The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 018 - Zach Gould on Unlocking the Truth of Happiness and Success

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comEntrepreneur and co-founder of G&N Insurance, Zach Gould, joins the podcast to discuss philosophy and how we unlock the truth of happiness and success. Get more here: https://ryanhanley.comLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Ryan Hanley Show. I am so glad that you are here because today I get to share with you somebody who I have grown an incredible admiration for. I've watched his career from afar for a while and then just through the course of business and life got to know him and found that even though there are things that we have different opinions on and we have different interests. In many ways, our goals as people, as humans, as particular dads and spouses and business owners align very closely. And I enjoy the depth of conversation that I can have with Zach Gould, one of the co-founders and owners of GNN Insurance, became widely known over the last few years for some of the incredible work him and his partner Matt and Amoli have done. And even though they recently sold GNN Insurance, they're still very much a part of that organization

and running that business and leading that business and continuing to produce high quality work for the individuals and organizations that GNN Insurance serves is a high priority to Zach and it's just such a pleasure to have him on the show. Before we get to Zach though, before we get there, I want to talk about something new that I'm doing. Well, we'll call it a slight course correction on something I've done for a very long time. And that's my newsletter. I've always struggled with how to deliver the most value through my newsletter. And I've done a bunch of different iterations of it. And I'm finally launching

something that I think is going to be very interesting. We'll see how it goes. If it works, we'll keep doing it. If not, we'll try something else. But starting Tuesday, October 26th, I guess it is, the day after this podcast is published, I am going to be doing a video newsletter moving forward. So once a week, I'll be dropping a unique video. It'll be an unlisted video on YouTube that just goes to subscribers of my newsletter.

We will be diving into tactics, tips, tools, resources, ideas. I'll be answering questions from subscribers. It will be our personal conversation. The people who subscribe to that newsletter and me, it'll be our personal conversation, our way to go back and forth and really allow me to add the most value to the people who are interested in the things that I can do and have experience and expertise on.

I'm excited to launch this. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I think it's going to be, I think we'll learn a lot on just how to deliver the most value through video and this type of kind of semi-private fashion. Uh, but the only way to get that video, the only way to get on that newsletter is you have to subscribe. And if you go to ryanhandley.com, you'll see a big box right on the top of the screen. Or if you go to ryanhandley.com forward slash subscribe, you can subscribe there as well. But this is a really important project to me. It allows me to be more vulnerable. It allows me to kind of even go behind the curtains even further with a lot of the stuff

that I talk about. And it allows me to be very real because this isn't video that's searchable on YouTube or on the internet. You have to have the link and you get the link through subscribing by email. So I'm excited to kick this project off. I hope you'll pause this for a second, go subscribe, and then come back and listen to this episode. But if you don't or you already are or whatever, I'm glad you're here with us today. You are going to absolutely positively love this episode. I promise you, I promise you, because I love this episode and I love you. There's so many places that I want to take this, but where I'd like to start is what I'm the most

interested in. Even though I am interested in the fact that you guys, you know, sold Gina and all that. Cause I think it's interesting. I personally have started this. I mean, it started probably started a couple of years ago, but started this journey of like digging more into like, who am I? Who do I want to be? How do I more productively interact with my kids, with my spouse, with people in the world? And I've read a lot and I've watched a lot of videos and I listen to people.

And I found that you do very similar things. Not always the same books, not always the same topics, but you spend a lot of time working on yourself and in particularly your mindset. I think for a lot of people, they either don't make time or they see that type of work as a waste of time. And I'm just really interested in how someone who is successful and productive as you are, why you carve time out of your life to think about that stuff? Yeah, it's a great question. I love leading with that.

One of my favorite, I have so many favorite quotes. I know you do too. And one of the ones that's like ringing true when you're talking about that is you need to join a tribe where your desired behavior is their normal behavior. And I would have never started working on myself if the people that I admired didn't work on themselves. I look at the people that I truly admire, they spend the

majority of their day serving others that they care about. And that could be their employees, that could be their spouse, that could be their kids, that could be their dog, just serving everyone. And then also working on themselves. They spend very little time actually worrying about the work that they are doing or putting out to the community because they're just so confident in themselves and their ability that they know when they have free time, they're just going to produce. So I think I've gotten much better at my job when I've actually the entire day has been focusing more on serving people. So I'm kind of obsessed by it. I do know that also if I liked it, I wouldn't be good at it. You got to love it, right? You know that. And I genuinely love the feeling of appreciation,

the feeling of when I'm in a room, people appreciate that I'm actually there. I'm not just a fly on the wall soaking it up. So if I want people to appreciate me, what do I have to do? I have to provide value. I have to serve them in some capacity. So it fits my personality perfectly to work on myself to serve others. Yeah. What's something you've read or engaged with lately that's really helped you bring that out? Yeah, a lot. I'm trying and it's not perfect. I'm trying to read three books a month. That's my mental goal. I know some people read way, way, way more. And I know some people don't believe in reading. That's fine. For me, it brings a lot of clarity. I genuinely try to stay in one zone though. And that zone is something around leadership,

something around management, and something around historical figures or current figures that are doing that. I don't always love what I'm reading. And I think something I would give away to other people, it's okay to put down a book and not finish it. It's like not the end of the world. I've read a couple books this year that have been like, nah, not for me. And that's okay. But too many people read a book and they're like,

I don't want to finish this. You don't have to put it away. But it's like, it's like almost like having a bad idea. You didn't go forward with, I have hundreds and hundreds of those and that's okay. So what am I reading right now? Uh, right now I'm reading Malcolm Gladwell's latest book. Um, I think it's called talking to strangers, talking with strangers. Um, I love it. I'm also reading the same book you're reading about Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, which I think is really neat. So that book is not up my alley. That's outside my comfort zone of where I typically read. So I'm challenging myself to get through that and I'm liking it so far, but Malcolm Gladwell is

more on my alley. What part of, um, what makes meditations outside your alley and Malcolm Gladwell, um, inside? Yeah. Great question. So I don't really know or appreciate who Marcus Aurelius is other than gladiator. Like I don't, uh, I don't look towards him for any kind of influence. I don't really know what he believes in who he is. So it's like all kinds of brand new knowledge. Whereas Malcolm Gladwell is talking about specific events that I can recall my own theory of what I think about that event. Whereas Marcus Aurelius is all brand new. So I say i'm gonna probably read marcus aurelius book in about two months it's gonna take me that long to get through because i'm gonna go like a

couple pages and my head's almost gonna be like whoa it's like i need to think about what i just read whereas malcolm glabell's book i'll probably finish in about two years i just i'll just plow through it and yeah i'm okay with that yeah for For those listening at home that don't know, Marcus Aurelius was an emperor of Rome. He's actually in the movie Gladiator. He is the emperor that dies at the very beginning. And his son, Commodus, is a scumbag who kills, what's his face, his Maximus, his family.

And then that's the plot for the whole movie. But in real life communist was an a-hole um and Marcus Aurelius was this really interesting emperor who and one half is I'll tell you what I found really interesting about it so I'm this has been like a textbook so I I came into his world his purview by through the Ryan Holiday's trilogy uh obstacles the way ego is the enemy and then his most latest one stillness is the key yeah I I am a die-hard Ryan Holiday fan the way he views the world is very much the way I would hope someday I view the world and I know he's he self-proclaimed work in progress as well. I like that about him. Very humble guy, whatever.

So he introduces stoic philosophy, which is a fairly obscure vein of 2,100 year old philosophy. And Marx is one of many, we'll call him thought leaders of that day, even though it's banned generations. And what's most interesting about him and his work to me because because he i'm the opposite malcolm gladwell i think is awesome i love listening to malcolm gladwell i like his podcast i find his books to be mad and i'll and and and here's why this is why i find this to be so interesting is like, I just, to me, here's what I like about

meditations. This is 2000 years old, and it's still valuable. That to me says there's something in here. There's some key that unlocks people in a way that I don't know that I necessarily have yet. I've written, this is like a textbook. It's more blue pen now than it is actual typed word. But I'm like, what is the key to this that unlocks people? And Malcolm Gladwell may have that in his book. But like, to me, I'm like, there's something in here that for 2000 years, people have been copying this to the point where books would be falling apart, and they'd be recopying them again. It's so valuable. And I just, I'm like, what is that key? What am I, there's got to be something in there. And I don't know, maybe that's if that it's just interesting why some people are turned

on and other people aren't. I, I agree. I think, um, I didn't really know much about stoicism until I actually kind of read through that book in the beginning. I really love the intro of meditations. Um, this particular one, I know there's many good copies and many different. Yeah. Are you reading the Greg Hayes translation as well? Exactly. Yeah. That's the one. If anyone's listening at home get the greg hayes translation this is the best it's got a good intro because for me i was coming in a blind actually i forget who um i was listening to a podcast and someone just blurted out hey buy this book you'll

thank me later they didn't even like it was just like a little cliff note and i literally while i was listening to the podcast just went on amazon and it. It was like four bucks. It was super cheap. And I blindly got that one and I really appreciated the intro because I did not know what I was getting into. I thought I was reading someone's journal and understand like what was happening. So him taking 20, 30

or 40 pages and really detailing out getting me into okay here's how he was born and here's some of the why behind maybe he would have even written stuff down like i didn't understand the challenges of being an orphan and everything that was kind of going through it was it's really interesting book yeah i really liked it yeah yeah i it what's funny is and again and and i i don't mean that in any way to knock malcolm gladwell because i think incredibly highly of him and his work.

And I actually love his podcast. And anytime he's interviewed by anyone who I respect, I immediately listen to it. And I've listened to it twice. I think the way he thinks about the world is tremendous. And what's interesting, I think, just thinking about philosophy in general and why you would even take this on, because so of who who i am has changed like if you were to snapshot me now versus me at like 18 20 i'd be like philosophy like what the hell like why would you even think about that now it's like i wish i could go back and be in my 20s when i don't have anything to do so i could read all

this stupid crap that they used to assign us i just cheated through all the testing you know but would you have been in a spot that you would have actually absorbed it because i know for me like i probably would have taken the same approach i thought at 22 i already knew it all whereas now at 36 i'm finally starting to ask questions yeah in this time frame so i don't know i think uh know, you might have a different moment. For me, it was kids. I know for a fact when I started to say to myself, you know what, like I actually have no idea how to sleep train a child. And what I don't want to do is just ask my mom or Kristen's mom every single time I have a question. I don't want to do is just ask my mom or Kristen's mom every single

time I have a question. I don't want to be that parent. I also don't, and no disrespect, I don't want to post on Facebook, like, how do you put down a kid and have 17,000 replies? Because my personal theory, and I'm trying to morph this around around is I don't want to take advice from my broke friend on finance. Now I do want to find out maybe the misstep I want to find out, like maybe the colossal misstep by them I could learn from, but I don't want to take advice on to what I'm going to do with my finances because right now I'm not broke. And therefore like, I don't really need that. So if I put out in the Facebook community, hey, got a new son, Mason, like, what's your advice? Like, I'm going to get variety of

information from people I actually don't respect or do respect as parents, or people who maybe aren't parents. Here's how I did my dog. Like, it doesn't really help. Now, that's when I started to get into books, because I read this book, you know, and I was 12 hours, 12 weeks, something like that. And we did it with Mason. I was like, wow, that was really helpful. And then since then, I've just been on a book journey of just what's helpful. So meditations fits. Going back to our original comment, it will take me more time because i think it's it's it's

bigger than me it's to your point you're writing through it out my way of um of reading books i'm on the page folder and what i typically do is i go slow to a meditation type book and then i either have one of two options i either read the whole thing, or I only go to the pages I've turned. So Simon Sinek's The Infinite Game, I'm on my third reading of it. I'm just interested in it. I'm just constantly picking. It's always in my bag.

But other times, I'll just go to the folded pages. Yeah, that's interesting. I tend to, so I learned about a year and a half ago, I picked up this book from a guy I subscribed to his newsletter. I think he's very smart. I think he thinks about the world in a very anti-mimetic way. I think he, he, and he, so he intrigues me. So he wrote a book and it was slightly off of what I was interested in, but I was like, I bet there's some interesting stuff in this book, even though the topic wasn't exactly what I was interested in. I got 30 pages into that thing. And I was like, I hate this. I hate it. Like no part of it was anything that I was interested in. I found it to be so off. I read, I ended up finishing the book,

like out of like, please give me something you know like I you know what I mean like I wanted to support them and everything and I did I bought the hard cover version for $30 or whatever and uh and I just got to the end of it and I was like oh this was like and I'm sure I've read reviews I'm sure it's helped people but it just and I was like I'm never doing that again even if it's's somebody else, the $30 was a donation. Here you go. You know what I mean? Like I get it.

People put effort into writing books. I like to support them, especially people I like, but like, I will never plow through another book. If after the first 30 pages, I say it's terrible. Again, the ones I do, I am with you. Like I'm halfway through Jordan Peterson's book for a second time, which is like the 800 pages. That to me is like 800 pages. That to

me is like a textbook. It's folded. It's bent. It's the bindings all torn apart. I have notes everywhere because I don't know. I just feel like, and then I try to go back and I do book notes and sometimes I'll publish them. Sometimes I don't, but just like going back through and like typing out, taking my notes and then typing them, really helps me capture some of the ideas. But to your point, I think you learned that from somebody probably outside yourself, because you're not a student, as you said, growing up, I wasn't a student growing up either. And where I kind of learned a little bit this year, and specific, I'll call out somebody, you know, in love as well. Her name is Danny Kimball. And one of the things that I admired about her is we attended a conference together and it was

story brand. And I got to tell you, when I've attended conferences in the past, I know the seat I sit in. It's all the way back there. Okay. And I sit all the way back there because I'm almost like, I don't even really want to be here anyways. And thankful. I'm very thankful for her because she basically grabbed my hand and was like, Hey, second row, that's where we're going to go. I was like, wow. Not only that, she put out like all of these like journals of notes that she was ready to take. And I'm like, how are you like, assuming this is going to be that good? Like it's, I read the book, like I know this, like why are you going? But then I started taking out notebooks too. And I was like, okay, like I'm not just going to, I'm not gonna be some slouch next to her. It's like not taking notes. It was the most valuable conference I've

ever attended in my entire life. I wonder, is it that valuable because I was in that mental state going into it saying to myself, this has got to be like super valuable. Now I did the exact same thing when Seth Godin came to speak. I did the Danny Kimmel method. I literally sat in the second row and brought out tons of notes. And I saw the person on my left, like, huh, he only had a cell phone out and he put his cell phone down and took out notes and started taking notes as well. So it's almost like that theory is passing on now i bring up that story because i don't know who started who i can't remember the moment but i know it probably happened to me for books because i was not a page turner i was not a note taker of books and now i am and you are too and you

weren't before i would love to try to to figure out how we started doing that. Yeah, I don't know. If I had to take a guess, I've listened to probably 95% of James Altucher's 500 plus episodes of his podcast. I remember the day that he launched it. I listened to the very first episode and I've listened to probably 95% of that podcast. I mean, I basically feel like the last seven years of my life have been, I've had him between my ears. And he explains in detail sometimes how much, how he just destroys books from the standpoint of like their, their pristineness because he writes

in them and no takes in them and does all the stuff it may be him i may just i think it's possible that i just said geez here's a guy who i don't always agree with and like i've listened to like i said 95 of his podcasts and i disagree with him quite often on some of his takes, but I admire deeply the way that he's able to look at the second, third, and fourth level of something and ask questions at that level. So as an interviewer, I use him as a contextual framework, and I'm sure it just sunk in. If this guy is doing, if this guy's operating at this level

and one of the things he does is put more effort into the books that he reads, I can probably do that too. Like, wouldn't I be an a-hole for not doing that? Oh, I don't have to do that. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Like, that would be crazy.

And I think that's part of it is like, here's the other thing I think I'm interested in your take on that is that at some point you make the decision you either want more of yourself or you're okay exactly the way you are and I think you can choose to want more at any given time. I think at some point in the last few years, I decided that I wanted more of myself and books had to be a part of that. That like, if you know what I mean? Like this is 2000 years old, right? There has to be something in here.

Even if it takes me 10 reads to figure it out. Even if it takes me, you to figure it out. Even if it takes me, you know, looking at something and then listening to this and then hearing Ryan Holiday and then hearing someone else and going, Oh, now I get it. But like, I want more of myself. I want to be able to be a better version of myself, whether it's for my kids or for my spouse, or just so I don't wake up every day feeling like an a-hole. You're right. You're right on. I think what you're hitting at is that you're not expecting progress. You're kind of just enjoying the process along the way. You're enjoying reading. You're enjoying writing. It's pouring out of you, but you're not necessarily doing that just for progress. You actually enjoy it.

Going back to how we first started this podcast, I think that's one of the secrets is I enjoy an uphill climb. I do. I don't really get to the top of the mountain and want to take the most pictures. I think it's really important to celebrate success, but I'm not necessarily only going uphill just to take the pictures. I'm actually going uphill because I just kind of like it. And I do. So I personally enjoy getting up early in the morning and reading. I used to get up very early in the morning and do work. And one of the reasons I stopped was because I realized I'm not trying to be really better than anybody else. So why am I working so damn early? Like, why? What's the point? If I don't answer that email, like if I answer that email at four or three in the morning, nobody else is saying, wow, I'm so happy he's a psycho. He's a psycho. Whereas now I can just get up and read. And I feel like I've accomplished more than anybody would expect of me today. So I'm really enjoying

the process. And I can tell you are too. Do you journal at all? I used to. For three years, I did it almost every day. And it still sits up in my bedroom. What got you into journaling and what got you out of journaling? What got me into journaling is I was really working on something internal. I was a little bit overly negative on my progress. When I started journaling, Matt and I were $300,000 in debt in GNN. And it was really a turning point where I just said to myself, like, I'm working my tail off. Everybody's telling me you're doing a good job, but my bank account is saying you need to find a job. So I was really, I was struggling with that mentality. And rather than take it out on people, what I decided to do is just write. I followed a very

simple, my own mixed mash, where it was your basic, how you're feeling, one thing you're grateful for, what's going to make today a win, general thoughts. And then actually on my very last thing, I wrote something about KG every single day that made me happy from the last 24 hours. And that was my own personal way about doing it. Now, I did it for three years and I loved it. And it's still up there. And I reference it from time to time. But again, kind of just like reading a book you don't want to do anymore. I'm okay stopping journaling.

I personally said to myself, it's becoming a chore. I'm actually not enjoying doing it anymore. And oddly enough, the reason I was doing it in the first place, I had fixed. So now it was just journaling and be like, everything's great. It's awesome. Like things are good. And I was like, I don't really, I don't need this. What about yourself? Do you, I don't, I, well, I don't know. Do you, do you think that journaling helped you wrap your head around things? Like, do you think it played a role in the turnaround in making the decisions that were necessary to not have to journal anymore?

I mean, tell me the moment you fell in love with your wife. I mean, like, you can't answer that. I mean, that's Simon Sinek's quote, right? He's like, you can't answer that exact moment.'s Simon Sinek's quote right he's like you can't answer that exact moment probably the first time she tried to break up with me but I actually probably know the answer to that question no but I mean like it's difficult like because you made a really massive turn from like liking her loving her to want to spend the rest of your life with her etc and um you can probably pinpoint relatively the, but there's a lot of moments that led up to that moment, of course,

right? I don't know the moment that was turnaround. I just know that if I didn't journal, I probably wouldn't even be at as good of a spot as I am now. Like, I don't know the best book I've read this year, but I know that all 34 of them have mattered so far. Yeah. I think that's a really good way to look at it because one of the things that I've taken away from, from a lot of the books that I've read spanning different eras whether it's like, I started to get into a little like Carl's young which is really heady stuff. Really contemporary stuff like Jordan Petersonerson some of the transcendentalists um like uh thoreau and and uh i really like emerson although you have to you have to dig into them a little bit

you know what i mean like and it sounds this sounds like a this sounds like a 10th grade like reading class or whatever like english class but it's really interesting stuff and then you take it all the way back to some of the things that I've read, you know, from some of these early philosophers. And, you know, they all come back to this idea of like being in the moment, right? This moment right now, where we are right here. And I can be terrible about that. And I find it to be a major failing of mine

is I will dwell on the past, but even worse, I create false scenarios of what's gonna happen in the future. And I allow things that haven't actually happened to dictate my current mood and my actions. And I think we all just just I think that's our natural state. And then you work to get out of that. And, you know, when I when I think about what you just said, I have a feeling that journaling acted as a tool for a period of time that you needed to stay

centered to get through your, your this, this tough time. And even though whether it was journaling or something else, whether you know, you'd like to see on Instagram, you like to shoot hoops, right? Like, moments where you took a half hour to go shoot hoops could have been your journaling, it just happened to be that thing at that time, or a combination of it was just bringing you back to the present. So you could solve problems. I feel like that thing, whether it's journaling or something else, journaling just isn't what I particularly need. I have other mechanisms, I think. I find it to be interesting, but I have never really taken it on. I think

that's the key is being able to put yourself back into the moment that you actually are in. Yeah, I think for me, going back to one of my goals is my phone was causing me stress. I wanted to find out a way not to really look at my phone first thing when I get out. I know for a fact that if I get up and check my phone, I will do things differently in the morning than I normally would. And so I go back to my original stuff that I was saying to you about like, who do I admire? Who do I want to become? And I don't have that one specific person.

Like I couldn't look and say like Arnold Schwarzenegger or something. I do love Arnie though. I love him. You're pretty cool. But I'd be filling up a shirt a lot more than I currently am. But I do think to myself, okay, like the person I want to become, um, is, is the person who really, uh, balances being a dad, um, with, um, with achieving what they really want to do. And there's a lot more to it.

I want to be a great husband. Um, but you know, these kinds of things fall in line and business just so happens to be down the road. So if that's how I want to become, like when I check my phone in the morning, I'm already telling myself what you Ryan are doing and what my clients are saying to me and my referral partners are saying to me is actually more important than anything I'm going to do for myself. So that's kind of how journaling started that whole mentality. Now it's become reading and it's become writing. And then it's just become straight into that. So it actually is, I still carry the traits on to your point. I just do something different.

Yeah. I still accomplish the goal, not every day, but almost every day of not checking my phone for the first hour in the morning and the last hour at night. Yeah, that's good. The last hour and night thing, I have mastered that. I don't check my phone at night. Yeah, that's good. The last hour and night thing I have mastered that I, I don't I don't check my phone at night. I've been pretty good. The morning sometimes I will I usually get sometimes I get about a half hour into my reading and I like need just a break from the words and I'll look at Twitter or something. Yeah. And then I'll come back. I try to avoid email though. That's the big one. If I can stay away from email like a couple, you know, if I can just check Twitter real quick or LinkedIn, just see like if anyone commented, you know, or posted something interesting, but like, man, if you get into your inbox too early,

it can mess your whole day up. So your, your inbox, sorry to interrupt you, but your, your email inbox is somebody else to do list for you. Right. It's like, I'm just doing that. I really believe that where i think if you go towards twitter like that's okay like there's a social interaction that in a mission you're trying to accomplish with your twitter and with your back and forthness and you documenting your journey i i like that balance yeah so i think i think people can buy that they need to read something or engage in something deeper um their own thoughts, although spending time with your own thoughts is very important. I think it's, you know, whether it's reading articles or books or listening to podcasts, you know, just tangentially, I think it's important to go long form.

I think what's powerful about, say, Joe Rogan is he does three hours. I think what's powerful about a book is it takes eight to 10 hours to read a book. I think articles can be great, but I don't know that it's ever enough more than, than a reminder or, or as a feeder for something that's deeper. I think real change comes from deeper, but long story short, or wow, I hate when I say that, where I really want to ask you is, is okay, so you're doing this work, right? You're, you're, you're reading, you're taking in Malcolm Gladwell, you're taking in Marcus Aurelius. It's really easy, then, when you go like, so okay, so you're in your house, you're reading that hour before you're taking all this stuff in, you're coming out, you go like, so, okay, so you're in your house, you're reading that hour before you're taking all this stuff in, you're coming out, you're very, you know, you're glowing

with philosophical genius. And then you walk into the office and you revert back to baser Zach. Like, how do you make sure that you apply the things that you take in through, through the 34 books that you've read this year? How do you make sure that you take those things you've taken in, you actually apply? Do you have a mechanism for that? Do you have someone that holds you accountable? How do you hold yourself accountable to actually implementing those changes? Ever-changing. It always changes. So asking for feedback is difficult and getting feedback when you're the boss is even harder because people are really challenged to give it to you. But the getting and giving feedback takes time.

One thing I have done recently that has given me joy is I do about two to three emails now per week to the entire team. And what I do is I BCC them all. I'm not looking for replies. I'm not, that's not the point of it, but I'm just kind of giving them some insight into like what I'm thinking about. And I always tie it back into our purpose, like what we're actually trying to do at GNN. And I've had multiple people from my team in the last couple of weeks come up to me and just say like, Hey, thanks for sending those emails.

Like it just helps a little bit. And that matters to me because I feel like I'm bringing all this content and then I'm serving my community by, by talking about it. I think too often we're going on social media and writing these long form posts, but then the people around us were actually not helping. So I'm trying to make sure that I'm actually helping my community and the people that are really striving towards my cause 5x, 10x more than I'm actually trying to help the other people in social media. And that has been a really cool purpose for me is going back to why does GNN exist? What are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish? Well, we exist for our referral partners, and we're trying to make sure that our clients don't have a cookie cutter policy when they're purchasing a home.

It's very simple. And we need to be reminded all the time. So that's your direct answer to your question. I love that. Um, I think that it is very easy to look at this bigger game and lose sight of the one that you're actually playing. I think it's very, very easy to do. I know I fall prey to that. I have just in my own work conversations that we've had privately around. Probably every time I talk to you, I say, Zach, should I just stay in the insurance industry or should I, you know, work outside the insurance industry? What do you think? I'd

probably ask you that question like 40 times, but I give you the wrong advice probably every single time. Well, it's, you know, it's, it's, and, and you have to keep coming back to where, who's your community, who are your people and, and, and who do you actually want to serve and, and, and then actually serving them. So I love that idea. I love that internal newsletter. I think that's a wonderful thing. I think, I think that everyone, so a guest I had previously on the show, her name is Tamsyn Webster. She's actually from Boston. She is a gangster. She's the best. She's the best. I have been blessed with two of my favorite guests I've ever interviewed. And for anyone who doesn't know, I've had two prior podcasts that were interview shows. One was Content Warfare. I interviewed 360 people. And one was the Duarte and Tamsyn Webster, who I've just interviewed recently in the last few months are two absolute gangsters. They're the best.

If you are not following their work and just, just connected to them, just watch what they do. Don't, you don't have to intergage with them. Just watch what they do. It's so good. They're so smart. So here's a, I don't know know you probably can't see this on here tamsin webster like i have notes on one of her speeches just like in my phone just because i like i thought to myself i was like this is someone i should just understand the red thread is something i believe in i i've read i bought the course it's awesome so my next so i have this keynote which i'm which i'm working on rolling out in 2020

called action is the answer and it's all red thread it's i'm using all her workbooks i'm going through every video i'm working back and forth like she's so freaking smart it's crazy and um and uh now i can't even remember oh so what i've I've seen, so Tamsen Webster. So what she says, which I think is brilliant, is as leaders, you cannot inspire your people. You can't inspire them. It doesn't exist. It's not a thing you can do. What you can do, however, as a leader is create the conditions for inspiration. And I think something like putting together an email that throws a thought out into the world that half your people don't even read, a quarter of your people don't connect to, but those quarter who do connect to it, you just created a condition for their inspiration. You can, it's a, now there's an

environment in which what you said is this is something we're, we, we we're into at GNN. And if you're into it, then here, here's a, here's an escalator up. And, uh, I love that, man. I think that's tremendous. It's going to be something we're going to do. Like we're launching a newsletter. Um, believe it or not, like we consider ourselves relatively good marketers and we haven't had a newsletter in like seven years. And I would say it's just because we didn't know what we wanted to say. Like we actually, and I'd rather take a pause. Again, we've grown 30% year over year for a long time and we do not have a newsletter. Like it's okay. And life goes on. Like you don't necessarily need to have one. Like you, there's a lot of ways to do business. But what Matt and I are thinking about is we're going to start having a newsletter. And it's just like from the desk of Matt, from the desk of Zach, like, here's what we're working on internally. And here's what we're thinking about. No, like, thank you for referring all of our clients. Hey, remember, it's umbrella policy season. It's always umbrella policy season.

Like, this is so stupid. It's life insurance month. No, it's not. Every month is life insurance month. I'm so sick of those. So back to like her theory is like, and Seth Godin's theory is like, do you matter? And I really believe that we matter. And I'm going to start talking about why, what we're doing on a daily basis to matter to you. And we're going to put that out there, not to other insurance agents, not to our Facebook fans. We're going to put that out there to our clients and say, here's what we're doing every day

to matter to you. And if we do matter to you, tell a friend. If not, please just pay your bill. Like, here's what we're doing every day to matter to you. And if we do matter to you, tell a friend. If not, please just pay your bill. Like it's okay. Like life moves on. I can't wait to launch that newsletter. I can't wait. I'm so excited. Because to your point, I'm not going to have to make this uber graphical. I'm just going to write. And I'm excited. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Um, so the so an idea so I'm, I, I am the type of person that throws a million things up on the wall. So I don't, I always have a million things going on. And I kind of hate that about myself. Because the fact that you've waited until you had something to say to have a million things going on and I kind of hate that about myself because the fact that you've

waited until you had something to say to have a newsletter, which I'm sure wasn't the only reason, but you know, it's part of the issue. I think that's very admirable and enviable from my standpoint because I always rush in before a tremendous amount of planning goes in i'm just like newsletter fuck it let's do it what are you gonna say i don't know no i do you need a balance though because that does work um i just know eventually i'd punt it eventually i would not do the work all the time but you're somebody who when you start something you're gonna going to finish it. Yeah. Well, so it's funny. It's funny. So it's funny you say that Zach. So I that's not always true. That's not a hundred percent true. And particularly with the newsletter. So I've had an email list through MailChimp for seven years. And there are people who could be listening to

this podcast that have been subscribed to that newsletter list for seven years. I've had probably a dozen iterations of the format of the content, the day that it arrives. And I'm about to launch my 13th version of that content. Because to your point, to the thing you said is, is do you matter, right? And how do you deliver your best content? And I think there's a couple in your best work in general. And I think one thing, I think planning patience is amazing. And I wish that I had more of that. When I do sit down and take my time, I do my best work for sure. But the other side of that is, and the thing that I think a lot of people can't be afraid of, and not that you were just in general, is that it's okay to make changes, right? It's okay to start something. And instead of stopping it, just do it slightly different. And I think I think that's okay, too. But basically, my I'm switching my newsletter up

to being a video newsletter, because I think I do my best work in front of the camera. Yeah. I don't know anybody else that does that. And basically, what I'm doing is unlisted YouTube videos, just to my newsletter list. So once a week, it'll be super raw, it'll just be like this, just boom, here's what I'm thinking. Here's five things I saw to do this. Here's a great resource. You know, Zach Gould said something amazing. Here's a quote from him. Boom, done out and have a nice week because I just think it's an engage. I want to engage people. Like I want them, I want it to be more conversational. And that's the thing that I think gets lost a lot of times in newsletters in particular, is that it's like, let me barf on you. And if you don't understand the value of that, screw you, but you better still stay subscribed. Right. And I really want to get

to, I think conversation, conversation is the future. I think it's what's smart about Gary V going to text message because it's so easy to respond via text um i think that if if you're i think when when blogs lost their commenting feature when that went away not that you can't have when you can but is completely out of it's completely passe for people to comment on blogs themselves i think a huge portion of of the thought leadership that happened inside of certain web properties was lost when comments went away. I think, you know, trolls are obviously a problem. But, like, there used to be incredible conversations around topics on these obscure websites because you had an interest in a thing and that's lost today. And I think bringing that back. And in this case, you speaking directly to the people that are most important to you

and providing them with a way to hit, respond and talk to you like that, that to me is that to me is the future because if people haven't paid attention, social media is going away. Like from a standpoint of like it being a useful tool outside of just broadcasting shit at you. Like you have to be ready for a world where social media does not help you grow your business. It's just another advertising platform. That day is coming. And I think things like newsletters, I think text conversations, text subscription services, however we want to figure that out. I think that's the best way to do it i think to your point i mean there's the quote out there like play stupid games win stupid prizes yeah and i like i think naval said that and i just look at it like that is like

perfect like i'm not trying to play a social media game i'm not trying to win a stupid prize what i'm trying to do is matter to my clients. And I feel like the majority of GNN's clients is Matt and my demographic. They're around 35. They're in a house. That's kind of how we got them. They could be 55, they could be 25, but they're in that range. And we can speak to them about what we're trying to do to matter to them on a daily basis or what we're working on. And I'm excited for it because we're going to be a little vulnerable. Hey, like we're working on one of our mission, sorry to go off and off and off, but our mission is to have a better process for our realtors,

loan officers and closing attorneys. Right? So we're not saying we're the best and we're trying to have a better process. If we're trying to have a better process, what are you working on? We're going to start talking about that. Now there's also, there's some great books out there. One of the better ones I read this year was the power of moments. And it really talked about how you don't necessarily remember the entire experience or the experiences that have to be remember the entire experience. The experience doesn't have to be great the whole way. It just has to be remarkable in very small moments throughout the experience.

And then you kind of toss it away. And they kind of relate it to going to Disney. I mean, going to Disney World with your kids is a nightmare probably. I mean, we're going to do it pretty soon. And it is probably one of the more stressful times to like get down there with the entire family. But you have these like incredible high moments. And I've never heard someone not recommend going to Disney. But that does not mean it was remarkable the entire way.

It's just a powerful moment. We want to create powerful moments during the process for our realtors, loan officers, closing attorneys, so that the insurance policy isn't cookie cutter for their clients. It's time to start talking about what we're working on and what we're doing and invite them to a conversation to tell us what we could be better at. I'm excited. See, on so many levels,

I think this is going to be tremendous for you guys. You used the word vulnerability. I think that's a big part of it. You're going to, so there's a, like psychologically, because you're going to be willing to show vulnerability into the process, people are going to be more apt to excuse the moments that they don't appreciate. Because what you're saying is, look, we're working on this. So if something doesn't work, they're going to go, oh, I'm going to tell Zach, this part isn't working and help him make it better instead of, Oh, look at these guys,

they're changing everything. This is terrible. I'm going someplace else. Because what you're saying, you're showing them, Hey, like we're going to make some course corrections small in some places, big and others to help you. And, and by telling them that they're, they're going to be, feel like they're coming along for the journey instead of being pushed along for the journey. And I think those are two very different things. Yeah, you're, you're totally right. And there are some companies that can do that via social media. And there are some companies that can't, uh, I think we're kind of done trying to be a social media company. I think it's, it's great.

We have 6,000 or so or whatever, 10,000 or whatever amount of followers we have across all platforms. That's super duper. That's wonderful. But they don't interact with us very often other than just hitting the like button and saying congratulations on whatever. I don't want the like button. I don't, I don't care about the like button. What I really care about is like, if you, if something's bothering you, I hope we have a platform that you can talk to us about it other than writing an angry email when it actually

happens. And I don't know, it's just, it's grabbing me that this could be an interesting way. We've thought about a lot of different ways, but what is the easiest way to communicate? It seems like email or text. It's just very, very simple. Yeah. I appreciate and love what Gary's doing. I'm not going to give out my cell phone though. But I appreciate and love what he's doing. And like you said earlier, he put out a post like this week or I don't know, like a couple of days ago where he, he made the firm announcement,

which I was waiting for. He made the firm announcement that in 10 years, he thinks social media is going to be like kaput, not necessarily gone, but it's going to be like a pay for service or something of that nature. And that's why he's really doing this cell phone beta test, which I think is so incredibly intelligent. I think he's smart. Yeah. I, so I completely agree with him. You can already see it happening. Um, if you, so I've been doing a lot of tests lately on the big four, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook around how to, so for me, my YouTube channel is a big part of my business being speaker and a consultant. I need people to see me like the written word is

great, but I need them to see who I am, hear my cadence, how I talk about things so that they can feel comfortable hiring me for their business or for their event. That's, that's important to me. So I want people to go to my YouTube channel. I don't necessarily want to, even though I do native video and I know native video is like the best practice I wanted to see like for me it's it's it's tougher for me to track what's going on it's tougher it just and then it's gone it hits it's gone I don't love native video inside of social I don't love that because to me it's more about a long tail I want you to be able to consume not just that particular video but be able to see the the story arc and the narrative of all the content that I'm creating. Okay. Maybe that's selfish. Maybe it's not, I don't know. But if you try to

push people off of social media onto any other platform, your website, another social media platform, your YouTube channel, you do not get the reach. You are throttled incredibly hard. Now I'm going to, I'm going to give you just a quick idea of this. So I posted a video pretty short natively to LinkedIn. It was like a minute and 30 seconds. It was like how to be uncomfortable. I don't, I'm looking at this book. Like it has the answer how to be uncomfortable and whatever. It doesn't matter. It was like some like just short leadership thing that I picked up from some book I was reading. I was like, Oh, this is cool. I'm just going to talk about this for a second. Okay. bam, posted it natively on every platform.

Then I put it on YouTube. And I shared the same thing like a few days later, with YouTube. I didn't care so much about the click throughs, because I knew it wouldn't get as many like views. What I cared about was how many people did each one of those platforms actually show that post to. It was insane. We're talking like 20%. So if, if a thousand people saw the LinkedIn native video, the one that I just uploaded the video directly to LinkedIn, 200 people saw the YouTube one. So if you think that that's not already happening today, and I'm not talking to you specifically. No, no, I, I'm like happening. I'm beating your, I'm beating your drum. Yes, it is absolutely happening. Social media as a tool to drive,

to dive anything outside of brand recognition. And I will give it that it still has incredible power for brand recognition. But if you're actually trying to drive people to properties, it is, it's gone today. It doesn't exist today. We, you know, our story, I mean, we did, we hired someone to follow us around from 2016 for two years every day. And, you know, we did a vlog Gary V style and like he said to do, and we did it. And one of the many reasons that propelled us forward but why do i bring that up one of our first strategies in like 2016 so way back was to post it on youtube and share it on facebook and even then facebook gave us the finger it was like uh that's not happening yep they knew that a long time ago. But when we posted it natively on Facebook, the views were in the tens of thousands.

And that was great. Not a humble brag. It's just true. Now, when we did it from YouTube to Facebook, it was like 200. Now, we were able to judge that those were real views based on engagements and based on interactions and outbound. So it was legit. But I go all the way back around to what Gary Vee is saying. This isn't my original thought. I've heard you talk

about it too. It's just like these services are free. So in general, unless you're sponsoring ads, they're free. So therefore when they put handcuffs on you, they're making money. I'm okay with companies making money, whether they're Facebook or whether they're John Smith insurance agency. Now, when you have a newsletter, like you said, or when you have texts or when you have emails, the best thing about emails is they don't cost a buck to send. Like that's awesome. I mean, they talk about this all the time. Like one of the stupidest things, like one of the things I should have done is made email cost money. Can you imagine if every single time you sent an email, a newsletter cost you a cent? Maybe you'd write more. Actually, this is Seth Godin's own original thought.

He says that you should treat email like every email costs a buck. I believe that. I know you, of all people, you treat every social media post as if it cost a buck. You put time, energy, effort, and you go through it and how it's written in the copy and the image. It's very selected. You're very organized in how you do it. But too often I see people throw out a shitty newsletter after they spent so much time on social. Social media people are not buying your stuff. As you just said, it's incredibly difficult to funnel them through.

But people you're emailing, they have the easiest way to funnel through. Take your time. Yeah. It's also a direct feedback loop. If I think if you send me something crappy, maybe I give you another shot. You send me two crappy emails in a row, unsubscribe, it's over. So, you know, a big part of, I just mentioned the video email is that I had been sending a new email every time I published a piece of content on my website. And I was seeing 15

unsubscribes every time I did that. And literally I was getting, and here's the interesting part, I was getting people and they're like, Ryan, I get your stuff through LinkedIn. I get your stuff through this format over here. And that's not what I wanted because I know that coming in the very near future, the only two things that are going to be worth is text and email. Those are going to be the two most valuable things that you can have for your business are those two pieces of information. Do I have permission to text you or do I have permission to email you? And if I don't have those two things, I have nothing, nothing. I very firmly agree. It was interesting. I've, I've had a dated website for a little while now. When I say dated, I mean, we updated like a year ago to me, that's dated.

And I want to get the message, right? It's been on my, my to-do list so long. It just hasn't mattered because I realized that I look at the numbers that go, I'm impressed by the number of people that do go, but I track where they go and the pages they actually go are the ones that don't need updates. So I'm like, Oh, I'll get to that later. And to your point, like things just stop mattering. And I started to realize that we, we track weekly behaviors and we track a lot of weekly metrics about what drives our business. And nobody, we, people were referring more or less because we were doing a lot on social. It was just nice to see. It was up with, but when we have direct communication, it's when the magic happens.

It's so to me, and I want to be respectful of your time. And we never even talked about your business, which is probably a good thing for you, since there's like seven other podcasts that you've done that talk about it. That's fine. This is just more interesting stuff to me than, than your than what's going on there. I'm happy for you, obviously. but, but this is more interesting. I think that social to me is, is, is the baseline, right? Like you can't be terrible at it. And someone can't go to your page and see 72 followers. And the last time you posted was 2016. You, you have to, you know, consistent on brand posts, which consistency is relative. There's no right or wrong answer for it, but consistent on brand stuff that adds some value. And I do think that there's a level of social validation. So if you're a decent sized business, people have some internal

metric, Hey, they're this size business. They should have approximately this many followers. And as long as you're close, they're like, checkbox. Okay, these guys are doing the work, they're there. But it doesn't drive, that doesn't drive your business. I will say that if you're willing to pay, and you're willing to make advertising part of your business, that that's a little different story. It's also a different model. It's certainly a different model from what you guys are doing. And it greatly depends on who you're going after. And if you're trying to crack a new market, stuff like that, but couldn't agree with you more. The last thing, and then I want to let you go is I'm just really, and this is maybe seems kind of random, but I'm just really interested in your take, like in-person events, breathing the same air. There's a lot of,

there's, there's always this conferences are dying conferences are you know not as important like where do you stand on paying money to to share space with somebody just to be in that same ecosystem whether it's someone you never actually meet but is up on stage or just milling around with like-minded people um big events, small events, just like where do you stand on that particular topic? Great question. If my tribe's there, I'm there. If the people I wanna be around are there, I'm there. Now, if there's 10,000 college kids and me,

like I don't think I should be there. I think that like I need to be around. If other dads and other moms who are trying to do the same things I'm trying to do are in the crowd, I belong there. And then I don't care how much money it costs. Like, I don't care. As a, for instance, I recently, for 500 bucks, I bought a ticket to go watch Seth Godin speak. Whatever.

I mean, I've read his books. He was in Boston. Seemed like a good idea. And from there, I saw Tamsin. And I watched her speech. And I was like,'ve read his books. He was in Boston. Seemed like a good idea. And from there, I saw Tamsyn. And I watched her speech. And I was like, this person's amazing. I didn't really know about this person. And then I realized, oh, my God, she was on your podcast like two weeks earlier.

You start realizing that, like, okay, the only reason I went there was because of Seth Godin. And then it opened up many doors. And then just going all the way around but last uh last week I was out uh at a um I met up with uh JJ from Storybrand he actually came to Boston he hit me up and he was like I'm in the town saw him and he was presenting the guy who was there with him was one of Seth Godin's best friends oddly enough of all people and I started jiving with him and he is the one who turned me on to this new Malcolm Gladwell book. So you start going all the way through.

I would have not done any of that without purchasing a $500 ticket to go watch Seth Godin regurgitate something I'd already probably heard before, but hadn't heard it in that manner. Secondarily shout out Danny Kimball. I was in the second row and I had notes. Now all of this matters. So I probably will pay for a conference a quarter, I would say is what I would do. And I'm okay with all of them being terrible. As long as I'm going for a person that I really respect is on stage, I don't necessarily care about the overall experience. I just really want to get close. So if any of the authors I read in books this year, come to speak in Boston, that's a great opportunity.

Yeah. I don't necessarily really care about insurance conferences. I apologize for saying that out loud, but like, I, I'm going to go to IAOA out of just sheer respect for what Nick and Dave built. I'm going to be in the room. I'm going to be chatting with tons of other insurance professionals and I respect all of that. I think they're amazing. Some incredible things going out there,

but I'm more there for the community and to support the people running the organization. I don't think I'm going to be at some other conferences because I don't necessarily really want to network with other insurance agents that doesn't provide me tremendous value. What provides me tremendous value is going and watching people like Seth Godin, Tamsin, and all these other people speak and then taking those insights and bringing them back to the insurance community. That provides me tremendous value. So long, long, long-winded answer, but I hope that kind of directly answered. Yeah, dude, I'll tell you one of my, I did this video when I first, first, when things fell apart, I met about called the nine things I learned

being out of the industry or whatever. I love that. Yeah. And one of the things in there, one of the things, one of the very first thoughts that hit me when I came back into this space from kind of being away was we're so insular, we're so insulated in these ideas. And we start, we start breathing our own air. We start like, like thinking that just be, you know, we, there's nothing new. And, uh, I, I absolutely, and, and I love a good insurance conference because I love to hear what people are doing. Um, but I, I agree with you. I think the future of the insurance industry is people like yourself who have done the work, who can speak the language, who understand how to talk insurances, starting to permeate new ideas,

new thoughts, new concepts into the industry. And I think that's just the future. Last thing before I let you go, the Daily Dad. Do you know about the Daily Dad? No. It's a newsletter. It every day it's it's off it's just for dads i'm sure they let women subscribe to it too but it's the content is for

dads it's pretty good like if you just want dad content just like little things like hey when your kid does this crazy thing like maybe you want to think about reacting this way instead of this way just daily dad it's awesome i get it every. I read like half of them, but they're pretty good on it. Awesome, Scott. I think that's, that's kind of what I'm trying to put in my head. I think most of the podcasts I listened to, most of what I'm trying to consume in that manner is about being a better dad, being a better husband, being a better leader, being a better manager. And the more I consume, it's like your input controls your output. I just feel like I can't fail because all I'm trying to do is be better to serve the people around me. Like what could I possibly do wrong? Whereas go back six, seven years, all I was doing was consuming content on

how to be a better networker, how to be a better salesperson, how to like objection resolution. Fantastic. Like I got in some awesome disagreements with my wife that I won like wonderful. I was able to like, I need to read those books. Yeah. I was able to like turn her mind into a pretzel and get her to do something she didn't want to do. Like lovely. Good job, Zach. Now, like I'm way more concerned on other things. And, uh, you know, your input does control your output. I think it's, yeah, my man, I'm, I'm just happy to, to be able to have these conversations with you. I, I enjoy our relationship immensely. I think, uh, I think that the way that you go about business is, um, is something to be admired and something to be studied. And I'm just glad that you would give us your time and come on here and be part of the show. I appreciate the offer anytime.

I love what you're doing. I think you are just constantly trying to better yourself. You are obsessed. You put that hashtag, that work, when you're walking the dog. And people don't understand that really is work. You're not joking dog and and people don't understand like that really is work you're not joking like you are serving your family you're doing things over and over and over keep doing what you're doing we all appreciate it i love the show i love your newsletters like it's good to have you back in action man bro take it easy Yeah. Thank you. Close twice as many deals by this time next week.

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