Corey Kupfer 10:25
Okay. But you know, when you work at New York City firms, big firms is this interesting dichotomy where they don’t encourage you smaller firms well, but when you get that plumb job, right, right, partners just wants you available to them. Right. So not only do they not encourage you, but they discourage you from trying to develop your own business, thinking that it’s not going to be big enough clients, and they don’t want you distracted, they want you to, then when it comes time to make partner, they’d say, Well, you’re not gonna make fun without a book of business, right? I didn’t even get to that point, because I knew I didn’t want to stay to make partner, I looked at the lives of partners in New York City law firms. And I was like, Wait, that’s what I’m aspiring to like, to work even more and more money that I don’t have time to spend now, I’m not interested. But you know, but for me, so. So that was, you know, that was one thing. So in 92, I had no clients. So I was really starting from nothing. I mean, I went to every networking event out there. And of course, back then, it was presenting it that’s, I mean, how did you meet clients? The only way you really met him was you went out and literally handed out business cards and Chamber of Commerce and stuff like that. It was that kind of hustle, right? I got on the, the New York State United Teachers Union had like a legal plan where if you got on the panel, they would send you clients, and it was like 50 bucks an hour. And then you know, and it went like, 60, up to $65 an hour. And all my friends, the big firms were like, you know, why? You know, we’re billing $135 An hour why you believe what you were going to 65? And I was like, well, the menu is not 175 or 65. The menu right now is zero. Right? So, yeah, so worked my way up. I mean, everything was different back then you needed, you know, you needed servers you needed. You know, there was, it was, again, it was pre internet, you know, I, you know, I’d be going to Staples to buy my own supplies. I mean, you know, you name it. In fact, this is funny, I remember, there was a place down on Wall Street, which is now became your Wall Street office, it was called Service Resource agency back then. And it was pre Regis it was pre we work, it was pre all those shared spaces. And this guy, Steve, when they’re becoming a client of mine had this concept for this sort of shared office space. And also, this is the key thing, he had a brand new technology back then, which was that if somebody called in your telephone number, it would come in on a computer screen in front of a receptionist. And it was say, well, offices according Kupfer, and they can transfer that call to me, and my studio apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, because that’s where I was, okay? And that was newfangled technology back then the fact that you can actually have so I could appear like I was in an office. Yeah. And that was brand new back in 9292.
John Corcoran 13:02
Right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s very.
Corey Kupfer 13:04
So that’s the way I started, right, and built it up from nothing and got clients and, and built it up over time. And that and ended up adding a Partner A couple years later, who I joke was the only, you know, guy, because he was a litigator, and I was doing a little bit of everything when I got out. And I only had a corporate background. So I would call them up and say, I’m going to court for the first time, like, I wave to the judge, like, Where do I stand? What do I do, I have no idea what I’m doing. So he would help me out. And then he ended up coming in and because I joked he was the only one of the ones stupid enough to leave a big firm to be come my partner, and he joined and then we added a third partner, we built that firm up, you know, to a pretty nice thing until 2001 When we split, just differences of opinion and various three 911 So this is this is interesting, right? Because a
John Corcoran 13:52
lot of business, you know, obviously tailed off after 911
Corey Kupfer 13:55
So what happened was in late, I think it was 2010 one of my partners left to open his own firm and my my other partner and I will actually, you know, had some issues back then we ended up splitting up in March of 11. So that was before, you know, 911 obviously, and but a lot of people don’t realize it was the economy wasn’t great, even before 911 Like it was starting to get shaky. Yeah. As by the way, the economy was horrible and 92 When I started my firm, overwhelming it was crazy, because I voluntarily left a job that was about to move over six figures, which back then was huge money. Yeah, the least money now for some people, but you know, I made $17,000 net, my first year and 30 my second year and 78,000 my third year and by the fourth year is making more money. So so any case comes to 2001 the economy’s a little shaky partnership splitting up you know, and I you know, I sort of relaunched, you know, my own firm again with an assistant and a part time associate, and um, Yeah, that was that was that really launched? And then yeah, again in 2015, I merged my firm in 2010. And a partnership that we ended up splitting up in 2015.
John Corcoran 15:09
Yeah. And how hard was it each and those partnerships broke up was that a major setback? Was it you know, you seem like a relationship guys, you put put a lot of effort in the relationships, a lot of times, I always say that, when a business breaks up, the person who controls the relationship controls the business, because the clients are gonna go with the person who has a relationship.
Corey Kupfer 15:32
Well, so, you know, it was interesting. And each time it was different, you know, in the in the one in, in 2001, you know, the economy was tough, you know, was tough. And then obviously, 911 hit, you know, not long after that we were actually my office down on Wall Street, we’re actually out of our office for weeks. So, you know, that, that, you know, that was tough. And but but I did a few smart things back then. I cut expenses significantly, I reacted very well, then, I actually rented off. So we actually, my, myself, my ex partner, continued to share an office for more years. And so the lease was up. But we ran two firms out of it. And I had a phenomenal corner office with a view of Statue of Liberty, you know, big office with a couch and the whole thing. And, and I said to myself, you know, what, I don’t know how things are gonna go. So I actually sublet that office out to somebody and moved into a smaller office, which was interesting, from an ego point of view, right, you know, our office, but it turned out to be a great move, because, you know, through the 911 time, and the tough economy, by not was a lot lower. And, you know, I was able to build and rebuild, much less so because of the split, because, yeah, my client relationships, like you said, but because of the economy, and also the headache and disruption, you know, it is a distraction. Right. You know, and come back, you know, a lot stronger. The, you know, the partnership split up in 2015 was was interestingly different. I mean, the thing is, by then, and even on the first one, I knew, I started this thing from nothing. I had no clients, right. So, when you do that, you can do it again. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you start from nothing, you can start from way beyond nothing, you know, later on, right. Here’s the thing in the in the 2015 split was, though, was that there was a particular niche, we do a lot in financial services with like investment advisors, and we help them leave like Merrill Lynch, Morgan, Stanley, UBS, all the big firms, and become entrepreneurs and set up their own independent advisory firm. And my ex partner had a reputation in that space. And I had done some stuff in that space, but got into it a lot more when we were partners. So I had a question that time about in that particular space, whether it was you know, whether, where things would go, fortunately, I ended up doing very, very well out of it. And we’ve you know, grown exponentially since then. But, you know, each time it’s illicit, it’s a restart. It’s a disruption, you got to figure it out. But I think that’s where the entrepreneur spirit comes in. Like, again, you know, when some
John Corcoran 18:05
people love that, some people that’s the favorite their favorite time, right? It’s like starting something over creating something deciding the logo on the business cards, all that kind of fun stuff.
Corey Kupfer 18:15
Yeah, and it does in a way it’s re energizing. Right. You know, I mean, one of the issues that are such bureaus have is that we, we things that go into too well, for too long, we get bored, or self sabotage, right? Yeah. So it’s easy to self sabotage. stuff up. I’ve learned, you know, I think I’ve learned over time where what I’ve done instead now is that I’ve, first of all, I keep building great team, which is crucial throughout the entire thing, but but I’ve also just taken on the challenges, right, you know, I started speaking training and consulting company, I wrote a book, I watch the podcast, I, like, you know, blowing up the stuff that’s working, I just get new challenges, that was a much better way to go.
John Corcoran 18:56
So speaking of challenges, so one of your firms started in 2005 2006 time period. And back then, it required a lot more capital investment, you had to build out offices, it wasn’t the virtual stuff that a lot of people do these days. And then going into 2008 2009, that whole financial downturn, you still had a loan on that you’re paying off, and you actually had to sleep on your air mattress in your office to talk about that, and what that was like after 20 years of practicing.
Corey Kupfer 19:28
Yeah, I mean, it was it was, you know, is amazing. I mean, I yeah, I was 25 years in, like I said, why I’d shared the, you know, that split up with the point I share the office through 2005. And then we will build that our own office after that lease was up on Wall Street. And we build up this amazing office, you know, Williamsburg, Brooklyn and become very, very high. I had moved there. And there was somebody who actually ran the building that I moved into that had office space there as well and said you should start an office there, you know, there because Brooklyn side and we We have some business video on the real estate side, the deal side on that side. So I was like, right, so we built out an office and yeah, I mean, you know, we had 30 $40,000 in computer wiring and servers. And, you know, literally, we had to run wires through the walls before they we closed them up. Right, you know, because that’s how there was no, internet, there was a wireless, there was no, none of that wireless. So any case, so yeah, I mean, I had taken out a loan and then to that, and and then yeah, the recession great recession hit. And yeah, I mean, you know, I thought, I mean, I said that I reacted well, in the, in the, in the initial time when I, you know, 2001 when I can step back, but here I was a little overextended. Also, like, most people, I had no idea the depth of this thing. And I didn’t react quickly. Right. You know, I mean, I had great team, I didn’t want to get rid of them. You know, next thing I know, my revenues down 3040 5060 grand a month. Right? When you start going, you know, that much a month? Yeah. You know, the money goes quick, especially when you expenses stay up. So I was slow to react, you know, eventually they’d have to layoff couple of people, you know, have this office lease? And, yeah, I mean, ended up in a position where I was like, Okay, I’ve got to pay for my payroll for the people laughs I gotta pay my rent. I’ve got a house up in one like Joseph in the Catskill Mountains, which I have a mortgage on. And that’s not worth what the mortgage is right now. And something’s gotta give and I had a rental apartment in Brooklyn, and we gave it up and literally had an air mattress in my office. Fortunately, we had shower, with shower in the office. And I would, for a couple of months, sleep on the mattress to get up really early. And before my employees came in, come in, pack it up, shower. And, you know, a Credit is calling me. I mean, I was just looking at that stage of my career. I never thought I’d be at that point, you know? And, you know, and it was it was, you know, it was really a soul searching tough time. I mean, so many of my friends and business advisors told me to declare bankruptcy or short sell the house up in the country. You know, half the debt was corporate, you know, could have gotten rid of it. You know, I ended up about $330,000 in debt, no money in the bank, and, you know, plus seven house that, you know, and I remember, you know, one of the one of the things that I had a friend actually one of my Entrepreneurs Organization for mates at the time. You know, it was a small group, we have any Oh, when we get together monthly switch and to be successful. You know, they call me up and say, Corey, come play golf. And I was like, I can’t play golf. David, I can’t like I’m right. I don’t know where the next dollar is coming from. I’m like, in the weeds. And I hung up. I said, Come on, It’ll do you good. I hung up on him said no. And about an hour later, I called him back and said, All right, let me go. I said, I gotta get like, I gotta get my head clear. And I went out, we played it. We played around a golf. I literally, for the first time in like, months, just tried to let go of everything and just have a nice day. That was I remember, that was not a Thursday, Friday, I went into the office for half a day, just pack some stuff up and said, I need to get out of this environment. I went up to the right place at the lake, which was financially underwater, but it’s a pretty nice place to go. Yeah, exactly. And, and I took the weekend, I did some visioning work. And I really looked at Hey, alright, this is a restart opportunity. What am I going to do with this? What’s my vision? Am I comfortable declaring bankruptcy, or short selling the house and I came to the conclusion that for me that didn’t align with my inner truth. I always say that I don’t judge other people who you know, the bankruptcy laws or their their legal. If somebody chooses to do that, for them and their family, I have no judgment whatsoever. But just for me, I try to work on, I try to have everything in my life come from a place of getting in touch with my internal truth and my own character and what you know what, what sits well with me, and that’s how I tried to operate in every relationship, though. And all my clients, my employees, all of it, and it just didn’t align for me. So I made a decision, then that I was going to pay back every penny. And I actually put together there’s a tool that I teach in my authentic negotiating book. And I actually give this example in it, something called a CPR context, purpose and results. And I can give you more details. But the bottom line is I did this process that I would tell other people to do in negotiations. And what I was clear on was that I was going to be in communication, my creditors, because I knew people were like, clients who owed me money were hiding on me, right? They were on tough times people react differently under stress. I was going to call back, every creditor, I was going to tell them what I could do. And I had conversations like okay, I know you want $18,000 tomorrow, but I can send you $50 a week. And they’d be like, No, we’re gonna see you and then I just send them $50 A week, right? Because I figured out today Money. Yeah, I can afford like, divided up percentage wise by the creditors that I owed. And I just kept sending them money. And I kept returning the calls, you know what the truth is somebody who’s doing that when they got all these other people that chasing go hide down for them or, you know, whatever, they may make a lot of noise. But, you know, they saw that I was serious. And then as things came back, and I did better write up the amounts and, and you know, within four years, I’d paid off the 330 Grand, I had also put another couple 100 grand in my own retirement account, you know, in that time, and I, and most importantly, most importantly, out of all of it was not that I just avoided bankruptcy or whatever, is that my relationships and my reputation. Were not only intact, but if anything enhanced, right, because of the way I you know, I chose to handle it, right. Because yeah, right, I showed up, I was honest with folks. And yeah, so you know, and we fortunately, from that base, you know, build something that’s way beyond what we had, you know, back at that time, and now I have more pots of money for emergencies. And I, you know, so.
John Corcoran 26:14
So, I’m curious, because back around that time period, 2008 2009, I was working at a law firm, and it was a real estate law firm, most of our clients were way underwater on lots of different properties. And it’s a total natural reaction for people to stick their head in the sand not want to deal they can’t deal there’s a lot of motion tied up, and how do you convince someone that’s in the midst in the throes of something like that, that the better thing to do is to not put your head in the sand, and to deal with it on a day to day basis, week to week basis, like you described?
Corey Kupfer 26:48
Well, I mean, I’ll say a few things on that one of the biggest things that I talk about in my negotiating training and the authentic negotiating book, is that the word I mean, emotion is the worst thing. emotion can be a signal to you. But if you let emotion drive your, you know, your approach to anything, you’re negotiating with creditors or your decision making, you’re in trouble. Right? You know, if you’re coming from I mean, the I talked about the the biggest reasons why negotiations fail, and they’re all you know, they have fear and ego and desperation and scarcity, and you know, all that kind of stuff, rigidity. So, you know, the ability to step back, and, you know, and come, you know, get connected to that truth, right? Because, you know, and I say to people, now, what’s what’s easy for me as I share my personal experience, right, because one of the biggest ways you can get through to somebody, when they’re in a similar situation, is to be able to share a personal experience where you’ve been through that journey, and you and you made that at least they see, it’s not just a theory, it’s like, oh, somebody actually did this, and why, right. So, you know, I, I’ve always, I guess, I don’t say always, but I have, fortunately, most the time, my career, taking the long view, right? Now I’ve done the expedient, short, short thing. And for me, my word, my character makes a difference. So you know, I’ll ask you about that in a non judgmental way. Again, listen, so that if you can’t feed your kids, and you know, whatever, you know, just just make that decision from a very grounded internal place, not from some reaction, you know, or, you know, or, or fear, you know, try to try to make sure you can live with that decision. You know, ongoingly, including if you’re a parent, and I wasn’t, but you know, what kind of example you want to say, for your kids or whatever. And again, I don’t say that in a judgmental way, I just say, you got to get to your own truth. And I talked about that even in just business negotiations, right? Like, we were very, as human beings, we’re very, we’re much less inclined to do that deep internal work. And for me, the world’s manifest from within, I believe, I believe we create our reality. And I believe that we we don’t control over all the external circumstances, but we certainly control our relationship to them. And ultimate, and I, I guess, maybe because I came from the background, I came from and have spent a lot of times with highly financially successful people and seeing that, not all of them, some of them were very happy and well adjusted, and some of them are really miserable, right? So for me, I’ve come to understand that, you know, it’s really that internal alignment and being in character, you know, and integrity for you, not, not some external moral, but for you, that makes life work. So that’s what I encourage people, you know, to do, and wherever they end up out of that, you know, again, if, if out of that they decide to quit bankruptcy. That’s all good. Yeah, right. Right.
John Corcoran 29:41
When you started your firm in 2015, it was a very different world. By that point, you know, I say that when I started my firm 2011 I had just come from a firm where the founder of that firm had spent 10 grand to buy some server that went in a closet and it was the antiquated technology. Two years later, I spent 10 bucks a month for Dropbox for all my files and their cloud hosted all that kind of stuff. So it was a very different world. So talk a little about your approach to starting a business in 2015. And building more of a virtual operation, keeping your costs down, all that kind of stuff.
Corey Kupfer 30:17
Well, he has an interesting story. So I won’t say names, but my, I had told my partner at the time that I was sorry, had merged in in 2010. I was, and I was unmerge, in 2015, for a number of reasons, in terms of different vision, values, etc. And I told him that, you know, we were leaving as a certain date. And he before, attempting competitive advantage actually locked us out of the office, like a week or so early, right, that we actually, like, the last thing we were going to do was set up the attack I had, you know, my buddy was a tech guy was not going to take on water. So we really had to, like, you know, we really had to scramble, right. And literally in a conference room, and my and my buddies is actually one of my audio formats, offices, you know, he had a text setup in, like, an hour, right? On a few laptop computers and some cloud programs, and we were up and running, right, there’s no way that would have been possible, you know, in 1992, when I started or even, even in 2001, when, you know, when I when I split up my first partnership. So yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s so much easier now. And then, you know, we started that way, and I was planning on getting a place in California. And I looked at whether I want you to office space, and whatever, which traditionally was totally necessary my business. But I had this real sense that the world had changed already. And this 2015 I’m not talking pandemic, and I actually had my assistant do an analysis of my calendar for the last three years, to say, How often did I meet with a client in my office? And the answer was what I suspect that almost never, like nobody, even if 15 people were, you know, video calls or whatever, ready around conference calls, maybe, you know, sometimes you go to their place or out to dinner, even if you met So, and, and I said, you know, I’m gonna get a place to California, I’m not necessarily going to be here. I don’t need to have my employees have to be in the office. And we we sort of went full circle. Like when I first started, I started in one of these shared spaces where you know, you could have a virtual office. And, you know, we signed up with a with a place that where we have conference room access. in Westchester. And in New York City, we have an address. And, and, you know, and we don’t, but unlike in the beginning, we don’t use any of that phone services. Whenever I have, my team does that. And yeah, and we’ve been operating virtually since two that May of 2015. At the time, we weren’t like we weren’t hiding it. But we were also super promoting it, we were just operating right. And what’s interesting is the pandemic hits, and we have to make no changes whatsoever. We don’t miss a beat. And we continue to operate that way. And now of course, a lot of people come around to like, why don’t we have all this stuff? Especially for?
John Corcoran 33:02
Yeah, exactly. I can imagine lots of law firms have got lots of downtown real estate in cities all around the United States, and they’re kind of wondering how they’re gonna fill it. Now, if people want to work from home,
Corey Kupfer 33:13
no question. And listen, there’s a problem. And you would raise to be a little bit in the pre discussion, like this entrepreneurial mindset and lawyer mindset thing. You know, I, my guess is I’ve seen at some of the law firms are going to, you know, moving back, because just their culture and their mentality is, is very different, you know, they vary state in their ways. You know, I have, I have a lot of thoughts on why most lawyers are not spiritual, but it’s gonna be interesting to see how that comes about. Because I think some of the firm’s have maybe figured out, they could do it differently, and others are sort of retrenching, back to their usual model.
John Corcoran 33:46
Let’s talk about that, that entrepreneurial mindset versus lawyer mindset, because, you know, I’ve done it, you know, I’ve seen that is, you know, transition from practicing law embraced entrepreneurial mindset, you know, certainly ups and downs, and all that kind of stuff. But a lot of lawyers struggle with it. And, and, and a lot of lawyers are miserable. And I And I’ve talked to so many lawyers who are like, Oh, tell me how to do it. And I’ll say to them, I could, but you’re not going to do it, because so many of them aren’t willing to do it, or they don’t have what it takes. What do you think it is?
Corey Kupfer 34:20
Yeah, I mean, so I think it’s a few things. I mean, I mean, first of all, it’s slow the primacy of and outside of lawyers. Right, that that, you know, most people are not natural entrepreneurs. Right. I think you’ve got three categories of people and I have no judgment on any of them, right? You have people who are going to be employed for their entire life, my parents would, you know, what, those people, right? You have people who are natural born entrepreneurs and cannot breathe unless they add, you know, you know, their own thing, which is, which is me, right? Even though I was in, you know, like, I do what it needs to do work with somebody, but I always sort of, and then you have situation entrepreneurs, right? People who you know, and I have some folks in my EO forum like that, like that, you know, they, they were in a particular business, they something came up When the company they have supplier relationships, they sort of went out, you know, and and none of them is better than the other. But the point is this that you first of all, you only got a certain percentage, small percentage of people period, or ash gross. Now let’s layer in the legal law firm thing, right? Most lawyers think about the way we’re trained, right? You went to law school, and I say this to my business clients all the time. And it frankly, I think it’s one of my biggest competitive advantages is in law school. All you learn about is things that go wrong. Because yeah, learn about cases, right? There’s no cases of the deals that worked out the business partnerships that worked out, right, there’s nothing that study there, in terms of the cases, at least the way laws law school is taught, right? You taught on legal theories based on cases. So. So one thing for me is that I believe, you know, you need to be, you need to take risks to be an entrepreneur, that is an issue that a lot of people have, generally, then you got lawyers who are trained only to focus on risk, right. And, in fact, most lawyers are over indexed on risk. And that not only makes them less likely to be an entrepreneur, but it also is what drives business people and entrepreneurs crazy about working with them. Because when they’re working on their deals, and their contracts and negotiations, and whenever, yes, identifying risks, understanding risks, doing your best to mitigate risk is a very, very important part of what we do as lawyers. But it’s not the only point. Right? The ability to recognize the business opportunity and help a client take advantage that and balance that appropriately. With the risk profile, right, is really where it makes a difference. And that’s where a lot of our colleagues, you know, in the law fold down. So I think that same mentality that has frustrate the heck out of business people is also a big part about why they don’t often become entrepreneurs, and even if they start their own firm, most lawyers are self employed than entrepreneurs. Right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, so I remember when I, when I was thinking about going on my own, I looked at the big firm partners, I’m like, I don’t want that because they just work their butts off and, and make more money than they can spend. But then I looked at the alternative, which was more often like some solo practitioner, right, who still had a hump in at age 70. Because if they didn’t work, they didn’t make money, right? And I’m like, I don’t want that either. Right. So. So I think, I think over index on risk, that not being risk takers is one thing. The other thing is, and listen, I’ve had this not prevent me from being an entrepreneur, but it’s actually talked me out of certain like investment deals like real estate deals and stuff. We’re also so taught to have that analytical thinking that we can be prone to overanalyze things. And the thing about being an entrepreneur, is this some element of jumping off the cliff and making the wings on the way down, right? You can’t figure out everything upfront. And we’re trained to be able to try to figure it all out. Right. And I think that that definitely works against, you know, Lord is, you know, as well. And I think, a lot of times the personality of, you know, of folks who go into law to start with, you know, there are exceptions like us, but a lot of them just even personality wise, right? Even if they weren’t lawyers, they’d be something else with a B dot, you know, entrepreneurs. So, I think there’s a number of those factors. You know, people often ask me, whether I work with entrepreneurs, I work with lawyers, and I don’t because they’re taught like, I actually am working with my financial advisors who I helped become much because when they leave Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, UBS, but they, and listen, there are people who will never leave my mother Merrill, right? Again, no judgment, that’s where they belong. They’re made to be an employee. But I think in some of these other professions, they have more of the skills I have. One other example is say, how many lawyers resist, if you ever said that they need to sell, right? Like how many lawyers that would be like, yeah, it’s why we call it rainmaking. Your business development and all these terms can derogatory, I want to see ourselves and salespeople, right. But what great selling is relationship building anyway, in any business, right. So, so I think that’s the other piece is that Lloyd is so the culture is so you know, trained to have a negative around, you know, having to sell yourself. And you know, what, when you run your own business, whether you’re a lawyer or any other kind of entrepreneur, if you can’t sell yourself, or, you know, convince someone else to sell to sell you, right, you know, and I say it in those terms, because it’s the Yeah, sure, I could say I build relationships, I do business development, I do authority, marketing, and do all this stuff, whatever. You know, I’m selling me what you know, me and my team and the service we provide or the product, I don’t have a widget to
John Corcoran 39:38
sell. From now on. If I need a lawyer who’s thinking of going out on their own, I’m gonna refer them to this interview. I’m gonna say listen to this answer, because that was so well articulated, explaining all the challenges, particularly for lawyers, but so you join EO you’ve been in the oil for like 15 years now. Talk a little bit about the impact that Being a part of that community has had for you.
Corey Kupfer 40:02
Yeah. So you know, it’s been amazing. It’s funny, because I joined the Oh 2008 For several years before that I was around the community a lot of the hours, right. And I was shoppers that, you know, people would bring me as a guest to events. And then I actually so back in 2000, I’m thinking it’s probably six, seven. You know, in the early days, he was less formalized legally. And a lot of the chapters weren’t even operating as an entity, whatever. So they started to get their act together. And I actually got referred to do the legal work to form the New York chapter as a real, you know, nonprofit entity, right? Yeah. And so I got to know, the board, the board members, and like, you know, all these people, and at some point,
John Corcoran 40:46
then they recruited
Corey Kupfer 40:47
you to join Oh, yeah, they’ve been recruiting me for like a while, right. Yeah. And again, I didn’t get it, you know, in the beginning, like everyone, right? I’m like, No, I got all these other commitments. I’m on this board, I do this, I do that I don’t need another thing, right. I didn’t, I didn’t really get it. Right. And then at some point, they just looked at me and said, Come on, Corey, you’ve been to so many events, that guests we give it away or go to, you know, just join the damping. So I did. And I never looked back, because I found out that he was not, you know, like anything else that I’ve been involved in to be in a peer to peer learning situation with other entrepreneurs who think like me, you know, I would say to folks, listen, yes, we have great speakers. And I do all these cool retreats. And yes, they did take a helicopter ride to base camp Everest, and, you know, and I can tell you a million stories like that. And yes, that’s, that’s all amazing and worth it within fat, and the international community. But what it comes down to, for me is like, where else can you be, you know, EO as entrepreneurs only, right? There are other organizations that do similar stuff, but they’re not only entrepreneurs. And where can you be in a place with your peers, where they’ve been, you know, they get you, right, they get the way you think they get that entrepreneurial mindset, that visionary that, you know, that desire to build stuff, and, and they’ve been through some of the challenges that you that you’ve gone through. And you know, there’s this peer to peer learning, the sharing this ability to share experiences, you know, as in just find your people is invaluable. And I can tell a million stories on specific things that, you know, how he has helped me and make great connections I’ve made and there’s great experiences I’ve had. But yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s been phenomenal.
John Corcoran 42:24
That’s great. Corey, I know, we’re, we’re really long on time. So we’ll wrap things up with my last question. This is my gratitude question. I’m a big fan of gratitude. Especially expressing gratitude not just to family, friends, team members, but also peers, contemporaries who are out there, you know, who would you want to
Corey Kupfer 42:41
thank most MLS, I’ll stay on theme because my yo forum. I mean, some of these guys I’ve been with for 1213 years. And then the other ones have been at least five, six years. And when you are in a great, you know, so felicite zone OIO there’s a small group that some of us have, you know, benefit of being in a forum you meet usually monthly, you got a couple of retreats, and really they’re there to support you to become successful not only in business, but you know, in life and family and health and community and I happen to be in a forum with guys who, like would do anything for me and me for them. Right? Like and they’ve been through the toughest times, you know, you know, with me, and we’ve been through you know, people going through divorces and financial struggles and you know, there’s nothing we hold back so yeah, I mean, those guys and my in my four year forum are invaluable in my life.
John Corcoran 43:42
Excellent, Corey, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Where can people go to learn more about you check out the podcast, check out the book, all that kind of stuff?
Corey Kupfer 43:50
So the best hub is Coreykupfer.com. Coreykupfer.com.com. That will lead you elsewhere. So the book, the podcast sale will come through the Corey Kupfer website as well. So that’s that’s the hub.
John Corcoran 44:03
DealQuest Podcast and Authentic Negotiating. If you want to Google, either of those. I’m sure you can find them that way. Corey, thank you so much.
Corey Kupfer 44:10
Thanks for being with me, John. Enjoyed it.
Chad Franzen 44:15
Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.