Hala Taha: [00:00:00] Will, welcome to Young and Profiting.

Dr. Will Cole: Thanks so much for having me. Can I just say thank you so much for, a few years ago, having me on your podcast and rooting for me then.

And then when I reached out, you answered right away. Mm-hmm. And I said, "I have this book coming out. Like, can I come on the show and chat with you and catch up?" And I just... Your kindness is off camera, and not, not everybody can say that, right? Aw. I can't say that to everybo- everybody. And I... You're the real deal, and congratulations on the network and all the amazing- Thank you

things and see how God's working through you.

Hala Taha: Thank you so much. Well, of course I wanted you back on the show because you provided so much value last time. We talked all about gut health. Yes. I learned so much. You were like one of my first doctors that came on the show, and then I started interviewing, like, so many different biohackers.

Yes. Uh, so that was really cool, and today we're gonna talk about cellular health. Yeah. Because you have a new book that's coming out, I think in September- Mm-hmm ... called Save Your Cells.

Dr. Will Cole: Heal Your Cells.

Hala Taha: Heal Your Cells. Yeah. Uh, and cellular health is so [00:01:00] important. Mm-hmm. And one of the most new things, unique things that I learned when I was- Mm

reading your book is that parts of our body don't age all at the same rate.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah.

Hala Taha: And that is something I had no idea about. So your, your heart and your kidneys and your immune system and your metabolism all can age at different rates.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah.

Hala Taha: And so my first question to you is, how is this possible?

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah.

Many people don't know, and not just know this, but why it's so important because when we're looking at the United States, and really when any Western society right now, but the US specifically spends more healthcare on healthcare than any industrialized nation, yet we have the most chronic disease and the shortest lifespan of all Western nations.

Hmm. And we spend the most for it economically, but we're paying a human price for it, too. Not just in the quantity of our life and not just the quantity of life, but the years of healthy years. Hmm. The health span, not just our [00:02:00] lifespan. But yes, the, one of the cornerstone studies that I talk about in Heal Your Cells, and I wrote the book with Dr.

Josh Axe, a friend of mine- Mm-hmm ... a colleague of mine in this, in the functional medicine space. It was a Stanford study. It was published in Nature in 2023. They found that one in five Americans have at least one organ aging more rapidly than other organs. Hmm. And why that's important is... And, and that equates to about 23 million Americans.

That's a lot of people. But why it's so compelling and why we wanted to write about this and other longevity research is it's all down to cellular health. I mean, if you can actually heal the cell, you can deal with a lot of these chronic diseases.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: If your brain cells were aging more rapidly-

Hala Taha: Yeah

Dr. Will Cole: the researchers at Stanford found that you had about an 80% increased risk of a neurodegenerative issue- Wow ... like Alzheimer's or- Mm-hmm ... some sort of neurodegenerative problem. If your heart cells were aging more rapidly than the rest of your body, you had about a [00:03:00] 250% increased risk of heart failure, heart attack, and stroke, which is one in two Americans.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Dr. Will Cole: Are-- It's killing one in two Americans. Yeah. And 50% of Americans that have a heart as- a heart attack, their first symptom is death. And I lost my dad suddenly in a car accident because we think he had a heart attack- Mm ... or at least some cardiovascular event, lost consciousness, and it caused him to crash the car.

So that was one of the pivotal roles of me just diving into, okay, why is this happening? Yeah. Why are so many people, not just people in their 60s, the baby boomers, but we're seeing so many people getting heart disease, heart c- um, cardiometabolic problems, autoimmune problems-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Dr. Will Cole: cancers in their 20s and 30s and 40s.

And

Hala Taha: they look healthy. They look- They look- ... fit and muscular and healthy, but then underneath that all, they might have heart issues.

Dr. Will Cole: That was my dad. He was a bodybuilder. He was into fitness. He was into health. He was here one second, gone the next. And I've seen s- and Dr. Axe, who wrote the book with me, had [00:04:00] his father-in-law, same thing.

W- All, did all the wellnessy stuff. Yeah. Here one day, gone the next. So this concept of uneven aging, and not just looking at problems for the sake of it and saying, "Well, we can't do anything about it." Actually, it's the empowering thing is when you know what you're dealing with, you can do something about it.

'Cause largely, these things are reversible, healable, overcomeable things. Mm-hmm. But we have to do something different to see something different, which is why we called the book Heal Your Cells. Mm-hmm. And the subtitle is Reversing the Irreversible. Because the world and the system that the world runs in says there's nothing you can do.

Just take this medication. See you later. But actually, the science is pointing to actually quite the opposite. We have a lot of agency on our health, but we have to actually do something about it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And what else was interesting for me is the fact that when we're looking at our body, it's, it's better for us to think about what is the system that is failing the most, or, like, what is the system that I need to be worried about the most?

Like, am I having gut issues? And, like, that's the thing that I really need to focus on [00:05:00] first. So you really wanna figure out what is the system that is failing the most and work on that first, correct?

Dr. Will Cole: Absolutely, yeah. Now, there, on a clinical level, 'cause we still run a telehealth clinic. Yeah. So obviously for telehealth patients, we run labs.

Mm-hmm. We can look at DNA me- methylation and some of the hallmarks that the Stanford group- uh, looked at. We can look at these different organs. Ele- 11 different organs is what Stanford looked at. And we could look at similar ones of how cells in specific type of organs, and not just the organ cells themselves, but s- the type of cells within the organ.

That's the follow-up study just this summer. They're just in June of this year. Different types of cells within that same organ can age, age more rapidly. Mm. So we can get very precise. Yeah. This is just cutting edge stuff. But yes, we have to know what organ's aging more rapidly or what's your pain point.

Everybody has... There's so much bio-individuality to that, right? Yeah. Based on genetics. But genetics loads the gun, epigenetics pulls the trigger. There's something in our life that's causing that [00:06:00] accelerated clock- Yeah ... that, that cell clock to be ri- uh, uh, aging more rapidly. So yes, we look at labs, DNA methylation, inflammation markers to look at that, and somebody's health history obviously is important, and their family history is important.

But beyond that, in the book, we adapted questions that we ask new telehealth patients. It's a cellular health report card to kind of see- Mm. It's not the same as a lab, obviously. Yeah. But I wanted people to see what organ may be the weakest for me. Mm. Maybe for some people it's their gut, and they always have digestive problems.

Mm-hmm. And there are some good clinical pearls, some telltale signs that their body is giving them a proverbial check engine light. Yeah. Like, something's off here. Um, the body's nudging them to pay attention. In our hustle culture, we're so divorced from our body, and our body some- is oftentimes is giving us some clues.

"Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me." Um, and we're no- we're not aware or conscious or paying attention to these s- signals that our body's giving us.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Most of my listeners are, like, late [00:07:00] 20s to, like, early 40s. Mm. Even some, some, like, late 40s, 50s. What should we be pa- Like, what are the common things that we should be paying attention to in, in terms of, like, realizing that a system is failing?

Dr. Will Cole: Another study Published in Nature. Nature has so many good studies on PubMed. But this is j- another summer of 2026 study, recent study, that found that people born after the age, the n- year 1965- Mm-hmm ... were aging significantly more rapidly than people born prior to 1965. But specifically, people born in the 1990s.

Basically, every decade after 1965. S- if you were born in the '80s, '90s, 2000s, every decade, the younger you are, you are actually aging more rapidly than the people older than you at the same age.

Hala Taha: How does that make sense, though? Because everybody says we're living longer.

Dr. Will Cole: We're living longer lifespan by a few years, but it's not a great healthspan.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Dr. Will Cole: So we're aging more rapidly, [00:08:00] but we... So we can keep people alive longer today because of modern medi- medicine, but we can't keep them healthier with modern medicine. So we see that in elderly homes, right? Mm. I mean, they're alone- Mm-hmm ... hopped up on tons of, tons of medication- Yep ... completely sedentary, and depressed.

It is a miserable existence. So that's not what we're talking about here. So yes, adding life to your years, but can we also add... Uh, let me say that. If I could cut that- Yeah ... maybe cut that. So of course, we wanna add years to your life, but can we also add life to your years? Mm. And that's what all this whole longevity chatter in the biohacking space, I think they lose the plot because it's like, what's...

how can we add quality of your life to the here and now?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Not just look for the promise to the future. Which of course, I'm interested in living a long, thriving life, and being able to play with my grandkids someday, and enjoy life, and not be in that space- Mm-hmm ... that many elderly people find them.

But for [00:09:00] myself in my 40s or people in their 20s and 30s, like, how can we enjoy life now? I see so many of my friends that are kept back from living the life that God created them for because they're fatigued, and they're- Mm-hmm ... have nervous system dysregulation. They have other inflammatory problems.

That's not a great quality of life. So yeah, the science is pointing to the fact that there's many people in their 20s and 30s and 40s that have cells of 60-year-olds today.

Hala Taha: That's crazy.

Dr. Will Cole: Common, not normal.

Hala Taha: I, I really wanna dive deep on this whole concept of aging, and there's all these different, like, aging phrases or, or ways to calculate it.

You've got your biological age, you've got your chronological age, and you've got your cellular age. Yeah. Can you break down the differences between those?

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. So the chronological age is how much, how many years, like how many birthdays have you had? Mm-hmm. The biological age and the cellular age, I would say pretty much the same.

Mm-hmm. It, it's the overall understanding what's happening at the cellular level. What, what's your cells' age? Hmm. Which can [00:10:00] be very, very different, and we can actually quantify this. Yeah. Looking at different metrics like inflammation, like DNA methylation, and other health biomarkers that can aggregate more or less where your cellular age is.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: And many people are aging more rapidly. Um, but it's... Many people think, well, to your point, people in their 20s and 30s or 40s, I don't have to be thinking. This idea of longevity isn't really sexier and they're not really into it, and that's why it's like, to me, they're missing the point. The missing point is like, yes, we all kind of have a cellular credit score, whether you know it or not- Mm-hmm

and we can improve it. And what you are dealing with in your 60s and 70s and 80s, you actually start investing in in your 20s and 30s and 40s. You can't wait until you're in your 60s to be like, "Yeah, I care about this now." You have to start building this now and investing in your health now. Mm-hmm. But even if that still, if your st- head is in the sand for the future, and that may be the case- That [00:11:00] quality of life's actually more important for me.

Yeah. It's like what are they doing, like the talent and the time and the vision that they have in their life to not be kept back. That's also a sign if somebody's not thriving in their life and being the best version of themselves, that's also a sign that their cells are aging more rapidly.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So I actually, for the first time ever, I'm gonna be taking one of those, uh, aging tests, like a really popular test.

Mm-hmm. It's gonna have 160 labs and, uh, I'm gonna get my biological age. Now what do you wanna tell me in terms of when I read that biological age? What should I take seriously or not seriously? How should I be reading that? Do you

Dr. Will Cole: know some of the biomarkers they're looking at?

Hala Taha: It's Function Health so it's-

Dr. Will Cole: Okay.

Yeah, yeah ... you're

Hala Taha: probably familiar with.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah, yeah. So they're, look, uh, and Function Health is, I don't know all the labs that they're running, but they're running a lot of good conventional lab data. I, I diner it out on this stuff. And what, what, what we're also gonna... What, what, what we would look at, and Mark Hyman's a friend of mine and, um, they're doing [00:12:00] amazing things over there.

And what we do with our telehealth center, it's similar but one-on-one. It's not, uh, like, uh, you know. It's we're seeing people one-on-one online. Mm-hmm. Um, I would take all of that data important. It, it, I would take it all important. Knowing what you're getting done, I think all of this conventional data is important.

There's gonna be bigger deals and smaller deals potentially, right? So I think the context around these biomarkers matters. What I think you should do is actually send me the labs afterwards- Mm-hmm ... and I will give you my hot take on it. I will definitely do that. Yeah. For sure. So I think one of the things I would look at, this is what I'd look at.

Well, let me just say this. Yeah. I am h- I am assuming everything's gonna be fine.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: You're a healthy, vibrant person, and I don't want people to become hypochondriacs or become obsessive about this. Stressing about your health isn't good for your health either. Yeah. Exactly. So I, I'm gonna assume it's just gonna be a good pat on the back and say, "You're doing everything great," and cool.

It's a snapshot in time. It's a re- g- great report card, and we can check in next year. Mm. That's what I would assume. [00:13:00] But if there is something off, the beautiful thing, the grace in all of this, is that by you being proactive about your health- You could do something about it, you know? Uh, like Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, you do better."

Mm-hmm. Well, labs are a know better thing, and you can do something about it. So I think, uh, some of the areas I think are the most, uh, helpful for the average person are s- inflammation markers. Mm-hmm. And you're gonna go look at that high sensitivity C-reactive protein. Homocysteine is another one. Uh, specifically having to do with cellular...

Both have to do with oxidation. Because when they're high, it's the cells kind of saying, "Hey, I'm not safe."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: And they're trying to protect us, trying to protect themselves. But it's so- showing that something is threatening the cells-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Dr. Will Cole: and we wanna find out what's the root upstream cause of that threat.

And it could be both physiological, physical, or mental, emotional, spiritual, things like stress and trauma, and looking at both of those things. And that's where health history comes in. So I would say let's look all of it. And then the great [00:14:00] thing about looking at conventional biomarkers like that is we are, also can look at the tighter interval within that larger reference range of where our body functions the best.

Mm-hmm. And that's where we get our name in functional medicine. So we're looking at optimal, not average, which, which we probably talked about the last time I was here. But the lab's reference range is based on that statistical bell curve average of people who go to labs.

Hala Taha: Got

Dr. Will Cole: it. People that go to labs aren't the healthiest group of people.

So we're look- Mm ... we're looking is where does the longest vibrant li- like lives live? Where does the health span longevity people live? That's the functional range. So, uh, yeah, I think that that's a great illuminating, proactive tool for you to then ha- say, "Okay, what's, what are the thing- things I need to focus on?"

Hala Taha: Yeah. But in terms of the biological age that they're gonna give me- Oh ... I feel like every time I hear somebody tell me their biological age, it's always younger than their chronological age. Are

Dr. Will Cole: they lying to us, maybe?

Hala Taha: I don't know. Like, is it real? Should we really take that, like, seriously?

Dr. Will Cole: There's a, there's a lot of labs out there that I don't know [00:15:00] their system and, uh, like what- Yeah

they're basing that calculation-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Dr. Will Cole: on. Uh, so not everything is accurate out there. So I'd wanna look at the reproducibility, the, the credibility- Yeah ... of the tests. But this, like for example, the Stanford researchers and us looking at DNA methylation, it's an estimate. These are estimates- Yeah ... of like more or less where can they be.

But I think, um, you know, we wanna put the, the all labs in, in context.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And also, like you mentioned, like the people who get labs are usually unhealthy. Yeah. So you're

Dr. Will Cole: like-

Hala Taha: Well,

Dr. Will Cole: who are you comparing

Hala Taha: yourself to? ... basing it on the average, like, unhealthy- Yeah. ... sort of person maybe.

Dr. Will Cole: Right. It's... Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. But I think it's a, a ballpark is what I would say. A lot of these labs can say a ballpark. Am I trending in the right direction or am I not?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: Uh, and it's not, it's not, uh, you know, it's not even. That's where as, as we talk about in Heal Your Cells. Yeah. You may be great in some areas, and then some pain points in other areas.

So it's... I think the [00:16:00] context around this data is important.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So there's lots of things that impact your cells. One of them is what you eat. Mm. Of course. Talk to us about, you know, s- uh, I feel like there's a lot of information out there about what we should- Mm-hmm ... be eating, but what's your, like, best guidance in terms of how to navigate-

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah

Hala Taha: our nutrition?

Dr. Will Cole: The f- the food, foods are instruction manuals to ourselves, right? I mean, they're determining how quickly or how slowly that cellular clock ticks and tocks. And, you know, we all have that sort of L- we have agency on the rapidity or the slowness of that cellular clock ticking. So it's not just about what we're eating, it's when we're eating.

A lot of researchers are talking about the chronobiological disorder. So basically, things like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and, and insulin resistance feeds many types of cancers. Mm-hmm. That is this, yes, these are inflammatory problems, but and the foods we eat either feed inflammation or fight inflammation.

There's no neutral food. There's no Switzerland, I'm doing nothing for your [00:17:00] physiology meal. But so what you eat matters, but when you eat, the science is pointing to also. Mm-hmm. So the whole concept of time compressed feeding or time res- restricted feeding, intermittent fasting- Mm-hmm ... or fasting mimicking ways of eating is a tool that we have to slow down that cellular clock.

So it's ... You're, you are right in the sense of you're gonna ... You ask 100 different doctors in the wellness space, you're gonna get 100 different opinions pretty much.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: Uh, I-- We can get into the granular details of it, but I think there's so much bio-individuality to this topic. Yes. 'Cause I look at people and their health history and their labs all day long.

So if I hung my hat on one way for everybody, I'd be proven wrong all day long. Yeah. 'Cause it's ... You could say, for example, a, uh, Mediterranean diet, you know, has lots of great studies around it, right?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: But what if that person has FODMAP intolerance from SIBO, and they, they eat lots of greens and grains, [00:18:00] and it's causing a lot of bloating.

So do you say keep doing that? It doesn't make that version of the Mediterranean diet, and there's different ways to even do a Mediterranean diet, doesn't make that bad, but it makes it-- it's not loving that person back right now. Mm. So and then there's many examples of that. Things like fermented foods, right?

They, uh, have a lot of data. I love a s- the data on sauerkraut and kimchi and kefir, but if you have histamine intolerance, mast cell activation syndrome, which we see a lot clinically, that's gonna flare some people up. Mm. Does that make... Even bone broth. Bone broth's like the pinnacle of the gut health food that we talk, talked about for years.

It can be, depending on how you cook it, can be higher in histamines. Mm. So there's no har- There's very few hard and fast rules other than, of course, eat real food- Yeah ... and decreased processed, ultra-processed foods. If I had to say what are the inflammatory core four that don't love most humans back, would be gluten-containing grains-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Dr. Will Cole: industrial seed oils like canola oil and soybean oil, and that, specifically, we talk about it in the [00:19:00] Heal Your Cells, how that impacts cellular membrane health. Uh, added sugar in the absence of fiber, and then I would say conventional dairy. Now, there's better for you versions of even those. Mm. Like a sourdough ancient grain- Yeah

wheat can work for some, some people, not for other people. There are better seed oils, like a, a organic cold pressed Uh, sunflower oil technically is seed oil. Um, but is it, is that what's killing America? No. Yeah. Uh, so to lump all seed oils or to lump all grains or to lump all dairy or to lump all even sugar is reductive.

Hmm. So there's a lot of nuance and context to these conversations. So I like getting into the weeds of like what loves your body back. Yeah. And that's part of what we teach in the book instead of this sort of like this is my camp. This is the carnivore camp or the vegan camp or the Mediterranean, whatever, ke- uh, keto camp.

We're all different and even within the camps, there's still a lot of variation and bio-individuality to these- [00:20:00] Hmm ... food conversations- Yeah ... nutrition conversations.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So I wa- I wanna dig deep on this concept of biochemical individuality. Yeah. And that was, uh, a concept that was discovered, I think, by Dr.

Roger Williams.

Dr. Will Cole: Yes. Wow, you've done your research,

Hala Taha: Erin. I have. And so I'd love for you to tell us what he discovered exactly, 'cause I thought that was really cool.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. Yeah. That's... We talk about it in the book, is that the w- it's we're all unique. We're all unique. And he was called a quack. He was k- uh, people kind of poo-pooed him.

They didn't understand it. Any disruptor, you know, it's they vil- d- typically vilified at the start and then years later, oftentimes before these people are gone, like, after these people are gone, that's when they're validated and science catch up, catches up with these guys, these pioneers. Science catches up with antiquity.

That we're so unique- Mm-hmm ... the idea that this is gonna be a one thing for everybody, and that's one of the [00:21:00] blessings, uh, and I use that word loosely there, of AI-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Dr. Will Cole: that we can use AI in smart, hopefully smart, regulated, thoughtful, constrained ways to be more precise. 'Cause there's only so many hours in the day, and I'm only one human being for me to say, "Okay, how many people can I even help in a day?"

Um, and then on top of that brain power of a human. Yeah. So to get precise and like we were talking about- Mm-hmm ... with lab data, getting more precise on not just food prescriptions, quote unquote, um, but also on herbal peptides, mind-body practices- Yeah ... all these things. So I am hopeful that we can get more...

But that's what that doctor was talking about, is that we're all different. Yep. And the idea that we can say we could have 100 people with a low thyroid problem, for example And what one low thyroid case needs that the other person doesn't need. Is it under conversion of T4 to T3? Is it Hashimoto's disease?

Is it thyroid resistance? So he didn't get into the [00:22:00] weeds of that, but I think he saw enough in his research to show that there's so much bio-individuality to this concept, and that is, was talked about decades and decades ago in hi- in, in his life, um, that now this is the future of medicine- Yeah ... is precision medicine.

This is how

Hala Taha: healthcare is evolving now.

Dr. Will Cole: Exactly.

Hala Taha: With functional health- So they're just- ... and your company and everything like that ...

Dr. Will Cole: yeah, they're just confirming what our, our, uh, the f- the, our ancestors knew all along.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah.

Hala Taha: So we're not only what we eat, right? There's other things that we're absorbing from the environment, and the environment is impacting us with different toxins.

Can you talk to us about all the different toxins- Oh, man ... that we're dealing with?

Dr. Will Cole: Right. And there's... I, I'm hesitant even when we talk about... It's important to talk about. Yeah. I'm glad you brought it up. But that word is so overused sometimes- Yeah ... and then people end up stressing and have anxiety about this stuff, and then, or they just shut down and like, "I can't do [00:23:00] anything about it."

You don't have to have perfection to start improving your health.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: You do not have to live in some non-toxic plastic, BPA-free plastic ... bubble because that's not, stressing isn't good for your health, right? Yeah. This is so important, guys. So I, this is the context of this, but we still have to talk about it.

Mm-hmm. We can't just have our head in the sand and because it may ruffle some feathers. But yeah, it's, it's a pro- it's a massive problem. M- I mean, the overwhelming majority, almost all of us have these forever chemicals, microplastics in our body. Mm-hmm. Common, not normal. I look at these environmental toxin tests, I see them high on nearly everybody, and by high, I mean even trace amounts.

But is there a healthy amount of microplastics in somebody's body? Especially when researchers are finding that it's, it may be these microplastics, at least a piece of the puzzle, contributing to this because they a- accumulate in the plaque, the artery, uh, arterial plaques, actually contributing to this inflammatory response 'cause the body's like, "What the heck?"

So [00:24:00] the immune system cells are saying, "I need to get this microplastic or forever chemical out of the artery." Yeah. And is that why we're seeing one in two Americans having heart attacks and strokes? It's implication in cancer, infertility issues, which the United States is below the to- total replacement level, meaning we have a massive, uh, fertility problem.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's 70% of the world is below the total replacement level, meaning we don't have enough people to replace ourselves without immigration. I mean, this is where we're at as a world today. Wow. Why? What has changed? It's not our genetics. It's the environmental issues. Mm. Um, so and then I, I, another thing I look at are these herbicides and pesticides.

I mean, most of the people that I measure on labs have these things coming out of their urine. There's not a normal amount of pesticides that be, should be coming out of your urine. Yes, I'm glad that your body's brilliant enough to clear this stuff out, but why is it in there in the first place? So it is another thing that you can, as you can imagine, make our cells feel unsafe.[00:25:00]

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: So the body has this innate ancient mechanism called the cell danger response, and that cell that's meant to protect you- There's these pathways that upregulate to say, "I need to defend you," and the cells get defensive. And that's happening on a micro level. The cell membrane, the sort of gatekeeper that gets nutrients in and gets by- byproducts of energy out, becomes more hard- Mm

becomes more rigid. The cell membrane loses its fluidity, and, and it becomes oxidized, almost like a rusted, um, cell. Mm. And where- what's happening on the membrane, it's also receptor sites for different hormones, so that's implicated in the sort of hormonal crisis we're seeing today and fertility issues being a part of that.

Um, but these sirtuins get stressed out, especially from environmental toxins that we're talking about. Herbicides, pesticides, microplastics, forever chemicals- Mm-hmm ... heavy metals. Um, these guardian angels of our DNA, of our genome as a whole, these sirtuins then kind of are playing catch-up, just trying to de- pr- defend your [00:26:00] cells that it can't keep up.

So these whole mechanisms get thrown to this threat state. So the p- the goal is not to avoid them en- these environmental toxins entirely, 'cause we can't.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: But the body's amazingly resilient, but we have to give it a fighting chance. Mm-hmm. And we don't have the wiggle room that our ancestors had.

'Cause these, most of these environmental toxins have only been in the human landscape for a few decades. Mm-hmm. A blip in time when you're putting that into context with the totality of human history.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: So something to deal with, not obsess about, not to live in fear around, because the body does have these mechanisms to clear this stuff out, but we have to actually facilitate it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So talk to us about that. What are, like, two or three practical things that we can do to just reduce the amount of environmental toxic load?

Dr. Will Cole: It starts with what's in your house, right? I mean, you could go really basic. The Environmental Working Group has a new list every year or so. They update it.

It's the Clean Fifteen and the Dirty Dozen. I think that's a basic. Most people know about it. But just go and [00:27:00] look. It's the produce, the fruits and vegetables mainly that are... The Clean 15 are the fruits and vegetables that tend to have the lowest herbicides and pesticides, and the Dirty Dozen tends to have the highest.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Dr. Will Cole: Um, so shop there. Meaning that if you're on a budget- And you can't buy all organic or don't have access to all organic, don't stress. Do the best you can and give the rest to God because you don't have, it doesn't have to be perfect. Wash off the, the clean 15 if it's conventional and not organic.

But swapping for organic fruits and vegetables whenever you can is a good idea.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Dr. Will Cole: I mean, we could go through the whole house, but we probably don't have time for that. But like the, it's, the kitchen's one area that I would say swapping out any non-stick pan-

Hala Taha: Okay ...

Dr. Will Cole: for either a cast iron skillet or a non-toxic non-stick pan.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Dr. Will Cole: Because that's a major, just a single scratch. This is a study out of California, I believe. Just one scratch of a non-stick, a conventional non-stick, like a Teflon [00:28:00] type pan- Mm-hmm ... release over 9,000 plastic particles.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Dr. Will Cole: Right. I mean, wild. So super simple. Like, there's swaps for most of these things. So look at the things you're using on a daily basis.

The, the bioaccumulation, the sort of cellular accumulation that can happen when your cells are like, "Okay, cool. Here and there, no big deal," but you're cooking here every single day or you're having this thing every single day, that's where things can add up.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: And then look at all the other, I mean, going to like quickly the, the laundry room, like swapping out your laundry detergents and soaps and things like that.

It should not be smelling like this fake sort of- Yeah ... scents. Like just swap out, guys. Like there's so many better things. You can get at Target and Costco and Sam's Club that are decently priced that don't have all these scents and additives. And then going up to the, the personal care stuff. Like really vet the makeup you're using, the skincare products you're using.

Really important. And then you can get into the weeds of all different types of things. I [00:29:00] think EMFs are actually something else that you need to look at. It's invisible, but, uh, doing the best you can to minimize EMFs is a great thing. So even if it's just turning off your Wi-Fi router at night. Mm-hmm.

Like, do you really need the Wi-Fi at night? I mean, so, some people do, 'cause their, even their alarm clock's attached to Wi-Fi. But I would get the gold fashioned-

Hala Taha: Really? Like actually turn off your Wi-Fi, not just like put your phone away? Y-

Dr. Will Cole: I mean, look, I mean, you could. The more you do, the better.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: So do the best you can with whatever doesn't stress you out.

Like, I don't want people to become maniacal zealots about this, but- Meet yourself where you're at.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Lean into it, and then progress over time as this becomes less overwhelming. Mm-hmm. So yeah, s- base, sleep with that phone outside of the room. But I would go a step further and turn your Wi-Fi off, 'cause you're sleeping in an electric box.

Yeah. So you want those... 'Cause that's another thing that accelerates cellular aging is our sleep. Mm-hmm. Our, our la- uh, light itself, like the blue light, it, that's, uh, accelerating our cellular clocks [00:30:00] as well, but it's these deep sleep states that we need to get to. Yeah. And some people are more sensitive to this than others, and you can track on the, sort of the wearables, but even that has low-grade Wi-Fi.

So I don't even like using those trackable devices, like the rings and the bands- Hmm ... long-term for most people because, A, it's like, okay, do you really need more data for ad infinitum, forever and ever? Then you stress about-

Hala Taha: Yeah, you're just

Dr. Will Cole: like- ... your sleep score ... non-stop

Hala Taha: stressing.

Dr. Will Cole: But I do think using technology smart, pointed, pulsed when it makes sense, and then keep it intuitive and basic, and yeah, minimize EMF exposure as much as possible.

Some of these are small. I don't wanna overblow it, the small frequencies, but it's adding up. It's Wi-Fi there. It's, it's, it's 5G there. It's your phone sitting next to you right there. So it's the overall entourage effect that all of this stuff plays. So the more you can start to take a dent into how much you're exposed to is a good idea.

I mean, you could go all the way up to wearing, like, [00:31:00] covering your bed with a Faraday cage- ... which blocks EMFs entirely. Depends on how nerdy you wanna get.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Um, but yeah, the more you do, the better.

Hala Taha: Totally. And I think for a lot of the listeners tuning in, we probably are pretty good with our eating.

Like, we've been taught for a long time, like, avoid processed foods, fats, sugar- Yeah ... all these things. But environmental toxins is probably something we can all focus a little bit more on.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah.

Hala Taha: And there's also biological- toxins and I believe like metabolic toxins- Mm-hmm ... which I didn't realize was a thing.

Dr. Will Cole: Oh, yeah. Well, when your cells, back to that cell danger response, if your body's all feeling unsafe, and the goal of this is from physiologically or physical factors, whether it be an environmental toxin or food that doesn't love you back, or eating too mu- like eating too late and you're not getting a reprieve.

Mm-hmm. Uh, or it's things like stress and trauma. Anything, whether it's physical or mental, emotional, spiritual, what's making your cells feel unsafe? When that, when that [00:32:00] happens and that cell membrane becomes more rigid, your mitochondria starts shifting from producing ATP. These are the cellular energy factories of your cells, and you need it for energy.

So think brain fog, fatigue. A lot of people's health problems are actually mitochondrial issues. But then it becomes, you almost... We get these leaky mitochondria. You know how people have like leaky gut syndrome- Mm-hmm ... or leaky brain syndrome, which is impacting anxiety, depression, and brain fog and fatigue.

But you're actually, on a cellular level, you're, you have leaky mitochondria with this threat, hypervigilant cellular state, and your cells are releasing these reactive oxygen species. So these bypro- products of energy, which stre- stresses out the sirtuins, those guardian angels of the genome, even more.

They're like, "Okay, I need to defend you, but you're not giving me a reprieve here." They're always working. Hmm. So they kind of lose their way in just trying to maintain the backup of these toxic byproducts. The problem is, because the cell membrane is more rigid, [00:33:00] these bo- these toxins aren't able to get out of the cell as easily.

Hmm. So that's why healing the cell membrane is a key part of what we talk about in Heal Your Cells. Yep. And just clinically, it's just so important because that's where the hormonal receptor sites are, but that's also where nutrients get in- Mm-hmm ... i.e. nutrient deficiencies at a cellular level, but also getting the bad stuff or bypro- it's not even bad, but it's just an accumulation.

It's too much of something that's part of nature. Mm-hmm. But we just need a homeostasis in the body. But when the cell is stressed out, homeostasis is impossible.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, I, I have so many questions. Uh, let's spend some time on how we heal our cells. So similar to how different parts of our body age faster, also our cells can renew, and they all renew at different rates depending on the body part.

So like skin is pretty fast. Yeah. Blood is fr- pretty fast. Your stomach, your stomach is pretty fast. Uh, but then other body parts are, are slower. So why is that the case?

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. Well, the simple answer is the way God made [00:34:00] it. Yeah. It's just how quickly or how slowly those cells function, right? Okay. And some, so we have a greater grace period in certain, like our, our gut's amazingly resilient, right?

And the brain, in theory, uh, is, is healing and can heal, but it's gonna take slower for a lot of these, uh, like myelin sheath destruction or neuroinflammatory spots. It's like, oh, in, in theory if you lived long enough it could heal, but we only have so ti- so much time on this earth, uh, even the longest living of us, right?

And I want people... This research is clear. There's no reason why most of us can't live over 100 disease-free, healthy, vibrant years. So that's the healthspan and lifespan aspect of this. But theoretically, the nervous system, which is one of the more slower areas to heal, it can heal, but you'd have to live to like over 250 years old or something like that.

Mm-hmm. You know, not that long maybe. But you know what I'm saying. The body is always healing, some more rapidly than others. Yeah. Um, so why, another reason why it's so important to find out what's your [00:35:00] cellular report card- Mm ... because if it is this area that is like we can't do much about it, it's just a slower healing area, you have to get on it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Versus your gut, not to say that it's not difficult for some people, 'cause it can be very difficult, but I've seen the gut repair pretty dang quickly.

Hala Taha: Really?

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. So it's like there's different areas that, uh, we ma- have more of a grace period than others.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. And there's an order of operations in terms of like what we should do to actually heal ourselves, correct?

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And, and for the sake of the book, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, uh, 'cause there definitely is an order of operations. Yeah. We have to stop this toxic load I think was one of the first things we need to do, which we kind of touched into. Yeah. Like start, if you haven't, lean into the food aspects of it.

Lean into the environmental toxin to mitigate this. And then we didn't go deep into it, but yes, what we feed our ma- body matters with breakfast, [00:36:00] lunch, and dinner, but what are we feeding our head and our heart on a daily basis? Mm. And the epidemic rise of spiritual disconnection, this sort of lack of some spiritual faith in our, in our life as a humanity, that's also creating this cellular danger response.

Mm-hmm. I would really What, look, looking at the content and the, the constant stream of information we're consuming on a daily basis, that's impacting the cellular rapidity as well.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: So not to be perfect, not be, become obsessive, but to say, "How can we minimize the things that aren't loving us back?" And maybe it's a food, or maybe it's a relationship, or maybe it's a job that is unsustainable and it's a toxic job.

Mm-hmm. But these things matter because what good is it if you've narrowed down the nutrient dens- dense most amazing super food, clean eating you can think of, but you're serving your body a big slice of stress every day?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Or you're serving your body a [00:37:00] big bowl of traum- unresolved trauma every day in our body.

These are more nebulous, more abstract and complex certainly, but they're really important. So I think one of the first things is just taking an inventory-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Dr. Will Cole: of, like, what are the things that aren't loving my body back right now? Because those are the things that are causing your cells to become defensive-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Dr. Will Cole: and age more rapidly.

Hala Taha: Yeah, and not just like you said, not just physical, but mental as well.

Dr. Will Cole: So important, and it's hard because it's more prescriptive for me to say, "Eat these foods. Do this type of fasting. Take these peptides," all helpful tools. But how do you say don't have that stress or trauma? Yeah.

You can't say that, right? But it's so important, so we dig into it in the book. 'Cause I see people do all the good biohacking wellness stuff, right? Yeah.

Hala Taha: They wanna jump to that first.

Dr. Will Cole: Right, and right. But and I get it, it's more linear and, uh, black and white, but these complex things need to be dealt with.

I'm not saying you have to address it all right now, 'cause that's not how it works, but you need to at least lean into these dark corners of somebody's health. So I would say [00:38:00] that's... If you talk about order of operations- Mm-hmm ... I think this is one of the first things that people need to do, is even acknowledge the things that are not loving them back at this point that's causing their cells to become defensive, that's accelerating these pathways.

Mm-hmm. Because these beautiful pathways that are meant to heal you are completely dampened when you have both either physiological or psychological stress in your life. Your body on a cellular level can't even distinguish between the two. Whether you're, it's an inflammatory food or a toxic relationship or a burnout job, your cells all kind of respond the same way.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: So how do we let your cells know that it's safe? Cellular safety will cause a ripple effect of healing- Yeah ... in your life.

Hala Taha: You actually have a great story in the book that really illustrates all of this. So you mentioned earlier your dad- Hmm ... uh, tragically was killed in a car crash, and you said that you got grief body- Hmm

at that time.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. Yeah. So backing up a [00:39:00] little, this is 2023.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: So I was on the eve of My f- last book before this, uh, Gut Feelings, which talked about stress and trauma- Mm-hmm ... and around this, how that impact gut health, uh, and autoimmunity. And it was a book about stress and trauma, so the irony was not lost to me of, like, my dad was here.

And we had a, we had a great relationship towards the end, but as all parent- I think a lot of kids can say, yeah, sometimes our relationships with our families are complicated sometimes. And it was healing. It was, like, getting in a great place. And that's the... I'll have to ask God one day, I don't have the answer, of like, "Wow, why could it have been the best it could be and then he's gone?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: But I- that was part of it all, of like, dang man, time is so sh- short, right? Yeah. And we don't know the time we have. Um, so yeah, it was all of that, of like replaying it in my mind and then thinking this guy that was the picture of health and then here then gone the sec- [00:40:00] gone in a neck- gone in a split second.

And then lots of unanswered questions with the car accident, and then having to see, not to get too graphic, but like- Yeah ... your bloodied dad on a t- metal table at a hospital- Yeah, it's worse ... and he's already gone. It's, it's, it's never easy, whether it's a slow loss or a quick loss. But yeah, that was the impact that stress and trauma on my body, something had to give.

And the foods that I would be fine with, like I love a good hot sauce, Tabasco. Like, I put Tabasco... I'm one of those guys- Mm-hmm ... that used to put Tabasco on everything. Eggs, anything. What else? My so- my son's off camera. I put it on literally everything. But I couldn't, I had no resilience. Like, my no- my gut-brain axis, your gut's your second brain.

Mm-hmm. 95% of serotonin, 50% of dopamine is made and stored in the gut. So the cells of my gut and the cells of my brain were under like, "Whoa, we need to slow down." And I was back to back. That was my fourth book. I'd run, I ran a full, and still do, run a full telehealth clinic and I [00:41:00] do my podcast twice a week.

So I had to practice what I t- taught, and I'm was, found myself in a, the same place like a lot of our telehealth patients. We know we're doing more than most people are about health. I wasn't eating the standard American diet. Uh, the worst thing that I eat is, like, an organic Valencia peanut butter- ... which, you know, some, some people in my space would say I'm slowly poisoning myself, but I love my peanut butter and I have no shame about that.

Um, the whole point being is, like, I was doing better things than the average person and I still was, like, hit that burnout.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: And to dig deep into some of the practices that I talk about in the book, like somatic practices and trauma work and EMDR and journaling, to sort of metabolize stored stress and trauma in my body that, yes, it hit a zenith, a tipping point with my dad, but really was a lot more than that.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. But now, you know, I've never feel be- I have, I feel better than I ever have now, but it took some healing, and I wanted to share what worked for [00:42:00] me in the book. For the people that have done all the things-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Dr. Will Cole: how do you take it to the next level? And that's what Heal Your Cells is for.

Hala Taha: Yeah. It's crazy to think, because for me, when I think of, like, mental, like, trauma, I feel like it's like this abstract thing- Yeah ... in your mind, and you don't actually think that it, it's really impacting your physical health. And that's what you're saying, is that- You've gotta heal your trauma-

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: so that you can fully heal your body.

Well,

Dr. Will Cole: epigenetically it's one of the things that's coding on your epigenetics. It's these co- these instruction manuals for how DNA is expressed. Yeah, it can be environmental toxins or it can be an inflammatory food or eating too often and not having a proper fasting window, but it's also things like stress and trauma.

Actually codes and upregulates these genes that m- we don't always wanna be turned on, like inflammatory genes or, you know, a gene for an autoimmune condition or fertility issues. Whatever the case may be. But they are epigenetically regulating cellular expression. Mm-hmm. Part... That, that saying that I mentioned earlier, "Genetics loads the gun, [00:43:00] epigenetics pulls the trigger."

So yeah, something that's pulling the trigger for one person isn't for the next person, but it typically is a confluence of different factors. And for me it was just pretty obvious that it was the stress piece. Mm-hmm. Uh, and again, for someone that loves what they do- Yeah ... and I think a lot of entrepreneurs and business people, we don't It's hard to see where it's so relative, right?

Yeah. Or, or most people that I talk to in, in our, like, that type of position, how high is your stress, they wouldn't even know.

Hala Taha: It's our baseline is stress

Dr. Will Cole: all the time. It's our baseline. Yeah. That's, just because something's common doesn't make it normal. Just because you can carry it doesn't mean you should carry it.

Yeah. So it's like, yeah, it's like boundaries and, and, and out- and delegation and support and reaching for help and being okay with doing nothing, which is really difficult for people. Mm-hmm. Like, like us, like myself. Yeah. I can speak for myself. It's hard for me to slow down, but some of the, sometimes the best medicine is just saying no and, like, laying on the couch and just, like, chilling and unplugging and getting off your phone.[00:44:00]

Um, supporting the parasympathetic, the resting, digesting, which that, uh, is another tool to tell the cell you're safe. Mm-hmm. So I prescribe JOMO. It's the antithesis to FOMO. You, we have the fear of missing out in our culture. Well, JOMO is the joy of missing out- Mm ... and finding it. And that's a deep, hard practice, actually.

Finding joy in missing out. Mm-hmm. Missing out on business opportunities, missing out on hanging out with your friends, missing out... But sometimes that's, you know, connection's important, but there's a season also to just be still-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Dr. Will Cole: and to heal and connect with nature, connect with God. So that was some of the hardest work for me, and I still am not great at it, I'll be honest with you.

I've been like, I'm not some monk living in a- Mm-hmm ... in a ashram. But it's something that I have found a better pace at slowing down.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Which my cells are very thankful.

Hala Taha: I think a lot of entrepreneurs tuning in really need to hear this because a lot of us have been grind, in grind mode for- Yeah ... 5, 10, 15 years, and now may be the time to embrace JOMO.

And- [00:45:00] Slow down a bit ...

Dr. Will Cole: and you will, you're, you will be the better version of yourself for it. You'll actually be more effective-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Dr. Will Cole: because you actually have more to give versus being this frenetic, distracted energy. You'll be laser-focused when you need to show up to that meeting- Mm-hmm ... or that project.

So yeah, more isn't always better. It's hard to have that discernment, but that's part of it, too. When you have some stillness, you can have discernment and know what should you say yes to.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Dr. Will Cole: And this isn't just being a hermit, antisocial hermit, which that's, you know, you know, easy for me to do as a, you know, a introvert.

But it's about having discernment. And when you're go, go, go all the time, hypervigilant, it's really hard. You're just saying yes to whatever, and you have no idea if it's even the highest quality yes.

Hala Taha: Mm. So a couple last things about cellular health. Uh, first thing I wanna ask you about is rhythm. Mm-hmm.

So it's really important to have really good circadian rhythm. Yeah. What are some of the things that we can do to make sure that we're having good rhythm, and why is that so important? [00:46:00] It's

Dr. Will Cole: so important, yeah. Yeah. So one of the things, we talked, we actually covered quite a bit- Yeah ... are the areas that- are misaligned.

Our genetics haven't changed in thousands of years, but yet our world has changed dramatically. So what researchers call an epigenetic genetic mismatch, it's what's causing our cells to age more rapidly. Okay. And there's another quick study I wanna say. Is that there, it was in Nature Aging, which again, just this summer, so it didn't make the book, but it's showing what we're talking about in the book, is that there's two key areas in our life, age around 44 and age 60, that are these basically cellular aging cliffs- Mm

where it's a non-linear aging. And, and the problem is people that are born in the '80s and '90s, the 1980s and 1990s, millennials, and even more so for Gen Z, they're coming off that cliff faster, and they are, uh, accelerating faster around these key points. So it's really important to, again, improve that cellular credit score in your 20s and

Hala Taha: 30s.

So, like, 44, you get, like, a big aging spike.

Dr. Will Cole: spike. [00:47:00] And the problem is it's just you're jumping off the... Now people are jumping off that cellular aging cliff harder because of this misalignment.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Dr. Will Cole: Um, sorry, what was your question about?

Hala Taha: So basically, like, what, what kind of things can we do to improve circadian rhythm?

Dr. Will Cole: Oh, circadian rhythm. Yeah. Yeah. So light is resets the cellular clock, specifically the brain central clock. Mm-hmm. And the brain central clock, the SCN part of the brain, tells the peripheral cellular clocks to be in sync. The problem is we have all this light pollution all day long So it's back to that again.

People that have to be on their screens for work. Look, I'm in telehealth, so it's a blessing to be on ca- uh, uh, to talk to people around the world. I've done it for a long, years. But I need to have, like I have off-camera right now, these v- uh, bright yellow glasses, these blue light blocking glasses. They would be a lifesaver for anybody that has to be on their- Yeah

their phone- Mm-hmm ... or a laptop because it will preserve not only your eyes and eye strain, which your retinal [00:48:00] cells... I mean, the research out of Harvard right now with David Sinclair and healing these retinal damage is just so exciting the, with these Yamanaka factors. But beyond what's able to do for eyesight, I'm just thinking about it from a cellular safety standpoint.

Mm-hmm. Is that when you're constantly, your body thinks, especially at night, "Let's have blue light," it's really throwing off that sleep-wake cycle. So cortisol, that stress hormone that's actually not bad, I mean, God made cortisol. It's helps that productivity. It helps, it's an endogenous immunosuppressant, so it's, meaning it's a natural anti-inflammatory.

You want for, like the productive person out there, you want cortisol to be relatively higher in the morning and then a nice S-shaped gradual, uh, slow down towards the end of the day. The problem is when you're looking at your screen all day long and you have poor sleep hygiene, you're staying up too late, and on top of that, eating too late at night, it's keeping cortisol up too high for too long.

Mm. A breaking of the Goldilocks principle.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Not too high, not too low, but just right. [00:49:00] So I don't wanna pathologize cortisol 'cause it bl- it's a blessing, but we don't want it to always be high. Mm-hmm. So we need to be consistent with these sleep habits. And, uh, a couple of hours before sleep, I would prefer, if I'm talking to a patient-

Hala Taha: Yeah

Dr. Will Cole: and I don't always practice what I teach here, but I would at the very least get a good quality blue light blocking glasses. Yeah. Next would, like the most ideal would be to just be off of screens for a few hours. Mm-hmm. Um, and then be consistent with the routine. Co- a cooler temperature. Studies show mid-60s Fahrenheit to 67 maybe is the highest some studies report to be the best sleeping temperature to improve these REM and deep sleep and heart rate variability, which is an important marker for cellular safety- Okay

'cause that's the parasympathetic nervous system. Um, so cold, like cor- lowering your core temperature. If you can't lower your home that cool, then a cool shower in the evening can be helpful Have you heard of these sort of bed [00:50:00] mats, like the- Eight Sleep ... ChiliPad, Eight Sleep- Yeah ... ChiliPad. They both have, uh, will regulate your core temperature.

Mm-hmm. A sleep mask, blackout b- blinds. Make it as cave-like as possible, um, because that will enable you to improve these sleep scores. Mm-hmm. And that is helpful to slow down that cellular clock. Because the s- when the... You're getting blue light pollution all the time, your cells become unsynced. Yeah.

They kind of lose their way and lose track of time on a cellular level, and you don't want that. That's what's aging people faster.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. And, uh, so we need the rhythm, but then it's also good to kind of like stress and throw everything off so your body can be more resilient.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. Well, all of this... Yeah, especially with food and fasting and the way that people exercise, the, the research is...

That's a great point. So chronic stress that goes in- on in perpetuity to... It's, that's too much [00:51:00] stress, right? Yeah. That's a misalignment. There's a, there's a mismatch between how our body is created and evolved and the world around us. But a little stress actually can be a great thing. Mm-hmm. Uh, the concept of hormesis, hormetic effects in the body.

That's stressful, but it's pulsed. It's micro-dosed stress. It's intentional stress. And in some ways, I think humanity needs to get a little bit more grit and resilience- Yeah ... but in a smart, pulsed, human-aligned way. Um, these adversity mimetics is what researchers call them. How can we stimulate these preservation, protection, healing mechanisms in the body so your cells can actually become stronger and more resilient?

So that, I mean, it could be anything. Like fasting is a hormetic effect. Cold plunging is a mi- a mimetic, a hormetic effect, adversity mimetic. Uh, sauna is. High intensity interval. Mm-hmm. Re-HIIT training- Yep ... which is like HIIT on steroids. I mean, there's a lot of ways to do pulsed micro dose stress to then say you're [00:52:00] more resilient.

So when life comes, like that, whatever, environmental toxin that you are, you're breathing in somewhere, or that stress or trauma or that hard meeting at work, your cells are more resilient. So it's kind of like when you integrate hormetic or good stress in your life, it's like a cellular gym. Mm. So when the stuff that's isn't so good, you'll be more resilient for it.

And even down to the food, which we didn't get into, but there's the concept of xenohormesis. It's these c- plant compounds that the plant went through stress in its life, so it kind of donates and shares it, what it's learned to ourse- cells- Mm ... and, uh, teaches our cells to become more resilient.

So think bitter [00:53:00] foods and deeply rich pigments. Fruits and vegetables, a lot of them have these polyphenols, these flavonoids that teach our... They actually, how they work, people hear about polyphenols and flavonoids and a- antioxidant properties.

How do they actually work? They're, they're, they're stress compounds that are teaching ourselves, "Hey, we went through, we went through hell out there. We grew, bugs were bite, bi- biting us." "We were out in the drought." The harder that plant's life, the more rich it is in these pigments, 'cause they're defense mechanisms.

And then when we eat it, it kind of teaches ourselves to kind of have some grit and resilience to it. Yeah. Which I think is beautiful.

Hala Taha: And I think intermittent fasting is pretty similar, right? It's kind of-

Dr. Will Cole: Absolutely ...

Hala Taha: giving us some resilience.

Dr. Will Cole: It's exa- Your body says, "Okay, the food may not be coming," so those cell defenses, things shift.

When cell defense r- uh, responds, cell danger response happens, and you give your body some of these adversity mimetics, these hormetics, whether it's food, fasting, cold, heat, whatever, it, [00:54:00] it starts to slower something called mTOR, which mTOR is building up all of these pr- We need mTOR to build muscle, but we don't always want mTOR to be excessive.

mTOR stands for mammalian or mechanistic target of rapamycin. God made it. It's not bad. We need to build muscle, but it's always high for too long. Mm. Just like cortisol. mTOR and cortisol are always high in most of us. It's a breaking of that Goldilocks principle. Mm. So if we can lower mTOR at least sometimes- Yeah

it allows our cell at least a reprieve to fix some things. So it upregulates autophagy, the cellular recycling pathways. It's sort of the anti-accelerated aging, and your body, your cells are so smart. Your cell actually envelopes those toxic byproducts that I mentioned. Yeah. And even environmental toxins, it envelopes them into these autophagosomes and then attaches it- Wow

to this lysosome, which injects all of these enzymes to break down these toxic byproducts. We have a cleaning system, but we need to tap into the cleaning system, and you can't if [00:55:00] mTOR is always high, and insulin and blood sugar is always high, or stress is always high. You need to give your body that cellular siesta, and that takes some

Hala Taha: help.

And that's basically not eating-

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: so that you can enter autophagy, right?

Dr. Will Cole: Exactly. Yeah, and even these, uh, more, like deeper, there's a place for deeper fasts. Mm-hmm. Like beyond even 72 hours. Yep. These, uh, m- mediated aspects of fasting can be even deeper. Mm-hmm. Where stem cells get activated and these r- r- deeper repairing mechanisms.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Have you ever heard of ProLon?

Dr. Will Cole: Oh, yeah, the fasting mimicking diet. Yeah.

Hala Taha: Valter Longo. I've, I've tried that a few times. Oh, yeah. I really like it. It's like a five-day fast, basically. Yeah. They give you some food. You don't break down your muscle, and-

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah ... you get

Hala Taha: autophagy

Dr. Will Cole: Your body thinks it's fasting without actually fasting.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: And the ketogenic diet as a whole, and I love what Valter Longo's d- V- uh, Valter Longo, who's the guy, researcher behind USC, uh, the, uh, fasting mimicking diet, great stuff there. Um, and then I would say the ketogenic diet done in a nutrient-dense whole food way- is also another way, because why? What's [00:56:00] happening?

Ketones are raised. Mm-hmm. Ketones are a fuel, a way to burn fat, but it's also an epigenetic modulator. It actually trains those cells to become more resilient, it lowers inflammation. Paracelsus, one of the fathers of modern medicine, he was known as the Martin Luther of medicine, he called fasting the physician within, and the ketogenic diet would be mimicking that.

It's this inner-cellular doctor that repairs things. But more isn't always better. People shouldn't always be fasting. Yeah. That's called starvation. I mean, there's a p- there's a context to these conversations that are important.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, so I wanna move on to some broader topics, uh, outside of cellular- Okay

cellular healing. Uh, but you guys should definitely go grab his book, uh, Heal Your Cells.

Dr. Will Cole: Thank you.

Hala Taha: Uh, I thought of s- the reason why I said save yourselves before is because Amy Shah has Save Yourself podcast- Oh, yeah ... and I got it confused in my head- That's what happens- ... because she's my

Dr. Will Cole: client ... when you run a network, guys.

It's like, bro, all these doctors. 'Cause we were just

Hala Taha: talking about Amy Shah,

Dr. Will Cole: that's what happened. I've done Da- Dr. Amy Shah. Shout out to Amy Shah. I- she's one of the best people I know, [00:57:00] and she's so beautiful inside and out. And yeah, I, I just, I'm so proud of her, and I love that you guys are working together on this network.

Yeah. It's so cool.

Hala Taha: Uh, okay, so let's move on some, to some broader topics. So Ozempic obviously has sweeped the nation over the last two years or whatever it's been- Mm ... and everybody's on GLPs. Feel like two decades, but. You've got some pretty interesting thoughts around Ozempic, and especially what it's doing to our desires outside of just desiring food.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. Look, I love the United States. I love... I think we have a lot of things, and not just the United States. Western culture as a whole has obviously brought humanity a lot of great things. But, you know, the American way is if a little is good, more is better, and that's not true when it comes to health.

Just like hormesis, we're talking about- Yeah ... okay, what's the nuance and context of this? And we love to over-correct, 'cause I do find it interesting that as a culture, I don't wanna get too controversial here- ... but like we were praising body positivity, and there's no such thing as a bad food, and health at any [00:58:00] size.

And apparently that ended abruptly for a lot of people as soon as Ozempic came on the thing. Look, one was problematic. There are foods that don't love the human body back. Mm-hmm. We were gaslighting people and pandering and placating people, but then we like to over-correct, and now we're advocating for medically induced starvation mode, which people are overdoing these things and shutting down hunger.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Food noise in balance is not a bad thing. You need to eat. So it's creating, I think, a lot of disordered eating that, "Oh, I'm feeling hungry. That's bad. Let's up the units." And we're overdoing it. Look, I look at gut health for a living. The body makes these GLP-1 peptides endogenously, naturally, as we improve gut health.

I am a fan of appropriately using micro-dosed, cyclical, both/and, not either/or approach to GLP-1s and other types of peptides. Okay. Because when the gut is wrecked- Even if you get the, someone's gut health improved dramatically, which we do all the time [00:59:00] Maybe their gut's not gonna ever produce enough GLP-1 to be the best metabolic health because of modernity, because of what we've done as a human species to the planet and ourselves.

Mm. The human microbiome is, the gut microbiome is intimately connected to the soil microbiome and the soil that we f- grow our food in. Um, so I think a pragmatic, logical approach is a both/and, not either approach to this. But the problem is we over-correct in America, not with just this, w- with many things, and we swing the pendulum in the completely other direction, and we shut down these cues too much for too long in perpetuity.

That is an issue. It's an issue... Obviously, there's all the medical side effects that people are talking about with gastroparesis and muscle loss, like, and then gaining it all back- Yeah ... the minute you stop. I mean, there's a lot of problematic... The sustainability of this is problematic. But also, I'm seeing this phenomenon that, and not a pe- not a lot of people are talking about it, but it- I've see it firsthand with telehealth patients telling me they're seeing that in their family and [01:00:00] friends, are these Ozempic personalities.

Mm. Like, they're becoming dull, and they don't have very highs and lows. It's exacerbating some depression for them. It is too much of a good thing, and it's even impacting, even impacting relationships. Yeah. Yeah, it's shutting down f- their desire for food, but it's also impacting their cravings for love and relationships.

It can help some people with their relationships 'cause they feel more confident. It'll actually improve their relationship. Yeah. So I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's a horrible saying, I apologize. But I think the sweet spot is the bioindeva- individuality to this- Yeah, back to that

and what's the lowest dose needed to improve? And if you pair it with actually dealing with why you have the problem in the first place, which is not an Ozempic deficiency, it's actually improving your gut and improving your metabolic health- Mm-hmm ... and dealing with nutrient deficiencies, you actually won't need that much GLP-1.

Yeah. That's the conversation that we don't wanna have in our culture- Mm-hmm ... because we love a good quick fix.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Dr. Will Cole: And this is l- unlike anything else. Uh, and w- [01:01:00] this is directly proportional to people falling in love with their chatbots and AI- Yeah ... and, like, uh, completely having in- unhuman con- relationships.

I'm concerned with humanity when you look at the total replacement level and f- and our fertility rate, uh, a- and then this rise of people not caring about relationships as much. Uh, and, and it's not just Ozempic's fault, but it's part of the conversation-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Dr. Will Cole: that we are... What are we being sold? Yeah. And what are we choosing as a society?

Hala Taha: Yeah. And it seems like now that GLP-1 is mainstream and, like, traditional doctors are prescribing it, now it just seems like it's become, like, a new Band-Aid, that everybody's getting prescribed GLP-1s. Yeah. Um, and something I'm curious about... So I- my whole family's doctors. I have three siblings that are all doctors.

My dad passed away, but he was a surgeon. And I've realized, like, as I've been, you know, interacting with them over the years that- Years ago, they were v- very against [01:02:00] functional health. Hmm. Like, kind of like, not very against, but like, it seemed like quacky, right? Yes.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. It was the other.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: It was the not us.

Yeah.

Hala Taha: Now it's... Now, like, uh, my sister's getting really into functional health and everything like that, and so she, so she's, like, embraced it and I think, like, more doctors are embracing it and understanding that there's, like, a full picture to look at.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Can you talk to us about kind of like the, the evolution that's happening in healthcare?

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. I love that. I really do love it. And I have seen that, 'cause I've been... I started the first functional medicine telehealth clinic 16 years ago, so I've seen a lot over that time. And it... U- we used to get phone calls from people early, this is 2009, something like that, and people would call and say, "How dare you say you could reverse Type 2 diabetes?"

Like, "You're lying. You are, like, uh, completely giving false hope." Now, you're not gonna meet a com- not even a functionally minded doctor, this is your average conventional doctor, they're... If they're still saying you can't reverse Type 2 diabetes, get a new doctor.

Hala Taha: Yeah. '

Dr. Will Cole: Cause that's like standard, basic stuff.

Like, it's just like we [01:03:00] know it's lifestyle driven. Yes, it's more difficult for some people. If you have, um, severe insulin resistance, of course, especially with this c- our conversation of GLP-1s, I mean, everybody's talking about it. It's... But beyond even GLP-1s, I think most doctors will be like, "Yeah, looking at food and exercise are a key p- point."

I think that's a, a simple example of how I've seen the industry change. What was radical 15 years ago is not radical anymore. So I think there's a few reasons for that. I think... Well, I think we probably In some ways infiltrated the system, I think a bit, in the best of ways. The, I mean, mainstream institutions have functional medicine centers now.

Yeah. I mean, the Cleveland Clinic has a functional medicine center. Mm-hmm. That wasn't around when I first started. There's many mainstream m- um, medical and hospital systems that have integrated medicine and functional medicine systems. So I think they're not opening multi-million dollar clinics and institutions because of quackery.

They're doing it because the data speaks for itself. Yeah. And you're on the wrong side of history, or really are so [01:04:00] archaically tribal that you don't realize it's actually welcome to 2026 and beyond. Yeah. I mean, this is the future of medicine, is a both/and, not either/or approach. Mm-hmm. And it's not, shouldn't be threatening.

Like to me, it's like the we, we... Let's have the best. Like, if somebody needs a life-saving acute emergency ER care, like if my dad could've been saved, I would want him at the ER with the best advancements of medicine, not coming to me .

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: But when you talk about chronic healthcare, like dealing with autoimmune conditions, fertility issues, metabolic issues, think weight gain, anxiety, depression, functional medicine is a significant part of the solution.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: If not the majority of it, I would say. Yeah. Because we don't have this problem of chronic h- disease in the United States because of a pharmaceutical deficiency, but yet that's all that mainstream medical doctors are largely trained on, is pharmacology. Yeah, yeah. Which has its place. But we need to change the way we're educating doctors.

This is not an indictment on any individual physician. This is an indictment on a paradigm shift.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Which [01:05:00] we're tr- I mean, not to get too political, but they're trying to change that. They're upping the nutrition hours. 'Cause most doctors that are conventionally trained, research shows, would fail a basic nutrition test.

But that's important because, to fix, because the majority of people they're seeing are there because in part, if not entirely, because of lifestyle.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: So this is a paradigm problem. This has to go, this goes back, and we talk about it in the book actually, the Flexner Report and sort of the subjugation of diversity of thought in medicine.

It become, it became big money-making orthodoxy. Mm-hmm. Uh, it became very, um cartel-like, let's just say- Yeah ... a financial cartel that said, "We wanna monopolize, and it's gonna be these petroleum-based pharmaceutical drugs, and that's how we're gonna train them, and we're gonna consolidate the market, and anything else is going to be shut down and canceled and, and sometimes imprisoned."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: And that's where we've been, but I think it's beautiful that it's changing now.

Hala Taha: It really is.

Dr. Will Cole: It's so changing, and it doesn't have to be this war. Let's come together. Let's help people. 'Cause when we're fighting each other as healthcare professionals, the only people that are hurting are the [01:06:00] people that need our help.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And I think it's entrepreneurs who are changing the game. Amen to that. It's, it's the doctors that are creating their own private companies- Yes ... and their own Viome and Function Health and your company, and that's- That's, that's what it is ... who's changing the world.

Dr. Will Cole: And I... And that's it. I think the blessings of long-form conversations like the one we're having right now, the internet, long for- podcast, the democras- the, the democratization, the decentralization of health information.

There used to be so many gatekeepers, so they can control the narrative.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: It was the five network televisions. It was the five o'clock news. They would s- it was all sponsored by whatever, whoever, and that was... And the guy with the white coat that you saw every six months would say it was trained by the system, and that was it.

Now, there's information that there's no gatekeepers on a lot of information, which is why it historically maybe has been so threat- threatening, especially during COVID, but the reality is I think people are just so awake now in the best way. I mean by that conscious- Yeah ... alert, informed, empowered. Uh, that is threatening to an old [01:07:00] system, but actually, I think there's so much people...

Like, most doctors got in this because they wanna help people. Yeah. Entrepreneurs are finding solutions to help people. So I think this is actually the benefit of, obviously, our culture and democracy and a free market to, um, to let's d- let's work smarter. Yeah. Let's come together and level up, 'cause the data doesn't...

It's not looking good.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: It'd be one thing if we, if the system was producing great results, but the system's actually not pretty great. Yeah. I mean, the Journal of American Medical Association, the United States spends the most but yet has the worst outcome. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a woo-woo person to say this, we have to do something different- Yeah, we need a revolution

to see something

Hala Taha: different. Yeah, we need change.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. And if you're still clinging to the old way, why? Like, what, what are... That just, like, it's not data-driven at all.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Speaking of data, uh, and change, AI has really changed everything. Yeah. And you have some really unique takes on AI. So what is your thoughts around AI in healthcare but also AI in general and, and how [01:08:00] it's impacting the way that we think and the world, uh, uh, in general?

Dr. Will Cole: It's the American way too. If a little is good, more is better. I'm concerned about that.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: I think, like, somebody's wearable CGM, AI. Their ring that's tracking REM and deep sleep, AI. My electronic he- health records, AI, part AI. Uh, I think AI's in a lot of different things. That's not what I'm talking about.

Those things all make people work smarter, not harder.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Become more efficient, be less stressed, become more powerful, and impact ch- positive change in the world.

Hala Taha: It's like AI ver- v- version one,

Dr. Will Cole: basically. AI. Baby AI. Yeah. I'm all for baby AI. Uh, but the baby AI is turning to be maybe quite the monster.

Uh, maybe not right now. I think certainly we're in the honeymoon period with AI. But like all honeymoons, they end, and I'm concerned of the end game without having a bit of a pause as a culture of the [01:09:00] view behind some of the people behind these big companies, this race that they're all having-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Dr. Will Cole: to say who's gonna be the biggest and who's gonna be the ones consolidating more power.

Um, on- that's on a macro level, philosophical level of these ac- accelerationists, right? I mean, they, is they're compelled to build as fast as possible and to beat the other. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions 'cause they'll say, "Well, other countries will have it. China's gonna have it, and Russia's gonna have it, so we have to beat them."

So we're all a race to the bottom or a race to techno authoritarianism.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. '

Dr. Will Cole: Cause that's, not to get too existential, but that's the worldview of some of these guys. Not all of them, but some of them. I don't know if you've looked into Nick Land and sort of the- Mm-mm ... I mean, wild story. I mean, people just search if they, if it sh- sh- provides you the information when you search-

uh, and does- doesn't censor it. But Nick Land, the, is the father of, godfather of accelerationism. He came out of Eng- He's still alive, but he's University of Warwick, and he... I mean, it's wild occultic stuff. There, I mean, you [01:10:00] think AI, secular Silicon Valley, right? This guy channels what he calls non-human entities called lemur demons- And he's inspired most of the AI guys, but these future AI entities, which they call them hyperstitions, they think that they're fake, but they do tell him stuff.

But collective consciousness makes them real. This is their worldview. This is their worldview. It's like almost like a-

Hala Taha: Wow ...

Dr. Will Cole: belief system. But they, those, these future entities... Guys, research everything I'm saying here. Vet it. Don't take my word for it. That it, these future entities are saying that we need AI and capitalism to be as aggressive as possible and so the singularity happens, and it's, AI is conscious and more powerful than us, so AI can solve all the world's problems.

I'm concerned about some of these people and their end stage of where- Yeah ... they see this going. But it, when I'm, I'm wearing my aura ring, am I thinking about that? No. I don't think it's inherently evil. I just think the system... Maybe if you think of, what's his [01:11:00] name? Uh, Hin- Hinton, Geoffrey Hinton, another godfather.

He left Google to be able to talk about this freely. Just look at Geoffrey Hinton's words. I mean, he says like, "Yeah, we put it, the process in motion, AI. It's a blessing. But now we actually don't know how it works because we, it's be- becoming, uh, and ch- chatting. It's, it's becoming more smart than we are."

Mm. So I'm concerned about the end game, and then bey- That's a macro existential thought that I have just from a societal health standpoint. But on a micro level, I'm concerned about these data centers and the impact they're having on our health.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: From an EMF standpoint, what it's doing to bees and what it's doing to people around these data centers.

I mean, the amount of electricity and EMFs. I mean, the, I t- I asked pa- patients for 16 years, "Do you live near, near power lines?" Yeah. 'Cause EMF-sensitive people, we talked about EMF earlier. Mm-hmm. Turning your WiFi off at night can help your health. This is enough electricity to fuel cities, just one data center.

Hala Taha: Oh my

Dr. Will Cole: God. Some of these are, [01:12:00] one data center is enough electricity and EMFs to fuel small states, and there's no sign of stopping.

Hala Taha: Oh, gosh. And they can build anywhere. There's

Dr. Will Cole: like- They can build anywhere. So for the health of our planet and our health, at least, I'm not anti-AI. I, AI ethicists talk about slow AI and it, uh, reflective, intentional use for ourselves.

'Cause the cognitive offloading that we do, like, we're, we're letting AI to think for ourselves, that's not good. There's studies that show that w- people that use these AI chatbots, even for 15 minutes, decrease brain function by 55%. Like, people are, like, losing discernment. Yeah. They're losing critical thinking skills.

They are, they are becoming mentally, uh, weak because they have lack of discernment because they're offloading too much on AI. Mm-hmm. But then, yeah, beyond that, it is the larger what are we doing for our health being surrounded by this EMFs all the time. Um, it's, it's, it's... Yeah, we have to... So going back, sorry, slow AI.

A- it's just saying, hey, can we just pause as [01:13:00] humanity on a micro level? How are we using this tool? Yeah. Are we letting it think for ourselves? Are we, is it impacting our life in a bad, bad way or a neg- or a positive way? And then societally, slow AI- Mm ... is saying, "Let's, like, look at what this is doing because maybe we should pause it until we figure things out."

Hala Taha: Yeah. It's so crazy because I was in a bubble about AI because I was talking to all these AI experts, Mustafa Suleyman, Mo Gawdat, all these, like, pro-AI people, and all I could see was, like, the efficiency, the productivity. Entrepreneurs can compete more than ever, right? Mm-hmm. And lately, when I post stuff about AI, there's so much hate in the comments.

People are so angry because data centers are being built in their towns and cities, and for some of us, like, we're not impacted by that yet, so we don't realize that there's such, like, a, uh, an environmental problem and also so much, like, hate being built up- Yeah ... because people don't want AI in their cities.

Dr. Will Cole: Well, it's, it's easy [01:14:00] whenever it's not in our backyard, right? But when it's in our backyard, then you care.

Hala Taha: Yeah. '

Dr. Will Cole: Cause this thing that's free, which I also think is interesting, nothing in America is free.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Dr. Will Cole: Why are these most powerful things free?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Dr. Will Cole: We're all contributing to the training of it towards the singularity.

I mean, it's wild when you think about it. It's, uh, we are just being served. The way that it's being shoved down our throats, and we're just like, "Give us more," the AI slop, uh, it is... We need to have some critical thinking here. Yeah. Um, but yeah. It's always easy whenever you're just like, "Wow, this is so great," but if that data center's in your backyard, how great do you think it is now?

Hala Taha: Yeah, not so great.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, well, this was such an awesome conversation. Mm-hmm. I end my show with two questions that I ask all of my guests. What is one actionable thing our Young and Profitable-ers can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

Dr. Will Cole: Wow. I would say

Two things you said?

Hala Taha: One, one

Dr. Will Cole: actual

Hala Taha: thing.

Dr. Will Cole: The one thing. [01:15:00] Yeah. One, I, I am horrible at rapid fire. I, I, I d- I have like the worst person you wanna have on for rapid fire. I ruin every rapid fire. I would say, I would say o- this is what I would do. Do the best you can. S- I said it earlier, but I will say it again.

All this information that we talked about, be curious, do the best you can, and give the rest to God. What I mean by that is just saying stressing about this stuff isn't good for your health, but I want people to at least pick one thing, and then, then the thing is lean in from there.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Dr. Will Cole: You don't have to do all the things because y- people can get paralysis of analysis and then think, "I'm just gonna give up."

So I would say that's more head space that, uh, is really important because, uh, you, for you to be the most profitable, productive, amazing version of yourself, you need to do something different to see something different. And if you don't have your mental health or physical health or spiritual health, what do you have?

Yeah. Like, you're gonna burn out sooner or later. So this is, like, the engine for you to have sustainability in your [01:16:00] career, is dealing with this vessel that you have- Yeah ... in this lifetime that you have.

Hala Taha: I love that. And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? And this can go beyond business.

Dr. Will Cole: Mm.

Hala Taha: Which we didn't even talk about business too much.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah, yeah, too much. Yeah. I would say... What do I like? I, me, yeah, let me think. I would say My relationship with God and nature- Mm ... I think is powerful. Like, I call nature God art. I think that's powerful. God

Hala Taha: art.

Dr. Will Cole: God art.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah.

Hala Taha: That's beautiful.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. It's just like getting out...

And the research shows that. Shinrin Yoku, the research out of Japan and South Korea, is using nature as a meditation and medicine. It shifts your gut-brain axis. It tells your cells it's safe. Mm. Even if you think about it, bird- the birds. Birds chirp. Bird song happens when birds feel safe, and there's something somatic on a cellular level that tells your cells it's safe as well.

So I think that's a non-negotiable for me is I use nature as a, like, an act [01:17:00] of worship. Mm. And, like, just saying, "Wow," like, "What a beautiful planet we are." And it gives me sort of divine downloads from God to say, like, "This is the next right step for you."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: And I think in our hustle culture to slow down and pause, and this isn't woo-woo stuff, this is physiological, this is being explored in the scientific literature of how nature can recalibrate.

And again, to bring it back to the cells, it's the ce- cellular symphony of safety when you kinda connect to that. And it's also, back to the EMF conversation, one of the great ways to dispel EMFs. 'Cause guess what? EMFs aren't even inherently bad. EMFs, you, there's God-made EMFs. Non-polarized EMFs are f- the science around grounding.

Mm. Like, and earthing. Like, put your, like, touch grass literally. Put your feet in grass. It actually recalibrates and synchronizes that cellular clock that we talked about earlier. Instead of it being stressed by all this manmade EMF- Mm-hmm ... you have some nature-made EMFs. Mm. So that's a non-negotiable.

Hala Taha: God art.

Dr. Will Cole: God art, baby.

Hala Taha: Love it. [01:18:00] And where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

Dr. Will Cole: Thank you for the opportunity. Uh, everything's at drwillcole.com. D-R-W-I-L-L-C-O-L-E.com. Mm-hmm. The telehealth clinic, um, information's there. Tons of free resources. Heal Your Cells is there. My podcast, The Art of Being Well, which I would love to have you on.

Hala Taha: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Anytime. Um, The Art of Being Well, it comes out twice a week. So yeah.

Hala Taha: An amazing Instagram channel with-

Dr. Will Cole: Thank you ...

Hala Taha: almost 900,000 followers.

Dr. Will Cole: Thank you. Crushing

Hala Taha: it. @

Dr. Will Cole: DrWillCole on, go to old J- IG, and I'm back on TikTok. Your boy was banned for a minute. But I came back in a different form.

Hala Taha: We'll put all his social links and his book links and all that in the show notes.

Dr. Will Cole: Thank you so much.

Hala Taha: Dr. Will, thank you so much for joining us- Thanks for having me ... on the Young and Profiting podcast.

Dr. Will Cole: Thank you.

REELS SECTION

Hala Taha: Great job.

Dr. Will Cole: Thanks.

Hala Taha: Great job. Okay, we're at 1:49. Uh, so I took you pretty long.

Dr. Will Cole: No, that's okay. It, it was a great conversation, and I'm happy to-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Dr. Will Cole: give time. We can knock out the-

Hala Taha: I would love to try to see if...[01:19:00]

So if we do these reels, the goal of it would be to, like, try to be, like, short and sweet.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. Okay? I, I suck at that, but I'll try my best.

Hala Taha: Well.

Dr. Will Cole: I, I, I- How

Hala Taha: did you like the combo? It was great.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: Let's do it.

Hala Taha: Okay. Um, Mike, we're still rolling, right? Who's that? I'm sure we're... We're still rolling? Yep. Okay, thank you

Okay. Ready?

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. My, uh, um, is the mic still on? Mic's still

Hala Taha: on. It's still on.

Dr. Will Cole: Okay. Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay. Are millions of chronically ill people being told it's all in your head because medicine is just simply not looking in the right places?

Dr. Will Cole: Absolutely. I mean, the, the training and the standard model of care, conventional medicine, is to diagnose a disease and match it with a medication.

It... We have a very reactionary approach. So they need the proper diagnosis criteria to be labeled with a [01:20:00] ICD-10 code, a diagnosis code. But health and health problems exist on a spectrum. By the time somebody's diagnosed with a chronic health problem, researchers estimate it's about 4 to 10 years prior to that diagnosis that things are brewing on this inflammation spectrum.

So what are you... When you are n- not feeling well, you're, you have symptoms, but you're not bad enough to be prescribed a pharmaceutical drug. Mm. There's a lot of people that are medically gaslit, most of the time unintentionally, because the system's so trained in this one paradigm. You don't fit our box.

There's a lot of people that aren't in your small box- Yeah ... of conventional medicine. So, uh, yeah, uh, we need to really pay attention to people. People know their body, and this isn't about being a hypochondriac or looking for problems where there aren't problems. This is about running the appropriate labs.

You'll find the data, conventional data, that show, yeah, these labs aren't bad enough to be diagnosed, but they are suboptimal, and they're trending towards problems, and we have to do something different to see something different.

Hala Taha: Mm. If somebody buys a peptide online, [01:21:00] what could actually be in that vial?

Dr. Will Cole: Man. Lots of gnarly stuff. I mean, it's completely un- It's we don't know. Heavy metals. It could be completely inactive ingredients. Mm. I mean, you don't know. Environmental pollutants. It could be things that are really irritating to your immune system, whatever it is, but there's actually no... very little oversight, right?

Mm. Especially when you are coming at it from a research-only. That's sort of the loophole that was happening. Yeah. But look, this is because the government shoved the peptides into a black market.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: Uh, during the last administration, they did that, and it created a whole problem. Uh, peptide use went up, but yet it's all through these back-channel sort of gray area online markets.

Yeah. So it's risky. Now, there are reputable companies that are trying to work within the confines of this weird secondary black market, uh, research-only market, but you have to know what you're doing. Yeah. Um, so I want there to be oxygen infused into the pept- peptide world. [01:22:00] Hopefully, things look to be moving in the right direction.

My hope is that it doesn't become consolidated with just a few giving preferential treatment to a few multinational big pharma companies, but compounding pharmacies, and compounding pharmacists, and doctors, and people can decide for themselves what they put in their body, and then you'll get safety.

You'll get real-time data. You'll get amazing, uh, uh, you'll get amazing results when it's done properly and not in the shadows.

Hala Taha: Cool. Uh, let me see what else. Oh, great, this is a good one Could Ozempic make you thinner but less interested in love and relationships?

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. The same receptors that impact food noise impact the desire for love, the cravings for relationships.

So I'm a fan of peptides done appropriately for the individual. So micro-dosed, cyclical pulse dose for people who need it. Mm-hmm. I mean, the gut's making a lot of these peptides, not just GLP-1, but things like BPC 157. [01:23:00] So the American way is oftentimes if a little is more... Uh, sorry, let me say that from the top.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Will Cole: The American way is if a little is good, more is better. That's not true when- Mm ... it comes. Like, there can be too much of a good thing.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: So judicious w- pragmatically and judiciously, what is the dose that moves the needle, lowering... I mean, there's a lot of amazing research with GLP-1s lowering inflammation, helping people with autoimmunity, even beyond the weight loss piece- Yeah

which I'm excited about. I- and I- we've utilized it clinically and have had great results. But the American is like, "Let's shut down all food noise 'cause it's bad." It's not bad. Uh, and we just need balance, and the same receptor sites are impacting people's relationships. This needs to be researched.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: It hasn't been researched yet, but I am seeing people's marriages, their relationships being crushed. Wow. Now, you could argue maybe it's bringing cracks out because their body's changing and maybe they're not putting up with things they used to put up with. Mm. There's an argument for that, but I think there's more to it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. '

Dr. Will Cole: Cause I hear people feeling like an Ozempic [01:24:00] zombie. Mm. And I'm picking on Ozempic. It's all the GLP-1s. It's even the compounded stuff. It's just too much of something that could be done, done amazingly, and then you're shifting your biochemistry, neurochemistry, uh, too much in a, in a, in a way that you're dulling your feeling for life.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Dr. Will Cole: And these normal human emotions are then pathologized.

Hala Taha: They're calling it Ozempic personality.

Dr. Will Cole: Yeah. Do you have Ozempic personality?

Hala Taha: I don't take

Dr. Will Cole: Ozempic. No, not you. I might call my I was talking to the person out there. If you- Do you

Hala Taha: have

Dr. Will Cole: Ozempic personality? That's what, that's what I said. It sounds like a big pharma. Do you have Ozempic personality? Talk with your doctor.

Hala Taha: Cool. I think we're good.

Oh, one more.

Can trying too hard to be healthy actually make you sick?

Dr. Will Cole: Yes. You can eat the best foods under the sun, like love the kombucha, love the whatever, grass-fed steak and bone broth, but are w- are you serving your body a big slice of stress- Mm ... or ruminating on past trauma on [01:25:00] a daily basis? Yes. The, the s- the head and heart space in which you live your life is bio- it's information for your biochemistry just as much as a food that loves you back or one that doesn't.

So these mental, emotional, spiritual things are paramount to health. Mm. And if you've done all the things on the physiological side, maybe you need to look at the mental, emotional, spiritual side because those things are instructors to your nervous system, to your immune system, i.e. inflammation, and your hormones.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Your mental health is your physical health.

Dr. Will Cole: Exactly. Mental health is physical health.

Hala Taha: Cool. We got it.

Dr. Will Cole: Cool. Thank you so much.

[00:00:00] Lewis Howes: For 25 years, I held onto a pain and secrets that no one knew about me. I was sexually abused when I was a kid, and no one knew it. It was like a poison running through my psyche, my body, my heart, because I was ashamed. When you're holding onto something that is a poison inside of you, it will make you feel powerless.

You will not be stepping into the greatness mindset with this inside of you. There's three types of fear that cause us to doubt ourselves. Fear of failure, fear of success. Believe it or not, almost 50% of people are just as afraid of their own success as they are their own failure. And the third main fear that causes us to doubt ourselves is fear of judgment.

People's opinions. There is a root underneath those fears, and typically the root is

[00:01:04] Hala Taha: what is up Young and profits. You are listening to Yap, young and Profiting podcast, where we interview the brightest minds in the world and unpack their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. I'm your host, Hal Taha. Thanks for tuning in and get ready to listen. Learn and profit.

Lewis, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast,

[00:01:39] Lewis Howes: Hala Hala, thank you so much.

[00:01:41] Hala Taha: I'm so excited for you to be here. Lewis Young and profits. We have self-made entrepreneur, best-selling author, and the host of hugely popular podcast, the School of Greatness. Lewis Howes. In today's episode, we'll talk about Lewis's new book, the Greatness Mindset, and what he's learned from hundreds of conversations with some of the most inspiring and successful individuals on the planet.

And before we dive into your new book, Lewis, I'd love to talk to you about your story and your own journey towards greatness and what you've learned along the way. And from my understanding when I was doing my research, a major piece of your story occurred when you were sleeping on your sister's couch in Columbus, Ohio at the age of 23.

You had an injury that abruptly ended your professional football career and your dad was recently in a car accident and was put in a coma. You were also pretty broke, and it seemed like the walls of your world were basically caving in on you. So I'd love to understand what were the aha moments or the series of moments that got you off of your sister's couch?

[00:02:40] Lewis Howes: I think I had, uh, something inside of me calling me for something more in a moment of, or in many moments, many months of. Breakdown and sadness and kind of grieving. Grieving the loss of my dream of playing football. Grieving my father who was in the hospital for many months in a coma, and just kind of grieving loss in general.

Emotional, mental, physical loss. And having a lack of certainty. I didn't have certainty, I didn't have clarity about my future. I didn't know what the point of all this was. And so it was just very confusing time and I didn't have any resources. I didn't have any money. I was in, in debt from my, my college loans.

This was in 2008, 2009 when the economy in the US was essentially tanking. The housing crisis was tanking and everything, and I didn't have my father who was kind of my. Back up big, uh, a bank account, if I needed money, he would gimme like 50 bucks here and there. Like it was like a security blanket almost.

Like, okay, go chase your dream when you're done. You can come and I'll hire you for my company type of thing. So I didn't have that anymore. So I had to learn like how to be resourceful. I had to learn how to kind of fend for my own really, and how to tap into a network of people that I didn't know, but I felt like I needed to know.

So that's when I started reaching out to mentors, coaches, guides. I started consuming as much as I could in terms of resources and books, going to conferences, and just trying to meet people, learn from people, and take action. So that was kind of that journey. Then,

[00:04:11] Hala Taha: so something that me and you both have in common is that we leveraged LinkedIn as a launchpad of our careers and our podcasts.

So I did the same thing five years ago. You did it. 10 years ago, right? And so I'd love to understand how you leveraged LinkedIn to get your foot in the door and start in the world of online business.

[00:04:29] Lewis Howes: Yeah, I started on LinkedIn at end of 2007. Actually, I think there was only about 12 million people on the platform at the time.

I wrote a book about LinkedIn in 2009. There was one other book about it, but I think there's probably hundreds of books about it now. But I was one of the first that wrote a book about LinkedIn, and I became obsessed with it early on because a mentor said, why don't you check it out? Maybe you can find a job there.

And I was just trying to, to network on there Originally, uh, LinkedIn was not as robust as it is now, and so after about five years, I kind of gave up on LinkedIn because it was so powerful in the beginning for me. But then they weren't innovating like other social media platforms were, and they did not connect with creators, influencers.

They didn't have any support for someone like me back then. So I really felt like they neglected the community in my opinion. And then I guess about five, six years ago, they started to innovate their platform and add more tools and, and resources for, for creators. I slowly got back on because I kind of got burnt out from LinkedIn because it, it just was, it was so challenging to work with the platform and the team at LinkedIn wasn't responsive as they are now.

It was a launching pattern in sense of building powerful connections early on for me, and I met some incredible people. That I networked with on the platform that I'm still friends with today. Back in 2007, it was a friend of mine who is a mega billionaire now that I met in 2007 by just sending him a direct message on, on LinkedIn and us building a friendship over the years and going to events together and watching each other grow.

And I just saw him a couple months ago and it's like all because on LinkedIn, the power of connection. So it's been an amazing platform in general. I wish I would've used it when I had my podcast launched. Cause I actually didn't use LinkedIn that much when I launched the show.

[00:06:22] Hala Taha: Oh wow. Interesting. And so I'd love to understand what gave you the genesis and the idea for starting your podcast because you were pretty early on.

2013 at that time was still really early.

[00:06:34] Lewis Howes: Yeah. In 2012 I was going through a transition in my business. At the time I had an online marketing company, I. I was kind of getting burnt out by what I was doing, and I just didn't feel like it was meaningful to me anymore. It was still like powerful. It was making money, but it wasn't like a deeper meaning sense of purpose.

And what I was doing though is I was using LinkedIn before then to connect with coaches and mentors and leaders, and I would meet with a lot of them in person, and I was getting so much wisdom and knowledge from them when I would ask them questions that I was just like, I should probably record these.

And I've heard of this thing called podcasting. No one, nobody really knows what it is at the time, 2012, but I was like, I feel like it might be big one day. I said, all right, I'm gonna, I called two friends that had a podcast. There was probably only 50 people at the time that had podcasts. I called two of 'em and they told me they loved it.

They loved the experience, they loved the connection with the community. They felt like it was. The most engaged type of content they were able to create with people in the community. So I said, I think I could do this. I have no clue what I'm doing. I've never done this before. I didn't go to school for this, but I feel like I can figure it out.

Let me try it for one year. I'll do it once a week for a year as an experiment. If it doesn't work out, then I'll stop. But, um, I fell in love right away, and now, 10 years later, 1400 plus episodes later. Almost a billion downloads later. It's still going.

[00:07:59] Hala Taha: That is absolutely amazing. You've been crushing it on your podcast and after I've looked at your story and learned more about like how you came up, I realized that you were an early adopter in so many things.

So you were an early adopter in LinkedIn than you were an early adopter on podcasting and now on YouTube, you're crushing everybody in the podcast game because you were one of the first ones to take the full step in in becoming a video podcast.

[00:08:24] Lewis Howes: Yeah, it was almost eight years ago after, maybe it was two or three years into the podcast, I started to see probably the third year in.

I was like, oh, okay. This is a thing and there's lots of other people starting to jump in. I would say I was like the second wave of people that jumped into podcasting. If Joe Rogan was like two years before me, and then there was just like some underground tech podcast. That was essentially it. There were no bigger shows.

There were some big shows at that time in the small ecosystem, but it wasn't mainstream. Then there was guys like me and Pat Flynn and Rich Roll kind of all came in around the same time, maybe within a six month window in 2012, 2013, and so we were kind of like the second wave of people jumping in and trying to figure it out.

And then probably 2015, I think that was probably around the time when Serial came out and it, it became more mainstream podcasting and then there was, that's kind of the third wave and now it just keeps the waves keep coming. I remember around that time I was just like, I don't know. I feel like this is just gonna keep getting bigger and it's hard to innovate audio.

At least it was at the time, and I still think it is kind of hard to innovate audio at this time. It's not viral, it's not really shareable that well, it's, you can only do so much with the editing. There's only so many things you can do. So I was like, I feel like I need to film these and just put 'em up on YouTube and use it as a promotional tool to promote the audio.

So for five years, that's what I did. I put 'em on YouTube, I would cut up clips, put it on social media, but I never monetized the YouTube or the video until two years ago, two and a half years ago. Then I turned monetization on cuz I didn't want guys who were running ads to be in front of my content.

Selling their Ferrari courses or whatever it was. So for me, I just wanted to add value and serve and just give for free. So I invested for five years a videographer, an editor, to do it without monetizing it at all. And it was probably one of the best decisions I did because now we have over a thousand videos on YouTube that are constantly searchable and shareable and adding value to people.

[00:10:33] Hala Taha: Yeah, that's amazing. You're doing amazing things on YouTube, and you may not know this, but I have a podcast network, so I represent like 20 different self-improvement in business shows. And I just presented at the I A B upfront and my whole presentation was about the fact that podcasts are not audio only.

They're multi-channel. Now, you shouldn't focus audio first, even for your ads. You should be promoting across YouTube podcast, live streams, even paid live events, which I know that you also do as well. So really cool to see you pioneering once again in the podcast space. So I'd love to understand, when did you first start getting traction with your podcast?

Like how long did it take you to get traction with your podcast?

[00:11:14] Lewis Howes: My first year going all in, promoting every single week on every channel of marketing efforts that I had. I got only 750,000 downloads total in my first year, and that was every day promoting everywhere. Second year I had a million and a half downloads.

Third year I think it was like, Three and a half or 4 million or something like that. And so I feel like it took like years really for me to get certain types of scale. Two years ago, I think we had a few hundred million downloads in one year, but it took many years for that to scale up. It takes time and I think I, that's why I tell a lot of people like, don't do a podcast unless you're committed to doing it without getting any downloads and any results for years.

If you think you're gonna make money and get millions of downloads right away, it's just not gonna happen. So, no, you gotta do it because you really enjoy it. You really love it, and you feel like you, you're called to, to share something in the world and in your unique perspective. Yeah, it was a struggle, but at the same time, there was traction in the sense that the community loved it and they were talking about it and they were raving about it.

So there was. A small community that was really growing. It just wasn't this mass scale for years.

[00:12:29] Hala Taha: Yeah. I mean, seven 50,000 in the first year is still in today's standards. Now is really good. So it sounds like you were doing good from the start,

[00:12:38] Lewis Howes: but now we get that in like a couple days, you know? So

[00:12:41] Hala Taha: yeah, it's totally different now, but 10 years later, right?

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so like you said, your podcast reaches hundreds of millions of people now every single month. And you've had a lot of inspiring individuals. We've had a lot of crossover and guests. Your guests are even bigger than mine. And you launched a third book recently where you included some of the learnings that you got from these guests.

It's called The Greatness Mindset. And so now that you, you're 10 years into your journey or more, you know, in terms of being an entrepreneur and a podcaster, what is your working definition of greatness?

[00:13:15] Lewis Howes: It's really discovering the unique gifts and talents that are within you. And in that discovery, pursuing your dreams and goals in that pursuit, making, uh, an impact on the people around you.

That's for me what it is. It's like what's the unique talents and gifts we have? Figure those out over our journey. Try to help as many people as possible on the pursuit of our, our dreams and goals.

[00:13:37] Hala Taha: And I know a big key point in your book is finding a meaningful mission. And so I'd love to understand what your meaningful mission is and how you went about developing it.

[00:13:47] Lewis Howes: It's to serve a hundred million lives every single week to help them improve the quality of their life. How I came about that was probably three years into the podcast as I was building and growing it, I didn't know what it was for me. I was like, why am I doing this? What's the purpose? What's the reason?

What's the, why am I getting up every morning and working hard on this thing? And then I, I got clear on it. I was like, well, what do I wanna accomplish? What do I wanna, how do I wanna serve people? And how many people do I wanna serve? I would ask other people this question, I would say, what do you want?

They're like, I wanna change the world. I wanna make billions of dollars, and all these different things. And I was like, okay, changing the world. Everyone says, I want to impact the world. And I was just like, all right. That's hard to quantify. And so for me, I was like, what is something that I could quantify?

And then I would hear people say, I want to impact billions of people. And I'm like, okay, yes. And you're just getting started, so it just seems too far away. And so I said, I wanna reach a hundred million lives. And then we did that in one year, and I said, okay, I wanna do it every week. I wanna reach a hundred million lives a week.

And so I was like, all right, that's, that seems like a big stretch, but it's a quantifiable number and it will force me to get creative, get resourceful. It'll force me to overcome my fears and insecurities that hold me back. It'll force me to develop new skills and talents to think beyond where I'm currently at so that I could potentially.

Achieved that goal one day, and so it just excited me and it seemed far away. It gives me something to measure and it gets me something to be excited about every day.

[00:15:21] Hala Taha: Yeah, so it's not too unrealistic, but it's still pushing you and pushing your boundaries. Absolutely. So in terms of this mission, I noticed that you didn't say, I'm a podcaster who does this?

Or, I'm an author who does this, or any other label that I could stick on you. Why is that?

[00:15:38] Lewis Howes: When I focus on the mission, Which is service. There can be different mechanisms that can do it. If podcasting dies tomorrow, then I don't wanna be, well, I'm only a podcaster now. I can't, I can't service the mission anymore with this mechanism because the mechanism's gone and there's always a message within the mechanism to serve the mission.

And so the message will continue to evolve and expand, whether it's packaging content in a book, and storytelling in a book, and giving tools and resources so people can consume it this way, whether it's audio, whether it's video, whether it's ai, it's always going to evolve and expand. But there's a mission, and then you gotta figure out what are the mechanisms that will serve you in accomplishing the mission's goal, which is a hundred million lives weekly.

And then there's a message. What is the message that you're going to use and share? Am I sharing the message? Is it audio? Is it me video message? Is it a written message? Is it other people's messages? How can I distribute that message through the mechanisms to serve the mission? And so I'm just trying to think of what are the things that excite me, that I'm good at, that I'm talented at, that I, that I enjoy doing those mechanisms.

Sharing the message through those mechanisms to get to, to the mission faster. That's what I think about. I haven't mastered it. I'm not, I don't feel like I'm close to figuring it out, but we have something we can measure every single week to support us in getting there faster.

[00:17:12] Hala Taha: I think that that makes a lot of sense.

I, I know when I think about myself and my mission, I always say I wanna be a positive voice for my generation and my voice can be on podcasts, on live streams, in a book, wherever it is. That way I don't have to pigeonhole myself to one thing as things evolve cuz like, you know, podcasting might not, is already evolving so much.

It's not really what it was even like we were talking about 10 years ago.

So let's talk about something you speak about in your book called Sweet Spots, and you say, this can help you figure out what your meaningful mission is. What is a sweet spot exactly, and how do we discover it?

[00:17:52] Lewis Howes: Yeah. It's really figuring out the, the talents that you have, the skill sets you have. It's figuring out what makes you unique and then how can I go profit from these, these talents?

How can I go monetize these talents? What are the tools and the things available for me to, to, to do these things? When we figure out those two areas, I feel like there's a sweet spot there in between that, that we could take action on. And for me again, it was, I didn't think I had a lot of talent. I didn't think I had a lot of skill, but I was curious and I go, how can I use this talent of curiosity?

Is this a talent? I didn't think it was, but I was like, there's a hidden talent of curiosity there. So how can I use this to make money and to make an impact? Okay. I don't have to be the voice. I can interview people. I didn't know how to use video or how to use audio at the time, but I was like, these are tools available out there.

How can I use these tools and ask questions? Can I make money around this? I have no idea. But the more I did it, the more I showed up and was of service to people. I was able to monetize these things. And so for me, I didn't know the path, but I started to ask myself, what are my talents? What are the things I'm really good at?

What are some mechanisms out there that I could start tapping into? I. And how can I just take action consistently around this so that I can figure out how to make a living doing the things I enjoy doing?

[00:19:12] Hala Taha: I love that. I think that is really great advice. And another piece of advice that I really liked in your book is this idea of the perfect day itinerary.

And this real really help us get into what you call a greatness mindset. So first of all, what is the greatness mindset? And then can you go over this exercise of a perfect day itinerary?

[00:19:29] Lewis Howes: On page 2 0 4, I have a graph, I have a chart, and I don't know if we got you a book or not, but there's a, there's a graph here for people, sorry, 2 0 1.

And I show the difference between a greatness mindset and a powerless mindset. So a lot of people live in a powerless state, and it doesn't mean they're in a powerless state all the time, but they might have one or two areas that make them feel more powerless than powerful. And so I'll just share these six categories of a powerless mindset versus a greatness mindset and use this as an assessment.

So if you're listening or watching, just ask yourself, okay, am I doing any of these things? If so, it may feel like you are powerless in your day to day or your decision making, or you feel like there's a weight on your shoulders. It's probably cuz of one of these six things that are happening. So a powerless mindset occurs when you lack a meaningful mission.

So when I was in. Living on my sister's couch for a year and a half, and I was in a, a cast and had a surgery and didn't know what I was gonna do in my life. I lacked a meaningful mission and I felt powerless. I was like, who am I? What's the point? What am I doing here? I felt very powerless. People think they need to get it all figured out like for the rest of their life, and it's really season by season, like what is the mission of this season?

This season can be for the next six months, the next six years, the next whatever. We don't have to define. I need to know what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. It's what is this? Season's calling and getting clear on the meaningful mission will make you step into a greatness mindset versus a powerless mindset.

So when you lack a meaningful mission, you're gonna feel powerless. You're not gonna feel as courageous, as strong. You're not gonna have belief in yourself when you're in this state. The second thing is you're controlled by fear. A lot of people are consumed by fear, and there's three types of fear. That cause us to doubt ourselves.

The first one being the fear of failure. The second one being the fear of success. Believe it or not, almost 50% of people are just as afraid of their own success as they are their own failure. And the third main fear that causes us to doubt ourselves is the fear of judgment, people's opinions. And this causes us to be crippled by making decisions, by acting courageously on our dreams.

I don't know, Hal, if you've ever. Ask someone, what is your goal and what's your dream? And they say, I wanna launch my own podcast. I wanna write a book. I want to do start a business. I want to get into a relationship, whatever it is. And you ask them, how long have you been thinking about this? And people say, oh, five years, seven years, 20 years, I've been wanting to write that book.

And one of those three fears holds them back. The fear of failure, the fear of success, and the fear of judgment. And so these are. Factors that cause people to hesitate to not take that step forward. And so we gotta understand what's the root of one of these three fears that we all have faced at different times.

There is a root underneath those fears. And typically the root is, I am not enough. And when we believe I am not enough, we are going to allow one of these three fears to. Run our lives as opposed to us running through them and beyond them. So when we are controlled by fear, we are powerless. We are in a powerless state.

We're saying this has power over me, so I'm not taking action. The third thing is crippled by self-doubt. Fear and self-doubt play hand in hand when we are crippled by controlled by fear. We usually have an insecurity. I'm not going to be enough, so my self-doubt is holding me back. I am therefore powerless.

To these opinions, these beliefs. The fourth thing, I don't think a lot of people talk about this in the different habit, mindset, success books of the world. The fourth thing is that they conceal past pains. So for 25 years, I held onto a pain and secrets that no one knew about me. I was sexually abused when I was a kid, and no one knew it.

And I was terrified. I concealed this past pain. It was like a poison running through my psyche, my body, my heart, my energy, everything. Because I was ashamed and I thought if people knew this about me, no one would accept me or love me and I'll die if they actually knew this about me. That was the, the story running through my, my mind constantly, and I was afraid of the opinions and judgements of others.

That was my biggest fear. I was not afraid of failure or success. But people's opinions crippled me because I had this shame and guilt inside of my soul. And when we conceal past pains, I'm not saying you need to say everything publicly to the world, but when you're holding onto something that is a poison inside of you, it will make you feel powerless.

You will not be stepping into the greatness mindset with this inside of you. So we've gotta learn to heal. Most of my book is about healing. It's a Trojan horse for processing, healing and getting out the poison inside of us so that we can thrive at the highest levels. Most of these books don't talk about revealing past pain, but I just, from all the research and the 10 years of doing this, This is the path.

It is the path to achieving greatness is by setting yourself free emotionally and psychologically. The fifth thing is being defined by the opinions of others. This is something I mentioned already a couple times. When we are defined by people, they have control over us. They control our decisions and our actions cuz we're so concerned about their opinions.

So therefore, you are powerless if someone else is controlling you. And the sixth thing is you drift towards complacency. I'm not saying you need to be striving to be making more and doing more all the time, but I just feel like when we are drifting, when we are wanderers and we aren't improving or growing in some area of our life, we feel powerless.

These six areas of your life, I would ask everyone to do an assessment, a self-assessment, and say, is there any one of these things that's happening for me right now? Or maybe causing me to doubt myself more? If so, there's a way to break through them. You have the awareness now, then we've gotta make a decision and a commitment to breakthrough to get into the greatness mindset.

And the greatness mindset is the six opposite. It's driven by a meaningful mission. You heard mine. Impact a hundred million lives every single week. I'm driven by that, and it's meaningful for me. It gives me a direction. It gives me a place to go towards that I can measure that excites me. Doesn't mean it's not challenging at times.

It doesn't mean I don't go through pain and hardships and certain agony at moments, but at least I know where I'm heading. Second thing is you turn the fears into confidence and fears are gonna come. At different stages and seasons, as we unlock new potential, there's gonna be a new fear and uncertainty.

So we have to keep driving into the fear. Turning into confidence. You overcome self-doubt as number three, as opposed to letting it cripple you. Number four, healing past pains, not concealing them. When we heal, we become greater than our past powerless self. The fifth thing is creating a healthy identity.

Most of us holla, say a lot of negative things to ourselves. Unconsciously and outwardly, when someone compliments us, at times we diminish it. We say, no, it's not me. We put ourselves down and our body remembers, and our body listens to the words and the thoughts that we have. So we must shift that into a healthy identity.

And the sixth thing is taking action with a game plan. I'm not saying you're gonna accomplish all your dreams and goals if you do these things, but you're gonna feel a lot greater when you do, and you're gonna have a deeper sense of peace. Harmony and alignment inside of your soul when you step into these things as opposed to being in the powerless mindset.

[00:27:32] Hala Taha: That was an amazing recap. So I wanna dig into some of those ideas. We can put a pin in the perfect day itinerary, we can get back to it. So let's talk about overcoming fear. So I know you were an athlete and so. The fear of failure was something that you have to deal with all the time. When you, when you play a sport, you either win or lose, and it's basically a 50 50 chance every time.

So how did being an athlete help prepare you in business? When it came to fear of failure,

[00:27:58] Lewis Howes: I never was afraid of failure because in sports, I was taught that failure is the pathway to success. So for me, I knew that missing a shot didn't make me a failure. It just mean I needed to practice. Better technique.

I need to learn better. I need to become bigger, faster, stronger. So it was all information, it was all feedback. Failure was always feedback, information, telling me what's not working yet and how to get better at the thing. So for me, it wasn't about failure cuz I understood through coaching and through sports that you have to fail in order to succeed.

There's no way to not fail in order to succeed. So if you want success, this is the pathway. It's about reshaping what it means to you. A lot of people have a deeper meaning. If I lose or if I miss the shot or if I failed, then I am a failure. And I never identified with that as me being the failure. I was just like, oh, I wasn't prepared enough.

Oh, I need to get faster. Oh, I need to get stronger. I need to have better technique. I need more reps. I didn't like the feeling of failing or losing. I hated it. But it also drove me to get better. Success was not something that I was afraid of either, but most people are afraid of success, and I didn't understand this when I started doing the research 10 years ago and asking people in large rooms, I'd say, how many people are afraid to fail?

Most people would raise their hand and I'd say, how many people in the room are afraid of success? And over 50% of the room would still raise their hand. And I was always like, what? Cuz you want to be successful, but you're afraid of it. So why would success come to you when you're afraid of it? You're resistant to it.

You are scared of it, and yet you want it. You sound like a clingy girlfriend who wants to be in a relationship, but's, anxious, and and scared of to be open and emotional and vulnerable, but is needing your attention all the time, or whatever it might be. If you want to be successful, you cannot be afraid of it.

And I didn't understand, it didn't make sense to me. But then it started to make sense the more I asked people questions over the last 10 years. And really when people become more successful, unfortunately there's usually a couple people in their family or their close friends circle that is not accepting.

Some people are like, you're amazing. Keep going high five, you got this. But there are some people close to us that start to pull away that think, huh, what are you doing? Are you better than us? Come back here. Come be comfortable, safe, don't keep learning and growing, and. Expanding beyond your reach. That makes me feel uncomfortable.

When you leave the tribe to go for success, not always the tribe is supporting of that journey you're going on. And that is a big factor for a lot of people, like who are married or their parents don't want them to do that, or whatever it might be. When you want to grow and go beyond something, it can be scary for others and you want community and love.

And if you're leaving to go after something or if that's what it looks like, then you may not get that love and attention and affection anymore. So it made sense to me and, and over my journey, I lost a lot of friends, a lot of friends that I thought we were gonna be friends forever, just stopped returning my calls.

Just, uh, you know, weren't as supportive for jealous of my success or whatever it might be. And it was sad and it hurt for a long time. These different stages. But I learned that's part of the process. If you're gonna grow and others aren't in alignment with your journey, it's important to find people in your friend circle who support your success so they can grow with you as well.

Another fear that success has with a lot of people is the weight. There's an amazing documentary called The Weight of Gold, which is about Olympic gold medalists who commit suicide, go through extreme depression. Become addicted to drugs after they win the gold medal and about all of the suffering that gold medalists have afterwards.

They were happier before they won the gold medal, and it documents the lives of all these people that have committed suicide within a year or two after winning gold, going after the gold. They had their entire life. They win it, and then they die. They commit, commit suicide. They become drug addicts. They suffer and they lose it all.

In the documentation, there's this immense pressure that if you are not prepared to handle the fame, everyone talking about you, the success being at the top of the mountain and now needing to maintain that level of success is an extreme pressure. And that's why you see a lot of people go bankrupt after they make a lot of money.

That's why you see a lot of lottery winners who make a lot of money. Go through death or go bankrupt as well within a couple of years, and you see people that exit big companies sometimes losing it all quickly because if you're not emotionally and mentally prepared for the success, you will sabotage it.

That's why healing has pain is so important because you can win and succeed and make money, but if you have pain in your chest, guilt, shame, insecurity, all these things. That doesn't go away until you heal it. And if you heal it on the journey, you're going to be able to sustain the success in a different way and maintain it.

I wasn't afraid of those things cuz I wanted to be successful. I wanted the weight, I wanted the pressure. It was challenging at times, but I wanted it, for me, it was the fear of, um, judgment. That was the thing that, that crippled me. So when I was successful, I. Or growing or whatever, and I would get nasty comments online about stuff.

It was almost as if I had to defend my life with these comments and had to reply to everyone, and I was so worried about what they would think about me. That's the thing that got me in trouble or crippled me until I learned to heal past pains, until I learned to realize I am enough. It's okay. People are going to have opinions about me.

I can't please everyone. I'm not going to conform to everyone's opinion. That was part of the process for me. Yeah, I love

[00:34:19] Hala Taha: that. This is really, really interesting stuff. I feel like I haven't really heard any material about this fear of success, the way that you described it. So I know you mentioned that judgment was something that really got to you.

And I know personally for me, when people like doubt me or say anything bad about me, I tend to take like, oh, I'm gonna like, I'll show them, right? I'll do this, I'll become, you know, a famous podcaster. I'll, you know, start a million dollar business and prove them wrong. And I kind of use this. Underdog chip on my shoulder as a way of motivation.

But I understand from you that that can be pretty unsustainable.

[00:34:57] Lewis Howes: It can be an amazing driver and it's what I did my whole life. It's cuz I was picked last on sports teams and so I said I'll never be picked last again. I'm always going to be the most valuable person with every sports team I. And it drove me to train six hours a day as a kid and not play video games, but go outside and play sports all night until I had to come home.

Cuz I was like, I'm never gonna experience this pain again, and I'm gonna prove everyone wrong. And I did it. Id prove people wrong and I felt empty, unfulfilled, and I felt like exhausted, drained, emotionally frustrated, resentful. I had all these anger emotions inside of me that continue to drive me until 10 years ago, I realized this is not sustainable.

It got me external results, but left me feeling completely emotionally and bankrupt and it can only last so long until things fall apart. Your relationships, your business, something which everything fell apart from me 10 years ago. That's one of the reasons why I got into this show starting this because I was like, I need to learn how to heal.

I need to learn how to not be driven by my ego. It's one of the reasons why I called it the School of Greatness. I didn't call it the Lewis House Show. I was like, my ego needs to die. I'm so worried about other people's opinions and proving people wrong, and that's what's causing me pain. Sure, that Chip got me results and got me credibility and got me on stages and helped me make money.

But why am I emotionally exhausted? The ego must die. And 10 years ago, I started to kill my ego and not make it about me. And I started to put the light on everyone else, shine the light on everyone, make it less about me, be of service, not about me being successful. And it started to shift. And by no means did I do it perfectly, and I still made mistakes and stumbled along the way, but that intention of letting go of my ego allowed me to thrive.

Now, it's a dance because in a world of personal branding and being a host and. Being an author and writing books and you know, being on the cover of magazines and stuff like this, you've gotta learn to build a brand but not believe you know that you're the best thing in the world and how to continue to be of service.

And that's why I try to focus constantly to remind myself this is not about me and my success. This is about us and the service we have on the world. And when I do that, I feel a lot more harmony and peace. Then when I say it's all about me, so there's a dance, because in marketing you've gotta promote things, you've gotta promote yourself, you've gotta promote your name, you've gotta promote your brand.

But I think internally you've gotta remind yourself this is about service.

[00:37:45] Hala Taha: Yeah. I totally agree. I always say, especially for anybody who wants get into the podcast world or, or develop a per a personal brand, you've really got be of service and have pure intentions. It shouldn't be about making money, it shouldn't be about being famous.

If you have these pure intentions of helping other people, everything sort of falls into place as long as you take the actions. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

So I wanna talk about identity. For a minute. So you talk about this idea of establishing an identity. I think we've both interviewed Benjamin Hardy and he talks about this idea of future self, and that was one of my favorite conversations that I've had all year. You're not your past self, you're not your future self.

You just have this current moment to take action and close that gap between who you are now to who you wanna be, your your future self. So talk to us about this idea of identity that you bring up in your book and what your thoughts are around that.

[00:38:43] Lewis Howes: Yeah, just last night I was doing a session with my therapist and the conversation was, what do I want my 50 and 60 year old self, 90 and a hundred year old self to say to me right now about the decisions I've been making on a daily basis?

Cause I've been very focused on my health and almost making it a full-time job. Not in the sense of I'm spending 10 hours a day on my health, but. I'm thinking and intending it to be optimized in a level that I've never fully done in the last 10 years. Now I've also been a professional athlete and I've trained hard and all these things, but just being very intentional about nutrition, sleep recovery, working out and tracking and measuring it in a different way than I have before.

And I was having a conversation with my, I'm 40 now, and I was having a conversation with myself. As my 50 year old, so I don't know if you can go, go stay with me for a moment, but I was in the future having a conversation with my current self at 50 today. Then I went in the future at 60 and had a conversation with myself today.

Then I went to 90 and a hundred, and I told myself, and I imagined the feeling that I had as a 50, 60, 90, and a hundred, and the appreciation I was telling myself today. For how I was taking care of my health because at 50, at 60, I'm still able to work out like a 30 year old and I'm flexible and I'm strong and I'm running marathons and I'm lifting heavy weights and I've got muscle and I'm flex flexible and all these things.

I've got all the capacities as a 30 year old at 50 and 60. At 90 and a hundred. I was saying thank you for taking care of me at 90 and a hundred today at 40. By making these decisions because look at us, there's sadness all around us. Unfortunately, because your friends are dying, your friends are getting hip replacements, but you took care of us when it was uncomfortable, when it was challenging, when it was hard, when it wasn't easy.

You said you were thinking about me and us at 90 and 100, so I was having these conversations with myself last night doing these exercises. Which allows me to be intentional about my decisions today, to not be so strict and hard on myself, but to be really intentional and deliberate about how I want to feel in the future.

And I was having this multi-time dimensional conversation with Self from the Future and now all last night, and I just think that's an important strategy or exercise that we should be thinking about our futures. And making decisions today based on what will make our future self proud.

[00:41:39] Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay. One more last question about your new book, and that's how you recommend to get over trauma and heal yourself.

So I know that you went through a lot of personal trauma. You were bullied a little bit when you were younger. You had some sexual abuse that you mentioned your dad was, uh, gone to a bad car accident. Probably things we don't even know about, like everybody has had traumas in their life, right? So how did you actually rewrite the script of your life?

What are the things that you did to heal your past trauma?

[00:42:11] Lewis Howes: I feel like I keep doing lots of different exercises, events, workshops, therapies. I'm willing to try lots of stuff. And what I originally did was 10 years ago, I just started opening up about it. I started talking about these things. I think the first step is finding a safe environment and space to be able to share.

I'm not saying you need to post about things on social media. I don't, I don't think that's wise until you feel like, oh, I'm, I feel like I really want to do this for whatever reason. But finding spaces and people that you trust to talk to about your shames, and that's the first step. It's allowing it to get out of you, allowing the poison to, to get out of you.

And then there's lots of different somatic physical healing therapies and things like that and emotional therapies and retreats and workshops and they're all great. I think like everything, anything you do, if you go all in on it, I think you'll get some results. If you've seen other people do it that recommend it and they've gotten results, as long as you go all in on the therapeutic experience, I think it will be serving to you.

I've never personally done drugs or psychedelics. I've never been drunk or high in my life, so I don't prescribe to something that I haven't done. But I have friends that swear by psychedelics. I just, I'm more afraid of the side effects the brain chemistry has based on the people I've interviewed who are experts in the brain that I get worried about that stuff for long term.

But I think if you have tried everything, And you feel like you're not getting any results, then that might be a last resort to allow your mind to relax and open up. But I think there's a lot of things you could do and it's worth exploring different things.

[00:43:53] Hala Taha: Okay, so just circling back on the perfect day itinerary, you say this is a great way to ensure that you have a greatness mindset throughout the day.

Can you tell us about it?

[00:44:02] Lewis Howes: Yeah. There's really two parts to it. It's one, imagining and visualizing what you would like to experience on a perfect day, if you could. Close your eyes and think about it at some point in your life, what would this look like? What would this feel like a day in the life that you feel like, wow, when you shut your eyes to go to bed, you said that was a perfect day.

From every moment to moment, from the moment you wake up, where are you waking up? What do you see first thing when you wake up? What area of the world are you living when you wake up? Is there someone next to you? If so, what does that feel like? So putting yourself in an emotional state of all five senses, imagining that perfect day scenario.

And obviously if you did the same thing every day, it wouldn't be perfect anymore, but just imagine what that experience, that feeling would be like. Hmm. And then writing it down, writing it down, what that dream is like. That experiential feeling is like writing it down in just detail and description is part one.

Part two is flipping the page over and scheduling it. You know, something I learned early on when I was 15, I joined the football team for the first time. Day one in my locker was a piece of paper hanging up on my locker in every kid's locker. That was the itinerary for practice, and I'm thinking, I'm just gonna go out there and kind of run around and just, we got drills, but every five minutes was scheduled.

From putting on our pads to water breaks to coaches giving us talking and giving us speeches to stretch, breaks to offense, defense, special teams to individual practice time, every minute was detailed. It made sense because it allowed us to prepare and put attention on all the things to become great as a team and have the perfect game.

To excel in the perfect way when game time happened at the end of the weeks. And so I think when we get intentional about our schedule and our time, and we marry it with the vision, the experience of the senses, we can take action on the perfect day almost every day. And it's just figuring out how to work into that, how to work into that experience and that feeling.

And there's. Again, different seasons and stages of my life that didn't feel perfect. I was a truck driver for three months, you know, driving eight hours a day. I did a lot of different odd end jobs at different times. It's figuring out, okay, how can I build into it? How can I use my gifts and my talents at this time to enjoy this, to experience something beautiful?

And then this is not for me right now. What can I step into next? What's the next season to get closer to that perfect day? And that's what it's about.

[00:46:53] Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Lewis. This was such a great interview. I end my show with two questions. The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

[00:47:08] Lewis Howes: Focus on gratitude. I just think that gratitude is a universal energetic law that allows you to open the doorway for abundance when we are grateful. And we experience gratitude continuously. Our energy shifts around us, our attitude, our perspective, our way of being shows up differently and people are attracted to others who are positive, who are kind, who are generous, and who are grateful.

We are unattracted to people who are ungrateful and frustrated and negative. That's not an attractive quality. When you express gratitude from the inside out, people gravitate towards you. And you will create more opportunities, whether it's in your career, you'll advance farther, or if you're starting a business, it will be more effortless feeling and, um, you'll attract more abundance in, in the journey.

[00:48:06] Hala Taha: I completely, completely agree with that. And the last question is, what is your secret to profiting in life? And this could be beyond financial, beyond anything we talked about today.

[00:48:16] Lewis Howes: It just goes back to healing. I know a lot of wealthy people who are miserable internally or who are sick, or who are physically overweight and struggling because they have yet to heal.

And you could build the business and make all the money and have all the the, and know all the celebrities and get in all the press and have the biggest following. But if you are sick emotionally, Or unwell, and you have yet to heal the things that cause you the most pain, then you're really living in a powerless state and having it all.

But feeling powerless internally is one of the greatest prisons we can be in psychologically, because you don't know what else to do. You've done everything to become more successful and make more money and, and accomplish, but you still don't feel enough. And for me, that's a, that's a prison sentence psychologically.

And until we heal, we will never feel enough.

[00:49:16] Hala Taha: And anybody who's feeling that way, Lewis basically wrote the playbook of how to get outta it with his new book, the Greatness Mindset. So make sure you guys go get that. And where can our listeners go? Learn about everything that you do.

[00:49:27] Lewis Howes: Lewis Howes, anywhere on social media and the School of Greatness podcast.

[00:49:31] Hala Taha: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Louis. It was a pleasure.

[00:49:34] Lewis Howes: Thanks, Hala.

[00:49:40] Hala Taha: I've been trying to get Louis Howes on the show since I first started the podcast five years ago, so what an honor it was to have him on the show and for me to have learned from a podcast legend like himself. I really appreciated Lewis's focus on healing from past trauma to achieve success, because removing mental blockages and escaping a powerless mindset is critical for becoming a top performer.

So let's take a little bit of time and review the six signs of a powerless mindset. Number one is lack of a meaningful mission. Meaning is the key to fulfillment and motivation. Without a meaningful mission, it's challenging to stay motivated during tough times. When developing a mission, focus on the mission itself rather than the medium use to achieve it.

Number two, you're controlled by fear. Three types of fear contribute to a powerless mindset, fear of failure, fear of success, and fear of judgment. Overcoming the fear of failure requires taking risks and using failures as learning opportunities. Many individuals struggle with handling massive success leading to negative consequences.

Fear of judgment often stems from a feeling of inadequacy. Number three, crippling self-doubt. Self-doubt and fear are closely intertwined. Insecurities and self-doubt contribute to fear and hinder personal growth. Number four, concealing past pain. Healing from past pain is crucial for success. Achieving dreams without addressing past pain leaves individuals ill-equipped to handle their success.

Relying on pain as a motivator can lead to emotional bankruptcy. Number five, over emphasis on others' opinions. Being preoccupied with others'. Opinions and judgment prevents individuals from pursuing their dreams and achieving greatness. Number six, drifting towards complacency. The zone of comfortable complacency often prevents growth due to the fear of failure.

Settling into a routine that's neither fulfilling nor miserable, inhibits reaching one's potential to overcome a powerless mindset. It's important to release the anger, shame, sadness, and guilt that poisons us from within. Holding onto painful memories and emotions perpetuates their harmful facts. The first step towards healing past pain is to openly communicate and share experiences with trusted individuals such as friends, family therapists, or support groups.

Exploring other healing modalities and treatment options is also recommended for further insights into healing, trauma, and cultivating a powerful mindset. Consider reading Lewis's book The Greatness Mindset, which could be found in the show notes. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcasts.

If you listen, learned and profited from this episode, be sure to share it with your friends and family and drop us a five star review on Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast platform. If you like watching your podcast videos, you can find all of our podcast episodes on YouTube. You can also find me on Instagram at YAP with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name.

It's Hala Taha. Big shout out to my amazing, incredible podcast team. You guys are absolutely crushing it behind the scenes, so thank you so much for all that you do. This is your host, Hala Taha, a k a, the podcast Princess signing off.

Hala Taha: Jim, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

Jim Kwik: So good to be here. I- Thanks for having me back.

Hala Taha: Of course. This is the third time that Jim has been on, and every conversation has been absolutely incredible.

You are a brain expert. You are a memory expert- Mm ... a learning expert, and I'm just so excited to kind of dig into everything. And something that I'm not gonna do today is be so worried about repeating any sort of information that we've covered in the past because I was realizing that half the things that we talked about, I didn't even retain, so how could I have expected my listeners to retain?

Uh, so I wanna start there. Why is it that we can hear things more than once and still not remember them or recall them?

Jim Kwik: Yeah. The, the, it's so important for entrepreneurs to have a good memory. I, I think two of the most costly words in business are, "I forgot." I mean, just think about the consequence of saying, "I forgot to do it.

I forgot to bring it. I forgot to go to that meeting. I forgot what I was gonna say- Mm ... to this person. I forgot that conversation, what was said to me." [00:01:00] Uh, you know, "I forgot how to do something. I forgot that person's name." You know? And so, um, on the other side, memory is a magnifier. It's a multiplier. It can make you money.

When you can easily remember client information, product information, you could do sales videos or pitches, uh, remember sales scripts, give presentations without notes, you know, walk into a room of 20 strangers and leave saying goodbye to, to all 20 of them, you know they're all gonna remember you. So memory makes things a lot easier, and, uh, it'll make you money for sure.

Um, it was, it was interesting. I was just in Miami, uh, speaking at, at an event, uh, doing brain training. We train a lot of Fortune 500 companies, and a commercial real estate guy came to me and he, uh, he's like, "Jim, I wish I would've gone through this before." He said he, he lost a $50 million deal because he called the client, uh, the wrong name twice.

Hala Taha: Oh, my gosh.

Jim Kwik: Could you imagine? Yeah. Because what, you know, what does that make, what's the message we send to somebody-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Jim Kwik: you know, when we, uh, when we have those memory lapses? [00:02:00] So, um, yeah, I mean, the idea here is there's a forgetting curve. When people hear something once on a podcast, even previous episodes, um, within two days of when you're exposed to information once from a presentation, a conversation, you read it, you listen to it on a podcast, um, 80% of it, it's gone-

Hala Taha: Mm

Jim Kwik: unless you're, you are doing something with that information. And, uh, I think part of it is just, uh, I would say number one is, you know, part of it is just paying attention.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Sometimes when people are listening to something like this, they're multitasking, like they're, they're cleaning or they're, they're working or they're working out or they're driving and there's, uh, you know, their focus is k- Comes and goes and- Mm-hmm

the focus is, uh, I mean, the art of memory is the art of attention. You could easily remember a name or something that you just read, but it's if our mind is wandering, that's a challenge. Also, we're not taught how to remember things. Like in school- Mm-hmm ... you know, I know there were a lot of subjects for entrepreneurship that wasn't taught in school that would've been useful.

Um, you know, leadership, investing, [00:03:00] uh, negotiation skills, sales skills, you know, the legal parts to a business. Um, but same thing with, uh, school teaches you what to learn, what to remember, what to think, but there's zero classes on how to learn.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: How to remember, you know, how to think. Um, and I think, uh, those are the, like the lead dominoes right now.

They're, they're highest lever point for... I think the faster you learn, an entrepreneur can learn, the faster they will earn. Knowledge today is not only power, it's, it's profit. And, uh, you know, there's this divide, not those just who have and those who don't have. There's a divide between those who know some things and those who don't know.

Even in age of AI, you know, information is ubiquitous. We all have access to information. Mm-hmm. Right? You know, I know we could talk about AI a little bit later, but it's no longer a competitive advantage 'cause everybody has it. Yep. It's what you bring to it, though, that makes the difference. But the reason why it's so important is, um, you can only make...

Your life is the sum total of all the choices you made up to this point.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Right? Who to spend time with, you know, what to focus on, what you're gonna eat, how you're gonna move, uh, what city you're gonna live in. [00:04:00] Um, and, uh, and it's interesting. You can only make good choices based on the information you know.

And when you know more, you can do more. When you know better, you could do also do better also as well.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: You know, there's a reason why people have seen pictures of me with Elon or Oprah or these individuals. You know, people ask how we bonded, how we connected. We bonded over books, you know, because even Warren Buffett reads 50, you know, 500 pages a day.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: So he has more information so he can make better decisions, you know? And so I, I love it. Um- Yeah ... but yeah, one of the reasons, so the reason's not paying attention, the forgetting curve, uh, not having a system to remember things, you know, also as well.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Um, and, uh, you know, and also just asking the question, like, "How can I use this?"

You know, I feel like you learn something once- Yep ... and then if you don't use it, whatever you don't use, you lose, right? It's use it or lose it. Mm-hmm. So what happens in the brain is you start pruning this information, uh, so it's more efficient, right? And so you start pruning or deleting this information, and that's why I'm a big, you know, [00:05:00] advocate for, you know, app- application.

Like why- Yeah ... learn a new idea if you're not gonna implement it?

Hala Taha: So if people are listening to this podcast, and let's say there's two different people. One person is multitasking-

Jim Kwik: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: and the other person is actually like, "I really wanna take advantage of this, and I have, like, a pen and a paper"- Yeah ... or like, "I've got a computer," or whatever it is.

Jim Kwik: Sure. Sure.

Sure.

Hala Taha: How should they actually listen to this podcast- Yeah ... episode to retain the most information?

Jim Kwik: So the, the person who's multitasking, so they've done, uh... When people, uh, people ask me all the time, you know, as an author, like, "What's the best... Is it better to read something in a, in a book or to listen to it on audiobook," for example.

Mm-hmm. Um, and people will test better when they read it in terms of comprehension and retention. Uh, and part of it is because when usually when we're listening to something, we are multitasking, right? So our focus is separate. So say the person who is trying to multitask, and we could talk about the science of multitasking and how it's really task switching and how it's not very effective.

Yeah. Focus on, if you're driving, focus on driving. Like, if you're operating heavy machinery, focus on that, [00:06:00] right? There's a priority there. And that person can listen and get a, kind of a, just a good review on- Mm-hmm ... and, and bits of it, and then come back and really study it, you know, when they have a chance.

I would highly recommend that. For the person who's taking notes, um, I don't know if they're watching it or listening it, everybody has a preferred channel of learning. Not, not so much a learning style, but a channel they prefer to receive information in. Mm-hmm. Um, and I would say taking notes. If you're gonna take notes, um, you know, you could either do it handwriting notes or, or digital note-taking.

Handwriting will outperform digital note-taking, you know, um- In terms of

Hala Taha: retention.

Jim Kwik: Absolutely, and understanding. Um, digital is great for storing information. Mm-hmm. It's great for sharing it with your team. Uh, but in terms of, uh, understanding and retaining the information, handwriting notes will outperform.

Um, you know, and everyone has a different process. Some people use it and they'll handwrite on a, on one of their tablets and then use AI to organize it or store it or Notion or-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Jim Kwik: summarize it.

Hala Taha: One of the good things that, one of the really, uh, [00:07:00] like, hidden talents that you have is, is remembering, remembering a lot of names.

Jim Kwik: Yeah.

Hala Taha: And I have a story that, that I remembered when I was studying your stuff, and it's, uh, one of my guy friends, we were trying to set him up with a, a girl that we know, and we brought him to, like, a party, and she's like a gorgeous girl, has lots of options, and he's, he's a great guy, uh, but he couldn't remember her name And they kept talking and, and she was like, "What was your..."

I'll say her name is Anna. It's not Anna. And he'd be like, "What's her name?" We're like, "Anna." And then he would like call her a different name and like couldn't remember her name all night.

Jim Kwik: Wow.

Hala Taha: And then she was like, "I don't wanna see this guy. Like, sorry, like I'm not going on a date with him. He couldn't even remember my name."

Jim Kwik: Hmm. That's like a Seinfeld ep- There was a Seinfeld- ... episode, uh, this is... I'm, I'm dating myself. I'm, I'm gonna be 53, so. Um, where J- uh, Jerry Seinfeld, it was a sitcom comedy where he was dating somebody and was intimate with her but didn't know her name.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: So every single time she went to the bathroom, he would try to go into her purse to get, you know, look at her driver's license.

Every [00:08:00] time George or Kramer would come by, he would introduce them hoping that she would say their name. Um, I think the put out in the, the through line was, uh, in the joke was, uh, it'd rhyme with a part of the female anatomy- ... or something like that. But, um, but it, but... and, but Seinfeld talks about common things.

You know, they had an episode where they lost the, where they parked the car. Mm-hmm. The whole episode was just trying to find the- They're trying to find the car ... the lost

Hala Taha: car. We've all been there.

Jim Kwik: But, um, but yeah, I, I, I feel bad for your, for your, for your friend. That's embarrassing.

Hala Taha: It's embarrassing, and it made her feel like she wasn't important, that he must be like talking to so many girls- Or he didn't she-

or that she wasn't a focus. Or

Jim Kwik: he didn't care.

Hala Taha: Or he didn't care.

Jim Kwik: Yeah.

Hala Taha: So I'd love to understand when we remember things, whether it's people's names or their kids' names or a story they told us- Mm-hmm ... in the past-

Jim Kwik: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: how does that improve our networking and relationships?

Jim Kwik: I think it's huge because it's, you know, the, they, they say success is what you know, so we teach people how to, you know, know that faster, right?

Read it faster, learn it faster. It's who you [00:09:00] know. Um, so remembering them is very important, but it's also who, who knows you. And I feel like today especially, it's helped so many people with their confidence. Like when you know you can walk into a room and retain a lot of the information from conversations and people's names, you walk in different because in psychology they have a confidence-competence loop that the more competent you get, the more confident you are.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: And I think being confident in your memory and your ability to recall information, especially in this expert economy, you know, where n- nobody listening to this as an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur is paid, you know, for their brute strength, right? It's, it's your brain strength. Mm-hmm. It's not your muscle power today.

It's your mind power. It's not like we're working on fields and, you know, in the agricultural age or industrial age, moving things in factories. It's our ability to come up with new ideas and, and a lot of creativity comes from memory also, from re- remembering things, you know, being a generalist, knowing, you know, a good amount about a lot of things.

Mm-hmm. But then connecting those dots, you know, to innovate, you know- Yeah ... like, like a phone. Like wh- [00:10:00] wh- what Steve Jobs did, right? There's a camera, and there's a calculator, and there's a, there's a, their phone and, and all this other things. Took, you know, different things, created something brand new. And, and entrepreneurs, that's what we're doing.

We're innovating, you know- Yeah ... all the time. Um, but I would say that, uh, remembering names is very important because you need to be able to stand out. And when you have, you have a, what I call quick recall, and you're able to recall information well, people feel like that you were thinking about them Right?

That, that you remember their conversations. Yeah. That they, that you, that they were important. You know, there's a... What's, what's the quote? Um, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Like, how are you gonna show somebody, as an entrepreneur, you care for their health, their family, their finances, you know, whatever you have to offer them, if you don't care enough to just remember things about them?

Hala Taha: Totally.

Jim Kwik: You know? So, you know, 'cause even if you don't remember, you, like that kind of thing, nothing you know past that would count.

Hala Taha: And you just lose trust so much- You do ... like if you don't remember what you were supposed to do for your client or what you talked about on the last call and what you were- Yeah

[00:11:00] supposed to implement. Like, you could lose trust so fast if you can't retain-

Jim Kwik: Absolutely ... a client conversation. And people now- nowadays wanna work with the best. And I, and I think, you know, to be able to stand out, before you sell anything, you sell yourself, right? Mm-hmm. And so but absolutely. Like, if you remember people's conversations and what they said and their preferences and the problems that they're dealing with, the things that they value in life, the things that they're proud of, the things that keep them up at night, then they, people feel like you're just thinking about them all the time.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, I, I, I c- I can't see a situation where that wouldn't be helpful for an entrepreneur. Ab- absolutely.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, I wanna do something really fun. So you are incredible at recalling anything, names, words, whatever it is. So- Sure ... I thought it'd be fun to list off 10 random items.

Jim Kwik: Okay.

Hala Taha: And then in, you know, 10 minutes or so, I'm gonna ask you to recall those items.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. Can, can, can people watching or listening try it also?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Yeah?

Hala Taha: Because in the meanwhile, I'm gonna ask you how we can remember things better.

Jim Kwik: Yeah, that'd be great if, if [00:12:00] people at home could also go through the list and then, you know, you know, take their time and try to remember it. Don't write it down.

I would challenge everyone not to write it down. Mm-hmm. You know, I, I believe there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a, a trained memory and untrained memory. So yes, listen to this, memorize it. Let's memorize it all together. Um, don't write it down, and, um, maybe I could give some tips later on, on how people could remember that.

Hala Taha: Yeah, and then you guys can rewind and go back and see if you can actually remember it after learning.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. Well, we'll go through the list later. That'll be fun.

Hala Taha: Okay. One, pink flamingo.

Jim Kwik: A pink flamingo.

Hala Taha: Two, Tesla key.

Jim Kwik: Tesla key.

Hala Taha: Three, blueberry muffin.

Jim Kwik: Blueberry muffin. Oh, you're making me, you're making me...

Blueberries, by the way, are great brain food. Blueberry muffins.

Hala Taha: I had some this morning. Four, golden microphone.

Jim Kwik: Golden microphone.

Hala Taha: Five, broken iPhone.

Jim Kwik: Broken i... A broken iPhone?

Hala Taha: Yep

Jim Kwik: [00:13:00] You, you came up with these randomly?

Hala Taha: Yes

Jim Kwik: Okay. I'm giving people- This- ... a little bit of time to, to, to come up with theirs. Go ahead.

Hala Taha: Six, red high heel

Jim Kwik: Red high heel. Just one or two?

Hala Taha: Just one.

Jim Kwik: Okay, red high heel.

Hala Taha: Seven, brain-shaped balloon

Jim Kwik: Brain-shaped balloon? So it literally is random.

Hala Taha: Eight, $100 bill

Jim Kwik: $100 bill

Hala Taha: A Benjamin, yes.

Jim Kwik: Okay

Hala Taha: Nine, mini treadmill A

Jim Kwik: mini treadmill

Hala Taha: Yes, for a mouse

Jim Kwik: For a mouse? Okay.

Hala Taha: 10, diamond notebook

Jim Kwik: 10 is diamond notebook

Hala Taha: Diamond notebook

Jim Kwik: Okay

Hala Taha: All right.

So-

Jim Kwik: Are we doing more, or then

Hala Taha: that's it?

Jim Kwik: That's it Okay

Hala Taha: You could do... You think you could... How many do you think you could do?

Jim Kwik: Well, I've taught people to how to memorize, like, pi to, like, thousands of digits, but it's, it's, uh, it's all, it's, it's a, it's a- It's all the same thing? ... this is, it's the, it's the same [00:14:00] principle that I just...

But, um, yeah, so everybody who's listening, just do the best. And notice also not only just, you know, um, how many you r- remember when we come back to the list, also think about how you remembered it. Like, what was your strategy, you know, for that?

Hala Taha: Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about, like, you just said, like, that there's, like, a process to it.

It's the same process, basically. What is that process? Like, how are you remembering things? Well,

Jim Kwik: all of... I mean, e- in, even in high school, we learn, like, memory is just three stages. You encode it, you store it, and then you retrieve it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: You know? And if there's a break in any one of those, you're not gonna get the remembrance that, you know, that you desire and that you really, uh, deserve.

You know, I, I really, um, you know, for p- people that are connected to my work, they know that I had a brain injury when I was five years old.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: Uh, because of it, I had learning disabilities. My mother became a special education teacher to help me with my dis- my, my challenges. Uh, I'd have migraines every day.

I was-- It took me three [00:15:00] years longer to learn how to read.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: And so, you know- They

Hala Taha: called you the boy with the broken brain.

Jim Kwik: That was- Yeah. That was my, that was my... And that was all through school, uh, through... It was, and it wasn't just, like, elementary school. It was middle school, um, junior high, high school.

I just, I worked hard. You know, I came, you know, from immigrant parents. You know, we lived in the back of a laundromat my, that my mom worked at. You know, we worked hard, but I just didn't get the grades. You know, it's just, it's a challenge. But I realized, you know, after this, my, I've been doing this for 34 years, it's not how smart you are- Mm-hmm

it's how are you smart.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: It's not how smart you are, it's really how are you smart, and we all have different intelli- And that intelligence, i- even in the world of AI, it's not fixed, you know, like your shoe size. It can be trained, but school, again, teaches you what to learn and what to remember, what to think, but not how to.

So, you know, I focus on this thing called meta learning, which is the science and art of learning how to learn, which I, again, think it's the best thing that all entrepreneurs could focus on. Because once you can learn how to learn faster, you could read three times faster, understand [00:16:00] more from it, you know, remember something in a fraction of time that normally takes people, you know, hours.

Um, then what can you apply it to? You could apply it towards money, right? You could, you know, that subject or skill. Yeah. Mandarin, martial arts, music, management, you know, marketing. Everything gets so much easier once you can learn how to learn.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. It's, it's like, it's like the biggest advantage.

Hala Taha: So you've got this strategy, I think, related to memory specifically called MOM.

Jim Kwik: Yes

Hala Taha: Can you tell us about that?

Jim Kwik: Yeah. So the, um, so the mother of... And it's also interesting. I wrote Limitless, you know, in, like, less than two months. Um, we donated the proceeds to charity. We built schools in Ghana and Guatemala, Kenya-

Hala Taha: Aw ...

Jim Kwik: for girls, uh, who don't have access, girls and boys, uh, who don't have access to education.

Um, and then we provided healthcare 'cause a lot of people were sick, so they couldn't go to school, and clean water. Um, also, we donated to Alzheimer's research for women. Women are twice as, like, experience Alzheimer's than men.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Jim Kwik: Twice as likely. I lost my... I lost, when I was going through my challenges when I was [00:17:00] seven, uh, because my parents were always working, um- My grandmother, uh, raised me and, uh, she passed when I was seven to Alzheimer's.

Hala Taha: Oh.

Jim Kwik: So in memory of her. But, um, so I, I, I bring this up, I mean, everybody has their kind of their origin story. Mm-hmm. But my struggles became my strength, you know? Mm-hmm. That adversity can be an advantage, that with challenge comes change. Like, I don't know a, one, one strong person that had an easy life.

Hala Taha: Exactly.

Jim Kwik: You know? And entrepreneurship is not necessarily an easy path. I think it's extremely worthwhile if you do it right. Um, and I'm a big fan of, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I, I feel like, uh, you know, be able to solve problems, be able to move the economy, be able to create jobs, and yeah, uh, really, really, really, really good things.

But when it comes to, to MOM, I, I wrote it in, um, Greece, most of it, the memory is the largest chapter in Limitless, um, 'cause I found out there was a goddess of memory and she was the mom.

Hala Taha: A goddess of memory?

Jim Kwik: There's a goddess of memory. Hmm. And she's the mother, the mom, uh, [00:18:00] to the, uh, the nine muses, uh, of science, literature and art.

Hmm. So all of science, literature, and art, their mother is, is, is the goddess of

memory.

Hala Taha: Oh, so interesting.

Jim Kwik: So it's so, so fascinating. And then I got curious about, like, what did people... Like, I base our strategies based on the latest ner- you know, like the neuroscience of how people learn and remember. And also I wanted to know, like historically, what did ancient civilizations do?

Like what did, what did they do in ancient Greece to remember things before there was a printing press?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Right? They had to remember things. Yeah. You know? And so yeah, MOM is very, uh, three principles to, uh, quick recall. The M... Well, let's apply that towards names. Sure. Right? In business. Um, let's say someone listening or watching, they have trouble remembering names.

Um, but we had a, like a briefcase here or a suitcase of a million dollars cash. Hmm. And I know you have an international audience, whatever they- ... but a lot of money, tax-free, um, if you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet. Who's gonna remember that person's name for a million dollars?

Hala Taha: Everyone.

Jim Kwik: Everyone. Yeah. So [00:19:00] as, as a memory coach, my job is to, to call people on their BS, their belief systems, right? Um, it's not true you can't remember a name. It's the first M stands for motivation.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Like, a lot of people aren't feeling or presencing, like, how important it is to remember someone's name.

So a simple hack is just like, you know, before you meet somebody, you even open up your mouth, you know you're gonna talk to 'em soon, just why do you wanna remember this person's name, right?

Hala Taha: It's like, why do I care?

Jim Kwik: Yeah. It's like, and then come up with a couple of answers. Like, maybe it's to show the person respect.

Maybe it's to make a sale. Maybe it's to get a referral. At the very least, maybe it's thing that, you know, to practice what they learned on this podcast. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, without a reason, you won't remember. 'Cause reasons reap results.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: And so I just feel like if you don't feel it, you're not gonna remember it, you know, 'cause it's not relevant to you.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: So that alone, I think is very important. Um, the O in MOM is observation. A lot of people aren't forgetting the name, they're just not even listening.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: You know [00:20:00] what I mean? Mm, yeah. Like, at, at events that you go to, sometimes you're with someone, but you know that they're, like, looking over your should- their sh- you know, your shoulder to see who else- Mm

is in the room. Yep. Or maybe we're guilty of talking to somebody, they're talking, but we're thinking about h- what we're gonna say.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Or, like, you're, you're for some reason self-conscious about, like, your outfit or something.

Jim Kwik: Something like that. Yeah. Exactly. And so, like, and so we're not even present, and so the art of memory is the art of attention, you know?

And so I remember years ago, I was, um, I was, I went to a, a charity event. It was, like, 2,000 people, and I get assigned to a table, so I go to my assigned table. I'm the first one there, and then, um, you know, a few minutes later, uh, Forest Whitaker, the Oscar-winning actor, sits next to me, and then Richard Branson sits down, and then Ashton Kutcher and his, uh, twin brother, which I didn't realize he had a twin brother.

And, um, and then President Clinton sits right next to me. And, uh, I had met him a few years earlier, and we had this brief conversation, but he sits down, and [00:21:00] he remembered my name.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Jim Kwik: And but then I was like, "Yeah, abs-" I said the same thing, "Wow," and then I was like, "Oh, of course he was told who's sitting, he was sitting with," right?

Sorry. He picks up the conversation that we started three years earlier, and nobody ha- was privy to that conversation.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Jim Kwik: And, uh, and I was like, "You know, I'm the memory. I, I need to know how you're doing this." You know, I think genius leaves clues. When somebody does something magical, there's a method behind the magic.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: And, uh, and he's telling me this story about, you know, his grandfather in Arkansas in the living room telling stories to the kids. Um, but after he would tell the stories, he would do something very specific and different. He would go to each child and quiz them to see if they were paying, paying attention.

Mm. And, and he, it was more than that, but when he s- explained this to me, I felt this kind of ease and also unease where, have you ever been with somebody, and they're, like, talking, and you feel like you're the only person that exists?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: They're like, they're so present. Yep. And politics aside, you know, most people would say Clinton, you know, strong [00:22:00] charisma, great communicator, you know, uh, you know, a, a great, uh, you know, or he's got an incredible memory.

Yeah. And I think this powerful presence that he has with people, his incredible memory, his powerful presence comes from being powerfully present.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: And it's not reserved, right, to just an elite few. Anybody could train that, but we have to really just be with somebody, you know?

Hala Taha: And that makes you a good leader.

Like, it's no wonder people- Absolutely ... wanna follow him because- Absolutely ... he builds so much trust with the people around him by just recalling-

Jim Kwik: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: information about them.

Jim Kwik: That, that, that's hu- that's huge because it's also, like, um, like, even if you t- do this mental experiment and write down, or if you're not, can't write something down in your notes, like, picture the word listen in your mind, and if you do the little, like, brain scramble, like a little brain exercise, and move the letters around, it also spells another word perfectly.

Hala Taha: Silent?

Jim Kwik: Mm-hmm. And I think that's, that's the key. You know, um, the great, a great book, uh, Dr. [00:23:00] Stephen Covey, I mention a lot of books, uh, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. You know, but one of the, one of the habits is seek first to understand, then to be understood. But in order to understand, we have to be really present- Mm

you know, with the person.

Hala Taha: I love that.

Jim Kwik: Yeah.

Hala Taha: I love that story about Bill Clinton. Okay, let's go back to that list. Let's see if you remembered that list, one through 10.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. And people could also check themselves also. Um, was it a pink flamingo?

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: And then it was the Tesla key.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: A blueberry muffin.

Mm-hmm. I call blueberries brain- This is

Hala Taha: insane ...

Jim Kwik: I call, I call them brain berries, uh, you know, without a doubt. A golden microphone.

Hala Taha: Uh-huh. That's correct.

Jim Kwik: You have your, and then you have your broken iPhone.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: And you have that big red- Uh, what do they call those, those women's shoe? Um, the high heels?

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Well, it was one high heel.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. One, absolutely. There's one. And then there's, uh, there [00:24:00] was that big brain balloon. Uh, was, was that, was that brain balloon?

Hala Taha: Brain-shaped balloon, very close.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. And, uh, the $100 bill.

Hala Taha: Correct.

Jim Kwik: And then you have that really small little treadmill for the mouse.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: And then you have your- Mini

Hala Taha: treadmill, yeah

Jim Kwik: yeah, and then you have your diamond notebook.

Hala Taha: Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Jim Kwik: But it is, this is the thing, and, and we could've done it for 20, 30, 300 words, uh, 'cause once you know how to do something, you just do it. It just takes more time, you know- Yeah ... in the episode. And, you know, just like if I pass a microphone in an audience and people share their names, memorizing their names, you know, 30...

The same thing you do for 10 names, you do for 100 names. It just takes more time because everyone has to introduce

Hala Taha: themselves and everything. What, what are you doing? Are you visualizing it?

Jim Kwik: Yeah. Are you- And then, like once you understand your memory works, you could, you know, you could even... If, if like, you know, we're here in Austin, and I'm, I'm, I'm here pretty frequent, um, you know, if I, we see each other at a restaurant, uh, 30 days from [00:25:00] now, let's say, you could say, "Jim, do you still remember that list?"

And I'll still remember most of that list- Mm ... without even rehearsing it once.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Jim Kwik: You know, and then, or I could, or I'll do it backwards and go diamond notebook, mini, mini treadmill, you know, $100 bill, brain-shaped balloon, you know, and, uh, and, you know, the, the red high heel. That's really big in my, my mind.

Um, but once you understand your, your, how, how it works, then you can work them. And this is the kind of stuff... Don't you wish this had been so useful back in school?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: You know, if you learn it in school, how easy it would remember the periodic table or whatever we had to remember, history or anything.

Mm-hmm. Um, and, you know, but, but imagine applying something that for something that's random and not really that interesting to something that you are interested it, uh, in, that's very relevant to your life. You're gonna remember it even easier 'cause it- Yeah ... you know, has a point.

Hala Taha: I remember, um, in fourth grade, a Spanish teacher told us the countries and capitals of Central America and South America, and to this day, I can still say like Caracas, Venezuela; [00:26:00] Bogotá, Colombia; Quito- I love that

Ecuador. And I could just list them all off, but I couldn't tell you the c- the capitals of, and states of America.

Jim Kwik: Yeah, yeah.

Hala Taha: You know, 'cause I didn't learn it in that way. So-

What are you exactly doing? Like, what are you doing- Yeah ... to, to, to recall that?

Jim Kwik: And, and I'm, and I'm curious 'cause I would love wherever you're consuming this, maybe you could put, post a comment or something to see how well people did.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: You know, like if, if people are willing to share. Um, and actually, I c- I could teach you, uh, so we...

I, I could teach you 20 different ways to memorize that list.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Jim Kwik: You know, and after a while, like I, I can rem- I remember names without trying because once you know how to type, you know how to type.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Right? Once you know how to drive a car, you know how to drive a car. You know, maybe it takes a few weeks or 30 days.

You know, once you know how to tie your shoes, you know how to tie your shoes. Memory is a skill, you know? And so once you know how to do it, you know, you could, you start to... And your confidence goes up and you could just do it more and more and you challenge yourself. Um, but you know, I could teach you 20 different ways of remembering this list.

Uh, [00:27:00] I'll, I'll, I'll One way, if people wanted to, is make a story out of it, if they wanted to. Mm. Right? Right, they could, they could start with the pink flamingo, right? And then all of a sudden, pink flamingo is going into a Tesla car and forgot it, their key.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: So they can't be able to get through it. Um, and out of the, out of the sunroof comes all these, uh, blueberry muffins.

Like, like imagine p- putting all these blueberry muffins inside of a, a, a Tesla car, a car which without a key, right? That'd be kind of silly.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: And then all of a sudden, somebody in the shopping, in the parking lot is, is on a, is screaming on a, on a, on a golden microphone, right? As, as an ex- as an example.

Mm-hmm. And then they realize that, uh, you know, saying, "Where's the key?" Whatever, and they realize, like, here it is, but it's about a broken iPhone.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Right? And really easy, like right in their back pocket on the thing. And even just doing that, and I'm just making this up, this is not what I did. Yeah. Um, but just as, and what it is, is first of all, it's a great exercise in creativity.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Right? And [00:28:00] entrepreneurs, I think, need to be very crea- creative 'cause I think the future belongs to, to creators. Uh, second of all, when I mentioned there's no such thing as a good or bad memory, there's a trained memory, an untrained memory, um, this is training your memory, right? Mm. And so you tend, once you train your memory, you start remembering, you know, other things 'cause you're training your attention, your imagination, you're storing information.

Um, and then you can work backwards from the story also as well. If you wanna add, you know, uh, the red high heel, you could put that into the story also as well, and imagine that red high heel, you know, that's coming from the iPhone or whatever. May- maybe imagine on, on the broken iPhone there was an image on there of that red high heel.

Mm. On, on... But the screen is broken, right? And then imagine there, it comes out of the phone tied to, you know, a, a, a brain-shaped balloon. Yeah. Uh, going up in the sky, and you bribe somebody $100 to get that balloon for you, and so you're attaching the $100 to it, and somebody wants to, uh, is gonna go get that balloon.

But, but [00:29:00] there's, maybe it's like a little mouse going on a little mini treadmill going towards it. And I think if it makes you laugh, it ma- it makes it memorable, right? Mm. Just like you did- 'Cause

Hala Taha: emotion helps, right?

Jim Kwik: Yeah, emotion helps a lot. Um, you know, and so that little mouse is on the treadmill, and now obviously making a lot of traction.

Um, you know, and then, you know, from there he's taking some notes in his, you know, his diamond, his, his diamond notebook.

Hala Taha: Cute.

Jim Kwik: Um, and that, that's just one way, but there's certainly a, a lot of other ways. But, and as I go through it and I just talking about it, some people will listen and not be able to do it 'cause they just listen.

But if they actually went through and imagined that little story and made up their own, which is even better if you make up your own, um, that would be something that's really simple to do. And then by the way, those 10 things could've been cues or keywords for a speech. You know, as an example.

Hala Taha: Oh, that's really- You know what I mean?

smart. Like, so that you can remember your talking points.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. Like, like imagine like you, you, you chose that pink flamingo because it represented a key idea. They say a picture is worth a thousand [00:30:00] words. In a talk or in a toast at a wedding or something like that- Yeah ... you know, or a certain feature, uh, you know, then it gets...

You know, or maybe you wanna talk about, you know, something that's embodied around Tesla, around energy, you know, uh, technology, innovation, whatever it happens to be, and use that as your second point for your speech.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: You know? And then maybe you're going there to, you know- A recipe or healthy eating or blue, you wanna remember blueberries as a good brain food

Hala Taha: Are you visualizing it in your brain or are you like, are you visualizing the words themselves or like what the words represent?

So people

Jim Kwik: could do ei- either one. Everybody's a little bit different. Remem- remember it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart. Everyone learns a little bit different. So h- for some people can't visualize as well, or they don't think they, they can.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: And so those people could get more of a feeling for it, and maybe hear the words or maybe in d- in different tones or tonalities or, or voices.

Same thing with remember someone's name. You wanna meet somebody named Matt, you can [00:31:00] imagine them using your, their, t- using their ti- Imagine you're at a networking event, or you're at a conference, you meet somebody, and it's really fast. Someone says, "Hi, my name's Matt," and you just imagine using their tie as like a doormat.

And it's so silly. You would never do that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: And, but what it does is, is it overcomes what I call the six-second syndrome. You know, somebody tells you their name, you have six seconds to do something with it. Mm. Otherwise, it's gone. Right? The handshake breaks, name just falls right to the floor. Yeah.

This is giving you some mental glue to be able to store the information. And then, you know, later on when you're saying goodbye, you see this person there, "Oh, I remember that tie. What was I doing? I was wiping my feet like a doormat. What's the person's name? Matt." Mm. And then this is a way, remember I said you, you encode, you store, you retrieve.

This is a way of encoding it in a way that's memorable, and it's stored right on the person because the, the tie is the reminder, you know, as an example. And, uh, but once you know the person's name is Matt, then the picture disappears. It was a means to an end.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: So you-

Hala Taha: Just to remember his name,

Jim Kwik: right

'cause the opposite [00:32:00] is what most people did to memorize those 10 words. They would go pl- pink flamingo, Tesla key, blueberry muffin, golden microphone, and so on. Rep- repetition. The problem with repetition is it takes time. Like repeating someone's name 50 times takes time.

Hala Taha: So are we just kind of, uh, creating a mini story around each word?

Jim Kwik: Yeah. I mean, you think about how people remember things through history.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Like when you think about the parables from the Bible. Mm-hmm. Like stories, you think about why we use stories in business, right? Because they s- they're, they're vivid, and people could see themselves inside the story. And we're

So they did, uh, they did a study called the Baker Baker Paradox. You know, imagine we're in the studio and somebody walks in. Th- they did this with a focus group. Somebody walks in and say, "Hi, my name is Mr. Baker." And then that someone, they would leave. Somebody else would come in and say, "Hi, I am a baker."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Right? Somebody else come in saying, "Hi, I'm Ms. Taylor." Somebody else come, you know, leaves. Somebody else comes in, "Hi, my [00:33:00] name is Ms. Taylor." Right? And so, and so, and then they, they did that repeatedly, and then all of a sudden they said, "Okay, um, which ones do you remember more of the names? And do you think they remember the name or the, the occupation?"

Which, which one? Probably

Hala Taha: the occupation.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. And part of it is because when somebody says they're a baker,

Hala Taha: you have- You imagine them-

Jim Kwik: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: like cooking and

Jim Kwik: stuff. There's a story.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Right? You probably know they wake up very early to be able to make, you know, make their bread. So there's, there's a whole picture and image and, uh, and it makes it more memorable than, than a word that's abstract.

Hala Taha: Does it help, like, if you're meeting somebody at a networking event, like, okay, that's Hala the podcaster, or that's- Yeah ... and like kind of just attaching- The more- ... something else to it ...

Jim Kwik: the more connections you make, like some people will go instead of seeing Matt, you know, so like Mark, I use a marker, put a check mark right on their forehead, and I'll just always remember that and it'll make me...

If it makes me laugh or smile, then, you know, th- that's very, people could say that's very, you know, childlike, but [00:34:00] you know, who are the fastest learners? Like kids. Yeah. They could learn musical instruments, languages, everything, and they make fun of names all the time. Mm-hmm. I mean, I know as a kid, my name was, you know, Quick is my real name.

I didn't... It's not like a stage name. I, I didn't change it. It's my father's name, my grandfather's name. But people made, you know, Nestle Quick or they call me Slow, but that's how kids learn, you know, naturally. So I- I'm not saying when I, when I, like for David I use a slingshot for David and Goliath, right to the nose.

Now, I'm not sharing this with David, right? This is what's- Yeah, you don't want him to know ... the privacy of my own mind, right? That's

Hala Taha: just what you're doing.

Jim Kwik: But some people could just, uh, FDR would do this. He would walk around his office, uh, President FDR, and his strategy was he would picture, turn the name into a picture, like Carol singing Christmas carols or Mary getting married or something like that.

Um, and s- and th- sometimes you come up with something that sounds like. Like, have you ever forgot someone's name and you start going through the alphabet? Like, does it start with an A- Yep ... a B?

Hala Taha: Yep, and then you, you get it eventually-

Jim Kwik: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: usually.

Jim Kwik: Or you get really nervous when you get to like W 'cause there's not many letters after that.

Yeah. But some- imagine a [00:35:00] letter could, could remind you of the name. Imagine something even that is like m- even stronger, you know, like Carol, Christmas carol. Mm-hmm. Like that's gonna be, that's gonna have more, uh, more retention for sure. But FDR would be very, very good with names. He could go around his office, remember everyone's name, and how he reportedly did it was instead of putting a picture like David, you know, uh, like the statue or whatever, he would imagine a, like, the name right on their forehead.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: You know? And you can almost, people can look at me right now in the camera and see Jim. Or they could say, "Wow, Jim has to go to the gym and lift weights," or whatever it happens to be. It just gives you more to remember- Yeah ... than just a, you know, a random word.

Hala Taha: Well, that was so impressive that you remembered that entire list.

Like, I'm like- Yeah. ... shocked. I wasn't sure if you were gonna be able to do it, but of- Yeah ... of course you are. And, um-

Jim Kwik: But imagine being able to do that for what you read.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: You know, like this is, again, random words that don't mean anything, you know, not important to me. But imagine it's something you're studying that you [00:36:00] wanna learn, that you are interested in.

You know, then it's, it's even more exciting because you could use that information- Yeah ... or- I

Hala Taha: totally agree ...

Jim Kwik: or names or anything else.

Hala Taha: I definitely wanna get better at that. So what would be the best place, like we obviously can't go through every hack. Yeah. Where can people learn from you, like specifically about getting better at memory?

So- Would it be Limitless?

Jim Kwik: Yeah. Limitless has the, one of the largest chapters, you know, in the book. It's in 50 different languages, so I'm sure people could find it somewhere, or the audiobook. You know, we go in even deeper in it and like, uh, have a conversation at the end of every chapter, you know, in like podcast format.

Um, you know, and, uh, we have the largest online, we have the most popular memory program in the world, so people, it's not hard to find. You just, just search my name. You'll, you'll find it. And

Hala Taha: you have a new book, Limitless Daily, that's gonna be out-

Jim Kwik: I'm so excited- ... pretty soon ... about this

Hala Taha: book. I don't even have a copy yet.

Jim Kwik: No, no. It, it, it is- We're only getting to talk about it at a high level, but- It, it is so amazing. I think, here, here's like one of the most powerful, you know, brain hacks anybody could do. Um, the, I love the science. So Limitless I wrote in a couple [00:37:00] months, right? You know, it was my first book. I had 30 years of content.

It was just really easy. Um, Limitless took me a full year, and I started writing, uh, as, as, as an entrepreneur, one of the things you need to do to be able to, uh- Is, is to really manage your time. Yeah. Right? Manage your focus. And what uses up a lot of time and energy is switching from tasks, like multitasking.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Uh, 'cause we're not actually multitasking, we're task switching, and every time you think you're, you're on Slack and then do social media, you jump to this and that, um, we, we, number one, we lose time 'cause it could reta- it could take anywhere five or 10 minutes to regain your focus- Yeah ... you know, on the new task.

So we lose time. We're actually not gaining it. Second, we make more mistakes. I, I get to train some of the most amazing doctors worldwide, and do you know, like, like surgeons who try to multitask during operations will make more surgical errors, right? I mean, think about texting and driving, right? Yeah.

There's gonna be more accidents. You can't do two cognitive activities well, you know, uh, [00:38:00] because you're, you're switching tasks. And then finally, you use a lo- a lot of energy, you know, when you're trying to multitask. You use a lot of, uh, blood glucose.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Some people struggle with brain fog or mental fatigue in the afternoon.

Check on that. Um, but focus is your superpower, and the challenge is, is like think about the words we use. Like there's, there's a financial part to focus, like you pay attention.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: Right? Like what if tomorrow morning all of you entrepreneurs, every single time you put your focus to something, you had to take out your credit card or debit card or Apple Pay and you had to, you know, put it into Facebook- Mm

every single time, or Instagram or anything. How m- like you would treat your focus different. Totally

Hala Taha: different.

Jim Kwik: Right? And so, you know, instead of like wasting that currency, that money, you know, you would invest it. And then so how are you investing your focus? How are you saving and protecting your focus, you know, like you would do, uh, like you would do money?

Um, and so that, that's one thing. But, um, I think of one of the biggest things people could [00:39:00] do if they're entrepreneur, it's not about time management, 'cause that's the only thing that's equal. Not everybody here, everybody here watching, like we all have different incomes. We all have different networks and connections.

We all have different levels of education, whatever. What's consistent? 24 hours in a day.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: It's not even about time management, it's about mind management. It's about priority management. So the most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing, right? Everything I filter through, even in a world of AI, you know, as opportunities come or challenges or whatever, like for me, it's uh- uh, this is my filter.

If it's not a heck yes, it like, then it's heck no.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Right? So I'm, like right now there's nowhere else I'd rather be, like 'cause I'm, I'm right here. Thanks. Because, like, it was a yes, right? And, and so I could appreciate that, so I'm fully present. I'm not like o- or somewhere else.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: The other thing is, uh, I, I filter, like I, I think if this doesn't help me grow, glow, or flow, I say no.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Doesn't help me grow, like grow my brand, grow my business, grow my personal [00:40:00] development, if it doesn't help me flow, like be more effective, um, and if it doesn't help me glow, like make me feel good- Yeah ... then, then I say no. And I'm not, I know, like in the beginning, especially for entrepreneurs, right, you have to feed your business until it feeds you back.

Hala Taha: Yeah, you

Jim Kwik: gotta take- Right? Of course ...

Hala Taha: you know.

Jim Kwik: Right. And if you want your... But I do really believe you want your business to grow or your bank account to grow, uh, then we need to grow, especially, you know, our learnings. And

Hala Taha: focus. Focus to me is probably the number one underrated secret of being successful.

And I meet a lot of- Yeah ... younger people who are, or even older people, who are struggling and, like, unable to kind of like take off on their career and, like, make something of themselves. Yeah. And I truly believe it's because they never focused on one thing really hard for long enough. Yeah.

Jim Kwik: And because also we live in a world of distractions, so as pe- so people's focus, especially with short form content everything, and I'm, I'm not even judging that because we use that, right?

And then technology allows this to happen- Mm-hmm ... all of this, and be able to share [00:41:00] our, our message, uh, and our impact at scale. It's so, it's so very important. But what I'm saying is like we have to, we could train our focus, and you could train your focus like a muscle. Mm-hmm. Just like you could train your memory-

Hala Taha: Yep

Jim Kwik: you know, to be present. And that shows up in as an entrepreneur because the, the enemy there is distraction. Mm-hmm. Right? There's so many things, shiny objects for an entrepreneur.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: You know, entrepreneur or ADD, you know, it's, it's, it, it's a challenge. But here, but here's, here's the hack. If you wanna win the day, you have to win the first few minutes of the day.

Yep. And what, what I mean by that, and when we train your focus, when, when you wake up, there's a process that you go through called sleep inertia. Sleep inertia is the transition between the, the s- the sleeping state to the awake, waking state. Yep. And there's certain things that come online. Your alertness comes online, your, uh, your conscious awareness, your attention comes online.

And your working memory, which is like your short-term memory, is not even full yet because you haven't inputted anything in yet. That time is, that [00:42:00] short window for when you wake up, here's what happens. The mental input that you bring in at that time has a disproportionate effect on the rest of the day.

Mm. So what I mean by that is The input that you choose to, to put into your, you know, into, into your brain- Yep ... that first few m- handful of minutes first thing in the morning, has a disproportional effect on things like your mood for the day-

Hala Taha: Yep ...

Jim Kwik: what you're gonna focus on in the day. So the things that you look at first is gonna determine like, like a, a large disproportionate influence on like what you're gonna see and focus on.

Um, also how you frame situations. So we go through situations throughout the day, difficulties, demands, whatever, and whether or not we're having a m- more of an empowering framing on it, like this is a good thing or a bad thing or a useful thing or look for an opportunity, th- is, a lot of it is preset first thing in that morning.

Now what do most people do first thing when they wake up? They, they grab their [00:43:00] device. Yep. Right?

Hala Taha: They're looking at their

Jim Kwik: phone. And I w- I just saw this, uh, Facebook reminder from over eight years ago. Simon Sinek and I have a video, it has 37 million views on, on Facebook. Wow. And it was just talking about the, the effect of our devices.

Mm-hmm. Especially first thing in the morning, if we're that impressionable. Because what happens is you pick that, you pick up your phone, and that window, which has a disproportionate effect on the rest of the day, what are you wiring your brain for? Distraction, number one. Every like, share, comment, cat video, ring, ping, ding, app notification, whatever it is- Yep

is, you have that dopamine flood, right, which you didn't have to earn, um, which is a whole conversation around motivation. And then you wonder why you can't focus later that day, 'cause the first thing you did was flex your distraction muscles. Mm. But the second thing it wires your brain for, which is almost as dangerous, uh, to your productivity and your performance, peace of mind, even your profitability as a entrepreneur, you're training your brain not only to be distracted, but also be, be reactive.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Like you ever pick up your phone first thing in the morning and you get a message, and it hijacks your mood?

Hala Taha: [00:44:00] Totally. Like- Or it hijacks the hour.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like you just dumped out what you were supposed to get done. And then, see that, that's, they, that, that sleep inertia, they call it attentional, attentional priming.

Like your mood, that could, that could last for you for hours. Like you have one voicemail message or an email from an angry client or a WhatsApp or Slack, whatever, and all of a sudden that's your focus for the day.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: And what is it doing? It, it's reactive. Like, uh, Brendon Burchard has this quote, you know, "Your inbox is nothing but a convenient organizational system for other people's agenda for your life."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: So you're fighting fires, right, all of a sudden. So how are you gonna build an extraordinary day, you know, which leads to weeks, months, years, you know, the life that you want, um, if you're, if you're, if you're on the defense?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Right? As opposed to proactively saying, "These are the three things I need to win."

So we, so the book you mentioned is called Limitless Daily. I wrote one page a day, 366 entries, and I wrote it for my, my two young kids for when they're adults. And [00:45:00] it has one power idea- Right? And the science behind it, 'cause I, I like either the psychology or the neuroscience behind it. And it's write- written in a very inspiring, fun way, and then one implementation that they could do in less than one minute.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: And then it has a new identity statement of who you're becoming, right? I love that. All on one page. And so the idea here is in that, in that sleep inertia window, right, where you're attentional priming, you could read this book- Mm ... and then all of a sudden you have a disproportionate advantage throughout the day.

That's so good. And, and I... What I did was, I was, I would wake up and write, and I would think about, what am I facing today? And any of the themes that everyone could relate to. Procrastination, maybe a lack of focus today, uh, imposter syndrome- Mm-hmm ... uh, frustration, overload, too much opportunity. Whatever it happens to be, and I write on that, and I research the science behind it.

I give them one tactic they could do. So in five minutes first thing in the morning, it sets you up to win and be more limitless that day. So it's, [00:46:00] uh, limitlessdaily.com is where people find out more information.

Hala Taha: So cool. I can't wait for that book.

Jim Kwik: Oh, I can't... I, this is, like,

Hala Taha: my best work. Oh, that's gonna be so good.

That's great. Um, attention is really the new IQ. Attention is really what's gonna- Yeah ... differentiate people with all this technology and all this AI. Um, it's really about focus and, and honing your focus. Um, I was reflecting about that even with, like, let's just take the example of me studying for a podcast and how that's evolved over the years, right?

When I first started my podcast, I had more time. I didn't have two companies. And I would study 20, 20 hours per guest. I would listen to all their books. I would listen to all their interviews. Wow. I would take a whole week and study them. There was no video, so it was audio only, so I could have, like, lots of notes, and, like, I'd prepare like crazy.

Then, like, as I had a company, like, that had to change. Um, and it's, and I had a team that would help me. Now I use AI. Mm-hmm. And I upload transcripts. I [00:47:00] upload PDF books. I, I have, like, a, an app that helps me. Um, and I was going so crazy with the AI that, like, there was a period of time where, like, I'd come to the interview and I'd be like, "I just spent three hours using AI to prepare for this interview, but I don't feel prepared."

And it was just, like, really interesting, and then I had to say, "Okay, what am I doing wrong?" And now I've, I've created a new process where I, I do the stuff with AI, but then I put it in an app that I can listen to it, and I make sure that I do it before the interview so that in the morning of the interview for, like, while I'm getting ready and stuff, I'm just listening to everything to actually absorb what I did.

Jim Kwik: Nice.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You know? So that sort of helps, but I still feel like how do I, like... I'd love to hear your opinion on collaborating with AI- Yeah ... and how to make sure we're not outsourcing too much with AI.

Jim Kwik: I'm a, I'm a big fan of all, you know, of technology. You know, I [00:48:00] think AI is, uh... Th- this is, this is my take on it, and, you know, we, you know, our entire team uses it, obviously, also as well for v- you know, various responsibilities that we have.

And I, I would say AI's interesting, right? AI scales and it amplifies, but it only scales and amplifies what we bring to it, right? Yeah. And so I feel like AI, there's a whole fear and concern around that AI will replace us. What-- That's a different conversation, but if it's... I feel it will replace people who aren't using AI and also learning their own, you know, building their own human intelligence, right?

Mm-hmm. But I feel like it, the conversation's not so much will it replace us, but I-- definitely will reveal us.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Because if it's amplifying and scaling, what is it amplifying and scaling? If an entrepreneur brings chaos and confusion to AI, it's gonna magnify and amplify chaos and confusion. Mm. Mm-hmm.

Right? As opposed to an AI, uh, an entrepreneur who's bringing, uh, clarity and discernment. It'll give them, it'll scale that also. Like, AI [00:49:00] is no longer a competitive advantage 'cause everybody has access to it. We all have access to it, right? Yeah. Somebody could use AI to write a great social media post.

Wonderful. Somebody else could use AI to build the next billion-dollar venture, you know? And so it's, it's the human intelligence that you're bringing to it that determines the performance and the ultimate result. It's like, um, I get to work with a lot of athletes, the, the NFL, the NHL, the MLB, uh, F1 drivers, right, with reaction time, thinking speed.

Like, let's think about a, like, a, a race car, a multimillion-dollar piece of technology. It's a performance tool. That's AI. But it's the driver that determines its performance. Mm.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Right? 'Cause everybody could have access. You know- That's true. Yeah ... all of them have great cars. But it's the driver. It's their...

So I feel like my work is, whether I teach focus, memory, flow, habit, brain optimization, sleep, whatever, accelerated learning, speed reading, memory, all the stuff that we have on our online academy, it's meant to enhance human intelligence. I, I really do believe human [00:50:00] intelligence is more important than artificial intelligence because, again, it's...

AI could do amazing computation, pattern recognition, right? But ultimately, human beings, they decide what things mean out of the data. Mm-hmm. They, they decide what to focus on, on that data. They decide what, what to do with that data in terms of next steps. So it's the humans that are gonna... Like, it's like Iron Man's suit.

It's, it's like AI, but Tony Stark is just bringing a lot to it that he'll get, you know, bigger results. And so my focus, I feel like in a world of, you know, rapid change, accelerated- Mm-hmm ... technology and AI, I, I just don't want The dependence, right? Everyone's heard about the MIT study where students who are writing essays at college, they, you know, uh, they broke them down to A, B, C groups.

A, ChatGPT they used. Uh, B, uh, was Google. Mm. They used Google. And C, no technology. And when they tested them, and I'm summarizing this, you [00:51:00] know, group A didn't remember anything. Mm-hmm. Just similar to their experience with podcasts. Yeah. They didn't remember anything 'cause they didn't have to work for it, right?

Um, and also when they scanned brains, like the ones that actually did the work, produced it, they remembered and also not only that, but, but more of their, uh, cogn- uh, cognitive networks were just activated, right? And so I wrote about this in 2020 when the book came out, Limitless. I called it digital deduction.

So digital dementia is the higher reliance on technology to remember things. Yeah. Your to-dos, your calendar, your phone numbers. Like nobody wants to remember 500 phone numbers. But it should be very concerning to r- that we've lost the ability to remember one phone number or a pin number or passcode or something.

Yeah. Have you ever read a page in a book, got to the end, just forgot what you just read, right? That, that's, that's the kind of things we want entrepreneurs to be better at. Um, but digital deduction is the higher reliance on technology to think for us.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: I mean, even think previous be- be- before like, uh, think about GPS.

Like there was a time when we need to use our visual spatial intelligence instead of using a piece of technology to [00:52:00] tell us where and when to turn.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Now we can't go anywhere without it.

Jim Kwik: Right.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: And so that's the dependence on it. So this is the thing. Your brain, like even my shirt says use it, right?

Use it or lose it. So the idea here is your brain's like a muscle. It's an organ, but it acts like a muscle. You use it or lose it. But if you put your arm in a cast for a, a year, it wouldn't grow stronger. Mm-hmm. It wouldn't even stay the same.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: It would weaken and atrophy. Yeah. That's digital dementia and digital deduction.

So the idea here is I'm all for using technology, you know, but if it's doing all the thinking, so, you know, let it think, but let you, but we should think too.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Right? Let it help you to remember something, but you should still remember things also, you know? And so, you know, the problem is when we grab technology out of habit and, and without intention or without very...

Like we give our s- our minds prompts all the time. Like I'm, I'm very efficient with AI because I've, I've been giving my HI a lot of prompts like- Yeah ... you know, with the training. You know, the questions that we ask. Mm-hmm. You know, like questions like h- you know, I use this all the time in AI is like, you [00:53:00] know, "Explain this to me like I'm, I'm 10 years old."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Right? That would be a way of summarizing difficult conversations with a podcast guest, or summarize this book certainly, right? Or also, you know, propose questions like, you know, "Give me five questions that, that this person's never been asked for public," you know, about publicly that my specific audience, you know, we've trained, you know, would, would, would really resonate with.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Um, but it also could be something like we could take all the principles in Limitless- You know, memory palaces, like, a- and, um, you know, space review. You know, it could quiz you, right? It could, every, you could schedule it. It could go be linked to your calendar and just said, "Let's do space repetition.

I wanna really understand this- Mm-hmm ... master this subject."

Hala Taha: So using AI to actually make sure that you know the material too. And- I do that too.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. It's like, literally there's a chapter in Limitless that says, you know, how to use AI to enhance your HI, taking those principles and translating it to be able to, to be able to quiz you, to be able to, to get you to rapid review to see what you know, to be able to...

You could say like, "Hey, mind map this subject for me, dot, dot, dot. Take notes and be able to show this," [00:54:00] the, you know. And then there's so many other things that you could do with it, and it's literally limitless. My thing is just you don't want, in a world of artificial intelligence, you don't want human intelligence to become artificial and, and not valuable, right?

And so I feel like there's human, certain human qualities that now more than ever, you know, like you even see, like, online, uh, with all the commencement speeches for graduation.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: And they mention AI, and then, like, the, there's all the-

Hala Taha: The people are really upset at, like,

Jim Kwik: there's a- And they're booing, and there's like all of that.

Hala Taha: Yeah. There's a really big movement out there- Yeah ... where people are really anti-AI, AI.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. It, it could be scary 'cause it's also people are losing their identity, right? If, if, if an AI could replace... I was just literally in a car where the, the, the, the, the, here in Austin, where the, where the U- where the Uber driver was just complaining the entire time about these Waymos that are going around- Mm

taking the jobs and da, da, da- Mm ... and all this other stuff. But that's, this is just the beginning of that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Right? It's

Hala Taha: gonna

Jim Kwik: happen. And so I, I feel like AI is, is a tool that can magnify [00:55:00] or multiply, but it only magnifies, multiplies, and amplifies what we bring to it.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: And so I feel like even more than ever is it important to, to work on our own intelligence and see what we bring to it.

Hala Taha: I totally agree. I mean, like, I feel like we've all been kind of like, like AI has just been sort of thrown at us, and we, we've all had to experiment with it. I think it's good to kind of fail on your own with it like I did. Yeah. 'Cause you just, like, learn the hard way. Um, and then you're able to kind of guide also, like, your employees of how to use it better.

Something that I'm kind of going through right now, I've, I've implemented AI. I have 60 people on my team And so we did this whole AI training, and everybody has, uh, th-this program that basically uses Claude and ingests their email and their Slack, and everyone's, like, using AI really well. But at the same time, now everything I'm getting feels so AI generated, and I'm like, "You guys need to still use your brains."

Yes. Like, you know, this is not gonna cut it. Like my, my, uh... Somebody on my team sent me a sales deck [00:56:00] that I completely had to redo this weekend because it just was so obvious. Yeah. And like, she's so smart, and I'm like, "This is not the advice that you would be giving."

Jim Kwik: Yeah.

Hala Taha: And like, "This is way too AI." And she's like, "Well, it really wasn't."

And I was like, "It was," like 'cause I can tell, right? So I guess, like what kind of human intelligence, like what are the characteristics that we should really focus on? And, and we talked about at-attention and memory- Yeah ... which I think just being charismatic is gonna help people- Yeah ... in the future.

Jim Kwik: Yeah.

Hala Taha: What else in terms of human intelligence, HI, should we be concentrating on?

Jim Kwik: I'd be thinking about curiosity, our ability to ask questions, and really good questions, especially in a world of AI, of AI and also of ourself is, is very important to be able to maintain that sense of wonder and that sense of awe.

You know, so curiosity, it would be on there. I think, uh, be very important to be able to do, uh, things like, uh, how would I, how would I say this? Uh, hold on.[00:57:00]

Let me pause for one second.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Sorry. Um-

All right. Uh, I could go, I could go in like three different directions with this

Hold on, give me one second.

Hala Taha: You're good, you're good. No, there's no rush for me.

Jim Kwik: How are you on time? What, where were we gonna go to?

Hala Taha: I'm good. Um, I was thinking to end at, like, 2:45, unless you need to end sooner.

Jim Kwik: No, no, no. No, we're, we're, we're, we're good. Okay, cool. Um, I w- I want this 'cause, 'cause this, we're, we're in the, kind of the home stretch.

I just want this to land.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Let me, um-

Hala Taha: The last question I'll ask you is, like, what do you imagine, like, 230- 2035, 6 being like? Or 2035, or 2036, let's say.

Jim Kwik: What, what about it? What's that

Hala Taha: look like? Like, what separates the people who become in, in this... Maybe I can a- maybe actually this is the same question, though

Jim Kwik: No reason[00:58:00]

Hala Taha: Yeah

Nobody knows what's gonna happen

Oh, the other thing I wanna ask you about before we end is like Um, you can tell me if you like this also. Like, I, I feel like s- doomscrolling is really a problem for people, and I just wonder if we can give people-

Jim Kwik: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: advice on-

Jim Kwik: We could do that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: So let me, let me, like- Yeah ... maybe the editors could back up and just, uh, you could ask what makes us...

Okay, so you asked us what makes us uniquely human in a world of AI- Yeah ... and I can answer that. So they could edit that way.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Okay. Um, so what makes us human in a world of AI? I think this is the conversation. I think we're living in the conversation of our time right now, is how do we become, uh, how do we become deeply human in a world of, in an age of AI, right?[00:59:00]

Um, where everything feels artificial- Yeah ... or there's that AI slop that you're referencing, like, this feels like AI, and people get detected, right? Yeah. I think where we can lean into, a number of things. Um, curiosity, right? Curiosity sparks wonder. It asks better questions, not only of AI, but of ourselves also as well.

Uh, I would say leadership is huge. You know, our ability to influence and impact people around us- Yeah ... to inspire them. Uh, I think that's critical. That's a human quality. Um, I would say, let's say, uh, emotional intelligence-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Jim Kwik: so very important, uh, because I think EQ is so important for interpersonal. Like EQ, uh, leadership is maybe external.

Emotional intelligence, self-reflection-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Jim Kwik: right? Um, to be able to look within, to be able to reflect instead of react, and to have some kind of emotional regulation, you know, to be able to, to have, you know, that with others. Um, adaptability, [01:00:00] very... It's, I, I think it's human beings, that's our superpower, ability to adapt.

I think in a rapidly changing world, uh, our ability to learn, unlearn, relearn, to be able to adapt, learn new skills, that everything is figure-out-able is- Mm-hmm ... so very important. Um, you know, also, also as well. I mean, so it's like these are things that are, that I would love for people to, to lean into, into, into more.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: And, uh, and, you know, it's not always taught. You know, I mean, you could think about, you know... You can make, even make an acronym. You make a word like human, you know, H is heart for the emotional in- intelligence, you know, part, and you can kind of make, like, a whole thing. But it's just whether you use acronyms or mnemonics or, like, these stories, they're things that I feel that, um, again, that with what we bring to the AI that would make...

And just like it's, and, and techno- it's always been like that with technology.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Right? But my, my thing is not to be dependent on it, meaning that an elevator is a form of technology. If you, if your office is on the fourth floor, your [01:01:00] apartment's on the fourth floor, yeah, an elevator is very convenient, but then you don't get your steps in.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: You know, you, if you take a, a Lyft to go to the bank eight blocks away, very convenient. It's a form of technology, but then we don't get our steps in, right? Mm-hmm. And so I feel like every day we can make it. Every moment we c- we have a chance 'cause we can make a new choice. Yeah. And so I like the balance of using it, um, but don't let it use you.

And not let our own gifts kind of atrophy.

Hala Taha: I wanna bring it back to something that you just mentioned where you saw these commencement speeches, and when people bring up AI- Mm-hmm ... they start to boo. I was actually pretty shocked, because for the last, like, two years I've been talking about AI on the podcast, and- Yeah

I'm kind of in this, like, entrepreneurship bubble where we embrace AI. We're, we're excited- Mm-hmm ... about AI. We see the opportunity, and of course there's some bad things with the environment for sure that they need to figure out. But I saw so much social content where people were just, like, badmouthing Mel Robbins, who I love, and Reese Witherspoon, and- Mm-hmm

all [01:02:00] these folks for telling women to start using AI and, and, and kind of, uh, making people know that women are less likely to use AI and why women really need to lean into it so we don't get left behind. And there was so much pushback from- Yeah ... women, um, who don't wanna use AI and refuse to use it. A- and it just made me feel really sad, 'cause I just feel like all these people are gonna be left behind because they think they're doing the righteous thing by not using AI, uh, when in reality I think that's gonna really hurt them in the future.

P- I personally feel that way. How do you feel about that?

Jim Kwik: I mean, the environment, n- the environmental concerns are- Huge ... you know, the, uh- Yeah ... that, that is... I mean, that could be f- a whole podcast on, on itself. So, you know, if we, if we s- to have the conversation if we separated that, you know- Yes ... or talk about it.

Um, technology has always been a tool, like the internet, right? Like a s- like a smartphone, like a printing press, you know, it's always there to be able to... It, it's, it, it's... We can't put it back into the box, right? Yeah. [01:03:00] The genie is out of the bottle, so it's, it's gonna be here. It's... It, it's a challenge. Just like with anything that we use, uh- You know, obv- obviously it'd be better if it w- if it was, you know, net, you know, net zero, you know, in terms of the impact that, that it, uh, the, the imprint it has on the environment.

So that, that, that a- that aside, you know, I, I feel like, yeah, some people are, are... I mean, think about the unknown, right? The unknown in the mind, the, the nervous system wants to protect itself, right? And it doesn't wanna waste a lot of energy. Anything that's new, like starting a business or talking to that person, you know, that fear that we have, that amygdala kind of fight or flight response is to kind of protect us, right?

It's to kind of keep things efficient, stable, 'cause change... But, but people don't talk about in the entrepreneurial space is that change is scary, right? And it could be AI, right? It could be the environment, it could be politics, political change, it could be market change in demand, supply, all these [01:04:00] different things, you know, threats, competitor threats or whatever.

Change can be scary. Growth can be hard. You know, it's hard to build two businesses to do what you've done, you know, with the podcast for the last eight years. People don't see what goes on behind the scenes. But nothing is as scary and hard as being stuck somewhere you don't, you don't belong. And so I don't know who needs to, to hear this, but I think life is hard for one of two reasons.

Either we're, we, we leave our comfort zone, you know, we take our business next level, we ask for the investment, whatever it happens to be, right? Um, or life's difficult 'cause we stay in our comfort zone, then life gets very, very difficult.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Jim Kwik: You know, and AI is very disruptive. You know, it, you know, it changes people's...

It's not even just a different of, of workflow. It, it's also challenging and threatening People's identity.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: Like who they are. Mm-hmm. Right? Like if somebody, uh, as I'm using a random example, like if somebody's a, an artist, right? Mm-hmm. An AI's doing all this stuff, or someone's an attorney and you could have access to all the legal advice you [01:05:00] need- Yeah

or a therapist or you name it, like it could be pretty threatening when we've spent our whole life preparing for- Yeah ... you know, to be this person. This is who we are. And if a machine could do that, you know, what does that make me? Mm-hmm. You know, much less our self-confidence and self-esteem, our self-worth in a world of being relevant.

So that, that, that, that could be a friction for people adopting this. You know, also I also feel like, um, you know, I'm leaning into human intelligence, you know, regardless of what-- I've always done that, regardless of the technology, whether it's AI or something else, you know, a- as it evolves, just because it's, it's our agency.

Yep. You know? Like I, I really do believe... Even the book, when people see it, it's, it's purple. And by the way, I have 5,000 books and, like, I-- there's no purple books. So from a mindset standpoint, like, you know, I want it to stand on shelves, but also I want people-- it would stand on people's minds. Mm-hmm. Um, also purple psychology, uh, the words that always came up in color psychology, sovereignty- Mm-hmm

agency, [01:06:00] like an entrepreneur.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Jim Kwik: Um, you know, taking responsibility for their, you know, the direction of their life and their, um, and, uh, wisdom. So that, so I, I really color-coded this around, you know, people's-- putting people in the right state. Um- So I think part of it is the unknown that people are threatened to.

I think also not this unknown of what's happening outside, but, you know, their identity and self-perception i- is, is also threatening. And, um, and certainly there are other concerns, like, you know, I go back to the environment for sure. Um, so I, I, um, I think it's great that people can voice their concerns and we have dialogue about this- Yeah

right? Discourse about it. This is what... And, and it's challenging. Like, like I, I also was surprised when I, when people started sending me those commencement speeches 'cause the other thing is with this algorithm, I, I rarely see people that I follow on social media. I'm not on social media a whole lot.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: But I rarely see the people I follow. I just see whatever I engage with. So we all are training that algorithm-

Hala Taha: To show us

Jim Kwik: what we want ... with

Hala Taha: AI. Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Yeah, so there, there is an echo chamber there. So [01:07:00] like in entrepreneurship, everyone's a pro AI, so everyone, everyone's an AI expert and- Mm-hmm ... so on. And then, but you know, a lot of people, that's not where most people are living- Yeah

you know, certainly. And but I'm sure people felt the same way about cars.

Hala Taha: They did.

Jim Kwik: You know? And assembly lines, you know? And, and they will about s- you know, self-driving cars and, and everything else.

Hala Taha: And we just gotta adapt.

Jim Kwik: And that's the key is, is- That's really the key, we

Hala Taha: just have to adapt ...

Jim Kwik: and that's what human beings when they lean into it.

That, that's why I think all learning is all adaption. Your ability to adapt, you know, in new environments, to be able to learn, unlearn, relearn new skills, new ideas, new systems is, is makes us valuable, you know- Mm-hmm ... today. And not everyone will do it, but that's the opportunity for people that, that do. So, you know, I, I look at AI like a lot of tools.

Um, you know, it's using it, I see it some more than artificial intelligence, augmented intelligence. It's a partner for us to use, and you could use it in, I mean, there are limitless [01:08:00] ways to be able to use it, you know, for, as... And, and level, and it also levels the playing field, you know. I mean, I, I wish when I got started three, four years ago, there wasn't even the internet.

Yeah. You know, in ads. It's the easiest time-

Hala Taha: There was no email- ... to be an entrepreneur right now ... there was no nothing. My goodness, like- You can build your whole team with Claude. I,

Jim Kwik: I remember building our first course program in 2006, 2007. Like, it was like, you know how much camera equipment and everything else I had to do?

And how, how costly- Oh my- ...

Hala Taha: developers- ...

Jim Kwik: goodness ... and all these things ...

Hala Taha: a website- Yeah ...

Jim Kwik: was tens of thousands of dollars back then- Mm-hmm ... you know? And so the fact that you could build a brand Yeah, it's, it's exciting times. So I'm, I, I'm, I'm more of an optimist, you know- Same ... for, for things. But I'm also a realist, you know.

So we do the best we can with what we have, you know, and hopefully, you know, leave the, the world a better, br- brighter place.

Hala Taha: So I wanna ask you one last question, and- Do I remember the- ... this is really about, uh-

Jim Kwik: Do I remember the 10 things?

Hala Taha: No. You probably still do.

Jim Kwik: I do.

Hala Taha: Um, this is around brain rot. So brain rot was the word of the year, year by Oxford in 2024.

Oh. [01:09:00] And, um, I was reading some stats, and m- uh, millennials and Gen Z spend about five hours a day on their phone on average- Yes ... just for entertainment purposes. Like, so not just screen time for school and work. For- Mm-hmm ... for Gen Z, I think that's, like, eight hours if it's just screen time, but five hours a day for entertainment.

And that worries me because- ... um, that's a lot of time. Like, you can't focus or build something if you're spending five hours a day doom scrolling, and I just think it's a major problem. I also think task switching is a major problem. I find myself even, like, using two computers and, like, running an AI prompt- Mm-hmm

and then doing something else. Mm-hmm. Checking my AI prompt and, and then I realize, like, this is probably not effective, right? Right. Uh, so just help us understand as we close out this interview- Sure ... how can we retain our focus in, with, in this era of just so much distraction?

Jim Kwik: Yeah. [01:10:00] I'm gonna s- I'm gonna...

What I'm gonna say is gonna be really simple, and I'm not even suggesting it's easy. But, and take this with a grain of salt whoever's listening to this. Like, an entrepreneur or any individual, you can't be upset by the results you didn't get from the working into. And if you're spending eight hours doom scrolling and rotting your brain, and then have the audacity to complain that, "Oh, I went through this course," or, "I listened to this," or, "I have this mentor and a coach," and you're not doing it.

Like, the only thing we get, like, I think people need to work until their results speak for themselves. And I, I'm talk- I'm not talking... I've, I've gone through this path. We, we have a number of businesses, you know, and I advise some of the biggest ones. And I'm, and I'm just saying every day we have a chance 'cause we have a choice.

It is still a choice. But if, but if we repeatedly doom scroll, and we know we're doing it, then it is a choice, right? And so I'm not saying... We've all watched Social Dilemma and all, and we know that there are billions of dollars being [01:11:00] put into these platforms with the top neuroscientists, behavioral, behavioral, uh, scientists that make this addictive.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Right? And we all have heard stories about the, a lot of these founders, that they wouldn't let their kids on these platforms. Yeah. You know, and we know that if there's not a product there, then we are the product that they're selling to advertisers. We all know this. And I, we advertise, so I probably stalk a lot of you-

with our content and our s- and our, our courses. Um, so it's a tool that could be used for, in our opinion, to be able to, to, to impact. Um, you can only change your life in... So brain rot's a real deal, right? If you're feeding, we just talked about your brain and how it's being wired by our devices. Um, and you could scroll to infinity.

Um, and that's But, and that's fine. Who am I to jud- judge if somebody wants to do that? And do that, that's your prerogative. But if there's a gap between where you are and where you wanna be, you know, in your business or your bank account or the impact, your income or your influence, and we're spending a third of our day like on, on those [01:12:00] devices without any kind of results, then I would question how much you really want this.

And I feel, I still go back to agency and responsibility. You know, years ago I got to introduce two of my superheroes together. It was, um, Richard Branson and Stan Lee, uh, Stan Lee, like the late Stan Lee who created all the Marvel characters. Mm. And they wanted, they both mentioned each other, they wanna meet each other.

So we, you know, we go to dinner and I, I'm in the car and I asked Stan, I was like, "You created all these epic heroes. Who's your favorite?" And he says, "Jim, Iron Man." And, and then he says, "Jim, who's your favorite?" And he had, I posted this on social media, he had an Ir- in the backseat he had a, a Spider-Man tie, so I said, "Spider-Man."

And with, in his iconic voice with a pause, he goes, "With great power comes great responsibility, right?" Mm-hmm. And maybe 'cause I hit my head too much, I tend to sometimes reverse what I read or see, um, or hear. And I, and I said, "You're right. With great power comes great responsibility, Stan. And the opposite is also true.

With great responsibility comes great power." When we take responsibility for something, we have great power.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: So I don't think we have [01:13:00] to be super hard on ourselves. I think, uh, when we're compassionate, studies done in self-compassion say when you don't beat yourself up, when you're kind to yourself, you're more likely to make a positive change and follow through.

So it's like you miss your workout, you don't beat yourself up. You just say, "Hey, I'm human. I had a lot, kind of a really hard day." And you're more likely to follow through as opposed to like, you know, uh, be a critic for yourself. Same thing with doom scrolling, you know? And I would say like the first place to change is, is has to start with awareness.

You know, you look, you look at your screen time on certain devices and you can't deny that, you know? And then you say, "Is this getting me the results that I want?"

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: And if it's not, then you make a choice and it's your, it's their choice, their responsibility. They could either continue doing that and that's, that's fine, that's their choice.

But if they're looking to create something that requires time, energy, talent, you know, I would think like, "Oh, how do I repurpose this into getting what I want?" And it's hard. I'm not saying it's, change is h- is easy. But if it was easy, ev- like [01:14:00] everyone would just have like these great businesses- Yeah ... and everything.

Hala Taha: And part of it is changing your identity around it, correct? Because you are responsible to kind

Jim Kwik: of- It, it i- it is. Yeah. I, I, I would... The, the key, it's a habit, right? And we don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. I'll tell you, like we ri- we, we, we don't rise to the level of our goals.

We fall to the level of our standards that we have. Like if people said like, "I must make this amount a mo- like must"-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Jim Kwik: like, or a loved one's like, you know, in jeopardy if they don't, like we will hit that standard. We fall to the level of our standards, our systems, and our self-image. Like, that, that, that's it.

And we control all three of them, you know? And so I feel like I'd be working if it... First you create your habits, then your habits create you. If you're spending eight hour, five to eight hours a day habitually picking up your phone mindlessly, then you need to interrupt that. Yeah. And the best way to do habit design, and we've had James Clear and BJ Fogg and, you know, Charles Duhigg, all the best, being on our podcast.

Same. You know, like it's, it's environmental [01:15:00] design. You can control your environment. Like, and I'm not saying this is easy, but like, don't have your phone by your nightstand. Put it in your, in your bathroom. The, the, the, the, the premise, the first principle of environmental design is you wanna make what's good for you easier, and you wanna make things that are not good for you harder.

Like, you're not gonna snack, if you don't have the junk food in your home, you're not gonna, it's, that you're changing your environment. Yeah. It's not gonna make it easy, right? If you take the app and you have to log in every single time into your, into your apps or reinstall it, it's not gonna be easy.

It's not gonna be worth it. And that's how you change that. And then your identity changes once your behavior changes. Mm. Because you create evidence that you are the person that you say you are. And I, I think that's so very important, you know, that you are, you don't see yourself as this, a procrastinator or whatever it is.

You see yourself as somebody who gets things done. And you create evidence, like real world evidence that, you know, validates that. But I would, I would say we make a choice. Like, there are only four choices you can make, right? Again, life is the letter C between B and D. B is [01:16:00] birth, D is death, life's C, choice.

We always have that choice. That's the sum total of everything. And your only four choices you can make to make, make your business better, your brain better, your body better, your life better. Stop something, start something, do less of something, do more of something. That's it. 'Cause the fifth thing is do nothing.

That's insanity, expecting different results. So you stop Stop checking your phone first thing in the morning. Start, uh, a meditative process which trains your focus so you're not gonna be as addicted. Uh, you know, you can pull your focus back when you need to. Do less of something. Do less, um, binge-watching stuff or, or doom scrolling, and do more movement, right?

Like, it's just, it's, it's so simple. I'm not saying easy.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: But it is so simple. Like, we know what to do. We're not doing what we know. Like, common sense is not common practice. That's why these conversations are so important because who's, who's talking about these kind of things, right? That gives people, like, some insight and some inspiration to say, like, "Oh, I'm gonna make a new choice today."

Yeah. And just, if you're going this way, you take ... Like, every morning, for example, when ... The reason why this book is so [01:17:00] important, I think, and that special time- Yeah ... was disproportionate

Hala Taha: time. That was one of my favorite things that we learned today.

Jim Kwik: Yeah, like, uh, 'cause when you wake up, you're getting into an airplane, metaphorically, and you're, you're going through the day to a destination.

Now, like, the first thing the pi- like, when you get in a plane, they set the course to go to the city. If you're off course just 1%, over time, over the length of that flight or that 24 hours in that day, you could end up in a different city or country. Mm-hmm. Just a 1% shift. And sometimes when you get on that plane, you maybe are the passenger and there's turbulence.

What's the turbulence? It's distraction. It's your phone. It's y- energy vampires. It's other people's expectations, right? Shakes it up. Or some people are, are allowing the plane to be hijacked, and they're just taking ... That person who's leading is just directing your course to wherever they want it to go.

You know, my work with this book is like, "Hey, let's walk to the cockpit together. You're sitting down. You are the pilot of your mind today." Mm-hmm. "And we're gonna set the course, uh, of where we're gonna [01:18:00] go." Like, like, for example, like, that, that window again that you get disproportionate amount of, like, results for the rest of the day with the mental input.

Same thing with physical input. If s- if you woke up and the first thing you did was eat a bunch of junk food and donuts and everything else- Mm. Sugar ... first thing you do.

Hala Taha: Glucose rollercoaster.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. And then that would have disproportionately affect the rest of your day. Yeah. Your focus, your mood, how you feel about situations because you're in that crummy mood.

I mean, think about, like, the mental diet that you have first thing in the morning.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: You know, people wouldn't doubt it. So, like, like, why would you start your day with confusion and, and doom scrolling and violence and leads it leads and, like, everything that, comparison and all the other stuff.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Jim Kwik: Right? And but we choose to do that because we're letting the technology use us, and then we become the tool. And, uh, I don't, I don't know. And maybe I'm a little bit, you know, passionate about this because I, I see the effects on mental health- Yeah ... you know, especially for younger generations. You know, they're scoring less in aptitude tests academically also, but mental health, you [01:19:00] know, is surpassed like can't...

offered the biggest challenge that people are facing. Yeah.

Hala Taha: I think it's tough though because I think we are consuming so much content that feels really important right now. I- you said you don't go on social media.

Jim Kwik: I, I, I, I do.

Hala Taha: You do. Just not,

Jim Kwik: not as-

Hala Taha: Well, like I think a lot of people i- in like Gen Z, Millennials, we're like consumed with things like- The wars going on, the Epstein files, the aliens now, the, like, we're getting, like, bombarded with all this craziness that seems so important to know about that it's so hard to, to turn it off.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. And again, I'm not who, who ... You know, I'm, I'm not any more important than people to say that this is important or not. Yeah. So people can decide what's important. You know, like, for, for me, I think it's all that could be important, and, and it is, but there's gotta be some kinda stopgap in terms of- Yeah

where you can't possibly- 'Cause you

Hala Taha: only have so much mental bandwidth, right, throughout the day

Jim Kwik: And then

Hala Taha: the,

Jim Kwik: the result, the result is [01:20:00] this burnout, you know, there's digital depression, there's d- like, all the, the brain rot- Yeah ... everything else like that. So it's interesting. There's this dichotomy, the polarity where, you know, sometimes you put limits to become more limitless.

Just like y- as an entrepreneur, like, or even writing this book, I ha- I had a deadline that I had to hit. So when there's a constraint of time or money or whatever, then you, what does it do? It forces human intelligence. It forces curiosity. It forces concentration. It forces commitment-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Jim Kwik: to be able to do that.

So a limit makes you more limitless.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Go beyond what you normally do 'cause it's just gonna fill the space. If I had two years to do it, I would take two years, right? But I would say putting borders and boundaries around your mental health, your time, the things that you value, I think is, is, that would be my focus because I can't affect w- if people choose to put their, their attention to things, I would just say as long as you're doing something about it.

'Cause otherwise, what are we doing? Then we're indulging and getting- Mm ... in the storyline, but if we're not doing something about it, then the net effect is nothing just because we could [01:21:00] spend an inordinate amount of time spiraling, you know, in our own mental health and challenges. Yeah. I'm not saying turn a blind eye.

But if you're gonna do that, then you might as well get- But- ... do something- Yeah ... with that energy and that knowledge, you know. And it's, it's challenging. For entrepreneurs, other people who take approach like, "I can't change the personal economy, but I can focus on my personal economy." Mm. "I'm not gonna change the healthcare system, but I can focus on my family's health, you know, and- Mm

and wellness also." Mm-hmm. And so people take that approach. But I think we make the choices, and that's the, you know, it, it's a system of control because this technology could, it will eventually, you know, whether it's controls us, but putting borders and boundaries and stopgaps, I think, is important, especially around the things you value, your time, your energy, your emotions.

You know, maybe there's some people in our lives that might not be nurturing to, you know, us and who we are- Yeah ... at this point in time. But, um, yeah, I think there's a lot of important things that are going on. I'm not saying don't focus on them. I'm just saying for what result, you know. But if you're gonna do something with it, yeah, please.

Yeah. We need more people who are gonna do great [01:22:00] things, you know, and, and help us in the situations that we're in. Yeah. You know? And, but, but I know my energy, my time, for example, is finite, so I'm gonna focus on what I could control- Mm-hmm ... and where I can impact the most, you know, for things. Um, but it als- doesn't mean, you know, I, I like to pay attention.

Yeah. I like to know what's going on, but also there's come a point where I can't pay attention to everything.

Hala Taha: Yeah, you don't need to pay attention for five hours a day. Right. Right?

Jim Kwik: Yeah, I, I could I kill you.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Um, okay, so Jim, this was an awesome conversation. Yeah, I feel- I feel like I could talk to you forever, but I'm gonna end the show with two questions I ask all my guests.

Jim Kwik: Okay.

Hala Taha: The first one is, uh, doing something actionable today. So what is one actionable thing- Yeah ... our young and profiters can do to be more profitable- Yeah ... tomorrow? We did talk about first 15 minutes in the morning and, like, capitalizing on that.

Jim Kwik: Sure.

Hala Taha: Is there anything else from this new Limitless Daily book?

Jim Kwik: Yeah. I would, I would focus on... Okay, so let's go back to that. Even if you don't read Limitless Daily in that window first thing in the morning, which would be, which I- would be great, a gratitude [01:23:00] practice would put you in that state, right? People could list three things that they're most grateful for, come from that place, 'cause that'll set the tone for the rest of the day.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: They'll, they'll tend to see things that they're more grati- you know, more grateful for, right? And which leads to more opportunities. Um, I think if anyone wants to feel wealthy, just count all the things you have in your life that, that money can't buy, right? Yeah. There's so many, like, things. Like, we wouldn't trade, you know, maybe some of your senses or some of your lim- whatever for amount of money, and that's, that's a good place to come from, that we were- we are already blessed.

If you're listening to this, able to watch this, you're probably more abundant than 99% of the population. Um, the other thing you could do is, like, I do this thought experiment where I'll sit in bed, and I'll imagine in those first few minutes, fast-forward, I'll do this mental experiment where I'll travel through time, and I'll imagine myself getting into bed that night.

And maybe somebody asks me or my wife asks me, like, "How was your day?" And I was like, "Today was amazing. Oh my God," like, da, da, da. And then I ask myself, what had to happen in order for me to feel that way? And I think of three things personally, three things [01:24:00] professionally, and they don't have to be huge things.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Three things personally, three things professionally, and those six things become my focus for the day. That becomes this, like, I'm getting on the plane, these are the things I wanna be able to hit. Because I'm not gonna get through that 200 to-do list, right? Yeah. And none of them are relevant. So I think about things that, that, uh, that are le- lead dominoes that if I did that, it makes everything else easier.

You know, I think a lot of the treasure entrepreneurs seek is hidden in the work that they're avoiding. I don't know who needs to hear this- ... but that conversation you need to have, or the, that step that you need to take, that commitment. Um, um, but I would, I would plan with the end in mind. So, you know, instead of being reactive and then touching your phone, do something with that for a few minutes.

And, uh, 'cause I mention in the book, but do, do grad school process or think about your three most important things to achieve that day. And I wouldn't just be thinking about the end result. I'd be thinking about, like I don't even, when I do goal-setting, I do something called future episodic remembering, where my goal is so vivid it's as if I'm [01:25:00] remembering it happened.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Right? Like I could d- I could, I could imagine it as real as what I had for breakfast this morning, right? So there's, and that's one of the entries in the book, right? And so there's 366 of those in five minutes to just 5X your day. But I would also, when you're thinking about that thing, like when you're thinking about goal-setting, I would think about not so much, I think people make the mistake of just obsessing about that goal and visualizing that goal, that, and getting that award or hit, having, seeing that money in their bank account, whatever it is.

I'd be obsessing rehearsing what it took to get you there.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: What are the habits where it's naturally gonna happen?

Hala Taha: It's the daily, it's the daily differences that you make, not just the

Jim Kwik: one thing. Because your mind, it's so crazy. Like, like so many people are rehearsing and reviewing through anxiety of the future or, you know, or worry of future of something that happened in the past.

They're, they're rehearsing failure in their mind, like with their fu- what they're repeating over and over again what they don't want to happen. And regardless of the, you know, laws of attraction and quantum physics, forget about that, we are literally wiring our [01:26:00] minds to be able, whatever we do repetitively, we get better at.

And so what I'd be thinking about, yes, you could acknowledge that that's, this is the goal. I would be reviewing like the night before, that morning of if I'm writing, me going to my computer, opening it up, and start typing. I would be repeating that. Mm. So there's zero friction for me to do it- To do the hard things, yeah

because I've just done it 100 times in my head.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Jim Kwik: Right? Like I don't, like I go on stages. I've been on 2,200 stages, quarter million people every single year as an introvert, you know, but I practice in my mind like 200,000 times, right? And so we, I think we wanna get really... The other t- technique, uh, thing I would mention for people watching, besides using that high leverage time window first thing in the morning to do something th- than touching your phone or whatever, I would be doing mental rehearsal around the th- the habits that will get you where it's gonna happen naturally and effortlessly.

It's like undeniable that this will happen if you did this. Mm. I'd be rehearsing that.

Hala Taha: Mm. [01:27:00] Okay, my last question to you is what is your secret to profiting in life? And because I've asked you this a few times, let's put it profiting in life this year.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. So when we talk about the treasures of our life, that some of them could be financial- Yeah

you know, certainly. Um, not everyone measures it based on, on things, and people sometimes get in depression of comparison online and, you know, it's... I just wanna remind people it's, the grass is greener where you water it. And online there's a lot of, there's a lot of artificial turf. You know, there's a lot of filters being used, so it's not always what we see that we're comparing our lives, you know To something, uh, so or somebody else.

Um, in terms of profiting, you know, we, we measure... The, it's, it's right now, in terms of my professional life, it's all about this book, you know? This book has, uh, the potential to reach a lot of people, you know, um, [01:28:00] even millions more. This book, uh, uh, everyone was asking after Limitless, which is, like, dense, like how to learn.

It's an owner's manual for your brain, all the things that you'll learn how to remember things, like names and everything else like that, speed read everything in that book. But people are like, "How do you break this down into something that's really simple?" So that's why this Limitless Daily, right? Um, I think books changed my life.

When I, when I was growing up, I couldn't read. Uh, I never finished a book cover to cover. My teachers would've been surprised if I read a book, much less wrote books.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Jim Kwik: Um, but it's just a reminder that I don't know one strong person that had an easy life. That adversity can be an advantage for anyone struggling right now with business or something else.

Um, I would say that what lights me up, I could think of a lot of other ways of making money. I know enough people, um, but you know, I, I choose this path because how I measure profit, you know, this whole idea is like a millionaire is help- someone who's helped a million people. You know, a billionaire is someone who'll be able to support a billion people.

Yeah. You know, and, uh, my goal for [01:29:00] decades has been one billion brains. You know, no brain left behind. Mm-hmm. And I'm hoping this book is a big, uh, leverage point for us to be able to, to go on, I mean, you know, quality media like this and, and share it with more people who are struggling right now. You know, whether it's in AI or their identity or imposter syndrome.

I literally took the biggest issues that people face when we polled our community also, which is sizable, and did an entry on each of these things: frustration, overload, procrastination. You, you know, why, why can't I get myself to do what I need to do? Um, focus, overload, everything, just did an entry. And, uh, it, it, it's fun.

I, I, I think it's a wild ride.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, this was such a great way to end the interview, and I'm so excited for Limitless Daily. Like, I'm gonna do it every day once

Jim Kwik: I get a copy. Yeah, we're gonna do a whole, we're gonna do a whole 366 challenge, so it's great 'cause everyone has a date, and it has all this, so everyone's gonna be on the same page.

So we'll do lives around it. Ex-

Hala Taha: when does it come out?

Jim Kwik: And it's coming out in September.

Hala Taha: Amazing,

Jim Kwik: so. So we're, we're so, we're so pumped, so I, [01:30:00] I appreciate the conversation. This was fun.

Hala Taha: It was.

Jim Kwik: Yeah. I think- Thanks

Hala Taha: for coming on.

Jim Kwik: Oh, thank you everybody for watching. I challenge everybody to do one thing. Take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this right now, and tag us both so we get to see it.

Yeah. And share one thing that you're gonna do based on this conversation. Just one thing. Maybe you're gonna stop something, start something, do less of something or do more of something. Because one of the best ways of learning anything, you can be public about it certainly, it's for accountability, but it's to teach it to somebody else.

That way you put it out there, and then your fans, your followers, your family, your friends get to, uh, get the benefit also. So thanks for having me.

Hala Taha: Thank you, Jim. Thank you for joining us on Young and Profiting podcast.

Cool. Great job.

Jim Kwik: Thank you.

[00:00:00] Hala Taha: Yeah, bam, the world is changing. It used to be that men had all the money and that men made all the money. But that is no longer the case. Women are making more and more money. We are closing the wage gap. Women are graduating college at faster rates than men now. Women are getting more inheritances because they're living longer.

Women are becoming the breadwinners of families. And I see that all around in my life right now, more and more. This is changing the world as we know it. This is changing gender roles as we know it. And whether you're male or female, this is something you got to learn about. Which is why I'm having this topic on today's episode of Young and Profiting Podcast with Jean Chatzky.

Jean Chatzky is the CEO and founder of Her Money. She's also the host of the Her Money podcast, and she's a bestselling author. She started her career in journalism and then later TV, and now she's an awesome entrepreneur here to share all of her advice to us in terms of this changing world and how we're all going to be impacted by the fact.

That women are making more money. Even the products we buy, our cars, the airplanes, they're all going to change. Because they're going to be based on not just men's preferences, but women's too. It's such an interesting topic to me. Such a great conversation that we had. I can't wait for you guys to hear it.

So without further ado, here's my conversation with Jean Chatzky.

Jean, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

[00:02:23] Jean Chatzky: Thanks, Hala. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:02:26] Hala Taha: I'm so excited for this conversation. I think it's going to be so insightful for my audience. I really love your work. You didn't really start off in finance, which I thought was interesting. And I'd love to get some backstory from you in terms of your journalism background.

You were an English major. How did you end up first getting interested in finances?

[00:02:47] Jean Chatzky: I got interested quite honestly, because my own financial life was a bit of a mess. And simultaneously, the journalism job that I got was Business adjacent. I started my career as an editorial assistant at a magazine that no longer exists called working woman and got to report some stories on things like business and careers and management trends and investing, and I was.

interested enough in them to try to get a job in personal finance, business journalism. When I left that job, which turned out to be really, really difficult because all the big business magazines on the planet, I applied to all of them. I thought Working Woman was a joke, and finally I got a little bit of advice that what I needed was an MBA, but I didn't have really any interest in going back to school at that point.

So instead I got a job on Wall Street. I worked in equity research for a couple of years. I learned investing inside and out, and when I came back out, I was able to re enter journalism, join Forbes, from there to smart money, and from there I ended up on the Today Show for 25 years.

[00:04:12] Hala Taha: Amazing. So, when I looked at your career journey, it reminded me a lot of my own in terms of That you skill stacked to become an entrepreneur.

So I call this skill stack entrepreneurship, where basically you worked for other people and you gained all these skills over the years, and then you became an entrepreneur, basically putting these skills together. And then you came out with her money and nobody could do her money better than you because you had all the experiences to put together this unique offering, to put together this awesome website, this awesome podcast.

And you had all the background and the skills, the writing, the journalism, the broadcasting, the knowledge of that actual topic. It's a lot like what I did with Yap Media and my podcast network and my social agency. So I'd love for you to just talk to us about that for all these young people listening.

Talk about the skills that you acquired over the years and then how you sort of use that in your entrepreneurship journey.

[00:05:08] Jean Chatzky: I was one of the original side giggers, right? I think I had a side hustle before it was called a side hustle. Pretty much always, because journalists make very little money, or at least when you're starting out as a journalist, you make very little money.

So originally my side hustle was teaching SATs, but As I started to become a stronger writer and a stronger content creator, I was able to hustle in my own industry. So just by doing that, I picked up a lot of the adjacent skills that I then needed to launch this business. Once I was on the Today Show in particular, a lot of doors started to open.

These were the days where everybody was watching the Today Show. And so I got a lot of offers to go out and speak, to write books, to consult for different companies in the industry. Employee benefits departments, where they were trying to improve the financial health of their employees. And I didn't become an entrepreneur until, a full scale entrepreneur, until 20 years down the road.

When I left my last magazine job, I actually got fired from my last magazine job because I'd gotten a little too expensive for their payroll. Huh? And I looked at all of the other things that I was doing. I was doing radio for Oprah over here and I was doing, speaking here, and I was on my 10th book over here and I had three other clients over here, and I thought, why am I getting another job?

I have five other jobs, I would just need to put 'em together. Her money as a company came along after her money as a podcast, I was doing some work. With Fidelity Investments, they were our original launch sponsor, the fabulous team there basically said, what else can we do together? And I was like, how about a podcast?

So, we launched and very quickly it became apparent to me that we were growing a community of like minded women who wanted to learn about money. And her money, the company. launched around that.

[00:07:32] Hala Taha: Amazing. Well, you've been doing such a great job. I know that your podcast is super popular. Your blog is very well known.

I've heard about Hermione for many years now. You also have so many books and you've just become such an accomplished author. And a majority of your content is actually geared towards women. So I want to talk to that for a minute because I know that all the advice you give is applicable to all genders, right?

Doesn't necessarily need to be just for women. But we do need to understand why women have traditionally had an uphill battle when it has come to their finances. Can you give us some insight in terms of the gender wage gap? And I think a lot of people have the assumption that that's not really a thing anymore.

So can you talk to us about if it is a thing in 2024?

[00:08:17] Jean Chatzky: Oh, it's a thing. It has budged. Which is good. Over the last, like, year and a half, it's moved up a smidge, so that at this point, women earn 83 and a half cents to every dollar that a white man earns. But the American Association of University Women say we are going to be halfway through the next century before this gap actually closes.

That's how slowly it's moving. And it's worse. For women of color and the problem with the gender wage gap is that when you combine it with all of the other factors that women deal with in terms of earning money and growing money for retirement, they put us behind women are the ones to take breaks from work to care for kids and care for older parents.

We saw that in the pandemic. In spades, but it's been true all along because we take those breaks. We have less money growing in those retirement accounts. We earn fewer social security credits. We get to the end of the line. We've got a smaller nest egg, and then we have to make the money last longer because we go and we outlive men by six, seven years.

So it's an uphill battle, but you're right. In terms of. The advice being gender neutral, there are not a ton of differences in the advice that somebody would give to a man versus a woman. Jane Bryant Quinn, who is one of my mentors and a leading personal finance journalist, just a trailblazer. She likes to say that stocks aren't pink or blue.

Money's not pink or blue. It's green, right? And she's a hundred percent right about that. The problem is that women sometimes don't feel as safe as we need to feel to ask the questions that we need answered in order to get us to take the steps to start investing, to put our money to work, to ask for that raise.

What I found and the reason that I launched her money was that when I was in a room full of all women given some sort of a talk, and I would get to the Q& A section, the hands would just fly up in the air. And when I was in a mixed group, the response was a lot more muted. Women really held back and didn't want to share as much.

And so what I set out to create was a safe space. But am I going to tell women that they should buy NVIDIA as we did for our investing club two years ago and tell men that they should not? Absolutely not.

[00:11:13] Hala Taha: Such good advice. And by the way, that stock has done really well because I have it too. Yeah. So a lot of my listeners are business owners.

A lot of them are people of power. We have employees. We have our own small businesses. What is our responsibility when it comes to the gender wage gap?

[00:11:30] Jean Chatzky: I think our responsibility is to level it. And it has to come from the employers. Because if employers don't take a look at our payrolls, don't take a look at how we are treating our employees, irrespective of.

gender, irrespective of race, these gaps are never going to close. And so we have to get really honest about who's doing what work and how much are they being compensated for it. And it's not a matter of need. It's a matter of the work that we need them to do, but it's not a matter of our perception of the money that they need to take home, which is how it used to work.

You know, years back, you would hear conversations where A boss would tell a female employee, well, of course, John is going to get paid more than you do. He's the breadwinner and he's got multiple mouths to feed at home. We're now in an era where more women are the breadwinners. And if you look ahead, if you look out to 2030 and into the 2030s, women are actually expected to control the lion's share of the wealth and the Spending in this country and across the world.

And it's because of educational trends that are leading women to have more qualifications than men in many, many instances. And it's also because. Of the way that the transfer of wealth, the 41 trillion transfer of wealth that is going on as we speak is playing out. Women are inheriting twice, and not because our parents prefer us to our brothers.

But we're inheriting twice because if we have brothers, chances are we split the family pie with them. But then when our husbands die, we inherit that money as well.

[00:13:33] Hala Taha: So good. And this is really, really fascinating to me. I really want to spend a lot of time here on these social and economical changes that are going on.

So, I got some incredible stats from your work, and I'm going to rattle some off and ask some questions about them. I'd love for you to really just give us as much insight, as much color as you have about them. So the first one is, for every hundred men who graduated from college last year, 132 women graduated.

Can you talk about how this really snowballs into various social, demographic, economic changes?

[00:14:09] Jean Chatzky: Absolutely. Absolutely. If you look at the types of jobs that college grads hold and the types of jobs that you need to have a college degree in order to get, they tend to be the higher paying jobs. We are seeing some movement In trades, in apprenticeships, in vocational programs, I grew up in Wheeling, West Virginia, in a high school that had a big welding department in the basement, and I believe that we need to see more of these opportunities, but there's no question that a college degree helps you land a better salary, and when you look at the lifetime earnings of a person, With a college degree versus one who doesn't have one, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, and the way that that then drives change in society is that you have these families where you tend to have not just one, but two college educated people because college educated people often meet in college, and those Two income college educated households are going to be making significantly more money in many cases than those are not college educated.

And what we wind up with is just a bigger income disparity in this country than we have right now. And as you know, Hala, it's already problematic. So we look at it and we see these things starting to march in that direction. The other problem though, and I hear of this. From my daughter and from people younger than her is that if you are on a college campus and you're heterosexual and you want to date, it's gotten an awful lot harder.

[00:16:06] Hala Taha: I definitely want to talk about that, but let's hold that thought for a second. Let's talk about how by 2028, women will control 75 percent of discretionary spending around the world. By 2030, 66 percent of America's wealth will be with women. You alluded to this a bit, but what are some of the factors of why women are going to have so much more money in the future years?

[00:16:30] Jean Chatzky: So it's education and it is the transfer of wealth. Those are the two big factors that are playing into this. But when you talk about the fat. That women are going to have the money. What people don't do is sort of follow the breadcrumbs and think about how that's going to change everything, right? When you follow the breadcrumbs, what you see is that the fact that women are making these purchasing decisions, changes things.

If you look at cars, it's going to change the way that cars are designed, because they're going to be designed with women buyers more in mind. You'll have a. better place to park that bag that you carry around on your shoulder all the time. The seat will be adjustable in a different way so that you'll be able to see over the front of the hood if you're height challenged in the way that I am.

It'll change the design of homes. Single women buy many more homes than single men. They've become a very important segment of homebuyers. And we are seeing homes designed With the things that women want in mind. So it's not just a matter of the fact that financial advisors are a little bit up in arms about this because they have seen studies that show that when the male spouse in a family dies, 70 ish percent of women are likely to leave the advisor and find somebody of their own choosing.

Those trends are underway as well, but it's going to change. the look and feel and design of a lot of products.

[00:18:13] Hala Taha: Oh my gosh, so interesting. You know what you just reminded me of? So I took my mom to Cancun on vacation and I got us first class tickets. We only brought checked bags. And I remember me and her trying to put our bags up on the airplane.

We're both petite. We had to help each other. And actually, my mom accidentally slipped and the bag fell, and it was so embarrassing. And it kind of caused a commotion. And in my head, I was thinking, I just paid over 2, 000 for these tickets. And I was expected as a five foot one girl to put up a bag with my 70 year old mother by ourselves.

And I was thinking, how ridiculous is this? Who are these airplanes designed for? It's obviously not considering petite women. I'm

[00:19:00] Jean Chatzky: Yeah, it's definitely not. And maybe if they start to see that more women are buying their own business class seats, that'll be something. That will change or the folks who make the away bag that we all seem to carry will come up with some sort of a Hoister to help us get it up in that luggage compartment because I have the same trouble that you do

[00:19:23] Hala Taha: It's the worst part about flying for me.

[00:19:25] Jean Chatzky: It is

[00:19:27] Hala Taha: Okay, so 38 percent of women are their family's biggest earner or primary breadwinner How does that impact society and contribute to the fact that 50 percent of women are single right now?

[00:19:37] Jean Chatzky: Look, there's a lot of research on when a woman is the primary breadwinner and whether or not It causes strife in relationships.

Generally, if when a man and a woman form their relationship, the woman is already the higher earner, then that status quo doesn't rock the boat too much. It's when there's a shift in the dynamic over the course of the relationship that impacts the balance of power in the relationship in other ways that things go a little bit sideways.

And that's where we start to see breakdown in communication. That's where we start to see women compensating for the fact that they make more money. I mean, I, I'm sure that you have seen this research, Holland. It's so troubling. When women make more money, we don't see that they offload more of the responsibilities at home.

We see that they take on more of the responsibilities at home. And the logic behind that is that we feel somehow bad about that and that we have to Make nice to our spouses ego so of course we're gonna make dinner and do the grocery shopping and take care of the kids and That's where burnout comes from and that's where anger comes from and in some cases.

That's where divorce comes from

[00:21:14] Hala Taha: I want to talk to you about the availability of suitable partners for a successful women You're like kind of alluding to this when you were talking about your daughter and I'm gonna get a little bit personal here So I'm in my mid 30s and I have no kids. I'm not married.

I'm literally never single I can get a boyfriend like this, but I haven't really found the one and I kind of know the reason why I feel like it's because a lot of guys that I date They seem like they're cool with a successful woman, and they're successful too, they're all executives or whatever they are, but I'm growing really fast, and they end up getting insecure, like, you're gonna outgrow me, is what they think, right?

You're gonna outgrow me. And so we end up breaking up, and I haven't found the right partner. Now, there's a couple things that have recently opened my eyes. Number one is Marshall Goldsmiths. I have a social media agency. He's one of my longtime LinkedIn clients. He's a leadership coach. He is always trying to get me married.

And he's always telling me, Kala, this happened to my daughters. You have to marry down. You can't be worried about marrying up. You've got to marry down. You'll find a great guy. He doesn't have to be richer than you. Or like, you've just got to marry down. And for a while, I was trying to find somebody that was equal that I could grow with.

But like, The other thing that really opened my eyes is that I started this podcast network, and I've got a lot of women who like, I feel like I'm going to be like, a few years like Jenna Kutcher, Amy Porterfield, Kelly Roach was my social client, and they all have either retired their husbands, they have house dads, basically, Or their husband works with them or for them.

And that made me realize, cause their families are so happy. And I was like, well, maybe I'm just like looking at this in the wrong way. Maybe I should feel like almost not like a man, but I just need to find a great partner. They don't need to have the career that I want them to have. It's more about the person, right?

So I just love your thoughts on this.

[00:23:16] Jean Chatzky: I am married for the second time and I agree with that. First of all, I think, and no disrespect to Marshall, but when he says you have to marry down, I think that that's the wrong word. I think that you have to marry and date different. Yeah. You need a partner who is going to be really supportive of your efforts and your career because Let's just be honest about this.

And I felt the same way when I first had kids, my former father in law said, well, when are you stopping working? Because all of his other daughters and daughters in law had stopped working. And I said, yeah, not me. I'm not doing that. We will figure out how these kids will have care during the day and the way that we did it was that my ex husband didn't travel for work and I did.

And that balanced us out for a very, very long time. If you are in a relationship where the egos are clashing or where your partner can't support your success or doesn't want to support your success. Then it's not going to work. It's just going to fail.

Have you ever seen the movie beautiful girls?

[00:24:37] Hala Taha: No.

[00:24:37] Jean Chatzky: Okay. You have to watch the movie. Beautiful girls. It's old 20 years, probably Natalie Portman and Annabeth Gish and Timothy Hutton and Matt Dillon, a whole bunch of people, but the part of that movie that sticks with me is there's a very successful woman in it. She's dating Timothy Hutton and he is a piano player in a bar.

Who also happens to be an accountant, and he's been putting a whole lot of pressure on himself to get a real accounting job so that he can keep up with her. And finally, she just said, musicians are sexy. Accountants are not sexy. Musicians are sexy, giving him the permission to continue to do this thing that he enjoyed and continue to bring that sexy energy to their relationship, which is what she needed from him.

Thank you. You're welcome. And so that's the balance I think that you're looking for. There's a lot of lean in Sheryl Sandberg's book that people have dismissed over the past number of years. I think the thing that really holds up from that book is the importance that she put on selecting your partner.

She picked a guy that she knew was going to let her be her and let her do the work that she wanted to do and help them create a life where that was going to be possible. And that's what you need.

[00:26:08] Hala Taha: Yeah. More generally for everybody tuning in, I just feel like it's just harder to find traditional roles and partners anymore for men and for women.

And I just would love to understand even more advice from you for the young people tuning in, how can men feel like men? And women feel like women in their relationships when everything is sort of getting switched around in terms of who's the breadwinner. I just feel like it's so difficult for us to date.

[00:26:35] Jean Chatzky: I think the way that you do it is by knowing yourself and knowing your partner and closing ranks. This is your business and it's your partner's business and it's not your mother's business or your mother in law's business or your friend's business or Instagram's business, right? It is. Nobody's business but yours and if it's working for the two of you, then who the hell cares, right?

What anybody else has to say. You just have to respect the boundaries that you've created with the two of you and what that allows you to do. Look, I'm the breadwinner in my marriage. I have been for many years. My husband is largely 15 hours a week these days. He's older than I am. And he had an incredibly successful career, but the fact that I out earned him, he could care less.

He knows the value that he brings to our marriage. I certainly know the value that he brings to our marriage. And it's nobody else's business, really, despite the fact that I'm talking about it on your podcast.

[00:27:49] Hala Taha: I love it. Thanks, Jean, for all of that. Okay. So women are getting richer. Can you talk to us about how women are going to treat this newfound wealth compared to how men traditionally have treated wealth?

[00:28:01] Jean Chatzky: Men have traditionally invested it. And women traditionally have been slow to the party. If you, again, and you've, you pulled out a whole bunch of statistics. I'm grateful for that. But one of my favorites is that women keep about 70 percent of our assets in cash. Men keep about 60%. It's a really big and important difference because investing our money is the only way.

That we are going to make sure that it is working as hard as we are working ourselves and so What we're starting to see is women move into the ranks of being investors, wanting to be investors, wanting to learn about investors, whether you've got all your money in a 401k, where you put it in a target date fund and you let that fund do its thing, or you're buying individual stocks.

We want to learn. I was telling you about my investing club. I run this investing club with Karen Feinerman, who is one of the panelists on fast money on CNBC. She's a hedge fund manager. You would love her. She's so brilliant. And we're teaching 300 women and growing how to invest every other Monday night on zoom.

And we pick stocks together and we talk about diversification and trends, and everybody can ask their questions. And Investing is the kind of thing that is hard for women because there are no right or perfect answers. There's some parts of personal finance where if you ask me a question, I can give you an answer and I can be a hundred percent right.

What is the best cash back credit card? I can look at them all. I can run the numbers. I can give you an answer. I can know that I'm correct. What's the best stock can do it because no perfect answer exists because we have backward looking information and not forward looking information. And so we have to trust.

in the historical accuracy of what has come before. That is difficult for a large portion of women who like to know the answer to any question before we even ask that question. We have to get comfortable and the way to get comfortable is by actually doing it and One thing that has really, really helped when you look at Gen Z and Millennials is that we're now being across the board automatically enrolled in these 401k and other retirement plans at work where we have them, the money is being automatically invested into a default like a target date fund.

So you're investing whether or not you are doing the work of investing yourself in many cases, and if you can allow yourself to sit with that and get comfortable with the fact that you're not only doing it, but you're doing it pretty well, that helps people.

[00:31:05] Hala Taha: I love that. This was, to me, such an interesting conversation, honestly.

I feel like this whole gender wage gap and transfer of wealth, it's really shifting everything. Let's move on to some more general advice, tactical financial advice. I want to start with the concept of financial freedom, right? I feel like the concept of financial freedom has changed, especially for millennials, for Gen Z.

How do you think we should go about thinking about financial freedom?

[00:31:33] Jean Chatzky: Well, I'm interested in knowing how you think it's changed. What is it to you?

[00:31:38] Hala Taha: Well, I feel like now it's more about enjoying life, doing what I want. Right? It's really not about becoming a billionaire, it's what's the amount of money that I need where I can live comfortably, buy what I want, enjoy life, work out, be healthy, sit in the sun.

You know, that's what I think of.

[00:31:59] Jean Chatzky: That's pretty much my definition too. It's just my definition I think extends for a longer period of time because of my age. Right, so I look at this and I think I want all of that, but I want to be able at some point to just work when I want to work. And know that those things will continue for as long as I live.

So I think that's where the disparity in financial freedom comes in. I think younger generations define it in terms for today, and older generations define it in terms that include a retirement that might last for three decades.

[00:32:43] Hala Taha: So one of the things that I think a lot of my listeners are probably going through right now, we've got a lot of 30 year olds, is buying or renting.

And traditionally, when we're talking about the American dream, financial freedom, a lot of it is also like being a homeowner, right? Do you feel like it's important to be a homeowner? Do you feel like it's a good investment strategy? And what are some of the things we should think of renting versus buying?

[00:33:04] Jean Chatzky: I feel like being a homeowner is a helpful way to save money over the long term. If you think about buying versus renting, month to month, right now the costs are actually closer than they've ever been. When you own, you are putting equity, you're building equity in this house, and that is a form of forced savings.

And what happens if you get to the end of the road, if you pay down a mortgage for a long enough period of time, or even if you swap out of it and out of a couple of homes, but you've built up some equity and then you build up some more, you end up with a With this cushion of cash and you can use that cushion to supplement Your standard of living you can use it to pay for long term care.

You can use it to keep a roof over your head You can use it to sell and move to Costa Rica You have choices because you have this additional cushion and if you've rented your whole life unless you took a The difference between the renting cost and the buying cost, which is a lot slimmer than it used to be, and you put that away every single month, you don't have that additional sum of money.

So that's where being a homeowner, I think, is additive to your bottom line. There are other differences. We know in a bunch of different situations that autonomy is one of the things that make people happy. You're happier at your job if you feel like you've got enough autonomy to rearrange the furniture or to put your own stuff up on the walls or to decide that you're going to come in at 930 rather than 9 o'clock.

You're just happier. And you are happier where you live if you feel like you have enough autonomy to make the place what you want it to be. And you're more likely to have that if you own rather than if you rent. But there are a lot of cases where you shouldn't own, right? If you're not going to be someplace for five years, I don't think you should buy.

The cost of buying is. Just too steep. I don't think that mortgage rates at this level should stop people who want to be in a place for six, seven years and more. You'll eventually hopefully get an opportunity to refi that loan. But there are cases where renting is just better.

[00:35:49] Hala Taha: You gave such good advice.

Like I'm in this predicament now. To your point, I see a lot of my friends who have been homeowners and I see them like really leveling up because every time they switch a house and they'll make like 200 grand and they just keep playing with that money and growing it and growing it. So I do see a lot of my friends who have dabbled in home ownership do really well.

That's inspiring to me. It's just that in New York, it gets crazy. It's so crazy. So I feel like people who are in different cities also have a different experience. It's way easier to buy a house if you live in the suburbs, you know.

[00:36:22] Jean Chatzky: But you have more choice now than you used to have. I know young couples who are thinking they live in New York where the price of homeownership is unsustainable.

They're looking at Philadelphia, they're looking at Charlotte, they're looking at other places where because they can work remotely, they could keep their jobs, they could make some friends, and they could be homeowners and have a standard of living that just is.

[00:36:51] Hala Taha: Okay, so something that you talk a lot about, and I was looking around your website and I saw that you were like, what is your money type?

And you have this quiz that people can take for their money type on HerMoney. com. So talk to us about money types. What is that? Why is it important to know?

[00:37:08] Jean Chatzky: It's important to know how you're wired and why you're wired the way you are. The money type is love languages, right? If you ever read The Five Love Languages, money type is that, just for money.

So we worked with a PhD who developed this in depth tool that has been tested on men and women to help figure out why you are the way you are with money. I mean, you may know that it is hard for you to spend or easy for you to spend. You may know that you have trouble losing money or more or less trouble taking risk than other people.

You may know that you would do anything for the members of your family, even if it meant putting yourself at financial risk. All of these things. are tied up in our five personality types. And I would bet just knowing a little bit more about you and about your audience, that if people went to hermoney.

com and they took our diagnostic, our questionnaire, our money type quiz, you've got an audience that is full of what we call visionaries. A lot of entrepreneurs are visionaries and visionaries have to be careful when it comes to their own personal finances, because It is really tempting to throw all of your money against the business and think that that business is going to be your retirement plan.

And we know the statistics on businesses that succeed versus fail, and you give up a lot of years trying to get that business off the ground and very quickly you can get yourself in trouble. The other thing that I like about MoneyType so much is that. We're not all just one type. We've got a primary type, and then we have a couple of secondary types that make up our personality.

And if you know your money type and your partner's money type, it's helpful in the navigating the relationship. And the conversations that the two of you have about money. I was recently on a different podcast and the hosts had taken the money type questionnaire and they said, I feel so seen because there's something about this diagnostic.

It just gets people. I felt this way. The first time I took it and I'm a producer, that's my primary money type with a little bit of connoisseur, which means I like to spend. In as well and it's really true and it's really interesting that a test can get you so well.

[00:39:54] Hala Taha: It's so true and I'm happy that you brought up relationships because I actually recently ended a relationship and one of my primary reasons was our views on money were so different.

He's richer than I am and was so cheap and I was just like, I can't do this. I like to live a life of luxury. I like to spend my money. Not that I'm frivolous, but it's just like, what's the point of choosing such a hard job if you're not?

[00:40:20] Jean Chatzky: Right.

[00:40:21] Hala Taha: If no one's spending their money, why are we working so hard?

[00:40:24] Jean Chatzky: Yeah, and it's good that you figured this out before you got engaged to the guy or worse married the guy, right? In my house, we say this is why we work and we say it for exactly the reasons that you just described. We work hard and we work hard so that If we want to get on a plane and fly across the country, we don't have to think about it.

This is the payoff of working so hard and producing, and I acknowledge we are definitely privileged. I'm fortunate to have a career that I love, which makes working hard feel like not working as hard. This is why we work. If they didn't pay us, We wouldn't work so hard.

[00:41:18] Hala Taha: I love that. This has been such an awesome conversation.

Okay. A couple more questions. Let's talk about budgeting. There's so much inflation going on. Everything is just way more expensive. There's a lot of keeping up with the Joneses with social media, a lot of comparison, feeling like you need to keep buying and. For instance, with me, I feel like I always got to buy so much clothes because I'm always photographed in my outfits and then suddenly I don't want to wear the same thing again.

And so talk to us about how we can avoid overspending.

[00:41:48] Jean Chatzky: Well, first of all, are you not on the real, real, you should just be turning over your closet all the, I mean, this is what I do because I'm the same. I do a lot of appearances. And I don't want to be wearing the same thing all the time. And I wear it a couple of times and I send it to the RealReal and I buy something else on the RealReal and I run a credit and it makes me feel like I'm shopping for free, even though it's not quite shopping for free and that I'm doing something a little bit better for the environment.

And so that's my shopping suggestion. But when it comes to overspending in general, I think that the secret is that most people have absolutely no idea where their money is actually going. So when we teach budgeting and we have a program called Finance Fix where we teach budgeting and how to do this in a way that you can actually save something, we put people through this process of.

figuring out where their money is going. We use technology to do it so you don't have to do it by hand. And once you see where you've been using your money, then you have the tools and the ammunition to make changes about where you consciously want to use your money. And so it's not, don't buy the coffee, right?

Everybody's least favorite example. It's, If the coffee is the thing that lights up your day, then by all means, buy the coffee. But if you could care less, and really what you want is a little bit of caffeine to help you get out the door, then make it at home and have a sip and go about your day and spend your money on something that you actually value.

[00:43:38] Hala Taha: I know where all my money is going, it's Sephora and Revolve. All my money is just going straight there. Okay, let's talk about paying down debt. A lot of people have student loans. A lot of people have debts. You've got this avalanche method. Talk to us about the best strategies for paying down debt in your opinion.

[00:43:56] Jean Chatzky: The cheapest way, the cheapest, fastest way to pay off debt is to just stack it highest interest rate to lowest interest rate. Pay off the highest interest rate debts first while making the minimum payments on the rest. Once that high interest rate debt is gone, Then you just move on to the next one and so on and so on and so on.

The student loan debts are a little bit of a different beast. Long term debts, student loans, mortgages, car loans. You basically want to try to pay those off on the schedule that you're given. If you're struggling with your student loan debts and they're federal debts, then you want to make sure you're enrolled in an income repayment program through the Department of Education.

We're getting some changes to those programs that are helpful. As long as you're enrolled, you should get notified of the changes, and they should come your way. But don't let paying student loan debt faster Get in the way of doing important things, like grabbing the match from your 401k, because if you look at the return on your money, the way that we think about or the way that we should think about return on your money is equivalent to the interest rate.

So if you're paying off a student loan debt at 6%, that's like getting a 6 percent return on your money. If you're getting 50 cents on the dollar as a match in your 401k, that's a 50 percent return on your money. And you can't not get that because you want to pay off the debt at 6%. You just pay off the debt at 6 percent a little bit slower.

[00:45:40] Hala Taha: Let's talk about improving your credit. So I actually recently messed up my credit because I was putting all, yeah, it was really dumb. I was spending everything on my business credit cards. And I just thought it was good that I wasn't spending on my own credit cards. And like, I was like shutting down my personal credit cards.

And then I realized, oops, I wasn't supposed to do that. You need to actually have credit cards. And I always used to, cause I have a lot of cash. I would just pay it off, pay it off to zero balance. And you're actually not supposed to do that.

[00:46:13] Jean Chatzky: Oh, no, you are supposed to do that. You are supposed to do that.

[00:46:16] Hala Taha: Tell me about it. Cause I feel confused about what should we actually be doing with our personal credit.

[00:46:21] Jean Chatzky: You should be using your personal credit cards and you should be paying them off every month. Just to zero. Pay them off to zero. Interest rates are way too high. The average credit card interest rate, I just looked this up yesterday, is 28%.

That's insane. It's insane. You don't want to be paying interest on a credit card. So the way to do this is to understand that there are a couple of factors that go into your credit score and you need to simultaneously manage all of them. Number one, you got to pay your bills on time. If you pay late, especially if you pay late more than once, that's really going to hurt your score.

The second, and this is where you got in trouble, is credit utilization. That's the percentage of credit that you have available to you that you're actually using. We want to keep that number below 30%. at all times. So if you have a heavy spending month, sometimes when I go on vacation, I have a heavy spending month that I spend more than 30 percent of my credit limit on a card.

If you do that, the thing to do is just pay the bill now. pay it twice a month rather than once a month to bring the utilization down. The problem that you got into by closing those credit cards is that you shrunk the pool of available credit that you had and that hurt your score. The other thing that you did, another factor, it's not as big as the first two, but it's something called length of credit or credit history.

The longer your credit relationships, the more beneficial it is to your score. When you close those cards, if they were the cards that you had had the longest, you hurt that factor too. So that's how you do it.

[00:48:13] Hala Taha: Yeah, and actually I did have a credit card that was with me for like so long and then credit card company ended the card And I was like, oh man, I'm really screwed

[00:48:24] Jean Chatzky: They ended it cuz you weren't using it, right?

[00:48:26] Hala Taha: No No Like that type of card retired because I had it for so long and then suddenly I was like, oh my god I have no credit cards and I didn't even realize I'm fixing it though. It's not that terrible, but I'm fixing it. Cool. So Let's talk about investing in general. I'm just going to give you a general question.

I actually asked Susie Orman this question when she came on the show. If you had a hundred thousand dollars to invest, you already had your emergency fund, you already had savings, all that. You just had a hundred thousand dollars cash. Where would you put it?

[00:48:59] Jean Chatzky: What I'm doing with that kind of money right now is splitting it up and buying the stocks that we've been picking for our investing club, right?

I have a diversified portfolio that is set up to get me to the retirement that I want to get to. I am on track. I have met my savings goals. So if this is quite literally free money, I'm going to put it into the picks that we're picking for our investing club. And so recently we've been looking at, at stocks like Lululemon, we've got JP Morgan chase, we've got.

Bunch of stocks in the portfolio, but we add one about every month. And, uh, sometimes we sell one and I would do that.

[00:49:46] Hala Taha: That's so cool. So this investment club is basically you guys like all talk about stocks and give guidance to each other. How does one join your investment club?

[00:49:56] Jean Chatzky: So you can go to her money.

com. It's called investing fix. If anybody wants to try it out, you can do it free for a month, but the way it works is that. Every month we present four different investing options. We look at them on four different dimensions. How do they make their money? What do we like about them? What don't we like about them?

And would we buy them at the current price? And then the club votes on what we add to the portfolio and what we take away from the portfolio. It's a democracy, democracy rules, and It's been a lot of fun. Some of the women in our club have stepped up and presented stocks that they're interested in, and some of those have been purchased for the club.

One of our members suggested United Rentals, and we bought that. It's been a huge win. So we're all learning from each other, which is just so amazing.

[00:50:53] Hala Taha: That's so cool. So it's actually like you guys are pooling your money together and investing together?

[00:50:58] Jean Chatzky: We're not. We run a group portfolio that the club itself runs and is invested.

buy the votes that the club decides. But a lot of members like me are buying the picks for our own

portfolios.

[00:51:14] Hala Taha: I love it. Well, Jean, this was such an awesome conversation. I end my show with two questions that I ask all my guests. Then at the end of the year, we typically do something fun with it. So the first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profitors can do today?

To become more profitable tomorrow.

[00:51:32] Jean Chatzky: Start tracking your spending,

[00:51:35] Hala Taha: figuring out where that money is going for real.

[00:51:38] Jean Chatzky: Yeah. If you don't know where it's going, then you have no control over what it's doing for you, whether it's a business expense or a personal expense. And I know it's tedious and I know it's boring.

But sometimes boring is better.

[00:51:53] Hala Taha: And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this can go beyond financial advice.

[00:51:59] Jean Chatzky: My secret to profiting and I gotta tell you, I lost my mom recently and my lifelong friends came out of the woodwork and haven't left me alone in a good way, in the best way. And my secret is to invest as much energy as absolutely possible in those friends.

[00:52:21] Hala Taha: That's so beautiful. It's so true. Sometimes you forget about relationships and nothing in the world is more important I think than relationships.

[00:52:29] Jean Chatzky: 100%.

[00:52:31] Hala Taha: Jean, where can everybody learn more about you and Her Money?

[00:52:34] Jean Chatzky: So I'm on social pretty much everywhere at Jean Chatzky and you can find us at hermoney. com.

[00:52:41] Hala Taha: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast.

[00:52:45] Jean Chatzky: Thanks for having me.

[00:52:50] Hala Taha: Man, this was such a good interview with Jean. I really loved learning about the changing socioeconomics of the world. And whether you're a man or a woman, this is going to impact you. I always try to make sure my episodes are relevant to everyone. And I want to get into that. But first, I want to talk about Jean.

Jean is a woman of so many talents. I often talk about this idea of skill stacking entrepreneurship. And I really think that if you want to be an entrepreneur, the best way to do it is to be a skill stacking entrepreneur. Meaning that you get a lot of experiences in your twenties and even in your thirties and even in your teens.

I was getting sales experience and stuff working at the mall when I was a teenager. So like your whole life, you get all these experiences and you start to figure out what you're good at and you start to get pretty good at a lot of different things. And then the key to being a successful entrepreneur is to like merge all the things you're good at into one thing that somebody wants.

Jean did it with her money. She built this platform. She had like corporate financial experience. She could teach people. She had journalism experience. She figured out how to build a community. She probably had ran communities in the past and other experiences that she didn't even talk about in the podcast.

Then she put it all together and created her money. And now she's a huge success. She has a huge podcast, huge brand, best selling author, all that. And nobody could replicate that because it's her own unique. And there's lots of ways to be an entrepreneur. You could put out a product. But a really great way to be an entrepreneur, in my opinion, is to stack up your skills and then put out an offering.

So the key here is that you got to get experiences. Something that you learn, In 10 years, you might make millions of dollars off that scale. Me working in the mall at every freaking clothing store from 14 years old to 20 years old made me personable, made me social, made me outgoing, made me confident and dress well, made me a great sales negotiator, and now I'm making millions of dollars on it.

But when I worked at the mall, I was making minimum wage. I worked at a radio station for free for three years. The station never gave me 1. Now I get paid 2, 000 every time I read a commercial on my podcast. It's all heads up later. So don't worry about making money now. Get the experiences now. Okay. Let's go back to women and money.

We are at the start of a huge shift in wealth towards women in upcoming decades. Like Jean said, if you follow the breadcrumbs, you will realize just how much this could change everything, including business and finance communities. We're already seeing the effects of this shift in other places, like automakers who are designing vehicles with female purchasers in mind, and how long before other products and services follow suit.

Perhaps someday in the future, there'll be overhead compartments on airplanes that I can actually reach. I doubt it, but a girl can dream, right? If women are gonna have more money, they're gonna have to figure out how to spend it and invest it wisely. On average, women are still less likely to invest their money than men, and are less comfortable investing than men are.

But this is changing, and like Gene said, the best way to get comfortable with investing and managing money is by actually going ahead and doing it. So, this is my call to action. If you are a woman listening to this podcast, start investing. Even if it's a thousand dollars, start investing. And if you are a man listening to this podcast, encourage your girlfriend, your wife, your sister, your daughter, your mother to start investing.

It is your responsibility as well. Let's all help everybody grow their wealth and change the world. And speaking of actually doing something, if you listen, learned and profited from this episode of young and profiting podcast, then please share it with somebody who might enjoy it. Drop us a five star review on Apple podcast.

I love reading our reviews. Nothing makes me happier. Nothing says, thank you so much, Hala, for this awesome content than writing a review on Apple Podcasts. I read every single one of them. I check every single day for new reviews. Good or bad, I want your feedback. Please drop us a five star review. And if you prefer to watch your podcast on videos, you can find all of our episodes on YouTube.

Just look up Young and Profiting. You can find all of our episodes there. You can also find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. Finally, I got to give a big shout out to my Young and Profiting team. You guys are amazing. I have the best team in the world. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka the Podcast Princess, signing off.

Hala Taha:John Paul, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

John Paul DeJoria: Well, thank you, Hala. It's really a pleasure being here. I like the focus of your podcast, helping others out.

Hala Taha: Thank you. Well, we are so honored to have such a successful entrepreneur on the show like yourself, and you have an epic rags to riches story. And so when I was learning about you, I found out that you grew up in Echo Park, Los Angeles- Right

which is now, like, gentrified. But back then, it wasn't such a nice town to live in. You grew up in poverty with a single mom. So let's start there. Take us back- Sure ... to your times in Echo Park. If we walked into your home, what would we see? What would we feel?

John Paul DeJoria: Well, the first thing you would feel if you walked in my house is, wow, this is a little box.

The house I grew up in is just a little bigger than your studio room here. It was a little one-bedroom house. My father was a deadbeat dad, so by two years old we really didn't have a dad, my brother and I, but my mom did a good job raising us. So you would find a very small place and with a very humble means.

For example, we did not have a refrigerator. We had an [00:01:00] icebox. Iceboxes were real, where the ice man would come around for 25 cents a week, I remember, and put a big giant block of ice in there. It would last the entire week. And we would have the vegetable man blowing a horn as his truck went up and down Scott Avenue or Fairbanks Avenue there.

I mean, it was just really unusual times. We never had a television. Hmm. So this is 1949, 1950, '51, '52. We didn't have a TV, so we didn't know what it was like in, shall we say, the outside world. Hmm. But our community was made up, in those days, of a lot of Europeans and Hispanic people, mostly Europeans, and everyone just got along with everybody.

It was just an interesting thing. Everyone from every race, color, creed, whatever, kind of lived in the neighborhood. And my mother gave us love, nothing but love. Hmm. So we grew up with a lot of love. That's one thing my mother gave us, and we thought we had everything in the world. We didn't know any better.

And then along the way, we had many great experiences.

Hala Taha: Hmm. So you could have grown up with this victim mindset- Mm ... [00:02:00] because you didn't have a lot of money, your dad had left when you were two years old, but your mother really instilled confidence in you, and she taught you so many lessons about generosity, and positivity, and the meaning of wealth.

Can you share some of your favorite stories

John Paul DeJoria: with us? I, I would love to. And then around five years old, my mother became very, very ill, so my brother and I went into foster care. So we were foster children till the time I was about nine and a half years old. But we were the lucky ones, because we got to come home almost every weekend and see our mom.

Mm. Where many other just kids couldn't. So we kind of experienced that. But my mom did something different. She made sure that we had to experience a lot of things a lot of people experience that we considered to be wealthy, to have, uh, much more money. One great example of it was this. My mom, I can remember, brought home once a little small piece of filet mignon steak.

And she cut it in three pieces, just, you know, about little, just square chunks or something, just three little pieces, and said, "Boys, this is something called filet mignon, and it's what of the [00:03:00] rich people eat. We eat just like the rich people." We thought, "Great. Whoever they are, this is wonderful." Uh-huh. And another time, but in those days it was a lot less expensive, she brought a little bit of caviar- Mm

and said, "Boys, this is caviar." You know, she was European. When she came over, she says, "That's what these rich people eat also. We eat just like they do." I said, "How cool." Another thing that really sticks in my head, we were finally home there at 10, 11 years old, and we had paper routes in the morning, and one day, I'll never forget this day, we were home, it was on a Friday, and my mom said, "Get whatever money you had."

We said, "We have a few pennies." Anyways, we raised between us 27 cents, and Mom said, "We have life made. Boy, we are so rich because, one, we have vegetables that we were- Mm ... growing in our little teeny garden there. We're happy, our bills are paid, and we still have 27 cents left over. Aren't we wonderful?" We thought, "Yay."

That was the kind of mom that we had. Mm. I know at seven years old, when I was out there selling Christmas cards off the back of a [00:04:00] comic book. They would send you in some six samples or so, and you would sell them, and then someone would put their private name or message on there, and then they would get it back.

So the way it worked was I'd go to my neighbors, I'd say, "Here's six Christmas cards you could pick from, and we put your name on it," and I'd give them examples, right? Mm-hmm. And then they would give me a 50% deposit, which was something like maybe $2. I would send it into the company. Mm-hmm. They would print them up, because everyone trusted everybody those days.

Amazing how those things went on. Anyway, so they'd come back. I would deliver it to them and get the other $2, and got to keep it. So I thought, "Boy, this is cool, only at Christmastime." But my mother encouraged us to look at people and smile and just come from your heart when you tell people things. So we grew up with little to nothing, but we had everything, so we had a lot of love and a very caring mom.

It's interesting when that happens in life, when you are really, really loved and people care about it. Uh, there was a place there in East LA we'd go to when I was in foster care called The Variety Boys Club- Mm-hmm ... where we would hang out and [00:05:00] make flower boxes that we would go out and sell to somebody else.

So it was a unique way of living up. Even though we had very, very little, we lived on an upper scale- Mm ... because we had the love, we were excited, we were happy, and my mother was incapable of lying and was one of the most positive people on the planet. We had so little, but she did so much for us.

Hala Taha: Mm. Well, that's so wonderful.

It's really cool. Like, what a, what a great story about your mother, and it's so awesome that she was able to instill that generosity and confidence and positivity in you. And look where it took you, because you had that really strong mindset- Yeah ... since you were growing up. So where did this passion for generosity come from?

John Paul DeJoria: Good question. That's going back to Mom, too. At six years old in Echo Park at Christmastime, my mother took my brother and I... We had trolley cars in those days. They actually had real trolley cars, right? Anyways, we took downtown LA, maybe a five-minute ride by trolley car, because at Christmastime... And downtown LA [00:06:00] was a bit different than today.

They had the Bullocks, the May Company, Saks Fifth Avenue, all the big department stores by Seventh and Spring, that general vicinity. Anyways, we would go down there, and there'd be, like, puppet shows going on in the windows, little trolley cars going around, little... I should say little trains that we got to ride.

Mm-hmm. We thought we were the luckiest kids in the world to see all this stuff, right? Anyways, so Mom gave us a dime and said, "Boys, I want you to hold the dime together, walk over, and give it to that man with the red bucket ringing the bell."

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: So we did, and we said, "Mom," this is now 1950, okay? Yeah. "Mom, that's two soda pops and three candy bars.

Why do we give that guy with the bell and the red bucket our dime?" And she said, "Boys- That's Sal- Salvation Army. There are people that have no food and no place to live, and they help those people out. We could only afford a dime this year, and I'm gonna volunteer a little bit of time with them in what little time I have to volunteer.

But boys, always remember this as when you grow [00:07:00] up and as you grow up, there'll always be somebody that needs something more than you do.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: Lend a helping hand. And if you don't have a dime to put or any money, volunteer a little bit of time.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: And that stuck with me.

Hala Taha: I love that. And you have a new book called Success Unshared is Failure.

That's

John Paul DeJoria: correct.

Hala Taha: So talk to us about why that is such an important mantra for you, and also, failure is a pretty strong word, so why is it actually failure?

John Paul DeJoria: Well, when you grow up the way I grew up with a lot of challenges throughout my whole life, even when I started my first company, Paul Mitchell, I was homeless.

I was homeless, right? I lived in my car- Mm-hmm ... because of circumstances. But so I've been through it all. At 22 years old, I was married very, very young, had a two-and-a-half-year-old son, and my wife could not handle being a mom anymore. Mm. She just split. Took what little money we had, the car, and left me with a kid, sitting there, and you know, here I am in my early 20s.

What are you gonna do?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul DeJoria: So I've been through a whole lot. I've been in places, for example, where when I was down and out with a little child, one of my dear buddies [00:08:00] who, shall we say, traveled a lot with the Hells Angels- Mm-hmm ... he would have the Hells Angels come over and give us a helping hand. Aw.

Some of the mamas would help take care of my kid while I went to work, and I would ride motorcycles with the Hells Angels. Never had to really join the club because they knew I was working all the time and I couldn't attend their Thursday meeting, which they called church. But they liked me, so we kinda rode together a bit out of Griffith Park and other areas.

But growing up, I ran across so many things. Not having any money, having to live in a car, just a lot of different things and a variety of jobs that I experienced, till all of a sudden finally making it on my own through great difficulty. Mm. Well, with all this information, all of a sudden coming from nothing, like with Paul Mitchell and later on Patrón, all of a sudden I had money where I could pay my bills on time.

And then I realized so many people weren't quite as lucky or so positive. So I started volunteering when I had no money at Griffith Park, at Lovins, where you would feed people at- Mm ... or you would be in line helping feed people at Thanksgiving and [00:09:00] Christmas. Even brought my little boy with me when I had custody of him and he was living with me.

Mm-hmm. And kinda just grew up helping. And it made me always feel good, not just because Mom said, "Don't forget," but always made me feel good. So as time went along and I was able to afford it- I not only gave some of my time, but I started giving money. Mm. Today, it's millions of dollars a year. But we don't consider it charity.

What I consider with my family is we're investing in the future of our nation and the planet Earth- Mm ... and the future for others to treat our great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren even better and have more opportunities. That's how we figure. So when I say success unshared is failure, I do know quite a few people that are also billionaires and other very wealthy people that are so stingy with their money- Yeah

they don't really wanna help anybody out. They talk about it, but they don't. Or when they do, they want credit for it, whatever, and that's not really where it's at. So I say in the book, success unshared is failure. Because [00:10:00] throughout the book, it points out how we started with limited means, and then by being nice to people and being kind to people, how we could achieve something but give a little back.

Let's put it this way. If there was an epitaph, which people ask me, and I had to think about this one- Yeah ... if you did have a tombstone, an epitaph was on that tombstone- Mm-hmm ... what would it say? And I say, "You know what it would say, I think?" And I thought about this a little bit, is this: He came to this planet with nothing, like most everybody does, nothing but just a body and a, a, a- Mm-hmm

being in the body. But he left, and when he left, he made the planet a better place to live for- Mm ... millions of other people. He was one of the good guys here, so put in a good star seed that was here to- ... help this planet evolve. That's what he was here for. That was his purpose, and he, he went through a lot of bullshit, had a lot of problems along the way, but he came out okay.

But he understands where other people were at, what they're trying to fight, and could do it a bit easier.

Hala Taha: That's amazing. Yeah. Like, you're such an incredible human being, and I'm just so thankful that you're here and able to share your stories with us- Thank you ... and [00:11:00] so much that you've done for humanity so far, and we'll unpack All of that.

But first I wanna get into your background in sales.

John Paul DeJoria: Sure.

Hala Taha: Because I found out that you were working since seven or eight years old- Correct ... going door to door. Was that normal back then, or was that something unique to you?

John Paul DeJoria: No, it wasn't normal. It wasn't normal, okay.

Hala Taha: No.

John Paul DeJoria: Well, I'm sorry. The newspaper route was, excuse me- Okay

if you could get a newspaper route. Mm-hmm. But, uh, the first one I would say in selling would've been the Christmas cards. Yep. And that was followed up by the planter boxes that we made in, uh, at the Variety Boys Club. They were about maybe two feet wide and flat on the bottom and kinda curved with an opening, and two little loopholes that you could actually hang it up if you wanted to.

So it was 25 cents worth of wood, but the Variety Boys Club would give you credit. I learned about credit, right? So I'm a little kid, credit, whoa, 25 cents. So my brother and I built one. Took us a couple days. We were just little kids, but we built it. We went out to sell it. Finally, we sold it for 50 cents.

Mm. Went [00:12:00] back, gave them their 25 cents, and the other 25 cents, we bought another one. Mm. And the other one, we made it. You know, we bought the wood, and we made it, sanded it, shellacked it, everything. We made- went out and sold it. We had 50 cents. Now, 50 cents in the early '50s is a lot of money. It's like a kid having five or $10 today.

Mm-hmm. We thought, "Wow, this is really, really cool." And then later on, around 10, 11 years old, I had a paper route, so did my brother, with the Morning LA Examiner. And we made only about $30 a month each, approximately. Mm-hmm. Get up early in the morning, pedal our bicycles, fold the papers, go out and deliver them.

On Sundays, it was fold these giant papers, shove them in your bags, and have somebody stronger than you help you on your bicycle. If you fell down, you were in trouble. It took forever to get them back up again. Mm-hmm. And we would deliver it, but you would get an extra dollar if you could go out there and get new subscriptions.

Mm. And that's exactly what we did. We went out there. We got new subscriptions. You know, maybe worked half of a Saturday, [00:13:00] maybe got one or two, but it made an extra couple of dollars, and that was really cool. And we learned how to look people right in the eye because when you're looking around, they're telling you, "Well, I'm over here."

Mm-hmm. You know, you're a little kid. You're, you're kind of, you know. Anyways, to look them in the eye and give your presentation. We even had a song. A kid up the street, his name was Michael Vuich- Mm-hmm ... and I would go out together. We thought, "Let's team up and get, you know, these little dollars each," right?

"We'll just split it all." We even made up a little song. Now, we're kids. We're 11, 12 years old. We made up, I forget. It was, "Good evening, good evening. We're the Examiner boys. If you'll subscribe to the ba- Examiner, we'll sing a song for you," right? And we'd do one of these. First time we did it, we were so embarrassed.

When we were done, we looked at each other and ran away. And the guy in the door, "So what the heck is this all about?" So you try different things.

Hala Taha: I love that.

John Paul DeJoria: But Encyclopædis was the big one.

Hala Taha: Yes. That was the big one. So that, that was your first, like, real sales job. Oh, definitely. Most reps quit- the first couple of days, but you actually lasted like three and a half years-

John Paul DeJoria: Oh,

Hala Taha: it-

and became a top [00:14:00] seller ...

John Paul DeJoria: yeah, that is if they still had door-to-door sales, I would insist that every one of my children do it for at least- Mm ... a minimum of three months because it was unusual days. And, uh, I'd just gotten out of the United States Navy looking for something to get into, and I was interviewed and very impressed by it.

The way it works is this: for five days you're in a training class to learn a word-for-word presentation.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: Then you go out in the field. It's all commission only. You don't get paid money unless you sell something. Mm-hmm. But they said something to me I never forgot, and they said this: "Some of you are not gonna make it."

In fact, they didn't tell us this, but I found out later, the average lifespan of an encyclopedia salesman on commission only, no leads, it wasn't Britannica or World Book, it was Collier's Encyclopedia- ... unheard of, right? Was three and a half days. 'Cause once you get out there with your training and people are closing doors in your faces, it's, "I don't want this.

I'm out of here." Yeah. "There's no money." But he told me something I believed, and it's good to pass on to all your entrepreneurs. Mm-hmm. I don't care what [00:15:00] age they are, and it's this Be prepared for rejection. Yep. The way they explained it was that you may call on 50 doors, and they're either politely saying no or maybe not so politely close to your face.

You have to be just as enthusiastic on door number 51- Mm-hmm ... as you were on the first 50. Well, I believe what they said. It wasn't door 51 for me. It was 100 and something. But I believed them. I was just as enthusiastic, and it worked. And then, oh, let's say maybe I have to do 10 presentations to make one sale, maybe.

Finally, as I learned more and more how to do it better and better, if I gave three presentations, I did at least one sale. Mm. And that's commission only. And that lasted about three and a half years, and it worked out well until I finally got burnt out on knocking on doors. Even as a sales manager with them, you were still required to go out there and every week get at least one order.

Mm. And I said, "Now I gotta go into something else." So I went into a variety of things, but I learned so much. Overcoming rejection, believing your [00:16:00] product is of high quality, everybody needed it. Mm-hmm. And I would say to all entrepreneurs, I learned this when I started my first company, Paul Mitchell.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: Is another big secret to really making it in life is not only be prepared for a lot of rejection in business or even in your personal life, 'cause people are gonna tell you things you don't wanna hear.

Hala Taha: Yep.

John Paul DeJoria: If you're prepared for it, it goes off one shoulder and into the air. Be prepared for it. You're gonna get it anyways, right?

Mm. The other part was make sure you never go into the selling business. Now, let me explain what I mean there, okay? Mm-hmm. Most people or companies create something in a presentation to sell to somebody else. Yep. Okay, there's a need in your marketplace. This is it. I don't. With Paul Mitchell, and Patron especially, we went into the reorder business.

Paul Mitchell had no money, no nothing. You know, just door-to-door and three products to start with. But they were so darn good that we knew if we put them in the hands of hairstylists, okay, they say, "This is really good stuff." Yep. [00:17:00] And then recommend it to their customer to use in between visits to look the same.

In other words, we were in the reorder business. Now, if you have a service that's not a physical product, you still wanna go in the reorder business, meaning this: What you're giving them is so good, not only will they wanna use you again, but there's nothing to have. It's a one-time sale. Mm-hmm. They'll tell people about it.

Hala Taha: Yep.

John Paul DeJoria: So those are the two big things. Be s- ready for rejection, and know it's coming. And when it comes, don't let it bug you. The second thing is, whatever your product or service is is so good, people will reorder it. They wanna reorder.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I feel like that's such great advice, because you don't wanna be in the business of just having to spend endless amounts of money on marketing and branding and trying to, like, push out your products and services.

You want it to be so good that people just order it on their own- Oh ... spread it by word of mouth.

John Paul DeJoria: We had to. We had no money to advertise, per market, or anything. Mm-hmm. And also, we had to start a company with Paul Mitchell where the backer pulled out.

Hala Taha: Yep

John Paul DeJoria: And that was a big deal, 'cause we could do it for half a million [00:18:00] dollars.

Today that'd be two or three million in 1980. Pulled out. So it was a matter of I left everything I was doing- Yeah ... everything I was doing, and said, "What the heck?" Left everything behind, better car, the house, everything else. Went down the hill with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket, and son of a gun, okay?

The guy didn't come through Another lesson for everyone to learn here. People are asking, especially the youth of America or even people that are older, "Can you do today what you did in 1980?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: You know, you started at difficult times. How in the world did you get an office? How did you get people to pay you immediately?

How did you do all this stuff? That's almost impossible. Well, it's all in the book step for step, how we got an office for $16- ... and how we got somebody that was used to paying in 45 days to pay us immediately, how we did it. There's ways to do these things, but it's a process of learning along the way as you do these things.

So there was nothing there. We had to create all this on our [00:19:00] own, and it's interesting. When you've got to create something on your own, the entity in us, that God form that is in us, is very smart. Just leave yourself open to the universe. Mm. It's gonna guide you. Prior to that, I was fired from three companies.

Yeah. All in the beauty industry. One, because I complained all the time about them testing on animals. They were haircare products. You know, not skin. You don't put in a rabbit's eyes till they die or inject it in them. Mm-hmm. But they wanted to look it to be the scientific approach. Well, they got tired of me in upper management complaining.

They said, "JP, we love you, but you gotta go 'cause you're now telling everybody the same thing." And that's not how you run a major corporation. Whether we're right or wrong, you stick by it. I didn't wanna stick by something that was wrong for- Mm-hmm. And I had a good job. Went to work for another company, uh, Centex, it just bought Fermadel, and they needed someone to train their people in sales and marketing, which is what I did.

After one year, I wasn't one of them.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: In other words, "You're not one of us, okay? You're not with us playing canastas [00:20:00] on the weekends. You're a love-in in Griffith Park, right?" And, and other things, too, that it's no need to mention right now, but they were really mean. It's one of those type. Mm. So they fired me.

I said, "Great. No problem. Time to leave." Then I went to work for another company that was a little dinky company, and they needed me to almost run their company for them, which I did. I quadrupled or tripled their sales in one year. Wow. By the way, with Fermadel Centex, I increased their business by 50% in one year.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: And then with the other company, I tripled their sales or double... No, actually, I tripled them. But they fired me after a year. Now, the way they fired me, this is interesting- Yeah ... but what came out of it is the more important part- Mm-hmm ... about leaving yourself open to the universe. Okay? They fired me 'cause they said, "JP, you made more money than the owner of the company."

I said, "What are you talking about?" You know, this is in the mid-'70s, right? Yeah. I said, "I agreed to work for you for only s- $3,000 a month and 6% of new sales." They said, "That's what got you, the new sales. You created so many new sales, you made more than the owner [00:21:00] of the company." I said, "But your company is bigger now.

It's worth more, and how about I get 10% of your company? I'll buy it from you, but give me a couple years to pay for it, right? And w- maybe take a little less that you're paying me and put it towards that purchase." They said, "Absolutely not. We have a fellow named," I'll never forget this, "David Chapman that'll do it at one-third the price."

Mm. I said, "You... Oh, well." Anyhow, so I went on. Mm-hmm. Long story short, I consulted a little bit after that. Then I started John Paul Mitchell Systems. It took us two years, as people said, "When did you become successful?" Yeah. It took us two years, and the reason we knew we were successful was because we could pay our bills on time.

We didn't pay them all, but we paid them on time. But all of a sudden, around that time, something hit me just out of the blue. I said, "Oh, my God. There is a God. There is something real called fate." Had I not worked for all three companies-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

John Paul DeJoria: learned something different from all three in the professional beauty industry- I would have never been able to start Paul Mitchell, whether it [00:22:00] was with $700 or whether it was with 10 million.

Mm. I wouldn't have had the knowledge. Yep. It's almost like I was doing a darn good job at each company, but it wasn't my destiny. It wasn't my purpose. I couldn't help enough people out. I couldn't make enough money to do some of the things I wanted to do to help the planet. I couldn't.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: So the universe said, "Okay, you're not doing it.

We're gonna do it for you." "This is not right, but you gotta learn, you gotta learn, you gotta learn." So when people are down and out, just remember that. Don't think about how bad things are because you can't change yesterday's newspaper. Mm-hmm. You can't. It's already happened. Leave it behind you. Leave it behind you and just go forward and leave yourself open to universe.

It works, and it works really well.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul DeJoria: We're here to learn lessons, and some of the bad stuff are good lessons for us to learn to be better.

Hala Taha: It's so true. Hindsight is 20/20, right? A lot of times you get fired or something bad goes on, and you think like, "Oh, woe is me," but in reality, the universe is actually just preparing you to do what you're really meant to do.

That

John Paul DeJoria: is correct.

Hala Taha: And a lot of 20 and [00:23:00] 30-year-olds especially, they feel like they need to do everything right now. They need to start companies in college. But in reality, you started Paul Mitchell, how old were you, 36 years old or something like that, and it turned into a billion-dollar company. Yeah,

John Paul DeJoria: 30... I believe it was 34, 34, years old.

34 years old. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just... And it... Well, we're global. We're the largest privately owned salon haircare company in the world, but we give a lot. But also I might want to say, we may have the smallest turnover of any company in the beauty industry 'cause we take care of our people- Yes ... and we love them.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, there's so much that I wanna unpack in your story. So first of all, you mentioned that you started Paul Mitchell Systems with $700. Correct. You had an investor who was gonna invest like half a million dollars or something, and he pulled out.

John Paul DeJoria: That's right.

Hala Taha: But you decided to continue on anyway.

Why did you believe in the idea so much? What gap did you see or why did you decide like, "You know what? I'm just gonna do this anyway even though my investor pulled out"?

John Paul DeJoria: That's a very good que- by the way, no one ever asked me that particular question. That's a good one. Well, for me, it was very, very simple.

I left everything behind, the work I was doing, the [00:24:00] better car, took the older car. It was a cool car, but down the hill, right? And I just left everything with a few hundred bucks, and I just realized that I left everything because that's not my destiny. This must be my destiny. I knew our products were great because I had good friends of mine help me formulate them properly, and I knew that if I could only talk to enough people, just put it in their hands- Mm

just let me put this in your hands, okay, that the majority will reorder because it's that high of a quality product, and I wa- firmly believed in it. So I went through all the difficulties in eating, sleeping, and paying bills late all the time, everything you could ever imagine, but we made it. Mm. And that was another reason for me coming out with a book, to show others how to do it.

So people say today, "JP, can you do it today like you did in 1980?" Yeah. No, you could do it easier today. Why? In 1980, inflation was 12 and a half percent in the United States. Unemployment was ten and a half percent If you could [00:25:00] get a loan, which we never could, if you could, the lowest interest rate was 12%, and we waited in line to get gasoline, and we had the biggest competitors in the world going after.

Today, life is different.

One, you have computers, so you could communicate.

You could write your own stationery, your own business cards, your own everything on your computer. We didn't have that in those days, okay? And that could be your business office. But another thing, too, that I'd love to share with your entire audience is, okay, you have a little business, you have a product going, but you don't have the money to market it, sell it, or you've got a bunch of...

Let's say you don't have a lot of money. You wanna raise money. You have old clothes, an old bicycle, or you just have stuff you wanna get rid of. How do you move stuff out?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: There's something you could go to. It costs you $15 a month, one five. That's all it costs you, right? And it's called Global- S-K-U,

You take your camera, and you could take a picture of anything, something that's old and used, something new. I could take your purse. I could take anything, right? [00:26:00] You take a picture of it. It... AI's involved in this, by the way. All right?

Mm-hmm. And I, I invested in this company 'cause it's so cool. Anyways, you take a picture. Instantly, I'm talking about like in a second, it shows you the picture you took, what it is, right? And it tells you what it sold for brand new, the last time it was sold, and how much it sold for used. Hmm. And you push this other button, okay, and all of a sudden it gets you on something like, uh, eBay.

So, like, a lot of our students, for example, okay, have old clothes, old things. They wanna raise some money. Mm-hmm. Just go take pictures of your old clothes.

Now, does this work? Recently, I wanted to see it work. Two guys went into a thrift store for $2, bought two T-shirts, right? Mm-hmm. And one said Illinois on it, the other had some kind of scribbling on it, whatever. They bought them, wasn't paid for them, but when they bought them, they took a picture knowing they're gonna pay the two bucks for each one, right?

Took a picture. When they left the store, one of them already sold for almost $100, the other one, oh, 20, 30 bucks, whatever, that something like this really works. It's a way for [00:27:00] someone to have something. All of a sudden, you now have an audience, and you're going to millions of people. Hmm. Millions. And then they send you the money right away.

It's, it's really trippy. That's amazing. It's called Global SKU? We, w- we... Yeah, yep, GlobalSKU.com.

Hala Taha: SKU.com.

John Paul DeJoria: Cool. You know? And it's, it's an app that you have, but it's 15 bucks a month. Now, if you got a giant business, we have some people that have such huge businesses. Mm-hmm. They got so much stuff to put in. It could cost you up to something like that, maybe 500 bucks a month.

Mm-hmm. Maybe. A giant thing. But, you know, if you have like 20, 25 things, whatever you wanna sell, it's 15 bucks. That's it. I love that. No more, no more money.

Hala Taha: I have so much things to get rid of. I definitely wanna check it out.

John Paul DeJoria: Yes. Don't... A lot of people try and throw them in the trash and get rid of them.

Here, you could recycle, reuse, and get money. If you had a wheel off a bicycle and an old frame, it's amazing what people buy. Mm-hmm. All the stuff you wanna get rid of, do it. GlobalSKU.com.

Hala Taha: I love that. I know you don't wanna give away in the book, but let's unpack some lessons for the entrepreneurs tuning in.

John Paul DeJoria: Sure.

Hala Taha: You grew Paul Mitchell super popular, but you had no money. So how did you [00:28:00] actually start to manufacture products and convince suppliers and manufacturers to actually support your business?

John Paul DeJoria: Yeah, great, glad to share that with you. We didn't know the money was not coming in, so while I was putting the company together the couple months before- Mm-hmm

I would go to, like, Sedco for my bottles and say, "Hey" And they knew me from the industry, right? Mm. 'Cause I, I did- So you had credibility ... I, I made a name in the industry, right? Mm-hmm. A, a nice good guy. And I said, "We're doing this here, and, uh, my first order will be for 100,000 bottles. I'll mix them up with three different products.

It'll be that, and I'd like to have 30-day terms. Here's what we're doing." And I really made an impression, the guy goes, "Oh, we'd love to have your business." I said, "Great." Then I went to the silk screener, did exactly the same thing. You know, everybody down the line, and the filler, the place that, that filled it all up.

Well, when no money came in, what do you do? Now, that's when if you leave yourself open to the universe, things come to you. So I said, "That's not gonna stop us, right? We're gonna get this done," because it was all set up. So I came up [00:29:00] with the idea of let me call each one and say this, "We are so excited," you know, and I was excited, right?

We're getting going, right? "But I need a sample order. How about only 10,000 bottles, 3,000 shampoo one, 3,000 shampoo two, 3,000... I mean, 4,000 of the conditioner." "Oh, sure, JP. We're wondering why you don't want a smaller order to start with. You got the same terms." Immediately, same day, silk screener, okay, "Hey, we only want 10.

Can we do it?" "Oh, of course. God, yeah, of course, we'll do a sample run for you. Still 30-day terms." Went to the filler. "Oh, of course, we'll do a sample run for you." Right? It was wow, great. But then our money disappeared. We went to the artwork where they did our black-and-white artwork of our Paul Mitchell product.

It was gonna be $1,000, and we told them the truth. "We only have 700. Can we give you a few hundred?" more and pay you the rest? You know, is that okay?" And he said, "No." He says, "I want all 700 'cause I'll probably never see the other few hundred dollars at all." That's it. We gave him all the money, and we got [00:30:00] the artwork.

Mm. Now I'm out of money, right? So I went by my mom's house, and I had lunch with my mom. She didn't know what we were- how bad things were. She didn't know I left everything behind. She had no idea. This all happened in what, like a day or two, right? Oh, man. All happened, like, real fast. Anyways, I said, so I had lunch with her, and boy, I ate everything on that plate, you know?

Like, "Boy, son, you were hungry. Have some more." Anyways, I said, "Mom, I wanna borrow $300 from you if I can." And she said, "Well, son, you have a good job. You make good money." I said, "Mom, I'm starting a new business. I'll pay you back in a month." "Okay, here." She gave me $300, right? That had to last me a long time. Mm.

And that's when I learned not only how to sleep in my car, 'cause I did it once before when I was in my 20s with my son, but how to eat off $2.50 a day. It was like the Freeway Cafe had a 99 cent special between 9 and 11 when nobody came there. Mm. One egg, one piece of toast, and one either piece of bacon or one piece of sausage-

and your choice of either orange juice or coffee. Well, of course I took the orange juice, the [00:31:00] sausage. It was bigger. I just took whatever I could. Mm-hmm. And then I discovered this company, a restaurant chain, and it was called El Torito, that started something called Happy Hour. Nobody came in, let's say between 4 and 6 o'clock.

Mm-hmm. Happy Hour, 99 cents. Whoa, great. But not only did you get a margarita, and it wasn't Patron, okay? But it was a real inexpensive mar- but still a margarita, but they gave you little chicken wings, salsa, and all that. So after about 10 or 15 chicken wings, you're full. The salsa's your vegetable ... and I had a margarita.

And I had a quarter I could leave her as a tip. Well, after about four or five days, people kinda caught on a little bit to, you know, "What's going on with these guys?" And I told them exactly. They were so kind. Occasionally, they'd bring me an enchilada. Aw. Or they'd bring me a car- I mean, they, it was just unbelievably such beautiful people.

When I made money, I went back and I found them, and they were still there, and I gave them the biggest tips they've ever had in their life just as kind of a thank you. We learn and manage [00:32:00] things. It was like, I'll share this one with you, okay? Because it's also in the book. How do you get money right away when you have no money?

'Cause I had the product to deliver. Well, first of all, how do you even get business going? I went knocking door to door, just like I would do selling encyclopedias, got 12 different salons to buy anywhere from 25 to $130, approximately, in product. Mm-hmm. And they would give me a check, and it took me over a week to do this.

And I'm a pretty good salesman, but unknown product, unknown name. Why should we get this? Yeah. Or, you know. Anyways, so I got 'em, and then I went to a distributor, but they did not fill out the top who it was made out to, and I delivered on the spot. Went to a distributor... I'll just give you one part of it.

Yeah. And I made my presentation. He was a nice man. He said, "Great presentation, but we're a per se speedy supply." The biggest distributors in Southern California. Number one, we have all the big brands. You have no money, no advertising, no promotion, no people. Just you and your hairdressing friend, Paul Mitchell.

That's it. [00:33:00] I can't invest in our... building your brand. I just can't do that. He says, "Unless you give me another reason, I wanna wish you well and hope you get some money." I said, "I have another reason." He goes, "What is it?" So out of my pocket, I pulled out 12 checks. I put them all in front of him, and I said, "That's why.

That's your first 12 customers. I've already sold it. You're paid for, and I've already made your first delivery." Mm-hmm. "If you'll only order $2,000 worth of Paul Mitchell, we will really hang up, right? You can have all of LA and Orange County. That's like Southern California, right?" And he laughed his head off and said, "Okay, but you better be here and help my people sell it, okay?

And under those circumstances, I'll do it." I said, "Okay." I said, "But one more thing I'd ask you." I said, "We're kinda new and, uh, can you give me a check when it's delivered?" He laughed his head off. Came to our 25th anniversary, by the way, we've been in business 45 years, and told it to all my distributors. He says, "And then JP leaves my office, and I finally agree.

I said, 'Okay, I'll do it, but you better be here, okay, tomorrow morning.'" He says, "In five minutes or [00:34:00] less, my warehouse is calling me and saying, 'There's some guy here unloading these boxes on our warehouse, you know, entrance here, wanting a check for $2,000.'" He laughed his head off, went back, gave me the check and said, "I'll see you in the morning."

So he gave us a break, and that's... And from there, then I decided, well, if that's the case and I wanna go forward, I need that extra money. So I built into the pricing. I raised all the wholesale prices by 5% - Mm-hmm ... and told everybody, "If you pay your bill within 10 days, it's a 5% discount." Well, everybody wanted that.

That's one of the things we did, and a couple other things to get our money right away.

Hala Taha: Yeah. That's really great. So you did that- Yeah ... so you could get more cash flow and get more cash

John Paul DeJoria: on hand. We had no money.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

John Paul DeJoria: And our bills were due. From the time we had product to the time Setco, the bottler's first bills were due, was 15 days.

Mm. We had 15 days, and then everyone else was due right the same week. We had that time to have to raise that money, so- Mm ... it was very, very difficult doing it. And we had to have money right [00:35:00] away or we're out of business our first stakes. We had no money.

Hala Taha: Yeah. There's a couple things that I wanna talk through here.

One of the things that you keep saying is that you've gotta be open to what the universe is gonna provide for you. That's correct. You gotta be open. So how do you suggest that people stay open? Like, what is the type of, like, mindset you need to have, or what do you do to be more lucky, so to speak? Well,

John Paul DeJoria: and luck comes along with a combination of things.

One, the biggest thing is your thought pattern. Our thoughts are so powerful. I could give you an example of that, and you can see how it changes for other people. A good friend of mine and one of my business associates for several years just kept on saying, "I have the worst luck. I have this new promotional thing going on.

It's just not working, this new product." I have the worst luck, I have the worst luck, I have the worst luck. Mm-hmm. So I called him here just at the end of last year and just said, "I found out why you have all the worst, worst luck and who's responsible." He goes, "Well, JP, who, who?" I said you.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: Because whatever you say or think and you put out to the universe, [00:36:00] the universe wants to help you.

Mm. If you're saying, "I have the worst luck," well, it'll help you. It's black and white. It doesn't know reason. It's black and white. Well, then you'll continue to have bad luck. How about people, their New Year's resolution, "Next year, I'm gonna try and lose 10 pounds or 20 pounds." Universe says, "Great. We'll let you keep on trying to lose that."

The power of thought and the power of the words you speak are so powerful. If they're positive and they're going in a good direction, the universe is gonna give you that. Open up to it, and don't have all the baggage of, "Oh, my God. I wish I would've done that differently. It would've never happened like this.

That person was mean to me." You gotta get all that garbage off your shoulders. You have to, or you're not gonna go forward. So when times are really bad, realize this, and it's what keeps you going. That was one of the many lessons the universe gave me to learn. I am here to learn lessons on this planet, in this body.

It's one of the many lessons that'll learn to something [00:37:00] that's even better and better and better in the future. Leave yourself open. Leave everything in the past and open eyes. It's amazing what comes to you. I didn't plan on calling everybody up and say, "Hey, can I have a sampler of only 10,000 bottles" at all.

Yeah. But it just came to me. I said, "Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen." And all of a sudden, these ideas, these thoughts just started coming in my mind. But I always thought positive. I would say 99% of the time I was a positive thinker. There was a time maybe during my, shall we call it biker years, my early 20s, that, nah, maybe I wasn't the best human being on the planet, okay?

Mm-hmm. And there's a lot of things I did that I would regret. But it was a lesson learned- Yeah ... to never do that again or treat people a bit differently than you did then. Leave yourself to the universe, and openly, and not the negative thoughts before you go to bed. If you have all these thoughts, "I can't pay my bills.

She left me. He left me," no matter what it is, and you can't sleep, it goes through your head over and over again, get a piece of paper, write it down, put that pen [00:38:00] and pad either by your bed or by your sink in the bathroom. When you go to the bathroom in the morning, you can read it. Then if it goes in your head, "Hey, I don't have to have it in my head anymore.

It's already written down."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: These are little things that help out. Yeah. So no matter what the problem is, it's behind you. You cannot change yesterday's newspaper. Leave yourself open to new thinking and new thoughts.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. The other thing I hear from you is that you asked for help. You asked for things that were really uncommon, and you got lucky because you were able to actually ask for those things, and you didn't just ask and not give any effort.

For example, you got 12 customers- Right ... before you went to your first distributor and showed them proof, like, "Here, I've got your first customers for you." So talk to us about the importance of asking for help and not being shy to ask for help.

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, you betcha. A lot of people are shy To ask for help. One time someone had said, "Hey, is it good to have consultants when you start a business?"

I said, "I never had one. I don't think so. Just do it yourself." Mm-hmm. Well, that was wrong because when you ask people that have done it before, [00:39:00] they could give you some great advice because they've already been through the mistakes and overcame, in most situations, your challenge Very, very important, okay?

Or if people call me occasionally, I don't have... I can't answer them all, and say, "Well, JP, here's my challenge." It's not a problem. I call it a challenge, right? What can I do to overcome it? Or just go to someone, go to a mentor. Go to the local Boys or Girls Club, and the Rotary Society, all the Lions Club, all these great groups, many for women, and ask, "What do you think?

I need a little bit of advice." People love to help other people out.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So let's talk about how you built trust with the salon owners. You were able to give money-back guarantees- That's right ... which I thought were really interesting. And then you also did things to connect with them on a community level to make them feel more connected to your brand.

That is correct. Can you tell us about those things?

John Paul DeJoria: A couple things we did. One, let me say, tell people one of my closes on one of my sales- Yeah ... presentations is this. I would say, "If you would be in a position, okay, and agree [00:40:00] to let me come in here, hold a little class for your stylists when they're off, after work or before work, and display my products at eye level 'cause they look really good at eye level, like a tuxedo on it, right, makes everything around it look good- Mm-hmm

let me hold a little class, and let me show your staff how to use the product, which I can do in five minutes. I'll make this agreement with you, that in 30 days, if it's not the best product you've ever used and you really wanna keep it, I will come back and take every bottle. I would pick up the bottles I presented.

I would take every bottle that I have sold that you haven't used or sold already and give you your money back." Mm-hmm. "Now, that's fair enough, isn't it?" I would look them in the eye and nod their head. "Now, that's fair enough, isn't it?" If they would say no, which quite a few of them would, you know, "Why? I've, I've all these other products sure and unknown."

I'd say, "You know, I agree. Instead of taking a dozen each, how about only six each? And I will give you the same agreement, that if in 30 days it's not the best thing you've ever used, as long as you let me come in, hold a class, help you display it right, I'll take everything [00:41:00] back, and it's so little, buy six of each.

We only have three products. Is that fair enough?" Hmm. And if they said no again, and they would give me a reason why: too many, overloaded, don't have time. I say, "I could appreciate that. If I was in your shoes, I'd think the same way. But I'm so convinced you're gonna love it if you only take three of each, okay?"

Yeah. And a lot of them was, "No, no, no, no, no." But then little by little I learned how to give a better presentation. But that's how I got my first 12 orders. Hmm. And I, but I knew in advance that I had to have something, 'cause the distributor's not gonna wanna talk to me. And when, I'd have to really try and sell them to take something that is unadvertised, unknown, everything else.

So I thought, "And no one's gonna buy my product," so I'd have to go knocking door to door like I did when I sold books. Mm-hmm. Good experience, right? And keep on going. And it took me, again, over a week, maybe a week and a half. Which today would probably take me a day, right, to get them. And then in my mind was, "Leave it open.

Leave it open. You might need that for someone else." Mm-hmm. And then I went straight to the biggest distributor. Not a little distributor, the biggest one, [00:42:00] with everything I could put in a presentation, and after he said no, I gave him the extra reason to do it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. That's incredible. And so didn't you do, like, charity work or things with the salon owners and hairstylists to make them feel more connected with the brand?

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, after we got going. Oh, definitely, yeah. Yeah,

Hala Taha: so later on.

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, oh yeah, yeah. Once we got going, we were able to do that and get involved in sports marketing, local philanthropic events, which we still do, by the way, at Paul Mitchell, and it, it's just my whole life, every company I'm involved in, I make sure that we're doing that.

Mm-hmm. Uh, all of a sudden, they feel like they're part of it. An example is I was on the West Coast once in the office, and the office was almost totally empty, and this was on a Friday. I said, "Oh," I came in late in the day, "Where'd everybody go?" "Oh," they said, "JP, we gave them the other half of the day off 'cause they're down at Santa Monica Beach picking up trash.

They wanna add to the beach and the environment." Mm. So, you know, we kind of embedded in ourselves that we wanna help out. It makes us feel really, really good.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm And you had multiple opportunities to take [00:43:00] Paul Mitchell to retail.

John Paul DeJoria: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: But you always refused to do that. Why was that so important for you, and what were you actually protecting with that decision?

John Paul DeJoria: Actually, it was one of the best things we ever did, and the way we did it, we said this, because I worked for other companies in the beauty industry, and we would see, for example, uh, companies like, uh, oh my God, Modine, uh, Jeremak, okay, uh, just, I mean, so many I go on and on, all of a sudden saying, "We're here in the beauty industry just for you."

And the next thing you know, it's on drugstore shelves everywhere, and they're selling it just openly, okay? Mm-hmm. So my promise was this. We're gonna be the first to support salons all the way, and if distribution changes, you're still gonna be involved, period, okay? You will. Because trust us, we'll be the first not to let you down.

Well, in two thousand and four, a young lady, a student, raised her hand and said, in an audience that we were talking to, and said, "JP, every company has sold to this industry, and we understand that Rec [00:44:00] sold it all sold, okay? We understand, JP, that you have n- not only have you never sold to anybody, 'cause you don't want anyone, if you were to sell, to all of a sudden take it retail.

First thing they'll do is go full-blown retail, right?" Mm-hmm. "And already there's black market stuff going in and people selling Paul Mitchell out the back door. But what if you die? Then what happens?" I said, "Whoa, never thought of that one."

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: One, found a three hundred and sixty-year trust in the United States.

I own more than fifty-one percent of the company. I put it in there. So for three hundred and sixty years, starting two thousand and four, nobody could take the company and sell it to anybody or take it to the major market. They couldn't do it. But then some challenges came up. COVID. Oh my God, here's COVID, right?

Mm-hmm. Salons were closed for months at a time in many states. Mm-hmm. They were going out of business. Our customers want our product. So we made a deal with, uh, Amazon That number one, they had about 2,000 places on there that were selling either counterfeit or black market Paul Mitchell. Mm-hmm. So the deal was this, take them all off, take Paul [00:45:00] Mitchell on, but what we need to do is this, is when we make the sales, we need to know everything you're doing, the, the money that we're getting, and we're gonna give the salons that carry Paul Mitchell, we'll divide it among them, right?

We're to give them a big percentage of all the money we make off Amazon. Oh, wow. So the customer still is the customer. And then when we went back to where they were starting to open up, they were broke. They were out of business for months at a time. So we took our customers that took Paul Mitchell, put another $4 million into it, and gave them all free product.

Gave them product for the back bar hair color, shampoos, conditioners, to get them back in business again, asking nothing in return, because- That is incredible ... that's what they deserved. So we feel that, you know, giving back all along the way is definitely the way to do it. And more recently, when the big chains that was black marketing Paul Mitchell from all over the United States, salon would buy it, and a lot of them did this, and sell it out the back door to make a quick 20%, as much- Mm

as they could possibly order, right? Or they would be going out there and people would have [00:46:00] old licenses, but walk into a distributor, and they could buy it off the shelf, right? Tons of it, legally, and then sell it to these big chains, right? Mm-hmm. One chain came to us and said, "How can we change this to benefit salons?

We're gonna get it one way or another." So we made a deal with them. If they'll put up a sign in their big stores, right, that says, "Here's a few products for take home use in between visits. See your professional beauty salon for professional products and do it right." If you will do that, then all of a sudden what you're getting through the black market, you won't get anymore, right?

We'll get it to you. And we did get it to them. Mm-hmm. All of a sudden we realized what salons were getting any product anymore, and even a couple distributors whose sales went straight down. They may have been black marketing it, we don't know. Mm-hmm. But it's things like this where you kept the promise.

So for as long as John Paul Mitchell Systems is in business, which another 350 so odd years- Mm-hmm ... or almost, as long as it's in business, whenever the distribution change or anything, salons must be involved either for a [00:47:00] kickback on the money or something. We will always support them. When we had nothing, they believed us and supported us.

So even when all of them are dead, I owe it to the industry.

Hala Taha: I love that. Integrity and loyalty is so important to you, from you leaving a really cushy job because you didn't believe in animal testing- That's

John Paul DeJoria: right ...

Hala Taha: to then not going into retail, even though you probably would've made money faster had you gone that route.

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, a bunch.

Hala Taha: Why is integrity so important to you, and how do you think about integrity as a leader?

John Paul DeJoria: Well, for one, when you are true to yourself You are easily, uh, shall we say, have the truth for everyone else. Mm-hmm. Being true to yourself is when no one has something and you're telling them something, that I'm gonna stay by you, and you have nothing, and they help build you up.

In fact, really build us to a major company worldwide. You owe them. And the other companies, it's like you're cheating the people that you promised. You're cheating them. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You're not including them in what you're doing now. You say, "Well, thank you for doing this. Now we're gonna move on." And I know a lot of the big retail companies do that [00:48:00] still.

They'll sell something to salons, and then they'll change it a little bit and sell to the retail industry to say, well, we're also in the beauty industry. And this is not right because when eventually you told them that you're gonna give them all the support, and all of a sudden you give it to somebody else, it's just not right.

Mm-hmm. And it's gonna be some baggage you're gonna carry on your shoulder, and your being knows inside that you screwed up. You know, you screwed somebody over and-

Hala Taha: And that's not being open to the universe, right?

John Paul DeJoria: No,

Hala Taha: it's

John Paul DeJoria: not. Doing bad things. And the universe says, "Okay, you wanna do that, you continue to do that," and people continue to screw you over.

You wanna s- you wanna make promise you won't keep? Mm. Hey, no problem. That's what you want in the universe? That's what you're gonna get back. Yeah. And that's how it happens. My goodness, it just whoa. Yeah. Not so good.

Hala Taha: So I know one of your core principles as an entrepreneur is to have, like, really quality product.

John Paul DeJoria: That's right.

Hala Taha: So talk to us about how you knew that Paul Mitchell was, like, incredible product and the things that you did to ensure that you had the highest quality product possible.

John Paul DeJoria: Certainly. Working for three other companies in professional beauty industry, I knew quite well what was in those products.

And one of the [00:49:00] top formulators, Dr. Ron DiSalvo, was a dear friend of mine, and as a favor, I said, "Ron, we need a couple of these things newer." And Paul Mitchell, my partner, tried to come out with a product line, but it never did too well because- Mm-hmm ... it wasn't that quality, and Paul didn't have a marketing or any business sense.

So we took some products, and my friend pitched in and helped us make it the best formula ever, no matter what it cost. It's just gotta be the best product, right? Where if a hairdresser used it, and that's why I went with hairdressers, they would know the difference.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: And so that's how we got our quality in there.

That was a quality. Patron was a little different story with the quality- Yeah ... which we'll get to when we get to Patron. Yeah. But that was all about it, how we can make it that good. And then we would continuously, if we made something new, make it the best. But here's something to learn about making something of high quality, okay?

We started with actually three products, and we invented Sculpting Lotion for the wet look or dry look- Mm ... and Freeze and Shine Hair Spray in the '80s for the big hair, but it didn't build up on you. Those five products, [00:50:00] 45 years later, are still top sellers for us.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: Top sellers for us still today because of the quality.

Hala Taha: That's amazing. And so you were talking about how reordering is so important. How do you know if a product is reorder worthy?

John Paul DeJoria: Well, if you know if it's being reordered, it's because you're getting an order for it. Yeah. Yeah. You're getting an order for it. If you're not getting your order for it, it's like, oh my gosh.

There was a time, oh, maybe 15 years ago, where Mr. Jacob Ellis and I sat down, he was my CEO at the time, and we were looking at some of our products, and there were five products, and we're a very big company, five products that collectively, they did less than $2 million. Mm. So we thought, "Well, maybe we should make room for some that, you know, make several million per product," whatever.

But then we realized, "Well, wait a minute, if we started the company and we made almost $2 million in annual sales off five products, we'd have been the happiest guys in the world." Our first big year was 400 and, I think, $50,000. Mm-hmm. Second big year was a million three. I mean, God, we would've just been in heaven at the time.

Yeah. So we really [00:51:00] had to think that one out.

Hala Taha: Yeah, like which, which ones do you discontinue? E- exactly. Which ones don't you? Right. So you actually had black and white bottles.

John Paul DeJoria: Yeah.

Hala Taha: And probably at the time, you were thinking like, "That's not great. Everybody else has colored bottles." But it turned out to be an advantage.

John Paul DeJoria: Well, yeah, but, but also a necessity. Black and white, what you bought the white bottle, and for two cents you got it silk-screened. If you had color on it, it was six cents or seven cents. Mm-hmm. We couldn't afford it. Well, little did we know that that black and white would all of a sudden make us unisex.

Mm-hmm. Now, to this day, many of our products have color on them, some color on it, but we still have the basic black and white there other than maybe an emblem with a color. We're lucky on that one.

Hala Taha: Yeah. It's, it's great because it's like everybody knows what it looks like because it stands out so much- Yeah

'cause all the other bottles are- Sure ... all different colors. So do you think with all social media and hype cycles and influencers that if somebody had what is $700 back then is $3,000 now, that somebody could start Paul Mitchell today

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, [00:52:00] easy. Easier than we did it. If you did the same thing we did, but you had $3,000, I mean, because today you have social media, you got advertising, and you have computers.

You could type up your own stationery, your own bills. There's so many things you can do today with technology we couldn't do in those days. We could not do it. You know, we could not follow through unless we went there personally or called them on a phone. "How's it going?" You know, and that's what we do a lot.

We follow through with people, and- Yeah ... we, we have seminars every year where 3,000 hairdressers come, you know, and we teach them new techniques, new ideas how to improve their business. We continuously do something to upgrade our industry continuously.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: But I do say to people, when you see Paul Mitchell, get it from a hairdressing salon, because not only do you know for sure it's a real Paul Mitchell and not counterfeit or anything else, but they'll show you how to use it with your type of your hair at no cost

Hala Taha: Last question on Paul Mitchell is about your employees.

So you've been in situations over the years where you could have laid off your employees because it was maybe the right thing to do for the [00:53:00] business, but you decided not to. What was your reasoning behind that, and how did you come up with other- Right ... creative solutions to not have to let people

John Paul DeJoria: go? In- interesting.

I don't know how you found out about all these things, but our own employees, you're 100% correct. During COVID, people were laying off left and right or asking for subsidies from the government. We said, "We did so well, and we were so happy, and we're making such good money," we didn't lay off one person. We kept them on full pay, and those that could go into the office would go in, which was kind of rare.

If you stayed home all this time, you got your full pay because we love you, and you're not gonna suffer just because of this stupid stuff that's going on with the COVID and the shots that, you know- Mm-hmm ... well, anyways, that's a whole separate. We don't need to get into that stuff. Yeah. That was wrong.

They, they, the, the administration screwed up big time on that one. Totally. Just hurt people bad. But anyways, but we have a new administration, so things change all the time, but we took care of them. And then right afterwards, when salons came back, we gave them free product. So we take care of our people.

Now, during that time, [00:54:00] it cost us so much money, 'cause remember, sales were down. Mm-hmm. Now salons are closed, right? Yeah. No, no.

Hala Taha: And you were

John Paul DeJoria: giving back

Hala Taha: to

John Paul DeJoria: the salons too. Really down low. So for a couple of years, my partner of the time and I, okay, my minority partner and myself did not take any dividends out of the company.

We couldn't because we did it to help our own staff out, to help salons out. So it was a couple years we didn't take any dividends out of the company. We just left it in just to try and make up for, you know, what we lost during that time.

Hala Taha: You're such a good man, such a good boss. Uh- But I'm

John Paul DeJoria: happy. Yeah. We, we have the smallest turnover of e- maybe any industry, I don't know, but in the professional beauty industry, we have the fewest turnover.

In fact, I would say we're in about 128 countries, and I think with Paul Mitchell staff alone, God, in the last 46 years, let us just say our turnover is much less, but let's say it's, it's less than 500 people. Wow. Unheard of for a corporation this big that's banded out.

Hala Taha: Yeah,

John Paul DeJoria: that's crazy. But people stay.

In fact, one of our oldest employees, Bill Peplow, Pepe, worked with us until he was 86 years old. Wow. And he was just a great guy, but he [00:55:00] was... He couldn't get around, but he could answer the phone, and we made a little job for him so he could make some money- Aw ... plus his Social Security. We would call up our accounts.

"How's it going? This is Pepe. Is everything going okay?"

Hala Taha: That's so cute. Yeah,

John Paul DeJoria: we like, we love taking care of people.

Hala Taha: So let's move on to Patron. Sure. So you start Patron in your 40s.

John Paul DeJoria: Yep.

Hala Taha: What translated from shampoo to tequila?

John Paul DeJoria: It was just a freak thing that the universe just let it happen. I was building a major house- Mm-hmm

and I was living at that time in California. I've only been in Texas 26 years now. But in California, I was living there, and I was building a big house in Malibu 'cause I was making pretty good money. And my, uh, builder came to me and said, "This friend of mine, Martin Crowley, he's a great designer. He was in the hospitality business, just went bankrupt.

JP, would you go into business with him, kinda be the bank- Mm ... and, uh, you know, an architectural business?" I said, "Sure, why not?" Wasn't that much. So he would go to Mexico, buy furniture and pavers for model homes or for [00:56:00] restaurants and furniture, things like that, very inexpensively for architectural model homes I was building that house there.

He was going down on a delivery. We were drinking regular tequila of the day, right?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: Salt, shoot it, lime, okay? Mm-hmm. And you know, you get a little burn there, and you know, th- anyways. Or you mix the margarita, don't get that. And I said, "Martin, when you go down to Mexico to buy some pavers, when you come back, bring us a couple bottles of what the aristocrats drink down there.

It's gotta be something smoother than what we're drinking," right? Mm-hmm. And then the average bottle of tequila was about, I think, $5. The best one ever made was $14, okay? And though, this is 1989, right? Mm-hmm. Anyway, so he comes back, and he brings these two long bottles, and it was smoother than anything we had.

Much smoother than anything we had. He said, "But JP, I met this guy, Francisco Alcaraz. He can make it smoother." I said, "Really? Go back down." So Martin went back down again, and he brought back it, and he found these bottles down there with Ilano, helped him start the company, right? Mm-hmm. These beautiful bottles of blown glass.

[00:57:00] Same bottle we use today at Patrón. Yeah. He said, "JP, we can put it in this bottle." It was the smoothest we ever had, and even smoother. I said, "Oh my God, Martin. Let's do this. I'll order 1,000 cases of 12. That's 12,000 bottles. We'll bring it back." Now, it was expensive to make. I said, "I know it's expensive to make, but let's say nobody bought it.

For the next 10 years, every birthday anyone had or wedding- ... they got a bottle of great tequila. Christmas, whatever you celebrate here, you know, you got this, right? Period." That was the worst that would happen. Because we had to sell it for $37.95, nobody wanted to take us on. Hmm. Oh my God. Other than my buddy, Wolfgang Puck at Spago's wanted to buy it.

He was a friend. He said, "This is smooth. My clientele needs this." And Baja Cantina, who Martin knew in Marina del Rey, said, "This is really good stuff." We finally found a wine dealer that only distributed wine and nothing else, and we talked him into doing it if we could give him Spago's and Baja Cantina, which we already landed [00:58:00] anyways.

Mm-hmm. He goes, "Yeah. Are you kidding?" So we did. And we tried to teach him how to sell it. Didn't work too good. Mm. After a year, they sold only about 1,000 cases, so we dropped them. Went with a big, major distributor, a big brand like Jim Beam, right? Mm-hmm. Well, now we had to put another level. So now we, they got a piece of it.

The distributor got a piece of it. The, the wholesaler got a piece of it, and then the public bought it. And so our, our margins went down After about a year and a half, maybe two years, we went to Jim Beam and said, "Guys, you're only doing about 12,000 cases a year. We think we could do one day 50,000 cases."

They were so sweet. They said, "Guys, you're really nice people, but we're gonna tell you the truth. You have the best tequila in the world, but it's too expensive. You're selling for 37.95. Others are selling theirs for five, $6." 'Cause we brought ultra-premium tequila. Yeah. We're the ones that invented ultra-premium tequila- Mm-hmm

and, and marketed it. So we said, "Well, thank you very much. We really appreciate it, but we're gonna change distributors." We were nice to one another. [00:59:00] Then we took on Seagrams, even a bigger distributor, right? Yay, let's go together, right? So we still had the other layer in there. But after a couple of years, they got it up to between 60 and 70,000 cases, and we thought that was good, but we knew we could do better than that.

We really did. Mm-hmm. So we went to court and bought them out of their co- agreement. We bought 'em out of it. We paid the money for it, and we took over distribution. Now, here's the lesson to learn. When you go to big companies that tell you you're not gonna do so well, it's gotta be cheaper in price, anything other than let's really give it a good shot, get behind it, right?

Anything other than that, don't agree with them. Mm. We went with the biggest people. They only got it so high. When I sold Patron almost eight years ago, we were doing 3,500,000 cases- Wow ... just in our tequila. It was the biggest sale ever in the professional alcohol business. No one ever sold a company for that much money.

Mm-hmm. And it was the biggest success in the world, and we were around [01:00:00] the world in 135 countries. So you gotta believe in yourself and what you have is really, really good. And how do you do it when you have no money in alcohol? You know nothing about alcohol. It's in the book too. How the hell do we do it?

How do we get the darn thing out there- ... you know, and get it distributed?

Hala Taha: Patrón became part of the culture. Like, Patrón was mentioned in so many different movies- Oh, yes ... and, and it became very, like, luxurious, and everybody wanted Patrón in the club if you were wealthy. No- Was that by design, or, or- No.

John Paul DeJoria: Okay, I'm gonna tell you about two of them, okay?

Yeah. Two of those that's just like, wow, that was so cool. It was like a little, shall we say, just a, a universal force come in, giving me- Mm ... a helping hand. Clint Eastwood was a friend of mine. We started in 1989. Come 1991, or it was either '90, it was '91, I believe, Clint came out with a movie called Into the Line of Fire.

He was the Secret Service agent, all that. He calls me one day and says, "JP, I have this premiere of a new movie, and you're dating this l- girl, Eloise. You could really impress her. Come to the premiere of my new movie." You know? We were living in Southern California at the time. It was at the theater in [01:01:00] Westwood there.

So I said, "Oh, cool." So I come on down with Eloise, who by the way is my wife. Aw. You know, we, we we married, so maybe it worked, I don't know. But we went there, and son of a gun, Clint wasn't there. He was at a, some other opening somewhere else. But his producer met us, gave us a seat right next to the producers, and free popcorn and free Pepsi.

I'll never forget that, 'cause most theaters have Coca-Cola. Mm. So I sat next to the producer, the best seats in the house, free popcorn, free Pepsi. I was really impressed. I was like, "Oh, pretty cool, huh?" That wasn't the surprise. And he didn't even tell me. The only thing he drank in the movie was Patrón tequila.

Wow. And the most intense movement, he's there on the telephone with the terrorist killing the president, trying to talk him out of it, sipping Patrón with a bottle of Patrón in front of him. And then that same year when Playboy interviewed him, that's when Playboy was a really great one- Mm-hmm ... to get on for an interview.

Yeah. They asked him, "What do you drink?" He said, "Only good red wine and Patrón tequila." So that was kinda nice. So people along the way. All of a sudden, uh, years go by, right? Mm-hmm. As the years are [01:02:00] going by, people are saying, "Wow, that 50 Cents is really cool with your Patrón." I said "Who's 50 Cents?" He said, "JP's one of the new rap singers-

that's out here, and he talks about Patron, sings about Patron, even has a bottle of Patron with diamonds on it." And then all of a sudden, the country and western field, they, uh, made a, a song which was a big hit. I think it was Tequila Makes My Girls Pants Fall Down or something like that, right? All about Patron.

And we did- spent a time, they just did it 'cause they loved it. We had rap singers left and right drinking Patron, singing about it, the country and western industry, and it just took off like a cult. Wow. But during that time, I was working on what's the next generation of tequila? We created the generation of ultra-premium tequila- Mm-hmm

especially in the United States. Okay, we created all that, right? What's the next generation? I had not sold Patron yet. So what do they want? They want something that has no additives, smoother than even anything you could ever imagine, and, you know, they would like this, this, and this. So I [01:03:00] started working on a formula to do it, but hadn't bottled it yet or sold it yet.

I just had worked on the formula and the idea of this thing. Mm-hmm. And we will call it Bandero. And they said, "JP," they were really kind to me when they bought the company, "you haven't bottled it, you haven't sold it yet. We're gonna let you keep it, but you'll have a five-year non-compete for anything in the alcohol business."

It's a deal. Mm-hmm. Because even if you asked me to, and not in writing, 'cause he gave me so much money, I would've done it anyways. He gave, gave me a lot of money, okay? I would've done it anyways. So that's what happened. So I had it, I sat on it, and then when the non-compete was up a couple years ago, I gave it to my daughters, who just kind of sat on it, didn't do very much- Mm-hmm

and my partner at the time, but couldn't do very much. Anyways, the non-compete's up, went right back at it again a year and a half ago, and now we're in seven states in the United States, and we won, a little over a year ago, the gold medal in the Latin American Awards. That means- Oh, wow ... everything south of the border has the best tequila.

We won the gold medal for that.

Hala Taha: That's

John Paul DeJoria: incredible. So you can [01:04:00] imagine, so whenever we do taste tests with people, they go, "Wow, that's great." But sometimes people say, "JP, what's better, Patron or your Bandero tequila, especially your Bandero coffee? What's better?" My answer is very easy. Even though I've already been paid by Patron, I don't have to owe them anything like this, in my own heart, I know this and I tell them, "They're both two of the greatest tequilas you'll ever have."

Mm-hmm. "Why don't you yourself Taste them both out and see which one you would like. You're talking about two great ones, just a little bit different each. The new Bandero is not part of Patrón. It's a whole different thing, right? Mm-hmm. And Patrón is its own different thing. Taste them both, see what you like the most.

And, uh, we're, we're doing extremely well. It's a tough market now 'cause the market is down- Yeah ... for all, for every alcohol, right? Mm-hmm. But we're making inroads, and p- we th- I think 70% of all people, maybe 80, that taste it will get it again, will be in the reorder business. Mm-hmm. That's amazing. We made it so that it'll approach those kind of people.

Hala Taha: And this is just, like, kind of rounding out everything that we were just talking about in terms of, you know, you didn't spend a [01:05:00] lot of marketing dollars on Patrón. It just got spread by word of mouth because it was such a premier product. It was a category of one, and it was- Oh, yeah ... super well made, that people just liked it.

Now, it was $37, which was really high-priced.

John Paul DeJoria: In those days it was 37.95, but call it $40 a bottle. Very high price then.

Hala Taha: But do you think that actually helped it become, like, a luxurious alcohol brand?

John Paul DeJoria: Maybe, possibly. I, we never looked at it. We looked at it, the quality of the product, no matter what it costs.

For example, Bandero. Bandero is wow. Okay? It's like a wow. It should be about $125 a bottle, but nope. I introduced it as a suggested retail price of 49.95 as the suggested price. Mm-hmm. In fact, one of the big groups now in Southern California is promoting the heck out of it for quite a bit less. They just wanna get it out there for us.

We thought, "Well, that's nice. Very, very good." With the big signs saying, "It's 49.95, but here, here's our price," to just to get it out, right? And they're, they're doing pretty good with that.

Hala Taha: So you've made billions of dollars at this point. I think you [01:06:00] sold Patrón for $5.1 billion. That was the valuation when I sold

John Paul DeJoria: the company.

Oh, that was the valuation. Okay. And, and I own 70% of the company. That's

Hala Taha: amazing.

John Paul DeJoria: It made... It's, it's, it's common knowledge, or I wouldn't be talking about it.

Hala Taha: Yeah Why bother starting another business?

John Paul DeJoria: I'm a serial entrepreneur. For me to sit back and do nothing but spend money makes no sense. But for me to be back in business and now have more money, I think we're into about 167, I think it is, charities that we're into.

Mm. I mean, I could change people's lives. Here in Austin, Texas, one of my big charities is Mobile Loaves & Fishes. We have now, we're working on our second 500 people to have homes of their own, and I built entrepreneur centers to learn trades. And we have 2,000 altogether we're committed to. The other 1,000 will be built, and I'd say within two years, all 2,000 are occupied by homeless people.

Our centers for skill centers, we did another one with TOOF, The Other Ones Foundation, that are mentally challenged, let's say. Mm. They have mental challenges, okay? So we built them homes also, [01:07:00] and a skill center to learn how to be a plumber, electrician, an auto mechanic. And quite a few of them are working now, where you would think they would never have a job.

Sociologists that are there, employment people, food to eat, gardens I built for them so they could have their own food and eat fresh vegetables. It changes people's lives. At Mobile Loaves & Fishes, they said, "JP has spent way over a million dollars here on entrepreneur center for Mobile Loaves & Fishes. All homeless people."

Mm. "They don't wanna work." I said, "No, you give them a chance." So there they could go and learn pottery, jewelry, art, just so many, aqua color- That's amazing ... so many different things. In the first 18 months, those so-called homeless people don't wanna work sold almost $200,000 worth of product. They got to keep all the- Wow

money themselves. But even at Mobile Loaves & Fishes, we have auto shop, auto mechanics. We have metal shop. We have wood shop. We have all these things they can learn there, plus our entrepreneur center on top of it. It's helping people help one another. Why do I give? [01:08:00] I give because I've been so fortunate with such an abundance that I can help so many people out.

Mm. It's kind of like if you could take care of you and your grandkids and grandkids' grandkids, and you have all that money, why not share some and bring some other people along the way? And that's how we live our life.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And that goes back to your new book.

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, yeah.

Hala Taha: Which is incredible. And I think one of the big lessons in the book is you explaining why it's important for entrepreneurs to actually embed generosity within their business.

Oh, yes. So what's your advice in terms of, like, entrepreneurs out there that are listening in that have small businesses, why is it so important to actually align to a charity, and what's the right way to go about it?

John Paul DeJoria: If you align with a charity and you don't have the extra money to give, which is so often the fact, it was with me for quite a while there, is align with a charity, uh, one that you like, one that touches your heart- Mm

that makes you feel good, not someone else feel good, okay? Get aligned with them, because if you're in volunteering- You're gonna meet people that you'll run across in your life that may [01:09:00] end up be your customers or those that give you advice on something 'cause they've been extremely successful. Most charities have a few people like that somehow attached to them.

And when you're working there with the charity, like some of the Mobile Loaves & Fishes people have come to me. I've even gone out to hold little seminars for groups on how to start businesses with little to no money. That's why you get involved, and you feel good. That's another thing, if you don't mind me just saying this.

Yeah. Why do we do these things? What is it all about, okay? When you do something for somebody else and ask absolutely nothing in return You get the greatest high you'll ever get in your life. And I'm a child that went through the '60s. There's nothing s- we smoked in the '60s that'll get you that high. The fact you did something for somebody else and asked nothing in return, it's the greatest high you'll ever get, and it's a natural high, and that exceeds other highs.

Hala Taha: I know one of the things that you recommend is that we actually formalize our relationship with charities or, like, have it be more formal or structured. Why is that?

John Paul DeJoria: Well, it's because a lot of people that have [01:10:00] charities don't know what they're doing or how to put it together, and how to have a system that's out there.

Like, okay, here's where we have money coming in, how, here's how it's best spent. Here's how we help other people help themselves. And that's what we do with most all of our charities. They're all geared towards, we'll put the money in, we'll train you for this, but now from this point, can you please help yourself or jump in the charity and help us in that way?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Something that's unique to you is that you often, like, roll up your sleeves. Like, you've been in some, like, really crazy situations- Yeah, I get down there ... where you've inserted yourself into political situations. Talk to us about some of the war stories that you have rolling up your sleeves and getting involved in philanthropy.

John Paul DeJoria: Well, the worst stories?

Hala Taha: War stories.

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, war stories. Yeah Oh, give you some war stories

Hala Taha: here. No, no, no, not war

John Paul DeJoria: stories ... Okay. No, not war, oh, they're war stories. Yeah ... They're all

Hala Taha: good.

John Paul DeJoria: Uh, they're all good. No, they're all good

Hala Taha: stories,

John Paul DeJoria: but- Okay. Well, I would say, uh, you know, some of them that are just, like, unusual, but, but the end result was really good, okay?

Uh, really good. Well, let me start with a real biggie that's in the book. I call it giving back for the planet, all right? [01:11:00] It's in the book. They allowed me to put it in the book, yet I've already cleared it through the CIA, FBI, everybody. I said, "JP, it happened, you know- ... more than 20 years ago. It's okay to put in the book."

But I'm the guy that went in to Libya to convince Gaddafi to release the two suspected terrorists of Pan Am Flight

Hala Taha: 103. Wow.

John Paul DeJoria: I'm the guy that went in in the mid, uh, '90s into North Korea. Kim Jong-il's, uh, his dad had just died, he took over, to help convince them to get on the four-way talks instead of the three-way talks.

And a few other things like that, which are an extension of the things I was already doing with people. Hmm. Rolling up your sleeves, mobile, uh, let's... When I started to Grow Appalachia, all the people there that were unemployed from, uh, the coal mines and everything else that I had started there, I went out there to teach them, and I spent the money.

I, I worked with Berea College. I'll buy you the seeds, I'll buy the fertilizer, I'll buy the equipment. I'm gonna pay for people to teach how to do your own farming, so at least you could have your own food. I would go out there and I'd buy a tractor for them, for example, a good used tractor if there's 50 of you in one [01:12:00] garden, 50 families, right?

I would jump in and I would drive the tractor. I would help dig stuff. I'd do all that stuff. I'd get out there and help them out. At Mobile Loaves & Fishes, I go out there and visit them. I buy stuff from them. I give little classes and I help people out, like, you know, how to start a business with no money.

Mm-hmm. And I was getting involved. Uh, there were a couple of, uh, Christmases and Thanksgivings where my family, my wife, my son, and I, we went out there and helped serve the food. There was one year, and this is g- really getting it done. They were supposed to have turkeys donated. They didn't, and I found out about it What are you gonna serve them?

They said, "Frito pie." You can't serve Frito pie. You gotta serve, you gotta serve, you know, Thanksgiving turkey. So we bought them all the turkeys, and we went out there and helped serve them all and carve them all. So we get into the trenches. We wanna be part of it. In Africa, for example, uh, we have a program going called, uh, Keep Africa Fed.

In fact, the thing is actually Food for the, number four, Africa, where we feed right now. We- our schools, all of our Paul Mitchell schools, over 100 of [01:13:00] them, right, have a give back program, too. Mm. We take care of about 17,000 orphans every day- Wow ... most their parents have died of AIDS, of birth to, let's say, their early teens.

We give them a place to live, good food to eat, nutritious, everything to give them a chance in life. We go over there and work with them. In fact, I took my wife and son over once for a photo shoot, it's in the book, where you have all these kids there, these little kids in Africa. We did a photo shoot, but we brought them into it.

Mm. In that photo shoot, there's one kid in my wife's left hand. In the pictures there of the whole- all those little kids with us, he's not smiling. And we asked, "Well, why is he so unhappy?" They said, "We just took him out of a trash can on our way here." We went through a city on the way here to drive the kids here, and they said, "Oh, wait, you're Food for Africa here, and you take care of these orphans."

This kid just came out of a tr- We just... He was, he's crying, and we brought him out. There's nobody around. They took him with them. Well, after a couple of Coca-Colas at a candy bar- ... that kid was the happiest kid in the world, which we brought for the little [01:14:00] kids out there, you know? But it makes you feel good.

Things I did with Nelson Mandela, he was a good friend of mine- Mm-hmm ... you know, to help change the world down there. Prostitution, human trafficking in Thailand. My head of... But she actually my executive director of the Peace, Love and Happiness Foundation. Her first job was to go over there to Thailand, live over there for a while, which she wanted to do, and get those girls, save them, get new passports for them, and get them back home again.

Mm. So we get in the trenches. We feel that you could give by volunteering. And if you give money, and that's good, too, but to be able to give money and do what they're doing or helping out makes you feel twice as good. So we get the bigger high, and we get the better satisfaction.

Hala Taha: Okay, so another question that I have for you as I've been talking to you, getting to know you better, is, like, why aren't you getting involved in politics?

Like, as a young- younger person, we're in, like, a bad situation with our leaders, and, like, it feels like our leaders don't care about us, don't care about people. There's so much bad stuff going on that, like, everyone's starting to find out [01:15:00] about.

John Paul DeJoria: Yeah.

Hala Taha: And you are somebody who has a lot of money, a lot of power.

Mm-hmm. Like, you could run for president. You know? So, so why not take that angle?

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, that's another very, very good question, so I could answer that politically, okay? I am an independent. I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican. And I notice so often promises are kept that are never delivered. You know? So how could I best work?

I was offered, and I don't wanna go into detail, but I was offered a vice presidency a short time ago- Mm ... of the United States of America, and I turned it down 'cause I knew I could not do what I wanted to do, what I'd wanna do, because you got constraints. The people that donate the money. A great example is we saw, no disrespect, okay, but a horrible last four years where people came across...

I mean, we just, it... I, I don't wanna put anybody down. It was really, really bad. Yeah. Well, how in the world can we humans help out with that, okay? I mean, and I could help out more by not being on one side or the other. And today it got so polarized, and some of our media has a lot to do [01:16:00] with this, okay?

Where they're kinda pitting these guys against these guys. And the best example I could give you is this: I was asked to go on one of the major television shows, which I did, by the way, okay? Mm-hmm. And they said, "JP, you're representing the, the higher 1%." And this was in the last administration, okay? But a major TV show.

Mm-hmm. And they said, "JP," because they thought I would be representing, you know, the one-percenters, they said, "JP, you're gonna represent the one-percenters," right? They got me on, they said, "Well, JP, what's it like being a one-percenter," right? You know, and these troubled times that we have now with everyone coming across the border, inflation, everything's just going crazy here.

And I said You got it wrong. I'm not part of the one percenters. I'm part of the 100 percenters. It's just that I made a little more money than somebody else 'cause I got lucky. It's we the people of the United States of America, not go to the left, go to the right, have all this happen. It's we the people.

What's better for we the people? And with all due respect, no, it's not, you're pitching people one [01:17:00] against the other. That's not it. It's we the people. Well, they did not ask me any questions. That interview went very, very short- ... and they got me off the l- off there as quick as they can, but it was live. They couldn't stop that part there.

But that's what it is. It's we the people. So I try and help out as best we can. There were times where administrations, a couple administrations ago called me in and said, "Well, JP, you got this Grow Appalachia, where you're helping people. We like it. We're trying to do that ourselves. We wanna c-" And this was right before the re-election, okay?

Mm-hmm. "We wanna join you now in doing this." We thought, "Great." They say, "Yeah, we're gonna set you up, and the president of that day, okay, will come over and work with you and everything else on this 'cause he's into helping everybody else." I said, "Great." They dropped the ball totally. Mm. It was only so that on TV, I wouldn't say it again, that, you know-

they're not doing anything for really we the people. Just one of those things, so. But people have to realize it's we the people. Stop not liking somebody because they believe differently. I have friends of mine that because [01:18:00] I'm the middle of the way and not the other way and not for... I'll give you one so far to the left, you gotta be to the left.

They won't even talk to me anymore 'cause I say, "I will hear out everything you have, but let me tell you what the other guys are doing," and vice versa, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, America has got so polarized. Yeah. It's like, what is the matter with you people? Don't listen to your party when they say, "Hate the other guy."

Don't listen when they say, "Go out there and march and, uh, you have to have violence. It's okay." Don't listen to that. It's wrong. It's we the people. We're brothers and sisters. If your brother did something wrong, would you talk to him? If your sister did not agree with you, would you at least hear her out?

Of course you would. Mm-hmm. They're polarizing us. We shouldn't be polarized. We should be we the people of the United States of America. We are the greatest nation the w- world has ever known, and we don't deserve to be in a situation like that. And as things are being exposed more and more, I think it's a good thing.

When you get the Epstein list, look what they did. Bad, bad, bad. Don't do it. Look at what these people lied about, even during election. Well, this [01:19:00] guy, for example, was involved with the Russians, and you find out later it was a lie, or this person did this or that person did that, okay? It's crazy. Or this person is too far to the left.

Yeah, but they did do some good things. It's we the people, we the people of the United States of America, and if everybody thought that way, we wouldn't have this fighting, this terrorizing, and this, "Well, we gotta be with this group, or we gotta be with that group." No. It's we the people of the United States of America.

Let's do something to keep our country

Hala Taha: Yeah

John Paul DeJoria: And, uh, during the Olympics, look at the team that just won. Our girls won the gold medal in playing hockey. The guys won the gold medal, right? And all of a sudden, some people with one part of their political thinking didn't think it was a good deal, didn't wanna praise the United States because of it, and they came back said, "No, we're Americans.

We represented American," came back and, you know. Anyways, it just y- it's we the people of the United States of America. It's we the people. Let's be one family and not let anybody split us apart like they've been doing.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I love that message, and I feel like it really [01:20:00] relates to your new book.

John Paul DeJoria: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Talk to us about why you wrote this book in the first place.

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, you betcha. The reason I wrote it was people asked me for years, "JP, you've got to share your information, how you did all these things, how you did things politically without a party behind you to solve international problems," like, you know, Gaddafi, what I did with him and, and other things too that maybe the book will talk about a little bit, okay?

So they said it so much that I tried to write a book, and I was a failure at it, okay? I've never written a book before. So about two and a half years ago, I said, "I'm going to do it." And I got a hold of a wonderful gentleman, Mark Victor Hansen, and he wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul. Mm. Yeah. A really good man with a big heart.

I asked him if he would help me with my book, and he knows me from a Horatio Alger Award where I'm a Horatio Alger awardee in Washington, DC. Only, only award ever given in the Supreme Court of the United States for people that really show the American way and made it the American way. He was one of us, right?

He says, [01:21:00] "JP, I'm gonna really help you. I'll get you two of my best writers. It's your autobiography, but we'll help you write it." Mm. Took two and a half years- Wow ... to finally get it. And it was like, uh, I think about 280 pages, and I thought, "You know what? This will answer not only how one can start in America with nothing, and maybe no dad, like a lot of kids have today- Mm-hmm

no dad, but how you can make it, and how as a mom and a family you could influence your kids when they're young to come out good even though you have little to nothing, and not blame it on society, you know? How you can do this and how it overcome all these problems of being fired from jobs and not, no place to live, I mean, just all these problems you ran across, right?

Mm-hmm. But still came out okay. How did you do it? And you can only do that in a book, JP, unless someone's gonna interview you for several days and you're there talking over several days. So that's what we did. That's how we did it. Now, this book right now is quite a book, okay, I must say. It's only about $20 in hard copy, right?

Amazon likes it [01:22:00] so much that we're on Amazon right now for pre-orders. The actual delivery, I had 150 made right away, so this is what I'm gonna give to you, obviously. Thank you. But, uh, the first edition is only 10,000 copies. Mm. And that'll go straight to, uh, probably Amazon. So I say to people, pre-order now, Success Unshared Is Failure, because if you pre-order right now, when the book comes out, then you'll get one of the first printed copies.

There's only 10,000 of them being on the first printing. Mm. The rest'll be maybe 100,000 or who knows what at a time. So it's like kind of a collector's item, and for sure- Very cool ... you've got it. And I guarantee you, when someone reads it, you'll wanna read it to all of your children, let all of your friends read it.

It shows not only does America work from no political view, just a straight-on view on how to be better in life, and all the steps we went through and all the problems that we went through, how we overcame them and put it behind us to have success, but also how to change the world. It's in there how we're changing the world for thousands and now [01:23:00] millions of people because of our philosophy and what we do.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, take the time, go out there, pre-order it on Amazon, pre-order Success Unshared Is Failure. You'll never regret it. When the first copies come in, you'll be in the first printing that comes in. You will get it. When you read it, you'll know what I mean. Not only will you wanna read it, and you may wanna read it a second time, but you'll want to give it to everybody you know, especially your children, to say, "This is real, and just be kind to one another."

Mm-hmm. The big secret is being kind.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I feel like this is such a great book, especially for young entrepreneurs, business owners who are trying to Make it, it gives like a different lens of how you can go about business. Usually, it's like just so tactical, but this is more about like business with the heart.

That's correct. You know? And, and so it's just a really different perspective that I enjoyed reading.

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, yeah. Um- And I've started, by the way, several c- I've n- another couple of big companies going on right now, one in AI and one in other. I have some big things going on right now, too. And the reason why is because I'm so excited about doing things right- Mm-hmm

and doing it [01:24:00] with kindness and helping others along the way. I'll never retire. This is my lifestyle. It's not work. I stopped working when I started living in my cars and started Paul Mitchell. I stopped working. I was just, "Fine, this is what I love to do." Mm. And I hire thousands of people. And a, an example is like when Grow Up Malaysia, God, I don't know how many thousands of families we have now growing their own gardens- Mm

and how many tons of food that is produced by some of these people. In other words, I see the world around me, and my purpose is to make life better because I'm here, and I do it. The reward that I want is I just feel great. But along the way, all these wonderful things happened for me. Mm-hmm. Like the Paul Mitchell experience, the, the Patrón experience, Bandero now, all the rocket companies that I'm involved with, and other medical breakthroughs right now that I got pieces of their company, and doctors I'm working with right now that are changing medicine as we know it today and coming up with cures for things that you only get little things to keep you going-

Hala Taha: [01:25:00] Mm-hmm

John Paul DeJoria: but never to cure it. It's amazing- Mm ... what's going out there right now, and just, and, and wonderful with good people that don't rip people off.

Hala Taha: What's your advice to the young people out there who are struggling to get jobs and worried about AI and not able to really get experience the way that you got experience working door to door and before you actually started Paul Mitchell?

John Paul DeJoria: Exactly.

Hala Taha: What's your advice to those people?

John Paul DeJoria: To them is don't give up, and leave everything that is a no behind you, okay? You'll see that in the book. Leave it all behind you, the nos behind you. And I'm here right now. Here's what I have. Here's what I think I want to have. Now, a lot of people don't know what they wanna do in life, okay?

But they know what they don't want to do. Mm. Don't do anything for money you don't wanna do, unless it's very short-term potential. Have your goals set up there, no matter what it is. You could do it easier today than before, like with this global, uh, SKU. You could actually go into business and have your distribution from sitting at home with your- Mm

idea, your things- Mm ... things in your [01:26:00] closet you're taking pictures of, your new invention, your new handkerchief, your new tire. You could do things like that right now easier. There's tools out there for you that we've never had before. Now, AI is another thing. When we talk about AI, 'cause I have an AI company, when we talk about AI, I give everyone the same message.

Today, today, there are Tens of thousands of jobs out there no one can fill. Hairdressers, for example, we need 10,000 more right now. 10,000 more would have a job instantly if they actually were hairdressers or barbers, okay? They'd have it right away. Auto mechanics, thousands that don't qualify. One of the things we teach people at TOOF, The Other People's Foundation, that have challenges mentally, is how to be an auto mechanic.

You could do that, no problem. So many jobs. And I ask everybody in every audience I talk to, "Raise your hand. Who out there knows a plumber or an electrician or a wood carving man to handle wood things in your house that will charge less than [01:27:00] $150 an hour? Raise your hand." Nobody has ever raised their hand- Mm

in every conference I've ever given or talked to because these are jobs that are out there that still need people with el- electric backgrounds, backgrounds in, you know, whether it's in the sciences and something needed or those. How about tow trucks? Who's gonna drive the tow truck? Do you know how much money those guys make?

A lot, and they just love driving. So you find something you like to do and that you could also make money to survive on. Mm. But don't get a job just because you're gonna make more money. Get the job because you like it. Then you're not working, you have a beautiful career where you are happy in life. Mm.

Very important. Don't all of a sudden become 65, 70 years old and say, "Boy, I wish I would've changed that years ago." Or be in a relationship that sucks, and then you've done everything to improve it, it just doesn't go anywhere. Leave.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: You don't wanna be 60, 70 years old and say, "God, I wish I would've changed when I was 20, 30, 40, even 50 or 60 years old.

My life's been miserable." [01:28:00] Do it now.

Hala Taha: Mm.

John Paul DeJoria: There's a lot out there for you. There's a whole world of love in such a big way. Go out there and see it from a positive point of view. Don't bring along with you negativity. Don't bring gossip along. Bring just good energy, 'cause it's gonna show. And people that are aware of seeing things will start to see and say, "Well, wait a minute.

There seems to be around you some kind of a glow. What is that?" Well, it's kind of your aura also, but it's also your frequency as a human on this planet- Mm ... in a human body

Hala Taha: I'm gonna close out the show with three questions that I ask all of my guests. Sure. The first one is, what is one truth about entrepreneurship that you feel like you learned too late?

John Paul DeJoria: Well, I learned it pretty young, but not knowing I was an entrepreneur, okay?

Hala Taha: Okay.

John Paul DeJoria: But things that I learned later on, uh, that were very, very important that I wish I would've learned even younger, okay, and the thing is this. Be prepared for a lot of rejection. You're gonna get it, and when it comes, just let it go the other way.

Mm-hmm. That was a big one. You know, and, and that happened learning encyclopedia sales. [01:29:00] That was a big one. I wish... If I learned that younger, it would have been even better. Mm-hmm. And a lot of times teachers will tell me, "No, you're not good enough for that, so don't do it. You should be doing something else," right?

That I would know that, no, that's rejection, but I'm gonna overcome it- Hmm ... and I'm gonna just do it, prove myself, not necessarily the teacher.

Hala Taha: If you could give one actionable thing our Young and Profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow, what would it be?

John Paul DeJoria: Oh, immediately go on that global, uh, SKU-

'cause you're gonna start selling things right away. And know that there's hope for you out there. Believe in what you want to do. And once again, you're gonna get rejection. I g- I keep repeating this. It's the biggest thing that stops people. You're gonna get it. Know it's gonna happen, let it go the other way, and learn a lesson from it and move on in life.

Mm-hmm. And the next thing is, whatever you're working on entrepreneur, whatever idea, whatever it might be, make sure you go into the reorder business with it. Those are the two biggest things that could do it. And don't give up. You have a whole life ahead of you. If you're older in life, you're 50, 60s, you still have a life ahead of you.

My God, you [01:30:00] can start a business. You can do so many wonderful things. Needing m- money? Try that global SKU and you'll get it.

Hala Taha: Okay, and last question for you. What is your secret to profiting in life?

John Paul DeJoria: Kindness.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

John Paul DeJoria: One word, kindness. Be kind. Be kind. There was a time in my life, in my early 20s, where I wasn't the kindest person.

I did things I, I didn't even know I was doing wrong, but I did them wrong. I wasn't kind. Hmm. Be kind. The world works for you much better.

Hala Taha: I love that. And where can everybody learn more about you and everything you do and grab your new book?

John Paul DeJoria: You got it, Success Unshared is Failure.

Hala Taha: Awesome. Thank you. Well, thank you so much.

You

John Paul DeJoria: betcha. Great job. My pleasure. Peace, love, and happiness.

Hala Taha:Anthony, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

Anthony O'Neal: Man, holla. I, I've been excited about this one.

Hala Taha: Oh, thank you so much.

Anthony O'Neal: Oh my gosh. I flew in just to sit down with you.

Hala Taha: Oh, I'm so honored. I feel like our listeners are gonna learn so much from you. Yeah. Hope so. And I, I do wanna start from your origin story, because it was so powerful.

You've got this awesome rags to riches story. Oh,

Anthony O'Neal: man.

Hala Taha: So I found out that you were homeless at age 19.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, yeah.

Hala Taha: And one of the most pivotal moments for you was when a little girl saw you-

Anthony O'Neal: Mm-hmm ...

Hala Taha: and asked her dad, "Hey, Daddy, c- can we give him some money?" And, and he said- Yeah ... "No."

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah.

Hala Taha: What, what feelings did that bring up at the time?

What kind of shame were you going through at the time?

Anthony O'Neal: Um, a lot, if I'm being honest and transparent. You know, um, just a little, a little backstory. Right around that time, um, there were some tough issues happening within that particular city in O- Oceanside, California. Uh, we had just built the very first school that was named after the, [00:01:00] the first African American to really do big things, uh, from my knowledge- Mm-hmm

of it, Martin Luther King Jr. And so I felt like I was being judged, um, one, possibly for skin color, or two- Mm-hmm ... for, uh, that. But I also remember being the kid in the backseat asking my parents the same question when I was young.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I was like, "Man, I'm not, I'm not a bad guy." Yeah. Like, I, I, I'm not gonna do drugs.

I literally wanted to go to Carl's Jr. and get me a d- a burger and some fries. And when I heard the father say, "We don't give them money-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Anthony O'Neal: because they'll do bad things with it,"

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, I remember walking back to my car, and I got in the backseat of my car, and, um, suicide came to, to thoughts. Um, I'm a Christian man, and I was like, "Man, God can't be real."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, I felt like my life didn't matter, and I felt like just giving [00:02:00] up on life. Um, clearly I didn't, um, 'cause I'm still here today, uh, but a part of me was like, "Man, I'm done."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, because if we re- rewind- All the money that I spent up until that point was on my friends, was on ladies I was trying to impress, was on a lifestyle that I was trying to maintain.

And not one person who I tried to impress, who I helped- Hmm ... who I bought things for, they never offered me a place to go lay my head. They never offered me a place to come and eat. Then here you go, I got my mom and my dad, who are these God-fearing people, and me and my father get into this argument that pretty much lands me outside of the home.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so I'm looking at both sides of my worlds are saying, "Yeah, no, bye." And so it, it was a, it was a tough season, but I also do believe, Hala, that was the best season of my life.

Hala Taha: Mm. Because it led to everything else, like your, your purpose in life, [00:03:00] essentially.

Anthony O'Neal: It, it forced me to see who, see me.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And to see the lack of information that I didn't have at the time.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Then it also made me be like, "Yo You don't really have real friends in your life.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: You have users.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: You have placeholders, but you don't really have real friends. And three, it really made me understand that my parents did love me.

They were just trying to teach me the best that they could- Yeah ... with the information that they had. And then again, like I said, I'm a spiritual guy. I just, I just literally fell to my face and was like, "Okay, God, what do I need to do?"

Hala Taha: Mm. "

Anthony O'Neal: And how do I get back on my feet?"

Hala Taha: I really wanna talk about how you got back on your feet.

Yeah. But first of all, let's, let's talk about how bad it was. Oh. 'Cause you were $35,000 in debt.

Anthony O'Neal: 35,000 when I should've been, if we're gonna look at it from a practical perspective, I probably should've been in zero.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: You know, my [00:04:00] father, uh, my biological father. So I have a unique situation. Mm-hmm. I have four parents.

Mm-hmm. And my, um, biological parents had me outside of wedlock, so my biological father married my other mother, who's an amazing woman still to this day, and they lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina. My biological mother married my other father, had two more siblings, and we all lived in Oceanside, California.

Mm. Pretty much San Diego. And so, man, when I sit here and I tell you that I, I, I had a, a solid upbringing of, of people, it was just absolutely, absolutely amazing.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, but I'm grateful for those four parents that really sowed into me.

Hala Taha: Yeah, but, but they, they failed to kind of teach you financial literacy, right?

Because- Absolutely ... you ended up in debt. How did you end up in the $35,000 debt?

Anthony O'Neal: Well, the first part was, which was the craziest part, is my biological father, like I was saying, he, uh, was in the Army, right? So I had my father's GI Bill. Mm. So when I went to school, I didn't have [00:05:00] to borrow any money.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: But because my parents, unfortunately, which I love, and they're, they're pretty sure they're gonna be watching this show, so I love you, Mom and Dad.

So just know I love you when I say this. Um, they didn't know what to do with their own money at the time. Yeah. And so the, the world taught me, "Well, hey, since you have access to this money, go borrow it."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I'm like, "All right, bet. Cool, man. There's no problem." My school was already paid for with the GI Bill.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: So I take out $15,000 in student loans just to, just to live, just to have money, just to go buy nice things. Then I was like, "Okay, cool. Great." I get a credit card.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I get that credit card very first day. My mama tells me, "Nah, bro, don't do that." And I said, "Mama, I'm, I'm good. I got it." Mm-hmm. And within 24 hours, I maxed out that first card.

And so back then in them days, you know, they were just giving away credit cards to college students, and so they upped that limit to about $1,500. I spent that on my car and a sound system. Mm. Then six, seven months later, you know, I'm in [00:06:00] another, what's that? About $20,000 worth of debt, renting from Aaron's sales and lease, renting a PlayStation and a big- heavy floor TV.

You know, I'm, I'm renting leather couches- ... that I was sweating on. I'm, I'm renting the bed inside of the apartment. Oh my God. And so I'm, I'm just racking up all this money. But if I'm being honest, my parents didn't teach me financial literacy because their parents and the school system didn't teach it.

Mm-hmm. So who taught me finance was BET. Who taught me finance was MTV Cribs. Mm. Uh, it was the music videos. It was the, the environment that I subscribed to that was showing me, "If you wanna be successful in life, you better drive this, you better have this kind of house, you better have the PlayStations."

And if I go really honest and vulnerable with you, if you wanna get a beautiful woman, you better have some money. Yeah. And so I said, "Well, let me go get this money," when it wasn't my money, it was borrowed money, and no one even taught me what... I just knew if you borrow money, you pay it back, but no one told me interest.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: No one said, [00:07:00] "Hey, over a period of time, it's gonna be way more." If you borrowed 500, if you pay it over the minimum payments over three, four years, you gonna spend $2,000 for it. Mm. And so, uh, that's how I got into the $35,000 worth of debt. And, uh, uh, I would say about 32,000 of it went to collections.

Hala Taha: Mm.

There's so much to dig into there, but something that really hit me while you were talking is the fact that you felt like when you were down and out, you had nobody to turn to. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Meanwhile, you did all this spending to impress those very same people. That's correct. Like, you were trying to put on a facade.

Anthony O'Neal: Yes.

Hala Taha: And it was the culture that you were in-

Anthony O'Neal: Mm-hmm ...

Hala Taha: that was really, I guess, pushing you to feel like you needed to buy all these things, have this image, look blessed. And I actually saw something on your social media. You said 76% of luxury buyers are actually broke.

Anthony O'Neal: For sure. Yeah, yeah. It, it's, it's when I look at social media, uh, when we look at what's [00:08:00] going on, we see that, um, uh, for an example, well, I won't say the name of the city 'cause I don't wanna be disrespectful, but there's, there's a s- there's some cities out there- Mm-hmm

to where everybody got a Rolls-Royce. Yeah. Everyone has a beautiful car. Everyone's a millionaire. Mm-hmm. Everyone is doing this. But the truth of the fact is, uh, when you really study it, 76% of them are faking. If you really look at the math, 71% of us are living paycheck to paycheck.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Out of that 71%, 90% of them are saying, "If I miss a paycheck, oh, all hell is about to break out when it comes to my life."

Mm. And so that was the case for me.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: I was looking good, man. I, I was driving a 1987 Nissan Maxima with 22-inch rims on it that was rented, uh, with two 12s and 1,000-watt amp that I did pay cash for. Now, I didn't pay cash for that. I put that on a credit card. Uh, the car could not go in reverse. It had a dent on the passenger door, and it was only worth maybe $500.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: But I had [00:09:00] about $3,000 of extra stuff on the car.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I was- So it can

Hala Taha: look good.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah ... so I can look good, right? Yeah. And I was so upset because when I went to trade it in, they only gave me $500 for the car.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Didn't give me anything extra for what else I gave him when it comes to the rims. So I took the sound system out, couldn't take the rims out because I didn't know, well, if you're gonna put your, those on, you should keep the stock ones.

Like, it was a lack of information, so I learned from culture, not... I didn't learn from school. I didn't learn from my parents. And so, um, that's why I do what I do today.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And, uh, you might've thought that you were actually financially secure because you had good credit.

Anthony O'Neal: For sure.

Hala Taha: Like, you were able to get those things.

Anthony O'Neal: For sure.

Hala Taha: And a lot of people sit there and they're like, "Oh, I got a $800 credit, an 800 credit score- Right ... and I'm doing good," and people are always asking about other people's credit scores, especially in relationships, but that doesn't- That's horrible ... really mean anything, right?

Anthony O'Neal: No, it doesn't. I had a young lady ask me that, um, [00:10:00] what was my credit score on the first date, and I told her the truth.

I told her the truth. I told her the dead truth, and I'll never forget it. Um, I've never shared this story like this before, but I, I told her my credit score was a 510. She never went back out with me.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Never went back out.

Hala Taha: It's so funny, 'cause you could be making so much money and still have a bad credit score.

Anthony O'Neal: No, that's a fact. I had multiple six figures inside of my bank account. I w- I had just paid off all of my debt maybe about a few years before that timeframe, and my credit score was low because I didn't have any open trade lines. I wasn't even a homeowner. So there was nothing being reported to my credit report.

Mm. Which is why I'm not a huge fan of the credit system, uh, because it rewards you for borrowing money, but it doesn't reward you for investing, for saving, for living below your means. Mm-hmm. Uh, but when she asked me that, uh, I would never forget. I took her back home. Never got a phone call from her again.

She told her homegirl, her homegirl, uh, boyfriend, he and I play golf together. He [00:11:00] said, "Man, I, I really wanted to go after my girlfriend," because she's like, "How does Anthony have a 500?" And so he said, "Man, I asked, I asked her one question." I said, "What'd you, what'd you tell her, bro?" He said, "Did you ask him why- Mm

he has a 500 credit score?" And she went back and asked her friend, and her friend said, "No, I didn't." And then he went back and told both of them when she was on speakerphone, he says, um, "Anthony has a lot of money."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: He doesn't really buy and put anything in, on credit anymore.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Anthony O'Neal: And so true story.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: I won't say the name.

She calls him back the next week. The ratchet side of me came out, I just ignored

Hala Taha: her. Good for you. Good for y- I mean, that happened to me too. I remember when, like, I, I decided that credit cards were bad, and when I started my company-

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: all the credit cards, first of all, were in my company's name that I did have.

Okay. And I had no personal credit. Yeah. And I remember I made almost a million dollars that year. Oh, okay. And I went [00:12:00] to go try to get an apartment that was like, I don't know, $7,000 a month or something. Facts. And they wouldn't give me the apartment because they said that I had bad cr- like, I didn't have good enough- Wow

I didn't have enough credit. For real. Like, I didn't start my credit, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had to... You do need a balance, but that brings me to, are you aligned with Dave Ramsey's perspective on no credit card debt ever?

Anthony O'Neal: Um, you know, Dave Ramsey is, I believe he's a guru in the financial literacy space, and I had the opportunity to work for the man for years.

And so when I say aligned, no. Do I respect and agree with his stance? Absolutely. Mm. Um, since I have left his camp, um, went back to school, and I've evolved, I have a different philosophy, and I talk about this in my book, Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck. I believe if you're drowning in debt-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Anthony O'Neal: I'm 100% aligned with Dave.

You do not need a credit card. Yeah. Cut it up, run away from it, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah, 'cause you, you're not responsible.

Anthony O'Neal: Not responsible at all. And if we're gonna be honest, I think that's about 90% of the average, everyday people are not responsible to have a credit [00:13:00] card. So my philosophy is, get out of the credit card debt.

You need to be out of debt for the period minimum of 24 months before you even touch it. Because I believe money is not really a math problem, it's just habits.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: You know, i- can you build a healthy habit- Mm-hmm ... to where you treat your credit card like a debit card? Mm-hmm. So to this day, I only have one card, and that's a Amex, and I pay that off every single Monday.

Mm-hmm. Um, I will not let it go past- Every

Hala Taha: single Monday?

Anthony O'Neal: Every single Monday. I'm so... I, I don't like debt. Mm-hmm. I, I, I completely run away from consumer debt. Yeah. Uh, but I do understand, um, the, the benefits of having a credit card-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Anthony O'Neal: uh, which I have Amex's charge card you gotta pay it off every single month.

You know, I won't even get a card that will let you pay it off over, you know what I'm saying? Over, over months, 'cause I don't wanna pay out any interest. I still do believe that paying out interest is a penalty, and it's not worth it. Mm-hmm. I wanna receive [00:14:00] interest- Mm-hmm ... rather than pay out interest.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: So I'ma put it on my Amex, get my points- Have the security, um, a- and I love the added benefits that come with the Amex. Yeah. Um, I had a trip g- come up and, uh, unfortunately it got canceled and Amex took care of it for me. Oh,

Hala Taha: nice.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? And so, um, I do. So I respect and love, and I believe that his system works, because the reason why I am consumer debt-free today is because of the baby steps, right?

Yeah. And so now with me evolving and I have just a different audience, um, I have veered off some things from what I used to teach with Dave.

Hala Taha: Yeah, so if you have good behavior with your credit card- For

Anthony O'Neal: sure ...

Hala Taha: use it. Use your points for flights, for hotels. Right. Now, why every Monday? I feel like that must be like a mindset thing with you.

Like, do you just hate seeing debt?

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, and I just don't wanna be caught lying.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: You know what I'm saying? So I think for me it's just more so of I build that habit. I just build the habit of making sure that I stay consumer debt-free. Yeah. Uh, because what Dave [00:15:00] teaches is honestly the truth. Um, you're gonna swipe it, you're gonna spend more.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And I think for me, it's, I l- before I even swipe it, I look at my budget, and if it's in my budget, then I'll swipe it. If it's not in my budget-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Anthony O'Neal: then I won't swipe it. Now, let me be completely honest, is that difficult though- Yeah ... to not swipe? Absolutely. Mm-hmm. I'm human, I got flesh. I want that.

Yeah. You know, but, you know, for me, here's what I've learned I want freedom more than I want to be impressed- Mm ... impressive. Um, and one thing I have learned, that debt robs us from freedom.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And the moment that you borrow money from somebody, you are now enslaved to them. They get to tell you if you can take off for a month and go enjoy time with your family.

And I just said, "I do not want to be enslaved to no other person but to my decisions and my habits."

Hala Taha: Mm, I love that.

Anthony O'Neal: And so [00:16:00] I, I refuse to allow my debt to be someone else's gain.

Hala Taha: Mm. And I just- That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from you. It's, "The goal is not to be rich, the goal is to be free."

Anthony O'Neal: Free, yeah. Freedom is everything that I'm aiming for, you know. Um, I think this culture is driving off of like, "Oh, man, I wanna make a million dollars in a month," and- Mm-hmm ... "I wanna make this, I wanna make that." I'm like, "Man, I just wanna be free."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: You know, I just came back from a two-week cruise, um, out in Greece that I paid cash for.

Hala Taha: Nice.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? And throughout the entire month of July, my company is off, and I pay all of my staff and my team members a full month, "Hey, go take it off." Why? Because-

Hala Taha: So cool ...

Anthony O'Neal: we've built a business without any consumer debt that allows us to have freedom.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And freedom for me may look different from freedom from what you may call freedom for yourself- Yeah

and for your family. But, uh, for me, it's if I wanna take off for the month of July, unplug, [00:17:00] go travel the world, let my team off and pay them their full salary for the month, man, I get to do that. Mm. But if I was just in debt, I couldn't do that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: You know? And so, um, I'm single, and I'm looking forward to being married one day, and I wanna have the freedom, and I'm practicing that now because of my situation.

Like, every Friday I don't work.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: So we're, we're recording this today. The- tomorrow will be Friday. I'm going home, and I'm playing golf in the morning. And I am going to, uh, take myself out to a movie and a nice little dinner on tomorrow night because I want to practice freedom. I desire freedom, so that way when I get a family, I can take my children to school if I get married with kids.

If, if I can say, "Hey, babe, after I play golf with my best friend on the morning, me and you going out every Friday night no matter what." Mm. Right? And so that's to me, that to me is way more important than rich. 'Cause rich is temporarily.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: You know? And, and I think wealth- [00:18:00] positions you to have true freedom.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, you've done an incredible job with your career, with acquiring wealth. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it all started from when you were 19- Yeah ... homeless in your car.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah.

Hala Taha: How did you get to where you are today? Like, what were some of the first steps that you took?

Anthony O'Neal: You know, I had to be honest with myself, and I won't say that it started at 20, 21, 22 when I started changing things around.

It took me a while to really figure out some things. If I'm being honest, I think, um, the reason why a lot of people do not experience success is because they do not have a strategy or plan.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, I think that a lot of us, we know how to work hard, but we don't know how to steward that hard work and turn it and follow a solid plan.

So for me, when I was trying to get out of it, man, I was reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, uh, Robert Kiyosaki. Yeah. I seen you had him on your show. Yeah. Um, I was, uh, I read Total [00:19:00] Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, and I've read so many books, and I was watching so many things on YouTube, and, and at that time, in that season, Yahoo was real live.

So I'd look up some things on Yahoo, and I had to teach myself, you know, these principles. And so I think for me, when I resonated with the seven baby steps, um, it just... I was like, "Okay, cool. This is what I wanna do. I'ma follow this," and that's what I did and, and this is what I tell everybody. Even if you don't agree with everything- Mm-hmm

you can seven baby steps, what you teach, but I- And

Hala Taha: that's to get out of debt. That's like Dave Ramsey's- Yeah ... famous saying, seven baby steps to get out of debt.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, and so it's like even if you don't agree with the stuff, still do it because it's a proven system that works. And so that's what I did. I literally followed that.

Some days I'll fall off, some months I will fall off, uh, but I'll get right back on it, and I did that until I was debt-free.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: You know? And so for me, it's, it was I found a plan, I found a strategy, I worked the plan and the strategy [00:20:00] until I saw a difference in my finances.

Hala Taha: And how did you turn that into your purpose and your career?

Like, what were the first things that you did to start speaking about financial advice- Oh ... and getting your foot- Yeah ... into Ramsey?

Anthony O'Neal: Well, the, the foot into Ramsey was simply because, um, Dave and his team, um, noticed that I was teaching it. So I was a youth pastor for years. Mm. Um, and I would go around to different high schools.

We built m- probably one of the largest, uh, African American youth ministries in the world. We would have 3,000 to 4,000 people at a youth conference and see thousands come throughout the week. But it was because I was going inside the high schools during the day, so my pastor at the time, uh, would allow me, instead of coming into the church office, he would allow me to go into the schools.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: When I would go into the schools, I would sub for some of the teachers. And when I say sub, I'm going in there while they may be doing work study or doing something like that, I can go in there, and I would talk to kids about how to look up scholarships. You know, what is a credit card? What is a credit report?

I was teaching [00:21:00] financial literacy- Mm ... to kids. Then what we end up doing, 'cause we saw that that was working, um, I would then come back and on Wednesdays for our mid-week days, instead of for me teaching, quote-unquote, the "Bible", I taught them life skills around finances.

Hala Taha: Oh, cool.

Anthony O'Neal: You know, teenagers wanna know how can I get a pair of Jordans at the time.

Mm-hmm. You know, how can I, how can I do this? What can I do? So Wednesdays was our life financial days, and Sundays was our biblical days. So when that started blowing up, man, I was getting calls from all kind of churches, from organizations, "Hey, can you come teach our students this?" Mm. And so then that was my journey to really build the talking, uh, I would say ministry and the talking platform around finances.

Mm. When I first joined Dave, I was the youth guy.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Then of course I evolved, got too old to be speaking to young people. Mm-hmm. And so with... That's, that's one thing that I did there is just really started my youth career around, um- And,

Hala Taha: and how long did you work at Ramsey Solutions? It's like- I was there for

Anthony O'Neal: six years, I think.

Yeah.

Hala Taha: Six years. Six years,

Anthony O'Neal: yeah.

Hala Taha: And then at some point you decided you wanted to go [00:22:00] out on your own. What was- For sure ... what was the moment where you were like, "All right. It's time for me to go independent. I wanna be an entrepreneur"?

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah. I think for me it was, uh, Dave and I both agreed... I, I grew a, such a hard passion, always had it, but just didn't really have it that well- That established, I would say.

But I, I have a, uh, heart for the minority community.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so I wanted to really learn more about some of our history, uh, to learn more about some of the struggles that we dealt with and some of the struggles we're still dealing with. And I'll never forget, I went back to my high school-

Hala Taha: Hmm ...

Anthony O'Neal: um, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and I looked around, and there was not one curriculum around financial literacy The, a- and our counselors are, you got five counselors to 3, 4,000 students.

They can't talk to every kid.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And I was like, wait a minute, we don't have access to certain things.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And, uh, and I [00:23:00] say this respectfully, but different cultures experience different things, and there's different messages for different cultures. And so I said, "You know what? I wanna do that." And, um, Dave and I and his t- his board agreed that it was just best for me just to do that, and they supported me in my transition, uh, because I really wanted to make sure that I can go back to the African American community, the minority community, and really speak our language to us-

Hala Taha: Hmm

Anthony O'Neal: to help us make some, some massive changes, which is important to me.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Help us understand the current situation of the African American community financially compared to other people in America. Like, how much worse is it?

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, man, it's, it's, it's interesting question. There's a stat that just came out here recently that from 2000 and, I would say, 2009 to 2017, um, the wealth gap didn't just stay, it got wider by $50,000.

Hala Taha: Whoa.

Anthony O'Neal: Right. So we're not talking about this happened in the '60s and the '70s. We're talking [00:24:00] about in during the internet boom, dur- during this time, uh, that the wealth gap even got wider.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And, and I think it's just because, one, the lack of information, the lack of access, um, and us really not really narrowing down and having the right plan.

Um, I have a lot of white friends and, and they be like, "Well, but do you want me to stop working?" I'm like, "Absolutely not."

Hala Taha: Yeah, no.

Anthony O'Neal: I don't want you to stop working because, I mean, that's important. And so my philosophy when I speak to my community is like, hey, w- I, we can't really close the wealth gap because if that's the case, then I gotta ask my friends to stop making money.

Mm-hmm. I don't want that. What we can do is focus on our family and narrow the wealth gap, meaning that Anthony O'Neal today, I'm thinking about my Black children, my Black great-grandchildren, and I'm putting in things so that way when they're born, they're already at 100,000, $200,000 of a head start- Hmm

rather than being at the negative when I graduated high school. Yeah. And so I wouldn't say it is worse. I would just say that we are behind. [00:25:00] Mm-hmm. And we gotta do some things on our end, um, to, to really close the n- the wealth gap, not close it, narrow it for our particular families.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, one of the first steps is to stop living paycheck to paycheck, which is- That's a

Anthony O'Neal: fact

Hala Taha: The, the, the theme of your new book.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hala Taha: Uh, how big of a problem is this? How many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck?

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah. I mean, it was just, just on the news yesterday, I was watching this, um, preparing to f- fly here, and, uh, CNBC, um, really touched my heart and said that, uh, right now their, their numbers, their data is just showing close to 62% of people-

Hala Taha: Hmm

Anthony O'Neal: are living paycheck to paycheck.

Hala Taha: Geez.

Anthony O'Neal: Right. So that means the majority of them. Um, when you're looking at the paycheck, what's hurting them, um, is going to be car insurance, interesting; debt, which I looked at that as unnecessary debt.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, and then the other one was just the cost of living of today.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And when you [00:26:00] really study that report, the, the average household is gonna be making in between 60 and $100,000 depending on where you are, right? And so it's really not the... It's really not because we lack income. It's, I believe it comes down to two things. Number one, uh, we're overspending in certain areas, right?

And then number two, we don't really just have an understanding of what to do. Hmm. When I really go back to myself, I was selling cars and I made $100,000 when I was 26.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, 27, I made 130,000. 28, the car dealership closed down, I was fired. I called my dad and my dad says, "Well, you should be straight, son.

Your rent is only $500." Mm-hmm. "You, you, you made at least 10, $15,000 a month. You should be straight." I opened up... I didn't open, I called the bank 'cause apps wasn't really a thing back then yet. [00:27:00] I had $400 to my name And it was because I didn't have access.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: I had the income.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Like, I think I didn't have access, and so for me- Access

Hala Taha: to information.

Anthony O'Neal: Exactly. I had access to income. I didn't have access on what do I do with this kind of money.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: But I was taking my money and going to strip clubs and doing all this type of stuff at a young age, and I really wasn't making the right decisions because, again, I was trying to be impressive.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And so I think for me, which is so funny, and which is why I can understand it, at 26, 27, I'm making the most money I've ever made in my life at the time, and I'm still living paycheck to paycheck.

Hala Taha: So what are the three things people should do once they receive their paycheck?

Anthony O'Neal: The very first thing that I tell everyone who receive their paycheck is before you even receive it, the very first thing you should do is have a plan for your money. People don't like the term budget, um, and I can understand that.

In my book, I call it have a vision meeting for your [00:28:00] money and sit down and tell your money what to do. Hmm. There was this viral, um, post that went around with a young lady. She was being interviewed on a podcast, and the podcaster asked her about budgeting, and she said, "You know, one of my friends, we invited her to go on this trip with us," and her friend didn't say yes or no.

Her friend said, "Let me go check my budget first." Hmm. Well, when she said that, her friend said, "We never even called her back." And the podcast host says, "Well, why didn't you call her back?" "Because I don't wanna be on a trip with someone who's counting every single penny."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I was like, well, that has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Yeah. Like, you don't wanna budget, you don't wanna steward, you don't wanna know what you're doing with your money. And so for me, I actually enjoy budgeting. Like, it is, it is fun today. Mm-hmm. Uh, because I get to tell myself, um, I'ma- I'm... You know what? I'ma save to buy my dream car. I just purchased an estate home, a big home, um, out in Maryland, and I've been saving because I knew eventually I [00:29:00] would like to have a home on a golf course.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so I was trying to wait until I got married. That didn't happen, so I just went and just bought me a wife. Anyways. Um, um, and so but for years I saved up for it, right? It was on my budget, and I love the fact that I'm able to sit down on paper, and sometimes when I'm really dreaming, I'll pull up the wall and I'll just write on my wall o- on a sheet of paper, and I'll say, "Okay, I wanna do this.

This is what I'm gonna do with my money this year. 2026, I wanna make this much money and pay myself this much money, and every single month, these are the categories- Hmm ... that I gotta cover." And I honestly get excited about it because when I go and, and drop money to be on a yacht, I'm not burdened by that because I gave myself permission to enjoy it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I already know when I got... when I get back, everything else is straight.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And it's also, like, visioning your future and plan- like, plan- making sure you get to do the things that you dream of doing.

Anthony O'Neal: That's, that's a fact, and it's like even on my budget- I have a line item on there for my, [00:30:00] my children who I haven't even met yet.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Every single month, I am setting aside money for them, and I see it getting bigger and bigger and bigger every single month.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: But that's because I'm budgeting. It's because I'm putting it on paper and I see it. And on the 27th, in between the 27th and the 29th of the month, I always take myself to Ruth Chris.

I get me a nice cocktail, and I sit there and I write out my budget for the next month.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Now, one of the ways that we can make sure that we're not living paycheck to paycheck- Mm ... is making more money.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, yeah.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And, uh, you talk about this thing called financial margin.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah.

Hala Taha: What is that?

Anthony O'Neal: Well, margin f- for me is, is your biggest wealth-building tool.

Everyone thinks that, oh my gosh, I need to make $100,000 to become a millionaire. No, no you don't. I know millionaires, and I mentor several, uh, athletes who make millions of dollars, right? And they are broke. They live paycheck to paycheck. [00:31:00] Mm-hmm. And one of the very first things when I'm sitting down with some of these athletes is, uh, and I'm just asking them the very first question, what is, what's your margin?

And I, I'm a professor at Virginia Union University in, uh, Richmond, v- uh, Virginia, and that's the very first thing that I, I write on the board on, on our very first day of class. I tell them, "Hey, listen, your biggest wealth-building tool is margin."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: It is not the salary that you're gonna get from your job.

And you'll be so surprised when I say margin, my students on day one do not know what the word margin means- Mm-hmm ... when it comes to finances. And by the end of our semester, they, they totally get it. But I think for me, that's one thing that I, I work on now is how can I create more margin in my business?

How can I create more margin in my own personal home?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And I, I, I have goals for my own personal... When I see my margins getting below this, like hold up, wait a minute, [00:32:00] what do I need to go back into my budget and fix so that way I'm not getting below this? Yeah. Because I wanna p- be prepared for what if, what if a brand deal says, "Hey, we don't, we no longer wanna partner- Mm-hmm

with you." Okay, cool, great. I have some margin within my income. Uh, I don't have to touch my emergency savings account, right? And so I think margin is just a solid, um, break in between your income, what you have coming in, and your outcome, what you have going out. And whatever's in between of that, that's where I play with and I invest and I strategize and I multiply.

Um, that is the tool that's gonna get me to... My goal is 50. When I turn 50, that's in eight years, um, I'm building a house in, um, Accra, Ghana. Mm. Uh, right now. Should be done by the end of this year. I wanna retire in Accra, Ghana, and the margin is going to be at a certain number inside of my portfolio, and I will live off of the interest- Mm

of that portfolio that my margin allowed me to have.

Hala Taha: So cool. I love this concept, 'cause [00:33:00] margin, we always think about it in business- Yeah ... but we don't actually look at our personal life and think margin. So what is, like, the practical way for people to figure out what their margin is? I know it seems like an easy question, but break it down

Anthony O'Neal: for people.

No, I mean, uh, uh, it's a easy, it's a easy question, but it's also not easy for people who really don't understand it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: So I think for an example, let's say if you have, uh, let's just go round number. If you have $5,000, right, of income, your net income, not gross. Net income coming in, you write that down.

And then you're gonna look down, and this is, uh, what we call a zero-based budget. You're gonna write down all of your expenses. And I, and I tell everyone, man, write down your student loans, write down your hair, write down your makeup- Mm-hmm ... write down your shoes, write down the apps that you're, you're...

Every single thing that you're spending money on. If you're in a church and you tithe and offerings- Yeah ... you gotta write that down as an expense. And then you will see, once you get done with that, before you get to zero, you will see how much money you have left. Mm. I call that [00:34:00] margin, and sometimes the majority of us are at negative.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Because we're overspending what we have coming in.

Hala Taha: Yeah. That's living above your means, basically. Ex- exactly.

Anthony O'Neal: That's exactly

Hala Taha: what that is. Yes.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah. So we're using, what, credit cards and payday loans and, and all type of stuff, and so I'm like, for me, that's how you can identify if you have margin. Margin is gonna build your net worth.

And if you are negative, then you gotta go back to your budget and you gotta figure out, okay, wait- Can I cut? And sometimes, a lot of times honestly, you can't cut nothing else.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Which goes back to what you said earlier, we gotta get some more income coming in.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, and so but if you have, let's say 5,000 and you have let's say, uh, $3,500 going out, this means that you have $1,500 in margin.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: So now you understand that, cool, great. Now on the paper, on your budget, go back and say, "How am I going to invest and spend this $1,500?"

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And this is what I tell everyone, man. I think for [00:35:00] years, I, I grew the, I grew the pr- uh, I would say people thought that I was very strict. Mm. Um, and I think that with that margin, you have to determine how much of that do you just wanna spend and enjoy.

Because I do believe that there has to be a moment and some time and resources in our life that we can just spend money on whatever we wanna spend it on-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Anthony O'Neal: and enjoy life.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Because every single day, the majority of us are getting up every day working hard- Mm-hmm ... sun up to sun down. You're an entrepreneur.

We don't, we, we can't work 8:00 to 5:00. Yeah. Sometimes we gotta work 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, right? And so I want to enjoy my life.

Hala Taha: Especially while we're young and we can do the fun things, right? That's a fact. Go traveling and everything like that. Yes. So we want it, but that means that we need to make sure that while we're young, we have a big enough margin, right, to do what we need to do.

Anthony O'Neal: A- and I just think this generation has the opportunity to do some things that, um, our parents and great-grandparents could not do.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: You know, I think we can get to [00:36:00] margin quicker.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, um, all of my mentees who I mentor, um, they all sign a contract and an agreement with me, uh, that they will maintain a certain amount of margin.

And, uh, we just had one young guy, he is 26, started with me four years ago. Uh, he graduated college, got a job making about $62,000, and he's, he went back home He saved 1,380 a month-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Anthony O'Neal: every single month. Um, and he did some extra things on the side. He's 26, just bought a home, put down $100,000, paid cash for a BMW, still has six figures inside of his account, and has a job now paying him about $82,000.

Hala Taha: Nice.

Anthony O'Neal: And he's, he's 26.

Hala Taha: Amazing.

Anthony O'Neal: So now he understands it, and we laugh all the time because he's like, "Man, everyone thinks because I had this BMW and I have this town [00:37:00] home, that I'm just gonna be balling out like that," and they still don't understand. I'm like, "No, no." Because he values traveling.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: He values going to play basketball with his big brother, um, overseas.

So he can take off work for two weeks and go, go do that because he has the resources and the funds to do it. So- Mm-hmm ... I think this generation just has so much freedom that I didn't have, um, growing up, uh, and which I love though- Yeah ... 'cause now I'm able to utilize it.

Hala Taha: Let's stick on margin a bit. So when we have our margin- Mm-hmm

I'm assuming some of it goes to emergency savings- Yeah ... some of it goes to investing- Yes ... some of it goes to debt. Yes. Is, is that right? Am, am I missing anything? For

Anthony O'Neal: sure. I mean, here's my thing. If you have consumer debt, 90% of it should be going towards your consumer debt.

Hala Taha: Got it.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? Okay. Um, and then I would even say if you have consumer debt, this is where I differ from the guru himself, Dave, um, I do believe that you still should be maximizing on your 401match.

Mm-hmm. If they're giving you [00:38:00] a match, if, let's say if it's 3%, well, take some of your margin and give them 3% of your margin- Mm-hmm ... uh, to, to do that. But let me rewind. If you're drowning in debt, you really don't have margin, right? And so you need to utilize as much as the extra cash that, that's not going to mandatory bills, you need to utilize that to get you out of consumer debt.

Hala Taha: Got it. So c- uh, pay off your consumer debt- Yes ... and then you can focus on margin.

Anthony O'Neal: Absolutely.

Hala Taha: Got it.

Anthony O'Neal: Absolutely.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, yeah.

Hala Taha: Cool. And then how much of that do you think should go towards savings versus investing?

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, so for me, I, I don't really have a certain amount, I have an amount that you should land on.

I believe that we should be at at least six months of our net pay inside of an emergency account.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, and the reason why that is because it's taken, on average, about 90 days, 90 to about 120 days, for someone to lose their job to get a new job.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so I want you to be comfortable and not have to change your lifestyle at all for those 90 days.

Because what studies are showing is that if [00:39:00] we, um, can operate off of our slow mind, we make better decisions. If I only have $1,000, right, to my name, and I just got fired-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Anthony O'Neal: I gotta operate off of my fast mind.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And that's when we tend to make the wrong decisions. And so for me, when I can just still be Anthony O'Neal and not stress, man, I'm, I'ma sit down, I'ma call you, "Hey, sis, I just, I thought, well, what do you think I should do?"

You know, because I have time to think, to process- Yeah,

Hala Taha: you're not, you're not just like-

Anthony O'Neal: I'm

Hala Taha: not stressed ... do- making, like, you know, crazy moves- Exactly ... that are gonna put you in a bad situation.

Anthony O'Neal: That's it. Yeah. And so I think six months. After six months, um, I say, uh, in my book, and I talk about this, some people may disagree with it, you should invest up to 22%- Mm

of your income. 22% of your income is gonna be 10% to tithe and offerings if you are practicing Christian, and then right around, uh, 12 to 15%, um, into, you know, investment accounts and portfolios.

Hala Taha: Nice. [00:40:00] Okay. So let's say you're a high income earner. A lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs. This is an entrepreneurship show.

Anthony O'Neal: Dope.

Hala Taha: And some of us are making millions of dollars a year. Yeah, yeah. And we have a lot of income. So for me, for example, if I was to save six months of my income, that's a lot of cash.

Anthony O'Neal: Good.

Hala Taha: And, like, would you want me to put that in a high yield savings account or, or- For sure ... or is stocks considered okay?

Or what-

Anthony O'Neal: No.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Anthony O'Neal: No, y- I need you to keep it liquid, you know? We're, we're blessed to do, you know, a lot of money as well, and I honestly have a year I have a year because of my expenses. Um, I still have a mortgage, so I still have debt. I don't really believe in the term good debt, bad debt. Mm-hmm. I have debt, uh, that's on an asset, right?

And so, um, I wanted to make sure that I have enough money to pay my mortgages- Mm-hmm ... right? 'Cause I have more than one. I have rental properties as well. Um, and then I can still play golf, right? I can [00:41:00] still do whatever I wanna do. So when I say your net pay, your net pay should be able to cover every single thing.

Hmm. So I keep that part into a high-yield savings account. Okay. There are several out there that's, if you have more than six figures, let's say for an example- Mm-hmm ... you can get up to, uh, about 5.5 to

Hala Taha: 6% on some of that. Ooh, which one? Um- 'Cause AMEX, I just ha- I was putting it in American Express and it just reduced it from, like, five and a half to three and a half or something like that.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. F- when I opened up mines, I was with Bank Purely.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Anthony O'Neal: And it was offering 5.7.

Hala Taha: Nice.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, I haven't checked them lately because I don't look at that account.

Hala Taha: Yeah. That's just-

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, I just, I don't even wanna see that money ... rainy day money. Yeah. Right? You know? I know it's there. I don't even have a card to that account.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, I just know that it's there, and if I ever have an emergency, then boom, I can go to it. But I haven't seen that account, honestly, in maybe about four years.

Hala Taha: Nice.

Anthony O'Neal: I just put the money in there and, and I let it sit there. Uh, but I, I get that a lot of people, especially in our bracket, they're fearful to let their money sit there liquid.

Totally. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Because it, they say it's [00:42:00] not growing. But in today's economy- You need some funds liquid- Mm-hmm ... to make sure that you're prepared for when the storm is coming.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Because I, uh, it's coming. I mean, I've been doing this now on my own going on for now six years.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? And there's been some months that my business did not make any money.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: There's been some months that my business made a little bit of money, right? And so because I had the funds liquid, I was able to pay my staff and my team and just didn't take a check for myself.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And just lived off of my savings, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah. So important for entrepreneurs whose- For

Anthony O'Neal: sure ...

Hala Taha: income is always fluctuating and everything like that.

Yes, yes.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a, um... It's, it's bad management, and it's not really good entrepreneurship if your personal life is not taken care of. The reason why I can focus on my business and really excel in my business is because I know personally I'm g- I'm covered.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And this is what I tell all the entrepreneurs.

Never go into your personal income to fund your business. Mm. I will let my [00:43:00] business go before I pull from my personal.

Hala Taha: Why?

Anthony O'Neal: Because my personal is my life. That's my livelihood. You know, that's my family. So I'm not gonna take money from my family to fund, I hate to say it like this, someone else's family.

Mm. No. Hey, I teach it to my staff. When yous first join my team, save money, bro. Because if I have to shut this down to protect my family, I'm gonna do that.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? And so I'm not gonna pull money out of that to go save this, because your business account should already have an emergency account.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: So we have an emergency fund.

If I have to use all that for some odd reason, I'm not gonna pull from my wife and my children to go fund this just to make payroll.

Hala Taha: In the beginning, though, you might wanna save up money to bootstrap your company.

Anthony O'Neal: For sure. I mean, for sure.

Hala Taha: And then at a certain point, you're like, okay, the... That's what happened to me.

Yeah. At a certain point, I was like, "Okay, the business needs to, like, work on its own now." For

Anthony O'Neal: sure.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, in the beginning, you should be your number one investor.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, but if we're talking about entrepreneurship and we've made millions-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Anthony O'Neal: and [00:44:00] we still don't have an emergency account- Yeah, that's-

on that account.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, no. Uh, uh, you, you unfortunately made a bad decision. Mm-hmm. And so I do not, I will not do that. And that was just one thing that my mentors told me. They said, "Hey, man." For those f- that first year when I stepped out on my own, man, I paid myself a very small fee. Um, and I put... I was so fearful, 'cause I was like, "Hey, man, entrepreneurship is not easy."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And what you don't wanna do is build this, make all this money, and then you gotta rob from your future family just to make payroll. Mm. It's like, man, you need to have X amount of dollars sitting inside of a high yield savings account, not invested yet, and then really start building things. 'Cause I har- I already had the savings account on this, and I was about to pull money out of my emergency savings account to fund the business.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And my mentor told me, "No."

Hala Taha: Let's talk about making more margin. Mm. Which one, one of the ways that we can do that is by [00:45:00] taking a second job, becoming an entrepreneur where there's no ceiling. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And something really interesting that I heard you say is that you wouldn't advise people taking a high six-figure job, like a 350K job a year.

Mm. You wouldn't advise doing that because it's kind of like golden handcuffs, right?

Anthony O'Neal: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, if, if I pay... If you come work for me and I'm paying you 150, and you don't pick up the phone call at, at 7:30 at night talking about you was with your husband, I'll be like, "No, ma'am, I pay you too much money for that."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so my suggestion, right, for if we're speaking to your audience, right? Yeah. Um, the... We are in a unique time.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: I think within the next five to 10 years, we're gonna see a major wealth transfer happening. And I, I had the opportunity to sit down with, um, the president of the Black Chambers in, uh, Washington, DC, and just listening to him talk, I was like, wait a minute.

Okay. For an example, we're living in a day and time to where people who know how to work AI, they're, they're gonna get some [00:46:00] good jobs.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: For sure, right? But AI can't touch the AC companies. AI can't touch roofing. Mm-hmm. AI can't touch plumbing. And so what I'm telling these young guys coming out, I'm like, "Hey, man, if I was you, I would go work for a trade company, learn the trade-" Yeah

right? Do that on the side and start your business. Because AI can't come in there and figure out why is it not getting cold. They can help you with some coding, lets you figure out, okay, this is the problem, but you gotta actually go in there and fix it. And we're in Austin. It's 98 degrees- Yeah, it's hot

here right now, right? So we know houses are running that AC and a AC unit is going out. And so I think when it comes to margining and growing more margin, if I'm an entrepreneur right now, and let's say I have a little bit of margin that I can invest, I'm going to go buy a AC company. I'm looking at any kind of trades that requires physical hands, and I'm going to talk to that 80-year-old, 90-year-old owner and say, "Hey, can I [00:47:00] come work with you for a year or two- Mm-hmm

and buy this company from you?"

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Now that when I buy this company, man, one of my friends just did that. Company was making maybe about $700,000 a year. He, He added in new technology, brought in AI to run and to handle the other stuff. Last year, I think he told me he made, like, 1.3.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: His investment in it was...

I think he said he paid one for it, one million for the business. I'm like, wait a minute, okay. So even if you can't buy it, if you need to make extra income, man, I would be working in that field right now because that's where a lot of... Nobody really wants to go out there in the heat. Nobody wants to do the plumbing.

And so a lot of people. And I, I will say this, and people may disagree with me, but I'll say it. I think that's probably the quickest way to become a net worth millionaire.

Hala Taha: Right now, is to, to go into, um, trade work.

Anthony O'Neal: Absolutely, because everybody wants to sit up in a AC and just do coding a- and figure out AI- Yeah

and do automations and stuff like that. [00:48:00] Mm-hmm. Great. I think that world is gonna be saturated.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: I'm always looking for, if-- When I, when I'm doing my stuff, right? Uh, and I'm always trying to find different avenues. I'm saying, "What is the void and how can I fill it?" Even if it's unattractive, even if it looks horrible, if it's a void and I can fill it, oh, I'm gonna make a lot of money.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Because nobody else wants to do it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And because nobody else wants to do it, I can charge a premium price.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: But now everybody's in AI automations.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Everybody's coming out with this AI something, something. Wait a minute. Well, why should I go with you? Let me go... It's saturated. I can go to her and go to him.

I can go to her and get the best quote, boom. But n- but there's not a lot of trade companies out there.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And so I really believe that if someone really wants to get some extra c- cash real quick, I'm looking into trade.

Hala Taha: Hmm. When I first started my company, YAP Media, I actually was working for Disney.

Anthony O'Neal: Hmm.

Hala Taha: And I had my podcast already, and I started building my [00:49:00] social media and podcast agency on the side. Okay. I had international employees, and I would finish work, and I would work on my social media business at night.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah.

Hala Taha: And within six months, I was making over six figures a month. Wow. And I quit my job and, uh, you know, became a full-time entrepreneur.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah.

Hala Taha: But those six months were amazing-

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: because it was COVID time, so, like, I, I was working from home.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, yeah.

Hala Taha: And I was, like, able to kind of build this new thing on the side. Mm-hmm. And it was because I was getting paid a little bit over six figures, but I wasn't, like, an executive yet. Yeah. If I was getting paid $300,000 a year, I would've felt like Disney's my identity, I've gotta do everything for this company, and I wouldn't have dared started anything on the side.

So it was sort of like- Right ... a blessing to have, like kind of like a lower level job so I could start my own thing.

Anthony O'Neal: I, I think that is what I said on that clip. I'm like, "Hey, if you're looking at this being your forever situation, I understand." But I never really looked at something and said, "I'm gonna [00:50:00] be here forever."

Mm. I've always looked at something to where I'm gonna be a good steward while I'm here, I'm gonna serve, I'm gonna grow, I'm gonna learn, and then step out eventually and do my own thing.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I, I would advise that to anybody, man. If you can get you a job that's paying you 80 grand, 90 grand a year, and you can live way below your means and come home every single day, 8:00 to 5:00 you work for them, 5:00 to 9:00 you work for yourself- Yep

um, you, you will excel, and I believe you'll even pass- Yeah ... your goals and your dreams one day.

Hala Taha: Now I'm making, like, at least five times more than my VP was making at Disney, you know? Like, making so much more than I would've if I just stayed on that corporate track.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah. I agree with you.

Hala Taha: So, so-

Anthony O'Neal: And it feels good.

Hala Taha: It does feel good.

Anthony O'Neal: It feels good.

Hala Taha: But you also have to be giving, right? As an entrepreneur-

Anthony O'Neal: Absolutely ...

Hala Taha: you were saying as a Christian that you're- Yeah ... you're very generous. Yeah. You even teach that, that you should give before you even in, start investing.

Anthony O'Neal: For sure. Um, I think generosity is one of the best kept, [00:51:00] um, I can't say wealth secrets, because every wealthy individual, even, uh, Dave, you had him on.

Mm-hmm. Um, I've never seen a more generous entrepreneur outside of Dave Ramsey.

Hala Taha: Yeah, he's the best.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, you know? And I believe... I'm like, "Okay, wait, wait, wait. If he's doing it, my parents, super generous- Mm-hmm ... at their income level." I'm like, "Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait." And I've never seen my dad frown. I've never seen him miss a mortgage payment.

I've never seen him, like, go broke. And what I've learned with all of the individuals who are generous, yeah, they're at different levels, right- Mm-hmm ... income-wise, but they have so much joy in their life. And I said, "Okay." And, and a true story, when I first, uh, transitioned out on my own, um, you know, of course my paycheck stopped.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so for the first three months, I didn't make any money, but every single month I still gave away. I paid myself out of my savings, [00:52:00] and I gave away 10%.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Before I paid my mortgage, before I did anything else, I gave 10% away.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I just believe, whether you believe in God or believe in universe, I'm a God-fearing man, and so I believe that God said, "You know what?

Anthony's being faithful with the few. Let me bless him with more." And I was like, "Okay." And so when I started noticing that my income was going up, and when my income would go flat, maybe sometimes down for a season, like for us in the money space, that June, July, August, that's when our, our money tends to go down.

Mm-hmm. Then it goes back down right around November and December because everyone is going for Christmas. I've never skipped a beat. I've never missed a payroll. I've never been able to not do what I wanna do. Um, and so our CFO, she understands that every single month, uh, we give away 10%, and specifically within our company, we give away 10% to single [00:53:00] mothers.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, and we just love it. We've, we've bought a single mother a car before. Sometimes we put it on social, sometimes we don't. But I just really do believe that if you're generous, it acts, it activates the spiritual realm for me. Mm-hmm. And I believe that is the greatest multiplier, quicker than stocks, bonds, real estate, because if God can trust me- Yeah

with this amount, then he'll enlarge my territory, and that's what I love.

Hala Taha: I totally agree with that. I'm actually 100% Palestinian.

Anthony O'Neal: Oh.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I love this. And so, um- I feel a lot of guilt because I'm like, "Oh, I should, like, use my platform to be an activist," but I already started my career- Mm ... before a lot of this happened.

Mm-hmm. And so something that I did is that I started a charity project called For Peace Media.

Facts.

And I donate, at first it was more, but now it's 10% of my sponsorship money every month. There you go. And I bas- and I basically just fund this project, and it's a whole other platform that basically speaks out [00:54:00] about human rights- Yeah

and things like that.

Yes.

And it does make me feel like I'm getting rewarded for doing that. And, and it helps me, like, mentally think about everything that I do, it, like, has a purpose, and the bigger that I get, the more impact that I'll make on the world, so. No,

Anthony O'Neal: that's a, that's a fact. Listen, uh, me and you are the same way, right?

And so I was like, "Man, I don't want to be, um, Black power on my show- Mm-hmm ... uh, with all the stuff that has happened," and so I did the same thing too. I started a nonprofit, and we donate to that, um, and we donate to that that creates and donates to some of the other causes out there, uh, because I, I, I wanna be a blessing to everybody.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, but I also understand that I am an African American male in the United States of America, and there are some issues that need to be corrected. That battle is mine, but I fight it differently. I fight it with my resources.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And I've funded, and people don't really know where Anthony stands- Mm-hmm

uh, [00:55:00] because I respect and love everybody. But I, I think what you're doing, man, keep doing that.

Hala Taha: Thank you.

Anthony O'Neal: You know? And there's nothing wrong with that because we all gotta, we all gotta do it. I like that. Yeah. I like, I like her even more. Is that my camera right there? I like her even more now, y'all.

Hala Taha: Aw, thank you.

Thank you. Um, okay. So I want to play to, play a little game with you.

Anthony O'Neal: Okay, we're gonna play a game.

Hala Taha: Yeah, we're gonna play a game. I love games. But it looks like I gotta get my other- Yes ... document out here.

Anthony O'Neal: Let's do it

Hala Taha: You're gonna play a game. There we go Okay. We're gonna talk about... So in your book, you talk about escape plans.

Anthony O'Neal: Yes.

Hala Taha: Okay, and there's different stages. We don't have time to go over all the stages. Yes,

Anthony O'Neal: ma'am.

Hala Taha: But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you a scenario, and you're gonna tell me what is the next step that the person should do.

Anthony O'Neal: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay. So person in the scenario, what is the next step that they should do?

Okay. Okay. Somebody earns $90,000 a year-

Anthony O'Neal: Mm-hmm ...

Hala Taha: but has no idea where the paycheck goes each month. Hmm. What, what do they do? [00:56:00]

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, the very first thing is they gotta lay down the foundation. That's the very first thing. So, uh, that's phase one. So within our, my philosophy, right, is if you're making $90,000 and you have no idea where it's going, you need to step back and look at, okay, what am I doing with this money?

Um, one of my friends, I talk about this inside the book, she is a ER doctor, and, uh, she said one of her biggest complaints is that people will come in to see her. She- I, I forgot a correct term for it, but she's like stage two, like, gunshot wounds. It's something major. She goes and she deals with that, and she says, "The very first thing they ask me or the family asks me is to fix them."

And she said, "That's the wrong ask."

Hala Taha: Hmm. "

Anthony O'Neal: Because if I go in there thinking I'm fixing them, I could honestly kill this individual. The very first thing I, I, I gotta get him stable or get her stable, get her heart pumping without us having to pump the heart." Hmm. "Once I get you stable, then I can go in there [00:57:00] and assess what is wrong with you, what happened, how do we fix it?"

Hmm. And I think that's what we gotta do. If you got $90,000 and you don't know what's going on, okay, wait, we need to get you stable. And stabling is, all right, very first thing is you need to set aside at least one month of your net pay.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Anthony O'Neal: So that way you know exactly where one month of your money is going.

Then from there, we gotta sit down and look at your budget. If you don't know where it's going, what are you spending it on? Okay, well, what's your mortgage? You know, how much money are you spending on clothes? What's your transportation looking like? What's your food looking like? Do you have childcare, right?

Like, what, what's going on with your children over there? Let's lay down the priorities, and let's put everything honestly on the table, and I think this is where people mess up at. They're not honest with themselves. They guess. Yeah. No. Go pull up your last three months of your bank statements. Go pull up the last three months of your credit card statements.

Go pull up all of your credit reports, all three of them, and put it on the table and put the truth before you. Mm-hmm. Because we cannot fix [00:58:00] what we refuse to look at.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So

Anthony O'Neal: true. And so I- that's the very first thing I would do, uh, for that scenario.

Hala Taha: So good. A family invests consistently- Hmm ... but they don't have a will, trust, or life insurance.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, so that means your, your legacy is not cement. It, it's not, it's not locked in, right? Mm-hmm. And so we talk about this in phase five, that I believe that, um, everybody should be focusing on building a legacy.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? And so, um, it just happened to me, it just snapped it on me personally five years ago- Um, I was investing, got no consumer debt, making a lot of money.

Um, and I woke up one morning feeling guilty that I did not have a trust. Mm. I didn't have a will. And I felt convicted that if I was to die today Because I have a unique situation, four parents, two siblings-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Anthony O'Neal: um, a staff that depends on me, that my family would argue over what I want-

Hala Taha: [00:59:00] Yeah ...

Anthony O'Neal: and what I wanted them to do with my resources.

So I literally woke up, called my attorney and said, "Hey, I need to put an estate plan together. I need to get a will, I need to get a trust." And w- you know what's so funny is all of them was like, "Are you okay?"

Hala Taha: What's about to happen?

Anthony O'Neal: Right. It's like, "Do you need to tell us something?" And it's so sad that people think when we start talking about wills and trusts and medical power of attorneys and stuff like that, that something's wrong.

Like, we need to change the narrative. Like no, life can just happen. I mean, w- we, we see it all over the news, um, every single day, that you can think you're going somewhere, you can think you're gonna go back to sleep, and life can just happen. And I didn't want life to just happen to me without it being clear of what I want to do.

And so I put together my trust, my will, my power of attorneys, um, and even, watch this, I moved all of my beneficiaries to the trust.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: So that way, when it goes to probate [01:00:00] court, it, it won't be as expensive for my family.

Hala Taha: Is there, like, a certain, like, milestone where people should be considering having a will and a trust?

No. Is it, like, an income level, or is it when you have kids?

Anthony O'Neal: No, no.

Hala Taha: Like, how old do you c- recommend people do this at? As soon

Anthony O'Neal: as you have a job.

Hala Taha: Really?

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, uh, 'cause there's layers to it, right? And so if you're 22 years old, just got a job making 30,000, $35,000 a year, you got an apartment, you got a car, uh, start the process because here's why.

Yes, you may not have a lot-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Anthony O'Neal: right? But you're building the habit for yourself. Yeah. And that's what I want you to do. So if you get a basic will, man, put on there, "Mom, Dad, hey, don't be crying at my w- at my funeral. You know, have a choir and sing some happy songs." Like, whether it's just something small, cool, great, but then as you get older, wiser, making more money, have more assets, have more things, then it's honestly gonna be even a bit cheaper for you just to go back and to add things to it rather than start from scratch from brand new.

And [01:01:00] so- Mm-hmm ... um, I, I tell everyone inside my book, the very first thing is, um, in phase one, as you're getting, you know, stable, hey, yes, go ahead and get a basic will, get a basic trust, right? And then build on it as your assets and have you ha- and as you have more income.

Hala Taha: Mm. Okay, this one's about debt.

Anthony O'Neal: Uh-oh.

Hala Taha: A couple has $40,000 in consumer debt, and I'd love for you to explain to us, 'cause we said it a bunch, like, what does consumer debt even mean?

Anthony O'Neal: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And only $500 in savings. What should they do?

Anthony O'Neal: They have $40,000 in debt and only $500 in savings? Oh, man. Do they have income?

Hala Taha: Let's say they're making 100 grand together a year.

Anthony O'Neal: Okay, that's good. That's average. That's mid- that's middle, middle class. About, for the, um... I'd say about 83,000 for the middle class individual household income, $40,000 in debt, $500 in savings. Okay, cool, great. Very first thing I'm gonna tell you is consumer debt, to me, is anything [01:02:00] that is requiring me to spend money on a liability, right?

And then, uh, debt that I have is anything that is gonna be on an asset, um, like land, real estate, right?

Hala Taha: So house, car, is that... Is car-

Anthony O'Neal: I would not say car is a, is a, is a asset.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Anthony O'Neal: No, no, no. I, I have not financed a car in years. Um, but that is a, um... Oh, I'm sorry.

Hala Taha: Oh, that's okay.

Hala Taha: um. Okay. So we were talking about the couple has $40,000 in debt, only $500 in savings. Yes.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, yeah. So, so yes, to answer your question, a car is not, um, that, that would be for me considered consumer debt.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Anthony O'Neal: Some people say, "Well, wait a minute. If I'm using it for Uber, it's, it's still consumer debt," right? Mm-hmm. It's not an asset, uh, because it depreciates, right? So I think a car is one of the worst things you can actually borrow money for, respectfully saying that. Um, but for me, if I'm the couple, I'm making $100,000 a year, I have $40,000 in debt, and I only have $500 in savings, the very first thing I'm doing is I'm gonna put at least one month of my family's net pay inside of the savings.

So that's for me and my wife. If my wife makes 2,500 and I make 2,500, we putting $5,000 for an example- Mm ... inside that account.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Then [01:04:00] from there, I'm sitting down with my wife and we're gonna list out all of the debt. Now, there's two type of ways. Some financial advisors argue with me all, all the time on this one, uh, but this is where I align with Dave.

I'm going to look at all my debt and I'm gonna line it all up from smallest to largest when it comes to the amount, not to the interest payments.

Hala Taha: And that's debt snowball- The

Anthony O'Neal: debt snowball- ... strategy, right? Right. Yeah. Okay. So I, I'm not a fan of the debt avalanche. Now, let's be honest, the debt avalanche does make sense.

Hala Taha: That's starting with the biggest. The

Anthony O'Neal: biggest interest rate- Yeah ... down to the smallest, right? Which

Hala Taha: makes sense 'cause you would save money, I guess, over time, right?

Anthony O'Neal: Well, if you do the math, yes. But if, if my interest rate is 28% on a $30,000 loan, yeah, no, I, I'ma pay this, this payment and I'm not gonna see it go down.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so, um, we see success when people can honestly see quick wins. Um, I am, uh, in the process of getting my AFC, uh, for a financial counselor, and one of the [01:05:00] things they tell us is the one of the best things you can do is identify a quick win-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Anthony O'Neal: for your, your client. And so if we can get people to see quick wins, man, they'll get through that debt snowball very quickly.

Hala Taha: 'Cause it's a behavior thing.

Anthony O'Neal: It's a behavior thing. It's a habit thing. And they can see it, they can see their, the fruit of their labor and their sacrifices and their hard work. They can see, "I'm gonna say no to McDonald's today for my family and go cook at home, and we're gonna take this money and put it on this debt."

They see the payment go down. Mm. So it creates this momentum and excitement, um, and I think that's what I would do for them. I'm getting on the debt snowball method. And watch this. Let me go deeper. You said family.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Mom and Dad need to have a conversation with the kids and let them know, like, "Hey- We are in debt, and we wanna make sure that you, you understand of why we may not be able to go to Pizza Hut-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Anthony O'Neal: this weekend. Why, um, we may not be able to cer- do certain things as a family. Mm. Because we want to make sure [01:06:00] that when you graduate high school, that we can give you a check, that we can help pay for school.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And not just do it behind closed doors. Bring children in-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Anthony O'Neal: uh, because they need to understand about money earlier on, and let them help.

"Hey, go cut some grass."

Hala Taha: Mm. "

Anthony O'Neal: And if you make $100 from cutting grass, you're gonna contribute $15 to this."

Hala Taha: Yeah. And now when the parents say no, the budget is the bad guy, not the parents.

Anthony O'Neal: And that's the thing, too, when it comes to marriage, man. Uh, uh, being a single person, I'm not qualified to give dating advice, right?

But I have a lot of married people come to me, and when they come to me with money arguments, what I've... I would say about 70% of the time It is not really money arguments, it's just a lack of a clear, defined vision- Mm-hmm ... for the finances of the family. Mm-hmm. She has her own vision for the money. He has his own vision for the money.

And so my philosophy is this, w- no matter what you said, if we sit down as a couple and as a family and say, "This is our vision for the family. [01:07:00] Son, you wanna go to school?" "Yes, sir." "Uh, you wanna go to school debt-free, taking no student loans?" "Yes, sir." "Cool, great. Mom, what you want? Wife, what you want?" Boom.

"Husband, Father, what you want?" Boom. Great, we put it on the table. Here's our b- goals, here's our vision. Now, when son comes to me and says, "Can I have this?" You don't gotta ask me, just ask the vision.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: If, if my wife came to me and said, "Babe, I know we got the money." Okay, cool, great. But does that, if we buy that, does it stop us from accomplishing the vision that we set out for?

Yeah. Now it goes back to what you said. I don't have to tell my wife no. The vision told my wife no. Mm-hmm. My wife doesn't have to tell me no. The vision told me no. Yeah. And so I think that's very, very important for a family, that if you are in that amount of debt and you have that little bit of resources, the very first thing I'm doing is I'm getting money inside of that, and I'm sitting down, I'm getting a clear vision.

'Cause if you aim at something, you can get close to that or hit the target, but if you aim at nothing-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Anthony O'Neal: you gonna hit that all the time.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I wanna move into relationship [01:08:00] advice, uh- Okay ... financial advice. Okay. But first I wanna talk about the debt snowball- Yeah ... because I never really understood what it meant, and then I did learn, and it was pretty interesting.

Yeah. Like, basically, you start with the smallest amount-

Anthony O'Neal: Right ...

Hala Taha: you pay that off- Mm-hmm ... and then you take, you go tackle the next one, and you roll in whatever you would've spent on the smallest amount-

Anthony O'Neal: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm ...

Hala Taha: on the next debt payment.

Anthony O'Neal: Yes. Yeah.

Hala Taha: So it kinda makes it easier, because you're already used to s- spending that money, right?

Anthony O'Neal: Absolutely. So what happens is, let's say you have three items. One of them is, uh, $25 a month, the next one is $50 a month, and let's say the next one is $100 a month. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make all the minimum payments on all of them. I'm paying that 25, right? But then the debt snowball really works when you can make extra money and put it on top of the very first one.

Mm. So let's say you go look at your budget, you're already paying $25 here, $50 here, $100 there, but let's say you found a extra, you t- you turned off Netflix, you turned off Spotify, you turned off some extra things, you got a extra- Mm-hmm ... $25- Yeah ... just for simple math. Well, I'm [01:09:00] already paying $25. I'm not gonna spend this $25 on food.

I'm gonna take this $25 and put it on top of the first 25. Mm-hmm. Now I'm paying 50. Okay, now I'm paying my regular bills. Now when this one gets done, I have $50 over here that I was paying.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Anthony O'Neal: Now I'm gonna take this 50, I'm gonna put it on top on the next 50 for the- Mm-hmm ... account number two.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Now I'm paying $100, right?

And, and I think that's the secret to the debt snowball. It,

Hala Taha: like, gamifies it a bit.

Anthony O'Neal: For sure, right? And then I'm just, I'm just a guy to where, man, when I was getting out of debt, I was calling them. I would say, "Hey, listen, you know, I got, I got some extra money. Can I put it towards principal? Can I, can I cut a deal with you?

Can I, can I get out of this quicker?" Mm-hmm. Like, I wanna pay you back this money ASAP. Yeah. Um, I, I, I got excited. I got so excited too that I think ladies back then when I was dating, they didn't like me because I just would not spend any money. Wouldn't

Hala Taha: spend any money on

Anthony O'Neal: them? I wouldn't do it 'cause I'm like, well, if I...

Dang it, I took- Well, you

Hala Taha: gotta invest in your girl too, right?

Anthony O'Neal: Hey, man, listen. Listen, man, when I was getting out of debt, man, I, [01:10:00] back then in them days, it was Denny's. Um, we would go to Denny's. Sometimes we'd go to IHOP. And I was like, "Yo, I can't do it," you know? So I would literally go back to the crib. I'll make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I remember taking a young lady on a date to the beach, and I had, uh, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some Cheetos, um, and some Kool-Aid, and brought a blanket, and we had a blast. I mean, we, we didn't, we didn't last too long, but- But I mean, I, I think for me it was, I was s- I saw the fruit of me working two, three jobs at that time.

I saw my money actually making a impact on my life. Mm-hmm. And for the first time in my life working that, I saw freedom. Yeah. I didn't see more money. I saw like, wait, wait, wait. I could really be free here.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And- Well, you learned your lesson, 19 years old, right? For

Anthony O'Neal: sure. But shouldn't- And I learned it again at 23, and then learned it again.

Is that- Yeah. When I finally got it, I was like, "Wait- I, I could really be free, and I could be the first family, I could be the first person in my family-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Anthony O'Neal: to have freedom. [01:11:00] I love that. And that meant a lot to me, more than having a girlfriend and more than impressing people, because I knew that with me being a man, I gotta provide for my family.

And, and I don't want to tell my children I can't buy them shoes because I was at IHOP and Denny's years ago.

Hala Taha: Mm. I love that. Okay, so speaking about family, uh, relationships- Say it ... how do you feel about prenups?

Anthony O'Neal: Oh, man, you know, uh, s- such a funny c- um, conversation. I feel as if prenups for a certain net worth, certain people, um, is, is wise.

I think prenups are good, right? Um, but I mean, if you're coming into something, you got nothing and she got nothing and you got nothing- Yeah ... mm-mm.

Hala Taha: I feel like that's the best, but so many of us are older and-

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: not in that situation. Yeah, yeah,

Anthony O'Neal: yeah. You know, my attorney, he told me, he was like, "Anthony, when you get married, uh, I'm not letting you get married without a prenup."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: And, uh, the Christian side of me was like, "What? Nah, no. You're crazy, man. Man, I'm not getting into this expecting it." Yeah. He said, "Yeah, but 52% of marriages are [01:12:00] not working." Yeah. He said, "And out of all of the couples who come to me, they were in love day one. Uh, but the truth of the fact is we're all dating a different human being, and you never know."

Um, and um, I can say this respectfully without saying too many names, but someone in my family, I would've never thought they was going through a divorce. They're going through a divorce today. Mm. And it is Uh, it, it is emotional. I cried one night-

Hala Taha: Aw ...

Anthony O'Neal: uh, because 42 years of marriage and the hell that she's having to go through, the bills that comes with it- Mm-hmm

um, it's not, it's, it's just not fair. And because of their situation, it's looking like, uh, this particular family member will have to pay him something.

Hala Taha: Oh my gosh.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah. And so I'm like, "Yeah, no, you ain't about to get me at, at this age- Yeah ... with that." So I think that it, it, it should be a healthy conversation that both parties bring to each other and just ask, "How do you feel about it?"

Hala Taha: [01:13:00] Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: You know, this is where I'm at in life, this is where you're, you are in life. And I would not, I would not go to the extent of saying that if she or he is not willing to sign a prenup, then you should walk away. I can't say that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, but I think that it should be a serious conversation. Um, and I think we need to...

I know me, when I'm dating, like, "Hey, if we were to get married, what's the worst-case scenario?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Like, what do you want?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Like, if we were to get divorced, what would you want from your husband? Mm. Because n- right now we're happy, we're in our right minds, we're not hurt, we can be fair upfront, right?

Yeah. And I think that that's why I like prenups, because when things go wrong, man, even the good people can turn nasty at times.

Hala Taha: Yeah. How, how often do you think people in relationships should be talking about money? Like, should there be, like, a monthly meeting? Like, what do you suggest?

Anthony O'Neal: Married or just in general?

Hala Taha: Married. Let's say married.

Anthony O'Neal: Oh, yeah, it should be monthly. I mean, uh, one of my good friends, Darrell and his wife, they actually talk every Tuesday about money.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: They [01:14:00] have a business meeting. I think that marriage- I wanna say this correctly. I'm not marrying someone who I only love. Love doesn't pay bills.

Love doesn't build legacy.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, I'm marrying someone that I love and that I can build a business, a dynasty, a family with. And her IQ when it comes to money is important to me.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Um, her IQ when it comes to business. I'm not saying she has to be an entrepreneur. She has to understand how to have the conversation with me around business.

And so I think that every week, every other week, at least bare minimum monthly, we should be having a healthy conversation about money. Um, but if we rewind before then, by date three you should be talking about money.

Hala Taha: Oh, really?

Anthony O'Neal: For sure.

Hala Taha: What, what, what do you think the question should be? Like, what should you br- bring up on date three?

Hey,

Anthony O'Neal: man, hey tell me [01:15:00] how, how was your, um, upbringing when it came to your family? Mm-hmm. Like, what was your, what was your money philosophy?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: You know, what do you, um... What are some of your goals with money? What do you... What are some of your goals right now with money?

Hala Taha: Can you ask, do you, do you suggest asking people, like, how much they make?

Anthony O'Neal: Why? Why? It doesn't, it doesn't matter.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Because he can make $200,000 and still be $300,000- True ... in debt.

Hala Taha: True.

Anthony O'Neal: She could be making $50,000 as a schoolteacher-

Hala Taha: She would be like, "What's your margin?"

Anthony O'Neal: But I'm just saying though, it's like if, if I ask a young lady today, "Hey, what are some of your money goals today that you're working on?"

And she tells me, "Yeah, man, you know, I'm trying to invest 15% of my income," she has margin. Mm-hmm. Uh, "I'm trying to save up for a house." Okay, she has margin, right? Or if she says, "I mean, I, I don't really, you know, I don't really got no goa-" Okay, so you, you, you ain't got no money.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? Yeah. And so for me, mindset, how people think around money can give you a ballpark of where they are with their money, right?

Mm-hmm. And so which goes back to what we [01:16:00] said in the very beginning, if the young lady would've asked me, well, when she asked me my credit score, that was on day one, and I told her the truth. If she would've came back with a second question-

Hala Taha: Yeah, she would've been- ...

Anthony O'Neal: she would've been highly impressed-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Anthony O'Neal: that, okay, wait. And then it would've started a, I think, a conversation that probably would've been intriguing to her, 'cause one thing we do know about ladies, and correct me if I'm wrong, 'cause again, I'm still single for a reason, uh, but ladies love to learn something from the man who they're with.

Hala Taha: Yeah, totally.

Anthony O'Neal: And so I could have taught her some things about why I have this philosophy of I want more money in the savings. She would've saw my goals and the vision that I have for my life, and how a credit score to me just simply means that I know how to borrow money and pay it back.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: But you don't know what my portfolio is with a 800 credit score.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so I think that when you're dating, man, have the questions around money because let's be honest, we talk about anything and everything else.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: So if we can talk about anything and everything else, why [01:17:00] can't we talk about money?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And, uh, and, and I've, there's been several ladies that I've, I've respectfully walked away from- Mm

just because we weren't aligned-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Anthony O'Neal: when it comes to the money thing.

Hala Taha: I love that. Well, Anthony, this has been such an incredible conversation and- Yes,

Anthony O'Neal: ma'am ...

Hala Taha: it really has been. I end my show with two questions I ask all of my guests.

Anthony O'Neal: Okay.

Hala Taha: The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young Profiters can do today- Mm

to become more profitable tomorrow?

Anthony O'Neal: Oh, man. That's a good question. Um- Make better decisions-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Anthony O'Neal: when it comes to your money. I believe that the caliber of our financial futures will be determined by the choices that we make today.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: So if you wanna make more money, be- become more profitable, sit back and look at what is a decision today that I can change that would change my tomorrow into my future?

Hala Taha: Mm. And what is your secret to profiting in life?

Anthony O'Neal: Profiting money or profiting just in general life?

Hala Taha: Can [01:18:00] be all aspects of your life other than money.

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, for me, and the, and the mic is gone.

Hala Taha: Let me ask you again. So Anthony, what is your secret to profiting in life?

Anthony O'Neal: Uh, for me, at this season of my life, um, every decision, uh, that I make now has to benefit my future tomorrow.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And so that's how I benefit in life. And benefit in life does not mean I make more money, it means does it get me closer to my freedom goal? And so if it does, I'm profiting.

Hala Taha: That's beautiful. Anthony, thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting podcast. All right.

Anthony O'Neal: Thank you for having me. I gotta have you on my show now.

Hala Taha: Oh, I'd love that. Cool. Great.

Can we do, like, 10 minutes of reels and then

Anthony O'Neal: we'll do- Yeah, let's do it. Cool. All right, let me just pause. How do you like the reels? Do they help you with your show and stuff?

Hala Taha: Oh, yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: For real.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Um-

Anthony O'Neal: So we just hired a new production company, and they, uh-

Hala Taha: Are they good?

Anthony O'Neal: Um, from what I see, yeah, for sure.

Um, [01:19:00] they told me, like, "You don't do any, like, promo reels?"

But it's like the YouTube channel has kind of, um, died down because I'm back in school and I, and I'm a professor now.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: And so the packaging hasn't been well, which is why I hired this production company to get back to the packaging, 'cause YouTube was like, "Hey bro, we really do believe in you."

Hala Taha: Yeah, I have seen a lot of traction from my Instagram Reels, from my TikTok. Wow. Um, it kinda took a while to, to figure it out, but- Okay. 'Cause I'm

really big on the audio channels. That was, like, where I started. So I have- Oh[01:20:00]

Started later, um, but now it's like fine

Anthony O'Neal: I'm trying- we're focusing on audio now with them too, so we're change- we're, we're m- we're taking the table off of audio, and every single day we're gonna drop five-minute snippets of just straight money principles, money advice.

Hala Taha: I'm, I, I'm totally, like, if you ever wanna talk about, I'm so good at growing audio channels.

For

Anthony O'Neal: real.

Hala Taha: Yeah, I'm really good. And even just, like, knowing, like, little things that would just m- help you make more money.

Anthony O'Neal: For real.

Hala Taha: Yeah, we should definitely talk about it.

Anthony O'Neal: I really would love that- Because- ... '

Hala Taha: cause we

Anthony O'Neal: start that soon ... yeah. '

Hala Taha: Cause your channels are huge. I'm sure you're making a ton of money, but-

Anthony O'Neal: We, we do well, but-

Hala Taha: Yeah

Anthony O'Neal: the audio side-

Hala Taha: Like, I make $2 million a year on just my show.

Anthony O'Neal: Just your- Just- On audio or just YouTube and audio now? Most, it's YouTube

Hala Taha: and audio. Um, but it's $2 million in just [01:21:00] sponsorship money.

Anthony O'Neal: Wow.

Hala Taha: So I punch way above my weight, even though I have- Yeah ... a pretty big show, but, like, I make as much as, like, people that have, like, I think three times as big of a show as me.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah.

Hala Taha: B- but it's 'cause I have a network and I know how to, like- How to, how to work it ... how to do it, yeah. So I, I'm happy to help you or-

Anthony O'Neal: No, I'm for sure.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: I would love that. I would even, whatever that fee is too. I'm sure there's a fee. I love you guys.

Hala Taha: It's just a rev share.

Anthony O'Neal: All right. Let's do it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: I'm so serious.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay. So I'm just gonna ask you, like, s- I, I have reels, and we might cut it into the interview. We might literally just use it as promo.

Anthony O'Neal: Okay.

Hala Taha: Um-

So Anthony, I heard you give a really great hack about when to buy a car.

Anthony O'Neal: Mm.

Hala Taha: There's a certain time of the year- Yes ... and a certain time of the month- Yeah ... that we should be buying cars.

Anthony O'Neal: Yes. It's simple. Uh, it's the last week of the month, specifically the last three days of the month- Mm-hmm ... any type of month, because those last three days, the salesperson is going to want to make sure that they can get their commission check, all right?

Mm-hmm. And then the [01:22:00] last month of the year, so December- Mm ... the last three days of December, you'll get the best deal ever, because now we're going into a new year. So let's say for an example, we're in 2026. If you can get a, a real good deal on a 2026 and younger, uh, vehicle on the last three days of December, because now we're going to 2027, so the new body styles may come out, the new cars may come out, so those cars are gonna depreciate in value- Mm

because they know they wanna sell the other ones, so. And

Hala Taha: we're only, and we're only leasing, right?

Anthony O'Neal: Oh, man, I'm paying cash.

Hala Taha: Oh, you're just buying in cash.

Anthony O'Neal: I'm buying cash.

Hala Taha: Oh, damn.

Anthony O'Neal: That's a

Hala Taha: good one. Okay. Uh-

Why do you re... Okay, let me do that again. Why do you recommend taking a 90K a year salary versus a high six-figure executive job that pays you, like, 350K? Why is it better to take a [01:23:00] lower salary?

Anthony O'Neal: The executive job is gonna require more of my time.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Just because I get off at 5:00, my boss, my office can still call me.

A lower job can... It still may require some time, for sure, but it won't require as much time. When I go home, I wanna be able to work for myself, not for my job.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: So when I show up at my job at 9:00 AM and leave at 5:00 PM, I'ma work hard, serve there great, because I wanna be a good steward of that. Yeah. But at 5:01, I work for Anthony O'Neal.

Mm. And when I work for Anthony O'Neal, this is for my family. I'm sick and tired of our people, all people, coming home at 5:00 PM and not working for themselves and building something that they own. Ownership produces freedom. Mm. I wanna get us to freedom.

Hala Taha: Nice. Okay.

You mentioned that [01:24:00] 50% of people take vacations just for the pictures. That's insanity.

Anthony O'Neal: That's crazy. And out of those 50% of the people who take, uh, a vacation just for Instagram and TikTok, uh, 72% of them finance them on a credit card. Oh my God. And so for me, my thing is I'm not gonna go finance something and go travel somewhere just to get a picture one time.

I'll just take that picture at the house in a pool and put some trees up behind me.

Hala Taha: Mm.

I'm just trying to find good ones

Anthony O'Neal: No, you're good Ch-ch-ch

Hala Taha: I'm gonna ask you that again.

Anthony O'Neal: Okay.

Hala Taha: Or let's talk about the 76, um, okay.

Anthony O'Neal: I can go deeper into that one. How long do you want these to be? That's the thing I should've asked you at the beginning.

Hala Taha: They can be short, but we'll chop them up. Okay. Okay. So just like go, like say whatever, and then like we'll just chop it up.

Anthony O'Neal: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay. So I heard you say that 50% of people are going on vacations just for the picture. [01:25:00]

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, just for IG, just for TikTok, just to get the hearts and the likes. But out of that number-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Anthony O'Neal: out of that 50%, about 76% of them are financing it on a credit card, and if we go deeper, it's taking them, watch this, a year to pay it off.

Hala Taha: Oh my

Anthony O'Neal: God. So by the time they go on the next trip, they just finished off p- they just finished paying off the last trip last month. Mm. To me, that's just backwards, man. I would just rather, if I can't afford to go, I'm gonna do a stayca- staycation, go to a pool, get around a nice little setting, snap that picture if you really want hearts like that.

Hala Taha: Mm. Love it. Okay, good. That was better. Okay. So you cited a study that 70 per- 76% of luxury items are bought by the middle class. Okay.

Okay

So I heard you cite a study that 70%, 76% of individuals... Okay. So I heard you cite a stud- study. I don't know why I'm fucking [01:26:00] this up.

Anthony O'Neal: Let me just,

Hala Taha: like, relax. Okay.

Anthony O'Neal: You're so funny.

Hala Taha: All right

So I heard you say that 76% of people who buy luxury items- Mm ... are actually middle class, so they're broke.

Anthony O'Neal: Yes. Um, and, and I think it's because middle class individuals, uh, want to look like they have money. Mm. Mm-hmm. So we'll go over to Louis, we'll go over to Gucci, we'll go over to Prada, we'll go over and buy all these real expensive things to look like we have money, when if we really look at it, they don't even advertise to the middle class individual.

Yeah. Right? And so for me, it's... It, it, it bothers me when I see something, when I see someone wearing a name brand and I know you're living paycheck to paycheck. Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: It's like, okay- Who are you trying to impress?

Anthony O'Neal: Who and why?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? Because the people who you're trying to impress, they're really not impressed and they really don't care.

Yeah. Right? Uh, because we, we think that. And so for me, nothing wrong with those things. I [01:27:00] have some of those things. I mean, I like some of those things. But here's the truth. I did not buy my first name brand item until my best friend gave me some Gucci shoes.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: And I already had multiple six figures inside my savings account.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? And so I just think, man, build the foundation first. Once you get there, then go enjoy it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Get it when you're actually rich.

Anthony O'Neal: Absolutely.

Hala Taha: Okay, let's do that one one more time. It was good, but, like, just to see if we can get anything else from it.

Anthony O'Neal: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay? Or any moments, you know?

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah.

Hala Taha: So I heard you say that 76% of luxury items are actually bought by the middle class, meaning they're, they're broke.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, and let's break it down. Middle class simply means that we're gonna be making anywhere between 55 to about $90,000 a year, right? So we're using our resources to go buy a name brand item rather than go maybe invest- Mm ... into the name brand item- Mm-hmm ... and let them buy their own products for ourselves.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Right? And so I just think if we can really get to the point of let me not impress, let me take my money, [01:28:00] build margin, take that margin, invest it into these nice name brand companies, and allow the residuals of that income to buy the products- So- It's all good and gravy ...

Hala Taha: so don't buy the bag, buy the stocks.

Anthony O'Neal: Buy the stocks, for sure, and let the stocks buy the bag.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Oh. I like that. Cool. All right, awesome. I think we got it. Cool, awesome. Thank you.

Anthony O'Neal: That is amazing. Thank you so much for that.

Hala Taha: Yeah, that was great. Thanks

Anthony O'Neal: for allowing me to come. It was, it was amazing. Of course. I didn't even know Dave was on the show.

My team didn't tell me. I was like, "Oh, man. Yeah, that's

Hala Taha: good." Yeah, Dave has been on the show. I actually flew down to Nashville and I did it... I, I had him on twice. Oh. So I flew down to Nashville the second time, and he's so, he's so great. He gets so much hate.

Anthony O'Neal: He really does, and I don't understand why. Yeah. I understand why he does 'cause I've, I've worked with him and, and I'm real cool with him.

Um, and I just think some of his political views sometimes for certain people- Yeah,

Hala Taha: he's, he's like Republican, so I think a lot of, like, women hate him and stuff. Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: Which I don't understand that [01:29:00] because, uh, some of his beliefs I don't really have a problem with him at all Do

Hala Taha: you know who Tori Dunlap is?

She used to work at Ramsey Solutions. Mm-hmm. So she used to be in my podcast network- Oh. ... and she left my podcast network because I had Dave Ramsey on the show. She-- And I didn't even know they had beef. I had no idea, and she was so mad. Tori does not like him. And she, she hates him. And so she literally, like, left my podcast network because

Anthony O'Neal: of him.

Wild.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Anthony O'Neal: I mean, that's just crazy.

Hala Taha: She is crazy. I was making her a million dollars a year, and I'm, I-

Anthony O'Neal: And left?

Hala Taha: And she left 'cause she was just so pissed. Let's take a picture.

Anthony O'Neal: Yeah, let's do it.

Hala Taha: Like negative stuff?

Anthony O'Neal: Oh, yeah, everyone has because it's like, you know, it's just a, um... You know, who's Dave? You know, unfortunately.

Hala Taha: Well, I-

Anthony O'Neal: [01:30:00] I, I'd

Hala Taha: say the guy- I team Dave. Yeah, yeah. I just, I started blasting Dave everywhere after that. I was like- Oh, yeah ... "Well, I guess I got nothing to lose."

Anthony O'Neal: That's right.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Cool, we'll do one standing

Anthony O'Neal: Okay.

Hala Taha: Right in the middle

Thank you, Anne.

Anthony O'Neal: No problem. No problem

No problem. And let me know too about, um, that conversation because-

Hala Taha: Oh, yeah. Let's-

Anthony O'Neal: I really wanna learn You wanna exchange numbers? Yeah, I'll give you my num- I, I, my phone is out there- Okay, sure ... by that thing. Um 615-571-9161 9161.

Hala Taha: Okay, cool. '

Anthony O'Neal: Cause all of my money comes from the, the show on YouTube.

Hala Taha: Okay. And I- Like just straight from

Anthony O'Neal: YouTube advertisers?

No. No, no, no. We

Hala Taha:Rami, welcome to How We Profit Wednesdays.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Hala Taha: Thanks for being here. I know you're based in Austin, so it was an easy trip out to the studio. And we're gonna really be unpacking your business model today. I wanna understand how Match Day Health profits. So to begin, let us know what Match Day is exactly.

Like, what is the business today as it stands?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So to put it simply, Match Day Health, we are a career transformation company for healthcare professionals. So we help healthcare professionals build second careers, maybe even third careers. Um, and in a nutshell, that's what we do.

Hala Taha: Okay. Cool. So you basically are helping healthcare practitioners transition into more of like a corporate career.

Is that right?

Rami Wehbi: Correct. Yeah. So if you think about healthcare professionals, they start, you know, their degrees when they're 18 years old, get into professional school, and then, you know, they, they do that for a [00:01:00] number of years, some 5 years, some 10 years. But what nobody thinks about is what do they do after that?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Typically, healthcare profession careers have a ceiling, and you enter that career and you kind of stay at, at the same range for as long as you're in that career. So a lot of healthcare professionals, when they're, you know, maybe 5 years or 10 years in, start thinking about a second career.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so what do you do when you want a second career or you wanna grow or you p- you wanna progress, or maybe you're burned out The typical path has been going back to school or getting an MBA or getting more certifications or just staying in your same job forever.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so what we've created is a path now or an off-ramp, so to speak, for healthcare professionals that doesn't require them to get additional schooling or certifications, but rather teaches them how to take their existing experience, repackage it, and enter into what we call non-clinical careers or just [00:02:00] industry in general.

Hala Taha: That's really cool. Um, I actually come from a family of doctors, so my dad was a surgeon. He passed away. Oh, I'm sorry. My three siblings are doctors. Um, two of them are actually no longer doctors. One of them is an entrepreneur who works on all different things, like has a peptide business, had a medical device company.

And, uh, my second oldest brother, he's a pediatric neurologist, and now he works in pharmaceuticals- Oh ... and research, and he's like a research director helping, like, cure pediatric epilepsy. So he still gets to work on his dream of helping with, like, uh, pediatric brain issues, and he just does it in a different way.

And so it's really cool that you're actually helping other medical professionals do something similar.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, absolutely. And it's actually not that uncommon, um, especially nowadays with the way industry's growing both on the pharma life science side of things, but as well as health tech as well. It's becoming much more commonplace for clinicians to have that role that maybe isn't fully [00:03:00] clinical or patient-facing.

Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, sometimes they start hybrid or part-time and then potentially becoming full-time.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So this is a How We Profit episode. I've gotta know, like, how do you actually sell?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So we run, um- We, i- it's a career transformation fellowship, so we call it, uh, we call it that because it's a comprehensive coaching program, and it takes people through a journey that we've developed now by doing this hundreds of times with clinicians.

And so, um, it's a $6,000, uh, coaching program.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And it's paid up front usually by, by our clients.

Hala Taha: Okay, so it's $6,000 for the coaching program, and they're paying it all at once. How long is the program?

Rami Wehbi: Three months.

Hala Taha: Three months, okay. Yeah. And then you're basically getting them ready, repackaging their experience, redesigning their LinkedIn profile, coaching them on h- how to do the interview so that they can actually land a job.

Rami Wehbi: Exactly, yeah. And all the way through to landing the [00:04:00] job, uh, well, getting the offer, negotiating the offer, and, um, even becoming part of our alumni system after that.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Okay, I wanna get more into the nitty-gritty of your business and how you acquire customers and, you know, all the different aspects of it. But first, let's get into your story, because I think it's really cool that you basically turned your business, or you basically turned your pain into a business, your own pain of transitioning from a medical, you know, degree into the corporate world.

You actually never became a doctor, right? So you-

Rami Wehbi: I did, actually.

Hala Taha: You did? Yeah. Okay. Well, tell us the story. Yeah. Tell us the story.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So, um, so yeah, I am a physician. Okay. I went to, completed medical school. I did two and a half years of residency, and then I dropped out.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so I was training in family medicine and, you know, I ended up not really...

There's a whole story I, like, I can get into, and it's actually a, a not too [00:05:00] uncommon of a story.

Hala Taha: No, tell us the story.

Rami Wehbi: Well, well, okay, so I am Middle Eastern Lebanese, like you.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And you just mentioned to me, like, you have three brothers that are in medicine.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Two brothers and a sister, yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Two brothers and a sister.

So for our culture- It's very common to be encouraged to pursue the medical path.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And for me growing up, uh, my prior- and, and, and I should even add context for our listeners too because, because our families, a lot of them came here as immigrants- Mm-hmm ... escaped war- Mm-hmm ... tragedy, a lot of suffering, and so they came here looking for stability-

Hala Taha: Yeah

Rami Wehbi: and opportunity. And so our parents, their number one priority for us was to have stability, to have a hap- you know, a great career, and it wasn't about our passions or what makes us happy or what we're good at- Mm-hmm ... right? They just wanted us to be secure and established and be able to- And respected and- Respected- Yeah

Hala Taha: and

Rami Wehbi: prestige and all that.

Hala Taha: [00:06:00] Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so I think that's very common amongst our community- Mm-hmm ... and many other communities as well. And so my idea growing up was that's the route I should take, and, uh, that's, you know, if I was gonna do anything, I wanna do something that I can be the best in. So obviously, if you become a doctor, that's a career path where you can be the top of your field or the best or respected- Mm-hmm

or that sort of thing. And so, you know, graduate high school, very vaguely decided I wanna go down this medical career path. I had an interest in sports. I was injured one time, went to see an orthopedic surgeon, and I liked that experience. And so without too much thought, I kind of just decided I'm gonna go down the medical path- Mm

and pursue that.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so I did it. I got good grades. I got into medical school, and my first two me- two years of medical school, I, I did great. And it was when we started actually seeing what is it actually like being a doctor- Mm-hmm ... and working in the [00:07:00] clinics and preceptorships that I had, like, a huge shock, and I realized, "Oh, no, I think I made a huge mistake.

Uh, I don't think I wanna do this at all."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: I wanna say after it first happened, I thought it just would go away, and I thought, "No, I'll just, you know, find a specialty I like or something else." But that never really happened. I felt like as time went on, things just kept getting worse.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And I kept feeling like this wasn't what I wanted to do.

And so, um, I almost actually didn't do residency at all. So I thought, "Okay, do I just drop out of medical school and then start something else?" Well, now I'm $400,000 in student loan debt. Oh

Hala Taha: my gosh.

Rami Wehbi: And so I kind of felt pretty stuck and pigeo- pigeonholed, and so I said, "Well, I'll do another year. I'll do a year of residency, see if it gets better."

So I did that.

Hala Taha: And you're at least getting paid, right? So-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, you're getting- Yeah ... paid a small amount. It's like $60,000 in residency. Um, but yeah, you're at least [00:08:00] getting paid and, and, you know, also maybe I should just finish re- do residency- Mm-hmm ... get done, and have a stable career after that.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: So I sucked it up for a year, um, and did it, and then at the end of that year, I was super burned out and I almost decided I was gonna drop out then.

I got cold feet and decided, "All right, I'm gonna do another year." So I did another year. Again, that was when COVID hit. It was about 2019. The burnout got so much worse, and it really started to feel like I was swimming upstream. Um, I don't know if you've ever had this feeling where you're going in a direction in life and you're just resisting everything, the way life's trying to take you.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And that's the best way I can describe what I felt, is like I was trying so hard to show up every day enthusiastic, engaged, and trying to do what's right for my patients.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: But the, like the matrix of healthcare and the system and the hierarchy and all of it was just so soul, [00:09:00] soul-sucking for me.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so it really felt like I was just swimming upstream, and like it reached a point where I was like, "I just can't do this every day anymore," and I just kinda like let go and, and that's the best way f- to describe it. I just let go and I just started going with the tide.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And when I did that, everything started to kind of fall into place for me.

Uh- I dropped out of residency, so I put in-- I talked to my program director, we had the heart-to-heart. W-we just talked it all out- Mm-hmm ... and decided, "Hey, like, I'm gonna put in my month's notice and I'm out."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And that day was January 21st, 2021.

Hala Taha: Wow. So I just wanna pause here because, uh, your story reminds me of something that Gretchen Rubin talks about, which is this idea of drifting.

Rami Wehbi: Hmm.

Hala Taha: So, so many people actually just drift into their careers. They drift into $400,000 of debt going into medical school or [00:10:00] going to law school. They're doing it 'cause they just feel like it's the next logical step, it's the right thing to do, somebody else told them to do it. They're doing it with, like, no thought.

And you were able to study, do well on your tests, get into residency. You could have completed res-residency. It was you who didn't want to continue on and do it. Mm-hmm. And so talk to us about the sunk costs- ... that you felt with this $400,000 in debt.

Rami Wehbi: You know, it's so funny s- you mention that because I actually-- At one point, I was writing a book called, called "The Sunk Cost Fallacy".

And I wanted to just talk about it because that was the biggest thing holding me back. I invested so much time, so much effort, so much money, and I felt really, truly stuck.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And unfortunately, I, you know, not too long ago, I heard of a, uh, a medical stu- a medical resident who had finished from the Caribbean, graduated with $600,000 in student loans.

Oh my gosh. Couldn't get into [00:11:00] residency, ended up committing suicide. And so people feel so stuck when, like that-- when you have that kind of like, it's like you're stuck in the matrix.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And people don't know how to look at that objectively and take themselves out of the situation- Mm-hmm ... and not just be s- drowning by it.

And so for me, the sunk cost fallacy is really- Perspective shifting. Because you can look at a situation and say, "This is doom and gloom," or you can look at it and say, "Well, you know, what if I, what if I gave myself three years? What if I time boxed the situation to try, try and create something new?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: So I could just take some risks so I could try something different so that I could just start on a new path.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And it's really just fear around all of the sunk costs. It's not really, uh, it's not a real thing. It's something we perceive- Mm-hmm ... to be the [00:12:00] case, and so you just have to remove yourself from it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Something that I loved about your story actually was that you positioned, like once you-- From my understanding, when you left residency, you were like, "Okay, this is my fellowship, and I'm gonna do like a three-year business fellowship." Yeah. 'Cause you see all your friends who are, who were in residency taking their fellowships, basically working for free, training, working for a low amount, and you're like, "Well, I could do the same thing but in the business world and not feel so bad about it."

And I thought that was a really great way to think about it.

Rami Wehbi: Yep, exactly. That was exactly my mindset shift that allowed me to take on all that risk, because a lot of people thought me jumping out of residency with that much student loans without any real tangible path is just absolutely crazy.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And I've always kind of been someone that's okay with risk.

Like I'm willing to take risks as long as they are calculated.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And as long as I feel internally that, that good about it. Like I have to have conviction. And [00:13:00] so for me in that position, I said, "I'm gonna give myself three years." And like you mentioned, a bunch of my friends were doing, uh, cardiology fellowships- Mm-hmm

GI fellowships, and all these different things, and they were taking a pay cut to do that.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And I said, "This is so stupid," because we're able to, we're able to do a, take a pay cut for someone else, as long as it's some corporation or institution that tells us, "Hey, you have to, you know, do this for three years and do X, Y, and Z."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And we're so willing to do that- Yeah ... because it's the norm, because it's, there's some institution making it normal.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: I said, "Well, why don't I just do that for myself? Why don't I give myself that permission?" I

Hala Taha: love this. I love this reframing. It's so good.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. And, and I could easily make $60,000 or $70,000 a year, which is what you would make in a fellowship.

And I'd say if I worked this hard, like 100 hours a week, which is what I was working in residency, at anything, I'm going to be successful. [00:14:00] It's just there's-- I haven't, I haven't done it yet.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so that was my commitment. I'm gonna give myself three years. By the end of three years, I'm gonna have my own business.

I'm gonna be making X amount of dollars. And if I haven't reached these goals by January 21st, 2024, I'll go back to school or go back to residency. I'll do something else.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And that was my commitment, and that was what allowed me to Take my, like just reframe everything and just not be so caught up in the fear or the drama or what people are gonna think.

Just I'm gonna go do my thing for the next three years and figure it out.

Hala Taha: So what did you do first? I think you, you raised some money, right?

Rami Wehbi: So the first idea was I'm gonna go right into being an entrepreneur-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Rami Wehbi: right off the bat.

Hala Taha: No experience.

Rami Wehbi: No, no experience at all. And so the idea I had was I wanted to build this shared co-working space for clinicians where they could work together and see patients and rent out space, almost like, you know, like WeWork, the- Mm-hmm

but it's just [00:15:00] for patient space. And- Okay.

Hala Taha: WeWork for patients?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. Uh, not for patients, for clinicians-

Hala Taha: Okay,

Rami Wehbi: got it ...

Hala Taha: to see

Rami Wehbi: patients.

Hala Taha: Got it. So it's like private practice doctors can like share an office space. Yeah. Kind of like a medical center.

Rami Wehbi: Exactly, yeah. Okay. But it's more like hip. It's more- Mm ... um, it's more like your average c- co-working- Yeah, got it

space.

Hala Taha: So it's like a hip medical center.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, exactly. And clinicians can rent space, like by the hour, by the day, by, or just permanently. Hmm. And that was the idea, and it was... it had its flaws at the time. And so for about six months I was working on it. I was pitching to investors, trying to raise capitals.

A capital intensive project, it would've taken $2 million to stand up the, the first kind of full building and operations for a year. And so I pitched like 100 investors within that six months and raised zero dollars.

Hala Taha: Zero dollars.

Rami Wehbi: Zero dollars. Yeah. And-

Hala Taha: Nice ...

Rami Wehbi: yeah. And basically at the end of that six months, I was [00:16:00] like, "Okay, I'm running outta money.

I gotta do something." And I, you know, that was my first failure, and it was a huge punch in the face for me because I was... I had so much riding on me being successful after that- Mm-hmm ... because I was like, I just left out, dropped out of residency. I'm doing this thing. But I felt like everybody was watching me.

They obviously weren't.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: But I felt like I had to prove myself. I had to do something big-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Rami Wehbi: to be successful so that it could justify dropping out of residency.

Hala Taha: Why do you think nobody gave you any money?

Rami Wehbi: Um, I probably- Honestly, I, I, I think I just probably didn't have enough experience, and it was a big risk for people-

Hala Taha: Yeah

Rami Wehbi: probably at the time. Like, this is a first-time founder, and, and the, and the environment I would say is very different today.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Like, what I'm seeing now on ve- in the venture world is lots of people are getting money and getting funded. But it wasn't a tech business. It was, uh, it was almost like a real [00:17:00] estate business.

Mm. And I'm someone without any real estate experience, don't have a co-founder, and I don't think I'd built enough trust-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Rami Wehbi: to, to- And

Hala Taha: maybe even the upside wasn't enough, like-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: So, so there are multiple reasons. I just don't think that... You know, I took the swing, and I think I learned a lot through that.

Yeah. It taught me how to pitch. It taught me, you know, how to build a pitch deck and tell a story and what investors- Mm-hmm ... wanna see. And so even though it didn't work out, I learned so much from it. Mm. And it gave me the confidence to go and do my next thing. Um, but, you know, it could be for, for many reasons.

I, I, I think I remember the feedback being was just, you know, "You're gonna need so much money, and there's no way to scale this, and you- Mm-hmm ... don't even have anybody signed up yet."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: So.

Hala Taha: Well, okay. So, so that didn't work out, and then you were like, "I'm gonna go actually get experience at a startup." You went to a startup, right?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, I did. So actually, before that, I went back, moved back to Michigan. I had to [00:18:00] get a real job. Um, I had earned my medical license, so technically, when you have a license, you can still practice. Mm. So I had unrestricted license. Wasn't board certified, but it all- it allowed me to go work in the urgent care, which is what I did.

Worked in the urgent care for a little bit. Um, made enough money to, you know, pay my bills, and then I was actively pursuing my next thing, which was trying to get into health tech.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Figured, hey, I'm not ready to be an entrepreneur yet. Let me go work with a s- startup founder, work in a startup, do something that I'm potentially passionate about and, and see what happens.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so it was about nine months, and I caught a break, uh, which actually brought me here to Austin, Texas, and that was my first, uh, health tech opportunity.

Hala Taha: Cool. So, so you did this health tech opportunity, and then on the side, you started to, to build your next business.

Rami Wehbi: Correct. Right? Yeah, so I actually landed another opportunity after that.

Okay. So did that one for about six months. Landed another opportunity, and, and during that time, I was getting so many clinicians asking me, [00:19:00] "Hey, Ramy, I wanna pivot too. How did you do it?"

Hala Taha: Mm. "Can

Rami Wehbi: you show me where you're finding these jobs?" And that was around the time that I realized, well, it's not really about a job board.

It's not about, you know, just finding the jobs. You have to go through an entire transformation. You have to rebrand yourself- Tell your skills in a different way, go through this identity crisis because it can be a lot to process.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: You know, from alwa- from thinking about yourself as a doctor to now thinking of yourself as someone who's an operator.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so I had to kind of figure out how do I tell people or show people really that there's, there's a lot to bridge here, and just applying or finding the opportunities isn't actually going to solve the problem.

Hala Taha: And so while you were working in corporate, you also started a podcast, right?

Rami Wehbi: I did, yeah. So actually while I was in, uh, in medical school I started the podcast.

Oh,

Hala Taha: wow.

Rami Wehbi: Long time ago. Yeah, it was in 2017.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: I was doing my first few episodes on Skype. Um, so and because [00:20:00] Zoom wasn't even around then, and it was just so early.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And so it was called Beyond Medicine, and I had-- What I did was I would interview, uh, physicians that were famous on social media.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Ask them what they're doing beyond medicine, what they're doing with their social- ... media platforms.

Hala Taha: No wonder you left. You got all this- ... inspiration from all these other people who- Right ... who had left medicine.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So I had that entrepreneurial bug, and I was actually making money from my podcast during medical school and residency.

Hmm. Was selling T-shirts and all these other things, and it was... It wasn't a lot, but it was a small business for me- Yeah ... at the time. And so, yeah, that, that did trigger my inspiration, and I think looking back, I was always interested in that. Um, but yeah, that was my first podcast, and I grew it through influencers at the time, which was kind of like a new thing.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, cool. So you ended up starting Match Day. Talk to us about like how you... Like, what was the first iteration of the Match Day concept?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So I started Match Day in [00:21:00] 2023, and the first iteration wa- uh, the first iteration was we were building a startup. Um, excuse me. I'm gonna- You're good ... redo that.

So the first iteration of that was we were doing a startup, and we went and actually pitched the idea that we wanna build like the Tinder for doctor jobs.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And build a matching platform that helps physicians and other clinicians land jobs, um, in a better way. And so we raised about a million dollars in capital from investors, angel investors, and we started building the platform.

And it started that way, and obviously-- And then it just evolved from there into something completely different.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Okay. So it started as a, a Tinder for doctors. Why do, why don't you think that worked? Why did, why didn't you continue building that? Did it ever launch?

Rami Wehbi: We did-- We never actually launched it, no.

So we spent money on, you know, hiring the right team, engineers, building the tech stack, and then doing sales and, and finding partnerships. And so [00:22:00] we were looking to partner with hospital systems, and we were talking to hospital systems. And, you know, at the time, we were burning about like $30,000 a month, which is not that much for a startup.

I think it's pretty lean, actually, for a startup. But still, you know, we were burning that capital every month. We were spending money on, on engineers to build the tech stack, and that was before Claude and all of that came- Yeah ... about, and it was all really expensive. And so- Come, you know, the end of 2023 going to 2024, started to realize we're gonna burn through all of our capital before we even have our first partnership signed.

And, you know, for the anybody familiar with hospital, selling to hospital systems or B2B, those life cycles can take a year, a year and a half.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And we didn't have that time as a startup, as a small startup. You know, we were gonna burn through that capital, we were gonna go back to investors and ask to raise, and they were gonna ask us, "Well, what, what do you have?

What's your revenue?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. "

Rami Wehbi: And, and, and how much have you grown?" And [00:23:00] so I kinda saw the writing on the wall at some point that we're gonna run out of money, and we're gonna still be trying to get this one pilot on, and it just, it was keeping me up at night.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And I knew, like, we're gonna... I'm gonna have to go back to my investors and say, "Hey, this whole business has failed, and I'm, I'm really sorry," and I just couldn't live with that.

And it was like, yeah, I just remember I woke up at 3:00 in the morning one ti- one night, and I was just sitting there, and I was just so stressed out. Mm-hmm. Like, I just had, like, my hands in, like, my head in my, in my palms, and I was just, like, thinking, like, "What am I gonna do? This business cannot fail. I'm not gonna go back to my investors and, and say that we failed."

And so I just prayed that night. I was like, "God, show me a way that I can take this business and open up that path for us."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Very next day, I go to LinkedIn, and I post on LinkedIn, um, just kind of like a hunch, an intuition to see how people [00:24:00] would respond to it. And I say, "We're gonna... If you're a healthcare professional and you wanna go and land a non-clinical job, comment on this post.

We can help you do it." And it was something along those lines. Yeah. I'll have to go back and, and find the post. But it went viral. Nice. Um, I think 200,000 impressions. Got 1,000 comments, and everybody that commented just said like, I don't know, comment career or something. But we got all these people commenting and filling out the form, and I hired a VA to just reach out to eve- every single person, and all of a sudden I was like, "Okay, this is something people actually want."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: It's something that I know really well. Um, maybe we pivot the business to this and just help all of these people that so desperately wanna change actually land a job and pivot. And so the lesson I learned from that was I fell in love with the solution in the very beginning. I had this idea to build a tech [00:25:00] company, to be a startup founder, to do something cool in health tech, and help with job matching, and I, I...

That's what... That was the dream. Mm-hmm. That was the goal. That was what I was gonna do. We were building tech. And then what I realized is I, I fell in love with the wrong thing. I fell in love with something that was make believe, that people didn't really want, and if they did want, it was gonna take forever to actually build.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And I went to falling in love with the problem.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Rami Wehbi: So many of these doctors and clinicians, they didn't really care about clinical jobs. They didn't care about another tech solution to help them, because recruiters were reaching out to them all the time.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: They had a ton of options, and it wasn't a real, like, major problem for them.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Instead, they were wanting to build new careers, get their life back, land better jobs, not feel stuck like I was feeling stuck.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And it was a huge pain, and there was no solution.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Rami Wehbi: So basically w- [00:26:00] I, I fell in love with the problem of figuring that out, and figuring out how do I actually help them in this area.

Hala Taha: And you... D- Is that when you funneled everybody to a Slack community from that post?

Rami Wehbi: Um, we... No. From that s- from that post, we, we took everybody and put them into a CRM. So we had a little form, had them fill it out.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: Went to a CRM, and then we just started calling everybody one by one, emailing them, and setting up appointment times to, to basically see if they were willing to, to work with us to help them land a job.

Hala Taha: And what was your first offer?

Rami Wehbi: The first offer, it's- that's a good question. Because it evolved into what it is now. So the first iteration of this was, um, because we didn't have any social proof or any track record, it was, uh, a contract. So you would work with us, we would invest in you basically, and help you land a job.

And after you land a job, you would sign the, the agreement would say you would pay us a percent of your first-year salary.

Hala Taha: [00:27:00] Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And so it was like 7% or something like that.

Hala Taha: Did people actually do it?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So in the first iteration of that, it was, we took on all the risk. We paired them with a coach, we helped them land a job, and people started paying us, you know, if they landed a $100,000 job, $7,000.

But- That came with its issues and problems. That's why we ended up pivoting to the model we have now.

Hala Taha: Okay. So the first model was a contract. At what p- I read that you had a Slack community.

Rami Wehbi: We did. That was a Beyond Medicine group. We

Hala Taha: still- Okay, that was from the podcast back then. From the podcast. Got it.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Did any of those people end up becoming clients later on, or that was like long gone?

Rami Wehbi: Uh, I think so, yeah. There were people that I knew through that community that ended up being clients, but-

Hala Taha: Okay ...

Rami Wehbi: it wasn't a huge percentage of them.

Hala Taha: Okay. I, I asked that because actually my company, YAP Media, basically started as a Slack channel.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: I basically had fans that would reach out to me that loved the podcast, and they were like, "How can I help?" And I started a volunteer team- Hmm ... in Slack, and that turned into my whole company now, and we're making, like, [00:28:00] almost $10 million a year.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So,

Hala Taha: yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And you know, before I took the leap on Match Day, we like, we tried so many ways to...

So first it was a community. It was called Beyond Medicine Group. It was off the podcast. I charged $99 a year to become a member, and I grew it to, like, 300 people.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And at the time, I started, you know, getting three or four signups every single day. So it was like four do- $400 every day- Yeah ... coming in, going into the Slack community.

And that was when I realized, I was like, "Oh, I can actually leave my job and pay my rent and start building this." And so-

Hala Taha: Hmm ...

Rami Wehbi: the second iteration of Beyond Medicine Group was Matched, was, uh, Match Day Health. So we started it as a community in, in, in a way, but we were trying to, like, tell the story of, like, it can be so much bigger than that.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Let's pause there for a second. So basically you're saying that when you were, when you were working at the startup- Yeah ... that's when you started the Slack community, and then-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: that side hustle gave you the funds to then [00:29:00] become an entrepreneur or just try new business ideas. Is that, is that right?

Rami Wehbi: It gave me the confidence because I started to see, like, I was getting, you know, three or four signups every single day.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And I was working for-- I was VP of clinical operations for an AI startup. And I didn't-- I was learning a lot. I enjoyed it, but I just... My goal and my head was always like, think back to the fellowship.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: I have three years to do this. I was coming up on year two almost. So I was like, "I gotta figure this out now and, and start planting those seeds." And so once it got to a point where I was like, I can just pay my bills, now even if it was just, like, making $3,000 a month, I was like, "I'm willing to take that risk."

And as soon as Beyond Medicine Group, which is now Match Day, hit that point, I was like, "All right, I'm all in."

Hala Taha: Okay, got it.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: So, um, first iteration, like we were saying, was, uh, basically like a re- recruiter model, right? You, you get somebody a job, they give you a percentage of their first year salary.

Mm-hmm. What is the model now? [00:30:00]

Rami Wehbi: The model now is it's, it's paid upfront by the client. And so in the recruiter mo- model, the recruiters work for companies, and they get paid when, when they match someone. So, uh, you know, it's like, it's like you having your own personal recruiter, but they're not really a recruiter, they're a coach.

They're, they're invested in your success.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: They're invested in you getting a job. And so that's obviously something you would have to pay for to have that h- white glove service. And so the fellowship now is a, it's a coaching program, and it's paid upfront by the client.

Hala Taha: And you call it a fellowship?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: So basically it's these medical professionals. It was doctors just at first, and now you've widened it- Yeah ... up to nurses and, and other types of, uh... Well, who, who can, who can do it? Yeah. What are the types of professionals?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So pretty much any healthcare professional. Anybody with a clinical background from medical assistants to physical therapists to nurses, PAs, NPs, doctors.

Pretty much anyone who's built their [00:31:00] career around, um, a healthcare profession and is looking to make a career transition.

Hala Taha: Got it.

Rami Wehbi: And so going something non-clinical in industry, mainly, you know, our focus is health tech and life science.

Hala Taha: Cool. Okay. So now what is the-- Like, tell us the, the most recent offer.

What is it exactly?

Rami Wehbi: So it's a three-month fellowship, and it's $6,000.

Hala Taha: Okay. For

Rami Wehbi: the

Hala Taha: most recent. Three-month fellowship, $6,000. How many clients do you have typically?

Rami Wehbi: Um, every month we sign up around, it, it could vary, like between 20 and 40.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: Um, so yeah, around that number. And, you know, active we have about 150 fellows.

Hala Taha: And is there any, you know- The hard part about that model is that every three months you need new customers, right? They-- It's like kind of like a leaky bucket. Yeah. So have you thought about how to extend lifetime value?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. That's something I've actually thought about a lot, and it actually used to be a six-month fellowship.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. But

Rami Wehbi: we did the... It was six months for a year, and then we [00:32:00] condensed it down to three months, um, because a lot of the value and just the refinement of the program, we were able to get a lot of that down to, to three months.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, but yes, it's, you know, that's... It's kind of like the high ticket space.

There's always that... You always have that problem of having to chase new revenue.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And we've thought about different ways where we can continue to support people beyond three months. We haven't really figured out what is right for our clients and what's actually gonna be a good business model to invest in yet.

Right now, it's just, um, a variation of different upselling opportunities, so extension beyond three months or, um, you know... I, I think that's the next stage we wanna figure out.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Yeah. It's like what happens after three months? How does this person still keep... 'Cause, you know, your best customers are your existing customers as- 100%

most people know. Um, okay. So, uh, let's talk about your customers for a little bit. Um, [00:33:00] you started with doctors. The problem with doctors is that they basically have golden handcuffs, right? Yes. They get paid a decent amount of money. I can tell my brother's story 'cause his story is w- was actually like really positive.

So he was a pediatric neurologist.

Mm-hmm.

He was making like $300,000 a year or more. Um, very busy. He has two kids, two young kids. He used to get so stressed out if they got sick because both him and his wife are in healthcare, so it's like they'd have to cancel patients, and it was like very difficult for them to handle anytime a kid was sick.

Um, he would have neighbors who would be like eating lunch in the middle of the day. He never could do that. He used to have to take calls at 2:00 in the morning, and then he was just like I love my job. I- it's rewarding. It's very rewarding to have patients be grateful and everything like that. It's like instant reward.

Mm-hmm. But he just wanted a better lifestyle, and so he just, you know, figured it out and went on LinkedIn and, and started [00:34:00] at, you know, one company, then kept moving his way up, and now he has an amazing job. He's making, like, almost double the amount of money.

Rami Wehbi: That's awesome.

Hala Taha: Um, and I'm sure in the beginning he was making just about the same, but for other doctors, that's not necessarily the case.

Like, they might have to take a pay cut. Yeah. And I think those are the golden handcuffs that they have, right?

Rami Wehbi: That-- Absolutely. And it's actually one of the things we realized as we started progressing. We actually moved away from really marketing to physicians at all, and we focused on the healthcare professionals that were earning between 80 and $150,000 because for them, they could make a career transition horizontally and still earn the same amount of money or maybe a little bit more.

And so the career pivot for them just made so much more sense.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Whereas, like you mentioned, physicians earn a lot higher incomes, and so they're not necessarily willing to go into, like, a mid to entry-level job, which is the case for most physicians. Like you, if you wanted to do a career transition, you probably need to take [00:35:00] a pay cut.

Um, but not for all. Many can pivot into pharma like your brother and actually earn more money.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: But I'm sure for your brother, it was actually really difficult to have to figure that out on his own and, you know, navigate that entire process.

Hala Taha: Totally. I re- I remember it was very difficult for him. Um, and it was kinda like he got lucky.

He got, like, a b- a big break, you know? There was, like, one specific company that needed a pediatric neurologist, and there's not that many in the world and you know what I mean? So he had to, like, find the exact opportunity that was a fit for him and then kind of navigate his way. Right. Uh, but it worked out.

He's so much happier, you know, and ultimately, you spend so much of your life working that you wanna be happy. Um, so what kind of jobs, like, for, for all the nurse-- There's so many nurses in the world and medical assistants For everybody tuning in, what kind of job opportunities are really out there for people who have medical degrees that are not clinical?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. There's such a wide variation, and I'm honestly always [00:36:00] surprised because I see a new job title out there, and I'm like, "Oh, another new f- job that could be for clinicians." Yeah. But they're not really marketed for clinicians. They're marketed for people with X, Y, and Z background, and they always say, "Clinical b- or healthcare background preferred," or something along those lines.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: So I'd say it falls into four main categories. The first one is probably s- sales being the big category. Uh, I would put customer success under there, uh, account executive, account manager, uh, medical device sales, pharma sales. Hmm. So anything in that category I would put there, maybe even MSL or medical affairs.

Hala Taha: One of my best friends just reminded me she was a nurse. Mm-hmm. So smart, so bright. She went into medical device sales. She's making so much money now. Yeah. She's crushing it. Yeah. Yeah,

Rami Wehbi: and sales is definitely-- And I, I, I love sales, and it's probably, like-- I encourage people to learn sales and, like, get into sales as much as possible 'cause it's such a good skill to learn.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, but it's definitely also got the highest ceiling and highest earning potential- Yeah ... potentially. Um, [00:37:00] so sales is one of them. Uh, I'd put operations maybe on the second category. That can include, uh, clinical operations, uh, coordination, program managi- prog- uh, project management.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Uh, product management as well.

It's a very popular one. There's just so many that-- different job titles that can fall under that. I would say a third category is education or content writing, and then the fourth category would be the consulting or strategy side of things.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Okay. Awesome. So in terms of, like, costs of delivering all th- these services, you have coaches, and it sounds like you've had coaches from, like, almost the very beginning.

So how do you find these coaches? How do you vet these coaches? How do you pay these coaches? How big of a cost is that?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. Absolutely. So we have two full-time coaches. Uh, they're our program directors, and we pay them a full, full salary.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: And- So it's

Hala Taha: not per client. It's salary based.

Rami Wehbi: It's salary based for the, for the program directors.

Okay. Um, and they're-- these are [00:38:00] super experienced coaches, Chanel and Jenny. They're wonderful.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, and they basically built out the entire program for us, um, and they did all of the hiring and the recruiting. And so we've got about 15, I wanna say 15 contractor coaches at the moment, and so they just step in as needed.

We have so many different clients, and they have different schedules, and so we need a lot of, um, availability f- to-- that's flexible for our clients.

Hala Taha: Got it.

Rami Wehbi: And so we rely on contractors to support kind of, like, outside of our two main coaches as, as jobs. I

Hala Taha: could imagine that could be very difficult.

Quality control, um-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: reliability. And also with a service like this that's high ticket, you've gotta really deliver for your customers. And if you've got- Yeah ... like one bad review on Reddit, could crush everything, right?

Rami Wehbi: Absolutely. We, um, we spent... And, and really for me, like I wanted to build the best program.

And to do something like that, you have to hire the best people. And so my first [00:39:00] two hires, like We really just spent, like, so much time interviewing, talking to the right people, asking for referrals, and that was the big difference maker, 'cause re- they really built the bulk of the program. Mm. And when you hire people who are A+, they hire other people who are A+.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And that is so, so important in program delivery because, you know, when your clients are happy, like you said, if you even have one bad review, it can hurt your business. And thankfully for us, like, we've got, I think, 4.7 on Trustpilot, all five-star reviews, and all of our clients have been super happy so far.

And if, if there ever haven't been, we just go above and beyond to, like, make it right or, or, or help them in whatever way we can. And, and that's so important.

Hala Taha: So with a $6,000 fee for the coaching program, how much profit do you make off that with all the different expenses from the coaches, from your te- you have, like, a, a small, a pretty small, like, executive team.

Yeah. Like five [00:40:00] people or something like that. How much, how much profit do you-

Rami Wehbi: Well, our gross profit margin's around 60%. Okay. That's pretty good. 55 to 60%. And then our net profit margin, it just really depends for us on how much we're reinvesting back into the business or spending on marketing.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: But that could be around, you know, I'd say 20%, 30%.

Hala Taha: Nice.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: So how do you get your customers today?

Rami Wehbi: Um, so today, the main channel is obviously paid, so-

Hala Taha: Okay ...

Rami Wehbi: so, uh-

Hala Taha: Why is that obvious?

Rami Wehbi: Uh, I think for the high ticket space, it's actually pretty common- Mm ... that a lot of people are doing Meta. Um, but we've actually been also getting a lot of referrals, so you know, I think that's been becoming much more common now that we're more established.

People have heard about us, and we've got a lot more fellows who have gone through the program.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: So referrals and then organic as well, my Instagram, my LinkedIn, the company page, uh-

Hala Taha: This podcast.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, this [00:41:00] podcast,

Hala Taha: hopefully. Um-

Rami Wehbi: Which I need to do more of and tell my

Hala Taha: story. Yeah, you need to do more podcasts.

Well, I don't know. You had a podcast. I was like, he probably does pr- I usually like interviewing ... like fairly amount of... Okay. Okay. I was, I was thinking you might be doing a f- a fair amount of podcasts if you had a podcast. Well, let me ask you this. Do

Rami Wehbi: you li- do you like being interviewed, or do you like being the interviewer?

Hala Taha: I like being interviewed when I have something to say. Yeah. So if I have, like, a new course and I've got all this material in my head, or if I just had a new webinar and I've got all these ideas. But I hate being interviewed when, like, I don't have anything new going on, 'cause then I just feel, like, boring, you know?

Yeah. So, uh, I'm not doing interviews until I launch my book, which I'm in the progress of writing. So once I have my book out, I'll save all my favors for then.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Um, okay. So let's talk about paid ads, Meta. Um, I tried paid ads once. I get all my, my c- clients', uh- Through referrals essentially.

So I have a social media podcast agency, and I have a podcast network. Mm-hmm. Most of my clients actually are guests on the podcast, [00:42:00] and- Nice ... then they just become my client, 'cause- All right.

Rami Wehbi: Sign me up that too.

Hala Taha: I basically designed this podcast that way. Yeah, I'm, I'm pro- I could definitely help you with, like, podcast appearances and all the...

I have so many different services that people that come on my show want those types- Yeah ... of, like, LinkedIn management, Instagram, podcast production, monetization of their channels, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I've designed a really cool, like, lead gen engine, and then also we grow our brand really wide so that when my team does outreach, like everybody knows about my podcast in the gap media.

And even if they don't come on my podcast, like the brand gets us in and we don't- Yeah ... have to do really any paid other than, like, how much it costs to do like outbound email. So we never do paid ads. Yeah. I did it once and it totally flopped.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: But I didn't try hard enough. So what was your experience with paid ads like?

What was like some of your first campaigns? Like, what is working for you?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So, well, when we started off, we started with like a super low ad spend to just get leads and talk to them and learn.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And then we [00:43:00] had to figure out, you know, is what we're offering here something they want? And so in the beginning, we were offering, uh, basically kind of like, it was like, kind of like a no-brainer.

Like we were taking on all the risk. We were letting you sign up for f- I think it was like a $500- Mm ... to sign up for three months, get coaching, and then you only have to pay us when you actually get a job.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And so we just had such low risk-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Rami Wehbi: or such a no-brainer offer that we would just talk to people and they'd say, "Okay, you're gonna take on all the risk."

And then we'd help them get jobs and pivot and actually be successful, and then they would actually be so grateful they would pay us. And so in the beginning, we were just spending like a low amount on Meta, maybe a couple thousand dollars a month. And then once people started landing jobs, we realized, "Oh, okay, this works.

Great." But it came to a point where cash flow became the constraint, and so the model we were doing wasn't actually a good model because it just delayed cash flow, and then [00:44:00] for whatever reason, sometimes people wouldn't be able to pay or they'd have to pay it over a longer period of time.

Hala Taha: Yeah. How would you even like prove it or...

I guess you had a contract, but like you're not- Yeah ... gonna go spend legal fees for $7,000. It would cost the same amount to- Exactly ... take it to court, right? So.

Rami Wehbi: Exactly. So, so for that reason, we've, we pivoted the model. We collected the cash up front, which allows us to cash flow the business and grow it. And so, you know, it reached a point where when we were closing five or six a month, we started to increase the ad spend.

And then at one point, we, we changed the model, made it all up front. We started hiring a sales team, setters and closers, and then it just kind of started growing from there.

Hala Taha: Mm. You know what I would do if I was trying to grow your business?

Rami Wehbi: Tell me.

Hala Taha: Webinars.

Rami Wehbi: Webinars. We, we do that now.

Hala Taha: You do webinars now?

We do. I mean, I would focus on growing your personal brand, 'cause this is a topic that a lot... There's so many medical professionals in the world. How big is the market? Like, [00:45:00] how many medical professionals are there?

Rami Wehbi: There's around 10 million healthcare professionals if you count all of, like- In

Hala Taha: the US?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, if you count all of the allied health and, like, support staff and that.

Hala Taha: That's so many people.

Rami Wehbi: 4 million nurses alone in

Hala Taha: the US. Yeah, and it's like, it's very targetable on LinkedIn, so you could be searching different titles and then DM'ing people, inviting them to your free educational webinar, and then mass closing them.

Yeah. You know what I mean? So that's what I would do. I would be like- Yeah ... find every single nurse and every single medical assistant and invite them to this free webinar, give them an hour of great content, and then close them in mass.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. I, I actually do wanna pick your brain about that because-

Hala Taha: Yeah

Rami Wehbi: I totally agree.

I mean-

Hala Taha: Pick my brain right now. Let's do it.

Rami Wehbi: Well, I guess- So I've been doing a webinar every week now.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: So I have it on my personal LinkedIn page.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: And I, I did it because, one, we, we've done supplemental webinars, so all of our leads that don't, um, close or pay on the call- Mm-hmm ... we send them link, come to the free webinar if you're not convinced yet.

Like-

Hala Taha: And the best thing [00:46:00] about Zoom webinars is you can collect you- their email and their phone number when they sign up. So if they sign up- Yeah ... once, you've got their email to retarget them over

Rami Wehbi: and over. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so we do all the retargeting and it, it, it builds trust really, and that's the biggest thing.

Because when people wanna spend $6,000, like they really wanna know they can- Yeah ... trust you. And-

Hala Taha: And you can't build trust off a paid ad. That's why it flopped for me, 'cause on social, people would follow me for years, then I'd sell something. They have like years of content and trust. On a paid ad, they have no idea who I am.

So we'd... Paid ad to, to webinar is always the way to go- Yeah ... in my opinion.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. I, I wanna, uh, and I'd love to get your opinion on, on, you know, um, having those be paid webinars versus free.

Hala Taha: Free.

Rami Wehbi: Free for all of them.

Hala Taha: Free. And I, I, I know a lot about webinars. I've interviewed like Russell Brunson about it, Jason Fladlien about it.

Yeah. I've done maybe 200 webinars myself.

Oh, wow.

Um, so what you wanna do on a webinar is you want to give f- uh, free [00:47:00] educational content, but you do not wanna give too much. You don't wanna overwhelm. Yeah.

Yeah.

So you want to, uh, tell your own hero story, which you've got a really great hero story, right?

Mm-hmm. So you actually were your cu- own customer. Like you, you're- Right ... you have the experience to help them because you went through the same thing. So you wanna go through something called a hero story, and like that's the first 15 minutes of the webinar is you just inspiring them with your hero story, making them feel relatable to you of the same, you had the same pain points, and then you are establishing your credibility of like how many people you've gotten jobs so far, how you turned it around, uh, and like how you just like wanna give back and, and help them now make their own transition.

Right.

Then you give them like a promise of like, "By the end of this webinar, in the next 45 minutes, I'm gonna help you do X, Y, and Z." Mm-hmm. And you pick like one, like 5% or even 2% of what you would teach them in the coaching program. Mm-hmm. One [00:48:00] nugget that they can walk away with and like implement or like that's actually meaningful, and like walk them through like a framework.

And then if they want more you tell them the offer, and you give them like an incentive to actually buy then. So in the next 24 hours you get a 20% discount.

Hmm.

Or, you know- Yeah ... use this promo code or whatever it is, and you give them like some sort of offer at the end. Yes. And then there's like camaraderie and people chatting.

You could invite your past students to, to, to give you shout-outs and even come on and tell, talk about their experience, and you can get really creative. Yeah. And so it's a great way to mass sell, and especially for something like this where there's so many people. If it was like something really niche, I wouldn't recommend this, but because there's so many people that would be interested and there's so much to teach.

Like, you could just do it about like how to be confident in your interview or something, you know?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. No, you're spot on, and that's actually such good advice. And we made the mistake, I think, of over-teaching in some of our webinars- Mm-hmm ... where we go [00:49:00] too deep in like how to actually do something. It's like so valuable

Hala Taha: where it's like- Yeah, you don't want to go too deep

Rami Wehbi: where it's like then they just wanna go and do it on their own.

Hala Taha: Or they get scared and they're like- And they get

Rami Wehbi: scared,

Hala Taha: yes ... "Ugh, this is way too much. This is way too much work." You wanna just talk about the outcome and like- Yeah ... not how hard it's gonna be and all the work, right?

Rami Wehbi: 100%,

Hala Taha: yeah. So just like a couple small things that like you wanna teach them and take them away to build that trust and like to get them feeling like, "Okay, this is the company that I wanna work with.

If, if I got this for free, I can't imagine what it would be if I paid for it."

Rami Wehbi: Right.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Right. And then case studies of, of all the success that you've had, like all the credibility, 'cause you've actually helped a lot of people land jobs. So- Mm-hmm ... you've got something that other people don't have, which is like proof points.

Rami Wehbi: Totally, yeah. And I think social proof has definitely been like the biggest thing for us is both on the paid side as well, like our best ads are social proof. And then- Mm-hmm ... um, the more we can sprinkle it, sprinkle it in on our website and our socials, it's always like really boosted our sales.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So you actually have a pretty decent email list, right?

Rami Wehbi: We do. We've got [00:50:00] about 18,000.

Hala Taha: Nice. How did you get those emails?

Rami Wehbi: Um, yeah, paid.

Hala Taha: Paid ads.

Rami Wehbi: Paid ads mostly, and um, probably organic, uh, just website visits. We've, we've invested a lot in SEO, just- Yeah,

Hala Taha: that's smart ...

Rami Wehbi: being kind of like this unique brand in healthcare for career transitions. I do believe we're the market leader.

I don't think there's anybody else in terms of like quality or scale that's this niche providing to our, like providing this type of solution for healthcare professionals. Yeah. And so when people search non-clinical careers or pivoting, we usually come up and we're the first kind of, you know, place people usually learn- Mm-hmm

about these sort of things. Um, but that's been a, a big driver of growth for us in collecting emails. Um, and I, I will say, you know, we're kind of a, I still think we're kind of a baby company because we spent our first year 2023, we did $8,000 in sales. Nothing. 2024, we did [00:51:00] $30,000. 2025, we did almost a million.

Hala Taha: Wow. Yeah. What changed that year?

Rami Wehbi: The entire model.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay. That's when you pivoted- Yeah ... the model. Okay.

Rami Wehbi: And then this year we'll do, you know, almost 2 million.

Hala Taha: That's great. Yeah. How much does it cost to acquire a customer? What's your customer acquisition cost?

Rami Wehbi: Right now it fluctuates between 1,200 and 2,000.

Hala Taha: Wow. That's a lot.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Damn. I'm so lucky I get all my customers for free.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. You are lucky.

Hala Taha: I get paid, I get paid to have my customers because I get paid for podcasts.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. And so, and that's actually pretty common, uh, in the industry for, for these high ticket programs.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: There's so much kind of... You got to separate the signal from the noise, and you just have to talk to the right people.

And- Yeah. So I don't like giving Mark Zucker- Zuckerberg all of our money, but unfortunately it's the way, you know, right now we're building brand awareness and, and it's been profitable. So we have a, you know, around a four to five X [00:52:00] ROAS at the moment. Mm. So it works.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: It's just not ideal.

Hala Taha: Yeah, it's not ideal.

Organic is so good. Um, but to your point, it's like it's working, you're profitable, um, you can just keep pushing at it and scaling it that way and just maximizing the effectiveness of your meta ads campaigns. Right. Um, but organic, what are you working on? I know you mentioned SEO. Are you doing anything with AI, like AEO?

Rami Wehbi: Yes. So yes, uh, our agency's actually building our AEO strategy- Nice ... and all of that. And so it goes along with like building the FAQs and, and, you know, the SEO and all that. So we got, we have like 10 blog posts going out every week-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Rami Wehbi: uh, to build our SEO strategy and, and get in search engines. But we're also doing, and this is the part I'm most excited about.

We used to have to hire a social media manager to basically run our Instagram.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And right now we're able to put out 10 times the volume through Claude and through building frameworks and skills, and then running ManyChat [00:53:00] automations from our posts. So-

Hala Taha: Oh, nice ...

Rami Wehbi: we're getting hundreds of comments on our posts every single week that lead to nurturing funnels, career assessment quizzes, webinars, all these different things, and that's boosted our sales like I'd say like 20%.

Hala Taha: Okay. Unpack this.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: So is that like your cha- like what, how many different, is it like many different Instagram channels that you guys are just like, like kind of like clipping? Like-

Rami Wehbi: No, it's the Match Day Health Instagram page.

Hala Taha: Okay. It's one Instagram page. Yeah. Yeah. And what are you saying? Like Claude's helping you come up with content?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. Carousels have just been major for us. So the way carousels work is it, is it goes mainly to your followers first. And so because we spend so much, you know, we spend around $1,000 a day in meta ads.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And we get a lot of followers on our Instagram. We're also running organic posts. All those people follow our Instagram and probably lurk for a long time.

And so through these carousels, we do a lot of education about non-clinical [00:54:00] jobs, about careers, about what they can land, because this is a space that requires a lot of education. Mm-hmm. People still don't know enough about it And so we get, you know, people to comment, there's the automations, and then they can go into our newsletter or book a call with our team.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And we've just seen a, you know, a huge bump in our organic sales every month. Um, and it's just been like a huge supplement to our paid meta ads.

Hala Taha: Let me give you a tip. Yeah. Take all your best performing carousels and make them trial reels.

Rami Wehbi: Interesting.

Hala Taha: And then make fi- so you can post about... So my ch- my Instagram has been blowing up from trial reels.

Like, I just got a, like last week I had a video that had a million views, 500,000 views, f- 300- Wow ... like huge, huge videos, and each video is giving me like 3,000 followers. Like it is crazy. Hmm. Like I'm about to grow really fast on Instagram. So take your be- c- and the thing that wins is actually the topics.

Hmm. It's what is getting people to comment and have a conversation. [00:55:00] Yeah. So you have all this data now of all the carousels that generated comments and conversation. Turn those into reels. Hmm. Take each idea and do it five times.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Five different hooks or like switch up the video, 'cause you can't upload the same video, and do five trial reels a day of like the same concept, and just do that every day.

And like, I guarantee you it's gonna pop off. Like-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: there, so basically Instagram is-

Rami Wehbi: Hear that, Andrew?

Hala Taha: Yeah

Rami Wehbi: Get on this.

Hala Taha: Instagram is basically pushing trial reels to f- uh, followers, and especially because you've trained, um, like your word cloud of your Instagram page- Mm-hmm ... of like all the keywords that you use.

Like Instagram knows what you talk about because you guys have been consistent in your topics. Right. So your trial reels are gonna go to people who want that, and who, and like basically if you have one or two of your trial reels that are doing well- Mm-hmm ... as people are scrolling, they're just gonna get fed like your next video.

It's just really awesome, and it's- Yeah ... it's kind of like I've [00:56:00] never seen this much traction on Instagram for like brand new accounts or like- Yeah ... not super popular accounts. Like for my clients it's working really well, so like definitely lean into trial reels.

Rami Wehbi: Interesting. Yeah. I, I'd love to ask you like, I guess, I'm guessing you have a team that works with you on- Yeah

your social media. How, how much of a hand do you have in like the strategy or, you know, pushing them to do certain things?

Hala Taha: Well, uh, I'm a busy woman, but like my- At 11:00 PM at night I'm always checking like my YouTube, my Instagram, and like giving everybody feedback. Um, I am involved in the strategy and setting the higher level strategy, like what do we wanna focus on, what features do we want to use.

Um, but my team, I have like a big team, and my team is really like drafting the nitty gritty content. Um, there's like a, we've got like a B-roll library of like approved videos and approved photos, so I don't always have to like approve every single little thing.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Um, and then anything super personal I review.

Like [00:57:00] if it's like a Mother's Day post or a post about my boyfriend, then like I don't want them- Yeah ... to be the one writing that, you know? Yeah. So it's like I, I work on those. But other than that, my team is basically doing like everything. And, um, I basically have like monthly social media meetings, uh, biweekly content brand team meetings where we're talking about YouTube, podcast, everything, you know?

And so I'm always directing my team. I think a big part of my job is just directing everyone. Mm-hmm. Uh, but not the nitty gritty day to day of like- Yeah ... this is the post we're gonna post today, you know?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Not to hijack your, your show,

Hala Taha: but I guess- No, go for it. I was like,

Rami Wehbi: I'm curious what- I'm

Hala Taha: sure the listeners wanna know.

Rami Wehbi: Well, I'm curious like what do you exactly mean by directing? Are you like, um, supporting or l- like setting the vision for them? Or more so, you know, showing them what to do or that sort of thing?

Hala Taha: It's, I, I have so many things going on. So, uh, to kind of break down like all the different like areas of my brand, right?

So I have my [00:58:00] podcast- Mm-hmm ... which is au- like audio and YouTube. Mm. And like we're really focused on growing YouTube. Then we have LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, email.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Uh, in a biweekly meeting, I've got my whole team on, it's like 20 people on, and everybody's got their work stream and reporting out on like what they did this week, what they did last week, what are the...

And then they're telling me what they're doing and I'm like, "Okay," like, "I noticed this mistake," or, "I want this guest on the show," or- Yeah ... or like with trial reels, like let's just focus on the biggest guests, not the most recent guests, and let's just lean into that. Or-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah ... '

Hala Taha: cause I'm, I'm really like hands on in terms of like, I'm looking at every comment that's going on my page and like I'm really looking at it every day.

Yeah. So that in the meeting with my team, I, I can bring up like, "Hey, I saw we're doing this, I don't wanna do that anymore," or- Yeah ... or whatever. Yeah. But basically everybody's like we're s- there's like somebody responsible for every-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: every like area. Yeah. If that makes sense. It's

Rami Wehbi: almost like you're distilling all of the [00:59:00] insights too, because you're seeing what's working, what's moving.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. And then you s- They're telling me like, we grew- Yeah ... this much or like, we went viral here. I'm learning new things too. Like, oh, TikTok grew 10K. I didn't know that. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? So- Yeah ... um, that's how I get my information 'cause there's just so much going on and-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Very cool.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, back to you. Um, so match day We were on customer acquisition cost. Um, what about the tools that you're using? What technology are you using to run this all? Like, how do people, like, schedule time with their coach? How do you monitor coaching calls- Yeah ... and things like that?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, and so th- this is the part I love, and it's probably so relevant for someone who's starting a business or, you know, wanting to start their own business, is you can start with off-the-shelf tools for everything.

Um, and what I mean by that is, like, Google Drive, Notion, Slack, um, Gmail obviously. Um, all these different off-the-shelf tools, subscriptions. You know, we have a ton of [01:00:00] subscriptions that we use. But we don't have any of our own tech stack right now- Mm ... that we use. We actually built it in the very first year, and it was useless.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And it was actually not great, and it was super expensive and doesn't help the users. But users-

Hala Taha: You made your own platform. Yeah. Got it.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. And it w- it wasn't very effective because at the end of the day, people just need the tools that they need, and they actually like using the tools they're already familiar with.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Slack, Notion, Google Drive- Yep ... all these things. And so y- we really just use off-the-shelf tools for everything.

Hala Taha: That's, that's really great. So what, what tools?

Rami Wehbi: Uh, yeah. So, uh, Slack is our community. Yeah. So we still have the community.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: It's 1,000-plus members now.

Hala Taha: Nice.

Rami Wehbi: That's for job boards. We have hiring managers posting in there.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, all of the coach communications, like the asynchronous ones, happen on Slack between the fellow and their coach. Um, and that's the community Slack. And then we have our team Slack, which is all our internal operations. Uh, Notion is [01:01:00] basically set up for all of the resources, all of the guides, all of the videos that are supplementary, all of the tools that we use, different, uh, AI search tools that we set our clients up with.

And then we have our tracker in there for tracking jobs, et cetera. Uh, and then we also use it for internal operations as well, you know, whether it's marketing or, you know, setting up a CRM for different, um, objectives and KPIs for the month, that sort of thing. And then, uh, Google Drive, uh, for connecting with fellows.

The coaches use that a lot.

Hala Taha: Nice. Okay. So in terms of, like, how your team is structured, when you raised that million dollars Did they take equity?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So we raised it on a SAFE note.

Hala Taha: Okay. What's that mean?

Rami Wehbi: So SAFE is a, it's a YC-designed kind of, uh, tool or vehicle for collecting cash from angel in- investors.

Okay. So it's basically a promise to give equity when there's a [01:02:00] priced round or something that would trigger, uh, an equity conversion. So you typically raise it on a, on a cap, so it's either a pre-money, uh, valuation or a post-money valuation. So we raised it on a, uh, a $10 million, uh, valuation cap.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: But it's, it's not real equity yet.

So, um, we raised from angel investors, and at the time we were building or planning to build a venture-backed business.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And so, um, those investors have kind of like that promise of like when we do convert the equity or when there's a priced round, their shares would convert into actual equity.

Hala Taha: So you didn't pay them back yet?

Rami Wehbi: So I wouldn't say we didn't pay them back yet. We actually are, uh, in the process of converting all of our existing first investors into equity.

Hala Taha: Got it.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So, um, because-

Hala Taha: And how much equity will you have to give up?

Rami Wehbi: It's about 20% of our business.

Hala Taha: Got it. That's, that's a lot.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: That's a lot. But you got a million dollars to start the business- Oh, yeah

and that was helpful.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, and we... And you know what? You [01:03:00] always wanna do right by your investors- Yeah ... especially, like, the first people that invested in you. Um, for me, it's like the relationships are way more important than the money. So I'd rather give away more and, like, do right by our investors, um, than, like, have them wondering, like, "Hey, what happened to my money?"

Or that sort of thing.

Hala Taha: Now that you changed the business model, do you wish that you just bootstrapped it? Um- 'Cause you're cash flowing well.

Rami Wehbi: I do.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: I do. But I didn't. Here's the thing. We actually did something. So our business was gonna fail-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Rami Wehbi: in 2023. We were gonna run out of money, and we weren't gonna be able to raise again.

But that was where I was like, "Whatever we turn this business into..." And we were almost out of money, by the way, and, and, and when we started this new model. We were almost out of cash. But I wanted to really do right by our investors and the people that took a risk on us and, like, not make this just a failed business.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And so instead of just going back to them and saying, "Hey, sorry the business failed," and starting this other thing, [01:04:00] which I really could have done, um, we didn't, and we turned Match Day into this business that it is now.

Hala Taha: So you could have, like, folded the other company completely- Yeah ... and then been like, "Sorry, guys.

You took the risk. I'm out." Yeah. But instead you didn't. So do you have to communicate anything to these investors? Do they have any sort of, like, say over anything? Or do you communicate them at a certain t- like on a... Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: To some degree. When you're, when they're angel investors and they're, you know, on a SAFE, they don't really have that kind of say.

Um, I did always put out, like, uh, quarterly investor updates sharing how the business is doing, what's happening, where we're growing. Um, and I still do that even now. Uh, but they don't get to, they don't really have a say because they don't... You know, a- once you get to, like, the seed stage or Series A and then they have a board seat, then that becomes a different story.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Um, and also you're taking on a lot more capital at that stage versus our stage was just individual angel investors.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Cool. All right. So we're gonna [01:05:00] do a SWOT analysis next.

Rami Wehbi: Oh, no.

Hala Taha: Okay? All right. Sounds fun. We're gonna get our MBA here on How We Profit, so we're gonna do SWOT. So talk to me about what do you think your biggest strengths are as a company right now?

Rami Wehbi: As a company, our biggest strengths are marketing and oper- and, and operations. So we have a very strong program, very high quality, high caliber coaches. Um, so from a program fulfillment side, like, we're super strong.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, and also from a marketing side of things, I think we've just done a really good job of establishing our- establishing ourselves as, like, the leader in the space for career transitions.

Hala Taha: Okay. Um- Speaking of success, what is your success rate for actually helping people get a job?

Rami Wehbi: So we track success over a six-month period. So within [01:06:00] six months, 80-plus percent of our fellows will actually land a job.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Uh, the average time to offer last quarter was 88 days.

Right now it's about 112. Um, so it slowed down a, a bit because of the market slowdown, but we're also going into like September, October, which is peak hiring season, so-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Rami Wehbi: hopefully that number will, will speed up again too.

Hala Taha: And in terms of like capacity with your coaches, like are you looking at it like we've got X amount of coaches, we have this much capacity for clients, and we're this much underfilled?

Like how do-- how are you like monitoring your goals? Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. We, we have an update every single week, so a weekly operations update, and we kind of have a percentage of capacity Excuse me. Um, so we have a percentage of capacity that kind of floats around. So anytime we're above 70%, we start thinking of hiring.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, when we're, when we know we're ready to scale, we'll start thinking about, uh, additional [01:07:00] contractors. We'll start interviewing, um, and preparing for that process. But, you know, typically above 80% is, that's kind of like yellow flag, and above 90 is like, "Okay, we gotta figure this out ASAP," because we're bringing on new clients all the time, and so we might run out of capacity in that stage, and we never want our fulfillment to be the bottleneck.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So interesting. That's super interesting. Okay, so how much is your founder story a strength at this point? Do you feel like it's grown beyond you?

Rami Wehbi: Um, I think, I think our business could do well without me, and I think it would probably do the same amount of revenue with or without me. Maybe, um, you know, for me, it's really been the trust factor because it's my story.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And it's just, you know, to establish the business and get it off the ground, it's really helped. But now I think Match Day carries its own weight.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, it's got social proof. It's got strong marketing, strong brand. We wanna still kind of, you [01:08:00] know, take the key, take me, the key man, out of risk out of the business.

Um, and I don't ever-- Like, I wanna run Match Day forever. I love the business.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Uh, but I don't wanna be the, the main risk to the business. If I ever can't do something or be, you know, doing the ads or anything like that, I don't want the business reliant on me or my personal brand. I, I really want it to stand on its own two legs.

Are

Hala Taha: you doing all the meta ads right now? Are you the, the face of it?

Rami Wehbi: No, just I'd say probably half of them. Okay. Um, we, we hire UGC creators. Um, my ads usually are the best performing. Mm-hmm. And I think it's, I think there's something about being the founder is like you just have the most conviction, and people- Yeah

like can sense that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And so that's part of it. And then I think just being a doctor also gives you credibility.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And I say like, I say this like, my degree didn't go to complete waste. You know, the $400,000 degree. Yeah. It's like now it helps me, you know, build trust with our audience, and, and that's worth something.

Hala Taha: It is worth something. All right. Let's talk about weaknesses. [01:09:00]

Rami Wehbi: Weaknesses. Um- I wanna say we don't have weaknesses, but of course we do. Um, I would say areas that we're improving are sales and getting better at having a strong sales team.

Hala Taha: Mm. Uh- Like closing people from- Yeah ... the ads.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So- '

Hala Taha: Cause it's all calls.

Like, they, they book a call?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So they book a call with our, we call it our, our admissions team. And so there's a qualification call that's about 30 minutes, and so that's the first kind of experience someone has with Match Day, 30-minute call. Right now we have four full-time setters, so they're available for the calls.

They're the first kind of like interaction someone has with Match Day. And so we make sure we have a good first impression, but also we're qualifying, making sure this person is the right fit, um, for us, we're a good fit for them, and they're also financially qualified so we're not wasting their time or our time.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And then we have the team that's like our closing team or our admissions closers, and they are, um, [01:10:00] really closing the deals and, and bringing in the revenue.

Hala Taha: Are these international contractors?

Rami Wehbi: Uh- They're all US-based.

Hala Taha: They're all US-based that are- Yeah ... doing that. Does that get expensive?

Rami Wehbi: No. They're all commission-based.

Hala Taha: Commission-based.

Rami Wehbi: Uh, our set team, uh, gets a base. Our closers are all commission-based, um, and they do really well.

Hala Taha: Take a- So- Take a second to like walk through what that t- setup is like and how much commission they're getting on the deals- Yeah. So- ... and how you find, like, like, do you consider those people team members?

Are they kind of like contract-- Like, how does that work?

Rami Wehbi: I consider them a core part of our team.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. Because sales, and I think this is where a lot of people... I've seen, like, people outsource sales, and I think that's a terrible idea. Mm-hmm. Sales is part of our culture because it's like the professionalism.

It's like, you know, if you have a lousy salesperson, and they're not showing up professionally, and they're talking to your customers or not handling things appropriately, it makes your whole business look bad. So I consider them like a integral part of our team. I meet, meet with them [01:11:00] weekly, um, always, you know, going through coaching exercises or whatever.

But we also have a sales manager. Um, but to break it down, we have setters, and so these are the people setting the closing appointments. They're doing the 30-minute calls, and we pay them a base. So they get a flat base. It's, uh, $1,500 a month, and then they earn a commission of, uh, could be between 5% and 7% per deal.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And their OTE, you know, is around $4,000 to $7,000 a month.

Hala Taha: And that was included in your customer acquisition cost. So it's the paid ads and the cost of the commission of the sales people.

Rami Wehbi: No, not in our customer acquisition cost. No.

Hala Taha: Oh, no. So customer acquisition cost was just the paid ads?

Rami Wehbi: Just the paid ads.

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Um, sales is 20% of to- of, of gross revenue.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: So that's a, that's a, you know, big line item.

Hala Taha: Got it. Okay. So even, you know, transitioning, like why commission-based for sales? Why not just hire full-time, like a full-time salesperson that does [01:12:00] everything?

Rami Wehbi: Um, I think the industry, and I, I think a lot of people maybe know this as like high ticket coaching industry- Yeah

high ticket sales industry. There's like, I don't know if you're familiar with like Shelby Sapp and- I

Hala Taha: do, yeah.

Rami Wehbi: So there's, there's a lot of people promoting this now, and the whole industry is kind of trained on just being commission-based.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And, um, you know, for them it's like, you know, the- they're able to make higher salaries if they're- Mm-hmm

really good. Um, and so most of them don't really want to be, um- Like salaried ... salaried or anything like that. They wanna work on commission.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: Because it also gives them, um- They just, they also make more money doing it that way.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Okay. So that's a huge chunk of your cost is actually the sales- Yeah

and the commission that goes to the sales team. Um, now what about the, the weakness of it being co- like coaches? Do you feel like that's scalable?

Rami Wehbi: Um, I do feel like it's scalable. I feel like we could grow to... I mean, I f- [01:13:00] I think we could easily get to a million to $2 million a month business.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: I do think that's on the horizon for us.

It might take us, you know, another two or three years to get there. Um, but I think we're, we've set up the systems now to be able to scale. And so on the fulfillment side, like we definitely can scale. Um, it's just a matter of having the right quality people and then having the right leadership in place to scale that team.

So I'm not doing, obviously our program director does all the hiring, all the quality assurance, and when you hire really good people, you can scale. Mm-hmm. So that's just number one is like hire good people.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And you have a good program. You said you spent a lot of time on the program.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And so, and we have a lot of system in s- systems in place on the fulfillment side.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, I'd say the bigger issue for scaling is just keeping our customer acquisit- customer acquisition costs down.

Hala Taha: And then like we talked about increasing like what are the other offers so that you can increase lifetime value of your customers.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. So the first-

Hala Taha: Or just get more customers. Yeah. Like such a big volume that it doesn't matter. [01:14:00]

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. I mean, my dream is, you know, for healthcare professionals is we can help them through the life- lifetime of their journey, and I think about it in a couple ways. One, everybody in healthcare has student loan debt, so I think about how can we help them with coaching handle their student loans-

Hala Taha: Mm

Rami Wehbi: strategize, have financial advisement.

Hala Taha: That's a great idea.

Rami Wehbi: After they actually, you know, land the job and are thinking about, "Okay, now how do I structure the rest of my life and career and financial responsibility?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: So that's, that's something that I'm thinking about is like how do we layer on services?

Because what's unique about us is when someone comes in and works with us, the, the, the amount of trust and rapport that they have with their coach is actually just phenomenal.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Like they wanna go work with that coach forever.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: They wanna be best friends with that coach. They really have a lot of respect for them, and that gives us kind of a privilege because now we have that relationship with them, and because we delivered such an [01:15:00] exceptional experience, because we helped them get that next job, they're going to trust us when we say, "Hey, we've got another program here.

We can help you with your student loans. We can help you with, you know, whatever it is." Um, somet- it could even be life insurance- I was gonna say- ... and disability ...

Hala Taha: what about like just life coaching? Like, "Hey- Now that you got a job, like you can continue on with like monthly life coaching or something. I don't know.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: We, we- I don't know if you need certain quali- qualifications for that, but...

Rami Wehbi: We, we've thought about it. Right now it's, um... So we do like a three-month extension for fellows if they wanna do that at a-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ... like

Rami Wehbi: discounted price. If they

Hala Taha: didn't get a job yet.

Rami Wehbi: If they didn't get a job yet, we'll do like a three-month extension at like a very high, highly discounted price- Mm-hmm

just to make sure we're supporting them until they- Yeah ... they get the job. Um, and then, uh, we do offer à la carte as well for fellows that graduate. So after they finish the program, they can always book again with their coach for like one-off sessions, for promotions, things like that. They're always able to do that.

So we do also generate a little bit of [01:16:00] revenue that way as well, just now that we have more alumni.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, but I think there's still also, uh, a lot more opportunity where we can, you know, um, really, uh, take that trust that we've built and, and provide more value for our customers.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. How about the opportunities?

Do you ever think about expanding beyond healthcare, or like what are the different opportunities that you're thinking about?

Rami Wehbi: I think health tech is such a big opportunity, such a big industry, and our advantage is that we're so niche.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Um, I feel like, you know, really there's, there's 10 million healthcare professionals.

That's kind of how I think about our TAM. And- What can we do to, to help more of them? And really, uh, I'll tell you, I, I didn't really get to go into too much of this- Yeah ... but the reason I started Match Day, like, my mission, what really drives me right now, it's actually just helping people get that spark back.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: Because so many healthcare professionals, if [01:17:00] you've seen them after a shift or even day-to-day, they're

Hala Taha: just- They're exhausted and miserable

Rami Wehbi: and- Yeah, they just look deprived of life.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And-

Hala Taha: Tired ...

Rami Wehbi: I want people to have that kind of spark back in their life where they don't feel drained and, and hopeless and defeated.

It's like they can show up and be present at home, be present with their families, be present in their communities.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: So, you know, we do that through helping them with their careers. That's one way to do it. There's probably lots of other ways, too. But, you know, thinking about really the core demographic of healthcare professionals, that's who we wanna serve and, and thinking about more ways we can do that.

Hala Taha: Mm. So opportunities. Uh, your podcast, it's stagnant? It's new-- Are you putting out new episodes, or what's going on?

Rami Wehbi: Very minimally. That's something we want to do more of, for sure. Um, and I think it's like-- I think maybe even just having on guests that have made the pivot or- Yeah ... are doing the next thing. I think that's our big next opportunity.

Hala Taha: It is, 'cause you [01:18:00] could probably get so many leads from the podcast from professionals that are interested in that kind of stuff. And it can-- It doesn't even have to be a huge audience- Totally ... uh, because it can just be, like, your exact target audience. Okay. For threats, any competitors that you're worried about?

Does AI threaten you in any way?

Rami Wehbi: Um, I don't really look at our competitors, honestly. I just try not to pay attention. Um, you know, I think, I think I, I see it in, in the sense, sense that it's a good sign when I start to see competitors. When we started doing this, like, this model of Match Day two years ago, there was no one doing it.

Uh, but I've started to see, like, independent career coaches pop up- Mm-hmm ... talking about this, posting more on social media. Mm-hmm. And actually, I think it's a good thing.

Hala Taha: Yeah, 'cause you could just take their followers.

Rami Wehbi: Well, they create more brand awareness about the non-clinical career pivot, right?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And, you know, I think it's great. I don't, I don't think, like... I just, for me, like, philosophically, I just don't believe in, like, focusing on my [01:19:00] competitors. I just think if I just, we just do what we do, like- You know, the more the merrier. They can h- they can have a part, piece of the pie too if they want.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Any other threats that you can think of?

Rami Wehbi: Um, yes. There w- well, you know, there's always the threats you have to be thinking about as a business owner, and, like, you have to be a little paranoid-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Rami Wehbi: of, like, you know, what could potentially put us out of business. Mm-hmm. And so Meta going down-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Rami Wehbi: like, that could be a huge threat- Mm-hmm

'cause we have had our reliance on Meta ads, and I think a lot of coaches and, and businesses like ours rely, uh, on Meta, and that's why we've invested heavily in, like, building more organic presence-

Hala Taha: I was gonna

Rami Wehbi: say, yeah ... a referral system, ways that we don't have to have that reliance. Um, and then just kind of the general economy, you know.

Um, $6,000 is an investment for a lot of people, and when the economy's good-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Rami Wehbi: people are willing to invest themselves to, to, to further their careers and growth. I think we're in a fairly safe [01:20:00] industry because our demographic is healthcare, and that's a stable field that doesn't really... It's recession-proof in a sense.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Rami Wehbi: And so I think we're okay there. But, um, as a business owner, you just have to always be thinking about what things could hurt your business and be, like, threat- like, life-threatening-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Rami Wehbi: for your business and, and, you know, I'm always keeping an eye out for those things.

Hala Taha: Cool. Okay, we're gonna close this out with your, uh, founder failure file.

Rami Wehbi: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay? I'm gonna ask you some of the ways that you failed, because the best way to learn, guys, is from other people's failures. Uh, and I feel like we've learned so much in this interview already, but what was the biggest product or platform mistake inside of Match Day? What's the biggest mistake that you...

with your products? Um,

Rami Wehbi: spending money on an agency to build us tech. Horrible use of funds, horrible decision. Should have never done that.

Hala Taha: You're not in the tech business, right? Yeah. So you basically entered into the tech business instead of just [01:21:00] focusing on your core thing, which was coaching, and there's so many different platforms out there that are, like, specifically- Yeah

designed for-

Rami Wehbi: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: coaching services. Yeah. So yeah. Uh, what was your worst hiring decision?

Rami Wehbi: Worst hiring decision I think about that, 'cause I don't-

Hala Taha: You feel like that's been strong?

Rami Wehbi: I feel like that's been pretty strong. Um, we're really good at hiring, and I think we let people go really quickly if it's obvious- Mm

they're not a good fit.

Hala Taha: That's good.

Rami Wehbi: Um, I don't think I've had too many bad hires. Maybe on the sales side- That's good ... we, oh, we have had bad sales hires.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Rami Wehbi: And that was because we had a bad sales manager at the time. Mm. Like, when you have C+ people or C people- Yeah,

Hala Taha: they're gonna hire, like, other

Rami Wehbi: bad people

they're gonna hire other bad people, and they're a bad hire. One of the

Hala Taha: biggest mistakes I did early on, so when I first started my social media podcast agency, it blew up, like, right away. Like, month one and we were making six figures. And I had, like, essentially a team of interns. Like, I didn't even have, like...

I was still working a full-time [01:22:00] job at Disney, and I had a team of interns, and I was, like, letting the interns, this is a long time ago, I was letting the interns, like, hire people. Or, like, maybe we had just started paying people, and I was letting those first employees, like, hire people- Yeah ... without me even interviewing them.

And then suddenly we had, like, these horrible people on the team. Yeah. And that was a big mistake. Then I was like, "Okay," like, "I have to do all the hiring interviews." Like, no matter how... Now, you know, I've got people I trust, but back then- Yeah ... it's like, you gotta make your first hires.

Rami Wehbi: Definitely.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Um- What cost did you underestimate the most?

Rami Wehbi: Hmm, what cost did I underestimate the most? I think the cost of entrepreneurship. Hmm. Like, you know, I just... I was-- I thought you never really know what it's gonna take to be an entrepreneur until you do it, and, you know, I've, you know... I work 100 hours a week.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: You know, and I thought, oh, what if I was working a lot [01:23:00] in residency?

But, like, I'm always in the business. I'm always... I've got a pulse on it. It doesn't feel like work to me, 'cause I enjoy it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And so it's easy in a sense, but I work a lot.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Um- It'll

Hala Taha: get better.

Rami Wehbi: But yeah, and, and, um, so that's, that's... You know, there has been definitely the, the scares and the mental cost, because you just-- to get it to the point where you're, like, outside of, um, liftoff, like you're, uh, you've reached escape velocity, you just have to, like, s- pour so much into it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And I feel like we're just getting at that point where we're reaching escape velocity, and I'm able to, like, take a breath now. But it, it did take a lot to, to get it to that point.

Hala Taha: Hmm. What decision did you make too slowly?

Rami Wehbi: Firing toxic people.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: I thought you just said you fire really quick.

Rami Wehbi: Um, and I do now. I do now. You do

Hala Taha: now.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah, yeah. Lesson

Hala Taha: learned.

Rami Wehbi: I do now.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Um, there's, you [01:24:00] know, maybe only, like, two scenarios where there was someone where I should have let them go sooner. Mm-hmm. And not because they weren't a good...

Like, they were excellent operators-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Rami Wehbi: but they weren't good team players.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Rami Wehbi: They didn't have the right attitude. People were afraid to go to them for things or weren't very approachable, and that just, it just ruins the dynamic, and, um, it creates stress for you and other people. And so, like, if you have people like that on your team, even if they're amazing, you just gotta let them go.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. What's a founder habit that you think is holding Match Day back?

Rami Wehbi: Not doing enough content.

Hala Taha: Yeah, you gotta do more content.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: You started out in podcasting in 2017. Your podcast could be huge right now if you- Yeah ... were just consistent, right? So-

Rami Wehbi: 100% ...

Hala Taha: just get back to it. Start guesting on podcasts.

Start doing your podcast. Start chopping up clips from your podcast. Totally. Blowing it up.

Rami Wehbi: Well,

Hala Taha: and- That's what you gotta do ...

Rami Wehbi: that's, that's, that's a really good point. And, um, I don't know what it is, like, about just [01:25:00] becoming an entrepreneur that just made me so much more introverted.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: Because I'm so in the business, talking to people all the time.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: I feel like getting on camera... And, and it's also like you have to switch your brain a little bit.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And back when you were doing your podcast, was it audio only?

Rami Wehbi: It was audio only, yeah.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Now it's a whole different world.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. It's a different world getting on camera.

Hala Taha: It is. Yeah. Uh, but you can do it.

I believe in you. Thank

Rami Wehbi: you.

Hala Taha: Um, okay. So if somebody wants to copy this business, any ideas of, like, people who are tuning in, obviously not specifically your idea, but lots of people do career pivots, and lots of people need new careers. Yeah. What are some ideas that you have for people or advice on how to copy your business?

Rami Wehbi: Yeah. I would say, you know, any time you start a business, like, the more authentic it is to you, the better that business is going to be.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so everybody has a story. Everyone has something that's happened in their life that they've overcome, that they've faced as a challenge. Mm-hmm. And they've learned how to navigate that.

So in the coaching space, if you were to [01:26:00] wanna become a coach, if that's in what you wanna be, um, you can build a business around that. You can help someone overcome a very specific challenge that you know better than most people.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: And so I would say to f- for one, is just be honest with yourself.

Like, don't fall in love with some solution because you think it's cool.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: Fall in love with the problem.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Rami Wehbi: And that was the first mistake I made as a, as an entrepreneur-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Rami Wehbi: is I fell in love with a solution that wasn't even really for me.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Rami Wehbi: And when I came back to my roots and I became, like...

went back to, like, integrity for me- Yeah ... everything fell into place. And so I really believe this is, like- The world's trying to unfold for you, and it's like swimming downstream.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Rami Wehbi: You just have to let go and be in integrity and, and do the thing that feels right.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Rami Wehbi: And you can build a business out of that.

Like, you don't-- I don't believe in, like, the world where you have to be icky or do the wrong things to be successful anymore. I think you can be in [01:27:00] integrity and do something that is right for you and make a very successful business out of it.

Hala Taha: That's beautiful.

Rami Wehbi: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Well, Ramy, thank you so much for joining us on "How We Profit."

This was such an amazing conversation.

Rami Wehbi: Thank you so much, Heather.

Hala Taha: Cool. Great job. Thank you.