Build a Memorable Brand in Any Industry: Insider Tips Revealed w/ Neel Dhingra

Hey, everybody! What's up? On this podcast, I'm talking to my buddy Neil Dingra, whom I met many, many years ago. I think it was pre-pandemic when we met in person. He did something very unusual, and he has a very non-traditional, non-conventional way of thinking. I want to tap into his brain about how he built his personal brand, how he's able to create an event from nothing, and build a really engaged and pretty amazing community of people in the real estate and mortgage finance space. It's pretty neat to see! [Music] Neil, welcome to the show!

Thanks for having me, Chris! I appreciate it. For people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little story about how you got here? My name's Neil. You can know me as Neil Hol; a lot of people think that's my last name. My last name is Dingra. I started off in the real estate and mortgage industry, just putting out content to build a personal brand, trying to grow—honestly, just get more clients and more business. It ended up taking off, and my business quadrupled over a four-year period. I was

able to reach the heights of my industry and do really well. But along the way, a lot of people within the industry and even adjacent industries started reaching out to me, saying, “Hey, Neil, could you come speak at my event?” or “Would you mind teaching me how you did what you did?” I saw a huge opportunity to help people do the same thing I just did, which was build a personal brand to get more clients—kind of escape the rat race of chasing people and doing hard sales—track the people that they actually want to work with

and just enjoy their lives again. A lot of people get stuck in this day-to-day grind, and I found a way to escape that by doing marketing. That’s what made my job fun again. I've been having a lot of fun over the last few years helping people in the industry. We started a company called Forward Academy, and we have an annual event that Chris was just talking about: the Forward Event, where we have a thousand people come out now. It started off as just 70 people in a dark room, and now it's grown to thousands of

people across the country—even worldwide! We had people from Europe, Dubai, and Canada come out this year, and it's really cool to see how just me pressing record on my phone led to this cool opportunity of connecting with others and doing amazing things like this. I never thought that would be possible. Here’s what I think: Neil is a classic left-brainer. He’s kind of in the finance and mortgage space, and it’s not one where you typically think of creativity shining through. It’s something I’ve had to discover over time—that there are a lot of really creative people in

industries that aren't traditionally looked at as creative. Maybe in another life, Neil, you were a frustrated designer or a content creator who just happened to fall into the business you're in. But it's been amazing to watch your journey and transformation. The reason why I want to bring this up is that there are probably a lot more people listening to this podcast right now who might fit into your category versus my category, and I think that’s why I want to have you on the show. Your story is going to resonate with a lot more people because

if Neil can do it in his vertical—by being a little bit different, by showing up and pressing record, as you say, and having his life transformed—that's going to give a lot of people hope. It doesn’t need to be this gigantic leap of doing crazy content things. But I want to take us back to the beginning. There was a period in time when you were doing what you were doing. What inspired you? What was that spark that told you, “Hey, it’s time for us to make content, to get out of the shadows, and start making what

we do more visible”? Yeah, so the way I did this was that I was the last dude to get on social media. I was trying the typical approaches: making cold calls, buying leads online to get customers, doing all that stuff, knocking on doors. Then what happened was my friends were like, “Hey, man, you need to get on social media! What’s your Facebook? What’s your Instagram?” I didn’t even have an account, Chris! I would be the guy who made fun of other people, saying, “Hey, you guys are giving up all your privacy to Zuckerberg. I’m not

playing on social media; I’ve got real work to do!” So, I would make fun of everybody. But then finally, I was like, “You know what? I’m going to set up an account.” I was just in the shadows—not even a profile pic—watching other people’s content and started to see people like Gary Vee pop up and these other influencers. They would talk about this huge opportunity in content marketing and social media. From a business perspective, this sounded pretty cool. I’m a nerd; I love data! And it's like he's talking about this, uh, untapped opportunity within our industry

to put out content. So I was like, you know what, um, let me go to a conference and learn, you know, some marketing stuff. There was a marketing conference coming up, and, um, I ended up getting a ticket to go to this thing. Part of the ticket—if you bought the highest level ticket—was that the guy who's putting on the conference would do like a one-hour coaching call with you. So I jumped on this coaching call with this dude, who wasn't anything special, but, you know, he was like the first guy I kind of connected with.

He was like, "Neil, when you come out to the conference, get a videographer! Start putting out, like, document your experience here. Just talk about what you learn, you know; make a highlight video! Plus, people will think you're really cool if you walk around the event with the video dude following you. It'll give you some credibility." I was like, "Oh, okay, cool." So literally during the coaching call, the dude's not that bright, but that was one piece of advice that I was like, "You know what, I'm going to try that." So I went on to Google,

looked up videographers in LA, and got onto this website for like a job listing for videographers. I found a guy who, just by luck, happened to be good, and this dude still works with me today. You probably met him—Eric. We've worked together since 2018, and I randomly found him on a website in LA in 2018 for this event. So, anyway, we make our first video there, and he's like, "Neil, you know, talk about your experience at the event. What did you learn? What do you want to make the video about?" I was just like... he

hits record, and I just freeze. I can't even say anything. Finally, we get through that video. If you saw the outtakes or, like, the footage we shot that day, it would be so embarrassing. I couldn't even speak on camera. So, anyway, we got through that, posted that video, and then from there, I just started putting out cringe content, you know, videos. And, you know, let me hit pause here—there's too much stuff here, bro. You know it's really bad when you can't even watch your own videos because my team will embarrass me now. They'll make a

highlight video and pull videos from 2019; it's so bad. I'm going to call this your "PO Dexter years." This is when you had that part in the middle, looking a little nerdy, and I have to say, I love it because of the contrast from where you started to where you are now. I want to stay in this moment. Tell us—give us the gory details of how cringe it was back then. When you look back at the clips, what do you see? So, what I see is just no confidence. I knew what I was doing. I'm

the same dude; I'm just as smart. Maybe I'm a little dumber now because as you get older, you know, you start to get a little slower. But I was actually smarter then than I am now. But anyway, I was like, "I'm really good. I'm really smart," but I couldn't articulate things on camera. I just couldn't be myself. So it was just really stiff, really worried about what people were going to say about me—just, you know, stuck in my head. And then, on top of that, I think the main thing was just the lack of confidence

on camera. You know, it's one thing to say something, but it's another thing to actually communicate in a way that people believe what you're saying. I was just talking, trying to get through the video, and what I found, Chris, was that even with those bad videos at that time—because it was earlier on in the content creation world—I still got noticed. People would still reach out and say, "Hey dude, saw your videos." I don't know if they were just being nice or what, but I was still getting some recognition within my local market from making cringe

videos. What was the internal self-talk like when Eric looked at you and said, "Hey, answer this question"? What were you saying inside your head? Uh, "I'm an idiot. Why did I even sign up for this? What was I thinking that I could pull off a video? I'm not that guy. What are people going to say when I actually post this?" Then I was thinking to myself, "Let me just get through it so I can finish this video with this guy, pay him, and then I don't even have to post it. I hope he never even

sends me the finished product because I'll never post it. I just need to get through the day." I had my wife with me, and she's watching me, and I didn't want to look like an idiot because she’s supporting me, like, "Hey, let’s do this together." I was just so embarrassed, thinking, "Man, I'm probably looking like an idiot here." So the main thing was just, "Let me get through that," and then I'll get to the other side. Of this thing, well, thanks for sharing that with us because I think that's what a lot of people are

saying. I mean, you're so self-conscious, hyper self-aware—your wife’s there, these professional videographers in front of you; you're the only person who's in the spotlight not knowing what they’re doing. You're saying to yourself, “I just need to finish this as ASAP so I can just end this, throw away the file; I never want to see this again. I’m just going to survive the day.” And that was just 2018, 2019, right? Correct. And then, so what's funny—a funny story is while we're shooting that video, you know, this guy's with a gimbal, and I'm miked up, and we're

watching out. Then he's getting highlights, B-roll of me just walking in and out throughout the day. I would walk up to the other thing that the guy told me who, you know, on the coaching call was like, “Hey, there are going to be influencers there.” So at this conference, Chris was Patrick, Brett, David, Bradley, Grant Cardone, and so on. I was in the VIP section, so I would walk up to them to say hi, “Love your book, I’m a big fan,” you know, say whatever I would say, and my videographer would capture the B-roll of

me just chatting with these people so that we could use it in the highlight video. So it would be like really cool footage for me to use in the future, and I had no idea that I would need that footage, but like the dude told me to do it, so I just did it. So anyways, like while we were there, a dude comes up and was like, “Hey, Neil, could you sign my book, my, uh, my program book for the conference?” Some younger guy, he just wanted my autograph because he thought I was something special

because I had a videographer following me around. I was like, “Man, dude, that guy was right on the coaching call! People think you're cool if you have a videographer with you.” They thought I was like one of the speakers or something, you know? So some random kid thought I was someone because I had a videographer; because of proximity, I was in the VIP section, and he sees me speaking to other people, so I must be someone noteworthy. And then, of course, only noteworthy people have videographers following them around. So, yeah, it was like, “Oh, like

perception is reality.” You know? So then it was like, okay. And then when I finally got that video after it got edited, I just think it’s like kind of like God’s work, you know? Luckily, the dude I worked with was really good at video; he was super nice. We became friends right away, and so it was really cool. He made this dope edit of the thing where I barely spoke in it, but the video was really good. He cut down the speaking times for me because I was so bad, but he was a good video

producer, so he made it look really fun and cool, and he grabbed all the shots he needed. It was actually like better than what the event was producing. So then I posted that video. I was like, “Oh, this made me look really good! I’m talking to Grant Cardone in the video; I’m talking to PBD. It looks cool.” So I got brand lift from this guy who, luckily, made a dope edit. Okay, I, because you’re a business guy, you understand numbers way better than I do. I have to do the numbers here. What event was this?

What was the VIP ticket? How much did it cost? This ticket was $2500. I think the event was called Drive or D-Driven or something like that. It was a marketing event; yeah, it was in LA at the Ritz Carlton. The regular ticket was like 300 bucks, and then they had an offer for social media that for 2500 bucks, you could be in the VIP section, plus he would do a coaching call. So I bought that ticket. Did you have to buy a ticket for Eric too? Uh, before I went to the event, I emailed them

and said I have a videographer with me, and the guy I got his permission on the coaching call to bring a videographer with me. So they didn’t even charge me for it at that time; it was like kind of not as common as it is today. Okay, well that’s cool! That was really smart of you to do that. Now, I know you pretty well these days because we’ve spent a lot of time chatting on and off stage, and the one thing I noticed about you, which I really admire, which I don’t have, and I’m just

going to put this out there, is you are willing to spend a lot of money to build relationships and to kind of move the timeline of your life faster. You’re willing to pay to go faster, and it is just remarkable to me. Now I’m just curious, from your own upbringing and your background, is this something that was normal in your family, or is this something unique to you? So, no, it is not part of my upbringing. My parents are an immigrant family from India—very cheap, you know how it is with immigrants coming up?And I’m like,

we would share, you know, like lie to the Disneyland people about how old we are so we could get the child ticket—like classic, you know? No, don’t order any soft drinks when we go out to dinner; it’s water only—just penny-pinching. Middle class, like I had nothing to complain about but just really penny-pinching. But because my parents were so averse to risk, it was always like, "Go to college, get the job, become a doctor, become a lawyer." That was the whole plan. But anyways, I would get, uh, so that was not the upgrading. What I found

was, as I got further along in business and investing, I had experienced some losses along the way. For example, I had put some money in the stock market during 2000 and some real estate investments during 2008. During that recession, I lost it all, and it was kind of a dark time. But I quickly came back through business, and so it kind of changed my relationship with risk. I realized, like, money's a tool, you know? You could use it, and then, dude, what's the worst that happens if you lost all your money? So like a lot

of us, you might be perfect; like, you might be watching or listening to this, or you could think back to when this was in your life—when you had no money and you just kind of were paycheck to paycheck. I was kind of happy during that time, bro. Like, I wasn't broke or starving; I was making decent money—like two or three grand a month—and I lived with some friends. We had fun, and I would make money and spend it, and then make money and spend it. It wasn't like a dark time. So I was thinking, like,

well, what happens if I went back to there, but now I have the knowledge that I have in business now? So what I found was that the best investment I've ever made is the skill to make money, you know, to get clients and get business. Along the way in business, I would do different marketing things—not on social, but just different sales and marketing strategies to make money—and I was always able to do that. So even when the worst case happened, where I lost everything and came back from it, it just changed my whole feeling about

money. It was like, okay, well, I could spend this. There's upside. There's also the worst-case scenario where it turns out that the $2,500 I spent on a ticket could be a complete waste of money. But what's the upside? And so it just started opening my eyes to that. As I started to spend money in personal development, my risk tolerance changed. I was like, okay, I spent $500, and it worked out. Next time, I'm going to spend $5,000. Next time, I’m going to spend $10,000, you know? And I kind of just leveled up from there. Along

the way, I spent money on things that were a complete waste of time and money; it was a scam. But I also found things that were not, and I got a 10x return or a 100x return on the money. There's a common thread here that I see in thoroughbred entrepreneurs, and I would describe you as one: your propensity to put money at risk, knowing that sometimes you're going to lose; but in the long run, you win, and that's how you play the game. If you make a small bet and it works, you're like, "Let's see

how far this bet can go," and just make increasingly larger bets. So I want to highlight a few of those moments, and then we can talk about whichever ones you want. The way that you and I met was very unusual, and you did something that no one had done before, but has since been done. You basically booked a one-hour coaching call with me, and then you kind of pulled a little thing, but we'll talk about that. I want you to tell that story and what your thinking was, because I want people to understand the way

your brain works, because it’s fascinating to me. Yeah, I wanted to connect with Chris. I watched your videos on YouTube and loved the kind of creative way you were approaching business, even though your audience was creative. I was in business: left brain, right brain, that whole thing you talked about, right? So, I was like, okay, I’ve got to connect with this guy. I’ve got to do some content with him. How could I do that? I went to your website, and you were selling coaching calls. This was, luckily, before you raised the price of these, right?

So I got kind of lucky; it was a sweet spot there where you were undervaluing your time, I would say. Yes, I think it was 500 bucks, right? Yeah, I think it was a thousand. Oh, a thousand. Okay. I think since then it's gone up to 5K, maybe more; I don't know. Yeah, it's 5K. It's 5K now. But luckily, this was before inflation, right? So I was able to book the call at the $1,000 price point. Then I DM'd Chris and I said, "Hey Chris, I booked a call with you; I’ve already paid for it.

I booked it. I’m actually going to be in LA at this time with my media team. Could we do the call as a one-hour podcast at your studio? We'll come to you, make it easy." To my surprise, you messaged back and said, "Yeah, let’s do it." I was like, "Oh, it worked! Let’s go!" You know? So we ended up booking it, coming to your studio at the time in Santa Monica, and we shot an hour episode. There live, which then I turned into probably 20 pieces of micro-content, plus an hour-long episode on my YouTube channel.

And um, and then I got a lot of brand lift because, "Hey Neil, dude, how are you sitting down with Chris Do? Like you're at this, you're at the future in Santa Monica, doing video content with Chris." I’m like, "Yeah man, you know, like you should be following me. You should be learning from me. I'm doing some big things." You know, so I was using it, and then I would leverage that episode to get the next person and the next person. My previous guests included Chris Do. Then I did it with somebody else, and so

on and so forth. It just lifted; I just got a lot of brand lift from that even though I wasn't necessarily that good with my own content yet. I would leverage other people. So, if I could just ask you a few questions, and I remember watching back that interview. My questions were terrible. Even like I was scared because like if you get a dumb interview sometimes, Chris, you'll actually tell them they're kind of dumb in the interview, you know? You'll be like, "Can you rephrase that question? I don't even understand what you said." And I

was like, "Oh, let me re-ask the question for clarification." I just want everybody to know when I ask somebody to rephrase, it's not me thinking you're dumb; it’s just I want to make sure I understand the question. Yeah, but to be fair, my questions were terrible. You know, like I was just rambling—no confidence on camera, same kind of problem. But it’s also just like, dude, just jump in! You know, what's the worst that's going to happen? And so, how do you get to a good interview? Well, you do some freaking bad ones first, you know

what I mean? So that's how I did it. I did that; I did the same thing, Chris, with so many other people. You know that I got to connect with. You know, there were leaders within my industry. I would do the same thing; I would somehow buy their product or service, or if they had an event, support their business. Because what I found was there’s a hack to connecting with people who are above you. They may not—you can't sometimes pay these people because they're already successful in business, but what you could do is you could

buy their products or services. And I found that successful entrepreneurs have like a hierarchy or a ladder of priorities. The top of that is like themselves, their family. Below that is probably their employees or their team. Below that are their customers. Below that are their followers, and then below that is everybody else. So how do you move up? Like from follower to become a customer. If you become a customer, even if you bought something for $500, and you probably tested this too—like somebody buys one of our things for even a hundred bucks, but they message

you and say, "Hey dude, I bought your thing and loved it," and you take the time to respond because they're a customer. You know, so it just moved me up the ladder by saying, "Hey, I've already bought your thing. Can we do X, Y, or Z?" And so I used that same strategy to connect with so many more people. Yeah, that's a great observation. You remind me of another entrepreneur friend of mine who lives in Taiwan. What he does is he brokers deals between really ginormous brands, multi-billion dollar brands, and A-level celebrities. And he has

to kind of figure out how he can get in touch with the celebrity, and it's a game that he plays. And he goes through all kinds of research and creativity to figure out how he can build that relationship. And you remind me of that same problem-solving thinking. Now, I'll tell you on the other side, here's what happened: Neil reaches out, books said, "Okay cool, we're going to do this thing." I don't know who Neil is just at this point, and then he sends, "Hey, I'm going to be in LA. Can we do this in person?"

And I think there was one more step in here where there was another message, so the relationship kept changing slightly, but maybe that's just my faulty memory. And then you're like, "Oh, by the way, can we film this? Instead of doing this, we'll do this podcast." The reason why I said yes was no one had asked me this before. They'd booked me for coaching; they would ask me to do podcasting, but not in this way. So I think there's the novelty of something being the first in that. Just, I'm like, "I don't know who this

guy is, but let's go for it. If it doesn't work out, I'll never do that again. If it works out, it'll be fine." And I think there’s something about you. And let's take it to another level. Tell the Billy Jean story. Yeah, so Billy Jean... I was… 2020, you know, so I’d gotten better at content, had some business growth, and I was getting a lot of people reaching out to me from within the industry to do coaching and do my programs and things like this. So I saw Billy Jean speak, and for those of you

who don’t know, his company is called Billy Jean is Marketing (BGM), and he is kind of like, at the time—and he still is today; he just doesn't do as much of... It, but he's, he was the king of paid ads, media, sales, online sales, and digital marketing—so emails, videos, YouTube, Instagram, whatever. I saw him do one of these talks at one of the events I went to because I would be a sponge; I would go to the events and learn. I would create content in the hallways, and I would try to grab people. Another side

note is that I would go grab people who spoke at the event as they were coming off or getting in the hallways and say, “Hey, my name's Neil. I'm creating a highlight video for this event; could we grab five minutes really quick?” We would shoot a quick interview with that person. They might have thought that I was making a highlight video for the people putting on the event; I didn’t say I was, but I would just, you know, say, “Hey, I'm making a highlight video,” so I would connect with so many people. I did that

with Billy Jean, and then I ended up following him. One day, he's on social—this was maybe six months later—and he posts on his story or feed, I can't remember. He says, “Hey, I'm looking to take on a one-on-one client, and I'll mentor you and give you the blueprint and help you blow up your business this year. DM me if that's you.” So, I just messaged him and said, “Dude, I'd be interested.” He messaged back. He had gone through some of my content and thought it might be a good fit. He asked me some questions about

what I wanted to do to make sure that he could help me. Then, he drops this price on me that made me a little sick, Chris. He says, “Hey, you know, it'll be a year, and I'll work with you. You'll come out multiple times; you'll be working with my team. My team will help you implement this whole strategy—we'll do it together. It's $100,000.” I was like, “Man, dude, that's like a condo where I live—you know, like that’s a lot of money, man. It's a lot of money, period. It's a lot.” He ended up over-delivering. It

went even longer than a year. I made at least a million dollars off of that $100,000 investment, right? It also sped up the process because it would have taken me four or five years to figure this out on my own, and I would literally solve problems that normally took six months in like a weekend with him. So, I was like, “You know what? Yeah, I'll do it.” But I always found this out with people—it's another hack I learned along the way. Whenever somebody quotes you a price for something, instead of trying to haggle with them

to reduce the price, just try to get them to add more things to it. By haggling with them, it’s almost like undervaluing what they said. If I said to Billy, “Hey, could you do it for 50?” he might have just thought, “No way.” So what I did was say, “Okay, I'll do it, but I need you to speak at this event for me—my event coming up.” I didn’t even have an event, but I was like, “I will have one, so will you speak at the event?” He has a $20K speaking fee, so I’m like, “I’d

throw that in there.” Plus, would you do a podcast with me at some point? I just kind of threw in a few extra things because I said, “If that works for you, I'll do it right now. I'll send the money; I'll wire it tomorrow.” He was like, “Done.” I was like, “Okay.” So we worked out the deal. The next day, I was supposed to wire the money. Chris, I typed it all up in Bank of America, and I had a problem hitting enter. You know, it’s like, “Dude, what if this? Your fingers frozen?” It was

like, “What if he screws me? What if—” but the crazy reason why I actually hit enter and sent the money was that I had been following him for over a year. I would binge-watch his content. He took down a lot of it, but he would literally do YouTube videos at the time—this is how he blew up his brand. He would dissect your content and your ads on YouTube for like 40-minute videos. He published two or three of these a week. I would watch these at night after I put the kids to bed. I would watch

these for like two to three hours every night for months, and I was learning so much from him. So at that point, I just felt like, “Dude, the guy knows what he's doing. I trust him because I've seen so much of his content.” I just hit send. Two weeks later, I went out to a studio, and we did our first session together. During that first session, he helped me launch my first product forward, which was called Neil's Content Day. We built the funnel, launched it, and put it out there in one day. I knew nothing

about funnels, email marketing, or how to sell things on social media. I did it in one day, Chris. With him and his team, we would sit at a round table with Billy, and he had all of his team—five people—there. So we were brainstorming. Somebody’s literally over here building the funnel, somebody’s over here getting the copy ready for the email sequence that comes after somebody comes in, and somebody’s giving me a Google Sheet with what to say to the people on the phone calls to get them to book with us. We did the whole thing in

one day, and that was just the first session I had. So literally, in the first session, I was on my way to recovering my investment, and I was like, "Oh, I made the right decision." I have to ask you this question because I think I met your wife when you came out to our studio in Santa Monica, right? Yeah, Whitney was there. Now Whitney's kind of always there by your side in the background somewhere. How does she feel about you throwing money at things like this? Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Is she a

ride-or-die, or is she like, "Hey, honey, can you like slow down on some of this?" What’s your thoughts on this? So I’m a little crazy, like we talked about earlier, where I’ll find a way to make it work, you know what I mean? We’ve never gone without. We’ve had times where we weren’t as comfortable, for sure. But I’ve never not come through in terms of being the financial provider; she’s never had to worry about that. So I think that because of that, she gave me a little bit more rope. Luckily, I didn’t hang myself, but

she gave me more leeway, and she wouldn’t really question what I’m doing as long as everything’s taken care of and we’re comfortable. You can swing for the fences is the kind of attitude we have. Luckily, I’ve never had a huge financial loss, other than in 2008, and at that time, we had just gotten married. So it wasn’t like we were starting from scratch. It wasn’t like she came in, and I was rich, then I lost everything. That wasn’t the way; we started from dirt. We were together when we were pinching pennies to go to Olive

Garden, so it wasn’t a big deal. I think she comes from a meager upbringing, and we didn’t have money to start, so it’s kind of like, “Oh well, worst case, we go live in an apartment; I’m cool with that too.” She’s not worried about living in some million-dollar house or anything like that, right? So she’s super scrappy, and because you guys had that baseline, it’s like we kind of know what this looks like, so we can play a little bit and see where this takes us. Yeah, and I think for anybody who has a spouse

that doubts them or is giving them critical feedback for what they’re doing with money and things, especially when it comes to business and risk-taking, it’s because maybe you haven’t been a person of your word. You know, maybe you’re the guy who always says you’re going to do something, and then you don’t do it. I think you can quickly flip that around and get them to fully support you if you just start following through on the things you said you were going to do. It could be as simple as: “Yeah, I said I was going to

show up at home more. I said I was... you know, hey, you know what? You’ve been kind of letting me down around the house; can you do the things you said you would help me with?” Just those little things, they all reduce your credit score with your wife, you know? I think we have a credit score with our spouse. I’ve got a really high credit score, Chris, you know? But that’s because I do what I say I’m going to do. I’ve had times where that credit score has dropped, and it’s gotten me in trouble, and

she’s checked me on it. She’s like, “You know what, dude? You haven’t—you bullshitted me on this. You said you were going to do this, and you didn’t do it. I’m pissed.” And I was like, “You know what? I guess you’re right, man. I did—I have been dropping the ball.” Can you give us an example of one of those moments when you dropped the ball and had to reconcile the balance there? Yeah, I think a lot of us in the entrepreneur space have all gone through this. Some people won’t ever tell you, but I’m happy to

share because I think it helps people. I had a period where I just took my focus off my marriage just because I was so excited about what I was doing in business, and so you don’t really notice, but it’s like death by a thousand cuts. It’s the little things that just start stacking up. It’s like, “Hey, you know what? Remember when you used to be really pumped to plan a weekend to take your wife somewhere or go to this concert or do stuff?” You start doing that less because now you’re getting your kicks from this

business and the new Facebook ad you’re running and the new content. And wow, dude, that video just blew up on YouTube! Like, that was where I was getting all the rush from, and then it stopped being about me and my wife. So then, if I'm being honest, I was just taking my eye off of that. Uh, it wasn't like I was being a bad dad or husband; I was still providing. And then you can quickly get into this, uh, negative mindset, which I did for a moment. It's like, hey, I'm a really good provider; we're

living comfortably, my wife drives a Range Rover, we're good. You shouldn't be complaining that I didn't do enough date nights or that I wasn't, uh, fully attentive at dinner time. Like, I'm providing all the money. So what I found out, which is a hard truth, I think a lot of said about being a provider is that it’s only one slice of the pie. Coming from an immigrant background, Chris, my dad... it’s like in India, it’s the whole pie, right? You just provide, and then nobody bothers you. I remember, like, we didn't talk to Dad; he

just did his work. "Bro, leave Dad alone; he's doing important stuff right now." Yeah, it's like Dad wasn't out throwing the football with me outside; he was working on his thesis. He has a PhD, and he was working 90% of the time at home. Once in a while, I talked to my dad, and it wasn't like I hate my dad; we're fine. It's just the way I was brought up. So we all have different upbringings, especially immigrants; I think you relate to that. So, I thought if you're a good provider, you have a green light

to do whatever you want, and your family supports you. But what happened was just a slow erosion of that. And you know, "Hey, I'll be there at 7:00," show up at 8:30 and never call. And just when I get home, "Hey, you know, we got caught up on this video; me and the guys, you know, we were just tied up." And she's like, "All right, you know, I get it." Do that like 20 times, you know, see where you're at. And you know, hey, I can't show up here and there. So I don't... I think

I was just thinking, like, "Hey, she's just yelling at me because she's nagging." But really, a lot of it was my fault. So I just looked at myself and said, "Hey dude, get your together, man! Like, if you want to, if you want to reconcile this." And if I would have kept doing that, bro, I think we wouldn't be married today, you know? But I quickly got corrected. I remember calling you one time and was like, "Man, dude, I think my wife's gonna leave me." And you were like, "Really?" Yeah, and Chris, you were like,

"Dude, honestly, man, you are on the road a lot; you are doing a lot of things." It was like a hard... I had to, like, "Hey dude, stop trying to blame other people and just look at your own behavior." It doesn't mean that there are other people not to blame too; like, they could be nagging you a little bit too. But it starts with you: what could you do to fix yourself? And so I just corrected that and realized, like, hey, once everything's dialed in at home, it actually made me better in business because now

I don't have this worry in my mind: "What's going on? You know, my wife's mad at me. What's happening at home? Or she's nagging me." And then I also found that she actually gives me more room to do what I need to do, as long as I'm checking those boxes. Yeah, well, I can say, as evidenced in the last time that I saw you, which was just a couple of months ago, that the relationship seemed really strong. I've seen you in a couple of different ways where it was like, "Are they connecting? Are they on

the same wavelength?" And I think this, and I said to an audience once, that the most underrated thing is to have a really good partner that cares about you, that wants to see you win and supports you, because with that, you could do anything. There’s nothing that you can't do. And if you're distracted, like, "Oh my gosh, is my home life going to be okay? Am I going to be sleeping on the couch tonight?" it can mess you up too. So you have to take care of both the business and the home life; otherwise, the

two are in competition, and it's not a good place to be. Yeah, think about it right now: we've all been there. When you're going through, like, arguments and strife at home, how great are you on your videos and your calls with customers? And as a leader at work, like, you're handicapped, bro; you're probably at 50% or worse than what your potential could be. So I always tell people the same: solve that first and stop blaming the other parties. Look at what you could do better, and then watch what happens; they'll come around too. So all

the things that I was mad at her about, for the most part, were fixed by me just doing what I need to do. You know what I mean? Like, it probably doesn't work for everybody, but that's what worked for me. And we also... Went to therapy and all that stuff too. Yeah, I think that helps you to have a Prof, Prof guiding you along the way. Yeah, for sure. But I noticed nobody talks about this, Chris. They're just like, pretend, you know? I see some people, they're like in pictures with their spouse, two, three, three

years later they're divorced. You know, we had a conversation backstage at my last event, and Gary Vee was there. Gary Vee always talks about empathy and love and kindness. And then you were like, “Hey, you should ask him about work-life balance 'cause the dude just got divorced, you know, a couple of years ago. Like, what happened?” You know? And so I remember asking him, and he gives you the same blanket answer. Nothing against Gary; he just probably doesn’t want to go there. That’s fine. But, like, I think it's something that more entrepreneurs should talk about.

Yeah, I agree, because we get to see the limelight and the cars or the success and everything that comes with that, but then we don't understand that it comes at a cost, and it's very difficult to manage both things. I mean, some of the most famous rich people are now divorced. Maybe they just grew apart, and that’s okay. Jeff Bezos got divorced, Bill Gates got divorced, and Steve Jobs got divorced. I think, I mean, they go through a lot of different things because they pursue the business, and it’s kind of not that easy if no

one’s telling you this is the price you’re going to pay if you continue down this path. Yeah, like how many times has Elon Musk been married? I don’t even know at this point—a gazillion times. Yeah, but you know, he probably is the same way. He’s obsessed with business; that comes first, and then the marriage suffers. So if it’s like mutual and you guys just didn’t work, I get it. That happens too. I’m not saying it’s the end of the world, but if it’s like, you know, if it’s something that you wanted to actually have both

success in business plus a happy marriage, it can be done. There are more people who should talk about the ways to do that. I think the main takeaway for me is, hey, what’s it like to be on the other side of whatever it is you’re doing? So let’s just say, like, what’s it like to be in an interview with you? Is it good? Is it bad? Put yourself in the other person's shoes. What’s it like to be your wife? You know, what’s it like for that person? Really be honest: what’s it like? What’s it like

to be your employee on your team? Put yourself in that person’s shoes for a day and see like, “You’re like, man, you know what? If I was that person, I would be kind of pissed at that. You know, that would have probably made me feel like…” and then you can make adjustments based on that. Well, I appreciate you talking about this. I think there’s another half to the story that we’re going to do on a different episode with the person we’re talking about. Hopefully, I don’t get rolled on that episode, but yeah, we’ll see. We’ll

kind of cross-cut the two episodes and see the differences between how one person perceives versus the other. But I really do appreciate you doing that, and I hope this encourages more entrepreneurs to speak up, to talk about their struggles or challenges openly so that we can have better templates for how to guide how we want to live our lives with our partners, and I think that’s really important. Okay, let’s get back to the whole brand-building thing and the Neil show here. So we see this consistent pattern with you—your willingness to spend money to extract whatever

positive you can, to apply it immediately, to get your very high ROI. Let’s move over into your personal brand, and I just would like for you to take a look back because you’ve not been doing it for that long, to be honest. It’s been about six-ish years that you’ve been doing this, and you’re in an industry that I think there isn’t a lot of innovation—maybe by regulation or the way people perceive themselves. It could be a limiting belief, but here you are, looking the way you look, saying the things you say, and doing things that

are pretty atypical for people in your industry. First of all, I’m just going to ask you this question: how do you think other people in your industry perceive you? Um, I would say they probably think at this point I’m innovative, maybe a little edgy, speaks his mind, you know, does things out of the box. So that's probably where people would see me now. It wasn’t always like that, but now as I’ve kind of found my lane. Okay, I would add to that relentless, honest, and sincere, and it's just like a no-BS kind of guy. If

something's happening, you're just going to say it. I’ve heard you drop some F-bombs on stage and talk about uncomfortable things. I think that's a clue for people: if you want to really build a strong personal brand, just let go of the pretense; just show up as you are. You'll turn off a few people, but you'll gain a lot more in the process. Now, along your journey, talk to me about the decisions that you made that started to shape the old Neil into the current Neil. So that was, you know, I—most people don't know this about

me, but I grew up, uh, kind of in skateboard culture. Um, and then I got into some trouble with the kids who were skating, so then my parents took my skateboard away. What I replaced that with, Chris, was, uh, music. So I started playing drums; I was in a metal band, if you can imagine that. Then I got into, uh, alternative rock bands, and so I spent probably from like 15 to 21 in that culture, in bands. At some point, right after college, I was working in a bank to pay the bills. My brother's in

this industry—mortgage industry—and making a lot of money. This is right before the 2008 crash. He's like, "Hey, Neil, you got to get in here; there’s a lot of money in this business. You need to do this." I got into that and then kind of left all the creativity behind. You and I have talked about this before, but like, uh, the business kind of beats the creativity out of you, and then you just kind of do the things that work, the tried and true things. Over time, you lose all creativity; it just kind of goes away.

So for a decade of being conditioned in the industry, all my crayons, all my drumsticks, all my guitars—it's kind of just the guitars in the corner, it’s got dust on it. The drum set I replaced with the electric drum set so that I could play in the house. Then the electric drum set we sold because it was a closed rock; we don’t—I'm making money now, bro, you don’t need to be doing all this other stuff. So I lost all that. Then what happened was, as I started to get into content, I started to get the

creativity back. And then, as I got more confident with it, I really felt that that's where I was getting so much fulfillment from—creating good stuff, finding out why it works, and then trying to do more of that thing. You know, how do we hack attention? How do we get more people to sign up? What are the things we could put in our, uh, videos or subject lines, or whatever it is, to get people to take action? All these kinds of things I fell into. So along the way, I just started to be me. I think

you build a tolerance for just being more real. In the beginning, you might censor yourself, but then eventually you just say, "You know what, I'm just going to be me." And something clicks. Then you're like, "Okay, now the content's actually working better because I'm not worried about offending someone or what they're going to think if they unfollow me. I'm cool with it if they whatever; I’ll just do it. I’ll just be me." From there is, I think, when it really started working for me, but that was like two years into creating videos. Then it becomes

a process from there. The same thing with speaking—I was super stiff. My mouth would go dry; I was really worried about—I would really rely on the slides and just be robotic. But then, along the way, I could just— I just said, "Forget it, man. I'm just going to be myself." And then the speaking got better as well, and so I got more comfortable with that. So I think it’s just reps, and then you get to be yourself. Along the way, I stopped caring about how I needed to show up. If you look at my older

content, you'd see Neil’s point dexter’s got the hair parted, and I would wear, you know, the banker's shirts. I never liked wearing those clothes, but it was just what we had to do at work. I said, "You know what, I'm going to do this, Chris. I'm going to switch out the collar shirt for a polo shirt because I'm more comfortable, and I hate wearing ties and suits." So I stopped wearing the suits and tie, and then I started using polo shirts. I went to the meetings, and people were still cool with it, and it was

fine. Then I switched the polo shirts for T-shirts because I always wanted to just wear a T-shirt. Because I had a little bit of brand and people had seen my stuff, they were cool; they didn't treat me any worse. In fact, the meetings went even better. Then I always wanted to wear a hat, you know, and I never could wear my hat because I wear my hat backwards. If you look at pictures of me when I was like 20-something years old, I would always have a backwards cap on, but I never could wear it to

work. Then I said, "Screw it, I'm just going to wear the hat to the meeting, see what happens." Nothing happened; it was fine. So literally from that point on, I’ve been—you give me about this—I wear a black T-shirt. I found the jeans I love—there are these Gar jeans I love. I have 20 pairs of these Gar jeans; I’ve got 30 black T-shirts of different variations. I got my black cap; I wear the same thing every day, and it became my brand. So for probably two and a half years, I've literally worn what I'm wearing right

now every single day. Okay, that explains a lot. So there was this whole creative person, this rebel, this punk rock person in you that I think business life just crushed. And destroyed for about 10 years, and then you went on this journey. It's like, you know what? I'm going to just try this thing. And you did it the right way, I think, which is to do it in phases. I'm like, let me try this and let's see if I get away with that and nothing bad happens. And in fact, you're like, oh, we like this

a little bit more relaxed look. And I have to say, and we'll probably, on for the video, boys who are doing the research, cut the video and show the before and after of the Point Dexter Neil versus the Neil now. Which person would you like to work with? You know, the stiff guy who's trying to fit in but we can tell he didn’t really want to be there? And that's the thing. Yeah, it would be—I would be in those suits at the networking event, like, and I would be dreading it. I wouldn’t want to talk

to anybody, and it was just like, you know, you're just not comfortable. You're not being you. Yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of really interesting. There's this scene from The Ultimate Fighter; it was Connor McGregor versus Uriah Faber, and Connor's the king of trash talking. And they're about to walk into the arena and he's just giving him—he's talking trash to UAH. He says to UAH, you know, you're just like a 30-year-old skateboarder. And that was how he’s insulting him because he was wearing flip-flops, a loose shirt, and shorts. And he goes, well, you know, you

and your alligator skin or snakeskin shoes and blah blah blah. So they were just two worlds apart: one was dressed in a super tailored suit and the other one looked like a California kid. And he goes, you know, I worked hard all my life so I get to wear this suit. You see, from where Connor was growing up, you work in the field or you're doing high labor work, and you don’t get to wear a suit like this. And then what was really interesting to me was UAH says back to him, I worked all my

life so I don’t have to wear a suit. And both are true, and both are really interesting, right? There’s nothing wrong with wearing a suit or a t-shirt, but it’s like when it’s mismatched with who you are, we can feel it and we can see it. Yeah, I’ll give you an example: my brother. He’s always loved nice suits—he gets tailored suits. He’s like, "Ryan, sir, wear a suit," and he likes it, and that’s him. So that’s cool. If that’s you, bro, do you. But for me, it was never me. I was always, you know, kind

of the rebel. And I think you can find your own style. I know this leads to a lot of branding in the future, but I would have glasses, for example. You might think, well, Neil, just how much style could you incorporate? You’ve got a black t-shirt and jeans. Well, you know, the black t-shirts—you can get nice ones; you can wear nice t-shirts or you can wear sloppy t-shirts. You know, there are nice t-shirts. I’ve spent 100 bucks on a t-shirt before. You know, there’s some nice quality fabric and it looks clean. Glasses, you know, I

used to have crappy glasses; now I got the Warby Parker ones—I found the ones I like and they fit. It’s party-style—little things. You don’t wear a Rolex, and you know, I don’t know, there are certain accessories you could add that become part of your whole thing. You can have a really polished look—it doesn’t have to be sloppy. Like, you can still be polished and be yourself, and then you can clean it up from there. Yeah, well now that you’re doing your thing and you’ve got your following and you’re creating content on a regular basis, other

people are following suit. Now, you’re giving people permission, which is really cool, to kind of explore their personal style and show up on social media. What kind of impact have you seen in your industry by the things you’ve done and how you’ve led? So, the first impact was like, there were about a couple hundred people wearing their caps backwards in all the videos. I was like, oh, that’s cool. But honestly, the better impact has been people, you know, if they want to be casual, if they want to be whatever, they started giving themselves permission to

just do it and be okay with it and not feel judged. A lot of people have kind of broken out of their shells and gotten on the same path of putting out content. They’re teaching the same kind of topics, but they’re doing it in their own way and they’re doing it in their own style. And then that’s when it actually works—rather than being all stiff and just trying to be like everybody else. Is there anybody from the Ford Mastermind, someone who’s gone through Neil’s content, that you think perfectly exemplifies the ideas, the things that you’re

teaching? Is there anybody you want to mention in particular? There have been multiple people. I look at success stories over the years—so many people. Like, I think one of these guys is Sean Kaplan. If you look at his old videos, he’s all suited up and stuff, and he has his own... Style! It's not like he's kind of gone through different iterations, but now he's kind of found his own thing. He lives out in Tennessee, and he's being himself now, and so that's cool to see him just kind of fall into that. There are so many

other people just like this; both males and females, it doesn't matter. There are so many people who have just gotten cracked out of the shell. We had this gal who came to our event for the first time, I think, two years ago, Lindy. She was super nervous and didn't know she could build a brand. She's only two years into this, and she's being herself, talking, you know, how she would normally talk, and doing the style in her own way. It's led to her business doing well. She's in our industry right now; it’s a down year,

and she’s having her best year ever because she’s standing out in the marketplace. So it’s really cool to see people embrace the strategy because it's not just for making yourself feel good; it actually translates to business results. Absolutely! Well, one of the benefits of building a personal brand I kind of look at like this: If you take all of the things that you do—the service or products that you provide to people—and the things you have to do to acquire customer lifetime value and all that kind of stuff, and if you put the personal brand next

to it, it becomes a multiplier and expands everything that you do. So instead of chasing leads, leads come to you, and you get to choose instead of chasing. The opportunities for public speaking or the kind of network that you can build all get amplified because of the strength of your personal brand. So, I'm curious: How do you define personal brand, and what is your personal brand? I would say there are so many definitions, but the one I really like, Chris, is: My personal brand is what people say about me when I'm not in the room.

So, what would they say about you? Or would they say anything? You know, some people don’t have a personal brand at all, so they'd be like, if your name came up, nothing happens—there’s no association, there’s no style, there’s nothing there. Versus, like, the more things they know about you and can associate you with, those feelings or things become your brand. So when you said you described me as all these things, those are the descriptive words that people say about me if I’m not there, and they're having conversations about me. Those things create opportunities for you.

So, whether it's more referrals for clients, whether it's more speaking opportunities, all these cool things—there are so many opportunities I’ve gotten in the last two or three years that I never thought were even on the roadmap. They weren't in the game plan. A lot of times, people will ask, “Hey, what’s your game plan for the next five years?” I have no idea. I don’t know. I’m just trying to do what I’m doing right now, do the best I can, and then all of a sudden good things happen as a result of that. So, I have

this—I don’t know who said it originally—but I have this saying I follow: If you do the work, the work will take care of you. So I just try to do the best job I can, put out as much content as we can, and do the best event that we can. If we’re doing a webinar, it’s going to be the best webinar I can do. And by doing that every day, every week, 52 weeks a year, all of a sudden some other door opens next year that I didn’t even think was possible or something happens there.

So that kind of becomes part of your brand. Well, the brand that you have right now is this person who's known, and I think it's because you've done a really good job of telling your story, so people do have an opinion about you, and it feels pretty aligned. Do you see it evolving in a different way three, four, or five years from now, where Neil continues to change? Or is Neil like the black T-shirt, backwards cap, and gar pants kind of guy who shows up and pushes you to do the best work you can do?

I don't know, man. It's interesting. I've never thought about it, but I'm sure it'll evolve a little bit. Even your stuff, Chris, I look like you’ve kind of had newer things come out in the last two years. You've kind of added things to your style. So I think at some point there'll be more things, but it's in the manner that we talked about before: kind of one thing at a time. I think there was a period of time where you were doing certain things in a certain style, but you didn’t wear a cap in every

video. I think somebody then told you that your head was too reflective or something, and then all of a sudden you had to put a cap on in every video. But then that became part of your brand now. So, like, I’m sure there’s something like that that will happen for me along the way too. You know, I was in, I want to say like, uh, I was in Amsterdam, and I was at this office. I was doing a little fireside chat as part of a bigger event, and I was just sitting there in the back,

just chilling for a little bit. I had my hat off, and then it was time for us to do our chat. I put my hat back on, I went up on stage, and they asked me, "Hey, how come you took off your hat? What's going on?" I said, "Well, it's not the most comfortable thing for me to wear, but I will show you what it looks like, like, with and without the cap." It's kind of like the same reaction that people get: if you take your glasses off, they don't recognize you anymore. Yeah, and then

you put your glasses back on, it's like Clark Kent and Superman. So, I actually pulled them and I asked, "Do you prefer the cap on or off?" And they said, "No cap on!" It was like we can't figure it out. So now it's like it's become attached to your identity. One of the things I try to encourage people is to really think about the silhouette. If we all stripped naked, we're all pretty much the same—different shapes and sizes—but we're all pretty much the same. But when you wear the cap or glasses, it changes the silhouette,

and it becomes part of your identity. I don't know if you do this; do you ever talk to your kids and take off the glasses? They have a weird reaction, like, "Who's that?" Yeah, it's the same thing, so it's becoming part of it. We want to be pretty intentional because the more you show up in a certain way, you kind of get stuck a little bit. So you better be comfortable in it; it better not be—it has to be you, because that becomes associated with you. So I think that the more consistent you are in

that regard, imagine if you went to Starbucks, and every Starbucks you went to had a different color logo and a different theme. It'd be like, "Dude!" You know, it would take it—I'm sure the name would have its own brand association, but the actual colors and feelings need to be similar; it would be weird. I think of it the same way with the way we show up. I introduce new things all the time—for example, I loved wearing the black cap, but we have red in our logos and a lot of stuff for Forward. So then I

just do a little thing where we put a little red accent on the cap to just introduce little changes like that versus me changing out my whole shirt to red all of a sudden and wearing a red shirt every day. It’d be kind of like a pattern interrupt. Yeah, I love that. And before we get out of here, I want to talk a little bit more about the Forward community, the events that you’re able to run. You mentioned before that the first event was like 70 people in a dark room; it was a little dingy,

and maybe it wasn't perfect. Talk to me about the lessons you've learned in building this thing so that a thousand people show up, fly to Las Vegas in the middle of summer, I have to say, and are excited to be here. I want to give you a lot of credit because the kinds of people that I meet at your event are very different from the kinds of people that I meet at events I go to. First of all, they're a little loud; they're very warm and friendly, and they're very effusive in their praise and just

their generosity and appreciation for things. When I go to some events with designers, it's like I think that person knows me or wants to talk to me, but they don’t say anything. But at your event, people are like, "Christian!" from across the escalator. I’m like, "Oh, hey!" and they come up to you and give you this big hug. I’m like, "Whoa, okay, personal space!" But it’s all good; it’s really genuine. I'm like, "Dang, these left-brainers, there’s a lot of heart in here." So I think, uh, somebody told me the fish rots from the head, so

if things are going well, it's from the head; and if things are going poorly, it's from the head. So I think there’s something about you, your ethos, and what you put out in the community that you have assembled. Talk to me a little bit about any insights that you've learned along the way. Yeah, this has been kind of a work in progress, but when I first started, it was about, "Hey, how do I get people to come to this event?" What I wanted to do was just put together a really valuable event in terms of:

"Hey, I'm going to help the people with what they need the most." So, who could I assemble to give them the most value? I learned this from kind of Gary Vee's stuff: provide the most value so that you can win. I didn't know what my product or my offering was going to be; I just knew I had to put on a good event. So my first events were like classes for real estate people in my market before anything. I started. Doing this forward, these were just small classes locally where I'd provide value to help them

with marketing ideas so that they could get more clients. As a result, I would get business from them—referrals from them. I would ask for referrals, and they would be like, "Oh yeah, you helped me; I'll help you," and it would work out; it was kind of a reciprocation. Then what I decided to do was, "Hey, why don't we do something a little bit bigger?" This was during COVID, which was another problem because you couldn't do live events until 2020. I thought, "I'm going to start my first forward event." I came up with the name by

literally searching for domains and found one that was available; that was what I named the event. I asked my Fiverr graphics dude, "Hey, could you just throw together a logo for me so we can get this thing published?" We did it, and then the website's ugly, the logos are ugly, but what I found is that I've always had this obsession with getting things to work, just getting them out to the market and getting customers for them before everything's perfect. I did so much business, Chris, with a terrible-looking website and logos and things like that. I

know other people who spend their entire process tweaking names and doing focus group tests to see which logo they like, the colors, and the design. I get that, but I just went with it. I put it out—kind of ugly—and started it off, and then what I found was really shocking. Chris, you can put together the best event, you can get the best people, and you think they will come. "Build it; they will come." But nobody comes. It's really strange—even with well-known influencers. I put all this work together, I put it out on Instagram, and only

13 people bought tickets; four of the 13 were relatives. So, it's like, "Man, I've got some work to do here." We did a small event in 2021 at one of my friends' training facilities. We could do it in his basement because you couldn't do events during COVID in the casinos and stuff like that. We held it in a small basement with only 75 seats. The way I filled this event was just by DMing people and calling them one-on-one. I said, "Hey Chris, I'm doing a really dope event. We’ve got Billy Jean, Tom Ferry, and all

these great people there. They're going to teach you marketing, and it's going to be awesome. I think you should be there; let me know if you're interested and I'll hold you a spot." Then I would try and close them on buying a ticket. I sent out probably a thousand messages to get those 75 people there, but these were all my followers on Instagram. So, there were no cold ads; it wasn't any cold audience; it was all people who had been following me on Instagram. The next year, we leaped up to about 600 people, and then

the year after that we got to 750, and then we reached a thousand. I like that sweet spot because bigger than that, you have to get a much larger venue and it becomes kind of arena-type. Right now, we've got kind of a close-knit vibe, but the reason why when you see all these people at the event who are so warm and friendly is that they’re all my friends; they’re all my people from Instagram. So, I haven't yet gotten into running cold ads to fill things; it’s all been just my followers and friends of those followers.

It becomes this kind of close community, and what I found is that community building is so underrated. It can be huge for your business because these are your people. If you really put out stuff and let them know who you are and what you're doing, they'll rally behind you, and they'll tell their friends to come. They'll start selling tickets for you, and it's really cool. Even in a tough environment like this year, where most events I speak at, Chris, are very poorly attended and poorly marketed—it's becoming more and more difficult to get people to do

things—we were able to sell our event out. It wasn't easy, but we managed to do it because of community. Okay, well, I admire you, and I understand why people describe you as relentless. I can’t even imagine trying to send a DM to everybody that follows me, and the fact that you had to do that—literally call people—throwing together this really cool event. I love to see you there! I guess that goes back to your early days in the mortgage space, right? That’s how you did cold outreach. But this is like warm outreach; still, it's like lukewarm

because you'll know people are your friends until you ask them to jump on a plane and spend money. Then you find out who your friends are, right? But, yeah, here’s the thing: there's a hack all of us can do. Set a date for what you’re going to do; I don't care if it's a... Free webinar, a mini meetup, a class—whatever it is, publicly set the date and post it. You're now committed, because in order for you to back out on that, you'd have to, like, almost be humiliated a little bit. You have to say, like,

"Oh, you know what? I failed. Uh, we're not doing it anymore due to unforeseen circumstances; it's been cancelled." I didn't want to do that, so once I had put it out there, I'd already paid the speakers, Chris; I've already published that I'm doing this. Now I've got some pressure on my shoulders. You know, like, you have to come through at that point. So, like, a lot of people are like, "Well, dude, what's the hack to getting some big things done?" Just have a deadline that cannot be missed; have a target that you cannot fail, and

then watch what you're capable of. You'll send the DMs, man. When your ass is on the line, like, you'll make the calls. You know, like, I think a lot of us are hesitant to put ourselves in that situation to begin with because you don't want the pressure of that situation. But I found that the pressure is actually a privilege; like, that's what actually gets it done. Yeah, contrary to popular belief, creativity loves a deadline because creativity will expand or contract relative to a deadline. So if you give somebody three years to do something, they'll take

three years; if you give somebody three hours, they'll take three hours. So this idea of committing to a date and then seeing what you're capable of is tying into this other idea of, like, the social contract. We will let ourselves down, but we're less likely to let the other people who we care about down. And so when you say, "I'm going to do this thing; I'm going to lose this weight; I'm going to climb this mountain; I'm going to put on this event, a workshop—whatever it is—and you commit to it," all of a sudden, the

shame and the guilt that you'll feel for not fulfilling your end of the bargain have to, like, tail tuck between legs, like, "Uh, unforeseen circumstances; death in the family." You have to make up some crap to be able to get out of this. But you know deep inside that shame that you'll feel will get you past that sticking point, and you'll do the work that is necessary. Yeah, it's like, man, you just—just, uh, raise the stakes, you know? And so I like this thing; some people might say I'm a little weird or sick with it,

but now these are like bets, you know? So you talked about earlier, um, you know how you're able to take these risks in business and see the return. I kind of equate it, CH, to, like, high-stakes scrambling. It kind of gives me a little bit of a rush of, like, "Man, we got to come through, man! We just did it at a higher level. Now we spent $500K on the last event; the first event cost me $70K. The last event cost me ten times that. You can't fail! Like, I'm not going to my wife to

tell her, 'Hey honey, I lost, you know, half a million dollars on this dumb idea.' No, that's not happening! Like, we'll figure out a way." And then you get really creative because there's, like, a deadline coming up that can't be missed. So I love that strategy—it does make you kind of cram things into a short period of time, but that's the hack for me to get things done. And, you know, it also gets your whole team rallied around you. People, um, I think the best marketing I've seen is your own customers helping you fulfill. You

know, like, a satisfied customer telling all their friends and buddies to do something is the best marketing you could ever have. I'll give you a quick example: we have this mastermind; it's a high-ticket offer that we offer to people at our event, and it's an amazing community. People have great results, and I tell them from the stage about all these things, and you guys—some people even make fun of me because, like, Neil talks too much about the mastermind, 'cause I love it. Like, it's just amazing, and I want people to know about all these things.

But by me telling more about it, it almost makes it sometimes feel, like, salesy. And so it was weird—I was sitting at the booth where the mastermind was at the last event, and there were a few spots left. The sales team was like, "Neil, next break at the event or on stage, could you please remind people that there are only this many spots left so that we can finish this up for you and fill this up?" I was like, "Dude, you know what? I don't want to; I don't want to say it again, 'cause oh,

there are only this many spots left; time's running out.' I just feel like a freaking infomercial at this point! So let me try something else." So this gal comes up, who's already in the mastermind; her name's Anna. I think you met her recently or she asked you to be at her event. "Oh yes, Anna! She's in Glendale!" So I said, "Anna, um, I knew she was one of my people who rallied and helped me. She brought friends with her to the event, and she had a friend named Errol, and I met Errol earlier in the

day. And I was like, you know what? I said, 'Anna, why don't—'” Isn't Errol in The Mastermind? Because Anna's already in the Mastermind. She goes, "You know what, he should be." I said, "Would you mind just going to talk to him and tell him to join? Like, go bring, like, tell him how great it is, because I think he would love it. He's going to get such a great result." She goes, "Yeah, I got you, Neil, no problem." She leaves the table. Chris, 15 minutes later, she walks Errol back over to the table, and he

signs up and buys the product. The next guy comes over—Mace. I think you've met Mace; you would recognize him: tall guy with glasses. I said Mace comes up to me and says, "Neil, bro, I'm with you for life. These events have changed my life; your community changed my life. I just want to thank you so much. Is there anything that I could ever do for you to repay you?" I said, "No, bro, your success is payment enough, D. Just keep crushing it. One thing, one favor I would ask: do you know anybody who would love

to be in this group, who you know would benefit from it?" He's like, "You know what? I got you. Stay here." He walks back, Chris, with another person, signs up immediately. So, bro, I don't need to be selling from the stage so hard. Just tell the customer, like, our existing satisfied members, "Hey, who do you know that would benefit from this group?" and maybe there's some incentivizing there, that affiliate thing that could be done in the future. I don't know; I didn't work out all the details yet. But all I know is the power of

an uninterested party—not a salesperson—telling you their personal experience about working with someone, that's the best marketing in the world. There's no freaking ad that I could ever run that would compete with that marketing. Yeah, I 100% agree. Neil, I want to ask you two more questions. Do you have time? Yeah? Yeah. Okay. There's something—I mean, there's like three questions, but I'm trying to figure out which one I want to ask you. There's something that really surprised me about your community during the first time we did an event together. It was for your Mastermind; it was

in San Diego. You told me, "Hey, just talk about personal branding." I told this story on stage where I felt really weird and awkward because I was thinking, "I don't know if Neil knows what I do, but this seems like a misalignment." But what really shocked me was, as I was going through my presentation, talking about my thoughts on personal branding and what they can do to build something that's really meaningful that is connected to who they really were, I almost felt like the audience was just taking it in. I was seeing it in my

mind; I could see their reaction and how they were leaning into the conversation. What is it about this group of people that is so hungry for this kind of creative spark that seems not typical for them to want, but they have a voracious appetite for it? Yeah, I think it's because I haven't marketed to the whole industry. I've been just putting out my own content, sharing what I'm doing personally, sharing the journey. So, I call this building in public. A lot of the people who've been following my stuff have been following since the Point Dexter

days. You know, they've kind of seen some of the stuff; maybe they came in recently, and they love it. But a lot of people have been around, and so what I found was I'm finding within this huge pool, I'm finding my people, which are maybe the creative types—the people who lost their crayons or their drumsticks along the way. Maybe they have something in them, but they don't know. Maybe it's just a feeling of, "You know what? I was meant to do something more than what I'm doing. I'm kind of bored with what I'm doing. I

make good money, but I don't really feel anything anymore. I'm kind of burnt; I'm just numb. Maybe I'll check out what Neil's doing; sounds like that looks cool." So those are the people I attract, and then these people are, like you said, like a sponge. They really want to take it in, and then they want to implement. Some people are better implementers than others, of course. But what I found was they're just really hungry to do something different. They're tired of being in the box that this industry puts them in. And so that's my niche;

I just accidentally discovered it by just being myself. I think it wouldn't have necessarily worked the same if I ran a bunch of ads and got random people at the event. But because it was my community, it really worked. And so I think it's not the whole industry; I don't paint with a broad brush. But there are people probably within every industry in business and in the corporate world who are these kinds of people. And what are these people going to do? Man, they got to get an outlet; they got to figure out something. And

so this is kind of that outlet for them. These are, in my mind, business-oriented people who have this child inside, this creative misfit, that you give them permission to, like, "Hey, celebrate with us. I'm one of you; I see you, and you see me." And they come out, and you know, I look forward to coming out and hanging out with your people, whether I'm on stage or not; it doesn't really matter because I... Just like seeing them, there's a warmth and energy that I really like, and the fact that they're all taking positive steps to

shape their future, to figure out what's next for them, to move forward— I think that's really cool. One last question: I was going to do a not serious question, but I want to do a serious question with you. People underestimate how hard it is to put an event together. First of all, you mentioned something like, "It's a $700,000 gamble; you're putting it on a red chip, and you hope it lands on red, because otherwise, you are effed." You've gone through your roster of people who speak, and if somebody's listening to this who thinks, "I'm totally

in line with Neil's message; I want to teach people about marketing or design or whatever it is," well, we know that there are different calibers of speakers. I don't want to mention any names, but I'm curious: if they want to think that they might speak on your stage one day, what is it that you have found makes for a really good speaker? Who are you actively looking for? So, this is the big thing I've found from speakers over the years. I've paid and hired a lot of speakers, and I've done a lot of favors where

you put somebody on a stage. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. As an event organizer or the host of the party, so to speak, when somebody's bombing on stage, it's like your skin is crawling. Imagine bugs crawling on you as you're just trying to get them off, man, because you're like, "I can see all the people in the audience looking at their phones." I saw a bunch of people go to the bathroom when someone was bombing right then. We've all seen this. I remember one time we let our members have a chance at speaking at

our event, and you were with me in the back of the room. One girl was bombing, and you and I couldn't even watch, bro. We were cringing in the back of the room. You looked at me and said, "It's really hard to watch this, Neil," and I was like, "Dude, it's so bad." What I've found is there are a lot of people who have the knowledge, but there are very few people who can teach, and there are even fewer people who can keep your attention for an hour. First of all, don't give people hour-long time

slots if you're not sure. You can do some damage in 20 minutes, but at least it's not an hour. Twenty minutes is tolerable; we can get through that. So, if I was unsure about someone in the beginning, I would give them a shorter slot. You can always expand if necessary. If it’s going great, be like, "Hey, man, keep going! Add some time to the clock." Cool. If they’re bombing, you can get them off. For speakers who I've seen do really well, Chris, are people who can tell stories. That doesn't mean you have to be super

aggressive or loud, but there are certain speakers who, for some reason, when they speak, the audience listens. There are other people who don’t command that same attention when they speak. I don’t know— that’s an intangible I have yet to figure out. Because someone like you is soft-spoken, yet everybody’s eyes are open, looking at you on the stage. They're not looking at their phones or their notebooks or ducking out of the room. So, what is that? Because you’re not yelling; maybe they just believe that you know what you’re doing? I don’t know what it is— it’s

some connection that happens. As I’ve gotten further along and the stakes are higher now, where I’ve promised people that this is going to be amazing and I can’t afford to have anybody bomb, I now really go deep into watching previous talks. I'll ask people. For example, I’ll ask Chris, "Hey, who do you know that can talk on this topic?" Chris will say, "I saw this lady; I saw this guy—he crushed it." Okay, good! So, I really do my research now; I’m not just shooting blind anymore. But in the beginning, I was. I’ve had several people

bomb on stage, including myself. I’m at the top of that list. But I’ve worked through it. The way you get through it is like you just hire a speaking coach. I had to hire someone and then do a lot of practice. Even to this day, I watch the film back, and I did a lot of "ums" and "ahs," and I wasn’t myself. What was it that I did beforehand that got me off my game? You know how it is—what are the tweaks you need to make to get better? I think it’s like sports; the best

athletes watch the game film, right? I’ll watch back my talk and be like, "Dude, I could do better next time." Most of what I found comes down to preparation—putting the prep in. The more prepared I am, the less nervous I am. I am less worried about someone throwing me off because I can roll with it. With it, and then the biggest thing that’s helped me—and I think a lot of the people who crush it—is just reps, man. Like, I know you talked about how you don’t really like public speaking, but at this point, I feel

like you’re more comfortable with it than you were five years ago. Like, for sure, you’re not worried as much as you were before. Yeah, you don’t have the same nervous energy anymore; you’re more... I’m not in the bathroom as much anymore. Yeah, it’s so same with me. Like, I would have to run to the bathroom, and then the worst for me was my mouth would go dry on stage. Then I got a jug of water, and I’m having to chug all this water. Twenty minutes into the talk, I got to go take a piss. What

are you going to do? Now you’ve got a 40-minute talk, you know? So that’s not a good thing. But so this is the main thing I noticed when hiring speakers: don’t necessarily worry so much about how known they are. Yeah, worry about what they are going to teach, and are they good at teaching? Can they keep the people’s attention? Are they good at storytelling? I’ve had people come through that nobody knew their name, and they loved them afterwards. You know, like, people like Irwin—nobody knew Irwin in my community; now they love Irwin because he’s a

good orator, he’s a good speaker, and he tells stories that people listen to. So, like, you can learn; plus, they command your attention. And then I was going to say one other thing about speakers. I noticed that there are a lot of people out there who will do the same talk; they’re kind of one-trick ponies. We’ve all seen this. Now, you might think that this guy’s proven, or this gal’s proven, and it’s true—they have an amazing talk, and they check all the boxes. But they’ve got one thing that they can do, and so if your

audience has already seen that one thing, then it’s kind of not the best investment because now they’re just going to do the same thing. I’ve had that happen a few times where I thought this was the world’s top speaker in XYZ, and they are, but they only have one way of presenting, and it’s just that same signature talk. So, the best speakers I found are the ones who can make something custom for your people, or even if they have a standard talk, can they adjust it for your group? I think there’s this thing where, when

we feel like it’s a talk track or a script that you read, whether it’s real or not, if we feel that, then it throws us off a little bit. And so the ability to improvise or to tailor what you’re speaking about to their audience and to update it—like, that was the same talk you gave seven years ago. The world’s changed a lot in seven years. AI wasn’t being talked about; you know, the rise and fall of crypto, or whatever it is. A lot has happened! How come the talk is the same? I think that’s what

throws a lot of people off. But I’m going to venture a guess—a hypothesis—and I’d love to hear your feedback on this. Yeah, I think speakers who have the intention to serve will always be better speakers. Some speakers have the intention to self-edify, to fulfill or boost up their own ego, like, "Look at me! How important am I? Aren’t I so clever? Aren’t my successes amazing?" They’re not literally saying that, but they’re behaving in that way. I think some people are fooled by that for a little bit, but if you go to enough events, you’re like,

“Wait a minute; this doesn’t feel right. I don’t think they’re here for me; they’re here for themselves.” And I’m not telling you I’m the world’s best presenter or public speaker, but my intentionality is always: how do I honor the people that matter? Number one is you and Trevor. I want to make sure Neil made a bet on me, and Trevor made a bet on me, that I don’t let them down. So I’m always thinking, like, what can I do better? How do I incorporate—like, how do I serve them? And number two—and it’s a very close

number two here—is how do I make sure every single person, to the best of my ability, gets their money’s worth? Because that’s the responsibility that you entrusted me with, right? Not only did they buy a ticket, which is like a thousand bucks; they flew out there, they’re taking away time from work and family, they’re putting themselves up in a hotel—it’s a big freaking investment. And I take that investment very seriously. I want to make sure I deliver. So I think it’s about this intentionality that then everything else—if your slides aren’t perfect, if you’re not the

most dynamic speaker, if you don’t have this booming, commanding voice—it’s all okay because it’s filtered through what it is that you’re trying to do, which is to serve. What are your thoughts? Yeah, that’s a great point! I love that because that would explain why some people who don’t have the most polished talk sometimes get the best reviews afterwards. You know, it’s more about... and there are people who have that polished, perfect talk track that can do well too. It’s just that that audience—you can only do it one time, and then it kind of decays from

there in terms of how effective it is. Um, but yeah, I think that's the case. Like, I really wanted to do the best I can, and you can even be self-deprecating, be honest. Like, I've seen—I used to do this in the beginning. I would come on stage and say, "Guys, um, you know what? I'm actually terrified of public speaking, so you'll have to give me a little bit of, uh, leeway here because of XYZ." I would say it sometime during the talk, and the audience would be, "No, dude, you're doing great, man! Thank you so

much!" Like, you know, just trying to provide value. So I would even ask the audience at some point during the talk, multiple times, "Hey, is this helping you? Do you guys—am I on the right track here? Do you want to go deeper on this?" And then that way, they feel like, "Oh, this dude really cares about giving us value. It's not just him trying to go from A to B on the talk track." Yeah, so they give you grace because of that. Yeah, it is because you're also kind of being very transparent and vulnerable. Because

it's like, "I'm working through this, and I'm doing the best I can," versus, "Hey, I'm the best thing since sliced bread, and I'm going to go out here and do my thing, and you're going to love me for it." See how great I am? It's an attitude, it's an idea, it's a philosophy, and I think it translates through lots of things. Yeah, I love that! And I think, uh, one thing that people can do, um, who are trying to do more of this, is like anytime you can incorporate actual things you've done into the talk.

The audience doesn't care so much about how perfect you are as a public speaker because you're teaching something that worked. So if I said, "You know, here's a strategy I'm using right now that does XYZ. Here's the example or the proof," then they're like, it's more about tactics and facts rather than, "Am I the best on stage?" They don't really care anymore because they're getting something from it. Right, speaking like a true instructor there, a true teacher. Neil, there's a lot more I want to talk to you about, but I realized, like, I'm a little

over time here. And so I think this is probably a good way for us to close the call. I've enjoyed your stories and your vulnerability—talking about your marriage, talking about how you built this from almost nothing to what it is today. And I think you're doing—of the people that I get to see—you’re doing one of the best jobs out there as an event organizer. You're sitting there because we will talk about, like, "Oh, how can we improve this? What can we do better?" And you're never taking it for granted. I think the people who show

for you understand that and recognize and appreciate it, and that's why they're willing to go to bat for you each and every single time. So I appreciate you for jumping on the show today, Neil. Thank you, man. I appreciate it! This has been fun. Yeah, and, you know, word of warning: we'll do the Whitney episode, and it'll be a good, like, comparison from A to B. So thanks for jamming with us and thanks for sharing so openly. Thank you, bro! If you want to equip yourself with the right community, training, and resources to take your

business to the next level, I want to personally invite you to check out the Future PR group and our membership specifically created for experienced business owners ready to scale. [Music]