A man, Robin Good, in outdoor gear holds a glowing orb, standing in front of a digital background filled with social media icons and messages. Large yellow text reads “SIGNAL OVER NOISE.”.

Podcast Episode

121| Content Curation: Why Most Creators Fail to Stand Out (with Robin Good)

By The Social Chameleon Show

June 18, 2026

Content Curation: Why Most Creators Fail to Stand Out with Robin Good

Mastering Digital Judgment and Building Authority Without Chasing Clicks

Welcome to the Social Chameleon Show, where we explore what it takes to learn, grow, and authentically transform in a digital world full of noise. Today’s guest is Robin Good, a 25-year veteran of online publishing whose career has moved from pirate radio DJ to UN advisor and elite digital curator. Robin doesn’t just talk about building trust and making smart choices online; he’s lived it, from designing his life around radical independence to literally locking his phone away to guard his focus.

In this conversation, Tyson dives deep with Robin on how to separate signal from noise, create resources people actually need, and rethink what it means to be “Legendary” both online and off. You’ll hear the stories behind Robin’s minimalist approach, how to start developing real judgment, and why knowing who you’re serving [plus why it matters] is the foundation of everything he does. From building trust that actually lasts to curating resources that make a difference, you’ll get practical ways to cultivate a mindset for meaning, not just metrics.

Get ready to challenge your assumptions, reframe your approach to persistent learning, and maybe even reconsider what you’ll do with your phone. Pull up a seat, you’re about to hear a conversation that cuts through surface-level advice and gets to the heart of Becoming Legendary on your own terms.

Enjoy the episode!

Key Themes

Lessons Learned

1. Sharpening Digital Focus

Place value on attention, not raw content volume. Use lifestyle discipline to protect deep focus and create meaningful work.

2. Signal Over Noise

Authority is about choosing wisely, not shouting. Show better judgment by curating, not just producing more information online.

3. Paradata Reveals Depth

Share your motives, process, and context-why you create, how, and what tools you use build real credibility.

4. Lifestyle Shapes Output

Choose projects and commitments that align with your chosen lifestyle. Question if each task fits your personal values.

5. Persistence Through Passion

When you’re truly interested, you’ll continue digging deep in any field, despite the inevitable hurdles and boredom.

6. Developing Expert Judgment

Expertise is built by real exposure: immerse yourself thoroughly, compare, and always ask why something stands out or doesn’t.

7. Curation Builds Trust

Building trust comes from sharing well-organized, useful resources-not endless opinions. Go beyond lists, add informed context.

8. Knowing Whom You Serve

Clarify exactly who your audience is. Tailor what you offer to genuinely help their specific needs and problems.

9. Hard Things Build Willpower

Tackling difficult routines develops resilience. Martial arts, exercise, or challenges sharpen discipline, benefitting life and business.

10. Sharing Your “Why”

Explain why something matters when you share it. One clear reason helps others trust your recommendations and insights.

Robin Good

Other Content and resources from Robin

Robin Good is the author of TRUST-able, a Substack publication for experts, consultants and independent professionals who want to build visibility, credibility and trust without relying on hype, self-promotion or growth tricks.

The discipline he teaches is curation and his key argument is: in a world flooded with AI-generated content, trust is built less by producing more and more by showing better judgment. The goal is to help people find what deserves attention, understand why it matters, and use it to make better decisions. When you do that, people can see how you choose to highlight, how you vet sources, the patterns you see, the criteria you apply. And that’s solid proof of competence.

Over the years, Robin has explored how independent experts can become trusted guides in their niche by sharing value, making their thinking visible, cultivating real relationships and creating useful knowledge resources.

In 2002, he launched MasterNewMedia, one of the most-read independent online magazines – at the time -for communication professionals, building a distributed multilingual editorial team and generating over $1 million through Google AdSense before pivoting to education. His follow-on project, POP Campus, taught independent publishing to Italian entrepreneurs for over a decade.

Today, he writes, researches and advises from Thailand, where he continues to explore how experts can build authority through clarity, usefulness, critical thinking and care, rather than by being louder.

At heart, Robin’s work is about helping people become more useful, more credible and more deeply aligned with what they truly care about.

LifeStyle

Lives since 2015 on islands around the world. Has abandoned city life, stressed people running all the time, asphalt, cars, cement everywhere.

He has lived on Terceira Island (Portugal) and Holbox Island (Mexico) and is now based in Koh Samui, Thailand. 

Speaks 5 languages: Italian, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Considers himself a world citizen. 

Doesn’t wear a watch, his smartphone is always on airplane + “silent mode” in a separate bag. He always has time for those needing attention.

Practices Muay Thai daily to keep the body and spirit strong, like the one of a warrior. Has been a trainer and president of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do academy for a few years in Rome, Italy.

Enjoys DJing in open spaces, deep, jazzy, soulful, and funky grooves.

 

Professional Focus 

Helping subject matter experts become credible, recognized trusted guides in their sector.

Consultant / Advisor to experts, consultants, professionals looking to build their visibility and credibility online without compromising their values and personality.

Weekly Challenge Trophy Weekly Challenge

Imagine you’re going to be stuck on a deserted island for the rest of your life, and you can only take three movies with you. The twist: these shouldn’t be obvious choices from popular top-100 lists (like The Godfather, Star Wars, or 2001: A Space Odyssey). Instead, pick films that are lesser-known or less celebrated, but meaningful to you. Here’s how to participate: The challenge is both for you and the whole community to discover hidden gems and share a bit of your perspective. Remember: your one-liner about each pick adds real value-don’t skip it!

My 3 Favorite Movies

The Pursuit of Happyness

This is just the epitome of perseverance, not giving up, doing whatever it takes. His wife leaves him, and it’s just him and his son. They’re homeless, living in the bathroom. He shows up to the job interview late, covered in paint; it doesn’t matter. He outworks everybody. It’s a beautiful story and an incredible lesson in life.

Seven Pounds

Small actions you don’t think really would ever matter or move the needle on anything in life can turn out to be the most impactful thing that’s ever happened to you.

The Devil Wears Prada

Show up, work hard, pursue your goals, dreams, and your endeavors with everything you have.

And even if you don’t succeed, the skills, the lessons, the resilience, and everything you’re going to gain are more valuable than anything else. This will set you up for success in every area of life.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Alan Watts

Timothy Leary

Carlos Castaneda / Teachings of Don Juan

More Interviews With Outstanding Guest’s

Episode Transcripts

Show notes and transcripts powered with the help of Castmagic. Episode Transcriptions Unedited, Auto-Generated.

Tyson Gaylord [00:00:02]:Welcome to the Social Chameleon show, where our mission is to help you learn, grow and transform on your path to becoming legendary. The digital world is drowning in noise. Algorithms scream for your attention, AI pumps out endless content, and most creators are trapped in a race to the bottom, chasing cheap clicks and temporary growth hacks. But true legends don’t shout louder than the crowd. They change the game. Joining us today is Robin Good, a legendary online pioneer who has spent 25 years mastering the art of digital signal over noise. From an underground pirate radio DJ to UN Advisor and an elite digital publisher, he has proven that true authority isn’t about producing more, it’s about showing better judgment. He’s a creator of.

Tyson Gaylord [00:00:45]:He’s a creator behind Trustable, a master of minimalist strategy, and a practitioner who literally locks his phone away to protect his focus. We get ready to learn how to weaponize creation, build bulletproof trust, and transform your mindset. Let’s welcome Robin Good to the show. Robin, welcome to the Social Chameleon Show.

Robin Good [00:01:05]:Thank you, Tyson. Glad to be here. So honored, actually, to be invited.

Tyson Gaylord [00:01:11]:Well, it’s my honor because I enjoy your thinking, I enjoy your writing, and that’s why I wanted to have you on, because I wanted to get your point of view on things. It’s funny, beforehand, I always send guests, like, a couple of things I want. It’s obvious most people don’t read it, and it’s also interesting what comes back. But for you, what was very interesting, you’re the only guest ever with your submission to me was you had a section about your lifestyle. I love that. How did that come about? How did you start thinking about that? How did you kind of crystallize that into something you wanted to write down and think about?

Robin Good [00:01:43]:It comes with this package called paradata. You know, we have been using metadata all the time for images for all kinds of digital objects. In recent months, as I was studying how to be more credible online, I ran into this concept called paradata, which is today. Since everybody can write anything and you can even tell if it’s been a human or not, what really gives it depth and thickness is if you share why you did it, what was your process, why this thing came about, for you to decide to sit down and write about it, what tools you use, how much time it took you, that is all of the context around it, which you normally don’t see about any content. So that’s the thing. As I was writing the bio for your interview, I said, what’s the paradata here that could be useful to him. And I said, maybe lifestyle, because I’m not just the professional side, My professional side do owes a lot to my personal lifestyle and vice versa. So I thought of putting that in and didn’t feel any shame.

Robin Good [00:03:13]:So I’m glad it came through as a positive thing.

Tyson Gaylord [00:03:17]:It was great because like you’re saying, right, that’s something you got to think about. You got to understand your why, why you’re doing it, why you live where you live. You know, you live in a tropical area, and like you said, you’re a citizen of the world. That’s tough to think about and, and sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s uncomfortable, but you took the time to think about it, and maybe that dictates the things you do, the projects you work on. You’re like, well, does this fit with my lifestyle? Does this fit the things I want to do? This is fit with the time I want to invest or the leisure time, the professional time?

Robin Good [00:03:44]:Yes, absolutely. You said it. I’m not going to add anything. That’s. That’s the way it is. Yes, it does help understand people better as people write so much today. But for very few, you can get to feel who they are, why they’re writing that stuff. Are they writing? And I mean, the impression is generally they’re writing because they’re making a business.

Robin Good [00:04:09]:They want to convince me they have some good ideas, they want to sell me something, and, and that feels good. I don’t know, for some people, feels very good because they want to imitate that. But if you’re looking beyond just, I’m going to use the Internet and AI to build a business so I can make money and do finally what I always wanted to do. It takes away from all those others that want to create, share, express, research, investigate, question things that go beyond making money. They prefer to think, and maybe they’re stupid in this sense, from a business standpoint, that that money is going to be a consequence of whatever thing of value they do with enough persistence, conviction, and determination. And I’m one of those stupid guys. So I think that these people like me to appreciate what they’re doing. You need to get to see a little more beyond the surface of that person.

Robin Good [00:05:23]:Like you, I mean, the most. The thing that I would want to know more is what does Tyson really do? Who is he? Where does he live? Why has he chosen to do a show called the Chameleon Show? Chameleon Show. I mean, I want to know the guy because then I can see in the Proper lighting scenes. Again, you’re not selling me something. You’re not shooting light stuff that wants to show good. You are. That other aspect really adds a lot. Yes.

Tyson Gaylord [00:05:55]:You know what? I’ll, I’m gonna do that. I’ll. I’ll do. I’ll do an episode, maybe even a. Write something up about. More about that. I think if you think that’s interesting, I’ll do that.

Robin Good [00:06:06]:Yeah. I’d be glad to interview if you ever don’t feel the courage. I’m a really good questioner. So. Yeah, investigate. Make hard questions for you to answer. That the most challenging thing to do it with oneself because we tend to show the good sides and we avoid the difficult questions. But yes, that, that would be useful.

Robin Good [00:06:27]:Please do that.

Tyson Gaylord [00:06:28]:Yeah, give me, give me a difficult question right now. I’ll answer it.

Robin Good [00:06:34]:What? There can be many, but if I had to take one. What is the thing that you value the most in your life that you. One thing only that you wouldn’t give up. So that includes wife, kids, cars, business house, or things that are not material.

Tyson Gaylord [00:07:00]:I mean, I feel like it’s gonna sound cliche, but like my family, my son, my wife, I would never give that up. I don’t know. I was. It’s funny you say that because I was watching Law and Order last night and. And the daughter, she was 18 year old high school student, getting ready to graduate. She murdered somebody. And the mom, she said, no, I did. And she, she took the prison sentence.

Tyson Gaylord [00:07:20]:I know this is a, you know, fictional thing, but I can, I was thinking about that. I was like, could my son do something. I don’t want to say innocent, but something so silly that would put him away in prison for 10, 15, 20 years? And I would take the rap for that. Like, I was like, you know, I mean, I could, I could imagine a scenario where I would take the. I would take the prison sentence for him because he was young, he’s young and he has a whole life ahead of him, you know, so that’s something I definitely would never give up. I. You know, we could be homeless, we could go live in the forest for all I care.

Robin Good [00:07:50]:Okay, but that’s. Yeah. Now my thinking was, I don’t want to eat my own words.

Tyson Gaylord [00:07:58]:No, it’s okay.

Robin Good [00:08:02]:Even a family, for how much each human should value that, can become a burden so big that one may consider without shame, with a clear heart, an honest one, to even abandon the family if that becomes a toxic component of your life. Because now in these times, you really do not have control of your kids after they are 13 or 14 years old. Not because it’s a modern age, because they have built their brains, they have built their character. So if you have contributed to build a good heart, a good warrior, they’ll take care of themselves. They’ll make mistakes, they’ll learn. But if they’re derailed, if they’ve been influenced by people or ambient, that is not good. You can scold them, you can talk to them nicely, but it’s very hard. So even a family, and that, happily, has not been my case to the extreme that I am describing now, can be.

Robin Good [00:09:17]:Can become a toxic thing because people are not you. I mean, you choose somebody, but then these other persons may become stressed or believing things that you don’t believe anymore. And they keep on choosing things in their life that you wouldn’t choose anymore. And they live in an ambient, in a city, inside cement and cars that you don’t share. But they want that. So I have personally given up my family, if you want to put it negatively, abandoned my family, though that’s not the proper term because I continuously give support to them in all the loving and economic ways possible. But they were. They had become somehow toxic to where I wanted to be.

Robin Good [00:10:05]:So these are hard questions because it was very hard to take that decision on. It wasn’t just, okay, guys, you’ve broken my boat. Go away. He took some real pondering for a few months.

Tyson Gaylord [00:10:20]:No, I hear that I have family I will never talk to again. I’ve told my son, you’ll never meet them because they’re toxic, evil people. And, you know, and that’s. I think that’s my job as the parent, to guide as best I can. And. And if, you know, things were to go off the rail or something, I would feel like that’s my responsibility. I was the father, I’m the parent. Any of my children did these things.

Tyson Gaylord [00:10:41]:That’s something I failed at, you know, but it’s also interesting to. To kind of watch and. And listen and say, okay, this is maybe not how I would think about things, but you’re a little different. Things are a little different. And I try to kind of, you know, say, okay, go try that. Let’s see what happens. I’m gonna. If I see you falling off the cliff a little too early, I’m gonna probably jump in and say something, but at the same time, I’ve got to let you kind of fall a little and let that happen.

Tyson Gaylord [00:11:06]:But I’ve also got to take responsibility for if you don’t know how to stand back up. That’s my fault for not teaching you how to stand up as best as I could have, you know, anticipate the future and whatnot. But my job, I think, is instilled the character, the discipline, the work ethic, the things. Try as best I can to not let you, you know, fall for these things in society. Or maybe I like or don’t like or whatever I want, you know, and that’s kind of the point of my show is I want you to everybody out there, I want you to think for yourself, whatever that be like you’re saying you. You thought about your lifestyle, why on all those things I saw, that’s all I ask for. People, just please spend a moment just thinking for yourself for a second. Because it’s.

Tyson Gaylord [00:11:44]:Most of us don’t take the opportunity and take the time to think for ourselves. You know, we’re trying to please a family member or we’re trying to do the things we think society is telling us to do and whatever. And we don’t ever. At least most people don’t ever spend the spend and take the time to say, what do I really want? Have I sat down and thought about how I want to live my life regardless of what I was told in school or by family? And a lot of times people that actually love you and want the best from you, but sometimes it’s because they fail. They, you know, or they never succeeded or their dreams never got fulfilled, so they’re trying to use you as that vehicle. So if you just take the time to sit down for a minute and you. And you say, you know, this is the life I want, and that’s cool, I don’t care what you do, but I want you to make sure you sat down and take the time. And I want my kids to think about that too.

Tyson Gaylord [00:12:24]:Same thing. Have you thought this through? Have you. Do you understand what’s going on? Do you just want to give it a whirl and see what happens? I don’t know, maybe that’s fine and you go fail. But having the fortitude to stand up, get back up, do it again, that’s all I ask.

Robin Good [00:12:39]:Sounds right.

Tyson Gaylord [00:12:42]:So you spoke earlier about, about creating, like, you know, why free lifestyle and different things. How do you start thinking about, you know, a why or creating that or developing that. How do you. Does that, if that makes any sense.

Robin Good [00:12:56]:No, I didn’t understand. I’m sorry.

Tyson Gaylord [00:12:59]:So when you were talking about how you’re creating your lifestyle and you thought about, you know, why you’re gonna do these things and kind of your why for life or your why for a career. Yeah. How do you. How does somebody think about, like, their why? Like, how do I. Or, you know, the listener out there. How do we come up with something? You know, is there a framework or maybe some kind of thing we can think through to start developing our own reason for doing things, our why, for choosing a lifestyle or choosing careers and stuff like that?

Robin Good [00:13:25]:I don’t think there is. I mean, who am I to say? But.

Tyson Gaylord [00:13:30]:Well, one of the things you’ve tried

Robin Good [00:13:31]:and found that worked, but I was never, after a while, I mean, it’s kind of embedded in me always to ask why. If somebody wants to make a character, a caricature of me and knows me well, you would make not just the sound of my voice, but it would say why and why? So I’m the guy. Because my father would always say, you know, I come back from school and I say, oh, you know that there is this and this. And he would say, who said that? I mean, you always would ask, I mean, is it really true or is this coming from. It’s just because somebody said it is in a book. Can we really get to the truth of that? So I always question, because in life we give so many things for granted to the point that now I, however. How do you say today is conspiracist? You want to classify me as a conspiracist? I truly think I have no shame in saying that most of the things that I see that I’ve learned and that most people know about are not the way they are. So I lost myself.

Robin Good [00:14:47]:Take me back to reality. The why comes with your life. Either you are somebody who asks it from time to time, time. And therefore you will build your why and it will change over time. And. Or you’re not. And so I don’t think we. I don’t think I can help those that don’t have a why and want to find one.

Robin Good [00:15:09]:How can I help somebody who doesn’t have a why and comes to me, how can I find my why? Well, deprive yourself of everything and then start like from zero in an imaginary dream. What are the things you want, you desire, need to be with? That’s the question asked you before. What. What is the thing that you would never give up? From those things you can see what are your whys, what. What you seek, what you crave, what you’re made for? I’m made for freedom, for independence of everything, thinking, moving, acting. I. I like to be a good soldier. But I need to be in a mission so that I can be independent.

Robin Good [00:15:59]:I need to be James Bond. So, yes, I have the generals to respond to in MI7, but I need to be very independent, very free to move, to explore, to ask questions. So you find your why by looking at what you wouldn’t give up. I would say I like that.

Tyson Gaylord [00:16:23]:Starting with what wouldn’t you give up in your life? I like that. That’s an interesting framework. How did you develop the sharp ability to recognize signal in noise?

Robin Good [00:16:38]:As we start to love things, whether we collect football players, cards, Pokemons, today’s stamps at my time, and then records at my time, as I was a professional DJ, however unbelievable it sounds at 13, paid to go and be a DJ at fantastic, beautiful private parties at that age. I used to go with the little big money for me at the time that I made to a record store. And then they would pile for me as they saw me, all these 45 RPMs, the singles of the time to listen to. This is the new stuff since you came last time. And so they put me in a glass cab like the ones of the quiz shows where people answer to questions. But in the cab there is speakers and the lady there at the counter puts on the records one after the other until I say, oh, next, next. So you listen, listen, listen. You look stamp stamps, you look cards, card cards.

Robin Good [00:17:55]:Whenever you do that type of work, whatever that is, in whichever field, you develop your taste, your ability to recognize what is good and what is not. So you, you love beers and you taste many, many, many beers, become connoisseurs of beers. So I think that’s the answer. That’s how I developed mine, by having passions in which you had to go through a lot of stuff to find the good stuff. And I found that exciting.

Tyson Gaylord [00:18:31]:Yeah, that’s interesting. You got to go deep, right into something to develop a taste versus staying shallow. Like, I feel like maybe this may be too much, but I feel like a lot of people stay shallow. It’s easy to stay shallow, but it’s hard to go deep into a subject or into a hobby or whatever it is like you’re saying, right?

Robin Good [00:18:47]:More like persistent in the discovery process. Because my mother liked to be a homegrown fashion designer. She had a little shop and do the little, you know, when the models go. But in my living room with 25 invited ladies that wanted to buy a nice dress. And so what she did was she would look this Vogue and all these fashion magazine and cut things and put Them aside. So would you say she went deep? She went for long time after something you paint or you doodle, you collect and put in order for a long time. I don’t think you would describe that as that depth. The depth comes with the time.

Robin Good [00:19:41]:The more time you spend, the greater depth you have. But you don’t really say, oh, he’s shallow. He’s shallow because he listened to two records and says, oh, this is shit. This is good. Doesn’t listen to 35. He doesn’t have the patience. He wants just an easy solution. He wants the McDonald’s thing.

Robin Good [00:20:01]:He doesn’t want the steak. He has to kill the cow and do the whole thing. No, that’s too complicated. But that’s how you develop the taste. If you kill the cow, you cut it and you know exactly what part of the meat. And so for the music and so for the painting and so for the dresses of the women, same thing.

Tyson Gaylord [00:20:20]:Is that. Are you giving up when things are hard because you haven’t found your thing yet? Is that why you kind of jump from thing to thing? Does that make sense?

Robin Good [00:20:34]:Yes, but I would like you to extend it. So when I’m.

Tyson Gaylord [00:20:39]:When I’m thinking about myself, I’m thinking about other people and they dabble here to dabble there. They constantly, you know, things get a little hard. Like, okay, I’m kind of done with that, or, oh, I’ve listened to a few records and I don’t get it. You know, you keep going from thing to thing and I, I’m thinking because you’re not like, oh, actually, you know, maybe let me listen to another 15 records and try this more. Maybe another 20. Because I’m not that interested in it. Maybe it’s popular. Maybe it’s something.

Tyson Gaylord [00:21:01]:So I’m not. I’m not going to spend that time. I’m not going to take the persistence to keep doing something because I’m not truly interested. And so I’m dabbling in a bunch of things because I haven’t found something I want to spend the time on yet.

Robin Good [00:21:14]:I don’t think it works that way. Okay, meaning. No, sorry, that sounds. Meaning is the reverse. You gotta be interested enough, whereby no matter how many things you have to go through, you’re interested. And part of the game is you have to go through many uninteresting or obvious things to get to the good ones. It’s like treasure hunt. It’s not.

Robin Good [00:21:47]:Oh, where it is. Oh, it’s here. No, you have to work to find. Oh, God, where did they Put these things and it’s one hour I’m looking. But when you find it, that’s orgasm for you. So I think the first thing is to have that love for something. And that will give you the persistence to keep on looking even when it’s boring. Whether it’s girls, burgers, beers, soccer again.

Robin Good [00:22:17]:I love AS Roma, the soccer team. And the love has been born by going to the stadium many, many, many, many, many times. Because the first time you. You’ve never seen a stadium, never seen a soccer game. Maybe you cannot even see the players very well. But it’s in the repetition, in going deeper. I think I’m confusing things and maybe I’m not helping listeners or you, but I don’t know. Let me stop.

Tyson Gaylord [00:22:52]:No, it’s fine. Because we’re thinking through this right now, right? I mean, maybe there’s a little bit of language barrier, maybe there’s a understanding bear, maybe I’m not understanding. But so what I’m thinking about is, is maybe you haven’t found something you love yet. So you keep dabbling a lot, right? And so then you’re not, you know, and the way I think about it is if you love something, it’s easy, like the 40, like you said, talk about soccer. The San Francisco 49ers here in America, I love them. They suck sometimes and then they’re great sometimes. And it doesn’t matter because I have the love for that, right? You know, stoic philosophy. I have the love for it.

Tyson Gaylord [00:23:29]:I’ll grab a stoic book. It is boring as hell, but I like it. So I’ll. Maybe I’ll, you know, drudge through a couple of chapters. You know me like there’s something in here. Maybe I’m gonna. This whole book’s gonna suck, but there’s gonna be a passage or two that’s really gonna resonate with me. And it was worth the read because I like the whole, the genre, you know what I mean? So.

Tyson Gaylord [00:23:49]:But if you don’t have that love for something, then when things get a little difficult, when you find the shitty book, when there’s a down year, you’re like, ah, nevermind with this. Because you haven’t, you haven’t found. Maybe passion isn’t the right word, but maybe it’s a good word. Or you haven’t fallen in love, you haven’t had the passion for it yet. And when things get a little hard, you just give up, versus taking the time to maybe slog through the hard times and you start to develop love. Or you say you know what? I’ve been through a couple of hard times and this isn’t what I thought it was. And I’m just going to move on and that’s okay to give up and move on and try something else.

Robin Good [00:24:24]:Yes, yes, yes. I agree with all the things you said.

Tyson Gaylord [00:24:28]:Okay. So, yeah, so that’s kind of what I was getting at. Like, you know, do you, you know, maybe is there something you think about or do when you’re looking for maybe something to fall in love with or looking at a new subject matter or something, you’re like, oh, could I get interested in this subject matter? Like, let’s talk about something new right now. AI is new. You know, let’s say you’re like, oh, this is interesting. You know, how long do you maybe stick around? Or what do you. Or what do you do? Or what do you look up where you’re like, could I fall in love with this subject matter and go down and, and, and develop persistence for it? You know, do you have some kind of techniques or something like that? Or how do you think about something like that?

Robin Good [00:25:07]:Well, I’m very impromptu in that sense. As you were telling this, describing it. I could never find in my memory a situation like that that is to fall in love with something is because it comes my way and we sometimes run into each other with this new thing and I immediately like it. I don’t find myself asking, oh, could I fall in love with this? I have enough things that I already fallen in love or would like to fall in love that there is no space to try some others. But the answer is really, it feels like they come to me. So whatever choices I’ve made in my life, I have created the opportunities for things to pop up that were not plant case. How do you say example is I was during a purification program because I had perused ultra use my brain cells to explore other universes. And.

Robin Good [00:26:27]:And I said, oh, I want to do a purification program. So I clean up myself. Anyway, I go to. And this purification program requires you to go to one of these franchise gyms where they would give you some vitamins, they would make you run, and then they would put you inside a sauna for hours and hours. And you could only go out to take a shower and then go back in the summer so that all these toxic substances that supposedly are inside my body would get out. And then you have to go there every single day, no matter if it was Christmas, Easter, every single day until you reach the end of the program. Now, while I was doing that inside the sauna popped up some guys because the gym had a kung fu school in there. And so the guys who went ended the class of the kung fu would come and take the shower next to the sauna and see always this guy there every afternoon.

Robin Good [00:27:28]:And so they started coming in. What are you doing here? What is this thing? And so we became friends. They came with the cards because I was like a prisoner for them, somebody in a cell. So they would bring cards to play with me. Bring me the radio too, so they could listen to something from the outside for all those hours inside there. And you know what? As I finished that program, I joined that kung fu school. I became a black belt and I became the president of that school. Now how did that, how did I fall in love with kung fu? See, what is the answer?

Tyson Gaylord [00:28:10]:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t know. I’m thinking about that too. Like, how do I fall in love with all these things? But it’s like you’re saying like so many chance events, life, things being out there. I guess my, my reason for asking the question is it might just be my sample size. But I feel like some of the, some people I see that whether it’s my age, maybe a little younger. It’s like I feel like they don’t have something they’re in, really in love with. And it’s like, so I’m trying to think, can we help them? Is there a way we can say, like, go, do things, try things, fall in love with something?

Robin Good [00:28:44]:I don’t think we should.

Tyson Gaylord [00:28:45]:Okay, let’s not.

Robin Good [00:28:47]:Why should we tasm?

Tyson Gaylord [00:28:49]:Because I think they’re missing out on a joy of life and something we could bring meaning and joy to their life with.

Robin Good [00:28:57]:Do you think if you go there and you told them so, they would say, oh, yes, you’re right. But you know, I can confess hasn’t worked yet because I see them, I know them, some of them quite well. I think in their sad lives, they want that they have made a pact with the devil or whatever inside to be part of the system in the way they are. And they wait until they’re 67 to retire and they’re happy to water the flowers after that. I don’t think we have the right to go and bother them because they’ve convinced themselves so deeply that that is the right way, that who are we really? Who, who says that we are in the wrong ones?

Tyson Gaylord [00:29:47]:Thank you for that. I, I, yeah, I just. Maybe it’s the people that, that maybe want it. But does it, you know, maybe There’s a couple of people that are like, yeah, maybe I could. And they’re like, yeah, but those people, I feel like I don’t want to say I could save, but maybe I could just show them something or, or you know, like you’re saying the creation like, you know, you’re the creator, I mean, the curator. Excuse me. Maybe you can curate something for them. I’m like, maybe I think you would like this.

Tyson Gaylord [00:30:13]:I don’t know.

Robin Good [00:30:15]:Well, it’s always good to do something nice for people that can wake up their heart or some of their emotion or their dreams that they’ve put aside. I mean, that’s a good thing to do. But we shouldn’t go there with the expectation to convert them. You know, there’s so much I don’t

Tyson Gaylord [00:30:33]:mean, I don’t mean that in a forceful way. I’m just like, maybe if I just throw an idea your way and you just run with it, I don’t know. Or give you some type of inspiration or hope or I don’t know.

Robin Good [00:30:42]:So just be, just be the kind of person that you think ideally would make everybody a happier person. And you’re just being a model out there. It’s for them to pay attention. If they don’t have that attention, you cannot be useful to them. But if they were to find some attention or time, then you become a resource. So just be one of the fantastic things that each one of us can be and we can become models for others without needing to be presumptuous about this, but, you know, inspiring to others. Let’s say.

Tyson Gaylord [00:31:19]:Yeah, that I’m interested in being an inspiration. You know, like, hey, you’re doing these things. I could probably do these things too.

Robin Good [00:31:28]:Yeah, I would like to do these things too. Yes.

Tyson Gaylord [00:31:31]:Yeah, that’s all right. Thank you for that, for helping me clear that up. So you talk about creating useful knowledge resources. How do we think about that? How do we go about something like that?

Robin Good [00:31:47]:Most people think that to become somebody online because that’s kind of the context in which I think we’re speaking in general Europe, you’re a podcaster, you’re a publisher, and likewise. And that’s why we met. So this is the context in this world. Most people think that by writing more and more what they think, what their opinion is about this or that is the way to show that they have some ideas, some original thinking, some deeper, non obvious thinking that others don’t have. And so they are relevant, authoritative, credible. But. I lost myself in the thinking.

Tyson Gaylord [00:32:54]:Okay, Creating useful resources is What I’m thinking about.

Robin Good [00:32:57]:But in an age in which opinions are worth a dime because anybody can have one, anybody can publish one right now. It used not to be the case until not so many, many years ago, couple of decades only. And this has changed altogether upside down. So everybody now can say what think of not just the New York Times, anybody in those instances. What becomes us value is resources. That is not just hearing opinions and opinions to this, to that think this way inspired this way, this is better, that is worse. But things that help me. I want to go to that island.

Robin Good [00:33:48]:How many peers where boat says leave go there. What are the prizes? Where can I contact and reserve? Or I want to build a new program. I hear that there is now vibe coding. What are the. I’m not a specialist, I’m not the developer. I don’t already know the whole story. I just arrived. What are the tools and what are the differences? And what would be better for somebody starting and somebody versus somebody who’s already technical now? How many articles do you find today online that give you that type of orientation? Very few.

Robin Good [00:34:32]:There used to be and still are people that make list of tools, but there is no real intelligence. It’s just like a list of stuff. And then you have to go to click each one of them like Google search results and make up your mind whether that fits with you or not. So. So knowledge infrastructures, as I call them, are resources that help you orient, move, navigate spaces that have become complex, that change every day. So unless there is somebody who has explored and knows the territory very well, I can tell you, look, those cows are beautiful but are not to be eaten because they eat that type of grass that are. These other cows are fantastic, but they live in a place where religion says do not eat cows. So they let you see the world through a deeper understanding they have and they help you orient you in making decision, in understanding what’s better and what’s to be avoided.

Robin Good [00:35:33]:That is the kind of relevance that I think today has more value than just writing another article or another prompt saying do this, do that. I think this or I think that. Building useful resources that go beyond simple listings.

Tyson Gaylord [00:35:56]:Okay. Yeah. How do you start to build that better judgment of the curation and different things like this.

Robin Good [00:36:04]:How do you build better judgment?

Tyson Gaylord [00:36:06]:Better judgment, right. How do you start to develop that judgment, that taste of instead of just a listicle kind of thing, you start to develop, you know, especially with AI and all these different things like how do you start to be that trusted person that has that taste that judgment, is there something we can do to start developing that and build that?

Robin Good [00:36:24]:If you have to be the expert of you live in which city?

Tyson Gaylord [00:36:30]:I live in Phoenix, Arizona.

Robin Good [00:36:32]:If you have to be the expert about pizza places in Phoenix, Arizona, what do you think you have to do do to be that?

Tyson Gaylord [00:36:41]:I gotta go eat a bunch of pizza.

Robin Good [00:36:43]:Just a bunch.

Tyson Gaylord [00:36:46]:Probably a shitload. Probably, Probably a shitload. I’ve gotta probably compare and contrast and I’ve got to spend time and go

Robin Good [00:36:54]:to all of the pizza places there and if there are new ones, check them out and someone closes, check them out still build relationships with them, know the kind of the ingredients they use and exactly what you said. So that’s what you do to become able to do the kind of comprehensive understanding of a sector. You really cannot build it up by saying, okay, I’m going to be the expert people marketing for restaurants outside of cities. That’s a very niche. Good, good, good, good. But then do you have experience? Do you know 100 restaurants outside of cities and how they are to be run? So the simple answer is just you need to know your territory. You need to spend time in it. Whichever way you do it.

Robin Good [00:37:48]:By being an intern, somebody does stages everywhere, never gets hired by being owner startup of all this company. It depends the field you want to be the expert of martial arts. Well, you better have done some martial arts for many years and still do them so that you can see what the newcomers don’t. So I think the answer looks even too obvious that I feel I’m not providing you with any value. So maybe dig deeper in your question and maybe I can contribute something more because I think this is way too obvious what I just said.

Tyson Gaylord [00:38:27]:No, it’s fine. I think what you’re saying is kind of what we talked about earlier, that persistence and the love and, and when you develop that, it sounds like the, the other things will come. You’re, you’re, you’re the pizza guy because you love pizza and you would go eat different restaurants because you love it. And, and nothing else but that. And, and you’re just deciding I’m just gonna share this anyway. I don’t care what you have to think. I don’t care if nobody ever watches this. I want to be the guy that’s tasted every pizza in this city and maybe the surrounding cities and I want to find the best one because I love it.

Tyson Gaylord [00:38:55]:And if I share that and you like it, hey, great. If not, it doesn’t matter because I love it and I’m going to be Persistent in it because that’s just something I love.

Robin Good [00:39:01]:So a lot of exposure, an extreme amount of exposure and extreme amount of curiosity and questioning. They give me three beers. Not all. Not everyone. Everyone will say, oh, I like this more than the others. But very rarely they will venture into their head because nobody will prompt them to ask, why do I like this one more than those other? Why does this deep house groove is better than this minimalist dub piece that I’ve just arrived? Because you go with the feeling I like it. It’s even with girl, with men, men with girls, you like it. But why? Training yourself to ask the why you like something builds that taste, that ability to, as you say, separate signal from noise.

Tyson Gaylord [00:40:05]:That’s something I learned from you is before encountering your work and learning from you, I would just share something I liked. And I just figured everybody got it like I like, I like this. So I shared it. I figured everybody just got it. But what I learned from you is you’ve got to tell people why you liked it. What, like, what was it about this you liked? And so I’ve tried to start to think, like, why do I like this? What can I say a little bit here when I repost this or whatever it is like one little thing. Can I tell people and let people know about why I liked it? Maybe they agree with me or not and then that gets them to click on the post or not because they agree with my take on my taste or whatever.

Robin Good [00:40:40]:Yes, yes. And if you want to spend that and go add more to the why is why do you think is relevant to your readers? Because otherwise this is kind of, you know, you’re David Bowie or Andy Worrell and you share and you know it’s just because Banski, you share it and just because it’s you, everybody will. Okay, but it’s not our case. So when we’re not already such big personalities that we become the niche, the point of interest, what counts is exactly that. Asking not only, oh, this I encounter something, I like it, I want to share it. But stop and ask why you are getting this should pay attention to it. What’s in there that I saw that you may find useful, intriguing, fascinating, non obvious. And that’s why I suggest you go and check it out.

Robin Good [00:41:53]:This is the key value you can add and it’s good exercise to develop and train yourself in selecting what’s really relevant, not just, oh, look, what a beautiful girl. There are a million beautiful girls. Go beyond the surface level. Try to understand what is it that you really like, because okay, girls is not a good example. Because we or men in their case, because we look only really at the surface. Because you need to talk to understand if there can be love, intensity, understanding, exchange. And so other things are better example. Love has been.

Robin Good [00:42:37]:Too much surface love, too little understanding between human beings. But in all other cases, yes. What do we find that is of value for others? So that we our sharing becomes a service to others. Is not a look what I found. But here something for you that may be useful. If you lost your son. If you want to go on top of the mountain, but don’t have the balls. If you are procrastinating every day.

Robin Good [00:43:12]:That stupid little thing with the bank. Here’s something that could change you. And if you do that, there’s a lot of value. Because we are submerged by things that could be interesting, but there is no time to read them all. So if I. If one time you strike gold by giving me a good why to go and check out something, I go check it out and it clocks as I say it matches my expectation of something good. Then you all of a sudden got my trust. I know that Tyson could be suggesting good restaurants because last time he told me to go to Gigi’s Pizza.

Robin Good [00:43:58]:It was fucking good. So let me hear what he has to say this time.

Tyson Gaylord [00:44:04]:Is there any other ways of building trust like that? Or just a constant persistent thing of putting yourself out there and people start to slowly kind of trust you? And I don’t. And I hate when people try to build this fake trust or whatever it is. I want something deep and true like I can listen to you and I know you’re not. You’re not fooling me. You’re not trying to sell me something or you’re not trying to pull an over on me.

Robin Good [00:44:29]:What’s the question?

Tyson Gaylord [00:44:31]:How do we continue to develop and build that trust? How do we, you know, be that trustworthy person? You know what. What things do we do? Is it. Or is it just persistence? Just keep putting out good content or good recommendations.

Robin Good [00:44:44]:It’s possible, you know who you. Who you want to be talking to, who you want to be helping. Because the more you know who you’re trying to help, the better you can put yourself in the shoes. What I can do to help that situation. Not to persuade or convince or change their minds, but to help. To help see. To help see beyond what they see now, to help understand more and better what they’re interested in. So to build a trust, you must know who you want to serve first.

Robin Good [00:45:24]:Because that is going to frame what is appropriate to serve, what is appropriate to share, and the whys that you’re going to serve with those share. So to build trust is in general a work of caring for others, intangible in space, tangible ways. That means I build a resource that is useful for you for a long time. The type of thing you want to save and come back to because is a guide to books to read, to film to watch, to things to study that can be useful for the next 10 years, even if AI doubles up every three days. Still useful. I can build that trust by showing how I overcome obstacles, how I do certain things that for those that I decide to serve are important. So it’s always dependent on who you’re trying to serve. So if you’re trying to serve in general people, it’s very hard because you have no frame of reference within which to establish criteria, limitation, edges, borders, outsides, inside.

Robin Good [00:46:46]:But if you’re very specific, I think it is much easier. You build trust the same way you build trust in real life. With whom do I build trust in real life? With those persons that I see that not just have interest in me, but do care about me. If I’m not there, they will take my glasses that I forgot and save them for me and bring them the next day if I don’t come today to the gym. But they know today was payday and then the teacher gets very angry if you don’t pay, they pay for, for me because they know I will give them back money. Now these are nitty gritty examples of everyday life. Now bring them to the online life. How can you show that you care to others? I can go and explore territory a little ahead.

Robin Good [00:47:48]:Say I help writers write fiction writers. Well, let me explore ahead what the world of fiction is going to be in three to five years. What kind of books are going to be there? Are going to be there still books or not? So I can go explore, get my hands dirty, come back and say, look, I opened three trails and these are the things that I found out. This is how I did it. This is the process. This is how you build trust by caring in all the ways possible for the people you want to serve. Stop me.

Tyson Gaylord [00:48:24]:No, this is great. I love it. What I, what I’m hearing is just be a good person and late, you know, blaze the path and let people know. I’ve, I’ve opened this trail up for you. Come down it if you want it and if you’re a good person. I feel like people are going to Follow you. And they’re gonna, they’re gonna try. I feel like you’re saying trust something, if you have the right intentions, it’s just gonna come.

Robin Good [00:48:50]:But it’s not even that dreamy or fable like in the sense. How many people out there do you know? Do you read off? Can you make the names now on substack or elsewhere that do this?

Tyson Gaylord [00:49:03]:It’s a small list, but when they say something, I believe them. And I don’t have to second, I don’t have to. I can just trust. I don’t need to verify because I’ve already. I know you’re not going to bullshit.

Robin Good [00:49:14]:That’s the proof that that’s the right way. Because if I ask you about who would you recommend for such and such thing, you were gonna list me one of those people. And so those people, what do they have to do because you do this? They have had to be caring. They have had to be non obvious, non superficial, not so self oriented. You know, for trust there is a formula called the trust equation Formula that is credibility plus reliability plus intimacy slash self orientation. That is you can have all the credibility. You can be very reliable, you can even build relationship and they can feel you. But if you keep putting the lights on you, that devalues everything else above the slash line.

Robin Good [00:50:16]:So self orientation is the devil. To build trust is the thing. You don’t want to have as much as possible not look at me, look how good I am. Look the results. I got 16,000, 16,000 subscriber in eight months. Okay, but what do you do in life? What are you after? What are you gonna be remembered for? What kind of sign are you living? These are the things to ask, right?

Tyson Gaylord [00:50:48]:The things that matter, not the metrics.

Robin Good [00:50:50]:Yes.

Tyson Gaylord [00:50:52]:Yeah, I love that. So I guess maybe a quick little summary to start your process. This is what I kind of heard from you. Who. Who are you serving and why is it relevant? And then you can start from there.

Robin Good [00:51:08]:Correct. The context where you’re serving is the base for everything. And the why it’s relevant is one specific tip. For when you like to share useful resources, readings, books or other stuff, then that’s the first thing to add, not just the link or the title. But why am I sharing this? Why you should pay attention to that. So these are different levels of categories. The context, the audience, the people you want to help is a foundational pillar. The why in the sharing.

Robin Good [00:51:52]:Why you should pay attention is an element of the executive action is not a detail, something more than a detail. Maybe we call It a method, an approach. But the audience, the context is the foundation. Who are you serving, why you’re serving that audience. For example, let’s make always examples. In my case, my dream was to serve those who wanted to be independent. You heard me before saying, for me, freedom, independence in all the ways possible is the most important thing. So I said, oh, what is the thing I want the most? I want to most help those others that are, that have this drive, that feel you want to be independent.

Robin Good [00:52:43]:So independent means being able to earn your money without accepting to be a slave for a company that does things that maybe you don’t even care about or you don’t like. And so you serve the interest of somebody else in exchange of money for a long time, hoping that when the time is over, then, or in some interruption of it, you can do some of what you would like to be. So deciding who you serve and why drives a lot of what you do now. By deciding to help those who wanted to be independent, I unfortunately find myself with all the marketers because they serve the same purpose. So I had to find a higher purpose. And it took a long time to understand that the essential thing was not going after SEO or the views or the traffic, etc. But to build credibility, authority, relevance, all things that when you add them up, build that word that is trust. I can trust this person because I think it all starts from there to be independent now.

Robin Good [00:54:14]:While before I thought it was more kind of certain tactics or strategies, now thinking, now I understand it all comes down to building trust over time. Because when people trust you, then they’re willing to buy, support, help, embrace any idea you bring forward. Because trust goes beyond that. Oh, I think if I can buy that, I can be the same as him. It’s more like I share the values of this person and I want to be somehow like him or even better than him. So let me contribute or participate or support and take anything I can. Therefore, my focus now is, yes, ideally, independence. But since I’ve discovered that independence are those that then end up going with the marketers, which I don’t want to be associated with, I have deviated toward trust also because trust makes a very good front end for my business, which is about, really about curation.

Robin Good [00:55:42]:But nobody in his own right mind wakes up and says, oh, I want to know curation. This is really hot stuff. Nobody, Nobody. So I had to go through loving curation for a long time to understand this, that you cannot sell curation. Curation is a way to build that trust is A series of methods and approaches to communication and sharing and learning that builds strong trust because you don’t just share, you really take care of things, both in the way you collect them, organize them, and serve them to your audience. Ideally, I have done many shitful things to learn it, and they’re still out there as witnesses that it takes time. I mean, because I’ve had to go myself through doing things that are not as beautiful as I described them for you now. So I made stupid lists, maybe very big, and I thought, oh, he’s super good.

Robin Good [00:56:52]:But the understanding to which I arrived is when you really care, you don’t do the least because it’s gonna get 100 likes. But you do the list because you love sharing what you have found. And so that list contains parts of you. This, yes, because this, yes, because this, yes, but then no, because that’s another level. And when you do that, it’s like you go to a market. There are here in Asia, there are these night markets, 100 little stands that you can eat off. But if you have somebody who’s gone there many times and says, oh, you want the raw shrimps with the spicy sauce? Come with me here. Nicknut nut is the guy.

Robin Good [00:57:43]:You bring something different. So it’s not in the quantity, but in the depth of knowing which thing is good that the value comes out. And trust, I’ve learned, can be built by curating things, by organizing, selecting, putting together stuff, by explaining your process, how you did it. All these things that are non obvious, that are kind of the stuff around the main dish. How do you call that in English?

Tyson Gaylord [00:58:15]:Side dishes, appetizers.

Robin Good [00:58:20]:It’s like there is the meat, but there are also potatoes and spinach. And what are those besides the sides?

Tyson Gaylord [00:58:27]:Okay.

Robin Good [00:58:28]:The sides are becoming more and more important than the main plate. How can I express that? Even better, the context is now more important than the story or the individual idea. How you have arrived it, why that idea, who you’re gonna serve it to, how you’re gonna do it, how you failed and has brought you to this. All of this stuff that is around something now, if you reveal it when you share something or when you touch a topic, like you did for your feature on Rich Dad, Poor dad, helps a lot, brings a lot of value. It’s not just you’re trying to be the professor on something, but you give kind of a world, a universe of understanding around it that frames how you see those things. I don’t know if I’m making any sense.

Tyson Gaylord [00:59:40]:You are. No, this is great. This is. And. But this is the thinking I love from you. This is why I want you on the show. This is why I enjoy reading your sub stacks and, and seeing the things from you. It’s just thinking is what I enjoy.

Robin Good [00:59:50]:And.

Tyson Gaylord [00:59:51]:And I said I learned a lot and I’m trying to. I don’t know if model is the right word, but improve myself, improve the things. I like sharing books. I like sharing things because they’re interested in me.

Robin Good [01:00:01]:So.

Tyson Gaylord [01:00:01]:But now I’ve got a better way of doing it because of your thinking.

Robin Good [01:00:05]:Now the challenging question for you is what are we? I mean, besides our own pleasure, which I cannot witness to the design. I’m having a pleasurable time right now talking to you because you are interested in me. You’re asking me questions. I don’t have anybody to talk here in this world where I live physically solitary life. So for me this is very enjoyable. It’s like a gift.

Tyson Gaylord [01:00:39]:You’re welcome. It’s a gift to me too.

Robin Good [01:00:42]:But let me pose a very difficult question. What are we doing? What kind of value are we trying to serve to those who will watch or listen to this? I mean, what is the originating arrow purpose that you want this thing we’re having to be for others?

Tyson Gaylord [01:01:11]:I want it to be a jumping off point for your thinking about this subject, these topics. I want you to come away from this and go, I’ve never heard of that. I’ve never thought about it. I’ve never put time into. I never, I never thought about why I do this or I never thought about how. I never thought about building trust. And I want this to be a jumping off point for people to say okay and go off and start thinking about this. That’s what I want.

Tyson Gaylord [01:01:33]:I want people to. I want people to think. I feel like. And nowadays thinking is not something that happens often. I think it’s kind of gone on the wayside. I think we outsource a lot of our thinking to social media and these different types of things, these different news sources and whatnot. And then I think because of that, people are feeling lost. They don’t have a love.

Tyson Gaylord [01:01:55]:They’re not being persistent in these different topics. So this is what I want this to be. I want people to hear, especially you. I hope I don’t talk as much as I need to because you’re the expert. I want to talk to you. I enjoy your content. I enjoy the cool tools and stuff that I found lots of things trustable. This starts making me think about things.

Tyson Gaylord [01:02:16]:You’re the post you did a few posts back about creating a second brain. I’ve got that saved. I want to go through that. I want to. This is why I come to you. This is what I want. And I found that. And then I have questions and I want to talk to people, and I want this to be a point where people say, that was interesting.

Tyson Gaylord [01:02:33]:Now let me go think about it.

Robin Good [01:02:36]:Let me. Thank you. Let me phrase it even better.

Tyson Gaylord [01:02:41]:Sure.

Robin Good [01:02:41]:Let’s say that you are now sharing this very thing. This is a recording. We are now a little bit in the future. And you tize on are sharing this for your audience on substack, on your podcast channel. Wherever. Give me that. Why is this relevant for your reader? So what would you tell your reader? Here is my interview I did a few days ago with Robin. Good.

Robin Good [01:03:14]:Why is this relevant for them and why should they pay attention? I’m curious to know what would you say or think about that?

Tyson Gaylord [01:03:26]:I say so far, what I would tell them is if you’re looking to build trust, you’re looking to build a community. Robin has great ideas for you to start from.

Robin Good [01:03:38]:Thank you. That says to me that you’ve perfectly understood the whole concept, but you’re gifting me of something that I didn’t pronounce once today. So I’m honored and maybe I deserve it, maybe not. Let’s question it. Why am I the good person to build community?

Tyson Gaylord [01:04:03]:From what I’ve read from you and. And the trust you’ve built with me is. Is I. I. Can I trust your taste? I. You. You. You explain your thinking, and it’s different in a good way.

Tyson Gaylord [01:04:18]:It’s not this contrite, obvious regurgitation of the surface levels nonsense. I feel like you’re. You’re taking the time and. And the effort to think deeply about something and. And then it makes me think deeply about something because you started a thought pattern that I can go down. So, you know, we’re three levels deep now. By the time I start thinking about it, because you’ve took in the surface level stuff, you’ve thought about it. Now I’m coming in and I’m thinking about it, and that’s a.

Tyson Gaylord [01:04:43]:To me, it’s a better jumping off point than some cliche, let’s just say which. Which is which cliches are good, but that’s still. They’re a cliche because they’re surface level, I think, you know, versus somebody like you. I’m already down three levels deep, and I can start thinking from there.

Robin Good [01:04:58]:But how does that connect to Community. You use that word, but today I never said, you know, it’s good for the community or community here. I never use that word. So I’m not saying I’m not. I’m not saying I am. I’m just curious because you attributed that quality to me. So I want to know why Robin, good is good for community. What did he do or say that you think helps? I don’t know also what you mean by community.

Robin Good [01:05:26]:Is it good to build community, or what did you mean?

Tyson Gaylord [01:05:30]:Yeah, no, I think about it like this. It’s like we all live in some type of community. It’s your neighborhood, it’s your family. It’s whatever your community is. And if we can be good stewards of the community, we can help our neighbor. Just because I like to call it circles of greatness. So if we can create these circles of greatness, then your circle is my circle. This is my circle.

Tyson Gaylord [01:05:57]:And then, you know, like a Venn diagram. And tangentially, we have Robin’s circle. And each circle contributes to the other. And we can leave this world a better place. We can neighbor. We can worry about our neighbors. We can worry about the things that are here. We’ve spent so much time worrying about this other stuff.

Tyson Gaylord [01:06:11]:We have no control over this. We have no. We have no influence per se. But if I can control my community, if I can worry about my community, if I can, whatever that community is to you, whether it’s your church, whether it’s your family, friends, I don’t care. But if you can cultivate this community, whether it’s public or not, like my community, you know, my circle, if we can, we can. We can bring in ideas. We can bring in, I don’t know, hope. We can bring in.

Tyson Gaylord [01:06:39]:We can bring in trust. We can bring in these things. We can. I have my creation of ideas and things and books. If I can just show you this and build this, then I think these things ripple out. They start to pay it forward in a way I don’t have control over, because, I mean, this is a good idea. I have a friend, whatever, and I would do these charitable things, and she was like, man, that’s kind of cool. And then now she just kind of piggybacked off of me.

Tyson Gaylord [01:07:07]:But now she does her own thing. That’s crazy. And I just love seeing that because it started from me being nice, and then she was nice to somebody, and she was kind of apprehensive, like, oh, people aren’t really good. Like, what do you. She always wants to know what Are you after Tyson? Why are you nice to me? I’m like, just because I don’t. But now she’s kind of been able to break from her show, and she’s like, I can just be nice to be nice. I don’t need something in return. It’s not a payback thing.

Tyson Gaylord [01:07:32]:It’s a pay it forward thing. I hope this makes sense.

Robin Good [01:07:35]:Yes. Yes. Okay. Sorry, my question was really tough.

Tyson Gaylord [01:07:40]:No, it’s fine. I challenged my thinking. Yes, good.

Robin Good [01:07:44]:No, I was. I was just curious. Honest curiosity.

Tyson Gaylord [01:07:47]:Did I fulfill it? Did I answer your question at all?

Robin Good [01:07:51]:You. You said interesting things, but I still don’t know what you’ve. You said, let’s see what I understood. You said that my relation. You brought in the term community and me, because whatever ideas we have or concept we bring forward, they help us kind resonate with what is surrounding us. So in that sense, let me ask you again. Then again, I am a new reader of your newsletter, and I write a direct message to you, and I say, why do you think Robin good? Do you think Robin good is helpful? See, I find myself something not right, because I know I don’t neither promote neither. I expressly write about community.

Robin Good [01:08:57]:So I got curious the moment you said, this guy, he’s the guy for trust and community. And so I wanted to know from which angle you were looking at me to say that he’s about community. Because when you build trust, then you build relationship, and then relationship, community. Is that the transitions. That’s what I was curious about, because you attributed me a quality that I don’t think I would attribute to myself. That’s all.

Tyson Gaylord [01:09:32]:That’s probably it, what you’re saying, right? I’ve come to trust you, and. And I mean, how we met you, you just messaged me out of the blue saying, you know, hey, thanks for saying, I like to reach out to people once in a while. And I was floored. I was like, oh, my God, I love your stuff. That’s so nice of you. But that’s how you build community. I mean, you have a bunch. I think you have whatever, a book.

Tyson Gaylord [01:09:54]:And I know you do a podcast in Italian and stuff, so I think you talk about this. I’m not quite familiar with it, but I feel what you’re doing is you’re building some type of community. And I think others can. Can learn from that, whether it’s tangential or not. Maybe if you’re doing that indirectly or not. I don’t know. But that’s what it feels like to me.

Robin Good [01:10:17]:Okay. Fair enough. We don’t have to go. Oh, that’s fine for there. Okay. You have a lot of good questions down on your paper.

Tyson Gaylord [01:10:30]:Oh, yes, yes. So I guess, kind of speaking around this a little bit, you at one point operated a very successful independent magazine. Sounds like you made good money. Why leave? Why give all that up?

Robin Good [01:10:45]:I got penalized by Google. That means that from checks coming with DHL guy, yellow and red dress coming with this envelope from Google opening. And there was checks for which I had initially never invoiced. They just come. You just don’t do nothing but write. And then these checks will come up to 20,000 or nearly so in a month for a company made up of me, an assistant, and maybe a partner in one country and another in another country would just translate my content in different languages. And this was the beginning of money that was made with the ads from Google, which at the time seems to be revolutionary because they were not interrupting. They.

Robin Good [01:11:46]:They had this paradigm whereby this is an ad that’s going to fit with your content. If we write about tennis, there’s going to be a text ad saying, buy tennis shoes or buy the tickets to the tennis tournament nearby. And so I said, oh, this is genius. I wouldn’t have wanted ads, but when that happened, I tried it immediately. That was the beginning of AdSense. Made a lot of money. I think a little more than $1 million invoiced to Google, and then Google penalized me. So from literally one hour to the next, that checks disappears.

Robin Good [01:12:31]:So whoever you’re paying collaborators, staff, electricity, rent from, there is no warning sign. There is no, you have some time to prepare. It just comes. And whether I was rightfully penalized or not, and though for many years I thought not, I do think they rightly penalized me for things that I was exploring. I wasn’t really in any nasty guy, but I certainly tried dirty things like, you know, put some at the time were called text links, that. These little links that would lead to some advertiser. And these were highly discouraged at the time. So even having tried it for three days or a week, got me into this terrible trouble.

Robin Good [01:13:24]:And so I didn’t give up. I discovered that betting all of your cash on just one horse, however good that horse is, is not a strategy. So I was smart enough, given the times and some examples around me, to say, well, I’m gonna try to get out of the penalization and everything, but this is not gonna be my strategy for the future. What I can do is, since I’ve made so much money with this system now with the dirty things they are accusing me of. People want to know how I made $1 million with Google. So I’m going to open up an online campus, a robin good university and I’m going to share and teach all that I know that brought me there. So I’m going to move my business model from publishing with Google Ads to have publishing as the base for visibility but having a private campus with a paid subscription for people to learn directly from me. So I basically switched and then I let it gradually die because having a university takes a lot of time and, and students take a lot of your attention and so since they make good money also you’re not the younger you are, the less far away you can see and going back there, I wouldn’t have ever stopped publishing a magazine.

Robin Good [01:15:10]:In fact now I spend so much time on the archive org to recover some of those page and as I love them, love to see what I used to do 15, 20, 22 years ago and say oh this is so good. It’s like, you know when you check the origins of a music band, like in the first three, four years when they don’t know that band, they make such great music, then they discover they go with the great labels and they start to making disco music for everybody. Then that’s what happened to me in some way. Now don’t think I’m any kind of big star but you know, I kind of got lazy, I got spoiled and so that’s the answer to your question. Why did I abandon the successful magazine? Because I got penalized. I learned the lesson, I changed business model and then I got lazy.

Tyson Gaylord [01:16:08]:You know, that’s. That sounds like human nature, right? I mean, you know, things. How did you. Did you get unlazy? I don’t feel like you’re lazy now. What was the change? What was the thinking?

Robin Good [01:16:19]:Well, so many stories. So let’s pick the appropriate one. Well, I’ve, I’ve had to come back because that university and those students,

Tyson Gaylord [01:16:33]:now

Robin Good [01:16:33]:that I am so far away from the world in which those students are and I’ve decided to live in islands around the world has made me a solitary, adventurous man. And I have the drive to research and write. That’s part of my curation spirit to go explore, research and bring back. What did I find? Oh, I went all the way there and this is what, what is there? What is interesting that that’s what I am good at. I’m explorer, pioneer, pirate. That’s what I am experimenter and, and so I came back because. Finally, respond to the question, because those channels of revenue venue also don’t last forever. So the university guys, the alumni, the consulting for that group of people and audience as I went away.

Robin Good [01:17:43]:And I dedicated less and less time to them, because before I was very present, I was also physically present. I toured, I made many events, and people really got in love with me the most, like three times, 30 times more when they saw me live. When they see that what you’re seeing now in this video, hearing or reading, and it is physically there, first of all, they say it is the same. It is acts the same person. And these we find as audience to be rare. So bravo, Robin. And secondly, this energy that maybe you feel right now when it’s in presence is really strong. I can feel it because I am the transformer of this energy that goes through me.

Robin Good [01:18:39]:I have a lot of positive energy. I feel good to communicate with people and to have experiences with me. If I make a show, I don’t just talk with the slides, I go around the people. One thing I do that is really memorable to the point that surprises me is as I did these three years, I think of tours around Italy to all the small cities in which people would invite me, they would pay my ticket to that city, offer me a place, a library, the public library, a theater, whatever. They had a place to make the show, and I had not to worry about anything. They wouldn’t pay me, but they wouldn’t pay my. They would pay my travel, my eating and everything. And so I had to make this show.

Robin Good [01:19:36]:I wanted to make these shows because I wanted to promote my book. A publisher had me made a book from brand to friend, but they never promoted. So after six months, I said, this doesn’t make sense. I mean, they call me to make a book, and then they do three interviews here and there. But they’re all fake, all press releases, nothing serious. So why don’t I make my own tour? And so I announce, I write in the newsletter, and many people say, oh, come to my city. And these are, you know, in Italy we have a thousand small, beautiful historical cities. I went like to 60 different stops over three years.

Robin Good [01:20:20]:And the point I was making is to make these shows interesting. I would stand at the door of each event, and as the people would come in, I would greet them personally, one by one, with the goal of learning their name, one by one, so that when they were inside and I come, I could gradually name each one of them. Now, I swear to you, I don’t have good Memory. For the normal standards, I never played memory games. I never had anything that would say, oh, let’s do this, because you have this skill. No, I challenged myself to do this. And I said, well, I greet them, I’ll ask them their name two or three times. I will pronounce it, and I will picture in my head something so that I can remember them.

Robin Good [01:21:16]:And since at these events There were between 30 and 50 people each time, it was challenging, but not impossible. And to my surprise, I did beyond my most, most optimistic expectations. So during the show, I could actually go to this person, say, you, Albert. Hey, you, Francesco. And people were just startled. How does he remember all of our names? So this is to say, I don’t know from where we started, but this is to say that putin yourself out there in airing, in involving yourself in where did we started? Because, no, I want to make a good connection. How did we started? I didn’t end up here.

Tyson Gaylord [01:22:10]:I’m just so. In your story, I think we initially started off with talking about the online magazine, and then I asked you, shoot, oh, I’m so sorry.

Robin Good [01:22:22]:Why? You gave it up?

Tyson Gaylord [01:22:24]:No, we got past that.

Robin Good [01:22:26]:Yes. I’m trying to go back into the trail.

Tyson Gaylord [01:22:29]:I was just so mesmerized by your story because, you know, they say you a person’s name is the sweetest sound to them. So I just was, you know, enamored about how you spent that effort and time to memorize that. I’m sorry, I wish I could remember how that. That segment. We got to that segment.

Robin Good [01:22:47]:He was, Well, it will come to us. Yes, I’m sorry. My age, my memory and my age contribute. Sometimes I get into this deep thinking. I go, go, go, go, and then I lose myself. I hate when this happens, but I do it too.

Tyson Gaylord [01:23:14]:Let me. I mean, maybe let’s kind of stay on this. This track of what you were talking about. You have or you’ve talked about. From cold brand to authentic friend. How do you, you know, build that deep, you know, intimate relationship without losing that professional boundaries?

Robin Good [01:23:38]:I don’t know if people really want to have those professional boundaries. You know, if I go to a car dealer or to a bar in Italy, bars are a meeting point that is important. Unlike the typical Starbucks or I go to a car mechanic or. Well, you’re really forced to have this kind of formal relationships. I don’t believe people like any of them. They don’t like the relationships you are forced to have. When you go into a bank, for example, they kind of neutral, formal. Oh, we cannot Go beyond this point.

Robin Good [01:24:20]:I can only do this. This is the rule. People would like to have friends everywhere. Basically that’s how I feel in the bank, in the mechanic, at the dentist. The most hateful places you would just because they are so not liked. You want to have friends there. You don’t want to go to a dentist you’re scared of, doesn’t talk to you and has a mask all the time. You don’t even know his face.

Robin Good [01:24:50]:Why I want somebody who I can feel as empathy whether he’s a dentist or a car mechanic or the banker. So you asked me wouldn’t that be in friend kind of break the professionalism needed to do that kind of work? I think it would help to be honest. And so the book though doesn’t focus completely, completely on this is about this from going from wanting to be a brand which from before the Internet area became then, oh, now you gotta build your personal brand. Brand. Brand was still all there to know. Don’t be a brand, be a friend again. Trust is the thing you need to build trust with people because if you don’t have trust, they’re not going to buy from you. Whatever you want to sell or whatever good knowledge you have or service you can provide, that’s what make conversions.

Robin Good [01:26:00]:So do not sell conversions Seor sell how to build relationship long lasting ones. Again, it goes back to care and to build trust. So the answer to your question is no. I don’t think people that being friend means being non professional. I actually think that one can be friend that can be very professional friend if it is required in some way to be so by the type of work you do and even outside of work. When you’re a friend with somebody you can be professional in the sense. A true friend. Goes out of his way to help his friends but also has very strong limits respect to the other person desire to make mistakes, to try again to do things that maybe you shouldn’t do.

Robin Good [01:27:11]:But if you are a professional friend in this sense is also to respect that because you yourself have had to make many mistakes to learn what now makes you possibly wiser than him. So being a friend is also accepting and welcoming the need to make mistakes from others not to be perfect as you would want them to be to be.

Tyson Gaylord [01:27:38]:And then what I would. What I’m thinking about here is there. I think there’s going to be a possibility and maybe this is where people will struggle is I’m going to become friendly with you. And then because now we’re friends, I’m going to take advantage of that friendship, you know, and I’m going to try and maybe get something for free or maybe make you do a little something extra or discount or something. I think that’s something I could see people being worried about. So they don’t want to be too friendly because they’re worried about maybe being taken advantage of or something along those lines.

Robin Good [01:28:06]:Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

Tyson Gaylord [01:28:11]:And you guys got to be okay with that. And there’s going to be a very small percentage of people. But the overarching. The overarching thing in the totality of being that friendly professional relationship is fine, because there’s going to be a very small people that are probably going to take advantage of you. But in overall, that’s fine. Is this.

Robin Good [01:28:29]:As a matter of fact, it doesn’t. I you. What you say is logic, but it doesn’t happen to me. I mean, sure, I’ve not found myself frequently in this situation. There are some people who do not have. The worst that has happened to me is that, you know, some people take a little bit advantage of your time, while the ones I appreciate are very respectful. You know, if you have a consulting session and the time has expired, they. They’re very.

Robin Good [01:29:04]:They actually tell you, oh, we have only five minutes. I don’t want to take. While others go like the time was infinite and you feel kind of bad to tell them, hey, but the time is over. So that’s the worst that has happened to me. That’s not too bad. You know, I can understand some people maybe never learn to be respectful as it would be appropriate to be because each other’s time is very precious. And, you know, and being kind and educated in this respect, I think is a. It’s nice.

Robin Good [01:29:42]:Allows things to be more harmonious. But. So there’s nothing interesting in what I’m saying back to you.

Tyson Gaylord [01:29:53]:That’s fine. No, that’s. I just wanted you to address that. You know, I just feel like that’s a fear people have of being taken advantage of. And I guess you learned that and then you don’t talk to them anymore.

Robin Good [01:30:01]:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tyson Gaylord [01:30:05]:So something interesting, I think I don’t hear many people talk about, but I. I really resonate with. When you said this is you put your phone in a bag. Can we talk about that? Was it. Was your phone becoming a problem? Were you trying to avoid a problem? How did the phone get in the bag?

Robin Good [01:30:22]:How did it first? Maybe I never asked myself, but what’s the reason why I. I said to you, I like to be very independent. I like to own my freedom, my decision. So this thing, the moment he become detached from your old school family house where there was a phone attached to the wall and it started to become this thing that comes to you, this thing makes a sound, a ringing sound, if I’m not mistaken. And it kinds of decides itself when to make this ringing sound. And you can be flirting with the most beautiful actors in the world or flying an airplane or whatever these things rings when it decides to. The reality, obviously being ironic, is somebody else has decided he wants to talk to you. But you know, I don’t know how we have accustomed ourselves to this kind of uneducated way of things.

Robin Good [01:31:32]:Maybe because at first we must have become fascinated. You know, you can talk to somebody who’s far away. So how beautiful. You put this number in or you call the operator and say, I want to talk to Tom, who’s across the world in Australia. Oh fantastic. But then when this is used every day by everybody and everybody decides to talk to Tyson, now what right do we have to come into his life and make an object in his pocket ring? Why do we default to think, oh that’s beautiful, oh, so that you can be in touch so I can tell you if your daughter just fell. I mean, I think we self brainwashed ourselves into it all the way. I mean we drank it like, I don’t know.

Robin Good [01:32:23]:So being again the guy who asked why, who said that? I said why should I have a thing that rings? I mean also there weren’t girls ringing me all the time. The rings were from people likely for anyone in business that sometimes from the bank, from the lawyer, from this, from that said, you know, do they, these guys have the right to interrupt when they decide they want? No. Can they do differently? Of course they can send me an sms, they can tell me in a message. Look, I need to talk to you about the trial. We’re going to court next week. So when are you free? Tomorrow. I give them a time and then at that time they ring because I want to talk to them. So we are in agreement, now is the time we want to do things together.

Robin Good [01:33:17]:So now, without making the story too long, I decided that this was too intrusive, that I didn’t need it, I didn’t want it, I didn’t want to be distracted, I didn’t have the kind of probably and this was I lucky while maybe I thought that I was out of luck not to have such a rich social life whereby I wanted the telephone to ring or nothing. There Was no exciting reason. So since I also have many teaching engagements at the time and in those classes you can have something. They were the beginning of the cellular era. You didn’t want to have that thing ringing or appearing. It was a bad sign. And so I started to put it aside while I was teaching and then kept it aside and discovered that that was kind of an evolutionary step. That kind was something that put me ahead of others while others would for a long time still to this day not understand it.

Robin Good [01:34:22]:But I said this is a extra stripe. This is like I went to war also in ah. And so I prior proudly look, here is the proof. I have a bag that comes with me and in the bag there is the telephone is always switched on silent and he’s always, I know he doesn’t see very well there, but he’s always on airplane so it’s just dead. So I am totally in control. I like that when I say, okay, now I’ve done the work, all the tasks are finished. Let me waste a little half an hour. Okay, airplane goes off now let’s see what’s happening.

Robin Good [01:35:11]:And I can do all those stupid things that my younger generations friends do. Go. Actually I don’t like it even anymore to do that. But could go on Instagram, could go. I don’t have TikTok. I decided not to dive into the world. Never installed. But in summer I can do all those superficial waste of time type of things that you do here because outside of taking photographs and videos, I don’t really care to have all these other stuff doesn’t add much to my life.

Robin Good [01:35:47]:And so it has become something that I use with a lot of limitation. I don’t know if you go on yours, what is your screen time?

Tyson Gaylord [01:36:00]:Yeah, I have an Android. I don’t.

Robin Good [01:36:04]:It doesn’t say screen time.

Tyson Gaylord [01:36:06]:I’m. It does have some version of that. I’m sure as little as I use my phone, it’s still probably embarrassing.

Robin Good [01:36:12]:Yes, that’s the point that if I look at my daughter or my son, they have incredible screen times there. But I refuse to put all that time in that screen.

Tyson Gaylord [01:36:24]:View here, view activity details. So can I see? Today was 55 minutes. Yesterday was probably a big day, was four hours on average. Looks like I’m on my phone for about four hours.

Robin Good [01:36:41]:That’s pretty good.

Tyson Gaylord [01:36:43]:But I mean when I’m looking at this, I mean audio books, podcasts, email, Instagram, I mean, you know, so I mean, it depends what you use it for. I, I like you. I. Well, in my case I noticed it was a problem and I noticed it was stealing time for me, I guess, basically I would say. And I, I was good before, you know, turning off all the notifications because I just hate seeing it. And then at some point, I was just kind of like you. And I’m like, why do you get to interrupt me when you have something to tell me I’m doing something I don’t for? I don’t care. Unless we have, like you said, a scheduled time to talk.

Tyson Gaylord [01:37:28]:I don’t care. It doesn’t. Nothing in this world could be happening that you need to call me. I don’t care. I mean, if. Even if it’s one of my children fell and smacked his head, he’s on the way to hospital. I can’t. I can’t do nothing about it.

Tyson Gaylord [01:37:42]:I don’t know what, what do you expect me to do? So.

Robin Good [01:37:45]:Exactly.

Tyson Gaylord [01:37:46]:And I tell everybody. I tell my kids and my family. I’m like, when I go to bed, my phone is off. So at 2 o’ clock in the morning, if you’ve got yourself into a shitty situation, don’t call me because it’s. I’m not gonna help you. Because I think, you know, my sleep is more important than my phone being on next to my head, you know, so. And then, you know, my kids know that my phone is always on silent unless I have a scheduled meeting with you to call. And then usually I have.

Tyson Gaylord [01:38:15]:I might turn my ringer on, but I hate when I forget to turn it off or I’ll just have it kind of sorted where I can see it glow real quick because I’m expecting something, so I’m not really doing anything, but I can see it pop on. Because I’m expecting a call, right? Or my kids know I have the Google home, and the Google home will ring. And I think, so my kids are. Or my family’s calling my Google homes. Then it’s kind of more like an emergency, like, hey, we’re trying to get your attention. Please answer your phone. So, But I, you know, same kind of situation, but so many people I notice are, you know, I, I like to call. It’s like a modern, you know, slave driver.

Tyson Gaylord [01:38:50]:It’s just, it’s completely in charge of your time. It’s completely in charge of your attention, and you allow it. I don’t understand. And then you’re worried about you, and you wonder why, oh, I don’t have time to go to the gym. I don’t have time to read a book. You do, because I bet you if you weren’t on Instagram and TikTok for 18 hours a day, you’d have a lot of time to do a lot of things. And you could get literally a second job or maybe a first job because you’ve spent too much time on TikTok. So, but, and, and then I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, right? When you, you’re, you’re doing this thing so you don’t have time to go and be persistent.

Tyson Gaylord [01:39:25]:You don’t have time to fall in love with a thing. You’re not having time to, to do your paradata. You’re not, you don’t have time to figure out your why. You know, you’re not thinking about who am I serving? Because you’re being served, you are the customer. And we just willingly and freely give it up to all these companies without a second thought in most cases,

Robin Good [01:39:51]:Yes, a resounding yes, all capital letters.

Tyson Gaylord [01:39:56]:So you talked about martial arts earlier. I know you do Muay Thai and I don’t know if you still do or you’ve done Jeet kune do, Bruce Lee’s style. What lessons, philosophies or whatever from martial arts world have you brought over to business and or writing? Is there parallels? Is there correlations?

Robin Good [01:40:16]:Yeah, basically is a need for determination, perseverance, decision to act. And it’s in my experience, very effective in the sense that if I’m able to do things with my body that I don’t particularly love to do out of the box, that may leave me with lots of good chemicals and make me feel extremely good afterwards, but that do not release those chemicals before you do it. Actually release chemicals that say, do I really have to do this? Builds a lot of willpower, determination, perseverance and so on. Besides the combat sports, which also are a fantastic training ground for you, confronting difficulty, overcoming obstacles, even just doing a routine set of exercises in the morning before you write or do any serious work which the mind is ready to do, wanting to do, you just can’t wait to sit down at the computer and write. Having the balls to not do that, which is easy because the mind is charged and your brain still running well and you stop and do that set of exercises that maybe starts, I don’t know, we say 50 push ups as the first thing. It really requires you to. Well, I don’t know, it requires me some effort. Some effort that is zero movement of muscle.

Robin Good [01:42:20]:Some effort that is. Now I’m going to do this and this is the same effort to go to The Muay Thai gym. Because at the Muay Thai gym, they’re not welcoming you with naked girls and disc music. And so they don’t even say hello when you arrive. They hardly say hello, the Thai teachers. And you just run. And now stretch. And now punch.

Robin Good [01:42:47]:And now round one, round two, round three. I mean, you. You’re the me. At a certain point, we shall go. How many minutes are still there before this is over? But then all of this builds, at least for me. I don’t want to say people should do this, but for me, these combat arts, which I’ve been doing since I was A little kid, 6 years old, are a challenge that builds me as a person, as a better person, because they are hard. I’ve had times. See, I’m born as a fencer, I’m Italian.

Robin Good [01:43:34]:And we have a tremendous tradition of fencing coming both from the aristocracy and then it’s developed into a world Olympic sport. And it has a lot of interesting things if you compare it to martial arts, to the point that Bruce Lee himself has drawn from fencing. For Jeet Kune do itself means the intercepting fist, which means that speed and ability to strike before being stricken or attacking is one of the key core principles of Jeet Kune do. Has been very hard because for all the beauty of these sports that one can see on the surface, the training is very, very, very, very, very hard. Only when I lived for a few years in San Francisco, I had. That was the only time in my life, and I was part of the fencing team of the San Francisco Francisco State University. I also private trainer Jack Nottingham. And this guy was kind of a survivor of the hippie revolution, psychedelics and everything, but he was a wise man.

Robin Good [01:45:04]:And in his house, he had a long living room. I would go there, we would sit down, having tea and discuss things the same depth we are discussing today. And then he said, okay, let’s take the weapons and we go to the living room. And he’s dressed like he’s dressed at home. And he just puts his protection thing, his mask. I do the same. And we fight like was life or death. And this most beautiful memory, because I got to interpret this sport in a way that is friendly, trusted, but at the same time, all out.

Robin Good [01:45:49]:We’re not here. Hey, do. No, we just, okay, we’re big enough and old enough to know how to fight. Let’s fight and let’s learn something from it. That is, every once in a while we stop and we say, oh, but did you see how I killed you with that One, Yeah. How did you do that? That was the best way to train because even the martial arts, most schools, most things are very traditional Japanese styles, the kata, the things dan, dan, dan, dan. And unless you do it for many years, it feels like stupid. You know, why I’m doing all these things? You don’t see the context again because when you watch documentaries and films that explain where that set of moves come from and why was originally done that way, then you start to appreciate more and more these things.

Robin Good [01:46:45]:But anyway, going back to the original question, hard things, especially with your body, not just with your mind, do help build a more solid structure. I’m not a bodybuilder and I don’t like them but, but I feel them with all my weaknesses and I’m full of fears. Believe me, I’m a strong man in the sense that, you know, I keep challenging myself with things that are not super easy. I don’t want to exaggerate, but things that, you know, out of the box I wouldn’t do out of my bed when I wake up, it is not. I actually have to go to sleep thinking, well, tomorrow morning when I wake up, I want to do those 50 push ups. Like, you know, guys, I’m grab something that will, that I hope in the morning will give me that energy because it’s actually never there. Every morning is, oh, do I need to do those 50 push ups or 60 today? It takes a little bit, but then it’s just a move, you know, go to the floor. Because when you’re done to the floor and you start 1, 2, 3, 4, it just goes.

Robin Good [01:48:00]:So it’s all in the mind. And I guess this training of go now we go to the Muay Thai, it’s the time, it doesn’t matter. Sunshine, rain, we go because we know that when we go out from there or when we finish the exercises in the morning, we feel better. I don’t know, I definitely feel better physically, mentally and kind of, I’m more confident, I’m more serene. I know I can be challenged more. That that’s all that’s perfect.

Tyson Gaylord [01:48:34]:I think everybody should do hard things. Find your hard thing and do it. I, I have ice bath down in my garage and every day for like three or four years I stand there probably for like, I’m trying to exaggerate five minutes staring at it every day. Why am I staring at it? You know what I’m staring at? Because I don’t want that 10, 30 seconds of discomfort. But every day I do it and 10 seconds later I’m like, why did I stand there? But same thing. I know I can do it. Hard things. And then when you do hard things, I think, you know, if you can, especially early in the morning, the rest of your day is easy.

Tyson Gaylord [01:49:06]:I did the hard. You’re not going to kick my. Especially doing some muay Thai in the morning and nobody could try and kick your face in in the real world like that. You know, ain’t nobody gonna sit there and make you shiver as you’re seeing an ice bath. You’re throwing some kettlebells around. Whatever it is, I. I think we should all do hard things. And I think the way I see things is it’s a lack of doing hard things is a lot of, I think of the problems where we see in the world.

Robin Good [01:49:31]:Yes, yes, yes, yes. Perfect. Yes.

Tyson Gaylord [01:49:35]:So we. I’ve got a ton of links I want to share with everybody in the show notes. I’ll put everything. Robin, Good. Substack. Your T5 website’s awesome. And a bunch of other things. The curation based authority system.

Tyson Gaylord [01:49:47]:You gave me the incredible honor of checking it out before. I guess as you’re getting ready to release it, I learned a ton from it and this is kind of where I started thinking more about curation. I’ll link to all those things for everybody in the show notes. Is there anything else you want me to point people to you?

Robin Good [01:50:04]:I want to point people to you. You’ve been a very kind man to invite me here and give me all of this space. I’m really honored that it’s like, beautiful girl took me out for dinner tonight as a surprise. So I’m very happy.

Tyson Gaylord [01:50:21]:Thank you. The honor is all mine. I love learning from you and I enjoyed the conversation as we start to wrap up here. What I like to do on a social community show is I like to have a weekly challenge. So what I want you to do, I would like you to do is I’d like you to issue this week’s challenge. It could be anything you want, whether it be something we talked about or something we didn’t talk about. So I’d like to know what would

Robin Good [01:50:42]:this week’s challenge be for who is to take the challenge?

Tyson Gaylord [01:50:47]:The audience. The audience out there for everybody in the audience. I want. I want to challenge them with something from you. I want you to issue a challenge to them, whether it be, go do hard things, whether it be, you know,

Robin Good [01:50:59]:you know, well, let’s make it useful for them and for us and without much effort. Let’s go with entertainment While that can be educational. So I will not go for music, but I will go for movies. I rarely see them, but I like movies. So the challenge is you’re going to be confined to an island for the rest of your life. Deserted island, unfortunately. And you can take with you only five movies. And they possibly should not be those that are already in the top 100 like the Godfather, Apocalypse now or whatever else.

Robin Good [01:51:52]:Star Wars, I don’t know, whatever you like. 2001 Space Odyssey. I’m listening to old movies. It shows how not updated I am with no. I do know some recent ones, but anyway, I would challenge each one so that we can all learn from each other and watch and spend some extra time without things interrupting us that we can enjoy and even learn from or be inspired. And movies do that well when they’re good to. How many? Three, I think. Let’s do a three.

Robin Good [01:52:32]:That three is good. Number the three movies you would take to that island you can only see. I mean those three. And they should not be in the top 100 of movies we’ve heard too many times. So don’t tell us you like one of those because we like it too. We would like on that island to have some three very special movies. And use the suggestions from this challenge to help us build the bigger libraries than just three, because you are several ones. And I’d like to see the results of that.

Robin Good [01:53:12]:And I’m gonna take in a positive sense good advantage of it. Would you?

Tyson Gaylord [01:53:19]:Yeah, I. This things. This is interesting. We’re gonna find probably esoteric movies and different things we would never probably ever come across. This will be a fun challenge. Yeah. You know, share it in the comments and let’s. Let’s curate a list of maybe lesser known movies.

Robin Good [01:53:36]:Okay. Do you put the cherry on the pie? That is whatever three movies you’re gonna suggest, you gotta have at least a one liner that say why you like that movie so much so that I can have unhooked into. Let’s dive into this or into that because those one liners make all the difference. I’ve heard the title, I may not have heard it worst. But then if you give me a one liner that makes a lot of difference. For example, if I say in the Mood for Love, do you know what that movie is?

Tyson Gaylord [01:54:13]:No.

Robin Good [01:54:14]:Okay. See, so people are going to bring movies like that which are great movies but not very well known, rare to find or you know, not Hollywood type of things. And so the one liner is very important and maybe you should give a stage to this contribution they should actually build a useful resource if they have the one liners. Because without the one liners, this list is worth nothing. Zero.

Tyson Gaylord [01:54:49]:If you guys. If you guys comment it, I’ll build the resource and we’ll put it there and we’ll link to and we’ll keep it. I’ll keep it alive every time the submission comes in. If you guys do it

Robin Good [01:55:00]:well, if they love you, they will do it. I will continue.

Tyson Gaylord [01:55:06]:Yeah, I’m interested into see what’s out there. I’m trying to think of the movies I like. I. I almost will never watch a movie twice. I will almost never watch a show twice. I don’t like it. I’ve already seen it. So it’s.

Tyson Gaylord [01:55:23]:There’s very, very few movies that I’ve seen more than twice. I’m interested and I don’t know if my movies are in the top 100. They probably. They could be, but I’m interested to see what else is out there because I don’t like watching something again.

Robin Good [01:55:35]:Okay, I’ve got three ones for you. Sure. I don’t know if you like them. Definitely I have and I am completely opposite of you. I can watch a movie and then maybe after five years watch it again. I have no idea what’s gonna happen in the next scene. Just like I’ve never seen it. Yeah, I think it’s not a handicap or a disease.

Robin Good [01:56:00]:More and more think that it’s kind of not gift or. But something good. Because I appreciate even I’m a soccer fan. I totally forget to score maybe two matches ago. And if I watch the match, it’s like watching it again for the first time because I get so immersed in the story. And then the peculiar thing, because I don’t remember it, I believe, is that I don’t go back to it. Like people, many people in their lives, they keep going back to the things that have just happened to the person they’ve just met, to the scolding of their manager at the office. They keep on going back.

Robin Good [01:56:45]:They rethink and ruminate. Ruminate. I am peculiar in the sense that I know I never watch back what has happened, especially if it’s a bad thing. I always look forward and I never think, oh, I was beautiful. We met very rarely. So memories are there, but there’s some somewhere deep imprinted in a way that it’s not linear. Like for the others who have rewinded the tape many times and looked at it. That’s why I don’t remember.

Robin Good [01:57:19]:I have the experience inside of me. But I don’t have this story lined up as normally people do. So that’s why when I watch things after, sometimes it’s like a new experience. And actually I appreciate that. I don’t feel like, oh, I don’t have any memory. Yeah. For first, for many years, I asked myself, how is that the case? But I discovered I’m not alone. There.

Robin Good [01:57:44]:Maybe not many, but there are other people like this. They seem to be fine people, people. I like them. So I guess I. I can live with this and take advantage of it. What do you think?

Tyson Gaylord [01:57:56]:That’s interesting. I typically, if I go to bed, I wake up like, fresh restart boot. I don’t care what happened. I don’t think about it. And I also, I don’t. I definitely don’t ruminate. I’m sure there’s a couple things here and there I do ruminate on, but for the most part, I, I, My, My mom mostly says she’s like, you’ve got a really good skill of just, like, tuning everything out and just kind of like forgetting stuff. I don’t know if she means it in a good way or a bad way.

Tyson Gaylord [01:58:23]:I guess, depends on the day. But I have a good way of just, like, flushing stuff right out of my brain. Sometimes it’s to my detriment. Like, I’m like, I probably should remember who you are or what that was. But if it’s not interesting to me, I kind of just don’t care and I just forget it. And kind of an instant, almost. But when I, When I rewatch a movie or a TV show, for some reason, I’m like, I saw this already. I don’t, I don’t like it.

Tyson Gaylord [01:58:45]:But my son, he challenges me. He’s like, why won’t you rewatch a movie or show, but you continuously reread the same books? And I’m like, oh. I was like, that’s interesting. And I was like. And I’m like, well, because every time I read the book, it’s something different. I, you know, there’s a different point in my life or, you know, you know, you’re reading a book or you’re listening to a book and you kind of hear something, you kind of drift off on that thought and then you come back and then. But when you listen to the book the second time, well, you’re not drifting off that same part anymore. So I learned something new, right? So that’s kind of why I go back to books.

Tyson Gaylord [01:59:13]:But for whatever reason, with movies and stuff, I did feel too familiar. And I Maybe if they. Even if I don’t remember them, I just don’t care to do it again, so.

Robin Good [01:59:22]:But after you watch a movie, are you aware whether you picture it in your head or run through the story at the end of it to summarize it, or ask yourself whether you like it like people do when they come out of a movie theater? Do you do that or no?

Tyson Gaylord [01:59:38]:You know, I’d say more often now when I leave the movie theater, I forgot the whole movie. I don’t care.

Robin Good [01:59:43]:But you say that, then when you watch it, you remembered it perfectly.

Tyson Gaylord [01:59:46]:Yeah, it’s weird. I don’t understand it. I could almost not tell you what the movie was about as we walked out of the theater, because it’s over with. It’s like. It’s strange. Like, I don’t know how I developed this, but I can just, like, dump the memory almost instantly. It’s very strange. And like I said, it’s come back to haunt me a couple times.

Tyson Gaylord [02:00:06]:But, yeah, I don’t know. I. If we left the theater as we’re walking out, we could probably chat. I liked it. Would you like about it? Yeah, I don’t know. I just liked it or I didn’t like it. It’s very strange. I don’t know.

Tyson Gaylord [02:00:15]:I don’t. But I’m not distracted. I’m watching the movie, you know. You know, I like to talk sometimes during a movie, like, you know, quietly, you know, with my. With whoever I’m with or whatever. Like, oh, wow, you know, maybe I spent too much time. That doesn’t make sense. You couldn’t do that.

Tyson Gaylord [02:00:30]:His uniforms on wrong. I don’t know what it is. Something about it. I just. I don’t know. But I like. I like watching a movie. I like watching a show.

Tyson Gaylord [02:00:38]:But, I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you much about it.

Robin Good [02:00:42]:Good. Okay. We’re also different.

Tyson Gaylord [02:00:45]:Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting.

Robin Good [02:00:47]:Yes.

Tyson Gaylord [02:00:48]:And so the last question I want to ask you, Robin, and this doesn’t have to be a grandiose thing, it can be whatever you want it to be. But the question is, what is your definition of becoming legendary? What does that mean to you, and what does it mean to live a legendary life?

Robin Good [02:01:08]:Living a legendary life means. I mean, it’s not something that I’ve challenged myself with. You’re the first one. I don’t typically use this verb, but I noticed this recently. Maybe was you that commented back on something I wrote that says, oh, you legend. He felt good. So just to say that I’m buying time for the answer. Legendary for me is to leave something behind.

Robin Good [02:01:44]:To leave something, a mark, some kind of mark behind. But to be legendary means more. And that would be his legendary. That is, what is it when you say Robin is legendary? He’s broken grounds. He’s gone into places that I wouldn’t have gone, is. Is realized things that I would thought were only dreams. So those are legendary people. They don’t have to be famous, but they kind of break into grounds or go beyond typical borders we put there for us to behave.

Robin Good [02:02:34]:And that’s what they. What to me would mean to be legendary, to do those things and to leave some kind of physical, but could be even just intangible inspirational memory. Something so good or so special that moves others. So Robin, could you give us an example of somebody legendary for you? Well, case in point, could be Bruce Lee, but that’s very popular. That’s easy, Robin. Yes, many people could say that he’s a legendary being because of the things that is done beyond the public entertainment, movies. The legendary part is not that one. The legendary part of Bruce Lee is the philosophical understanding of the body of the combat arts, of the passion and depth with which he curated that understanding.

Robin Good [02:03:37]:Because we cannot leave this out. Bruce Leeb was basically a curator of combat arts. He studied all the different combat arts to not find a perfect mix, but to reveal that each one can draw from all the combat arts to find his own custom perfect mix. Because I’m small and fast, you’re big and heavy can be the same moves that work for me work also for you. So in that way, he was a curator as well. So for somebody less famous as Bruce Lee, let’s see, Robin, if in 10 seconds you can bring up another legendary example. Well, I guess they’re all famous. They’re all those mentors that I have had in my life.

Robin Good [02:04:33]:So I don’t know if I’m going to do a disservice to me in mentioning them, but. But yeah, they’re all famous. Legendary, that is not famous. Well, I could name them, but it wouldn’t mean anything to Tize or now to the listeners if I say Andrea Zampa or Massimo Fousey, which are friends I’ve had in my life that I would consider somewhat legendary for what they’ve done. So then, Robin, you’re right. If those ones we don’t know tell us three more besides Bruce Lee. Well, I’ve been very influenced by Timothy Leary for all the negative things have been said about him. He pushed me to Think beyond the convention.

Robin Good [02:05:25]:When I was junior sophomore, so in the perfect age to rewire your brain, as he would at point, some said, and look beyond life on the planet and, you know, go beyond the stupid stories about marijuana or lsd. His message was way beyond that into looking at the possibility of evolving ourselves beyond the gossipy level we’re always in. So it has a lot to do with what we discussed today then. I was influenced very much by obviously Carlos Castaneda and the teachings of Don Juan. That is all the esoteric stuff connected to. Having a symbiosis with nature and with medicinal plants to explore ourselves deeper. And the third one I would bring Alan Watts thoughts, synergy of east and west, philosophy and psychology. A man whose voice, when I listen, brings to me good sensations.

Robin Good [02:06:47]:There would be many more I should list, but these are the ones that, when I was around my 20s, really stroke a lot of chords. So those are legendary men for me.

Tyson Gaylord [02:07:01]:Perfect. Thank you. That’s a good.

Robin Good [02:07:03]:That’s.

Tyson Gaylord [02:07:03]:That’s a good list. Well, Robin, I got a page full of notes. Thank you so much for your information. Thank you so much for your time, your wisdom and everything. It’s been a pleasure and I hope the listeners had a great time with us too.

Robin Good [02:07:17]:I hope so. I really hope so. Thank you. Tyson, it’s been a pleasure. A unique gift from you. Thank you very much. Keep on reading you because I see that you’re not looking at the surface of things. You’re asking a lot of questions, and we need more people like you.

Tyson Gaylord [02:07:34]:Well, thank you so much. It’s been my pleasure. What a great interview with Robin. Good. I had a great time. I hope you guys learned something. I hope you guys found some food for thought. Teradata.

Tyson Gaylord [02:07:43]:I’m gonna. I’m gonna look into more of that. I’m gonna develop more of that, and I want to. I want to develop more about. About me. I really encourage. I like that. And then final thing, that really is stuck with me after the episode.

Tyson Gaylord [02:07:59]:Who are you serving and why is it relevant? I think we all should take some time to answer those questions and, you know, maybe finding somebody to answer that question with you by sharing this episode with your friends. As always, you know, there’s no paywall. There’s no premium content to subscribe to. There’s no Tyson and Robin plus premium package.

Robin Good [02:08:19]:You.

Tyson Gaylord [02:08:19]:You gotta go. Everything we give to you right up front. Only things we ask is you share with at least two other people. If you found value from this episode, as always, you can connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and your favorite podcast player for past episodes and link to everything we’ve discussed here. Today you can head over to the Social Chameleon Show. And don’t forget to subscribe not just on our podcast, our substack Robin’s as well. You’re going to get show notes, legendary lifeboats, monthly rewinds, and stuff like this delivered directly to your inbox. Until next time, keep learning, growing and transform on your path to becoming legendary.

Tyson Gaylord [02:09:02]:Sa.

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