Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Creating Opportunity and Maximizing Wealth with Jay Samit

Transcript

Creating Opportunity and Maximizing Wealth with Jay Samit · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff,
• 0:08
  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
• 0:17
  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:21
  you need to succeed and live the life you've dream of.
• 0:25
  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
• 0:29
  Melinda Emerson.
• 0:31
  Hi, everybody.
• 0:32
  This is Melinda Emerson.
• 0:33
  Small Visley, and I wanna welcome you to the small biz chat podcast.
• 0:38
  Today is my very, very special guest Mister Jay Samit, you guys know he wrote one of my very
• 0:45
  favorite books.
• 0:46
  Disrupt you, and now he's back.
• 0:49
  He's got a brand new book called Future Proofing You.
• 0:53
  And so I'm really excited to have him back It's barely out in print yet, and now we're talking
• 0:59
  to him so that you guys can get the first hearing of what this new book is about.
• 1:04
  And it's really kind of interesting, Jay.
• 1:07
  You took a kid off the street, basically, that came here with with nothing and you basically
• 1:13
  poured everything you know into this kid for a year and and presto you gotta book.
• 1:17
  Tell me about how you got on this journey.
• 1:20
  Well, thank you for the compliments on disrupt you.
• 1:22
  Disrupt you changed my life.
• 1:24
  It was my way of paying forward what I know.
• 1:26
  I had no idea that it would be in all kinds of languages.
• 1:29
  It's coming out this year in Urdu, Icelandic, and Polish.
• 1:33
  I kid you not.
• 1:33
  Wow.
• 1:34
  And when I was a CEO of giant companies with 100 of 1000 employees, your inboxes.
• 1:39
  I hate you.
• 1:39
  We're suing you.
• 1:40
  You know, there's always a problem.
• 1:42
  But when you change people's lives, you get these what I call love letters.
• 1:45
  I've heard from people all over the world, but occasionally, usually from a millennial, I get
• 1:49
  something to the fact that this is all motivational, but I could never do it.
• 1:53
  And I'm like, you, I'm from Philadelphia.
• 1:55
  I'm not a quitter.
• 1:56
  I'm like, how how am I failing to reach these people?
• 1:59
  So I decided to put my reputation on the line.
• 2:01
  I took a young man who grew up on welfare who was homeless and couch surfing at friend's
• 2:06
  houses, and I mentored him one day a week for a year.
• 2:09
  The ground rules were where I gave him no capital.
• 2:11
  I didn't tell him what business to start and I didn't open my Rolex.
• 2:14
  No contacts.
• 2:15
  And he went gave away the ending.
• 2:17
  Went from from that to self made millionaire in 11 months.
• 2:20
  It wasn't easy.
• 2:22
  He worked harder than most people were willing to so he can now live in a manner that most
• 2:27
  people can't.
• 2:27
  And I did this because The world is changing very fast.
• 2:31
  Half of all jobs are gonna go away.
• 2:33
  In the pandemic, the small business got crushed.
• 2:35
  You know, the 150 wealthiest people in the US doubled their net worth in the past year.
• 2:40
  Let that sink in for a second.
• 2:41
  Not what they make in a year.
• 2:43
  Doubled their net worth.
• 2:44
  Right.
• 2:45
  The disruption isn't about what happens to you.
• 2:47
  It's about how you're respond to what happens to you.
• 2:49
  Sure.
• 2:50
  So how do you take these obstacles and these challenges and turn them to your advantage?
• 2:54
  And so I synthesized everything that I taught this young man down into what I call 12 truths.
• 2:59
  If you follow these 12 truths, you will have success.
• 3:02
  You still have to work for it, but everybody can do it.
• 3:05
  Know, when I was growing up as a as a kid in Philly, if you would tell me dozens of friends
• 3:08
  would become self made billionaires, I'd go I don't even know what a millionaire is, but a
• 3:13
  billionaire, that's insane.
• 3:14
  And I'm here to tell you because I knew these people before they were famous.
• 3:18
  They're not smarter.
• 3:19
  They're not better connected.
• 3:20
  They didn't go to the right schools.
• 3:21
  They didn't come from money.
• 3:23
  You only need 2 things to be successful.
• 3:25
  Insight and perseverance.
• 3:27
  And I can teach you insight, and I can help you take your perseverance and turn them to
• 3:31
  passion.
• 3:31
  Just as you have passion for small business.
• 3:34
  Everybody will follow a passion through more obstacles than chasing a buck.
• 3:39
  Alright, but Jay, I I'm gonna push back on you.
• 3:41
  You know, I look.
• 3:42
  I gotta push back.
• 3:44
  Be hard.
• 3:45
  Insight and perseverance That's it.
• 3:48
  That's all
• 3:49
  I need to be successful.
• 3:50
  Yep.
• 3:51
  Everything else can be higher.
• 3:52
  You've written as much code as Steve Jobs.
• 3:55
  Let that sink in, and he built a $1,000,000,000,000 tech company.
• 3:58
  Right?
• 3:58
  Wasn't an engineer.
• 4:00
  He was a market.
• 4:01
  He was a marketer.
• 4:02
  I created the first Internet auction.
• 4:04
  You know, it is eBay.
• 4:05
  I work with Rita Hopkins.
• 4:06
  I'm not an engineer.
• 4:08
  I constantly work on new things.
• 4:10
  So It all starts with a positive mindset.
• 4:13
  That's the first truth.
• 4:14
  I think we could agree on that.
• 4:15
  If you're walking around in the funk complaining, you wouldn't see opportunity.
• 4:19
  Whatever.
• 4:20
  So when I challenged myself to do this in a year, I knew I had to get this young man named
• 4:25
  Ben just hitting the ground running.
• 4:27
  So I lied to him in a first meeting.
• 4:29
  Not proud of it, and I didn't let him read the book until till it was in typeset so that he
• 4:33
  couldn't change it.
• 4:33
  But I had to trick them into having a growth mindset because they didn't have that
• 4:37
  experience.
• 4:38
  So there was a psychological phenomenon called the pigmalian effect.
• 4:41
  A professor went to school, tested all the kids and told the teachers, and students, these 3
• 4:46
  kids were gonna be super achievers.
• 4:47
  They were gonna learn so much this year.
• 4:48
  And at the end of the year, when they test Loanly hold.
• 4:51
  Those 3 kids were the greatest.
• 4:52
  Turns out the professor lie.
• 4:53
  He never looked at the first test.
• 4:55
  He just picked 3 names out of a hat, but if you tell people they're special and you treat them
• 4:58
  special, they believe.
• 4:59
  That's
• 4:59
  what?
• 5:00
  You're right.
• 5:00
  They you know?
• 5:01
  So I told Ben that I interviewed 100 of candidates.
• 5:05
  And out of all of them, he was the only one that had all the attributes to be a
• 5:08
  millionaire.
• 5:09
  In fact, he was the only person I interview.
• 5:10
  Because if I cherry pick, you know, the one guy, I pick, oh, I'm gonna teach somebody doll,
• 5:14
  hey, you, Tiger Woods, is it the out?
• 5:16
  Teach up.
• 5:17
  It doesn't work that way.
• 5:18
  So the next thing is most people don't understand where money comes from, and I'm sure
• 5:25
  in small businesses is a huge issue.
• 5:28
  In school, I was taught I buy a banana for $1.
• 5:32
  I sell to you for $2.
• 5:33
  That's how I make money.
• 5:34
  That's mathematically correct, but that's not where wealth comes from.
• 5:37
  That's in game theory called 0 sum game.
• 5:40
  The only way I make money is if I take your money.
• 5:42
  And that sets you on a mindset that if they get the job and I didn't, I hate them if if, you
• 5:48
  know, somebody else is taking our jobs robots, you know, when in fact, here's the way wealth
• 5:52
  is created.
• 5:53
  If I start a new company and I sell you 10% for $10,000, what do I now have?
• 5:58
  I have 10,000 in cash and 90,000 in equity that I can buy things with hire people with.
• 6:03
  That's how Jeff Bezos could lose money year after year after year after year with Amazon
• 6:07
  and come out the other side.
• 6:08
  The richest man in the world.
• 6:10
  So every 48 hours, there's the new self made billionaire.
• 6:14
  Most of them are small businesses.
• 6:16
  They're just not thinking small.
• 6:18
  The other thing we learned during this pandemic is you don't have to hire the best people to
• 6:22
  live with a live within ten miles of you.
• 6:25
  That's always been a pretty crappy way to pick people unless you happen to live at the center
• 6:29
  of Genius Town.
• 6:30
  Now you can have a virtual company and hire people anywhere.
• 6:33
  And conversely, you're one click away from 7,000,000,000 customers, so your customers can
• 6:38
  be anywhere.
• 6:39
  So one of the truths is every business is a high-tech startup.
• 6:43
  And unless you start thinking about it, your life is fed in the digital world.
• 6:47
  First thing, you kiss in the mornings, your phone, the last thing you put down before you
• 6:50
  go to bed, that's where your customers are too.
• 6:53
  So if I would tell you, I'll give you, Melinda, a $1,000,000, and you have to go back 10 years.
• 7:00
  And pick the tech stock that did the best of the past 10 years.
• 7:03
  What would you pick?
• 7:04
  No.
• 7:05
  It's a trick question, so don't be afraid to be wrong.
• 7:07
  Probably would have picked Google, actually.
• 7:09
  Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple.
• 7:13
  Nope.
• 7:14
  Facebook.
• 7:15
  None of them.
• 7:16
  The most successful tech company in the past 10 years Domino's Pizza.
• 7:19
  And you're gonna go, that's a tech company, majority of employees work in tech.
• 7:23
  The second they became app centric.
• 7:25
  They had a direct relationship with their customer.
• 7:27
  They could test new things.
• 7:28
  They could get market research.
• 7:30
  They could improve their supply chain.
• 7:32
  Everything became getting data.
• 7:34
  Only competitive advantage any business has is to get insights from their data faster than the
• 7:40
  competition.
• 7:41
  And I don't care if you're a corner dress shop or you're a multinational.
• 7:44
  It's the same thing.
• 7:46
  And so In Vince case, he wanted to do what millions of millions of other people do.
• 7:52
  He grew up as part of the generation with social media.
• 7:55
  So he thought he could do social media marketing for somebody.
• 7:58
  Well, there's probably 40,000,000 people doing that.
• 8:00
  Well, not only that.
• 8:01
  You train hours for dollars doing social media marketing for people like that.
• 8:06
  You know This
• 8:06
  is how he made his million, so don't knock it.
• 8:09
  Alright.
• 8:09
  So I said, okay.
• 8:11
  But you're not gonna suddenly sit there by yourself and get Coca Cola or Ford, right,
• 8:17
  Comcast is gonna say, let's hire this kid to do all our social media.
• 8:20
  And the people you know, we're gonna pay a $100 a you know, because they don't have any money.
• 8:24
  But what if you feel a void?
• 8:26
  And that's one of the 12 truths.
• 8:28
  I hate competition.
• 8:29
  What any day, there's somebody better looking than me, smarter than me, better connected.
• 8:33
  Rich, just play no better.
• 8:35
  I don't like that person.
• 8:36
  So if I'm the only person doing something, by definition, I'm the best in the world.
• 8:41
  So find a boy where there's no competition.
• 8:43
  So then looked around and I said, what's in the zeitgeist?
• 8:46
  What are people talking about?
• 8:47
  And at that time, the big thing was cryptocurrency.
• 8:49
  This was the year that Bitcoin went from a 10,021,000.
• 8:52
  Everybody's talked to Bitcoin Bitcoin.
• 8:54
  And at the same time, whole bunch of people decide they wanna come out with new coins.
• 8:58
  So initial coin offers were the new thing.
• 9:00
  So what if and he came up with the idea, what if he was the social media agency that's
• 9:04
  specialized on crypto.
• 9:06
  Nobody else was saying that.
• 9:07
  Now just like any business, he just has to get the first customer even if it's for free.
• 9:11
  But once he has that, He now has a case study.
• 9:15
  And so when he killed it for that first customer, what people used to pay a $100 a
• 9:19
  month for they were now paying 30,000 a month.
• 9:21
  It really is that simple.
• 9:23
  And there's always voids to fill.
• 9:24
  There's always new problems.
• 9:26
  Interesting.
• 9:27
  So there's always so it's really about finding that niche target customer or finding that
• 9:32
  niche problem?
• 9:33
  Is that what you're saying?
• 9:34
  100%.
• 9:35
  I don't believe that entrepreneurs sell things.
• 9:38
  I believe entrepreneurs solve things.
• 9:41
  Nobody went into hardware store to get a quarter inch drill bit because they they wanted
• 9:44
  to drill bit.
• 9:45
  They wanted a quarter inch hole.
• 9:47
  They bought the drill bits to solve that problem.
• 9:49
  So I talk about it and disrupt you and in future proofing you, you know, the 3 problems a
• 9:53
  day.
• 9:53
  Look at the problems in your life because odds are other people have the same problems.
• 9:57
  Come up with a simple solution to a common problem.
• 10:00
  There is a mom in future proofing you that I just love her story because every parent can
• 10:05
  relate to this.
• 10:06
  It's the middle of the week.
• 10:07
  It's 10 o'clock at night.
• 10:08
  Your child has to make a poster board for the presentation tomorrow on school, and they write
• 10:13
  crooked.
• 10:14
  They mess it up.
• 10:14
  They steth an a crime, please go to the store, buy me another piece of post support.
• 10:18
  Please, please, please, and you're relent.
• 10:20
  Okay?
• 10:20
  You bring it home, but before it, she gave it to her daughter.
• 10:23
  She took a yardstick and made little fine lines across it.
• 10:26
  So she's doing a better job.
• 10:28
  And in the morning, she's talking to her sister-in-law and she says, why don't they sell
• 10:32
  post report with little lines on it.
• 10:34
  Make a long story short, she filed a patent, and she makes about $5,000,000.
• 10:38
  No employees, no work.
• 10:39
  That's a small business.
• 10:40
  That's one person at a kitchen table.
• 10:42
  Wow.
• 10:42
  Great.
• 10:43
  So there's problems all around us.
• 10:44
  The problem is we're so on autopilot.
• 10:47
  We don't think about the moment by moment problems.
• 10:50
  And it's in those moments where great treasure is found.
• 10:56
  Hi.
• 10:57
  This is Melinda Emerson, the small bus lady host the small bizchett podcast.
• 11:01
  I want to serve you.
• 11:02
  This pandemic has been so hard on America's small businesses and on just America in
• 11:07
  general.
• 11:08
  If ready to start your dream business.
• 11:10
  Boy, do I have a great offer for you?
• 11:12
  I am giving away 1000 copies of my best selling book.
• 11:16
  Become your own boss in 12 months.
• 11:19
  Over a hundred thousand people have this book.
• 11:21
  It has been printed in multiple languages around the world, and I wanted to find a way to
• 11:25
  serve America's small businesses in this pandemic.
• 11:28
  And so I am giving away a 1000 copies of my book.
• 11:32
  All you have to do to get your copy is head over to beginmybiz.com/freeoffer to, you know,
• 11:39
  sign up for your copy.
• 11:41
  All you have to is pay shipping, and we will mail one out to you.
• 11:44
  I am so excited about this.
• 11:46
  I wanna serve you.
• 11:51
  So it's about these moment by moments, but isn't it also about I feel one of the things
• 11:57
  that's really troubling to me right now is I feel like there's all these people trying to
• 12:01
  copy everyone else.
• 12:02
  Right?
• 12:02
  You know, so let me study Grant Cardone.
• 12:04
  Let me study Ryan Dice.
• 12:06
  Let me study, you know, even people trying to study me, trying to become, you know, the small
• 12:10
  business.
• 12:10
  It's like, look, I started my brand 12, 13 years ago.
• 12:15
  What I did you is not gonna work for you now.
• 12:18
  Like, you gotta come up with something else.
• 12:20
  You're And the world is constantly changing.
• 12:22
  So why not go for the next two things?
• 12:23
  One of the twelve truths as I as I explained to everybody, a new $1,000,000,000,000 opportunity
• 12:28
  that every small business can jump into.
• 12:30
  And, again, I'm not selling anything.
• 12:32
  I'm just paying it forward.
• 12:33
  And there's nobody ahead of you.
• 12:35
  So why wouldn't you wanna learn about it?
• 12:37
  So I'll I'll give you two seconds to to to explain where I'm coming from.
• 12:42
  We've established that you couldn't live without your phone.
• 12:44
  You couldn't run your business in your world.
• 12:46
  No one could.
• 12:47
  Yet 10 years ago, when the iPhone came out, Let me tell you 2 of the top 10 apps of that year.
• 12:52
  The fart app yeah.
• 12:54
  You heard me.
• 12:55
  Right?
• 12:55
  Just makes little sounds and a game with cats.
• 12:58
  So that's another way of saying no one thought of Robinhood, OpenTable, or the thousands of
• 13:03
  other apps that have made 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars.
• 13:05
  And it became a cornerstone of our life.
• 13:07
  Well, Apple's a client, Google's a client, Facebook's client.
• 13:10
  I know what's coming.
• 13:11
  Best way to predict the future is hang out with the people that are coding it.
• 13:14
  And Starting at the end of this year and next year, we're all gonna get glasses that have
• 13:19
  heads up display.
• 13:20
  Your phone will stay in your pocket.
• 13:21
  This will bring information to you.
• 13:23
  It'll contact utilize with an overlay to your world.
• 13:25
  So if the doctor says, oh, you got diabetes, you can call the supermarket and say, show me
• 13:30
  all the foods without sugar, and everything else disappears.
• 13:33
  Where I don't remember where I parked my car and there's a line for endless possibilities.
• 13:37
  You can read a menu in any language, or somebody can speak to you in any language, and
• 13:41
  it'll translate.
• 13:42
  And you'll hear it in your language.
• 13:44
  So if this is where the tech guys are spending billions and if Google doesn't own this, they
• 13:50
  go out of business.
• 13:52
  If Apple doesn't sell you these, they go out of business.
• 13:54
  So they're focused on the big stuff just like the launch of the iPhone.
• 13:58
  Mhmm.
• 13:58
  What they're not doing is the 9000 new solutions that this does, the heavy lifting's
• 14:04
  being done.
• 14:05
  It's like you with your small business, have an r and d team spending $10,000,000,000 just so
• 14:10
  you can get rich.
• 14:12
  So I've never been the wacky professor, you know, creating the flux capacitor.
• 14:18
  Right?
• 14:19
  The guy that says somebody made all that effort to make this, I'll find a way to use it over
• 14:24
  here.
• 14:24
  Right.
• 14:25
  So what are the problems in your life?
• 14:26
  What could suddenly be solved?
• 14:28
  What could be made easier?
• 14:29
  And here's the other part, and I know you remember this from disrupt you.
• 14:32
  Because these big guys wanna show off their new things as as they come to market, there is a
• 14:36
  ton of OPM other people's money.
• 14:39
  So they're willing to spend 1,000,000 of dollars promoting your new app because it sells
• 14:44
  their solution when it's hard for for young people to understand that there was a time
• 14:50
  before swiping.
• 14:52
  Okay?
• 14:53
  And when Apple came out with the iPad, nobody knew how to swipe.
• 14:57
  They had to teach people.
• 14:58
  So they wanted to show something in a TV commercial that would demonstrate it.
• 15:01
  So they found a little game company in Northern Europe, a failure of a company that had a game
• 15:05
  called Angry Birds.
• 15:06
  They put angry birds in every TV commercial, a $100,000,000 worth of Apple commercials.
• 15:10
  What happens to little angry birds?
• 15:12
  Not only to become a killer game, they sold $5,000,000,000 worth of in sheets, underwear,
• 15:18
  lunchboxes, you name it.
• 15:19
  Those big tech companies would do the same with your small business if your little solution
• 15:24
  demonstrates why they spent the 10,000,000,000.
• 15:27
  Right.
• 15:27
  And if you're solving a problem that you're passionate about, it'll get you through those
• 15:32
  hard times because you're making the world better.
• 15:33
  Anybody can make shoes and sell shoes.
• 15:36
  When Tom's shoes said you buy a pair of shoes, somebody that's never had a pair of shoes gets
• 15:40
  a pair of shoes, how much better do you feel?
• 15:42
  People are looking for meaning people wanna see shared values in businesses.
• 15:47
  So it's a great time.
• 15:49
  It's never been easier to go from 0 to a1000000.
• 15:53
  There's no gatekeepers blocking you.
• 15:55
  You don't have to live in a major city.
• 15:57
  You don't have to live in a 1st world country.
• 15:59
  We're all connected.
• 16:00
  So you're saying it's never been easier for anyone to go from 0 to 1,000,000?
• 16:06
  Anywhere.
• 16:07
  So you know what, Jay?
• 16:08
  I'm a give you your next book.
• 16:10
  Go get a x felling and do it.
• 16:12
  I think that would be a tiny bit more challenging.
• 16:15
  But tell me about the day that you're So
• 16:18
  here's my question.
• 16:19
  If Vin had been a felon, who would have known?
• 16:22
  I suppose no one but I think that there's a lot of other barriers.
• 16:27
  Well, he did have a checker passed.
• 16:28
  I don't wanna out him in the podcast.
• 16:30
  Got it.
• 16:31
  Got it.
• 16:31
  There are many barriers, but the biggest barrier is between your ears.
• 16:35
  It's those voices that we've heard of who we are and what our limitations are our whole
• 16:39
  life.
• 16:40
  That's what holds us back.
• 16:41
  I'm not good enough.
• 16:41
  I'm not smart enough.
• 16:42
  I'm not so I lay out some some truths they want before I get into the book.
• 16:46
  Having a higher IQ doesn't translate to greater wealth and success.
• 16:50
  Going to 4 year college no longer translates to having greater wealth in life.
• 16:54
  Okay?
• 16:54
  You know?
• 16:55
  So if it's not about being educated, if it's not about being naturally smart, what's it come
• 17:01
  down to inside and perseverance?
• 17:03
  But, yeah, it comes down to your hustle.
• 17:05
  Your your Yeah.
• 17:06
  A friend of mine calls it your grusel.
• 17:08
  It's like your grind and your hustle together, your grusel.
• 17:11
  Oh, I like that.
• 17:12
  I like that.
• 17:13
  I'll I'll give that to my good friend Hodge Fleming always says that.
• 17:17
  He said it's about your grusel.
• 17:19
  So you're saying that it's about your initiative and your perseverance or your you
• 17:24
  said your insights and perseverance.
• 17:26
  Is that what you said?
• 17:27
  Yep.
• 17:28
  And so in BIN's case, so I got him in this positive mindset, 1st month, he does $60,000.
• 17:33
  He could have flown to the moon without a rocket.
• 17:35
  I mean, he was, like, he was on fire.
• 17:37
  But midway through the year, his business got sucker punched.
• 17:41
  Nothing that he did wrong, but all of a sudden just boom.
• 17:44
  And he was blindsided.
• 17:46
  You know, and I'm thinking to myself selfishly.
• 17:48
  Okay.
• 17:48
  So book about a guy who makes a half a $1,000,000 isn't a bad story.
• 17:51
  You know, it's not the same catch.
• 17:53
  And at our end of the month meeting, when I pick him to go, what was me?
• 17:57
  He said, yeah.
• 17:57
  That wasn't working.
• 17:58
  So I pivoted, and I didn't have a good month.
• 18:01
  I only did $96,000.
• 18:03
  His goal for the month is a 100.
• 18:05
  And I'm sitting there going like, if I could have just put him back a year and said, would
• 18:08
  you believe that you'd be saying someday?
• 18:10
  I only made $96,000 in a month.
• 18:13
  And that showed me that it's not about me.
• 18:18
  Everybody has it in it.
• 18:19
  Humans are adaptable.
• 18:21
  I believe in everybody.
• 18:23
  They just don't always believe in themselves.
• 18:25
  You know, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
• 18:27
  Right.
• 18:28
  So the other thing that I realized that wasn't in disrupt you There was a huge glaring error
• 18:33
  on my part, and it's one of the the 12 truths is don't fly solo.
• 18:38
  Okay.
• 18:39
  You're gonna need mentors.
• 18:41
  Okay.
• 18:41
  Oprah Winfrey had Barbara Walters.
• 18:43
  You know, everybody had somebody.
• 18:46
  Even mother Theresa found her mentor.
• 18:48
  We're sitting on on a bus bench waiting for the bus.
• 18:51
  And here's the thing.
• 18:51
  If the world is as dynamic as we know it is, the range of skills that you're going to need
• 18:57
  and the speed at which you're gonna need to have them don't get caught up in this BS of the
• 19:01
  self made man or woman.
• 19:03
  It doesn't exist.
• 19:04
  I used to run the world's largest music company, EMI.
• 19:08
  And I remember being in a stadium with a 100,000 screaming fans, our artists on the
• 19:13
  stage, you know, singing from his heart to theirs, like, oh my god.
• 19:16
  The guy made it on its own.
• 19:17
  What they don't see is the songwriters and the producers and the managers and the PR and the
• 19:21
  roadies and the thousands of people that made it so that moment could happen.
• 19:25
  There's no billionaire that didn't have employees, investors, customers.
• 19:29
  I mean, so why not get it?
• 19:30
  And if you believe that the abundance that I'm talking about is there as opposed to the your
• 19:35
  money or my money, then there are people that want to help you and get the validation.
• 19:40
  And by the way, being a mentor, you learn.
• 19:43
  It's not just the men he learns.
• 19:45
  I learned an awful lot from then.
• 19:47
  And so I teach in the book how to find mentors, how to use LinkedIn, how to look at profiles to
• 19:53
  figure out who, and it's not the old just send out of the cold.
• 19:56
  Like, I'm sure you get will you be my mentor?
• 19:58
  That's like walking in a bar and going, hey.
• 20:00
  Will you have my baby?
• 20:02
  I don't think that works.
• 20:04
  No.
• 20:04
  Doesn't work.
• 20:05
  Okay.
• 20:06
  Good.
• 20:07
  Darn.
• 20:07
  I was gonna try that this afternoon.
• 20:09
  No.
• 20:10
  But if you figure out how to start that dialogue, how to find that common points of
• 20:14
  interest, how to talk, you could end up having a lifelong mentor without ever using the m
• 20:18
  word.
• 20:19
  And everybody is connected.
• 20:22
  So whatever skill set, whatever market, whatever you're trying to do, why try to do it
• 20:27
  alone.
• 20:28
  Sure.
• 20:29
  But can you talk about that?
• 20:30
  Because I do get approached a lot for people who want mentorship Can you talk about so if
• 20:36
  you're not supposed to just cold call or cold email somebody on LinkedIn, what should you do?
• 20:42
  How how should someone approach someone?
• 20:45
  So identify somebody with the skill set one round above you in the ladder.
• 20:50
  Right?
• 20:51
  You don't go to, you know, Warren Buffett, will you tell me how to invest in it?
• 20:56
  Right.
• 20:56
  Because his first thing would be, well, you should divide your billions this way.
• 21:00
  Right?
• 21:01
  His advice wouldn't be real practical for the average average bear.
• 21:04
  So find that person.
• 21:06
  Then then once you figure out what that skill set is, look through, you know, do job searches
• 21:10
  and and and titles and stuff and find people that are involved in charity.
• 21:14
  Find people that have extracurricular things that give you a 360 and look for that point of
• 21:20
  connection.
• 21:21
  Mhmm.
• 21:21
  Oh, they went to Virginia tech too, you know, whatever it might be.
• 21:25
  And when they post, they're posting things because they wanna hear from people.
• 21:31
  So start a dialogue, respond, ask questions, That's a good point.
• 21:35
  What about this?
• 21:36
  I know a seventeen year old gal who responded through a series of conversations to Richard
• 21:44
  Branson on Twitter, and he invested a $1,000,000 in our business at 17.
• 21:48
  Wow.
• 21:49
  So when I was a nobody in my twenties and I had this great idea that I thought would expand
• 21:54
  people using PCs and everything, I wrote to Bill Gates.
• 21:58
  I didn't know Bill Gates.
• 21:59
  If he said does nothing, what have I lost?
• 22:02
  Right.
• 22:02
  The fact that he did it and acted on it, and I had the audacity now when I think back of it,
• 22:08
  wasn't asking a favor from Bill.
• 22:10
  I was asking, would you write to David Geffen, the most successful man in the music industry,
• 22:14
  the only billionaire, to take a meeting with me because I have an idea to put music into video
• 22:19
  games.
• 22:19
  And he did.
• 22:21
  So there's no shame and trying.
• 22:24
  You're gonna fail again and again.
• 22:26
  Sure.
• 22:26
  The other thing that I I I dealt in this book that really bugs me, and I'm sure you hear this
• 22:31
  from all the Huxers online is when people say fear isn't real.
• 22:35
  Right?
• 22:36
  Yeah.
• 22:36
  Right.
• 22:37
  I wanna lock one of those suckers in a cage with a tiger until they admit that they're
• 22:41
  lying.
• 22:43
  Hey.
• 22:43
  I'll wait.
• 22:44
  Fear is real.
• 22:45
  Sure.
• 22:45
  It
• 22:45
  is.
• 22:46
  Most people are afraid start a side hustle or business.
• 22:49
  They're afraid to be, you know, be embarrassed.
• 22:51
  They're afraid to lose their money.
• 22:53
  They're afraid that they lose other people's money.
• 22:54
  They have all these fears.
• 22:56
  Those fears are real.
• 22:58
  But I'm not telling you to forget those fears because you can't.
• 23:01
  Your lizard brain is hardwired.
• 23:03
  That fighter flight response, that's that's that's solid.
• 23:05
  That keeps you up at night.
• 23:06
  That does all kinds of stuff.
• 23:08
  But if you were walking down, you know, Broad Street in Philadelphia, thinking about those
• 23:12
  fears, And all of a sudden, an 18 wheeler comes blaring.
• 23:15
  The brakes aren't working.
• 23:16
  It's gonna run you over.
• 23:18
  How are you thinking about your business?
• 23:19
  Are you thinking about those fears?
• 23:20
  Are you thinking about you better jump out of the way of this truck or you die?
• 23:23
  So a greater fear is what you focus on.
• 23:26
  So if you're at some dead end job where you're not learning, you're not growing, you're
• 23:30
  trading a day, your life, a week, your life, a year, your life, 20 years.
• 23:33
  You wake up one day.
• 23:34
  You gave away the most precious thing you ever had.
• 23:36
  Your life or what?
• 23:38
  Right.
• 23:39
  Right.
• 23:39
  That's what you
• 23:39
  should be afraid of.
• 23:41
  Time slipping away.
• 23:42
  I agree with you because time is more valuable than money.
• 23:45
  And that's the thing you can never get back.
• 23:47
  You make more money, but you can never get your time back.
• 23:50
  So you gotta be real careful about what hook it's in on.
• 23:52
  I'll tell you my favorite line on that.
• 23:54
  Whenever people ask me, it's now a good time to start a business.
• 23:57
  I always go a year ago was better, but now's the second best time.
• 24:02
  Of course, say something like that.
• 24:04
  Because the the earlier you start, the more time you have to make mistakes, which you're
• 24:08
  gonna make mistakes.
• 24:09
  And that's the other thing people have to go over Everybody plays video games.
• 24:13
  Okay?
• 24:13
  No one sits down at a video game and 4 hours later, woo hoo.
• 24:16
  I got through it.
• 24:17
  Like, here's an obstacle.
• 24:18
  I hammer on having I get passed.
• 24:20
  Here's another obstacle hammer hammer.
• 24:22
  That's all the businesses, an endless series of challenges.
• 24:25
  That's also what makes the journey a lot fun than the pine box at the destination.
• 24:30
  So the earlier you start, the more you focus on, you don't wanna waste your life.
• 24:34
  And if you don't believe me, and you have grandparents or go to an old age home and ask
• 24:38
  people what their biggest regret in life is, and it's not going to be what they failed at.
• 24:43
  Going to be what they failed to try.
• 24:45
  Only I would have.
• 24:46
  I want it to be whatever.
• 24:48
  So stop living someone else's dream for you.
• 24:51
  It's your life.
• 24:52
  It's the most precious thing we have.
• 24:53
  And the purpose of life is to live a life of purpose.
• 24:56
  I I also get bothering people, ask them, because when do you wanna be when you grow up?
• 24:59
  Never asked my children that.
• 25:01
  I always ask, what problem do you wanna solve when you grow up?
• 25:04
  World's got a lot of injustice.
• 25:05
  If you can't find problems, I wanna live on your street.
• 25:09
  And not to get into politics, but when I saw our nation's capital getting this year, what I
• 25:14
  saw was thousands of people that feel left out left behind clawing over leftovers because the
• 25:20
  world they were told existed doesn't exist.
• 25:23
  You're not gonna have one parent work 1950s, the average house was 2 year salary.
• 25:28
  So you could work.
• 25:30
  You could send your kids to school, and you had a full pension.
• 25:33
  Aussie and Harry aren't around anymore.
• 25:35
  That air is gone.
• 25:36
  So unless you learn and commit to lifelong learning, unless you face this world of how
• 25:41
  it's changed, and how it's changed to your advantage if you wanna take it that way.
• 25:46
  There's a whole lot of hurt coming because, again, half of all jobs are about to disappear.
• 25:51
  I know.
• 25:51
  So it's really, really important that people develop these skills to make money, you know,
• 25:56
  to develop multiple streams of income and really find something that they're passionate
• 26:00
  in good Right?
• 26:00
  You know what I mean?
• 26:01
  You just chase something because you heard it'll make money.
• 26:04
  Chase something because you have something to add to the situation.
• 26:07
  Like, add something.
• 26:09
  Don't subtract.
• 26:09
  Always add.
• 26:11
  Well, Jay, you know what?
• 26:12
  I have so, so, so, so, so, enjoyed spending time with you.
• 26:15
  But I have a couple more quick questions for you.
• 26:18
  Okay.
• 26:19
  Number 1, tell me what is your favorite podcast?
• 26:23
  It must be small business podcast.
• 26:27
  It's small business chat, but thank you.
• 26:28
  I always appreciate the plug.
• 26:31
  Always, what is your favorite business app?
• 26:35
  Favorite business app would probably be LinkedIn.
• 26:38
  LinkedIn.
• 26:38
  Alright.
• 26:39
  I'm a big LinkedIn lover too.
• 26:41
  And what is your favorite old school marketing tip?
• 26:45
  I'll give you my all time best secret.
• 26:47
  Play a game with me.
• 26:49
  Why do you hire a
• 26:50
  PR phone?
• 26:50
  Because I wanna become visible.
• 26:53
  Nope.
• 26:54
  No.
• 26:54
  I didn't.
• 26:54
  Every answer that everybody would say, y'all, is wrong.
• 26:58
  Here's why I hire at the art firm to get to their clients.
• 27:02
  So the PR firms hanging out with the CMO of coke, you know, or the CMO, whoever.
• 27:06
  And you have an idea that's great for them and great for your company.
• 27:09
  You got no channel to get there.
• 27:11
  The second you hire that PR from, they go, you know what?
• 27:13
  This would also be great for a client coke.
• 27:15
  Do you mind if I set up a meeting?
• 27:17
  I'm like, What a great idea.
• 27:18
  It never occurred to me.
• 27:19
  Yeah.
• 27:20
  And that's how I've gotten to almost anybody in the world when I was just, you know, five guys
• 27:25
  in a room.
• 27:25
  I love it.
• 27:26
  I love it.
• 27:26
  Last question for you.
• 27:28
  What is the best business book you ever read?
• 27:30
  The Peter principle.
• 27:32
  It basically explained that everybody rises to their level of incompetence.
• 27:36
  And that was mind blowing to me.
• 27:38
  So if you're a good teacher, if all the kids love you, what do they do?
• 27:41
  They make your prints principal doesn't deal with teachers.
• 27:43
  They deal I mean, doesn't deal with students to deal with teachers.
• 27:46
  If you're bad at that, you stay principal the rest of your life.
• 27:49
  If you're good at it, they make you school board where you have to deal with politicians
• 27:52
  and budgets.
• 27:53
  Right?
• 27:53
  If you're bad at that, you're gonna be a school board forever.
• 27:56
  So most people that you're gonna meet in big organizations are actually at their level of
• 28:02
  most incompetence as opposed to most success.
• 28:06
  And once you see it that way, You understand why most of them are focused on just self
• 28:11
  preservation, and they have those fears of imposter syndrome and everything.
• 28:15
  And when I talked about the fear before, you can then flip the fear and use that to to
• 28:21
  complete your sale.
• 28:23
  Interesting.
• 28:23
  Interesting.
• 28:24
  Well, so I thought you might be interested to know what one of my best business books I ever
• 28:28
  read.
• 28:29
  It's actually cents.
• 28:31
  Oh, you're too kind.
• 28:33
  I actually say it at almost the end of every podcast interview.
• 28:36
  I Oh,
• 28:36
  you were the best.
• 28:37
  No.
• 28:38
  And by the way, I I know you you've written books and you've shared this this feeling with
• 28:42
  me.
• 28:42
  If you have a book in you, it's really the most rewarding thing to pay it forward and help
• 28:47
  people.
• 28:47
  Because it comes back in a million different ways that just make make life better.
• 28:52
  I completely, completely agree.
• 28:54
  Jay, I've completely enjoyed this time with you.
• 28:57
  And I wanna invite anyone interested in the small fish chat podcast for more information on
• 29:02
  how to start and grow a successful small business Check on over to succeed as your own
• 29:07
  boss.com and check out all the tools and tips we have there to help you live your dream
• 29:12
  business.
• 29:13
  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady, and I'll leave you with this.
• 29:16
  You never lose in business.
• 29:17
  Either you win or you learn.
• 29:19
  Take care, everybody.
• 29:22
  Thank you for listening to the Small Biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 29:27
  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
• 29:34
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.