Escaping the Drift with John Gafford - #103: From Naval Dreams to Entrepreneurial Streams: The Journey of Douglas James

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

In this episode, we dive into the life of the remarkable Douglas James, whose journey from the disciplined ranks of the Navy to the uncharted waters of entrepreneurship is nothing short of inspiring. Discover the pivotal moments, from selling candy at school to leveraging AI in business, that shaped his path. Join us as we uncover the secrets behind transforming visions into reality, the power of resilience, and the art of making connections that matter.Highlights:"Facing an ultimatum from my family was the push I needed to chart a new course for my life.""I realized I was 'chronically unemployable' because my drive to create was too strong to ignore.""Selling isn't just about transactions; it's about solving problems and building relationships."Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction to Extraordinary Journeys01:19 - The Power of Networking04:13 - Childhood Entrepreneurial Spirit06:30 - A Navy Ultimatum10:19 - Discovering Entrepreneurial Drive14:34 - A Pivotal Humanitarian Mission19:24 - Unique Client Acquisition Strategy26:30 - Overcoming Military vs. Entrepreneurship Clash33:50 - Embracing AI for Business Efficiency46:32 - Starting From Scratch Strategy

And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm John Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again, back again for another episode of Escaping the Drift, the show that gets you from where you are right now, man, to where you want to be. And today in studio, I got a good one for you guys. I got a great one. This is a guy

that I met through, you know, like you meet those people and you're like, okay, if this dude is hanging out with this dude, who's hanging out with that guy, this guy's got to be okay. Well, this is kind of one of those guys. And quite frankly, it's going to be really interesting because it's one of those things where I know the dude's a baller, but I don't know everything he does. And we're going to find out kind of together on how he's a baller, what he does, and how that affects you

or what you can do with that information. So without further ado, master of AI, master of lead gen, master of everything we're going to go with. Ladies and gentlemen, this in studio today is Douglas James. Douglas. What an introduction, man. What's up, man? You ready to go work through a brick wall right now, aren't you?

Is that it? Absolutely. That is always the goal, man. It's like a hype, man. You know what it is? I need to stop doing this podcast and just follow you around in public. And no matter what you say, just lean over your shoulder and go, yeah, that's what I need to do. What he said. That's it. So obviously you're a very successful guy because I met you through friend of the show, Steve Sims.

And if Steve's hanging out with you, I know you're not a scrub. And I got a brief story of what you do. But before we get to everybody in the success that you are right now and what you can do to help them, let's talk about you as a kid, because I like to find that, you know, success leaves clues. And as somebody that's raising kids, I always like to find out about how people grew up that turned them into who you are today and how that shaped you. So where'd you grow up? Talk about that. Yeah. So I, uh, by the way, thanks for having me on the show, man. I love the energy brother. You're so good at this. That's what we do. So I'm from new Orleans, Louisiana. Are you?

Dude. Yeah. Okay. Can we talk about that for a second? Yeah, let's go. I'm a member of the crew of Hermes. My wife is a member of the crew of Iris. Okay.

I go to New Orleans every single year for Jazz Fest. I go to New Orleans every single year for Mardi Gras. It is like my second home. You guys ride in the floats? Yeah. I'm a member of the crew of Hermes. Nice. My parade is Friday night. My wife's is Saturday afternoon. That's awesome. So's yes been doing that for as long as i can remember met my wife through friends from new orleans as a matter of fact okay so you grew up

there how long were you in new orleans um till i was about 19 years old so you're 19 years old okay uptown where would you live so we lived in metairie in the kenner okay okay all right yeah i got you but then we moved uh i think after i was like maybe eight or nine years old we actually So we lived in Metairie in the Kenner. Okay. Kenner. Okay. All right. Yeah. I gotcha. But then we moved, I think after I was like maybe eight or nine years old, we actually moved to Covington, which is across the Quancho train. Yep. Yeah. So all my family like lives there now. In Covington.

I have good friends that live over there as well. Yeah. And it's got like so much bigger now. If you're familiar with like the 190. Oh yeah. And like Kenner, it's like really blown up over there. It's like so busy now. When I first, like 10, 20 years ago, dude, it's like really blown up over there it's like so busy now when i first like 10 20 years ago dude it was like still so woods it wasn't underdeveloped

now it's like traffic's crazy dude it's so funny that the day that i stopped telling people i was on the apprentice like making it a thing because like when i was on the apprentice i was like super famous for like a hot second yeah and then like i'll never forget the day i decided to stop telling people what it was we were at the baka spash which was like a party that would have on Sunday before Bacchus at Mardi Gras before my wife for, this is years and years ago. And I'm talking to this girl and she's like, you look familiar. And I'm like, well, you know, you may know me from season three of NBC's The Apprentice. And she looks at me and goes, I thought she goes, I don't watch that shit.

I thought you went to memory high school. And I was like, that's it. I'm never telling anybody else I did this. That's the end of it. I'm done right now. So grew up in New Orleans. What, what did you, as a kid, did you have a hustle? What was the first hustle to make money? Yeah. My first hustle was selling jawbreakers and now we're laters. Okay. So you were the kid buying it. You were buying them wholesale and then smuggle them into the school and then selling them. Well, yeah, I would get them at the gas station, the brown paper bag. There'd be like a hundred of them in there and then the kids like would always want

candy throughout the day so i'll buy them for a nickel and i'll sell them for 10 cents did mom and dad get a call from the school like your son's gonna gotta sweat uh he's gotta quit slinging the sugar you know what if my mom hears this is the first time she would ever is it really yeah well look at look of all the things you could have been slinging in the schoolyard i think now and later is probably gonna rank up there with being okay. Yeah. Yeah. But that, I mean, that's, that's what I did, man.

I, I actually, I always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. Like ever since I was a kid. Okay. Because I was always thinking about making money, being different. Like I was never the best kid in class. Like I was, I graduated with a 1.7 GPA. That's attaboy.

Yeah. That'll get you right in a community college. Maybe with a, with a, it was a good experience. Did you, did you have jobs? Were you a kid that had jobs? Yeah. You know, I, I was a baggage boy first at Winn-Dixie. Well, Winn-Dixie, you know about Winn-Dixie? Buggy boy, baggage boy. I did that. And then I started serving tables, bartending, stuff like that. Okay. At what point did you realize you were chronically employable, unemployable? Because I realize, I think, I know that all great entrepreneurs, it's impossible for them to literally have a boss. At what point did you realize that? You know, you would have to fast forward until I was about 27 years old.

So what did you do between bar to just, just bouncing around bartending, doing that stuff? Yeah. So drifting along with life, if you will. Yeah. As, as the theme of the podcast, escape the drift here. Yeah. Um, yeah, man. So like I grew up in new Orleans, right. And, uh, I kind of had like a, a troubled childhood. Like it wasn't the best upbringing, you know, my dad struggled. He battled with like, you know unfortunately, drugs, alcohol, stuff like that. And the house where I grew up, man, it was like there was a lot of things going on behind the doors. It was not conducive to any type of growth environment. My mom worked nights in the hospital. She's been a respiratory therapist for like 30 years.

And if it wasn't for her, man, I wouldn't be where I'm at, to be honest. She clothed us, fed us, took care of us. Yeah. As most good mothers do. Make sure you're taken care of. Yeah, absolutely. So I was about 19 years old and I was living with my grandparents at the time. And because it became a very toxic situation with my dad. So I eventually moved out and I was living with them for about a year. And it came to the point where like, you know, my grandma and my mom are like, you're out every night, you know, till 4am, you know, you're coming in late. You're not doing anything with your life. You graduated high school a year ago. So they're like, you need to go to college. You need to either join the military or you're getting the fuck out of my house. So that was basically the ultimatum that I got.

Maybe not those direct words, but that's what it was. So that was basically the ultimatum that I got. Maybe not those direct words, but that's what it was. So obviously I was not a great student. There was no way I was going to college. Right. And I was going to have to leave anyway. I was like, you know what? I'll join the Navy. So I joined the military. You and Cody Spurver, same story. Yeah. Similar. Right. So I actually joined the Navy to be an information system technician because growing up along with all the side hustles, I loved computers. I loved video games. I would watch tech TV.

And I could build computers. I was the kid that would take apart toys and put them back together. See how it worked. Yeah. So I wanted to work in computers. So I go to boot camp. And nine or ten days into boot camp, they have this thing called the moment of truth. They're like,

if you've ever smoked pot, if you've ever went to jail, if you ever did anything illegal or anything, we're going to find out. So tell us now. So when I joined, when I joined my recruiter, do you think they really find out or no?

They can not. I don't think, how are they going to find out if you smoke pot in seventh grade right how are they gonna find out they just there's always that one kid that might narc on you though so you got to kind of be careful did you tell did you tell them everything so basically what happened was man when i was 17 years old i actually had a job for target and um i actually stole some electronics and i went to jail for like 18 hours oh yeah and it was over 500 bucks so what I did was I got into this first offenders program where I was going to eventually

get expunged I had to pay like 100 bucks a month go to like one meeting a month for like 18 months that process of going into name me my recruiter was like just don't ever say anything yeah took it off your record so if they ever bring it up it's a sponge yeah they're not going to see it it's expunged so but when you're in boot camp dude and you're a 19 year old kid and this big you think fucking chief like that he knows is like we will ass fuck you we will do that and then we'll throw you out and then take all your money i'm like well you know what my recruiter was like it's expunged like you know it's cool so i go into the interview because for me to be an it i needed a top secret security clearance their secret top secret than confidential confidential is like white house and

pentagon shit yeah so i go in there and i'm like hey you know i when i was 18 i worked for target i stole some stuff my recruiter set is expunged and should be good so he opened my file then immediately closed it he's like i'm sorry you can't be in IT. You don't qualify. You're going to have to pick another job. Mind you, my heart was so set on this job because of my background. I love tech. That's why I got into eventually digital marketing. I just love technology.

So I was heartbroken, called my mom, called my grandma. They're like, come home, baby. You'll be fine. And I'm like, no, I think I need to tough this out. So did they allow you to, so the, so they didn't say was leaving an option. Actually leaving was an option. They said you can pack it up if you want. I could have packed it up at nine days and you could pack it up. Oh, wow. I thought they were like, okay, once you're in like, no, no, you signed buddy. You're sticking this one out. Yeah. So actually I was, I'm actually now knowing what I know now um i've actually

should never been given a second chance because i told them what i told them ah so actually i got a second shot at picking another job okay i think it's because my asvab scores were so high right like this guy's like smart he was a stupid kid he just can't have a top secret security yeah yes so what job did you pick actually i talked to my mom on my mom's side. Everyone's like doctors, pharmacists. I was like, let me just go into medical field. Okay. So I became a hospital corpsman. So it became a corpsman.

And yeah, I went to core school. And then my first duty station was Bethesda, Maryland, Washington, DC. Okay. So, but fast forward, you know, getting back to when your original question was like, when'd you realize you're unemployable? Sure. Well, dude, I mean, I went on to deployment. So when the whole, the Navy, it's basically, you're an entrepreneur. Like the ones, the two skills I realized I was really, really good at when I was in Navy is marketing and sales because the whole time you're always battling for boards, promotions, rank deployments the chest canny, the ribbons on your chest to look good.

And these are all like really great awards that you can get throughout your career. I figured out how to make rank every single time and basically be the baddest person in the room wherever I went. By selling yourself. Exactly. So when I had my first duty station, after only being there for a year and a half, my chief put me up for sailor of the year against 6,000 other sailors and I won. And I did that because I knew I had a chief that was actually teaching me what I needed to do on my evaluation, go to school, volunteer, like all these things, right? Find a mentor.

Find a mentor. And he was my mentor. So I was actually very blessed at a young age to know what great leadership was. And most people don't get that at such a young age. They don't figure it out till many years later. Let's talk about that because, you know, we talk a lot about mentors on this show, right? About finding that right person. What do you think the guy saw in you or what did you do to present yourself in a way where he wanted to help you? I think it was just my demeanor, my character. Every time I showed up, I would, I would come in early. I would stay late. My uniform always looked great. Impressed my, my, my, my boots. You could literally see a reflection in my boots, you know? So, um, and I've always been, I've always had this thing on me where like,

I want to just be the best in the room. Like I want to be number one, very competitive sports. I was in track and football, um, growing up as well. I just wanted to be the best. So I think that presumed like in my, my character showing up every day and he's like, this kid's going somewhere. He's a sponge. Let me groom him. Yeah. You know, so very thankful for that. Yeah. That's awesome. So, but it's odd because we talk about understanding you're unemployable, which to me means essentially you just realize that you don't like people telling you what to do, but you're in the Navy. So people telling you what to do all day. Yeah. So what point did you break away from that and realize, you know what, maybe not for me. So I went on this deployment in 2015. It was, uh, it was a

humanitarian mission. Um, we went to Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Philippines. We built schools for kids. I mean, we redid hospitals and clinics. I, at this point I had gotten, I went back to school and became a lab tech. So I was just not a grunt corpsman. I did run around with the Marines for a little bit as a grunt, but then I became a lab tech got a degree went on that deployment man and i actually end up getting capped to e6 so for people that don't know e6 is actually kind of like a higher level supervisor like i can be in charge of hundreds of people and i'm this 25 year old kid as a e6 it takes the average person 13 years i did it in five years to hit that rank so i go on that deployment i get capped i get all these awards and i get back i'm like after i just remember being on that deployment

and we had just built this school for all these kids in the philippines right and i was the corpsman that was out with the cbs so the cbs what they do is they're the construction battalion and the corpsman if they put a thumb through their nail or something happens like i'm there to treat them medically right so i just remember on the last day before we left the island um it was in rojas city philippines we're walking up me and the cbs with boxes of crayons books and all this stuff for the kids and we get there and they had a ceremony for us and there's literally hundreds of kids there when got to the top of the hill and they just ran up to us man and they were just hugging our legs saying, thank you, cheering. It was just so beautiful.

And I'm like, man, this feels so good. I really did feel like I hit the pinnacle of my military career. I'm an E6. I've already done all this stuff on this deployment. I know how to make rank. So coupled with that, when I got back from employment, I'm like, I can pursue being a chief now or being in for 20 plus years because I know the system. Yeah. But I just got bored. I didn't feel challenged enough.

Yep. You know? And so at that point, I realized, let me go. Let me try to put my time in engineering is something outside the military and start to prepare what that looks like. And I didn't know what it was yet. I just knew I was ready for more and I didn't think the military could give me what I needed, you know? And that's when I found digital marketing, lead generation and all that good stuff. So. Awesome. So when you say you found that, I found digital marketing, I found lead gen and dude, and some of the wealthiest dudes I know,

this is, this is, this is what they do, right? That lead gen digital marketing, media buying. This is what literally I would say, if you take the wealthiest guys that I know outside of like your ridiculous billionaires that I met through the real estate business. If you take just people that have bootstrapped up companies, I would say half of them that are extremely wealthy have done it through that channel, through the marketing allegiance. So how did you find it? How did you get into it?

I mean, walk me through that. So I got back and I literally started to Google, how do I kill my job? How do I fire my boss? How do I get out the military and make money? These were actual keyword searches I was putting into Google. And there was other really good marketers that were targeting people that were Googling those keywords, right? So I found a guy that was teaching people how to rank websites on Google as search engine optimization, right? So I started to learn from him. And then before you know it, within three months, I was literally making my annual salary in the Navy. I was making that monthly by just doing SEO. Now what happened was after about six months of doing

this, the process he was teaching me was technically blackheaded. So Google releases this algorithm update. It's called the penguin killer. I woke up the next day. I remember when this happened. I had, i had 20 clients 20 websites rank one or two on google for like carpet cleaning san diego uh just random stuff they do through white hat seo right and i woke up the next morning and my websites and my clients all disappeared from page one for their respected keyword searches so basically my business went away overnight like fifty thousand dollars a month in revenue. And I'm like, fuck. So I call all my clients. All of them are pissed off. Where's the leads? And I'm like, I don't know.

I ended up keeping just two clients and I get into paid ads. So I learned how to run ads on Google search. I learned how to run Facebook ads. Obviously I sucked at first, but I got really proficient at it and I was able to build up my agency again, just being the lead gen guy. You know, there are times though that, that entrepreneurship can go wrong. And I was able to build up my agency again, just being the lead gen guy. You know, there are times though, that, that entrepreneurship can go wrong. And I'm going to tell you about one of those points right now, because I'm going to have to right in the middle of our podcast, I'm going to make a phone call because I'm going to tell you a story. And that story is my children, right? They are 15 to 16. And since they were eight, nine years old, their business has been owning the vending machines in my, in my companies. They get to run the business. They stock them. They market and do all of those

things. And the clanging that you're hearing in the background is them loading their machine on the other side of this wall. So we're going to call my wife right now. Hi, can you do me a favor? Yeah. Can you ask the children to stop loading their vending machine on the other side as well? I'm recording this podcast. Yeah. Okay. And you're on children to stop loading their vending machine on the other side as well while I'm recording this podcast? Oh. Yeah. Okay. And you're on the podcast right now mentioning this, which is awesome.

So there we go. So I'm just explaining that. That's okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. So there we go. That's when entrepreneurs...

See, that's how you teach a lesson and solve a problem live in real time at one time. See, other people would edit that out, right? No, this is how we do it. This is how the world works. Keep it real. But now I can get back to focusing on the clanging of cans on the other side of this wall. Yeah, that's what it is.

They're loading a vending machine on the other side of this because they're at a school, which is good. Anyway, so back to this. So when you say you learned how to do Google ads and paid ads, right? Self-taught by a course, what did you do? Actually, all that was basically self-taught for the most part. Cause I already knew I was in the realm of digital marketing, right? I knew what SEO was. When you go on Google, you can see the search, the sponsored ads, right? When you're on Facebook, you have ads that pop up on your phone

all the time, right? So I'm like, these you have ads that pop up on your phone all the time, right? So I'm like, these people are putting us here because it's making money. So if I need a direct ROI for my clients, let me figure out how to run these small ads that are popping up on people's phones and just target it differently. But when you first started out, like you, you made a, you kind of jumped over a big hurdle there. You went right to, I had 10 clients. Like, how did you get the first client? What was the pitch to client number one? Yeah, exactly. So what I did was, so I was in the Navy, right? By the way, I built up my agency for four years before I could get out of the Navy just because of my contract. Right. So what I would do is, um, on my lunch breaks, I would take like a two hour lunch, only supposed to be going for like an hour.

I would actually walk into businesses and straight up ask for the owner, like the chiropractor. Like, hey, I can send you guys like 20 referrals. Are you interested? Right. Or I would cold call them and say, hey, I'm going to send you guys some leads. Right. My favorite strategy. I'm going to send you guys some leads. Yeah. So my favorite strategy, when I first started to get my first client, it was a company called lovely lights, lovely nights, limousine been paying me to this day. Um, I actually set up a Legion campaign. I set up a small website, ranked it in a small city, Escondido party bus, Escondido only has like 300,000 people. So if you target that keyword, you can get it up within like a few days. You can be ranked number one. Sure.

Right. Versus like San Diego or San Francisco. Sure. These are big markets. Massive, right? So I set up that small website. Within a week, I had leads. I had people calling that website for limousine and party buses. So I started to re, what I did was I rerouted all those calls and leads to the company directly to a company that I vetted and I made sure I had their cell phone number. So their phone started to blow up with calls, like asking for business. Right. And I vetted them because they were on page two of Google. So I knew they were struggling. They were struggling. Like they

were in business, but they were like not thriving. Right. So after two days of sending them like 20 jobs, I call them up. I'm like, Hey, this is Douglas James. I've been sending you guys business. Do you want to have a conversation? Right. And they're like, fuck yeah. You know, cause all of a sudden like, where did this business come from? Yeah, that was me. Yeah. Yeah. See that, see that's the, okay. So somebody that owns several businesses, this is one of my pet peeves. Right. And if you're thinking it, like if you're getting, this is a great business because literally people don't understand that doing what he's talking about right now, you can own a business per se with zero overhead, with no employees,

nobody calls in sick. You don't rent to pay no internet bill. Like literally you can just assert yourself as a minority partner into literally any business you want. Because I can tell you that pretty much every business owner in the world is looking for more business and they're willing to pay for it. And what I hate is though, the lazy folks, you said something I thought was so clutch, which was I would walk in and ask for the person that was there. Dude, I get this from people that I already know what they're trying to do, right? I get these things on, on,

on the, on the Instagram, on the DMS. Can I ask you a question? And it's always the same thing. You just did jerk nuts. And that's the last time I respond. Like you asked me,

can I ask you a question? You just did. And that's all you get from me. But dude, doing it that way where you show value before you pitch. I love that dude. And like by making somebody's phone ring, like all of a sudden,

imagine that like you're, you own a car wash, who gives a shit, whatever the business is. And all of a sudden your phone starts blowing up and you're feeling pretty good about yourself for two days until somebody calls you and tells you it was them that made it happen. And that's like one of my favorite, one of my favorite acquisition deals or how I deal with folks when we grow our businesses through vertical integration is I call it the Tony Soprano method, right? Where I'm like, okay, come in and I'm going to bring you in as a vendor and we're going to source business to you. And when I see that that's a viable arm and I know that I'm feeding that business and I ask them a simple question, which is how much of your business am I? And when I can tip that scale over

50% of their business is now me, I got your ass. Cause now it's, guess what? I'm your silent partner. And that's it. It's kind of the same method you're doing there, which I love. So you got people, you're generating leads, you're generating leads, you're doing that. Walk, we keep, keep going. Yeah. So, I mean, that was, that was my, that was my strategy going forward. I love that. Just, I would, and then combination of just walking into business, straight up asking. There's a book now that I know. You know Joe Polishes? I do know Joe.

So he wrote a book, What's In It For Them. We've heard that before from people like Zig Ziglar. Or is it, yeah, Zig Ziglar, help enough people get what they want, you'll have all you want in life. Yeah, yeah. So I was learning from these people early on, you know, and I started to realize like, okay, I have goals that I want to have of being out of the military, having my own company, you know, escaping the rat race, all that good stuff.

I need to figure out how to deliver value. So any method that I did, I was just like, I'm going to invest my own time and money and show this person that I'm legit before I even ask for a dollar. And I just kept following that same method over and over again until the point where I didn't have to, I had business coming to me because I would just have a wall of videos and testimonials of people saying this dude like brought us an extra 50 grand in revenue a month. Right. And he never asked a dollar first. He just started sending us leads. Right. So that's how I grew my agency. And I got really good at Facebook ads. I got into,

I was actually one of the first people I think that kind of cracked into YouTube ads back in 2017 because it wasn't a big thing. So my agency started to, I eventually got out the Navy. And what that did was obviously gave me all my time back. Now I got 50, 60 hours a week to focus on my business. I don't have to like take a two or three hour lunch and go meet clients. Right. Yep. So I ended up getting into YouTube ads. Now to backtrack a little bit, the reason why I got into coaching is because I remember I had a Master Chief, Master Chief's E9. It's the highest ranking in the active duty ranks. This was a dude that was your boss or your boss's boss at that point. This was a boss of a

boss. Yeah. High ranking person. He comes to me up in the hospital. I'm drawing his blood and he says, HM1, that's my rank, hospital corpsman, first class, HM1. I'm 45 years old. I've been in the Navy for 25 years. Um, and I'm, I'm getting out next month. What do I do? I don't want to sit in a classroom full of 19 year olds. Yeah. Will you teach me what you do? And I'm willing to pay you. Cause word was out. I'm sure because, uh, you were probably buying drinks with a little more frequency than everybody else, uh, with your rank when you would go to the old, uh, go to the old bars there. I'm guessing. Well, I did, I didn't make, I didn't make it easy for myself i end up buying like a s63 mercedes like 180 000 car corbin rolling around 180 000 car it's ridiculous like the payment on that thing was

like half my okay but here's the thing though right okay here's the thing though but did didn't they didn't like the upper officers give you shit like crazy because of this? Oh my gosh, dude. So, all right. I'll tell you what happened. I'll tell you what happened. If you're listening, okay, listen to this. This is a bad plan. This part of it.

If you're in the military, do not rub your boss's face in your newfound wealth. That is a bad plan. Keep going. So, dude, word got out, man. I had people coming up to me like, hey, I want to buy your course. I want you to, I want your coaching or whatever. My superior ended up finding like my website online. And he's like, what the fuck, what is this? You got to stop this. Did you, did you request permission to be doing this? And I'm like, no, I didn't. So they tried to threaten me with like, you're going to lose your rank. You're going to get kicked out. All the same things in bootcamp that I told you earlier.

Sure. And then finally they were like, you know what? Somebody, one of my other superiors that was one rank higher than me, which was an E7. He was a friend of mine on deployment. So I think he came in. They had a, he had a conversation like eventually they came to me. Let's let him route official paperwork through the chain of command to request the right permission to run this company or whatever he's doing online. So I did that.

So they gave me a something called a moonlighting shit. It's a paper that you have your employer sign. Right. So I'm looking at it. Are you signing it for yourself? You're self-employed. There's a signature for employer and employee. So I fill out my company information and I sign both lines.

I route it up and it gets kicked back. And they're like, he signed it on the employer line. You know, this is not right. Yeah, he's self-employed. And then I was like, no, it's my company. I'm self-employed, right? So basically, they thought I was fucking with them, dude. They just didn't want, they were so upset that i was making money so they actually kicked me all the way up to captain's

mast so they put me through a board of chiefs that like bitched me out for two hours and made me feel like crap then i went up to the xo and the and right before the xo you go to the co yeah and if i if i go past the co he could like kick me out dishonorable discharge i say i say yes just because i've seen uh what is it hunt for red october so yeah xo co commanding officer i get it i get it i get the i got the link so the xo looks at my package and he's like basically there are there is no official paperwork or articles in the ucmj that can hold the sailor accountable to being an entrepreneur and having a company on the outside. He's within his right to do this.

There's no moonlighting chair. There's nothing. There's nothing. So basically, there was nothing at the time in 2017. Have they rewritten it now? I've heard they've... So I think I was one of the first people that helped them. The Douglas Jamesames clause if you will exactly so i've heard now there's paperwork now but back then there wasn't to handle act at the active duty entrepreneur was very very new and the military didn't know how to handle it so the xo kicked it down and i got to go home and he said h and one you're dismissed lovely and as i was walking out oh my gosh my superior best ever they piss their face

oh my gosh dude it was the best feeling ever now i can just picture you like walking out like kenny powers just like like like making it rain flipping dollars at him just for shits and giggles on the way out i just because that's how my brain works because i'm weird but that's all right that's how it felt man so after that i was basically untouchable all i had to do was show up for duty do my job yeah do my time after that that was it untouchable all i had to do was show up for duty do my job yeah do my time after that that was it they never fucked with me it's awesome so you started teaching other people in the military and that went on to so how many people have you taught at this point probably 13 000 13 000 people more than 10 000 have learned from you how to generate

leads for businesses through paid ads and everything else. Yes. And lucky for you kids, like if you're sitting there right now trying to figure out, man, I'm stuck in a dead end job. I'm in the military taking people's blood. I don't like it. No, you don't have to do all that. Just if you're not happy where you're at, dude, if you're looking to get where you're going to go.

See, this is going to be, it's not like an infomercial today, but I like to give you guys solutions, man. I don't want to give you theory. I want to give you actual practical things you can do. And so this is actually a two-part podcast today. And as we're rolling up on the 29 minute, we're going to get to the point we're done talking about leads and marketing. And if you're interested in being able to learn how to do this and drive $180,000 car and rub it in your boss's face, he's going to give you a deal on his coaching. Before we came in here, it's always like, hey, if you're going to talk about something, you got to give my listeners a deal. You got to do it.

So if you want to learn more about the lead deal and coaching and coaching with Douglas James and how he does this or how he did it and how he continues to do it, go to ETD for escaping the drift, ETD leads.com, ETD leads.com. And he gave you a discount there on the program, or at least you can learn a little bit more about it have a conversation with somebody from his team about maybe doing that so that's good and if you're thinking to yourself well i don't do this i have a perfectly safe job my job is wonderful let's scare the shit out of you shall we because now you've moved into something new see how that's a segue man good i know see it's funny because we have before this he's like well how we're going to talk about everything? I'm like, trust me, we're going to get to it. It's a Segway. So that's what it is.

You give them the benefit. See, you tell them a story, you give them the value, which is what we just did. Now you scare the shit out of them because you have a new company. I do. And what's the new company? So the new company is called Quantum Logics. What we do in quantum logics part my partner is howard getson he he owns a company called capital logics so i own a part of his company and he's been the ceo of a ai company for 32 years he exited his first company for over nine figures a few years back yeah because a lot of people think ai is something new like oh because i'm going mid-journey and make myself look like a spaceman that you know this is a new thing no

this has been around for a long time it's been a long it's like like 15 years ago you walk into any airport in the country and there's facial recognition software that knew exactly who you were before you went in there that bothers me that bothers me yeah one day i have a buddy one of my one of my son's son's friend's dad is a TSA guy. And one day me and my wife were flying to somewhere on vacation. And he comes up to us. We're standing in line. He just walks up to us and says, hey, what are you guys doing?

And we're like, hey, how'd you know we were here? He goes, he was a supervisor for TSA. He goes, they flagged you guys in the parking lot. I'm like, why did they flag us? He's like, I don't know. I told him I knew you personally and I just come get you walking through oh my god we got flagged dang so i don't know what they do i don't know nothing he just grabbed us and he's told us he knows he's like those are my he's like they're not smugglers those are my yeah no no i didn't do anything he just walked us

through there was nothing else i think just him vouching for us that we weren't international criminals was probably enough but yeah i've been flagged. I mean, look, I get it. I look a little suspect. I understand that, but there you go. But back to the AI company. So your guy's been doing this for 32 years, your partner. And the new company, what does the new company do? So basically what we're doing is the way the company is positioned. So we have a holding company at the top and it's got multiple layers, right? So first off, we've raised over $40 million developing an AI fund, fully autonomous. That's actually gotten 27% a year over.

Meaning it's trading. It's trading commodities. Okay. So your gold, your soybean, all the stuff that's never going to go away, your bales of hay, all that stuff. Yes. The thoughts and financial representations of douglas james and his fund do not reflect those of the power i'm sorry escaping the drift in other words don't hold me don't hold me legally financial for this financial advice it's fine go ahead no yeah absolutely and i'm glad you said that but so the fun it has uh data to prove that

it's gotten 27 a year or more over 10 years now the first six years was using something called synthetic data basically what that means is the ai mimicked the exact market and we trade uh funds as if it was in the real market and we were able to prove that it was getting those so you basically run it through a system that shows how the market would hypothetically react in the ai world and if it reacts positively then you make the actual trade exactly so in the last few years internally we've traded millions of dollars on it and it's consistently gotten the returns and now going public. Got it. So that's one component of it. We've invested over 4 million, $40 million into it. Our staff, there's over 20 like quant scientists, data analyst type of people,

PhDs as well. The other component of it is we partner with entrepreneurs and businesses. Could be like yourself, real estate companies, other influencers, people that have products or services that are already doing really well. We just come in and we create AI to create more efficiency. For example, the last company or the company we're working with right now. Okay they for those of you don't understand what he just said um if you ever see the movie office space if you've seen that movie imagine if the bobs were wrote or robots so essentially they come in and coach companies about how to lay people off i mean yes or no absolutely and dude you ain't a bad guy for

doing this so don't i'm not trying to make you a villain because everybody's, this is what's happening. This is where the world is going. Yeah. It's unfortunate, right? Like AI is going to, people are trying to act like it's not going to replace jobs. It certainly is replacing jobs. And people like you and I that are CEOs, our own companies, like we're trying to find how do we maximize efficiency, save on payroll, right? We obviously want to do good and make an impact and create opportunities for

people, but not necessarily at, we don't want to sacrifice our bottom line in the health of our company for that. So if we can increase the bottom line, yeah, unfortunately people have to let go. Now what's going to change now in that same conversation, what I think is really going to change the game with AI is bringing in people or employees that know how to use AI. Yeah. This is the coal miner argument. What I mean by that is if you look at,

I don't remember which president it was, but somebody back in the day when they were getting rid of coal mines and they're saying, well, we're going to take all these coal miners. We'll send them back to school to learn something. It's like, I've been working in the mines of West Virginia since I was seven years old or whatever the hell it is. Like, you're going to go teach me how to program a computer? The point is, you don't have the option because that was a very singular type industry that was going to be affected by the changes they were making by going into cleaner energy. That's a very secular type job that was being eliminated. This is going to affect every job sector, everything that's getting done. So if you have a job that is relatively simple, man, you probably want to be looking for something

else. You probably want to be leaning into the future a little bit. And like you just said, learning it, you know, getting into a career where, you know, I'll say for me, the future is about one of two things. Like you just said, it's learning how to work with AI. I think that, you know, everybody needs to understand how to be part of that new wave rather than get crashed by it. But two, I also believe there's a strong, there will always be a need for human connection. There'll always be a need for, if you can sit across the table, I tell my kids this all the time, you know, look at all these kids with their heads down on their phone, right? In 20 years, if you have the ability to look across the table and connect with somebody and move them

through sales or through motivation or whatever it is, you are going to just run over everybody else. It's going to be savage. I, yeah, I a hundred percent agree. And I tell my community that all the time, you know, we have zoom technology. I mean, this podcast, people are going to listen to it. They're going to watch that all the time. We have Zoom technology. I mean, this podcast, people are going to listen to it. They're going to watch it on YouTube or however you put it out. The more further we get into separating and having less connection as humans, the more we're going to long for it. So there could be a time in the next 10, 20 years where this actually gets flipped on its head. Who knows?

Tribal need. Exactly. The need to be part of a tribe. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I don't think like in-person stuff's not going to go away. I mean, events are thriving, like actually bigger than they ever did, especially after, you know, what happened with C-19. Coming out of COVID, yeah?

Yeah. I don't know if you're going to get shut down for saying. No, I don't care. Say whatever you want. No. Fuck it. No. Free speech here, baby. Free't care. Say whatever you want. No. Fuck it. No. Free speech here, baby.

Free speech. We say what we want. It's all good. So, yeah, man. So, yeah. So, I mean, AI is changing the game. And actually, just I want to make a quick point before we move further into quantum logic. Yeah.

But so my lead gen company and the coaching company, we've actually adopted ai fully integrated so basically what used to take minutes or you know what used to take weeks or hours is now taking minutes so like you could have you can be a solopreneur like i eventually had to hire like all these vas hired all the staff for my agency you could actually freaking automate that whole process and save on all that so you're teaching you're actually teaching people how to use AI right now. So the program that you dropped a little bit earlier for your followers, just know that basically you're going to learn how to set up an AI lead generation agency because it's, it's fully autonomous now up to about 90%. There's still needs a little bit, still needs a little bit of artistic touch because a lot of it's science, but some of it's art.

Yeah, absolutely. Some of it is. But moving back into quantum logics, what we've been able to do is we're working with these entrepreneurs, business owners, creating efficiency. The last company, the company we're working with right now had to let go 40% of their employees and they went from a 25% margin to a 70% margin just because of what we came in and build. So every single company, no matter what your industry is, there is a way to integrate AI.

And you're going to have the potential to save on payroll and systems, all the stuff that you have. So we're working with companies like that. But our big thing is we want to create these joint ventures to where we position them and prop them up for a better exit. And that's where we basically take a percent. We will take a percentage of that for sure to bring in the AI.

So that's really like our main focus is to create those joint ventures. But what's really cool is we own the patents as well. So the first arm is the fund. The second arm is the joint ventures where we're coming in. We're not talking about building AI, like connecting Zapier with chat GPT and we have to building specific programs and standalone systems that are running. Exactly. Like none of our PhDs are using chat GPT, right? They're like legitimately building stuff. So that's one arm. And then we own the patent of it right so once the company sells

we can actually own we own the patent we could actually spend the company up again and resell it again and then we license yeah and then unless there's a deal or do sass or do sass with that to a whole industry yeah yeah and unless like unless the person we're working with like if part of the deal is like they want to take the into the ip and the patent yeah sure we can license that i'll sell it right but that's like the three main arms so when someone participates in our holding company they get to participate in that entire ecosystem and all of it and what's really cool is every time a company sells and say if a company sells for 100 million bucks say you own one percent well your million dollars goes up to the holding company and can go right

down into the fund and since it never leaves the holding company and can go right down into the fund. And since it never leaves the holding company, there's no tax implication for that, right? You can go right into the fund and start compounding 23% a year. Are you a reg defund? Yes, we're 100% regulated SEC. Actually, I've got my license. I'm a commodity pool operator as well. Cool.

I'm glad we did my loose disclosure then about this is no guarantee of future returns. We can't do that here. I'm trying to keep you out of trouble. Best I can, anyway. I mean, being on this show, you're probably going to get in some sort of trouble, but that's all right. So again, with AI going forward, forget the lead thing, right? If you are somebody that's struggling, you need to check out the lead thing at etdleads.com. You need to check that out. But if I'm somebody that's a business owner or whatever else, and I want to kind of look at creating some efficiencies or seeing what I'm doing or seeing what you guys can do for me, how does that process go? For like one company for where to come in and build it all out? Yeah. We would just look at every single one of your departments. I mean,

we look at your accounting. We would look at, you know, how are you recruiting? Is this something that you do? Like, are you billing them? Or if you look for an opportunity for a patentable system, you can spend it other places. Are you going that route? Like you said, the JV, are you coming in as a, as a true JV or are you coming in as, this is how we do it. They, what we're positioned as we want them to invest into the holding company to be a JV, to help us fund the staff. Because the 20 PhDs, the attorneys, and all that accounting. Should we get this? Yeah.

Yeah. You want me to grab it? Yeah, just grab it. Somebody left the door open, so we need to shut it. So hang on. Again, again, other people would cut that out, but there you go. We're not cutting it. No, we're going to keep going.

Keep going. I figure if Joe Rogan can take a leak right in the middle of this podcast, we can do this too. Yeah. That's what I figure. And smoke a blunt. Yeah. Where's my lighter? of this podcast, we can do this too. Yeah. I figure. And smoke a blunt. Yeah. Where's my lighter?

Oh, let me run out to my car. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. So they come in as JV partners, invest in a holding company. And now what that does is it allows us to afford the staff,

right? So they come in and they invest in all the company. Now they own a piece of it. They're partnering with us and we get the fund and our full staff. Now there are opportunities that we're looking at now where that may not necessarily be the case if there's like a massive opportunity but that's generally how we have a position right now if you want to be a jv come in own a piece of the company you get access to this entire staff these phds quant scientists this attorney and accounting so and then we would come in and we

have a process that we go through to figure out how can we start building these systems within your organization to create more efficiency. Make it run like a watch. Yeah. Well, dude, let me ask you this last question. Now that we talked about that. So let's say I'm somebody that's, I'm struggling along, I'm floating along in life. I'm in the drift. What skills would you say should they develop straight away to get them out of this? And what would you do, man? If you had to go back, let's say you got nothing right now. Start you over. Let's do the drop you off on a street corner in America and what are you going to do? Oh man. I mean, yeah, you absolutely need to know how to communicate with people. Like that's it. Other people have the money that you want and desire that you need to

take care of yourself and your family and your livelihood right what's your favorite book for communication um there's a book um called cyber setting psychos cyber cyber cyber psychos cybernetics that i really like highly recommend you read that book um there's also uh by dan glover no more mr mr nice guy that's really good there's so many pieces of literature actually when i first started i went really heavy into like zig ziglar um grant cardone even i actually knew grant cardone before he's going to you know it's like i mean 2016 he's like started to blow up right or 2017 2018 right um these are all like really good books and and authors and

leaders to learn from um and i think that's the key man like if there's somewhere you want to be you got to go get somebody that's doing it you know uh that's why coaching and mentorship i learned at an early age in my career like you know people want to know this stuff you know like uh you know one of my mentors, his name is, um, Dr. Jeff Spencer. So he was a gold Olympian bicyclist and he trained 40 gold Olympians. And he also was like with like Lance Armstrong through like all nine tour de France's. They won eight of them, Tiger woods. He's worked with Richard Branson, Jim quick, a bunch of people, you probably know. Um, and he, people don't, athletes aren't just going to go out there and throw the football

Patrick Mahomes. They're going to work with somebody that is an expert in that one specific thing. Like if you want to lose 20 pounds and feel and look healthy, you're probably going to go hire a fitness coach and work with. I just did that. I just, I just did the 10 X health stuff. I just did the Gary Brekka just gave the blood and the genetics. I want to know more about that.

I did it. Wait, I'll let you know. I'm going to try to get Gary to come on and read my results in real time on the show. That'd be cool. As I'm trying to do like five years to live, like, I hope not, dude. Well, no, dude, I got to, I got to tell you though, man, I hit a point where I'm like, something's the balance of something is not right. Right. Like, it's like, I feel like in the gym, I'm kind of running uphill. That makes sense. And I'm like, that's not good. So I'm dying to hear what he says. And I'm going to do whatever they say to do. So yeah, I'll let you know how that goes.

I literally just did the blood work and the genetics testing last Wednesday. I did that. So hopefully the results will take a couple weeks to get all this stuff back. But I'm going to try to get Gary to, like I said, come and read it right here on the show and see what happens. You've got a week to live. Show over. Show over. That's it.

We're going to cut this short. You're calling your wife? This is not about the vending machines. I'm going to call my wife and tell her I'm dying right on the air. It's going to be great. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be how it is. But, yeah, I agree with that.

I think any time you can take a shortcut by finding the experts, it's a wonderful thing. But, again, I'm going to ask you again. I drop you off on a street corner. I drop you off on a street corner in America, no bank account, cell phone or computer. What are you doing? I'm selling something. I'm selling something. Yeah. Right. For me, it's like, I will, I will find a problem knowing what I know now. Yeah. The thing I would probably go back to is Legion. I would walk into businesses and say, hey, I will work with you for a month for free. And I will essentially double, I could potentially double the amount of customers you guys are servicing right now. Are you willing to do

something? I'm going to work completely for free. I love the pitch. So question, are you asking for a per lead return or are you asking for a return on the increase? I'm not to work completely for free. I love the pitch. So, so question, are you asking for a per lead return or are you asking for a return on the increase? I'm not asking for anything. You can keep everything and then we could talk after 30 days. Okay. So you're just walking in and going straight, straight free for 30. I'll tell you what I did with my first deal.

This is my, this is my first deal. So if I was homeless, obviously I need to, I need to eat. You got to eat something. I got to eat something. So what I did is I did 25% profit. You said, let me have 25% of whatever you make off what I sent you. Yeah. So in the first 30 days, the limousine company, um, I brought them $50,000 in new revenue, new revenue. And I think after their hard costs and all that, they were like at a 30, they made like 30 grand. Okay. So

I got a check for what was like 7,500 bucks, something like that. Which was still probably more than a EO, whatever it was, corpsman was making in the Navy. It's twice the base pay that I was making at the time. So that's what I would do. I would come in and work for free and I would just, whatever I bring you, just give me a percentage of it.

Yeah. Like that's it. That's the easiest deal to make. And if you're really good and proficient at what you do, results are going to happen. They'll show up. Yeah. I love that.

Well, guys, guys again if you want to learn more about the quantum stuff i mean obviously follow you on instagram where they follow you what is it yeah it's at the underscore douglas james you could also just douglas james on instagram douglas james on instagram you'll find him yeah he's not hard he's not fun and if you're watching this on youtube i have something else i forgot to mention we first started this earlier today a little misunderstanding with youtube i don't know if it's a misunderstanding. I always bet. Whatever.

Anyway, we had to scrap our entire YouTube channel and start it over this week. Oh, really? Literally. The whole thing, lots and lots and lots of subscribers all just had to wipe it. We got some bad advice, some bad marketing advice through YouTube maybe six months ago and we just been blacklisted. And even after dealing with some very higher ups and people do massive buys there, uh, we just eventually just decided the best thing to do was scrap it and start over. So if you're watching us on YouTube or whatever, please, please just subscribe. Every little bit helps as we try to build this channel back up

to where it was and beyond where it was, because we've just been hidden for now. If you need some help with that, let me know. I know a guy. Hi, dude. The height. Oh, you do know a guy. Yeah, that's a good point. So I'll check out on that.

And again, man, if you're looking to find out how you can start a side, it's a great side hustle. Yeah. It's a great way to escape the drift, dude. Check out etdleads.com. He'll make you a great offer there. You can do that. But anyway, dude, Douglas, thanks for coming in, brother.

It was lovely talking to you. I'm excited about it. And I got some stuff off there where you talk to about the seriously about the AI because I got some places we can make some money. Anyway, we'll see you guys next time. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review.

Give us a share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.