Defining Entrepreneurial Success With Joe Polish, John Raymonds, Jeff Peoples, Iman Foroutan, and Nick Nanton - I Love Marketing Episode #205

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish. And this is the I love marketing podcast. Hello, this is Joe Pollard. And what you're about to hear is going to be probably one of the more unique interviews that I've done. You probably hear some buzzing and a little bit of conversation, background noise. I'm sitting on a private plane. We left St. Louis and we're on our way to. Where we going?

New Hampshire.

New Hampshire. Then we're going to head over to the inventor Dean Kamen's house, which should be pretty fascinating. We're all part of an X Prize adventure trip, which is from one of my friends and Genius Network members, Peter Diamandis. So everyone that you're about to hear, you're going to an introduction of who they all are. And they're all extremely successful entrepreneurs doing really great things in the world. And you'll hear about their insights on business, any sort of life philosophies they have. And we're just going to have a really informal conversation with no agenda whatsoever other than I'm holding a mic in my hand and we're going to talk. Yeah. And that's John Raymond, who you just heard from here. And so why don't we start with the guy that probably that I know talks the most and has the most BS out of anyone in the group here would be Nick Manton. Just kidding, Nick. So, Nick, who are you? What do you do?

I'm Nick Manton. I cut deals and make it rain cash. That's what I do most of the time. No, we own the largest personal branding agency in the world. It's called DNA. And then I spend most of my time not directing documentaries. And I am a proud, fun loving Genius Network member.

Yeah, thank you.

And by the way, everyone's contact info is going to be in the show notes on this podcast, so you'll be able to track everyone down. But I'll do a quick intro of everyone first, then we'll get into some business questions.

I'm Iman Forutan. I'm a Genius Network member. And through Joe and Genius Network, I got to know Xprize. And I'm an innovation board member of Xprize. My main two businesses are ZipTech Media and Contest Factory. And we help all size businesses, especially medium and small size businesses, to put their message and ads on TV and also use top of the line hosted contests and sweepstakes and instant win games for brand awareness and lead generation.

Yeah, awesome. Really super cool company. Doing a lot of humanitarian things also, which we'll get into that so Jeff.

Hey, Jeff. Peoples window book. And I'm an ex Prize adventure trip member and abundance360. And I just love Peter's message of creating abundance in the world, making it so that people can live their higher and better self simply because they're more wealthy, they're more productive. And what I am helping the world to do right now is get a lot more value out of their direct mail. So making it so that when you use direct mail as part your marketing mix, that you get a lot more value out of it, you get more productivity, and you get a better return on your investment.

Awesome. Awesome. And John, you do a lot of stuff, but you can talk about whatever you want.

Well, I would guess I call myself an investor now, but I grew up in plastic packaging. That's where I made my money, if you will. Turning around a family business, I learned about the private equity markets there. And today I'm invested in a number of different companies. But the two that I would call my home is one Reading Rainbow, and the other is my day job at Braun Studios, which is a production film, feature film production. We do live action and animation in British Columbia, Vancouver.

So that's John Raymonds. And so what I want to start with is ask all of you, how would you define entrepreneurial success? Meaning, like everyone here is successful, driven. What is it that you're actually pursuing? Why is it that you do what it is you do? Where does the ambition come from? And what is your definition of success? Like, if someone said, oh, this is successful, what would that mean to you?

I'll use a Dan Sullivan quote. It's freedom. Freedom to do whatever you want when you want, and creating value for other people in the world so they'll give you money so you can do what you want to do.

Okay, cool.

Certainly it's not always making money, but like Dan Sullivan said in one of those meetings that I attended, he said, all of you guys, entrepreneurs, they have ADD. It's just a matter of how you control your ADD. Always new. I've always got a list of 50 more things that I want to do. But I try to balance my work between humanitarian philanthropists to get my satisfaction helping people and on this side, also trying to make some money, also to help the other side, the philanthropy side.

Awesome.

Awesome. Cool, Jeff.

Oh, for me, it's just loving things into existence. I see things, I love them, and I love them so much. I get the value. I create value. Figure out how to create enough value for enough people so that there's enough money. In it that the thing blossoms and grows. Because I think that creating growth and prosperity is absolutely wonderful thing for the whole world.

I love that. Loving things into existence, that's my primary.

Value by the way. It's like if I were to say what my value statement is, it's pulling.

Things into existence, it's turning concepts and ideas into reality. It's to me the key thing. You could talk about entrepreneurs but the key thing that I think separates successful people from other people is the ability to actually go follow on with their promises. In other words, it's easy to talk, but the people that actually do what they're talking about, that's 90% of the success formula. Yeah, awesome. Awesome.

Yeah. And I mean I kind of, I would agree with everything everyone said. I mean all of that is very meaningful to me. When I first started in business, I thought making a lot of money was the thing. But like we had mentioned before we started recording here, the psychological reward that you get for being an entrepreneur is as important, if not more important than money. And when you can tie both of them in together, then I think to me that's a successful, fulfilling.

Yeah. Actually another thing that it's like who I've become out of the whole process. It's like I had to change myself a lot to be able to lead a 50 person firm or to be able to stand up and take things like to stand up to whole industries and transform things. It's like I have to become a bigger man, a better man and that's so much more valuable. I love the money. Let me tell you something, I love the money, but who I become is really, really valuable.

Valuable.

That's primarily driving me way beyond when the money doesn't make a matter. It's like who I become is really does matter.

Right?

Awesome, awesome. Iman, I want to talk about your humanitarian stuff that you're doing just to give people a perspective and then about we'll come back to the contest factory. But I want to have everyone here kind of share some of the things that they do beyond business that's important to them because for people that are non entrepreneurs I think they have a completely skewed perspective of what you know, are these greedy business owners that doing a lot of stuff. And reality is everyone here is on a trip like this and come together because they're trying to make a dent in the world to whatever degree they can and they're caring, you know, contributing human beings.

Absolutely. I'm originally from Iran. I was 18 years old when I came to the United States in 1975. The only thing I owned was a bicycle. Went to Oregon state, went to UC Irvine, got my master's Ph.D. started my first well was a consultant. I worked for Hughes Aircraft for Northrop Grumman B2 bomber. Started my first company. Now I've got eight or nine companies. And throughout all this I realized what a fantastic country United States is. This is truly the land of opportunity where a student from a country overseas from Iran comes here and can do all this stuff. And when I see what Iran is going through with the Islamic Republic and the theocracy and everything that they do, I wanted to help. So 15 years ago I started an organization called SOS Iran. And five years ago I turned it into a new called thenewiran.com and our goal is to establish democracy and human rights in Iran by basically helping the downfall of this regime non violently. So I've used my patents on online voting to come up with this system that people from all around the world, they vote. We have established a new constitution for the new Iran. What should happen for the six months after the regime is gone. I have weekly monthly live TV broadcasts through satellite through Iran and all over the world. Giving hope to the. Giving hope to their young people, teaching them human rights, women rights, the fact that they should not give up hope and try to lobby the world's countries that and most people know that the people of Iran are totally different from the ruling government. And then I've got a new project coming up, Project Free Iran, which is a subset of Project Free Humanity. Because I think the model that we're putting together can help a lot of dictatorial countries including Cuba and North Korea and a lot of other countries. And that's what I do. And I also have a foundation foundation that I help high school students who are the first generation Iranians like I was 35 years ago, who have 4.0 GPAs, they get accepted to Stanford, MIT's and don't have the money to go to. So we give them scholarships. And we're at the fourth year this summer our first year of graduates will graduate. So that really is a fantastic thing to see these kids who really didn't have the means to have the opportunity to grow and then help back and give back to the community. Bottom line, this is a country of really giving you the opportunities and I wish more Americans actually knew that and would really accept that. What a fantastic land of opportunity it is in the United States.

That's a great point. Wish more people actually understood that because you see it from a completely different perspective. Before we go on to someone else, what do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about the people of Iran?

Well, unfortunately, if you don't pay enough attention and only watch what media says, you really think all the bad things that are said and are happening in Iran is by the people. But it's not. Just to give you an example, when 911 happened, Iran was the only country, Middle east, with million of people against the government's wish. They got into the streets with candlelight vigils supporting the people of United States, being sorry for what happened in 9 11. 50% of college students in Iran are women, even though they cannot leave the country or travel without a husband's permission. Or if you hold hands in the streets, if you're not married, you get lashes. If you are making music, you know you're put in jail. If you sing the song Happy, you get six months jail. So the misconception is that we really have to separate the people from the government and help lobby our governments to really support the people of Iran and not the regime. And certainly do not sign the P1 agreement with the tyrannical government of Iran.

Generational issue with Iran, where you have a new younger generation coming up that is looking at things differently.

The regime that's in power, well, that's certainly a parameter. 70% of the Iranian generation are between 25 and 35. But at this point, because of all the corruption in the country, 80, 85, 90% of the people are against the regime. If you're riding a cab or in a taxi or all the things that you see on Internet and through our live TV shows where people call in from Iran, you can just see it doesn't matter if they're old or young, they finally realized what a fanatic regime can believe, that 35 years ago you could be religious but keep it to yourself. But now when the religion gets into daily lives, you know how awful it is. And we have the fastest rate of people turning away from all religions, become atheists, or actually going to some old religions like Zoroastrians, which is not Islamic, because now they know how what fanatic Islam can do.

Nick, we should actually have you shoot a little bit of a video here so people that are only hearing this could actually see me taking this little mini recorder and putting it in front of someone so we can hopefully get the best sound quality in the midst of being on an airplane. So thank you for that and what we'll do, I'LL put all the links to your site down. Wherever you're hearing this podcast, be it on ilovemarketing.com or geniusnetwork.com you'll actually see the link. So you can find out about any of these individuals, companies that resonate with you or any of the causes that they're supporting and things like that. So, Jeff, you want to go next, talk about what do you do beyond your business or as part of your business? That is something that's really important to you. What's your big massive transformative purpose? For use of Peter Diamandis terminology, sure.

So what I'm all about is getting people to be more productive. If you were to look at any society, what we're really doing is making it so that a society is more wealthy. So you get more productivity, you get more wealth. You get more wealth. You can do things like create democracies, you can create more time to do things like xprize where we invent incentives for people to take new challenges on. And it's all about creating wealth, but for a wide variety of people. You just need to create wealth by being more productive. What does software do? It makes people be more productive so you can get more time, more freedom in your home life. What we do is we make it so that people aren't actually chained to their computers. They can do the work that they need to do at work, but they can get the information they need when they're going and watching their kids baseball game. Give them some freedom. We also just get them just so much more productive that they can do the work of five people with one person and some technology. This makes it so that that person gets to their next level. They can make more money. The idea that robotics and artificial intelligence are going to displace jobs is true and false. It will displace inhumane jobs, jobs that are just not for people, that people shouldn't be doing. I think that people are divine beings and they have a much better chance of connecting with higher purpose if they don't have to work manual labor. I don't want to. I want to eliminate things. Digging ditches, you know something, those people should have the ability to get the time and money, freedom to take whatever their next step up is. And so yes, I work in the mail industry. I help people produce mail, produce parcels and distribute them much more effectively. And I think that's an incredible value increasing thing. So as people embrace things like robotics, automation, productivity enhancing tools, they're going to be able to do things that are higher value for Themselves, we see it all the time. Yes. They lost their 10 or $15 an hour job and now they've got a $20 an hour job because they're doing something more valuable. And it's a win all around. So I'm just excited about making it so that the people that I work with, my clients, are just growing and prospering.

Yeah. Awesome, awesome. And I love the fact that you're in direct mail because I'm one marketers that I love direct mail. There's so many benefits when there's less noise in people's mailboxes. There's advantages there. And so John or Nick, whoever wants to fight over who's going next, John.

So we're talking about what we do.

You have Reading Rainbow.

Well, to me, Reading Rainbow, let's talk about education. Education is where I'm. I have my passion outside of my business interests. And let me talk about three areas. One, our family sponsored a John Raymond's 1986 because that's the year I graduated MIT scholarship undergrad scholarship Fund. So that's available for undergrads that are going to mit. Two, Reading Rainbow, you mentioned passionate about education. And it's amazing. LeVar Burton, known for Roots, known for Star Trek. But when I'm with him walking around interacting with other people, the place where he's the real rock star is the memories that he brings back from being on Reading Rainbow on PBS and the lives that he's changed in that children's literacy program that was on PBS is now in the form of interactive digital children's books. With the reboot of Reading Rainbow online, we had the very successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014. And just one example out of the many, many, many stories that come in was one woman who I think got a book advance for, I'm going to say, $650. It was not a large amount, but she said that she knew exactly what she wanted to do with that book advance. She wanted to donate it to the Kickstarter campaign. Because Reading Rainbow, if it wasn't for Reading Rainbow, she wouldn't have been writing the book to get that book advanced.

Wow.

So it's those stories explain what Reading Rainbow does. Currently it's available on iPad, Kindle Fire and will be available on other devices. But it's interactive children's books for the younger generation, I'm going to say, from three to six thereabouts in age. And it's an opportunity for them to be excited about reading. And what the Kickstarter campaign was intended for was really two purposes. The launch of Reading Rainbow, which the relaunch of Reading Rainbow, which happened about three years ago, was for the family environment. So your home, you can do this with your kids. What we want to do with the help of the Kickstarter campaign is to bring it into the school environment. And that takes a whole different aspect of the back office and interacting with teachers. A classroom accessibility. It was only on the iPads and mobile devices. We want to bring it to the web so schools that don't have those devices still have access to that technology. So that's really what. And the video field trips, which were a part of the PBS TV show, are still a big part of the Reading Rainbow experience today to bring kids into interesting areas of inspiration, be it technology, nature, other things that people are doing that will be inspiring to that younger audience. And the last thing I would mention is really my support. I'm one of the benefactors of the Global Learning X Prize back. I'm not going to get the exact number of years ago, but I'm going to say it's around five years ago when Peter first. When I first met Peter in the X Prize foundation and figured out that it was more than the Ansari X Prize, he said he wanted to do something in education. And to me, being the engineer, how do you create a point A and point B? Where's your starting point and where's your goal for an X Prize in education? It sounds impossible. So I said, peter, how can I help? And that was the story that really began a journey that led into the creation of the Global Learning xprize that is now recruiting teams to come up with a solution to what will probably be software running on some kind of Android device that will be deployed in villages. There are countries in Africa where there is no school, there are no teachers, and you can't education by suddenly making this infrastructure magically appear. So how can you create a learning environment without that infrastructure? Using technology to leverage that, it's almost an annuity.

So kind of describe the prize for anyone that would want to research it, get involved in it, that sort of thing. For people that have never heard of the Global Earning Express, well, it was.

Originally called the Global Literacy xprize and that terminology will probably, I think, bring a greater level of context to people. Really it is about learning to read and read in English to students. Well, I say students because they're kids, but they don't have that classroom, they don't have a teacher. So how can you use technology without an infrastructure around it to have the kids interact with themselves in a group with a family to build a learning experience. And the challenge for those teams would be to develop the software and solution that creates that environment so these kids will be able to come up to a measured level of literacy over a defined period of time. And I know there are interim goals, but the entire purse amount is at $15 million. So it's a significant reward. But the real reward would be changing the world and bringing up a tremendous number of people that simp that don't have access to the rest of the world because of the lack of literacy.

Yeah. So that's some of the small goals that you're hearing so far that people are sort of worried. No, that's fantastic.

Thank you.

And it's amazing how a lot of the threads with this too, which I've told you about before, my mother, she actually wrote some of the original books teaching children how to read using the phonetic method years ago. She died when I was 4 years old back in the early 70s. But millions of children learned how to read with my mother's books and even some of them are still in use in schools today. But bringing the technology to this is a total game changer and will bring going back to freedom. It will bring freedom and opportunities to so many people in the world that don't have what many people that are listening to this take for granted.

Because technology is scalable. People in schools are not. That's powerful.

Thank you. Thank you, Nick.

So I'm a co founder of an organization called Entrepreneurs International. We support entrepreneurship all around the globe in order to, you know, raise the level of living. And I think entrepreneurship is the way out for everybody. So we have an event we host at the UN called the Global Economic Initiative, an event called the Forum where we let entrepreneurs speak about how they became successful. We take trips all around the world. We did a documentary, won an Emmy four down in Dominican Republic on women owned loan businesses. We've done a project recently in Mexico. We were doing, we did one in orphanage and now we're doing one reversing poverty in Mexico. So we try to connect entrepreneurs with causes that they might never end up in. And we try to educate entrepreneurs all around the world. So we have a publication too called the Global Impact Quarterly, where all of our entrepreneurs in the Global Economic Initiative will be contributing advice on how to, on how to be successful on different topics. And we're going to be distributing that to developing entrepreneurs in the US to schools as well as all around the world to help people help People learn. Where do I start from scratch? If I have an idea, what's the next step? How do I start with no money? All the way up to people who want to take their business from six figures to seven or from seven to eight. But I believe entrepreneurship is the answer.

Yeah, well, and you also wrote a book called Story Selling. And I always me being in the marketing business, believe that marketing is really storytelling. And if you tell a better story, it doesn't matter if it's for profit or if it's just to make people aware of it. It's all done in the form of a story. And the better you become at doing that, more effective. Whatever it is that you're up to is going to be. So what I want to talk about now, for lack of a better word, is all of your guys stupid human tricks. So what are your unique abilities? What are the things that you have learned how to do that as you make it up and make it real? This is like your skill set that you apply and that you have developed. And talk about not only what it is, but how did you actually develop it? Did you just fall into the success? Was it arduous? Did you have to go through numerous failures? You know what, what? Just a little bit about how you got into doing what it is you're doing and what is it that you do that has allowed you to be successful? Are you great at selling? Are you great at writing? Are you good at public speaking? Are you good at managing teams? You know, what is it that you're like? You consider I'm pretty damn awesome at this. And so I'd love to hear that. And who would like to go first?

So my background is in electrical and computer engineering. When I was doing consultants work for DARPA many, many years ago, two decades ago, I was working on darpanet before there was really an Internet. I also have a music background with my brother and I. We've had a few albums, concerts and all that stuff. So in year 1999, 1998, I live in Orange County county, one hour away from Hollywood. When I would write these songs, there was these cassette roulette events that you would go to this nightclub or some club in LA and Quincy Jones would be there and all these songwriters would go and drop their song in a cassette in a hat. And Quincy would pick up a song by random, a cassette, play it and you would hope that he would pick your song, he would love it and not shred it to death. And then, you know, you would become another Michael Jackson or Whatever. So after doing a little bit of that, I said, well this is cool, I can drive one hour to Hollywood. What about the guys in Minnesota or in England or whatever? And I put my music and my Internet background together and came up with this idea of creating a song, a site called makeastar.com I said, what if people voted to Make a Star rather than the Sonys or the Columbia Records or whatever. This is before American Idol, before Voice and all, all that stuff. So that's where it all came about. Artists would upload their songs, I had Grammy winning judges to vote, public to vote from the other side. And I was fortunate enough to think about patenting this. So I basically, I own the patent on online voting. And this year we're going to go and try to enforce potential infringers, which happens to be, I think just about everybody in the United States. So from there or the world actually. So from that point on, the concept of Make a Star came about and now we have a company called Contest Factory which is the parent of Make a Star. And Contest Factory basically has been developing contest platforms, user generated contests, sweepstakes, instant win games for all small, medium large companies to use the power of entertainment to promote their brands. So rather than going and say hey, buy my book or buy my shoe or buy my lipstick, you say who can sing the best song for my shoe or my lipstick or whatever. And people come, they submit videos, dances and they promote their brand. Share this concept all around the social media and next month we're going to launch a totally self, self platform.

And so someone's walking by, so we're taking. So if you see me pause, I have to pull the mic away. If you could only watch all of this on video, some of it, we'll post some of the footage on the podcast site so you can actually see this because a few people have taken pictures and shots and video clips. So sorry for the interruption.

That's okay. So in June we're going to launch our first self serve contest factoring platform. So whatever we've been doing for agencies for about 20, 30, $40,000, any business can now do it yourself within 10 minutes for under 5K. And that's with all the official rules, totally hosted in the cloud. Create your contest, customize it any which way.

That is awesome.

So that's Contest Factory. But what I'm also excited about right now is my other company, ZipTech Media, and that is to help anyone who wants to put their business ads on TV at a fraction of the cost because it's a very unknown fact that you think if you want to be on Fox News or Fox or CNN or any other TV channel, you have to spend 6, 7, $8,000 for a 30 second ad. Which is true if you want to go national. But if your business is only, you only want to cover 5 mile radius of your business or if you have a franchise that it's in different cities, we can target any of the 44,000 zip codes and put your ad on for 200, 300 or 400 bucks maximum, sometimes $15 for your zip code. And you can go to ZipTechMedia.com you put your zip code, your information, you go to quote within, you know, 48 hours. If you don't have a TV ad, we create one for you very inexpensively and you're going to be on air within seven days. And we have seen just huge success people doing that.

That is badass. So if you had to take these creations, what is it that you do that has made this real? What would you call that skill?

I think like what John said is persistence because it's easy to talk about stuff. But if I look back for the last 20 years I've been working, you know, at least six days a week, at least 12 to 14 hours a day. I started with having my development team in India. So many nights until 4am because of the time zone, I'm there chatting and telling them what to build and what to write. And then you always have these ideas and you just continuously make it happen. And of course you talk to different people, try to solve a problem and then try to make it scalable. And that's the way I've been doing it. And I've never run out of ideas and sometimes I'm just so upset that I'm falling asleep and I'm just passing out because I want to work on the next thing. But that's how things go. But I think it's really my skills from engineering side and also the persistent and I think what my parents instilled in me from when I was a child, especially my mom, that you've got to work hard, you've got to be the top of your class. And I think that discipline has always helped me in my life.

Yeah, well that certainly is not a four hour work week sort of method of learning. So that's great.

It takes a good 10 years to be an overnight success.

Yeah. The other side of this is seeing what you see. The tip of the rainbow. You don't realize the foundation and the skills and the Drive and the failures and the late nights and everything that went into it. Rarely does anyone fly into flying. You know, they have to learn how to. How to do a lot of stuff. So that's great.

Thank you.

To build the sun and I'll get all the water there for that rainbow to occur.

Exactly, exactly. So, Jeff, so what's your. What's your deal?

Oh, I just have always wanted to make things easier because, you know, when I was a kid, I had to do chores and so I would have to figure out how do I do those chores much quicker because I wanted to get out and play. So I love to play. And I think spirit loves fun. So one of the things that I do is just constantly think about, how can I do that better? How can I do that faster? How can I get to what I love? So one of the things that I think everybody on this just something that I do. I've got this book here, which actually I got from Abundance, Nutrition. One of the things I do that I absolutely love. You know, I told you, I love things into existence. I just write out my dreams. This is my daily dreams journal about what I. What I'm gonna do that day or in the future or whatever. And I just give myself this absolute freedom of creative writing. And by the way, I don't let anybody look at it because they say, oh, that's not true. But it's not about being like true in the moment. It's about. It's like, for me, it's true because it's in my imagination. And I love my imagination. That's one of the things that, you know, God gave me this ability to imagine amazing things, way amazing things. It's like, okay, now I don't suggest that you. You share those amazing things with other people because, you know, people can, you know, people can pin them or they can. They can say, no, no, no, don't let those no, no, no's into your playpen. Okay? You've got that playpen. This is my playpen. I'm gonna write out the things that I love, and then I imagine them and I just. Oh, man, can you imagine that? And then I'll stay up late at night writing these things, and I go through book after book. This is only like a very short amount of time. And so I write these things, I imagine them, and then in other books I'll put in, you know, hey, look, I'll take this on and make commitments out of it, but I always start with that, which I love. If it doesn't. If I don't love it. You know, screw goals that are. That are. That aren't like. That aren't mine. That I don't truly love. You know, it's like, but I'll stay up late to do something I love. But if it's the difference between toil and determination is really, really big. So if you love digging ditches, great, go for it. But if it's not what you love, then you got to come up with just noticing. Because I think that humans are amazing. If you were to start to actually notice how amazing you are, you would just transform your life. But you got to start to notice what you love as opposed to what you're supposed to do. It's the difference between toil and obligation and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And just putting your heart and soul into something. You know, Peter talks about passion. Well, these are just, I look at a little bit different. It's just like what I love. It's not necessarily like bold passion all the time. It's just like, wow, that would be so cool. That would be so great to do that. And I think that the writing process. And I don't do this with a typewriter. Yes, I run a software company, but typing doesn't do it for me. It's actually writing it out and it's imagining sometimes I'll draw pictures and all that kind of stuff. And so anyway, I just think that that's a great thing. And I get to love it three times. I got to love it in my imagination, and when I wrote it, I get to love it when it happens. And then every once in a while, I'll look back and I'll say, oh, wow, that was totally cool. And then I get it the third time just to appreciate that, whoa, that got to actually happen. That's one of the things I love about being an entrepreneur, is you can have. You can do things and you can see them in reality. I can remember years ago, I was doing the pins for the Hard Rock Cafe. These sub miniature billboards. And we'd wear them all over our body. But most importantly, we got them. And it was an idea that we were just sitting around talking about. And then we did it and we manufactured it and we showed up in the Hard Rock and we showed it up all over these nightclubs. You know, we're twenties, we loved it. We wear them in New York and we'd sell them and, and people, you know, even in tough neighborhoods, people wouldn't bug you because they thought it was, I guess, the expression Back then was fresh, or it was cool, or, you know, it was. So it's just that when you're doing something and you're on a path to something that you love, it's just. It's just a totally different thing. So the thing isn't the thing. It sounds stupid. The thing is the thing, but it's something that. It's like when you're absolutely. Wow. That would really make a difference for that person or that group or just because it's very beautiful and you pursue that, it comes out with a much different byproduct than if you're doing something that you're supposed to do.

Right.

Right.

It's kind of like, you know, when you're on the path to go somewhere. Once you're on that path and once you're doing it, things. Dan Sullivan calls them strategic byproducts. Things happen off to the side that never would have happened if you weren't going through the process. And so, like, with you sitting there writing, doing creative thinking in a journal, you know, to me, the real benefit of that is. Is not what you come up with, but it's the doing it that causes your brain to think about it. That almost becomes like a honing and an extra. It's like an art form for your brain and for thinking things through.

Yeah. God didn't give me the ability to paint beautiful pictures like Picasso or Van Gogh, but I can make beautiful things in my mind and write them out and make them come real. And that's just. Whoa. That's a human thing. You know, we talk about artificial intelligence, robotics and all the rest. Well, have those things be a servant of that creative process. And so it's like, that's. I was talking a little bit about, you know, stepping up to your next level. I think that imagination is one of the things that humans do that AI does not do. And it's something that is. That's part of their divine nature. And I think that that's like, okay. You know, Dan Sullivan talks about wanting what you want. Well, that's what I want. You know, it's just because it comes into me and it's like, it's. And my. My acid test or my bs Do I really love it, or is that something that I'm supposed to want as soon as it's just supposed to. Yuck.

Yeah, no, that's a good.

That's a good thing.

I mean, if you're gonna spend a lot of time doing shit that you don't like doing, you're just not gonna be very happy.

Like Iman says, you're gonna be working till 4 o' clock in the night, you're gonna be doing all this stuff. You know, it's not like being an entrepreneur is. I find that I now work. I wake up 5 o' clock in the morning and I work till late night. You know, I do a lot, but as long as it's at that, you know, I've got that energy of like, wow, this makes a difference. I can whatever, I can persevere.

Yeah, it's hard to sustain things when you're in constant angst.

Yeah. It becomes toil. Toil is evil. You know, toil is like, you know, this is like, you have to do it and all that. And that's, that's the exact opposite of being an entrepreneur. So anybody that's listening to this is going to be one of, you know, those brilliant networks and that's going to be, you know, somebody that wants to have a better life, make a bigger difference. And I just think that if you start to notice what it is that you really want, what you really love. I use the word love because that's what it is for me. It's like I want to notice what I love and just pursue that relentlessly. Relentlessly. That's very, very important.

So, yeah, so my takeaway way for anyone listening to this, if you haven't done it in a long time, going somewhere for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, where you can sit and just write about what it is you want in your life and you just do that, just the process of it, even if you're not clear just starting the process of writing. You know, My friend Steven Pressfield, who wrote the book the War of Art, he says, for the writer, it's not the writing that's hard, it's the sitting down to write. And when you can sit down to write and you just start doing it, things will become. And most people, if they're not willing to take that step, they don't realize all of the magic that can come out of it. So that's awesome. Thank you.

One last thing. If you don't do it, your gifts aren't going to be given to others. So get up and get to it. Write your dreams out and get on them. Because I'll tell you what you've got is something that's very, very, very valuable. Just because somebody at throwing a little water on it or, you know, put a little rain on your parade in the past, drop that, you know, get on to what it is that you love and get on it, because I guarantee you, what you've got is something that's gonna make a big difference for somebody else. And if you don't show up, man, you. You missed out.

Yeah. That's awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nick.

So I'm trying to remember back to the original question.

Oh, it was like your unique skills, your abilities. What is you do? I mean, I would say knowing you, you. You're a freaking hustler. You're great at sales. He's good at. He's like a silver tongue devil, basically, is kind of what.

Why thank you. We're gonna go with that. I think I like Iman. I came from the music business, right. So I was a songwriter. I had songs in 50 stations in 20 states. I've produced a bunch of records, and I still do that. But, you know, I really. I think I learned how to tell stories. And so the storytelling book really was the culmination of what we do in our personal branding agency. I think if I have unique ability or gift is to tell someone else's story in many media formats through documentaries and movies like I just made for Peter, or for nonprofits or through books. And I think none of us can tell our story as well as somebody else, but we all have a story that we want told the way we want it told. So the reason Peter let me do the movie on him is he said, my story's been told by a million other people except for me, and there's a way I would like it told, and I think you can do that. So hopefully that's my unique ability is to tell your story better than you could, but in a way that you want it told.

So how did you learn how to do this, though? Did you read a lot of books? Were you born with this ability? Did you work your ass off? Of course you did in a lot of ways. But, like, what. What was the process that brought you there that you could share in a way that other people could translate that into skill development?

Sure. We got a commercial break while she walks through. Okay. I would say that, yeah, all those things for sure. But I think I really.

I'm fascinated.

Fascinated by people. I'm fascinated by great people. And I think that the more you delve into people, you see the unique things that they've forgotten that they have, because we all take for granted the things we've lived with our whole life. So if you're really great at sports, you like, you're not that you're not that impressed with it because you've been good like since you were three and you swung a baseball bat. It's just what you do. And so I think all of us, we undercut our skills and talents and the things we've learned. Because if someone asks you, are you an expert? You say no, I just do this thing. I go, well, okay, well so what do you do? Well, Jeff does this mail software stuff. So like if I'm walking in day one to send my first piece of direct mail, you're a friggin expert because you've been doing this for 20 years. You just don't really remember that. So it's kind of like the ability to get people talking about what they're really passionate and their excitement and taking them back to that day one and then, and just walking through that path of that story. And it's really funny what happens to people. Their eyes kind of roll back and they just, they start, their story starts to come alive. And I, I don't know, maybe that's a gift, maybe I learned to do it, I don't know. But I just, I'm fascinated by people and I think I've always been of the mindset that people are inherently good and especially people I hang out with, entrepreneurs. I mean like Dan Sullivan says, he hates the term giving back because we never took anything. We created new value, we're just giving. And the people who I hang out with, they're just great people. And so the rest of the world might want to tell a different side of their story. Or there's a million reasons why you could say this adventure trip is a waste of money and we're taking jets places, you know, but, but we're creating value that no one else would do. And if Peter hadn't put us here together and the amount of money we're all going to donate to create education across the world, it just wouldn't happen were it not facilitated in this sort of way. So I like telling the good side of it because I think that's, that's a great way to be told.

Right? I agree. And there's, there's a tremendously good side to this. And I also want to mention this too. You know, we're on a flight that's two and a half hours and I think one of the best ways to create knowledge and content and share with people out of thin airs, to pull out a recorder and just talk to smart people. Because for what in the process, and this is more like a backstage thing for everyone listening, I do this Sort of stuff all the time. I mean, I've interviewed over 400 people in my, you know, interviewing side of my life. And the thing is, if you ever want to learn a lot about somebody, put on something that's recorded that other people are going to listen, listen to. Because I'm learning things about everyone here that I had no earthly idea. Just see this whole process and it's just a great way to just learn is by having other people teach what it is they know to other people, which is awesome. So John, to your skills, what makes you the awesome human being that you are?

I'm gonna give you three stupid human tricks that I've come up with. And the first is really, I've started several businesses because I've made charitable donations to different causes with absolutely no intent of getting further involved in anything. But because of one charitable donation I made, I got to be friends with LeVar Burton that eventually, through a longer story over a number of years, turned into the rebirth of Reading Rainbow. As the lead was investor, I supported a cause. I did a walk on roll for Stargate Atlantis. Had no intent of ever being in the film industry as a producer. Now I'm a partner in Braun Studios making feature films, live action and animation. So when people ask me what am I most look looking forward to for, you know, 2015. 2015, I'll say to them, I'll let you know when 2015 is over. Because I have no clue as to what it's going to be that I'm most looking forward to until it actually happens. Because it's usually not planned. That's stupid human trick number one. Stupid human trick number two for success is, at least in my terms, the way I think I've become more successful is I've actually set my bar for success very low. So if I do a project, go to a seminar, read a book, have a failure, I just look for that one thing to learn from. So if I learn from the one thing and actually change my life going forward, I got my dollars worth of that time. So it's really, it's not trying to go to a seminar and implement everything. It's not trying to read a book and understand everything that could possibly apply to my life. I set my bar for success pretty low. But when I find that one thing, I do it and I try to do it well. And then over years and years and years it's adds up. And I think that the last thing is really something that I'll quote Tony Robbins. A life worth living is worth recording A daily journal has been something I've been doing for 15 years, I think. And I mean literally a daily journal, whether it's a sentence or a number of paragraphs, it's been wonderful to be able to. I think something that's changed in me is living a life of gratitude. And over the course of a year now, so many things have happened. It's hard to really go ahead and understand what those things are because you're so focused in either what you're trying to do or what's happening at the. The moment. And over the course of a year, I look back at the end of every year and look back and sort of taken in how far the journey's been, even over the course of those 12 months.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

Well.

There'S many different variations of recording and journals and things that I've done over the year, but I absolutely believe that to be true. Because when I go back and look at things that I wrote 20 years ago, had I not come gone through that whole thinking process, it became a springboard to many things and many things else. I mean, even what I'm doing right now with. I just think knowledge needs to be recorded and it needs to be shared. And with technology today, there's. I mean, this conversation, you know, as we sit here, will probably be listened to and be heard 2, 3, 400 years from now. You know, I mean, I actually think about that. I was like thinking, you know, when I started my first podcast, I think thought, you know, what. What about all the old books that I read in the very beginning? What if they had a technology back then would allow the real conversation with those human beings, those entrepreneurs that made a big impact, where many years in the future, people could go back and say, God, what did they say in that century? What did they do? And we literally have that ability. And I don't think people recognize that as like, this actually will be real. This conversation will exist forever at this point.

And if you really want to take the circle very tight just to your own family, you know, father, I have. I mean, it's weird. You know, people joke that we must have been in the witness protection program, because there really. We have a box of three photos from my father's early life. There's really not much history there. His parents came from, you know, Europe. So beyond my grandparents, there really is no family history that I'm aware of. But now the gift I can give my children, you know, through that daily journal and all the wonderful ability to record everything we do today in photos and other ways, blogging and so on, they can see a life that I never had the opportunity to see of my parents. Right.

Same here. I mean my mother, I don't even know what my mother's voice sounds like. She died. There's only one video that I've ever seen and it was done on some like real. And there's no, there's no sound. I have no idea what my mother's voice even sounds like. And so being able to document that.

And leave that for your, I do it for myself. But I know the side benefit is.

The longer term strategic byproduct.

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. So here's what I want to ask you guys now. Like out of all of the things that you've done that have allowed you to be focused, be successful, manage your time, say no. I'd love to hear one or two rituals or strategies or methods that you use that allow you to be effective. You know, for me, I go to a public library. I have a 11,000 square foot building. I own beautiful office. I can get more done in a library in an hour than if I was to spend half a day or all day at my office simply to focus. So when I want to focus, I create a focus environment. I also meditate every day. I do TM Transcendental meditation. That helps. I exercise every day. Those things actually help me become more productive. But you know, everyone has their thing that they do. So I'd love to hear some things that you do that other people listening to this can learn from and say, ah, that's a good idea. You know, maybe I, I could try that.

So yeah, I mean, I certainly exercise and spend time with my family as much as I can. That helps me a lot. I think the thing that has opened the most doors for me is when people invite me to do something, whether it seems like a good idea or not, if I like the person, I'll do it. So, I mean, not if it's like bad for my health or something, but you know, if someone invites me to an event or come to come speak somewhere and there's no fee or, you know, I revel in the fact that I don't work for a corporation that would ask me, well, what are you going to get out of that? Because I never know. But when I'm around people I like just like these, the opportunities that abound from spending quality time with people are unbelievable. So I would say if you're at home by yourself, get in the Community, whether that's. Whether that's a local chamber of commerce, or go to that event that you. You were thinking about going to last year, but it's a few states away, and you had to pay for the airline ticket and you had to pay for the hotel room and just go. Because the amount of value that would be created. But the things that you will think of in a different environment, like you said, the library for you, whoever it is, and the sparks that will happen just by hanging out with good people changes everything.

You reminded me of something, which I realized one of the things. And many people that know me know this, but I'm working Right now on Joe Volunteer.com, which is a volunteer platform that a guy named Chip Franks actually set up for anyone that wants to volunteer to link individuals.

That.

Because volunteering and being of service does wonders if you are in a shitty mood, if you're depressed, if you just don't feel good about yourself, or you're super excited and want to be more excited in what it does for other human beings. So that's one. And then an addiction platform. And you mentioned, you know, community. And for me, I have to mention that 12 steps. You know, although it is anonymous, I'm still a spokesperson for, you know, things that I think are good. That whole community for being an addict has been incredibly helpful. So what I take away from what you just said is there's a lot of people, you always have to, oh, should I do that? Oh, I'm busy. But just putting yourself out there, I mean, doing something like this is not easy. I mean, there's a substantial financial investment, but everyone here is successful. But it's a time commitment. But by doing it, it literally puts you out there. And frankly, most people, they're not willing to even read a book, let alone do some insanely, you know, time committed, experience, adventure trip. But what comes out of it is huge.

Yeah. And I've just had one. I'm very counterintuitive to the, to the Dan Kennedy style of time management, which I love Dan, he does great things. But I intentionally don't manage my time like that because the things just like you said, you know, you don't know what's gonna happen in 2015. I love the fact that the freedom of. Of what I don't commit myself to or that I don't commit myself to only meeting with people for five minutes, or I'm not gonna take that lunch because kid's a student, what could he offer me? That's where all the Magic comes. So I love not managing my time.

You don't know about.

Yeah, I don't know why you guys are saying 2015. I mean, we're recording this in 2020. This is kind of weird.

No, I'm kidding.

Well, I guess for me it has two aspects. One aspect is to getting inspiration and feeling good about what you've done and inspiration of what you do next. And I get a. Of that on the philanthropic and human rights side is just talking to the people inside, Iran, outside, hearing what they have to say, hearing that what we're doing is helping and making a difference. And on the business side, as I see what we're doing actually has helped businesses. And I see this guy just tried a TV ad for four weeks, and now every week, Friday, he sends us his check because obviously works. So that's the inspiration side as far as getting things done. I love just being. Being alone in a very quiet place, and I get so much done. We have a vacation home in Wyoming, and I try to go there as often as I can. Not often enough. But Wyoming is just absolute quiet. You sit outside, you can't hear anything except a couple of birds. And I just feel. And I don't get that in Orange county, and I don't get that anywhere else. So just being out there, after four hours, I wind down. It's almost like meditation. Even though I don't do meditation, maybe I should. But all these new things flow and all these new ideas come out. Things that I should have known a year ago and go, oh, my God. And so that combination really works for me.

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you.

So just on a regular, practical, every moment kind of process, I regularly note what I like about anything. So I'll to say, oh, you know, I shot a bad golf shot. Oh. But there was something I liked about it. There's something I can always like about everything. So I just, you know, there's things I like about right now. I like your smile. No, not yet. You know, but, you know, it's just. There's always something and it's just, oh, okay, well, what do I like about that? What do I like about that? And it's this freaking question that keeps coming up, but I noticed that things that I wouldn't have otherwise. And it's back to what you're saying about gratitude. That's like, that's my. That's my gratitude. Oh, I like that. You know, and it's just like, just noticing what is. Because there's, you know, I don't. I. I'm Just really happy and grateful I'm here. It's like, whoa, I. You know, I was amazed. Well, anyway, from a practical thing, I just. What I like the other thing is.

Just.

Like, I'll do this practice with my wife. You know, what we're grateful for? It could be just something about our children or something about the house we live in, or actually, a lot of times, it's just like Peter Diamandis, like, I'm so happy and grateful that, you know, Peter pointed out how abundant this universe is. And, you know, I was reading Steven Pinker's stuff about, you know, how I'm really happy and grateful that the fact is, as wealth generates, the world is better. It's like the chance for you to be hurt by somebody else is going way down. You know, interpersonal violence or the life expectancy or anything. It's like all these wonderful things that are happening. And I just. Anyway, I just call it what I like about that.

My takeaway from that is that the brain cannot avoid a question. And if I was to sit and say, what do I not like about Nick? If someone said that to me, my brain would be, you got to love it. I pick out here. But in all seriousness, if I ask myself what I like about Nick or what do I not like about him? The brain can't avoid that question. If I said, what do you guys. What annoys you about me? Then all of a sudden, your brain has been given a command to find something annoyed. So it's like, if you ask, oh, this day sucks. Why does this day suck? That's a completely different question that you've now given the. Because your brain is there to work. Your brain wants to do work. And if you're like, what's great about this? What am I grateful for? You have literally, you're training yourself to find joy and happiness versus misery and discontentment and all those things. And a lot of people, they wake up every day and they're like, good morning. Let the stress begin. You know, and they. They just have programmed themselves, and it doesn't happen overnight. But I'll tell you, remember that really weird, bizarre, crazy movie of Vanilla Sky? I don't know if any of you have ever seen that.

Vanilla Sky.

Vanilla Sky. Yeah. There's this line in that movie. It's like every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around. And I always love that line because it is true. I mean, you can ask yourself a question right now. I mean, you can listen to what everyone here is saying, and you can say oh, what can I actually take from that? What can I learn from this that I can actually apply to my business and my life right now? Like today versus if you just say what can I learn? Well, maybe you'll never learn anything. But if you say what can I actually do with this right now or as soon as this is done, could I sit down and write like as John was saying, as you were saying a sentence or two? Can I journal? Can I write about a vision? Can I write about something that's cool? You know, I mean it's amazing what the brain can do.

Yeah. And for me it's the speed of implementation. So in other words, I got to do it right now when I get an idea, I'm to 3am, I've disciplined myself. It's like, I know I'm gonna, I'm gonna get it on paper. It's like, because you guys were telling me great things like Fox Edit and whatnot. I didn't know about that. But if I, if it's in my brain, it could go away. But if it's on here, I got a better chance of getting it. And I'm gonna use that because it's like, okay. And so, so people have these brilliant ideas and all I know is that I'm a like a hands on. So as soon as I start doing it, so maybe I'll go and I'll shoot an email to myself. I, by the way, I send as probably as many emails to myself as I send to anybody else because I'm not a great typist. But this thing, you press the little microphone and I speak it and I don't care when I mistype to myself, okay, and it is Siri or whatever it is. So it's Ghibli gush to anybody else. But I understand what I was trying to say. It sparks enough little stuff cells of recognition.

So instead of sending emails to yourself.

Yeah, well, Evernote's just a little bit slower for me. I do have Evernote and I keep so my notes. I, you know, I use livescribe and I do all this stuff and I'm not particularly organized for a lot of these things, but I can tell you occasionally I think, oh, I'll go back and now this is my future journal, by the way. So this is what I'm going to do in the future. But I look back and a lot of it happens and then it becomes sort of a past journal. But I do also look at what my dreams were from the past. But anyway, so for stupid little Human drips. Shooting yourself an email is pretty valuable.

I can't wait till there's virtual reality finger puppets. That would be. That would be finger puppets. Virtual reality finger puppets. When that happens, someone listening has to start that company and give me 1% of the equity in it. I just even as.

Do you have the domain for that?

No, I do not. I was actually thinking about that. Virtualrealityfigurepuppets.com if anyone registers that, give me 1%. You heard it here first.

If this jet wasn't a piece of junk, it might have WI fi. We could buy it now, but since it doesn't even have WI fi on this jet, we gotta wait till we land.

Exactly, exactly. Technology, there's always limitations. All right, John, what about you?

You know, the rituals that come to mind are really the, the concept of no extra time. You know, what, what do you do? What can you accomplish during those things that you're going to be doing anyway? And for me, when I'm in the car, I'm listening to audiobooks. You know, I wonder why I pay for the serious subscription, because it's. Unless there's other people in the car and they're not going to be wanting to listen to what I'm listening to and I guess the radio's on, but other than that, I love listen to audiobooks. And I sort of switch back and forth between entertainment, you know, be it Stephen King or whomever else, and education. And I get that wonderful experience to go through these journeys that I'm not going to have the time to sit down and read the actual physical, be it a real live book with paper or a Kindle at home or wherever. I think the thing I do is working. I actually have the privilege of working from home. I have a workout room at home and one day I'm looking at this small little workout room. It's got a little tiny TV and so on. I'm saying, what the hell am I doing here? I want to spend more time becoming in better physical shape. So why don't I take this room and change it so it has, has, you know, the biggest flat screen tv, the best sound system. And now I'm taking in my series television while I'm working out. So again I get the opportunity to become more physically fit, but also take in that series television, you know, be it Breaking Bad or whatever, binge watch shows and get. And exercise and run. Run a marathon.

No, like I have a walking treadmill, you know, in my office building. I mean, little things like that, it.

Works and the only other thing that I would put in that category off the top of my head is I have a few magazine subscriptions. Whether they're, you know, electronic or actual physical magazines, they just pile up until I fly somewhere and that's my flight time. Those are my rituals.

Yeah, those are real simple things, but they're just good to hear what other people do because I always love hearing what someone's methodology is. And it's usually the littlest things that can make the biggest difference. I'm always a big fan of the quote, little hinges swing big doors. So what are the little things that you can do that can make a difference? Now I'm going to violate one of my rules and go a little bit over an hour just so we can end with a final thing. Plus, you know, we're talking about five individuals here having a conversation. So if you could look back in your life and you were to give advice to your 18, 19, 20 year old self, what advice? Hey, how you doing? We're doing a podcast episode. Marcus. This is a cameo for Marcus. You don't know who he is, but what do you do? Marcus?

I am actually going to the restroom right now.

That is really. That is really powerful. What do you want to tell.

About that?

We will not say your last name just to protect the others. So that is hysterical. He's actually a really successful dude, too. Very smart guy. Anyway, so looking back to your past self, what advice would you have given your past self that that would have either reduced a tremendous amount of suffering or would have accelerated your learning, would allowed you to have more joy and happiness, that sort of thing. And we'll go from there.

The real estate market is going to crash in 2008. I would have done really well if I knew that, but I would just say that, you know, look, don't ever be afraid to invest in yourself. But beyond that, don't ever be afraid to spend money to get where you need to be, because certainly that's. That's been the biggest secret I've ever learned. We were talking about it earlier with you and Richard Branson. I mean, spending money, whether it's directly with somebody or to support their cause, is, you know, it leads to opportunities that you, you know, John, you're saying the charitable opportunities. Spend money. Money's all gonna go away anyway. Just spend it.

Awesome. Thank you.

I think I would definitely tell myself, reach out to people and ask more questions and network more. I used to be the type of person that was, know it all, can do it all. Can find it all. But as time went on and I realized, wow, had I asked this question from someone earlier or had I actually had a person mentor who would have told me do this, because before you do that, I would have been far ahead. And I'm learning that late. But it's never late, you know, to get that going.

No, that's great.

That's great.

And now Marcus is going to pass through. What advice would you have given Marcus? You don't have to say, here you are, you're 18, 19 year old self, that would have saved you from a lot of misery. This is the toll you have to pay coming back from the bathroom.

My 18 or 19 year old self to save me from misery today.

Yeah.

Or any advice you would have given, given to your younger self.

So I have a son that's 19, so I can actually just give you real time what I tell him I have a daughter that's 22. Any degree that they major in, like my daughter in biology, just get a computer science minor, which is what she did. She's an environmental biologist. She took computer science minor because biology is merging with technology and biotech and her whole field is to going, going digital. And whether teachers are telling her that or not, that's what she needs to do. So any field, manufacturing went digital with 3D printing, biology is going digital with biotech, artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, quantum computing, nanotechnology, all riding Moore's law and exponential curves. So no matter what your passion is, what you study, just get a computer science minor at least.

Wow.

Well, you see, you would never expected that from a guy coming back from the bathroom. Thank you. Thank you.

Awesome.

I was thinking about that in there.

Jeff. Oh, just, you know, do the more do the more courageous path. So, you know, there have been some times where I've not done the more courageous paths. And I was like, okay, you know, it's don't wimp out, you know, do the more courageous path. You know, step it up and it.

Will work out well. You know, one of my favorite books is the Road Less Traveled. I don't know if any of you ever read that book, but it's kind of along those lines and I would recommend that. But it's true. The path that most people are not willing to take, the ones that are, it's like the whole quote, the 5% of people that are successful are the ones that are willing to do the things that the 95% are typically not willing to do. And that doesn't mean do stupid things. It just means you Know, put yourself out there, do something. You're. One thing I heard very early on in my life is do something every day that scares you. So you're constantly what I'm talking about.

It's like everybody. Yes.

So what about you, John?

I don't think it's something I necessarily had to learn because it's who I am. But if you listen more than you talk, I think you'll find life gets a little easier. And from the perspective of trying to give the gift to my children or somebody else, I would say try to understand your weaknesses perhaps even more than your strengths. And that is not to say you're going to be able to do anything about your weaknesses. I mean, if it's a core aspect of who you are and you just suck at something, you may not be able to be ever good at it. But if you know what you're bad at, you can find people that you will work with that are outstanding at your weaknesses. And when you come together, that makes a team that's unstoppable.

No, I like it. I like it too. And when you're aware of that, it's like really spending your time on your strength and hiring your weaknesses is critical. And if you don't know where your.

Weaknesses are truly and be brutally honest with yourself, you're not going to be able to fulfill that goal of hiring career to fill those holes.

Well, you know, for me, I mean, I would probably tell my younger self to remember you're as sick as your secrets. And one of the things that I've learned in addiction recovery is that if there are things about you that you feel no one else has experienced or has had done to them or thinks or feels and you keep all that bottled up inside and you see yourself self sabotaging or having shame or having low self worth as well. Result of stuff experiences. Not like a really crazy ass childhood which I'm in the midst of writing a book. I think it'll make for quite an entertaining, maybe laughable movie. And you know, a lot of what I would consider just really, you know, not very good experiences that had I dealt with them earlier in life, it would have totally. It would have eliminated so much self sabotage and so much mental and so literally needing help and developing relationships with good people, cutting all ties with dishonest, negative and lazy people. Really listening to my gut, what you said, really listening more than talking. Spending less time doing image management and realizing that human happiness is more of an inside job. It's always. It's not an external thing and spending less time pursuing external ways to validate what I wasn't dealing with internally had a lot to do with it. And certainly just learning from the experiences of other people. I mean, even this is a whole method of learning from the experiences of other people. And so first off, I want to thank all of you for your advice, your insights, sharing your stories. I'm going to real quickly just go around and just have you say your name again and the best website for people to find you and what it is you're doing. For anyone that's listening, that wants to go deeper with what you guys talked about, we will put everyone's contact from their websites, their company name and anything that they're working on on the show notes during this podcast episode. But I just want to for the listeners, just so they have one last understanding of who these great people are that I'm talking with.

Nick Nanton, you can go to google.com, no, you can go to celebritybrandingagency.com and.

Then you find me Iman Forutan three websites, ziptech media.com contestfactory.com and on the philanthropy site, thenewiran.com Jeff Peoples, postalweb.net and.

Windowbook.Com John I'll give you three sites. John Raymond.

John Raymond's three sites, braunstudios.com B R O N Studios, readingrainbow.com and also I'm not going to be able to come up with the earl in my head, but there is a off the Xprize website, there is a URL for the Global Learning Xprize.

Okay, awesome. Well, again, thank you all. And for anyone listening to this, love to hear your comments. What you got out of this? How are you going to apply it? Share it. And any young entrepreneurs, any entrepreneurs you think would be well to hear this, please go ahead and share with them. You can subscribe to my podcast on itunes or anywhere where this podcast is available. And have a great day. Thanks everyone. And we're flying. We're off.

Sam.