The Billion-Dollar Lessons You’ll Never Learn in School – Robert White Unfiltered

Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of The Everyday Entrepreneur. My name is Paul H. Flowers Jr. I'm your host and this is the Pope Replace Podcast Show. Today we welcome a gentleman who has touched the lives of individuals all across the globe. And when I say across the globe, I mean not hundreds of people, not thousands of people, not even tens of thousands of people, but we're talking 7 digits and above. This gentleman has impacted the lives of over 1 million individuals with his training courses and expertise. I'm so honored and glad to welcome Mr. Robert Wright to our stage. Robert, how are you, my friend?

I'm well. It's springtime in Colorado, so the weather's crazy and wonderful. So I enjoyed being out today and enjoying some early spring. Of course, it'll snow again 5 times before the middle of May, so I know the pattern.

Colorado is one of those places that I'd yet to travel to. I'm curious, and we'll just kind of hop right in, is that originally where you're from, or had you migrated there after some time.

Uh, it is not home except I now make it home, and I have for a number of years. I'm born in West Virginia, I grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, uh, and, uh, then, uh, ended up in New York City, uh, on a— with a contract in my own business, and then to Tokyo, to Hong Kong, uh, and when I was 46 I was blessed to be able to semi-retire, and I moved to Aspen, Colorado, uh, and, and spent, uh, 13 years there. And now I'm in a western suburb of Denver, so I've been all over the place.

Well, uh, definitely a man well traveled. That passport has plenty of stamps. You're probably on your second or third one at this point. And in respect to a culture that I truly love Arigato gozaimasu for being on the show on today. So, ah, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Excited to have you on. You've got quite the track record, and honestly, I'd like to start because again, this is the Everyday Entrepreneur series, and though you're not just anyone's everyday entrepreneur, you've impacted the lives of so many. I really want to take it back to some of your beginnings, some of those humble beginnings prior to starting the entrepreneurial journey. Again, as our audience may be in their current workplace and transitioning out of that workplace, and/or those that are at that place at their entrepreneurial journey and really looking to skyrocket, it really helps to know, Robert, where a person came from in terms of understanding that, again, we all have different starts in life. So if you wouldn't mind, share with us a little bit about where Robert came from prior to becoming the powerhouse that you've been?

Well, I'll start with the now and then bounce back to that beginning. And the reason for that is that a primary part of the work that I do today with executives and their teams, with entrepreneurs, owners, is to help people become more clear about their foundational personal and organizational purpose, their unique reason for existing on the planet. And some people refer to it as God's gift or maybe God's curse in some cases for entrepreneurs and crazy people like me and you.

Absolutely.

But that work on purpose means that I had to take a number of years ago, take a deep dive into purpose and what are the levels of purpose? What does it really mean? Where's the value in it? And one of the things I realized is that though I was unconscious about it, I was operating at a very young age from a very strong, clear statement of purpose, even though I couldn't identify it at that time. And that purpose was, I'll never be poor again. But I grew up in poverty and abuse. Pretty rough, rough beginning. And what I've learned about that with myself and other people that I've worked with is that we somehow make a decision, and I'm, I'm simplifying this, but to go one of two directions. We either retreat from life, and that's where we find a lot of people with addiction problems or with, uh, failure issues and repeated failures, or they just retreat into themselves. That's one choice you can make if you grow up the way that I grew up. A second alternative is to do what I did, which is I was a very early entrepreneur based on that purpose of I'll never be poor again. So I'm the classic guy that shoveled snow in the winter, cut lawns in the summer, sold greeting cards door to door at 7 years old. You know, you trade on being a little kid. That's what I learned about that, by the way. You know, people will buy from the little kid that shows up at their door with a good story.

That's true.

And, uh, so from an early stage, I had my own little businesses. Of course, I had a paper route. That's where you learn about people that don't pay their bills. Uh, you know, uh, I, uh, with, uh, with my friend, the late John Denver, after his death, uh, some friends of mine and I got together at a Japanese restaurant in Aspen and The joke was that we jumped into a sake barrel and drank our way out. But it was a healing session, really a grieving session, our own Irish wake in a way, in a Japanese restaurant. And one of the things that came up was, what was the worst job you ever had as a kid? And my worst job, and I hadn't thought about it until that meeting, was scraping gum off the sidewalk at the local Dairy Queen. In the middle of summer. Oh, truly terrible job. But I did those things to have spending money and also to help support my family. So that was my beginning. I think a seminal year for me was that at 12 years old, I won a contest. Okay. I wrote an essay that won this for the city of Green Bay and my age group. And I won a bicycle, a really nice bicycle, a Schwinn with all the bells and whistles. And but the other prize that I didn't understand at the time became significant in my life. And that is I won. I had to go with a teacher to a local radio station during drive time and read part of my essay on the air. And Paul H. Flowers Jr., I fell in love with radio.

Okay.

And I mean, you know, part of it's mechanical, I think, for guys, you know, when we see all of that equipment and those flashing lights and buzzers, you know, all that stuff. And then there's this guy sitting in this little glass booth and he's reaching thousands of people, right? And I'm just fascinated. And so I asked if I could come back. And just watch, watch radio being made, you know. And at that time, and, you know, and I'm much younger, uh, radio was the big thing, not television. Television was in its infancy, black and white, 3 channels, you know, that kind of thing. So radio, and particularly for a teenager, uh, or a slight preteen, radio was everything. So I wanted to come back and see how the product got made. And they said no because of some insurance reasons. And I'm leaving the place. I'm really disappointed and excited. And a receptionist stopped me and said, I happened to overhear your conversation, and you need to know that one of our competitors down the street has glass walls and an open hallway and with speakers in the hallway, so you can both hear and see how radio is made. And, uh, to shorten the story, for the next 2 years I spent almost every Saturday in that hallway watching how radio got made. And at 14, I'm sitting in class one day in high school, and I get called to the principal's office— usually not a good thing, right? And that radio station had done something that if you did it today, they would have been sued until they lost the entire station. They fired all of their control engineers in one day at a labor dispute.

I—

and they were desperately looking for somebody to run the— we'll call it running the board, helping the announcers play a tape, switch on a different mic, run to the newsroom for the tele— the old teletypes at that time. Okay. So they hired me. They networked around and found out who I was, this kid that they had seen in the hallway for 2 years. And so I got a job at 14 in radio, and I worked early mornings, you know, before school. I made a special deal with my school to take off the first hour of school.

Okay.

And, and I worked evenings and weekends. And through a combination of things that happened, I got on, started getting on the air at night and weekends. And of course, the audience for radio at that time was teenagers in the evenings and weekends. And it was a top 40 station and I knew the music. So at 17, I had the highest rated radio show in, in the state of Wisconsin. And because I was talking to me. Talking to my friends and playing the music that I loved. At 17, my father had died at 14, and which certainly didn't help our financial situation. Right. And so I was able to support my family. And also by being in radio, a kind of basic insecurity that I had kind of disappeared because I became the kid that was on the radio. And so everybody wanted to stop me in the halls and say hi. And absolutely, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And at 17, I made more money than my father had ever made in a year. Um, and, um, I, I was chosen most likely to succeed by my fellow, uh, 299 more students. Uh, and I was a commencement speaker and, you know, all of those really exciting, wonderful things. So that was a significant year in my life. And, uh, uh, the next milepost, I think I was 27. I was broke. My little company was struggling. Payroll had not been met. Um, I had had 3 heart attacks and was told I would not live past 35. I had daily chest pain. And worst of all is that I had an early marriage and failed miserably. I was divorced and felt horribly, horribly guilty about it. So my life was a mess. But of course, you know, I'm pretending everything's okay. And you know, that, that kind of image, right? Right. I'm pretending everything okay and my life is falling apart. And a friend of mine who knew that about me, uh, had gone out to California for— to attend one of the early Human Potential Movement trainings. A training program called Mind Dynamics. And he came back and he's raving about it and telling me I should go. And I'm telling him, the more I learned about it, the more I knew I didn't want to go. So, but he persisted. And also I watched his life change for the better in terms of his business, which was similar to mine in some ways, and in his marriage, which was struggling until he did that program. And suddenly I'm seeing he and his wife laughing together often. Um, and also he had adult onset acne, and he was a sales guy, so his skin was, you know, a mess, right? Um, I didn't even know that existed as an illness, but it, it's a bad one. And I remember at some point he even had the, uh, the like his face got sanded. I don't quite understand how, but it looked like the butt of one of those monkeys that you see in the zoo, you know, with the bright red butt. Yep. Um, his face was like that. He tried a lot of different things, and after he went to the seminar, his face cleared up. You know, it was dramatic. And his business got better, and his marriage got better. And I'm watching this while I'm saying, no, no, no, I don't want to go, I don't want to do that seminar. I, I couldn't take it anymore after a while. I couldn't argue with his success, right? And, uh, so I attended the seminar, and Paul, uh, it sounds like a cliché, but all of those years ago, uh, to say this, but my life changed for the better. And what I realized is that the problem with my life was that I was in the way, that I had attitudes, habits, and behaviors that defeated what I said I wanted. And it was incredible. Not a word in the seminar about money or business, by the way. It was all about me. But I tripled my income the following year, and it went up 10 times the year after that. So I started making more money in a month than I'd have made in a year and ended up selling that business, moved to New York, became a sales trainer and consultant. I know you've done some work similar to that. Uh, and just a big win, really great. And one of the things I did was I encouraged the— I went from a company with 31 salespeople to running the New York area for this company. And with 850 salespeople, I couldn't interview everybody every week, which was my previous pattern. So I started doing weekend seminars and I started inviting that Mind Dynamics instructor, the New York person, in on those weekend meetings to talk about her work.

Okay.

And because I didn't understand it, I got this incredible value, but I really didn't understand what they had done with, with me. And so in doing that, I enrolled over 400 people in the Mind Dynamics training. Not for direct profit, right? I didn't, I didn't get it or anything like that. But if they did the training, then sales increased and I was being paid on that increase. So, um, great experience in New York and I ran a team of 5, uh, consultants and we made a lot of money for a lot of people and a lot of fun. And so that was— that generated a phone call one day from the founder of Mind Dynamics. I didn't even know his name. He had to introduce himself. And he called to say thank you. You know, I put a lot of people in his training. And he invited me to go out to California. My first time flying first class.

Okay.

You know, one of those significant things, right, for a young guy. And 10 days later, I was president of Mind Dynamics. So I did work for someone else for 4 years and learned the training business through— with a very generous, brilliant coach, in effect, or mentor.

Right.

And I still had a lot of freedom. So in that way, it was still a bit— quite a bit entrepreneurial. And so I spent 4 years there. I, uh, first 2 years running around the USA, uh, straightening out some problems in that business. But it was very successful when I came there. It was just a lot more successful, you know, after 4 years, right? Uh, the second 2 years I ran around the world, uh, opening up foreign subsidiaries of Mondynamics. So I spent a lot of time commuting to Europe And then Australia. And so I started a total of 7 foreign subsidiaries in 2 years. It was exhausting and thrilling for, you know, a young guy that had never traveled. And I'm in all over the world. And I only said no to one country, which was Japan. It was expensive. Space is at a premium in Japan, and training business takes a lot of space. Also, the language was backwards compared to the Roman languages, English or Spanish or French. And we were busy, so I said no. And Paul H. Flowers Jr., they stayed in touch with me for 3 years. About once a month I'd get a fax, I'd get a letter, I'd get a phone call, please come. Please come, please set up a program, bring your training here. And I said no, you know, and there was a change of ownership in Mind Dynamics that didn't work for me. And so I resigned after 4 years and started a company called LifeSpring, which went on to have 17 training centers in the US and over half a million graduates. However, I left my own company after 6 months. And what I learned in that process is what I do now. And I'll come back to that.

But okay. Okay.

But I put every cent that I had into LightSpring. It was self-funded. And so I leave and I sold the company to the staff for nothing down and forever to pay. And of course, the joke is they took longer to longer than forever to pay. And so I'm broke. I've got a family to support. I've got a mortgage to pay. I have no money and no job, and I'm kind of unemployable in some ways. Right. So psychologically, at least, I get a phone call from Japan. They say, we're making you a new offer. We really want you to come. And the offer is, uh, come for just 90 days and we'll pay you for 1 year, which solved my problem. Years later, when people talked about, oh, you must have had a purpose in coming to Japan, a vision for what you built there. And the surface answer is no. I was broke. I needed income. And it sounded like a good idea to me. That, uh, that 90 days turned into the first time turned into, uh, 12 years. I've now spent over 23 years in and out of Asia and, uh, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, mainland China, Sydney, Australia, Seoul, Korea. I don't know if I did, I mentioned the Philippines or, well, anyway, all those countries.. And we became the largest training company in Asia with 240 full-time people and another 60 contract trainers. And just a lot of success. A lot of people knew about us and said nice things about us and a great growth experience for me. So that's That's my claim to fame, I guess, is bringing experiential learning to Asia and building a company to support that. And along the way, I had to learn a lot about what the training really was, what its foundational principles were, and how to do great trainings and run the business. So that's my background. I've been a serial entrepreneur. Uh, after, um, after that company, which was called Arc International, uh, I started my current company, which is called Extraordinary People here in the U.S., working with executives and their teams. I've also had a publishing company that did 9 coffee table books about our national parks. That was an exciting adventure. So I've written my best-selling book and a best-selling audio program through Nightingale-Conant. So I've had a lot of different experiences, a lot of fun, a big failure. We can talk about that later. Very public failure with a lot of learning. So that's my background. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I love working with people around their potential. And improving performance.

And Robert, thank you so much for essentially the history, right, of what and how it has come to be at present. There's so much to unpack. And for my visual— excuse me, for my audible audience here, I'm going to hone in on a piece. And for those that are listening to this podcast, please come on over to the YouTube channel so that you can see this. I noticed that, again, you'd mentioned your claim to fame being building out really the most largest and successful training company throughout Asia. And there is a statue behind you. Would you tell us how the cultural differences in building business here versus building business in Asia has impacted maybe even your view of how we do business in America today?

Well, the little Japanese statue behind me is a gift from my staff when I left Japan, when I moved to Astman. And it's the god of money, the god of abundance, really, not just money. So, and I guess I've brought abundance to a lot of people and particularly our staff. The people that worked for ARK International, they just had a reunion actually there with 65 of them came together for an evening for dinner and trading stories. And unfortunately, I was unable to attend, but except by video, I did a video for them and they did one for me, which was great. But a lot of what we did was again, There's nothing about money in the trainings, but there's a lot about getting out of the way so that money can find you, so that there's a flow in your life, and that flow includes the abundance of finance. So that's what the little statue is about. I lived in Japan for the first time, was 12 years. I went back when the economy imploded, the so-called bubble burst. And, you know, that was an unfortunate period where I had to close training centers and get people to resign. You can't fire people in Japan. So that was interesting. But, and I spent a year doing that. And then, you know, I did a training there last June. Leadership training with Japanese executives. And I've done, I think, 7 of those now in more recent years. But that's as a visitor. So I've also gotten to see the changes in Japanese culture. And then that trip, I also did some work in Taiwan and in Hong Kong. I'm now banned in China for teaching revolutionary ideas like personal liberty. But I can still do corporate trainings in China. I can't do our standard personal growth curriculum. And I'm kind of proud of being banned in China.

Yeah, it's a big step. It's like receiving your first cease and desist letter, right? It changes you. You know that you're on the track of doing something well. So, you know, we talk about development and obviously that's a really big piece to be banned. Uh, and it's strange how, again, politics aside, any person or organization, entity, country, what have you, would choose to limit the development of another person. And it might be because of some fear, it might be because of simply misunderstanding. So with, again, our focus being entrepreneurs and your success, In your tenure with working with entrepreneurs really across the globe, uh, how would you say that most entrepreneurs misunderstand personal development?

I, I think people generally start a business because they have some idea of a service or a product that they're genuinely excited about, even passionate about it. And, uh, quite frankly, that's the first thing that I look for in mentoring, coaching entrepreneurial leaders is, is that passion present? Is what they're doing something they would do it almost for nothing, truth be told? And so that's the start of it. But having a passion and a good product and a good service is also not enough. And there needs to be clarity around The goal is to be focused, aligned, and committed with your team. Focused, meaning that everybody knows what you're up to during, let's say, the next 90 days or a quarter, not in 10 years. For most people, handling survival first is what's important. And to handle survival, you better be, you and your team, your entire company, better be focused on the result that you need to produce. The second piece is alignment, and that is that is your— is particularly your top team, are they aligned around the purpose of the company, the vision that you have for it, the values that are going to underpin everything, and then your strategic intent? What are your goals and what's the strategy to reach them? So those are the kind of the basics. It's a lot more than, you know, it's easy to say something like that, a little bit more challenging to actually do it. But that's what I work with people on. And I'm generally working not with startups, but with second or third stage companies where they've got a team and they've kind of gotten into business and then perhaps started running into some blocks and barriers and endemic problems that, you know, that by their nature keep repeating and cause lack of sleep and excessive consumption of wine or other stimulants, things like that. Those are the people that I generally work with. And generally I'm working with people that either are experiencing big problems, maybe with competition, maybe with their strategy, maybe with key people leaving or threatening to leave, maybe with people problems coming at them day after day. There's research that says that small and medium-sized company owners spend as much as 70% of their time on people problems. So I work them with them on that. And but it's all around the focus, their alignment, you know, are they aligned around their purpose and vision and values and strategy and then their results. And then finally, the very personal quality that comes from our work with 1,300,000 people is commitment. I have something that I've been working on for years called the 8 Principles. And they're all things that everybody knows, you know, like be clear on what you want or play win-win, you know, work for mutual benefit with your clients, with your team, with everybody in your community, or express yourself fully and get good at it. And there's 8 of these principles, nothing spectacular but really valuable that I've learned over the years. And number 8 is commitment. And I often say that you could ignore the first 7 if you're really committed to what you're doing, who you are and how you're expressing that into the world. So when I look at problem solving or growth for entrepreneurial companies, I'm looking at the, the, how are they doing on focus? Are there people, are they super aware and super, super tuned to what needs to get done in this quarter? This, which means this week, which means in this day, right? You know, but are they, are they all clear? About that and operating from that? Secondly, are they aligned? Are they clear enough about the purpose, vision, and values? And are they living that? And then finally, are they committed? Because you're going to run into problems. I mean, that's, you know, the great minister and personal development trainer, really, Norman Vincent Peale. Uh, he had the Marble Collegiate Church in New York while I was there, and I once took 850 people to church. How? Because he was speaking that day. Uh, we jammed the church and had standing room only. But you know, one of the stories that— and he worked on, um, telling inspiring stories. That, that was his thing. And he, he told the story that day of, uh, that I'll never forget. He said that one of his parishioners came to him and said, oh, Reverend Peel, I've got so many problems, problems everywhere. Problems are the bane of my existence. They're defeating me. And so he said to the guy, well, do you know anybody with no problems? And the guy said, well, no, not really. Everybody's got problems. And he put the guy in his car and he drove him off to Woodlawn Cemetery.

There we go.

And it's an old famous story, you know, but he said, I wanted to introduce you to people that have no problems.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, you know, problems are part of life. Uh, but that, that's kind of a, uh, it's a silly old story in a way, but it, it's true. I mean, problems are part of life, especially for entrepreneurs because you're generally doing something new. You've got a new product or a new service or a new geographic area. A new group of people. And all of that represents problems. So how good are you in terms of your mindset at handling problems? So, and we worked on that in my personal growth company. That's, you know, we had no advertising, no salespeople, and we reached 1,300,000 people. And we did it with referrals of people who had been to the training created the kinds of results that I created, really, and then went out and told their friends and relatives and colleagues and dragged them down to our training. So we learned a lot about solving problems and that it all starts with mindset, with your underlying belief system, and then how you are integrating that into the real world. In your behaviors.

Excellent. And I love that you have grown over the years to really develop— and again, like you said, it might not be anything spectacular, at least to you, but I'm certain to someone it's going to be game-changing when they learn of the 8 principles. But I want to hone in especially on that last principle of commitment. You said forget the other 7, but if commitment is there, then we can do something. How are you able to identify let's say in an initial meeting with the CEO, the owner of a company, a small business that wants to grow, how are you able to identify whether or not they're committed to this process? And have you had to turn people away?

They, you know, I look for stories that illustrate these subjective qualities that are hard to talk about and hard to nail down the definition. Uh, well, I, I went back to China from 2014 to 2020 and, and lived there and worked there. Uh, I had an incredible experience and I, I have, um, two adopted so-called special needs kids. They're now adults that, uh, require a little bit more attention. Let's say it that way. So I was coming back from China, uh, on one trip that happened to be in the spring. And that daughter that I was kind of coming to the rescue of, I guess, uh, was here in Colorado. And, uh, uh, so I'm watching the television news and they put the story on. You know, the, the thing that determines life in Colorado is half of the state is flat. It's high mountain desert, right? Not, not mountains. People think of Colorado, they think of Rocky Mountain High and, you know, ski, ski resorts and all that stuff, but half the state's flat. And then there are the Rocky Mountains and a tremendous amount of snow falls in the winter. Well, that snow melts in the spring and it comes rushing down these mountain valleys. And there's usually a road next to the river, but that's how people get to the ski resorts and their homes. And this story was about a guy in a pickup truck coming down one of those roads in the springtime next to this roaring river with all the snowmelt. And he lost control of the truck. He's driving with his 13-year-old daughter and he lost control of the truck and it flipped over and it ended up upside down in the river. Well, he was thrown out of the truck because he was not wearing a seatbelt, but she was. So now she's upside down. In the truck in this, you know, almost freezing water rushing by her and strapped into her seatbelt. And this guy did something that's not a surprise. He jumped into the river, swam to the truck, swam down to the truck, got her out of the seatbelt and brought her to shore. Incredible. A story of commitment, right?

Absolutely.

Uh, what I didn't tell you is that when he was thrown out of the truck, he broke his collarbone and did not have the use of both arms, number one. And number two, he didn't know how to swim.

Huh.

But he jumped into that river, swam with one arm, somehow dove down in to get her out of that truck. And saved her life. That's commitment. It's not definable except in results. And one of the ways that I generally talk about it is a willingness to do whatever is necessary within moral and legal bounds. You'll do anything to, you know, to accomplish what you want to accomplish. In his case, His commitment was bigger. His commitment to his daughter was bigger than the pain of a broken collarbone or the fact that he couldn't swim.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. But there are so many stories like that of incredible courage because of primarily because of commitment, quite frankly. And but you have to have that willingness to do whatever is necessary. You know, I've worked— and Paul, I have a feeling you've done this— I've worked around the clock more than once. Open enrollment?

Absolutely.

You know, because something was in front of me that just had to get done. So, you know, and when I started the business in, uh, when I first went to Japan, you know, I had a contract, I had a car, a driver, an interpreter, you know, staying in 5-star hotels. And then that contract went away. And by that time I'm committed to what I was doing. And I had a partner in my sales training business, which is also how I ended up in Colorado, was that we bought a franchise for sales training from a Colorado-based company. So that's how I ended up here. I fell in love with, you know, coming for annual meetings and problem-solving meetings and things like that. So I had a partner in that part of our business, and, uh, he had 9 children. He actually had 10 and unfortunately lost one. And, uh, and we couldn't afford 2 Western homes in Tokyo, so I slept on his sofa for 8 months. I became kid number 10, I guess, in a way. But, and I didn't get paid. I worked off of savings and I ate a lot of ramen. And I didn't drive a car. I took the train. You know, it was a, I mean, I'm listening to entrepreneurs. I've heard so many stories like that. Not just mine. How old were you at that time? I'm sorry, what?

How old were you at that time?

Mid-30s.

Okay.

And, you know, we eventually sold that sales training product to 1,700 companies in Japan. And we did it door to door. Again, no advertising, no marketing at all. Just knock on their door and say, what are you doing for sales training? Most of the time they were doing nothing, quite frankly. And we helped with effective sales meetings. That was our pitch, all done based around a series of great 16mm films back then. And then, you know, eventually video and all that. But It was commitment. Yeah, I was on— I remember I sold a Swiss trading company a program for 5 of their locations in Japan. It was the biggest sale that we had had, and we were behind on our bills and, you know, on payroll and all that. And So it was a little over $20,000 US dollars, but today that would be like $100,000. And so they gave me a check. And a lot in Japan operates in bank transfers, but this was a Swiss company and they operated with checks. You know, that's what they were used to. So I'm so broke. And the company's so broke. And I just can't wait to pay the bills and get everybody's payroll up to date and all that stuff. I'm so excited. And then I'm excited about what was going to happen in those 5 sales offices around Japan. So, but you know, in front of the client, everything's fine, right? I'm not going to tell them how broke I am or the company is. So, I left the company and it was in an area of Tokyo called Marunouchi, the financial capital of Japan, the equivalent of Wall Street. And I left and I went across the street to their bank and I'm going to cash the check because otherwise I don't want to wait the 5 days for the check to clear so that I can pay those bills and pay those people. And so I'm standing in line to cash the check. And the vice president that had just signed the contract and handed the check to me taps me on the shoulder standing in line at the bank. But that's embarrassing enough, right? That he now knows that I am rushing to cash the check. I can't wait to mail it in or anything like that. I got to get the cash. He, and he very politely informs me that the check was, they call it crossed, C-R-O-S-S-E-D, you know, a stamp that goes across the check. And what that means is you can only deposit it to your corporate account. Oh, you can't cash it. You know, it was so embarrassing, right? My ego took a beating that day as he just quietly informed me that Don't waste your time standing here in line. You can't cash that check. Okay. So many stories like that, Paul. And that's, you know, that's the entrepreneurial life. It includes some disappointment, a lot of failure, hopefully a lot of learning from that failure and rapid adaptation. And hard work. I've yet to see, you know, all the stories about these so-called unicorns, these companies that hit $1 billion in value in a short period of time. And it sounds like, you know, their life is really good for those folks and money is everywhere, right?

Right.

Every one of those stories requires focus, alignment, and commitment. That's unimaginable to most of the people in the world. Entrepreneurs are very familiar with all of that.

Robert, thank you so much. Again, amazing insights. And I think that the listeners will really have the value based on some of those, again, soft skills that you can't necessarily see. Again, commitment being one of them that seems to rank pretty highly in your list of skill sets. One of the things that I often ask our guests in terms of being able to open up and really just share who they are as a person, it's typically something we don't see on a website or in a dossier. Robert, it's a pretty straightforward question, but I'd really like to know for our listeners, what's your middle name?

It is Michael. I share it with my father, who was Thomas Michael. And I shared it with my son, who's Robert Michael White Jr. So, and then our adopted son, there's a long story about his name, but his name is Levi Michael.

So, excellent.

A lot of Michaels in our, our world. You know, Paul, I'd like to offer your listeners something that's free and potentially valuable.

Please.

I've been doing a program on email and various social media outlets now, but for over 15 years called An Extraordinary Minute. It's something that I'm reading, that I saw on video, that I— a lecture that I went to, something that caught my mind that might be useful to people that are out there efforting in the entrepreneurial and growth space. And then I offer my comments, all designed to be read in 1 minute or less. Once a week. So that's free if they sign up at extraordinarypeople.com. It also gives us a way to connect if, uh, if they want to talk to me about anything. And included in that first edition, uh, when they sign up, is a 28-page PDF that I've been working on for more than 20 years, a lot of revisions. And included in that are these 8 principles and even a little self-administered test so they can take a look at where they are on each of the principles and then work out a growth plan on the ones that could use some attention. So that's all free at extraordinarypeople.com. My book is also available if they want a signed copy there, or they can go to Amazon or Barnes Noble, you know, or their local bookstore, whatever. Whatever works for them. I do recommend the book. It's now a bestseller and it's timeless and valuable in terms of improving mindset. Excellent.

Excellent. And I'll make sure to actually include your social media links inside of the description, both on the podcast platform as well as YouTube. So in this last minute, if you would, noting that you can obviously share good value in a minute, what would be some final words that you'd like to share with the listeners, whether it be words of wisdom or advice on how to get to the next level. Again, the minute is yours.

I'm showing my age when I tell this story. Years ago, there was a businessman named Victor Kiam, K-I-A-M, and he ran a series of television commercials around his purchase of the Remington Company, which was a big manufacturer of men's shavers. Electric shavers. And the, the theme of his, uh, commercials was, I like the shaver so much I bought the company. And, uh, so my company name for many years was ARC International, and it's an acronym for Awareness, Responsibility, and Communication. I think for people that are interested in getting better in any area of their life, in business, as a parent, as a community member, in a nonprofit, anywhere in life, it's to begin developing a higher state of noticing, an awareness of yourself, of the people in your life, of the community that you're part of. Just wake up. We tend to kind of be sleepwalking through life and just operating on our belief system, even though reality might be telling us something different. And that second piece of that is the R is for responsibility, taking personal responsibility for your responses everywhere in your life to get out of the victim conversation that way too many people are in today, particularly in America, quite frankly. And then finally, the C is for communication, to look for opportunities to get better at listening at speaking, at writing, at body language, all the different ways that we communicate. Awareness, Responsibility, and Communication. That was my acronym for my company. It's what I recommend today. If you'd like a tip on how to measurably improve your life quickly.

Awareness, Responsibility, and Communication. Ladies and gentlemen, you've heard it here first, and it definitely won't be the last. Robert White, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, insight, and again, though it may not be another $1 million right here today, you definitely will continue to impact the lives of millions around the globe. This has been another episode of The Everyday Entrepreneur on the Popa Replace podcast show. Thank you all so much for listening. Robert, again, it's been a pleasure. And ladies and gentlemen, until next time, bye for now.