Andrew [00:00:00] I am going to be the host and emcee for the very first ever live Ascent podcast, which is a live video conversation that won’t be having where we get to know the human behind some of the top leaders in tech and entrepreneurship. My name is Andrew and as I mentioned and I’ll be the emcee for today and for some of the upcoming episodes as well. And pretty excited because today we’re talking to Philip Michael, the founder of Nice and the one hundred thousand millionaires, which we’ll get to in just a moment. But first, couple of quick announcements. First, if you are joining us live, you’re here using the remote platform. And as we are chatting and having our conversation today, feel free to make some comments in the chat on the side will be able to see that. You just click on the chat button. If you don’t see that there’s a little arrow Green Arrow to the right hand side of your screen that brings up the chat functionality. Exactly. David’s already getting into the spirit of Things by saying hello. In fact, all of you can test out that chat functionality by sharing where you are joining us from today. We’ve got David from Chicago. I’m coming to you from Panama City, Panama. A wide variety of connections in this virtual world to go and share in the chat where you’re joining us from time to time, we might ask some questions of you, the people listening. So be sure to have that functionality ready to go. Also, we don’t necessarily have the same visual feedback that we’d have if this was an in-person event. So even comments in the chat of if something stands out to you that Philip says, be sure to type that out so other people recognize it as well. You can include lollies and hedgehogs and things like that, just so we do get that sense of feedback for today. There also is a Q and A functionality, which you can click on that as a tab. You’ll be able to ask your questions there and also upvote other questions so that we can make sure that we get to the most relevant questions throughout the conversation as well. So, as I mentioned, I’m incredibly excited for our first episode and our first conversation because today we’ve got a fantastic guest. When Phillip and I were first chatting kind of a pre event call, I could just tell that he’s clearly passionate about what he does. And his focus is larger than just a business. It’s really around kind of this movement or this initiative that is bigger than just one person, which I think is pretty epic that we’re going to learn more about, because our guest today is Philip Michael. He’s the founder at Nice and One Hundred Thousand Millionaires. He’s a best selling author, has done over five hundred million dollars in deals, and he has an ambitious goal of helping to create one hundred thousand new millionaires by 20 30. So I’ll stop talking. And please welcome to your eyes and to your ears, Philip Michael, go ahead and join us on the screen. And as he’s doing that, we can see that Robbie is coming in from Brooklyn, was recently living in Brooklyn, I think. Philip, where are you coming in from, Philip?
Philip Michael [00:03:05] Well, I live in Manhattan that used to live in Brooklyn. Right now I’m in Long Island City, Queens. So, yeah, all the water is literally a mile from my house is just the water.
Andrew [00:03:19] So, yeah, I love it. So, Philip, we’re going to get to know about some of the very cool stuff that you’re up to very soon. But part of the goal with this podcast is to get to know the humans behind the cool things that they’re doing. So we’re going to start first with a couple of rapid fire questions. These are simple, easy things. Is the first thing that comes to mind. You can answer in one or two words and then we’ll dive deeper into them a little bit. But are you ready to go?
Philip Michael [00:03:42] I’m ready.
Andrew [00:03:43] All right. Excellent first question. Morning person or night out?
Philip Michael [00:03:47] Both.
Andrew [00:03:48] OK, all day. Apple or Android.
Philip Michael [00:03:51] Apple.
Andrew [00:03:53] Introvert or extrovert.
Philip Michael [00:03:54] Outgoing introvert.
Andrew [00:03:56] I like it. When you were a little kid, what was the first thing? What was the thing that you wanted to grow up to become?
Philip Michael [00:04:04] A sports writer.
Andrew [00:04:06] Oh OK. Oh nice. I like that favorite current favorite hobby.
Philip Michael [00:04:15] Probably drinks or is talking to people. Honestly, one of the ones who…
Andrew [00:04:21] I love, the concept that the pranks being a hobby, which you can go full details right now.
Philip Michael [00:04:27] I’m sorry to cut it right now. My nephew is playing on my part to play in Champions League for Barcelona. We were having a conversation yesterday. He said if you weren’t like one of the top the best strikers in the world, if I wasn’t doing this, we could literally have a YouTube channel. And there are a lot of people have as. So that’s the context.
Andrew [00:04:44] OK, I love that context. Like, yeah. If you were one of the best football players in the world, that’s that’s worldwide, we’d be on a YouTube channel pranking people. Know that TV series you’re currently watching or recently finished.
Philip Michael [00:05:00] Don’t watch TV. Nothing for us. But but it is not running right now. But I don’t watch TV.
Andrew [00:05:07] OK, what was it though?
Philip Michael [00:05:08] Power.
Andrew [00:05:09] OK, I like it in a famous person you admire.
Philip Michael [00:05:15] Famous person that I admire. Oh, there’s a lot I admire Obama because this is as easy to say as the easy answer. But there’s there’s a there are a lot there are a lot I try to pick and choose from different people. Drink.
Andrew [00:05:33] Drink. OK, I will take a drink. I like it. Obama and drink great answers. And last one, this doesn’t have to be a rapid fire question. Doesn’t have to be one water or longer. But I’m curious, what’s the story of your name in the context of that is it could be like are you named after someone? Was it just random name in a book? Does it need something special? Whatever. What’s the story of a Philip Michael?
Philip Michael [00:05:52] The Apostle in Argenteuil?
Andrew [00:05:56] OK. All right, I like it. And is that is that a first name, last name? Is it just kind of like is this like are you a to name Cher where you’re just like technically going by like first name in middle name and no one needs to know the last name. Like, how does that work?
Philip Michael [00:06:11] The process which you get named and then Mark is when you get baptized. It wasn’t baptized until I was 14. My parents’ name is actually Kristiansen. So but it was never given to me.
Andrew [00:06:21] So I like fascinated by the story of the name. Right. That’s partially the human behind things. And so certainly in this, I know that you’ve got a great entrepreneurial spirit. I know we’ve got entrepreneurial listeners as well. We’re going to talk about some of the epic things you’re going in. Twenty twenty coming up. But I’m curious, do you remember the first way that you actually made money?
Philip Michael [00:06:44] The first way I actually made money. Yeah, I think it was walking my dad had a business, myself and my brother, we handed out like he had like a store where they sell kitchens and bathrooms and. And we would we would hand those out when we could get paid one crown, which is like I don’t know, is like 20 cents, 20 cents, we get paid per one day we handed out. So that’s pretty much everybody’s first job. Because everybody’s first job, so they thought that was probably the first one that I did. I had like and I did one gig with a friend of mine is a carpenter. Worst thing I’ve ever done in my life to that point. And then my brother and I worked with Martin’s dad strumpets just like summer jobs. And those are the first things. And then after that, my actual first real job was I was working the night shift at the Lego factory, Lego Legos in Denmark. So I worked there to make sure my father was shocked that I could do that. So I did it. And you made good money, too. You made like haoles. I only paid. I think I want to see like forty dollars an hour.
Andrew [00:07:53] Forty dollars an hour? What were you doing in the factory? The one building stuff in the world.
Philip Michael [00:07:59] So the boxes that you actually see in the stores, so little on the Lego you have, like with candy. That’s right. Yeah. And then it puts the different pieces in. So some of the people, they put the different pieces in boxes, then they go into actual little bags. I would put the little bags in the boxes like it was so mindless. That’s when I started drinking coffee because I can stay awake. Oh my God. And then I put it into those boxes and those boxes literally were white. And so you may have seen in the Toys R US back in 2005, I may have had my hands on activity.
Andrew [00:08:31] And maybe the reason why the pay is so high is that it’s hazard pay, because if you’re to if you step on some of those empty Legos or something like that, you’re basically breaking your foot.
Philip Michael [00:08:40] You’re always just because Denmark is heavily unionized and the minimum wage is 20 some dollars. And if you work a night shift, you have to get paid double that. So it was just it was just a function of mathematics, according to the unions that run the country.
Andrew [00:08:52] So I get a very logical answer.
Philip Michael [00:08:55] Yes or no? No, there’s no two lawsuits. There’s not a lot of litigation over. There’s literally a function of the union and and the mathematics and the economics that come as a result of that very night.
Andrew [00:09:06] So that those are that’s early stage. Right. Like you’re learning that. And now let’s let’s kind of like transport through time. We’ve gone from twenty five to twenty twenty, which has been a year. Right. And a challenging year for a lot of people. But I know you’ve been doing some really cool things. Just even say launching in twenty twenty. Can you give just for the people that may not be familiar, just kind of a couple of high level bullet points of the things that you’re proudest of for twenty twenty, and we’re going to do a deeper dove into them.
Philip Michael [00:09:36] All right. So what we did was we had a real estate portfolio to be built up and plan as of last year was this year to offer access to it. Now, everything happened that happened with the global pandemic. So but. So that kind of like I mostly threw a monkey wrench in things, but I kind of like create a different environment for us to operate, and I don’t I don’t think it. Well, it made it different. But but, yeah, what we did was we offered access to our real estate portfolio because we own everything outright. We didn’t have any. To this day, we don’t have a single institutional investor. We didn’t have any debt on the portfolio. So I was able I control everything, like literally everything. So I decided that I wanted to offer access to people at a discount to value, which you can never get away with if you have a board of directors or investors is the answer to. So that’s actually the principle that I got from my dad. He said that the saying and Danas goes give high ideals. That means we got to be the we got to be the ruler of our own home, something like that. Anyway, so. Yeah, we we did that, we launched it, and long story short, we hope one or two thousand people it was it was built around the mission that we wanted to help one hundred thousand people become first time investors and eventually millionaires by the end of the decade, particularly people of color. And the reasons that people of color is because they have a particular bias to other people, to certain people, because I have a permanent tan is not the case is just so happens in North America, the lower rung of the economic hierarchy is inhabited by people of color and. Meaning minorities, right? And so it’s not necessarily a matter of racism. A lot of stuff that you see is classism with the color component. But there’s nothing even with system being what they are. And even if they aren’t in favor of a certain group of people, just because it doesn’t favor a collective group of people, on a macro level, there’s nothing that stops an individual from stepping out of that on a micro level and doing something that’s more people who have migrating away from that micro and form a new macro or sound like a hammer for me. That and you have a new set of structures and systems that can be beneficial. And that’s how that’s how evolution works. You have old systems, structures that either evolve to decompose or die. There’s no evolutionary basis. There’s no there’s no way that that system can really continue unless you contribute to a continuum. So that’s the point. So anyway, so what I wanted to do was I said to of color and I give out information daily to help them have the tools to do it. And I said, you know what? Instead of just talking about, let me put my stuff up so people can get a piece of it because I put money on take risk. So it’s not like I’m here. You have an idea. Give me your money. We’ll try to work this case. I literally use our own money that we built from eight hundred fifty thousand dollars to a pipeline of fifty seven million. The projects two hundred offered them access to that at a discount to value, which people didn’t realize or even care about. I thought it would be enticing. They care, but that was what we did. So we have two thousand people become first time investors in real estate.
Andrew [00:12:41] So one of the things that we invest in and so, yeah, there’s one is this is a lot of a lot of great information in here. But I just want to make sure that we paused like a couple of things that I want to confirm my understanding on. So when you’re saying because I want I think it’s vendors, right? You’ve got the numbers of two thousand, like you said, and you can certainly challenged that at a big macro level. But if you look at an individual level and can help individual people do things at the macro level with which I love, when you say access to your real estate portfolio, that just means that you’re opening it up and now it’s people are buying.
Philip Michael [00:13:16] Just like how you would somewhat concerned with that. When I talk about the wealth gaps, like with the lower rung, it’s the main driver behind why people, minorities have no wealth, have less wealth compared to the people to do is the main driver of that is real is real estate ownership. That’s literally because it just appreciates overvalued. Get rid of you have the cash that you spend and I’m left with nothing. So I wanted to give people an avenue to own that. So I brought that for people to own alongside with ourselves. So that’s how that sort of contributes towards the reduction of that wealth gap that No. One in terms of treasure, because that’s what they two thousand people who became first time people the fastest to sell a million dollars, which a million and seventy thousand, which is the limit of Asheville’s. So and since then, we were to go back to the point of the bullet points and we did a deal with with our partner in Texas to a Texas private equity real estate company, to award winning highrises and so forth, to develop and to develop and own four hundred seventy seven million dollars of real estate, which we’ve closed on. And we’ve added from that and we’ve added two hundred fifty million to our assets on the management of these people now. Eleven hundred seventy four apartment units to our community now owned with us. Right. So that’s what we’ve done in the pandemic. Which leads me to when we say is a tough environment that was just a different environment. But we just want to offer. That blueprint, no blueprint, but that case study that, yes, the situation like this, what do we do about it? Here’s how we can turn it into something worthwhile and we can weather the storm once things go back to normal. And it’s just it just it just becomes so much easier for. Yes.
Andrew [00:14:58] You know, I tell you, you’ve done you’ve done a lot of things in twenty twenty. So I understand it takes a little of time to explain that that background. And there’s a lot in there that I think is impressive. One like you just said that, yeah, maybe things pivoted or changed slightly based on the pandemic happening. But you didn’t let that stop you, right. It just changed how you’re going to keep going. So I’m curious because like you said, real estate is is one of these things that people don’t necessarily always have access or insight into it. How did you get introduced to this? Was this just like it’s something it’s always been passionate about? You like went to the library and read the right, like picked up the wrong book and like a the news information, like, how did you get introduced to this as a as a strategy for yourself?
Philip Michael [00:15:40] Well, it was when I came to New York, I saw that the people of influence and wealth, they all seem to be involved with the real estate industry in some capacity. And as most people want to sell real estate, I think of flipping houses. I’m like, I’m not a handyman, OK? And my dad owns properties. And what he do with me is he made me go clean up the apartments when somebody would move in and I would do it together and I didn’t feel like that too much. So my business is not for me. But when I came here, I saw that. Then I started thinking about not from information you would give me, just from being around it like, oh wow. That’s I think about, oh, he doesn’t own apartments here. Oh, he did do this. So I started thinking about this is actually a means to and he said brick and mortar is always a good place to build and preserve. Well, you would say that. And I wasn’t paying attention. So I thought of that. I said, you know what, I don’t like this because in context, when I came to New York 2014, I didn’t have my green card yet and my student visa had expired. So I had no way of making money. And when I was making money was winning writing competitions where they would like hours, two weeks, and it wouldn’t always give it to me, even though I was questioning them every week. But I guess the conversation got boring. I literally wrote like my life depended on which did. So that’s how I.
Andrew [00:16:52] Would handle and ask of you, if you’ve seen the Hamilton the musical right your way out of it right
Philip Michael [00:16:57] I haven’t seen it. And I don’t I don’t like writing, but I did it anyway. To me, it was like scrubbing toilets I don’t think was very enjoyable, but it was something I knew how to do. So I and then while I was doing that, I would have these different that got me on radio than television because I was like doing that type of stuff and with those platforms. And again, I was going under I was using like my whole shtick was that I was like is investigative writer. And I was like I had a had an alias. Somebody called me the Shadow so I could write and I could uncover all this wild stuff. And it’s like, what do you get this information from? So I can’t tell you. And then that got me on the radio. And then from there I had a platform and that got me to network with certain people. And it just brought me into the real estate industry slowly but surely, surely, slowly but surely. And then I became a real estate writer, long story short editor. And I was with a real estate media company then that sold and from there and I only joined so I can have a network of real estate people because all about a certain you have. So they have no reason to network with a 30 year old guy that doesn’t have any money or poor. But if I have I have a platform and they can trust me in my home, which which is what happens on network. My first deal, which was three family property, that that’s really how I got institution interested in it. I didn’t know anything. I was just like, OK, let me try it out. Let me do it. OK, ok. I only have to put down three percent owner property. Wow. Go for did that owned it. Just learned the whole process which wasn’t pleasant. No learning curve. Absolutely. And from there it just took off from there and my dad had a really good talking to my family for a while. My dad came over, had asked them Do you want to do something? We said no. And he came and saw what I was doing. He’s like, wait a minute. And then.
Andrew [00:18:38] Why did he say no the first time? He didn’t think that you’re, like, serious about what you’re doing there, right?
Philip Michael [00:18:43] I mean, you have to understand. You ask me what I want to do as a kid. I wanted to be a sports writer. So how does somebody suddenly want to become a real estate mogul? So, like, how good is this here? And he came over. He actually saw what I was doing, like, OK, we could do something here. So we put our money together, myself and Martin. And my dad and I went out and I picked up some more properties. My dad and I went and saw them together. And next thing you know, one of the buildings we were able to build a building, right. Kind of really haven’t we had sort of. Then all of a sudden, because we now have we have twice the building where we can build, but we have to wait more than was there for the asset is worth more in order to build a developer. OK, I’m a developer, so that’s kind of came together. And then like, OK, we bought this piece of land in Philadelphia because we got some sort of building that, you know, I’m a developer and more projects happen and just takes off.
Andrew [00:19:39] And so it is this evolution, right? Because I think some of the people listening, they may not be like one. They might want a hundred thousand millionaires. They’re like, oh, maybe I do want to explore this. Maybe real estate is a thing that I want to get involved in. But if you’re an entrepreneur of any sort, it is kind of that like learning and like, OK, well, if we need to do that, then let me learn how to do that. This evolution process, how do you how do you approach that that learning process? Like you said, it can not learning something new may not be fun to you. Just kind of put your head down into it because like, I have to do this. Do you, like, seek out? People have already done it so you can learn from them. Are you reading books like how do you actually gain that new knowledge?
Philip Michael [00:20:15] Everything. When I try something new, if I am doing I call it a greenfield project or something from scratch. I look at, OK, I’m jumping into something new, I have to limit the learning curve just as much as humanly possible because we have too many learning curves with something. You create a situation where houses, cars that could collapse, for instance. Let me talk about a practical example. With the first property that I bought, something that was freshly renovated, because any new process you have has its own set of dynamics and dynamics that you only can understand, not in theory, but in practice with a new property. You could do you could take a look at one and say, oh, let’s get one. That’s a fixer upper so we can so we can fix it up and we can make this much money easier. OK, I have no idea how contractors worked. How do they get paid? How do we know that they show up? Because contractors sometimes in Denmark don’t show up and not come back to work. What do you do now? Those type of things? You don’t know how these things work. So I said, you know what? Let me just get something. This turkey is ready to go. So my learning curves limit limited to my learning curve is limited to buying the property, leasing out the property, managing the property. Those are pretty good ones, however, leasing out the property. I have an agent, a realtor to do that, managing property, have a property manager to do that. So acquiring the property, they all the agent helps complete. Then I now get to see I’m not the one who’s at risk while these learning curves are happening. But property is an issue acquisition with the property. So I would say that’s OK. This is how this works out. At least let out. Oh really? Is how many people you got to show this how it works, negotiating a contract or all that. Somebody else is in charge of it. Now, once I see them do it, I have no quiet. That skill set right now, that skills that never lost in me. What’s yours to lost to me so I can now figure out why I want to do it and why I want to hire somebody to do it. But I have the option with management.
Andrew [00:22:13] You’re seeing that. So you’re just like one leveraging expertize of other people, but then also being intentional about following and understanding what it is that they’re doing so that you can decide, oh, I’m going to continue to outsource that to someone else. Delegates. I want that expertize. Now I know. Let me take that.
Philip Michael [00:22:28] Now I know how it works. So the learning curves or manageable. Right. And my downside is protected. Now, some people say should why should I have an agent where I can do it myself? Sounds like a good idea to do it yourself. You may think you can do it. So show some people you don’t know anything about these contracts, work the little stuff, dynamics of dealing with tenants. What are the little things that they try like? There’s so many things to it and that’s even with something that basic. So I always try to limit my learning curve and ask as many questions as possible. One thing that I always do and the way that I excuse it, if I decide to excuse it, I go, hey, if it’s something new, even if it’s on a high level, like, for instance, who is this lawyer from this to work with a arete, which is a real estate investment trust, to talk about how they have a gazillion dollars? Well, that’s not a good example. Let’s pretend it’s a good example. I will say I will say, look, I’m not from here. I don’t know what a square foot is. And I don’t I can’t count on Farenheit, so I going to ask questions. That is going to be. Like, I’m like I’m a third grader, so forgive me for that in advance, so I say that. So some some people will be cool with that because like, OK, and then I’ll ask the questions that I need to know. And if somebody tries to take advantage of the fact that I don’t know something, I can spot that quickly. But that doesn’t really happen.
Andrew [00:23:40] But if you actually know more than what you’re letting on, but in a way, you’re kind of like you’re giving them permission to explain more than maybe they think that they would or something. I do the same thing.
Philip Michael [00:23:51] I don’t know it. I literally say, like, I assume the new process, I assume I’m an idiot. I go in with no preconceived bias. I assume I’m an idiot. I just come in with the framework of processing, knowing how to No. One, how to process things or assess things. And and that helps me take in the information, utilize it correctly. That’s really all that does. And that’s something you can take from any process to the next to the next to the next, whether.
Andrew [00:24:14] That learners that learners mindset. Right. To be like that when we open it and I don’t want it to me, it doesn’t matter if it like someone thinks that I’m like, why don’t you know this? It’s like, no, I’m gay. That you can use for for for it. And so when did the when did the transition happen to say, OK, I’m learning this stuff, other people are let me open this up. Right. Because that’s a that’s a that’s a different pivot rather than I’m just going to use this for my own gain and benefit versus like no, I now have not only open it up, but have a mission that’s like one hundred thousand first time owners already hitting two thousand. Where does that drive or desire an idea come from?
Philip Michael [00:24:57] Well, because I see a lot of reasons people will have a lot of and sometimes we get force fed these things that we can’t do this. We can’t do that. And and I know from my personal experience, I live with my grandmother and she would say to me, she would teach me to read and write in two languages and maybe she would teach me to read and write in two languages and do all this other stuff I didn’t really want to do, play piano, violin, not that I can because I didn’t want to. And she would teach me that. She said, because you have a ceiling would say that I’m losing my dad, who was a white businessman who doesn’t have those limiting beliefs because he’s like do well with his business. So he would take time stripping away those self defeating, limiting belief system that took him years. Like if you is just possibly enforce. When he said to me, when I’m with my dad, when I was like just for ten, twelve, he told me later. That he said, I had to spend a lot of time building up your self-esteem because there was a built in when you get told what you can do with your self-esteem. So a lot of things that I do when I share like is literally what my father did with me. That’s what I share. Another thing. Another thing. To your question, I’m trying to figure out how I can best answer this.
Andrew [00:26:14] Why are you talking about that, but I think it is I think you’re there’s a thing that you touched on that is really valuable, right? That idea of exactly like there’s a difference if you’re told you can’t do something over time that’s going to lead you to some type of behavior versus if you’re told that you can do something right. I come from a family where it’s like, yeah, you can be in that millennial kind of like elder millennial like you can be anything that you want to be and that there is advantages to that, then sort of like, OK, that means I’m maybe willing to take a little bit more risk than other people who they’re not.
Philip Michael [00:26:48] That’s exactly it. And one of the things when I came here, I literally had less than the homeless person, literally, because I didn’t have a Social Security number. I couldn’t open a bank account like this is this is very simplistically supposedly speaking. But let’s say just for the sake of the example, a homeless person, if they go get a shower and they put on some nice clothes, they can go into McDonald’s to get a job. I couldn’t do. I couldn’t do that. It’s like, do you have work permit? No. Goodbye. Literally less than a homeless person, you know, knowing nothing about the industry being without family or support system or no money, literally every excuse you can think of the like or anything that people say, oh, that’s why none of that none of my Morisot like anything that I do is anything that’s been taught to me, like the positive reinforcement I suppose. But it has also went from because you can be good but you can’t be great. So that’s another thing altogether. So because I went through that process starting with nothing inside to your property, another year inside a couple of years, we have a business that’s growing and we’re impacting people is literally my whole process. And I understand the psychology of the receiver a lot of times. If you have someone to share your stuff from, from the artist’s perspective, to come from a position of privilege so they cannot meet them here, they’re talking this way, which automatically becomes. Yeah, it’s for somebody to receive and believe so that’s how I give it in a way to people. So it’s really package of information, but it’s really meeting them eye level. And I think it’s been been so effective because I know exactly what the person is thinking, not just from the information standpoint, but the limiting the like the limiting belief system, because that’s what I had to overcome.
Andrew [00:28:21] Yeah, because you went through it like it’s the same way for for me. An hour in my company human I work. We teach people how to use the scale of humor, and it’s because I had to learn A-T. I’m not a naturally funny person, like I wasn’t the class clown growing up. And but because I’m someone who’s taken improv classes and done stand up and understand how I work, I’ve seen how I take it apart, put it back together, it’s easier for me to explain it to other people than someone who just quote unquote,.
Philip Michael [00:28:47] Naturally, naturally talented at it, saying it was really cool. That’s one of the things I want to do because it terrifies me and I’m afraid I was suck at it. So I feel like I can only grow from it. But that’s true. I’m not. I was always shy growing up. I was always shy growing up and I’m naturally an introvert. So that’s this is so I, I don’t care for excuses. I don’t want to hear them. You can overcome it really. But if you just like through repetition and practice and not giving up, that’s just that’s the reality. And so yes, yes. I love stand up and you can share it. That’s pretty cool.
Andrew [00:29:19] It’s it’s, it’s, it’s a skill set when you’re, when you’re ready. I encourage anyone who’s ever kind of had the thought of like maybe I want to try stand up strongly, encourage it more than happy to help out. There’s beautiful places to go in New York City that you can do it.
Philip Michael [00:29:30] Right now. I’m not very funny and I think I would be scared. I think I’d be humiliated. And I want to feel that feeling exactly what you need that feeling of.
Andrew [00:29:40] Like I got anything that I could feel better and it and it’ll help with public speaking. It helps with like conversation help with all this kind of stuff. But so that’s so then you want to kind of help people with that and you’re giving access. And there is was it a conscious decision to be so authentic about it? Because I think there’s a I love the look on your face about like, is that even a question? But I feel like sometimes people want to be like I’m this amazing person and come from this like I’m smarter than you mindset, but I feel like you’re very open and honest and so does that. Was that a conscious decision of like there’s a bunch of garbage kind of content out there and I’m going to make it more real? Or are you just like that’s how I am? That’s a ridiculous question.
Philip Michael [00:30:24] Look, I don’t even know how to process that question. Could people say, like, I have no idea what people watch me. I still don’t. I really don’t know. I didn’t know until April that people care what I had to say, honestly. So it was in April as friends and family and now we have, like, I don’t know, seventy two thousand followers on my page so that I don’t have no idea what to watch. I really don’t know. I will tell you. But the thing is, I really don’t care what people think. I really don’t. And I understand the psychology of of, of, of people. Sometimes I just said this on a lie. Sometimes I answer questions. If I’m alive, I ask questions in a certain way. Sometimes I push people, sometimes I’m nice about it, but I understand where they’re what the threshold is. And people got to be pushed to the level of comfort in order to grow. So you get to these people. So I’m just me. If somebody has a terminal apologetically me if I say something that you might consider like, oh, that was me. Well, that’s not because I have a bad day. This is an extension of my personality. If you think I was just really, really nice, it’s not because I’m was trying to it’s just an extension of my personality. I’m just really just myself. And I don’t like it. And I don’t care what people think about me, they think I’m stupid. This, that and the other. I literally don’t care. I just share my perspective and it’s helpful to take it. I share the information that’s been helpful to me. It is helpful to you. Take it. If not, I’ll try to impress me. But I think actually I think actually that’s been the key a lot of people want to sound they’re objective is to sound smart. My objective is not to sound smart. It’s to have the information in my head come out in a way where it’s received by you. The same which is in my head, does doesn’t make sense to me to simplify, which I see this right now. That’s what I intend to do. I don’t use big words and people speak jargon to cut them off literally like, no, we don’t do that here. Speak to me like I assume I assume I’m an idiot type of thing. So, yeah, I think of this opportunity myself. I don’t know. I just put on even my videos. I don’t watch the back. So half the time, I mean, people say all I want to sit there, go, oh, sounds great. .
Andrew [00:32:19] No, well, so I’m actually curious about that. So I was looking through your Instagram, which I think is fantastic. I saw a little bit of the Instagram live earlier as well. I’m curious as I was watching a little bit as I go and see what he does, I see that it’s online now. But I’m curious, do you remember so your Instagram, the very first post that you posted was actually on my birthday is on February 11th of twenty eighteen. So a little over two and a half years ago, almost three years ago. Do you remember what your first post was?
Philip Michael [00:32:44] Well, yes, I do, but I think I do. What that is, is is like that was just when actually Martin, who just played for the Champions League, he’s texting me now. He said, you’ve got to start an Instagram. For what? And I did it. I think I posted a picture of something like that.
Andrew [00:33:01] This is this is your first photo says. Of Martin, this is your first photo, Martin, convincing you, I think, to put you on Instagram, so your very first photo that you know right now. So that’s the first photo, right? It’s a fun little game for us to play. So that’s the very first one. But getting you started. But your Instagram now is very content driven. I think what’s fantastic about it is compelling videos, interviews, all of that is, are you doing that stuff yourself? Do you have a team that’s helping you put together the graphics or whatever you sitting in Canberra and doing that? So how did you like how do you go from that first post two and a half years ago to seventy thousand plus followers today?
Philip Michael [00:33:40] Well, the Instagram didn’t even really count until April because I didn’t take it seriously. I would never post is like I, I didn’t really know anything. So I just had it because people thought so I didn’t know how to use it really. But I started by saying, really, the conversation went like this. And I said to Martin because he had just signed with Barcelona and he went from thirty thousand followers to like three or four hundred thousand. So he’s gone up to since February. He’s at eight hundred and fifty six.
Andrew [00:34:08] And he’s closing in on a million.
Philip Michael [00:34:10] And I said to him, look, we need to start renting out this temple property, so please, please help me. Let’s pull some stuff so we can get me to ten thousand followers so I can link in my stories, there was literally my we said, yes, I can do that. And he’s like, but this is what he said to me. He said, But you don’t need me. I said, What do you mean? He’s like, you’re already like, what does that mean? You are you already have a million. Like what? So this is kind of how we talk to each other. I’m like I just said, you know what, I had ten thousand ten thousand buy in two weeks or something like that. So what I did was I recorded a video when I sat in a room like this, this was really my first video. And I said four ways. And what compelled me to do it, because I saw all these people being upset about locked out of this, is that I get that. But the reality is it doesn’t change by you being sad. You know, you are responsible for what?
Andrew [00:35:05] Your own happiness. That’s right.
Philip Michael [00:35:07] That’s right. OK. This is a situation. OK, what do we do about it? So I said always covid can make you rich. And in terms of ask you a question about the graphics, I just recorded the video and I talk about what ways you can turn this into something for yourself. One channel picked it up, three thousand views. Then somebody else saw that and they picked it up. It got eight thousand views. All of a sudden followers are coming in and I have like and I showed it to him. He’s like, you’re you’re sick in the head of like you said it to me so. And so that’s that’s literally what happened. And he couldn’t believe it. And then he said, that’s Gary V. Issues, what he said and the way in terms of the designs, there’s all my conceptualization. I’ll look at it. I think this would look good here. I have to have a team. I have I had a creative I tell them this is how I wanted this, how wearing the fonts to be. And we, like, go back. How does it look? It’s like not it’s not the usual stuff with the process daily is I used to record videos daily. I don’t really record videos much anymore because we’ve got so much content, but it’s just videos and then you’ll send me, then you’ll send it to me. I’ll come up with a title and a caption is a quick process. The quotes is excerpts from text messages. I’ll take something, I’ll give it to like that. And then and I have this one post where I break certain things down. The components are the least popular, but you need some of the you need broccoli before you get dessert. You’ve got to have that. I want to put that out. My videos is just stuff like like even us talking. Now, if I have the raw footage, I’ll probably chop that up into pieces. And I that that’s really sweet. It doesn’t really take much of my time. We just have a system for it. So really, anybody can if you if you want to know if anybody, how anybody else can do it, if they find a graphic designer, if they have an idea and there’s so many content creators out there, they can just say, look, I like this assignment, like this style and put my spin on it and yeah. Go forward and just.
Andrew [00:36:55] Yeah, well, no.
[00:36:56] And I think what’s great about that is it’s one that it started in twenty twenty. Right. That’s where the real focus is. It’s not like oh I’ve spent two and a half years of diligent kind of building. It’s like when you’re getting content out there you made the decision, decide to put some content out there that is valuable for people to hear and resonate with. That’s the can. And then you’re you’re creating a system out of that. So it’s not like I had to reinvent the wheel every single time, but here’s my process. Right. Right. That’s definitely something anyone can can follow. So we’re going to move to if if people watching have their own kind of specific questions that they want to know about, certainly feel free to share those into the Q&A. Before you jump into that, we’re curious here with the podcast of people’s routines, specifically kind of morning routine of like how you start your day. So in 60 seconds or less, do you have a morning routine? What’s the normal like morning for you or is it just depends on the day of the week and what’s going on like sixty seconds or less routine.
Philip Michael [00:37:58] OK, all right. Well, because my routine is I, I just wake up and get started. This is we literally wake up and started. But I think I formed a new routine today. One thing I’m realizing is that a lot of people have routines, they share them and other people adopt them. It’s not is not guaranteed to work for them. And I think people who are disciplined and who just stick to something they’re doing will develop their own resources that are helpful for them. I used to have a routine. I would write down goals every day to sort of rewire my team to really like really put my mindset on series like goal setting and visualization. I used to do that and I haven’t done it in a while because things are working so well without it. Which leads me to the realization that I need it, but it could be incredibly helpful. Why are you trying to get to that point? So I’m going to get up and go to the gym. I may not. I talk to my family because the six hours that I usually talk to Martin, then I check in with my team and then I go to the office and I just get to work. There’s this really there’s not really a seventeen. There’s one team that I’m starting now that I just came into my head. We have the scoring system. We have the scoring system internally, all our processes, so we can actually track what’s going well without having it. Kind of like diagnosing stuff is incredibly efficient. So I figured out that there’s a minimum score, eighty five out of one hundred for something to be something that’s acceptable to me. So I’m like, what would qualify that qualifies at eighty five and I put down to do the stuff that comes up. Is extra, that would take it to one hundred, I suppose, but if I clear those out, then I have an eighty five day. That’s a good day and that’s my routine. And I just started that today. I said, OK, it actually works and then I don’t make it to my list. I feel good about how for. We’ll see.
Andrew [00:39:34] Yeah. Well like I like what you said one it’s a every routine for each person. You’ve got to find one that works. I think sometimes we were like, oh, if I just fall, if I just found the perfect routine, everything falls into place. It’s like, no, it’s going to be an evolution in something that you pick. And what you’re describing the eighty five day I like is for a long time have something called five daily habits where there’s five things I want to do each day. And if I do three of the five, then it’s like a good day. If I do for the five, it’s a great day. If I do five of the five, it’s an excellent right because sometimes we are we think of this all or nothing mentality from start at like I hit the snooze button a ton, or at least I used to. And so if I was like, I got five things I want to do and one of them is not hit snooze. If I have an all or nothing mentality, I wake up, it hits news and I’m like, I might as well not do any of the other four.
Philip Michael [00:40:19] And obviously erodes your self-esteem and you won’t even feel until down the road where you’re like timid and don’t take the opportunities and you feel a lack of confidence in certain situations where you like I am. I like this. That’s those little decisions you make all day. Yeah. I love it. I love it.
Andrew [00:40:35] Yeah, exactly. So I love that. Well, Philip, this has been a fantastic conversation for sure. I love the insights that you’ve shared. If people are interested in learning more, they want to be like, hey, I want to be twenty one, I want to help you get to that hundred thousand millionaires or I just love you talking about these videos. Where where can they follow you, where can they find out more.
Philip Michael [00:40:56] Well they can just go on my Instagram, which is why FWC you can go on there, you can go to my personal Facebook. I have a weekly show where I just take questions and answer them. And it’s called Ten Questions. We have that. I have a show on TV called Bull Business where I interview people. I share some of the same stuff. So there’s no shortage of information that you get from me. And I try to make it less digestible and simple as possible because, you know, this whole principle they taught us in journalism school, keep it simple, stupid. So I go by that in terms of our company, there’s a nice group that co that’s just a parent company, but one hundred million years is where you can find whatever is happening. With us next on our app is coming out. It was supposed to be out now, but it was some hiccup in terms of registration of address stuff outside of our control. So it might take another week or so, but then that’ll be out. And that’s what people could find, all the projects that we’re offering access, offering ownership. And so there’s been like pent up demand. So I’m going to put a lot more out next year. We can go as high as 80 million and the people can own alongside with where this year, which is one million. So we’re going to do a lot more recently on that. Ten, twenty, twenty. We’re simply going to have more room. We have more room. Those are going to be hired close to our stated goal. But it’s not just a matter of investing with us. As long as you invest in something and you become more intelligent, intentional with your money, that’s a win for me because we’re people with resources, abundance, wealth coming from Denmark. I know how it is. There’s no crime. And corruption is because nobody believes this is the only crime comes from greed and that comes from bad character. I don’t think people are really born with that character unless there’s something wrong somewhere and there’s always going to be something wrong somewhere. So I think that’s that’s how I feel. I can contribute, contribute something positive to society. So even if you don’t have to invest with me, as long as you start with all that is all I care about one hundred million. It doesn’t have to be me. It could just be help inspire them. So why have you on Instagram wherever else. Wherever else. Yeah. Just find me in my heart.
Andrew [00:43:01] Yeah, exactly. I was able to find with a couple of quick Google searches, there is, there is a emem looking fighter that is also a Philip Michael. And there is one other I think a lawyer or something like that doesn’t fill up Michael. Not any of those. Philip Michael’s got this. Philip Michael, the founder of Knife. You can find him on his Instagram and one hundred K millionaires, dotcom as well. Well, Philip, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast or sharing your insights and wisdom. It’s been great to have you. This has been a our first actual live podcast episode of the podcast. We will be back for more. In fact, we’re coming back to you next week where we’ll be talking to Michael Dermo, who is the founder and CEO of The Lonely Entrepreneur. The podcast itself has been presented to you by the ascent conference. You can find out more about that Ascentconf.com Or you can find out more about what we do at humor that works at Human Networks dot com. You all have been great. I have been Andrew Tarvin until next time.