TrueLife - The Secret of Kung-Fu: 850 Episodes of the Matt Brown Show

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the illustrious Matt Brown, a seasoned entrepreneur and founder with a dynamic career spanning 25 years. Hailing from Cape Town, South Africa, Matt has made Denver, Colorado, his home base, driving positive change in the business community. As the visionary host of the globally acclaimed Matt Brown Show, he has skillfully conducted over 850 episodes, featuring influential guests from diverse backgrounds. A 3x Amazon Best Selling author and recognized among the Top 25 Most Influential People in Technology, Matt's mission is crystal clear: to foster growth and impact in the world of entrepreneurship. Learn more about his journey at mattbrownshow.com/about.1. Matt, with your extensive entrepreneurial journey spanning 25 years and 14 companies, what fundamental lesson or philosophy has consistently guided your approach to business?2. As the host of the Matt Brown Show, you've engaged with a diverse array of guests, including billionaires, authors, and thought leaders. Which conversation left the deepest philosophical impact on you, and why?3. Your books, such as "Your Inner Game" and "Secrets of Influence," delve into profound aspects of personal and professional development. What core philosophy underlies your writing and the insights you aim to share with your readers?4. Hosting over 850 episodes is an impressive feat. Can you share a moment from the Matt Brown Show that challenged or expanded your own philosophical perspectives on entrepreneurship and leadership?5. Your mission is clear: to facilitate the growth of aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders. What specific philosophical principles do you believe are crucial for creating a meaningful impact in the business world?6. Recognized among the Top 25 Most Influential People in Technology, how do you balance the fast-paced world of technology with the timeless principles you advocate for in your work?7. In your leadership interventions, whether through speaking engagements or coaching sessions, what philosophical insights do you find most transformative for individuals striving to make a positive change in the business world?8. The Matt Brown Show has evolved into a repository of high-value content, syndicated on platforms like Amazon Prime. How do you navigate the philosophical landscape of content creation to ensure it resonates with a global audience?9. Your ability to compel business leaders to reveal their well-guarded secrets is a unique skill. How does this align with your broader philosophy of fostering transparency and authenticity in the business community?10. As someone deeply involved in technology and business, how do you see the intersection of these fields shaping the future, and what philosophical considerations should emerging entrepreneurs keep in mind as they navigate this landscape? One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. furious through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. That's there. Okay, go here. There we go. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Live podcast.

I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. hope the sun is shining, hope the birds are singing, hope the wind. Is that your back? I've got the one and only, Matt Brown. And for those of you who may not know, let me tell you a little bit about this gentleman, Matt Brown is an illustrious individual, a seasoned entrepreneur and founder with a dynamic career spanning 25 years, hailing from Cape Town, South Africa.

Matt has made Denver, Colorado his home base, driving positive change in the business community as the visionary host of the global acclaimed Matt Brown show, he has skillfully conducted over 850, ladies gentlemen, 850 episodes featuring influential guests from diverse backgrounds, a three-times Amazon bestselling author and recognized among the top 25 most influential people in technology. Matt's mission is crystal clear to foster growth and impact in the world of entrepreneurship.

We're going to learn all about it today. Matt, thanks for being here, my friend. Appreciate it. Yeah, brother. to have you, well, good to have you host me. I think is what they say, you know, but loving your energy, dude. And I think from the moment, you and I connected, it was like this two kindred spirits, you know, like doing interesting things. And yeah, man, so I'm stoked to be here and, and, you know, excited to see where this conversation goes today. Yeah, man, it's a, it's a good one. I've been a

I've been a fan of the show, man. And I really, when we began talking initially, we started really talking about what you can learn by hosting other people and stuff. But before we get too deep in there, man, I want to give people a little bit of background. Maybe, like, how did you end up in Denver from South Africa? Maybe you can give people a kind of a quick pro quo idea of how that happened, man. Yeah, man. So basically everything really positive in my life, that's, you know,

especially in the world of entrepreneurship, and things like that has come through my show. And the reason why I'm in the US was also through my show. I think I was doing, like, it was like episode 62 or something silly, you know. And then by the time I got to an episode, it was like 107. The guy that I interviewed on episode 62 in Johannesburg was now living in Austin, Texas. I was like, hang on, how did that happen? So then he's like, dude, there's this thing called a person of extraordinary ability,

green card. So I'm like, oh, yeah. So he's telling, you know, he's explaining me this whole thing. But basically you have like nine categories that you can qualify in. It's like research. You have to be like a brain surgeon or someone in selling in business or you have to have like scholarly articles published and what's kind of stuff. But basically you don't need to qualify in all nine. You only need two categories to qualify in. But you have to submit evidence to support that you're extraordinary. So I sent like, you know, a dozen magazines with me on the front cover and like, you know, 36 letters from CEO saying I was extraordinary and basically submitted this massive body of work to a lawyer out in Florida. And, you know, but with these things, you don't think that

it's ever going to happen. And my dream was always to like live in the States because I do believe in the American dream. And coming from South Africa, trying to build a business, there's a real class to fuck. Yeah. Like, serious problems against you, you know, from day one, which you don't have in America. So anyway, so I submitted all the stuff and I was driving home from work one day and I just got the message from the lawyer and he's like, dude, you got your, you got your extraordinary ability green card thing. So I was like, holy shit. So I came back home and told my wife and it was like probably the best reaction I've ever seen her half. You literally like jumped up and

down like crying. You know, my poor kids, now he's, he's crying because he doesn't know what the bucks going on. But it was a beautiful day, man, because suddenly, you know, we had an opportunity that very few people actually have. It's actually quite difficult to get to the U.S. And so to be here and now with my platform and, you know, everything that I do and that I know, you know, I'm super grateful to be here, you know. Yeah, it's fascinating to get to hear stories like that because for a lot of people, they get up and they go to work and they live in this, this, this idea sometimes the dream has been conditioned out of them and i think that that's something people i want people that listen to my show and i know people listen to your show they have this idea of the dream

as possible and that kind of leads us into the character of today's ideas like this idea of behavior how had that trip influenced what you've done had did your show change dramatically when you came to the u.s or did that particular situation fundamentally shift how you maneuver in your environment No, not really. I think it gave me access more than anything else, you know, because I mean, I was already doing while I was back in South Africa, I was really, I ran out of talent, basically, locally. I had all the sharks from the shark tank. And so I had to go international quite early on. And so I said to my producer one day, is like, go and get me the biggest names you can get, go, go get them. And that was their thing. And I had a team dedicated to going and getting me the biggest names out there. And I said to my producer, And then that's what grew the show, really. But it's kind of like they would say at the time, you know, Jeffrey Moore is based out in Chicago, where are you based? And no, no, he's in South Africa.

It's like, well, what time zone is that? Yeah, exactly. Is that East Coast? It's like, no, it's not East Coast, dude. It's like, plus nine hours. But that's what I mean. It was like, you know, you were doing shows at obscure times a day and night. But now it's kind of like, well, where are you?

I mean, Denver. okay, where are you? I'm on East Coast or West Coast. The access is much, much easier. So I think from that perspective, it's much, much better, but certainly from, you know, the show itself and the platform itself and what it was always trying to do, that hasn't changed in 10 years. And now I got my stats through Spotify yesterday. Done 222 episodes just in the last 12 months.

So access is important. So we've been more aggressive, if anything. And I'm sitting on a backlog of shows that haven't even gone out yet. So certainly from an access perspective, yes, but other than that, just doing more. It's fascinating to think about. And when you sit in the chair of the interview, you really get to learn a lot about the people with whom you're speaking. You get to learn about some of their attributes. some of the ways they see the world.

But you know what's fascinating to me is, what's it like to be the guy behind the mic? And you and I spoke about this a little bit. You know, I'm sure that you can see lots of different qualities and the people that you speak to and some similar threads. But what's it like for you?

Like when you sit behind, you're talking to billionaires, or you're talking to people that built these things, have you noticed certain things about them in yourself? It's kind of meta. You know what I mean? When you're interviewing somebody, it's almost a mirror.

How do you see that really? What do you learn from it? Yeah, man. So I think the show has been really transformational for me. So when I started podcasting, I sucked at it, you know. And also I was also, I was also an introvert. So I didn't really like spending time with strangers, you know. And they would be CEOs.

And so I'd have to like script everything and this kind of thing. But eventually, the more I, the more I spoke to people, I kind of got over myself in the sense of I got over my own. imposter syndrome. You know, it's like, I'm not, I'm not as good as that shark from the shark time. I'm not as intelligent as that billionaire. Or that guy or that girl must, that New York Times best thing author, they must be special, right? Like, better than me, surely, right? I mean, otherwise, how would you become so successful?

And then the more I did it, I realized, like, well, no. Like, there's actually no difference. There's literally no difference. I mean, it's literally like, it's timing. and there's factors that, you know, that are conducive to you achieving any kind of measurable success and what have you and things like perseverance also very important. You know, but certainly from a who am I and who are they and are they better than me? You know what I mean?

Like this, I'm a competitive person. And the answer very simply was no. I mean, they've also lost businesses, you know. They've also failed many, many times. They've also persevered. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so that's why people are successful.

So I think certainly, like I was transformed. I became the guy who was interviewing influencers and then I became the influencer. Do you know what I mean? I was like a weird thing. It was a funny thing. And it happened really quickly. I mean, I think even on my 100th episode, I mean, to think now we've done over 800 of these things, on my 100th episode, I was on the front cover of Entrepreneur Magazine.

You know what I mean? So now what? it's like you get these levels or plateaus of success quote-un-un-un-quotes. But as I said, the more I do it, the richer I get. The richer I get in perspective because, and, you know, that's actually what my value really is. It's like, I use this analogy of like, if you think about B2B, go to market, everyone's either marketing the problem or the solution, but they're not actually marketing their value. So if you think about the show, what would the problem be?

you're an entrepreneur, you need to get your story out there. Okay, great. So that's a problem. So solution, or I'll interview you on the MapRound show. There you go, 100 countries around the world. There you go. Exposure delivered. But is that really my value?

No, it's not. My values in the 800 episodes that have done before. And, you know, what we're doing now is we're transcribing all these things and creating a custom GPT app so that business owners or entrepreneurs anywhere in the world can access the knowledge of all these CEOs. I mean, we've covered so many aspects of business, but in a fraction of a second, because he's got time to listen to 100 or 800 episodes, you know? So that's what I mean by is that's my real value. And so I believe that if you're rich in perspective, you can always generate wealth.

But if you're poor in perspective, you'll always be poor. And so that's, that's really what it's about. It's about having a perspective that has been cultivated over a decade, you know, thousands of hours. interviewing these guys about how they've scaled companies and how they've raised money and how they've failed, you know? And so that's, that's really what the magic is now. It's this, holy shit, you know, think about that. It's like this perspective. And no one else has that. You see. So, so that's what I would say here. It blows my mind. You know, there's this saying that I like, forgive me, I don't know who said it or where it came from, but it's something along the

lines of the deeper inside you go, the bigger it gets. And when you explain the idea of creating what you're creating about, taking this incredible depth of knowledge from the people you've interviewed, it's like you're taking each person you interviewed as like a puzzle piece and you're putting them together to make this incredible mosaic, you know, where people can come and look at and take in information from it that maybe you or me or people don't even gleam, but they can pull something else out of it. And it's mesmerizing to think of the way in which building relationships on that level is becomes its own thing. Like at some level, it becomes its own thing. And you like, that would never be done unless you had that many episodes, even though you can get the insight from the

individuals. It's a whole other world when you put all that together for other people to interpret. And it kind of seems like that that's the world we're moving into is that this collective information that people can draw from. How do you see the future unfolding? Like, that's one. example of it and you're kind of pioneering that. What are what is the way you see the creator economy moving forward? Like you pioneered that is there other strands that you can pull on to kind of speculate on how things might move forward and what you expect? It's a great question and I don't think there's a simple answer to it. You know, I think that again, I think it's about thinking about I mean, let's be honest, any any prick with a phone can create a video. Right. So when you say

they create the economy, what does that mean? Or let's start with creator. So you have to be creative around how you approach solving problems, how you communicate, how you work with AI. As an example, my team actually sent me an AI

avatar of myself sitting in the studio. Crazy. You know, and it was like, it wasn't me, you know, and it sounds like me. So imagine I had like, you know, avatars that could speak Spanish and Chinese and French and every language in the world,

sitting on top of this knowledge capital platform app thing, GPT app, whatever you can call it. And now I'm able to really scale my value, you see? So that's what I mean by creative thinking against complex problems. You see, because I think people get, therefore, into the solution trap of, well, I need a YouTube channel. Do you?

Like, do you really want to be the next Mr. Beast? Like how much, you know, is that what it's about? You know, or are you just trying to copy what other successes look like, you see? And so when you think about creator, what does that really mean? Well, for me, it's about, it's a way of thinking. So as an example, I actually shared this with one of my team. I was like, yeah, this is what I want to do. I want to do these avatar things and, you know, build this GPT app.

And he's a youngster. He's like 24 years old. And he says, dude, no one's thinking like this, you know. but he finds that valuable because he's like shit like this is exciting like what can we do with it you see and so over time you have to be comfortable with pushing your own limits around what creativity actually means and with AI now I mean you know this is the other thing that's a bit annoying is that every startup in the world now is an AI company but but so it's but it's a commodity already I would say everybody has access to GPT everybody has access to, you know, models that you can import into your own AI custom GPT app.

Like, we all have access to the same stuff. So then if that's the case and it's all commoditized, what's the difference? What it's about how you think about it? So for me, don't market yourself as an AI-enabled thing. Just market yourself, you know, in terms of like what you can do creatively with AGI or, you know, We can produce, as an example, we can produce a bestselling book 300% faster than anyone else in America, probably the world. And we do that by creating a body of content, video content, and then running those transcripts up through GPT to create literally a book in a matter of a few hours. You see what I'm saying?

But then you've got the other guy, okay, who's, who couldn't find six months to write a book. If you read 500 words every single day, seven days a week for six months, that's how long it would take you. So most business leaders don't have the time for that. So what do they do? They pay a ghost writer 25 grand, 25 to 250 grand to write them the book. And then the book comes back. Doesn't sound like them.

They pissed off. They frustrated. And the whole fucking self-publishing space sucks. Right? So, but it's a disappointment. It's a disappointing thing because everybody has this knowledge capital. right? They have a subject matter that they're an expert in, or they have a body of work that's, you know, gathering digital dust. And so my point being, it's not about the technology. It's about how you creatively think around the applications of these things. Because that's where real value is, you know, and everyone's like, oh, problem product, problem products. And it's like, no, dude, what's your value? You know, think about that. And then economy, the economies of scale now are so huge. Like, they're so, so huge.

Like, I wish when I was 26, I wish I was 26 again. Seriously. But I wish I had my perspective, you know, that I could then have the time to then do things. And so the economies of scale now are immense, especially with AI, especially with AI, that you're now able to create literally so many. If you have an idea, you can bring it into reality literally within a matter of hours. That's how amazing the world is today. And so when you think about the creative economy, what's the opportunity?

The opportunity is, well, what are you going to do about it? You see? Because here's the thing. People don't start. They don't start. They're like, oh, I'm not good enough. I've got a fear of failure or my last business failed or I've got nothing important to say. No one would want to listen to my podcast, the Matt Brown show.

You know what I mean? And then suddenly that all changes. So if you get over yourself and you go, well, what's the opportunity? What can I do with it? and you go and you execute on it, then you can make magic happen, literally. I love it. You know, there's,

the fear of anything seems to arise when you're doing nothing. But when you're creating, when you're in the act of something, you don't have time to be afraid. You don't have time to be worried about what people think about you. When you're in the act of creation, you're creating, you're making things happen.

The suffering comes from when you sit back, you know, wait a minute, is that good enough? We start second guessing yourself. And I couldn't have. agree more that right now is one of the most prolific times for anyone to begin creating their vision. You know, and I never thought about it, but you're right. You can bring something to fruition in hours. If you're focused and you're driven and you begin creating and you get in, you really dive deep into that act of creating. You can you can put a video online in a matter of minutes.

You know, there's no reason why the video someone makes today couldn't be viral tomorrow or viral in and out. You know, and it's this momentum that gets building. And I think what do you think about the individual becoming their own brand? When we look at some of these monoliths today, we can see that some of the ways they only continue to grow is just by by gobbling up all the small things. But if you look at the Matt Brown show, here's an individual with the team that can rival like a multi-million dollar company. You know what I mean? Like a whole HR team, like your small team rivals a whole corporate team. And like, that is an incredible thing to see. It's like a real life David and Goliath story. So, yeah, I mean, I guess the people seem to think that, you know,

personal influence doesn't matter. You know what I mean? Right. Or personal brands don't matter. An interesting story. The show, the map round show wasn't actually called the map round show in the beginning. How's that? It was called the digital kung fu show. And one of my met, Richard Mulholland, he's a professional speaker. He speaks around the world. And he was one of the first guests on the show and stuff like that. And he was part of an entrepreneur's organization. So he was sitting there in the chapter, the chapter president says to all these, you know, super wealthy business owners.

And he says, you know, what are your favorite podcasts? And so people like, yeah, Joe Rogan, you know, da-da. And then one guy's like, and the digital kung fu show. So Rich is like, he phones me and he says, Matt, this is just, this is literally, this has just happened. I don't understand why it's called the digital kung future. Why is it called it? I don't understand that. Why isn't it called the Matt Brown show?

And this is episode 64. And, and then I was like, I don't want to call it the map round show. It's like, this would have my name attached to it. That would be weird. You know, imposter syndrome again, activated, you know. And then I was like, you know what, fuck it. I'm going to rebrand it. And so I did.

Nice. Best thing I ever did. Best thing ever did. Because if it was called the digital, like, who? What? Why? Are you teaching digital marketing? You know what I mean?

You're literally owning real estate that isn't as valuable as the one that has your name attached to it. Like, I actually believe that everyone should have their name as a dot com. You must have that. like I've got MapRound Show.com. And then on that domain, you should have all your authority. So if you go to my website, you'll see all the books, you'll see thought leadership stuff, you'll see who's been on the show,

you'll see the stats around the show. And basically when you go, I get feedback like this all the time. Like, dude, I love that video. I feel like on the homepage of your website, I feel like I want to run through walls afterwards, you know? And so the association of my name, my personal brand, with authority and credibility and trust, okay, in my domain is what makes me different and the show different, you see.

And so everybody should be thinking about, well, what can I brand with my name to allow me to scale my influence? And a lot of times people don't do that because they're like, they're too scared, you know. But every professional speaker I know has this. Every major podcast in the world I know has this. And so if you are a solopreneur and entrepreneur and you're looking to scale your influence, that's like the first thing you do is go and get real estate in the digital world that will be exclusively owned by you, that then you can use to amplify your story, get attention, and drive credibility. I mean, everything that I do around opening up, like I can get into any CEO, like anyone.

one. I can talk more about that. But the first thing they do is they go to the website. Who is this guy? Why should I listen to him? Why should I go on to a show and give him my most precious thing, which is my time? And so that's what I'm saying. Your question is around like personal influence, personal branding and that kind of thing. It's essential, dude. It's essential. It's not about taking personal brands and putting it into like marketing because that's not what it is. It's purely there to give people a sense as to what you're about. without you being in the room to tell them. Yeah, it makes sense that people want to take a good look at whether it's a product or a person and they can make their judgment on it. Is this worth my time? Is this something I can be affiliated with? Is this something that I want to be around it? It makes really good sense.

You know, when you talk about influence, what does it mean that you can get into any CEO's personal, not personal, But what does it mean you can get to them and have them come on your show? Maybe you can talk about that. Like, how does that happen? And why do they want to come on your show? Yeah, man. So, good question.

So when I arrived in the States, I actually lost all my network. Like, I literally didn't know anyone. It was like pretty weird. When you know everyone, now you don't know anyone. And you're in a much bigger fishbowl. Yeah. But I did have the show. And so I sent a thousand emails to startups in California.

It raised a million dollars or more in the preceding 12 months. And I just sent like a simple email. man like hey my name's matt brown i run a popular business show i love to talk to you you know give you some free PR exposure you know we've had these guys in the show new york times best selling authors navy seals you know Jeffrey moir steve blank all these guys super ding dong thinkers in the startup space and then i put uh i put my um calendar link there and i went to bed literally dude i didn't think like you know was i didn't know what was going to happen work up the next morning i was and i shat myself i literally was like holy shit i

I've got 190 booked interviews. I was literally booked for six weeks solid, like from nine to five for six weeks, Monday to Friday. That's how much influence the show had over that particular demographic. And what did it cost me? Just cost me an email, like the time to write it. Do you see what I mean? And then I was like, holy shit, what is this? What do you call this?

Like, why is it working? And I was like, you know what it is? It's influence. it's about this idea of being able to elevate others, not elevate myself. So I could have gone, hey, my name's Matt Browner and I run a popular business show, you know, pay me $1,000 and I'll interview you. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, I do.

But then who's elevating who you? You know what I mean? In that example, I'd be elevating myself financially before, you know, giving them access to my platform. So instead of doing that, what I then did was, was I used the relationships to then commercialize

like afterwards. So I was like, hey man, and now, of course, they told me what they're struggling with. They told me what their vision is. They told me how much money they've raised. They told me stuff that isn't in the public domain, much of it anyway.

And so now I have this network of business owners. 190 literally with one email send. And so that's what I mean by influence. Influence is not about elevating yourself. It's about elevating others. And so then that was really when the lights went off. And I was like, holy shit, that's actually what it's about.

Because people seem to think that influence is about influencer marketing. That's basically what the difference is. So if I had taken $1,000 for a 60 minute interview, I would have been being paid, right, for them to get access to my audience. It's literally influencer marketing. But it sucks. It's the worst type of thing. Like, you're never going to have credibility with your audience if you're just like selling yourself every day.

Today I want to promote this CEO and he's got an incredible story or, you know, this author guy is amazing. It's like, no. People will switch up for that shit, you know. So I've never taken a sense for advertising. I've never taken the sponsor, Manscape contacted me recently. They're like, yo, I'm like, no, no. Sorry for you. That's not what it's about.

I don't know anyone he likes to listen to adverts, you know. And so I didn't want to ruin that experience. But anyway, my point being is, so now I knew all of this. And then I was like, right, now what can I do? So then I automated the whole thing. So now, like, again, to answer your question, like, how do I get in touch with all these guys? So I'm also in the business of adding value first. and then commercializing second.

So I want to give before I receive. And so same story, but now I'm using automated LinkedIn sequencing technology to automate my outreach to mid-market CEOs of technology companies in North America as an example. So it just sends the story to these guys without me being there. So I've automated the entire thing. And all I have to do is respond to like questions. There are a lot. But that's it.

You know, like, and I think about that. And I call it like the automated influence system because now I'm like, wow, that's, that's pretty cool. And now what I've done is I've added in podcast hosts. Same thing. Targeting podcast hosts. Same story. Hey man. I'll interview you.

You interview me. Yeah. And so now, and I've gotten onto some pretty massive shows, right? And this is what I mean by influence. If I had gone, hey man, I run a show, you know, let, I want to come on your show first. Do you see what I mean? Like, how would that be elevating them or giving? giving them an opportunity for where it's a win-win.

Do you see what I'm saying? Or it could have gone, hey, why don't I interview you? You can promote your podcast on my show. You pay me $500. And that's what people do. Like they're so caught up in like the short-term win. Like they want to make money as fast as fucking possible. And they're not thinking about what that impact actually is.

In other words, like, most of the, I've like, let's take those 222 shows I went out this year. what could I do with 222 relationships with C-years a lot? Yeah, without a doubt. I'm like I could, you know, go ask for three referrals each. There you go. I've got 666 new leads for the show. Yeah. You know, you close, you know, 10% of those at 66 new clients.

But I haven't asked for any money. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. And so I think the point being is that the longer you can delay, asking for cash or the longer you can delay commercializing your relationships and just giving, giving, giving, giving, giving, the bigger the payoff will be. So rather think long term than just try and win quick as possible, as much as possible, you know. Yeah, I like that.

I think that when there is a, whenever there's a deal involved beforehand, it takes, it fundamentally changes the intention of the conversation. If I come to you and I'm like, look, man, I give me a thousand bucks and you will be on this thing. All of a sudden, now you're looking for what, okay, I've paid you money, George, what am I going to get? And that changes the conversation. On some level, whoever is elevated on some levels looking down at the other person. That changes the whole dynamic of the conversation. It changes the way the audience sees it.

It changes the words you use. It changes the whole environment of it. And I think that that makes for a shitty conversation. That makes for, you know, something that. is consumable, but it's like fast food. It's like you said earlier. This author is super amazing. Look at this.

It's like getting a side of french fries or something like that, where you could have a personal chef make you an original meal. You're not worried about the ingredients. You're worried about like the whole shebang there, man. It's an interesting thing. I think it's moving in that way, at least the successful shows, the shows that I like, it's a real conversation between people. Like, you don't exactly know what's going to happen.

And it's not going to be a 40-minute fluff piece on the new book that came out. It's going to be, who is this person? Why do they write it? Why should I even read this book? Who cares what they say? Why should I care what they say? It's much more interesting, right? Yeah.

Listen, I get pitched a lot, eh? George, like a lot. And like podcast booking agencies, you know, publishers with the network of authors that they, you know, they need to get the word out about these books. PR firms. I hate PR firms. And they're like, hey, I represent, you know, George Gregan. And he's written this incredible book called X.

And he's also the CEO of such and such a company, which makes him an awesome fit for your audience. Yeah. And it's like, really? Really? Okay, cool. So what do I get? What are you doing for me? How are you elevating me?

Because I don't need authors, dude. I don't need CEOs. Like I said, for me, it's about curation of who I want to talk to you. Yeah. Unless there's a specific strategy or objective around it. Like, I want to grow my network, grow my business, and that's why I want to talk to these particular dudes. But these guys, these PR firms, these podcast booking agencies,

are a pain in the fucking ass. Because you bust your balls, right? For 10 years building an audience. And then they want it. for free. It's like, no, you don't get it that way. That's not how the world works, bro. What are you doing for me? If you're not actually going to pay me money, right, which is what I think I deserve, if you're wanting free PR exposure, quote and quotes, and you want to leverage my equity. Why is it for free? If you're trying to raise money as a startup, you write, it doesn't come for free, dude.

Like, they're going to take a pound of flesh, which is your equity. So for me, it's like, something for me. So as an example, how about this? What if you gave away 50 copies of your book to my audience for free? What if you put $500 or $250 on the table to advertise the interview to your networks to promote me to? So in other words, you're not actually giving me money, but you're prepared to put money on the table to make the interview with me super successful. What if you gave away something for free? Like, not just books, but maybe a free coaching session that proves that you're a super ding-dong guy, you know? And so this is what I mean.

It's like, these guys, I don't understand what planet they're on. It's like, it doesn't come for free. Like, nothing is for free. You have to actually elevate others. And that's what I'm saying. It's like influence this idea of, well, I'm going to come on too much. Like, for free, dude, come for nothing. Come.

Right. And no matter what happens, you'll be in my network. work. And so these PR firms and podcast booking agencies and so forth, they actually don't know how to deal with platform owners. They really don't. Like the other day I was contacted by authors Unite. So they're like a massive company and all they do is books, like best selling books, podcast tours and stuff like that. And they were like, yo, we've got all these authors, you know, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, blah, blah. And, you know, we're looking for a partner who can help us to promote their stories. Right. And so it was more of a partnership-led thing,

rather than, hey, we've got this, you know, 50 Wall Street Journal, number one bestselling authors and we'd like to give you access to them. It's like, no. They were like, dude, what do you need? How can we help, how can we help you to, you know, scale your audience or could we maybe do some kind of red card exchange? I said to them, cool, I'll tell you what. Tell me about your podcasters. So where do you place people, nonfiction writers? Because I'm also an author. And they were like, you know, top 5% business shows in the world. I'm like, cool, how much does that cost? And they're like, what starts at 8 and a half grand per month?

So I'm like, well, what do you get for that? No, you get 15 placements for 8 and a half. I was like, fuck, that's not that bad. Tell you what, I'll interview your authors for free. But that's what I want. I'd like you to place me on these shows. Do you see what I mean? That's what I'm saying.

And their whole scale model is actually not about selling books or producing books. It's partners. they've scaled their entire company through partnerships. If you look at Microsoft or any big OEM, original equipment manufacturer, SAP, workday, like Newtonics,

whatever, they all have what? Partners. Their whole thing is, we're not going to go after the midmarket ourselves. Microsoft is too expensive. By the way, who's going to support,

you know, 25 million customers on Azure? Well, it's not going to be us. It cuts away from our margins. So what we'll do is we'll actually give the partner channel $10,000 each per quarter to market their business to the small business owners so that they can sell Azure or whatever, right? And so if you think about like, and by the way, Microsoft's like a $3.5 trillion market cap company through partners. So this is what I'm saying.

So to your point, I do think it is changing. And people need to approach this idea of scaling, whatever you. you're trying to do, elevating others first. That's for me what influence really is about. Yeah, that's really well said, man. I appreciate that. It's from the front lines, you get to see what's happening. I sometimes I see the PR people too come in and it's interesting. When you, when you think to yourself, like, who's saying yes to the PR people? And then you talk to a guest and they're like, this is a great podcast. The other ones that have been,

I've been horrible. And you're like, yeah, because they're all free. You know, the PR people are hooking up, like pretty well-known authors with podcasters that don't normally get guests.

Like, those are the podcasters that are saying yes, like the people that don't have guests. So you're going to partner this guy from Georgetown University who's a best-selling teacher with a guy who's got a podcast like the last three months. And it was like, uh,

you guys are great. You know, like the questions and the conversation that happens. It's fun. It's, it's, it blows my mind. to see how fast the market is changing and to see the PR firms going, holy cow,

we have to start paying these podcasters to get our guests on there. And then their whole market just kind of dries up, right? Yeah. So let me tell you what's going on there. So you're a PR firm. Okay, I'll tell you exactly what's going on there. So you're a PR firm. Let's say I'm the PR guy.

Okay. So I bring, there's Lydia Hall there. Thanks for your comments. So let's say Lydia is my client. Okay. And you there are the podcast host. Okay. So Lydia is my client, George, you, the podcast.

guys guy. Okay. So I'm the PR firm. So Lydia pays me six, seven, ten, $15,000 amount. What's she paying me for? She's paying me to get her exposure. She wants to have her story on reputable platforms, reputable sites, you know, WSJ, tech crunch, whatever is relevant to her. And so let's just say she's paying me 10 grand a month. So in the PR space, what they are measuring you on, or what I'm being measured on in this example is something called earned media. In other words, how much free eyeballs did I get by paying you 10-R-in-a-month? Right.

So, and unfortunately, what happens is PR firms have to show results like anybody else. But exposure is very intangible, right? It's like, so how do you calculate earned media? So it's like red card multiplied by number of eyeballs equals earned media. But I'm, but the Lydia is the business owner. She wants like revenue, dude. Being famous and broke sucks. Trust me, I've been there.

Okay. And so what inevitably happens is they just want to put guys on podcasts so that, in this case, Lydia, I need to put Lydia on a show on your show, specifically just to prove that the 10 grand she just gave me is actually paying off, that I'm doing the work. But let's just say, George, your show only is like it's not even in the top 2%, or 1%. That's like in the top 5%.

So how much value is that really if you don't really have a lot of eyeballs? Do you see what I mean? So they'll just place you anywhere. They'll do anything to keep that retainer going. And then the hook there is, well, how much earned media did we give you in a quarter? Now, every CEO I know fires their PR firm after three months, like between three to six months. Because eventually they run out of shit to do. Like the ROI is just not there.

Like I don't actually understand what the value of a PR firm is unless they, they, are, you know, working with a listed company with shareholders and they need a wordsmith press releases and things like this. Like, I know loads of guys running NASDAQ listed companies. Yeah. And it's just the press release. And that's why they pay a PR firm. It's like, I don't understand. Like PR firms, you know, when the internet first had sex and social media happened, like before then, PR made sense, right? Because there was nowhere to tell your story. You couldn't do it yourself. You couldn't buy an ad and reach a million people. nothing could go viral, right?

And so the discipline of PR, which is reputation management, now sits with me. It sits with everybody else. So I think the PR function as a discipline is literally dead, unless you're Microsoft and you have to protect your reputation. So like the GPT, Open AI sub-story with, you know, Sam and that. And then, you know, going to Microsoft, like, that's a PR nightmare. when you lose $60 billion of value every weekend.

That's an I mean. So you need a PR firm to control the narrative. You see what I'm saying? So I think in those high value, high stakes situations, absolutely PR has a place. But for everybody else, which is 99% of every like why.

But startups do it because they feel like they can't do it themselves. And that for me, that whole mindset needs to change. How do you see it changing? How do you see it changing? Well, everybody now is a media company. It's already changed. It's like, now it's about like what I call influence systems.

It's like, what can you, so in other words, the idea what the inside around systems is is, if you're running a million dollar business and you want to get to five or two million, you don't just get there. It'd be nice. We'd all be driving Ferraris and it would all be super successful, right? And there'd be zero failure. But the reality is very different. We do fail.

And in fact, we always gravitate down towards our systems. And then the same applies for sales systems, marketing systems, like whatever the particular context is. But when it comes to your personal influence, influence systems are the same. They are the same. And so when you think about your ability now to reach and influence the entire online community essentially, why are so few people successful at that? Why?

Surely if everybody can reach everybody else, you know, like, it's there. The mechanics are there. so why not? And the answer is because people are not thinking about the how properly. They think, oh, I'm just by an ad. Like, I mean, Instagram ads are ridiculous these days. I clicked on one for like an SDR firm. And now I'm inundated with it.

Like, I can't like, every second video is like, I will book you, 100,000 appointments in like, you know, 12 months. Oh, you won't pay, you know. And it's like, hang on, that sucks. Yeah. You know, so I think the world has completely changed. And so in my book, Secrets of Influence, I share literally frameworks to do the shit. And I talk about, you know, media platforms and influence systems and thought leadership. And how to create synergies around these opportunities to position yourself as not only just a person of influence, but also a leader in your field.

Because I believe today that influence is the currency of future business leadership. Like, it's amazing. because everyone's like, oh, it's influencing. You must have a million followers. Like, no, dude, you don't. We used to need 1,000 true fans. Now you need 100. That's all you need.

And so people need to change their whole association to what influence actually is. And forget about the old ways, which is press release. I don't know, literally in the book, I write about all these things, like press releases, webinars, you know, GPT even. Like, why are these things not conducive to true influence? and I give ideas and examples around how things can change with the press release, how things could change. So I'm not saying these disciplines are dead,

but I'm saying the way that we think about them needs to change. Going back to your original question around creative, the creative economy, it's like you have to change the way you think about these platforms and these systems. So here's an interesting thought that I've been thinking about lately and having some conversations about, you know, when we look, a lot of people think that, the internet is like Google or Amazon or like these platforms.

They don't realize that there's an underlying platform on which they're built. And it seems to me that that could be in my mind's eye, what I see is some of these big platforms beginning to lose their influence in that. What if we build the, remember when Facebook first came out and you had access to your entire audience? Like I could put something out and it would go to all my people. Like how much longer before that comes back and you as an influencer, you can have 15 people and what you say about the shoes that you like, you get paid on that influence. Like your word to somebody else, because that's all trackable, right?

Like I can see that Matt Brown talked to George Monty about these shoes. George talked to Bob. Bob bought the shoes. Matt Brown should get paid on that. I think we can track all that. And I think that once people start figuring that out and that begins to show its face, these big companies begin kind of falling away. Like, holy crap, we're taking all the revenue for us.

Why aren't we paying the people at the top in the middle of the funnel? Can you see that potentially making its way forward? For sure, man. Again, it's about, yeah, man. I mean, I think you mentioned that the first time we met, right? I do think, like, so here's the thing. These platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, like they're geared for profit, right? So they want you to spend advertising dollars.

That's what they want. So as an example, you have to pay, you know, a dollar to build an audience. And then over, you know, 365 days, let's just say you spend, you know, whatever, $10,000 building this audience. And now you have 10,000 followers. Okay. So then you, then you're like, okay, well, let me just post a video.

And I'm sure all 10,000 followers will, we'll see it. But they don't. Obviously, it's like 0.1%. So it's like, hang on. So I've just spent 10 grand building this audience. And now you want me to spend more money. reaching the same people I just paid to reach in the first place. Do you see what I'm saying?

Yeah. So like on what planet does that make sense? Seriously, what planet does that make sense? So I tell you another story. So I was off social for a year, right? And when, but I was, you know, doing shows and I was doing this series called Secrets of Fail. And it was like 150 interviews and the book came out and we had a massive body of work, like a lot of content. There was like 300 different assets.

and we released all of them over 10 days. Dude, let me tell you, the organic reach was insane. And in fact, the amounts of people that I reached purely from organic content, we spoke about economics, the cost of that was way lower than if I had paid advertising dollars to do the same job. Think about that. And it was just content, just organic content. So people seem also seem to underestimate just how much content you need to put out today.

They're like, no, one post a day because I don't want to piss off my followers. It's like, no, piss them off. Seriously, piss them off. Be more aggressive. Because literally, man, like in a week I was booked on, you know, 10 podcasts from like nothing, like zero. And people then, the one, someone pushes play on the video, guess what? next time they go to LinkedIn, what do they see in the next video? Right?

And so if they don't like what you have to say, well, fuck them. I care about the one person that does. You see what I mean? And so that's what I'm saying. If you think differently about these things, I'm not saying don't advertise. There's 100% a place for that, but then you've got to really know your message. You have to have a very clear strategy. You need to be testing different messaging sets.

You need to be purely, like relentlessly focused on the one message that works. better than the other hundred that you tested. And then you need to have systems, right, that can capture that funnel, that demand, and then you have to have a sales process that you can then commercialize. So if you haven't figured all that stuff out, stop advertising. Yeah. Right. I mean, I think that this idea of the creative economy, like it's happening in the comedian space,

like Tom, what's his name, Tom, something. But basically during COVID, they created all. all this comedy content and they sold it through his website. And they made more money doing that than through a special on Netflix. You see what I mean? Yeah. So it was like, oh, you must go to Netflix. You must go to Facebook.

You know, you must go to all these things. You must go to YouTube. It's like, no, if you're the creator and you think, and you truly have a genuine audience, you can commercialize it without spending sense on advertising. Organic content, newsletters and the ability and like a Slack channel for entrepreneurs or, you know, that custom GPT app. Imagine you had a million entrepreneurs on there. Yeah.

And you made it available for free. Yeah. So then what you could do is as people are searching for like how, you know, when should I raise money or, you know, how should I, how do I know how much money to borrow from a lender? So I'm getting all this insight now as an example. And it's Matt Brownshow.com forward slash chat GPT app or GPT app or help or mentor or whatever. And now I can use these insights to connect people to lenders. I can connect them to venture

capital firms. Do you see what I'm saying? And I don't need Facebook to do that. But don't or LinkedIn. All I need is a platform, right? A great story and creatively thinking about different ways to add value to the audience that I care about. Yeah, it's exciting to see that emerging and really beginning to understand that the power does lie with someone's imagination. Like, you know, if you have an imagination, you can create an avatar that comes up with a story that everybody falls in love with. You know what I mean? And your avatar could own shares in a company.

And, you know what I mean? Like, it's kind of crazy to think about how deep you can go. Maybe we can talk about avatars to get a little bit more. Like, I've seen some interesting stuff like cure type or these ways in which people are probably a large percentage of news feeds are made. by avatars, right? Like, people are creating avatars that create content for them. Like, that's kind of mind-blowing to think about on some level.

Yeah, it is. I think that the generative AI story is just getting going. Yeah. I mean, I forget this. I can pull it up for you guys. Sure. There was this ad, funny enough, that I saw on LinkedIn, and there was this guy and he was the founder.

it's called Omnecky. I'll put it on there. Okay. I think you can present the chat for everybody. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you guys can all have a look at this.

But I mean, so basically what they do is they do advertising optimization. So you spending ads in Facebook, but you create ads creative, but you don't know what creative is working or will work, you know, what's currently working based on how to find a job or how to scale my company or whatever the case.

And so what that platform does, it looks at your creative. And then it dynamically creates new ads using imagery on the fly based on all the other ads that they've been tracking. So that you think about that. If you have a million ads, how do you know which one's working best? We don't. In fact, you can only have a very small sample size, which is your 10 ads that you did. So now your 10 ads can dynamically explode to 100 ads all with generative AI. based on actual information about your industry, your target audience, and what's working.

And you don't have to do anything. You just go play. I think about that. It's mind-blowing. It's just getting going. I mean, there was this another example was for influencers. Let's say you are a yoga studio, right, and you want to have a professional shoot or artwork for your Instagram to sell your yoga studio services or what have you. So what would you have to do in the past?

Well, you'd have to source the models. You'd have to do a venue scout. You'd have to then pay the models, pay the venue scout, pay the crew, pay the photographer. Then you'd have to fly them out to Costa Rica or wherever the shoot is. So now you've dropped $100,000 for like 52 photos. Do you know what I mean? But now with AI, there's literally models that you can go in a chat function, yoga model, beach.

and it will create an influence a photo based on those three words without you doing anything. So that's what I'm saying about those economies of scale. Yeah. Now what does that mean? Well, you just saved yourself 100 grand. In fact, you paid $100. And you were able to do it at a fraction of the time also. Yeah.

But what does that now mean? So this is what I'm saying. So I think this whole creator economy is just, it's literally going to be turned upside down with AGI, genuinely. And the opportunities will come to those who are thinking about how to do things differently and not like, oh, well, I need to have a thousand people, you know, I'm about 10,000 followers on Twitter. It's like, fuck, no, you don't. Do you know what I mean? Like, you genuinely don't, right?

Like, and again, like, it's farcical to think that you have to pay to reach your followers. Like, what? Nah. Yeah, I heard a quote one time that was people shouldn't be afraid about AI taking their job. They should be afraid about someone who knows how to use AI taking their job. That scaffolding is falling away. Now, we're coming up on about an hour, man. How are you doing on time?

Yeah, man, I'm good. Okay, here's an interesting one that I've been thinking about. So when we look at the way in which AI and the changing business landscape platform influence, we look at how that's changing. What does that mean for supply chains? On some level, those are connected, but not a whole lot of people are talking about that. Do you mean AI and supply chain specifically? You know, well, let me try to broaden the question a little bit.

Like, you know, it seems that from what I have seen, people are finding ways a lot of the influence now have gone from using and selling big brand stuff to supporting their neighbor or starting their own project. And I think that that is making the supply chain smaller. So rather than reppping a water bottle that somebody made in China and is selling a. Ohio and it gets marketed through New York and then finally comes to Hawaii, I'm going to market my neighbor's water bottle. And I think that's shrinking the supply chain, which is having a really interesting effect on local economies. Is that too far out there, man? Am I way out in George world right now? Or have you seen something similar? What do you think? Yeah. I don't really have a sort of a unique point of view on that. You know, I think everything's going, is changing.

You know, it's like, like Elon Musk said, I think he said, one day, I, I, I said, I will be able to do everything. Right. So then what? What would you actually do? Think about that. Let's say that I'll change the frame of it. So do you know what universal basic income is? I do. So UBI. No one's been able to solve that. So AGI comes along in 2024 and someone goes, come up with a universal basic income model that's scalable, that works, that hits these things, blah, blah, blah. And then AGI solves it because it's way more intelligent than every human on the planet put together. So now it's able to do things that, like, one person could never do, let alone a million, like a billion people thinking about UBI, which is never a probability. But now AGI has just done that. So now I imagine this for a moment. So UBI is now a real thing.

And everybody in the world is no longer starving. Wonderful. Right. It's just one thing. So now they're able to make enough income through whatever the solution is so that they don't actually have to work. it's a choice. Yeah. So what would we do if we didn't all need, you know, I mean, obviously, it's all context

depending on nuance. Like I wouldn't want to live on $5 a day. But if AGI or AI had solved pretty much all the jobs to be done that, you know, were easy, and it freed up all this time that we had, what would we do with our time? What would we actually be focusing on? And I believe it would be meaning. how do I give my life meaning? Because, you know, like, why are we entrepreneurs?

Why do we build businesses? Because it's hard. Someone said something really cool to me that day. I can't remember, but basically we're talking about meaning and purpose and this. And it's about meaning. I build businesses because I would, if I took a job, it would literally kill my soul. Because I would know that I was never living up to my potential. Do you see what I mean?

Yeah. And so when you suffer, meaning is associated with that unconsciously. It's like if you go to gym and you work out and you suffer, you have, you put meaning into that. The same thing when you suffer with your children or your relationships or your business is suffering or whatever. You have a bad quarter. And so this idea of suffering actually gives our lives purpose. It's like I'm here to sit in this purpose because I know I want to provide for my family. I need to provide them X.

And if I'm not able to do that, right, then what does that mean for me? You see? So we're meaning making machines. And so I think the creator economy is like, fuck, what if the ads went about like just how to add revenue to your business? But how could you, you know, achieve a new definition of success as an entrepreneur, meaning the world's changed. It used to be about how much money you could make.

But in many cases, I know many guys super wealthy. that suck at their marriage. Like they're not present with their kids. Their kids won't talk to them because the guy wasn't there, but he's super wealthy. Then also he's been divorced four times. This is an actual billionaire that I know. You know,

and so true success for me is now getting wealthy or having financial freedom, but also to be able to be successful in at home, right, with your personal relationships. And there's so much talk about like work-life balance and, you know, work, work balance and is there balance? How do you get balance? Well, you know, point is, you know, it's cost.

Something is going to cost you more than what you gain. And only when you get older, do you realize actually what's important? So like when you were, when I was in my 20s, I was like, oh, I'm going to be a billionaire. And then when I was in my 30s, I was like, you know, probably not going to be a billionaire. And now I'm in my 40s. I like, I don't give a fuck. You know what I mean? And so your frame changes.

But this idea of AI and it changes the whole world and what would you actually do would be about finding meaning and purpose. And I think there's a big opportunity for creators to execute on that. You know, how do you find, mental health is such a big issue, isn't it? It's everywhere. Like everyone's not talking about this, you know, depression, anxiety, you know, and a lot of it's through social media and bullying this and that. And so I think the opportunity for many creators is to actually help people find meaning and purpose in the world. that's going to be automated. So, you know.

Yeah, it's really well said. It's on some levels, I mean, you don't really have to squint your eyes that hard to see it happening. You know, when you see people that are, like you said, you'd mentioned individuals. And the people that I know are really wealthy, you can apply the idea of you can't serve two masters. People that have found a way to become really wealthy usually are divorced multiple times. They've usually had to choose business or money over their family because if you want to build something of that magnitude, you're probably not going to be able to have the long conversations with your wife about your kids ballet or your kid's soccer game, you know, and that's what ruins relationships. People have to give up one to get the other to get that. And it's interesting that you bring up AI like that because I think that you're already seeing it on some level.

Like you're seeing a massive displacement in the workforce. Like we are in the midst of a crippling depression, I would have. argue on some level right now. Like you're seeing people just cast aside like jobs are being cut left and right and that's why you see all this fear porn on TV. But the first phase is like, holy shit, now that I'm not making money, what does that mean about me? I thought I was the provider of my family. I'm supposed to be the man of the family. Guess what? I don't have a job. Am I still the man of the family? What's my wife think? What's my kid think? How am I going to pay for tuition? You know, all of a sudden this crisis of identity creeps into people. And I think that that has to be a

phase as we move towards a universal basic investment or a universal basic income. But before it gets better, it's got to, it's people got to go to that dark night of the soul, right? That might look crazy on a grand scale, man. What do you think? Yeah. Dude, it's a big question, man. You ask the big question, brother.

Yeah. I got you here, man. I can't waste my time with small questions. Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. I think it's, look, again, just this whole, no one really has the answers. I mean, like, this is why I hate future. much because you have nothing interesting to say become a futurist, you know.

So like a futurist basically goes to like, you know, Google's AI trains and blockchain, you know, this. And then he goes, well, this is what I found. You know, here's, here's AI and creators. Here's AI and this. And that. So suddenly they're a qualified futurist. It's like, fuck off. You're not qualified at all, dude.

You just don't you're a researcher. You know what? futurist. You don't know the future. Who knows the future? You know what I mean? And then I love the best part of these guys is when they make predictions. I predict that by 2030 and every single time they're wrong. But the point being, it's like, well, let's wait and see. Like, you can't be on the sidelines while this is changing. You have to be in the center of it in as many ways as possible, you know? Yeah. It's interesting to see. I, I like to take a look around and just see what's happening in your environment and your neighbors.

And then you can kind of act accordingly. But I hear you on the future wrist. If people think they can tell the future, just look at the weather channel. Like we can't even predict what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone two days from now or a year from now. But I guess that brings into the question of models. Like what's the purpose of, you know, modeling stuff then? you know, when you start looking at it from that angle. Yeah.

Do you mean business models or modeling? Yeah, like on some level, isn't business models and, you know, if you're looking at projections and business models, I mean, you might as well be throwing chicken bones, right? Mm. Might as well be. Yeah. Yeah. She's modeling, yeah. Well.

Like, what do you do? Like, when you look at models? Like is that something that you incorporate into your business strategy? I mean, you can look at trends, but even still, though, like it's still, you might as a little flip a coin, man. Yeah. No, dude, I don't model anything. I mean, I get asked a lot, you know, should I start a bit like write a business plan?

It's like, yeah, you can, but it's a great exercise and theoretical thinking. Right. You know, you're going to forget about that the moment you're actually in markets. So, I mean, I suppose that's probably a version of modeling. I think probably the one modeling I do value is commercial modeling. So being able to know how much to charge for a particular service or product, you know, or how much money to raise from an investor at a particular valuation.

You know, I think probably the only modeling that makes sense for me is either modeling successful people or modeling commercials. So commercial models, because the one thing that changes a business more than anything else is the value proposition. and the commercials attached to it. Like if you change one thing, changes everything in the future. So if you want to like predict the future,

like model your historical commercials, you know, because also a lot of general partners from venture capsule firms that I've had on the show, a lot of, I said to me, what's the number one reason

you don't actually back a startup? And he goes, well, many of them have said, most of them, in fact, was like, well,

they're too aggressive in their forecast. They think they're going to be a billion, you know, $10 billion. company in six months. And then they're like, hang on, this guy is smoking his socks. You know, he's clearly not on planet Earth. And I don't want to back someone that's not a realist.

You know. So I think certainly in the entrepreneurship space, commercial modeling more than anything else, you know, and I suppose maybe now with AI, it's like modeling, you know, models, different language models for different use cases and things like that. But that wasn't a thing, Thanksgiving last year. Now it's the thing for everybody. So, so yeah, that's what I say, man. What about cross?

What about the idea of finding venture capital in different cultures? Like, you have been somewhere where you started in South Africa and then, yep, you started in South Africa and you moved around. Have you noticed there's different ways to find capital? Is there certain, are there certain types of criteria that, every place is looking for that people could kind of use as a, as a map. Yeah. There's a, there's a formula to everything, you know, especially when it comes to raising money. So there's a, there's a structure, like we do these investment shows for some startups and

stuff. But there's a structure of, the thing is it's not about the valuation. It's not about the, you know, what goes into your pitch deck. It's about the structure of information. That's more important than the information itself. So in other words, people, are wired to consume information in a particular way. So this is why some movies suck and some movie regrets. It's because you know the like 10 minutes in, you're like, what? This movie sucks.

Yeah. Because of the millions of shows that you've watched and episodes that you've watched, your mind is wired for a story, right? It's wide structure of information. So when it comes to raising money and in fact, it's trying to do anything to get your message to land, There's a framework that I use, and it was shared by a friend of mine, Rich Mahalind, the guy actually mentioned it up in front.

But it's called care, believe, no do. So give them reasons to care, give them reasons to believe, tell them what they need to know, and tell them what you want them to do. There's obviously many other frameworks like P3, like problem product proof as an example. But if you're trying to sell anything and you just think about, well, what's the structure first? what's the story that I'm trying to get across to an investor? What's the story I'm trying to get across to my business partner or a prospect? And so recognizing that it's about the structure of information first, not the information itself.

And what people fall into in terms of a solution trap is they want to overload you with information as an investor. They want to give you all of the future PNLs from like, you know, 2028, which is so far away. and also in sales presentations. It's like how much information can I bore my prospect with? Because they think that the more information they provide, the better the pitches, but that's not true. In fact, you should be able to learn how to sell something in less than three minutes. There was a guy I had on the show, Brandt's Pindbittich or something like that.

Can't pronounce his surname. But he wrote the book, The Three Minute Rule. He had sold over 300 digital telemet. television shows in less than three minutes. Wow. So that's what I'm saying like those commonalities, right? Whether you're selling a TV show or whether you're selling Tony Ray's capital or selling an Azure software license,

you know, if you recognize that there are principles and patterns and frameworks that people will use all over the world, you know. And in fact, nothing's really new anymore. Nothing's really new. You're not going to go create a business or a product or service that's new. You're not. You're going to take an existing service and do it better. That's what most people do. And so, so yeah, it's structure of information rather than information overload. I love it, man. I appreciate it. Matt, it's been awesome, man. I really

enjoy the conversation. It's stoked to get you in here and get to hear things that other people may not get to hear and appreciate the information. I appreciate the hard work and I appreciate you coming on. Before I let you go, what do you got coming up? Where can people find you? What are excited about? Well, you can find me anywhere. Just Google Matt Brown's show. You'll find me wherever you find your favorite podcasts. And yeah, I'll probably leave you with the quote. Plato once said that any man that doesn't learn to cultivate his own influence will be ruled eventually by lesser men. So think about your influence and how you can start scaling that because the world will be a better place if you do. I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for hanging out. go down to the show notes check out matt he's got over almost a thousand episodes tons of information in there check out all the news stuff he's got going on the links will be down there and that's all we got for today ladies and gentlemen i hope you had a wonderful day and i hope you have a great tomorrow that's all we got aloha