It's Going to Hurt: Haggai Klorman

This is The Chris Project, where we discuss mental wellness, self-awareness, and mindset with entrepreneurs and experts. Set your perceived ideas and biases aside and let's go on our journey for yourself, for your family, for the world.

Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today is Hagai Klorman-Iraky, CEO of the Ageos Group. Hagai, welcome to the show.

Hello. Hello. How did I do? You did pretty well. Pretty well. It's the Ageos Group. It's my holding company. And, you know, I take such great pleasure with your like radiophonic voice.

It's like, ah, well, I have a face. I have a face for radio too. So it works well.

So, but well, you know, you are on a video podcast.

So, well, actually we just record the, we record both, but we, we only produce in audio mainly because of my face. Um, so when, when we met, uh, you kind of gave me the rundown of all the different companies that you are associated with. Yes. Um, to the extent that you're willing to share, uh, what you do, why don't you tell the audience what you're working on?

Sure. So, you know, I'll actually go back, like, because I think, uh, I'll start with my first venture and, and then we'll jump into the future. I want to give a thing. So, uh, I know somebody asked me this question this week, so that's why it's kind of top of mind. Is like, did you know you want to be an entrepreneur? Or like, you know, born, made, and all those. And I brought up that I think it was, it was in Miami in the summer between 5th and 6th grade. I was in summer camp. Okay, and what kind of camp? I was just like, no, like, I know, it's just like nothing fancy. They took over the school, we took over the school and like made it like It wasn't like sailing camp or surfing camp? No, it was like basic. It was really basic camp. We had a pool with archery. We had football. That's what I remember. And we had like a classroom. That's the thing. And there was a cafeteria. Yes. And it was only open during lunchtime. I don't know, 1 PM or whatever. And you could only get soft drinks in the cafeteria. During lunchtime. And to this day, I remember it, it was $1.15. So, probably aging myself. And I went back home, like, you know, one of the first few days, loaned money from my parents, bought Diet Coke, Coca-Cola, maybe it was even New Coke at the time. Again, that's again dating myself, right? New Coke. Maybe Sprite, but definitely those. Put it in my backpack and started selling it to my fellow campgoers, right? Yes. Off the backpack. Again, not cool to do anything, but that was like, there was no other source between, you know, it was a thing. And I'm pretty sure it was like 25 cents a can. So the margins were wonderful. And I did learn my mistake though. I did give credit to some people which never paid. So lessons learned. But the margins were wonderful. And I don't know, like a week or two weeks into it, I get called in and I get shut down by the government. Yes. Yes. So basically I was on the funding.

The fund suckers.

Yeah. And I don't know, I guess that kind of shaped my attitude for the rest of my life because the ability to get something done and hustle is very, it's very, it's very, very, it's very addictive, and it's very, very addictive. So that was my first step.

I, I, I hear a lot of these stories, childhood stories, of like just solving problems. And that's what entrepreneurs do. And to your point, it is addictive, that dopamine rush of figuring out and solving a problem and see it come to fruition where, you know, I mean, for a lot of people it is about the money, but the money is just confirmation that you fixed the problem, right? And it is addictive. I was sitting there this weekend mulling over some new ideas, and I'm smart enough, I'm aged enough that I haven't spoken any of them out loud because I know the reactions of like my wife is like, really, you're going to do something else? And it's like, you can't turn it off, right? Like you can't stop.

It's very difficult. It's very difficult. And I think it's one of the things that drives people to try to be entrepreneurs or one way or another, right? Even as a consultant or actual business. And I think what— again, I know you get to talk— we're both an EO and we get the chance to talk to a lot of entrepreneurs. I think entrepreneurs in general really do not like to work for somebody else.

No, we're unemployable.

Unemployable in one way or another. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, and the funny thing is everybody knows who actually went on the road, you find yourself working for your investors if you have any, you find yourself working for your employees if you have any, your vendors, and definitely your clients, right? I'm running out of fingers here. Yes. So it's not, you know, how does the Bob Dylan song go? You got to serve somebody. It might be the devil, it might be the law, but you serve somebody. So you do find yourself working for a lot of things, but not for another person, right?

No, I've heard that, you know, you trade one boss for many, right? Yes. And that is true. I think the difference, though, for me is when I realized I was not employable was my frustration with people not wanting to try the ideas that I saw. And, and it was like, well, if you're not going to try it, I'm going to go try it. Like, that, that, that's the difference to me, is like being able to execute or act on, on your ideas, where as an employee oftentimes you can't, which is stupid because, you know, frankly, we, you know, as entrepreneurs, we, we would love to a certain degree to have entrepreneurial ideas come from our employees. Uh, you know, we'd love for them to solve problems, uh, without us.

And, and the question is, do you give them the chance to do so? Okay, so I— okay, so You did ask me what I do today, so I'll answer the question and then I'll also reply to that so people don't think I'm running away from the question. So today I have a small holding company called Agiers Group. It's an entrepreneurial venture. Our tagline is we build our own ventures and we work with very great entrepreneurs to build theirs. And basically it means either build companies or projects under our group. And most of the time with some, with a partnership, somebody with a domain expertise, or we do advisory work, even myself or the team with other ventures, where there's usually like an entrepreneur on the other side, and we come in as advisors, but as a, but as fellow entrepreneurs, right? Right. I'm not a consultant. So just to give a little more color to that so it doesn't sound too abstract. So one, I have a telemedicine company that my partner was a doctor. It's called Better Weight for Life, and it provides GLP-1 medication. So Ozempic, Wegovy, all that to people who are willing to pay out of pocket. And we provide the whole spectrum. So from the doctor's consultation, the prescription, the ongoing consultation, and the medication with our pharmacy partners, both compound and branded medication to those who are interested. We also have under the group a company called Kardz Biz, that's with a K, a Z, and dot Biz. I know you also are a card holder. We do, remember, we do smart business cards, so premium business cards that go for anywhere between $250 to $450 per card. They're metal, composite glass, and engraved either in gold or silver with semi-precious metals. And you don't give it away. You do NFC like Apple Pay, and you share the information. So those are, for example, like ventures that me and my team with partners developed, and we are majority owners. And on the advisory work, it ranges anywhere between strategic fundraising, IP commercialization, strategy work. So just like for you, like what— oh, I'll say what's on my LinkedIn. So for example, There's a company called, so there's a guy named Asaf Glazer, an amazing entrepreneur. His fame is because he founded a company called Nanit. Nanit is the world's leading baby monitoring tool. It's a unicorn. It's a unicorn. It's not publicly traded, but it's a unicorn. So just to give a sense, and it has revenue to justify it. And he's not an active in management. He now, He's with his new venture, which is called Venst, and they use AI. He's using AI to democratize home cooking. And I'm on the advisory board for that. Okay. So I'm on the advisory board. So something like that.

You didn't start out there. So you had to have had some experience before you started investing in consulting.

What were— Yes.

Give us the origin story.

So how far to go? So like I said, the origin story started with those selling coke. Yes, legal coke of my backpack.

Not cocaine, just in case anybody's monitoring.

It was the '80s in Miami. It was the cocaine years. It's true. I plead innocence, right? It really was like I came back from school one day to our gated community. It was like, I don't know, like tens of police cars. And apparently our neighbors were very entrepreneurial drug dealers, young drug dealers. Like, you know, it was a period. So yes, so I always make that joke. I was selling coke in Miami, in Vegas. Yes, that's a great—

that's a great line.

That's a great line. Um, legal, before the FBI— legally, yes, before the FBI knocks on my door. Uh, but I would say move forward a few years. When I did my undergraduate school, I studied law and I studied economics, but I worked full time. And that was like my real and only job. I worked in IBM. I started, I was an IT cybersecurity architect. And then I was in the business development. But in many ways, I always felt I was at least an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur, because first of all, like, I worked a full-time job and I studied full-time. So there was no way to do the job in a standard way except be measured on results. So even though I was in a big corporate company, the way I positioned myself, even not in a strategic way, just in a very kind of a, I know, because you don't have a choice kind of way. It was like, okay, let's add value, let's add value, let's add value. And very quickly, my, my job became, am I getting business? Am I working to get business? And am I working on things that— and, and like, and again, I was young, right? This was my first job. But in my second year, I was working on $50 million RFPs. Of a company. And, uh, and luckily, I don't know if you, you know, but when you're young, um, you don't really need to sleep. So you can study full-time, work full-time, and have a social life. Yes, because you have 36 hours in the day.

Yes.

And, and that, and that was one stem. After that, I, I went to Boston College and to get my, uh, graduate degree in economics and an MBA. And again, I didn't, like, even though I misspent my youth, I misspent youth getting degrees, I have to mention I was also dyslectic and everything was always, even learning was a bit of a hustle and convincing people and borrowing notebooks and negotiating grades. And all that. But still, it's like, okay, what can I do? So anybody, anybody who has suffered through an MBA program or graduate program, they push you very much into doing those informational interviews because they want you to basically get a job, right? Right. And they put information interviews. But I, I didn't know what information interview is, and I was sent to this very interesting person that was the head of global alliances for State Street Bank. So State Street Bank and BlackRock today are comparable. At the time, State Street Bank, I think, managed like a trillion dollars, including Federal Reserve Bank's monetary reserves. And I go and I just like— and I'm having conversation like we are having conversation, right? And then I said like, hey, what do you want? Like, what's your problem? What do you need? And he basically goes, at some point in the end of interview, he goes, yeah, I have this asset, like, we're trying to get to sell out. It has $400 million under management. It's in this emerging country. Yada, yada, yada. And to make a very long story short, a few weeks after, I come back with a bio and solve it and solve his problem. Again, very long story, but the short of it. But And I go, this is easy. I don't know how to get the job. Now, as foreshadowing and anybody knows, it's like I just got lucky. It's helpful, but I just got lucky and it was never that easy again. But then I went on this journey of a few years doing entrepreneurial finance. I was M&A, bank, investment banking, but not in the sense that I was working for Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. It was more like deal-making, bringing things together, and that, and that. And I also went into a bit of technology transfer, which is the same equivalent around the IP of core technology. And like, it sounds nice and impressive, but it was like my batting average was 1 out of 10. At best. Like, they don't— like, again, it's like they don't— like, maybe I'm being a little harsh, but because, because we couldn't take that many deals at the same time. But it's like every deal has its worth, everything has an issue. Um, there's a lot of stories for each one. Um, things blow up, right? You have a consultant, you have an outside factor, you don't control things. You always have to react and move things. But it was a very, very like entrepreneurial experience in the sense that you touched a lot of things, a lot of people, multiple countries, multiple subject matters between oil, gas, finance, and deep tech. Right. And like you kind of got like, it helped me kind of It's not like I understand everything, but not be scared when I don't know everything and say, okay, I'm gonna figure out, or I'm gonna talk to people that are smarter than me, work the problem and figure it out, at least to its core components. So that was a period of a few good years. I would say 5, 6 years there. Afterwards, me and my wife founded a company. We raised venture capital from top-tier investors. We originally was supposed to be a technology and LLM machine learning company before there was AI and that to recommend a recommendation engine for products. In the old days before there were— yes, and all that. Um, the technology was a failure, the marketing was a success, and the marketing became the business. And what the marketing was, we, we built specialization in a— what today you call community building and influencer marketing.

Okay.

And we ran for almost a decade I think the boutique, but I think the most prominent agency in the space of cosmetics and consumer goods in terms of influencer marketing, while specializing in organic word of mouth, meaning most of our engagements and most of our projects, we specialize in not the trade of money. We say, hey, Christian, I'll give you money, you put on lipstick and create a post on Instagram, TikTok, or whatnot.

It's gonna have to be a lot of money.

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, for me to put on lipstick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Damn good lipstick, by the way. Yes. Okay, uh, we specialize in let's build human connection with people that are likely to love this brand and product, introduce to, to them like human beings If they want to pay, get paid, we say, we totally understand that, we respect your time, but this is not this engagement, this engagement, uh, maybe next time, right? A walk-in voice, but we'll say, yeah, you know what, let's try it out, and then build a relationship, use their content that they created as a benchmark for the next person, and, and do this again and again and again. Um, again, this is like, we can do an hour just on this and this human psychology and the dynamics of social media, of how you create a norm to create content. But that's what we specialized in. And we did very well for many years. We did do a few paid engagements, well, like, you know, with like medium to top-tier influencers and the client wanted to pay them. But our specialty was what I used to call organic results through inorganic means, creating organic processes that require a period of 6 to 12 to even 3 years, 3 years to basically build communities online that love your brand and create content, grow and create that norm. While we were doing that, we developed a lot of business intelligence capabilities to monitor this types of processes. And then we took those BI capabilities and we then created offerings that focus on C-level in Fortune 500 companies and, and private equity. So the Bain Capital, Permira, General Atlantic of the world, private equity that managed tens of billions of dollars. And from time to time, they would bring them— us into the due diligence team and we could map brand equity for public conversations while combining it with classical focus groups. So again, once again, a very diverse, very educational, in-depth, in-depth of how brands work, how marketing works, how word of mouth works, how, how, what does a brand mean in this, in consumer goods? And that's what kind of developed. And between those things, we did the occasional consulting advisory board to startups and mentoring. So all of us kind of accumulated. So if you add it, so like that's my two-cent tool basically of answering your question, like how do I do what I do? How do I do what I do today?

Well, thank you. That was a good journey. Okay, so I'm going to go back to to, uh, back to your childhood. Were your parents entrepreneurs?

Yes, yes. My father was an entrepreneur, uh, and my grandfather was an entrepreneur also.

So why did you go down the education track so hard?

Well, so, wow, um, you will bring like, like I'm almost bring tears to like I don't know if you people actually see my video, but it's, um, I think I had something to prove. I think I had something to prove. So I got— I, I have 4 degrees, and I started on a 5th degree in mathematics, just a few courses after that. Now, again, like, but I can't explain. I'm not a Rain Man. I'm not. I literally bled through my eyes doing those things. Mhm. Like, I— again, there's a reason we said in the beginning, there's a reason that I'm the panu, okay? But I am, I'm the quirky person. I'm the person that, like, I got my— yeah, like, I got— until I figured out I was dyslexic, I got my Cs and Fs. Later, I clawed Bs and As. Okay, I clawed Bs and As, but the sheer amount of effort it took, okay, is the most. Yes, you can be, and again, I need to, like, I don't know what is the equivalent, but let's, without like, you know, getting into trouble or getting canceled because I'm trying comparing disabilities or things like that. But it's like, let's agree all human beings have some inclinations, right? Like, like somebody without legs, it will be harder for them to climb Everest. They can do it, and it will be a lot more impressive for it, right? Right. A lot more impressive for it, right? It would be like more than if me and you did it, right? Right. But it's like I took on a challenge, but I'm not sure in retrospect I should have. I should have because I had something to prove to God know who. God know who. Yeah. And this is not to say that I'm a great believer in education and learning. As you can see, I love reading. I love talking. I love— I love learning from other people. I, I, I, I, I'm like, I, I love consuming information and processes and models and case studies and things like that. But the standard educational path probably was my attempt at self-mutilation and sadomasochism. That's like the only thing I can say.

Okay, so, so do, do you feel like that you have proven to yourself that whatever it was that you're trying to prove to yourself?

No, no, because, because I think it's like, you know who Seth Godin is?

Yes.

Yeah, so he like, yes, he writes very, very eloquently and he has these books about marketing and things like that, but I think his best book, in my opinion, is The Dip. Is that good? I haven't read that one. It's smaller, it's not one of his main books. And it's a genius frustrating book. And the whole argument there is like, man, and I'm paraphrasing here, dude, know when to quit. Okay? And in a nutshell, it says, look, like you either have to assume you're going to be the top of the world and what you're attempting to, to, to do. So if you think you're going to be the best whatever, right, the best piano, the piano player, if you think you'll be the best tennis player, if you think you're going to be the best entrepreneur you can be, whatever, right. Entrepreneurship, I think the pie, you can always bake more pies compared to winner-take-all in sport, but whatever it is, like, then don't give up. Like, there's a dip, you need to get through it, you need to suffer, suffer, suffer, suffer, succeed. But if this is not your purpose in life, or you, you like, you really like, you, you're gonna be a good basketball player, you're not gonna be an NBA level player, just quit early. Okay, so I, I, I see it like, again, Of course, I took a lot of good things out of it, and every experience is raw material. But if you took me back in time, I would say, yeah, get a degree, get one, and all this energy, do what you think you can be good at, which is an entrepreneurial journey. Like, you know, like make mistakes there, fall on your face there, screw up there. Suffer though, because that's what you really want to do.

That's it. Yeah, I find it interesting because, you know, most entrepreneurs have a higher level of persistence or stubbornness or like whatever, the grit, whatever word you want to insert there. And I find it interesting knowing when, when that no longer serves you, right?

Yes.

So, uh, because in a lot of cases it does serve you, um, because you, you can, you can persist beyond the naysayers or the people that don't see the vision, right? And, and you can, you believe in yourself, you believe in what you're doing, and you going. But at some point, at least in my journey, that stubbornness actually starts to work against you. Yeah. And, you know, I think about like all of these Hollywood movies or stories about the person that didn't give up, right? That's like a universal theme of of someone coming out on top because they didn't give up, right? Yeah. But they don't ever tell the story about the person that had, had the same amount of grit and determination, but the odds were stacked against them and they lost. Right. Like, I mean, that, that's real, too.

Yeah, it's really weird. It's really weird. And, you know, it's also those multiple layers to what you said. There's multiple layers what you said. So, um, who was the guy that wrote the play, uh, The Importance of Being Earnest?

I don't remember. I remember the play, but I don't remember the author.

Anyway, drawing a blank, right? But he has a quote. But the difference between, uh, the difference between a A tragedy and a comedy is when the curtain falls. Okay, is one thing, right? Because so it's like many things in life are the issue of timing, right? Because if you think even all those Hollywood movies, right? If you just like, you know, if you went to black, if you go to black, where when the guy, the hero and whatever are in the gutter, bleeding, right? That's it, right? Right.

That's—

now it's a tragedy. Yeah, that's it. So, so, and, and, and, and even if the, the person succeeds, right, it's like, when do they succeed, right? It's like, um, what is a, you know, the story of the, the guy who beyond Kentucky Fried Chicken, but he, he started making it at age 60-something. Yeah, right. Yes, yes. Just like, wow. So on one hand, it's very inspirational. On the other hand, and this is what you're alluding to, is like, one, yes, not giving up on the right thing, right? On the right thing. That's a big thing. Right thing gives you a chance. Yes. Just like, it doesn't— it's not a promise. It's an opportunity to be successful. Now, like, nobody promises you'll be successful. Nobody promises you when you'll be successful. Nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody tells you how many frogs you're gonna have to eat on the way. Okay, nobody says that. Okay. And now, are there things you can do to increase your chances of success? Yes, right? But yes, nobody guarantees it. There is nobody guarantees it. No. And, and the set— and the second thing, in the second part, is, is that— so you say tenacity and the willingness not to give up. I would add to this, and this is for my personal— and this is what we said, experience share. And you know, we talk a lot about entrepreneurial organization, those who don't know. Organization of 19,000 hypnos worldwide. We all about experiencing, like, sharing our experiences and being truthful as much as possible about the things that are hard and the things that are good. But it's the ability to contain pain, psychological and otherwise, right? Psychological and otherwise. Yeah. And the best metaphor, and I actually had a conversation about this today, is for me a boxer or UFC fighter, right? Let's forget the second if we're good or bad, right? By definition, you're gonna get punched in the face, right? It's gonna get punched in the face. Yes. So somebody like— you're gonna punch this and you're gonna get punched in the face like constantly. Now, if this is your profession, you go I think this hurts like a son of a gun, but this is part of it. And I'm going to get punched in the face, but it doesn't take away the pain.

And entrepreneurship, yeah, I think there's a gild to it, the shine that is put on it that is unrealistic and glamorized. Entrepreneurship is hard. It's damn hard. Your analogy of a UFC fighter is a great one because it's like, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included, I started my first business at age 27 and I thought that it was just this smooth path and you know, once you got to this point, you didn't have any problems anymore. Yeah. Um, but it's like the founder of Boston Market— I heard him speak at an EO event, and, uh, he, he was an Italian immigrant and from Boston, so you could barely understand him. Um, but he, he said, uh, no business, no problems. More business, more problems.

Yeah.

And I'm like, oh yeah, yeah. So the expectation needs to be reset as an entrepreneur that you are going to get punched in the face and, and it's going to hurt.

Yeah. And what might change is a combination of your ability to withstand that, on what level of, I know, heights of, you know, I don't know what to say, like what economic heights, let's put it. So you're doing it, okay, what's the next? And how were you able to create a team of partners, people that would get punched in the face with you? Yes. So you're not alone. Yes. So it's, when it's a team effort and not just like not you, right?

Yes. And to your point about like where you're, you're, you're stopping the story, whether the, you know, the, the hero is bleeding in the gutter, um, that's, I think, the fascinating thing to me about entrepreneurship is it's, it's, um, it's the old choose-your-own-adventure novels when I was a kid. Maybe you read them where you got to make choices and go to a different page, right? But entrepreneurship is exactly that. Like, you get to choose your own adventure. And sometimes that adventure ends not the way you wanted or prematurely. But that's all right. You can go back and start the book over. Or you can pick up another one and try that one.

But that's like, you know, at its best, at its best, the capitalistic system, okay, at its best, which is not always the case, like state by state, country by country, person by person, but at its best, it acknowledges the possibility of failure being a non-criminal act. Yes. If we go back to debtor prisons and things like that. Right, right, and do that. And enables you, and enables you, assuming you are a decent actor or a talented actor, to, after you threw up, okay, and, and felt horrible on your lack of success or whatever it is, is to go and say, okay, let me try again, or try something different, or a different scope and things like that.

Yes, yes. And, and that's— if you are an entrepreneur, that's what happens. I, I think, I think a lot of people, uh, think they want to be an entrepreneur and want to play at entrepreneur, um, and when, when it gets tough, they're like, I, I can't really handle this. And that's fine.

Yeah, totally fine. Totally. And by the way, it's like, I think it's very— people should understand in listening to this is that it's not a superior state of humanity to be an entrepreneur. No, no. It's just different. It's just different. It's just different. If you are a doctor in ER or a caregiver, like, your contribution to humanity is enormous and wonderful. If you are an entrepreneur, probably you, you didn't have a choice. You probably don't have a choice, and from some, from, from some direction, or you put yourself in a situation, but you didn't have a choice. You didn't have a choice. And that's, and that's why anybody would ask me, it's like, should I be an entrepreneur? I say no. Yeah, no, I mean, which is very different between You have a job and on the weekends you do something else or things like that.

A side hustle.

Yeah. Yeah. Side hustle, an additional hustle or whatever like that. That's amazing. I think that's like the best. So I have a family member who it's like, again, I'm not going to use their name because it's their story to tell, but they had a very, I don't know, kind of straight, straight less professional job. Even it wasn't necessarily— it was very respectable, but they even took on the— took on— not like better, they took in the aspects that are better for the soul and not necessarily better for the pocketbook as the main activities. But over decades, they were entrepreneurial in real estate in parallel to the job. I'm not saying they invested in real estate passively. They were active, they did things and things like that, and they became relatively very successful in their later life. And so one aspect of her life was the trials and tribulations of a Greek comedy tragedy, and the other aspect was— right— I'm putting on a tie. Yeah, I'm putting on a tie. Yeah. And I have a lot of— and for this person, I, I like, I do, I adore them as human beings, and I have so much respect for them, what they managed to do.

Yes, I've often said, you, you mentioned dyslexia. I, I, I went to, um, an EO event where they were talking about, uh, different characteristics or symptoms and they asked the entrepreneurs to stand up if they had these traits. And by the end of her listing out all of these traits, everybody in the room was standing. And she said, well, what I just described to you was manic depression or something. I don't remember what, what, right? And from that point on, I've often said that entrepreneurship is kind of a mental condition. I don't want to say a dysfunction or a— what's the word I'm looking for? It's not necessarily negative, but there's these traits that are common across a bunch of entrepreneurs that are just innate in them that they can't really control.

So I, let me, I'll play a little, um, fake psychiatrist here, but it's, um, it's the, it's, um, I think it's, uh, what we call, it's a disagreeability. It's, I think all entrepreneurs are a bit disagreeable, so we're anti, we're not antisocial necessarily in the conventional thing. Right. If you are— if you're— okay, and there's many, you know, you could be nice and you can be autistic and you can be an asshole. There's many expressions of that. And you could be a man and you could be a woman and so on. But in a way, if your sense of self-worth is doing what the crowd is doing, you will not be an entrepreneur. So in the sense, it's like, you know, you're anti-social, or like, it's your, your—

to some contrary.

Yeah, but if you think about the, um, about the human dynamics, you need to disconnect yourself from the crowd, from the majority, from the norm, from what other people say, what your parents say, what your community says, what— something to some extent. Yes. Doesn't mean you're antisocial in the fully negative sense of the word and the mental illness and so on, but you have to be willing to say—

I'm right and everybody else is wrong.

Or not caring if you're right or wrong even. That's fair. So, one way it's like this, right? This is like, I'd actually, so I had talked to today with a guy named Jerry Newman. Jerry Newman is, he's an angel investor in the period of 15 years and 50 investments, he reached an IRR of 50%.

That's impressive.

Super impressive. And we, we had a very similar, a very similar conversation in, in, in this, in this regard. But he, we also said, like, he said, like, his experience, all entrepreneurs are not employable.

Correct.

Are not employable, right? All entrepreneurs have a little something. Yes, living. Okay, that does, again, that does not guarantee success. That guarantees You will be attempting to enter the madhouse. Yes. That's what you're going to love, right? Yes. It's like you're trying to play the game. Doesn't mean you win the game.

That is a brilliant statement right there. Yeah. Hagai, thank you so much for sharing your experience and being vulnerable. I appreciate that. Listeners, if you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. Until next time, remember, you are not alone.