A Roadmap to Business Resilience

Serial Entrepreneur: Secrets Revealed! – EP113

[00:00:00] 

Today’s show is going to be about the pivot. We have best selling author, author Joseph Jaffe, who wrote Built to Suck. I mean, Built to Suck, wow. We’re going to hit it today.

I’m so super happy that we’re able to actually bring to our amazing members here at Startup Club joseph Jaffe. So Jaffe is, I call you Jaffe, sorry, not by your first name, but your last name.

I love your last name is an amazing, you know, as he calls himself. And I was looking at it and I agree with you, a provocateur of ideas around business and culture. Joseph has, you know, delivered over 500 keynotes, speeches, [00:01:00] 2000 podcasts. He’s written five books, my friend, five books. You know, what I love about Joseph is that he doesn’t just like go along with popular opinion.

I feel like you, Joseph, you know, if I could just say this, you know, I just only met you a few weeks ago. You’ve been doing a weekly show every day, 8am here on Startup Club on Clubhouse. But I feel like you’re really like seeking to learn and engage. I, I, you know, the format’s amazing. It’s very educational.

But more importantly for today’s event here on serial entrepreneur, like you’re going to give us some really amazing insight, empirical, hard found facts about why companies are sucking, you know, sorry, you know, I’m just going to put it right quite bluntly like, uh, Joseph’s dead, but why they’re sucking [00:02:00] and you know, what are the ideas around how to improve it because I think you’re right, Joseph, like at the end of the day, it is the people.

You know, and it’s like, and, and I’ve said this to Colin before, it’s like the, you know, syndrome, right? It’s like where you just push, push people to the point where they’re incompetent, they’re unhappy and they’re incompetent. So how do we prevent ourself from doing that? How do we make it work for everyone in the whole ecosystem of a company, of a startup, you know, whatever it is.

I’m a girl that started, you know, at the small companies, worked at very, very large companies like Arthur Anderson, you know, flash from the past, eBay, you know, very, and Jeff

is not here in, in, in their startup ventures. Uh, you know, I can’t tell you for me, personally, it’s much more fulfilling. I don’t know what you’re going to [00:03:00] say. I know I’m loading the dice here a little bit, but Jaffe… I’m going to stop talking and I’m going to put it over to you, my friend. Here you go.

Had to find the mute button there for a second, uh, you know, we all make mistakes, right? And it doesn’t matter how, how, uh, how, um, polished we are or how experienced we are, we’re just humans. I mean, the, the thing about, um, and we’ll jump around, I know, uh, especially you want to hear about kind of past, present, future, et cetera, but you know, suckage is inevitable.

Yeah. Um, and the, the name of the book, which, which was published in 2019, a year before COVID, which is insane when you think about all of these, all of these, uh, everything I wrote has only been exacerbated and amplified. Nothing that I’ve written has proven to be false. Everything has been proven to be [00:04:00] absolutely on point.

And I’ll, I’ll talk about that, uh, maybe a little bit later, but this book has published in 2019 and there were two. I would say, um, contributors. One is, you know, Jim Collins wrote good to great and he wrote built to lost. So that’s why it’s called built to suck. Because the fact is companies today are not built to loss.

They’re built to suck. And I’ll come back to that as well. Um, Jim does say in his book. That he talks about visionary companies and he absolutely states that companies will not stay visionary companies forever. And he introduces certain principles and he says if these principles are not put into practice, if things change, then no, they will not be built to last anymore.

You know, that’s his get out of jail free card. And, and, and certainly the book Built to Suck was not even remotely, um, you know, disagreeing with him. I agree with him a hundred percent. I just think [00:05:00] that right now, um, the idea is dated. Because of technology, because of startups, because of entrepreneurship, because of blockchain, because of just the changing world, because of, you know, Arab Spring and, and, and Black Lives Matter and Women’s March, it’s just, the world is different and COVID.

Um, the other was, I used to work for an agency called, uh, TBWA Shiat Day and Jay Shiat, um, he’s credited with a, with a line along, along. Um, these words, which is let’s see how big we get before we go bad, before we suck. And so the fact is, I mean, the premise in the book and the premise is that, uh, companies today are too big, too siloed, too political, too dysfunctional, too bureaucratic.

Um, they’ve lost their competitive edge. They are slowing down when the world is speeding up. And, um, and, and, and the third actually piece of [00:06:00] inspiration behind the book, so you’ve got, you’ve got the, you’ve got Jim Collins, you’ve got Jay, you’ve got Jay Scheidt. I was actually in my daughter’s high school classroom, she’s just graduated from college, so about six years ago.

And I saw this, it’s, it’s in the book, the, the image. Um, I saw this beautiful chart in her history class, it was like a, you know, parent teacher evening. And it showed 5, 000 years of history. of civilization, all color coded by geography, by continent. And I saw the Romans and the Ming dynasty and the Ottomans and the Egyptians and the Greeks and.

And the Persians and the Byzantines and, and then even closer to home, USSR, EU, uh, Nazi Germany. Um, and then at the bottom, this tiny little purple patch called USA, or as a Borat would call it, U. S. and A. And what I noticed is that every single dynasty or [00:07:00] civilization, and, and let’s just say up until, let’s say 50 years ago, 100 years ago, every single one of them is gone.

So if it’s possi if it’s true, and it is, that every single dynasty, civilization, empire has tried to conquer the world, live forever, cheat the sands of time, and every one of them has failed, then how arrogant are we, and how Um, full of hubris are we to believe that the corporate empire, so I’m calling the entire corporate world that we live in today, or that we operate in, or that we work in, or that we service, which is really, call it a hundred years young, or a hundred and fifty years young, how arrogant and foolish are we, delusional in fact, to believe that we too In, in this existing form will, um, cheat the sands of time.

And so that’s the, the, you know, the emphasis. I mean, the one thing I say in the book is the key to success is to suck less, but that’s just the band aid solution. At the end of the day, if you believe that suckage is inevitable, [00:08:00] so if you are a startup founder, if you are at the beginning of your journey, if you’re going through that hockey stick growth curve, you should be paranoid as hell.

You should be petrified of that inevitable suckage. And of course. If you can anticipate the suckage and if you have tools and if you have the means and early warning signs, well, guess what you can probably do something about it. I just want to, I’ll say one more thing, which is, um, I’m going to read to you just the first four lines of the book and not even the book of the inside flap in late 2018 Amazon founder Jeff Bezos addressed his entire staff in an all hands meeting.

Amazon will fail and go bankrupt one day. He said, your job is to delay this for as long as possible. Now, if Jeff Bezos can say that about Amazon, every single company in this entire world and every country in this entire world is [00:09:00] absolutely on the table, on the chopping block, and so if anything. It, it, it forces us to be realistic, to be vigilant, to be open, to be aware, to be proactive, and to fine tune and hone something that I write about called our survival instinct, which is based on self preservation and adaptation.

Adaptation, right? Adaptation. Charles Darwin said, it is not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one that is the most adaptable to change. So this should make everybody here really, really happy. Because if you are an entrepreneur, solo entrepreneur, a disruptor, an innovator, a challenger, this is you.

You are the adapter. You are the change agent. This is you at the beginning of your journey. But beware, and be warned, One day, you too will suck. One day, you too will go out of business and your job is to delay that for as long as possible.[00:10:00] 

I mean, wow, that gives us a lot to think about. It reminds me of something and, you know, I don’t know if this resonates with, with our members here, but the Peter Principle, where you keep growing or you keep being promoted to the point that you’re incompetent. So, why is it, you know, Jaffe, tell us, I know you’ve done a lot of research on this, why is it that we keep stretching ourselves and we force ourselves to be quite frankly incompetent, inipotent, if I, if I could say so.

Why is it? Well, and, and, you know, and I suppose omnipotent is probably what the delusional megalomaniacs that think they can rule the world and live forever. They think that they’re invincible and invulnerable. Um, you know, I started my career working for, uh, a fast food chicken company called Nando’s Chicken Land in South Africa.

I was [00:11:00] the third marketing employee and, um, I came to the U. S. in 1997, worked for a number of Madison Avenue agencies. And, uh, just between then and now, obviously I’ve now written five and I’m writing my sixth book. Um, Howard Schultz came out with his book about Starbucks. And I started reading this book and I was like, I was absolutely blown away because it was basically the Nando story.

Like almost you could cut and paste, you could search and replace. The word Nando’s for Starbucks, Starbucks for Nando’s, there was one difference and it’s a huge, huge difference. What Nando’s did is they promoted people internally. They took failed electricians or business people and they became, um, it wasn’t a franchise operation.

It was what’s known as a joint venture partnership, but for all intents and purposes, let’s call it franchise. But it was 51 49, uh, partnership. And some of them did really, really well. And then They took on a second store and then a third store, and then they became [00:12:00] regional directors and then they, and, and they kept on growing, growing, growing, and then they got a, they went into head office, but they rose to the level of their own incompetence.

Every time Starbucks hit the ceiling, as it were, this is a term now that I’ve learned because I’ve just started business coaching now, um, a few weeks ago. Um, every time they hit the ceiling, Howard Schultz brought in someone from the outside. When they wanted to go public, he brought in someone from the outside who had experienced taking companies public.

When they went international, he brought in people from the outside who had experienced with that. And so what you realize it is always about people. The only way we, I mean, uh, again, going back to business coaching now, which is relatively new for me. When, when we look at small and medium businesses, 80% of their pain points, 80% of their problems are people problems.

So I used to [00:13:00] say this with my previous companies, one I sold, and I always say in spite of myself and the other one, I eventually closed down and I would always say the only way we fail is if we got, get in or got in our own way. And guess what? That’s all we do. We get in our own way. We are our own worst enemies.

And so that incompetence, you know, it’s not meant to be like pejorative, it’s not meant to like, it’s not an insult, but they are, you know, if we have the self awareness at least, to recognize when we’re in over our heads. Um, I got into a lot of trouble recently. I’ve become less provocative and more of a provocateur.

And I referred to it was in one of our collective cafe sessions in the morning and I referred to All the uh digital ninjas that became social Avengers that became um, I guess web3 gurus and now our ai Uh, [00:14:00] mavens, I refer to them as cockroaches and, and I . I know it’s probably very hard to take this the right way, but I, it was endearing.

I meant it endearingly because I suppose a little bit of cockroach in me too, because cockroaches somehow find a way to survive. They find a way to, uh, and, and, and, you know, according to a accord, I’ve never been around a nuclear event, but apparently the cockroaches will survive the nuclear event. And so, You know, they moved from pillar to post, pillar to post, pillar to post, but the reality is including but not limited to business coaching There are a lot of people out there saying they’re experts, but they’re not really experts and that’s in the the Listen, I’ve been on Clubhouse for two plus years Maybe longer so I’m aware of all of the people that love talking but ultimately in a company Um, the most powerful thing we can do, the three words, the two most powerful words in the English [00:15:00] language are thank you.

In my household, it’s I’m sorry, right? Um, the three most powerful words are I don’t know. When last did anyone say I don’t know? That’s a really good question. I 500…

People on my show. I’ve had Tom Peters and Dan Pink and Seth Godin and Carole Baskin and Robin D’Angelo. I’ve had Patrick Fabian, who was Howard Hamlin on Better Call Saul, and I love saying, I don’t know. I love saying, I don’t know what that means. You just used a word. I don’t know what that means. If anything, when you say I don’t know to someone, it actually, it’s endearing.

Because you’re actually showing a little bit of vulnerability and fragility. And, and that little bit of even, we’re so afraid of showing our weakness, but it’s actually strength to demonstrate that bit of humility. So, you know, long, long winded way of going back to your point. But ultimately, what we’re [00:16:00] dealing with here are a lot of people who are afraid to say, I don’t know.

And so what they do is they create bravado. I mean, we live in a world now of masks, of PFPs, of filters, and, uh, and it’s just making us all dumber collectively, to be honest.

I know it’s, it’s kind of crazy, right? That, um, I’m just going to say generically, and maybe it’s me. I don’t want to impose this on other people that people are afraid to be vulnerable, right? Jaffe, but you know, there’s a lot of power and just, this is like this. We could go on for hours about this, just being vulnerable because in that vulnerability moment, right?

Where you’re just very honest with each other as co workers and my mind is flooded right now because we’re working with one company Where the executives are [00:17:00] afraid to say that you know what’s happening? It’s like they have blinders on okay entrepreneurs is when you are afraid to ask for help Or be vulnerable.

You, you know what? You literally have put blinders and handcuffs and foot cuffs and whatever on yourself. Because how can you like really tap into knowledge, really, really tap into the knowledge of people that really want to help you. So I hear what you’re saying, Jaffe. And, um, you know, I, I want to hear more, I want to hear more about how that feels and how does a person transition into being comfortable to really like be vulnerable, which your studies have shown equates to success.

Well, you need, you need, uh, and first of all, you know, like again for, for, um, we’re in startup club, so I’ll keep kind of always coming back to the startup [00:18:00] world, which is, there’s a wonderful saying, which is when you ask for money, you get advice, and when you ask for advice, you get money. And so part of that is, is advice is that, right?

It’s being vulnerable. Can you help me? Can you, can you teach me, um, you never, you’re never too old and you’re never too experienced and you, you know, to learn, to continue learning. You know, as I, as I said, I think even in the collective cafe this morning, um, something I actually wrote in 2007, I said, production is the new consumption when we are producing content on stage.

I was actually listening to Giuseppe the other night, you know, when he, when, when we were talking. We can hear ourselves. We’re learning as well. We’re articulating our thoughts. Sometimes we actually say things that, that impress us. You’re like, Oh, that’s interesting. I should write that down. Um, that was, that was a really good point.

Um, so we can actually benefit from, from opening up our mouths and actually articulating, um, our thoughts. And, um, it’s, it’s a, it’s a [00:19:00] beautiful, beautiful feeling when we’re actually in a position to help, help first, to help others. To answer your question though, You’ve got to create a safe space and a safe space is one where people can actually just be real and be honest.

That’s all, you know, that’s what we’ve done in the collective cafe. It is a safe space. I’ve seen too many communities. Where, um, people are humiliated, they’re shamed, um, they’re, they’re spoken over, these drama rooms, you’ve got to create a safe space, and a safe space is one where we can respectfully disagree with one another.

I mean, I’ll tell you, one of the things I love, it’s actually one of my favorite things in the world now, when, when I’m sitting on a panel and somebody disagrees with me, I actually make a point to not respond, because I respect the people in the room and, and, and I respect that they will make up their own mind.

So if I [00:20:00] say X, you know, and Renee says Y, um, who’s to say I’m right and she’s wrong or she’s right and I’m wrong. We may both be wrong and we both, we both may be right. And so what I do now is I don’t have to be defensive. I don’t have to be so insecure that, that, and, and my worst by the way, and listen, please, if this is you, you know, I only love here because I’ve done this a billion times too.

When we say, I think, I think we’re both saying the same thing here, you know, and like, no, we’re not, you just disagreed with me. We’re not saying the same thing and that’s okay. It’s good. So we’re not saying the same thing. Our goal now is not to meet in the middle. Our goal is to offer two points of view and then to allow and respect the intelligence of the audience to triangulate and make up their own minds.

And so that’s part of the answer and you’ve got to create a safe space and, and part of that is, is [00:21:00] just finding your authentic voice. Um, so, you know, this morning in, in, in, you know, this morning, uh, in our session, uh, Bez, he, he always comes up like literally one minute from the end. And, uh, you know, and so I just gave him a bit of a tough time.

And then I said, you know, nothing but love, Bez. You know, and he knows it. And, um, and, you know, but that’s okay. Why can’t we play with each other? Why can’t we be playful? Why can’t we just be human? That’s why, like, it annoys me to no end. That people, like, literally, I probably sacrifice book sales because the words suck.

You know is on the cover and it’s like we use these words in real life We use worse words We use words actually that rhyme with suck and just to like make this a family friendly show like And so I’ve got my own little road coaster here. So, you know, these are the words we use in real life So why can’t we use them in a [00:22:00] business book or in a work setting?

And that’s the problem. It’s this passive aggressiveness. It’s this, you know, it’s, it’s a culture of ego. You know, as I was talking about earlier, if you are in, uh, a community or a club or a house, um, and it is toxic and you are shamed and you are intimidated and you’re bullied, just get the hell out. Life is way…

Life is too short. Life is just too short to not, you know, to not feel comfortable in your own skin. You know, you’re speaking my language for me personally. Like, I, I love what you said about letting people speak and not making it… I’m paraphrasing here. So correct me if I’m wrong and not making it about yourself, the passive aggressiveness.

So if I’m understanding and the way I like to try to phrase it, and I think I’m probably older than everyone here [00:23:00] on the stage is, you know, we’re kind of listening and interacting with people so that we can all personally grow as well. Like there is a self motivation. And I’m just dare me to say, like, I think that’s okay.

Because we’re all trying to just improve by ourself. We’re not looking to defend or fight. Because when we try to do that, our companies, as you say, Jaffe, suck. And no one wants to be around us, and no one wants to work with us. We’re trying to just, like, do what we can to all, like, move forward. Because, let’s be honest, we all want to make more money.

Of course we do. We all want to, like, provide a better environment for our family. Of course we do. Am I, like, imposing on what you’re saying? Is, is that what you’re saying? Like, just, like, hit us directly. No, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s all, it’s all [00:24:00] absolutely, you know, on point. We all, but, but that’s also, I mean, I was once told, which is don’t be afraid.

To, to, to indicate like what your motives are. Like if, if the goal is to make money, then, then say my goal is to make money. If your goal is to sell the company, say I want to sell the company. Um, just be honest. I mean, you know, we can generally, the whole world if you think about it on so many different levels, right?

If, if you’re a professional, I had a professional poker player on the show. Um, this, um, this week and, and I asked him, I said, how do you read the room when the room isn’t real? Meaning like now in this world of Zoom and, and he was an online poker player, body language non… Verbal cues. Um, so the, the, again, there are so many mosques that we put on and, um, it’s just much better to, to create an environment that’s a lot more, um, you know, just open and honest and, uh, and transparent.[00:25:00] 

And included in that is just the ability to, to mess up, you know, so, uh, Shira Lazar, one of our Alpha Talk speakers and Alpha Collective, um, so she’s just created a collection with Deepak Chopra called, called, uh, and it’s, it’s, it’s not FOMO, Fear of Missing Out, it’s JOMO, The Joy of Missing Out. But I actually created, uh, a while back, JOMU.

J O M U, J O M U, which is the joy of messing up. I mean, it’s like, we’re human beings, we mess up, we’re flawed, we’re just not perfect. Um, in fact, we’re, we’re perfectly imperfect. And so again, it’s this idea of, of giving ourselves grace and, and forgiving ourselves. Look, I, I am, you know, like if people are listening to me, they might say, you know, maybe they’re like, It could be anywhere on the continuum of this guy is, is an angel or he’s a self righteous, you know, uh, son of a.

Um, so I’m enjoying that today. Like you could love me or hate me and then, but I’ll [00:26:00] tell you, I’m so flawed. And I’m learning and trying to grow all the time and, and just, as I said, life, life is short, you know, I, I decided last year to write a book, my sixth book, and it’s called Forever Changed, How a Global Pandemic Changed My Direction, My Purpose, and My Life.

And I decided I would write the book in three weeks and publish it in six weeks. And I wrote it in two weeks and six days. And it’s still not published. I just hit the wall. I wrote the whole book and I just couldn’t move forward. And I wanted to, my mom, my mom had been uh, battling cancer for, I guess at the time, six and a half years.

And I wanted to read it to her because she was such a, intricate or integral part of my life. Um, and she passed away in January. And I realize now that, that that’s why the book wasn’t written. Because… The story wasn’t finished. I now [00:27:00] needed to go even lower and I needed to, you know, experienced even more pain in addition to COVID in addition to.

Open heart surgery in 2021. I’ve had a, I’ve had a whale of a time. Um, but I needed, uh, I wasn’t finished yet. And, and the reality is we never will be finished. You know, I started teaching at NYU during COVID and, um, and what I learned when I was doing a little bit of a, what’s called a bridge program. Is that the best teachers are students and the best students are teachers.

So I guess if we’re always open to learning and growing, that’s why I like Michele. You say, you say you, I might be older than you. I’m, I’m, you know, I have a baby face, but I’m telling you I’m older. Um, but I’ll tell you something like I am, I am really, really focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, and access.

I’m very, very perturbed by, by the Supreme Court’s rulings over the last few days. [00:28:00] Um, I am, I just believe in fairness and justice and just giving people a fair shake and a fair chance. I don’t believe that I should always stand up on stage, for example, and say, Hey, I’m pale male and stale. You know, I am who I am.

I know who I am. I know who I’m not, but I know that I can do more, you know, to actually, to actually move the world just a little bit more forward. That’s why with Alpha Collective, we have 52 keynotes in 52 weeks, 26 male, 26 female, you know, I mean, like it takes effort to actually say, and it shouldn’t have to, but it does.

Um, to be able to say, you know what, screw that, 50% female, or those who identify as such, and 50% male. It’s a start. It’s a small step in the right direction to be able to create more voices, and create more diversity, and create more perspectives. I actually think that [00:29:00] Web 3… is the ultimate leveling of the playing fields from a diversity standpoint, from a shared ownership standpoint.

Uh, I’m, uh, you know, for those of you that know what an ESOP is, uh, an employee share owned program. I think we need CSOPs now, which is Customer Share Owned Programs or Community Share Owned Programs. I believe in community capitalism. I think we have a massive opportunity right now to, to make this world a better place for everyone inside it.

And again, I’m not on a soapbox. I’m just saying, this is how I spend. This is how I want to spend my time. This is how I want to spend my time with meaningful people. With people that I love doing things that I love to make a difference. In fact, I’ll tell you the, the, the funny thing is, um, EOS, which is the program, you know, the, the, the company that I just bought a franchise in that I’m doing the business coaching for.[00:30:00] 

They talk about the EOS life and this is the EOS life. It’s it’s do what you love. With people you love, to make a difference, to get paid what you’re worth, and have time to pursue other passions. Well it’s funny, because you know what my motto was coming into this, which came from Nando’s. Robbie Broson, the founder of Nando’s said, have fun, make money.

That was his motto, and I changed it to have fun, do good, make money. This is the beautiful thing. These are not in congress, they’re not mutually exclusive. You actually can do all of the above. You can do all of the above. And so like all of these things, like, um, as I said, I’m a work in progress. I’m learning all the time.

I’m making mistakes all the time. Um, and, but I think together, you know, together we have the ability to do more. As they say, what, what, what’s the saying? Uh, help me out people on stage. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. So, you know, [00:31:00] it is what it is. So Colin, I don’t know if you can talk.

I know you’re on a cruise, but you know, you’re, you’re very successful entrepreneur and you’ve been through ups and downs and, you know, hired many people. Like, what are your thoughts on what Jaffe is saying? Because. He, he’s advocating clearly, Jaffe, sorry to put words in your mouth, that there is this balance that people can feel happy, they can feel fulfilled, and make money and have successful companies.

What are your thoughts? Colin? Wow. I mean, listening to the last 30 minutes of Jaffe, it makes me think about my book, and the book that we, that we wrote, it took us 10 years, sorry Jeff, I know you did two and a half weeks, but. Took us 10 years, and you could almost replace the author, Colin C. Campbell, with Joseph Jaffe.[00:32:00] 

It’s hilarious. Like the topics you talked about. Now we’ve hit up on 12 topics here, and normally we don’t do this in show because we’re going a little bit of a scatter. You know, we’re going like, uh, and Giuseppe and Renee, be patient with us. We’re going to get to you in a minute here, but we’re sort of going all over the all over the map.

And, uh, it’s interesting that you brought up so many topics. So for me to comment on just one or two would be very hard right now. But I will tell you this. The entrepreneur is the number one enemy. They themselves are. And if they learn to check their ego at the door and they learn how to, um, how to create value that includes everyone and embraces diversity and inclusion, then you could have a much more successful startup.

And I’m trying to encapsulate a few of your concepts. And again, I know I’m in the North Atlantic right now on a ship. Uh, and [00:33:00] we’re using Elon Musk’s satellite. And I know the internet may be in and out a little bit. I’m going to continue to listen in. Uh, this is an experiment for me. I’ve never done this.

From a ship before, so it’s very, very interesting and uh, hopefully the sound came through okay. You, you sound great and you should actually just get off this room and just go and enjoy yourself. Um, there’ll be a replay. Oh no, I’m enjoying it, I’m enjoying it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m taking a break. I’m Taking a break from my family.

No, okay. Okay, alright. There’s a different show called The Complete Entrepreneur, and The Complete Entrepreneur, we talk about that. And literally yesterday I opened the room and said, okay. I’m with my family. I’m leaving in five minutes, but this is okay. They’re at, they’re at a, they’re at a show right now, uh, watching a juggler.

And to be quite frank, this is a little bit, uh, of a break for me. Thank you. Well, then that’s good. As long as this is a therapeutic, you know, I was thinking as you were talking, like I really just have two goals. Like my, my one goal is, is I want to just stop [00:34:00] chasing opportunity. I want opportunity to come to me.

I want to get to a point where. I don’t have to feel that anxiety. I think we all do, uh, of, of worrying about the next deal, the next client, or the next member of Alpha Collective. I want to get in a point, to a point where I’ve worked so hard and I’ve put in my time when, when now it’s all the opportunity.

Now it’s about getting discerning and choosing what you do and what you don’t. To me, that is, that is like utopia. But the other thing that I want to do… Is get to a point where I can help first and, and, and where I can actually even do more than I’m doing. I said, um, in fact, the name Joseph Jaffe is not famous.

We just, I just had Bruce Turkel on, we’re doing at the moment, 13 free alpha talks that are part of a series leading up to the official launch of Alpha Collective. And Bruce, my show is called Corona TV. So it was like poke the bear, [00:35:00] right? I’m sitting, I’m sitting on the third floor of, of my house and I’m isolated and my wife has COVID and I’m lonely and scared and, and I have no revenue.

And I was like, Oh, I’ll just start a Facebook stream every day. And then it became zoom and then it became a show. And then I interviewed someone and that was Corona TV. And then, you know, for all my, for all the show about hope, positivity and optimism, suddenly now. The damn show is getting, is shadowbanned, because guess why, the word Corona is in the title.

Um, and so, Bruce one day, uh, we’re talking on the phone, he’s become a friend, and he says to me, Bruce Ticco, and he says to me, Um, you know you gotta change the name of your show, right? And I said, no, why do I? You know, it’s Corona, it’s TV, it’s the bear, it’s the beer, you know, whatever. And he’s like, look dude, he says, it’s like, uh, it’s like naming your show 9 11 TV.

And as he said that I was like, uh, you know, like I realized he was right. So we went through a whole exercise to [00:36:00] decide what the name was. And he said, well, tell me more. What makes your show different? And I said, look, let me put it this way. It’s not about me. It’s about my guest. And in fact, if I’m ever lucky enough, privileged enough to have an agent or a manager, if I’m my dream amongst everything is for this show to be on a CNBC or a cheddar or, or something like that, that’s the dream I want to be able to reach more people because, because the show can help so many people I said, but if I ever get a manager or an agent, I’m going to say to them, anybody who wants me to be on their show, their podcast, anyone, if I find out that you’ve said no to them, I will fire you on the spot.

I don’t care if they have zero viewers or audience, I will do their show. And he said, I got it. He said, the name of your show is Joseph Jaffe is not famous. Why? Because my next guest is. So I want to get to that position. I’ll tell you that throughout this [00:37:00] period. I went into this COVID period and I said, if I can, if I could wish for one thing, one thing is that we wouldn’t, that’s part of the impetus as to why I’ve written this book.

We wouldn’t, we wouldn’t miss this opportunity to change ourselves forever. We wouldn’t go back to our bad old ways, road rage and these days fighting on planes and opening up doors on planes. We wouldn’t actually return to our bad habits, our, you know, all these scammers out there and, you know, trying to get people to sign up for their courses.

And we just wouldn’t go back to our bad old ways. And unfortunately, it’s kind of happened again. And we’ve seen people have revealed their true selves. People that, that now won’t answer your calls. There’s, there’s, you know what, just don’t, we cannot let them and that get us down. We can continue to actually [00:38:00] take the high road and actually make sure that this whole period of time was not, was not a waste, you know, and, and, and listen, this is not all meant to be kumbaya kumbaya.

I mean, at the end of the day, we’ve got to decide. Which companies we will work for and which companies we will buy from. And if you work for those companies, you’re petrified right now, because you sucked already. I had a guest on my show. Brilliant, brilliant statement. He said, um, he said at scale cracks become chasms.

That’s what happened with COVID, right? It just accelerated the demise of many companies. Um, the cracks became chasms when you grow, the cracks become chasms. If you don’t have your ship in order, if you don’t have everything in order, if you have a culture that’s not strong, if you don’t have core values that your employees understand and live by genuinely every day at scale, cracks [00:39:00] become chasms.

And so what’s really happened now is a lot of those cracks continue to show and reveal themselves. Um, and you know what? I wouldn’t want to be, um, a large company right now. How on earth are you going to attract and retain the best and the brightest? How on earth are you actually going to have younger, more empowered, intelligent, involved, active, activist consumers want to buy from you, when, you know, you’re only…

The only, uh, uh, God that you serve is the God of Wall Street. So look, like, I just want to be clear about something and then I’ll kind of shut up here. Which is, which is community capitalism is the evolution of capitalism. It’s not the replacement. It’s not the dilution. It’s not socialism. It’s pure, you know, gorgeous capitalism.

But just spread between a few more people, maybe a lot more [00:40:00] people. And you know what, if the person, you know, that actually takes the biggest hit at the end of the day is with, with all due respect and love to old white men, but the old white men that are running the show and, you know, gently sailing down to, to earth on their golden parachutes after their incompetence, well, I can live with that.

You know, so that, and that’s why I’m so, I’m so all in on Web3, because I see it. I see the power. I see the power of shared values, shared ownership, and shared rewards. I see the power of purpose of diversity and loyalty. And it’s all waiting for us right now, it’s waiting for us to be able to actually, you know, look beyond the, the SBFs and the FTXs and the scammers right now and all that stuff and just focus on, you know, uh, people like I see like gents in the audience, a lot of people that are in the collective cafe every morning, you’ve heard me say this [00:41:00] many times, don’t look at the finger, uh,

I think there’s so much in what you’re saying, and, you know, I’m hoping Jaffe that you can come back on Serial Entrepreneur and dive into it specifically the use cases, you know, cause I don’t know about other folks, but for me, I really love to dive into like the actual use cases of what you’re talking about.

About the equalizer that Web 3. 0 is or other technologies or just thoughts and attitudes. You know, we have some amazing people that have joined us here on the stage and I want to make sure they have an opportunity to ask questions or speak up. So I think we should just roll right to Renee and then we’re going to go right to Giuseppe.

So Renee. Hi, Michele, Colin, [00:42:00] Jaffe, Guseppe and everyone who’s in the audience here. I, I just want to say, uh, this has just been such an incredible conversation already and I don’t know if I have anything in particular to add to it. But I wanted to come to the stage just out of inspiration. Um, 1 of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot and, and, and I’ve, I’ve heard in various forms about, say, a parent who got laid off from a job and the impact and influence that that had over, um.

Over someone and I’ve heard that that variation on on a theme in a variety of ways. Um, it’s kind of like this idea that that the employee is supposed to be loyal to the company, but the company never had any intention of being loyal to the employee and even in the human resources [00:43:00] language that that, um.

Well, the human is the resource when clubhouse had to lay off people. I think that was a fascinating and, and, and it hasn’t been talked about in a while. I haven’t really heard it being talked about in a while, but it was a fascinating, they were fascinating conversations to listen into, um, because I think it triggered, it triggered a lot of people in a variety of ways.

Yeah, we’re all here using this platform and we hold the people who are, um, Who are at the helm in, in some ways and on and high esteem and I still do, because what I did, I watched as they demonstrated how to set up a severance package so that the people that were working for them out of respect for them, they had a runway, [00:44:00] a decent runway to figure out their what’s next.

And, and, and I heard such skepticism, oh, you know, the company’s just doing that because. They, they either want to save face or that’s what you’re supposed to do or whatever. But I’m like, not many companies have their ducks in a row enough to be able to give four months of severance pay and, um, keep, allow you to keep your Cobra and send you off into the world with a good reference.

And, and intend to do that. And we don’t know whatever happened in the background, but there aren’t that many great examples and you may disagree with me on this topic, but it happens. It happens in business that they have to do the terrible thing of laying people off occasionally. And I don’t think that that’s good or comfortable for anybody unless you’re some kind of sociopath or psychopath.

And I have to believe [00:45:00] that most business owners want to do the right thing. It’s just that. As, uh, you know, Jeff, he said, people get in over their heads. And so then you, you, you over extended yourself and you have to do these layoffs for whatever reason that happened. But the other thing that I found, I heard in those conversations with people just saying, I never trust the business that I’m working for.

I always think that it’s going to be a short term thing because businesses aren’t to be trusted. And I don’t think that that’s healthy for, for our world either. So I’m just bringing all of this up because I think this is a, such a powerful conversation and I guess. I, uh, I had the experience of breaking the business of being the bottleneck and, and having it, watching it unravel before my very eyes and just the horror of that experience.

And I didn’t have a lot of experience. I didn’t, [00:46:00] I had two other people that were, I was working with, it wasn’t as devastating, like. It wasn’t, you could see it and say, well, things happen. You know, it’s, that’s part of doing business. That’s part of how you learn, but it was devastating for me because people were counting on me, um, to pay, to pay their bills.

They were working for me and solely for me, and it was really hard on top of that, just all the time, effort and energy that all of us had put into making this thing go. And then looking at the mistakes that I made during that period of time of not bringing things to market quickly enough. Um, and I can understand how people won’t get back into business after that.

Won’t try again because it’s really scary and hard. To, um, have that sort of thing happen. So where I stand right now is just [00:47:00] at the beginning again, and now with a better idea, more well conceived idea, but with that kind of world weariness within me as well. And I am just curious about what people recommend.

As far as, um, you know, best practices in starting up. I know one thing, one mistake that I made is I just didn’t have enough money in the coffers to see us through that period of time when it wasn’t quite working and we just needed more time. So to build that up, that would be, that’s one thing that I’m focused on right now.

And the other is to do it. As clubhouse did to do it scared. Now they had more experience in their background of different kinds of startups, but they still, they pulled the trigger on it at a period of time when I don’t think they were quite ready. And then they’ve been chasing the ball ever since. And it’s a beautiful thing to watch and to be a part of, and to be inspired by.[00:48:00] 

And Jeffy, I just want to say this to you. I took a bunch of notes, a bunch of notes in what you were saying. And, um. I, I just, I really appreciate the piece about the two words and the three words that I’m sorry, thank you, and I don’t know. That’s huge. And I think that when people, you’re exactly right, we’re all, we’re all, lots and lots of people are pretending to be experts where they’re not, and they’re not necessarily willing to say, I don’t know.

They’ll just go on and give whatever advice pops into their head. Without actually knowing through, through experience or, or experience, um, and, and seeing it work or seeing it not work because we get as much knowledge out of things not working as working. So, um. Beyond those notes, I have a bunch more and I just really appreciate that.

I haven’t been in this room for a [00:49:00] while. I’m, I feel utterly inspired. I really, really needed this right now. And if anyone wants to just chime in with like a piece of this business advice for that startup, um, I think that would just be really helpful. So with that, I yield the mic. Thank you. There was, there’s so much to, and thank you for your kind words, you know, first thing I’ll say is I’m not used to actually, um, I’m not used to even being a speaker anymore.

I’ve changed like my whole position and, and I’ve become a much, I’ve become an active listener, which took a while. And one of the, one of the things I do with my show now is I have no notes, so I literally have a blank piece of paper. All I do is I’ll ask my guests what are one to three things you want to promote, one to three, one to three fun facts about you and one to three things you want to talk about and that’s it.

And, um, because you never know where the conversation is going [00:50:00] to go. Um, I’m going to tell you a few things. One is in Biltisuk, I actually, um, I say ban the employee. Like, and what I mean by that is the word, like how on earth are we referring to our talent as employees, um, you know, and we’ve seen a beautiful like Disney, and I’ll come back to Disney, uh, but Disney of course refers to their customers as guests and their employees in air quotes as cast members, um, that’s one of the things from a cultural standpoint is actually being able to brand our talent, um, and, uh, which I think is an amazing thing.

I, I know this is rich and I know this is very, you know, uh, maybe pie in the sky, but I don’t believe a company should ever have to lay off a single person ever. And I think if you build a company that is layoff proof, um, I think it’s possible. There are companies that proudly would say they’ve never laid off a single [00:51:00] person.

Now you’ve got to like look at different industries, right? Um, when you take the VC money, guess what you’re going to do? You’re going to hire a bunch of people. And when things go south, you’re going to fire a bunch of people. Um, so maybe we need to stop taking money from VCs, or figure out a different way to negotiate with them.

Um, that’s one way. The other, I mean, the agency world, I come from the agency world. You win a big account, you win Walmart, you hire a bunch of people, you lose Walmart, you fire a bunch of people. Um, The third thing I would say to you is actually Facebook did a, you know, Facebook as well did a brilliant kind of a, uh, you know, you got, I hate giving Zuckerberg credit, but this time I will, um, the benefits, the, um, mental health counseling, the career counseling.

Cobra, um, I mean, it was actually the softest of soft landings in the world. So you can do the right thing. What I wouldn’t do is there’ve been all these [00:52:00] examples of firing people via zoom. I mean, come on. It’s, it’s, um, I mean, just, just people, just when you think the bar can’t go any lower, people go even lower.

So, the bar can always go lower, but seriously, I mean, even conceptually, we should never have to lay off a single person ever. And if we think about how we structure, I, I, I’ll just say one point and then just see if anyone else wants to chime in. Um, Abigail Disney, who’s one of the, uh, Disney, uh, heiresses.

Uh, came out, this is years ago, maybe 10 years ago, I don’t know, maybe sooner, against, uh, Michael Eisner and basically called him out. I think he had a 126 million bonus. And she calculated that if every single person that worked for Disney were to get a 15 percent, and I think she was referring to the parks, but if everyone who worked for Disney was to get a 15 percent pay increase, he could personally fund that from his bonus, personally fund that from the bonus, and [00:53:00] still have 26 million dollars left over.

So, I mean, that’s kind of like a everybody wins. Uh, in many respects, but yeah, doing the right thing, the, the, the devastation of being laid off and look, we’ve all had it, it’s all happened to us. Um, it’s an awful, awful thing. And, um, and it has unbelievable repercussions. So can we not figure out a better way to structure employment agreements and in.

Uh, in New York in particular, I’m, I’m in Connecticut, that people work, that, that these contracts are at will. I mean, talk, I mean, does that not enforce what you’re saying, um, big time, right? Why on earth should we be loyal to a company that employs us at will? You know, we, that is just, that, that should be outlawed.

Uh, there’s gotta be, and I’m not, by the way, I’m not, I’m also not advocating the opposite where you can’t be fired, like in a country like France or whatever. [00:54:00] Um, and, and, and people can rest on their laurels. There’s just gotta be. A better compromise, I guess. Uh, Jaffe, if I may, um, you talked about, and this is, this is just like a back and forth.

You talked about an employee ESOP, and um, is that right? Do I have that term? Yes, employee shared, share owned programs. So essentially the employees own the company. And then there was the customer and put, uh, share the sea salt, which, which is made up. That’s my, that’s, that’s my, that is my, uh, uh, an original, uh, thought, right.

Which, but, but I hope it actually, I think we can actually. Um, I think, I think we can absolutely bring that to life. Yeah, I’m so curious. I’m just, I just want to say this out loud. I am completely inspired by that. One of the things that [00:55:00] occurred to me is during the onboarding process. I think a lot of times people don’t actually understand what.

The nature of businesses, um, in the particular, the business that you’re working for, you just come in to do a job and you’re expected to do that job and do that job. Well, it’s completely understandable and I just, I wonder what would happen because a lot of people entering the job market. Straight out of college.

Don’t have a clue how business works. I didn’t. I barely do, to be honest with you. I, I have a huge learning curve and I’m excited about it. That thing about it is my time on clubhouse and in rooms like these is that I always learning from people who, who often are really excited about the potential of business.

You use the term about capitalism. I got excited about that. I think I have [00:56:00] not been a capitalist, uh, like in my thought thinking my whole entire life. And all of a sudden I’m like, I think capitalism is the answer. I think that they’re done right. When the, the person who owns the business sees their employees, employees, their talent, I love that change in language.

I’m going to just start using it. Sees their, their talent as, um, Part of the team and that team is working for themselves and for each other and for like Vision of the business. So if you can Sell your talent on the vision of the business They are your best advocates potentially and um That, that concept just excites me so much and it sure is the opposite of everybody is expendable because, um, well, [00:57:00] if I may just have just a moment more there, there were these two stories I got inspired by.

Uh, the idea of capitalism a long time ago, I heard this on like an NPR story and I don’t remember the name of the company, but just the gist of it is this guy was running a paper towel company. That’s what they did. They made paper towels and he had. A vision that he would never give anybody the pink slip.

So he gets close to retirement age and he decides he’s going to sell the company. And he picks three people, three businesses he wants to sell it, sell it to, or consider. And his criteria was they had to keep the no, no firing policy. And over the years he had kept people employed in his company that were, um, that were.

Sometimes alcoholics had, you know, very hard things happen in their families and he just remained [00:58:00] dedicated to it. So in the end, when he finally picked the company that he was going to sell to, because he felt that their ethics were in line with his own, he came to them, to his employees and they brought, he brought them in one at a time and he handed them all pink slips and in, along with that was here’s the share of the time that you’ve put into this company.

So the people who’d been there the longest got. Bigger, you know, bigger bonus and the people who hadn’t been there as long got the smaller bonus. It seems fair and that story Completely it started me on the journey of changing my mind about what I my Misperception I’ll say about business because I still believe that even though people may not know how to do business Well at their heart most people who get into it.

I have to believe this our our Good people trying to solve problems and employ people. And that’s a good thing in our world. So if I just keep [00:59:00] that in mind and I know that there are good people doing great things in business, that gives me a lot of hope. And then the second piece of this story is my friend.

I originally was telling you about his dad got fired from an architectural company and it was devastating. He’d been there for 20 some years. It was devastating to him and his family and he never really recovered from it. He ended his life and career as a, um, security guard. He got, he, for whatever reason, he couldn’t get back on the horse.

The horse kept bucking him off, whatever. He couldn’t get it back going again. And the way that the company handled it was just expendability. We, and, um, What ended up happening is my friend made strange decisions in his own career because of what happened to his dad. So we sometimes don’t see the repercussions that can be [01:00:00] generational out of, um, people out of companies, just firing people.

willy nilly and not paying attention to the repercussions of it and saying, well, that’s just business. And that’s how business gets a bad reputation. And it causes people like me who could be a good, could have been a good capitalist from the start to not even want to get into the game. But then, you know, hopefully it gets turned around at some point.

So again, I thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak. And, um, and I’ve, I’ve followed everyone here on stage. Cause I’ve looked at your bios and you’re all inspirational. And I just thank you so much for holding this room. We really thank you so much, Renee, like so many good insights. And, you know, we could go on, I’m going to say Jaffe for a while, but we have a very amazing member here on the stage, Giuseppe, and I want to [01:01:00] give Giuseppe a chance to weigh in, Giuseppe is an amazing Italian entrepreneur that’s here in the U.

S., and Giuseppe, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

All right, Giuseppe, maybe he’s, um, had to move on to something else, but, um, Jaffe, you have to come back on, like, just exploring the whole dynamics of why companies and people are broken in the Succeed and dissatisfied. I think this is like something we could go on for hours and hours about. So Colin, are you there?

Colin? Yeah, I’m here. And uh, how about we give Jeffy the last word? Um, and I’ll just say that you’ve been listening to serial entrepreneur secrets revealed. Um, you’ve been listening to Michele van Tilburg, Mimi Ostrander, who’s the blog writer and my now self [01:02:00] Colin C. Campbell. Uh, it was an exciting show.

I mean, it was a little bit of a unique format where we went all over the map. Uh, Joseph Jaffe, who took us through six books he’s written now. He’s took us through a number of different, uh, issues and topics and politics and everything. We don’t normally go that sort of like ad hoc, but the reality is it was very good.

Very successful show and enjoyed it. And I look forward to Jeffy coming up and doing another show on web three. I think, I think we really have to attack that as well. I think that would be a great idea. Uh, I’ll sign off. Thank you very much. Yeah. Say that. I agree. Jaffe, this is an area that we personally Colin and I have struggled with, like really what it is and what the practical applications are and where there are successes.

So, you know, we’ll, we’ll look forward to like chatting with you about that a [01:03:00] little more, you know, I think we’re very like realistic and open about it, but it’s an area where, you know, typically people are not, you know, having a conversation where. It’s something that people can really grasp on. I, I don’t know how else to say it, but you know, we’re, we’re kind of like always waiting on baited breath, like, okay, so what do we do next?

Like, how do we experience it? Like, we just want to dip our toe and like, how do we do this? So, you know, I think that’s actually something that we can come back with you. You know, at your convenience and talk about I think the members would love it. I know I personally would, but no, we have a lot of members asking us questions about what three.

Oh, and I want to come back and explore that. Let’s get right to the point here. We are six minutes past our hour. Jaffe, please do wrap us up on our topic about why companies, entrepreneurs, [01:04:00] startups suck and you know, what do we do about it? So let’s wrap it up. And so, um, we can end the show today for our fellow members.

Absolutely. Well, I’ve just, you know. We, we, we should end from the sublime to the ridiculous, which is I’ve just got approved to, to be on Cameo. So I’m on Cameo now. So, uh, if anyone wants to waste 18, that’s how much it costs to get a Cameo from me. Um, make me happy and be my first, be my first Cameo, be my first, be my Valentine.

Um, and I’ll send you something nice, uh, in return. Um, sorry, that’s just a little bit of fun. Um, I. I believe that life is a project. Life is the ultimate project. It has a start date and an end date. And, um, and we have very specific goals and, and objectives to achieve during that time. And I was actually inspired by the whole concept in [01:05:00] English football.

You’ll hear like a head coach or manager say, well, what attracted me to the project? They’ll talk about working for a team. As a project, because it’s a project, it could be a turnaround project. It could be, uh, you know, getting them promoted. It could be silverware. Um, it could be, uh, injecting a new style, a new culture into the, into, you know, so I love this idea of not actually thinking.

In fact, I will never, I, I don’t even want to use the words job or career anymore. It’s a project. You know, uh, and, and, and your talent are there for a certain amount of time. And then inevitably they move on or you move on or, or you both move on. And so I have, uh, I guess three plus one projects at the moment.

Um, so alpha collective is a project that I’ve been. I won’t lie, battling to launch for about a year, the market has been awful, um, but I’m not giving up, because I know it’s, I believe [01:06:00] in it, and, uh, as I heard today, you know, sometimes we say we’re putting lipstick on a pig, but that insults the pig, because the pig has value.

I love that, I’ve never thought about that before. So, this is not a pig. Um, and, and I absolutely, I mean, it’s, it’s better than a pig at the minimum. It’s a pig. Um, but I’m, but I’m really determined to bring together not just the best and the brightest, but also people that can’t afford to even buy in, um, and give them access, um, to.

You know, to a think tank where we actually say, we’re not going to wait for the world to tell us what web three is. We’re going to actually create it. We will create our own world, our own reality, a better world. And, uh, if you want to find out more, go to alpha collective dot X, Y, Z, or the collective cafe is actually part.

Of alpha collective and it’s free and monday through friday 8 to 9 In our discord discord. gg forward slash alpha collective or [01:07:00] here in startup club. I found my home in startup club as well I’m, so happy being here. And so we’re going to just do this You know forget about running out of time. Now. We’re we’re there eight to nine five days a week.

We haven’t missed one since july And of last year, by the way, so we’re almost a year into it. Um, so that’s kind of project one, which is Alpha Collective. Project two for me is Joseph Jaffe is Not Famous. I will literally until the day I drop dead, I will not give up on my dream of, of, if you ever want to endear yourself to me.

Introduce me to someone at CNBC or Axios or, or Apple, or this. I believe more than anything in the world that, that the world needs a business talk show, the daily show for business and whether I’m the host or not, um, maybe there’s someone better than me, but until someone better comes along. I think I can be that person.

My, my third project is becoming a business coach through [01:08:00] EOS. And, um, and so much of what we discussed today, actually, I see it coming to the forefront, people, um, vision, data issues, process, traction, just this idea of actually being able to say, we have to, we can never build a company to last cause that ship has sailed, but we don’t want to build a company that is built to suck.

We wanted, we want to build a company that where we can maximize the opportunity that we have, however short or long it lasts. And if we go into it with the humility of Jeff Bezos, I don’t even know if he is a humble, but it’s pretty humble position to say one day we’re going to go out of business. I love that.

And then those are my three projects. And the plus one is forever changed. Here’s what’s so interesting about this book. It will be, and listen, again, if somebody beats me to it, God bless them, but I’m on record talking about it a year ago, [01:09:00] and let, let, you know, let the worst thing in the world be the fact that this comes to fruition before I do it, um, I don’t need the credit, um, but I will tell you, this will be the first book in the world where readers will have royalties, um, so that was something that I created a year ago.

And so talk about the CESOP, Rene, that’s the CESOP, right? The customers, the readers, the thousand true fans, will actually share in the royalties with me. And if it works, and I hope it will, this could become a new model for a clubhouse room, for an artist, for a band, for a sculptor, for a painter, for an author, um, where we actually share in the spoils.

Not, it doesn’t have to be 50 50 at all. But the fact that we actually are sharing it, it’s such a no brainer to think about it. Of course, every author in the world should be able to share in the royalties with their readers. And so that’s what I’m working on coming to fruition. So, uh, I’m definitely [01:10:00] not, um, short of ideas.

I’m probably short of the ability to execute those ideas. Um, and, um, but, you know, that’s just kind of what I’m working on right now. Um, the best thing that if you want to continue the conversation, just come and hang out with us Monday through Friday, eight to nine, uh, we manifest on Mondays. Thought Leadership Tuesdays, Wellness Wednesdays, Live Book Reads on Thursdays, and Friday’s No Agenda where it’s like open mic AMA office hours.

Uh, Michele was in yesterday and we started reading this, this amazing book called I Dare You. Um, so I dare you to join us next Thursday. And that’s, that’s it from me, you know, I, and I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today. And I appreciate Startup Club for giving me this opportunity because it means a lot to me.

And we appreciate you and we appreciate all [01:11:00] of our members. So everyone who’s graciously joined and given their time today. Thank you so much. And, um, if there’s anything that you have suggestions about or questions about, please do email us at hello at startup dot club. Also, we welcome you to join our email list so that you can hear about amazing speakers like Jaffe.

And others and our regular occurring events. So everyone have an amazing as Jaffe showing, um, long holiday weekend celebrating our beautiful nation. So thank you so much and please be well. Thank you. Bye everyone. Bye.