0:02 Who are you and where are you going? What do you want? [Music] Hello and welcome to People Making Money. I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and I'm here every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about job hunting, starting and running a business, building wealth, all of those aspects of our financial lives that in many ways
0:37 enable us to deal with all the other parts of our lives is really what it comes down to. And so today, I'm I'm very anxious to jump right in talking to my guest. So, uh, John, uh, uh, there I go. I'm going to mangle your last name. Uh, uh, Sol Solid Solidar. Close enough. Solid. That's Solader. Okay. John Solidar is a new friend of mine. Um, we we just met, I think, a week or two ago. Um, John was uh, watching an episode of the show and reached out to me. And you
1:13 know, the first time we spoke, it was like we had known each other for, you know, since we were kids kind of thing. And we were talking about business and what it takes to be successful. So I said, "John, I I I got to get you on an episode of my show to share some of this with with with the viewers and listeners because uh you know, John, if you saw any of the social media posts, you John is a serial entrepreneur, has been uh running starting and running businesses his whole career. John John is uh around the same age as me. He'd be like my my younger brother a little bit,
1:48 I think. Um, and and you will you will see John, I'm sure he'll mention it, but John is originally from New Jersey. So, uh, you know, I'm telling you, people from New Jersey, they're just they're real people. Uh, so uh, so so John, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on. Well, Kevin, thank thanks so much for that nice nice uh, introduction and your invitation. And yeah, I do love your show and and you know what? It's it's a little different because it's giving people some, you know, some some things that they can do in this current economic environment that we're in.
2:23 Whether it's good or bad, I don't even know. I mean, I look at some of the numbers and they look good. I look at some of the other numbers, they don't. Then you listen to Pal and then you listen to Bush Bush Trump and then you listen to So, who knows if it's good or not. But at the end of the day, what I found throughout my 42 plus year career working for myself is generally it's up to me to make to make it the best that that I can make it given all of the circumstances that may exist. And that the less excuses that we make for our situation, the better off we're going to be. Yeah. And and and I I think
2:58 right that that's the core philosophy. So before we get into your businesses and and if if you're willing and I don't think I asked you this question when we were talking before but if you're willing when when you were a kid right what did you think you wanted to do when when you grew up right I I know for me there was I was going to be an astronaut of course every kid I think my age wanted to be an astronaut right um but you know never ever in my in my childhood did I think yeah when I grow up I want to be I want to be an independent trustee and and and you know administrate trusts and
3:36 and estates. Like like I even I would not have even known that, right? But I'm just I'm always I always start out asking my guests this question because it's so interesting where you know we thought we wanted to go and and most of the time where we ended up. Well, believe it or not, my plan was to be a sports writer. Um, I always thought Oscar Madison was the coolest guy on TV way back. You remember the odd couple. Some people do. Tony Randall and um they were so good. Jack Lugman. Jack Jack Lugman. Yeah.
4:11 Yeah. I I played little league baseball with Jack's nephew, Mark. Believe it or not, like a hundred years ago in New Jersey. But uh and Jack even came to a couple games, had a cigar the whole time. But uh but but I always thought I loved sports. I loved competing in them and at the same time I thought what what a great career going to ballparks or rinks or whatever you were assigned to. I didn't care what the sport was by the way. Uh and that was my goal. And then uh my senior year of college, I had my first offer financially and I realized I was going to make a whopping $12,000 a
4:47 year and I was going to have to move to Delaware. Uh, I had been offered a job in Delaware from a uh a high school wrestling magazine down there and I owed so much in student debt that I said this isn't practical. You know, thousand bucks a month less taxes and you still got to eat, you still got to, you know, live somewhere, you know, right? So, uh, that plan changed ironically uh, really really quick. Uhhuh. I I figured out that was not the life I was I was going to have. Now, now as an old guy, if somebody offered me that job and I could go to like every major league ballpark and report on a baseball game or
5:23 something, I' I'd probably do it for free. But, you know, I I don't want to advertise that somebody might offer me that job, right? On the other hand, you might you might want, you know, it when I was when I was a kid, you know, and in junior high, high school, did a lot of uh acting, you know, dramas and musicals and like, you know, I I was not the sports guy. I was the, you know, choir and theater guy and and and you know, getting ready to go to college. Um, my friends said, you know, so, you know, where are you going? I'm going to USC. What are you going to study? Oh, I'm going to study architecture. Architecture? Why are you gonna study
5:58 architecture? Why aren't you going into acting? And I would say, you know, don't really want to star for a living. Well, I dated an actress in New York who was actually very successful. She was actually in Phantom for a lot of years. So, I got to know a lot of professional actors and actresses. And yeah, I mean, they're always one day away from losing a job and having to be waitress versus actress or or actor. And I'll make light of it. These are super talented, super dedicated people. I love their I mean, their dedication is is every bit as high as a professional athlete. Oh, for sure. But boy, what a tough way to make a
6:34 living. Yeah. And you know, a couple of my a couple of the guys I went to high school with are are household names. Um, I mean, I knew him as Tony Edwards, but Anthony Edwards, uh, you know, who was Goose and Top Gun and he was on ER and all that, right? He he's a a friend of mine. We went to high school together. We were at USC at the same time. Um, uh, Eric Staltz, I, you know, I went to school. So, some of my friends, uh, you know, did break through. But what I but when when I looked at what they had to go through and really how lucky they got
7:12 which which was what allowed them to be successful and I'm looking at myself I'm like yeah that's I'm willing to work hard but but to work hard and and not have a sense that with the hard work success is essentially inevitable. And that that's the challenge. It doesn't matter how talented you are in that business. I think this is true of sports as well. So, you know, you can be a super talented athlete, but you know, if you don't get the breaks or whatever, you know, you're not going to make it into the NBA or whatever, right? You
7:49 know, it's always important to have a backup plan. Um, you know, I I I' I've worked with a lot of athletes o over the years because my other passion besides business is athletics. And I've always told them, have a backup plan. And one of the one of the young guys that I mentored who now lives in Houston, he called me the other day and he said that he had gotten hurt playing hockey a couple years ago and he said, "Thank God I listened to you." And he was always cracked the books, really good student. He's doing really well now in the construction trade. He's probably going to move to West Virginia to uh start an HVAC company and roofing
8:24 company with a partner. And anyway, he was bouncing some ideas off me. Point being, however good you are, and we saw this in the NBA finals the other night. This player from from Indiana, Hallebertton, I mean, the poor guy, Torres Achilles. So, he's out for a year and he may be able to return. Okay. Now, okay, granted, they have insurance and I hopefully he's put away a few bucks, but and he made it to that top level, but what if he was in high school or college and that happened, right? Or he was in his first practice in the NBA and he hadn't signed a long-term deal or something, right? So look, in all walks
8:59 of life, having a plan B is fundamental. And you know, one of the things I preach to people is, look, multiple sources of income, multiple streams of income, call it what you want. Plan, have a plan B, have a side hustle, have a side gig, have something that you're working on while you're doing your primary thing so you've got that secondary backup plan just in case. Or maybe it's what you really want to do when you are in a position to retire or leave what you want to do. So you do something that you really want to do that you can throw yourself in and be passionate about. Yeah. So how did you make that pivot from deciding okay I'm not going to be a
9:35 sports writer. So then you know now the whole Y world is open to you right and so h how you know how did that transition work? I had a crazy 60 days of my life that happened from April to June of 1983 and and if I can Kevin take a couple minutes to tell this story. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, what happened was that that same week I I had competed there's a sport called sombo. It's Russian wrestling. It's a combination of wrestling and judo. And I had competed and that's where I had that job offer, believe it or not, was from a gentleman
10:10 at this meet down in in in Virginia. We were at uh George Mason University and I competed and I took took fifth in the country and you know made like a national team that I could have went to Europe and etc etc. But I was kind of on the fence what am I going to do? I had considered the Marine Corps. Uh come from a long long line of of of not only Marine but also you know Army veterans in both sides of my family. I had considered that. Um but I really like I said I really had my heart set on being a sports writer. My degree was going to be in communication from whole university, South Orange, New Jersey. Go- Pirates. And uh anyway, uh our claim
10:48 to fame is basketball. Uh actually, education is our claim to fame, I should say. Uh my my my cousin runs a nursing school there. She'd get very upset if she heard me say basketball as opposed to education. Well, the the Satan Hall is is well known. I mean, their sports claim to fame is certainly basketball. So, yeah. Yeah, that's about it. A little bit of baseball, but yeah, basketball's a thing. But anyway, so I'm about to graduate. And a buddy of mine who I had wrestled with in high school was a couple years older than me and he had gone to Lehi University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and graduated. And he came into the gym
11:23 I was working out at one day and we started talking and he says, "Look, you could start a business like I started for $32." Well, the good news was it was $32. The bad news was I didn't have $32. I said I said, "Tom, if I could write you a check uh and you could hold it for a few days, I'll be able to cover it." Because I was selling health club memberships part-time at that same facility for another friend of mine. And uh anyway, long story short, he said, "Sure." Well, what happened over the next 30 days were two things. Number one, I went out and I made $800
11:58 selling that product. Wow. When $800, keep in mind, we're the same age, Kevin, right? $800 in 1983 is about $2,500 today. Yeah, for sure. Also though, people didn't have credit cards. So when I said I made $800, it was like I opened my wallet and they were dead American presidents in there. Like there was real money in there, right? Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I probably had more money in there today than I do now. I got all these credit cards, you know, have a $100 bill and credit cards. But anyhow, so I made real money. But what happened was, and this was fortuitous, Ronald Reagan was our commencement speaker on
12:35 May 18th. So I started this business April 18th. Reagan speaks at our commencement May 18th of 83. And Reagan made two great points that day. One was of course the fact that he actually predicted that what would eventually happen with the wall that would come down because the East Germans wanted what the West Germans had in terms of product, food, technology, all the things that that people in that part of the world were deprived of. But you know across this wall, gee, they're having a good time over here were were struggling. So right, he he predicted that and he talked about the fact that that capitalism while not perfect, okay, it's still the isism that frees people
13:11 frankly. Okay. It still does to this day and it always will. But second to that, what stayed with me all of these many years was when he talked about the fact that in 1932, height of the depression, he goes back to Illinois where he'd been a lifeguard the previous summer, graduated college just like we all were that day. And and by the way, 1983, the economy is still struggling. I mean, it's still it's still in trouble. And um anyway, he said uh I went back he said and I started to talk to a successful businessman who he he had known and he asked for some
13:47 advice. He said look you know I'm a young guy I'm a college graduate you know kind of what should I do and this businessman gave him great advice. He said you should find a business that you are passionate about and then find a mentor to teach you that business. Well, in Reagan's case, obviously it w it was broadcasting and he it was a minor. He got to do the sports writer thing kind of. He was a sports broadcaster for the uh Chicago Cubs affiliate. Somebody heard him from Westinghouse. They moved him out to California and as they say, the rest is history. But but more than that, Reagan touched on the fact of mentorship.
14:22 And all of a sudden, as I'm still looking for a job, right, I've got a resume that has my name and my phone number. There was no email, text, all the other things today that probably on a kid's resume, right? And I got this piece of paper, my name and my phone number. And um as I'm still looking for a job, I start to realize I made 800 bucks in 30 days having really no idea what I'm doing. What if I looked at the people mentoring me in that business and said, "Let me learn everything I can from them." And then once again, something happened about 30 days later, give or take. It wasn't necessarily June 18th. I don't remember the date, but I went to my first ever
14:58 real business meeting in Hartford, Connecticut. And I did not own a suit or tie, by the way. I had to actually buy one. Okay. But but I had 800 bucks. By that point, I had about 2,000 bucks I had made for that business. I was like, I could buy back then you could buy a decent suit for $100. Yeah. Anyway, I went to this meeting and the fell doing the meeting said these words that have also stayed with me and I could recite them. If he woke me up from a cold sleep at 3:00 a.m., I could recite them. What he said was, "For things to change, you have to change. And for things to get better, you have to get better." And I was like, "Whoa." I'm still blaming kind
15:33 of the fact that, you know, I'm brought on born on the wrong side of the street. My father was an immigrant. My mother was an immigrant. You know, they don't speak the language that well. My dad's a bluecollar guy. Worked hard. Okay. Made a decent living. But but the end of the day, you know, one of a lot of extras in our house. Yeah. And I'm blaming them and I'm saying, you know, you I'm blaming everything, okay? Instead of looking in the mirror and saying, "For things to change, I had to change. I had to get better." So, all of a sudden, I hear this guy say those words. Turns out Jim Ran, the great Jim Ran, right? All
16:09 of a sudden, I said, "You know what I've got in my wallet besides some money? I've got a library card and I'm going to start going to the public library at least one or two afternoons a week and everything I can find on self-development, personal development, business, I'm going to read and I start to trip across stuff, okay, by people like Old Mandino, uh, greatest salesman in the world, uh, James Allen, as a man thinkketh, okay, Mary Kay, you know, the great Mary Kay from Dallas here. some of the things that she had written on on on small business and and I can't
16:45 remember them all but I just became a sponge for everything that could build John not necessarily build that business but build John because if I built John I could build any business right the business is irrelevant I'll figure out you know the mechanics of the business okay but at the end of the day if I if I'm not in a good place mentally Right? No business succeeds. If I am in a good place mentally, any business can succeed. I just have to figure out, you know, the mechanics and the, you know, what works, what doesn't work, you know, and trial and error, all that kind of
17:21 stuff that we do in every business out there. But, but that's what happened. So, in about that 60-day period, okay, that the man upstairs kind of shown his light on me and said, "Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna show you some things. What you do with them are up to you." Right? To quote Ran again, right? You know, oil, sunshine, rain, miracle of life. Now, what are you gonna do with it? Yeah. And that's what happened. And, you know, that was 42 years ago, and I'm, you know, 64 years old now. I'm still going strong, still teaching some of this stuff to people all over the world, doing podcasts, writing books, educating, coaching, mentoring, doing whatever I possibly can. Plus, I've got a a number of businesses that we're
17:57 we're involved with. So you know it and this is one of the things that intrigued me the first time we spoke is how similar our life paths were because like now my father was an engineer so he was I guess a white collar guy but my dad you know really he loved the part of engineering he loved was the tinkering right that's what he wanted to be doing um and when I decided to go out on my own in it was around 1985 and now for the first time I'm responsible for for making, you know, for selling and making all work. And and
18:33 I'm I'm failing at it, you know, I'm I'm just I'm not making sales, whatever. And I realized I've got to learn what I need to do. So, you know, I I I read, you know, Tommy Hopkins book and then I got his tapes and uh I can't think of the name. There was a woman who was a very well-known sales trainer at the time. I got her tapes, you know, all the Earl Nightingale stuff and driving around in my car. This was when you only had cassette tapes, right? This is before, you know, um, CDs. And I was always listening to, you know, one of these tape programs over and over again, like
19:10 drilling this stuff into my head. And I remember, you know, after doing that for probably a year and and and and improving for sure and I'm thinking to myself, but why am I still not getting the success that I wanted and I realized something that that it sort of came to the four and that is, you know, look, I love my father. He he was a he was a great guy, but he came from a very sort of populist perspective that that taught me if
19:45 someone was wealthy, they had become wealthy through nefarious means, right? And here I would be going and talking to people. I was, you know, in my mid20s and I'm saying to them, let me manage your building that's worth, you know, a million dollars, $2 million, right? And I think they could feel from me that I thought, you know, unsaid was, you know, you crook, right? Not a not an effective sales pitch, right? And so it really took I I started listening to
20:20 Zigg Ziggler, right? And Zigg Ziggler is probably the genius in helping people change their perspective. And I I remember the day he died because I I there were some people who who were also Ziggler fans like me and we were all mourning the passing of this this great man. Um but you I so much of our success happens you know as as Ziggler between our two ears and and all the impediments to it as well right they're happening between our two ears and and
20:58 you know if if this this is I think what's so hard for for people to comprehend is the thing that's most likely holding us back is is is is ourselves. Exactly. Exactly. Why, you know, why why does one person in business become a Jeff Bezos, an Elon Musk? Both both come from fairly normal backgrounds. Neither one of them came, you know, like I I mentioned a client before I won't mention on your show, you know, who whose family were billionaires. Well, he should be successful, okay? I mean, he's
21:34 could write a check for any amount of money. Okay? But you look at at at whether it's those guys, Mark Cuban, whose dad was a bus driver in Pittsburgh. I mean, there's so many examples of people who who had tremendous wealth bestowed upon them, first generation, you know, in our lifetime. We probably have more first generation billionaires now, I think, than we've ever had. I may or may not be right about that, but I, you know, I think it's a fair argument. And you look at the businesses that these guys have started that we've all benefited from. Mhm. It's not like they got it all and it was nefarious. It was like, "No, they didn't get it all there. They got their share certainly." Right. At the end of
22:10 the day, if they created tens of thousands of jobs that increased the tax base in different communities around not only our country but around the world, well, shouldn't they be able to make that kind of money? Because to trickle down, okay, it's really good for, you know, if a billionaire creates how many millionaires and millionaires create how many hundred thousand? I don't think 100,000 airs is a is a term, but you know what I'm saying. But we know what you mean, right? And what happens to the tax base when all of a sudden, you know, for example, Amazon opens a facility and they employ a thousand people, 2,000
22:45 people, 10,000 people in a community that then turn around and make good wages, okay, that have to pay taxes in those communities. And now all of a sudden you have better little league fields, better ambulance, etc. To me, that's why business people are my heroes, not athletes, not entertainers. Okay, agreed. I don't disrespect those people. They've worked hard, too. But at the end of the day, those business people, the trickle down of success is other people being able to eat. It's a good thing at the end of the day. And sometimes what happens because I was raised the same way, by the way. My father was a union guy all the way. And the the contractors were definitely
23:21 doing the wrong things and they weren't paying enough and blah blah blah. Well, then you get on the other side of it as a business person yourself and you start to realize the risk is all on the guy that owns the business. You get to go home at four o'clock in the afternoon and you know watch a ball game and eat dinner with your family. That guy's 9 10 o'clock at night. His phone's still ringing. Right. Right. And if he owes money, it might be ringing at 11 or 12 o'clock at night. Right. So, you know, you just realize both sides of it. But yeah, to me that the business people have always been my heroes, you know, and I look at the businesses that, you know, Ray Croc built for example or or Mary Kay and there's so many examples
23:56 once again of people who are deceased that built great businesses that are still going. I think of uh you know Jim Collins uh great book you know built to last when he talks about you know building a time piece right versus building you know a a big Ben right right you know like like there's a difference right like what what are you what are you building you know what I mean and I think he used the example there of Sam Walton for example you know Walmart's bigger today than it was when Sam was alive right you know So he built
24:31 it right. Walt Disney built it right. You know, others built it right. And they built it not only for themselves because they were only going to live a certain amount of time as a mere mortal, but they built a great enterprise that's lived beyond them, not only for their family's benefit, but for so many other famil family's benefits. Yeah. Well, I remember the um this was probably the mid 90s um and and you know, business was doing, you know, pretty well and so you wanted to do something to give back to the community. So, I became a a fundraiser for the Jewish community here in LA. And through that, I got recruited
25:07 to be a fun a fundraising trainer across the country by um a wonderful woman by the name of Anita Jacobs. She was the national fundraising trainer for the um um um for the um Jewish appeal at the time. And so, she sent me to Seattle to do a training up there. And I'm this is my first time in Seattle, which it's beautiful city. And I'm walking around and I see all these people with these jean shirts, you know, that were so popular at the time. And over the breast
25:42 pocket it says FU IFV. And I I'm I saw a lot of these shirts and I'm thinking to myself, what the heck is, you know, is this like some kind of club or is this a business that I'm not familiar with? Right. And so I went and did the training and um there were a number of people there who were learning how to fund raise and they would say things like well you know I'm I'm I'm kind of unemployed now. And I'm kind of
26:17 unemployed now but like this guy's talking about buying a helicopter you know it's like I'm like what is going on here? So the fellow who who was my main contact there, he's taking me back to my hotel. And I'm like, what's going on here? First of all, what's the FUIFv thing? He says, "Oh," he said, "Those are people who work at Microsoft and their their pension is is vested now." So the FU is obvious. If I'm fully vested, so these are people who are worth and again this is back in the 90s, they're worth at least like five to seven
26:52 million dollars. Right. And they're they're all over the place, right? So, you know, I mean, whatever people say about Bill Gates, he built a company that made I don't even know how many millionaires, right? Um, and and then these people turned around, a lot of them worked, you know, doing charitable work and and, you know, and this and that. So this is really the engine that that makes things happen in our communities I think right what would happen you look at UPS the day UPS went
27:27 public most of their drivers who had been with them for I I don't remember how many years but most of their drivers with any kind of seniority that day became a millionaire on paper right I mean and that's a great story when a working guy gets to be or working woman gets to be a millionaire there because they stayed with a company, they were loyal, they worked hard, they deserve it, they certainly deserve it, but it's a good thing. And and somebody else might look and go, "Yeah, but the CEO made hund00 million." Yeah, but if the CEO guided the process and all those people became millionaires, what are you
28:02 complaining about? Look at how he took care of his people. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So, so you mentioned um some of the great RER uh you know, Jim Ran. So who who who do you recommend people look to today for the kind of guidance that that you and I you know found so crucial uh to you know to the success that we gained. And I'm going to let you think about that for a minute while while we we uh one of our play spot from one of our sponsors. Okay. We'll be right back.
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29:18 or visit magnumprops.com. So, we're back with People Making Money. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and my guest is is John uh Solader. Did I get it right this time? You got it. You got it. I got it. Okay, good. and we are talking about h how to be successful, how to be successful in business, how to be successful in life. And the the the the the question that I asked John just before the break was where can who to whom should people look today for the
29:55 kind of guidance that that John and I have been talking about in the show so far to to lead to lead you to success to give you the the information the inspiration that that that that we all need in order to be successful. You know, you know, Kevin, that's great. It's it's a great question because, you know, we we we know all the luminaries, right? And most of them are dead. I mean, you know, you know, Jim's dead, Zigg's dead, you know, you go to Earl Nightingale, what a great voice. How would you like how would you like that voice? I mean, what a great voice, you know. Yes. Uh and you know, he was
30:30 almost killed in World War II. Most people all know that. He was very Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And uh um you know, so so a lot of those voices are gone now. Fortunately, they live on on YouTube. Like I still I still listen to Jim Ran on a regular basis. I just I knew Jim. Okay. I didn't know him well. I had lunch with him here in Dallas one time and he it was funny. I had lunch with him, Ron Reynolds who had had helped him write the seasons of life and a guy named Charlie Reag who had found a network marketing company here in Dallas. And those two guys were in their 50s and we finished lunch and I answer I'll answer your question in in a second
31:06 here. But Jim has his glasses propped up on his forehead like you always did. I don't think he ever wore the things by the way. I every time I saw him they were up here and u anyway uh he looks at these two guys and he looks back at me and he says M. And he always call you by your last name, Mr. Solader. I don't think I can help these two guys. And I knew exactly what he meant. Jim was religious about write everything down because you're never going to remember it. Now in my 30s then my memory was pretty good. In my 60s I can tell you yeah it's not as good. Okay.
31:42 Right. But anyway I ran to my car. You would have thought I was Usain Bolt. I ran to my car. I ran back to get my date and I start making notes and he goes, "John, John, relax. You don't have to write down everything I say." He goes, 'The point I made is what if this waiter comes over and says something so profound, something so life-changing, something so businessch changing and you go, "Wow, that was great." And you don't have the ability to record it. This is before cell phones, by the way. I mean, cell phones existed, but you couldn't do what you can today, right? Anyway, he said, "What if he says that and you get home tonight
32:18 and you start thinking, that waiter really made a great point. I need to go back there tomorrow and say, "Hey, waiter, what did you say exactly?" You get back here tomorrow. The waiter quit. The waiter got fired. The waiter didn't come to work today. They won't give you his name and phone number. Or better yet, the waiter's here and he looks at you with a blank stare and says, "I don't know. It's gone forever." But if you wrote it down, guess what? It's yours. And when Jim said that, this was in about 1992, by the way, maybe 93, something like that, early 90s. And uh it just stuck with me. I became very
32:53 very very good at taking notes and diorizing everything that made any sense. And I've got if you were in my my messy office here, you'd see I literally have daytimers galore. Notes everywhere. I throw nothing out. I drive my wife crazy because I don't know where there's that one idea, that one concept that's a game changer. So let me answer your question. We live in an age where we all have to be able to do two things. Pivot and be agile. The pivot came like for me for example the pivot came during co I had written
33:28 two books. This one that came out in December of 20 of 2019 and this one that came out in February 2020. Now if you were planning to have bad timing to write books that would have been the time because I do so much public speaking. I've got 60 cities I'm going to be in over the next 12 months with my network marketing business as my primary business, but oh by the way, when I'm in Cincinnati, I've got friends. They're going to have me come speak to the Rotary Club. They're going to have me come speak here or there, their network marketing business, etc. Or Chicago or or London for that matter. All over the
34:03 world. And my books are in Spanish. So I also have a big tour coming up in in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic. Wow. Like I got all the this stuff's all on paper 12 months where I'm going to be and all of a sudden you start seeing the news and these people in China are dying and all of a sudden they're dying in LA and people are wearing masks and you know it hits Dallas and the food stores are closed and oh wait a minute what's going on here? Well anyway this is where the pivot came. Now think of a pivot folks like basketball. My back's to the basket and my teammate throws me the ball. I got to pivot to turn around and throw
34:38 the ball in the hoop. I pivoted to do what? Podcasts. Like what we're doing right now. Okay. I created a podcast because at least I could reach people, right? And by the way, they wanted to be reached because they had nothing else to do. So it was actually it was actually good timing in that respect. Wouldn't want to repeat it. I'm sure you all wouldn't either. But where's the agility come? The agility came about 12 well not even 12 months ago where I recognized that I needed to understand AI and apply it to my business and I started to study it and I I I I got a
35:16 mentor in it a guy out in Las Vegas that I that I met ironically that that's very very good at it who's a little younger than me not much couple years and he started to teach me about AI and how to use it for my podcasts for my network marketing business for my writing etc etc and I started to use it so That's where the agility comes. The agility being being able to move this way or this way. So don't think if you're listening to Kevin show that, hey, I'm um I don't understand all that. I don't want to understand all that. I'm going to do, you know, one of these deals that you can understand it. Do you have to become a machine learning engineer? No, I'm certainly not. But you better know
35:51 how to use it and apply it because it's the time we're living. And to quote our friend Bill Gates again, Gates said 25 years ago, there were two types of businesses. those on the internet and those out of business. Well, I believe now AI is the same. Those that are using AI properly to do all the stuff you don't want to do because it could do a multitude of functions for you. So, you do what you do best. If that's selling like I do for a living or you do for a living, Kevin, only we can sell our client. They don't want to talk to a computer. But a lot of the preparation it can be done. So, to answer your question, okay, people like Russell Brunson. Now, I don't know Russell Brunson. He doesn't send me a commission
36:27 check for saying this. But Russell Brunson has been ahead of the curve in terms of not only developing funnels, but also teaching other people how to develop funnels for their respective businesses, whatever that business happens to be. If you're real estate, if you're network marketing, if you're insurance, real estate, automobile, whatever it is, start with a lot of people and funnel it down so you're only talking to the people that actually have a sincere interest in what it is you're selling. Okay? Um that that's one thing. Uh Russ Russell Brunson would be one. Tony Robbins, I think to his credit, he stays ahead of the curve. That guy stays not only relevant, but he stays on top
37:03 of his game. Y uh Tony has become, you know, a pivoter and agility guy over the years, right? Because the world for him like it has for all of us. Uh Tony is one. Um those would be two names that come to mind. There's certainly others, okay? There's some that I don't know, you know, some of the younger folks that are that are doing things. But at the end of the day, follow the people who are contemporary in terms of technology. Technology is a gamecher and it makes your life a lot easier. By the way, for sure. I was talking to a friend of mine in Manila this morning and I was
37:39 referencing the years that I spent with Metropolitan Life years ago. And at the time I was with Metife, the top sales rep was a Persian gentleman with a very funny really not a funny name. It sounds funny when I say it, Mady Fakazadi. Okay. And and and I remember I I I wrote a policy at 5:30 in the morning on a contractor and I came to the office at about 6:30 to submit the application to the those days you had to submit it to the secretary. There's no internet, right? And anyway, so I came, you know, do the paperwork, leave it on her desk and leave. All of a sudden, I hear some noise in the coffee area and I realize
38:16 that Mie is there. And M's about 60 at that time, by the way. I'm about 23, 24. And um anyway, I went, "Oh, Mr. Mie, good morning. How are you, sir?" Good. What are you doing up here so early? He goes, "Oh, I went out. I had breakfast with a friend and I wrote a policy." Here's the number the number one guy at that time in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Even then, a $140 billion company, right? And we got talking and and and I rarely talked to him. I was a little intimidated to be honest with you. I mean, the man was a legend then. And um long story short, he said something that
38:51 stayed with me and he said uh I said, "Why you why do you still work this hard?" and he said to be honest when I came from Iran between a language barrier new business I think he was an engineer in Iran he may have been an attorney I don't remember but he was a professional but he could he couldn't do that in in the states couldn't get licensed and um so long story short he he said to me he said business is easy now you know he was working off a lot of referrals and everything else but in other words he knew what he was doing so I look at somebody my age now well now I know what I'm doing now that doesn't mean that
39:26 that I have the expertise in every technology that comes along. I don't I'm not a technological person. There's apps there's apps on my phone. I have no idea what they do. But I'll tell you what, the ones that I do know what they do, I use them every single day. Okay. So, that's my message to anybody who's maybe over 50 listening to your show today, Kevin, is don't be intimidated by it. Embrace it. Use it. There's plenty of ways to learn it. There's guys like Brunson, there's guys like Robins, there's others that could help guide the process. There's different people who are authority figures in AI, for example, that are popping up. And don't
40:01 and don't worry that they're 25 years old. Right. You know what that you know you know what that tells me? They've spent 17 hours a day on the internet for the last 15 years. Good. Right. Exactly. You know, I'll tell you something else I'm doing. I've actually created with a partner uh a clip farming army. Now, for those of you not familiar with clip farming, clip farming is those little clips you get on your phone that are six to 15 seconds, okay? Advertising variety of different things. They're like really short ads. They're a really short ad, right? And uh we've actually developed a clip farming army to basically go out
40:38 and promote varieties of different businesses that we're working with as an example. Well, if you told me even two years ago I would be engaged in a business like that, I would say you're insane. I don't even know. I didn't know what clip farming was, by the way. A matter of fact, most of your listeners right now are googling it because they don't know what the first time I've heard of it. So, yeah, club clip farming. And we're working with a lot of doctors, believe it or not, that need to promote their practices. And a lot of doctors today, they they they businesses changed, too. A lot of them have to do consulting work to make enough money. So, they might be in Los Angeles where you are, but they have a something that
41:13 they do really well. Well, they may have other doctors paying them to to sit in on I got this patient with this situation or that. We're working with a lot of those guys, believe it or not, with clip farming to help them get their story out because how do they meet other doctors? Yeah, they meet them locally and they meet them at seminars, but you know, great way for them to do it. We're working with a lot of network marketing people, same thing to get their brands out that that aren't known about. And we're working with with other people. So my point about that is be open to change and be open to the new economies that exist because of what other people have done. We didn't invent any of this
41:48 stuff, but we're using it to our advantage, right? And we're living at the to me, I think we're living, I don't know if you agree with this or not, Kevin, but I think we're living at the most exciting time in human history. If we can stop killing each other and dropping bombs on each other and shooting each other and and hating each other because where somebody goes to church or synagogue or mosque or or what their politics are. By the way, in our own country, if we stop killing each other because we got a D or an R after our name, and we start realizing that all of these great things exist for all of us to use, whatever your ethnicity is, whatever your religious persuasion is, right? If we do that, boy, the
42:25 world's going to be a fabulous place going forward. I mean the the opportunities that exist are just so vast. Take advantage of them. And even if none of that happens and those some of the other parties don't do that, you do that. Go back to me in 1983. Be the best version of you for you, for your family, for your community. Yeah. I I so I I I want to emphasize one of the things you said uh because I think it's so important and I'm I'm not going to say it exactly how you did but I think correct me if if if I'm misinterpreting and that is uh
43:02 you know be be brave you know I I know for myself uh I was never a technology guy um and and yet throughout I know throughout my career as new technologies developed, I I played with them until I figured out how can I use them to make my business more successful or or more efficient or whatever it was. So, when the fax machine came out, you know, that that was actually for someone who I was in the real estate business at the time,
43:37 that was a tremendous timesaver and money saver because now I didn't have to messenger documents around. I could get them to people much more quickly. Uh and then you know when um uh you know um personal computers came around and I could I could do my you know my bookkeeping for my clients or you know because I had a property management company. I I and I just sort of jumped into it and figured it out. And I think I I that experimentation was as important as the eventual
44:15 benefit that my business got from doing the experimentation because now here it is you know like you I'm in my mid60s and you know all these lang large language models are around and I've just kind of I've dived into them to figure out how can I use these to enhance my business because I figure if I don't figure it out, someone is going to and they're going to race ahead of me and I'm and I'm going to regret it. And and look, I'm not the the greatest user of of AI by any stretch. Um, but I found some some ways of using it that really
44:52 have made have made me much more productive and and and I agree with you know AI is going to be for this time. you know what the internet was for, you know, 20 or 30 years ago. And I don't think we know exactly how AI is really going to have its impact on business, but it'll it'll come through, you know, people like you and me and and and thousands of others playing with it and eventually those models will, you know, they they they will sort of bubble to the surface. Um,
45:29 I used to tell people that uh anything that um that you know that that someone else can teach you in a well organized way. That's already kind of p because it's gone through enough iterations that it's available now to most people. And where we want to be, this is a a phrase from the military, where we want to be is closer to the tip of the spear
46:05 where, you know, we're we're kind of the pathfinders and and we're willing to, you know, suffer some some failures or setbacks or, you know, going down blind alleys and realizing we're going to have to back up and go somewhere else. Um, if we're willing to do that, we have a much better chance at at staying at the forefront of business. But it's scary, right? Because there are, you know, there aren't rails anymore. Um, and and when you say, you know, don't be afraid to try these things. I that's kind of the message I
46:42 take is is is be bold, take take some risk. What is the downside to spending like you're doing, you know, a a couple of hours, a few hours a week playing with AI to just to see what you come up with? The risk is what? That you lost a few hours each week. Okay. So, you don't watch as much TV or whatever. So, you know, it I'm curious, how does that sound to you in terms of interpreting what what you said? No, you're no, you're you're 100% you're 100% on and and and and and the point I guess the
47:17 other point with that is and you you you you mentioned Tom Hopkins earlier, right? I think I shared with you last week, you know, I met Tom years and years ago. I went to one of his seminars and uh I ran into him and we got talking in the hallway and and and he said, "What's your biggest problem?" And I said, "Well, to be honest with you, I'm a little shy." And which is funny, right? Because I can do a show like this, but put me in a room of 10 people, I'm I'm like the guy in the corner looking at a cell phone, right? Like now somebody talks to me, I'm great. But me just going over like initiating a conversation out of thin air. It's not me. Uh and it still isn't,
47:53 by the way. But in sales, I found, okay, I can I can find ways to get a conversation started to to get to where I want it to get to. You know what I mean? Talking about what I want to do, which what whatever it is I'm happen to be selling at that time. Anyway, so so Tom wrote on the back of his business card, do what you fear most and I carried that around in my wallet for about 20 years and I would look at it sometimes because it's like, okay, for me it was just initiating conversation and it was like, okay, if that if that's what I'm fearing, what's the worst that they do? They say, I don't want to talk to you. I don't like you. Go away, right? I mean, I like come on, you know?
48:29 I mean, I've been married twice. Like I'm used to that, you know? Anyway, but But but but you know what I'm saying? It's like, okay, you get to a certain age and it's like, hey, if you don't like me, you don't like me. You don't want to talk to me, don't talk to me. No big deal. Like, I've talked to there's eight billion people on the planet, by the way, right? So, somebody don't want to talk to me. Believe me, there's somebody else who'll talk to us. I mean, don't worry about that. And anyways, but uh no, you're you're interpreting it 100% right. And I think self-education and there's courses you can take. You know, one of the things, and I rarely mention this, but I I'm a big believer
49:04 in our community college system in this country. Okay? Go take a course. If you say, "Hey, you know what? I'm interested in AI or I'm interested in social media. I'm interested in learning how to use Facebook and Tik Tok and these different things for my business." Well, go online and what wherever you live, there's a community college within 20 minutes probably. Okay? Don't take a course on a Tuesday night and hear what the guy has to say or the gal has to say for a couple of hours. Pay the money, okay? Don't you don't have to graduate, okay? But take the course because you're interested
49:40 in pursuing yourself getting better, right? Because that's really what what is self-development is us getting better. If you have an injury, like I was an athlete for many years, okay? I competed in in judo at a high level. I've had every injury imaginable. when you first get injured. Okay, I like that basketball player the other night. Yeah, he's in the very first baby steps of get of his recovery. He's got a ninemonth recovery ahead of him, right? It's the same thing in business. What's the first baby step? The first baby step is I'm interested. Second baby step maybe is I sign up for a course, maybe online, maybe maybe at the community college, maybe at some other other uh education
50:17 place. Maybe I hire uh a kid, okay? uh you know a graduate a recent graduate of of a school. Maybe I say, "Hey, listen. You know, let me call a uh you know, the uh IT department of my my local college and say, "Hey, do you have some young graduates maybe looking to make a few dollars? I need some guidance. I'm trying to do this for my business where maybe they can even create it for you, but they show you how they do it." Okay. And pay them for it. I mean, there's a million different ways if you just use you use this. You know what I mean? Like like what Zigg said, right? what's between your ears, right? Use this gray
50:52 matter and figure it out, right? And you know, how does it apply for your business? How does it apply for your life? Maybe you've got that that great novel in you and you're saying, "Hey, I you're our age where hey, you know, no guarantees. Do I have 10 years, 20 years, five years? I don't know." So maybe I want to write that great novel that I've had in mind, but I don't know how to do it. How can I use AI to help me do it to do some of the research? for example, maybe I want to write it about, I don't know, uh um my wife and I have been watching Steve Martin with Murders in the building and there's a play in there about Nova Scotia, which
51:28 I've been to a couple times in my life, but maybe I don't know about Nova Scotia. Well, I want to make sure that the writing is right. You know what I mean? Because I want to set it in Nova Scotia for whatever. I'm just picking that out of thin air. But what I'm saying is all that AI stuff will do that homework for you. You don't have to do that homework. It's going to give you the report that you need so you can work on maybe the plot that you need, right? Okay. And I'm I'm using that because I've written a number of books obviously. But at the end of the day, whatever that passion is, that's what Ronald Reagan said that that businessman told him. Find something you're passion about. Whatever that is, there's probably something with AI that that AI
52:04 can help you to accomplish what it is that you want to accomplish. Use it. It's not going to use you. You got to use it. So, and this is this is where your comment about this being the, you know, the most exciting time, you know, perhaps in in in history to to, you know, be in business, to start a business. I think this is spot on because the resources that are available to virtually anyone. I mean, we're talking about a time when people who who, you know, are homeless have a cell phone. Yeah. I I I you know I I walk
52:40 around Los Angeles where you know we have I think it's something like a tenth of the homeless population in the country and and many of these people probably most of them have cell phones. If you have a cell phone you have most of the knowledge of the world essentially at your fingertips. So it to sort of um tie into what you were saying a minute ago. I did a show, an episode of this show two weeks ago and I talked about where do you learn to start a business and I talked about I don't know six, seven, eight different ways that you could learn and you know most people
53:16 I think have this idea well I've got to go to college I got to get a you know a bachelor's of business administration I got to get an MBA and it's I don't I don't know that that's if you want to go to Wall Street then that's probably the path but if you want to be an entre entrepreneur that's that's unlikely to be the path and there are so many other ways to get educated now and many of them ha cost little or nothing if you you know once you have access to the internet um and I know for myself and it was it was interesting what you were saying about you know doing research in
53:52 Nova Scotia I use you know chat GP chat GPT all the time to research things like I wonder what's up with this you know and I'll say hey you know please tell me about you know X and then you know it gives me a thing give me more details it gives me more right it it is the it is the most targeted teaching tool that that's that's ever existed right and it's all available to us now you know you have to double check sources and all that because they're not 100% perfect fine um but we all have and and I don't
54:27 I don't pay for my you know chat GPT I You can, but I just use the free version. We all have available to us a one-on-one tutor that will tailor lessons exactly to what we want to learn, but we have to initiate the questions. Well, you know, you you think about something that I mentioned earlier. You know, 1983. Now, I was educated, you know, I went to a great university. I I graduated on time. Okay. So, I've got my degree hanging up here. You can't see it, but it's hanging in my office. Okay.
55:04 So, mine's right there. There we go. So, but but 1983, because a great entrepreneur by the name of Andrew Carnegie decided that he was going to give back by developing the free public library system. So, anybody of any means could get a library card. I was able in 1983 to wander into libraries in New Jersey, okay, at will. If I was if I was somewhere on a sales call or whatever, I could I could, you know, go in and say, "Let me spend an hour, you know, just pick something off the shelf." Ironically, I heard Dr. Ben Carson say the same thing. That's how his grandmother educated him, by the
55:39 way. I was like, "Okay." So, I wasn't crazy, but Ben's a little smarter. He he, you know, he separated co-join twins. But anyway, and Dr. Michael Greger, another another guy that I follow in the nutrition world, same thing. you grew up going to the library and you hear this from so many people this trend but anyway today's version of that is AI you know and the difference is you don't even have to get in a car or on your bicycle and go to the library you might want to okay do great I still love to go to the library I'm a library junkie but at the end of the day you've got it to your point you know it's right here yeah
56:17 everything you ever need to know about a subject effect. So utilize it is the point. So when I say that I believe we're living in in in the greatest time because of technology, if we can figure out some of the other things, okay, that still need to be figured out, okay, with repeated atrocities that seem to keep going on, okay? And I think maybe we are, but anyway, that's that's another another podcast, I guess. But at the end of the day, let's assume that we can get to the point of being peaceful with each other in the world. We've got all these opportunities to grow. You know, the
56:52 next Amazon, the next Microsoft, the next General Electric, the next whatever, okay, is around the corner. Some 23 year old kids working on it right now. Okay. So, you know, once again, we've got the best ahead of us. Utilize this technology. I'll give you one one other Kevin might might be interesting for your listeners. I was interviewing a doctor last week uh from down the road from you there in in Palm Desert and uh real interesting guy uh one of these underachievers by the way not only is he a dentist but he's also got an MBA and
57:28 he also speaks four languages fluently. So I'm like I'm telling my son I said yeah this guy's another underachiever you know. Right. Right. And uh anyway I said to him I said how are you using AI in your practice? And he's about our age maybe a couple years younger. And he said well here's what I'm doing. He's a dentist. He said, "I use the AI to be my actuary." And I said, "That's very interesting." I said, "How so?" He said, "Let's say I have a guy comes in who's a smoker." And I say, "How old are you?" And the guy says, "I'm 60. How long you've been smoking?" 40 years. Okay, let me go to AI for a second. 40 year 40ear smoker,
58:04 60 year old male. D Life expectancy. And he lets the AI show that patient what AI says. Now the doctor's not the bad guy by saying you need to give up the smokes. Now the AI say look your life expecties you got another five years if you keep puffing right. Wow. So if you if you love Mary or Susie or Patty or whatever the wife's name is and the kids and grandkids, you know, you might want to consider giving it up. You don't have to give it up. It's your choice, right? But according to this and this has a lot of data in it. It says this. I said, "Wow, what what a what a simplistic but direct way of using
58:42 something that just tells the person, hey, you might want to consider making a change." Okay? So, that's how our friends in the medical profession are using it. And and there's people using it in all different things. So, look at this isn't an AI presentation, folks, but what I'm saying is if you're a little older, okay, and you say, "Hey, I don't know about all this stuff. I don't want to know all about this stuff. You got that that, you know, thing where you got your hands over your eyes. You don't have to embrace it at the level you want to embrace it at. You do not need to become an expert. I'm no expert in it, but I know how to use it. And I'm I'm
59:18 using I mean, one of the things we do now is we we do word searches, believe it or not, with other podcasts. Okay? This is something else that we're doing, right? Crazy. So, I meet all these other podcasters, for example, right? because I'm helping actually put on a podcast summit in Lock, Texas in in in the end of August. The first one we're going to do. So, I need to meet other guys like you, right? Say, "Hey, come on down to come down to LC in late August." That's a sale in itself. Love in late August. Only be 117 in the shade. I was going to say, yeah, you know, but but but on and on, but but the point is it's it's a great way to meet people and interesting
59:53 people, compelling people, motivated people that you may or may not do any business with, but it's a great way to meet people that are like-minded as well. So, enhance yourself. And once again, I'm talking like everybody listening to you is our age. I'm sure there's younger people. It all these things, all these skill sets apply at your age, too. And frankly, if you're that older person, you're in your 70s or 80s, hey, same thing. Use it. Yeah. Yeah. It's all out there for us. Well, well, John, we we we've talked away an hour here. It it it it zoomed by and and we could easily do another I think
60:29 couple of hours. But, uh for for the sake of uh um my viewers and listeners, I'm going to I'm going to wrap things up here. Um so, but but I I want to thank you for coming on the show. We'll we'll have you'll have to have you back and we'll we'll talk some more. Um because this is really the heart of what people making money is about. It's it's going through these issues and helping people to really understand what does it take what does it take to achieve success, financial success, but as each of us as individuals define it. So the way I define it, the way you define it, that's
61:05 fine for each of us, but everybody's got to figure that out for themselves. and then and then work toward it. So, I I I can't thank you enough for uh for coming on the show today. I'll have you hang hang tight here while I wrap things up and then we we can talk offline for a couple minutes. So, so folks, thank you so much for joining us. I know we had several folks watching live. That's always a treat because I know we've got Lammon. I bet you're watching from Africa. This is right up your alley. He's a young young guy who uh one of my most loyal viewers. Um so so thank you all
61:42 very much for joining us. Um this is my last show for the week. So uh next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m. is my show Trust and Estates Weekly and my guest is Charity Score. uh charity is going to talk about um uh handling escros of properties that are going through probate. So, this can be a nightmare and charity is she's a pro at this. So, I invite you to join me for my conversation with Charity. And
62:18 then on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. is my show, Business Lessons from the Military. It's the anniversary of the Battle of San Juan Hill, the the battle that made Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders so well known. And we're going to derive business lessons from that. So, I hope you'll join me next week on Tuesday. And then a week from today will be the next episode of People Making Money. And then on Thursday of next week is my every other show, Jiggers's Place. So, we'll sit back. We'll have a
62:53 cocktail and we are going to talk about You knew I was going to do it. We're going to talk about etiquette. I've been hearing from a lot of people recently about this topic. Uh, and and I think we we need to get to the heart. What is this all about? Um, this is something that John and I were taught as boys because that's how things worked when we were kids. and and and you know, you you can see what a gentleman John is. And so, you know, what what is that all about? So, we'll we'll sit back and we'll have a cocktail, like I said, and we'll talk about that next Thursday at
63:28 5:00 p. p.m. Pacific time. So, thank you very much again for joining me. John, again, thanks so much for coming on the show and signing off as I always do, Marie. Darling, you're my bell from the south, right? You are my bell ever and always. Courage.