Build in Public: Launching the Prosperous Barber Society (Day 1) #barberlife

hey there welcome to what keeps you up at night podcast the video version this is the first episode of the new video version of the what keeps you up at night podcast so much to catch you up on i feel like i've let you down but when you hear what i'm doing you're gonna say okay i see i understand where do i start i have no idea and i feel like the last couple episodes i've said started with where do i start there's just so much going on so here's where i start i start by telling you that i have decided that i'm building in public and that's because i've started a part of my business so all the way back in january i was just getting more clarity because at the end of last year q4 i had consulting in october i went to a consultant about my business for this consulting and i got three days of consulting several hours like three four hours at a time and we put together a whole executive summary for not like a business plan it was some business plan elements but more like an executive summary we mapped out what the place should look like what the starting point was we looked at budget so i guess it wasn't a business plan but like a condensed version so i'm just calling the executive summary The reason why I quoted that number for you is because a lot of times people feel like, especially in America, that you have to spend this hundreds of thousands of dollars in the big ticket items. What do they call it? I don't know, big ticket coaching or whatever they call it. And sometimes you have to leave the U.S. to get what you really want, especially at a price. And I feel like the work that I do is priced for the client that I have. Now, most people are going to be like, whoa, that's a lot for a retreat or that's a lot for therapy. But the client that I have needs a lot of attention, which means I can't have a lot of clients. I can't see like some therapists see 30 clients a week. I can't see 30 clients a week. I can't even fathom seeing that many. 10 is like tops because the type of clients I have require a lot from me. So that means I have to raise my price in order to have a small exclusive type of clientele or availability, the limited availability. Anyways, so I did that in October. Then November was narrowed down, figuring it out. I had already planned on going to Albania. I went to Albania because I knew France was not where I wanted to start the retreat center. for a lot of reasons but and all of my mentors were like do not start a business in France do you do not want to do that lady just no and so I took that advice and so I did not and France is a wonderful place but it is where I will go to to rest not to work and especially the south of France to be specific so I already knew I was going to Albania I got to Albania in January turns out i looked all around and i just didn't find anything that suit me and it's very affordable there like ridiculously affordable that now that i am where i am right now and i'll tell you where i am in a second i'm in shock i'm in shock i'm just like what is this How in the world are pumpkin seeds $15? How is that even possible? I've been paying $3 for a bag of pumpkin seeds and you're telling me this pumpkin seed bag is $15. Why? What is so different between these pumpkin seeds and the ones I get in Albania? Anyway. So I love Albania. I do. It's a little behind. It's like U.S. in the 80s. There's still some people. They have everything, bus system and everything. They don't have Uber, but they have a version of that and plenty of taxis, million barbershops. So that was easy to get into that culture. I learned so much there. But it didn't turn out to be the place that I wanted to open the retreat center. But in the meantime, while I was there, I ended up going to Dubai. So I'm kind of recapping for some of you all. And for some of you all, I'm just telling you my story. So I ended up going to Dubai in the end of January. And then, of course, at the end of February was when the whole mess began. And I had to leave Dubai. But I was there for two weeks before I could even leave. I was there while these bombing and missiles and war were going on. But somehow I still felt okay. Like the energy in Dubai is just, it is my energy. Like I feel like there's like a covering over me in Dubai and like abundance and prosperity and just all the things that I want move really fast there, really fast. Like I feel like there's only 55 seconds in a minute in Dubai. Everything just moved so fast. And it was France is my happy place. Dubai is my lucky place. I just felt so lucky there. And so that is the place that is where I opened my retreat center, like at least the major one that is where the business will be located. We are a UAE and it might not be Dubai. I should say that UAE and it could be Abu Dhabi, but I don't think it will be. There are a couple of other like nearby cities outside of Dubai where the actual retreat center might be, but we'll see. And we have time to figure that out. There'll be a couple of months before that's going to happen. And a few things that milestones that I need to hit before I can do that. So went to Dubai that then got that pause. So I ended up back in Albania and I just spent that time like really digging deep and saying, okay, what do we want to do? So here's what I decided. I am still the therapist to the wealthy man. And that man who has just not enough time for therapy and he needs a particular type of therapist, a really savvy therapist who can have these different conversations with him and an extra layer of privacy and just a new version of therapy. Like it needs to be administered differently. And so that's where the retreat comes in. So I still that lady, but I'm not marketing that right now. If I get clients, but I'm not putting any marketing out. myself but i already have some marketing out there so if that continues to roll and clients come in i'll take them of course i do market towards men but if it's a lady i'll take her what i do in my retreats right now is a two-hour retreat a one-day retreat or a four-day retreat that's what you have available to you if you work with me however i'm putting more of my attention towards this new project that we came up with so when i did the consulting the idea that we had not the two hour one day four day alone we decided to do that as a retreat center but what i then decided in the amount of time so i could get started because if i do a retreat center that means i have to raise a certain amount of money or get loans build out and i was like yeah no i need a path of least resistance so i decided to do it in a place that already exists either rent out a place that is already set up which that's not likely because we have a very specific layout or we can use something like a hotel crazy part is we had this idea but i saw it in action in dubai i was like this is what i was talking about i knew it could work so i saw it in action so that is what i'm looking for now and the three places that we're going to do that vegas dubai and monaco now not saying that we're going to do all three at the same time choose one right now Vegas is going to be the first location, probably. Only because of this war situation, because Dubai would have been the place. And it could still be. We'll see what happens in the next few weeks. So we know what the location is. But what we know also is that it's customer funded. It is American Express funded. I am not getting a loan. I am not taking on investors. could take on a business partner somebody who's really good at marketing but again we're not marketing right now why because i'm spending my time focused on building the prosperous barber society that's the first time i think that i said that out loud the prosperous barber society and the reason why i was hesitant to say it out loud because i haven't quite practiced my spiel like my elevator pitch But really what it is, it's where barbers will get mental health and money systems. So barbers are the therapists for most of the men that I work with. Barbers are their first therapists. Before they were therapists, they were barbers in history, in the grand scheme of history. Men would tell their barbers things they would tell nobody. Now... they're getting more open a lot of celebrities are going to therapists and men are more open to going to a therapist so they may do that but they are going to want it to be conventional because the way that therapy is set up right now where you go once a week for an hour it just doesn't work and we need to make some changes to it so my intensivism better for them however what i need to teach barbers to do so they need to support themselves but i need to teach them to be the first responders to therapy so there's going to be this layer of when i say first responder think of it like triage or think of it how the ambulance the emt or the paramedic comes to the house gets you moving to the hospital, but make sure you're okay, and then get you to the hospital. That same way that a paramedic or EMT would do, that's what the barber would do. They would look for signs that there's a little bit of a struggle, some tension, and then they'll just connect with that person in the way that they naturally do. And then they will refer them out, okay, I do what I have to do. and they'll send you to where you need to go. Now, whether the person goes or not, that's not on the barber, but the barber does its job to send people out. And a couple of things that are going to happen in this prosperous barber society is that, like I said, barbers get their mental health taken care of because they can't keep pouring into other people and not getting poured in themselves, but they can't. keep pouring into other people and not getting paid for it because that 40 that 50 you pay for a haircut and get the therapy for free that's not fair you're going to pay for that therapy and that haircut in fact pay for the therapy get the haircut for free that's really what i'm teaching and so teaching them a way to add an income stream um there'll be two or three different income streams they'll be able to add the mental health then also giving them some money systems a lot of barbers are solo and they are sometimes even working under their social security number rather than having the EIN number, starting a business. Some of them don't have retirement plans. All of these are things that will go into the Prosperous Barber Network. Now that curriculum, I talked about what it gets. they learn how to do the first responder of therapy, that's not in the Prosperous Barber Network. That's in addition to the curriculum, that is a certification program that will come next. But before you even start thinking about whether to get certified, whether they'll get in the network, there's just a free community. The free community has resources. I'd like to give barbers questions that they can ask to become a master question asker. And that's what I learned over time, not so much as a barber. I learned it really as a therapist. I was doing it. I was working it. Somehow people just end up telling you their business. You don't even really have to be a master question asker. But when you become a master question asker, it allows you to do the work. in a more intentional way and so in the network the wise barber network is the free community i'll offer some resources like that that barbers can use with their clients that they can use on themselves so they start to dig deep look into their legacy what are they going to do for themselves how are they approaching life right now and things like that so i don't know exactly how i'm going to build in public but what i do know is that i'm going to be a lot more vocal about what i'm doing why because i think that when you are you tend to get more help when people know what you're doing why you're doing it and what your challenges are then the people who resonate the people who are rooting for you will chime in they'll click in and say, oh, I have this resource. Oh, I can help you here. Oh, you're in my city. Oh, I know this barber or that barber. And so connecting with, I need a thousand barbers in this free Wise Barber Network. That's my number, a thousand. And then I want 200 barbers in the Prosperous Barber Society. And then 20 to 25 barbers to do that first cohort certification. Those are not high numbers, but they feel high when you start from zero. And I guess I'm really not starting from zero. I know enough barbers that I can have at least 10 barbers in the network. I still know barbers myself. And if I really thought about it, I probably know more than 10, but I'm just saying off the top of my head, I can name 10. So I know I can get them to just join me in the free barber network. And then, and most of these barbers are wise, like wise, but they might feel behind in their business and financially. So they got to catch up. they gotta get caught up and that's my job that's what i do and that is what this part of what this podcast will be i will also be doing interviews and when i do these interviews this these interviews are part of the network so i'm going to do the interviews and then i will post them in the free community but i will also do like a q a for the network that i won't do here because Oh, I should say that's to go the other way. I'm going to do the interviews in the community, record them, answer questions, all of that in the community. And then I'm going to post those interviews here. These interviews won't be live. They will be recorded. So when I do, that basically becomes a podcast episode. So we'll be interviewing other barbers that get their stories, especially the successful ones who do have all the pieces together. We'll also interview barbers who are on their way and who have questions and maybe get a little consulting. And then we'll also interview professionals, people who might be life insurance agents, health insurance agents, financial advisors, accountants, all the people that barbers need. And so they have that network. That's the word. They have that network of professionals that they can tap into. I think that might be all for now. I feel like I'm forgetting something that's important, but let me just say, I didn't take any notes. I didn't know what I was going to say. I just hit the camera because I felt like if I thought about it too much, I would just talk myself out of making this recording. And I know I need to do it because actually I recorded another thing, but. I didn't post it. And it's like, I did it two weeks ago. So I was like, I don't even know what I said in there. And I don't even want to go back and listen. And so much stuff has happened in those two weeks. Oh, I said I was going to tell you where I am. United States. Yeah, I haven't been here in a while, but I'm here now. And it just happened. I did not plan it, did not know it was going to happen. But I came to the end of the Airbnb. where I was in Albania and then had to make some decisions, a couple of things. Thought I would leave and go to France. That's why I like to be in. And my Schnegin visa time was available again. So I was like, let's go. And the things weren't working out. All my friends were going out of town. I don't want to be in Nice and use up my Schnegin time while my friends are out of town. So I said, no, not going there. So where else? And so I looked at Spain and that was a real. option because spain is a place where i'm looking at for retreats but it just wasn't coming through and then i did some maneuvering and denver ended up working out so that's where i am right now and i really like it i like it a lot i'm probably not gonna go and visit any barbershops maybe maybe not most likely no because if i am i would have done it today because today is wednesday and yeah after that thursday friday saturday is going to be too busy and i don't think i'm going to be here very long maybe another five maybe seven days so if i am here on an on the next tuesday maybe i'll visit tuesday or wednesday if i am still here if not then i'll probably go into vegas next and then after vegas chicago maybe like the DC area next. So if you are a barber and you want me to come live to your barbershop, maybe we do an interview in person. Ooh, I love that. Would you? Yeah, that'd be good. Yeah. Or tell me. what city should i go to those are just cities i know for sure that i'm going to because vegas is where i live when we're in the united states and then we have family grandkids kids all of that in chicago and dc area and other than that atlanta could be an option because there's always business for me there and like florida could be an option too maybe texas like a houston but yeah that's all for now though I think that's pretty much it. I feel like I should say more because I'm just on a roll, but I also feel like that's enough. And so how about this? How about this? I will make another video tomorrow. I'll go with tomorrow. Yeah. I'll make another video tomorrow because when I cut this off, probably some things are going to pop in my head. And when that happens, I'm going to be like, okay, I'll jot it down and then I'll be really intentional. and here's what i'll talk about tomorrow tomorrow i will talk about my first steps this is february february it is not even close it is april 15th i don't know why april 15th this is april 15th and i'm making this video now when you see it it's not going to be april 15th but i'm making this video on april 15th i'm putting like this is the beginning So between April 15th and May 15th, I need to fill up this barber network, the Wise Barber Network. And really, I would love to do it by May 1st because May 1st is Mental Health Awareness Month. Right now we're in Financial Awareness Month, which I could have done a better job of marketing now because this is the time when people need to see this. But I didn't. So that's it. So okay. I'm going to have to be okay with that. So if I miss Financial Awareness Month, that's okay, I'm going to go even harder in Mental Health Awareness Month. But one thing I'd like you to hold me accountable for, and that is not necessarily posting on social media, because that's not where I shine, but getting out. I've not been doing a good job getting out. And I need to get out. I need to meet people. I need to see and be seen. And I'm talking about the right people, not just anybody. But that is also what holds me back is not knowing where to go. Like I said earlier, if you have a city that I should visit and you have barbershops, and especially if you have barbershops with barbers who are like wise and progressive and looking to go to their next level, then go ahead and mention that either in the comments of this video. And this is the new home for the Prosperous Barber Society. That's the YouTube channel. And even though the Prosperous Barber Society itself is a paid private club, posting here is the way that I market that. But I will always give you access to the Wise Barber Network, which will be in the description of this video. It's not going to be a lot of show notes. It's just not. because i can't commit to that what i can commit to is telling you every single week as often as i can what's happening what's not happening what i need your help with and just just go through the numbers with you here's where we are all right that's all for now i will see you sooner love you much

In this foundational episode of the What Keeps You Up at Night podcast, Kiné shares the behind-the-scenes journey of building a new business in public. From investing in executive-level consulting and exploring locations for a luxury retreat center across France, Albania, and Dubai, to landing back in the United States with a renewed mission, this episode sets the stage for the Prosperous Barber Society and the Wise Barber Network. You’ll hear why barbers are often the first therapists in men’s lives, how they can be equipped as “first responders” for mental health, and what it means to build a customer-funded, values-driven business that serves both wealth and well-being.

Key Takeaways:

• Building in Public – Kiné commits to sharing the real-time journey of creating a new arm of the business, including wins, challenges, and numbers.
• Global Search for a Retreat Location – After exploring France and Albania, Dubai (and broader UAE) emerges as the ideal base for a high-end retreat center serving wealthy clients.
• Customer-Funded Retreat Model – The retreat center concept will launch without loans or investors, starting with hotel-based or existing spaces in cities like Las Vegas, with future expansion to Dubai and Monaco.
• Prosperous Barber Society – A paid, private club designed to give barbers mental health support and money systems, positioning them as better-resourced leaders in their communities.
• Wise Barber Network (Free Community) – A free entry point for 1,000 barbers, offering questions, tools, and interviews to help barbers become master question askers, build legacy, and prepare for deeper work and certification.

“Barbers have been the first therapists for men long before there were therapists—and it’s time they get the support, training, and money systems to match the weight of what they carry.” - Kiné

Kiné Corder is the leading National Certified Counselors specializing in Financial Therapy for the wealthy addressing the problems money can't fix. She helps them find happiness beyond material possessions. If you have external success but seek inner peace, Kiné can help.