Key points

The scammers in Hollywood and why you need to get into the right rooms.

The critical entrepreneurial step is to step away from what you know.

We do our best work when we can turn off our brain and have it compartmentalize.

The blueprint series and how it became a case study.

You can’t build a business without relationships.

How do you get around to being a part of something bigger than yourself?

Why self-sabotage is so important -.

How can we be more effective as business owners to connect with our audience?

Stop, accept, or fly.

Why you need to get your ideas out on paper.

Why you need to get your personal brand right.

Hi, Shelby here today and the podcast. I feel like I should have been recording this podcast for the past, you know, 45 minutes that Philip and I have been talking, but I'm excited to welcome Philip Llanos to my interview today for the genius entrepreneur podcast has a wide variety of experience and amazing story. I'm very excited to get into it. And it's got a it's interesting because Philip and I work in the same podcast space, but we rarely talk to each other. And Philip is always the interviewer and very rarely the interviewee. So I'm excited to dig into his story a little bit. So Phillip Introduce yourself.

Absolutely. I, I run a company called own the rhythm that does a lot of similar work to any personal branding company out there. But my goal is to try to make it more of a must have been a nice to have for people. So that's a work in progress. We all openly admit that. And yeah, I'm not used to being the guest on shows. But I'm glad that I get to do this with you. Because I know that you not only understand the work that I do. But also I mean, if it's any indication of the competition you've had, I also can see where you want to take things and how you want to innovate the same space. So for me, it's exciting. And being a part of SAP. I mean, how can I how can I not be excited to be on the show? It's that it is exciting, because there's so many opportunities, the network is so wide and so varied. And yet, yet you feel an interesting and specific niche in there. And I want to I want to get into a little bit of your background and your story. I know some of your story in your background. But could you give the audience an overview of absolutely, or you came from and how you came into this entrepreneur life and in branding and media,the most important thing people should know about me is, it sounds corny, and cliche, but I genuinely didn't intend to be in business. I really didn't. My I want to say up until I was Wow. 18 Or so I had aspirations of being a an actor and a singer. So all of my efforts, day in and day out breakfast, lunch and dinner, were about entertaining people creating an ambiance, in fact, seeking to cause and effect, if you will, with my work. And I began to come face to face with an industry that has a lot of perversions that has certain lifestyle choices that I simply can't get along with Not that there's anything wrong with drinking or smoking or going out and partying, I, I've done it. I just it's not sustainable for my body, my body composition does not allow for me to do that and then still perform at high levels. I don't know anyone that can other than maybe Charles B kowski. And so, so all those things started to pile up, the further and further I got into it. Over the years, I continued to run into scammers and you know, every industry has them. But there's something about Hollywood, it's just extra scammy if you're not in the right rooms with the right people, right, right. And I wasn't going to be willing to learn Shakespeare either. And if the audition system is terrible, it's probably it's worse than almost anything in business I've ever seen. In fact, if you were to try to book entertainers, and try to get a hold of the creative talent agencies to create some kind of symbiotic relationship, it's nearly impossible. And it's because it's so outdated in terms of his communication channels, as opposed to business which continues to innovate. So when I moved to New York, it's 24. And I was already kind of weaning my way off of things. I gave it one last hurrah in New York. I said, No la didn't work. And I get to get to New York. And I started looking around and I noticed that there's a lot of ads here I had never known I've lived I was born and raised in LA. So I'm working on set on Orange is the New Black. Right and I start thinking like maybe there's something more to this because you know, you gotta go where the money flows. Sure there's money in productions, but you don't control your own destiny. And when I saw the ads, I said there are people spending money to be there. So I started looking into that space got a bunch of opportunities for interviews, because I'm well read. I just I'm a bookworm, right. So I read a lot. So, my book list is growing of the things that I need to read after I have a conversation with you so and so when I when I when I walked into those interviews for marketing, I already understood the terminology, you know, whether it was pay per click, you know, cost per conversion and lifetime value of a customer SEO, I theoretically understood at all and I just happen to be one of those people where if I read it, I can almost physically experience it. It's a really weird fountains in my in my in my being And so without getting worse, and so I ended up getting offers for jobs instead of internships, I took one of them. And that made all the difference, because then I became the problem solver there for about five years. And single handedly helped, you know, every company has this issue where they're like one of their clients is like 80% of their revenue. And they were about to lose that client. And I didn't know anything about Google Sheets. But I began to know, and was able to create this concatenated report, if anybody's ever use Google Sheets, into a cell reference dashboard, that gave them an overview of their national offices in a very executive type of way where they could just quickly look at it. And because of that report, we were able to sustain that 80% revenue, and that's when they started having one to ones with me, like Philip, if you were CEO, what would you be? Yeah. And that's when I started realizing they like grooming me. And they eventually started offering me positions, and promotions. And I started saying, If I can do all this here, in an industry, I had no original intention to do this for what would it be like if I worked for myself. And so as I departed, and they respectfully accepted that because I turned down their money, instead of taking it and then leaving, because I have integrity, right? The CEO, became my mentor, helps me make help make a few introductions for me, which I don't take for granted, made a bunch of mistakes over the phone, and eventually found my way into being able to position myself as a podcast launcher of sorts and content strategy. And I did this for large organizations like EO, almost right out of the bat, which is like, if you don't know what eo is, it's like a contemporary to young professionals. YPO, or this stage, something along those nature's right. So, off the bat, I was in the room with big players. Now, what I didn't know was they took me on because I was cheap. had had the opportunity to position yourself. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah. But I'm a quick study. That's what they did. So once they started asking for more, I asked them for more, too. And then when they argued against it, I told them, Well, what, what is the value of you getting the right guests on your show? Like, what is the actual value of that, because I'm not charging you for what it costs for my time, I'm charging you for the value. And the minute I did that, there was a lot of friction between me and people in the org because they're limited. Because the Oregon is organization itself, although it invites entrepreneurs. It's very corporate and not entrepreneurial, in that sense. And it's all about budget cutting, and you name it. And I can respect that. It's just it's one of those things, right. So over the years after that, I found my way into entrepreneur, through through some connections that I had made, I started hosting there did over 1000 plus conversations there with the impression because I took a low a low stipend for it, the impression that I was going to be named in the articles. And because I was the one hosting most of the conversations. Eventually, he brought on a bunch of other hosts so they could expand and scale up. But my name was never mentioned in anything. Even though that was the original agreement. My image was nowhere I even helped them launch an egg magazine podcast. I was the only one on all those episodes, but it was their face. Now, I don't know if this was intentional. I can't I can't assume that right. I can't be conspiratorial. But it just is the fact that that's what happened. And so lucky enough for me, Jason eventually reached out and had me on the show. And it was a no brainer to leave what I was doing there and start moving into this space while I do everything else. So that's kind of the shortest version I could come up with.

Yeah, there's a yes, such an experience. And it's so I mean, first of all, I think it's so commendable to say, for you at such a young age to say no to the money and like take it out on your own that, that in its own entrepreneurial spirit is something to be said, because that's, that's scary. And, you know, maybe that's for me, for me, I have been in a career for multiple years before I decided to step away and take my journey. And so I it's very commendable. And I I think it's an important entrepreneurial step is that is the critical one to like, step away from something and with not necessarily knowing what might be ahead. I think that's, that's one of the scariest moments but one of the most important for our listeners here, because you are successful, you did make connections, it just took a little while to get there. And I think that is that is key to any entrepreneurial journey and to understand that not everything is laid out for you that you need, that you need to be ready for some unknowns and to change and it might not be exactly what you want it to be, but then it always ends up being good. So I think that's an important journey to talk about. The other the other thing that sticks out to me from that conversation is it stated, everything is so audience centered. You know, when you were in New York and you love interacting with audience and just even communicating with you understand, you know, reading reports and reinterpreting them, so they're more entertaining, or they're more easily digestible. It's just having conversations with you, it's so much not about, it's about you, but it's equally about who you're speaking to. And I think that's such an important piece of communication that is miss is that there's a lot of people out there that do a lot of talking with don't do a lot of listening or thinking about who they're talking to. And I think that's an important important message for entrepreneurs and anybody in business because communication is so central.

Absolutely, I mean, we sort of hinted at this prior, we were sort of flirting with the idea of like, just where things have gone since the pandemic, and one of the biggest things I ran into myself was, I didn't realize it, but I accidentally became antisocial. Not, not a jerk, right. I wasn't rude to people. But I just stopped spending time with anybody other than anyone in my immediate circle. Like, and I don't, I don't have a large circle. I know a lot of people, but I don't keep you know, if you've heard of Dunbar's number, but there's only like 160 people, you can actually have a real connections with. And out of those 160 Only 50 You can invite to a party, like a large, you know, kind of banquet, and out of those only 15, you would invite to a natural dinner. And out of those only five will ever be your confidence. Right? Somewhere along the way, I that whittle down to like three people. And some people don't even don't even have that. Right. And in business, I learned the hard way, you cannot afford to be anti social.

And I think that I agree with you. And I want you to expand on that. But I think that concept resonates with so many people and particularly entrepreneurs that were that were shocked by the fact that we couldn't go to chamber meetings anymore. And we couldn't be in front of an audience anymore. And we're yearning for that. And then we're like, what do we do? So I think it's a it's a forced anti social, but then maybe it gets a little comfortable. So

yes, no, that's exactly what it was. That's exactly what it was. And I'm sitting there wondering like, Oh, is there something wrong with my systems and processes? My SOPs? No, you I just somehow silently, it's talking about people talking about quiet quitting, but about right, quieting the social, right. Like it's so important. And we just most of us, and especially myself, haven't adapted to that? Sure. I do podcast calls all the time. Right? That's not the same thing as interacting with people. It's not right. And we do our best work, when we can turn off our brain and have it compartmentalize, I don't know if I'm a Mac user. But anyone who's ever used Windows in the past, and I'm sure many of us have, there was a function called the Disk Defragment. Right? That would sort of clean up all the loose files and whatever, you know, sometimes you have duplicates and what have you. I think it's called something else now, like storage cents, or something like that on the new Windows 11. But that same concept, our brain doesn't get a chance to do that, if all we do is work. And if we don't interact with new energies and new ideas, so that we turn this off for a second and let it sort of process what's occurred, right. And I personally don't live enough in my life, I live next to the beach and never go. So for anyone listening. Antisocial is more than not just hanging out with people. It's also just not interacting with your environment, because communication is key, even to things that, you know, are around you every day. You see that guitar? Yeah, how much do I communicate with that guitar? Because that's what it is. If I pick it up, I'm communicating with it. I'm feeling it. I'm building an affinity to it. Right? I know, it sounds abstract, but because these are the fundamentals of life, how often are we bridging the gaps between realities of the places we want to be the things we want to feel the people we want to see. And if we don't do that in business, I mean, what are we doing?

You know, right. If we're not building community, if we're not building those connections, and we're not, we're not and giving value, yes, but it's more about giving value. It's more about engaging that value, and how can you build each other? And how can you build, how can you exchange that value? But yes, how can we use that to get to the next level or to, you know, whatever level of business or how can you put you know, to explore those own talents to be able to To help you socialize and meet more people, and then also help others do that, to to build that community, it's so important.

Absolutely. 100% agree with you.

I want to I want to ask a question about what are says. So when you decided to step out into the entrepreneur, do the entrepreneur thing rather than take the money and all that? What did you did you have an idea? What skills what core? You know, I always ask about your core genius, because I feel that your genius is something that's intuitive to you something that you just know how to do. It's something that's second nature to you. So did you feel that? Did you feel that gosh, I can make a business out of this? I'm, I'm really good. I'm good. I'm intuitive. I know how to read people. I know how to read situations, I can make a business out of this, or was it more abstract than that?

So I'm glad you asked that. I've only recently come to know who I am as a person, right? I'm 33. And when I did that, I was probably like, I don't know. 2425, which is, like I think you mentioned are relatively young to be doing although there are many people who are like 18 and 16, being entrepreneurs now through internet. But the way I did it, I mean, if I looked back on it, and I knew what I know, now, I probably would have kept the job and built it on the side over time and still have that respectful conversation, because it's totally possible. But there's a reason why I ended up living. And I wrote about this in a little book. My book was just a bucket list thing. It's probably poorly edited, but it's out there. Right? on Amazon right now, but it basically, I there's a reason why I ended up living in an office space, like a box. I mean, didn't even have windows in the jewelry building in the Jewelry District of downtown Los Angeles, or it smelled like hookah and something burning for some reason. Right? I was living in that because it was only $400 A month rent, showering at the gym. This is embarrassing. But looking back on it, it was worth it for me and eating one slice of pizza a day because I didn't have any money because I didn't have any revenue because I jumped ship moved from New York to Los Angeles, and thought it was going to be all you know, twigs and giggle berries. But it was it was none of that. Right? It was terrible. It was horrible. I was broke. I was scared. And I felt like I made the biggest mistake of my life. And I told myself, okay, well I have a little credit card, I'm gonna go get a co working space so that I'm not working out of this godforsaken hellhole and only sleep here when necessary. And I remember I had like $3 in the bank, like like nothing. And I was like, how am I going to do this? And I was like, What am I even doing? And that's when my mentor, this is where it really began. Because when he called me he's like, so how's it going? You know, that's why you left us. I would I'd love to check in on you. I said not well. Not at all. I had no idea what I'm doing. I'm like, and he's like, Okay, well, what do you want to do? I don't know, I want to make a living doing what I love. Right? What do you love? Well, I was an entertainer, right? It's funny I have, I have all these skills and all this know how, but I almost stepped into learned helplessness out of a reaction to the survival effect that kicks in when you go from earning by the hour to earning based on value. But I didn't know what at the time. And so. So he said, Okay, well, what's one skill that comes to mind right off the bat that you know you can do for people. So immediately what he was doing was trying to get me to shift from, you know, trying to go because that same work that you spend looking for a job could be put into looking for a client, it's the same thing, identify where the alignment meets, right, and what you're going to be trading is either time or value. Right? And but I didn't know all this at the time. So I don't know editing audio from all my time and music. Obviously, when I was at the agency, I spearheaded the podcast. He's like, okay, so then just tell people, you're going to help them wash your pocket. He just you just throw it out. That's the way Joe Applebaum is and I promise I'll introduce him. And I was like, okay, so I did that. He's like, here are a few people you can afford to make mistakes with call them and just get it out of your system. Sure enough, I did didn't go well. But that's really where things started to take shape for me and I got it out of my system, all the butterflies, I knew I was going to fail on purpose. Right. And in doing so, I was like, Okay, I think I started I think I understand what I'm trying to tell people that I can help them with. So in the meantime, I immediately kick started my own show that's still out there. It's got like 12 episodes on it called the blueprint series. And the first couple episodes were geared towards speaking to people who have developed to great success content models, and how they worked, whether it was a podcast and newsletter or what have you. And then the later episodes were focused on careers, but it was all to be used as a case study for what I was doing. Right. That's later how I started talking to a few kids. Hi, it's like EO cuz later once I was ready, I was put in front of them and this other person and Josh, Josh Rubenstein. And I, I secured a website deal because I do web web development web design, right? And, and because of all the skills I have, and, and a podcast launch at the same time, and I closed them for like, $10,000. So I flew back to New York, which is crazy to go from zero to that, right?

Well, I went back to New York. And I did the job, you know, interviewed him, got all his episodes up, he runs a construction company and build their company called J builders out of New York. It was awesome. And I moved back to New York, because I was like, alright, well, maybe all my clients are in New York. And then I was like, wait a minute, if I'm doing all this, for business, I could have done this for acting and music, the same hustle. I don't know why. And this is this is the hardest part about identity and habits. Right? As I hadn't fully accepted that I was clearly half decent at business, because my identity was tied to who I was, not who I'm becoming. So it slowed my progress. Because I went back. And that was when I finally made the final draw, it was clearly not working out. For me, it's just not the same dynamics. And I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and told myself, is this what I want across the whole walk? Why am I not doing the things that are required? Like, you know, be guessing and rubbing elbows with people that I could care less about? It's not the same they don't, they don't it's not a meritocracy, where business release. And that's when I made the promise to myself that I was gonna leave all that behind. And that's when things started to change. And eventually, I got more clients and started to create something semi sustainable. But you know, I'm still a work in progress, because I never made it past the freelancer to subcontractors, which is how I usually run every now and then I'll get somebody who's better at me than something. And never into the small business, which is like now I'm like, running with a pretty regular set of people to entrepreneur, where now I'm raising capital, leveraging mass peep mass amounts of people and, you know, creating visions. And so there's levels to that. And I know where they are, because I've interviewed over 2020 500 people at this point, I can do all this, right? But I'm still personally not there yet. Even though I can deliver all that massive value. It's not about just me anymore, and I need to be that's where I'm at, you know?

Gosh, I think there's so many so many key things in that story. First of all, though, about how how your mentor reached out to you. And I think that that just kind of that gets into the whole, you can't build the business without relationships. And it's okay to reach out to mentors, or previous business partners or college professors, whatever, if you have somebody you trust, and they're gonna watch out for you, it's so key to have those relationships, whether it's a formal business relationship or not. And I think that's, you know, just talking about the whole, you can't build business without with being antisocial. That's, that's something that's, that's really key. So true. I mean, it's so true. And what can we do, you know, just to think about thinking about our listeners, it's like, maybe you're in a good space in business, you can make that impact from somebody else. And if you're looking for change, or transition, or move somewhere else, talks to somebody who's in that space. And I think that's even just small actions like that can really make a big impact. I think that's, that's a huge lesson that that you shared with us. So I appreciate that you that's a very vulnerable place to be. So it's really good that you shared that with us. Thank you for that.

I find that it's part of the reason why I am today, and why I'm able to connect with people. If there's a curiosity there, the way that I am, is, I think it serves to understand that I grew up without any parents. I never tell people this, but I think it's important that I start doing it. By the time I was eight years old, my mother was nowhere to be found because she herself was a runaway American woman who, you know, ran away from home and tried to, you know, fell into gangs and what have you and my father had full blown amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS, by the time I was eight years old. So I got passed around a lot. So part of my upbringing in life was learning how to adapt to environments quickly, and how to make first impressions as fast as possible, out of survival. Right. So me moving to New York, that was also not just part of my entertainment. Right? But it was also like, part of like the fact that like my father had eventually after 20 years, which is unheard of with ALS, finally passed away, we just he just happens to be a Mexican immigrant. So there isn't that much like interest because there's not the funds or the relationships to be able to get researchers to look at why he was able to sustain that for 20 years. Right. So there's a whole There's a whole thing happening there. And part of what made me give up on acting and entertainment was that I knew I couldn't fall back on anybody or anything, which made it doubly scary when I made the choice to go work for myself and found myself eating a slice of pizza on credit cards, you know, like, all of that. And all the survival, you know, cortisol that was running through me, like, all of that has pushed me to great depths of despair, but also to to revelations that I would have never known about how important it is to care about others and come from the other side of the table, if anything, sit on the same side of the table. You know, that's why I have the ability to connect with people because I know pain, right? I know, struggle. And what are we talking about a business pain points? Right. And yet, we say it. But do we really understand that it's a pain that someone has experienced in a marketing tool? Yes. Connection? And you would probably probably be in the first category, not the second. So

for sure. Right? Where are they hurting? And you as a doctor, as a professor of what you do, what prescription based on your diagnosis, can you offer them? Right? Like, I'm not saying I know all things. That's the other side of this story, right? Is I have the humility to admit what I don't know. But the best part about business is you don't have to act like you know everything. You could say I have a partner that takes care of that angle, you know, or that's a good question. I don't know anything about that yet. But based on what work I have done, I think it's an easy thing to discover and figure out. And yet consultants and business owners and entrepreneurs have this impostor syndrome. Believe me, if anybody feels like an impostor, it's me, I don't even know how I got here. But I'm gonna tell you this, I'm gonna figure it out.

But I know how you at least I don't know, I'm not the All Knowing. But the other important thing I think about this whole journey, and the vulnerability that you have in this, sharing your story, and sharing your entrepreneurial journey, is that you're constantly pushing yourself to learn. And, you know, he talks about, you're an avid reader, again, my new reading list that I have developed, since I just had a conversation with you, it's, you're pushing yourself to learn and it's not to know the answers, it's to better yourself, and to better your position and to better understand yourself. And, you know, you're only 33, you're pretty young. And so that is, you're still in a space, where you have the opportunity to create that part of yourself and where you discover more about yourself. And through your trials and tribulations and losses. And, and, and your journey you've created, you've just kept growing and learning. And I think that's as an entrepreneur that we need to be dynamic and move and shift with the pandemic, with the potential recession that's coming, we need to be have be aware of those adapt to those surroundings, and your adaptation skills seem to have served you well, for sure.

I try to drill this in my head. Because books really saved my life. That's why I'm such an avid reader. And one of the things I always try to tell myself speaking to like this potentially looming recession or what have you, right. And this thing about antisocial, the running themes in this conversation is in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I literally have it right here as, as I've done many times in our conversation. Right? Yeah, the main thing I took from this, because there's a bunch of good stuff there. But the main thing I took from that is he said, you know, independence is not the pinnacle of human excellence, and I'm using my language, but this is the concept that he put forward. interdependence is the pinnacle of human excellence. And that's way harder for people to get around. Many people walk around, you know, I'm independent, I'm gonna, but that's anti social behavior. Sure, you get to a level where you can stand independently. But that's only supposed to serve for you to be interdependent. Right, and many of us, especially myself, has been guilty of this. I simply don't allow myself to be part of something bigger than who I am, so that we can create bigger impact. And that's what I love about sab and what it stands for, right? And anyone who's in any part of, you know, any chamber, any entrepreneurial or business group, even BNI, although I know some people have mixed feelings about that, right? End of the day, is how are you getting around to being a part of something bigger than yourself? I try to ask myself this, and I don't always live up to it every day. But like, Who did I help today? And what capacity, even if it's a small nudge, like having this conversation if it even just reaches one person, and it makes them either more grateful for where they come from, or it makes them feel more inspired to go even to double down on whatever they're doing triple down or whatever they're doing. Then I've created impact and did something today Right. That's why I'm always giving book recommendations because it may not be monetizable. But the impact is always felt, there's always a ripple effect to what you do. And that's just the law of nature. You plant a seed and soil that's fertile, and you water, it will bear fruit eventually, you know?

Absolutely. And when you're a part of a community, being the strategic advisory board and understanding the power of those connections, and the power, the experience that people have, there's so many seasoned business owners within that community that we can draw from their experience and, and also build together I think there's just the to not be isolated and antisocial in our in our business building. Like there's many opportunities to elevate everybody together. And I think that's an amazing, amazing quality of that, of that group. And we should continue to do that we're, you know, that's why we put the row publishing partners together, because the my dog just walked in, pardon me. That's how you put the publishing group together to cause publishing. And get you know, you're a published author yourself, you know, it's not that easy to put a book together. And but it's more powerful when you have a team and a team that works together to help not only produce a book, but your book then becomes a cornerstone of your business. And that's a tremendous, a tremendous, I guess, assets to have. So

it's so true. So many people talk about it, wish about it, but the only way to do it is to do it yourself or find a team that can help you do it. And it's much easier to find a team because the feedback loop is invaluable that you don't get from just working by yourself.

Absolutely. I talked about that all the time and communication feedback loop how it's critical, because often there's you, we talk a lot, but we don't have to get the feedback, the critical feedback that we need to be able to, to change something or to be able to make an impact. I think that's a that's an incredible value. What I want to check out your book, what is it? Yeah,

sure. So it's called pushing past the norm. It's on it's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I self published all of it. In fact, after doing that, I did a much better job for the other people, I actually helped them publish their books, right. So I've been meaning to go back to correct some of that. I paid an editor. And there was still massive spelling errors everywhere you looked. And it made me realize like, wow, it's what the it's true, what they said in the the E Myth by Michael Gerber, the entrepreneurial myth, right, the E Myth. You there's three levels to it. There's the technician, there's the manager, and there's the visionary entrepreneur. And each each level needs to be you know, processed, sop it out. And somewhere along the way, I hired help, but didn't put in a manager to go in and review the work. So when I finally published it, because my deadline was my birthday back, I don't know, a couple years, like 2017 2018, or whatever, on February 6, like, I got it done. And that was great. And then ever since then, I've been doing so many other projects. And I completely ignored that. And it sucks, because, you know, that's an indication of how many other things are you ignoring a business that you know, are important, but not urgent. I know everybody's heard about this, right. And we do it every time. And it's so easy to just take one step forward, every day if I just got rid of one spelling error, right, and it's really easy to find spelling error, right with the with an editor, one spelling error over a course of 20 days or whatever, I'd eventually get it done, and then just re upload the manuscript. But you think it'd be that easy, and yet, those are the hardest things to do are the things we know are good for ourselves, which is why I suspect what Seth Godin said about self sabotage is so important. Half the time, why we self sabotage has a lot to do with the fact that we don't want to be then seen as a person who really knows what they're doing. Because the minute that we do admit to ourselves that we know what we're doing, we now have to live up to that. It's much easier to be like, Well, I mean, of course, I'm not doing well, like, you know, look at these mistakes that are all around me. It's it's almost, in a way in inverted way of creating a safe spot, a comfortable zone. I'll never finish these things. So that I'll always be like, of course, it didn't work out because if all that was done, you'd have no excuses for yourself. And excuses are the safest place to be.

Absolutely. And you avoid failure. Right that you don't say it never happened. Yeah. Wrap it. Yeah, that's right. If you don't try it, then yes. I feel like I have that conversation all the time. It's so true. It's like if you You don't know, you don't know, unless you're gonna do unless you try it funny because I wrote the book specifically for kids, like for high school kids because I grew up without parents. I figured how can I write I reverse engineered my life and like 14 lessons, it's not some gimmick Oh, like 14 steps and like I legitimately was like, these are the lessons I could think of, to cut the learning curve in half of going from being, you know, someone coming out of high school to turning into a full blown adult in the world, you know, and so I tried to reverse engineer what I had to learn, forced to learn to survive, because I grew up so young, you know, like, living, emancipated at 14 and working at a pizza place and paying rent. And it was just me and my 22 year old cousins and, you know, trying to make something and I'm lucky to even have cousins, my life would have been a lot harder, even if I didn't have that. Right if it wasn't hard enough already. So yeah, I wrote the book mostly for that, even though I think I listen to my audiobooks, sometimes when I'm walking or running.

The core thing that your core genius that is ingrained in you from your life experience that you learned. Yeah, absolutely. And it probably influences your business today. Absolutely. I have I have some questions about your experience in entertainment and music. And you, you said yourself, you interviewed over 25 over 2500 interviews, and which I think is an incredible number. Looking at my interview palette, I don't have that many. But hopefully I'll get there. I love interviewing I love the communication. I think it's a lot of fun. What would you say I'm in the communication space? And so when you interview people, what are some what are the what are some tips you can give us to be a more engaging interviewee to be a more effective communicator to get our message across easier? Because that's your space. That's your genius, you're in this brand. connecting with your audience, how can we be more effective as business owners to connect with our audience?

Sure. So I've been promising people for like the last two years. So talk about, you know, putting money where my mouth is, I've been meaning to finish writing this book I've been working on called conversational power, right. And it's a working title. And there's so many frameworks that have just become a natural part of my personality. But I think the most important one as a host, or as a business owner, who's looking to connect, if you have trouble just connecting with people in general, because you feel like you're supposed to be doing something. And that's why because first of all, you're not supposed to doing anything other than listening. Okay? But people feel like, people make things harder than it has to be, I gotta be doing something. So they go and learn neuro linguistic programming, and they go, I learn all these things to try to control and like, control this. Why? Because entrepreneurs have a certain degree of control they need in order to feel like things are moving in a way, it's a hustlers mentality. Right. And I say this, you can't hustle your way into real love, real friendship, right? Or healing. There's no hustling that, right. But here is a framework that I came across and all the reading that I've done, that I'm going to present among with other frameworks in that book that I'm writing, that I think really helps people, scientifically proven actually, to help people connect with with others, because it was designed for those who suffer from not being able to understand facial recognition patterns to help inform you of how to speak to someone. So there's actually a proven framework that you can use starting to, after listening to this to actually help you connect deeper with p value add right here, right there right now. And it's called, it's called the intimacy scale. Okay. And this is a derivative work of a psychologist named Eric Bern, who created something called transactional analysis. All right, I've done my research on this, I promise you, I wouldn't lead you astray. So here's the here's how it works. The there's an acronym called stop. I'm you. Right? And it's essentially a circle. Because everything starts in silence, but also the deepest relationships can exist in silence. Right. So the acronym is stop. I'm you right? And so it's like silence things. Objects, places. That's the stop right? Most people will live on the shallow end of conversations of Oh, the Lakers. Yeah, the Lakers. Oh, Paris, France. Yeah, Paris, France, you know? Oh, these shoes. Yeah, these shoes. Oh, these cars. Yeah, these cars, things objects and places. And you can watch the ball. The ping pong ball being tossed back and forth on a table. The shoes Yep, the shoes, right. If you want to push the envelope you take it one step further from Silence things, objects, places to philosophies and ideas. Right stop. I'm used to full Ask decent ideas is a critical juncture to watch for. And it's like, it's like you can gauge where they're at. So Oh, yeah. Be be shoes. Yeah. Be shoes. Well, have you ever paid attention to the way they're manufactured? You're starting to talk about philosophies or ideas, right? Personally, I believe. And if they might, if they went back, I don't know, I just wear the shoes. They're not ready for that yet. So you gotta go back to passing the ping pong ball to things object places, or you find another way of phrasing what you're trying to talk about with philosophies and ideas? No, I really think that fundamentally, like who even decided shoes had to look the way they do, they could have you seem. So if they engage that, you've now increased the intimacy between you and that person, because now you're moving on to philosophy and ideas. This opens the gateway for being able to invite someone to share about themselves personally. Do you remember the first time you got your first pair of shoes and you can remember? Like, for me, I think my dad taught me to pay less. And I, you know, and those were my first shoes. And they always have this interesting, unique smell. It's a Payless shoe thing. Right? Right. And so now, you're asking about them? Well, as for me, my first pair of shoes was and now you're in like the me and you stop I'm you write the M and the y. And now you can close it out with us. That's funny, we both have shoes, we both have this thing in common. Now I'm using a very basic, absurd example. But it's really this progression. And you watch on the scale, on the wheel, where someone is at any point in time in the balance. And this is how you yourself can sort of use your sight and all your senses to gauge where somebody is. Right now I do this automatic. It's not like I'm sitting there like, Alright, now I'm going to push the Chi, it may feel like that at first, if you are someone who really struggles with that. But fortunately for me, through all the years of entertainment, I learned in my acting class, which is another and this will be the final one I promise framework that I can combine, which is why I'm writing this book called conversational power. And all my years of acting training, I learned about active listening and how it's not just one term, it's actually three levels. Right? Would you like to? Would you like to hear that?

There's, there's actively accepting, actively rejecting or actively confused. And you need to be able to clearly demonstrate either one, if you want someone to have a strong level of communication with you. So if someone says, you know, I believe I can fly, if you actively accept that, you know, I actually I believe I can fly to right, then you have a conversation on that level? Because you've listened in that way? Or if you go, I mean, I think it depends what you mean by fly, right? So now you're actively rejecting? Or you can be actively confused. What do you mean by that, right? And then that's where Curiosity should take place. But at any given time, all you have to do is listen actively through those three channels. So again, this book that I've been trying to work on, and I keep promising everyone, I'm going to finish with all the frameworks, right? Is the intimacy scale with active modes of listening, and eventually you develop this thing inside you. That just makes you capable of interacting with anyone on any level.

The genius of your own intuition. Yeah. That's great. I can't wait for that book.

I know, I really need to get it done. Well, when you get to the point where you want need an editor or book coach or a publisher, you know who to contact. There's a, it helps to have that. I just recently published author myself, it is, it's important to have that accountability. Yeah. Because sometimes those ideas just sit there and we don't get them out on paper. And we think about these things. And then it's like, oh, we guys put that off. So it's terrible. I have the outline, I have brief chapters, and I just haven't sat down and finished it

will get there. It'll happen when it's supposed to. That's, that's what you've got to relegate yourself to, but then your ideas can come more refined and focus during that time. So this is true. So it's just not ready for the paper yet. Yeah.

You tell yourself that that's a good this is what a what a treat, have a conversation and I'm excited to learn more about you and your story and what kind of transformation you can create for clients that you have, just with the communication aspect and and the personal brand and how that brand can connect with others. How that becomes a not only transformative experience for them to discover their brands, but to how they can then connect that to their clients. I think that's such a, you know, we talk about how it's something that kind of gets mixed in with everything else. But I think it's the foundational piece that every entrepreneur should go through to be able to really ask themselves those fundamental questions. it never ceases to surprise me how many people treat personal branding? First of all, they treat it like a creative process, which, first of all, business itself is a creative process. So don't undermine the creatives. Right? Sure, they may not be as savvy at sending a bill as you are, is instrumental nonetheless. And a lot of people do take for granted what goes into the creative process, because it's like my mentor, Joe Appelbaum, the same guy told me when I told him, you know, none of my creative friends, musicians, actors seem to be consistent or having a work ethic. And he said, Well, how do you expect them to respect your work ethic when they don't have one of their own? They don't even know what it looks like. Right? So a personal brand, a person who's missing a personal brand, or a clear clarity of who they are, and how they're supposed to be present themselves can't respect someone who does most of the time, because unless they're super, like it's unavoidable, like Gary Vee, right? Like, then they respect them, because Oh, everybody, I mean, clearly everybody loves them. But that's just jumping on the bandwagon. Because that's not how we started. And everybody knows that. And yet they refuse to see how foundational it is. Even Gary Vee said, they asked him if you had to choose between continuing to promote VaynerMedia or yourself, which built which brand would you build, he said, I would go with my personal brand. Because everywhere I go, those companies will benefit from, but VaynerMedia is just VaynerMedia. You see them saying? And yet there are people out there every day taking it for granted. Right? It's just because they don't want to do the work. They think it's a nice to have, it's not. And if you're doing well, in business already without it, imagine what you could do if you had it. And if there's any clients that you constantly run into who are terrible clients, that's because you didn't get your personal brand. Right. So the flag you were waving flag down the wrong people. Exactly. And so then you're sitting there going on, I hate it when I get these clients? Well, yeah, you haven't done the work. And if you're either gonna hate it or love it, but it's a fact that you need to do that. Yeah.

Because that's the best way to match. And that's the best way to match to your ideal client is within how you communicate it. It's all about that. Communication is maybe a soft skill, but it's the essential skill that you need for business, because it's how you execute all those plans. And it's the it's, you can't have it, it's very challenging to have a successful business without a good communication strategy behind it. So honored person again, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but it's because we do work in a similar space. But it's a it's so it's such an important message for people to hear.

You know, one of my favorite things to say this is my axiom for everything. Okay, one of my favorite things to say to everybody at all times in general, you'll hear it eventually, if you're around me long enough, is there's nothing worse than the right answer to the wrong question. So if you're asking yourself, what's the point of having a personal brand, no matter what answer you get is probably not going to help you. Right? So what I encourage you to do is to start considering maybe deeper questions, not what's the point of having a personal brand. But what could you do? If you had a strong personal brand? That you can't do? Because you don't have one? You see how that's different? The minute you ask the right question, you unlock actionable progress. So when you ask a terrible question, like Why does this always happen to me? Literally doesn't matter what the answer to that is, it's not going to help you do anything get anywhere. When you ask a question that actually has power behind it. And it may not be the first question you ask, you got to sit in the question. But even that sitting in the problem and going what's the real question here is more valuable? That's part of personal brand. What question do you need to be addressing? That people are asking? Because if you're not answering a question out there, then you'd have a personal brand, you have an ad, write an ad that may or may not support your personal brand and your message and your transformative power, for sure.Yeah, so I just want to invite and challenge everyone to find out what question are you operating under? And is it pushing you forward or hindering you? Because even if you're doing well, there's no limit in business to what you can do. It's the it's the only game in town that you can play until you're 106. So by As well understand that and do better, because if you if you're already comfortable just because you're killing it, and you're doing better than me, well then get ready because I'm coming for you. And I'm gonna eat your lunch. So you're either staying sharp, or you're falling behind,

or you're falling behind. That's, I think that's the best piece of advice to end the interview on. Absolutely. If you're not moving forward, you're, you're gonna fail, right? If you're not self improving, if you're not moving the needle forward, if you're not discovering new and different ways to engage your audience, then you're not going to succeed in business. Yeah. Philip, Where can we find you? Where can where? Where can we find all this knowledge? This book that's coming out, you already have a book. So where can where can our audience find you?

So the best thing you could do is you can legitimately just go to my website, although to be honest with you, like everyone else in business, I probably haven't updated in a long time. Right? So Philip Leno's, right, two L's and Philip for twice as lovely. Philip Lantos right.com, or I'm very active on LinkedIn actually, like, predominantly, and you are very approachable, I never want to give someone the impression that I'm not, there is not a bone in my body that has enough ego to think I'm ever better than anybody. And I'll just say that for for for, you know, noise bites, sound bites, I mean that, I feel like I can learn something from everyone. And why? Because I really could. And that's how I stay so awesome. You know, so please approach me on LinkedIn for LeBlanc house or go to my website, there should be an area that gives you links to whatever you need. Or if you want, feel free to email me at Philiplanos@gmail.com is my personal email. I keep my inbox pretty clean. Because I'm OCD. I've never had 72,000 messages in it. So I can actually handle my inbox. So feel free to hit me up.

Absolutely, what a great, so amazing to know more about your story and people can reach out to you, you're so open to that. I appreciate that you came on my interview today for the genius entrepreneur listeners and told us your story. Because it helps other people envision how they can transform their genius into a product and something that's monetizable and that you open yourself to that people can contact you and you'll have a conversation with them. Easiest conversation I've ever had. And I look forward to having more conversations with you. And yeah, I there's so many possibilities ahead. So any other final thoughts for our listeners?

You know what, I'm just very grateful that I'm not used to being on this side of the table. So I'm very grateful that you gave me the chance and I look forward to seeing if anybody bites and actually reaches out otherwise don't feel bad. All eventually see you because I'm coming for everybody. You're not going away. You're gonna make a big impact. You know how you know how to do that. You're no longer antisocial. I'm no longer done.