"Hey Claude, How Do I Start My Business?"

Have you got an idea sitting in your Notes app right now, something you've been meaning to "get to" for months? Maybe years? 

This conversation hits exactly where it hurts. 

Joe Downs and Peter Swain get into why waiting isn't free… it's costing you real money, real time, and real regret …and how AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT can help you figure out your first step, validate your idea for nearly zero dollars, and even build a virtual board of advisors to replace the people in your life who will definitely try to talk you out of it. 

Peter drops a prompt so good you'll pause the episode to try it, the "Jimmy prompt", that simulates a debate between Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, and Gandhi to find your zero-risk starting move. 

This episode is for the entrepreneur-in-waiting who just needs someone to say: the first step is cheaper than you think.

Listen For:

03:59 How can you use AI to actually quantify the dollar cost of sitting on your idea?

10:29 What are the two financial levers every potential side hustle needs to pull before launch?

13:20 How do you validate a business idea for near-zero dollars — like the smoothie test?

28:45 Can AI replace the fear that's keeping you off the couch and into your first step?

44:40 What is the exact AI prompt that assembles a debate team of legends to find your zero-risk first move?

Links Mentioned

Peter's Free AI Business Audit | Storagemoguls.ai | Claude | ChatGPT

Email the “Idiots” Joe and Peter

idiots@successfulidiots.com 

Joe Downs

Website | LinkedIn | YouTube | Email Joe:joe@belroseam.com 

Peter Swain

Website | Email | LinkedIn | X

Transcript

Peter Swain (00:00):

And there is nothing worse than sitting watching somebody else make money from the idea that you had. Nothing. I don't know of anything that hurts more than watching it and going, "Wow, I had that idea

Joe Downs (00:18):

There is a concept in Japanese manufacturing, Kaizen. It means continuous improvement through small steps. Toyota built their entire production system around it. Not giant leaps, not revolutionary breakthroughs, just on small deliberate improvement every single day. And the thing about Kaizen is it doesn't start with a plan. It starts with a single question. What is the one thing I can improve right now? That's it. One question, one step, then the next. And then Barbara Corcoran, the original shark and Shark Tang, she built a billion dollar real estate empire from a thousand dollar loan and she was quoted as saying, "The worst thing you can do is live with regret about what you never went for. " Going for it takes courage, but it doesn't start with courage. It starts with knowing what step one actually is. And today we're going to figure that out using AI.

(01:18):

I'm Joe Downs, with me is Peter Swain. We're just a couple of successful idiots using AI to simplify our lives and optimize our businesses. Peter, good morning, good afternoon to you. True or false? In Britain, I'll have a look at that. Is the polite way of saying it's never getting done, which is also the British version of AI automation. How do you feel about that?

Peter Swain (01:48):

Well, I'll take the AI automation piece out of the equation, but I'll have a look at that is definitely a way of saying, "Never going to happen me.

Joe Downs (01:55):

" I need to adopt that because I don't know what I'm saying to people to communicate. I'm never doing that, but I'm pretty sure when I say it, my face has subtitles.

Peter Swain (02:05):

I think one of my favorites, by the way, is my favorite Americanism is I hope you get everything you deserve.

Joe Downs (02:13):

Ooh, that cuts both ways.

Peter Swain (02:15):

When I say it, people go, "Thank you. I really appreciate that. " I'm like,

Joe Downs (02:17):

"Don't worry

Peter Swain (02:18):

About

Joe Downs (02:19):

It. " That's not how I heard it. All right. Today, why waiting costs more than you think, what your actual first step is and how AI figures that out for you and how to stay moving after you take it. So let's get into it. So here's the impetus of this, Peter. Mel Robbins posted something this week. She's someone I follow. She's a number one New York Times bestselling author, by the way. She's not just someone I follow. She's kind of someone

Peter Swain (02:54):

You want

Joe Downs (02:54):

To follow.

Peter Swain (02:54):

Do we think she needs an introduction at this point from you?

Joe Downs (02:58):

Well, I don't know. Casey, you don't know who she is. So she featured Barbara Corker original, obviously original one, Shark on Shark Tank. And the line that got me was this, "The most costly thing you can do with your life is wait." And Barbara says, "The worst thing is living with regret about what you never went for. " Now, Peter, I suspect that was not an issue for you. I'll be honest, I've been in that spot. I know what it's like to have an idea that you're not pulling the trigger on. And I have, I don't know, 25 of them in queue right now and I just don't have time, so it's not my current issue. But Peter, before we get to the how, tell me what does AI reveal about what that weighting actually costs? In other words, how can you use AI to, I don't know if it's quantify, I guess quantify what that actually costs because I think it's definitely quantified because I think the number is bigger than most people let themselves see.

Peter Swain (03:59):

100%. Well, the first thing I'd ask is if people are ... Well, if people listen to this, for the person, for you that is listening to this, if we prove to you in the next 20, 30 minutes that A, it's costing you a ton and B, it's easy than you think I want you to commit to yourself right now that you're actually going to take the first step. So that's my deal with people of, do it. Take the first step, go forward, take action. Because Joe, you say, I guess that isn't a problem for me. It's not now, but in the early 2000s, I wrote a business plan for something called Grab Me Some Grub and it was going to be an app that you could use to order food from local restaurants.

Joe Downs (04:42):

I have a better name. DoorDash.

Peter Swain (04:45):

DoorDash. They got the name better, but I had the idea a decade before that came to market. 140 or less was a social network where you could post in 140 characters or les. Sound familiar? There's dozens of these when I was like, "Oh, that'd be a great idea." And then this happens or life happens or you don't know what to do next. And it just sits on this quagmire of regret is the absolute best word. People very rarely on their deathbed, they regret two things. They regret the time they spend at work, not with their loved ones, number one and number two, the things they didn't do. Very few people regret the things they did do. So how does this AI help? It really is as simple, I think, as again, having that thought partner, having that conversation of like, I was thinking about doing X.

(05:43):

What is the best case scenario and the worst case scenario of doing it? So let's take an example. I want to open a sandwich shop in Tulsa.

(05:56):

What's the best and worst case scenario? Well, you're very quickly going to get to the opinion that if you buy something that already exists, you can do it through an SBA loan. So you're going to negate 90% of the purchase price of this thing that's going to go on a loan on the business and you're probably going to, in the worst case scenario, lose a year of your life on an idea that didn't work. That's probably your worst case scenario, a company debt and a year of your life. What's your best case scenario? Your best case scenario is a multimillion dollar business, freedom, independence. And more important, I think, than any of the money is the validation of that you are a real person. Now I'm saying this deliberately to people that aren't entrepreneurs but are entrepreneurial in spirit because Joe, you and I know every single day whether we did good or bad.

(06:58):

The one thing about being an entrepreneur is you get the most visceral, beautiful, painful, awesome feedback every single day as to what your value is in the world. And I wouldn't rob anyone from that discovery.

Joe Downs (07:21):

So I couldn't agree more with you. What is an exercise with, this sounds like a claud exercise, but I'm sure you could do it with AI app of choice, right? ChatGPT, Gemini, whatever. What you said was great, but it was a little bit, a little quantitative, a lot of qualitative and both matter. I'm not trying to diminish one or the other here. How could I converse with AI to tease out more of the quantitative, the financial aspect of it? What are some directions I could head with it if I want to have this? Because I'm trying to think of the person sitting on the fence who's maybe got the idea but hasn't fully fleshed it out or they have, but they don't know how to take that first step, which is what this episode's about. But the first thing I want to tease out of you is some advice on how to ... If I knew, for instance, where I guess what I'm trying to ... I'm fumbling to get to is if I knew how to quantify dollars, the opportunity I'm letting squander away-

Peter Swain (08:37):

Okay. ...

Joe Downs (08:38):

That would get me off the couch.

Peter Swain (08:41):

Let me just turn this around. I would hypothesize that the dollar value of the investment to find out your idea is near zero dollars, near zero. Let's take my business. So we started in January 2023 and it started by me creating a webinar on Zoom and then I SMSed, I messaged, Facebook messaged and WhatsApp messaged 680 people. I sat for three days at a table in a friend of mine in Canada and I sent the same message to 680 people that was, "Hey, Joe, I'm starting this thing. It would be meaningful for me if you could come check it out. It's going to be $79 a month, but for the first month it'd be $29 just so you can find out.

Joe Downs (09:37):

" Had you already worked out if you were successful in those 68, you didn't know what that would mean from a quantitative, from a dollar?

Peter Swain (09:47):

My quantitative answer was I was going to sit at that table until a hundred people said yes.

Joe Downs (09:54):

But you didn't know what that meant to you dollar wise?

Peter Swain (09:56):

Well, a hundred people saying yes, at $79 a month was $8,000 a month, which is $96,000 a year and I had in my head that half of that money would go to a VA and half of that money would stay to me.

Joe Downs (10:09):

Okay. So you did.

Peter Swain (10:11):

But my point is we've got two levers that we can pull here. The first lever is-

Joe Downs (10:15):

There's a Canadian, by the way, so you have to discount that.

Peter Swain (10:18):

No, no, it was US dollars, but I did it in Canada, it was US doc. But yeah, I mean, we don't want to talk about Canadian currency, right? That'd be horribly divided.

Joe Downs (10:26):

I'm just taking shots. Just taking shots of that producer. Go ahead.

Peter Swain (10:29):

So these two levers that we can pull, lever number one is how much revenue is on the other side of it. Lever number two that we can pull is how much is it going to cost me to invest? So have you got Innocent Smoothies over in the US?

Joe Downs (10:47):

No.

Peter Swain (10:48):

Okay. So it's the largest smoothie brand in the UK. Here's how they launch.

Joe Downs (10:53):

We've got Smoothie King.

Peter Swain (10:55):

Same kind of thing, but for a much smaller market and obviously a much better market. But anyway, this is just a shots conversation today, but here's what they did. They made a batch of their smoothie. They went to dance festivals. They gave people a cup and said, "Would you like some of our smoothie?" And then they had two bins, big, big trash cans. Trash can number one said, "Please make this product." Trash can number two said, "I hated your

Joe Downs (11:27):

Smoothie." That's pretty good.

Peter Swain (11:30):

The net cost was a couple of hundred dollars worth of fruit and a blender. If somebody wants to create a sandwich shop in Tulsa, we'll take to the streets with some of your sandwiches, see if people actually want what you have to offer or if your idea is half baked because I firmly believe this to be true. In 2026, a million dollar business is not hard. It's not secret sauce. There's no magic bullet. You don't need a great idea. You don't even need a great product. You just need to consistently, as we spoke in the last episode of our six block in New York, you've just got to consistently do the work. A million dollars 20 years ago is a lot of money and we consistently, when we envisage money, we consistently use our framing from our childhood. A million dollars sounds like a lot.

(12:22):

A million dollars today is not a lot of money. It's $3,000 a day. $3,000 a day, you're a million dollar business. So yes, we can quantify what the potential opportunity is on the other side, but in truth, the potential opportunity of any idea is at least a million dollars. I would rather say to people, what does it really cost you to go and validate whether that idea is good or not?

Joe Downs (12:50):

Yeah. Well, both are important. Obviously, there's a relationship, there's a pull and push with each of those. I guess where I was coming from, and you're so right and I actually think the smoothie idea was brilliant. I'm thinking about the person that just can't take the first step, and maybe

Peter Swain (13:16):

I

Joe Downs (13:16):

Shouldn't. Maybe that person's just not an entrepreneur. I don't know.

Peter Swain (13:20):

No, but if the first step to the sandwich shop, sorry to interrupt, but if the first step of the sandwich shop is take a loan and da, da, da, da, da, I don't blame them for not taking the first step because there's risk. What I'm saying is, what if it's risk free? What if your risk is that you look like a freaking idiot because you're standing on a corner with sandwiches and if you're not comfortable with looking like a fricking idiot, definitely do not run your own business.

Joe Downs (13:45):

All right. So you're taking a preemptive step, which is validation first. Hey,

Peter Swain (13:49):

It's just leaving- How many rooms were you in looking at in the storage space going, we're telling the wrong thing to these people, it's the wrong message to the wrong people. When you came to me, it was not quantitatively validated, but qualitatively validated. You're like, "I've sat in these rooms, Pete, and there's thousands of people not being served by the content that's being pushed. So I want to help the mom and pop, the brother, the brother-in-law get their first facility, not 50, not 100, not 200. How do they get their first facility?" And that's why you did the webinar and people say yes.

Joe Downs (14:38):

Yeah, I totally see what you're saying now and I totally agree with you. And you're right. I stood in those rooms and I spoke on those stages and what's funny was for me, it was unintentional. I was just a participant observing participating but observing. And you're right, that was my smoothie test, but it was on someone else's dime because it wasn't my show. It wasn't my production. It wasn't my risk. 100%. I was actually paid to be there.

Peter Swain (15:13):

But even if you'd just been an attendee, what was your risk? 10 days of your time and $12,000 of flights. There's so many people. So do you know EasyJet? It's our low cost airline, like South by Southwest, Southwest Airlines, same kind of thing. Yeah, sure. They're big orange tails. So the guy that set it up is a Greek guy and his dad is a huge shipping magnate and he went to his dad and said, "Daddy, daddy, can I borrow $200 million to buy some planes?" And daddy said, "Sure, of course you can. " And he went, "Great." And he went, "So next week you're working in the furnace room on this ship. The week after you're taking this job on this ship and if you spend the next 52 weeks in my shipping business getting an apprenticeship to how every single part of the business runs, I'll lend you 200 million for the planes." He went to his brother incensed of like, "Dad's got billions and let me just tell me, let's talk about Ridgemont's problem, right?

(16:23):

But how dare he put..." And his brother turned around and said something and he talks about it in his biography that changed his mindset. He's like, "I want to start the airline. The time is now." And his brother said, "You are starting the airline. You start the airline by working in the furnace room." He's like, "100%." And he did the year and built one of the most profitable businesses in Europe as a result.

(16:50):

That's my point to everybody of like, you might be saying, "Yeah, but I want to open the sandwich shop." No, standing on the street corner with the sandwiches is opening the sandwich shop. That is the first step. The first step of validating that this idea is worthwhile and learning the lessons for free as to which flavors are going to work or which meats are going to work or which bread people like or which they don't like can be learned very, very cheaply. And then later in your life, once you've become accomplished to some degree as an entrepreneur, then you can start trading money instead of trading time. You can start placing $100,000 bets instead of placing time bets. But at the beginning, if you're in the job, just find a way to validate that the core of the idea is good because if you've got the passion and the core of the idea is good, you will have a million dollar business if you want it.

Joe Downs (17:44):

So you're blowing up my episode here because that's actually really my second segment here is ... It's

(17:53):

All good. And the way I couched it was what's the first foot forward? So I was trying to tease out either the quantitative, the dollars and there's an AI prompt for that and you just kind of gave the recipe. It's pretty simple to calculate, folks. If you're sitting in a nine to five job and you're running what the cost of not starting is, well take whatever you're making, multiply that out by the next 10 years, 20 years, whatever it is, and compare that to what you could make. Not to mention the most important thing is do you get your life back so you can sign with your family and friends, whatever?

Peter Swain (18:33):

Oh, but there's so many layers to this. The amount of people that have got money sitting in a Bank of America insert blank here, CD at 4.2% when inflation is above 4.2%. You're not saving money, you're losing money every month. The cost of inaction is all around us and the worst thing that can happen to this sandwich shop in Tulsa is that somebody else will open up the sandwich shop in Tulsa. We have this horrible propensity, I believe, to use the word if instead of the word when. I've heard people say sensors like, "If I die." What do you mean if you die? It's a when. When I die, when the dog dies, when my business goes bankrupt, all these things are when statements, they're not if statements. And when somebody does the exact idea I have is a when statement, not an if statement, and there is nothing worse than sitting watching somebody else make money from the idea that you had.

(19:38):

Nothing. I don't know of anything that hurts more than watching it and going, "Wow, I had that

Joe Downs (19:46):

Idea." You're saying some things that are, believed it or not, deeper than I think most people realize. And that's not even so much about watching the other idea because I'm sure you've had ... Well, you've already said you've had multiple ideas. I've had multiple ideas that I've watched happen because of the timing or because I didn't take the step or because I didn't know how to, but you had the idea, right? But what I think the most important thing you said was, "What's the worst thing that can happen?" And I think most people sitting, listening would say, "Well, I lose my money." And that sounds awful, but being someone, and I know I'm looking at someone who's also lost everything or lost almost everything I've also gone through that. It's not the worst thing that can happen. In fact, you could argue it's a pretty good thing.

(20:40):

It's one hell of an education and it's an education that's deeply personal. A lot of kids go to college, some learn a lot, some learn some things, most learn nothing, and most learn nothing that prepares them for anything. There is no better education than running a business and failing, especially if you're reflective upon why you fail. I know I've failed. I know I have lost everything more than I've lost more than I had technically. That was so long ago I don't remember vividly what it feels like as deeply probably depressed and I don't want to use the word depressed lightly because there's people that suffer from that. So for me, relative to me, I was down in the dumps, let's say. I don't remember that feeling anymore, but I do remember everything I learned.

Peter Swain (21:49):

100%. Yeah. I think you know that we had our dog pass away last week and I was talking to my daughter and I was trying to hopefully impress upon her that love and loss are interconnected beasts. You can't have love without loss, but relevant to our conversation here, you can't have victory without failure. This is why I said to people, "I really want people to take action because ... " And I'm not standing in judgment, I'm not even standing in assessment, it's just my opinion. But if you haven't worked for yourself, you haven't had a victory in work in business. When you got the great promotion for somebody else or you delivered the record breaking Q2 for somebody else, or you cut costs by 25% for somebody else, that was a fleeting moment of you go get them with an office party with a piece of cake.

(22:53):

The feeling when you win with your idea where you've backed yourself is it's up there with a perfectly flighted golf drive. It is a thing of beauty, but you can't have that if you haven't taken the risk. And my point to everybody is the risk of validation of the idea is next to noth. If you just see it as the beginning, the first step

Joe Downs (23:25):

And you're so right and that was the second segment here, which is what is that first step? And literally the way I catch it was, did the left foot go first or the right foot go first? And it probably depends on what you're doing. I mean, going back to your smoothie example, I mean, you're right, what did it cost them? A day at a fair, or is that where you said it was and a county fair or something?

Peter Swain (23:49):

Yeah, it was a country fair, like a festival, like a dance festival.

Joe Downs (23:53):

And a couple hundred dollars worth of fruit, right?

Peter Swain (23:56):

Yep.

Joe Downs (23:57):

And the real risk, the human risk is the, I hated your smoothie trash gang going to fill up before turn this into a business trashcan, or whatever labels were.

Peter Swain (24:12):

Yeah. Virgin Airlines was he hired, he was standing in a line for a British Airways flight that got canceled and he charted a private jet and wrote flights at this and walked with a placard down the line. So he took an $18,000 risk, which is a bigger risk than we're talking about, but the airline game is a much bigger game. He took an $18,000 risk, people filled the plane, he launched Virgin.

Joe Downs (24:42):

He took a measurable risk, a relative risk to where he was in life.

Peter Swain (24:47):

Yeah. And either way, he got himself a flight.

Joe Downs (24:50):

I'm taking that risk right now with storage moguls. Yeah. I'm investing in that. It's a risk that I'm taking. But to your point, I did the smoothie validation unwittingly, I might add. I was not even why I was doing what I was doing. I was speaking on stages for other reasons. I did have reasons for being there, some of which were personal, which I like to give back, but I was there to create relationships to hopefully be able to wholesale deals to more and more students that came out of there. When I started doing what I was doing, speaking about storage, I had no intention of launching storage muggles. It was a byproduct of just observing, looking at what's going on and how the industry had shifted and how times had shifted and who the audience was in the room was different than I think the original intended audience.

Peter Swain (25:51):

Yeah, but you put yourself in play. I did. And this is my point to people of sitting in your lounge watching real housewives saying, "Oh, I really think that there should be a sandwich shop there is not putting yourself in play." Whatever that looks like, whether it's leaflets in local houses like, or whether it's interviewing the sandwich shop guy or asking whether you can work for people for free for three months to learn the industry on a Saturday or putting yourself in motion and momentum is the most important part of the equation. You need to seek data or dollars in every interaction.

Joe Downs (26:41):

So as we're talking here in this structured episode that I had here is completely off the rails, but I love where it's going. I'm wondering is ... So we talked about the financial piece, which is put yourself out there, do the smoothie test. In my case, just pay attention to whatever you're doing, put yourself in play doing something tangential to what you like and see what happens. But I suspect that taking that first step comes down to the fear of failure or worse and I say worse because I mean this, the fear that others will judge you because I think that keeps a lot of people on the couch watching Real Housewives or whatever.

Peter Swain (27:33):

A hundred percent agree.

Joe Downs (27:36):

And you can't see it, but on my wall is, and that's why I turn back to it to look at the opening line, but it's the quote by Teddy Roosevelt, the man in the arena. It's not the critic who counts. And I think that that's a major fear that holds people back and it's a silly one really at the end of the day. And Peter, I did not expect to be asking you this, but I'm going to. How can AI help me get over that fear? If we tie this back to AI, this goes back more to the human prompt of AI and how does AI help me as a person?

Peter Swain (28:21):

So I don't know how good my answer's going to be because it certainly works for me. So I think this will work for half the audience, but maybe not the other half. I don't know. So I've never worked out how to get over a fear, but what I have worked out how to do over the years is work out how to replace that fear with a bigger fear.

Joe Downs (28:44):

Okay.

Peter Swain (28:45):

So for example, every so often I will take a picture of cake or a cookie and send it to my AI and my AI will say sentences like, "I'm sure Olivia will be happy with her stepfather walking her down the

Joe Downs (29:07):

Aisle." Who's your AI, Groc?

Peter Swain (29:10):

No, I trained. So what I did was about a year ago, I sat down and I said, "I want you to find my biggest, deepest fears around my weight loss. I want you to find the things that are going to move me to action in the darkest of days. This is going to be incredibly..." I remember the prompt. "This is going to be incredibly painful. Remove your kids' gloves. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. If I'm not weeping by the time we finish this, you haven't succeeded. "And we went through this exercise of, and the on image for me would be that ... We're really going deep now, that I've passed away because I haven't looked after my health and I'm sitting in the church watching somebody else and Walk Olivia down the aisle.That moment to me would be the biggest betrayal of the thing I hold most dear in the world, which is how I show up as a father.

(30:10):

Of everything else, how I show up in business, how I show up for myself can go to hell in a hand basket in comparison to how I show up as a dad. So what I tried to do was link the food to how I show up as a father. Now what the AI then did was it said, you realize you're also teaching her. Every time you eat that food to validate that emotion, you're also teaching Olivia. So the problems that you're going through now, you are installing into her as an operating system. I'm like, oh, oh no, no, no, no. So can I avoid eating the cookie for myself? No, I wouldn't have got to 165 kilos if I had that capability. But can I avoid eating the cookie for Olivia? Yes, I can do that. That's a much more painful end state. Now, psychologists and coaches would tell you that my technique here is very good for starting somebody in motion.

(31:11):

Pain is a very good motivator to start somebody doing something, but it's a horrible motivator to get them to keep doing something. Pain moves us to action. Pleasure keeps us in action. So the fear of being judged and embarrassed, first of all, let's call it what it is. It's not an apparition, it's true. People are going to laugh at you, judge you, call you stupid, ask your wife, ask your husband, why are you with this joker that's doing this stupid thing? It's a certainty. And if you go on social media, it's going to 10x even worse. People are going to do it.

(31:48):

I like to think that it is purely jealousy, that they wish that they could stand up for themselves and do their stupid thing as well. The worst thing the pac can see is somebody separating from the pack and the best thing that the pack can do is try and pull you back down to their level. So how can AI help? AI is the ultimate confessional. It doesn't care. It can't judge you. It's physically incapable of judging you. It doesn't have emotion and it doesn't have ego. So you can have some incredibly raw deep conversations and give it the ammunition that it needs to help you stay the course. That's what I would say.

Joe Downs (32:36):

You are 100% right in that it's the pack that is trying to hold you back. I've seen it, I've lived it. There are people that feel inferior and they don't want to see you doing something that might exceed whatever they're doing because they're very comfortable in their own little square in life, their own little quadrant.

Peter Swain (33:14):

It's why, Joe, I think the NFL is as big as it is because there is a position on an NFL team for every body size, everybody shape.You can be a kicker, God help you, or a QB, or a left guard, a right guard, a tackle, a corner. You could be six foot eight or five foot two and there is a position on an NFL pitch for you. And every single person I've met that's succeeded in the world of athletics, whatever it is, has not succeeded because they're a phenom. I've never met a Phelps or a Brady, like an utterly ridiculous individual, but the 99% of them that succeed succeed because they did the work. And we all know that we could be them.

Joe Downs (34:03):

Well, agree where I was going with what I was saying was, and this is in line with what you're saying, all of those people also in the NFL, let's say, they champion each other despite their position. So what I mean by that is if you're at a cocktail party and you're about to plan your smoothie day test at the country fair and you're telling this to your friends, families, coworkers, that's where you're going to get a lot of the negative feedback. You know who you're not going to get it from? The other entrepreneurs.

Peter Swain (34:49):

100%.

Joe Downs (34:51):

They're going to ask you questions. They're going to be curious. They're going to say, "Hey, that's an interesting idea. Have you thought about this? "

Peter Swain (34:59):

Do you need any help?

Joe Downs (35:00):

Do you need it? They're going to be your quiet or not quiet if they offer help. Cheerleader asking to check back in with you, giving you pointers. The ones who have stepped out and there's more of us out there than people think. They're the ones that are going to support you. And so there's an old saying, "Tend your garden," or better yet, I forget who says it, because you're the average of the five people you keep company with. And now, unfortunately, some of us don't get to choose those five people, so we have to make room for five other people because you might be related to them or you work with them or whatever. But you got to find five people that are entrepreneurial that think the way you think, that will encourage you to take that first step to do the smoothie country fair test.

(35:53):

Those are the people you want to surround yourself in life. I think, Peter, you can create them using AI, using a board if you don't have them. I'm not saying replace real life with a virtual reality. I'm just saying if you're stuck, if you're in a scenario where you don't have entrepreneurs surrounding you, encouraging you, giving you pointers, I think that is one of the benefits of AI, creating a board of advisors, putting Richard Branson on that board, putting anyone who stepped out and took a chance on the Barbara Corcoran, whoever, Damon John, any of the people we've talked about on the show, put them on your board, have them be your circle. I would rather see someone make go, no go decisions using a board of advisors of people they've never met before but have done it versus your coworkers, your family, your friends, whoever who are really at the end of the day, just exhibiting their own fears, their own unhappiness with their own life.

Peter Swain (37:06):

Of my relatives once offered me around the world cruise to quit my business.

Joe Downs (37:13):

They offered you what?

Peter Swain (37:14):

Around the world cruise.

Joe Downs (37:17):

I

Peter Swain (37:17):

Thought you said

Joe Downs (37:18):

Around the world cruise. Yeah,

Peter Swain (37:19):

Because it was on my bucket list of things to do at the time and I wanted to take around the world cruise and they said, "This thing is so unhealthy for you. You're not making enough money.You're not sleeping right. You're not doing this. I'll buy you that cruise if you quit." I was like, "Wow, thank you and F you.

Joe Downs (37:39):

" How was the cruise?

Peter Swain (37:47):

I don't do family holidays anymore, like family, like the Christmases or the Thanksgivings, et cetera, because there's 16 people that all work for somebody else and they just don't understand and they're the people that laughed at me on day one and now I have more financial prosperity than all of them put together. And I'm not saying that as like a bra or a boast or a flex, it's just they don't get it, but their tomorrow and their day after and their day after looks exactly the same as yesterday and the day before that and the day before that and I get to define my future and I wouldn't trade any amount of money to give up the freedom to be the person. When I leave this world, I want to know that I did it my way and I want to know whether I won or whether I succeeded or failed.

(38:40):

And as you said, that terrifies people because your action proves to them that they could do it too and it is easier to unfortunately to pull people down than it is to lift yourself out of the quagmire yourself. I think it was-

Joe Downs (39:00):

Go ahead.

Peter Swain (39:01):

I think it was Kobe that said this. It was a very famous athlete that said, "Oh, it's 50 cent." I just can't hang around with the people that I used to hang around with because they keep trying to bring me back to their level because I keep proving that it is possible and they don't want it proven that it is possible because that means they could do it too.

Joe Downs (39:25):

I don't think they understand. I was going to go here, but I don't think they have ... It's almost not their fault. It is, but it isn't because they've never bothered to either think about what life would be like if you weren't controlled by somebody else or they're too afraid or they're just too secure. What's the old saying about diaper full of shit? It's warm and it's comfortable and it's my shit. So I think there's a lot of people that live in that diaper full of shit life. It's not the best, but it's mine and I know what tomorrow brings and I can manage that. I think they live managed lives and for some people

Peter Swain (40:16):

That

Joe Downs (40:17):

Works, I guess.

Peter Swain (40:18):

And that's cool, but they're probably not listening to this podcast, so that's okay. Exactly. With everybody else, just take a half day holiday from your diaper full of shit and just try the thing in the least risk way to see what it feels like.

Joe Downs (40:36):

Well, I couldn't agree more, Peter. Well, and that's why you and I are here, obviously. Look, I think the reason most people don't start isn't ... Well, I don't know. You think it's fear of failure? I'm not even sure that's why.

Peter Swain (40:52):

No, it's judgment. It's judgment and I'm sure it's judgment. It's fear of judgment because everyone's going to look at you and think you've gone crazy and you have because you are not normal.

Joe Downs (41:05):

You know what it is? It is fear of failure, but it's the failure in others' eyes.

Peter Swain (41:11):

In front of other

Joe Downs (41:12):

People. Of the judgment. It's the judgment of the failure. That's a better way to

Peter Swain (41:16):

Say it. And the reason that podcasts like this and-

Joe Downs (41:19):

Who cares?

Peter Swain (41:20):

And people like Mel Robbins let them and people like Gary V. The reason we spend so much time talking about this is as soon as you go to school, you are indoctrinated. Literally you pledge allegiance. It's indoctrination. It's indoctrination. It's indoctrination. And when you get the job, you get the credit. When you get the credit, you get the house. The house builds debt, you get another job, they offer you more credit to get a bigger house, to get more debt, to get the next job, and you'll spend your entire life as a cog in the wheel.

Joe Downs (41:56):

Trying to keep up with the judgment.

Peter Swain (41:59):

Yeah. And instead of that, you can go, "You know what? Screw this. " And in the words of Richard Branson, screw it, let's do it.

Joe Downs (42:08):

Let's just- I lost the bar and restaurant. I failed. I went out of business over 20 years ago. Some people don't even remember that I owned it. They've forgotten. That's how much judgment is still around today. Imagine if I was afraid of that, I would've saved myself some money and not owning a bar, but I would do it again and again and again and again because what

Peter Swain (42:35):

I- A friend of mine, Joe, has a great phrase that I think you'll love. Prince, when Prince passed away, the musician, his sentence was, "Prince passing away only lasted one news cycle. Do you really think your shit is that important?"

Joe Downs (42:50):

There you go.

Peter Swain (42:51):

One of the greatest musicians of our time and within a day we've moved on to something else. I assure you, whoever you are listening to this, you're probably not that important.

Joe Downs (43:01):

I mean, look at the politicians anywhere, both sides of the aisle. They say stuff on video and act like it didn't happen.

Peter Swain (43:10):

What do you mean? Yeah. When did fact checking a politician become a thing?

Joe Downs (43:16):

I think that was taken out of context. No, you're on video. And they clearly have lost any sense of fearing judgment.

Peter Swain (43:26):

I don't think there's any idea too stupid. I don't think there's any market too small. I don't think there's anything that can't be risk reduced to the stage of immeasurably small risk. And I'm saying that to, so if somebody says, "Yeah, but my idea's stupid." Sure. Doesn't matter. Yeah, but my market's too small. Sure. Doesn't matter. You can have the most ridiculous products in the world or the smallest market in the world, and you can still do a million dollars.

Joe Downs (43:53):

Of course.

Peter Swain (43:53):

It's not hard.

Joe Downs (43:55):

I think you're so right.

Peter Swain (43:56):

It's only a battle internally.

Joe Downs (44:01):

Couldn't agree more. And look, I know the show is supposed to be mostly about AI, or it doesn't have to be mostly about AI, but it's an AI driven show. And I think this is the least we involved AI today, but it's really about entrepreneurs and it's how entrepreneurs use AI and I think that's okay. And we obviously covered how you can use AI to get started. Well, you want to give 30 seconds on what a great prompt would be if you're thinking about getting started or you could take it any part of the process you want, whether you want to go smoothie.

Peter Swain (44:40):

Yeah. I would go for I am planning thinking about launching a business in the space of X. Assemble a debate team and that debate team must include X, Y, Z people synthesize a debate amongst those people with the sole goal of finding a zero dollar, zero risk way for me to validate this idea. So let's go to the sandwich guy in Tulsa, right? Might say, "I'm thinking about setting up a sandwich shop in Tulsa. I want you to simulate a debate between Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Carnegie, Ford, Buddha, and Gandy. And I want an answer to the following question. How do I validate this idea with zero dollars or zero risk? Continue synthesizing the debate until all parties agree on the top three options.

Joe Downs (45:53):

That's brilliant. There you go, folks. You have your-

Peter Swain (45:56):

I call it the Jimmy prompt because AI ... Yeah, it came from ... I'll explain that later on. It's not really important. The idea behind it is AI can get locked into one mindset quite quickly. So if you ask it to synthesize the thought process of all of those type of different people, then you are forcing it to explore different avenues of thought. It's essentially like a board of advisors but wrapped into this idea. So they'll sit and debate it. It's a fascinating process to watch.

Joe Downs (46:26):

We're going to get selfish here for a second. So when I'm ideating with Claude, you just hit on something I didn't think of. Am I only getting Claude with one voice and should my instructions to Claude be ...

Peter Swain (46:46):

So AI is a probability machine.

(46:50):

So each word that it types is the most probable word that would be said next to the average of everybody. The problem is we don't want average. We want superlative. So if you ask it to adopt the mindset of Steve Jobs, you're going to get the average of Steve Jobs. If you ask it to adopt the mindset of Edon Musk, you're going to get the average of Edon Musk, which is better than the average of everyone. But if you ask it for it to debate amongst itself, because how Gandh would approach that business would obviously be very different from how Steve Jobs would approach that business to Ford, to Carnegie, to I've had people do this with religious figures. I don't want to say it because I don't want to upset some people, but they've asked, how would X start this? And it's fascinating watching the feedback of what would Buffett do versus Steve Jobs versus Carnegie because I've done this thing and Warren Buffett says, buy a share in each of the companies so you get their annual reports.

(48:03):

Buy on share in each of the companies so that you get their information, but that's not dumb. That's quite a smart idea. Steve Jobs is focused on the customer experience 110, 120, 150%. Somebody like Gandhi is the community aspect of it. How would you get a following around this before you went ahead? But then asking them all to agree on the top three is

Joe Downs (48:35):

Fine. I got to level up my game. That was a good one. Not for nothing. You British, I like how you talk and you make a lot of things sound smarter than they probably are.

Peter Swain (48:48):

Thank you very much.

Joe Downs (48:49):

However, I picked up on a problem. You guys make Gandhi sound like some guy Randy from South Philly when you call him Gandy.

Peter Swain (49:03):

Well, that

Joe Downs (49:04):

Was what he called himself. He totally deployed the Gandhi walks on air and when you call him Gandy, it's like my bookie or something.

Peter Swain (49:14):

Who said he wasn't? That's what I was referring to.

Joe Downs (49:18):

All right. That was a really good nugget there at the end. I didn't expect that. Appreciate it. Folks, if you're sitting there, I hope this episode spoke to you. I hope it spoke to a lot of you, whether you already have a business or you're just sitting on the sidelines looking to start one. The power of AI was incredible. And Peter just gave you about 19 different ways to use it subtly without saying, use it for this, use it for that. It was all in there. So I hope you take some action. I hope you at the very least start a board of advisors and get off the couch and stop watching, take the chance, take a risk, launch the idea or ideate with AI about ideas. You're probably going to have some bad ones. That's okay. The bad ones sometimes lead to great ones or they morph into great ones and you won't know unless you start ideating with AI, the AI of your choice.

(50:26):

And of course, once you get to that next step, if you need help, you can always join Peter's mastermind at peterswain.com. He's also an okay consultant if I do say so myself.

Peter Swain (50:41):

Thank you.

Joe Downs (50:42):

And that's a colloquial wisdom for saying, "You're pretty good." Thanks. Folks, like this episode, it costs you less than waiting and pays off faster. Subscribe because next week's episode is the one that's going to make you wish you started listening sooner. We hope that's what we strive for. Keep those emails coming too. Dear idiots, we appreciate them idiots@successfulidiots.com, idiots@successfulidiots.com. For Peter Swain, I'm Joe Downs. We are your successful idiots. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.