He Booked Kim Kardashian From His Mom's Phone at 15. Then He Went Viral.

Welcome to Work Unscripted. I'm your host, Savan, and today I've got my good friend, Brett. Brett, what's up? Good morning. How are you, Savan? Good to see you. Man, it's good to see you, brother. It's been decades, like we were talking about, since we actually last talked. How's life, man?

How are you, Savan? Good to see you.

Yeah? Life is wonderful. I'm living down in South Florida now with my wife. We have a baby on the way. Things are wonderful. So no complaints here. Everything's good. What about yourself?

You know, I can't complain either, man. You know, it's sunny here in the Pacific Northwest, which I'll take, right? Like, it's usually pretty rainy and my kids aren't complaining about anything because they're still asleep and my wife is still asleep. So I'm good, man. Like, this is like Zen moment for me. Yeah, dude, let's dive into it. Let's dive into it.

Yeah?

love it. No, it's so great to reconnect and there's no shortage of things to talk about.

Before we get into the specifics though, Brett, I do want to ask you, you've got a kid coming on the way. When is that due?

Yeah. That will be mid-June. So we got about two months to go.

Final countdown, man. countdown. What's the one thing you're worried about the most as a new dad?

I don't count that exactly.

mean, there's a lot of things I'm thinking about and I'm concerned about, but I just wanna be a good role model at the end of the day and set him up for success and set the stage for him to reach his full potential, whatever that may be. He's gonna be different from his mom, he's gonna be different from his dad. And so I wanna make sure that I don't...

Yeah.

whatever that is.

I don't parent with any agenda that, you know, kind of let him be his own person and support him to do that. So I know that that's more of a general sentiment, but that is really, I think, how I want to be as a parent and kind of lean into whatever direction he wants to take his life in and just be supportive. So I have that in mind from the beginning and I look forward to seeing how that all plays out. But I would say that's probably...

Yeah.

the number one thing and just keeping them healthy and happy.

Yeah, yeah, that's a big thing. I know like when I first became a parent, there was like all these people telling me, you know, don't let them use the iPad or an iPhone or, all these things and, you know, it's bad for them. And then, you know, when the kid shows up, you throw that playbook out the door, bro. You're just like, I'm just trying to survive some days, right?

Absolutely. mean, look, it's part of the world that we live in. Obviously, screen time affects all of us in adverse ways, but it's inevitable.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure, man. For sure. I want to go back to your childhood, though. I want to start maybe way, way back and talk about what you were like. You grew up in New York. Is that right?

Yeah, grew up in Long Island, Belmore, New York on the South Shore.

Yeah. You still have like that New York accent. Do you do you notice that or is that like something that you're conscious of?

It's funny, I hear different things from different people. I think certain words, it comes out more than others. I've only been down here a few years, so the New York in me is still very much there, both in accent and personality and just about everything else. certain words, comes out a little bit more than others.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I feel you. feel you. I love it though. I love it though. I love it though. I want to talk about when you were 15 and you started your first radio show at 15. I'm not going to put out dates or years because it'll probably date us, but what was life like trying to start a radio show at 15, man? Because that had to have been ancient technology compared to what we've got nowadays.

Yeah.

Well, I have to give a year just to put it in perspective of where the world was and where the media business was. want to say when I first started on what we lovingly referred to at that time as internet radio, because podcasting was not a known term at the time, I want to say this was 2005. And that was when I first started. was in 10th grade.

Okay.

Yeah.

Nope.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I came across Blog Talk Radio and all the credit in the world to Alan Levy and all the people at that company together. Shout out to Bob Charish and everyone who was part of that organization. So forward thinking at the time. you know, what was interesting about all of that, both from what I was doing as just a user, as a host before I started working for the company and what they were doing, no one

Yeah, Bob. Shut up, Bob. Yeah.

involved with that company had really been in that exact space before because it didn't exist. So if you go through all the people that you and I worked with, everyone from Alan and Bob, Philip Recchia, everyone who was involved in that company, some may have had backgrounds in like traditional media or radio or PR or telecommunications, but we were all sort of coming together where all of these skill sets, I think, contributed to what we were doing.

No? Yep.

Yep.

but we were building a net new thing and trying to get people on board for it. So for me, as just an ambitious young media maven, the prospect of just logging onto this website, having the free tools at my disposal to host my own talk show, have a phone number where people can dial in and be on the show live and have the platform. It seems very straightforward now as you and I talk about it in 2026.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Yep.

But in 2005 and for many years after that, that was still a very novel concept. So.

Yeah, yeah, dude, it was hard. It was hard to build that stuff because you didn't really, you didn't have like the influx of people coming to it like a MySpace or a Facebook at the time, right? It was like a very niche core set of people that were, I mean, granted they were like adamant users of the platform and passionate about the things they were talking about.

Absolutely, and I think you know that was in the infancy of blogging and internet community and now community is everything but if you look at and again Just being real about some of the users that we had on the site We did see a lot of there were a lot of people doing political shows you saw Just being real there were a lot of people that did like Bigfoot and UFO conspiracy theory shows we did have users on the site

Yeah, yeah.

Yep.

because that's what people were looking into. And that's where like internet sleuths were going to learn about things. It was actually an audio version of blogs. It was another way for people to interact. So I came across it essentially as a young adult. And I said, this is a blank canvas for me to build on and just do something really fun here. And then the rest is history. But it was a very exciting prospect to me at the time, because as you know, there was really nothing like it.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And you know, I think like, what's funny is the things that were resonating back then are still resonating now. You talk like murder mystery, Bigfoot, UFO, politics, like those are the hot items now. And to look at like in the rear view of the things that we were trying to do back then, I just remember for people that don't know, Blog Talk Radio was essentially probably the biggest. talk, like online talk radio platform back in the day. Massive. then we, then we, we released cinchcast, which is the Twitter version of, you know, the audio and, uh, and it was very revolutionary. But the thing that I always wondered was how do people consume this platform? Because like, unlike now we've got all these apps.

Massive.

Like you were sitting in front of your computer or you may have had like a nice iPhone, but like it wasn't as prevalent as it is now. But like I always wondered why people would consume this information. Now it only took me like 25 years. I'm like, okay, I get it. Finally I get it, right? man. So what did you talk about when you started your blog talk radio like show? Cause I don't actually know what you kicked it off with. What was that?

I mean, what it became was definitely a little different from where it started off because like everyone else on this, it was new to me. It was kind of unprecedented. There weren't a lot of other shows I could look to as an example other than shows on traditional media. So I think for everyone that was on that platform, for all the successful users, it was just trying to come up with what our version of an internet radio show was. And that was the only way to describe it to people. So when I started doing the show,

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

You know, I was a big fan of Howard Stern growing up. I loved what he did. And it's like, okay, well, I could just talk on this and I could have people on, but I should try to invite guests on. And then what it developed into was really a celebrity interview radio show. But the most fascinating part about this is I obviously did not start out with a strong listener base. I hardly had anyone listening to the shows live or even.

Yeah.

you know, downloading it and streaming it afterward, which of course was usually the bulk of the audience. But how can I take this platform that is unproven, that I actually have to describe to people what it is, where it is, how it's accessed, all of that. You have to explain it from scratch. Cause remember we're in the early 2000s here. And how do I convince celebrities, notable public figures to give their time to me?

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

on a totally unproven platform. They don't know me. They don't know my show. I didn't have much of a history to really prove it to them. So I needed publicists that were either forward thinking, let's take a risk on this, or people who just were not great and didn't do their research. And we're like, okay, this is just another hit for my clients. So I'll book them for an interview. And that's kind of how I built it. So I started with, you know, I would invite

Yeah. Yeah.

lower tier guests on and then it started to build. And I don't know how much you remember of this, but I had, I had Paris Hilton on the show three times. had Kim Kardashian on the show. I had Akon. had MLB, NBA players, current players and former retired players and hall of famers. I was getting anyone I wanted. I had Jimmy Fallon on the show to promote

Yeah. Yeah!

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon when he started at NBC, I reached out to him on Twitter and he actually responded. But going back to before, like I hosted most of these shows. Yes, I had a little microphone eventually, but I did most of them over my my home landline phone because hosts would call in to host your show or you could you could do a microphone and plug it in. But most people did it over the phone. So I was at home.

That's wild, I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, we had that telephone number.

with my mom's landline. And that's what I was doing it with in my childhood bedroom, that after school.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I love it, dude. And you know, I love that because at that time, people didn't know the difference, right? They think they're just dialing into this fancy show because we could set up the intros and all those things. It looked and felt professional, like for the most part. So like, if you never knew about it, you wouldn't think it's you in your mom's house.

Scrappy, scrappy as ever.

on her phone line, like doing it, right?

No, and I think, you know, all credit to the platform, you know, the switchboard capabilities really gave you the ability as a host to kind of do your own thing. You could, you could play music on the show. You could take calls. It was very easy to operate those shows as one person. And I, I don't know what the equivalent of that now is like even Riverside FM is great, like for, for very similar capabilities, but at the time,

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah, they made it very easy to do that. You would not know on the other side. Also, I sounded the same way when I was 15, so that helped as well. I've always, since my voice dropped, I've sounded like a middle-aged man. So that helped with the credibility a little bit too, but yeah, man, I was 15, 16 years old in my bedroom in my parents' house on the landline phone, reaching out for my AOL email address to these people.

Right.

Yeah! Right?

Yeah.

I had no resources whatsoever, but I had all the drive and ambition in the world, and that was enough to drive it to success.

Right. Dude, wanna ask you, like, where did that drive come from? Is that like an inherent New York thing where, you know, you've got to hustle? like, as somebody who's never lived in New York, but I've been there a bunch of times, that's the stereotype that I have in my head is like, hardworking, bunch of hustlers, do whatever you can. You know, one of my favorite shows is How to Make it in America on HBO. I mean, fantastic, but that...

Okay.

In my head, every time I hear about New Yorkers hustling, I think about that show. For you, was that the case growing up?

mixture of things. And I think it's a little bit different for everyone, right? I mean, I don't think even if you live in a place with hustle culture, it still has to come from within. And I think for me, yes, absolutely. Like even the years that I lived in Manhattan, I would walk to my office every day because I would just in the morning, feeding off the energy of walking through Manhattan, there's really nothing like it. I implore everyone if they can to experience that at some point in their lives. But I think for me, I have a really good work ethic. I've learned that from my parents. I think that's where a lot of it came from for me. But I think the way that it came out into this specifically was out of passion and opportunity. And it was something I wanted to do a lot more than being a student and graduating high school and going to college. I was passionate about what I was doing on Block Talk Radio. I wasn't making a penny.

Mmm.

Yeah, yeah.

it was not about the money. I was just really passionate about what we were doing and what I had the opportunity to do with that platform. and I will forever be grateful for that. I gave a presentation to a company recently at their sales meeting. my, my friend owns a media company and they, had, you know, a bit of a get together. And one of the things is I was putting together a little retrospect on my life and career is that.

Yep.

Who do I aspire to be? I aspire to be that version of myself at that age because I was so hungry and I was so driven. And my God, if I was gonna have anyone in the co-pilot seat with me right now, it would be me then because there was no stopping that guy.

Yeah!

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love. So what was like driving that passion? Was it was it just the ability to speak to other people? Was it the potential to be a superstar on the radio? Like what was driving that for you?

Probably a combination of all of those things. mean, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't an ego play that I could go tell my friends that, and my teachers that I was interviewing this person and that person. And they were always blown away by it because by the time I was booking Big Stars, it was like unfathomable at that point that I was talking to these people. I was literally a high school student.

Right.

Great.

And I would tell my teachers like, my God, Al Leiter MLB pitcher is going to be on my show this afternoon. Or next week I have an Olympic gold medalist on the show or what have you. There was definitely an ego play that it was very cool that I was able to do it. But really Savan, I was building something and it was my own. And no one gave me a show and I was just working a job. It was something that I built. And as you know, anyone that was hosting

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

a show on blog talk radio, you're wearing every single possible hat. You're hosting the show, you're producing it, you're booking the guests, you're doing the marketing and PR, any graphic design you might have to do, every little microcosm of a role that made that come together was me. Because it wasn't a revenue generating operation, for me at least as a user. So.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Without that drive, I don't think any of it would have happened. It was a completely self-made thing. And to this day, probably one of the things in my career that when all is said and done, I will be the most proud of.

That's awesome, Give me the playbook that you had back in the day, early 20s. Because I think right now, one of the things that people are searching for and looking for is how do you start booking these types of guests? But I would imagine, regardless of the technology, there's a playbook that works. And you can't consistently book the guests that you have over the years without this playbook. So give me a sample of that. the free version so I don't have to pay for it because I'm broke right now and unemployed. But give me that playbook.

No, that's a great question. I will say every guest booking came together a little bit differently, but there was one thing that I did more prominently than anything else that probably gave me the most success. I would go on PR Newswire and I would refresh it multiple times a day and I would look. I mean, till the week till the wee hours of the morning, I mean, I.

Okay.

just sitting there refreshing it. Right?

always looking to see when something was published. was usually, most things were published in the morning between the hours of nine and 11 Eastern. So I would go through that every day, multiple times a day. And anytime there was a product release or anything that was connected to a celebrity or a notable public figure, what I would do is at the bottom of every press release, there is a contact, usually from that brand or their PR agency.

Right.

or sometimes from the management of the talent that's associated with it. So I'll give you an example. Kim Kardashian was one of my bigger bookings. I found a press release. She was working with a company that did fitness DVDs. And I guess she did a partnership with them. She actually did a fitness DVD called Fit in Your Jeans by Friday. And again, this was maybe in the infancy of her career. She was not an A-list star.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay?

at the time. You know, she was still known for what she's known for. And if you catch my drift, but like was not. Exactly, I think she was with Reggie Bush at the time, so it was like just after that. But again, she was not this big, big star. So I reached out to this company and I figured she must have agreed to do some level of press for this. But who's going to be inviting her on and talk about a fitness DVD? It's not her field of expertise.

Yeah, Ray J days. Ray J days. Yeah.

The answer is, I'm willing to, absolutely. So I did them a favor. I believe I had another one of their clients on the show that wasn't someone I wanted, but it was a little, I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine. So I'll give you guys a little promo for this other project that you have going on, which I want to say it was Kim Lyons, a fitness instructor who was on The Biggest Loser.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yep.

who by the way was great. met her years later and she was excellent. And then they said, okay, we'll give you Kim. And we booked it months in advance. And it was literally just from emailing the contact on that press release and saying, I'd love to have her on to talk about it. Anytime we could pre-record it. I'll work around your schedule. We could do it over phone. I will be as flexible as you need me to be. And I only need about 10 to 15 minutes of her time. That made it very easy to get a yes.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome, man. That's awesome. Yeah, you know, one of the things that that's amazing now is there's all these like YouTubers that are doing these podcasts and they feel like they have to fly around the world to meet this person. And I know like for the most part, if you can afford those things, that's great. But if you can't, and you can't sort of like get a hold of them face to face. Based on what you've done in the history of your interviews, what are the things if you only had 10 minutes virtually to talk to somebody that's like an A-list celebrity, what are some of the things that gets you the most amount of traction with your listeners? Are there certain types of questions you ask or certain things that you avoid to make sure that you're on their good side?

that's a really good question. You know, I don't wanna, I'm not saying this as a cop out, but it depends on who the person is, right? So I think when you're dealing with someone who has any level of controversy in the news, if you're going to bring that up for the sake of having news made from your show, and by the way, that's where Philip and I worked incredibly well together, I would bring on guest.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I love Phillips.

He was incredible. I learned so much from him. We actually got together a few years ago And caught up but you know, I would do the interviews he would do a little blog write-up on the site and We would extract these little quotes and you know, he would get write-ups in page six But as far as how you go about it I think it plays in very much to how you see podcasts these days because most big podcasts they'll post their full episode and then they'll post little clips anywhere from

Yep.

three to eight minutes of that guest talking about a very specific thing. As you do with your podcast, you can separate it out into chapters, but it's all about getting that one clip of them talking about something newsy. So if you decide to bring up something newsy, it has to be in a way that is going to add to the story. You don't want them to just say something they've said before, or you don't want to make them uncomfortable. So it's about bringing it up in a way that

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

it.

doesn't feel obvious to them that you're fishing for a newsworthy quote or moment, but maybe it's just a different angle on that situation that they're bringing to light. So going back to when I had Jimmy Fallon on the show, he mentioned something on my podcast on Block Talk Radio about that he had to keep the studio very cold because his sweat glands were overreactive.

Yeah.

Thank

Now that was not something he had spoken about a lot before and he had just started late night. And that was kind of a unique thing to learn that the studio had to be freezing because he's a really sweaty, nervous guy. Might not be something he's proud to have making the news, but it was good enough for People Magazine to publish that story and cite us as a reference. And that was a turning point for me because, you know,

Yeah.

Wow.

I also had to explain to my parents what I was doing and I'll never f— My mom was taking the Long Island Railroad home from the city and I sent her the article and she was a People Magazine reader and that legitimized it for her. That People Magazine was talking about my show in an interview that I did. That changed how people around me were thinking about what I was doing. It went from being, Brett has this side hobby that he's spending a lot of time on outside of his schoolwork.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, holy crap, he's doing something really cool. But that was the approach I took. And I will say, there were times that I maybe didn't go about it the right way. I had a situation where I think I was interviewing Melissa Rivers and her mother had just passed away. I asked her, because Joan Rivers, one celebrity apprentice, I asked her if she thought her mother would have been a Trump supporter if she were still around. That would have been very newsy. To this day has not.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hello? Yeah.

spoken about. And she called me out for trying to make news with the on the interview. And I understand, but so it's a very, very thin tightrope to walk in doing that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I totally agree, Talk to me about this celebrity prank video. Give me a little bit of backstory, because I want to hear.

Yes. So I was I was interning at Broadway Video, which is a production company owned by Lorne Michaels. I was working at their office in New York City, right near right near 30 Rock, right near NBC. And this was 2012. So, you know, post production facility, super cool place. I think I was interning there in the summer, like three days a week. So I had two days off and

Yeah, what year was this, Brett? Okay.

You know, those two days off, I was either just relaxing, enjoying the summer or meeting up with friends. And there was one day I was, I was having lunch with a very good friend of mine, Edward, who ended up working with me on the video. And the original idea that I had, we were at a Halen Hardy sandwich shop right across from the Today Show Plaza. And there were a bunch of people out there and I was like,

Right.

I wonder if I hired a bunch of bodyguards and photographers to follow me around. And we went to the Today Show during a live broadcast when they're all out there on the plaza. I bet you we could walk behind the crowd and almost like hijack the live broadcast where they would think it's part of the show or someone really famous is coming on. And I bet you, I bet you we could do that. And he's like, my God, that's a great idea.

Yeah.

The idea evolved a little bit because number one, I didn't really want to get up so early in the morning to do that. It didn't really make sense.

was like the first priority you had. The most important thing.

Yeah. Well, because it wouldn't really make sense the way I was envisioning it for that to be happening at, you know, that show goes on at seven in the morning. So figure, you know, between seven and nine, it probably would have had to happen. So the idea evolved into let's make it a YouTube video. Let's do it on a Friday night in Times Square. And we actually had a map. We started with me walking out of 30 Rock.

Right.

Right.

I actually had just walked into the building from the other side. I was in that building for a total of maybe 10 seconds before I walked out and people started taking photos of me. So we had this whole thing orchestrated. And the idea was to really show how easy it is to fool people and sort of manufacturing credibility and show how silly it is that people give credibility and give stake to pretty much anyone and everyone.

Yeah.

Yeah.

without any real substance behind it. So here I was, people did not know who I was, whether I was famous or not, I know for a fact they didn't know who I was. They had no reason to come up to me, take a picture of me, take a picture with me whatsoever, other than to get clout for themselves. So I think Instagram was in its infancy at that time, but people...

Right?

Mm-hmm.

not knowing my name, not knowing who I was, because of that appearance that we sort of built and orchestrated. Every block that we walked, hundreds, thousands of people were coming towards us. It was an experiment. There was never a guarantee that it would have worked. And if it didn't work, know, no harm, no foul. We tried it. But it was one of those ideas. Now, I had never made a YouTube video before.

Wow. Wow.

Right?

really didn't make a lot of them after that either. It was just an idea I had that I wanted to do. going back to Blog Talk Radio, if I found an opportunity to do something that I felt strongly about, that I was passionate about, you just gotta do it. You just gotta figure it out. So I put resources together. I produced that video for less than $40. I just had friends help me out, friends that had gear, had cameras.

Yeah.

Wow.

and were willing to play the roles. The bodyguards were actors off of Craigslist that wanted to do it for free.

When Craigslist was great still.

Craigslist, that video would not have happened without Craigslist. So then we did it and we sat on the video for a while, probably a month before we edited and uploaded the video. And we just threw it up to YouTube. I remember it was a Wednesday night before I went to the gym to play racquetball. And I came off the court in between games and I looked at my phone and I had a text from Edward like,

Right? Right?

Yeah.

The video is on the homepage of Reddit. That's also when Reddit was a little more legit. It blew up immediately. So that was Wednesday night. This was also at a time where going viral was novel. It was not something that happened every day. So imagine this is Wednesday night. Now, let me tell you what that Friday morning looked like. I was on the cover of the Metro newspaper in New York City, which is the free newspaper that's handed out at every single train station.

wow. Yeah.

All Right?

Yeah.

Yep.

If you walk around New York City that Friday morning, my face and picture from the video is everywhere. Big photo on the cover with a headline like, Fake Celebrity Takes Over New York City. I was picked up at 5.30 in the morning at my house to go do Good Morning America, where they basically did a continuation of the video. They put signs in the crowd with my name on it. They had me walk a red carpet.

Love that headline.

Hold it slow.

I was interviewed by Lara Spencer on the concert stage for the summer concert series. I did Good Day New York. And by the way, the big kicker, and I could go over all the other shows that I did, because I got invited to everything. But I did end up getting interviewed by Lester Holt on the Plaza at the Today Show.

Yeah.

Yes. Wow. What what what do they ask you? Like what what questions did they ask you?

I mean, first and foremost, who are you? Because the video doesn't really tell that story. What made you do this? What points are you trying to make by doing this? Where do you want to take it from here? What is your background? Is this is this something to launch you? And I had varying answers for those questions because I didn't have

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't want to say I didn't have intention with doing it, but I didn't have a clear outcome. I actually had a freedom of outcome. I was okay if it didn't do anything. It was just something I wanted to do and I felt strongly about it. I will say having your first YouTube video go viral, it's really actually hard to continue after that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what I heard. That's what I heard. That's what I heard.

It's very hard to continue after that because the expectations are so high and the expectations you set for yourself are very high. But that was the single craziest experience I've ever gone through in my life. And I was still in college at the time. So a week after this video went viral, I was back in class for fall semester.

Mm-hmm

Yeah. Was that surreal? Like, is that a surreal feeling?

Absolutely, absolutely. You sort of have to just pretend like it's normal. And that's really what I did at the time. All these shows that I watched, I was on with no ramp up to it. Like I'm telling you, I was at the gym Wednesday night, here I am an absolute nobody. And 36 hours later,

Yeah. Right? Dude, that's amazing, man.

I'm going all over New York to do all these shows. I did a show on every major network. I went to LA and did a talk show. Anderson Cooper wanted to talk to me. It was nuts. And I would meet celebrities that were also on these shows in the green room and they knew who I was.

shit, that's awesome.

So, I mean, truly I could write a book about that experience even just that week. But another little tidbit to that that I'll share is that, like I said, I did go right back to fall semester after that. And one of my classes, I don't remember the name of the course, but it was Professor Lynn Spangler. She actually showed the video.

Right? You should.

in class as a case study.

Wow. What college was this? Where'd you go to college? Okay. Okay.

She showed this video in class as a case study for media and credibility and creators and just all of the social dynamics that went into what made that social experiment work, not knowing that I was sitting in the second row of the class.

Right? that is wild. Did you raise your hand?

So I'm, I didn't know what to do. Other students in the class knew that I was there. And I think they assumed that she knew. And I didn't want to raise my hand and be like, me, me, me. I spoke to her after the class and she was absolutely blown away. I was like, you know, I don't know how else to say this to you, but you know that's me in that video.

And you know that was only like four months ago or so. She was blown away. But I've had professors from all over the world reach out to me saying that they were showing it to their students. It connected me to people all over the globe who it either resonated with or they wanted to use it in some capacity. It just sort of had a universal appeal to it. It's something I am incredibly proud of.

Yeah?

Yeah.

That's wild. Did that change your decision making for anything you did after the video went viral? Because most times people spend their whole lives trying to hit one viral video in some capacity, but you have that one. What happened after that? Were you just like, that was fun, I'm good, and I'm just going to move on?

Well, at that time, remember this is 2012, that was not really a time where making money as a full-time creator was really a thing. Whereas now that is very common. People do that all the time. So I think if that were to happen now, by the way, the reaction to that video would be very different now because I think it would be in a very crowded marketplace.

Yeah.

Right? Right?

of viral content. There's more creators now than ever before, whereas, you know, I keep saying novel, but it really was at that time. I think in a perfect world in that period of time, I would have transitioned or rather harnessed the success of that into getting some kind of a TV deal. I was going to LA, I met with many different agents, managers, studios.

Right?

We actually had a few things that were very far along. I can say it now, but I wasn't able to speak about it at the time. But I was working with a production company. We were very close to doing a companion show to impractical jokers on true TV. It would have been more in the vein of social experiments than pranks, but it would have been a pairing to that because that show was really just starting to hit its stride during that.

yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

So what success looked like after that was really, I hate to say it, being successful in new and emerging media was just a foray into traditional media. Whereas now it's the opposite. Now you see everyone in traditional media has emerged to new media as a means of survival. Substack bloggers, have journalists like

Yep.

Yep. Mm-hmm.

Katie Couric, Megyn Kelly, they are all independent now. You have people who have left major networks. They are independent because that is how they can make money. And there's a path to monetizing that now. So had there been a little bit more opportunity to do it at that time, I think safe to say I probably would still be a full-time creator because I could have really harnessed it at that time into a career.

Yeah

Yep.

It was just a little harder to do in that time because it was unprecedented. were not you didn't have the Logan Paul's of the world. You didn't have the Mr. Beast of the world that were making careers out of it at that at that juncture.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, I do wonder like the things that you were talking about with trying to put together a show for social experiments, like all these things, you look at it now and they're blowing up. Like anybody who has a good or decent social experiment channel now is probably doing pretty well. Like there's a lot that's out there that resonates with people. But like, again, this was probably what now 12?

Yeah.

13 years ago when your video blew up. Is it still on the internet? Is it still on YouTube? Okay, we're gonna add that to the description to help keep it going in a small amount of way, but that's wild. So did you parlay any of those relationships into long-term things, know, businesses, partnerships, work, like what'd that look like?

Yeah?

Yeah?

I mean, it's definitely something that I show people as, as your pride is something very cool that I've done because, very similar to the blog talk radio show. It's part of my story. It's part of what made me who I am now. And as much as I learned from the blog talk radio show and doing that for, for years, I also learned a lot from this. So I think it's bold in my relationships with people because it's just something very cool that's part of my story. When I graduated college and I was looking for a job in traditional media, that was definitely part of what I was sending people in addition to just a PDF of my resume. was actually something tangible I could show people that at that time was only a year old. anyone in traditional media who sees this young guy graduating college who has this under his belt, I was hoping it would separate me out from the rest as someone who thinks a little bit differently, someone who understands new and emerging media and can sort of bring a lot of those ideals and principles into a traditional setting. And I would say that that helped me to get my first job out of college. And I think it also speaks to my approach overall as a professional. Whether it's my work now in the live event space or really anything that I'm doing, every single thing about my past, and I would say that's universally for everyone. Your past is the makeup of your present. I take all of that with me into everything that I do. All of those learnings, all of that knowledge and understanding of the mediums, it goes into my everyday. Probably subconsciously more than specific examples that I can point to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But going through those ventures and also not having a template to follow or not having resources, it forced me to wear a lot of hats. And it was an absolute crash course in learning and doing those things. So just incredibly valuable to me throughout and.

Yep.

something I will continue to share people, you know, with people in my life as a badge of pride moving forward. I mean, that will, as anyone should, I love to believe that my best days are ahead of me, but when all is said and done, that will go down as one of the coolest things I'll have ever done in my life.

yeah, I mean it sounds just just a story just being able to tell that story is pretty fucking cool let alone live the story. Brett one of the things that that I am very fascinated by and inspired by is your ability to take on situations without a template like whether it's you know tackling blog talk radio

Yeah.

as a new platform and trying to figure out how to book people because there's no playbook written about that. There's no playbook when you were doing it around the social experiment that you did with your YouTube video. How do you sort of take that framework of trying to approach things that's very ambiguous where you don't know the outcome and then eventually get some shit done, right? Like eventually book somebody, eventually launch this thing. eventually go on these talk shows because you're thrown into the fire with every single one of these things. And you got to figure it out pretty quick. Like, what's your, how do you sort of like mentally get into that mode where you can be successful at those things?

Yeah, I mean, I think if I were to boil it down to one thing, I'm not afraid of failure. And, you know, it's always nice to have a template going into something, doing something that has been done before. And there's a very clear roadmap to what success looks like. But it can also be very limiting as well. So even things that I do in my career that have a template, I always want to rethink those and see how I can bring.

Yeah.

my unique spin to it or be additive to whatever that is. So I think when you're taking on something that doesn't have that doesn't have precedent, you have to not be afraid of failure. And I think that applies to any entrepreneur that's starting a business that, you know, you have to be OK with with making mistakes and you have to be OK with being really passionate about something and getting excited about it. And maybe it doesn't get the results or the traction that you want it to as hard as that.

Right?

can be, you can always find reasons to not do something. You can always come up with a million reasons why, this isn't a good idea. Maybe this isn't worth my time. But all you need is that one reason to drive you forward. And I always seem to have that reason to do something. And I don't want to live with regret if I have the opportunity to do something.

Right?

Right.

to this day, if I feel that it's gonna be beneficial, if I feel that I have something to add to this or it's something that I have a vision for, I don't wanna wait and have it done for me and I don't wanna wait to see someone else do it. I wanna do it, I wanna be the one to do it, I wanna try. And to me, it all comes out of that natural curiosity. So it's not being afraid to fail and it's that unique mix of curiosity,

Yep.

Right.

and good work ethic. It has to come from within. It always has to come from within.

Yeah, that's awesome. Speaking of good work ethic, you are now at Forbes. It's not an easy place to get a job. Talk to me about how you eventually landed at Forbes.

Yeah, so before I was at Forbes, I worked at a marketing agency in New York called Coffee Labs. I was there for about five years. And one of our big clients there in the financial services space was, you know, we did a lot of event activations for them that were very tech forward. We actually did a very cool campaign where we were analyzing people's risk tolerance towards

Okay.

Financial topics by actually measuring their reaction to content biometrically. So we were having them self report how they felt about things Anything from aging population to ESG How they said they felt and we were comparing that against their actual biometric response, which you really can't lie So it's almost like a lie detector. It's almost marrying their verbal responses to their physiological responses

Wow.

Right?

So we did a lot of really cool work with this client and a lot of these activations that we did that, being one of them, we brought them to life at Forbes events for the business community. So they would sponsor events like the Forbes under 30 summit, the Forbes women's summit, and, a few other events throughout the year. So by nature of the fact that I produced these experiences, I would be on the ground at Forbes events, executing these.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And through all of that, I was able to develop a wonderful relationship with the people at Forbes. Forbes is an absolute anomaly in the media business. It is a great company. is independent. And there's no other titles connected to it. So you're not at a Conde Nast or a Hearst that has a million and one titles. Forbes is just Forbes. And

I didn't know that. Hmm.

Great.

It's not a revolving door. People stay for a very long time because it's a wonderful, wonderful company to work for. I've been at Forbes almost six years now. And so I was able to foster a relationship with the Forbes team, in particular with Sherry Phillips, who is now the CEO of Forbes, who is a very good friend of mine. And in 2020, like at the end of the year, COVID adversely affected

It's a time.

Wow.

my agency work. A lot of our projects were event based. They were getting canceled. It was a really tough time. I was also kind of looking for a new opportunity anyway. And there was an opportunity at Forbes to help out the events team, work on what we were doing virtually at the time. So I joined the team at that time. I moved over to be at Forbes and sort of just grew from there.

yeah.

went in with, with no expectations. I'm going to do this role. I'm going to do it very well. And, you know, we've been very successful in the live events business, you know, in the time that I've been at the company. So I've been able to be a part of what was already a very strong business and, helping support the continued growth of our events business. throw world-class global events and, that's only continuing to grow.

Mm-hmm

So it was something that there would not be a lot of reasons to not be part of that. I have an amazing team here, an incredible brand behind it, and really the work that we continue to do to this day is top notch. So it was not a hard sell for me to want to be part of.

Right

Did you did you initially interview for working with the live events team or has like you've been there for six years so you it's probably evolved over time. What did you start off as?

I've been with the live events team the entirety of my time at Forbes. Yeah. So starting out, mean, end of 2020 and through 2021, were still doing virtual events predominantly. And that was a field that I had had experience in prior to COVID. I had done virtual events and live streams with other clients of mine. And also just the idea of creating

wow. Wow.

Right?

web-based live content, as you know, is something I had been doing for many, many, years, decades. And just due to the nature of it, it wasn't a skill set that many people on the live team at Forbes had at that time because it wasn't really part of the offering. We were not live streaming from events. It was very much just a little more traditional at that time.

Decades. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And I was able to come in and really help support what the team was already doing and then evolve our content process, sort of going into, you know, a return to live and in-person and really develop what that hybrid setting looked like.

Right, right. Give me a high, I've never been to one of your live events even though I've wanted to go for years. Tell me sort of like what is the general expectation of these events for participants? What does it look like?

Yeah, I mean, it runs the gamut. So I'll give you one example, because we're just under two weeks away. April.

Yeah.

19th to the 22nd. Sorry, I had to think about that for a second. So coming up very soon is our Under 30 Summit in Phoenix, Arizona. So that is, that's a big festival type of event. You'll have everything from amazing speakers, business leaders, celebrities, athletes, and also under 30 listers of, excuse me, past and present.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

who come to tell their story and share a little bit about their path to success, headwinds that they faced along the way and how they overcame those things, celebrities talking about how they've moved on to different chapters in their career and maybe went on to new and exciting ventures. You have a concert, we have Don Toliver performing this year, he's one of the hottest hip hop artists.

Yes.

that's awesome. Yeah.

and just so many cool things along the way. Now that's under 30. So that is sort of a one of a kind thing. Most of the events that we do are around executive leadership. So we have our CIO summit, our CMO summit. These are events with rather small audiences. They could be anywhere from like 50 to 75 people. Sometimes we host dinners for 15 to 25 people. or summits for 100 to 200 people where everyone in the room is a C suite of their company. So you walk into the room and you are truly, you know, we are convening a room of the best of the best. It's not manager level, director level. We are actually bringing some of the brightest minds and some of the highest level executives in their fields. We're convening them in these rooms to have, you know, some of the

Right.

Mm-hmm.

really most important and relevant conversations as it relates to their industries. And we're facilitating that, we're connecting them. It's a wonderful networking and thought leadership sharing opportunity to attend these events. And really that convening power. of course, Forbes journalism creates sort of what the Forbes brand is in a live setting. And that really is what it is. So they're all very different.

Right.

our events, but you can always expect at its core the editorial credibility that goes into it and really making sure that we are having these powerful, thought-provoking and future-driving conversations on stage.

Right, right, right. What's the hardest thing about doing a live event versus online talk radio podcast? In terms of the preparation, the scale, what work goes into putting one of these together successfully? Because you've done it for six years now, so you probably have some repeatable things that you've done to make sure it's successful. What are those things?

Yeah, you know, I have to admit the first thing that came to my mind when you said comparing live versus doing it online is you have to get dressed up and wear pants. That's a really big difference. You have to go to the place and do the thing. So obviously there's a lot of travel that comes around with that. know, myself and my team, we're traveling constantly all over the globe. So there is a pressure of being in a live setting. People are in the room.

Hahaha Yeah. Yeah.

doing anything live is you've got one shot at it. So I would say that is it's a similarity to when you're online or anytime that you're doing something that is live. Blog Talk Radio, we did those shows live. mean, if I screwed something up, it was in there and it was what it was. So when you're in a live setting, especially with Forbes events, there's a lot of pressure.

Yep.

things can go wrong. You can prepare all you want. We are very prepared at our events. We have top notch security. People are all pre registered. We have their information. You know, we have sponsors that come in and do activations. You never know what is going to go wrong in a live setting. So just to give. A silly example, you we had our CMO summit last year in Aspen, Colorado at a very, very nice hotel there. never think that something like this would happen, but the power went out during our event. We're in the middle of our morning session. And, you know, I won't say the exact location, but a very prominent, very nice hotel, actually one that we will be returning to, but the power went out. And that's just something, it's a lot of pressure in the moment considering who is in the room.

Yeah.

It looks sloppy in the moment because it looks like it's something that maybe went wrong and maybe it's something we did. But those are just some of the things that could happen at any time and you just have to roll with it. Now, thankfully it was just a very short pause of the power being out, but 30 seconds of that could feel like an hour.

Yeah.

for sure, for sure. How do you handle that with people that have very high demands of their time? Like I'm thinking, I'm even looking at like your Forbes 30 to 30, like a tent or presenters this year, know, Vic Blends, Dwayne Wade, all these people, they all have certain expectations of things running smoothly. And it's not just them, it's their entire team, right? They've got hordes of people helping them out.

So being able to.

How do you balance their expectations with your own expectations, especially when shit goes wrong, right? Like what happens there? Give me like a behind the scenes look at that.

Well, mean, first and foremost, when the expectations are so high and they always are, the answer is you just want to deliver. You want to give it your absolute best. You want to give them a white glove experience and make sure that they feel welcome coming to a Forbes event, being on your stage. We have our own event space in New York City, but we do events all over the place. But when they come to a Forbes event, we are hosting them. So we want to make that a seamless experience with them.

Yep.

What does hosting them look like? Is it that you got a room for them, like a cheese platter, some water? Like, what does that look like?

I mean, it depends on the size of the event, but, we always have a green room with refreshments. There's always someone to greet them. We have a programming team that, you know, is liaising with them and their teams to arrange their arrival time, their stage time, anything that they might need if they might have to fly out for that event. For example, we do we do a our 3050 summit in Abu Dhabi every year. We did not do it this year. It's postponed. We're hoping to do it.

wow.

later this year. you know, obviously we're working with people on their travel out there, which comes with logistical challenges. So to the best of our ability, we always try to make it a white glove experience for the VIPs that are coming and offering their time to be part of our events and be part of our conversations. Ninety nine point nine percent of the time. And again, all credit to my team. Everything is smooth and perfect. But we live in the real world. And of course,

Right? Yep.

There is always a chance that a flight could get delayed or power could go out or maybe their name isn't on the list at the door for whatever reason. Again, these are very rare occurrences, but they can happen. So how do we handle them? I will say from our standpoint, I think you always have to maintain a level of calm because without a level of calm, you are not able to make sound decisions.

Right.

Right.

I'm a firm believer in that. And that is something I've had to learn over the years. It's very easy to panic when you're in a live setting and a problem arises. But you do have to, you especially as a leader, you have to be calm and you have to have, you know, you have to have your head on right to be able to make smart decisions and not just react in the moment and think about holistically, what is the right way to handle this?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

and how are we going to get whatever this issue is fixed? So that's first and foremost is that I try to keep everyone calm and not escalate the situation or the panic around it. Again, these things happen very rarely. And then just making whatever the next step is as smooth as humanly possible. trying to think of a specific instance, but you know, Do we have to move someone's session to the afternoon for some reason? Are we running behind on schedule? These are all just natural parts of doing an event and being in a live setting. But rolling with it and trying to turn a wrong into a right, you just have to take a little pause and think. Don't take too long, because you do have to act, but to not panic and try to think holistically and make sure that

Right.

Yep.

Right. Right.

you and your team are all on the same page before any firm decisions are made.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's great advice. Brett, I don't know much about how these events get planned, like the amount of work that goes into it. Like give me a breakdown for even this year's event. How many speakers do you have? You know, how long does it take to book them? How do you sort of set up the agenda? Like, what does that look like?

Yeah, so again, some of our events are half-day events. The Under 30 Summit in particular is about four days. So across, we have three content stages. We're actually going to have hundreds of speakers this year if we're including some of the listener stages that we're going to be hosting. So there's months of lead time that goes into this and booking.

Wow.

Wow!

Yeah.

So we have programming leads on the event. They work with our editors to help identify who would be great to lead and be part of these on-stage conversations, whether it's, you know, it could be a panel, it could be a fireside chat. There's a lot of different things that we can do on stage. also do, you know, pitch competitions are sometimes part of our events. And there's other things that we do on stage that really help shape an engaging program for any given audience. So there's a lot of thought and strategy that goes into that before an event happens. What is the theme of our event going to be? And kind of going back to our conversation earlier about trying to make news from a celebrity interview, we are also trying to drive the conversation forward on any of the events that we're hosting. So whether it's our CIO summit or even our healthcare summit that last year we hosted at NYU Langone in New York.

Right. So, I'm with a from the audience.

Is it that we're talking about that is gonna be relevant to the people in the room that drives the conversation around their industry forward? Let's tackle relevant topics and hot topics to what's changing and transforming and evolving their industry right now. That number one can be a learning to them and number two can help drive that conversation forward. Maybe even setting the stage for a little healthy debate, but it's really putting the right thought leaders on stage curating

Right.

the right audience and making it truly the most dynamic and powerful event that it could possibly be for that sector.

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing, man. It's, it all sounds exciting. I think like, the thing about live events is the amount of stress you have the day of, and there's certain people that are built for it. I know for one, I am not built for it because like, something goes wrong, I'm just like running around, you know, like trying to figure shit out. And it's so hard. to be able to be calm in those situations. But for you and your team, when stuff like that does happen, let's just say like somebody doesn't show up. Do you guys have a plan B? Is there like a plan C if plan B doesn't work out? Like what does that typically look like, especially at that Forbes level? Because it amazes me that you can do four days, hundreds of people without like having multiple backups of things.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a really good question. You know, if there's a situation where like, let's say we're having a mayor come and speak at an event and there's something last minute that they can't make it, we will adjust on the fly. It's a tough thing because some people might be in the room that are expecting to see that person. And obviously we're always at the mercy of whatever it might be that, you know, when you invite important people,

Right.

Right? Yeah.

to come to your events, you have to take into account that they might get called to do something more important that's relevant to what it is that they do in their career or their life. It could be a family thing, it could be a career thing, it could be a government thing. You never know what it's gonna be. So as far as how we would adjust on the fly, we could do any number of things, whether it's replacing them on a panel with someone else and trying to get another booking last minute.

Right?

Yeah.

If it's a fireside chat, we could cut it from the program and add a little bit of time to other things that we have going on. A lot of how we would solve for something like that depends on how much lead time we have. So if we have a couple days, know, we might definitely try to replace that person. But if not, you know, we make adjustments to the program so that we keep on time. It's very hard to keep panels on time. People love to talk. Everyone wants to get their work

Right.

yeah, I've been on enough panels to know that that happens far too often.

Yeah, so, you know, again, it really all depends on the situation and what a solve for that event can look like. But, you know, we're never trying to subtract from the program. So if something gets pulled out, we always want to replace that with something equal, if not strong.

Right, right. Amazing. Brett, want to maybe spend the- right. I want to spend the last 10, 15 minutes of our conversation getting your hot take on things and looking out into the future. But you have been around very important influential people, celebrities, politicians, all these things. What would be your advice to somebody who's just breaking into this space that-

But it's always part of it.

Yeah.

wants to high level people, influential people, and once they book them, what would be your advice for how they should act around them so that they can be successful?

That's a really good question. you know, I think kind of going back to what I was saying before, any time you are inviting someone to do something with you, whether it's, you know, it can be a virtual conversation like you and I are having now, it could be an in-person where you're inviting them on stage. Treat them like a guest in your home, right? You just want to make them feel comfortable at ease. You want to make sure that, you know,

Yeah.

They're confident that you're helping to tell their story and it follows a common thread. For me, I think any time that you want to have a discussion with someone and you're asking time of them, especially for people who, you again, famous people, politicians, business leaders, their time is very limited and they also give a lot of interviews. So what I would say to someone and look, you have resources at your disposal.

Yeah.

in the form of AI to help out with this. That is not something that was around even a few years ago. I would look at what has this person said? What have they spoken about already? If I'm going to hit on that, how can I elaborate on that? How can I add something to that that will be interesting to my audience, whoever my audience is? So you have to think about, okay, it's very exciting to be talking to this person. But

Right. Right.

What am I doing with it once I have them in? So I have them here. What is my audience going to want to hear about this person that is going to be most valuable to them? That is separate from the hospitality aspect of just making them feel at ease. And when you make someone feel at ease and you do your research and you talk about something that

Hmm. Right.

Maybe there's a little pot of gold you could find. Maybe it's something you know from their past that they're really excited about to talk about, that people don't often ask them about. What are you adding to that? So that they could also feel like that time is worthwhile. And the people who are listening, watching, whatever medium or platform it is, it's adding to their knowledge base. I mean, you're fishing for something new. You're almost going through their mind like you're on the beach with a metal detector. What is new?

Right.

and what is valuable that I can extract from this person that will add value to me and my audience and setting the stage for them to sort of naturally let that come out.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I just wrote it down to remember for myself. In terms of how you guys have conversations with your guests, how does that come to be? I'm assuming somebody probably is responsible for like coming up with the questions and then there's a vetting process to figure out if it's new or novel and adds value. Like, what's it look like at Forbes to go through that process?

Yeah, mean, you know, our moderators on stage and our interviewers, they're all writers, they're all Forbes journalists. So they're, you know, they're very familiar with that process, even if they're just, you know, writing a story with someone for the site. So I would say they're probably following a very similar research and background process. But the truth is every journalist is a little bit different. Some people like to be very well researched, as in they will go down a rabbit hole.

okay, yeah, yeah.

Right?

on that person and they will extract anything and everything. And then there's people who like to go in with very little research so that it all feels really new and they don't feel like they know that person's story so that their natural curiosity can come out. Everyone works a little bit differently as far as how they prepare. But yeah, I would say it just comes from their abilities as a journalist to then go and do it in a live setting.

Yeah.

But I will also say for a journalist and a writer, doing live events requires a bit of a different skill set.

I was gonna ask that, like how is that transition for some of those writers? I mean, I would imagine that there are certain things that they need to practice ahead of time to be effective on stage in front of hundreds of people. Like to be a good writer is very different in terms of how you communicate with the audience than a good moderator. Are there things that you guys do to make sure that the people that are moderating these sessions are successful? Like, what does that look like?

Yeah, I mean, so we have tools that we utilize for audience engagement if they want to take questions from the audience, which of course is very unique to a live setting. So even if we're sitting there, they could scan a QR code, submit questions, and we'll have someone who pops it up on our DSMs that they'll be on stage. OK, Carl, who's over there, has a question. We're going to go to that. So we help support them in that sense, which of course, why not take advantage of being in a live setting and take those

that's cool. Yeah.

that's great.

For sure.

So audience engagement is a huge part of it. There's also... when you're on stage, there is an entertainment aspect to it. You have to be animated, you have to be charismatic. That is not necessarily a qualification of a journalist, it's more of a nice to have. So I think as you're seeing even traditional writers that are emerging from like written mediums like newspapers, magazines, and even online that are going more to like social content, reels, and...

yeah.

Yep.

YouTube videos, charisma is a really big part of it. And that, you know, it's not necessarily something that can be taught. think to an extent, you either have it or you don't. You could be the best journalist in the world, but you might not be the best on stage. might, you might be really nervous being in front of a lot of other people. It's almost, it's almost a totally different thing.

I 100 % agree.

Yep.

Yeah.

So you almost have to like get over stage fright and almost going back to what I was saying before about maintaining a calm, the only way you're gonna really be successful as a journalist on stage and have those good conversations is if you are in a good head space, that you're comfortable up there, you understand the task, you understand that you're in a live setting, keeping it lively and active because again, you're live. So everything has to be in real time.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

If someone's going a little bit too long with an answer or you want to go in and just cut them off to cut to another person like that's another thing because you could be a moderator with three or four other people on stage with you. That's like another job on top of it is that you're you're making sure that that is going well. So you're almost playing producer at the same time. So yes, there's definitely conversations and training people for that.

person.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

But I think ultimately, yes, charisma is something you either have or you don't, but it's also really important that they get their reps in and do it often. Because it is something that even if you're great, it is something you can get better at over time.

Yeah, I mean I just I just pushed out a video about the importance of Seeing yourself speak and hearing yourself speak consistently there was like something online this woman was talking about, you know Waking up and every day take a five minute video of yourself listen to it at end of the day and getting those reps in so you can see the quirks that you have and it's about Approaching it like a craft or an art that you're constantly practicing at and most people don't do that Like you don't sit and watch yourself speak But it's also arguably one of the most important skills that you could possibly have so that you can actually communicate the value Your value to other people but also your value to yourself so you can actually like really understand things clearly and I completely agree with you those reps are highly important to get good

Yeah.

Cause you don't expect to be good at baseball overnight or football overnight, right? Like you gotta get the reps in.

Gotta get the reps in. So then it begs the question, which I'll pose to you. Do you listen back to your shows?

Yeah.

You know, I listen to myself while I'm editing, but I won't, you know, sit down and like listen to it on a car drive or something like that. I think like by that time, I'm a little savanned out, right? Like I'm like, man, I'm so tired after the editing, the interviews, all those things. I'm like, this is too much. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. No, I know what you mean. I, you know, I will admit I have a little bit of this. I, I can't stand the sound of my own voice. there is a thing where when, know, the way you hear yourself and the way you hear yourself when you're speaking versus the way you hear a back, you actually do sound a little different. but listening back to like blog talk radio shows,

Right?

Yes.

can't do it. I really, can't do it. People ask me all the time, like, do you still have your episodes? Do you ever listen back to them? I do. I do have them. I do not listen to them. Maybe one day down the road on a rainy day, I'll break them out. Sometimes that is really hard to do, but just getting your reps in, not being afraid to make a mistake.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

You know, be your own harshest critic. I think it is very good to set standards of excellence for yourself rather than having anyone or anything else set that for you. And I think, you know, if you go back to like early in my career with blog talk radio, I didn't have standards set for me. It was just something I wanted to do and wanted to do really well. And that serviced me well because I knew sort of what I wanted and I knew what I was building towards and

Yeah.

I just wanted it to be better and over time I just figured that out. So for anyone in any field that is doing something that's outside of their comfort zone, do not shy away from it. If it's something that's gonna be additive to you, if it's a skill that you can flex that will make you stronger in whatever it is that you're doing, make you more valuable, keep going, keep doing it. Content creators.

Yeah.

Yeah Wow Wow Wow

Keep going. know, one of, Edward, who I was telling you about before, who did the fake celebrity video with me, I believe a week or two ago, he just recorded his thousandth podcast. He does one every single day. So it's not just a thousand, it's also a thousand consecutive days.

Yeah, holy smokes.

And he has a massive audience now. He has over 250,000 followers on Instagram, probably even higher now. And it's just from consistency, learning. And if you have to edit me out, I apologize, but like also not giving a fuck.

Oh, man, this is a swear friendly podcast. There's a lot of that here.

Yeah, but I mean it, you know, and that's just keep going consistently, just keep going. And if it's something you want, that's why I say the drive has to come from within because this whole thing is a marathon. So if the passion isn't genuine, it's not gonna drive you through.

Yeah.

Yeah. Agreed.

Yeah, agreed. I love that. I love that Brett. All right, my friend, last question for you. And you sort of hit on it a little bit earlier, but I want to fast forward maybe 35 years, whatever platform we're all listening on, if we're still alive in 35 years. your son finds this conversation, you and me talking.

Hahaha!

What do you hope he gets out of the conversation today?

Well, that we're very excited for his arrival, number one. You know, I would hope that, and I will absolutely show this to him. You know, obviously he'll understand this at different levels depending on what age he is, but I hope that he sees that his father has and has had many passions.

Yes, you go.

The importance of having a good work ethic and a natural curiosity. The importance of not just having ideas, but executing upon them. A good idea is nothing without execution. That's not a quote I invented. That is just a universal concept. A good idea is nothing without good execution. Everybody's got good ideas. Very few act on them. So I hope that...

Yeah, everybody's got good ideas. Everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

It's as much of a learning for him about his dad as it is for any other one of your listeners who can hopefully take some cues and inspiration from this because the truth is you can make something out of nothing. I've done it, you have done it. It's not easy, but it takes the right set of skills and just the right mindset to understand that nothing is gonna be handed to you on a silver platter and that if there is something you wanna do,

Yeah. Yep.

Now more than ever before, you have the tools and resources at your disposal to do it. There's no excuses. If I had AI back when I was on BlockTalk Radio, my God.

man. Yeah, turning things out.

My God, like, I was actually thinking about that before we started our conversation today. Like, if I had that then, I mean, all of my cold outreach emails, I was doing all that manually, all manual.

No, it's just so painful just typing them all out.

my God, everything, the research and you know, so I would also say and to anyone listening now, take advantage of this AI opportunity. And I'm not calling it an AI revolution, calling it an AI opportunity because just like any other tool at your disposal, it's how you use it. It's how you put it into practice, not just the fact that it's there. That's why so many people are, they're either really bullish on AI or they think it's a waste.

Yep. Yep.

Well, if you think it's a waste, it's because you can't wrap your head around what the capabilities are and how this is gonna be plugged into everything and accelerate everything that's going on. Keeping an open mind, all of these principles. So for my son, I hope he gets just as much out of this as anyone else listening, but maybe a little different because it's his dad.

Yeah. Yeah.

I love that man. Brett, you wanna plug the Forbes 30, under 30 event coming up? What does that look like? Give me the details.

Absolutely. So the Forbes Under 30 Summit is taking place in Phoenix, Arizona coming up April 19th to the 22nd. And I don't know when we're publishing this, but I will gladly give you a link if your listeners would like to attend.

Perfect perfect. All right, my friend Brett. It was good catching up man I love love love this podcast for many reasons But the main reason is I get a catch up with old friends. It gives me an excuse I it it inspires me how well you've done since blog talk radio and the things that you've done So I appreciate you man. It was great having you on and I wish you the most success

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Savannah. The feeling is mutual. I'm so glad to reconnect and we'll catch up more soon, but I'm so glad to be on your podcast and thank you again for having me. I really appreciate it.

Yes.

All right, thanks, Brett. Have a good one. See ya.

All right, man, talk soon.