Latest / Aggressively Human: For experts choosing expansion over extraction. / Running a community like a house party with Darnell Brown

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Running a community like a house party with Darnell Brown · Aggressively Human: For experts choosing expansion over extraction.

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Aggressively Human podcast,
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: where sometimes the best community you can develop is from
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: within your own community.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: I am your co-host, Meg Capelt.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Jessica Lackey.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: And we are so thrilled to have Darnell Brown here.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Darnell, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with y'all, to be present with y'all on this day.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just nothing but gratitude for my side.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: We are thrilled to have you.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: We were introduced to you by Diane,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: who has been on the show several times, Diane Winger, who you work with.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: And she just basically said, like, you are three people that I admire.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: You should know each other kind of introduction.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I would love if you could give us a quick overview of what it is that you do,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: what your background is and sort of like how how you got here.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I, uh, I work with, well, even backing up was for that.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I, uh, I described myself as a creative polymath.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was looking at,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, well,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: what is,
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: what is, uh,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: what does that,
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: that go in Gemini think that this means when you just use those two words together?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, actually really accurate.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was, um,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: somebody, the polymath side and the creative and internal version of suit together.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: It means that you have, um, you have a.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like I'm a diver with it,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: just in terms of your skill set and how varied it is,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: and it can be tough to describe what you do.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But in the copywriting world,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: in the storytelling world,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: we're always trying to,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know, reverence the soul of wit and trying to figure out people's time.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And express what you do in as little words as possible.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I were to do that now, I kind of served two masters, so to speak.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have this ecosystem community,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: mostly in the virtual world,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: called Forge,
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: which largely enables multi-passionate entrepreneurs to grow their impact
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: without sacrificing their worth through cross-pollination and experimentation.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this idea that we are co-equal experts and so there's no hierarchy
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: or patriarchy involved and I'm curious or then on the pursuit of sinning
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: if something like that is sustainable beyond
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: the three years we've already had it going.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other pillar is my work as a brand strategist and copywriter working
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: with people who would identify as non-creative business owners and entrepreneurs.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: The assistants from A strategic standpoint that sometimes involves consulting,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: so I work more solidically in a slash capacity.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can always help with the things that I recommend,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: and so it's good to be able to implement,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: not just let people know how they can straighten up what they're trying to do,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: which usually involves storytelling.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we are.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my list of questions.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: It started with the creative polymath, which I think is a really interesting phrase.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm the linguistics nerd on the call.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, you and I probably are.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Jessica's like the system's operational brain.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: But when I heard creative polymath,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: my brain did two things,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: which is like, ooh, I hadn't heard those two things together before.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I understand it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And, oh, people would have no idea to find that or look for that.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like, how do you... And maybe this is just the search person and me going...
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: When you have a phrase like that, it's a really clear position without a known category.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like you're describing yourself in that way.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then I thought it was really interesting how you also then sort of went into
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: the known categories and said, I have this community of other people.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Who are multi-passionate,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: who are entrepreneurs,
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: who are trying a lot of different things, who are experimenters.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So you're sort of like using that terminology for yourself of creative polymath
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: to be like,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: okay, this is who I am and I'm going to try to draw other people into me.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then with the other side of things where you have
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: that category people are familiar with of copywriter and storytelling
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: and brand strategy.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was a really interesting like You know,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: here are the two things that you do,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: which are clear and searchable,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: but then you at the center of them are like the hinge point that doesn't quite fit
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: into either of those pieces.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: So how did it happen?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the copywriting came first and then the community came out of that?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It came first.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So my background is really deep into like drawing like pencil.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all are superheroes back when I was five years old and just continually pulling
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: that thread the entire time and saying, oh,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: in case I don't get to become a painter or a famous comic book artist or something.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let me go to school for graphic design.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then I ended up obtaining an associate in that in 2003,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: and that was the end of my traditional education.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are about 23 years later, and just continually pulling that thread, right?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So visual art became graphic design,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: then it's a brand strategy,
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: then it's brand identity and visuals,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: and then recognizing that your graphic design plays a very small part.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the success of an entity or a personal brand even.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's hard to realize that when you are younger in your career and you think
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: that it's everything.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes people are attracted to that idea that, hey,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: if I just get the right logo,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: it'll all make sense and things and they fix it and fix it and fix it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just, oh,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to talk myself out of a job
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: because that's not really what you need right now.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then, you know, you're just a hired guy and you're just a graphic designer.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I got to change my positioning up a little bit.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think some strong convictions,
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: but it's because of just being a student of the game and recognizing that, oh, yeah,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: you're just like,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Graphic design is a part of it, but not as big as you would think it is.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes a paradigm shift to help people understand that and why that would make sense.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're,
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: and it's a lastly made you like,
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: like I've taken what I've learned and some of the polymath side is like,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: oh snap, there are these patterns in all of these different industries.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can put them through your own filters,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: but you can also apply what you learn in design and websites and writing and use
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: that in terms of your business relationships,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: in terms of how you walk into a room, in terms of how you present yourself.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is all in design,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: so it's a way that you get to navigate through this room by choice
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: and how you show up really.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I love this.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So when did you start your own entrepreneurship journey?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then how did you create Forge?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: What was kind of the order of which those things happened?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And how long were you doing your own work before you decided to launch a community?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Which is no small feat.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's no small feat.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I started, I stepped out.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And went down the entrepreneurial path in 2008.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's about 18 years from when we recorded this.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's rare for me to find somebody who has been in this longer than I have.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm a 2013er, and I feel like I've been in this forever.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I think based on when you said you got your associates, I think we're about the same age.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, damn, he's been doing this long now?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was during the Great Recession, like...
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: These two things shouldn't match.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's the year that I got started and when nothing was working and all of that.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, I can't go back.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was young and I was prideful as well, too.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: There was hubris involved.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of more caution to the landing being like,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: not only do I need to turn this around because I can't go backwards,
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: like I've only came as far, but I didn't come as far to come as far.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you're in your early twenties at that point.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And, and you're so, you have so much hubris, like, it's like two week notice.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no savings beyond that point.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've even like,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: and he's just like,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: oh, and every financial crisis says you need to have that runway as well.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it's just yelling and pride and brashness and things.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then you also double down, like you get into more debt.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have to buy the house and the car and all that stuff around us.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to jump out there and announce myself as a graphic design for hire,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: like logos, websites and all of this stuff.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I got this big old portfolio.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started Forge about 15 years after that point.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the through line was just what I've been seeing in the ring.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was just continuing to pull that thread.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I understand what it's like to have So I can equity in some of
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: the companies I was involved in by being like offered that and my recognizing,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: oh, I got this level of value at this point.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: People want to retain me to be an integral part of their companies in a deeper way.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then in 2023,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: it was just this convergence of,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: oh, people kept telling me that, John, I like your energy and stuff.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I like your energy is insane.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like if we could just,
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: like if you ever had a community,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: just be in your orbit and stuff would be a good look.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like listening to that.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then also I produced a course for creative entrepreneurs to help them optimize their time.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I needed something on a place that I can offer group coaching that was...
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: That would be for my core students.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a merge of those two ideas.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Garneau, you need to have a community.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I got these core students.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I collided those two in 2023.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: But forging, you are becoming something else.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because one thing about me is I was,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had a lofty goal, like with that whole thing around co-equal experts.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: What if we all share in this?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: What if I use my own prowess to spotlight others?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that look like when you have ownership on this?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's not really a blueprint for that.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so because I was open to that and I invited them into it,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: like it ended up sprouting in a unique way.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, of course, I don't really need this anymore.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is the least interesting thing I could be doing now.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this thing is really going to be like, this film's good.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And people will tell you when you launch a virtual community,
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're doing it right,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: it almost feels like a microcosm of the world is like you would like
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: to see it almost.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, that is true.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I do wish people were treated more as co-equals and or if they led with that type
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: of belief and what that would do.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you remove accolades and awards and experience and you say no matter,
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: everyone that you meet knows something that you don't.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: If we all had that, like how can we solve problems?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, beyond even just entrepreneurship,
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: when it comes to our impact,
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: when it comes to the things that were disrupted,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: when it comes to systems that weren't designed with SMI.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We got to break those down or even build your own.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm just not throwing the doors.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: What if we build New Ramsey?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I'm interested in stuff like that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: if you can, um,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: like Not necessarily lead by example,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: but create the thing that you wish to have and just even start it in a small way
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: without any excuses.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: You want to do it affordably, obviously, and efficiently.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's the tiniest version of this idea that you can at least have a proof
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: of concept to present?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then let it organically become something bigger because it's not just
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: about what I think it is or what I want it to be.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've found the wall of which we can design this mural like all of us.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that wasn't the only world I needed to play in it.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so lastly, again,
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: With the polygraph side,
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: like taking all of what I learned about design and color theory and,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: and fonts and typography,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: like all of that needs apply to designing a community from a visual standpoint.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's going to look good.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: But now you're facilitating relationships.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: how do you help your peers tell better stories about themselves,
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: about their own businesses so they can attract more business for them?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we all grow together because that rising tide lifts all boats.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you do that by removing
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: The bureaucracy,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: removing all of this,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm better than you, I'm smarter than you, I know it more than you.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: If we all had to give us much,
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: irrespective of what we know,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: we got in a room and we talked about all of this stuff that was messed up in
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: the game that we wanted to change,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: and then we'd go out into these larger communities,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: forums, and begin to change it like that stuff to me.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think the thing that I'm hearing is sort of like a pattern recognition or a theme
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: with this is like the feedback.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, this isn't you.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you joked about like 20 years ago, there was a lot of pride.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: There was a lot of hubris.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: There was a lot of ego and like arrogance.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like I can do this on myself.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then over the past 15 to 20 years, it's been like, no, we're better together.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you said the word convergence,
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: which really felt powerful to me of like people came to me
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: and these timing things sort of worked out.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And what I was hearing from people was not what I believed,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: but what I was hearing from people was I would like to be in a space that is curated
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: by somebody with your values.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: I would like some more support with time management for my projects.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: I would like to connect with other people and learn from them and not just like sort of a...
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: I would put my own group coaching program in a very, very top-down space.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's not meant to be what you're talking about with co-equals.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's meant to be let's learn this thing together that I'm an expert in.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let me bring you with me,
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: which is a very different value proposition than what I'm hearing from you.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: So Darnell,
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to give you a chance to breathe for a second and point the spotlight
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: at Jessica and be like,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm hearing the same thing in your community and the way
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: that your community has grown over the last two years of you had this idea of,
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: you know, similar to Darnell.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the courses that I've created.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I want to foster.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what I want to facilitate.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the language that I've already created.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then the people who are in the community have come to you and been like,
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: I really liked this.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Can we do this even if you're not there?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Which I think is a different level of community engagement.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to put Jessica on the spot and make her talk about her community.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is definitely not like one of those,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: like this is,
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we are all equals and I have a specific way I want our co-workings to run.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's a format, there's definitions, like there's a lexicon.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like when you have a teachings assistant, um,
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: doing a study hall or something like that,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: like they run it the way the professor says, um,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I have members do workshops and things like that,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm curating a curriculum to be like,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: this is based on what gaps I need to fill in the membership.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Who is the best expert on the topic?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: But they're like,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: someone asked me yesterday, they're like, I have a workshop that I'd like to do.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, great.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: That programming might be relevant in May of next year.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's not relevant in what we're doing in the fall and it's not relevant
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: for what we're doing in the fall.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Spring.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like members are taking leadership positions and co-leading the community,
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: but they're doing it through my curriculum and
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: my orchestrating principles.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, then they're taking it and running with it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like we did a workshop last week and someone's like, hey,
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: I want to like pressure test and brainstorm on Call Me Whims,
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: but they're using my curriculum.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: But that's because it's a It is a place to,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: it's a focusing community versus an expansive community.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm excited to hear more about Forge because it's like,
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love multi-passionates and mine is like,
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: what are the minimum viable things we need to do to get your commercial engine up
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: and running and stay up and running?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of a focusing place versus a really expansive community.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Here's all the possibilities.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: actually,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: let's let's focus on like the specific these specific habits,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: these specific times or these specific language.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: But now people are stewards of that versus it being like Jessica has to drive and hold culture.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that because when you say creative polymath, they are always no shortage of ideas.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: But Darnell, you said like part of what you were helping them with is is.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe also some of this honing and sharpening and going,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: okay, time management, you can do these things.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: You can do these things.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot do all these things all at the same time.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: So how is your community sort of helping give people those expansive opportunities
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: and the constraints that you need for them?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a fascinating challenge for sure.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Based on what Jessica said,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Forge has quite a few similarities in that way,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: especially with the orchestration standpoint and being able
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: to facilitate these relationships.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I might have a mild case of OCD.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want everything to work good.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's going to be,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: for instance,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: in some of the cases, people do come to me with ideas for workshops and stuff.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: They want to host them at Forge.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do the cover graphics because I want them to all look the same.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was like,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: there's that aspect for sure of just making it Like look as gorgeous as possible.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: if you already have the brand identity set,
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: and when you go to snapshot what all these events look like
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: that other people have hosted within it, like,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know, that's easy to send out and people can say, okay, wow, that looks good.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can get the idea.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's fascinating that it's actually more similar to Jessica's community in that way.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that happened just because of the trust that you have,
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: that you have earned from those that you're seeking to attract.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when they do, they want to come to you with ideas.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're very proactive in things that they want to do.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't want it to be like the Wild West or anything,
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: where it's like, this is just a playground anywhere that can do anything.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: There are standards, best practices.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the great thing is, like, they just trust me with that.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they kind of follow in that way.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes,
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't trying to, like,
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: really lead in that way,
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: but That's the way it ended up, and I'm proud to have IronNet, and it feels good.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to grid these pieces and then be able to reel people in at
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: the same time, as I mentioned, it's a challenge.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's no right or wrong way to do it,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: and sometimes you have to Instead of it being directive or with statements,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes you gotta ask different questions that open up new synapses
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: on other people's minds.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I like to, I think the big thing is experimentation as well too.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like you gotta have a,
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: A free spirit in terms of how much you're willing to get wrong,
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: how much you're willing to follow your face with things.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, I'm doing, I'm always running several tests at the same time.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I am like,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: hey, okay, if everyone is in the season, I acquire an acquisition or something.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, let's design an accountability circle around that.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so the people in this community that are in that season,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: this could be an attractive fit for you.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then you're going to have other people that are in a season
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: of like book writing just as an example.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Could be concurrently with client acquisition,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: but at the time that might be more of a priority.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can have these kind of these many spaces within this larger ecosystem
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: of all of these things going on, right?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like a cafeteria in grade school,
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: but got like all of these different tables and stuff where people were digging out
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: or testing out the same types of things.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I do like that because we're not a modelist and no one is in the same season.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so the thing is,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: you can curate those, you can inspire, you can share the things, which is what I do.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: I show the things that I'm not too proud of.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times that really things don't work out.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I like sharing like an inverse highlight reel sometimes almost.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know this?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I throw it in this way.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is...
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't have to learn in that way anyway.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: The highlight reels are easy to show.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's comfy doing that.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're going to have a fascinating value proposition,
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: it's like you got to give something more.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we learn probably more from our failures and our successes anyway.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're not trying to build up people to be like the next version of you or
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: to follow your blueprint for success if it doesn't exist anyway.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're just trying to add a vantage point to this prism of what this experience is like.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And no two are exactly alike anyway, but I'm interested in arriving at a more objective reality.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so curious, how do you think about welcoming new members in?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a challenge for me.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: I've got some members that have been with me for...
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Someone has to,
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: like, tell the kindergartners, this is where you, this is like, this is orientation.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is, Meg, I'm gonna, like, I'm butchering this because I don't have the children.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, like, this is where you put your shoes.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is where you put your backpack.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And this is how you, like, this is like the circle and nap time.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Did I, did I get close, Meg?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: To, like, some of the things that.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: For kindergarten, yes.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: like, let's expand this a little bit because it is like when you're in kindergarten.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: There is the expectation of, okay, we need a break.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's start with circle time.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Let's get to know our peers.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do all of these activities,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: but also let's walk around the building and get to know your way around.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it's funny you said fourth grade because right now I have a fourth grader
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: and he's like higher up at the school now.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we also have a kindergartner who's coming into school
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: and he's like guiding her around to the bus and making sure she knows how to get
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: to her classroom.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he's being the like peer model.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: So she, you know,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: she went to her classroom with her,
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: but she also says fourth grader and they don't need the handholding the way
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: that kindergartners do.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: They can be more independent.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: They can make it to their classrooms without having somebody standing there going,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: kindergarten is this way, right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: So how do you make sure that they don't feel like they're being talked down to or
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: that every time you do something,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: you have to talk only to the kindergartners,
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: but the fourth graders are also getting what they need from the same person.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Approximate curriculum, but like not necessarily.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is it's a good metaphor, Jessica.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just wondering how you structure your community design to be like welcoming
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: to there's no hierarchy,
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: but there's like a process for getting,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know, integrated into a community like yours.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's different expectations or different community participation
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: for people who've been around for a while.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you think about stewarding both of those now that you're
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: in like year three of your community?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of tenets that I go by at this point in time,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: and I didn't have it all together in the beginning.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this is like all after, you know, how many months in like 36 months plus.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Of just trial and error.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a couple of things.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: One is I love the metaphor that y'all use.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And surprisingly, I do like analogies a lot.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very polymathic as well, too.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So like my mind is closer to a community experience for adults should feel
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: a lot like a perpetual housewarming party almost.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that I'm thinking all of the time when a new member comes in is how,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: if this was on the real world,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was welcoming them into this mansion or this playground, how would I treat them?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when you think of Housewoman, it's easy because most of us adults know how that goes.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: We've held them or we've been hosted by people who did it right.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to do the virtual version of meet you at the door.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just cannot take your jacket and walk you to the most popular room in the house,
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: which is usually going to be in the kitchen or living room or something
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: for most people.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's where the conversation is already happening.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I also want to show you the rest of the house and the different layers and all
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: of these different things.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: But you may not be interested in that, depending on what your personality is.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: You could be introverted, extroverted.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: But by default,
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: when you build a new community,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: it's almost like you have that exact same analogy going on.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Once your members to introduce themselves,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: it can feel a little like everybody's waving here and be saying,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: hey, they may come on in here, but you might be like super shy with it.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: You might not even have come for that part of things.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: You may come because you want to see one of our guest expert sessions
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: or something I taught in the past.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the tendencies, housewarming party, perpetual kind of black party vibe almost.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want it to feel like that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking of those things.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Another principle is how do I make each person that comes in feel like
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: that they have my undivided attention and presence and that I'm focused on them,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: that this is not formulaic,
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: that this is not a catch-all shotgun marketing newsletter type of vibe.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So you're thinking about that too.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking about the cues that happen in real life.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: How do you make someone feel seen, heard, and listened as soon as they show up to your space?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you do that for every single person that comes in,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: that they feel it in that way, in the way that you need to know.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can't,
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: you can't really blueprint that because everybody has a different way
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: of feeling welcome.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking about that too.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then it's like, ah, youth.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to do your best to respect and honor what people are attracted to
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: about your community,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: even if it's just like 5% of this thing that they're paying 100% for.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like going into a pizzeria or a pizzeria with 50 different options,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: but the mushroom and cheese is the most happy little one,
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: but you're trying to like let them know about all of these other things
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: that you have going on and you can create friction even.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're doing that.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I still like the way The way through all of that to figure people out is to,
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like you have to almost have a personality of some sort that is like,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Easygoing,
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: that is like low friction for them,
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: that they need to do to unlock everything else in their community so
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: that they're compelled to take it.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like a light nudge, to Jessica's point, these aren't stories of this community.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like you need to agree to these terms in a way that is interactive,
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: not just like read only almost.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I tried to figure out a way to do that as simple as possible and to have like
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: the most basic version of that that I could continue to build on.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had this idea of like, oh, gee,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to base it around like how a person intends to use this community
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: when they first come in.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to use it frequently, occasionally or regularly.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And depending on which path they go down, because I have it in like type form style.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and recommending the things that they do and how they behave based
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: on how they intend to show up.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I think a version of that,
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: but like relative to a person's community could, again, it ticks all of those boxes.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because interactivity is important when they first get in the community and not
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: to have it to read only for people or else they'll fall off and they'll forget
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: that they haven't signed up for the thing.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you nudge in a way that is like dumb simple?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: you also got to add to some gamification in there too,
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: because that also helps like the triggers and stuff around.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm only,
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 98% through with this thing now,
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: even if it's a mini course,
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: even if there's an element of me actually clicking on things.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: To wrap all of that up into something neatly so that it feels like I see you,
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: I respect you, I've met you at the door, I ask you for your coat.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: You may say no, you may want to keep it on, you may want to venture on on your own.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: You may not even want to go to where everyone else is.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Respect that,
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: honor that,
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: have the argument for them too,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: and let them know that, hey, if you need some assistance, I'm here for you.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: I have an off-topic question for all of y'all.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: When you go to a house party,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: like a real house party,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: not like an online community house party, but like a real house party.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: What's the room you are you what's the room you're most interested in seeing in their house?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so curious.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'll ask Meg.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Meg, when you go to a house party,
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: where's where's like the room you're going to like get whisked away to?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of depends on the house.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like I just went to one last weekend at one of my girlfriend's houses.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: She had surgery yesterday.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: She had breast reduction surgery.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: So she had a ta-ta to the ta-tas party.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: We were like, well, this is like a totally normal thing to do.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: So we went over there and we started outside because the weather was nice and it was
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: a fire pit and they have a hot tub and all that.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: So like we didn't even bother with the house because it's not going to be warm for
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: that long around here.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: But then we got rained on.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: So we went inside.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: And for me, it was kitchen.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's always kitchen.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's maybe because I'm just like a social grazer and people are always coming
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: through the kitchen.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I never want to get stuck on like a couch or the corner of a room where somebody
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: that I don't necessarily have anything in common with.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like that wasn't a problem at this party.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, I don't want to get cornered.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you can get quartered in the kitchen,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: but you also can always have an out to be like,
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: oh, I have to take this plate of food to somebody.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so I think I'm usually a kitchener because the friction is the least,
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: and also like there's just certain areas of the house that feel too intimate
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: for like a situation like that.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're not like, oh, let me go look at your bedrooms, you know, like.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I think I think for me, kitchen is is the hub.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: I always,
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well,
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: before streaming was a thing,
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was always wanting to like, go check out someone's CD collection.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Very Lorelei Gilmore in that, like,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: where she got married to Chris and Chris asked,
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: or when she got married to Max or was going to get married to Max,
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: and Chris is like, so what's the CD collection look like?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can learn a lot from someone's CD collection.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm like, just point me to the books.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Point me to the library.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: The bookshelf.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Point me to the bookshelf because, like,
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes I don't feel great about having good conversations right out of the gates
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: because I'm a little nervous about that.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: But, like, let me go, like, see what you're reading.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's always conversation about that.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Darnell, what about you?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you were to go to a house party and someone's like,
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: let me show you around the house, what's the room you always want to see first?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: It would have to be the media rooms, similar to you.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think the same thing is true about a person's movie collection.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because their movie selection is probably even like...
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's less of a through line with what they do professionally than even their books would be.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because most of us probably likely read things that are associated,
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: but in addition to topics that we're interested in.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: So for instance,
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: you could be like me,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: this is not me,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: but in the example,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: if I was into YA fantasy or something,
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: that might not tell you anything about what I do through my career-wise
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: or something.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: But if I got movies like The Matrix and Fight Club or something in my media video,
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: it's just like, oh man, this person is like me in that way.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it probably would be The media section.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the great thing is likely the books will be in that area anyway, too.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're not a good looking person,
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: or they got most of their stuff on streaming anyway,
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: and that Blu-ray collection is looking small,
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm probably going to look at the bookshelf and stuff there.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And definitely the wall art around the place, too.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the OCD in me, I'm going around straight in frames and stuff, usually.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no one has straight frames in their home.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is this about?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, does no one not see this?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you met this with me.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: People not own levels?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this should be flush against the wall.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: I own levels, and I just literally can't hang the pictures.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's like,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: no matter how I try to hang them,
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: because they got those stupid, like, you know, the alligator clips on the back.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, the stupid clips.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: They've got to find something better.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can't take it, unless we're miles.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: No one has left my house, but I'm over to the street in the most many ways.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: But you're welcome to come over and clean my house,
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: if that's what this is leading to, and you're like, no, I need to dust.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's a mess.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your farms would be straight everywhere.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Here's one more question.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is more about like community than housewarming.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: But when you host your own housewarming, when you host your own party, right?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're the host, right?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're the one.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's like, you should host parties.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like,
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: so I could host parties,
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: which means I'm going to like talk to everybody,
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: but all like kind of like wedding style.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm always like looking at the door.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm all like, so they get to be like deep dive in conversation.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like looking at the door, taking coats, things like that.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like,
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: This seems like it would be fun,
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: but then I don't get to talk to,
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: I get to talk to everybody because I welcome everybody at the door.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't get to have like the deep dive,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes you do want to get quartered in,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: the deep dive where you get two people in conversation because I've got to make sure
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: that as the host, I'm hostessing.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if anyone else feels like that or is
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: that just why like high social anxiety,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: want to make sure that like no one's left in the corner because that's usually me at
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: the party who's like,
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: Standing around with like the glass of wine being like, I don't know anybody.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have social things to talk about.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all don't want to talk about business.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'm supposed to talk about.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: If y'all are talking about business, that may be my own thing.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: But how do you both in like real life,
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: but also in your community,
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: like actually get to experience the fun while also being the host responsible
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: for ensuring everyone else is having a good time?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great challenge as well, too.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the great thing is like now you can...
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: I would say my response to that personally would be, oh, well, First,
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need to be the host,
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: but in my mind, that's what I might default to, but I got to separate.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: I got to untether myself from that idea in the first place to recognize that just
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: because you built it, I don't have to be the host.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to give a community success manager or something to be the actual host.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can be more of an overseer in some way.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's getting out of that role so that someone can handle that personally.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And or if you don't have the question to do that,
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: depending on your community functioning,
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: like that might be a good use of like an AI agent somewhere.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: But to be ethic about it at the same time and like mention that it's
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: an AI bot that's doing that,
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: that you've trained on your voice and all of that stuff.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want it to pretend to be you, but it's actually not.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate the transparency of it saying, Hey,
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't exist,
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: but I was trained in this voice and stuff, and I'm really able to do this.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you got a community with hydros or something of people in it,
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: because there's no way for you to host it in that way anyway.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it becomes a good problem that you have as you grow.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're small,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: like we are,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: we're still a micro community,
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: which technically means you use the other hydrant members.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can do that,
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: That can be a plus almost,
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: that can be a benefit of it,
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: like if you do know anyone's first name or something in there.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then lastly,
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Jessica is just like,
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: that's also the part around ensuring that you're making an efficient path like
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: from your onboarding part of things in the first place.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I had recorded videos and stuff like that,
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: it takes a lot of the work for me to do much in real time.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Usually when you put it on others to recall with you or, hey,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: here's my calendar if you'd like me to walk you through this community in real time.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Most people won't take you up on that,
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: but they'll appreciate that you thought of it,
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: even, or that they at least have the action.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that us talking about it is already like, I really mean this.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's progress in the right direction in the first place, because sometimes it's not just about
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: What I do around it is sometimes about just asking great questions even of like,
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: this is a thing that maybe all three of us could workshop a little bit
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: to make better for like all three of us.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: I really think, like,
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: and just even talking through fascinating things like this and coming up
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: with these analogies, this helped.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: This already helps.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is progress.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is its own reward of just like, oh, I asked the question.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then even going to your community to be like, yeah,
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: we talked about this and I asked the question, like, this is the true conundrum.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: If transparency and all of that is part of the flavor that you're leading
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: with anyway,
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: then Like in my,
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would talk about these things and they're even,
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: and just be like,
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have the answers yet, but I want you to know some of my mind.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe there is no right way.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, maybe the experience of what real life is like cannot be fully replicated.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there are always going to be some gaps, but I, I like just talking about it now.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you're right.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: And, and the first thing that I went to is where you went for Cernal,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: which is,
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: Having somebody else,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_02: whether they're paid or sort of like,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: volunteer,
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: but like somebody in the community who can co-host with you,
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: whether that's as simple as like somebody else who's on Zoom who lets someone into
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: the room if you're in the middle of something.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_02: Even like I have a success, like a community success person.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: And her entire job is doing the one-month check-in,
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: six-month check-in, making sure that people don't completely fall off the radar.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, your renewal's coming up.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_02: Are you still interested?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: Has this been helpful to you?
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: We haven't heard from you.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: She's doing a lot of that behind the scenes stuff.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then during the live training,
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: she's there and she has a list of like,
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: here are the prompts I'm going to ask so that way you can pop them in the chat box
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: for me and I don't get distracted by them.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: Here is the resources so that way you have them ready to go and you can pop them in.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: if like I just Jessica co-hosted or hosted me in your community last month
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: and same thing where you were like,
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: all right,
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be in charge of doing the work and having somebody who's had that role.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Even if it's not a job,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: the person who's standing there and taking the jacket and handing you like
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: the valet, not a valet path, but like the coat check person basically is like...
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you make everyone feel like they have their own personal brainer
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: with them all the time?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like at the same time,
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: just imagine them left to squeeze things out of them and they didn't know was there
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: because, you know, without resistance, there's no way to the bench.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think also,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: and that brings me to my second idea for this,
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_02: which is the culture that you're creating.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, in my community, we have a strong culture for celebrations.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_02: And if somebody tells me something individually,
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: oh, I got this client from this or, oh, this got indexed.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: And like these tiny,
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: not tiny,
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: they're still huge,
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: but they feel small to us in some ways,
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: especially because you can look at other people who are in the group and like,
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: oh, they already did that.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they don't need to hear from me that I finally published this thing and like not a big deal.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: And we're so good at minimizing our own work.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm very consistent at saying to people like, bring this back to the group.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Let them celebrate with you.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because when somebody else has something that they've accomplished,
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to celebrate with them.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I want us to feel like the work that we're doing,
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: even if we're all doing it individually,
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: there's a collective energy around it where you're saying,
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: oh, they did it, I can do it too.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: Or I did it and I'm so proud they got there too.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: And we're all doing different work, but like the expression of that work has a space to go.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the expectation of, yeah,
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: like the expectation of you,
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: you didn't hire me one-to-one for a reason because you want
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: to have other people there with you,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: sort of walking in the trenches with you,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: even if they're at different stages, that's okay.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the celebrations are actually important, one thousand percent.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have been doing them weekly for a while now and really head-to-head time.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think to your point,
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: like around the culture that you,
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: and giving people things to look forward to,
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: like all of that helps,
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: that helps the community feel,
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: feel enriched,
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: feels intimate at the same time,
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: because these are usually things that we're celebrating that they may not share
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: in larger forums for like weeks or something at a time,
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: or that may not be the The glossy types of things to celebrate.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always trying to challenge them that every single week,
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: if you had the worst week ever to shoot this one,
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: like, it's just like, oh, that's still something.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll give you examples of this too.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because that part is important, man.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: You need that on this journey anyway,
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: because you will have some lists, or some seasons that nothing is working.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is working.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Your plateau, your customers, your clients that you have, they all, everything just piles up.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so how do you,
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: despite all of that,
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: still find something That you probably looked over,
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: probably took for granted,
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: a relationship even,
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: something that your spouse or your partner may have did that you didn't like share
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: that, man.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's celebrate it.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's celebrate you even showing up,
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: knowing that you didn't want to, knowing that you got nothing to celebrate.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: You just want to hear what everyone else is doing.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that's okay too, right?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: You can learn and support by osmosis without always needing to share your own work.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I think you said something really interesting there too,
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: Darnell,
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: which is that like,
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: We can lead by example in those celebrations and lead by example in saying like,
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't get as much done this week as I expected to.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe it's not even a progress report so much as like, here's what I'm working on.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm in the trenches with you.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm also doing this work,
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: even if I'm ahead of you because I've studied this or I've had years
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: of experience doing this.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm still doing the practical application of the work that I am teaching.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: And here's how it looks in my business.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: And here's the behind the scenes.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, like Jessica and I just do this on the podcast half the time.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we just grill each other.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, well, what are you doing?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: What's working for you?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: What failed for you?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: And having those conversations in public.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's so rare to say what's actually working without the glossy cover to it.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, like I'll be honest, my launch ended today.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: It did not sell as many seats as I was hoping for.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's reality right now.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's just like, there's an economic thing going on.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's a technological thing going on.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot that's out of my control.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not the only person who's struggling with the launch right now.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like that recognition is a hard thing to say out loud.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so being able to say in a community,
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: here's everything that I tried and here's the limited results
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: and here's what my expectations were that I did not hit.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's normal and expected.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: And you're not going to blow your goals out of the water every time.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: And here's how I'm adjusting and here's what I'm changing.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: And like having those conversations where you can be a leader
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: who can be transparent, maybe not transparent, translucent.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to give everything,
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: but you can have a bit of vulnerability while still holding up your own authority.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a hard line and boundary to hold, too.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: So we've talked so much about onboarding in this conversation,
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: but I'm curious,
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: Darnell,
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: do you have any thoughts about, like,
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_02: how are we making the experience consistently good,
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: like, after the onboarding is completed, you know?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: Similar to a lot of the stuff that we talked about,
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just feel like,
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: You got to be cognizant to even ask the question,
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: like you just, right,
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: of even saying, should I treat off-boarding as relevantly as I treat on-boarding?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, why are we not doing that as a society?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or even the experiences that you've had from the communities you've joined,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: you have personally been a part of, or any membership even.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did you like the way that the off-boarding thing went?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did you just ghost anyway?
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they tried to beat out to you, but maybe you had a bad taste in your mouth.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they did have an off-boarding thing, but you never took part a bit of it.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: and I think, like,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think when we're enrolling people and we're doing the marketing,
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: we're doing the sales,
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: we're so focused on like acquisition,
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: client acquisition,
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: client acquisition, get new people in, new people in, new blood, no churn, no churn.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: And like the goal is zero churn instead of like people are going to leave you.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's okay because sometimes they churn for life reasons.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they churn for financial reasons.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they churn because they got everything that they needed to get out of
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: the time that they were with you.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a success and that's a victory.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: And why isn't that being celebrated too?
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then I think also like...
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: How are we building both retention into our systems, but how are we building offboarding in?
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just started doing this round of my membership.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I've had the membership in some format or another since 2016,
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: but this round we started doing benchmarking at the beginning and the end.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: So before you touch anything on your website, I want to know, here's what AI says about you.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what it's recommending you for.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: Here's what it knows about you.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: Here's where the sources it's pulling from, like that kind of stuff.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then every quarter, we're doing benchmarking again to say, what's it know now?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: How did it change?
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: How did it change?
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: We're writing it down.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: I have a process for it.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then I also have,
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: so it's a year-long program,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: starting with,
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: you know, the onboarding and then Q2, Q3, Q4, and then I have an offboarding one.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: That way we're asking the same questions,
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: but then after a year of doing this, what does that look like?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then I,
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: as the creator,
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: can take a look at that stuff if people are willing to share it with me and be like,
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: oh, oh, wow, I actually did get a lot out of this.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's hard to retrospectively or retroactively look back and say...
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, those were my accomplishments and they're visible,
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: especially for something as qualitative as the creative work that we're doing,
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: the writing processes that we're going through, the updates that we're making.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think also in a community like your, Sarnal,
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: which is much more open-ended, it's like, well, how do you know when you're done?
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: Is it just like my next billing cycle is when I'm done
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: or I have completed this objective or I,
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: my life got too busy and I have to reach out to the customer service person and say,
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I have to cancel my account.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: And like, how hard are we?
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: Are we making gyms that are impossible to cancel our contracts at?
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Or are we making it easy to just like hit the button and say...
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be back, you know?
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then, hey, it's the question that counts.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there is no way to answer,
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: but I learned a lot,
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: even just what you were saying there about,
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: like, benchmarking could be a way to use it.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then applying what you learned from clothes under communities
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: or program-related ones and applying the things that make the most sense,
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: Meg, and into a different context.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: So to your point, people leave for all types of reasons.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe people don't even tell you that they leave.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you have no opportunity to celebrate them.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: I believe, though, you can start from more of an intrinsic type of celebration.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: For example,
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: in that scenario where it's the worst type of leaving ever,
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: whereas they give you no reason,
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: they just ghost you, they never respond to anything.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot celebrate them in any way.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can't pull anything from it.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know nothing.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do you still celebrate them?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's to your point.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they do with script writing, actors,
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: when you hear about people in movies,
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: like them having to develop their own backstories for characters so
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: that they could have the same convictions as the characters they're portraying
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: to understand what they're doing.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see none of that in the final film, but the actor is thinking through those things.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: In a similar way,
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: you got to intrinsically celebrate them for your own just state of peace,
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: being like, I don't want to take that personally.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are a gazillion things that could happen.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hell, maybe the person died even.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you wouldn't know.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you wouldn't know.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe until months later.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: You never know.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you still say?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that meant is, you know what?
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm appreciative that they came and gave Forge a shot for whether it was a week,
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: a day, a year, no matter what.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that during the time that they were there, They were visible.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: They said something.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: They said Meg was here.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: They did their version of that in the backroom store, but in the community.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: So they left something here.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: The weather was a post, but they didn't say it out.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: They left a paper straw in the way.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that may be all that you do because people in your life are seasons anyway.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so you got to say,
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: irrespective of everything,
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: whatever their reasons for ghosts and PR,
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: that they were just all visible in week one and then week two,
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: it's just like, oh, completely.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they're gone.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that may be, I know I did everything that I possibly did from my side.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't phony in my marketing.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't mislead them.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't exaggerate.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: There was no hyperbole.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I did everything I needed to.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: I gave them every chance to do what they needed to.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: And something's included for them.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or when they died, they'd be on it.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the worst, but
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: it still happens.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: Life could have lifed.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we don't have to check the
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: obituaries, life could just be lifing for these people.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: Life could just be happening.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's not our job as leaders to be like, tell me everything.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and then recognizing that when they leave, it's most likely not personal.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's most likely.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you could take it that way.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if they were the perfect person for it or the prototype for it.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, you got intrinsically, man, hey, I did what I did.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad for the time that they joined.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what happened.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: They don't owe me an explanation.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to move on to this point because it's going to happen anyway.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: To your point, 100% retention is just impossible on that.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think to Jessica's point,
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: the best thing that we can do as leaders is to have our best practices
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: or our standards or our guidelines like highly visible, interactive for sure.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: We need to remind our communities often of how we would prefer to be informed if
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: a person enters leave.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes they don't know how to do it and stuff in the first place.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, do I need to contact me if I need to cancel my account?
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't I do it on my own?
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: You got a place where you remind people of that, even if it's quarterly.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, hey, I know y'all love forages.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I did too, obviously, but I'm biased.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you got a bounce, if you got a bounce, I would prefer that it happens in this way.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how you,
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: this is the steps on how to do
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: it because you want to be translucent to your point.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I feel like you do have to,
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: you got to repeat that often because you're always enrolling new people anyway.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the people that just got there,
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: they're not going to go through all of the posts that existed before.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: So on an accordingly basis,
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: you can let them know, hey man, we all love this thing that we're building.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want to celebrate you when you leave.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you do that if you don't mind.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you can ignore this if you want to.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I did what I need to do as the leader to, like, make it evident how we can go about this.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if we want this rising tide to lift our boats, we need to be tactful about some things.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't be... Why would you... Again...
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I going to go to dark places and stuff?
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's if I'm not checking myself and thinking that, okay,
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to celebrate them regardless because they don't owe me an explanation.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know what happened.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I think also, like,
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: if you have a positive exit experience,
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: even if there isn't, like,
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: a formal off-boarding process,
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: if you have a positive exit experience,
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: you got what you needed to out of that program,
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_02: you're that much more likely to return to it when it makes sense.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: When I made this pivot from like kind of traditional SEO back all the way
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: into AI discoverability, and it kind of took me two years to make the pivot.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then I reached out to people who had been in my SEO traditional programs.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, hey, we made this pivot.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to come back, things have changed.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_02: But what you did then is still relevant to what we're doing now.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: And here's how it's relevant.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: And my first launch going into this new sort of avenue was, 30% of those people were returning.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't that they had, oh, I was done and I hated it.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: It was, okay, I got what I needed out of it pre-2023.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: And now it's 2025, 2026.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm going, oh, I need this again because things have changed.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_02: Business has evolved and technology has evolved.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: And there's something else I want to try.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I still trust this person.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: So offwarding doesn't have to be forever.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: It can be great.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: Rilled.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: Go.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: God bless.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm here if you need be again later.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually a really good point.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: That did remind me of something,
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: because if they had to act out of not hearing from you anyway,
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: reach out to them again a year later or something, to your point.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: If it's an open-ended community and they came in for accountability
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: for client acquisition and that season has passed, they got what they needed to.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: They go, oh,
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: you're possibly going to be in the season of climate acquisition as long
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: as you're running a business anyway.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: The number goes away.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: The number goes away.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we can re-up.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: We can re-up in four quarters.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: And B, if you haven't opted out of hearing from me in the first place,
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: it costs neither of us any pain for me to let you know what it's changed
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: since you last and maybe you might want to return again.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's actually a good point.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's all I need to.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: A person would have to, like,
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: ghost you and also opt out of hands from you to,
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: like, narrow it in from you again, really.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: And most people don't do both.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: And, like, change their email address.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: They must be really good.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: They must be really good.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or their life
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: really liked.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, their life really liked.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because it happens.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: Darnell,
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: if people want to like share their wins and share their,
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: celebrations and share what's not going well and they want to share and get to be
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: in your orbit,
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: because it sounds like an amazing orbit of multi-passionate polymath people,
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: how can they learn more about you?
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: How can they learn more about the Forge?
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: So they can learn more about me and I appreciate you saying all
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: that is well-dressed that some Darnell Brown died from.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: And for Forge, for darnellbrand.com slash Forge.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: So two simple URLs to go by, but that's where they can learn more about me and my work.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I get to open to Forge right now as of this recording and probably will be for a bit here.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I wanted to make sure I get out.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to,
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love for every multi-passionate entrepreneur or polymath out there to
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: at least be aware that Forge exists and invite them to come Put their brushstrokes
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: on this mural with us,
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: whether that's a few weeks at a time or for several years that we all are having
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: to almost that we can't yet see.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to go check out the Forge Cafeteria and find your table to sit at
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: and find your people that you can communicate with and share and experiment with,
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_02: head over to darnellbrown.com slash Forge.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so let's wrap up today with our final question.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_02: Darnell will give you a little water break.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: Jessica, what is Aggressively Human in your world right now?
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: So my husband just went to Scotland for a boys' whiskey pneumoidor trip.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so cool.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: Which meant I'm in charge of my dog all day, every day, for like, you know, he just got back.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: But like, Saturday, we went to, so the brewery called Triple C Brewing is near my house.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: We went Saturday at noon.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: We went Saturday at 3.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: We went Saturday at 5.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: We went Saturday at 6.30.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: He's only allowed a pup cup one of those days, but...
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think your dog has a drinking problem.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: He needs to see, like, this is just where he goes.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: So he gets like a little ice cream pup cup once.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then every other time I just like to drag him around.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't drink every time we're there.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's just on his route.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: He knows the people.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: He must go check it out.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's just his happy place.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm like, I'm really tired of walking in this circle, bud.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go somewhere else or at least have daddy come back so that he's home now.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that someone else can take him to Triple C on a regular basis.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my Aggressively Canine.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: Meg, what's Aggressively Human in your world?
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what I was going to say when I started recording,
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: but all of this like kind of first day of school,
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_02: kindergarten orientation has me going that direction.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I have, like I said, I have a fourth grader.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: I also have a sixth grader.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: So this year we made our transition to middle school.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: I have been so impressed with the middle school onboarding.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_02: It is wild.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I signed him up for three days in the summer where he went for two hours a day
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: from 8 to 10,
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: which I chose the earliest time because middle school is a full hour
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: and 20 minutes earlier than elementary school.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, you will wake up in August to get to school by 8 o'clock.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so every day they, you know...
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_02: Again, went for two hours,
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_02: did icebreakers with other kids who are going to be in their class who came in from
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_02: the different schools because they have three elementary school,
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: all the same middle school.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_02: And they did, you know, here's where your locker is.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_02: Here's how you turn the combination,
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: but you turn it,
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_02: you know, twice, twice, and then you have to pull up at the same time.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_02: And they had time to do that.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: They did like a...
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: Scavenger hunt around the school as teams.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, okay, here's where the PE room is.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_02: Here's where the health room is.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_02: Here's how to get to the library.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_02: That was my paid orientation.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then they had the full orientation where the entire class came in two days
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_02: before school started.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_02: When like every kid who was in the school went to orientation.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then they had parent orientation that same day.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then the first day of school happened and they have two different sixth grade teams.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so like He was in those core classes for most of the day and they made sure
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_02: that they knew where they were going.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they spent a full week being like, here's how we want you to set up your binder.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: Here's the software that we're going to use.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: They got issued computers this year that they get to take home.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like we expect you to come in with your computer charged.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: And like everything has been
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: structured and organized and the onboarding has been so clean.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_02: Where I'm like, I know every teacher by name.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: I know every expectation.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: It is so impressive.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: If sixth grade teachers could run online businesses,
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: it would be the best damn onboarding experience that you've ever had.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: Darnell, what about you?
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: What's Aggressively Human in your world right now?
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, NFL season, like,
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: we're Chiefs fans and stuff in this household, so, like,
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: up here watching all of these games,
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_00: which means bad schedules during the weekend of,
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_00: like, these late games on Sunday night and Monday night football and stuff.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: We live now between a mountain and a lake, and so hyping up that mountain is a good look.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's Aggressively Human.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: During a five-game couple weeks from now, that's Aggressively Human, too.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there are about parts of the league, Well, thank you
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: so much for being here.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: We really appreciate it.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: We did the previous conversation about how we're keeping our communities Aggressively Human.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: And y'all join us next week,
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_02: or it'll be just back to me and Jessica,
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: and we'll be talking about what we're doing Aggressively Human here on the podcast.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_02: So we will see you then.