Turning Crisis Into Success For Business Owners

Hey, everyone, this is John Assraf, and with me is Richard Jaffe and Charlie Jaffe. And you're probably wondering, why in the world is Charlie on a computer in between me and Richard? Well, I'll tell you why in just a moment. We're here to talk about Turning Crisis into Success. The newly released release today on Amazon, it's already number one, climbing the charts right now on Amazon in business. And it's all about a serial entrepreneur. That's Richard and all of his challenges during the days he was building companies that he ended up selling for just under a billion dollars. How's that? A couple of companies. And he and Charlie wrote a book on everything that he has learned and she has learned about turning crisis into success. And on that note, we had a little tech issue for the last 30 minutes getting Charlie into this feed. And we couldn't figure out what the glitch was. So guess what we did. We got a computer. We called Charlie on Skype. We chimed her in this way. So, Charlie, say hi to everybody so they can hear you.

Hi, everyone. It's great to be with you in whatever way is possible.

And Charlie's sitting in New York as we speak.

That's right. So turning to Christ into Success, we had an example of that just in the last 30 minutes. So today we're going to be talking about this book. And just so you know, there's some really good benefits for you to buy the book today. Support Richard and Charlie, get the book today on Amazon and you get all the bonuses. So, Richard and Charlie, why did you write Turning Crisis Into Success?

Well, I used to give a talk to MBA students about happiness and success. And after a while I said, why am I traveling? Why don't I just write a book? So I started writing it, and I shared it with Charlie. She says, dad, you need my help. Let me help you. And for the last five years, we've been writing as she's traveled, we've been writing together. It's been one of the greatest experience in my life.

So, Charlie, what's it been like to watch your dad, you know, build companies, nearly fall flat on his face many times, be at the brink of bankruptcy to come out of it, only to build some mega successful companies? What are a couple of the key lessons that you learned that people who are watching right now will actually gain from?

Absolutely. Well, I think one of the greatest gifts he gave me and my siblings was that we didn't realize when things were really bad quite how bad they were. But when we think about the title of the book, turning crisis into success and being able to keep yourself together. We sometimes like to think of that as like, everything feels comfortable and everything feels good. And that's not the point because if you want to stay comfortable, you're never going to grow. So the idea is not that how do I just feel really comfortable, but how do I be able to move through falling flat on my face and create the ways of thinking and being and support systems that allow us to move through it and onto that next step? Because no great place we ever go to has a really smooth road.

Love it.

And so, Richard, as you were building your companies and you were having challenges, how were you able to maintain this calmness and this focus on getting through the crisis or the challenge?

Well, desperation itself just creates a lot of opportunity to learn about ourselves. I'm very fortunate. I've always focused on my inner peace. I've always believed my self worth was separated from my business accomplishments. So the number one thing you learn by reading this book that really helped me is that I accepted the things I couldn't change. So I focused always on the solution and really didn't delve in the past. And you'll see story after story of how I did this and maybe how you can do that too.

I hope you picked up on something in between what Richard just said. I separated my self worth, who I am, from my business success or even failure.

How.

Charlie, let me go to you on this. Were you able to, as you were growing up, see your father doing this or was it pretty transparent to you?

It was obvious in a way that I would say as a little kid, I didn't love. You know, when we would get upset, he would be like, I'm sorry you're choosing to feel angry. There was just so much, which by the way, does not work great for preteens and teenagers. But I've grown up to really appreciate his ways of thinking and being. And for a lot of us, I know for me it didn't come quite as naturally as it did for him. So one of the things that I really wanted to make sure we did was say, okay, how do we build these muscles? Because a lot of this was really intuitive for him. And so that's in our framework for thriving guide that we built out. I really kind of stopped and said, how was I able to learn these things that he naturally tended to do? And so that's really, I think the big key is that it can be more intuitive for some people, but this is also definitely a skill that can be built from different practices.

Love it. My saying I used to tell the kids, which they really didn't like, was, if you do not like, like the way you feel. If you do not like the way you feel, change the way you think.

Love it. So for those of you that joined us, I'm here with Richard and Charlie Jaffe talking about turning crisis into success. Their new book that's already climbing the charts and is already a bestseller on Amazon. So pick up your copy today on Amazon and pick up some of the bonuses that are available today for the new release. Something that you just both said around, if you don't like the way you're feeling, change the way you think. Charlie, I'm going to go to you for this one. That's a lot easier said than done for most people, right? Because, I mean, it's tough, you know, we're feeling lousy or shitty. Challenges are happening in our business, whether, you know, we're underfunded or things are happening with vendors or with customers that aren't to our taste or how. Have you specifically used some of the lessons? I'm going to show you your own book now, the lessons in the book to help you in your thriving career in life right now.

Absolutely. Well, it's interesting. When we first started diving into this and one of our key principles is controlling our thoughts, I actually got pretty defensive about it because as someone who's experienced a lot of mental health challenges and trauma, I almost took it as like, you're blaming me for what's coming up. And that's not the point at all. The point is that we have power in being able to choose our reactions. So for me, it was really nice to see, like, oh, here's some practices that I can do. Here's some different principles. But the thing that I found most helpful was not seeing clean, explained principles, but really seeing them in action, in the messiness of reality and just the wild reality of the heat of the story. And that's when those lessons really came to life for me, was when I could see, not here's an explanation of it, but seeing what was going on in terms of the outside environment, my dad's thoughts, his feelings, his emotions in those worst moments. That was really helpful for me to turn principle and idea into action in my own life.

John One of the things that people will learn in the book is, is when we get into a crisis, most people focus on why did I get there? And they think about the past as opposed to the way to get out of it. To get to success is to focus on the solution. What you really focus on is just, what can I do? Where am I going? Start at the outcome and work your way back. And don't wallow in the why in the past. Accept the things you can't change and just really focus on a solution. And they'll see how I did it. And. And hopefully it'll help them as they. Because we all reach crisis at some point, it'll help them learn how to.

Give an actual, tangible example of this. When I was about six months old, my brother was three. My dad was $10 million in debt, getting foreclosure notices. The crisis was very much real. And so that's one of those examples where you can tell part of the story. Dad, you were the one experiencing it. But it's not like he never had those moments of, I'm a failure. There was experience of wallowing, but there's the ability to move out of it.

I think that people will have to read the book to get the whole story. But the lesson that they'll learn is that once we pull ourselves out, and it could take an hour, a day, a week, a month, but we don't make real progress until we accept it and move on. Love it.

So when you two wrote this book, who was it written for? Who specifically were you thinking, you know, this book is for whatever. If you just joined, talking about turning crisis to success, Brand new book on Amazon today. It's already climbing the charts. Pick up your copy. So who is this exactly for? Is it for the wannabe entrepreneur that's thinking about starting a business or somebody who already has a business and looking to thrive?

Well, the good news is it's really for everybody. We all go through crisis. It started when I gave talks to MBA students. Okay. @ business schools. And then as I talked to Charlie, she talked about, dad, teach me, my friends, how do we keep our emotional stability through crisis? And that's really what people can learn or maybe they can see to try and learn. And then from there, it expanded on to my friends. And really, it's for whoever wants it. Whoever goes through crisis, I would say.

Also. So one of the things that really drew me to it was I saw that myself and so many of my friends in going after our dreams, were getting really burnt out. And looking back at my dad's history, I saw that he could go hard for so long and not burn out. And I couldn't pull apart wine. I wanted to be able to emulate that. So I would say it's really for anyone who has big goals, big dreams, whether that's running a business, whether it's expanding your family with more of a sense of calm, whether it's a cause or a mission you want to bring to the world, if you have something that you want to do and it feels like it's more than you have capacity for, and you're aiming to expand your capacity for impact and growth, that's really what this is.

For. Love.

It. One of the things that, you know, I know with what we do here at Neurogym is the solutions exist. And one of our jobs as human beings is to know how to remove obstacles, right? Remove the obstacles that are in the way. And so some of the obstacles we have are mindset obstacles, emotional obstacles, strategical obstacles. And when you're focusing on learning, what are the obstacles and then how do I remove them? That's one of the greatest keys and lessons you could teach somebody, which is, I know a lot in this book as well, is you focused on, I know I've got a challenge. I know I've got a crisis. And then all the energy goes to. Here are one or two or three ways to solve.

It. John what you'll see in the book is in every single crisis, I didn't solve it by myself. I said, who can help me? How can I reach out? Though I couldn't see the answer at the time, I reached out to people who might help. And that's really important. When we get in crisis, we feel all alone and isolated, is to open up our thinking, not be ashamed of what's going on. Focus on the solutions. Who can help me? Love.

That. Charlie. He mentioned something that just struck my bell is not be ashamed to ask for help. Right. And I'd imagine, you know, sometimes as a, you know, whether it's a teen or, you know, an adult in your 20s and 30s, sometimes asking for help can be hard. Did you ever find.

That? Absolutely. So I would say, you know, one of the things writing this book has brought me so much closer with my dad in general. But I would say the thing that brought me closest to my parents was, you know, I had been in a really bad accident, and I came very close to dying a couple of times. And after that, I really struggled in terms of my mental health, and I had never done that before. And so for me, I had such a hard time acknowledging that and reaching out for help, because there was a part of my identity that was like, if I ask for help, that makes me weak, and I'm the strong person. Whereas I think in reality what we kind of see in the book is asking for help is actually an incredible sign of strength. It shows that our identity isn't based on these external things and that we're really willing to acknowledge those deeper aspects of ourselves. But. But even more than that, it was only once I really shared with my parents and asked for their help that our relationship just. We were always close, but it just went exponentially deeper and closer and stronger. And it's been one of the greatest gifts of my life to have such a close relationship with them which only really came through asking for help. And it's actually sort of similar to my dad and his dad. We wrote this book together, but my dad built his business with his father. So the parent child relationship is, I think, a really beautiful one. And asking for help, both the child to the parent and the parent to the child, can be such a powerful force for good within.

That. I love it. I'm curious, the people that are watching right now, how many of you resonate with having a hard time asking for help? I know I used to believe when I was younger that asking for help, as you said, Charlie, is a sign of weakness. It means I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough enough. I can't figure it out on my own, which you know, is really directly related to my self esteem and self worth. And then what I realized is you're never going to be good at.

Everything. And asking for help is actually.

A strength and a sign of more power and more self worth and self.

Esteem.

Exactly. Did you have a hard time building when you were building your first company with your father asking for help or were you taught to ask for.

Help? I don't think I was ever taught. I had enough self confidence that if I didn't know something, I asked. But I built my first two companies with my father. My mother was involved in the first one as well. And so there was always that loving, supportive. I never really felt that I was weak in there. On the other hand, I realized how little I knew compared to my father and people older than me. I started at 22, working with people older than me, and it just grew into that. But I think the real issue is I've been able to learn to love myself for a long time. And by loving myself, I didn't feel weak. And I think that's one of the keys you'll learn in the book is one of the secrets to happiness and success is learning how to become our own best friend. And how to Love.

Ourselves. I love it. Something that.

Just. I'm just gonna add in there. One of the other really beautiful things that we see throughout the story is that when my dad was down, his dad was there to support him. And on the very rare occasions that his dad was down, my dad was there to support him. So it's also about building that dynamic where we're more than the sum of our parts when we surround ourselves with a really powerful team and support.

System. Yeah. Something I was just. I was reading. I was glancing while the book was on the cab. On the COVID is Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State warriors, one of the most successful basketball teams ever. And he was a great basketball player also at the Phoenix Suns before he took this position. He says, a riveting exploration into the emotional roller coaster of entrepreneurship and how we can utilize challenges to fuel love and fulfillment in every aspect of life. The one thing that I loved when I was reading, reading this book was that it's not just for entrepreneurs. The lessons in the world of Richard Jaffe and Charlie writing this together, all of the lessons within there that came out of that is really what this book is about. So this isn't a book on step one to building your businesses, marketing and sales. This is the furthest thing from that. It's about all of the stuff that comes up as every entrepreneur goes through building their company and their life. And that's what I loved about it. That's why I wanted to get behind this and help promote this to my.

Audience. One of the original intention of writing the book is really share my habits and my practices to my inner peace and happiness. So it was really to share with people how I become happy and successful. When I talked to the MBA students at the end, we'd have question and answers, and all of the questions were about happiness. And I published a book of poetry called Inner Peace and Reflections of Grow youw Soul. And everybody kept asking questions about happiness. People could tell me how to be successful, but help me learn how to be happy. And that was the instigation of why I thought I should write a book and. And share the lessons that have worked for.

Me. Great. So let's go to you, Charlie. What is one key lesson you've learned from your dad that both of you put in the book around being happy and.

Successful? Absolutely. So I would say one of the biggest pieces and a really big shift in how I approached my own life through my career is that we can often think that there are two different paths. There's like my personal fulfillment in my professional career happiness and professional success. And that there are these different things. And when my dad started to look into this more and we started to work on this, we found that's just not true. It all starts in our mindset. And when we invest in our mind and our personal fulfillment, it benefits our professional side as well. And when we and dm, the keys that really help us grow and push ourselves in our careers also bleed into our personal lives as well. So it's the idea that we're not separated. It's a really integrated approach to living. And I think that's something that especially my generation is just hungry for. We're not down to have these separate worlds. We want to bring our full selves everywhere. And what we found is that we actually show up better when we.

Do. Success does not create happiness. Right. Happiness creates success.

Ooh. Success does not create happiness. Happiness creates success. Something you mentioned just a moment ago was around. You know, you have practices, rituals. What is or what are one or two of your practices that have really led you to be happy and.

Successful? Well, firstly, I've been meditating for over 45 years. So I meditate daily, which has created some calm and has allowed me. Didn't give me any answers. It didn't find solutions, but it's kept me to be a little more calm and look at things. I have a gratitude practice where I give thanks every day for the blessings in our life, which was hard at times, where the world was crashing down, but something. And I have a forgiveness practice. Okay. Where I try and forgive. Okay. Because those are really the blessings in life that really allow us to share our emotions, to be one with ourselves. Those are three practices we talk about. So.

There. I mean, meditation and mindfulness is the rave now. And gratitude and forgiveness, those are all great grounding principles. Charlie, do you participate in those three practices or do you have a different daily.

Practice? Yeah, I would say those three are pretty huge foundations in my life that not only changed my mindset, but also I found, really changed my physical health as well at a pretty profound level. The other thing that I would add to that is just almost a reframing in how I view discomfort. I think our instinct can often be to run away from it or to numb it or to obsess over it, to really let it drive us instead. The way I like to look at it is as a teacher, so if something's uncomfortable, it's a sign that it needs attention. It's a sign that there's Lessons there. And so to see that as an opportunity for learning and for growth, maybe one I don't enjoy very much, but still an opportunity rather as something to try and avoid or run from, has really changed it a lot. Because when we bury those things, they don't go away. They just drive us without us noticing them. So being able to shift my perspective on that has led into every aspect of life as.

Well. So I love it. She says when she feels discomfort, it means be aware of it. And then it sounds like, Charlie, discomfort is a go sign for you, not a stop.

Sign. Well, it's actually a.

Teacher.

Exactly. So how specifically, Richard, is discomfort a.

Teacher? Well, we are uncomfortable because things are happening that we don't want, okay. And so we have to learn to accept them and find lessons. I've always learned that bad things happen to me in life because I have lessons to learn. And once I learn those lessons, they stop and other bad things happen. So it's not. It's a surprise. So things are going to happen to me. And life is not about what happens to us. Life is more learning how to respond, not to react to things that come towards us that we don't want. And when things come, if we observe them, we respond in our own time. We then disperse them and move on. And if we react poorly, okay, they keep happening over and over.

Again. Love it. And so do you two believe that your daily, let's say, meditative practice, mindfulness practices allow you to be aware and respect, respond more versus react.

More?

Charlie? Absolutely. And I would say that for me, that was also a huge sense of power because there's so much that we don't control. And there's a lot that happened in my life that I really didn't like and I really couldn't control. So for those of us who have these things that are immovable, that are sort of realities, it's about looking at, okay, well, what can I control? And for me, being able to take that power and to own that, that was a really powerful first step. And then after that, it almost allowed the hard things to bloom. It really allowed me to take hard things and allow them to shift and be really the fertilizer for something I couldn't have even imagined when they first showed.

Up. And when I meditate, life is so busy that my 15 minutes of meditation was. Was my time with myself. So I really met myself, engaged my essence. The rest of the day was crazy. I was working 20 hours a day, but I really rewarded myself with 15 minutes of just my own love, my own self. And so it didn't answer any problems, but it just gave me that peace and calm that really helped me through some of the toughest times I've had. Love.

It. I'm going to ask you this final question for both of you and whether, here's the question. Mindset, which is more important? Mindset or skill set? If you're looking to build a business or a successful.

Life?

Charlie? Absolutely. I would say, and I'm pretty certain my dad agrees with this as well, is mindset. One of the things that he always says is I'd rather have good technology and great people than great technology and good people. It reminds me of a quote that Charles Darwin had actually pointed to when we look at evolution and he noted it's not the strongest or the fastest. I can't remember the exact wording of the species that survives. It's those who are most who have the greatest ability to change. And so when our mindset allows that scientifically, evolutionarily, that's what pushes, pushes the species forward. And I think within the context of the evolution of a business as well, it's the same exact.

Thing. And I think, John, that you would agree that I think what we have around us in our lives is a reflection of how we think. So we create. Now, you're not a good person or bad person if you don't have what you want. But by controlling your thoughts and using your mind, I think we attract things and, and so I think our mindset is everything controlling our.

Thoughts. So mindset and emotions, plus the right skill set is one of the greatest keys that we can have in order to unlock more success in life and.

Business.

Correct. Love.

It. All right, everyone, thank.

You. John, pick up a copy of Turning Crisis into Success. Awesome, awesome, awesome book on Amazon today. There's some bonuses when you buy today. And so pick it up and give a big warm thank you for Charlie joining us in from New York and Mr. Richard.

Jaffe. Richard, thank.

You. Charlie Jaffe, Turning Crisis Success. I'm John. Thanks for joining us. And until next time, make sure you create an amazing.

Life. All right, thank.

You. Thanks.

Charlie. Thanks so.

Much. Bye.