Joe Apfelbaum: High Energy Secrets

Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.

Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Joe Appelbaum with us. He is the CEO of Ajax Union, a B2B digital marketing agency in Brooklyn, New York. Joe is also the author of High Energy Secrets, which is a book he wrote about how he lost 95 pounds and kept it off. So welcome to the show, man.

Thank you for having me on the show. I'm so excited to be here.

Of course. Grateful to have you on, Joe. We'll jump right into the first one. The first question I have for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

So the best story from my life is when I started Ajax Union, my B2B digital marketing agency based in Brooklyn, people said that if you build it, they will come. Well, I built a lot of websites but nobody came. You need to market your business and build a relationship with your customers if you want people to come and do business with you. So I started to market my business and then my business really took off.

And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

So the most valuable piece of information that I can share with the audience is that energy without strategy is a waste of time. The best thing you can do for your business is have a solid strategy. A great strategy will include goals, your target market, your messaging. I teach about this to small business owners, and the more clear you are on your objective, the more successful you're going to be.

And probably could tie in, but what's your best piece of overall business advice and not necessarily industry-specific?

So My best overall advice would be success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. Because if you do what you love in business and in life, you're going to live a life that you love because in a heartbeat your life could be over. And I'm not talking about finding your passion. I'm talking about being passionate and being all in on your business.

And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

So if I can give my younger self a piece of advice, I would say get a mentor and call that mentor every month. I can't tell you how many times people come to me and say, Joe, would you mentor me? And I say, yeah, call me every month. And they don't call me. I would say also read a book a month, take notes. And the most successful people learn from the failures and the successes of other people. So become a student of success.

And kind of go a little bit of a different path. In your opinion, what is the key to happiness?

The key to happiness is being present and finding joy in the little things, realizing that true happiness comes with progress towards your goals. Not getting to your goals, but the journey of where the happiness— is where the happiness lives. You don't, you don't find happiness if you're just randomly always waiting to get to the end. You need to enjoy the journey.

And going back to books here, what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from it?

So the best book that I've read— there are hundreds of books that I've read in my journey, but one book that really is a standout book, and I make every employee read it, is called Getting Things Done by David Allen. The key takeaway of the book is that anyone can be organized with the right system in place. You must get everything out of your head and put your life into a system that will work for you based on your energy levels at any moment. And also, this is going to reduce your stress and help you get more things done, which is our competitive advantage here at Ajax Union. We get things done.

And what is your favorite quote and why?

I have so many quotes that I love. So my favorite quote is, "The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus" by Bruce Lee, because I always had a focus problem and I thought that I would never be successful because I just wasn't lucky. But the reality is when I focused, I built one of the fastest growing companies in the US and I lost 95 pounds and changed my life forever.

Yes, focus is key. I agree. And thank you so much for coming on, man. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where's the best place for people to find and/or connect with you online?

So the best place to find and connect with me online is you can find my book High Energy Secrets on Amazon. And if you send me a connection request on LinkedIn and mention that you heard me on this podcast, I'll be happy to accept. I have over 1,000 people waiting to connect with me on LinkedIn, and I absolutely don't allow every single person to connect with me. But I would love to connect with you if you mentioned that you heard me in a podcast. And you could also reach me on my website at www.joeapfelbaum.com. Now I'm doing a webinar. So if you go to ajaxunion.com/blueprint-webinar, you're going to be able to see how you can create your very own digital marketing strategy right on LinkedIn.

Perfect, man. Thanks again for jumping on.

Thank you for having me, Tyler. This was great.

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