art is. Yeah. So when you started this project, it was 10 minutes at a time. Now it's an hour at a time. How or why is an hour the sweet spot?

So I never, when I thought of it, it was 10 minutes of time. I never actually did 10 minutes at a time with people. Because I say now that was a bad idea. That was, to me, that was like, oh, this will be a cool. project that BuzzFeed would write about, you know? And I, at the time that I first thought about it, I was still doing consulting for Deloitte. And then I left Deloitte and I started doing tech sales for a startup in Philadelphia. And those conversations were 30 minutes long. And I could see how surface level a 30 minute conversation would be. So I was like, I want to do an hour with everyone

because I want to have time to run out of things to talk about. And in that awkwardness, you would have to dive a level deeper. And that's what I wanted to do. Like I wanted to get to know people beyond the surface. And yeah, then it's just kind of 10,000 people, 10,000 hours. I think the concept works. There's a lot of people who are into the 10,000 hours theory, which I first came across through Malcolm Gladwell's outliers.

Yep, same. Yeah, which is a great book, by the way, great author. So good. But, yeah, I think I just became fascinated with people who are willing to commit to something for that long of a period of time. And yeah, highly, highly underestimated how long it was going to take me. My first emails were like, I'm going to finish this in aggressively about four years. I'm now over six years into the project and I'm still less than halfway there. Well, I think of work years, 2,000 hours. If you work 40 hours a week for the entire year,

that's about 2,000 hours. So, damn, that's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It builds up. And there's so much to the project too. So there's the meeting people, right? Which is an hour with each person. But then I write about them and I post about them on Instagram. So there's like an hour of condensing their story into a consumable post. And now I post a clip because I record the Zoom interviews. And I just called it an interview, not an interview at the same conversations.

And I take a clip from that to add. And then there's the messaging back and forth. to set up times with people. And then there's this whole other world of me trying to support myself in this endeavor, which looks like trying to pitch brands for partnerships. And now it's mainly public speaking. So there's all this behind. And I'm sure it's the same way with you.

Like you have your actual podcast conversations. But then there's everything Chris does to support himself as a podcaster to make this actually happen. Yeah. It's important to point out this is your full-time job or this is your full-time vocation right now. Yes, I started this November of 2015. I was working at the tech startup at the time. Eight months later, that company was bought out. I was laid off. I jumped into this full time, July of 2016, and I haven't looked back. So when you told your friends and your family, I'm going to quit my job, and it was a really good job that you had. I'm going to quit my job to do this thing where I'm going to meet 10,000 people. What was the initial reaction? Well, the startup, so my brother talking to him, I have like G-chat conversations of us, which is kind of telling him the time, I feel like no one uses that anymore now.

But I was telling him, like, this is 2016. The company that I worked for, the tech startup, that February, 20% of the company was laid off. I was one of the people that they kept. And I remember just with that experience, I was enjoying the project at the time. And I told my brother, if I meet 50 people by June, I think I'm going to jump into this full time. And he was like, no, that's a bad idea. You have to have money. You have to have income to support yourself.

I was living in Philly at the time. And then what happened was the company was acquired. So I was laid off and I didn't have a choice. They, you know, you just kicked out the door. And it's it was not a sad event in my life. It was like, okay, nice. Now I can focus on this full time. I was excited. I'm the youngest of three. My older brother always was there to support me.

My older sister and my parents questioned what I was doing with my life. And my sister has since come around. My parents have started to come around, but they still, they don't understand this modern world that we live in. My dad worked for Verizon for 35 years. My mom was a stay-at-home mom and then worked in an elementary school for over 20 years. So their son who was working at Deloitte consulting, had a girlfriend that they liked, was going to get his MBA paid for by that company, left all that to go and meet people for no particular reason. And yeah, they struggled to understand that, but a lot of it is driven by they want me

to have security. And for the longest time, it's like you're traveling down this path, knowing that you're on the right path, but knowing you don't have the answers to every single question. And I've had to just kind of have faith in that aspect. Yeah. So who was person number one? It was a guy named Jim Brady, who at the time ran a website called Billypen.com. So in Philadelphia, they would do this who's next list.

So who's next in the culinary scene or who's next in the art scene or the music scene? And when I was starting this, I thought, okay, well, there's a good, diverse group of people. for me to pick from. I will just, because I was in sales at the time, so I was used to just grabbing people's emails, sending them a note and being like, hey, do you want to spend some time together? And I just shot him a note too, and I said, hey, I'm doing this project. Do you want to be one of the first people? Because I'm going to hit up people from your lists.

And he was like, yeah, sure. So I started reaching out to people September of 2015. It wasn't until November 11th that he and I actually met. He thought that I was already 1,000 or 2,000 people into the project, which is probably a good thing. I don't know if he would have actually taken the time to sit down with me. But, yeah, he was the founder of that company. I think he since left it, but he had worked for, like, the Washington Post as well, did a road trip with his dog. So, yeah, it was cool.

And I had nothing back then. Now you can go to my Instagram account and you see the thousands of posts and you see the nice little blue checkmark. Back then, it was just a random email. from a Gmail account being like, hey, you want to hang out for an hour? When do you think the project started to pick up the most momentum? Who was it that endorsed it that really helped to get the wheels going? Have you ever heard of Yes theory? Of course. Love those guys.

Yeah. So they, to date, I think, have had the biggest impact on my project. I don't want to say of anyone, but they certainly gave it legs that it did not have before. I still, today I met someone who found me through yes theory. And my relationship with them was just I started to meet. I met a girl from Temple University who was a brand ambassador for this company called Serengeti. And it was kind of like a t-shirt brand where the pockets were made from different materials around the world. And they would give proceeds back to those local artisans. And this guy's name is Ryan Westberg. And he was the CEO of this company. So I started

meeting like all these different brand ambassadors from his company and then I went out to L.A. I lived there the summer 2017 and he shot me a note and said, I love what you're doing. We should get together sometime and I would love to be part of the project. So he became part of the project. Just cool dude. We click we were the same age and everything. And then I went back to L.A. for nine months in 2018. And he was like, oh, I want to introduce you to these guys. You guys have kind of a similar approach to life, a similar mindset. So I was like, yeah, yeah, cool, sure. And then I saw him, he had attended their fashion show when they have a seek discomfort line. And when they were introducing that, he was at the fashion show. He posted about it on Instagram. So I messaged him

and said, I remember you telling me about these guys. If you want to introduce us, that'd be cool. Like, I would love to sit down with them. So he introduced me to Matt from yesterday. I met with Matt, and then after we met, he was like, yeah, send me the photo. I'll repost it to my Instagram stories. And he reposted it. And I think it was just one of those moments where, like, you hit refresh on your page and it's like, 100 more followers. And like, you go to your messages and it's like, this is so cool. I'm in Argentina if you ever want to meet or whatever. And a month later, I had gone surfing with one of their video interns. We went at like 6 a.m. and I borrowed some of their boards and wetsuits. And I was back at their house afterwards and I had this really big break

from the time we surfed until my first meeting. So I met this dude from Ireland that was just crashing at their house at the time. And Amar came out and just without being prompted, just filmed a little bit of it and posted it to the Yes Theory Instagram stories. And all he said was like, this guy's meeting 10,000 people. Here's his handle. And overnight like 4,000 people started following me. I got like 400 messages from people all around the world. And yeah, it's crazy. The most loyal audience I think I've ever come across. And I think that those guys are making real life change in the world. So I'm very inspired by them. But along the way, I've also, Ryan Seacrest, I did his radio show a couple times. Always an awesome thing that gave me the credibility that I didn't

previously have. Sure. And then I did Kelly Clarkson's talk show. The whole audience was made up of people that I had met when I was in L.A. That was awesome. That's probably one of the most memorable moments from the entire experience. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens, which is a super important part of my morning routine.

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and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com slash insight. Again, that's athletic greens.com slash insight to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Athletic Greens. You've met almost 5,000 people, so almost halfway through. What do you think is the biggest thing you've learned about yourself through this? And also, what's the biggest thing you've learned about just people in general?

The biggest thing I've learned about myself is how wealthy I am, not in a sense of monetarily, but like just life, I think. I've gained so much gratitude for the things that I have. And I think going into something like this full time and really trying to build it over the course of six years, you just don't have money to put in into things like clothes or going to the movies or buying new things. So it makes you really careful with what you place value on. And for me, that became the friends that I have from high school and the friends that I have from Penn State.

And it became the fact that I have two older siblings who I'm close with. And I still have both of my parents. And I have a support system that is encouraging me to do this. And I had the ability to go to college and have student loans, but think only about school. I've met people who had to drop out of college, not because they're lazy, not because they don't want to go to class,

but their parents couldn't afford to pay rent by themselves. So they had to go home to get a job to help support their parents. I have never been in a situation where I've had to support my parents. It's always been the other way around. And yeah, I just, I've gained so much gratitude for that. And it's only through hearing people's stories, like hearing someone who I met a girl who her brother told her to reach out to me.

And before she did, he passed away at like running a half marathon, just a complication from running. And that forces you to think like, oh, wow, I could lose my siblings at any point. And you start to be like, if the time that I have is limited with them, why am I not taking advantage of it? or how do I become better at taking the advantage of it? So, yeah, a ton of gratitude is what I've learned. And when it comes to people in general, I always say, no one knows what they're doing with their lives.

Everyone is just doing the best they can with the resources that they have. And I think that's such a huge thing to know. And I try to be very open with my story, too. Like, I just moved into this apartment on January 2nd. Prior to this, I lived with my parents for like a year and a half, because I couldn't afford to move out on my own. And I lived in L.A. for a year and a half because I had a friend who hosted me. I lived in Hoboken for nine months because I had a friend who hosted me.

So I've had a lot of helping people, like, offering their space to me. But I'm still out here trying to be like, I don't know, how do I make this path work? I'm trying to figure it out just like everyone else is. And I think sometimes people look at my page and are like, oh, he's killing it, you know. Well, that blue check mark, I think, is very deceiving. Oh, yeah, 100%. So how are you able to make ends meet if this is your main thing right now? Well, the main thing was, well, I had three years of savings from working at Deloitte and the tech startup.

And when I took it full time, that became my budget to get this off the ground. And I've had partnerships along the way with like everything from a dog walking company to a wedding band to an urgent care center. a lot of them here in Philly. And then as my project grew, like the Ryan Seacrest thing, when I had that interview with him, I took that audio and I sent it to WeWork, the co-working space. And I told them, hey, listen, I'm meeting people at your locations all the time. The people who are clients of yours or customers of yours are the type of people who like my project. So let's do a partnership where I meet people at your space.

And I did like, I think it was. like a month-long partnership with them. And just to see if I was a good fit and whatnot, and fortunately that went well. So we launched into a three-month partnership and then extended it an additional six months, which led to the last day of my partnership with WeWork was March 10th of 2020. It was like that Wednesday. And then everything closed down. So I couldn't have even extended it if I wanted to. But yeah, partnerships like that, the other big thing was not spending money. Having the friends who hosted me like, this is the first time I paid rent since May of 2017.

And that's a huge expense. So when you are able to cut that out and then you cut everything else out, like, fortunately a lot of my friends went through that stage of life where they got married, bought their first houses, started to have kids. So I wasn't missing out on like going to the bars or going to this event or that event. I was just able to focus all of my time into the project. But yeah, since July speaking, I've done nine paid speaking engagements over the last, whatever that is since July.

I have four paid speaking engagements coming up in the next month. And like I am going full back into sales mode of my quota is speak two, three, four times a month. And how do I get to that? And before hopping on this call with you, I'm on LinkedIn, like hashtag event profs, where are the events that I can speak at, who can I comment on, et cetera. So yeah, speaking is the light at the end of the tunnel, I think, in terms of stability. Yeah. How would you say that the meetings are different now virtually versus how they

were when you were doing them all in person? Because I can relate. I was doing all my interviews in person. I was flying all over the country, doing all my interviews in person. COVID obviously slam the brakes on that pretty quickly. So how have you found it's different? I think it's it's certainly you miss out on like the atmosphere I would say like I was typically meeting people that coffee shops or in a park or at a bar. So you miss out on on that atmosphere. You miss out on being able to give someone a handshake or a hug when you first see them and the shared experience of like a third party at times interjecting themselves into the meeting for whatever reason. I've had that happen in the past.

Just like I was at Temple University one time having a meeting with a girl. And this random man came up and he's like, you two look like a great couple. You should get married. And I was like, I just met this girl. But things like that. But I think the thing that has remained is the ability to actually form a connection because I've heard stories that have made me teary-eyed, made me almost cry virtually. I felt like I've made really great relationships with people virtually.

And in a way, it has, like, I forget that I just, every day, sit in a chair at a table for multiple hours a day, because my mind is in Ecuador. My mind is in Germany. My mind is in Brazil or whatever. And I think that's been a really cool thing, especially during this time. Like, we all have this different perception of the last two years based on how we experienced it. And I think that I've had one of the most unique COVID experiences because every single day, I was talking to people from different countries and learning about what they were doing.

Like this girl in Trinidad and Tobago who got COVID, and they basically put her in a dorm room and we're like, all right, you're there for the next two weeks of quarantine or whatever until you're, healed and get your two negative tests and can go home. And I'm sure it's changed since then, but are talking to people in Panama who were like, you only get guys could go out like Monday, Wednesday, Saturday. And girls can go out Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday or whatever, for like two hour time slot based on your government ID number. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. That's much different. But we're all experiencing it based on where we're, high. So my first Hello Fresh box just arrived, and I am loving this. With Hello Fresh, you get

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They're like, I have this new book. I'd love to talk to you about it. So hopefully you can put it out to your audience. How do you vet people? It used to just be first coming, first serve. And when I was doing things in person, so for example, when guest theory did post about me and I had 400 messages, I would respond to all of them.

But there was only a certain number of them that were in the LA area who I could actually meet. So I would go first come for a serve based on geographic location. Sure. And to just tell everyone else, like, I'd love to meet someday if I'm ever in your area. And then it did get overwhelming. I think there were times, like TikTok has been not surprisingly a really good platform for people to find out about me because so many people have blown up there. but I posted like two videos there just saying, hey, I'm doing this project.

If you want to be part of it, hit me up. Follow me or not like go to Instagram, shoot me a message. And each video had like over a thousand people message me. So it's hard to get back to everyone. And I just was like, okay, I have to just sit back and and answer who I can answer. But then it became just a matter of diversified. I tried to do that from the beginning, but I had so much more power around that when I had, because you could literally see where TikTok would push the videos.

Because I'd have all these messages from South Africa or South America coming in. And then the next day I'd get all these messages from Africa. And I'd be like, oh, this is so cool. Yeah. People would be, I remember there was one time, I think a guy commented on one of my posts. And he's like, hey, Rob, have you ever met any? one from Uzbekistan. I was like, nope, so you're going right to the front of the list, because I want to know what Uzbekistan is like. I think what's so inspiring about your story

is we live in a time now where we're told all the time you can do anything you want. And I think that you're living proof that whatever it is that's interesting to you, lean into that. And there really is the opportunity to do whatever you want to do with it. Yeah, I totally agree. I think with the platforms that we have available to us, if you want to, in my mind, there's a simple formula to success. And I think it's, one is start and then two is never stop. Like, it's if you do that, because I started the project. And there are times that I've been really fearful about continuing it mainly from the financial side. because I used to have a quote.

When I lived in L.A., my friend had a mirror, and he had like the erasable markers, and we would write quotes on it. And I wrote, it's from a Kid Cuddy song. I think it's up, up in a way, but I wrote, The End is Never the End. Because I got to this place where I literally had like $500 to my name

with no promise of money coming in and being like, okay, I don't know how this is going to happen. But I wrote that quote down because I was like, what happens if you hear, hit $0 in your bank account. It's not the end, right? It's just the start of a more inconvenient path forward than you anticipated. Like if I hit $0, which fortunately I never did, but if I hit that, I have this whole audience where I can say, hey, I've exhausted literally everything I could in terms of finances to support this project. I'm going to throw up a GoFundMe link. If you feel

inspired to contribute, then let me know. Or, hey, I've hit the end of my finances. I need a part-time job or a full-time job to just get me back on my feet. Can anyone introduce me? So, yeah, I started to learn that, like, the fear kicks in a lot earlier than necessary, which makes sense because we're trying to protect ourselves. But, yeah, just I'm convinced that anyone can do anything they want as long as they're willing to inch their way towards success. I love that so much.

So, look, if the two rules are start and never stop, what happens when you get to 10,000? Oh, I stop. But then you're breaking rule number two. No, I've got, I've hit success. No, I don't, I don't think I will stop at 10,000. There's, I think, like, have you ever seen Free Solo? Oh, yeah, of course. I think, when I imagine the moment of hitting 10,000,

similar to the moment of him coming up over the peak. And I feel, I'm not like a very energetic, entertaining person. I kind of feel like Alex kind of like I'll get to 10,000 and people will be like, oh, that's so cool. Congrats. And I'll be like, yeah, I did it. Thanks. But I think that I will continue incorporating intentional connection into my life because I just

believe in the value of it. I don't know if I'll be doing three people a day like I currently do. But I want to speak now and I want to continue to speak throughout my life because I think it's that is a way that I can take what's in my mind and start to use it to impact other people. And I also want to be a professor at a university where I teach a freshman seminar where the whole purpose of the class is for students to pair off one-on-one every period and learn from each other's backgrounds as opposed to a textbook or a PowerPoint slide. Wow.

Yeah, because at Penn State, you have to take general education courses. So I took Elvis online, like the history of Elvis. And I took ballroom dance. And those are great things. But I think if you're going to take classes like that, like at least have a class where you can facilitate connection amongst your students because not all of them are outgoing. Not all of them are going to join the clubs and do the things.

Some of them are going to be really socially anxious. And if they don't find their home, then maybe they transfer or maybe they drop out. But I think that we can create better experiences. for students by being like, hey, here's your classmates and here's a safe space for you to get to know them. Yeah. I think there's so much that can be learned from what you're doing, but there's also a lot of people who are really introverted. And they're going, that's great for you, Rob. That's great that you're meeting all these people. But what do you say to someone who wants to meet just one new person this year? I set a goal for yourself. I think that is

one of the things that I've learned is by having this project, by having this this want to meet 10,000 people, I have this excuse to go down and sit with all of these different people. I tell people all the time, like if I came up to you on the street and was like, hey, let's go sit and chat for an hour about absolutely nothing. They'd be like,

you know, get out of my face. So, but they do. Like, and in fact that people are reaching out to me, but it's because the goal gives it context. It's the same thing as if you're watching,

like the show in Practical Jokers, for example, they put themselves in all these weird positions and situations. But then at the end, they can tell the people like, oh, we're the impractical jokers. There's a camera right there. You're on this show. So then in context, it all makes sense. And I think when it comes to meeting people, just set a goal for yourself. Like if one person, that's great.

You can throw it up on your Facebook. Because that is, hey, I'm just trying to meet one new person this year. Is anyone out there down to help me reach that goal? Or if you're the type of person who says, I like to meet one new person every month each year because I find that it helps me expand my perspective. It gives me a greater sense of belonging. And I feel like it opens doors to experiences I never would have tried before. You're going to have people who are like, I'll be February or I'll be join.

You know, you should talk to my friend. He would love to be September. Yeah. And it's exactly what happened with my project. But then the question of, well, okay, what do you talk to these people about. The other thing that I've learned about everyone is their lives can be boiled down into the categories of Ford. It's F-O-R-D. I didn't come up with this concept. I'm just now preaching it to other people, but it's family, occupation, recreation, and dreams. Like, if I, if you think

about, remember, we were talking about people's lives, like a timeline, kind of their character arc, like you ask questions about their family and their childhood and what it looks like now. you're building out that family piece and the relationships. You ask about their occupation. You're hitting education. You're hitting what they do for work now. You start to talk about recreation, then you're understanding who this person is outside of work.

And then you go into dreams and you have an understanding of who they want to be in the future. So all of a sudden, you have this framework. And if you're like, okay, I just need to ask within this, then you become armed with all these different topics that help make you a great conversationist. I think that in the society we live in right now, people are so used to it being like a value exchange. Like you want an hour of my time. Well, what, you know, like what am I going to exchange

or vice versa? Did you deal with that a lot when you were starting out? Like, you want to meet with me, but like, what's the catch? Are you selling me a timeshare or something? Probably secretly. Like, I didn't know people were thinking that. But I did do a podcast with the guy afterwards and he was like yeah I definitely thought you were running a multi-level marketing scheme the guy just waiting for the pitch but it never came but um yeah I don't I think you know the people who who questioned that or thought about it in that way I don't think we're part of it or I just don't think ever reached out and I still get people who think that way you're like what's the point you know and I just I don't understand

understand that like the same way that they don't understand what I'm doing, I don't understand the way that they're looking at it. Because to me, it's like you're, there's value in every single conversation. Even if you, if you don't enjoy it, you're figuring out how to interact with a personality that's different than yours. And chances are you're going to come across that personality again at some point in your life. And now you're more equipped to handle that. There's, um, Brian Grazer is a Hollywood producer. I was going to bring this up. He just randomly has lunch with people.

Yeah. Yeah. And he wrote about it in this book, A Curious Mind. Yeah. And there's a page in that book that I have saved in my phone because he puts into words what I wish I could tell people or what I wish everyone thought about human connection. And he says it's like investing in a mutual fund. Like not every stock is going to take off, you know, some might not.

Some might do really poorly. leave. But overall, you have these conversations with people that might be valuable in the moment, or it might be that you learn something from that conversation that you take with you, even though that person's not with you. Or sometimes it's like a person that you throw up on yourself and 10 years later, when you have this question, you don't know the answer to. You remember that that person has the answer. Very good friend of mine wrote a book called Every Conversation Counts. His name is Rias Mengji. And it's so true. Like, if you think about it, everything that you have or don't have in your life is the results of a

conversation that you've either had or have not had. I agree with that. Yeah. I completely agree with that. I say we're all derivatives of the people around us. Like, why did you start? Like, how were you exposed to podcasting? Was it like an idea of your own or did someone like tell you to start it or someone inspired you? I've worked in television. for my whole life. And podcasting is just like the next evolution of what my broadcasting career was. Gotcha. So it was like someone along the way, though, like inspired you to go into television or inspired you to like think of translating those skills to podcasting. It's like it's just the people around us that are constantly inspiring us. Yeah. So do you have like a bucket list of, you know,

you've got 5,300 more people that you're going to be talking to? Do you have a bucket list of someone who you really, really want to talk to? They're not people that I really, really want to talk to. I find that my favorite conversations are with the people who are excited to be part of the project. Sometimes when I've taught, like, if you think about like celebrities and whatnot, not that I've met many of them, but sometimes when I meet people who have like accomplishments, it almost feels like they feel like they're doing a favor by being part of it.

And that's, again, why I try not to, or try to let people know this is not an interview. Like, I'm not here to write an article on you. I'm here to be someone who's now in your network and you're in mine. But there is, I think John Bellion, he's a musical artist. He did, he does his own songs, but he did produce the song Trumpets by Jason DeRullo. So that's very reminiscent of his style. He just did a lot of the songs on Justin Bieber's Justice album. So he does a lot for other artists, but.

he has these videos on YouTube, like the making of his songs. I think his most popular song was all time low. I think it was on the radio. Yeah. But I think that that man is like a musical genius. And we're like the same age. And I just would love to understand what's going on inside of his mind as it translates to music.

Yeah. that the celebrities that I look up to most are all musicians. Look, my passion as well as yours is meeting people. I just think that we can learn so much from just having these open conversations with people. And the fact that you've basically made this your life's work is so commendable. Thank you. Yeah, it feels good to do it. I mean, I get told every day, thankfully, by people that.

I like, this is so cool what you're doing. or I'm inspired and I have and it goes back to like people be like, why are you doing this? Like if you don't have a set agenda to it. But I have right now, there's a girl in Boston doing one-on-one meetups because she was feeling lonely. And she was like, this is a good way to get out of that. And there are two cousins in Toronto who each met over 100 people because they were inspired by my project and yes, theory. And there's a kid in India now, but he's in college.

a kid, I guess. But he's trying to meet a thousand people and he's already met almost 100 people. And for me, it's really cool to see that you can do something that you enjoy and that other people will take note of that and start to incorporate that into their own lives. And yeah, just that, yeah, the fact that it's possible, I'm happy to live in 22, this era, despite how the last couple years have been for the world. I just want to acknowledge you because what you're doing is so inspiring. and I just think it's really fascinating what you're doing. And I'm so glad we were able to share this time together.

And I end every conversation with the same question. You've already touched on it during this. I'm all about gratitude as well. So what are three things in your life, Rob, that you're grateful for right now? I right now am grateful for the fact that I have this apartment. Like I said, I was living at my parents' place. And my parents babysit, my nephew, my sister. She lives like five minutes down the road.

So she's due again in February next month. So I was speaking engagements coming up. And it was going to be hard to coordinate the logistics of like going out and speaking to crowds and coming back to potentially be exposed to her. I went on Craigslist on Christmas Day. And I find this like beautifully furnished apartment in Philly that's a nine months sublet. And the guy just had to, he had to get out of town to, he has a friend who's ill and he's taking care of him.

and now I have this space to like create and build my project in. So I'm very thankful for that. I will say again, I'm thankful for my friends and family because I just think that it's like constantly thankful to have them in my life. And that's where I derive a lot of my fulfillment from, most of my fulfillment. And the trivial one,

I'm thankful that the Philadelphia Eagles are in the playoffs. It's when you're in. Philly and the Eagles are in the playoffs, there's a certain buzz to the city. Like, this city cares a lot about its sports teams. And I think the Sixers won seven straight. So I'm thankful for those two things because it brightens the Philly experience. Look, I'm from Toronto originally. I lived to Cleveland for five years. And then from there, I went to Miami and now I'm in L.A. It's fascinating that there's a direct correlation between how cold the weather is and how much you care about sports.

Cleveland was like living and dying by everything that the Browns and the calves and the Indians did. And then I went to Miami and they're like, yeah, this really matters. So I completely understand what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, it changes the vibe of the city. But I love that. I love being from like a cold, a cold place.

I also love that there's a Philly Philly statue. I don't know if everybody knows that. Oh, for Nick Bowles. Right. Like I don't know if everybody knows that there's a statue for that. play, which I think is fascinating. Yeah, love it. People have the tattoos, all of it.

I don't, but people do. Rob, thank you so much for this fascinating conversation, fascinating project. What's the best way that people can find out more about what you're doing or maybe even share a conversation with you? Yeah. Thank you for having me. And they can hit me up on Instagram. My account is Rob's 10K friends.

So it's ROBS10K friends. And I post a picture with everyone that I've. meet. Now I post a clip when it's virtual and I post what I've learned from their story. And then on TikTok, TikTok is kind of like my sandbox, I would say, like a little playground where I'll post some behind the scene stuff, some tips that I have and lessons I've learned. And if they want to get in touch regarding like any speaking engagements or anything like that, it's just Rob's 10K friends at gmail.com. Awesome. Rob, thank you again. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you giving me a platform to share my story. I've, yeah, very thankful for that.

What a fascinating concept here. Big thank you to Rob for being with us. Big thank you to you, of course, for joining us for this and every single episode. And I mentioned it off the top of this episode. But yeah, I recently had the honor of being one of Rob's 10,000 friends. So you can check out our chat on his social media. He's at Rob's 10K Friends. That's Rob's 10K Friends. You can also check out his website, robs 10K Friends.com. I'll leave you with this great quote. about friendship. It's unknown, but I love this quote. The source is unknown, I should say. In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips. How good is that? Be great, be grateful. Have a great weekend. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more. than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning

only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What should be? Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

You've been warned.