We’re here with Daniel Geffen of the Can I Pick Your Brain podcast thank you Daniel for joining us thankyou very much Rebecca for having me yes so you have had the Can I pick Your Brain podcast for a number of year sand you also are behind the Geffen Media Group and working on Podbooker yes pod booker that’s correctpodbooker.com coming sonar I can’t wait to hear more about it give me the quick10 second hook for pitch for Podbooker okay so basically it is the first platform that will allow podcast guests to find podcast hosts and podcast hosts to find podcast guests and they’ll be able to basically reach out to the to each other on the platformism there’ll be a search algorithm so they could type in keywords to find the right shows and the right guests and they’ll also be you’ll be able to have your profile on there so that host doesn’t need to go and start searching you know google for all your information it’s all in one place and a whole lot of other very cool features that we’re currently working on building outs I love that uh I think that will beavery very handy because I know when I’m looking for podcast guests I’m looking to expand my network beyond what it already is yes yeah so know that you’ve been doing a lot of podcasts and you’ve had some really amazing guests on and I wanted to ask you a little bit about that and I’m totally going out of order on all my questions here I have such great questions for you but I want to hear everything so what want to know first is with all the people you’ve interviewed you and you’ve interviewed Jeff Hoffman who I also have met through GEN Network and you’ve also interviewed Neil Patel and Verne Harnish who was your favorite guest out of everybody that you’ve interviewed that’s a really tough one umami going to give you an answer that just go by asking this same question to the chief rabbi of Israel bravo um he meth the queen of England he sat with her for hue think it was like three hours or something like that I had a whole conversation with the queen of England he sat with Fidel Castro uh from Cuba and he sat with him for four hours um heat he met Barrack Obama President Donald Trump you name it look he’s met with all different presidents, prime ministers, queens and so I asked him the same question you just asked me which was of all the people that you’ve met you know who most inspired by like who was the best person that you spoke toad he surprised me with his answer he said that is a really stupid question was shocked I was like whoa okay copse’s like what is it with people who are fascinated with the best the best the biggest nobody’s the best you take from everybody something else that’s the goal when you meet someone it’s not about who’s going to be the best person that you meet or who’s got the biggest who’s got the most amount of money or who’s the most inspiring who’s got you know the biggest following it’s what can I take what cane learn from this person and I really like that I like that answer because it it’s so true it’s all about you know taking from every situation you have something like growing from every situation so to answer your question from the chief rabbi of Israel um every single person who I’ve interviewed hashes given something learned something from the mum you know when I had Russell Brunson on my show that was huge for me because you know this was somebody who was charging at the time quarter of million dollars to speak on stage okay to have you know a one-on-one with as much he charges I think it’s ten thousand dollars to have um a lunch I think it’s like you sit with him for lunch you take him outdo lunch and he charges ten thousand dollars just to sit for lunch right and it has to be in his hometowns to get him on my show and to speak to him for an hour and not pay anything was it was like incredible just because I had a podcast show which by the way shows you the power of podcast and by the way today uh if you look Russell now charges half a million dollars to speak on stage not quarter of a million he’s doubled his rate uh but that to me was just absolutely mind-blowing um there were so many people I had on my show who I had read their book sum many years ago and you know it’s like it’s like meeting someone that you know when you when you when you watch them on move noon to or when you when you know read their books and suddenly you’re able to have a conversation with them it’s like dream come true uh people like Jay Abraham who was you know a legend in the in the marketing space and I read all of his book sum you know tom billion who runs uh quest hue’s a co-founder of quest nutrition unhand he has his own show and I was obsessed withies show I’d watch it every single day and then when I finally like got to have him on my show it was like wow I can’t believe I’m speaking to tom but it’s important not to idolize people that’s something that I’ve also learn edit’s it’s really easy to get into the whole like my god like there’s no way I could speak to this person there’s no way I’m goanna ever be able toad it’s like don’t don’t put them on a pedestal because only statues are meant for pedestals and b don’t make yourself so small because you’re bigger than you think you are you know that was an absolutely amazing answer to that question and I do I do so agree with you that it’s not about someone being the best or the most famous it’s about what everybody brings to the conversation and I’ve had conversations with powerful people I’ve had conversations withy next door neighbor and it’s the insights that each person brings to the conversation it’s those things that you don’t know about so now I want to know a little bit about you um so think back to when you were 13and I know you have an interesting story from high school but before you got to high school Tellme a little bit about yourself what your aspirations were before high school before you ended up going into that next spot where you’re in detention all the time um so-so you’re talking about pre-teens basically create the preteen world I have very blurry memories about my growing you know my younger years I just have a bad memory in general um I was um curious as I guess like any kid really just curious always wanting to learn more always trying to uh find a different way like if you know if someone told me go left I would I would go right just because right unmind I was also very persistent and very stubborn as a child remember that like I remember being inane a forest with my parents and we were in the middle of nowhere and just suddenly had this this urge to have some chocolate and don’t know how old I was I think I was around five or six um but I just started telling my mother like you know I want chocolate and she said well we don’t have any chocolate you know and she gave me other options and I said no I want chocolate I want chocolate and I just started singing this song over and over again for an hour straight want chocolate I want chocolate I want chocolate I want chocolate I want chocolate I want chocolate and my mom just went nuts and she’s like all right we’ll get you chocolate and so um we had owe had to leave the forest uh and my I remember my mom and dad just like frantically driving around trying to find likesome store that had uh chocolate somewhere you know and we’re Jewish as well so we eat kosher so we had to find a kosher store which is even harder to find so you’ve got to find kosher chocolate don’t ask but in the end I got my chocolate you know I got my chocolate there it was and so persistence pays that was like one of the first lessons I learned as a child was persistence pays if you keep you keep at it you keep going and you stay focused on your goal you’ll get it even though you’ll drive people crazy along the way sometimes you can’t please everybody now do you still like chocolate today no I’m sick of it actually it depends sometimes I’m in the mood it depends sometimes but I in general no not so much so let’s go into high school oh okay we’re still good here for some reason something beeped weird but that often happens on podcasts we get unexpected things so we keep persevering through them so let’s go into your story with high school detention oh boy yeah not my favorite place to go mynah uh no the high school detention really was just more a matter of me uh really wanting to express myself freely and you know I by nature I’m very creative and um expressive you know I enjoy speaking I enjoyed you know and also as a teenager ii craved attention I craved itch and so I would get attention in any way I can even if it meant getting you know in trouble for it and in fact schoolmates would encourage it you know they loved it because there was you know I would create drama in the classroom because to me the classroom was boring right so ii would sit there in the classroom and would be bored the teacher would be boring and what she’s teaching me is boring and so I need to change this environment into a more dramatic environment and so I would create the drama you know so today you’ve got Netflix but in those days you had Daniel Geffen in the club and I would literally get on tables and do all sorts of stupid things by the way just a side note I any teacher that have met later on in life have apologized to them and asked them for forgiven forgiveness genuinely because I felt bad uh but obviously as a teenager you don’t really care about anybody else you’re just you’re just thinking about yourself and you’re just thinking about getting good laugh from the people in the classroom right and the problem was two things number-one is I would always get into trouble detention but number two which was worse was the realization that my classmates weren’t actually laughing with me they were laughing at mean and essentially they I became their puppet you know I became kind of like the puppet on the strings and uh I ii realized that I was just basically put show uh for everybody else but I was the one getting in trouble for item and so it was it was a tension but it was toxic attention it wasn’t good attention there’s good attention and there’s bad attention and obviously as I as I grew older and you know and matured I realized the difference between healthy and unhealthy the attention essentially is there anything that you would suggest for schools or for education to make the classroom friendlier for someone like you who was creative and who needed attention yeah there’s a lot of things that schools can do differently ump mean the first thing I would say is people are differently nature we we’re different the fact that school the school system hasn’t evolved like everything else has is astounding to me you look around50 years ago communication has changed travel has evolved um you know also you know the way you the way you cook the way you it’s everything right everything has changed but the school system the education system is still you know in in in the in the you know in the in the dinosaur age nothing’s changed muse the first thing is recognizing that that everybody’s different there are different children there are some children who are who are who have a higher qi they are book smart they are you know they can ace a test without even studying right I used to hate those people they were just like they just aced the test they didn’t even have to do anything they were the smarty pants the goody two-shoes and then you’ve got street smart this is really important because for those of you listening I think there’s a lot of people who will be hearing this who will relate to this when I was in school I actually thought I was dumb genuinely thought I was dumb because the students called me dumb because my teachers called me dumb and c because I would get bad grades and so that was proof that I was dumb was stupide as I’ve as I’ve grown up and I’ve matured and I’ve and I’ve had a lot of self-awareness and I’ve also accomplished a lot in my life so forum I’ve had to prove to myself that I’m not dumb I’m actually quite bright and income areas specific areas I excel exceedingly above the average person and I would even say this and I’m not saying this from amigo standpoint because I believe it’s about everybody not just myself but I believe that there is certain areas of your life that you are a genius in that in that area you are a genius in that era but you have to discover what that is I have found my zone of genius I’ve discovered my zone of genius and in that zone of genius would say I don’t think there is any single person in my class that could outshine me in that zone of genius they can’t touch meth rebut I was a dumb d-grade student when it came to academics when it cameo actually having to memorize information and then repeat it back in a test I failed and that’s cruel in a way because for a system to you know essentially make a person feel that this they’re just useless I felt useless I felt I can’t do this it’s a lie and it’s uh it’s I felt imprisoned in a way uh looking back it was it was terrible it’s just a terrible period of my life those are absolutely great insights and have my own stories there as well um I’ve been parenting for two and a half decades and I have four kids I’m not sure if you knew that or not but through the course of two and a half decades of parenting it’s went from when I was in school and the focus on the grades tonos we’re finally starting to see aching or maybe it’s just me and the people in my network but I’m starting to see more and more where we’re putting or at least myself as I raise my children I’m making sure that they know that it’s not the grades that are important it’s are they learning are they interested are they engaged and also encouraging them and really to believe in themselves and their skills that are not necessarily academic because some people are meant to be academic some people are meant to study some people are meant to be more of a cubicle person or someone to work uh to conform and work that traditional life where there’s other people who are very creative and they’re the ones that are innovating and making change happen and both of those things are great things because we all have our own skills but now we’re reaching a point I find where we’re finally understanding that a little bit our education system still needs to catch up but we are starting to understand that our kids and ourselves we each have our own individual skillset 100 yeah so would like to know a little bit more about what was your aha moment that got you from being in detention all the time to going to the next level what made you decide to seek the path you decided to seek in ileum so I think think like any aha moments that weave in in life usually we’re not looking for them they usually find sand I’m a very big believer in really just taking the right next steps and then when you least expect it that’s when suddenly a door opens up totally from left field but you didn’t expect it and suddenly that’s when you usually we find our aha moments that come and so for me that the aha moment in terms of you know discovering my the zone of genius and figuring out the difference between you know healthy expression and unhealthy expression really came about through me going into the business and building up successful business and getting a phone call four years ago where someone said to me Daniel um heard you’ve got a really interesting story about how you built up your company and then you outsourced ditto one of your competitors and you actually ran it out of a hotel lobby and there was a whole thing there there’s a whole story there it sounds like once a year well it’s I actually wrote it in my bookie wrote a bookie it’s called the self-help addict and that book is all about self-help addiction and it goes through my whole journey and part of that story is essentially that whole you know what happened with the business and how that all unfolded um but this person who was calling me said to me I’d love to have you on my podcast you know just like humour know with us you know Rebecca you invited me on to your podcasted so this guy was the first person to ever invite me onto a podcast and at the time I had no idea what a podcast was to me it was like what does that even mean what’s a podcast so he explained to me what a podcast was and I thought wow that’s really could’ve never done anything like that you know I’ve never done radio odor anything close to radio remember my stage was the classroom so there was maybe 2030 people in our classroom and that was my stagehand so um to be invited unexcused me um onto someone’s you know digital radio station that was very cools there I was in my pajamas in my house in Israel I live in Israel and uh what’s incredible is you know Israel is this is this tiny speck on the map it’s a tiny tiny country it’s a size think it’s smaller than new jersey state of new jersey right the whole country is smaller than the state of new jersey just to give you context of how small it is and there I am with a you know literally a headset and sitting in my room and I just shared my story just like I’m doing now uh on this podcast I was you know just sharing my story and what I found fascinating was I loved it I enjoyed its much I enjoyed speaking I enjoyed sharing my journey and sharing my storyland sharing the insights that I’ve learned along the way but what was amazing for me was at the end when the host said you know thank you so much for coming on the show up you know that was that was great thank you so much then said to him I said well you knowhow many people were listening was interested you know now if you would have told me50 people I would have been impressed you know if you would have told me 100people I would have been wow that’s amazing right but he told me over a thousand people were listening to theta the show and I almost fell off my chair like a thousand people I’ve never spoken to anywhere close to that amount of people where are they all because I’m you know I’m you know when you’re going on a podcast you you you’re literally humour know in front of a microphone or you’re wearing a headset and you could be staring at a wall like I am right now I’m literally staring at a wall right now I don’t knowhow I’m talking tonight and then he tells me where these people were listening you know you can because as a host you can look at the you know the countries and he starts listing countries right America Canada Africa china japan you know Germany you know Australia England France I was like what that’s nuts I think are you kidding me you’re telling me that I’m sitting herein Israel this tiny country in my pajamas uh you know with a headphone I’m talking to over a thousand people all-over the world that was my aha moment that’s when I realized that that that through the power of podcasts the platform this has become my platform podcasting has become my platform through the power of podcast I’m able tosh to toot share my story and share my message and speak to people all over the world that was that was incredible and that was my aha moment and that’s what changed my whole sort of direction of where was going started my own podcast show grew it to over a quarter of a million downloads interviewed some of the most incredible people unthaw I’ve you know that I’ve like I said before that I’ve you know either read about or you know followed us on social media or just watched their you know YouTube videos and just got to have incredible conversations with them unknit also got me on a whole journey often goings a guest on podcast shows because I realized that to be able to go on somebody else’s show and leverage the audience that they’ve built and to be able to share with their audience and then grow my own audience that’s how I ended up starting my company Geffen media group which is where we help other people to get onto-rated podcasts because I believe that podcasting right now is the most efficient and effective and most powerful way to grow your audience and become an authority in your space in today’s world and I’m sure that our listeners are just absolutely loving this because I’m entranced I just want to keep listening to your story uh it’s one of the reasons started my podcast because I wanted to hear real stories from real entrepreneurs and that’s why it’s called My Entrelife because it’s also your enter life and I love that this is what you have fallen into uh myself it started with blab do you remember blab lab blab dot I amah really I didn’t knows I used to run a video podcast it was amazing just different people that you would end up speaking wit hand that is really what has led me here and also the need for us to hear stories from people around the world and to hear females as well we have tons of podcasters out there it’s nicety see a few more females coming on swells I like the fact that I can give voice to females in the podcasting scenes I want to know little bit more about you and my final question for yogis what are you most excited about or most passionate about right now right now right now and it might be chocolate I don’t know right in this second it’s like I’m excited about reaching a whole new audience and being able to share you know myself with other people it’s really as I said before it’s like fascinating to be able toot really I’m just astounded that you could literally be anywhere in the world and you can reach out to somebody right now who’s listening inching or in Belgium or in France or wherever it is in the world to me that’s what that’s what that’s what gets me really fired up and really excited and I really believe that anybody who is not taking advantage of this incredible platform and just getting out there and you know just coming out of their shell coming out of your shell and sharing your stories and sharing your messages you don’t know who you can affect you have no idea who you can impact it absolutely astounds meat the amount of impact a person can have by sharing their story and you don’t know who’s going to be affected by it’ll give you an example so I had a guy called tophi Evans on my show this was about a year ago and he came on and he was talking about hour at one point in his life he was severely depressed to a point where he was suicidal and he had locked himself up in his bedroom and didn’t leave for a whole week he was in bed he literally didn’t leave didn’t see the light of day and obviously his friends were very concerned and one of his friends came over and came into it came into his room and said tophi you know you’ve got to get out of bed this is really not good um it’s just so unhealthy you’ve got to just at least come out for like little run let’s just go for a run forklike 10 minutes and tophi said there’s absolutely no way I’m going for a run like I could barely move I don’t care you know don’t want to know and his friend was very persistent right and he said look I’m not moving from here unless you come for a run with me just for 10minutesand so after about an hour of his friend just literally standing there waiting to toast said all right finlike you know I’ll make a deal with you I’ll come fora run for 10 minutes as long as you promise to leave me alone like afterwards don’t come back leave me alone that’s it and he said deal so they went out they went for a run and when they came back Togo felt completely different something changed he’s like don’t know what happened I feel alive ii don’t know let’s do another run tomorrow for 10 minutes so they went running every day for 10minutes and 10 minutes turned into 30minutesand 30 minutes turned into an hour and an hour turned into half a marathon and half a marathon turned into a marathon and a marathon turned into an ultramarathon up mount Everest only one of 100people in the world to ever achieve that and then he became an extreme athlete raising money for charity he’s done a 24-hour treadmill rune’s done a 12-hour swim um he’s now a published author he wrote a bookend he’s a podcast host as well and he’s speaking on stages totally blew me away totally blew me away and of course there’s awhile audience out there that is listening to this to this episode and I get an email from someone from one of those people that were listening and the email said the following he said Daniel I want to thank you because I have been suicidal and I’ve been contemplating to take my life and I stumbled upon your episode with tophi Evans and his story inspired me so much that I started running and it has helped me and now I am I want to be like him and want to write a book and I want to start my own podcast show and Rebecca today today he has his own podcast show and he’s written his own book and you never knowhow you’re going to affect it is absolute shivers I’ve given talks on mental health myself about my own history and I’ve had people come up after these talks and just say Rebecca thank you thank you for sharing your storyland it just it gives you those shivers those chills in your spine because you know at that moment you have directly impacted someone you don’t know how it has affected them but you have made an impact by sharing your story and by sharing your vulnerability so thank you very much for sharing that story with us yeah absolutely absolutely and and the problem is so many people think that their story doesn’t matter but it does because to some to somebody your story is incredibly inspiring even though you may not think even though you may not think so but the more you tell it the more surprised you’ll be at how many people come and say wow I’m so touched and you’re like really well I didn’t think it was that big of a deal so I’ll tell you a quick story before we end one of my biggest aha moments was actually from something I misheard or a mistake and that’s how much a story can impact people because it me it’s what you’re hearing it may not even be exactly what’s related to you but for me i was sitting in an audience at huge event watching this woman on stage talking about her baby and it made me think why am I not doing this why am I not upon stage why am I not planning an event why am I not reaching higher because if she has a baby and can do it why can’t now here’s the interesting thing the baby she was talking about was a dog yeah that’s fine but because I heard what I needed to hear at that moment I heard she has a baby and she’s doing that stuff that gave me the strength and the power to say okay I need to take this to the next level I am fully capable of doing it and it allowed me to believe in myself which is something I feel we really need and it’s something that sharing our stories through podcasts another Method really cans thank you Daniel for joining us today on My Entrelife do you have any parting words [Laughter]. I would say miff if you feel that you have a message that you want to express and what I mean by that is if you have this burning desire to really good and inspire and impact people and not everybody does by the way there’s plenty of people who will be more than happy to spend thirst of their life sitting behind a desk you know doing their thing or driving a truck or waiting on tables or running a restaurant like and they’re all amazing everybody is amazing everybody’s doing what they’re doing but then there are those individuals who have a burning desire to get out there and to and to inspire others and to impact people through their stories and through their messages and if you’re one of those people then highly highly urge youth just start getting out thereby by getting on some podcasts don’t gofer some big podcasts that you know just go on the smaller podcasts start making make a goal for yourself say I’m goanna if you haven’t been on podcast yet your goal should beam goanna get myself booked on a podcast that’s the first goal I’m going to get booked on a podcast and all the questions that you have in your head about what am I going to talk about I even like who am I to speak on a podcast they’re all just they’re all the voices of your of your haters or your non-believers and they’re just reflections of maybe people who have who have told you you’re not good enough and would just ignore those voices adjust go for it just go on that show and just start sharing your story start sharing your messages if one person gets impacted by it then it’s worth it even if that one-person is you perfect so thank you again for joining us Daniel and audience you can find Daniel at the Can I pick your brain podcast and watch out for the pod booker platform coming soon because I’m really excited about that so thank you for joining us and tune in next time to My EntreLife.
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