Learn How This Millennial Is Changing Lives Globally and Building a Business Empire

Maximilian Berger is a professional speaker, coach, and vlogger. After losing his job and having early success as a self-confidence and dating coach, the Founders of RSD (Real Social Dynamics) Nick Kho and Owen Cook invited the young Max to Miami where he would start his career changing lives through seminars and mentorship programs. Max has inspired and impacted the lives of millions - he chronicles the tough time in this interview and how that has shaped him as an entrepreneur and human being.

1. Tell us about your entrepreneurial journey and how you got started with RSD?

The truth is, I never considered myself as a person who'd end up starting a business, let alone becoming successful at it. In my early 20s, I was studying Latin and English at the University of Vienna and was on my way to becoming a high school teacher. Somewhere between my second and third year I started to get this weird feeling that told me I was meant to do more - I was meant to serve more people.

I felt I was meant to serve them in a better way than just teaching them two languages (one of them a dead language mind you). Until then, I'd been a very shy person and not very social. I felt there was more potential within me, so I started studying social dynamics and immediately putting it into practice. I forced myself to start talking to people - in classes, on public transport.

I started going out to bars and parties, just to get out of my shell. I was sick and tired of being lonely, with barely any experience with women.

I kept asking myself:

"Why not?"

"Why can't I to talk to that girl that's clearly out of my league?"

"Why can't I be the one who invites her out on a date?"

And I learned one lesson very early on: if you're not going for it, you'll never get it. If you're not going for it, somebody else will. If you're not going for it, you'll end up lonely, tired, mad at yourself for bailing out... again. The more I learned, the more I started getting traction with girls.

I started writing about it, mostly for myself first, but then I started sharing my stories with friends...until one day, one of my friends asked me to help him out with this girl he was trying to get. So, I did… and it worked - it was the craziest thing!

So then he got a bunch of guys together and basically forced me to do a seminar about what I taught him…so I gave a free seminar, and 7 people showed up. A month later I did another one, 10 people. A month later, 30. Then the third month I did another one and over 100 people showed up. I realized there was a huge need for young men to learn social dynamics and start living up to their potential.

EVERYONE has the potential to be successful with the opposite sex. Flash forward one year. I'm giving seminars on a regular basis, guys ask me to coach them personally. Young and stupid as I was, I quit university because "I'm a dating coach now" lol.

I lost my job because "dating coach" and "resident assistant for exchange student" didn't sound like a good combination to my boss so literally within one week: I had lost my safe job, as well as my opportunity for education but I was naive and hungry... and willing to hustle and do whatever it takes to make it.

Literally 3 days after I had lost my job - I got the phone call from Owen Cook. Turns out, he had been following my journey for a couple months now. He invited me to come to Miami, "help them out" and later on work for them as an intern for 6 entire months for free. No payment, I had to pay my own flights and food, but they'd offer me a floor to crash on. For a 22-year-old hungry hustler it was clear to me: I HAD TO DO THIS.

Now mind you, objectively speaking it was a stupid decision: I had no education, no job, barely any income from my coaching, no money saved. It was a scary situation I was in.

But there was ONE THING that was even more scary - the thought of lying on my deathbed when I'm some 80 years old, thinking back to this very day, to this very decision and asking myself "WHAT IF..."

"What if I had taken that opportunity, what if I had said yes, what if I had taken that risk?"

Even though I had no money, no job, nothing. That thought of "what if" was scarier than anything else. So, I asked my parents for money, my brother, my bank, my friend and with 16k dollars of debt I was on that flight to Miami literally 2 weeks later. When I arrived, things went very fast.

Here's how you film, don't mess this up, here's how you setup our seminars, don't mess this up. Tens of thousands of dollars were on the line every day and I was expected to do things right the first time. When I started with the company, RSD had already established itself as the most successful dating coaching company in the world. I had studied their Instructors for years, and now I was working right alongside them. At a very early stage, I felt like I could replicate what they were doing… and do it even better. They had a team, existing infrastructure and business model that I could see myself plugging into and building a brand upon. This became my new goal…

The Intern life was hard life. But I loved it. I was on my path, on my journey, even though I barely got 3 hours of sleep per night, could barely eat enough to survive (I had to steal bananas more than once from a local grocery store), I WAS HAPPY because there was no place I would rather be. I absorbed every shred of knowledge I could from my new team of mentors and along the way, I started to cultivate my own voice and coaching style.

Within 6 months I turned from a young naive hustler from Austria to a guy with a thick shell, more experience, less naive but just as hungry. I wasn't just working for RSD 19h a day, no, I was building my own brand inside the company as well. I'm talking about wrapping up a 9h late night video shoot with RSD and instead of going to bed, grabbing the camera gear, heading back out into the night and shooting my content. Editing my videos on flights, in bed instead of sleep. It was a 6-month hardcore grind, but I never thought about giving up.

6 months later I was in. But nobody told me. I had built a reputation within RSD. The crazy Austrian. Always happy. Always executing. Never complains. I had built my own Youtube channel to 10k subscribers within 6 months. All that in a very small niche (dating advice), mind you. Not too shabby I'd say haha.

I got offered to stay on board with RSD, this time as a full-fledged instructor. I wasn't going to get paid for another 6 months (trial period as an instructor) but I'd go on a world tour right away, had to build my own team, keep building my brand, now with more pressure, now there's even more money involved. I was hungry and ready.

First world tour, second world tour, third world tour. It all went so fast; 3 years literally blew by. I created my first paid live event in 2014, broke all company records. Followed by an online info product in 2016 which broke all company records again. Hustling myself from "the new guy" to "the next big thing" so fast my own mind had trouble keeping up.

My first info product "The Natural" launched in 2016 and was such a success that all of a sudden, I had all this money coming in. 5 months into the launch and I almost cracked a million dollars. Big sum for a 26-year-old who planned to become a high school teacher. I created my own company and stopped doing things alone. Started hiring a real team (not just unpaid volunteers). I stopped touring in 2016, followed up with another info product (Fearless) in 2017, used all the money to grow my brand, hire a bigger team. In 2018 I officially became the biggest brand within RSD, two offices, teams in Europe and the US. Life is crazy.

2. What was a challenging moment in your career and how did you overcome it?

The most challenging moment in my career is not so much a single moment, but rather an ongoing battle. Here's the deal - dating is a personal topic - especially for men, admitting inferiority is extremely uncommon, and displays of weakness aren't really received by society as a whole. What this creates is entire generations of men who are "stuck' between stoicism and vulnerability. As a result of that breakdown in communication, there are a significant amount of myths and misconceptions in this space.

When you think of the average guy who is "not good with women," what are some of the images that come to mind? Introverted, nerdy, probably a little weird, right? Well, that's kind of what I expected going into the space, but it's funny - I remember doing seminar after seminar, and having clients come up to me. Most of them are not too different from your average readers. We're talking highly-educated driven men who are on their path to success. A lot of them are simply too busy to figure out the social dynamics thing, they are preoccupied with building their business, their career, etc.

In truth, they want the same things as anyone else - they want to love and be loved, they want success with women, in business, and to be healthy and happy. And that's the first big misconception - that men just want to get laid, and don't really care about anything else outside of that. However, my experience from training thousands of clients face to face has shown how damaging that narrative can actually be - because instead of admitting weakness and looking for help, a lot of men bottle it up, and end up isolated, depressed, etc. We've fought extremely hard to help in that area, and received blowback for it, but when clients come to me in tears telling me how they got an amazing girlfriend, or how we pulled them out of a deep depression - it's all worth it. So the most challenging moment is in trying to find the "sweet spot" within the ongoing battle between the mainstream narrative and the truth.

The ongoing battle has always been:

"How do I acknowledge the mainstream narrative, while still delivering the truth?"

Now let me be clear here, the mainstream narrative absolutely has a place, but it often leaves men confused and isolated with no one to turn to for help - and that can be really destructive.

The Hollywood narrative of "just be yourself" works great in movies, but doesn't really work when it comes to the real world, and it becomes quickly obvious that there's another truth there, and that can be controversial, because it's not talked about much.

Finding that balance is difficult - for ourselves and for our clients.

At the end of the day, I want my clients to be respectful to women, and make sure that they understand it's a win-win situation. Women want a strong man, women deserve a strong man, and I remember that when I have those challenging moments - and I push through.

3. How important has a coach/mentor been for your business what is one tip you would like to give aspiring entrepreneurs/businesses leaders?

I've never subscribed to "loner's game"...There's a common phrase of:

"You are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with."

And there's a lot truth to that, that's why I've always surrounded myself with individuals whose results I can replicate - other instructors, influencers, and business mentors that help me scale and manage my team - nobody who has ever amounted to anything has done it alone.The business world is full of giants, and if you aren't standing on their shoulders, you are going to get smushed by one of their giant boots.

For example, in RSD, there's a powerful team dynamic where we support each other, and also have a great team backing us while we travel, coach, etc.

My advice for aspiring entrepreneurs / business leaders:

Give value.

• At the end of the day, give value first. The interesting thing with doing this consistently is that you never know who you encounter that you end up offering massive value to - - it will always come back around.

Find a mentor.

• This sounds really obvious, and it's reiterated again and again, but despite that very few people actually do it. Anyone reading this should understand that building a business without a mentor is similar to driving across the country without a map - you can probably do it, but it will be brutally inefficient and put you at a massive disadvantage.

Follow their instructions.

• This is also really obvious on-paper, but I am consistently surprised by how often I see people discard good advice, especially from their mentors. Another way to phrase this would be: "be coachable."

At the end of the day, having a mentor is important, but what's even more important is:

Having the RIGHT mentor. This means, don't try to replicate someone who doesn't have the success you want in a particular area - whether that's health, business, or other areas.

4. What are 3 lessons you have learned in business?

I find that lessons come and go, at the pace of my business I am constantly learning multiple lessons daily. So rather than listing 3 lessons, I will include my 3 core business principles:

Authenticity trumps everything.

• People prefer someone REAL over someone that is perfect. I always thought I need to be perfect dating instructor but soon learned it's actually BETTER FOR ME (as a person) as well as MORE RELATABLE for my clients if I acknowledge my flaws and show that one can STILL be successful even though one is not perfect

It's not all about you.

• In this life, you get one chance to make a massive impact… and at the end of the day, we all die. So one of my biggest principles is that it's not all about you - don't be afraid to help people, take risks, and be a little bit vulnerable. We're on a big planet with a lot of people and a lot of opportunities - this kind of ties in to the "Always Give Value" principle as well.

You're in this for life.

• If your goal is to cash out, sell your company, and take some time to travel - that's cool. But if you want to change the world and make a true, long-lasting impact, you can't be one foot in one foot out - you have to understand that business is not a means to an end - you're in this for LIFE.

5. What is next for you Max and what is your legacy?

Deep down in the bottom of my heart no matter how much money I make, or how many people's lives I change, no matter how much I do cool stuff or travel to new places...

I'm still and Austrian guy from a 5,000 people town - and I'm just grateful to leave my stamp in this book of life. It's always been my mission to give value and make a massive impact in people's lives, not just in dating.We have a really unique angle as a company from over a decade of training men, with countless clients all over the world and a massive global audience.

We truly have a bigger mission here to expand and pivot into more self-development such as business training, marketing, brand-building, and team-leadership - all of these areas are really just Social Dynamics. I will continue to coach my heart out, and that will never change. I will continue to grow my brand and build the team that helps me give more and more value to our clients.

I will continue to go to bed grateful and thankful every single day.