Molly Lane, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Yours Truly
Wow. I just got back from what was one of the best weeks of my career- what an amazing experience!
I was in New York City to attend Joe Polish’s Genius Network Mastermind Group meeting, and to help host the ClickBank Exchange. It was the first event we’ve ever hosted, and it ended up going incredibly well. I was really excited to get to emcee the show, and got to introduce a bunch of my marketing heroes, including Gary Vaynerchuk, who I’ve followed and respected since I first saw him speak at BlogWorld years ago. It was a huge honor, and even though I ended up losing my voice from all the talking and shouting during our speed networking session, it was totally worth it!
For me, the best part of both events (and really every event I attend) is getting to meet well-known Internet marketers and get to see what they’re really like in person. It can be easy to watch marketing ninjas like Gary V, Joe Sugarman, Dan Sullivan and others from afar and start to think they’re superhuman, but when you meet and spend time with them in person, you realize that they’re not that different from anybody else in our industry; they’ve just worked their asses off to get where they are, made a ton of mistakes, and kept going until they figured out how to be great.
Hopefully I don't look too nervous!
They say you should never meet your heroes, but with very few exceptions, the ones I’ve met have turned out to be really cool people, and I’ve even become friends with a few of them. Most people in Internet marketing are genuinely friendly and helpful, and want to see other people do well. You’d expect that there would be a lot of competition and secrets between guys in the same industry when they’re at events together, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. People share what they’ve learned, what works and what doesn’t, and what the best opportunities out there are. I’m sure they probably don’t share their absolute best secrets, but hey, they’ve got to make a living, right? 
I came out of my week in New York more excited than ever to be a part of this industry, made several great new friends, and caught up with people I met at previous shows but don’t get to see very often. Getting to speak on stage was a lot of fun and is something I want to start doing more often. All in all, it was an incredible experience, and one I won’t soon forget.