Brian Swan: Why the First Follower Builds Your Tribe, Not You

You’ve watched the leader on stage. You’ve copied the words, the pace, even the way they raise their hand for effect. And your team still doesn’t move the way theirs does. Brian Swan opens this session by pointing at a video most people have seen before, a shirtless man dancing alone on a hillside, and using it to explain exactly why copying the person on stage was never the actual lesson.

As someone trying to build a team inside an industry where company names and offers change every few years, you already know the frustration of doing everything a leader tells you to do and still watching your group stay small. Brian’s answer isn’t a new script. It’s a different way of understanding what a tribe actually is and where it actually comes from.

Why does the leader get the credit when a movement actually needs someone else first?

The video Brian plays is short: one man dancing alone at a festival, looking, in his words, ridiculous, until a second person gets up and joins him. Everyone assumes the lone dancer is the leader and the story ends there. Brian’s point is that the real turning point isn’t him. It’s the first person willing to stand up and follow publicly, in front of everyone, before it’s safe or normal to do so.

The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that really makes the fire.

Once a second follower joins, it stops being two eccentric people and becomes a crowd, and a crowd is what gets other people to stop watching from the sidelines. The mechanism matters because most people obsess over becoming the person on stage and completely ignore the much harder, much more available job of being the first person brave enough to publicly stand beside someone else’s idea. That’s usually where an actual tribe starts, not with a big personality up front, but with the willingness to be seen following something before anyone else does.

How do you know whether to copy what another leader on stage is doing?

This is the part of the session that turns philosophical instead of just motivational. Brian pulls up two guests in the room, Scott and Paul, and asks them directly why they’re there. Scott’s answer wasn’t about the compensation plan or the training modules. As he put it in the room, “there’s an energy here. There’s a feeling of support.” That’s a harder thing to manufacture than a good script, and Brian uses it to make his real point: culture isn’t the stuff you announce, it’s the thing people feel whether you mean to project it or not.

From there Brian gives a genuinely useful filter for anyone tempted to copy a leader they admire just because that leader is on stage. As he puts it, “if it’s not feeling right here, don’t do it. It’s the easiest test.” Not every tactic that works for someone else’s personality or audience belongs in your own business, and the fastest way to lose your own tribe’s trust is to adopt a move that contradicts what you actually believe, just because it worked for someone with a bigger stage.

What actually destroys a tribe faster than anything else?

Brian is specific about this, because he’s watched people build a following and then quietly erode it. Being real is the whole game. Never asking your team to do something you haven’t done yourself. Standing by a decision even when it’s inconvenient, especially when going against the grain costs you something in the moment. People are watching everything you do, not just the polished version, and every choice either strengthens the trust your tribe has in you or quietly takes something away from it.

He also ties this directly back to mindset and personal development, describing an exercise he and his wife have used for almost a decade to keep their own thinking straight before they ever ask anyone else to trust their judgment. A tribe that follows a shaky, inconsistent leader eventually scatters. One that follows someone consistent, even through failure, sticks around long enough to become something durable.

• The first follower, not the leader, is usually the actual turning point of any movement.
• Use how a tactic feels to you personally as the filter for whether to copy another leader’s move.
• Never ask your team to do something you wouldn’t do yourself.
• Consistency, more than charisma, is what keeps a tribe together long term.

Create your free account to watch Brian break this down with Scott and Paul in the room, including the parts where he puts them on the spot to explain, unscripted, exactly why they stayed. Download the audio and revisit the litmus test the next time you’re tempted to copy someone else’s move instead of trusting your own. Start at empowernetwork.com/watch.

The full session transcript follows below.

Transcript

Everybody, you know what? I want to just thank Rhonda first, because we've got to start off with positive vibes. And how do we get the most positive vibes? Have a happy wife.

So I want to give everybody, let's give it up for Rhonda. Fuck, mama. I love you. I love you.

All right. Now let's get down to business, okay? Woo! Got that out of the way.

Got to get the energy going. We got the pasta two days in a row, so we got to shake it out, all right? I'm fired up. Thank you, honey.

I really do appreciate it. She does a ton. If you think what she does behind the scenes, she's always working. She's always da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, and drives me nuts.

But it's cool. She gets it done. All right? All right.

So here's what I want to talk about. Okay. Let's go. Bop, bop, bop, bop.

All right. So I want to touch on two things, and these are two of the biggest attributes of leaders in any industry. Does anyone have any guesses? I mean, there's more than, but here's two huge ones.

Anyway. They start with Y. Start with Y. They read.

Read. Okay. Who else? A brand.

What is that? Brand. Brand. Okay.

What else? Vision. Vision. Yeah.

They follow people that have what they want. Okay. Cool. Now, between what everybody said, this is where I'm going to narrow it down to.

Okay. So we got Richard Branson, we got Timothy Ferris, and then we got Steve Jobs. Right? Okay.

So what I'm breaking it down to, and if you notice, check this out. This is pretty cool. I just pulled this up today, and it's the same shirt that I was with Tim Ferris on there. But mindset, right?

Mindset and building a tribe. Now we're talking about mindset. Mindset and vision. Talking about personal development.

Having goals. Having goals. Right? Having a brand.

When you said having a brand. These two things. And then it's, if you look at Timothy Ferris, you look at Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, you can keep on going, but anybody who's successful, they have that mindset, but they're building a tribe. Now, if you think about it, why are all of you guys here right now?

Okay. I'm going to go to the next slide, but I want you to think about this, on how we've started from just 16 people one year ago, and everyone has got bigger. I'm not even sure what the next one is. I'm not even sure what the next one is going to really do, but it's going to be bigger.

So let me go on, all right? Okay. Here we go. Let's start the movie here.

Everybody's seen this, but I love this one, and I want everybody to see it again. It's such a cool thing. If you've learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let's watch a movement happen start to finish in under three minutes and dissect some lessons. First, of course, a leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous, but what he's doing is so simple.

It's almost instructional. This is key. You must be easy to follow. Now here comes the first follower with a crucial role.

He publicly shows everyone else how to follow. Notice how the leader embraces him as an equal. So it's not about the leader anymore. It's about them, plural.

Notice how he's calling to his friends to join in. It takes guts to be a first follower. You stand out, and you brave ridicule yourself. Being a first follower is an underappreciated form of leadership.

The first follower is the leader himself. So what's the first follower? The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that really makes the fire.

Now here's the second follower. This is a turning point. It's proof the first has done well. Now it's not a lone nut, and it's not two nuts.

Three is a crowd, and a crowd is news. A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader. Everyone needs to see the followers, because new followers emulate followers, not the leader.

Now here come two more people, then three more immediately. Now we've got momentum! This is the tipping point, and now we have a movement. As more people jump in, it's no longer risky.

If they were on the fence before, there's no reason not to join in now. They won't stand out, they won't be ridiculed, and they will be part of the in-crowd if they hurry. And over the next minute, you'll see the rest, prefer to stay part of the crowd, because eventually they'd be ridiculed for not joining. And ladies and gentlemen, that is how a movement is made.

So let's recap what we've learned. If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy, all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you. Be public. Be easy to follow.

But the biggest lesson here, did you catch it? Leadership is over-glorified. Yes, it started with the shirtless guy, and he'll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened. It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader.

There's no movement without the first follower. See, we're told that we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective. The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow. When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.

Everybody, let's party! That's why I had to go after lunch to get it going for everybody, okay? Oh, and do you know what the craziest thing? And Rhonda, you don't even know this, I listened to it today.

That song, it's saying Unstoppable. Did you know that? Really? Yeah, no, it's Unstoppable.

I was listening, I'm like… It's called Unstoppable. Yeah, that song is Unstoppable. No joke.

Wow. Yeah, that's the song they're dancing to. I didn't even know it until this morning. Crazy stuff!

You see all that with the shirts and this? I got more, hang on, all right? You think I just probably created this today, right? All right, so that's a movement, right?

And how to start a tribe. Now, check this out. We got a lot of, look at, who does this, right? Who does that?

We do that, right? We're unique. We're all creating our own tribes right now. And, you know, it's, I'm gonna ask a few of you guys, especially the outsiders, like Scott, I'm gonna ask him a little bit.

I'm gonna ask Paul here on why you are here and why you are part of this tribe. So, right, we have the mindset, right? Now we have a tribe. Because if you think of Steve Jobs with Apple, and they have those, they have those, when Steve Jobs used to do the, like, the product launches.

Man, there's a cult following. Richard Branson with Virgin. It's a cult following, man. It's like people just, like, they want to be part of something.

Now, when I'm saying this in front of, like, our tribe here, each one of you guys are creating your own little tribes right now, right? And I'm gonna, if I get a little time tomorrow, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna, like, have a thing on how to actually do that. If I get time tomorrow.

I don't know. We'll see. It's good stuff. I actually curated it today.

But this is, so this is, you know, we're different, right? There's a reason at our events, right, where we stand out. And it's not just because we have Mexican wrestling masks on or big red foam fingers that have Jim Beam on it. We got more stuff, right?

We're unique. It's like everybody wants to be part of it, right? Okay? So, all right.

Before I go on to this, let's go back to the tribe. So I want to, Nathan, go to Scott Small. He's asked me this a million times. And I want to put him on the spot right now.

Scott, this is key, okay? Because a lot of the people, I know why the people that got started with Rhonda and I, I mean, you guys shared it already, right? It's like, you know, it could be the traveling. It could have related to our real estate.

It could have been, you know, surfer bum like Nathan and me now. And then we got more surfer bums. We got more surfer bums. But Scott, he's outside.

And he wants to be part of this tribe. And so we've let him in. We have some honorary members. But what is it that you're looking to see?

You know, I can't put my hand on one particular thing. It's just there's an energy here. There's a feeling of support. There's real training, you know, that you can.

That's key. Because too many times in this business you get started. And you have no idea what to do. So, you know, what they've done is they've broken it down.

They're giving real tools, real support. You know, and then there's, you know, the care, the compassion. You know, all of the things that, you know, really comes from, you know, both of your hearts. And then, you know, it goes out to everybody else in the room.

And I don't see this anywhere else. Well, it's rare. It's really rare. And it's hard to duplicate.

And it takes, you know, a real special group of people, you know, first off to start it. And then to actually share it with everybody else and have other people see it. You know, it's one thing to see it yourself. It's another to be able to get it out to other people and have them experience it.

And not only that, you're getting results with it. And that's, you know, that's the secret sauce here. Because, you know, you're taking something and you're able to, you know, really give it to other people. And have them do something with it.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's it.

And so here's some things that I pulled, picked out from Scott. And this is so key on how to build a tribe and how to destroy a tribe. Because it's easy to build one, but it's so easy to destroy one. Okay?

You said it's real. Right? If you know, Rhonda and I, we never tell you to do something that we don't do. Right?

We show you what works. And I'm talking, you know, from Jabril, talking with John. Talking with all of our leaders here. That we're going to show you exactly what works.

I don't even care what else is out there. We know what works. Right? It's being able to stand up for when it's tough, when you have to go against the grain.

Right? When you're thinking, maybe I should do that. So, you know, those are the things that you set a culture. And we have a culture here.

We're weird, man. We have, you know, but we're real. Alright? Paul, why are you here?

Because. If you guys don't know Paul. Paul Gardner. Dream Reaper.

Why don't you stand up so we can get you on video here, too. And Nathan. Yeah, why don't you come up front. You can even actually speak right into me or something.

A little photo op. Yeah. Alright. Cool.

Yeah, by the way, this is not prepared, so. No, I did that on purpose, actually. Yeah, I know. Well, there's a couple of reasons why I'm here.

I mean, number one, I love the Swans. I know they, you know, they reached out to Kim and I a couple months ago. And I could just tell they had servant hearts. And, you know, they've helped us even if we weren't already on the team.

And I already knew that they were the best tribe builders in the entire network. And that's obviously something that you want to learn from because you obviously don't see this anywhere else. And, you know, I'd be a fool not to show up. You know what I mean?

So, I was doing whatever it took to, you know, get around this so I can learn to model your process and be able to do some of the similar things within my own team. Because it's definitely, you know, although it's just a little bit different, it's a little bit different. But, you know, it's a little bit different. It's a little bit different.

It's a little bit different. It's a little bit different. It's a little bit different. But, you know, we're still growing.

And, yeah, you know, we sponsor like 430 people and stuff like that. It's not nearly as powerful as it is here. And that's what I came here to learn is the culture, the tribe, the energy. And just to see how you guys are doing it.

And I'm happy and grateful that I'm able to be here. And that's it. Man, from not telling him, it sounded like that was scripted, but, man, it was real. You know what?

Thank you, dude. And, you know, it's like, and that's the real and the, you know, being authentic. How am I sounding? Is it good?

Did I put it back? And, you know, it's, I'm trying to think of a couple things you said. Giving more value. Do you hear that?

You know, we reached out, and if you guys give more value, right, that's where people, people are watching. Rhonda said this earlier, right? There's 1,700 views on that. People are watching every single thing you do.

And when you do make stupid mistakes, right, you got to back it up, but when you do it, you can, you're always, you know, you're creating a stronger tribe or you're taking away from it. Okay? Think about this. So every single thing you do, if you're, if you're like, you know what, if it's going against what you feel is right, always, this is the easiest way.

The litmus test. If it doesn't feel right here, even if other leaders, let's say, in a company, well, he's a leader. He speaks on stage. And you think, well, I'm going to follow that, but if it's not feeling right here, don't do it.

It's the easiest test. Right? And if you do just follow on just because somebody does it. And it doesn't feel right here, you're probably not connecting or you're losing trust with your tribe.

And if you don't have a tribe, think about this. We, no matter what we've done in the online world, we've always been at the top and we've done it with the least amount of people because we have people that know us, they trust us. We're real, we're authentic. That's why you're all here because we attracted you.

That's why we marketed to you. And you know, it's like. You got to just. It's always with the heart.

And if you build this right, if you build it right, those people will be with you wherever you go in life. And isn't it that much easier to keep people around versus just always recycling and recycling and recycling? It's no fun that way. We have great parties, too.

It's like, who doesn't want to be a part of this? Just wait till Thursday. All right. Great houses.

Yes, we do. So. We also got to talk about mindset, right? Personal development.

Okay. I told Jabril and I, this was one of the first exercises nine and almost 10 years ago that I didn't even know what personal development was. And I'm not going to go into it too much, but like the first very exercise, if you've been through this, and I'm going to ask a few more people on this, have you, has, how many been through my perfect day exercise, Jabril and I's perfect day exercise? Pretty much most.

You got it? You got to do it. This was the very first exercise. And I'm, this is, this is funny.

Jabril. What's happening? Jabril and I, it took us about a year to actually get the video done and it took about another eight months before we actually got it edited and now it's been out for three years. It's timeless.

Okay. And the reason I want to share this on a real good, okay, is the mindset on here. It all correlates on building the tribe. And I'm going to go through this with communication because once I learned when we were, you know, when you're, when you're fresh, think about all the people that are brand new here, like Dwayne, right?

You're learning. I mean, you're a sponge. Everybody. There's.