A keynote-style talk by entrepreneur Naveen Jain (introduced by Joe Polish) arguing that personal success must be followed by living a life of significance. Jain emphasizes the transformative power of changing your own mind, warns against ceding control of happiness to others, and advocates treating employees and clients like family—drawing parallels to parenting. He critiques short-term dopamine-based incentives, promotes unconditional love and long-term investment in people (children and employees), and illustrates points with personal immigration and parenting stories (e.g., his mother’s care, guiding his daughter toward Singularity University).
Chapters
How often do you change your mind? Oh, I don't mean should I go or not go to the party tonight. I mean big stuff like buying a self driving car, getting a robot or going into space as a tourist. Mind stretching ideas. Right? Your next speaker, Naveen Jain, grew up in India, became an engineer and then moved to America. And his brain began expanding with great ideas to solve the world's biggest challenges through innovation. And he founded multiple businesses, is on the board of Singularity University and a trustee of the board at XPRIZE foundation and CEO of Moon Express, an asteroid mining company. Title of his presentation is winning in your mind. There's nothing more powerful than a changed mind. Welcome my friend, Naveen Jain.
Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. All right, well, I'm not a marketing person, so. So I'm gonna talk to you about marketing. So think about it. There's nothing more powerful than a changed mind. And I'm not talking about changing your client's mind, I'm talking about changing your own mind. Because success is in your mind. You decide when you are happy, you decide when you are unhappy. You may think it's your children, it's your client, it's someone else who gives you happiness. But imagine if someone who gives you happiness, you're giving the remote control of your happiness to them. The same people who make you happy have a power to make you unhappy. Happy, unhappy, happy, unhappy. Right? You don't ever want to give control of your happiness. Every one of us here is so focused on going out and becoming successful that they forget that after being successful, you still have to go out and become significant. How do you become significant? How do you find the happiness? How do you find the fulfillment? Interestingly, the human body, our DNA is designed for us to be generous because we realize when we were way back when in the tribes, we realized if we didn't help each other, we all die. Our DNA says the only way we survive in the long term is when we take care of each other. Then why is it that we constantly try to play tricks on our mind or play tricks on our client's mind for them to do something that they are not intended to do. Think about when we hire people, what do we do? We take advantage of basic chemical in our brain called dopamine. We give them a goal. If you meet this goal, you get this bonus. If you do this, you get a promotion. If you do this, you get this. It's a constant dopamine hit. And what happens is they get addicted to the dopamine and they constantly Keep doing it. And at the end of the end of the day they all feel unfulfilled because dopamine only lasts for very little time, short time. And they all feel down because you have let them down. The only way you can build relationship is like thinking of your employees, thinking of your clients, same as your children. So I'm going to say that being an entrepreneur and the best successful marketing is treating everyone around you just like you will treat your children. Interesting thing about being a parent is there is nothing that you do gives you the instant result. You don't go to your children and do something and hoping something will change. Nothing changes. But guess what happens five years later, 10 years later, you look and say, oh my God, what a wonderful kids they have grown up to be. And that's what it takes. In fact, building that trust and safety that you do for your children is what creates the long term sustainable relationships. And if you don't do that once you have a short term relationship, imagine. So what I can tell you is that as a father, one of the things we have done with our children is amazing. We let them know that our love for them is unconditional. They never they have to ever worry about do we love them, but our approval is not approval. They have to earn, but they never have to worry about do we love them. And one thing that I have absolutely religiously followed, there is never a time when our children will call that I will not answer. That never will happen. So imagine if ever they call you. It doesn't matter what I am doing. There's nothing more important to me than taking that call. I want them to know that I am willing to give them my time because that's one thing I don't have enough of, is the time. But they have that, that is a true love. In some sense. When you're thinking about as a parent, you have to start thinking about what, what is it that's important and what lessons can you possibly give impart to them that is meaningful. So one thing that I've learned is that living a life of significance and teaching our children about how to grow up in a family that actually is doing really well. So for me, growing up in India was easy. We were poor, we didn't have food, we could struggle and came to this country with $5 in my pocket. And God has been amazingly kind to us with that kindness. There was tremendous amount of burden that I feel and the burden came because there were so many people in my life who helped me become who I am. I Tried to find these people, tried to help them. They didn't need my help. And that was really way for me to figure out what can I do to pay my debt back. And I realized if I can't pay back, I can certainly pay forward. And I decided I'm going to do what I can to help as many people as I can. And one of the things I learned was that fulfillment only comes from something that is so basic about truly caring about others. And just like you would take care of your children. And only story I can tell you what true care is a story that my mother told me when I was young. Remember, my mother was completely illiterate. She cared that even though we were poor, she was illiterate. That I study. She will wake me up at 5 in the morning, ask me, read this, and tell me what the answer to this question is in the math. I didn't know that she couldn't read. I will say, mom, the answer is seven. She said, don't make me look. Do it again. And I'll do it again. Say mom. Answer is seven. She said, good, now go to the next one. Point was she cared. The story that she told me that I still touches my heart. She said there was one kid who grew up and wanted to join a gang. And the part of joining the gang, the gang says, I don't think you are quite ready. And I know you are ready when you can go in, take your mother, cut her off and take the heart out. And I want a beating heart. And if you can bring that, we know you're ready to do what it takes. The young man goes there, finds a mother, stops her from breathing, cuts her heart, brings the beating heart in his own hand. And he's walking back and he trips over and the heart says, son, are you okay? She didn't care what he did. What she cared was, is he okay? And that's what the unconditional love is about. So if you think about it, can you truly care for people who are employees in your company? Don't think of them as resources by calling having a department called human resources. They are not a resource for you. They are your family. So when you tell them you're joining a family, do you really mean it? And if you treat your family that way, I worry about you. I really honestly worry about you. That if you treat your family that way. So one of the things we do always in our family is that what we do out of love for our children is not necessarily right. So I can give you some really Example that I think we did for our children, that I think is fundamentally, I think you guys can at least get some wisdom out of it. When our daughter was 16 year old, she came to me and said, dad, I found my true passion. I know what I want to do. And I know you love science and technology. I want nothing to do with it. As a father, my easiest thing for me to do would have been, you know, my doll, what is it that you want to do? I will find you the world's best and pursue your passion. To me, that was same as saying, I don't give a shit, just do whatever you want. You know what I did, I cared. And I said, you know, you have to let me do a job as a father. What's father's job? Father's job is really simple. Let me expose you to enough things because you have don't even know what you don't know yet. And she said, well, so what is it that you would like me to do? And I say, I would like you to go to Singularity University, learn about neuroscience, learn about artificial intelligence, learn about nanotechnology and say, dad, I know you, you don't hear me one word. I say, did I just not tell you I have no interest in science and technology. And I said, well, if you make me a promise, you're going to go there for four weeks, learn about all these things with an open mind, wanting to learn and wanting to like I make you a promise that when you come back, you get to do what you want. She came back. The first thing she did was open the door and said, dad, I made up my mind. You know what I told her? I said, doll, first thing my word honestly was, oh, shit. Then I said, well, I gave you my word, tell me, what is it that you would like to do? She said, dad, I've decided I want to be either a neuroscientist or a genetist. And I imagine that. I said, doll, at the risk of changing your mind, would you tell me what made you change your mind? He said, dad, you're so dumb, you don't realize that I go to high school, I mix these chemicals, I learn these science, and I say, why do I. When I went to Singularity University, I realized, you knew I care about girls education and realized until I learned about the human brain, how can I change education? Until I learned about genetics, how can I take care of their health? So I realized science and technology is not a destination, it's simply a tool in my tool chest to do what I care about. Imagine that 16 year old, and if I didn't do what I did, the world would have lost out on a great scientist and she would have never found her true passion. So at the end, what I would tell you would be as Peter said, if I ask people, what would you die for? Is there anything who would tell me, what would you die for? In this room, I tell you, most people will say what I would say, our children, there is nothing else in our life we would die for. And if I were to ask you, what are you living for? These very few of them say, I, I live for my children. Imagine if there's one thing you could go out and learn is live for your children. If you're willing to die for them, live for them. Give them your time, treat your employees like children. Don't think anything when you go out. You know, I go out with my wife and tell my children, don't call me because I'm having my private time. Guess what happens when they grow up? Don't call me, I'm having a private time. Right. If you don't care about them, they won't care about you. So just go out and make sure that if you're willing to die for them, live for them. Thank you.
