[00:01:35] Ashley is an expert on grief and trauma recovery and has devoted her life to helping others reignite the light within themselves. Today, she's going to teach us how we can all learn to shine even through some of life's darkest moments. Ashley, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

[00:01:51] Ashley Lemieux: Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

[00:01:55] Hala Taha: Thanks for joining me today. So I'm going to just jump right into it. [00:02:00] For a lot of us entrepreneurs, our businesses grow out of something that we've struggled with in our own lives. And I feel like this has been especially the case for you.

[00:02:08] You've had a bunch of dark moments in your life. So why don't we start off with the first one that I learned about when I was researching your story. It was in your 20s. You unexpectedly became the mother of two children and then you had some traumatic experiences around that. Can you tell us what happened?

[00:02:25] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah. So in our mid 20s, I was actually building my first company also. We were newly married and we didn't have kids at all in our radar at that time. And overnight we became permanent guardians of two kids. And for the next four years, we were a family in every sense of the word and everything that we did revolved around raising the kids, giving them the opportunities that as a parent, you want them to have.

[00:02:57] And. All of us were under the impression that we [00:03:00] would be together forever, for always. And during the final steps of the adoption process, we experienced a very unexpected, contested adoption. And during that time, we ended up being in court for two years. I just remember the life inside of me. It felt like someone had taken a vacuum and just sucked it all out.

[00:03:25] We were in court all the time. Depositions, high stress, no one knew what was going to happen. And we ended up losing the kids. It's, I was actually on the other side of the country for work and it happened fast. I didn't even get to come home and say goodbye to them. And that was almost eight years ago now.

[00:03:47] And it rocked our world in a way that I did not know how to come back from, or if I even wanted to figure out how to come back from it, [00:04:00] to be honest.

[00:04:01] Hala Taha: Can you help us understand how you ended up with these kids in your twenties and then Are they now back in your family or the court took them away and you just never saw them again?

[00:04:11] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, so there's parts of our story that we just don't share all the full details of, but they were placed with us through someone we knew and we have not had contact with them since we lost them almost eight years ago.

[00:04:28] Hala Taha: I'm so sorry to hear that. And I know that you guys decided to move after this happened.

[00:04:35] What did that teach you about grief when you decided to move? Were you able to run away from your grief?

[00:04:41] Ashley Lemieux: I wanted to. We were like, okay, what can we do that will help us not feel this way? This hell, this weight that feels like it has buried every aspect of our life. And it was really hard to be in the home that we had raised the kids in.

[00:04:58] All of our friends were [00:05:00] friends because our kids were friends from school. We're doing things in the community all together or sports teams and whatever. And my husband and I were like, if there's any shot of us making after this, we got to get away for a little while. So. We ended up moving to Nashville, Tennessee.

[00:05:18] I actually had had some employees there and everything about Nashville is very different than it is in Phoenix. And so we just said, peace out. Let's go. But then once we got to Nashville and settled in the adrenaline, you know, of a new city of new opportunities of the excitement of, okay, what are we going to explore?

[00:05:40] What is waiting for us here? Once that started to kind of wear off and the grief was still there, we were then like, okay, how much farther can we run? So we actually ended up packing carry on suitcases. And we went to Europe with pretty much no plans for almost two months, [00:06:00] hoping maybe that that would help ease the pain in that acute stage of grief when everything is just new and raw, and you don't know how to take your next breath.

[00:06:10] And, um, Again, after a while, that wore off. And so we found ourselves really having to dig deep of answering the questions, what is it that we want from our lives now? And how do we rebuild so that we can participate in our life and not just die? regret not living it because we were too sad.

[00:06:32] Hala Taha: We're going to touch on this much deeper later, but you talk about this concept in your book called clarity mapping.

[00:06:38] So was this one of the first instances of you starting to get clarity around your life and what you wanted?

[00:06:43] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, so what was really hard for me, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, in whatever role you are in. Let's say you identify with your role of motherhood or as a wife or a partner or your role at work or whatever that [00:07:00] thing is that really shapes your identity.

[00:07:03] If that is taken away from you and is no longer a part of your daily world, You don't have to base your decisions around it anymore. Your actions aren't based off of doing that thing because it is gone. The lack of purpose that I felt in my life, no longer being a physical mother, is something that made it really hard for me to get out of bed in the morning.

[00:07:28] I didn't know how to focus my time and my energy anymore. It didn't matter at that point My business was running. It was okay for me to step away for a little bit. It did not matter if I got out of bed or not, there was no one I needed to feed breakfast to or to get to school or to bathe at night or to tuck in.

[00:07:51] And I stayed in bed for a long time until I got to the point where I was like, I have to figure out what my intention for my life is [00:08:00] now. And so I started with one simple question every single morning. And that question was, what is my intention today? Because today right now in this moment was all I could focus on.

[00:08:13] So that's when the concept of clarity mapping really started. I became a series of five questions that I answered every single day to help give me purpose and direction and clarity on who I was and what it is that I wanted to be rebuilding so that I could create tangible steps forward to start building that thing.

[00:08:37] Hala Taha: And one of those tangible steps was that you decided to have your own children. And so you and your husband started to try. for a baby and that led to another traumatic experience. Are you comfortable to share that with us?

[00:08:50] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, we waited, I think it was about four years after the loss of the older two kiddos.

[00:08:58] to feel like we were at a [00:09:00] place where we were ready to continue to try to grow our family. I didn't want to go back into motherhood feeling as broken as I felt because I knew that that would impact the next child that we were to bring into our family, and I had so much healing that I needed to do in order to be ready for that.

[00:09:19] So, We were so intentional about what the next steps of growing our family look like. And we decided the end of 2019 that it was time to grow our family. So that is when we moved from Nashville back to Phoenix. We were like, okay, We're ready to go back home. We want to be by my family. We want solid roots there so that when we have more kids, we're close to family and they get that experience of growing up around cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

[00:09:49] So we moved home and right when we moved home, we found out that we were pregnant and obviously we were so excited and it just felt like for the first [00:10:00] time in several years, we were going That there was this new breath of life being breathed into our lives again and that there was forward movement and the grief was still there, but also now there was joy and hope and an opportunity to keep living our lives.

[00:10:21] And I know no one likes to talk about this time, but I feel like 2020 was a great equalizer for all of us because we can say 2020 and everyone's like, yeah, that year freaking sucked for me. Right. And it sucked for all of us for various reasons. And for us, we moved into our home in March of 2020, the same week that the pandemic had shut everything down.

[00:10:44] And so that also meant that doctors. appointments when you were pregnant, everything kind of changed. And so it kind of felt scary for a moment to leave the house being pregnant. I got really sick one day [00:11:00] and we couldn't figure out what was wrong because I had felt fine. But then by the end of the night, I was screaming in pain.

[00:11:07] I couldn't get out of bed. I spiked a fever. I'd never felt anything like that. So my husband called the ambulance. They took me to the hospital. And immediately they check the baby, baby was okay, and I'm like, okay, I can get through anything if my baby's okay. And we found out that I had gone septic. I didn't really know what that meant, but I now know sepsis is a blood infection.

[00:11:31] So whatever infection you have enters your bloodstream. And it started causing kidney failure for me. So that had to be treated immediately because it's very life threatening. And in that moment, they told us, you're going to be admitted to the hospital for an indefinite amount of time. But today's also the first day that we are shutting down outside visitors.

[00:11:55] So your husband cannot come with you. You're going to have to come by [00:12:00] yourself. And I just remember feeling, that was the loneliest I think I have ever felt. And I remember being wheeled back, just like sobbing, saying goodbye to my husband, neither of us knowing what was going to happen. Later the next day, there was a moment where they called.

[00:12:15] a rapid response, which means like a whole team of doctors was surrounding me because I was really struggling breathing and everything felt like all the pain had just spiked and I remember looking at a tech who was giving a scan on my heart, an EKG, and I remember asking him, am I going to die right now?

[00:12:35] Because I felt like I was going to. And I knew that whatever was happening in my body, there was no way it was going to keep me and my baby alive. I just felt it in my gut that something was drastically changing right then. So after I was stable a couple hours later, I had them give me another ultrasound, and that's when they found out that we had lost our [00:13:00] baby boy.

[00:13:01] And I ended up delivering him alone the next morning. And it sent me again into this part of life where you're like, Well, I thought that. We had gone through the hard thing, right? Like I thought that this was our first step back of trusting life again. And now what am I supposed to do? And so that entered the next journey of really finding clarity again in my life for what does this look like now to move forward?

[00:13:35] Hala Taha: Well, thank you for sharing that with us. I know that's probably very difficult to relive. For other people who are in the moment feeling really stuck, that they've gone through a lot of pain, they had a lot of traumatic experience, maybe a loss. What advice do you have for them in terms of the steps to take next?

[00:13:56] Ashley Lemieux: I

[00:13:57] think this is such a good question because [00:14:00] when we are in those moments, it really feels like we are the only one in those moments. Grief and trauma can feel so isolating and so the very first thing that I would say is that I'm so sorry and I want you to be able to know that. what you've been through, it can't be fixed.

[00:14:20] It's not supposed to be fixed. There's not a band aid that can be put on it. I think that there's platitudes that people like to say, everything happens for a reason or time heals all wounds. And I'm going to be the first one to say that none of those things are true. And so it's okay to feel exactly how you feel.

[00:14:39] The one thing that we know about grief and trauma is that most people spend their entire lives. avoiding the reality of the pain. And the one thing that if all of us did in this area of our life where we feel grief, that would change the trajectory of what we're able to do next. is acknowledgement. [00:15:00] We have to acknowledge what we've been through and also what it feels like inside of us.

[00:15:05] And it might sound so simple to say that. Having it be simple doesn't mean it's easy, which is why the majority of people never get to this place where they're able to acknowledge it. So if we can start there, then that allows us to have more freedom in acknowledging what has happened and the hurt it has caused us so that we can stop avoiding it and then create a plan that feels safe for us to heal and to be able to experience the world again in a way that feels safe so that we can create forward steps.

[00:15:43] Hala Taha: And I know that for you, you've shared your story on podcasts like this, on your own podcast, you wrote a memoir. How did actually sharing, like you were just alluding to it now, how did actually sharing your story help you heal?

[00:15:58] Ashley Lemieux: I think that [00:16:00] for so many of us, we carry these stories. Sometimes they're so shame attached to it.

[00:16:06] Sometimes there's so much pain attached to it. What we know is that when our pain can leave our bodies, whether it's writing our story down and no one else even reads it, we know that that helps facilitate healing. So many of us suffer in darkness and our stories just need to be brought to light, to be acknowledged, to be received, to be validated.

[00:16:32] And as I've been able to share my story, what has been so beautiful and I think is the greatest privilege of the work that I do is that it helps give other people permission to share and acknowledge their stories. So I get so many stories sent to me by other women who have gone through really hard things.

[00:16:54] who are like, I've seen your story and it's given me courage now to be able to share [00:17:00] mine and walk through what that means for me. And what we know is that healing happens fastest in community. And so when we can create communities that understand each other and have shared respect and validation for the pain that other people go through, we're able to heal faster.

[00:17:20]

[00:17:28] Hala Taha: you have created a whole business. around helping people with their grief. And as entrepreneurs, one of the best ways that we can start businesses is by actually solving the pains that we once had and providing those solutions to people who are in the place that we once were. So what steps did you take to become more qualified and become more prepared to take on the role to help other people with their trauma and grief?

[00:17:56] Ashley Lemieux: I love this question because part of my journey is [00:18:00] started even before I stepped into helping people more in their grief. I've had a personal brand online for, oh my gosh, it's probably been 14 years now before Instagram even existed and I had a blogspot. com. I've always wanted to be a writer. I've always wanted to help.

[00:18:20] move people through their emotions. So I was doing that even before these life experiences. But after these life experiences, you know, I wrote my first book and I was in the middle of my edits for my most recent book, I Am Here, when we lost our son, Jace. And after that, I really felt like my next steps in finding clarity for my life.

[00:18:45] I didn't know exactly what it was going to look like, but I knew that I needed to go back to school to get my master's degree. specifically in mental health and wellness with an emphasis in grief and bereavement. And that's probably the least sexy thing that [00:19:00] you could tell someone that you are an expert in.

[00:19:02] It's like, what do you study, Ashley? What do you teach on? Well, I teach on grief and bereavement. And everyone's like, there's nothing sexy about talking about that. But it is the one thing that I do. every single person in this world is going to experience at some point in their life. And my life experiences, I felt very much qualified me to help others.

[00:19:29] And I then wanted the paper, the education behind it so that I could take everything I had already learned and really just propel myself forward. So at the age of What was I, 34? I went back to school to get my master's degree, and what's funny about it is that about four weeks later after starting this intensive program, we got pregnant again.

[00:19:56] I ended up graduating and finishing with a [00:20:00] four month old. I was pumping at my graduation. It was the first time I had left my baby for any amount of time. And it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I knew that I needed that for myself and then to be able to help other people.

[00:20:16] Hala Taha: I love that for you.

[00:20:17] I love the fact that you were able to do that even with a young child. You've been able to grow your career so successfully. Your podcast is very popular now. You've got two books. So it's awesome. And you actually started as an entrepreneur even before you started teaching other people about grief and being an author.

[00:20:38] You had a successful jewelry business, but then you pivoted and you decided you wanted Become an expert on grief. So how did you decide to make that change? What was the thought process behind that? You know, I've got a lot of entrepreneurs tuning in who are probably product based entrepreneurs and what kind of differences did you see between having a product based business to now having [00:21:00] more of like a personal brand?

[00:21:02] Business in an audience based business.

[00:21:04] Ashley Lemieux: I had an audience during the time of my jewelry company. And I still was writing to them through blog posts, through Instagram. We would do meetups in person. I was speaking a lot. And something that all product entrepreneurs know is that it is a freaking grind. You are grinding so hard to meet your bottom line.

[00:21:28] We were doing shows all the time, wholesale trade shows, holiday trade shows. And when we moved to Nashville, I reached this point where I was like, this is isn't how I want to be spending the rest of my life. I want to be writing. And it's really hard to be founder CEO of a product based company that was on the trajectory that we were on, and then also be able to do the other work that I really wanted to do.

[00:21:56] And so I had to make some really difficult decisions. [00:22:00] But at the end of the day, what I've always wanted is to help people. So whether that was through jewelry or now through writing and podcasting and my personal brand. I knew that I had to make a pivot, so I started writing more, and my first step was getting a book agent, which, and I'm such a believer in when you are in alignment with that next step, sometimes things happen to help facilitate that step, so once I made that decision, I literally opened my inbox the next day.

[00:22:33] And I had a email from one of the top literary agents in the country asking me if I'd ever thought about writing a book before. And I was like, okay, if this isn't my sign for the next step, I don't know what it's going to be. But there also was this grief of closing the chapter on my jewelry business.

[00:22:58] We were sold in [00:23:00] large department stores like Hallmark and we had a large headquarters in downtown Phoenix. And so that also meant I felt like I had to let other people down because my course was changing. But looking back, I can't imagine not making that decision.

[00:23:20] Hala Taha: That was going to be my next question because there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there tuning in that might not have a business that either fits their life goals, where they're feeling burnt out, they don't even like working on their business anymore, or their business is just not successful.

[00:23:35] It's not taking off, you know, 99 percent of startups fail, but a lot of entrepreneurs, we've got an ego where we feel like, well, we already put it out to the world. Everybody knows me for this. What are people going to think if I shut it down? I had a blog in my twenties that became really popular and I shut it down because I wanted to change paths.

[00:23:53] I wanted to go into marketing and all this other stuff. I wanted to go into corporate for a period of time and I'm an entrepreneur again, I have a [00:24:00] media company. But I shut down my company and everybody who worked for me, well, at the time I had volunteers, it was kind of a blog that I basically trained bloggers and we were all just young, just doing it for fun, you know, and so they were all mad at me and I lost all my friends and I felt a little ashamed, but I could imagine being older and having a real company with customers and products.

[00:24:23] That would be really hard. So I guess, how did you get over the shame of starting a company and shutting it down?

[00:24:32] Ashley Lemieux: You know what's interesting? Is that when you hit rock bottom in your life, which for me was losing the kids. There's nowhere else to go but up. And so I think that I was in a place in my life where I was at such rock bottom that I just freaking didn't care anymore.

[00:24:52] And I had to do things to get the life back inside of me. I had to. I describe it as feeling like I [00:25:00] was dead, but I was alive. I was just a zombie through my life. And so at that point, honestly, I don't know if it's a good thing, but for that moment it was, because I don't know what else would have forced me to do this, but it was the only way for me and I had nothing to lose.

[00:25:18] And I think a lot of times we get afraid of hitting rock bottom or what if it doesn't work out or what will I do? And honestly, sometimes. It's the best thing because you finally make decisions off of what you actually want because you can't lose anything more than you already have. So that's what that looked like for me and And like I said, there was grief, there was sadness to it, and I also started to feel excited about something again for the first time in a long time, and so I just kept following that feeling.

[00:25:58] Hala Taha: And I feel like for other people [00:26:00] tuning in, what I want them to understand is that nobody really cares that much. We put all this pressure about what is everybody else going to think, what are my friends going to think, what is my family going to think, even people who are lawyers and doctors and who don't want to be lawyers and doctors anymore who are so afraid of making a change.

[00:26:17] It's like, yes, it's going to be hard in the moment. But as soon as you figure out the next thing and you've got the next thing to talk about and feel proud of, no one's even going to remember or care if anything, people are going to be inspired from you. And it's just getting over that initial hump.

[00:26:33] Ashley Lemieux: Absolutely. And I think we get scared of this idea of starting over. I've put in so much time, I've put in so much money, so much resources, I don't want to start over. But that destroys our next step when we look at things. like that. You're not starting over. You can't. You have so much knowledge now that has gotten you to this place.

[00:26:53] And so you get to now apply all of that into the next thing. And I think the place where we fail the most as [00:27:00] entrepreneurs is we stay in the wrong place for too long because our ego gets in the way of it. And we miss out on really what could take off for us and feel in just such alignment that would.

[00:27:13] Not only help us, but other people to be able to serve others more because we are on a path that actually is working. And so that's something now I actually help women in their own clarity maps in high level entrepreneurs, because this is one of the things I love so much is how do we help you pivot?

[00:27:33] When you are in this season of having no idea what to do next, how do you find that clarity and the confidence and the strategy to support it so that you can move forward?

[00:27:45] Hala Taha: This is a great segue to talk about your latest book. So your first book was a memoir. It was called Born to Shine. And your next book is called I Am Here, and that's more designed to help others navigate their own experiences of grief and trauma.

[00:27:57] Clarity mapping is a big part of that, we're hopefully going to [00:28:00] dive deep into that later on in the conversation. But first, you say the biggest life lesson that has come to your life has been the phrase of three simple words, I am here, which is the title of your book. Why are those words so meaningful to you?

[00:28:15] Ashley Lemieux: They're meaningful to me because for so long, I didn't want to be here. And I did everything to try to avoid the feeling of being here, whether that was numbing out with social media or food or traveling or spending money or working too much or being in bad relationships, whatever that thing was to distract me from the other pain is what I latched onto.

[00:28:42] Once I got to this point, we were actually in Europe on one of our runaway escapades of trying to escape it. And I remember being in Milan and next to me sat a mom and a daughter and she had just lost her tooth. And she was about the age of the daughter [00:29:00] who we had lost in the contested adoption. And I remember watching the joy between the mother and the over this lost tooth.

[00:29:08] And I just started sobbing. Any composure I had left, it was gone. I wanted those own moments with this human that I loved so much that I knew I was never going to have again. And so I remember I got up from my spot and I started running towards this little apartment that we were staying at. And And it was as if someone put a brick wall in front of me and was like, stop, you can't keep running like this.

[00:29:38] You can't, you have to face these feelings. And I probably look like a crazy American tourist, which I totally was, but in the middle of this square there, I threw up my arms and I yelled, I am here. I am here. And I just started crying. And I just, that became this mantra for me that I still hold onto [00:30:00] of. I don't want to run away anymore.

[00:30:02] I want to be here. I am here. And so now what does that look like? And how can I support myself to be able to get through these things so that I don't keep running away from this life that I've been given?

[00:30:16] Hala Taha: That's a really powerful story. I can just imagine you in the street just having that moment. And then now, years later, you've written a book with that title to try to help other people.

[00:30:27] Do you feel like entrepreneurs? deal with grief and stress differently than other people? Or do they have certain personality types that enable them to get over things more quickly, potentially?

[00:30:42] Ashley Lemieux: something that is very common among entrepreneurs is that they're very high achieving people.

[00:30:49] They want to achieve. And one of the ways that we can cope with grief is called a maladaptive coping mechanism. So there's two types of mechanisms that we can use to cope. [00:31:00] Adaptive, which adaptive is something that is positive that actually helps. your grief, and the other is maladaptive, meaning it's not good for you, but we do it anyway because we don't know what else to do.

[00:31:10] One of the maladaptive coping mechanisms that a lot of us have, and a lot of entrepreneurs have, is work, and working too much. And so I see a lot of entrepreneurs who throw themselves even deeper into work to avoid their feelings, and they can become really successful from doing that, and it's something that the world praises, and we look at as a huge success, while meanwhile there can be these layers of emotions that are hurting them, that's driving this.

[00:31:43] really unsustainable work, but that can make it really, really hard to get to this healing place. Something else that's really interesting that we know is the difference between men and women, the way that we move through grief. So a lot [00:32:00] of men, and obviously when I say this, right, I'm not saying every man and every woman.

[00:32:05] This is just an average across the board. There's going to be people who don't fit into these buckets, of course. But what we know about men is that men often throw themselves into work. They talk less about how they are feeling and they want to spend more time in the action of staying busy. Whereas women, we want to talk about it.

[00:32:29] We want you to sit and listen and we want to talk about it because that's our way of processing, of retelling the story, trying to help ourselves understand what has happened. And so then if you are in a relationship where both of you are grieving so differently from the other, we can see a lot of marital or partnership conflict because of that.

[00:32:52] So I don't know if entrepreneurs, if there's a specific grief [00:33:00] style for entrepreneurs, but men and women for sure. But then for the group of entrepreneurs who we know just. love the work and the achievements, I would base my best guess on what I know about grief on they are probably a lot of them throwing themselves even deeper into work, meaning that they're not facing what is actually going on in their life.

[00:33:25] It's a dangerous combination.

[00:33:27] Hala Taha: Yeah, and I can relate to that even for myself. When I started my business, I started it in 2020 and I started it while my dad was in the hospital battling COVID and I wasn't allowed to visit him and he passed away after a month in the hospital. It was the most devastating thing.

[00:33:45] I literally watched him die on Zoom and wasn't able to even see him until he passed away. And it was very traumatic. He was buried with his clothes on and his shoes on and his cell phone. It was like just the most traumatic thing. [00:34:00] And for years I just worked and worked and worked. So I'm better now because I actually hired my business partner, Jason.

[00:34:11] And now I'm able to just have a life and everything like that. But for years, I really did just throw myself into work.

[00:34:18] Ashley Lemieux: I'm so sorry to hear that. I didn't know about your father and. You opening up about that is so beautiful and so hard. And I think that where we are at now, going into 2025, a lot of people aren't realizing what happens around the fifth year of grief.

[00:34:37] So if we go back to 2020, we all had these moments where we're in a pandemic, but then we're all also experiencing these personal losses, the loss of your father, the loss of my baby, the loss of what other people have gone through, right? So then the past couple of years were like, I don't know how to cope and no one is teaching me how to cope.

[00:34:59] So I'm [00:35:00] going to do what I think is going to help me best. And because of my personality, because of what I want to build, I'm going to throw myself into work. And then you're like, Oh my gosh, this company I just started is doing well. It's growing, it's great, and you can kind of run on that adrenaline high for a moment until you start reaching these achievements that once the novelty of it starts wearing off, you can find yourself in this place of, I accomplished what I wanted to.

[00:35:30] I thought that this was going to feel differently than it does. And that is a very common feeling that a lot of entrepreneurs find themselves in is I won the award, I hit the financial goal, I have the growth of the company. I thought that I was going to feel differently than this. What is wrong? And what is wrong is, is that we have this grief that can't be pacified by these [00:36:00] external validations in our lives that we think are going to pacify them.

[00:36:04] And so now as we head into 2025, which is five years after this major traumatic event for most people in the world, year five is the year where you take a pause and you start really looking around and being like, where do I fit into life right now? And how do I want it to go moving forward? It's One of the first years that you really begin to take a breath because there's a little more time and space between now and then, but as a result of that, a lot of emotions can start coming up as you realize that your life has continued to move on.

[00:36:44] But emotionally, parts of you still feel like they are stuck in the past. And so, so many people right now are burnt out. They're burnt out on work. They don't know what to do next. And it's because we never gave ourselves the opportunity to [00:37:00] slow down and sit with our grief for as long as we needed to.

[00:37:05] Hala Taha: It's so true. And it's like so bittersweet because I'm so happy that I did all this. My company is going to hit eight figures next year. You know, like I built this crazy company. Yeah. Thank you. Like I built this awesome company and I have an awesome team and I love my life. To your point, there was a period of time where I was like, I can't just keep running on fumes and I need help.

[00:37:29] I need a business partner. I need to kind of delegate and have some balance. Cause you just can't do that forever. And I do think sacrifice is important, but you can't do it forever.

[00:37:40] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, it's not sustainable. So then how do we create a sustainable way? where we can build what we want and love it while also acknowledging what it is that we've been through.

[00:37:53] And what does that dance look like for my life? And what is it that I'm needing? And part of that, part of your gift of [00:38:00] grief that probably came was your ability to grow this company to what it is now. But now part of what might come next is, okay, I've built this. And so does that mean that there's a little bit more of a buffer for me to have some space and some resources to really make sure that I'm filled up inside so that my insides match all of my external accomplishments.

[00:38:28] And that's something that was really hard for me. Over the past couple of years, I remember I would tell my therapist, I'm a huge advocate for therapy. I'm like, everyone should have a therapist. So I love talking about it to just help people know it is so normal to go to therapy. But something that I would often tell my therapist is My insides don't match my outsides.

[00:38:49] Like what is happening around me, what I have in my life is so beautiful, but inside I feel like there's this just chaotic exhaustion [00:39:00] that never goes away. And it feels so out of alignment with everything that I see externally in my life. And I need those to start matching up with each other. And so my hope is that going into 2025, a lot of entrepreneurs are going to kind of hit this pause button where we can all get a little bit more in alignment.

[00:39:21] So that our insides match our outsides, but when that happens, moving forward, we are able to serve and grow even exponentially from what we've gotten to, to this point, because we're going to have the sustainability, the internal resources to be able to do so.

[00:39:38]

[00:39:46] Hala Taha: So one of the things that you talk about in your book is that we need to reframe our thoughts First, I want to get clarity on what thoughts actually are. Do you mean our current beliefs and like current thoughts or are you talking about memories or those two different things? [00:40:00]

[00:40:00] Ashley Lemieux: Talking about our current thoughts.

[00:40:02] So what we know about our thoughts is we have somewhere around 90, 000 thoughts a day. And out of those thoughts, it's somewhere around 80, 85%. are negative. And the majority of those negative thoughts are reoccurring. So then these negative reoccurring thoughts that we have every single day are creating this belief system, this internal world, where if we say, I'm not good enough, or I'm never going to get out of this situation, or man, I make stupid decisions, or I don't like how I look in the mirror.

[00:40:39] Whatever those stories are, become truly what we believe about ourselves and the world around us. Now, of course, It is impossible to live in an internal world where we don't have negative thoughts. We're human. That's part of how our brain works is we assess danger and we try to figure out where we [00:41:00] fit into things and how we feel about things to try to keep ourselves safe.

[00:41:03] But what we can do is start acknowledging those thoughts. And then start reframing them so that we can create different habits and thought patterns that allow us to have a different internal world. So for me, that's one of the reasons I started using, I am here. And because I was just conditioned to be like, I want to leave.

[00:41:25] How do I get out of here? I want to escape. I want to escape. So then my belief had to be Come, I'm here. I'm here right now. I'm safe to be here. That was then. This is now. And really becoming your biggest advocate for helping yourself reframe your thoughts.

[00:41:47] Hala Taha: So walk us through how we can keep tabs on what are the negative thoughts that we actually have.

[00:41:53] And then how do we uncover their positive roots?

[00:41:57] Ashley Lemieux: I love this. One thing that I always [00:42:00] suggest to my clients that I work with is just for even if it's an hour out of your day, a whole day would be amazing. But even if you only had an hour, take out the notes app on your phone or have just a little journal with you.

[00:42:12] And anytime you notice that you have a negative thought come into your head. I just want you to write it down and I don't want you to have any judgment on it. I don't want you to judge your thoughts, right? Because then we can get into this cycle of, Oh my gosh, I'm so dumb for thinking that or what's wrong with me or no, we're just.

[00:42:30] I'm going to be observers of the thoughts that are going through our head. And once we have all of those down, what I like to then do is try to get to the root of where those thoughts came from. A lot of times thoughts that we have right now came from things that we heard when we were little. Things we began to believe about ourselves from when we were really small.

[00:42:54] Sometimes the origin of the thought doesn't even come from us. So if [00:43:00] you're able to sit with it and really be able to go back to the first time that you can remember hearing it or feeling it or thinking it, a lot of times you can bridge that gap and realize that that did not even come from you. So once we do that, being able to sit with, okay, this is what I believe.

[00:43:24] But this is what I would like to believe instead. This is my current thought, but this is what I would like to believe instead. And I keep it as simple as that and as gentle as that as we are working through these. and being able to write down what we would like to believe instead. Then being able to be mindful, whether it's then the next hour after that, after you have the thought come in, whether it's, I'm not good enough, being able to call it out.

[00:43:55] Okay. I understand that right now I'm believing I'm not good [00:44:00] enough. And I acknowledge that, but what I would really like to believe instead is X, Y, and Z. And that helps us create a pattern where we can help ourselves get out of this routine of having these thoughts that we don't even realize are happening.

[00:44:18] And we can stop them and call them out. And then we just gently tell ourselves what we would like to believe instead so that that becomes something that we begin to start thinking about. Does it take time? Of course it does. But after those two hours, I promise you, you are going to experience a shift in feelings that you might not have felt for a really long time and uncover thoughts that you might not even know that you have.

[00:44:46] Like you can reach the end of the day sometimes, a lot of my clients be like, I don't know why I feel this bad. I just do. I don't know where it comes from. I don't know. Why I feel so lost in the roles in my [00:45:00] life and we do this exercise and after an hour of them writing down everything they've been thinking, they're like, I didn't realize that I'm so hard on myself.

[00:45:10] I didn't realize that these are the things I'm consistently telling myself. So that's a really good place to start.

[00:45:17] Hala Taha: And are there common thoughts that people have and. What would be the positive reframing? Just so people have examples.

[00:45:27] Ashley Lemieux: One that is really common that I would argue the majority of people struggle with is, I'm not enough or I'm not good enough.

[00:45:38] So for that one, it's really important for us to do some work on where did this come from? When did I start feeling this way? Why did I start feeling this way? Did it come from me? Is this something I picked up on from someone else? And then being able to answer the question, well, what would it even mean to be good enough?[00:46:00]

[00:46:00] In what areas of my life do I feel like I'm not good enough that I can begin to focus on? So one of the ways that I like to reframe I'm not good enough is I am enough for all of the needs that my life has of me in this moment. I am enough to take care of all of the needs that my life has. for me in this moment.

[00:46:24] And again, being able to find evidence, something about our brains that I think is really cool, is that our brains look for evidence that what we are doing is working. That's why journaling can be so powerful, because we need to see something is written down. So when we write down our thoughts and then what we would like to believe instead, but then kind of keep a log to see our progress of, Oh my gosh, today I only thought about this 10 times instead of 20 or whatever that is, it signals to our brain, Hey, this thing is working.

[00:46:55] This is a good path for us to continue to go down, which is another reason why I [00:47:00] recommend writing things down. Another one that's really common is anger and anger can show up in a lot of ways in our lives, especially when you're grieving because. Anger is easier to feel than sadness. A lot of times anger is a mask for sadness because we're too afraid to feel sad or we haven't been taught or culturally as some people aren't allowed to show their emotions or men versus women with gender and what's expected of us in the society.

[00:47:33] Anger can be something that masks a lot of other feelings. So something that I always think about with anger is what do I love so much that I'm trying to protect that is making me so angry right now because I feel like I've lost control of it. So for that one, I think that a lot of times the root for anger is actually [00:48:00] love.

[00:48:01] I'm angry that I lost my kids because I love them so much. I'm angry that this person hurt you because I have deep respect for you as a human being. Whatever that is, a lot of times it goes back to love. So if I can start reframing my anger, allow myself to feel it, but then understand it's coming from a place of love.

[00:48:25] How then can I fuel that love? Anger is needing action. It's signaling to us that there are alarm bells going off. We want to be in control of something that we can't. don't have control of, so then how can we take control to bring action to it? Who do you love? What do you love that's causing the anger?

[00:48:43] And then how can you show up for them? Or how can you be a part of that cause? Or how can you? use your voice to help them. So helping do that can help shift our anger to actually have action behind it.

[00:48:57] Hala Taha: That's so good. So basically, whenever you're [00:49:00] angry, there's actually something that you love and you're really passionate about behind that.

[00:49:05] If you can figure that out and lean into the love part instead of the anger part, that's really great.

[00:49:11] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, and sometimes though, healing requires you to get pissed, right? There are people who probably have wronged you and you have every reason to be upset at it. You have every reason to just be so pissed off.

[00:49:24] And so I say, let yourself be pissed off. But at some point that has to move through you, otherwise the one who becomes the most affected by it is you.

[00:49:36] Hala Taha: And sometimes it's a love for yourself, right? So it might be just pouring into yourself because you love yourself. How about trauma? How do you reframe thoughts and memories related

[00:49:48] to trauma?

[00:49:49] Ashley Lemieux: I want to first explain the difference between grief and trauma, just so that everyone's on the same page. So you can experience grief without experiencing trauma. [00:50:00] So you can have grief, but there's no trauma attached to it. But all trauma has grief attached to it. Does that make sense?

[00:50:08] Hala Taha: Kind of. How do you experience grief with no trauma?

[00:50:10] Like what's an example?

[00:50:11] Ashley Lemieux: So me and you could go through the exact same situation. Let's say we were at the exact same event and something really bad happened. Based off of my life experiences, how I'm wired psychologically, my previous trauma, my previous grief, that event could be something that completely traumatized me.

[00:50:34] Whereas perhaps that event didn't traumatize you at all, but just gave you grief. So a person can go through the same exact thing. but not have trauma while the other person does have trauma. And so there's no definition of, well, this is what trauma is. This is what it isn't. It's your reaction. Trauma is your reaction to an event.

[00:50:59] So, as [00:51:00] you're trying to process through trauma, we all need different things. And this is where I say, you need the help of a professional. Because so often, our brains are like, if you broke your arm right now, where would you go?

[00:51:14] Hala Taha: The hospital.

[00:51:15] Ashley Lemieux: You go to the hospital. Like, no question. I'm going to go to the hospital.

[00:51:19] Well, if your brain is feeling this brokenness because of trauma. So often we feel shame and we don't get help, but we should also be going to a professional that knows how to help us be able to heal our brains. So there's things like EMDR, which literally helps you heal your brain. There's psychiatrists, there's support groups, there's places where you can feel safe to go get that help because it is really difficult to get through trauma on your own and a lot of times it's so hard to that [00:52:00] it carries with you throughout your whole life.

[00:52:02] I think right now a lot of people on, at least online, have been starting to talk more about generational trauma. and why things are passed down from one generation to the next. And it's because trauma literally physically changes your DNA. And when no one is taking a breath to be like, I want this to end with me, or how do I heal?

[00:52:25] Continues to be passed down through habits, through our reactions. Through what we then teach our children, how we teach, how we treat them. And so I always recommend professional help for trauma.

[00:52:39] Hala Taha: Makes sense. And I agree. I think it's really important for everyone to try to heal themselves, especially in this fifth year.

[00:52:46] Like you were saying, we all went through stuff in 2020. And. By the time this airs, it's going to be right at the start of the year. So it's a perfect time to start thinking about this. So something else that you talk about in your [00:53:00] book is fear. Fear is something that I think a lot of entrepreneurs go through, especially we work in very uncertain areas most of the time, we don't really know what's going to happen next.

[00:53:12] So how do we reframe fear? What do we need to know about that?

[00:53:16] Ashley Lemieux: I don't know about you, but for me, in entrepreneurship. Fear can show up in so many different ways, but I realize I'm not actually afraid of that thing happening. I'm afraid of something totally unrelated, but I have attached fear as the label to the current problem because it's masking something else that I just haven't dealt with.

[00:53:41] One of the ways, though, that can help us reframe fear is by doing the thing that we're afraid of. Our anxiety doesn't go away when we avoid the things that we're anxious about. Our fear doesn't go away when we avoid doing the things that we are [00:54:00] fearful of. In fact, it just continues to feed it, right? So a lot of times, we need proof, our brains need proof that it's not something we need to be afraid of.

[00:54:11] And we need confidence that it's something that we can handle or walk through or that if things really do go south, I have confidence in myself that I'm still going to be able to figure it out because that's what life is, right? No one's life goes exactly according to plan. That's not what life is. It's what we want it to be.

[00:54:32] But then when we find ourselves shying away from doing what we really want to be doing or really leaning into the areas of our lives that we know would light us up, but we are afraid of it not working out or us doing it wrong or losing everything, that fear just keeps getting bigger. So the only way that we can start reframing that is by taking action on the things that we're [00:55:00] afraid of.

[00:55:01] Hala Taha: And when it comes to action, a lot of people are afraid of failure, but as we all know, failure and growth kind of go hand in hand. You have this awesome quote, you talk about dirt as a fine place to start growing. I love that. So can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

[00:55:17] Ashley Lemieux: I think that so many of us, we're afraid of getting knocked down.

[00:55:21] We're afraid of falling flat on our faces, but it is in that dirt when your nose hits the ground. The only way back is up, and a lot of times that is the best place for us to be able to really start our growing journey. I cannot think of one entrepreneur who has not experienced a significant setback or failure that then also helped them lead to the next steps of their career.

[00:55:56] How could you expect to [00:56:00] know exactly what to do if you never learned what not to do or if you never learned what didn't work? Of course, we have to fail and no one wants to feel it. But it's also in those moments where we can really get a jump start on, okay, I figured this out the hard way, and now I'm going to do X, Y, and Z and have a clearer path forward this way.

[00:56:27] Hala Taha: Honestly, I feel like people who are willing to fail, they're just so much smarter. I meet so many people and the most successful people that I know just go for things and they do it and it fails and it works and it doesn't work and they just keep trying and trying and trying and then they just get so much experience and they're such a well rounded, skilled person.

[00:56:47] And then you've got other people who are just They're afraid of making any sort of change. They stay in the same sort of mundane job where they don't learn anything new and then they're stuck and they don't really move in [00:57:00] life.

[00:57:00] Ashley Lemieux: And they stay stuck and then the next year. Cause I hear from a lot of women who are like, I feel stuck here, but I don't know what to do.

[00:57:10] So I'm just going to stay here. And then a year goes by and you still feel that feeling. And to me, that's way more uncomfortable than trying something that doesn't work out so that then I can find something that does rather than feeling like I'm on this hamster wheel that's not getting me anywhere.

[00:57:28] And I know it's not getting me anywhere. I would much rather be the person that fails a million times. to figure out where I actually really want to be than the one who just feels like I'm stuck on Groundhog's Day every day that I wake up. Totally.

[00:57:47] Hala Taha: And so I think a great way to close out this interview, which also ties to what we're just saying, which is figuring out what you want to do with your life, is learning how to do a clarity map, which you talk about in your book.

[00:57:57] So first off, tell us about the [00:58:00] five daily questions. You mentioned that you have five questions that you came up with years ago. What are these questions and how do they help us identify what matters before we move on to the next step?

[00:58:11] Ashley Lemieux: So the five questions you can do in as little amount of time or as much time as you want every single morning.

[00:58:16] So the very first one is what is my intention today? The second one is why am I worthy? There are so many of us who, when things are going good in our lives. we can start sabotaging ourselves because we feel like we're not deserving of it. We are afraid of life feeling good again. We're not good enough to receive it.

[00:58:37] And so being able to sit with why am I worthy for this is actually really helpful to allow yourself to keep moving forward in a positive way in your life. The third question is, who can I serve today? Sometimes it's going to be yourself. This is a really good place to check in of, are there needs that I'm not meeting for myself?

[00:58:56] Or, how are my employees today? How is that stranger [00:59:00] behind me in the grocery store doing? What about my partner? When's the last time that we had a check in? That's a really beautiful place. to figure that out. The next one is what can I set down today or what can I let go of? You guys, we carry so much heaviness throughout our day, whether that's the fear, whether that's a responsibility for something that is completely off out of our hands, whether that's sadness for something that we can't control, but what can you just set down for that day so that you have energy?

[00:59:33] to do these other things. And then the very last question is, how does the truest version of me show up today? I used to ask myself, how does the best version of me show up today? But then I realized I would change my answer based off of, well, what is the best version of me? A version of a mom, or what's the best version of an employer, or what's the best version of a partner?

[00:59:56] And I realized my answers were based off of what I thought [01:00:00] other people needed and wanted from me. So I changed it and I now ask, who is the truest version of me today so that I can show up as her and lead from that place of authenticity? and give the world who I am instead of letting the world dictate who I am.

[01:00:19] So those are the five questions I start with.

[01:00:23] Hala Taha: Love that. So as we close out this interview, What should we be doing when it comes to making lasting change and working through grief, depression, trauma, loneliness?

[01:00:33] Ashley Lemieux: I love this. This is one of my very favorite things. I set intentions and I base my year and how I'm going to move forward based off of how I want to feel inside.

[01:00:44] And a lot of us haven't checked in internally for a long time. Like, how do I actually want to feel? Do I want more peace in my life? Do I want more clarity? Do I want to feel like love is driving my decisions? What is that feeling? And I write that on a [01:01:00] piece of paper. And then around that I draw four boxes for the different areas of my life for emotional development, spiritual development, finances, or business, and then my relationships.

[01:01:15] And in those four boxes, I then set intentions for each of those four categories that match my overall life intention. So that I can have a strategy in those four life areas to move forward in a way that's going to support how I am feeling right now in my life. And if that's something you want more of, we do a challenge about it.

[01:01:37] I talk more about it in my book and in my podcast, but check in with your feelings and then map out a life that supports your feelings instead of starting with your goals and that will help you feel more fulfilled once you bring everything to life.

[01:01:53] Hala Taha: That's great advice. I think that's fantastic. So really just focusing on your intentions, not your [01:02:00] goals.

[01:02:00] So Ashley, I had such a great conversation with you today. I end my show with two questions that I ask all of my guests. The first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

[01:02:13] Ashley Lemieux: Ooh, this is such a good one. I would say invest in your mental health.

[01:02:18] There's that return of being able to really understand who you are and why you are how you are is going to profit you more than anything else in the long run and help you build a sustainable business.

[01:02:34] Hala Taha: And this one can go beyond business and finance. What is your secret to profiting in life?

[01:02:39] Ashley Lemieux: Oh, wow.

[01:02:41] This is a good one. Okay. I'm like, what is my secret to profiting in life? My secret is to create peace as my priority.

[01:02:53] Hala Taha: We didn't get to talk about this. This is so important.

[01:02:55] Ashley Lemieux: Yeah, being able to live with peace as my decision [01:03:00] maker and as the feeling that surrounds me, that has allowed me to profit in every area of my life more than anything else that I have ever tried to do.

[01:03:11] And so I base every decision off of, is this going to invite peace in my life, or is it going to be something that prevents me from feeling peace? And that's the thing, is pursuing peace to have a profitable life in all of the areas that you want to feel it in.

[01:03:31] Hala Taha: And when you say peace, because I didn't get a chance to ask you about this, and I actually really love this.

[01:03:36] When you say peace, What is peace to you?

[01:03:39] Ashley Lemieux: Peace to me is the feeling that can't be bought. It can't be mimicked by anything else. It can't be something that someone else gives you. Peace is this internal feeling that comes when you are in alignment with your life, with who you [01:04:00] believe your higher power to be and When you are able to make decisions that invite in more peace, whether that is setting types of boundaries, or whether that is letting things go that make you kind of feel chained, peace to me feels a lot like freedom, and there's a lot of things that can chain us that make us lose it, whether that's we feel chained to our job or to social media or to comparison or to toxic relationships or to these habits we just can't get out of the cycle of doing because they've just become a part of who we are because that's what helped us cope for a long time but now it's not serving us anymore.

[01:04:45] There's so many chains in our life that we can have that prevent us from experiencing more peace and so to me peace is something that you cannot receive from any other outside [01:05:00] source or thing.

[01:05:01] Hala Taha: So good. I feel like that's my favorite advice from the whole episode. The whole conversation was amazing, but that really spoke to me in terms of making decisions based on what brings you peace and not.

[01:05:13] Is this going to bring me peace or is this going to make me feel unaligned? And it's so simple.

[01:05:20] Ashley Lemieux: It's so simple. And honestly, you can make faster decisions and decisions that support you more based off of that answer of doing the gut check of, is this going to bring me peace or not? And that's how I base every decision now.

[01:05:35] And it's changed my life and my business and my family's life.

[01:05:39] Hala Taha: Yeah, I love that. Ashley, this has been amazing. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

[01:05:45] Ashley Lemieux: Gosh, thank you so much, first of all, for having me. And I would love to meet all of your young and profiters. you can come find me on Instagram at Ashley K.

[01:05:53] Lemieux. We love hanging out over there every day. You can also come and listen to my podcast. It's called Healing [01:06:00] Her. And if you are wanting, you know, more support on your journey, you can go to my website to see what that looks like at ashleylemieux. com.

[01:06:08] Hala Taha: Amazing. Ashley, thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast.

[01:06:13] Ashley Lemieux: Thanks for having me.

[01:06:18] Hala Taha: Yeah, bam. Well, that was such a deep and therapeutic episode with Ashley. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, including yours truly, handle grief and stress by sinking our energies deeper into our work. And it might work for a while. You may even grow your company, hit your targets, achieve some great things.

[01:06:38] But still, such a strategy is not sustainable. We all know that. And we are really only delaying coming to terms with our pain and fear. As Ashley put it, grief can only be pacified by work or achievement. And at some point, you're going to have to confront that grief and give yourself the space to sit with it.

[01:06:57] You can't run a business on fumes or by [01:07:00] running away from your own problems. But one of the good things about success is that it can be a wonderful buffer. Having resources should give you the time and space you need to ensure that your internal development matches your external achievements. You just need to eventually take that time.

[01:07:16] And once you do take that time, you can start observing your own thoughts and reframing the negative ones to be less impactful. You can be open about your own anger and frustrations and even find a silver lining there. Remember that a lot of our anger comes from a place of passion and love, and you just have to figure out how to lean into the more constructive power of that passion.

[01:07:38] And sometimes this also means coming to terms with our failures, realizing that we've hit rock bottom and need to start over. I really believe that the best entrepreneurs have to fall flat on our faces from time to time in order to really succeed. But when you do, just remember that, like Ashley said, The dirt is a fine place to start growing.

[01:07:58] Thanks for listening to this episode [01:08:00] of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with the insightful Ashley Lemieux, then please help us grow it by sharing with somebody that you know.

[01:08:10] And if you enjoyed the show and you learned something, then drop us a five star review on Apple, Spotify, CastBox, wherever you listen to the show.

[01:08:17] I want to hear from you. I love to read your reviews. I read them every single day and it makes me so happy to see them. So drop us a review. If you listen to the show, if you're new to the show, maybe you found me. from Funnel Hacking Live and now you're following the show. Welcome to the yap bam. I'm so happy to have you guys as new subscribers.

[01:08:36] And if you prefer to watch your podcast and you like watching your podcast on YouTube, all of our videos are on YouTube. I do everything on video. I've got a lot more in person content.

[01:08:45] I just interviewed Mel Robbins in person, Gary Vee in person, so all that is on there. You can also find me on Instagram, at Yap with Hala, or LinkedIn. Just search my name, Hala Taha. I of course want to give a big shout out to my Yap production team. I have [01:09:00] an agency, Yap Media, and I've got the best team in the world.

[01:09:03] Thank you guys for all your hard work. This is your host, Hala Taha, a. k. a. the Podcast Princess, signing off.

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

Ron Johnson: I am so excited to be here. Nice to meet you, Hala.

Hala Taha: Nice to meet you as well. Thank you for flying out, being here in person. You've got such incredible experience. Mm-hmm. You've been with Apple, Target, JCPenney, in the C-suite.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And you've done such an incredible job transforming these stores, especially Apple and Target.

So I wanna start with Apple.

Ron Johnson: Sure.

Hala Taha: I learned that you convinced Steve Jobs to put in Apple stores before they were even a thing in really expensive malls when Apple only had 4% of the PC market share. Or was it 4%? Did I mess it up? 5% of the- Yeah ... PC market share and four products.

Ron Johnson: Right.

Hala Taha: How is that, how is that not a completely insane idea at the time?

Ron Johnson: Well, most people thought it was insane that Apple- ... was gonna open stores, including a couple of the board members. But I didn't convince Steve. Steve wanted to open stores.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: [00:01:00] Steve had come back to Apple in 1997, launched that cult hit, the iMac.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Which had rave reviews, even made the cover of Time Magazine.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Ron Johnson: But it didn't change the game for Apple. It sold to the Mac faithful.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And Steve believed, after that experience, that if Apple is gonna win, it had to control the customer experience.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So it wanted to open stores. So he called me to come out and talk to him about stores.

Hala Taha: Mm, so he poached you from Target.

Ron Johnson: He recruited me from Target. But during that first conversation, interestingly, I said, "So who's the customer? How big can this be?"

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: He said, "Ron, we've got 5% market share." Which it turns out it was 2 or 3, but he said 5. And he said, "If we go after the creative consumer, you know, Apple does a great job with creative apps for pros."

Mm-hmm. "We have high market share." Mm-hmm. "In the marketing departments, the creative departments, but not as much in the business side. I think we can double our market share- Mm ... and get to [00:02:00] 10%." And later he told me the board wasn't supportive. And I said, "Well, you know, the board might be right, if all you want to do is double your market share."

Because the reality, Dell's done pretty well selling computers over the internet.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And Gateway selling PCs is closing its stores.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: So maybe the board is right.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "But I don't know why you wanna sell to the creative pro only." And I had come from Minneapolis, where, where I was living, working with Target.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And in Minneapolis, very few p- people had computers.

Hala Taha: Mm. And

Ron Johnson: it turns out only 50% of American households had a computer.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "You think you've lost the PC war to Microsoft. There's half the market to go."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "Now if you wanna go after everybody, that'd be interesting." And I had that idea because I had just brought design to Target-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: which became design for all, and people loved it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, once I told Steve that, he got real excited. And he said, [00:03:00] "No, I could do that, but where would we put stores?" And I said, "Well, we go where they shop, where people shop." Mm-hmm. "That's the mall."

Hala Taha: And he hated the mall, right?

Ron Johnson: And he goes, "I hate malls."

Hala Taha: Why did

Ron Johnson: he hate them?

He hate- he said, "They're filled with crappy stores, and they're crowded."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And I think for him it was a little bit back to Steve had become a celebrity-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: at age 24 when he launched the personal computer-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: and founded Apple and s- Pixar, and it was hard for him to be in a public space.

Hala Taha: Yeah, so he didn't do it.

Ron Johnson: And, and, but it was pretty clear. I said, "Look, Steve, you know, if you wanna find your customer, you gotta be more convenient than a remote parking lot where all the computer stores have been located."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Because they're bought every four or five years, so why would you pay for expensive mall traffic was common wisdom.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Um, and the next time I met Steve a couple weeks later-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: the first thing he said to me is, "Ron, I'm gonna offer you the job." I thought, "Wow, that's pretty [00:04:00] good." Yeah. You know, one discussion.

Hala Taha: Uh-huh.

Ron Johnson: But I said... he said, "But you're right about malls. We should put stores in malls."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: Uh, so I didn't really have to convince him.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: It was pretty obvious once we decided we're going after everybody, that the only way to do that would be in a mall.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But Steve said to me, he goes, "I realized I might not be able to get someone to get in their car and drive 10 miles to check out a Mac."

Hala Taha: Hmm. "

Ron Johnson: But I could get them to get, walk 10 feet out of their way."

Hala Taha: Yeah. "

Ron Johnson: And that's all we have to do in a mall." Mm-hmm. And he was right.

Hala Taha: Yeah. It's, it's so interesting that there was some initial pushback, but he, he said that he was gonna give you a billion dollars basically to build these stores. Is that right?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. What he said is... Yeah, so Steve offered me the job. I came out two weeks l- later with my wife, Karen, to kinda just talk to him one more time.

He took me to a MacWorld. Mm-hmm. Super exciting. You see just how interesting Apple is as a company, how strong [00:05:00] Steve is as a leader. Mm-hmm. Um, and we went and toured Stanford Shopping Center, and at the end he said, "So any other objections?" I said, "Steve, you said the board has approved a test, that we should open four stores and see how it goes."

I said, "Unfortunately, I won't come for a test."

Hala Taha: Hmm. Not gonna change your whole life just, just for

Ron Johnson: a test. Well, I said, "I'm not gonna give up the career I have at Target for a test, but more importantly, I won't be able to recruit any A players to come for a test. If you believe in something, you need to be all in."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Well, that's Steve's nature. He's always been all in. Everything he's done, he's been all in.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And he quickly just looked at me, and he said, "Ron, we have $4 billion in the bank. If I could write a check for a billion dollars today and

have 100 stores, I'd be happy." Well, I knew it wouldn't cost $100 million to build out 100 stores.

Hala Taha: Yeah, 100 billion. You

Ron Johnson: know? S- or 100 [00:06:00] billion, I'm sorry. Or 100

Hala Taha: billion,

Ron Johnson: yeah. Um, yeah, 100 million. And so he... Did I say... Oh, yeah.

Hala Taha: No, you were right. No,

Ron Johnson: yeah.

Hala Taha: You were right. I was wrong. I- 100 million.

Ron Johnson: But anyway, he quickly, uh...

And then I said, "Okay, let's go do this."

Hala Taha: Yeah. You

Ron Johnson: know?

Hala Taha: Very cool. So let's talk about some of the principles that you used- Mm-hmm ... uh, when designing these stores. Sure. You really wanted the store to be a place of belonging. Mm-hmm. You really wanted to be h- to be more about relationships than transactions.

Talk to us about what your philosophy was.

Ron Johnson: Yeah, it was... Well, it's pretty obvious. This is 2000. When we're talking about the stores, we're at the height of the dot com bubble. Mm-hmm. It bursts like four months later. We're in the middle of designing stores. But people, there were literally smart people who thought stores were gonna go away.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: People, some people still believe that today-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: even though it couldn't be further from the truth. But when you're designing a store in the midst of the internet, which is taking off, you have to think through, "What could [00:07:00] I do that the internet could never do?"

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And that's essentially create a place to belong, to deliver an experience.

So we had to design a store that had so many advantages to shopping online that everyone would prefer to come to a store.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, the beauty is because Apple had such a small product lineup- Four total products.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Computers only, two portables, two desktops. That's it.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: We could present the entire product line in 30 square feet.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: But we built stores that were 6,000 square feet big.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Ron Johnson: And we did that because that was the size, basically, of a great space in the mall.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: That's what the Gap had, and they were, like, the leading specialty store. Mm-hmm. And Steve agreed that how you present yourself-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: has a big impact on how people perceive you.

Hala Taha: And we wanted to be a- It

Ron Johnson: was like

Hala Taha: the dominance of the mall, basically.

Ron Johnson: Yeah, we wanted to be a brand that was like a Gap.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, 'cause he said, "We're [00:08:00] much bigger than the Gap."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And that enabled us to have the space to create experiences.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: So we devoted very simply, first rule, half goes to new customers, the ones we're trying to attract.

Mm-hmm. That'd be the front of the store, and everyone could try every product. Up until then, you couldn't try products in a physical store.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: They were just things on display.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: We had to connect them to the internet to figure out how to keep them current with software.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, et cetera, et cetera.

But the half went to the products, and the other half went to owners. Assuming people buy, how do we help them get over, overcome their fear of technology?

Hala Taha: Yeah. '

Ron Johnson: Cause that was the enemy.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: The reason people didn't own computers, they were too complicated. They were scared. They'd buy this and never use it.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So we put in theaters where you could take classes, and tables where you could get training one-to-one, eventually. Mm. And a genius bar where you could get face-to-face help. So we put in all of these services along with the thing, and the stores became, immediately, [00:09:00] one of the most popular stores in the mall.

Hala Taha: Yeah, and, and when you first launched the stores, you actually had basically, like, designed the stores, and then last minute, you realized that you had designed them wrong.

Ron Johnson: Well, that was the instinct I had, yeah.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: No, Steve and I had spent a long time designing, and Steve had spent a lot of time.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, Steve's obviously a really busy person. Yeah. He's running two companies at the time.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: CEO of Pixar and Apple. You know, leading Apple, and we got this new initiative called retail, and he had come over every Tuesday for four hours in a warehouse to help design the store with me and the team.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Put a lot of energy into it. Steve called me every night the first year at 8:00 for me to get to know him- Mm ... so he could delegate and trust.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: He put a lot of energy into it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And then one day, I was flying back. I was coming in from Minneapolis, and my wife had just completed another beautiful scrapbook of [00:10:00] my two-year-old son and four-year-old daughter.

Hala Taha: Uh-huh.

Ron Johnson: And it hit me that I live in an analog world. On the weekends-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: when I'm with my family in Minnesota. But in Cupertino I'm in a digital world where we're inventing all these apps to like get rid of the scrapbook. And I talked to Steve one night on a Thursday and I said, "Steve, have you ever thought about this?

You know, the Mac, if we succeed, it'll be the center of someone's digital life."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, where I am my wife makes, takes pictures. We go to the grocery store, we get the film developed. She cuts them up, puts them in a scrapbook, and it's wonderful.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And I come to Cupertino and we're making digital scrapbooks.

And that's true with movies, that's true with music. And I said, "The Mac's kind of the center of your digital life." And Steve said, "Can you write me an email on that?" And I said, "Sure," and I wrote him a little note the next day. And then Monday he bounces into ET, and I think my conversation's probably crystallizing thoughts he had from [00:11:00] many other conversations, so I'm not taking credit for this.

Mm-hmm. But he walks in, he doesn't sit down like he always does, hardly says good morning. And he goes up to the whiteboard and he goes, "I've got the future of the Mac." He said, "We're gonna call it the digital hub."

Hala Taha: I love that.

Ron Johnson: The hub. And he said, "The Mac will be in the center."

Hala Taha: Mm. "

Ron Johnson: You'll have your devices like your Canon camera-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: or your Sony camcorder, and we'll create a layer of software in the middle, and we'll be able to take your da- your content from your camera, you know- Mm-hmm ... into the Mac and through our applications like iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes. We will do things you couldn't do before."

Hala Taha: Mm. "

Ron Johnson: And that's how we'll position the Mac."

And so we talked about that at ET, and then that night I woke up about 2:00 in the morning, I couldn't sleep. I said, "Well, if Steve really believes in the digital hub, we've designed our store around products."

Hala Taha: Mm. "

Ron Johnson: They should be designed about, around the digital hub, about what people can do."

Hala Taha: [00:12:00] Yeah.

Ron Johnson: So the next morning, uh, it was Tuesday, which is when we have our retail meeting.

And Steve used to like me to go to the main building, you know, at Infinite Loop in Cupertino and ride with him to the store.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Um, just so we could catch up and chat about what we're gonna do that day. And I got there and he said, "You look..." He goes, "You look tired." I said, "Well, I was up." And I said, "You know, I've been thinking about the store and if you love the digital hub, you know, I think the store's wrong."

Hala Taha: Mm. And

Ron Johnson: he looked at me, he said, "Tell me more." And I told him what I just told you. And he said, "God, Ron- You know, you might be right But do you know how much work I put into the store?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Let's go... I don't want you to talk about this today. Let's work on what we're gonna work on 'cause you might be right, but I don't know if I have the energy to design an entirely new store.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: I said, "Okay." And we got in the car and quiet. You know, usually we chatted the whole way there. It's, you know, eight to 10 minutes depending on traffic lights. Yeah. And, [00:13:00] uh, we got there and we walk in. He hasn't said a word yet since I talked to him.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: We meet, there's a group, about 15 people there waiting.

You know, Steve's coming. Who's gonna get to go first? You know, there's all that-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: pressure of now Steve's in the room. And Steve looks at everyone, he goes, "Well, Ron just told me-" that our store is all wrong.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And he's right, and so we're gonna start over. But I'm gonna leave now and leave it up to you guys to figure it out."

You

Hala Taha: guys figure it out.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. But he, he told the story then really affectionately to the group. Mm-hmm. That every great thing he'd done, there became a moment in the project when you'd had the courage to do a U-turn-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: or to start over. And he told a story about Toy Story, you know, one of the great movies, first great movie with Pixar.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And he said, "You know, we gotta have the courage to do it right." And that delayed the first store about six months, [00:14:00] but it allowed us to create a place that really became the Apple store we still see today.

Hala Taha: Yeah. What a cool story. Hmm. I love that story. What did that teach you about decision-making and being flexible enough to, to change direction while also being, like, firm in your original decisions?

Like, what did that teach you about decision-making?

Ron Johnson: Well, what it, it became a lesson that I really learned from Steve. Uh, Steve used to say, "If you think through any problem hard enough, you'll come to the inevitable only answer."

Hala Taha: Hmm. "

Ron Johnson: And everyone'll agree with you." Super counterintuitive to what companies like Facebook do today, where let's just get stuff out there and test it, and the customer will tell...

will evolve.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Steve believed in thinking things through with a small group of people, and putting your best, best foot forward.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: That's how he designed products. That's how he created movies.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: That's how he created [00:15:00] this store, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And Steve was never in a hurry. You know, he wasn't driven by product timelines.

Hala Taha: Hmm. You

Ron Johnson: know, there were a lot of products we thought, "Is it ever gonna come out?"

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: The phone was actually quite a bit beyond when we initially thought-

Hala Taha: Hmm ...

Ron Johnson: we could bring out a phone at Apple, right? So the lesson I learned from that was, you get one chance to launch a store. You get one chance to launch a product.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: Do it great. If you have a better idea, have the courage to make a change.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Yeah. So you came up with the concept of Genius Bar- Mm-hmm ... correct?

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hala Taha: What was your initial reason for it? I know-

Ron Johnson: Sure ...

Hala Taha: I know that people were not familiar with computers, so obviously to educate, but what else beyond that?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Well, at first, you know, I get credit for the Genius Bar. But I wouldn't take ownership. Everything is done by groups of people.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And so I had been in a meeting at Offsite, which was really [00:16:00] fun, with 18 people talking about, "How do we build the store? What's the service philosophy?"

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, in that conversation it became very clear that people felt like they get sold at s- sold to at stores.

Mm. But great service is in hotels, especially five-star hotels. So we asked the question, I said right away, "Okay, let's just spend two days designing the Apple Store service as if we were a five-star hotel. What do we do?"

Hala Taha: What a great activity.

Ron Johnson: It was really fun. Yeah. And, and it led to ... And, and the reason we decided, you know, stores, once you leave, we don't know you're coming back.

So stores tend to try to close, uh, these commissions and things to get someone to buy today.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Hotels, you've already booked the hotel. You're not leaving.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? They depend on you coming back same time next year or telling a friend. So they're truly in the service business. And, and I knew at the time that people would take four or five visits to buy a Mac.[00:17:00]

So in many ways we were gonna be like a hotel.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You're not gonna sell anybody on the first visit. So why would not do that? And as we looked at the hotel, uh, the ... We ended the first day, had a great day, and I said, "Tomorrow we're gonna talk about customer service," you know. It's something that most people hide in a technology store because you don't want the customer to fear tech- They're already scared of technology.

You don't want them to say, "Well, this thing's not gonna work. Look at that big service counter you have," right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, that night I was sitting there thinking about it. I said, "So what is there in a hotel?" That could be a metaphor for service. And I said, "Well, they, every hotel has a great bar."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And you know, the thing about bartenders, they're really friendly.

And if I wanna learn about what I can do for dinner, bartenders tend to know- Mm-hmm ... 'cause they talk to people all the time. And, you know, they dispense alcohol. What if we dispensed advice?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And I said, came in the next day, I said, "What if we build a [00:18:00] bar for service, and let's make it the most important part of the store.

Let's stick it out," you know? Yeah. And, you know, people kind of reacted pretty well to the idea. And I called Steve and told him about it. He said, "That sounds like a great idea. What are you gonna call it?" I said, "I don't know." He goes, "Well, tell me when you have a name." I said, "Okay." And a few days later, I was, uh, kind of watching, like I love to do...

I was, for some reason, I turned on the old Apple "Think Different" ad-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm,

Ron Johnson: mm-hmm ... which we all know.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: That Steve used when he came back to Apple to motivate the teams. And the last line said, "While some people da, da, da, we see genius."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "Genius Bar." It just seemed to make sense. And so I called Steve and I said, "Steve, I got the name.

I'm gonna call it the Genius Bar," and I explained why. And he said, "You can't do that." And I assumed it was because, you know, you didn't wanna leverage the [00:19:00] Genius branding.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: He said, "No, because anybody you find who can talk about technology is a geek. So if you wanna call it The Geek Bar, maybe that would work, but you should think about another name."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, and this was during the day sometime, and Steve, as I said, would call every night at 8:00. Mm-hmm. We had a agreement to do that for a year. And he called that night and I was prepared, and I said, "Steve, I wanna talk to you about the name again." And I said, "The main reason I want that name is I wanna be in a position where we have everyone in every city we put a store fighting to be one of the Geniuses."

Hala Taha: Mm. '

Ron Johnson: Cause who wouldn't wanna be the smartest Apple person in Minneapolis, the smartest Apple person in New York City?

Hala Taha: Mm. '

Ron Johnson: Cause that's what the Genius is. And I said, "Then we won't have any trouble getting people who can serve-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and help with technology." Steve said, "Interesting." And the [00:20:00] next morning, I went into work, and I, uh, was going up to my office and I walked by our general counsel, Nancy Heinen, and Nancy said, "Ron, what's a Genius Bar?"

"Steve asked me to trademark that name," you know? So Steve, you know, quickly, as always, yeah, if you had a good idea, he was the first to get behind it.

Hala Taha: It's really cool that he was able to kind of change his mind- Mm-hmm ... and, and that you guys actually had a relationship where you could challenge him, and then- Yeah

end up getting your way too. But

Ron Johnson: everyone did on

Hala Taha: the ET. Hmm. What's ET?

Ron Johnson: This, uh, the, uh, executive team at Apple.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, this isn't unique to me. If you were talking to Jony Ive or Phil Schiller or Tim Cook, they'd all say the same thing. Steve wanted the best ideas to win, and he loved having a vigorous debate, a conversation with people that were really smart and passionate like him to get to the right answer.

Nothing, you know, I think, uh, [00:21:00] uh, uh, I don't, wanna use turned him on- ... but got him excited. You know, l- than a good debate-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: about something that hadn't been done before.

Hala Taha: So Genius Bar was really innovative. The way that you guys laid out the Apple Stores were- Mm-hmm ... really innovative. Uh, and you talk a lot about, like, what is, what does it truly mean to be- Mm-hmm

innovative?

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: Help us understand your, your opinion on that.

Ron Johnson: Yeah, to me, uh, this is the big mistake people make, is they don't understand the difference between improvement-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: and innovation. In my mind, innovation always is doing something that has never been done before, right? And things that have never been done come out of someone's imagination, and that's what makes them disruptive.

Most people, you know, are comfortable. They pay attention to what's going on in the world, especially at their competitors.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And they take an idea a competitor's done, and it's new to their [00:22:00] company But it's mere improvement.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Right? And there's nothing wrong with that. We should be doing that all the time.

Paying attention to what our competitors are doing, shamelessly taking their best ideas and using them. Apple's done that-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: many times, right? Uh, Facebook does that all the time, right? There's nothing wrong with that. That's competition. But it's not improvement.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: It's not innovation. Because everyone's doing that, so the real question when you're trying to improve is can I improve faster than somebody else?

Right? Innovation starts in the imagination.

Hala Taha: Mm. And

Ron Johnson: it takes a whole different level of courage, uh, and a whole different level of skills to pull it off. And some companies are great and some aren't, as I learned when I went to JCPenney.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, and I definitely wanna talk to you about how to test innovative ideas- Mm-hmm

and what the right approach is. Mm-hmm. Uh, but first let's talk about your time at Target. So you worked at Target before Apple.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And you were really responsible [00:23:00] for, like, the whole, like, Tarjay movement, right? Mm-hmm. Where Target became sort of like the fancier Walmart, the, the more, like, design-forward, uh, version of Walmart.

Um, and I remember growing up, we used to call it Tarjay and, like- Yeah ... it was like a nicer store.

Ron Johnson: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Um, so when you first started at Target- Mm-hmm ... like, what was your initiative? Like, what were you charged to do?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Uh, again, let me not just be humble, let me be really honest. I didn't come with, up with Tarjay.

You know, I think if you read the Target history, someone in Duluth or Minnesota in the third store called it Tarjay. You know, it's just kind of the French pronunciation of that word. Yeah. And it kinda stuck below the surface. In the '90s when Target really took off as a company, I was there from '90 to 2000, the stock went up 12 times because Target really got its footing and [00:24:00] emerged.

Mm-hmm. Filled that gap between what people thought they could find at a discount store-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and what they were finding at the specialty stores in the mall or department stores, which were really the leaders in where you go to find new ideas.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And Target took that over. Um, when I got there, you know, the CEO, Bob Ulrich, a great CEO, said, "Let's differentiate from Walmart."

Because Walmart now was making this move from rural America.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Target and Walmart started the same year in 1961.

Hala Taha: Oh, wow. I thought Target started later.

Ron Johnson: No, 1961. 20 years later- You know, they were the two leading discount stores. There were still 10. You know, Kmart, and Venture, and Hills- Mm-hmm ... and every region had a discounter, right?

'Cause the only way to grow, there wasn't an internet, you had to open stores.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And it was good to put your stores in one area so your marketing got, you know-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: leveraged. Um, but Target owned suburbs, [00:25:00] Walmart owned rural.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Well, Walmart was coming to the suburbs, 'cause they had pretty much done all the rural stores they thought they could.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But Walmart had a lot lower cost structure. Part, they designed, you know, less expensive stores, but they were also better at systems and different things. Mm. So they were

Hala Taha: a

Ron Johnson: big competitor. So the only way Target could win was by being different than Walmart. And different probably had a little higher price point.

But a lot of times different wasn't better, it was just different.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So the buyers at Target would take something like a high-volume toothpaste by Crest, and Walmart was so low on price, they'd get some other ounces and assume the customer couldn't calculate and just charge a different price.

Hala Taha: Mm. '

Ron Johnson: Cause different- It'd

Hala Taha: be like a smaller toothpaste basically

Ron Johnson: smaller or bigger- Mm ... but it was more ounce.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: But they got away with it because there wasn't a direct competitive SKU or stock keeping unit, right?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So I came up with the idea that what if we could be [00:26:00] different and better, and I called it preferred.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, if something's preferred, you'd probably say it's different and it means more to me.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And for the home area that I had at the time, I started in toys, then I hit all kids, and then I went into home. Uh, the home was emerging in the late '90s as the category.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: People were buying homes and moving even more aggressively to the suburbs. But the retailers that had d- not ... dominated the '80s, like the Gap and The Limited, were now being dominated by people like Crate & Barrel, and Pottery Barn- Mm

Hala Taha: and,

Ron Johnson: you know, Williams-Sonoma, and Restoration Hardware. And so the home area was becoming a hot area. And at the same time, design was becoming a thing in the world. Um, I... Tom Peters called it the decade of design. Volkswagen did their Beetle. Steve and Johnny were working on the new iMac.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, just on and on.

Hala Taha: [00:27:00] Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And I said, "What if Target won on design?" Instead of carrying a tea kettle at $9.99, what if we had a tea kettle that was special, that didn't just, you know, boil water, it lifted your spirits every time you looked at it? And so I had this idea to, you know, do design, and I thought home was the perfect place to do it.

And, uh, coincidentally met a guy named Michael Graves, who had been a great architect in the '80s. Mm-hmm. And had done home products for companies like Alessi, Italian-made leader in design. And I was introduced to Michael, and I quickly became friends, and I said, "How would you like to design for Target?"

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: "You design, we build. We'll go make them, 'cause we've got great sourcing." And he said, "Ron, I'm the head of the architecture practice at Princeton, and not a single one of my students can afford one of my products. I would love to do that."

Hala Taha: Oh, I would have expected him to be like, "I don't wanna water [00:28:00] down my brand," or- Well,

Ron Johnson: that's what his team said.

Hmm. His team didn't want him to do it. But Michael, I don't know, he w- we, we just got along great. But he had no objection. And I remember the first time we toured a Target store together, I came with a pack of the yellow Pad, yellow, yellow stickies, you know, from 3M in Minnesota nearby. Mm-hmm. I said, "Just put one of these on any product you think you could do better."

He said, "Ron, you didn't bring enough stickies." And so he went through and, you know, just ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. Mm-hmm. And then we launched with 140 items. Uh, it was probably Doing design at Target was as much fun as creating the Apple Store.

Hala Taha: Really?

Ron Johnson: It really was. It was hard. Uh, no one thought it would work. I'll never forget, you know, we- Michael used to say, "You get 10 great days in your life."

You know, and he told me about several of them. And I think the day we launched Michael [00:29:00] Graves was one of my great days.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: We were in New York. Target didn't have stores in the Northeast yet. And we had taken over the Whit- we had the courage to take over the Whitney Museum, the first floor, for like a week.

But for the night of the launch, we invited all the press and influencers from New York.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And the press people said, "Nobody's gonna come, and if you're gonna say any remarks, do 'em in the first 15 minutes, 'cause they'll stop by and leave."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, we took over the floor. We took all the items, some of the items that were coming in, like the teakettle and the clock, and we treated 'em like museum pieces.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: We had, like, 50 clocks that made the Target bullseye at the entrance. We had chandeliers with stainless steel kitchen tools. Did all these beautiful things. That's

Hala Taha: really cool.

Ron Johnson: And, uh, you know, people came in, and you could just feel the energy. It was packed. We didn't talk for an hour and a half 'cause people were too busy-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: wandering around. And there was alcohol, which maybe helped too. [00:30:00] But, you know, the thing started about 7:00. When Michael got up, he was really funny, and he said a few things. And when he was done, we had given everyone a whistle. I don't know, I... 'Cause the whistle's on the teakettle. Mm. You know? And all of a sudden everyone starts blowing whistles.

It was this moment where you knew, you knew it was gonna work.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You knew it was

Ron Johnson: gonna be a success. And everyone was shocked. People s- we finally kicked people out, turned the lights on about 10:00. But it was like an event. It was a moment. Mm. And it's kinda like the first Apple Store when we opened.

You kinda had a sense it was gonna work, and I've been lucky to be a part of some great moments in my career.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And that was one of 'em.

Hala Taha: Really cool. So, so you decided you were gonna do home goods. Um, fashion, from what I read in your book, like, it, like, the trends change too quickly. But you did innovate-

Ron Johnson: Well, now here's what I've tried to, in the book, I've- Yeah

the point I was trying to make in the book.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And this was the business case [00:31:00] for design. Because when you do something innovative, you're in the business to make money. You've gotta think, "Why does this make sense?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: So Target had, in their business model, two categories of merchandise. We'd say we had basics.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And basics, you had to price with the market. Whatever Walmart charged, we'd charge.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: And therefore, the prices, the margin tends to be low, but they drive a lot of volume.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Then you have fashion, and we had, you know, 30% of the store in things like apparel for kids and family and men's and women.

That you can take a high markup. But you gotta mark it down every season.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, unfortunately, summer goes away.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Ron Johnson: You know? Then we have fall, and then we have holiday.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So fashion for a, a store like Target, you know, it's not a luxury brand that gets 80-point markups-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: would, you know, make a little higher margin than basics, but not a lot.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: I viewed design, you could get the markup of fashion, because it's got that same [00:32:00] appeal, but a great item would be in the assortment 10 years from now. You'd never have to mark it down.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? So whereas- Really smart ... we were making, if you fuzz your eyes, 30 points on basics-

Hala Taha: Yep ...

Ron Johnson: 40 points on fashion-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: we could make 50 points on design. So if design became 10% of our volume- That would add one and a half points of margin to Target's bottom line, and we could fit that in-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: and grab a new customer. So it was a good business case.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Um, but convincing people at Target to do that was hard because they saw our big co- cus- competitor being-

Hala Taha: Cheaper, yeah

Ron Johnson: cheaper, Walmart. Mm. And now we're going up further?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: This is gonna change the image of Target if you're successful to where no one from Walmart's coming.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: But we did it. And Target, what it really did is it reinforced the idea of Target.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You

Ron Johnson: know, and then people

Hala Taha: were all- And premium.

Ron Johnson: All that, yeah

just, you know, a l- we got the customer who was shopping at the mall-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: to come to Target and buy [00:33:00] home and more apparel and more discretionary purchases.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Uh, you did something pretty innovative with children's fashion too. Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: I did.

Hala Taha: What, um, the, the story goes from what I understand is that, uh, s- the f- sizes were really off, and people were having trouble finding the right size of clothes for their kids.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. I guess, let me try to-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: if I could. And this goes back to, it's... 'cause this is an example where I'd say we improved Target's kids department.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But it was a radical change.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: So I had admired The Gap from the '80s. I mean, Mickey Drexler was, you know, if you're a young retailer, he was it.

I remember one time I was in Hong Kong at the Regent Hotel, and he walked through the lobby, and it's kinda like I later would see Steve walking into Macworld. Mm-hmm. You know, Mickey was pretty, the guy.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And they had launched Gap Kids. Most beautiful kid store you'll ever see. But what they [00:34:00] did is they made every product from size two, a toddler size two-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: to size 20, which is big for a boys or boy or girl-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: end of the range. Every product was available in every size. Well, that let them have clean presentation.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: They didn't have to break the Gap Kids store into a little toddler area, a little kids area, a big kids area, and that's how every department store and discount store was

Hala Taha: merchandised.

Mm.

Ron Johnson: So when I took over kids, we had a toddler section. We had boys. We had girls. We actually had little boys and big boys.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And little boy got s- character T-shirts, and big boys got things that were closer to, like, juniors.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Um, but kids weren't naturally that. There's big kids, and they didn't wanna have characters on.

They're a little kid. It was just a mess.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And so I figured Target had a pretty s- small children's floor, and I said, "If we had the courage to do what the Gap did-" We could double our [00:35:00] assortment.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Instead of offering all these things for little kids and big kids, let's have one kids. And let's have the courage to take our sizes and collapse them, so instead of having a four and a five, we had a four or five.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Instead of a six, seven, seven, eight, we had a six, seven, eight. They're a little big, but kids could grow into them.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: But doing that let us double our assortment, right? But to do this, I got a lot of pushback at Target.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Uh, because we would have to redo every pattern, everything we're doing-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Ron Johnson: you know, to create that consistency. So it was a shockingly hard amount of work to do that, but it worked.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And Target's kids area ran well ahead of the other apparel areas. After the first six months or so were tough, for the next probably decade, you know, because we fundamentally changed, gave Target a benefit that nobody else had.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And no one else really did it [00:36:00] because they didn't understand it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? And that's what I call, you know, that was improvement. I found the idea at the Gap. It was pretty innovative for discount stores and department stores to do that.

Hala Taha: How did you get your, your ideas, like all these different ideas that you had for the stores that you worked for, the brands that you worked for?

How did you generate your ideas? What was your process?

Ron Johnson: Well, I don't... There isn't really a process. You just, you love what you do, you know? If you love what you do, you're immersed in it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, I probably have visited as many stores in my lifetime as anybody my age.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? I still do that.

When I came to see you, I had a chance to walk through the stores in front of us. And, uh, so when you're in stores a lot, you learn to become a student-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: of stores. And if you have a mind that's always looking for what's next, but wanting to do it now- You pick up a newness

Hala Taha: Yeah

Ron Johnson: You know, and you get an eye for it.

And then [00:37:00] when I used to take over areas, I used to ask myself, "How can I do something in the time I'm gonna be here," like in toys, "What can I do in my maybe two years I'll be in toys that will permanently improve Target's position in toys?" So that forced me to think not about, you know, what should I carry in aisle three, what can I do at a higher level that will endure?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: That's what sizing was. It wasn't about, you know, getting great colors and basic T-shirts, and getting a great fashion statement, and getting that new dress. Start at the higher level. What if we sized our merchandise different?

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: That was design and home. It wasn't about, okay, let's make sure we're picking the right things from the vendors and fighting for allocation, which are all good things to do.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: But the next person who takes over will try to do the same thing. They might not be as good at it-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: as whoever had it before. Design was a permanent change in how Target competed [00:38:00] that no one else was doing.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Right? So I think it's more how you frame the problem that leads to the, the innovation.

Okay? So being loving what I did-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: being in stores, combined with how I frame the problem Plus courage. You know, I just always have had courage-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: you know, to do things.

Hala Taha: And I think it's y- you've been in retail for a really long time, so it's- Yeah ... it's the expertise in retail. So-

Ron Johnson: Yeah ...

Hala Taha: I'm an expert in podcasting, and similarly- Mm-hmm

I can, like, easily spot the trends. Well, that's

Ron Johnson: why you have a network.

Hala Taha: You know? Yeah. So to easily be able to like- Yeah ... spot the trends because I'm always reading about it. I'm always- Yeah ... curious about how to grow, how to do this, how to do that, and like will s- find things that, like, people wouldn't notice.

But it's probably very similar where you're just such an expert in retail that- Exactly ... you walk into a store and you're like, "Oh, that's interesting."

Ron Johnson: Well, that's what, you know, you probably get asked all the time by friends, "Could you talk to my daughter or son- Yeah ... who are thinking about a career?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And my [00:39:00] advice to people all the time is, "You know, when you're thinking of what to do, pick an industry you can love for a lifetime-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and become an expert."

Hala Taha: That's great advice.

Ron Johnson: You'll never get bored.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So you, you were at Target. Y- we talked about your experience at Apple.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And after Apple, you got an offer to be the CEO of- Mm-hmm

JCPenney.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: And when you first initially got that offer, how did you feel about it?

Ron Johnson: Well, I wasn't... I was open for a change.

Hala Taha: Okay. '

Ron Johnson: Cause I was turning 50. I'd been at Apple for 12 years, 11 years when I started to think about it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And I kind of was thinking, you know, most things I've done have been in 10-year cycles, and if I'm gonna do something other than stay at Apple, now would be a time to think about it.

And a couple of guys from New York, a guy named Bill Ackman- Mm-hmm ... who's a well-known investor.

Hala Taha: I think I interviewed him.

Ron Johnson: I think s- You probably have ... I think so. Yeah. Bill's a very smart [00:40:00] guy.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Risk-taker. And a guy named Steve Roth, who was CEO of Vornado, one of the big, uh, real estate firms. They had taken a, an activist position in JCPenney.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And as part of their investment, uh, Penney said they could join the board and add one more board member. So I got a call out of the blue, "Would you like to talk to Steve and Bill about joining the Penney's board?" And so on one of my trips to New York to visit a new Apple store, we were opening a store on the Upper West Side, um, I stopped over, spent time at Steve, with Steve and Bill at their apartment.

At Steve's apartment. They didn't live together. And, uh, Bill walked me home, and he was excited to have me join the board. And I thought, "You know, why not?" I, I've known Penney's forever. I used to work at Mervyn's and Target and Kids. I know the company, how it competes. I've watched it. Um, and I went out and met all the board members, and they were ready to bring me on as a board [00:41:00] member.

But then the CEO, who'd been there six, seven years, was probably 66 at the time- Unfortunately, had a car accident.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And it was pretty bad. And he survived it, which was great, but it made the board think about succession planning. And I don't know where it came from, but I get a call, "Well, Ron, how would you think of...

how would you like to think about becoming CEO instead of a board member?" And I just thought about it. I said, "Well, that'd be interesting." I wanted to do something really hard, and I loved the department store, 'cause I grew up, they were the king.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, in the '60s when I grew up, they were the king.

And I always thought they had, you know, inadvertently lost their way 'cause they hadn't competed well enough.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And traveling around the world as I did with Apple stores, there were great department stores. Harrods and Selfridges in London, Printemps- Mm-hmm ... Galeries Lafayette in Paris. [00:42:00] Hong Kong. You know, the department store isn't dead, it was kinda dying in the United States.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: I thought that'd be a big challenge. So I decided, oh, why not? So I did.

Hala Taha: And, and your... I think your dad talked to you about that and, and basically was like, "How, how much success do you need?"

Ron Johnson: That's, uh, good. You've read the book. I'm impressed. No, my dad's attitude was, "Why are you doing this, Ron? You've got a young family," and my kids were in, uh, I think they were 12 and 14, 13 and 15, going into their most important years of their young life or the years that Karen and I would...

they'd be living with us.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And, you know, Apple's doing great. I... it was kind of a hobby for me, 'cause the store, everything we opened worked, and we had built a great team.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And the team was doing the work. I was kinda leading and having fun designing new stores and stuff. Um, but I wanted to take on a challenge, and my dad thought it was more pride than [00:43:00] purpose.

Hala Taha: Yeah, like the, the prize of being CEO. Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Prove what you can do. Yeah. Not, not even being CEO, just proving you can turn around the department store.

Hala Taha: Mm. You

Ron Johnson: know, you helped make Target, Target. Yeah. You created the Apple Store. No one thought it'd work. Here's another one.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Another-

Ron Johnson: You know, this

Hala Taha: is-

challenge ...

Ron Johnson: and, you know, looking back, there was some truth to that. Even though I didn't wanna face it, there always is. And you can create in your own head, you know, "No, I'm doing this because, you know, I'd like to take a new challenge. I'd like to help all those employees in Texas compete for another century," you know?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Um, you can always talk yourself into it, but you gotta be really thoughtful what's really motivating you.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Just,

Hala Taha: you know? So you, so you went to JCPenney and you wanted to help turn around the stores, 'cause like you're saying, department stores still are kind of a dying breed in the US.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: Um, w- what were some of the things that you wanted to change about JCPenney?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Well, it's [00:44:00] interesting. The department store is actually having a good little period right now.

Hala Taha: They are?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. Macy's is, you know, they got a new team in place, and they've got their bold new chapter. Mm.

Hala Taha: And

Ron Johnson: their stock's up maybe double from the floor-

Hala Taha: Oh, okay ...

Ron Johnson: couple years ago. They're competing better.

It doesn't mean they're winning-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: but they're starting to make more money. Even Kohl's has gone up a little bit-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: of late. Um, Nordstrom is taking the company private. They're doing a little better, you know. So they're coming back. Um, but they're a lot smaller than they were when I joined JCPenney years ago.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: They're about half the number of stores in that group. Oh, wow.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Um, but, you know, I just felt that if we had the courage to reimagine the store, to get at what we needed, a younger family customer- We could have another day. You know, because the reality is, like Penney's had 600 great stores. They were pretty productive.

They just had a aged customer. You know, the customer was [00:45:00] 55 to 65 years old.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ron Johnson: When I was at Target, they were 25 to 35. And you get a young customer, they're gonna have families, and they're gonna live with you- Yeah ... for the next few decades. Where the Penney's customer was going away, and that's why market share was going down.

You know, so how do you get a younger customer? Well, we had basically free stores, 'cause we're an anchor in the mall.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Right? And they're 30-year leases. So all we have to do is redo everything about the store, but we could create something quite compelling.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So number one, okay? Pricing. You know?

Everything we sold was 60% off. We ran 13 ads a week.

Hala Taha: So many coup- so many

Ron Johnson: discounts-

Hala Taha: Coupons ... and coupons

Ron Johnson: at JCPenney. There were sales and coupons, and nobody else was shopping that way. If you walked through the specialty stores, it was all full price, and you'd have clearance when it didn't sell.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? Starbucks, everything you do. But the department [00:46:00] store had this reliance on coupons. Well, imagine instead of s- telling someone it's worth $40 and selling it for 10, just make it $10 every day.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Make every day a great day to shop. Now I've restored my brand credibility on pricing That would allow me to attract all these people to Penney's, new brands from all around the world, but most importantly direct to consumer.

You know, back in 2011, that's when people like Warby Parker-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: went online with glasses. Yep. That's when, you know, mattresses, and everyone was creating these, Bonobos, all these things. Well, they'd need a place to put stores, and we're in the mall. But we could offer 1,000 square feet to each of them at much better prices, 'cause we pay...

We're free. The mall being 100 feet down the road, it's gonna be $60 a square foot.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, so we could reimagine the interior [00:47:00] of the store. Instead of having, you know, 60,000 square feet of racks, 100 unique specialty stores. The best of the Penney's brands plus others-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and reinvent how you shop.

So now you got great pricing every day. We got a whole new environment inside. We've got new merchandise that you can't find somewhere else. Mm. And suddenly shopping at Penney's is like an adventure. You know, it's like the Apple Store. It's a place to belong. And in the center, in that, we're not putting a Genius Bar, we'll put a town square, a place where we'll run fashion shows and-

Hala Taha: Mm

Ron Johnson: do things for kids and families and, you know, we can make this an experience. And so I wanted to do that.

Hala Taha: It sounds like a great idea.

Ron Johnson: Well, I think most people thought it was a good idea. However, I learned a lot of lessons, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: So I went to Penney's and I basically asked them to implement my idea of America's Favorite Store.

It wasn't their idea.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know? And if you're gonna [00:48:00] make a change, you gotta get people to buy in. It starts with trusting you as a leader. They didn't know me. They saw me as the Apple guy.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Even though I'd spent more time in apparel than technology, they never knew about my working before Apple.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? And I'm a new guy, and I'm well-to-do and know-it-all-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Ron Johnson: and, and, and they just didn't buy into it. And I didn't have the courage to let people go. I don't like firing people.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, I said, "I'll convince them," you know? And so the, the, the, the, the big mistake happened my first month on the job.

I was at a board meeting and I asked the board a really important question. One little question. You know, if you're gonna make a major change to your retail strategy, the time to do it is February, March. Because you've gone through Christmas, you have your most clearance, you have time to get people ready for [00:49:00] the next year.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: If we're gonna do it, we either have to do it this February or we wait a year and do it a year from now.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: If we wait a year, we can focus on our teams, getting the inventory right, and making sure everyone understands it, da, da, da, da.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know? But if we went now, we're not gonna go through another year of, you know, kinda tough business.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And the CEO, Mike Ullman, who I replaced, just said, "Ron, from my perspective, what do we have to lose? It sounds great." And the board all kinda nodded, and I made the decision. I made the decision. Let's go.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And I told the team, "We're gonna go. In six weeks, we're changing everything."

Hala Taha: Oh my gosh. That's not a lot of time.

Ron Johnson: But, but the team did a phenomenal job. I mean- Mm-hmm ... they ... We had to go through and figure out prices on thousands and thousands of items, and change price tags, and figure out signing and how to communicate this, and create advertisements. And, but the reality, we went way too fast.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And so the team [00:50:00] didn't understand it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: The board didn't truly understand what we were doing. Uh, investors didn't understand it, you know? And most importantly, customers didn't

Hala Taha: understand

Ron Johnson: it. Yeah. And so we alienated that coupon customer.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And, you know, in many ways we fired our customer.

Hala Taha: Your most loyal customer.

Ron Johnson: Our most loyal customer.

Now, the one that's not gonna carry us to the future, but we had thought sales would be down 15%. They were down 20% right away.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? But outside investors didn't know what the plan was, 'cause we didn't really communicate as well as we could.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And they thought, "Who's this idiot running JCPenney?

How are you as a board letting him do this?"

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And all the board members get called by their friends, "What are you doing?" And it was a really tough year. Now, the NPS was through the roof.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: So sales are down 20% That means 80% of the people are buying, or new customers are coming.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: And they were loving it, 'cause [00:51:00] they found all these beautiful new shops.

We had put in maybe 20 shops as we went through the year. There was a Levi's shop. It was the best place to buy Levi's in the country by far.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And sales in Levi's were up 40% year over year, you know? But it was early, but the overall picture was things are going down.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And I had real personal trouble with it, 'cause I had had 25 years of success.

Hala Taha: Yeah, you just had

Ron Johnson: great success up to then. But I had never gone through what I went through that year. Mm. And eventually, a year later, I said to the board, "Look, I'm not having fun. If you're not having fun, you think we're doing the wrong thing here, the sooner you make a change and go back, the better.

You know, because every month that goes by with this strategy would be harder to go back to your old strategy." 'Cause that's what some of the team wanted to do.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And after three months, they said, "Ron, we're gonna go back." And they actually brought back Mike Ullman to do

Hala Taha: it. Mm.

Ron Johnson: And they tried to do a U-turn.

Unfortunately, that didn't work either. [00:52:00] You know, when Mike left two years later, the stock was down another 50%. And then they brought in Marvin, and after he left two years later to go to Lowe's, stock was down another 50%.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, so Penney's was having trouble when I came in. The failed transformation took it down.

The U-turn took it down. So we really missed an opportunity, I think, to save JCPenney.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Uh, and I think the lesson is, you know, if you're gonna make a change- You gotta, you gotta stick it out.

Hala Taha: You gotta stick it out?

Ron Johnson: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Was there any sort of, like, testing you wish you did or talking more to the customer?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. You know, I do. I... You know, it's funny. At the time I told people I don't believe in tests.

Hala Taha: Mm. '

Ron Johnson: Cause by and large, I, I don't. We didn't test sizing at Target. We didn't.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Sometimes the customer doesn't even know what they want.

Ron Johnson: They don't. That was Steve's approach, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: But I look back. Steve changed his [00:53:00] mind a few times.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? Like the iPod, he said, "I'm not gonna bring that to Windows. Hell will freeze over before I make a Windows iPod." And three years later he did, and that's what made the iPod. It's what really made Apple. That catapulted our ability to get Windows customers.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: So Steve changed his mind.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know what I mean? And so I was pretty darn stubborn on the pricing in particular. That was the real difficult

Hala Taha: part. The, the, the no discounts.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. And, uh, and if I had done it over, and we had a year, I would've at least tested the marketing messages. Mm-hmm. You know, you can do that without testing with the customer.

That would've been helpful.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. There are a lot of ways we could've rolled out. I was worried about the cost of having two teams, one doing the new pennies, one managing the old. I thought it'd be too much work for the buyers to do both. So I thought of it as an either/or. But the big thing, you know, quite honestly, I was arrogant.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: I was situationally arrogant. [00:54:00] Everything I'd done for 25 years had worked.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Ron Johnson: You know? And because I had the courage to make change. And so when the board said go, I said, "Let's go." You know? Yeah. And on the hindsight, we should've tested a lot of things.

Hala Taha: How did that impact your ego? Like, did you feel- down or like that you were a failure because you had failed this- No, I,

Ron Johnson: I-

transformation with chasing money? ... was a, I was a failure. Make no mistake about it.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: When you're the CEO of a company and you do something, you know, that fails in everyone's mind, and you walk away from it-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: you failed.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know? We fail every day. But when you come back to work, you know, you have, you fail, have not a great podcast, you come back, you do another podcast.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: When you lose the chance to keep going, and when it's over-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: that's when you fail, right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And so I did, I failed. And it was hard. Um, I think even today [00:55:00] there'll be times I wake up and my stomach churns about, what could I have done different? Mm. And why did I go there? Why did I listen to people?

Why did I go so fast?

Hala Taha: Why didn't you fire who you wanted to fire?

Ron Johnson: What could I have done different, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You agonize over those things. You, they never leave you.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, that's part of life. Now, I've been lucky. I, I got lucky too.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, the Apple stores worked, you know? Yep. And Target did pretty well.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You know,

Ron Johnson: so I- You've

Hala Taha: got a great, you've got a great legacy ...

Ron Johnson: I've had, well, I've had, no, I've had, I guess if anything I've, I've tried.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, I've tried.

Hala Taha: Okay, let's play a game. Sure. So I was, when I was reading your stuff, I thought that you had a lot of quotes. Now, not every quote comes from you, but I thought we could play a game called Quote GOAT.

Do you know what GOAT means? Greatest of all time.

Ron Johnson: Okay.

Hala Taha: Okay? So I'm gonna say a quote, you tell us what this quote- Are these

Ron Johnson: my quotes? The ones

Hala Taha: that- Some of them are your quotes, some of them are quotes that you say.

Ron Johnson: Yep.

Hala Taha: It's all quotes that you're familiar with.

Ron Johnson: Sure.

Hala Taha: Um, if there's a [00:56:00] story about the quote, tell us that.

Ron Johnson: Sure.

Hala Taha: Or tell us the meaning behind it. Whatever comes to your mind, okay?

Ron Johnson: Yeah. "

Hala Taha: Good things happen when people come to the store."

Ron Johnson: That's absolutely true. That's absolutely true, and that's the Apple store.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, I mean, I just believed in traffic, right? That's why you build stores, to get customers to come in.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And no matter what they're coming for. You know, we ran summer camps for kids, and kids would come in five days a week in the morning. Almost every employee was dedicated to camp.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And customers couldn't buy because the kids were over all the computers. But I knew good things would happen from that.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: So good things do happen when you come to the store.

Hala Taha: Every hour has its leader. Every leader has their time

Ron Johnson: Yeah, that's absolutely true. That's from the Talmud. I don't know if you know that.

Hala Taha: Oh, I didn't know that.

Ron Johnson: That's from the Talmud. Um, I read that in a book by Marianne Williamson, A Return to [00:57:00] Love.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: But the idea behind that is really simple, that leadership is something you've gotta give away.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? And whoever's ... Like in this podcast, right now you're leading. You've got this thing about the goat. Right?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You're leading, I'm following, right?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: When I'm speaking to you and answering a question, I'm leading.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: That's true in a store. When one of our employees or the customer, they're the most important person in the store.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: It's not the manager, right? They're leading that conversation. And so I think we have to all recognize that we are leaders and we're followers all day long.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? And you gotta be willing to give away leadership.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: You know, and that's a really good life lesson.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, I'll ask you about that again later. Make love visual.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. That's the ... I really think when you see two people smiling, [00:58:00] when you see brain cells multiplying like you do in an Apple store, that's an act of love because together you're improving each other's lives.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And when you see that in a store, you're making love visual. So I used to tell my friends, the thing I love about the Apple store, you see love everywhere.

Hala Taha: And I think that's true. Like people helping each other

Ron Johnson: and- Helping each other, and it's, and it, and it's a beautiful thing. You know, you see, you know, uh, like when I go to the grocery store, and I do this too, but you see a customer getting out of their car and taking shopping carts that were left-

Hala Taha: Mm

Ron Johnson: in the parking lot, and you're walking into the store, just return them and put them where they belong. When I see that, that's an act of love.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And it's visual. That person didn't have to do it. He's securing the good for the store.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But it's just the right thing to do.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: When someone stops down to pick up a piece of [00:59:00] paper that's on the floor and put it in a trash can, that's making love visual.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? When you walk an old lady across the street, that's making love visual.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: And great stores do that.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I really like this one. The conversational nature of reality.

Ron Johnson: Yeah. No, that's not mine. That's from David Whyte.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: David Whyte's a poet. Um, but he had this philosophy that everything in life-

comes from a conversation, and the most important conversation is the one you have with yourself. So think about that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, every day you're thinking.

Hala Taha: Yes.

Ron Johnson: Well, what are you thinking? You're going, "Okay, like, uh, I've got to go to the airport later today." I'm going, "Well, if I leave at what time?" I look at Uber.

If I leave at this time, I'll probably be on time. I'm having a conversation with myself and making a decision I'll leave at this time. When I thought about the Genius Bar before talking to Steve on the phone, [01:00:00] I had a conversation with myself, which led to a conversation with Steve, which then led to a decision.

So the reality is the world's about a conversation. Now, the best conversations are the ones that have no end in mind.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: The conversation will reveal knowledge that you didn't come into the conversation with, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Too often, unfortunately, we go into a conversation, "Okay, I wanna convince my spouse, I wanna convince my kids-

Hala Taha: Mm

Ron Johnson: that this is the way to do it," so I don't go in and seek to understand and then maybe be understood, as Stephen Covey would say. Yeah, that's another great quote.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: You know, but the idea, I think life is a conversation, and we've got to become better conversationalists. And unfortunately, with all this screen time and social media, we're spending less time connecting.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And we need to spend more time convening, and convening is really ... You know, [01:01:00] it's interesting the word convene, the root word is of is, it's the root of the word convenience, right? And that's the opposite of what we do when things are convenient. We tend to not convene. You know, we got to go back to convening more, having conversations, and being aware of how that reveals knowledge.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: ChatGPT can't reveal knowledge, right? It can reveal what the world knows, but it doesn't reveal new knowledge.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: That's gonna come through conversation.

Hala Taha: Okay, last one. People want to do significant things

Ron Johnson: Yeah, we all do. We're born to have meaning, have impact. You know, there's a great little story in the book, and I forget the name of the guy, but years ago, someone ran an experiment, and they, in a infant...

You know, uh, uh, I should know this. I'm a new grandparent. Yeah. But in the, the baby's [01:02:00] crib-

Hala Taha: Okay ...

Ron Johnson: they put one of those mobiles.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Ron Johnson: And once that was up there, the little kid would touch it, and they couldn't stop touching it 'cause they loved it. If I touch this, the thing moves.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: Right? By definition, we enjoy having impact.

We like to influence things, right? The bigger the influence we have, the more excited we get, right? And I think everyone wants to do significant things.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: And that takes encouragement. That takes kindness. That takes a vision. So I've always practiced with my teams, you know, you know, you gotta set a North Star, and the higher that star, the bigger the vision, the easier it is to accomplish it.

If you have something relatively small, it's just another thing on the to-do list. The thing about a North Star is they're up, which is the direction of values.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: But it's also so far out, we're never gonna get there, and that means you have a strategy that will never end.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Ron Johnson: The [01:03:00] Apple Store kept innovating.

Even to this day, 25 years later, the Apple Store feels new and vibrant. It's got a heartbeat. If you walk in the store, you feel-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Ron Johnson: the soul of the store, right?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: That's because we had a great North Star.

Hala Taha: What was the North Star?

Ron Johnson: It was to enrich lives. Very simple. Enrich the lives of the employees and the customers, and everything was designed around that objective in mind.

Hala Taha: Mm. Uh, so I wanna switch gears a bit. I wanna talk about AI. Sure. So when you started the Apple Store, people thought stores were gonna go extinct- Yeah ... because of the internet.

Ron Johnson: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Now, a lot of people think AI is going to be impacting work in general-

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm ...

Hala Taha: perhaps retail. Yeah. How do you think AI is going to impact retail?

Ron Johnson: It's gonna have a huge impact. Um, it's gonna impact the in-store experience, and it's gonna impact the online experience. However, it's not gonna change where we shop. I [01:04:00] don't think it'll change at all how often you go to stores.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Uh, it's just gonna let both be better, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: The biggest change you'll see will be in online shopping, in my opinion.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, I think the idea of having a website with all these little tiles that you have to s- navigate, you know, through men's, ladies, you know- Mm-hmm ... what's new, what's on sale. It'd be a lot easier to have an agent just say, "Hey, I'm looking for something new and exciting. Uh, I'm a guy. I am willing to take fashion risk," and it comes back with, "Here are the items we have."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, that's gonna happen. Agent commerce will be a really big deal, and that's gonna help online. And it'll be a little bit more like when you walk in a store, 'cause in a store you can talk to an employee- Mm-hmm ... and say, you know, "What do you think? What are the hot items? You know, I've got a party tonight.

What should I wear?"

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, so I think the online will compete in that way. The ... Most of what the stores do will be things that you can't see as a customer, but that'll make it a lot better.

Hala Taha: Like what?

Ron Johnson: Inventory management.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? [01:05:00] Recommendations to the employees, you know. You know, employees will see, you know, what are the best-selling items in the store-

Hala Taha: Hmm

Ron Johnson: you know, come back with that. And it'll be also, 'cause a lot of customers walk in the store, you know they're there. You know, if, like at the Apple store, you know pretty well, you can flash your thing, you know, your QR code with the employee, and they know everything you own.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And it can recommend, "Oh, you know, you

I see a lot of photos. You know, we got this new camera which has a great camera." You know, you're gonna have improvement everywhere-

Hala Taha: Hmm ...

Ron Johnson: in retail, you know, from AI. I'm a real tech optimist, and I'm a believer in AI. There's downsides, but every new technology we've launched, we've said there are downsides, but they've always been for good.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Well, this has been such an incredible interview. I end my show with two questions I ask all of my guests.

Ron Johnson: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: The first one is, what is one actionable thing our Young and Profiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?[01:06:00]

Ron Johnson: Slow down.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your day. You know, so often we're just go, go, go, go. Too much on the plate, we're running behind, we're feeling anxious. We gotta slow down.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, Steve Jobs did one thing at a time. You know? He would only let Pixar make one movie a year 'cause he said, "You know, we can only do one great movie a year.

We wanna do great movies."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know, we had the Mac. We had the iPod. Three years later we did a phone. Three years later we did an iPad. It wasn't like Sony that had so many products in its portfolio, or Samsung. We did a few things. Steve was never in a hurry. Never in a hurry. He didn't even carry a cellphone until the iPhone came out.

He didn't wanna be bothered, you know?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: Slow down.

Hala Taha: It's, it's crazy to hear that because you think of Steve Jobs as being so [01:07:00] innovative, and you would assume that he's just, like, all about, like, deadlines and targets and next thing- Mm-hmm ... and new thing. And it, it's really interesting to hear that he- Yeah

was not into the-

Ron Johnson: He was all about quality.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? And this can go beyond business and finance, however you wanna take it.

Ron Johnson: Well, I'll just say, you know, I l- I was ... When I came out of Harvard Business School, I was going to ... pretty close to accepting a job with Goldman Sachs I'm in eight part department.

That was one of the, the it jobs. Mm-hmm. You know? You get the status of working on Wall Street, and mergers and acquisition. Mm-hmm. It'd be like now, you know? Right now that segment of the business is really hot, and it was back in '84.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: But a, a, a, a guy who was a CFO at Dayton Hudson said to me, "Ron, the net present value of a life has nothing to do with how much money you have."

He said, "You gotta pick the net present value of your life, not your [01:08:00] career."

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Ron Johnson: And that was interesting to me, and that led me to figure out I'm gonna pick an industry I can love for a lifetime. I'll start at the bottom. I unloaded trucks at a Mervyn's store when I got started.

Hala Taha: And that's a retail store?

Ron Johnson: Retail store, and at the time was very popular. And, yeah, but even, you know, I told Steve, you know, "I'll take the job, but, you know, I'm a parent. I'm gonna coach all my kids' sports teams."

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: And he said, "I don't care. Just get your job done." But I would leave Apple at 4:00 every day in the spring to go coach my son's Little League baseball team as an example.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: You know? But the net present value of a life is your whole life. It's your work. It's your family. It's your friends. It's the hobbies you love. You know, it could be your faith. I think that's an important thing for most people.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: No matter what faith it is. You know, you gotta find a way to be [01:09:00] fulfilled in all of those things, right?

And that's what I think is the most important thing.

Hala Taha: That's so beautiful. Another quote from the, from the quote G.O.A.T. Well, Ron, where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do?

Ron Johnson: Well, I actually have a little website called Ron Johnson Shops Different. It's, the name of the book is Shop Different.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Ron Johnson: Uh, coming out September 22nd. It's really about the Apple store, but it goes back into some of the things we talked about, like my time at Target-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Ron Johnson: my time at Penney's, and more. Um, but if you go to ronjohnsonshopsdifferent.com, you can have access to all the little interviews I do, podcasts I do, like this one.

Uh, and that'd be where I go.

Hala Taha: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Ron Johnson: Pleasure's mine. Thank you.

Hala Taha: Cool. Great job. Great. I feel like we covered-

Ron Johnson: Oh, it's great ...

Hala Taha: a

Ron Johnson: whole lot of ground. Really fun. So good. Yeah, yeah.

Hala Taha: Great.

Ron Johnson: Were you okay?

Hala Taha: Yeah. Yeah, I think we covered everything.

Ron Johnson: Good. Yeah.

Hala Taha: Well,

Ron Johnson: thank you.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And I loved- Thank you

how you ended it. It was perfect. That was one of my quotes, and [01:10:00] then I didn't r- read it, so I'm happy that you did it. Your quote G.O.A.T. was

Ron Johnson: fun.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Ron Johnson: I didn't know if you wanted me to pick, like, who's the greatest of all time-

[00:02:50] Hala Taha: So excited to be here.

[00:02:52] Kelly Roach: Thanks

for

having me.

[00:02:53] Hala Taha: I'm very excited for this conversation. So the last time I had you on was actually two years ago. I feel like that conversation

[00:03:00] Kelly Roach: was just yesterday because I'm constantly

[00:03:02] Hala Taha: reflecting back on everything you taught about conviction marketing.

So thank you for being on the show. And I can't wait to hear all the gold that's going to come out

[00:03:09] Kelly Roach: of your mouth today. Aw, thank you. I appreciate that so much. Our interactions have been so beautiful and there's just so many synergies between the way that you teach and the way that I teach and what we do and the overlap.

So I'm excited to be here today. Yeah,

[00:03:25] Hala Taha: and I've got to pick your brain on so many different topics related to selling and launching and starting a family focused business and all this great stuff that we didn't get a chance to talk about last time. Yeah. And so before we did that, for anybody who missed the conversation and didn't get your backstory, I did want to touch on that.

I know that you actually didn't grow up wealthy. There's a lot of kids in your family. You guys grew up on the poverty line. So talk to us about that. Talk to us about the hustle that instilled in you over

[00:03:54] Kelly Roach: the years. Yeah. In my first book, I wrote about a story called Naked in the Lunch Line. And it was the story of how I was on the free lunch line and all of the cafeteria helpers knew that.

But one day there was a volunteer there that didn't know that. And this was back in the day when you turned in an envelope and mine was empty every day. And she ripped it open in front of everyone in the line. And I just completely panicked. And that was probably my low point of depression.

embarrassment and feeling really naked, right, in that moment. And I think that was a defining moment of my life because I was like, yeah, I don't ever want to feel that again. And I think that that was such a catalyst for me to say, it doesn't need to be like this. It's not going to be like this for me, and I'm going to find a way.

And. One of the things that I've said since a really young age is there's a lot of things that happen in your life that are controllables and there's things that are uncontrollables, right? Being financially free, that's a controllable. That's something where you can utilize your God given brain, your talent, your energy.

You can learn the skills that are required to build financial freedom and we're all invited to do that. And so that kind of set me on a journey. So many different jobs in college, five different jobs while I was working to, you know, pay my way through college, starting in a fortune 500, working my way out to the top of the corporate ladder really quickly, and then building my businesses online.

And I think that it's such an important thing for us all to remember that every experience that we have in our life is an invitation and an opportunity to say, do I want more of this? Or do I want something different? And then to do something about it. If you want more of it, then ask yourself, how did this happen?

Why did this happen? How do I take this and grow it exponentially? And if it's an experience that you didn't like, that you don't ever want to have again, well then that's why we have free will and we're given the opportunity to go out and make new decisions, different decisions to make life different.

So

[00:05:52] Hala Taha: I do know something really unique in your story is that you actually were an NFL cheerleader.

[00:05:57] Kelly Roach: You're super attractive, you're very fit, and a lot of women actually would have just leaned into that and not strived for much more, but you actually went off and quit and got a sales position, entry level, in a Fortune 500 company, when I think a lot of girls in your position would have just stayed on that

cheerleader track.

Why did you do that? My defining moment was. When I was, so I was the youngest girl on the NFL team. I cheered in college. It was one of my like five jobs that I had during school and I loved it. I loved performing. I loved being on the team. I loved everything about it. People were always like, Oh, are the girls so catty?

No, actually there were scientists and teachers and real estate agents and all these amazing women. And I loved that experience, but. My first year, I was so excited. They used to do a swimsuit calendar on a tropical island for years and years and years. And it was this huge PR event. And this is where everyone got all the opportunities for modeling and talent agencies and performing all these things.

Well, they make the announcement the first year that I'm on, we're not doing that anymore. Now we're doing a lingerie calendar. And I was like, Oh, hell no. So I actually went to them and I was like, sorry. I'm not doing it. And I just was like, I'm really going to miss out on all of these opportunities because I was a performer.

I was a competitive dancer, competitive cheerleader. I definitely was progressing on that track, but I was like, I'm not doing that. I want to get married. I want to have kids someday. I want to be able to look my daughter in the eyes and be like, this is the choice that I made in that defining moment. And that was when I really decided no.

My life is going to be about using my brains, not my body. And that's when I really got serious about saying, okay, I'm going to really go deep into the world of business because that's not how I'm going to make my name. That's not how I'm going to create my career. I love that. I love that

[00:07:48] Hala Taha: so much. And so you ended up going into sales in a fortune 500 company, and then you quickly became a VP and jumped over people twice your age.

Why do you think you were so naturally good

[00:08:00] Kelly Roach: at sales? I think because I always focused more on listening. So my approach to sales, and I've now taught thousands and thousands of people the same approach, is really about understanding what someone's needs are and how you can provide a solution for them that can make a difference in their life.

And I think there's so many different ways of learning sales, so many different ways of doing sales. So many people, especially in online marketing, think that it's all about the pitch or it's about the hook or it's about this, it's about that. And to me, it's a transfer of inspiration and it's sharing an effective invitation for someone to change their life.

And I think if that's the energy that you carry. It makes a huge difference. Now, that said, I also was the hardest working person. So let's just be really honest. I was the first one in, I was the last one out every day. So that didn't hurt, right? Like a lot of it was just simple discipline, grit, consistency over time.

All of that. But from the standpoint of sales effectiveness, I think it was definitely a focus on listening and making a difference and actually being of service. And I think that that's one of those things that. Whenever those are your intentions, you can pretty much guarantee that even if you don't win in that moment, you're gonna win big down the road, so I think that's just a great life principle in anything that we do.

And I have

[00:09:24] Hala Taha: to say, I have to assume that you also having all these unique experiences, being a performer, being a dancer, being a woman, I feel like all of those, you probably figured out how to use that to your advantage.

[00:09:37] Kelly Roach: Yeah, oh for sure. People always say like, Oh, you know, I did this job or I worked for this company and I hated it or they don't use their past experience when they're building their entrepreneurial companies.

And I always say to people, every experience that you've had in your life is something that is a connection point for people that are searching for you. They're searching for what you do and what you teach. Plus someone that also either has this life experience, this business experience, this Life pathway, you know, whatever it is.

And that's why it's so important to not assume that your business starts the day that you started your business. Your business started with every life experience that you had leading you up to why you created that business to begin with. And then that's your opportunity to really give depth to the relationship that you're building with the market that you're serving.

Totally.

[00:10:31] Hala Taha: So last time we talked, we went really deep into like your side hustle, how you built it. I don't want to cover that because there's so much other material to cover, but can you just give us high level, like talk to us about how much you've done with your business since you took it from side hustle to then launching it.

Brag a little bit so people understand like how big your business

[00:10:50] Kelly Roach: is. Oh, yeah. Well, I'll just give like a little bit of a trajectory. So I was a senior vice president in a fortune 500 company. I started my business as a side hustle. I did it on the side for over five years, actually built my business to a million dollars while I was working full time, joined entrepreneurship full time.

Within two years, took my business to eight figures. And then over the last couple of years, I actually built out a portfolio and I have six companies, several of them million and multimillion dollar companies. And obviously I still have my first business and I love that business. That's the business advisory.

That's my crown jewel that we keep growing and refining. And now I have all these other subsidiaries. Satellite businesses that I've been building. And it's just been really cool, really fun enjoying the journey. I don't recommend that most people have six companies, but for me, I love leadership. My whole background is in leading people.

So I have teams in each of these companies and I have leadership and I have really strong staff and I've been focused for 10 years. And so now as I'm growing my newer companies, I'm able to promote people from my first company. Into my second company, into my third company. So I don't recommend that unless you have that background.

But for me, because I teach business and because I'm a business mentor, it's very important to me that one, I stay connected to the journey that my clients are going through. So I may be running a multi eight figure company, but I still want to be in tune with and in touch with my clients that are still in the startup phase, which is why I love having businesses that are at all the different phases of the journey.

The other thing that's really important to me is really understanding different business models, different price points, different go to market strategies. And so that was one of the other reasons why I've built my companies and the portfolio the way that I have, because I don't want to be teaching through the lens of a singular approach to doing things.

And I found that what has happened in the online space is, A lot of people that are teaching business, they don't have depth and breadth of experience. And so what happens is they know their one thing, and when their one thing tilts off a little bit, they're screwed, their clients are screwed, and now everybody's screwed.

So my focus is how do I really deepen and strengthen my depth and breadth of experience as a business mentor so that when I'm teaching business, I can teach from a very well rounded perspective of what's right for this person sitting in front of me. Not what's the one thing I recommend because it's the only one thing that I know, right?

And that is a very, very, very important distinction for people to understand when they're choosing to learn business from someone. So this is a journey for me that I want to build the portfolio to nine figures. I'm going to work for the next 10 years to do that. I think I can get the portfolio to nine figures within 10 years.

But for me, it's really as much about the learning experience and how that learning experience will actually be enriching for the people that I'm here to help as it is about the goal or the outcome or what level of success any one of these companies is able to achieve.

[00:14:08] Hala Taha: love that. That's so smart. And I really appreciate how you're so thoughtful about making sure the businesses that you design feed into each other and help you learn about how you can be a better business coach and all that kind of stuff.

So I love that. When you first started your company, did you already have kids and a husband?

[00:14:27] Kelly Roach: No, I was dating my husband for a couple years while I was still in corporate. And then I don't remember if we got engaged first or if I started the business first, but I was already with my husband. I didn't have a business.

Um, I was already with my husband and we'd been together for years. I started the business and then just as my business started taking off, I found out I was pregnant with Madison and I was like, Oh shit. So that was crazy and awesome. Obviously, we were, you know, so excited and so thrilled. Madison's about to turn 10 this month, and that was amazing, but that was also a huge new learning curve for me because now my biggest focus in my life is my family, right?

And so figuring that out was really key, but I'm actually super thankful because I was still working my full time job, so I had to learn how to run and grow my business. Really small increments of time. And actually what that created for me was the discipline that even now that I am a full time entrepreneur, I still feel like I'm able to put my family first and have time for my faith and be able to invest in other areas of my life that matter because I was never one of those entrepreneurs that was working.

80 hours a week in my business simply because I couldn't, it just was off the table. But for me, it worked out great because I had to figure out how to be more efficient. I had to figure out how to do this thing without leaning on all the hours, but instead being better and more intentional about what I was doing to get a result in less time.

I'm going to dig

[00:16:00] Hala Taha: deep on this because I think that a lot of women are facing this issue. Even I am facing this issue of it is very hard to figure out how to build a family and build a business. So now I'm in my mid thirties. I was with somebody for like 12 years and we broke up because he didn't want me to start my business.

This was like three years ago. And I've been dating, but I haven't been able to find a person who feels secure with what I'm doing. I don't think who. understands, and who would accept the fact that I have this baby that's not a real baby, it's my business. what do you think as a woman you need to do to build a business that prioritizes family?

Because I think a lot of women want a business and

[00:16:40] Kelly Roach: a family now. I think Knowing what your values are and being clear about them. And I think to your point, Hala, finding a spouse, my husband and I were having this conversation this weekend. Your marriage is the greatest form of generational wealth that you can ever pass down.

Because if you look at all the experiences that we've all had in our own lives, good and bad, your whole family tree gets reshaped by having a great marriage. And I think the first step in answering that question that you just asked, how do you have a business and have a family and be able to do both of these things is you have to choose someone that is going to be all in supporting you to both pursue your dreams, go as high and as far as you can possibly go, be all in on supporting you, but also know that.

It's going to be this balancing act. And so I think good for you that you made that choice, both when you were like, I want to have both. And I need this support to do it. And also taking your time to find someone that's going to be supportive of that. Because I would say you have to have as strong of a team at home as you do in the office.

And that's rule number one. I've actually recorded a bunch of podcasts about it because. So many women, they say they want to have a family and they want to have a business, but then they don't set themselves up at home. With the right support system to make that viable. I'll hear from women that are like, and I'm still cleaning the kitchen at 10 o'clock at night and I'm doing dishes and I'm doing laundry and I'm doing this.

And it's like, no, if you want to be a CEO, if you want to be paid like a CEO, you need to act like one. And that means that you need to have support at home. Now, not everyone is going to have a spouse. For me, Billy and I made the decision. He's home full time. So he runs our home. He manages our vendors. He is driving Madison to school and picking her up every day.

We have a system, but we also have help. And not everybody has that with their spouse where their spouse is going to be home. Not everybody's spouse wants to be home. Not everybody's spouse is able to be home. That's okay. But you have to staff at home, right? So it's either going to be you and your spouse and then added help, or it's going to be you and a lot of added help knowing that both you and your spouse are going to be out in the workforce, right?

I actually put together a training for my clients on this showing it's a 40 to 60 hour a week. Set of responsibilities at home that either need to be divided between you and your spouse on top of your full time jobs Or you need to get help to do it. And I think the reason why it's so hard for so many women is they have guilt or shame, or they don't believe that they're worthy or deserving of having the support and help that they need at home to manage those other things so that they can build their business.

And then what happens is they're just burning the candle at both ends and they can't meet the needs either place. They can't meet the needs in the home. They can't meet the needs in the office. And then they have no time for their relationship with their children, with their husband, and then everything implodes.

I know this is a really long answer to your question. It's a topic that I'm really, really passionate about.

[00:19:52] Hala Taha: I think it's becoming more and more important. I think a lot of women are single now because

[00:19:56] Kelly Roach: of this. This is what's happening and I have been speaking more and more and more about this because I think there's a lot of unrealistic expectations that need to be broken down both in business and at home in order to make it viable.

And I also think that you have to understand that every moment that you spend at home cleaning, doing dishes, doing laundry, doing tasks. That someone can be doing for you. That's a moment that you're not spending with your spouse, with your children. That is so, so, so precious in business. When you're building a team, if someone can do it better, faster, and cheaper than you can, you should get help, but you need to think about your team in the office and your team at home, and you have to make sense out of this equation.

It's a mathematical equation. There's only a set number of hours each day. Prioritizing family means that you need to accommodate for that all the way down and pull that all the way through. So. I think it's one being with a person that's going to support you and going to be all in on that and being clear on your roles in the family, I think is huge.

And I think the more that women can be empowered to be clear about that when they're getting into a relationship, they're going to be set up for success for the long term. And then I think the other part of it is the evolution of women at work. Is much earlier in its historical trajectory than men. And so there's a massive dynamic change that's happened in the last 20 years of now, a lot of women being the breadwinners, a lot of women that are working outside of the home.

But what's happened is although the evolution of women at work has changed, the evolution of women at home has not in a lot of instances. And that's our responsibility. That's not someone's job to come in and do for us. We have to take the bull by the horns and say, I'm going to lead the family in this way.

And that means I'm going to need support and help in these other areas. And I think we need to speak about that, right. And encourage women to give themselves that gift of freedom to be able to make millions of dollars and put their family first and have the support so that they're not burning themselves out in the process of doing that.

[00:22:12] Hala Taha: Yeah. And I'm seeing a lot of these really successful female entrepreneurs.

[00:22:16] Kelly Roach: Jenna Kutcher is another example.

[00:22:18] Hala Taha: Her husband is a stay at home dad So what was that conversation like with your husband?

[00:22:22] Kelly Roach: Did he have to quit his career? Yeah. So we were both working corporate jobs when we met and started dating.

And then when we started talking about a family, this was before we were engaged, before we were married, before we had Madison. We both had decided that we did not want to put our children in daycare. So we made the decision before we moved forward with our family, that we didn't want to put our children in daycare, that we wanted to fully raise them ourselves and that we wanted to make sure that our core focus was on family and building a life together.

Right. And then during that time, I started my business. The business started to take off. I became really passionate about the work and Billy was working his corporate job and he was like, This isn't the passion of my life. And so it just made sense for us because we already knew what we wanted. And what we wanted was to both be home.

We wanted to both be working out of the home. We wanted to be both able to put our family first and be able to really put a focus on our children, our family, as our family grew. And it just made sense and I'm really lucky and I do say I am privileged because I have a husband that was willing to embrace his role becoming full time focus on our family, our home, Madison.

The things that are needed and it's a big job and it's a lot. I think as business owners, we think we do a lot. I think a lot of times people that have never been home full time don't realize how significant and how heavy that responsibility is too, because you are also feeling all the things that your partner or your spouse are going through, but you can't do anything about it.

So we were really lucky in that way because it was a very just natural evolution for us. And it just fit in with our life plan, which was we wanted freedom. We wanted to be able to travel. We wanted to be able to be home with our children. We wanted to be able to prioritize family. And I knew the reason that I wanted to build this business was not just to make a difference and be of service, but also so that those other family goals could be met.

Because in corporate, I was traveling all the time. I was on planes and trains and I was away. I was managing 17 branches so I had that experience of what it looks like to be out in the world like that. And I was like, I'm never going to be able to have a relationship with my husband or my daughter in the way that I want to if I don't rearrange these chess pieces.

So I think life design is really important and I think that we forget. We dream so much about the goals that we want to have in our business, or we dream about the income that we want to make, or people have dreams of things that they want to accomplish. And I think a lot of times what people forget is.

Life design, you get to design your life, but you have to be thoughtful and intentional and spend hours thinking and talking about what you want life to look like. And I think that sometimes we forget we have so much power. We have so much power to create change in our lives and to make things look. How we want them to look and sometimes how we want them to look looks really different from where we're sitting.

Maybe someone listening to this podcast today is like, uh, you're talking about all these things, Kelly, but I don't have that support system and I don't have this and I don't have that. And I fully understand that. And so you're being called to consider what is a new decision that needs to be made? What is that next step in courage that you need to make that takes you from saying, I don't have that support.

I don't have that potential. I don't have that structure. I don't have that in place. It's not possible to me to making a decision that will begin to make that possible for you. Just like my day on the lunch line where I was like, never again. And we all have the opportunity every time something happens in our life.

Maybe for you, it's listening to this podcast today to be like, what am I tolerating? Because what we tolerate, we perpetuate. So sometimes it's just a little pattern interrupt that we're like, I'm going to make a different decision. One more question for you on this

[00:26:24] Hala Taha: family approach to business. Men like to provide and it's their nature to provide.

I feel like when they don't have purpose or they're not providing, they can get really insecure and feel like they're not contributing. So I have a couple questions on this. Does your husband have equity in your business? Is he actually working in your business or is he completely separated from the business?

[00:26:46] Kelly Roach: Yeah, that was another thing that we talked a lot about and that we've been very definitive about. He does not work in the business. He's on the payroll as a risk consultant because I will bring him in if I have a very specific situation that comes up that I want unbiased. Feedback on where I don't want someone that has an agenda outside of our family, but he does not work at all in the business.

And that has been another life changing decision, life changing decision, because I don't want to sit at dinner every night after I worked all day long and talk all night long about the business. So what happens so many times is this idea of working together sounds very romantic and wonderful and amazing.

And would it be great to have extra set of hands in my business? Sure. But do I want to take my marriage and turn it into a business partnership on my side? No thank you. There are lots of people that do this that would say the exact opposite, that work in their business together. They love it. It's great for them.

They wouldn't have it any other way. On my side, heck no. I want my marriage to be about our life. I want my marriage to be about our relationship. When we're sitting and having dinner, I just want to talk to Madison about her day. I want to be focused on what we're doing, what we're creating as a family.

And so that was another definitive decision that we made. That he's not in the business. And that's why, I mean, he certainly could be, and he's more than capable, and I'm sure he asks me all the time. He's like, do you want me to come in, do you want, and I'm like, no, like, I'm so happy with our life dynamic that I would never want to mess with that just to get a little further ahead in the business.

Okay, I

[00:28:28] Hala Taha: do have one last question on this because it's so interesting. Do you think two entrepreneurs can make it work, or do you feel like

[00:28:35] Kelly Roach: that's tough? I mean, I'm never going to say never, right? Because I'm sure there's always examples. Of everything. Just like when we talk about marketing, right? It is like, it all works.

You can find an example of every single marketing strategy that works. I'm sure you can find an example of two entrepreneurs that work. What I will say is that The divorce rate is climbing and climbing for a reason. And when you don't have time together as a couple to talk, to dream, to focus on your life, to focus on your children, to be emotionally available for each other, to be present, because you know, Hala, you know what it's like.

When you run a company, it is so hard to switch that off. It is so hard to switch that off. Now imagine both people in the relationship are carrying that burden with them from the moment that they wake up in the morning until the moment that their head hits the pillow. It's not surprising why that doesn't work in a lot of instances.

So again, am I like against that? No, I actually have a couple of clients of ours that do very, very well that either work together or both have businesses. So it's not a philosophical difference. For me, it's experiential. What do you want your life design to be? For me, I would never want to be in a relationship with another entrepreneur because it would be very difficult for us to create space that was pure, that was just ours.

[00:30:11] Kelly Roach: I love

[00:30:12] Hala Taha: this. I love that we had this conversation. I feel like it's such a hot topic. I want to shift into talking about customers, getting customers, launching, selling all that stuff. A lot of my listeners are on the younger side. I've got listeners of all ages, but a lot of them are not entrepreneurs yet wanting to be entrepreneurs.

And I've heard you say lately that you feel like the space is really shifting. The marketplace in general is shifting. What customers want is shifting.

[00:30:39] Kelly Roach: Can you give us some insight on that? I love what I see happening in the market. I've seen a massive shift in buying mentality in the last 90 days. We onboarded almost 200 clients in the last two months, and what we're seeing and what we're hearing is that the currency of integrity has just exploded.

And what I mean by that is, I think when we were in a big expansion cycle, people were just so focused on what can this person do for me? What can I get? What's the outcome? All of those things, which is fine, right? You know, if you have a great product or a great service. Cool. But what I keep hearing from people over and over again is, I trust you, I trust your organization, I believe in the values that you share about.

A lot of people have been coming to us and saying, and we sell obviously high ticket, you know, so people are spending 30, when they're joining a lot of my products. And they're saying, you have been so outspoken and truthful about the dynamics of what's happening in the market and the shifts and the changes and.

You were one of the only people that was really sharing, here are the things like we don't know yet, and these are the things that we're doing testing on, and these are the things that we need to explore, so, that's why I say the currency of integrity, I think that people are making decisions much more through the lens of values now.

And they're looking for people and organizations to partner with that they genuinely feel reflect the values that matter to them and that there's a congruence and an alignment in that beyond just a product or a service or the outcome that you can get from it. I think also what's happened is there's been just a huge collapse of trust in the market because.

2023, there were more business closures than the last, I don't even know, probably 10 years. If you look at the chart of business closures, it's a hockey stick to the moon. And that is continuing in the first quarter of the year as well. And I think that there's been a lot of trust loss because a lot of business owners have started doing really like frantic and fast pivots and some of it, business closure, some of its programs being shut down, some of its complete business changes, nice changes, focus changes, very, I'll call it erratic behavior.

And. No judgment because listen, the last couple of years were hard. You know what I mean? So like, I get it. I'm not judging anyone. Everyone is doing their best in that given moment and different people have different levels of business expertise and capability and all of that. So it is what it is. But when you ask me what is happening in the market from a.

Buyer mindset from a buyer inclination, they're watching this erratic behavior from so many people that when they see brands that are really focused on continuity, trust building, consistency, core messaging, values, and they feel like they know what to expect from a brand, they feel a lot safer investing in the brand.

And so we've had great years in the past. We've had bad years, good years. I've been through every season and cycle of business. I've been in business since 2012 for myself. I feel like this year, we're just seeing all the ships rise already just a couple months in payback for that consistency that they saw from us of unwavering focus and diligence and customer centric behavior over the last year as things were getting so insane and crazy.

We were like, Nope, we're here. We're here. We're steady. We're consistent. So, did that answer your question? Yeah, definitely.

[00:34:33] Hala Taha: And another piece of this that I'd love for you to touch on is this element of people wanting more intimacy. Wanting to actually speak to the companies that they might work with or the people that they might work with.

And not just relying on this automation of technology that so many people are relying on.

[00:34:50] Kelly Roach: Oh my God, it's massive. We could do a whole show about this all because it's so fascinating and this goes back to conviction marketing. And conviction marketing will always be the core of that methodology of self trust and be willing to zig when everybody else zags.

Starting in 2023, we saw this explosion of people leveraging AI, starting to do their content through AI. They're firing their copywriter because they want to use AI. And everybody wants to over digitize, automate. But what's happening is customers are voting with their dollars to say, I don't want that. I want to work with a person.

I want to speak with a member of the team. I want to have a relationship with my service provider. And so it's really, really interesting because especially in the space that I'm in, a lot of my peers and competitors immediately pivoted in 2023 to launching leveraging AI, writing copy using AI, like everything my competitors were doing.

And I was out here screaming. No, like it's about the human centric approach. It's about the relationship. And we're seeing that in the growth of my businesses. So I think there's a time and place for automation. I have a black belt, six Sigma that runs the operations for my largest company. And so we will leverage technology and automation on the back end of repetitive tasks, where it doesn't take away from the human centric focus of the business and the brand.

But I think people should really move with caution around that because people are sick of dialing into a system. They're sick of tech where they can't get a human. They're frustrated by spending money and making buying decisions and then not being able to access support. And they're making decisions differently.

It's not like they're just getting frustrated and then they're continuing to buy that way. They're getting frustrated and then they're making a different buying decision. So this is just a massive opportunity because you know, you and I have had this conversation, Hala, obviously with what you're doing with the podcast agency, brand building is the most valuable thing that an entrepreneur or business owner can focus on, which is why what you do is so important and so powerful.

And. I've been talking so much lately about the tortoise and the hare, right? Because I think that a lot of what's happening in the market right now is there's this huge separation happening of the people that choose the fast, easy button and they're really struggling. And then there's the people that chose the slow and steady wins the race.

And from my view, and I'm seeing it with my own customers as well, I mean, they're exploding right now. And what's happening is I think that slow and steady wins the race approach. It's translating to the market and people, like I said, they're voting with their dollars, that's the kind of service provider they want to work with.

Totally. I'm so

[00:37:46] Hala Taha: aligned with everything that you're saying. And by the way, guys, I know that Kelly touched on conviction marketing. We did a whole hour long episode, episode number 155. Go check that out. I highly, highly recommend it. Also recommend Conviction Marketing, the book. So we have about 10 minutes left.

And speaking of this. Having more of a client facing approach,

[00:38:04] Kelly Roach: actually having

[00:38:05] Hala Taha: two way communication. You've got this live launch method, which I know incorporates a lot of that. Can you give us like a high level of what that is?

[00:38:14] Kelly Roach: I've been teaching a live launch since 2018. I wrote a book on it, trademarked the methodology.

It became common vernacular in the online marketing space, but a lot of people have learned it from someone other than me. And so there is the live launch. And I just want to clarify that. And if you're interested, you guys can. look up my brand and get the book and all of those things. But the live launch method, how going back to what you were asking me earlier about sales is really about taking this heart of leading by giving, serving, teaching, really focusing on connecting with your market and your audience.

Leveraging the power of intuition, two way communication, and it's creating these virtual live experiences that move people through an awareness shift. They get information, education, inspiration, contextualization, implementation, and then ultimately you make an invitation. And it's a process and a system that you bring people through that allows them to get to a yes.

And it doesn't require any high pressure selling tactics. It doesn't require any slick, crazy, weird, pressure filled marketing tactics. It's just leading people to come to the conclusion that, yes, this is the experience, the result, and the team that I want to partner with. And so there's a lot that goes into the way that we teach the method.

And I actually just did a full update. Nine hours of teaching on all of the updates because the market has shifted, right? The market has shifted, buyer mentality has shifted. So we made a lot of changes to the way that we teach the strategy for 2024, but I do do those workshops periodically. There's going to be another one in April that people can come and learn for free the method, but.

I would say definitely if you're listening to the show and you don't have a one to many selling mechanism that is working in your business yet, live launch is a great methodology to explore, especially if, you know, similar to Hala and I, you really want a methodology that is service based, that focuses on inspiring, educating, empowering, and inviting in a meaningful way that feels really good both ways.

And we tend to teach people to use the live launch method with high ticket products, but you can also use it with mid ticket. Some people use it with low ticket. So there's lots of different formats and platforms that you can deliver it on. Yeah. And from my

[00:40:37] Hala Taha: understanding, these live workshops, I am having so much success with webinars.

[00:40:42] Kelly Roach: It sounds like a more concerted effort around many webinars, right? I can even imagine the results. So I can't wait to join that free session that you have. And I'd love for you to come back on and promote it before that happens so that we can really talk deep about that. Oh, I would so love that. I would so love that. How, yeah. And that's what I would say. It's like taking what you do in a webinar and it's exploding it. 10x, 100x, because it's taking those same principles. Except the only difference is, is From a psychological standpoint, people need seven to nine hours to engage with your brand, to really go through the whole no like trust buy process.

So all it's doing is condensing the buying cycle down. So maybe instead of someone attending three webinars, maybe they'll need less than that, but. My favorite thing about the live launch is that it really allows you to position your business as a category of one, because you design your launch ones and you do launch cycles over and over again.

So what that allows you to do is you become known, you become the go to for that thing. So what I love about the live launch, because people are always asking me, do you do them paid? Do you do them for free? I love that. Always do them for free. And the reason I do them for free is I want to focus on people getting so much value from interacting with my brand that every person that experienced that live launch, they're either going to be a customer, be a future customer, or they're going to be an ambassador that tells someone else that ends up becoming a customer, right?

So there's a lot of value beyond just the sales transaction in the experience that you're creating. I can

[00:42:19] Hala Taha: completely understand. I feel like for somebody like me, I've got podcasts to trust me with. All this social proof. I'm already dominating my field, so it makes sense that somebody can go to an hour long webinar and convert a high ticket offer.

But for somebody who doesn't have that, you need to warm them up. Same reason why I feel like I personally hate paid ads. Do you suggest doing paid ads for lead generation for any of this or is it all organic?

[00:42:44] Kelly Roach: I do both. I do both. So we just finished a launch in January and we did a mix. We did a little bit of paid advertising, a lot of organic.

So we do a mix and I think advertising plays a role and it has its place. I love organic. I think the degree to which you can build that rapport and engagement with your audience is huge, right? And then I think advertising is a way that you can enhance it even further. But I think, especially for someone listening to the show, if you're earlier on in the process, you want to start building your brand, building your audience, building your rapport, and you should start by doing it organic.

And then maybe down the line, you'll expand and build upon that. Okay, one last question, then we're going to have

[00:43:28] Hala Taha: to close this out. How do you suggest that we price

[00:43:31] Kelly Roach: our offer? Oh, gosh, that's such a good question. That is a complex question. The thing is, when someone invests in one of your product services or programs, you want what they spend to feel really insignificant in comparison to the outcome that they achieve.

So you want to think about what do you want to invest in this product? In order to maximize the potential for transformation, result, or outcome that it can create. And so I always lean on the high end. I always recommend that people price in the 75th percentile of the span because when you look at any product, any market, there's a low end and there's a high end, right?

I always say there's Walmart, there's Louis Vuitton. You can be the kind of brand that you want to be. You can place yourself where you want to be. What I tell to people all the time is that a lot of people underpriced their business. And then they think that they'll get more business because of it. And a lot of times what that does is it actually mispositions you in the market because now you're looking like a novice, right?

You're not looking like you're the best in the world at what you do. So. It's a complex conversation because I think that it depends on the outcome that people get. It depends on, for example, when I price my products. I'm looking at how do I want to staff this product and what is that investment from me going to require to staff this product in a way that we can way over deliver for clients.

So there's a big difference between if you're, you're doing a digital product that doesn't require any human touch, no. Interaction, no, anything versus if you're staffing a high product where there's actually client delivery. And so your strategy has to be very different depending upon the outcome, the client experience, the results that you want them to be able to get and what you need to spend in order to make sure that that product is exceptional.

[00:45:24] Hala Taha: Okay. Well, I want to be super respectful of your time, Kelly. I'd love for you to come back to have like a very sales, the live launch focus before that launch. So let's coordinate that. So, what is one actionable thing our young improfiters can do today to become more profiting

[00:45:38] Kelly Roach: tomorrow? Ooh, well, I would say get on podcasts.

Come talk to Hala, figure out how you can get on more podcasts. I think that there's nothing more beneficial. Or valuable to do with your time, then build brand because brand always supersedes a single sale. Brand will help you make multiple sales, whereas a single sale is just a transaction. So take action by either starting your own podcast, getting on other people's or ideally both.

Ideally both growing your show and going on other people's and it's a great way to get clear on articulating your message, which is going to then translate into your sales, your marketing, your growth strategy, all of those other things. The more that you speak about what you believe and about what you teach and about what you want to serve on, the easier it's going to become to sell it.

Okay, my last

[00:46:31] Hala Taha: question and you can be super short because I know

you got to go. What is your secret to profiting in life? It's just staying focused. I think the biggest thing is get clear on what you really, really, really want and say no to everything that isn't that. Kelly, you've been amazing.

Thank you so much for your time. Where can everybody learn more about you and all of your

[00:46:50] Kelly Roach: programs? Yeah, I would definitely say check out the Kelly Roach show. That's my favorite place to serve and teach and give. So the Kelly Roach show and then connect with me, connect with me on Facebook, Kelly Roach or Instagram, Kelly Roach official.

Awesome. Well, we can't

[00:47:04] Hala Taha: wait to have you back.

[00:47:05] Kelly Roach: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

[00:47:07] Hala Taha: You know, I just loved having Kelly back on the show. She really inspired me the last time she was on and today was no different. I love how she's figured out how to leverage her unique experiences as a performer, a dancer, a woman into multiple successful businesses that she has today. She is a true powerhouse.

And somehow she's managed to balance all of that while being a mom and a wife and having beautiful relationships. I was really struck by what she said about how your business doesn't start the day you launch your business. Your business actually starts with every life experience you've had leading up to the day you start your business.

As Kelly puts it, every experience that you've had in your life is something that is a connection point for people that are searching for you. and what you teach. Kelly has also had some helpful insights on the shifting marketplace that many entrepreneurs are encountering in 2024. She said she's observing what she calls the currency of integrity.

More buyers and customers are making decisions through the lens of their values. They're looking for people and organizations to partner with that they genuinely feel reflect the values that matter most to them. And one of those values is actually human connection in a world where so many businesses are leveraging AI and automated technologies.

There's now a premium on being able to provide somebody with a genuine human interaction with intimacy. It's all about building trust directly with other people. Whether you do that through a webinar, a podcast, or in person, AI can be amazing and it's a useful tool, but don't let it become your core focus or default MO.

There's still no substitute to the human touch. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you listened, learned, and profited from this conversation with the incredible Kelly Roach, please reach out to another person and share this episode. Just hit that share button and text the link to this episode to somebody who you think could benefit from it.

Believe me, they'll thank you for it. And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something new, then please take some time to drop us a five star review. Nothing makes me happier than reading your awesome reviews. We love to hear from our listeners. If you prefer to watch your podcast as videos, you can find all of our episodes published on YouTube.

Just look up Young and Profiting. You can also look me up on LinkedIn, Hala Taha, and you can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala. Before we wrap up, I did want to shout out my incredible YAP team. Thank you so much for all your hard work. Shout out to my production team, my ad ops team, my social team, the entire executive team.

This is your host, Hala Taha, AKA the podcast princess signing off.

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

Payam Zamani: Thank you, Hala. Thank you for having me.

Hala Taha: Now, this is a How We Profit episode, but I'm kind of thinking of it as a hybrid regular episode and How We Profit episode just because you're so accomplished.

Payam Zamani: Thank you.

Hala Taha: And you've achieved what many entrepreneurs hope to achieve in their whole lives.

At the age of 28, you had a company that went public, valued at $1.2 billion, AutoWeb, and then you started to buy and sell companies and invest in companies with One Day, the company that you run now. So I'm just so intrigued by all of this, and I do think a lot of my listeners out there who are newer entrepreneurs.

For me, I've got a business that makes, like, $8 million a year, and that's great. Uh, a lot of us are starting their first business. Like, I hope to exit my business one day, and I hope to be like you one day, uh, later on, maybe a decade from now, buying and selling companies too. So curious, uh, let's just start with the basics.

Yeah. [00:01:00] What is One Day exactly? How would you explain it?

Payam Zamani: One Day?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: One day of my life? What is it?

Hala Taha: Uh, sorry, my- One Planet. I'm such an idiot. Let me start that over. It's better. You're like, "One day? What the hell are you talking about?" Why did I do that? Okay, sorry. There's-- I have a new sponsor called One Day.

It's like-

Payam Zamani: Oh,

Hala Taha: there you go. Yeah. So I'm, like, mixing it up. All right, let me start that over. Payam, welcome to How We Profit.

Payam Zamani: Thank you for having me, Hala.

Hala Taha: I'm so excited for this interview, and actually I'm thinking about this interview as like a hybrid regular Yap episode and a How We Profit episode because you are just so accomplished.

Thank you. And you've actually achieved things that many entrepreneurs don't achi- achieve in their whole lives. At 28, you had a company go public. It was valued at $1.2 billion, which is absolutely incredible, and now you've got a company, One Planet, which essentially buys and sells and invests in companies, which is just so cool.

And a lot of us entrepreneurs, we're, we're newbies. You know, we [00:02:00] probably, many of us listening haven't even exited a company yet, and maybe we want to have a holding company or a private equity company in the future. So I wanna kind of start with the basics. Does that sound good?

Payam Zamani: Absolutely.

Hala Taha: Okay. Let's do it.

So let's start with, like, private equity.

Payam Zamani: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: What is private equity exactly?

Payam Zamani: You know, I've got my own definition of it, and frankly, I don't even know what I'm running, if it is private equity. Mm. It's my company. Yeah. And I don't have any LPs. I don't have any outside investors.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Payam Zamani: So I manage my own money.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: And, uh, like you said, that, you know, we, we do own a few companies, but most companies that we own, we founded. Mm-hmm. So I have been the founder of those businesses.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: But we have also invested in, I think, 45, 50 companies-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: uh, to date.

Hala Taha: Really cool. So when I was researching you, it's kind of like a hybrid between a private equity company, a holding company, and an operating company.

Payam Zamani: It makes sense out of my chaos. That's- That's the truth. I, you know, I always tell people that if you [00:03:00] look at One Planet logo, there's that, there's that pale blue dot, which is the Earth, but to me, it, my, my brain is full of dots, and that one dot kind of forces me to focus a little bit.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Um, you know, recently I made a movie.

Oh, cool. I, I wrote a book, and, you know, I, I operate a bunch of different businesses. So a little bit of a chaotic life, and I enjoy it.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: But I try to also remind myself, focus.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So let's actually talk about your story- Mm ... because it's so powerful. It's very inspiring, and you actually s- your, your world kind of started, like, very chaotically.

Talk to us about how you grew up and how you ended up in America.

Payam Zamani: I was born in Iran. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, I was born in a Baha'i family. That's my religion. And then the revolution happened in 1979- Mm-hmm ... and the new government did not think highly of a lot of people, including, uh, the, the Baha'is of Iran.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: And, um, so the 1980s became [00:04:00] very difficult. Uh, they killed a lot of Baha'is. Uh, they imprisoned a lot of Baha'is. Mm-hmm. And all of it be- because different religion. They, they were fanatics. Yeah. And, um, uh, they also expelled Baha'is from many schools. Uh, they... Even today, 47 years later, Baha'is don't have the right to attend universities in Iran.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Payam Zamani: So when I was 11, I was expelled from school in, i- in a most horrific way. Uh, they basically, the, the religious leader of the school, uh, got a mob of over 50 students, uh, to kill me. That was his plan- What? ... to get rid of me- Wow ... to exterminate me. That was their plan. Luckily, I survived, but it-- think of it as a march of death for one mile, kids spitting on you, beating you, throwing rocks at you, kicking you.

And, uh, you know, I talk about there are two times in my life I did not think I'm gonna get out of that situation alive. Yeah. That was the [00:05:00] first one. I survived that-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: uh, but I was never able to go back to that school. Uh, but you fast-forward about six years later, uh, my parents decided that, uh, it's time for me to leave the country.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: And good, law-abiding citizens, they had to find a smuggler-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: to get me out of the country.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. That's so crazy. And so your parents basically saved up to allow you and your brother to go to Pakistan. Is that right?

Payam Zamani: That's right. My brother left first a year before me, and then, um, I left in 1980, um, 7.

Uh, they paid a smuggler, and, you know, it was a, it was a very... Like, it's one of those journeys that you don't want anyone to ever go through. Mm-hmm. Um, it, it leaves its mark on you forever.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: The way you say goodbyes, the, the way that you're going through, um, a desert that you don't know if you're gonna survive.

You have no idea where you're headed.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: And I was just a child- Yeah ... at the time, and by myself, [00:06:00] uh, no family member with me as I was going through that. Oh, you weren't with your

Hala Taha: brother.

Payam Zamani: No, he had left the year before me.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: And so it was a, it was a very- Uh, you could call it terrifying experience.

Mm-hmm. Uh, and it was, uh, the second time I thought I'm not gonna survive, uh, was, uh, during an incident that happened, uh, during that journey. But again, um, you know, I look back and I feel that these difficult journeys in life, um, they end up defining who we become. And, uh, you know, uh, the

Hala Taha: outcome- Makes business really seem easy- Makes business-

after all, after all that

Payam Zamani: A bad quarter is nothing.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: So.

Hala Taha: Um, okay, so how did you m- make your way to America? Mm. 'Cause that's really where you got your education- That's right ... you started building businesses.

Payam Zamani: So in 19, um, uh, 88, '87 when I made it to Pakistan, after getting, uh, my, uh, basically what, what is called temporary asylum, uh, from the United Nations- Mm

I found my way to [00:07:00] the US Embassy-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: in Islamabad. And I talk about this quite often, that that was a moment when for the first time I experienced human rights. Mm. That my life is worth something.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Uh, the US, um, treated me with respect. Uh, the embassy in fact hired a lawyer-

Hala Taha: Yep ...

Payam Zamani: to make sense out of my case-

Hala Taha: Wow

Payam Zamani: uh, to present it to the ambassador. Uh, that was done, and ultimately I received, um, a residency and asylum from the US. Uh, and then a charity out of New York bought my ticket.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, so I was able to make it to the US, and, uh, my brother and I, we ended up landing in the US together at the same time in June of 1988.

Uh, and you know, there are many headlines about, about this journey that, that I've done, and many interviews I've done, and the headline is always, uh, that we landed in the US with 75 bucks in our pocket.

Hala Taha: Mm. I love that. So. It reminds ... So something, uh, we were talking earlier before this interview, and I was telling you- Mm

that, like, I feel very, like, relatable to your story because of my father. [00:08:00] Mm. And I remember ... My dad passed away, but when he was alive, he loved America.

Payam Zamani: Mm.

Hala Taha: He'd always be like, "This is the best country in the world. America is the best." Like, he was so proud to be American, because for him, he was able to make all his dreams come true-

Payam Zamani: Yeah

Hala Taha: by living in America, and he really, really appreciated the freedom, the freedom to, to build businesses, to be successful, and, you know, there's n- not much oppression. It's like everybody- Yeah ... is equal in America.

Payam Zamani: Yeah, I mean, clearly we have our problems in the US

Hala Taha: We have

Payam Zamani: our problems,

Hala Taha: of course,

Payam Zamani: but- But I think, and, and, and also, I would also say and American dream, uh, is an invitation.

It's not a guarantee.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, the, the US is a platform that was built over 250 years, at times unjustly.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: But it was built over 250 years, and this foundation is what we entrepreneurs take advantage of to build. And I think that's also important because we need to keep in mind that it's not just me building or you building.

[00:09:00] Many people sacrificed for this foundation- Yep ... that we are able to take advantage of and build our businesses, and we need to be grateful for that.

Hala Taha: I totally agree. So let's talk about how you put yourself through college- Hmm ... 'cause I think this is really inspirational. A lot of people who are listening right now, I think everybody's coming from all walks of life.

Some of us are successful entrepreneurs, some of us are just starting out, and a lot of us are starting from zero. Yeah. We don't have wealthy parents. We, we feel like we're, we're behind a lot of our peers because of that. Talk to us about your journey of putting yourself through school and how- Hmm ... you kind of like built your wealth initially.

Payam Zamani: Yeah. So, uh, I had one year of high school left when I came to the US, and, um, so let's get past that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: And then I went to, uh, UC Davis.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: And, um, uh, I painted homes and, and I, uh, and that was actually a great experience for me- Mm-hmm ... because, um, the idea was to paint homes, but I wanted to [00:10:00] run a business.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: So I would hire other students to paint homes. Nice. And I was the manager giving estimates and doing the, uh, you know, getting the jobs booked and so on. So I did ho- uh, paint homes, but I had three job sites going on at the same time- ... at any given time during the summer.

Hala Taha: That's great.

Payam Zamani: And the idea was to make as much money as I could so I could pay for my- Mm-hmm

uh, for my college years. And, um, um, that was the primary way that I was able to, to pay for school. Uh, but also I think that, uh, you know, it's interesting when I think back to those days- School wasn't doing it for me. Uh, it wasn't exactly, uh, getting me all excited and joyful, but I felt that, you know what?

As a Baha'i in Iran, I would not have had the right to go to university.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: I have to finish college. Mm-hmm. So that was something that I wasn't willing to negotiate with myself. I went to college, but you think back, I studied environmental toxicology. I'm not doing anything with it, but it did give me the discipline, I guess- Mm-hmm

the, the commitment [00:11:00] and the background that allowed me to do other things. Hmm.

Hala Taha: And then y- was AutoWeb the first, like, real company that... Well, I guess the paint, paint company was a real company, but was Auto-- Like, how did you start AutoWeb?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. So in 1994, when I graduated, uh, from Davis, my brother also graduated, uh, from university, and he got a job at Microsoft.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: And one day he called me and he said that, "I wanna buy a Honda. Uh, Honda doesn't own a website, doesn't have honda.com." "What do you think about building a website for cars?" Now, up to that point, I was 24 or 23. I had owned 16 different cars. I loved car- cheap cars. Hmm. But I would buy and sell cars.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: And I thought that if there's a way for me to get even with car dealers, I'm in. I would love to do that. Uh, but, uh, I didn't know anything about the internet, so he became the technologist, and I was the sales and marketing guy.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: So we founded that business in November of 1994, and if you [00:12:00] think about back then, uh, you know, there were only 5,000 domains- Hmm

that were registered- Yep ... total. Uh, there was no Google. Yahoo had just started. Um, it wa- it wa- Wow, that's so

Hala Taha: early ...

Payam Zamani: just early on. I mean, uh, to sign up somebody for our program, we had to first define describe what is the internet because- Mm ... they had never been online. It's crazy. So really early days.

Hala Taha: Really early days. And then you ended up going public at 28 years old. That must have been incredible. Like, what happened there? Like, when did AutoWeb, uh ... At, at some point you guys got, like, kicked out basically of leadership, right?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. So it was not easy for us to build that business. Neither me or my brother, we, we had not gone to Ivy League schools.

We had not gone to Stanford. And Silicon Valley, especially back then, was very much about, uh, you know, legacy in a sense.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, are you a Harvard grad? Are you a Stanford grad? Mm-hmm. Uh, and are you white? Yep. [00:13:00] Uh, and, uh, and there were many other factors that really played a role in Silicon Valley. Mm-hmm.

But I always say this, in the US there are bumps along the way, but the road is never blocked. Yep. So, you know, just find your way through it. Mm-hmm. Don't let those things define you, and don't become a victim of them.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: So to raise money, we had to go to Fort Lee, New Jersey. Now, we were based in Silicon Valley, but we had to go to Fort Lee, New Jersey to raise money.

Yeah, 'cause

Hala Taha: there, there's more brown people in Fort Lee. Oh,

Payam Zamani: yeah, probably. And, and then ultimately for the third round, we raised money from, uh, Technology Crossover Ventures- Mm ... TCV, uh, in, in, uh, uh, Palo Alto. But it took a while for us to get them interested in investing in us. We built the business, uh, but we did not raise a whole lot of money because we couldn't.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Which was a good thing. Meant we held onto a lot more ownership. Mm-hmm. We were forced to hold onto a lot more ownership. Yep. So we took the company public in, um, March of, uh, 1999. Uh, but, um, [00:14:00] we-- I, I was the CEO until January of that year, and the board was insistent that we bring somebody from the outside.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Um, we did, unfortunately. Uh, great guy, but just that wasn't his passion. Yeah. Just because the company was going public, it did not mean it was no longer a startup. And a startup requires, I think, the soul of the founder.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: And, um, so many wrong decisions were made, uh, which, uh, you know, you look back, you know, you wish that that wasn't the case.

Hala Taha: And you ended up buying the company back like 30- Yeah ... years later, right?

Payam Zamani: Uh, four years ago- Wha- Okay ... uh, the company, uh, had a, uh, had a challenging few quarters, and, uh, the company had a going concern issue by the, by the auditors. And, uh, so I made an offer, and I bought the company and took it private. So, um, it definitely was a sweet moment-

Hala Taha: Mm

Payam Zamani: um, to, to be able to buy the company back. And the company had [00:15:00] accumulated $350 million in losses over all these years. We made the company profitable in one month.

Hala Taha: I'm gonna ask you about that. We're gonna talk all about turnarounds and how to- Yeah ... turnaround companies. But let's focus on One Planet. How does One Planet, like, like really break it down for us.

Mm. Like, what do you do in this company? How do you guys make money?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. So One Planet itself, uh, is really a holding company. So One Planet, uh, does not, uh, you know, it does not have much of a P&L. Okay. But the companies within, uh, uh, One Planet, um, have, uh, have opera- operations. Our biggest company is called BuyerLink.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Payam Zamani: And BuyerLink, actually, AutoWeb is also owned by BuyerLink.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: And, uh, BuyerLink is, um, $130 million a year business, very profitable, and, uh, it is basically a, a, a significant company that really impacts a lot of things, but you probably have [00:16:00] never heard of.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Um, it's the largest, um, generator of consumer demand for new cars in the US.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: 10% of all new cars sold in the US are sold through BuyerLink-

Hala Taha: Interesting ...

Payam Zamani: and BuyerLink's, uh, uh, businesses, websites. Uh, we also own assets like usedcars.com. Uh, we own autoweb.com. We own contractors.com. We own california.com. Uh, we own a lot of assets, but all of these assets are designed to generate consumer demand for different verticals that they're sold in, uh, in, uh, I would say the digital format that the buyer of that, uh, tr- of that consumer demand can monetize.

Hmm. Uh, sometimes that's a lead, sometimes that's a click, sometimes that's a call. But all of the traffic that we generate, all the consumer demand that we generate is sold in a perfectly matched way to an end advertiser who never had to learn anything about online marketing.

Hala Taha: [00:17:00] Mm. Okay.

Payam Zamani: GM is a big client, uh, you know, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, uh, all, all the, like, for example, car makers are, are, are partners.

Um, we se- send the OEMs in the country about one million, uh, car buyer leads on a monthly basis-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: uh, that really fuels their internet sales departments.

Hala Taha: Interesting. So how did you, like, first start One Planet? Like, where did it all start? How did you- Yeah ... I guess, like, you, you got some money from your, like, going public, or, like, how did it all start?

Yeah. And then how did you, like, keep building on top of it, where eventually it was a holding company?

Payam Zamani: It's actually a bit less interesting than that. Okay. I wish that was the case. Uh, what happened was, um, until about 2014, I was running a company called reply.com.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Payam Zamani: And I had raised VC money, [00:18:00] and reply.com pretty much did what BuyerLink does.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Payam Zamani: Um, but then in 2014, I personally as an entrepreneur hit a bit of a roadblock.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: I decided that I'm kinda like tired of this game, and the game I'm talking about was dealing with five VCs on my board and, uh, trying to grow a company all the time- Mm ... regardless of, you know, if that company should grow at that moment in time or not, because sometimes unnatural growth leaves a carnage behind.

Mm. Uh, but that's the name of the game. Yeah. Yeah. If you're, have a VC-backed company, you have to keep growing.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: So I went to my board and I said that I'm done. I'm quitting. They said, "Well, you're the founder. You're the chairman. You're the largest shareholder." Yeah. I said, "Yeah, but I can no longer do this."

So, um, I recommended that they make the CMO the CEO, and I left.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: And I remember that was, uh, July 16th, 2014. Uh, uh, my wife and I, two daughters, we got in the car and we just went on a road trip. [00:19:00] Yeah. It was the best time of my life-

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: I love that. Yeah ... to just completely, like, not have the worry of that business at that moment in time.

Mm-hmm. During that time, I was... I went to a, a conference. Mm. It was a Baha'i-inspired conference, and I saw this woman give a speech who runs an organization called Tahirih Justice Center that deals with women who are seeking, uh, legal representation because of the difficult situation they're in. And I thought...

I t-turned to my wife and I said, "You know what? I'm jealous that her daily life is service."

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: I wished that was my life.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Then I thought, who says that nonprofits should be for betterment of the world, for-profits should be for greed? Why can't we combine the two? And I'm not like my social impact-

Hala Taha: Yeah

Payam Zamani: because a lot of bad businesses, they put a banner social impact. Mm-hmm. They go like, "Okay, I'll see. The reason we are not that profitable is 'cause social impact business." Anyhow, [00:20:00] at about that time, I got a call from my company, reply.com. They said that, "Can you come back? We're dealing with a disaster."

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: "And our bank loan is being called, and the company will go away." I went back with the idea of spending three months to sell the company and move on. During one of those meetings, um, there was a Chinese buyer who was interested from China, and, uh, I stopped showing much interest in that conversation because he was a bottom-feeder.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: And I decided I'm gonna buy the company. I'm gonna buy the company. This will be the beginning of the platform I wanna build.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: That will be what I thought in my mind, spiritual capitalism.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: And, uh, so I made an offer to the board that was bigger than anyone else's offer Truth be told, I did not have the cash at that moment in time.

But we owed a lot of money to our lender, and the lender was in a tough [00:21:00] position to be able to get paid- Mm ... get their money paid back. I told them that, "If you finance me to buy the company, I will make sure you get all your money back." They trusted me. Our lender, who wanted to foreclose on the business, funded me to buy the company from the investors.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: And I was able to get back in there, build that company, and build One Planet.

Hala Taha: Nice. So that was basically the foundation of it, but- Sorry, very long answer No. So basically you bought back that company- Yeah ... and then through the profits of that company- Mm ... you were able to start buying other companies- That's right

and, like, acquiring?

Payam Zamani: So I'm big on profits. Okay. I feel like building for the future, that at some point I'll sell the company, overwhelming majority of startups never get to that point. Yeah. I wanna win today.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: So if there's a tomorrow that I can win tomorrow also, that's awesome. Mm-hmm. But I wanna win today.

So as a result, profitability to me is not optional. Um- Yeah ... and, and, and in fact, if you, uh, talk to my executives, they will tell you that I [00:22:00] often don't know the revenue of their businesses, but I know their margins-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: because to me- 'Cause you don't

Hala Taha: care about the top-line revenue.

Payam Zamani: I don't care about top line.

I'm not running a publicly traded company. Mm-hmm. I only care... And even if I was running a publicly traded company, which I did till, uh, sev- seven months ago, I do care still about the margins because even then, public companies should ultimately be judged based on their cash flow.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Um, but yeah, that's what matters to me the most.

And, uh, and to me, if you give me a business that has revenue, uh, I'm able to make it profitable- Yeah ... because if you're not committed and married to the revenue of a company-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Payam Zamani: uh, you are able to manage a business in a manner that can generate cash flow.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I feel like this is a perfect transition to just talk about turning around companies.

So essentially, what you do at One Planet is... Do you buy a portion of companies or you buy the c- all of the company? I just wanna start there.

Payam Zamani: So BuyerLink being our biggest business, we fully own it. I own it. Okay. I don't have any outside shareholders, so I own that business.

Hala Taha: Okay.

Payam Zamani: Um, [00:23:00] but there are businesses that we don't own fully.

Like, an example would be about a year and a half ago, we agreed to turn around a company called Inspirato. Mm-hmm. Inspirato, a publicly traded company, uh, was dealing with a disastrous situation. They were a few days from bankruptcy.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: So in that case, we bought about half the company.

Hala Taha: Got it. Okay. So- So you buy whole companies, you buy...

And your, your goal is to optimize those companies, make them better, make them more profitable, and grow your stake in that company. That's your goal as a holding company, correct?

Payam Zamani: Grow my stake or just make my, uh, the, the value of my stake, not necessarily the percent ownership. Um- The value

Hala Taha: of your

Payam Zamani: stake, yeah.

That's right. Okay. And, and of course, you cannot, you know... To make a business profitable, you need to have a dual strategy. Um, one is- Immediately get to a point that you're cash flow positive.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: But that by itself is not enough. You need to have a plan for growth. What's your vision? So you need to also have a roadmap- Mm-hmm

uh, for building that business to a point that it can grow.

Hala Taha: [00:24:00] Yeah. And do you have, uh, portions of your business that you share across all the companies? Like is marketing shared across all the companies, or like AI deployment shared across the companies?

Payam Zamani: Yes. So if you look at the businesses, uh, Inspirato, I sold that back in, uh, February, uh, which is unlike us.

I feel like I'm a farmer kind of entrepreneur. I'm not a buccaneer. I like to build and keep. Mm.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, but that was a special situation, and we had to sell it. Uh, but the businesses that we have under, uh, One Planet, uh, that we own, uh, we, uh, we typically share back office. Uh, and actually AI is a great example that we share that.

Technology we share. Um, you know, that allows us to shift and balance resources as resources are needed within one of the organizations. Mm-hmm. Uh, and that, that's very helpful. That keeps our costs low. Yeah.

Hala Taha: So like let's say you acquire a portion of a company or let's say a whole company, d- are you often like laying off the HR team, laying off the [00:25:00] finance team, laying off the marketing team because you're gonna take all that in-house?

Payam Zamani: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Is that typically what happens?

Payam Zamani: That's actually very interesting. I have, um, um... I really-- It goes back to my spiritual beliefs. Um, I think that a business has to be stable, profitable, number one, because the employees of that business should be able to count on that business-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Payam Zamani: for the long term for their livelihood.

Yep. So the idea of, um, laying off is something that I really have a major problem with. Great.

Hala Taha: I love, I love that- And- ... that you, you feel that way.

Payam Zamani: And, you know, so this doesn't mean that a business should remain in a sense, uh, uh, should have bloated, uh, expense structure when it can no longer afford it, because that company cannot remain in existence, uh, for, for its employees anyways.

But with that in mind, uh, we try very hard to not ever have layoffs. Um, in the case of, [00:26:00] um, in the case of Inspirato, uh, when, uh, we invested in that company and I was going to also act as a CEO for a period of time, I told them in advance that I will not join unless a few things are done.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: And I almost did not care how they would get there, but I wanted to make sure that their expenses have already been reduced to, uh, a specific amount before I would get there.

I got there, uh, at the beginning of August of 20, uh, 14, and even though the company was going f- through very difficult days for a year and a half, we no longer had any layoffs, uh, during that period. The challenge with layoffs is that you will also end up losing a lot of good people-

Hala Taha: Yes ...

Payam Zamani: uh, who decide that this is no longer a stable environment for me.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. And also when you have a growing company, like for example with my company, I have 55 employees all over the world, and if for some reason we need to like downsize one part of the company, there's [00:27:00] usually always a place where I can put good employees somewhere else and they can just- Yeah ... learn something else and kind of thrive in like some sort of lateral move or some sort of promotion.

So what are you doing when you're acquiring a company and there's like, let's say duplicate roles that you don't need? What are you exactly doing?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. Typically, over time, you're able to address that. So, you know, I'll give you an example. Right now, we have a few hundred employees, but we know that AI is making us a lot more effective and efficient.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: So we have a goal. The goal is that our employee base will be down by about 10% in the next 12 months. But that will not happen, uh, through layoffs. People leave the company on their own, uh, that's just how it is. Yeah. And that's a target. Now, if we are off that target, if it turns out that we're off by seven-- We're down by 7%, not 10%, that's okay.

Yeah. It's not set in stone. Um, and if you're down by 12%, it is what it is. But you can give yourself that [00:28:00] as a target, but not as, as something that you have to get to now.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Now, if your sustainability and your existence relies on you reducing your cost today, well, you have to do what you have to do, otherwise the company will go bankrupt for all employees.

Yeah. And that is not-- there's no benevolence in that.

Hala Taha: Hmm. I actually had a recent conversation. Do you know who Gary Vee is?

Payam Zamani: Yes.

Hala Taha: Um, so I just sat down with him last week, and we were talking about headcount and AI, and like there's lots- Mm ... of discussions around a lot of companies are doing these mass layoffs because of AI.

And Gary had like a really great analogy. He thinks of his employees as armies and AI as just better weapons.

Payam Zamani: Hmm.

Hala Taha: And so he's like, "So if my competitor has 1,000 employees and I have 1,000 employees, and, you know, I, uh, cut my employees down to 500 with better weapons, but they keep 1,000 employees with the better weapons, who's gonna win?

The 1,000 employees that also have the better weapons."

Payam Zamani: Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: So he doesn't think of it as like he, he [00:29:00] needs to cut headcount. He more thinks of it as, "It's just my employees have better weapons, and we're just gonna keep growing the way that we are." So-

Payam Zamani: There's, there's truth to that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: But also, I think that the challenge can be that where those weapons-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm

Payam Zamani: come to play, uh, maybe in different departments.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. Yeah,

Payam Zamani: that's true. So, so what do you do then? I mean, it is a bit more complicated in reality. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, I mean, at some level, you know, there's something interesting that Elon Musk said recently. He said that you think about an economy, and we think about per capita.

Mm-hmm. What's the size of an economy? Well, if we have a lot of robots and AI agents, well, then you can have an unlimited economy- Mm ... uh, the size of an economy. And you can also think of it in, you know, but from a business perspective. If a business... Let's say if my goal was to have a million dollars of revenue per employee.

Now, if I have, I don't know, 200 AI agents also, then my revenue can grow much more rapidly- Mm-hmm ... without needing to grow the [00:30:00] employee base at the same pace. Yes. And I think that is-- that will be more often the case than laying off.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Uh, that you will grow.

Hala Taha: You're able to scale

Payam Zamani: but not the headcount.

You slow down your hiring. Yes. Uh, so we will see that. And, and what that will do to the future jobs, I really don't know. But my guess is that, um, there will be a bit of a pressure, at least in the short run, uh, on jobs for recent grads.

Hala Taha: Totally, because they just don't have the experience- That's right ... that they need.

Totally. Um, okay, I want to go into a little game that I'm calling, like, turnaround quick fire.

Payam Zamani: All right.

Hala Taha: And since you've got so much experience turning around companies and making them more profitable and increasing your stake in them, I'm gonna just rattle off some categories and you tell me, like, what are the first things that you look for in terms of something that's bad practice, what is good practice, um, and like how you suggest to, like, improve things.

So people and [00:31:00] leadership.

Payam Zamani: Hmm. So I have a tendency, uh, and a commitment to promote people who are one layer below the executive team to executive roles.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: I think that they are the people who are on their way up.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Payam Zamani: They are doing things for the first time. They're by far more likely to wanna prove themselves.

Mm-hmm. They're gonna work hard. Uh, and I probably cannot afford them 10 years from now.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: So I love putting those people in leadership roles. Um, uh, without mentioning names, there was a gentleman, I recently made him in charge of, uh, one of my, uh, business units, a sizable business unit. He's 28 years old.

Mm-hmm. If he hears this, he'll know who I'm talking about. And, uh, he's doing a phenomenal job.

Hala Taha: Nice.

Payam Zamani: He's never been an executive before. Now he runs a business, he's doing a phenomenal job, but that's what I look for.

Hala Taha: And what happens to the existing leadership team when you do that?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. Often existing leadership team, when I buy a business or they've [00:32:00] been with me for 10 years, 15 years, uh, or been with the company for that long, they're packages and, and they're able to get that package and move on.

Sometimes they wanna move on- Yeah ... or sometimes I wait till they move on, and then I promote from within and, and have, uh, have, uh, new talent take over those roles.

Hala Taha: How do you evaluate... Like, let's say there's leadership executives that want to stay. How do you evaluate who stays and who goes?

Payam Zamani: You know, I rarely ask people to leave.

Mm. So, um, but, you know, so like, you know, this gentleman who took on that role, the person who had the role before ch- chose to leave on her own.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Um, but, uh, the way that that decision is made is, is pretty easy. Uh, these days, if you are an executive and you are not choosing to embrace AI, uh, it is very hard to know how I'm gonna be able to work with you.

Uh, because it's kinda like, you know, being around 30 years from b- 30 years ago and saying that the internet is not for me.

Hala Taha: Yeah,

Payam Zamani: yeah. I'm like, "Well, I, I don't know what to do." Uh, so, so that's a must, and I've had that [00:33:00] situation recently. Mm. Uh, that there's some people who just have a bit of a negative reaction that they don't want to have anything to do with AI.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, this one's a big one. So customer and revenue quality.

Payam Zamani: Mm-hmm. So I fundamentally believe that if you treat everybody, and by that I mean everybody, your employees, uh, your, uh, if you have shareholders, your shareholders, your customers, even your competitors, as noble creations, spiritual beings-

Hala Taha: Mm

Payam Zamani: that you're not going to take advantage of. You're not just looking at them as tokens of economic value-

Hala Taha: Yep ...

Payam Zamani: but you're looking at them as other spiritual beings that, like you, are having this experience, this life as we know it. If you treat them in that manner, the chances are your business will al- will also prosper.

Mm-hmm. Because the chances are the way you treat them, few businesses are treating them in that manner. If you look at our business, BuyerLink being our biggest business-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Payam Zamani: um, we almost... If you look at, if you look at [00:34:00] the large accounts that account for 95% of our revenue-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Payam Zamani: we almost have no, ever none, zero cancellations.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: And, um, I think that's because of the way that, uh, our team chooses to treat them.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Even with competition, we have a thing we say at, at, at my company, "If our success relies on someone else's demise, we're gonna get out of that business."

Hala Taha: Yeah. So it's treat your customers right. You said something at the beginning of our conversation that you don't care about top line.

Payam Zamani: I don't.

Hala Taha: So in- how are you evaluating, like, what product lines to keep or services to keep- Mm ... ver- ver- versus which ones to cut?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. Propensity for profitability. The how likely is it that that business will become profitable and will sustain, uh, its profit margins? Um, you know, businesses can be under pressure, but can, can that be resolved?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Some businesses can't.

Hala Taha: Do you have any examples of a business where you were able to kind of shift the focus in terms of what they should focus on for [00:35:00] revenue and that helped the profitability?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. I mean, I'll give you an example. When I bought AutoWeb, uh, AutoWeb has 17% margin.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: And, um, when I talk about margin in my business, I really, uh, talk about revenue minus TAC, uh, traffic acquisition cost, so cost of marketing.

And 17%... So, so the company would spend, um- $100 on online marketing would have $17 in margins. The rest of my businesses, they had north of 55% in margins. Oh,

Hala Taha: wow.

Payam Zamani: And so the first rule is that stop chasing dollars.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Chase profits.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: And, uh, so cut anything that is not profitable source of, uh, consumer demand.

Cut those. Say no to advertisers who are not willing to pay you enough. That's okay. And, uh, build a business that has significant enough margin that if the market, you know, sneeze- [00:36:00] sneezes, you're not out of business. Mm-hmm. And, and those are, I think, really important principles, uh, for a company to keep in mind.

So now you fast-forward, uh, today, AutoWeb has north of 50% margin, and, uh, it's because we follow those practices. When initially you follow those practices, revenue goes down, but over time, revenue does come back up, naturally comes back up- Mm-hmm ... because your advertisers, they see that, oh, the volume you're giving me has gone down.

They bid up. They get access to more volume, and it takes care of itself. If you've ever read the book by Gordon Bethune, who used to be the CEO of Continental Airlines, he says something beautiful.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: They ask him, they said that, "How did you make Continental Airlines profitable so quickly?" He said, "It was easy."

Airlines, they have many routes. They fly to cities, uh, with a plane full, they make money. They fly to cities where the plane is always half empty, they lose money. I stopped flying to cities where we lost money. Mm. We became profitable. It was as simple as that.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I feel like a lot of [00:37:00] entrepreneurs, you start out with one service, and then you sell another thing, and another thing, and another thing.

Yeah. And then eventually you're just looking at how much revenue is coming in, and you're not realizing that there's one service that takes a bunch of people, you're actually losing money, or there's one client who got a big discount- Yeah ... you're actually losing money. So it's really smart for people who have, like, lots of things that they're selling, lots of clients, to go client by client, service by service- Yeah

and really break down, like, how much do the tools cost? How much do the employees cost? And what is really your profit margin per business unit or per service?

Payam Zamani: That's right.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: That's right. Uh, so one of the things that's a must for me, um, is that any business I run, uh, by 10:00 AM every morning, I wanna have a report that gives me the financials for the day before for that specific business, basically includes revenue, margins, bottom line for that business.

Not profits, basically just margins. Mm-hmm. Compares that to the last three days, same day last week, same day last month, and compares it, [00:38:00] uh, the pace for this month to prior months for the last 13 months.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: And those reports cannot be automated, meaning that I wanna receive a report that the business, that the, that the executive in charge put together and sent it to me-

Hala Taha: Mm

Payam Zamani: by 10:00 AM every morning. The reason for that is when people start putting those reports together, they pay a lot more attention because things stand out. Oh my God.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: You know, I missed these three things, and I, I've, I've seen that when they do that, uh, the business starts improving almost immediately.

Mm-hmm. So when I buy a business, that's the first thing I do. I want a daily report.

Hala Taha: I love that.

Payam Zamani: And that daily report changes everything.

Hala Taha: And are you also, are you looking at the whole business as a whole, or are you looking at the different product lines or services also so that you can recommend how to optimize them?

Payam Zamani: So I look at every business in that manner, and then there's one person in charge to aggregate them all and send it to me before noon- Mm ... every day. Mm. And, you know, uh, we have a, we have an office in Armenia, [00:39:00] uh, so they start working earlier given the- Mm-hmm ... the time difference. So I start getting reports.

When I wake up in the morning, they start coming in, and, and I love that because that allows me to very quickly, just on my phone, uh, take a look at the report and see how we're doing. Yeah. And they also know that if yesterday was really good, uh, they need to say why.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: And what are they doing to sustain it?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: If yesterday was really bad, why? Mm-hmm. And what are they doing to fix it?

Hala Taha: Since you own all the companies, or at least have a stake in all of them, if some company's doing like really, really well-

Payam Zamani: Mm ...

Hala Taha: and one company has a lot of potential, do you ever like take money from one company and p- and fund the other company?

Or do you keep them all separate?

Payam Zamani: I mean, when they're owned by One Planet- Yeah ... uh, then absolutely. I mean, we, we, we, we- You're always kind of deciding who- We do that all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because again, we don't have any outside shareholders, so, so the money that, that is made by these businesses, uh, you know, can be shared to not just, uh, [00:40:00] invest back, uh, invest back in the businesses that we own, but could also invest in other startups.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Which we do that also.

Hala Taha: So does the executive teams on the companies that you own also have equity or no?

Payam Zamani: They do have what I call distribution rights.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: That, uh, if the company is sold while they are, or goes public, uh, while they are a, a part of the business, they get that portion. Uh, and they also, uh, we also do profit share.

So executives, uh, often don't control the, uh, the, the profits or the EBITDA of the business, but they control the contribution margin of their own business. Mm. So they get a percentage of the contribution margin that they earn.

Hala Taha: Oh, very cool. Okay, how about pricing and product mix? Do you ever look at like how companies are pricing their services and products?

Or do you not get into that detail

Payam Zamani: at all? I don't get into that. I feel like, you know, the pricing is a maximum a buyer is willing to pay.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, so negotiate, uh, [00:41:00] and the best you can, and don't try to, uh, take every dollar out of it. Let them be happy.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Okay, this next one I know that you have a really good case study for it.

Uh, marketing and customer acquisition. So you actually started a company, I believe it was called Purple Tie?

Payam Zamani: Oh God, yes.

Hala Taha: Talk to us about that company- ... and, uh, unit economics- Yeah ... and what went, went wrong.

Payam Zamani: So Purple Tie was a bad idea. Um, uh- In the late '90s, I had some- made some money from AutoWeb, so you can imagine I probably had bought a few nice suits, you know, spent money on, on a, on a nicer wardrobe, and then the dry cleaners were really bugging me because they would often mess up the stuff that I would take to them.

And at the same time, I'm really dating myself, uh, I had heard, uh, Wayne Huizenga, who was the founder of AutoNation.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: He had also founded Blockbuster Video-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: which I don't think anyone who's watching or listening has heard of Blockbuster Video. I'm

Hala Taha: sure they have.

Payam Zamani: [00:42:00] But f- movie nights- Yeah, yeah ... used to be Blockbuster Video.

Yeah. You go Blockbuster Video and you rent a video, and until Blockbuster Video, there were mom and pops that owned the video shops. Yep. Blockbuster opened up one store every eight hours for eight years and ended up owning that, that market, became a huge multi-billion dollar business. Yeah. So I saw Wayne Huizenga speak a few times during my AutoWeb days because he founded AutoNation and, uh, AutoNation was a big client of ours and so on.

And I thought, I love that story, and I'm like 28 years old. I feel like I got it made as such by now. I took a company public. Yeah. I can keep doing this. So I decided I wanna fix a dry cleaning business, and, uh, I started building these 100,000 square feet facilities for environmentally clean dry cleaning, high quality dry cleaning and laundry and so on.

Massive, massive operation. Hmm. Um, and we built this, uh, spoken hub model to have our trucks connect to a neighborhood so- [00:43:00] Hmm ... we could pick up from your home, deliver to your office, and vice versa. Anyhow, we built that.

Hala Taha: Yeah. You raised, also, you raised, like, what, 13 million or

Payam Zamani: something? We raised a ton of money.

Yeah. I needed 400 million. Uh, I rai- Oh my God. I rai- and this is 1999. That's crazy. I, I, I did not raise 400 million. But we ra- and, and I had made a, uh, money from AutoWeb, so I purely- Yeah ... put my own money into that business. But anyhow, the bottom line is that ultimately 2001 came about and the dot-com crash happened.

Hmm. And I could no longer raise more money, and we ended up shutting down that business. But what really caused that business, I think, to not, um, prosper, number one, the dot-com crash, so we could not raise money. So, so that was it. Yep. But number two, I think that, uh, the economies of scale for us did not exist.

We introduced too many expense layers to the business. If I could do it all over again, not that I would, but if we could, um- Every dry cleaning shop [00:44:00] uses their dry cleaning equipment only for a couple of hours a day.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: There's a lot of, in a sense, unused potential at existing facilities, so you need to put a service layer on top of it.

Mm-hmm. But you can use the existing facilities and never invest in the infrastructure.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Uh, so there is potentially something there.

Hala Taha: Actually- So- ... I interviewed this other guy, he's the owner of Franzi. It's like a franchise- Mm ... platform. And his first business, he tried to do exactly what you're saying.

Mm-hmm. He tried to work with l- laundromats, dry cleaners- Yeah ... to do this, like, service, but the quality control was very difficult, and he had to sh- It is ... he had to shut that business down too. So I was thinking like, damn, this is a very hard business, this- It's a very hard

Payam Zamani: business ... mobile dry cleaning.

It's a very hard business. Uh, and also not just a difficult business, but also it's difficult on, on the health of those who operate.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Um, you know, the, the people who own dry cleaning shops, uh, if you talk to them, usually they have kidney problems. Many of them lose, [00:45:00] uh, a kidney. Oh

Hala Taha: my God.

Payam Zamani: Uh, so it's, it's, it's not a fun business to be in.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And how about the customer acquisition cost? If I remember correctly, it was very expensive to acquire customers for this dry cleaning business.

Payam Zamani: It's expensive, however, it is an annuity business. How often people change their dry cleaners. They usually- Yeah ... switch when they move.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: Um, and in this case, if moving did not mean you have to stop working with us because- Mm-hmm

we were, we were everywhere.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Uh, but, um, so it is expensive to acquire, but I think that that can be, that can be made up for. Um, I think, uh, the bigger issue is really the idea of, uh, building density, that if you have a service that relies on, uh, delivery on- Mm-hmm ... on trucks on the road, you need to have a lot of density so the trucks are not driving half an hour from one drop-off- Yeah

to the next. Uh, if you have a neighborhood where you can do all your drop-offs, uh, then the [00:46:00] margins can be good.

Hala Taha: Hmm. So, uh, sticking on customer acquisition costs and things like that, BuyOrLink is like a lead gen-

Payam Zamani: Mm-hmm ...

Hala Taha: company. That's right. So how are you... Like, what is your guidance on how much to spend on customers and, and just any sort of guidance you have about customer acquisition costs?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. I mean, in my business, uh, I don't wanna spend more than 50%, uh, on acquiring a customer.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, but if it's 50%, then to me, I, I, I don't have a marketing budget. Uh, spend as much as you can as long as you're able to maintain- Mm-hmm ... margin. Often people come to me and they say that, "You know what? If I reduce the margin from 50% to 30%, I'm able to get access to more customers, and in aggregate we'll end up with more margins."

My answer is no.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: I wanna hold onto margins that are significant enough that if the market sneezes-

Hala Taha: Hmm ...

Payam Zamani: we don't catch a cold. Yeah. We don't go out of business. So, so that's my rule. Uh, but every business has a dif- you know, should have their own [00:47:00] rule that what's the, what's the right margin for them.

Yeah. Uh, clearly if you're selling a car, uh, you cannot spend half the value of that car- Yeah ... uh, you know, in marketing. But, you know, you decide what is the amount that you're willing to spend.

Hala Taha: Hmm. That's good advice. Okay. How about contracts, vendors, overhead? Uh, where does bloat tend to hide in companies in this way?

Payam Zamani: You know, it's interesting. Uh, most companies that have been around for more than, I would say, five years, and they have had at least a few executives who are no longer there-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Payam Zamani: the chances are that they have layers of expense that nobody knows about.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: And, uh, so I think that there's a bit of a cleaning that needs to happen, uh, every few years, that you literally wanna have someone, and I call that person the transformation officer-

Hala Taha: Mm

Payam Zamani: that goes through everything to make sure that everything you have, you need. There are no two different vendors that one of them could do the job of the, uh, of, uh- Mm-hmm ... both. Uh, there is no [00:48:00] preferred vendor that an executive who's no longer with you signed up, but nobody cares about. Nobody really uses that, that- Yeah

that solution anymore. Um, I saw a lot of that when I took over Inspirato, uh, that the company literally had tens of millions of dollars of accumulated expenses that were not having any impact on the business. Mm. And we cut $45 million-

Hala Taha: Wow ...

Payam Zamani: within couple of months.

Hala Taha: Really interesting. And how about, like, leases?

Sometimes leases need to be cut, right?

Payam Zamani: Well, Inspirato, we had, uh, because one of the ways we made money, uh, was that we had all these luxury homes all over the place that we had, uh, leases, 10-year leases, and many of these homes did not have enough occupancy, uh, through our platform to ever make money. So getting rid of leases can be complicated because- Mm-hmm

usually there's a contract associated with them. Yeah. Uh, but leases can be very problematic because not only they make your P&L look very ugly, they make your balance sheet look very ugly.

Hala Taha: Mm. Okay, let's [00:49:00] go through, um... I, I really wanna get to, um, spiritual capitalism. Mm-hmm. But first, I wanna see if there's any other case studies that we need to go through.

I feel like we actually went through, uh, most of them. I do wanna talk about, uh, RingPartner was an example of when you bought a capability.

Payam Zamani: Mm-hmm. That's true.

Hala Taha: Help us understand when you decide to build something internally and when you dec- decide to acquire a company that just does it, and, like, what's your decision-making around that?

Payam Zamani: I feel like I'm getting too old to build stuff new.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, so I like acquire. I like acquire because I love the way that young talent, young entrepreneurs think about, uh, you know, the, the, the new tools, the new things that can be built. The vision that I could have had 30 years ago, I just don't have today.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, so as a result, buying companies is very... it can be very interesting. Um, but there are also companies that we can buy that we can make them better- Mm-hmm ... [00:50:00] because we have the infrastructure that they just don't have. We have the technology resources. We have online marketing capabilities that they s- or now AI, that they simply may not have.

So that could be another reason to buy a company. Uh, now having said that, I still am a, uh, I am an entrepreneur. I like to build stuff. Uh, right now we're building a new company called Quite Remarkable.

Hala Taha: Yes.

Payam Zamani: And Quite Remarkable will be a luxury travel company, and I, I love that industry. I fell in love with it when I took over Inspiro Rock.

Yeah. Then I sold it, and I felt that, uh, th- there's a better business model-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: uh, that, that we can employ.

Hala Taha: Yeah. So now you're starting that business from scratch. Now that you've been a founder for so many-- You were a founder previously. You've had these companies for so many years. What are some of the top things that you're gonna do differently with Quite Remarkable since you're building this one from scratch?

Payam Zamani: Now, of course, I come from a place of privilege- Yes ... where as an entrepreneur today. I'm not the same person who was, you know, just eating potatoes and had nothing else back [00:51:00] then. You know, I'm able to invest- Mm-hmm ... in, in my business. That makes life a lot easier. Uh, I have an infrastructure. I have a CFO.

I've got a head of marketing, and I got a head of product from day one that they can help me navigate things. So I have the vision, but there are a lot of amazing people who are building that. Mm-hmm. And, um, so, so I don't wanna compare me to the hard work of first-time entrepreneurs. Yes. They're fundamentally different, and they are putting their blood and sweat and everything into building those businesses.

So I'm not that, and, and, and we need to really have a... I have a soft heart, you know- Yeah ... a soft spot for that. Um, but what I do differently is that, um, uh, like I said, I really think about, uh, profitability from day one.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: I don't think about building to sell because I'm not building to sell.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: And, uh, so as a result, I'm not thinking about multiples.

I'm not thinking about, uh, how do I build so VCs will fund. Uh, I don't care about that. I don't want funding. Uh, so that gives me a bit of [00:52:00] a freedom-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Payam Zamani: to build, I think, in a better manner- Mm-hmm ... in a more lasting manner. Uh, like I'll give you an example.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: We have decided that Quite Remarkable, when it will launch, it will sign...

It will, we'll do marketing. We'll bring on board 100 travelers, then we'll stop all marketing. We'll make sure those 100 travelers will become fanatics about our business-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Payam Zamani: will rave about the business. We fully take care of them. Once we know that we accomplished that, then we open up.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: We'll keep doing that until we get to 1,000 travelers.

We wanna make sure we have 1,000 ambassadors out there because they love the business. Now, that will slow us down. That will slow down growth, but that will allow us to build a brand that I think we'll be proud of.

Hala Taha: That's really awesome. I feel like that's such a good strategy. Um, cool. So why don't we move on to spiritual capitalism?

I know that's very important to you. Mm-hmm. So how would you define, uh, this [00:53:00] philosophy?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. So, you know, living in the US and having my background as a refugee, coming to this country, uh, because of religious persecution and so on, and finding the goodness that America had and let me in, um, I've thought often about, uh, the challenges also in the US.

Mm-hmm. Racism. Yep. And to me, racism, for example, is, um, probably the most challenging issue in America. Uh, you think about, um, political issues-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Payam Zamani: uh, in this country, the extremes of left and right. I, I call, uh, you know... Uh, to me, there is like a, uh, these alliances that they're designed for greed and for, for power, but they don't really help anybody.

Um, you look at Wall Street and how greed has been really, you know, it's the Milton Friedman, uh, version of capitalism that's all about maximization- Yeah ... and accumulation of one's ability to consume more and more and more, and when e- enough is enough. [00:54:00] Now, I gotta be careful because when I talk about these things, extreme right wants to call me a socialist, which- Yep

I'm not. I'm a capitalist. Yeah, obviously. Um, and then extreme left calls me a capitalist because I built a company, taken it public, it was a unicorn and so on. So I'm like, no, I, I, I'm just somebody who wants to show that it is possible to build good businesses that their ripple effect-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Payam Zamani: leaves the world ever so slightly a better place.

So- The first thing is that, as I mentioned that earlier, looking at every human as a noble spiritual being. I'm not gonna look at you as a token of economic value. If I stop doing that, it, then the whole idea of greed at any cost, maximization of my wealth at any cost kinda goes away because my relationship with the person sitting across from me is when way [00:55:00] beyond this physical experience that we're all having- Mm-hmm

uh, in, in, you know, in, in this world, and I wanna treat you differently. Um, but I think that it is about the betterment of the world, that we all- Mm-hmm ... wanna be an agent for that.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Um, and I think when we employ the right practices in our businesses, the chances are that we'll be a lot more fulfilled, we'll be a lot more, uh, joyful as we build our businesses.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. You talked about how to treat our customers. What are the ways that you employ this with your employees?

Payam Zamani: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So our culture is very important to us, and there are a few values that we have that are non-negotiable.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: One is that our executives are expected to lead with love, and, uh, a lot of people have questions about the love part, that w- that's a very strong word.

Yeah. But I think that is actually a very important word, uh, that we need to have. And when we say lead, uh, with love, it includes leading internally and externally with that. The other one [00:56:00] is truthfulness. Uh, I find truthfulness to be a spiritual value, and truthfulness at any cost, and 100% truthful at all time.

Mm-hmm.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Uh, imagine you're fighting a legal case. Truthfulness could cause you to lose that case. That's okay. Be truthful all the way.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: And, uh, don't embellish things. Um, so that, that is an important part of our business. Uh, no gossip ever, uh, in our business, um, about anyone. We just don't wanna have that.

Um, I, you know, I think that the tongue can be a smoldering fire- Mm-hmm ... and we wanna be careful what we say and, and the ripple effect of that. Uh, we wanna make sure that as a company, uh, we are giving. We're giving sacrificially. Uh, so, so much that, uh, the, the-- it, it affects our cash position so much that it affects our financial decisions for our company.

And I think that automatically also puts a cap on how big a company can get. Who said that, um- [00:57:00] Global domination for a business is a good thing for humanity. Mm. I don't necessarily believe that. I think that if I'm building a great business that's taking care of its community, its employees, its customers, who says that just because I can, I have to keep making it bigger and bigger and bigger till I have built a monopoly?

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Uh, but I think that all of those things we do as humanity does because we have kind of lost our connection with what truly matters.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: And I do believe that we all collectively need a bit of a spiritual transformation, uh, to realize that all of this will end.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: You know, at any moment. And, uh, what will remain is how we feel about what we accomplished and how we left the world.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Can you give us a concrete example- Mm ... of a way that you lost money in a business- Mm ... to actually do better for the employees or do better for the world, and then similarly, how doing better for your employees or your customers or [00:58:00] society helped you gain profits?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. So, uh, I, I have lost a lot over the years.

Uh, the, the biggest loss I ever had was when I took All the Web public. When my brother and I, we took All the Web public, um, I, on paper, I had made a few hundred million dollars, and I end up losing almost all of it.

Hala Taha: Wow.

Payam Zamani: And, um And i- if it wasn't for my faith, the chances are I would have felt that as a, seen that as a big loss.

Mm-hmm. That would have probably affected my psyche. Maybe I would have been depressed.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: I didn't feel that way, uh, ever at all. I felt like I w- I was grateful because I was still better off, uh, than the situation I was at- Yeah ... prior to it.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: Even though a lot of VCs would ask me, "Oh, how do you feel?

Are you okay?" I'm like, "Yes, I'm, I'm, I'm totally fine." "It's all good." Yeah. But, but I think that the key is, if you think about the businesses that we have built, even when they were [00:59:00] suffering, my employees have always known that X percentage of our profits always go to our nonprofit causes. So we have, um, we have a nonprofit called One Planet, One People, uh, at One Planet, and, uh, the primary focus, uh, of, uh, One Planet, One People, uh, are two things.

One is education with a focus on education of girls and women all over the world. Mm-hmm. And the second is racial healing in the US. And so a, a portion of our profits every month goes to that foundation, and we spend it e- everywhere from Montgomery, Alabama, on, uh, some of the efforts of Bryan Stevenson, uh, like, uh, the building of the monument for, um, I think it's called Peace and Justice, uh, as well as, you know, in The Gambia where we have after-school, uh, uh, education programs- Mm-hmm

for, for girls, uh, that we support. And when I say these things, it's not just sending money. With The Gambian operation, our employees go there. Oh, wow. They spend time [01:00:00] there. We, we kinda like adopt it. We want, we want that to become part of who we are.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: We don't know how to do it. We don't know how to do anything in Africa, but someone is doing good work, and we wanna be a part of that.

Yeah. Um, and we're grateful they allow us to be a b- to be a part of that because that brings a lot of meaning to our everyday, uh, jobs as well.

Hala Taha: Hmm.

Payam Zamani: But again, the employees knowing that these causes matter and the company is willing to give sacrificially to these causes.

Hala Taha: And so is it One Planet's employees and, like, One Planet's part of your profit goes to philanthropy or all the companies underneath you also are associated with- your charity organization.

Yeah.

Payam Zamani: So the businesses that we own, if I don't own something, I cannot control it. Yeah. But if we own them, uh, they all collectively-- I- when I say One Planet, I'm including them all.

Hala Taha: Okay. Okay.

Payam Zamani: And, um, but businesses that we invest in, uh, we ask the founders if we're investing early on, so the business is [01:01:00] still shaping, we ask the founders to sign a document called For the Betterment of the World.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: And this document basically communicates with them that we're investing in you, but we believe you have a love for humanity, and because of your love for humanity, there are certain things that we hope you will do.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: Not because of contractual obligation. You're gonna do because you wanna leave, uh, a, a positive mark behind.

Mm-hmm. And all of our founders need to sign that. Yeah. Um, otherwise we will not invest.

Hala Taha: So as we close out this interview, what is the message that you wanna share with the thousands of entrepreneurs that are gonna be tuning into this episode in terms of how they should be building their companies?

Payam Zamani: Yeah.

I mean, there are a few things I would say. One is that make sure that what you're doing is meaningful from day one. Don't wait till your business is successful and then you say, "Now I'm going to spend my weekends, go do good work in the world." Mm. Do [01:02:00] it today.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Payam Zamani: Because guess what? Overwhelming majority of businesses never have an exit, never have that big payday.

So unless you make that part of your life today, a coherent part of your life, then you're n- you're waiting for, for some date in the future to have that joy and fulfillment. So that's number one. Number two, the road is never blocked, ever. Mm. I don't care if you're an immigrant. I don't care if you're Black.

I don't care, uh, if you're a woman. Whatever are the challenges that you're dealing with, because the market has never been kind to you-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Payam Zamani: none of that means that the road is blocked. Mm. So don't let those who have made life difficult for you to win.

Hala Taha: Yep.

Payam Zamani: Find a way around it. Yeah. There's always a way around it.

Especially if you're in America. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, uh, I mean, a woman, uh, as, as you, as you probably know, only 2% of the, uh, investment money in Silicon Valley goes to a woman.

Hala Taha: Yeah.

Payam Zamani: And actually, in our company, over half of our money is invested- Oh, wow ... in woman entrepreneurs, uh, because [01:03:00] also women are Great entrepreneurs Yeah Uh, anyhow, but, but that is a second thing- Mm-hmm

that I highly, highly recommend, uh, to any entrepreneur. And the, the third one is, uh, think about profits, not exit. Yeah. The chances are if you're building a successful, profitable company, A, you'll always be in business. Mm-hmm. You will be in charge of your own destiny.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm.

Payam Zamani: But you will also have an opportunity to exit if you choose to.

Uh, so, you know, why not- Yeah ... go down that path?

Hala Taha: And the last question that I wanna ask you actually goes back to profit, 'cause this is How We Profit.

Payam Zamani: Sure.

Hala Taha: You mentioned earlier when you have a business, you want it to be profitable by day one. Yeah. All right? Profitable day one. So what are some of your principles or what are some of the things that we need to think about that you wanna leave us with in terms of how we can be more profitable?

Payam Zamani: Yeah. Now, of course, it takes a little bit m- a little bit of time to get to profits-

Hala Taha: Yeah ...

Payam Zamani: but how you become profitable from day one should be part of your strategy, not something for the future. Mm-hmm. [01:04:00] So I would never, ever wanna invest in a company or build a business with the idea that has to keep raising money.

Mm-hmm. I wanna know the path for profitability for that business from day one. So the number one thing that I will look at is how disciplined you are when you're hiring, because at the beginning, uh, people cost is a big part of that. Yeah. Uh, and number two, how you are, uh, basically signing up for resources, uh, and how frugal you are with the way that you're spending money.

I like to invest in, in, in founders who are frugal, and they just don't think that money will always be cheap. I can always raise money- Mm-hmm ... and the, the VCs will always- Yeah ... love me somehow, uh, and they'll give me more cash.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, Payam, this was such an awesome interview. I feel like we learned so much.

Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? I know that you also have a book if you wanna shout out your book.

Payam Zamani: Yeah. Uh, you can find me, uh, on all social media platforms, Payam Zamani, and, uh, my book is called "Crossing The Desert: Embracing Life's Difficult [01:05:00] Journeys."

Uh, and, uh, message me. I, I, I, I typically respond. I may be late- ... uh, at times, but I do respond.

Hala Taha: Amazing. Well, thank you so much.

Payam Zamani: Thank you.

Hala Taha: Cool. Great job.

Payam Zamani: Thank

Hala Taha: you. Did we cover everything you wanted to cover?

Payam Zamani: I think so.

Hala Taha: Yeah?

Payam Zamani: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Cool.

Payam Zamani: Yeah.

Hala Taha: Good. Great job.

Payam Zamani: All right.

Hala Taha: I think it was

Payam Zamani: great. So are you done or are you doing more?

Hala Taha: Uh, all I have to do is just like your-- my team is-- one of my team members is listening and writing our intro and outro, so in like 10 minutes I'll record that.

Payam Zamani: Okay.

Hala Taha: But yeah, um-

Hala:Gary, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

GaryVee: Thanks for having me.

Hala: I'm so happy that you are here again. And so, of course, I've been prepping for you all weekend, and when I was listening back to our first interview, [00:01:00] something that really surprised me is that we only mentioned AI once. Right. We mentioned ChatGPT in passing.

Yeah.

GaryVee: Yes.

Hala: And now AI has went from the side conversation to completely the main conversation. You can't go 10 minutes talking marketing and business without mentioning AI.

GaryVee: Makes sense.

Hala: So I wanna start there. Um, I feel like AI has totally transformed the way that we live and work in the past two years.

But you actually say that technology takes a while to really get adapted in terms of human behavior. You even said that the iPhone, we might have 10 more years of scrolling videos on our iPhone. So let's start there. Where do you think we are in the adoption cycle, and, uh, you know, how do you think things are gonna change and, and how long will it really take?

GaryVee: I think we're early. I think that my point, you know, and that came with experience. I used to think things would happen much sooner. Um, I ... Look, I think that, you know, we're at the point where people are using Claude and ChatGPT and [00:02:00] Gemini to do things that they used Google Search for. But even that, I think you'd be surprised how many people still don't- Yeah

use any of those things in America- Mm-hmm ... let alone Third World countries or Second World countries or less tech, um, advanced societies. Um- For example, where do you... Do you have an OpenClaw right now?

Hala: Yes.

GaryVee: Okay. So I think you would be flabbergasted that not... This audience that listens to you-

Hala: Yeah ...

GaryVee: um, that I would say 98% do not.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: Right? Yeah. And wouldn't even know what OpenClaw is, and are right now ChatGPT-ing or googling it as we speak, 'cause they're like, "I asked you, you said yes." They've never heard the term, let alone started to build up a harness computer to run their life.

Hala: Yeah. Give us some examples. Like, what are the ways that it's actually taken a long time to adapt a technology?

GaryVee: In the history of time?

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: I mean, I was screaming about e-commerce in 1996. [00:03:00]

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And like most of the business friends I had didn't launch their e-commerce site until 2002 to 2004.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: That was almost a dec- I mean, I wrote Crush It in 2009.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: I wrote it in 2008, about personal brand. People are acting like personal brand's this new wave.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: I was literally... I literally wrote that book 18 years ago, "Hey, you should build your brand on the internet."

Hala: Yeah. Something I've been noticing, so I've been talking about AI since the beginning. I've, I've interviewed so many, like, people who have, like, created AI, basically. And in the last six months especially, I've been getting so much pushback on social media.

GaryVee: Yeah.

Hala: Pe- I get a lot- Yeah ... in the beginning, like, nobody was pushing back on me. Correct. Correct And then suddenly it just felt like everybody's, like, like, kind of- It's- ... like, trying to cancel me for talking- It's- ... positively about AI.

GaryVee: It's become a political issue.

Hala: Yeah. Uh, well, it's a political issue. People are also, like, fearful of it, right?

That feel- Well, that's what

GaryVee: I mean. Yeah. I don't mean, like, it's necessarily, like, the biggest [00:04:00] platform that politicians are talking about.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: It's political.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: People are emotional about the extremism on both sides of what it can do beneficially- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... and what it will do detrimentally. Why- People have become emotional.

Hala: Yeah. Why do you think so many people who seem really smart are so fearful of AI?

GaryVee: Well, because they're selfish. You know, when you say that question y- and you're using, I think you're using knowing enough about you, you're using it from the lens of, you're using the word smart not through an emotional intelligence lens.

You're using it through the lens of, like, they have some business success or they're business savvy.

Hala: Yeah, yeah.

GaryVee: They're scared of losing the riches they've created. Mm-hmm.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

GaryVee: They talk about capitalism and merit and alpha and, uh, you know, free and all these things, but when something comes along that might hurt them-

Hala: Yeah

GaryVee: they want [00:05:00] regulation.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

GaryVee: They want not free market dynamics. They don't wanna compete with it.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: They're scared. They're fearing for their financial wallet, and so they've decided to demonize it 'cause they don't want it to hurt the business they built. Yeah. Think about it. If you built a SaaS business and poured all this money into technology- And now you're just cooking and you're about to make your bag.

You're about to sell your company.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Do you wanna compete- Absolutely not ... in a world where I can stand up a SaaS business now- No ... in fucking a weekend? And a

Hala: 19-year-old can go do it? Yeah.

GaryVee: So the reason you're seeing this is self-interest, both on the left and the right. The kids are fearful in college, booing commencement speeches 'cause they're scared that it's gonna take a job away on this side.

Mm. And then on this side, people that have made a lot of money and plan on continuing to make a lot of money see the path where AI's gonna fuck them up, and they loved capitalism and entrepreneurship when it benefited them- Yeah ... but they're demonizing it [00:06:00] when it might hurt them because they're a hypocrite.

Hala: Something that I'm having a lot of trouble pushing back on or finding a good- Counter? ... counter-argument to is the environment. The, the water- Well, that's because- ... consumption, the environmental impact ...

GaryVee: yeah, that's... Well, that's because you're not willing to contextualize it into the world. Anybody that is concerned about that, first of all, it's very early in fully understanding the en- environmental impact.

Yeah. But the amount of people that shit on the environmental impact of AI while they wear fast fashion every day- Mm.

Hala: Yep ...

GaryVee: have hypocrisy running through their veins.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

GaryVee: Who support plastic products.

Hala: Yep.

GaryVee: Who, you know, lots of technology runs on a lot of electricity. Like, I mean, that's not gonna be the punchline of this conversation long term.

Hala: Yeah. Hopefully, they, they figure out whatever negative impacts- Hella ... on the environment.

GaryVee: The, by the way, the environmental impact is above my pay grade and above every leader's pay gra- like, this is not figured out yet.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: By the way, they argued about, [00:07:00] like, usage of environmental s- there's articles written that Miami would be underwater by 1980- Mm

because, like, people struggle with the environmental thing, not because the left or the right is right, because it's challenging to figure out what's right and what's wrong.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Like, it's a very complicated issue, but people are weaponizing the environmental thing as a disguise for their actual fear, which is their financial situation.

Hala: Yeah. And fighting AI- I

GaryVee: wanna stay on that for a minute.

Hala: Yeah, yeah. Let's sta- stay on it.

GaryVee: Like, if, you know, first of all, you nor I nor anyone, no one should be over-advocating one side or the other. It's not like AI is, like, your sister.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: This is a conversation that needs a purple conversation. To your point, it's red and blue right now.

Hala: Mm. And fighting AI is like fighting gravity. I l- Correct ... I love your saying, um, technology is undefeated. Undefeated. I love that.

GaryVee: Like, whether, whether someone who's the most [00:08:00] bullish about AI- Or the most cynical. Whichever one ends up being right or wrong, I don't understand the lack of humility that people don't realize it's gonna be somewhere in the middle.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: There's gonna be good and ba- whoever right now is the most hater, hater, hater on AI, when AI medicine saves their daughter's life-

Hala: They're gonna love AI. Exactly.

GaryVee: People are selfish. That's where all this is coming from. Mm. And so, you know, this is a very complicated thing to figure out what it's gonna mean in 20 years socially, environmentally.

But, like, just the hypocrisy in environmental as your weapon when you don't shit on all the other things that are detrimental to the environment, which is many. Yeah. Many which you love wearing a fucking T-shirt or fucking bullshit sneakers. Yeah. Like, if you're gonna be consistent, be consistent.

Hala: Yeah.

Even, like, agriculture is so bad for the environment, right? I mean- Yeah ...

GaryVee: I mean, there's so much.

Hala: Yeah. So you've got this amazing [00:09:00] analogy of a barbell-

GaryVee: Yes ...

Hala: when you're, when you're kind of talking about the future of AI. This, like, Jets- Jetsons versus The Flintstones.

GaryVee: Yes. As we, you know, my big theory right now is in the next decade, obviously I'm smart enough to understand it's gonna be 2036- Mm

in 10 years. But I think in 2036, for all of us living right now in 2026, it's gonna feel like 2060, 'cause I think there's so much advancement coming.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: But I also think, to the point you're making for the people that don't know at home, I think there's gonna be a lot of business opportunity in 1960 behavior.

2060 behavior and 1960 behavior. Mm. The rise of analog, the rise of disconnecting from technology, the going back to simpler times. I'm very bullish real life, um, businesses and real-life events and analog opportunities and disconnecting. My favorite business idea I'm running through right now is standing up drive-in movie theaters where I put towers around where Wi-Fi doesn't work while you're in this lot.

Hala: Oh, cool.

GaryVee: And I just think it would do very [00:10:00] well, 'cause I think people want a little escapism- Mm-hmm ... from the extremity of screen time and AI.

Hala: Yeah, and I think in the future, like, going on your phone will feel nostalgic.

GaryVee: Well, yeah. I mean, I think to your point, if you're talking future stuff with VR and AR and glasses and who knows what else people are gonna invent, um- Yeah, I think, I think that people are wildly naive if they don't realize the iPad and the phone is gonna look like the pager and the CD player in a 20, 30-year window.

Hala: Yeah. So you've got a company with, like, 3,000-something employees. Uh, you're always, you know, hiring. How, how has AI changed the way that you think about head count?

GaryVee: Not much. Like, my take on it is, okay, I have 2,500 employees at VaynerX. Yeah. I'm competing with an agency that has 2,500 employees as well. They are a publicly traded holding company, or they're trying to sell, so they're trying to maximize their EBITDA, [00:11:00] so they go to 1,900 'cause they're like, "Well, with AI we can do this."

Yep. Then I'm like, "But I have 2,500 and I'm gonna weaponize all my employees with AI too. I'm gonna beat you now."

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: That's my quick answer to the head count thing.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: I don't think of this as replacing people. I think it's giving people better weapons.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: You know, Microsoft w- you know, Suite was a weapon.

Excel and Docs. Uh, Adobe, you know, Photoshop was a weapon. Uh, G Chat and Slack were a weapon. Mm. Right? Uh, Salesforce was a weap- these are weapons you give your employees to do more efficient, more effective work. AI, I believe, is gonna be the most powerful one we've seen for a long time, probably since the computer.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Right? That was probably the biggest net shift. Uh, maybe the internet to some degree from an information standpoint. Um, and so to me, I'm not like, "Oh, yay."

Hala: Yeah. "

GaryVee: I'm gonna cut 700 people, and we're gonna be acting like 2,200 with our [00:12:00] 1,700." That's right.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: The problem is I'm gonna be competing with another company that has 2,200 all weaponized.

So I have not been looking at as a head count and an efficiency thing. I've been looking at it as an effectiveness thing, and how is our company way better at doing what we are supposed to be doing on media creative and production- Yeah ... because I give them these AI tools. And so I think that's gonna outflank companies that are cutting head count, 'cause we'll just have more humans that are also using the same tools, thus rendering us as more effective.

Hala: I love that. It's like keep your army and have better weapons.

GaryVee: That's right.

Hala: I feel like that's a really

GaryVee: good way to think about it. Like, like an old school analogy, if, if like we were throwing rocks and had swords and here come the guns, that's the new innovation. Mm-hmm. Like, you know, the army that decided to cut all their, half their army men versus the other army that kept them and gave them all guns, that second army won that battle.

That's what I plan on doing with my companies. I'm not looking to maximize my EBITDA. I'm looking to maximize my growth, and that requires peop- people and good tools.

Hala: Mm. [00:13:00] So a lot of- ... listeners out there, they're not yet entrepreneurs. They are, you know, trying to get a job. They're 20, 30 years old. They wanna enter their career, and they wanna think about, like, how can they best prepare for AI?

So talk to us about how you feel about skills, uh, versus humanity, and then also you've, you've got this amazing analogy about the architect and the mason.

GaryVee: You know, I think about skills and humanity. I don't... You know, again, I'm telling you, Allah, I promise you, everyone's over-emotional, both ways.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: The people on Twitter that are Silicon Valley like, "AI's gonna solve..."

No, it's not. And then on the other side, like all these kids at college booing the commencement speech, it's not gonna be that bad. Yeah. Like, it's just not. Like, it's just not. And so- That's good to hear. So tools and humanity, like again, the computer s- you know, the internet, the, the mobile device, these were powerful tools.

You know, I know there's a lot of kids listening, but for anyone my age, like, the [00:14:00] world pre-iPhone and post-iPhone, totally different world. Yeah. There is no Uber. There is no, you know, Postmates. There is no... Like, there's nothing we... Like, social. Like, it'd all be different.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

GaryVee: You know, Myspace on your laptop at home is very different than Instagram on your phone at all times anywhere.

Yeah. So this will be extreme. It will change. The world will change a lot. But I guess to answer you very simply, like, I don't see any d- I don't see using AI as a deflation to one's humanity. Like, what you do- Hmm ... with the A- in fact, solving the world's problems with AI seems like the most human thing one could do.

Hala: Yeah. Yeah. And how do

GaryVee: you- And the mason and architect- Yeah ... I think the big winner of the AI era is the architect. Mm-hmm. The brains.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And the creative, the creative soul and the strategic soul because creative people and strategic people have, uh, always relied on a lot of employees to execute their thing.

There's definitely executional things that an AI, you know, [00:15:00] framework can do that used to be rendered to a person, so no question the architect gets the benefit. However, here's a big one. The mason. Yeah. And my slang term for the mason is an employee who does a simple task that isn't doing a lot of the thinking or the creativity.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: I'm excited because a lot of people who right now listening who think they're masons are actually architects- Mm ... and AI's gonna f- They just don't have a

Hala: chance yet. Yeah.

GaryVee: Th- they haven't been forced to. Mm. They're complacent

Hala: Yeah

GaryVee: Not a chance. They've had a chance. There's freedom in the world.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: They've been complacent. Mm. They've made 100K or 80K or 50K or even 200K on just doing the task that other people have thought up or dreamed up or strategized. As that becomes less valuable, they're gonna get affected. But I'm excited because I think a lot of them have the capacity, they just have not been challenged.

Hala: Mm. When I was thinking about this architect mason, something that I was thinking about was there, there might be some mason [00:16:00] work in terms of the infrastructure that supports AI. Sure. So, like electricians.

GaryVee: Yes. That for sure. In fact, the, the, the real, like, to your point, the, the, the, um, specific example of masonry, like actual hands- Yeah

not like, like yeah, the electricians are a huge winner. Um, framework, like, like data center buildings, like actual masons and-

Hala: Yeah ...

GaryVee: you know, like carpenters. Yeah, there'll be some winners, but they'll be short-lived.

Hala: Yeah, eventually- There'll be enough scale ... robots will take over. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I wanna do, like, a fun little quick fire on AI predictions.

You are so good at predictions.

GaryVee: I, I would say I'm good at observations.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: Just to, like, put it, like even- Okay ... you'll watch me right now, if I, if you actually force me right now to predict, you'll see that it's not that I'm good at predicting, it's that I watch everything quite well. Mm-hmm. I'm a very good social anthropologist, and so I see things early, and I'm good at projecting w- how they will mature-

Hala: Yeah

GaryVee: like [00:17:00] over time, more than like Nostradamus and like, "This is gonna happen in the future." Yeah. But anyway, nonetheless.

Hala: Okay. I'm gonna just say one word, and then you just tell me, like, what are your thoughts like.

GaryVee: Okay.

Hala: 10 years from the future, where are we at? Okay. Preferences.

GaryVee: A lot of them will be set for you in the future and executed without you having to do it.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: AKA agentic agents that are doing a lot of purchasing and task work for you once you set it. So your preferences will become more important in the upfront and easier to execute on the backend.

Hala: Mm. Materialism.

GaryVee: I hope it declines.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: Why? I think, uh, I think it, I think we're in a, I think a lot of the Gary Vee work I'm doing right now publicly is to get people out of materialism.

Yeah. I think it's creating too much envy. I think we're incredibly shallow right now as a human race. Um, I think we value the wrong things. We v- we value optics versus truth. Um, we're [00:18:00] way too caught up in keeping up with the Joneses. Yep. We're in full high school dynamics as grownups. You know, I, I really, I really struggle with materialism as a proxy to your self-worth.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And I hope it declines.

Hala: Love and relationships.

GaryVee: I think they'll roughly be in the same place.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: You know, like I, you know, I think more people will, you know, my, probably my... I would say relationships I think in 10 years will have a healthier balance of proactive couples therapy. Mm-hmm. I think the stigma of therapy w- is continuously going away.

Yep. So maybe in 10 years every couple, even if their relationship's going great, are doing therapy maintenance.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: So that would be, I think we'll be in a better communication place. I feel like we're heading in the right direction. Even though s- there's a lot of things that concern me societally in the macro, one of the things that has me very optimistic is I think people are being more thoughtful of their communication and of their therapy.

And so I think we'll have more healthy relationships, and I think, I think we could [00:19:00] see a decline in divorce in 10 years- Mm ... because we've got more vulnerability and more communication, which I think people, um, should be leaning in more into.

Hala: You don't see us marrying AI robots in 10 years?

GaryVee: No, I like that.

I, I do. I do actually. I, I do believe that people are gonna have meaningful relationships with AI. I know that's gonna really trigger a lot of people. I'm not advocating for it. It doesn't, that doesn't excite me. Mm. It's a matter of fact-ism for me. Yeah. I just think it's going to be that way. And so like that Megan Fox movie, like, you know, people having relationships now with their- Yeah

AI agents verbally, I think that, I think as robotics grow, as robots grow in society, yeah, I think you're gonna get to a place in 20 years, not maybe 10- Mm-hmm ... but in 20 years that are probably gonna freak out and disgust a lot of people. Yeah. But I just kind of feel like it is. And, um, you know, even for me, who's very adaptable and very non-judgy, like, you know, it's, it's definitely, like, a [00:20:00] real brain fuck to think about, like, my granddaughter dating an 18-year-old AI robot.

But do I think it's out of the question? No. And do I think it's even probable? Yes.

Hala: It feels like it's gonna be like interracial marriage. That's right. Like, it was so taboo- That's exactly ... and then, like, 20 years after

GaryVee: the fact- Well, that was... I wish it was only 20 years. It took hundreds of years-

Hala: Yeah ...

GaryVee: for people to get religious and interracial, uh, marriages to where we are today, and we're still not in a great place.

Yeah. Plenty of people- Yeah ... have all sorts of negative feelings about things like that. I think this will be a big one. Mm. I think humans versus robots. In fact, I think that robots and AI could actually bring the human race together. I think if you're someone who's racist, sexist- Yeah ... um, very against interracial work, I think this one's gonna be so much bigger that you might give a pass-

Hala: Exactly

to

GaryVee: all

Hala: the- You might be like- Yeah ... well, you're actually human. Yeah. Now we have humans- Yeah, I- ... versus robots ...

GaryVee: yeah, I really think that's right. Yeah. I really... I could see that being a, in a hundred-year window- Totally ... how society plays out.

Hala: Okay, taste[00:21:00]

GaryVee: That's a great question. I think taste will be p-p- will pull from opposite dir-directions. I think taste will rise in a lot of ways because technology will commoditize a lot of things. But I also think some of the bullshit, like a lot of people use ta-taste to weaponize that they're better than.

Hala: Yep.

GaryVee: Like, "I've got taste, you don't."

Mm-hmm. And a lot of people fall for that. Um, and I think, um, people's self-esteem potentially will grow in the next decade as a counter to the lack of it right now, and so they will also call bullshit on taste makers.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Um, but I also think, I could see it really being very opposite, calling bullshit on day-to-day taste makers, but valuing real taste makers even more than we do today.

Hala: Yeah, because there's so much, like, AI slop.

GaryVee: Correct. Correct.

Hala: Yeah. Purpose. Uh,

GaryVee: I think purpose will be continued to be confused. I think it'll be in the same place in 10 years. I think people are incredibly confused about their purpose.

Hala: [00:22:00] Okay.

GaryVee: I think people lack humility and simplicity to be able to... I don't believe you can open purpose's door-

Hala: Mm-hmm

GaryVee: until you fully fall in love with humility.

Hala: Hmm. What do you mean by that?

GaryVee: I think purpose is a big deal. And I think purpose requires selflessness.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: I think people throw around the word purpose to justify their selfishness.

Hala: Yeah. Like, this is the business that I want- Uh-huh ... because I wanna make- Uh-huh ... a million entrepreneurs.

Uh-huh. Yeah.

GaryVee: I think they use it as bullshit a lot. Yeah. As a facade, as a manipulation. My d- personal, one man's humble definition of purpose is that it's gotta be very big.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And you gotta, like, really... You know, my purpose is to eradicate fear in the world.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: That's way bigger than-

Hala: That is big ...

GaryVee: my... It shows up in my selfish work.

Mm-hmm. V Friends, if you look at those characters, is very trying to go at that. But somewhere in my 40s I realized that that was my purpose. Yeah. And I think it... I got very fortunate. I had such an incredible mother.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: That humility [00:23:00] has been such a foundational part of my life. Even though I have so much bravado and, you know, I'm me, I'm Gary Vee.

But, like, people that really know me, and even in my content and even who I've showed up as the last 20 years public, I think if someone like yourself who, like, is, like, does homework, like, every time... This is the second time we've been together. Like, you, you were... Most people are not very prepared when I do a podcast.

Mm. You're always very prepared.

Hala: Thank you.

GaryVee: So that means you, like, go deeper in your work. So I, I assume, given what you do for a living, and given, you know, us doing this twice, like, you know my stuff better than most people.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Or at least in a group of people that know it. And I think for you it's more obvious, the humility and the stuff, because you've spent the hours watching it-

Hala: Yeah

GaryVee: with like, for a reason.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: But I think the people that really know me, my family and friends, they know it's my biggest pillar.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And I don't think gen pop knows that. I don't think that's the word cloud that most people think- Oh, totally ... when they think Gary Vee. But I think because I have that, it was easier for me to open the door of purpose.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

GaryVee: So [00:24:00] m- my worry is that society will not be in a more humble place in a decade, thus rendering purpose in the same general place that it is now. Yeah. Which is very few find it for real.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

GaryVee: And ev- even fewer communicate it in a way that- allows others to find theirs.

Hala: So I wasn't gonna bring this up, but since you brought it up about your mother, uh, I feel very connected to the fact that you've said in your work that almost everything you do is, like, because you're, you had such a good mom.

GaryVee: Yeah.

Hala: And I feel very similar about my dad.

GaryVee: That's amazing.

Hala: So I, I'm Palestinian. Yes. My dad grew up in Palestine.

GaryVee: Yes.

Hala: He became... He, like, grew up in poverty, like, war situation. He became a doctor, a surgeon, chief of surgery- That's incredible ... had a medical center, brought us to America. I, I was born in America.

I'm the last of four kids.

GaryVee: Were your, your three siblings born?

Hala: Uh, yeah, they were born in America, too. But, like, basically- Oh, all of you were. All of you ... all of us were. But, like, my parents, like, my dad, you know, brought us here. Yeah. Pulled his whole family out here. Family over. Yeah. He, he got 10,000 Palestinian [00:25:00] kids scholarships.

Like, he was so generous, so amazing, and I literally feel like the reason why I wanna be successful is 'cause, like- You wanna make him proud ... I just wanna be an imp- Yeah ... be impactful like my dad. Like dad, yeah. Any time I get an award, I'm like, "Oh, thanks, Dad." Like, I literally feel- I'm the same ... like I'm just an extension of my dad.

And so-

GaryVee: Yeah, we're two peas in a- we have a real kinship. Yeah. We're both like the kids when they're little do this. Like, we're the same.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Like, I am... It's why, it's why I'm humble. When everyone's like, "You're the GOAT," or all the... You know, I live a l- you do, you live a version of this. You know, like, I get flowers 24 hours a day.

I just kind of passed them to Tamara.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And Sasha. My dad did a lot of great things for me as well. Obviously, my mom was- And my mom was great too, yeah ... so impactful. Um, but yeah, I don't think I'm big shit, and, and on top of that, in moments where I do feel pretty great, I'm like, eh. Like, you know, I'm the p- my mom was the p- like, I'm the pottery.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: I didn't make the pottery, I'm the pottery.

Hala: [00:26:00] Yeah. I'm wondering, like, what is the lesson? The reason why I didn't bring it up, 'cause I was like, well, what lesson are we trying to teach with this? Well,

GaryVee: I think it teaches people, like, hey, like, don't take yourself... Like, have the right relationship with yourself.

Let's go the other way.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Let's a- you want a lesson? Yeah. You wanna really help someone right now? Mm-hmm. Watch this. Hey, real talk, y'all. If you think you're a piece of shit, like you have very low self-esteem, like you think you always fuck things up, you're selfish, you're narcissistic, you're a mess, it's not all you.

Yeah. Someone put that in you.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: And you're capable of taking it out of you.

Hala: Mm. Fuck your grandparents.

GaryVee: God, you really know my shit. I'm really, I'm very humbled. Thank you. Yeah. Fuck your grandparents, everyone who doesn't know what she's referring to 'cause I only said it once on stage and haven't made a lot of content on it.

Mentioned it maybe one or two other times. So many of you are angry at your parents, and you should know better because you knew your grandparents and you know your grandma fucked up your mom. So if you're so mad at your mom- ... why are you giving a pass to [00:27:00] Granny?

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: You know? And then by the way, as someone who knew his great-grandmother, you know, my father, I, you know, I've openly talked about and definitely with him, like, there's certain things I don't love about the way he rolls, but I had the great luxury of knowing my grandma, and she was a worse version of it than my dad.

May she rest in peace. Why I have love for Grandma Esther is Grandma Anya, Great-Grandma Anya, I knew her because I was born in the old country. Mm. I was born in the USSR. My siblings were born here, but I came here and I came here with my parents, my grandma, and my great-grandparents. Mm.

Hala: Wow.

GaryVee: And I spent time with my great-grandparents, and I know that my Grandma Esther, she had her mother, and Grandma Anya, she was rough, bro.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: But guess what? I'm not even mad at Grandma Anya. Even though I don't know Grandma Anya's parents, I surely know how this game's played out. So the lesson in giving all the flowers to your parents, you and I are incredibly fortunate [00:28:00] because we have the ability to give, you know, the flowers- Yeah ... to our parents, and we don't take on the accolades.

The lesson to everyone who's hurting right now is do not take on your pain as you suck.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: Pay attention to your environment and who raised you and how it went down. Now, don't use that as excuses.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Start to be a man or woman. You know, look, our parents did a great job, but the reason I'm sure, I can't speak for y- your- Yeah

s- family situation, but when I... My mom and dad are overly embarrassed on how much love I give them publicly because they're like, "There was a... Yeah, we did a great job. We're proud of what we did, but you do so many things that we didn't teach you- Yeah ... and things that we learned from you and you've taught us, and you picked this up on along the way, and that's you, bro."

And there's the reverse for someone right now who, yes, their parents fucked it up, but they can be the one to change it.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

GaryVee: And so that's the lesson.

Hala: And I, I love, like, what you're, what you're saying in terms of, like, [00:29:00] it's like forgive your parents 'cause of your grandparents, forgive your grandparents 'cause your great, and then e- eventually you're like, "Just forgive."

GaryVee: That.

Hala: You know?

GaryVee: So gl-

Hala: And just let

GaryVee: go. Hala, thank you so much. Actually, one of the... You know, I'm known for many things. You know, like, people make fun of me saying you're young when you're 55, or I'm known for being good at predictions or being high energy and, like, ridiculous and silly and, you know, um, hard work, b- accountability.

Like, the things I'm known for. One thing I'm not known for is the champion of forgiveness, but I'm about to be. Mm. One of the things I've made a real conscious effort with is I have a character in V Friends called Forgiving Horned Frog, and I'm developing his origin story. I'm incredibly... One thing that people don't know anything about me yet is that I have a lot of Stan Lee and Walt Disney in me.

Mm. I'm incredibly creative from, like, a fantasy world, George Lucas. So I'm gonna start showing that part of me in this next chapter.

Hala: Nice.

GaryVee: You know, Train knows it 'cause he sits and films all my creative sessions for [00:30:00] three days at my parents' house with my comic book team where I literally invent these stories.

Mm. Stories, like, invent. I've decided that I'm gonna really focus on forgiving Hornfrog- Mm ... 'cause I want forgiveness to be cool.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: I am very passionate about forgiveness. I believe forgiveness is the ultimate strength.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: I believe most people right now don't wanna forgive people 'cause they think it's a pass for the other person that did wrong- Yeah

without realizing it's the freedom executor of them.

Hala: Yes.

GaryVee: It's getting that pain out finally.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: They don't see it. Yeah. It's reverse. Exactly. They think it's good for someone that did horribly- It actually

Hala: holds them back.

GaryVee: Correct. So I, I plan on doing a lot of content on forgiveness. I admire people that are able to forgive in the face of clear-

Hala: Mm

GaryVee: very negative things that that person did to them. I admire that person.

Hala: Yeah. And I love what you're doing with VeeFriends. To me, this is, like, your legacy to make sure that, like, even when you're gone, like, children- Correct ... are gonna grow [00:31:00] up- Correct ... with the right moral frame.

GaryVee: In the biggest way. Thank you.

It's, it... When I die, please, God, be another 50 years. As long as I can make it to 85 h- and higher, if, as long as I have 35 years- 120 at least. Yeah, I want, I want 90- I'm very big on getting to 99 or 100. Um, but if I can get to 85, God willing, um, uh, I do believe that when the announcement comes out, it will say, "Vee F- VeeFriends creator Gary Vaynerchuk has died- Mm

at the age of 87." Like, as long as I get to 85, I get 35 years of building this intellectual property, I think I'm gonna build a big-ass fucking thing.

Hala: Mm, I love it. I'm excited to see. Okay, let's move on to social media. So the last time we spent, like, an hour just talking about social graph to interest- Yes

graph, and it was kinda like it was happening, but now we're really living in it. And I think for me, one of the things that's really changed in terms of the way that we operate at YAP Media is the publishing process.

GaryVee: [00:32:00] Yes.

Hala: It is totally different. It used to be that, like, we really polish, you know, a reel.

We put B-roll and we, the team picks it manually and- Yep ... then we put it up, and it flops or it doesn't, and we move on.

GaryVee: Yep.

Hala: How, h- talk to us about the new way that we should think about the publishing process.

GaryVee: Well, I can speak for my Gary Vee brand.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Today, Gary, @garyvee, @ f- a new handle I stood up this weekend, @funnyvee, @ F-U-N-N-Y-V-E-E.

Um, G- @garytheoperator, you know, at all these 100-plus handles I have across these 10 platforms, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Snapchat Spotlight, um, we are posting anywhere between 500 and 1,000 pieces of content a day.

Hala: Wow

GaryVee: A day

Hala: 500 a day? I thought it was a week. Damn.

GaryVee: It was a week. It was a week. This 500 a day is probably a 60-day phenomenon.

Hala: Mm-hmm. [00:33:00]

GaryVee: We've honest our... Back to what I said earlier, my team has not gotten smaller. My team has gotten wildly more efficient- Yeah ... with AI. You know, between my open clause and between all the... Well, we basically, we will fully ingest this entire video.

Hala: Yep.

GaryVee: And it will go through a process of clipping. The AI will figure it out.

You know, the team will do the 15% strategy up front, the AI will do 80% of the manual work, and the team will do the last 5% on post-editing-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

GaryVee: you know, what the AI created off of the rules we gave it through our lenses- Yep ... which we call our tasks. And, um, that's where we're at.

Hala: So, uh, I love this quote from you.

It's like, "The, the in- the intoxication of the merit of a post."

GaryVee: Yes.

Hala: H- help us, like, take this, take us through this idea.

GaryVee: How do you think of it? I think that- When I, when I say that, when you hear it out, how do you think of it?

Hala: The fact that you could be just [00:34:00] starting-

GaryVee: Yep ...

Hala: no experience- Yep ... never done this before-

GaryVee: That's right

Hala: you can compete with somebody who's been doing it for 30 years and who has a million fo- That's right ... like, a million, two million followers, and you can go viral today- Yep ... and make up for all that lost time.

GaryVee: That's right. And viral be- is just the beginning of the process. A lot of people go viral and nothing happens.

It's that that viral post or that great post can start the process of you getting really serious about this and going. Let's use us. When did you start, kind of- gaining traction publicly. What year?

Hala: Eight years ago. Great 2018.

GaryVee: 2018. I started gaining traction publicly in 2007.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: Okay? I started Wine Library TV in '06.

I would say '07 is when I got traction. So let's talk about us. I've had traction for 19 years. You've had traction for eight years. And Carol, or Jerome, or Wakeel, or Ricardo, or Sally Pants McGee, right now, day one-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

GaryVee: can literally get bigger than both of us in the public domain.

Hala: Yeah, and it's happened.

GaryVee: In the, in the... Of course, in a much faster time, and I [00:35:00] think that's intoxicating, and it should motivate and inspire everyone to get off their ass, get over themselves with their insecurities- Mm-hmm ... whether it's visual, whether it's emotional, whe- you know, so many people don't make content 'cause they don't like the way they look.

So many people don't make content because they're insecure and they think everyone's gonna think they're dumb or silly. A lot of people are too cool for school. They wanna make content about Star Wars, but they're like a heartthrob, and they don't wanna go to the real place. Mm. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think it's, there's never been more merit, never more opportunity, never an easier way to make $100,000 a year than today.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Um, and that is remarkable. But it's not just one viral post, right? Yeah, you gotta be consistent. You could get four million views. Yeah, you have to be incredibly consistent, as you know, as I know. There's been people that have had flash in the pans.

Hala: Yep.

GaryVee: There's people that get hotter later. You know, you look at Mel Robbins' career.

Yep. I've been there the whole time with her. You know, I watched her get a little bump, then get cold. Yeah, [00:36:00] now she's- Then, then have a cha- Last two years- Yeah, exactly ... blew up. And so, like, that's fun. That's int- you know, that's... I mean, I, l- I'll be very honest with you, I myself feel like 2027 is gonna be a huge year for me.

I am focused- Mm ... unlike I have... I've not been focused on my personal brand for seven years. I would say since COVID- Yeah ... I've been more focused on my businesses than my personal brand.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: I am looking to get more focused on my personal brand in '27-

Hala: Yeah ... '

GaryVee: cause I feel like I've got really good foundations on the business.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And I plan on being hotter than ever next year.

Hala: Yeah. Something that I don't hear you talk about when it comes to, like, merit of a post is trial reels.

GaryVee: Yes.

Hala: Now, I, um, I have a really, I'm one of the biggest influencers on LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. That's where I started. I'm big on podcasts. I really started growing my YouTube the last couple years.

Mm-hmm. It's doing really well. But Instagram has been so hard for me. Yeah. And it's 'cause it's a v- I have a very old account. I started it so long ago, and there's all this- That's not the reason ... baggage.

GaryVee: That's not true.

Hala: Well, let, let me [00:37:00] try to explain. Yeah. So I feel like my feed has... I'm also Palestinian, so I've been shadow banned before and stuff.

So it's like, I feel like my feed has, has baggage. However, I've started leaning into trial reels, and we're skyrocketing. Like, I, I got 20,000 followers in two weeks. Okay, so- And we're getting millions of views- So- ... through trial reels ...

GaryVee: so.

Hala: Yes.

GaryVee: You've answered my question. It's not because it's an old account.

It's not 'cause it's baggage. It's not 'cause you're Palestinian. I'm being dead fucking serious with you. It's because you weren't good enough, and now you're getting better.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Trial reels is... I mean, I don't talk about it 'cause I'm like, it's like my... It's almost like oxygen. Yeah. Of course trial reels.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Of course make as much content as possible. You've become a better strategist- miss.

Hala: Yes.

GaryVee: Is it lost on you that Palestinian and Israeli things are hotter and more political than ever now? It's not. It's not lost on me. So, so then what happened 19 months ago when it was not as s- you've gotten better as an executor, and that's why you're growing.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: [00:38:00] Instagram is, you know, every platform's different. You- when did you get serious about LinkedIn?

Hala: Eight years ago.

GaryVee: No shit you did better on LinkedIn. Yeah. You got in early. You know, as also one of the most followed people on LinkedIn, you, you understood there was something there. People still listening don't think LinkedIn's like the other social networks.

Yeah. So you out-flanked everyone. You weren't out-flanking people on Instagram.

Hala: Exactly, yeah. I couldn't compete.

GaryVee: So it, you know, people would love to come up with any excuse, you know, like whether it's political, whether it's like, oh, it's an old account so the algo's fucked up. Yeah. It's that you're not good enough.

Hala: Yeah. And- No, I agree. You're right ...

GaryVee: I know I'm right ...

Hala: we've gotten so much better. That's it. And AI is better at picking hooks than we are- No shit ... and we don't have to overproduce. That's it. We just test it and keep-

GaryVee: And so- ...

Hala: keep milking

GaryVee: it ... you've become a better operator- Mm ... and that's why it's happening.

And now what I want for you, 'cause I'd love for you to win, is I want you to be that same person on Snapchat Spotlight.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: And I want you to be that same person on Facebook Classic. Mm. And I want you to be that same person on Threads, and I want you to be that [00:39:00] same person on Twitter. I am one of the only people on Earth, on Earth, that has over a million followers on all 10 platforms.

In fact, I think I'm one of, like, five.

Hala: Yeah, I- not many

GaryVee: people ... because most people don't go as far from LinkedIn to Snapchat and everything in between. I mean, most people don't even know what Snapchat Spotlight is.

Hala: Yeah. I'm, I'm, I've heard of it, but not really.

GaryVee: And so that's what keeps me at the top of the game.

It's not because I was there first. It's not because of momentum. It's because I'm a psycho.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: I wanna be the best in the world at making content for every platform, and that's that.

Hala: I wanna go so deep on you, but we don't have so much time. How much we have, 10 more minutes?

GaryVee: Yep.

Hala: Okay. All right, then I'm just moving straight to my last segment.

Um, and, you know, hopefully another time we can go deeper- Yeah, third t- third time's a charm ... on

GaryVee: social,

Hala: social media. All right, so, um, I wanna talk about your hard lines. One of the things that I love about you is that you've got really consistent messaging. When I'm doing, like, courses and I'm talking about, you know, we know Gary Vee stands for kindness.

Yep. Like, you are so consistent about your [00:40:00] messaging. So it's 2026, AI has taken over, and I want you to either defend your hard lines or let me know if it's not a hard line anymore. Okay. Does that

GaryVee: sound good? Sounds fun.

Hala: Okay. Hard line, stop giving a fuck about what other people think. But sometimes people are right.

Feedback is important. Customer feedback is important. Employee feedback is important. And you also talk about humility, so is this still a hard line for you?

GaryVee: It's a hard line. To your point, you added the nuances of a very blanket statement. In my content I go deeper in talking about adaptability and never getting high on your own supply and humility.

I'm talking about self-worth Getting feedback, I only listen to consumer feedback.

Hala: Hmm. You've got AI, uh- You

GaryVee: know, I'm

Hala: on- ... distilling all your comments, right?

GaryVee: I'm only, only counter-punching to the reality of the consumer temperament. So stop giving a fuck. To me, giving a fuck is, like, your identity, your self-worth.

Like, if you're delusional about your product and no one's buying it, you [00:41:00] will go out of business. Mm. So that is the nuance.

Hala: Mm. Okay, the next hard line. If you're 36, you're a fucking child.

GaryVee: Hard line.

Hala: But people come with different baggage, right? Sure. Some people have sick parents. Of course, yes. Some people have debts.

Yes. Some people are married. So is 36 r- like, I feel like this line is getting harder for you.

GaryVee: No, it's getting easier for me. You're right.

Hala: No, I mean, like, in terms of, like, you... You're putting a harder- Oh,

GaryVee: yeah. Yeah ... a deeper

Hala: line in the sand. I am,

GaryVee: I, I am because here's why. With modern health and with AI health, like, news aler- and with, with GLP-3s coming.

Do you know what statins did to the world, Hala?

Hala: Not really.

GaryVee: Do you know what a statin is?

Hala: For y- for your heart?

GaryVee: Yeah.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Like, I, I am in... I'm very healthy. Right now, and I've gotten much healthier. You look at my old content, a little chubby. You know, I've gotten healthier. I, I have very... I spend a lot of money on my health.

I'm not, like, crazy, like, like, trying to do all this hacking, but I'm, I'm thoughtful about it. Yeah. Um, I'm very healthy right now. However, naturally genetically, my [00:42:00] LDL is high.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: Like, and I have, like, a statin is really helping me, and I'm so fortunate that my grandfather died of a heart attack, I have a lot of his genetics on my mom's side, like, that I even know, let alone have something to defend it.

Yeah. If people understood what's going on with AI medicine and with this whole GLP-3. Now, I'm not promoting GLP-1s or 3s, but if this goes the way of statin, d- do you understand what weight does to people's health? This is a re- and then they're also studying all these other benefits. Like, this is a remarkable opportunity.

I'm hopeful. Now, look, five years from now, something may pop up where it's a negative benefit. I don't know. Yeah. I'm definitely not a scientist or a medical professional. Here's where I'm going with hard line on 36. I believe if you're 36 today, you're gonna live to 100. Mm. Most people. Sure, someone could die of a stroke.

And to your point, of course people have sick parents. Here's where the confusion is. When I say 36, you're a baby, I'm not saying to be complacent.

Hala: Yeah, or, like, don't work [00:43:00] or-

GaryVee: Or, like, chill on the couch. Yeah. I'm the most intense fucker you know. I'm working hardcore all the time. I'm talking about don't use your age as your jail-

Hala: Mm

GaryVee: to become cynical and defeated.

Hala: Yeah. So true.

GaryVee: I mean, a- anyone who's watched my content in, in any level of depth knows I'm not saying be lazy and be delusional and be complacent. I'm saying do not weaponize age as a mechanism to not do work.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: People say they're finished 'cause they're lazy.

Hala: Yep.

GaryVee: Not the other way around.

Hala: I totally

GaryVee: agree. People are completely convoluting what I'm saying for their benefit of non-action.

Hala: Mm. Okay, next hard line. This one I think you might change.

GaryVee: Okay.

Hala: Document, don't create. Now, with, with AI, everybody can make unlimited content. It's getting easier to, to, to do content. Packaging matters so much, your thumbnail and your hook and all that.

So is it really document- [00:44:00]

GaryVee: Hard line, document, don't create. Now, here's why.

Hala: Okay.

GaryVee: It's also nuanced. When I said that saying in my office that went such a ballistic viral for me and helped so many-

Hala: Mm-hmm ...

GaryVee: I was making a point that I continue to make today. A lot of people don't know what to make, but if you just film everything and then clip it, you could be some of the most famous people in the world.

Live streamers-

Hala: Yeah ...

GaryVee: that clip all day are just documenting, don't create. Now, it was in counter to everyone doing overanalyzing create.

Hala: Yes.

GaryVee: The, the answer is document. To your point, I'll tweak it so it's very clear to everyone.

Hala: Yes.

GaryVee: Document and create.

Hala: Mm-hmm.

GaryVee: But at the time I said, "Document, don't create," everyone was just creating-

Hala: Yeah

GaryVee: and spending a lot of money, time, and effort to miss 99% of the time.

Hala: Yeah. So- Now, yeah, long form, uh, the way that I think about long form has, like, completely changed, where now, like even in this interview, I'm, like, trying to bake in viral moments- Correct ... trying to bake in the hooks- That, by the way, that [00:45:00] was-

and being intentional ...

GaryVee: that was what I, that is the definition of document, don't create. Do long form content for short form content, and batter it into the production.

Hala: Mm. Okay. Hard line, quantity is not debatable.

GaryVee: That's the only one that no one could argue with, right? Quantity is not debatable. You either make 900 pieces of content or you don't.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: Everybody tried to demonize my quantity argument over the last decade, only to everyone now being there.

Hala: But with A- with AI, like, with everybody being able to do it, do you feel like there'll be- So what's the alternative, Paula? ... differentiation in terms of- Paula, listen- ... like, just better taste or?

GaryVee: Listen to what you're saying.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: You've just told me you make more quantity

Hala: now. I'm just... I don't believe this. I'm trying to give other

GaryVee: people's

Hala: counter.

GaryVee: Oh, I understand. Well, people are li- like- Yeah ... I don't know, like, whatever anyone wants. Like- Yeah ... if they think that they're gonna be able to compete in the attention world with one piece of content, that's quality.

Yeah. 'Cause they said so. Mm-hmm. Knock yourself out.

Hala: Yeah. Okay. Uh, hard line, wanna be happy? Realize that everything is your fault. [00:46:00]

GaryVee: Look, this is a dangerous one. Requires a nuance. When sometimes people hear that, they get caught because a lot of people have low self-esteem, and they are blaming themselves, and they think they understand what I'm saying, and what it's doing is driving them into deeper depression and, and anxiety.

Here's what I'm saying. Accountability is different than shitting on yourself. Your fault because you're capable of getting out of it. You're deciding... So I really struggle with politics because I think both sides are doing the same thing. I think they're all just scaring people. All we do is scare people.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Sc- scared of big corporations and billionaires, scared of immigrants. It's all... If it's the left or the right, it's the same thing, the issue with poli- like, it's all the same thing. Yeah. Everyone's scaring everyone

I just think a lot of people don't realize that they're capable. And so once you say, "I'm not making money, not because immigrants are taking my job, not 'cause billionaires aren't paying taxes, but because I..." [00:47:00] Similar to why you were not winning on Instagram. You weren't good enough yet.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: I'm not winning 'cause I'm not good enough yet, and I'm gonna start surrounding myself with more optimistic people.

I'm gonna stop consuming bullshit. I'm gonna start going to the gym, therapy, listening to positive podcasts like this, uh, putting in more effort. Not play video games for nine hours, maybe four hours, so I have five hours to work. Mm. Like, when you start going through that, you truly get out. That is real life.

This is not something I made up. This is the history of man. Sorry, that's the rules of society. I didn't make them up. I'm not fucking God. Go fucking work. Mm. Go fucking have joy. Go find balance. Go fucking start picking optimism instead of cynicism.

Hala: Mm. Okay. Since we, we just have a couple minutes left, so I wanna just leave you with, uh, one or two last questions.

So something that really inspired me, and I hope to be true, is that you've said that you believe that, like, kindness is going to be taking over.

GaryVee: Yes.

Hala: Why do you feel that way?

GaryVee: I [00:48:00] believe society goes in circles. I think as, you can look as recently as the 1960s. If you look at the '60s in America, very contentious, similar to this.

Martin Luther King, murdered. Malcolm X, murdered. Robert Kennedy, murdered. JFK, murdered. Riots, tension, racial issues. Blah. Um, and then you look at the late '70s, disco. You look at the '80s, fun, good times, Reagan, right? I don't believe that humans can sustain anger forever.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: I would already see it. You may know this, you may know this, like you probably have people in your families that are like less political than they were four year- they're tired.

Hala: Yep.

GaryVee: You can't hate forever.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: So I think we've had a very hateful, judgmental, envious, jealous era, and I actually believe, and it doesn't seem like that right now, especially if you're Jewish or Palestinian, or if you're extreme left or right in America, it doesn't feel like it right this second. [00:49:00] Yeah.

But I am who I am, and I watch everything, and I just have a funny feeling we're in the earliest days of five to 10 years from now being a little bit more carefree, just a little lighter, um, in fif- in five, 10, 15 years than we are today, and that excites me. And in that lightness, since hate just had a lead role, I believe love is gonna have a lead role.

Mm. And I believe people will be a little more kind. And I'm, by the way, I see it.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: I see it. I know a lot don't.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And I know a lot of people right now are kicking the ground and like, "Gary, fuck..." I'm telling you, we're fatiguing a little bit collectively. Yeah. Some people are more hateful. Some, some people are listening right now and being like, "Gary, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"All my relatives are more psycho." Respect. I'm not talking about four people. I'm talking about 8.3 billion people. Mm. I sense a little early cracks. You know why I sense this? 'Cause I am a champion and a cheerleader [00:50:00] for it, and I can feel the difference of the temperament in my interactions behind the scenes.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: My DMs, my emails. I smell it- You know why?

Hala: Why?

GaryVee: Hate is a losing game in the end.

Hala: Mm. I hope it's true.

GaryVee: It is true. It's why we're still here.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: The atomic bomb was invented in the fucking '40s and '50s. It has been 80 years since humans have had bombs that could wipe everybody off the face of the earth.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: We're here.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: For all the setbacks, do you know how much better your life is than your great-grandmother?

Hala: So much better.

GaryVee: Do you understand, as a woman of color- ... in the United States- Yeah ... like, do you understand your opportunities? You're a fucking gangster.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: Like, come on, man. Now, there's stuff that's bad.

I, we don't have to go very far. Yeah. Like w- Palestine, Ukraine and fucking Russ- I mean, there's people... But, but there's, there's people dying from all sorts of things. There's people dying from diseases right now that are gonna be eradicated in 24 months 'cause of AI.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: There's so much good.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: And there's [00:51:00] always bad.

That is life, but if you choose to take a real zoom out and you do what I do for a living, watch the whole world at once, there's some early cracks for some good stuff.

Hala: Amazing. Okay, last question, and be super quick about it, 'cause we gotta go. Um, for all the entrepreneurs tuning in, hopefully I get to interview you again next year, what should they do in the next year?

GaryVee: Number one thing I want every entrepreneur to look into is live shopping.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: I believe where social media was in 2010 is where live shopping is right now. That you came along later, eight years later, I said 2010-

Hala: Yeah ...

GaryVee: that you came along eight years later and still had plenty of time to have your dreams be built on top of social media, I believe live shopping.

You might have been destined to be a social media creator. I don't know how good you are at selling.

Hala: I'm so good at s- I

GaryVee: think so. I think so. I'm

Hala: really good at selling.

GaryVee: I actually could counter and tell you that I think you're more likely to make your financial dreams happen as a live [00:52:00] selling personality than as a social media personality.

Mm. And there's 18-year-old you right now who hasn't started. So live social selling. If you don't know what it is, just go ChatGPT or Google it. Live social selling. Every entrepreneur that has sales DNA should contemplate going live on TikTok, whatnot, eBay Live, Fanatics Live, and start selling live something.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: A shoe, an, you know, underwear, I don't fucking care, a donut. Um, live sh- live selling is the biggest opportunity. Now, the other big opportunity for someone like you, you, every morning or evening, should go live on TikTok for an hour- Mm-hmm ... because the For You page just sends you n- new people to you.

Hala: Mm.

GaryVee: So everybody should be taking advantage of the TikTok FYP-

Hala: Yep ...

GaryVee: and going live for an hour and talking to the world.

Hala: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I have so many follow-up questions, but Gary, I wanna be respectful of your time. Thank you. This was an [00:53:00] incredible conversation. Thank you so much for joining us on Young and Profiting podcast.

GaryVee: Thanks, Hala.

Hala: Great job.

GaryVee: Great job. This was a good one.

Hala: Yeah.

GaryVee: I thought it was good. Thank you. Thank you. Continued success. Great to see you again. Thank you so much.

Hala: Can we get one picture? Yes.

Okay, it's gotta go. Take care. Thank you so much.

GaryVee: Great to see you. Take care. Thank you so much

It was really good

Short, shorter than short

Hala Taha: [00:00:00] Abed, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast. Hi,

Abed Hamdan: Hala. Thanks for having me.

Hala Taha: Of course. I am really looking forward to having this conversation about cybersecurity. I feel like all business owners need to protect their businesses, and with AI, cybersecurity is becoming more important than ever. But let's start at the very basics.

For the entrepreneurs tuning in, what is something that you think they fundament- fundamentally don't understand about cybersecurity?

Abed Hamdan: Entrepreneurs usually make, I think, a couple assumptions about cybersecurity. I think first, the, the first assumption they make is about the attacker. So they think the hacker is this person in a hoodie in some basement, or they- Mm-hmm

go the other extreme and they think the attacker is some really sophisticated, um, sort of spy agency or foreign government. And as a result of these two assumptions, they usually think, "Well, I'm an [00:01:00] entrepreneur. I run a small agency or run a small business. Why would anyone attack me?" And unfortunately, of the businesses that I helped, um, it's usually after the fact.

So they get attacked, and they really sometimes underestimate the consequences of some cyber attacks. Some of them, unfortunately, can be business-ending, or it can have- Mm ... such a large cost that it may even be cheaper to just s- um, shut the business down. Um, and this is huge everywhere across, from, like, small business to even medium-sized, and in some instances, even large businesses.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I always think of, like, really big companies like Meta getting hacked or Bank of America or something like this. But- Mm ... small businesses actually can be attractive targets. Why is that?

Abed Hamdan: 100%. In fact, uh, think about it. If, if you were a hacker, Halaf, let's say you've just learned how to hack and you wanna start, you know, legally hack, you naturally wouldn't- Mm-hmm

go after Meta because that's such a difficult [00:02:00] target. Um, they invest so much in cybersecurity. They're at the forefront of, of, of everything technology. However, when it comes to small businesses and entrepreneurs, usually, um, they're just focused on getting their product out. They're overworked and mos- in most instances, also underfunded.

So they can be, quote-unquote, "easier targets," but they also hold- Mm ... something really valuable. They hold what we refer to as, um, privately identifiable information, so that's- Mm ... something that we classify as a critical asset. For example, a lot of entrepreneurs will have something like a customer database where they have the names and last names and phone numbers- Yeah

and sometimes the addresses. This is extremely valuable because what attackers can do, they can get that information and sell it on the dark web. It's actually extremely valuable. So that's a really key critical asset that lots of small businesses have, and um, unfortunately, sometimes they don't have the knowledge or the resources to protect that.

The other thing, and [00:03:00] probably the more important- Mm-hmm ... thing that small businesses have is that, well, like I said earlier, it may be a lot harder to hack something like a big bank or something like Meta- Mm ... as you, um, alluded to. However, the way to get into those companies is usually you hack their suppliers.

So if that small business- Mm ... is a supplier for a bigger business, usually it's a lot easier to attack that small business and use it to pivot or use it to trust. So- If you can compromise the email account of a small business, well, you can start sending malicious stuff using their email address. In fact, that's how most big businesses get compromised, through their suppliers, and they're usually on the smaller side.

Hala Taha: So interesting. I never thought about that. So we not only have to worry about our own security, we have to worry about the security that our vendors are doing for their own companies, which is just so crazy to think about. What are the, what are the main ways that small businesses are compromised? So we just talked about vendors, uh, for bigger [00:04:00] enterprise businesses.

How about small businesses? What are the main ways that they're compromised?

Abed Hamdan: Hmm. So look, the way sort of hacking or compromise happen, uh, there are actually so, so many ways. Uh, most of them aren't even known, uh, to the public. They tend to be complicated. But the most common ways for, let's say, an attacker to gain foothold and tend to be the easiest way, um, it's what we refer to as social engineering.

This is where the attacker pretends to be someone that the business owner knows or pretends to, to give them something that they trust. So we really use the, the old age sort of trust relationship that we humans rely on. Mm-hmm. For example, as a small business, um, I could pretend to be one of their employees and send an email urgently say, "Hey, lost my account, urgent.

Please click on that link, and, um, help me out." So we apply time pressure. So we call that, um, social engineering or phishing, which falls under social engineering. Um, there are other- Hmm ... sinister ways as well, but it all goes, it all comes back to really [00:05:00] pretending to be someone else. Um, so fellow entrepreneurs and, and, and YouTubers, um, a really common recent one is actually pretending to be a brand and offering a brand deal.

Um- Yes.

Hala Taha: I get so many of those.

Abed Hamdan: I've even helped, like, cybersecurity, uh, professionals, uh, who got hacked this way, and that's not, no shade on them. This is, this is just a testament on how good some of those attacks are. They can really pretend to be a legitimate brand, and the website look exactly the same.

There might be just a slight variation on the URL, and sometimes it's something that your eye cannot see. So some of the alphabets, we can replace it with special characters, and it's really hard to detect. So that's a really common way. There are more and more ways, uh, for example, if you have physical access to the business, there are things you can install, but that's a whole other story.

But when it comes- Hmm ... to sort of the most common ones, um, it tends to be 100% social engineering.

Hala Taha: So let's really unpack this with [00:06:00] a real scenario, uh, or, like, a real example if you could really just walk us through. Let's say there's a company that has, like, 20, 30 employees. They're using the, the typical things: Slack, cloud storage, Zoom.

Uh, they might have vendors, s- different SaaS tools. Walk us through how they could get attacked and some of the things that could happen and how it could escalate.

Abed Hamdan: Yeah. I mean, just before I, I say anything, just disclaimer, hacking is illegal. What I'm about to say is for educational purposes, so please don't do it.

Uh, but hypothetically, if I was to attack, um, this imaginary business, the first step I would do is always reconnaissance. So I'll try to collect as many information as I can about that business. This includes their LinkedIn posts, how many people work there. I'll even draw like an org chart, see who's who, who's the employee, go on Instagram.

They usually share everything. So I'll get a list of the individuals who work there, but more [00:07:00] importantly, I'll get a list of the technologies that they use and also the product that they have. So once I get a list of that, um, the next step would be I'll start to craft things that they trust. I'm gonna social engineer my way there because it's a lot easier for me, like I said, to get an employee to do something for me as opposed to me trying to hack Microsoft and get inside their email.

So what I will do is I'll try to, um, mimic what their email looks like, and now that's really easy. I can literally vibe code that in, in like five minutes. It used to take a lot more time. Um, the second thing is I'll see what vendors they use. So if they use so many SaaS applications, well, I could hypothetically go to the dark web and see if there is any information about those services.

If there is a new vulnerability, it may not be patched. So I can-- I could directly go and hack one of their SaaS services and get into their network. But let's say everything they use is secure. Well, um, I'll try to then attack, sort of target the employees [00:08:00] individually. I'll usually target, um, wha-- who may appear to be more vulnerable.

Um, usually, it's very busy individuals, very busy founders. They are more likely to click- Mm-hmm ... on something, um, really fast. Um, sometimes I'll even, um, not I, but the hypothetical attacker may look at- ... sort of elderly parents and, um, try to tell them they've won something. Because what happen, Hala, is if the elderly parent gets their email compromised, well, I can use their email to send stuff to sort of their kids, and they're more likely to click on them than if it comes from an unknown individual.

Now, the final one that, um, is very, very effective with, um, with entrepreneurs and all the startups that I don't recommend anyone to u- to do, but, um, I could simply purchase the product that they have and be a legitimate customer and just give their customer support hell. I'm like, "It's not working. Help me."

Mm. "Hop on a Zoom call. Do this, do..." So the, the customer support [00:09:00] individuals are very likely to say, well, I tell them, "My Zoom's not working. Please click on this," so I can get them to click on something. And unfortunately, um, support, uh, individuals usually have a lot of access. So as soon as they click on something, I'm in, and I can continue pretending to be a legitimate customer, which I am.

Close everything so they don't suspect that something's happening, and then I'm in the network. Then I'll start to- Mm ... slowly and surely take over everything But that's more or less how, um, I guess a lot of hackers would actually approach it.

Hala Taha: Yeah. That's so frightening. It's so frightening that this could be happening.

And I guarantee you that so many entrepreneurs tuning in are now realizing how big of a deal this is and how little they're probably protected. So what is one thing that, uh, with our cybersecurity, when you're looking at small businesses, where a hacker will say, "Man, this is just way too easy"? Like, what's one thing that entrepreneurs are doing where a hacker's gonna say, "This is just way too easy"?

Abed Hamdan: Hmm. I [00:10:00] mean, there are a number of things, and I'm gonna start with the big business and then go down to the small one. Okay. A really big telltale, even for me as a consultant, if, if a company's hiring me to check their security, the first thing, I go on LinkedIn and I just see who works there. If that organization is sort of mid-size to large size, and I see that they have, like, one person that's called, quote-unquote, "IT person" that's doing everything, this is a sure sign that this person is overworked, probably doesn't have enough time- Mm

to do everything security-wise. So I know there is a high chance that they may not be doing everything they need to do. Um, so that's a quick telltale for me. The other one would be, I'll... believe it or not, I'll go on Instagram, and, um, something I see frequently is a founder says, "Oh my God, we went live last week.

You wouldn't believe it. We expected 200 clients, and now we have 2,000." This tells me that this team is extremely busy. They can barely keep up. Mm. And it's a lot easier to do things with them that, you know, I'll put the time pressure. [00:11:00] "Hey, I'm a customer, and the app's down. Help me. Log into my computer. Do something for me."

This is a really quick telltale. Um, now more than that, there are other things that I wouldn't say small business owners sort of do. Um, used to be more common in the past. So things like not having two-factor authentication or, um, like, old practices that they still exist, but not so much nowadays. So systems- Mm-hmm

have gotten better, thankfully, but as a result, because we have, um, better systems, better IT setups, we can, um, produce a lot faster, and with speed comes compromise. And not just in cybersecurity. You probably have seen it, Hala, where, um, organizations or entrepreneurs or small businesses, they release something, but they haven't done their due diligence from a legal point of view.

They haven't gotten everything reviewed, and they say, "Well, we'll do it after the fact." So these kind of things may have large impact and, in some cases, uh, large consequences.

Hala Taha: Okay. So let's make this a little bit personal. [00:12:00] I wanna understand how you know so much about cybersecurity and hacking, and I learned from studying you that you got into this when you were like a teenager.

And, uh, you were really exploring, you know, how does hacking work, and I'm curious to understand, like where did this all begin? Tell us a story.

Abed Hamdan: Yeah. Uh, I mean, not to show my age, but I'd say I started perhaps late '90s, early 2000s. Uh, and, and at that time, and especially where I was living, internet was new.

It was a novelty. It's the new thing. Um- Mm-hmm ... internet for, for, for those my age, internet cafes were a thing. So you'd go to an internet cafe, you pay per hour, and you start exploring, and there wasn't much to explore. So it really started with, um, chat rooms called the IRC chat rooms, and within that I discovered, well, people were sharing files you can download.

There is music file. That was new to me. Um, and then there was this thing called hacking. It [00:13:00] coincided with me, uh, watching a movie called Hackers. Um, it was- ... early Angelina Jolie movie. Um, it is fiction, but it, it really opened my eye, like, hold on, this is a thing. Like, you can actually do that. So as a teenager, and as you do as a teenager, you start imagining things.

Oh my God, I could, uh, hack an airplane and fly myself everywhere. These imaginary scenarios that are not real, but, uh, like as a 15 years old, this is everything. Um, then, uh, as I sort of, quote-unquote, "do research," start to find movies, I find another movie about someone called Kevin Mitnick, late Kevin Mitnick.

He is the fam-most famous hacker in the world. At the time, there was movie, not just one, I think more than one movie. One was in German, one was in English. Um, of course I watch with subtitles. Um, he, the things he did were incredible. He would hack phone lines. He would jam radio signals. He was on the run by the FBI, and the movies, of course, made it so glamorous.

So all I could think of like, "Oh my God," um, and that was a [00:14:00] time when, um, we would call people on phone line. So I'm like, "Oh, I could hack my friend's phone line. I could do these pranks." So I wanted to learn everything. I'd go to these chat rooms and, uh, at, at the time, Hella, things were a bit different in the sense if you ask for help, uh, people start swearing at you.

You would n-they, it was not a friendly time, unlike today. So I had to learn certain things the hard way. I got myself hacked multiple times, but Long story short, um, I sort of went into the right direction, started learning an operating system called Unix, hence where my nickname came. And, um, actually a fun, um, sort of useful anecdote, my website unixguy.com is few months older than google.com.

So, um, I go way back.

Hala Taha: Wow. So,

Abed Hamdan: yeah. Um, so that's where it all started. Um, then I got my first job, started, uh, studied things at university that were completely useless. Got my first job, but I continued learning, and I still do that to this day. Even after- Mm ... consulting for so many [00:15:00] years, um, I enjoy it. I like to learn.

I stay curious. And, um, experience of course. Uh, I've done this so many times, um, so much so that sometimes I can look at something and, like, have an educated guess that, oh, maybe we can look here. Let's just start this way and take it from there. But yeah, it's been a continuous learning and experimenting journey, and, uh, i- it's, it's a lot of fun.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Your entrepreneurship journey is, like, really interesting, so we're gonna spend time at the end of the conversation and really just unpack how you turned educational content into this entire career and business. And you've done such a great job, like, really owning this niche and this lane and helping so many people in their IT careers, especially in Australia.

So since we have this incredible consultant in front of us, a lot of the people tuning in are entrepreneurs.

We're small business owners. We don't have endless budgets. We probably don't, we have a lot of information that might be vulnerable, but you know, we're not this huge [00:16:00] company. But like you said, that makes us actually pretty attractive. So what are the few things, let's say three things, that we should absolutely not compromise on when it comes to our security?

What should we be investing in and where do we begin?

Abed Hamdan: Yeah, this is challenging, um, because it may slightly vary between businesses, but I'd say the first one, non-negotiable, is always two-factor authentication. Luckily, we live in a day and age everyone knows what that is. So when you log into your email, um, sometimes you get an SMS, says, "Is that you?"

Enter a code. Um, the preference is always to use something like a passkey or the authenticator app. Um, even few years ago, um, this w-wasn't rolled out to everyone. We had to have difficult conversations. But this tends to reduce, uh, the-- it tends to really, really reduce the risk of cyber attacks. Not to zero, but it, it, it's really important.

And within that, no exceptions. So if you have- Yep ... a busy executive or [00:17:00] someone precious in the team that says, "I hate that," um, tough luck. This is a non-negotiable. This is like, this is like having a building and having a fire exit. It, it, it, it's, it's not a conversation that businesses should have, so this should be there, rolled out for everyone.

That's, um, number one. For

Hala Taha: every single platform that we're using or just email?

Abed Hamdan: Um, I would say, okay, but really excellent point. Um, it, it is meant to be for every single platform. However, um, with platforms now, as you log in, Halah, you notice that it tells you, "Use your Gmail to," like, use the same creden- Yeah

like if you log in, you use it. So that, this is called single sign-on, which is essentially you've already logged into your email, your email is trusted, so we use that as a trusted token to get into apps. So that is, that's perfectly fine. You, you're still considered as someone who used that. As long as the app is not asking you for username and password, then you're just entering it and getting in.

If it's asking you to use the email that you've already logged in, that is, this is the same thing. Um, so single sign-on, um, [00:18:00] have made that a lot easier. So instead of having an authenticator app for everything, um, some of them will use your email. However, like even for me, um, my authenticator app is really large, so i-it happens, um, I have it with everything, um, unless I can reuse my email, which is fine.

Um, it's just to get it out, to get us out of just username and password because if the hacker have the username and password, it's game over. So we just make it a lot harder. Okay. The second one, which is also related to credentials, um, is a password manager. So having a password manager, um, is really, really important.

No matter how complicated we make our passwords, um, the human tendency is for us to reuse the password everywhere, and that's extremely dangerous, uh, because- Your company may be secure, not hacked, but the local cinema might get hacked. And guess what? People use their work email and work password to log into the cinema.

So hackers usually when, when we do the reconnaissance, uh, reconnaissance step, when we try to collect information, we actually see if your password is out [00:19:00] there. Doesn't matter if someone have the same name, we try to first use that and see if we can get in. So a password manager, really essential. As a business, have some sort of enterprise solution with these passwords where you have a complex password everywhere.

And they're really convenient because you can have it as part of your browser, so you're just literally just copying the password that, um, that you want to use. This is the second one. Um, the third one, if we just narrow it down to three, um, is our key critical assets we need to understand. This could be customer information, it could be intellectual property.

For example, you're on a podcast, I'm sure you have, let's say, a method to make an amazing podcast. So that's intellectual property. Um, let's say it's in a Word document. I would restrict access to that, and that even includes employees. Um, make it on a need-to-know basis. If someone needs to access it, we ask why.

You get a time-restricted access, but that's it. It shouldn't be free access to everyone. Um- Mm. A- and [00:20:00] that could get more complicated. Like I worked with, um, beverages organization here in Australia, and some of their, uh, intellectual property was recipes for their drinks, and those recipes needed to be in a secure vault with encryption and with really secure passwords.

But also, once you log in and get access to that, you shouldn't have that login indef- um, indefinitely. It should be time-restricted. Mm. So those would be the three things, and if you allow me a bonus one, like I said, similar

Hala Taha: to- Yeah. Give me... I was gonna say, what's the four and five? Because clearly I can tell it's not just three things we need to worry about.

The,

Abed Hamdan: the fourth one is similar to, i- it's just get a professional opinion. For example, small businesses, when they draft a contract, they get legal advice. Mm-hmm. Right? So you get someone to review it, a solicitor. Likewise, with, with cybersecurity, it doesn't have to be something massive. Um, get a small company, preferably something local where you can reach out to them if things go bad and say, "I just...

Look, guys, couple of hours, whatever, $2,000 or could be less, could be more. Check, [00:21:00] make sure we're doing everything right. Give us a recommendation." And sometimes all they do is just check that you're doing everything. You may miss something, so they just give you professional advice that, "You know what?

You're doing 99%. That's perfectly fine." And as the business grow, that sort of consultation or that assessment can grow with you. If you have a software application- Mm ... you're releasing to the market, obviously that needs more scrutiny. But if someone is just, let's say, an Instagram content creator and they just share advice, they may not need that.

I hope that gives small business owners- Yeah ... a, a thing to talk towards.

Hala Taha: It does. And I think, uh, because one of the most important things, like you said, is password safety, and there's some really ... I know Bitdefender, I believe, has- Mm ... uh, like a password feature that you can get, and it's really cost-effective.

Um, but, but you mentioned this thing, this concept, I don't know if you said it verbatim, but it's this concept of least privilege, and I'd love to understand, like, what is this concept of [00:22:00] least privilege? Help, help break it down for the people that not, that aren't in cybersecurity.

Abed Hamdan: Yeah. The concept of, of least priv- least privileges or least privilege is, um, falls under the umbrella of what we refer to as identity and access management.

It really is, um, you have a resource, that could be an application, it could be intellectual property. You want to, you want to restrict access to that, um, and make it so that, um, the individual or the system or the software that have access to that, they just have access to the minimum amount of resource, uh, required for them to do their job with a time restriction.

For example, we go back to, let's say, a customer database. You have a customer database, you have all your clients' details, um, and let's say you have a marketing officer. Marketing officer need to run a campaign, um, for some of those individuals. So what I do is, the marketing officer will only get access to that database, um, for, like, 30 [00:23:00] minutes.

So they get a temporary password, and they will only get access to those individuals, and then the access will get re- um, revoked. This reduces the impact of, um, a cyber attack. For example, if two weeks later this marketing officer gets hacked, well, the hacker wouldn't have access because the access has been revoked.

And you, um, you mentioned Bitdefender. I- they have this, their enterprise, um, suite solution, so they will have that password manager where you can provide a temporary password access to. It can definitely assist with that. Um, but that's- Hmm ... more or less the principle of least privilege. We always, um, assume that for cybersecurity it needs to be this complex, expensive piece of technology, but no, it's really people, process, and technology.

So we start with the process. We just define this is how we access things from now on, and then we enforce it with technology if it's possible. If not, you can even do it manually. Hmm.

Hala Taha: When it comes to customer data, like for example, my business, we don't collect that much data. Like, we have everyone's email, but that's pretty much [00:24:00] it.

So, like, is that really sensitive customer data, or does it get more sensitive when you're collecting people's, like, addresses and their Social Security and, like, that kind of stuff? So it's like, what customer data is the most desirable?

Abed Hamdan: Yeah. This is where, um, there is a fine line between cybersecurity and the legal profession because here we're going into the territory of privacy, or some people say privacy.

Mm-hmm. Depends on how you pronounce it. But this is where we sort of even sometimes consult with a legal professional or a solicitor. Um, email address on its own, it's not really what we refer to as PII or privately identifiable information. Hmm. It, it really is not. Why? Privately identifiable information is something that can uniquely identify you.

This would be your full name, home address, um, date of birth, but also things we don't think about such as, um, sexual orientation, political views. These things c- they can be used against you to target you, okay? Hmm. And within that, there comes a whole [00:25:00] lot of, um, laws and regulations. A simple one that, uh, many people don't know is- y- your business is based in the United States, so you're in the US.

Um, however, if some of your customers are EU citizens, so they're Europeans and their country is part of the EU citizens, and they sort of trade with you, you actually need to comply with a standard called the GDPR, which is the privacy standards for European citizens. So you need to, um, do certain activities to make sure that you're not breaking their privacy, uh, laws, even though you're not really a European Union, um, organization.

Likewise, there is the California Privacy Act, and there is the- Yeah ... China Act. So there is all of these things, and this is where, as cybersecurity professional, we provide advice, but then we, um, we consult with a solicitor. Sometimes could be just, just please review this, make sure our policy is, is up to scratch.

So as far as emails, I would treat it with absolute care because, like I said, it may not [00:26:00] be a, a huge legal liability, but it's very attractive. Um, you know- Mm-hmm ... people on the dark web, they purchase email addresses. They use it for spam campaigns. They use it to scam people. Um, it's a very attractive thing, and even, uh, I'm, I'm not sure if, if you, um, like, have an interest in, say, paid ads, um, email addresses are really attractive to use for paid ads.

So there is commercial value- Mm ... for them, and as a result, uh, we encrypt them. We make sure that our newsletter provider is doing their due diligence when it comes to security, which the majority of the big ones are.

Hala Taha: Mm. So helpful. You're just, like, a wealth of information. So for the entrepreneurs tuning in who still don't feel like there is much of a risk with cybersecurity or still aren't scared enough, talk to us about what could go wrong, like reputation-wise, revenue-wise.

You mentioned earlier that sometimes cyber attacks can be so bad that the business actually has to shut down. I'd love to hear [00:27:00] some examples of the way that these types of attacks can actually impact businesses.

Abed Hamdan: Yeah. And, and, and yeah, we tread a fine line here, Hala, of being an alarmist versus just encouraging individuals and, and entrepreneurs to really, um, really do their due diligence and just-

Hala Taha: Yeah

Abed Hamdan: do what needs to be done when it comes to security. It can definitely be career-ending in the sense, um, the biggest one we've just alluded to, which is breaking privacy laws. Um, there are hefty fines. So the European Union is really strict with fines when it comes to, um, um, the privacy of their citizens.

So a company in the US that's providing services globally and, um, somehow they get hacked and European citizens get their, um, data out there, there might be a big fine, and it can be in the seven figures, and that can have- Mm-hmm ... huge finan- like, direct financial impact. Um, the other one is, um, let's say you have an application and subscribers, and that application gets hacked.

Now what? [00:28:00] Subscribers are paying. They need their money back, and, um, you, you really don't know what to do. Your revenue stopped. So all of these things can and do have, um, significant, uh, financial impacts, um- Mm ... which is a, a good segue to also make sure you have the cyber insurance or talk to your insurance organization and make sure that insurance against cyberattacks is there.

It, it's a sort of controversial topic. Mm. It may or may not help, but it's best to have it than not to have it. Um, so those are things that, um, are important. Uh, there

Hala Taha: are, and if you want- I've never heard of cybersecurity insurance. And then nobody talks about this stuff. So- Cybersecurity insurance?

Abed Hamdan: Yes, I think, uh, it, it really is important.

And look, the, the good news is it-- you may already have it as an example. So y-if you have insurance for your business, depends on, on your provider, you can talk to them and say, is cyberattacks are included under that? And, and within that, that there is a threshold, and there is a limit. And, uh, however, I've had mixed experiences with [00:29:00] cyber insurance.

Um, but to summarize, it's better to have it than not to have it. And- Mm-hmm ... the good insurance providers, usually it's there in the fine print, so it's worthwhile just checking that, that it's already there. Um, the other thing is also, like I said, if, if, if the organization or the business, um, like you had a consultation with a cybersecurity company that's preferably local also, if things go bad, you have them on speed dial, you can call them in and get them in.

So having that relationship also is really help. And they can also give you an advice when it comes to cyber insurance as well. So these things helpful. But w-when it comes to just things going wrong for small businesses, Hala, uh, like I said, it, it, it does go a bit more sinister. And there are things that, um, most of us don't hear about because it's sort of bad news, and the really bad news, we don't wanna hear about it for the most part.

But, um, there, there are cases of extortion. Uh, there are cases, and this is really, really common. So, uh- Mm-hmm ... a-as a small business owner, someone could target one of your employees, and you're kind of [00:30:00] responsible for them, um, because your business got hacked, and it, it's really complicated. And, um, yeah, it, it, it-- the implications are sometimes your employees could be the target, or your customers could be the target.

And as you mentioned earlier, it could also be your brand, um, reputation, and we call it brand equity. Well, if people signed up to your application, it's hot stuff, but the next day everything's hacked, and everyone's complaining, and that, that can, that can be career-ending, unfortunately.

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. So interesting.

So let's go back to the entrepreneur who has no budget. Now, you mentioned the three to four things that we should pay attention to, but what if I literally had just $1,000 to invest- Hmm ... in cybersecurity? And let's say, I don't know, maybe this isn't just not enough, I guess $1,000 for the year or do we wanna say $1,000 for the month?

Like, what is the bare minimum that we can be spending on cybersecurity?

Abed Hamdan: Yeah. Look, let, let's say we just have $1,000. Let's just [00:31:00] say the business- Okay ... has just started. And look, and th- there is good news here, uh, is that, uh, it, it's not always, like, the amount of money. I think, um, as humans, when we see a problem, like I'm gonna throw money at the problem and make it disappear, uh, it doesn't always work that way, especially with entrepreneurship.

Um, the good news is, um, a lot of the services that we use, Hala, are really, um, built in a solid way. So let's say- Mm-hmm ... if someone is using the G- like, all their email and everything is from Google, for example. They're using the G Suite. Yep. That is an inherently really secure platform if it's used properly.

So if I just have $1,000 and, um, which tells me I'm early in business, I'm an, let's say, content creator, or I have a small agency, this also, I will guess that we're not building an email system from scratch. We're not building ... We're just using popular services, whether it's from Google- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Microsoft, et cetera, et cetera. This can be good news. I would honestly get that $1,000 and, like I said, reach out to a local trusted company and say, [00:32:00] "Hey, this is our budget. Can you just give us advice? What can we do?" And they can literally just have one hour, look at your stuff, and just tell you, "You know what?

You're doing everything right. Maybe do this one thing that's, you know, will give you 80% of, of the value." So I would, yeah, I would get a professional, uh, opinion. Like, similar to, I, I think the example of getting legal advice. You may not have the budget to hire a lawyer that works full-time, but all you need is someone to review employment contract.

That $1,000 can do it. Hmm. May not do it, uh, all the time, but, uh, it's better than, um, doing what a lot of businesses do now, which is ChatGPT things and, uh, AI is telling you, "Yep, you're doing a great job. You're fantastic. You're the best thing since sliced bread." So I think just getting a human who know what they're doing is, is a lot better.

Hala Taha: Hmm. I love that. I, I didn't think you were gonna go that way. I didn't think you were gonna say get, like, a consultation and have somebody tell you what you need to be doing. How about a solution like Bitdefender? It's super affordable. I just went [00:33:00] on their website, and it's, like, less than 200 bucks a month to get all these different tools.

It'll, like, scan your Slack and, or, like, your messages for anything that looks like phishing, your emails. It will send warnings if it looks suspicious. So I feel like that's also, like, just a great layer to be adding on.

Abed Hamdan: 100%. And, and like I said, that could be also the outcome of that consultation. They said, "Hey, you're doing everything right.

Now you're ready for an enterprise solution," which, like the one you've mentioned from Bitdefender. And the good news is, uh, the- these things, Heather, they weren't available for us a few years ago. So we are living in a good time where, um, like a company like Bitdefender have something targeted for the enterprise small businesses to medium-sized businesses where, yes, they do scan your emails, so you get rid of them spam headaches.

They, um, they offer you some kind of password manager and monitoring. It's always better to have these things in place. Um, it also, like from a... I, I hate to go that way, but from a legal [00:34:00] perspective, if, you know, things go south, it's also proof that as a founder or as a business owner, you, you're doing your due diligence.

They can't say, "Well, you've done everything, but you still got hacked." That can still happen, even massive organizations. But in this case, you, you will be a victim of criminals who really know what they're doing. They're, you know... Criminals do criminal things, and sometimes we're just victims of that. But that's a different story than someone who, you know, they've done nothing.

There's a really famous story on the news of those, uh, company that created a chat service or something for... Sorry, um, I can't... It's just they created a dating app for women to protect women's- Hmm. Um, it's for women's safety. Bumble. It, it wasn't Bumble. It was, like, an- another app that was created- Ah ... um, with women's safety in mind, but then turned out that that app, b- because it needed to verify women, they took their passport, uh, details and all their information.

Turned out this app was coded with zero security. It got hacked, and it put women's [00:35:00] in, um, safety in, in danger. Oh my

Hala Taha: gosh.

Abed Hamdan: But that's, but that was an example of an organization that didn't do their due diligence. Whereas a small organization, like we said, okay, they've got the consultation. They've got the Bitdefender enterprise security.

They're doing stuff. Well, you do what you can, right? It's like- Hmm ... having a building. You have your fire exits. You have everything. Sure, disasters can happen, but you've done what you can do with what you have.

Hala Taha: Hmm. So you've described cybersecurity as defense in depth. I'd love for you to walk us through what that actually looks like for a normal small business.

How can we practice that?

Abed Hamdan: Yeah. Defense in depth is a concept that surprisingly even, um, cybersecurity professionals can and frequently do get wrong. Defense is, in depth is in a nutshell, having more than one layer of defense stacked one on top of the other. So if one layer of defense [00:36:00] fails, the other one, um, can sustain.

So it just makes it a lot harder- Mm ... a lot more expensive to get to what we call the crown jewel or the important asset. I'll walk you through an example. Let's say, let's say you have your cl- customer database. That's the most important thing that we have. We wanna protect that, and then we have our attacker, and the first thing they do, they send a phishing email.

Okay? So the phishing email comes, but you have your anti-spam filter, so the spam filter block that. So that's layer one of defense. So you didn't even see the email. Their attack failed. Now, let's say a more sophisticated attacker, they crafted their email in such a way that it's even passed that spam, um, filter, and it went into your inbox.

So you looked at it and you said, "Well, you know what? This looks like spam. Sorry, report spam." So the second layer of defense here was your awareness, so that's another strong layer of defense, right? Mm-hmm. Let's say they were, you know, the email came from a trusted supplier. So they hacked the supplier.

They came to you. So you're like, "Oh, this is a legitimate email. I need to do something." You click on that [00:37:00] link and, but when you click on that link, well, your anti-malware solution, your endpoint security system blocked it from being executed. So that's another layer. So it failed here, and that can, you know, go on, go on like for, for longer and, um, but you get the concept, right?

So we have- Yep ... multiple layers of security. Um, in the, in the like late, late '90s and in even early, uh, up to the 2000 and, let's say, 2005, 2010, there were organizations that didn't have firewalls, so they'd have nothing. So the fact that we put one layer was a huge thing. But nowadays, you, you'll find these layers, uh, work in tandem.

This, and it's controversial, uh, I keep saying defense in depth because, um, when it comes to marketing of, the marketing of cybersecurity, people say human is the weakest link. I can have all the defenses, but if s- a human makes a mistake- Mm ... and click on something, it's game over. Well, it's not. As we explained earlier, there are multiple layers of defense, and I say that in defense of the human, in defense of the employee that's overwrote, that [00:38:00] clicked on something.

Sorry. If, if someone clicked on something and it's game over, then your security were fundamentally wrong. Um, so yes-

Hala Taha: Mm ...

Abed Hamdan: the way cybersecurity is approached nowadays, how it should be, multiple layers of defenses.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Okay, let's move on to AI, because I feel like AI is such a hot topic in cybersecurity. How has AI changed the landscape? What is new now that AI is here?

Abed Hamdan: Yeah. Everyone's topic, and I've been labeled sort of anti-AI, which, which is not true.

Uh, AI has definitely made cybersecurity professionals a lot busier because, um, every business now have an AI, and they call us and say, "Hey, is this okay? Is this not okay?" And then we need to go and look. Um, look, it definitely has changed things, and it's here to stay. But also, it's not the sort of doom and gloom and the movie Hollywood things that we read on the news of these AIs escaping and hacking things that this is just, uh-

[00:39:00] marketing. Uh, look, the truth is always a bit more nuanced. Um, AI, I mean, the most obvious one that we all need to be careful, uh, a- and be aware of is the deepfakes. So deepfakes- Yeah ... are huge, huge problems. And I, I know we talk about entrepreneurs and small businesses, but even for children in schools, it's, it's been a absolute nightmare, and law enforcement, uh, deals with that all the time.

So deepfakes, um, faking voice, faking, um, video is something we need to be really careful of. But even as I said earlier, um, you can-- I can really create a website really quickly that looks exactly like a replica of a real one. Now, that wasn't overly difficult before AI, but now it's even faster, if that makes sense.

So, um, in the hands of a skilled hacker, AI can make certain aspects faster. Now, is AI this really advanced thing that's gonna do, go and hack things? That's not true. And, um, the big AI companies have actually, um, sort of safeguards against making AI do these things. There [00:40:00] are ways around it, but let's say if someone is completely unskilled and they're just trying to do something, it's, it's, it's just not happening.

So that's one aspect of it. The second aspect, which is what keeps us busy, is businesses, um, are really quick to sort of wanna use AI. And this is where things get a bit more complicated because when we say AI, so what are we really using? Are we just prompting ChatGPT, or are we giving AI access to everything and making it talk to customers and do finance for us?

Or, or are we even not even using AI, but we have this SaaS service or this product, and then all of a sudden this product on their website says, "We're AI enabled or AI powered"? Mm-hmm. Well, what does that mean? Do you feed our information to your AI? Mm-hmm. Is it going to, um, you know, the AI company, which is really a private company if you think about it.

So all these things, um- Are making life a bit more interesting for cybersecurity professionals and small business owners. So we wanna use AI, we wanna be on top of the new technology, but we [00:41:00] also need to stop and think, what is it that we're using AI for? What does the AI have access to? And more importantly, where's my data going?

Is it going to a private company? Why do I trust that private company? This private company could get hacked, or they could do something like sell my data somewhere. Um, big tech companies- Mm-hmm ... have done that, and, uh, we love to see news, and this big tech company got sued for selling election information.

Well, they don't care. Yeah. The hundreds of millions of dollars fine that they pay, this is just, um, you know, one week's earnings. So these things I think we need to keep in mind when we, uh, when we use something like AI. Just why we use it and how we're using it is, is fundamental.

Hala Taha: Yeah. Well, I think one of the, the new things coming up in AI and cybersecurity is, is for a couple of years, AI was mostly, like, chatting, chatting to ChatGPT, getting help writing emails. But now we've got AI agents that are jumping from tools to tools that are kind of like AI digital employees.

How worried do [00:42:00] we have to be about AI agents and their ability to hack our companies or their cybersecurity threats?

Abed Hamdan: Um, AI, I mean agentic AI or AI agent is exactly what you described, where you have the AI bot, instead of it just being a prompt or a chatbot, you're actually giving it, um, access to stuff, and it can do things for you.

For example, you can program the AI to send an email from your email or have give it access to your calendar, or in some instances it can be, you know, a chatbot on your website. AI agent is something that needs to be treated with absolute, uh, care. Uh, it shouldn't be just, just because it exists doesn't mean we need to use it.

There are many issues with AI agents. The first one is, the obvious one is, is access, where you're giving a piece of software access to things. So we need to assess that access. We go back to the principle of least privilege. Does the AI really need access to everything in my email or does it need access- Mm.

[00:43:00] -to a copy of certain emails? Does it need access to calendars of everyone or perhaps we can create a dummy calendar for certain things and that can access that. So this is the, the first one is, you know, don't, don't be too generous with access. Treat it like, you know, it's just another piece of software.

I don't wanna say- Yeah ... it's another employee. It's an employee or it, it's just really a software. So we don't really give software access to everything just because we can. I think that the, the craze or, or, or the hysteria that we, we face now is, is, "Oh, AI can do this, therefore I need to do-- I need to use it."

No. As a business, do you really need that? And if not, then why? And that could be also costly in terms of tokens and, and we've heard lots of stories of companies paying so much, um, on AI tokens. Um, a famous one of the FAANG companies, they laid off so many employees just so they can afford paying for the tokens and it, it's not always a smart business decision.

Um, this is one. And the, the, the most important one as well is, well, accountability. So as a founder, just because the AI is doing something doesn't mean the AI [00:44:00] is accountable for it. I'm still accountable. So if I get the AI to review my legal contract, great.

Hala Taha: Mm.

Abed Hamdan: The review may be accurate or may not be accurate.

Um, who's accountable? I- if I get into legal trouble, I can't say, "Oh, well, oops, AI did it." No. It, it's still me. So w- we need to really stop and, and think, "Well, I'm still accountable." AI is just software. It's doing something. I'm still accountable. Just like a normal employee. Yes, the employee can make a mistake or so, but ultimately the accountability falls on leadership or on the CEO, or on the board of directors.

So these are the things we need to really be careful about.

Hala Taha: So I do think one of the things that we need to be worried about with our employees and AI is actually we might be rolling out specific company AI tools, but because AI is kind of popping up everywhere, employees are probably using all these, like, disparate AI tools or, like, whatever tool they think is fun, and they're probably using their company computer and thinking it's [00:45:00] harmless.

Is there a risk in people just using, like, not approved AI tools?

Abed Hamdan: Absolutely. And this is not a new problem. We used to call... We, we still call this shadow IT or- Hmm ... unsanctioned software, which is really what AI is, what you just described. We had this problem even before AI. We'd have, let's say, the marketing team, they just found this online tool and they start using it.

They didn't tell everyone, and they put customer data in it w-without sort of the cybersecurity team doing an assessment and saying, "Hey, this is approved. We can monitor, we can do that." Same thing with AI. If we have an employee opening their own personal ChatGPT, putting company information in it, um, yeah, w-we haven't really, we didn't really approve that.

So they did something that the business didn't approve of. Um, it is really hard, and it's, um, it's something that we need to, um, like I said, do our due diligence. We need to have clear policies that say, "Do not put company information into AI tools." Also, the other thing I saw even [00:46:00] in big tech companies where they're really skilled, so they have built a s- different agents to do different tasks, they always have someone sort of verifying and validating the output of AI.

So really skilled programmers, they do this- Mm-hmm ... um, Claude code. They, the AI is review, producing code. Before it goes to production, it needs to be reviewed. It needs to be tested by a vetted senior programmer. Um, a-and s-s-so this way we have safeguards against what goes into AI, but what comes out of AI.

That is really essential. Hmm. Um, there is the other thing, of course, like I said, in terms of privacy and stuff. There is a setting in, in all these AI chatbots that says, um, something along the lines of, "Don't use my data to train AI." I think we should all toggle that, and this way-

Hala Taha: Hmm ...

Abed Hamdan: allegedly our data doesn't go in there.

So that's something that we need to do. But there has been instances, um, a really famous one early days ChatGPT, um, the source code, um, some Samsung employees really leaked the source code. Not leaked, they just posted it to [00:47:00] ChatGPT, and it's a huge problem because ChatGPT will use it to learn, but that source code is massively, massively pricey and important intellectual property that should not have gone there.

Hmm. So these things happened. Um, yeah, so we do need safeguards against who uses AI, what do we use it for, and exactly like any other piece of software, an employee shouldn't be just using random softwares and use it for business purposes on business laptops.

Hala Taha: Hmm. Uh, so I'd like to talk about aside from the technology and AI, the people who actually have keys to your business. Like, a lot of us think that the only way that our business is vulnerable is through a stranger. A hacker is gonna come hack our company. But it turns out that our employees can actually be a really big risk, especially employees, maybe disgruntled employees who have left the business.

Is that right?

Abed Hamdan: Absolutely. Um, the, the technical name we use for it is insider threat. Um, although some people don't like [00:48:00] the word insider threats, like, well, humans aren't threat. Uh, it's, it, it could be, uh, exactly what you said. So one scenario is a disgruntled employee. They know all the business secrets, everything, and they leave, and six months later they decide, "Hold on a second.

I'm not happy with that business. Let's do some damage." Um, and the way we reduce, um, the attack surface, we reduce the impact is back to basics. Um, they shouldn't have access to everything. So wouldn't they hold the key to the business? Well, they need to hold the key to certain aspect that they need for their job, and this way if they do damage, well, that damage is restricted.

That's, that's one. Two, a common mistake, um, that happens even with large businesses, in fact probably more with large businesses than smaller ones, is when someone leaves, we call it the off-boarding process, they don't take all of their access out, so they may still have access to certain applications or certain things that they log into.

So that's a problem. So we need to have a process of just like we onboard employees, we need to know how we off-board them, and that includes revoking access. [00:49:00] Um, the third one is also in our contract legally. Uh, we need to say that, you know, if you leave, um, please don't go on social media and just spill out all our secrets.

That's illegal, but having it in the contract- Mm-hmm ... doesn't hurt. Um, there's been many instances o- of that happening. A really popular one, a big tech, um, Australian organization that has, um, laid off people, and they laid off one of their very senior software engineers, and the next day he creates, I think, a one-hour YouTube video explaining everything he's done, um, for them, everything he's built.

It's online. It got millions of views. So yeah, that, that's really valuable information that the employees spilled out and you, you know how awkward it is for an organization to legally go after someone. So these things we need to be careful of. Um- The insider threat, there is other aspect that we forget when it comes to insider threat is, um, the employees are humans, they make mistakes.

So I-

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm ...

Abed Hamdan: even early in my career, as an example, I made a mistake early, [00:50:00] early in my career. Um, as I was going, working faster and faster, I ended up deleting stuff that were really important files, and I did that by mistake, and I had to go find backups and restore backups. So- Mm ... mistakes can happen. It could be a really genuine, um, unintended mistake, which again, goes back to why did I even have access to that stuff?

Why was I able to delete without someone looking over my shoulder, without, um, a chain of approvals? All of these things that sometimes we may think of as tedious or unnecessary. We wanna be fast, we wanna be lean. Well, there is a cost that comes with that.

Hala Taha: Hmm. This has been such a valuable session. Like, I feel like I've gotta, like, do so much work and make this, like, a core initiative for my business.

If you're a hacker, please leave me alone. But, um, I wanna talk-- I wanna play a game with you. It's called Find the Backdoor.

So I want you to find the back door, I want you to break it down, and then close the back door. So basically, how can [00:51:00] somebody hack this company? I'll give you a scenario. And then how do we actually fix that? What is a solution to that?

Okay, so the first one is the media company. The company works with freelancers around the world. Some use personal laptops and personal email accounts to access company files Where's the backdoor?

Abed Hamdan: There are about three backdoors in here. Um, the first one is offshore employees. Um, you need to vet those employees, especially if they have access, so have some kind of vetting process, and that could be something as simple as use an agency that does the vetting for you.

So make sure they're, you're not hiring criminals, just as a, a, a, as a basic sanity check. Um- Mm ... the second one, of course, um, if you can't give them laptops, uh, then restrict what they can access. Absolutely restrict what they can access. [00:52:00] Don't give them what we call as a write... So read access may be, um, less damaging, but write access, which gives you the ability to delete stuff, that, that should absolutely be restricted on a need-to-know basis- Excuse me, with strict approval processes.

The fourth one is a personal email address. This is a huge no-no because when they leave the company, um, they own the data. That's, it's on their email. So if there's anything sensitive, they'll take it with them, and that's precisely why organizations have emails on the company domain, because the company owns that.

As soon as they're using personal emails, well, they own the data, so you're really handing over their data, and you're as vulnerable as any one of them. One of them could be criminal, one of them could be hacked, or y- you just really don't know, so you're overly exposed. If you want to use f- offshore employees or contractors, really restrict them to a very specific task, and have in mind that [00:53:00] if that person gets compromised, what's the impact, and do I accept the impact and consequences?

If no, then find alternatives.

Hala Taha: Um- Yeah ... okay. The fast finance team, this is the next scenario.

Mm-hmm. The founder and the finance team approve urgent payment requests through Slack because it's faster and more convenient.

Abed Hamdan: Yep. So w- any- anything that we do fast, it's-- it just means we're gonna make more mistakes. So with speed- Mm. -that compromises more mistakes. Um, yeah, a big, a big really, um, red flag here is approving things over Slack.

Shouldn't happen this way. We need to have a chain of approval that's really clear because, um, the strong use case is if one of your employees gets hacked and they have, um, their account gets hacked, so the hacker is using their, your employee's account, and well, everyone have access to Slack, they're gonna ask you to approve something, and fast means you're just gonna approve it.

Um, so that's a call for disaster. You, you will, you will lose money, so that's what you're compromising. So you need to have... The fix for that is have a [00:54:00] proper approval process. Um, and that approval process may just mean you-- it will take an extra five minutes. It's not really- Mm. Uh, uh, it's not really war and peace.

It's, it's, it's literally just a proper approval process that will save you a lot of headache and will save you time in the long run.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And potentially a lot of money. Um- Exactly. Okay. The last one, the last scenario: the SaaS-heavy e-commerce brand. The company uses dozens of third-party applications connected to customer and payment information

Abed Hamdan: That is, uh, e-e-e-that everything is wrong with this.

Uh- Th-th-this, this, this is a dangerous one. Uh, surprisingly very common, Heather. Okay. The first one is, uh, w-when they use, uh, so many SaaS applications, um, what, what people don't know is that there is, there, there is like r- I wanna say the correct term here, but you need to know who owns that SaaS service [00:55:00] because there have been cases where it's foreign government operating from a different country, having g-this amazing- Mm-hmm

SaaS application that does amazing things, and it's surprisingly cheap. Well, the purpose of the application was to collect information. So you need to really vet and know who you're dealing with. So the first thing is, we call it supply chain management. Supply chain meaning your suppliers, in this case is your SaaS providers.

Just make sure you know who you're doing business with n-instead of just- Mm-hmm ... randomly signing up for things because they are, quote-unquote, "cheap and fast," and they, they do their job. So, a-a-and because it's a legal liability, if you're leaking customer information to somewhere that shouldn't go, that's a huge problem.

This is one. Um, two, again, know who you're dealing with. A small SaaS app, what if one of your providers get hacked, and they have access- Yeah ... to all your customers? So, and therefore, once you know who you're dealing with, the second one is manage access. Why do all of them have access to everything? Really common in the real world, sadly.

But manage your access. Again, need to know- Mm ... basis, least privilege, all these really timeless principles, [00:56:00] meaning you restrict access. I'm pretty sure that business, whatever it is, doesn't require everyone to have access to everything. The only reason why businesses usually do that, where they give everyone access to everything, is l-just lazy.

They just, it's easier. Yeah, convenience. They just tick everything on and, and that's a call for disaster. So that, these are the two fixes. Manage your supplier is number one. Number two, manage your access.

Hala Taha: Yeah. I love those principles. I'm sure everybody tuning in is learning so much and getting so many ideas of, like, where they need to start first.

Let's say, unfortunately, our company gets hacked. What is something that we shouldn't do? We get hacked- Mm ... somebody just stole a bunch of money from our bank accounts. What shouldn't we do in that moment?

Abed Hamdan: Uh, really difficult, because the first reaction that happened to all of us, myself included, we panic.

And to tell someone not to panic, it's unreasonable. So I'd say panic, but don't act. It's just [00:57:00] like y- you know when, I'm, I'm sure as an, as a business owner and even as someone on the internet, um, sometimes we get angry, and, um, the advice is just don't reply to an email when you're angry, or d- don't take action.

Mm-hmm,

Hala Taha: mm-hmm.

Abed Hamdan: Just, it's like, just sit back. It happened. It's a problem. We're gonna deal with it in a, in a systematic way. So I'd say the first thing is, um, don't interact with the hackers, don't reply to emails. Just leave everything as it is. And in some instances, I'd say don't actually close the laptop or don't disc- Leave everything as it is.

Reach out to an expert right away. And there is levels- Mm ... to that, so reach out to law enforcement. Um, that, that, it's a sort of contested thing to do because usually law enforcement are, um, sort of overworked, underfunded, and may not be always be able to help, but you'd be surprised. Law enforcement can help.

Um, having that, uh, consulting company, sort of you have them on speed dial, you have their number. Get an expert right away to do it. Um, that's the, the, that's the most important thing. But the biggest one is what we said earlier, do not interact with the [00:58:00] hackers, because the first thing they will do is try to get more access.

So they'll say- Mm ... "Ah, sorry, a mistake. I'll just do this one more thing," because they're trying to get as much, uh, foothold as possible. So don't interact with them. They're really skilled at getting you to do what they want you to do, and they're gonna use the fact that you're panicking, um, to their advantage.

So yeah. Mm. Disconnect, completely disconnect. Get an expert to deal with it right away. Like, don't take actions. And the worst thing that businesses do is they'll have, like, an IT support person who's really, they don't have the expertise, and they're like, "Okay, go deal with it." And that person end up being, um, ends up making things a lot worse.

So I think this is the big- Mm ... no-no. Get some, get an expert to deal with it right away.

Hala Taha: Mm. Such great advice. Abed, this has been such an awesome interview. Before we go, I do wanna talk to you about your entrepreneurship journey, your business. So you actually started creating content, and you've created a business out of educating people, and it all started because people would just ask you [00:59:00] questions, your colleagues would ask you questions, and you just wanted a way to not have to answer the same thing over and over again.

So just talk to us about your story, how you ended up growing this content business, uh, how you make money today, and hopefully you can inspire somebody else who's a thought leader in their space to become a content creator and start their own business too.

Abed Hamdan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, uh, it's funny, I still don't think of myself as a business or even a content creator.

But, uh, the story started, it was during the lockdowns and, um, I was working at PwC, which is a consulting firm, and as a senior manager, part of our job is to coach, um, consultants and senior consultants. So I'd have these, um, um, one-on-one calls with them, and I'm... I really don't like, um, Zoom or online meetings, so I prefer it to be in person.

And I remember one day I had, like, three or four back-to-back calls with junior consultants, and they were asking exactly the same question over and over. So I got this idea where I'm like, "You know what? I'm [01:00:00] just gonna film myself answering those questions, and I'm just gonna send it to them so they watch it."

And I just put it on YouTube as somewhere to upload the video on, like, not as a sort of discoverability platform. So I thought, I thought no one would find it. I thought it's, um... Like, I, I watch YouTube, but it didn't occur to me that the video that I will put, strangers will, uh, will watch it. So I send them, uh, I told them, "Before you do the meeting, just watch this video, and then you can ask your questions."

And I left it, and then I think months later, or so, I saw, oh, there was comments and likes, and there's strangers watching it. I'm like, "Oh, well, let's just answer more questions, I guess." And I started answering them, and it wasn't, like, it wasn't a sort of a business or I had no idea that YouTube pays you money.

And while it's- Hmm ... it's a small amount, but I didn't, I didn't know that was a thing. And when I got the first paycheck from YouTube, it was, like, 50 bucks. I'm like, "Oh, is that a mistake or, like, how?" What happened? I didn't put two and two together. It's not the universe that I'm a part of. I had no idea. So that was YouTube.

But then [01:01:00] I started getting messages from people and individuals, like, from all over the world. Uh, and the first one was, like, I could see in the picture it was a dad and kids, and it's like- commenting on my videos. He was somewhere, um, in an African country, and then he's like, "Actually, I got a job." And for him, a job is-- they changed their life.

So got a full-time job, completely new field, highly paid, so it improved their life. And then it started to spiral. I started getting these success stories, either in a comment, sometimes in an email, saying, "I actually followed your advice. I got a job. It changed my life. Thank you so much." And the more I posted, the more, um, I get nowadays, every time I look in my inbox, there's at least one message a day from someone somewhere in the world says, "Actually followed your advice."

Um, which my advice is really just do these practical things, learn and apply yourself, and you'll get a job. It will take time. It's challenging, but it's possible. Um, so this really gave me the drive to continue. I felt that, um, I was making a difference, and I felt that, um, I just felt responsible. I felt [01:02:00] responsible that people watch my stuff now.

I need to give really the most accurate advice. I need to do, um, do what I can. Um, time management became really difficult. My job, um, is really, really demanding as a consultant, um, but I enjoy it. And because I do it, been doing it for so long, um, uh, it- Mm-hmm ... like, it doesn't require a lot of thinking from my end.

So I was able to manage, but then I've always wanted to do consulting on my own. So I started a cybersecurity consulting company, and I have, um, long-term clients. So I'm active in the field. I do that, but at the same time, I create YouTube videos. Um, I'm not very good at, like, creating a lot of content, so I, I'll create one video a month.

Really, that's my average. So in, in- Mm ... twelve months I'll have, like, thirteen, maybe fifteen videos of YouTube. That's all I can, I can do. Um, within my advice, 'cause cybersecurity is a range of jobs, it's not just one job. There was one niche in cybersecurity called governance, risk, and compliance. At the time, I didn't feel comfortable recommending what was in the market, so I thought, "I'm gonna [01:03:00] take three months and just try to create something."

It took me a year and a half, and I created my- ... uh, certification, got it accredited, and I just put it out there and, um, and thank God it's been, uh, it's been really successful in the sense, uh, people started doing- And

Hala Taha: that's the GRC Mastery, right?

Abed Hamdan: Yeah, yeah. And people started recommending it to each other through word of mouth.

So every time I go to a conference and someone says, "Hey, someone did it in the team," then all of us did it in the team. So i-i-it's, it became that. So really, my time now is split between consulting. I help, um, usually large organizations. I've got long-term relationships with them. Um, I do have some consultants that work under me.

Um, and yeah, the occasional YouTube video where I talk about what's happening in cybersecurity and how to land a job.

Hala Taha: It's great. You get, you g- you got a full plate of clients, you have a team, and then you're able to create content and give back.

I mean, that's an incredible career that you have. So, um, okay, let's bring it back to cybersecurity [01:04:00] and wrap this up. So if you're a young entrepreneur listening right now, what are the three things that we should do tomorrow morning to protect our company?

Abed Hamdan: Um, number one, two-factor authentication. Use your authenticator app or a passkey.

This is a non-negotiable, no exception. This includes all of your employees. Uh, number two, a password manager. I know it will take you some time to get used to using a password manager. I can promise you it, it's a lot more convenient for you and your team to use a trusted password manager. It will save you time in the long run.

It will save you so much headache. And- Mm ... number three is, we talked about it a lot, is manage your access. Just because someone works for you doesn't mean they need to have access to everything in your company. Provide this access, give them access only to the things they need and no more, and have fun as an entrepreneur.

Hala Taha: Amazing. Beautiful recap. Thank you so much, Abed, for spending time with us on [01:05:00] Young and Profiting podcast.

Abed Hamdan: Thanks for having me, and thank you so much for your time. This has been an absolute pleasure

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.