The Startup Ideas Podcast - 3 Non-Obvious Networking Strategies That Work

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

Today Greg is joined by Phil Toronto, a Partner at Vayner/RSE. In this episode, Greg and Phil share their biggest cheat codes for saying 'yes' to the right kind of events and why being the person who brings others together is the biggest value add of all. ►►Subscribe to Greg's weekly newsletter for insights on community,creators and commerce.You'll also find out when new and exclusiveepisodes come out from Where it Happens. And it's totally free.https://latecheckout.substack.comFIND ME ON SOCIAL:Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@gregisenbergaLINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:Production Team:https://www.bigoceanpodcasting.comPhil Torontohttps://twitter.com/philtorontoSHOW NOTES:0:00 - Intro5:16 - Say 'no' to networking events11:06 - Greg says 'yes' to a Tony Robbins event23:06 - The power of proximity to a big cultural events27:00 - Be the host

What are you pouring? I hear you pouring a beverage. I am pouring the most prestigious and pristine sparkling water that I found in my journey for said product. It is the Saratoga Springs, sparkling water, you know the quality with the blue bottle. I love it. Not financial advice, not an investor. Of course. I'm also drinking some sparkling water. You know about this? Arc? I don't know about this. What is this?

It's like a soda stream, but way more beautiful looking. But I got to be honest with you, I'm not just drinking sparkling water. I'm also drinking it with comos tequila. Excuse you. All right, then fine. I will crack open the bottle of body vodka. Okay. It's going to be one of those podcasts.

If you're going to start the opening, trying to one up me, I'm not not going to feel threatened and try and overcompensate. Yeah. I'm looking forward to this podcast. This is going to be good. While you pour yourself a drink, I checked your LinkedIn before this, and you have quite a time.

It could go a few ways, yeah. My LinkedIn is either the worst thing in the world or the best pre-qualifier for who I want to work with or not. Yeah, well, usually I'd like to introduce people. Your title is Insert, very important title here at Vayner Fund. What does that mean?

That is accurate. It's not really important what the title is in our little fund, I guess. It could be partner, it could be janitor, it could be anything. But whatever it is, it is very important. And I want people to know that, that I am very, very important at Vayner Fund. But it's actually just a litmus test because one of my life modos is don't take life too seriously. you'll never get out alive. And I think that being the marquee title on my LinkedIn stresses that.

So I truly don't take it that seriously. I don't care how important anyone thinks I am. But if you can't take the joke and you scoff at that title, we're probably not going to work well together. Exactly. And that's the reason I wanted to bring you on is because I think you live a really happy and good life. and you don't take things too seriously.

And you kind of just go with your curiosity. And I'm curious, just like, is that intentional? And yeah, how do you think about crafting your life? It is absolutely intentional at this point. I think it was subconscious prior to recent years, I'd say. But now I take a very active role in. in, I guess, just evaluating how happy things make me from a business perspective, but also from a life perspective because it has been drilled home that, what do you know,

we only have one life, had a minor health incident that wound up not being a big deal at all that I'm aware of because the doctor did close a loop on that by saying, I guess we'll just call it a medical mystery, which was not very comforting. But as far as I know, totally fine happened last year. But it really put life in perspective because for a brief moment in a time, I genuinely was convinced I was going to die. And that reframed so much for me where it's like, oh, how could you not want to just optimize for being happy every single day of your life? Because it's the most important thing. And like, you're the one that has to wake up and live in your body every day.

So you've got to go you first. So I saw a TikTok video as I was like, I don't know, it was like two in the morning. I know you don't have TikTok and maybe that plays a role into your happiness. But I was like, I was like trying to fall asleep. It was like two in the morning. I'm like swipe, swipe, swipe. And I get this video of like, why are dogs always happy? And this whole TikTok around like, well, you know, for every one day, that is the equivalent to one week for a huge.

So basically dogs know their own mortality and they know that, you know, their life is short. So they're just by definition, like even if you leave your apartment to go get like the mail or something or coffee or gone for two minutes, your dog coming back to you and they're like stoked to see you. It's like, oh my God, where, Bill? Where have you been? Which is, which is great. Like everyone, go get a dog. Completely. What, what concretely did you change in your life? after you had this new lease on life? I would say it empowered me to say no more and say no more confidently because I just felt confident in saying this doesn't suit me right now and or ever, and that's speaking in generalities.

But I think just empowering me to take control where I know I can take control and that's a really beautiful thing. Could you give an example of something that you said no to over the last year? and something that you said yes to that you might have not five years ago. The easiest thing is mostly cutting out networking events, and those have always been somewhat of a bane of my existence, because in the field of venture capital, kind of important to schmooze and network and mingle,

but it's usually done with a lack of intention that I think is detrimental. I'll go so far as to say to your mental health because you're kind of floating around. You show up to this event. Whether or not you drink doesn't matter. But you're just showing up with no real goal and hopefully meeting people. And then you have folks just like staring at the name tag. If there's a name tag and oh, you're not important or I don't think you're important or whatever. And it's just kind of soul crushing.

So really looking at how you spend your time and showing up in person is a really powerful thing in my opinion. so you should only be showing up if you actually want to show up. Because people can tell and you'll just lead a happier life. Yeah, like if you're trying to make it like in startups or venture, like do you need to go to networking events? Because both of us don't really, both of us don't go to networking events. I think our vibe is just like, and correct me by wrong, our vibe is like, we'll just like bring together interesting people. and good things happen, but it's more just like among friends.

Like it's never like. Yeah. Yeah. Although we did meet at South by Southwest. And but that was that was before. That's like we're talking 2010, 2011. That's who knows. Yeah, exactly.

Shout out to five. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Knowing what we know now, knowing what you know now, Phil. Do you need to go to network? events if you want your best shot to win at startups or venture. I think you still have to show up places. I think if you are showing up intentionally at certain events that are hyper specific to what you're interested in, I think that's great. I think you can pre-curate a hat tip to what you're passionate about, what I know you're excellent out, which is community.

I think you can find a subcommittee or two either on Reddit or on X now or something. thing and go to events either online or in person in that circle, kind of to the point that you said, like we like to only go with friends. Well, usually our friends know interesting people. And one of my favorite things to do is to host a small event where it's like, hey, you show up, bring one person that nobody knows or you think nobody knows and say that to 10 to 20 people. And what do you know?

You have a 50 person event. but it's really close-knit, intentional. I brought this person because, and I think that's a much more interesting way to go about it. But if you are trying to get your start and you're trying to break in, try and narrow in on what you're looking for a bit first rather than the broad I want to break into tech. But what sector? Do you want to be an engineer? Do you want to aspiration to be a COO one day?

Do you just want to be a CEO or you have ideas? Something. hone in on what it is and find the sub-community. And I think that's a really powerful and interesting way to go about it because you can learn a lot more that way, I think. Totally. And also, like, the host is underrated, right? Like, if you're the host, it's like, if you're the person reaching out to people and being like, hey, I'm curating this dinner of like D to C founders in New York who have between one and five million a year and revenue, even if you're not one of those people. but you're trying to be one of those people.

Like, I feel like it's a pretty good move. Yeah. And people remember that you bring people together. And that holds a special place in people's hearts. And it's really nice to facilitate that. I personally enjoy that feeling quite a bit. And I'd say even to this day, it happened maybe two days ago. The listeners don't know this, but they're going to know now.

We co-hosted an orange wine party. in Brooklyn right before the pandemic. Somebody literally brought it up to me yesterday. That was a plus one saying how fun it was. And this happened in 2019. And it was pretty low lift from our part. And it was awesome. Yeah.

We did, however, full disclosure, we did bring the COVID-19 virus to America and spread it across the world. Because it was January 2020, I think. and we did have one member, the DJ in fact, Tyler Lemko, comedian Tyler Lemko, did spread. I like that. We're using names. Oops. You know, I thought we're having an honest conversation.

Open honest, yeah. I appreciate the transparency. But yeah, I mean, I also randomly get like people, people hit, you know, mentioning that, that, those events and that event. and it pays dividend both like work-wise and just like personal like some of my happiest moments have been throwing these events and I feel like people people listening should just like don't go to events throw events yeah like to summarize like I think that's great advice so that's something that you learn I guess in your 20s no networking events be the host what's What's something that you're saying yes to more of these days?

I think no networking events is too rigid. I think no to attending events without intention, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. What's an example of a yes? A few years back, I was at a group dinner, curated dinner. Great, awesome, on theme with what we're talking about. This gentleman wearing a very wacky blazer.

I talked to him for maybe 10, 15 minutes, and he invited me in a few weeks to his birthday party. The birthday party was a bit unconventional because it was a three-day event and it wasn't hosted in New York City where we met. He was going to host a large group of people in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and program an entire trip to Tulsa to show the city because there's a huge entrepreneurial vibe. He was leading the charge on awareness around Tulsa's a hub for business and SMB and technology and opening folks' eyes to a city they may consider just a flyover situation. That in that moment, I said yes. I'd known this guy for 15 minutes. And I couldn't think of another time that would have just a curated view into the inner workings of Tulsa. And I was like, yes, this sounds interesting.

Worst comes to worse, I book a flight and leave early if it's terrible. I didn't think it was going to be. And it wound up being awesome. And I met a lot of incredible people that I'm actually super close friends with to this day. I actually said yes to something that I wouldn't otherwise say yes to last week, which is I went to a Tony Robbins event last week. Incredible. Yeah.

I mean, I wasn't going to publicly talk about this. or even privately talk about it, to be honest. But here we are. So I went as a guest to the Tony Robbins event. It's the business mastery event, which is more focused on like, how do you grow your business? I don't know if that makes it any better,

but that's what it is. And I was invited to as a guest from Ali Abdal, who's like a big YouTuber. And this guy, Joe Gannon, who helps me with the podcast and a few other, you know, social content stuff. So they invited me. They're like, hey, literally take a start at $10,000. You're going to be sitting court side, like front row. And Tony Robbins was literally like spitting on me. Like I should have brought an umbrella, honestly, in retrospect. And I got to say one of the better things that I said yes to

in the last 12 months is going to this Tony Robbins thing. What's driving that? And I want to preface it with I always had a lot of mixed feelings about Tony Robbins because he's like a cult leader in a lot of ways. And like I felt at least before going in this, he's like a bit taking advantage of people like selling these crazy expensive seminars and like maybe people don't have the money. money and like bringing them into his quote unquote cult but two reasons I went number one I was like

he's probably the greatest salesperson ever so I just want to like be in the room with like a world class salesperson number one and the second thing is if he is leading a cult there's like a fine line by between a community and a cult so I want to understand how he does it right fair right that feels fair yeah very fair so I like I He has curated a hell of a community. Yes, he has, he has. Like, say what you want about him. Like, objectively, he has.

So I gave up five days in my life to spend it in West Palm Beach. And it was so good for so many reasons. But number one, he is the greatest salesperson of all time. How he structures his, like, the whole seminar and how he, like, uses music. like basically what he does is like the whole five days he's using like the same five songs over and over again he gets you to like get up and like shout and then like at the point of like peak state he like comes in and he'll be like oh by the way you should like totally sign up to another seminar mine you're like so stoked and jazzed yes yes yes yes yes so he so what he would do like to give you like a concrete example you know let's say we're learning because there's a you know, business mastery, let's say we're learning about finance. And he would be talking about like, hey, let me go through like Robbins Research, which is like one of his companies and like the P&L from Robbins Research. And you're going through it and you're like, see if I, you know, if I do these

strategies, I can increase leads. And if I do this, he'll like put like Katie Perry's, what's that song? Firework? Yeah. He would be like, it's your company and like fireworks comes on. And it's like, raise your hand if this is your company and like you're stoked that this is happening to you and everyone's like yeah yeah yeah and then at the end of it he like makes an ask and be like hey by the way like buy my thing um so that's just one example he's an incredible salesperson he understands the power of state and uh i liked it i thought it was very valuable i also not to put words in your mouth but as you were telling that story i was thinking around and i don't know if this is going to be the next episode theirs or anything, but I know you've been very hot on the concept of

multipreneur. And I would say that is a peak example of multiprenorship where he is essentially, well, not a personal holding company, but he has a holding company of sorts and every piece that puts in. And I see why that probably resonates with you. He's a multipreneur that curates in a rabid community. Yeah. Seems like a Greg Eisenberg cup of tea.

first and foremost. Yeah, I actually didn't realize the multi-preneur bit until going. So first of all, the guy's nearly a billionaire. Didn't know that. He co-owns 110 companies. That's wild. Yeah, it's wild. Absolutely wild.

And the way it was structured was like the event, like it was at Palm Beach Convention Center. so there's like the stage in the convention center and then as you're walking in there's like different booths but the booths are his companies right it's like his accounting firm his legal firm so he doesn't accept advertisers and sponsors to his events which is like totally like multipreneur creator led sort of entrepreneur vibe is to like obviously sell your own stuff that that seems like the the dream the multipreneurship dream he's definitely doing it. And he's got a lot of subtle ways that he's able to sell people. Another kind of like interesting thing that I didn't know is if you're going to a Tony Robbins event, like bring a Canada

goose jacket because he sets the, he like I literally walk by the thermostat. It's 60 degrees. He sets, he sets it to be really cold. And the reason he does that is he wants people to like get up and move so that they get like the energy flowing. And it's like a Tony Robbins thing apparently. Quick interruption from me. If you're listening to this on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you're getting any value. You need to come to YouTube and subscribe to the Where It Happens podcast YouTube channel.

I promise you the experience is richer, more interesting. So if you're getting any value, just stop what you're doing, open up the YouTube app, go to the website, and press subscribe at where it happened on YouTube. And if you're watching this on YouTube and you haven't subscribed, what are you doing? Go press subscribe. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of the show. The interesting thing is while the event was happening, Alex Hermose, who's like a popular, like he's really popular.

Do you know him now? Nope. I'm not surprised you don't know him. So Alex Hermosey wrote a book called $100 million offers. It's like how to craft an irresistible offer. He's like big on YouTube. I also keep in mind, I asked Steph Curry to his face what he did for a living because I just didn't know. And I didn't, I don't really follow the NBA in this is years ago.

But especially if I don't know somebody that's the worst, limitest test. I don't realize who anybody is. Totally. What did Steph Curry say, by the way? he said he played ball for the Warriors and then we moved on you know who co-owns the Warriors Tony Robbins Tony Anthony Robbins I didn't expect the middle name to get in there but no it's I think it's it's Tony I don't know if his middle of names Anthony no it's it's it's Anthony Robbins is a co-owner of his 110 companies is uh that's definitely yeah it's

world. So all roads lead back to Tony Robbins. Alex Hermosie, guy went from like zero to millions of subscribers in the last 18 months. He went on, he got on Twitter like 18 months ago. And like now he's tweeting and getting thousands of likes within the first hour. He also threw while the Tony Robbins event was happening, he threw a launch event for his new book called 100 million dollar leads. And he had more than 500,000 people in the live stream at the event. Wow. Yeah, which is insane. That's wild.

Completely wild. And anyone who's interested in, like, crafting offers or lead, like, how do you, like, get leads? Like, you should watch it just because, like, the same reason I went to Tony Robbins, like, learned how to be the best salesperson of all time. Alex Hermosie, same sort of thing. and the interesting thing about Alex Hermosey and Tony Robbins is the stage for Alex Hermosey when he was doing his live webinar was the exact same stage that Tony Robbins has where in the back you have all these like Zoom people watching and it's all these like kind of Brady Bunch style

you got you got to check it out so while I was at the event I will while I was at the Tony Robbins event I was like, hey, guys, did you, did you see the Alex Hermosey event yesterday? And they were like, yeah. And I was like, doesn't it look like the Tony Robin set? And one of the people I was with said, oh, Hermosi is like one of the biggest Tony Robbins followers. And he specifically crafted his stage and vibe to be like a Tony Robbins event, which leads me to my thesis. that Alex Hermosie is the modern day Tony Robbins for young people. I like to just show up where there's a large cultural event happening,

not necessarily going to the event itself, because A, that gets wildly expensive, and B, you just don't have to. I mean, case in point, we met at South by Southwest. The only time I've ever had a badge to South by Southwest is when, for some reason, and they let me do a panel or speak. I've never gotten one on my own, but I've gone, what, eight times at this point?

You go, because it's the largest group gathering of people that you likely want to know or are relevant to either your goals or interests or something. Showing up at a large cultural event and all the ancillary things that happen around it is a huge unlock because serendipity lends itself. very well to these situations and you wind up leaving with a bunch of either new friends or contacts, goals. And it is actually wildly productive where I thought that previously it's you're just

showing up to party. You don't have to party. You just have to be there. And then another point to the whole just show up where things are happening. Other people are more prone and open to to meeting and engaging. So if you, there's always something to be done for me and probably you in L.A. there's always like some sort of business deal or something we can accomplish if we visit there. But the pretense of it being a major cultural event, I think people are more apt to meet with you or get that coffee. Whereas like if you just show up randomly January 21st for no other reason, hey, I'm in L.A. No, sorry, I'm busy.

there's there's stuff going on whatever but if you you're there and other people are there for an event and everyone's already in that mode you're more likely to be able to sit down with folks you aspirationly wanted to sit down with or needed a book time with or something there's just the the receptors are a bit more open I find so it's it's a good hack but isn't isn't the counter to that like I have a friend who lives in Austin and I actually went to south by South West. And when I texted him, he was like, dude, like, you wait, you know, South by South West is so busy, like meet me at this dinner, you know, and I spoke to him for like 15 minutes. He's like, why don't you come to Austin when like it's not South by South West? I feel like going to an event, a big event, you can kind of get like quick hits of people. But like if you really want to spend time with them, I don't know if it happens during the big events. What do you think? Oh, no, I fully agree with that. I think to deepen or advance a relationship and meaningful way, like, whether that's friendship,

business, whatever, it's really tough to do in that setting. But I think for the initial contact and making an in-road, I guess, it's perfect. It's the quick hit. Like, it's great. Like, you see if it's even interesting for the other person or for you. And then you can take it from there because then you necessarily don't have to be in person. You could hop on a Zoom, FaceTime them. You have the open line

of communication to text or send a message or send an email and you just have the context of that quick hit and meeting in person that I think is more important than anything because you're never going to forget the initial feeling of meeting somebody or the initial like 15 minutes that you spent with somebody. And as long

as that went well, the door is open and it's kind of yours to mess up from there. Definitely agree with you that it's really tough to go deep and like build something super meaningful in that context, but it opens up way more doors. I was chatting with someone this morning who was like, who was telling me having a place, like a secondary home in a cool, interesting place as a destination to throw events,

she was saying that that's like probably one of the most valuable investments that you can make. Like what was it? Michael Rubin, you saw you through the white party. That was crazy. I know you know what that event was. Tell people what that event was, who Michael Rubin. Michael Rubin is and why that though it was the event of the year. Michael Rubin is a wildly successful businessman that has catapulted in popularity in the past few years, despite him being a wildly successful businessman for decades now, I'd say. he's done an absolutely incredible job of tapping into culture as a whole and making sure that

he is top of mind culturally hanging out with the most interesting rappers, up-and-coming rappers, musicians, television stars, surrounding himself with key people and seemingly doing it in an authentic way where he has established this white party that he does in July. every year now as the event of the year for the most part it's the who's who of relevant folks held at his house in the Hamptons the video that was cut up this year from this white party essentially looked like a Hollywood trailer for the most part like it was wild I was super jealous that Gary got to go and has gone to go to everyone still don't have that plus one but that's okay.

That's on me for not being relevant enough. But another point to Michael Rubin in this strategy, it's not just him kind of swaggerjacking. Well, that's a terrible term. It's not just him trying to commandeer culture and inauthentably just post selfies with famous people. Like, sure, he posts that. But he did have a pretty interesting soundbite

where somebody's like, well, what do you get out of speaking to Cuavo or another rapper or something. Like, what's, what's the point? Are you just trying to be relevant? He's like, well, no, they have really interesting techniques for how they've either marketed their own music or products that they've sold. And it gives him a different perspective to accomplish business challenges that he has in his own business by speaking to these musicians because they've obviously been

successful in their own right. And it's just a thought exercise for him. where maybe he can add some value from a business perspective to them, and they provide insights that he normally wouldn't have. So he's really, really intentional and smart around curating that. Michael Rubin, just to be clear, he's the founder of fanatics, which brings in billions in revenue. They own the licenses to like the NBA, NHL, stuff like that.

I'm looking at some of the guests. The guests were Kim Kardashian, Jack Harlow, Travis Scott, Lori Harvey, Justin Bieber. I guess like I look at that and I'm like, yes, obviously he's an incredible businessman and has done really well for himself. But like Gary, for example, like has like in my mind at least like he's on the same level, ish. And like, why isn't Gary throwing the white party?

Right? Why? Why? It must have been his one of his main goal. Like to throw an event like this, right? A and B, and that goes, this goes back. to like my earlier point, which might not relate to a lot of people, but like having the second home as the destination super valuable. Like I think I'm looking at pictures of his place. It's like

pretty, pretty insane. Oh, it's epic. Yeah. Yeah. But it goes back to what we started speaking about almost at the beginning where it's be the host and listen to how we're speaking about it right now. It's it obviously makes an impact. We have not gone. We haven't been invited. But now it's maybe this aspirational thing and we see that he is this beacon that brings together really relevant people that's really interesting and we're talking about that so that in and of itself i think is pretty important and then i know you mentioned like maybe it's not attainable or accessible for folks to own this on the second home as the destination but we can even walk it back quite a bit is host and have a destination yeah you don't have to own it i mean and just to i mean when we hosted our party

in in Brooklyn and Williamsburg. We got a free space, right? Shout out to Gerties. Gerties. That's right. And they basically were like, so picture this, listeners, because anyone could basically throw their own version of a white party. That's my come to Jesus moment right now.

I agree with you. Yeah. I love where this is going. Yes. Basically, I started having coffee at this coffee shop, met the owner. He basically was telling me, yeah, I've got this amazing space downstairs. I wish someone would use it. And I was like, well, me and Phil might, you know, could use it. And then he was like, yeah, well, you can, you know, he's a brunch place and a coffee place, right?

Like, they, they close early. And he was like, if you give me a percentage, was that how it worked? I don't even remember. I think we give him like a percentage of. yeah he he was operating the bar and we gave him percentage of the bar yeah yeah yeah so which is totally cool for us we got to use this great space and he made money because he wasn't using the space actually he was stoked and i remember him and he was like oh come back anytime like he was so so excited in fact when covid hit he was like oh i wish we you know during like peak covid he was like yeah they're an event. I was like, dude, like, I don't know. But the point is, the point is, like, you don't need to own the place. You need to own the mission and you need to own, like, the idea

of the event. And then, you know, you could knock on some doors, get the space. And then the space could be an attractive. Gertie's maybe isn't that place. But like, you know, or maybe it is that place. For what our goal was. Yeah, it was. It was perfect. Yeah. You can, And you can do varying scales of this. I mean, when I thought about what it meant to throw an event maybe years ago, it's like, oh, it's so expensive. Like you need sponsors. You need to do open bar. You need to do this.

Like overthinking it. You don't need to do any of those things. Yes, you can. Yes, you can build it up to that. I'm pretty sure that the white party didn't have a cash bar. Sure. But you just, you need to host, have the space. And whatever you negotiate from there is great.

people are just very excited to go to something like that. It doesn't matter that they're going to have to pay for drinks. That's fine. If you don't have a sponsor, don't want to cover the cost for people's drinks or the venue or whatever, that's fine. There isn't this expectation or anything. I think you just need to go that mile and host. No one's going to remember like the cash bar. That's not what people remember of from the event, right?

They remember. And if they do, then they're probably. was something else wrong with the event. Yeah. Totally. If people are coming to the event because they're getting free, free wine or free whatever, free food, like, I don't know if they're there for the mission. That's the most commodity of commodities is the free food and drink.

It's like, well, our event has free food and drink. It's like, so are the other 10 that I probably found on Groupon. So, like, thoughts? Yeah, I'm just thinking of myself, like, man, I should be thrown some more events. Yeah. I am going to be throwing some multipreneur events. I want to say that, you know, IRL is just underrated. Like, IRL events are underrated, especially like post-COVID.

People are excited to go to events. And so there is an opportunity right now for people. The chance of your event working in 2023 is higher than the chance of your event working in 2019. And it all is rooted in what you mentioned. the purpose, the mission. Why are you holding this event? What's the theme?

As long as you keep that top of mind and organize it accordingly and curate the right people that you think fit the bill for the room that would get value on any side of it, it's great. Before we head out, give me one or two stories of some of the best events you went to and why they were so good. one of the best events that I've been to was thrown by my friend Dan who I actually met on that Tulsa trip that I mentioned. The pinnacle rule was you cannot talk about work or what you do. And that in and of itself was powerful and I think freeing at the same time because I think a crutch that people tend to use for better or for worse is just the first question out of your mouth, what do you do? Yeah.

That's a pretty loaded question. And usually the context means like, what do you do for work? But it could be anything. But eliminating that, I think, is really key. Especially in a place like New York. I don't know. I don't need to explain that. And I guess like that's, you know, bringing it all back.

Like insert very important title here at Vayner Fund. That's why you're like, okay, real people will, we'll get it. And, you know, maybe that's like the best way to do it. like to get like really interesting people attracted to you. Maybe. So some takeaways I have from this. One, be the host. Two, be like Dan and create something that's unique and interesting and unlike everything

else out there. Three, you don't need to go to the event. Like you don't need to go to the Super Bowl. But there's something that magical happens at some of these bigger events where it's like, go to the side event. Don't go to the main event. And then I think it's just taking stock in what you're saying yes to

and what you're saying no to. Intention. Intention. Yeah, setting attention. That's very Tony Robbins of you, Phil. Hmm. Yeah. And then last but not least,

in terms of multi-preneurship and sales prowess, like go watch Tony Robbins and listen to him just as like, you don't have to listen to what he's saying, but just like in the fact that like understanding his techniques for talking and selling is just and creating events is mind-blowing. And same with the Alex Hermose event. Like go watch that, listen to that. And it's no matter what you're doing,

like it will help you become a better salesperson and life is sales. So it's a good skill to know. Phil Toronto, one of my, one of my closest friends. It's an honor to have you here and jam on this sort of stuff. Your light on social media, chances are the way you're going to learn more about Phil Toronto is if you like this episode and you want more Phil Toronto, we'll bring him back. So by we, I mean I. So the best place to find Phil Toronto besides his handles is this podcast. And my YouTube. I would say it's where it happens. Exactly. And my YouTube has now changed to at Greg Eisenberg. So because I'm now throwing up. other YouTube stuff. So Phil, tell the people to subscribe to me on YouTube.

Subscribe to Greg Eisenberg on YouTube. Please, if he brought you any value whatsoever, stop what you're doing. Don't necessarily pause the video because we want the view count. But please subscribe. Do yourself a favor.

Do Greg to favor. Do me a favor. There's no ads on this podcast. There's no ads on my newsletter. So check out, check out the YouTube. Subscribe on. on all the podcast, Spotify or Apple, whatever you use, and my newsletter as well,

laycheckout.substack.com. And Phil Toronto, you know where to find him. Thanks for hanging out. It's been a pleasure. Cheers, man.