Natural Health Products: Ingredients for Success

#12 Jay Samit - Serial Disruptor / Best-Selling Author | Natural Product Disruption + Disrupt You! + Make Mistakes + Future Proofing You

December 01, 2020 Episode 12
Natural Health Products: Ingredients for Success
#12 Jay Samit - Serial Disruptor / Best-Selling Author | Natural Product Disruption + Disrupt You! + Make Mistakes + Future Proofing You
Show Notes Transcript

International bestselling author Jay Samit, is a dynamic entrepreneur and intrepreneur who is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on disruption and innovation. Described by Wired magazine as “having the coolest job in the industry,” he raises hundreds of millions of dollars for startups, advises Fortune 500 firms, transforms entire industries, revamps government institutions, and for three decades continues to be at the forefront of global trends.

What a great experience it was to have the international best-selling author of "Disrupt You!," Jay Samit on the podcast.  In this episode  we discuss with Jay natural product industry disruption, mentoring, and the release of his new book, "Future Proofing You." 

You are listening to the ingredients for success podcast, where you can consume dietary supplement industry, best practices, trends, recent news, and other insights provided through interviews and discussions with members of the stratum team and seasoned industry. Yeah. Welcome back to the ingredients for success podcast. I'm Andrew Rice and I'm with Jackie Rizo. And today we have on the podcast, Jay Samit, and he is a, so I'm super honored to have you on, sir. I appreciate you coming on. I was listening to a podcast one time. I know exactly where I was. In fact, I was driving from, from where I live here in Joplin, down to Fayetteville. I worked at an agency down there for a short period and, um, I was listening to a podcast and they were talking to you and you were taught. It was, it was right as you were, I think, disrupt, you had launched and you were just kind of talking about the book and then I. I shouldn't admit it, but I went and downloaded the book while I was driving, because I didn't want to forget. And I read the book, loved the book, so I'm a big fan of disruptive UJ. Thanks. Thanks for having me. So if you don't know, Jay, um, Jay is, uh, an author, um, he's, uh, international dynamic entrepreneur, an intrepreneur, um, Wired magazine described him as having the coolest job ever. I would, yeah, I would agree with that. Uh, I mean, I could go on and on. I want to say a couple more, but literally we would be here all day. Um, Jay's just that cool. So raise hundred millions of dollars for startup, um, advise fortune 500 companies. Some of those companies are some brands that we know a little bit about. Wish I didn't on some, like McDonald's. Probably shouldn't go as much, but Coca-Cola Liberty United airlines, Apple, a lot of, a lot of brands, LinkedIn, Microsoft, uh, basically everything important Che has had his hand in, in some way or another. I mean, right. So, so there's that. And like I said, we'd be on talking about that forever and he's blushing. So I will. I will stop, uh, before I get, we like to do some icebreaker questions. Okay. So we do, uh, it's like a speed round. And so I'll say something and then just you, you, you answer in whatever way you want. Before I do that, though, we have a shared interest that I want to talk about just for a second. Um, so your love for art. Uh, in my love for art or probably, I don't know, we, I don't know who had went out, but I went to school for art. I had a professor while I was going to school. His name was Jim Bray and he was an amazing watercolors. He actually, you can look up his work online. He, he had this really cool blend of typography and landscape and, and, and even gesture watercolors. So it's really hard to explain without seeing that. Um, but his name, Jim Bray, I'll send you a link after this. Um, but he, I remember specifically I was going to school. Uh, I was in the little classroom and I'm talking through future with him and, and we got to know each other really well over the, over the couple of years I was at school and he was just really honest and he said, You know, I think you're a good, a decent artist. Go do that. Like, I want you to, you know, be a studio artist, but don't be me like don't starve. Please go find a job where you're not gonna, you know, go against some of the best in the world and end up starving. So, uh, so he encouraged me to get into graphic design and marketing and then, you know, explore the studio as I went on anyways, that's a, that's my deal. But I wanted to say big fan of your landscapes. I liked her you architecture and landscapes J uh, the abandoned farmhouse and the 66 motel. Where was that at? Um, just a made up motel, um, thinking back to route 66. Wow. Awesome. Cause we have, so we're right on route 66 where we're at. There's the, uh, isn't it called? Boots motel. Okay. It is boots, motel and Carthage. Yeah. You're right. Have you ever taken the route 66 to her 15 times? That was my first marathon was running through three States on route 66. That was my first half marathon. So you probably come through our area, Carthage, Joplin, Missouri area, absolutely. Nebraska Joplin. Yes. Well, cool. Well, um, I'm sure you scraped pretty quickly through this area. There's not a lot, a lot, a lot to see, but, uh, anyway, it gave me a real sense of Mark. I've been to all 50 States and, uh, you know, seeing the differences. And I think that helped me appreciate as I. Went into business and really had a sense that not everybody was the same. I find that this area, um, there's not a ton to do, but man, the people are different, you know, w when you're traveling on business and you're going East coast or West coast or wherever, you know, people wave here still when you're just passing them on the road. And there's this sort of there's people are just in general, I think, a little sweeter here, but maybe we're partial. I don't know. So. Um, okay. We're going to get an ice breakers real quick. Um, so Jay, like I said, we're going to just ask a couple of quick questions and then kind of get your short answers. Here we go. A person with the most influence on in your life. Um, I'd say probably bill Gates. Uh, Oh. Somebody hadn't figured out the idea of putting a computer in every home. We wouldn't be having this conversation today. Uh, when I was a unknown little startup, I reached out to bill Gates, the richest man in the world and asked him, and he did, uh, and that's been, you know, happy with number sense. Wow. That's, that's pretty amazing. Um, most memorable speaking engagement. Most memorable speaking engagement. Wow. So I've spoken memorable. Um, when you're on stage, they're all pretty much the same. I'd say, uh, there was an organization called entrepreneurs organization. And when I finished the speech, we all had dinner, but what was unusual is we had 1000 people seated at one table. It was the most amazing thing. It was at a winery in Portugal. And it was the longest table you could possibly imagine. And it was just kind of a cool experience. Uh, okay. Favorite part of mentoring others, uh, to CTP that moment when they finally believe in themselves, uh, as you know, I just finished a new book. Uh, that's comes out in March. Uh, and the story is I, I took, uh, a young man who grew up on welfare, was a couch surfing millennial. And, uh, had never really, you know, had a career. And in 11 months he went from homeless to self-made millionaire, but it was that first month, that moment, when in the first month he made $70,000 and he couldn't flown to Europe without a plane. I mean, he was so much energy coming out of them and I didn't do it. He did it. And that's what I love about mentoring. Wow. That is a, that's a crazy story. Um, to do something like that. I, and we'll talk a little bit more about, about this, but the, this the stuff you do and just the impact you can make is pretty awesome. Okay. So we're going to painting or writing. Oh, absolutely. It's a painting for me is, um, meditation painting. Uh, it keeps me sane, uh, for those that aren't familiar with watercolors sunlight. Oil or acrylic where you can just keep on slapping more paint until you get it right. The second the brush touches the paper. That's it? There's no changes. There's no painting over. Um, so absolute concentration. So anything else on your mind disappears? Um, so during the pandemic, it was a way to couldn't leave the house, but my mind and imagination could. Yes. I agreed that. I, and, and I remember, I, I remember as a kid just escaping in art, you know? Yeah. And writing's the opposite. I had a professor in college who said, don't get it right. Get it written. So meaning, just get it all down on paper and then do draft after draft and, and refine it. And, uh, you know, that's a different process. Um, both are gratifying, both come easy. Um, but, uh, different parts of the brain that is so sure Andrew and I work on different parts of the brain. He's more the artsy one and I'm more the writer one. And so when he explained that, I just imagine Andrew and I on different sides of the brain there as we work with one another. Okay. Influential watercolor artists. Oh, um, Andrew Wyeth, uh, comes real real top of the list. Um, Edward Hopper, um, Andrew White's bother, uh, NC wives is hugely influential. Um, you know, the more you, the more you paint, the more you get into your art, the farther you get from your icons, the more you realize the genius that goes into their works. So always learning. CrossFit or elliptical, um, for you has to be the one sports question I can answer. I have an elliptical, um, uh, I hate all exercise. I mean, I don't have an athletic bone in my body. Okay. Well, Hey, you got the elliptical man. So, um, favorite supplement. Supplement. Yeah. So excited. This is my favorite. I hug vitamin C. Um, I don't think I have a favorite. I take, I take vitamin C is probably only soft. Okay. Okay, cool. Um, okay, so let's get in. Let's just go ahead and get into it. Um, so you wrote a book, uh, the one we, well, several you've written several. Um, the one I'm talking about disrupt you right there. Thank you so much. That is it? I think it did pretty. Okay. Um, all right. Um, so it's, it's an international seller it's, um, you know, really, since you, since you launched it, um, and you were, when we were talking the other day, how many languages is it? Well in 2020, I'm one little hit, uh, uh, 15 languages. I just had one come in this morning. Swedish is joining the list. So I slammed it. Swedish, uh, Chinese Vietnamese. It was number one in VA Thai, uh, Urdu. Um, it's just, uh, it's just amazing. Uh, if you have a book, can you, I highly suggest getting it out of you and out to the world because. For all my life as a CEO, whether it was a giant company with 300,000 employees or so most of your inbox is why you suck it's okay. Complaints, it's problems. It's you know what fires you have to put on, and everybody hates you. Um, when you write a book that changes people's lives and helps them live their dream. Love letters and mail. And that's what, that's what keeps me going. And, uh, and I dedicated whatever time I have left on the planet to helping entrepreneurs be successfully. I teach a class at the largest engineering university in the U S to teach kids how to build high tech startups. I had two students that did $150 million their first year. Um, and it's just rewarding because we live in a time where all the infrastructure is already built. You all have this amazing phone in her hand and it connects you to 6 billion Gabriel, right? You don't have to be right for a nanosecond to make a million dollars or change the world. It's up to you. Wow. Yeah. I mean, you know, like you said, the, you know, writing a book is one thing, but just, I can't imagine how it feels, you know, it makes us all feel good when we help others and just be able to write a book that. I mean, it's got to feel amazing to know that you're touching people and helping, helping their lives. So, yeah. Yeah. And the real insight for me is you wake up one day, you know? Yes. I put the first video on computer and the first auction that you know is eBay and LinkedIn and all these companies that now it just think have been around forever, but you wake up one day and dozens of friends are billionaires and you go, we're not smarter. We're not well-connected we didn't come from anything. What did all these people that have changed the world? And it's they're out and that could be, they only need two things to be successful insight and persistence insight can be taught. And this book teaches people how to find insights, how to refine their ideas into something that makes sense. And there are no Gates. Capital's easy to get. Markets are easy to get to, you know, there's nothing stopping you, but you, so really that's the biggest first problem. And that's, what's going to disrupt you. Most people have a voice in their head that tells them why they can't succeed. Maybe it was a, a teacher that told you were stupid. Maybe it was a parent that didn't want to see you fail and get hurt. So they wanted to protect you. Go take the safe job. Well, there are no safe jobs. A hundred year old companies disappear like that. Look what happened just during the first three months of the pandemic, how many Philippians shut their doors forever? So once you realize that you can change yourself and all those negative thoughts, aren't real, they're just your perception. And you start putting on a positive mindset. Now you are open to possibilities and that's what, because here's, what's different. You have problems in your life. Everybody has problems. Problems are actually opportunities and disguise. So, if you have a problem, odds are other people at the same problem. If you solve a problem for five people, you have friends, you sell for a million, you become wealthy when you stop building change the world and how easy it is to change the world. And everybody thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves. And that's my word disrupt you. Jay you've said that disruption is the intense introspective process of questioning your assumptions about yourself and your goals. Could you expand just a little bit on that in terms of the brand who might be selling supplements or functional throughs and beverage? Okay. So the first part is getting to the stage where you understand that you're malleable than whatever you thought about yourself can be changed. In third grade, you missed seven times seven on our test. And so you convince yourself you're bad at math. If you put yourself in a third grade class today, you could kick butt and be the top of the class. So, so obviously these, these thought processes have to change. When you then look at the supplement market. When you look at, at, at any market, there are unmet needs just as you have unmet needs. So you really have to break down, um, the value chain of where are there holes in the market and where are there new ways to reach people on new products, new solutions, and then try to capture that piece of the market where value is created. Most people make the mistake of building business from end to end. When most aspects of the business are money losers, you want to focus on and just build the profitable piece. Um, and that's easy to do so in the supplement, there's new science coming out all the time. There are, uh, new products, but there's also a new generation of customers that has new and different needs. And probably I'd say the biggest. Hold that I see is people think that just settled the market that they know. So if they're in the U S they're selling to the U S it's a pretty small market, uh, when you can easily sell it to the world for same amount of Africa. So in our industry, we often see what I call like the monkey, see monkey dues. Or the copycats, whatever you want to call them. Um, when it comes to like branding, messaging pack, Jean. The products themselves, those companies that watch a new brand, just kill it. They went for whatever reason they caused some disruption, maybe with the technology that they're using, whether or if it's an application method that they're using, you know, because we can look at, we can look at some of these things like, um, um, personalized nutrition and how they go about doing that versus what was done five years ago. We could talk about technology where you've got your little. Um, you know, there's these pods out now that are water pods and sort of so disrupting. So there is some disruption happened, but there's still this, there's still a whole lot in the copycats going on, where they see a go, they see, they see a ghost lifestyle or they see a brand they really love. And they're just like, okay, I'm going to create a supplement brand. And it's going to look like this. It's going to talk like this. It's gonna feel like this. And then they fall flat. Um, maybe they're a price point leader on Amazon. You know, for, for whatever reason, maybe they do a little bit of sales, but eventually they aren't at that brand. They didn't create the disruption. They are just following suit. So what I would say is instead of following or becoming just another copycat, um, how does a brand profit without inventing, by applying disruption to new markets or creating services, kind of what you talk about in the book? Sure. So, first of all, the very first person you will educate and businesses, your competition. So whatever insight and, and new approach that you come up with, anybody that's already in that market is going to notice it before you even get customers aware because they're in that market every day. And they're going to notice the new product on the shelf or the new ad or a new piece of email, whatever it might be. Um, so expect that and if. Anything that you're bringing to the market can be that easily replicated. Then you really haven't disrupted, you know, taking the same ingredients and having a different color bottle. Isn't disruption taking the same ingredients and sewing in a different price point. Isn't disruption. Combining things that have never been combined that's disruption, uh, finding a different way for them to, uh, uh, be consumed this disruption. So people opened, uh, chains in around the country of going in to get a vitamin C shots, actual projections. I'm not supporting that. I'm not saying it's not good or bad or whatever. That is a different approach to the market. I don't know what market research led them to do. And I don't know whether it's a good idea, but that's a completely different space. Uh, Coca Cola realized early on that they weren't in the soda business. They were in the liquid business and their goal was to be, get everybody within one arm slapped with their product. So they realized that if they put small refrigerators in the checkout lines at home Depot, they'd sell more product. That's disruption of finding it a different way to get to the market. So that's what I would say in the supplemental space is who's an unmet customer, not who's the same customer that our rent is going for and where's the place to reach them. That is different. And one of the most common things that I advise in the book is called OPM other people's money. And what I mean by that is whatever target you want, pregnant women, uh, Senior citizens, uh, you know, uh, athletes, there's still other giant brand, not in your field that wants to get that same audience. So why don't you become the solution for that brand of how they're going to reach it? So we talked to about McDonald's earlier, you can say what you want, but McDonald's is probably the best marketing machine in the world. They really know what they're doing and how to reach a market. And so when I launched a competitor to iTunes a decade or so ago, I knew the McDonald's movie supersize piece. Spurlock's movie about dying from eating McDonald's basically, uh, came out. McDonald's had their sales for the first time in their history. I said, there's my opportunity. These people need something. So bounce back. Now, what does that have to do with selling digital music? Absolutely nothing. It was up to me to come up with the angle. And so I went to McDonald's with the buy big Mac, get a free track, put a little download code on each big Mac. They then spent tens of millions of dollars advertising that you could get a free track, but the only way to get that was to sign up at my store. So my first week in business, I had 20 million paying customers and my marketing budget was zero. That's disruption. And you can do this again and again, and I've done it with thousands of brands with tons of products, because there's always somebody with more money than ideas. And all we have to do is get them to spend their money. And that's better than raising money that takes your equity or raising money. That's debt. This is money. You don't have to pay it back. Yeah. I love that concept there for sure. So it's basically, you're saying disruptors, see obstacles as opportunities. And as of the mindset comment that I feel like you have, I believe you've mentioned again and again, is that, um, a disruptor doesn't need to have an MBA or an engineering degree. They simply need to think like, Disruptor, like you've been describing. So other than buying your book today, could you, how would you challenge individuals with within the natural supplement industry to get started on a journey towards being disruptive? So anybody that's working for somebody else right now probably thinks of buses an idiot, and probably thinks the company that worked for a, and that's pretty common. And the reason is you have ideas and things that you think will work, that nobody's listening to. So you have two choices, you can talk them into doing it, or you can start your own business and try it yourself. So the disruption comes from seeing things that could be that aren't and sometimes you go, well, you know, it seems so obvious. Well, Yeah, but everybody's busy doing what they're doing day in, day out. They're not looking for change people that made it to the C-suite that are already top of the pyramid are looking to change. They're just looking to stay there and maintain the status. Well, so look at what's a new idea. What's something that hasn't been done, but really. And I try to break down all the steps of research and marketing and sales and, and, and every aspect of a business of, of where the disruption happens so that you can not follow the same thing and use the same pick pack and ship guy in the same marketing campaign and buy the same keywords. That's not disruption, that's just competition. I hate. And if you really think about it, so Silicon Valley, all of your tech companies are basically set up to be monopolies. When Travis came up with Uber, the bird first things investors do is they gave him a billion dollars. Why? Because that's going to stop anybody else from trying to raise a million dollars. So figuring out having your own space, as far as skillsets, everybody hearing my voice right now has written at least as much code as Steve jobs who created the first trillion dollar tech company. Steve wasn't mentioning engineer, Steve couldn't write codes, no program wasn't here. So why that, so anything that you can't do can be hired and let that sink in. When I got out of college and I'm on the wrong side of 50 of all star Wars was the big movie, the original one. I mean, it was just life change was the most amazing thing. And I said, you know what? That's what I would do. Special effects, computer graphics and Holly, a couple, couple problems. One, I knew two, I didn't know how to do special effects. And three, I knew nothing, not computers. Other than that, my career was set. So how did I solve that as well? How do you get that job? How do you become that thing? And this was pre-internet. So I took out an ad and how I would report a trade magazine describing. The entry level position, basically that I would want to get as a job. No, I want somebody to work on this and I got an on time risk and that was data. The resumes told me two things. One, what type of job would I need to have to apply for this mythical job? What, what background? Where would I get my start? And to. All those people that sent a resume, obviously want to put out the door. So here were a list of companies that I knew were going to be having an opening. So by putting those together, you solve it. Um, in the book, I talk about a modern version of that, where a young man got out of college, wanting to go on advertising. It's real exciting to be like madman and have all this creativity. And he's sitting in a cubicle, like, you know, filling out mindless forums. I mean, he hates his job. So I noticed none of the big creative directors that run Omnicom and the other big agencies. No one's ever bought their names as keywords. So for $9, he bought the names of the five top guys and famous people, Google themselves to check if there's anything bad out there about them. And when they Googled themselves today, Hey, I want to work for you. Click here. Three of the five offered them jobs at five minutes, salary accelerate his career. 15 fold for the price of a maca Chino, um, that's disruption, it's going about solving things differently and you can train yourself to think that way there are exercises in the book, and there's a workbook to get you to think out of the same step one, step two, step three, and really, you know, accelerate both your thinking and your success. So I was, I was just involved in a LinkedIn thread yesterday where they're talking, we were, there was a conversation around, you know, hiring those smarter than yourself, surrounding your smell itself with people smarter than yourself. But specifically when you hire people with the intention of. Of getting them on board because they know more about whatever it is and you really think they're smarter and maybe all the areas, whatever it is. But the hard part is actually listening and, and, and, and giving up some of that control, especially the, the founders of these companies. And so I think it's a really hard thing. And then we had a really good conversation through that, but something that you're saying, I think about disruption and employees going to, you said, you said this in the beginning of this and that was employer or employees go into their leaders and, and, and try maybe sharing their ideas because. As you said, and I think it happens a lot. There's a lot of people that aren't necessarily happy with their jobs or think that they have really good ideas, how to make some positive change for a company. And I think that it depends on the company, but there are a lot of companies that, that whether it's the leadership or whatever, they just are open to listening to that. And so, um, first I would say to the company leader, That is, is hiring people in these, you know, for these specific reasons, because they know it better. They're more intelligent about these things. What, what would you say to that company leader? Maybe? I mean, this isn't necessarily just about disruption, but what would you say to that company? So there's a couple of things that you touched on. First of all, from the employee perspective. You have a choice in life of either working to make your dreams come true or working for somebody else to help them make their dreams come true. And I never understood the lag on you have one shot. Why not try that ticket? And, uh, that doesn't mean don't take jobs because each time you take, you're getting skills and knowledge to make you get further. But if you're in a job where you're no longer learning, then why are you there? Because you're not growing. And if you have great ideas and management, isn't listening and they're so obvious, and right then that company will go out of business. So the real question is, okay, don't be afraid of losing your job by sharing ideas, because if they're not moving forward now to the bosses at the other end, it's not a boss or an owner's job to understand the future. They feel that what they did led them to where they are. And it's your job to convince people living in the past house, see their future and embracing, flip it and see it, that it's your responsibility to get them to see that then the mindset and the onus of change switches. Uh, so with employees, one of the things that I've done, and again, I've run companies with hundreds of thousands of employees. And I've sat in the room more than once. Starting from day. One appears a new company and you know what? We'll sell it on a couple of years for a couple hundred million. But I always tell anybody that reports to me, I have two rules. The first rule was you don't work for me. I work for you. My job is to give you what you need to succeed at the job that you have. So, if you don't tell me what your need, whether it be something simple, like a computer or something, you know, complexity, it's gonna take 20 people to do this. No, you have to tell me that. And the second is if you work for me for a year and you do not make any mistakes, I will quit. And I'm adamant about that because if you're trying something new, new is about not knowing everything. And the only way you learn is by trying and failing. Is part of the process. You have to figure out what doesn't work, and if you're afraid to make a mistake. And so many of big companies get this momentum of a dinosaur, that's just moving slowly that people are so free to be noticed or losing their jobs, that they don't try anything new. And there's your opportunity. I figures out he has a, for him to go to work forever and the world is too dynamic. So I love, I love that. Um, what you said, um, if you don't, you know, there's a couple of those two things you mentioned, but if you don't make mistakes, I'll fire you. I, I agree with that mentality. Um, like it matters. Um, but, um, just, uh, being open and willing to take some risks. Um, how do you grow if you're not taking that risk? Um, I've even heard one of my favorite things that I heard. Um, so many talk about one time having had the opportunity to do it, but they would, they would hand over somebody, uh, when, when they were onboarding somebody up, just if they were, as they were hired, they would hand them the resignation letter. And in that resignation was 90 days severance and they would be, so the idea just being, here's your resignation letter. If you're not committed here, you know, here's several hundred that, or however much money. This, this is. Um, here's a here's 90 day severance and you got three months to go find something else. If you want it, you know, do you really want this job? If you really want it take risks, um, make mistakes because those make those mistakes. We all know, um, create learning opportunities for us to grow. So, um, I love, I love what you're saying there too. Okay. So Jay, you have another book coming out future-proofing you? I know I will maybe not be at the line anymore. There there's that book. I love it. I like to cover, I li I like the colors and the clean design of that. Yeah. Yeah, no, they did a great job. Yeah. It's hard to see, but it's all the failed technologies, you know, being the cassette, the VHS. Uh, you know, um, and you know, how do you end up with the company? How do you end up with a career that doesn't become obsolete? Right. And so what, what the Genesis of the book, which I talked about earlier was you get a lot of fan mail disrupt you it's. Proven process now, but it's made a ton of millionaires, made many, many people successful and I'm not selling anything. There's no selfish. They don't write a book to make money or read a book to help people. But there were some people that said, this is silly for motivational, but I could never do it. And I'm like, why do you believe you can't do it? Why, why do you fix mindset? How do I get you out? So in future proofing you, I synthesized everything I could about how the world's changed post pandemic. Down to 12 truths and you followed these 12 truths, your business will succeed. And to prove it, I took this young kid who had no network, had no entrepreneurs in his family. Nope. Nope. Nobody would experience it. Grew up on welfare. I gave him no money. I didn't tell him what business start and I didn't introduce him to anybody. So complete level, starting point and within 11 months of working, it took them less than a year. There's a secret in the book. As you turn through it, you want to know how he's doing. Um, he made his first million dollars with no capital, no connections, and that everybody already is doing, but. Started putting the process to work. He figured out how to flip the switch. And like I said, my first 30 days, he had$70,000 in his pocket. He'd never seen that kind of money. He was out of his mind and, uh, you know, it w and that was, you know, the worst month of the year to be able to hit a million dollars. So it was really phenomenal journey. And. Here's some of the opportunities and I'll just touch on. It should be obvious to people right now. Your biggest companies now told their employees they can work from home, Microsoft, Twitter, you know, uh, Morgan Stanley, you name her poop. And what that really means this for decades. We've been having this virtual company concept. Where people can live anywhere. I worked anywhere. All people are at the same company. So what that means to you when you're a startup business is you don't have to rely on them. Yes. People in Joplin, you don't have to rely on the best people, 20 miles from where your office is. You can hire the best people in the world. And in other markets, they may be a fraction of what it costs to hire somebody in the U S or in a big city. Yup. So suddenly you can have the most dynamic company. You can also run that company from anywhere. So I'm from the generation where people worked and worked and worked and then magically 65 and retired, traveled the world and they die. Um, uh, 300,000 people. Um, mandatory retirement for partners is 60. Life expectancy is 66 for anybody who was a partner. They know this from a hundred years of being in business. That doesn't sound like a good model where today I'm seeing so many, um, young people that are traveling and working from anywhere. So why not work this month in Thailand? Wow. You're saying job you're setting company. You can just be down in Costa Rica and doing emails, staring at a screen. You can do that from anywhere. So. There are so many tools that are free to allow you to run and manage a virtual company. So I really want to outline those good people that, that, that had started. And I also believe in, as I said, data, and here's what the data shows, uh, people that work from home actually work harder, work more hours, have a 40% raise in productivity and actually cost you less. So why wouldn't you do that? Right. Yeah. Um, so we talk about like this virtual world and something that we, we talk about. One of the white papers that we wrote recently and pushed out was just like, just similar to what you're talking about. Like, because of COVID what it does, what it did for a lot of industries, it was just kind of. Um, it kind of propelled the obvious, like it just expedited, you know, there were companies getting on board virtual meetings, but there's still a lot of companies that were and still are, but it opened the eyes. I think, especially when you're talking about maybe it's sales groups out, you know, in the world and you're talking about all these things, Oh, I've got to go to these sales meetings or I've got to have these face to face interactions. And really there was like, I think there was a lot of companies still scared to, to take things virtual. And I think what this has done is in one way specifically, it's opened the eyes to, Oh no, I can actually even develop a relationship with somebody just like, you know, I met you yesterday, Jay. I feel like I've known you my whole life, right? Like, well, probably cause I mean, You're the most resting man, what's that commercial dose eighties. Right? You like to just take his man, but like, I, you know, that that is something that's changed. Something else that you said Jay was that, um, and it, it really struck a cord. Um, you said something at the beginning, you're talking, you're talking about this digital change or, or you're talking about the virtual world because of this pandemic and how that's evolved or whatever. Um, so you were talking about disruption one. Well, the things that I, it just, just came to mind, but, um, So I worked for a, in one of the worlds I've lived and I worked for a software app and web development company. So I had an ad agency at one time. I had sold it to this company and they put me inside of this group with companies. And one of the companies they owned was a web app and software company. And like from day one, I was like, I'm not really sure how this model is working for you. They've got like, 40 employees out on the floor, they're all costing an arm and a leg. They're worried, they're worried about their overhead. They're always talking about the expenses and their profits, and they're just doing like, and I'm like, well, why don't you just cut that staff to zero? Like, I'm not understanding why we don't outsource keep the executives on, on, on board. And I pushed for this for about a year. I eventually then got luck, you know? Um, Well, I didn't get, let go. I left. I left the company, um, and, uh, my, I had a contract with him to stay on until a certain time. Anyway, I left, I started my own web app software company called Mork development. I recently just showed my shit, sold my share, but it's exactly what you're doing. And I'm going to tell you, this is, I know I'm not just saying this books like disrupt you or why I had the. The we're going to call it will, uh, to, to do something like that, to leave a job and do this on my own, because, and, and I remember thinking about, um, specifically disrupt you in this situation. And then I also like, so what we ended up doing was outsourcing all of it. We didn't take any of the clients, we didn't take anything, but we changed the model completely. And I sold my share. Jackie like two months ago, maybe, or a month ago, I think. And I'm completely out of that. Thank you for that. I will tell you that you definitely influenced that decision. And I think a lot of people. Back to your point of, of, if you're not happy as an employee, as an employee, or there is a way you can do it different than maybe it's time you explore what that means on how to do different. And if you're a leader, who's not allowing people to maybe do that. Maybe think about that a little bit differently. So what's your send some examples of it. I mean, the founder and creator, WhatsApp, he applied for a job at Facebook. He didn't get the job. He would have gladly given his idea to his boss at Facebook. It would have been Facebook's thing. Um, year and a half later, Zuckerberg writes them a check for billions and billions of dollars thinking, you know, a hundred wealthiest people on the planet, but it was ruined to get that idea away for a job. Um, Jack ma uh, uh, the founder of Apple, right, got turned down for working at Kentucky fried chicken. He became a multimillionaire almost to the billion dollars before he had, had bought his first PC and he business, most successful friend who had a three person company that sold for $2 billion. Let that sink in. That's not a fun part is the three employees were him, his mom and his dad. Hm. So it's the business model that you're creating. The other thing that I really in my travel working people that I fundamentally missed and disrupt you because I assume people understood how capitalism work is. Future-proofing you. I explained to people where money comes from too many people. Start a business. Thanks. Bye bye. You know, my vitamin C for $1 and I sell it for $2. That's how I make money. I take money from the other person and that's not where wealth comes from. Jeff Bezos became the wealthiest man in the world. Before you let that sink in, he didn't buy a $200 billion worth of stuff and sell for 400 billion. He lost money. He lost money till it became the richest man in the world. And it works like this. If I tell you I'm going to start a business and I will sell you 10% for a thousand dollars, that means my 90% is worth 9,000. So I just made $9,000 out of thin air like magic. And we go to the next round and the company is valued at. 40 million at 40 million. Isn't 40 million that came from somebody else. Companies are valued on their future potential. So you're bringing future profits into the present and into your pocket. I was CEO of a company that it's lifetime value as far as sales was $30,000. I'm sure everybody out there is working in a place that's no more than 30,000. I took over the company. 90 days later, I took it public for $600 million, same company, different story. Um, this is what a fundamental difference that people have to understand. We were taught with what's called, you know, zero sum game map. We were taught that there's five apples. I have two Johnny only has three. This puts this mindset that that's how the world works and it isn't. And so every 48 hours, there's a new self-made billionaire. Yeah. What are they doing? Most of the millionaires that I know didn't make a profit for the first million, they did something else. So, Jay, it seems like what you were saying is, is that our excuses are basically our own, um, quicksands, they're our own things that get us kind of stuck. And, but what you're telling us is that now all of us have access to that same shovel and we can start shoveling ourselves out. It's just thinking, how are we going to do it? Um, it's not your fault. Right. We're not taught how to think on our own. We're not taught how to do these things. The whole purpose of of school was to make people that have enough reading and writing to work in a factory. Okay. The IQ test was developed by the military to figure out who's cannon fodder and should be put out to be shot and who's brighten up to, to do something else. So no one was raising you to be successful. They're raising you to be a cognitive wheel. So I'm trying to show people basic. There's nothing in this book that you're going to read and go, wow, that's crazy. I, you know, that doesn't make sense. You're going to go. Oh, that's obvious. That's obvious. That's obvious. Okay. Now I see it. It just hasn't been explained and had to be seamless and having watching happen again and again, and again. And I've taken States and over a hundred startup companies hire all kinds of fields and works across all kinds of industries. And I I've helped giant multinational presence of work. Um, but it's all about the same process. So if you can learn to think that way you're never have a shortage of ideas. And one of the, one of the exercises that I have. Is I asked people to write down three problems a day for a month, three problems that you have in your life. Nothing could be easier than that because every problem is an opportunity. It's really that obstacle the solution to it is how you're going to make money. So you write down the first day, you know, you got traffic, you got this, you got that. You don't realize, but I think two or three, you literally don't have any more problems. They're still there. You just don't seem to put you think that's the way it is. And once you start having to scratch the surface of things, you don't know. I reader that says become a dear friend, woke up one morning, taking his medicine and phone rings. That's all. Wait, did I take my pill or didn't I, you don't have to. Well, if I did and I take them again, I could Odie. And if I didn't and I won't get better and you know, you realize, wait a second, this is a problem. So he took a. A 25 cent little watch. Like you would get on a happy meal, little kid's toy, put on a bottle cap, and every time you open it and resets it. So it was all I opened this eight hours ago. Obviously I didn't take my pill. Oh. I opened this three minutes ago, obviously became timer, cap, sold it to drug. So pharmaceutical companies went so far as to realize you could then make it where it could have Bluetooth. And then I can know whether grandma took her medicine or a doctor could. Allow when you can open and when you can't help one opioid or taking a overdosing on drugs. So a simple momentary problem, the traffic problems, three kids in Tokyo. I mean, in Televiv the, in traffic and it dawned on the phone company knows where I am. They tell me to go left and they have the credit go. Right? There's no traffic. That was the joke. So wait, you sold appropriate billion dollars the first year with $0 in revenue. Wow. Yeah, huge. Did you just have to identify them? Right. You don't know how to solve it, right. Can hire those people. Yeah. I love it. I love your idea. Uh, writing three problems a day, I do three goals a day. I'm going to add three problems a day two, that I've done the three goal thing several years now. What are the three things I need to get done today? I got to get them done today because we all get thrown, but I'm going to add the three problems a day to that. The most successful companies out there are solving problems. That's why they're so successful. And here's the second part of it. At the end of the month, you'll have 90 ideas. And you need to start them on two axes. One is what affects the most people. When I teach the class at the university level, every semester, there's a student, that's going to have a business to deliver food to the dorms. I'm like really, how many people were in the dorms? Addressable market is this big, right? Does it make sense? So you want a big addressable market. That's one aspect, you know, you know, Everybody needs this when our millions of people need this solution. The second more important ACCE is what are you passionate about? The purpose is to live a life purpose. So unless you really believe in the mission, if the mission is just making money, yeah. Maybe you'll make money once or twice, but it really won't give you satisfaction for anybody. That's made it this far into this wonderful episode. I have a gift for you. I have a 40 page workbook that's free. So you can start working on yourself, working on disruption, working on your insights to build a better life for you and your family. You just have to go to my website, Jay samit.com, J a Y S M I t.com and click the link and we'll send you the workbook so that you can, uh, start your future today, not tomorrow. Awesome. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Um, you know, I will say, um, I know that our audience has learned a lot. Um, I think, uh, most audiences do when you're, when you're, when you're speaking, especially, um, I loved, I love the passion you have for helping others. Um, you can feel it, you exude it. Um, And so I really have a great admiration and appreciation for, for that. Um, I know the audience here has, has, has learned a ton from you honored to have you on, um, thanks for your writings. Uh, I just, you know, just really appreciate you coming on today. Looking forward to the new book, future-proofing you? Um, when it that's launched, so you can order now on Amazon. It helps me, if you pre-order only give us, it gives a better ranking in their algorithms as opposed to it. Um, but yeah, it comes out in first quarter of 21 and you know, really it's a unique book. It's, it's, you know, there's a million books out there that claim, you know, get rich, quick schemes and all that stuff I have yet to see one that you know, where somebody put the reputation. So the test, right. Um, you know, took somebody at random and we would work on it and, uh, you know, hopefully that's, that's the proof to get anybody over that, that fear. That is, that is good. I think that for us, it is, we constantly have heard that you try to avoid fear. Don't be afraid that the way that you just put it is, is that it's actually our ally and we should embrace it. And embracing it it'll actually take us further. So that's super exciting. Let me talk about fear for a second. It's one of the topics in future proofing you that I didn't address in the earlier book, fear holds most people back. People are afraid of making mistakes, all kinds of fears, but what people don't realize is that person across the table, the person you're trying to sell to the person, you're trying to recruit, raise money from whatever they have fears too. And if you can learn. What fears motivate others in different situations. You can use those to your advantage in your success. So fear is actually a tremendous tool and being successful and people don't understand. So yeah, I think we don't understand it because we've been told, I mean, you can speak into this, but we've been told most of our lives, you know, don't fear because fear is what stifles you. It. Puts you kind of like in that, uh, semen place where you don't move forward, but what you're saying is this actually, we could use that. Yeah. The only reason you exist is because your great, great, great, great, great, great grand caveman father was afraid of saber tooth tigers next to him. Wasn't afraid and he did make it. So every one of your ancestors was afraid. That's why they survived. Yours is part of our lizard brain. It's in the center core of our brain. It's the flight or fight response. And so if you can activate that in a sales situation, people will respond to it. I'll give you a concrete example, going back a decade ago, as hard as it is to imagine nobody in politics believe social media made a difference. This was, uh, uh, I was running for president and, you know, tons of people on Facebook, but everybody was spending all their money on television campaign. Managers were all in their sixties and seventies and, you know, social media didn't exist. So not a dollar was being spent. And I had a, a digital agency I'm like, wait a second, 2 billion on this election cycle. I want my piece of that. And I realized that spending Republicans, Democrats numbers tend to get the money. So I booked up travel plans to tell the story quickly, to meet with the campaign managers of the four leading candidates, uh, one Democrat, three Republicans, and I let them meet, you know, my schedule. I had to meet them in the state because I was such and such city on the other dates, meaning I'm going to meet their competition. And in that situation, suddenly the campaign manager has to do with strategic thought. If the other guys use social media and it turns out it's important. And I didn't, I lose my job. I may never get to work on another campaign. I'm now in the fear hall, what is this kid Jay talking about? And I did that to each of them thinking that the others were, and I ended up all four of them hired me. If you work on our campaign, you can work on anybody. Else's. I said, well, you don't say that to ABC or NBC. And so that's how I got. Both parties to hire, hire my company and that a year later, because of that growth that it gave our company, I sold the company to NewsCorp and Soper $200 million. Uh wasn't yeah. I, um, I think oftentimes like Jackie said in, like, everything you're saying right now is I think we definitely have to listen to our fear. We have to be in tune with our own theory of we're trying to build something or grow something, be in tune with other fears and what motivates them as well. Um, I, and I guess I need to think my great, great, great, great grandkids, or being afraid of the saber tooth tiger. Cause then I wouldn't be here. So I love that analogy as well. And let me do the positive correlary, which I also books. The best way to solve for you is to solve for others. Your success comes from making other people's success. You're happy other people have, you know, out of thinking about yourself, the more have the more man. I love it. I love it. And I think it's something hopefully most people learn as they get older is just. Just being less selfless and, um, yeah, I think, I think that's a great point. So I know you're a busy man. We so appreciate you coming on the show, Jay and sharing all of your, your, your wisdom on these topics. Um, and so, yeah. Um, you know, look, uh, good luck with the book. I know it's going to do great. Um, any of the engagements you have there it is, again, pre-order. Oh, I'm going to go pre-order so you see, definitely. Now you have two more games for your pre-order. So, so the reason why pre-orders, I mean, really our whole lives are run by algorithms. You know, you don't pick what you're watching on Netflix. They're suggesting, you know, you don't pick what you're clicking through. Well, books work the same way. If Amazon sees a bunch of pre-orders, then they promote it more in their outward. It's fun. You know, people to put this book out, they really did. They just tell you that. Um, and so the earlier I can get those in the more, and then all those count in your first week sales and to be the number one selling book in the U S you only need to sell about 6,000 copies. Oh, wow. That's not that many, so, so, but you have to do those all by them the first week. So anyway, appreciate the help. We shouldn't just spreading the word and, uh, hopefully I can, uh, help people achieve, um, and shorten the journey to their success. I know you can. I know you can, sir. Thanks for being on and we'll talk to you soon.