November 19, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, we sit down with Dan Hoffman—founder, CEO, and president of Circl.es—to unpack the surprising truth behind real leadership growth: it happens in small circles, not big rooms. Dan traces his path from building M5 Networks and navigating a tough public-company chapter, to a life-changing sabbatical in Barcelona that reframed how he thinks about success.
He introduces a simple but powerful idea: small, curated peer forums help people live and lead better. We explore why five to ten diverse peers, structured conversations, professional facilitation, and a hybrid cadence anchored by in-person retreats consistently outperform traditional corporate learning. Dan breaks down how Circle Space uses data, design, and psychological safety to scale authentic connection—echoing research like Google’s Project Aristotle on trust, equal airtime, and vulnerability.
Beyond the frameworks, Dan opens up about how forums shaped his own choices, taught him to listen more than speak, and strengthened him as a leader, partner, and human. If you’ve ever wondered whether a peer forum could help you grow—or what it feels like to sit in a truly safe circle—this conversation might be your invitation.
If you enjoy the episode, follow the show, share it with someone who leads teams, and leave a quick review to help bring more leaders into circles where growth becomes a habit.
Please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com to learn more about Mo Fathelbab and International Facilitators Organization (IFO), a leading provider of facilitators and related group facilitation services, providing training, certification, marketing services, education, and community for peer group facilitators at all stages of their career.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:10):
Welcome to the Heart of Business Podcast, sponsored
by International FacilitatorsOrganization, the Marketplace
for Facilitators.
I'm your host, Mo Fat Lobat, andtoday I'm excited to have our
guest, Dan Hoffman, CEO,founder, and president of Circle
Space.
Dan, welcome to our program.
Great to have you with us.
Thanks for having me, Mo.
(00:31):
It's great to be with you.
So, Dan, we go back what uh 25years perhaps when you first
joined EO was it?
Who's counting?
SPEAKER_00 (00:40):
That's right.
That's right.
And uh you made a massive changein my life by training me for a
forum.
You were my first forum trainer.
SPEAKER_03 (00:52):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So let's go back to uh thatmoment when you joined EO.
What was your business then?
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
I had a few failures.
Um, and all of them were metaking credit for uh some
techies uh from MIT that were uhdeep into the internet boom.
I got to be the front man forthat band.
(01:22):
Um and we had come up with anidea to do phone calls over the
internet.
Um, and we were replacing theneed to buy a telephone system
for your office by putting it inthe cloud.
And the company was called M5Networks.
And we had just gotten to amillion in revenue, and I
immediately tried to join Leo.
SPEAKER_03 (01:43):
Amazing.
I remember the name now, M5Networks.
So that was the originalvoiceover IP technology.
Is that is that we're using backthen?
We were one of the pioneers.
We got in early, uh yeah, yeah,amazing.
And how long did you have thatbusiness?
12 years.
12 years.
SPEAKER_00 (02:01):
So we yeah, we started it on our own steam and
then took venture capital afterabout five, six years.
SPEAKER_03 (02:09):
Um that was a great round of amazing, amazing.
And was that your very firstbusiness or just the first
business uh after college, so tospeak?
SPEAKER_00 (02:19):
Um it wasn't.
I uh had one other business withthese same guys um that started
as a business school projectwhen I learned I took a class on
how to value a business.
I had no idea uh about thatmath.
(02:43):
And you needed to find a companyto value.
And I had these friends I playedmusic with in New York City.
Um, I was at uh business schoolin Philadelphia.
Um, and I said, My gosh, guys,I'm doing this math, and I think
you're worth$12.3 million.
And they had a big partnerfight.
(03:05):
One of the lessons I learnedthen was always have a partner
agreement because if you're fourpartners with 25 each, and two
of you hate the other two.
Um two of them wanted to goforward.
This was an early internetaccess business, and I thought
that was a great idea, and Ifound an investor, and two of
(03:26):
them said, no, we hate you toomuch, we're getting out.
Um, and they were deadlocked.
And uh in the end, that businessuh they found an offer from a
strategic for about 12 million,exactly what we thought.
Um, but you know, sisterparallel companies were getting
(03:46):
100 million, 150, you know.
Um, anyway, uh so they decidednot to take take my offer.
Uh but one of the investors thatI had brought in uh invited me
to look for businesses.
We started one that was calledAsia Online.
We raised 144 million dollarsand spent it all and went to
(04:08):
zero.
SPEAKER_03 (04:09):
Amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
So that was that was experience two, and experience
three was M5 Networks, whichworked out in the end.
SPEAKER_03 (04:16):
Yeah.
And then from there you decidedto start circles.
So uh, or is it that was theoriginal name?
So tell us about that ventureand tell us what you're all are
up to now.
SPEAKER_00 (04:27):
Yeah.
So uh after we sold M5 to apublic company, I was named as
the successor to the CEO thatdid the deal.
So I was going to be the CEO ofthis uh small cap NASDAQ
company.
And instead, the Game of Thronesbegan.
SPEAKER_02 (04:48):
Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
And as an entrepreneur, uh I had not um
trained in elbow fighting inclose quarters with boards.
Uh, my CEO partner who had donethe deal, he gave us half of our
his market cap, uh, was removedby the board.
Um, and so I had gone throughabout six months of honeymoon,
then six months of uh cage matchfighting, and then six months of
(05:15):
oh, this is not gonna end well.
Um, and after 18 months, I wrotea two-word uh resignation
letter.
I quit.
And I was very sad, Mo.
I mean, I I I was really uhexcited about this future to
grow our business as a publiccompany, um, as a CEO.
(05:38):
Uh I I had thought that's what Ireally wanted.
And so I went, uh it was thesummer, I went to go off the
internet for a couple of months.
Um, and then my wife and I,Julie, decided to take our kids
to Spain for a two-yearsabbatical and kind of figure
out what I would do if I grewup.
Um, the girls were young, it wasa perfect time, it was a magical
(06:00):
run in Barcelona, and I got tocome up with what became Circle
Space.
SPEAKER_03 (06:05):
So you're one of the uh what I'm gonna call Barcelona
clan, because that becausethere's a bunch of you wonderful
people who decided to uh movethere or spend uh a couple of
years there.
And you know, it's reallyinteresting to me because having
been to Spain and to Europe ingeneral, I know that it's it's
it's a little different than ourmentality here in the US in in
(06:28):
many ways.
Uh just from your ownperspective, how has it shaped
you, your family, and what wayshave you experienced it changing
you?
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
We've learned so much by being in another
culture.
Um and uh, you know, even thevalue of just sitting around for
hours and hours on a weekend asfamily and talking, um, in
contrast to the fast pace ofwhere I live now in Brooklyn,
where you have to schedule outeveryone's half hour to catch
(07:02):
up.
Um but you know, veryspecifically, being having that
kind of time in a differentculture, in a different place,
really lets you reinventyourself, really lets you think
bigger thoughts.
And the image that I think ofwhen I think back to that time
is the Sagrada Familia, thiscathedral in the center of
(07:26):
Barcelona, which is builtdifferently than every other
church in the world, which is abox, right?
Um, Sagrada Familia is spiralsand animals and different
psychedelic lighting when youwalk in and you just I had the
(07:47):
overwhelming impression that uheverything doesn't have to be so
similar, that there's you canbreak the mole, and and it it is
an invitation to be creative andto be different and to help
literally shape the world, theworld differently.
And so there's a lot ofenergized entrepreneurs,
(08:09):
artists, design people clustereduh around Barcelona.
Um, it's a fantastic place to uhcome up with the next chapter.
SPEAKER_03 (08:18):
So two years of uh free time with your family, and
boom, you get the idea of circlespace.
Tell us more about how the ideacame to you.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
Well, uh it was about a year in, and I was
getting anxious.
Um, one of my friends uh is anentrepreneur was visiting, and
she said, Don't be anxious.
It's like falling in love again.
You think you think you won't,but then you do.
SPEAKER_03 (08:46):
But you will.
SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
But you will.
I knew that I wanted to dosomething in learning and
development.
It was maybe the part of my CEOjob that I liked the best.
Building a learning culture,growing humans, being part,
being a part of that.
And and I really believe thatcompanies grow as quickly as
(09:07):
their people do, often we're thebottleneck.
Um and yet the typical trappingsof learning and development
inside companies are lame.
Um you ask managers to doone-on-ones, but they're not
good coaches.
You have a corporate universitymade of slides, they're out of
(09:30):
date the minute you write them.
You bring in an inspirationalspeaker who's forgotten two days
later.
Um, but in my life, and I had alot of coaches and courses and
even consultants, a forum wasthe number one growth
(09:50):
experience, developmentexperience.
Um and so I digged and zaggedaround this learning and
development space.
I invested, I volunteered, Iread books, I called the
authors, I was learning abouteverything that was going on in
education technology.
And then one day it hit me.
The answer was right under mynose.
(10:12):
Why doesn't everyone in theworld have a forum?
SPEAKER_03 (10:17):
Okay, so you're preaching to the choir, as you
know.
And uh, for listeners of thispodcast, uh, they already should
know what a forum is, but theymay not, because maybe we have
someone new uh listening.
So maybe Dan, in your words,let's start with what is a
forum?
SPEAKER_00 (10:39):
The way I've come to describe it, Maul, is it's five
to ten people, maybe a dozenpeers who come together
regularly in a facilitatedstructure to help each other
lead better lives.
(11:03):
Another way to think about it isI trust in with powerful help
out.
SPEAKER_03 (11:12):
I love that.
I love that.
And for context, how long haveyou been in forum?
How many forums have you beenin?
How long have they lasted foryou?
SPEAKER_00 (11:23):
Well, uh, the original one you're creating me
for was my first forumexperience.
It was an EO forum.
Um, and that lasted four or fiveyears, something like that.
It overlapped with my joiningYPO.
Um, I'm in my original YPO forumto this day.
We're having our 20thanniversary this year.
(11:47):
Amazing.
Um, which is amazing.
One of the things I noticedalong the way is that there are
other flavors of forum.
There are cousins of forum.
You know, small groups are asold as campfires.
And once I was out of M5, I havewhat I consider one of the
(12:08):
luckiest breaks of my life.
I was picked for a fellowship atthe Aspen Institute.
And guess what?
It's done as a forum.
It's a peer, small, peer group.
Um, I just had my 11th annualretreat with that group last
weekend.
Um and I noticed uh, you know,all of these groups have very,
(12:32):
very similar things.
I've been kind of a geek atstudying lots of different, I
call them forum traditionsoutside of YPO and EO2.
And the Aspen's Fellowship is agreat one.
Uh and then other groups, youknow, in my work at Circle
Space, um there were eight guysin Barcelona that helped me come
(12:56):
up with the plan.
They're all investors.
We formed a forum that meets tothis day.
Um, and literally I have a groupof 10 college roommates going
back even farther.
Uh, they don't think ofthemselves as a forum, but when
we're together, uh I pull outsome forum tricks.
And in addition to the uh, we'regonna go see a Spinal Tap 2
(13:19):
that's coming out this weekendbecause Spinal Tap One was like
the iconic movie of our collegeyears.
Um, it's just really funny.
In addition to that, we'll besitting around in the circle and
doing updates.
Um, so you know, you start tosee forms everywhere.
SPEAKER_03 (13:35):
Okay, well, so you are uh a devotee as I am, and I
know that and I love it.
Maybe uh again uh for ouraudience's sake, in what ways
has form affected you?
SPEAKER_01 (13:48):
In what ways has it impacted your life?
SPEAKER_00 (13:58):
I think uh there's different there's different
levels.
There's this I can tell youstories of the specific
decisions where I've gone leftinstead of right.
I'd love to if you're willing.
Well, sure.
Um do I sell my company?
SPEAKER_02 (14:15):
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
So that decision was very difficult for me at M5.
It was very personal.
Um, you know, and I I tell thebusiness story of it, which is
sort of the public story.
Yes, telephone systems weregoing away, and we saw it
because we're so brilliant, andwe found a strategic and we sold
the company just in time.
(14:37):
Um, I can tell a level deeperabout the venture capitalists
that we were seven years in andneeded their money back and
we're threatening, you know,ready to go, um, and that
narrative.
But when you get formconfidential, and it really
comes down to my decision, youcan't talk to the venture
capitalists and you can't eventalk to your family, really.
(14:59):
You can't even talk to yourfriends about such a decision
because there's so everyone hasan agenda around you at that
minute.
And to share stories with otherentrepreneurs about um giving up
uh uh a part of your life, aboutembracing a change, about
(15:22):
letting it burn down.
I mean, I had just been toBurning Man, and one of the
metaphors of Burning Man inCalifornia is you build
beautiful art and you burn itdown because nothing lasts
forever.
Um and my forum helped me sortof be personally brave because
we knew that, you know, not thatit it wouldn't it wouldn't last.
(15:45):
You're lying to yourself if youthink that all the employees are
gonna stay, you're lying toyourself if you think all the
customers are gonna be happy, orlying to yourself if you think
you're even owned career.
I mean, how many entrepreneursdo we know that are miserable
selling into the, you know, youhear that story again and again
when they get what right?
So um what my forum helped me dothere was let go and then be
(16:07):
brave enough to say, yeah, youcould have a whole other chapter
in the book.
Um, and I don't think I wouldhave made that decision or
certainly navigated it withoutthem.
So that was just one personal uhdecision, and there are many,
many, many I love that.
SPEAKER_03 (16:22):
I love that.
What a great story.
So back to uh circle space.
So you started circle spacebecause you so believe in the
power of forum and uh and and weshare this mission that we
believe every human being uhshould be or deserves to be in
one of these forums.
In what ways do you think thatmight impact uh those human
(16:45):
beings?
In what ways do you think thatmight have a greater impact uh
on our world as a whole?
SPEAKER_01 (16:54):
I think you're very woo-woo about this.
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
Good.
I think uh that humanity'soverall consciousness is on a
path of growth and development.
I'm an optimist.
Yeah, and I think there's a lotof things happening um across
the planet that are really signsfor optimism.
(17:19):
And I believe that even thoughthere's fear is on the rise too,
um I think love is on the rise.
And uh, you know, many peoplevery popular among entrepreneurs
to uh sit and mindfulness uh andand meditate, um, become aware
(17:39):
of consciousness, so become veryself-reflective.
We're all very um educated anduh you know conscious.
I think forum is the equivalentof doing that in a group of
people.
Um I think the forum teaches youwhat trust actually means, how
to operationalize trust, whichis very close to love.
(18:04):
It's the link and theconnection.
I think it, you know, it's notjust a word.
It teaches you that showing upevery meeting on time for each
other.
It teaches you thatvulnerability and openness that
makes that connection.
And it teaches you what it is totranscend your own ego and care
(18:25):
about someone else.
It's a practice in caringsomeone else.
Like I said, forum is abouthelping each other lead better
lives.
And that that practice is reallypowerful.
So uh when you're doing thoseforum practices regularly,
you're getting better atbuilding trust, you're getting
better at caring for others,which makes you a better leader,
(18:46):
a better manager, but also makesyou better in your family, makes
you a better friend.
Um, and it makes you a bettercitizen.
SPEAKER_03 (18:53):
You know, I love the way you put all that.
Um, one of the things for methat has been illuminating is
just seeing how somebody whomight be seemingly very
different than me, someone who Imay not have gravitated to
naturally, has so much to teachme.
SPEAKER_00 (19:15):
I think of, you know, professionally now we're
we're matching forums at scaleand fronting lots of data about
who works in a forum with who.
Uh, we're dealing withpopulations outside of EO and
what, you know, YPO whereeverybody's already appear.
Um, and the way I think about itsimply is diverse peers.
SPEAKER_03 (19:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (19:39):
Diverse peers.
So there's a sense of peerinessthat you have to get to, but
then the diversity fuels thelearning.
SPEAKER_03 (19:46):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (19:46):
Uh, and and that's really an amazing process to
watch.
SPEAKER_03 (19:51):
You know, it's interesting, even when you go
back to your group of collegefriends, that uh you are saying
uh, you know, is similar, hasbecome similar to a forum, I'm
sure, thanks to you.
Um, at some point, maybe thediversity wasn't so much there.
Uh, but because you've grownseparately since you graduated,
(20:11):
uh I'm sure that's brought a lotof diversity that you didn't
have when you started.
SPEAKER_00 (20:17):
Totally.
Um, and I think that's where thelearning was.
I mean, that that's where we're,you know, we will sit around and
need to learn from our journeys,those who've had kids, those who
didn't have kids, those who areuh in working inside companies,
those who are working outsidecompanies, um, those who are in
different parts of the country.
We're coming together from allover.
(20:38):
And that like we start talkingabout Spain versus uh US, you
know, the cult, the cultural.
And if you can really look at aquestion that maybe we all share
um around this stage of life.
So for example, everybody'stalking about wellness, you
know, you get a bunch of olderguys together, we're talking
about our injuries andillnesses, but but then you look
at it from all those diversepoints of view, you you learn
(21:02):
something, you learn somethingnew from shared experiences that
um you know I can't get fromChat GPT.
SPEAKER_03 (21:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Uh I'm loving this conversation.
So I want to go back to thebeginning.
When did you know that you mightbe an entrepreneur someday?
When was this park?
What what created this park?
SPEAKER_00 (21:25):
When was this condition diagnosed?
I think I was always uh veryentrepreneurial in that I was I
(21:46):
was looking for shortcuts, I waslooking for things outside
outside of the system.
Um and I was drawn to chaos.
So in my first, you know, comingcoming uh out of college, it was
a time when uh but EasternEurope was in chaos, um, or the
(22:10):
wall had fallen.
Uh and I was drawn to study allof this because the professors
knew nothing anymore.
All the books were thrown outthe window.
Um and all these, and I didRussia studies and I worked over
there, and it was superfascinating.
Um I I then started to noticewhat business was, maybe for the
(22:34):
first time.
Um, and I decided that Russiawas a pretty scary place to uh
to do business, unless youwanted to work at a big company.
Um so I uh decided to go backand go get a business degree and
learn about business, thinking Iwould go back to Moscow and um
(22:56):
try again in a few years.
Um and I did that, and then itwas even scarier, and the
internet had started, and theinternet was chaos, and
everybody had thrown out theirhow-to books and thought that
this was a time for new businessmodels.
And so um now we're connectedback with that valuation class,
and that was maybe the lastpuzzle piece.
(23:18):
I was like, wow, you can do amillion dollars of revenue and
then sell it for six milliondollars.
This is very interesting math.
I think I could do that, andthat was sort of the last piece.
Um, and I was on my way uh as anentrepreneur.
SPEAKER_03 (23:32):
And anybody in your family before you that was
entrepreneurial that might havegiven you any uh inkling of, oh,
maybe this is a concept?
SPEAKER_00 (23:41):
You know, a pop-up, grandpa Ben Finkelstein, was um
in the rag business in New York.
And uh I really wasn't aware ofit growing up, but you know,
these things skip a generation.
Um lots of stories about himgoing uh bankrupt and the
factory closing and more at fivefactories and open up and down.
(24:02):
And um, I don't know.
He was an interesting guy.
Uh he started by coming overfrom Russia to Cuba, where he
sold uh Eskimo pies by the portout of a refrigerated box that
he wore around his neck.
And so I always I don't know,maybe those things uh are in in
DNA or got under my skin.
SPEAKER_03 (24:24):
Oh, what a great story.
I love that.
So as you got started, uh one ofthe things you just said is
you're drawn to chaos.
So do you believe business isalways chaos, or is it about
trying to tame the chaos, or areyou happy in the chaos because
we need chaos to change?
(24:44):
Yeah, it's opportunity, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (24:48):
Um and I like uh maximum creativity, maximum
problem solving, brainstormingis my love language.
Uh so you know, and then ofcourse, one of the things you
learn as you build uh businessesand start to get to a little bit
of scale is you need some peoplearound you that are really good
(25:08):
at taming the chaos and andputting structure in.
So it, you know, know whatyou're know what you're good at,
know what you're not.
But yeah, no, I think I buildingcompanies, building in markets
that are changing very quicklyis uh is where it's at, my happy
place.
SPEAKER_03 (25:27):
I love that.
So back to circle space and ourshared mission of uh providing
this incredible life-changingopportunity to everyone out
there.
Because really, I I don't knowwhy anybody wouldn't do this.
I I actually uh asked myselfthis question all day long.
Why would somebody not want tobe in one of these forums?
And and I, you know, I'd love toknow from our audience out there
(25:49):
if this is uh the kind of thingthat you just don't think is for
you as to why that would be.
Having said that, Dan, uh whatis the uh full service suite of
Circle Space?
Uh, how do people find you andand and who's the target
audience?
SPEAKER_00 (26:05):
Yeah.
Well, um, we've we've spent umbeen at it for about seven years
and and we have digged and wehave zagged and we keep building
and improving our technology.
Um, I really think that the thetechnology is kind of an
important backbone for scalingand making this more accessible
and having high qualityexperiences consistently.
(26:28):
So I'm also a technologist, soeverything is a nails to my
hammer, right?
Um so we we we've been working,we've worked in communities.
We were on 50 college campusesduring COVID.
We've worked inside manycompanies like DuPont and
Salesforce and Meta and uhdifferent smaller businesses.
(26:48):
Um and we keep looking for avery scalable model because I I
think one of the beautifulthings about forum is it's very
possible to run a few forums orrun one.
Um but uh how do we make how dowe spent them by the hundreds
and thousands?
Uh and about three years ago, Igot a call from home, YPO.
(27:15):
Um as I mentioned, one of my twobig inspirations for you know,
YPO Forum and Aspen Fellowshipswere in my life the two
brightest lights.
Uh and someone in one of thevertical industry groups, a
manufacturing group at YPO, uhasked whether we could pass
(27:38):
forum on to the people that workfor us.
SPEAKER_03 (27:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
So fast forward, we are spending a lot of our
company cycles now building whatthey call the YPO Key Associate
Forum program.
Um and that's been anopportunity to bring it all
together.
So our forums have threedistinct features.
Um, one is they are curated, asI mentioned.
(28:03):
So we've taken five, six hundredYPO nominees.
You have to be nominated, CFOs,COOs, um, and people inheriting
the family business.
They're different slices, and wematch them into forums.
Um, we're doing this three timesa year.
So curated.
Uh, the second is they'refacilitated.
(28:24):
So there's a professionalfacilitator in every session.
That's a bit different than theYPO model, self-moderation.
Um, and the third is thatthey're hybrid, meaning, much as
a software guy, I would love tobuild a purely virtual
experience.
There is nothing like, and Ican't argue with the data, there
(28:46):
is nothing like being together.
Um, and so in our forums, youspend about a third of the year
uh learning forum in our virtualtechnology platform, and then
you go on a two-day retreattogether.
Um, and that deepens theexperience, that deepens the
connection, and then you canspend the rest of the year uh
(29:08):
implementing and rinse andrepeat like rings of a tree.
These forms are renewing yearyear after year.
And so that mix of that hybridmix allows you the best of both
worlds because you can matchpeople globally and make some
really diverse peer groups.
But uh you also do get to takethis one trip together, which
(29:30):
for many people is the absolutehighlight of the experience.
SPEAKER_03 (29:33):
You know, I want to just double down on the global
matching piece because uh youmight remember this, but in
2019, uh a little company by thename of Google knocked on our
door and said we'd like to puttogether groups for uh
underrepresented minorities.
But you know what they said,Dan?
They said, but we want it donevirtually.
And what I said, I said we'venever done this virtually.
(29:54):
This is October 2019.
Right.
And they said we don't care.
Of course, we started thesegroups virtually, and one of the
incredible byproducts that I didnot see coming was to have a
group with a member in Dublinand a member in Rio and a member
in Lagos, Nigeria, and of coursethe rest in you know California
somewhere, but or New York.
(30:15):
But it was really uh quiteeye-opening.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
That that's phenomenal.
Were the roles diverse as well,or were they all software
engineers or all salespeers?
SPEAKER_03 (30:24):
No, there was some diversity in the roles as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They have to be within a similarlevel.
Again, back to the concept oftheir peers.
You know, there still has to bea group of peers.
SPEAKER_00 (30:35):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's fantastic.
And you know, one of the mostinfluential pieces of research
for me along the way came out ofGoogle when they did their
Aristotle project on what makesteams effective.
Um, and that rhymed with someother research, uh, Anita
Woolley at Carnegie Mellon anduh uh Sandy uh Blanco's last
(30:58):
name from MIT, showing basicallythat the techniques of forum are
what powers effective teams.
SPEAKER_02 (31:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:07):
Really powerful turn taking, equal airtime,
vulnerability.
These were the things that theGoogle study showed.
Um, and so it must be incredibleto have that experience working
within Google now.
SPEAKER_03 (31:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And it is really nice to seethat these tools work in so many
other places.
Uh, I'm curious how have youapplied uh these tools in other
places?
I'm curious outside of work,outside of your professional
growth, uh how has the languageof forum shaped you, Dan
(31:39):
Hoffman?
SPEAKER_00 (31:41):
Um, it's funny.
You know, I'm I'm I'm such afanboy of yours, but um I, you
know, you're you're the one guyin the world that's expert both
on forum and friendship,friendship advantage, right?
And um I think it's a fantasticconversation between these two.
So short answer is um I'm abetter friend, I think.
(32:04):
Um professional friend, personalfriend, uh, better at listening,
better at helping, better atbeing vulnerable to connect.
Um I asked the same questiontoo, uh, you know, we in the
insurance industry has what Icall forum tradition called
study groups.
It's fascinating.
And um, we did a program withthe insurance industry trade
(32:26):
association.
We called them study groups.
I asked a member this samequestion you asked me, how has
this changed you?
And he had the best answer ever.
He said, I talk less.
SPEAKER_03 (32:37):
Ha ha.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
You know, Dan, uh, it's been apleasure.
And I just want to double downon what you just said.
One of the one of the verypowerful lessons that we don't
really talk about overtly ismaking your point concisely and
not just rambling on.
Because at the end of the day,people stop listening.
(32:58):
There's more ADHD, there'swhatever.
Um, and so make your point.
Period.
SPEAKER_00 (33:06):
Period.
It it forum is like a dojo forcommunication skills, you know?
Um, stories, telling stories.
I every time I give an update inforum, I think, oh, I could have
told that story better.
Right.
Um, questions.
SPEAKER_01 (33:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (33:24):
How do you how do you craft a prompt?
Maybe we should call themprompts now, right?
Um but these are just and andlistening, of course, the other
side of that equation.
These are the skill the coremolecules, the core skills of of
uh of work, of life.
SPEAKER_03 (33:43):
Absolutely.
Um, last question.
If somebody is consideringjoining a forum anywhere,
whether it's this platform, thisorganization, anywhere.
Uh, but they have somehesitation.
What would you say to thatperson who's a little hesitant,
a little worried, a littleapprehensive?
SPEAKER_00 (34:09):
Think back on your life, all the times you've
leaned into that discomfort, andhow you know that's a signpost
for growth and development.
Right?
If you're a little nervous aboutit, go go forward.
Um, it's safe, the water's warm,come come on in.
(34:30):
I uh I I I think uh you the wayyou're describing is most
people.
It's weird sound.
It's very, it's very hard to uhhave someone understand what
form is with without doing it.
You and I both tried it.
Um and uh I you know I thinkjust do it, just try it.
It's uh look around at all thepeople you meet.
(34:53):
And and I think there's probablya few hundred thousand by my
count in the world now who arein forums, uh going on a billion
with the IFO website.
Um so you know, get get on geton the train, get join the
party.
SPEAKER_03 (35:10):
Join the party.
Uh spoken like a trueentrepreneur.
If you feel that fear, it meansyou need to go forward.
Amazing conversation, DanHoffman.
Thank you so much.
Thank you to our audience.
And as a reminder, podcastreviews have a real impact on
our visibility.
So please leave a review if youlike the episode.
Thank you for listening and havea great day.
Welcome to the Heart of Business Podcast, sponsored
by International FacilitatorsOrganization, the Marketplace
for Facilitators.
I'm your host, Mo Fat Lobat, andtoday I'm excited to have our
guest, Dan Hoffman, CEO,founder, and president of Circle
Space.
Dan, welcome to our program.
Great to have you with us.
Thanks for having me, Mo.
(00:31):
It's great to be with you.
So, Dan, we go back what uh 25years perhaps when you first
joined EO was it?
Who's counting?
SPEAKER_00 (00:40):
That's right.
That's right.
And uh you made a massive changein my life by training me for a
forum.
You were my first forum trainer.
SPEAKER_03 (00:52):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So let's go back to uh thatmoment when you joined EO.
What was your business then?
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
I had a few failures.
Um, and all of them were metaking credit for uh some
techies uh from MIT that were uhdeep into the internet boom.
I got to be the front man forthat band.
(01:22):
Um and we had come up with anidea to do phone calls over the
internet.
Um, and we were replacing theneed to buy a telephone system
for your office by putting it inthe cloud.
And the company was called M5Networks.
And we had just gotten to amillion in revenue, and I
immediately tried to join Leo.
SPEAKER_03 (01:43):
Amazing.
I remember the name now, M5Networks.
So that was the originalvoiceover IP technology.
Is that is that we're using backthen?
We were one of the pioneers.
We got in early, uh yeah, yeah,amazing.
And how long did you have thatbusiness?
12 years.
12 years.
SPEAKER_00 (02:01):
So we yeah, we started it on our own steam and
then took venture capital afterabout five, six years.
SPEAKER_03 (02:09):
Um that was a great round of amazing, amazing.
And was that your very firstbusiness or just the first
business uh after college, so tospeak?
SPEAKER_00 (02:19):
Um it wasn't.
I uh had one other business withthese same guys um that started
as a business school projectwhen I learned I took a class on
how to value a business.
I had no idea uh about thatmath.
(02:43):
And you needed to find a companyto value.
And I had these friends I playedmusic with in New York City.
Um, I was at uh business schoolin Philadelphia.
Um, and I said, My gosh, guys,I'm doing this math, and I think
you're worth$12.3 million.
And they had a big partnerfight.
(03:05):
One of the lessons I learnedthen was always have a partner
agreement because if you're fourpartners with 25 each, and two
of you hate the other two.
Um two of them wanted to goforward.
This was an early internetaccess business, and I thought
that was a great idea, and Ifound an investor, and two of
(03:26):
them said, no, we hate you toomuch, we're getting out.
Um, and they were deadlocked.
And uh in the end, that businessuh they found an offer from a
strategic for about 12 million,exactly what we thought.
Um, but you know, sisterparallel companies were getting
(03:46):
100 million, 150, you know.
Um, anyway, uh so they decidednot to take take my offer.
Uh but one of the investors thatI had brought in uh invited me
to look for businesses.
We started one that was calledAsia Online.
We raised 144 million dollarsand spent it all and went to
(04:08):
zero.
SPEAKER_03 (04:09):
Amazing.
SPEAKER_00 (04:10):
So that was that was experience two, and experience
three was M5 Networks, whichworked out in the end.
SPEAKER_03 (04:16):
Yeah.
And then from there you decidedto start circles.
So uh, or is it that was theoriginal name?
So tell us about that ventureand tell us what you're all are
up to now.
SPEAKER_00 (04:27):
Yeah.
So uh after we sold M5 to apublic company, I was named as
the successor to the CEO thatdid the deal.
So I was going to be the CEO ofthis uh small cap NASDAQ
company.
And instead, the Game of Thronesbegan.
SPEAKER_02 (04:48):
Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
And as an entrepreneur, uh I had not um
trained in elbow fighting inclose quarters with boards.
Uh, my CEO partner who had donethe deal, he gave us half of our
his market cap, uh, was removedby the board.
Um, and so I had gone throughabout six months of honeymoon,
then six months of uh cage matchfighting, and then six months of
(05:15):
oh, this is not gonna end well.
Um, and after 18 months, I wrotea two-word uh resignation
letter.
I quit.
And I was very sad, Mo.
I mean, I I I was really uhexcited about this future to
grow our business as a publiccompany, um, as a CEO.
(05:38):
Uh I I had thought that's what Ireally wanted.
And so I went, uh it was thesummer, I went to go off the
internet for a couple of months.
Um, and then my wife and I,Julie, decided to take our kids
to Spain for a two-yearsabbatical and kind of figure
out what I would do if I grewup.
Um, the girls were young, it wasa perfect time, it was a magical
(06:00):
run in Barcelona, and I got tocome up with what became Circle
Space.
SPEAKER_03 (06:05):
So you're one of the uh what I'm gonna call Barcelona
clan, because that becausethere's a bunch of you wonderful
people who decided to uh movethere or spend uh a couple of
years there.
And you know, it's reallyinteresting to me because having
been to Spain and to Europe ingeneral, I know that it's it's
it's a little different than ourmentality here in the US in in
(06:28):
many ways.
Uh just from your ownperspective, how has it shaped
you, your family, and what wayshave you experienced it changing
you?
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
We've learned so much by being in another
culture.
Um and uh, you know, even thevalue of just sitting around for
hours and hours on a weekend asfamily and talking, um, in
contrast to the fast pace ofwhere I live now in Brooklyn,
where you have to schedule outeveryone's half hour to catch
(07:02):
up.
Um but you know, veryspecifically, being having that
kind of time in a differentculture, in a different place,
really lets you reinventyourself, really lets you think
bigger thoughts.
And the image that I think ofwhen I think back to that time
is the Sagrada Familia, thiscathedral in the center of
(07:26):
Barcelona, which is builtdifferently than every other
church in the world, which is abox, right?
Um, Sagrada Familia is spiralsand animals and different
psychedelic lighting when youwalk in and you just I had the
(07:47):
overwhelming impression that uheverything doesn't have to be so
similar, that there's you canbreak the mole, and and it it is
an invitation to be creative andto be different and to help
literally shape the world, theworld differently.
And so there's a lot ofenergized entrepreneurs,
(08:09):
artists, design people clustereduh around Barcelona.
Um, it's a fantastic place to uhcome up with the next chapter.
SPEAKER_03 (08:18):
So two years of uh free time with your family, and
boom, you get the idea of circlespace.
Tell us more about how the ideacame to you.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
Well, uh it was about a year in, and I was
getting anxious.
Um, one of my friends uh is anentrepreneur was visiting, and
she said, Don't be anxious.
It's like falling in love again.
You think you think you won't,but then you do.
SPEAKER_03 (08:46):
But you will.
SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
But you will.
I knew that I wanted to dosomething in learning and
development.
It was maybe the part of my CEOjob that I liked the best.
Building a learning culture,growing humans, being part,
being a part of that.
And and I really believe thatcompanies grow as quickly as
(09:07):
their people do, often we're thebottleneck.
Um and yet the typical trappingsof learning and development
inside companies are lame.
Um you ask managers to doone-on-ones, but they're not
good coaches.
You have a corporate universitymade of slides, they're out of
(09:30):
date the minute you write them.
You bring in an inspirationalspeaker who's forgotten two days
later.
Um, but in my life, and I had alot of coaches and courses and
even consultants, a forum wasthe number one growth
(09:50):
experience, developmentexperience.
Um and so I digged and zaggedaround this learning and
development space.
I invested, I volunteered, Iread books, I called the
authors, I was learning abouteverything that was going on in
education technology.
And then one day it hit me.
The answer was right under mynose.
(10:12):
Why doesn't everyone in theworld have a forum?
SPEAKER_03 (10:17):
Okay, so you're preaching to the choir, as you
know.
And uh, for listeners of thispodcast, uh, they already should
know what a forum is, but theymay not, because maybe we have
someone new uh listening.
So maybe Dan, in your words,let's start with what is a
forum?
SPEAKER_00 (10:39):
The way I've come to describe it, Maul, is it's five
to ten people, maybe a dozenpeers who come together
regularly in a facilitatedstructure to help each other
lead better lives.
(11:03):
Another way to think about it isI trust in with powerful help
out.
SPEAKER_03 (11:12):
I love that.
I love that.
And for context, how long haveyou been in forum?
How many forums have you beenin?
How long have they lasted foryou?
SPEAKER_00 (11:23):
Well, uh, the original one you're creating me
for was my first forumexperience.
It was an EO forum.
Um, and that lasted four or fiveyears, something like that.
It overlapped with my joiningYPO.
Um, I'm in my original YPO forumto this day.
We're having our 20thanniversary this year.
(11:47):
Amazing.
Um, which is amazing.
One of the things I noticedalong the way is that there are
other flavors of forum.
There are cousins of forum.
You know, small groups are asold as campfires.
And once I was out of M5, I havewhat I consider one of the
(12:08):
luckiest breaks of my life.
I was picked for a fellowship atthe Aspen Institute.
And guess what?
It's done as a forum.
It's a peer, small, peer group.
Um, I just had my 11th annualretreat with that group last
weekend.
Um and I noticed uh, you know,all of these groups have very,
(12:32):
very similar things.
I've been kind of a geek atstudying lots of different, I
call them forum traditionsoutside of YPO and EO2.
And the Aspen's Fellowship is agreat one.
Uh and then other groups, youknow, in my work at Circle
Space, um there were eight guysin Barcelona that helped me come
(12:56):
up with the plan.
They're all investors.
We formed a forum that meets tothis day.
Um, and literally I have a groupof 10 college roommates going
back even farther.
Uh, they don't think ofthemselves as a forum, but when
we're together, uh I pull outsome forum tricks.
And in addition to the uh, we'regonna go see a Spinal Tap 2
(13:19):
that's coming out this weekendbecause Spinal Tap One was like
the iconic movie of our collegeyears.
Um, it's just really funny.
In addition to that, we'll besitting around in the circle and
doing updates.
Um, so you know, you start tosee forms everywhere.
SPEAKER_03 (13:35):
Okay, well, so you are uh a devotee as I am, and I
know that and I love it.
Maybe uh again uh for ouraudience's sake, in what ways
has form affected you?
SPEAKER_01 (13:48):
In what ways has it impacted your life?
SPEAKER_00 (13:58):
I think uh there's different there's different
levels.
There's this I can tell youstories of the specific
decisions where I've gone leftinstead of right.
I'd love to if you're willing.
Well, sure.
Um do I sell my company?
SPEAKER_02 (14:15):
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
So that decision was very difficult for me at M5.
It was very personal.
Um, you know, and I I tell thebusiness story of it, which is
sort of the public story.
Yes, telephone systems weregoing away, and we saw it
because we're so brilliant, andwe found a strategic and we sold
the company just in time.
(14:37):
Um, I can tell a level deeperabout the venture capitalists
that we were seven years in andneeded their money back and
we're threatening, you know,ready to go, um, and that
narrative.
But when you get formconfidential, and it really
comes down to my decision, youcan't talk to the venture
capitalists and you can't eventalk to your family, really.
(14:59):
You can't even talk to yourfriends about such a decision
because there's so everyone hasan agenda around you at that
minute.
And to share stories with otherentrepreneurs about um giving up
uh uh a part of your life, aboutembracing a change, about
(15:22):
letting it burn down.
I mean, I had just been toBurning Man, and one of the
metaphors of Burning Man inCalifornia is you build
beautiful art and you burn itdown because nothing lasts
forever.
Um and my forum helped me sortof be personally brave because
we knew that, you know, not thatit it wouldn't it wouldn't last.
(15:45):
You're lying to yourself if youthink that all the employees are
gonna stay, you're lying toyourself if you think all the
customers are gonna be happy, orlying to yourself if you think
you're even owned career.
I mean, how many entrepreneursdo we know that are miserable
selling into the, you know, youhear that story again and again
when they get what right?
So um what my forum helped me dothere was let go and then be
(16:07):
brave enough to say, yeah, youcould have a whole other chapter
in the book.
Um, and I don't think I wouldhave made that decision or
certainly navigated it withoutthem.
So that was just one personal uhdecision, and there are many,
many, many I love that.
SPEAKER_03 (16:22):
I love that.
What a great story.
So back to uh circle space.
So you started circle spacebecause you so believe in the
power of forum and uh and and weshare this mission that we
believe every human being uhshould be or deserves to be in
one of these forums.
In what ways do you think thatmight impact uh those human
(16:45):
beings?
In what ways do you think thatmight have a greater impact uh
on our world as a whole?
SPEAKER_01 (16:54):
I think you're very woo-woo about this.
SPEAKER_00 (16:57):
Good.
I think uh that humanity'soverall consciousness is on a
path of growth and development.
I'm an optimist.
Yeah, and I think there's a lotof things happening um across
the planet that are really signsfor optimism.
(17:19):
And I believe that even thoughthere's fear is on the rise too,
um I think love is on the rise.
And uh, you know, many peoplevery popular among entrepreneurs
to uh sit and mindfulness uh andand meditate, um, become aware
(17:39):
of consciousness, so become veryself-reflective.
We're all very um educated anduh you know conscious.
I think forum is the equivalentof doing that in a group of
people.
Um I think the forum teaches youwhat trust actually means, how
to operationalize trust, whichis very close to love.
(18:04):
It's the link and theconnection.
I think it, you know, it's notjust a word.
It teaches you that showing upevery meeting on time for each
other.
It teaches you thatvulnerability and openness that
makes that connection.
And it teaches you what it is totranscend your own ego and care
(18:25):
about someone else.
It's a practice in caringsomeone else.
Like I said, forum is abouthelping each other lead better
lives.
And that that practice is reallypowerful.
So uh when you're doing thoseforum practices regularly,
you're getting better atbuilding trust, you're getting
better at caring for others,which makes you a better leader,
(18:46):
a better manager, but also makesyou better in your family, makes
you a better friend.
Um, and it makes you a bettercitizen.
SPEAKER_03 (18:53):
You know, I love the way you put all that.
Um, one of the things for methat has been illuminating is
just seeing how somebody whomight be seemingly very
different than me, someone who Imay not have gravitated to
naturally, has so much to teachme.
SPEAKER_00 (19:15):
I think of, you know, professionally now we're
we're matching forums at scaleand fronting lots of data about
who works in a forum with who.
Uh, we're dealing withpopulations outside of EO and
what, you know, YPO whereeverybody's already appear.
Um, and the way I think about itsimply is diverse peers.
SPEAKER_03 (19:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (19:39):
Diverse peers.
So there's a sense of peerinessthat you have to get to, but
then the diversity fuels thelearning.
SPEAKER_03 (19:46):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (19:46):
Uh, and and that's really an amazing process to
watch.
SPEAKER_03 (19:51):
You know, it's interesting, even when you go
back to your group of collegefriends, that uh you are saying
uh, you know, is similar, hasbecome similar to a forum, I'm
sure, thanks to you.
Um, at some point, maybe thediversity wasn't so much there.
Uh, but because you've grownseparately since you graduated,
(20:11):
uh I'm sure that's brought a lotof diversity that you didn't
have when you started.
SPEAKER_00 (20:17):
Totally.
Um, and I think that's where thelearning was.
I mean, that that's where we're,you know, we will sit around and
need to learn from our journeys,those who've had kids, those who
didn't have kids, those who areuh in working inside companies,
those who are working outsidecompanies, um, those who are in
different parts of the country.
We're coming together from allover.
(20:38):
And that like we start talkingabout Spain versus uh US, you
know, the cult, the cultural.
And if you can really look at aquestion that maybe we all share
um around this stage of life.
So for example, everybody'stalking about wellness, you
know, you get a bunch of olderguys together, we're talking
about our injuries andillnesses, but but then you look
at it from all those diversepoints of view, you you learn
(21:02):
something, you learn somethingnew from shared experiences that
um you know I can't get fromChat GPT.
SPEAKER_03 (21:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Uh I'm loving this conversation.
So I want to go back to thebeginning.
When did you know that you mightbe an entrepreneur someday?
When was this park?
What what created this park?
SPEAKER_00 (21:25):
When was this condition diagnosed?
I think I was always uh veryentrepreneurial in that I was I
(21:46):
was looking for shortcuts, I waslooking for things outside
outside of the system.
Um and I was drawn to chaos.
So in my first, you know, comingcoming uh out of college, it was
a time when uh but EasternEurope was in chaos, um, or the
(22:10):
wall had fallen.
Uh and I was drawn to study allof this because the professors
knew nothing anymore.
All the books were thrown outthe window.
Um and all these, and I didRussia studies and I worked over
there, and it was superfascinating.
Um I I then started to noticewhat business was, maybe for the
(22:34):
first time.
Um, and I decided that Russiawas a pretty scary place to uh
to do business, unless youwanted to work at a big company.
Um so I uh decided to go backand go get a business degree and
learn about business, thinking Iwould go back to Moscow and um
(22:56):
try again in a few years.
Um and I did that, and then itwas even scarier, and the
internet had started, and theinternet was chaos, and
everybody had thrown out theirhow-to books and thought that
this was a time for new businessmodels.
And so um now we're connectedback with that valuation class,
and that was maybe the lastpuzzle piece.
(23:18):
I was like, wow, you can do amillion dollars of revenue and
then sell it for six milliondollars.
This is very interesting math.
I think I could do that, andthat was sort of the last piece.
Um, and I was on my way uh as anentrepreneur.
SPEAKER_03 (23:32):
And anybody in your family before you that was
entrepreneurial that might havegiven you any uh inkling of, oh,
maybe this is a concept?
SPEAKER_00 (23:41):
You know, a pop-up, grandpa Ben Finkelstein, was um
in the rag business in New York.
And uh I really wasn't aware ofit growing up, but you know,
these things skip a generation.
Um lots of stories about himgoing uh bankrupt and the
factory closing and more at fivefactories and open up and down.
(24:02):
And um, I don't know.
He was an interesting guy.
Uh he started by coming overfrom Russia to Cuba, where he
sold uh Eskimo pies by the portout of a refrigerated box that
he wore around his neck.
And so I always I don't know,maybe those things uh are in in
DNA or got under my skin.
SPEAKER_03 (24:24):
Oh, what a great story.
I love that.
So as you got started, uh one ofthe things you just said is
you're drawn to chaos.
So do you believe business isalways chaos, or is it about
trying to tame the chaos, or areyou happy in the chaos because
we need chaos to change?
(24:44):
Yeah, it's opportunity, I think.
SPEAKER_00 (24:48):
Um and I like uh maximum creativity, maximum
problem solving, brainstormingis my love language.
Uh so you know, and then ofcourse, one of the things you
learn as you build uh businessesand start to get to a little bit
of scale is you need some peoplearound you that are really good
(25:08):
at taming the chaos and andputting structure in.
So it, you know, know whatyou're know what you're good at,
know what you're not.
But yeah, no, I think I buildingcompanies, building in markets
that are changing very quicklyis uh is where it's at, my happy
place.
SPEAKER_03 (25:27):
I love that.
So back to circle space and ourshared mission of uh providing
this incredible life-changingopportunity to everyone out
there.
Because really, I I don't knowwhy anybody wouldn't do this.
I I actually uh asked myselfthis question all day long.
Why would somebody not want tobe in one of these forums?
And and I, you know, I'd love toknow from our audience out there
(25:49):
if this is uh the kind of thingthat you just don't think is for
you as to why that would be.
Having said that, Dan, uh whatis the uh full service suite of
Circle Space?
Uh, how do people find you andand and who's the target
audience?
SPEAKER_00 (26:05):
Yeah.
Well, um, we've we've spent umbeen at it for about seven years
and and we have digged and wehave zagged and we keep building
and improving our technology.
Um, I really think that the thetechnology is kind of an
important backbone for scalingand making this more accessible
and having high qualityexperiences consistently.
(26:28):
So I'm also a technologist, soeverything is a nails to my
hammer, right?
Um so we we we've been working,we've worked in communities.
We were on 50 college campusesduring COVID.
We've worked inside manycompanies like DuPont and
Salesforce and Meta and uhdifferent smaller businesses.
(26:48):
Um and we keep looking for avery scalable model because I I
think one of the beautifulthings about forum is it's very
possible to run a few forums orrun one.
Um but uh how do we make how dowe spent them by the hundreds
and thousands?
Uh and about three years ago, Igot a call from home, YPO.
(27:15):
Um as I mentioned, one of my twobig inspirations for you know,
YPO Forum and Aspen Fellowshipswere in my life the two
brightest lights.
Uh and someone in one of thevertical industry groups, a
manufacturing group at YPO, uhasked whether we could pass
(27:38):
forum on to the people that workfor us.
SPEAKER_03 (27:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (27:41):
So fast forward, we are spending a lot of our
company cycles now building whatthey call the YPO Key Associate
Forum program.
Um and that's been anopportunity to bring it all
together.
So our forums have threedistinct features.
Um, one is they are curated, asI mentioned.
(28:03):
So we've taken five, six hundredYPO nominees.
You have to be nominated, CFOs,COOs, um, and people inheriting
the family business.
They're different slices, and wematch them into forums.
Um, we're doing this three timesa year.
So curated.
Uh, the second is they'refacilitated.
(28:24):
So there's a professionalfacilitator in every session.
That's a bit different than theYPO model, self-moderation.
Um, and the third is thatthey're hybrid, meaning, much as
a software guy, I would love tobuild a purely virtual
experience.
There is nothing like, and Ican't argue with the data, there
(28:46):
is nothing like being together.
Um, and so in our forums, youspend about a third of the year
uh learning forum in our virtualtechnology platform, and then
you go on a two-day retreattogether.
Um, and that deepens theexperience, that deepens the
connection, and then you canspend the rest of the year uh
(29:08):
implementing and rinse andrepeat like rings of a tree.
These forms are renewing yearyear after year.
And so that mix of that hybridmix allows you the best of both
worlds because you can matchpeople globally and make some
really diverse peer groups.
But uh you also do get to takethis one trip together, which
(29:30):
for many people is the absolutehighlight of the experience.
SPEAKER_03 (29:33):
You know, I want to just double down on the global
matching piece because uh youmight remember this, but in
2019, uh a little company by thename of Google knocked on our
door and said we'd like to puttogether groups for uh
underrepresented minorities.
But you know what they said,Dan?
They said, but we want it donevirtually.
And what I said, I said we'venever done this virtually.
(29:54):
This is October 2019.
Right.
And they said we don't care.
Of course, we started thesegroups virtually, and one of the
incredible byproducts that I didnot see coming was to have a
group with a member in Dublinand a member in Rio and a member
in Lagos, Nigeria, and of coursethe rest in you know California
somewhere, but or New York.
(30:15):
But it was really uh quiteeye-opening.
SPEAKER_00 (30:18):
That that's phenomenal.
Were the roles diverse as well,or were they all software
engineers or all salespeers?
SPEAKER_03 (30:24):
No, there was some diversity in the roles as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They have to be within a similarlevel.
Again, back to the concept oftheir peers.
You know, there still has to bea group of peers.
SPEAKER_00 (30:35):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's fantastic.
And you know, one of the mostinfluential pieces of research
for me along the way came out ofGoogle when they did their
Aristotle project on what makesteams effective.
Um, and that rhymed with someother research, uh, Anita
Woolley at Carnegie Mellon anduh uh Sandy uh Blanco's last
(30:58):
name from MIT, showing basicallythat the techniques of forum are
what powers effective teams.
SPEAKER_02 (31:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:07):
Really powerful turn taking, equal airtime,
vulnerability.
These were the things that theGoogle study showed.
Um, and so it must be incredibleto have that experience working
within Google now.
SPEAKER_03 (31:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And it is really nice to seethat these tools work in so many
other places.
Uh, I'm curious how have youapplied uh these tools in other
places?
I'm curious outside of work,outside of your professional
growth, uh how has the languageof forum shaped you, Dan
(31:39):
Hoffman?
SPEAKER_00 (31:41):
Um, it's funny.
You know, I'm I'm I'm such afanboy of yours, but um I, you
know, you're you're the one guyin the world that's expert both
on forum and friendship,friendship advantage, right?
And um I think it's a fantasticconversation between these two.
So short answer is um I'm abetter friend, I think.
(32:04):
Um professional friend, personalfriend, uh, better at listening,
better at helping, better atbeing vulnerable to connect.
Um I asked the same questiontoo, uh, you know, we in the
insurance industry has what Icall forum tradition called
study groups.
It's fascinating.
And um, we did a program withthe insurance industry trade
(32:26):
association.
We called them study groups.
I asked a member this samequestion you asked me, how has
this changed you?
And he had the best answer ever.
He said, I talk less.
SPEAKER_03 (32:37):
Ha ha.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
You know, Dan, uh, it's been apleasure.
And I just want to double downon what you just said.
One of the one of the verypowerful lessons that we don't
really talk about overtly ismaking your point concisely and
not just rambling on.
Because at the end of the day,people stop listening.
(32:58):
There's more ADHD, there'swhatever.
Um, and so make your point.
Period.
SPEAKER_00 (33:06):
Period.
It it forum is like a dojo forcommunication skills, you know?
Um, stories, telling stories.
I every time I give an update inforum, I think, oh, I could have
told that story better.
Right.
Um, questions.
SPEAKER_01 (33:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (33:24):
How do you how do you craft a prompt?
Maybe we should call themprompts now, right?
Um but these are just and andlistening, of course, the other
side of that equation.
These are the skill the coremolecules, the core skills of of
uh of work, of life.
SPEAKER_03 (33:43):
Absolutely.
Um, last question.
If somebody is consideringjoining a forum anywhere,
whether it's this platform, thisorganization, anywhere.
Uh, but they have somehesitation.
What would you say to thatperson who's a little hesitant,
a little worried, a littleapprehensive?
SPEAKER_00 (34:09):
Think back on your life, all the times you've
leaned into that discomfort, andhow you know that's a signpost
for growth and development.
Right?
If you're a little nervous aboutit, go go forward.
Um, it's safe, the water's warm,come come on in.
(34:30):
I uh I I I think uh you the wayyou're describing is most
people.
It's weird sound.
It's very, it's very hard to uhhave someone understand what
form is with without doing it.
You and I both tried it.
Um and uh I you know I thinkjust do it, just try it.
It's uh look around at all thepeople you meet.
(34:53):
And and I think there's probablya few hundred thousand by my
count in the world now who arein forums, uh going on a billion
with the IFO website.
Um so you know, get get on geton the train, get join the
party.
SPEAKER_03 (35:10):
Join the party.
Uh spoken like a trueentrepreneur.
If you feel that fear, it meansyou need to go forward.
Amazing conversation, DanHoffman.
Thank you so much.
Thank you to our audience.
And as a reminder, podcastreviews have a real impact on
our visibility.
So please leave a review if youlike the episode.
Thank you for listening and havea great day.
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