Freemasons, Skull and Bones, Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, 5 Hertford Street, the Bohemian Club, and more, are all so-called secret societies. Not so much because no one knows about them, but more so the question as to what do they do, who belongs to them, and how do you join? Is membership in the Soho House the modern day variant of such societies? What’s the psychology behind their creation and their intrigue?

Well, Michael F. Schein, author, and CEO of MicroFame Media, knows a lot about that, and in fact, he’s created his own secret society that we’ll be discussing in this episode. 

He was the former co-host of the “Access to Anyone” podcast and his writing has appeared in Fortune, Forbes, Inc., Psychology Today, and the Huffington Post, and he has been a speaker for audiences spanning from the northeastern United States to the southeastern coast of China. Michael is the author of the popular The Hype Handbook: 12 Indispensable Success Secrets From the World’s Greatest Propagandists, Self-Promoters, Cult Leaders, Mischief Makers, and Boundary Breakers, published by McGraw Hill last year. 

So, it seems a little paradoxical that we’re publicly discussing “secret” groups, right? But by definition Michael explains how a secret society gets hyped in spite of it then no longer being “secret.”

Michael helps us understand how to know something is not a scam or cult. As well as the crossroad of hype and NFTs, Web3, Crypto, and journalists covering rises and flameouts and phenomena like the Bored Monkey Yacht Club. 

Michael is whip-smart and New York shrewd. He helps us all better know how to separate the wheat from the chaff in better understanding hype from value so we can better live our lives in full.

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Dr. Chris Stout Clinical Psychologist

Dr. Chris Stout is a licensed clinical psychologist and international humanitarian with a diverse background in various domains. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Global Initiatives (a Top-Rated Nonprofit) and is the Executive Producer and Host of the popular “Living a Life in Full” a top-ranked podcast with an audience of over 3 million. He was a Fellow in the School of Public Health and Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois, Chicago and prior to that he held an academic appointment at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He served as a NGO Special Representative and had the honor of speaking at the United Nations; he holds the distinction of being one of only 100 world-wide leaders appointed to the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of Tomorrow and was an Invited Faculty at the Annual Meeting in Davos.