The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 016: Jon Levy – The Influencers: How To Be A Super Connector

Episode Date: May 18, 2015

Episode 016: Jon Levy – The Influencers: How To Be A Super Connector When I was thinking of creating this podcast, Jon was the type of person I wanted to have on my show.  I learned about him after both Forbes and Business Insider wrote great articles about his “Influencer Dinners.”  I was fascinated to hear about these dinners and many more stories from Jon during our time speaking together. This is a great episode for anyone who wants to become better at creating lasting memories and also Jon Levy is a behavior expert, consultant, writer and keynote speaker best known for his work in the fields of Influence and Social Experience. He has worked with countless brands and companies to support their efforts in consumer engagement, customer acquisition, and product development, by applying the latest behavioral research ranging from neuroscience and psychology to economics and biology.   Welcome to Episode 016 with the leader of The Influencers, Jon Levy   Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio.   The Learning Leader Show “Nothing good happens after 2:00 AM except for the most epic experiences in your life.” – Jon Levy   Some Questions I Ask: Why did you create “The Influencers?” How has it changed your life? What specific ways do you create special moments? How big do you want “The Influencers” to be? What is “The 2 AM Principle” all about? (His book title) What does being a “giver” mean to you?   In This Episode, You Will Learn: How to run your own influencer dinners How Dunbar’s Law affects relationships How big he wants “The Influencers” to be Goal setting practices How to create truly special moments The elements that define a quality life How long it takes to become an overnight success   “Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” – John Wooden   Continue Learning Go toJon's Website: www.JonLevyTLB.com Read “Connected” by  Nicholas A. Christakis Follow Shane on Twitter @JonLevyTLB   You may also like these episodes:   Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks   Episode 002: How To Take Over And Set Bigger Goals With Chris Brogan   Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion   Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts   Did you enjoy the podcast? I love discussing how we can all grow our network and influence others.  It’s a fascinating topic and Jon is fantastic at it!  I really enjoyed speaking with Jon.  We’ve kept in touch and the next time I’m in NYC, I will be sure to meet up with Jon.  Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show!   Episode edited by the greatJ Scott Donnell   Bio From  Jon Levy TLB Jon Levy is a behavior expert, consultant, writer and keynote speaker best known for his work in the fields of Influence and Social Experience. He has worked with countless brands and companies to support their efforts in consumer engagement, customer acquisition, and product development, by applying the latest behavioral research ranging from neuroscience and psychology to economics and biology. Within the behavioral realm Jon has two areas of expertise: The study of Influence: What causes people to make the decisions they make. This understanding spawned the creation of “Influencers”, a private community and dining experience for tastemakers and industry leaders. Members range across all industries from well-known actors and Olympians, to executives at major companies and royalty. Influencers has received a fair share of media including stories in The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, The Observer, to name a few. Combining years of experience running Influencers and research, Jon has developed a deep understanding in designing social experiences and creating influencer programs for brands. The study of Adventure: Identifying what causes people to live fun, exciting, and remarkable lives. After years of studying what has become known as “The Science of Adventure”, Jon was able to discern that every adventurous experience follows a predictable four stage processes. Each stage has specific characteristics that, when applied, make the experience exciting. This expertise has garnered Jon a reputation as one of the foremost authorities on Adventure. In his free time, Jon works on outrageous projects. He spent a year traveling weekends to the world’s greatest events (Grand Prix, Art Basel, Sundance, Burning Man, Running of the Bulls, Cannes, etc.) and barely survived to tell the tale. Prior to that, taking control of his health and wellness, he was a before-and-after fitness model for a 90-day video training program. Other projects have included unscripted television, mobile apps, books and alcohol development, to name a few.    

For any of you out there who are listening to this that want to make your life interesting, set a goal that doesn't make any sense, share it with everybody in your life, and then figure out how to make it happen. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey guys, welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I'm Ryan Hawk. Tonight's guest is awesome.

John Levy, the guy who runs the influencers. We really dig into how to create great moments, how he remembers people's names, what it takes to become an overnight success. A hint, it takes some time. And also a great quote from John, where he says, nothing good happens after 2 a.m. except for the most epic experiences. Just a really, really interesting guy.

I'm excited for you guys to hear. Without further ado, here is John Levy. I am very, very excited to have John Levy on the show. And John, welcome. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you so much, Ryan. Yeah, thanks for being on. I know you obviously have a lot going on,

and I just did a little intro of you. But if it's not too much trouble, could you give us a quick 30 second to 60 second intro, to what John Levy is all about. Sure. I'm a professional behavior expert, which means that I take scientific research done by psychologists, behavioral economists, and neuroscientists. And I apply that research to help companies connect with customers, design products, change public opinion.

And as a byproduct, I was able to create and develop a community of pretty extraordinary people called The Influencers. And I developed the secret dining experience called The Influencers Dinner. Yeah, I've read a lot about it. The New York Times Business Insider. It seems really, really interesting. Can you talk a little bit about how the influencers came about, how you became the guy to be the leader of the group and to really cultivate it and get everybody together?

Absolutely. So I was sitting in a seminar about six years ago, and the seminar was all about how to have fun in life. And one of the things that the program leader said that really struck me is that the fundamental thing, the element that defines the quality of our life is the people we surround ourselves with and the conversations that we have with them. And that if you want to improve your life in any way, simply either change what you're talking about or start talking to different people.

And it really stuck me. All of us know that to some degree. We know that if we hang out with people who, I don't know, do drugs, chances are we'll end up doing drugs. or if we hang out with people who are very wealthy, then we'll end up picking up those skills and we'll end up making more money. But most of us don't live like it's true. We don't say, I want to get really good at X,

or I want to be more generous, or I want to be healthier. So I'm going to spend more time with fitness professionals. But I said, I'm really curious about bringing together an extraordinary group of people, because I want an extraordinary life. And I think that by bringing these people together, it won't just impact my life. It'll impact everybody's life. And maybe we can create something bigger out of it.

And so I sat there in the seminar and I started thinking, how could I possibly do this? And I had no idea. I started thinking, okay, maybe I'll get important and influential people to all get on a call together. But the fact is that they don't have any time for that kind of stuff. And one day I was supposed to go out for dinner with a group of friends. they all met at my house, and none of them knew each other. And instead we decided that we'd cook dinner together. And I realized that by the time we finished cooking dinner, everybody had bonded so much,

it was as if they had known each other for years. And I said, this is exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to bring together the most influential people in our culture, and I'm going to get them to cook dinner together. And so six months later, I had my first dinner, and I also added a rule. And the rule was that nobody was allowed to talk about what they do or give their last name. I wanted some kind of like even playing field that would get the chip off of everybody's shoulder. Because especially when you live in New York, everybody has their angle of how important they are.

Right. The dinner's evolved and evolved and now we've done over 50 of them. And I've hosted over 400 people. And the basic structure is 12 people arrive. Their knowledge to talk about what they do or give their last name. They cook dinner together. And when they sit, everybody gets to guess what everybody else does, and then there's a big reveal. And so people find out they're sitting down next to an Olympic gold medalist, the CEO of some major company, a famous actor, musician, and Nobel laureate, maybe a member of royalty. And what's really kind of wonderful is that they've all managed to bond over the course of several hours over things that you won't really only talk about with your close friends.

Not the, oh, this is what I do, this is where I work, let me try to impress you. But instead, it's, oh, this is what my kids did this summer. Oh, I'm really passionate about this. This is my hobby. And so it's the kind of conversations that you only end up having with people that you know for a while. And so they bombed really quickly. And so now I have a community of close to 450 people. We just had our reunion.

300 people came. It was absolutely extraordinary. And, yeah, I'm really proud of all the accomplishments. The big joke is that hopefully one day I'll accomplish something worthy of an invitation to my own because frankly, I'm not some Nobel laureate or some Pulitzer Prize winning author. I'm really good at connecting people. I'm really passionate about it. But I'm not at that level yet.

Where does that come from? You know, you say you're passionate about connecting people. That's got to come from something inside you. Maybe it's from your upbringing. I'm curious. I may have been an example that my father said. My father never graduated grade school. My father's very successful.

He's a well-known painter and sculptor. He managed to raise four kids and put us through school and so on. But he was much more street smart. And he had an understanding of people that was really quite exceptional. And I would watch as he would bring people together and the culture and community that created around him. And he used to say that to be an artist is a skill, but to sell art is an art form. And so in the same way, he was artistic socially. And I would see that a lot of the things that I do are iterations or different versions of the way that he, the example that he set growing up.

But I also think that there's probably some genetic and cultural elements to it that I are hard to measure. What makes somebody who's absolutely extraordinary at connecting people like Sonny Bates or Adam Grant? so good at it. I think we've obsessed over or spent a lot of our life thinking about what has people connect. And I've spent a ton of time doing that. I think a lot of it started when I was, I found out how unpopular I was as a child and may have stemmed from there. But now I'm, you know, what's what I do professionally? I really care how people make the decisions that they make. You know, I'm glad he brought up your dad because I was going to ask about him and related a little bit to my upbringing. So I have a really, I'm very fortunate to have a great relationship with both of

my parents. They're, you know, set a great example for what a marriage is, and they've led me and my brothers to, you know, hopefully be successful. And he's very, very successful in his profession. But he really worked hard to instill in me and my brothers that we weren't entitled just because of his success. And he taught us how to work hard and not settle for the easy path. And I know, obviously, your dad being an incredibly successful artist in his own right, what did he teach you that helped shape your success? I think one of the most important lessons that my dad shared with me is around work ethic. Being an artist, artists often say I'm not inspired or I can't come up with anything to create today. But he viewed being an artist the way that people view being a carpenter or being a carpenter or being

a accountant, you show up at your desk or your table or your easel, and you clock in your time, and the inspiration will come from the work. And you might not like what you create that day, and it might not seem magical or wonderful or inspired. But your job as an artist, or his job as an artist, was to create. And so there was an element of your feelings are at best amusing. Like, if you don't feel like it, it doesn't really matter. just like you have to find a way to feed your kids, you have to find a way to create.

And it set a very good example of work ethic that it's my job to produce whatever it is that my career is. And it doesn't matter how I feel about it. I better get to work. And if I'm not inspired, it's my responsibility to become inspired fast. Did that lead you to the work that you're doing today to say, you know, I want to do something that I'm truly, truly passionate about on a day-to-day basis and not just some regular nine to five that others might do in New York City, but something that talks about bringing people together, helping others, that type of work?

My father and mother both said an example to be creative. My mother's a composer and conductor. She's an extraordinary woman. And both of them did what they were passionate about. but there was no excuse for not being able to support yourself in doing what you're passionate about and what came first and foremost was of course the family and if if for whatever reason my dad wouldn't have been able to support us with his art he would have found another job real fast but yeah there was this element that there's a contribution that you have that is for the

the benefit of society if that's artistic great and my brother my eldest brother Ofer is a PhD MD at Harvard who works on infectious disease. Wow. And my brother, Amnon, is a former professor at Berkeley and NYU, and he's a PhD in finance and now works for a company called Moody's. But, and my sister's a musician. So all of us create and try, I think, to contribute in different ways. But one of the things I think I've really gotten clear on is that although I have a clear

knowledge in certain areas that my strengths are really in strategy and in human behavior and in knowing how to connect people. But that's really one of my greatest assets. Just like some people are physically strong or great at math, I have really dedicated myself to understanding how to bring people together and which people will do well together and what environments will create enjoyable experiences. You know, you obviously have an incredibly accomplished family. really, really high achievers.

Does that put pressure on you to say, look, I'm doing something too over here. Check out the influencers. Look at some of the work I've done with companies. Is that a motivator or something you think about often? It's funny. I actually don't think about it very much for a few reasons. One is that anything I've achieved is small potatoes versus the people that I sit with on a twice a month. I may have brought together a group of people.

that's extraordinary. When the next guy over has a Nobel Prize. And like, let's put things in perspective. I didn't change an entire field of study. But I think that we were so showered with love as children that I didn't really relate to it in that way at a certain point. Whether it wasn't competitive or anything. It was like, yeah. There's also me and my brother Amnon, who's the finance guy, there's like eight and a half years between us.

So I often grew up as kind of like an only child at certain points. So it wasn't like a big deal. I got you. And I read a little bit about the year 2013 and spending basically the year, not the entire but the majority part of it traveling. And I was curious to, one, hear about those trips you made and what you did as well as why you decided to do that. Oh, absolutely.

So the origins are just about as stereotypical as you could imagine. I had a really bad breakup. And so I decided I'm going to do something stupid. And for any of you out there who are listening to this that want to make your life interesting, set a goal that doesn't make any sense, share it with everybody in your life, and then figure out how to make it happen. In 2013, I had a terrible breakup. I mean, I love the person very much. They loved me.

Just we weren't fit to be with each other. Some couples just aren't designed for forever. But I was still heartbroken. And I wanted to find something that would distract me. And so I set in Audacious School. Every month, I would travel to the biggest event in the world, wherever it was. Now, mind you, I have a full-time job at a large publishing house at the time. And some of these events are thousands and thousands of miles away and take multiple days.

But over the course of a year, I was at Burning Man in Black Rock City in the middle of desert. I was at Cannes Film Festival in the south of France. I went to Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, and I got hit by a bull and almost died. I was both in the triage center, then went to the emergency road at the local hospital. I had an imprint of a bull hoof in my shoulder for days and was told that I might die on the flight back to the U.S., because the impact from the bull may have pushed air between my organs, and the pressure change from the flight would cause my lungs to collapse. But I was like, I have to get back to work.

I can't miss any more days. And, you know, the stories go on. I was in, because I'd like to talk to a lot of strangers, I did this really kind of silly thing. When I was flying to Burning Man, I flew to San Francisco, then rented a car and went to Black Rock. And I'm at the airport, and there's this, you know, I'm single.

Obviously, a story starts with me breaking up. And there's this really cute girl riding the train with me to the airport. And she's just sitting next to me. I strike up a conversation. It turns out she's flying to Miami from the same terminal as me, but like 20 minutes before. So I say, how about we grab some food? And she says, sure. And food instead becomes a bottle of champagne.

And I say, listen, this is the craziest thing anybody has. ever probably suggested to you. But why don't you meet me back right here at this terminal in two weeks? I'm traveling to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival. And there's a reporter joining me to do a story about my travels. Why don't you come along? I have a friend putting us in there is massive house. You'll have your own bedroom. Just come and join me. And two weeks later, she showed up. Really? It was incredible. Yeah. How was the trip, man? It was, I mean, absolute insanity. I was hosted by a good friend of mine by the name of Xi Matar. She's a celebrity hairstylist who lives out about half of his time in Toronto.

He just took us to every event. And thanks to also many of the influencers community members, we were hooked up with kind of like red carpet and all that kind of stuff and tickets and films. So it was just a total blast and a great distraction from everything that had happened with the breakup. Well, you got to tell me what's going on with this? girl that you meet in an airplane and just have to impress like crazy what happened we had a great weekend but we just ended up friends it wasn't i sometimes just love the potential of a great narrative and to make make a great story happen rather than necessarily a romantic experience sure i mean i've heard a lot of people say if you if you want to write a great book or you want to write a great

story go out and live a great life full of great narratives and that sounds like you have so many of them I hope we can get to get to a few of them that's that's an awesome one hey has she been up to new york at an influencer dinner the person i met at the airport yeah she was actually a german lawyer wow and a part-time model uh so she was in the u.s studying what was it uh cyber security and law because of all the international conflicts of storage of information and all that. So I think she's back in Germany at this point. Wow. So you spent 2013 doing this.

Is this something you plan to do again? Or is it just kind of a regular part of your life now where it's not going to be throughout the course of one year, but just here and there you're going to still make time to travel to certain great events throughout the country or the world? Every year I try to do a travel project. So 2014, I spent a month and a half, and every three days I switch cities. So I went Boston, Philly, New York, Rakevik in Iceland, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, Enhod Elat Petra, which is in Jordan, Prague, Istanbul, Istanbul, Istanbul, Vienna, Budapest, and the list goes on. But every three days, I was in a different city, and it was completely exhausting.

absolutely incredible. Wow. So do you do these things by yourself or do you go with friends? I do a lot of them by myself. I believe that traveling by yourself is one of the truest tests of character because you're wholly responsible for your own enjoyment. If you're traveling with a friend, there's a shared responsibility that you can have. But when you travel by yourself, there are no excuses. In fact, I wanted to test how good I had become at meeting people.

So back in 2013, I dropped myself off in Nice, not speaking French, not knowing anybody, not having done any research on the town, having no place to sleep. And I dropped myself off there and the last train of the night had left. So I was either going to sleep on the street or I was going to find a stranger that would put me up for the night. Wow. And it was insanity. I ended up strolling through the streets until I eventually managed to get a tip that I should. should go to a local bar. And when I went in, I ended up trying to make friends.

And nothing seemed to have been working because the locals didn't speak enough English to really communicate with me. And eventually, I meet these three guys, super cool. And we start having a few drinks together. And we spend probably from like 2 a.m. onward just bar hopping. And at the end of the night, they're like, okay, come on, we're going the next spot. And we all hop into a cab. And next thing I know, I have no idea where I am.

We've been traveling for like 15, 20 minutes. And we end up at a three-story chateau on the border of Monaco. It turned out that every one of these three guys came from like either a title-holding British family or a incredibly wealthy family, and this place was just fully decked out with like maid staff, anything you could imagine. So I had gone from wondering if I'm going to sleep on the cobblestone streets of Nice

to having my own room in the lap of luxury in this chateau. That is incredible, man. How does that happen? The three guys that you end up meeting, end up, you know, having that type of a place. for you to stay. I don't know. That kind of stuff happens a lot when you're willing to put a lot of risk out there. Most people aren't willing to go out and say, okay, if I screw up, I'm going to be sleeping on the street. Yeah. Speaking of that, and this is right along in lines with

memories that you create and you help create these for people in your influencers group. And you also, I've read, you know, that you said you do this by creating moments, special moments that people remember. In fact, I've heard it even helps you remember people's names or other people remember each other's names. Talk a little bit about these moments that you create. Very curious to hear your philosophy on this. Well, we know a lot about memory in general, the way we store memory. We tend to be very visual. We tend to remember things that are novel, things that are associated with extreme pleasure or pain. And so I try to create moments that are really special. People often save things for special occasions, but in my home and in general, I believe that it's always a

special occasion. But if we keep waiting for some special occasion to occur, we'll never get to enjoy most of the things that we have an opportunity to. And so even when I'm throwing an event in my own home, I'll often kind of just sneak off with a handful of people, and I'll find maybe a really nice bottle of alcohol or a rare dessert or something really special. And I'll have, I'll create an intimate moment for like five or six people, and then we'll open it up and just have a drink in peace for 10 minutes. So that rather than being in the craziness of this entire experience, you're sharing something very unique with a intimate group of people. And I've had nights where I pull a group of people together, and it's me and Gabe Supporter, the lead singer of Cobra Starship, and he'll grab

the guitar and the two of us will sing, what is it, George Michaels. faith. And it's like just four people in the room. Yeah. So it creates this moment, this memory of something that stands out in a really unique way. Now, if it wasn't Gabe, that's fine. I mean, it makes it even crazier that it's this famous rock star that, you know, that people know. But if you take a really quality bottle and even do it in a special environment, so the party that I throw always happen in the living room, the dining room, and so on. But I have off-limits areas. So we go into an off-limits area, and the fact that it's an off-limits area makes it special. A lot of it is about crossing some kind of social, physical, or emotional boundary.

It's that moment that you pretended to be somebody on the guest list and snuck into a club. That's really memorable because you've crossed that boundary. The moment that you taste maybe a certain food for the first time, for me, it was African miracle fruit, which is a fruit that changes your perception of flavor. These things really stand out. And so when I meet people for the first time, and it's somebody that I want to cultivate a relationship with, I try to create an experience like that.

Either that or I'll tell a story that's completely insane and stands out so much that they'll never forget it. So I'm always the guy that did Crazy Activity X or was able to achieve something. But it's not like a bragging story. It's kind of like the story about, meeting the German lawyer and inviting her to Toronto. Yeah, exactly.

I know I sent you a note about this prior to our talk, but I want to help create a moment for you at one of your next dinners or one coming up. So I was very fortunate to meet the greatest magician I've ever seen. And I've met him in Lake Tahoe. I think it was five or six years ago. And I've seen him every year since. I go there every year with my younger brother for a celebrity golf tournament. And his name's Matthew Furman.

And he lives in New York City. This is why I was thinking of both of you guys, because I don't know how close his house is to yours. But regardless, I would love for him to come and just get five or ten minutes for your guests. They will sit there. I promise you. I can promise. And they'll look at each other and say, oh, my gosh, this guy's not from this planet with the stuff he can do from a magic perspective. And it's weird because I always watch them with other groups of people.

and it's like the group bonds together because you're all in this disbelief of what is going on. And so, you know, we first started talking. I heard about your dinners. I'm like, Matthew's got to go up there and entertain these guys for a little bit because the moment it would create would just be awesome for you. So after the dinners, I host this thing called the salon. It's a cultural experience. I bring three well-known speakers and often a musical act. and the speakers all speak on the theme

and it's just incredible sometimes I have comedians, magicians and if he's up for it count me in I'd love to have him at the salon he can have 10 minutes and I know previous magicians that I've had have booked work as a byproduct of it yeah not even about the work

I just I literally I know you would you would either shoot me a note the next day and be like whoa you were right this guy's awesome and the fact that he's right there in New York I thought oh this is this this should be a national connection I should try to make between John and Matthew because it would work out well for both of you guys, I think.

I really appreciate that. Yeah, of course, of course. I would like to try to give you some value. I really appreciate you coming on here, obviously, and sharing your knowledge. And I'm curious, so speaking to the regular person who has never hosted a dinner, has never done anything like this, but they're sitting there saying, God, I wish I could do this. I don't live in New York. I live in, you know, a state that's not, doesn't have as many.

You know, you probably have a lot of well-known people live in New York. Some of them are traveling, but a lot of there. But let's say somebody lives somewhere else, but they're listening to this and they're saying, how could I do something like this to get together great people, have a dinner? You know, where does it start? How does it get started? Do I send emails? Do I just make cold calls?

How do I make sure it's the right people? You know, I'm curious what your advice would be to a regular person who wants to get this started. The first thing I would say is that it takes a long time to become an overnight success. So the first dinners that I did, look completely different than what I do now. More importantly, the Influencers Dinner is a collection of designed experiences that really flow from my core values and the way that I engage with people. It's really my intellectual property and it wouldn't work for other people.

People need to create what's right for them and what's consistent with their values and what's consistent with who they're trying to connect. Let's give an example for you, Ryan. What are you passionate about? I'm truly passionate about learning from people who are in leadership positions in their life, whether they've created that or they're there. And people who have fought through adversity and come out much stronger and have great, great stories to tell. Part of the reason why I was interested in talking to you is I think you have a number of really, really interesting stories to go along with the fact that you host influencers, which is another really, really interesting group that I've. I've read about.

So there's nothing stopping you from creating evenings around conversations. And that might mean that you curate a group of speakers to explore a topic. Or it might mean that you bring a group of experts together from different fields or even the same field. And then you have three or four people who come and bring their businesses that are maybe struggling with something and people could get advice. But those experiences are based on learning. right? You have to pick what your core values are. And I'm just throwing out ideas. I have a friend, Andy, who

wanted to do the dinners. And I was like, listen, it's not something that I license out or anything along those lines, but we can create something for you. And he's really passionate about the arts. He was in several Broadway shows. And I said, what if we created an experience where you brought together a group of 10 people? they had a day to write, produce, and create a short play. And then in the evening, they invited all their friends to come and see it. Wow. So then you get this group of 10, 15 people, however many it is. And they're really bonded by the experience.

And they get to be creative and play and have fun. I couldn't do something like that. I mean, could I? Sure, but I wouldn't do it without enlisting the help of somebody like Andy. because I don't know enough about the industry. The point is you just have to start and you have to iterate. You have to see what works and what doesn't work. Every dinner, every salon, I change something.

I upgraded a little. It used to be that just the occasional performance would take place. Now I schedule people in advance. Then I invested into audio equipment. So now we have recordings of all the talks. And every time I just change it a little. It doesn't have to be a Broadway production from day one. Just start with a concept and start.

see where it goes. And you'll be amazed. I have friends that have game nights that go on every so often. And if long enough passes, all the participants get to start emailing him saying, when's the next one. I didn't have any celebrities when I did my first dinner. I didn't have any Nobel laureates. But by dinner 20, we had developed enough of a reputation that these people started coming. And then I also do custom events for companies. So a company will come to me and say, hey, we're launching this new product. How would you do it? And I use behavioral. science to design something. And then I invite a lot of the former dinner guests to participate. So it's this really great community of people who are highly influential, engaging with

the product in a really novel way. So are you working for a company or do you have your own business? I have a company called influencers that consults for companies and brands. And then we also partner with them with the influencers community itself. Okay. Okay. So are you big on goal setting? Do you write down your goals at every certain points of the year? Is this something that you've regularly done? Yeah, absolutely. There's a famous, I think it was a Harvard Business School study or Harvard study that looked at people who write down their goals and the likelihood that they would achieve them.

And there's an insane correlation. So yeah, I have a very clear goals for this, for essentially the next five years, which is, I want to have a popular TV show, one that's good. just popular because it's a train wreck like a reality show. Wait, so do you want it to be a show that's reality based on what you do? Not necessarily reality. I think more, I want to do one of two things. I think one is a show based on behavioral science.

So think a business show that we help companies improve their success. Not like Marcus Limonis, like the profit, things, something like that or on a different scale? Yeah, but I just wouldn't invest my money into it because I don't think that would make very much of a difference to a company. Yeah. And then I really enjoy speaking. I really enjoy sharing ideas and a message with a community of people. So I want to spend a decent portion of my time on the road speaking at universities, corporations. I do that now, but I want it at a larger scale.

I want the influencers to grow to over 1,500 people. I wanted to be essentially the premier community for the most influential people in our culture. I think it's garnered a reputation close to that, but I don't know if we're there just yet. And there are probably secret ones that I've never heard of that I'm just not cool enough yet to be invited to. And then I want to continue traveling around the world attending the craziest events I could find out about. anything from there's the tomatia in Spain where people throw tomatoes at each other to you know the love fest to anything that's out there the what is it the moon uh the moon celebrations in southeast asia and i have a book scheduled for 2016 that i'm really excited for called the two a m

principal and so i want that to be a new york times bestseller why is it called the two a m principle well i'll tell you i guess i so i've spent years studying the science of a adventure. What causes people to live fun, exciting, and remarkable lives. And my belief is that nothing good happens after 2 a.m. except for the most epic experiences of your life. So there's this drop off, especially in New York, and each city has its own 2 a.m. line, right? So in Boston, it might be 1 a.m. And San Francisco, it might be sometime around there. But there's this line that when you cross it, things generally become a lot less enjoyable. And then you regret being out so late, just end up tired. But if you actually look at the most incredible experiences of your life,

like that time you got into a dance off with Usher or, you know, snuck into some crazy party, those experiences happened after 2 a.m. But you have, there's an entire science behind knowing how to create an experience so that it is at that level, so that it is epic. And also knowing when to cut your losses so that you don't make life miserable. Wow, I can't wait read it. I like that. I have one more question about you pushing or having a goal to push the size of the influencers to 1500. I told you I just previously spoke with Jason Gainard, who is a really incredible guy. I know you guys know each other and you're talking soon as well. He had told me one thing he said was he's not looking for more breath. He's looking for more depth in his current

network, meaning I think he listed it about, he said, he said there's a law that about 150 people, but you just want to get deeper with those people. When you hear that, what do you think and how do you respond to that question in regards to wanting to grow a big, but also wanting to still get the depth that you desire? So I have a very geeky scientific answer. Good, okay, good. I think that he's right that fundamentally there's a limit to the number of people you can keep track up. The number he refers to is called Dunbar's number.

Yep. Dunbar's work was about, I think, of mammalian species and the social, there's a section of the brain that correlates to how many social interactions it can keep track of and the human brain is about 150. Now, there's another piece of research that I often referenced by two researchers. One is Christakis and the other is Fowler and they wrote a book called Connected. And what they look at is the effects of actual social networks, not like online social networks, on the way that we live our life.

And so if you are, if, Ryan, let's say you were friends with somebody who's obese, you have a, I think it was like a 40% increased chance of becoming obese. I just knowing you have a 25% chance. And that continues four degrees out, which means that the people that are in your life are having a direct impact on my life, just knowing you. Now, my objective in creating this community isn't that there's just a lot of connections to me, but that the connections between the members are stronger, so it actually has a strong network

effect. And if that's the case, hopefully the positive effects of being connected to so many extraordinary people, both directly and indirectly, will only improve the network. So I might not get to be able to keep track of everybody out of the 1500, but the 150, let's say, that I'm closest to, will still be connected to those other people. And they'll have an indirect effect on my life. And then what we do know is that when you look at how people get jobs,

a lot of it has to do with the effect of loose connections, meaning people that you don't necessarily talk too often. So when you're looking to fulfill one an objective, it's not necessarily the people that you speak to every day that will get you there. Yeah, there's Adam Grant stuff. Yeah. So I think that it's important to understand that, that I don't necessarily have to do a complete trade-off.

I can meet people two, three, four times, and they're not my best friend, and I can continue to explore deeper relationships with the people who are most important to me. But also at different points in our life, different things are important to us. And so we might spend more time with those who are more athletically inclined when we're trying to get fit, and then more work-inclined when we are trying to build our business. So I think that he's a really smart guy. It's absolutely an excellent approach.

And simultaneously, I love meeting people and hearing their stories and what they do. And I feel like I'd be missing something if I let that go. Yeah, absolutely. I get it. John, this feels like it's flown by, but I really want to be respectful of your time. I know you have a lot going on. So I just wanted to say thank you very much for being a part of this. It's an absolute pleasure.

I really enjoyed this. And I really appreciate you inviting me to participate. Absolutely. And I'm probably going to want to have you on here. And after more time passes, just to hear some more of your cool stories and the life that you are leading, very excited to hear that. So we'll probably have to do this again. That would be my pleasure. You know, maybe I'll come back when the 2 AM principal comes out.

Perfect. And I can share some of the craziest stories of my life. Except at that point, they'll be public. Yeah, I can't. I can't wait to read. I can already tell it's going to be really, really good. So anyway, I thank you again, John. I really appreciate it, man.

We'll talk soon. Absolutely. Take it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Learning Leader Show. I absolutely love doing this show, as I hope you can tell by the passion that I bring to it on a daily basis. If you enjoy this episode, I'd like to ask one thing of you. You could go to Ryanhawk.net.

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