193. Stop Ignoring LinkedIn. It’s a Goldmine for Personal Brands ft. Matthew Lakajev

23:21But if I niche down and I went SDRs in SaaS organizations in Australia that want to get promoted to an account executive role, well, it's really easy to provide something useful to them. Like how to talk to your manager for a few months in advance to go for the promotion. How do you build pipeline? How do you do discovery? Like it's very easy to be useful to someone, but people kind of get on the bandwagon of like, oh, I've got to help everyone. There's this big wide world out there of like, I can sell to everyone. but like when you do that you you end up selling to no one and then creators get caught in this thing where they're just telling this like crazy storytelling content and they're just spending hours and hours creating this stuff but they're not actually creating any true influence but then they look at people who are like the biggest creators who are unicorns right unicorns don't exist right they're unicorns and then they're like trying to follow these people to make money and then so whenever i see like that happening i'm just like i just get like upset i'm just like upset for these people as well because then like in order to like target a nation be useful you also have to regress in views you have to regress in views like but if you look at someone like obviously i got introduced to you guys through ali abdahl right he's a really good example like i'm in a mastermind with ali abdahl we pay like a lot of money per year to be in and then since ali's been working with coaches he's niched the fuck down what he actually sells his content is like super niche and he's realized oh yeah like productivity is really fucking hard to sell i'm just gonna teach people how to make money it's like because they can see what the actual outcome is okay so then if someone has their niche figured out what then must happen to be able to craft a winning offer that they can sell and make a lot of money doing definitely can i give you guys like before niching like there's something that's really key because i think you guys obviously read hundred million dollar offers right yeah it's made the entire of every young person i don't think i'm young anymore but like every kind of young to mid person self-conscious about their offer right makes you feel like shit unless i have this offer that's jam-packed full of so much value i can't sell it you know and that's it's created a big issue in the market but like before offer creation you've got to cover this thing called offer viability right okay let's get into it so So offer viability.

25:38And so offer viability is, is your offer even viable, right? Is it even viable in the entire market? And there's kind of four steps to it. And each of the steps is like times by each other. So if any of them is zero, it's not viable, right? Which is really, really hard, right? And so you need four things, right? You need to have latent demand in the market. So latent demand means, are there people in the market right now who are buying this thing already? Are they buying it? Because if they're not, you're trying to create a category, right? And everyone's read Blue Ocean, Red Ocean book and stuff like that.

26:15And it's just fucked everyone. To create a category, let's say you want to be Uber, right? Just spend a few billion dollars to create a category. You know, Airbnb, a few billion. Facebook, a few billion, right? To create a category, you don't want to create a category. You want to fit into a category. It's something that already exists, right? So is there demand? The second thing is what's called category belief. So I'll give you an example of this. Category belief. Is the thing a thing people buy? So for example, people buy recruiters. They buy career coaches. They buy coaching now. Group coaching is now a thing.

26:50It wasn't before. Pre-2022, AR agencies weren't a thing. It is now. People don't buy nervous system regulation, leadership, clarity coaching. They don't buy that. It's not a thing. Right. It's like, it's not actually a thing that people sell. So if you want to know the category of what you sell, they can't buy it, which is really, really hard. Right. The next one that is called outcome observability, right? Observability, right? So if you can't see and picture the outcome of what will happen, you cannot buy it for it. And that's why it's really easy to sell people how to make money because people picture the money in their bank account or the book calls on their calendar, right?

27:31It's really hard to sell stress relief or it's really hard to sell nervous system regulation because people don't know what that feels like or that even looks like. And also that's like an internal belief thing and selling internal stuff is way more difficult selling external because like all someone's thinking if they're going, so let's say you're a career coach and you work with female engineers that want to get promoted, right? Like it's, they're thinking to themselves, if you sell clarity alignment for female engineers to decide on what they want to do in their role, they're going to be like, no, all I'm thinking is like, I hate my manager and I deserve more money.

28:08So you say, if you hate your manager and you deserve more money, I'll show you to get more money. Cool. It's like, that's the outcome. It's like really simple. So someone tries to, it's the, it's the gift of the expert, but like someone's too, too, too much of an expert of something, which just makes it hard. Right. And then the fourth point, right. Is, is what's called payment normalization. And all of these things is offer viability equals latent demand times category belief times outcome times payment normalization. If any of these is zero, it's zero. It's like you can't actually add it up.

28:42So payment normalization is like, let's say you want to sell group therapy coaching to my dad, who's a 59-year-old Christian man from the Northern Beaches who fixes cars for a living, even if you niche down perfectly to what he sells to, he will never buy that because he just goes to church. He just goes to church. He goes to church and he has a men's group on Wednesday night where he hangs out with his friends. And so like, it's just not normal to pay it. And this is really classic on LinkedIn where someone's like, I help managers that have just been promoted into their role to become a great manager.

29:19So there's a lot of demand because people buy management coaching. There's a category because it's coaching. There's an outcome, which people know what it is, but the company is usually meant to pay for it, not the individual. It's something that company expects to pay for. Like, for example, in Australia, healthcare is free. It's literally free. And then they brought out an$80 thing where you go to a doctor and you have to pay$80. People fucking hit the roof. They were so annoyed. But when I went to the US and I went to Coachella last year, right? Like I put an ear bud thing in my ear to clean the wax out and actually pushed the wax in.

29:53So it blocked my eardrum. And I was like, fuck, I can't even hear out of one ear. This is going to suck at Coachella. So I'm in like, um, Palm Springs and like, I got to go to the hospital, go to the hospital, get my ears clean out super quick. And they're like, yeah, that's like 550 USD, which is like a million Australian dollars. And I'm like, fuck, what is going on? But it's like, nah, this is like normal. And so there's like if you don't get these things right in the first place like don't you shouldn't even try to sell it and like the easiest thing to do to get it right is just find other people that are selling something that's out there and it's working and just copy that don't try and reinvent the wheel

30:34Matthew Lakajev:it's just like we've talked about yeah there's no reason to try to make a unicorn you should find something that's already existing and try to make it a little bit better and make it a little bit different. That is the way to go about it. You'll drive yourself crazy and you'll spend so much money trying to make some bullshit that's not real happen than just figuring out something that you're like, oh, I'm already good at that thing. What can I do to make this a little bit different, a little bit better? It's like you want to think in terms of like what must occur. It must have demand. It must be a category.

31:02It must have an outcome and it must be normal to pay for it. And if it's not, you are trying to create a category, but then you don't want to compete with the, you know, the biggest software companies of the world because they raise millions of dollars of VC money and they have the smartest people in it. Like you want to compete with something, open up the easiest business in the world. Just be a fucking cleaner. Everyone needs a good cleaner. No one can get a good cleaner. It's really easy to sell. I will come to your house and I will clean your house and I am not a weirdo. It's really easy to sell that, right?

31:36It's like, if you're trying to sell like software, it's like, it's so hard to sell because the other person has to do something like they have to actually log in and do and learn it's like hard so you want to pick something that's like has tons of demand and people need it and it's like easy for you to sell you don't want to play business on hard mode i just want to know what your favorite set from coachella was last year because it's coming up are you running it back you coming over here i went for the third time so i went in 2018 and 2019 and then i went obviously last year um favorite set probably was green day that's for sure brings brings it back i was in high school listening to green day on my mp3 player on the bus you know so i was like green day boulevard of broken dreams that was that was pretty epic yeah it was that you're missing bieber though man it's a big one i was a bit like honestly it's like three times i gotta go to something else it's just a bit weird three times and i'm 34 it's just it's taking it too far now you know dude i'm gonna be i'm gonna be ripping sahara tent till i'm 50 dude i'm gonna be in

32:39Matthew Lakajev:there with my grandkids yeah you don't even know what i used to do here yeah the sahara was the fucking wind everywhere this time you remember did you go last year it was like there was wind there's dust everywhere it sucked i was like the old sahara was way better yeah that's funny okay wait you said something earlier that was interesting you said the purpose of content is just to start conversations yes can you break that down for us and what you mean by that yeah it's like what do you want as a business owner right what do you actually want you just want to have leads baby yeah leads and how do you get leads how do you get a lead right like you provide something useful for people and then they want to talk to you it's like that's how you actually do it it has to be useful and like i know because i like test this myself i've built a 50 thousand email lists on LinkedIn with a hundred percent organic content.

33:29I've had like probably nearly half a million opt-ins to my stuff because people just keep re-opting in over and over and over. But the only reason I can do it is because it's just so useful. It's like, it's, that's why all YouTube content is now coming into tactical content. It's like, or for business stuff. It's like, it has to be useful, but how am I going to be useful if what I do is I sell to stressed employees in the world. It's not a niche. It's like, it's like, I can't be useful to these people. And also I might be able to be useful where I show them how to do, um, you know, breathing and meditation, but people don't expect to pay for that.

34:04It's just, they get it for free. It's free stuff. And so it's got to be so, it's got to be so oddly specific and relatable to the individual that for them in that context, they can use it and get a positive outcome. They can get it and change their behavior, which creates a positive outcome within their life. And then they'll associate that behavior change and that positive thing with you of what you actually did. It's why Hormozzi offers book and all these books. He kind of redefined nonfiction where he actually just turned his book into a step-by-step course. It's not really a nonfiction book.

34:38It's just a course. And he just put it inside a book and he made it so specific and so relevant and so useful that people applied it and then by applying that that's how he made 106 million dollars because he ran a book launch and he was cashing in on all the people that have used his stuff and made so much money they had this built up reciprocity inside themselves and like he kind of like redefined what that actually is within like books and content itself yeah it was the biggest transfer of wealth for good karma literally yeah it literally is and that's and when you look at like online and social media, right?

35:11It's like, I'm going 100 % all in on this. I'm doing LinkedIn, YouTube lives and LinkedIn lives every single day now, because I think live is the future. But I think the way you gain influence is like, you have to get someone to do something to change their behavior that turns into a positive thing. Like that, that's like what has to occur, but it's really hard to, you know, like, I'll give you an example of a niche, right? Real example. And I can run through niching next. Like the niche can be dog walkers who walk at my park at St. Leonard's Oval in North Sydney where I live at 6am in the morning.

35:42That's a niche. Like what do these people actually need? Well, if they forget their dog bag, pick up their dog shit, that's one thing. What's also normal about the culture on North Sydney Oval? Well, there's a specific part of the Oval where everyone stands in a circle and talks to each other. And so if you walk past that part on your phone, you're immediately an outsider. It's like, but you couldn't describe what that actually is until you were there, it's too difficult. And so in order to like really be your niche, you have to actually talk to people within the niche to know what's actually useful for them in their context.

36:17Yeah, talking to your audience is one of the most powerful and underrated things that you can do. Because if you like, if you're in the niche, you might not know exactly what people are struggling with or what they need or how you really can provide the most value, but just by simply asking your audience, you can figure out so much. Can you give an example of a more digital offer or niche? Because yeah, I think the dog walker, I think it's a great example. I would just love to hear maybe some examples of a more digital niche or something more digital. Yeah. So if we're looking at like offers themselves, sales.

36:58Here's where my pen thing go. So number one is you have to do, is my offer even viable, right? So which we just went through, right? So your offer has to be viable as a first step, right? The second thing is people look at your stuff and they have to think this is for me, right? That's what they have to think when they say your stuff. And then the third part is I trust this person, right? And this is where personal brand comes in, right? But you don't need content to get clients. It's like a lie, right? It's like usually people are just doing content. It's kind of like the classic thing where you tell a content creator, you're like, you don't need less content.

37:38You need more conversations. And they're like, no, no, but I love doing content. I'm really good. It's like when the personal trainer who gets up at 5 AM every morning, cause they're a psycho and they're working out for two hours a day. And they're like, just get up, work out, do this. It's like, but for them, it's easy. It's easy for them to do it, right? It's not hard. And so when they're screaming at the fat person, like move, right? It's like for that person, it's really, really difficult, but there's probably things in that person's life with the personal trainer could not do, which is quite difficult for as well.

38:04And so when you're looking at like this structure, you're like, okay, the offer needs to be viable. It has to be for me. And it has to be that I trust this person. And there's kind of like a breakdown for each of like how to do it. But when we're looking at like, is this for me, there's three things that you need to solve when it comes to niching right and i'll draw this like little someone told me the other day this was called a venn diagram which i was like this is pretty cool so the way how you define niching itself is like number one is you have to pick a subculture who you're going to market to right so this a subculture could be you know uh i i do crossfit i'm like one of those crazy crossfit people crossfit is a subculture right a subculture is a place where there's rules and things and social norms which only people in the subculture know and understand did any of you guys play league of legends or world of warcraft back in the day okay so we're not super nerdy guys i'm super nerdy so we played we played we we love

39:04Matthew Lakajev:call of duty we're huge did you play did you play modern warfare 2 yes yes i played yugioh i ripped yugioh is good so like this that's pretty nerdy so modern warfare 2 do you remember playing modern warfare 2 where you'd play with your mates and you'd all be on rust and you do right shields only and you just run around fucking stabbing each other right so yeah yeah we're talking about that we understand it but people who've never played modern warfare 2 they have no idea what that means so there's a subculture which is og modern warfare 2 players right and so that's a subculture like and so you got to pick a subculture who you market to right The second is there has to be a location where they all congregate and that location has to be like a thing.

39:46Now, location can be a geographical location or it can be a platform location. It has to be a location and it has to define as a location if there's... It's like, and the reason why, you know, people try to sell online is they're like, I'm going to sell everywhere. But it's like, have you ever done a sales process in Germany versus Australia versus India? completely different cultures, completely different norms. And so you treat these people differently as well. Like, I don't know if you guys have gotten sales calls from different people over the world. It's different. And so you have to have a different structure.

40:17And then the last part of what you're actually selling when you niche is what's called your temporal identity. And temporal identity means it's just like, what stage of life or period of time are they in right now? Like, where are they at? Like, are they a new dad? Like, are they like, you know, did they just graduate like where are they right now what is the stage and so the more narrowly you define these three things the better you can actually have as a niche right now i'll give you kind of like an example of like then how to sell online but if you need to get these three things like right but and the more like zoomed in you make them the more useful you can be to the person if you actually sell to it and so an example of like a niche if i made it up right is actually i'll just I'll use a client as an example right so I got a client called Bill and Bill is a recruiter right in Oklahoma in the US and he has six kids right that's Bill right crushes on LinkedIn has so many fucking inbound leads he can't even deal with it he's that he's pushing people away right writes 100 % AI content and I can show you the actual post as well 10 ,000 likes on a post right

41:28Matthew Lakajev:all AI he only it's only AI read his post that AI generated but because he's got his niche so much it doesn't matter because it's so useful to the people to read it. I'll show you the actual posts themselves. I got them on here. But like, what is his subculture? Number one, Bill sells to engineers. Engineers call themselves engineers. That is a subculture. A subculture is when there is a noun associated with who you are. You guys are creators. Like that is a subculture, right? I would call myself a crossfitter. That's a subculture of who I am. I say I'm from the beaches in the northern beaches in Sydney.

42:04That's also a subculture and a location. There's a subcultural group of that, right? So Bill sells to engineers location in the US because, you know, if he's going to get people jobs in Australia versus the US, totally different regulations and it's really difficult to market to. And then the last thing is he sells to engineers that are at the stage of life where they're getting paid 100K and they feel like they deserve 150K. That's it.

42:29Matthew Lakajev:That's it. And so when Bill is creating this content, it's very easy to create content because he just talks to engineers in the US who are stuck in this position and who want that position. So Bill just writes content and it's literally AI writes it. You can tell what's AI written content, but it doesn't matter if the content's AI written, if the content is for you. Let's use an example of AI written content. Do you guys use ChatGPT or Claude? Yeah. That's AI written content. It's writing it. I wouldn't say it's like, no, no, no, for sure. Yeah, for sure. I don't think it's interesting. It's like this conversation is interesting.

43:06Matthew Lakajev:Like we, I wouldn't use chat GBT to write something for me. Like I just, I just don't do it. I would rather use it to refine something that I, that I wrote in my voice. Like if I felt like there's a better way to organize this because I'm very all over the place. Can you please help me organize my thoughts? That's something that I would use it for. Not like speak to this group. for me and just go. I feel like every time I've ever seen that, or like you're saying, I get very turned off to knowing that it was written solely by AI. If I write our newsletter, for example, I will write it and then I'll say, hey, can you unfuck this?

43:43Matthew Lakajev:Make it in an actual order that someone could digest, not go ahead and write it because I've done it and it just doesn't sound like me at all, even though I've spoken to it for thousands of hours. I think the output in a sense, but like you read what chat GBT says to you, right? You read it. Yeah. It's useful. Yeah. And it's specific and it's relevant. So we read AI content all day long because we're reading. I see what you're saying. GBT and Claude. So like if you can produce content, even if it's AI written, that it feels like you wrote in someone's journal, they're not going to care that AI wrote it.

44:19Like we don't care. Like chat GBT is so addictive. The reason why social media usage is down is because chat GBT usage is up. is because now we've got the greatest personalized algorithm of all fucking time. This is like, this is like in my brain, my journal. Right. And so even though it's written by AI, right. I totally get where you're coming from, where it's like, I don't want to produce content that's AI. Cause if I know it's AI, I'm kind of turned off, which I think that's true as well. A hundred percent. Like I try not to do that as well. And you want your own original ideas. And sometimes it does stupid shit.

44:49Right.

44:49Matthew Lakajev:I see what you're saying though, because it's like for this specific guy, it doesn't, it really doesn't matter. Cause at the end of the day, these, these engineers are getting value from his stuff. So it doesn't matter whether it's Bill, Davey, Michael, Randy, it doesn't matter. I see what you're saying. If they're scrolling through their LinkedIn feed, right? And they see a post that feels like someone wrote them a handwritten letter, like my friend Alex wrote me, of course, they're going to stop and read it. Like, why would you not? And even if like, it was AI written, it, it still, sure, it does that.

45:23But like it doesn't really matter because it's so like specific to you and it's so relevant that it becomes so useful like it's so useful I've seen you I've seen you speak out though about

45:35Matthew Lakajev:like the slop of LinkedIn and kind of how it has in a way in my opinion sort of ruined the platform for what I used to really enjoy from it I used to feel like I got hyper specific stories from business owners from people who had gone through real business and I've sold this business or I've created this thing and I'm really passionate about helping you also get this sort of situation in your business. And I feel like that sort of content is gone and it makes me sad. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are. I mean, you're coaching this guy and it works for him, right? But what are your thoughts as the overall ecosystem of trying to help someone be a better content creator on that platform?

46:13I love this topic and thank you for asking this question as well. I'll give you the example, right? So if we come back to this, what content is good, right well if it's specific but it's for a stranger it's fortune cookie content right so it's for anyone but you know when you go to a chinese restaurant sometimes the fortune cookie is super nice you eat it and you're like that's a fresh fortune cookie but then sometimes you go and it just tastes stale and it's like shit right like that in australia that's like ai content it's just stale it's shit but it's the fortune cookie but you just don't care as well but that's like one element but like the true issue with ai content comes where like people are shit at writing and but then they use ai but they don't know what good looks like so they use ai and they take their current shit writing and they put into ai and it makes them feel like it's better because ai tells them it's better and it's confirmation bias back and forth oh this is amazing it's great everybody's gonna love it right and then it's like they put it out there but because they don't know what good actually looks like, they can't actually even explain it.

47:20And so the issue that's happening is people are outsourcing their own skill to something that doesn't even know what good looks like. And then, but then when you get an actual expert or like you guys are experts, right? You know, probably what good content is, what bad content is. You can probably, you can probably watch a video and explain why this worked, why this hook was here, why this was here, why this is here, because you're experts at that thing. But people don't even have that ability. So they can't even explain what good looks like. It's as if they're like every young dude, right. Went on bodybuilding.com when they were growing up to like, cause they wanted to get big.

47:52Right. And so you went on bodybuilding.com, you fucking looked at the workouts, you signed up at your Globo gym, you took your fucking pre-workout, Jack fucking 3d that exploded your heart. Right. You had tingles all over your body. You're there fucking doing your five by fives or whatever it is, or three by 10. But then like, you know, it just, it didn't even really work because like you weren't really an expert and it wasn't until you like actually decided oh shit i actually need to sleep properly and i actually need to actually recover like between these different things and like i actually need to like learn to do these movements correctly oh i can't just like lift stuff as heavy as possible i actually need to have form when i do it so it's like until you get in there and you understand you do the nuances of the thing you don't even know what it looks like you think you know what it looks like and so what's happening with link is ai is it's making content easier for people to put themselves out there, which I think is great, but they're putting shit out there, which is ruining their brand.

48:45And so it's like, and they're putting something out there. That's like a really shitty fortune cookie. It's like, it's like a really crap tasting fortune cookie. You can put fortune cookies out there. And if they're super nice tasting and stuff, and they kind of feel like it's for anyone. And that's like a really good story. People still like a fortune cookie. I like it. But if it's a really off stale one, that's what's happening with the feed now as well. And And that's why like feeds are like pushing down AI specific content. But I do think it will eventually get to the point where it's like the thing that's going to matter the most is like how deep are you into your niche and how useful can you be to these people?

49:19Because all of your content, even if it's AI generated, it won't matter because it's all your original ideas. And all these original ideas happen from you living your life and no one can live your life. So they're all original ideas. Yeah, that's interesting. I will say if I was to go to an Asian restaurant and I don't get a fortune cookie at the end of the meal, you'd be pissed. You'd be mad. So yeah, dude, we love fortune cookies around here. Definitely. Everyone loves fortune cookies. Okay. We've gone through niche and we've gone through like offer viability. And then you also need to trust.

49:52I was going to ask about if AI content messes up being able to trust someone, but you clearly answered that. Like if it's, it can be, it can be AI, I guess, generated content, but it still has to be your lived experience and you bring in your own unique ideas and perspective. Can I show you like an actual posts so you can see them as well? Cause I think that'll be really useful to like conceptualize as well. I pulled this up. I think this will be useful. You guys can see this. Okay. So let me just, yeah, there we go. So I just pull up Bill's profile just so, cause it's quite useful. Right. Right.

50:31So if this is very tactical for anyone who does LinkedIn as well, by the way. So like with LinkedIn, the top bit, there's like a banner, right? And on the banner, you want to make it a billboard, but it's a billboard that's like speaking to someone's journal. So you can see on Bill's billboard, he's saying civil recruiter. He's like, this is what I am. And then he's like helping geotechnical and structural engineers find a better role.

50:55Matthew Lakajev:Wicked specific. It's just like, okay, I know exactly what you do. And you sell something that's real. It's real. And then the last bit under here is like, he's the engineering head hunter. So I tell people to change their pronoun, change that. I'm like the LinkedIn expert or whatever. And then underneath it says engineers are underpaid except for mine. Great. Super simple. It's like, I know what Bill does immediately. Most people don't even know what you do. It's like, they're just confused. And it's like, you have a second to build up their trust. Then if you look down here is like, I won't go through this whole entire about me section, but he starts off his about me section where he says, I've got six kids at home and I spend my days talking to engineers.

51:32So when he says six kids, immediately what that does in your brain is you're like, he's someone who has a strong personal brand. Cause if you have six kids, you gotta be pretty fucking put together. You have to be put together to have six kids. And so he's just immediately, if I am a dad in the U S who is an engineer, and then I look at Bill's photo and he's smiling and it's genuine and he's wearing a suit. it's like, okay, he matches the, what I'm actually looking for. Like he matches the thing that I'm looking for. And I know in like a second, like what he does and who he helps like immediately.

52:05And so where most people get it wrong is like, they don't have a category. They're not targeting a specific niche. And so like the worst niche ever that people pick is like on LinkedIn, they'll be like, I help mid-market professionals find better clarity to step into the next role. i see this all the time right because ai told them that should be their niche and you're like what is that like i don't know what is that or there's a big linkedin personal brand ecosystem where everyone says i help ceos build their personal brand on linkedin you're like cool so it's like i'm going to the grocery store and there's like 5 000 packets of chips how the fuck do i know which one is good it's like i don't know it's like i'm just like i'm gonna pick any of them and so it's so broad that people don't really know and but people look at people like Like, you know, say Sahil Bloom, right?

52:52Brilliant content creator. Great stuff. Unicorn. He's a unicorn. Like, he's super smart, super tactical in the way he's positioned himself and a lot of resources under his belt. And so people are trying to be like these people, but they realize, like, there's only one of him. Like, you can't actually be like him. So you have to start as, like, really oddly specific and relevant. Like, do you guys know Justin Welsh? No. Okay. Yeah, so Justin Welsh, that name sounds kind of familiar. I'll be getting on here. He's fucking, he's a weapon, right? He's probably like the best LinkedIn creator as well.

53:26Really great story, but he's known as coining the solopreneur movement. So it's all about solopreneur. And so he's made, I think, over$10 million on LinkedIn or nearly. But like, he's like, everyone looks at Justin Welsh's stuff and they're like, man, look at what Justin Welsh has done. I'm going to be someone like him. But he is like a unicorn. he's like the first person but they don't think about like where did he start so justin welsh started as a one-to-one coach for software health tech companies that's where he started it's like and so you start at a point where it's like a hyper niche and then you need to grow out of that niche as well but like people try to start too big it's like well then you're fighting with the big dogs like why if i'm 12 why am i going to play in the 18 year old soccer game i'll get fucking flogged.

54:13You know, it's like, unless I'm like the child prodigy, you know, like it's all get flogged. So, so you want to be competing at your level and how you compete at your level is like, you'd be oddly specific and useful to a group of people. So help them like a lot.

54:26Matthew Lakajev:Are you building out tons of different lead magnets to get people into your newsletter? You said that you've grown this massive newsletter from LinkedIn. If someone's listening right now, and they're, they're just dabbling with their newsletter, what can they do to actually get some momentum going with that. Yeah. So I got a really controversial opinion here as well. Don't create a newsletter. Newsletters are dumb. Don't create a newsletter. Like how many people read a newsletter? Seriously, how many newsletters do you read? I read zero. I mean, anyone's I read like I read like three. It depends on how good they are.

54:57Matthew Lakajev:I kind of disagree with you. I feel like it's a it's been a huge thing for our sales. But who I think that who are the newsletter? Who are the newsletters that I read yes they're hyper specific for content creation so like I like uh but I would I would argue that if there's someone that popped out and they were really good at what they did I could potentially add them into into my arsenal of read like of things that I read I'll give you another another example right and I learned this okay the guy who taught me this was the guy who coached Alex Hormozy and Dan Martel and Ryan Dice on email okay I coached him right going with this, right?

55:33So people, the reason why newsletters, they're okay. And if they're very oddly specific, they're good. But the problem with newsletters is newsletters are a commitment. When you go to the newsletter to sign up to someone's newsletter, it's like you're committing to the 12 months on software when you don't know if you're just going to use it for month to month. You're thinking in your mind, if I do this newsletter, I'm going to get the newsletter coming to me every week or every so often, right? So I'm committing to it, right? An easier way to frame it for someone starting out is create a lead magnet that's very oddly specific and useful.

56:07And then when someone opts into that lead magnet, you give them the free thing. It doesn't require a commitment. Even though they opted in for your thing, you don't frame it as that. And then when you're sending your emails, which is technically your newsletter, right? I send it on random days. So people don't know when they're going to get it, but I make it so that the actual thing I send is a juicy nugget of goodness. It's like, what is the thing? And they don't know when it's going to come. It's random. And so what that does is it creates a different perception where if you perception around like newsletter, it feels heavy.

56:40It feels like a big commitment, but people starting out, they shouldn't be trying to create something heavy for someone to consume. It's like, it's like if you, if you look at a post on social media or on LinkedIn and you click the little dot, dot, dot more button and it comes to an essay, you're like, nah, you scroll past it. but if you make it really short and really specific then it works but then if you have authority within your niche like you guys have right then if you have authority then it becomes a thing because people are like okay you are very key within your thing and so I want to know what you're thinking so usually the newsletter people read are the things that are very oddly specific in niche or it's like I want to know what's going through this person's brain right now but I come from the coaching world right coaches don't have newsletters and they make the most money from email like coaches it's known in the coaching world that if you have a 10 000 person email list you make a million dollars a year that's the value of a thing if you have a specific niche and the way coaches email is there's a guy called dean jackson you should look him up around email marketing he's like the best he's the guy that talked the guy that taught homozy and all these people it's about creating something where they get hit with their inbox with something that they're like pleasantly supplies that they received but to create a commitment it's like quite difficult as well for people so where people get caught up is they're like oh fuck i've got to this big commitment.

57:52I got to write this newsletter. I got to write every week. And they kind of freak out. But like, what happens if you just gave something once a month or once every two months? And you just like, you know, I did this the other day. I'm like, hey, I just did an interview with my client, Peter. He's 17 and he just closed a$75 ,000 deal. Actually, I've got the interview with him. Would you like me to send it through to you? And then just people reply and they're like, yeah, I'd love that. And I'm like, cool, here it is. And so you create this interactive email list that's not the kind of seen as like a broadcast it's more of like a conversation when i coach creators the creators need to adopt what coaches do and coaches need to adopt what creators do because coaches suck ass at content their content sucks you know i mean like most of them it's just so fucking cringe their videos and so like usually they need to take a bit from each side as well but um yeah i think newsletters if they're certain specific person are great but you're creating a commitment in someone's mind that doesn't need to exist.

58:47Matthew Lakajev:So you're saying, okay, you're still saying grab all of this attention and put it into an email list, but don't commit to a weekly newsletter. You're saying your route and what you've been really successful with is to create different sorts of lead magnets to then sell people things lower down the line. Is that correct? Yes. And I'll give you guys an example. I've closed like hundreds of three to$5 ,000 deals by email with no sales call. Zero sales call. Just email them on offer document with a sales letter as well. And for most people in the creator world, they're like, impossible. Impossible.

59:20Like they're like, they can't. I know people that sell like$50 ,000 things by email, right? It's like, it's actually fully capable, but it's like when you're creating a newsletter, you're creating a perception in the person's mind that this is a broadcast. when you receive a plain text email in your inbox, right? And it's like a juicy nugget of goodness and you didn't expect it. And it's something very oddly specific and useful. It creates a different feeling on the backend. It's very different. And I send three emails a week, three a week. People just get these random juicy nuggets.

59:52Matthew Lakajev:To everybody, to everybody, you're sending like three emails. Wow. Everyone. Cause it's like, are you selling something in every single email if i like hopped on your email no not at all it's just like hey this is awesome like so a lot of the time i'll just tell a story i'll just send something for free sometimes i'll make an offer there's a balance that you need to do as well like you can it's a give take kind of thing and if you you feel like one of those people like the worst selling emails ever i just went it's like this is a giant long pitch no one cares about that it's like no no one cares it's like the email itself, it should be, you know, email is more of an intimate place.

1:00:29Social media is like where you go and it's like you get bombarded, but you look at your email, you're in a different situation. You're in a different headspace. And so when you're looking at email, you're, you're in a different frame of mind. And then when you see something come through that like a looks like that newsletter, unless it's the person that you read, I'm just like junk, junk. When something comes. Okay. Let me ask you this.

1:00:49Matthew Lakajev:Let me, let me, let me interrupt you and ask you this. So let's say, let's say I'm a creator, I'm a business person, and I've gathered a lot of these emails, right? Are there specific things that you'll do with each different lead magnet to take them down? Like, is there a separate set of stories that you're sharing with this group versus someone if they grab something from LinkedIn, or if they're like, I'm more interested in Matt's content, I'm going to take them down this, this rabbit hole. Is there something that you could share with the with our group that they could take and put it into what they're doing?

1:01:16I can give you guys like just the exact email sequence I teach people to do. And the guy who So Coach Hormozzi on emails told me this entire sequence and I pay him 60 grand a year. So like - Lock in. Yeah, so lock in. So like emails, the optimal number is about three a week. That's what they found. If it's actually useful and it's actually good, it's about three emails a week, which is good. Now, a lot of people get scared if you get unsubscribed. That's good because that means they're never going to buy from you anyway. Unsubscribe is going to happen. It's natural, right? So if you think about a very easy email sequence, Monday is you want to make what's called a story-based email.

1:01:51just tell a funny story about your life it can correlate back to your work it can correlate what you're doing like I'm going to send an email today not Monday but I'm just doing it today instead I'm just going to talk about how Italians suck at making coffee and I'm going to correlate that to people's niches in their office because I went to Italy recently coffee sucks they're resting on their laurels they haven't changed since the 80s and I used to own a coffee shop and I was like a competitive barista and so like I know what good coffee is right half the coffees I got in uh Venice especially I just threw them immediately in the bin it's like and so they're resting on laurels and i talk about how people have like a niche right and everyone who's been to italy will vouch for this as well like i'll say the same thing right unless you're from somewhere in the u.s where your coffee sucks anyway so it doesn't actually matter right you australians you guys do you guys do coffee shops yeah cafes your coffee shops over here are very elite you guys are crushing it i would argue that australia is like the mecca of specialty coffee in melbourne there's a i can't remember what the cafe is called but they were the ones who like it's called saint LA in Melbourne, they brought specialty coffee to the world.

1:02:49They did it.

1:02:50Matthew Lakajev:Every, every coffee shop my girlfriend takes me to out here. It's an Aussie that runs everyone. Yeah. So like, I swear to God, it's crazy. But so like, yeah, you go to Bali, dude, every cafe is ran by an Aussie. Dude, you know, it's really funny. I went to Bali in 2008 for a holiday with my friend. This was pre Bali cafes. And I was in a cough. Oh no, it wasn't 2008. It was like 2012. I think it was. and then i was like i want to start a cafe in bali that was like pre where all the cafes were which is really funny but it's like now they're just everywhere and they're all great cafes yeah if you guys have been to bali it's fun it's very fun place yeah yeah yeah you could have been that unicorn yeah you could have been yeah you would have had a million early adopter literally as well but um yeah it was like story-based content on monday right so tell us story it doesn't even have to lead into a sale it can but just something that's actually funny because like there's some of my best emails i'll give you my best email i ever sent right it was like the subject line was golden gay time now in australia there's an ice cream called the golden gay time no joke it's like it's fully an ice cream so i sent an email saying hey hey name um this was in a really stressful situation um like it was like 8 30 at night we had like 30 minutes till the show was over my wife was really craving a golden gay time so like i had three options like one i was like say no we're dieting definitely not order um order uber eats and like wait a period of time or just like run up the road and get it took like two minutes you know so i decided to like run up the road and get it and then i like pivoted the email into like a sales email so it's like you want to tell funny stories that people like resonate with and that they remember that like story because it's just hilarious because you know when you're in your emails you're like sometimes you're like okay this is a good email but then you get something that's random you're like this is fucking hilarious it's like you remember it because it's kind of out of context but monday is like story Wednesday I like to do what's called a case study email So case study email is like really simple.

1:04:46It was like, I'll give you an example. So I was like, hey, I was working with my client Pranjal for four months on LinkedIn. I was making no money at all. But then after we started working together and he negotiated me hard on pricing, you know, over the next year, he's now able to make 30 to 40 grand a month. Check out this screenshot of him when he was running his business in Thailand. See how tanned and happy he is like, you know, that's what he was working together. You know, I put together this resource that Pranjal used. Would you like it? And so I'm like using a case study, but giving something away.

1:05:14So someone resonates with a story as well. And then Friday, I just like to send pure value. Where it's just like, hey, I just made this amazing free thing. Do you want it? And someone's like, fuck yeah, I want it. Like, I would love that. Dude, I got to send more emails, man. I'm excited. So the value is another lead magnet instead of, or can you just provide like written value? I usually ask them to reply because it gets your open rates up and it gives you better email deliverability. And so you want people to reply because you want to think it's like active and engaging. And then like all throughout the way of the email, like people do this, but I'm writing a PS statement where it's like, I'm like usually soft promoting something.

1:05:55So like I do like live workshops. The last workshop I did is I just did a workshop pretty much 12 hours straight where I was just like coaching people for 12 hours. And like, I just did a soft promotion for that workshop in all the PSs. And I was like, hey, you want to come to the workshop? But then once a month, what you want to do is you want to run an offer campaign where you run an actual campaign to something. And then that's when I'll message people and I'll say, hey, I'm putting together, I'm going to be working with a small group of business owners who are already using LinkedIn, but like you're not getting as many leads as you want.

1:06:23We're just going to show you the path to booking five calls a week over the next six weeks. Would you like to join us? And then someone's like, yeah, I'd love to. And then I'm like, all right, cool. Here's the offer doc, have a read and let us know if you're keen to join. I have a question. how is what you just explained not a newsletter that you put out three days a week matt you just explained a newsletter it is but in the eyes of the human being it's not it's about perception so then commitment so then what is like a normal new what's the perception behind a normal newsletter it's just like someone's trying to sell you something every single every single time it's like not fun and not valuable so it's like i'll give you an example right so i go to pilates with my wife, but I don't go all the time.

1:07:08Sometimes it's random. Sometimes it's multiple times per week, right? So probably I would save money if I just got the monthly Pilates membership, right? And then I just locked it in for a year because we've been doing it for a year, right? But I don't know when I'm going to do it. I don't know when it's going to happen. I don't know when I'm going to go. So I just buy the single class passes every time. And I've been doing that for like two years, right? Because people, when they see newsletter in their mind, their internal calculations or their heuristic goes commitment. They think commitment, but this is still a newsletter, but when they receive it, there's no banner, there's no logo, there's no nothing.

1:07:42It's just a plain text email. So they can't associate it with anything. And so if, when you send a newsletter that has a banner and all this kind of stuff, it creates an association, which then sometimes it works really well, but you want to try and not create that association. You want to make it feel like somebody just wrote you a nice email from the office. It's just a random plain text email. So it's association. Oh, so, okay. So the people who are doing newsletters are promoting it as such. They're like, join my newsletter. I'm giving away all this like free game. And you're like, I don't want to commit to that.

1:08:15I see what you're saying. I see what you mean now.

1:08:16Matthew Lakajev:Okay. I got it. I think about those two things, right? Someone says, if I say to you guys, here's how to like, take your YouTube podcast audience and put them on LinkedIn. I created this like a four minute video. Here's how I did it to these other people. You'd be like, oh, I might click on that. But if I was like, join my newsletter on how to grow on LinkedIn, you'd be like, yeah, nah. It's like, it's just the response or the feedback that people have. So it's just, it's just a perception. It's still a newsletter. You're just not calling it a newsletter. And so you're doing it, you're using more direct response marketing than more broadcast marketing.

1:08:48Because when someone sees like something that's a broadcast, they feel like it's more of a billboard. So even though when you write, when I write some email, if it's plain text, it has the perception that it's for them, even though it's for everyone. okay so then let me ask you this so we've gone over niche we've gone over offer um viability building trust newsletter not a newsletter or sorry email marketing uh you brought up you talk to so many people who are have you know they have 70 000 followers and they're not even making ten thousand dollars a month. What must occur on top of the niche, the offer, the email marketing to be able to generate a lot of money?

1:09:36Like, what are you teaching the client that you brought up who he was barely making any money and now he's making$40 ,000 a month? Like how, what must happen for someone to start making real serious money with their personal brand on LinkedIn or just, you know, to Bill's post later because that will help context. But to go through this now, like what must occur? Like there's a lot of things that must occur, but I like to think, well, think in terms of like adult learning, right? How do adults learn or how do people learn, right? We learn from like reinforcement cycles. So like the amount of times we get feedback around what we're doing, right?

1:10:16Over and over and over and over again. That's how we actually learn. When you produce content, there's like one reinforcement cycle or two, which is the likes and comments, right? Or you may have opt-ins for your leads, right? So it's a very slow reinforcement cycle period of time for you to learn. But when you, on LinkedIn, there's another great way to grow is like where you comment on other people's posts. You can also grow as well at the same time, right? So you can grow through those two things, right? Which creates a reinforcement cycle. Now, where most creators get it wrong is that LinkedIn is actually secretly running a multi-level marketing program.

1:10:48You guys know what that is? You know, like the whole damn way and shit, right? yeah so they're essentially so like multi-level marketing or pyramid schemes are and when like your friend yeah yeah i know i know what those are wait linkedin is running that they're running an unofficial one where they've got these thousands of creators who are creating valuable content where they're creating great content they're commenting for hours and hours and hours every single day but they actually make no money because that they're actually a non they're running a non-for-profit for linkedin because their reinforcement sounds like they just got sign more people up under them.

1:11:20This is what happens though. In the LinkedIn feed, there's these big creators where they're like, guys, the classic thing I'll see where they'll be like, man, for two years, I didn't make any money on LinkedIn. And now I finally made 10 grand a month. I fucking made it. And I'm like, that's dumb. Why don't you just message someone you could have made 10 grand like in a month? It's just stupid. Right. So they're perpetuating this story that doesn't exist. Right. But then they're selling how to grow on LinkedIn. And then the people in their content is commenting about how to go on LinkedIn. And so it creates this thing.

1:11:49And then all the business owners look at them and be like, well, this must be how I get clients on LinkedIn. And so it's creating this thing where it's just going over and over and over and over again, right? They're getting reinforcement cycles that are quite slow, but the only reinforcement they're getting is what correlates to views, not money. They're not actually getting that, right? And so the only way for you to make money selling a service is to talk to humans. It's the only way. When you sell a service, how do you make your service better? You talk to the human to understand them more.

1:12:17And when you have a conversation with someone in the DMs, right, if you go back and forth 20 times, that's like 10 reinforcement cycles and probably more because there's subtext under the words that they actually said. Then if you get on a call with them and you help them for free, you learn more in that period of time than what you were chat GBTing for like six months trying to figure out your niche. You don't learn by theorizing and talking about philosophy. you learn by reality. Like reality is the only thing that can correct you. But in LinkedIn, people are living in a version of reality that's dopamine driven with likes and notifications.

1:12:53So it creates a false perception of progress. You're not actually making progress. So you have, the only way to do it is you create content, but talk to people at the same time, ask them what content's resonating, but then also seeing if, can you book meetings? Can you get sales? But even before booking meetings, just see if you can get someone to reply to you. Just get a reply. And so every single client I've ever worked with that's been successful has just talked to a fuck ton of people. It's the only way. There is no other way. If you sell a service, like a service is coaching, agency, whatever it is, you sell something expensive where you work with or coach another individual.

1:13:29This is, LinkedIn is not for e-commerce. It's not. It's for when you want to talk to people and sell stuff expensive. I'm sure TikTok and they've got TikTok shop and all that kind of stuff, totally different thing that you're actually selling as well but like if you guys think about even yourself or just like people who you know are successful in business they just speak to fucking heaps of people it's like and where most people start is like they're just they're just uncomfortable and they probably haven't worked in sales like and so they don't understand the sheer volume of conversations you have and so everyone's watched disney or every movie ever where someone comes across one big idea and then everything just fucking magically happens in their entire life right and it creates this false perception where it's like a eureka moment is going to happen.

1:14:07No eureka moment actually happens. It's constantly little things that stack over and over. And every client I've ever worked with, right? They start with this perception of what they're going to sell. And then they sell something totally different. It's completely different.

1:14:20Matthew Lakajev:So true. You don't sell the thing. Your hypothesis is never correct. You're, you're directionally correct in where you think there's a problem that exists. Like I started this business November, 2022, like I burnt like 180 grand of my own money just fucking trying to work out what to do. I was also an idiot with spending hiring people and all this shit. I was originally a company that did cold calling and cold emailing for people as an agency. And it took me from having like 150 meetings, working with all different clients, changing my offer like 8 to 12 times. I can't remember how many times it was until I finally worked out where I was like, okay, small business owners, one, they suck at sales.

1:14:54So if you book a cold call for them or a cold email, they can't sell. I booked someone 50 meetings, they didn't close a single deal because cold selling is like, it takes way longer. And I was like two, most small business owners need two to three meetings a week, maximum, like maximum. And most of them also need to learn how to do it themselves. And so then I kind of thought I was like, okay, well, LinkedIn is probably the place I had to do that. I was able to do it in sales. And that's why I decided on LinkedIn as the place also, because when you compete on LinkedIn, you don't even need to make video content.

1:15:21It's just text. There's like, video is really hard to make. Like you've got to be charismatic on camera. You've got to have some gear. You've got to put yourself out there when you just write stuff it's like it's easier it's more accessible to people as well at the same time but um yeah that's what I've thought it's there I got a question for a couple

1:15:38Matthew Lakajev:of guys that are good at making videos uh if if we were to go on LinkedIn right now we go daily like if we could repurpose the things that we're posting on Instagram and TikTok um and on YouTube do you think we can see some success on the platform over there doing videos specifically so you guys may be a unicorn because you've already got quite a big brand here so you may be a unicorn but linkedin video doesn't work on linkedin it's not a thing oh really oh really it's like they brought a video feed it might be coming back it's like it's it works in some instances right but i'll give you the reason why right the average consumer on linkedin clicks on the thing on their phone when they are not expecting to sound to come out of their phone when I open Instagram I'm expecting to listen to sound the same as YouTube I'm expecting it and TikTok so I've got my headphones in right the average LinkedIn user is the hungover employee at Monday morning sitting on the toilet after they've had their coffee and they're clicking on noise to come out and so when they're scrolling they want to consume written things because that's the nature of how they consume it's like imagine if Substack brought out video no one's gonna fuck I got a video to read.

1:16:50I got a sub-sack to read. You know what I mean? It's like, it's not a thing. So it's, it's the, I think it's, you can't change the buyer, the nature of consumption. And I do think there was a period where LinkedIn brought out the video feed. Right. And it popped off because it was like first to market, which worked really, really well. But like people don't really go there to watch videos. It's not the, the act that humans do when they go there. And so like, like, for example, do you guys know the agency podcast? Have you heard of that one in Australia? yeah yeah yes yeah so like i did some consulting i've been on their podcast twice now i did some consulting for dane and cam there as well on like telling them like what works on linkedin and stuff and they're posting their videos and i was like guys just stop vertical videos just don't work on linkedin because like no one with linkedin people go there to read right with a vertical video the way it shows up on your i'd show you but i'd delete linkedin off my phone right but like as it shows up on you i don't want to consume the content i don't consume i try not to consume any content right it's like it shows up on your phone right and as you're scrolling but on linkedin for you to read what's in the the the actual vertical video you have to click on it and sound comes out so people are like nah nah and so it's like i i haven't i'm yet to see it work for any of our clients i have seen it work but it's a lot of times unicorn okay so we need to go look at the

1:18:10Matthew Lakajev:videos that we're making figure out how to make them text-based first do i need to add any photos is like photo thing at the bottom is that photos do help as well at the same time um what works really well depending on if someone's a designer like cheat sheets are really big on linkedin i don't do them because i'm shit house at design uh but you know carousels are a big thing as well at the same time it really depends on what you're trying to do it really depends on the purpose of what you're actually trying to do and like you want to find like other people in your niche what are you guys selling by the way yeah so pay to be used a six-week live cohort where we teach creators how to build and monetize their personal brands.

1:18:45So we walked them through our four step framework, which is personal brand offer content and scale. And so after six weeks, we give them the exact blueprint that we've learned over the past decade of creating content and creating offers ourselves to monetize our personal brands.

1:19:01Matthew Lakajev:So much of it, though, I think what we realized, like, you know, we can take someone in it in a different niche, we can take someone in that's a makeup artist or someone in that is creating content for brands and they want to monetize it in some way, shape or form and show them more. So a lot of the people are struggling with like the sales process and figuring out, Oh, what's my landing page supposed to look like? Or, you know, how should I actually be selling? Is it via email? Is it via DM? Because we've done all of that for so long. So that is really where, you know, where our bread and butter comes in.

1:19:29Matthew Lakajev:I have taken the similar to you, the thousands of sales calls, you know, I would, um, I would think for you guys, like a niche for me that I think would work there is like if someone wants to build an agency that makes content for people like I'm assuming you had a lot of people through that that do that like that'd be a like large thing but like content agencies are a huge thing and personal brand agencies are massive now like you put you guys know right three years ago people were like I don't need a personal brand I don't need that you know I mean it's like there wasn't really a thing because like if we go back to like what we were talking about before like offer viability the market changes what's happening so like you know three years ago there was no demand for personal brand it wasn't a thing there wasn't even a category that like really existed and people it wasn't normal to pay for it and people couldn't perceive what the outcome is but now because there's these big business personal brand people or that ryan sir hunt guy with um netflix how he's doing it he's like he's like oh that okay fuck like that's what that is and so it's like become a thing but like yeah like if i was thinking about you guys in your niche i'd be like where you would have perceived authority would be like if you just teach someone to build a an agency that builds a personal brand it's like you probably have like every tool in the toolkit to do that but it's just like hairdressing you know what i mean it's like it's quite it's a different thing i think yeah i think for us um we focus on people trying to wanting to build out a digital offer though yeah so you just make a digital offer of how to build someone's personal brand it's digital i guess like what what would you say the content strategy would look like on linkedin uh it just for you guys or someone else for you guys okay so like the way you always want to start is you want to look at what are other successful people who are selling similar things doing and then you just want to copy their shit it's probably similar what you guys teach on youtube you're like go to the channel find the anomaly videos copy the anomaly videos it's like you know it's like that's like the classic thing similar to linkedin where like you know what does ali abdahl sell he heaps helps people build a lifestyle business he bought lifestylebusiness.com he's like you know give me this much money and i in 12 months i'll show you to build 100 grand a year business so you guys are in a similar ish thing so i'd probably go to him and be like okay what is he doing in his specific spot around like his niche as well because you're in a slightly different playing field than i would coach other creators where you guys have a lot of what's called carrier trust so So I think personal brand is what's called carrier trust where it's someone who can carry the message so you trust them.

1:21:59That's really what personal brand is. It's like how much stuff does your waiting happen? And so because you have quite a high carrier trust, you need to find a way to like convert it to LinkedIn based off what you're doing. So like it could be like, you know, one type of post could be like a carousel where it's like you talk about how, you know, let's say you interviewed Ali Abdaal, right? And so you talk about like his process that he did. So you reference his brand and you tag him. It could be like the Ali Abdaal cheat sheet that you guys had where his entire process, you know, what's that guy who's in the UK who does like, what's your dream?

1:22:34Simon something?

1:22:35Matthew Lakajev:Simon Squibb. Yeah. You know, Simon Squibb has his format where he's like, what's the eight steps to do this thing? I think if what would work for you guys is if you took these videos, even what I did and you create it into like a big cheat sheet, like four by five, and then you're like, this is how you do this. You tag me. This is it. that would be a great way to like build an email list that you guys have because that's the type of content which people want to consume on LinkedIn they want like cheat sheets are really juicy uh Dane Walker is doing really good cheat sheets and carousels now on Instagram so something what he does but I think if you break down the episode because then you have to double up the content like like from this episode it'd be like you know Matthew Lekay has made five million dollars on LinkedIn booked five thousand calls and his clients do 172 million dollars a year he walked us through the eight step process on how to niche on LinkedIn and make$20 ,000 a month right and then you go through the eight steps in the post and then you just have literally just a massive cheat sheet which has has the thing so it looks super juicy and then it's like if you want to get access to our notes on the episode our secret notes we haven't released just click this link and so you could probably do that for every single episode wow yeah I like that I like that that's really solid that's something i think that we can churn out to every week another thing to add in yeah literally and if you want to see good cheat sheets um chris donnelly probably has the best cheat sheets on linkedin so just go to his donnelly don chris donnelly yeah so he has the best cheat sheets on linkedin i think but you could take all the formats he's done and then there's that other creator matt something what's his name matt gray yeah matt gray so he does really good hand-drawn ones yeah so if you take a combination of that and that and you created your own unique cheat sheet but you pulled out the ip from the episode and then you just did it step by step which is super tactical but then you need to have a link at the end which pushes someone to something that it's not the youtube video because what was someone going to click on that right like you would want to put a link to getting in your email list but it's got to be some secret thing like my our show notes or something like that yes it'll be i see i see you mean are you using are you using many chat to be able to send out those things in your linkedin no you can't like it's like yeah i've had to change my i have to now because i have so much fucking volume where we've literally built a tool to like manage this because linkedin doesn't like automations you can't do automations like it's really really hard so like yeah so like i just have to dm like a fucking crazy person but now we're i'm building a tool i'm taking a leaf out of Justin Welsh's book where I'm going to set up auto reply on my LinkedIn inbox where it's auto replies.

1:25:09And I'm going to be like, yo, if you want to chat to me on my team, click this link. And I've got my business partner who's the tech guy where he's created a separate thing where we can talk to people and go high level instead. It's like, cause we just like, it's true. It's really difficult like to manage the LinkedIn DMs as well. Like I coach people who are small business owners or have less than five staff who want to dm and post content themselves like that's who i work with and usually these people that i coach like they either want to make 10 grand a month 30 grand a month or a million dollars a year but all of that is achievable by yourself on linkedin all that's achievable but like scale the reason why people don't use linkedin is like it's not instagram there's no mini chat so you can't if there's a lot of limitations we're actually building my business partner is like the tech guy he's we're building a software right now though i can't talk specifics but we've built software that we give people but like it fucking changes the game of how dms work i'll i'll show you guys the video after this i won't share anyone because by the time it's out he doesn't want me to share anything but it's like it's literally next level it just yeah it's crazy so i i think i'm just a little bit confused just because i don't personally use linkedin so i have two questions one where do the if you make a cheat sheet and you have a link where do the dms come into play there are people not just clicking the link to then get it sent to their email or something or is it something where you have to dm them the cheat sheet so it just it depends on how you want to play it you guys might have a big enough brand what justin welsh or ali abdahl does where if you run that cheat sheet format um you won't need to do that many dms but with dms it's like if someone you can set up on linkedin that if someone it's a bit kind of like not the greatest, but like if someone sends you a DM, you can put in like, you know how email has like, um, I've gone on holiday LinkedIn.

1:26:58You can have, I've gone on holiday. So you can have the, I've gone on holiday, but I'm on holiday forever. Justin Welch has this on his LinkedIn where it's like, if you message him, he's like, I don't look at this, you know, whatever, just send me an email here. I don't look at my LinkedIn inbox. So like, if they do message you, you can do that as well at the same time. So it's just a, it's just a tactic on like how you would play it there's also like lead magnet plays without comment for this thing and there's ways around it but the linkedin platform is changing so much now that it's like there's so many things to actually keep keep on top of as well and like yeah a lot of people can get you can get banned for automations it's like really dangerous to actually do it and so like and because ai linkedin is getting better at detecting ai and stuff there's like a really large creator that got banned for automations the other day um but like i don't think he was automating he just does stuff really fast.

1:27:48So my second question is, as someone who I'm just trying to keep up on Instagram and TikTok, we have the podcast, now we're doing YouTube vlogs. I already feel like I have so much on my plate. And I know that I should be probably posting on LinkedIn. But the thought of adding a whole nother platform that has different formats and different rules feels like a lot. And so what is the benefit to posting on LinkedIn versus other platforms? And why should I make it a priority to start posting on LinkedIn? And I'm sure there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast who are in the same boat as me, where they're just like, I need to just crush one platform right now.

1:28:37I need to just focus on Instagram and YouTube and thinking about adding a whole nother platform just feels a little bit overwhelming. Yeah, I agree. Um, I'll just give some advice that I would give for someone starting out. Like that's just, just to answer that. Cause I think if I give the, your response would be different to someone else's, but if someone's starting out, I'm just all about the one, one, one, one, one, one to 1 million. So it's like one channel, one avatar, one problem, one offer, one year, 1 million. That's it. It's like, you know, you just, that's the only, cause when you're first starting, it's just so hard to even get good at one thing it's just so fucking hard so you just have to decide what is my place and then do it and like that's i have a strong opinion there it's just like i've seen the most successful people do that and like anytime i see clients like deviate and do multi things you guys know how hard it is just to get good at one platform took me like three years to get to 100 000 followers on linkedin three years you know i mean like it's just so hard so like most people it's like just choose one and like and you want to choose the one where your ideal clients are you kind of you see the platform if I'm going to make an argument for LinkedIn of why you want it over the other ones.

1:29:42Okay. So it's mostly text-based, so you don't need to get on video, right? A lot of people like that. It's better for introverted people. Two, there's less competition because like no one really posts good quality content on LinkedIn. It just doesn't exist. So like you're competing instead of your, you know, I look at TikTok or Instagram and every time I open it, I get anxiety. I'm like, my life sucks. So I just don't look at it. So I'm like, I literally open up Instagram. I'm like, how are people producing this stuff it's just so good i can't even deal i can't even look at it because it's just so hard and like so you know if you're looking for a place with less competition written only if you're looking for a place where you can get in contact with business owners and you can actually see you like on linkedin you can you know how much money people are making because you can look at their job title how long they've been in the role where do they go to college where do they live are they connected to people like you you can't lie on linkedin you can't lie like you can lie on instagram you can buy followers and get a fake private jet people do it all the fucking time.

1:30:35LinkedIn, you can't lie. It's like impossible. Like, cause you have to have built an account over a very long time. You can lie about some things, but you can't lie about like your past history, which is really difficult as well. So it's very easy to target the specific people you want to reach out to. And LinkedIn is the place, LinkedIn sales navigator is their paid add-on, which I definitely think everybody should get. And it's where all VCs and large deals get done. All VC firms use it. Like the Hormozys talk about how LinkedIn is like the catalyst to them recruiting. It's like everything. And so for targeting, it's like the best where it's weak though, is like no automations.

1:31:09You can use them, but it's a risk. So there's no automations on the platform. A lot of manual work. LinkedIn is where you've got to put in sweat equity. You got to sweat equity to make it work as well. For you guys though, different because you already have a shit ton of content. You just have to find the format that works on the platform and you have to find, you know, four to five formats that probably pre-validated from other creators. You'd already able to content there it's just then from that point i don't do this because i don't do that many platforms really i'm kind of like youtube but i just like raw dog it and don't don't edit you know what i mean it's like i'm just going on there live and like linkedin is like a thing but even then i don't i've just built up a brand there for myself and i teach linkedin on linkedin it's easier you know what i mean it's like easier actually so we yeah yeah that's funny line

1:31:52Matthew Lakajev:attention a line baby a line yeah we heard mr beast talk about that uh he was in a on some sort a speech or something and he was saying how the biggest creators in the world by far are the live streamers and we've seen it with you know we had speed and these different characters come to our town here in los angeles and it shuts down the entire city like i mean the kids and the people that come out or it's on it's unheard of it's like it is like nothing you've ever seen before i i traveled with the lakers for five years i saw the fandom that lebron would bring to a place or Like when we were outside and seeing what speed did in our, in our town was something like of the mega mega star, Ronaldo, LeBron, you added them all together.

1:32:31Matthew Lakajev:And that's what was here for iShowSpeed, right? Yeah. What is your pursuit with this live stream content like, and why have you added it into your arsenal? Yeah, definitely. So I think the way AI is going, the, one of the biggest issues is going to be in society is going to be the erosion of trust. So like when people don't feel like they can trust anything, it's like, that's when shit gets wild in society. It just does. And so what's happening with AI, right, is I wrote a book on this called Fuck Selling, Build Trust, How to Get Clients Without Feeling Like a Manipulative Weirdo. I can send it to you guys after.

1:33:05But in it, I argue that there's multiple gates of trust, which I won't get into that now because it'll be too big for this podcast. But the first gate of trust that people need to walk through to eventually buy from you is they look at content and they think, is this real? It's the first thing that people do if they're going to trust something and you can't not real live you can't it's like and so what you cannot realize now if people open up instagram i do this on workshops i'm like how many of you guys open up instagram and don't believe anything you see and then half the people like yeah i don't believe anything it's like and so what's happening with content now is unless like there's really like long form content like this like which can still be edited but it's quite difficult to hold a conversation for two hours you know what i mean it's really hard but even then like ai could get to the point where it can simulate the entire thing.

1:33:50I don't think that that's going to happen very soon, but who knows, like not an expert at that at all, but live you can't simulate. And so there's a feeling of live where it's, there's a feeling of presence and it creates this like, you know, within your subconscious, the things that you're taking in, you like see it's actually real. And so I think for me, I just kind of like see the writing on the wall where I'm like, well, the problem for me, like the issues I have in my niche is like everybody lies in the online coaching space. It's the problem I have. It's like a huge issue, like where people just lie, they take a grand of someone's money.

1:34:21It's online coaching is the new multi-level marketing. It's the new pyramid scheme where someone's like, they get this person on the call, they hate their job. They sell them this business offer. It's great opportunity. They use all these sales and persuasion tactics. They take a grand of their money. They're putting their credit card and there's fucking nothing in it. And then they're posting stuff on Instagram being like, I made this much money when they're just fucking people. They're the modern day Jordan Belfort's fuckwits, right? Like it's so bad, right? But like you, I really kind of believe in like transparency.

1:34:48Like that is really key and you can, you can't fake life. You can't. And so if I'm live coaching someone live, you can actually see the ability of what someone can do. You can fake marketing content. But I think the way that AI is going, it's getting better and better and better at creating marketing content. Everyone's worth$100 million offers. They're making these crazy outlandish offers that they're like, I'll double your business profit and half the time working and you'll go on holidays every year and you only got to pay me five grand and you'll be able to get done in a week. And people are like, this is not believable.

1:35:19I don't believe it. It's like, and so that's creating a huge issue within society. So like, I'm kind of like, I'm trying to, me and my business partner, we're trying to look at the patterns of the future. And so we've kind of like redefined what we do where we don't run a coaching program anymore. We just run a gym. we run a LinkedIn marketing gym where you come you do the work every day you market every day we have calls every single day we give you feedback every day because no one's coming to save you you gotta do it yourself and so I kind of see the writing on the wall where it's like that where it's like a lot of things allow people to hide this bit like really AI is making it really hard for people to hide and it's like not not reality and stuff and so I'm just betting like that in the future and it's happening now like live is the way to go and that people can't replicate it.

1:36:02And also when I'm live is like, I can't, I have to be, I have to show up. It forces me to get good. So, and so the reason I run two coaching calls every day for an hour and a half is like, I force myself to get good. Like I have to teach these people because when I teach them, they have to get results because reality comes into the mix as well. So it's like a forcing function for you to get feedback that's positive, but with content, it's very hard to know unless it's live what is the feedback from it and are you just pumping up the algorithms or are you actually generating trust in people and allowing them to take actions and so that's kind of where i think the the future is going where it's like you know future i also think what's going to happen in the future right there's a bit of a weird one is like creators are going to live stream themselves like gamers right and then there's going to be ai that's plugged into them which is doing all their vitals it's going to be recording their screen it's going to know everything they've ever done and there's going to be a camera here that's looking at them as well.

1:37:01And it's going to be like talking to you as you do stuff. I think there's going to be a new version of like where people are like doing work on the computer in the future and you can watch them like, like you know, you go to Twitch. You go to Twitch and you're watching people. I used to watch League of Legends people play the game. I think there's going to be a new version of that. And I think iShowSpeed is like the very first thing. And he does like, and he does crazy shit, but probably the reason he can do crazy shit is because he's filmed. He has to. It's a forcing function where you have to be good and you can't lie to yourself kind of thing.

1:37:32Matthew Lakajev:I think that's something that we found really interesting, I think, with doing the podcast too. You can't hide for two hours. You can hide for 15 minutes. You can hide for 20 minutes or maybe even a half hour. But it really exposes what a person knows and who they actually are because you could keep a character up for a little bit of time. But I would argue that over the duration of two hours, you're going to see someone's flaws or how they actually are. You know what's super funny about that? Because I edit the podcast and I've been editing it for, we've been doing the show for a little over four years.

1:38:02And I remember, I still say like and um quite a bit. I wanted, I would make so many cuts early on trying to make myself look like I'm better spoken than I am. And then I go, this is taking way too much time. Also, who cares? And, but simply by showing up every single week, I'm conscious of, I got to not say like and um as much. I still do. And I cringe at myself when I am still editing the podcast, but I try to in quotes, you know, hide it early on in the show. And it's just, it's impossible. Like it's still kind of possible to an extent. And also like having three cameras, you're allowed to, you can hide certain things, but I think you're right on live it's a whole nother level it's like a it's a forcing function to be good it's like you look at like who are the best people live tony robbins that guy's a fucking unit you know i mean like he does these things for three days 10 12 hours a day but it's a forcing function to be good it's like people can hide behind content and i'm not saying content's bad content is phenomenal you can build parasocial relationships with millions of people it's amazing but content when you're not good because you haven't done it but it's just like it's like someone who like you know if they They go to a party and they're just wearing like a really expensive rental outfit, but they can't afford it forever.

1:39:26But they keep trying to pay for the rental. They're wearing the Gucci. You know what I mean? They're wearing all the stuff, but they can't actually afford it, right? Which is a problem. So they're showing a facade of like what it actually is. But eventually you're going to run out of money. And eventually that's when creative burnout happens. It's like it becomes fully a thing when they can't. Now, it's not the only reason for burnout, but like there's many other reasons. But like it just happens where people and I think the whole entire thing, the problem exists where comparison culture is like the issue it's like social media is just pumped in comparison culture like to do what i'm able to do with coaching on this kind of stuff like i'll give you guys like i do some pretty crazy shit like i have a second phone and i don't look at my main phone most mornings until like 11 or 12 so i have a second phone with no apps on it so when i take my dog for a walk in the morning i can't access anything because i don't want to consume any content because any information i get like i put in my brain like i was chatting to my therapist yesterday right he's living in japan now he bought a house in japan for fifteen thousand dollars and you do up a house for six months fucking fantastic he's like it's crazy what's happened over here because i'm going trail running and snowboarding every day the thoughts that have changed in my brain because i'm not consuming anything like and the greatest creative people i've ever seen have you heard of a guy called derek sivers no no oh he wrote the best business book of all time It's called Anything You Want by Derek Sivers.

1:40:49Okay. 44 Lessons for a New Type of Entrepreneur, one and a half hour read. Derek Sivers started in the circus, was a musician, tried to sell his CDs online, couldn't find out a way, learned how to code, sold his CDs. His friends asked him how to do it. He accidentally grew a business called CD Baby, sold it for$30 million, gave the entire thing to charity and now lives in New Zealand in a tiny house where he built it from the outside in with his son and doesn't have any social media. And he's got a website called Derek.Sivers or Sivers.me. And he just says, this is me in 10 seconds. This is me in 10 minutes.

1:41:23This is like what I'm doing. And he's just out of everything. But I've seen him live and I had breakfast with him, right? He is so fucking interesting, this guy, because he's removed himself from everything. He's like gone. He's like completely.

1:41:38Matthew Lakajev:Is that a practice? Is that what you're trying to do right now to not let any outside things in? So you're not scrolling on any of these platforms. you've taken it off your phone have you noticed a change in you know maybe your happiness levels or how you feel like you show up as a communicator so i'm not like i wouldn't say i never scroll right i do of course but there's different contexts of how i do it as well but my daily like app usage is extremely low but like what i've just what i've realized is like i could we talk about this is a whole other topic for another episode as well but like i built this thing called like an AI second brain as well.

1:42:14And so what I do is like, I like, I think AI is kind of like the new form of like cognition and LLMs is kind of where you can start. And I've been like, like I do things that's really weird where I'll go for a walk for two hours and I'll just speak my exact thoughts out loud as I'm walking into my phone. So I'll just walk for two hours. I did it this morning for this podcast. I walk for two hours and I just speak and then I let AI speak back to me and then I speak to it. But I do it walking out in nature with the sun because it It changes the thoughts that actually get generated. But as I've done this for a long time now, it's like you've got a, like, I don't think AI, we're using it to produce stuff.

1:42:50I think it's going to be the best tool to understand yourself, to change what you are. And it's great at what's called metacognition, which is thinking about your thinking. But as I've kind of like tracked myself over time, noticing, I know now, like it's, I can't hide that if I consume too much social media, it puts me into a, what's called a primary dominant sympathetic nervous state where, you know, the sympathetic nervous state means that all of the thoughts that you're having are very urgent. You feel like you need to close a task and you have to do these things. And a lot of society lives in that forever.

1:43:25They never leave that. And so they're actually trapped in your own brain. I was able to work out that I was like, okay, well, I have to get into this more parasympathetic dominant nervous state, which is called polyvagal theory right and i have to get into that nervous state because that's actually where creativity a lot of creativity occurs it creates through that or through pressure there's multiple things but it's like i was able to like use ai to understand myself to work out that like oh fuck like that's where all my best ideas come from and now i like can't hide from it anymore so i then have switched my identity to be like well that's like what i just have to do it's like when it's like when you realize it's when someone works out for a long time like i've done crossfit for a long time.

1:44:01I just have to exercise an hour a day, five days a week. It's just, I just have to, because if I don't, I just feel so bad that like, I don't want to go back to what it is before. And so I think it's like with content, it's like, we don't know how much negative effect it's putting into us, like until we can actually like look at ourself. But with AI, we never had the ability to like, kind of like look inside your mind and see what you're actually thinking and track, you know, the nervous state and everything that you're actually in. And I think most people, they're in this comparison culture where they're watching stuff and then they see what other people are doing and then they question their own stuff and then they change their own decisions and then it just breaks their self-trust and they should just go on this like self-trust erosion loop but you're looking at right now what's happening is like what's getting massive in the world right run clubs you guys got run clubs everywhere it's fucking huge everywhere everyone is doing it because they're doing it as like an objection to social media like i have to get fucking outside their body is like screaming at them they're just like i have to do this and i think and this issue with social media happens where you know you can get into like identity change and stuff but people are then outsourcing their own identities like how many people are vegan carnivore conspiracy theory fucking everything right like they they grab an identity politically whatever it is and they're like oh man my life's so hard i found this like i obey everything what this says they're not not taking the fact that it's great there's no black and white there's just great game of thrones proved that right everything is gray but like people then just like they're consuming so much stuff, that there's this whole like, you know, what is it that the young men with like the blue pill, red pill movement and stuff?

1:45:31It's these men that don't have an identity. And so what they're doing is they have an identity crisis and they're finding attached to meeting online with stuff that seemingly makes sense, but it's not actually true. And so this, you can see this like throughout history when human beings or any civilizations, when this kind of unrest happens, identity lock happens and people are like, I have to attach to this thing. Like there's a huge resurgence of a religion right now why because people don't feel they don't have control of their life because they don't know what's going on because things are moving so fast but i think social media like ai algorithms or interest-based algorithms happen in 2022 that's like a symptom of 22 whenever it was right that's a symptom of like ai that's a symptom of like actual ai so ai is going to change it really is everyone talks about that but like even that that's stuff that's like already occurred as well but the only way to choose your own identity is to remove consumption of information because you don't control the thoughts that are in your mind.

1:46:27You don't control it. Your state controls it. Your surroundings, who you're around, like that controls it. And like, if you eat fucking McDonald's every day, even if you do it's workouts and you eat too much food, you will be fat. It doesn't matter. Yeah. It's like even Matt Fraser, the greatest CrossFit athlete of all time. He won five times, right? The dude couldn't get lean because he ate shit all the time. It wasn't until he's like second or third year he fixed his diet and he just he demolished people even more so that even him he can't outdo it so it's like information when it's like going in especially shorts that stuff's fucking like toxic right it's just like yeah going into your brain over and over and over and over it creates thoughts in your brain that you cannot control you don't have control of your thoughts but you only have control of the state and the system that you live in to then control the thoughts you have and the only way to do that is just remove yourself or limit yourself man i I would honestly love to do a whole podcast episode about this at some point in the future, because I know that you teach a lot about the like nervous system regulation and it's super interesting.

1:47:26What's also interesting is that you do teach in your business coaching program, like nervous system regulation. And you brought this up to us on our pre-show call, but it's the concept of, you know, hiding the broccoli in the cake. And I'd love for you to explain that concept. I like your way better. I said chocolate for the broccoli, but I like what you're saying. You're hiding the broccoli in the cake. That's fucking cool. Yeah. You can take that if you want. You can have that one. My gift, my free lead magnet to you, my boy. I love that. That's going to be an email. Fucking put the broccoli in the cake.

1:47:56Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Or like the kids. I like the baby one. Just blend up the vegetables with the other thing and put it to your baby. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like the dog. Like you have to give them a treat, but you have to hide the medicine in the treat. Put it in the peanut butter. Yeah, exactly. That's a good one. What's interesting is all the stuff you just went into is crucial to be able to run a successful business, but you can't really market it as that. It's stuff that you teach once people are inside of your program. Yeah. So can you explain the concept of, you know, hiding the broccoli inside of the cake and how you're able to make teaching about nervous system regulation work in a business course or what you do?

1:48:36Yeah. So I'll just start with like, I think everything occurs within like a forcing function of what you're trying to do. So things get discovered a lot of time through pressure, you know, and pressure creates diamonds. And by putting constraints on what you do in your life and your mission and vision of what you want to do, creativity happens through when you have downtime. Like when I went away to Italy, I took three weeks fucking off. I had great downtime. It got me realigned. But then also by me having to coach three times a day live, it forcing function to me to actually do stuff. So it's like you have to create it, but you need a North Star, which is our mission.

1:49:11So we've got an intrinsic and an extrinsic North Star. So the extrinsic one, which is the sexy one is like, I want to help clients make$1 billion. That's my big, hairy, audacious goal. We just brought out a leaderboard and a scoreboard where people put the money in that they made as well. And I've, whilst I'm surveyed clients, they make$172 million a year. That was the last survey that I did so but I need them to track it so this is going to be a big thing with my community managers get everyone to fucking put their data in because that's a big thing I want to track it but my intrinsic motivation of what I really want for humans is like you know in in 2018 like this ironically this was at Coachella took too many drugs had a really bad fucking breakdown there thought I was going to die put my last notes in my phone and then I was like I'm changing myself and so I had to go through a really hard period where I just used to always do what society was going to do.

1:49:59And it took like to a breaking point and then six months of generalized anxiety disorder for me to quit my 45 grand a year accounting job and be like, fuck this shit. I'm going to do everything myself. And I went into sales and went from there. But I just remember the feeling of not feeling in control and having high agency. So, but I believe that the way for high agency in modern times is for a human being to be able to make the money that they want. So if you make the money you want, you get to make decisions about your life. Money doesn't solve everything, but it solves time-based problems because if you can have money, you don't worry about these things.

1:50:34So it actually takes you out of the primary sympathetic nervous state. Like all marriages die from finances, right? That's why they die. But not all, but like a lot of them die from finances. So for people, I found that if you can remove the finances from the equation, it allows that human being, it doesn't fix them, but it allows them to breathe. And so my whole mission is to help clients become the person that can generate leads themselves without needing anyone else. You don't need me. You don't need fucking anyone else. You can literally do it yourself because that's what I want for people.

1:51:07I don't want reliance on me because I disagree with outsourcing your identity to things and latching on. I believe everything lives in the gray and there's no black and white. It's like people and people say that they just, it's really hard. And so in doing that, the reason why I've had to learn this stuff about your nervous system and all these different things is because that's the forcing function of what I want to do. But I've had to learn it because I've realized that it's not just about tactics and DM templates. It's just it doesn't. Like 90 % of starting a business is emotional regulation.

1:51:36That's it. It's emotional regulation. So how do you get emotional regulation? You put in good habits and you do daily habits every day. So what in the past has given the best emotional regulation to people? Karate. alcoholics anonymous crossfit buddhism religion right that's the past history of what does what do all those things haven't practiced daily kind of ritualized suffering with a group it's like daily ritualized things that people do within their life which benefit themselves which requires something hard like casey nice that has a really good video on this where he's like what what's what who does hard things you remember the video we ran the marathon his videos yeah good man he's like content so good it's like i didn't watch that the other day for like third time right it's great but like you know he talks about what's the benefit of doing like hard things but i think it creates you to be the individual which can develop self-trust in yourself so you can follow through and so you kind of become a different human right and so when we look at like if we look at there's a thing called keegan's stages of awareness and there's like multiple stages stage two is like when you're a teenager and you're just a fuck with you only care about yourself you don't care about anyone else right stage three is like a lot of society is at the point where they're like all they care about is what other people care about them.

1:52:44That's it. All they care about is what the culture does. Now you're into entrepreneurship. Now you're like goals. Like I'm going to go after my thing. I define what I want in my life. And so I've realized throughout this journey that like I have to help people go from stage three to stage four. That's what I have to do. And so in order to do that, I've realized like, you know, one of the good things I taught last week on Monday was I was like, let's set some micro goals for this four-week challenge we're running. And one of them was like i said how many of you guys in the zoom chat i was like how many guys um check your phone at night before you go to sleep and like everyone said yes and i was like my goal to you is like don't check your phone because like it creates bad sleep um and then for and then i was how many people check it when they immediately wake up everyone's like yeah and i was like okay cut that another guy was like i spend too much time in the toilet with my phone he's like and he's like spends more than 10 minutes on the toilet the the same guy i can't remember what his name is but like he comes back like three days later and he's like dude matt thank you so much for that monday for the past 30 days i didn't spend check my phone i just spent more than 10 minutes on the toilet and i just chose my cause my fourth deal 33 grand and i'm just like it's so it's i've actually realized that it's not just these tactics like that people teach it's actually the the stuff that's the mindset stuff the woo-woo stuff that people don't talk about although i do think though that the way society is going this stuff is now becoming chocolate it was broccoli before as well but i have to sell the sexy leads money this make a billion dollars make 20 grand 30 grand whatever your thing is per month as well but like when you're inside and you're getting guided through the thing i'm trying to create a container where it's like we've created like a marketing gym where it's like you come you do the work we've got videos we're fucking everything but like no one gets anywhere watching videos you can go to youtube doesn't matter you what you need to progress is you need very very fast reinforcement cycles where you do things that changes your perception of how the world works and you do it over and over and over until you get so good it just becomes who you are right now so it's like you guys go to the gym

1:54:39Matthew Lakajev:like regularly you come on you're joking it's really hard to tell from the camera as well you need for some tighter dude no we're a couple jack dudes dude come on i'll take my shirt off i wore i wore a small specifically for this episode dude i thought you would notice the black's like real slimming you need a white shirt with a really tight sleeve man you gotta show the value dude i feel like I'm just suffocating over here. It's like the gym is like the first place, which a lot of people develop this, where it's like, you just, you just can't not go. So I was like, why would I, why would I not go?

1:55:10It's like you, and you know it in your body. You don't have to be told by anyone. You just know, it's just like you develop.

1:55:15Matthew Lakajev:Has there been something either from being around others that are also really high achievers or being in different coaching groups or friends that have shifted your belief and your mindset around certain things? If you could leave with our group something. I'm just curious if there's been something that you've went through and you're like, this was so pivotal in me becoming a better person, a better family man, or a better businessman that I know that I have to leave this group with here today. Yeah. So I would say what is required? So it's like, what must occur, right? You must be weird. Have to be weird.

1:55:51I'm part of a mastermind group that Ali Abdaal's in. We pay a lot of money to be in a group. They only allow a hundred people to be in this group. or Mosey, Dan Martell, been through it, right? It's fucking crazy, right? Like when I go to these events, I look forward to these events so much because everyone's a fucking weirdo. Everyone is so weird, right? Like everyone is like, like I was chatting to my friend James who's in a group and he's just like, you know, after we go to like sessions and we learn stuff, he goes back to his room and fucking journals for three hours. But he tells everyone he does it, right?

1:56:19And that in normal life is like really, really weird. Like to be like exceptional, you have to be an exception. You have to do really weird shit, weird ass shit. Like when I built this YouTube studio in my house, right? This is my house. I went to Ikea with my dad. I put this whole thing together. I got fucking lights, got a five grand camera, all this shit. When people come around, like they look at me like, you're a fucking tripper, dude. What the hell? Because this looks weird because it's like the background looks nice here, but like it doesn't look normal in the room or like, you know, when you're like, you know, you just and you have to do weird things and you have to be uncomfortable.

1:56:53and if you don't do weird things, you'll be like everyone else. It's just like we live in an abundant society where there's a really great episode of Diary of a CEO, like of content I can consume. I like long form content because I want to learn from experts and things, but like she talks about dopamine, right? And like how we live in a society of abundance and like back in the caveman times, you didn't have anything. So when you came across stuff, you're going to consume it. But now the issue with AI is going to be abundance. We have too much stuff. And so we actually have to selectively say yes to less shit.

1:57:23So we don't consume ourselves with everything. Otherwise we're just like drinking from a fire hose as well. And so I think it's like, you got to be weird and you got to be different. It's like the only way, because when people see weird and different, it's like, there's a glitch in the matrix and they do a double take and then they remember you. They're just like, and so, but everyone's kind of like, I think now I rewatch the matrix when I'm older. I'm like, this is hectic. You just rewatch it and you're like when you're a kid you're like ah whatever this is funny i want to see him dodge the bullet and shit you know i mean like you don't think about anything now you watch it you're like this is so deep like it's so like crazy and i it's like this kind of goes into like the crazy land but i think just human beings it's like we're living in a semblance of like we're being controlled to an extent and the only way to do it is like the hard thing about social media is like you know my wife got off social media for two months she stopped talking to her friends because she talks them all on Instagram DMs.

1:58:13Stop talking. Right. And she's, so she's socially excluded herself. Like, so it creates this hard thing where it's like social media plays on your sense of belonging, but at the same time, it's also creating this thing. So what social media has done is just like, like, especially like TikTok and Instagram, these, they're just like so toxic. It's just like, so, because it's removing agency from individuals by creating a comparison culture. so they keep betraying their own self-trust it's like over and over and over again and people can't do what they say they're going to do it's not because they didn't want to it's because they forgot what they said they were even going to do because there's so much information in coming in that they can't actually do anything so you got to be really weird like and just do strange and interesting and different things that you know that aren't bad but it's just like it's got to be so different and that's why i think you know the content journey and posting on social media and dming people is you kind of trial by fire when you post your first post you're freaking out your heart's gone a million miles an hour you send your first dm but then you realize you didn't die and that like it's okay if a few of my old work buddies laugh at me in a whatsapp chat it's fine because people are going to offer you but like if you're trying to like please everyone you kind of please no one it's the same with niching if you try to niche you try to please everyone you don't please anyone and so yeah i would say the leaving message is you got to be really weird

1:59:27Matthew Lakajev:it's the only way to win i love it man this has been mad this has been such a fun conversation I feel like we went in so many different directions. I hope that you guys thought it was as fun as we did because this was absolutely epic. Ladies and gentlemen, this is episode 193 of the 505 Podcast. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button, drop us a comment, leave us a like, and we'll see you guys all next week. Peace.