How to Build Momentum in Your Business and Your Life

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Go check it out right now. Visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, hey, hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the mortgage marketing radio. All right, that's my lame attempt at I don't know, just trying to change up the intro. So you hear something different from when you normally tune in. So I can capture your attention and get you to listen and hey, if you're here and you're here because you're listening. So of course, you're here. I'm here. We're here. So let's talk. Let's have a great conversation. How is that? The day is about having a great conversation and speaking of conversations, if you checked out the mortgage marketing radio Facebook group, that's where we go deeper on the conversations. So go to Facebook, type in the search bar mortgage marketing radio. It's for you, the podcast listener, if you want to go deeper, if you want to have more meaningful conversations, if you want to take the some of the podcast sessions and have a deeper dive. If you want to get some additional coaching and training support around your initiatives and goals and marketing and digital marketing, and you want answers to questions, get in there and type your question, we will answer it for you. And just join the group. We've got a lot of cool stuff happening in there. All right. So conversations today is a conversation. Oh, welcome back to my, a guest, a returning guest who I'm thrilled to have, especially since he's super busy, he's a multiple author, bestselling book author. I'm talking about Mark Schaefer, who last time I had him on was pre COVID-19. And since then, let's just face the world has forever been changed. And so Mark and I have a conversation that is largely focused on his new book, which is cumulative advantage at a build momentum, your ideas, business, and life against all odds, cumulative advantage. Put a link to it in the show notes, go check it out on Amazon if you want to. But Mark is, as I said, the previous, he's a bestselling author of marketing rep, Belian, why the most human company wins. He's also a bestselling author of known, which is what I know we're all trying to do. cumulative advantage, however, is answering the one question, right? Which is how can we be heard? How can we rise above the din of infinite options to create sustainable meaning with an audience or a group of customers? And I just found this a great exercise in critical thinking, right? Especially when we're all trying to get, quote, engagement on digital, right? And it's not enough. Even being great is arguably insufficient in the face of overwhelming competition, right? So Mark, in this book, begins to basically provides a practical guide book, right? For today, for the modern world, showing us, number one, how to get cumulative advantage, how to build momentum. But also, on number two, it's filled with motivating ideas and fascinating case studies from the likes of Blue Black Keys, who Mark and I talk about for Springsteen, Tim Ferris, author of Before Our Work Week, Stan Lee, the creator of the Marvel Comics, and all that kind of stuff. So there's lots of good sources of inspiration in this book. Once again, the cumulative advantage. Check that out. It's available in paper, book, audio, and Kindle versions. And Mark also writes a blog. You might want to check that out. His website, businessgrow.com is one of the most insightful, thought-provoking, you know, writers and thinkers, I think, for our time. And always a great conversation when I have this with Mark. So I don't know what else to say other than sit back, listen, have an open mind. This isn't a, you know, how to be a successful loan originator. This isn't how to build a team, how to do another three loans a month. This is more bigger than that. This is critical thinking for you in understanding, right? How you can build personal momentum for yourself, identify what advantages you might already have and creating significant awareness for yourself, so on, how to build momentum. Like I said, maybe I said a momentum three times, but, you know, and I'm talking about. So let's just get into it, okay? Let's bring on Mark and let's get into this week's show. Mark Shaper. Welcome to the show. Jeff, I'm delighted to be with you again. So it's, we're talking, but I'm also seeing you on the Zoom call. So I'm seeing your face and then it's making me smile to see you again. Yeah. Last time I had you on, we're talking about your previous book, Marketing Rebellion, which I know a number of people have got. You've since, I don't know if you've gone crazy or whatever, because you came out with a book like shortly thereafter, the new book, cumulative advantage, before we talk about that, since you and I last spoke, I thought I'd open up with this a lot has changed in the world. Everything has changed. I mean, what's the biggest change for you that's happened since COVID-19, other than the fact you obviously, you know, publicly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, when, when the pandemic hit, really in the early days in March of 2020, my wife got the virus and she got it on a family ski trip, brought it home to me. And so we were both pretty sick for a while. And then I was, I was in this haze, literally I was in a haze because I had hypoxia, I wasn't getting enough oxygen to my brain, so I couldn't think, I couldn't read, I couldn't concentrate on anything. And so I was, I was really in this haze. And when I got out of it, I was feeling better. I kind of looked around and my business had crashed, I'm a speaker without an audience and a teacher without students and a consultant without customers. And so I was, there was a period of disorientation to really figure out, where do I fit in this world? And it took some self-reflection to realize that I'm a teacher in my heart. I'm a teacher in everything that I do. This book that we're going to talk about today, cumulative advantage was about halfway written. And I had to rethink the book to think, to consider, is this still a book? Does this still matter right now? And there's a very close friend I have who's a brilliant, brilliant man. And I said to him, the chapter is three or four chapters I had written. And I said, it was just a simple email. I said, is this still a book? And he read what I had wrote. And he said a very simple email back. It was yes in all capital letters with three or four exclamation points that said, not only is this a book, this is your legacy. This is going to be, this is the best thing you've ever done. So that helped a lot to know that I could create something meaningful in the context of this crazy world that we're in. All right. So with that, what's then the premise of the book, better to let you kind of explain that? Well, I think the reason that this is so meaningful is really for two reasons. Number one, I think this will resonate certainly with you and the fans of your show, is that the number one question we all struggle with as professionals, either for our business or for a personal brand, there's one burning question. And it's this, how can we be heard? And I realized that everybody's working on it on social media and content and SEO. And that just isn't enough. And even if we're great and we're doing our best work, there's still so much stacked against us that we may not be heard. And Jeff, I'm the kind of guy that just isn't going to say, oh well, it's hard, too bad. I want to figure it out. I want to figure out what do we do? So the first reason I think this book is a significant now is it, I think it gives us a hint at what's next. And that is momentum. How do we close that gap if we don't have some of these advantages that maybe some of our competitors have? How do we close that gap and build momentum on our own? And we have to understand what are the dynamics of momentum and let's break it apart and see how it really works. The other reason why I think this is important and we'll resonate with people now is that there is nothing in this book that is not doable and accessible to everyone. You don't need money in the bank. You don't need an Ivy League degree. You don't need connections with super influencers that if you just understand the mechanics of influence and how it really works to build momentum, then you can have, make this work for you. Anyone can do it. Yeah. So that's a key phrase you said there, the mechanics of influence. I would think that a lot of my listeners are looking to have greater influence. So how would you advise those that are looking, we're talking obviously in the context of online, typically we're looking to grow our brands and our presence. As you said, become known, get attention. So what are those elements of building a momentum? Well, I started by really doing a lot of research going down rabbit holes of what have people written about this and what is out there. And I found that actually there's quite a significant amount of research that's been buried. It was started about 50 years ago. It's been built on over the years, but it's kind of stayed in the halls of academia by sociologists who have studied this. And so again, I went down ridiculous rabbit holes trying to figure this out and ended up actually interviewing the wife of the person who did this original research because she was his researcher back in the 1960s when all this things started because the thing that tantalized me is they said that people will continue to build this unstoppable momentum. Once they have this advantage, unless there are countervailing processes. So for me to figure out how anybody can make this work, we've got to figure out those countervailing processes and these researchers never really specifically said what they were. So I had to dig, dig, dig and go to the original sources to figure it out. And I think I've unlocked the code and that's what's in the book. Everything starts with an initial advantage. The initial advantage, which is something unique or could be an idea or could just be something happened to you that hasn't happened to anybody else. For example, for Bill Gates, why is Bill Gates Bill Gates? When he was a teenager, he was the only teenager in the country that had access to early computer prototypes. He was coding before anybody else. So what is that initial advantage? You apply that to a seam of opportunity again for Gates, computers started to blow up. He was had this opportunity, had this advantage at the right time. So this is a really important part of strategy today is pursuing these ideas, bursting through a seam of opportunity to create momentum, then you need to create what I call the sonic boom of awareness. And this works a lot differently than people would expect. Those go viral in a way that research shows in a way that we never really considered before. One of the important things in the book I talk about is looking for help from other people. And it's redefining mentorship. Mentorship is classically considered to be here as someone, a relationship with you have, you have with someone who can teach you over time. And I reframed that to say, you know, today, if you need to learn something over time, you need a Wi-Fi connection. Just go to YouTube. You can pretty much learn anything you need to learn there. What mentoring means to date is creating, helping you create momentum by opening doors, opening opportunities, making introductions, maybe even just a word of encouragement at the right time. And then the momentum continues. How do you keep it going? Constancy of purpose. Every time you launch something new, an idea, a movement, a new career, a book, a business, something is going to go wrong. And you need to make solid decisions that you keep the momentum going, even when things go wrong. What was Jim Collins, the author, he talks about this thing called the doom loop. When things start going wrong, people start panicking and they grasp for anything they can hold on to. They said, you got to remember what created that momentum, and you got to just hang in there and keep it going. I think that's particularly relevant for the period we're in right now. It's sort of intoxicating to pivot. And I tell everybody, if you've got momentum going, you just need to get through this year. That is the goal. Land on the other side. Don't do anything too dramatic right now. If you can hang in there and land on the other side, keep that momentum going in the right direction. Why is that? Is it the old, if it ain't broke, don't break it kind of thing? Now I think that's really the long term opportunity. The biggest thing that disrupts momentum is that people quit too soon. They give up too soon. There's no such thing as an overnight success. If you're an overnight success, if you become famous overnight, it's probably because you got arrested for something, right? It's not something you would really pursue, but really fame occurs over time and there's a story I have in the book about the ban, the black keys. They were just starting to burst out and I got to hang out with these guys. I said, what was the pivot point? I just really made you go to the next level and Patrick Carney told me he said there was it one. We just do a little bit better. Every album, a little bit better, every concert, a little bit better. Two years later, they were selling out Madison Square Gardens in 15 minutes. That's a real lesson for all of us. Yeah, I love, I just, any book that mentions the black keys to me is a cool book, right? They're so cool. Yeah, I've seen them two or three times. As a matter of fact, that was one of my last shows before COVID hit when they were coming through Vegas here. Fun fact. Fun fact. Please. My son fronted a band that opened for the black keys in arenas. Really? What's on there? That is a bit too cute. The royal bangs. Seriously, that's cool. Awesome. What's he play? He plays everything and wrote all the songs and they had some some grid success, but it just got to the point where to make money, you had to tour and he just wasn't sustainable. And so he ended up starting an electronics business and he makes high-end guitar, guitar pedals. Oh, really? That's cool. Hallogram electronics. Yeah. Hallogram electronics. I've got a couple of pedals myself. I'm one of those struggling guitarists, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's been working on it for too many decades. So there's so many good things you talk about in there and I've got some notes from the book. I'm scrolling these to find out where to reenter of some of the things you mentioned. I want to go back to the seam and clarify for those listening. So this is straight from the book. A seam is a undefended or under-defended opportunity. As you go on to say, it is a fracture in the status quo. Seams of opportunity are open continuously as the world changes. Like you said, we can talk about some seams that have opened since COVID. But one example or two examples you give is like about enterprise renter car. First company to deliver cars to you. That was a seam, right? An opening of something unique they could do to get noticed, right? Right. So it's really about sort of being aware. I mean, anybody can have an idea, but you need to pursue that idea and see if it's relevant in the context of today, not 10 years from now or 10 years ago. So timing, the idea that strategy today is really a function of space and time and speed. And when you find that fracture in the status quo and all of a sudden you're relevant in this moment, you have got to go for it. You've got to burst through the seam with blinding speed and go as fast as you can and as far as you can before the competitors can catch up. And if you can do that and again, build awareness, keep the momentum going, you have an opportunity to really create unstoppable content. So some seems work created because of COVID-19, right? 100%. Jeff, I predicted last March that we would have more startups than any time in the history of America. And that has come true. There are more startups right now than the businesses that have failed through this pandemic. Because there are undefended or under-defended seams. There are unmet or underserved customer needs. All of those are seams of opportunity and there are going to be millionaires made out of this pandemic because people see a trend, see an opportunity and they go for it. One of the obvious seams, if you will, that was created because of COVID, is that taking our ability to get together in person, face-to-face, and of course, zoom. In your book, you talk about how there may be some existing technologies or whatnot that because of COVID-19, this external force, bursts open this seam or creates a seam that wasn't previously there. Case in point, this thing we're all on too much. Zoom, they're somebody who have pivoted because of the seam called COVID-19, right? Well, I'll give you a beautiful example. I had a coaching session today with a woman who had a business in France and for personal reasons, she moved to Miami and she's now disconnected from this business in France. She moved, I think, in 2018 and she's trying to figure out, what do I do, how do I reconnect? And I was able to show her that in 2018, there was an expectation if she was helping people in France, she'd better be in France. But today, everybody's on Zoom, you could do anything anywhere and she needed to reconsider what the world is like right now. So specifically for her, the pandemic has created an opening, has created an opportunity because her business doesn't have to be showing up at conferences anymore. Nobody's doing that. She can reinvent herself and reimagine her business taking advantage of this technology that everyone's using. In 2018, nobody was serious about working from home because companies really, they didn't know what to do with it. They didn't know if they could trust it. They didn't invest in training. They didn't invest in technology. Now, it's a must have and a lot of it is going to be that way forever. Business is going to be changed forever, expectations are going to be changed forever. She can ride this wave and reimagine her business and take advantage of that scene. Yeah, and I think about that in the context of my audience, as you may recall, largely mortgage professionals, mortgage brokers, loan officers, that kind of stuff, some real estate as well. And I try and bang that drum of using Zoom more for communicating during buyer consults or referral partner relationship. But you referenced it, I've heard you use this term, I think in one of your blog articles being zoomed out. And I'm hearing some of that feedback as well, one of the things I help people do is teach classes to real estate agents virtually over Zoom. They were previously in person. But that's some of the feedback. So my answer to this is that if people are zoomed out, air quotes, it's probably because those meetings suck generally and aren't worthwhile. I don't know if you agree with this, or how do you respond to the whole, I'm zoomed out, in terms of the appetite for people to continue doing that. Yeah, well, I think one of the reasons that people are zoomed out is because you don't have these sort of important human, random human interactions that make life more interesting and fun. It might just be getting up and sharing a cup of coffee with somebody. Today we're sort of locked in this box, we're sitting in one place and we're looking at a certain way and there's a certain behavior and there's a certain sort of pattern of courtesy that goes with Zoom meetings and so forth. And I was reading an article recently about just the little habits of the world like saying hello to the janitor every day or picking up your paper on the way to the office every day or listening to a podcast on your commute. And there's these certain rituals surrounding the work environment that really reinforce someone's life and maybe their esteem and their lifestyle and all of that is going and going away. And so now we're sort of locked in this box and then we go to the next box and we go to the next box without all these little things that become part of our ritual. And I think that's hard to articulate, but that's really what's missing, the randomness and the ritual and the comfort of being in a space with other humans. Yeah, I think that's a real thing for sure, comfort of being around other humans. We obviously crave that and there is an element missing on Zoom. But let me ask you this, I've asked this of other people that you've had a lot of experience in the corporate world and things like that. Virtual selling has been around a long time, but is the virtual selling up to like how important do you think being able to quote sell virtually, whatever that is, convey your message virtually, right? Has the importance of that now just skyrocketed? Thousand percent, you know, one of the things, you know, you asked me early on in the program about what's changed for me. And one of the things I realized is the things that I was writing about and speaking about seemed totally unimportant and irrelevant when people are locked into their homes and they can't get food, you know, I would go, you know, I was trying to, I saw this thing coming before we even got sick and I started to try to stock up on a few things and I would go to the grocery store and there was no meat. And so what I was doing just didn't seem relevant and I realized right now, I still have to teach, people expect me to teach this, what I want to do, but I need to teach something different. I need to talk about anxiety, I need to talk about uncertainty, I need to talk about just a survival strategy, personal and professional to get us to the next day, get us to the next week. And so that was, you know, essentially my, you know, my, my pivot, I had to connect in a different way, I had to teach in a different way. And one of the things I encouraged people to think about is if you depended on face-to-face interactions, like a banker, insurance broker, mortgage broker, how are you going to be relevant now? How are you going to connect in this way? You almost need to build a new competency in connect and using technology because we've got no choice. And that may transcend the pandemic, I think it will in many ways. Okay, cool, let me get back in the book. I was going to keep asking you these questions, but I'm thinking of my listener's audience, come on, this is for you. Okay, so how do you know I'm going back through the book here here in terms of how do you know when you have, what do you call it, a spark, right, the click moment, this is a collision of people ideas and circumstances. Right, how do you know when you have one? Well, there's really two questions there is how do you know that you have one and how do you know that this is something that could mean something. And there's a great insight in the book from a fellow named Rajee Thomas. He's the founder and CEO of a tech company called Sprinkler. And he's a multiple company founder, he's been very, very successful. And he said, you know, ideas happen all the time, you're bombarded with ideas. And in the book, I have some very specific processes you can go through to sort of put yourself in a position to create those spark moments. But he said those, there's millions of great ideas out there, but they don't mean anything unless you pursue that your curiosity, it's more than idea, it has to be a quest. How do I act on it in a meaningful way? How do I know if this can really apply to a scene that means something in the world? So I think one of the benefits of this book, Jeff, is that I can almost guarantee that anybody that reads this book will see the world in a new way. They'll start to see this pattern of how success operates, how momentum works. And I think the key is to be aware that, you know what, I do have all these ideas. I do see these patterns. And maybe I need to be more intentional about them. Maybe I need to write them down or research them or talk to my friends about them rather than just let these opportunities go by. There's a story in this book. I got to spend time with a great man, Harold Berson. He was the founder of Berson Marceller PR. I met him. I think he was still in his 80s. He was still coming to his office in Manhattan every day at 7 a.m. And he was working on his life story in his book. And he said, really, the story of my momentum is just every day doors are opening for me. And it's just momentum is a series of decisions knowing, do I go through that door? Do I go through the door? It's happening to all of us all the time. It's really a combination of luck and wisdom when you get right down to it. We all have these lucky moments, but are we wise enough to go through the door? Yeah, well, I love the fact that you mentioned Walter Isaacson. You had a conversation with him, I think? Yes, I did. I got to meet him. He's incredible. He's written some of the most amazing books. Oh, I love his work. Steve Jobs, he wrote books about Einstein as you talk about. What's the little snippet that you took away from him that you put in the book about the genius insights? Well, it was such a wonderful time because Walter is certainly one of my literary heroes. He's also a college professor at Tulane University, a very famous historian. And he's had an amazing career. And he's written these books on geniuses. And I said, what makes a genius? And he said, really, there's two things. One is this insatiable curiosity. It's a pursuit of curiosity, not just having ideas and observations, but pursuing it. And then he said, it's this ability to see patterns. So it's exactly what I talk about in the book. It's like, it's not just enough to have an idea, you have to pursue that curiosity and see how that connects to a pattern. And if you can do that, it's a light bulb moment. But it's inspiration, it's an insight, it's an innovation. Yeah, it's to me when I hear curiosity, it comes back to always asking the question of why. Why is that? Why does that happen? Why do they do this? Right. Over and over. Don't let it go. Yeah, for sure. And I'm thinking like in the context of our listeners, there are certain patterns that you, I'm sure, recognize repeatedly with either your partners or with your clients. And perhaps the takeaway from you is this, get curious as to why those patterns reoccur over and over again. And is there an opportunity in there, right? Yeah. And then there's also the opposite of that, which I point out in the book, that if you expect patterns to, you know, if you expect something to happen over and over again, and all of a sudden it doesn't, that's an opportunity too. Don't ignore that. If you see something that's supposed to happen, but it doesn't happen, find out why there could be a lesson, there could be a clue, there could be an opportunity there. I went, I had a coaching session actually today. This has been a busy day, I could just keep on telling stories about just what happened to me today. But there's a woman that saw this unusual pattern in the open rate of her professional newsletter to her clients. And what she, what she saw, she thought she saw this decline. So when I did the statistical analysis for her, what I showed was that the, the, the operation wasn't the low point, the aberration was the high point. That really the change was not that she's at this level, but that for a few months, she was at a level that was unusually high. I said, we need to go back and figure out what did you do in those newsletters that created this excitement? And we were able to see this pattern that sure enough, there were certain themes she was writing about that resonated more than what she's doing today. So we're able to sort of like reenergize her momentum by seeing it was like a disruption in the force. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's similar to, you know, think about if you're, if you're talking like you have a certain script or talk track that you use and the people say, yes, more often when you say this specific sequence of words or not, same could be for YouTube channel. What I do is I look at people's YouTube videos and I, and I, you know, try and teach them. Like, okay, look at these videos and these titles. They have the higher view counts. Why is that? Yeah. You know, there's a pattern there too. Sure. Around the topic. All right. So in cognizant of the time here, a couple of more things before we wrap up. Part of your book, I have to be like honest with you like, you know, it's a journey and starting off, I wasn't necessarily feeling great reading it. And what I mean by that is because things are stacked against us, right? And one of the things you say is that digital engagement is not enough. And a lot of what I'm talking about is like, you know, engage on digital, right? That's your virtual networking at scale. But what you say here, being great is insufficient in the face of overwhelming competition. And the world is stacked against us in big ways, right? So I'm like, huh, okay, all this work, man, you know what I mean, like, can I, and you start reading the stories about the, you know, the Vincol, Vincol was twins with a different. Vincol Vos. Vincol Vos twins. You know what I mean? It's like all these advantages, right? And, you know, you can, well, what's my advantage? How can I win if the odds are stacked? What do you say? Well, first of all, you know, I'm sorry if I scared you to me, upset you in some way. But I think this is, this is the core, just the, I'm sure you feel it. You know, I feel, I mean, everybody I talked to is like, dog, gone, what more do I need to do? Yes. You know, I'm already working as, as hard as I possibly can. Right. You know, I think what I'm doing, I can remember the early days when I was blogging and I saw some of these people at the top, it was actually now that I think about it. It would have been a perfect example of cumulative advantage to put in my book. These people were like the early adopters. They were the early bloggers. They had some advantage and had propelled themselves so high and so fast. And I tried to honestly compare the work I was doing with what they were doing. And I was, I was doing so much better. I mean, my blog posts were so much more meaningful. They were putting out what I thought were very mediocre things. But I couldn't be heard. I was just lost in this, in this noise. How do we come, become the signal in this world of noise? And those odds are stacked against us all the time every day. So we've got to find something else. We've got to figure out how to change those odds. And at least part of the solution and I'm not saying that this is the total solution. And I would never claim something like that. But part of the solution is to really understand how did that momentum work? How did that fellow do that? And that's what I explained in the book. And it's something that's accessible to anyone. Anyone can do this. And that's why I think it's really a book of hope. Yeah, it is. Hopefully I didn't steer you wrong on that. It's just look, those are some of the realities of life. You know, and some people have advantages. It can make you down. It really can. Yeah. But there are ways to circumvent that worker. Like you talk about the five factors to countervailing processes. You know, I think that'll be relevant for our listeners as well. But I think when I hear you say, how did that momentum? How did that person get momentum? You know, I think about some of the examples in your other books like Marketing Rebellion and Known and things like that. It's like that I've definitely shared some lessons, which is, you know, how a unique personality, how a unique viewpoint, go all in on one chat. I mean, all those are potential ways that we can get. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. These two books really do kind of go together. They really do. Yeah. Because Known focuses a lot on this idea of your uniqueness, your initial advantage. And then this book kind of says, how do you blow it out? Yeah. So that's a keen observation, Jeff, that they really do kind of go together. Yeah, that's what was coming up for me. Yeah. It's no surprise to anybody who's read your stuff before. Great material, well researched, of course. I don't know how you do it, man. Like you said, every book is like a two-year project, right? Yeah, that's for sure. So are you already starting on the next one? No, you know, it's sort of like, you know, whatever they interviewed Tom Brady after this Super Bowl. And they said, oh, wow, you know, are you going to be back next year? What's next? And you know, he said, look, I just want to enjoy this one a little bit. Right. Just won this Super Bowl. And you know, this book took a lot out of me. It really did. Yeah. As you know, the last chapter of the book is quite emotional, quite personal. It literally took me three months to write that one chapter. And because it was, it was very, it's very risky. And writing a book is really the riskiest thing you can do for a personal brand, because you can't take it back. It's not like a blog post that you could, you know, eliminate or take it down. You can't say, oh, whoops. Sorry, I didn't really mean that in the book. It's out there forever. And it's got to be right. It's got to be bold. Right. It's got to be beautiful. And it has to mean something to people. So this, it really, this book took, took everything out of me. And so I need a recovery time. For sure. And I won't, I won't, yeah, only write a book if it's, if it's, if it's going to be unique and bold. Yeah. Yeah. You want to do meaningful work. That's awesome. Yeah. That's why I love having you on, because I think your message resonates with kind of the vibe of my audience. Yeah. It's interesting. You mentioned Brady to pause there for a moment. There's a study in momentum, right? I mean, if you look at like where he started, ground zero, so to speak, but I mean, yeah, to me, I would love to see a interview with him all about like mindset, right? Mm-hmm. Is this phenomenal. So anyway, to close out here, I love that. Once again, you've, you've, you've got the black keys in the book, you've got Bruce Springsteen in the book, right? I do. Yeah. I've got Batman in the book. I've got Spider-Man in the book. That's right. What's not to like? Real quick, tell the story, the origin story of Stan, you know, let's look at that on that. Oh, so that was one of the, because again, I was like geeking out, trying to find these unexpected heroes, these people that's like zero to hero. And when, when, so there's this teenager Stan Lieber, and he won a writing contest, and he won this writing contest like three times in a row. And the editor of the newspaper said, Stan, you really need to be a writer. So, you know, I think he's like 19 years old or something like that. He's at a high school. He doesn't know what to do. He keeps applying for jobs. And the only job he could get was at this little comic book company. And he was so embarrassed to be writing. He said, I don't even want to use my name. Do not call me Stan Lieber, call me Stan Lee. And here he was 19 years old. And the creative team of the comic book company quit. And the owner of the company said, all right, Stan, it's you. And that's how we, you know, became, this is the guy, you know, at the right at the foundation of the Marvel universe, Marvel comics, Stan Lee and, and it's these random things. And it was not his plan. It was not his strategy. He was embarrassed to be there. But that was the click moment. That was the initial this random thing that happened that created a legend. And that's that opportunity is there for everybody. You just have to be aware that these random opportunities are coming at us all the time. And then being willing to jump in and go for it when that opportunity presents itself. Well, I'm going to close out on this just because it's a reminder, I think for my people, because this is relevant to what most of my listeners are trying to do. So you're quote from Bruce Springsteen, getting an audience is hard, sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, a purpose, and a action over a long period of time. That's social media success 101 right there. It really is. It's successful with anything. And unfortunately, there's this mythology that pervades social media, especially in this era of influencers that, oh my gosh, it's like striking oil that all I have to do is do this and be at the right place at the right time. And it's really never that way that you just have to commit. You have to just keep on plugging a little bit just like Bruce, right? Bruce work. I saw Bruce when I was a teenager playing at a ballroom at a university, right? He's playing in front of probably two or three hundred people. And that's really when my life long obsession, not obsession, but really love and devotion of Bruce Springsteen started. And I mean, he was not an overnight success. He was one album away from us, never hearing of him again. He had to make born to run work or was going to be over for him. But he had worked for years and years and years, playing the ballrooms, playing the dive bars before he made it. And that's an analogy for all of our careers and all of our lives. It's constancy of purpose. Absolutely. And remember, again, from your book, everything good and great starts with something small. Right. Take that first step. Exactly. And take the next step of getting Mark's book, Cumulative Advantage. We're going to put links in the show notes, Cumulative Advantage, how to build momentum for your ideas, business, and life against all odds. Mark, I know you're a busy man, especially today. I can't thank you enough for being here. Jeff, thank you so much. And I want to just tell you how much I appreciate the preparation you put into these shows and the great questions that you ask. And I know that your audience really appreciates it. And as someone that does a lot of shows, that makes a lot of difference. And I hope you're rewarded for that. Great job. I appreciate it very much. I try and remain one of those elements is constantly curious. You know, for you. Thanks, Jeff. You bet. All right. So listeners, you know what to do if you like this episode. Hey, leave us a review and I appreciate you tuning in. As always, we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Hey, guys, what's up real quick? You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before. And I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business, where you simply need more purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business. For you. Well, good news. Our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. 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