The Impact Ask with David Homan

Josh
 Good day, fellow dealmakers. Welcome to the deal scout. Listen, the purpose and mission of this show is to put deals and deal makers together. First off the bat, if you're working on a deal, looking for a deal or would like to talk about a deal on the show, head on over to the deal, scout.com, fill out a quick form, maybe get you on the show. Now with that in mind, I go out into the world seeking different types of dealmakers ranging from building apps and raising capital to SPACs family offices, everything in between. Cause I want to learn about different types of deals and then bring that to my community. On today's show, this is a special introduction, cause it came as an introduction, a very unique way that it was introduced even from one of our friends, Jordan out of Orlando and Jordan made an introduction in a way that I've never been introduced before, but it started a conversation with David and David does this professionally introductions. 

 Josh
 David, welcome to the show. 

 David
 Thank you, Josh. It's great to have great to be here. 

 Josh
 Yeah, man. All right. David, tell us about what you do. 

 David
 I'm happy to, and the way I'll tell you about what I do is to really understand how you work, right? Podcasts, different focuses and how you work as a connector, connecting people, that relationship value. What I do in life is connect people to each other who are those supernodes high integrity. Action-oriented natural givers that by virtue of the fact that I, or somebody else like our mutual friend, Jordan, but leave my kids with you mean that you can short change. What is often multiple years of building a relationship because of the way that I've created a systemic approach to connectivity. What I do every day is talk to people. I aim to solve their problems. Often as the most connected person they've ever met by connecting them to the most connected person that they should have met that either everyone assumed they knew, or it's most relevant for them with no ask back, but for them to honor the chain of connections and let me know what's happened from that ideally substantive intro. 

 Josh
 Yeah. As a connector, right, connectors are our connectors, right? Like we start having a conversation and even before we hit record, and even in our past conversations where like, oh, I know someone you should meet and we're constantly going, oh, you should meet this friend or do this, or right. That's a natural thing for people like you and I, how in the world did you turn this into a business and where are the shortfalls for those listening who are natural connectors, natural networkers, where does the business model fall apart or they're missing opportunity? What are your thoughts? 

 David
 Sure. Let me address that last one first, because this is the thing that I'm really star wars, adamant that connectors understand about our relationship power for our ability to create relationship trust, no one values this the same way. We look at two of the most precious commodities in our lives, time and money. I'd be hard pressed Josh. You tell me if you don't think this is true to think of a single thing you have in life, that wasn't a relationship built by time and money one or both as a combination. If it is true or you could surmise for the sake of this argument, that it's true, that relationships are paramount and sit above those two, then why do we not value the people who have built those relationships with the same type of commodity as we do with somebody who has something else to offer? 

 David
 Yeah. The problem, right, and this is the problem connectors want to connect because we love to connect the endorphins rise. It thrills us to make an intro and see something subject substantive from it. We do not stop with a certain number of intros, which for me is three without seeing if the people we're connecting to will actually respect us back in terms of what happens from those introductions. Often we don't ask for that response. Therefore it is our responsibility to make sure that when we make intros, we require a responsiveness for that person to stay in our network and to keep engaging with them. 

 Josh
 Wow. This is something that I am guilty of, right? I've put together groups that have wound up building multimillion dollar businesses and invested in each other and done deals together. I've put together groups and I've established leadership teams brought on board of directors and advisors, right? I have built strategic and massive teams and investors and partners and I put it together and then there it, and then I've gotten little feedback and up until now, I haven't learned how to be rewarded for the effort and work that I've put in because of the superpower of being able to be a connector. Right? So. 

 David
 It's, this is the exact. 

 Josh
 Nerve. Righty. You're hitting a strong nerve. 

 David
 So listen, right. When you are sitting there making these connections, you're thinking about all the possibilities of how one, two or groups of people will interact and what will happen. What you were not saying is I can't wait to be along for the ride with you. You're not saying I want you to honor specifically that term, but chain of the connections I've made. The connections I make for you or the connections they make, just keep me in the loop. When you ask for relevance, what happens is people's reputational value becomes at risk if they don't honor that because if you were vouching for these people and their integrity and what they're doing, then that needs to be reciprocal by them. Literally just coming back to you to say, thank you. That power of gratitude can be it. Unless you ask for it, shame on you, shame on me for not having done it. 

 Josh
 That is that's awesome right there. Right? I'm taking notes and I would consider myself a pro at this. That's something that I'm not doing well. I appreciate you sharing that with me. 

 David
 Here's the hard part you want to know when you realize you should've done it better at that moment in your life for all that you have given, when you need something to come back to you and everyone you would thought, and you built that karma with doesn't return the call or doesn't help because everyone experiences that whether it's a friend who got long COVID and needed to have a business partner take up something and the person wasn't there, people going through divorce, who's just had a nailing parent people whose kids get sick. Suddenly they realize their relevance is all they, when people are asking something of them. Yeah. What the relevance for a connector needs to be. Somebody who understands that I, for instance, maintain an, a high network of integrity to thousands of people. The joke is I know no one, but the people I know the world. 

 David
 I'll give you a quick anecdote just to color this. Right? One of my events that was in New York a few years ago, one of my friends he's an incredible guy. I won't name him because he listens to everything I do. He says to me, what do you mean? You run the network of networks. You're the connector of connectors. I go, well, one, I didn't call myself that you did. You can't say I'm pretentious for calling myself a connector of connectors. I just lived to make relational valued, but I say, all right, listen. I said to him, live in this event, tell me three people you want to see if my network has access to a mobile live test is in the room. He goes, okay, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and sir Paul McCartney. I go, all right, show of hands, who here has access to the Dalai Lama. 

 David
 And six people raise their hands. My buddy, Daniel goes, I got everyone beat. Look on my Instagram. It's him and his holiness india the week before, do big empathy, work with kids in poverty. I was like, that's pretty cool. Everyone like wants to figure out about this guy. Who's a south Florida guy. I'm like Gus north central guys. And the next one is the Pope. My friend goes, well, my business partner runs the Vatican smart cities program. Everyone goes, okay, that's relevant. And then there's quiet thinking. Maybe no one in this room has access to Paul. A friend raises their hand and she goes, do the Pope? The Dalai Lama, like they're relevant, but everyone wants the Beatles. I go, well, how do you have access? She goes, well, I'll be out at Jimmy and Jane's house on shelter island to jam with them, him this weekend. 

 David
 I'm thinking, okay, like, parrothead she goes, yeah, they're my friends. The three people who mentioned these connections are the most unassuming people you would meet. They're not the alpha male walk into a room with a, or with a yellow sweater around. They're not the PowerBroker, they're not the person with the last name. Everyone would recognize. If you're telling me that the relevance of that, of the Pope, the Dalai Lama, and sir Paul McCartney, is that valuable. The idea, and this is the other part of the challenge to going back to your question, you can't advertise that you can't walk around going. I have access to somebody because it cheapens the value of that relationship. Therefore, we have to lean in as connectors, and this is the solution to talk about what ignites our passion and that impact and how that impact can be amplified. When we approach it that way, even if it's about making money or it's about charity or impact or something, as simple as, needing connections to learn how to help potty train a dog during COVID, which was an ask made of me. 

 David
 I successfully brokered. The idea is that if we lean into that, what happens from it is profound because we'll be triggering people as the relationship. They did not know. They had often not as natural connectors like us. This is where I believe the more that we take that relationship value, where they get what we lead with empathy, with passion and purpose, the world changes because the number one thing we pride ourselves on that keeps us sane. That helps us fight loneliness that helps us motivate and change our lives are the people around us. That for me is the most valuable commodity on the planet. 

 Josh
 So in a business, right? If you put together people you've helped broker relationships, you've exchanged, you've vouched for people, right? You've helped people speed up the process of time and money to get to relationships. You've transferred trust, right? Like these are the things that you've helped do. How have you turned that into a business? Like how do you survive? How do you keep your lights on? How do you build a future for yourself and your family? Would that skillset? 

 David
 Sure. I appreciate that question. Because figuring out this model took me several years, several failures and working for an incredible family office, where I was required to measure the effectiveness of what I did as a connector, along with building a company. The answer is this, you cannot monetize an individual connection, making one relationship to another or saying you have access to somebody, will you pay me for it? Doesn't work. If you think about the power of the connections you have just in the world of deals and deal, make what you've built is an ecosystem. Am I right? 

 Josh
 You got it. 

 David
 If you built an ecosystem of everything you just said back to me of trust and value, then isn't there something to say that your ability to build that ecosystem for somebody else is not inherently one of the most valuable businesses you could give them. That's part one of my theory for this, which is now my practice and my business called orchestrated opportunities. Number two, and this is the mistake many connectors make or are forced to make, which is this idea that, of course, let me just give you access to every wealthy, influential, prominent person I know. If they like you and what you do, and they invest in you, then you'll cut me in one there's regulatory issues with a lot of that too. In what world would you hand somebody, all of the cards in your deck and then say, let's play cards. If relationship value is valuable, then somebody would be hiring you for your ability to build relationships and the relationships you have, you can build inter secting your ecosystem with theirs. 

 David
 I figured out the one thing, again, related to relationships and reputational value that people won't mess with, which is somebody could say, Hey, I know, Josh, you're on his podcast. He has a couple of deals I want to get into. Can you connect me? And I go, okay. If you're paying me to do it, where does Jordan fit in to that scenario with his law firm, with his national practice? Because you cannot, you can ask of my time and I can give it, but you cannot ask me to ask of another connectors time without either putting the honor retainer and or equity into what you're doing. Because if you have enough means to scale what you were doing, then you should give me the ability to either invest in my connectors, to support what you're doing as well, or compensate me for my time to do favors back to Jordan for what access to you has given me. 

 David
 When you put that just in simple forms, it's if somebody doesn't want to pay for your time, they certainly aren't going to cheapen your relationship with somebody else. That is the business model that I've adopted because everyone that I work with asks of me, one of two things my time or my time, because they often don't need or want the money that I'm getting paid on retainer to build ecosystems, especially in the world of impact with family offices and B Corp's what they want is my time to focus on an ask for them into my network or into my larger network. That's relevant that they can't deliver on their own. And that is the value. That's the business proposition that keeps relationship value intact when transaction occurs. 

 Josh
 Super cool, man. People hit me up, when you start building a podcast show or a following, and then what people are able to do with LinkedIn, for example, they could go to my LinkedIn and they could see, oh, wow, Josh's connected with fill in the blank. Right? I get messages that go, Hey, will you introduce me to so-and-so right. Big name person or something like that. What they're doing is they're asking for a transfer of trust, right. Is what you're saying. And, and that is, that puts me as the connector in a challenging position to defend my reputation, my trust. I might not even know the person on LinkedIn. You have said, I have built this practice over years of trials and testing. That was a part of my job at the family office is to prove relational value. Right? You started building out this ecosystem and this product, this service that you offered to people, what were some of the mistakes that you've made early on? 

 Josh
 Because you said you failed your way to where you guys are now towards impact toward building some cool stuff. What were some of the mistakes you made as a connector along the way? This is fascinating. I appreciate you doing this by the way. 

 David
 Yeah, my pleasure. Right. You obviously get this, so it's great to talk to a, in this way. Yeah. I just do want to mention for those listening, right. I made that north central Florida reference. Right. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I might've seen you wrestle alligators as a child though. Right? Gainesville, Florida. Right. Things that in my world of growing up in north central Florida, Ocala was too far. Now I'm thinking it's only gonna take me 30 minutes to get my kids later. Like the world expands from small town, Florida. Yeah. So, all right. So, so here's the answer, right? The primary mistake I made is the mistake most people make with me, which is I assumed everyone in my network. I trusted maybe each other or knew my trust of me to them to be each other. That is why it built a purpose driven community that has no membership or sponsorship because mistake number one was spending a decade of my life thinking people who were seemingly relevant to each other have a strength of the connection I had with them. 

 David
 Second part of that was I was too scared to be an entrepreneur and build this from what I've built myself until necessity forced it upon me. Number one, fear of entrepreneur. Again, my fear of being mortgaged and two small children living in New York for anyone who lives here knows here, it's an expensive city before inflation hit the world. Right now, things are catching up to New York prices. My milk doesn't coppice cost that much more. It already was expensive. The idea that I wasn't ready led me to do something that put my rule system in place. It was a benefit in disguise, which was, I will help all of my connectors as much as they asked. However, that community is now 900 of people like you. Think about how many, how much time you have for those people asking you for introductions. Yeah. This is why I put a system in place. 

 David
 Right? Number one thing. The problem I have said to solve before it's called honoring the chain of connections. You can see the article on my website, orchestrated connecting.com. We can send it out, whatever follow up there is, the idea is leaning with gratitude. It solves the idea of you not wanting to have the ego to take credit for something that you made through an intro. The power of gratitude gets you access to everyone. Substantive who has been on that path because everyone will stop to hear thank you without a follow-up ask. You honor the chain, you solve part of this problem. The other part, and this is where I led. By example, I stopped giving after a few intros and less people prove that they were ready to give to others. And that's where the community became strong. Because I don't think if I don't, I hope you can help me at some point in my career, Josh, I don't care if you do, cause you might help other people in my network. 

 David
 As long as I leave with that attitude, which is what I began with, it creates an intentional community where everyone leans in to act because connectors by nature are very uncomfortable when they're being given to more than they are giving. 

 Josh
 Yeah. 

 David
 That is the psychology, which I'm writing a book now about. That helps me understand how different connectors work and why to change this world of connectivity. We have to change how connectors ask and where we draw the line, 

 Josh
 How we draw the line, that's a boundary. How do we say no? Right? How do we protect the thing? So I'm 40 now, dude. I used to wrestle alligators at silver Springs park. Maybe one day we were in the same park together. 

 David
 I'm 43. So it's very likely, 

 Josh
 Super cool. In this, my probably number one, business skill, life skills, being able to build relationships, build trust with people, right? Because I'm an open book, open kimono, cold, wet day. That's how I structure my life. I had to learn this, but I built some solid relationships. People come to me. The one thing that they want is a business outcome. They see people as the tool to get there. Right? 

 David
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 How do you protect? Right. Someone comes to you and they're like, Hey dude, could you introduce me to Josh? I know Joe, I want to be on his podcast show and it looks like he's involved in some deals and we're looking for money. Hey dude, please do an intro to Josh real quick. How do you, how do you protect that? How do you turn it around to a value proposal? 

 David
 The answer is, if you want to say, no, you'd just say no, right. People are afraid to do it, but you say, no. Sometimes you say no to people enough. They come back and they ask you the right way for the yes. Second part of that is you can teach people how to ask you. I literally say to people make an ask of me, but talk about the impact of what you want to do. Talk about how your vision is going to be amplified. Tell me the type of connections you need for this. I call this the impact. Ask when people read that or they make that ask of me even cold outreach on LinkedIn. If they've actually taken the time to be relevant and read what I write, then what they've done is they've given me the triggers for just see if an intro I could make to be a mutual value, not of transactional value or pass through value, which is what they're asked. 

 David
 If somebody's asking for my access to you, right? Let's say my network, here's this podcast, right? Cause obviously I promise to promote this to not just depend on your network for it. Everyone listening goes, man, I want to get my deals on Josh's thing. My question, before they, I make the intro to you is how are you going to be with Josh on this? Do you plan to make him an advisor to give him equity? Do you have ability to bring him on as a consultant to find deals in your ecosystem? Given his purview, I asked for the connector in my network to be relevant for when I make the intro. If I'm satisfied with the response, I make it. If people give me a satisfactory, I'm not sure. Could you tell me what a standard I make the intro? If somebody is like, listen, I know Josh has access to mark Cuban. 

 David
 Like I got something for mark. I'm thinking you don't want to talk to mark. Sorry. You don't want to talk to Josh. You want to talk to mark? One, you just failed because you just said you wanted to go through Josh. Two, I have six access points to mark Cuban. I don't know him, but I have friends who played on the spurs. I have friends who built businesses with him. I have friends who work in shark tank of things. You just missed the mark by wanting to get through me to Josh, to get to somebody you're not talking about the value we have. I filter those people out because they're not givers. They're takers, 

 Josh
 Givers and takers. This is something that 40 freaking years old learning how to do this because you build a show, you build of a following. You build a, kick ass Rolodex that people can view into and people ask all the time. The number one message I get on LinkedIn is, well, two is like congrats on the new business or the new job or whatever. I've, I've had some adventures there. That's on another podcast. We could share that story. Two is, Hey, I'm looking for money. I'm looking for a connection to an investor or something like that. 

 David
 Yeah. 

 Josh
 Teach me and other networkers like how to say no, like I, that is the simplest probably thing that I should know as a networker connector and a relationship builder. Because the downside of being a connector, networker relationship person, people pleaser. Right? Sure. 

 David
 Given you have successful podcasts successful for you already, what somebody's asking to get through you is an opportunity. Tell them everything you're doing in a nice way. Let's say that ask is made of me, right? Number one, asking me lately. I want to get something to Ray Daleo. Cause I worked with Ray's family, right? It's on my resume son and daughter law. My friend's like, okay, one, if you've ever read Ray's book, you have to triangulate. I'm not one of the people who would triangulate. Well, tell me if Paul Tudor Jones is involved with something, then maybe you can start to get access, but it's not even about getting access because they know what they need and they lead it. It's an exceptionally smart, driven family. That's fine. Somebody makes an ass like that, I say, listen, like, I really appreciate your reaching out right now. 

 David
 I'm focused on mental health and teen girls with the project I'm working on with a family office out of California, a circular economy, advisory board position. They just closed a $45.4 million fund that I'm helping some of their portfolio companies as an advisor. I am really focused more and more in helping black and brown founders, especially with mental health and how they make connections through our friends fund to funds. If any of those things seem relevant, I'd love your help. How did that no sound, 

 Josh
 The judo approach of just going actually I need your help. Here's what I'm looking at. Yeah. 

 David
 Or just, or just what you're busy with. Right? Like I come from the world of being a trained classical musician. That's why I call my business orchestrated connecting you learn in composition that the easiest thing to distinguish in the ear, which is called a fifth, right? Like a C to a G is a missed opportunity to vary it, to give more nuance to what happens. I apply that type of understanding of composition to connecting or responses, right? There's no, but in the world of improv comedy it's yes. I just took that to be no, and now somebody wants something through me. I say, Hey, my business is working. I'm very busy. Here's what I'm doing. Here's where I'm leaning in. Here's what happens 80% of the time when somebody made what would be an inferior ask, not a bad one. Right? They might have a really good reason. 

 David
 They might come back and go, oh my God, I checked out that circular economy group called regeneration. You're an advisor to, did you read Andy Dunn's book about being bipolar and running Bonobos? I go, yeah, it was that as book watch, they're like, oh my dad's bipolar. I want to buy it. Actually I love to connect to Andy about this. And I go, why? The person who seemingly was irrelevant, who seemingly was a bad connection, goes, oh, well, my family owns this company. We have mental health. The family were thinking about coming out and saying we're leaders who have mental health. So there's always an opportunity from those. It's never just about the, no, it's about the connection. If you can manage that, right, you can filter out quickly where it's an irrelevant connection where it's somebody not just to keep quoting it, got them grant, but where it's somebody that is literally looking through you, not with you. 

 David
 If you're a true connector, you can turn those connections that were seemingly faulty into your ecosystem. 

 Josh
 Wow. I I'm thrilled that we're having this conversation cause I'm learning, taking a crap ton of notes over here. As any specialty, as any superpower in life, it has to be honed. It has to be developed. I woke up and I know, the, I read a book called how to be a super connector, Judy Robinett and then have you read that one or met with Judy? 

 David
 I've read if I just moved to my bookshelf with behind me, every one of those books, including hers would be there. Yeah. I've read all of these books. I think there's great tidbits and all of them, in some cases like her book, like I took it to heart and I joined a board. I joined several boards. One of them was a group called the Arthur Miller foundation. Given my, like the reason I grew up in sunny Florida was my dad's a Shakespearian scholar teaching at the university of Florida. That's why I'm a Florida boy from a Harvard trained professor. I learned that, I loved theater. I joined this board. It got me to the point where I launched my company. Because from joining that board, I met the family office I worked for several years and that friendship and being in that world of family offices gave me street prep to run an impact focus business afterwards. 

 Josh
 Yeah. Super cool. The, so she was the first person who showed me that there's a business of the world of connecting. What you're showing is like how to hone it, how to build a system, how to build a process, how to build a machine around it, because this is what you have done. Do you have, so your community, your network of networkers, your connector of connectors, I've got a lot to learn. This stuff that you teach externally of people, how to harness it and help mold and shape and mentor other connectors and networkers. 

 David
 The answer is, if you are a connector and you would be described as an high integrity, human being, the specific languages action oriented, natural giver, or somebody else would leave my kids with, I give my time to those connectors in my business. I teach people how to do this. At some point, especially after I finished my book, the goal was this year, maybe I'll do a speaking tour about it, but the most salient points of this are all on my website. How to gain the influence, how to honor the chain. What the ask is. I make things simple. I make them focus because all I've done is taken a very complex situations and put it into a circumstance. Anyone can understand, because if you create something that is translatable, people can get the larger image from it. This is a lot of where the positive psychology and the other work that comes in, there's a deep, psychological focus, but I don't lean lead with that. 

 David
 It's under the surface. But the biggest challenge, right? Since we're talking about, this being a deal show, right? Like what's the deal like this guy talks about connecting. Maybe he has means I don't write. I just moved. I lived decently, but like, I don't have millions in the bank because my value is relationship value. And that is not yet valued. Let me tell you the single other failure of connectivity, and this is the strangest one, every VC in my network with hundreds of deals, none of them, but I've met has a connector CRM. They like, there are things that work, but the most sophisticated ones use a Google spreadsheet, a personal assistant and their mind because nothing exists to catalog, not just the connectivity we have, but the strength of those connections. Several years ago, right before COVID I was about to build a startup now named the conspiracy, which I plan to build this summer as the, start off with some seed funding to solve this one specific problem, which is that connectors do not have a toolkit to measure and track the strength of our connections. 

 David
 If were to do that in the right way, Josh, the problem that you have and others have as a connector would be solved because you could demonstrate the potential value of your network to those seeking, to work through you and transform their idea of working through you, to working with you without you having to advertise who's in your Rolodex and give away all your trade secrets. 

 Josh
 Yeah. What they're asking is they're asking to work through me, not with me, to me right off the bat, that just shows how they're going to treat the potential connection. Right. And did they value that? Me protecting the connection is helping them revisit the value of a relationship. See it differently. You've done your you're like a judo guy, right? Like you're taking that and you're turning them. You're teaching along the method in the world of connecting and I've made this mistake once, right? Someone, I was working in a startup community, built some entrepreneur centers and someone came to me and they said, Hey, will you introduce me to venture capitalist? So-and-so I made the connection. Right? Cause he was a friend of mine, the VC. I get a phone call. I'm like, oh wow. The VC is calling me. Like, it was like pretty rapid. 

 Josh
 He goes, what the heck are you doing? I said, they're building a startup, they're looking for some support and advice. I made the connection. He goes, did you do any research on this guy or person that I introduced? I was like, not at all. I say, I made an introduction. I met them at the event and he goes, I did a, just a basic Google search. I found all these frauds and scams and all this stuff. He goes, you're welcome them. You know? Like we've built trust with you and you welcomed them into our house. I was like, oh s**t. Like I dropped the ball because I had a super high trusted relationship, high net worth individual and super successful group. I dropped the ball there. I don't do that anymore. Now I dig in before I do that. That was one of the biggest mistakes as you were building this, what was one of the biggest mistakes you made? 

 Josh
 At what point was it like an aha. I have a business here. This is valuable. I could build a community. We could create impact. 

 David
 Sure. So I'll tell you this. I didn't make this mistake because I've been making it previously to launching this community. 

 David
 Yeah. 

 David
 So here's how it simply works. Right? We mentioned our mutual friend, Jordan. He introduced me to you and you were not a high integrity connector. I would remove him from my community because that's the threat. I believe all communities need risk. It's one of the two risks to my community. Besides honoring the chain. I only want extremely vetted high integrity people. I don't have the time to monitor it. I don't have the time to do background checks. Jordan is saying he would leave my children with you. How many people could he ever possibly make interest to like that from his network to mine, which means I get a filtered approach of two to five people on average per connector. I might get those two to five from you. It's not the same as the relevance of your network, which is much larger. It's that in this community I wanted only those people. 

 David
 I thought there'd be 40. I thought there'd be a hundred. I thought when COVID hit by hitting my group of 500 by shrink and I'm at 900, because there's a filtering process that if you set this upright, I've not had a single bad connector intro in five and a half years. 

 David
 Yeah. 

 David
 In the terms of the VC group, right? Let me put it this way. If you met somebody at a conference and you can't figure out, if somebody, is in their deal, you got to take the time to get out. If you figure out that this VC friend is in several deals, you can pretty much vouch already based on who they are and their diligence, that if you were to send them to a VC friend of mine asking for it, we broke it a powerful introduction because of our vetting system, for how these people, that the people they associate or invest with. 

 David
 Yeah. 

 David
 That is how the relationships are built amongst these super nodes. This is why I only trade quote connections at that level because not only is there no time, but I've made it not relevant to what my ask is in the network, which is, I only want the highest echelon of connected. 

 David
 Yeah. 

 David
 Either everyone succeeds in that, or I'm a failure because I have not figured out the filtering process, the associate process to make sure that when I'm connecting with somebody with you, that this person is absolutely relevant for your time and theirs or my group, my code isn't as good as what I say this. 

 Josh
 Yeah. And this is a learned thing, right? You've learned along the way of how to do this. You built systems to protect and you built processes and you've, you've found a problem and you're fixing the problem by putting a machine in place a system. And it have machine. This is interesting. 

 David
 Yeah. It is a machine, right? It's the machine that is run by the mind, the brain, which is a machine in many ways and run by the fact that there's not necessarily one universality in the connectivity and how people work. Therefore you have to go book the psychology of it into a very practical process. 

 Josh
 Yeah, totally, totally. You're writing a book, give us a glimpse of some of the golden nuggets. We might be able to pull out like, give it, give me an idea when I, 

 David
 Let me give you the Cardner rule, right? I referred to this before honoring the chain of connections, but let me give you more of the psychology of it. This is literally chapter one. Let's say that an individual has made a series of introductions and gone down the route road of intro to intro, to suddenly have success. They've just launched a climate fund and they're sitting on $50 million to help the environment. A lot of people, even though they have success, don't necessarily want to say, look what I did. I raised money. I'm successful. Look at me. A lot of people that want to have impact in particular are humble. This way, the people that are saying, look at any of the ones who were insecure. How do you take somebody who even if they're successful, still wants to be humble and give them the tools by which they can take credit for it. 

 David
 Given that every person raising a fund is looking for introductions and introductions. That's how you raise a fund. Kenny, introduce me. Do like it's only relationship, that's it? There's the value it's people looking at the right time with people looking to find. In this case, there's two ways to do the same thing. First off is you honor the chain by thanking everybody who led you to that successful fund. Not just individually, but collectively thank you. Dan Natasha, Jamie andrew for bringing the so-and-so to help fund by fund my circular economy fund or whatever it might be gratitude. Right? Did anything strike you as wrong with me saying thank you to these fictional people in this case? Nope. What if two of those people were billionaires? One was the daughter of bill gates. One was, agent to a celebrity, right? You're just said, not egotistically. Look at all these people. 

 David
 I know, look at what just happened for me. Thank you all. What you actually did was lead with gratitude and build community as the practice. So honoring the chain, that seems simple. Thank the chain down the line. At least five deep for a substantial inter that's hap I thanking it. You say what success you've had by exploring that gratitude in a community, setting a group, thank you. A LinkedIn announcement, whatever it might be an event you're now weaving those people together, which means you're now showing that the each had relevance to each other, but connection to and connection to five don't know each other. Guess what I have found a catalyst of those introductions is the connector and the other two to four people along the way, mostly also are connectors or have relationship value. When they know each other sharing in your success, they now have built trust between or amongst each other. 

 David
 A simple rule becomes a psychological approach of gratitude and community that lets you be egotistical and ego less at the exact same time. And it solves the one problem. All of us have, which is, let's say you were that catalyst for me. If I was the one raising the spun, Josh, by embracing this rule, I did the thing you forgot to do four years ago when he made that intro for me, I recognize the connector as the catalyst. I said, if it wasn't for Josh making the first intro for me, I wouldn't be where I am now. If that practice was adopted and we traced it back, you will see in every circumstance, every merger and acquisition on this planet comes from a phone call if somebody to somebody else. 

 Josh
 Totally. 

 David
 So that's chapter one. It's honor because the opposite of honor is dishonor. There's no, in-between, there's a code for it. That is that's the biggest insight I've ever given. Right? It might be the only insight that I actually will say I smartly gave to this world because what it does is it solves every problem, connectivity in one practice. 

 Josh
 When is this book coming out? 

 David
 I'm on chapter three, I'm going to work on it the summer into fall. I'm launching a startup at the same time because I realized there were two problems in my community. One of which was I can't scale it until I have the tech needed to enable this at a larger value proposition. To the biggest reason I built this community, Josh was that I was missing out on opportunities until I connected the connectors to each other. I'm missing out on those daily simply for lack of capacity to connect people to each other. The goal is launch a startup, write a book, still have time to exercise, sleep and be a great dad. With this build the tool, two parts of the toolkit, the larger understanding of the psychology from the book, but really the connector tech I'm desperately waiting for somebody to say they built what's needed. 

 David
 When your network have launched fortune 500 tech companies and invested in all of this and they go, Hey, how do you keep track of everybody? I wish I could say something exists, but nothing exists. That helps the connectors at the start there's intro software, there's relationship management. There's a lot of these different components, but those are secondary to what you and I need right now, which is I were to say to you, Hey, Josh, a close friend is involved in health and wellness and media. Do any venture capitalists for family offices and involved in basically Netflix mix Teladoc? Where's your database to look that up, right? That's a live ask. I am making now for my friend. Pedrum for his incredible company called B possible.com. I'm an impact strategists for him. My focus is on helping him grow. I literally have to go into a Google spreadsheet onto LinkedIn into a conference ago. 

 David
 Hey, there's this amazing thing focused on women's health. Do any women investors that also like the idea of media? Everyone thinks they don't type into a database. They don't call their assistant. They go, my friend, Laura is a woman investor. She has been focused on hormonal health. She owns two different women's health companies. Maybe she'd be relevant. What I want to do is I want to not automate that process. I want to take that process and do two things with it. First off when you're having a hard day or an exhaustive day, like I am, but probably you more than me, cause that's much hotter in Florida than it is in New York today. Right? You're out in that humid weather and mosquitoes are biting you and you're going, wait, David needed a woman helped them. Oh, that VC I mentioned before has a women's health vertical. 

 David
 You got to go on their website. You got to look all that is data that exists. I want to shortchange that for connectors so we can be more effective. The other part of it, because I'm always after solving everyone's problems, not just my own is I want that to be of demonstrable value. If my client comes to me and says, Hey, I need another connector to Hollywood. This and this system, this I'm going to build can say, Josh Wilson has 32 potential connectors or connections to women, investors in health. It doesn't tell me who, but it says, Josh, maybe you should have a deeper connection with this founder, a deeper talk. If you have 32 off the top of the databases, head, I think you could add great relational value. Let's hire you for that. 

 Josh
 This is cool, man. And, and I may know a few people during this interview. I, I love where there's going, but let me give you an opportunity to, give people a chance how to connect with you, right? So someone goes, Hey man, that's me. I'm a connector. I need to learn how to do this better. Or we see the value of a connector and we need help. We want to ask the right way. Let me bypass me for a second. What's a good way for people to go connect with you, learn more and maybe get some help with you and with you. Did I say that right with you, right? Yeah. Not through you, but. 

 David
 Exactly. It's different terminology that matters. The easiest thing is I make myself able to be found. Myself, David Homan, LinkedIn orchestrated connecting or considered opportunities. If you Google me in New York, like my cell phone pops up, I make this accessible. I respond to everyone, but I will tell anyone, listening, come with an impact, ask, read the article on my site or listen to the, 40 minutes, go on this podcast. Don't just go, Hey, I, can you teach me how to connect? Because I don't teach people how to connect. I help connectors hone the skills you've all had for years. I built a community that's so far has no competition because we are each dominant in our own community. And there was no community for us. It'd be cool. If there was competition, maybe I could not have to get my group from 900 to 3000 before I build this deck. 

 David
 I'm going to connect with everyone who has integrity that I can help. That's how I lean in. I give first, I don't ask. People want to work with me. I need to know what you stand for, what your values are. If somebody wants to connect to make money, you obviously didn't read anything. I wrote. Do you want to connect to help people like that's my sweet spot. The world is full of deals to make people money. There's no reason why you can't help people at the same time, not after. So I leave with it. You can literally read articles about this on me by Googling my name. You can also find out a lot about my classical music, which is where orchestrated connected comes from. My music is intensely private, personal, and often helps people fall asleep when they're stressed or have insomnia. I proudly say my music will you feel better? 

 David
 This idea of finding the right melody or the right connection is what I stand for. If somebody thinks that there's relevance, then that outreach already wins me over. Cause I mean, they made it 45 and a half or so minutes to the show. It also means that they take your value, Josh, and your word of who you choose to interview and why as a value that they cherish, which means the first thing I'm going to ask them to do when they connect with me is make sure they know it happened through you and affect you for it. Or I won't talk to them. 

 Josh
 Super cool. In terms of music, what instruments do you enjoy playing? 

 David
 I enjoy playing piano because it's the only thing I can play. I'm trained to write our Kestrel music. I've done a hybrid rock album, but I play piano. My kids want me to play Disney songs and frozen and greatest showman. Now they want me to play Hamilton. Hamilton on piano, not only am I not cool enough to do it doesn't work. Every time I tried to go to classical, 

 Josh
 That's super cool. If you could play with any musician alive or dead, right? Like you'd given an opportunity to play side-by-side with any musician in history. Who would you choose and what song would you play with them? 

 David
 I would specifically do a series of improvisations with chick Korea, one of the best jazz pianists ever on the planet, who improvisations were part of the catalyst for my composing music. If I had ever been able to meet or work with him, he would be the one that served as the opening of my doors to how improvisation the communication could be instant. As much as I'd love to play with many others, he would be my favorite. 

 Josh
 That's pretty cool. During this interview, I probably should have asked certain questions that I completely screwed up and did not ask you. What, what's the question I should have asked you? 

 David
 I think the question that you should've asked me, isn't that question because conversations go the way that they go. If you have a prescription, even if you have a flow through your podcasts, then you might be limiting the opportunity for what should be learned or gleaned from it. Right? If things have a purpose and intention and you're open, then the only thing you can do is close yourself off to what that answer needs to be. I don't approach any conversation or any interview with something I have to say, cool. What I would say is what's most relevant, right? This conversation, if people are listening is if we are both power brokers of connections that I am offering in many cases, some of the holding of the solutions, then the question needs to be, how do we elevate this deal flow so that it's not just sponsorship driven and bringing a lot of, alligators in the backyard for you, so to speak. 

 David
 This idea that if you have access to vetted people, embedded deals and I have access to the same, we both sit with major relationships related to ultra high net worth venture capital and the rest. Why isn't the phone ringing? So to speak. I mean, I turned my off, so we didn't interrupt this podcast, but why isn't the phone ringing and people going, I get this, not only am I a connector, but I'm going to invest in the connectors, the chief relationship officer substantially for what I need, because that's the question people should be asking. Because when I asked back to them is tell me a single thing you invested in the last three months or five years that wasn't introduced to you by somebody else that stair you give me is what everyone gives me back, which is I can't think of a single thing in my life that didn't come from a relationship. 

 David
 The question is when, where relationship value be valued above time and money for people to invest the money in our time to build it. I believe I can solve some of this through the connector tech I'm going to build. I believe that I'm solving some of this by giving connectors like you and others, a peace of mind that you can say no. Here's how, and here's how to be relevant and to create honor and what we do. In the end, if every single person with means is chasing a deal for themselves or others raising a fund and they sit on relationships, what's the point where they're going to see their value is more than the money they have or the title they have, but their value people ask of them as the same as us. It's about time that rise of the rest, right, is the rise of connectors to have the reputational value, be what people seek. 

 David
 That's the question I ask in every interview I make, that's the question you asked throughout this, but that's what I would say. It's really great to emphasize near the close of this. It's a question of when it's not a question of this, but the question of when will make an enormous amount of difference for many of us who will not stop giving, we will not stop connecting, but simply do not have the way to say, guess what? I have access to the NFL and how we live in the NBA and venture capitalists and family opposites and governments and states because the minute I say that, right, even in jest, like those are all true for my network. I become irrelevant in terms of my trust, because the trust I have, the trust you have is based on being able to smartly effectively and efficiently make those intros and the practice on the other side needs to be how to ask for that, how to understand it should be compensated and not once a relationship has been made and somebody invest money in somebody else. 

 David
 At that point, you should be washing your hands of the interaction, not be getting it. 

 Josh
 Super cool. One more time, a good place for people to make that first initial impact. Ask. 

 David
 Sure. Work frustrated. Connecting.com is my website. My articles are there. You can see me talk and play piano at the exact same time. I look a lot younger than I do now, but it was a good video and I haven't had the budget to redo it, but I'm easy to be found for a reason. I'm not easy to get into my calendar, not just because I'm busy, but because what I asked for is give me the relevance beyond. I might be a cool person to talk to. I don't need more friends in my, I need people of high integrity who get the idea that giving first matters and that's what I'm always looking for. 

 Josh
 Yeah, man. Awesome. David, thanks for being on the show. Fellow dealmakers in the community. I encourage you to go to the website and start learning, especially if you're a networker connector or someone who has the high need for developing relationships and building that ecosystem, go to David's website, start reading, start learning with me. I'm doing it too. As always, all their contact information will be in the show notes below. You can always connect directly to our guests. The call to action here is if you're working on a deal, looking for a deal or want to talk about it here on the show, head on over to the deal, scout.com, fill out a quick form and start out the conversation that way, David, I appreciate you fellow. Deal-makers love you. Hope you're having a great day. Talk to you all on the next episode.