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,

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:

• Will Smith himself had said “No one is better than Michael Hauge at finding what is most authentic in every moment of a story.”
• 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.
• 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 magnitude of the project, and sets the stage for revisiting one of the show’s most influential guests.

00:00:54 – How to use the 4% Files Treasure Map.

Brandon addresses new listeners who may be jumping into the series mid-stream, explaining how the Treasure Map in the episode description recaps the entire journey and how earlier files provide essential context for the deeper insights ahead.

00:01:48 – Introducing Hollywood storytelling legend Michael Hauge.

Brandon formally introduces Michael Hauge, highlighting his reputation as a mentor, friend, and one of Hollywood’s most respected story experts, known especially for his insights into fear and the hero’s inner...

👉 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

Have you ever stopped and stared at the beauty of a leaf?

One of the first things you’ll notice is the little veins branching off…

They look awfully similar to the branches that the leaf came from…

They look awfully similar to the roots underneath the tree…

It’s mesmerizing.

And it’s also a fractal.

Once you start noticing fractals, you’ll start to see them EVERYWHERE.

Those ice crystals forming on your windshield? Fractal.

The atoms our bodies are made of? Fractal.

The beautiful pattern on that pinecone? Fractal.

A fractal is simply a repeating pattern that continues at every scale.

Yes, they occur all over nature, but they ALSO occur all over our lives.

That strength you have that gets you results every time you use it? What if THAT was a fractal? (Hint: it is)

That “problem” that keeps occurring in your life? What if THAT is a fractal? (Hint: it is).

Today, I’m introducing you to the person that changed my life by bringing “Fractal Thinking” into it — Perry Marshall.

Perry has one of the most curious and deep minds that I’ve ever interviewed on the show, and his curiosity has led him all over the place.

Perry is…

• A former mechanical engineer turned famed marketing legend
• The founder of the $10M Evolution 2.0 Prize for Origin of Life research
• On a mission to reverse cancer
• The pioneer of innovative “80/20 thinking” used by NASA’s jet propulsion labs

… to name a few.

It was Perry (and his book 80/20 Sales and Marketing) that broke down the fractal nature of the 80/20 rule that actually led to the entire development of my Find Your Four® process and therefore the 4% Files Series.

There’s so much we dive into, including:

• How to stop fighting problems and instead find and defeat the SOURCE of what’s creating all of the problems to begin with… (and what that has to do with a poem written in the year 975)
• How to solve 95% of a problem by simply shifting the way you define the problem to begin with.
• How to use “Renaissance Time” to stop reacting and start architecting the life you actually want (and how you can start using it by buying a $13 alarm clock)

What makes this episode so powerful is that it goes FAR beyond tactics… it upgrades the way you see the world and solve problems.

Brandon Fong welcomes listeners to The 9th 4% File, part of the 11-part Beyond Curious series distilling the most powerful insights from over 334 hours of podcast conversations. He previews why Perry Marshall—engineer turned marketing legend and systems thinker—embodies “beyond curious” thinking.

Brandon shares his personal journey into direct response marketing and how discovering Perry’s work—especially 80/20 Sales and Marketing—reshaped his worldview through fractal 80/20 thinking and the concept of “finding your 4%.”

Brandon sets the...

👉 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

Back in July 2025, I saw a social media post that made my heart stop:

The headline prominently said:

Rest in Peace Steve Sims

July 1966 - July 2025

Steve Sims was a podcast guest that had a profoundly deep impact in my life.

In case you haven’t heard of Steve before, he was coined by Forbes as “The Real Life Wizard of Oz” who helped his clients do things like:

• Get married by the Pope
• Take submarine trips to the Titanic
• Have dinner in front of Michelangelo’s David while being serenaded by Andrea Bocelli
• Meet celebrities like Elton John and Elon Musk

He even once took a group on a private tour of the Tesla gigafactory… followed by a visit to a legal, licensed brothel to learn about the power of communication (yes, seriously).

But beyond the crazy experiences…

Steve Sims gave me a new blueprint for life.

In fact, a few years ago when journaling about the 3 people I most looked up to, Steve’s name was high on that list — right next to my wife and daughter.

Even though we only spent a few hours together across these interviews, Steve’s mindset has been running like a background program in my brain ever since I met him.

He embodied the values and passions that drive my life today:

• Family & Heart: He loved his wife and kids deeply, and built his business alongside them
• Doing the Impossible: His entire life was proof that “impossible” is just a starting point
• Experiences: The most inspiring (and wildest) experience designer I’ve ever met
• Fun & Play: He approached life like a big kid—joyful, absurd, and always ready to make you laugh
• Being Unapologetically You: Steve knew who he was and never tried to be anything else
• Pure Passion for Life: You could hear it in his voice—he lived with passion, every single day
• Storytelling: Hands down my favorite storyteller of all time—he didn’t just live great stories, he delivered them in unforgettable ways

So to honor his legacy, on episode #250 of the show, I stitched together all 3 of our interviews at once.

As I dove through my entire podcast library for this series, I HAD to include my interviews with Steve, despite the fact that I only recently published the trilogy.

But of course, with this being the 4% Files I had to do something even more epic…

You see:

The magic of this series is that EVERYTHING I’m sharing I’ve tested personally… for years.

None of this is something I just learned about and haven’t implemented in a deep way.

So in addition to the truly transformational content that Steve himself shares in the episodes, I actually weave together ~45 minutes of bonus content walking you through exactly how I’ve implemented what I learned from Steve.

These episodes with Steve truly showed me what was possible beyond my wildest imagination at the time…

But just as a fair warning:

This is my LONGEST episode to date, clocking in at 3 and a half hours.

So you’re in for a ride if you commit to this one.

But if you do, I promise it’ll be worth it.

00:00:00 - Introduction to Beyond Curious and today's guest, Steve Sims, as Brandon tees up a “monster” 3+ hour episode surfacing the full Steve Sims...

👉 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

. . .

Today I’m introducing you to someone I consider to be an alchemist.

But the type of alchemy that he practices is far more transformational than turning metal into gold…

He’s an alchemist of genius, helping people reorganize their lives around the work they were actually born to do.

Here’s what I mean by that:

Imagine if you could spend 70% or more of your day doing exactly what you are uniquely suited to do.

You removed the things from your life you are incompetent, competent, or even excellent at… and instead focus PURELY on the work that you feel like you were put on planet Earth to do.

This is the magic of the New York Times bestselling author and beautiful soul, Dr. Gay Hendricks.

In the words of his wife, Katie, “He sees the essence of people and the core pattern blocking their direct experience of essence in about two seconds.”

In his book, The Big Leap, he outlines his process of converting your life experience into the raw material you need to build a home in what he calls “The Zone of Genius.”

Gay has made a profound impact on my life, not only through his work but through the radiance he exudes.

Here’s a small sample as to why Gay is someone I deeply respect and admire:

1. He has a beautiful and deep 40+ year relationship with his wife, Katie. They have co-created a relationship that is their “living laboratory for conscious loving”
2. He practices what he preaches, and at age 77 at the time we recorded this episode he is full of energy and a strong desire to continue sharing his gifts with the world.
3. He has found a way to translate every element of his life (relationship, his books, his business) into a vehicle for elevating his consciousness.
4. He has an ability to (1) identify his own limiting unconscious patterns, (2) leverage his life experience to extract his essence, and (3) communicate what he learned by studying himself in a truly heartfelt way

In other words, Gay is who I want to be when I grow up.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. How to come up with your top five life goals
2. What the “Upper Limit Problem” is and why Gay believes it’s the ONLY problem that we need to solve if you desire to always feel good and have life go well all the time
3. How you can STOP worrying (yes, you read that correctly)
4. How to turn your business into a powerful vehicle for spiritual growth
5. How to design a life you never want to retire from

For those following along with the 4% Files in order, this episode is an incredible power up that will help you deepen your awareness of your Player to consciously design a life in alignment with your unique gifts.

This episode helps you...

👉 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

. . .

If you asked me:

“Brandon, what ideas have most permeated your life?”

Of the ideas that I actively use on an almost daily basis and have done so consistently for years, there are really only two of them:

1. The Find Your Four® concept that my entire world is built around
2. +2 Energy

These two concepts unlock the ability to:

1. Build a life doing the things you love the most
2. With the people that bring you the most energy

I’ve gone deep on Find Your Four® already in the first file… but today is an opportunity to go SUPER deep on +2 Energy.

On the surface, it’s a very simple concept:

After every interaction you have, rate your ENERGY level from -2 to +2.

You’ll start to notice several things:

1. When you feel +2 energy from someone, they most likely feel +2 energy from you
2. Therefore, when you feel +2 energy from someone, odds are the other +2 people in your world will feel it too!
3. When you connect +2 humans to other +2 humans, EVERYONE wins

This simple concept has literally created an energy vortex of transformational humans.

So much so that most people that operate in the “+2 World” are often receiving 10 or more incredibly transformational intros every single week.

This also goes beyond just people though…

Because this simple energy rating scale can help you start to orient your entire life around EVERYTHING you’re doing that gives you +2 energy.

Because this is such an important concept that I talk about all the time, I wanted a deep dive “Masterclass” on this subject that covers perspectives from how people have implemented this concept.

So, I brought on THREE of the humans most responsible for transforming my life with this concept:

1. Randy Molland
2. Mark Fujiwara
3. Jennifer Hill

I can’t wait for you to listen… and even better IMPLEMENT this concept.

It’s truly changed so many people’s lives, so I’d be honored to introduce it to you.

Brandon Fong kicks off...

👉 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

. . .

In April 2018, I left the cow poop-smelling college town of Whitewater, Wisconsin (Population 15,000)…

And walked into a $25,000/yr mastermind room in Tempe, Arizona, filled with 7-, 8-, and 9-figure impact-driven entrepreneurs.

I was a 22-year-old college senior and by every traditional standard, I didn’t belong.

Yet somehow, I manifested a way to be there… and my life changed almost instantly.

One of the biggest upgrades came during the very first session when I found myself sitting next to Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

At the time, his blogs were being read by 100M+ people as the #1 writer in the world on Medium.com and he had just published Willpower Doesn’t Work.

Today, he’s an organizational psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, and co-founder of scaling.com supporting people in realizing impossible goals.

That day marked the beginning of me going deep with Ben’s body of work that would fundamentally shift the trajectory of my life.

But the real tipping point for me came when he released 10x Is Easier Than 2x in 2023.

It was that book — and the 6-week challenge Ben hosted for it — that catalyzed some of the biggest moves that got me to where I’m at today:

• Re-branding to Beyond Curious® and hosting my first ever live event
• Hiring my amazing Executive Assistant, Kevin, who has saved me thousands of hours and helps to amplify my work
• Connecting to my future self and vision, building my Curiosity Island™ community, and setting the vision to celebrate my 30th birthday by hosting a live Curiosity Island event (which is now 44 days away)

So when I poured the 334+ hours of recorded content on the show to find the best of the best, it was a no-brainer to include one of my interviews with Ben.

In this episode, we cover:

• How to shift your perception of time so that your future self guides your decisions instead of your past.
• How to leverage “impossible” goals as a TOOL to come up with teleporting pathways to achieving your vision
• Why your vision is a DRAFT… and how evolving your vision with better information is a sign of growth, not failure.
• How thinking at 10x or 100x might surface invisible beliefs and identity structures you weren’t consciously aware of that are keeping you stuck
• How to edit your past from the lens of your future to free you from old stories that no longer serve you

As with every episode in the 4% Files, this one is a potent one that...