AI Can Replace You... But Your Brand Will Save You

AI is going to take a lot of your all your job, for the most part. And what's going to be left, the way people are going to find you is by the brand that you establish. My ideology is to be everywhere, all the time, all at once. I've shaved off years off of my life.

Like, what is a business? Somebody sells the product, somebody runs the technology, somebody installs and supports the product, somebody designs the product, somebody creates demand, somebody counts the money, somebody builds the product and improves it. You can swap that out with any product.

Yeah. I mean, this is like, this is a fast track to success. If I were to repeat everything I would do, I would just piggyback on an ecosystem like this.

Thanks. Thanks for that. Like, it sounds like the advice to entrepreneurs are.

Yeah. Yeah.

Welcome to the ABCs for building the Future podcast. My name is Robert. On this podcast we invite leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, scientists, builders of the future, people on the front lines, people doing big things with big stories to tell. In today's podcast, I'm really excited to have a fellow entrepreneur, super successful in the banking industry, in real estate, doing cool things, and he's going to have so much knowledge to drop on this podcast. I'm very excited. And we nerd out about health, so there'll be, there might be a little bit of that too. Welcome to the show. Joseph Shalaby, founder of Emortgage Capital. And I kind of see him as like even now, kind of a mentor on business in general. So, Joe, thank you so much for the conversations we've had so far and thanks for coming on the pod. Do you want to talk a little bit about the pod you do and some of your portfolio work just to give the audience an idea?

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm founder and CEO of eMortgage Capital. We're the number one non dugout mortgage banker in the country. Largest mortgage company in the state of California. Large largest mortgage broker, number five mortgage broker nationwide. We have about 900 loan officers. We are in the business of making businesses, so we're in the business of creating other mortgage companies. I'm also the host of Coffees for Closers podcasts. It's a podcast about entrepreneurs, the journey of entrepreneurs. Very similar to this. We talk to founders how they built their, how they built their companies, their journey, their triumphs, their struggles, their faith, their family. And, and it's always a, it's always a, a very fascinating experience every single show, especially when you know, it's one CEO talking to another CEO. So the, the, the conversations and the Cadence of questions is, is much different than a normal conversation. And then I also create a lot of content. So I've got millions of followers across all social media platforms. So make sure to follow me, Joseph Shalab on all platforms. Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, X, et cetera. Yeah, quick, you want Joe?

Yeah. Oh, wow.

Snapchat too. Dang.

Wow, that's crazy. My footprint hasn't grown that much yet. I'm, I'm on.

I, I, my, my ideology is to be everywhere, all the time, all at once. So I try to be on like Reddit, I try to be on, you know, Blue Sky. I try to be on Kick, try to be on Twitch. I try to be on, you know, LinkedIn, whatever.

Now, now, don't Die.

Yeah, now I'm on, but I'm not, not marketing on Don't Die yet. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because that's a true community.

Real quick, where does that, you know, I have some, some questions to kind of get at your, your journey. And thanks for that wonderful intro. I'm going to throw all your links into the show notes. So for the listeners, definitely take a look at what Joe's working on. I checked out some of his Instagram reels. They're pretty hilarious. And then on the flip side, his Coffee is for Closers podcast I just recently listened to, to the one that came out two weeks ago. It was a CEO who started like a personal growth, personal development.

Michael Burn. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah, that's right.

He sent me his book today, actually. It was so nice, signed it, wrote a nice letter in there. And then he, he, he has, he's basically created like almost like an NLP strategically for like founders CEOs. He coaches high level CEOs and has a big production around it.

His whole thing's about language and like how we use words and we should be using very intentionally. Right?

Yeah. And I tried some of his strategy myself on my own kid. And, and it works like the way I, I was like, you know what? That worked. I want to learn more.

Could you give that example for the audience?

So what it was, was like I asked my son, you know, I always ask him, like, go practice, let's go practice basketball. You know, let's get out and, and play. And he, you know, he's just like, no, no, no. And then when I, when I, when I structure, it's like, hey, when you want to get better, when you're ready to get better at playing basketball, let me know and I'll show you how to do it.

And that changed.

He was like, you know what? I am ready to get better. Like, what do I got to do? You know? So it. It totally changed the framework. But just me taking that small strategy, implementing it and seeing how it worked was just. I was like, wow, I gotta implement this.

Yeah, yeah. Words matter a lot. Language matters a lot. So that's cool to hear that you even had that tangible tactical advice implemented and it worked out with your kid. It sounds like the framing of, like, here's autonomy. Like, you get the choice also maybe just nurtures an environment where, hey, okay, like, it is my choice. Do I want to get better or not?

Exactly. We kind of put it in their. In their hands to improve.

Yeah, yeah. Cool.

Cool. Little Average Sucks is his website. Average sucks.com. his books. Average Sucks. He was a great. I'm gonna, you know, be reaching out to him, hopefully getting coached. I'm always seeking mentorship. The problem with being at the top of any food chain in a company is like, there's just not a lot of people that are willing to help you left. You know, I'm always just seeking mentorship and counsel from outside parties.

Yeah, actually, that ties into this. This first question nicely, which is, you know, you have a very interesting background. You were born in Cairo in Egypt. You grew up immersed in a very different cultural fabric than, you know, the LA, CA area. And then you got into the real estate business eventually and opened up E Mortgage Capital. And so I'd love to hear the big defining moments and then maybe the mentors and help that you had along the way. And certainly in my own journey, and I'm in the middle of my own story. We talked about that. I just, I always think, like, there's so many steps I would have messed up on if I just didn't have this piece of knowledge coming from the outside or a mentor that said the right thing or had this right connection or whatever. And so I'm curious with your very cool story, like, going from one place of the globe, going to another, all those different experiences in between. I'm curious if you can give the.

I can't summarize that. It's actually. I have a book coming out this quarter called Perspective. And. And it's basically about that whole journey of coming from a third world, coming from really kind of like a. A rags to riches type story where I. I immigrated from Cairo, Egypt, from a town called. Which is a. Which is a poor part of Cairo. And I. We immigrated, I was about five years old, to the Valley and at the time, now the Valley real estate in the Valley is expensive. But you know, Van Nuys when I was growing up was a very, very poor part of, you know, the outskirts of la. So we came from Cairo to the Valley and we moved into, you know, a one bedroom apartment. My father was a doctor at the time, lived in Egypt as a doctor and then came to the mayor, came to America and he was a gas station attendant. So he went from this prestigious job as a doctor to basically, you know, a gas station attendant. So we grew up, you know, not much money until he basically went back to med school and got, you know, got his degree again and was able to practice medicine again. So I didn't see much. My dad growing up, he was just always studying or, you know, trying to provide for the family. So it was just us and the, and my mom and I grew up in a community like where, you know, I'm blonde haired, blue eyed, but that's an advantage now to be, you know, blond haired, blue eyed. But growing up in a community where you are literally the only blonde haired, blue eyed guy, it was weird, the cultural fabric because people actually made fun of me for being a white guy. So I'll give you an example. Egyptians are all brown. So I'm gonna get. So it's kind of like a blonde hair, blue eyed, white guy growing up who's, who's Indian. Growing up in an Indian community, we're all, you know, you guys all understand what Indians look like. Well, Egyptians are not too far off from Indians. So, you know, that coupled with the fact that know, we, we grew up in the Valley and then we moved down to Downey. So you know, being a white guy at the time in these areas in like the, in the LA area and like Bellflower, Downey, Compton, being a white guy with a bunch of brown people who thought they were, you know, like Snoop Dogg there, I got made fun of a lot for being a white kid. Yeah. So, so that helped instill in me, you know, the ability to just kind of overcome adversity. So I've been very, very prone to, you know, bullying and, and, and being made fun of and, and that just built just such solid character in me. Just always like when I'm in the face of the greatest adversity, I'm able just to kind of like brush it off my shoulders, you know, like, like challenges don't impact me like other people. Adversity doesn't impact me like it does other people. I'm able to face great struggle and, and Just like, take it like it's just another day, another walk in the park. That's been a gift for me to, you know, it's been a superpower of mine.

And it comes from those days growing.

Up or being poor and being bullied and being made fun of and, you know, and just having like a, a propensity to overcome challenges like I, I may. I'm also, you know, my partner says this a lot, but he goes, you know, let's. It's like you were born with a rabbit foot shoved up your ass. He says that literally. And it's like, you know, I don't call it luck, I call it blessings. Like, God just puts his hand on, on me because, you know, I put it in God's hands first. I always ask for God's blessings and ask him to bless whatever I'm doing. So, you know, I'm always, I always find success in whatever I do. So. So whether it was the podcast, whether it was my companies, whether it's content, you know, everything I do, I lift it up to God and he blesses it. And, you know, and that's why I'm, you know, I, I feel like I'm able to come out unscathed from very many challenges.

That's really cool. Thank you for sharing that story of, you know, your personal challenges growing up and how it ties into your business success and entrepreneurial success. Because the entrepreneurial path is a very windy, up and down, emotional rollercoaster. So having the skill to like, be resilient in the face of adversity and random challenges like that, that basically is the skill that every entrepreneur would, would want to hone. Right? It's like the sword in your belt. So. So I guess that brings me to a question. You must advise a lot of entrepreneurs and this must be a topic that comes up, which is resilience or like, oh, I'm going through a hard thing and I've learned like a lot of it is mental game. So it sounds like you got really good mental game that you've developed. How would you coach somebody else on mental game? Going through a hard time as an entrepreneur, going through that windy journey.

You know, we tell entrepreneurs because everybody that comes to E Mortgage Capital is effectively an entrepreneur. So, you know, what we try to do because we're in the business of making businesses is give them the necessary support and infrastructure and, and provide like a cadence of training and coaching and, and resources and just knowing, letting people know that they have support. One thing I'm personally doing, and this Is initiative we launched today is just going to be like more outreach to our branches. You got 900 branches. So a lot of people are saying that now they're, they're getting lost in the frayer. They don't get to meet me personally. So I'm, I'm launching a separate initiative where I'll be personally reaching out to people. Two, two people a day, you know, for like 45 minutes. Just like I need to add more initiatives to my plate but, but I know it's like never enough. You know, we always come. There's never, never enough. I can't wait for, I can't wait for your simulated AI. So, you know, I can have. Oh yeah, a joppel danger that if.

We had shall be AI like you could, you could broaden that reach, right?

Yeah.

What if all the branch managers could talk to a shallow BE AI for entrepreneurship advice?

Yeah. Imagine if they. I was just their coach. I was standing there. Yeah, Joe, I got this question like, hey, here's the answer. There you go. But we, we tell our guys like, if they're not facing challenges, obviously they're not winning challenges. The sacrifice, the struggle is all the, the journey of success is obviously very, very, you know, only those who go through that narrow gate are going to be successful. Only those who go through massive challenges will and, and, and build up that resilience will be successful. Those who are just coming in and kind of like emulating the banker, because the guys are coming in as bankers, they want like this easy road that, you know, they're never going to be successful. They're going to be very, very status quo. But the, those that, that sacrifice and build a true legacy, build their own brand and know what it takes to, you know, because when you come here, you're not just like, oh, I'm buying leads or I'm going to do social media content or I'm going to go build relationships with real estate agents or you're doing everything, you know, you have to do everything or else you're not going to be successful. You know, you're going to be very status quo. You're going to be very average. So, you know, we really coach people on going through adversity as part of the journey to being successful within our ecosystem.

Very cool. And wait, could you just to level up a little bit. So we mentioned E Mortgage Capital and you're tying it to this concept of like, we help people, you know, build businesses under this. So can you talk a little bit about the business model for folks who might be Coming in, you know, researchers, entrepreneurs, founders that are maybe not as familiar with the banking or real estate sectors. If you can give a flyby on that, that'd be awesome.

Yeah, yeah. So basically what we do is we give our branches the complete end to end infrastructure and ecosystem, from technology to HR to data to branding and marketing and training and coaching and onboarding and support. And we take a small percentage of them. So we effectively act like a McDonald's. We take a percentage of their gross profit in exchange for them piggybacking on our entire ecosystem. Now they have the option to use our brand, which is the biggest brand in the industry, in the mortgage industry, or use their own brand. And E mortgage capital will just power their brand. So they have both options.

Okay, that's very cool. Thank you, thank you for sharing that. Back to what you said, which is like, you know, getting through that gate, there's a lot of hardship and it's the people with resilience. And you coach these entrepreneurs to build resilience, to say, hey, you're not just doing one thing or this thing or that thing. It's not gonna be a cushy thing. You gotta do all these things and that's what a business is. And there's. I was doing some reflections, like from my first time entrepreneurship journey and, and I built this deck and presentation for other first time founders and for the ones that are kind of bootstrapping or maybe don't have other people. And it's really hard. I came to this thought, I was like, what is a business? Somebody sells the product, somebody runs the technology, somebody installs and supports the product, somebody designs the product, somebody creates demand, somebody counts the money, somebody builds the product and improves it. You can swap that out with any product. Right. Or, and basically if you're starting something, generally that's going to be all on you and you got to learn all these skills. But it sounds like with Joe's setup, you know, you could start with a lot of the infrastructure in place.

Yeah, I mean, this is like, this is a fast track to success and if anyone wants to enter the mortgage space, you know, like they don't need to go through the. I, if I were to repeat everything I would do, I would just piggyback on an ecosystem like this and just spend all of my time growing.

Yeah, yeah. Instead of worrying about the other stuff. Got it, got it. Interesting. Okay, thanks. Thanks for that. Like, it sounds like the advice to entrepreneurs are it's going to be hard and you're going to grow and resilience is going to be your armor to get through that, right? And that keeps building. So question. How did you get into real estate? So your dad was, was a doctor, immigrated over here, had a pretty tough childhood from, from what it sounds like that built a lot of, you know, resilience in you. So what made the leap to, hey, I'm gonna go be a dominant player in the real estate market.

So I was in college and I wanted to actually go into academia as a sociology. So I was a sociology major and I went to grad school to master, get my master's in sociology. Then I was going to go and get my PhD in sociology. And while I was in getting my master's in sociology, my friend meets with me and he's like, joe, you can't just go be a, you know, some professor at school making 50 grand a year and smoking weed all the time. You know, like, that's, that's. You're just gonna be broke. You're gonna be a loser. Like, just, just says. And at the time, it was kind of like a mini mortgage. Boom. He's like, I'm over here making, you know, we were 19, 20. He's like, I'm making 30 grand a month. You know, I, I don't work that hard and like, having a great time, yada yada, and you're gonna be making like 50 grand a year when you get your PhD. And. And I was just like, yeah, I don't care about money. You know, he. And then he just kept on just badgering me with, you know, the luxury lifestyle that he was living and the broke lifestyle that I was living in, destined to live if I continue on the academia path. And it's kind of true, you know, academics are just broke. You know, they make 50, 60 grand a year, whatever it is, maybe 90 grand a year with inflation now, adjusted for inflation. So, you know, I decided I just don't want that life for myself. And I was going to just kind of follow his path now. He didn't really have a true playbook for, for getting into the mortgage industry. There wasn't like, I didn't go and work for a big company. I just went and worked for him, you know, with, with him. Uh, and it took me like a year to finally make some money with him. And so it was like a year of just like beating my head over the bush. Like, dude, are you sure I should be doing this? Like, I'm making no money right now. And you know, sure enough, after about a year, like, it just started you know, after I figured out the business, I. I really just went all in on. On it. And I went through a lot of troubles because at the time, the industry was just so full of shady people that everybody I worked with would just rip me off and take my commission. So I decided I'm like, screw these guys. I'm gonna go set up my own company. I went and did the extra schooling, got my real estate broker's license, and just kind of put the destiny in my own hands because I was sick of people just taking advantage of me and taking my money. And that's where the kind of idea of like, just, hey, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this in an honest way with honesty, integrity, and just serving the people first. And I started my own mortgage company and kind of just haven't stopped as an owner since then, you know?

You know what's interesting? So when I did a little bit of research on you for this podcast, for this interview. First of all, Joe doesn't read podcast interview questions for the audience. He came, he was like, I don't want to read them. I want to be super authentic. So shout out Joe. I think that's a good tactic. The second thing I want to bring up, though, was the very first I looked up Joe Shalabee, Emortgage Capital. A Reddit post came up and it was, I think a branch manager asking other people like, hey, I'm looking at Emortgage Capital. Like, what do you think? First post says something like, e Mortgage Capital CEO is the only non sociopath in the real estate banking industry. And I was like, what? And then all the posts under it were like, yep, good guy, super rare, great dude. And then, you know, obviously I was like, looking into this more. I went down a rabbit hole and I just started looking at some of your content and I saw this awesome tagline, which is really rare, I think, in. In your space in banking and real estate. Mortgages are what we do, not who we are.

So. So that's our trademark. That's like, that defines us, you know, so it's just.

Yeah, so. So just to set that up a little bit more, I want to hear more about all that. And like, how did you get to that? But like, so connecting to that from your story of like, just got ripped off by these people, decided, I want to put my destiny in my own hands. I want to have full autonomy. I'm going to go get my. Go back to school, do what I got to do, start my own company. So like, how did you get there to, like, all right, mortgages are what we do, not who we are. And we have random Reddit posts singing your praises, dude. Like, how did we get there?

Yeah, you know, I'd like to see those. And I love that Reddit, because I love Reddit as an authentic platform. And that's the beauty of our business now. It's like, like, you know you can't fake Reddit posts, right? You can't. That's not something you could buy. That is actual people giving you true, authentic feedback. Because, Because I, I really pride myself on being a servant to the people like our company. We don't care about money. Money comes because we do God's work first. It's a, it's a result of being a good steward. It's a result of being a good servant to your people. God puts us in this position of leadership, and those that abuse it will have bad Reddit feedback. That's just a fact. Those, those that do God's work and really, you know, and really put the people first, servitude first, then they're going to get true, authentic, good feedback and that, you know, the number one thing that our number one core value here, our number one core pillar here is service. Serve one another with all your heart, all your might, all your soul. Serve your vendor partners, your lender partners, and each other with all your heart, all your might, all your soul. And money follows. Money will fall. And I say, I guarantee it. Just do that first. And the money follows. And, and everyone just kind of preaches that tone. And money does follow because money follows service. It just does, you know, because God wants to give you money so you could, you know, grow his kingdom.

Okay.

Okay. And like the ideology now, I, I, I preached, I would not preach that as loud before in a Biden presidency. I always preached it because I'm Coptic and I came from Egypt as a, you know, as someone who basically was suffering for religious persecution. So I come here and I treat my faith the same way that, you know, I use this as example, but I see as the same way that the LGBTQ community, you know, really voices their opinion. I say, okay, well, if you're allowed to voice your opinion that loud, I'm allowed to voice my opinion that loud, you know, so, you know, I, I, I kind of, I don't shove it down people's throats, but I voice it. Like, I say listen. And just like, the same way I'm voicing it here on this, on this podcast, like, I have this yeah, it's part of who you are. Yeah. Right. You can't, it's integral tree. You can't kill me for it. And I have a right to do it. So.

Well, well, what's, what's really interesting is like, you're the maybe one of the few entrepreneurs I've talked to that talks about faith at the intersection of business. So that would be kind of interesting to bring up. And it's also very cool that you think about it from this lens of like, service first, money follows after. Right. And then I, that what you said, which is, is that a shallow, like shallow be law, which is if you don't do good service, if you do bad service, bad repost will follow.

I just thought of that right now on, on, on, on this podcast because I, I've never seen the Reddit post.

And I'll send it to you. I'll say, I think you would like to see it.

Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to see that. You know, people are, see what the. Because it matters. You know, caring matters. My mentor says you can't fake care. You have to genuinely care. You know, you got, you have to actually care about the people. You have to actually care about their lives, you know, what they're doing with, with how they're providing for their family. So we do everything we possibly can within this organization to make sure that people are successful, and we can only do what we can do, you know, and, you know, I try to close the gap on laziness for people, like, through automation and all that. So I'm always trying to, like, solve for, you know, what if this guy doesn't want to do his job? What if this guy doesn't want to make phone calls? What if this guy doesn't want to, you know, generate leads? You know, So I try to solve for that stuff, but there's only so much I could do. They got to do it on their own. They got it. They got to try to win on their own. So we preach that as well.

So, so at the company, when did you come up with this tagline, mortgages are what we do, not who we are?

We came up with that a couple of years ago and we trademarked it.

Yeah, yeah. And what was the thought process like?

You know, because, like, we want every. Everyone here at this company has an identity outside of mortgages. They're not just mortgage loan officers. They're, you know, parents, they're servants at church. They're, you know, some pastors, they're bike riders, they're basketball players. They're whatever they are, their identity is framed outside of mortgages. Mortgage is just their profession, their brothers, their sisters, their grandparents. So we just want people to be authentic to who they are. And more importantly, like, because we're doing a big, big brand push, we want their brand, their personal brand to be formulated around that authenticity of who they truly are. Because nobody cares about you as a mortgage professional, but everybody cares about you as a human. You know, who you are is what matters. Not like because you're, you know, you know, a mortgage loan officer or your doctor, your podcast or whatever you are, you know.

Yeah, that's, that's really cool. That's like so different than other, you know, for lack of a better term, kind of roll up franchisee type businesses where you're kind of leaning into, hey, let's let E Mortgage Capital create more entrepreneurs across America. Let's give them all the infrastructure, all the tools and our brand name. And also they could augment our brand name with their own personal brand and grow that. That's, that's such an interesting strategy.

And they do a ecosystem and our SEO in our current brand. So they're, they're just piggybacking on this.

Yeah, so, so was this like when you set out in business, what was it, 13, 14 years ago when you started this? Was this an ultimate destination or, you.

Know, this is always evolving. Like my vision continues to evolve through, not my ideas, through the ideas of collaboration, through the ideas of the community that we're establishing our five core pillars, you know, now our number one is service. Our second one is community. Our third is relationships. So our fourth is we're all thumb pointers here. And our fifth is we're always ever forward, always evolving, always, you know, improving. So we try to live by those pillars. And, and it's through like the ideas of collaboration and community and building relationships with others that I'm really kind of, it's not me, it's this company, all 900 broker owners, 900 various entrepreneurs. So we all grow together. We all grow together. We're all winning together. It's one big winning team.

That's so cool. And from everything I read, it's a differentiator, the culture that you've built, which is just going to propagate with more network effects. That's really awesome and kudos to you and the team to get through to that innovation in this model with the power of collaboration. That's super awesome. And I want to dig into something you said, which is I'm always looking for Ways to automate or innovate for the business leads or whatever. And you also talked about that's why we have culture underlying everything. But you still look to innovate, you still look to automate things. That's something that stood out to me when we had met and we talked about like, you seem to just have an eye for like, how do I innovate? And so, you know, you mentioned to me your industry, you know, finance, banking, more conservative than the world that I come from, like tech, AI, etc. So fun question for you. If you imagine the mortgage industry or your industry in 2050, what does that look like to you? What has changed? What has remained the same?

Man, you know, AI is moving at such a fast pace. And one of the messages that we preach to our company now, this, I'm on a big message preaching this is AI is going to take a lot of your all your job for the most part. And what's going to be left, the way people are going to find you is by the brand that you establish. So people want to work with you, your brand, because they know like and trust you from, you know, your social media, the brand that you built in your local community, etc. So those that aren't building their personal brand, this applies to all businesses. Those that aren't building a brand right now are going to just be lost in the fray of AI just kind of taking their jobs because those that do have a brand will pick up, the clients will reach out to the brands that they know and they're going to about you, even though you did business with them at some point, just because that's, we're evolving into that world now. So AI is, is here. It's going to devastate people because it does a lot. It's much smarter than we are and it has, you know, the ability to do much more than humans can. And it is ultimate apex. Like we discussed at the, at our conference, it's here to, to just kind of rule things and we just have to know how to navigate in between, you know, what AI is going to do to, to the world. And I think and firmly believe that, you know, the brands that stand triumphant are going to be the ones that can leverage AI properly and they're going to gobble the market share.

Got it. Okay. So, so just to summarize your take, it's in 2050, what's not going to change is customers still care about brand credibility and they care about trust. And so the people never changed.

How could it?

Yeah, so so forecasting out your vision is AI is going to be disruptive. We are definitely giving birth to super intelligence. Me and you are aligned on that. We're going to have kids that grow up with something that's more apex than humans. It's going to be a different world, but the thing that remains will be brand and trust and credibility. And so your advice then to any business, any entrepreneur, is start now, keep.

Doing that now, build your brand and build it bigger and better than your competitor.

So that's a good question. That's very tactical and strategic. You have a very strong brand. I've checked out your socials. Super strong brand. I also love the coffees for closers, branding and website. I really like it. I enjoyed the coffee like animation. I see there was a lot of thought and work put into it. So let's say for entrepreneurs that haven't gotten to even 100,000 followers, where do they start? How should they be thinking about it? If you were back to zero, how would you think about it?

Well, I mean, I built it in the course of a year, but like, just like I started the discussion. Be on all platforms, don't just be on one. Dedicate an hour a day to social media, regardless of how you want to dedicate it. Wake up, post, blog, track your journey, whatever it is. I do it in blocks. I do a content block with my team. I'm fortunate enough to kind of have a team. I had a big company before, so I was able to invest in branding myself. So I didn't have to like, say, oh, I'm going to be a social media creator. I didn't want to be a creator. I just wanted to let, to, to differentiate myself from the other top five competitors. So, you know, building brand authority was my, my strategy. But entrepreneurs have to be on all platforms and they have to utilize social media every single day, all the time. It has to be part of their framework and has. And. And the most important thing is nobody cares what you look like. Nobody cares if you're fat or skinny or, you know, whatever it is. Like, nobody cares. Nobody remembers the last video they saw an hour ago. So if they're apprehensive to post, if they're apprehensive to take that step, just know nobody cares. Like, nobody cares about anything other than you posting and giving them something that's going to be edifying and be authentic to who you are, you know, so try, always try to incorporate that authenticity because that's what matters.

Got it. Okay, so summary is every entrepreneur, every person in business, do it if you're not already doing it. And if you're already doing it, do it better and do it everywhere.

Yeah, do it. Exactly.

Yeah. Okay, so real quick, if you can give a flyby on, like, I guess one thing I thought about, like, when you say be authentic, you know, because I. The. What I'm working on is actually all about how do we know what's real? How do I know myself? And so I'm curious. You've had a very interesting journey. How do you know yourself? Like, how do you know?

Well, I mean, look at you. Like, you're a rock climber. Awesome content around that. You're into the don't die movement. Forget about it. That's just insane amounts of content, which I myself was thinking about totally, you know, myself reframing my content around my. My health journey. Like, because if you look back at my content, go to my. My first viral reel, which I have pinned. I was for 40 pounds heavier.

You're in way better shape.

Yeah, I went from 215 weight to 175. You know, like, so I. I've shaved off years off of my life. Like, my skin, my, you know, hair, my everything. I mean, for my organs, everything is just like at a different level now. And people look at me, they. They're like, you look like you're 10, 15 years younger from the. A year ago. Right? So, you know, people are like, people could say biohacking is. But I'm just like, just look at my life better, you know, like, fine, look at me. And Brian Johnson said this in, at, at. At the conference. He said, you know, I didn't start like, my. I am the most successful I've ever been since I put health first. And I was like, dude, that really hit me because I'm like, dude, I'm the most successful I've ever been since I. I put my health first. Like, I might not have made as much money as the bit boom of 2021, but I'm like, I'm busier. I got more connections. I got more opportunities opening up daily. I got a big show. I'm a big, you know, influencer on social media. I got this. That the other only problem I had in my life, the biggest problem is I went through a divorce. I did suffer through that, but, like, outside of that, like, you know, my kids are healthy. I have great relationships. I'm able to go to all their sports. I'm able to keep up with four kids and the demands for kids and all the activities and all the different ventures that I have every single day, I'm pretty much busy seven days a week from, you know, 6am till 8pm back to back with very, very little time in between. And, and I love it, you know, like, and it, and it's because I really prioritize health. And the more I prioritize my health, the, you know, the more opportunities just miraculously appear because, you know, and it's. It. And I, I mentioned this to you too, but I really think like, the don't die ideology and even just really core health ideology is all biblical because God wants you to live your. In your optimum state, your optimum health state. And it's, you know, Brian Johnson lives like a monk, effectively. You know, he has a very tight diet, very tight bedtime routine. And, and so he really lives a true godly life. He's fortunate because he grew up Mormon and he already had a lot of training because Mormons don't drink caffeine. They don't, you know, lots of discipline already. Yeah, they don't drink, they don't do anything bad. You know, they don't eat meat. So they, they have a reg. A pretty ridiculous regimen already. So he already had, he was like halfway there, you know, he just had, he just added it, created a movement and, and tested every measure, you know, I love it.

I love it.

You know, so like normal people who don't have, like, I'm lucky. I'm also orthodox. I came from, like, we fast, we eat two thirds of the year vegetarian. So it's like, you know, we have some sort of regimen in place already, you know, and if we really cop, like, really live biblically according to the very first Christian church, that means during great Lent, you don't eat from sun up to sundown, you eat nothing, and then sundown, you break the fast with veggies, you know, like, like for 50 days, you know, like anyone, nobody does it. So. But now, like, if you do it, you can sell it as a new fitness routine.

It's like a new diet or new fat or something.

Yeah, it's a new fad. Like, hey, so I don't eat nothing in a minute.

Okay, so. So it sounds like, to be authentic. Look at the identities you have. Like, for me climbing now, don't die. And you're like, just make content around that. Like, that's what you're saying to entrepreneurs. Like, look at that.

You are. If you drive motorcycles, you play basketball, if you, you know that. That's because that stuff's interesting to People, People like who you are. They don't like the fact that you're, you know, imagine if you're making content around your business. Like, nobody would watch it. That would be so boring. Nobody cares that you're a software engineer building out a tech, you know, an AI technology that is going to disrupt the world. I mean, nobody really understands it. It's too complicated. It's not sexy. So my, My strategies, you know, my content is on my. On social media is I'm an entertainer, basically. I make that. My strategy on, you know, audio and. And YouTube for coffee closers is I'm gonna. I'm a thought leader. You know, I entertain. So I have different. I have different personalities for where you're finding me. Now for my book again, thought leaders. So I've just. And then within the company, thought so. But like, but when you're doing your research, thinking about joining the organization, you're finding me on social media, and I make you laugh. You're like, wow, Joe's really relatable. I'm gonna join his company.

Yeah, okay. So that's, that's really good perspective for the audience. It's like there are different archetypes you could take on. You should think about your icp, what platforms are delivering on. First of all, try to be on those. Be authentic to yourself. Create content that is authentic, and then even intentionally think about what archetype you want to show up. As for your ICP in that feed, that's contextualized, right? Like, I'm guessing it's Snapchat. I don't imagine people go there for TED Talk as thought leadership, you know what I mean? So apply accordingly is the answer. That's really good, by the way.

I also create content. This is crazy, but I work with young YouTubers who are basically some of the most prominent YouTubers. They're like 19, 18, 19, and all the kids from the ages of 10 to 15 follow these YouTubers. And my idea to work with prominent YouTubers that are, you know, young is, one, it holds me accountable to. To making sure I stay young. But two, if I'm relative to the youth, and the youth know who I am because they see my content and they're following me, and the parents see that their kids are following their CEO, they're going to love me, or they're going to want to join my company, or they're going to want to work with our company. So, so I, you know, I learned this on a podcast from the CEO of Liquid Death. And he came up, he said, Said on the podcast that he Never markets to 40 year olds, he never mar, he markets to youth. And I'm like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. Like why AM I marketing 40 year olds? Like, you cannot market to me. I'm like a stone, you know, or you, you know, like you're set in your ways, you know, like, but if you market to like a teenager, he's so malleable and so he can be so easily influenced and then he'll go tell his dad and then his dad will be influenced.

Yeah, you know, you know, that's so, that's so interesting because other strategies I've learned around software product development are generally your go to market to grow network effects, try to distribute around a school. Like Tinder did this, Bumble did this. Lots of different direct to consumer apps and it's because the 30 year olds, 40 year olds, 50 year olds, they're setting their ways like they're not change, they're not open that the time it takes to open up an app in the 14 hour day that you described to download a new app, to register to learn how to use it. Who, who has time for that? Right? Like you're running a business.

Yeah. But younger people, they have told you about it.

That's really interesting. Thanks a lot Joe, for, for a lot of your thoughts on brand strategy, et cetera. Let's, let's wrap with one last question that's more of a fun one and then I'll close out the show. How does that sound? So I always ask this question and it's, you know, you've, you're where you're at now, you've seen where you've been. If you could somehow just appear to younger you, 16 year old you, 18 year old you before you even started this entrepreneurial path and you had 30 minutes, let's say to sit down, have you know, quick meal with past. Joe, what would be the talking points of that conversation?

You know, if I were, I would, I would just basically tell myself nobody cares. You know, I always cared about what people thought. I always cared. When I, I would have started social media much earlier if I just understood that principle of nobody cares. Like the biggest thing that, you know, people suffer with is that they always think that people are looking at you or people have this, like, even at my level, I could put out content that's totally stupid. People will see it, they might comment and then within five minutes, nobody cares. You know, so it's a, it's a, it's a real thing that no, you know, it's a real. All the biggest mentors I've seen, the biggest talks I've, I've went to. Like, I, what I deduct from, like the greatest wisdom is that nobody cares and, and incline your ear to greater wisdom. Like, I always, you know, the younger I was, the more I thought I knew. Right. The older I get, the more I realize I don't know anything. Yeah. So it's like I'm inclining my ears to much smarter people and I learn from everybody. And I, I love that I'm in this, you know, perpetual growth mode of like attending conferences of, you know, getting involved in, more involved in various communities, getting more involved with seeking mentors. I wish I got mentors younger. You know, like, I had to go seek mentors. I don't have to go ask to, you know, to be mentored. So seek mentorship as early as you possibly can. Ask for help. Ask nobody, nobody cares. Ask for help, Ask for mentorship.

Okay, that's, that is very, that's very amazing advice. Thank you so much, Joe, for taking the time and educating and entertaining. I'd say on the podcast, all of the audience who comprises other founders and entrepreneurs, people doing big things with big stories to tell. You certainly are. Thanks a lot for joining me on the ABCs for building the Future podcast. We'll definitely have more to talk about and I think I'll probably have you on for around two, maybe in a year or two as we continue our health journey together and do part two.

That'll be really cool, dude, connecting with you. I'm, you know, and I look forward to continuing our health journey together and we'll be collaborating and hopefully I, you know, on your, on your AI. I've already been thinking about it and I, I want to see how I can incorporate it into our ecosystem. And I mean that in all honesty because, you know, I'd love to be on the forefront of that with you. Especially can you imagine having that in banking? It would solve so much if there was a Joseph Shalabi personal AI for all my people. I'd like to get that rolled out asap.

So, you know, won't super promise anything, but let's say in the three to five month time frame, I think we will be able to take on that use case and bring it to market for you. So let's keep tabs on that. And actually we might have you on the pod later after that.

Yeah, live. Let's go, baby.

Yeah, let's do it. Let's go. Do it. So super happy to have you on Joe. Do you want to give a quick shout again to the viewers about all your stuff and then I'll post in the show notes.

Follow me. Joseph Shalaby J O S E P H S H A L A B Y On all platforms. Coffees for Closers Easy to find on all platforms. Number 26 podcast of all podcasts. It's Coffees with a Z C O F F E E Z with Joe Shalabee. Coffees for Closers.

Awesome Joe. Been such a pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you everybody for listening to the ABCs for building the Future podcast. Hope you learned a lot today. I know I did. Thanks a lot Joe and we will catch you next time. Have a great day.