Unlocking the Millennial Mindset

If you're wondering how the younger generation, Gen Z, view being entrepreneurs, then today's show is for you. And also, if you're wondering how Gen Z see the way they can build brands using social media, things that maybe the boomer generation, of which I'm one, is trying to grapple with, then again, my guest today is going to be the one that you want to listen to. Because I've got an undergraduate who's joining me from Lafayette in Louisiana. His name is Ryan Lay, and he reached out saying he's really just started his business. But I love his comment that he wants to build a business so he can retire his parents, and he's really keen to get into the whole way of living, of being a constructive and well-balanced entrepreneur. So I was delighted to be able to have him on the show. Ryan, welcome to the show today.

Jim James, thanks for having me. This is so exciting.

Yeah, well, look, I'm really excited to have you because on the whole, we are missing a trick on my show because we're not getting enough people of your generation, the Gen Z, and you guys, you know, plainly you've got so much value, but also I think you might have some questions that maybe older generations can help to answer and we need to do more knowledge sharing as well., but you've got a massive number of answers for people of my generation who have grown up in the non-digital world. So we're going to talk about that. So Ryan, you've got a business now helping coaches and entrepreneurs and thought leaders to leverage social media. So we're going to talk about that in a little while as well, because having you explain it and how you're using social media to build your own brand is going to be really, really helpful and informative to us. Ryan, first of all, tell us a little about you. And then about why, as a Gen Z, you want to be an entrepreneur.

Yeah, absolutely, man. As a Gen Z, the biggest motivation is easily influencers, right? It's the people that we see on YouTube, it's the people that we see, you know, making these amazing businesses, building these amazing businesses. And documenting it online and then, you know, selling this dream to us. And so that's where I feel a lot of us start at. And it's also, it's a blessing and a curse for one, because the, the people, you know, people like me, the younger entrepreneurs that actually have the drive to start the thing, to actually start the business and not just watch these influencers do it. We go down a really powerful path where, you know, it's not just about starting the business or making money. It's about finding ourselves, you know, learning what it means to actually work hard, learning what it means to be disciplined, learning what it means to do something for a long time, even if it isn't necessarily successful. And then the curse side of things is that it takes you down a rabbit hole, right? So, and even though you're discovering yourself, It's struggle sometimes to balance, you know, your life as a young person and coming into yourself. Um, and we can talk about later down the line about, you know, the meaning of work, right? Because a lot of young people, especially myself, have thought that the way to succeed is just by working ourselves into the ground. And that doesn't necessarily always work, and it actually has some pretty dire consequences, at least in my life. And that's definitely something that I've had to work on for sure. But yeah, for Gen Z, finding these influencers building these businesses has inspired us to do these amazing things as well. And it's also taught us a lot about ourselves.

It's interesting that you've got this aspiration now to be influencers. As your generation, and I read that now more young people like to be influencers than kind of anything else, right? And when we grew up, that wasn't really an option. Why, Ryan, do you not want to just go through university, get a degree, and get a job at a big proper company like, you know, IBM or Microsoft, get a regular job, get a 401, Why is that not appealing to you?

Yeah, Jim James, I'll be honest. Right now I'm literally in the study room of my dorm at university, studying marketing, studying business. And I will say the biggest thing is just simply freedom. And it's the dream that we are chasing, right? Because the way I see it and the way a lot of the young people that I other entrepreneurs that I hang out with, the way we see it is that the traditional path of the 9 to 5 with education, starting, graduating, getting a degree, working your way up the ladder, then working under a boss is, it's confining, you know, it doesn't allow us the freedom to do the work that we actually want to work on. We don't want a boss because they, we don't want other people to tell us what to do. It's just, it's confining, right? And what we really seek with starting these businesses, becoming entrepreneurs is freedom. You know, we want the freedom to do the work that we actually care about. And this is a big challenge because all of our peers, most of our peers are not entrepreneurs. They are going down the traditional path. Getting the degree, working the 9 to 5, working under a boss. And, you know, it's hard to like kind of understand our perception of it. But yeah, the business is a way for us to separate ourselves from what society is telling us to do because we want that genuine freedom. We want that financial freedom. We want that time freedom. So I think it really just boils down to freedom and we don't want to have to work under somebody and help someone else realize their dream because we want to find our own dreams and follow our own dreams.

Right. That's very articulate of you. And I think that what's reassuring and wonderful is that that sense of being an entrepreneur and, you know, I started my business in Singapore when I was 27. I left England to start my first company. That desire for the freedom and the control of your own destiny that transcends time, doesn't it? My generation, your generation. We all would like the freedom to do what we think is important and how we can add value. But what you've already discovered and what I discovered after a decade of running my own agency was that there is a price, actually. It's not easy to have that freedom. Just tell us a little bit about what you discovered when you started going down the path of entrepreneurship in terms of Yeah, how much work to do and how to take care of yourself.

Oh yeah, I've been through quite a bit, I'd say. And that's to say I've only been doing this for 5 or 6 years, not compared to like the decades that some people put in. But initially, whenever I first got hooked on entrepreneurship by these influencers, I was doing— I tried dropshipping, I tried agency, I tried coaching, I tried all these things, right? And what I learned or what I was told and taught because everyone else was doing it, uh, because the, the massively successful people were doing it and also my peers, you know, the other younger guys was we're just told that if you just work harder, if you just put in more hours and you just outwork everybody else that you will win. And I, I believe that there's merit to that. I genuinely believe that if you just consistently put in the work on the right things over a long enough time horizon, then you will get to where you want to go. You will, you will succeed. You will make the money. You will hit the, the monthly revenue. You'll do all the things. But here's what I've realized, right? Here's the, here's the thing that I feel like a lot of young people, including myself, still struggle with. It's digging yourself into a hole, into a pit where you realize Oh, I need to work hard. I need to dig more deeper and faster because there's other younger people just like me that are succeeding and I'm not. And so I need to work harder so that I can compete with them so that I can get to their level so that I can have their results so I can fulfill my dreams and, you know, achieve the freedom, right? And the reason why it's been something that I've been struggling with is because we're human, we're mortal, we have biological needs. And by working hard, so, so hard in these past few years, I've sacrificed my sleep, sacrificed my health, sacrificed relationships. I've lost basically all of my friends from before getting down this entrepreneurial path. I lost all my friends. I convinced myself that I didn't need them. I didn't need them anymore. So I separated myself from them. I spent less time with my family. I sacrificed my sleep, probably averaging under 5 hours for a good chunk of these past few years, just because I've been just working myself absolutely into the ground, trying to balance the business, trying to balance school, trying to do all these things at one time. And just because I felt the sense of needing to work harder. To achieve success.

Right. You've lived a lifetime in a short amount of time and in that dorm room, it sounds like, you know, and to what degree do you think that this sort of dream, this sort of MrBeast influencer, you know, from zero to hero in no time at all and zero work, to what degree do you think that's realistic? Do you think that in reality, there are lots of people that are working out there that aren't achieving that amazing influencer lifestyle?

Well, you see, I don't think MrBeast was a zero to hero, right? He documented it right from the beginning, where he has all of these videos that got no views, hundreds of videos, no views. And you can see, you can go back in his timeline, and you can see his initial videos, they're, they're terrible. There's Minecraft videos, there's really low quality camera. He didn't know what he was doing, but he just kept staying consistent with it. And that's the thing that I struggle with a lot as well. It's realizing that you're gonna suck at the beginning. And if you want to become, and you want to realize and actualize the influencer dream, it's not going to be an instant success. MrBeast wasn't an instant success. It took him years of struggle and pain to get there. And so it's about putting in the work consistently over a long enough time horizon. And the reason why it's so difficult for young people like me is because our lives are fundamentally short. Like, we have not lived that much life. And so each year feels longer than it would for someone like you, right? Because we have lived less life. And so whenever we are told that it takes longer to do something, it's gonna take us 10 years, we can barely wrap our minds around because like, that's like half of them. That's over half of my life, you know, I can't even wrap my head around doing something for 10 years. And but that's what it takes, right? That's what it takes, I think, to be a successful entrepreneur. It's about working hard on the right things, having that balance in your life to not burn out and doing it consistently for a long time.

Ryan, you're absolutely right. And I think that it's a, it's a very interesting insight you've got that for your generation, a decade is over half your life, whereas for me, a decade is, you know, less than 20%. And so that idea of horizons and timeframe is a really useful one. And I think as we've learned really that business is a marathon, not a sprint. Absolutely. And also that if you stick to running, then that's one sport. But if you try and be a heptathlete, for example, or a triathlete, you have to be good at lots of different things. But that, that also, from a business point of view, means that you're trying to be good at multiple businesses, which all require slightly different skills. Ryan, what's been your experience about the importance of focus on one?

My love language. I love focus. I love the idea of having one singular thing you're focusing on and then doing it. Ironically, though, most like these past few years, whenever I've been starting these businesses, bouncing from one thing to the next, it's been the polar opposite of focus. I've been so distracted by all these shiny things. And I feel like this is not, this is not very uncommon. I feel like as an entrepreneur, we're naturally attracted to shiny things because we're an entrepreneur. You know, we're not following the traditional path. We're going down the shiny path. We want to do the thing that's different. It's, it's we're chasing a dream, we're chasing the freedom, right? And I think focus is so, so important as an entrepreneur because whenever you have, yeah, let's say, let's talk about the running, right? If you're training for a marathon, but you're also, you know, training, like, like maybe you're gonna run an ultra marathon, right? If you're running, you're training, but you're also lifting weights and you're also doing CrossFit and you're also doing this and that. Your performance as an ultramarathoner is objectively worse because you are training for all these different things at the same time. And so focus, what it allows you to do is make a lot of progress in this one thing. So in, in terms of business and skills, if you learn just one skill at a time and you pour your heart into it for a few months or years into that one thing for a very long time, then you'll get really good at that one thing. And because you're really good at that one thing, it stacks. And then once you've mastered that thing, you can move on to the next thing. But the biggest mistake I make, and I feel like a lot of younger entrepreneurs and even just entrepreneurs in general make, is we think that to succeed we need to do everything at one time, that we need to learn this skill and this skill and this skill and this skill all at the same time so that we can stack it all up and that'll somehow lead us to success.

Yeah. And I think the irony of that is, of course, that when you look at people like MrBeast or any athlete, they have focused 100% on one skill. John Lee Dumas in the podcasting just did daily podcasts for about 10 years. And in reality, very few people get to the top of the podium. In any sport or business. And to what degree do you think that the social media makes it harder for you and Gen Z? Because when I grew up, the entrepreneurs were the ones that you knew in your own town, right? And you saw the newspaper, but by and large, the competition was very limited. But now, you know, you have someone like Joe Rogan, for example, who has a global show. You have MrBeast, you know, billions of views globally. So to what degree do you think it's creating an unfair stress that you have global competition for what you do? Whereas before, in my generation, we really only had local competition. What's your view on that, Ryan?

Hmm. Yeah, I think global competition is It's inspiring to look up to people like Joe Rogan, like, at least for me as a podcaster, looking up to people like Joe Rogan, looking up to people like Chris Williamson, and particularly about Chris Williamson, because what is inspiring about his journey is that how transparent he is about the beginning of his journey, right? The, the time that I'm going through hosting my podcast and not getting any views, not getting any plays, he speaks to that experience along his journey. So, so often. And so when I look at like the global big people on top of the podium, it's inspiring to know that they have been through this exact same experience as I am going through right now. And as far as like the locally kind of entrepreneurs, I'm actually not around that many. Like where I'm from, there, I'm not, my peers, none of them are really like entrepreneurial. None of them really think about business. They're down that traditional path. They want to get a degree, get a job. And it's so interesting that you mentioned that, that the entrepreneurs that you know were local, but now it's more of a global thing. It's just on social media, you know, we just hear about these younger entrepreneurs, like 14, 15-year-olds making $10K a month just through social media around the world. And it's inspiring. And it also is kind of Makes you a little bit jealous. I will say it makes you a little bit jealous about what they've achieved.

Well, Ryan, if it's any consolation, if you're my age and you're watching teenagers make tens of thousands or even millions, uh, it doesn't feel any better. I can tell you because you're thinking I've had all these years to do better. And these young people come along and within years or even months, sometimes they seem to have cracked the code. Let's just talk then, Ryan, about what you're doing now, because you've got a coaching business, and you're helping people to succeed in that medium, which is really a Gen Z medium. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing now, Ryan, as an entrepreneur.

Yeah, so the big thing now on social media is personal brands. I think it's genuinely going to be a huge thing in the next few years, just because of, you know, AI and all that. But building a personal brand on social media where people and your audience come to love you for who you are and the face that you bring to your brand, this is the key, right? This is the key to entrepreneurship in the, for, for the next few years, I'd say, to have not just a brand, not just a logo, but a face and an emotion and a human behind what you're doing. And So that's what I do on X. I basically help content creators and coaches to build this personal brand because whenever you have a personal brand, people and customers seem to trust you more. They understand the human behind it. And as a result, they buy because of that trust. And so that's what I do. I mentor and coach content creators, coaches. On X and help them build a brand just by writing. So if, you know, you don't really thrive within an environment where you're speaking to a camera, then you can literally go on X or go on LinkedIn or go on Threads and write content and build a personal brand just through words. And I think it's super empowering for, you know, anybody that you can just have an amazing brand. You don't have to have a big name brand. You can build something around yourself as a human. And that's super compelling to me.

Right. I think that's wonderful. And I'm, I'm also completely in agreement with you that personal brands will be the differentiator in the age of AI, you know, that with content and avatars being able to be fabricated really, that it'll be our ability to be authentic and out there and engaging that will be the difference. And in my third book, in fact, it's really about how entrepreneurs can use their authentic self to build a brand and not to be afraid of who they are, but to embrace it, right? But we need help from people like you, Ryan Leish, to take that, feel confident about it, and then put it into whatever platform it needs to be. What's your guidance, Ryan, in terms of the correct platform? Let's start with the right platform first, and then we'll talk about some of the content strategy ideas that you'd like to, you know, that you'd like to help us to understand. So let's talk platforms first then, Ryan. Which platform should people be on?

Yes.

Or how many of them?

Yeah. Uh, so for the quantity, pick one, pick one platform and then go all in on that one. And to figure out which one, I'd say, ask yourself, okay, do I want to speak or do I want to write? Think about your strengths, think about your weaknesses and figure out, would you excel at yapping to a camera? Or are you more of a reserved kind of person and you actually really enjoy just writing? Like you like writing emails. Writing, I mean, if you're an author, maybe you'd be really, really excellent at building a brand on somewhere like X or LinkedIn or Threads, which are primarily written platforms where you can build a brand just by writing. Maybe you can write emails, you know, and if you're speaking, then you can pick a platform like YouTube or TikTok or Instagram and post reels and still build the brand just through video. So I'd say for writing, think about your— I'm assuming you're doing this for a business, so think about your ICP. Think about where they would consume content. Think about where you consume content and then pick the platform accordingly. So for me, that was X because I just like the unfiltered rawness of it. I feel like that reflected my personality. And there's a lot more content creators on X, and that's who I was trying to serve. So I picked X. But if you serve more like B2B business owners, then maybe LinkedIn would be the place for you to go to write.

Okay, ICP is— and just for those of us that are not teched up, what's an ICP, Ryan?

Yeah, so it's an ideal customer. So you basically create a profile for this person that you want to serve and provide value to. So you understand their pains, you understand who they are, where they live, what TV shows they watch, what music they listen to. You're trying to understand them so deeply and trying to immerse yourself into their life that you can create a product or create a service that serves them. And so whenever you understand that, the reason why it's so important to understand this is so that you can create content and build a brand that speaks to them.

Right. I have to ask you then. We talked about the platform. That's great. Content that people should create. Let's just get your guidance there. Because as a Gen Z, plainly someone with a great deal of insight already and awareness, what do you think works? Because there is a danger for, if you like, us boomers that we kind of write fairly dull— I'm going to be critical of myself. Fairly dull content, like A-level essays, I think, on social media. What should we be writing to be engaging, or filming, or saying?

I think it boils down to honesty and authenticity because at least for me, academically, school has taught me that I need to write super fancy and long sentences. And, you know, high-level academic language. But I think the key is being honest and simple, right? Being willing and open to speaking your mind about something, saying what you actually believe, even if it might tarnish your brand. But that's what actually builds the brand, right? As long as you don't say anything completely outrageous, just speak your mind and be honest about in your content. And then as far as structure goes, don't, if you're writing, don't add super complicated paragraphs with jargon language. Keep the writing simple. The way I see it is write so that a 5-year-old can understand what you're saying. And that makes your content super easy to consume and people understand it. And if you're honest about what you're writing about, then people will genuinely connect with that. And for video, it's the same thing. Speak simply. Don't use big words and just be super authentic and true to yourself.

Right. Is there a danger though for people that they're being asked to not reflect who they are? Because there are some people who are academic, right? And maybe their audience are also academic. So is it also a matter of, as you say, being authentic about where you're at in that spectrum, right? So maybe if you're a scientist and you're speaking to other scientists, you need to be speaking in maybe sort of PhD-level language for that audience to connect with you. What's your view on that?

Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think it's a continuum. It's definitely not a yes or no answer. If you're speaking to, if you're a scientist and you're speaking to scientists, then maybe you don't want to have like super dopamine-centric language, but you want to actually come off as more professional. And that also comes down to the platform, you know, maybe somewhere like X wouldn't be the best place, but maybe LinkedIn where you can have more professional scientific conversations would be a better place to be.

Right. That's great insight. So it's interesting that from a Gen Z point of view, the authenticity is what you've come to, that you haven't said, oh, it needs to be well-crafted, it needs to be flawless. It's about the authenticity, which of course is very reassuring because we can all be ourselves, right? That's an essentially positive message, isn't it, Ryan?

Absolutely.

So we plan on sticking to one medium or, you know, what I've, in my approach has been to have one written, which is LinkedIn, one video, which is YouTube, and then one audio, which is the podcast. So, you know, you can read me. See me or listen to me, right? Or me and my guests. So that's, that's been my strategy to try and build out a holistic personality profile. Ryan, when we look at a mistake, if you like, as you know, on this show, I like to ask as a, as a learning rather than as a criticism. When you see people, um, or, or in your own sense, with your own business, what would be one mistake you think that you've made from a marketing point of view?

I'd say intensity, focusing on intensity of work, rather than consistency of work. Because whenever I have started my personal brand on X, started my coaching, started the podcast, I tried to be super intense and do a lot of quantity, work super hard to get the output outcome that I want to achieve the freedom to get the dream, have all the things. And as a result of doing that, I'd work myself into the ground, like we were talking about previously, work myself into the ground. And it's just the intensity focus is good. This is what Tim Ferriss says, the intensity focus is good at the beginning. But then you'd never want to sacrifice the consistency for it. And because I, as a young entrepreneur, had the mindset that I just needed to work harder than everyone else, I maintained this intensity over a period of time. And as a result, I kind of burned out. I kind of felt like I'm— I couldn't work anymore. And that was like, it put me into a bad place that made me— made it harder to work. And so I'd say the biggest mistake I made was just overworking myself because I wanted to achieve these things. But really the best thing I could have done was to take a step back and to focus on that consistency of work. Even though it's not as much, even though I'm not working as hard, the goal is to see things from a longer time horizon and be able to put in that work consistently instead of so much of it at one time.

Nice. That's lovely. And sometimes people think about this in terms of almost like an aeroplane that, you know, you need a lot of thrust to get off the ground, but then once you're at altitude, you can just throttle back a bit and you've got the altitude. You just let the plane glide a little bit more, but you do need to keep, you do need to keep the engines running or else you'll fall out of the sky.

So, right.

Yeah. I think that's amazing and amazingly mature insight. And frankly, thank heavens you've had it now because many people go on for a long time and even then get unhealthy, you know, get unwell as a result. So it's great that you've had that insight so early in your career. If there's a book or a podcast, Ryan, that you would like to share with our fellow listeners, what would that be?

Yeah, it's a book that I read recently that I absolutely love. It's Essentialism by Greg McKeown. And I'll cheat a little bit. Can I cheat a little bit? I had a podcast on as well.

Sure, mate. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Any Chris Williamson, like Modern Wisdom podcast with Alex Hormozi is the highest return on your listening time that you can get out of a podcast.

The Alex Hormozi, and I believe his wife, partner, Leila, also has a very successful podcast. Yeah, those guys have really come out again. They've done the hard yards when you listen to the book and the podcast. They've done the years and the hard work and they've come out the other side. So it's, it's an authentic journey. So thank you, Ryan Lee. If you want to find out more about you and connect with you, where can they do that?

Yeah, so you can find me on X. I'm sure that my handle will be in the show notes or something. But yeah, find me on X. And you can find me on YouTube. That's where my podcast is hosted. That's where I'll be, you know, just chatting with other entrepreneurs like me.

Great. It's Ryan Lay, and it's Lay but spelled L-E. So for those of you that are looking to find it, but of course, Ryan's details will be in the show notes. Ryan, joining us from Lafayette in Louisiana. From, you know, from university. Um, really admire your, your insights and your courage and your honesty. So thank you so much for reaching out and coming on the show. It's been absolutely wonderful.

Thank you for having me. This was amazing. Thank you so much, Jim.

It's my pleasure, Ryan. And actually, this is Ryan's first guest appearance too. So I'm very blessed that he's chosen my show to be Um, his first outing, because he had his own podcast, as you can see on YouTube. And so as we wrap up here, I think a couple of things. One is for the Gen Z, there is a desire to have their own control of their own lives. And that's something that's been the hallmark of entrepreneurs throughout time, including, you know, for me when I was in my teens and early 20s to set up my own business and have control of my own time. But that freedom, as we all know, comes at a cost, and we have to learn how to manage the time and the energy. And taking some of the intensity out, but as Ryan said, keeping the consistency is gonna be what brings you success. And focusing on what that success is gonna look like is also a really key point, because if you're trying to do too many things over too much time, A, we burn out, but B, we do not get the results. That we want. So a very special edition today of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur. I'm just delighted to have the next generation of entrepreneur come on the show and really invite more of Ryan's generation and community to come and join me on the mic. And if you've enjoyed it, do please share this show, share Ryan's story with Gen Z and review the show because that really helps and send me a message to let me know anything that you'd like me to discuss. Until we come onto the show again, just to encourage you to keep on communicating.