Crazy, but this past Saturday, I turned 30!

I’ve been dreaming about how I wanted to celebrate my 30th birthday for ~3 years now.

It all started when my friend, Vlad Solovetski, and I were talking about my vision for Beyond Curious, right when I had re-branded.

He reacted by saying, “Maybe one day you’re going to have a Curiosity Island.”

My response?

“FUCK yeah I’m going to have a Curiosity Island!”

Want to see the actual video? Here’s the moment when it happened! Thankfully I was recording so I had this captured…

Several months later, I was at Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s live event when I set a goal to celebrate my 30th birthday by hosting a Curiosity Island event.

Well, that just happened.

It’s surreal, because it was everything I could have ever dreamed of and MORE.

But beyond making this vision a reality, I also wanted to be incredibly intentional about who I’m choosing to become in this next chapter of my life.

And because of this level of intentionality, I’ve decided to completely revamp the Beyond Curious podcast.

In this episode, I’ll share three things:

1. The story of how my 3 year Curiosity Island vision came true by taking you behind the scenes of everything that happened at one of the most transformational moments of my life.
2. How I’M evolving in this next decade
3. HOW the show is evolving to match my own evolution (Hint: I’m shifting away from a weekly interview style show 😮)

This was a FUN and unique episode, because I intentionally recorded it as a conversation between just you and I…

Because my wife, Leah, and I booked an extra night in the resort where we hosted Curiosity Island, I started by recording the episode while on the beach.

I ran out of time, so I continued in the airport, and eventually finished on the airplane (where I’m writing this now!).

I can’t wait for you to listen. This is a special one ❤️

👉 Access The 4% Files Treasure Map HERE To Get A Detailed Recap & Summary Of This Series!

👉 Access all of the bonus material from the 4% Files right here

This is it. The GRAND Finale.

It’s the fireworks show where you THINK it’s over…

Then there’s another grand finale on top of the grand finale.

For this final episode of the 4% files, I’m curating clips from 25+ episodes and organizing them into 2 buckets:

1. Stories
2. Strategy

Within the stories section, I’ve curated the most mind blowing and transformational stories shared on Beyond Curious. These are the stories that stretch your mind as to what’s possible as a human being.

You’ll get glimpses of:

1. How Andre Norman went from running a $3m/mo heroin, prostitution, & extortion operation while serving a 100-year prison sentence… to becoming a Harvard fellow, author, speaker & changing the criminal justice system
2. How Sean Swarner — a 2x cancer survivor with one lung — summited Everest, the 7 summits + the north & south poles…
3. How Trevor G Blake — a NYT bestselling author & Physicist — used “Mind Movies” to have MULTIPLE 9-figure exits with ZERO employees
4. How YOU can preserve your family legacy, heal previous wounds, and re-write your history by interviewing your loved ones… pulling on an interview I did with my late grandfather, Kenny Fong
5. How Marty Cooper changed the world by inventing the cell phone.
6. How Hal Elrod used “The 5 Minute Rule” to recover after being hit by a truck going 70 MPH, breaking 11 bones, suffering permanent brain damage, and being clinically dead for 6 minutes.

But that, my friends, is just the warmup, because next we dive into the highest leverage strategies that have created disproportionate results in my life.

The first section starts with Relationship Strategies.

You’ll learn…

1. From NYT bestselling author, Jon Levy, on how to leverage the “IKEA Effect” to build transformational relationships (I’ve been using this for 12+ years and it’s seriously changed my life)
2. What ONE quote my first ever mentor,

👉 Access The 4% Files Treasure Map HERE To Get A Detailed Recap & Summary Of This Series!

👉 Access all of the bonus material from the 4% Files right here

I’d be lying if I told you that I wasn’t a bit star struck when I first met Michael Hauge.

Here’s what I knew about him:

1. Will Smith himself had said “No one is better than Michael Hauge at finding what is most authentic in every moment of a story.”
2. Russell Brunson, the founder of Clickfunnels, credits Michael’s frameworks as one of the keys that helped grow his software company that has 100,000 active customers and creates millions of dollars a month in sales.
3. For four decades, he has been one of Hollywood’s top story experts and consultants working on projects starring Julia Roberts, Morgan Freeman, and Tom Cruise (to name a few)... and specifically with Will Smith, he consulted on he consulted on the scripts for I Am Legend, Hancock, The Karate Kid, Suicide Squad, and Bright.

I had been impacted by his work and was incredibly grateful he agreed to come on the show WAY back when I was just getting started on episode #36 in June 2021.

It was during that interview that I did something I was nervous to do:

I asked Michael for feedback on a story I was working on.

Not only did Michael say yes and give me LIVE coaching on the recording, but he offered to come back for a part TWO where he would review the changes and tweak what I did with the story even more.

That SINGLE ask was the start of what has been a transformational relationship with Michael over the last 5 years, and today I’m grateful to call him a dear friend and mentor.

Like all of the guests on the 4% files, my life would be fundamentally different if it weren’t for Michael.

Here’s why:

Yes, Michael has made me a 100,000x better storyteller.

Because unlike many storytelling frameworks that solely focus on the “external hero’s journey” (The call to adventure, meeting the mentor, etc.), Michael has become known for what he refers to as the hero’s “inner journey.”

The Inner Journey is the deeper storyline that makes a story truly great of how the hero moves from hiding within a protective identity to experiencing his or her true essence.

But beyond being a better storyteller, Michael’s storytelling frameworks gave me a blueprint for living a more courageous life.

The way Michael teaches story structure gives you a glimpse into this pattern of the human condition that ANYONE must face if they are going to follow their heart and build a life doing what they care about.

So as you listen to this one, I invite you to listen from two perspectives:

1. How might I tell better stories to inspire others?
2. How might I apply this pattern to living a more courageous life, doing what matters most to me?

I can’t wait for you to listen!

00:00 – Introduction to Beyond Curious and today’s guest, Michael Hauge.

Brandon Fong welcomes listeners to the 10th “4% File,” part of an 11-episode series distilling the most powerful insights from over 334 hours of Beyond Curious conversations. He explains the purpose of the series, reflects on the...