#111: Future Proof Yourself with Jay Samit

[00:00:00] Hala Taha: [00:00:00] You're listening to YAP young and profiting podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Hala Taha, and on young and profiting podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life.

No matter your age, profession, or industry, there's no fluff on this podcast and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests. By doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of ex FBI agents, real estate moguls self-made, billionaires CEOs,

and best-selling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity, how to gain, influence the art of entrepreneurship and more if you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button because you'll love it here at young [00:01:00] and profiting podcast. This week on YAP. We're chatting with Jay Samit.

Jay came on young and profiting podcast way back when on episode number 27. And now he's back for a second time to give us actionable insights and to talk about his new book Future Proofing You: Twelve Truths for Creating Opportunity, Maximizing Wealth, and Controlling your Destiny in an Uncertain World. Jay is a leading technology, innovator and serial entrepreneur.

He's known for pioneering advancements in music, video distribution, social media, and e-commerce. He's raised hundreds of millions of dollars for startups has advised fortune 500 firms has transformed entire industries, has revamped government institutions, and for three decades, he continues to be at the forefront of global technology trends.

He's led the creation of over 300 consumer software titles while developing technology for Microsoft, Apple, Intel, and IBM. He's even led the white house initiative for education and technology and [00:02:00] has created global charitable projects aired on NBC and MTV. On top of all of this, Jay Samit is the author of the best-selling book Disrupt You and his newest book

Future Proofing You recently came out in March of 2021. And this episode we'll be discussing how to succeed in a world where there are no longer gatekeepers to success. We'll also discuss the story of his mentee Vin Clancy, who is empowered through Jay's guidance to go from being on welfare, to becoming a self-made millionaire in just one year.

And lastly, we're going to cover Jay's Twelve truth for making a business or career future-proof as well as his visions for the future, including his thoughts on augmented reality and NFTs. Hey Jay, welcome back to young and profiting podcast.

Jay Samit: [00:02:47] Thanks for

having me fun to be here.

Hala Taha: [00:02:49] I am so excited. So for all of my listeners who are tuning in Jay was with us back during episode number 27.

That was almost two years ago. And [00:03:00] since then we've grown like 10 X and I've invited him back on the show because he's got a new book coming out. Episode 27, we covered Disrupt You. And now he's got Future Proofing You coming out. So really excited to dive into all of that. And I do want to introduce you to my listeners so that they understand who you are, because I think a lot of people aren't going to go back and listen to episode number 27.

You guys should, because it was a very popular episode. In fact, I replayed it as a yap classic because everybody liked it so much. So you guys should go back to check out number 27, but for those of the listeners out there who may not know about you, when I hear the name, Jay Samit, I think disrupter innovator, right?

These are the words that come to mind. You've disrupted the e-commerce space, the PC space, social media. There's so many places that you've disrupted. So help us understand some of your first, I know you were the first one who put video on a computer. What other first have you accomplished and introduce yourself to our listeners in that [00:04:00] capacity?

Jay Samit: [00:04:00] When you're old, do you have a lot of firsts? I actually got on the internet in 1978. Lucky, there were only three campuses tied and the world ended up where I was going. But back in the eighties, I assumed that a PC and a TV would be merged together and we'd have video and be doing just what we're doing now.

I didn't realize it would take most of my life on the big first have an Emmy for creating video on demand. So when you get video and you say, I want to watch this tonight on your TV. So it did lots of fun stuff, created video games. In the early days, I've sat in an empty room. Did the first auction on the internet, which you now know is eBay.

I sat with read often and launched LinkedIn to one of the first social media platforms, the first college platform, 10 years before Facebook. So part of my truths, one of my 12 truths in this book is to fill a void. Like I hate competition. So I'm always doing the next thing because there's always going to be somebody better than you, but if you're the only one doing it, you're the best.

And then the flip [00:05:00] side is I also was an entrepreneur. I was brought in to turn around giant companies. I've had hundreds of thousands of employees. I've been a NASDAQ CEO. I've taken companies, public I'd sold companies have merged companies. I've had more fun than anybody should be allowed to.

Hala Taha: [00:05:14] Wow. It's incredible what you've accomplished.

And I think you talked about this in our last episode, weren't you also the one who brought like the kiosk to airports like that, know where you're going type of thing, those maps.

Jay Samit: [00:05:26] Yeah. So the first kiosk doing that, the other thing is I was appointed by President Clinton. Could I get the internet into every classroom in the United States?

They got to remember before wifi that meant pulling cables and going through walls. And we accomplished that in 18 months without a dime of taxpayer money. So big ideas attract big minds. And when you help others, You ended up helping herself. The best way to get joy out of life is solving problems for others.

Hala Taha: [00:05:56] Oh my gosh. It's so incredible. All that you've accomplished and the things that [00:06:00] you've touched and been behind the scenes on it. It's just so crazy because even now you just rattled off things. I had no idea you were involved with LinkedIn and that's like my main platform, so it's so cool. All right.

So let's talk about your career journey a little bit. I think there's some great insight that my listeners can learn. So you graduated from UCLA in 1982 and you graduated into a depression and,

Jay Samit: [00:06:22] or jobs.

Hala Taha: [00:06:23] Yeah. And you strive to get good grades, and you were sold on the dream that, you go to a good school, you get good grades, you get a good job.

Jay Samit: [00:06:30] And he lived happily ever after

Hala Taha: [00:06:32] It didn't turn out that way for you. So tell us about how you ended up, getting a job in media without any connections or, in such a bad market. How did you do that?

Jay Samit: [00:06:42] So there were a couple of things I eventually figured out my pattern was you can solve any problem with data.

So we're, pre-internet, we're pure PCs. We're pre when people use the word data I wanted to Star Wars was the movie that changed my life. Everybody's I want to make Hollywood special effects, a couple of [00:07:00] problems. I knew no one in Hollywood. I knew nothing about special effects and didn't know where to start.

So I took out what's called a blind ad in the Hollywood reporter that describes the job I want to get as if I was a studio offering that job. And that gave me a bunch of resumes, which gave me two pieces of data. One, what do I need on my resume? What skills, what do I need to accomplish? So I could get in those types of jobs.

And number two, everybody in the center resume had a job with one foot out the door. So those companies would be having openings. That was the first round. Once I figured that piece out, I then made a big financial investment, a huge bet in my life. I bet one, I spent $1 and I printed up some business cards, a hundred business cards, but I knew if I started a special effects company, no one would hire a company run by a 21 year old.

What do I know? So I made myself head of sales and I make myself the head of the company. A company was called Jasmine Productions. J A S is my initials Jay Alan Samit . And it was mine. So that's where JAS came from. And then I [00:08:00] went out and hustled, which everybody listening to the show knows what that's about.

And I discover something. I was competing against George Lucas and ILM. Most people can't afford George Lucas at ILM. So I got a lot of gigs on small budget movies and commercials and things that wouldn't hear them. And then I did what everybody else does. I just hired people to do the work. I didn't know what I was doing.

So there's only two things you need to succeed as an entrepreneur insight and perseverance, I can teach and disrupt you. And in future perfect new. I teach people how to find insight, how to find the next opportunities. And in future performer, you, I really dug into how to take perseverance and turn it into passion, how to solve a problem that you care about because it'll get you through the rough spots.

This isn't about you wake up one day and then you're rich. This is about you're going to hit obstacles, but every obstacle is an opportunity in disguise. And if you can see that. Then you'll find success.

Hala Taha: [00:08:59] Okay. [00:09:00] So I think that's really interesting. And the last kind of introductory question, before we really dive into the twelve truths that you have in your new book Future Proofing You   is I know that you were dyslexic growing up.

And I think that a lot of, okay, so you're still dyslexic, right? I think I'm dyslexic and I've never been diagnosed honestly, but so you're dyslexic and that definitely had to have had an impact on you growing up. So I want to understand, like what happened with your self esteem with that?

And then also, how did that help you become an

entreprenuer?

Jay Samit: [00:09:29] So as a child and I grew up in Philadelphia where the Philadelphia Eagles is the football team. So the reading groups in like first grade. Where the Eagles, the Hawks and the mud hands. When you're labeled a mud hand, it pretty much know you're a loser and there's not much expected of you and you don't like that as a kid.

So what I learned real early on is when there was a group assignment, I had raised my hand, right at first to go, oh, let me be in charge. That way I could delegate the things that I couldn't do as well as others. And I could mask what I couldn't do, which is [00:10:00] really all that an executive, a founder and an entrepreneur does the rest of their life.

So it was great training so much. So that one out of three fortune 500 CEOs is dyslexic. Richard Branson, dyslexic, Walt Disney dyslexic, Pat General patent dyslexic. It turns out it is my superpower. We all have something that makes us unique. We all have something makes us different. And if you lean into that will be your avenue to success.

So I'll tell you a story that's in Future Proofing You as a young man, he's in middle school and he's got ABD. Can't control the brain. It's just racing, racing. And so what parents and doctors tend to do is they don't come up with the Ritalin and other stuff. And he hates just being, living his life zoned out.

But when he's in the backyard, swimming in his pool, he can slow down his mind. He can get more control of himself. So he went to his mother and he said, mom, if I promise to swim every day, will you take me off these drugs? And the mom said, sure. And this kid swam every day, seven days a week. And by [00:11:00] the end of his teenage years, he had 17 Olympic medals.

His name's Michael Phelps. So Michael Phelps, his super power is not swimming or having long arms or any of that. His super power was the ABD. And once he conquered that, so Disrupt You was all about changing that voice in your head. So for me, it was I'm stupid. I'll never become anything for others. That might be you can't public speak, or you're not good at business or whatever it is, whoever you went to bed as last night is not who you have to be today.

And once you can see that you're malleable and you can change that voice, you can change anything in the world.

Hala Taha: [00:11:36] Yeah. And Disrupt You with such a breakout hit. How long ago did you write that?

Jay Samit: [00:11:40] So that was five years ago. And it has been the most rewarding thing in my life. I wrote it to pay, I do all these books just to pay it forward.

I started teaching how to build a high tech startup at universities to help people. I had two students that did $150 million in a semester. But what I didn't anticipate is when I'm a [00:12:00] CEO, when you have a hundred thousand people and shareholders, your inboxes, I hate you. I hate you. We're sowing you this problem.

It's just problems. That's your problems rise up to the boss. When you write a book that changes people's lives. I've heard from people in 140 countries. This year, it comes out now in Urdu, Icelandic and Polish. It just keeps on coming out of more languages. And it's allowed me to work with governments to set up.

Governments should be more supportive and entrepreneurs, a teacher adapted it to be a high school curriculum and she won teacher of the year. I got Hewlett Packard to print free copies of the student workbook for all the kids at boys and girls club. It's just been a wonderful journey. I love hearing people's success stories because I didn't do anything.

I just gave you a mirror to hold up to yourself. You have it in you.

Hala Taha: [00:12:46] Yeah, I would definitely encourage everyone. If you're interested about Disrupt You, we went through it in great detail, episode number 27. Go check that out. So five years later, you're putting out a new book it's called Future Proofing You.

 Yup. There you go. If you guys are watching on video, he [00:13:00] just pulled up the book and now yes. Future Proofing You, so tell us, like, why did you decide that you needed to write this book? And I've a random question did you once, like COVID started, is that when you thought, we need a book like this or did you have the idea before COVID?

Jay Samit: [00:13:15] So I had the idea, but COVID completely influenced the book because the world has changed fundamentally and I wanted to capture in the first book. I've been telling him for five years, whether by choice or circumstance, every career gets disrupted. I don't have to make that argument anymore. I think COVID kinda prove that anything can change.

And we live in an uncertain world. This won't be the last pandemic. This won't be the last disaster. There won't be the last recession, whatever it may be. But I never planned to write a second book. And as I was saying, I get what I call love letters, these fan mail, which I love. But occasionally usually from a younger person, I get, this is all motivational, but I could never do it.

And I actually [00:14:00] dedicated the book to the reader who said, not everybody can be a millionaire. And I wrote, yep, you're wrong. So I said, how can I reach somebody? What am I missing? Where did I fail? And in communicating what's possible. So I said, what if I put my reputation on line? What if I take somebody that grew up on welfare was basically one step above homeless.

It was couch surfing, living with friends. And I mentored them one day a week for a year. I gave him no money. I don't give them any contacts. I don't tell them what business do. He has to start a business. It takes no capital. Could he get from that to self-made millionaire and I'll give away the ending.

He did it 11 months, but he worked his butt off. He worked harder than most people are willing to work so he can live in a manner. Most people can't. So that was the Genesis of the book. And when you mentor you learn, I learned from him of what is different about the challenges for today. Nobody's facing the world that I faced in 1980.

That's [00:15:00] ludicrous. I always hate those famous people to, if you did this after world war II, you'd be successful too. You can't, but wages have been flat since 1982, when the United States. So it is hard to make it the old I'm going to get a job. I'm going to raise my family. I'm going to pay off the house.

I'm going to have a pension. It doesn't exist. In the 1950s, two years salary was the average price of a house. So mom stayed home, only one salary. Then everybody lived happily ever after that's gone. And if you think your big company jobs are secure, half of all jobs will disappear over the next five years.

And it's not just okay. Truck drivers, automated trucks, factor workers. I was independent vice chairman of Deloitte. Okay. That $45 billion a year Deloitte accountants going to be software, most legal going to be software minerals, middle management, AI systems, jobs are going away. So unless you take control of your destiny, [00:16:00] unless you continue to be as full of change as the world around you.

Your prospects are bleak.

Hala Taha: [00:16:08] That's so powerful and sets this up so well, you did mention that the guy that you were mentoring who is couch surfing, and really one step away from being homeless and in 11 months you helped him become a millionaire. You didn't fund him. You just gave him advice. This guy's name was Vin  Clancy.

So I really want my listeners to hear the story about Vin. So walk us through that, give us some detail in terms of how you shaped him and what he ended up doing.

Jay Samit: [00:16:35] So the idea was germinating in my mind, if I could just find somebody and what I didn't want to do is cherry pick. I didn't want to go. I'm going to teach somebody golf.

 Tiger Woods come over here. I want you to just say the first person that I try with, I have to do it, but Vin's life story of his parents paying on welfare of him having a tough childhood. He wasn't, he was an immigrant. He wasn't from this country. He had no safety net. I can't [00:17:00] get him to organically become a growth mindset.

I can't get him in that. Honestly, I have to have him hit the ground running. So truth number one of the twelve truths is you have to have a growth mindset. And he didn't find this out until I let him read the book after it was typeset. Then in our first meeting, I lied to them. So there's a psychological principle called the Pygmalion effect.

A professor went to a school and elementary school tests all the kids told the teachers, these three kids would be super learners at the end of the year. They test 12 kids and guess what? Those three kids excelled beyond everybody. But the professor lied. He never looked at the first test results, that three names out of a hat.

But if you tell people that they're special, they believe it. So when I sat down with Vin, the first time took them out for pizza. And honestly I did give him two pizzas in one year. So that was my help for him. I told him I had interviewed over a hundred candidates. He was the only one that had all the attributes to be a self-made millionaire.

He hit every tick box and he was my first choice for this. [00:18:00] And so he internalized that he may have not fully believed it, but if he could have this old dude, this guy who's, run billion dollar empires and create a billion dollar company, if he sees it, then it must be true that let him hit the ground like a rocket.

By the end of the first month, he had made over $60,000. I joked that he could have flown to Europe without a plane. He was so on top of the world. Now let's fast forward a few months. He's working hard, he's doing, we could get into what he did, but mid-year, he's about a half, a million dollars.

And his business gets sucker punched something that he didn't do, but all of a sudden it's over, it's down. He's got an unforeseeable problem and I figure, okay, so a book about a guy makes a half a million. That would be okay. What I figured he was down for the count. But that growth mindset had so become part of the soul.

When his business couldn't do the way he was doing it, he said, okay, that doesn't work. Let me try something else. And at the end of the month, when we sat down, his target for that month was to make a hundred grand and he made $96,000. He was beating [00:19:00] himself up and I was laughing inside. Could the you've been, have imagined being upset at only making $96,000 a month.

So it was amazing journey. He, I pushed him hard. It was like seal training or being on a marathon. I didn't want them to tap out. I don't want them to give up. He had them social life. He didn't do anything. You don't have to, you can have more work-life balance if you're not trying to become a millionaire in a year.

But at the end of that year, what got him through, month 11 month 12 was, he was, it's gonna take a year off, travel the world. Okay. And the only way he was able to do that is because he was future-proof. Meaning. He knew that whenever he wanted to turn it on again, he could have a business again, he could make money again.

He didn't have to be dependent on, is there a job available? Will somebody hire me? Oh, there's so many other people competing for the one job. And today he now has fortune 500 clients, which is amazing to me doing the same things that people were paying $200 a month to do. [00:20:00] He's now getting six figures a month to do.

Hala Taha: [00:20:03] Yeah.

And just curious, when you told him that you had lied to him about, him being the one that you picked out of a hundred candidates, how did he react?

Jay Samit: [00:20:11] I forgot what the page number is, but he texted me. He goes, I just read page such and such. Hahaha

I love that.

Hala Taha: [00:20:20] I think that's so great.

Jay Samit: [00:20:22] But the flip side is he, after our first meeting, he sat down and stayed at the restaurant after I left and paid.

And he wrote a note to himself. And he didn't have, we didn't have the rapport yet, but six months into it, he shared that note to me. And I put the note in the book where in my own words, but it, this old guy's full of it, but nothing else going on. So I'll play along. It proved to me that he wasn't in a place or a mindset where he believed that he could achieve what he would've would end up achieving.

And the trust and friendship had developed by that point that he could say, look, this is where I really was at that point. And [00:21:00] the amazing journey.

Hala Taha: [00:21:01] It's super interesting. So I know your first truth is you must have a growth mindset in order to succeed. So why did you decide that was truth number one, how does that kind of set you up for everything else?

And how about people who are like, then who don't have a growth mindset? How do they snap out of it? If they don't have a Jay Samit, who's going to take them under their wing.

Jay Samit: [00:21:22] I'm jumping ahead. One of the later truths is don't fly solo. You're going to need a series of mentors in your life. I used to run the world's largest record company.

Okay. Or home of the Beatles and Pink Floyd and Queen and Garth Brooks and countless others. And part of that myth was to make it seem that these were self-made people, right? When you went to a concert and you saw one guy on the stage and a hundred thousand fans, he's singing from his heart to yours, he got there on his own.

What you don't see is the dozens of producers, musicians, songwriters, publicists, execs, roadies, lawyers, everybody that it takes to make [00:22:00] that individual. So when we see, Bill Gates had mentors, Mark Zuckerberg had Steve Jobs as a mentor. Mother Theresa found her mentor on a bus bench.

Jay Z look at anybody. So don't think that you have to get there on your own. So that's part of the answer to that. But the reason why it starts with growth mindset, we all know that person that comes to the office or comes to work with a cloud over their head.   I got such problems.

 I got such problems. The whole world is miserable, but with the growth mindset, you look at every problems. Hey, wait a second. Lots of people have this problem. If I solve this, that's a business. Entrepreneurs don't sell things, they solve problems. Software, a few people have friends, some 4 million, you make million software billion, you change history.

Dozens of people that I work with became household names and billionaires. And if you would have told me, I would know somebody that made a billion dollars, I'd be like you're out of your mind. I came from, my [00:23:00] dad was a public school teacher, so I've seen it. And I seen work with the Steve Jobs and the Bill Gates and et cetera.

Before in a Reed Hoffman. You  now who did wrote the foreword to disrupt? I knew these people before they, they were household names, Most of them didn't go to the right schools. None of them came from money. Elon Musk was an immigrant, but they did something different. They looked at the world differently and that can be taught in every 48 hours.

There's a new self-made billionaire. You won't most likely get to a billion dollars. The Warren buffet way, taking nothing away from the genius. He just crossed a hundred billion dollars. He's worth more than me. Okay. But he made 99% of that after he was 50 I'm on the wrong side of 50. And I will tell you, I have a lot more fun with that billion dollars.

If I was like Kylie Jenner and I hit a billion dollars at 22. So how did she become a [00:24:00] billionaire at 22? And you go she was a Kardashian. There's no billionaires in the Kardashian family. What did she do differently? How can you do that? We're all connected by a phone, one click away from 7 billion potential customers.

You only have to zero in on the right thing for one nanosecond to make that kind of money.

Hala Taha: [00:24:21] And speaking of that, I knew one thing that you say is that there's no such thing as a gatekeeper anymore. In today's day and age, she say there's no gatekeepers. And I talk about this all the time. I read that and I started laughing because I was like, you know what, on my hundredth episode, it was almost, that was a big part of it is me saying that there's no such thing as a gatekeeper.

If a gatekeeper tells you, no, it means create your own path, create your own lane. You could just do it on your own. You have control of your life. I want to understand from you, like why do you feel that things have changed? And is this like a recent change or did you always feel this way in terms of gatekeepers?

Jay Samit: [00:24:56] So I made every mistake imaginable and I still [00:25:00] make new ones, but when I started my company, I didn't know how you raised money. I did all my credit cards. The worst thing you can do, paying 30 plus percent interest. But, everybody goes you need to develop a relationship with the banker will be important to your life.

That may be true for somebody I have yet to develop that relationship. And I've raised hundreds of millions of dollars for startups, but you now have crowdfunding. You now have, you can create your own digital currency. You can go to private equity, you can go to venture capitalists. You can go to strategics.

I also, in the first book talked about my favorite form of money, OPM other people's money that there's companies that will give you millions of dollars, that they don't want any equity, and then don't want to pay it back. So that's not stopping you the infrastructure for you to do a podcast, to do a digital business, to do anything already exists.

The big guys spent billions and billions, and we're now moving into, a spatial reality world with huge new opportunities. You [00:26:00] didn't have to invent the smartphone. It's up to you. All of mankind and womankind knowledge for the past 14,000 years is on the internet. Every fact, every journal, every book, every piece of knowledge.

So you can get all the knowledge you want, or you can watch cats playing on a piano, right? So there are people that are learning growing. And one of, one of the things that really shocked me was my book came out in Vietnamese, in Vietnam. It was number one. And I went over there after that, because I hadn't been all that I knew of Vietnam was what we learned about the war back when, and it was the happiest place I've ever been.

The people seem like you were Disneyland. Everybody was so happy. Why? Because grandparents saw that their kids had a better life and their grandkids had a better future. And people were trying to learn and they're sucking in knowledge to compete with the rest of the world and to do whatever what we learned from the pandemic.

With everybody working remotely is you no longer have to live in a [00:27:00] major city where you're paying huge rent to start your company. You're no longer limited to hire the best people that live within 10 miles of you because of the commuting. You can now hire the best people in the world, and they may be in a country that work for far less.

So you can now virtualize your life. And my best friend's son is what I call digital nomad. It's got a great job at Google. Okay. But this month we'll be in Hawaii for a month and keep his job. Then he can go to Thailand or he can run with the bulls in Spain. He doesn't have to wait until he's old and decrepit to go and travel and see this beautiful planet.

He can have a work-life balance that never existed because remote workers are our new strategic advantage and truth number 12.

Hala Taha: [00:27:44] I totally agree. I started, since we last talked, I started a marketing agency called YAP Media and I have 40 employees and over half of them are in the Philippines and India and UK.

And so I totally agree. There's so much great talent out there, especially [00:28:00] creatives in other countries. And, I treat that way. Great.  

Jay Samit: [00:28:02] Go to bed and, to get put out assignments, go to bed and wake up and have it in your inbox. Yeah. I've run a global companies for years and it used to be something that only the big multinationals could do.

And here's some secrets employees, whether in US or overseas that are given that choice of working from home would prefer that over a sign-on bonus would prefer that over getting their student loans paid off, there's less turnover and they're 40% more productive. So this has really the insight I'd list, the 23 best software tools that most started spree to manage your virtual business.

I'm sure many of them you're already using just to give people that headstart, to think of it this way, Vin started at a company with no money, no employees, just a virtual existence. And it work.

Hala Taha: [00:28:55] What was Vin's company, just to circle back to that.

Jay Samit: [00:28:58] Vin did [00:29:00] exactly what YAP Media is. He grew up as many of your generation of understanding social media and wanting to do social media marketing, like 40 million other people, like who's going to hire him.

And that's the problem. So as I start to explain that you can go compete against everybody. That's already doing it. Good luck with that. Or you can find a void. What are people talking about in the news? What's the new thing and make your agency all about being the agency for that one new thing. Then you're the best doing that.

And the second you do your first client, then you have what MBAs like to call a case study. So now you really are the best in that field. So the year I was mentoring, Bitcoin was all the rage. That's all, anybody was talking about. Bitcoin went from a thousand to 20,000. The world stopped spinning. And at the same time, everybody that didn't get in early enough when Bitcoin suddenly launched new currencies, the theory of everything, there were thousands of people and they knew that window would only be open for a second.

So how fast can I get [00:30:00] my coin launch by initial coin offering ICO? So Vin decided he would be the expert on that. The second he got one client and killed it for that client. He now had that case study the sherbet. So the same work that he was doing in social media for a couple hundred dollars a month for somebody, he was now having clients pay him 30,000 a month to do the same work, but they would pay it.

Because of the results that they would get, then I taught them how you do structure deal that if you have a marketing agency, you could potentially market somebody that makes $10 million that month and you get your fee. Why not say I'll work for less of a fee or no fee. If I can get a percentage of what I'm creating now, your downside is minimal, but your upside is unlimited.

And anyone with a brain would give you that deal because it aligns your desires with their desires. When I hire a consultant and remember I used to run world's largest consulting com, [00:31:00] they just want to charge consulting hours, right? Their job is to take your money. When a consultant now says to you I'll work for free, but I'm going to take a piece of what I earn you.

Go. I only want to pay you a million dollars. I only want to pay you $10 million. How much can you make me? So deal structure is a big part of understanding how to generate wealth. If you're going to be paid hourly, You're gonna wake up one day and realize you're a wage slave after college. I didn't talk about this, but I got a full scholarship to go to law school at top law school.

And I decided I don't want to be a lawyer. I had just had no desire. I was doing it, the police, my parents, and I didn't go. And my folks didn't talk to me for several years. They were really upset. Fast forward. I have lots of friends that went that route. You start off making a good living, but you realize at some point you're still just an hourly.

You never will get to wealth. And at that point they feel trapped because they can't go and start over and that they are afraid too. The more you [00:32:00] can structure the, what you do you benefit from. That's the only way you create wealth and that's the only way you make money when you're sleeping.

Hala Taha: [00:32:09] Oh my gosh. This segment of the episode, I find so powerful because there's so many lessons in this. I love saying that like when you're starting a business, find the void and really focus on that void that way you differentiate yourself in the market for YAP Media. We're a podcast marketing and social media agency.

And so that's our differentiator. We are all about, we know everything about podcasting plus we can do everything else. So I love that. I think that's really cool.

Jay Samit: [00:32:36] The little acronym, the acronym for launching anything that I have is move Emma's mindset. You have to start with that mindset. Okay. You have to find an obstacle.

What is the problem that you're solving? Okay. Find the void. Okay. That nobody else is doing and then execution. And that's it. There's no fancy rocket science. It's just those basic steps. [00:33:00] And I, and. In Future Proofing You, we map out Vin's journey. So you can see page by page week by week, month by month, how he follows the 12 truths and what the results are at the end of each chapter.

There's a little sidebar that does his accounting for the month. So here's where he made the money. Here's what did it, here's what he learned. And here's the problem. So it's like a page shirt. I wonder how Vin's going to do, but it's so teachable and so doable. It doesn't mean that happens overnight. It doesn't happen without work.

This isn't Future Proofing   You, as in a, get rich quick scheme, it's a roadmap. It's a workbook for you to achieve your goals.

Hala Taha: [00:33:42] This episode of YAP is sponsored by Grammarly. Are you tired of the email trap? What starts off as an innocent email can quickly escalate into a rapid fire argument. We've all been there, hovering a finger over the send button.

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Jay Samit: [00:37:01] And I'll give you an

example in my life. A few years ago, some VCs called me, they put $8 million into a startup, an advertising platform, a digital advertising platform that had lifetime sales of $30,000. It was dead in the water wasn't going, but I saw what it could be and should be. So it did the same thing.

Couldn't get any paying clients. So why not go and start improve what we could do for charities? Because the boards of charities aren't charities, the boards of charities are chief marketing officers of major brands who are civic minded. So they're going to see what you do fast forward. Suddenly, now we get Coca Cola and Disney and Microsoft, and all these big brands paying us.

And 18 months later, NewsCorp acquired it for $200 million.

Hala Taha: [00:37:49] That's amazing.

Jay Samit: [00:37:50] This is what you can do, and it's done again and again. And I also explained in the book why startups sell for these insane amounts of money? [00:38:00] Because most people go, I don't get it. They got this in sales, have to be worth that.

So let me explain it because I think it's really helpful for entrepreneurs and will embolden you to create something. I've been a public company, NASDAQ CEO, every CEO, when they're have the job will tell you, I'm thinking about the shareholders. I'm thinking about the employees, I'm thinking about the customers, whatever.

Here's what they're really thinking about themselves because CEOs of big companies get paid very little. But they have a huge bonus package. If the stock moves to here, they back up the Brinks truck to your house and give you obscene amounts of money. So if that's the way that you're hired, what are you thinking about?

How do I hit that number? So the easiest way to hit profits, the hard way is to develop something good and get more sales. The easier way is stop spending. So they stopped R and D. They stopped developing next year's product in the year after. Because again, most CEOs don't last [00:39:00] very long. They're like a piece of bread cheese.

They smell after a while on the board gets rid of them. So if you can hit that number. Great! So now all of a sudden you hit the number. Got it. But, oh, we got nothing to sell. Next year. Our core business has changed. Then go out and acquire something that instantly puts you in the game. So let's take Google, super successful company owned desktop advertising.

Best business model of all time, they're printing money like their Google, but all of a sudden, everybody started using their phone. People weren't at their desktops anymore. They're losing market share it's going away. So they bought Android. They bought hundreds of companies. Okay. Facebook could have had hired the guy who created WhatsApp.

He applied for a job. He didn't get it less than three years later, they buy his WhatsApp for $17 billion. He would have given them the idea for free why? I think they pay so much because of somebody else got it [00:40:00] at be a formidable competition. Their whole empire could disappear. So people will always overpay to block somebody else from getting it or to keep their job.

So why wouldn't you want to sell something for that? Because what you're really doing when you sell something for a lot of money is you're pulling your future revenues into the present. Sure. If I had kept this company or that company for the next 20 years, I would get the same amount of money, but I could get a little less and they'll give it to me all today.

Sounds like a good deal. I'll always be the guy that sells out early. Now, the only time I've raised my voice in my career, I was mentoring two young people in their twenties. They had a very good idea. First month in business, a very famous wealthy person comes along and offers them $100 million for their company.

And I'm like, we're taking it right now. We're going to be [00:41:00] billionaires. Oh, this is just the first offer. Like it's a hundred million dollars. There's nothing you can do with a billion that you couldn't do with a hundred million, make a long story short. They turn it down. I leave the board. By next year, there's a hundred companies doing the same thing as them.

They have to raise more money by the next year. They have to raise more money today. If it literally sold for a billion dollars, they'd get less money than they would've gotten in the first 30 days.

Hala Taha: [00:41:23] Goes to show you how you got to act fast.

Jay Samit: [00:41:26] If you want to make sure that you have good advisors, that you have mentors that can explain that the, that you were smart enough to have that moment in the sun.

Are you smart enough to capitalize it? Back in my early days, I, at one point in history, very early history. I had seven of the top 10 selling video games in the U S my little company. And all of a sudden another company came and offered me a third of their company for all of my, and I'm like, I don't understand stock.

I don't get this. I don't, so I turned down Activision, which is an $18 billion [00:42:00] company. I went to public school, but a third of 18 billion, $6 billion in my twenties. So believe me, I didn't learn these things because I'm a genius. I learned them because I got the scars to prove it.

Hala Taha: [00:42:13] Yeah. We're looking for advisors for YAP Media right now.

We've scaled it to almost a million in recurring annual revenue in less than six months. So really great stuff. But I know that I don't know everything and I've got a lot of experience, but I definitely need more help.

Jay Samit: [00:42:29] Hitting the million dollars is a major milestone for companies because it proves the model.

Okay. On the, on a board of a company that struggled and all of a sudden mid-year last year, we hit the million dollars fast forward a year later, we're doing a million a week.

Hala Taha: [00:42:48] Wow.

Jay Samit: [00:42:49] So that blitz scaling a whole different skill sets than what got you to where you are and a whole new set of problems and obstacles.

But congratulations, that's a major accomplishment.

[00:43:00] Hala Taha: [00:43:00] Thank you.

Okay. So back to the twelve truth and feature proofing, let's do a quick fire segments. I want, I'm going to rattle off some of the truths. I don't expect you to. I didn't expect you to have your 12th choose memorized. Although knowing you, you probably do know them all by heart.

I'm going to rattle them off. And why don't you say what the truth is and give some actionable advice. And I may ask some follow up questions. So we already talked about growth mindset. So I'm going to skip that one. Your fourth truth is failure is great. What is this truth? And how can we take action?

Jay Samit: [00:43:32] So when you see a toddler, they don't stay wake up and say, today I shall walk across the room.

They try it. They stumbled. They try it. That stumble. When you play it, play a video game, you hit an obstacle, you fail. If finally get over it, then there's another that's all the work is you will fail your way to the top. Jeff Bezos with Amazon lost money year after year after year.

And when he came out the other side, he was the richest man in the world. So don't beat yourself up for failing. Failing just means you [00:44:00] figured out what doesn't work. So you try another path. Some of the most successful companies were pivots of something that they didn't set out to do. So that's what I mean by that.

You cannot become successful without failing.

Hala Taha: [00:44:12] And what if we do fail? How do we overcome it quickly and get back up on the horse?

Jay Samit: [00:44:17] To acknowledge it, or one tip. If you're really beating yourself up from write down everything that's bothering on a piece of paper, get it all out and then just throw away the piece of paper.

It's cathartic, just move on. Because every moment you spend thinking about the past is a moment you're stealing from your future.

Hala Taha: [00:44:34] And I think failing gets easier. Like once you failed a few times and you realize that this is just part of the process and the more I fail, the more likely I'm actually going to achieve it gets easier and easier.

Jay Samit: [00:44:44] And with that,

and we skipped over it, but fear, it's one of the truths that fear is something that can be harnessed fear as a positive. I hate hate the guru charlatans that say fear isn't real. We are biologically hardwired to be [00:45:00] fearful. You're only here because your great ancestors saw that saber tooth tiger and ran the people that weren't afraid of.

It were lunch. Okay. But athletes can harness fear to make adrenaline, which makes their heart pump more and they get better results. So if you're afraid of starting your company, because she'll be embarrassed because she'll fail because she'll lose your money, you lose family money, you lose other people's money, all real fears.

But if you're crossing the street and a truck's about to run you over, you're not thinking about those fears. You're thinking about the existential. One of, if I don't jump out of the way I die. So now let's put this in the context of those fears about your business. If you're in a job where you're not growing, where it's just paying you to survive, but not to thrive and live.

You're going to trade a day, a week, a year, a month, years, 10 years. You're going to wake up one day and realize you gave away the most precious thing in the world. The only life you will have for [00:46:00] what nothing. And if you don't believe me, go talk to your grandparents, go to an old age home, ask somebody at that stage, what their biggest regret is not what they failed at.

It's what they failed to try. So focus on that fear and the other seem inside consequential. And if people make fun of you, here's a tip I have yet to meet a hater that's doing better than I am. They're making fun of because they don't have the guts to believe in themselves. Investors would rather invest in somebody that's already failed once than somebody that's still in their first business, because it shows that you have grit.

Hala Taha: [00:46:38] Okay. Number six, the sixth truth. Passion makes you unstoppable.

Jay Samit: [00:46:43] So I don't want to minimize how hard the journey will be. The journey will be hard, but if you can take that perseverance and really be passionate about what you're solving the forward of Future Proofing You was written by Tom Bilyeu. Tom had a software [00:47:00] company.

He wasn't passionate about their making money, but he had obese morbidly, obese relatives. And he looked at the protein bars in the market and they were all made with corn syrup. There was 1600 different ones out there, and they're basically candy bars and he goes, this is wrong. I want to do something. I want to help obesity.

I want to solve that problem. The void is nobody else is actually solving it. They're claiming to. So we started quest, quest bars and the great bars. And a couple of years later, then they sell for a billion dollars. That's what gets you through the hurdles? One of his hurdles was when he went to normally most food brands don't actually make their own.

They come with the recipe and they go to a co-packer, but every co-packer had machinery that required a liquid stuff to squeeze out, to make the tubes and the corn syrup's the liquid thing that makes that work. And that's why everybody used it. So when they hit that wall, okay, there's no, co-packer I guess we go out of business.

No, they still have to solve the problem. [00:48:00] So one of the founders at quest literally took a blowtorch, bought one of those machines and took it apart and made their own new the machine to make bars. They just, whatever the obstacle is, you could overcome it. One out of three, which, the 500 companies in the U S was founded by an immigrant where the first-generation child and why I said that, that is because those immigrants had a passion, their journey started before they got to the shores.

If they're doing a menial job at they're sweeping the floor, if they're working somewhere. That's not their identity. That is a step in their path to get to their goal. And that's why you see that drive when a lot, and Musk was a young immigrant in this country with no money. He wanted to be an entrepreneur, but he was afraid.

Could he live in this rich country and survive? So he said, I'm going to see if I can live for a dollar a day for a month. Could he live on $30 and probably add a lot of [00:49:00] ramen, okay. And some oranges and some pizza, but he did it. And once he knew that he said, I'll always be able to make $30 so I can take the risk.

And his first company, he literally had one PC. The website was up during the day at night, they programmed on it. They lived in the little office. They had no apartments. They went and took their shower down at the Y. And now he's worth $200 billion.

Hala Taha: [00:49:24] God.

Jay Samit: [00:49:25] It was a journey and identity.

Hala Taha: [00:49:27] That's incredible goes to show you what passion can do and some grit.

So amazing. Okay. Next one. Everything is a tech startup. This is truth. Number eight.

Jay Samit: [00:49:40] So I sometimes hear people say I'm opening a restaurant. I'm doing shoes. I'm doing every business is a tech startup. Play this game with me. You're going to get the answer wrong. That's why it's a game that I'm doing.

If I gave you a million dollars and said, go back 10 years and pick the number one most successful tech stock, what would [00:50:00] it be?

Hala Taha: [00:50:00] 10 years ago?

Jay Samit: [00:50:02] Yeah.

Hala Taha: [00:50:02] Facebook?

Jay Samit: [00:50:04]  Not Google, not apple, not Instagram. It's a trick question. If everything's a text startup, the tech company that was the most successful past 10 years was Domino's pizza and he goes, that's a tech company.

When they went app centric, the majority of their employees work in it. Then now have a direct relationship with their customer. They can test market, they can regionalize, they can do all kinds of stuff that their competition can. They can use less people to make what the product is actually the easiest part of business.

So if you're spending most of your life in the digital world, the first thing you do when you wake up is look at your phone and you spend five and a half hours looking at it during the day. And it's the last thing he kissed at night. Why isn't your business there? Even if it's something in the physical world.

So you have to take that point of view. And the second part of that is the only competitive advantage [00:51:00] in any business in the 21st century, including your media company is getting insights from your customers faster than the competition. So it's that tech data it's that direct relationship.

Hala Taha: [00:51:12] Very interesting.

Okay. Truth number 12. Remote workers are your competitive advantage. We touched on this event.

Jay Samit: [00:51:21] We touched on this. So here's, what's interesting for the employer. We talked about that for the employee. You're not spending on average 81 minutes commuting. So that is now a gift to spend more time with loved ones or to take care of kids or take care of elderly relatives or whatever to do your side hustle to just have a work-life balance that brings you joy.

In every day I commuted for years and in the morning it was a grind. I get into the office at a horrible mood. And at the end of a long day, I'd come home drained and have no energy for my kids or my spouse. And it [00:52:00] wasn't fair to her. Wasn't passive fair to them. Now imagine that you're, don't have to do that.

And you're not inhaling carbon monoxide for, hour and a half a day. So that's a huge advantage and the tools are in place. People wanting to do this since the 1970s, it just now all the software's there, there are tax incentives for doing it. And as I said earlier, you're no longer limited to just hire the best people in your town.

You can hire the best people for the job. If you don't believe me, have you ever used 99 designs?

Hala Taha: [00:52:33] No, but I use like Fiverr and

Jay Samit: [00:52:35] Fiverr gap. So these gig things where, I can say I'll pay $500 for a logo and I'll get a hundred submissions. And when I pick one, I always ask, where are you? And sometimes it's somebody doing a side hustle for a major ad agency.

And sometimes it's a college kid in Indonesia. It's just phenomenal. That's the great advantage of that.

Hala Taha: [00:52:55] Yeah. So I know earlier we were talking about how COVID impacted your book [00:53:00] and obviously this last truth here, remote work is your advantage. I think all of that obviously accelerated with COVID, it became a reality much faster because of COVID and now I don't think I was working at Disney streaming services at the time.

I'm an entrepreneur. Now I actually started my side hustle YAP Media, because I didn't have a commute anymore and I've grown it so big as a side hustle. So it goes to show that you can do a lot of time with that, those 80 minutes that you can do a lot with those 80 minutes that you were previously commuting.

So what else changed with COVID? What would you say is, cause this seems a positive, right? What other positive things do you see or just changes in the feature because of this pandemic? What do you see?

Jay Samit: [00:53:40] So one of the other big changes is there has been a move towards people, especially the younger generation.

This is what I learned from the mentoring process. Want to feel that purpose and that passion in their job, they want to work at a company that shares their values. They want to buy products for companies that share their [00:54:00] values. Now, when we all got hit by something like this, it really just knocked that home because those companies that, that didn't take this seriously, we don't want to do business with.

And those that really helped their employees or treated the community better because of this and raise the hands and how can I help? We want them so anybody can make shoes. But when Tom shoes says, when you buy a pair from Toms, they give a pair to somebody that's never had a pair. It sure makes you feel better about that.

So this started as cause marketing, but we're now moving. And where I end the book is talking about sustainable capitalism, the era of having endless growth, which is what capitalism is about and making your business bigger, you can't have endless growth on a finite planet. So you can either wait for the inevitable regulations that may put you out of business, or you can lean into that void and work on some of [00:55:00] these big problems in your own world and proof of the pudding.

I don't know. I didn't want to run another company, but when the team from Greenfield Robotics came to me and said, we have a little robot that goes up and down the field, think of rows of corn and deals with weeds. So you don't have to put pesticides on our food. You don't have to put poisons on the food.

You don't have to tilt the soil, which is why farmers tilled the soil is to break up weeds. And that's the single largest source of greenhouse gases on the planet. 25% of carbon in the atmosphere comes from farming. So these little robots can save our atmosphere, can save us from getting cancer, can let the farmers make 40% more because you don't have to buy the chemicals and it's robots as a service and the extra poisons, don't go down the river, killing all the fish in the Gulf of Mexico.

I felt morally obligated to say no is to say, I don't care about the future of this planet. And so that's [00:56:00] why I said yes to be chairman of Greenfield Robotics. And it changes the world, but every a company could do it and they can do it for the profitable reason, not as charity Walmart after employing people their second biggest cost was energy. So they leaned in, they looked at it and they replaced all the fluorescent lights with LEDs saving a hundred million dollars of energy a year. If they do that puts a Target get on. Target's back. Like we gotta do something. So now Target is the largest installation of solar panels, right?

So everybody's moving this direction. When we use all that energy to search stuff on Google, you can imagine how big those server farms are all over the world. Google has been carbon neutral for over a decade, all with renewable resources, all putting things in the coolest places that can use the least amount of energy.

So we don't have time to pretend that our planet isn't changing in a [00:57:00] way that may not be hospitable for mammals. We have to act now. And why not make that part of your passion and part of what drives your business to go further.

Hala Taha: [00:57:09] I completely agree. Okay. So we're going to wind this down. I have a few questions on you being a futurist.

I want to talk about spatial reality, and I want to talk about NFTs. So you call spatial reality, a trillion dollar opportunity. I've never really heard of this before. So tell us what spatial reality is. If I haven't heard it, I'm sure that most of my listeners have not heard about it yet. Explain what that is.

Jay Samit: [00:57:33] So you may know it by the term, augmented reality it's that we went out, have a digital overlay on our world. We will have heads up displays glasses that we wear. I'm looking for where mine are. So you will no longer be taking your phone out of your pocket. You will be getting information here.

Hala Taha: [00:57:50] He's pulling out his glasses by the way, for everybody listening.

Jay Samit: [00:57:53] So here's how that's different. If you went back 10 years ago, you can't live without your iPhone. You can't live without a [00:58:00] smartphone. It rules your life. It's every business. But 10 years ago, before people created apps, no one knew what to do with it. The first year, one of the top 10 apps was the fart app just made fart sounds, which means they didn't think of Robinhood or open table or the countless other businesses that made billions of dollars.

So now I'm telling you, the big guys are all working on. These is declining Apple, Facebook, Microsoft. If Google doesn't own this, they the lenses, they go out of business. If Apple doesn't sell you the blessings, they go out of business. And if you don't believe that you buy glasses for an app, 80 million pairs of glasses were sold in 2020 in the U S that cost more than $150 a pair that came with one app. Focus, you want to read. Another 50 million came with another app called sun. You want to be out in the sun, you need sunglasses. So when an app that changes any manual, anywhere in the world, [00:59:00] from any language to a language that, That's a pretty good app. You can also subtract things from the environment.

You can go into the supermarket and say, the doctor just told me I had diabetes. Show me every product that doesn't have sugar and everything else will disappear. Show me those things that are keto or halal or kosher were show me just the French wine. Show me which wine I had over such and such as house two weeks ago.

So all sales and marketing will be taking place in this overlay. Why wouldn't you want to solve a problem today? That couldn't be solved before that these glasses will now solve just as apps solve so many things and think of the billions of dollars of businesses that will be created from this. People will not be searching for information.

Information will be coming to them.

Hala Taha: [00:59:45] Okay. So basically just to like recap this to my listeners, spatial reality has to do with these glasses that you wear. And essentially it's a filter that people can, like, how would that even work? If you gave the example of walking into target or [01:00:00] something and saying, show me everything that doesn't have sugar, how would that even work with?

Does every box have a scanner or something?

Jay Samit: [01:00:06] So there's a company right now. That's scanning in all the products and it'll blackout the ones that are recognizes on the shelves. A simple one. I don't remember where I parked my car and I looked down and there was a line of, to my car or I'm often travel around the world and I go to some hotel I'm supposed to speak in the Monterey bit ballroom where's the Monterey ballroom, just make me a line Pokemon go showed the people would do this.

Okay. But it's so many more uses. You're a fireman you're going to smoke filled building, but your heads up display ties into the blueprints that the city already has. So you know where the stairs are, where the window is, where the shutoff is. You're digging, construction the back and on some lot, you can see through the ground, so to speak and see where the pipes are, where the conduit.

So you don't cut off the cable for the entire neighborhood. So there are lots and lots of uses. They also talk, you can use the [01:01:00] vibration of the sides of the glasses. What's called bone conductivity. So it can talk to you, but nobody else hears it. So imagine a LinkedIn version where when you walk up to me, it tells me your name and I see all the details.

So I go, oh, how is your dog Fido doing, endless possibilities. And so the first-generation of these come out this Christmas, But in 22 and 23, this goes mainstream, just like the iPhone did. This will be bigger than the PC revolution, the internet and mobile combined.

Hala Taha: [01:01:32] Oh my gosh, you got me so excited.

And I, my, my wheels are spinning. How do you suggest that we start learning about this now and start just understanding it better because augmented reality, everybody talks about it, but I never see anything concrete, like the way that you just explained it to me. So like, how can we learn more about this?

Get more involved? Where are the opportunities?

Jay Samit: [01:01:53] Yeah. 500 million people to play Pokemon Go. That was the proof that you could get anybody to do it, where he could walk around in the real world and do [01:02:00] stuff. And it ties into NFT is by the way, I will be doing my first NFT in this area and get past the hype of what's going on to something that I think will be successful.

The best way to get into it today is start reading, looking the news, saying whatever, but just use your imagination. You now understand what the glasses do. It's no different than what a tablet can do, you can't walk around holding up a tablet, so to speak. What does that solve? What does that do for the immediacy?

Where can I use that as a marketing company in my Tesla, self-driving down the road and, from all my searching and lifestyle that I eat a McDonald's three times a week, it's two o'clock, that I haven't stopped to eat. There was a McDonald's two miles ahead. And lo and behold, I see in my glasses, a French fry floating in the sky.

If I grab it, the car will take me through and I get a free French fry. What that basically was marketing point of sale, conversion to instant bottom line in a nanosecond, [01:03:00] take it down to you're wearing your glasses. It says you're in the aisle. Best buy there's three different printers. If you're just going in there and picking up a printer, nothing happens if you're in that aisle for 10 minutes, why not give the person 20% off coupon for your specific model?

That's right there. So think of all the things that you do with the shopping cart, all the things that we've done online, we can now do in the real world, you buy a whole bunch of clothes from Macy's all the time. Macy's knows what you bought in the past. You're now in their physical store or a virtual pop-up store that doesn't really exist.

All the mannequins now have your body shape. They have some of the pieces that you already have with some new things would go well together with those. The store has been customized to your exact taste. Ikea number one reason for returns. People are bad with spatial reality in the actual sense they buy stuff.

That's too big. They're there. They're living rooms 10 feet long and they get a 14 foot sofa. It's not Ikea's fault that these people are challenged. So now all their catalogs have that can open up there's little [01:04:00] barcode, hold up your phone and he can see your furniture at scale in your own place. It goes on and on.

And I've worked on a number of these with some major corporations, but I'm here to tell you all the ones that are going to make people so rich are simple. Solve a problem.

Hala Taha: [01:04:16] You got my wheels spinning that's for sure. Okay. So last question. What are NFTs? What do you think is the most important thing that my millennial and gen Z listeners need to know?

Jay Samit: [01:04:27] So there was a lot of hype when an artist just got $69 million for a digital file that everybody else can see for free. So here's what it is. We understand blockchain. Blockchain is a ledger. That's on lots of computers that says, this is real. You own this Bitcoin, you own this thing. A non fungible token is a token.

Think of, a token from a game or, a poker chip that says this is an original and there's a record of it. So lots of people can get a poster of the Mona [01:05:00] Lisa, but the original is hanging in the loop. So many people can buy a new song from Justin Timberlake, but one person can own the first copy or the original copy Kings of Leon just did this. Right now,

there's silly money doing silly hype and silly dollar amounts. Where do I think this is going to go? Let me give you a great example. One of the joys of going to a concert, your favorite band is to buy a piece of memorabilia to say I was there. Okay. Proof that you were there. So you get the concert t-shirt with the dates and Van Halen tour.

I was there. Okay. What if they had an NFT that only people at that facility at that moment in time that actually witnessed it would have. And what if you could then display that in a way that shows that it's proof that you could show you are the biggest Springsteen fan, because you've been to 82 Springsteen concerts.

Okay. So in the old days you would hold [01:06:00] paper tickets, but those could be lost or stolen. So there's now digital souvenirs. And so that's something that, that I'm working on that I'm excited about. I think I've got a project that when I was a young boy, I would've begged mom and dad to take me to. So I'm excited to have this come to fruition in a couple of years, but think of that, think of what is a digital trading card.

What is something where somebody wants to have that ownership and will these become investible in time? Where they'll go up in value remains to be seen. But if you can start thinking about towards the collection and the only way to complete the collection. So let's pretend I'm making this up. I didn't think of this at the time that if you could prove that you had been to 100 Springsteen concerts, when you hit the hundredth concert, you get to go backstage and meet them for the meet and greet.

Okay. Now all of a sudden you [01:07:00] might want to buy my NFT from that concert from three years ago that you missed, because you could buy your way into that level, just as in people to play video games by the shield of death or the thing from people that sit and play the game all day to sell digital items.

That's where the started it's here to stay. And if you don't believe that you're going to spend money for digital, I'd argue with anybody listening that the majority of your income goes to digital today. Your rent is digital, your phone bill, your cable bill, your health insurance, credit card, student loan, all digital.

Hala Taha: [01:07:36] It's so true. This is it's already how we operate and look at Bitcoin it's at $60,000 or something already. It's so insane.

Jay Samit: [01:07:43] And there's a speech of me talking about Bitcoin. Back when it was 20 something dollars people didn't believe. I was lucky that somebody explained it to me day one and I've watched I've watched people become billionaires just from crypto.

Hala Taha: [01:07:56] Yeah.

I regret not buying Bitcoin. All right, [01:08:00] cool. So thank you so much, Jay. The last question I ask all my guests and by the way, I loved this interview and I think everyone's going to love it. It was such a great conversation.

Jay Samit: [01:08:09] Thank you so much for having me. Oh, before you ask the last question, anybody that's made it this far into your show and loves you and therefore cares about the subject.

I'm not selling anything. I'm not upselling. I don't have masterminds. You can't buy my face on the t-shirt. I'm just paying it forward. That's why I do this. I have on my website, free workbooks for both Disrupt You and Future Proofing  You just go to my name, Jay Samit, jaysamit.com and he can download those.

And those will, lot of times you're reading something. Oh, this is good. This is good. And then you get to the next chapter and you forgot the last stuff. This allows you to pause and start working on your plan while you're reading, because I believe that you can do what Vin did. I believe you can be successful.

I believe he can help make the world a better place. Now onto the last question.

Hala Taha: [01:08:48] I love that. I, and I'll definitely link those workbooks in my show notes guys. Okay. Yeah. Future Proofing You that's the book. Don't forget it and make sure you guys grab a copy again. Jay's doing this out of the [01:09:00] kindness of his heart, so definitely go support and learn yourself.

So the last question I ask all my guests is what is your secret to profiting in life?

Jay Samit: [01:09:09] Solve for others to solve for you? If you're on a journey that it's all about you, it's a very lonely place, but when you can impact other people's lives, it is the most gratifying experience. It gives you meaning and purpose of every day.

I often tell people, if you can't find somebody with a smile, give them yours. It takes so little effort and you never know when one word of encouragement, one pat on the back, whatever, it may take opening one door to give somebody a chance can just change their whole trajectory of life.

We're all here because other people came before us and helped. And we have that obligation to make the world better. And I believe the purpose in life is to live a life of purpose. And so once [01:10:00] I had success, I wanted to help people because not to get into politics at the end of the show. But when I saw what happened in our nation's Capitol this year in January, what I saw was thousands of people that feel left out, left behind, literally fighting over the leftovers aside the bottom hundred and 40 million people in the U S are fighting over 1% while the top doubled their wealth during the pandemic.

Why are we still teaching people how to be factory workers when there are not factory jobs? Why are we ideally letting democracy disappear? Because the only way have democracy is if you have a strong middle class and the only people that create a strong middle class are entrepreneurs, they are the job creators.

So what you do with your podcast is making the world a better place, and I salute you for that and keep on doing it.

[01:11:00] Hala Taha: [01:11:00] Thank you. I think that was so beautiful and so powerful. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do?

Jay Samit: [01:11:08] Where you have to be on social media nowadays?

So you find me on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever. My website, jaysamit.com has old speeches and articles and columns that I've written for wall street, journal and fortune and other things. And I'd love to hear from people. So don't be a stranger anywhere on the world.

Hala Taha: [01:11:25] Amazing. Thank you so much, Jay.

Jay Samit: [01:11:28] Thank you.

Hala Taha: [01:11:29] Thanks for listening to young and profiting podcasts. I hope you found immense value in this episode with Jay Samit. I definitely know that I did. And every time he comes on, I learn so much. If I had to pick one part of this episode, that's my favorite. It was when he was firing off the twelve

truth for  becoming future-proof and to everyone out there. If you remember, he said growth mindset was truth number one. And if you're listening right now, I want you to remember this growth mindset was truth number one, for a reason, [01:12:00] because believing in your ability to succeed is the key to becoming future-proof.

The more we believe we can improve, the more effort we will put towards our goals. Let me just repeat that. The more we believe we can improve, the more effort we will put towards our goals, and this will even happen subconsciously. With a growth mindset, you realize that obstacles are just opportunities and disguise and you move from there.

And so I hope if nothing else, this episode inspires you to be greater than what you currently are. If you're interested in learning more about how to unleash your full potential in life or in business, take a listen to a throwback YAP episode, number 60 Surviving Entrepreneurship with Evan Carmichael.

In Evan's episode, we talk about how he scaled his YouTube channel to becoming one of the most popular self-improvement channels in the world. And why trusting the process instead of tying yourself to the end result is so important. Here's the clip from that episode.

[01:13:00] Evan Carmichael: [01:13:00] If you tie yourself forth to winning, you're only going to take on projects that you know you're going to win at.

And so you play small for life. When you tie yourself worth to the effort to trying to taking on challenges. Most days you're not going to win. But you're going to end up accomplishing so much more than the person who's just staying inside their comfort zone, only doing the things they know how to be great at.

So for me, if I'm doing this show, if I'm nervous to come on and do this shows episode 60, I don't want to let Hala down. My, my biggest fear is I'm going to disappoint people. So if I showed up and the only thing I did was vomit all over my microphone one, Hey, you get some good content. It's different.

It might get a viral clip. It might be the worst interview all time for you for me, but I'm still leaving patting myself on the back saying I did my max and hopefully for my next interview, I only vomit inside my mouth. [01:14:00] And then the next interview is a little bit right. And I'll slowly get better.

 If you woke up and did the thing that made you proud of yourself every single day, you're going to accomplish amazing things. If you only tie yourself worth to getting that result, you're going to stay small for life.

Hala Taha: [01:14:13] Again, check out Evan Carmichael's episode. If you want to consistently hit your goals by trusting the process.

If you're a new listener, please make sure you take a few minutes to subscribe to the app and drop us a review on apple podcasts. If you didn't know, apple podcast reviews are the most coveted reviews for podcasts and that's because they actually impact our podcast rankings. A lot of these other apps, their reviews don't impact the rankings.

And so that's why I always push apple podcast reviews because we want to be at the top of the charts so that we can impact and improve as many lives as possible. And as always, I want to shout out a recent apple podcast review and this week's review goes out to Paul pads. What a find. What a blessing it is to discover this [01:15:00] podcast.

So many gems and insights for people of any age, looking to propel their careers. It's so easy to hit the subscribe button. A good podcast gets you excited about the possibilities and that's exactly what this podcast achieves. Hala is a wonderful host, creating this based an ambience for her guests to really open up.

Thanks so much for the content Hala. No, thank you so much, Paul, for your amazing review. I sincerely appreciate you taking the time and reaching out to us all the way from Great Britain. So Paul pads, so happy to have you as a listener and thank you so much for taking five minutes to write us an apple podcast review.

And if you're out there listening and you find value in our show, the number one way to thank us is via an apple podcast review. And don't forget to share young and profiting podcasts with your friends and family and on social media. I love it. When you guys take a screenshot of the app and then tag me at Yap with Hala on Instagram, on your stories, and then I'll definitely repost and [01:16:00] reshare.

You can also find me on LinkedIn at Hala Taha, and now I'm on clubhouse. I'm there almost every single day at Hala Taha. I'm hosting events. Definitely follow me there. Tap the bell for always. So you always know when I open up a room, I also do a live podcast every single Tuesday night at 8:00 PM. So if you want to catch young and profiting live tune in on clubhouse and the human behavior club, it's a largest club on clubhouse and I'm hosting my young and profiting live episodes.

You guys probably have heard a few already cause I've been posting them on the podcast. Every single Tuesday at 8:00 PM. So super excited about that. And with that said big, thanks to the YAP family. You guys are amazing. This is Hala signing off.