MKJ 
Hey, hey, hey, CEO, Mischief Makers, welcome to the conversation. I cannot wait, truly cannot wait to introduce you to my guest because I love how these things work. We just kind of got introduced to each other because a friend of mine attended his conference and talked about it. And I was like, whoa, that was amazing. And we just connected that way. And we’ve already had one conversation and now we get to be on the podcast. And this has been, I think, two weeks.

since we first met each other. So welcome. Yeah, welcome back to welcome to the conversation, Brian Wallace. Brian, how you doing today?

Brian Wallace
That’s right. We go way back.

Brian Wallace 
Thank you, thank you. Doing great, beautiful day. How about you?

MKJ
Absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, beautiful, sunny day at the coast. I can’t ask for anything more except a conversation with you. So now tell us, for those people who don’t know who you are, who you are and what you do.

Brian Wallace 
Woo, well, buckle up. Brian Wallace, founder and president of Now Sourcing, born in Brooklyn, moved away when I was a year old before the accident stuck. From Metro New York, but the suburbs where we sort of speak a non -regional dialect. Spent the better part of a decade being a technologist on the East Coast, had enough of

moved myself and my family to the Midwest southern border, kind of where all that stuff comes together, which is a broad swath of land. It’s not California or New York. And for the last 18 years or so have been at the helm of now sourcing, which is most well known for content marketing and being one of the first innovators of infographics as a storytelling mechanism. Or as I like to say, helping make the world’s ideas more understandable by making them simple, visual and influential, which gives you the ability for permission of the mind to give you more permission for more of their mind.

Yeah, and kind of like you said, a little bit of conferences and stuff nowadays, but we could talk all day as we shall.

MKJ 
my goodness.

MKJ
Yeah, little thing here and there and everywhere. All right, so all right, Mr. Faker is listening. You can tell why I wanted to have a conversation with Brian. I mean, that was pretty understandable right there. So let’s dive in. You talked about the whole idea of infographics and storytelling, and you used the word mind.

So tell me a little bit more about how did you decide to go from Brooklyn to suburbs to southern border to the middle of the country, not New York, not Cal. What in the world is going on? How did you decide and what mindset shift did you have to make to end up where you are? I mean, just give me the most, let’s say the most recent few.

Brian Wallace
Yes.

MKJ 
or even from the beginning of starting your business. Maybe that’s it. From the beginning, the mindset you had to start your business to now and the different mindset for now expanding into conferences and all that other stuff. I mean, I just need to pick your brain, okay? So tell me.

Brian Wallace
Let’s do it. Yeah, let’s do it. So let’s unpack that multi -headed, multi -threaded question. Yes. So how do you leave New York and go to Kentucky? Because it’s not really the path that most travel ever. So my wife and I actually got to visit Louisville, Kentucky two weeks before 9 -11. I think you see where this story went. We’re like, oh, wow, what a nice city. Then we come back.

MKJ
Multi question, yes.

Brian Wallace 
And we’re an MBA school together, where the campus of the school that we went to, we didn’t go to that particular campus, was basically next door to where all that stuff was happening. And we’re like, that other place sure was nice and idyllic. And like I said, I was in technology before we got into marketing. And I like to call myself a recovering technologist, because I found that a lot of the world of technology

does not appreciate, nor is knowledgeable and cognizant in the art of conversation. A lot of people love to throw around a bunch of acronyms and nonsense. And honestly, I feel like a lot of people do not really appreciate the functional domain of technology

The internet doesn’t work. I almost don’t want to say that because the internet gods are going to cancel our podcast. Never mind. We love you, Overlord Internet AI, whatever’s running the show. Please, please keep this going. Our stream’s going great. We want to keep going with this podcast. Thank you, thank you. All right, have we given it the homage that it deserves? Yes. All right, let’s move on. So technology is often overlooked and misunderstood because a lot of people that are in it don’t really communicate very well. And you just don’t really care about it until it’s not working.

MKJ 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re good, yeah.

Brian Wallace
So I really kind of had enough of that and I really didn’t want to work for other people anymore. And I kind of had it with the East Coast with major world events and whatnot. And we gave it a shot. And there’s special brilliance that can be applied when you are in a place that a lot of people think is the underdog or is the laughing stock or is flyover country or whatever. I like to say flyover for lie too. Not everything is always perfect. And some of these.

higher cost areas and there’s sometimes safety concerns and clean and cost of living, all that stuff. So there’s a lot of places that like you can actually live well and there is a giant global community. Hello, it’s called the internet. Perhaps we’re using it right now. Have we ever met in person? Kind of feels like it. Do we always have to meet in person? It doesn’t. It does and it doesn’t. So the world is closer than it’s ever been and it’s always better when we can get together. And we’ll get to that when we talk about the conferences and

MKJ 
And it does. Yeah. And does it really matter? Yeah. No. Correct.

Brian Wallace 
But you asked how I got to where I am. So I got to build this incredibly innovative company without being under the scrutinizing microscope of, let’s say, a New York or an LA or Silicon Valley or whatever, where everybody’s always kind of posturing and all of that. And this was just kind of the undiscovered country, which, believe it not, actually made things a little bit easier, which sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true the more you think about it.

MKJ 
Yeah.

MKJ 
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, totally. And so I that I think I want to unpack a little bit more because there are many, many, many, many, many people who didn’t do that. And they stayed in the New York’s and the Californias. And, and so what was it that besides obviously 911, that’s a pretty big thing. But there are also many, many people that stayed even after 911. So what was it that made you was it the safety? Was it the opportunity? Was it just the

because I know you’re big in innovation, what was that? What was that mindset shift that made you decide no?

Brian Wallace 
It just seemed like a special, yeah, it seemed like a special place. So I will tell you that the reason that we went there for was like a specific health thing. And let’s just say that it was nothing short of like a revealed miracle in the world that we felt a great deal of gratitude. I believe, so a couple of things. Let me give you two paradigms that float around in my head.

One is you kind of have to find a place that fits your frequency in the world, because when you are out of sync in the world around you, it’s not exactly right for you. The other thing is I’ve always believed in having dialogue, conversation, partnerships, whatever you want to say, with a global community of people that think very different from one another.

and the sad reality and the state of the world. And we’re not just talking about New York, California, the coast, America, anywhere. I think that much of the world never reexamines what I just said. And many people sadly live, and I get why a lot of people do it. A lot of it’s comfort. A lot of it is family connection, familiarity, and all that. But you know where I’m going with this, right? So I’m saying, if you never leave your hometown and you never go 10 minutes away and you expect everybody to act like you look like you think

MKJ 
Yes, I do.

Brian Wallace
you, what do you think you’re going to get out of it? What do you think diversity of thought is in the world? We have a gigantic global community and everybody has brilliance to offer. And if you won’t listen to them because you expect everybody to think, look, dress, whatever like you, I don’t know. Like you might not be the coolest person at the party if you’re going to think like that. Let’s just say it. Yeah.

MKJ 
So that says it right there. That really does say what mindset you had to not just be tolerant. That word is overused, to actually be inviting of other ideas. That’s the only way we grow. That’s the only way. We can only grow to whatever is in our own minds. And the only way to grow beyond what’s in our minds,

is to have more input into our minds from somewhere else. So, wow, what an amazing unpack. Thank you for that. So now let me ask you this, unless there’s more you want to say about that, because it sounds like I was interrupting you. Okay. So now let’s take the next step now. Okay. You’re still in Kentucky, I take it? Living? Cincinnati now. Okay. Similar, right? Still middle. What…

Brian Wallace 
Gotcha.

Brian Wallace 
keep going. Yeah. No, I think I was

Brian Wallace 
Cincinnati.

Brian Wallace 
There were actually both the region called the bluegrass region, like the grass and the music sort of, yeah.

MKJ
Yeah, and the music. Yeah, thank you. My son’s played jazz. I get it. So…

Brian Wallace
There you go.

MKJ 
What’s the next mindset shift? So you’ve got this, you’ve got more opportunities, you’ve got more diversity of thought, more open to ideas. And now you’re getting into conferences and putting on your own conferences. And I love and we’ll have to unpack this as well when we get to our strategy and tactics. But right now, let’s talk about the mindset that made you open to going, hey, let me just kind of start a conference here in the middle of what everyone else would

consider nowhere. So what would what was that mindset shift? Now what are you looking to the future?

Brian Wallace 
Mm -hmm. So I think that when I look to hang out with people in the global community, I look for a few very specific key attributes of the kinds of folks that are, let’s just call it my tribe. Now, tribalism, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. That doesn’t mean that it’s everybody that’s like carbon copies of Brian, because I don’t know that the world needs a bunch of carbon copies of me. Please, there’s enough. I can represent. We don’t need any of that.

MKJ
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MKJ 
Yeah, right.

Brian Wallace 
Yeah, I don’t know. Where do you even go with

Brian Wallace
I think that a lot of people look for talented people and don’t look at what’s important first. So if I don’t have a good feeling about another person, they could be the most talented person in the world and maybe they’re sociopaths. Maybe they are toxic to my whole network.

Like I literally watch a bunch of documentaries about people that fraud the world to just like have extra radar, muscle memory to watch out for people like that. Cause that’s as you gain power and influence and a wonderful network in the world, the worst thing you could do is empower people that probably shouldn’t be there that will opportunistically be the time vampires to just ruin everybody’s day.

MKJ 
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Wallace 
Sorry for the deep inhale to really kind of put that into perspective.

MKJ 
that so what we’re going to dive more into that specifically again in the next episode when we talk about innovation because what you just described is the muscle memory is the intuition that you’ve developed that basically has allowed you to now go to the next level continue with the diversity of thought continue with being exposed to different people different ideas but at the same time take all of that that you’ve already been exposed to and

and shift it into this is the way I look at the world. This is the way, these are the things that are important to me. You mentioned talent is important. Yes. Hard work is even more important most of the time than talent. So hard work and dedication and resilience and all those things. So what are, go into some of those things. What…

How did you develop that? You mentioned watching shows, you mentioned that, but you must have also been burned by some of the people that are time zombies, time, you know, time suckers.

Brian Wallace 
sure. Yeah, I I told you I

exited an entire career and industry and location and picked like all their profession and stuff for sure. So the whole talent thing is really the last of three gauntlets in my mind. So that’s the last one. I like having it hanging out and having great conversations with talented people because they have things to offer that I and others don’t know. But that first one, the anti sociopath radar, I think it’s just a lot of conversations with

MKJ 
Thank you.

Brian Wallace 
You just develop some finely honed skills. A couple get through, but we try not to. But the first thing that I look for are just people who are kind, right? Like people who…

You just hit it off. have a good demeanor. They’re okay to not BS around. I like people that are good conversationalists. This is all kind of part and parcel with the first of the three gauntlets. And like if your whole con and here’s how you know, like if your whole conversation is surface level things that it looks like they’re reading from a card and they’re like, blah, blah, blah, sports ball. What’s the weather? It’s like, you don’t have both of those apps on your phone, man. Come on. Like, is there anything going on there in the art of conversation? You just wish just wishing that I would go

and you want to pitch me something and you hope that you would rather just be talking to like some AI robot or something. Then we can just, we can both retire on the beach and AI will just talk to each other. And apparently humanity is not easy anymore. I don’t

MKJ 
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s, I love that. So in this idea of mindset, if we could kind of wrap that up, if someone is in a place and I talked to someone just Friday, just a couple of days ago from this conversation on a Monday. So Friday, I talked to someone who is brilliant. I love the way his mind works. He is an incredible coach. He is an incredible conversationalist. He cares. He loves creating amazing, amazing

experiences, but he keeps finding himself in the same place of being broke. So he’ll, he’ll make a bunch of money and do help a lot of people. And then all of a sudden now he’s maxing out his credit cards again and, and trying to scrape against, scrape the next meal. That’s a mindset issue that that’s not a, that’s not a tools issue, right? There’s lots of tools you can use that’ll help make you money with the, with your knowledge. So what if someone’s listening and they find themselves in the same place and they don’t, they’re not.

progressing. What piece of advice would you give them?

Brian Wallace 
and say emulate a farmer.

because a lot of people don’t understand how to live for tomorrow. But a farmer sure does because if they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, they’re literally gonna starve. So when we have these first world problems that we are in the way of our own success in solutioning, maybe we should do that. Let me elaborate on that. I know we’re gonna dive into the tactics, but to answer and wrap the question that you’re asking. So imagine that you are the modern day farmer that works in the internet economy and like you plant one seed of corn and you’re gonna have one ear

and you’re like, wow, I’m so made for life. I’m so excited that I got this one deal. It’s like, what are you talking about? So you’ve got a whole field. It’s not cloud because you didn’t feel like it, because you wanted to be an Instagram influencer. What planet are you on? That world isn’t real. What are we talking about? So I think people.

lack the focus and intensity to keep it up on a consistent basis. Consistency, like you said, hard work and talent to pair what you said earlier is everything. If you just try and keep doing it, maybe you’ll get better and people will notice. And if you’re good and generous, that will come back to you.