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Let me introduce you to Zawadi. After the loss of her 14 year life partner, Zawadi started her journey through abandonment, abuse, grief and homelessness. Through the Urban Possibilities Program, she found purpose, passion and her voice. Zawadi is now chief spokesperson for the Urban Possibilities Empowerment Program and uses her voice to help others see the light. Zawadi is a writer, spoken word poet, transformational speaker and published author. Zawadi, welcome to Belly of the Beast Life Stories.   EPISODE SUMMARY - In 2013, Zawadi’s life partner of 14 years died from cancer - With no place to turn, Zawadi found refuge with a narcissistic abuser - Zawadi finally escaped but with nowhere to go, ended up homeless - She lived for six months in a homeless shelter that felt more like a jail - At her lowest point and contemplating suicide, Zawadi met Eyvette Jones-Johnson and Urban Possibilties where she found her voice and purpose - The importance of having purpose when you’re homeless is crucial - Skid Row in Los Angeles was the ‘first level of hell’ - An old friend helped Zawadi learn about finances and more - Stigma of homelessness and media portrays wrong -- every time Zawadi goes to speak at corporate events someone tells her they are living in their car - Zawadi is grateful and living a meaningful, purpose-filled life   QUOTABLES “But from there I was looking for refuge and I ended up in the arms of a narcissist abuser. I was in such a dark place, but there was still a little bit of light, you know. And that journey let me into the belly. And so that's where purpose began in the belly.”   “Actually I've only been housed two years. And even that homeless journey was a nightmare. But here, through that whole process, the trauma that I went through. I lost my voice. I couldn't speak. Because of the trauma was so dark.”   “It was a homeless shelter, but it felt like we were in jail.”   “But what he didn't know that I was about to commit suicide. And because I'm a woman of my word and my integrity is very important to me. I went ahead and went to that writing class and that was the day that my life changed. Eyvette (Jones-Johnson) was up, she's the founder of Urban Possibilities. And she began to speak, and for the first time, it was like she was chipping at the reservoir. Was chipping at my heart. And that was the first time that I was able to let a little tears come out. I remember how the tears were burning my face. And that was the first light that I saw while in that belly.”   “Those three years of being homeless was very humbling. And it stripped every ounce of pride that I've ever had.”   “But part of me living in that shelter, I had to get up. I had to get up. I had to have purpose every day to get up. Because if not, I would still be there. You have to get up every day when you're in that situation. You have to have purpose. If you don't have a purpose you're not going to make it out. I was in survival mode. And I know what it feels like to be hungry. I know what it feels like to have to look on the ground for pennies to try to scrape up a dollar. And I know what it feels like to be judged. I had a lot of shame. A lot of shame. I will be on Facebook watching everybody else's lives. You know, this person is in Hawaii, this person's in London, Paris. And I'm in an abandoned building. Hungry. And no money. But I knew there was a purpose behind it. Skid Row is the first level of hell.”   “It was just a very humbling time, but it was just stripping me. I had to go through this transformation.”   “My transformation began when (my partner) died. My transformation began when I had to escape for my life. My transformation began when I was homeless. My transformation is.. I'm still transforming.”   “And now I'm light. I know I'm light. I'm light in dark places.”   “I'm on this quest of just being open and you know, just being available and surrendering. I'm in a place that's surrendering to the process. I just surrender.”   “But when we go out to speak in in corporate America, I'm always approached by someone that's working in corporate America that lives in their car.”   “But the beauty about it is that I got. And the beauty about it is that I wake up every morning kissing the sun. I wake up every morning knowing that I have purpose and I am destined for destiny.”   TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE https://inourbelly.com/season-1/episode-5-zawadi   RESOURCES Urban Possibilities - non-profit that empowered Zawadi https://urbanpossibilities.org/   Zawadi Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/zawadiartist   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zawadi_artist/   Zawadi’s 2015 Performance at Urban Possibilities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXBs1Sjo078   SHOW RESOURCES Subscribe, rate and review this podcast ♥️ Thanks for listening! http://inourbelly.com to preview all episodes coming up and future seasons Become a Patron https://www.patreon.com/bellyofthebeast @inourbelly on Instagram http://instagram.com/inourbelly @inourbelly on Twitter  http://twitter.com/inourbelly @davidall on instagram (host) http://instagram.com/davidall

Taylor Johnson joins Mason on the podcast today. Taylor is a sex educator and relationship coach who is deeply passionate about helping people to supercharge their sex lives and build powerful intimate relationships. Taylor believes that sexuality is at the core of what it means to be human, and when you supercharge your sex life, you supercharge your entire life. Taylor takes a grounded, practical and real approach to his work and we're thrilled to have him chatting to us today.    Taylor and Mason discuss: Premature ejaculation and self love. Taoist sexual practice and Tantra. Tension as a global epidemic and as a major factor in sexual dysfunction. Semen retention. Sexual practice as part of a holistic lifestyle. Re-channelling sexual energy into work and creativity. Multiple orgasm and edging.   Who is Taylor Johnson? Taylor Johnson is a sex educator and coach. Taylor helps men master their sexual energy and use it to supercharge their entire life. Taylor's programs and coaching synthesise elements of Tantra and Taoist sexuality with western practicality - in a grounded, accessible and powerful way.    Resources:  Taylor's Website Taylor's Instagram Taylor's YouTube Orgasmic Mastery Course   Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast? A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify!   Check Out The Transcript Here:   Mason: (00:04) Taylor, welcome to the podcast man.   Taylor: (00:06) Thanks for having me, happy to be here.   Mason: (00:09) So, can you just say a quick g'day to everyone, let them know what you're up to with your life and in the world?   Taylor: (00:16) Yeah, absolutely. Hey, everybody, thanks for listening. My name is Taylor. I am a sex educator and a consultant for men primarily, and I help men do things like overcome premature ejaculation and master their sexual energy and be able to put it into whatever they want in their life.   Mason: (00:34) Yes, sweet.   Taylor: (00:35) [crosstalk 00:00:35] version.   Mason: (00:36) Man, I really like that. That's nice and succinct, and that's something that normally doesn't happen on this podcast. But you know what, you're refined and you're refining sexual energy. So no wonder you're able to actually refine your vocabulary into something potent. It's all macrocosm, microcosm stuff.   Taylor: (00:53) Working on it. It's a practice, you know, it's a practice.   Mason: (00:56) So I really wanted to have you on this conversation. Being Brovember we're talking about men's health. SuperFeast, the people listening to community here, are aware that we're looking at a very ancient system when it comes to the herbalism being the Taoist common herbs. We're looking at how we can very sustainably with respect and with, responsibly take something that's got such an ancient lineage and make that relevant to modern times, and that's why I put that respect there. So we're actually respecting the roots, and we kind of stay within that frame, but then how do we actually bring that relevance where these things like these sexual practices or even the fact that you take Taoist tonic herbs or do Taoist sexual practices or tantric practices. How do we not bring it over so it doesn't just get caught up into an egoic identity, which I think happens a lot? Sometimes you get into these communities. I remember when I got into the yogic community, it was like out of the frying pan into the fire.   Taylor: (01:55) Right? Yeah. How do you make it practical so you don't have to spend months and months and years, [inaudible 00:02:00], these techniques that you may or might not use. This talk about in conversation to like prove your worth or something, like grounded and practical and real, that's what I'm all about.   Mason: (02:11) Ground and practical and real, absolutely. And that relevance. I mean, I was talking to you about it because like we're going to go into multiple orgasms for men. We want to go into the retention of ejaculate, and how these conversations are actually going to be relevant to a modern man and in a modern relationship, and I was chatting to you about it. I'm kind of arriving at this point where I'm feeling really nice about approaching this practice in my own life. It's kind of feeling like, I'm not chasing anything, I'm not kind of not really coming to these practices anymore from that seeking or looking to mend a pattern that I picked up when I was a kid or in my teenage years, around where my own sexuality.   Mason: (03:01) I've kind of done a lot of inner work, a lot of psychological work, psychos, just getting into it, just trying to be, whether that's around stories I had around my own cock from porn. The shame I had around my cock from stories I'd made up by being, getting changed with other boys, couple of experiences when I was a teenager, and then again, probably watching porn and being like, "Hang on. I'm coming way too quick so I should probably go to Taoist sexual practices and be able to hold my come, so I don't feel embarrassed or self-conscious when I'm in the bedroom."   Mason: (03:38) I felt like that's been quite insidious for me coming out. I've gotten to that point where I've been on the precipice of being able to really do these retention practices and then gone, years ago and gone, "You know what, I'm not coming at this from the right reasons. I'm really trying to mend something that should come from a little bit more internal psychological, alchemical, spiritual place." But now I'm really feeling like I'm arriving with a clean slate. So I'd just like to hear your take and your experience on how you personally arrived in these practices, these sexual practices, if you've got any little caveats or advice for guys who are approaching it.   Taylor: (04:24) Yeah. Thank you. I'm curious to hear more about what you're experiencing right now too maybe in a little bit. But for me, This has been, I guess ,this has been a curiosity for me, sex, since I was a teenager, right? Sex and also those deeper energetic realms of spirituality and yoga and meditation, Qi Gong and that sort of stuff. From a young age I was interested in those things and I pursued yogic practice, I did yoga teacher trainings, I did the silent meditation retreats, I studied different religions. At the same time in this different compartment of my life, there was sex, and I was fascinated by it.   Taylor: (05:00) I was super attracted to women, super curious about sex, and at the same time, all these practices that I was studying around spirituality and energy, none of them ever mentioned sex. In fact, there was almost like an anti-sex attitude in a lot of those things. And it felt like this really strange disconnect in my body and in my mind, and heart and spirit. At a certain point, I had discovered a book, I believe it's called Sexual Energy Ecstasy. It's a blue book, I don't remember exactly. It was like 12 years ago, and it gave me this idea that you could actually mix yoga and intention and presence with sex. It was this like, the beginning of a process of merging those two worlds for me that has been a sort of lifelong journey since then. But that was a really catalyzing moment, like a huge lightbulb went off in my head because there was so much programming around sex not being spiritual and sex not being good, and sex pushing it to the side, that it was beautiful to experience that coming together.   Taylor: (06:08) And so fast forward a little bit. I started to try those practices and I regularly struggled with premature ejaculation during that time. So it was a little extra motivation to dive more deeply into that. I tried it a bunch, I tried it a bunch, I had some successes and then I noticed that it started to make me feel like, "Oh, yeah. I'm a sex master." I got this all figured out and it got to my ego and got to my head, I guess sort of similar to what you were saying. There was a certain point where I had to take a step back, because at the same time, I was struggling with porn addiction, yada, yada, yada. Fast forward to now, I feel like I've come into a much more balanced place with things too. I just skipped a bunch of stuff in the story, but I'll pause there to see. You looked like you had a little hand motion.   Mason: (06:57) Yeah. I mean, if we quickly go over the practices because I'm sure we've got men and women listening who haven't read like the Sexual Mastery for Men book by Mantak Chia, haven't been in that world of looking in Taoist multiple orgasms. However, if we can just have a quick little look at what those classic exercises are. You're kind of like talking about the squeezing the PC muscle.. I remember when I, like Mantak's just like, his books are just written the way he talks. Mantak is a Taoist practitioner and teacher everybody. You might have heard Tahnee talk about him. Tahnee's gone and learned at his Tao Garden in Chiang Mai.   Taylor: (07:45) Chiang Mai.   Mason: (07:46) So she wrote the Chi Nei Tsang, the Daoist's abdominal massage and it's an absolute weapon. But his books are just like, "Okay, you're squeezing the PC muscle 500 times a day. Just when you're in the car, you just sit there and you're just squeezing them. Like that feeling when you're holding, and you need to wee really bad and you need to squeeze that muscle. Do that 500 times a day, and that's the first step." And you decide, "Okay, it's a bit ambiguous."   Taylor: (08:09) Yeah, very mechanical and very dry honestly. I didn't make it through his book in entirety. I've experienced great success without reading that entire book. So just for anyone out there, there are other ways to get there that might feel a little more heart centered or warm, or at least less mechanical and engineering like. [crosstalk 00:08:27]. Just speak to that one piece you said, the PC muscle thing. I think this is a really important thing to talk about. Because all over the internet right now if you look for how to last longer in bed, or how to overcome premature ejaculation, pretty much the majority of what's out there immediately is PC muscle exercises, "Squeeze this. Squeeze this. Strengthen that. Strengthen that."   Taylor: (08:48) But a big problem with that is, when's the last time you or anybody went to the gym for 40 days in a row and did 200 squats every day for 40 days without stretching or without taking a break, right? That would create a problem in your body, that would create a problem in my body. I wouldn't be able to walk well after that, maybe not even after day four. I need a rest day. I need to stretch and I would need to counterbalance that. So a problem a lot of guys run into when they start doing PC muscle exercises all the time is they actually put their pelvic floor into a state of tension. Tension often is what causes premature ejaculation. Relaxing that area and being able to relax that is huge. So instead of doing 100 PC muscles exercises every day, like there's some other things you can do like different yoga poses and different stretches and different breathing exercises to bring more spaciousness down there.   Mason: (09:45) Would you mind if we go into that a bit later.   Taylor: (09:48) Yeah, happy to. One other little anecdote. I went to a Tantra workshop in Thailand two years ago, and the instructor asked this room probably full of 100 people, I would say, asked the room to close their eyes and tune into their pelvic floor. For everybody listening, I'm going to invite you to do that too. As long as you're not driving, just close your eyes and notice your pelvic floor. Your pelvic floor is the area around your genitals, in between your genitals and your anus. This is your perineum. And see if there is any amount that you can relax that area of your body at all just even a little bit. Are you holding any little micro tension there, tension at all?   Taylor: (10:38) It was really interesting in this workshop. You can open your eyes now. Because the instructor asked us that question and 90 plus percent of the people raised their hand. I did too. We all had tension there and we could all consciously relax that area of our body. Then the instructor asked us again five minutes later, and still 90 plus percent of the people raised their hand. And so it was this really interesting learning process of "Oh, wow. We're all walking around with a lot of tension in that area of our body. So maybe doing kegel exercises all the time, isn't the only answer.   Mason: (11:10) That comes up in like, I feel like that's what the world's really wanting is in that releasing of tension, that relaxation. Everyone in the West is obviously so Yang. We talked about shiny things we need to strengthen. Even with eye exercises, no one's even getting the sense of like, hang on, there's musculature around there that is super tense and you need to relax. And then you look at the West, everyone's so uptight, especially around the anus, and so that muscle, that PC muscle coming from the pubic bone right around to the coccyx, is like literally tight.   Mason: (11:45) As you're saying, that constant squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, if you got a tight neck, you're going to go and get like ... I'll just be like, "You know what, I'm going to really strengthen my with that muscle right now. This is how ..." You get one of those iron neck things that put a [crosstalk 00:11:58] on your head, "This is going to fix me." It's super obvious, but we've been so ... we've gone down that route of programming ourselves. And of course we're impressionable, and so we take-   Taylor: (12:09) Totally.   Mason: (12:10) Yeah. So like then, what are we doing in ... Let's just go into it now. What is your recommendations rather than just squeezing, and then how do we get a little bit more colour to that conversation and bringing blood flow and Qi down to that pelvic floor?   Taylor: (12:28) Yeah. One of my favorite and most simple exercises to do is deep belly breathing. And you can breathe into your pelvic floor too, and it doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be this great, mysterious mystical thing. You can just take a deep breath down into your belly, into your lower belly, and it literally expands that region of your body. One of my favorite ways to have people do this for their first time, if they're not used to deep belly breathing, is to lay on their back on the ground. And then you can put one hand on your chest and one hand on your lower belly, and try to breathe into that hand that's on your lower belly.   Taylor: (13:11) You'll notice that when you really focus your breath there, and you focus on expanding that part of your body, you can feel expansion in your sacrum, in your lower spine, in your abdomen, in your pelvic floor, and that whole area of your body. If you just slowly breathe into there, it's not a forceful, like get it done sort of thing, but it's a slow, easeful deep breath. That is an amazing, amazing, simple practice.   Mason: (13:38) One thing that when I was first getting into these practices, with good intentions and in some direction just seeking and chasing something, one thing that kind of threw me off was, I was all about the deep breathing. I've grown up around martial arts, and so had that ability to breathe into my belly. And then once I was in the bedroom, once I was having sex and really releasing tension, not realizing how much tension I was actually holding within my PC muscle, in that area around my sexual organs. And naturally physiologically, you release tension, your breath and your fascia is going to be able to bring subtle movement, you're going to get a flow of Qi there.   Mason: (14:25) In the beginning, I became more sensitive. Because despite the fact that I'd had evidence that I didn't really have to worry so much around premature ejaculation, that was still my sexual baggage and story I had about myself. So I actually got a little bit thrown off around how additionally sensitive I was, in the beginning. I just wanted to kind of throw that out there, because that sensitivity is something you want, but then working through that, that kind of somewhat disassociating that just because you get that pleasurable feeling, doesn't mean you're just going to get out of control and come real quick.   Taylor: (15:07) Right.   Mason: (15:09) That was a huge insight for me. Then opening up from you, you were talking about particular stretches, poses. Are you particularly looking at the hip flexor muscle when you're stretching out in through that area? What would you be looking at?   Taylor: (15:31) Well, yes, so they are the more active things, active poses you could do to do active stretching, but one of the ones that I really like is bridge pose, and with your hips up in the air, and your shoulders back on the ground and your feet on the ground. It would be cool if we could flash a diagram of that onto the screen right now. But basically, in that pose, somehow ... I haven't fully studied anatomy and physiology, but somehow the musculature in that pose allows you to relax your pelvic floor, in a way that is really incredible. I haven't experienced that in pretty much any other yoga pose or position. It's like a deep just dropping, deep connection with gravity of your pelvic floor and to feel that ease, it's really remarkable there. That's one for sure.   Taylor: (16:20) And then, yeah, there are generally just stretching your muscles, and your legs, and your hips is also helpful. I'd say, this thing of premature ejaculation, it's more than just learning one technique, or one stretch, or three stretches. Sometimes you have to approach it from 15 different angles, because for a lot of people it's a lifestyle thing. And it's learning to switch over your entire sexual response system from what we've grown up with, and maybe what sort of habits we've built, to a new type of sexual response system. And that takes some time for a lot of people and that's normal.   Taylor: (16:53) I think it's really awesome that you spoke to the piece in the beginning, where you had increased sensitivity at first, because I did too. And I thought, Oh shit. What am I doing? No, no, no, go backwards, go backwards. And then I couldn't go back. But in retrospect, it totally makes sense. I had to deprogram myself from years of watching porn, years of habitual masturbation, years of habitual objectifying of women, and to open myself to those deeper realms of sensitivity. At first it was overwhelming, and eventually that overwhelm can turn into this greater realms of orgasm and pleasure, that don't end in ejaculation.   Mason: (17:38) Before we go into the benefits of that, and why someone would be wanting to bring that into your lives, I'm curious to hear your grounded take, is what's the piece around like, what would you say is something to be ... As you're working on this at the same time or a precursor, in terms of the sexual relationship that you have with yourself, you are cock around self love, all those kinds of things. I just like to hear your take on that.   Taylor: (18:09) Specifically you're asking me what is ... Can you say that again?   Mason: (18:14) Yeah. I'm sorry. Sometimes I do just like dance around a concept, and don't ask a very direct question. Going forth, because I kind of personally feel a huge part has been this like okay, genuine loving relationship with myself, genuine non-shame based sexual relationship with myself is necessary, and feeling this innate forgiveness, and very deep love and appreciation that I do have for myself. I get that that could become a little bit cliche when you're running around these circles. So for you who you're teaching these arts, you're teaching the retention of ejaculate and multiple orgasms, that's the shiny thing. I'm assuming that there is a substance of this, what I'm talking about of like of this self love and healthy relationship. I know, because I've seen it in your videos and you talk to it, but just I wanted to hear directly the fabric of that, of what's surrounding the shiny thing of these multiple orgasms in and around what I was just referring to.   Taylor: (19:20) Yeah. Thank you for that clarification. That makes total sense. Yeah, nobody's going to do a Google search for, "How to self love better." Very few people. But hundreds of thousands of people will search for, "How to overcome premature ejaculation." So it's like, what are people looking for? And how to have them find me or find whoever is going to help them with this issue. Yes, so I run this course called Orgasmic Mastery. It's for men, and a lot of the stuff we've already talked about is in there, and so is this piece of self love and it's really important. For me ... What would I want to say about this?   Taylor: (20:02) I have people approach self pleasuring from like as a practice, incorporating breath, incorporating some exercises, but really trying to be fully present with themselves, not fantasizing about porn, not fantasizing about any partner, but tuning into this sensations that are in their body, the feeling of sheets on their skin, the feeling of warmth or coldness of the air, everything in that present moment, just tuning into those sensations, because that's going to orient you to this deeper presence that's available to you at any given moment. When you start exploring that realm, it's possible that all sorts of stuff come up. You might realize like, Oh my God, when's the last time I took 20 minutes for myself just to give myself pleasure? That can be overwhelming and sad, or beautiful, or happy for some people. It's really sort of like opening Pandora's box of potential for energy there.   Taylor: (21:01) It translates to the rest of your life. It has translated to the rest of my life. The more time I spend in a self pleasure session, versus just like wanking it or trying to get off, the more I walk in the world with my shoulders back, the more I walk in the world with confidence and love, and I exude this deeper presence, and it's because I've been cultivating that. I don't want to come across as I have all this shit figured out and I'm a master of it. Certainly, I'm very much a work in progress still, but I do notice that the more I approach this from a grounded place of self love, the better every area of my life becomes.   Mason: (21:41) That's evident, man, and I like that you've added those caveats. However, the cultivation is evident and it comes from consistency, and the grounded place in which no one was watching all your videos and reading your articles. That's why I was super stoked to have you on the podcast, and there's not many people I'd really want to talk about this with. But I had to talk about, so I was really happy that Elena, ... So everyone like Elena, who is a mate of ours runs Instagram, who has been a family friend for many years, put us on to Taylor's work, and I was like, "Boom. Yeah." That was three days ago and here we are, just awesome, because we needed to get this in for Brovember ASAP. Get it. Yeah. Now, let's go to why we would want to retain come, sperm. Let's look at some of the nuts and bolts of it.   Taylor: (22:34) The nuts and bolts. Great. So why would you want to retain your semen? Why would you want to retain your ejaculate? The first example I'll give is just of long term relationship. Say you're in a long term relationship, and we'll just go ahead and say monogamous for this particular example. For everybody listening, imagine that you're an year and a half into this relationship, maybe two years. Now imagine that you have sex with your partner every day for six days straight and you ejaculate every day of those six days. Chances are you're not going to want to be intimate with them on the seventh day, maybe even the six or the fifth or the fourth day, depending on how old you are, depending on your lifestyle and all this stuff.   Taylor: (23:25) One of the most practical reasons you might want to retain your semen is because when you ejaculate, generally speaking, you are losing polarity. You're losing that charge in your life, but also with your partner. And if you do it over and over and over again, it can lead to a depolarization in your relationship. And then all of a sudden, you might be more reactive and you might get into a little tiff or argument about somebody who left a little bit extra on the dishes, or it opens up the possibility for discontent.   Mason: (23:55) Mm-hmm (affirmative). The hangover.   Taylor: (23:58) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Example number one. Yeah, the orgasm hangover or the ejaculation hangover is real, and it affects not only your physiology, but your neuro chemicals as well. And that's something I want to do more research on to understand what exactly it is I'm talking about, but it has an effect on your brain for I think it's up to seven to ten days or something like that, I just read recently.   Mason: (24:22) Yeah. I think that's kind of confronting when you start reading about this, it definitely was for me when I was in a position where it wasn't necessarily something, like the mastery of that skill wasn't something that I saw was really on the horizon, and I had to do some other work first. And so then what comes up is, figuratively speaking is the morality around the fact that you're leaking your Jing essence and getting into like, "Is it bad for me to be coming?" I think that's when I was just ... I remember doing this years ago that I was interested again, of going and reading the reviews and seeing the reactions to this kind of, and I imagine you get it a lot as well, about to both the book Sexual Mastery for Men and The Tao of Sex, Health and Longevity by Daniel Reid.   Mason: (25:16) I don't know if you know his work. He's just another ... He's American, I think he's in his 70s now. Lived in Byron Bay for a while so he has a bit of a name of himself around here for being the local Taoist but he teaches a lot of these sexual practices. And you read the reviews of people really reacting. They're like, "This isn't natural. This isn't something that I want to do." But from a charged place and .... What I'm liking is what's coming out now I feel in the health scene is a very non-charged, "Hey, let's just lay out some of the realities of it. Don't get into right or wrong." Even if you're not going to be retaining ejaculate and having multiple orgasms, you can still be very aware of the physiological and neuro chemical nature of what happens when you do come, and then manage your energy and yourself, and your lifestyle, and your nutrition, and hydration in order to prevent you going, exactly what you're saying, start getting to that point where you do react towards yourself and your partner when you lose your essence.   Mason: (26:27) If you're already tired, and you lose that much mineral Jing essence, that little ... Actually I've got a quote here that I think kind of like in terms of what it is. Do you know Nicolas Venette, a 17th century sexologist?   Taylor: (26:43) I don't.   Mason: (26:45) "Semen is the most refined and noblest part of the whole human frame, containing in itself the whole nature and complexion of every part of the body, or in other words being the very essence of man." And if you're losing that essence, naturally, it's just going to be like, "Well guys, like of course. That takes a lot to make it and you releasing it, maybe you're going to be a bit tired afterwards." Have you just got like, I don't know if there's anything else you want to say to that hangover?   Taylor: (27:11) Yeah. Well, something came up that I have not really thought about before, but I'm just going to go off the cuff here. You've talked about some of those people on the reviews saying, "Oh, this isn't natural. We're meant to come regularly." And it makes me think like, if we take an evolutionary perspective on how we came to be here today, like if you look back tens of thousands of years ago at our ancestors, it was a much different scenario then. Survival was top on the list. It was survival, survive, procreate, eat, fuck, sleep, repeat. The death rate was probably much higher than it is now. There were predators around, there were different people who might want to kill you everywhere, and so it was probably advantageous to be ejaculating regularly in people to help the species continue, as much as possible, right?   Taylor: (28:03) And yes, we're factories for that. We could do that as men, and some of the research points to that. They've done studies on, there's one rat study in particular, where they looked at rats in captivity. They tried to have this one rat, mate with one mate over and over and over again, and the more times it ejaculated with this partner, the less it was interested and the less energy it had. But if you put in a bunch of new female rats, then this one male rat could have sex, sex, sex, sex, and would basically have sex until it died or got sick, with the introduction of new partners.   Taylor: (28:39) So if we fast forward today, we don't have to deal, we're not in that survival mindset in the same way that we were tens of thousands of years ago, yet our biology is generally the same by all intensive research purposes. So instead of being this factory for the production of more humans, like we could harness that energy and put it into our business, put it into our entrepreneurial pursuits, put it into our art, put it into our creativity. It's an option. That's just cool. It just occurred to me like, maybe it's not natural if we're trying to create as many humans as possible so we can survive, but we're not in that scenario anymore.   Mason: (29:19) Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I think the other nice thing is we're in a scenario where this doesn't have to be a super taboo or some hippy bullshit or something only for Taoists. This seems to be coming a little bit more of a grounded and logical conversation, which I'm really appreciating. And in that, what are you looking at in terms of primary benefits to someone's physiology, and long term health, if you start delving into this area. You've already mentioned the rechanneling, maybe you can talk a little bit more about that.   Taylor: (29:56) Yeah. Well, I'll speak to my own just personal practice of semen retention for a moment. I have discovered that my ideal ejaculation frequency is somewhere between 10 and 14 days. I can have as much sex as I want during that period or as much self-pleasure. But if I ejaculate at that frequency, I noticed that I don't suffer any of the effects of repeat ejaculation hangover. And so for me, an ejaculation hangover would manifest in my body and in my mind, with brain fog, with lack of clarity, with lack of feeling of direction and on purpose, less confidence, less zest, and just less creative energy.   Taylor: (30:37) I've noticed that I can do manual labor over and over and over again in that space, but what's more challenging for me is using my mind in creative ways to solve problems in that period of ejaculation hangover. I'm less sociable, I'm less able to hold up conversation, all that stuff. Whereas if I retain my semen, a benefit of that is more clarity, more direction of my life purpose, more feelings of vitality inside, more feelings of power. I'm convinced that people in public look at me differently if I'm 14 days in. I've done experiments with that and I think there's an energetic radiance that can sort of happen with that, and that getting into woo-woo territory. But there's something very real about that, and maybe it's just body language, maybe it's just how your eyes operate. But you know what I mean?   Mason: (31:30) Well, I mean, absolutely. I feel like in terms of being woo-woo, I mean, everybody listening to this podcast would have heard us talk about the three treasures regularly.   Taylor: (31:41) Okay, cool. Great. Awesome.   Mason: (31:41) Jing, Qi, Shen is probably like a foundation. The foundation of why we practice tonic herbalism isn't to remedy what's wrong, it is to tonify and cultivate the three energies which are the source of our life, which is the Jing, the Qi, and the Shen. So they very much understand the nature of Jing been associated with our sexual fluids, with semen and without genetic potential being the wax of the candle, in the analogy. If we can build up that wax of the candle, because whether we like it or not, we're not saying it's not like a very moral or extreme statement, what I'm saying and coming from someone who is coming.   Mason: (32:24) I'm not saying that you if you come, you're just going to keep on depleting that wax and you're going to leak your Jing and that's it for you, you're not going to be able to do this. We're just talking about almost another tool or another practice, to possibly continue to very successfully manage the wax of your candle, your Jing and your physiology. I think what you're talking about is when you're retaining that essence, and you're using it consciously or conscientiously, and you're conscientiously coming, you are building up that wax so that the flame can be nice and bright. So your Qi is cultivating and flowing so that your Shen, your wisdom, your essence is shining bright. The light coming off your candle can be brighter.   Mason: (33:06) We know that when you've got that skip in your step and that twinkle in your eye, you can notice it in people. If you've felt it in yourself when you're exhausted and tapped out, like I feel invisible when I'm like that. Naturally, I can take on a bit of a gray demeanor, verse when I'm really pumping and hydrated and I'm feeling great, I'm expressing my emotions, and I'm being responsible sexually, and cultivating energy and really connecting, fuck, you feel incredible. Of course, not that it's about that, but people notice it. So yeah, man. I think I appreciate you saying that.   Taylor: (33:43) Yeah, and thank you for saying that too. It's just meeting you now for the first time and just learning about everything you're doing two days ago, I haven't had a chance to really dive in and understand what you're sharing, but I've made it a personal mission of mine to try to take how I talk about this and make it as accessible and approachable to the mainstream as I can, because I believe in these practices and the power there. I've been sort of training myself to say less things that could be construed as the derogatory word woo-woo, just because I want CEOs to find us. I want big business people to find this. I want people who work in banks to find this because I do believe that these practices really will change the way that, how you see the world, how you see life, how you walk in the world, and I want more people to be doing this. So thanks for saying that.   Mason: (34:33) Yeah. And I appreciate you saying that as well. I mean, there is a reality and it's a confronting reality around what it means, where we build something like semen and then we release it constantly, but there's no reason why this can be decharged around being considered woo-woo, and almost this is something that was talked about in men. You can almost see that the pub, I was like, "Oh gosh, you're a bit grouchy, are you? You're in the ejaculation hangover, are you Terry? Just something that's like, it is somewhat of a reality, which doesn't mean it needs to be moralized. So I've got another quote here if you don't mind. I've never had-   Taylor: (35:13) Yeah, please.   Mason: (35:14) I got a couple from Kim Anami, just like she was talking about semen. Especially, if people who have gone down that route of the Taoists, even in Tantra, it can be very colorful and poetic, this whole thing, which is amazing. I personally love that. I'm kind of like, I've become somewhat of a tragic ... Did I just say come what of a ...? I'm somewhat of a romantic, just like a tragic in that area when it comes to talking about these things, which if that's the only way you talk about these things, it can become a little bit difficult to approach these and land them in your life. However, that's the nature of it, and especially if you look at the nature of the White Tigress in Jade Dragon traditions when it comes to Taoism.   Mason: (36:05) I don't know if you've read a lot of those books. It's really beautiful and poetic in terms of talking about these lineages of Taoism where they really were focusing on that cultivation of sexual energy. When you look at the Jade Dragon, the men's sexual, the semen retention practices, multiple orgasms, as well as the Qigong and the consumption of Jing herbs, and all these kinds of things. All they are is they're seen as spiritual practices, cultivating energy that can be then funneled into your meditation, into the work that you're doing out there into the world, and very much youthening practices as well, which can ...   Mason: (36:47) You can just think about it. If it takes fluid and minerals, and stem cells, and power, like an ATP and mitochondrial energy in order to create semen, and if you continuously release it and you need to direct all that energy to go and then constantly build it up and create it again, it's just simple science. It's simple logic, you're not going to have the essence and the enzymatic power, and the energy, and the organ power to redirect into other places, which are going to be seen as like, youthening, vitality, cultivation of Qi in other areas. So, in saying that, here is that quote from Mantak Chia, I think it was the Cultivating Male Sexual Energy, 1984. What year were you born, man?   Taylor: (37:37) '85.   Mason: (37:38) Yeah. Me is about maybe six, so this is before our time. Look at us. A couple of experts on sexual practices and meanwhile these quotes. "When hormonal secretions of the sexual glands are regularly leached out, the body is sapped at its root without a period of time, that will range from months to decades depending on the endowment of the individual, creative and sexual abilities are halved, and the ability to withstand disease and the frailties of old age is diminished". Don't know if you want to elaborate on that in any way, I'll put your two cents in.   Taylor: (38:19) I don't know what else there is to say.   Mason: (38:22) It nails it, right?   Taylor: (38:24) It does. I guess the one other piece I want to say is, semen retention, it's not like the magic bullet. I do want to say it's amazing but, and if you're not also ensuring that you get a good night's sleep, if you're not also staying hydrated. If you're not taking care of all these other areas of your life, it doesn't matter how much semen retention you do, you're still going to lose energy in all these other ways. It's like one piece of the whole picture of being a holistically minded individual. That's really important, that doesn't get talked about enough, but it isn't the only thing.   Mason: (39:01) Awesome. Yeah. And that's something, try and talk about that a lot. If you have very, very, very realistic expectations on these practices, on the tonic herbs, on medicinal mushrooms, whatever it is, if you just get it off a pedestal and just sit in it's very real relevant place, that means because you're not going to have expectations shattered, because you had something on a fucking pedestal for so long, it means you're going to have the stamina to consistently do the practice. In saying that, we were talking about having particular teachers, Taoist teachers, whether it's Mantak up on these pedestals. It's something that I think we both wanted to talk about, in terms of when approaching these things. You just want to have a jam out about that now?   Taylor: (39:53) Yeah, let's go for it. Let's go for it. I've never personally studied with Mantak, but I studied a fair amount with Michael Winn, who co-wrote the Cultivating Male Sexual Energy. He's actually based a few miles from where I live right now in Asheville. And so, that's been really convenient. Another big teacher in my life has been this guy named David Deida. I'm sure you've probably heard of him, have you?   Mason: (40:15) I do.   Taylor: (40:15) Yeah. So I've read most of his books. I did a workshop with him. Earlier this year, I actually had an opportunity to sit down with him and have a beer at a table with some other people, because I worked security at an event of his and we went out afterwards, and we just hung out. It was this really interesting process for me to, A, I had never done security at an event before. That was a trip. But, B, the most fascinating thing was, I had sort of deified him. After reading his books, after going through his workshop, I put him up on this pedestal and thought, just like all the things associated with that, like, "He can do no wrong," or "He has all the answers," or "Oh he has something that I don't," or "I need him for this, X, Y and Z."   Taylor: (40:58) It took a good half hour of being at that table with him and a handful of other people, to just whittle those away and remember like, "Oh you're just a guy, who has invested a lot of time and energy in studying this stuff, but you're still very much a human, you still struggle with things. You still don't want to be in big crowds of people. You have your own quirks just like everybody else." And it was a very humbling experience for me and a useful experience to realise, all these teachers that I have deified, even Mantak, I don't necessarily have to study with them to get the value from their material, and I don't necessarily even have to read all the material. They're not gods. I'm not a god. I don't know what else to say about that. I think it's just important to realise, you know what I mean? We're all humans.   Mason: (41:52) I think what's ... Because I think we've all gone through that, maybe, maybe not. But I'll speak definitely speak for myself, and I've had those people I'd put on pedestals, and then I've had to come crashing down. For me, it was a pattern of looking for that place that I think is right or the authority, and then attaching myself to that authority, so that I can feel ... For me, it was dietarily and health wise, that I can feel like I'm in a superior place, and I'm actually in a safe place, where I'm actually doing everything right now. That's just the case when you go ... And I can see it, you read The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida, and you're doing the Taoist sexual practice, and you look at the rest of the society, what I see, what happens is we oppose ourselves.   Mason: (42:33) A lot of the time in the beginning, we need opposition. So we oppose ourselves against society, which has taught us that pornography is the standard, that your own sexuality is taboo. So we need to kick back against that, and when we kick back against that, we look at who's on the other side of that thing we're opposing. We're trying, and so we find the leaders that we then go and deify, because in order to stay opposed to the energy of what we're moving away from, we need a deity or we need a different pole in order to go towards. And of course, it's all our own identity building. And in the beginning that can be useful, but also being aware of that charge. Because quite often what people look for then, is when they realize, hang on, I've identified with this person and making this person the deity, or just putting them on a pedestal.   Mason: (43:27) If the person you're following is in a good position, I assume like David Deida, it's good to hear he was just someone that was down to earth and just via following him or just being in his presence, you came to that realization for yourself. I feel like that's what happens with Mantak, from hearing about Tahnee being the Tao Garden and talking to him. He just sits down and eats with everyone, has chats with everyone, and talks his shit and all his students are likewise they're just like you know what? He's got his own stuff going on, and he deals with it, but we've just got a like a healthy relationship. We just go to him for the teachings and we know where the line is.   Mason: (44:06) But then there's those times when your teacher doesn't have that groundedness to defuse it in themselves, and so they parasitically ... Like they live off that energy of people deifying them, and that suck it up. And so, what we get used to is needing to find something wrong with that deity, with that person, in order to escape from their claws. Again, it's external, and then the pendulum swings and people need to get into this resentment around people who are representing this health, and teaching these ancient lineages, where it's not about them. Some people are fucking awful, and they are preying on people and they're abusing their position. But that's their shit. You need to just like de-charge and come to that position, where you just realise everyone's a human. We're all bloody equal here and it's your shit that you deify that person, right?   Taylor: (45:02) Yeah. Wow. Very well said. I'm going to go back and listen to you say that whole thing again. Thanks.   Mason: (45:07) Well, just hearing your ... This is what always happens on the podcast. I mean, and I learn personally through talking things out, and I always appreciate this podcast. Hear you talking about all these things and then it brings up some shit in myself, and I go on my rants and that's how I kind of work out these concepts internally.   Taylor: (45:32) It's great.   Mason: (45:33) First of all, that's great to hear that about David Deida, because he's such a legend. I found that book exceptionally transformational, and again, everyone ... And he's got several, but The Way of the Superior Man is just ... Imagine just having a term studying that in year nine and ten of like middle school for you guys. And parents can just go that. Parents, that's what the beauty of it, we don't have to rely on the schooling system to do it.   Taylor: (46:03) Now that's a fantasy, is bringing all this stuff, bringing everything we're talking about right now into kids, into the teenagers. Wow. How different would our society be if we did that? That's a fantasy of mine, passion somehow, maybe hopefully one day.   Mason: (46:22) Well, it's happening, for sure. Like there's parents who are exposing their kids, just and they're very grounded people. Again, we don't need to make this trippy or woo-woo, when kids can still be heavily integrated into the community, and not be ostracized by knowing about these things which go against very traditional society, if we teach them how to not grab on to these ideas, and try and become superior in themselves because they know them. Parents, you just have these conversations each and every day, appropriately based on the age, but you can just have these very responsibly. Anyway, we're all here doing it together. I think it's happening man.   Mason: (47:02) So then going into some of the practicalities again, in terms of what steps that men can be taking along this journey, and I think I'm definitely going to jump onto your course as well, and just go a little bit deeper down that route as well, because having a structure really works for me. But, what are the steps? And then can you also talk about some of the fallacies that occur, just in case everyone's heard it before. Some of the examples I'm talking about are like edging in an incorrect way, coming, edging towards orgasm, and then what are some of the fallacies there, and some of the correct ways to do it. Also, that false ejaculate retention by pushing up into the peritoneum there, or if you learned your physiology from Jackass, the Gooch, and pushing the semen and back up into the bladder. I just like to get the world of these steps that you're taking over months for men to start retaining semen.   Taylor: (48:12) Yeah. Wow. How to condense all these into some useful ... Well, I'd say the first thing to start with, sounds like a lot of people listening to this already are kind of on board, but it's just the realisation that there is something else that's possible. There is another paradigm of sex, there's another paradigm of energy and relating, and consciousness that's available, that society doesn't talk about in the grand scheme of things. So that's step one, is just to know that there's something else out there that's possible, and I'm here to say and it sounds like you're here to say, that it can be way more pleasurable and connective than the typical sex that I grew up with, and that I learned from porn.   Taylor: (48:52) And then seeking out resources. Books are a great way to start. Mantak Chia's book can be a great way to start. That book, The Way of the Superior Man, it has some awesome insights into sex. I posted about that book on my Instagram yesterday, and immediately. I think it was like less than a minute later, somebody responded with a DM that said, "That book saved my marriage. It literally saved my marriage." And then it was one of the most responded to stories I've posted in a while, with all these people saying how much it's impacted them. So books, start with books, and then YouTube. There's a lot of free information out there. Just start researching.   Taylor: (49:28) And then I'd say, another huge thing that's really important for us as men specifically, is to talk to another brother about this stuff. Talk to another man about this stuff. Find a friend who's interested, find some sort of community who's also interested in this. We're programmed often as men to do everything by ourselves, to be the sort of like lone wolf. We have to be self sufficient, self empowered, do everything ourselves. That's a problem and it's a fallacy. Having community around this, is so amazing. That was one of my favorite things about the course that we just did, was seeing and hearing about all the experiences from the guys in the Facebook group, and talking about on the live calls, and seeing different people's wins, and having them ask questions and have each other answer their questions.   Taylor: (50:19) I say that community piece is really, really important. And I think it's something as men in general, we need to step more into men's groups, men's gatherings, men's workshops, spaces for us to reevaluate how we walk in the world and that sort of thing. And then I know this is a fair amount of a tangent, but I think it's really important that we do that. And then you could take a course. You could take my course, you could take somebody else's course, if you want to go have a deeper dive into it. Not everybody wants to. I think everybody should, of course. Yeah, I'll pause there.   Mason: (50:54) Well, at least arriving at a point where it's a choice. I've heard a lot of people go like, "I've kind of learned it and then played around with it, and then I just chose that I didn't really want to have that as a practice in my life," which is kind of a nice non-charged way to go about it. Can you talk about, around anything in terms of practices for strengthening the PC muscle just very quickly, that might just shine some light on it for guys that are already taking on this practice. Maybe they've read the 500 a day kind of squeeze thing.   Taylor: (51:25) Yeah. I will hit that, and then want to speak to the retrograde ejaculation thing that you talked about, just because you mentioned it earlier. So there is this whole other thing that can happen, where some guys think that they're having a non-ejaculatory orgasm. And often that happens by using the million dollar point technique right before an ejaculatory orgasm where-   Mason: (51:48) That was the gooch was talking about everybody, to put it as they say in Grey's Anatomy.   Taylor: (51:53) Yes, putting the fingers forcefully into the perennial, and what you're actually doing there, you're still having an ejaculatory orgasm, you're just diverting your ejaculate into your bladder, instead of out through your penis. So you still lose everything that you lose during your orgasm, you still go through that refractory period. It might seem like you're having a non-ejaculatory orgasm, but if you pee in a glass cup immediately afterwards, you will see ejaculate in that.   Mason: (52:22) Do you see this happening even if they're not hitting that point, which, everyone is between the anus and the testes? That's the point we're talking about.   Taylor: (52:29) Yeah. Technically, you can strengthen your PC muscles to be able to squeeze hard enough there, that you can squeeze and divert that flow without touching your fingers. You can do it with crossing your legs. Some people supposedly can do that with intention. I don't know them. I've just heard about that. I prefer to not do that practice. If I'm going to have an ejaculation, I would rather it leave my penis and go through the natural flow, than get diverted up into my bladder. I would either rather have a non-ejaculatory, energetic full body orgasm, or a full on ejaculatory orgasm and not this sort of weird false, non-ejaculatory orgasm.   Mason: (53:10) I'm just going to ask another question here. I just want everyone to know, I'm still aware we're going to talk about edging and we're still going to talk about PC, but now I feel like somewhat of a seminal elephant in the room is, what happens to the ejaculate when you don't come?   Taylor: (53:31) Just gets reabsorbed by your body. It doesn't build up. You don't get giant testicles. It just cycles naturally internally. That's my understanding.   Mason: (53:45) Yeah. When you're going through these practices, I've heard you talk about blue balls quite a bit. I mean, can you quickly share whether it's blue balls and you feel that concentration of sexual energy? A lot of guys might be familiar, we have a deer antler velvet product and sometimes guys will take it consistently, and build up a lot of Yang Jing. I mean, a lot of sexual energy and feel charged. A lot of, you can associate that with that like, "I've got too testosterone. I'm feeling that slight frustration and aggression." What are some practices we can do to re-divert that energy?   Taylor: (54:32) Yes, I will hit on that. And I just wanted to add one other piece of clarity about what I just said, is I'm remembering that there is some evidence to show that if you do retain your semen for months, like four, or five, six plus months, then your sperm count might drop. It might go lower, so then if you're wanting to have a child ... And I'm not an expert on this, but I remember hearing this at the tantric school where I studied, I think they recommended having an ejaculation or two, before you actually try to conceive, but that's ... Do more research on that for sure. But I just wanted to add that one piece in, to [crosstalk 00:55:09] mouthful. Yeah. Can you say the last thing you just did again?   Mason: (55:14) Yeah. How are we taking that build up of sexual energy, and taking it into different places in the body? Just very simple practice.   Taylor: (55:21) Yeah. Well, there's so many different ways to do that. One of them is the microcosmic orbit, which I'm sure a lot of you listening are familiar with. Another, which I learned earlier this year on a different podcast, Sean Wes. It's a different business podcast, but they did a whole review of this book. What was it? Think and Grow Rich, and on the chapter about sublimating your sexual energy, one of the guys on there said he tried this technique. He was really attracted to this woman and feeling sexually charged, and thinking about her all the time while he was at the office, and he got out a sheet of paper and wrote down, "I am transmuting my sexual energy from this woman, and from being aroused by her, and I'm putting into my work right now." And the act of writing it down for him, it changed something in his physiology, and the solidifying of his intention on paper just shifted something internally for him. That's a very practical way to do that, and I thought that was fascinating. I've tried it a few times since then in a variety of contexts, and it works surprisingly well.   Mason: (56:25) Yeah, where your attention goes, your energy flows, right?   Taylor: (56:28) Totally.   Mason: (56:31) Completely with that, I feel like that's something that's often ... It's a pretty obvious caveat. Over the next, say like decade, it's going to be a really great endeavor for everyone to really get in touch with their sexual energy, and get an understanding, come into a deeper relationship with the nature of your creation of come, and how you're releasing it, and just watching the patterns that arise afterwards, and when you're retaining, that might just come from celibacy. It might not just be the fact that you're doing multiple orgasms. Just watch yourself because it's a reality, and give yourself time. Don't be too harsh on yourself.   Mason: (57:10) But inside of that, you're going to have to take that sexual energy at some point, and realise that it's a part of you. It's not isolated into a box, and around your dick. As you were saying, like just say, "I'm going to go put that into my work." I know that can be something very different for men. Well, how can I take something that's just used for like attraction or fucking, and put that into two hours sitting at my desk? I think most people have heard it, but it's worth reiterating again, that sexual energy, it's just energy and it's your energy, and it's just you and it is your creativity.   Taylor: (57:52) Totally. Yeah. And if you want it, a simple, practical way to try this, if you have a partner right now that you're having sex with, and you've never tried this before, I recommend having sex with your partner before you go to work and don't ejaculate. And at the end of that, to make sure you don't get blue balls or to make sure you don't get stagnation, massage your testicles, massage your perineum, do some jumping jacks, do some push ups, just to move your energy throughout your whole body, maybe some Qigong if you know, some Qigong exercises, and then go to work. And just notice what happens. Notice your levels of attention, notice your levels of motivation, and your ability to focus and concentrate. I would imagine and I would bet, that it will be different.   Mason: (58:36) Yeah. I love it. Now, I've read a couple of your blogs, and with the just talking about the difference in the type of orgasm, and what you'd be expecting from a multiple orgasm. So we're getting to this point where we we're in website, we're consistent, we're months in, we begin to procure this ability to retain our semen. What kind of orgasm are you going to be looking at? What's occurring there?   Taylor: (59:05) Yes, very good question. And if you look on the back of Mantak Chia's book it says ... I actually have this book right here. It says specifically, "Learn to separate orgasm and ejaculation." The very top line on the back of this book. And I think that there's truth to that, but it can be misleading for a lot of people. Because the types of orgasms that are the more full body, you could call it tantric, you could call it energetic orgasms. You could call it cosmic orgasms, whatever you want to call it, they're different than the typical ejaculatory orgasm. They don't have the involuntary genital contractions. They're not focused all in your penis and your general region. They could flow through your body like heat waves.   Taylor: (59:50) They can happen in your fingertips, in your heart, in your face and your nipples. You could experience energy moving everywhere and you could feel more pleasure. You could feel like your arm is ejaculating, minus the actual loss of semen and energy. And so, it's a different thing. So instead of saying, "Learn how to separate your orgasm from ejaculation," I would say, "Learn how to experience a new kind of orgasm, that's different probably from what you've experienced growing up. And this other kind of orgasm can do wonders for your health, for your relationship, for basically every area of your life and it can actually feel more pleasurable too."   Mason: (01:00:32) I mean, basically what I'm thinking there, especially if you look at those, the Taoist sexual schools, if you look at the Jade Dragon Schools, it's about cultivating this energy and to refine, and bring forth the elixir of immortality. That can be very poetic, kind of well, what is that? Are we talking about real immortality? Are we're talking about a nice long life, a rich life? What is it? However, what you were just saying in terms of that whole body orgasm, I think a lot of ... especially people who have had, whether it's psychedelics or drugs in their past, and there's been times where you can almost sit there in that peak experience of having a whole body orgasm.   Mason: (01:01:19) During these times, and we might be doing plant medicine or whatever it is, but remembering that those peak experiences are something that is innate, we do have all the ingredients of that, for lack of a better unpoetic word, the elixir of immortality, to be able to have those kinds of experiences. I'm sure whether a lot of people listening have had those, you can have a sexual experience where it's just cut and dry, and you're in and out, all those times when you might not be retaining, though you're really connected with your heart and you can feel a differentiation in the type of orgasm, where it does become a little bit more whole body and you can almost start tripping out. Not almost, you do start tripping.   Taylor: (01:02:03) You do.   Mason: (01:02:04) For sure. And there's something nice and endogenous us in that. Sorry, man.   Taylor: (01:02:10) Sorry, I interrupted you.   Mason: (01:02:12) Go for it.   Taylor: (01:02:13) Yeah. Also, I just want to be clear and transparent, that I'm not having these full transcendental, psychedelic full body orgasms every time I have sex. Sometimes when I have sex, it's just a very pleasure filled experience, and I can have orgasmic type experiences, but I'm not having like the full on psychedelic thing happen every time I have sex. My directive or my goal in sex has shifted from when I was younger. It used to be ejaculation only. Now, its pleasure, and connection, and energy.   Taylor: (01:02:52) And so, if I happen to have one of these cosmic orgasms, that's beautiful, and that's awesome, and it's not necessarily my end goal. Like I'm not going into sex thinking, "I'm going to have the cosmic orgasm." I'm going into sex thinking like, wow, A, either, "I'm so horny and turned on by you. I want to make love." And, B, like, "And I want this experience to be really connective, and awesome, and beautiful, and without going to this goal." Because with that goal oriented mindset, it sort of shapes the way sex progresses. Without that, there's a lot more openness for ebb and flow, and creativity that I have experienced.   Mason: (01:03:33) Right on man, and that's why you're on the pod, because that creation of just an open, grounded, realistic expectation on the practice is something that's necessary to make this sustainable. Let's touch back. Just there are two things I want to do. I'm just a hit, so we don't want to leave everyone hanging. Can you just explain what edging is? And could you just give a very brief touching a base of the way edging can be done? Just like whether it's ineffective versus effective.   Taylor: (01:04:06) Yeah. So real quick, edging is this practice of, if you think of sexual arousal and ejaculation on a scale of one, or zero to 100, and 95 is the point of no return, and in between 95 and 100 is your ejaculatory orgasm. Edging is the process of getting your sexual response system up to 92, 93, 94. Like that point just before ejaculation, and then pressing pause, and then doing some breathing and coming back down to maybe like 50% 70% somewhere on that scale. And the idea is to practice reaching that point, and to build your capacity to get to this higher states of pleasure and come back down. For that, it can be very useful. A big pitfall though, and a big problem with this whole edging practice that's not often talked about is, rushing to edge and seeing that area of 90% to 94% as pleasure, versus seeing that, everywhere else on that scale is pleasurable to.   Taylor: (01:05:08) And so, one problem that I ran into a bit ago, when I was doing a lot of this edging practice, I would notice that when I would self pleasure, when I would masturbate, I would rush right up to my edge, because that's where I experience "the most sexual pleasure." I would get to that edge in like a minute and a half, usually or less, because that's what I was going for. What that was doing, was training my sexual response system to go from non-erection to almost ejaculation in a minute and a half, and that translates into every sexual experience you could have from there.   Taylor: (01:05:45) Sure enough, after doing a lot of the edging practice, I thought, "I'm getting really good at going up and coming back down." When I got into the sexual experience, it was like, "A minute in, holy shit, back off." That's a danger area, and I would say be very a

Full Transcript Below Show Summary: Blind Abilities Teen Correspondent Simon Bonenfant introduces us to Anthony Ferraro. Anthony shares his inspiring story of dealing with his blindness and a variety of life's challenges, yet finding his own special means of rising above them all. Join Simon and Anthony as they chronicle Anthony’s early education, following in the footsteps of his father and brother and discovering that wrestling offered him the precise outlet he needed to overcome his anger, the challenges of his disability, and his unique relationship with his family. Anthony rose to become a champion in high school wrestling, is now competing at a world-class level in international Judo competitions and is speaking to youth and parent groups about his journey. Anthony is also  a musician, performing publicly with his guitar and vocals, and of course, we include excerpts of Anthony’s music and speeches in this podcast. Also listen as Anthony describes his nonprofit organization whose goal is to influence transition-aged blind youth and their parents to set their goals high and achieve excellence. Please sit back and enjoy this fascinating, 30-minute chat with Anthony Ferraro. You can find out about Anthony, request that he speak to your group, follow his athletic achievements as he moves towards the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo, and hear his music on his web site, and YouTubePage.: www.ASFVision.com   You can send an email to Anthony at: A@ASFVision.com * Here is a link to the Trailer for the film about Anthony’s high-school wrestling  ambitions, A Shot in the Dark: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/ashotinthedark * And here is a link to the video made by Anthony’s late brother Oliver about youth dealing with blindness, Find The Light, Shine The Light: https://vimeo.com/28091658 Contact: Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Storeand Google Play Store. Check out the Blind Abilities Communityon Facebook, the Blind Abilities Page, the Job Insights Support Groupand the Assistive Technology Community for the Blind and Visually Impaired.   Full Transcript Meet Anthony Ferraro - Athlete, Motivational Speaker, Musician and Advocate for Disabled Youth   Pete Lane: Meet Anthony Ferraro. Anthony Ferraro: My mother and I lived in Chestnut Hill in a one-bedroom apartment. The rest of my family would be home taking care of themselves, so everyone was making a sacrifice. Pete Lane: Anthony is a motivational speaker. Anthony Ferraro: My name's Anthony Ferraro and I'm 23 years old. I wasn't treated any differently growing up, by my family at least. I was the youngest of five. Pete Lane: An athlete. Anthony Ferraro: My older brother and my dad, they both wrestled so I thought I'd try it out. When I started in seventh grade I was terrible. Speaker 3:  [inaudible]. That's two. That's two. That's two. Speaker 4: There's no more. I'm not losing [inaudible 00:00:33]. That's not the subject anymore. You are a great wrestler, man. Speaker 5: We've all got a lottery ticket. Anthony Ferraro: I won 122 matches in high school and I won districts twice. I took fourth in the region twice and all these things against sighted kids, not carrying the stigma of you shouldn't be doing this, I didn't listen to that. Anthony Ferraro: And he said, "Would you consider training for the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo?" Speaker 6: Now on the mat we have Anthony Ferraro of the United States of America and he is facing Ishibashi Ganke of Japan. Pete Lane: A musician. Anthony Ferraro: Because I'm going where the water going to taste like wine. I'm going where the water going to taste like wine. Though I'm going where ... Pete Lane: And Anthony is an advocate for blind teenagers and their parents. Anthony Ferraro: I'm working on building a nonprofit organization, trying to influence transitional youth right now, while at the same time empowering parents to raise children with no limits. Pete Lane: In an interview conducted by our teen correspondent, Simon Bonenfant. Simon Bonenfant: It was great to see Oliver and his life and his vision, he truly had a vision. Pete Lane: Blind Abilities presents: A Chat with Anthony Ferraro. Simon Bonenfant: Hello Blind Abilities. This is Simon Bonenfant here and I'm here at Saint Lucy Day School for The Blind today and I'm here talking to Anthony Ferraro who is a blind motivational speaker, athlete and a musician. You're doing a lot of things. How are you doing, Anthony? Anthony Ferraro: I'm doing great, Simon. Thanks for having me. Simon Bonenfant: Oh, my pleasure. Anthony, why don't we start talking a little bit about yourself. What has your journey been like? Anthony Ferraro: I was born about a month and a half premature with Leber's congenital amaurosis, which is LCA for short. It's a degenerative eye condition attacking the retina. When this happened my parents were told one thing, not to treat me any differently than any other one of their five children. I'm the youngest of five and I grew up in Spring Lake, New Jersey, which is a small beach town. Anthony Ferraro: The first thing my parents needed to find was education. They did a lot of research and they found the best place in the country was Saint Lucy Day School for the Blind where you learn Braille and all the tools you need to learn to mainstream essentially into the sighted schools. The first step was reaching out, and it was two hours away from where I grew up. Simon Bonenfant: Wow. Anthony Ferraro: My mother and father, they wanted me to get transportation from Spring Lake all the way to Philly every day but the state would not provide it. There was a huge court case at the time and while this was going on my mother and I lived in Chestnut Hill in a one-bedroom apartment during the week. The rest of my family would be home taking care of themselves almost and my dad would get home late from work so everyone was making a sacrifice. Anthony Ferraro: Finally the court case came to a resolution where they provided transportation for me to go from Spring Lake to Philly every day. That's where I really started, coming to Saint Lucy's and learning the tools to be able to be successful in the real world. When seventh grade came around we thought it was time, after talking to Sister Meg, the principal, and teachers of mine and said I was ready to go into the mainstream school. Anthony Ferraro: At this time, in seventh grade, I went to H.W. Mountz in Spring Lake. I was the only blind kid in the school and it was a little weird at first. I tried faking not being blind, tried hiding my Braille books under my desk and on my lap to look more normal. It's pretty hard to hide your blindness when you're the only blind person. Then I started ... I needed to find an identity, something to fit in with the other kids and things like that. Anthony Ferraro: I always used to play soccer and stuff like that, just recreational, with teams and then I realized it wasn't very realistic. My older brother and my dad, they both wrestled. They were really good; my brother took fifth in the state of New Jersey for Christian Brothers Academy. Simon Bonenfant: Wow, that's great. Anthony Ferraro: I always looked up to him so I thought I'd try it out. When I started in seventh grade I was terrible, I went about 2 and 12. One of my wins was a forfeit where you just go out and they raise your hand. I remember leaving my last match of seventh grade saying to my dad after losing, "Dad, I've got to get good. I want to be good. I can't just be mediocre at this." He said, "All right, Anthony," just thinking it was me coming off a loss and just feeling sorry. Weeks later I said, "Dad, where's that club?" He's like, "All right, I've got to find it." Anthony Ferraro: He found a club. The club he found was Rhino Wrestling Club with this guy Mike Malinconico. He wrote an email to him saying, "My son, he's 160 pounds, he's a seventh grader, he's motivated, he wants to learn how to wrestle well. Oh, and one more thing, he's blind." The first thing Mike wrote back was, "That's awesome." He says to this day he doesn't know if that was the right thing to say but that's what he said. Simon Bonenfant: Yeah, there you go. Anthony Ferraro: He took the challenge. He wanted it, he wanted to teach me. He even says, he's like, "Training a blind wrestler is a lot easier than training an unmotivated wrestler." Because I was motivated. I used to go every day Monday through Thursday to the club at night from 7 to 9 and then I used to go to a tournament every weekend. The first tournaments I went to I would get so badly beaten I was getting discouraged, but I started telling myself, "You've got this. You've just got to set your goals a little ..." I had these high goals but start having other goals that are realistic at this point in time right now. Anthony Ferraro: I started telling myself, "Why don't you start trying to score a point. Start there, start little." And then when that started happening I started scoring more than one point and then I started beating kids. I started seeing hard work paying off, all my time and effort that I was putting in every day. I was wrestling sighted kids and they didn't care because I was a little blind kid that was getting tossed around all the time. Anthony Ferraro: Then I started winning and in eight grade I ended up going 24 and 1, winning the whole championship in middle school. In my championship match I was losing 14 to 3 with 30 seconds left. I was on my feet and I took the kid and threw him right to his back and pinned him. When I wrestle, you have to stay in contact with me at all times, when we break away I have no idea where you are so the referee will blow the whistle and bring you back into the center. No one ever complained about this until that day when the kid's dad came over to my dad and said, "You know, your son has an unfair advantage. He doesn't belong in this sport and he should go try the Special Olympics or just try a different sport, it's not fair to my son that he has to stay in contact." This was really discouraging because I just worked so hard and I'm beating these kids. Simon Bonenfant: And you won. Anthony Ferraro: Yeah, I won. Simon Bonenfant: Right, yeah. Anthony Ferraro: That's it. I didn't let it affect me too much. At this time my brothers both went to Christian Brothers academy. I had a handwritten letter of acceptance to go there and they were getting my books Brailled for high school. Simon Bonenfant: Okay, that was high school. Anthony Ferraro: Yeah. Simon Bonenfant: Okay, I wasn't clear about that. Anthony Ferraro: This was an eighth grade match but I'm about to transition into high school and I find out that the president who wrote that letter died over Christmas time in my eighth grade year and they then sent a letter saying, "Anthony is no longer accepted. He will not fit into the culture or the environment," things like this. It was once again really discouraging. The first time I was told I couldn't do something because of my visual impairment, couldn't go to a place I wanted to go to. Anthony Ferraro: As a 14-year-old kid it's really hard to hear. Life's not fair and it's one of your first real close encounters with that. I just kept wrestling and going to my club and training hard. One day I got a phone call from St. John Vianney and it's the wrestling coach. He said he heard about me and he would really love to get me to go to this school. He fought and fought and finally they were going to provide the accommodations and get my books Brailled. I ended up going to this school, St. John Vianney, in Holmdel, New Jersey. Anthony Ferraro: When I went there, once again the only blind kid, but this time I didn't know a single person. I really felt almost alone, but training and wrestling really gave me an identity. Simon Bonenfant: An outlet for you. Anthony Ferraro: Yes, an outlet to express myself and to just get some anger out too because I was a little angry as a kid just being blind and not understanding why or what's going on, why are these things happening to me. Wrestling really just ... Watching myself grow and get better, it was like the blindness didn't matter. I started going to St. John Vianney and making a name for myself. I think my freshman year I went 19 and 5 on varsity. My sophomore year they elected me as a captain, I was the first ever three-year captain on varsity there. I won the district championship as a sophomore, I won it again as a junior. When I won it as a junior, my brother Oliver went to film school actually. Simon Bonenfant: Yeah, we'll talk about him. Anthony Ferraro: Yeah. He took a short interview of me, about two minutes, just talking about what it was like to be a blind wrestler, a blind just teenager and dealing with some adversity in life. He had a vision, he posted this and said, "This is my little brother and I want to make a film about him. If you are a camera operator, a producer, anything, please contact me because I don't have all the resources to do this." Anthony Ferraro: After my junior year winning the districts it was posted and a guy who was a teammate of my high school wrestling coach in college reached out, who is a film producer, independent, and he said, "What are you doing with this? It's really amazing, this story." My brother told him, "Not doing anything. Don't have the resources, blah, blah, blah." They ended up having a meeting and sitting down, talking it over, and then deciding that they would do a full feature-length documentary about my senior year, following me around in high school, wrestling, things like that, and trying to become the first blind state champion in New Jersey. Anthony Ferraro: My senior year goes on, I do all these things. I worked very hard and sometimes you don't meet your high goal. At the end of the year when I looked back I took second in the district and fourth in the region so if I were to take third in the region I would have went to the states, but I just missed it in overtime. Anthony Ferraro: After I realized I won 122 matches in high school, I won districts twice, I took second in districts and I took fourth in the region twice. All these things against sighted things, not carrying the stigma of you shouldn't be doing this or you have an unfair advantage, I didn't listen to that. Anthony Ferraro: They filmed everything my senior year and after they kind of put it on the shelf. I did an article for ESPN my senior year and I got reached out by a blind guy named Erik Weihenmayer who read the article. He reached out to me saying he had a similar story, he wrestled, doing all these things. He asked me if I would consider going to hike in Peru up 16,000 feet on a trail called the Lares Trek. It would take four days and then you would go see Machu Picchu after that and work with orphanages and do all this community service. I took the challenge right away, I said this is an unbelievable experience opportunity, so I did that. Anthony Ferraro: I then went to college, I went to the College of New Jersey after that summer. I wrestled for about a year and a half, then my sophomore year of college I received a concussion in wrestling and I stopped wrestling. I stopped going to college because I wanted to figure out what it is I wanted to do. Anthony Ferraro: Then I moved to California for about a year and a half and I lived there with some friends. I was just working and trying to figure things out. In 2015 Chris Suchorsky, the film producer, he took the film off the shelf and he was like, "You know, there's a story here and I need to finish this because it's been hanging over my head." He put together the first 15 minutes of this film and he loved what he had. He thought there was going to be a great story and then he planned to meet with my brother, Oliver, to show him the first 15 minutes. Anthony Ferraro: The day before they were supposed to meet, Oliver passed away in his sleep at the age of 27 and he never got to see any of the film he created and filmed. But Chris, at Oliver's funeral, he vowed to my family that no matter what it took he would finish this film. Anthony Ferraro: I move home from California and it's Christmastime and I get home one night and I end up finding my mother at the bottom of the stairs in a coma. She had fallen down the stairs and cracked her head. I rushed her upstairs, I called the hospital, ambulance came and she was in a coma for about two months. The doctors told me it would take forever for her to get back to herself, it's going to be a huge transition. In about six months my mom was walking, she was talking, no problem. Simon Bonenfant: That's terrific. Anthony Ferraro: She was yelling at me when my room was dirty, all these things. She's now driving again, she goes to yoga every day. She had a miraculous recovery. Anthony Ferraro: Fast-forward a little, Chris puts the trailer for the film that he created on this website called Kickstarter. Speaker 5: Wrestling to me is the hardest sport. Honestly, it's the toughest thing I ever did in my life. Speaker 6: I think wrestlers are the marine corps of all high school and college sports. I think it's the greatest sport. Speaker 7: If a basketball game gets really, really heated they might push each other. That's where we start. Anthony Ferraro: Kickstarter, you have 30 days to raise the goal of the money that you put. We put $35,000 but we really needed about 70 to finish the film. But if you don't raise your goal then Kickstarter takes it all, so we put 35 and we raised that money in about four days and six hours. Simon Bonenfant: Wow, that's great. I remember when this happened. Anthony Ferraro: Yeah. Simon Bonenfant: [crosstalk] Anthony Ferraro: Yeah. It got about a million views, the trailer, on Facebook and all over social media. Speaker 8: No doubt in my mind he's got it in him. Speaker 9: Right to his back! Right to his back! Anthony Ferraro: I plan on being the first blind state champion. Speaker 10:         If all goes well, Anthony should accomplish that goal. I really don't see why he wouldn't. Speaker 11: Come on. Come on. Speaker 12: Go Anthony! 13 seconds! Add 13 seconds! Anthony Ferraro: We ended up raising $85,000 to finish the film and Chris finished it. While this was going on, the film was circulating, the trailer and all these views. One of the people that saw it was the United States Olympic Committee. One day I'm sitting at my house just hanging out and I get a phone call. I'm like, "Hello?" They're like, "Hi, this is so-and-so from the United States Olympic Committee." Right away in my head I'm thinking, you have the wrong number. "We saw your trailer and we see the talent you have in wrestling." Unfortunately, wrestling is no longer in the Paralympics, which is pretty insane because it was one of the original Olympic sports. He said, "Judo is the next best thing, it's a martial art. It's similar to wrestling with throws and then they incorporate chokes and armbars. Anthony Ferraro: He said, "Would you consider training for the 2020 Paralympics on Tokyo to try and quality to compete there?" He said, "You would go around the world competing in these tournaments." At the time I was kind of seeing all the stuff with the film, I was like, you know, I didn't do what I wanted to do. I didn't have my goal met. I just was feeling like I want to get after it again, I want something to chase, I want a big goal. For it to change from trying to be the best in the state to trying to be the best in the world, it's an unbelievable opportunity. Anthony Ferraro: The first person I called was Mike Malinconico and I said, "Mike, I got a call from the Paralympic Committee asking me if I would train Judo." He said, "Shut up and go do it." That's exactly what I did. I took his advice and I ran with it. Anthony Ferraro: Since then I've been training Judo for about two years. I've won nationals, a national champion and I'm on the Paralympic world team. I fought in my first world championship in Portugal in November and I have my next world championship coming up actually in about three weeks from now in Azerbaijan. Speaker 6: Now on the mat we have Anthony Ferraro of the United States of America and he is facing Ishibashi Genki of Japan. Beautiful movement of Ferraro here scoring a Wazaari score with a right seoi nage technique. He was making great use of the movement of Ishibashi. Ishibashi was going in for a right hip throw for uchi mata. Ferraro was making use of that movement by coning under and scoring a Wazaari ... Anthony Ferraro: This opportunity, it's really a great opportunity. Going around, having this platform where you can really influence people. You can go two ways with it, positive or negative. I'm choosing to be positive to help people achieve their goals and motivate people. Something I say is, the only disability is a bad attitude. It's true. I know people in wheelchairs climbing rock walls, going mountain climbing, all these things. And then I know people that have no visible disability, nothing wrong with them except they have a bad attitude and just sit around and make excuses and feel sorry for themselves. Anthony Ferraro: Right now something I'm working on while I go around doing motivational speaking ... Anthony Ferraro: I used to skateboard, I still do sometimes. I used to surf, just because people tell me I couldn't so I was like, "Oh, watch me." I used to ride bikes until I kept hitting parked cars. It's like, I just kept going, I wouldn't let the visual impairment, being blind, affect me. Anthony Ferraro: I'm a guitar player. I play in local bars and restaurants. Anthony Ferraro: Living in Brooklyn, New York right now. Simon Bonenfant: Great. Anthony Ferraro: Yeah, so it's really a lot of fun and it's a great opportunity. Teaching people that life can hit hard, but you have to keep going because there's a light on the other side. God has really put His hand in my life where He has just given me these blessings. You turn to God when things go wrong and you say, why are You taking from me? Why is this stuff happening to me, blah, blah, blah. But one day God just ... I'm asking him these things and I turn around and He's like, look at everything I'm giving you. Look at all this stuff. He's like, yeah Ollie was your brother but he's my son. I can't hold on to that anger or that resentment, I have to learn to love through it all. Anthony Ferraro: Right now I'm working on building a nonprofit organization actually. I'm trying to influence transitional youth right now to set goals high and push past life's obstacles while at the same time empowering parents and adult influencers to raise children with no limits. Labels are limiting. If you tell someone they can't do something, sometimes they're not going to do it just because you told them. I was the opposite. When someone told me something, you can't do that, blah, blah, blah, I'd go, "Watch me." Simon Bonenfant: You used that as a challenge to do it. Yeah, and do it the best. Anthony Ferraro: Exactly. Simon Bonenfant: To prove them wrong. Yep. There you go. Anthony Ferraro: To prove myself wrong too, to know that I can do it. I grew up with 60 cousins. Simon Bonenfant: Wow. Anthony Ferraro: My mom's the second oldest of 13. She never raised me any differently. I would be at the store as a kid and I'd say, "Mom, I want this toy or something." She'd be like, "All right. Here's five bucks. Go find the counter and pay for it." I'd be like, "Are you kidding me? I don't know where it is. I'm scared. Help me." Looking back, it empowered me to be able to advocate for myself, which is very important. Where I am now, it's been a long journey so far and I'm only 24 years old. Simon Bonenfant: Wow, that is amazing. Anthony Ferraro: I'm just so excited to see what's next and what's more to come. I'm just embracing life and enjoying every minute of it. It's not always easy either, but you have to acknowledge those hard times and feel it and get through it. Simon Bonenfant: I'd like to go back and just talk about your family a little bit to give listeners some context. I actually went to the same school as you, Saint Lucy School, that's where I went to for grade school as well as you. I know your mother and your brother Oliver very well. Your mother was the art teacher here at the school, so I've known her for a very long time. Just describing the way she raised you and the stuff that she instilled in you, when you were telling me that I was like, yep that's Mrs. Ferraro right there, that's who she is. She's just a very loving person but a pushing person to push through the challenge and giving support through it. She's a very good person and it sounds like a very inspirational person in your life as well. Anthony Ferraro: Absolutely. Simon Bonenfant: Your brother Oliver actually did a documentary with me and some of the other students at Saint Lucy School about eight or nine years ago called Find the Light and Shine the Light. Speaker 14: If I could see I would feel like ... You know what? I'm not meant to see. Something's telling me that I'm not meant to see. What I'm meant to be is to perform and to take people's breath away. That's what I'm meant to be. I'm not meant to be visual, I'm meant to cheer up people inside people's hearts. I'm not meant to be visual and light up their smile, I'm meant to be the smile in their heart. I'm meant to be their healing. I'm meant to be the happiness in people's hearts, that's what I'm meant to be, I feel like. Simon Bonenfant: I'll actually include a link into the show notes for the podcast of that as well as your film that just got released, I'll put links into there. That documentary that he did of me really captures a lot of what I say and your message as well. I've known Oliver, I had the pleasure of knowing him and he was an absolute inspiration, very inspirational. Anthony Ferraro: Thank you for saying that. That documentary, the Find a Light, Shine a Light, that one gives me chills every time I watch it. The way he was able to transcend that message through you guys and the way you guys spoke, it made things clear and it was just so beautiful to see. Simon Bonenfant: Oh yeah. Yeah, it was great. It was great to see Oliver and his life and his vision. He truly had a vision for his life and for you. He was able to create these films and do this very well. He always set his goals as high as well as you. I remember talking with him throughout the years and hearing the stuff that he was up to, and it was very good stuff. He was just a motivational guy as well. Anthony Ferraro: Oliver was a ... He was a hustler, you know? Simon Bonenfant: Oh yeah, he was. Anthony Ferraro: He worked so hard. He was self-made to say the least. I remember he bought a house at 25 years old in Spring Lake Heights, New Jersey. He was a funny guy. The things he would get, I remember it was almost like a status thing when he bought a Rolex, he was all pumped. He just worked hard for the things he had. He loved people. Simon Bonenfant: He did. Anthony Ferraro: He loved people so much and he was able to tell their story almost for them in such a beautiful way and he saw that. He would see the beauty in everything. He was even the guy who when people were talking bad about someone he would challenge them and be like, "Why do you really think that because I think this about that person." And really show their positivity and the good things about them. Simon Bonenfant: That's great. It sounds like that is in you too, that drive, that motivation, and you're a people person too, you like people. Anthony Ferraro: Absolutely. Simon Bonenfant: You're good with people. That's great. Anthony Ferraro: I feel when I lost him that I really, really embodied a lot of him. Simon Bonenfant: You did. Anthony Ferraro: He's there all the time. Simon Bonenfant: Oh yeah. Anthony Ferraro: I'm traveling all the time. I just got back from Germany two weeks ago from a tournament and I just feel him everywhere around the world. I've had the pleasure these past two years to go to Tokyo, to Brazil, to Germany, to Portugal, all these places and it's just such a blessing because it's from his vision and our vision that I'm able to fulfill this and do these things because he sort of paved this roadmap for me where he's like, "All right, well I started it for you, you've got to finish it and figure the rest out." Now I'm here like, "Oh, can you come back and help me with some of this stuff?" But it's really beautiful what I have in front of me. Simon Bonenfant: Oh yeah. It's great that you're keeping his legacy going and the man behind the film as well. Anthony Ferraro: You have to. Simon Bonenfant: That's great. Anthony Ferraro: Thank you. Simon Bonenfant: He's proud of you and all of the stuff you're doing. Simon Bonenfant: You've been able to accomplish a lot of amazing things. As we all have some fears and doubts, was there ever a time for you where in any of your accomplishments you've had any fears or doubts and how did you deal with that? How did you push past some of those obstacles in your own mind? Anthony Ferraro: Some of the things I dealt with, like I said too, was just the things people would say against me. It would make me question that, like am I good enough? Do I really have an unfair advantage? Am I really just lucky or these things. You have to dig deep in yourself and realize who you are. A lot of it was soul searching and really pushing past people's stigma of what they think should be. Simon Bonenfant: What do you talk about now in your motivational speaking? Are you going to tell your story? Anthony Ferraro: I talk about where we get given these obstacles or these challenges but what we do with them really defines us in the end, how we overcome. Some people will back down from a challenge when something comes up in life and that will keep happening, we create these habits. I learned things from wrestling that stick with me today, the things like I wasn't able to eat certain things, I wasn't able to eat for a whole day at times, always being on time, showing up, being a leader, leading by example, not always screaming but leading by your actions, things like that. Pushing past obstacles and how the only disability is a bad attitude. Anthony Ferraro: Because we all have a purpose and we all have a story. We're the author of our story, we have to write it, it's our job. How do we want to deal with adversity? Are we going to give up or are we going to push through it and break down the barriers and keep going? That really defines your person on the other side. Simon Bonenfant: That's great. Who would you say has been, or maybe still is, the most influential person who had supported you in all the decisions and keeps supporting you? Anthony Ferraro: My brother Oliver, 100%. Seeing his drive and how he loved people and how he just lived. He lived to the fullest. He died at 27 but it felt like he lived for a hundred years. I just want to honor that. I want to keep living, I don't want to give up ever and I want to keep pushing and I want to keep creating. I just want to love people and to be a good person every day of my life and be a better person every day. Anthony Ferraro: Another person who taught me that is my father, who obviously Ollie must have gotten it from. Those two have really just been so influential in my life. And then also my mother, just how she wouldn't take crap for anything. She made you go do it. She made you go out and advocate for yourself. She wasn't going to feel sorry for me. Blindness wasn't an excuse for anything. Those people really just resonate in my life. Simon Bonenfant: That's great. What advice would you give to someone who is blind or visually impaired and is coming up either in high school or college or transitioning into work. What general advice would you give to someone who is coming up in the next generation? Anthony Ferraro: Just to learn and just enjoy the journey. You have these goals and they're ahead of you, sometimes you just want to fast forward to the goal, you want to get there right now. I realize looking back in high school and things when I wouldn't be happy with my accomplishment because I didn't think it was good enough or whatever. Sometimes you miss the journey along with it and that's the best part. Right now I'm training and trying to be the best in the world, an Olympic champion. Anthony Ferraro: That's great and all, but I'm enjoying right now, I'm enjoying today, I'm enjoying being here with you, being at Saint Lucy's, it's my home. Just living in the moment and also working towards that goal, but definitely to enjoy the process because it's the most beautiful part and you might miss some things if you don't stay in the moment and the best things will happen when you're just there. Simon Bonenfant: Oh yeah, that's very good advice. I think that's great for all of us because staying in the moment is very key because we've got to think, we can't get this back. Every minute we've got to spend and we've got to enjoy it by living in the present. Anthony Ferraro: Absolutely. Simon Bonenfant: Live in the present. That's great. Where would someone find a link or is there a website where someone can find your film and purchase it, because it's now a full film, correct? Anthony Ferraro: Yeah. Actually I've created a website. My partner Kelly, who I'm building my nonprofit with, she helped me build the website. We document all the things that are going on social media as well. The website is asfvision.com and if you go there all the links are across the top of the website. They'll see a YouTube account, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, SoundCloud for the music and the link to the film called A Shot in the Dark, which is right now on Vimeo and should be on iTunes very soon. Anthony Ferraro: If you go on the website, asfvision.com, that will have everything they need. That's also, ASF Vision, is the nonprofit that's in the process of building right now and that nonprofit is essentially going to be a big brother for anyone trying to do things and might not have the resources to do these things and having someone come in and give them almost a roadmap and helping them, saying, "You can do this." Providing what they need. Simon Bonenfant: That's great. Do you have an email address that you wouldn't mind sharing if anyone would like to contact you. Anthony Ferraro: Absolutely. My email address is just a@asfvision.com. Simon Bonenfant: All right. That's very good. Hey Anthony, I'd like to thank you for coming on and talking with me and I'm sure the Blind Abilities listeners will enjoy it a lot. You are truly an inspiration to all of us and I think you for taking the time. It's been fun. Anthony Ferraro: All right. Thank you, Simon, it's always a pleasure to be with you. Anthony Ferraro: Feeling so damn low, I ain't going to be treated this old way. Anthony Ferraro: Thank you. Pete Lane: For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com. We're on Twitter, we're on Facebook, and be sure to check out our free app in the Apple app store and the Google Play store. *** If you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Transition Coordinator Sheila Koenig by email or contact her via phone at 651-539-2361. To find your State Services in your State you can go to www.AFB.org and search the directory for your agency. Contact: Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Storeand Google Play Store. Check out the Blind Abilities Communityon Facebook, the Blind Abilities Page, the Job Insights Support Groupand the Assistive Technology Community for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text] Watch the live interview below P025[/fusion_text][fusion_youtube id="https://youtu.be/5cDvVVhoRo8" alignment="center" width="" height="" autoplay="false" api_params="&rel=0" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" /][fusion_text] Transcription (was completed by automated process. Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:02] Ok. So welcome to another session of get sellers calling you podcast. And this is where we focus on helping realtors get more sales and get more sellers calling them and I'm excited to have a special guest a friend of mine for many years now and the real estate world. Genny Williams also known a.k.a. as the six figure coach. So Genny how are you doing. [00:00:26] I'm doing great because I get to hang out with you today. So thanks for having me here Beatty. No I didn't mean to talk over you but you know that's already in the past couple of conversations that we've had. I use the word genius to describe you and calling you by name. So that's exactly how I think of you and have throughout the years. Thanks for letting me be here. [00:00:53] Well I appreciate that because I think that actually goes both ways because a lot of that stuff I've used and some of the stuff I've used in my teaching and and what we apply in helping our clients I actually stole from you. [00:01:08] So you know that you know that this is what's really interesting you know and in English when you steal from someone else. It's called plagiarism but in marketing is called research. So I've done a lot of research with you. [00:01:23] And anything that I have learned from being in the trenches or the mistakes I've made please use them. That's if we can just have everybody short cards and learn from everyone else's mistakes. My gosh we'd be so much better off right. Absolutely. [00:01:41] Well let me do real quick. [00:01:42] I'd love to have you a quick introduction of who you are a little bit about your real estate career and maybe you said also just how folks listening in or watching in can kind of get a perspective of who is this beautiful blonde haired bombshell that's on the video. [00:01:58] Who is this crazy lady. That's right. The crazy lady. Yes I am completely passionate about what it is that I do mostly passionate about people but all things marketing in fact I am obsessed. And one of my sellers recently said that you are totally obsessed with this. Yes I am. So I've been selling for I've been in the real estate business for 22 years and for the past 10 years really 10 to 13 years I have been training coaching and mentoring agents and even providing marketing services for real estate agents that have huge businesses. So as much success as I had when I sold the first time around my clients hundreds of clients that I've had throughout the years have had far far greater success at sales and building teams than I even did. And so so much fun. I get to see all of the research that we've poured into their businesses and what works what doesn't work. And recently I was invited to be a national trainer for a XP Realty and jumped in love the company so much and I've worked with all kinds of companies and all kinds of companies here in Birmingham and I live in Birmingham and work from home but I'm also across the country have worked with many different real estate companies. [00:03:29] When I saw the power of this land I mean I jumped in full fully committed and laughed all along one to one clients to pursue this. So it is pretty much a big deal. Did that just really two months ago. So it's new. I am selling again and I'm also I've put all of my whole years coaching into an eight week program that is group. We do at Facebook and a secret group and I love it. [00:04:01] I'm loving life right now so that's exciting to pull you out of coaching and back into real estate. [00:04:08] That says a lot because I've been for you are I've been in sales I've been in training I've been creating systems and I'm often tempted to to jump back in so that that says a lot. That's pretty exciting. [00:04:22] It is exciting but I feel like I've got the best training to see what other agents made successful. I'm heading in to practice so I feel like a lot of those like we were saying no shortcuts. I have this time around and what when you introduce the podcast about how to get sellers you know calling you more. That's the whole goal. That is it. That is the whole goal. And yesterday I mean I had a full day's work in front bothersome and had a listing appointment late in the evening want Erin to the House eight thirty nine ish but my phone rang the entire time from the time I got out of the listing appointment until I got home with other sellers calling me and walked in and said I'm not sure if I can keep at this pace my husband said but this is the dream and really it's it's happened in only two months. So I definitely have found a couple things that surely work and I can't wait to implement more. I've just been busy. [00:05:29] Well you know so you've now created all this huge interest. [00:05:33] What in the world are you doing that in to has got your phone ringing off the hook with sellers so. What's that. What does a super super super secret. I'm taking notes right now. [00:05:45] Well you're going to laugh at me at first because through the years you know I'm a huge fan and you've heard me say this over and over the people that are going to help you the quickest reach your goals or the ones you already know love and trust and they know love and trust you. [00:06:00] So I am a database database database person so I haven't been in sales for quite some time through the years. If one of my clients said I have a buyer who's looking for a house like this I would say Oh I sold a house you know to so and so and so and so you know seven years ago give them a call and see if they wouldn't sell. So I had given out my sphere of influence and my past clients and my database to other people for all of these years I look good. And it's time for me to have my own gate again to reach out and I have about 40 people and that was stretching it because my sphere of influence are real estate agents. That is where I have been and all my love and attention has been there for all of these years. And you can't go back and be a jerk and say Hey remember when I gave you that client I need it back and relationships don't work that way. [00:07:00] So that's funny. So you gave away your business. Now you're trying to get back in so. So still. Well let me make one quick comment because I heard something a moment ago. So this is an Internet interview. [00:07:12] So if there is some degradation of the video the audio I just know we're doing it over the Internet. So you go. So you've only got a list of 40 people right now where have you expanded that. Probably interrupted you where you're going oh no you're totally fine. [00:07:27] Again please just stop for a second. So yes I have about 40 people I have not expanded that match but what's funny is that people who know love and trust me are the same that I've had in the coaching business and they are my referral partners they're my lenders they are my stager they are the people that sponsor my events and because I've always made sure to give give give give give to them they have given to me. And when I have reached out there they are ready trust me. So I am working with a lot of their friends family clients relatives their sphere of influence. So the very first thing that I had to do was to get back in announcing that I'm in real estate. So one letter that SNL announcing I got two referrals off of it out of 40 people actually had an event where 12 people came was all and. But having a so I can only invite 20. And it was a very small intimate event for ladies that we build baths bombs together. [00:08:41] And it was called You're the bomb that bomb party. So. That was fun. But getting face time back with people again and letting them know that I'm here to help them in real estate. And it didn't hurt that a very first listing that I took which was also a referral from someone that works with get a real estate line. He is not social media. [00:09:05] Npr marketing person at his best friend needed to get his household. He was relocating to Seattle. And you know I had to interview with him. I had to interview with the guy who works with me right because he hasn't seen me in this arena. He's only seen me helping other agents and had interview with mom and with Dad. Once they they were comfortable I ended up selling that house in just a few hours. And so having the success from that I can take. And I had those conversations with other people. [00:09:40] So. So tell me now so you've got some great relationships with. [00:09:44] I'll call him vendor type relationships in the industry. But if if I'm not a new agent but maybe a new agent but if I'm a typical agent I may not have quite the strong relationships there. You know what is. As a coach for the last 10 or ten years of abuse. Have you seen as you have seen these these large agents really start to grow. What are some of the things that you have found to be most effective in growing your business. [00:10:17] As a brand new agent in fact I'm a mentor XP to brand new agents that have closed less than one that joined the company. So I am with them helping them get and production. We have to start with zero. We have to start with the first thing. So of course naturally the first thing I'm going to tell them to do is exactly what I just did. You have to get a list of people who know love and trust you. And that is the first step. The goal is to get to 150. So I'm working on getting to 150. I've had to be very intentional on going out and meeting new people in the community that are connectors. For instance I started a radio show specifically about the area that I live in and target and work. It's called Life along 280 in Chelsea and because of that high reach it allows me to promote other small businesses that are also in that area from there and building great relationships. And I am working with connectors the mayor of Chelsea was one of my first guests and so he's someone that I need to know that he needs to know me and the value that I bring. So I work with these brand new agents and tell them we've got to start there. We've got to start with the people who know love and trust you then we want to move into how do we meet the connectors that are going to make a difference. Quickly right. Has we. If we don't have a quick start. People will get very very discouraged. [00:11:54] You know you're preaching my song because I love working with the personal list. [00:12:02] So in terms of building that list any any inside secrets of things on how to make it easier because here's something real interesting and you'll probably you won't get a kick out of it but you'll I'm sure you will recognize this validity know as we work with other clients and really strong producing agents all. So how many people do you have in your past clients sphere of influence and other people you know list and they'll go maybe 50 and something. Hold on you do 15 million a year and you only got 50 so what are some things that if if I want to build that list out. OK. So this actually a two to four question for why is it so important. And the easiest way to build it out. [00:12:47] Ok. So if people and the list is so important because again these are the people that trust you. So they're going to be more likely to refer you but you have to train these people to be your foot soldiers. They're not just going to know what to do. They have to be taught and trained what services you bring to the table how you can help and how they will not be ashamed or embarrassed to refer you because my husband actually he's a homebuilder and he has gotten to the point where he's like I'm not gaming out any names because people do a great job for me and then they don't show it for other people. It makes me look bad. So we don't want that. We want to train people to feel confident that they are giving the right choice because people do worry about that. You know they want to make sure we all want to look like heroes. So we want to look like a hero when we give someone's name. We want our guy to win because they're the best guy. Right. So it's so important because of that. When you teach them how to fight for passing your name along or getting people to actually work as a sales part of your team an unpaid sales part of your say. [00:14:02] How do you do that. How do you how do you train them how do you get them over and overcoming that fear that being a shame. Sure. Like you're your husband you know I'm not going to stop giving out referrals because they are you know they never go anywhere or or it comes back to me negative. [00:14:19] So how do you do that. [00:14:21] Well you have to keep the person who referred you completely updated at all times just had this conversation just want you to know I've gotten this this and this Don just want you know for instance I had someone that like a mentor relationship like you were singing send me a one of her really close friends if I'm hundred and or five hundred plus thousand our house to put on the market it goes love this week and it had been on the market previously with a different agent. That's a fantastic agent an agent that I've worked with. That I led. And this is actually happening to me over and over and over and over again. And it's I'm not I'm not sure if I'm handling it well but I'm doing that to try to make sure that I stay respectful. However she has been sending me updates. He said that you've done this and you've done that and you've done this. And let me just tell you it's a breath of fresh air and he's so happy he's told everyone here and this and this and this and this. So it's really keeping that person in the process and letting them know that you are working that you didn't abandon it. That they you're doing everything to make them look good. [00:15:33] You know that that's really interesting I was interviewing another agent recently he's. I don't know. [00:15:39] Probably 20 million in volume. The cool thing is he he works maybe 30 40 hours a week or less. And one of the his big pet peeves is this whole communication channel. But you're taking it to an interesting level because his focus is always stay in communication with the seller with your client. But you're saying at the same time you're stay in communication with your referring person at the same degree you would be doing it with one of your clients. [00:16:07] Yes. Now you have to fill that out just like you do with any relationship. Some people are not going to want to hear it. They're like Okay great yeah I know you're mean. It's rough. But especially to jumping back in. And I've been extremely nervous because I have been helping other people for so long. I know that everybody is just like waiting right waiting to say Oh yes. She thought she knew everything. And I feel the pressure of that of course. So that extra confidence is important to me and I am overdoing it right now. I'll probably chill out a little bit later but I can tell you that it's working. And it is constantly making her think of new people to send to me. [00:16:56] So let me let me go back to a little bit. So these are the things that you're doing right now. [00:17:01] Once you've gotten the referral you mentioned about training people to be your foot soldiers and to not be ashamed of referring to is the not being ashamed or referring to is it does that only come once they refer you and then you make them shine or is there anything you can do ahead of time. So it's like if I were an agent and I knew your husband and you weren't in real estate OK. And anything I can do to kind of help him not be ashamed to referring me. I mean how do you how do you do it on the front end or is it always on the back in. [00:17:35] Well I think you solidify on the back end for that next one but when someone's nervous on the front end I mean you have to be able to provide your value you have to show why you're different. You know what is it about you wash your hair are you going to better be very clear. So we have personal brochures that lists out you know 10 or 11 things. Let me just make it easy for you. Why hire extra living at XP Birmingham. That is our whole branding as selling. And I've got it listed out clearly. You don't have to think about it. These are just the bullet points and this is why. And these are testimonials from vendors. These are testimonials from the client that was sold their house and you know a few hours. These are testimonials from people that I've sold houses for over and over and over again and it's all in there because you have to have a confidence level if you are brand new. You can still have testimonials and you can have testimonials about your work ethic about who you are as a person about the unique things that really stand out. You still have 10 reasons 10 beautiful reasons that will be different from everyone else to hire you specifically. [00:18:48] Ok cool. So the second question I want to understand because I run into this a lot. [00:18:54] You know people say you know I've only got 40 or 50 people on my list and you want them to get to 150. How do you get there. You know do I really know that many people. What have you found any seekers to try to get to start going that list up yes. [00:19:13] Actually I've got a great shortcut and that is and I'm happy to share it with anyone. And Betty if you want and you know people will contact you about this. I do have Michael Myers 7 all memory jogger and he is the author of seven levels of communication is just something that I use he gives me permission to use it as long as I mentioned his name. And it's been a huge part of what I do since the day that I met him because it really prompts you do that and bank teller that always knows your name that you may not have stopped to learn their name. But think about how many people there in front of all day long. And I can tell you when I was in Mississippi selling the bank tellers helped me out so much because I went by every other day to see them and make my rounds around town. And I remember one bank teller telling me one day I came in to bring fliers of the newest listings so that they would know that I had for sale and this girl said to me I'd been waiting for you to get here all day. I spoke to this woman she's ready to put her house on the market and I said she has to speak to you. And and that's super important. I mean we want to target and make sure that we have people who cut hair. Think of how many people there in front of every day a week. Think of the PTA president. How would a leadership role that they are in and how many people that they speak to everyday. That small group leader at church. Do you know I have a client that you can trace back almost every bit of his business to church. Really. Yes. And that's very powerful. So you know people always joke and say Gaza I'm doing the wrong one. And you probably didn't. You're probably just not being visible with your values. [00:21:00] So when you talk about looking for people who are connectors These are the people you're talking about those people who are at least this is what I'm interpreting right now. [00:21:10] Now the teller the hairdresser the PTO president the small group leaders those people here and in groups of people as opposed to that person you think well I think this person can connect me to their own personal friends. You're looking for those are in the marketplace with lots of people. [00:21:28] Yes that's exactly it. And sometimes to you have to prompt and. You can't just hear a lot of people say as long as you live on people let them know you're there they'll send you business that is not true. You to ask for the business. Now you don't have to ask for it and a rude aggressive way. Or assume that you're going to get it through language. [00:21:52] You will want to always say that you are happy to help. And you know making sure that you make the comment to refer. I can always handle it. And here's the here's the here's the magic question that I like to use Here's the script that I want people to use at least 10 times a day with new people they haven't met yet. And you can set it up anywhere you want to and your style. But this is it works and and you are all about research so you'll like the research behind this. And you've probably heard me say it before but set it up any way you want to and I'm going to set it up and then I'll share it with you the piece of it. The magic. So they don't know if you know what's going on in the real estate market right now. It's a crazy shortage. I've had buyers calling and calling and calling. There's just nothing we've exhausted everything in MLS right now. And I just want really good people to be able to take advantage of this appreciating market and the seller shortage that we have. I'm desperate though to help these people. What three people do you know that need to sell a house in the next 60 days I like that line. That is what I mean. And I made it my style my natural style. I added in the sense of urgency I added in my passion for helping people. It's not sales. It is I am desperate for your help. [00:23:17] And that reminds me. I don't know if you know I won't mention his name just in case but he's an agent here in town a friend of mine. [00:23:25] His name is Rob and he was telling me of it's really funny because you know sometimes the real travel hit on a goldmine and they don't even know it. So he had a friend that wanted to buy a house in the certain area. He couldn't find one. So Rob wrote a letter that says I have a client he's working in this area. He can't find a house if you're interested in selling could you please call me and so you put it in these all these mailboxes. He said I picked up two or three listings. None of them were the ones that my my client wanted. And I said Rob did you do it again. You said right. Yeah I know. [00:24:04] We actually have a letter that for our patient clients that is already written that has had success time and time and time again for reverse prospecting. That exact way. And yes I had one client pick up two listings in one neighborhood for that and actually sold it to the people that he was working with the buyer that he was working with. So that absolutely does work. And no because it works agents normally don't do it again. [00:24:32] They just kept. [00:24:33] Hey I've got to come back to one of these things. [00:24:36] So because the personal list is so valuable your group of 40 has been ringing your phone off the hook basically. Yes. Talk to me if you were just to list off the top of your head. Who are those connector type roles so that people on this call they can start to make a list of people that fit those roles. Who would they be. [00:25:00] So a lot of times it's going to be your lenders that have leadership roles they're going to be in front of a lot of people. It's going to be your PTA presidents it's going to be your little league coaches and coaches even high school little league baseball football basketball have so much influence. And parents just want a piece of them. And those are really good people to have in your world. I know nothing about sports that would be ridiculously phony of make to add those people into my world. All right introductions are important. So using the triangle and trust and Michael also states that in his book is very important so if you are meeting with someone that you feel is a connector then you want to ask them. I'm out here really trying to get to know people in the community so that I can help people buy here sale here. Who do you recommend that and meet right away and that way you will get a couple of names and then you say would you mind calling them and introducing me so that I'm not calling colorfully and if you start getting into other people insurance salesman just think about how many people they know. And oftentimes we forget to market to them. It doesn't matter if they already have a real estate agent you're just wanting to go in and find a way you can help that person and they will figure out how to get you a referral. They may never use you. It doesn't matter it doesn't matter. Show your value and they will have people that aren't connected to an agent come your way. [00:26:54] I love that. So now we've got this list built. OK so I've got my list of 150 or 200 or more. [00:27:02] What do I do next. How do I maximize driving consistent business from that list. [00:27:09] And you got one you've got to communicate right. And then you have to do it often. You have to be so visible these days it's not something that you're going to send out once a month or once a quarter. And agents are terrible about will I send out one Christmas card every year you're going to be lost in the shuffle and you're never going to be heard of again because you're not visible in their role and you want to make sure that people know that you care about them. If they only hear from you one time a year when it's expected at Christmas. That's not a whole lot of care and that's not a whole lot of concern. And really it's all about you. So a couple of things to you don't want to get into the fallacy of well that didn't work. I sent it out four times and nobody called me. When you have to have the right message and you have to be very very consistent I find that you better be sending you know at least 30 at least 30 touches to your clients and it doesn't have to be money. But it's much one on one personal attention as you can give is where you're going to get the most value. [00:28:20] So tell me. So we've got to communicate. First off I immediately think OK. Does that mean I'm texting them. Does that mean I'm sending them an e-mail calling them. [00:28:31] What what do you find. And I'm sure it's probably a mixture of all that but I also say yes. [00:28:37] Yeah. OK. OK. So what do I say. What do I do. I've got this list too I just started dialing them and saying hey you know it's good to talk to you and you know let me check it off and go to the next one or help. [00:28:51] How can you guide me. What I say on that because I get this all the time with agents. [00:28:56] You do. I absolutely do. And you have a great system in place for helping people do that as well. If for some reason you want to try to do this on your own. And if you're very busy it is going to be overwhelming. So it's great to have some personal resources to help out because you won't be consistent. And then when you're not consistent you're going to have those peaks and valleys peaks and valleys peaks and valleys and you need something working behind you as you're in appointments all day long because you can't do it all. You can't be personal to 500 people at one time. It's very difficult to handle that because it snowballs. The reason we won't 150 I want to make sure to give the science behind that as well is because one hundred and fifty people in your sphere of influence communicated with on a regular basis will produce it's proven all the numbers have been done. All the statistics come in over and over and over again 30 sales for you per year at one hundred and fifty thousand average sales price will get you on your six figures. And that is truly the path to take it. So I like a combination of things. And some of the things that I'll do is I'll just sit there and text people and I don't do it in a group. Some things are good for Gary and I use it for anything that I have for free. I'll share it with you. I use an app called group text and it's free. I think they may charge just a little bit to download it now but whenever they respond it'll come just to you and it won't come back to the group. Do not ever send a group message to everyone how embarrassing and unprofessional is that. Yes. And I had agents do that to me all the time. Somebody sent me the other day a great message because I'm a part of a condo complex and somebody responded I thought she was talking to me and I was like I'm so sorry you're not on my contact list to worry. [00:30:52] Oh my gosh this embarrassing. [00:30:57] I will just sit down if I have free time and go Hey how's it going. What's going on in your world. You always want to make everything about them. It's not about you it's it's it's about them until you have an opportunity or it to be about you and asking back most of the time when you're about other people they will ask you what they can do to help you. So I had one of my really good friends ask the other day if I would buy a sign for the ball field and baby my child was at that ball field from the time he was four years old up until the time he was 18 he played baseball all those years and he was on the high school team and her child was on the high school team and it was time to sell signs and I said Yes get me some referrals. I mean seriously I could say that right. And of course we have a connection and she laughed at me. She's like You can't think of anybody right now and I'm like No there's somebody. That ball field right now because she was at a work day at the ball field that is thinking about meeting. Go ask him. She came back and she's like oh my gosh so-and-so I was moving as soon as graduation happens they're going to Florida blah blah blah. And then she was like This is their address. This is their contact number. And then a few minutes later she goes oh so I said they were. Right. And so she gave me two great leads just by doing that. You can't get away with that with everyone. [00:32:24] She's one of my really good friends. But she asked me for five hundred dollars it would be right to ask back a percent then that could potentially pay me back for that in a nice and in a great way. So when you start with personalization like that the events are a great thing. I have lots of clients do you maybe and that's where they'll have three here. Seventy five people show up and I will watch the referrals or and from that because we have to prompt people to refer you to an event. You don't want them just come in soaking up everything and leave and you do you want to have a great time but we have referral cards that we'll put out in each one of the seats. With the magic question on it what three people do you know and we give you more lines than three and they'll. They'll bring them out. I'll watch it pour out of the seats and turn those in. So anytime you can provide fun and value for people the other things of course are going to be a mixture of maybe some greeting cards some emails does not need to be listing after listing after listing if you do take a listing that you want to share you can email that to everyone in bed something about that house in that email. We use MailChimp it's free and you can send that out and say in the subject line please please share this with someone who. And then describe who that person is that's perfect for that neighborhood or for that house itself so that you can get some shares out of it. [00:33:59] Because you're asking for interaction you're asking for help. It's not Roma. Look at me I did this. Look at me I did that. You're gonna put that in and you're gonna sprinkle it in. Because you want your success stories there because you want that confidence to refer that that just gives you some sense some good ideas there and there are lots lots more and you can do newsletters are a great thing to do. [00:34:21] You just need a mixture not don't hammer people with emails costly they don't have value you know this is interesting because what it sells like is and I know it is you're taking a very deliberate approach to nurturing the list you're in your free time you're just taxing little personal messages you're doing the maybe events you're doing these events over here sending something to Melcher you're just always there but it's really deliberate. So it sounds overwhelming. [00:34:51] How do you how do you systematized How do you how do you structure it so that it doesn't fall through the cracks and you're up and down and up and down like you were talking about earlier well the best way is to plan out everything that you're going to do for the whole year and schedule it so then you can have a really good feel for when you need to have things ready. Now working with agents for many many years we did that with custom marketing plans. And it is very difficult to get their approval and okay. And then the time lapses so it can be a struggle but just sitting down and then reviewing it once a quarter we said we were going to do this winter our deadlines to have it ready. When do we need to approve it. When is it going out. It doesn't have to be completely written some of your greeting cards can be and some of your events can be some of your calls and text messages can be planned but you can kind of like the e-mails you know find what your topics are going to be it's got to be value. So it's either what's happening around town this week are here's some money saving things you can do for this week you know ways that you can give back. So it's not all real estate real estate middle estate and you can be flexible with the messages and those that are getting a good topic and those things will help you get it done. But you know what my real answer is is just call you and you can take care. [00:36:17] Yes. [00:36:18] Well we'll put it in an unabashed plug at them at the end. [00:36:25] I mean I know I've done this job for many years just get someone else to do it. [00:36:29] It's you know it's what's really funny. Not to plug guys but just to springboard off of that. [00:36:37] When as we started working with a lot of agents across the country one of the thing the common theme people people said they did business with us is because they don't know what they're doing number one or number two they just need something that's automated because they captured. They keep trying. And it falls flat and then they forget to do it and they just want something consistent and there's a lot to be said on that. I want to shift topics a little bit and go off at an angle real quickly because before the call started you know we're talking about your Christian faith. And talk to me in terms of how how does that influence what you do as a realtor and and how do you kind of apply it as a realtor then or does it make an impact at all. [00:37:26] Yes actually it does today. It hasn't always and I'll be extremely honest about where I've been with all of this. I was raised in a household that I wasn't allowed to go to church. My dad was Catholic and my mother was Southern Baptist. And they didn't see the need for choosing and deciding and pitting us. There were certain path and I believe that my mother had a lot of scars from religion from the whole deal so it wasn't talked about. It wasn't. I just didn't believe because there was nothing for me to believe. I wasn't compelled by anything I've had different people reach out to me throughout the years though. I had one man that I was a bat girl for the baseball team when I was in high school and he was had some mental issues but he was so faithful he was so faithful. And for my 16th birthday he just prayed for me all the time he bought me saved his money bought me a Bible that had my name engraved on it and it I mean it was really so special. But I am stubborn that didn't move me much. It moved me because he thought so much of me to do that. But now looking back I see where that came from. You know that was just trying to soften me up and listen and I did. I just kept doing my own thing. [00:39:00] And it really is not until the past few years that I have recognized and realized and become a strong believer and dedicated my business to Christ and pray every day that his grace shines through me and his light shines through me for every person that I meet. Not for a gain but just that they see you know that I am a light of his. And now I think I've shared with you. I am actually on a core group for a church planet here in my town of Chelsea so we've come a long way with all this is a long way. [00:39:43] So. So as a Christian you want to really just kind of live out your faith as a real estate agent. OK. Is there anything so you pray about it in the morning. OK. And pray for your business. How else do you use your faith. How else do you live it. [00:40:03] When I say I had my long prayer book but it's never there it usually sits right here and I write my prayers out every day and dedicate my business to Christ. And you know I am just now getting into learning more about tithing and what that means and the commitment of that and being faithful to that because I've always done offerings instead and found someone that I needed to help and poured my love my money and my energy into them. And I'm still doing that. I'm helping a friend right now doing everything she can to get her out of foreclosure so that she can stay in the house with her two special needs sons. That's my number one mission right now. It's so. And don't get me wrong please baby. I am the biggest potty mouth. I am such a center. And it's just amazing that we have that love and grace through Christ that we get redeemed every day. So I don't take that lightly and it means a lot to me and I try to make all my decisions based on what is good for others. [00:41:23] So let let me maybe moving off a business platform a little bit Anderson personally in terms of your relationship with Christ if you were just kind of sum it up put it means to you and and how it's impacted you can you just kind of share some candid thoughts on that yes I can and I can articulate many things. [00:41:50] This is harder to articulate I feel because it's so powerful it is so much bigger than who we are what we do for a living. You know I strongly feel like we are here to make a difference and to show love through everything that is that we do. That doesn't mean I don't get frustrated that I don't get angry that I'm not the biggest road rage there. But to step back from that and say hey my duty is to make sure that I show grace and love through everything that it is that I do. So I feel like that's what it means to me. I found a way through a lady that worked for me for years who I adore found a Bible study and we were actually doing it in our office and inviting all the business partners to and coaching clients to come and take part in it. And it just completely blew me away and moved me that we we did part two as well and now she has a new book out and she lives here in town and it is she's so smart and intelligent she knows all the Hebrew she knows Greek she knows every interpretation of every word and it made so much sense to me when I started learning through Tricia what Grace really means. And she had an encounter also with Christ. It's just so touching and to me it's completely changed my perspective my outlook it's really changed how I feel and see the world and see you know my love for Christ. [00:43:34] So the outlook that's changed. OK so let's talk about perspective. [00:43:37] Let's go backwards in time to that point before that bible study or before things really started to take off with just your faith and understanding this measure of grace and compare it here versus here where you are now. What's the perspective that's changed. And how does it change your life. [00:44:00] Well for one I decided to just surrender and dark trying to control everything on my own because I am not good at that. [00:44:15] I me I'm not and let myself you know do what I can to go down the path that has already been laid out for me instead of me trying to control every path and because last year was complete proof to me that I do not know do not make the best decisions and a really tough year last year. And nothing. Nothing bad but it's not ideal. And just since I had done that this year based on those beliefs that I learned I learned logically on through Tricia's teachings and really digging in to all the studies of grace. Honest just so powerful my perspective today is just let it go and let God let it go. [00:45:13] Let it go and just amazing to me that opportunities come in everywhere. I said to Zach who works with me and I said to my husband they yesterday said God is telling me he wants to pay me from every single direction. If I just stay faithful that he's got this Kiva because yesterday I had a stellar after stellar after stellar call I had a listing appointment I had new agents joining XP with me and I had a speaking engagements. And it just rang off the hook yesterday and it's like what are you even worried about. [00:45:52] Well that's so true you know and you know the Lord really does take care of everything. [00:45:57] I'm going to blow your mind on one part so you know it says in the Bible that he prepared beforehand all of the good works and so all of the things that we're struggling with that we're worrying about. The Lord has already made provision for them is just a matter of trusting him to deliver that provision. Does that make sense. Yeah absolutely it does. One of the things that I find in terms of receiving that I think it's sore. I think it's in mark the passage of because there are several passages in the Gospel where Peter is walking on the water and apologize my light just went out the above one of them is the passage it's a little bit more in long gated and it says that he steps out of the boat and he starts walking on the water. And as soon as he takes his eyes off of Jesus and puts his eyes on the wind and on the natural he becomes afraid and he sings and Jesus reaches out and grab him and says you a little faith. Why did you doubt and here's the thing that's been so remarkable for me on that is we see the same situations where like a little laboratory Okay we have walking by the spirit walking by the flesh the identical situation but two completely different outcomes based entirely where you put your focus. And when we get in those tough times and we put our focus on ourself and on the situation it seems like we just keep dropping down further and further and getting tougher and tougher times. But once we put our eyes on the Lord and trust him and provision then it seems like everything starts to calm out and and work. Does that make sense. [00:47:39] Absolutely I see it completely. See it in other people's lives all the time and it's always easier to see other people's blessings or other people's gaps more so than ours. That yesterday it was a perfect example of being showered with gifts and knowing that you actually are walking the right path. [00:48:03] So for me it's so true. We're getting close to the time of wrapping up. [00:48:09] Is there anything else that you would like to share anything that we've talked about. Anything from business from personal. Anything else before we start to wrap up. [00:48:21] Yeah. Two things really. And when I did not mention one of the other things that I've had to do to build my sphere of influence and that call expired listings. And that's been fun for me. When the very first phone call I made my hand was shaking like this. [00:48:39] No I understand. [00:48:40] Yep. I just haven't done it in so long and so I had one of my clients who I adore and she's at peace with me. She made her come to the house and sit in front of me and she made calls I made calls you make calls I made calls because I knew that I wouldn't do it and I would find every excuse not to do it. If she wasn't here making me and I was doing it I was making excuses while she was here. I need to research it. Now you don't you just need to call him and I want to see what it looks like. No you just need a call. I said well if I say this and she goes you tell us what to say every day. I said You're right. And I made the phone call and the heart was just pounding. He probably heard it on the voicemail. It went to voicemail and I left a message and said you know. I don't know if that's going to work but I'm gonna give it another push. So I went over to the house and I left. I wrote a letter about a recent real estate transaction that I was involved in and that was kind of similar to what I saw with with his house and a laugh on those big popcorn turns with the letter by his door and didn't hear anything. And a few days later he called and he said we just had the best voice mail for me. We loved it. Your voicemail was the best. Your letter was the best and oh my God I wanted one of those popcorn tins for Christmas and didn't buy one. [00:50:10] I love it and it's five dollars right. And he said you have to come over. [00:50:16] You have to remember they loved everything I said until we got to the price. And I'm just gonna be honest with people I'm just not going to be one of those. I'm going to list you for this and try to get you down later because rarely does that work out. So I did crush their spirits but it was a house that had been on the market three different times and didn't have one showing so I had to be completely honest. But it made me feel good because the very first then called going back and I got the appointment. And that's what we need every single time we have to have appointments nuclear appointments or what feeds us. And I am super hyper focused on that listing appointment. The buyers will come they will show what they will come out of the woodwork. They will call on your signs. They will call from your Internet presence. They will call from your Facebook presence. Don't worry about chasing the buyers. They will show up in your world find the listings that you can help. And so the second thing I wanted to say was is that one of my clients who came to me years and years and years ago he had he was worn out worn out and he had closed 60 transactions and he said I want to do more but I cannot work on that a minute. [00:51:29] And that was because he was working all the buyers and I said we've got to shift you to a listing agent. And he asked What's ideal what what would you want to. What's the area you would want to own. And he gave me a city and he said never sold anything in that city. I said doesn't matter. I don't know about you yet. And that's when I called you and I introduced you to him and put your plan for direct mail in place and it seriously was crickets crickets crickets crickets crickets crickets. Oh my gosh did we stop it. No I think you should hang in there than me go in. Oh my gosh I don't know. Now he would say no let's keep going. And it was almost overnight success after the 12th month because what we were saying about the research before it takes so many times to train foot soldiers these people don't know you and to be visible. It takes that consistency over a length of time and nobody wakes up today and says oh my gosh baby I want to sell my house today. [00:52:32] You know that's so true. I want to go back to the first of the last comments you made. [00:52:39] Cold calling because I think it's so typical of what happens is we get scared to pick up the phone and it's that fear this inside our brain has nothing to do with reality. OK right. Oh yeah. You know in fact I heard someone say that what you believed to be true becomes your reality. So yes we just get scared of it. But I love. I think there are three takeaways that I get out of that no one. You're doing what you have to do. It's uncomfortable but you're going to pick up that phone and doing I love the fact that you got a friend and you say hold me accountable. [00:53:15] Ok. Hi it's me in the face right. That's right. You're my accountability partner. [00:53:21] You know if I if my wife and I got off tangent but on tap on on target my wife and I will go play tennis and we're just easy social tennis players. And I'm not out there very aggressively. But then we say OK let's make a let's make a deal on who wins and what's going to happen. And then I don't give up. So you know you sometimes you just have to make that happen. I'm sorry. I love that. The other thing I loved is that you didn't stop at the voicemail but you took a handwritten note and a gift. And as soon as you mentioned that I thought back on one of my other clients that for every listening appointment he drops off some information about himself and a gift before his listing appointment. And frequently if he's in a comfort competitive environment you'll always get the listing. And almost every time that a homeowner will lean over and say something like you know the gift got to the deal. And so you can't underestimate just that 10 a popcorn of whatever you do just as a nice gesture. [00:54:25] You're right. Well as it's stands now it's another thing to say your business means so much to me I went to this little bit of extra effort and that's why I named the branding for selling extra living. Not only have extra but that we make an extra effort because so few people make extra efforts or effort at all. So I don't want to say that I provide service. I want to show you. And that's just a way to prove that you are providing value and you're willing to do what it takes to help someone out. [00:55:02] I love that. So I said earlier where we're trying to close off and I think that was maybe 10 or 15 minutes ago. So I keep getting I kept getting sucked in because it's so much fun talking with you. [00:55:14] But we do have to close has to be sensitive to our listeners out there but now I don't know are you. Yes I know so you're training with the expert you're doing your own production. If if if someone if someone wants your help. Is there a way I mean are you still doing anything in the coaching ranks. OK tell me a little bit about that and how people can engage with you can contact you learn more. What what's that. How to do it. How did they do that. [00:55:44] Sir we and very active on Facebook and we have a fairly large following on Facebook and get a real estate line. That's the name of the coaching company that I have. Get a real estate life because we help people actually get a real estate line. And you can look it up on Facebook or you can go to get a real estate life dot com. I have baby what's called six figure intensity and it is what it says. It's six feet your intensity it is the path I've taken a whole year of one on one coaching and put it in 16 sessions that last for eight weeks. So it's two sessions a week for eight weeks and we do it in a private group on Facebook and it is examples it's materials it is heavy. How to use what to do every single day to fill your calendar at all based on mastic speed your day a point system that I created years ago to ensure that you aren't fooling yourself and you're actually being productive. I'll give you my cell number. It's 2 0 5 2 2 3 1 0 4 4 and text is normally the fastest way but I can tell you my phone's been blowing I have about three hundred and nineteen text messages I have to answer today so it still is the fastest way for me to get back with you and I'd love to meet you if you just want to chat and let me just saw photo personal endorsement for Genny on that she really does a great job a lot of the top producers here in our city they've been coaching with her and that's one of the reasons they are top producers so let me really strongly encourage you to do that. [00:57:28] So we ought to wrap up but if you do like this podcast I guess Heller is calling you. Be sure to subscribe to it. Be sure to like it if you're on iTunes or Stitcher or doing watching it on YouTube. And we've just been able to share some some great stuff with you. Genny thank you so much for your time and thank you for sharing your life. [00:57:47] Thank you so much for allowing me to be here. Always on chat with you. [00:57:52] I do too. I do too. We all have a great day. [00:57:54] And thank and then let me start to record. [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container] !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '2169469429763697'); fbq('track', 'PageView');

How you guys doing? How you guys doing? That intro, I love my intro. I think it's awesome, but I want to switch it up here sometimes. It's stuck in my head all the time. Hey, I got up pretty early. I love getting up early. I get up at about 4 o'clock when I can. My perfect day gets me up at 4 o'clock, which means I have to go to bed like 10:00. That's totally fine, but I was getting up, and I built this gym in our third car garage. I love lifting. Lifting is a ton of fun. I love it because it's a competition with myself. I didn't realize it, but my wife also got up at the same time, and she was just on our living room on the other side of the garage door inside the house. I was lifting pretty heavy, and I was trying to beat some records and goals and stuff like that. I was really pushing myself hard, and I was dead lifting. Dead lifting is my favorite lift. After you deadlift like super hard, like stuff kind of gets a little bit hazy in your vision, which is pretty normal. People are known to slightly black out a little bit. Not like in a bad way or anything, but you're like, "Steven, how does that sound? Where's the good way?" I was like yelling, like screaming and stuff. I didn't realize that she was on the other side, and she thought I was hurt. She got all scared and nervous and everything and I was like I was killing a babe. Like what, yeah. Anyway, hey guys, I'm excited for today. It's pretty early still. I'm excited for this week. I've been planning out my weeks really intensely before the week actually happens, and it's been amazing what it's been doing for my day. I hope that you guys are doing that as well. There's so much purpose, there's so much clarity on everything I need to get doing. Today one of the things I'm going to be doing is I'm going through ... A lot of you guys might know, if it's your first episode here, just know that this podcast has been documenting me creating and launching my Secret MLM Hacks course, Secret MLM Hacks product. We had about 37 people join us during the launch, which is great. Tons of people applied to join my downline, which is a lot of fun, which invigorates everyone else. Keeps everyone else moving and things like that. I'm getting an average of one to two people per day asking to join my downline, which is hilarious. I don't reach out to anybody. I don't do any of the face to face stuff very much. You know what's funny? I was talking to some of the people though like, "Awesome. Now what do you say face to face?" I'm like, "You know what? I kind of solved my own problem. I really don't talk about it at all face to face with anybody." I don't know. The subheadline for the thing was how do to X, Y and Z without friends and family even knowing that I'm in MLM and that's true. I think my parents and my family kind of know-ish that I'm in I, but not really. I think they think it's not like a real thing, or I don't know. I don't know, but that's the whole point. That's the reason I built these systems was to solve my own pain, and it's been working, and it's great. That's why I built the product to show everyone what I was doing as well. It's not a pitchfest. I don't show anyone. I don't even tell anybody what MLM I'm in, but it's been a lot of fun. Today what I'm building now or what I'm finishing is about three or four months, I did the first draft of the workbook that goes with the course. It's fantastic. It's fabulous. I love workbooks. About four years ago, three, four years ago ... Excuse me. I'm getting over a cold again, but about three or four years ago, I was going through this workbook. Actually I've got it right over here called DotComSecrets Ignite. It's a workbook. It's not like it's huge or anything, but I went page by page by page through it about four years ago. When it said, "Hey, do this, this and this," I did not move on until I did it. When it said, "Now do X, Y and Z," I did X, Y and Z and I did not move on until I had those things done. It was in the middle of college and I was hiding literally in the basketball stadium box office seats. I think I've told you guys this before. I would hide up there. I didn't have money really to get into the thing I wanted to. What I did is I went through that workbook literally page by page by page by page, and I planned out everything that it said. I did everything it said to do. When it was time for me to launch, I had all my ducks in a row. I knew where things were going. It made me answer the hard questions. How are you going to find people? How are you going to sell? What's the sell point? All that stuff. Where's the traffic coming from? What's cool is that it helped me apply everything that was being taught in a video course. I've set it up slightly the same way. I tend to think when I get someone's course ... I buy a lot of people's courses and got books all around me. I love studying. I love learning. I tend to think like hey, I'm going to through this entire massive thing. I'm going to go through all of it. Just watch it all in one shot and then I'll see what I want to do after that. It never works that way though. There's always so much stuff. I'm sure you guys have all done this. You read a book and you're like, "Oh my gosh. That was great. I should go apply that." You're like, "Well, I'll keep reading." You forget about it, right? There's a really, really great TED Talk by Mel Robbins. Mel Robbins is fantastic. She talks about The 5 Second Rule. The 5 Second Rule basically says look, if you have an idea, if you've got that thought that pops in your head and says, "I should do X, Y and Z," right, if you don't act on it in five seconds, it's gone. Right? Your head pulls the emergency break. Your head says, "You know what? There's too much risk involved with that." Even if there isn't, your head starts to find and search for a risk for it so that you feel justified and not doing it. Does that make sense? The whole point of what I'm trying to say right here is that I kept thinking it through, I got the first draft of this workbook back and it looks fantastic. It's so cool. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited for it. Anyway, it's going to help a whole bunch of people. Apply my course and actually get the stuff done so that they're not stuck in this like learning cycle. I talked about that a little while ago too, but so they're not stuck in the learning cycle. I'm excited to actually get this thing out there, but I'm going through and I'm making edits. One of the things in here talks about relationship creating. Now I know a lot of people call it relationship marketing or other things besides MLM, which kind of makes me laugh a little bit. MLM. MLM. I talk about relationships and not in a way that I think people really think about it. What you do in here though is you list out a whole bunch of people that you wish were in your downline or who were buying from you or specifically the people who have lists of the people that you wish you could sell to. Right? You got two ways to really go about this MLM thing. Okay? This is what I want to talk about today. There's really two ways to go about this MLM thing. The first way is the way that it's traditionally taught. There's nothing wrong with it, but it takes forever. The other way is more of the way that I do it, which gets people applying to join my downline which is amazing. Then I give everyone in my downline those same systems so they can keep duplicating. Anyway, there's really two ways to go about it. The first way, okay, imagine this. I used to go backpacking a lot. I grew up in Littleton, Colorado, which is like right between Denver and the mountains. I mean I was skiing since I was five. Skied like crazy. Tons of skiing. Lots of backpacking. Lots of outdoor stuff. I absolute love that kind of stuff. I haven't been able to do as much of that lately, but I still love it. I remember there was a summer we went on a three week backpacking trip. It was this three week backpacking trip and I remember that like two weeks in, we get to this spot where we were planning on resupplying our water at this creek. We get to the creek and everyone's tired. After two weeks, your legs are kind of broken in. You don't really feel it as much anymore. It's really those first like three or four days that kind of hurt a little bit. Then after that you're like, "Okay." Just like anything, there's growing pains at first and then you kind of get to a spot where your body adapts or like anything else, your brain adapts so you figure out how to solve the problem, whatever it is. Backpacking taught me a lot of stuff about life and business. Anyway, we get to this spot after two weeks in. We get to this spot where we're going to go refill up our water and there's no water. The creek is totally dried up. Totally dried up. We were like, "Oh, crap. We still have 48 hours before we're going to go waltz into camp." It's actually kind of a dangerous situation. We pooled all of our water together and everyone threw the rest of the water that they had together in this circle. We kind of rationed the water out the remaining 36, 48 hours, which might sound like hey, you can be okay, but when it's high altitude like that, your brain goes a little bit weird when it doesn't have a lot of water. You start to not necessarily hallucinate, but you can. It starts to mess with you. We were really high up, when you are dropping a lot of elevation to get down to the camp where we would like resupply. I think we went home for like a day or two and then we went back out for another week. There was a lot of us. There's probably like 15, 16 of us. It was one of my favorite memories ever. Do you think that we stood there and started digging for water? No. No. Is that the most efficient thing to do to sit there and start digging for water right there? No. Why? It would take forever. Right? Wouldn't it be better just to pull a map out and go find out where the existing water is and walk to that water? Ah, Steven. Oh, thank you so much. Here's the lesson of it, here's the lesson of the whole thing is when you go and you start talking to family members and friends who do not have a preexisting disposition to buy into MLM or your product, you are digging for water where it does not exist. It's not to say that you won't find it. In fact, a lot of people do, but my word. For me I hate doing that way. I got to sift through a lot of rocks, a lot of weeds, a lot of boulders on the way to find the few spots of water that hopefully will create more water for me and I eventually can retire. You know what I mean? It's way better for me to just go and find existing streams. Way better. Right? If I have to go and I even have to pay a toll to some river owner, right, that's totally worth it. It's still going to be more effective and efficient for me to go do that than me to actually start right there. I could even go to a swamp and just start digging. Guess what? That's some nasty water right there. You don't necessarily need that kind of water. Go find the water that's already moving. The water that's already in motion. The water that is already in motion. The water that's already going. The water does not depend on you to move it. Right? Has anyone ever drank stagnant water that you filtered? Holy crap. That is nasty crap. Hopefully you're starting to get the analogy here. Rather than me going and starting to dig water where there once was water, I don't care if even it used to be the Mississippi, if it's not there, go find it. Right? Move with it. Shift happens. I'm not a swearer, but I actually caught that. Shift happens. Okay? Anyway, it's better for me to just go find who already owns the ... I could go find a river source that nobody owns or I might go find a river source that somebody does own and I have to pay a little bit of homage to. Pay a little bit of fee to. Maybe a relationship for to actually gain access to. I treat MLM the exact same way. Okay? The exact same way. I'm not going to go to the places where I'm going to have to dig and hunt and search and find and track and trap and trick and go and say, "Oh my gosh. This is what you need. You have to have this. You need this. You need this." First of all, if anyone needs my thing, they're already not a good candidate for me. I am looking for people who are already in motion. People already moving. I want the people that are sometimes hard to get the attention of because they're so active in their life. That's the kind of person that I want. Right? That's the kind of person you should want. Right? That's exactly what I teach my downline to do is how do you find those kinds of people and how to do you become attractive in a way so that they start coming to you, right, rather than you going and tricking, trapping and tracking. That's my three T thing I guess. I don't know. I kind of made it up on the spot, but I kind of like it. It's sticking. Does that make sense? What I do is in this workbook is I go and I help people identify where the existing river sources are and then what you do to court and slightly date the river owner, right, because you might not own that river. You might not be the first one who found the river. If you're not, which chances are you're not, right, you might have to either pay some homage to that person or whatever it is. Let's think of Facebook for example. Right? The way I see people digging for water in Facebook is they'll go around and they'll start ... Man, if my wife gets invited to another party, it's someone's house party, I swear she's going to snap one day. She gets invited to so many house parties and she is not in MLM at all. That's people digging for water where there once might have been water, but there's not water. Going on Facebook and posting a whole bunch of stuff like "I'm working from home today" or they're posting selfies of them in the gym. "Working from the gym today." It's like really? Really? You're working from the gym? I saw somebody come out the woodwork and say, "Hey. Oh man. I'm so excited. I made $30 this month from my MLM. That paid for our diapers." I was like man, you've been in that MLM for three years and you're just barely paying for diapers? Something is wrong. Wake up. Something is up. I'm not saying it's not effective and I'm not making fun of anybody. In any other business, in any other scenario, in any other industry, right, people would call that not necessarily a success. Right? People wouldn't necessarily go to the people who didn't want to have their product in the first place. I am never, ever, ever going to be in the market for a pink Volkswagen or probably any Volkswagen. Don't try to sell me one. I don't have a preexisting disposition towards it. How do you find the rivers of the people who already have a preexisting disposition towards MLM? How do find those people? How do you get attracted to them? Solve that problem and my friends, you get one to two people asking to join your downline a day. I solved that problem. It took me a while. I certainly figured out how to not do it. There's a lot of times I failed, but eventually I turned on the spicket and I was like, "Holy crap. It's working. My word. Check this out." That's what Secret MLM Hacks is all about. With this workbook though, what I'm having people do is identify where the existing streams of traffic are. Let's take another Facebook example. Right? Mark Zuckerberg's done a great job creating existing streams of traffic on Facebook. Right? It's better for me to go pay ads and target people who have that preexisting disposition towards MLM rather than just digging randomly in these random spots. Right? Mark Zuckerberg created the traffic for me. I know where people are hanging out. I know where they are. Right? I know how to put ads in front of those people and get their attention and get them to ask to join. Like how interesting? Right? Interesting concept there. If you do it the other way around where you're like digging, man, that's like ... Tell me. Tell me that you have not felt burnt out before doing that game. Again I'm not making fun of it. I know there are people that get great success out of it. That's awesome, but I'm not willing to put like 10 years of work into something before I start to see a return. I'm not willing to do that. I'm not willing to do that and I'm fine being open about that. I will not do that. There is definitely a better way and I found the way and I've been doing that way. Does that make sense? I hope that there's been some epiphanies with this that going and posting on Facebook all over the place, that's not a bad thing to do. Man, if that's you're only strategy, you are digging in places where there is not currently water and you're trying to dig deep enough with a belief that there is some. Eventually sometimes guys it's just easy enough to just throw the towel and say, "You know what? There's got to be a better way," and you start figuring out, "Yeah. You know what? You're right. You're right. That makes sense." Anyway, I hope that makes sense. I know that people have reached out before and they'll be like, "Steven, that's so cool. What you do is really, really hard though." I'm like it's actually not. I think that's the part that's been the most shocking to me. It's actually have been way easier than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a lot harder. Now I had to go through a lot of stuff to get to this spot and that's part of what my course teaches. It's what did work so you can shortcut all of that. Right? It's what did go through and help people or help me actually get success with it. Right? It's not like it's been a one hit wonder. It's still going. It's still running in the background 24/7, 365. It's just running in the back. It's been fun to be able to have that. There's a quote. When I get up in the morning, a lot of times I like to listen to these different inspirational videos on YouTube and things like that. I love that. I love that stuff. Anytime there's like a quote that really hits me hard, I actually write it on a legal piece of paper and I thumbtack it to my wall. In front of my wall or like in front of me right now, I got pieces of paper thumbtacked all over the place. I got a big massive wall calendar, but then there's thumbtacks all over the place. Sometimes it's a white piece of paper that I grab. Sometimes it's yellow. It's like this white-yellow mural on my wall in front of me right now. There's one on here that I look at a lot. It says, "If you do what is easy, your life will be hard." Isn't that interesting? "If you do what is easy, your life will be hard." Folks, go ahead and start trying to craft into your life growth experiences. If you've been digging because you don't know any other method of getting people, just take a chance and understand that there are other ways to get this done. There are other ways. If you start looking at what the top MLMers are actually doing, I guarantee you they're not digging in random spots. They're not sitting around going, "Hey. Hey. Hopefully this works. Hopefully this works." They're usually not doing home or hotel meetings. Okay? That's what they teach everyone else. We become their lead gen. Does that make sense? It's a stark reality. It's a harsh reality. One that I feel like a lot of people don't ... Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm the one that's like bursting the bubble on that, but start looking around. Understand what's going on. Start modeling them or model my stuff or take my course or whatever it is. Just understand that there are other ways to do this game. Anyway, that's all I got for you guys. I'm editing this section in the workbook. I got the first section back or the first edition back and I love it. It's so amazing. There's some tweaks and different things I got to go switch or fit and update and things like that. Then I am shipping it out to everybody who got the thing, who got Secret MLM Hacks. I'll ship it out to them. They get a physical copy and they also get a digital one. Then my plea is that they go page by page by page. You know what's funny is the first workbook that I actually filled out, that DotComSecrets one, guess which business I was planning? This one. What's funny is I did never expect that I would go work for Russell Brunson. I never expected that I would go do X, Y and Z. There's all these different detours, but I learned everything I needed to on the way to actually pull off what I planned in that original workbook. I take workbooks very seriously. There's something about stopping and thinking and pondering and writing by hand your answers to what you're going to go be doing in your life. Anyway, I'm excited about it. I'm going to get this thing edited up and then shipped on out to the people who just bought it. Anyway, this is not a pitchfest, but if you're interested, go to SecretMLMHacks.com and that's kind of where you can ... There's a free web class you can go check out there and get started and join our crew. We call ourselves the MLM Mavericks because we break rules. All right, guys. I'll talk to you later. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback for me. Do you have a question you want answered live on the show? Go to SecretMLMHacksRadio.com to submit your question and download your free MLM Masters Pack.