March 12, 2025 • 28 mins
"We would go to an event and the speakers are the heroes of the event. All the attendees are in the shadows. We wondered what would happen if we make the attendees the heroes."
Notable Moments
00:37 Hallway Magic at Professional Events
05:45 The Unconference Experience
09:00 Opportunities for Feedback-Driven Improvements
11:55 Relentless Pursuit of Improvement
14:24 Selling Through Known Connections
16:49 Sustainable Success Over Quick Wins
21:59 Collaborating with Spouse on Project
25:36 Unconference Connection Successes
It always seems that the best part of a conference is mingling in the hallways. Vincent Pugliese recognized the value in it so he turned the concept into a reality. The Unconference took place in Sarasota, Florida, offering an event focused on the magic of conversations without the usual distractions of keynote speakers or sponsors.
Read my blog to learn more about how he created an event where relationships can be built without the rush of typical conference schedules.
Connect with Vincent
Website - My Membership Freedom
LinkedIn - Vincent Pugliese
Facebook - Vincent Pugliese
Connect with Jody
About Jody - https://jodymaberry.com/about-jody-maberry/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sugarjmaberry
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodymaberry/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sugarjmaberry/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jodymaberry
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. I have
a guest returning that if you've listened to the show for a while, you've heard
his name, you know his voice. But if you're not
familiar with him, if you're new to the show, you will be new. He will
be new to you. Vincent Puglisi, the founder,
the launcher, the, well, he invented the
(00:26):
Unconference. Hi, Vincent. What's going on? Excited to be
here. I wasn't sure how to introduce you this time, but Vincent and I were
just together in Sarasota, Florida at the
UN conference, which was very descriptive name of
what it was. It is Vincent. I'll set you up for this,
Vincent. He told me a while back, he said, you know, the only
(00:48):
thing I really like about conferences is the hallways. What if I came up with
a conference that was just the hallways? And he took that idea
and actually made it happen. It's incredible you pulled it off,
Vincent. It's funny because I love you know, you you and
I will travel across the country to go to these events. And
I leave there every single time with, like, these
(01:10):
handful of amazing conversations. And all I wanted was more of
them, but we couldn't do them because the entire conference is built
around, go to the speaker, go to that speaker, Rush back and forth. Oh, and
by the way, you know, rush a lunch out or 10:00 at night.
Go to some networking thing where there's a DJ blasting music that you're like,
what? I can't hear you. And then you go to sleep late and you go,
(01:32):
I get on a plane. And I have these handful of business cards. I don't
know who the people are that I talked to. Don't remember anything. I'm like, what
a wasted opportunity because I didn't care about the speakers. I'm
sure they're good. And then full disclosure, sometimes I'm the speaker. And I'm
still saying that. I'm like, I didn't care about that. What I cared
about was the connections I would make because I would go into the hallways
(01:53):
and magic would happen. And relationships and
friendships and business deals would happen and collaborations. So what I learned
was after people who've been to one or two or three of these things didn't
go to the sessions anymore. They just literally went there and hung out in the
hallways. And I remember going to social media marketing world one year and I
called Elizabeth. I was at the end of my wife, and she's like, so who
(02:14):
did you hear and what speakers you go to? I said, I didn't go to
any of them. And she was like, what? And she broke it down for me.
So so you spent a $1,500 on a ticket. You got a flight to San
Diego. You got a hotel for four nights and you, you know, going out to
eat. I don't know how much money that is, but you did that and you
didn't go to any sessions. I said, you don't understand all the magics in the
hallways. That's where it all happens. And it's only the beginners that go to all
(02:36):
the sessions taking notes that they're never gonna read. So eventually, like, as I talked
to you and and others, I was like, what if we create an event that
was just the hallway? So that's what it was about. And kind of like the
hallways colliding with a mastermind retreat. Because we would do these intimate small
mastermind retreats, and then we'd have these big giant conferences. What if we
took the intimacy of the mastermind and blended it with the
(02:58):
hallways of a giant conference, limited to a hundred people, do it as
application invite only, make sure the right people in the room, because as you and
I were talking, that's the key, is the right people. You know, anybody can get
a hundred people in the room. That's a food court at a mall. Doesn't mean
there's gonna be great conversations happening. Right? But when you could bring the right hundred
people together and you can have structure, but very loose structure,
(03:20):
kinda like water, Bruce Lee be like water. Like, yes, structure moves
around and you can let people that's when magic happens. So that's that's
where the idea came from. And I completely expected to fall my face for the
first time because nobody done this in this space from what I
know. And here we are, and we sold it out with two months to
go and and everything seems to have had a great time. It was a a
(03:41):
fabulous event. And I told Vincent, I think
I even unconferenced the unconference because
for one session, I just stood in the hallways
and talked to some people. So I unconferenced your
unconferenced and and stayed in the hallways. But that was the
spirit of the whole thing. It was just conversations. So you have
(04:03):
to realize this. Vincent said, I want a conference with no
speakers. I want a conference with no sponsors. All the things you
expect at a conference, I want none of it here. So rather than
speakers, although there was a speaker, maybe we'll get to that. There was one
speaker and Vincent gave two very short talks. But it
was conversations. It was rooms that had a
(04:25):
topic. And if you wanted to talk about that topic, you go to that
room. And here's why it worked. Maybe I think
I wanna make sure you get the enough credit for this that Vincent
had handpicked everyone that was going to be there.
Yes. People bought their ticket, but you had to get invited to buy a
ticket by Vincent. And because everyone had been
(04:46):
handpicked, the conversations were phenomenal.
And I thought, there's only a hundred people. I'm sure I'll get to meet everybody.
Wasn't even close because if I met someone,
that conversation would end up so deep, I would spend twenty,
thirty minutes with them. And I I did not meet
I met maybe 20 people, Vincent. That was it, out of a hundred. Because if
(05:09):
you're gonna have a good conversation, you just can't meet a hundred people in two
days. No. And the point isn't to meet everybody. I mean, maybe a quick meeting.
Right? We could there's there's ways of doing that. But the point is, you know,
to have a handful or more than a handful of
really wonderful conversations. And that would be my goal with a
conference. I would go and I would say, I want to have three great conversations
(05:31):
and one amazing connection to leave here with. And I said, what if we just
multiply that and your numbers are perfect? If you have 20
phenomenal conversations with people and you leave there, but you're still like we
did, we created a program with everybody's information. We've never seen that
before. We would go to an event and it would be all the the five
speakers or the 15 speakers. They're the heroes of the event and all the
(05:53):
attendees are kind of in the shadows. Well, we said, what if we
make all the attendees the heroes and create a digital and a physical
program that has everybody's information on the digital, their social
media? So guess what? When you're gone, when you leave, you can
easily connect with everybody. Cause that, that was born out of my
frustration on airplanes, shuffling through business cards, that there was no pictures. I
(06:15):
don't remember who they were. It was given to me at 11:00 at night. Now
you can casually have conversations cause you know, you've got this
program that you can connect with anybody the way that you want. And, you know,
if you walk away from there with 20 great conversations, to me, that's a giant
like, I would never get that at a regular conference. Yeah. And that
that's right. I do I have kept every business card I've gotten
(06:37):
at a conference over the last ten years just in case I there's a
reason to eventually reach back out to them someday. But
how many of them have I found their business card and reached back out? Very
few. It has happened, but it's been very few. But It's harder.
Of the 20 people I met, I probably had five
really deep conversations and have even been in touch with some of those
(07:01):
people since the conference. And I I think you accomplished what you
were after. I guess that's up for you to decide. But for me, it
feels like you did. And I Vincent has been to two Creating
Magic Masterminds that Lee and I Lee Cockrell and I
host. And after the first one and he he still came back for another
one. But after the first one, Vincent said, this was a great
(07:23):
event, but I could do without the guest Disney speaker. And I would
even like it better if instead of hot seats, we just all sat
around and talked about a topic. And I think you
took that, and maybe you already had that in mind. I'm not saying this is
where you got the idea. But based on the two things you said you would
like about the creating magic mastermind, you made that
(07:44):
happen just on a much bigger scale at this event. I think the
whole idea and I think that's why I appreciate our friendship. There's a discerning eye
that we're both looking out for each other with. Right? Like, I loved investing in
in there and and getting to the masterminds and being a part of it and
your crew. At the same time, I think, you know, you probably
wanna hear, hey. Can we is there something that we can do? And you might
(08:05):
not take my advice and do anything with it. I just think it's, you
know, it is my obligation sometimes to be like, hey. This could be this or
this and now that could that could be not what everybody wants. Right? And everybody
wants the feedback. Hey, I didn't ask you for your feedback. Right? I can't help.
I'm a New York Italian. I'm gonna give feedback. So the way it's gonna be,
but I'm always looking at how can I help my friend improve this if they're
(08:25):
looking to do it? And maybe I'm not the ideal audience because maybe
everybody loves the Disney speaker. Right? Maybe I'm not the
I'm probably I didn't come from the same kinda area that everybody else might have
come from where the Disney is is often the main thing. It's not with me.
So for me, I just wanna get to know the people. And so seeing
that, it might not have been the a the main reason why we did, but
(08:46):
it was absolutely a factor in terms of learning from other events of, like, I'm
always thinking, how would I do it? How would I do this a little differently?
Right? And yeah. So from the feedback to you, but also to sitting on myself
and being like, oh, yeah. I think we could do that. And let's hope it
works. Yeah. And so let's we'll talk about
feedback just for a moment because Vincent has also been
to my world class workshops that I do. So Vincent gave
(09:10):
feedback about the Creating Magic Mastermind saying I'd like it better if there
wasn't a Disney speaker and we just had one big conversation instead of hot
seats. And my response was, Vincent, you are
not the typical person that comes to this event and they like both of
those. But Vincent came to the first world class workshop we
did, and he said, you know what I would like? And gave me, like, three
(09:32):
things. And I said, gosh. I think Vincent's absolutely right. And we made
those changes, and Vincent came to the last one and
and was like, oh, this is way better. It was but it's like we
do everything. Like, as I said, you know, as I in my first little speech
at the unconference, welcome to the worst unconference it's ever gonna be. Right?
It's the first one. I it's my job to
(09:54):
continually improve and to make this better and to make the experience better.
And for you, you know, the first time you did the workshops, it was like,
I love the information. It was almost too much. Right? Too much great
stuff. And when I was like, oh, man. What if there was a little less
time? We could reduce the amount of teaching and have more time to even work
on the things. I think that was one of the pieces of advice. Right? And
(10:15):
what's funny is the experience for us, I think, was better, but also
you have to do less. Right? Because you don't have to teach as much, and
you sit back and let us do because we need the time to do that
work. You implemented that, and I thought it was like, wow. What
what a quick improvement that was by implementing that. Well and
that's exactly right. Vincent gave me three pieces. He
(10:36):
said, too much. You're teaching too much. It is too much
information for us to take in. So we I cut two thirds
of the information out, shortened it from a two day
workshop to a one day workshop. Vincent said, there's
not enough space in the workbook. I actually wanna write
some of this out. I expand changed the workbook, made it much better.
(10:58):
And then Vincent said, I want time to actually
sit here and do the work so then I can ask you about it.
And I wanna leave having done most of the
work to give me momentum. And we added that in.
And that's it. The the feedback Vincent gave
completely changed the event, and I I do think it's much better now
(11:21):
than it was. And that's that's it. Before
recording this episode, Vincent and I talked about the
unconference and what can he do to make it better. I'm not gonna say anything
here to spoil what comes next, but yeah, that's one of the my
favorite things about you, Vincent. You can pull off you can hit a home
run and then come back and say, how could I have done better? But
(11:43):
it's on one hand, it's a home run. You did exactly what you needed. But
on the other hand, if you're gonna continuously get better and do
a world class conference, you do have to find out how to do
it. And even my background, like, I was a sports star for twenty years. Right?
I'm in the locker room of championship games, and I've tried to model
some of this stuff. What are the best in the world do? They were, you
(12:04):
know, until they won the actual outright championship, they were
always looking. And even then, it didn't take very long for how we can get
that better next year. And I think that can be some people could be like,
oh, that doesn't sound fun. Like, to me, that's the fun part. I love the
idea of what's this gonna be like next? How are we gonna get better? I
don't wanna rest on yeah. We did a great thing. I love it. I appreciate
what happened. I really do. Like the couple days after I was on cloud nine,
(12:28):
it really was. And and even with certain things that could be better than that,
but I'm like, but then you immediately go to, I want a better experience for
everybody. And and now, you know, after throwing things together with duct tape, I
know the things we can do next time to really kinda ramp this up. It's
exactly what you did. Right? And we'll we'll continue that. As entrepreneurs, that's just what
we do. I think that that's how you get world class experience, I
(12:49):
think. One of the things I really appreciated about
the conference is Vincent teaches a certain
thing. Well, his book is The Wealth of Connections. That
his second book, that is what brought people to the conference
was connections, relationships, conversations. And then I'd be
in some of these conversations with Vincent, And people
(13:11):
didn't use these exact words, but I felt like sometimes people
would say, well, that worked for you, Vincent, but my situation is
different. And Vincent would hold steady and say, no.
If it's not different, they're all the same. You have
to build connections. You have to have conversations. It's funny because I even
wrote in the membership today, did a little breakdown on how we do this. And
(13:32):
people like, thanks for simplifying this. And I'm like, it's always simplified. It's
not a very complex theory. People just don't do it. And, yeah, I always
come back to sports analogies. And I remember covering the New York Giants, and it
was, like, ten years after they won the Super Bowl. And they were they were
talking about how they won, how they dominated in 1986.
And Bill Parcells said, we only had 20 plays
(13:53):
the entire season. We just ran those plays better than
anybody. We boost we got so good at those plays. And it's the same thing
here. When you, you know, you talk about people that build these giant businesses or
all the success, where is it I boil it down to the eighty twenty rule.
Where does it come down to? And almost every single time it came down to
the connections, the relationships, the network, how they kept
(14:14):
in touch delivered for them. So my idea with this whole thing was I don't
wanna advertise this. Like, literally from the moment I came up
with the idea, the I'm gonna do like Rocky Rocky two. I'm gonna tie one
hand behind my back, and I'm gonna do this with like, I'm gonna figure out
how to sell this thing out without promoting it, without running
ads, without doing affiliates. I want it all to be based
(14:35):
around connections and relationships and offers from that to show you
that you can create something out of thin air and based just around that,
not only sell it out, but sell it out in a way where people go,
well, this is what I got. How in the world were those hundred people in
that room like that? Like, friend's wife that didn't even come to the event just
kinda was there for a little bit. She's like, how did this thing happen? And
(14:57):
it happened because of all that work of the connection. Now you can sell a
hundred tickets and get anybody in there. You can
get the bro marketers, and you can get the people that are kinda just sleazy
or or salesy. We made the parameters clear. That's not what this is about.
You're not here to, you know, pitch people. That's not what this is
about. This is about connection. And I think that's that's where the special
(15:18):
part of it comes. But if I wasn't building my wealth of connection daily, Jody,
weekly, monthly, these things aren't possible. I think so many times the online
world, we rely on these funnels and the email lists and all the things. They're
fine, but the connection is what makes the real
special sauce to it. And I wanted to show that and prove it, and I
think there were a lot of people that when they left, they're like, oh, that's
(15:39):
how it happened. And you can build any business that way. Mhmm. It is
so good. There I'm looking at my notes right now, and
there is a was one conversation that was going on
where someone basically said, well, I need to build
something right now. And Vincent's like, you you can't. You
have to put in the work. You have to plan on this being a
(16:02):
one year process. Yeah. And so the the analogy, we use the
stadium. We we help people build their online stadium, like, coming from the sports
world where it's like, you know, you create something and you built
you give away content. You create content that brings people into the stadium, then there's
levels to that stadium. So we have multiple levels to ours often
based around recurring revenue for lifestyle freedom, which is what almost
(16:24):
everybody wants. So the whole idea of that is you don't just go to an
empty lot and say, oh, I wanna host the Super Bowl on this empty lot.
Just like, hey. I gotta build this right now. I need this right now. In
Las Vegas, the NFL would have said, you're crazy. We're not holding the Super Bowl
in this dirt lot. But if you do the work and you build the stadium,
you'll get the Super Bowl. Guess what? There was a year or two of dirty
(16:45):
work that happened. Right, to build that thing. It didn't look pretty. It
was messy. It required a lot of work. But when they hosted the Super Bowl,
they made, what, a billion dollars from it, and all they needed to do was
clean it up afterwards and then restart again. It's the stadium that it keeps
on giving. In that example, a lot of times it's desperation. I tried a couple
of things, didn't work. I need this now. Go find the ways to make money,
(17:07):
but don't don't sacrifice your art and what you're doing for short term
things. You gotta do the foundational work, which are those pillars and
everything that goes up so that you can have long term success as opposed to,
I just need to do it right now. And so that it's a hard conversation
when you when you feel like you need it, but we're looking for long term
repeatable success as opposed to just a one time thing. Getting to
(17:29):
the UN conference is Vincent just summed up what it
took. The UN conference was a long time coming. Even before Vincent
had the idea for the UN conference, he was building the
foundation for people that would get invited.
So you had to get a personal invitation from Vincent
to even buy a ticket. If he didn't think you were a fit, you weren't
(17:51):
gonna get the invitation. When it came to those 100
people that you invited, what were you looking for? How
did you know someone would be a right fit to be in the room
with the other 99 people? That's a great question. There's a handful of
things. Curiosity. So I I have phone calls with people that that were interested
because we've let people apply. It wasn't like I just reached out. People could apply,
(18:12):
we'll have conversations. Now we have a for each one. We would we love new
people that I've never met, but there's a conversation that comes beforehand.
Right? If I taught somebody for forty five minutes and they just talk about themselves
for forty five minutes, Right? They don't even ask me any and I'm running this
thing. I'm running it, and they don't even ask me any questions. What are they
gonna do with a hundred people? Same exact thing. They're gonna talk about themselves. They're
not gonna be curious. They're not gonna ask questions. They're gonna be all about themselves.
(18:36):
So weed that out. The people that are like, what's my return on
investment on this? They didn't get offers either. They're not
thinking. They don't have the right mindset yet of what the event is about. If
you're already thinking what's the ROI on this, as so many people
said, the magic is getting into the room and then things happen. Right? The
people that understand it got that. So people with the ROI question,
(18:57):
I generally didn't offer it to them unless it was a better conversation. The other
one was, you're like, will my ideal client be there? That's a
major red flag for me. So I'm creating an event
around your ideal client so you can sell to them. That's
out. No chance. So I always start every business and everything we do in
terms of who's this not for. Right? Find out who's not for. It's very easy
(19:18):
to find out who it is for. So when I establish those things, it's like,
okay. Then who is it for? People that are curious, not just people, but
entrepreneurs, people that are building businesses, people that are creative,
people that are generous and curious, people that like
other people. Also, the other thing is, like, there's a difference
between an introvert and a wallflower. Introverts are great with
(19:39):
one to one conversations. Amazing with it. They don't generally like huge crowds.
Wallflowers are people that don't like any of it, and they're
skittish and they have to be handheld. So So I had people say to me
like, what are you gonna do about the wall flowers? You know, how are you
gonna shape the event? I said, here's how I'm gonna do it. I'm not gonna
invite them. I don't want the wall flower. I don't want somebody to have to
hold by the hand and introduce them to people because they're so scared. That's
(20:03):
the type of thing. Go to an event where you can listen to speakers and
take notes. This is for people that actually want to connect with other people.
So all these things blend together. And when you get on the phone call with
somebody and they ooze all the good stuff and they don't have any of the
bad stuff and you go, you'd be a great, so then I make an offer.
Hey, I think you'd be great. And I think they also know I wasn't
(20:23):
doing it for a ticket sale because I can offer to a lot of people.
I just need to offer it to the right people and you don't always get
a hundred percent right. There's always going to be, everybody's got one person that annoyed
them. It's not perfect. Right. But you do the best you can to
make it as clean as you can for everybody else there. And I think
that's a big part of, of how we kind of weeded it out.
(20:44):
One unexpected part of the conference for me is
after meeting Vincent's wife, Elizabeth, Vincent is no
longer my favorite Puglisi. That's the way it usually works. I mean, you
meet my kids, and I'm, like, the fourth or fifth depending on how they're acting.
Yeah. Yeah. She was great. She was great. And
it was so cool to see your kids helping out and going around and meeting
(21:07):
people and serving them. And you and Elizabeth have done
well. Oh, thank you. And it's funny because you don't know everything that's going on.
So Dylan's our 13 year old, and they have these, like, cocktail tables over by
the elevator. I didn't know that Dylan was inside of
one of them because they have, like, the black, you know, tablecloths. So he was
inside of one and he was grabbing people's legs as they were walking by
(21:28):
and do so he grabbed my, I'm like, what are you doing down there? And
I'm like, that's a little, I guess, a part of the uncomfort. He's like scaring
people from under the table. I'm like, you know, that's, that's a little bit of
the unexpected surprise you're going to get when you come. Yeah. It's hysterical.
That's right. Well, I feel like you
accomplished what you meant to accomplish. You took a conference
(21:50):
and you unconferenced it. Do you feel
you accomplished what you were trying? How does it feel now that you've
pulled this event off? That's a great question. It it you know, it's funny because
I am I don't like giving myself credit on things. So
I'm always because as you can tell from the conference, I'm always looking for how
do we make this better. But and I don't know if you heard it. You
(22:11):
know, I've got to do a lot of things in my career. Right? Especially when
it came to photography and the the things I got to do and people got
to I got to hang out with. And I said to everybody, this was a
top three moment in my career, if not
higher, to be able to come up with an idea, to work
with my wife on this, to have so many people that we care
about in the room together, People that believed in an idea that there was
(22:34):
no there was no, like, guarantee of success. Like, this
is trusting in me to do something that we haven't done before. And you're gonna
get on a plane from Seattle or from New York City or from
Texas, you know, or, like, Tim, no four hours north of
Edmonton. And you're gonna be coming here. You're gonna spend the money on a plane
ticket, on hotels, and to trust in me and for it to go the
(22:55):
way that it went. And all the social media posts that were done, all the
comments and messages I got, gifts, cards. Yeah.
I have to say it went it went beyond what I could have ever hoped
for. And at the same time, knowing we could do it so much better.
Yeah. Well, that's this is great. I I just wanted to do a
little review of the Unconference because it was unlike any
(23:17):
other conference that I've been to. It very much had your
personality to it, meaning it was unconventional.
It wasn't like what you're gonna see elsewhere. It wasn't Vincent doing a
conference to do a conference because that would give him status.
It really was just bringing
100 fabulous people together. And I'll tell you
(23:39):
the two more quick pieces, Vincent. I
found it was because you brought so
many curious people there. There were times it would be hard to
find out much about other people because I would start to talk to
someone and they kept asking me questions. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm trying to
find out about you. So forget about me for a moment. But
(24:01):
that's a testament to the type of people that were there. And
also, I will tell you, I am really good one on
one, one on two. I can talk all day. Put me in
front of a crowd. You put me on stage in front of a hundred people.
I can talk all day. No problem. My least favorite
situation is to just put me in a room and
(24:22):
say, okay, here's twenty, thirty, forty, fifty people. Now go meet them.
I do terrible. Terrible. So you
created that situation a couple of times where you just put a hundred
strangers in a room and said, now go meet each other. And I'm like,
Vincent, I do not like this. But you found a
way to make it a little more comfortable. And I can think
(24:44):
of three people I met in that situation that
I've been in contact with since the conference. And maybe I
wouldn't have met them otherwise, but you kind of forced that. And I didn't like
it at the time, but I appreciate it. It's funny. You said that because mark
Foster came out to me and he goes, I didn't like when you did that,
but it was absolutely what I needed. And you're saying the same thing and it
(25:04):
wasn't even me. It was Dustin Heider. It was a part of the conference and,
and he runs his own. He was a real estate conference. He does. And he
came up to me because we basically said that first hour is going to be
about the connection. We want you to meet different people. And I was going to
let it go for an hour. And he came up to me and he goes,
all right. And he's like, can I give you some advice? I said, absolutely. He
goes, okay. About five minutes, stop it and tell them they need to
(25:25):
stop who they're talking to and meet someone else. And I was like, I don't
want to do that. So I don't want to do, I want, because there's not
only are they going to meet different people, but also some people are going to
be stuck in conversations they don't want to be in. And this is a way
for them to separate. So I did that and I saw the looks I was
getting, I was kind of getting a little like, what are you doing here? And
I was like, no. And then we did it one more time. And I had
a bunch of people come up to me and said, I would not have met
(25:47):
these other people if it wasn't for them. So that's interesting. You said that, but
also to your first point, the whole point of this is not for the
conference to end the unconference to end when the sun sets. Right? We got the
trolley down to the beach, watch sun. It wasn't for it to end then. It
was for it to be a beginning for you guys. You had these conversations, and
now we want to expand your network. What's really fun to watch
(26:08):
Jody is the social media for the last week since then. All these people that
did not know each other are now interacting with each other on their
content, on their posts. They're supporting each other. They never would have
met. And everybody's engagement is going higher because one everybody's
involved with one another. And now, as you said, you're having conversations with people that
you met. It's supposed to be the beginning, but without that,
(26:31):
those deep conversations to start, it's really hard to get those conversations
going. So in that aspect that it really accomplished, what we're hoping for is to
keep going with that in terms of the more you build your connections, your networks
with great people. Like I say all the time, all you need is one great
connection. All you need is one great idea and a wealth of connection. That's
all I need, Because now these people are gonna wanna support you. They're gonna wanna
(26:53):
promote you, help you, connect you as opposed to I have all these ideas, but
I don't really connect with people. I want them just to buy stuff. It doesn't
work that way, especially this day and age anymore. Everybody's just tired of lead magnets.
They're tired of all the stuff that goes with it. It's all about the connections.
And I think, you know, that's what it was meant to do.
Alright. Maybe we'll have Vincent back again. Vincent's been on
(27:14):
so many times. Like a couple of years ago, we did that experiment where we
did five episodes in five days. That was fun. So Vincent is
a familiar voice to the Jody Mayberry show, so I'm sure he'll be
back. But, Vincent, where can we go to find out more about you and connect
with you? Yeah. LinkedIn and Facebook are my two social media places
that I'm most active at. I can send you links if you want to share
(27:35):
that. And also our websites, my membership, freedom.com. We didn't talk about that, but that's
our, that's our main business. The young conference comes underneath that. So my membership,
freedom.com, I wrote a book called the wealth of connection that we talked about. I
give the audio away for free. It's right there, prominent on the website. I could
share it with Jody to share with you as well, but that's the best way.
Alright. Thank you, Vincent, and thank you for listening to the Jody
(27:56):
Mayberry Show.
Metaphorically, he's the man. It's
Sugar Jay.
Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. I have
a guest returning that if you've listened to the show for a while, you've heard
his name, you know his voice. But if you're not
familiar with him, if you're new to the show, you will be new. He will
be new to you. Vincent Puglisi, the founder,
the launcher, the, well, he invented the
(00:26):
Unconference. Hi, Vincent. What's going on? Excited to be
here. I wasn't sure how to introduce you this time, but Vincent and I were
just together in Sarasota, Florida at the
UN conference, which was very descriptive name of
what it was. It is Vincent. I'll set you up for this,
Vincent. He told me a while back, he said, you know, the only
(00:48):
thing I really like about conferences is the hallways. What if I came up with
a conference that was just the hallways? And he took that idea
and actually made it happen. It's incredible you pulled it off,
Vincent. It's funny because I love you know, you you and
I will travel across the country to go to these events. And
I leave there every single time with, like, these
(01:10):
handful of amazing conversations. And all I wanted was more of
them, but we couldn't do them because the entire conference is built
around, go to the speaker, go to that speaker, Rush back and forth. Oh, and
by the way, you know, rush a lunch out or 10:00 at night.
Go to some networking thing where there's a DJ blasting music that you're like,
what? I can't hear you. And then you go to sleep late and you go,
(01:32):
I get on a plane. And I have these handful of business cards. I don't
know who the people are that I talked to. Don't remember anything. I'm like, what
a wasted opportunity because I didn't care about the speakers. I'm
sure they're good. And then full disclosure, sometimes I'm the speaker. And I'm
still saying that. I'm like, I didn't care about that. What I cared
about was the connections I would make because I would go into the hallways
(01:53):
and magic would happen. And relationships and
friendships and business deals would happen and collaborations. So what I learned
was after people who've been to one or two or three of these things didn't
go to the sessions anymore. They just literally went there and hung out in the
hallways. And I remember going to social media marketing world one year and I
called Elizabeth. I was at the end of my wife, and she's like, so who
(02:14):
did you hear and what speakers you go to? I said, I didn't go to
any of them. And she was like, what? And she broke it down for me.
So so you spent a $1,500 on a ticket. You got a flight to San
Diego. You got a hotel for four nights and you, you know, going out to
eat. I don't know how much money that is, but you did that and you
didn't go to any sessions. I said, you don't understand all the magics in the
hallways. That's where it all happens. And it's only the beginners that go to all
(02:36):
the sessions taking notes that they're never gonna read. So eventually, like, as I talked
to you and and others, I was like, what if we create an event that
was just the hallway? So that's what it was about. And kind of like the
hallways colliding with a mastermind retreat. Because we would do these intimate small
mastermind retreats, and then we'd have these big giant conferences. What if we
took the intimacy of the mastermind and blended it with the
(02:58):
hallways of a giant conference, limited to a hundred people, do it as
application invite only, make sure the right people in the room, because as you and
I were talking, that's the key, is the right people. You know, anybody can get
a hundred people in the room. That's a food court at a mall. Doesn't mean
there's gonna be great conversations happening. Right? But when you could bring the right hundred
people together and you can have structure, but very loose structure,
(03:20):
kinda like water, Bruce Lee be like water. Like, yes, structure moves
around and you can let people that's when magic happens. So that's that's
where the idea came from. And I completely expected to fall my face for the
first time because nobody done this in this space from what I
know. And here we are, and we sold it out with two months to
go and and everything seems to have had a great time. It was a a
(03:41):
fabulous event. And I told Vincent, I think
I even unconferenced the unconference because
for one session, I just stood in the hallways
and talked to some people. So I unconferenced your
unconferenced and and stayed in the hallways. But that was the
spirit of the whole thing. It was just conversations. So you have
(04:03):
to realize this. Vincent said, I want a conference with no
speakers. I want a conference with no sponsors. All the things you
expect at a conference, I want none of it here. So rather than
speakers, although there was a speaker, maybe we'll get to that. There was one
speaker and Vincent gave two very short talks. But it
was conversations. It was rooms that had a
(04:25):
topic. And if you wanted to talk about that topic, you go to that
room. And here's why it worked. Maybe I think
I wanna make sure you get the enough credit for this that Vincent
had handpicked everyone that was going to be there.
Yes. People bought their ticket, but you had to get invited to buy a
ticket by Vincent. And because everyone had been
(04:46):
handpicked, the conversations were phenomenal.
And I thought, there's only a hundred people. I'm sure I'll get to meet everybody.
Wasn't even close because if I met someone,
that conversation would end up so deep, I would spend twenty,
thirty minutes with them. And I I did not meet
I met maybe 20 people, Vincent. That was it, out of a hundred. Because if
(05:09):
you're gonna have a good conversation, you just can't meet a hundred people in two
days. No. And the point isn't to meet everybody. I mean, maybe a quick meeting.
Right? We could there's there's ways of doing that. But the point is, you know,
to have a handful or more than a handful of
really wonderful conversations. And that would be my goal with a
conference. I would go and I would say, I want to have three great conversations
(05:31):
and one amazing connection to leave here with. And I said, what if we just
multiply that and your numbers are perfect? If you have 20
phenomenal conversations with people and you leave there, but you're still like we
did, we created a program with everybody's information. We've never seen that
before. We would go to an event and it would be all the the five
speakers or the 15 speakers. They're the heroes of the event and all the
(05:53):
attendees are kind of in the shadows. Well, we said, what if we
make all the attendees the heroes and create a digital and a physical
program that has everybody's information on the digital, their social
media? So guess what? When you're gone, when you leave, you can
easily connect with everybody. Cause that, that was born out of my
frustration on airplanes, shuffling through business cards, that there was no pictures. I
(06:15):
don't remember who they were. It was given to me at 11:00 at night. Now
you can casually have conversations cause you know, you've got this
program that you can connect with anybody the way that you want. And, you know,
if you walk away from there with 20 great conversations, to me, that's a giant
like, I would never get that at a regular conference. Yeah. And that
that's right. I do I have kept every business card I've gotten
(06:37):
at a conference over the last ten years just in case I there's a
reason to eventually reach back out to them someday. But
how many of them have I found their business card and reached back out? Very
few. It has happened, but it's been very few. But It's harder.
Of the 20 people I met, I probably had five
really deep conversations and have even been in touch with some of those
(07:01):
people since the conference. And I I think you accomplished what you
were after. I guess that's up for you to decide. But for me, it
feels like you did. And I Vincent has been to two Creating
Magic Masterminds that Lee and I Lee Cockrell and I
host. And after the first one and he he still came back for another
one. But after the first one, Vincent said, this was a great
(07:23):
event, but I could do without the guest Disney speaker. And I would
even like it better if instead of hot seats, we just all sat
around and talked about a topic. And I think you
took that, and maybe you already had that in mind. I'm not saying this is
where you got the idea. But based on the two things you said you would
like about the creating magic mastermind, you made that
(07:44):
happen just on a much bigger scale at this event. I think the
whole idea and I think that's why I appreciate our friendship. There's a discerning eye
that we're both looking out for each other with. Right? Like, I loved investing in
in there and and getting to the masterminds and being a part of it and
your crew. At the same time, I think, you know, you probably
wanna hear, hey. Can we is there something that we can do? And you might
(08:05):
not take my advice and do anything with it. I just think it's, you
know, it is my obligation sometimes to be like, hey. This could be this or
this and now that could that could be not what everybody wants. Right? And everybody
wants the feedback. Hey, I didn't ask you for your feedback. Right? I can't help.
I'm a New York Italian. I'm gonna give feedback. So the way it's gonna be,
but I'm always looking at how can I help my friend improve this if they're
(08:25):
looking to do it? And maybe I'm not the ideal audience because maybe
everybody loves the Disney speaker. Right? Maybe I'm not the
I'm probably I didn't come from the same kinda area that everybody else might have
come from where the Disney is is often the main thing. It's not with me.
So for me, I just wanna get to know the people. And so seeing
that, it might not have been the a the main reason why we did, but
(08:46):
it was absolutely a factor in terms of learning from other events of, like, I'm
always thinking, how would I do it? How would I do this a little differently?
Right? And yeah. So from the feedback to you, but also to sitting on myself
and being like, oh, yeah. I think we could do that. And let's hope it
works. Yeah. And so let's we'll talk about
feedback just for a moment because Vincent has also been
to my world class workshops that I do. So Vincent gave
(09:10):
feedback about the Creating Magic Mastermind saying I'd like it better if there
wasn't a Disney speaker and we just had one big conversation instead of hot
seats. And my response was, Vincent, you are
not the typical person that comes to this event and they like both of
those. But Vincent came to the first world class workshop we
did, and he said, you know what I would like? And gave me, like, three
(09:32):
things. And I said, gosh. I think Vincent's absolutely right. And we made
those changes, and Vincent came to the last one and
and was like, oh, this is way better. It was but it's like we
do everything. Like, as I said, you know, as I in my first little speech
at the unconference, welcome to the worst unconference it's ever gonna be. Right?
It's the first one. I it's my job to
(09:54):
continually improve and to make this better and to make the experience better.
And for you, you know, the first time you did the workshops, it was like,
I love the information. It was almost too much. Right? Too much great
stuff. And when I was like, oh, man. What if there was a little less
time? We could reduce the amount of teaching and have more time to even work
on the things. I think that was one of the pieces of advice. Right? And
(10:15):
what's funny is the experience for us, I think, was better, but also
you have to do less. Right? Because you don't have to teach as much, and
you sit back and let us do because we need the time to do that
work. You implemented that, and I thought it was like, wow. What
what a quick improvement that was by implementing that. Well and
that's exactly right. Vincent gave me three pieces. He
(10:36):
said, too much. You're teaching too much. It is too much
information for us to take in. So we I cut two thirds
of the information out, shortened it from a two day
workshop to a one day workshop. Vincent said, there's
not enough space in the workbook. I actually wanna write
some of this out. I expand changed the workbook, made it much better.
(10:58):
And then Vincent said, I want time to actually
sit here and do the work so then I can ask you about it.
And I wanna leave having done most of the
work to give me momentum. And we added that in.
And that's it. The the feedback Vincent gave
completely changed the event, and I I do think it's much better now
(11:21):
than it was. And that's that's it. Before
recording this episode, Vincent and I talked about the
unconference and what can he do to make it better. I'm not gonna say anything
here to spoil what comes next, but yeah, that's one of the my
favorite things about you, Vincent. You can pull off you can hit a home
run and then come back and say, how could I have done better? But
(11:43):
it's on one hand, it's a home run. You did exactly what you needed. But
on the other hand, if you're gonna continuously get better and do
a world class conference, you do have to find out how to do
it. And even my background, like, I was a sports star for twenty years. Right?
I'm in the locker room of championship games, and I've tried to model
some of this stuff. What are the best in the world do? They were, you
(12:04):
know, until they won the actual outright championship, they were
always looking. And even then, it didn't take very long for how we can get
that better next year. And I think that can be some people could be like,
oh, that doesn't sound fun. Like, to me, that's the fun part. I love the
idea of what's this gonna be like next? How are we gonna get better? I
don't wanna rest on yeah. We did a great thing. I love it. I appreciate
what happened. I really do. Like the couple days after I was on cloud nine,
(12:28):
it really was. And and even with certain things that could be better than that,
but I'm like, but then you immediately go to, I want a better experience for
everybody. And and now, you know, after throwing things together with duct tape, I
know the things we can do next time to really kinda ramp this up. It's
exactly what you did. Right? And we'll we'll continue that. As entrepreneurs, that's just what
we do. I think that that's how you get world class experience, I
(12:49):
think. One of the things I really appreciated about
the conference is Vincent teaches a certain
thing. Well, his book is The Wealth of Connections. That
his second book, that is what brought people to the conference
was connections, relationships, conversations. And then I'd be
in some of these conversations with Vincent, And people
(13:11):
didn't use these exact words, but I felt like sometimes people
would say, well, that worked for you, Vincent, but my situation is
different. And Vincent would hold steady and say, no.
If it's not different, they're all the same. You have
to build connections. You have to have conversations. It's funny because I even
wrote in the membership today, did a little breakdown on how we do this. And
(13:32):
people like, thanks for simplifying this. And I'm like, it's always simplified. It's
not a very complex theory. People just don't do it. And, yeah, I always
come back to sports analogies. And I remember covering the New York Giants, and it
was, like, ten years after they won the Super Bowl. And they were they were
talking about how they won, how they dominated in 1986.
And Bill Parcells said, we only had 20 plays
(13:53):
the entire season. We just ran those plays better than
anybody. We boost we got so good at those plays. And it's the same thing
here. When you, you know, you talk about people that build these giant businesses or
all the success, where is it I boil it down to the eighty twenty rule.
Where does it come down to? And almost every single time it came down to
the connections, the relationships, the network, how they kept
(14:14):
in touch delivered for them. So my idea with this whole thing was I don't
wanna advertise this. Like, literally from the moment I came up
with the idea, the I'm gonna do like Rocky Rocky two. I'm gonna tie one
hand behind my back, and I'm gonna do this with like, I'm gonna figure out
how to sell this thing out without promoting it, without running
ads, without doing affiliates. I want it all to be based
(14:35):
around connections and relationships and offers from that to show you
that you can create something out of thin air and based just around that,
not only sell it out, but sell it out in a way where people go,
well, this is what I got. How in the world were those hundred people in
that room like that? Like, friend's wife that didn't even come to the event just
kinda was there for a little bit. She's like, how did this thing happen? And
(14:57):
it happened because of all that work of the connection. Now you can sell a
hundred tickets and get anybody in there. You can
get the bro marketers, and you can get the people that are kinda just sleazy
or or salesy. We made the parameters clear. That's not what this is about.
You're not here to, you know, pitch people. That's not what this is
about. This is about connection. And I think that's that's where the special
(15:18):
part of it comes. But if I wasn't building my wealth of connection daily, Jody,
weekly, monthly, these things aren't possible. I think so many times the online
world, we rely on these funnels and the email lists and all the things. They're
fine, but the connection is what makes the real
special sauce to it. And I wanted to show that and prove it, and I
think there were a lot of people that when they left, they're like, oh, that's
(15:39):
how it happened. And you can build any business that way. Mhmm. It is
so good. There I'm looking at my notes right now, and
there is a was one conversation that was going on
where someone basically said, well, I need to build
something right now. And Vincent's like, you you can't. You
have to put in the work. You have to plan on this being a
(16:02):
one year process. Yeah. And so the the analogy, we use the
stadium. We we help people build their online stadium, like, coming from the sports
world where it's like, you know, you create something and you built
you give away content. You create content that brings people into the stadium, then there's
levels to that stadium. So we have multiple levels to ours often
based around recurring revenue for lifestyle freedom, which is what almost
(16:24):
everybody wants. So the whole idea of that is you don't just go to an
empty lot and say, oh, I wanna host the Super Bowl on this empty lot.
Just like, hey. I gotta build this right now. I need this right now. In
Las Vegas, the NFL would have said, you're crazy. We're not holding the Super Bowl
in this dirt lot. But if you do the work and you build the stadium,
you'll get the Super Bowl. Guess what? There was a year or two of dirty
(16:45):
work that happened. Right, to build that thing. It didn't look pretty. It
was messy. It required a lot of work. But when they hosted the Super Bowl,
they made, what, a billion dollars from it, and all they needed to do was
clean it up afterwards and then restart again. It's the stadium that it keeps
on giving. In that example, a lot of times it's desperation. I tried a couple
of things, didn't work. I need this now. Go find the ways to make money,
(17:07):
but don't don't sacrifice your art and what you're doing for short term
things. You gotta do the foundational work, which are those pillars and
everything that goes up so that you can have long term success as opposed to,
I just need to do it right now. And so that it's a hard conversation
when you when you feel like you need it, but we're looking for long term
repeatable success as opposed to just a one time thing. Getting to
(17:29):
the UN conference is Vincent just summed up what it
took. The UN conference was a long time coming. Even before Vincent
had the idea for the UN conference, he was building the
foundation for people that would get invited.
So you had to get a personal invitation from Vincent
to even buy a ticket. If he didn't think you were a fit, you weren't
(17:51):
gonna get the invitation. When it came to those 100
people that you invited, what were you looking for? How
did you know someone would be a right fit to be in the room
with the other 99 people? That's a great question. There's a handful of
things. Curiosity. So I I have phone calls with people that that were interested
because we've let people apply. It wasn't like I just reached out. People could apply,
(18:12):
we'll have conversations. Now we have a for each one. We would we love new
people that I've never met, but there's a conversation that comes beforehand.
Right? If I taught somebody for forty five minutes and they just talk about themselves
for forty five minutes, Right? They don't even ask me any and I'm running this
thing. I'm running it, and they don't even ask me any questions. What are they
gonna do with a hundred people? Same exact thing. They're gonna talk about themselves. They're
not gonna be curious. They're not gonna ask questions. They're gonna be all about themselves.
(18:36):
So weed that out. The people that are like, what's my return on
investment on this? They didn't get offers either. They're not
thinking. They don't have the right mindset yet of what the event is about. If
you're already thinking what's the ROI on this, as so many people
said, the magic is getting into the room and then things happen. Right? The
people that understand it got that. So people with the ROI question,
(18:57):
I generally didn't offer it to them unless it was a better conversation. The other
one was, you're like, will my ideal client be there? That's a
major red flag for me. So I'm creating an event
around your ideal client so you can sell to them. That's
out. No chance. So I always start every business and everything we do in
terms of who's this not for. Right? Find out who's not for. It's very easy
(19:18):
to find out who it is for. So when I establish those things, it's like,
okay. Then who is it for? People that are curious, not just people, but
entrepreneurs, people that are building businesses, people that are creative,
people that are generous and curious, people that like
other people. Also, the other thing is, like, there's a difference
between an introvert and a wallflower. Introverts are great with
(19:39):
one to one conversations. Amazing with it. They don't generally like huge crowds.
Wallflowers are people that don't like any of it, and they're
skittish and they have to be handheld. So So I had people say to me
like, what are you gonna do about the wall flowers? You know, how are you
gonna shape the event? I said, here's how I'm gonna do it. I'm not gonna
invite them. I don't want the wall flower. I don't want somebody to have to
hold by the hand and introduce them to people because they're so scared. That's
(20:03):
the type of thing. Go to an event where you can listen to speakers and
take notes. This is for people that actually want to connect with other people.
So all these things blend together. And when you get on the phone call with
somebody and they ooze all the good stuff and they don't have any of the
bad stuff and you go, you'd be a great, so then I make an offer.
Hey, I think you'd be great. And I think they also know I wasn't
(20:23):
doing it for a ticket sale because I can offer to a lot of people.
I just need to offer it to the right people and you don't always get
a hundred percent right. There's always going to be, everybody's got one person that annoyed
them. It's not perfect. Right. But you do the best you can to
make it as clean as you can for everybody else there. And I think
that's a big part of, of how we kind of weeded it out.
(20:44):
One unexpected part of the conference for me is
after meeting Vincent's wife, Elizabeth, Vincent is no
longer my favorite Puglisi. That's the way it usually works. I mean, you
meet my kids, and I'm, like, the fourth or fifth depending on how they're acting.
Yeah. Yeah. She was great. She was great. And
it was so cool to see your kids helping out and going around and meeting
(21:07):
people and serving them. And you and Elizabeth have done
well. Oh, thank you. And it's funny because you don't know everything that's going on.
So Dylan's our 13 year old, and they have these, like, cocktail tables over by
the elevator. I didn't know that Dylan was inside of
one of them because they have, like, the black, you know, tablecloths. So he was
inside of one and he was grabbing people's legs as they were walking by
(21:28):
and do so he grabbed my, I'm like, what are you doing down there? And
I'm like, that's a little, I guess, a part of the uncomfort. He's like scaring
people from under the table. I'm like, you know, that's, that's a little bit of
the unexpected surprise you're going to get when you come. Yeah. It's hysterical.
That's right. Well, I feel like you
accomplished what you meant to accomplish. You took a conference
(21:50):
and you unconferenced it. Do you feel
you accomplished what you were trying? How does it feel now that you've
pulled this event off? That's a great question. It it you know, it's funny because
I am I don't like giving myself credit on things. So
I'm always because as you can tell from the conference, I'm always looking for how
do we make this better. But and I don't know if you heard it. You
(22:11):
know, I've got to do a lot of things in my career. Right? Especially when
it came to photography and the the things I got to do and people got
to I got to hang out with. And I said to everybody, this was a
top three moment in my career, if not
higher, to be able to come up with an idea, to work
with my wife on this, to have so many people that we care
about in the room together, People that believed in an idea that there was
(22:34):
no there was no, like, guarantee of success. Like, this
is trusting in me to do something that we haven't done before. And you're gonna
get on a plane from Seattle or from New York City or from
Texas, you know, or, like, Tim, no four hours north of
Edmonton. And you're gonna be coming here. You're gonna spend the money on a plane
ticket, on hotels, and to trust in me and for it to go the
(22:55):
way that it went. And all the social media posts that were done, all the
comments and messages I got, gifts, cards. Yeah.
I have to say it went it went beyond what I could have ever hoped
for. And at the same time, knowing we could do it so much better.
Yeah. Well, that's this is great. I I just wanted to do a
little review of the Unconference because it was unlike any
(23:17):
other conference that I've been to. It very much had your
personality to it, meaning it was unconventional.
It wasn't like what you're gonna see elsewhere. It wasn't Vincent doing a
conference to do a conference because that would give him status.
It really was just bringing
100 fabulous people together. And I'll tell you
(23:39):
the two more quick pieces, Vincent. I
found it was because you brought so
many curious people there. There were times it would be hard to
find out much about other people because I would start to talk to
someone and they kept asking me questions. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm trying to
find out about you. So forget about me for a moment. But
(24:01):
that's a testament to the type of people that were there. And
also, I will tell you, I am really good one on
one, one on two. I can talk all day. Put me in
front of a crowd. You put me on stage in front of a hundred people.
I can talk all day. No problem. My least favorite
situation is to just put me in a room and
(24:22):
say, okay, here's twenty, thirty, forty, fifty people. Now go meet them.
I do terrible. Terrible. So you
created that situation a couple of times where you just put a hundred
strangers in a room and said, now go meet each other. And I'm like,
Vincent, I do not like this. But you found a
way to make it a little more comfortable. And I can think
(24:44):
of three people I met in that situation that
I've been in contact with since the conference. And maybe I
wouldn't have met them otherwise, but you kind of forced that. And I didn't like
it at the time, but I appreciate it. It's funny. You said that because mark
Foster came out to me and he goes, I didn't like when you did that,
but it was absolutely what I needed. And you're saying the same thing and it
(25:04):
wasn't even me. It was Dustin Heider. It was a part of the conference and,
and he runs his own. He was a real estate conference. He does. And he
came up to me because we basically said that first hour is going to be
about the connection. We want you to meet different people. And I was going to
let it go for an hour. And he came up to me and he goes,
all right. And he's like, can I give you some advice? I said, absolutely. He
goes, okay. About five minutes, stop it and tell them they need to
(25:25):
stop who they're talking to and meet someone else. And I was like, I don't
want to do that. So I don't want to do, I want, because there's not
only are they going to meet different people, but also some people are going to
be stuck in conversations they don't want to be in. And this is a way
for them to separate. So I did that and I saw the looks I was
getting, I was kind of getting a little like, what are you doing here? And
I was like, no. And then we did it one more time. And I had
a bunch of people come up to me and said, I would not have met
(25:47):
these other people if it wasn't for them. So that's interesting. You said that, but
also to your first point, the whole point of this is not for the
conference to end the unconference to end when the sun sets. Right? We got the
trolley down to the beach, watch sun. It wasn't for it to end then. It
was for it to be a beginning for you guys. You had these conversations, and
now we want to expand your network. What's really fun to watch
(26:08):
Jody is the social media for the last week since then. All these people that
did not know each other are now interacting with each other on their
content, on their posts. They're supporting each other. They never would have
met. And everybody's engagement is going higher because one everybody's
involved with one another. And now, as you said, you're having conversations with people that
you met. It's supposed to be the beginning, but without that,
(26:31):
those deep conversations to start, it's really hard to get those conversations
going. So in that aspect that it really accomplished, what we're hoping for is to
keep going with that in terms of the more you build your connections, your networks
with great people. Like I say all the time, all you need is one great
connection. All you need is one great idea and a wealth of connection. That's
all I need, Because now these people are gonna wanna support you. They're gonna wanna
(26:53):
promote you, help you, connect you as opposed to I have all these ideas, but
I don't really connect with people. I want them just to buy stuff. It doesn't
work that way, especially this day and age anymore. Everybody's just tired of lead magnets.
They're tired of all the stuff that goes with it. It's all about the connections.
And I think, you know, that's what it was meant to do.
Alright. Maybe we'll have Vincent back again. Vincent's been on
(27:14):
so many times. Like a couple of years ago, we did that experiment where we
did five episodes in five days. That was fun. So Vincent is
a familiar voice to the Jody Mayberry show, so I'm sure he'll be
back. But, Vincent, where can we go to find out more about you and connect
with you? Yeah. LinkedIn and Facebook are my two social media places
that I'm most active at. I can send you links if you want to share
(27:35):
that. And also our websites, my membership, freedom.com. We didn't talk about that, but that's
our, that's our main business. The young conference comes underneath that. So my membership,
freedom.com, I wrote a book called the wealth of connection that we talked about. I
give the audio away for free. It's right there, prominent on the website. I could
share it with Jody to share with you as well, but that's the best way.
Alright. Thank you, Vincent, and thank you for listening to the Jody
(27:56):
Mayberry Show.
Metaphorically, he's the man. It's
Sugar Jay.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.